He wakes up feeling approximately two thousand years older and detesting the Republic of France. Not entirely a new way to greet the morning, except for maybe the national-driven hatred, but generally it was shaping up to be a regular Tuesday, 04:00.
Flight from Heathrow to de Gaulle in two hours for a book launch in Paris in four. The book launch? Fine, he has long lost the energy to air grievances over his work. He wrote the book, he does the promotion, he gets the pay out- so be it. But Paris? At 08:00? Good god. Too early to be discussing literary allegories and definitely too early to be speaking French.
The approximately two thousand years sitting on his shoulders, as previously stated, are an unwelcome but loyal companion. As he heaves out of bed and moves to the joining bathroom, turning on the bath faucet and breathing in the building steam, he ponders it. Lately, time and living have seemed heavier, punishing. He's only twenty seven- Londoner for four, author for six, scowling for all. Maybe that was it? His time honored traditions and lifestyles of being an absolute grump are finally corrupting his poor, unfortunate soul? Bah.
04:14. Bonjour, je m'appelle Arthur Kirkland et je veux dire- no, je veux vous parler- no, fuck.
The flight is quick, unaffected by delays or irritations, and Arthur lands in Paris generally without any trouble except that he's automatically consumed with hatred.
If he takes the time to brood over it, which he does when he stands at luggage claim surrounded by conversations in rapid French, he thinks it can be rooted in the people. The lofty discussions they have, the carefree lives they live, the emphasis on love and life and wine. He abhors it, the casual passions they have for art and beauty. They all think they are gorgeous, lovers of every man and woman, with a pleasant façade hiding chilled judgement beneath it. The French are all the same and they offer him nothing, not a single pleasant person, not a single pleasant experience.
He estimates his three nights four days in Paris will be just another distasteful experience with Continental culture, days spent in a work grind but without the comfort of his own bed to return to. He will do his job as he always does, diligently and so damn enthusiastically you would never guess that this wealthy and successful author is actually a miserable and disagreeable crab. He expects to gain nothing from his time, nothing from his work, nothing from this bastard city.
That he would find any benefit in this humid Parisian May? It would be unfathomable. So unfathomable, in fact, that when he picks his suitcase up from the lineup he makes an exaggerated show of slamming it onto the ground and yanking the handle up.
He scoffs. Ridiculous.
It's Day Three of promotion in Paris and Arthur, just as he predicted, is roughly one hundred and two percent ready to swim back to England. Another 06:00 alarm, downstairs in 30, on the Champs Élysées within an hour. Blessedly, it's his last day of suffering and he isn't needed until the afternoon so he takes the opportunity to find a coffee shop, one busy enough to hole himself up and be left rightly alone. He blunders his way through French to order a mug of Earl Grey (god is good and merciful) and wedges himself in between a buttercup painted wall and a café table for one.
Arthur sighs contentedly, a rare Arthurian expression, and takes a moment to appreciate the solitude. Deep in the back of a Parisian cafe with the promise of a simple je ne parle pas français if he is approached, only a man sketching in a booth to his left and a woman rapidly typing on her laptop two tables in front of him, disconnected from the world by a set of earbuds.
The tea is bitter and strong, it could make him cry; separated from home and peace by a Channel and twenty four hours but at least we have Earl Grey, huh? Oh Paris, what a shit show. French promotion for an English book? What kind of setup is that? Furthermore, it's like they expect him to-
"Je suis désolé. Vous semblez très familier, où avez vous été à l'école?"
The man that had been sketching in the booth to his left stands before him, dignified brows furled in question. He has long, butter colored hair pulled loosely into a knot at the nape of his neck and elegant, high features. Pronounced cheekbones, smooth jawline, slim nose: truly, he is classically handsome, a Frenchmen that you can just feel knows what kind of pants he can drop with an extended glance and a man who surely utilizes his powers mightily.
Odd. Unfortunately, truly unfortunately, he seems awfully familiar.
"Je ne... uh, parle-"
"Ah, you are English?"
