Authors' note: A more definitive warning: tread carefully if you are squeamish. The majority of this fic contains vivisection (with consent). If that's what you came here for, we hope you enjoy!
Taking several quick, deep breaths of the gray, nicotine-scented air, Death the Kid twitched his fingers. Once more, he tugged experimentally at the straps holding him in place. Naturally, it didn't work. He rolled his eyes upward into an unamused expression. He was already tired of being poked and prodded.
Franken Stein paused in his work to check the young reaper's face, working the cigarette around in his mouth. "Ah. What's wrong? Are we uncomfortable?"
Kid deciding against laughing sarcastically at him, since laughter would jolt his diaphragm and he couldn't tell from his current position how close the Professor's scalpel was to his internal organs. "What was that, some sort of joke?"
"Well, you did agree to this." The professor shrugged and leaned back over Kid's bare midsection, twisting at the screw through his skull with one hand.
"Agreeing to it and actually doing it are very different things, and I think it's justified if I have a few second thoughts. Are you almost done?"
"Yes. With the marker."
Kid craned his neck in order to see his body. "What?" His skin was still perfectly whole, looking ridiculously white in comparison with both his black undergarments and the dotted lines that tracked across his belly in chaotic rows.
"I haven't actually made the first cut yet," Stein explained almost apologetically.
"You haven't?!" Kid attempted to sit up.
"Of course not. I wouldn't smoke over an open subject."
With a thump, the adolescent reaper's head lolled back against the table. Would that really make a difference so long as the room had been smoked in at all? If he'd had his hands free, he would have rubbed circles into his eyebrows. "We've been here for twenty minutes!"
Stein checked a clock on the wall behind Kid and put his cigarette out absently. It was not quite midnight yet. "Eighteen. By the way, you might not want to lift your head like that during the actual procedure. Since you requested to remain awake anyway—" Ah, good, good, Kid needed another regret to dwell on right now—"it's more interesting if you don't pass out. I can always immobilize your head if you wish."
"No, thank you, I'm strapped down tight enough already. I needed to be restrained for this part why?"
"I got a little enthusiastic. Sue me. I've never gotten the chance to dissect a reaper before."
"Vivisect."
"Pardon?"
He sighed. "If the organism in question is dead, the term is dissect. If it's alive, you call it vivisection."
Stein bent over his face with a deadpan expression, one eyebrow three degrees higher than the other. "Your name is Death the Kid."
The boy considered this. "That is a fair argument, but mine stands. You've been misusing that word for quite a while now."
"Unless I don't intend for you to make it out of this alive," Stein noted, his voice dissonantly calm as his hands crawled into a pair of thin gloves.
For a second, Kid wasn't sure of what he'd gotten himself into. His mouth curled into a frown as he glanced uncertainly at the mad doctor.
Franken Stein just gave him a cheery smile and patted his head. "But that would be ridiculous, especially considering you're Lord Death's son!"
"Indeed," the boy grunted. "There would be hell to pay."
"Exactly. Now hold still and let me know if you want anything to bite down on."
"Why would I need—aaahhhghhh!" Kid shied away as the cold scalpel finally met his skin.
Stein paused, concerned. "What's the matter?"
Kid calmed his breathing long enough to ask, "Are you sure you used anesthetic?"
"Positive. Can you feel pain?"
Kid nodded dully. "I guess my suspicions were correct. Chemicals don't last long in my system."
"Do you want to stop?"
The reaper's yellow eyes rolled over to meet Stein's. "Will you tell me what I want to know if I do?"
The hand that wasn't armed with a blade reached up and twisted the end of that stupid screw as Stein stared at him, seeming not to comprehend.
"Then carry on." Kid grit his teeth and shut his eyes, but he couldn't keep noise from escaping him as the blade plunged back in, continuing its neat path down his abdomen. He was a reaper. He could get through this. But the agony and the knowledge that it was practically self-inflicted rattled him. Plus the quiet, wet, tearing noise. That did not help. Stein was systematically slitting him open, all sympathies forgotten in his excitement.
"Hmm... You already appear to be anomalous. I wish I had someone to take notes. I don't suppose you'd remember if I dictated them to you, would you?"
