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They met at one of Arthur’s shows. Francis had heard about him in passing more than once, from critics and fellow artists alike. Unbelievably accurate photorealism. You’d think they were actual photographs. I’ve never seen someone with such control over graphite and charcoal. The bizarre thing—he was an artist, there was always going to be a bizarre thing—was that he’d only done three shows in the last seven years. And yet he was well-known and well-admired enough that every piece had sold. It’s strategy, people theorized. Supply and demand. Artificial scarcity. Everyone will put a bid in if you say something’s a limited time offer. And this is the art world, for God’s sake. We’re all greedy bastards!
But not Arthur. He could’ve sold double, maybe triple his current output. And he’d said in interviews—not that Francis had specifically sought them out or anything—that he’d never lacked inspiration. So whatever drove Arthur Kirkland was not greed.
Perhaps, then, it was morbid curiosity—combined with the delicate handsomeness of the artist himself—that had Francis pouncing on his opportunity to attend Arthur’s fourth show.
It was at a public gallery Francis was familiar with; he’d been featured here before, though only in one of the back rooms, a little nook of color among the typical drab landscape fare people ate up for reasons known but to God. Another cause of Arthur’s success: some of his drawings had a nostalgic feel to them. Who wouldn’t want this soft graphite rendering of a sleepy snow-capped mountain? Francis leaned closer, peering at the tiny, perfect lines of each needle in the conifers. How long did Arthur spend on a single tree?
He did a round of the main room, observing each piece. The classic apple on a table, but only those paying attention would notice the wisp of cobweb joining stem to the swell of fruit flesh. A crab shell left to dry on the pavement by a long-gone seagull. Crows gossiping on a gravestone. Impressively, a bramble bush coated in morning dew; the detail of each tiny reflected sun in the diamond droplets was enough to take Francis’s breath away. It was no surprise, really, that this series was called Beauty in Plain Sight.
Still staring at the branches but sidling as one tends to do in a gallery, Francis brushed against someone to his right. “Oh, pardon—”
“Excuse me.” And here was Arthur, horribly dressed in a tweed vest and ill-fitted trousers, brushing off his sleeve firmly as if Francis had coated him in pet hair. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times Arthur’s hand swiped over his shoulder and upper arm before he finally put his hands into his pockets and fleetingly met Francis’s gaze. “It was my mistake. I was paying attention.”
Francis blinked, unsure if he should be offended. “Well, now that I have you, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I have been following your work for some time. C’est fascinant.”
Arthur glanced at a nearby drawing of a charcoal bumblebee as if it might have wisdom for him. “Thank you.”
Francis knew the stereotype of unpersonable artists but this interaction was starting to wear on him. Still, he pushed on and offered a hand. “Francis Bonnefoy. Perhaps you have heard of me? I specialize in abstract.”
Arthur’s eyes widened at this. “Oh. Ah. Yes, I think I have.” He removed his fingers from the pocket of his vest, flexed them at his side, then finally clasped Francis’s hand and gave a firm shake. “Nice to meet you.”
Francis smiled, surprised by how soft his palm was and how bitten his nails were. He was so like his artwork, both alluring and repulsive. Something to appreciate but nothing that would—or could—welcome you in. Francis refused to be perturbed by this. When he saw something he wanted, he got it one way or another. After all: he was a greedy bastard.
He let their touch linger a moment longer. “I would love to discuss your work with you over coffee.”
Arthur’s brow furrowed.
Francis tucked some hair behind his ear. “Or tea?”
“. . . Alright. But nowhere public,” he added furtively. “Come to my studio. Do you know where it is?”
Franics chuckled. “This sounds suspicious, Mr. Kirkland. Hiding me away from witnesses, hm?”
No amusement touched his face. “Never mind.”
Francis grasped his arm when he started to turn away. “No, no, please. I—”
Arthur was brushing his arm off again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times. He had such ferocity in his eyes Francis would’ve assumed he was furious with him, yet he could tell it was turned inward. Such a peculiar man. The work was cursedly good, but in truth Francis had only the intention of discussing its creator.
“I don’t know where it is,” he replied at last. “May I?”
Arthur glanced at passersby before, reluctantly, he took out his phone. They exchanged numbers and Arthur sent him the address. Francis smiled his gratitude and Arthur stared at him like a deer in headlights.
