[Yami no Matsuei] "Can't Use the Shadows to Hide From Me" (PG-13)
Author's Notes: Written for 
fic_promptly's Author's choice, author's choice, "What you are doing isn't love, and it isn't healthy. It's downright close to stalking." Featuring Tatsumi confronting a captured Muraki. Follows up from "Interrogation With an Energy Vampire"
Tatsumi had deliberately taken Tsuzuki and Terazuma off interrogating Muraki: they had both gotten too emotionally involved. He had expected Muraki would find a way to push Tsuzuki's buttons, much as Tsuzuki might know how to push Muraki's, and Terazuma had, in his estimation, taken it a little too far in playing the bad cop. And so he sent them to lunch while he let Muraki stew a bit in the interrogation room.
He stood outside the two-way mirror for a long moment, watching Muraki; the pale man sat quietly, hands folded on his lap, his head tilted slightly, his face calm and collected, his good eye relaxed. What thoughts ran through the mind of this monster, and what plots had started to form in that too fertile brain of his? Did he sense Tatsumi's presence, even through the glass?
Tatsumi reached for the thermostat for the room, turning it down, then approached the door, lifting the latch and letting himself into the room. Muraki looked up, his calm face curling in a confident smirk.
"And I thought perhaps you had abandoned me," the pale man said. "Were you plotting my demise by starvation?
Tatsumi made no reply, merely sat down on the other chair across the table from Muraki, then rearranged the pages on his clipboard.
"You're rather quiet, Mister Tatsumi," Muraki noted. "Collecting your thoughts, or are you fool enough to let me have the upper hand in the conversation?"
Tatsumi reached under his vest and took a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt. Uncapping the pen, he jotted a few notes on the papers. Subject is still hyper-confident: is he covering his nervousness, or does he truly think he has the upper hand in this situation? Or is he trying to test us? His further reactions will reveal this.
"You seem to have a lot to jot down, for someone who has only just entered this chamber," Muraki noted. "Or have you been sitting out there viewing my little conversation with Mister Tsuzuki and his most incourteous partner? I might have opened up more, if you had sent the boy in with him, instead. Or is it a simple case of wanting to me all to yourself?"
"It's a case of denying you the pleasure of tormenting Tsuzuki any further," Tatsumi replied, simply and calmly. "Even if he does claim to be... somewhat fond of that manner of activity."
Muraki started to open his mouth, then a frown crossed his face. "I won't deny that I can be hard on the man, but he's made of stern stuff."
"I was not referring to that," Tatsumi replied, jotting more notes. Subject has taken the bait, namely a reference to his undue attachment to Tsuzuki. "I was referring to your unhealthy fascination with him."
Muraki wagged his head and lifted one hand in a dismissive shrug. "I am a man in love and love can, at times, drive one to madness."
"In that case, it isn't love," Tatsumi replied. "Real love doesn't lead one to kill people to get the attention of their beloved, or to kidnap someone they perceive as a rival. What you are doing isn't love, and it isn't healthy. It's downright close to stalking."
A pained look crossed Muraki's face and he dropped his gaze. "If I have committed crimes in his name, it is only because I lost my way. I had hoped he might help me to find it again, but it would seem my path has taken and unexpected turn.
He lifted his piercing gaze to Tatsumi's face, looking him in the eye. "And it lead me to you, the one who loves Tsuzuki but who does not dare do more than admire him. You're hard on him: is that your way of showing him your affection? If that is the case, then you have no place voicing your disapproval of my methods. There's no difference between you and I except the severity of our techniques."
"Perhaps that is the case, but I'm hard on Tsuzuki only to keep him in line, to help him to keep working in order to pay his debts," Tatsumi replied, smoothing down the top sheets on his clipboard with a calm hand. "You're hard on him for cruelty's sake. You can form your arguments and propose them, but you can't hide your true intent, even in the shadows of your rhetoric," he said, rising and turning to head out.
