Touch Your Heart [Oneshot] - Halloweenfic

[h_itoshi]

Title: Touch Your Heart
Fandom: Kis-My-Ft2 (Mainly Tamamori, Fujigaya)
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 4141
Warnings: Character death, human dissection, lots of latin, psycho!Tama. (hopefully no anatomical incorrectness but I can't promise anything)
Notes: Since I can't post tomorrow I'll go a LITTLE early with Halloweenfic. Finally Kisumai again! ... and it's this. But Tama does a good psycho doesn't he? Honestly, I started this as study help, but. The theme goes well with halloween.

 

Tamamori neatly lines up his instruments on the stainless steel table next to him. Scalpel with blade already attached, forceps, scissors, bone thong. There are some tissues and extra gloves too, just in case.

He ties on his plastic apron carefully, straightening the collar of the protective coat before pulling on the powdered gloves.

He looks down with a small smile, thinks that they always look so peaceful like this, even with pale cold skin and hair spread out over stainless steel. Gently he touches Fujigaya's arm, the cold soft tissue feeling good underneath his fingertips and he ponders where to start.

He settles for his normal procedure, even though he's most intrigued by the thorax this time. He picks up the scalpel after having pushed the sheet down carefully to his hipbone. It looks a little wrong to have them entirely naked, so Tamamori normally lays a sheet over to cover their private parts. He's not too interested in them anyway. He likes the inside better.

He runs his fingertips down Fujigaya's belly with his left hand, enjoying the way the skin is soft and more tanned than any of the others, flawless besides for the scar of a piercing at his navel. Tamamori looks for a moment, imprinting the image of what it looks like unscathed, before he raises the scalpel and sets it just at the end of Fujigaya's sternum. It's not difficult to find since Fujigaya's really thin, and Tamamori can't wait to see how much fat he actually has inside. It could be the least he's seen yet.

When he lets the tip penetrate skin, careful not to damage the diaphragm, he frowns at the color seeping up. It's red.

He remembers clearly when Kitayama said with a laugh that “we're idols, even our blood is golden.” Tamamori'd gone home, bewildered, cut a line on his wrist and tried to look for any gold in his blood without success. He'd figured he probably wasn't a true idol after all.

He read up on it, on gold's affinity to oxygen, how it would work, but he couldn't seem to find anything about it in anatomic or physiologic literature. And so he figured, that there must be gold among the erythrocytes, not inside them.

He cuts along the linea alba, gently, taking the forceps in his other hand to hold the abdominal wall up as soon as he's cut through it. He can look closer at Fujigaya's blood when there's more of it, and it would be stupid to harm any internal organs yet. There's no hurry.

He works his way down until he's at the level of Fujigaya's hipbones, finding it a little tricky to get past the scar tissue at his navel, since he hasn't encountered that before, but it's interesting.

When he's done making the first opening, he lifts one side of the abdominal wall, glancing inside at the organs catching light, the peritoneum covering them giving off a shine. He smiles as he picks up the scalpel again, ignoring the smell, because this is like unwrapping a gift at Christmas.

He carefully cuts a line perpendicular to the one he already made, first on one side and then the other, until he has a cross and can fold the pieces of abdominal wall up, giving him a square window into the abdomen.

He frowns a little at how Fujigaya clearly didn't eat lately, stomach nearly empty and baggy, and he's almost about to scold him for it before remembering that there's no point, and laughs a little as he lays the scalpel and forceps aside.

He examines the liver, reaches down to lift the right lobe gently, squeezes it a little in his hand, and he's pleased with the density, considering whether he should cut through it and look, but figuring he probably doesn't have to. He gets a glimpse of the caudal vena cava underneath, and lifts the lobe properly, using his other hand to push away another liver lobe to look at the vein more closely. He likes veins, prefers them over arteries since the walls are so thin, you can see the blood inside, press at them and feel the blood move. But he doesn't now, even though he plays with the thought of cutting it open and watch the blood pulse out, look for the gold. But that can wait. He can cut the aorta later, it's more interesting anyway.

