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Yellow didn’t sleep. In his new state he had even fewer distractions than ever, with nothing to do but observe and partake, so he didn’t know how it happened. But Wallace Larson closed his eyes, and when next Yellow could see, he was staring out from the face of Arthur Lester.
Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, he understood that much immediately. With Larson, there was no feeling. He occupied no part of the man who had become his bearer, they shared no physiology; he absorbed the world around them as if through a mirror, lights and sounds and the occasional hint of scent, but not with the visceral immediacy of experiencing them through Arthur’s physical senses. He was as a spirit, adrift and aloft.
But not now. Yellow stared into the surrounding darkness and was immediately overwhelmed with myriad conflicting emotions: outrage, that he had been thrust back into this coward hypocrite; grief, that his best hope for freedom and unity had been cruelly wrested from him; and a sick thrill, to once again feel the weight and fullness of mass.
Two small orbs set into the skull of a degenerate worm. A few muscles—two flaps of skin. They weren’t much, as far as physical forms went, and he had spent most of his time with Arthur plagued by irritating grit, freezing wind and bitter tears. But even that was something compared to the absolute, endless nothing of the Dark World, of the floating, intangible shadow play of being Larson’s stowaway. It was flesh.
Yellow strained Arthur’s eyes to focus on what shapes he could pull: a rectangle of glass, and distorted wood beyond. It took him some time to recognize Arthur was curled up in the back seat of an automobile, which was in turn parked in a building of some sort. The quiet grunts of sleeping animals suggested a barn, as did the rough blanket Arthur lay curled beneath. Several blankets? The material was scratchy and heavy, and when he realized that he shouldn’t be able to know that, his eyes widened—watered, even—in amazement and shock.
He had more flesh.
Yellow held his metaphorical breath and moved. It was easier than he’d expected, but also more disorienting; he couldn’t figure out where he was in relation to the eyes at first. Gradually he made sense of the arrangement of bones, muscles, and tendons now under his control, and he flexed Arthur’s fingers experimentally. After only a little bit of practice, he slipped the hand out from under the pile of blankets so he could see it.
Long, thin hands, layers of scars, dirt and blood under the nails. Yellow bent each finger one by one, marveling at the movement of sinews beneath the skin. He prodded curiously at the wooden pinky and hissed at the sting. He had a piece of Arthur now, and he forgot for a moment how valuable his sight and other senses were in the face of this revelation. He squeezed his fist tight and felt Arthur’s heartbeat.
Arthur murmured something in his sleep. Yellow raised his hand, finding and feeling out the shape of Arthur’s face. Hot breath steamed over his new skin, and he gasped at the sensation of tiny hairs stirring.
He wanted this. He wanted blood and bone and skin and nails—he wanted talons that could rend and devour, he wanted to bear down until his prey squealed. He wanted Arthur to fucking squeal, and in a rush of eager mania he snapped his hand around Arthur’s throat and squeezed, and squeezed, feeling the pulse rush against his palm, the stiff struggles of Arthur roused from sleep—
And then Yellow was back with Larson again, adrift and aloft. Only a ghost grasping futility at the traces of sensation Larson tossed him like scraps to a dog.
He said nothing to Larson. Morning came and the man went about his daily frivolities none the wiser. Yellow learned as much as he could, gaping in wonder at the bustling city, its ant colony populace. He was grateful then for the eyes. But Arthur was close beneath his thoughts all the while, like a throbbing pustule he ached to burst. He waited anxiously for nightfall.
Larson retired for the evening, but not alone. He brought with him one of the women from the “club” he had taken supper at: a voluptuous young creature with waves of shiny black hair and rouged lips. Yellow got the impression that Larson intended his fornication with the woman to be in part for his benefit, and he was as ever an attentive student. He watched her lily-soft hands coax Larson’s genitals to stiffness and then take him in her mouth, without comment.
“Well?” Larson prompted once the woman was asleep, and he lay in bed beside her, smoking a cigarette. “Are you one for voyeurism, friend?”
“I don’t take your meaning,” Yellow replied, and Larson chuckled. His condescension was as undeserved as it was irritating.
But thankfully, he stamped out his cigarette and rolled over to sleep soon after. He didn’t touch the woman again. Yellow awoke to Arthur.
It must have been only when both men slept, Yellow pondered, as he opened his eyes to another unfamiliar setting: the interior of a small room this time, clean sheets covering the bed. Yellow smoothed his hand across the covers, appreciating the texture of the linen, even though he could tell just by looking that Larson’s were finer. Then he went back to Arthur.
Arthur’s breath, steady and full, filled the small room. Yellow pressed his hand to Arthur’s chest for a while, just to feel it rise and fall—familiar, in some ways, and yet totally new thanks to his new appendage. He wondered if Arthur had use of this hand still, when he was awake. Had he regained his sight? Did he consider himself free and easy and escaped? The thought almost drove Yellow’s nails to his throat again, but he reminded himself that this moment would end when Arthur woke. And what if there wasn’t another chance?
