"Ah, well. That's rare form for us. Normally we're more in the business of running away from monsters, but." He smiles, unabashedly. "Well, it was nice being back in some sort of civilisation for a bit. It's the closest we've been to a proper city since we've been on the Barge."
"Ah- yes, don't worry." His smile turns reassuring as he tilts his head towards her. "After I graduate Mandrake, I plan to use my next deal to ensure that nothing like what lead us here can happen to anyone else again."
That gets the briefest of pauses. "Well. Being here has already saved us from some... horrible events already. We learned about them from a flood, er, not long after we arrived."
"That's good." Her tone is one that screams I guess, because it's still not what she asked him. She spends a moment steadying a pile of paired socks that she's decided to stack as high as possible until it falls over, because that's helpful.
"Oh, I wanted to ask, I already talked to John about it but would you be okay with it if I asked the Admiral for a way to hear him while you're together?"
"Oh, uh-" The question is a surprise, that shows openly on his face for a moment, before he gives a fleeting, flattered smile. "Well, that would be wonderful! There's still very few people who can do it naturally- certainly no one's asked before."
Willa doesn't outright tsk, but boy the disapproval is clear on her face and in her tone. "I don't get why. It's easier for everyone if you and John don't mind that things aren't private any more."
He shrugs one shoulder. "I suppose enough other people here are either used to us being together and me relaying for him, or know us so well individually that it hasn't come up."
"I guess." She's still not sure she approves. Willa adds another pair of socks to her stack and very slowly draws her hands back as it wobbles. If (when) it capsizes, it is absolutely going to spill socks into Arthur's work area. "But you haven't answered my first question still. How's your deal with the Admiral going to make sure you're safe too?"
He gives a dry huff, but it takes him a few seconds to compose what to say.
"I'm sure you're aware that there are other beings out there apart from the Admiral. Ones... far less benevolent, towards humanity, when they deign to notice us at all. There is a... a powerful one, in our world. The King in Yellow. John was... he used to be a part of him, and the King- he still wants John back, so he can be whole again."
He finishes folding the pants he has and his hand rests there for a moment. "My deal is to make sure the King can't reach us. To prevent anything like his kind from being able to reach between worlds and hurt anyone again. That is when we'll be safe - when the King can't touch us, or send anyone else to do it again."
Willa is pretty sure she shouldn't feel sad for the King in Yellow, but there's a sympathy in her for losing a piece of yourself and wanting it back that much. Not enough sympathy that she wants the King within a million miles of John if he doesn't want to go, but it's also easy to imagine how it might feel from the other side, seeing a piece of you fall in love with someone else in a world you aren't part of. Knowing that piece wants more than anything to leave you behind.
If she keeps thinking about it, it's going to make her brain hurt.
She balances another pair of socks on her pile. "I wonder if there's a way for him to be whole without getting John back."
And there goes her sockscraper, dumping quietly across the table.
The silent avalanche bounces a few pairs onto Arthur's hand, making it flinch lightly away from the unexpected contact, but he settles again quickly when he finds one of the assailant socks.
"Beings like that don't experience love, or- meaning in the same way we do as humans," he says, gently. "The King only wants John back because he is literally not whole without him, not because he misses him in an- an emotional sense." He lobs one of the pairs of socks lightly in Willa's direction. "Think of it more like he thinks I stole his prized possession, not his person."
She kind of hadn't thought through the result of the tower falling over.
When he explains more about the King, about the difference between it and humanity, there's a part of Willa that wants to ask from genuine curiosity why he thinks John is John but the King can't be anything else. Arthur throws a pair of socks at her and she grins, batting them onto the table and out of her face.
"Everyone has these... big things they're asking for. Things to change their whole worlds."
The unfinished thought is mine seems stupidly small in comparison.
He can hear the silent corollary, how she obviously doesn’t consider herself part of everyone, and he hums gently.
"People come here when they need something fixed. That they have no means of doing otherwise - or that being here makes significantly easier," he says evenly. "The larger the stakes, the more likely someone is to come, because what other options are there? It's... I believe the term is selection bias."