"Leaving so soon? And we hardly had started to get acquainted," Muraki said, but Tatsumi turned his back on their captive, letting himself out before locking the door behind him and passing by the two way mirror only for a moment. Just long enough to glimpse the look of despair and confusion that had eclipsed Muraki's smugness, now that he thought no one could see him.
fic_promptly's Author's choice, author's choice, "What you are doing isn't love, and it isn't healthy. It's downright close to stalking." Featuring Tatsumi confronting a captured Muraki. Follows up from "Interrogation With an Energy Vampire"
Tatsumi had deliberately taken Tsuzuki and Terazuma off interrogating Muraki: they had both gotten too emotionally involved. He had expected Muraki would find a way to push Tsuzuki's buttons, much as Tsuzuki might know how to push Muraki's, and Terazuma had, in his estimation, taken it a little too far in playing the bad cop. And so he sent them to lunch while he let Muraki stew a bit in the interrogation room.
He stood outside the two-way mirror for a long moment, watching Muraki; the pale man sat quietly, hands folded on his lap, his head tilted slightly, his face calm and collected, his good eye relaxed. What thoughts ran through the mind of this monster, and what plots had started to form in that too fertile brain of his? Did he sense Tatsumi's presence, even through the glass?
Tatsumi reached for the thermostat for the room, turning it down, then approached the door, lifting the latch and letting himself into the room. Muraki looked up, his calm face curling in a confident smirk.
"And I thought perhaps you had abandoned me," the pale man said. "Were you plotting my demise by starvation?
Tatsumi made no reply, merely sat down on the other chair across the table from Muraki, then rearranged the pages on his clipboard.
"You're rather quiet, Mister Tatsumi," Muraki noted. "Collecting your thoughts, or are you fool enough to let me have the upper hand in the conversation?"
Tatsumi reached under his vest and took a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt. Uncapping the pen, he jotted a few notes on the papers. Subject is still hyper-confident: is he covering his nervousness, or does he truly think he has the upper hand in this situation? Or is he trying to test us? His further reactions will reveal this.
"You seem to have a lot to jot down, for someone who has only just entered this chamber," Muraki noted. "Or have you been sitting out there viewing my little conversation with Mister Tsuzuki and his most incourteous partner? I might have opened up more, if you had sent the boy in with him, instead. Or is it a simple case of wanting to me all to yourself?"
"It's a case of denying you the pleasure of tormenting Tsuzuki any further," Tatsumi replied, simply and calmly. "Even if he does claim to be... somewhat fond of that manner of activity."
Muraki started to open his mouth, then a frown crossed his face. "I won't deny that I can be hard on the man, but he's made of stern stuff."
"I was not referring to that," Tatsumi replied, jotting more notes. Subject has taken the bait, namely a reference to his undue attachment to Tsuzuki. "I was referring to your unhealthy fascination with him."
Muraki wagged his head and lifted one hand in a dismissive shrug. "I am a man in love and love can, at times, drive one to madness."
"In that case, it isn't love," Tatsumi replied. "Real love doesn't lead one to kill people to get the attention of their beloved, or to kidnap someone they perceive as a rival. What you are doing isn't love, and it isn't healthy. It's downright close to stalking."
A pained look crossed Muraki's face and he dropped his gaze. "If I have committed crimes in his name, it is only because I lost my way. I had hoped he might help me to find it again, but it would seem my path has taken and unexpected turn.
He lifted his piercing gaze to Tatsumi's face, looking him in the eye. "And it lead me to you, the one who loves Tsuzuki but who does not dare do more than admire him. You're hard on him: is that your way of showing him your affection? If that is the case, then you have no place voicing your disapproval of my methods. There's no difference between you and I except the severity of our techniques."
"Perhaps that is the case, but I'm hard on Tsuzuki only to keep him in line, to help him to keep working in order to pay his debts," Tatsumi replied, smoothing down the top sheets on his clipboard with a calm hand. "You're hard on him for cruelty's sake. You can form your arguments and propose them, but you can't hide your true intent, even in the shadows of your rhetoric," he said, rising and turning to head out.
"Leaving so soon? And we hardly had started to get acquainted," Muraki said, but Tatsumi turned his back on their captive, letting himself out before locking the door behind him and passing by the two way mirror only for a moment. Just long enough to glimpse the look of despair and confusion that had eclipsed Muraki's smugness, now that he thought no one could see him.