Naturally. Paris can choke.
"Yes. I'm sorry, can I help you? I don't have much time before I must return to work so…" he lies.
"Ah, oui," the man nods and slides on an easy smile. "I am very sorry, but you are very familiar to me. You did not go to school in Lyon?"
Arthur silently huffs through his nose but sets his cup down, turning to face the man fully. "No, I attended East Anglia in England."
"Oh," the man leans back on his heels and seems disappointed, maybe detecting the threads of venom that lace Arthur's tone. Then, planting his feet again, "Alors! What did you say your name was?" Or, maybe not.
"I didn't," huffing again but starting to believe in killing with kindness, "my name is Arthur."
"Just Arthur?"
"Just Arthur." Not believing in abandoning pettiness. Never that.
"Okay, 'Just Arthur'." Somehow, because god is evil and merciless, the man takes his name as an invitation, pulling the chair opposite of Arthur out and lightly placing himself in it, ignoring Arthur's hiss of, "don't sit."
"My name is Francis Bonnefoy," he introduces himself.
"Ah, yes, pleasure." Sure, whatever. Arthur picks up his tea and takes a long sip, bothering only with a quick glance at Francis Bonnefoy over the rim of his mug.
It is just a bit unsettling, truly. This man is not a vision of any period of Arthur's past nor a reminder of someone he knows in passing. He is like a phantom, a representation of a dream, like a word on the tip of your tongue just out of reach but yet to materialize. He does not know any Frenchmen, anyone associated with any Frenchmen- he barely knows French at all. This man, though, he is certain is not a French stranger in a Paris café, as much as Arthur wants him to be. He seems like, well, he seems an old acquaintance or a friendly former adversary. Like a long departed man making his awaited grand return to the stage of Arthur's tragically humorous life.
"I just cannot place you, I am very sorry. It is bothering me greatly."
Well, he might as well get the obvious out there. This man is an oddity but that doesn't mean he wants anything to do with him or any of the nonsense he is spouting. Like a Band-Aid.
Sigh tally: three. "I am an author? My full name is Arthur Kirkland, I am here in Paris for promotion work."
He dares to look at Francis, to study his face for any flashes of recognition. He doesn't though and just sees Francis, this French ghost with powder blue eyes and wind swept hair, eyebrows drawn in graceful confusion.
"No, I have never heard of you," he flicks his hand to further dismiss the idea then places it under his chin, narrowing his eyes as if to peer at Arthur.
Alright, and a bit of an asshole.
"Oh!" Arthur exaggerates his relief in venomous sarcasm that just breezes over Francis, still watching Arthur intently. "Well I am beyond relieved that you have, 'never heard of me'."
"Oh, pourquoi? That seems to be an odd wish to have," Francis fires back without pause.
Arthur takes a well deserved moment to wade into his temper, seeing a brief flash behind his eyelids of springing up from what was his spot of Parisian peace, taking his mug of beloved Earl Grey and-
Francis' lips are curled into a smirk that only the devil may care about, so reckless and so careless. He saw a lone Englishman drinking tea in the darkest, loneliest corner of the busiest, brightest café and it only seemed right and good to start an argument with him- à cœur vaillant rien d'impossible. Arthur's two thousand year backpack feels just a little bit heavier but looking at Francis, then settling his eyebrows into a comfortable and terrible scowl, Arthur himself feels just a bit more right. Like maybe his two thousand years are a home, one that he once grew and learned and loved in but he hasn't been there in a long time. He hasn't forgotten; if played again he would remember all the words, he just hasn't thought about it in a while. It would be nice to go home. He loved that song.
Arthur blinks and Francis is still in front of him. He has two thousand year old eyes, of love and loss and triumph and gore, but he has a devious smile as young as a child, knowing and confident.
A wall of acid has settled in Arthur's stomach and he's overwhelmed with dread, the kind you feel between sleeping and waking, convinced the nightmare you just lived is real and you're waking up to a world where you must find the conclusion to all the consequences.