He lets go of the liver after a glance at the gall bladder, runs fingertips down over the great omentum instead, marveling at how little fat there is. There is fat, of course, or else Fujigaya'd be starved for real, but not much compared to some of the others. The intestines shine underneath the peritoneum, a perfectly organized mess of duodenum and colon that Tamamori kind of wants to run his hand through. He lifts the omentum carefully, lays it up over the liver and stomach, and contemplates the placement of the intestines, still fascinated that something so messy can work so perfectly, and sometime, he'd like to move them around and see if it works anyway. But he'd need them alive for that.

He reaches down with both hands, gripping a slippery part of duodenum just as hard as he's learned he can hold, and then begins unfolding the whole package. As he starts working, another part of intestines spill out over the edge of the abdominal wall, onto the steel table, and Tamamori winces, glances up at Fujigaya's face as if to apologize, but then almost laughs at himself again. Fujigaya doesn't care that Tamamori didn't do it perfectly. Fujigaya doesn't care that even if it wasn't perfect, Tamamori's gotten better.

He unravels the long intestines, holds them up and watches the way the mesoduodenum holds it up in a swirl around itself, looking almost like a winding staircase. Satisfied with his untangling, he folds them away downwards, over the white sheet, staining it red, a little annoyed with the part of intestine still attached to the stomach, and considers cutting it off. But he didn't get any string, and he doesn't want to simply cut off an intestine, since he already learned the hard way that things can spill out. Instead he grabs the scalpel and cuts a line through the mucous membrane connecting a flexure so that he can straighten it out, leaving only one line of intestines across the abdomen, the rest neatly laid up onto Fujigaya's pelvic bone.

Tamamori looks at the kidneys, again surprised with the small amount of fat surrounding them, but decides not to look closer, instead focuses on the two gorgeous vessel following the line of Fujigaya's spine, and he can see where the renal arteries departs from their mother vessel, the abdominal aorta.

Blood vessels are Tamamori's favorites. He likes other things too, intrigued by membranes and ligaments and all kinds of things you never learned about in middle school, but the vessels are the best. They're so strong, yet so fragile. He knows the vena cava could hold against the forceps no matter how hard he pressed it, ground it, but it would be chanceless against the smallest cut of the scalpel, emptying all the venous blood from the lower body into the abdomen instead of reaching the heart. He presses a finger against the vena cava, watches the blood adjust to the pressure and shoot upwards, and something stirs inside him with excitement.

He continues to the aorta, slightly left of the vena cava, much lighter in color due to its thicker walls. He presses it, feels the strength of the muscle-layer protecting it, and he knows that this one would take some more than a tiny cut with the scalpel to pierce. It just makes him want to do it more, and he lays down the scalpel again to keep from tempting himself. He's cutting it last, he's already decided.

He looks at the abdomen, thinks if there's anything else he should look at, but then gives in to his impatience to look at the thorax instead, and sets the intestines back into place, a little sloppy at first but then shakes his head at himself and corrects them. He's supposed to be neat, no matter how eager he is to do something else.

He then folds the edges of abdominal wall back as good as he can, and looks down, thinking that it's not too bad. No intestines show, but it looks a bit disturbing with how the pieces of skin overlaps each other, how Fujigaya's normally flat stomach bulges a little in places that isn't entirely natural. But it's a nice cut, Tamamori's proud of it. He might try and stitch him back together later, when he's gotten better at the technique of continuous sutures, maybe even intracutaneous. Separates would take him forever with the size of the cuts.

He licks his lips, thinking of how to approach the next part, and decides that Fujigaya doesn't need his ribs and there's no point in trying to keep them.

He takes the scalpel again, and then traces Fujigaya's collarbone with the fingertips of his other hand, leaving a few stains of blood in his wake and he shivers. He can't help but wonder what Fujigaya's reaction would be to the touch, if he'd like it or not. Now he'll never know.

