Clementine's Selfship Shrine

Lying on the exam table, you waited with an open mouth for Victor to prod at. On another day, you suppose it might've been erotic-- tongue hanging off your lips, staring at the doctor with warm cheeks and watery eyes-- but the local anesthetic mixed with your overwhelming excitement had long dissipated such thoughts. Static radiated through your jawbone, attempts to clench your teeth thwarted by medically induced weakness. Still, your legs bounced endlessly, blood rushing to your feet and every movement crinkling the thin paper underneath you. Victor remained unbothered, the noise either willfully ignored or completely unnoticed as he studied his tools.

You'd been waiting forever for today. Since yesterday, anyway.

It started months ago. You'd long known that knowing everything about Victor was an impossible challenge; his theatrics insisted on his mystery, and it was, admittedly, something you could respect to a point. It wasn't much your business to pry into regardless. If you were being honest, you didn't really care about what you *did* know. That's the kind of man he was. He made everything he'd ever done seem so far away, tiny stories on a sanatorium stage with scripts delivered all for you-- because *you* were his focus, so he said. You were *special.*

Flattered as you were, though, it was impossible to hide *himself* as a physical body in front of you. Infatuated hardly covered it. You were utterly obsessed. Every crack, every hair, every scar; you'd begun to memorize the map of his body, every ridge of his own etching itself into the wrinkles of your brain. So, when you'd found out there was a part of him you *hadn't* yet discovered...

You'd grabbed his bottom lip with squinted eyes, brows furrowed in examination that rivaled his own. Victor's large hand wrapped around your wrist like cold leather, but the touch was gentle. There wasn't intent to pull you off just yet. He was mapping you out just as much as you were him. You glared up at him through your lashes, squeezing the flesh softly between your fingertips.

"You didn't tell me you had this."

His own brow raised now. A questioning hum blew between his teeth, head tilting.

"Move your teeth. Open."

He was no stranger to unwelcome touch. Between you and the panicked flailing of terrified patients day-in day-out, the doctor was subject to varying degrees of physical torment every day of his life. Perhaps unwelcome wasn't the right word, though, he thought; Victor felt not much at all would satisfy him in that regard. If somebody grabbed, he'd wish they hadn't. If they remained calm, he'd wish they weren't. It was a strange neutrality bordering on negativity-- of which he never minced his words about. Then again, the care center endeavor was never meant to be his life's work; merely a stepping stone to true satisfaction and contentment in another man's footsteps.

Still, something always stirred in the back of his mind when you 'ordered' him around. It wasn't the sheer difference between you two-- size, strength, stature, as entertaining as that, in fact, was-- it was different. A feeling deep behind his skull, crawling up the stem and plucking his nerves, forcing him to abide your frivolous whims. You posed no threat to his prerogative, not like a demanding patient refusing treatment. You were just... extra, in a plan already taking years of work. He could be as annoyed as he liked, but at the end of the day, Victor did still feel inclined to follow orders. It made his chest buzz, a small taste of that satisfaction he'd been chasing. The limbs inside his head twitched.

So, he obeyed, opening up to expose gilded teeth and rotten gums. You'd thought about it like sticking gold inside used bubblegum; made you look, and you just want to pull it out and keep the pretty bits no matter how gross it might seem. But, that wasn't what interested you right now. No, what caught your eye today was his tongue, dry and forked straight down the middle, each side writhing as you stared. Stale breath warmed your hand.

"Did you do it yourself?"

You gave him no room to answer, your fingers reaching into his mouth to grab one side of the squirming mass. It felt like his hands, just spongier-- cracked and dehydrated. He huffed, something like a hiss gurgling in the back of his old throat that you took as a 'yes.'

"Move the other side, I wanna see."

Victor obliged again, somewhat unwillingly-- that slithering in his cerebral warming his temples. The other edge of his tongue moved up and down trying to escape, accidentally licking a dry stripe up your nail. It left no residue.

