So here's the next chapter, as promised! And special thanks to Risika Kiisu Seto for favoriting this story!
Chapter 2
Morning comes. With the light of the yellow-white sun flowing through each window, night is expelled and eradicated. Sabretooth opens his door and looks out – the body of the man remains on the table, still dead, still breathless, still the empty husk of the life it once contained.
Why, Sabretooth asks himself, why? Why did I claim his life for my own? Why did I choose him? He runs his hand down the edge of the table, one of his fingers sliding through a half-dry trail of blood while he thinks these thoughts and asks himself these questions. Why?
Because, frankly, there's quite enough people in the world, an incomprehensible number of bodies still walking around, souls still attached, frail balloons held in a fickle hand of the force called Life during good times, Death during bad. A single person won't be missed – as one never notices the absence of a beach's grain of sand where there are billions of others to readily take its place. He smiles, eyes skimming over the broad chest stained deep scarlet; this man lying on his table is just another leaf fallen from a tree.
And, now, he won't have to live alone anymore.
He heads around the table and places his hand on the front doorknob, then takes one last look at the beautiful centerpiece before leaving.
It's raining when he gets back; the light of the house is nothing other than gloomy, and he has to turn on a lamp to be able to see in color. The man's blood by now has stopped flowing – dripping – and is mostly dry. Locks of hair stick up in rebellion, held there by the dry glue of his life. He looks empty, emaciated – the lines of his ribs stand out in his chest, sharp and sudden beneath a once life-filled chest; his stomach has fallen in, the deep valley further emphasizing the broken morbidity of his presence.
"Beautiful."
Sabretooth strokes the hair on the man's head, flattening down the little clumps that stand up. He strokes it like anyone else would their friends when trying to comfort them: slowly, softly, with a half-smile lifting the corner of his lips. Such a gorgeous creature, lying there in front of him: sunken eyes, thin cheeks; red fissure through the front of his neck, a miasmic opening to darkened flesh and tight muscles that never shall contract again; a previously flat chest that is now a harsh mockery of what it once was, with its cold skin tight around sharp rips and an almost nonexistent stomach; legs bleeding from behind broken kneecaps, toes sticking straight up. Sabretooth had never seen a greater work of art of which he is the creator. Truly, this is something to be proud of.
He runs his hand up of the ridges of ribs in the man's upper chest, up the dip in the middle of his neck, up the clean gash. Here he stops and pulls the skin back, then digs a claw into the flesh, feels the clammy chill of death on his finger. The blood looks like oil on his fingertip, reflecting the light of the lamp in one swathe along where it stains; he brings that finger to his mouth, drags his broad, flat tongue along its length, licks his lips, smiles. The metallic taste blossoms in his mouth, widening that smile. He leans down over the body, one hand on the table's edge to balance himself – which makes the table squeak under the added weight – and presses his tongue into the fissure, relishing the bittersweet tang…
He straightens up and wipes his mouth, taking another look at the man, at the art – as always – before he steps into his bedroom and closes the door behind him. Beneath the steady pattering of the rain on the roof above him, he thinks he hears the squeak of strained wood. It's nothing, though; his house is old, this happens. It's nothing.
A new morning rolls by, the rain still drumming lazily upon the world. Sabretooth stand up out of bed, pulls his arms up over his head in a lavish and luxurious stretch, then picks yesterday's mostly-dry clothing off the floor and pulls them on. Still groggy from sleep, the heavy half-wetness of the clothing puts a hard burden on his sleepy limbs, requiring conscious energy to raise his arm, close his hand around the knob, turn it, pull the door open –
Wrong. Something's wrong. Suddenly wide awake, Sabretooth scans the room for what's different; the lamp's still on, as he left it; all the other doors are closed, as they always are; the curtains are still drawn shut, the man is still on the table with his face pointed towards his bedroom – no. No, no, no. Last night, before he went to sleep, the man's face was pointed up, like his feet – how else could he have gotten such clear access to the sweet nectar of his throat?
Sabretooth reaches out and grabs the threshold of the door, trying to calm his beating heart. There's an easy explanation for this. The squeak he heard before falling asleep last night – that's it. When he dug his fingers and tongue into the man's throat, he must have thrown off the balance of the head – the squeak was just his head lolling to the side. Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about.
He doesn't look at it again on his way out the door.
So here's the second chapter! Please do leave reviews! They are always very helpful. I'll even give you a dessert of your choice! Until next time
~Nara