"Well, it is very nice to meet you or see you again Arthur Kirkland."
Francis stands, gathers his things and departs, uninterested in Arthur's unresponsiveness.
Arthur just stares into his cooling tea, feeling completely broken. Maybe, though, he just found a piece.
He misses his 09:00 flight the next morning.
It takes him approximately nine days to find Francis again.
Four of them were spent lying in his hotel bed simply staring at the ceiling, determining how cold the water of the River Seine could truly be. It isn't until 22:34 on the fourth night that Arthur Kirkland remembered that he's fucking Arthur Kirkland, not a Spaniard gone too long without a siesta, and spends the next two days swept away by the internet.
Francis Bonnefoy sketches for a studio in the 18th Paris Arrondissement but beyond that, Arthur is clueless. He gets the guts to find the small art studio on Night Seven but finds it dark and unpopulated, so instead he tumbles his way through the French language yet again to buy dinner at a small grocery and returns to his hotel disheartened.
Day Eight and the Arthur Kirkland Anger Train pulls into station, wandering Paris without aim or purpose. He utterly refuses to attempt any diplomatic French with anyone, even refusing conversation with Anglophones that dare approach him. It's all beneath him, all beneath his cloud of fury and unjustness.
Day Nine and he's thoroughly exhausted. He has spent the last week plus two confused, angry, and grieving for a life that he's not even sure he once lived yet. He simply knows what he feels and what he feels is weight, the weight of years and loves and losses and years. He also knows that Francis Bonnefoy, that French fool, is a key and in order for the lock to open you must have the key.
What he also knows is that he's still in bloody fucking Paris. Good fucking grief.
18:00 Day Nine finds him before Sacré-Cœur in an unusual Arthur position: sitting directly on the steps, gazing out over the city that sits below him. Well, the admiring maybe, but Paris being beneath him is an Arthurian trademark.
Enough is enough, certainly. It was an unusual adventure these past few days, maybe Age Thirty is looming just a little bit closer on Arthur's peripheries, but gallivanting across the city in the name of some vague epiphany has become ridiculous. Even further, stalking a man he met very briefly on a regular Thursday morning in France is bordering on psychotic.
He didn't even want to be here! Hasn't he been pining for London since touch down? Didn't he want Francis Bonnefoy gone since the moment he spoke? Edging on two weeks in a city he wants vaporized spending the entire time hunting down a man he wants nothing to do with. Maybe he's gone truly mental this time. It was bound to happen, he can hear his editor laughing at him now, stick so far up your ass it's wiggling its way into your brain. So it goes. Here's a Xanax and you are under strict orders to never visit France again. Sir, yes sir.
11:00 flight tomorrow de Gaulle to Heathrow. Spend a week bathing in being English- scones, Graham Norton, so much Earl Grey he could drown. Forget what happened in Paris, never go back. Whatever forgotten time he is burdening he's simply not the man for the job. Maybe in another world, another life, Arthur Kirkland conquers all- but not in this one. He doesn't have a lot of clarity in his life, barely any, but he does have some and what he has he'd like to keep. Lose it all with the idea of gaining more or risk never getting what you had back. He chooses to walk with what he has.
Arthur stands and brushes off his trousers, pondering his last dinner in Paris. A small one, maybe from a little stand intended for tourists. Back to his hotel, round up the mess he's made into his tattered black suitcase. Bedtime 22:00, alarm at 07:00.
"Arthur Kirkland, as I live and as I breathe."
Arthur Kirkland's fingers were grasping by the whites of his knuckles onto his little slice of clarity, normalcy, and Francis Bonnefoy came along with a smirk, pried his fingers off and plunged him into the void below.
"You can just say, 'live and breathe', you don't have to repeat the pronoun."
Francis slides up next to him, the easy smile Arthur's familiar with by now curling his lips. His hair is pulled into a tighter knot than when Arthur saw him previously but is still effortless, like he simply woke up as a dream of a French lover, je suis désolé mes chéries que je suis si parfait. He's wearing a sort of artist fatigues, pulled up to his elbows and brushed with streaks of charcoal and pastels. He looks happy and light.
