Chapter Text
When Noel finally confessed to them, it wasn’t even when they were doing anything particularly special. Special as any other day, Arthur supposed. Getting up in the morning, trying again, living even when the rest of the world had forgotten the name of everyone they’d lost. It had been early— just after six, probably— and they’d been in the kitchen making breakfast.
Sometimes, souls hummed to themselves just to let the world know they were still there, so in the mornings now he’d taken to humming to John to let him know that he was still listening. Today it was some little ditty by Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald he’d heard once on the radio.
Noel was in the living room, or the kitchen, sitting at a table slumped over with his elbows on his knees— or at least Arthur imagined his body like that, a painting that read of deep thought, courtesy of John’s descriptive prowess. The existence of discrete spaces had become a funny concept to him. Without the ability to imagine the layout, everything tended to meld together in his mind, blend like oil paints on a blurry canvas, and so the living room could very well have been in the kitchen, and the kitchen in the bedroom, and all the chairs placed around the bed in a circle of harmony.
Mainly though, he knew Noel was there because of his breathing. He found the sound like a balm. It was heavy today, and sounded like Noel had the weight of a million thoughts on his shoulders, but it reminded Arthur of being clutched close to someone dear. Of times when the world was quiet enough, peaceful enough, that you could hear someone else you cared for breathing safely from the other side of an open field.
In his mind, Noel was a monument of a man. More real than he’d been only weeks before, but still a thousand feet tall and a mile wide, occupying every space with his existence. It was effusive, blooming out from him like he couldn’t contained it even if he tried. It made his apartment feel a comfortable home, even to someone who couldn’t see it, seeping the whole thing in an aura of ‘Noel.’
Arthur was softened by the thought as he carried himself through the kitchen.
Perhaps that was why he didn’t comprehend what Noel had said at first when he’d sighed and murmured, “To hell with it.”
Arthur turned towards the noise. “Hm?”
“You.. I… I gotta tell you something, doll, and I don’t think I can wait any longer. Soon I’m gonna turn into… into a matchstick ad instead of a man, and they’re gonna be handing me out, one-cent a piece, at the local grocer’s stand.”
Arthur chuckled, one ear towards Noel’s plight and the other towards the hearth.
“Alright,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“…Johnny too?”
Yes.
“Yes.”
Noel took a deep inhale. “Thanks, boys.”
There was a silence that hung in the air.
“Look, doll” he began. “The thing is...“
As he trailed off, John spoke into Arthur’s ear all the things he couldn’t see but wished he could.
It’s unlike him, John said. But Noel’s turned away from us while he’s speaking. He… he— it’s odd. He reminds me of how he was when he first confessed to us about his past in the Dreamlands.
John stopped for a moment.
He’s running a hand through his hair, he said. —middle part no longer perfectly straight. It’s caused a curl to twist its way down the side of his head like a stray vine. Messy. It’s less slicked down than it normally is, too, and his fingers are twitching like they’re aching for something to hold. A—A cigarette, maybe? A match? They likely smell of herbs and hair oil now, scented with the products his hands to seamlessly apply every morning before he leaves for work.
“The thing is…” Noel started again. Arthur leaned in closer. “I’m sweet on you.”
Arthur stilled. “P—pardon?”
“I like you,” Noel said.
Arthur’s heart sputtered something awful. Not only from surprise, but because there seemed to be a racehorse clopping around somewhere in his chest, galloping up a racket and dancing across steel pots and pans as if to rattle his very being.
“As in… “ Arthur asked. He begged the racehorse, silently and desperately, ‘Please, for the love of god, calm down!’ “As in… the kind of ‘like’ where… where two strangers come home from the taproom together late at night and huddle beneath the sheets in pitch black?”
Noel laughed. “Yeah, that kinda ‘like’. “
“Oh.” Arthur flushed. “So you… with me…”
“Yeah.” Noel blew out loose air. “I’m— I’m carryin’ a touch for you, doll. Crushin’. Absolutely dizzy— take your pick.”
