Content: Arthur/Louis Bloom, NSFW, Dissociative sex, Clothed sex

Lou is fully clothed and rutting against Arthur's naked body. He has one hand braced against the wall over the bed, where his spread fingers look like pale paint splashed over blue. The other is on Arthur's stomach, hooked between his ribs, wrapped around his neck.

His shirt has ridden up, exposing the soft skin of his back, and Arthur struggles to touch him. He feels vacant, warm; curled up in some mossy hollow deep inside himself. Lou's desperate touch and feral panting seem distant; in a different room, or a different time. And when Lou shudders against him as he climaxes, it reverberates through him, deep enough into his body that he can feel it where he's gone away to hide. It's almost better than being present, more intimate. Like he's sharing Lou's orgasm instead of chasing his own.

And afterward Lou strips down and they lie together, skin against skin, one draped over the other. Arthur is limp, floating in a void reminiscent of the one that had engulfed him in death. Beneath him Lou gently slips into the shallow waters of sleep. His breathing slows and he disappears inside himself, to the place where Arthur has gone.