[love_bingo FIC] "Vampire's Prayer " (YnM, PG-13)
Square number seven in the love_bingo challenge. Based this one mostly on Muraki's first appearance in the anime
Prompt: There are none so distant that fate cannot bring them together
Pairing: Muraki/Tsuzuki
Word Count: 761
"Vouchsafe your heaven/And small, small bliss/Grant me one manly lover" -- Mutsuo Takahashi, "Christ of the Thieves"
It was a line or two from a contemporary poem, but Muraki often prayed it as a small, silent prayer.
He had offered similar words since he was a young man, since the day when he first laid eyes on the photograph of the the mystery patient who had haunted his grandfather's clinic many years ago.
When Kazutaka had turned sixteen, his grandfather had given him permission to leaf through some of his old patient files. Perhaps the thickest and most intriguing dated from 1918, at the beginning of the Taiwa period. On the top was a photograph, in sepia, of a beautiful young man with tousled dark hair, one eye heavily bandaged, the other an odd shade which, according to his grandfather's notes, was violet. He had studied the rest of the files, gathering as much information on how to gather data from a patient as he did about the illnesses they had contracted and the injuries that they had sustained. But most often, his perusal of the files lead him back to that of the nameless male patient with the violet eyes. His grandfather found him all but wrapt as he sat gazing on the photograph one day.
"He was a beautiful creature, wasn't he?" the old man asked, with a small twist of a smile.
"Yes, he was," Kazutaka agreed, turning his face away to hide the sunset-hued blush crossing his pale face.
"Are you blushing because you find him attractive?" the old man asked, finding Kazutaka's gaze with his.
"I might..."
"There's no shame in feeling that way. I'll let you in on a secret: I felt the same way toward him," his grandfather admitted. "Never mind what your father might say about it: you and I are who we are."
"But isn't it rather shameful?"
"The only shame is in not being who you are, even if you have to veil that from the world, like the Krisitan hiding their faith from those who had no right to pry," Grandfather said.
That was twenty years ago, and in that time, Kazutaka had kept the face of the violet-eyed man in his heart, like a lover's token, praying someday that he would find a male lover as beautiful as the youth in the photograph.
And one day, while he knelt in prayer in the cathedral of Nagasaki, fate decided to bridge the gap between his youthful longing and his adult desires.
His work with Mei-Rin Wong and her step-daughter Maria -- specifically maintaining the spells that bound Maria's soul to her body and kept her looking young -- had brought him to Nagasaki for the autumn music festival. While Maria was in rehearsals for that week's concerts (or supposed to be, if he wasn't pulling the psychic strings that bound her to him), he had time to kill and so he had gone for a ramble through the city, stopping at the cathedral to rest and to pray.
The energy in this place put him at ease, but at the same time, it caused that small part of him that had not been corrupted by his own darkness to weep. for what reason? For the innocence he had lost? For the life that he had to lead now that he had surrendered to his darkness in order to keep from dying? At the fact that, even now, even at this distance, he had summoned Maria during a break at the studio, to slip out and go in search of a victim?
He banished these thoughts at the moment he heard footsteps clatter behind him, and glancing up, he spotted a slightly disheveled young man in a grey trenchcoat over a rumpled black suit. The youth sputtered a question, asking if he had seen a girl pass through. Muraki replied that he had not: not a lie, as while he knew that Maria was in the area, she had not come into the church.
Just as the young man was about to turn away, Muraki noted his eyes: a peculiar shade of amethyst violet, the way his grandfather had described the eyes of the nameless patient, and the face matched the photograph. Could this be his son or grandson? Not unless the young man was a genetic carbon copy.
It had to be him. It had to be that nameless patient. But that young man had taken his own life seventy years ago, and his ashes had been interred in a pauper's grave.
Perhaps he was an immortal of some kind. The young man had run out before Muraki's senses could get a read on him, but by inference, he realized the youngster had to be something more than human.
Prompt: There are none so distant that fate cannot bring them together
Pairing: Muraki/Tsuzuki
Word Count: 761
"Vouchsafe your heaven/And small, small bliss/Grant me one manly lover" -- Mutsuo Takahashi, "Christ of the Thieves"
It was a line or two from a contemporary poem, but Muraki often prayed it as a small, silent prayer.
He had offered similar words since he was a young man, since the day when he first laid eyes on the photograph of the the mystery patient who had haunted his grandfather's clinic many years ago.
When Kazutaka had turned sixteen, his grandfather had given him permission to leaf through some of his old patient files. Perhaps the thickest and most intriguing dated from 1918, at the beginning of the Taiwa period. On the top was a photograph, in sepia, of a beautiful young man with tousled dark hair, one eye heavily bandaged, the other an odd shade which, according to his grandfather's notes, was violet. He had studied the rest of the files, gathering as much information on how to gather data from a patient as he did about the illnesses they had contracted and the injuries that they had sustained. But most often, his perusal of the files lead him back to that of the nameless male patient with the violet eyes. His grandfather found him all but wrapt as he sat gazing on the photograph one day.
"He was a beautiful creature, wasn't he?" the old man asked, with a small twist of a smile.
"Yes, he was," Kazutaka agreed, turning his face away to hide the sunset-hued blush crossing his pale face.
"Are you blushing because you find him attractive?" the old man asked, finding Kazutaka's gaze with his.
"I might..."
"There's no shame in feeling that way. I'll let you in on a secret: I felt the same way toward him," his grandfather admitted. "Never mind what your father might say about it: you and I are who we are."
"But isn't it rather shameful?"
"The only shame is in not being who you are, even if you have to veil that from the world, like the Krisitan hiding their faith from those who had no right to pry," Grandfather said.
That was twenty years ago, and in that time, Kazutaka had kept the face of the violet-eyed man in his heart, like a lover's token, praying someday that he would find a male lover as beautiful as the youth in the photograph.
And one day, while he knelt in prayer in the cathedral of Nagasaki, fate decided to bridge the gap between his youthful longing and his adult desires.
His work with Mei-Rin Wong and her step-daughter Maria -- specifically maintaining the spells that bound Maria's soul to her body and kept her looking young -- had brought him to Nagasaki for the autumn music festival. While Maria was in rehearsals for that week's concerts (or supposed to be, if he wasn't pulling the psychic strings that bound her to him), he had time to kill and so he had gone for a ramble through the city, stopping at the cathedral to rest and to pray.
The energy in this place put him at ease, but at the same time, it caused that small part of him that had not been corrupted by his own darkness to weep. for what reason? For the innocence he had lost? For the life that he had to lead now that he had surrendered to his darkness in order to keep from dying? At the fact that, even now, even at this distance, he had summoned Maria during a break at the studio, to slip out and go in search of a victim?
He banished these thoughts at the moment he heard footsteps clatter behind him, and glancing up, he spotted a slightly disheveled young man in a grey trenchcoat over a rumpled black suit. The youth sputtered a question, asking if he had seen a girl pass through. Muraki replied that he had not: not a lie, as while he knew that Maria was in the area, she had not come into the church.
Just as the young man was about to turn away, Muraki noted his eyes: a peculiar shade of amethyst violet, the way his grandfather had described the eyes of the nameless patient, and the face matched the photograph. Could this be his son or grandson? Not unless the young man was a genetic carbon copy.
It had to be him. It had to be that nameless patient. But that young man had taken his own life seventy years ago, and his ashes had been interred in a pauper's grave.
Perhaps he was an immortal of some kind. The young man had run out before Muraki's senses could get a read on him, but by inference, he realized the youngster had to be something more than human.