"Ah, I am sorry my friend. My English was never very good."
Arthur wants to fire back that they are not and never have been friends, but he's feeling just a little bit blessed so he holds his tongue.
"What are you doing here?" he asks instead. A genuine question with just a flavor of rudeness, just his style.
"I live here," Francis replies, amused. "What are you doing here?"
"No, I mean-" Arthur sighs in exasperation. "I mean at the Basilica. Don't Parisians avoid tourist traps like they're landfills?"
"Ah, yes, most of them. I like to walk here on my breaks, though." He turns his head to the left where the city lies before them, beginning to be dusted in violet as dusk hovers close. "A good view, for tourists or not, no?"
Arthur would respond but Francis' presence is just starting to catch up with him, leaving him feeling utterly unsure of what to do with himself. He has so many questions and so many things he wants to say and, Christ, the man he's been consumed with for days is standing right there, so close to touch, gazing out on his blasted city with eyes only of love.
Francis much catch Arthur staring because he turns back with even more amusement than before lighting up his features. "So, you did find out why we are familiar with each other?" he asks.
Arthur clears his throat and breaks Francis' gaze, looking out to Paris himself. His heart is pounding- if he may be excused, he doesn't believe he gave express written consent for his heart to go off without him?
"I don't believe I suggested I had ever met you, you only thought that you had met me."
"No," Francis says sagely with just a hint of humor. "But I could tell."
They lapse into silence and Arthur much too terrified to remove his gaze from the building he has pinned down with his eyes. The view, his savior. Thanks, Paris, you wicked bitch, but the irony is not funny.
Francis Bonnefoy is not funny. The dread cemented at the bottom of his stomach is not funny.
"Would you like to take dinner? There is a restaurant down the street if you would like to join me."
Arthur isn't really coherent enough to respond so he simply follows Francis down the steps and to the right, joining with a path overrun with shrubbery. The path runs parallel to the steps leading back to the church, but this one slants downward and exits the church grounds. Arthur follows Francis in a haze, Francis one step ahead of him and oblivious to Arthur, numb and slowly suffocating.
Il a pris beaucoup de temps, mais je t'aime. Je t'aime aux extrémités de la terre et au dos. Ce n'est pas toujours dit, mais c'est vrai. Aussi vrai que mon sang, aussi vrai que mes os.
Just before they reach the end of the path and exit onto the street, they pass an English couple. It happens fast and Arthur can only catch a few words. They are discussing dinner in long languid words, maybe from Northumberland with their deep Northern English vowels and then, they pass, off to the church and out of Arthur's presence.
It's like a switch. Suddenly, gloriously, he can breathe.
"Francis."
The man stops and raises an eyebrow, not offended but merely curious. He raises the second to join the first, though, when Arthur steps in front of him and meets his eyes, intent and clear.
"Arthur, wha-"
"How old do you feel?"
Francis doesn't understand and twists his face accordingly, not yet pulled in by the gravity that has Arthur grounded.
"I am twenty nine years old, but I do not-"
Arthur shakes his head and moves forward, placing his hands on the sides of Francis' face- palms in the hollows of his cheeks, fingers on the tops of his temples, thumbs on the apex of his cheekbones.
"Francis," Arthur murmurs, eyes intent on the man. He is surprised, eyes wide and lips parted, understanding blurred. "What do you feel?"
And Francis' eyes close and he breathes. Arthur traces the man's cheekbones with his thumbs, follows his hairline with his fingertips, watching his eyelids tremble.
Finally, he exhales, devastated.
"Years," Francis whispers. "Years."
Broken, but maybe he's just found a piece.
