![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtxref_ficAuthor's Note: Written for < lj user="tamingthemuse">'s "Prompt 391 - Damage assessment". Set just before the climax of the Kyoto arc; inspired in no small part by the music video of Nine Inch Nails's "Closer".
Warning: Pain and weirdness ahead. Consider yourself warned.
I'm serious. This may be the most wacked-out thing I've written in a while.
The blood covering the front of Muraki's lab coat had soaked through to his shirt, gumming it and the singlet underneath it to his chest. Blood never comes out of silk: it would teach him to wear a vinyl coverall during the next session, testing the limits of the subject's -- no, Tsuzuki's -- endurance. He could think of the shinigami by name while he tended to him post-operation.
"You're a very hot-blooded individual," Muraki remarked as he unbuttoned the garment and tried to peel it off, realizing he would have to take of the shirt underneath as well. "And you've proven you have a strong heart, not just in the metaphoric sense." He turned his gaze to Tsuzuki, who lay spread out on the surgical table, tied down at four points with another strap about his neck, torso cut open in a Y-configuration, the type generally reserved for dissecting corpses in a post-mortem examination. Fitting, since the young-looking man had already crossed the river into the afterlife. Skin and muscles clamped open, viscerae wet with fluids glinting in the greenish fluorescent lights of the sub-basement laboratory, blood turned a greenish black in this light, organs taking on an unhealthy tint, though his lungs inflated and deflated in a steady rhythm. The tubes and wiring on the ceiling overhead echoing the blood vessels and nerves of the figure laying below. The thump and thrum of the building's generators beat nearly in time with the shinigami's exposed heart, beating in the hollow of his chest, a heart that could hate and love in equal measures, one that suit him well in more than one capacity.
Beyond him, the one would receive the transplant drowsed in his isolation tank, floating serenely in the nutrient solution, surrounded by a web of tubes that sustained him, brought him oxygen and nourishment. Not entirely unlike what surrounded his eventual donor laid out below him.
Although Muraki had clamped the shinigami's skin open, he could see he would need to release the halves of the incision soon: he heard a wet rustle and a meaty crackling, as the death god's flesh started to reconstitute and heal itself. He would have to undo the clamps before the flesh tore free and caused more damage. Not that it would compromise Tsuzuki's ability to heal himself, but it would certainly make more of a sight than Muraki desired. Even he had his limits: anything more would disrupt the aesthetics of the tableau.
Muraki peeled off the blood sodden garments, dropping them to the floor before reaching to the box of surgical gloves on the table beside the slab, pulling on a clean pair before leaning over Tsuzuki. The shinigami's eyelids fluttered and flipped open as he gazed up at Muraki, face blank, his sensuous mouth relaxed, his violet eyes unblinking. So like his grandfather had described in the times when the then-nameless young man in his care had slid from his self-destructive mania into dull catatonia. But Muraki noted a number of broken capillaries on the scelerae of those eyes and the dullness on the corneas. Dehydration might have started to set in, and so Muraki would need to introduce another saline drip. "Are you starting to feel tired, Mister Tsuzuki?" he asked, knowing he would not have an answer in return. "Rest now, you're through the first test of your stamina." He reached down and removed one of the surgical clamps. The shinigami's flesh unfurled like the petals of a flower and laid itself over the subject's ribs. "But don't let yourself turn complacent: I have only started to test your abilities."
Tsuzuki's eyes rolled upward, his gaze finding Muraki's for a fraction of a section before they relaxed.
Warning: Pain and weirdness ahead. Consider yourself warned.
I'm serious. This may be the most wacked-out thing I've written in a while.
The blood covering the front of Muraki's lab coat had soaked through to his shirt, gumming it and the singlet underneath it to his chest. Blood never comes out of silk: it would teach him to wear a vinyl coverall during the next session, testing the limits of the subject's -- no, Tsuzuki's -- endurance. He could think of the shinigami by name while he tended to him post-operation.
"You're a very hot-blooded individual," Muraki remarked as he unbuttoned the garment and tried to peel it off, realizing he would have to take of the shirt underneath as well. "And you've proven you have a strong heart, not just in the metaphoric sense." He turned his gaze to Tsuzuki, who lay spread out on the surgical table, tied down at four points with another strap about his neck, torso cut open in a Y-configuration, the type generally reserved for dissecting corpses in a post-mortem examination. Fitting, since the young-looking man had already crossed the river into the afterlife. Skin and muscles clamped open, viscerae wet with fluids glinting in the greenish fluorescent lights of the sub-basement laboratory, blood turned a greenish black in this light, organs taking on an unhealthy tint, though his lungs inflated and deflated in a steady rhythm. The tubes and wiring on the ceiling overhead echoing the blood vessels and nerves of the figure laying below. The thump and thrum of the building's generators beat nearly in time with the shinigami's exposed heart, beating in the hollow of his chest, a heart that could hate and love in equal measures, one that suit him well in more than one capacity.
Beyond him, the one would receive the transplant drowsed in his isolation tank, floating serenely in the nutrient solution, surrounded by a web of tubes that sustained him, brought him oxygen and nourishment. Not entirely unlike what surrounded his eventual donor laid out below him.
Although Muraki had clamped the shinigami's skin open, he could see he would need to release the halves of the incision soon: he heard a wet rustle and a meaty crackling, as the death god's flesh started to reconstitute and heal itself. He would have to undo the clamps before the flesh tore free and caused more damage. Not that it would compromise Tsuzuki's ability to heal himself, but it would certainly make more of a sight than Muraki desired. Even he had his limits: anything more would disrupt the aesthetics of the tableau.
Muraki peeled off the blood sodden garments, dropping them to the floor before reaching to the box of surgical gloves on the table beside the slab, pulling on a clean pair before leaning over Tsuzuki. The shinigami's eyelids fluttered and flipped open as he gazed up at Muraki, face blank, his sensuous mouth relaxed, his violet eyes unblinking. So like his grandfather had described in the times when the then-nameless young man in his care had slid from his self-destructive mania into dull catatonia. But Muraki noted a number of broken capillaries on the scelerae of those eyes and the dullness on the corneas. Dehydration might have started to set in, and so Muraki would need to introduce another saline drip. "Are you starting to feel tired, Mister Tsuzuki?" he asked, knowing he would not have an answer in return. "Rest now, you're through the first test of your stamina." He reached down and removed one of the surgical clamps. The shinigami's flesh unfurled like the petals of a flower and laid itself over the subject's ribs. "But don't let yourself turn complacent: I have only started to test your abilities."
Tsuzuki's eyes rolled upward, his gaze finding Muraki's for a fraction of a section before they relaxed.
