Chapter Text
Hate, Arthur thinks, is a misunderstood thing.
Hate has shades—tastes even, if you roll it around on your tongue long enough. Arthur’s hated a lot of things in his life and every single one is catalogued, tucked away into one of the neat black file cabinets he keeps stacked inside his head.
He hated wearing hand-me-downs from kids he never met at foster homes he never stayed at for long. That hate was something sour, sticking to his mouth like milk gone bad. He hated every school where they called him a fairy, where someone would pull him behind the bleachers to punch him one day and feel him up the next. Being hit tasted like dirty copper, like pennies put in a blender and poured down his throat. Being touched when he didn’t want it was worse. It tasted like dog shit and cigarette butts and chapstick that wasn’t his. He hated that he couldn’t stop them, hated how he was skinny and weak then, that he didn’t know how to throw a punch, to drive a car, to use a gun. Feeling powerless tasted like battery acid.
But hate is useful. It can push life into paper veins, can run through you like antivenom and clear out everything that corrodes. It did for him. It kicked him forward, got him to run from that house and that school and that dirt smudge of a town.
Hate got him to the other side of the country, to a bare one bedroom in the bad part of Hollywood. He should probably hate that too, the apartment, but he can’t. Even if it is shitty, it’s the one thing that’s his.
Arthur will admit, though, that there is nothing in this world he hates quite as much as the ice-cold water he wakes up to there.
He stands in his tiny shower, feeling the frozen spray trickle and spit out of the pre-war pipes, and tries not to punch the tile.
Once he’s toweled off and returned to a less miserable temperature, he walks over to his sliver of a closet and thinks about what to wear; it’s more like choosing what part to play. Becoming someone else lends a clean simplicity to the whole exchange. It pulls Arthur further from it, spreading a stage out between him and his audience. It gives him distance, control.
That’s why he does what he does. He can’t say he enjoys it, but the reality is that nothing could give Arthur more pleasure than his independence, than being in control of his own life. This is the best way for him to keep that.
The money is good, the hours are short, and he doesn’t have to be bound down by things like schedules, bosses, background checks, or any kind of rules meant to cage. This is his to say yes or say no to—every night, every job. All he has to do in exchange for that unfettered freedom is swallow down some stranger for an hour.
He shimmies on his tiny neon underwear, a pair of acid-washed skinny jeans, and a tight yellow T-shirt with green glitter glued all over the front of it. He sweeps his hair over his face in a way that looks younger than he feels, and tries out a wink in the mirror. He fits the part.
He goes over to his computer, takes a picture, and uploads it along with his usual ad. It’s something Arthur painstakingly composed, making sure it held the right balance between cloying come-hither promise and a clear outline of what he will and won’t do.
It takes less than a minute for the responses to start, less than five for Arthur to have too many to choose from.
He sorts through them with shrewd precision, practiced at picking over emails like this. Arthur knows what to look for, the tells of each john rising into view as clear as neon road signs. He can quickly eliminate the ones that seem too dangerous, too unpredictable, too much trouble for one night.
He drags all the promising responses into a separate folder and goes through them a second time. He approaches the task with a clinical thoroughness, running the IP addresses of every john through a program that cross-references it with public records. In about ten minutes, Arthur possess a neat excel sheet detailing who they are, where they’re emailing from, if they have a criminal record, what their credit score is, and a flood of other information that is mostly useless but will sometimes catch Arthur’s eye. He once eliminated a john specifically because of the library books he had checked out.
The research aspect of what he does is the one part Arthur genuinely enjoys. There is something so satisfying about it, about gathering information on all of these men who think they’re cloaked in careful anonymity. They must congratulate themselves on being clever enough to create separate email accounts to reply to ads like Arthur’s, ones with addresses like [email protected]. These, of course, do nothing to slow Arthur’s pursuit of their personal information.
Arthur keeps track of the email addresses too, cross-referencing them with ones posted on message boards by other men who do what Arthur does, exchanging stories about who was quick, who was messy, who paid extra, who tried to hurt them. Arthur makes sure to post regularly himself, warning them away from anyone his research reveals to be dangerous.
This meticulous system makes Arthur’s job so simple it hardly takes thinking about. He’s never run into trouble on a job except for a few very minor incidents when he was just starting out, before he was smart enough to be this careful. And even if he were to wind up in a bad situation, Arthur can take care of himself. He made sure of that. As soon as he had the money and the time to devote to it, he started training, learning every way one person can kill another.
