Chapter Text
The entire world seemed to shift, compressing into imaginary vertices and whirling about him in a carousel of color. Jack’s was not a brightly decorated place, little more than a basement below a grocer’s, and yet, he caught the shimmering green of liquor bottles, the blue of some other drunkard’s coat, and the ever-present glint of gold: so much embellishment in tarnished, terrible gold.
This was normally a good indication for Arthur to go home. The liquor gained a peculiar weight on his tongue; each swallow – once he forced it his throat – fell like a weight into his stomach. Arthur ignored any and all attempts of the bartender to meet his gaze and settle up.
Soon, he would go home. It was always something small that urged him out. Needing to piss, usually. Sometimes, he needed fresh air like he might die without it, but now, he relished in breathing in the stale air of Jack’s. It made him feel dead, without all the messiness associated with corpsehood.
Arthur didn’t always make it home. Though he rarely ever intended to sleep in the alleyway, sometimes the walk home was an unimaginable burden. Because he was, quite frankly, a useless excuse of a human being, he would sit in the alley and simply nod off.
Wouldn’t be wise tonight, though. The rain pattered on the stairwell outside of Jack’s; occasionally, a burst of wind would cause the door to rattle in its hinges. Cold, too. Go asleep out there, and he might not wake up in the morning.
He was not going to kill himself.
However, that scarcely stopped Arthur from simply… ignoring some convenient facts that any rational man would take to heart. An accident was not a suicide; though people might grieve his death and deal with his body, they would do so with the knowledge that Arthur did not compose death. He could die as most people did - accidentally.
He didn’t know. It was terribly cold, but as it was, he had some hours before the bartender – or Jack – kicked him out. Best to stay in here before he had to make some decisions.
The band had long since stopped for the night, but they’d been good. Jazz was not Arthur’s preference, but he could appreciate some nice brass. Now, only the most devoted of alcoholics and gambling addicts filled Jack’s bar, playing a few muted games of blackjack behind him. Arthur supposed he’d won first prize this night. The last drunk standing (well, sitting) at the bar.
A long mirror ran horizontally across the wall. It was going to make him fucking sick, was what it was going to do, with the way it warped the cherry-colored wood and murkily-stained rugs of Jack’s. And yet, Arthur could still see himself in it.
Fucking wreck of a man, face spotted with a few days’ worth of stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave off. His face was pinched with red, nose the worst off of it. Arthur stared beadily at himself, scarcely blinking.
One part of his brain separated itself from the rest, even so. Completely underneath Arthur’s notice, he’d raised his left hand to the table. His fingers were tapping out a melody against the sticky wood: the tune that the jazz band had been playing some hours before, transposed as much as possible to his preference. Below his self-loathing, below the slow wearing away of his defenses, below it all, a ribbon of melody continued to stretch out.
And wasn’t that where the fucking trouble had first started.
Arthur hadn’t played in years.
Slowly, he rose his right hand to his lips, the rest of the liquor – whatever cheapest they had on offer, Arthur didn’t even have to ask anymore – packed away down his throat. When the glass met wood again, Arthur saw another man reflected in the mirror.
Just now starting to drink? Didn’t bode well, that. Only the truly miserable wretches started drinking after 8PM, something had to have happened for people to start well past midnight. Christ, he hoped this one wasn’t chatty. If this figure started talking about his, his lost love or his lost wages or –
“The stage is that way, friend.”
Oh, good, no, he was insensible. Arthur stared at the stranger in the mirror. Couldn’t make out much of him with the distortion – just a dark suit to match the dark hair on his head. Bit too much pomade, he thought. It was catching the lights.
Arthur didn’t say anything.
“Because you’re having your own little symphony out here,” the stranger continued on in a warm, cheery tone. “On the bar.”
What?
Arthur looked down at his left hand like it didn’t belong to him. He managed a few beats more before the musically-inclined part of his brain was consumed with the rest. Though he stopped tapping, his hand nevertheless shook. Arthur had ceased recognizing his own hand weeks ago.
