Warnings: Violence
Spoilers: None, really
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Notes: Written for Death Bingo. Prompt: Pulled apart / dismembered. Set when they're 25-ish.
"So is this really necessary?" Peter glanced around the parking lot before dropping his eyes back to Olivia.
She looked up from where she was working and squinted against the beam of the flashlight Peter was holding. "Couldn't hurt."
He raised an eyebrow. "Actually I'm pretty sure it hurt quite a lot. He was trying to scream until just a few minutes ago."
She shrugged and rubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand. Peter worried about himself a little that he found the streak of blood left behind charming rather than macabre.
"He's supposed to send a message but not be anything weird."
"This isn't weird?" Peter gestured to the convulsing body and recently severed arm Olivia was holding. The pinky finger was still twitching.
"Not weird like some of the stuff we could do. It's not… paranormal."
She said the word like it tasted bad. She dropped the arm next to the other one and got back to work.
He smirked at her. "So this is just your run of the mill mutilation, then?"
"Do you have a better idea?" She shifted to put more weight behind the downward stroke of the blade.
"No, no." He stepped back as the pool of blood neared his shoes. "I think it's a little late to change horses in at this point in the race anyway."
"Hand me another knife. This one's all dull."
"They're scalpels and they wouldn't be dulling so quickly if you'd be more careful about sawing into bone. They're not made for that."
The leg she'd been working on popped free. "You wanna finish this?"
"Eh." Peter wrinkled his nose. "Nah. You seem to have it covered despite your lack of finesse with a scalpel."
She glared up and pointed the bloody blade at him. "I'm doing the best I can. This isn't something I practice very often." She looked down at the body thoughtfully. "Ya know, Nick would be good at this. We should have waited 'til he could come with us."
"He certainly wouldn't fuck up the knives like you do."
"They're scalpels."
"Whatever. Are you about done here?" He took another step back. "I wanna get home in time to see The Daily Show."
"Yeah, fine." She stood and surveyed her work. "This is good, right? I mean, I usually just burn people. This isn't…" She frowned a little.
"What?"
"Well." She shrugged out of the coveralls and stuffed them into a garbage bag. "I was going to say this isn't normal but I suppose that goes without saying."
He glance down at the corpse and adjacent pile of limbs. "I suppose it does. Nice work, though. It'll totally fucking confuse the feds."
She smiled. The streak of blood still looked charming. He motioned at his own cheek and she wiped her face with one of those awesome little Clorox wipes.
"Thanks, Peter."
"Sure thing. Hey, you wanna get ice cream on the way home?"
"Mmm. Yeah, but let's get container instead of cones so Nick can have some when he gets home."
"Works for me."
Peter took the garbage bag from her as they walked away from the parking lot. Behind them the corpse of an ex-biologist cooled under the orange glare of the sodium lights.