Damn Psycho

Ricky had killed a grand total of five people.

Things were either getting out of hand or they were getting more fun than ever before. He was too far gone to really see.

The next pair of victims were just as innocent as the ones before them (excluding Ricky's drugged up, fucked up parents), smiles on their faces and love in their hearts. They were friends of Calum, that sweet young boy, and they were simply asking around to see where dear Calum had been. Ashton, Luke, and Michael, Calum's dearest friends, had no idea where he disappeared to, his mother couldn't talk without crying, and then the pair of future victims decided it was time to take matters into their own hands.

"Lou, this is a bad idea," mumbled one of them, his name was Harry, he hardly knew Ricky at all. He laced his fingers with his boyfriend's and shook his head, bit down on his lip. "Remember what Ash said? The police that were on Calum's case vanished. What if that ends up being us?"

"It'll be okay, love," assured the other, his name was Louis, he knew Ricky solely by word of mouth. He was a happy go lucky student in college, a Psychology major, and he saw no wrong with just asking people in the neighborhood if they had seen their young friend. "We're not police. We've no guns or cuffs, we're just trying to find Cal. I'm sure we'll be fine. And hey, you don't play footie for years and not know how to run," he added with a wink.

Harry held tighter to his boyfriend's hand, nodding. "Okay."

And yet, with all of Louis' confidence, he still paused at the sight of the house of Ricky Olson. All the rumors and awful things he heard about Ricky in just the past few days began running around in his head, and adding in the ones from school a few years ago, he didn't think stopping at Ricky's place to ask about Calum was too good of an idea. He voiced the concern to Harry and the younger of the two pouted almost playfully.

"C'mon, Lou, you can't tell me it'll be fine and then freak out on a house. I'm sure this Ricky lad is just misunderstood or somethin'. He's pro'lly really nice."

"Why d'ya think he's nice? Ya haven't even met him."

"Neither have you. And I just don't think you should judge someone before you meet them, Lou, because if I did that before I met you," he stopped them from walking to poke his smaller boyfriend in the chest, "I certainly would have never gone for the loud, troublemaking dickhead."

Louis rolled his eyes and smirked, memories of his secondary school days all but flooding his mind. Unfortunately, thoughts of school caused thoughts of that paper he needed to finish that night, so he toughened up a bit and talked as he walked with a sweet and smiling Harry at his side.

"You give everyone the benefit of the doubt, Haz," he says softly, his smirk now a smile too fond. "One day, you're gonna be nice to the wrong person. Then you're gonna wake up hung up in a basement by your wrists here. And that's gonna be very bad."

"You're a lovely boyfriend," Harry deadpans.

And then, ironically, they are standing on the porch of the murderer's house.

Louis raps on the door three good times, Harry's head low as he traces the tattoo circling Louis' wrist with his thumb.

They are met with the face of a calm and collected Ricky Olson, his blue eyes steely and blank. Harry recoiled lightly, hanging on closer to Louis, who stood straighter and nodded just barely.

"Hello," he said with a soft smile. "I was just wonderin', ah, since you live near him and all, have you seen Calum Hood lately? He's a friend of Harry and I, and we're just a bit worried about him, is all."

Ricky hummed, a million different awful things running through his mind. He stepped back a bit, said, "I think I have. Step in for a minute, I can tell you something I don't think is," he paused to look left and right in falsified fear, "really safe to say outside."

Louis, the fucking Psychology major, saw something he shouldn't've seen in that glance of Ricky's. It suddenly sparked with malicious intent and Louis was quick to back off of the porch, pulling his love with him.

"Well, see, I gotta get home and get to writin' this paper, yeah? And Harry, um, he's not feeling too well, so we've gotta get goin', right, Harry?"

Before his curly-headed lover could nod, Ricky yanked them both through the door. He couldn't let them go. It was far too clear that they were onto him. They were probably officers in disguise, he felt it deep in his dark little heart that they knew something. They had to. He kicked it closed and threw them both to the floor, rolling his eyes when he heard a whimper.

"Shut the fuck up, your excuses were pathetic."

"I really do have a paper, though," he heard one of them, it was Louis, whisper. He scoffed, because he could give less of a fuck about some British kid's assignments. He could be a paper away from creating world peace, but all Ricky wants is to see him beg for mercy.

Wow. To think the month before, all Ricky wanted to see was his favorite band in concert. My, how times change.

