Chapter Text
Arthur Lester had given up.
He’d tried to continue on after losing Faroe; he really did. Weeks spent slumped over on the couch, smoking cigarette after cigarette, stubbed out on an ashtray piled high with shriveled blackened rot. Stubbed out on the tender skin of his forearm, his thighs, when the guilt came strong enough to eat his soul alive. Eating was hard- far too hard, some days. The nights came as a relief, dragging what felt like his corpse to the pub a few blocks over and downing a few pints of their cheapest, strongest shit until it stopped tasting like sulfur and started tasting like nothing at all. Sometimes he’d shower- with arms like lead he didn’t have the strength to take a bar of soap to his body, letting the water run over him for a minute or two before he wrapped himself in a towel and shivered, kneeling on an unwashed bath mat over tiles that felt like ice. With wet, matted hair he would curl up in an unmade bed, and if he’d had enough to drink he would sleep until the next afternoon. If he was lucky, the nightmares would leave him be. If he wasn’t, he’d wake up screaming, memories of an overflowing bath and a small, limp body burned so deeply into his mind that he brought a fist to his forehead at full strength; over and over and over until the pain made it feel like he could breathe again.
He hadn’t had the strength to shave since he lost her; but as he ran the bath for the first time in as long as he could remember, he flicked his straight razor open and closed in a weary hand. Perhaps it was fitting that he should go in the same place she did.
Arthur was exhausted. Impatient. He waited for the water level to rise, pacing, shaking hands fidgeting with the old wooden razor he’d kept for most of his adult life. A fresh blade sat glinting beneath its spine, the fear it raised within the pit of his stomach giving rise to an odd sort of comfort. He hadn’t left a note, for no family nor friends would ever be there to read its pages. He hoped that perhaps there would be someplace after that he could see them again. If it was heaven or hell, Arthur believed the latter would be where he ended up. At least it would be somewhere else.
He turned off the tap.
He stripped off his clothes quickly, throwing them off to the side carelessly and stepping into the water. He placed the razor on the edge of the bath and submerged himself for a moment, tangled hair floating around his head like a messy halo. The warmth felt like a gentle embrace all around him, his head held up weightlessly as if by tender hands, and for a second he closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation that was much too painful to have missed. The tears came, then, spilling their salt into the water, a dam breaking and giving way to hitching whimpers that ached too badly to choke back. Instinctively he sat up and dragged his forearm across his face to wipe away the tears, but his eyes only stung as wet hands dampened them further. His throat felt tighter, quiet tears becoming an ugly whine and then a flood of wailing sobs. It all hurt. It hurt so badly, in his heart and his soul and the pit of his stomach; the thought that he had failed everyone he had ever loved. The thought that he had failed himself.
He’d waited long enough. He dried his trembling hands with the towel that hung on the rail beside him, rubbed the coarse fabric over his forearms, remembering as he finished to wipe his face with its hemmed edges. He was fearful as he took the razor into his hand, turning the smooth wood over between his fingers, flicking the blade open and shut, open and shut; watching it through vision blurred by tears. Arthur wasn’t fool enough to believe this would be easy, nor was he brave enough to face the idea of it without a terrified sickness that writhed in the pit of his stomach. He would not flay himself with the smooth glide of a surgeon’s scalpel or the practiced strength of a butcher’s blade, but he would do it. He was here, now, and the prospect of relief from it all gave him the courage to fully extend the arm of his razor and hold it steadily in his right hand. There was the chance, however small, that he might see her again; wherever he went. There was the certainty that he wouldn’t have to spend another second looking into the mirror at the face he had come to detest. Do it quickly, he told himself, and do it as hard as you can. It will hurt. But then it won’t anymore.
A deep breath in. A fresh blade hovering close over tender skin. Eyes shut tightly. For a single second, the world sat still, and then Arthur brought the razor down upon his arm with all the strength he could muster.
