Wire

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They called him Rage.

-

The fluorescent light flickered against Rage’s artificially red hair and he paused, scalpel buried inside a weeping wound. Another flicker.

“Excuse me.” The tool slurped free and was placed in a kidney-shaped dish by the other man’s head as Rage moved away from the table, peeling off elbow length gloves. He rummaged, fumbled for a moment with a new globe, and then the man couldn’t see what he did next. The buzzing stopped.

“Better?” Asked the man, slowly clenching his fist. His fingers were pale now and moved stiffly, and as he squirmed he could feel the incisions in his arm ripping slightly.

“Stop that.” Rage was back in his line of vision now. “Idiot. You ruined the symmetry.”

“Sorry.” The man couldn’t see what type of pattern was being methodically sliced into his arms but the scars on his chest implied that they’d be perfectly even in length, almost as if the Rage had done his work with a ruler. Apologising wouldn’t stop the red-head from making the next cut, which would be on the other arm now to make sure both wounds were mirror images. Blood was dribbling down the inner crease of his elbow now while the metal scalpel began scraping against bone. He giggled.

The knife vanished. “I think that’s enough for today.” Rage’s tone was of a school-master finally allowing his disorderly class out to lunch. It always came when the pain teetered over the line from agony to simply a sensation of metal grating against flesh.

“Same time tomorrow then?” The laughter hadn’t quite left the man’s voice. His arms felt heavy and he could feel the hair sticking to the metal table in a mixture of blood and sweat.

“I’ll be late.”

He was left naked and alone in the stark white room.

_

“How was your date?” the man hissed as Rage pressed what felt like a screw against his flesh. The skin twisted as the screwdriver turned before finally snapping, and he could feel the abused muscles beneath doing the same. No pause.

“Why do you think I was on a date?”

“You’re happy.” It was difficult to tell. His captor’s face remained as impartial as ever save for lighter creases between the eyebrows and heavier ones around his eyes. Smile lines.

“It was…pleasant.”

“Where is she?” There was no reply as Rage concentrated on positioning the screw correctly. The man bucked suddenly as the intrusion finally pierced the bone, trying to squirm away but had to settle for a pained moan instead. His wrists and ankles were already rubbed raw in their restrains, and her could feel beads of perspiration dripping into his eyes. He could almost feel the bone filings escaping into the bloodied flesh.

“You kill her too?” Was the wrong thing to ask. The screwdriver slammed down into the sensitive flesh protecting his stomach and even as he screamed, Rage’s rubber-clad fingers wrapped themselves around the screw protruding from his thigh, yanking the metal free in a shower of blood-splatter and bone. It was forceful enough that some of the debris missed Rage’s butchers apron and sunk into his pristine white dress pants. The screw fell with a clank into the kidney-dish. Rage’s lip twitched.

“She’s asleep.”

The man didn’t, couldn’t reply, simply lying there panting as blood pulsed down his sides.

-

There wasn’t much more time. A crust of blood had clotted around the screwdriver now and the man could imagine it tarnishing as the skin healed around it, rusting and polluting his blood. It wouldn’t kill him. The needle that hovered above his face could, though, and as his eyes watered and strained to close against the clamps Rage had fastened there a pained whine escaped his lips.

“Keep quiet, or I’ll do your eyes too.” The red-head muttered, manicured fingers expertly looping fishing-line through the needle’s eye. The point lowered slowly and Rage seemed to take a moment to decide on just where to begin. At the corner, and even as the man tried to twist his lips away, Rage slide a gloved finger beneath the flesh and against his teeth to pull the flap of skin away. The though of biting the red-head’s hand glanced through the man’s head. No. The intrusion was slow and before the needle had pushed through the entire way the man was already whimpering, the metallic tang of blood seeped onto his tongue. Metal met tooth, and Rage balanced the needle on the man’s chin as he tied off the end of the fishing line. The man didn’t jostle it.

About to move onto the lower lip and join the two together, the hissing sound of the room’s door prompted Rage to tense up. His fingers gripped the man’s lip tighter, and he could feel Rage’s nails through the gloves. That wasn’t what he was concentrating on though; hopeful eyes settled upon the figure standing at the door, framed by the dark room behind her. Her cherubic face showed a mixture of surprise and some other emotion, her dark blue eyes wide and lips slightly parted. Black curls tumbled down her back and were bed-molested, haphazard. Sent from god, thought the man who until this moment had never believed.

“Jesse?”

Who? Rage, obviously, a short sigh made the bleeding man’s focus flicker back to his tormenter. The red-head’s face was drawn, pinched, and he stood. His chair scraped across the lino on the floor and the man feared for this girl.

“Go back to bed, Tracita.” Her eyes were still focused on the man as he lay bleeding, and he suddenly felt self-conscious about his nakedness. Rage moved towards her, and the man sighed in relief as she stopped watching him. Beautiful, but those eyes had been so cold.

“Is it necessary?” Three words made the man freeze, and he tried to crane his neck further so he could watch the couple. Her eyes were warm now as she looked not at him, but at Rage, and the red-head pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Yes.”

Then she said nothing, simple nodded and departed into the darkness without a sound. The man sagged and the door slid shut.

---

AN: Um. Yeah.

:3

Actually written as an optional writing task for my 'Contested Sites' class. We studied American Psycho and Purfume this week, so she said to try and write something horrible and psycho-killer-ish. I kinda fail at it, I know, it's not nearly gorey enough, but I've found out my mind's not so great at conjuring up nasty things to do to people while staying in someone else's character.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Different style from my normal again, I think anyway. I realise I haven't really described his surroundings, but I don't think he'd be concentrating so much on those with all that junk going on. Or perhaps he would. Never been there, never wanna be. D:

Rage/Jesse belongs to Tategami.
Mystery Man and Tracita belong to me.
No use without permission, rah, rah, rah.