Your fascination laid heavy in the air, the feeling floating up his throat in droves and forcing its way through his nostrils. Sticky enough to choke on, and yet you wondered why his mouth was so dry. He'd never really thought about the modification anymore. Besides the fact that it had been a part of him for so long, he'd become rather single-minded in finding gratification elsewhere in his work. It made him chuckle; the idea that once, the impulsive act of slicing the muscle with a scalpel had brought him the same pleasure his new pursuits soon would. How simple things had been, hadn't they? And how simple *you* were, to be so taken with it?

"I want one."

Releasing your hostage from your fingertip prison, you ran your own tongue over each of your teeth, long-ignored plaque buildup lining the edges. The doctor didn't answer. It wasn't much of a demand. He merely smiled, a small laugh humming in his chest. How familiar you felt, right now.

"Give me one."

Something wriggled in his grey matter again, and Victor had no choice but to comply.

You think you drooled on yourself, but you couldn't feel it properly to tell. He stood over you now, fresh scalpel in hand and visor meticulously scanning your features as he clicked one lens over. Leaning in further, he pressed your jaw open with one finger, your tongue already dotted with ink to mark his path. He tuts as your mouth twitches. Even with anesthesia, it seems your body still wants to shut itself closed.

"Now... if you can't keep still, it's going to make this much, much harder."

You hope your wet eyes convey the feeling of 'I don't mean to, stop talking at me and fix it already' that you want them to. Unfortunately, he's already turned around. Fortunately, when he turns back, a new metal instrument has entered his hand; scissor-like, shiny and new with rubber ends that he places in your mouth to keep everything neat and separated. Only your tongue spasms now, spit pooling over your lips. He wipes everything away with paper towel. It tickles your numbed flesh.

You want to laugh at how menacing he makes himself sound, when all it took was an order and a day to get you on his operating table. Victor did make everything sound so far away, yes, but...

When he didn't, he sure had a way of making it sound like he was in control.

"Take a deep breath, and..."

You hadn't even realized he'd picked up the scalpel again. Before you can react, the light sound of a slice carving through your tongue echoes deep in your ears, warm blood flooding where saliva used to sit. The doctor merely dabs at the drips, leaving you to swallow the rest dribbling down your throat. You swear you can feel it clotting on the way down. You wonder if it'll become its own mass in your stomach.

"...Exhale. Perfect."

He's already stitching each side, hands forcing them apart just like you'd done to him prior. The visor scans every change in your expression, and it finds that there's hardly anything besides some type of excitement. He can smell it, too, admittedly. Behind the blood you're trying not to gag on and the sterile smell of iodine, the scent of admiration seeps into his pores. Admiration...

You never look at him with anything less. A true believer in what he's doing; and you don't even know what it is. No, not what he's doing-- he shakes his head, sutures pausing-- just to him. Your interest lies not with Umbrella, or Elpis, or anything else. Lying in front of him, now, that familiarity crept itself up his spine. He did so owe his dedication to Elpis to somebody else, didn't he? The back of his mind writhed, now ancient demands and assurances still guiding his hand. To give yourself a purpose in somebody else's did feel quite good. Fulfilling. He wouldn't lie and say your feelings were foreign. He dabbed again at the blood trickling down your chin.

No, instead he'd say nothing. Fresh stitches rub at your flesh, your experiment of trying to move your swollen tongue independently not working as desired. How simple he had been, he thought, to be so content with this before. How simple you were, to be so taken with it still, even as your mouth swelled.

You refused to speak a word.

BSAA soldiers surrounded you from every angle, guns drawn and pointing right at your head. You had thought it was pathetic; you were hurt, hardly any weapons to speak of left on your person besides the rifle they'd so kindly confiscated, yet they continued their meaningless aiming. Some muttered words about forces found dead in the Raccoon City area. Others replied that the bullets wouldn't match. Your chest rose and fell with the weight of the unseen surface, desperate to climb out and contact somebody, *anybody,* and tell them you were here, to send an extraction team. You knew they wouldn't answer.