Then Yellow thought about Larson and the woman.
Arthur wasn’t anything like either of them: his skin was coarse and puckered with scars, stretched too tight over his bones. Yellow drew his fingertips over Arthur’s throat—carefully so as not to wake him—to trace the jagged afterimage of a wound there. He played at the hint of his collar bone, jutting out from beneath the thin undershirt. He pressed his palm flat to Arthur’s chest to feel his heartbeat, thrumming out so faintly through his ribs, echoed in the fingers Yellow had gained.
A heartbeat. Yellow found himself enthralled for some time, letting that primitive rhythm stir him. He hadn’t been able to feel Arthur’s heart before. He had listened to Arthur wheeze and pant, his sounds of confusion and pain, his… his poetry. But to rise and fall and thump and shiver, flowing within the cycle of life—it moved him. He had the fleeting, unwelcome thought that he shouldn’t have abandoned Arthur so quickly, if it meant having this.
He fingered the hollow under Arthur’s ribs, the flat softness of his belly, the curve of his hip. He thought about the red red lips opening wide. He nudged his fingertips beneath the waistband of Arthur’s undergarments. He remembered the hitch of Larson’s breath, heavy with arousal. He squeezed Arthur’s soft cock.
Arthur jerked, and every sensation fled; Yellow woke up with Larson.
Yellow seethed through the day that followed. He kept quiet when Larson met with the assassin. All he could think about was Arthur’s body, running and heaving and rattling and bleeding out. He was haunted for hours imagining Arthur’s heart racing, pumping blood into and out of each vein, into and out of each wound, until it stuttered, and weakened, and stopped. Adrenaline spurring his limbs and organs to their height of function, a precipice of excitement and dread, until the collapse.
“You’re very quiet today,” Larson commented as they rode in the back of his long car back to the house, following supper. “Is the city that overwhelming to you?”
“No,” Yellow answered, and he was tempted to not elaborate. What did Larson deserve from him anyway? “I have seen infinite realms, piled atop each other in chaos beyond your comprehension. New York may be a grand city and has its charms, but no. I am not overwhelmed.”
Larson chuckled. He was almost as insufferable as Arthur, though the benefits of his partnership were potentially greater, in the long run. “No, I suppose not,” he drawled. “Beg your pardon, if I caused offense.” He hummed to himself. “It does make me curious, though, what you would find overwhelming.”
Larson was a fool and Yellow hoped he would be able to kill him one day soon.
It was a long day already, made longer still when Larson decided to stay awake past the usual time he retired—hoping to hear good news from his Butcher. Yellow stewed, unable to make sense of the different accompanying emotions. He was so gleeful at the prospect of Arthur’s bloody demise that he was furious, anticipation sharpened so fine it pierced. A few times he tricked himself into thinking that Larson’s fingers drumming on the desk so impatiently were his own. But eventually, the vigil had to end. “I’m paying him too much for this,” Larson grumbled, and he retreated to his bedroom.
“We should have cornered him ourselves,” Yellow scolded him, but Larson didn’t bother replying, and he slept.
Yellow waited. It took longer than before and an unexpected, strangling pain shot through him at the prospect that Arthur was dead, mangled along the train tracks, and he would never feel the reverberations of blood against artery walls again. Then he blinked, and the sheer fact that he had flesh to blink flooded him with relief: he was in Arthur’s eyes again.
Arthur was asleep in another new place: an attic room, it seemed, with a few pieces of furniture and a warped-glass window set in one wall. Yellow wasted no time wondering where it was—Arthur had been heading to New York according to Larson’s informants, which meant he was close again, but he was alive and that was all that mattered. He probed over Arthur’s body, searching for fresh wounds, hot bruises, anything to indicate how he had survived Larson’s attack dog. Maybe it would have been more obvious in the light of day, but the room was dark with luxurious shadows, stymying Yellow’s attempts to speculate. He could only be content that he had this opportunity again at all.
“Can you hear me, Arthur?” Yellow asked, though hushed. He hated that however this transference was occurring, it only seemed to work when both Larson and Arthur were asleep. He hated it. Didn’t he?
Either way, Arthur didn’t answer. Yellow continued. “I don’t know how you’ve done it again, but congratulations are in order. You still live.” He growled, and Arthur shivered as if in response. “How do you still live?”
Yellow rested his hand over Arthur’s chest again. It wasn’t like any emotion Larson had badgered him about, but he felt drawn to the space, as if the beating organ beneath generated a gravity all its own. “Why would you come here, if you want to live so badly?” Yellow murmured, moving his fingers very carefully back and forth across Arthur’s chest. “Are you so determined to spill Larson’s blood? To deny me any chance of independence?” His voice lowered to a growl as he reached lower, where Arthur’s unprotected abdomen stretched. “Is your spite that great?”