He finds some of the socks and starts picking up them up to put aside. "But there's no wrong size for a deal. As long as it's something that makes your situation better for having gotten it, and something you're willing to put in the work for."
Willa mirrors him silently for a moment, gathering the socks in proper order this time.
"What if being here is already giving you most of what you want?" As soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn't, and as soon as she wishes she hadn't, she's glad that she did.
"You wouldn't be the first," he replies, easy and warm. "John and I can't separate back home, you know? I might not be able to see, still, an-and John does mean the world to me, but. It's... I missed having the ability to be alone in my own head. I'm glad I get the opportunity, here."
It does make her feel a little better, hearing that. That she's not the only one who likes being on board, who wants their deal a little less urgently.
"My dad came to protect me," she says, quietly. "His deal I mean, it's to keep me safe. Which I kind of screwed up coming here, but--"
She drags in a deep breath and sighs, retrieving another bag full of clothes from one of the smaller thrift-like stores. "I came for him. I mean yeah my deal is for him, but-- when the messages from the Barge popped up on my phone a few weeks ago, I got to talk to him and Tim Gutterson who's his work friend and someone else he knew when he was a kid, and..."
She shrugs even though he can't see it, drawing a shirt out to fold. "I forgot it happened, until the Admiral asked me if I'd come. I came because I knew he was here."
It's a little easier admitting it the second time around.
"Make no mistake, Willa, you are still safer here than anywhere back home," he reassures fondly. "There might be poisonous egos and terrible violence, sure - but we also come back from the dead, which is something a lot of people here take for granted."
He slides the folded pants aside for Willa to put on their trolley, and pulls up a shirt. "Though your father is going to lose his fucking mind if it ever happens, you know," he adds, but there's a dry edge to it, like he's teasing a secret. "You ought to let your inmate know you've been grounded."
She still hasn't wrapped her head around that part entirely, the coming back from the dead, but she also hasn't had to deal with it happening yet. At least not that she knows of, to anybody she's met.
Willa grimaces at the prospect of her dad's reaction, but ends it with an eye roll and a snort at the statement that she'll have to tell her inmate she's grounded.
For a second she doesn't say anything else, putting the pants and a couple of other things that are ready to go on the trolley. "I think..."
She stops. "Okay, first, promise you're not going to... be weird or treat me differently like I'm going to break or something if I tell you why he might also be freaking out a little."
That gets a curious frown, but the twist of his mouth is more amused than annoyed.
"Well, that's certainly not the way to make it sound reassuring," he comments, eyebrows flicking with the wry amusement. "But- yeah, very well. I promise I wil try and be normal about it for you."
"Well. I had a heart murmur when I was a baby, and it was okay until I was six-ish and started getting worse so when I was seven I had surgery to get the valve replaced. I was in the hospital for a while. I kind of made a joke about it when I got here because I forgot he didn't know."
She shakes out a fresh pair of pants to fold. "Anyway I have to take blood thinners because of something to do with the fake valve, and at some point I have to have another surgery to replace the one I've got because it won't be big enough forever. So... My dad back home is at least like, used to that? Here not so much."
Okay well there's a lot to focus on there, but the most baffling one for Arthur personally is extremely simple.
"I-- s-so, er, just so you're aware- surgery for the heart like that really isn't- well, it doesn't exist, in my time, not in a-a successful capacity."
"Oh." Oops. She hadn't thought about that. It's so much a fact of her life that it never even occurred to her to wonder when it started being possible.
That startles a huff of laughter out of Arthur, despite himself.
"Alright then. So, because you've had this no doubt insanely complex and life-saving surgery, your father thinks you ought to be kept in an ivory tower for the rest of your days. Meanwhile you've already turned the curtains into an escape rope."
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"Oh, I wanted to ask, I already talked to John about it but would you be okay with it if I asked the Admiral for a way to hear him while you're together?"
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"I'm sure you're aware that there are other beings out there apart from the Admiral. Ones... far less benevolent, towards humanity, when they deign to notice us at all. There is a... a powerful one, in our world. The King in Yellow. John was... he used to be a part of him, and the King- he still wants John back, so he can be whole again."
