When Serph shakes his head it rustles across John's own pillow. When Serph closes his eyes, John can look into his unguarded face. The darkness renders him only in curves of shadow and the impression of pale hair.

Lying together like this stirs some inherited feeling in him, some instinct he must have drawn from Arthur. In their time together, Arthur never got this close to anyone but John, who took up no space beyond the boundaries of their shared skin. John isn't certain what this ought to feel like: he never had an opportunity to ask. He can't quite puzzle out the line between comfort and the quiet of a stayed execution, the stillness in the center of a storm.

But Serph does not reopen his eyes, and his voice is quiet as Arthur's has ever been. John thinks of the prison pits. He thinks of looking down at Arthur's skinny ribs, his many scars, and wishing he could share the ache of each.

"It is better to live." He can feel all their aches now, somewhere beneath Serph's feathers. "Even if that life is one of suffering. I would rather feel everything than watch from afar... distant and alone."