He snatched the two lovers up by their collars, pulled them down the stairwell to the basement. It smelled like blood and Febreeze, because Ricky sorta thought one would cover up the other.

It was hard, trying to squeeze three people through the doorway of the basement, though it would have been fine if his two newest victims had stopped struggling as much as they were. The skinnier one, he didn't know them by name, kicked and scratched, and the taller one writhed and wiggled. It was incredibly irksome, and by the time Ricky had gotten them to the basement floor he was ready to rip their throats out and call it a day.

He didn't, though. There would be no fun that way.

The skinnier one, that's all Ricky knew him as, he pulled out his phone when he thought Ricky's back was turned for good. He had dialed the first two numbers of 911 when Ricky got a hold of the phone, and he could only wince when Ricky threw it hard enough at the wall for it to shatter. The taller one immediately went to cuddle up to his boyfriend, how fucking cute, and bury his face in the smaller one's chest. He could hear the sad, "I wanna go home, Louis," and okay, the small one was Louis. Like Ricky would remember that dumbass name.

"We'll be okay, Hazza," Louis mumbled, but the way his voice shook, it was obvious he didn't believe it himself. He looked up at Ricky in horror with glassy blue eyes and rubbed his boyfriend's back, scooting away slightly as Ricky advanced. He saw the bat before Ricky went for it and let go of his curly-haired boyfriend, reaching for it and actually grabbing it before Ricky could stop him.

"Move, Harry!" he spit and that Harry boy moved and Louis hit the back of Ricky's legs three good times, hit him over the spine when Ricky fell and dropped the weapon because they were safe. The couple was so sure they were home free when Ricky didn't immediately push back up. They dashed towards the stairs and they were so close they could taste freedom and Ricky grabbed Harry's ankle and snatched him to the ground just as he touched the first step. Louis whipped around, really had no choice when his helpless boyfriend grabbed for his hand.

Ricky was quick, Ricky was angry, Ricky was strong, and he was able to pin poor Curly in seconds. Louis stood there, frozen as could be, knowing he had to save his boyfriend. Cute.

"Let him go," he said, so shaky. "Let him go. Please."

Harry whimpered when Ricky held the bat against his throat, scared to even try and push it away.

Ricky muttered, "Fucking make me."

And Louis couldn't take it.

One thing about Louis was that he was far more active than any of Ricky's previous victims. He lunged for the deranged young man, knocked him on his back and away from his boyfriend. Harry scrambled back, hands on his throat as he watched Louis tumble with the bastard, unsure of what to say or do.

Ricky thought he was quite pathetic. Louis was a challenge but Harry, Harry was weak.

Louis got in a few punches, arms tired but legs strong. Ricky was able to take them with relative ease, the only ones really affecting him being the ones too close to the eyes. He punched back, of course, nailing Louis in his crystal blue eye and his mouth and eventually the pain became too much when one punch to his chest made his pounding heart stutter and Louis lost the fight. He was pushed away, skidded back to Harry, who was seconds away from bursting into tears.

Louis, with his swelling eye and split lip, held onto his heart and soul and cooing, "Hey, don't cry, love, we're gonna be okay," and Ricky found it sickening.

Pop-punk Calum was naive, his parents were nothing, the officers were invasive, but the two before him were disgusting, constantly cuddling up and trying to "protect" each other.

They were in the presence of a killer. There was no "protecting" each other.

Ricky hissed, "You're not gonna be okay, why don't you stop lying to him? You don't lie to the ones you love, right?" and the inexplicable anger rattled his chest and his head.

Louis let go of his boyfriend then, stood and Harry whined, "Lou, stop," but Lou didn't fucking listen and he snapped, "You're not gonna hurt him!" and Ricky just snatched up the bat and whacked Louis across his pretty little face and then Louis had a large red welt on that face and a good spell of unconsciousness. He fell to the hard floor with a thud and his hand was immediately grabbed by a shaky, horrified Harry.

"Are you gonna kill us?" he asked, a sob stuck in his throat. His boyfriend was out cold and he didn't know what to do, he had many reasons to cry. Ricky sighed and shook his head.

"Probably, sweetie."

Because weak or not, Ricky didn't want to lie to his next little sweetheart victim.

"Why?"

"Well, because." Ricky traded his bat for a blade. "I'm bored, Harry."

What was the point in lying, anyway? Who were the dead going to tell?



Ricky was honestly quite proud of how fast he could move.

