#unclejackworthing

It was Arthur's fault for getting too comfortable. Jack was in the kitchen trying to figure something out while Arthur waited in the living room. Jack was only a room away. He got too comfortable.

When the knock on the door came, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He was in no state to entertain company. He was wearing someone else's pajamas and covered in bruises after his last encounter. But when he he hesitated too long, he heard a voice through the door:

"You'll want to cooperate, of course. It's a matter of your health." Arthur looked through the window and made direct eye contact with a doctor. Another one was behind him, difficult to mistake when they were dressed almost identically in the same odd fashion sense common among Wellington Wells' medical community.

Arthur's heart sunk, but he put on the best smile he could and opened the door. He tried to keep his body mostly behind it. "Gentlemen! Lovely day for it! Now what's all this about a medical emergency?"

"Yes, well, you'll forgive the intrusion, but my colleague and I happened to be wandering along when caught your scent through the window. It's ajar."

Arthur looked at it again. Indeed it was. Why did every little thing have to go wrong? The doctor pushed past Arthur into the living room, then turned to face him, so Arthur had a doctor on both sides.

"And, when we'd sniffed you out, then we couldn't help but notice that peculiar pungency telltale of one off their Joy." The doctor smiled, his creepy little mustache curving up at the edges. "So of course we both agreed it was our medical duty to come remedy the situation."

"Oh, dear!" It wasn't difficult to look horrified. It was harder to to look like he had nothing to hide. "Silly me! Has it been that long since I've popped a Joy? I'll take one straight away. I'm so thankful to you for warning me, Doctor." Arthur kept turning between the doctors, unsure which one to face. "And, uh, Doctor. Jolly decent of you."

"Yes, we'll administer a dose presently." The doctor leaned close, peering at Arthur with one fish eye. The one behind Arthur--he was getting them mixed up now--took a noisy sniff of Arthur's neck. "Are you certain you don't need more extreme medical intervention, sir? You do seem to be rather beat up."

"Oh, not at all! That's why I'm at home in my pajamas, you see. Silly me, I tripped down the stairs and the doctor put me on strict bed rest until I've healed up."

If only smiling hard enough would make them believe him. His cheeks were starting to hurt. "I've been going crazy here at home instead of at work. I'm sure the Joy will help with that." Arthur tried to step out from between the duo. "I'll just step away and go take care of that right now. I shouldn't waste another minute."

The doctor behind Arthur grabbed his upper arm and wrenched him back in place. "You'll forgive us for wanting to take you back to the office just to be sure. It is a matter of your health, after all. You can't be too careful."

"Oh, pish-posh!" said Arthur desperately. "I'm as healthy as a horse. Just some light bruising."

"I think that's for a qualified medical professional to to decide, don't you think?" The doctor in front of Arthur produced a rather large syringe as the one behind him held Arthur's arms. "But first there is the matter of your Joy. I think you'll be much more agreeable once the proper dosage is applied.

The doctor came in close and tilted Arthur's head up to expose his neck. He ran a finger along the vein he chose and then stabbed the needle into Arthur's skin, fully compressing the plunger and emptying the pink liquid into Arthur's bloodstream.

Arthur had gotten a little too far away from Jack. He knew he was going to get told off for it when Jack inevitably caught up—but was it his fault he was faster than a man twenty years his senior? (Arthur was still grappling with that little facet of this whole thing.) Of course there was a part of him that was testing boundaries to see if he could get away with it. He might have been deliberately mixing in with the crowd in the hopes that Jack would lose sight of him. Jack could never prove it was intentional.

He was so focused on Jack that he didn't realize the alley he slipped into wasn't empty until it was too late. There was a gaggle of Plough Boys already occupying the area and they took notice of Arthur's entry.

“Well, if it isn't Arthur Hastings,” said one of them. Arthur recognized him vaguely from school, one of the older boys who was always picking on him and Sally. “I heard you got a fancy job in the Parade. What are you doing slumming it with the rest of us here?”

Arthur had done much more slumming it than in Hamlyn Village. He'd spent more than enough time in the Garden District lately, but he kept that to himself. “Lovely to see you,” he said nervously, backing up into the alley wall as the three Plough Boys spread out to corner Arthur. “But I really should be going…”

“Nah,” said the ringleader, pulling out a lead pipe. “The way I see it, if you're working in the Parade, you must be loaded, right?”

“I don't—work in the Parade anymore, as such,” started Arthur, but he wasn't given a chance to explain.

With a cry of “get ‘im, boys,” the three men fell upon Arthur and started to whale on him with their weapons. Arthur was on the ground almost instantly. He curled up into a ball as the blows rained down on him, arms over his head to protect it. Their laughter rung in his ears.

