White Night
by Penny Paperbrain
Tatsumi pulled Muraki to him, feeling the resistance and the wince of pain in the other body as the shadow threads chafed inside his flesh. Tatsumi willed their ends to detach from the ground and wrap themselves around Muraki’s arms inside his sleeves. “Those will keep you here,” he assured the doctor. Muraki experimentally raised his arms but Tatsumi caught and lowered them. “You move when I tell you to,” he said coldly, pushing the doctor’s coat from his shoulders. “Fortunately my secretary knows an excellent dry cleaner,” Muraki commented, glancing down as Tatsumi let the coat fall to the ground and started to unbutton the doctor’s shirt. Tatsumi ignored Muraki’s words, concentrating on the strange warmth seeping into his fingertips as his hands travelled down the doctor’s torso. Half way down he paused, inserting his hand under one of the flaps of material and pressing his palm against Muraki’s heart. The heat there was startling, more intense than should have been possible from ordinary flesh. “You are not entirely human, are you,” said Tatsumi. “Not quite,” confirmed Muraki with a faint smile. “But I think that is a conversation for another time.” Suddenly his hand shot out, grasping Tatsumi’s hip. “Ah,” he chided as Tatsumi stiffened. “I thought perhaps you wanted that.” And Tatsumi had – how long it was since he had been touched with intent? But still he prised the hand from its journey towards his ass. He finished unbuttoning Muraki’s shirt and yanked the tails free. “Remove it,” he ordered. Muraki stepped back to follow his instructions, and Tatsumi was a little surprised to see that, while fit enough, the doctor was not as perfectly toned as himself. The unnaturally white skin of his midriff bulged gently with the beginnings of a paunch. Imperfection. Soft, uneven curves in stark contrast with the geometrical precision of the shadows laced around his arms. Of course. Muraki’s body was mortal and required maintenance. After all, if a normal human body spent as much time at a desk as Tatsumi’s did, it would be in a lot worse shape than Muraki’s was. The shirt gone, Tatsumi pulled Muraki to him again, one hand grasping the doctor’s shoulder, the other cupping the slight softness of his belly. Weak. Human. “You do not admire me,” Muraki observed rather coldly, looking down at Tatsumi’s hand. “No, I’m fascinated,” Tatsumi contradicted, contemptuously amused at the weak spot in the doctor’s vanity. “You are mortal and will die eventually, even if I don’t kill you. Living apart from humans, sometimes we shinigami forget that.” “So glad to provide you with a basic education,” commented Muraki. Tatsumi ignored the jibe. Let Muraki cling to whatever petty victories pleased him. Tatsumi had heard countless words from the mouths of terrified humans, and each time he had taken a soul back with him to Meifu. Curious though, to hear that defiant, subtly fear-edged tone of voice from one he was not going to harvest. Curious and strangely exciting. Instead of speaking, Tatsumi pushed the doctor’s head to one side, his fingers tangling with soft hair, to reveal an expanse of white neck stretching down from the earlobe with its ruby stud. So much, so very much white. As if Muraki was already, in life, an embodiment of death. Tatsumi brought his face in close, sampling Muraki’s scent. He smelled of cologne of course – a foreign brand, no doubt expensive – but also faintly of cinnamon. It was true that the doctor had been with Tsuzuki. Perhaps fighting. Perhaps not. Wanting suddenly to possess that scent, Tatsumi ran his tongue across the salty skin of Muraki’s neck before sinking his teeth into the soft flesh. Muraki shifted slightly, steadying his balance, and the shadowmaster clenched his hands against the doctor’s naked back, pinning him in an embrace. “And I thought I was the vampire,” Muraki observed, the tendons of his neck stirring and relaxing under Tatsumi’s lips. “My, your glasses are cold.” Then Tatsumi felt a shock of pain and pleasure as Muraki reciprocated the bite. A deep, throbbing warmth seeped through his shoulder. Tsuzuki, he thought suddenly, would never do that. But then Tatsumi would never do to Tsuzuki what he was doing to Muraki. Never hurt him. Never touch him except with the fleeting tips of his fingers. “Try to drain me and your head comes off,” Tatsumi threatened, surfacing briefly before going back to his work. But Muraki did not manifest his fangs, merely chuckled against Tatsumi’s shoulder before sinking his teeth in once again. Tatsumi ground himself against the body in his arms, feeling the hardness of an erection against his own. His heartbeat quickened as if the warmth growing between their bodies had started a chemical reaction. He had planned a slow game, but suddenly that seemed pointless, absurd. He wanted Muraki naked now, open to him. The clarity of that. Tatsumi grasped Muraki’s hair and pulled the doctor’s head back, forcing their twined necks apart. A dark bruise marred the doctor’s skin where Tatsumi’s mouth had been, spoiling the sterility. The annoyingly messy effect, along with Muraki's mocking stare, made Tatsumi hesitate for a second. Part of his mind wondered what he was doing, but the question was faint, muffled. He was doing nothing. This was a non-time. A tacit compensation for