Content: Arthur/TMWTPF, Psychosis

"I think I might be going crazy." Arthur is sitting on the floor beneath the open window. Warm air from the summer rain drifts in and blue curls of smoke drift out to be extinguished by the humid drizzle. Two lit cigarettes are slotted between the fingers of one hand. Placing the first between his lips had left his hands bewilderingly empty and he'd lit the second in a mindless haze.

"What makes you say that?" The man with the painted face is draped over the back of the couch and the way his arms dangle lazily makes him look like a corpse.

"I think of it like... like there's sand in my head, all the time," Arthur's knees are drawn up to his chest and he knocks them together restlessly. "When I'm not crazy it's like this," he holds his hand out, palm down, flat and still, "but when I start going crazy," he tilts his hand slowly, "my head gets unbalanced, like all my thoughts are on one side. And then when I'm crazy," he flips his hand over and his palm presses against an imaginary wall, "it's all upside down. And right now it's like this," he holds his hand at a slight angle, crudely precise.

"Sounds like something a crazy person would say."

"I know." Arthur stands and closes the window, opens it again and tosses both cigarettes out, watching them streak orange into the dark. His back is wet from where the rain had blown in and dripped off the sill. It rolls down his skin in gentle drags. "You like it when I'm crazy."

"Yeah." His pride is thick and obvious and Arthur breathes it in. "When you're crazy you want me so bad. Like you can't get close enough."

Arthur stares at his reflection in the window's glass, a colorless shadow sliced through with rain. "I keep having to choose between being crazy with you or being sane alone."

There's the dry rustle of fabric as the man with the painted face stretches out on the couch. "So pick one."