He lay on the operating theatre, sedated and bound, preventing him from getting up even if he had waned to. Szayel moved about the area like an emaciated ghost, scalpels and scissors gleaming from their perches between his slender fingers. Ilforte watched him with the dazed solemnity exclusive to the heavily drugged, but those gold eyes refused to look upon him as anything but more work to be done, data to be collected. The Octava's lips were set in what could be called a pout on any other, on him, it was a morose schism between the desire for perfection and the desire to waste away, just to see what it felt like. Szayel seemed to subconsciously notice his brother's intoxicated musings and placed the edge of a scalpel on Ilforte's bare sternum. His hand applied pressure, but did not move from the spot, frozen perhaps by sudden memories of a different time. Blood blossomed to the surface like the flower of innocence wilting away into a hollow world, an empty void. Ilforte's eyes crawled towards the wound, only to meet Szayel's. Something burned behind the usually perfectly lacquered amber. The Octava leaned forward and licked the dribble of blood off his brother's chest experimentally.
"The world can be so cruel. can't it, brother?"
Ilforte, for once, could not have agreed more.