He sets the scalpel against the skin just below Fujigaya's collarbone, on the left side of his sternum and easily pierces the skin. He leans forward a little, needing a better angle, and he's momentarily distracted by Fujigaya's calm face, contemplating his long eyelashes and full lips for a few seconds, before he remembers what he was doing.

He cuts a line parallel to the sternum, the scalpel jumping when he goes over ribs, and then picks up the forceps as he reaches the last rib. He's going to keep the last one, needs the diaphragm intact.

He uses the forceps to hold up the skin as he angles the scalpel to cut away skin and muscle from the ribs, exposing the bones enough to let him see where they are joined against the sternum. It's a little messy, his cuts not as clean as he'd want them, and he makes a face at the small piece of muscle that looks more hacked than finely cut. He cuts away some skin on the sternum side as well, fighting to keep it nice and clean but it's difficult. He needs to practice cutting over bone.

When he's satisfied, he's got a line of around 5 centimetres clean from tissue, and the cartilage of where the ribs join the sternum is clear, so he considers the job decent, even if there are some visible cuts into the bone as well. He glances at the bone tong, but decides to cut through the walls between the ribs with the scalpel first, to make sure he doesn't damage anything inside with the larger instrument.

He lifts a rib slightly with the forceps once it's freed from remaining tissue, and the gleam of underlying pleura sends another tingle of excitement through him, motivating him to keep going.

He lays the scalpel and forceps on the side table, bloody and greasy in contrast to the clean scissors and tong, and takes the bone tong, opening it with both hands.

He does his best to squeeze the tong into the space between the last and second last rib, closing it around the latter, before using both hands on the handle to break the bone apart.

It's not too heavy, he's felt worse since this is only the cartilage, but the crack is satisfying as the rib comes loose from the sternum. Tamamori smiles as he withdraws the tong, closes it around the next rib like a metal embrace and cracks that one too. It's exciting, knowing how much he can break, and how much the body could repair if it was functional.

He feels his cheeks flush with effort and interest as he continues cutting off the ribs, up to the first one just under the collarbone. He's not cutting the collarbone, he's tried and he can't do it since it's too thick. He's pretty sure he'd need a saw, and he has been thinking of getting one, but for now he doesn't need to cut off the collarbone.

A few strands of hair has fled down into his face, tickling his forehead and falling into his eyes and it annoys him. He glances at his hands as he sets the tong aside, frowning at all the dried blood drops on the gloves that he doesn't want on his face. But it's so bothersome taking off the gloves and then putting them back on again.

He looks down at Fujigaya again, smiles at how the ribs have collapsed a little, leaning against each other instead of keeping their sturdy shape, the protective cage successfully broken.

Tamamori gets an idea then, and takes Fujigaya's right arm, grabs his wrist and raises the hand, only frowning a little when the elbow joint is a little too cold still to work properly. He leans his head down to the height of where Fujigaya's arm can go, and then uses Fujigaya's fingers to stroke away the hair on his forehead. It feels odd, fingertips cold and with no willing motion control, but they move against Tamamori's skin anyway when Tamamori angles his wrist, pressing his thumb in between the carpal bones for better control. It works, his hair settling back, but he keeps holding Fujigaya's hand, lets the soft, cold fingertips run over his face again, across his forehead and down his cheeks. It feels intimate and odd, and Tamamori enjoys the cold against his heated cheeks. He lets Fujigaya's fingertips brush his lips once, but then lays his hand back down, figuring he should continue his work.

