Chapter Text
“I got a job for you,” Mason says, eyeing the man sitting across from him at the dining table in the kitchen of his Hollywood Hills mansion. The large French doors on the other side of the room are open, letting in the humid California air from the backyard. The occasional high pitched giggle comes from three young, topless women who are splashing around in the expansive pool outside. There’s a sealed Manila envelope on the table directly in front of Mason and he toys with its edges as he speaks.
The man sitting across from Mason is called Gerard Way, and he’s smugly dragging on a half-burned cigarette as he sits comfortably in his chair with his right boot-clad foot resting upon his left knee. Gerard is dressed in his usual all-black attire: a fitted black T-shirt underneath a black leather jacket, tight black jeans, black combat boots and fingerless black leather gloves. This choice of dress serves multiple purposes to the thirty-something contract killer: it hides the blood stains, helps him remain unseen when he’s stalking around in the shadows at night and it makes him look dangerous as hell which is kind of his aesthetic.
Gerard narrows his eyes slightly at the big-time drug dealer who’s sitting across from him. Mason has a menacing appearance, especially to those who don’t know him: he’s a bulky, middle-aged man with a few face tattoos, a four-inch scar across his left cheek and a diamond grill covering his top four front teeth. He’s been in the business for nearly two decades and has a strong reputation for violence. Mason has had Gerard kill for him many times before but he still has his two large bodyguards standing on either side of the exit door, just in case things were to turn sour...
“Figured as much,” Gerard says, leaning forward momentarily to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray on the table. “So, who is this piece of shit? Is he big-time?”
Mason doesn’t reply at first, just slides the Manila envelope across the table towards Gerard and at that, Gerard stubs out his cigarette and opens up the envelope, beginning to read the documents inside while Mason speaks.
“Nah, definitely not big-time. His name’s Frank Iero. He’s one of the street dealers I have working for me, mostly sells to rich douchebags at nightclubs around L.A.,” Mason says. “He’s really fuckin’, uhh...baby.”
Gerard momentarily looks up from the papers in his hands. “Baby?” he echoes, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, y’know, like ‘sweet,’ ‘adorable?’” Mason says with a dark chuckle.
Gerard doesn’t know, and his brow furrows. “Why do you need him taken out?” he asks, returning his gaze downward as he studies the piece of paper which holds personal information about this Iero guy. Gerard needs all the details of what this guy has done in order get himself to emotionally antagonize his target—makes it easier for him to carry out the kill. He flips to the next page and is taken aback when he sees a photo of Frank that Mason’s P.I. had taken. “Wait, is this him? He looks so—“
“Baby?” Mason cuts in, smirking. “Yeah. I told you. He might look innocent, but he’s a fucking junkie, Gerard, and you should never trust one. He’s unreliable and sloppy and he’s costing me money by using the product. He’s been lying to me about it, but I have fucking proof that he‘s using it. Basically, he’s totally useless to me and is a huge liability. I can’t just let him walk away because he knows too damn much about this entire operation and I don’t trust him to not fuckin’ rat on me. I‘m not tryna get my ass locked again. That’s why he needs to go.”
“He’s only...” Gerard looks down at the piece of paper again for reference, “...twenty-one. A kid, basically,” he says, and Mason sees the dangerous humanity showing in Gerard’s eyes when he looks up again.
“You want me to find someone else? I can find someone else,” Mason says impatiently, leaning forward in his seat. Mason’s voice sounds lower and more deliberate when he speaks again. “‘Cause I’m telling you right now: if I hire you and then you pussy-out on me, it’s gonna be your ass getting taken out next. Feelings get you killed in our line of work, Way. You know that.”
Gerard’s experienced enough to know that Mason isn’t bluffing right now and his own expression darkens. “I’ll fucking kill him,” he says coldly. “How much you offering?”
“Thirty grand,” Mason says casually, leaning back in his seat again. “Simple drive-by with a handgun—untraceable, obviously; you know the drill. No witnesses.”
Gerard nods. No matter how “baby” this Frank kid looks, Gerard really needs the money—not to mention he doesn’t really even have a choice in the matter when it comes to working for Mason...
“All right. Deal,” Gerard says and the two men shake hands on it.
“You get paid when he’s in the fuckin’ morgue and no sooner. And I want it done this week,” Mason says.
“You got it, boss.”
