Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's a body on the table.

It's a male; dark ebony hair, muscular arms, and a broad chest. No breaths enter or leave his lungs; he remains there, lifeless, with a chest as still as the table he lays on. His eyes are closed, arms at his sides, dog tag dangling off the edge of the table.

A slash runs across the front of his throat, along both wrists, behind both knees. The hair on his body is slick, soaked with the crimson liquid so thick it looks black under the watchful gaze of night. It stains the wood of the table as it drains, still lukewarm, and begins to form puddles at the foot of each leg.

The man wipes his hands together, takes one more look at his victim, and closes the door of his bedroom behind him.

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

It's still raining when he returns. He hesitates on opening the door due to the morning's incident, even despite its resolution. However, he has to force himself to; the rain is coming down much more heavily than it was the previous day, and if he doesn't get inside soon, the wet chill would surely get to him.

He focuses on the man as soon as he steps in, eyes constantly flitting around, searching for what else has changed. You're being a fool, he tells himself, walking around to the other end of the table. This man is dead. Dead. You ended his life. You were there. You watched his soul bleed out through his throat and wrists onto the ground. After all, of all the things in life, death is the only one that was truly permanent.

Eyes still shut, mouth still closed. As far as he can see, everything else about the body is as it was before he went to sleep the previous night, except for the head position. The blood has started to form a brown crust around the wounds, which is only to be expected – he has done this countless times. He know what he should and shouldn't expect.

He traces his claws up the side of the man's neck and face, carving little valleys in the once-flushed skin, now tight and cold to the touch. Dead three days, dead forever – a journey nobody returns from. He runs his fingers down the rest of the man's face, then strokes his head slowly. He looks almost like a sleeping child – soft innocence left unguarded, holding a different kind of beauty. His closed eyes look so serene…

Sabretooth pulls up a chair from the corner of the room and sits, one leg crossed over the other and hands clasped in his lap. He stares into the body's eyes through the closed lids, absently tapping his foot to the steady rhythm of the rain. Nothing about the body changed while he sits there…and the calm drumming of the rain draws him to sleep before anything does.

A flash of lightning and the following rumble of thunder both heard very clearly and felt through the floor shock him from his sleep – he scrambles in his chair, startled, and keeps his hands on his knees with his chest rising and falling in raucous gasps of breath. It wasn't just the thunder that startled him though, for as soon as he opened his eyes, he was met with a sight that was not right. In the liquid shadows of the room, black lowlighted by darker shades of black, near the muddied charcoal of the body's hair, two glassy grayed marbles stare back into his eyes.

No. No, no, no. There's no way for the body's eyes to have opened while he slept, against gravity like that – there must be a reason for this, as there was one for the other nights. Perhaps...perhaps he had accidentally opened those eyes when he removed his hand from its face. That has to be it – nothing else would make sense. Even though those eyes were closed when he drifted off, he opened them before he sat down…if he tells himself this enough times then maybe – just maybe – he'll believe it.

The lamp he turned on is off, that's the second thing he notices. It just burned out, he tells himself, and relief washes over his blackened heart when he tries it and finds this is true. He's almost afraid to turn back around for fear of finding something else different, like one of the man's arms being raised, or his head, or to find him standing up or gone, even. He forces himself, though, and breathes another relieved sigh when it turns out that he's just being paranoid, that there really is nothing to worry about this time.

There's still a cold chill tickling along his spine and all his limbs while he stares into those empty, silent, yet familiar eyes – his natural feeling of being watched, now more powerful than usual, has a reason behind it. He draws his fingers down over those eyes and closes them once more before leaving and locking the door tight behind him. He pulls his coat – previously having snagged it on his way out – tighter around him, shivering against both the rain and the still-present nervous fear in his heartbeats.

Chapter Text

He gets home late that night, after the storm has passed. He drops his coat on the floor after he closes the door, then heads straight into the bedroom – having forgotten what happened before he left, passing the body on the table – and shuts the door. Only after he is beneath the blankets of his bed does he realize that he didn't see what it was that changed about the man this time – though, really, does he even want to?