He… He looks a bit like a damp puppy in the rain, tail trailing behind him but dutifully obeying his owner’s orders— if you don’t say something Arthur, he’s going to think you’re saying no.
“…I knows it’s a hell of an opener. I— I can hitch a ride in a taxi— if you like? Get outta your hair for a minute. Give you space to think.”
He’s got his hat in hand— literally. John’s voice was pitched low and severe. Don’t fuck this up.
Arthur dithered. “Would… would you?”
Arthur!
“Or… ah… oh, damn it— Noel, wait!”
He’s turned around to look at you. The dimples in his cheeks are soft and meek, but they look hopeful all the same as he turns a sort of awkward smile.
“Yeah?” He asked.
Arthur steeled himself. Set his shoulders. Walked up to him. Took one good, deep breath.
What are you doing? John asked.
Arthur glued his courage to its sticking place, and before he had a chance to think better of it, grabbed Noel’s tie, pulling the other man in for a brief, inglorious kiss.
“I…” Arthur said. His mouth lingered withe the taste of Noel’s coffee on his lips. His fingers shook. “That is to say…”
He’s gone wide-eyed.
“You—?” Noel said.
“Yes,” Arthur said quickly. He was sure by now his cheeks were only one good shade away from a lobster.
“Then… you also—?”
Arthur’s courage, which had come to him in a moment of complete and reckless bravery, fled him as quickly as it had come. He couldn’t bear the thought of speaking the words aloud, not with his throat blocked up with the flavor of Noel’s saliva and the texture of his tie still lingering on his thumbs.
“I—“ He started. “I—!” But it was not to be.
He pushed Noel through the doorway instead.
“You know,” He said. “ A—As it happens, you’re going to be terribly late for work! You, you should really be on your way, so—”
“My keys, doll, waitta, waitta minute—!“ Noel stammered.
Arthur ignored this. Instead, he smiled at Noel tightly.
“We’ll— We’ll talk when you get back,” He called. Then, he slammed the door in his face. Mechanically— once it was shut tight, and he felt his legs nearly give out— he locked it. Bolted the chain.
A muffled grunt sounds through the door.
There was a period of continued knocks, followed by silence, followed by knocks again, until eventually they too faded into the sound of solid footsteps click-clacking away. It was only then that he finally relaxed and abandoned his post.
He slumped his back against the door, slid down, and let out a huge sigh.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
John laughed. Not how you expected the morning to go?
“Not one bit.”
*****
In the hours following, Arthur found himself descaling every pot and pan in Noel’s tiny kitchen out of some deep need to find a way in which to keep his hands busy. Growing up in the orphanage, the matron had been extremely particular about her tea, and one of her favorite tasks had been forcing them to clean every metal dish until it sparkled— ‘Clean enough you can see your mucky selves in them,’ she used to say.
When he’d still lived in Arkham, when he’d still been a person to the rest of the world, it was what he’d defaulted to doing whenever he needed to clear his mind. Strange how something once miserable became routine once he’d done it long enough.
Before he knew it, morning had passed into afternoon, and afternoon into the golden hours. The time found John and Arthur draped over the loveseat in Noel’s sitting room, hands still slightly pruny. They were passing the time together, flipping through a stack of daily papers that had been left half-read on the end table.
“Anything good?” Arthur asked idly.
Printed silks are a dollar a yard.
He blew a strand of hair out of his face.
“Oh goodie,” he said. “Anything else?”
There’s…. There’s an ad chronicling Chevrolet’s announcement of substantial price deductions.
“Mn. Because we’ll be getting a vehicle anytime soon.” He flipped to the next page.
Hm. Well, how about this? John said. Apparently, Cuba’s… ‘ABC’ cabinet? Do you know what that is, Arthur?… split today over the continued support of the government headed by President Carlos Mendieta.
“Now that is interesting,” Arthur said, creasing a brow. He laughed. “Though it feels a bit foolish to be worrying about foreign policy given everything that’s happened.”
Were you ever interesting in Cuban politics before?
