Chapter Text
“I’m good at what I do, you know?” Tyler says as he waves his Bowie knife casually in the air.
“Just because it’s technically illegal and, okay, probably immoral too, that doesn’t mean I can’t take pride in a job well done. Just look at those knots!”
He motions at the man currently tied up in front of him.
“People should be falling to their knees in praise over those knots. And it’s all self taught, too. I never had a mentor show me the ropes. Heh. Ropes.”
He reaches out with his free hand and tugs at the knots secured tightly around his target’s wrists, listening to the way the man groans at the attention.
“And I don’t know if you know this or not, but Blurryface? You know, me? He’s pretty damn famous in some parts of the world. Well, infamous. But you’re practically being killed by a rockstar.”
The man groans again, mumbling, “Please don’t kill me.” At least that’s what Tyler thinks he said. His Portuguese is a bit rusty.
He smacks the guy hard across the face and chastises, “Don’t interrupt me. Now where was I? Oh right. Pride. I’ve been doing this a long ass time, and I can honestly say I’m proud of every single kill I’ve tallied.
“I mean, sure, some of them were less fun than others. That guy in Reno? He was disgusting. Just being around him made me feel like I was crawling with diseases. But I still did my job like a fucking adult, and everything turned out fine in the end.”
He pauses, scrapes the edge of the knife slowly along his buzzed head, then allows, “Well, maybe not for the guy in Reno. But you get what I’m saying, right? There’s a certain… finesse one needs to have to be a good assassin. And you of all people have to agree that I’ve got it, don’t you think?”
The man doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even mumble any more pleas. He just sits there in the chair Tyler tied him to, sagging under the weight of his impending death. And the whole everything of all that just makes Tyler want to roll his eyes.
“Fine. I guess I’ll just finish this already,” he mutters in disappointment. “My boss said your rival gang wants to send a message with this killing so… um… sorry, man, but this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it’s gonna hurt me.”
The man groans again, which is about as close to a go for it, dude as Tyler’s gonna get today. And then Tyler begins carving out his most recent masterpiece.
“Ugh,” he says after about twenty super efficient minutes as he wipes his knife on a shirt he’ll have to burn later. His heart sinking as he adds, “Damn it, I liked this shirt.” It’s ruined now, about as ruined as his own tarnished soul, and he’d bet even the recently dead guy would know which one Tyler is more upset about.
He doesn’t like the messy ones. For an assassin, he’s actually pretty repulsed by blood and all the other bits and bobs that fill out the gore of killing someone in this way. But Tyler is a steadfast employee, taking every job his handler gives him and exacting it with impeccable precision. And sometimes that means he’s gotta get a little bloody.
All in a day’s work, he muses.
On to the next.
~*~
Joshua William Dun.
That’s the name of his next target, at least that’s what the dossier says when he pulls it up on his phone.
“Anything special I should know about this one?” he asks via speakerphone as he flicks his finger through the pages in front of him.
Jenna pops a bubble with her gum then says in a bored tone, “Naw. Pretty standard fare for you. Boss man wants this one clean. No trace back detectable.”
”Make it look like an accident?” he asks, his voice tightening a bit when he gets to the admittedly incredibly attractive pictures of his next victim.
“Hm. More like an overdose. Or alcohol poisoning, at least.”
Tyler perks up at that. “I get to drug someone? I love when I get to drug someone. Makes me feel all covert and shit.”
Jenna laughs at his exuberance. “Settle down there, champ. It’s just three drops in the guy’s drink this time. Javy’s blend.”
Tyler loves Javy’s blend. He’s only gotten to use it a few times in the past, but it’s a damn miracle worker is what it is. A few drops and the victim is down within an hour, no trace left in the blood. All that’s left is a spiked blood alcohol reading and a sad family wondering when their beloved son and brother became such a heavy drinker.
It’s clean though, is the thing. About as clean as anything gets in his profession. So any time Tyler gets the opportunity to use it, he’s excited.
“Anything else I need to know?” he asks as his finger hovers stalled out over a picture of Joshua William Dun taken through the window of a gym Tyler swears he recognizes. And the rippling, sweaty muscles aren’t even what’s got him pausing.
It’s a gym he recognizes.
“Where is this hit located?” he asks before Jenna can even answer his previous question, his voice thin and sharp as he flips back through the pages he just skimmed over, looking for an address.