“It’s my house,” Arthur blurted out, then tucked his voice low again. “So don’t tell anyone. And don’t bring anyone.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t have. I respect your privacy,” Francis told him. “I know you are a private person.”
This was apparent if you had read more than one article about him. Which Francis hadn’t, of course.
Arthur ducked his head slightly. He tried and failed to find something more to say.
Francis rescued him. “I will be there tomorrow at noon. Leave the door unlocked!”
Arthur stared at him, startled, then nodded stiffly and hurried off as if someone had called for him, though Francis was pretty sure when he left he saw Arthur sitting in a car at the edge of the lot, forehead on his steering wheel.
Arthur lived as far from downtown as you could get while still remaining in the city limits. Unlike Francis’s apartment, his place—an actual house—had a front and backyard and a line of trees on either side to block the view of the neighbors. The lawn was shaggy, not unlike Arthur’s hair, and the old-fashioned shutters charmed Francis despite their desperate need for a fresh coat of paint. Yet another thing that beckoned and shied away in the same breath.
Faded stepping stones shaped like snails led the way to the door and a bristly hedgehog statuette lay beside it, offering its back to brush the dust from Francis’s soles. He rang the bell and gently tried the doorknob. Locked.
It was five minutes before the door opened. “Sorry,” Arthur said, eyes wide, “I didn’t realize what time it was. I was drawing.”
Francis smiled. “I can see that.” Arthur stared at him until Francis added, “You have a smudge on your cheek.”
Now Arthur made to swipe at his face and Francis held up a hand to stop him—without touching, this time. “No, it suits you. Don’t get rid of it for my sake.”
Arthur hesitated, but left it and stepped aside. “I didn’t really tidy. The kitchen is through there.”
Tidied or not, the place was spotless. Everything had a designated home that made logical sense in relation to the other things around it. There were very few decorations; the walls were definitely this color when Arthur moved in. Francis wondered what Arthur would say if he walked into the apartment. Neither Francis nor Antonio were skilled at cleaning. They didn’t live in filth by any means, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t waterspotless windows and symmetrical sofas and categorized cupboards. Arthur probably owned an iron—though, judging by the trousers that were once again hanging off of him, he was wasting his time if he used it.
Arthur hovered tensely in the doorway. “I didn’t know how you take your tea, so . . .”
So he had placed an honest-to-God silver tea tray on the kitchen table, laden with every possible thing someone could ever want to put into their tea. He’d even gotten actual cubes of sugar. Francis had no idea where one purchased those in the twenty-first century. An equestrian shop, perhaps.
“Thank you,” Francis said, sniffing the vase of wildflowers. He could quite easily imagine Arthur clomping through the wood behind his house, in oversize rubber boots no doubt, to collect some ragged beauties just like himself. “This is lovely.”
Arthur stood beside the table for what felt like a minute after he’d poured their tea. Francis fought the temptation to ask what he was thinking about or tease out whatever words were stuck in his throat. He’d been with enough people over the years to know when going slow was in order, and he didn’t mind. Contrary to belief popular among some of his exes, he had plenty of patience and in fact he deeply enjoyed the process of courtship. It was like unbuttoning a suit or unzipping a fine gown: the trial itself was just as rewarding as what came afterward.
“Thank you for having me,” Francis said, letting the potential innuendo bloom between them. In art school he’d painted a self-portrait in profile with a bouquet of sensual flowers, dripping with swooning butterflies and pollen-drunk bees, and decided from then on he would always aim to speak in a way just as rich and gorgeous as he saw himself. Vocabulary the palette and tone the shade. All of life could be a work of art if you were willing to put in the effort.
Arthur glanced at him through the steam, distracted. “Yeah. You’re welcome.” He ducked his head to focus on his stirring. His spoon didn’t touch the cup, only slipped silently through the tea. Francis wondered if he was looking down at his reflection on the surface, or perhaps counting the rotations?
“Is it seven?” he asked before he thought better of it. “Seven times?”
Arthur’s spoon clinked against the edge and he sat back in his chair. For a split second, something like despair warped his features. Then he stood up, dumped the tea down the sink, got a new cup and spoon from the cupboard, and started again the meticulous process of pouring tea, a perfect splash of milk, a drop of honey, and finally the ordeal of stirring.