He tries to put it out of his mind, tries to think of other things in order to calm his fright – is it possible for him to feel such an emotion, given his profession? – and yet, in the midst of all his tossing, turning, and glancing over at the door, he comes to the slow realization that he'll never get to sleep unless he checks it out.

He stands up out of bed, the chill of the past-storm night air seeping into his skin through his shirt. Even with just a finger and his thumb on the knob, he can't seem to open it quietly enough. The room beyond looks darker than before, a hungry black maw gaping towards him, its thirst for blood left unfulfilled by the half-dry puddle of it in the middle of the floor. This is all irrational, he tells himself – everything 'strange' that's happened as of yet all have their reasons. Again, there is nothing to worry about – and, again, if he tells himself this enough times, he might actually come to believe it.

Nothing seems wrong, as far as he can tell; he waits for his eyes to adjust – which doesn't take too long – and looks at the body: nothing's different. Head is still tilted, eyes are still closed. He reaches out to touch the man, to be sure that this person is really dead on his table and is not just some figment of his deteriorating mind and sanity. Feeling the coldness of its skin, he wipes the back of his hand across his forehead and breathes out another sigh of relief. The beat of his heart slows back to normal, his fearful shivering stops. He turns back around to his bedroom –

-and then, he hears it.

He stops in his tracks, wondering if the rain started again: Plip. Plip. Plip. Perhaps it's just some excess rainwater, running off his roof or off the branches of a tree outside…no, no that can't be it. Rain doesn't fall in as steady a rhythm as this, with time between each seeming to be measured: plip, pause…plip, pause…plip. It seems so close, yet so distant; loud in the night's silence, quiet in truth. Everything about it is completely and totally unsettling – especially the fact that it's coming from behind him, near the man on the table – and it revives his nervous shiver and the scrambling beat of his heart. It's another thing that will keep him awake if he leaves it alone, another thing he absolutely does not want to inspect even though he knows he has to.

He turns back around slowly, ears instinctively straining to focus on its source – and, yes, it's coming from near the table…plip. He steps closer. Plip. He leans down, look at one leg of the table…then a second…but the third stands out to him. The trails of blood, black oil in the night, are dry on the other two; on this one, it's fresh, still wet when he puts his finger to it. Plip – a drop lands on his nose, forcing him to tumble backward and suck in a sharp gasp out of surprise. He sits back against the wall breathing heavily, one hand clasped to his chest where he can feel his heart pounding, a string of curses pulling itself from between his lips. The blood isn't warm, but isn't cold either: the only way he can be certain of its presence is how it tickles at his sensitive nose when it rolls down the side.

Still bleeding. Still bleeding. Still bleeding. He doesn't attempt to coat the truth this time, doesn't try to make sense out of something that lacks it – no matter how he looks at it, what he tells himself or tries to convince himself of, no matter which way he views it, the man is still bleeding. Whether that means his heart never stopped, whether it means he's still alive – thriving off of blood drained from his body days ago, he doesn't know. The head tilting and opening of his eyes – were those both actions of a conscious, living being? Did he did his mouth in to and consume the flesh of someone who still lived?

He stands, skirts around the table – plip, plip, plip – slams the bedroom door behind him and sits in the far corner of the room, knees held tightly to his chest. He keeps his eyes focused on the door and the wan moonlight shadows filtering beneath it and his ears straining, alert. He doesn't know what time it is, how many hours are left in the night, how long the man has been bleeding. He doesn't move from that corner while the moon reigns the sky and stays there well into the morning, the ceaseless dripping constantly wearing at his mind, as a pipe leak carves a hole in the stone below it. He doesn't sleep that night.

Chapter Text

It's too bright to watch the shadows anymore. He almost faints after he stands up and has to lean against the wall to keep himself from doing so. One sleepless night isn't that bad – he's done it several times before. Though, then again, he's had several bodies on that table – not all dead – and yet none of them have brought him this much trouble. He licks his lips, blinks his tired eyes, scratches at the dried blood on the side of his nose, and opens the door.

