chapter word count: 496

reminder that noir heart is dark and M-rated, with adult themes.

noir heart: seventy-five

Normally he'd be able to get a clue as to this guy's mindset and selection process by examining his victims, but the victimology is all over the place. Like, split-bag-of-nuts all over the place.

There's no pattern to how he selects them. Aurora Mills was blonde while Phillip Briarthorn was brunette, adding to the collected hair colours of one black, one auburn, one dark brown and another blonde - though the last one is probably more of a coincidence than anything. Two college students, a store clerk, librarian, school teacher and someone gainfully unemployed. It's not like where they live is any indication either - spread out along the neapolitan ice cream of upper, middle and lower class, whoever's killing these people sees no distinction.

It's a brilliant quality to ignore someone's class - shame the guy's conveying his apathy to it by murdering these people with less empathy than your average Game of Thrones episode.

Jack massages the bridge of his nose, before he takes one last look at the dozens of pictures encircling him on the living room floor and sighs - lost in the minutiae, he's getting nowhere. So he closes his eyes and forces away all that he's learned so far.

"Every killer's got their particular quirks," he says out loud, "and he's no special snowflake. So, stop being an idiot and look at the obvious similarities."

There's one that hits him full on in the face; even as his eyes are closed, it's like someone just punched him in the forehead with the photographs. It's not the fact that they're abducted on a Friday night and unceremoniously dumped naked in the early hours of Monday morning. It's not the fact that he abducts a man and a woman each time.

The similarity is his signature - something not exactly necessary for the crime but a compulsion of his. It's what he carves into their chests post-mortem. Right armpit, looping up over the right breast and then curving back down through the chest's centre to the right hipbone on the women, and the same shape but mirrored on the left side for the men. He inwardly flicks his temple for missing it the first time.

Fingers scrambling, he slides the photographs and M.E. reports aside to find the images of Aurora Mills and Phillip Briarthorn, taken at the scene by forensic scientists stood practically directly over them - perfect. He folds over the right edge of Phillip's photograph. Heart beating with anticipation, he slides down the similarly-taken photograph of Aurora and then practically slams down Phillip just over her, so the four points meet. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He half-smiles, chuckling darkly as he easily recognises what the two lines form.

The unmistakeable shape of a love heart, formed by the carving of its halves on his victims.

noir heart is pretty much inspired by Luther and Criminal Minds, so there's going to be quite a few instances where you might go "YIKES". Fair warning. Don't have to read if you don't want to.vrupd.1992 - think of it as the first meeting hooked her, now she wants to know all she can about him.

special thanks to: lunasnoir, rainbowcolorw0w, hornedgoddess, stefalove, chiqanti ceres, oninoko, doomstone, jpbake, vrupd.1992, dingo (wonder who you could be...), aina klinga and noircorda for the reviews!