The blade slipped, and when Arthur opened his eyes he saw it had left only a thin cut that trailed off over the side of his arm. He clenched his fist and smashed it into the wall, tears streaming as he swore and held back a violent scream. Useless, worthless, pathetic. Rage boiled inside him as he slammed his head backwards into the tiled wall, the harsh impact sending a wave of pain through his body. He thought of his parents, who had left him before he ever had the chance to become himself, a hole that tore open that night and never healed. Of Bella, who he had left in hospital to go off drinking like a cowardly wretch, who he had abandoned to die afraid and alone. And of Faroe. All of it was his fault- a difficult child, a worthless husband and a father who let his child die— no, who he killed. He took up the blade again and pressed it into his skin, just below the elbow, hard enough that bright red blood began to trickle down from the indent it left. There was no man he hated more than Arthur Lester. He would give him what he deserved.
This time, he felt as if his arm was possessed by the agony and the hatred that had become all he had left. He pressed down harder. The sting of it felt like a release. His hand shook with how tightly he gripped the handle, how his instincts fought against a mind that wanted to tear itself open, but his mind won. In an instant he dragged the sharp steel through his flesh, eyes clenched tightly closed, crying out when he felt it exit at his wrist and flinging the razor across the room as his body involuntarily reacted. It took a moment for the pain to fully register, but it stung worse and tore deeper than anything else he had ever felt. He looked down at an arm that didn’t feel like his own, a long and wide gash quickly filling up with dark blood, bubbles of foul yellow fat pushing out from its edges, tendons moving beneath a silvery sheath that looked like the bad skin you would shear off a cut of steak. The image made him choke back vomit. Impulsively he gripped it tightly with his other arm, pressing the edges closed, forcing it beneath the water but crying out the second it touched the tender wound. Deep red spilled out from its center, quickly spreading outward and turning the water a rotten shade of brown. He watched it, almost mesmerised, as the adrenaline began to rush through his body. He was frightened, sickened by what he had done to himself, but a sense of relief settled itself comfortably in the back of his mind as the slow but steadily flowing blood made the stained liquid ever more opaque. That would be it, he supposed, leaning back and slowly easing the grasp that held layers of skin together. It hurt- it hurt, terribly so, as the kind touch of warm water turned and filled his open flesh with the violent sting of acid, but as he left it there submerged the agony lessened. He’d rest in the gentle, weightless hold of the water until he lost consciousness, wrapped in its sickly rotten colour and surrounded by the coppery stench of blood. Arthur closed his eyes, and he did not regret what he had done. He only hoped that peace would find him quickly. Something began to feel… wrong, though. As if he had forgotten something, or… no, as if he were being watched.
Arthur opened his eyes. Someone was standing in the open doorway.
It took a moment for his brain to register the shock, but he scrambled backwards, kicking and shouting as bloody water splashed itself over the white tiled floor. He barely registered the sharp pain as he knocked his lacerated arm against the walls of the bathtub, the impact forcing dark venous blood out in a jet beneath the water. “Wh- who the fuck are you?”
The stranger gave no response, hand held up to his chin as if he needed a moment to consider the question. He wore a pristine black suit, long dark hair curling wildly beneath his waist, the dark ensemble complimented finely by a scarlet tie. As he stepped towards Arthur, far too dizzy and frightened to even think to cover himself, the stranger left bare footprints that looked like fresh blood, his hands covered in the same. Each step he took was exaggerated; whimsical, ingenuine. Arthur found it deeply unsettling. The stranger peered over the edge of the bathtub into the murky water, grinning with the fervor of a man who had just won the lottery, and Arthur saw that his eyes were bright red.
“Whew! Nice shot, Artie- you just barely missed the artery, you know. Artie, artery- oh, that’s funny.” He broke out into a moment of wild laughter, but he cut it off so shortly it seemed entirely unnatural. “Colour me impressed, honestly! I really didn’t think you had the stomach to do it- well, to do it like that! I’m surprised you didn’t go for the neck- mmmmmmm,” he hummed, lips pursed to interrupt a wide grin, drawing out the sound for far too long. “I guess that takes a little more gumption than you have right now, huh?” He cackled sharply, giving Arthur the feeling that there was some dark joke he was entirely oblivious to.
