Content: Arthur/Louis Bloom, Trans character

They're standing together in the bathroom, in front of the broken mirror with its pieces carefully glued back into place.

"Let me see you," Arthur asks, quiet and undemanding, "I don't understand why you won't let me look."

"I want you to listen to me first, Arthur," Lou tells him.

Arthur nods, still anxious that Lou might walk away or change his mind.

Lou stares beyond him for a moment, through the door that opens into the living room. "There are certain conversations that I find tedious. They're cyclical and designed to soothe misplaced discomfort, or to provoke insecurities that I don't have. There's an assumption that something can be said that hasn't been said before. I don't like when people try to have these conversations with me."

"What -" Arthur begins, and Lou stops him with a raised hand.

He pulls his shirt over his head and the rise of his arms sucks his skin between his ribs. Arthur can see faint scars, shiny and white under the fluorescent light. They're purposeful, following the curve where his pectorals would be if they weren't flattened against bone. Then he unbuttons his trousers and they slide easily down his skinny hips to pool around his ankles. And finally Lou is standing nude and vulnerable, hands at his sides.

And Arthur does understand what he was trying to say, and he also understands, innately, the tediousness of every conversation he's ever had before.

Arthur looks at him, at his face, at his expression - forever impassive. "Okay," he says.

Lou blinks slowly, only once. "Okay."