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"Thanks." With a grateful smile as he stands up to lead the way.

And adds dryly, "You are correct about Dorian, though, the Dorian Grey. He gave me some alcohol that apparently went for something like a million dollars a bottle, so you've more or less hit the nail on the head with who he is as a person. Still, he was deeply caring if you were the sort to catch his attention."

Hanna flops down once he's stepped down into it, giving Arthur a look.

"What the fuck, dude. Do you still have it? Who the hell buys a singular bottle of anything for a million dollars?" And here he was, unable to justify grabbing a cup of coffee on the way to work after an all-nighter ghost hunt despite desperately needing it. Rich people fucking sucked sometimes, he swears. "At least there's that, I guess."

"What, you think I knew that at the time?" he snickers. "No, another friend who had some experience with antiquities and valuing told me when I shared a glass of it with him. He was delighted, I was mortified to learn how wasteful Dorian is."

Not that he sounds mad, just the bone-deep amusement of someone delighting in the fact their friend fucking sucks.

And he sits next to Hanna, a cushion or so over, and rests his elbows on his knees. "But anyway. I was hoping to ask you about something I noticed in our argument before." Shameless and unapologetic about the fact it happened.

He can understand that reaction. He'd feel the same way if someone tried to gift him something like that. Sure if you gave him a thousand dollars, he'd probably be pretty fucking wasteful with it, but it's not like a single thousand was enough to change his life, just make it slightly more comfortable for a little while. A million dollars was...well. That was certainly a life changing amount of money.

And, thinking about that and how pissed off the idea of Dorian was making him, Arthur catches him completely off guard by his question, "I-" Immediate frown, "Okay. Shoot, floors yours." It's not the fight, really, it's the idea that he is going to try and pick at a thread of that. He'd rather not punch Arthur in John's cabin, but he'll give him a chance to be less of an ass this time.

"Right." It's actually not about the fight, funny enough. "When you punched me and I, ah. Had you pinned. I couldn't help but notice your, er..."

And he leans up to gesture with a hand at his own torso. "Well. It seemed like you weren't in a good state, with all that. I just wanted to make sure I didn't make anything worse, if that's... even at all possible."

Hanna stares at him, watching the gesture, before he cracks a little smile, resting his elbow on his knee, chin in hand.

"Aaaah, I get it. You wait a whole ass week to double check you didn't fucking crush me too bad, huh? That's very nice of you, Arthur."

"Fuck you," he gripes with a roll of his eyes, "You know that's not what I mean."

He eyes Hanna off for a few seconds - admittedly this is partially driven by curiosity, but it's mostly empathy, concern. But now he knows if he says as much then he'll get backpedalled on faster than he can say Hoagy Carmichael.

"Look, I felt the way your chest just- gave in, when I leaned on you, I've seen the top of a scar on your chest when you came out of the shower in a towel. If you don't want to tell me, fine." His hand goes to his collar, tugging it down a little to show off the line across his throat a bit better. "Just know that it's not something I'm going to judge you for. I've got more than my own fair share of scars there as well."

Hanna can't help the laugh when Arthur rolls his eyes at him, shaking his head, "Oh, I know. I'm fucking with you dude. It's your entry fee, gotta pay a little to ride, that's the rules." He teases, though he's not sure he's quite as brave as Arthur to go showing his own scar off.

He sits up a little, casually examining his fingernails as he speaks as if being nonchalant about it will help him feel a little less sick about talking about it. It's...gotten easier, the more people who know, but it certainly is comforting that Sheehan hadn't said anything about what he'd seen. It warms him all the more, especially following the conversation they'd had before. "Mine's fucking gnarly, so I'm not going to give you a peep show, but I guess it's fine. I am curious though, you got any guesses, Mr. Detective? You were so interested in playing the 'what the fuck is wrong with Hanna' game before when I didn't want to play, but now I want to."

It might be a little underhanded, but he really is curious, "Hit me with your best shot, Lester."

He raises an eyebrow at the way Hanna phrases it, because - well, yes, he was, but that was a very different 'what the fuck' than this is. But still, if Hanna's willing to play ball now, who's he to deny him?

"What little I can tell suggests you've had your organs harvested," he comments bluntly, but his tone isn't unkind. "Given our respective worlds, I'd imagine your heart was the primary goal, but it felt like they've emptied out most of your torso. You aren't dead in any capacity - you punching me proves it, though not in any way you might be thinking - but I'd imagine that magic is the primary thing keeping you going, since something like that is typically not survivable under your own power."

He sits, waiting expectantly to hear what Arthur might be thinking. And as he sits, he tries not to give it away, how close or far he is from the truth. When he's finished, Hanna sucks in a breath through his teeth, "Oooh. That's a fun theory, but you're a little off, Arthur."