*
Frank’s practically buzzing as he leaves the nightclub, pushing his way through sweaty bodies towards the exit doors. His mind suddenly feels crowded without the pounding bass of the music drowning out his racing thoughts. He’s starting to come down from his high now and feels incredibly irritable. It’s always the worst part of the night for him, coming back down to reality. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rolled joint and lights it—weed tends to make his comedown from the hard stuff a lot less unpleasant and balances him out a bit. It’s nearly four o’ clock in the morning and Frank is walking alone down the sketchy Los Angeles streets. He doesn’t really have friends anymore; he pushed them all away when he started dealing for Mason and subsequently fell in love with drugs. Frank knows he’s on a dangerously self-destructive path but he’s too depressed to do anything about it and feels powerless over his addiction.
As Frank continues on, he notices an inconspicuous black car driving slowly just a little bit behind him and he instinctively speeds up his pace a little. The car doesn’t let up though and Frank’s getting even more irritated now, feeling as though this person is trying to intimidate him or something. He stops walking and turns around to face the car, which continues moving until it stops right next to him and the driver’s side window goes down. The man in the driver’s seat is wearing a black ski mask and Frank’s blood runs cold when he notices that there’s a handgun being pointed at him. His stomach begins churning and his heart is pounding out of his chest and he wants to run far the fuck away from here but he doesn’t want to get shot in the back of the head or something so he stays still and tries his hardest to remain calm—as best as he can with a gun being pointed at him. Frank is positive that this moment, right here, right now, is how he’s going to die, but then the man speaks.
“Get in the car. If you scream or run I’ll fucking kill you, so I’d advise against it,” the masked man says. He sounds oddly calm and it makes Frank even more terrified.
Frank’s mind is racing still, trying to think of a way out of this situation, but it keeps coming up blank. It appears as though there’s no way out of this, so Frank reluctantly obliges and slowly walks around the front of the car to the passenger’s side door, with the barrel of the man’s gun following him as he walks. Frank opens the car door and slowly gets inside before shutting it behind him. He suddenly remembers the switchblade tucked inside his sock and racks his brain, trying to think of a way to quickly grab it and stab the fuck out of this guy.
“What do you want with me?” Frank asks, his voice coming out high pitched, shaky and scared sounding. The man doesn’t answer. “Who sent you? Was it Mason?”
“Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” the masked man suddenly replies coldly. “You’re lucky you’re even still breathing, you know that?”
Frank swallows audibly and starts to feel sick all over again. He thinks that this guy is probably going to drive him to some secluded place and shoot him execution-style before burying his body or something. Or maybe, even worse, the man is going to rape him before killing him. The thought makes Frank start to cry. What the fuck is this and where the fuck are we going? he wonders. He doesn’t dare utter another word of questions though for fear of getting shot point blank right here in the car.
The man pulls a piece of black cloth out of his jacket pocket and Frank’s body tenses in fear as the blindfold is tied tightly over his eyes. Next, Frank feels his hands being roughly tied together behind his back with zap-straps which are entirely too tight and are cutting into his wrists. He doesn’t dare complain though, just whimpers quietly, knowing that the loaded handgun is still sitting in the man’s lap, ready to be used at any moment if he tries to resist.
Frank feels the seatbelt being pulled across his chest and buckled, and then the car suddenly begins to move again. The man hums along to the radio as he drives and Frank wants to fucking throw up because this guy seems like an absolute sociopath. It feels like an hour before the car finally comes to a stop and the man turns off the engine.
“Please don’t kill me,” Frank blurts out when he hears the man shuffling around next to him. Tears are flowing from his eyes but they’re being instantly absorbed by the blindfold covering them and it feels as though the pain he’s expressing is being instantly erased. He curses himself in his head for speaking, but he couldn’t help it: he’s fucking scared for his life and no matter how depressed he is, he really doesn’t want to die—not like this, at least.
“I didn’t wanna have to do this, but—“ the man says, and suddenly Frank feels a piece of cloth being stuffed into his mouth, partially down his throat. “Remember that you did this to yourself.”
Frank tries to cough as the fabric irritates the back of his throat but he can’t and it’s insanely uncomfortable so he just keeps on sobbing. His nose is running now and he can feel the snot covering his upper lip but it’s the least of his worries.
Frank hears the man get out of the car and a few seconds later he hears the passenger’s side door being opened and the cool night air against his skin. The seatbelt is undone and then he feels himself being roughly dragged out of the car by the man’s firm grip on his upper right arm which he’s sure is going to leave a bruise.
“Walk,” the man says firmly. So Frank walks. He feels the cool metal of the handgun digging into his lower spine as he blindly stumbles forward, lacking balance as his hands remain restrained behind his back.