Having not actually found the laboratory before had bitten you straight in the ass. You'd rappelled down with unparalleled confidence, feet slipping against the crumbling slate a soft foreshadowing of what was to come. Vines thick enough to be tree trunks warped your path ahead, roots entangling themselves in every hole and crack and crevice and the knowledge that you had nowhere to hide had made you grip your pistol harder. You continued forward. The supposed 'plant-life' began to shrivel. The smell of *burning* nipped at your nostrils.

"There's nothing for you in there but death," Victor's voice whispered through your ears, caressing your mind as you stepped through the gradually accelerating decay, "and that would just be disappointing for both of us."

Since you'd stepped off the helicopter, he took up your head like a virus himself, the knowledge that you were chasing the same objective making your heart rate leap to dangerous levels. You did hope he was okay. You hoped more that he wouldn't come back while you were here. *That* question plagued you again, biting at your heels and holding on tight, tight, tight until you reached the source of that sour, smokey odor. Staring up at the remains of the smoldering bioweapon, Victor's golden teeth glinted in the embers.

Why hadn't he already gotten the sample?

And, more importantly-- why was the door open?

You were completely, utterly lost. Nothing in the laboratory made sense. So much was opened, so much was closed, so much was *killed.* You'd tried to make your own path for a long time, mechanical entrances sending you down a-ways you weren't sure were correct, but you had no other options besides. Had it been an hour? Two? Doors hissed shut behind you, the tunnel ahead dragging on like a corpse; going, going, going until the broken window in the side stopped you in your tracks. You stared down into your second abyss of the day.

The deep red alert lights forced you to squint to see any real detail, and even then, there wasn't much. More glass. More smoke. More blood. You stood watch at the opening and let your silent gaze pour over the possibilities. So many B.O.W's on the way here, all of them dead. Was the perpetrator finally caught off guard? Maybe they had made too much noise this time, and those things finally heard them. Maybe--

The ground below you shook.

Then the ceiling above you.

Then, the door in front of you.

You held onto the frame space, palms slipping over shards and sending them flying down into the crimson void. Temptations to flee had crossed your mind a hundred times, survival instincts begging you to turn around and abandon the job, your employers, in the name of your own safety. It was as if an earthquake had suddenly sounded off underneath Raccoon City. The metal floor under your feet squealed with movement, tremors sending you collapsing to its level and slamming your kneecaps as you fell. You grasped the surface as best you could, your sweaty hands acting as desperate adhesive as you listened to the new voices suddenly leaking from the door ahead.

Deep. Uneven. And, far louder than you'd ever expect of him. Him? Yes, you had recognized him immediately, hadn't you? You remembered him laughing at you, laughing *with* you, watching you part in the helicopter after your little gift and head straight for his life's work like a two-headed snake. You pushed your hands down against the steel, forcing yourself up on aching joints to make a mad dash for the entryway. Sizzling filled your ears as it unsealed, flashes of yellow and orange making you blink thrice in succession as you realized just how close you'd been to him this whole time.

"LET IT ALL COME DOWN. ALL OF IT."

The back of Victor stared back at you, deranged and strangely foreign. No, this was not the faux-gentleman you'd met on the cliffside, nor was it the mischievous motorcyclist you'd gifted those launchers to. He'd threatened your life before, and yet now was only the *second* time he'd ever felt real, tangible, truly dangerous and separated from your ideal view. As if it could sense your widening eyes, the fleshy appendage that used to be his arm swirled behind him, desperately reaching for you without the length needed to do so. Victor paused, head twitching.