"My mind is a little preoccupied at present," Kid admitted, sucking in a breath, and he flinched as another long, shallow furrow was drawn into his flesh.
Stein paused to wipe up the blood that had begun to trickle from the incisions with one swift swipe. "Remind me to take a sample of this."
"Pretty sure I bleed like a normal human," Kid mumbled, remembering all the times he and his weapons had patched each other up after missions.
"Well, from what I can tell, you bleed much faster than usual. This most likely has to do with your healing abilities. Your wounds need to be cleansed as quickly as possible in order to avoid sealing over and becoming infected...but this begs the question, how long do you have before you run out of blood?" The man pulled back to adjust his screw with several good clicks, and Kid caught a glimpse of red on his gloved hand. The young soul reaper swallowed and turned his eyes back to the zigzag staples on the ceiling that were designed to recall the appearance of sutures. The crooked pattern, which would normally drive him insane, was now a welcome and even pleasant distraction.
"Later, later," Franken Stein finally muttered to himself, then he slid the knife back in and teased the beginning of a new gash into Kid's chest. The metal skidded over the reaper's ribs and he finally screamed, arching his back with the effort of escape.
The pain ceased temporarily, and Kid gave a sob of relief. Stein had vanished from his side, but when he returned, his hands flew around Kid's head, slipping a thick strip into his slack mouth and fastening it behind him so it wouldn't fall.
"That should help. You're doing very well," Stein told him. He pretended not to notice the tear dripping freely down the reaper's stubborn cheek for both of their sakes. Kid ran his tongue over the object in his mouth and tasted leather, then bit down on it. Before he even had time to grit himself, Stein had leaned down, finished his final cut, and set the bloody scalpel aside.
The man grinned eagerly, but then he wiped the expression from his face and glanced at Kid's eyes, sighing. "Just a forewarning: this is going to be very unpleasant."
Kid's legs bent against the straps and his fingers scrabbled at the table as Stein set his fingers into the wounds and carefully pulled back his skin. The leather gag swallowed the boy's shrieks. Sweat glued his black-and-white hair to his forehead and he steeled himself. Then it was over. Stein clinched his flesh in place and his eyes widened with both surprise and interest and he studied the newly-revealed innards. He took a step back, then unfastened Kid's gag and tugged his gloves off.
"Interesting colorations... I'm definitely going to need to take notes. I hope you don't mind waiting."
"Oh, yeah, sure, I'll just be here," Kid started to grunt, his voice dripping with sarcasm, but then he realized Stein actually did intend to leave him alone in a room, unable to move, with his guts exposed to open air. "Wait! Professor Stein—!"
"I won't be long. Hey, Kid? I'd advise you not to look at it."
Well, of course not. Kid huffed as the door clicked shut behind Stein. He rattled his wrists in the cuffs again, but his arms weren't pinioned close enough for him to reach his own body. At least the room wasn't freezing. Being dangerously close to unclothed and anatomized in a basement laboratory was uncomfortable enough without his breath clouding in front of him. His flesh had been fastened lightly, and though it reported a dull, pulsing pain, the piercing agony was gone for now.
He tried to ignore it completely, but now a tentative curiosity was beginning to get the best of him. What other chance would he have to sneak a peek at his own insides? And it wasn't as though he'd never seen himself bleed before. But, he reminded himself, receiving a dangerous wound in battle and having his abdominal cavity laid open were very different things. This had been done deliberately for evaluation purposes. He reminded himself of what the mere sight of his blood on Stein's hands had done to his mind.
...Maybe just a glimpse.
Gritting his teeth, he rolled his eyes downward and angled his head very slowly until the gash came into view and he was treated to a nice, unhindered look at the top of his own intestines. They were surprisingly light in color, bringing to mind the texture of a peeled hard-boiled egg, but pinker.
He tensed and saw them quiver. A whimper escaped him.
Okay. That was a good enough glimpse.
