@lifeforms left a message: i'm glad you're alive. if that's what you want, i mean.
he shouldn't laugh. it's not funny, strictly speaking, although it is in every way that's unexplainable to another human being. if he had the sight for it, he might look down at his gloved hands. the gloves only hide some of the more obviously questionable scars. a missing fingertip, strange bites from something more like a centipede, all of the wounds that he knows more by touch and then brief sight, many months ago now.
if that's what you want. what a qualifier to add on.
for a long while, arthur didn't particularly want that. didn't want much of anything. what he decided he wanted, in the way one decides these things, was quiet and the bottom of a bottle and for no one to look at him, to know him, beyond a glimpse at jack's in the evenings. hard to save a man who's willingly drowning.
so to speak.
arthur doesn't laugh. he exhales a little, smiles almost, lets his fingers fold together in his lap.
she seems very…. genuine about it. john's voice is even. i think she's looking for eye contact. we're giving it, mostly.
mostly, yes.
"what," arthur says after a moment of genuine consideration, "do you think i don't want that?" a pause. "don't… answer that. i know most who enter the dungeon dimensions for any reason must emerge as gibbering fools." those who seek the kindness of death faster than most do. it might be easier that way. arthur is certainly not gibbering, though he may often count as a fool. "i can promise you i'm only mad north-northwest at most, and maybe only for a few days a month."
it's been worse. that's what he means.
gently, he presses his right thumb to the inside of his left wrist, to feel the pulse that he and john share. still steady.
arthur adds, almost wryly, "i mean, if my feelings on it change, i'll be sure to let you know."