Chapter Text
“Later, I will write about this longing, the intolerable deprivation of the other. I will write about the sadness that eats away at you, making you crazy. It will become the template for my books, in spite of myself. I wonder sometimes if I have ever written of anything else.”
The cold Paris breeze dances across Arthur’s face. He hardly noticed how itchy his skin is before this happened, before he felt something other than his own hands touch him. He takes a deep breath of the night air from his balcony and prays the itch goes away on its own.
He knows it won’t.
He knows this is deeper than an itch.
Still, he tries focusing on the sounds of the cars honking below him, on the stars in the sky, on anything other than the burning inside him. Of course, his thoughts fall to Eames, the man who is hundreds of miles from him. He thinks of Eames’ laugh, low and guttural. He thinks of what it would be like for Eames to touch him again, not even sexually. He just wants to feel Eames’ hand in his or his strong arms holding him close after a nightmare. As another gust of wind knocks into him, Arthur groans in frustration and heads back inside his apartment.
It’s been nearly a month of quarantine now, and there’s no end in sight. Paris used to be Arthur’s favorite city, part of the reason why he and Eames bought this apartment, but he can’t stand the look of it now, having memorized the view from his balcony two weeks ago. It doesn’t help that his favorite person in the world is in Edinburgh, a place that, as cliché as it sounds, used to feel so close but has now never felt so far away.
Arthur spends the next hour waiting for his nightly FaceTime with Eames by wrapping himself up in a blanket just to let himself feel something. Every fiber of the wool presses into his vibrating skin.
It’s not enough.
He’s going to implode.
His muscles tense, nerve endings on fire. Arthur tries to take deep breaths, knowing if he doesn’t get himself under control, Eames will notice. However, with each inhale, the blanket readjusts on his frame, and with each exhale, it sinks further into him, making it impossible for him to calm down.
He’s never experienced this before, this complete need and hunger to be with and be touched by another human. Arthur has always been better on his own, or so he’s convinced himself.
Right now, he’s convinced he’s never felt lonelier.
Instead of admitting to himself that he might just need Eames more than he realizes, he lets his bed threaten to swallow him whole. It isn’t another few minutes before Arthur’s phone starts ringing and Eames’ face fills his screen, bright and beautiful.
Arthur could cry at the sight of him.
He looks well-rested, happy, and for a split second, Arthur wonders if Eames misses him with the same ferocity that Arthur does. It sure doesn’t look like it.
To be fair, in the time between Arthur’s phone ringing and Eames’ face appearing, Arthur threw off the blanket, propped himself up in bed, and plastered on a smile, so maybe they’re both just hiding the loneliness and longing.
“Hi, Arthur,” Eames says, and Arthur could sob from just hearing his voice.
He clears his throat. “Hi.”
“How’s my love doing tonight?” Eames asks.
“Fine,” Arthur says much too quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. How are you? How was your day?”
The slight raise in Eames’ eyebrow does not go unnoticed by Arthur. He knows he won’t get through the conversation tonight without revealing the truth of how he feels. He’s a rubber band pulled tight, ready to snap.
For now, Eames allows the focus of the conversation to be turned on him. “I suppose I’m as good as I can be. It’s much of the same here since the job ended, as you know. I lay in bed, feel sorry for myself, miss you, et cetera, et cetera.”
Arthur hums out a response, visibly distracted by the curve of Eames’ jaw, by the stubble he’s allowed to grow there because he “can’t be arsed” to get rid of it.
As Eames drawls on about the local Edinburgh news, Arthur daydreams of what that beard would feel like against his own bare cheek, the scrape of it along his jaw or his neck as Eames peppers kisses against his skin.
He could moan at the thought of it.
“Am I boring you?” Eames asks, effectively dragging Arthur away from his thoughts.
Arthur’s eyes shoot open, not even realizing they had closed. “No, no. God, I’m sorry, I’m just…”
“Only kidding, darling, relax,” Eames responds with a smile Arthur can tell is forced.
Silence washes over the pair, and Arthur takes a deep breath. He never realized how hard this would be, to look at Eames and be able to hear him, but be helplessly unable to touch him.
“Right,” Eames says with a sigh, a sigh that means their small talk is over, “out with it.”
Arthur begins to fidget with his hands, picking at his cuticles. “Out with what?”
“Something is bothering you; I can tell.”
“I don’t-,”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, then that’s perfectly alright, but all I ask is that you don’t lie to me when I ask how you are next time.”
Arthur looks around the room, tries to find something that will ground him, stop his racing heart, but his eyes fall back on his phone screen, on Eames. Okay, he’s doing this. “No, no, I’ll talk about it. I just need a minute.”
His head is going a million miles a minute, trying to think of how to say “I miss you so much that I could scratch my skin raw” without making it sound… well, like that.
“Take your time,” Eames responds sweetly.
Arthur thinks about how to turn his clustered thoughts into coherent sentences and realizes it’ll take him a lot longer than one minute to do it. But, shit, he’s talking to Eames, the person he loves more than anything in the world. What he says to him doesn’t have to be perfect or business-like. It just has to be the truth.
