Content: Arthur/TMWTPF, Allusions to domestic violence

"Are we boyfriends?" The man with the painted face has his mouth on Arthur's stomach, tonguing sweetly at his skin. It's carnivorous, cannibalistic, feral, how he tries to consume the emptiness inside him.

"I dunno," Arthur breathes. He thinks about his mother's magazines. What boyfriends are supposed to do. Dates, flowers, kissing... sex. He thinks about his mother's boyfriends. What boyfriends are like when they're not still and smiling in gaudy photographs. "I don't think I like that word. I think we're something else."

"Are we lovers?" His hand replaces his tongue, nails digging in just enough to make Arthur desperate to feel him claw into his body. Arthur's head falls back. The word and its hissing cadance makes him shiver.

"I..." Arthur swallows and digs his thoughts out of the sand inside his head. "Sometimes it feels like we're the same person. And I don't love myself."

The man with the painted face crawls up his body, illuminating him in scarlet brighter than the setting sun. "But you love me?"

Arthur touches the white of his cheek, traces the knife-sharp edge of his painted smile. "Yes."