This time, Francis kept his mouth shut and only watched. The spoon went round seven times, then seven more. It paused at sixteen, then went again, then around ten more times until at last Arthur took it from the tea, gave it a gentle shake without tapping the cup, and set it down on the saucer. At long last, he took a sip of tea.
“How is it?” Francis asked, regretting how guarded he sounded.
Arthur’s brow lowered slightly as he swallowed. He carefully set the cup down and replied, “You can leave, if you want to. I don’t blame you.”
Now it was Francis’s turn to sit back in his chair. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m mad. All of this is.” Arthur gestured to himself, the tea, his house—possibly to life itself. “You don’t want to get yourself tangled up in it. I know you don’t. You can’t want that.”
Francis cocked his head to one side. “And why not? Perhaps I am mad as well. You never thought of that, did you?”
“Yes,” Arthur said, bald honesty a shock from those complicated eyes. “I thought of everything. I think every possible thought, and when I run out, I go back to the beginning of the list again. And if I don’t think the thoughts correctly I start over again. And . . .” He shook his head, rubbing a thumb over a jaggedly bitten fingernail. “You don’t want to know me. I shouldn’t even have let you come here.”
Francis watched him, for a moment speechless by just how crushing this man’s loneliness was. No wonder his clothes didn’t fit him; he was fed on solitude and cold tea, and that made for a poor diet indeed.
“I do want to know you,” he said, slow and measured so Arthur would have to look up and see how he meant it. “I wouldn’t have come here today if I wasn’t curious about you and your work . . . but, yes, I will admit, mostly you. You aren’t like the rest of the art community I am a part of. You are different—unique, and I very much enjoy unique things. The world would be oh so dull without them, you know.”
A faint light in those eyes: he wanted so badly to believe him. But he shook his head again. “Unique is a nice way of saying different. I’m not different in a good way. I’m not part of the community because I know they don’t want me. Why would they? Who has time for me?”
Francis let himself smile with all the warmth he’d been saving up since he first stepped out of his car. He wanted something all the more for not being able to have it, and the more this place held him at arm’s length the more he kissed its hand. “Anyone who cares enough to put in the time for you,” Francis replied. “And perhaps I could be that person. I am a wonderful candidate. Very caring, experienced in making people feel good, and excellent company.” He twined a strand of golden hair round a finger. “Unless, of course, I’m not the sort of person you had in mind for such an experiment.”
Blush blended into the pale brushstrokes of Arthur’s cheeks. “I thought you came here to talk about my work.”
Francis tutted, leaning forward again and sliding his hand across the table. He didn’t touch him, just left it there beside Arthur’s. “I came here to meet you truly, to see what you are like.” He turned his hand palm-up on the cloth. An offering. “I am not disappointed.”
Arthur turned his head to watch him sidelong, a wary animal. “What are you getting out of this?”
Oh, what a tortured past this creature must have endured. Had no one ever told him he was attractive? Had no one ever chose him over anyone else? Was it just his work, then, that made him feel like he was worth anything? And did he even agree with that, in his heart?
Francis fought the temptation to soothe him physically. An embrace or a caress were such direct routes to comfort. But he hadn’t gone into this thinking Arthur would be easy. It was about time he faced a challenge.
“I am not here to steal your art or copy your technique or film you in the nude,” Francis assured him, then almost laughed at the look on his face. “Did you think of those?”
“Not the last one,” Arthur muttered into his teacup.
“Well, I’m sure there would be an interested market,” Francis said, then let his lips curl again. “But I am only interested in making them jealous. I want to learn you, Monsieur Kirkland, like an artist learns a subject. Like you study your references for your drawings.”
Arthur’s mouth twisted in the expected contradiction of discomfort and desire. “But why?”
Francis thumped his fingers flat against the table in mild irritation. “For the same reason you invited me here, I presume. Even if your eyes do not look at mine for long, they still see my face, oui?”
The green gaze dashed up to his, then away, then back, then away again.
“We are both gorgeous and puzzling,” Francis said. “Should we not be those things together?”
Arthur clenched his jaw.
“That’s the issue,” he burst out, staring at Francis’s face in pieces, scattering his attention but focusing it intensely nonetheless. “People say just look into his eyes. How can you do that? Your eyes both aim at one, single point. You have two eyes. I physically can’t look into them both at the same time. And then—look into his eyes? I can’t look into your eyes or I’ll see that they’re blue and start thinking about blue things and then I’ll think about blue pens that have run out of ink and about the last thing I wrote in blue ink and did I spell it right or did I fill out that form correctly and how can I be sure without sending after it or calling and then if I call I’ll have to sit round and nothing else will get done because what if I’m not in the room when the call waiting ends or what if I’m drawing and how am I supposed to focus on more than one thing at once when I have every single possible thing in my head and nothing at all at the same time?”