Arthur doesn’t want to kill anyone—he’s never hurt anyone in his life, actually. But he wants to know that he could, if he had to.
During the three years he’s been in California, he’s trained in boxing, judo, capoeira, karate, and mauy thai. He can fire a gun, throw a knife, and, if absolutely necessary, dislodge an Adam’s apple with a spoon.
It’s all he does with his free time, aside from reading, sleeping, and his research. It works for him. It keeps him fit, fills out his skinny frame with long muscles that are flexible and taut—muscles that are useful for attracting clients and making sure he could put any of them down in a flat second. Arthur could probably pull a john’s spine straight out of his neck before he got Arthur knocked out or tied up or whatever else he was stupid enough to try. Arthur will never be powerless underneath someone else's hands, not again.
“Glitter tee today, huh? Must be a big night.”
Arthur lets out a long sigh, wistfully considering all the ways he could disembowel his intruding neighbor if he were a lesser person.
“Speaking of clothing,” Arthur replies, without bothering to look over at Ariadne, who has once again entered without knocking, “don’t think you’re being cute sneaking your shit into my laundry. This is the last time.”
He hears her shoes drag across the ragged floorboards toward the hamper, listens to the soft sound of hands drifting over cloth.
“Oh Arthur—you ironed!”
“Last time, Ari. I mean it.”
“Absolutely, very last time, I promise,” she says.
Arthur doesn’t even spare the energy to roll his eyes, knowing full well she’ll do it again next week if not sooner.
“You know, if you’re going to be here all the time, why don’t you just move in. At least then you’d have to pay me some rent.”
“And give up all the luxuries of 3A? Never.”
“Do you get hot water in 3A? Because if you do, then I’m moving in.”
“No more than you’re getting in 3B, I’d suspect."
Arthur groans. The hot water thing is really getting to him.
“Is this even fucking legal? I’m going to research the housing codes for Los Angeles County because there is absolutely no way—”
“Aren’t those pants a little tight for doing research?" she says. "How can you even think when, you know…?”
He looks over at Ari, who is making a squeezing gesture in front of her crotch while giving Arthur a pained look.
“The denim is very breathable,” Arthur replies flatly.
She laughs at him—one of those honest, rolling belly laughs that charms Arthur more than it should. He smiles, despite himself.
“Ari, I’m working, can we do this later?”
“Fine, fine, I’m leaving. Who’s the lucky schmuck by the way?” she asks, leaning in to peer over his shoulder.
Ari is the only person who knows what Arthur does, probably because she is really the only person Arthur knows.
He never intended to be friends with her—Arthur has never really had friends, per se—but she sort of shoved her way into his life and he never managed to scare her off. He thought the whole orphan-turned-prostitute-turned-trained-killer thing would be enough to put off anyone—especially five-foot-nothing architecture students with big innocent doe eyes—but Ari remains unruffled.
“I don’t know yet. I just started going through the list,” Arthur answers.
She pores over his excel sheet, scanning the information with speed.
“This one,” she says, pointing to line 26. “Definitely this one.”
Line 26 is the one with the least information. It contains only three details:
Hardware: MacBookPro 5,5 org.reg. LONDON, U.K.
Access Location: Regent Beverly Wilshire PENT-SUITE-1
User Information: Eames, [no first name logged]
“Why would I pick a john I know nothing abo—”
“Do you know what PENT-SUITE-1 means?” she asks, in a leading tone.
“I assume it means one of the penthouse suites,” he counters, trying not to let Ari think she knows more than him.
“Yes, but Penthouse 1 at the Beverly-freaking-Wilshire—that’s the Presidential Suite!”
“How could you possibly know that?” he asks.
“It’s an older architecture term that has to do with labeling units of rooms in terms of size. If it’s in the hotel access system as Penthouse 1, that means it’s the largest of the penthouses, which in this case means presidentially large, which in your case means you should pick that guy.”
“You really don’t understand how—”
“All I’m saying is that there is a guy on your list staying in the Presidential Suite at the swankiest hotel on the West Coast, so you might want to consider him.”
“That’s not the way I do—”
“Whatever! Good luck, and don’t forget to text me where you’re going once you decide!” She walks out the door with her ill-begotten laundry clutched tightly to her chest, as though Arthur might choose to yank it back from her.
The door drifts closed, and Arthur turns back to his screen, perplexed.
He scans the list again. Even though line 26 contains the least personal information, it’s still a tempting offer—someone staying in a hotel that nice will definitely pay Arthur what he’s owed, and it’s an extremely safe location, more so than a lesser hotel and far more than a personal residence.
