Work Text:
There's no shame in hiring muscle, even if you yourself are hired by someone else. So long as you're not hired muscle hiring more muscle, you're good. Hiring brains as someone already hired is seen as an intricate taboo no matter your own capabilities. It's like calling yourself an idiot. Smart men tend to realize they may not have what it takes in strength, while the opposite hardly ever applies and so it'd all become a complicated but expected standard within the community of people who kill other people for profit and if you don't want to get called an idiot, you'd better get used to it.
The man who'd recently dubbed himself Mr Pin was looking to hire muscle that night. This was not something he'd ever done before, being new to the business, but he'd figured it couldn't be that hard. A walk to the nearest pub had landed him among the right kind of company; that is, the wrong kind of company. Sat on a high stool by the bar with a shot of entirely non-alcoholic lemonade and a cigarette in one hand and the other drumming melodies on the counter, he watched the men come and go. They were all the same type of person. All tattoos and leather straps and massive axes and beards. "Heroes." The word meaning, in this context, crazy bastards who'll do anything and kill anyone for an adrenaline hit and a sack of gold. They all looked moderately dangerous, but, Mr Pin thought, they lacked something. They wouldn't take him seriously. They wouldn't appreciate his way of doing things. They wouldn't see the point. They would probably hesitate to follow orders if the victim was, say, a woman or a child. Such biases did not apply to him. Besides, the heroes were dying out in any case. Going soft, as most things eventually did. Not Mr Pin though. Oh no, he'd only just started. He was a rising star in the business, a man of resource, of finesse and a quick, straight forward way of doing things, he–
A sound penetrated the muttering hubbub around him. It'd come from outside, and there was a certain quality to it that carried over the patter of the rain and the murmur of the others in the bar. To Mr Pin, it was easily recognisable as the complicated little sound caused by calculated, excessive violence.
He put the glass down, slipped off his chair and through the room. Some drinkers who'd looked up at the noise lowered their heads again. It was just another day. Who cares who's killing who. But Mr Pin cared. To the connoisseur, violence comes in a million different shades and has a thousand different sounds. He could recognize first class stuff when he heard it. It was near pleasant to his ears.
He peered out from under the awning, and was left standing.
Describing the actual fight wouldn't do it justice. It'd be rather like trying to summarize the full-scale effects of a war, or an earthquake.
A personal disaster, a private hell for three or so unlucky men, was displayed across the cobbles. Simply put, something or rather someone had Happened all over the street, and any attempt to put it to more descriptive words diminished the experience. Mr Pin watched, eyes wide with something much like wonder, as the man responsible stood up straight, wiped something out of his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, and surveyed the scene. If he even was a man. He stood a head and a half above Pin himself. Despite that he looked almost lost in the empty street.
Mr Pin stepped out from the shadow and made himself known.
"Impressive," he began, as the other man's head whipped around to watch him. His eyes somehow caught the light from the pub window and for a second they gleamed dangerously in the darkness.
"I have to give it to you," Mr Pin continued, raising the cigarette to his mouth. "In my years in the business I've never seen–"
He didn't get further. You never expect big things to be quick. But in the skin of a second the Happening man missed a swing at his skull by a few millimeters. Mr Pin sprang back, every muscle in his body now on high alert. Had he simply wanted to run away, he would have made it fair and square. But by that point something about his attacker had almost mesmerised him and so instead he backed up slowly, further into the dark alley. His feet slipped on the cobbles. For just a millisecond he thought about looking down to know who he's stepped in. But that was all his attacker needed. With one fluent moment the other man picked him off the ground and slammed him into the nearest wall, nailing both his arms down with an elbow. He felt the collision through his whole spine and the air was knocked out of his lungs but nothing had cracked, yet.
"Wait!" He croaked, and then coughed as the air rushing in got tangled in the single word. The pressure on his ribcage did not relent. "I'm on your side!" He tried to breathe. "It was a simple compliment! No need to get aggressive!"
He found himself being watched the way a wounded wolf might watch a prey animal advancing, not scared but desperate in some other, hungry way. He was like a rat caught in a trap, wriggling and alive but helpless against the metal prongs that won't relent, waiting for death, and the man before him was broken and desperate and therefore more dangerous than ever. Mr Pin has walked himself right into a hurricane, he realized. Right into the starving wolf's den.
"Whaddya —ing want?"