Francis was so taken by the vibrancy of his eyes, so very green compared to the red blotches of his freckled skin, and the adamancy of the pain and frustration in his voice . . . this poor, lost boy rubbed raw by his fear and loathing . . . he almost didn’t notice that Arthur had taken his hand.
“Well,” Francis said softly, “the good news is you can close your eyes when you kiss someone.”
Arthur looked down, entranced by their twined fingers. A murmur wafted out: “What’s the bad news?”
“Oh, I don’t know. That is your department, mon chéri.”
By the time Arthur let himself laugh, Francis had made his way around the table and so it was a matching pair of smiles that met in honeymilk bliss.
And then Arthur got up and left to wash his face.
A week later, they had their first date. More proof of patience: Francis wanted to give Arthur plenty of space and time to think about the kiss, the touch, the interaction as a whole and the potential for more. He knew firsthand the swirling emotions a new relationship could stir up and he had some of his own. Arthur did have a bit of a point. Francis had never been with someone quite so controlled by compulsions. But he wasn’t signing up to be a therapist or doctor. He didn’t need to be a cure, only a support, friend, confidant. Someone to hold his hand when no one else would. Didn’t everyone deserve someone like that?
Francis had intended to let Arthur choose the location but this proved too much pressure and so he picked instead. A small restaurant—one street over from the gallery still housing Arthur’s unshipped work, incidentally—close enough to fine dining that Francis wasn’t overdressed with his fashionable scarf but far enough that Arthur understood eighty percent of the menu.
Francis knew he should have tempered his optimism a tad, but . . . well, it was an evening of but.
Arthur pulled the chair out for him, but he had to make it line up with the pattern of the floor in a certain way and this took three attempts.
Arthur ordered his food without issue, but he had to ask for it prepared in a very particular way and the waiter had to go back to the kitchen for clarification and this extra attention had red rising from beneath Arthur’s collar.
Arthur responded in kind to the playful ankle nudges beneath the table, but they had to continue their back-and-forth until it had been done seven times and it didn’t seem quite as fun after that.
Arthur liked his meal, but he couldn’t eat any more of it after Francis tried to steal a bite.
Arthur paid, but Francis insisted on compensation down a silent backroad.
Arthur warned him, but Francis swallowed anyway.
Arthur drove him back to his apartment, but Francis had to get out and help him finish parallel parking.
Arthur said you probably don’t want to see me again, but Francis said you can’t scare me away that easily.
Countless more outings followed. Francis delighted in Arthur’s growing ease around him and tried not to care too much when things didn’t go as planned. Detours became the norm. Francis held his tongue and offered encouragement wherever he could. Arthur was doing better, getting braver. They held hands at tables, twined fingers when walking in parks. Francis looked at Arthur and, more and more, found him looking back without shying away. He was even a fast learner with kissing, which was more than Francis could say for Antonio.
Francis had been correct in the spark he’d felt when he first noticed Arthur. This fascination turned infatuation had blazed into something distinctly more passionate at a shocking pace. Francis had always had a super power of falling in love, but this was more akin to a forest fire. He was so opposed to normalcy, and Arthur was so very far from that . . .
So when Arthur got frustrated, Francis comforted him as best he could. When Arthur cursed and slammed his fist into the steering wheel on their fourth lap of the parking lot because he couldn’t find a spot that suited to whatever force was dictating his choices, Francis said he didn’t mind the people-watching opportunities it provided. When Arthur kissed him against the bedroom door then had to tuck Francis’s hair behind his ears, then finger-comb it and tuck it again, then finger-comb it and tuck it again, Francis simply closed his eyes and surrendered to the touches, always careful even before his anger evaporated into adoration.
And when the time finally came, but Arthur couldn’t?
Francis slipped a note under the door of the bathroom.
Don’t you know by now? We’ll get it right. It doesn’t matter how many tries it takes.
It took him a few more minutes to regain his dignity, but they did try again, and again, and practise definitely made perfect.