Something with a sharp edge caught Arthur's side and a pained noise escaped him as blood began to gush from the wound. Arthur tried to stem it with his hands, but the ringleader smacked his arm away with the pipe and flipped Arthur onto his back to look at him. He stepped on his stomach, making it difficult for Arthur to breathe. “You always were an easy target,” laughed the Plough Boy. Arthur looked over his shoulder to make eye contact with Jack.

Fuck.

When Arthur lost his job at the "O" Courant, he was hired on as a writer at the Wellington Wells Broadcast Corporation. Over the years, he ended up doing many things other than writing, but technically, his job was to come up with the fun, light topics Uncle Jack talked about. This segment was on the uses of a common flower in Wellington Wells, the Rose of Gilead.

Arthur was alone in the writers' room when he started working on it. He was often alone in the writers' room. Getting work done wasn't a strong suit for the people of Wellington Wells. It was one of the most quiet places in the studio and he often popped in there to get some ideas for upcoming shows written down.

That was the case with this Rose of Gilead show. Arthur usually had to do more research for these sort of segments, Arthur found that the words came easily. Soon he had written down a recipe for a medicinal balm that soothed minor wounds without even thinking.

Funny that he still remembered it. He'd never been much interested in flowers, but Percy had told him so many times he could never forget it. He would repeat it over and over again, any time he was thinking about it, and Arthur could hear every word of the instructions he'd written down in Percy's voice, clear as day. And with it came the memory of that same voice screaming out Arthur's name, over and over again, and Arthur became urgently aware that he needed to take his Joy.

But he didn't.

He still hadn't taken his Joy when one of his coworkers rushed in, demanding to know where he'd been. Arthur started some excuse about having his nose to the grindstone, and she interrupted him to say it didn't matter, didn't he know that filming was going to start any minute now? Uncle Jack would be furious if no one was operating the teleprompter, she said, and Arthur knew very well that that was his job, because Jack snapped when people took too long, and he wasn't going to put his colleagues like her through that, was he? Of course not.

She was so focused on her own ranting that she didn't seem to notice Arthur's haggard appearance. It was a good thing that no one would be looking at Arthur behind the teleprompter. When Jack was around, all eyes were on him. It was a small blessing. The last thing he wanted was to get chased out of the Broadcast Tower for being a Downer.

Was he a Downer now? Well, here he was, deliberately not taking his Joy. There weren't any other words for it.

Arthur managed to get behind the teleprompter controls just as Jack was coming out of his dressing room. Arthur was breathing a little too hard, partially from rushing but mostly from anxiety. He wasn't making any noise, but if someone looked at him, he didn't know what they'd see. For once it paid off that no one ever gave him a second glance.

Arthur operated the teleprompter so automatically he didn't even comprehend what the topic was until Jack was already reading it. Jack was wearing his Humor Hour costume. Arthur had time to think that the giant bowtie was really too ridiculous when you weren't on Joy when his eyes scanned ahead on the teleprompter and he realized the segment was a fan-favorite recurring topic. Downer jokes.

What's the difference between a Downer and an onion? read the first one. No one cries when you chop up a Downer.

Arthur was fairly certain all the color drained from his face. These jokes were about him, now. It made him seriously question whether it was the right decision to stop taking his Joy. The smart thing would be to go back on it and pop a Joy the instant he could leave the teleprompter.

Arthur blushed, and then he blushed even harder because Jack had gotten a reaction out of him. Though he had only known Jack a short time, Arthur had become sure that's why he did this kind of thing. It gave him some kind of sick thrill to make Arthur react.

Jack put his arm around Arthur as he said it, leaning in close, face tilted up to reveal a familiarly benign, innocent smile. He was wearing the mask. He was always wearing the mask. Arthur hated the things and took his off every chance he got. Didn't Jack get tired of smiling?

Well, he was fake, that's what he was. Arthur was fake too, so he had no room to talk, but Arthur only did it because he was afraid for his life if he didn't fit in. Jack seemed to do it purely for the love of the game. Arthur didn't trust a word he said, and he wasn't going to let him play with him like this. Jack wasn't a cat and Arthur wasn't a bit of feather on a string.

If Jack was going to pretend he wanted a kiss, then he was damn well going to get what he asked for. Arthur narrowed his eyes and boldly went in. He lost his nerve just as their lips touched and much less boldly started to turn his face away. He lips ended up on the corner of Jack's mouth. Arthur committed to it, planting as firm a kiss as he could manage before quickly pulling away.