[Yami no Matsuei] "Poisonous Beauty" (PG-13)
Author's Note: Written for Any, any, "Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same." (A Clash of Kings, p 761) Mild Oriya/Muraki and Muraki/Tsuzuki. Set in between the last two episodes of the anime.
Kazutaka had pulled some crazy stunts before: he'd heard about what had happened to the Queen Camellia (partly from the news reports, partly from his contacts in the Yakuza, since one of them had had a hand in the munitions involved). And there was the time a mutual friend of theirs had made a panicked call one night, begging for help in dispatching a nukekubi that was terrorizing his garden (and which Kazutaka had dispatched with a *baseball bat*).
But when he literally dropped into the garden at Koku Kurou, Muraki did not come alone: in his arms, he carried an inert figure, a youth with dark hair tousled over an exquisitely pretty face, unearthly even otherwordly in its beauty. Oriya had heard legends that shinigami were divinely beautiful, but he'd thought they were polite fantasies, thought up by hopeful minds trying to sanitize an unpleasant part of life.
"You weren't kidding when you said you were returning with company," Oriya noted, crossing his arms on his chest.
Kazutaka knelt at his feet, laying the youth on the gravel, the last fragments of the veil between the worlds melding as the portal closed behind them. "Yes, he cost me a good deal of trouble to catch," he said, running his fingertips over the youth's cheek. "But he will be worth all the trouble. He's a pretty thing, isn't he?"
Oriya sighed, the noise almost like a growl, as he looked away. "You're playing with poison, Kazutaka, you captured a death god: I know you want to control life and death as much as any of these life-extension scientists, but you're messing with things no man should touch."
Muraki chuckled: he was more the mad creature who took sustenance from the living than the pale, bookish man he had once been. "You know that what I do, I do out of love: to avenge Ukyou and heal her where medicine has failed her," he said, pushing loose strands of the shinigami's hair from his face.
"Even if you do it out of love, it's still poisoning your soul," Oriya argued. "It might be a sweet poison, but it will kill you all the same."
"Mmm, but there was an eminent physician who pointed out that all things contain a modicum of poison," Muraki said, gathering the youth into his arms again, and rising to carry him into the house. "It's a matter of dosage, and it's been a while since a dose that would affect a mortal would do more than put me in a deep sleep."
"Where are you going with him?" Oriya asked, glaring at him.
"He's under a spell for now, but the night is waning and the magic will dissipate with the dawn," Muraki said. "I need to sedate him while I bring him to my lab."
Oriya looked away. "Do what you need to do, but just remember: you've got something there that even gods fear."
Kazutaka had pulled some crazy stunts before: he'd heard about what had happened to the Queen Camellia (partly from the news reports, partly from his contacts in the Yakuza, since one of them had had a hand in the munitions involved). And there was the time a mutual friend of theirs had made a panicked call one night, begging for help in dispatching a nukekubi that was terrorizing his garden (and which Kazutaka had dispatched with a *baseball bat*).
But when he literally dropped into the garden at Koku Kurou, Muraki did not come alone: in his arms, he carried an inert figure, a youth with dark hair tousled over an exquisitely pretty face, unearthly even otherwordly in its beauty. Oriya had heard legends that shinigami were divinely beautiful, but he'd thought they were polite fantasies, thought up by hopeful minds trying to sanitize an unpleasant part of life.
"You weren't kidding when you said you were returning with company," Oriya noted, crossing his arms on his chest.
Kazutaka knelt at his feet, laying the youth on the gravel, the last fragments of the veil between the worlds melding as the portal closed behind them. "Yes, he cost me a good deal of trouble to catch," he said, running his fingertips over the youth's cheek. "But he will be worth all the trouble. He's a pretty thing, isn't he?"
Oriya sighed, the noise almost like a growl, as he looked away. "You're playing with poison, Kazutaka, you captured a death god: I know you want to control life and death as much as any of these life-extension scientists, but you're messing with things no man should touch."
Muraki chuckled: he was more the mad creature who took sustenance from the living than the pale, bookish man he had once been. "You know that what I do, I do out of love: to avenge Ukyou and heal her where medicine has failed her," he said, pushing loose strands of the shinigami's hair from his face.
"Even if you do it out of love, it's still poisoning your soul," Oriya argued. "It might be a sweet poison, but it will kill you all the same."
"Mmm, but there was an eminent physician who pointed out that all things contain a modicum of poison," Muraki said, gathering the youth into his arms again, and rising to carry him into the house. "It's a matter of dosage, and it's been a while since a dose that would affect a mortal would do more than put me in a deep sleep."
"Where are you going with him?" Oriya asked, glaring at him.
"He's under a spell for now, but the night is waning and the magic will dissipate with the dawn," Muraki said. "I need to sedate him while I bring him to my lab."
Oriya looked away. "Do what you need to do, but just remember: you've got something there that even gods fear."