Arthur hasn't the slightest clue what day it is, and that's… a problem.
Romantic, Francis had said, it'll be romantic — to stay cooped up in the same house for days on end, away from the windows, the doors, the outside. Something about forcing themselves to spend time together. Keeping away from the rest of the world to learn more of each other.
Arthur thinks it's absolutely idiotic, as that's what they do in the fucking first place anyway: Francis nagging and nagging for dates, company, sex until Arthur relents.
It's his own fault for not minding his own calendar, though, isn't it? Francis had said 'a few days' and Arthur had erred to a minimal estimate: two, three. Francis, bloody fucking Francis, had another idea entirely.
They've been here for a week, subsisting off an unholy amount of pre-bought food and Francis keeps — pawing at him, insatiably.
So… So Arthur's managed to argue for some time apart, now and then, although not outside because like hell if he's going to seem weak, chickening out of one of Francis's ridiculous ideas of romance. He's in a bedroom, alone, the door shut. Reading. Milton.
"You've been keeping secrets," a familiar voice — well, hell, the only voice it could possibly be — from behind the door. Arthur quirks an eyebrow though he's well aware Francis can't see.
He flips over a page. "Have I?"
Francis… titters, or something like it, over there, rattles at the doorknob. "Fur. And teeth, and claws. Let me in?"
Eyes wide, Arthur's hand is shaking far too much to hold onto his book, much less the teacup he was about to hope to lift. He sets them both down. If Francis knows this about him, why is Francis still here?
Arthur hurries off the bed to the windows. They're… boarded, blocked up with wood.
The doorknob rattles again and Francis croons, "you thought I wouldn't find out! Arthur, really, does being confined to one's boyfriend's home for a week sound romantic?"
"Fuck you! Fuck off!" Arthur pulled at the curtains as if they'd tear away the rest of the blockade. He needed to see — he needed to get out —
Francis is still talking. "I was… disappointed." His voice is terrifyingly, impossibly normal. "You can tell me anything, you know. Arthur. I, I love you, I do." As if he's discovered that Arthur takes a fancy to wearing women's lingerie rather than discovering he's the sort of fairytale creature parents warn their children of at night.
"Get the fuck out of the house!" Francis is still at the doorknob. Arthur tries to wedge himself under the bed, so he can't go anywhere, so he can't — but the change is coming anyway, the moonlight not touching him but present, somehow, anyway, riding in on the air. "Francis, you idiot, g—"
His words stop, overtaken by something like a growl.
Just, of course, as Francis works out how to shimmy the bedroom door open, though it had been locked —
— Francis's eyes go wide —