The stranger next to him said something. He didn’t catch it, only saw a glimpse of his two outstretched fingers towards the bartender. His mind was too sodden to put it together, instead returning to his listless gaze at himself in the mirror.
That’s always what you did, wasn’t it? In a more… metaphorical sense. Stared at yourself, stared at what you want, and damn everyone else –
“What’s your name? I don’t mind calling you friend, but it'll get confusing quick."
A question that he’d been asked a thousand times, and an answer that sprung automatically to his tongue. He would've stopped himself, if he were sober.
“Arthur Lester.”
“Arthur Lester.” Oh, fantastic. His accent was being mimicked. No, he hadn’t had enough of that, already. He cautiously stretched his leg below the stool to test his balance. “Now, come on, don’t leave before you’ve had your drink.”
Oh, was that…
The bartender approached them again with two… cocktail glasses, Jesus. Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d drank something out of a god-damn cocktail glass. Tumblers were his preferred glassware after the sun went down; before, he might be convinced towards a pint glass.
And what the hell was in it? It looked like the bartender had opened a vein.
Stupid to accept, Arthur knew. Then again, if this man was selling something to him, he’d made a horrific mistake. If he were looking to convert him… well, even worse. The sensible decision would to be quietly decline, even as he saw this man’s silhouette in the mirror knock back a heady sip.
But, Arthur supposed he was thirsty.
He curled one shaking finger around the stem of the glass and brought it to his lips. Knocking it back, he –
Oh, Jesus!
Arthur nearly snapped it in half as he put it back down, wheezing into the elbow of his coat. Sweet. He’d gotten a citrus-filled whiff when he brought it up, but that’d been unable to prepare him for the syrupy sugar in a mouth that’d previously been filled with nothing but the same stuff they used to wipe down the bar at the end of the night.
“Oh! Not your taste, eh, English? I’ve got a sweet tooth myself.”
“W-what…?” Arthur coughed and cleared his throat, almost wishing for a pure shot to wash him clean.
“Blood and Sand. You ever see that movie?”
Another direct question. Too drunk not to behave automatically, Arthur shook his head.
“Oh, it’s got everything you could ever want in a film. It’s got sex, it’s got violence, it’s got reckless suicide by bull.”
“Doesn’t exactly inspire sweetness,” Arthur muttered darkly. And yet, he was reaching for the cocktail glass again. The next sip came easier. Rather than a weight, it seemed to glide down his throat, settling into the heat of his stomach. When was the last time he’d had an orange? “Does it?”
“No, but there’s only a couple of ways you can make a drink red, short of bleeding into it yourself.” He saw his new companion’s glass wobble. "The movie’s not so important. I just like the sweet.”
“Should switch to lollies.”
“Lollies. You really are a regular sideshow act.”
“We’re in New England. English emigrants are scarcely an endangered species.”
“Preaching to the choir, pal.”
For whatever reason – perhaps the last zap of curiosity, whatever led drunks to stumble their way into sewer pipes or into construction zones – Arthur finally turned and looked at him.
This man was dressed too nicely for Jack’s bar, and he wasn’t even dressed that well. There was some wear in the elbows and buttons of his suit; one of the buttons didn’t match the rest. He had, as Arthur had seen in the mirror, put on a little too much pomade this morning. However, his tie was done neatly, and he had on a dazzling smile that would’ve been pleasant at a yard and somewhat disconcerting at a foot.
“’Course, as you might imagine, I’m not from England, and the only emigrant in my family is my grandmother, but.”
“So we’re nothing alike at all, is what you’re saying,” Arthur returned wryly, taking another sip of his drink.
“We both like something sweet to drink.” He gestured with his crooked finger. There, Arthur could see that he’d already halfway finished his own. The world had shifted into somewhat sharper focus with the sobering effect of a stranger making conversation, but he could feel the liquor pooling in his stomach yet again. “And we’re in a bar! What more could you ask for?”