Before he gets back to the beginning, though, Jenna is replying, “Columbus. Why? Is that a problem?”
Tyler’s heart sinks.
“Why would that be a problem?” he asks even though his chest is tightening right now, his lungs contracting as his blood runs cold because Tyler hasn’t been home to Columbus in about fifteen years, and he’s not really excited about the prospect of going back now.
“I don’t know. You just sound… funny. You’re not from there, are you?”
Sometimes he hates Jenna’s ability to pick up on even the slightest twinge in his voice, pin him down with her intense stare even though they’re not looking at each other right now.
“You know where I’m from,” he says sharply as he breathes calming breaths in through his nose, out through his mouth.
“I know your file says L.A., but you never really seemed like a West Coast gal to me. I can see a bit of the Midwest in you now that I think about it. Cold winters, blistering summers, flat land as far as the eye can see.”
“I’m going now,” he says blandly, or as blandly as he can with the mini panic attack still threatening to overtake him.
“Yeah yeah yeah, whatever you say, man. You got five days to make this one happen. Time’s ticking.”
The phone cuts out at that, leaving Tyler in the gaping maw of its sudden silence. But his mind won’t settle no matter how many calming breaths he sucks in through his nose, expels roughly through his mouth.
Looks like he’s going home.
~*~
He spends the flight from Brazil to Columbus going over Joshua William Dun’s file with a fine-toothed comb. But all he really finds in the end is a whole lotta nothing.
The guy is… boring. He works a 9-5 at some medical lab in the city, owns a small townhouse in the suburbs, shops only organic, spends Sunday evenings at his parents’ house eating roast beef and potatoes, and goes to the gym every morning at six a.m. sharp.
There’s absolutely nothing in his file that screams I need to be murdered.
Which isn’t to say there isn’t a reason for the hit. There’s always a reason for the hit. Tyler just… never really cared before about that reason, he guesses. Toppling governments, taking out rival gang leaders, throwing billionaires off high rises, it’s all the same to him. But this guy…
This guy is already getting under his skin and he doesn’t like it.
So he spends some time digging through his target’s internet search history, hoping to uncover some secret double life. But even there it’s just… rescue dog videos on YouTube and pathetic dating site profiles and porn that is actually pretty surprising coming from someone so white bread. There’s even a little bondage sneaking in and Tyler is definitely saving some of those for the spank bank later.
It’s all so dry, though. Like the roast beef Joshua eats every week. And even the half naked up close pictures of him boxing at the gym that he’s got posted all over his Instagram can’t change Tyler’s viewpoint of the man.
Though he is definitely saving those pictures for the spank bank as well.
He falls asleep eventually, bored as he is of everything he’s being subjected to, dreading the fact that when he wakes up, he’ll be back in the States again. In that one state in particular, the one he’s been avoiding since he ran away at eighteen. But he figures it’s the type of thing that comes for everyone in the end.
We all have to go home eventually.
~*~
Tyler finds his in as soon as he sits on the bed of his shitty motel deep in the city.
It’s Thursday night, Tyler’s skin is itching from being back here again like he’s allergic to the very air he’s breathing, and Josh420 has a date with ReedLvsCars tomorrow night at a trendy martini bar downtown.
The plan is simple, really. Wait for Mr. LvsCars to get their drinks from the bar, spike Mr. 420’s with Javy’s magic serum, and the rest is history. Simple, just the way Tyler likes it.
Things, of course, seem less simple on Friday night when Tyler is digging through his bag looking for something to wear.
He spent the entire day inside his motel, DoorDashing food, binge watching crappy daytime television, and jacking off more times than is probably healthy at his age. Which brings him to here - freshly showered in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, staring at all the clothes he has on him spread across the bed and wondering what one wears to a trendy martini bar downtown.
Not like he cares. Not like Joshua William Dun is even going to see him. Or anyone, for that matter. Tyler’s whole persona revolves around being invisible, a literal blurry face in the crowd that no one can recall. So why does he care so much about what he’s wearing tonight?
He settles eventually on some black skinny jeans and a black floral button up that makes him look a little too emo for his liking. It’ll have to do for the evening, though, given that all of his other clothing was chosen specifically for infiltrating a Brazilian gang. Worlds apart and all that.
