John (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greatoldjohn) wrote2024-02-12 08:12 am
greatoldjohn) wrote2024-02-12 08:12 am
Interlude
[ For reference. ]
When John gets his bearings again, it takes everything in him not to moan in soul-deep dismay at what he sees. What he feels.
And what he doesn't feel.
The delicious freedom and the comfort that was his new body, his own physical form to inhabit in the world-gone in the blink of an eye. Some part of him wonders if it always felt this cramped, this stifling, this incomplete as it does now, an entire phantom existence stinging and tingling except for his arm and the toes.
The fucking toes.
All the senses that humans had no words for, all the senses they did beyond sight and hearing... gone. All those limbs, his tentacles, all gone, all ripped away from him to make room to shove him in the tiniest crevice in someone else.
In-
"Arthur..."
Oh the mourning in that single name, for both of them.
When John gets his bearings again, it takes everything in him not to moan in soul-deep dismay at what he sees. What he feels.
And what he doesn't feel.
The delicious freedom and the comfort that was his new body, his own physical form to inhabit in the world-gone in the blink of an eye. Some part of him wonders if it always felt this cramped, this stifling, this incomplete as it does now, an entire phantom existence stinging and tingling except for his arm and the toes.
The fucking toes.
All the senses that humans had no words for, all the senses they did beyond sight and hearing... gone. All those limbs, his tentacles, all gone, all ripped away from him to make room to shove him in the tiniest crevice in someone else.
In-
"Arthur..."
Oh the mourning in that single name, for both of them.
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"It won't work. But that doesn't mean he knows that." More quiet. "And no matter what he does, I will do whatever I have to do be with you. Don't forget that."
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"Let's not get ourselves in a position to find out what he might do. Right now our best plan is getting out of the Dreamlands and back to Earth."
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"Not really."
Another, shorter.
"...you really don't want to know what the hell I'm talking about?"
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He grumbles irritably, frustrated at- at everything right now.
"Especially since if I don't explain, every time I know something you're going to question how I know it. You're probably already questioning right now how I'd know what was in here! And, for that matter, why I'm so-"
Quieter-
"...I feel different. I don't know if you can tell. Or if you just chalked it up to being because of the King."
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"...maybe. Alright, tell me as we're walking, then. You said you remember, so. You've probably got plenty of time to explain as we go."
He moves to the doorway, resting his hand on it for a moment to just. Taking a moment to breathe. Brace himself before he steps out into the declining rain. Not that he can see how the forest has passed around the building now, encircling them on every side and blocking the last dregs of it. "Which way's the water? We should assume the King knows where we landed, it'd be the most reasonable thing to keep moving away from it."
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"...fuck. Fuck!"
He pauses and tries to get a handle on himself.
"The forest came to us. It's surrounded us. Fuck."
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"What- surrounded us, John, what the hell does that...?"
But it's the Dreamlands now, isn't it? None of the logic he knows from home can apply, and isn't that a horrible awakening.
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"And... what's that?"
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"...you have to bite off half your pinky."
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A slight huff.
"...you're going to bite the one I'm controlling anyway so trust me, I'm not thrilled."
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But he will gently try to comfort him, coil around inside gently and provide something warm and soothing.
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He takes his left hand in his right, tracing John's pinky delicately.
"And- you're sure," he asks, still with trepidation, but- they both know it. "That there's- no other way, I don't- no-one else we can ask? Anything?"
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"Fuck. I'm sorry, John."
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Instead it's... plotting. Getting things ready - the lighter, the belt, their courage.
And, once more with feeling - John loses the last knuckle on his pinky.
And gets the wooden one back; he hardly even needed to tell Arthur to sit for it, really, when Arthur's the one feeling the blood loss and shock to the rest of their system. And just like last time, the exchange works.
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