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“And he… just is there,” Arthur finished lamely, hands curled around his mug of coffee. He really hadn’t thought of an end to the story. It’d occurred to him that the last person he’d told about John was Kellin, for whatever good it did him. Or… no. Yellow, he supposed, but that was certainly an extraordinary circumstance. He didn’t know how to explain John to a normal man.
John didn’t say a word. Arthur could sense his displeasure. On the topic of revealing John’s existence, John had been outvoted by the man who still possessed the mouth.
Unfortunately, John’s non-cooperation meant that he had no hints as to what Oscar’s silence meant. One second passed, then two, and then Arthur primly raised his coffee to his lips like they were having a chat about the weather. If he slurped it a little louder than usual, it was so he could have some noise.
He’d already grown used to the sounds of the diner around them. After his talk with Detective Noel, he’d returned to the hospital and found his stomach growling. Arthur wasn’t sure the last time he’d eaten was. Oscar had remarked upon it, they’d come back to the Black Iris, and…
And he didn’t know why, precisely, the urge to tell Oscar to come about. It’d happened after lunch, and – well – Arthur supposed he was just feeling relaxed for the first time in an absolute age. Oscar had helped him stop a very, very bad man, Arthur’s stomach was finally full, and he could talk to someone that wasn’t the being in his head.
“That… explains a lot, actually,” Oscar finally said, and Arthur nearly snorted coffee through his nose.
“Explains a lot? What on Earth do you mean by that? I was expecting you to… I don’t know. Phone the police, frankly.”
“And tell them what, if ye don’t mind me asking? That a man told me he had a demon in his head?”
A demon? Offense soured John’s tone.
“I don’t think it’s criminal to be a crank. Not that you are a crank, but…” Oscar let out a sigh. “Ye talk to yourself constantly, never lookin’ me right in the eyes, and I get the feeling you’re messed up in this sort of thing a lot more than you’re tellin’ me. That’s sayin’ nothin’ of how you look.”
We look fine. We look like everyone else in New York, just… smaller.
“How I look?” Arthur asked with a smile. “Are you telling me I look possessed?”
“I’m just sayin’.” There was a smile in Oscar’s tone, too. “You and Hattie don’t look all that different from each other, both with your ribs pokin’ out like that.”
Christ, that wasn’t much of a compliment, from what he knew – and had heard – of Hattie’s appearance. At least his skin wasn’t peeling off. Arthur ignored John’s scathing snort.
It was a curious idea, though. He really hadn’t considered the similarities between the pair of them. Frankly, it’d been an awfully long time since he thought of what John did as possession. Were that John’s primary goal, he wasn’t doing a very good job at it. His eyes, yes, big loss there, his hand (minus one little finger), and his foot.
Mostly, he considered John just… there. A friend staying in his spare room, but in this case, his spare room was the confines of his head.
Oscar lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is he here now, then? Listening to us?”
“Oh – ha, yes, well. He hears everything I do, I’m afraid. There’s no keeping secrets from him. Ehm, John?” Arthur asked, a little meekly. “Do you have anything you want to say to Oscar?”
He was met with only steely silence. Fine, he thought to himself crossly. Be like that. This is the first chance you’ve gotten to speak with another person, and you’re not having it. You can be an awful sourpuss sometimes, John.
“Sometimes he’s not very chatty,” he turned back to Oscar, apologetically.
“I can only imagine the sorts of things he likes to talk about.”
“How d’you mean?”
“I mean, what do you two have in common? He’s a demon from… somewhere, you’re a man from Arkham. Not like you two can chat about the weather, can you?”
“Oh. Uhm, well, I don’t –” He cut himself off, a little flustered. Of course he hadn’t laid out their entire journey together. For one thing, he hadn’t thought of it in its totality for himself – a bit too much to consider. For another, it really hadn’t seemed relevant, and god knew he didn’t want Oscar’s pity about it.
Instead, he lurched onto a different track. “I don’t know if calling him a demon is really the most accurate thing.” At Oscar’s quiet ‘no?’, Arthur elaborated onward: “He’s not, er, an imp or anything, o-or from Hell. He’s… I mean. God, I don’t know. John, what would I use to describe you?”