“Well, no,” Arthur said. “But it’s pays, you know, to understand what’s happening out there— be aware— especially if we’ll be here for long. It’s like—”
Noel’s familiar knock rang out through the apartment. Arthur frowned.
“Damn,” he muttered. Slowly, stallingly, he folded up the paper. He moved as though every limb of his body could only function in one muscle at a time, dusting invisible lint from his trousers in halting paces and getting up from the loveseat in infinitesimal increments.
There was a second knock.
The door? John said.
“Right,” Arthur said. He paused, but John’s foot started dragging them along before he was allowed any more say in the matter. Arthur sputtered, but found himself walking along faster just to keep up. “Right. Coming!”
Gingerly, more gingerly than his character would normally permit, he went undo the latch of the chain. On the other side, he imagined what Noel’s face might look like— a strong jaw, he’d felt before, and a tie loosened slightly from a long day. Maybe a moue of distaste at being locked out of his own apartment by his own guests. Arthur’s hand reached about halfway there, but then, as though blood was so busy pumping into his chest it couldn’t reach his fingers, it froze.
Arthur? John asked.
Arthur flushed. “Would… would you, ah—?”
You want me, John said. To open it?
“I—I do.”
If John had any head of his own to tilt, Arthur got the sense he’d be looking cockeyed at him. Right.
The chain unlatched with a click, the door swinging open with a creaky whine.
Once more unto the breach, he thought to himself. Silence like an executioner’s bell swung back into Arthur’s heart. He swallowed.
Noel’s standing there on the other side, waiting with one hand on his hat. He’s looking down at you— dark eyes twinkling with a toothy grin playing at his lips.
“Hello,” Arthur said.
He’s got one eyebrow raised.
“My keys?” Noel said. His voice was warm, contrary to Arthur’s expectations, and the timbre reminded him of a smoky sky.
“I—look—“ Arthur stammered.
Noel hummed, long and throaty and dark.
Arthur muscles tensed so they wouldn’t shake.
“Yeah?” Noel asked.
“…Oh, damn it all,” Arthur said after a pause. “Just— just come in.”
Firm, heavy, intimate, there was a pat on Arthur’s shoulder. It slid closer to his neck, squeezed once. Noel chuckled. “Don’t mind if I do.”
He’s gone to take a seat over by the sitting room.
Eaten alive by his own shudders, their open maw tickling at the swollen stem of his spine, Arthur followed him.
Perhaps merely because he wanted to, or perhaps as retribution for Arthur’s act of panicked rebellion earlier in the day, Noel took his time settling in before he spoke again. In the meanwhile, John took pains to describe the way he went flipping through papers, how he leaned back in the chair and rolled the tension out of his shoulders, how he set his feet up on the coffee table and reached into his pocket to pull something out.
A cigarette.
“Gotta light?” Noel asked.
Arthur fumbled into his suit coat.
“—ah, here.”
He flicked the flint wheel shakily, the first few times sputtering out without flame as his fingers vibrated inside their fleshy cages.
Noel chuckled. “Having trouble?”
Without waiting for an answer, he reached over to span the distance between them. His hand slipped over Arthur’s, moved their finger, and clicked the flint wheel together once. Twice. Until the feel of a hot flame sprouted up that Arthur could feel on the backs of his knuckles.
He’s got the cigarette held between his teeth, John said. He’s leaning down to light it, gaze on you.
“See?” Noel said. “Easy as pie.”
Arthur felt it as smoke blew from his lips and into the thin space of air between them. Acrid, but somehow Arthur wanted to choke on it.
In the flickering flame, the sharp lines of his face glow a ruddy orange. His healthy complexion sings out, echoing notes of music in the shape of his full cheeks and wrinkles across his brow. A faint hit of stubble from the day speckles across his upper lip and chin, and he’s indulgent as he moves to take another drag. It’s a good look on him— indulgence. He wears it well.
“Wanna pull, doll?” He brought the cigarette straight up to Arthur’s lips, still grasped between his fingers, which Arthur could tell because he tapped the filter up against Arthur’s lower lip. Arthur’s nerves, alight with some evil pleasure, jumped cartwheels and made fireworks in his mind. He licked his lips. They were dry. How long had it been since he’d noticed something as trivial as that?