If his stomach hadn't already been empty for hours, he probably would have thrown up. A raw taste rose in his mouth as he tore his gaze away. His hair did a poor job of cushioning the fall back against the metal surface. He tried not to remember Stein's comment about how he might bleed out faster than any other living being, because all the blood abandoning his face right now had to be going somewhere, and he could only hope that it wanted to stay inside him. Unfortunately, the drip, drip, drip staining the metal table told him otherwise.
Stein re-entered a second later with camera phone in hand. He took one look at Kid's paler-than-normal, wide-eyed stare and his gray brow quirked. "You looked, didn't you?"
All Kid could manage was a nervous, babbling laugh, but his abdominal muscles were currently split down the middle, so the sound emerged a lot less sane-sounding than it should have. "Ahh heh ha hahahaa..."
"You didn't have to. If you're that curious, I'll show you the pictures later." Stein tapped the camera phone, positioning it over his subject.
"I'm a minor. Is it even legal to photograph my insides?" The boy inquired as a shutter sound effect echoed around the small room several times. He kept his feet in limited motion, trying to draw his mind's attention away from the gaping maw that had been made of his midsection.
"Ehhh. I don't have to get your face in them, if that helps."
"Hah! Oh, no, just go ahead and post them online like that. I'll tag myself. 'Hey, Maka! Would you like to see how I party? It involves lying to my weapon partners about where I'm going so they won't attack the man they find splitting me open and taking instagram pictures!'"
"You seem a little bitter."
"Fantastic work, Professor. You have truly marvelous powers of observation!"
Stein's brow creased and he took a moment as he slid the phone into his lab coat pocket to lay his bare hand over his subject's drenched forehead. "Kid, calm down. You're getting hysterical."
Death the Kid paused to note the erratic heartbeat pounding at his ears and obliged. He took several deep breaths and blinked the eyelids he hadn't noticed were twitching, trying to quell the tremors racing across his now partially-visible stomach. "Sorry. I'm fine, I'm fine! I'm fine."
"Are you in a lot of pain? We could try anesthetics again."
Kid kept his eyes on the ceiling. "It wouldn't work, just trust me on that. It's the same reason I can't dye my own hair. I'm immune to any form of invading chemical, good or bad." An unpleasant heat began to crawl along his skin, beckoning another cold sweat. He blinked, starting to wish the lab was chilled after all. "So...why's the room so temperate, anyway? I assumed it would be colder down here."
"The body fights infection better if the room's warm, but if it's too warm, then I'd be uncomfortable," the man was happy to explain as he moved to wash his hands and obtain a new set of medical gloves. "Most doctors keep the O.R. cool for their own sake, but I'm not like most doctors."
"You've made that fairly clear by offering important, possibly life-changing information to me in exchange for a friendly vivisection."
"Uh-huh. You should see the unfriendly ones." He hmmed. "I really do prefer the term 'dissection'... It just sounds better." But then even he noticed Kid's pulse speeding up again and he dismissed his own comment with a wave. "I'll finish this up soon, don't want to stress you out."
"I'd appreciate it. Errghh...!"
Kid gasped as the professor began sorting through his organs. Stein tugged at anything loose enough to move, his enthusiasm very poorly concealed behind his stitched, apathetic mask. Kid squirmed at the invasive contact. This sensation, at least, was not painful, but that didn't mean it was welcome.
"Do try not to flinch like that. I thought to grab the camera specifically because I don't want to draw this out for you, you know. I'll just take notes later."
Kid nodded, groaning. "Oh, yes. Definitely for my sake and not because you have a sick fascination with this sort of thing and wanted to cherish the moment. Creepy b—hggk!"
Franken Stein giggled disconcertingly. His eyes had taken on a maniacal look, too wide open to look natural. "You make such funny little noises. Ahh, hello there. I see you still have your appendix. Perhaps to be on the safe side, I should—"
"No."
Stein checked Kid's face, which was pulled into a scowl. "But it would only take a—"
"No."
He frowned, then mimed stroking his chin a few inches away from his actual face. "You know, you only have one appendix—a small and fairly useless organ on the right side of your body. Only the right side." He glanced down as Kid quaked, imagining going through his whole life with asymmetrical entrails. "You sure you don't want me to remove the anomaly? I've done it before, multiple times, with no complications."