When he turned, steps booming through what you now knew was PANDORA, the building shuddered. Endlessly, now. His brows raised for only a moment before he sent you back speeding through the door you came from, the slam of the growth against your stomach leaving you winded as you watched him from your place back on the tunnel floor. You *were* watching him, anyway; until the walkways ahead began to fall apart, metal you would've been standing on snapping and falling a thousand feet below. He stared until he physically couldn't, your heaving form filtered through the spasms of darkened eyes and explosions of faraway systems sending debris tumbling down around him.

Then, he was gone. You thought you were, too, heavy supports crumbling and risking crushing each limb you didn't have tucked under your body. You were completely covered when the BSAA found you, curled up in just the right position underneath piles of rubble as to avoid being smashed.

'You're real lucky,' they had said, still pointing guns at you. 'If we hadn't found you, you would've suffocated,' something like that. You weren't really listening. You didn't speak.

Now you're here. *Still* here. You still don't speak. They gave up on your compliance entirely, instead telling you that someone will come to escort you soon while you kneel in cuffs. It hardly mattered. What did matter, though, was the glimpses of the world you saw through their radio conversations; details about the ARK, Elpis-- an antiviral? Your employers wouldn't have given a shit about an antiviral, you thought, straining your ears to listen. They wanted a weapon. Everyone wanted a weapon. Someone's speaker crackled to life.

"Hostile escaped with remaining sample. Sending teams for recovery."

One of the soldiers sighed, helmet shaking as he responded with something you couldn't understand through his armor. Cold metal pressed against the side of your skull when you perked up at the notice, a quiet reminder to stay down or get put down. You glare daggers at your keepers. So Victor *had* gotten out of that shitshow, after all.

The fondness you find yourself holding for him continues to feel stranger and stranger, you think, mulling it over in your head like a rewinding tape. He had no reason not to kill you. You had no reason to help him. You both were even now, in that regard, so your communications should theoretically be over. However, the more you picture him, see him wholly as what he was-- or, as he is now-- the more you just want to... *speak* to him again. With your duties now relinquished, the BSAA's questions became much harder to answer. An associate of Umbrella? You see Victor's snake skin in your mind-- cracked hands wrapping around your throat to pull you to safety, grotesque limb hurling you from the collapsing PANDORA-- and consider saying yes.

Instead, you still say nothing.

Had he even done it on purpose? Or solely because it entertained him in the moment? Couldn't he ask you the same thing? When you'd heard him again, you were shocked to hear him reach such octaves; throat fighting against his vocal cords as he strained every word to his two, three person audience. That was no virus, you thought, his strange flesh too alive, too *receptive* to your presence to have just been... *him.* It came as no surprise, honestly, but...

Shots ring out, soldiers suddenly dropping like flies next to you on the floor. You lay flat on instinct, the drop slamming your chin against the hard ground and sending aches through your bones. Everyone is yelling. Everyone is shooting. A bullet scrapes your ear and sends blood running down your jaw. A soldier's corpse falls onto your calf, body still warm against the trembling leg. When everyone finally quiets, you play dead in the silence, breath hitched and lids closed in fake rest. You hear bootsteps. Heavy. Closer, closer, closer.

Could it? No, it couldn't. You consider your options; not very fucking many, if you had to be frank. You still only hear one person, stomping slowly, the clack of leather all too familiar on your ears. It was getting you all too *comfortable.*

The metal binding your wrists jingles as you shoot your head up to look at your potential savior, only to stare down the barrel of another gun. Then, several.

"All remaining BSAA forces eliminated. Objective not found. Potential target apprehended."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Connections was not kind to you. You'd quickly found that silence was no longer an option; they had no guidelines to follow, no threat of government interference when considering unnecessary deaths-- and they would continue, with or without you. The new soldiers hoisted you up by your underarms, tactical gloves digging deep into your skin and rupturing the blood vessels beneath. Trying to tell them about your situation like you'd (not really) wanted proved far more difficult with them shoving you around-- on your feet, off your feet, in the car, on the chopper-- the threat of having your throat slit ever looming each time you paused, stumbled, misspoke.