Gerard honestly has no idea what the fuck he’s doing right now. He’s done murder for hire countless times before but for some reason this kid is getting to him, throwing him off his game. I really should have just shot him in the street, Gerard thinks. The longer he waits, the harder it’s getting to muster up the will to finish the job.
Gerard leads Frank inside of his home, still not knowing why the fuck he’s brought him here—he never kills where he lives as a hard rule to preserve his own sanity, so there’s really no reason to have this kid here unless he’s trying to get himself killed. This whole job is all wrong so far and Gerard is feeling frustrated that a kid he doesn’t even know is potentially costing him thirty grand and his fucking life.
They get to the staircase leading to the upstairs of the house. “Stairs,” Gerard says simply, digging the gun harder into Frank’s lower back while guiding him up the wooden staircase. They make it up there and Gerard leads Frank into his bedroom.
Gerard shoves Frank forward so that he’s lying face down on the king sized bed with his hands still tied behind his back. Frank tries to protest but it just comes out as muffled sobs—pretty sad sounding, Gerard thinks. Gerard tucks the barrel of the gun into the back of his tight, black jeans and pulls off the ski mask he’s wearing. He removes Frank’s shoes before reaching underneath the hostage’s body and undoing the button and zipper on his jeans. Frank begins to squirm around frantically, terrified as Gerard pulls his jeans all the way down his legs, leaving him in only his boxers. Frank then starts kicking his legs upwards, thinking Gerard is about to rape him, and almost catches Gerard in the jaw.
“Do that again and I’ll fucking hurt you. Badly,” Gerard says, and Frank instantly becomes still. Gerard notices that Frank’s T-shirt has ridden up his back a little and he sees some ink from a tattoo. He curiously pushes the fabric up to the middle of Frank’s back and he feels his breath catch in his throat suddenly. “Goddamn...” Gerard says under his breath, feeling horrified when he realizes he’s said it out loud. Frank has two handguns tattooed on each side of his lower back with the barrels crossing in the middle and pointing downward towards his asscrack. Gerard definitely had not been expecting to be this fucking turned on by a kid that he’s supposed to kill. He’s relieved that Frank can’t see him right now because the front of his jeans have gotten considerably tighter in the last few seconds.
Gerard tries to collect himself as he starts going through the pockets of Frank’s jeans. In the back pocket he finds a wallet which contains Frank’s driver’s license, a tiny bag of white ecstasy pills and some cash. He also finds a lighter and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes in the front pockets. He tosses his finds onto the bedside table and then proceeds to remove Frank’s socks. A black switchblade immediately falls out of Frank’s left sock and Gerard picks it up from the floor, unsurprised to find that Frank had been carrying a weapon. In Frank’s right sock he finds a tiny bag of small, yellow pills—opiates, it looks like.
Gerard reaches forward and removes the gag from Frank’s mouth and Frank immediately starts coughing, feeling that his mouth is now incredibly sore.
“You got anything else on you?” Gerard asks.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Frank sobs into the fabric of the bedsheets beneath him, ignoring his captor’s question. “Just let me go...I swear to God I won’t say shit to anyone about this...just let me go, please...”
“Jesus Christ...” Gerard says impatiently under his breath, running a hand through his greasy, black hair. It makes him uncomfortable how desperate victims sound while they’re under the gun which is why he usually kills them quickly. He’s definitely not used to this. “Just answer the fucking question, kid.”
“Whatever you found is all—I swear to God,” Frank says, his voice hoarse from his throat being dried out by the gag. “Please, just tell me what you want from me. I’ve got money, I’ve got drugs; I’ll give you whatever you want,” he pleads.
Gerard sighs. “I’m supposed to kill you,” he says calmly. He takes the gun out of the back of his jeans and sets it down on the bedside table before sitting down on the edge of the bed and trying to figure out what the fuck he’s doing. Having this raven-haired, tattooed kid sprawled out face down on his bed in his underwear with his hands tied behind his back is not at all how this job was supposed to go down, and Gerard has to admit that he’s liking what he sees before him more than a little too much.
Gerard fears that the second he takes the blindfold off of Frank and their eyes meet it’s going to be over for him. Deep down he knows that he’s already fucked, though—there’s no way he’s gonna be able to go through with killing this guy, seeing as he already (quite literally) has a hard-on for him. He remembers Mason’s words, then: “Feelings get you killed in our line of work, Way,” and wonders what the fuck he’s going to do...