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He licks his lips in anticipation; in five minutes you're coming out for your cigarette break.
Bullseye moves and breathes for his reckoning, but in you he found something to pass the time while he puts his plan into action. He doesn't know exactly why or what it is he noticed in you that piqued his curiosity, but here he is, every Friday night.
Like clockwork, you walk out pushing the bar door with your shoulder. Lucky strikes almost empty in your back pocket, clutching an mp3 player that was probably passed to you with headphones with parts of the cable wrapped with industrial tape. Your eyes light up as you notice him waiting for you in the dark alley and your steps become more upbeat.
“Night, blondie” you wave, offering him your last cigarette. He prefers Marlboro, but would never tell you that.
“Night.” He smiles at you and pulls out his own fire to light it. He takes a puff and hands it back to you. “How's your night been so far?”
You let out an exhausted sigh and shrug. “As usual. Only had to fight two drunks so far but it'll probably be more in a few hours. Some tech guys got a promotion or something.”
You hate working at Josie's and you're not discreet about it. He wishes he was like that when he was younger — Less pleasing. Willing to spit in people's faces like he's seen you do.
“So, nothing you can't take care of” the marksman jokes and you exhale a laugh, handing the cig back to him after taking a puff as well.
“You can guess.”
Bullseye smirks. In all the time he's known you he's seen you break bottles over the head of at least two different people and manhandle drunks outside the bar almost every night. He wouldn't exactly call you tough, you just have that heavy blood that makes you finish a pack a day and kick trash cans like they're heads every time something goes wrong. No wonder frequenters keep a distance from you and the other staff stay out of your way.
He likes you as a bad habit.
That is why he followed you only once after you stayed hours after closing to help clean up some bar hoppers mess. Just to make sure you got home safely. He followed you to the subway where you waited for the train on the only line that dropped you off close to home to pass and watched as a guy stood next to you and started joking with you despite your blank expression.
He gave you a playful shove first and then simply put his arm around your shoulders to mutter something to you. The assassin was prepared to pierce his skull with his spare change but only ended up witnessing you smash your forehead against his nose and knock him down with some effort. You dragged him to the end of the line, grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face two, three, five times against the metal edge just held his head out in the path of the train with a boot on his back, pressing in circles with the same energy with which you put out your cigarette butts. He was sure you were going to throw him onto the tracks if a group of teenagers hadn't run noisily down the subway stairs at that moment.
You never had to worry about seeing the guy again. Dex took it upon himself that you didn’t have to, but you don't know that either.
The blond plays with his neon lighter, rotating it between his fingers. It's a neat trick that looks more gimmicky than with a coin, but he manages to do it without breaking a sweat. Your gaze follows the length of his fingers with a slight quasi-childlike fascination. This man is a mess, that much is obvious, but he still keeps his nails blunt and clean, attractive hands. Instead yours are parched and have patches of blistered skin thanks to the industrial dishwashing soap used to even be able to do anything about the tap water at Josie's.
“Maybe you should get a job where you don't have to deal with drunks if you dislike them so much” he suggests, although it's really not his problem. He just thinks you deserve better and to be in a place where every night it seems like you have to just put up with being there and every loud, rowdy man with sudden violent movements makes every muscle in your body tense up. He can tell you're tired.
“I don't like anyone.”
“Cheers to that.”
You blush so slightly that it might go unnoticed by someone with a less keen eye than his. You stay quiet for a long while, trying to rearrange your thoughts perhaps and untangle your tongue.
“You should get new ones” he points to your headphones with ragged sponges and sun-peeled plastic.
“Nah, I'm fine with them.”
He snorts. Other than rent, your paycheck goes on packs of bottled water and cigarettes. You don't seem to have any vices other than those — Accustomed to only living in cramped spaces that no one else seems to notice.
“How about you? How's your night been?” you ask him, bumping your feet together. “You always come over when your boyfriend isn't around.”