Arthur oddly felt like he’d been tricked. He didn’t like it.
“Get to it,” He grunted bluntly. “What—whatever it is you’re selling, or saying, or preaching. Whatever.”
“Who says I don’t want some simple conversation?”
“And why me.”
“You think I’m going to pick one of these folks sweating over their blackjack cards? And this bartender, well, he’s too busy filling up your cup there to talk to little old me.”
Little old… whoever. Arthur took another sip.
“I was watching you tap against the bar, there. It got me wondering whether you played the piano.”
Fuck.
Arthur thought about it, always. It never left his mind. She never left his mind, in one way or another. Every bright fucking thing in the world – everything that ever gave him an ounce of joy wound its way back to her, whether it was from the guilt of enjoying things or whether she, once, gave him all the joy he needed in his life. Sometimes he thought very little of her directly, but the influence she had on every other thought in his mind was enough.
To hear someone say something so directly tied to her – so directly tied to that period of his life…
He didn’t say anything. He only brought the rest of the glass up to his mouth and hoped that was enough. For what, he didn’t know. Maybe just to make the time go by quicker.
“I’m a private detective, is all, and there’s a case going on. I –”
Right. Of course, yes, that was what this was all about. Funny, he hadn’t had private detective on his list of consideration, but he supposed he ought to have. “No,” Arthur said flatly.
He pushed himself off the stool. While it would have been his preference to walk confidently out of the bar, he’d lost the ability to lose that some hours ago. Arthur had to press his hand down on the top, feeling the sticky surface latch onto his palm, to make the entire blessed world stop spinning. “You’ve –”
This was it, of course. Whatever new low that he’d managed to reach. He was about to throw up on some stranger’s shoes – a stranger who had just bought him a drink, even so. It would be the most impact he’d had on anyone’s life for the past… Christ, month?
What the hell was he doing here? Truly. Not killing oneself was all well and good, but it seemed fucking useless if there was no other plan. Brilliant, he kept his heart beating and his lungs inflating. What was that, then? A flickering flame until some odd wind came by and snuffed him out? What really was the difference between snuffing it out now and snuffing it out later?
And if he were looking for a wind, plenty would gather in the alleyways outside. They howled with it on stormy days.
Arthur swallowed down his nausea.
No. No, not today, he supposed. This man knew his face, knew his name, and the least he could do was not have this man be the last person Arthur Lester ever talked to. It seemed an unnecessary, cruel burden to place on somebody.
“I don’t play,” he responded, and stepped outside.
***
The next night found him just the same. The bartender wasn’t meeting his eyes this time, but the same couldn’t be said for Arthur’s expression in the mirror. One of the effects of getting drunk, Arthur supposed. His entire life stopped on one specific day, but a good bit of liquor in him, and he could force the world to move again. Just had to keep his head upright.
He downed the rest of his tumbler. Uncomfortable, he pulled at the knot of his tie and threatened to tear it altogether. No rain outside this morning, but still a bitter cold that tried to break into the searing heat of his stomach.
The world was moving. He didn't care for it.
Arthur continued to sit on the stool. Hazily, he stuck out another finger for the bartender along with a few coins plucked from his trousers. The tumbler was taken, filled, and passed back as if in embarrassment.
He drank just the same. When he lowered the glass back down to the bar, however, his shadow had joined him in the mirror again.
“Bartender! Two blood and sands, when you get a minute.”
Possibly he should have walked out. Most definitely, he should have walked out, taken up a different bar entirely. Hell, maybe he ought to give up drinking forever, that sounded like a plan! Go back to the piano, take up composing again, because known round the world. Perhaps he’d go out, find a woman, ask her to dance, get married, fuck her, have a child, two, three. Maybe they’d move out to the suburbs of Arkham and adopt a fucking mutt that brought in the newspaper.