They got what they wanted, though, if only partially. Talk of your previous employer made their helmets tilt, even if all questions regarding the names involved went unanswered. No, you didn't know anything else about them, you'd said, hands up in a desperate show of cluelessness you wished was staged. Whether they believed it was yet to be seen. But, they had *you,* trapped under the thumb of their towering organization, and you had experience. You had Victor Gideon.

Or so they phrased it.

Information about your past contacts with him were fed through their lines over *years,* your own voice from the past piping back up to tell you that you hadn't said thank you yet. You supposed you weren't surprised. The 'ex' in ex-Umbrella was doing quite a bit of lifting now that you remembered it. Funded by these people... Victor had damned himself to death regardless, hadn't he? The shining silver of his belt buckle swirls in their carbines' carbon steel, ouroboros twisting through your eyes and taunting you through a full throat. When one leaves The Connections, another takes their place.

Despite your protests, claims that you didn't *know* Victor on a level beyond surface; you now sat in a helicopter to your next objective, focus fixed to the floor as the blades whirred above you. New employer, same shit. Nothing ever changed for you. Maybe that's why you'd liked Victor so much, a change to your deafening routine so warmly welcomed you latched onto the idea of him like molasses. But, now he was a part of that, too-- and your initial desire to see him again faded with every mile flown, every year passed.

They'd rattled off the data again before you left, just quiet enough to where your ears strained to listen. You got the gist regardless. Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Last known location. Find Victor, and you've probably found the objective. Retrieve it through any means necessary, or be neutralized. Soldiers forced you off the chopper once landed, shouts unheard over the grating noise; then, you were alone, just you and the forest to guide your trail.

You'd gotten a handgun, at least. But, The Connections knew better than to supply you with advanced weaponry beyond that. Your poor rifle had been long lost to time inside the ARK. You didn't even get an earpiece, with them instead insisting on a drop-off point for the sample nearby; after that, you were free to go. Supposedly. Don't do it, and you were gone. You felt brand new again, forcing your legs through every step you took towards the defunct sanatorium. You'd only ever gotten documents. You couldn't imagine what they would do with an antiviral.

An entire vaccine, capable of curing the thousands of infections created in the name of affluence. You knew what you'd be doing placing the only copy into their hands. Victor knew what he'd be doing ripping it out of them. The BSAA were useless, and B.O.W's...

Was Victor considered one, now? You never used to mind, 'dispatching' these things never weighing on your conscious, but his intelligence-- his senses, his capability, his laugh, his *life--* it all made you immensely uncomfortable. He pulled you out of your contented disconnect from the reality at hand, slimy appendages worming their way into your heart and flooding each artery with droves of déjà vu.

What you both do could change everything, you thought, staring up at the empty care center. You can't say you'd ever seen it before, but it looked untouched, only the lack of power flowing to the lights suggesting any type of abandonment. Ornate gates welcome you as they would a patient, each assuring a promising future ahead should you just come inside. You step through them, like a portal to another world...

Silence. It's the world's turn to punish you with nothing. You hear your breaths, cold wind, the creak of the double doors as you open them-- but no danger arrives when they close. It's remarkably clean; white tiles still gleaming even in the dark and clicking under your shoes, rows of perfect ceramic teeth trying to guide you to the staircases above. Thinking about it that way makes your nose scrunch. Regardless of how wrong it might be, you instead head east, determined to push your gut feelings down far below. It might delay you, not knowing where you're going; but a glimpse at Victor's life interested you too much to rush.

It's all so bloody. Footprints, handprints, spilled flesh and unknown matter splattered across the floor in heaps, now dried into brown goo. A glimpse is what you wanted, a glimpse you will receive. Whoever cleared the place out last-- BSAA, you presume-- had done you the favor of removing any bodies, but the smell of necrotizing skin still lingered in the halls, mingling with formaldehyde and alcohol. It's like you're standing back in PANDORA, watching the place fall down, down, down.