You noticed, no wonder to him. You're sharp like that, able to recognize people even by the sound of their footsteps. It shouldn't have been hard for you to spin the reason why he spends every night watching the bar. All week he's here, but only Fridays are when he dares to get close enough, knowing Murdock must be across town, playing hero or playing house with Nelson and Page.
“Not my boyfriend” he clicks his tongue. “Not exactly.”
“Not yet, you mean” you tease, but he can see the way your lips purse slightly.
“Not ever” Bullseye insists. He may have this little... fixation on Murdock, he may think about him every waking moment and how to hurt him, but eventually, even he might go flat. He firmly believes that. He has this bad habit, which is almost a knee-jerk move, of breaking people down in his head until they're nothing. They end up boring him, they become part of the mass, the closer he gets to them. Matt Murdock should be no exception. And neither should you.
And yet, he feels that strange, nagging tug in his chest when he reminds himself that your times together are coming to an end. What is going to happen it’s not going to be like a bullet going in and out cleanly. He wants it to linger, to leave an indelible mark on Hell's Kitchen. He will go big since he doesn't have a home to go to anymore.
He knows it's impossible that the way you look at him won't be the same when he does what he has to do.
His eyes fall on you, on the way your lips barely squeeze the cigarette to keep it in your mouth and in your hand digging into your other back pocket. “I made something for you,” you say muffledly behind the cigarette butt, fist clenched over something you extend toward him and drop onto his open palm. Twenty-one spikes through which his thumbtip runs; a beer cap painted with sharpie and thick, uneven lines with white liquid concealer forming ring after ring. A Bullseye.
This is the kind of thing that still stings.
“Cute” he blurts out, not knowing what to say to you, how much to let you see.
“Thanks” you reply politely, brushing imaginary fluff off your jacket. “It's no big thing but...I don't know. I thought you might like it.”
“It's a great job, I mean it.” You laugh and it's so obvious you want to crawl out of your own skin it's adorable. On impulse, he takes your hand and your eyes snap to him. Bullseye readjusts the band-aid on one of your fingers and his fingertip traces one of the lines of your palm before reluctantly releasing it. He is far gone, he knows. Desire feels like something old and used too many times. Wanting you like this makes him feel like a fool losing perspective. If he did to you what he really wants to do now, everything would unfold in him wanting to change plans.
You swallow and Dex takes the cigarette out of your mouth, pink tongue lightly touching the paper as he places it on his own. This part of the night gets so hot it becomes liquid, the cig ash flies in the air freely and the orange halo seems to breathe on its own.
“Does it get any better? When you're older, I mean.”
He takes another puff and hands the cig back to you.
“Nah. But you get better at faking it. You're a smart one, you'll figure it out all right.” His fingers brush yours ever so lightly. “Or you can just start killing people too.”
“Ha-ha!” you exclaim humorlessly. That nausea in you is always eating you up.
He knows you know it well. Hollow and steady, on every corner in town. It's in the way they leave the shittiest customers to you and the last load of dishwasher after closing. It's in the way in the callous comments of the people he used to have his little flings with. You feel as good as the real thing. It's second thoughts, accidental words, incidental actions. It's something as random and thoughtless as being born in a way that he wouldn't have been able to carry on if he hadn't stumbled upon Dr. Mercer's support and growing up in New York. It was such a bright and vivid red for something that was decaying inside him constantly. Flushed away as easily.
And people insist that he should have been grateful. For the minimum of support, for cheap cotton pads that felt like sandpaper, for letting him wear polo shirts three sizes bigger than he was so it wouldn't be so obvious all the new weight he was carrying on his shoulders barely supported by nylon straps, when he started to grow up. To this day, Dex is sure the social services workers are still patting themselves on the back, proud of the work they did with him. Allowing him to leech off the government. So he must have been exactly as was demanded of him; freshly pressed clothes, loafers and perpetually white socks. Clean and charming and all-american man. A well-behaved child — a noble beast.
