Gorehound |-/ Joshler

Chapter Eleven: Boy and the Beast

Joshua had woken up in weird places only a few times before, but this was the most normal of the weirdest.

He woke up from a deep sleep in the bed of a serial killer. The obscenely red sheets were twisted about his figure this way and that as if he was a statue of a Greek god draped in a tunic. His tight underwear had been left on all night, peeking from under the covers.

The bed wasn't empty. Tyler still slept next to him, facedown, neck turned so he was facing Joshua and under the sheets. A small river of drool soaked the pillowcase; a pitiful reminder that Tyler was still human.

If Joshua knew nothing about Tyler, if he hadn't been chained up and exposed to horrors beyond his wildest, most twisted imagination, he would believe the facade that Tyler seemed to put up as he slept.

He looked so small. That was what bothered Joshua the most; Tyler wasn't the most bulky of people, nor the tallest, yet somehow, he's killed God knows how many people and had Joshua on a tight leash, literally and figuratively.

His long eyelashes batted slightly as he slept, his lips pouted. He was a normal person when he slept. He was actually cute.

It took all the resilience Joshua possessed to not reach out and run his hands through Tyler's soft brown hair. It was matted down in some places, sticking up wildly. Again, cute.

Lying in bed was like a dreamworld to Joshua. He was trying his hardest to forget about the inhuman crimes that Tyler had committed. His dreamworld, however, was continually brought crumbling down by his human side, his logical thinking.

He couldn't sit idly by as Tyler continued to chop up people and dump them in acid. He had to escape, he had to go to the police.

In a jarring battle against itself, Joshua's brain went haywire. He got lost in a trance, staring at Tyler, who was only a background as his vision blurred. The reporter was tearing himself to shreds over it all.

What do I do? He thought. I want to escape so badly, I want to go home, but...I can't bring myself to do it. What's wrong with me?

As Joshua went back and forth in his head, his expression blank, Tyler roused from his sleep. His eyes slowly blinked open and he was able to immediately see Joshua.

The man was dead-eyed, yet focused on Tyler. Tyler didn't move in fear of breaking whatever it was that he was doing, so he stared right back at him.

It was...odd. Tyler didn't know what to feel when looking at Joshua. On the one hand, he saw a man who got laid the previous night, his black locks in a wild frenzy atop his head, stubble gracing the lines of his lower face. He was just another fuck toy.

On the other hand, Tyler saw more than a prisoner. He saw his own salvation in Joshua. He felt that, maybe, he could retrace his steps back to his humanity, before it all went wrong.

On some level, Tyler regretted becoming the killer that he was. But it was buried deep below layers of malice and bloodlust; the excitement of the hunt and the excoriation.

His want, his need to kill was so overpowering that he didn't care for his old self any longer. Any shred of longing, when brought to the forefront of Tyler's mind, was brutally torn apart by him as he looked back on his 'accomplishments.'

Joshua slowly came out of his trance, still not having reached a decision. When he focused his eyes, he saw Tyler's gazing right back at him.

It gave him a start, and he backed away a bit in shock. When he saw that Tyler cracked a grin, he brought up the courage to ask, "What?"