Arthur Fleck Archive, 2019

Two Makes One

Summary: Arthur senses that something is amiss with his lover. As he rushes to the apartment, he tries to conjure up everything he learned from loving you to bring you back to your feet.Warnings: Suicidal reader and heavy emotions. There is a lot of fluff and comfort though, and the fic doesn't go into the reader's dark thoughts as much as it goes into how Arthur tries to comfort reader.A/N: A simple self indulgent piece that I was inspired to write after receiving a couple asks about how Arthur would respond to a reader who is going through this. I hope whoever does stays safe, and I'm here if anyone ever needs to talk.Something was very wrong.Arthur's breath was ebbing away at his dry throat, an unwelcome roar of laughter threatening to tear through him. The dry air was making it impossible to breathe with ease as Arthur's pace sped up gradually, feeling his heart quicken in the thin and easily breakable rib cage it lived in, as fragile as the body that held it. Right now it felt as if it would burst with unbearable worry, uncompromising to any peace as Arthur's thin legs carried him from the bus stop to up the stairs, the endless stacking of them seeming even more agonizingly long than usual. He tripped over himself a couple of times, but never dared stopped, and only kept stumbling forward until he reached your apartment door, the elevator ride seeming a thousand years long.Arthur hurtled the door open, breath panting and heaving as his eyes frantically scanned the apartment. His heart was in his throat as his frantic eyes finally placed themselves on your figure, which was trembling and shaking by the apartment window. "Oh, no," Arthur just barley managed to choke out in his gruff voice, scratchy sounding from coming out of his painfully dry throat from the cold air hitting it, as well as the laughing attack he had suffered coming over to the apartment. He felt so delirious with dead hot concern and so utterly helpless as he rushed over to you. He had knowing something was horribly wrong the second he had stepped outside the HaHa's door to go home. Something had prickled inside of him with worry, something had poked and prodded him with a sharp finger of doubt that had let him know his soulmate was in trouble. You two had been together for years, and a strange connection had formed between the two of you throughout them, as if you two shared the same soul, making you feel one's pain even without being physically near them. When one of you experienced a deep joy, the other felt a sense that there was joy before the other was even told. And when one of you felt pain, there was a sensation of a hot tear streaking into one of the other's essence. It was indescribable feeling, many times overwhelming, but regardless about how either of you felt about it, it was undeniable how you two were utterly and completely connected beyond what worldly standards could understand. You were trembling and shaking, tears streaming your face, your makeup from the day streaming down your face in black rivers down your red face as you shook your head, biting your lip and looking at the ground, too ashamed to look Arthur in the eyes. Arthur sprung your body around from facing the open window and pulled you towards him. The chill was bursting through the window like a cursed skeleton's hand, as if mocking you both. He quickly slammed it shut, locking it, as if confirming that you were safe now. He took your trembling face and grabbed it in his hands, his steady and sure hands a stark contrast to your trembling form. Although Arthur had originally been the one who needed help and care far more than you, the roles had slightly shifted as your relationship had deepened. Where you failed, Arthur rose to the challenge, and where he lacked knowledge or comfort, you made up for in your love and experience. Arthur has been the more broken of the two of you when you had first met, but as the years went on your love had helped meld the cracks in his soul and had started to heal him beyond healing, even helping him see where he had virtues where others didn't. He knew his worth now. He would be eternally grateful for you for that, and he was always determined to repay you in any way he could, though he knew he didn't really have to, because what you gave to each other you also gave to yourselves, so intertwined was your souls."Hey, hey," Arthur muttered comfortingly in the softest of his voices, and brought in your trembling and crying body into his warm arms, his mustard hoodie warm and soft. He took it off and placed it around you, and the chestnut sweater he was wearing underneath it was even softer. But what what truly comforted you as he brought you into him was his soul, his soft and childish spirt that was so damaged yet carefree, somehow so admirably tough and relentlessly patient at the same time. "You were going to jump, weren't you?" Arthur whispered into your hair in the smallest of his voices. To speak it out loud made him shudder, but he knew he needed to be strong. For you. He had been strong for his unstable mother, a task that had been grueling and many times forced, with only a few tender moments sprinkled here and there, most of which where unrequited. But now he needed to be strong for you, and never had a task made him so happy, feel so special or so needed and wanted. Unlike his bumpy and venomously unpredictable relationship with his mom, he adored comforting you and taking care of you, and somehow, through loving someone like you, someone that he adored, it made him love himself a little more.He knew you hadn't been well lately, and it broke his heart beyond what he could handle. He was amazed his heart wasn't failing him now, despite his calm structure. It