“Go on,” Noel said.
Arthur did. Sooty air blew from his lips and the stick of tar to the back of his teeth stayed even after he tried to lick it away. The taste, which normally could bring Arthur some modicum of relief, only served as a reminder that his lips had been where Noel’s just were second’s prior.
“Now another one,” Noel murmured lowly. “This one for Johnny.”
How generous, John said.
After the taste of the tobacco thoroughly singed his mouth, Arthur let the smoke back out again.
“Mn. Nicely done.”
The words made Arthur shiver.
He’s leaned back into his chair again, watching you with an indecipherable feeling in his dark, dark eyes.
“So,” he said eventually. “This morning, huh.”
He’s stubbing the cigarette out in an ashtray, unfinished.
“If… if we must,” Arthur said at last. Beneath him, the warm cushions of the loveseat embraced him, and he found he would lay here for a thousand years and never get up— especially if it meant avoiding this conversation.
John’s hand held his and kept him from moving away.
“No need to sound so enthusiastic on my account,” Noel said. Arthur heard it as he got up from his chair.
He’s just sat down across from us, sitting facing forward on the wooden coffee table.
Noel started, “You know I think you’re both the bee’s knees now, don’tcha?”
Arthur flushed. “I… yes.”
“… and it seems the feeling’s mutual, if I’m getting everything square.”
“I’d say so.”
Noel paused. “And… does that include… or, well, what does Johnny think of…?”
Of you? I like you, Noel.
“Oh! He— he likes you, too.”
“Good.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Noel fidgeting against the coffee table.
“And, just one more check, you also—?”
Arthur thought of his actions this morning and turned vermillion. “I do too.”
“Real swell.”
I thought that was obvious.
“We… we thought that was obvious.”
He’s shrugging.
“ I mean… you know… I didn’t wanna assume…”
Arthur, tension rattling like a rigged explosive, chuckled in a fit of mania and waved a hand. “Please… I mean, it would have been a pretty silly way to see you off this morning if I’d just wanted to tell you ‘no’.”
“Ha, you know,” he shared with John and Arthur, voice not quite dipping into quiet, but into the tone one used when they were telling people things they’d never told anyone else before. “My old man had a saying about that.”
“Hm?”
“About assuming. He… he used to always waggle his finger at us and say,” and here Noel put on a voice. “‘When you assume, you make an ass outta you and me.’”
John poked Arthur’s arm.
…I can think of worse things than Noel’s ass, he said.
“J—John!”
John huffed.
Arthur! He mimicked.
“Oy— no fighting at my coffee table, you two.”
Sorry.
“Sorry.”
Noel laughed. He was the type of man who sounded like he laughed with his whole body, big and deep as though it was the last thing he would ever do. It spilled out of him, pouring brazen from his lips like Harlem jazz, and dared to contain the whole of New York inside of it.
“Like a pair of dunces sometimes, the two of you, I swear,” he said. “You ever think about going into comedy?”
They didn’t need to. Their life was a comedy of errors as it was.
“If anything, we’d probably be better at puppets,” Arthur said.
“Oh yeah?” Noel asked. “Who’d be the mimic and who’d be the dummy?”
Rude.
Arthur sniffed. “John says that was rude.”
He felt it in the air as Noel leaned closer. From the hitch in John’s breath, he’d caught sight of something he liked. Or maybe Noel had caught sight of him. Grabbed his hand. Smoothed his thumb over John’s wrist. Felt the bump of Arthur and John’s shared pulse, the places where two became one together.
“Oh, I can be rude alright, baby,” He said, voice low and like velvet.
Arthur’s fingers tingled. His ears glowed. He shivered.
‘Baby.’
Like Noel was his soldier, and Arthur was his little lady, waiting for her man to come back from war.’ Don’t worry, baby,’ the soldier always said. He kissed her cheek, all soft-like. ‘I’ll be back before you know.’