all the years of frustration, of tiptoeing around the office, protecting everyone else from his power. “You were crushing my collar,” Tatsumi announced, pulling his tie off and making equally quick work of his shirt buttons. With a strange thrill of abandon he cast the garments aside without seeing where they fell. Muraki watched him, his human eye narrowing and a smile playing across his face. “I see you do admire me,” Tatsumi commented. “I am flexible,” acknowledged Muraki. “You are a pervert,” Tatsumi responded. “And you are not...?” Muraki glanced at the bloody holes where the shadows pierced him, then raised an eyebrow as if too polite to continue. “I –” said Tatsumi, and paused for a split second, feeling excitement flare inside him. This was better than any kill... killing was only his job, he disdained to enjoy it. But this act was forbidden. Tsuzuki would shrink from it in bewilderment and loathing. In doing this, Tatsumi both condemned and freed himself. “I am not susceptible to your judgement,” he finished. The next moment, he sent the shadows around Muraki’s arms racing down his torso, into the waistband of his pants. A tearing sound, and Muraki’s remaining clothing exploded outwards, to fall around the clearing in a rain of rags. Muraki himself rose into the air, suspended in a writhing black haze, and flew backwards to impact against a tree, shadows curling outwards from his wrists to pin them to low-hanging branches and upwards from the ground to bind his feet to the dim hummocks of the forest floor. Tatsumi stepped forward, surveying his work. Muraki was so pale, he looked like a stray spirit somehow trapped in the dark undergrowth. But spirits did not have the solidity, the animal presence that Muraki possessed even at bay. Tatsumi ran his tongue across his lips as he studied Muraki’s groin. He desired what he saw there, standing away from Muraki’s pinned body, so vulnerable and defiant and ready for Tatsumi’s touch. He wanted to taste that wonderfully shameless cock, to force pleasure and frustration on Muraki at will. And he wanted to wrench the thing from its root, and watch the monster who bore it writhe, bleed and die. Tatsumi smiled. It was pleasant, civilised, to have these options and not use them. “As a man of culture, you are familiar with the Flaying of Marsyas,” he commented, moving closer. Muraki smirked humourlessly in acknowledgement of the threat. Blood dripped from the grazes on his back, disappearing into the darkness of the forest floor. “You even enjoy pain,” observed Tatsumi, moved to sudden realisation by something in the way Muraki shifted in his bonds. “After a fashion,” Muraki acknowledged. “It is an acquired taste. And you enjoy the infliction of pain.” Tatsumi stepped right up to Muraki and grabbed his penis, squeezing hard enough to make the other man gasp. “On such as you, yes,” he said, his other hand roving across Muraki’s chest, then moving behind him, rubbing broken skin on the way to the crack of the doctor’s ass. He leant in to take Muraki’s mouth, caught that elusive cinnamon-scent – and for a moment it was Tsuzuki naked and helpless in Tatsumi’s arms, responding eagerly to his kiss. But Tsuzuki would not taste of nicotine. Or blood. Tatsumi drew back, disgusted, wiping his hand across his mouth, chilled once again, simultaneously angry with himself for starting this obscene dance and for not being able to embrace it fully now he had gone too far to pull back. “Kissing is perhaps more intimate than copulation,” Muraki observed, eyeing Tatsumi sharply, civil humour etched onto his face. “Many prostitutes refuse it.” “Prostitutes have more morals than you,” Tatsumi snapped back. “You are defiled.” “Prostitutes are more rational than either of us,” Muraki responded unfazed. At the realisation that this was true, a laugh escaped Tatsumi, ringing harsh and yet somehow joyful in his own ears. Muraki laughed with him, and as he did so Tatsumi was fascinated to see a glimmer of sanity in his eyes, rising from the depths only to sink again without trace. “You consider me as mad as yourself?” Tatsumi demanded, grabbing Muraki’s chin as a wolfish grin spread over his own face. “Indeed,” Muraki agreed, panting a little as Tatsumi ran his other thumb up the base of Muraki’s swollen cock. “Where our desire for him is concerned.” “I think our madness differs in quality,” Tatsumi suggested, injecting a rough humour into his words as he released Muraki and freed himself from his remaining clothes. “In quantity, also,” Muraki observed. “You, I think, would do this only once.” “What are you suggesting?” Tatsumi growled, stepping in so close to Muraki that their naked bodies rubbed together. He grasped Muraki’s shoulders, his breathing becoming uneven as he moved up and down “I am... suggesting that... you fuck me, since neither of us... can fuck Tsuzuki,” Muraki panted. Tatsumi paused then, feeling the cold night wind against his body draw goosebumps from his arms despite the heat he was generating. “One can only make love to Tsuzuki-san,” he stated quietly, turning his head aside. Muraki’s mechanical eye swivelled round to follow him. “Or another, perhaps, could do so. Us, he does not need.” “So you believe.” observed Muraki. Tatsumi turned back to study the blanched face only inches from his own, and saw that the madman