He keeps an arm out on the wall, expecting anything; still, though, he gasps and falters when he stares once more into glassy brown eyes. The man looks angry, displeased; one of his arms hangs off the table – where it was previously half a foot from the edge – with his fingers almost brushing the ground. A small pool of blood is just below that hand, shining scarlet in the morning light.

Sabretooth stands back up and stares at the body, at the empty eyes watching him, judging him, stripping down his soul and looking it over. He wants to ask the man – what do you want from me? Why are you doing this to me? – but is just met with more cold silence. It's infuriating, knowing that this thing on his table is still alive – well, is that even really the right word? – and yet, it still won't move in his presence, as if it's determined to convince him of raw insanity. If he looks close enough, he can almost see the man's eyes flit back and forth, back and forth…

Sabretooth steps back, almost trips over the chair he left by the table, falls into it. The man doesn't move, but he can't help but feel his head moved – just a bit, while he was falling – and is now pointed more directly towards him. Those eyes, those cloudy pools, stare intently at him, holding him in that chair, keeping him from going anywhere by the cold fear gripping his heart.

You've brought this on yourself, the man seems to say, with his disapproving gave boring into his soul. This is your fault – all your fault and only your fault. How does it feel, being your own deathbringer?

I'm not dead yet, Sabretooth wants to say back, mouthing the words. One of his hands grips the arm of his chair tight. Not dead yet. Not yet. Not yet.

That's right, coos the man – did his arm twitch, or was that just a nerve-induced hallucination? – not dead yet. That will change soon, though. It will all change soon.

Sabretooth jumps and shakes his head – was he asleep? When did he fall asleep? He's not lying in his bed; he's sitting in the chair in the room with the table. Was all that just a dream? Did he just fall asleep admiring his work and imagine all of that? Everything makes sense to fit that; the man is on the table, arms at his sides, eyes closed. Nothing's different. Nothing's different.

…Something's different.

The blood. The blood. By God, the blood is still there. The puddle of it still remains from the man's hand almost brushing the floor. He reaches up, touches his nose – the dried blood is still there. It all happened. It all really did happen. That's not the scary thing, though; Sabretooth feels himself start to shiver as he things about the things the man could have done to him while he was asleep – he could be dead right now, throat slit like that of the body on the table. What time is it? How long has he been asleep?

A glance over at the window quickly answers his questions: it's dark outside. He's been asleep all day. He could be lying on that table instead of the man right now, his intestines strung out on the walls while he still breathes. So why isn't he? What stroke of fate can be credited to bring such amazing mercy – if it can even be called that – to him? What did he do to deserve this – any of this?

No, no, no, not mercy – simply a delay. He woke the man up before killing him, and slit one vein at a time while he still lived, still breathed, still felt pain and still screamed. All of this in revenge – the man had simply put off his punishment until he was awake and conscious, lucid in feeling and sensation.

But – what if all this isn't really happening? He stands up, feels his face, his chest, his pulse. This can't – can't – be real. Such a thing is insane! – is he insane? Am I insane, he asks himself, to think this is real? No – no – no, I'm not insane. Mom always said that I just have an active imagination.

Well, she used to say that. Then she got blood all over the wall and the next night's dinner tasted a bit different.

If you're insane, the man seems to whisper, then we're all insane in our own special way. Sabretooth remembers that voice, from the screams still so fresh in his ears. He looks up from his hands, sees the man's head tilted towards him, once-brilliant eyes just half-open. The curtain of the closed window sways. The man's voice is calm and relaxed, soothing…Sabretooth thinks he sees the revealed muscles of his throat clench and move with the words in his mind, but he can't be sure. He can't be sure of much of anything anymore.

But that doesn't make sense, he wants to say back. He sits back down in his chair, head tilted quizzically at the fox. If we're all insane, doesn't that make insanity expected and normal, a kind of uniform sanity in itself?