He didn’t. All Arthur knew, in the depths of his booze-saturated mind, was that he could do with something sweet.
“You know, I didn’t think it was possible,” his friend said, “But you look worse than you did yesterday.”
“Fuck off.” Arthur tried to swallow around the rocks in his throat.
“How much worse could your life had gotten in the past twenty-four hours? Call me nosy.”
How much worse. Christ, what a fucking laugh. “You’re a nosy parker,” he slurred. “That’s for damn sure.”
What could he have said that was possibly so funny? This strange man laughed until the bartender slid two cocktail glasses over, the same blood-red color as they were last night. Arthur was beginning to think he was being mocked, that this was some sort of… he didn’t know, perhaps one of this man’s friends were around the corner, ready to pull some prank on him.
Isolation was making him paranoid. Arthur took a drink.
This time, he didn’t spit it up. The sugar settled on his tongue, sank into the soft lining of his inner cheek. What had Parker been saying? About the film? Arthur didn’t really go in for the ceaselessly violent, having a pair of dead parents before you could tie your shoes would inspire that.
“You know,” he said, “I usually go by Peter for business, only my friends call me Parker. But, hell, you deserve it for guessing right. Parker Yang, at your service.”
And this man, this Parker Yang, was extending a hand out for him to shake.
Arthur shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have, but as luck would have it, he only had that thought halfway through the handshake. Christ, Parker was about to take his hand off his wrist with that grip.
“You got unusual hands, anyone ever tell you? Long fingers.” And to that, Parker played a little tune in the air, curling his fingers in rapid succession.
Pianist’s fingers. He’d heard it a thousand times before, and this man was clearly not as subtle as he thought he was being. Arthur pulled his hand away and curled those long fucking fingers around his cocktail glass.
Did he want Parker to stay? Not particularly. Did he want to finish the last of his drink, so he might stumble home with something sweet in his tonsils? That seemed to spark his sodden brain into action, if only just, and so, he didn’t complain.
“Alright, alright! You don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t wanna bug you.” Arthur snorted at Parker’s words. “But, English, you’ve got to know that you were tapping at the bar again. Made the guy next to you quit.”
Oh. Had he? Arthur looked down at his free hand. It trembled like a leaf against the wood. While he thought he could mentally withstand being a bad bar patron…
The idea of revealing something about himself, even subconsciously, made him want to drown himself in his glass. Even the thought of confronting it held little appeal. Arthur slid his hand in his inside jacket pocket.
“What do you do?”
“What’s it matter, what I do.”
“Well, you know my name, you know I’m sort of an English emigrant, and you know my job.”
“You’re not an English –”
“And I know your name, I know you’re sort of an English emigrant, but I don’t know your job.” Parker gave a wave of his hand in the air, settling back on his stool. “Fair’s fair, is all I’m saying.”
Fair was fucking fair. Great, right. What was this man trying to do, exactly? Butter him up so that he might give him piano lessons? Tapping out twinkle twinkle little star would help him crack whatever fucking case he was working on?
It wasn’t like the answer was interesting. Arthur had been halfway able to survive on his royalties – for the other half, he took whatever menial labor he could. Inevitably he’d get fired for showing up drunk or not at all, and then he’d move onto the next one. He didn’t exactly evaluate his fucking finances. He had enough for cheap liquor, and he had a bed most of the time.
“In between,” Arthur muttered.
“You seem like an in between sort of guy.”
Arthur flashed him a dangerous look, nostrils flaring. Perhaps the goal was to mock him, but when he tried to meet Parker’s gaze, Parker only raised both hands in surrender. “Hey, we’ve all been there. I’m just saying.” A pause. “So, you been in Arkham long?”
“Long enough.”
The rest of his life, actually. Arthur was never more certain of that. Something would get him eventually. Drunkards were luckier than the rest of the population (that was why so many of them also gambled), but when it ran out, it ran out hard. One night, he’d stumble into traffic. Someone would stab him and leave him for dead. And there was always the alleyway, to be found when they emptied the trash later on.
