(Untitled)

[screwmeister]

WHO: afeatherpillow screwmeister dontknowgray
WHERE: some rented lab space in the City
WHEN: afternoon 1/18
WARNINGS: violence. body horror. more violence.
SUMMARY: Stein finally crosses the line with Katurian hot on his trail, and when he gets busted an alien cop with a chip on his shoulder shows up to do the arresting.
FORMAT: words in a structure of some kind

Comments

[afeatherpillow]

It took longer than it should have, really. For Katurian to realize what was going on.

It was nearly a year ago that he himself was resting within the confines of that hospital, his mind numb from the death that was taken from him (the death he deserved) when only sorrow and suffering remained in this life. It was nearly a year ago that he threw down the pages of 1984, reminded of said suffering and sorrow, and it was nearly a year ago that Stein took him into another one of his special rooms. His thoughts slowed from the sedatives, he barely realized that Stein cut into his skin with unrepentant curiosity. Katurian - who lived with denial his whole life but also had good reason to doubt his mental competency at the time - wondered whether or not he imagined it.

When he visited Julian Day at the hospital, he heard murmurs.

Fear of the doctor. Wide eyes, trembling hands. Patients pleaded with the nurses and orderlies with their gaze at the sound of his name, at the sound of Dr. Stein. Katurian remembered a brief conversation he had

[screwmeister]

Stein was engrossed with his work when Katurian arrived--he didn't even look up from the operating table, where he was well into the surgery already.

Perhaps Katurian could see his face, or at least his eyes...they gleamed an intense focus that had nothing to do with scientific discovery and everything to do with the pleasure of taking something apart.

[afeatherpillow]

Active surgery. He wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't quite this. He expected abuse certainly, he expected something fundamentally wrong and unethical and worth stopping, but he didn't expect a person under full anesthesia with their insides exposed. (But given Stein, what else could it have been?) He swallowed his scream. He swallowed his vomit.

Stein was his doctor.

"Doctor." He breathed the word, a rough, raw sound from the back of his throat.

[screwmeister]

Stein glanced up--just enough to see who was addressing him--and then his gaze flitted back down, to the brain he was currently busy taking apart. It was delicate, messing with someone's brain matter while keeping them alive.

"Hello Katurian," he says mildly, though there's an undertone to his voice that makes his usual benign monotone sound...sinister.

Sometime later...

[dontknowgray]

After the call, Garrus was the one on the scene; he didn't come along. Two other marked cars followed. If someone was really carving up patients, they would certainly need back up.

He was partnered at the moment with one of the few native cops; they headed down the hall toward the location they'd been given, trailed by two other officers. His partner took to securing the floor; after all Stein was a known imPort, and if he was killing people--

--well, let's just say Garrus had an itchy trigger finger. Still, it was a lab; they cleared a floor both above and below the one that Stein was on, simply out of 'super powered perp' precautions.

Then he went to the lab Stein had, and rapped on the door. "Dr. Stein? Dr. Stein, this is Garrus Vakarian, with City Police. We'd like to have a few words with you."

[screwmeister]

There was only one patient in this building, and he was already cold--and neatly laid out--on the table.

Stein himself was in the process of carefully dissecting said patient. It almost looked like he was performing an autopsy.

"Come in, then." He didn't speak too loudly, but it was sure to carry through the door.

He seemed to be completely unbothered by the day's events; if anything he was resigned to the trouble he was about to be in, but that wasn't readily apparent on his face.

[dontknowgray]

Garrus nodded to his partner, who stayed in the back as Garrus went in; the partner manned the door, while Garrus approached-- though he realized very quickly that man was dead.

"I need you to put your hands behind your head and get on the ground, Dr. Stein. You're under arrest." He began the slow, calm recitation of rites, explaining why, and what charges, and going through all that Miranda madness, one step at time.

The man was dead. They were too late.

[screwmeister]

Stein sighed in an almost obnoxiously long-suffering manner, and began the process of slowly divulging himself of his surgical equipment as Garrus talked. First he laid his scalpel down, then carefully removed his bloody gloves, then finally pulled his surgical mask off.

These items were all somewhat carelessly placed on the victim's body, and once that was done he put his hands behind his head. There was still the table between them, though, and Stein was gazing pretty intently at Garrus. Non-humans have always fascinated him...