Chapter Text
The music is loud, even up here. You press your palms into the counter and feel the beat course up through your arms.
You stare at your reflection in the dingy, barely usable restroom mirror. Same as always; dark eyebags, less than perfect hair, dry lips. In truth, you stare at the mirror itself more than your own emotionless visage. At this point, you’ve got the pattern of cracks and stains in this spot practically memorized. The crumbling club restroom feels more like a home than any of your real places could anymore.
Same as always. You dash some cold water on your face and let it trickle down your neck.
The open balcony is only louder. Faceless people jostle and dance and chatter endlessly, lost in their own world floors beneath you, the last bit of humanity you suppose you’re allowed to witness. Only once it feels like you’ll somehow be sucked over the railing to a shocking death below do you rip your eyes away from the reflections of pulsing lights.
There’s nothing else to stall with. You did agree to come here. A long time ago.
“Am I alive?”
The Dealer across from you doesn’t so much as twitch in your direction, as if you ask it this every day. (Have you? No- no, you would surely remember.) But you know it’ll answer, in some way. It’s by no means impolite.
“YOU MOVE. YOU HOLD THE GUN. YOU BREATHE THE SMOKE. WHAT DO YOU THINK?” The table opens, presenting you with your next set of possible advantages. The Dealer’s placement of its own is perfect, every time; cigarette packs centered in their slots, adrenaline shot fitted in at the same tasteful angle as it always is. Mechanical, next to your haphazard spread.
Yes, you move, breathe, drink, all that jazz. But you get the feeling the average living person wouldn’t quite be able to survive this many close-range shotgun blasts, no matter how many defibrillators were involved.
“So do you.” And I don’t know what the hell you are.
It grins. Well, it always does, but there’s tangible intent behind the expression this time, you think. “HOW FLATTERING.” (Did you say that last part out loud?)
The gentle rattle of the shotgun being laid on the table before you shakes you from your puzzling. You realize you didn’t note the number of rounds. It knows that, and you swear its lopsided grin widens more at your unusually long hesitation. It won’t tell you now. You’ve tried it before. Reasoned. Pleaded. It won’t, or can’t, break the rules of its own game.
No magnifying glass. No adrenaline to take the Dealer’s. Resigned, you level the gun across the table, pull the trigger, and are met with an empty click.
You could leave, supposedly.
The gritty, dark screen, which you have to crane your neck a bit to read clearly, racks up your total winnings. Enough for anyone on this godforsaken Earth to be set for life and beyond. A speaker somewhere repeats a tinny little celebratory jingle, all for you.
You took it before, when you were panicked, nauseous from the scent of beer and blood, desperate, naïve. You ended up back here, anyway. You’re not sure if it was by your choice or not anymore.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING?
You rest your elbow on the table and drum the fingers of your other hand. The words buzz patiently on the screen. The room feels darker during these intermissions; lights dimmed, the noise of the club below muffled even further, the Dealer vanishing entirely into the thick shadows across the table. The simple prompt becomes the most prominent glow to focus on. It’s almost peaceful.
It’s been a long, long game this cycle. You wonder exactly how full of shrapnel and crooked adrenaline tips you must be at this point. One corner of your mouth twitches upward at the nonsense thought of walking in for an MRI in this condition.
Each time you blink is dangerously long.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO.”
You startle back to consciousness and glance towards the voice. It’s never… said anything here before. It just waits, as patient as the machine itself, only emerging again if you accept the double. You can’t make out any of its form in the dark, but a faint plume of smoke drifts from where it must be.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“THIS DANCE NEED NOT GO ON FOREVER. TAKE IT.”
You ran out to your car, arms shaking around the sharp edges of your precious, hard-won prize, heart pounding with the echoes of the thumping music in the club. You threw it in the passenger seat, even dragged the useless seatbelt across in some hysterical display of humanization, and threw yourself into the driver’s.
It was all like a fever dream come true. You laughed breathlessly.
The roads were empty, lonely street lights casting sweeping shadows over your dear little leather passenger. It rattled softly with each bump in the road. Your hands still shook on the wheel, the taste of cigarette smoke clinging heavily to the back of your throat.
What were you even going to do now? Well, sleep, for one. Maybe throw up. Drink water. Those all sounded pretty good. You could think harder later.
You pulled into a familiar lot. You wouldn’t call it yours, it couldn’t be. But it was the spot you used most often, and you found yourself rarely contested for it. Discarded cigarette butts clustered against the curb, and a crumpled can shone a little further away. Mocking reminders of the hell you’d just gone through.
You stopped to breathe, car turned off, the night outside warm and quiet.
A small smile crawled onto your face. You reached up to the rear view mirror to have a glance at yourself.
You weren’t there.
You hum. Liar, liar, pants on… uh… fuckin’, uh… nothing on fire? Damnit, you’re tired. “Is this fun for you?”
“INQUISITIVE TODAY,” it rasps.
You turn to peer into the dark. “Humor me, man. This one isn’t even existential.”
It’s silent for a beat. You examine your nails and poke at a bit of dried blood, unsure of whose it is. As far as you’re aware, you can spend as long as you like here, so by your dead God you will. The Dealer has never rushed you. The game is one of careful thought, after all.
“MY STAKES ARE LOW. THUS THE THRILL, DIMINISHED.”
“So… it’s not?”
“I WOULDN’T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS.” Another puff of smoke punctuates the words, catching briefly in the light. You’re slightly jealous.
Part of you feels relieved, almost, to hear that you’re not boring your opponent entirely to death by choosing to stay. Gee, you’re so glad the sleep paralysis demon-looking massive toothy fucking thing that shoots you in the head finds your company enjoyable. Amazing.