He had Harry chained to the door of the basement bathroom, his wrists cuffed tightly and his arms above his head. Louis, slumped and slack, was tied to a steel table full of different tools his father used when he decided to try and fix shit, and he was tied with a link chain that his sick father used when he was working on his car or some other similar bullshit. It was wrapped tight around his midsection and his wrists and it was sloppy, but Ricky wasn't trying to be nice and neat. It took about fifteen minutes, what with Harry pathetically trying to follow his boyfriend's example and resist. It didn't last long. Despite being bigger, he was not as agile or as strong. He was heavy-handed, Ricky would give him that, but a punch in his jaw did not stop him from rendering the victim's hands useless seconds later.

Louis had begun to come to a bit after the two were bound up.

He mumbled something, probably about his fucking boyfriend, and Ricky chirped, "Morning, sunshine." Louis, groggy and disoriented, didn't get the joke. Like Ricky cared. He was not a damned comedian.

"Did you kill Calum?" Harry asked, his jade eyes rimmed red. Louis' head was still lolling around. "Did you kill those officers? Was it you, then?"

He shrugged, poked his fingertip with the point of the blade. "Yeah."

"Why? What did Calum do to you?" His voice was rising in both pitch and volume. He was upset. Good for him. "What did he do?"

"Nothing," Ricky huffed, watching Louis slowly come to realize he was chained up. "Like I told him, he was a bad case of 'easy access.' He lived across the fucking street. And you two just walked to my fucking door. It's not my fault you're basically presenting yourself to me, is it?"

"We were just walking, we just wanted to know if you'd seen Calum!" Harry argued, and Ricky was far from in the mood for arguing. He rolled his eyes and turned on the young man, held the blade against his cheek and making a small cut.

"Do you wanna see Calum? Do you really wanna see Calum?" he growled and Harry shook his head, pretty brown curls bouncing as the tip of the blade scratched his skin. Harry was quick, did the math in his head; if Calum has been dead for the amount of days he'd been missing, he was certainly not a pretty sight. And besides, Ricky may have meant "seeing Calum" as in "let me kill you so you can see him in the afterlife" and Harry was unsure which one he intended to get across.

Ricky wasn't very sure either.

Then Louis began to panic a bit, went, "What the fuck am I-what did you-what did you do?" since he was completely awake again. He struggled against his chain and was held in place and he pulled at the chains, pulled and pulled and pulled and Harry was quiet because it seemed like he had finally learned his lesson. Ricky wasn't sure if Louis continuously tugging at his restraints would eventually free him, so he decided to end it before he could find out.

He backed away some, clapped for the boys' attention with a dark grin. He kicked off his father's old coat from his original victim, scuffed away the cover over everyone else, and clicked the light on as he stepped into pools of dried blood.

"Presenting your fellow victims."

Ricky stepped away from them all, presented them with a flourish, and his newest victims immediately jumped back in horror. Their reactions were amazing to witness, almost like watching television.

Harry's face flushed a sick sort of pale, almost as if he was drained of all life, similar to the corpses by Ricky's foot. His eyes, red-rimmed jade, were wide and frozen on the pile of death and he looked ill at the sight, yet he couldn't turn away. Louis, on the other hand, immediately began retching, his crystal eyes screwing shut. Nothing came up, but even with the distance they had between each other, Ricky could see how sick Louis was at the mere thought of it all.

Ricky made long, pleasant strides back to the couple with a happy smile on his face just as they made pitiful eye contact with each other. He leant down to Louis' ear and smirked and whispered, "That's gonna be your Hazza soon."

He expected a sudden jump or jerk from the beaten Brit, an angry snarl or a snap. But no. Louis just shook his head and whispered, "It won't be, it won't be." And he looked at Harry with this gaze filled with sadness and useless promises and he said, so strained, "That won't be you, Haz, I swear to you."

And Ricky growled, "You're fucking lying to him! He will be nothing more but another addition to that pile over there, and so will you, do you not believe me?" with the blade pointed at Harry's face.

Harry tried his best to look over that, to look over at his boyfriend, and he choked, "I love you, Lou," with tears spilling over and soaking his long lashes and soft cheeks and oh fuck okay, Ricky did not have any tolerance for romance at the moment, not when he could never seem to grasp it, not when he was bored.

"I've go. . .got you, Harry, I-I promise."

And Ricky had had enough.

