The cover art for this piece is by my lovely friend Steph. You can view the full version on her tumblr, skwinky.
Cleanup was always rough on Judal.
It's the visceral thrill of the kill that got Judal going: the adrenaline pumping, muscle-throbbing struggle kickstarting a sense of joy otherwise deadened by years of subservient loyalty to the cult that ran his life up until he ran away and never looked back. He likes killing. Killing is good. It's what he knows.
Cleanup, however, always falls conveniently when he hits the post-murder crash, when all the crazy endorphins from wholesale slaughter have drained away, and he's left feeling even lower than before. The hangover after the high. Hakuryuu couldn't get him to wash out the bathtub on a good day, let alone when he was like that. So instead he tucked Judal up in a cozy blanket with a warm mug of white adagio peach tea and a snack of crackers to keep him fed and out of the way while he takes care of the mess.
After Judal's accounted for, he can actually get to work. First came the junky, comfortable clothes, stolen from the bottom of Judal's wardrobe. Then, the water-resistant apron, which had valiantly resisted submitting to any of the many questionable fluids and mushes it had encountered thus far. Finally, eye protection and thick rubber gloves that made him look like some ridiculous combination of a mad scientist and a hotel maid. Armored against the gore that awaited, Hakuryuu grabbed the bag of tools and the bucket of cleaning supplies and stomped into the bathroom.
In all honesty, he's been annulled to the smell after two months of living with Judal. After a year, the stench of blood and shit didn't phase Hakuryuu at all. Tonight's was a messy one, but not the worst by a long stretch. Hakuryuu could never forget the stench from the first time Judal had accidentally ruptured the lower intestine of his victim during the traditional post-mortem mutilation. Having to clean up his own puke didn't make the memory any more pleasant either. But no, this guy just had a traditional bit of evacuation, no burst guts or shitting himself in terror when Judal had gone in to choke him to death. Good.
First things first: the body had to go. Judal's tendency to fuck up his victims after their deaths made this easier- the process of sawing the body into tiny, easy to dispose of bits went a lot faster when parts were already lopped off or broken. Cut away any extra large bits of flesh, and then those get tossed into a trash bag, to be dumped into the laundry room breakdown tanks with the dermestid beetles later. And the extra flesh? That goes into a separate bag, to be spaced out with the garbage over the next couple days. What's a little meat here and there? In the year he'd been living with Judal, not a single person has ever said a word. One dead body's worth of meat every month or two is apparently perfectly manageable to dispose of without getting caught. The worst part was removing the organs, doing his best to be delicate, so that he didn't end up with ruptured stomach or small intestine all over him.
As he tied up the meat bag, Hakuryuu found himself wondering if Judal had actually remembered to remove the bones from the beetle tank from last month's kill. He loved the man, but god, what a trainwreck.
Hakuryuu dragged the trash bags from the bathroom to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. It was strange how easily he could bring himself to switch from the horrific work of sawing flesh from bone and dumping it into an industrial garbage bag to something as mundane as minding to rehydrate. The smears of blood from his gloves aroused little feeling other than a vague sense that he should perhaps soak the glass when he was done so that the blood didn't dry on too tenaciously. Judal was such a bad influence. He drained the rest of the glass, rinsed it off, and placed it in the dishwasher.
Now on to the hard part.
Hakuryuu headed back to the bathroom and turned on the shower, rinsing out the tub as best he could. The shower curtain was beyond salvaging, god damn it. He kept warning Judal to take it off before he did his deeds, but nooo. Judal didn't even have the courtesy or foresight to close it all the way and get in with his victims; he just left it open and half in the shower so it could get splattered and stained with the blood of the not-so-innocent while failing to protect the rest of the bathroom from the gore. Hakuryuu went to massage his temples but stopped himself just in time. He didn't actually want to smear two-day-old blood all over his face. Right.
Hakuryuu took the curtain down and gingerly carried his unshapely, bloody bundle to the kitchen, where he stuffed it into the half-filled kitchen trash can. A new shower curtain cost five dollars on amazon. Problem solved. Now all that was left was to clean the actual bathroom itself.
For that process, he started with the multi-enzyme cleaner to break down any remaining blood. He used to start and end with bleach, but this was more effective and smelled at least twice as good. The brand he used called itself eucalyptus spearmint, but the actual scent was pretty mild, with just the slightest undercurrent of chemical cleanliness. The enzyme cleaner was nice too in that he just got to let it sit and then wipe it off. Way nicer then huffing bleach fumes while scrubbing until his hands felt like they'd fall off. After that was wiped off, he sprayed everything down with the CaviCide. That one smelled a little bit more chemical, but not much, and Hakuryuu appreciated its somewhat violent sounding name. Its task was to kill any blood-borne pathogens, but its name made it sound like it existed to dissolve anything that dared to drip out of the grotesque body cavity of a victim. He liked that.
Judal wandered in in a binder and boxers, a blanket thrown over his shoulders like a cape.
"Lift that up please, the cleaner is still sitting."
Judal made a noise and rolled his eyes but obeyed anyway. "You have really got this down to a science, Hakuryuu." He and his noble blanket mantle tip-toed over to the toilet to take a leak.
"Practice makes perfect," Hakuryuu replied, checking his watch. One more minute and then he could wipe up and be done.
"Oh, should I be giving you more practice?" Judal teased. It took all Hakuryuu's will not to flip him the bird.
"Please don't. Your poor beetles work hard enough."
Judal laughed and flipped his braid from one shoulder to another. Good. He was emoting more again. "They like having food though. I want to take good care of my pets."
"They can only eat so much at a time, Judal."
"Yeeeah, yeah, I know..."
Hakuryuu's watch hit the five minute mark, and he got back up off the lip of the bathtub. Officially, the cleaner was done with its work in three minutes, but Hakuryuu didn't much like the idea of getting a fungus, or MRSA, or HIV, so he always gave it a little longer to sit before cleaning it up. "Are you going to keep sitting in my way, Judal?"
Judal offered him the most shit-eating grin. "Yes." Yeah, he was feeling better.
Hakuryuu sighed heavily, maybe playing up his annoyance the tiniest bit, and it only seemed to widen Judal's smile. "Fine." He grabbed his sponge and started the water again so he could wipe everything down. Lazy serial killers might not be willing to get their hands dirty with cleanup, but much-beleaguered and horridly smitten boyfriends were usually more than willing to wear an apron and make sure no one went to jail.