His panicked train of thought abruptly screeched to a halt.
"...excuse me?"
"'s a simple question."
"No, you said "ing" before "want," what the hell does that mean."
"'s a —ing speech impediment. Answer the question."
It was as though there's a pause before the "ing," as if something else was supposed to be there but wasn't. Mr Pin, shocked out of his fear, let his imagination run for a second and quickly figured it out. Ah. But there was something else that was odd about the way the man spoke aside from that. The words were just too complicated for the accent.
"Oh," he said and then, remembering that he was being held a foot off the ground, "It would be easier to discuss it if you let me down."
"What do you want?"
Mr Pin sighed, as best he could. His ribs weren't being crushed anymore, he'd be in no less danger if he managed to get inside, and the man currently holding him down or rather up didn't appear to be the sharpest spoon in the drawer. Nevertheless, his heart was beating at twice the normal speed. In the darkness he could't see much of anything, but out of the corner of his eye he could spot one of the unlucky people caught in the recent Happening. He did not want to become the next victim.
Better play along for now.
"I've got a job tonight," he explained, and because the Happening man would hardly call the watch on him, he added, "a break in, a theft, and a quiet murder. I'm looking to hire some muscle for it. You seem like a good man for the job."
"You're askin' me to work for you?"
"Not just work," Mr Pin corrected him, "it's... A commission of sorts."
There was some thoughtful silence, during with he could start to feel his boots touch back down onto the pavement.
"An... This —ing job, it'd get me money, would it?"
"Yeah. Provided you don't screw it up, of course. That wouldn't be good."
The Happening man finally let go of Mr Pin and nodded.
"Yeah, alright," he says. "Alright. I really —ing need it."
Pin sighed and tried to regain his dignity. He straightened his jacket and dusted himself off. "You want a drink? I'll pay you."
The Happening man looked from him to the pub door, turning his whole head instead of just his eyes, Pin noticed, as if his eyesight was lacking or as if dazed or drunk. In fact his whole body language seemed to suggest a certain lack of focus.
He shook his head. "
"They don't like me much in there."
"I'm sure they won't bother you," Mr Pin said with absolute conviction, adding, I genuinely don't think they could in the privacy of his own mind.
They looked at one another. They glanced around at the rain swept streets, where no doubt the blood was already washing into the gutters in the shadows. But the night was black, and nobody could see a thing.
The Happening man nodded hesitantly.
--
They did end up having a couple of drinks, or at least the other man did. Mr Pin didn't drink. He knew the stuff did nothing but ruin you.
He'd been right. Nobody bothered them as they re-entered the bar. In fact, the gazes which had previously been directed at Mr Pin and saying "I wonder if I can rob you" were now resolutely pointed at the table. The barman was feverishly polishing an already shiny glass. The room had gone dead quiet.
He enjoyed it, quietly. He knew well that he would never be able to put fear into the minds of the unintelligent without actually threatening them first. But this man could do it just by existing.
In this light, Pin could take a better look at him. His clothes were sopping wet and mismatched, his hair reached to his shoulders and was cut so unevenly that it almost looked like it'd been done on purpose, and his face was puffy and red and heavily scarred in a way you didn't often see. There were none or the clean cuts that a knife causes. Most of them ran from his mouth and nose like he'd tried to snort acid and it'd burned him, and some of them were scratchy and feverish across his face, still inflamed. His eyes, small and reddened, seemed perpetually fixed on thin air, and there was not a sliver of a shadow of hope in them.
He wasn't what you'd call good looking. Far from it, in fact, he looked more than anything like a brick wall on legs, but he was two meters tall and built like a barn, and he was scarred and tense with an almost sad look about him that promised certain disintegration to anybody who'd cross him, and Mr Pin, who saw him and saw violence staring back, thought it all... Impressive. He liked things that bordered on the monstrous.
He wondered why he wasn't scared.
It didn't feel right to be, though. Somehow he felt he'd gained control over the situation.
He was employing this man now. That meant he was in control, as long as the deal held.
Maybe that was it.
"So," he began conversationally, "what's your name."
The Happening man gave him a strange look.
"Don't —ing got one," he said, and there was that cut-off syllable again.
"You... Don't have a name?"
He shook his head.
"Hm." Mr Pin swirled the contents of his glass around. "Nevermind then. My name... Is Mr Pin. The "Mr" is non-negotiable. And I kill people for money."
