We’re on the Peter Lived timeline.
***
“What is it like, sharing a body?” Peter asked to kill time once while they were hunting through news articles at the library.
It was a casual question, and of course it wasn’t a casual answer. Arthur’s mouth had flexed in that way that meant ‘don’t push’ and Peter had let the awkward silence fall.
A few months later, though, and there’s been cult shit, and spooky books—again! How fucking many spooky books can there be in the world?—and Peter got possessed and he still can’t close his eyes without remembering that thing worming in under his skin, taking his body inch by inch as it went… He claps a hand over his mouth and breathes through his nose to keep from gagging.
Read more: Malevoween Day 22: Shapeshifters & Doppelgangers“What is it like for you?” he says again, sitting on the sofa in the dark, curled up half in Arthur’s lap under a blanket they’re sharing. As if Arthur and John in all their weird fucking glory could somehow maybe ward away lesser weird shit. He can’t even stand being in the dark by himself right now. “It wasn’t…christ, Arthur, it isn’t like that, is it? You two…”
The very idea that John might be like that for him. He likes John, but… But. The thought that a thing like that could be right here.
“He isn’t hurting me, Parker,” Arthur says. His voice is warm with reassurance. “We’re not like that. I promise.”
“Then what is it like?” He tightens his fingertips into the meat of Arthur’s thigh. “I feel alone in my head, and it’s making me sick. It’s making me sick because I want to be alone in my head but I know how it feels to be something else and I can’t fucking handle—”
John’s arm lifts and wraps around Peter, steady and comforting. Arthur’s runs through his hair.
Arthur doesn’t say anything for so long that Peter starts thinking he won’t get an answer this time, either.
He’s not sure he’s glad when he gets it after all.
“We are something else, Peter.” There’s a weird tone in Arthur’s voice; something Peter’s not sure he’s ever heard there before. “Pass me my tea?”
John takes it when Peter hands it up from the coffee table. Of course he does. Arthur can’t see where he’s holding it. It’s John who raises it to Arthur’s lips, too, because Arthur’s arm is trapped under Peter.
It’s John’s eyes that stare into the mug. Arthur’s mouth that answers, still in that weird calm, reflective tone that puts Peter’s heart in his throat. “I don’t ever want to be alone in my head again.”
“Oh,” Peter says, breathless. “That’s um. Kind of the opposite…”
“I know,” Arthur says with apology in his tone. “But what happened to us… it’s not the same. I think, in retrospect, it’s because we chose it.”
“He…but he did, at first, didn’t he?” Yeah. Breathing is definitely not going well. Rolling off the couch to run screaming feels maybe like an option. “Like with me. He um. He made you—”
Arthur hisses in a breath. “I…yes. Yes.” They’ve had this out, but it’s never going to lie easy between them. Whatever else he was going to say, he cuts off as John interrupts it. Peter can only fucking imagine. “It wasn’t the same,” Arthur replies after, quiet but firm. “You could be cruel, yes. You frightened me. I felt…captive, but…but you needed me, John.”
And maybe Arthur can feel Peter’s eyes on him, because his shoulders hunch. “He needed me,” he repeats. “And I guess that after a while, I realized I, I n-needed him.”
Needed. It boggles Peter’s mind. That these two could have started somewhere like…like what happened to him, and ended up here. How the fuck does that happen? Can somebody even be complicit in their own possession?
He says it’s not the same. Maybe that has to be true. Peter isn’t sure whether he is or isn’t glad about that. Whether he wants Arthur to be able to understand or not.
Sometimes he still wonders what the fuck happened to Arthur that could have put that quaver in his voice, or made him admit to something like that.
John’s eyes rest steady on Peter in a way that makes him feel like John sees everything going through his head. He’s saying something to Arthur, and it drives Peter fucking batty because it’s absolutely about him. He hates being out of the loop. Hates having to wait to find out what they’re saying to each other about him.
What Arthur says is, “What happened to us can’t happen to you, Parker. I’m confident in that. So is John. What we are… Look at us.” John rocks the mug back and forth. “Whatever John is doing right now, I have no idea and as far as I’m concerned, that arm may as well not even exist. I can’t feel it. I can’t see it. I can’t even get out of bed in the morning without his help. And do you know? I like it that way?”
John’s hand freezes.
He must say something, because Arthur waits while John slowly lowers the cup and sets it on the flat arm of the sofa. One of them is going to knock that off, Peter just knows it.
Arthur shakes his head. “No. I don’t feel dependent. I feel…not alone. Do you?”
John’s eyes slide closed. There’s something so fucking intimate about it when he does that, like Peter’s watching him slip down into their body. Arthur lets out a breath in relief. “Sometimes I worry,” he confesses softly, and Peter isn’t sure of them he’s talking to. “But I don’t have any regrets. I’m not…I’m not whole without him. I can’t fill out my skin all by myself anymore.”
John opens his eyes and looks back down at Peter. Peter looks back up at him, and thinks about his friends becoming something else—this composite thing they’re describing—compared to what Peter experienced. The way they are together, compared to what he felt.
“John says,” Arthur murmurs, “things find their rightful shape. Parker, I’ve withstood gods and monsters who tried to remake me into something I wasn’t meant to be. You’re at least as strong as I am. And you aren’t alone.” John puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezes again. “Neither of us will leave you alone.”