Chapter Text
Arthur watches the man crawl up the stairs, his movements slow and labored—a snail trying to creep up a pane of glass.
The man is screaming. Raw, shrill screams, like a child or an animal. Blood slicks the cement steps.
Just minutes ago this man was laughing with his friends as they kicked Arthur. Laughing as they beat him bloody on the subway car. Minutes ago this man was in control, on top of everything, looking forward to a bright future.
Now, all of that is gone. His identity, his position in society, his money, everything has been stripped away. There is nothing left but a wounded body. Nothing but fear.
Peel back the surface, Arthur thinks, and it’s there—that naked prey-terror. Even the men who have everything are just animals, made from the same vulnerable skin and nerve and bone as he himself is. They are not invincible, after all. Their status and power means nothing to a bullet.
It’s a revelation. Arthur has lived most of his life in that state of fear, knowing that he can be hurt by anyone at any time. He’s never been the one dealing out the pain.
Arthur marches toward the man, one arm held out stiffly, the .38 clutched in his hand.
He’s already made the decision. Not even a decision, really. He is operating on instinct now. His vision is sharper and clearer, his head buzzing, the blood sizzling through his veins like an electric current. His breathing comes heavy and ragged.
The man’s movements are slowing, growing weaker as the blood pours out of him. So much. Human beings are just water balloons filled with blood.
Arthur squeezes the trigger. Bang, bang. The man goes limp.
Just like that. He’s dead. Like his two friends. They are all dead.
Arthur stands, dazed and blinking. The world is still. The screaming has stopped. He is alone.
Somewhere in the back of his head he thinks, I just killed three people.
Beneath the numbness, the strange, dreamlike clarity, beneath the singing of adrenaline, there is a slow-mounting panic.
Arthur has spent his whole life trying to be good. Through the years he kept smiling, even when he was shoved down and beaten and kicked, even when people spat on him and sneered at him and humiliated him. He smiled through it all. Because he was put here to bring joy and laughter to the world. What else is he for?
That image of himself crashes against the sight of his victim’s bloody body like a freight train into a wall of rock.
Murder isn’t good. Murder isn’t nice.
They deserved it, a voice inside whispers.
No. No, no, no.
Isn’t it a relief—letting go? Pushing back?
A ringing fills his skull, drowning out his thoughts. Arthur puts a hand against the side of his head, breathing hard.
The body remains slumped on the stairs, facedown. An inert thing. The sight of it strikes him as funny, somehow. Moments ago it was a living, talking, thinking human being, and now it is a cut of meat, like a steak in a butcher shop. How weird. Of course that’s just how death works, but the man looks so foolish, sprawled there on the steps as though he tripped—
Not he anymore. It.
Arthur did that. He turned a person into a lump of meat. He extinguished the universe inside the other man’s head.
There is something intimate about it. Killing another person.
Focus, he thinks.
No one saw. If he escapes now, it will be like this never happened. He just…needs to run. Needs to get away. He needs—
“Hey.”
Arthur’s gaze jerks toward the voice.
A man. A dark-haired man. Young—younger than himself, anyway—in a brown jacket. He stands about ten feet away, arms at his sides, expression blank.
He saw.
Slowly, as if in a trance, Arthur raises the gun. The man just stares at it. There’s a flicker of something in his expression. But he doesn’t look afraid. “You gonna shoot me?” he asks, almost casually.
Arthur wonders if there are any bullets left. He tries to remember how many he fired, but the past few minutes are a jumbled mess in his head. He starts to squeeze the trigger—then stops. Goes cold.
What is he doing?
The men on the subway were bad people. They hurt Arthur. They might have hurt that woman, if Arthur’s spasms of frightened laughter didn’t distract them at the right moment. From the way they acted, they were used to hurting people and getting away with it.
This man—the one standing there, staring at Arthur—is an innocent bystander. Just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If Arthur shoots him now, to save himself, he’s no better than the ones who hurt him.
‘Fighting back makes you just as bad.’ That sort of thinking—isn’t that how they control you? Keep you tame? What has playing by their rules ever gotten you?
The dark-haired man just keeps staring at him. His eyes are brown, Arthur notices. A warm, soft brown. Slowly, he raises his hands. Showing he’s unarmed.
Why isn’t he afraid?
“If you’re gonna do it,” the man says, “aim for the head.” He turns one hand and brings two fingers against his temple. “Make it fast. Hell, you’d be doing me a favor.”