Francis moved in after four months. Only a trial period, he assured anyone who asked, namely Antonio. I know it’s too soon to actually move in. We just want to try it out. I think it’s a good idea, you know? It is proactive. This way we know how well we will get along before we are too attached.
Antonio had only raised an eyebrow at him. Francis knew this meant so you’re not attached, huh? but neither of them wanted to get into an argument so Antonio just helped him carry blank canvases out to the car.
Arthur’s studio had seemed a holy land, a place to Look Not Touch, but he set aside a space for Francis to paint. Francis could almost believe he had a filter over his eyes until he turned to his corner: grey, black-and-white, more grey, and then a hectic, glorious rainbow made even louder in contrast to its surroundings. “Like me,” Francis said when the metaphor occurred to him. “This is, hmm, this is society, oui? And us, the sore thumbs sticking out.”
Arthur glanced up from his drafting table. Lamplit, he was handsome in such a soft way. A little librarian, a sepia scholar, wanting only for a pair of rounded spectacles. “I don’t know that you should be comparing my work to society. I’d hate to have broad appeal. I’d never have time for all my fans within the lowest common denominator.”
Francis smirked and spattered green paint onto his canvas without looking. “Ah, you would never stoop so low. You couldn’t. You are a fine wine, mon amour.”
Arthur’s humor faded when Francis flung the paint droplets, but he still said, “Notes of paranoia and resentment.”
Francis knew Arthur wasn’t fully comfortable with them sharing a studio. Not even because he worried about a mess, because he didn’t hang any finished pieces; he had large metal cabinets with horizontal shelves—the sort of thing you’d expect an archeologist to pull bones from in a documentary—in which he stored all of his work. He also had his pencils neatly set out from hardness to blackness with HB naturally in the centre and permanently untouched because he did all his outlining with H. Erasers and blending sticks had their own respective compartments built into his desk. It should’ve been like a well-oiled machine, and everything was except his brain.
Watching him work could be mesmerizing or torturous depending on the day and how tightly twisted his thoughts were. If all was going well and he’d been joking and offering kisses since the morning, Francis spent more time observing him than he did working on his own paintings. It was like watching a photocopying machine; he worked from left to right to prevent any smudges and he didn’t abandon a detail until it was complete. Objects, animals, and even landscapes flowed out of him so effortlessly Francis found himself wishing his mind was overactive enough to notice such minute things.
And then Arthur would have a bad day, and Francis would not wish it on his worst enemy.
Nothing worked. Trying more just meant trying more just meant trying more and failing. He stirred his tea for twenty minutes and had to pour it out anyway because it wasn’t warm anymore, which of course meant starting the process over from scratch. No foods tasted right. No texture was palatable. He changed his clothes three times before noon because they felt wrong on his skin, itchy, too tight, coarse, too hot, too cold. He paced the kitchen, paced the living room, turned the television on and off and on and off and on and off again. He went through an entire bottle of glass cleaner, wiping the windows and mirrors until the squeaking was like nails on a chalkboard. Speaking of nails: he bit his fingernails to the quick and bit them some more in case they grew, just in case, he felt like they had grown, did they look too long?
His work suffered for it just as he did. A single wrong line meant the drawing was ruined and he rejected it as such. Time to start over again with a blank piece of paper. Francis couldn’t even rescue them; Arthur ripped them up, scribbled over them, destroyed them in his rage. Francis mourned them and caught himself feeling angry at Arthur for the waste. How can you throw away such good work? So many people would love to have them. So many people would be so grateful to do the things you’re able to do. But he couldn’t say these things to him, certainly not when he was having a bad day. Francis found himself saying less and less the more of these days they faced in a row. In his mind, Arthur’s quirks were one and the same with him when they were endearing or romantic. When they were ugly, self-defeating compulsions and obsessions Francis considered them evil forces Arthur had to overcome each day. In the beginning, he felt sympathy for these battles and understood Arthur’s short temper as exhaustion. But soon he began to wonder if it was more personal. Maybe Arthur was actually angry at him. Maybe Arthur should’ve been kinder, should’ve put more effort into not taking things out on Francis. Maybe when Arthur’s hand bled after he’d struck the wall for the seventh time it was okay for Francis to think you deserved that.