You flinch when you hear humming from the lab ahead, soft and low, deceptively gentle. Surrounded by death and yet still the scariest thing inside it. Like somebody you knew.

You don't know if he heard your footsteps approaching. You don't know if he heard you unholster your handgun, your eyes wincing through each click. You don't know if he was just playing with you.

You did know, but you liked pretending you were ignorant. You press the pistol to his wiry hair, hand the steadiest it's been all day white-knuckling the grip. His limb-growth twists in place.

The humming pauses, other hand falling like feathers to his side. Victor only peers over his shoulder, remainder of his snakeskin coat squeaking under the movement. What you remember as fresh blood is now aged and dried into the leather. Only one set of rings remain. His visor is gone.

"You're lost," the doctor mutters, tendril floating by your face but otherwise unmoving. He takes one step, turning to half-face you, nestling your name into the air around you and immortalizing its vibrations through the care center, "aren't you?"

Your eyes keep flitting between; you're on him, to the tendril, to him, to the tendril again. You consider if they're really separate. Would Victor get rid of it if he had the chance?

You keep aiming. Your fingertips burn with exerted force. "I don't know."

Yellow lights up the room just past his torso, liquid settled to a stillness inside the injector resting on the counter. Your objective lies ahead.

"I thought we were starting to get along," his voice cracks, just as deep but half as smooth, "but I know what you're here for. A terrible listener... that's what you are."

"They're going to kill me," you deadpan, "do you think I have a choice?"

Victor laughs at you. The appendage laughs with him, circling your head, silent threat of constriction ever looming. His teeth catch on the light of Elpis, gold filling your irises, your gunmetal, your chest.

"We all have choices, you know. You chose to ignore my warnings. You chose to enter. And, you chose your life... in exchange for trying to end mine."

"You chose to save me-- twice-- so what now?"

When it was Victor stopped smiling, you're not sure. His forked tongue darts out across his lips, taking in the scent of your heavy breaths and sweaty palms. He merely hums again in response.

You fire your pistol, eyelids squeezing shut; the hammer clicks as it shoots forwards.

...

Nothing comes out. Your arm drops slack to your side as you stare down his shoes, Victor having not even blinked through your little act. The tendril wraps around the gun, entrapping your hand up to your elbow in a pulsing mass of flesh.

"...You didn't answer me."

"It's top secret, as someone would say."

Something solid in the mass presses and pulls and *hurts* when it pushes against your forearm-- your gun, you think-- the freezing metal warming against your skin and 'his.'

"Yes... as I was saying. Some people choose to die for what they believe in. Others choose to take risks that could jeopardize it..." The hard material worms its way down, slowly inching its way back to your hand. You're still gripping your gun, you realize. What the fuck is that, then? "...Some live for the thrill of routine. Others, for the thrill of change. Of the unknown..."

You let go of the pistol, the clang of your weapon against the tile reverberating through the lab. Something else takes its place. The tendril closes your fingers around it, softly, forcing your grip to remain light. If Victor's voice had a feeling, it would surely be this.

"...of anarchy."

Your gaze finally meets his, black scleras holding deeply entertained pupils. Shreds of dead skin hang off his cheek, some of it trapped sticky underneath the old blood of your first meeting together. He smiles without teeth, lips curled simply up in a way that feels far more unfamiliar to you than it should.

"I'll be seeing you soon," your name leaves as a hiss under his tongue, "you've got quite a lot to do."

"I told you what's going to happen if I can't--"

Victor's hand shoots up, palm open in a say of 'quiet down.' "Nonsense. It's just like I said, can't listen even a bit. Leave this place," he motions to the entryway, cracked hands twitching, "and make your choice."

The appendage is still closed around your arm, wet mummification closing off the circulation to your fingertips. Your eyelids close at the comforting pressure.

"Maybe my choice is to stay right here. What then?"