He clicks open the email response from number 26, and starts to read.
christ, i really never do this, but i was deathly bored tonight and started to click a bit around the site, mostly for a laugh. then i saw your photo and just couldn’t keep myself from dropping a line to you. im certain that sounds rather idiotic but i assure you it’s true.
i am out of my depth with all of this im afraid, but if you’re free tonight darling i'd love to take you out. money not a problem, we can go where you like.
cheers x
It’s unusual, to say the least.
That isn’t really a positive in Arthur’s book. He prefers predictable to anything else. But at least this response is sort of a sweet unusual, if you had to call it something. There is nothing about smearing hot come on Arthur’s face, nothing about how huge the guy's cock is, nothing about how tight Arthur must be. It’s—almost more like he’s asking Arthur on a date.
Arthur rereads the email three times, trying to pry apart the sentences and dig around for any hidden meanings or nefarious implications. If there are any, he can’t find them.
Arthur, in his ad, always requests a photo. Many johns ignore this but Arthur tends to prefer the ones who include it, if only because it gives him more information and a clearer sense of what he’s getting himself into. Number 26, as it happens, sent him one.
He clicks through to see a very bad selfie the guy appears to have taken on a balcony somewhere. It’s blurry, taken hastily. He's shirtless. The guy is not what Arthur would have pictured. He’s big, built, with swirling tattoos and pillowy lips.
Huh, Arthur thinks. He’s attractive.
It’s by no means the most important factor to Arthur, but it can make the job simpler if he finds his john pleasant to look at. It allows him to play the part more easily—makes the moans more authentic, the stuttered breaths less rehearsed. If there is even the tiniest flint of real desire hanging in his eyes when he looks at the john, the counterfeit is cleaner.
He puts number 26 on the shortlist, and keeps going.
By the time he’s gone through the entire spreadsheet, he’s flagged five criminals, seven sex offenders, one congressman, two priests, and someone who plays Captain Hook at Disneyland. These, obviously, are rejected.
The shortlist of acceptable clients comes down to only four people— Number 8, Number 26, and Number 39, and Number 42.
Arthur weighs the choices, taking in the pros and cons of each one, and decides on Number 39. He seems boring, straightforward, simple to please, and he’s at a nice hotel. It might not be the Regent Beverly Wilshire, but it’ll do fine.
He writes out a reply asking for a time and a place (even though Arthur already knows the place). He doesn’t have to wait long for a response—Number 39 sends him a polite but eager reply in less than three minutes.
Arthur, satisfied with his choice, packs his usual bag—an efficient mix of condoms, lubricants, and tasteful sex toys (plus his clip blade butterfly knife, just to be safe)—and heads out the door.
He texts Ari as he walks—
Heading to Sunset Towers, Rm 1701. John is No 39. Back in two hours.
His phone beeps back immediately.
what abt number 26?!!
Arthur sighs into the thin night air.
Number 26 was tempting. Lavish hotel, attractive guy, disarmingly nice note. But Arthur just didn’t have enough information to be confident in picking him. Number 26 was peculiar. Not a bad peculiar, but just—peculiar.
Arthur doesn’t like peculiar. He likes expected, predictable, neat.
He texts Ari this in response, and she lets it go.
They got into the habit of doing this, him and Ari, ever since they split a bottle of wine and bag of Doritos on his kitchen floor and Arthur told her what he did for money. She didn’t judge him, not at all—she seemed impressed, actually, by how systematic he was with the whole thing. But she asked him to text her from then on, letting her know where he was going and how long it should take for him to get back.
He doesn’t mind it—it’s nice that someone actually cares about where he is, wants to know if he’s okay. But there’s just no point. Arthur is careful enough that he doesn’t need the insurance policy and he has no idea what Ariadne would even do were he not to come back. If Arthur ended up in a situation so dire he couldn’t manage to get himself out of it, there is no way Ari could help.
Then again, what the hell does Arthur know? Ariadne might turn out to be an absolute terror and show up with brass knuckles and a rusty kitchen knife to take down the whole place.
He laughs out loud at the image, picturing it as he crosses Hollywood Boulevard.
That’s probably why he doesn’t notice the car about to hit him.
“JESUS CHRI—” Arthur screeches, leaping left to dodge the erratic vehicle.
The car slams to a halt, jerks forward, stops, goes, jumps the curb, stops again, goes again, then, finally, shudders to stillness.