John works just fine.
“Yes, well, obviously –” What was he going to do? Tell Oscar that John was part of a god? At the bare minimum, that was sacrilegious. Probably. False idols – false golden idols, no less. “U-Uh, but we actually get along better than you’d think, despite… yes, coming from two different worlds.”
“Yes. I mean, you sort of have to, don’t you?”
“H-How do you mean?”
“He’s in your head, Mr. Lester!” Oscar pointed out, with a kind of sad patience. “You two can’t really be at each other’s throats when you’re stuck with each other, can you?”
Arthur, are we done here? John complained. We’ve eaten. You have to be full by now. We’ve got more important things to do, and Oscar’s not going to understand.
“G-God, well, you’d be surprised, but… I do see your point. Honestly, half the drive we’ve got to forgive one another comes from… just like you said. We’re stuck with each other.”
What?
“But, it’s not like… of course, we are friends. John’s my friend. He’s proven that… so many times. I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”
“No, no, no, yes,” Oscar agreed. “I mean, it sounds like you two have been around a while, it’d be hard not to develop a bond. Especially if you two have fought monsters together.”
“More than you could imagine.”
“An’ I know it’s going to be really hard on you when you eventually get him out of your head.”
There was a momentary silence all around the table. Though he couldn’t speak for John, Arthur found himself too stunned to speak.
Get him out. It hadn’t been something he’d put much thought to, lately. They really hadn’t had the time for it. Yes, back in Addison, it had been one of the things that Arthur thought of doing in Arkham… but John had argued for New York, and ever since they arrived, they’d had their hands full.
“Sort of like grief, I imagine,” Oscar mused to himself. “No, not ‘sort of’ about it. He’s a friend to you, just the same.”
“Well – well, when I think about it…” Why not give the whole explanation? It was hardly an embarrassment. “I, I mean, whenever we thought about separating, we thought that we could… could get him his own body. You know? So he’s not beholden to just a few parts of me.”
“Oh.”
It was shock, sure, but… Arthur sensed more than just a little doubt in Oscar. “N-No?” He asked. “You don’t think so?”
What the fuck does he know, Arthur? His only experience with possession is Scratch, and… John’s voice took on a lower register, something considerably monstrous leeching into his tone. I’m not Scratch.
“I just… do you think he could? You know what he is better than I do, I suppose, a-and my only experience is… well, with exorcism. Spirits and demons, you know? You don’t really exorcize a demon into a new body, it’s sort of… sort of defeats the purpose.”
“You mean… you don’t think John could have a new body without casting someone else out?”
“I-I don’t know. I’m not Dr. Frankenstein, and I’m a priest besides. I couldn’t tell you about making a new body. I just know that I tried with Hattie, and as you can see… it didn’t work too well.”
“Where… would Scratch go?” Arthur asked, uncertain. “If it succeeded, I mean.”
“Oh. Back where it had come from. I guess, if it worked. You can look to religious doctrine for that, but between you, me an’ the coffeepot, I don’t really know, meself. As for your little passenger....”
Would that mean the Dreamlands? Immediately placed back with the King? Or would back where he came from be taken more literally: sending John to the Dark World? Was there any good option for John, there?
Oscar’s deep sigh got his attention again. “Well, it seems like he’s a little bit less powerful than Scratch was.”
Less powerful?
“At least, he can’t seem to destroy the sort of things Scratch can. I can’t guarantee it’d work, but I’d be… well, I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at least offer.”
“To exorcize me?”
Oscar’s response was delayed by the clergyman taking a long sip of his coffee. “If you’d like.”
Arthur, John growled in the back of his head. If you agree to this, I swear I’ll spend every second of the rest of my life hunting you down –
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Arthur told himself, leaning back in his booth. Oscar made a faint noise of confusion. “ Christ, John. Nobody is seriously considering this, he’s just offering.”
He’s offering to kill me!