The man's eyes open and Arthur lets himself feel it, the weight. Of this moment, of the past nine days, of the last two thousand years. Francis is still confused, nine days behind in his epiphany, but he feels it too now and Arthur can only hold Francis' face and let his eyes water. Another set of hands joins Arthur's and curls around them, thumbs stroking down the middle ligaments. He focuses on his hands, their hands. To him, right now, they're the only thing that's real.
He makes his 11:00 flight, but books another seat.
They met, or met again, in the dawn of May. May and June are spent picking up bits and pieces, apart for two weeks and together for one, nights that stretch into mornings. Talking, remembering, but mostly just being terrified. They don't figure out a lot, nothing solid to hold onto or anything that puts a name to these lives they've gained. They know their names, the lives they've led for almost three decades, and the presence of each other. What they also know is that they're much older than what their bodies can represent or their minds can comprehend. They have stories haunting them; parallels that are just out of reach but steady enough to almost feel like home.
July and August pass and Arthur knows this: Francis Bonnefoy loves him. Has maybe always loved him, has maybe loved him for thousands of years. In this life and on this earth Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy fell in love over a long and warm summer, but they're pretty sure it's been longer than that. Through hatred and theft, through strife and defeat. For ages, for ages.
It has taken a long time, but I love you. I love you to the ends of the earth and back. It is not always told, but it is true. As true as my blood, as true as my bones.
He wakes up to an idea, a dying breath from his departed dream. 03:42, Monday morning, November.
Waking up at the godforsaken hours of the morning is not an entirely unheard of experience, usually generated by the fussy sleeper to his left. Typically the issue is solved with a swift kick to Francis' shin and a haul of the comforter to the right side of the bed- Voila! Golden until an hour when living is a bit more reasonable.
This time, though, Arthur feels no disturbance. Francis is breathing deeply and soundly, face pressed into his pillow but all together solid and silent unlike the restless sprawl Arthur is so accustomed to. He even drifts his hand to brush Francis' shoulder, ensuring his innocent slumber and still, soundless. Nevertheless he grips the corner of the comforter and yanks it comfortably, just for good measure.
Then, he ponders. For a long time he stares at the wall ahead and searches, dissecting meanings and ideas, pulling thoughts that weigh heavy and discarding the rest. He does this until 05:54 and he can't lay in his bed anymore, consumed with something confusing and awful.
Francis finds him two hours later sitting in the living room, alone and frozen. He looks lost, like he took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and simply cannot figure out where it all went wrong. It leaves Francis terrified.
"Francis," he murmurs. "We left them behind."
Francis approaches slowly, settling in a crouch before Arthur and placing a hand on his knee, gentle and open.
"Who? Arthur, who did we leave behind?"
Arthur reaches forward and splays his fingers along Francis' neck and jaw, searching his eyes desperately.
"They were brothers, do you remember?"
And Francis thinks about brothers, thinks about children. Distant, independent, stronger than the whole of the old world combined. He thinks about twins, about two boys with hair of wheat and eyes towards the sky, closer to each other than either Francis or Arthur could ever hope to imitate. He imagines a French child, gentle in his words but fierce and frightening in his actions. He thinks about legacy and posterity and about devotion and support. Then, he thinks of family. He had one, once. It was small and it was hard but, it was good.
And Francis remembers.
And thus begins the longest thing I've ever written in my life, my ridiculous sprawling love letter to my eternal number one fam.
Unnecessary (and longest) notes as follow:
I purposefully made Francis' dialogue a little whack, modeled after how I sometimes translate English to French in my head (and in papers lol). Like, perfectly understandable, but a little clunky and odd. Anyways, my English grammar is not awful I'm just purposefully terrible.
On a similar note, I apologize for the French that I'm not translating. The little phrases are generally pretty unimportant they just add some ~flair~ and the stuff that means anything gets translated into English eventually in the chapter. I'm sorry I'm difficult.
I changed their traditional ages just for kicks, especially with the kids coming up. I never really enjoyed their original ages being so young.
Finally, apologies to the City of Paris. Ily and you're not shitty, really!
Anywho! My precious beautiful boi! Next!
Thanks for reading!