Romeo's Sins

This asshole

Anyway. Original ink drawing under the cut

what i mean to say is arthur tends to keep his cards close to his chest. like, he waits to tell john that he's hearing a second voice in the madness. he lets larson go off on this whole spiel about unfathomable gods of whispered insanity like he doesn't have a pet insanity god currently bitching in the back of his head. he lets noel operate for as long as possible under the assumption that he knows basically nothing about the dreamlands or the king, holds off on telling oscar about the degree of experience he has with the supernatural until it comes up directly, in general he keeps everyone in nyc operating at the bare minimum level of information that they need to do what he wants them to. and of course there are all of the ghosts in his past that he usually tries to keep locked down as tightly as possible, for as long as possible. he volunteers information like it's a sacrifice he's making, a deliberate choice to Let Someone In On It.

and obviously a lot of these choices have individual motive behind them. he doesn't disclose his supernatural experiences to just anyone bc he would probably get locked up in an asylum somewhere which would just be a huge pain. his choice to delay telling john about "roland" was an information gathering strategy, he wanted to play the passive game and hopefully figure out on his own which one of them (if either) he could trust. he keeps noel on minimal personal exposition bc he does not want them to go anywhere near the direction of noel figuring out where john really came from. he doesn't want to tell larson anything because fuck larson. but i do think that all of these things together do indicate a larger pattern. i mean, parker and daniel (who have known arthur for much longer and in much different circumstances) both note that he tends to keep people at arm's length.

and it's probably at least partially an investigative habit, in the present. it's the same idea as their initial interrogation of oscar—people are more likely to reveal things if they don't know what you know, etc. you control the flow of information, let them form a convenient image of you, and then you have stuff up your sleeve for later as a bonus.