was only his love for you that kept him going. Your weak heart made him strong, his determination to take care of your even greater than his own torment."I-I'm just so-" you could barley speak through your sobs, but you felt like you sounded so pathetic and whiney. You wanted to open up to Arthur, but your thoughts were so negative tonight that you were convinced that he would leave you if you truly opened up tonight. "It's ok, darling," Arthur reassured you in an almost breaking voice as his own worn hands started to stroke your back. If he could somehow transfer the damage coming from your soul and into his instead, he would have.You looked up at him with your tear filled eyes, and for once he thought he saw more pain in them than he had inside of him.Oh, how he loved you. You were the person on his life who truly understood him. Not only did you understand, but you were a certain oneness with him in a sort of funny manner. You understood every crevice of the darkness of his soul, ever morbid thought he had experienced himself. Such was your love that you could understand beyond what was comprehensible everything the other experienced. You weren't just his best friend, you were another soul that was so deeply intertwined into his in your experiences with physiological torment that you had a certain oneness with each other, coming unto one another with an understanding essence that couldn't be broke apart."I don't know what to do anymore," you finally managed to choke out a coherent sentence through your tears. "I love you so much, Arthur, and I would never want to leave you." You felt your throat close up, and you let out a sob that made a grotesque gurgling noise. Arthur only kissed your hair and continued to stroke you back, willing you to go on. His lack of judgement at the mess that you were made you a little more confident. "But sometimes I just feel like there's this other darkness that's deeper than anything I feel in my life." You sobbed, and rasped out the hardest truth; "Sometimes, I get scared that not even my love for you can survive it." Arthur felt his hands turn clammy, but despite his own melancholic state at your words, he knew exactly what you meant. That darkness that consumed everything good in your mind, that made you want to give up on everything. "I know, baby," Arthur whispered into your ear softly, and you felt yourself cry even harder as the specific octaves of his voice that you loved so deeply echoed into your ear. Arthur has grown more confident in reassuring you over the years. Deep inside of his damaged soul was a man who had born to love, and love you he certainly did, echoing it into your cracks whenever he got the chance. "But I know my love for you is strong enough to handle whatever this....poison is, and if I feel that way," he brushed his lips against your forehead, completely convinced of his words as he spoke them, "I know you can too."You should your head, tears still falling, and in your muddled state you were convinced you would drown the both of you in them, both metaphorically and literally."But Arthur, how do you know-"You cut off as Arthur took a finger and lifted your tear stained eyes to his, daring you to look into his oceans which drowned you with passion every time. As you spoke you felt your torment melt away, not entirely, but enough to make you choke in your throat at how beautifully you were reminded that he somehow managed to bring you back to yourself every time, no matter how deep the depths of your darkness became. You were instantly swept up into your irresistibly deep love for him, knowing somehow behind a shadow of a doubt now that you were fully taking him in that he was enough to be worth hanging on for, hanging on for god knows what you didn't know. But at least you were believing."I know you, sweetheart, and you know me. That's how I know," he spoke every so softly, as his just his warm breath would topple you if he spoke them in the wrong way. Arthur recognized that familiar struck look in your gaze, watching the torment slowly melt in your eyes. He felt his own soul turn to butter as he felt deep in his bones his adoration for you, stronger than anything he had ever felt, even deeper than the most traumatized parts of his brain."Gotham can burn, for all I care," Arthur whispered as he took your shaken face into his hands, and you leaned the entire weight of your face into his embrace, kissing the gentle crevice of his hand with your tear soaked lips. "But not my baby." His force was becoming slighter stronger as he affirmed our loud his love for you, making you both feel more empowered at the same time. He then leaned forward and pressed his lips to your nose, then brushed his lips up the bridge of it, then up to your temple, then down to your eyebrows, nipping on the gentle hairs that rested there softly, as delicate as your soul. Then he trailed down to your eyelids, and his lips kissed the fragile and shivering skin there. He then moved his lips further down to your soaked cheeks, frowning in his tender love at how they were the result of his love's torment. "Never my baby," he sighed one last time. You sniffed, and used the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe your tears. "I feel a little better now," you murmered, then laughed, not believing how bluntly simple it all seemed now. Arthur lived for you, and you lived for Arthur. And for now, that was enough. You felt Arthur's lips smirk lovingly against you skin. "I guess two tormented souls equals one happy one, huh?" He chuckled as you dared to press your lips against his once more, your confidence of his love for you returning. "I guess so, Arthur," you sighed softly, feeling a sort of peace enter your soul for the first time in weeks. "I guess so."