To his credit, Kid managed to bring his compulsions under control before he cracked. The dull throbbing brought him to his senses, reminding him that such a procedure would be blindingly painful with no anesthetic. "P-positive. Don't you dare, or our contract will be void and I'll tell my father about this."
"Fine," the professor sighed, clearly disappointed, and Kid noticed him discreetly slipping a silver pair of scissors back onto his tool tray before he settled for taking a few more snapshots.
Kid couldn't tell if he was annoyed or grateful when Stein stopped narrating his observations. On the one hand, he didn't have to imagine what was happening anymore. On the other, there was nothing to fill the absence of Stein's musings. A torturous silence was spent watching the mad doctor's face flick between puzzlement and fascination as gloved hands squelched around inside him. Kid held off shuddering as long as he could, but eventually he shook enough to jar Stein's knuckles. It was then wordlessly decided that enough data had been collected.
"You're going to need this," he said, leaning down to secure the leather strap between Kid's teeth. For a moment, he bent too low and bumped a tray of tools with his hip, and he paused to make sure nothing had been dislodged. When he finished securing the gag, he left a crimson spot on the boy's cheek by accident and went to wash off his gloves in the sink. "Sorry, I'm not used to this much blood flow in any specimen, alive or dead."
Any attempt at language was garbled in the leather. Stein calmly unclipped the pink folds of Kid's skin and set them back into place as the reaper wriggled and grunted. A few seconds later, he was sewing the wound shut for good, and Kid let himself relax, despite the continual prick and tug.
"Is that it?" The boy asked when his mouth was freed again. He chanced a peek at the wound, the sight of which was easier to bear now that it was being sealed.
"Haha. Not quite, but that that's it for the fun part. Now we're going to run some tests."
"More than just a blood sample?" Kid asked, his momentary relief already fluttering away.
"Oh, thank you, I had forgotten about that. Yes, but nothing too extreme, just following up on some observations I made earlier." Once he had finished stitching his subject shut, Stein planted himself in his familiar wheeled chair and puttered about the room for a few minutes, gathering different tools. Kid lifted his head all the way while he waited and found himself admiring the scar that traced a Y from his collar down his belly. A yawning hurt hung in the lines and he felt sore beneath them, but Stein had done a good job of keeping the sutures symmetrical. How thoughtful.
The professor came back around and undid the strap around Kid's right wrist.
"Ah, thanks," the boy started to say, but sooner than he could process, Stein had dug a needle into the crook of his elbow and was leeching blood out of his veins. Kid winced, annoyed that Stein had only freed him out of convenience.
After he'd labeled the blood sample, Stein set it aside and slipped one skull-shaped earbud in.
Kid frowned at this. "Is our conversation that uninteresting, you feel the need to put on a little music?"
The man chuckled at his naiveté. "Not at all. It's an EKG. Hold this, please." He passed some sort of wire into Kid's hand before fetching a roll of medical tape and affixing it with an X across the left side of the reaper's rib cage. The scalpel had found its way back into Stein's hand, though now that the actual vivisection was over, Kid couldn't imagine what it was for. The scientist rolled down to study Kid's long, skinny legs and chose a spot on the underside of his calf, just below his knee. He smiled. "All right, here we go, last experiment. Ready?"
Kid slid his free hand to cushion the nape of his neck and let his eyes slide shut. "Ready," he answered. He wanted this to be over so he could interrogate Stein about those last few pieces of the puzzle his father refused to share with him. That was the deal they'd made. If Stein had those answers—and Kid wouldn't have agreed to this if he wasn't positive he did—it would all be worth it.
But it turned out that Kid was not, in fact, ready. He did not expect Stein to stab him in the leg. And he definitely did not expect Stein to pry the wound further open, causing an eruption of blood to splatter across his hand.
"What are you doing!" Kid cried in disbelief, a wave of light-headedness crashing over him.
Stein had seemed so calm up to this point. Even now, he sat unmoving, his eyes glued to the face of a watch that had previously been hidden under his white sleeves.
Kid's leg screamed with pain, seeming to jolt him down to his bones. "Professor! Professor Stein! S-stop!"
