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“He’s gotten into your head, hasn’t he?” Noel said suspiciously.
“Who has about what?” That could honestly be a lot of people, not that Arthur was going to say that out loud.
Arthur was half on top of Noel, head pillowed on his chest. They had just kind of… fallen there together. Christ he was exhausted.
A good kind of exhausted.
The kind of exhausted you get from a satisfying day of work where everything on your list gets checked off and a full meal is soon to be consumed and then a shower and then sleep in the arms of someone you trust.
A heavenly exhausted compared to what the two had experienced in the past.
Arthur was practically basking in it.
“John,” Noel prompted.
“I’ll admit it, John has gotten into my head.”
Noel laughed. Arthur often wondered how Noel could still laugh like that. So unbridled and easy sounding.
Arthur didn’t think he had ever laughed like that.
Noel’s arm slunk around him and got him in a loose headlock-half hug, ruffling his hair with the other.
“Kid’s got jokes!”
“Wait—come’on Charlie, let me go!” Noel playfully roughed him up a little longer before finally releasing Arthur who chuckled breathlessly against his chest.
“Oh, that’s nice.” The hand that ruffled it up started smoothing down his hair.
“What is?” Arthur asked.
“Your laugh.”
“Fuck off.”
“Jeez, between you and John I need tweezers for the amount of prickles I gotta pull out.”
“I just… it’s hard when you’re so… sincere.”
“Truth hurts, don’t it?”
“I just…” Arthur sighed. “It doesn’t…”
“You don’t believe it,” Noel said. Knowingly. Too knowingly. “I get that, Arthur. You know I get that. Feels like a dream come true and neither of us can ever trust dreams again.”
“Yes,” Arthur breathed. “Yes.”
Stubble scrapped against his temple and a kiss was planted. Noel held him a little tighter.
“He even made the good dreams hurt,” Arthur whispered.
“No more dreams then,” Noel promised. “No more nightmares. You and me, kid. Alright?”
“Alright.”
“Johnny’ll look after us.”
“Don’t encourage him.”
John had insisted on a separate room, and separate bed, and relished his separate body most days, but Arthur actually didn’t mind the occasional nights where he showed up, crawling into bed to wrap himself around Arthur.
Like if he pressed their skin together hard enough they would merge back into one.
He probably should mind. Noel probably should mind. Neither did though and they just let him and they held him.
It was when he would perch on the fucking nightstand and stare at them for hours on end that Arthur drew the line. He nearly cracked his head when he reached for his water and felt a human knee instead. And the times Noel would shriek because he would wake up to a pair of yellow eyes watching them in the darkness wasn’t pleasant either.
“You both looked comfortable, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“So you did the perching thing instead?”
“Fuck you… I wanted to make sure you were breathing.”
“John…”
He wished he could hold it against him, but some nights he would make his way into John’s room and wake him up just to hear his voice because he hadn’t answered him because he wasn’t there anymore and it was just him in the never ending darkness now—
Jesus they were fucked up.
And that didn’t even include Noel’s own trauma.
Sometimes John would say something at exactly the right pitch and Noel would hear the King again and freeze and John would get terrified for hurting him and panic.
And sometimes it wasn't John's voice, sometimes it was the smell of wet mold that took him to the trenches.
Arthur sighed. He rolled so he could wrap an arm around Noel.
They really were fucked up.
“You put up with a lot,” Arthur said.
“So do you,” Noel said back. Fucking sincere, not a lick of sarcasm.
“Fuck you,” Arthur muttered into his chest.
“Oh, my darling porcupine,” Noel said with too much fondness. “One day you’re gonna accept that I love you, kid.”
“Noel.”
“And then a little later still, you’re gonna accept that I don't find it to be an awful thing, your love. Quite the opposite in fact.”
Arthur made a growly frustrated sound and Noel was laughing beautifully again. He could feel his smile press against his skin, the shape of one of his dimples, and Christ, Arthur could almost believe it. He could almost touch that feeling of certainty and safety.
Instead he tensed, waiting for it to be ripped away.
Noel pressed another kiss to his temple. He was awake. He was awake.
“How do I do this for you, Charlie?” Arthur asked. “How do I make it better for you?” Like you make it better for me?
“Oh, you want the goods huh? Okay. Well, first you could wrap your arm around me. Pretty much how you are right now. Hum, let me see. You could maybe call me Charlie sometimes. Not as a name, but as an endearment. That feels good and grounding. Makes me associate it with you instead of him.”
“Charlie…”
Soft: “Just like that, yeah, perfect. You could also… well I don’t know… maybe you could take out your lighter as soon as you hear the click of my cigarette case opening, offer me a light because you know about my stiff fingers. You could hum something soft and sweet to me when I go pale and still for no damn good reason. You could tell me to get fucked when I dote on you because when you do that you get all flustered and have this boyish look about you, and I feel my heart beat, and I know that you’re real and this is real.”
“Fuck you.” He was getting Noel’s shirt wet.
“Fuck, kid, this is real.” Another lean for a kiss, but Arthur moved his head just so, so that it landed on his nose. He had been trying for lips, but neither could bend that far. Noel grinned against him. He loved the feeling of his smile.
It’s real.
“Wait, what were you talking about before, about John?”
“Hm? Oh! Hah,” Noel’s chest rumbled with his quiet amusement. “His thing about the Sox.”
“Jesus Christ, you’ve got me in bed and you wanted to talk about baseball?”
“Just because we live in Massachusetts does not mean we support the Sox.”
Arthur huffed. “I didn’t care before I was blind, and I care less now, and even I know the Arkham Crawlers are a lousy team.”
“The Sox haven’t won for more than a decade and a half!!”
“The Crawlers haven’t made it to a series ever, at all.”
“Don’t you quote John at me! You know what? Forget all that mush I was talking about before.” Noel rolled over, but instead of getting out of bed he adjusted them into a spoon. “There’s no living with you now,” he declared, rubbing his cheek against Arthur’s shoulder. “Taking John’s side against me.”
“Would it make you feel any better if I told you I don’t give a fuck about baseball and I never will?”
“Only if you say something nasty about Boston.”
“Billy Werber is a showboating malcontent.”
“Oh and look, the mush is back again. Only you, my sweet little porcupine.”
Arthur shook his head affectionately and basked in the warmth of being held.
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah, tough guy. I love you too.”
Fuck.
He tried to say it.
But he was so sure as soon as he said it the dream would end, and he would wake up, and the King would be laughing at him.
Or worse.
It wouldn’t be a dream, or a nightmare, it would just be Arthur Lester’s life so far, and Noel would die and it would be his—
No.
Shut up.
He ran his hand down his Charlie’s arm, and took his hand, bringing it up to kiss it.
It was pathetic. It was all he could do.
Noel made a happy little sound. “I know, kid, you don’t have to say it.”
Noel’s breath evened out behind him. Arthur felt himself drift.
“You fucks. I’ve been cooking for an hour and you’re asleep?”
“Shh, I’m wooing my porcupine, you owl-eyed miscreant,” Noel answered drowsily.
“He’s already wooed, now he needs to be fed. Both of you do.”
“See?” Noel chuckled. “Told ya he’d look after us.”
“Is it enough to forgive him for supporting the Sox?” Arthur asked, reluctantly pulling himself up, keeping his face perfectly straight.
“Never,” Noel vowed.
“Jesus Christ, Arthur, he’s gotten into your head, hasn’t he?”
Just let me stay awake a little longer, Arthur thought to himself. Just a little bit longer.