“You’re telling me. It’s a fine town, you know, if you don’t mind the smell of sewage in the summer and the winters that freeze your balls off. Oh, and you’ll have to overlook the political corruption, the terrible infrastructure, the landlords that rip you off, and the occult influence, and the fuckin’ college kids swarming the streets when the soccer games start up again.”
Occult influence? What?
“But, I love her, I have to say. You gotta, when you’re a private detective. You spend a lot of time on these streets, talking to people. And you learn real fast, you know. You don’t get bothered by bad and good so much. All a matter of perspective at the end of the day, and besides, who’s going to ask Parker fucking Yang what good is? People have been debating it since time immemorial, and this guy is going to figure it out?” Parker took a long sip of his drink. “Everyone’s just trying to get by. That’s all it is.”
Damn, his glass was empty. The booze had intermingled with the other spirits in his brain quite comfortably, though even Parker’s blurry reflection in the mirror had started to warp. You need to get home, he told himself dully, but when he tried to press his shoe to the ground again, he found that he couldn’t quite sort out putting his weight on it.
Like some boat tossed in a tempest, shifting his attention to one element of his body led him to ignore the others. Without strict control, his tongue loosened. “Oh, that’s fucking nonsense,” Arthur said, feeling rather out of his own body. “ ‘Everyone’s just trying to get by.’ ”
“Oh?”
“Maybe –” Hm, ‘M’s were harder than they used to be. Arthur failed to suppress a belch. “Maybe we’re not all. Or, maybe we oughtn’t be. Maybe we’re just trying to make the world fucking stop for a minute, have you thought about that? Maybe tomorrow isn’t the gift everyone fucking makes it out to –”
Even with all of his focus on one area, it wasn’t enough. Arthur tried to rise to his feet, only to have his legs buckle underneath him. He was dangerously close to cracking his head against the bar, his luck finally running out, before an arm caught him from underneath his shoulders. For a moment Arthur was just suspended like a child, blinking on confusion, before his shaking hand shot out to catch him by the wood.
They’d maybe known each other for all of thirty minutes, consecutively, but Arthur got the impression that Parker was not a man easily rattled. And yet, there was some genuine nervousness across his face. “Let me get you a cab.”
Arthur didn’t crawl into cabs often. Money, mostly. His apartment was just short enough to stumble to, and besides. Not knowing whether he’d make it all the way there was half the point of things.
“Fuck your cab,” he slurred out.
Finally, he summoned the strength in his arms that he couldn’t in his legs. Arthur pushed himself to his full height. Parker’s arm didn’t leave him. Christ, Parker wasn’t especially short and he not especially tall, but his grip made Arthur feel like some towering giant about to carelessly crush a village.
There was also something… oddly peculiar about it. Or, at least, the touch struck some peculiar note in his mind, and Arthur had to wonder when the last time someone had touched him – even in the most casual fashion. Even if it was just to make sure he didn’t fall.
“C’mon, I’m the one who got you your last drink. Let’s go.”
Prepared to continue his protests, Arthur was cut off by the world spinning before him again. Parker Yang disappeared into a blurry haze of color. Once again, Arthur had to wonder whether he was going to throw up on the man’s shoes. It would certainly be enough to make Parker never approach him again.
It was worse than he thought. He scarcely could get one foot in front of the other, could scarcely register it when Parker steered them out of the bar. Arthur inhaled a few fresh lungfuls of air before he realized they were on the stairs. The stairs provided an entirely new set of difficulties: lateral movement, whether getting off a bar stool or gingerly setting his foot on the stone like a newborn fawn, was emphatically not good.
And yet, Parker’s arm never left his shoulders. He didn’t say much, either, though Arthur didn’t much note his lack of silence. Parker only spoke halfway up the stairwell, in a tone so soft that Arthur fancied he’d meant to keep it internal.
