Calling Him By My Name [Armie Hammer + Timothée Chalamet | Charmie | mxb]

31 | Armie

I peel my damp clothes from my body in what feels like slow motion. I think everything has been slowing down since the last time I bared my skin to this boy. Sluggish, uncaring, passive, unaffected, lifeless, I undress as though in a daze. The cool air meets my skin, swathe after swathe revealed to eyes that don't care anymore. Eyes that look away.

I'm not surprised that he's so unaffected. I'm unaffected. I'm completely emotionally burned out.

But Timmy stays my hands when they get to my briefs, and the fleeting touch sends a surge of something with dangerously high voltage through my body. And I think I prefer not being able to feel anything at all.

It's brief, though. He starts removing the bandages and I go back to staring at my own bored expression in the mirror over the bathroom sink while he works, only half feeling the perfunctory sting of chest hair coming off with the adhesives.

He turns away when he's done to dispose of the gauze. I take off my underwear, stepping over the pile of clothes at my feet and into the shower stall, vaguely registering Timmy's instructions. He wants me to take off my twistie tie ring so it won't get damaged, but I refuse. Over the rushing sound of the hot water pelting my sore muscles, I can hear him pulling out the medical equipment from the cabinet, telling me to clean up and let him know when I'm finished so he can redress my cuts and bandage me up. Then he leaves.

I stand directly under the spray, shutting my eyes against the onslaught and relishing the steamy, soporific heat of the water. I grit my teeth against the sting of my injuries, muscles taut and staining as I scrub myself clean methodically.

I dry off as best as I can when I'm done, and Timmy comes into the bathroom shortly after hearing the water shut off. He has me sit on the closed toilet lid wrapped in a towel cinched tightly around my waist, while he disinfects and applies more dressing to my chest.

I watch his face as his skilled fingers work away on my skin. The kid in him has grown up. The angles of his face seem more pronounced; his aura is darker, more solemn. It's hard to believe that there was a time when I could throw him over my shoulder and call him my baby boy.

"How're you feeling?" It's a heartfelt question, not a clinical assessment, but I know I'm looking back at him with dead eyes. The most I can offer is a half-shrug. Because otherwise I might give into odd little impulses to hold his soft hand or kiss his lips or something equally stupid. Boyfriend, I remind myself. I have to respect that.

Timmy looks at me with his big green eyes that I can't read anymore, and I don't like it so I turn my head away, jaw tense, and ask him tersely if we're done here.

"Yeah," he manages stiltedly. "Yeah, let me just - you can go, I'll clean up here."

•••

Timmy goes to live with Eric rather than back home to New York, and I terrify myself with the gloomy thoughts I find myself thinking. If left to my own devices, I find myself withdrawing to a dark place of pessimism and sorrow - so I keep busy. Over the next week or so, I meet with my agent and a conglomerate of business and media magnates over dinner. I talk about gigs, opportunities, public image and rebranding, charities, the family businesses. I drive over to LAX to pick up Elizabeth, and accompany her on her shopping sprees without complaint. I do everything I can to avoid getting in my own head. Meanwhile, Timmy tries to be as present as possible in the children's lives.