He was in control, not that little shit, who was he to promise they would be okay? He was no one. He was nothing. Ricky had the power now, Ricky controlled it all. He controlled whether or not they would be okay, and he decided that they wouldn't be, they would never be.

He was quick; Harry probably didn't even feel anything.

He slit the young man's throat, right in front of his boyfriend's terrified, unsuspecting eyes.

Blood came fast, spurting out of the deep slit and painting the floor. But no, Ricky didn't want it on the floor. He had use for that boy's blood.

He fished the key for the cuffs out of his tight denim pocket, unlocked a dead Harry and tossed him over to Louis, who was still chained and forced to deal with his lover's blood spilling all over him. It stained his skin better than any tattoo could, stained his clothes, hit his face, but it wasn't enough. So Ricky all but tore him up with the blade, tried to squeeze blood out of every little inch he could. And Louis didn't even scream. He just sat there, practically drowning in his sweetheart's life, staring into his dear's open, empty eyes and trying to form words that wouldn't come.

Ricky had finally witnessed trauma.

And God.

It was amazing.

The skinny little fuck just kept blinking back tears and they fell anyway and he kept whispering, "Harry, Harry, I'm sorry," because he knew his big mouth was what killed his lover. Not Ricky. Ricky was just the gun, Louis was the one who pulled the trigger.

Right?

He didn't know, didn't necessarily care.

"I think he found Calum, what do you think?" he asked, walking in circles before picking up his handcuffs. For another day, he decided, as he dropped them on the table Louis was chained to.

"I love him, y'know," Louis mumbled, sounding incredibly distant. Ricky had never witnessed trauma take place, shock or anything similar. All of those victims of his, he killed them instantly, no time for any reactions like what Louis was displaying. It was so intriguing. "He puts up with a lot."

He was rambling, then. Ricky wondered if all traumatized people did things like that. So he sat down on his bloodied floor and observed the little Psychology major try and swim his way through the hell.

"Harry, I was gonna. . .I dunno, maybe we could've. . .married, we could've done that."

Tears were streaming down his face and they didn't seem to be affecting him at all. They were just another thing, something similar to the wind or the silence. They were just there. Ricky found it all quite fascinating.

"Why'd you kill him?" he asked Ricky then, blank blue eyes on him. "I love Harry, why'd you take him away from me?" Love. What an interesting thing. Ricky didn't know if he ever wanted to try it; it seemed quite annoying.

"Because," Ricky sighed, tired of explaining himself. He didn't need to explain the fact that it was all intriguing to him. It was something to keep him busy. He stood up and continued his repetitive little speech. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jesus Christ. There was no conspiracy against you, I don't fucking know you, I don't care."

"What if it was someone else? There a lot of blokes over there, do you kill girls?"

And as lost as he sounds, Ricky still hears the fear.

"I killed my mom."

"Why?"

"Because I fucking could."

It was punctuated with a harsh slap across Louis' face and he gasped, but didn't cry out. He just let his head snap to the right and bit his tongue. He was a little smarter after watching his boyfriend die, Ricky figured. The slap caused Louis' body to shift and dead Harry to slump to the ground. Louis let out a pathetic little whimper at that.

"Why haven't you killed me yet?"

So many fucking questions.

Ricky took his blade and made a long, burning slit in Louis' bicep and Louis only hissed and cringed. He didn't scream like he probably would done had it been earlier in the game. Now he was changed. He was alone.

"Because I like your reactions. I haven't seen anyone react like you. You're gonna be like my experiment, my toy, okay?"

Louis hung his head, eyes on his deceased partner. Ricky was tired of being down in the basement; it was cold and he didn't quite appreciate it. Ricky took the cuffs off of the table, closed them around Louis' thin, shaking wrists and knotted some of the chain as best he could around the link of the cuffs, twisting the chain around the heavy leg of the table. Louis was not going anywhere.

Judging by his state, Ricky didn't think he was going to try, anyway.

He said, "Go ahead and cry, buddy, no one can hear you outside," and went upstairs. He dropped the knife in the sink, decided to wash it later. He could hear sobs float up from the basement stairs, heard them get caught at the door. He hoped his little reaction puppet or whatever the fuck he was would hush up soon. He wanted to take a nap, and he couldn't do that with sobbing.

Six victims and a toy. Ricky wasn't proud, not really, but he wasn't ashamed and he wasn't satisfied, either. He was just there.

And there, he thought, he shall stay.