“He doesn’t know any better. Oscar…” He tsk ed. “Look, I know how it must seem to you, but I mean it when I say John is my friend. Genuinely. And, and I’m not saying that I’d never like us to be separated, but I’m certainly not going to risk it without knowing John’s taken care of.”
“Oh-kay.” If his tone didn’t imply it, Oscar confirmed: “I can’t say I understand entirely, but I’m certainly not going to tie you to a bed for it. And, uhm. Sorry for angering your friend in there, I guess.”
Arthur didn’t suspect John would be thrilled by the apology – and indeed, John didn’t say a word in return. He knew John well enough to guess his mood, though, and it left a vaguely awkward weight in the room. Reaching for his coffee again, Arthur slurped at it, his mind reaching or things to talk about.
“So they… they taught you how to perform exorcisms? In… in seminary?”
“Oh! Well, uh, no. I mean, they touch upon it, of course, but in the case of Hattie and Mr. Scratch, it was a little bit more… complicated,” Oscar considered, and then – before Arthur could despair at the conversation heading into a dead end – he added, “It is a little interesting how we went about it, though…”
***
“You’ve been quiet.” Arthur reached for his tie and began to pick at the knot. In Marie’s, the last time he’d slept, John had assisted. He would be having no such help now. “No, you’ve been more than quiet. I don’t think I’ve heard you be silent this long since I’ve known you. John, talk to me, won’t you?”
His fingernails found purchase in the cloth, finally, and he picked the rest of the tie apart. It fell with a slight flop onto the ground, rendering one of Daniel’s bedrooms the messiest it had probably ever been.
“Look. You’re angry about what Oscar offered, I get it –”
Do you? Do you get it, Arthur?
“I didn’t consider it!” And that was the honest truth of it. “Yes, of course I’d like my eyes back, of course I’d like to –” Best not to go too far down that road. “Of course. But obviously I’m not going to exorcize you from my head, John. I thought we were past that.”
Oh. Are we past that? Which is it, Arthur? Are we past that or don’t you trust me?
“Those are two separate – and if you wouldn’t be cagey about it, we could have a proper conversation!” Like that was going to get him anywhere, and John’s silence only confirmed it. Arthur yanked the rest of his shirt off with one hand. “I’m sorry that Oscar offered to do an exorcism. If we keep telling people that you exist, they’re going to keep doing that, probably, so –”
So I was right. We should stop telling people.
“Yes. Yes, okay, maybe. ” It wasn’t like he thought Oscar would understand perfectly. The more Arthur picked at it, the less he found he understood about the whole issue. Still, he’d wanted to tell someone, to relate in that way. A weight had been lifted off his chest, just having Oscar know, not having to come up with secrets as to why he looked and acted a bit differently from everyone else. “No,” Arthur agreed with a sigh. “No, yes, you’re right. Oscar reacted… probably the best anyone ever would, and even that wasn’t – yes, no. I know.”
Told you.
Childish tit. Arthur wisely decided not to say it. He went for his trousers next, wincing as he felt the crust of dirt and blood on them. “Is there a washbasin in this room? It’s just occurred to me that you’re…”
Covered in blood? Yes. You got stares in the diner. Go to the corner, there’s – there. It’s full of water.
Thank God for Daniel and having staff that’d work through their employer getting shot. Arthur plunged both of his wrists into the water, starting to scrub away at the crust. Ah, that did – that did sting a bit.
“Do you need me to say it aloud? Would that help? No, John, I’m not going to engage in any sort of ritual that’d get you out of my head without knowing you’re safe. I’m not going to send you to the Dark World or, or the Dreamlands just to have a bit of peace and quiet.”
Maybe he was a touch annoyed that John would suspect such a thing, but… in the same token, Arthur could admit that his actions hadn’t always been the most selfless. Perhaps John did need that reassurance.
“One day, we’ll get you your own body,” Arthur soothed. “Right? So you can tell people to go fuck themselves all you’d –”
Are we friends?
