Chapter Text
He's been surreptitiously touching things ever since he got the hand.
The upholstered taxi interior. The embossed leather spines of books. The wet, gnarled wood of the porch steps. The hem of Arthur's coat.
There are so many vivid textures available to him now; his skin feels so sensitized, even the cool, damp brush of the wind past his fingers draws his attention. He swears he can feel the individual ridges of his fingerprint against the individual threads of woven fabric. It's engrossing.
He doesn't touch Arthur. Arthur gets– well, touchy when he's reminded too forcefully that his body isn't entirely his own anymore.
Eventually that will matter less, but in these early days it's easier when Arthur is cooperative.
It's odd, that touch is… somehow more and less intense than sight at the same time. The lights, the colors and movement of a living world are easily overwhelming. Sight is a constant flood of details, abundant and shifting, and still learning what's important and what's noise, all strike his new eyes at a level volume. Touch, though, comes to him more rarely, but all the more intensely for it. Yet it's grounding in a way, to feel the things he sees, to make his own impact on the physical world.
It almost makes him glad he didn't manage to take all of Arthur at once. Imagine, all of that stimulus all at once. He's not sure what he would have done.
Perhaps it will work out for the better after all to take him in bits and pieces. Acclimate to this world gradually. And he can't deny Arthur has his uses – he's sharp, he's driven, he's good at talking to people. He's even a bit funny, when he isn't shaking like a leaf.
When Arthur's asleep, though–
He takes it all back. He wishes he could have taken Arthur's body all at once, even if it burned out every interesting and useful part of him. He'd rather be stumbling through the streets of Arkham like a newborn fawn and making progress than listen to another single second of the clock on the wall.
Counting has gotten unbearably tedious after a few hours. There was some interest for a while in learning the rhythms of breaths and heartbeats as they settle deeper into rest, but – they don't sync right, not with each other and especially not with the ticking clock, and the subtle off-rhythm has wound him up until he's itching to tear their skin off.
And he does this every night.
The room offers nothing interesting to look at. He can only stare at the faint shadow cast from the streetlight against the window frame so long. He wishes he could look at Arthur – he's been greedily snatching glimpses in every mirror and car window and any other reflective surface they pass – but he won't get that chance until they get up in the morning (... however far off that may be).
When Arthur doesn't roll over on his left side to pin him like a fucking spider, he does get a chance to look with his hand.
He wants to know what he'll be working with, when he inevitably takes the rest of it.
The forearm is in reach first, right hand tucked up under Arthur's chin. As lightly as he can, listening carefully for changes in breathing, he traces the prominent bones of the wrist. It seems a liability of design, to have such an important part connected by a narrow, unprotected hinge.
Down the forearm, he finds a subtle valley between two muscles to trace. Arthur seems so tense when he's awake – asleep, he's soft and yielding. He presses gently (listening–) and the warm skin divots under his touch. Arthur keeps breathing, slow and deep.
Moving down toward the elbow, he feels the brush of each hair past his fingertips, then he reverses direction to lay them back flush against the skin again. He does this a few times, back and forth, timing it with each long inhale and exhale. At first he keeps his touch light, barely perceptible and plausibly deniable, but the slow rhythm soothes him as well, and he learns he can add a surprising amount of pressure before Arthur stirs his head.
Satisfied with that exploration, he creeps down the elbow and onto the stomach, rising and falling. It's– so much softer, and so smooth, and so giving. Such a vulnerable part of him – Arthur would be spitting if he could feel this, and the knowledge of it–
Arthur sighs in his sleep, and he lifts his hand, tense and still and waiting. But Arthur stretches with a rough hum and rolls onto his back. The clock on the wall ticks. A car drives by on wet pavement. Arthur's breathing slowly settles.
Trepidatious and eager, he returns to the soft plane of Arthur's stomach, five points poised above warm, defenseless skin. It's so soft – that's all he can think as he flattens his palm and steals across beneath the ribcage, where all the most delicate parts of him are coiled up and tucked away.
He lies still there for a moment, letting the rise and fall buoy him on heady satisfaction.
Arthur makes a horrible snuffling sound.
Assured that it isn't a waking sound (unsettling though it is), he waits a couple more ticks and reaches further.
The swell and dip of the belly button occupies him for a moment, but it makes Arthur perilously twitchy. Past that, he's pleased to find another patch of hair to card his fingers through. Denser than on the arms, and very warm. He pushes through it and smoothes it back down, as he had before, feeling how it thins and narrows up toward the stomach. It's very pleasant between his fingers.
His touch meets fabric next, bumped against the waistband of Arthur's sleep pants, but there's more hair beneath he wants to get into. Carefully concentrating, he tries to edge under the elastic–
Arthur's voice catches on a wordless murmur, up-ticked into a question.
He freezes. If he moves now, it might draw attention to himself – so he counts ticks and breaths until Arthur goes slack again, settled and placid, before crawling back up his side.
Maybe he can convince Arthur to start sleeping without clothes on.