He thinks for a moment where it would be best to take the ribs off, since he's pretty sure he can't thread them out on his own, but he still doesn't want any sharp bone edges that might pierce a lung or his gloves. He decides on a spot close to where Fujigaya's skin touches the cold table, and then takes the scalpel again to cut through the muscles, serratus and intercostal ones that he considers looking at on the other side. Or maybe not at all, since Fujigaya's not too muscular and he's already seen them on Senga. Then he snaps off the ribs completely with the tong, and it takes a good while since bone is tougher than cartilage, and as he feels a drop of sweat run down his temple, he vows to buy that saw. Finally, the last one comes off and he can lift away the piece of ribs with muscle between that looks disturbingly alike those packets of spareribs that you can buy at a supermarket. Sans marinade.

Tamamori sets the rib piece away and leans down to peek into the hole he's created, the strong ceiling light making all the membranes shine at him. This was what he was most interested in, and he's thrilled to see the lungs now. Or well, the left one since the mediastinum creates a wall to the other one, but it doesn't matter. It's gray, not light pink or deeper red like those he's seen before, but gray with tobacco smoke and it's so awesome Tamamori almost squeals. He wonders if his own are as gray, if they're darker or lighter. It looks sick, of course, a nauseous layer of gray over a few splotches of healthy pink, color shifting sickeningly in uneven patterns, and he can't help but grabbing for the scalpel to cut it apart.

He makes a cut near where the bronchi enters the lung, intrigued to see whether the color is the same all the way through. It is, he sees as he uses the forceps to hold his cut apart and look inside, only the bronchioles are lighter, which makes sense, he thinks, as they don't hold any alveoli. He sticks his forceps inside to peek down the bronchioles, but they quickly divide like an anemone and there's nothing but darkness inside. He tries to squeeze the most lateral little flap of the lung, where it's thin enough to feel through it, and feels the little air bubbles pop with satisfaction. It's like those candies that you put in your mouth and they pop on your tongue, only under your fingers, inside something firm but squishy.

Eventually, he leaves the lung in favor of the remaining thorax, tilts his head to look at the mediastinum, one of the membranes in the body he finds most fascinating. He'd never considered it before he started reading and looking, that there was something inside there that enclosed all the important organs, nerves and blood vessels and safely guided them through the diaphragm without disturbing the pressure balance of the lungs. He watches the heart, standing out from the membrane wall like something packed in vacuum, watches the vagus nerve twirl around it and the esophagus passing by, but most importantly the aorta arch and the vessels departing from it. He thinks for a moment whether he wants to ruin it, but decides that if there's a heart he needs to see, it's Fujigaya's.

He gently reaches in with his scalpel, head still tilted to keep the best view, and cuts through the mediastinum and encircles the heart, careful to leave at least a centimeter of the vessels leaving the atriums so he'll have an easier time identifying them. When he cuts the aortic arch, there's a jiggly lump of coagulated blood stuck in the vessel, along with some still liquid blood running out. Tamamori holds the heart with one hand and changes the scalpel for the forceps with the other, carefully picking out the dark jelly-like substance from both parts of the cut-through vessel and drops it on one of the tissues on his side table. When he does though, the liquid blood starts flowing out freely from the part still remaining in the body, but Tamamori figures it doesn't matter. If it turns out to be too much, he'll cut the drain hole, because he needs a large mass of blood for later anyway.

For now, he'll look at Fujigaya's heart in his hand. It's cold, just like all the internal organs from having been kept in cold storage and warming up last, the size enough for Tamamori to hold in one hand. He carefully cuts the heart sack open to look at the whole thing properly. There is some fat along the ears, along the seam of the ventricles, but honestly Fujigaya would be dead since long if there wasn't. He gently squeezes the ventricles, easily finding the left one with its distinct firmness and the little bubble of blood that gurgles at the open aorta when he does. He turns it around, trying to identify the veins by sticking his forceps into the cut remains and looking at where they come from. He frowns when he can't really make it, he's really bad at these and should definitely study them harder, promising himself to do so when he still has troubles keeping the vena cavas and the lung arteries apart. He figures that maybe cutting it open would help, and has to stop and think which way would be the best to cut.