and the fragment of his sanity had spoken simultaneously, and were regarding Tatsumi through mismatched eyes. What did it matter that Tatsumi sought to protect Tsuzuki and Muraki to destroy him? They were both creatures of violence, creatures who knew too much, creatures who only deserved each other. Very well. “Wrap your knees around my waist,” Tatsumi instructed. “This will hurt.” The shadows withdrew from Muraki’s feet, allowing Tatsumi to lift the doctor’s legs, his pale knees rising like waves around Tatsumi’s hips. Tatsumi cupped Muraki’s penis in his hand almost gently, gathering what fluid was there before smearing it on himself. This would still hurt, but that hardly mattered. Any damage to Tatsumi would regenerate almost immediately. Damage to Muraki was not a concern. Entrance was easier than Tatsumi would have expected; not only was Muraki co-operating with his movements, but somebody had been here before. Still, it was a stretch for Muraki to take Tatsumi all at once, and he cried out in pain, digging his heels convulsively into Tatsumi’s back as Tatsumi began to thrust, grasping the cheeks of Muraki’s ass, pulling his bound arms taut. Muraki moaned, a curiously vulnerable sound, but Tatsumi barely heard. He was focused on the sensations of his own flesh, the surrounding warmth of a lover who had finally come to him willingly after so many lonely nights, the excitement that – finally – blocked out thought. The body in his arms was so soft, so warm, so willing and responsive, he wanted to hold on to this feeling but the pressure was too strong, he needed this too much... “Tsuzuki!” he heard himself shout as he climaxed. For a second, Tatsumi’s consciousness wavered. His arms let go as he felt the other body spasming around him. A flurry of movement and then the weight slipped from him awkwardly, feet scraping down the backs of his legs. Tatsumi stumbled to his knees, head butting against unseen flesh. He pulled himself upright – and there was the white star of Muraki’s body, spread out in front of him as if awaiting dissection, arms still pinned overhead while his trembling legs tried to find sure footing and support his weight. The madman’s cock was obscenely tumescent with unsatisfied desire. Finally steady on his legs, Muraki glanced from his groin to Tatsumi with a sardonic, almost furtive expression. Sweat glimmered on his white face like moisture on the head of a fungus. Tatsumi stared. The night chill was setting in. He turned away from the distasteful sight before him and began to dress. On the edge of his vision, Muraki’s pale form stirred in its bonds. “The remaining shadows will dissipate when I leave,” said Tatsumi. He didn’t want to look at Muraki too closely. He had to return to Meifu, to attend to the considerable paperwork he had left behind. “You are not cured,” said Muraki suddenly, his voice hoarse and intrusive. “Do not think it for an instant.” Tatsumi paused as he pulled his suit jacket on, then deliberately continued his movement, settling the material into place before he faced the naked doctor, who had begun shivering visibly, tiny hairs standing up among the shadow threads that still wound around his arms. “And that concerns you for what reason?” asked Tatsumi. He felt nothing, thought nothing.... there was only a fleeting image of Tsuzuki’s eyes lidding, turning aside. Painful. Irrelevant. Tatsumi thrust the memory away. “You may require my treatment again,” Muraki continued, his voice strengthening a little. “It is therefore impolite of you to withhold full payment.” Tatsumi dissolved the shadows around Muraki’s right arm so that it fell limply to his side. “Attend to yourself,” he instructed brusquely. “How considerate,” commented Muraki, the slightest irritation tingeing his voice. But he flexed his hand and set to work. After a few false starts with his clumsy, trembling fingers, he brought himself off, white liquid arcing for a second against the darkness of a tree trunk. Tatsumi watched the doctor pleasure himself. He felt no emotion at the sight, unless it were faint irritation at the inherent ungainliness of the human form, married to the sourceless unease that was growing inside him. “Will you dare to pursue Tsuzuki-san after this?” he demanded when Muraki was finished and had taken a moment to compose himself. Muraki raised an eyebrow as if to reproach the shadowmaster for doubting him. He snaked his free arm around to hold his ribs, steadying his posture. His shivers gradually eased, whether through force of will or some subtle magic Tatsumi did not know. “I would not dream of disappointing you,” he murmured, quietly enough so that Tatsumi had to strain to hear him. “I should kill you in spite of my word,” Tatsumi growled, trying to keep his voice steady, irritated with himself for sounding somehow uncertain, baffled by the fear that gripped him as he looked at Muraki and Muraki began to smile back, for all the world as if he were reassuring a patient at his surgery, not naked and still bound by one arm to a tree. “You will not do that,” Muraki continued. “After all, I am your only hope of being of service to Tsuzuki-san, am I not?” The words refused to sink into Tatsumi’s mind; he refused to allow them to do so. Yet they had already taken root. They were unthinkable; they were true. And Muraki smiled on. |