Arthur looked at him with an expression that somehow combined utter terror and resigned misery. “You’re the devil, aren’t you? You’ve come to… to take me away.”
“Ehh,” the stranger began, shrugging- “that’s not really how that works. Don’t worry about all that now though, my dear, you’re on the brink of death!” He dipped backward, the back of his hand resting against his forehead in something that felt like a mockery. “I mean, not really. Sorry. One vein just isn’t gonna do it- trust me, I know.”
Arthur eyed the razor, flung onto the floor by his reflexive scrabbling. It sat perfectly intact upon the tiles, its blade dipped in crimson blood.
The man pressed a finger to his forehead, frowning. “That wasn’t a suggestion. Look, Arthur, I really hate to intervene in your… little moment, here, but I’m afraid you dying is going to cause a biiiit of a problem for me.” He dipped down, a revoltingly sticky hand guiding Arthur’s chin upward to look him in the eyes. “You’re special. I need you to do something for me. And if you die now, well…“ He gently released his touch from Arthur’s chin, turning around and swinging a foot forward as if preparing to begin pacing around the room. “Look, don’t worry your pretty little head about that, alright? Let’s just say I’ll make it worth your while.”
Arthur blinked. “And what if I don’t want to? I don’t know you.”
The stranger sighed. “Look, kid. I get it, your parents died, your wife died, your kid died, no family left to turn to-“
“Shut the fuck up!” Arthur snapped, slamming the soft edge of his fist against the wall with his uninjured arm. “You don’t know anything about me. I don’t care what kind of god, or devil, or… whatever the fuck you are. I owe you nothing. So you can either sit here and watch me bleed out, or get out of my fucking apartment.”
“Yeesh, touched a nerve there, didn’t I? Hah! See what I did there?” He spun around, eyes fixed upon Arthur’s lacerated arm, blood draining steadily into the bathwater, tendons moving beneath a silver sheath of flesh. A wide grin stuck plastered across his face, and Arthur wanted to get up and strangle him, bloody wound be damned. “Oh, come on, don’t glare at me,” he pouted, absentmindedly running his bloodstained fingers over the porcelain edge of Arthur’s sink, opening cabinets and peering into drawers, rustling through personal affects like a burglar with nothing to take. “Look, Arthur, I’ll drop the pretenses. I know you’re a stubborn man. Hard to convince. We’ve got so much in common, you know!”
Arthur’s gaze remained furious. Seething.
“So… let me show you what I can offer.” The stranger raised an arm, theatrical, and clicked his fingers.
Arthur’s vision blurred and faded to darkness, only for a second, a dizzying sense of vertigo consuming him as he shut his eyes tightly and tried to hold back the nausea. He felt the warmth and the gentle touch of the water around him dissipate, naked skin suddenly cold, the air around him still and quiet. As his head stopped swimming and he slowly began to feel real again, the noise around him came into focus. Quiet but warm conversation, the metallic scraping of knives and forks against porcelain, drinks lifted and sipped and placed back down again. Family. Slowly, Arthur opened his eyes.
It was him. Them. He watched them from the wall of a warm, bright dining room, smelled the hearty aroma of a Sunday roast, listened to his daughter— a little older now- regale with glee the time she spent at the park with her father, a sweet smile painted across her chubby cheeks. Arthur scrambled, dizzy as he rose from the same position he had reclined within the bathtub. His arm ached as if torn open anew when he supported himself to stand, but he couldn’t have cared even to wince. “Faroe,” he whispered, a shaky step taken towards the table. “Faroe!”
But they didn’t look.
“Whoa there, Artie.” Arthur snapped his head towards the dark-suited man, standing primly beside him with his hands tucked behind his back. “We aren’t really here- of course not. You’re stark naked and cut open like a strung-up deer! Surely they wouldn’t want to see you like that!” Arthur found the impulse to cover himself, but his throat ached as his eyes welled up again with tears. “You could be, though.” The stranger’s voice was leading, his smile devilish, as he raised a bloody hand once more.
“Wait,” Arthur begged, reaching out, but whether he stretched his hand out to stop him or to grasp at the spectres of his life before him, he did not know.
Click.