It was really hard to gesture as he wanted with both of his arms submerged. As it was, Arthur reckoned he jolted hard enough to splash half the basin out onto the wood. “Are we friends?” He asked, stupefied, and then: “Fuck you, are we friends! Are you really asking that? John, who can be together what we’ve been through and not be friends at the end of it?”
Is that why we’re friends? Because of what we’ve been through, John said, scathing. Because we’ve taken down monsters and escaped certain death. That’s why we’re friends.
“What are you on about?”
What about when we’re not in danger? What about when nothing’s chasing us? When I’m just a – a being, inside of your head. What about then? Just because we work well together doesn’t mean that I’m your friend.
“Oh, you’re not doing the – please tell me you’re not doing the ‘ Oh, you don’t know who I really am, I’m darker and more dangerous than you could ever imagine, I’ve manipulated you into liking me for all these months ’ –”
Do you like me?
Arthur could genuinely say that nobody had ever asked him the question before. People usually weren’t so bald-faced in their intentions, were they? It startled him, arms held halfway above the water, and he wiped them dry on his undershirt.
“Of course I like you,” he stuttered out. Right, perhaps that was enough for his night-time ablutions. Arthur felt his way back for the bed and sat on it… before his spine gave out completely, and he fell back.
Oh, yes. Daniel could be an absolute bastard with too much money, but Arthur could appreciate his beds. He didn’t even reach for a pillow, only let his feet dangle off the side. In this position, Arthur felt as thin as a piece of paper. Could anyone even see him, if they came in?
Right, John said, disbelievingly.
“I do.”
You like that I keep you alive.
“I’m going to be honest, John, yes, I do like that about you. But there are other things, too. Things entirely unrelated to us constantly being pursued. If we just met, you know, on the street, waiting for the bus… I think we’d still be friends. I honestly do think that.”
He hadn’t really thought about it. All of these horrors had been so unrelenting – and, for that matter, John had only ever existed in his own head. It was hard to imagine John waiting for a bus, because it was hard to imagine John, period.
Now that he was thinking about it, though…
Yeah?
John didn’t elaborate further, but he could be so goddamn transparent sometimes. He wanted Arthur to go on.
“I do,” said Arthur sweetly. It was a pleasant thing to think about, wasn’t it? “Of course I do. For one thing, you’re curious. Most people aren’t, not really, and it’s… it’s refreshing, I suppose, to meet someone who thinks the way I do. You’ve got a sensitive soul, John, and –” While it can be the most aggravating thing alive, Arthur thought, but didn’t say.
“It’s nice to find someone who cares about – about meaning, I suppose. About this whole grand human experience. I know you think that’s part of the human condition, but I’ll be honest, most people I’ve met couldn’t give half a fart about it. They just… do it, without thinking.”
Oh… John said, letting himself trail off into nothing. He sounded thoughtful, for whatever that was worth.
“And you’re a rude dickhead to strangers, which is quite refreshing.”
I’m not rude.
“You threatened to kill me in front of Oscar, that’s a bit rude.”
John really didn’t want to laugh. Arthur could practically hear John’s strain of forcing it in; in the end, it was a battle he lost – John started to laugh, a rumbly thing that practically shook Arthur’s eardrums from the inside. He joined in. He didn’t say it, but he rather liked John’s laugh, too. It felt like something hard-won, every time he heard it.
“Oh –” Arthur rolled onto his side, curling up on the comforter. This was comfortable. He could hear his heartbeat a bit too loudly through his ribcage, but that was something he could live with. “Be honest with me, then. What’s this really all about? What’s upset you so badly?”
Maybe he couldn’t draw an answer out of John regarding his memory or other weird behavior – but he thought, at the very least, John might open up to him about this.
“You know I’d never just… evict you without knowing you had a place to go.”
I… I know. I know that, Arthur. We’ve come a long way since Arkham. He paused, briefly. We’ve come a long way since the prison pits.
“That we have, my friend,” Arthur said, more than a little sadly. His eyes started to fall shut.
