➸ viva la vida (arthur fleck x oc) ✅

↳ iv. 42

We're on the streets for a little while longer. Arthur dances to a song blaring from a shop's speakers, tells jokes, and does a magic trick for a group of little kids. I can't stop smiling. He's precious. I get the feeling that life has only fucked him over for a long time, but the fact that he just wants to make other people happy is... well, he's a bigger person already, right now than I could really hope to be. And it's wonderful.

"It's six, you ready?" I call as the song that he's dancing to ends. He looks up at me, smiling.

"Yeah. I've got to return the costume, though." he says.

"Sure," I reply. "You want me comin' with ya?"

"That'd be nice," he says, a little shy. I grin, hopping off the mailbox I've been sitting on, and walk over to him. I sling my arm around his shoulders, although it's hard because he's a head taller than me.

"Well," I say emphatically, and he laughs. I just settle for walking close enough to him for our shoulders to brush. "Hey, it's not my fault. You're too damn tall."

"You're too short," Arthur shoots back.

"Oh?" I press a palm to my chest, taking mock offense. "I'm a perfectly reasonable height. You're like-" I gesture at him. "A fuckin' giant."

"And you put it so delicately, too," he snorts, but he's smiling.

"Goin' after how I talk, huh? Well. I thought we were friends," I say.

"We are," he says, and his tone is a little too earnest to be joking. I look up at him- he's carefully watching my reaction.

"Of course we are," I tell him, keeping eye contact. "We're friends, Artie."

"Nobody's ever given me a nickname before." Arthur stops, and his voice has dropped to a whisper.

"Well," I smirk to hide the blushing mess I'm becoming, "Better get used to it, Fleck. If you're my friend, I'm gonna give ya all the nicknames you can handle."

"All of them?"

"As many as you want," I promise. He's adorable, he really is. "Lemme see, what could I call ya..."  I stroke my chin, pretending to think. "I think I covered Artie, and I can call ya Art, too, can't I?"

"Yeah," he says, voice still quiet, eyes still wide, like a child's.

"Okay, so what else?" I gesture vaguely. And that's when the idea hits me, so I smirk again and grab his hand. It feels right, but I do my best to ignore the flood of happiness touching him gives me. "Oh, I know," I say, lowering my voice. Arthur looks down at our hands, everything about him screaming surprise. "How about I just call ya baby?"

And Arthur almost stops walking.

"Sweetheart?" I offer, starting to laugh. It hurts, it hurts to say it when he thinks I don't mean it. But I force myself to laugh anyway, like I'm the one who knows it's not real. Arthur, bless his fucking heart, flushes and laughs a little. I let go of his hand to pat him on the shoulder. "It's cool, man. I'm just fuckin' with ya."

Arthur just laughs, and stops walking. We're in front of Ha-Ha's- a joint that rents out clowns, and strippers, and just weird people overall. This is where Devin and I met, when we were 19. He was a dancer, almost out of work too, but Hoyt, the boss, hired him and got him jobs. Me, I'd just been fired from the place I used to sing at, and Devin and I had gigs together.

We walk up the stairs, after he insists that I come with. I see all of the guys- Randall, Gary, a couple of the other twats we used to see around here all the time. Deja vu hits me like a brick to the face. Nothing's changed, since I was here last, ditching the booking agency and becoming a singer instead.