--
They approached the building as the clocks began to strike midnight. The mansion, pitch black against the already dark city, was surrounded by a high wrought iron fence, at least three meters tall. Mr Pin looked up into the dusk and tried to think.
"What're we doing now?" Asked the nameless Happening Man.
"Getting inside," Pin muttered back, hushed despite the empty streets.
Let's see now. He'd brought a rope and a hook for this very reason. It wouldn't be hard to toss the rope over the fence and climb up it, but it'd take some time since everything's so slippery in this weather, and it certainly wasn't an ideal point of exit should he have to run. Even if he let the rope down on the other side once he was over someone might discover it. He didn't know what the security in this place looked like. There could be guards. If something went wrong and he couldn't find an exit in time-
There was... That sort of painful grinding noise metal makes when it's torn. Mr Pin looked over. One of the massive iron gates was now hanging open off its upper hinge. He stared.
" 'll that do it?" The Happening Man asked.
Mr Pin swallowed nervously and nodded, and thought that he should be keeping an eye on his co-conspirator as well. Granted, he wasn't very bright. That could be gathered from the way he would ask the same question over and over again until someone gave him an answer he could understand. But who knew what might get into his head. If he suddenly decided he was better off without Mr Pin, and Mr Pin had let his guard down, he'd end up as a fine paste smeared on the ground in seconds.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, that works. But be quiet will you? I don't wanna attract unnecessary attention."
Sneaking up on the guard by the door was easy. Mr Pin simply stepped into the doorway with him and put a knife between his shoulder blades. He pushed the body aside with his leg as they slipped through the door.
The house was dead silent. In the darkness the only way of navigation was seeing where the light from the high windows was blocked out by furniture. The world was made of silhouettes, and as they went they too became shadows.
"Fancy place, this," Pin whispered to himself under his breath.
"Yeah," the Happening Man muttered. "Wish it was —ing brighter, though."
I like the darkness, Mr Pin thought as he ever so carefully slid another door open. It creaked a little on its old hinges. It suits me.
He found what he was looking for after a few minutes of searching. An envelope, sealed but not sent, hidden in the secret compartment of a drawer. The fake bottom was very obvious, wobbling where it rested. The owner was an amateur. He pocketed that and headed up another flight of stairs to take care of the aforementioned, who had been sleeping the whole time and didn't notice a thing. He never had to wake up to find out what was going on.
Coming back down, Mr Pin found the Happening Man docile and idly watching a vase placed on a pedestal in the corridor. At his feet, a couple of guards lay still. Mr Pin hadn't even noticed the fight. He must've been really, really quick.
"Well," he said. "You're good at this, you know? Now let's get the hell out of here before someone has the time to scream."
The Happening Man seemed unwilling to leave the vase. He muttered something and came along.
They got halfway to the next flight before he stopped again.
"What?"
The man had halted in front of a painting hung on the wall. Since this was one of the outer corridors there was plenty of moonlight, and Pin could see the motif. A landscape. A field covered in flowers. A distant river, some even more distant mountains, and a house. The house was grey, the sky and the mountains and the water was all blue, but the field of flowers was clearly painted in all sorts of colors visible even in the silver light. The effect was... Bright. And a little bit odd.
"Would you —ing look at that," the Happening Man muttered, running his fingers along the line of the river without touching the paint. "This here's a —ing masterpiece."
Pin looked from the man to the painting. His world had, once again, come to a sudden halt, leaving him to figure out where he was.
"Look, see 'ere? See how the —ing sun only shines in the front here, while the back is shadowed, pulling your —ing eye into the foreground?" He huffed, as if thoroughly impressed, and began looking for a signature. "Don't recognize the —ing style, though."
Mr Pin, in spite of better judgement, crept up to look at the painting as well, although really he didn't see what was so remarkable about it at all. It was a painting of a field. It was pretty, sort of. But that wasn't the point.
He looked at his hire. Saw again the scars running down his face, the red-tinged eyes that stared almost lovingly at the painting, his fingers with nails bitten down to a bloody mess carefully tracing the lines in the air.
"See, it can't be very old. This —ing spot of pink here, that dye can't have been available until some —ing seventy years ago."