But when he stares at himself in the still fogged mirror in the bathroom, he feels something creeping up his spine that he can’t name. A resistance, maybe, or something like reluctance that oozes over his bones, sinking into the marrow until his body feels heavier than it ever has before.
“Man the fuck up,” the guy in the mirror practically hisses at him. The guy that’s him but also not him, red-eyed and full of the kind of malice Tyler’s never been able to conjure on his own.
Tyler doesn’t have the energy to deal with him tonight, so he just runs his hand back over his buzz, wonders when he’s gonna have to shave it down again for fear of leaving traceable evidence of himself behind, and flicks off Blurryface with the kind of satisfaction he only usually gets standing over a dead body.
From this moment on, the night is his because he will make it that way. He will grab the edges of the sky, pull them, bend them, rearrange them until they look the way he wants them to. Because that’s the kind of power he wields on a daily basis and anyone that tries to fight against that… well, they’ll learn soon enough.
No one gets away from Blurryface.
~*~
Everything is going exactly to plan. Joshua and his date are sitting at a high table near the center of the bar, laughing over something Tyler can’t hear. They’re two drinks in now, all of which were bought by The Date, and all of which could’ve been spiked easily by Tyler who’s been perched at the bar since before the couple arrived.
Tyler doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, he just knows he has to wait. It’s his perfectionism, he says, forcing him to sit here until the perfect moment arises as he watches the way the skin on Joshua’s neck glistens when he leans his head back to laugh.
Nothing The Date says could be that funny. Tyler looked him up too for the sake of thoroughness and if Joshua is boring, The Date is an old librarian lady sitting at home with her fifty cats. He even looks dull, with dry, frizzy, medium brown hair, dim, hazy, medium brown eyes, and an overall dumb, pathetic, medium brown personality.
What in the hell could he be saying to make Joshua laugh like that?
It’s stupid, what Tyler is doing. But in his defense, Joshua is wearing ripped jeans and a Grouplove hoodie tonight like he didn’t get the memo that they were going to a trendy martini bar downtown. His brown curls are all over the place as if in defiance of this bar’s dress code as well, and the way he licks his lips before every sip of his drink - and cringes in distaste after every single one - makes something run hot along Tyler’s skin.
He needs to get laid, like, six weeks ago.
He’s gonna do it, though. Not get laid. He’ll buy someone for that later if he needs to, anonymity always being the key with him. He’s gonna do his job, he just has to psych himself up for it first, which isn’t like him at all.
It isn’t like him at all.
That’s what makes him do it in the end, the realization that he’s behaving… human. Like any of this even matters outside the number of zeroes in his bank account. The next time The Date comes up to the bar he’s gonna… okay yeah he’s coming up now, Tyler’s gonna get on that shit right now.
It’s smooth, in the end, the same way it always is. The Date only has to look away for two seconds for Tyler to slip three drops into the one he knows belongs to Joshua. And then he just has to sit here and wait.
He is instantly a nervous wreck, his leg shaking, his forehead sweating, his heart pounding an erratic rhythm in his ears as he watches The Date bring their drinks back to the table. And Tyler doesn’t even know he’s moving before he’s moving, with a purpose and everything, his vision cloudy and his heart still pounding as he reaches Joshua and The Date’s table just as Joshua is about to take a sip from his drink.
He knocks the glass out of Joshua’s hand pretty damn violently, causing it to shatter on the floor, spilling its poisoned contents all over the sticky mess beneath them. And then he’s turning to face Joshua who is bearing the look of that emoji with the wide open mouth right now.
“What the hell,” Joshua starts to say, but before he can finish, Tyler is blurting out, “I saw him put something in your drink, man.”
Oh no, what in the actual fuck is he doing?
Joshua’s eyes narrow down for a second, no doubt processing Tyler’s words, before they’re opening in a different kind of surprise. And then he’s turning to The Date, shouting a very angry, “You fucking prick!” before punching The Date square in the face.
It’s hot. Tyler doesn’t want it to be hot, but it is. It really really is.
“Hey man, thanks for that. I’m Josh,” Joshua - Josh says once he turns his attention back to Tyler. And then he’s holding out his hand for Tyler to shake and Tyler just… does.
Jenna is gonna kill him.
That’s his first thought. But then his second thought is Jenna doesn’t have to know as he slips his hand into the warm, rough one in front of him and feels something like a sigh in his bones.
It’s a helluva handshake.
