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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)

He turns his head, burying his face in his sharp knees and thin arms so that he can try and keep his breathing slow and measured, pretend that Arthur isn't there even as he's touching his back. He hadn't had the courage to tell Taylor, he'd just slipped the redacted part of his file into her hands and left it at that the last time he'd seen her. He hasn't asked her if she'd read it yet.

But the thing about learning to trust people with the parts of you you'd prefer to hide is that it's still terrifying to say them out loud. Arthur won't get up and walk away without a word when he next opens his mouth, Sheehan hadn't, it would be ridiculous if he did after what he'd shared earlier, but that doesn't make it any easier.

"Dolores 'Dolly' Cross."

There's a soft gasp from Arthur's throat, an aborted noise of sympathy.

He can certainly guess the rest.

The hand on Hanna's back shifts, slow and predictable to reach his other shoulder, the other resting loose on Hanna's calf, and Arthur pulls him in for a tight side hug.

"I'm so sorry, Hanna." And there is grief in his voice, real and weighty and threatening to crack his calm demeanor.

While Hanna has certainly had issues with derealization, the kind of disassociating he's experiencing now is far less common. The muted pull of Arthur as if he was three degrees separated from himself is jarring, but his own reactions seem to slow as if he's moving through water, his head hitting Arthur's side, and ever so gently leans in.

"It's been almost a decade," he says softly, "I'm-" A breath, "fine."

He only has to shift a little, to rest his jaw on Hanna's curls, to tuck the younger man against him.

"It's been twenty-five years for me," he says quietly. Barely more than a murmur in Hanna's ear. "But it never quite stops the sting."

Edited 2025-01-24 08:24 (UTC)

Arthur has a good seven inches on him, Hanna tucks in easily, and while it takes him a moment, he does fine a space there, turning easily enough to press his face into his side.

He catches what he says, there is some curiosity there, but he can feel how thin Arthur is, and he just gently nods against his side. Horrible things and experiences had left them both rather fragile, but they had survived. He'll leave the question of who he'd lost for another time.

"I'm sorry." He starts, quietly, "for...being a little shit this month." December is always hard, and then Alan disappeared, David and Edwin following shortly after, Sokie assuring him that the Lester pair and John had one foot out the door.

"I always visit in December. Couldn't this year, it- It threw me off."

He just hums in quiet understanding.

"March," he replies, simply and quietly. It's not the same anniversary, he's not sure he could even say his parents' funeral date. But this one was more important anyway. "Since I've been on the Barge, though, it's been a breach every time the anniversary happened."

Though with the breach happening soon, he's worried about this March, now.

"Mmm...spend the time believing you're someone else. I'm sure that's fun when it's over." his tone is flat, sure that he would have a fucking fit if the next December keeps him from going home.

"Do...people ever think you're crazy, Arthur? Running around doing the shit you do...it really doesn't help the public perception, does it?"

That gets a soft laugh that hums in both of their hollow ribcages.

"Ah, well. In my world people don't realise it's all real until it's too late, so. A-a few people, yes." He sighs quietly. "Charlie was one of the ones who'd already been introduced to it all, somewhat forcefully. He's probably the only person back home who knows about John. Everyone else, I knew would put us in an asylum."

Hanna usually does laugh about it, but that can be so isolating and coming off the previous topic he isn't sure he feels like laughing at the moment. He doesn't mind it, just feels awkward, "I had to stop talking about it, for a while. Everyone gave up on me when I couldn't let my 'avoidant delusions' go and 'face reality'." People think you're crazy when you can't stop talking about your ghost parents following a double murder and he hadn't wanted to get shut up somewhere he couldn't get out. Eventually he toned down the volume and length of what he'd say publicly, he seemed far less of the bad kind of crazy and more harmless then, it had taken him a year to find the happy medium.

"Thankfully anything close to an asylum we had in 2001 isn't quite so bad as they were in the thirties, but I don't really like shrinks so my 'crazy' got a little less so for a while until it stopped being interesting to talk about behind my back."

He hums softly. "I didn't particularly feel like testing the efficacy of shock therapy on removing mad gods. Especially since we didn't even fully know what John was until we were up against the King himself."

It's definitely straying from the topic at hand, but Hanna could probably use the respite. "That was actually when we arrived on the Barge for the first time. Right after the King tried to take John, but he couldn't without destroying me, which would have done the same to John."

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