#insanely difficult but im going to put my head down and do it ���🫶

[ef-1]

I applied to a prestigious law program/scholarship and I need your positive energy, prayers, vibes, manifestation all of it

[lighthouseshepard]

i told myself i wasnt going to put this up anywhere but im continuously a sucker for domestic jarthur and. this is based off some of @izel-scribbles wonderful art!! honestly you should go check out everything theyve done overall! insanely talented and inspiring🫶

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

John's eyes remain focused on what lay in his lap: two warm palms clasped together fresh and alive. Out of everything else the sight of those ten fingers, long and far more capable than he could have anticipated, continued to trip him up the most. He'd developed the nervous habit quickly enough, intertwining those newly formed hands, fidgeting with the tips of his own fingers, but he couldn't say for sure where the gesture came from. Arthur's own aimless restlessness, possibly. It was difficult to tell. Holding your own hand felt much different than grasping the other of the body you once shared.

A lull of contemplative silence answers him. John clears his throat and tries anew, studying the backs of his knuckles.

"Arthur? You don't mind?"

Above him, a soft hum stirs the back of his head. The impression of touch ripples outward, a stone skipped across a lake he couldn't hope to see the other side of. Most sensations possessed a strange poignancy this way, he'd come to notice. They started off small and blossomed beneath his skin, infinitesimal points of light interconnecting in an unpredictable dance: the brush of an arm, the press of someone's lips, a wayward elbow. He still had yet to decide if it was all too overwhelming, or if he wanted to drown in it once the ripples ceased their stretching stir.

"Hmm?" Arthur answers. "Mind what, John?"

"This," he says, huffing. "What you're doing, you don't... it isn't too much trouble?"

Another hum. John knew enough by now to tell Arthur's mind was somewhere off in the near distance, wandering through thoughts he couldn't be privy to. For the moment, he was content to let him be. The feeling of trying to perceive every individual strand of his own hair was taking up enough of his focus already. 

"Trouble? No, it's no trouble at all. I volunteered, remember?"

"Yes, but," John presses, shifting. His legs were growing stiff against the firm surface of the kitchen chair. In the afternoon light all which surrounded them simmered in a gauzy haze of late summer heat, translucent and golden. His own skin glowed with it, deep brown and unmarked in the way Arthur's flesh was decidedly not. "It feels like you're..."

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "What, John?"

"Struggling."

"I'm not- Jesus Christ," he says dryly. "I'm not struggling! It's just been a while since I've had to comb someone else's hair, alright? You and I both know I hardly managed my own well enough in the past few months."

John attempts to glance over his shoulder at the man standing behind him. He barely catches a glimpse of the familiar made strange now that he could view it from the opposite side - tousled auburn hair resplendent in the light, a brown eye filtered through with fragments of faint gold - before a gentle hand guides him with a tap to turn back around. 

"Moving won't make this any easier, you know."

Frowning, he dips his chin with a pout. "Sorry."

Those hands return, after some hesitation, to his hair. Fingers narrow and slender weave through locks like shadowed silk, once again trying to pull it all into a tie. A slow shiver travels down his spine at the whispered scrape of nails along his scalp, all at once another sensation to simultaneously wrangle with and be devoured by. Much of humanity's new nuances he would willingly let swallow him whole, he thinks absently, if it could grant him another second distended in time of Arthur lovingly slipping a strand of his hair over his palm.

Hair was a tricky thing, it turned out. Like clothing, like walking, like maneuvering through a world made miraculously tangible, he found the intricacies of it difficult to navigate. He'd only asked for help after snapping the second comb they'd bought in two, and even then no small amount of odd guilt hung low over his shoulders at the request.

"Okay," Arthur says after a minute. "You know what? I've made a decision."

"Oh?" His gaze flicks across the room to the window, lost as he so often was when they were in the kitchen, in the depth of the plum throated blooms filling the magnolia tree just outside. 

"Yes. I've decided I'm utterly hopeless at this."

The earnestness of his announcement catches John so off guard he can't do anything but laugh. His amusement rolls, a joyous and soft thunder rumbling through the air. Arthur's helpless chuckle accompanies him, sonorous and sweet. 

"It's not," he tries, biting his tongue, "it's not funny-"

"It's objectively funny," John drawls. His anxiety dissipates in a forceful sigh. "Perhaps you could... we could always cut it, I suppose, if that would make it easier."

"Absolutely not. I'll braid it, if anything. Yeah? I used to braid hers all the time, I'm sure I could do that, at least... That sound agreeable to you, darling?"

John turns in the chair to look behind him once again. This time, Arthur lets him. A sheepish smile curves his lips as he comes into view, the tie he'd been attempting to use held loosely. No irritation at having to deal with something John thought he rightfully should have been able to handle himself lingered in the lines of his face. Instead he saw only an unfathomable willingness, a love he wasn't certain he'd fully yet earned, the origins of which he'd likely spend the rest of his human life trying to uncover. 

"Yes," he says, faltering as his and Arthur's eyes meet. "That's-"

"John?" A single finger taps beneath his chin, coaxing his head up. "What is it?"

As abruptly as he shifted around, he focuses back towards the window. Arthur gingerly takes a handful of his hair once more, separating it into three sections. 

"John?"

"It's nothing," he mutters. "Forget it."

"Are you sure?" Arthur insists. "Do you not want your hair out of your face after all, or-"

"No, I do. It's... just never mind, Arthur."

"Alright." He gives a small shrug. 

John's eyes flutter briefly closed at the warmth of Arthur's lips brushed along the side of his jaw. These always hurt the most, the simple touches of his mouth. Against new skin they threatened to break him under the unfathomable lightness of some divine ache. He took every kiss, thoughtless or desperate, claiming or hungry, with renewed gratitude and a promise to himself he'd try to deserve it. 

"Just don't expect a bow at the end," Arthur mumbles teasingly. "And for the record, John," he adds in a softer tone, "I'd do this whenever you asked me to."

"Arthur-"

"Although, I think some blue silk would work here to hold this together."

John crosses his arms. "Absolutely not."

"I have that new necktie. If I use the bottom part of it-"

"Don't you dare. Arthur?" He glances to where Arthur had darted down the hall, his laughter bright. "Where are you going? Arthur? Arthur!"