Arthur’s lips tremble. His face twitches, contorts.
The man’s gaze holds his. Steady. Calm. “One more body,” he says. “I’m no one. Just a cab driver. Don’t make no difference.”
Arthur’s finger quivers on the trigger. The man is a witness. If Arthur doesn’t kill him now, his own life is over.
“It’s okay,” the man says, almost gently.
Do it.
But Arthur can’t.
No. Not can’t. He doesn’t want to.
His face twists again, and a laugh bursts out—a pained bray.
He lifts the gun to his own temple.
There’s a flash of alarm in the man’s eyes. “Hey.” He takes a step forward. “You don’t have to do that.”
Arthur licks his lips, tasting the hot copper of blood. His ragged breathing echoes through the silence.
He’s worried about what will happen to his mother. Who will take care of her? But if Arthur is locked up in prison or Arkham—which seems very likely, now—she’ll be left alone anyway. It doesn’t matter. Either way, life as he knows it will end. He might as well end it on his own terms, and not as an animal in a cage.
“Put the gun down.”
“You saw what I did. I’m a m-m-muh-m—” he can’t seem to spit out the word murderer.
The man glances at the body and says, “First time?”
Arthur swallows, blinks. The gun is a cold circle against his temple. “Yeah,” he croaks.
“First time is the hardest.” He smiles, just a twitch of his lips.
Who is this man?
“Relax. No one saw you except me. And I’m not telling. Why would I? I dunno who this guy is or why you killed him. I’m just a passing ghost. Don't make no difference to me.”
Arthur’s hand trembles. His sweat-slick finger is pressed against the trigger. “I can’t go back,” he says. “I’m bad now. It’s over.”
“Is that how you think about it? Once you cross that line, that’s it?”
“I guess—I don’t know.” It’s so hard to think, right now.
“You wanna go to prison?”
“No.”
“Then you might want to get away from the body before anyone else sees you. I’d find somewhere to ditch the gun too.” He takes another step closer.
“Stop!”
The man freezes.
Arthur tries to force his foggy, paralyzed mind to move. This must be a trick. A trap. The man is trying to get closer to him so he can grab the gun. But…why would he do that? Arthur has the gun to his own head. If the man wanted him dead, he could’ve just let him shoot himself. But he stopped him, instead.
He’s so confused. So tired. His head hurts.
“What’s your name?” the man asks.
Arthur’s eyes are filling with tears, now. Warm and salty, like blood. The world goes blurry. “Arthur,” he whispers. “My name is Arthur.”
“I’m Travis. I’m gonna take another step closer.” He steps forward, shrinking the distance between them a little more. He’s only a few paces away now. “You can always die later. For now, let’s just walk away. And you can tell me why you killed this guy. If you feel like it.”
Arthur keeps the gun pressed against his temple. He feels safer, with the escape route in place. The air shudders in his throat with each breath. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you care what happens to me? Why do you care why I did it?”
A pause. Travis frowns, looking away. “Curiosity, I guess. You don’t feel like a killer.” He studies Arthur’s face, his bloody nose. “He hurt you?”
A tear slips down Arthur’s cheek. “Yes,” he whispers.
Travis nods, as if this confirms something for him. “You got kicked one too many times and snapped.”
Arthur stares. This man…
He sees.
“Put down the gun.”
Slowly, he lowers it.
Travis walks up to him. Arthur flinches back, breathing faster, and raises his arms instinctively to shield himself—but Travis just keeps walking past him. Past the corpse, up the stairs. Arthur watches for a few seconds. Then he shoves the gun into his duffel bag and follows Travis. He tries not to look at the body.
“Don’t step in the blood,” Travis says. “You don’t wanna leave shoe-prints.”
“Shouldn’t we be running?” Arthur asks, breathless.
“It’d just attract more attention. Walk fast, but casual. Like you’ve got somewhere to be.”
They reach the top of the stairs and keep walking. Through the station, out into the street.
A laugh bubbles up in Arthur’s throat. He claps a hand over his mouth, stifling it, so it emerges as a sort of half-hiccup, half-burp.
Travis tilts his head, but doesn’t react, otherwise. “You should probably wash that makeup off your face. The blood too.”
Arthur wipes at his still-bleeding nose. “I guess I should…find a bathroom, or something.”
