Content: Arthur/Louis Bloom, Suicide

Lou poses Arthur out on the floor, arranging his limbs with gentle precision while Arthur lies limp and unquestioning. He rests his hand on Arthur's chest and bends down - his breath is hot on Arthur's neck and Arthur wants to reach up and touch him but knows he needs to stay where he's been placed, sprawled out in an awkward tangle. "I'm going to show you something, Arthur," Lou says, his voice even and calm, "It's extremely important that you don't move."

He pulls away and disappears from Arthur's line of sight. Arthur hears the tap of his fingers on a keyboard and watches his shadow curl across the blank square of the ceiling - leaving, then returning. Lou places his laptop on the floor and turns Arthur's head to face it. In the frame of the playback window he can see the empty eyes of a broken corpse. Blood pooled on dry asphalt reflects the halo of the camera's light and the dark outline of Lou coiled behind it. The position of it is familiar, and as the Lou holding the camera circles around it he realizes, dully, that he is lying in the same position.

"He jumped from a building in a highly trafficked area," Lou explains. His hand is on Arthur's chest again. "Did you ever think about that, Arthur? Jumping? Hitting the ground? The finality of the impact?"

Arthur shivers under the weight of Lou's stare, heavier than the press of his fingers between his ribs. "Everyone thinks about that," he says.

"Do they?”

"That's what I used to think. That it was a secret everyone shared deep inside. But I'm always wrong about the way people are."

Lou touches Arthur's neck, then his cheek, gently tilting Arthur's head to face him. "You're right that everyone shares an obsession with death. You're only mistaken about the way they process and express it."

Arthur untagles himself and turns. The glow of the laptop illuminates his back and is reflected in tiny squares of light in Lou's eyes. "I think if I had known someone who was the same as me, at least a little, things wouldn't have turned out the way they did."

"I think you're right about that, too," Lou says. He brushes Arthur's hair from his face, clearing away the barrier that hides his expression from him. "But the trajectory of your life has brought us both together."