Verbena- pray for me, zeke & arthur
Verbena- pray for me
Arthur’s stomach turned in and in and in, tying itself into a Gordian Knot as he watched the frantic energy bleed off his best friend. His Zeke. Moxie - good ol’ Captain Moxie - sensed it, sensed it through the slight tremble of his hand in her fur, the way his breaths shook in and out of him - he wasn’t gasping for air but he felt starved of it anyhow - and pressed into his leg. Trying to ground him, root him back in the here and now as he watched Zeke almost throw magazine after magazine of special rounds into a bag, each one landing with a dull, metallic thud that made him flinch each time.
This happened every time Cassie and Zeke went out monster hunting. They always invited him, but he was always too scared. Terrified that it might get past them, might tear them up like the other one had him - or worse - and it would come for him.
Moxie whined, shifting and turning to lick at his cool, clammy, trembling hand. Zeke stopped then, recognizing her whine as a warning, and fixed Arthur with a careful stare.
“I’m comin’ back, y’know,” he said, voice sharp, verging on too sharp.
“I know.” Too quick. Too shaky. Too quiet.
A beat. A beat that stretched out into a long silence as Arthur tried to decode the emotion written in the deep crease between Zeke’s brows, the pressed-thin set of his lips, the depths of his eyes. He could never fully read the other man, - had never been able to - could only separate his expressions into safe and not safe. This? Somewhere in between.
“Not gonna let that fuckin’ sombitch kill me,” Zeke added. That was anger, coloring the curses he uttered.
“Come home,” Arthur breathed, between one heartbeat and the next, before Zeke could move away. I can’t lose you remained unspoken - he couldn’t find the air nor the courage to say it.
Moxie pressed harder into his legs, enough to nearly buckle his knees, distracting him just long enough that he missed Zeke zipping up the bag and slinging it over his shoulder. Arthur opened his mouth, trying to find something to say, but nothing came out.
At least, not until after Zeke had left and the door closed behind him.
“I’ll pray for you.”

