He settles back against the arm of the chair, "It might feel like I'm a shell of a boy, but never did get the full hysterectomy, I stopped myself before I could start ripping it all out. That shit's still in there, just rotted away and dry." Which was why when his knee sunk in it probably felt like a dry pile of leaves in a leather sack rather than a person. "But A plus for the magic addition. It was a bitch getting the lines right, but I started with a magic equivalent of adrenaline, that helped keep me focused long enough to not die."

He frowns, curiosity alone as he rests on his elbows and his eyes skim down Hanna's torso again. "You healed yourself after someone- or something, I suppose - mangled your organs?"

He knows how far a human can go if they're properly motivated by injury, Christ knows that's from personal experience - but if Hanna's willing to talk, he's going to keep asking questions. "Or did you do that to yourself?"

Edited 2025-01-24 04:14 (UTC)

"There is nothing in any universe that's sentient that should be called a thing, Arthur. Don't be fucking rude," Which is said with perhaps a little bit more spice than he intended, but despite his attempt at nonchalance, that hits a nerve. His parents weren't things Arthur.

"I did it to myself." Which is technically true, he hadn't meant to, possession is rather difficult to fight, and he had been in a state of shock already, it had been so easy for Dolly to crawl down his throat. He hadn't even had the air to scream, breath caught from his spot on the Kitchen floor where he'd slipped on the fresh blood covering the linoleum.

Sometimes things are things. But he doesn't comment, because it does tell him a lot more than Hanna might think it does.

"You saved yourself, yes." His voice is quiet and even, a counter to the way Hanna seems to be working himself up. "But it sounds like whoever did this to you is... perhaps someone you don't want to ruin the reputation of. Because putting someone through what you've described to me is utterly heinous, and as much as you seem to enjoy gossiping, you hate actual harm, or putting it on other people."

The more he talks about it, the more he feels like he shouldn't, and Arthur is scratching at the door that he doesn't like to open. When he'd seen that kitchen door in the Otherworld, he had avoided it at all costs, but of course, on that last day it had stayed wide open.

He pulls his legs up, shifting uncomfortably. This is where the 'what the fuck is wrong with Hanna game' is no longer fun. "I don't have healing magic. I couldn't save myself, I preserved what was left, the memory of a functioning body." He doesn't want to touch the other shit Arthur has said, starting to pull at a loose thread on one of his socks, and yet?

Every so softly, "My hands did it, so I did it to myself, Arthur."

Ah. They're toeing around the source, now, closer than - Arthur would have to assume - Hanna might ever have talked about it.

He stands up then, his movements slow and predictable, so he can shift to sit directly next to Hanna. Enough space that they're not touching, but easy to lean over and nudge if one of them wants. But he sits upright, and rolls back his gloves with a flick of his wrists, knotting his fingers in his lap.

"My hands murdered my best friend," he says, quiet and plain, like the drop of a hammer on wood. "But I didn't kill him. John did, when he first possessed me. When he... made me read the book that contained him, to release him."

Edited 2025-01-24 04:55 (UTC)

He watches Arthur move, pulling himself in a little further, rather small sitting there on the couch next to him. He rests his chin on his knees, staring more at his hands before his eyes come back up at the P word.

"What's that like, where you come from. Do you remember it, how it felt when he first possessed you?" Or is it mercifully gone. For Arthur's sake he hopes so.

"I don't remember it fully, to be honest," he says gently. "Just bits and pieces. I remember opening his book, and- turning to Parker. But everything else is... lost, a-a blur. I didn't remember anything at all afterwards, not right away. The cost of John possessing me was too much for my mind, it's- why he had to stay in my eyes, because to possess more of me risked burning my body out entirely, destroying his anchor to the human realm."

He lifts a hand to brush his hair back a little, idly fiddling with the pomade waves. "I've been... harassed, by other creatures. Ones that have gotten into my mind - even the King in Yellow, trying to steer me into madness, using my own memories against me. When you lose touch with reality, with your own senses... it's a unique kind of horrifying. One that most people are lucky not to have to encounter."

Hanna pulls his lower lip between his teeth, chewing at it as he listens. That casual demeanor is gone, what's replaced it is the discomfort paired with an flood of sympathy. His foot shifts forward, sliding under Arthur's knee for the contact of it, and the way he listens is far more focused than the distracted sort of way he's held himself around the Barge.

"Parts of you fed John humanity." Sokie had told him as much, and he's glad for it, that John could grow into who he is because of Arthur's influence. It's a rather beautiful thing, changing your nature like that. "I don't use the word monster lightly, but it's easy to, when you look at what people are capable of, what they do to each other, whether it be out of hate, madness or...love." He catches Arthur's eyes, "It takes a special person to do that, and I'm sorry you've been through it. It only takes a moment, to open your eyes to what exists in the world, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's horrifically awful."

Arthur's knee shifts a little, settling into the contact so Hanna knows it's appreciated.