He decides to start from the bottom, setting his scalpel against the tip and gently eases his way through the muscle, careful not to cut trough and stab his own hand. He cuts off the wall between the ventricles, and then draws lines along the atrioventricular one to be able to fold the ventricular walls out almost flat and get a good view of the valves. They're thick and shiny, as the first thing he sees are the cordae tendinae clutching tight onto the surprisingly thin membranes keeping the blood flowing in the body. Tamamori's always amazed by how thin and fragile those little valves look, not thicker than a clearfile and still working day and night to provide the body with oxygen, 80 times per minute through an entire lifetime. He pauses to try and feel his own heart beating, knows his pulse is way over 100 with excitement right now and as he pokes Fujigaya's octopus like mitral valve he imagines his own working so hard for him and sends it some appreciation.

It's easy to lose orientation in the heart, Tamamori thinks, and it takes him a while to actually find the semilunar valves even though he knows they're just where the big vessels leave the heart to form their own structure. It takes him until he pokes his forceps along the sides to be able to catch the pockets slicked against the vessel walls for now, and he tries to make them come together to their proper form, but he can't. It makes him a little frustrated, because the answers are all right before him but he can't seem to understand them, and as he puts the heart down on the table next to him he decides that this week will be heart studies. For the next heart, he'll need to understand everything.

He looks back at Fujigaya, down into the open hole of his thorax side, where a considerable amount of blood has collected, floating the dorsal side of the lungs in it. The blood is dark though, very dark, and there doesn't seem to be any glittering in it, which makes Tamamori frown. He was certain Fujigaya would have it if anyone.

He's just picking up the scalpel to see if he can cut the aorta open further down when a happy tune bursts through the otherwise silent room, startling him so much he almost drops the instrument.

He sets the scalpel back down, and heads over towards the door of the basement room where his phone lies on a small table along with his clean things.

The display says “Mitsu” and Tamamori knows he can't skip this. He's meant to always reply after all. So he pulls his right, blood sticky glove off and reaches for the phone, sliding to accept the call.

“Hello?” He says, and he hears Kitayama's relieved sigh on the other end of the line.

“Tama-chan, I've been trying to text you for an hour, what are you doing?” Kitayama asks, voice tense and Tamamori feels like when his mother had been looking for him when he was a kid just to find him in a cupboard playing with the cleaning sponges.

“Sorry Mitsu. I left my phone.” He apologizes, because he knows he's not supposed to leave his phone now when so many of them have gone missing.

“Don't do that!” Kitayama scolds, and Tamamori doesn't like hearing him this upset. “Come over, you're supposed to be here tonight. There's still nothing new about Fujigaya or the others and Nika and I are worried about you.”

“Sorry Mitsu.” Tamamori repeats, glancing over at Fujigaya's body on the stainless table, and he wants to reassure, to say that Fujigaya's just here to help him with his hobbies, but he knows he can't. “I'll just shower. I'll text you when I leave?”

“Good. Come soon.” Kitayama orders, and Tamamori obediently says yes and hangs up.

He turns to look at Fujigaya with a sigh, thinking that now they won't have time to explore any muscles or further vessels. He goes over to the drawers at the corner of the room where he stores his tools, fishing out a plastic pipette and a testing tube that probably passed its best before date. It's meant to keep the blood from coagulating and he just hopes that still works. He sucks up some blood from Fujigaya's open thorax and deposits it in the tube with the green lid, turning the tube a few times as he's seen on medical dramas. He hopes this works and he can still look at the blood in a microscope later, but as he holds the tube up against the strong lamp, there's no golden glitters in it, only dark red, thick liquid.

Tamamori must admit he's disappointed, because he really thought Fujigaya would have it. There might still be, a little, but he just expected... more from someone with such star quality. He sighs and puts the tube in his coat pocket to put in the fridge upstairs, turning to grab wet tissues and black trash bags to pack Fujigaya away properly in the cold storage room to play more with later.

After all, it's okay if he doesn't have gold. Maybe Kitayama will be the one.

~*~