Your Heart Belongs to Me
Author's Note: Once upon a time, I was walking in a bookstore, and I found a book called 'Your Heart Belongs to Me', by Dean Koontz. Koontz is a decent enough writer; I generally enjoy myself with his stories, and the description in the book-jacket seemed amazing. A heart-transplant patient attacked by his undead donor? Yes please!
To say the least, I was disappointed. His description lied to me. But, as I was reading, I started to think of a story that was similar, but… a little more sinister. Kakuzu and Hidan fit to me because, well, they do.
This is AU, my darlings. Sorry to disappoint, but it's severely AU. But I think you'll like it. Let's start at the head of the path again, like we did before. Cling to me if it helps-the woods are dark here, and the path a little twisted, but I promise to bring you through all right.
1. Dying
1.1 He Dreamt of a Dark Wood, a Dark Path
The attack came as a surprise, as those sort of things have a way of doing. The pain he felt came sharply, so much so, in fact, that he collapsed immediately, curling into a loose ball as if to protect himself from an outside attack. The source of his agony was, of course, internal.
Kakuzu Tsukino had been, as far as anyone could tell, in perfect health. He suffered not even a hint of a cold, even in the dead of winter; on top of his wonderful immune system, he ate well, and exercised regularly. He lived comfortably enough; as a world renown neurosurgeon, he had more money than any man could spend in a life time. Unlike many of his coworkers, he did not indulge in petty vices, enjoying neither cigarettes nor prescription drugs as much as he enjoyed his money.
His fortune, which might have amassed slowly over a life-time of normal work, had come to him mostly as a result of a brilliant technique he had developed for removing cancerous tumors from the brains of his patients. This technique employed a small device he'd created that sent out fine thread-like appendages, which flowed delicately over the brain tissue and sought out cancerous cells to destroy without the clumsy interference of human hands. The device improved the survival rate of cancer patients the world over, and gained him the renown (and money) he now lived with.
Except all the money in the world didn't have the power to resuscitate a fallen man, stricken with a pain so massive that even his powerful body had to bend beneath it. So now he lay, trying desperately to breathe, on the floor of his office, near the third story window of the hospital where he had chosen to work.
It might have amused several of the doctors, certainly any with a sense of irony, that what nearly killed the hulking doctor was the size of his heart. Doctor Tsukino was known for two things: his brilliance, and his cold demeanor. He was not abusive to his staff so much as he was indifferent to them, and he had a short enough temper to make those who worked close to him quick to appease. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was essentially a swelling of the heart; the frigid neuro-whiz had a heart too large for his breast, it seemed. With the swollen muscle beating against his sternum, he suffered a sudden heart attack, and in all likelihood, should have died on the floor of his office.
What saved him was a series of things that, from his perspective seemed like good luck. Or would, when he was again conscious to appreciate them. The first thing was the arrival of Thomas, one of his interns, who had come to ask if he could leave early to be with his pregnant wife, who was ill. He did not get to leave early, because his boss was in the early stages of dying. He did, however, get to launch a minor panic among the nurses in the hall, which was very satisfying, considering his frustration.
The second thing was the extensive network of renown doctors in the hospital, whose reputations would be somewhat tainted if their most famous coworker were to die without every effort being made to save him. Despite the fact that no one really liked Doctor Tsukino, everyone liked their jobs, and liked being looked up to as medical authorities, and so in the interest of maintaining the things they liked, they strove to save what they didn't.
The third, and most likely the greatest thing, was the heart. He needed a new one, and he needed it immediately. While some patients with cardiomyopathy were given months, sometimes as much as a year to eighteen months to live, many died outright from the first attack. Cardiomyopathy could not be cured with blood transfusions or pills, or even clever little machines that sought illness with sensitive little fibers. The only possible cure was transplant, and luckily for Doctor Tsukino, someone happened to have a heart for him.
Under normal circumstances, organs are removed from donors who have signed them away, and are given to people waiting on a long list. The system is unfortunate in that many people chose not to donate, and many people need fresh organs to continue living long enough not to give their own away. So the heart in the John Doe ought to have remained in his chest to be burned with the rest of him, as there was no wallet in which to look for next of kin or donor cards. And had there been, and his heart been on the list of available organs, the heart should have gone to someone at the top of the list.
However, the doctors so in love with their prestige made a small allowance in favor of Kakuzu Tsukino, and went ahead and transferred John Doe's heart into his chest after discovering that it was the proper size and blood type. It just seemed too good an opportunity to waste.
In the mean time, Kakuzu dreamed. Deep, deep in his subconscious, far enough that concepts like living and dying had no valid meaning, he dreamt of a dark wood, a dark path, a dark house under a dark sky. Somewhere he could hear waves crashing against undoubtedly dark rocks. Sometimes he walked in his dream, slowly wandering up the path, toward the house and away from the wood; other times, he seemed to merely drift, as a vapor of consciousness. Alive or dead, even in his dream he wasn't sure- now a man, now a ghost.
He did not make it to the house in his dream, though he understood, somehow, in the way people understand simple truths in their dreams, that the house was important for him, that everything he saw would be important, given time.
After a long time, the dream fragmented into a base of pure, welcome blackness. In that blackness there was no room for woods or houses on the shores of dark oceans, and Kakuzu dreamed no more.