If this does ever end, a-and we can stop running, and there’s nobody chasing us… I don’t know. It’s just occurred to me that you won’t have any use for me, after. I don’t know, it’s… John sighed. It’s stupid. Forget I said anything. Go to sleep, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow –
“No use! John, I’m thrilled for the day when we don’t have to constantly… do this!” He said, gesturing with one hand towards the walls of this entire place. “That’s what I’m looking forward to most, when we can just – there are so many things I want to show you when we’re through with this. When I don’t have to constantly put survival over anything else.”
Like what?
Arthur tried to think back of what he’d used to do in Arkham. The answer had been, mostly, work. If a private investigator wanted to keep his head above water, he oughtn’t really have a social life. But there had been time to relax… time, really, that Arthur couldn’t bear to think about too long. Painful memories.
“Train you up to be a proper investigator, for one thing,” Arthur said kindly. “Of course. And… Arkham does have a pretty active night life, John. Like we said before – dancing, drinks. You can see the side of humanity that isn’t thirsty for blood.”
You’re not just saying that.
“Not at all. Mark it down on your calendar, I promise you, we’ll go.”
Finally, Arthur figured he really ought to put his head on a pillow. He half-clawed, half-climbed his way up the bed until he collapsed his head onto the softest thing he’d ever laid on. Christ, he wouldn’t ever tell him, but he was grateful to Daniel for his pillows. Immensely grateful.
Okay. Okay, that’s… we’ll do that. If you’re not going to go with Oscar.
“Is that what this is – no, John, I’m not going to stand you up so I can go out dancing with a clergyman. Look, us having allies here is only going to keep us from getting killed. Even if they are friends, of a sort, someday…” Didn’t that feel odd to say? Having or not having friends wasn’t something he worried about, before. He’d had Parker, and he never thought he told him to his face that he was his best friend. It hadn’t ever even occurred to him. He regretted that, now. “Doesn’t mean that you’re going by the wayside. I do admit it’d be easier if they could hear you, though.”
Arthur, even if I got a body, I don’t think I’m going to be friends with Oscar anytime soon. He didn’t seem interested in getting along with a demon.
“Please, I bet you could win him over. You can be very charismatic when you want to be.” It was mostly a joke – one that earned him a beleaguered, what-am-I-doing-here-with-you sigh from John.
“Look, I know the risk we’re in, putting our trust in other people. I get that, I do. But… don’t be suspicious that they’re going to, I don’t know, draw us apart or anything. It’ll be impossible to separate us. For more reasons than just you being in my head.”
And that was the truth. At least, as far as Arthur could press it. Perhaps he couldn’t trust John’s observational habits anymore – God could only imagine why John was acting strangely. The more Arthur tried to think about it, the more dread settled in him. But if there was one thing he was dead certain of, it was his worry about it. Hell, if he cared about John less, perhaps it would be easier to shove that feeling down.
As it was.
He thought John might’ve suspected what he was thinking. The question lingered heavily in their silences… but, John seemed just as willing to get into it as ever.
Thanks, John instead grunted, and Arthur suspected a book being closed on the conversation. Fine. Well – he hoped he erased a few of John’s worries. At least, he hoped John knew he wasn’t going to try to exorcize him.
You… should get some sleep. Last night wasn’t… it’s been a long day.
“Hell,” Arthur agreed cheerfully.
Yeah. And who knows when we’re going to get a chance to sleep again, so…
Fair enough. Arthur rolled onto his back again, hand laying on his stomach. A moment passed, and then he felt his left hand raise to sit overtop his right. If anyone were to come in, he’d simply be sleeping like a corpse.
But Arthur knew, and it was good. Even if he didn’t know everything that was going on with John… well, god, when did he ever know anything that was going on? This was a world of madness, monsters, and magic. The only steady thing under his feet was love, and he loved John.
How funny. He almost didn’t want to sleep.
“Well, now, hang on,” Arthur said whimsically, “I said all those kind things about you – how am I supposed to know what you like about me? Come on, I’d like it alphabetized, thank you.”
Deep in his head, John snorted. You’re good at not dying, he joked, and you rent an excellent room. Good night, Arthur.