Title: Untimely Callers
Character(s) or Pairing(s): MurakixTsuzuki
Warnings: Inappropriate touching and adult language.
Summary: The trouble with work is it often gets in the way of pleasure. Set some time after the King of Swords arc (volume three of the manga/episodes 7-9)

X-posted to deviantART and livejournal.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matsuei.

Dealing with Muraki, Tsuzuki found, was like walking into quicksand. The more he struggled, the more he sank; the worse his situation became. If he tapped into the back of his brain (not that eight minutes ago was exactly a straining reach for the top shelf of his memories) he could recount how he ended up in this position.

But Tsuzuki didn't like to live in the past—not that he preferred being in the present either, where he was on his back with Muraki hovering over him like a perverted white shadow. And he couldn't move. Even if Tsuzuki wanted to, he had his wrists pinned on either side of his head. His muscles still jerked beneath his skin whenever Muraki moved, from his jaw line to his ear, to his neck, dispersing his thoughts randomly to the ceiling, the ugly red wallpaper; the lamp casting an offhanded glow onto the right side of Muraki's face. His sweep of hair was given a splash of color in the light, which didn't quite reach the edges of his sulk.

Yes sulk. The man who could kill without blinking one silvery eyelash was sulking at him.

"I do not know why you insist on looking at me that way."

Tsuzuki didn't respond. He pried a leg from its sticky state of immobility to try to knee him in the stomach, but a few seconds of blind struggling only amounted to Muraki straddling him. There was no mistaking the delight in his chuckle, like he won the biggest prize at the fair.

"Now, now, Tsuzuki, use your words."

"Let me go, Muraki."

Muraki made a noise suspiciously close to a scoff, and ghosted a hand down the flat plane of his sternum to the stiff V that the last few buttons of Tsuzuki's shirt made, hooking two fingertips into it. Tsuzuki twitched, and Muraki's lips curled.

"You should really be more careful. They say if you continue to make a face, it could get stuck that way."

"Are you deaf? I said let me go!"

Muraki slid lower, the low hum of his voice breaking his pulse apart. "If you should ever be imprisoned in one expression, it should be one of profound and incandescent passion. So pleasurable it hurts—that is what I want to see."

He unlocked himself from the crook of his neck to look at him. And they were hurdled again into that confusing gray area between the reality of what they were, and the world Muraki seemed to live in that was a lot more seductive and flattering. The one Tsuzuki could never bring himself to believe. It was hard to take compliments that were splattered with blood; or a gentle, coaxing hand when the other was carrying a knife.

Then without warning or visible provocation, Muraki decided to move. His head tilted delicately to the side and leaned in, which was like watching a train coming towards him while his foot was caught between the tracks. Tsuzuki's intestines made a bow tie around his spine and he tested his ability to pass through the floor by pressing the back of his head into the carpet, causing his back to arch and his eyes squeeze shut.

The loud tinkling of a digitalized melody was the last thing Tsuzuki expected to jostle the energy of the room. And more importantly, grind Muraki's intentions to a halt. Tsuzuki opened his eyes again, trying to focus on Muraki's face, but he was too close and blurred his vision. But one thing was certain: he was not wearing his normal mask of casual smugness, the look of a man who had every string tied around his little finger. Muraki instead stared over Tsuzuki's left shoulder, as if the carpet had grown a mouth and was talking to him.

He retracted all at once, like a wave scraping its frothy nails down the shore. His fingers flexed and brushed down Tsuzuki's wrists to his forearms, but his knees still dug into his hips as he sat fully on his haunches. Tsuzuki watched as Muraki fished a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the source of the sound: something black and much smaller than he expected to emit such a brass sound.

Tsuzuki propped himself up on his elbows. "What is that?"

Muraki didn't answer, but the sulk reappeared and hardened his features. The silver of his visible eye seemed to darken to a raincloud gray: bleak, overcast and disappointing. He didn't want to touch him, so he crooked one of his knees again, attempting to bump him with it.

"Answer my question, Muraki. What the hell is that thing?"

"It's just my pager, Tsuzuki." His tone patronized him, like he was humoring the questions of a toddler. "Remember what I told you on the Queen Camellia? I have other interests outside of the sinister."

Which Tsuzuki found hard to believe—and didn't wonder why. His eyes thinned despite his decreasing concern. "Why do you have it?"

"I'm on-call tonight." His sulk almost turned into acidic disgust. "And now I am needed by one of my patients."

Tsuzuki watched Muraki's lips become even thinner; then he pushed his fingers through his hair and sighed.

"It can't be helped. I'm sorry, Tsuzuki, but I have to go."

Something built on Tsuzuki's tongue that felt like a response, but in the end he had nothing to say. Muraki climbed off of him and he was finally able to stand up, readjusting his clothes while looking at anything else in the room besides the doctor. Until he miscalculated a step and they made accidental eye contact.

Muraki quirked an eyebrow at him. "Of course we will do this again very soon, don't you worry."

"I wasn't," Tsuzuki snapped; glaring down at his shirt as he tried to close it back up. "Not for one damn…"

He heard the soft sweep of fabric, but was still caught off-guard when hands much paler than his own reached for and grabbed his shirt front.

"Again, I'm terribly sorry about this, Tsuzuki." Muraki smiled almost tenderly as he watched his own fingers work Tsuzuki's buttons back into their slots. "Normally I would make you my first priority above all, but I'm afraid this patient is in poor health—if I don't attend to him immediately, he will die."

"Oh—" The thought tangled in Tsuzuki's mind, like Muraki had just told him he could lose weight by eating mass quantities of cake deep-fried in chocolate. "Wait. Somebody is going to die if you're not there?"

Muraki took a deep breath. "It is very likely." His hands dropped heavily from his chest to the waistband of his pants. "…If I were to leave him with the interns, who don't know an intubator from an endoscope."

Tsuzuki hummed, mind blank until he heard metal click and realized Muraki was fixing his belt—which meant his belt was undone to begin with. Anger flickered up his spine again and he knocked Muraki's hands away. "Don't! Just stop touching me, you bastard!"

Muraki reached up to touch his glasses, a gesture which almost hid his smile—or grimace. "Don't make it any harder for me to leave, Tsuzuki."

"You're insane," Tsuzuki muttered as he yanked his clothes straight, and shot him a look that could've burned a hole through his glasses. "This is never happening again."

Muraki just chuckled and grabbed him by the forearms. Tsuzuki's insides snagged briefly with the panic that he would try to kiss him again, but their faces never came close. Muraki kept his eyes trained on his work, sweeping his shoulders of any lint or dust particles left over on his jacket, every once in a while stopping to fuss with his collar. But Muraki's maternal act was even less confusing than why Tsuzuki allowed him to carry on like that, he thought with a relinquished sigh. Until Muraki's strokes started to linger; then his hands sat squarely on his shoulders, thumbs circling the grooves underneath his collarbone.

Tsuzuki looked around once, twice, and then squinted. "Your patient?"

"Of course." He let go with a flourish and stepped back. Though he seemed to consider something else, the way his eyes flicked over Tsuzuki's face. Tsuzuki thought that was why his shoulder shifted, but then Muraki slid his hand into his own coat pocket and tilted his head.

"Until next time, Tsuzuki."

And he walked past him, and the entirety of the situation was indigestible until Tsuzuki heard the door click shut behind Muraki. Relief lapped at him like sunshine and warm water. Like sinking into a hot bath after a hard day—he was finally alone.

But god forbid he ever hope—even in dark humor—that there might be another human emergency that will call the doctor away the next time he has his hand down his shirt.