Eventually it infected their love life as well. Kisses lost all enjoyment when they had to be replayed over and over again. Francis’s lips went numb without any of the passion he’d expect to feel from it. Sex lost all meaning but mechanics and then they lost that too when Arthur was too caught up inside his head to care for anything outside of it. Francis told Arthur not to bother kissing him goodnight if it was too much trouble and Arthur didn’t even disagree with him.
So one night when Francis was working on his biggest canvas yet, a piece that seemed like more of his usual summery splashes of color until you truly looked at it and saw two silhouettes reaching for each other, and he caught Arthur giving him a dirty look, Francis couldn’t stay silent any longer.
“What?” Francis snapped. “What is that face for? What is your problem?”
Arthur blinked, face clearing for a moment in his shock, then glared anew. “I don’t have a problem. I’ve told you before, I don’t understand abstract art.”
“I’m not saying you have to understand it. Art does not have to be understood. But you have never had a single nice thing to say about anything I’ve ever done. I don’t love everything you draw, but I support you, do I not?” He didn’t wait for Arthur to answer. He hadn’t realized how long rage had been simmering under his skin until it hit this rolling boil. “Just say the colors look nice together. Just—anything. Even a child could make a compliment, it isn’t that hard.”
“I don’t think the colors look nice together,” Arthur said, brow furrowed. “And I thought you said you didn’t want us lying to each other.”
Francis stared for a moment, at a loss. Then he threw up his hands. “Really? You hate it that much? You have to lie to say something nice about the piece I am happier with than anything I’ve done in months?” When Arthur didn’t respond, Francis went over and grasped his wrist, pulling him to stand right in front of the canvas. “Have you ever even actually looked at it?”
A smudge of purple paint dashed over Arthur’s arm and he rubbed it savagely, one two three four five six seven times. Again. Again. His skin reddened under his freckles but he kept going even when tiny blood spots appeared.
Francis grabbed him. “Stop, you’re hurting—”
Arthur jerked free of him, eyes wild, then snatched up a palette knife and stabbed it straight through the canvas. He tore it right down the middle, separating the reaching hands forevermore. The ripped edges hung heavy with wet paint and the knife clattered to the floor with a spatter of purple. A violet murder.
Francis stood gaping while Arthur snagged his hands through his hair and said, “I couldn’t fucking stand it. It’s like looking at inside my head. It’s too much. It’s too much. Of course I have nothing nice to say about it. It’s a fucking nightmare. It’s too much.”
Francis thought about hurling paint all over the sketch Arthur had almost finished, or shoving him right into the canvas, or screaming until he lost his voice. He thought about all the tiny hurts he had harbored without address because he didn’t want Arthur overthinking them. He thought about how much longer a bad taste lingered in your mouth than a good one.
He didn’t say a word. He got his keys, got in his car, and left.
Antonio knew better than to ask right away when he came home and sprawled facedown on the sofa. He went into their tiny kitchen and the smell of chocolate chip cookies had Francis sobbing even harder into the cushion. This was how they ended up leaning into each other, a plate of gooey cookies balanced between their laps and two glasses of milk on the coffee table. Through incredibly unattractive sniffles and undoubtedly whiney weeping, Francis told the story.
“Okay,” Antonio said when he was done. “What do you want to do about it?”
Francis had no answer. He’d already done something, hadn’t he? He was here.
“If you want my opinion, I think it’s not healthy. Not like it was.” Antonio shrugged. “But we weren’t, either. We got over that. We didn’t work the way we were going, but we found a way. Do you think you can do that with him?”
Francis emptied some more sorrow into a tissue. “I don’t know. He needs help . . . he needs a lot.”
“But you have a lot to give,” Antonio pointed out. “You helped me through when no one else would.” He kissed the back of Francis’s hand. “Thank you for that, again.”
Francis smiled pensively at the chocolate Antonio had left on his skin. “You were worth it.”
Antonio chewed some more cookie. “Is Arthur worth it?”
Arthur Kirkland, that glorious wretch, contradiction incarnate, the best and the worst of us all. So much of him was worth it. Was the rest? But he could not be dissected. He was heart surgery, he was a black box, he was the saddest blue edging clouds before they disappeared into the darkness of night. He couldn’t be captured. He was the bravest coward Francis had ever met. So clever—too clever for his own good. Blind to what lay before him but far-seeing into stories that might never even be told. Did he feel guilty for hurting Francis? Was that the determining factor? He was a good person. He was so much kinder than he could have been, after the life he had lived. Everyone else had left him behind, even his mind turned on him, yet he hadn’t given up on himself.