The engine silences and a man tears out from the drivers seat with a look of absolute horror painted over him.
“I am so bloody sorry, you have no idea, I can’t drive this thing for shit, it’s the last time I buy Italian, I promise you, oh Christ love, tell me you’re not hurt, I’m used to driving on the other side of the bloody road is the thing, and I only just bought this ludicrous car and clearly do not know how to—”
Not a chance, Arthur thinks, frozen into silence. There is absolutely no way.
“Do I know—” The man narrows his eyes at him.
Arthur watches realization dawn on Number 26 the same way it cracked open for him about ten seconds earlier.
“Oh bloody fuck,” the man says. “You’re—”
“Yeah, I am,” Arthur confirms, trying to move things along, “And I’m fine, and alive, so have a good night.”
Arthur walks away. The man follows.
“Wait—”
“Look,” Arthur says, letting some bite into his voice as he continues ahead, “I’m not free tonight, I’m not going to your hotel with you, I’m not doing anything with you, so stop following me.”
“Would you just—”
“Can’t you take a fucking hint?” Arthur spits. The last thing he needs is a john he turned down stalking him on the way to a job.
“Darling,” the man pleads. And he’s—
He’s laughing.
Arthur stops and turns at the sound, not understanding what the hell could be so funny.
He sees the man hold up something in his outstretched hand.
“Darling—your bag?” A smirk as huge as the Hollywood sign lights the man’s face.
Arthur stands there, a knot in his jaw, fuming soundlessly at the world.
The man takes a few steps closer, politely settling the bag at Arthur’s feet. Then he backs away, hands lifted playfully in submission as though Arthur’s silent fury is a gun cocked in his direction.
“Thanks,” Arthur grunts out.
“My pleasure,” Number 26 says, lowering his hands into his pockets.
Arthur looks at his watch. He’s going to be late now, which means he can’t meet Number 39. It’s one of his strictest rules. One of the only times a john tried to hurt him was when he showed up late to a job. It was the third trick he turned—he was stupid then, new at it. Arthur never repeats his mistakes.
“After all this,” the man offers, interrupting Arthur’s thoughts, “I really do feel I owe you the bare courtesy of a meal. I’d be happy to take you anywhere you like.”
Arthur, no longer finding himself in a rush, looks Number 26 over. He takes in all the details. The man is dressed in a somewhat ill-fitting but still terrifyingly expensive suit. He looks just as rakish as he did in his photo, a three-day stubble shading his jaw. His accent is rough and alluring, like silk slipped over charcoal. An easy smile never quite leaves his lips.
And the car behind him—the one he almost hit Arthur with—is a Lamborghini Gallardo Bicolore.
Arthur, honest to God, almost swoons.
He’s never owned a car, not once in his life, but he loves them. He took a stunt driving class last year—figured it’d be a good skill to fold into his repertoire. The entire experience felt to him like what he imagines sex feels like to other people. He’ll never forget the feeling of sinking his foot onto the pedal until it purred, taking corners so hard the tires burned the road beneath him. It felt like pure, screeching freedom.
Arthur stares at $200,000 of garish yellow idling on the pavement in front of him, and fuck if it isn’t the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen. Honestly, if that car had hit him, he wouldn’t even have minded.
“Okay,” Arthur hears himself say.
“Sorry?”
“I’m—my schedule. It cleared up. So if you’re still interested,” Arthur elongates the word, making it clear what they’re talking about, ”then I’m yours.”
He pulls on a coy smile, the kind that usually makes his clients buckle at the knees.
Arthur watches Number 26’s breath stall out, and knows it worked.
“Brilliant,” the man replies.
“One condition,” Arthur says, stepping forward to breathe it against the man’s ear, “I’m driving.”
“Oh darling,” Number 26 says, close enough that his stubble grazes Arthur’s jaw, “I insist on it—you’ll save an entire city, I promise you.”
Arthur laughs.
Arthur never laughs with a client. Arthur never does anything like this, actually. But he already researched this john, already knows where he’s staying, what his last name is—and after all the time Arthur’s spent studying people, he knows how to get a sense for someone right away.
The sense he gets from Number 26 is that he must be as bored as he is rich. He seems a little bit lonely, a little bit cocky. Most importantly, he seems like no threat to Arthur or to to anyone else, as long as he’s not let behind the wheel.
“Come on,” Arthur beckons, sliding on the velveteen voice he uses with his clients, “I’m taking you for a ride.”