[Yami no Matsuei] "Needful Things" (PG-13)
Author's Note: Written for "fic_promptly"'s any, any, “All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power.”. Set during the Kyoto arc. Muraki/Tsuzuki WARNING: Implied dub con
A surgical slab is not the best place for a sensuous tryst, but Muraki somehow made it feel like one. Or perhaps Tsuzuki was making the most of the situation, just as he had been telling himself, for the past half-hour, that he had allowed Muraki to kidnap him and then to have his way with him, in order to keep the madman from harming any more innocent people.
But now Muraki lay atop him, sated, with his head resting on the shinigami's shoulder, his fingertips stroking the scars on Tsuzuki's wrist as it lay strapped to the table.
"What do you want from me?" Tsuzuki asked, finding his voice.
"Hmmm?" Muraki murmured, turning to look Tsuzuki in the face, his good eye still drowsy and contentment.
"I said, what do you want from me?" he asked.
"Here I was savoring our post-coital bliss and your question put a ripple in it," Muraki murmured, sitting up, straddling Tsuzuki's thighs. "What do I want from you? It's quite simple: All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power over life and death."
"Why? For what reason?" Tsuzuki demanded.
"The warm bed I've almost achieved: a warm spot on my surgical slab is close enough for now. And you're such a kind man that I don't doubt in time you'll soon see me in a different light, if you haven't done so already. I matter to you: why else do you fly off the handle so easily with me?" he said. "But before I explain the third, allow me a moment to introduce you to someone." He got up from the table and crossed the dim-lit lab.
A light turned on in a tank against the far all, silhouetting then lighting up something that floated within it: a head surrounded by a web of tubes.
"This is my half-brother, Saki Shidou. If you think that I am a monster, he rivaled me at a younger age," he said, trailing a hand across the glass of the tank. "He made me what I am now, with the crimes he committed against me and my family, violating the sanctity of our home and of my person." Muraki's usually calm voice had grown angered. It took quite a bit to agitate Muraki, thus, whatever Saki had done, it had to have been terrible, not the sort of thing Tsuzuki wanted to hear more about.
"You're probably wondering what happened to him, how he came to be in this state," Muraki continued. "He attacked the woman I loved, then he killed both my parents, and on the day after their funeral, he would have killed me as well, the better to secure the family fortune. But one of the family servants shot him in the back. I thought that my father's bastard son had died, but years later, I learned that he had lived, albeit in a vegetative state. A student of my grandfather's was appointed his guardian and used his body in several experiments. There's not much left, as you can see, but there is enough to return to consciousness from time to time.
Muraki turned back to the slab. "But this is where you come into the equation, Mister Tsuzuki, or should I say, this is where your incredible ability to heal from any injury factors into it."
Tsuzuki had almost started to give in to the twinge of sympathy he felt for Muraki: he knew what it was like to suffer for being different. But that last declaration killed these thoughts. He could only cringe and pull back on the restraints as Muraki turned back to him, a different kind of desire in his eyes...
A surgical slab is not the best place for a sensuous tryst, but Muraki somehow made it feel like one. Or perhaps Tsuzuki was making the most of the situation, just as he had been telling himself, for the past half-hour, that he had allowed Muraki to kidnap him and then to have his way with him, in order to keep the madman from harming any more innocent people.
But now Muraki lay atop him, sated, with his head resting on the shinigami's shoulder, his fingertips stroking the scars on Tsuzuki's wrist as it lay strapped to the table.
"What do you want from me?" Tsuzuki asked, finding his voice.
"Hmmm?" Muraki murmured, turning to look Tsuzuki in the face, his good eye still drowsy and contentment.
"I said, what do you want from me?" he asked.
"Here I was savoring our post-coital bliss and your question put a ripple in it," Muraki murmured, sitting up, straddling Tsuzuki's thighs. "What do I want from you? It's quite simple: All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power over life and death."
"Why? For what reason?" Tsuzuki demanded.
"The warm bed I've almost achieved: a warm spot on my surgical slab is close enough for now. And you're such a kind man that I don't doubt in time you'll soon see me in a different light, if you haven't done so already. I matter to you: why else do you fly off the handle so easily with me?" he said. "But before I explain the third, allow me a moment to introduce you to someone." He got up from the table and crossed the dim-lit lab.
A light turned on in a tank against the far all, silhouetting then lighting up something that floated within it: a head surrounded by a web of tubes.
"This is my half-brother, Saki Shidou. If you think that I am a monster, he rivaled me at a younger age," he said, trailing a hand across the glass of the tank. "He made me what I am now, with the crimes he committed against me and my family, violating the sanctity of our home and of my person." Muraki's usually calm voice had grown angered. It took quite a bit to agitate Muraki, thus, whatever Saki had done, it had to have been terrible, not the sort of thing Tsuzuki wanted to hear more about.
"You're probably wondering what happened to him, how he came to be in this state," Muraki continued. "He attacked the woman I loved, then he killed both my parents, and on the day after their funeral, he would have killed me as well, the better to secure the family fortune. But one of the family servants shot him in the back. I thought that my father's bastard son had died, but years later, I learned that he had lived, albeit in a vegetative state. A student of my grandfather's was appointed his guardian and used his body in several experiments. There's not much left, as you can see, but there is enough to return to consciousness from time to time.
Muraki turned back to the slab. "But this is where you come into the equation, Mister Tsuzuki, or should I say, this is where your incredible ability to heal from any injury factors into it."
Tsuzuki had almost started to give in to the twinge of sympathy he felt for Muraki: he knew what it was like to suffer for being different. But that last declaration killed these thoughts. He could only cringe and pull back on the restraints as Muraki turned back to him, a different kind of desire in his eyes...