“You really have hit bedrock, haven’t you, friend?”
And Arthur briefly, vividly, fiercely wanted to kill himself.
To let the spinning world overtake him and pitch himself back down the stairs, let his head crack and bleed on the stone, as vibrant as the drink earlier. Only Parker’s arm about his shoulders kept him steady, and he – as much as poetry and songs lied to him – had drank too much liquor to cry.
After a lifetime, they reached the street level. It provided an entirely new ecosystem of lights, people, and movement, so overwhelming that Arthur was forced to squeeze his eyes shut tight. Christ, just give it a second, just give it a second and the world will right itself, come on –
“Taxi!” Parker bellowed, jostling Arthur’s shoulders, and Arthur shuddered at the volume.
***
The third night found Arthur in his usual spot, with his usual tumbler. He brought it up to his lips and finished the rest of it, letting the normal weight settle down his throat, and he wasn’t even surprised when he put the glass found to find his companion in the reflection of the mirror again.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Oh, what do you want,” Arthur muttered, a little pitifully. Last night rested a little more heavily on his conscience – or perhaps that was the hangover, which he’d only just managed to drink away. He couldn’t prevent the self-conscious flush from rising to his cheeks. Why the fuck he cared about embarrassing himself in front of this chatterer, he didn’t know. All of the lights in Jack’s seemed to swirl; when they stabilized, he could see Parker Yang’s smile glinting.
Parker didn’t say a word to the bartender, only held out two fingers and off the bartender went.
“Same as I ever do. Congenial conversation in a respectable establishment.”
Arthur snorted, rather despite himself, and settled his elbow on the bar.
There was nothing stopping him from leaving, he knew that. He could rather head Parker off at the pass if he just stood and didn’t come to Jack’s for a few days. Hell, he didn’t even have to stop drinking – there were plenty other speakeasies in Arkham, not to mention the possibility of getting a cheap bottle of liquor and confining himself in his apartment. The thought had occurred to him before he even got to Jack’s tonight, and yet…
He didn’t know. He wanted something sweet, he supposed.
“Glad to see you got home alright, last night.”
“We’re… not talking about that,” Arthur slurred out. Two cocktail glasses were put on the bar. Arthur looped a finger around his.
“Why don’t I let you pick out the topic, then?”
To that, Arthur didn’t say anything. It seemed a baffling question. What could they talk about? They didn’t know each other. Parker had wanted something from him, Arthur had refused, and that really ought to have been the end of things. He shouldn’t have been here, still. If the first night hadn’t convinced him that Arthur Lester was simply not worth knowing, then the second night should have hit him over the head with the information.
Next to him, Parker sighed, and Arthur nearly cringed at the sound. I didn’t tell you to be here, he wanted to protest. Parker took a long drink from his own, savoring it, and set it down. “Figure I might as well tell you, anyhow. You might not see me around for a few days.”
What, like Arthur would miss him? Like they were companions? Like, like Arthur had expected him? Like Arthur would be sorry to miss the first friendly face he’d seen in months, like Arthur wouldn’t finish the rest of his night with sour liquor and moody silence and an unconscious tapped rhythm while he tried to convince himself not to let his luck run out in a fucking alley?
“Why not,” Arthur slurred, sounding lost.
“Well, like I said, first time we met. I got a case, and… well, to be frank, Mr. Lester, I don’t have any leads. Probably going to have to stake out for the next couple of nights. Believe me, I’d much rather be here having something sweet, but it’s a little girl’s life we’re talking about.”
No matter how sodden his mind got, it could latch onto a few things. “A little girl?”
“Yeah.” Parker leaned to the side and fished something out of his pocket – a photo, wrinkled and stained, thrown atop the bar.