The man blinks. Whoever said it makes sense? Life is life and, if anything, life doesn't make sense. There's always something that can't be explained: the disappearance of our mother, when our cousin 'lost his grip' climbing a tree seven years ago and fell into a coma from which he never awakened, when your name disappeared from the list of mutants at The Facility and nobody could explain why.

The body on my table, Sabretooth muses. His wonder at how the man knows these things about him is just a miniscule annoyance in the back of his mind. It's been years since they've had any sort of contact. This body can't be explained: nobody's missing. I've been out every day and haven't heard a word of it.

Yes. That too. The man's arm gives a slight sway, hanging off the edge of the table. Your schizophrenia, a mental illness? – who's to say not having it is a mental illness? What if black were to be called white, and white black?

Perceptions would change. Sabretooth stands, walks over to the man, strokes his hair; the head turns to follow him, the eyes watch. I could finally be normal.

Who's to say that you aren't already normal – that everyone else is different? Who's to say anything?

Everyone's insane in their own special way. Sabretooth continues stroking the stiff, dry hair, and, hearing no response, looks up: the man's face is pointed to the ceiling, eyes closed. A fresh trail of blood drips down the side of his neck. Is it normal to talk to corpses, he asks himself, and hear their voices? Is it normal to have to endure endless whispered conversations as an eternal soundtrack to your life, even when you're in an empty room or trying to sleep? What, exactly, is normal? It's so, so hard to tell sometimes.

Over time, though, he had learned one thing from another, learned to discern the things that happen from the things that don't. Cadavers do not talk – no matter how much he wishes they would, at times – nor do they move, or breathe, or live. Death is the one thing truly certain, something Sabretooth has been trying to disprove – but, so far, in the end his attempts have always failed. The man on the table has never moved, has never tilted his head or opened his eyes, has never uttered a word, has never moved from this position he has remained in for the past who-knows-how-many days.

The man is not lusting for revenge.

One thing that bothers Sabretooth as he prepares to head to his bedroom, though, is the pain in his wrist, bright and hot: he has never imagined pain before. He tries to lift it, tries to move it; he finds it's stuck somehow, and looks down. One of the man's hands grip his wrist, nails digging into his skin. He pulls, can't move, pulls again, still can't move.

The man tilts a sharp-toothed grin at him, the muscles and flesh in his throat clenching, bunching, convulsing as he moves his head. "Now, now, where do you think you're going?" he rasps, voice harsh and empty on severed vocal cords. "We were just getting acquainted."

Sabretooth stumbles, panics, falls over, hurts his arm in the process – the man's grip is powerful. "Th – this isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't real – "

"Isn't it?" The man sits up and drags his other hand across his mouth. "It's happening, isn't it? So then – how can't this be real?"

Sabretooth manages to pull free of the grip, then backs away on the floor. His heart thrums in his chest, throat, and ears like an ill-tuned bass drum. "You're dead," he stammers, "dead!"

"Who's to say?" The man cracks his neck and knuckles. "Cadavers don't talk – or breathe – or live – now do they?"

"I watched you die!" Sabretooth jumps when his back hits the wall, his eyes wide.

"I'm not questioning that." The man turns, swings his legs off the table, then stands, checking his balance before focusing back on Sabretooth.

"I – I killed you! You're dead! Get away from me – I killed you!"

"No," the man practically purrs, taking one slow step after another towards Sabretooth in the corner, "I killed you."

There's a body on the table.

It's a man. No breaths enter or leave his lungs; he remains there, lifeless, with a chest as still as the table he lays on. His eyes are closed, arms at his sides.

A slash runs across the front of his throat, along both wrists, behind both knees. The skin of his nude body is slick, soaked with the crimson liquid so thick it looks black under the watchful gaze of night; it stains the wood of the table as it drains, still lukewarm, and begins forming puddles at the foot of each leg.

The house is empty.