“I’m Tyler,” he says stupidly and yeah, okay, way to go, Joseph. Why didn’t he just give Josh one of his social security numbers?
But then Josh asks, “Wanna get out of here, Tyler?” and Tyler’s name sounds so good in his mouth, and he’s still holding Tyler’s hand, still gripping it tightly like he doesn’t wanna let go. And Tyler just nods because yes, he does want to get out of here. Mostly because The Date is coming back to himself on the floor and Tyler doesn’t really want to have to deal with that mess tonight.
He’ll kill him if he has to, but he doesn’t really want to if only because he’s not getting paid to kill spare parts.
Josh smiles at him something big and broad and full of teeth, and Tyler wonders what it might feel like to have those teeth digging into his flesh, leaving marks. And that’s definitely not something that’s helpful to be thinking of now as Josh tips his head and leads Tyler out of the bar.
He doesn’t let go of Tyler’s hand until they’re outside, down the alley next to the bar. And then Josh is spinning on him, wild and electric and bursting with life as he asks, “Do you like dudes?”
Tyler… doesn’t understand the question. So he just tips his head and looks back quizzically at Josh.
“Dudes?” Josh asks again. “Like, can I…” And then he’s reaching for Tyler’s face, holding it steady in his hands while he leans in so close Tyler can feel his breath fanning over his face.
“Is this okay?” Josh whispers, his voice like a lullaby to Tyler’s exhausted ears. “I just… I really wanna thank you for saving my ass back there.”
Tyler’s eyes flick to Josh’s lips, then back to his eyes, then back to his lips, and Josh seems to take that as all the permission he needs.
If Jenna was gonna kill him before, she’s gonna defenestrate him now as Josh’s lips crash into his. But for some reason, Tyler doesn’t really seem to care. Maybe because Josh’s lips are crashing into his.
It’s rough, just the way Tyler likes it, a tug-of-war for power as they push and pull at each other until Tyler’s back is flat against the brick wall behind him and Josh is outright attacking his mouth.
All Tyler can do is hang on, grip his fists as tightly as he can in Josh’s hoodie, hold on for dear life as Josh’s hands pull Tyler’s shirt out of his waistband so he can ride his palms over the flat planes of Tyler’s stomach.
This is not how this night was supposed to turn out. This is not how Tyler’s life is supposed to go. But he can’t stop kissing Josh, can’t stop sucking on his tongue and biting his lip and pulling him in and in and in until it feels as if their bodies are fused together at every point of contact.
Then suddenly Josh is breaking away, pulling back just enough to smile at Tyler, all teeth and bitten tongue, before he pecks a kiss to the tip of Tyler’s nose and falls to his knees.
Oh.
He makes quick work of Tyler’s pants, pulls them down to mid-thigh, and Tyler doesn’t even get a second of warning beyond that before Josh is taking him in his mouth almost all the way to the base.
God. Damn and hell and the devil and God this feels incredible. Like nothing Tyler has ever been privy to in a lifetime of hookers and his own right hand. And for a moment, he completely loses himself in the feel of it all - in Josh sucking the life out of him, in Josh pulling off momentarily so he can bite a bruise into Tyler’s hip, in Josh licking and sucking and kissing, of all things, all along Tyler’s length until the stars themselves threaten to go supernova behind Tyler’s shut tight eyelids.
He comes with a strangled, broken cry of Josh’s name. He comes and comes and comes until he’s certain Josh must be choking on it. But then Josh is licking him clean, tucking him back into his pants, and smiling up at him like that was somehow just as enjoyable for him as it was for Tyler.
Impossible. Utterly impossible.
He pops to his feet and kisses Tyler’s nose again, runs his fingers back through his own messy curls and smiles and Tyler has already forgotten his own name thank you very much.
He is with it enough to be considerate, though, reaching down for Josh’s belt as he stutters out the word, “You,” over and over before Josh takes his wayward hand in his and squeezes it.
“Not here,” he says huskily, his throat raw no doubt from the way he’d just deep throated Tyler. “My place though?”
And it’s the shyest Tyler has seen Josh look all night, all tipped down head and looking up from beneath his lashes, kicking at a stone in the street. And Tyler is helpless in this moment, completely fucking helpless to say anything but a startled, “Yeah.”
Yeah, he’ll go back to Josh’s place. Why the fuck not? There’s always tomorrow, right.
He can always kill him tomorrow.