And he looked at Francis like he was a painting and he touched him like it was a blessing and he didn’t mind sharing food with him anymore.
Francis sniffled as new tears burned his throat. “Yes.”
Antonio handed him more tissues. “Then do you want to find a way to make it work?”
Boundaries would have to be set. Conversations would have to be had, the long and serious kind. Feelings would have to be shared. Voices would have to be heard. But if Arthur was willing . . .
Francis sat up, resolve hardening. “I’ll try.”
Antonio’s eyes sparkled. “There he is.” He put a glass into Francis’s hand and clinked it with his own. “I hate to say it, but I think he’s probably better for you than I was. We’re too much the same. But he’s different, right?”
If they could be contrast and complementing colors, if they could reel each other in, if they could balance each other out—well, that really would be perfection, wouldn’t it?
“Just don’t buy him any pants that actually fit,” Antonio said. “I have the best ass and I won’t be proven otherwise.”
It was late enough that Francis decided it would be rude to go back and likely wake Arthur up, so he stayed the night in a bed that felt terribly empty and returned the next day near noon. He brought along the leftover cookies and rehearsed his apology endless times on the drive. The words ended up going every which way in his head, senseless in direction. Was this what Arthur dealt with? Likely worse, Francis suspected. He should never have been so uncaring. He had no idea what it was like to be Arthur Kirkland. Yes, he deserved respect, but Arthur did too—in a different way than Francis thought he’d been giving it before.
Francis put his key in the door but nothing happened when it turned. Arthur had left it unlocked.
He checked the kitchen, then the bedroom. He had a horrible thought, but the bathroom was empty too. Finally, he went down to the studio.
Everything was as he had left it, timeless without any natural light, except now there were two huge canvases. One with a rip down its center and one an almost identical replica. Arthur stood at this one, painstakingly recreating a random splatter of paint by dabbing the brush just so. Francis could not believe his eyes.
“Arthur . . .”
He spun. His face and hands and shirt were a mess of paint, even some in his hair, and dark spots beneath them made his wide eyes look even bigger. He looked horribly and fervently alive.
Francis couldn’t decide what to stare at. “How long have you been at this?”
“All night,” Arthur replied, offhand. “Since you left.”
It was like talking to him when they first met, the posturing and stiffness. “All night,” Francis echoed, then reached out to touch his cheek. “I’m so sorry. Thank you. I don’t know what to say first. This is amazing. I cannot believe you made this . . . it’s incredible. But it doesn’t bother you? Be honest, please.”
Arthur tensed under his touch, then softened. “It did at first. I hated it. When you live in a world that’s just everything always and never stops, and you just can’t get clear of it, of course I hate something that’s purposefully a loss of control. But then I . . . well, I really looked at it.” He fiddled with the paintbrush. “I-I dunno. I guess it’s the same as life. Everything is controlled chaos. So I just, I did what I assume everyone else does. Gave it my best go, I s’pose.”
Francis gave a shivery smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you my best. No, don’t, let me tell you. I thought I was being good, I kept congratulating myself for how good I was being. I thought I was keeping myself from romanticizing you, but I still did it. And when you acted outside of it—when you acted real, I was cruel to you. So I need to tell you I am sorry and I promise I will stop doing it, if you give me another chance.”
Arthur looked stricken. “You shouldn’t be apologizing. I should. I was . . . I stopped trying as much around you. On purpose. I just—I don’t know. A voice in my head said I would know for sure if you l—if you’d stay if I really tried to push you away. So I guess that’s what I was doing. I don’t know. I’m fucked up. I warned you—”
“I know you did,” Francis said, “and I know you are. But I think we both are, and I think that can be okay, if we try. I want to. Do you?”
“. . . Yes. You make it less loud in here. I never told you that.” It was nervous and reluctant, but the green gaze met his. “But I still don’t know why you talked to me in the first place.”
Francis thought about this.
“Because you’re not like me,” he told him. “And I wish I could be that.”
Arthur closed his eyes. “You are mad, then. I wish I could be like you.”
Francis let their foreheads rest together. “We will just have to find a happy medium.”
As they kissed, then kissed again, then kissed again, the abstract silhouettes watched from their vibrant world, starbursts in their hearts, curlicues in their heads, and a rainbow of beauty in the hands joined between them.
The End.