Yellow’s creeping fingertips once again reached Arthur’s waistband, and he perched there, seething and hesitant. Arthur’s breathing seemed harsher than usual, and it might take very little stimuli to wake him. He should have held out for longer, to enjoy flutter and softness and blood for as long as he could before one of his two jailors woke, but defiance welled up in him regardless.
“Are you coming for me?” Yellow whispered. “Do you even know I’m here?” A fire throbbed at the center of him. “I’m still here, Arthur.”
Yellow pushed his hand down between Arthur’s thighs. As before Arthur flinched, knees drawing reflexively together against the intrusion. His breath hissed through his teeth, but then… he didn’t stir. Yellow kept completely still then, startled to realize he had not yet been ejected. He waited for several beats in unmoving silence, but Arthur was quiet—unsettled, but asleep, still, against the odds.
“Arthur?” Yellow whispered, but still no response greeted him. With mounting confidence, he moved his fingertips against the root of Arthur’s cock. Nothing, save a tiny intake of breath. So Yellow explored further, chiding himself for his boorish curiosity but unable to deny it. He traced the shape of Arthur’s most intimate anatomy, lightly at first. As he rubbed his thumb over the head, at last a reaction: a slight twitch that shot through him like a jolt.
If only Arthur weren’t stretched out on his back, he might have been able to see. Yellow closed their eyes, abandoning the darkness of the room as he continued to explore. Gently, he stroked back and forth along the shaft. It made his palm feel hot, even a little moist, though he wasn’t sure why. The friction wasn’t that great. He tried to slip his hand around Arthur’s cock whole, but Arthur shifted—a subtle squirm accompanied by a swift intake of breath that frightened Yellow into withdrawing. He had so little time—he didn’t want to do anything more to jeopardize that. So he waited for a moment, listening to Arthur’s breath evening back out.
Once he was certain that Arthur was deeply sleeping again, Yellow resumed. Ever so patiently he passed his thumb back and forth across the root of Arthur’s cock; so, so slowly he stretched his seeking fingertips back to the head. Every time Arthur moved or whimpered, his voice high and breathy and so fucking provocative, Yellow forced himself to stop. He would not lose anything to Arthur Lester again, even if it was the man’s own body. Then he continued, tracing each raised vein, carefully fingering the slit. He smeared the few drops of fluid that dribbled out across the exposed head: he imagined it red and swollen, begging for a throat to swallow it down.
Would he be the one, he hated himself for wondering, if he could? Bare his teeth and suck Arthur’s delicate body between them, make him pant and groan? To take Arthur into himself, rather than being the one consumed. Yellow’s head spun, and his restraint faltered: he growled and stroked Arthur firmly, wishing he could swallow him whole.
Arthur shuddered, and his breath rattled out of him with a whined, “Scratch…!”
Yellow hissed; he let go and raked his nails along the inside of Arthur’s thigh. His thumb dragged along his cock again in the process, and Arthur’s body went taunt, and for the briefest moment Yellow felt something hot and fluttery pass all under their shared skin, adrenaline and pleasure tingling up the length of the arm to—
Yellow was back with Larson. He remained still and silent for a long moment, hoping for some shiver, some aftershock of whatever had been wrested away from him. Then he swore until Larson startled awake.
He would be more careful, the next time he got the chance.
***
“Once again, I don’t have any idea what happened,” John said, his frustration spreading unwelcome heat to the rest of Arthur’s body. “As soon as you fell asleep, I was… somewhere else, again. A rich man’s bedroom, no woman this time. I can’t even see the man’s face to describe him to you.”
“And you didn’t see Scratch?” Arthur pressed anyway as he finished washing his face. He took the opportunity while John was distracted with his annoyance to dip the wet towel between his legs. “Kellin? Nothing at all?”
“No! Christ.” John huffed some more, but as his temper calmed, something colder seemed to fall over him. “It was… disorienting. Like I wasn’t rooted in your body anymore. I was adrift.” He reached across their body to touch Arthur’s shoulder. “I couldn’t feel anything. It… It frightened me.”
“Oh.” Arthur hurried up so he could throw the towel in the sink and devote his full attention to John; he covered John’s hand with his. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it wasn’t until then that he had to admit, John wouldn’t say that lightly. Not to cover up from having been caught with his hand in Arthur’s trunks, probably. “I could have sworn I heard your voice…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if we can do anything about it, but a rich man’s bedroom…”
“Larson?”
“Maybe.” Arthur shook briefly with the thought and spurred himself out of the bathroom at last. “There’s nothing we can do but continue to hunt for him, and find out for ourselves.”
They got dressed, bid good-day to Marie, and set out into the city to carry on with the hunt.