Thread: The Killer and The Victim (I_Am_Nobody x CyanideDisaster) (Completed)

It snowed in the city that night. A city that never slept finally took a much-needed rest, gently sleeping beneath its soft white covers. Never-empty streets were still, the endless chorus of cars had fallen silent, and even those who prowled the city by night on their endless wanderings between beer bottle and martini glass were quiet. Tonight, the city slept. But not everyone in the city respected the silence. Thieves crept into silent bedrooms to claim that which was never theirs, quiet knives slid between sleeping ribs, and, in a particular office building in the south side, a monster in human skin watched the snow softly fall. In their last story, the press had named him the Bogeyman. It was one of half a dozen sobriquets he had acquired over the years, ever since the first time he'd decided that leaving the bodies undiscovered was simply insufficient. But there were only two names that actually mattered to him. The first was Joseph, the first name given by his mother. A wonderfully sweet woman, always ready with a hug and a kiss, and so determined that her son would not grow up to be one of those awful men she read about in the morning papers. No, Joseph would be strong, and kind, and willing to lay down his life for what was right in the place of those who could not defend themselves. The second was Heller, the surname given by his father. He had existed only for a dozen years before vanishing into the night, but some of the lessons he'd taught remained even today never buy what you can take, the weak are yours to play with, and only pussies gave two shits about the law. Joseph had grown up, and become his mother's child. But Heller had grown as well, undeniably his father's spawn. When the troubles started, Joseph had been horrified at what Heller knew to be glorious. So there had been fights, and problems, and doctors in their white coats who tutted at so much disunity in such a young man. The two of them would have destroyed each other before long, if either of them had been capable of it. Yet with every blade that nearly claimed Joseph and every poison that Heller nearly drank, each of them felt the hand of death upon their own shoulders. And so, a compromise had been reached. Dennis Kohr was one of those compromises. Engaged to a lovely young woman and recently promoted to junior partner in his law firm, Dennis' life appeared to be going perfectly. Certainly he had his skeletons in the closet, but who didn't these days? Of course, his skeleton was smaller than most, and there were more of them. So many children went missing in the city, so many were never even noticed, whispered those skeletons. How many of them had been found by the nice young lawyer? Everything had gone perfectly. Joseph had found where the man lived, Heller had learned his routes and habits. Joseph had waited until he was sure of the man's guilt, while Heller waited until he was sure he would never be caught. As the snow fell upon the quiet city, Joseph had quietly stepped aside and watched it fall while Heller had waited inside Dennis Kohr's office. And as Dennis arrived in his office, answering the telephone summons of his senior partner that had been spoken by Joseph's tape recorder, Heller had finally gotten to enjoy himself. There were so few connoisseurs of his art of flesh and steel, yet he so hated to disappoint his fans. Looking back upon it, he was fairly certain that it was one of his best works. Heller had even been alive for over half of it. And so it was, on the night that the snow fell upon the city, that the man named Joseph Heller thought that everything had gone as it always had, as it always would. It was rather a surprise to be so suddenly proven wrong.