And as if that wasn’t enough, the heat of the late afternoon light streamed in through the open blinds of the window and John started whispering in his ear about the sight of Noel bathed in the season’s glow.
His skin is glistening. Tan and tall— maybe from the sun, maybe from his family. Italian, perhaps? Either way, his dark hair is parted to one side, and he’s got this rakish grin on his face. Like he knows something we don’t. Mischievous.
Noel hummed and Arthur got the sense he was leaning forward even more. He tucked one of Arthur’s hairs behind his ear.
“Oh, what’s this?” He asked. “Someone like being sweet-talked?”
Arthur chewed at his lip, face heating and looking away. “It’s… fine.”
He’s raising an eyebrow, and there is a glint in his eye like a man whose just cracked a code to the biggest safe in New York City, John said.
Arthur didn’t need John to tell him what Noel was doing next though, because as Noel stood up, he pulled Arthur up with him, smoothly bringing the other man close to his chest.
“Arthur,” he said, his accent making the vowels round and inviting, his voice low with devilish intent. “Doll. Sweetheart. Baby.”
Arthur groaned, legs tingling like they’d been hollowed out and filled with helium. His brain whined, thick and slow. Noel laughed again. Arthur turned his head and buried his face in Noel’s shoulder. Beneath Arthur’s forehead, his body was a broad billboard shaking in an invisible wind, stocky as anything and warm with flowing blood— with life. And there was the scent of him, too— trails of ink and cigarette ash, hints of sweat and the musk of the sun. Great swathes of fabric pressed against Arthur’s forehead where he hid himself there, the texture of finely pressed lapels beating up against him, and beyond that, skin.
His chest throbbed horribly.
Damn lungs. Damn heart.
He whimpered.
“Is it me you’re making all those pretty little sounds for, doll?” Noel’s breath was hot, tasting the shape of Arthur’s ear. “Or is somebody else being naughty in your head, too?”
John chuckled. I haven’t even said anything.
Arthur repeated him dutifully.
“Well, blow me down.” Fingers began to walk themselves along the inside of Arthur’s wrist, and Arthur jumped, but there was nowhere to go. Noel held him cradled against his chest, and John had interlaced Arthur’s fingers with his own, squeezing tighter whenever he tried to escape. The whole thing set his stomach racing. Breath suddenly became impossible to envision, let alone catch. “Someone’s been waiting a long time, haven’t they?”
Arthur squirmed fitfully, but the motions only allowed him to feel the peaks of Noel’s chest and the solid weight of his thighs where they brushed against his own.
Noel was just so big.
“You keep squirming like that and I’m not gonna be able to help myself,” Noel admitted after a pause.
Then don’t, John said.
Noel laughed. “Something tells me you’re not just asking for Arthur here, Johnny-boy.”
In response, John’s foot hooked around Noel’s ankle and sent them both sprawling back onto the loveseat. Noel caught himself with an ‘oof,’ and the two said nothing as their position came to be apparent.
“Now that’s just not playing fair,” Noel said eventually.
In the mischief, Noel had come to loom over Arthur, suspended above him with his breath heaving hard enough in the shadow of their bodies like Arthur was a special kind of prey. He had the hand that belonged to John pinned over Arthur’s head, stretching Arthur’s shoulder back and putting the delicate skin of his inner arm on display. Sightlessly, Arthur blinked up at him. The lack of vision made everything feel ten times more dangerous, ten times more intimate.
When she’d been alive, his mother had always told him to be careful of the monsters hiding underneath his bed. She’d told him stories of the Brothers Grimm, late at night as the oil in the lamps grew dim and the witching hour of myth grew nearer and near. Arthur had thought he’d grown out of them by ten. They came back to him now, though.
“My what big hands you have, Grandmother,” he breathed aloud.
He was alone in the woods with two predators hungry for his bones— one in his head, and one in his lap.
Noel chuckled. “All the better to grab you with, doll.”
The flighty thing inside Arthur’s skin was desperate to poke the beasts with a stick. He hadn’t gotten this far in life by playing safe, after all— although it was debatable that he’d gotten anywhere good because of it.
