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A rumpled heap of white cloth enveloped the man Charles knew was Sebastian. He could see him breathing shallowly underneath its creases, and hear it too, quick breaths that seemed to draw in air like a whistle. His entire body was covered, but Charles could imagine what lay underneath the cloth - a gaunt, almost skeletal frame, ever pale skin scarred by mosquito bites and stretched over each rib and thigh bone tautly like the top of a drum. He had always been very slender, but in those Arcadian days his slightness made him ethereal, his delicacy endearing. Now the sharpness of every joint and jutting bone made him the antithesis of otherworldly, too real, a man wasting away to nothingness in the stark light of day.
“Charles.” The word was spoken matter-of-factly, in a voice deeper and rougher than the one he had hear speak his name so often before. Hearing it said had a calming influence on Charles.
“Sebastian.”
Sebastian's cheekbones jutted further outwards as his lips moved into an approximation of a smile. His lips, although chapped, were still the same as the ones he used to kiss when everything else about him seemed so different. But everything was so different. He would never kiss him again. Charles’ mouth grew dry.
“You cared enough to come all this way, still cared.”
“We loved each other, Sebastian,” Charles fired back, flinching at the past tense. It was too late to change it now.
Sebastian took keen notice of it, of course. “I suppose I'm not charming or beautiful anymore, so I suppose you don't love me anymore either. But it's okay, Charles. Love like yours is love from a world where there is nothing left for me.”
“I do still love you, Sebastian. I always will.”
“You and I both know you don't believe in an always, Charles,” he replied softly, gaze moving downwards.
Sebastian had never liked being touched, but Charles was different. He'd allowed him to touch him every way and everywhere possible for one to be touched. As they lay there in the heat and the dust Charles wondered if he should reach out and place a hand on that thin arm or thigh, a reassuring weight, a nod to old times.
But just as he was about to stretch out his arm he realised there was nothing left of Sebastian to touch.