Victor chuckles, a rumbling through his throat making its way down into your hand, "Oh, but it isn't, is it?"

No, it wasn't. You nodded. If Victor was able to escape The Connections, then surely--

Wet skin is suddenly exposed to the open air, the flesh unwrapping itself from you and shoving your body harshly out the doorway onto the tile. Scrambling to your feet, you pant, fist still clenched around the unknown object; you're only allowed one last glimpse of his face as the door slams shut in front of you. One last glimpse of his gilded teeth, alight with Elpis' glow.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You peer down at your hands, one dry, one pruned. Your gun was still in there, you thought, long past the ability to go back for it now that you'd returned to the courtyard. You'd never even looked at what he gave you, tensions-- the thought that you were to die imminently-- forcing your knuckles tight by your sides. A part of you had accepted that, once you'd left him. Perhaps the same part of you that Victor's new flesh was to him. It was, after all, your choice; the choice to die without their satisfaction.

Slowly, you held your arm out front of you, the feeling of your own hand foreign as you unfurled your fingers like a red carpet. Yellow shone behind your eyes.

His intelligence. His capability. His laugh. His life. It all made you immensely satisfied.

Your head was going to explode. No matter how much Victor assured you that that simply wasn't going to happen, you insisted on your impending combustion. If it wasn't that, you'd told him, you had to be checked for some sort of brain bleed, hemorrhage-- *something--* that proved the issue was far beyond what you knew it really was.

You'd done this every time. Each time, he'd told you that as unfortunate as it was, you really just had to let it pass. Begging for some type of intravenous painkiller used to work, providing you with enough temporary relief to at least go to sleep, but as the pressure only returned your doses were beginning to border on fatal. Lived with a doctor, loved with a doctor, and all you had to fight the pain now was better-than-average prescription pill cocktails.

Victor did care enough to have you checked out... until the MRI and CT scans came back empty of any concern-- thrice-- and he realized your condition was nothing life-threatening. Of course he wanted your pain to ease (it would certainly make his own life easier, too), and he'd do plenty of things to make it happen! There just wasn't much he *could* do. He'd considered surgery; decompress your nerves, get the delightful experience of literally picking your brain while you slumber beneath him. 'Do what you have to,' you told him, and so under you were put.

Your doctor plucked and pulled at the tissues of your brain, a fleshy heap of matter gathered on a metal dish for you to examine in disgust once you'd awoken (but he knew you'd want to see it). Maybe you were just in so much pain you'd accept whatever he had offered, or maybe you really did want this done; either way, Victor was ecstatic with the opportunity to open you up and feel your blood vessels squeeze under his forceps, watch the flaps of your skin open and reveal your innermost body to him.

He'd finished within the next few hours. In which way, you never asked-- though he was covered in much more blood than any surgeon should be. Your pain was *gone,* the feeling so foreign you thought you were still under the remains of some kind of anesthesia. He'd told you it might only be a temporary fix. You ignored him. He was the best surgeon you knew-- even if the only-- surely you would bask in this ecstasy forever.

So, here you were months later, head under your blankets in a meek attempt to shield your eyes from the sunlight peeking in through your curtains. Despite your new scar proving to God you'd fought hard for it, had your judgement, had your penance; the vice around your head tightened. Attempts to eat were thwarted by waves of nausea, vomiting only making your eyes further feel like they were going to burst out of their sockets. You didn't even think about entertainment, either, as all screens sent your sensitive nerves into a frenzy that took minutes to recover from. Lay and wallow, the world said. You bit into your blankets.

"I'm sorry, my dear," Victor cooed from his place on the bed, large frame sinking into the mattress, "really, I am."

You'd forgotten he was there, in all honesty. Had his weight not shifted you towards him, you would've assumed your migraine was somehow pressurizing the springs inside, too. His hand rested flat on your back, rubbing deep circles throughout your spine.

"Just... shut up. Keep talking."

"Alright, then."