Murderer, murderer, murderer, chants a sing-song little voice in his head. The images of the dead men keep floating up behind his eyes like grim party balloons. Laughter crawls around in his chest, trying to force its way out of his mouth. He locks his jaws tight.
“My cab’s parked just down the street,” Travis says. “That way."
They walk. People drift past on either side, like shadows. A few glance at them, but no one says anything, no one stops them. Travis approaches a plain yellow cab. Opens the passenger door in the back.
Arthur stares at the seat.
If he has a cab, why was he in the subway tunnel?
He wonders, for a moment, if getting into the vehicle is a good idea. If he does, he’ll be putting himself at this man’s mercy. And this man strikes him as…not crazy, exactly. At least, not in the usual sense of the word. But definitely not normal. No normal person would react so calmly to witnessing a murder.
Of course, Arthur isn’t normal, either.
He doesn’t know what’s going on or what’s going to happen to him now. But somehow he doesn’t feel afraid. Maybe he’s just shock-numb.
Travis waits. Motionless, hand on the door. Arthur takes a few steps back, clutching the handle of his duffel bag in both hands…then stops.
I’m the one with the gun, he remembers suddenly. Why is he so afraid?
Travis waits another few seconds. When Arthur doesn’t move, Travis steps forward and takes him by the arm. “Let’s go. Sooner we get away from here, the better.”
Arthur looks down at the hand gripping the crook of his elbow. He could pull free, if he really wanted. But the pressure of fingers on his arm somehow shuts down his hesitation. His head goes blank and his body moves automatically. He gets into the cab.
Arthur sets his duffel bag between his feet and folds his hands in his lap.
Travis closes the door and gets behind the wheel. “Buckle your seatbelt.”
Arthur does.
They start driving. Lights and buildings glide past outside the window. Arthur’s pulse escalates. I’m the one with the gun, he reminds himself.
And then, abruptly, he remembers the sensation of the gun clicking empty when he pulled the trigger that final time. He fired the last bullet into the body of his third victim. He was holding an unloaded gun on Travis, and then on himself. Like an idiot.
A flush climbs up his neck, into his face. “There are no more bullets,” he says.
Travis doesn’t reply.
“You knew that,” Arthur says, “didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
Well, he is now. Arthur just told him. He’s in a vehicle with a stranger who just witnessed him committing a murder and he has no weapon, and now Travis is aware of that fact. Arthur rubs his forehead, pushes his fingers through his hair, feeling the ridge of scar tissue running across his scalp. Stupid, he thinks. So fucking stupid.
He stares at the back of Travis’s head through the pane of clear plastic separating them. The rush of power he felt when he killed those three men is already fading. Without a loaded gun, Arthur’s not much of a threat to anyone.
A sense of helplessness creeps over him, numbing him. His head feels foggy.
“Are you going to hurt me?” he asks. His own voice sounds strangely casual, to his ears. Like he’s asking Travis his favorite flavor of ice cream.
“No.” Travis glances at him in the rearview mirror. “You want me to stop?” He pulls up to the curb, puts the taxi in park, and waits.
Arthur swallows. He grips the door handle and pulls. The door opens. He starts to unbuckle his seatbelt…then stops.
If he gets out, what then? Go where? Home? All bloodied and bruised, like this? He can’t face his mother right now. He has no idea what he would say to her.
Arthur closes the door.
“Keep driving,” he whispers.
Travis does.
Arthur is exhausted. Sore. Now that the adrenaline high is fading, he can feel his own injuries. His back aches. His face aches. His nose throbs dully, the pain radiating through his skull with each heartbeat. He feels every kick, every punch that landed on him. He doesn’t think he has a concussion, but he’s a little lightheaded. He hasn’t eaten for a while.
He doesn’t want to try to untangle this mess on his own. He just wants to rest here in this taxi, breathing in the musty smell of the faux-leather seats, the tang of smoke and pine-scented air freshener. It’s oddly comforting to have a stranger just step in and take control of the situation. Obeying is something he knows how to do. “Where are we going?” Arthur asks.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
So, Travis doesn’t really have a plan either. He sounds calm, though. Arthur has no reason to trust him, yet somehow, he feels safer with him. He stares out the window. The streetlights and headlights and neon signs go blurry and start to bleed together. “I’m very tired,” he says. “I think I’m going to close my eyes.”
“Okay.”
Arthur closes his eyes. In the darkness, he floats.