"If a monster is a person, then it's someone who has discarded their humanity." It's low, and if it wasn't carefully controlled there'd certainly be a growl to it. "People who sacrifice others for their own gain, people who harm others to push themselves up. Who refuse time and time again to make the better choice, the kinder one. No matter their reasons."

His hands tighten to press together completely, with a deep breath in as his gaze skirts across the ceiling for a moment. "I won't pretend it didn't take me a while to... grow to love John. He has the potential to hurt me in profound ways, and in another timeline I know he has. But he always tried to be better, tried to- to learn from me, to listen when I explained, to find beauty and hope and sympathy for anything regardless of my own opinions on the matter. Despite his circumstances he was able to find humanity in what he was subjected to." Even me, he manages not to say out loud.

"Most things that can possess a person where I come from don't learn from their host, they take from them, because what they want, they need form to achieve." He takes in a very slow, measured breath, "Ghosts in particular are rather dangerous in that sense, because what they are is pure energy created by a memory of a feeling, or feelings. A repeating thought of what they need to move on, usually gets twisted up into something awful, some kind of harm on the unfortunate bastard that stumbles into their territory."

He isn't done talking about John, his change, but he is offering a little more, the voice in his head that begs him to keep his mouth shut quieter for once. "You ever stumble upon a ghost like that in your travels, Arthur? Or are they not the same."

"Similar, I think, but not quite. A wraith, in fact, which sounds an awful lot like what you're describing than something I'd consider a ghost. Not necessarily violent until disturbed, but incredibly dangerous to mess with if you don't know any of that." With a light gesture at Hanna, more to the description he gave.

"We found one, a woman that had lost her baby, and had ended up kidnapping a second child to replace it, but- obviously that wasn't proving a solution. John and I helped release her from her torment, by- trapping her in an item of sentimental value, and making a deal with her for her freedom."

Edited 2025-01-24 06:10 (UTC)

Hanna smiles as he listens to the story, finding that a much kinder approach to what he's had to do a few times now. There aren't so many violent murders in his town, but enough to have seen the results of quite a few of them since he started working he investigator gig at seventeen. "I knew a couple, Dolly and Grant back when I was still in high school. Grant taught my middle school history class. He was the best teacher I ever had, honestly." It feels easier talking about them like this, like he had with Sheehan before he'd admitted who they were to him.

"I'd stop by sometimes, small enough town that it wasn't weird. Except one day they didn't answer the door, but it was unlocked, left ajar, which I mean, it was a nice enough house in a less than nice area in town. Struck me as weird, you know?" His arms tighten around his knees, "So I go in, and I've got a marker in my pocket. I'd started learning magic from this weird, drunk guy Sophomore year, traded my lunch money so he could buy beer at the corner store. He'd only just skipped town, but I didn't have a cellphone, so a sharpie is like, next best thing." A short breath, staring down at his feet, the one still settled under Arthur's knee.

"I knew the phone was in the kitchen, so that's where I went. At the very least it was like, breaking and entering, right? But when I ran in, I slipped on the blood on the floor, and there they were." He swallows, "Unfortunately, I do remember exactly how it feels to be possessed."

Edited 2025-01-24 06:29 (UTC)

"Jesus..."

There's not much he feels the need to qualify that with, nor to push Hanna. He's started now, and momentum goes a long way with stories like that.

A favourite teacher might have made sense, in context, but with Hanna's issues already about losing people, it didn't quite sit right, in Arthur's naturally suspicious mind.

But all he does is shift, lifting an arm to rest his hand on Hanna's back, his thumb idly rubbing the skinny man's spine. "I'm sorry, Hanna. I know how horrible it is to walk in on something like that."

He shrugs to hide the fact that the touch originally made him flinch, "It's...fine." He manages softly, "A-anyways, possession like that, you get lost in your own head, like a labyrinth of doors. I have a spell for that, guidance. It leads you to the center, where the ghost will be, and if you talk to them enough, convince them? They'll let you go."

Which was difficult to do certainly when in some disconnected way, he could feel what she was using his hands to do. "They're...different when you find them, more rational, but confused. A lot of them don't accept that they're dead, but...I don't blame her, for what she did."

He takes another deep breath, "She didn't want to leave me behind, so...the logical solution was to take me with. All I had to do was die."

Arthur goes still, frowning and tense.

No matter how much a teacher might love their student, that was still targeted. Too personal, for a random unlucky student to have walked in on. The difference between the fear of dying alone and the fear of leaving someone behind in doing so was that one was far more involved. Even including how being dead would change the person's values to some degree...

"Hanna..." He doesn't want to push, but there's only so many ways to ask. "Who was Dolly?"

Because it's not like he doesn't suspect, now.

Edited 2025-01-24 07:17 (UTC)

Re: Late Jan

Re: Late Jan

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