Sometimes it's something like a body that is not a body, but a trap with the smell of roadkill permeating on the hottest days between his legs; at least once a month. It's this toothless mouth that he wishes had teeth and maybe grown eyes and fingers later. He sometimes thinks he must have had some twin he devoured in the womb and maybe all the contradictions in himself are the ghost of this sibling who fits perfectly into the hollow parts inside him. But that means he is completely made of flesh and that can't be —That would be an unnatural nature to his own, the one that developed to be frigid and barely human, conditioned to what others demanded of him. The perfection of a machine made of parts.
At other times it's the venom of anger passed from a parent to their child until it reaches a kid who is scared enough of themselves that they don't want to carry on it’s legacy and would rather sink their head in deep freezing water than lay a finger on someone who can't fight back.
Most of the pain inflicted around is haphazard and maybe that's why he has this fixation on precision. No one can do it like he can.
“I don't think I have to do my bit to make New York more unlivable, it's enough with the price of a pack.” A half-cooked joke and the fleeting hint of longing in you melts his guts like drinking drain cleaner. He agrees with you.
“A vacation away from here would do you good” Bullseye suggests for the fifth time since all the talks you've had with him, and you know what he means. The cigarette is already on its last legs and your gaze falls on the boots he's wearing. Always prepared, his coat bulging.
“Yeah. Maybe I'll take some. You should tell me when.” You almost choke on your own words and he wishes he had a gentle hand to put on your shoulder instead of a knife.
“Next week perhaps.”
You nod and your shoulders slump slightly. You look like you want to change the subject, but seem emboldened at the last minute, dropping the cigarette between both of you. “At least they'll know for sure,” you mutter. “It's not like you're going to snap your fingers and they all be gone and years later they may appear back when their loved ones have already moved on. At least there's some mercy in that.”
When you lie, the smell of dread is so clear on you.
In another time maybe you would have become a bitter memory. Though he is certain you will become a sour one. He can feel himself begin to miss you. Maybe his darkest nights from now on will bring the light scent of your fabric softener to his nose and he'll never be able to touch a pack of Lucky Strike ever again.
“You don't have to worry about it” Bullseye lies back to you. It's good to have a friend like him. You must feel fortunate.
You seem like you want to add something else, yet you don’t. You've never been good at saying goodbye every time your breaks end since every night could be the last, but this time you know it is.
You don't try to hug him, nor do you seem to have anything under your sleeve to ask him to stay longer. You have never begged for no one to put you first and this won’t be the time you do.
You're not going to interfere either.
These people did hurt him, really hurt him, so maybe they deserve what is coming for them. You know who he is and still you never call him by name because if there's anyone in this town you feel deserves your respect, it's him. Him, who isn't going to let you down because he will never let anyone ask anything from him again. Him, who would never call you a monster for the kind of blood that pulsates through your veins as it is so similar to his. No one will ever be this gentle with you.
“See you around.” Your eyes sparkle when you look at him and this time it's not joy that swims in them. “Take care.”
He nods and watches you walk with almost shuffling steps to the back door of the bar and push it again with your shoulder.
“Hey!” he calls after you, last minute and doubtful, making you stop cold in your tracks. He could extend his deadline, find another date on the calendar to ruin Murdock's life, but he already wants you away from here and he knows it's something you want too. Now, he allows this to be his last deliberate act of kindness. “Keep up the good work!”
He wishes you will never go soft like he once forced himself to be and hopes you get it.
You let out a snort and he shoves his hands in his pockets. He doesn't want you to come running to him. With a solemn nod, you break eye contact with him and slide inside, letting the door swallow you up. Those people in there shouldn't matter to you. And if it later haunts you and that makes you cry, he won't be there to see it.
Bullseye finishes extinguishing the dying cigarette butt you left behind by crushing it under his boot.