Stein merely held up one finger to silence him. His scalpel was still buried in Kid's leg, angling a small but deep incision until rivulets of blood poured out.
Struck by momentary panic, Kid tried to wrench his leg away, forgetting that it was still firmly strapped down. The bleeding sped up, gushing up into the air as he struggled. Red began to fleck Stein's lab coat and face, but the man paid it no heed.
"Did you—did you slice open an...artery?" Kid slipped backward, dizzy, until it seemed like he wasn't on the table at all, and he just continued to fall straight through with an ache forming in the back of his head. His blood was pooling around him and all he could think was that he never should have trusted Franken Stein. The man was simply mad after all.
Dimly, he heard more observations being made in an excited tone, then Kid was lost to the world.
"Liz called."
Kid's eyes cracked open. He was lying in in a bed that would have been much more comfortable if it didn't have meandering stitch marks worming through the sheets. He turned to see Franken Stein standing next to him, calmly taking a drag from his cigarette.
"What?" he croaked.
"Oh, you are awake, then. Good. You've been out for hours."
"Did you say...something about Liz?" Kid moaned as an attempt to sit up sent agony coursing back through him. His abdomen was apparently obscenely angry with him, but that still wasn't as mad as Liz would be if she found out about any of this.
"Yeah, she called here and asked if I knew where you were. She sounded worried."
Kid gave up on his attempts to sit up. He was so sick of staring at ceilings. "Did you tell her?"
Shaking his head, Stein tapped ash into a bowl. "Should I have?"
"No. I should tell her myself. But before I do, I still have questions for you."
"I have all day. What's on your mind?" Stein flopped down into his usual position on the office chair, supporting his arms and chin on the back, any professional poise gone.
This was it. Kid swallowed. It was time to ask the question that had been burning in his throat ever since he'd returned home to find his father's condition. He passed a hand across the sutures in his stomach as if it were up to him to hold the wounds closed. "Is there a way for me to age into a fully-developed reaper...without killing my father?"
There was a pause, and Franken Stein pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. "How did you know about that?"
"I just do," Kid shrugged, pulling both of his arms out from under the covers. "It occurred to me as soon as I noticed the crack in his mask." That face had been flawless ever since Kid was created—and long before, even. Even when it took damage, it was easily restored. But only now, as he was coming of age, had it decided to deteriorate? Besides the improbability, Kid's reaper instincts insisted that this was going to happen and tried to make him believe it was natural.
Professor Stein's gaze slid to the floor. "When you were younger, your father came to me and said that when you were old enough, you would take his place not only as head of the DWMA, but as the Grim Reaper. It's a cycle. Every time a new reaper is created, the one who created it must die less than a century later."
"Less than a century," Kid mused, staring at his splayed fingers. "Then he still has time!"
"I'm afraid the old reaper only lives until the new one becomes wise enough to take his place. That's why he keeps so many secrets from you."
Kid blinked, letting his hands fall back onto the mattress. "Oh, Dad...what have I done."
"Of course, the ultimate decider is the Sanzu lines," Stein added, drawing a halo in the air around his screwed head. "Once all three connect, you will be fully mature. And to do that, you still require training only he can give to you."
"Thank you, Stein, that makes me feel a bit better."
Stein pointed toward Kid's lengthy new vivisection scars, which were now concealed under the sheets but still hurt like heck. "And, speaking of feeling better, that should heal up enough for you to walk around by evening, given your abnormal regenerative abilities. Also, good news: you produce blood cells at an incredible rate. But try not to exert yourself for the next few days all the same."
For a minute, Kid considered voicing every negative opinion of Stein that had been hovering in his head since their bargain had been struck. But he hadn't had food in a day or so, and furthermore he was stuck in Stein's house until evening, so he decided that could wait. "Got anything to eat around here?"
"I can check. I wonder if food will boost your recovery speed."
Kid's eyebrows drew down until they interfered with his vision. "The experiment isn't even over for you yet, is it?"
Along with a small cloud of cigarette smoke, Stein left a sadistic cackle to echo in his wake. This was going to be a long, long day.
To be continued.