No, that wasn’t true. If nothing else, he’d managed to get himself here.
He settled into himself, lips resisting the urge to curl up as he dipped his head back against the cushion, exposing the long line of his throat.
“Are you going to eat me, Detective Noel?” he said, part-humor and part genuine thrill.
In response, Noel made a primal sound like wounded wolf. He growled lowly and said, the stubble of his cheek rubbing against Arthur’s neck, “I’m gonna damn well try.”
*****
It came to be that it seemed more like Arthur was trying to eat Noel, rather than the other way around. Somehow or another, after long hours— minutes, seconds, eternities— spent exchanging wet, heady kisses, falling into one another like they fell into being alive, they’d come together like this.
‘This’ being a state unlike Arthur had ever experienced before.
He felt like he was up in the clouds, floating on a bed of sand and roses. Noel’s fingers were pressed inside his mouth, the weight of them heavy and rich on his tongue.
“What’s it like to have two men inside you?” Noel said casually, as though there wasn’t drool pooling underneath Arthur’s tongue. “John in your head, me in your mouth.”
His fingers pet inside Arthur’s mouth. Like Arthur was a particularly rowdy child being subdued. Teeth tucked away. Not even trying to bite. By all accounts, already well-trained.
Noel leaned down and murmured into his ear.
“Do you like that John’s always inside you?” He said. “In you? Touching your organs, petting your ribs. Nestling into the heat of your fingers— your toes, your eyes. Living inside your skin like a home?”
God, Noel, John whined into Arthur’s brain. That—that’s obscene—
“Fuck,” Arthur moaned, the words muffled and thick through the bulk of Noel’s fingers. He sounded like he was swallowing a dove. “John, John says you’re— mph— obscene—“
Noel chuckled. “Didn’t take you for a bluenose, Johnny.”
Christ, please— Oh my god, Noel— Detective Noel, Noel— ah!—
“Do you wanna know what I’m doing to John right now, Arthur?” Noel murmured, pushing the words into Arthur like a secret pushing into the night. “I’ve got his whole hand pinned up against the cushions, right beside you. You know, his fingers— those fingers of yours he’s living inside of — are spread out so long and wide, so lovely, doll, and every time I push my knuckle into the meat of his palm, his whole forearm twitches like I’ve got him hooked up to a set of electrical wires.”
Inside his mind, John was panting and keening as if he was being killed.
Oh God, Arthur! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t— fuck!—
It made Arthur feel like he was getting high.
Meanwhile, inside of his mouth, Noel continued to walk his fingers over Arthur’s tongue like it belonged to him. Scraped his nails over wet skin. Bumped his knuckles against the back of Arthur’s teeth like he was stretching him out inside.
“I’ve got my hand hooked into his,” Noel continued on, conversationally. “My grip curled deep into the those fleshy little spots between his fingers right at the base, and inside my palm he’s so warm— do you know how warm you both are, sweetheart?— and his skin is so pliable, so desperate, sinking inside of me so easily like he wants me to climb inside you, too.”
Noel laughed.
“Would you like that, baby?”
Arthur felt seven kinds of light inside. Without Noel’s fingers in his mouth, he thought he might just float away. The atmosphere was made of syrup, sticky, and he felt like a ball of lead that had been living in his stomach all his life had finally rolled out and left so much empty space behind.
You can live there, he wanted to say to Noel. In his stomach. Underneath all the sin. There’s a space I made just for you.
But Noel was pulling back his hand now, and Arthur thought if he did that then he might just really die.
“No, no, no nononono, stay, wait…” He said. Words felt heavy. His mouth was full of glue. Like he hadn’t since Faroe died, he thought he was going to cry. He hacked.
Why did they always—?
A— Arthur? Noel’s… Noel’s stopping, are you okay?
A wet hand curled into his hair.
“Oh, shit. Arthur, you— shhh, baby, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here.” Arthur held on for dear life.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Noel said. “I was just moving to let you catch your breath. It’s okay, good boy. I promise. And Johnny’s still here—“
I am. I’m not going anywhere, Arthur.