“I- um,” Arthur starts, clearly having to force the words out, “haven’t really felt this before.”
“What’s ‘this?’”
“You know how I am with physical touch. I’ve never craved it, never wanted it before you. I loathed being touched by anyone, in any way. I enjoy my physical space and I despise when people can’t understand that. But then you, you just-,” Arthur finds himself getting lost in a memory of Eames. “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at explaining this.”
Eames gives him a soft smile. “Doing just fine, love. Take a breath.”
Arthur takes a long breath in and a long breath out before continuing, still feeling a little overwhelmed. “I know you don’t remember the first time you touched me because it was so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but you were grabbing a file from my hand and touched my fingers. I almost caught on fire, Eames, I don’t know how else to put it.”
“You think I don’t remember that?” Eames asks, chuckling. “You looked at me like I was the one on fire.”
Arthur is grateful for this moment of lightness because he knows what’s coming next. The fear of vulnerability sits heavily on his chest. He feels this fear and says what he needs to anyway.
“I think I blacked out after that happened, honestly. I just remember thinking that I wanted you as close to me as possible and as far away from me as possible. It scared me, both the thought that you’d never touch me again and the thought that you would. This, what I’m feeling now, feels like that. Feels like after the first time you touched me, like I’ll never get to feel you again, only ten times worse.”
Arthur watches Eames shift positions in his bed so that he’s closer to the screen. “Hey now, none of that. You will get to. This is not a permanent thing.”
Arthur is flustered and past the point of stopping. Fuck worrying about sounding helpless or desperate; he is both of those things. “Yeah, but you’re not here, no matter how impermanent, and I know it’s neither of our faults, but I need you. I’ve never needed anyone, and it feels like I’m going to die if you don’t touch me soon, if I can’t just feel your hand on my face or your arms around me. I’ve never felt anything like this before, never craved someone like I crave water or food. It’s like I finally opened up to you and let you in and then you were ripped away from me, and maybe I’m being overdramatic but I can’t fucking breathe and everything hurts-,”
“Arthur, Arthur, Arthur,” Eames interrupts. “Stop for a moment, darling, and look at me. You can breathe. You can. Hey, look at me.” Arthur looks, teary-eyed, at Eames, whose face is filled with concern and worry. “There you go. With me, yeah? In and out, like this.”
Arthur shakes his head, still too worked up. “I need you, Eames. I’ve never needed someone so badly before, and I don’t know what to do.”
Eames looks frustrated, like he’s just as helpless as Arthur. “I know, I know. I’m right here. Not in the way you need me, darling, I know, but I’m here. Breathe with me for a bit, alright?”
Arthur watches Eames’ shoulders rise and fall with each deep breath he takes, and Arthur does his best to mimic him, forcing air into his lungs. This is the closest Arthur has come to having a panic attack in a while, and he feels dizzy and exhausted.
But he feels a bit lighter, too, like that weight on his chest has shifted, allowing him to feel some relief. He can breathe.
“Doing so well for me, love,” Eames praises. “Drink some water, and then we’ll talk this through when you’re ready.”
Arthur wordlessly nods and reaches for his water bottle on the end table. He gulps down nearly half of it and wipes the tears from his eyes before coming back to Eames.
“Okay,” he starts quietly. “I’m okay.”
“It’s killing me that I can’t be there with you right now.”
Arthur huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, well, clearly it’s killing me, too.”
He doesn’t mean for it to sound so morbid, but given the events of the last few minutes, of the last week even, it isn’t far from the truth.
“Arthur, how long has it been like this?” Eames asks, and Arthur can tell he fears the answer.
Arthur shrugs. “I don’t know.” He’s scared of giving him an answer.
Eames sighs. “Sweetheart, please. Don’t shut me out again.”
“I- a week, maybe,” Arthur admits. “I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help. You’re the only one who can help.”
“But not unless I’m there with you,” Eames says sadly. “This fucking virus.”
“Yeah.” Arthur pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing the oncoming tears away.
He doesn’t want to cry anymore, doesn’t want the pounding in his head to get worse. Then he’ll truly have no chance of getting any sleep tonight, not that he’s going to get much anyway.
“Listen to me,” Eames says. “You’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this, and we’ll never be apart this long ever again, I promise you. I’m not letting you go once I get my hands on you.”
Eames’ words soothe the ache in Arthur’s heart and quell the hunger of his skin. Though there’s no end to this quarantine in sight, the end still exists somewhere just beyond. Knowing that end involves Eames’ warm body wrapped around his, Arthur smiles.
“I don’t think I’ll want you to.”
“Good. And I’m going to do everything I can until then to help you feel better.”
“There’s nothing you can do besides getting on a plane and coming home.”
“Ah, underestimating my creativity, are we? I’m offended, I truly am.”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. Now, let’s see what we can do about getting you a good night’s rest, hmm? And then we’ll see what you say about my creativity,” Eames says with a wink.
Five days later, a box shows up at Arthur’s with three of Eames’ shirts and a giant blanket that smells just like him.
He gets through the next few weeks.