Though, there’s something pleasant to its voice, you think, however reluctantly. It scrapes with all the roughness you’d expect from something with teeth bigger than your fingers and a deathly appetite for cigarettes, but it’s measured. Quiet, for its size. You don’t think it’s ever sounded angry at all.
You’re not exactly sure when you zoned out, or for how long, but when you blink back to attention, the Dealer is within visible range. At least, there is the dull shine of a few of its teeth, and the deeper darkness of its hollow eyes. Like it’s watching you more closely.
Silently, one of its hands drifts forward. You flinch back quickly, but it’s just… offering you a cigarette, pinched with a delicacy unbefitting of its appearance. You watch it warily, only taking it after a good few seconds pass. This isn’t something that happens. It doesn’t just hand you anything but the gun, and even then, it’s indirect. Yet, nothing bites you for accepting it.
You hardly start to fumble for your lighter before its hand reappears with its own. Well, fuck it. You die eventually one way or the other, so you lean forward and accept that offer, too. The small heat barely licks your face. Nothing more.
You don’t think its hand has ever been this close to your face before.
You don’t last many more rounds after that. You go out handcuffed to the table, breaths shallow, the Dealer’s confidence in unnecessarily sawing off the barrel crushing any hope that the shot could roll blank. You know better than to try to make any appeals to those dark eyesockets, that equally dark barrel pointed calmly to your face. A tale as old as time, really.
You close your eyes.
The screen chimes with a message you never get to read. DEALER WINS!
It contemplates your limp, bloodied body, its hands neatly folded on its side of the table. The shotgun unsaws itself. Its grin never once wavers, sprinkled with red.
“HOW UNFORTUNATE.”
DOUBLE OR NOTHING?
You're here yet again. The little screen boasts another sum that would, in another life, have made you salivate hopelessly on the spot.
Your eyes glaze over the meaningless number without an inkling of desire.
Why are you here, then? Why not take it and hope that the first time was a fluke, that the promise is genuine after all? Why aren't you sobbing over the leaky restroom sinks? Why don't you truly throw yourself over the balcony rail and see what happens?
Curiosity, perhaps; humanity's greatest sin.
“IS THIS FUN FOR YOU?”
You startle, less than the first time. The Dealer hasn't spoken a word over the past few intermissions, so you'd surmised not to expect another, but, well- you'd still been hoping for one. Eyeing the dark each time you linger on a decision. Coming back unfazed to kick open its door again, and again, and again.
And it's working. You're getting something new out of it, a step closer to whatever answers might satiate that burn of curiosity. It isn't perfect, predictable, infinitely stoic. Just maybe, you can find out what makes it tick.
Nothing in its tone suggests mockery. Just a question, just like you.
“... sorta?” You suppose there is a thrill to it, to the reasoning and wagering, the highs and lows. Acquired taste forced upon you. It's difficult to think of a game that inevitably ends with getting your brains blown out as being fun.
“AND YET, HERE WE ARE.”
You woke up to white, blinding white. Hard, grainy ground that crunched between your lolling fingers, which ruled out the thought that you were under some sterile hospital light. It was the only thing you could feel anymore- no pains, no hunger, no clothes weighing on your skin. You blinked and clambered to your feet.
Countless spires reached for the sky, dark peaks vanishing into the blank, cold white. It hurt your eyes to try and find the very point of any of them, so you didn’t. You screamed out into the flat nothingness. No response.
Black iron gates, metal cast in swirling patterns. The type that would guard something grand; the type that would promise paradise. They opened for your approach without fanfare, and the hinges groaned as if unattended for years, the sound echoing over the dead land. Nothing different lay beyond.
The air felt wrong, dusty, despite everything telling you, somehow, that this was:
Heaven;
you were
an angel.
Something is better than nothing, isn’t it? Dull colors better than flat white. Repetitive music better than silence. Pain better than numbness.
A pause, and the Dealer hands you another cigarette. You don’t flinch this time, but still hesitate, analyzing the action as though it were a turn of the game. Even if there’s no punishment now, will it keep score? Is it trying to get something out of you? Does that have to matter right now? Your head hurts.
You’re deliberately less careful in taking the offer, so that your hand grazes its fingers, just slightly. They’re warm. Makes sense, since the thing bleeds red, right? Really, it feels no different from a human’s, but then again, you haven’t been close to any of those in a while.
You return to staring at the table, its surface scuffed and freshly scarred by handsaws and bullets, and lace your own fingers together, tight.
“So what are you?”
The Dealer takes its time. You pay attention to the rounds it inserts, this time. 3 live, 3 blank. One two three four five six little clicks, you count to confirm.
“YOUR ADVERSARY.” It sets the shotgun down between you, completing the table. “YOUR DEALER.”
… ‘your’ dealer now? Not ‘the’?
“You know what I mean.” You halfheartedly survey your items for the round, and toss a pair of handcuffs across the table. The Dealer catches them easily. You still have no idea how they stay on if it doesn’t have wrists.
“OUR REALITY IS SIMPLE. YOU KNOW WHAT IS NECESSARY.”
“Doesn’t seem that simple.” You float. You don't need defibrillators. You have seemingly infinite stacks of money that you're (supposedly) willing to lose, and this is your distribution method of choice. You look like THAT.
“WHAT MORE COULD YOU SEEK?”
“Plenty. Do I have to come over there and figure it out myself?”
Its face is downcast, observing its impossibly bound hands as it always does, but you catch something in its shadowed expression shift, just for a moment. “A ROUND IS STILL UNDER WAY.”
Your eyebrows raise.
You hoist the gun and empty a live round into its face.