He finishes folding the pants he has and his hand rests there for a moment. "My deal is to make sure the King can't reach us. To prevent anything like his kind from being able to reach between worlds and hurt anyone again. That is when we'll be safe - when the King can't touch us, or send anyone else to do it again."
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If she keeps thinking about it, it's going to make her brain hurt.
She balances another pair of socks on her pile. "I wonder if there's a way for him to be whole without getting John back."
And there goes her sockscraper, dumping quietly across the table.
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"Beings like that don't experience love, or- meaning in the same way we do as humans," he says, gently. "The King only wants John back because he is literally not whole without him, not because he misses him in an- an emotional sense." He lobs one of the pairs of socks lightly in Willa's direction. "Think of it more like he thinks I stole his prized possession, not his person."
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She kind of hadn't thought through the result of the tower falling over.
When he explains more about the King, about the difference between it and humanity, there's a part of Willa that wants to ask from genuine curiosity why he thinks John is John but the King can't be anything else. Arthur throws a pair of socks at her and she grins, batting them onto the table and out of her face.
"Everyone has these... big things they're asking for. Things to change their whole worlds."
The unfinished thought is mine seems stupidly small in comparison.
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"People come here when they need something fixed. That they have no means of doing otherwise - or that being here makes significantly easier," he says evenly. "The larger the stakes, the more likely someone is to come, because what other options are there? It's... I believe the term is selection bias."
He finds some of the socks and starts picking up them up to put aside. "But there's no wrong size for a deal. As long as it's something that makes your situation better for having gotten it, and something you're willing to put in the work for."
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"What if being here is already giving you most of what you want?" As soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn't, and as soon as she wishes she hadn't, she's glad that she did.
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"My dad came to protect me," she says, quietly. "His deal I mean, it's to keep me safe. Which I kind of screwed up coming here, but--"
She drags in a deep breath and sighs, retrieving another bag full of clothes from one of the smaller thrift-like stores. "I came for him. I mean yeah my deal is for him, but-- when the messages from the Barge popped up on my phone a few weeks ago, I got to talk to him and Tim Gutterson who's his work friend and someone else he knew when he was a kid, and..."
She shrugs even though he can't see it, drawing a shirt out to fold. "I forgot it happened, until the Admiral asked me if I'd come. I came because I knew he was here."
It's a little easier admitting it the second time around.
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He slides the folded pants aside for Willa to put on their trolley, and pulls up a shirt. "Though your father is going to lose his fucking mind if it ever happens, you know," he adds, but there's a dry edge to it, like he's teasing a secret. "You ought to let your inmate know you've been grounded."
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Willa grimaces at the prospect of her dad's reaction, but ends it with an eye roll and a snort at the statement that she'll have to tell her inmate she's grounded.
For a second she doesn't say anything else, putting the pants and a couple of other things that are ready to go on the trolley. "I think..."
She stops. "Okay, first, promise you're not going to... be weird or treat me differently like I'm going to break or something if I tell you why he might also be freaking out a little."
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"Well, that's certainly not the way to make it sound reassuring," he comments, eyebrows flicking with the wry amusement. "But- yeah, very well. I promise I wil try and be normal about it for you."
cw chronic illness of a child
She shakes out a fresh pair of pants to fold. "Anyway I have to take blood thinners because of something to do with the fake valve, and at some point I have to have another surgery to replace the one I've got because it won't be big enough forever. So... My dad back home is at least like, used to that? Here not so much."
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Okay well there's a lot to focus on there, but the most baffling one for Arthur personally is extremely simple.
"I-- s-so, er, just so you're aware- surgery for the heart like that really isn't- well, it doesn't exist, in my time, not in a-a successful capacity."
And won't for another twenty years, maybe.
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"Uh, surprise?"
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"Alright then. So, because you've had this no doubt insanely complex and life-saving surgery, your father thinks you ought to be kept in an ivory tower for the rest of your days. Meanwhile you've already turned the curtains into an escape rope."
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