Arthur tried to make sense of it all. “I’m, I’m just— don’t want to stop, please—“
Talking was too hard.
“Then why don’t you let John talk for a little bit, yeah? Take a breather. Let us take care of you.”
When John was talking, Arthur didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to do anything but listen and feel.
“O— Okay.”
Good boy, Arthur. Just repeat after me like we always do.
Arthur nodded best as he could. He could feel it as Noel pushed a piece of his hair back behind his ear, put a finger beneath his eye to wipe away a tear.
“Arthur’s just so pretty, isn’t he, John?” He said.
John hummed. The prettiest man I’ve ever seen.
“Pretty as a peach.”
I love his hands.
Noel didn’t speak for a moment, though his hands didn’t leave Arthur once.
“Yeah? I love his neck, I think. It’s just so...“
—Grabbable?
Noel laughed. “I was gonna say long, but yeah, that works too.”
You should hear what Arthur sounds like when you get a hand around his neck. He makes the most perfect little noises, sometimes even cries if you press a little.
Noel’s breath sounded shaky, lustful. If Arthur was wine, Noel sounded like he wanted to drink him all in. “…Oh, yeah?”
I love the way he sounds when he’s screaming for me, John said. Of course, you have to let him go to do that, which is a shame. He’s so compliant like this.
“He really is.” He was lifted into someone’s— Noel’s, obviously— arms. “And so sweet for us, too.”
You don’t have to repeat this part, Arthur, John began, speaking in that honeyed tone that kept Arthur feeling safe inside. But Noel’s got you wrapped up in his arms, and he’s looking down at you— at us—like we’re most important thing in the world. His chest is just in front of you, close enough that you could kiss it, I bet, and he’s so big that it can’t take more than half his strength to carry you like this to his bedroom.
Arthur hummed languidly.
“Now what are saying to our boy, Johnny?”
John laughed. I’m just telling him how big you are, Noel.
“Oh?”
A real man.
“As opposed to—?”
Nothing, John admitted. Just that you’re the kind of man built to work out on a farm. The kind of man with broad shoulders and powerful arms. You’d look good getting all tan and sweaty from the sun, out there working the fields.
Noel hummed, playing along. “And I’m sure it’s mighty hot out on this farm, so once I get back inside, I’ll have to strip off all my clothes just to make sure I can cool down nice and quick, is that it?”
Exactly.
“And I’d have to take off my skivvies too, walk around in the buff while I tended to the stuff around the house because I haven’t got any better half to take care of me?”
That’s right, you poor thing. Do you think we could find you one anywhere?
Noel laughed. “I bet we could figure something out. You wanna be my wife for me, baby?”
John made a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh.
Me? He asked. Or Arthur?
“Well…” Noel shifted Arthur in his arms, until Arthur was being carried like a princess. “We’ll be out on a great big farm, right? In the middle of nowhere. No one around to see us for miles.”
Noel bent down and kissed Arthur’s ear.
“Don’t see why I can’t have both of you.”
John sounded deeply amused. I never took you for a polygamist, Noel.
That made Noel laugh, really laugh, the sound warm and deep as he kept Arthur pressed tight to his body and enjoyed the joy of life. “Neither—ha! — did I, before I met the two of you, but I guess everybody’ll split for something, right?”
I suppose so. Are you putting us down on the bed?
“I’m ankling over to the bathroom, actually. Got a pretty nice tub in this place ‘cause the landlord swore it was haunted.”
And is it?
“Oh, absolutely,” Noel said casually. “But so’s everything in New York— it’s just the rest will try and con you for it.”
He adjusted his grip on Arthur’s legs. “What, you gotta problem with peeping toms?”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the biggest fan of sharing.
“…I say we should let’em enjoy the show.”
John purred. You are filthy, Noel.
Noel ran his fingers up the side of Arthur’s neck, cupping it briefly and making Arthur whine. He laughed.
“Oh,” he repeated. “Absolutely.”