Everyone always had a reference in their mind when someone uttered the word girl. This one was older than she had been. Seven, maybe eight. Long brown hair pushed back with a strip of fabric, a brown dress that someone had stitched white lace on. Grinning like her whole head might split with it, and one missing front tooth.
“Missing?” Arthur asked hollowly.
“Yeah.” He sighed, shifting one elbow on the bar. The other held the cocktail glass aloft, doing a frankly admirable job of not spilling any. “Has been for a few days, now. Primary suspect is her piano teacher.”
Piano. Piano, piano, piano, oh god, that’s why he asked, I’ve been –
“Something about the teacher’s story isn’t adding up. I can’t quite put my finger on it. He says he was somewhere else, teaching another little girl. The neighbors said they heard a piece, something Chop – Chop – Choppin –“
The correction was automatic. “Chopin.”
“You got it. But thing is, that girl was at the Mary Had A Little Lamb levels, and the piano teacher’s using the neighbor’s overhearing that piece as his alibi. His pupil’s covering for him.”
“Mnh.” Well – “It’s-it’s not impossible, I suppose, depending on what they heard.”
“No? You don’t think so?”
Some muted alarm bell went off in Arthur’s head, but it couldn’t quite break through to the frontal lobe. “I’d, I’d have to see. It’s not exactly beginner level, mind, but he’s got some pieces that are –” A belch that threatened to turn into nausea. Arthur forced it back down. “I, I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Aw, Jesus. They said the name of the piece, but I don’t, uh. It didn’t stick in my mind.”
“A detective with a bad memory?”
“Alright, smartass, I’m a detective who doesn’t know a thing about music. The titles are too similar.”
“They really aren’t.”
“Look, if you think so, then –” Parker let out a little scoff. “Come with me, alright? You let them explain to you what they heard, and you take a look around the sitting room, and you see if anything stands out. Because if his alibi is bullshit, then it’s going to shift the entire timeline of events. You know?”
Arthur didn’t know, not really. What the hell did he know about investigations? Missing little girls – he had been a composer, for God’s sake. Even if he did sniff something out for this man, then what would he do about it? Go chasing someone down the street, gun-in-hand? Arrest somebody?
And yet, his eyes drifted down towards the picture again. Even if the world had started to shift before his eyes, her face remained constant in his mind. Burned there, really, to the point where – even in his state – he knew he’d be seeing it as he tried to fall asleep tonight.
“It’s one day,” Parker urged him quietly. “Just, a couple of hours, maximum. I’ll buy you a drink after, but it’ll – I gotta find this girl, Arthur.”
It was in that moment that he wasn’t as far gone as he’d thought.
He thought every feeling in him had been burned irrevocably – that he’d ceased to be able to care about the world around him anymore, the way mold didn’t care about the rock it grew on. Little entered his mind but his own misery, and most days, he was so miserable with himself that he very rarely saw other people for what they were. Self-obsessed to the end, and that was that.
But this was a little girl. With parents, perhaps, who missed her, who loved her, who were terrified for her. He was a monster, Arthur had no compunction about that, but. That scarcely meant he had to act like one all the time, did it? If it would help one little girl, did he not owe that? Not even to work off his capital, but just his interest?
He brought the glass to his lips again, scorching.
He had the rest of his life to drink himself to death.
“Alright,” Arthur whispered to Parker, quiet. “Alright. Tomorrow, I’ll… you tell me where to be, and I’ll help.”
The clap to his shoulder was violent, ecstatic, and nearly sent him off his chair. Parker laughed in celebration, his foot hitting the ground and arm reaching out to make sure that Arthur didn’t actually die from cracking his head on something.
Arthur managed to right himself without Parker’s help, though his near-fall sent the world spinning again. The world continued to move around him, even as Arthur squeezed his eyes open and shut, all the noises solidifying into one solid blur. Parker kept his hand on his shoulder, a steadying force.
Something had changed in all of this, though. The world continued to shift, move, spin –
But for the first time in a very long time, Arthur wanted to keep moving with it.