His chuckle was loud enough to where he knew it would irritate you, but oblige he did. Deep baritone cut through your head, a hot knife through butter melting down your ears and relieving your tension; though barely enough to keep you conscious. Your husband's empty talk of work made you think once of reattempting the surgery, and twice about abandoning all civilized pursuits of medicine in favor of just drilling a hole through your skull. Thick fingers made their way up your neck, pushing, kneading, working your body to full relaxation since your mind couldn't.

When he hit your scalp, it just felt... *good.* Really good. Decent, anyway, compared to the alternative of nothing. You went from squeezing your eyes shut to fluttering them closed, white flashes in your vision gradually fading with his massaging touch. Maybe he *was* drilling a hole through you, and had just fed you enough pills to keep you from feeling your excess blood dumped onto the bedsheets. In the best way, it felt like being internally emptied from your eardrums, pressure lifting and easing until regular hearing became possible again. You lift your head towards him, a silent plea to continue.

"How's that, then?" Victor spoke, hand grasping your head like it was nothing but a basketball. You think he meant it as a joke, something to show just how feeble you were, writhing in pain, whatever he wanted, but...

"Tighter," you demand, grasping his cracked wrist. Perhaps you were wrong to compare your pain to a vice. Maybe a vice was what you needed the whole time? His eyebrow lifts in amusement.

"Really? That's what you want?"

It felt like cold leather against your burning forehead, relief so close and yet *so* far because he just won't listen to you and follow this *one* instruction--

"Just squeeze it tighter," your teeth clench, irritation palpable, "please."

His finger brushes the scar behind your head. If nothing else, he supposed. So he did, compressing your cranium under his full strength. And *fuck,* was it the best thing your senses had been through in *ages.*

Sheer power cleared your sinuses and poked pins through your eyeballs, blood draining through what felt like every one of your orifices. The sigh that left your lips bordered on carnal, muscles in your neck strangling it before it could properly leave your mouth. Rushes of normalcy had you quivering under his grip, desperate not to lose it as you urged, begged, pleaded for him to go tighter, tighter, *tighter.*

"Ah..." thoroughly entertained was an understatement, Victor thought, "but of course."

Another hand wrapped around your head, thumbs meeting in the middle and pressing down on your skull as if you were nothing but wet pottery. He pulsed his fingers, tongue darting out to taste the air as he acted as your living massage gun. He'd smelled this feeling on you before, when you'd given yourself up so willingly to be under his knife; that keening, dragging, burning need that shriveled his taste buds to ash. Callouses throb in a tight rhythm behind your brain and run over your scar like braille, the suture marks dotting your skin serving as an all welcome reminder of the day he peeled your flesh back to see you.

He did wish the effects lasted longer for you, he really, truly did, but the idea of performing the operation again only made his grip stronger. Reopening that wound, your own body tightening around itself so much you can't even bare the pressure; he would fix it all for you once more, that sweet release when he tore your excess matter from your nerves close to orgasmic.

Yes, your nerves, Victor tutted, fingertips digging deep into your skin. He'd expose them to his wandering eyes, the taste of controlling your every function lingering in the air as he worked hard to relieve you. At any moment, he could strip you of your most basic facilities, leave you reliant with no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no throat to swallow. He supposed you already were. He didn't need to slice anything for that. Wasn't he lucky?

"Okay... okay. I think it's feeling a little better. Victor?" You grabbed his sleeves, your doctor's grip unfaltering.

"Victor? Victor, come on." Weakness had wracked your body from the past few days of agony, and you were already unable to fight back in top condition. Victor simply stared through you. Into you, fingers trying to reach inside.

"Victor!"

His head tilts, golden teeth peeking through his smile as he releases you. The little bow he does does little to ease your tensions, but considering he's just eased the absolute worst of them, you keep your irritation to a minimum. You think you'll risk a flare up should you stress over something so trivial, and starting back at square one was the last thing you wanted. For him, though...