When he'd met him in the alley, the man had barely even looked human. When they'd entered the bar it'd been even more pressing a question, and Mr Pin had wondered briefly what monsters of the world there were that he didn't know of. Theoretically, although he was impressed, he knew what sort of man the Happening Man was. Strong, violent and stupid. And yet here he was, talking passionately and intelligently about something that Mr Pin just couldn't see.
"It's impressive, how they've done the flowers. See here? If you look closer they're just a bunch of —ing smudges, right? But step back and look at the whole thing and they look like... Flowers."
"Tulips," Mr Pin said blankly. "Those are tulips."
"They are? — me, that's odd."
"Er... Yes."
It seemed to Mr Pin that an entire word had simply been removed from that last scentence, leaving only a pause.
"Who has the money for that many tulips?" He asked.
"Don't need em. It's a —ing impressionist painting."
Pin glared.
"How do you know all this stuff?" He said.
"Hm?" Some of the newfound light went out of the man's eyes. "Well I... I picked it up."
"No, you don't just pick up stuff like this, you've got to have been taught by someone."
"Oh, yeah, right. I was taught by lots of people. People are really —ing eager to teach you thinks if you threaten to hit 'em over the —ing head if they don't."
Mr Pin brought himself back to the there and then.
"Alright," he said, "okay. Are you gonna take that with you or can we go now?"
"Nah. Don't got anywhere to —ing keep it."
--
As they quietly left the building Mr Pin realized two things.
The first was that this had been... Easy. Had be been on his own, this little job would certainly have involved fighting the two guards at the same time, which could have gotten him hurt and would have alerted any other residents in the house. He would almost certainly have been forced to run, which wasn't very dignified, and if the rope over the fence trick had failed somehow he would've been stuck inside the property, like a rat in a cage. This man, whoever he was, and as strange as he was turning out to be, had been very useful indeed. If he could help it, Mr Pin would like to have him along more in the future.
The second thing was that no matter how hard he tried, whenever he looked at the Happening Man he saw that stupid painting, and vice versa to his mind's eye. The colorful little tulips in the unsettlingly shadowed landscape and the scarred hulk of a man had been firmly linked together in his brain.
"Hey," he began as they reached the streets. "Come with me and meet my latest employer tomorrow."
"Why?"
"Well... You want the money, don't you? And he's the one paying us. He ought to know I wasn't alone in this."
"Wasn't any —ing hard."
"Nevertheless."
They continued on walking for a while, until they reached a bridge. It was still raining lightly, and the sound of the gutters running into the river was strangely calming. The streetlights illuminated the surface of the water and each raindrop caused a series of mini halos to spread across it. Mr Pin, deep in thought, stopped and leaned against the railing. The Happening Man went on a few steps, stopped, and came lumbering back to stand next to him.
"Why're we stopping?"
"Well, were where we going?"
"Dunno," said the man. "Thought you knew."
Mr Pin smiled. He's already taking orders.
He felt almost light-headed. The future had changed, he could feel it. New opportunities were presenting themselves. Paths opened up. In some small way, he had the world at his fingertips.
"Here's my thoughts," he said to the river. "This went well. You made my job a lot easier. And you — you need the money, don't you?"
Silence.
"We are paid in gems, you know. Good solid value."
More silence.
"Listen, Mister. We have an opportunity here. We both benefit from this arrangement. We could work together. With my brains and your... Well, everything else, really, we could rule the business! We could form a firm, travel round and take whatever jobs we felt like. I'm already building up a reputation among my sort. Imagine what it'd be like if we worked together."
The Happening Man hesitated. He'd had his hands shoved into his pockets. Now he looked uncertain.
"You mean like, —ing... Business partners and all that?"
"Yes! Partners. Coworkers. Whatever you want to call it."
Another moment of hesitation, no, confusion, as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"...you... You'd want that?"
"I thought I just made that clear."
And so, for the first time since they'd met, the Happening Man smiled, a crooked little grin that was far too harmless looking for someone so generally harmful.
"Yeah," he said with more conviction. "Yeah, sounds good."
Mr Pin held out his hand.
"Well then, Mr Tulip," he said on a whim, "it seems we have ourselves a more... Long-lasting deal."
They shook hands on it, very briefly, before Pin snatched his hand away.
"Ow!" He shook it as if to shake the pain out. Mr Tulip looked sheepish. "You're as strong as a damn... Agh. Whatever. Let's get out of the rain, shall we? I think it's picking up again."