Disclaimers: Yami No Matsuei is not mine.

You should take my advice and come back when the summary has the word 'finished'; unless you plan to give feedback and hope to influence what turns this story might take.

I want to keep this PG-15 for those below 18 who are reading this.

Can I trust you to be honest?

If I rated this as R would those below 18 stop reading it?

Are there readers below 15?

Haven't I warped your minds enough already?

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"It's always been a fantasy of mine to lay you down on a bed of roses Tsuzuki-san." Admitted Muraki as he laid the semi-conscious shinigami on the bed. "Red queens... do you remember Tsuzuki-san?"

He slipped off the black leather shoes and let them drop off the edge of the bed. "You would have been my indisputable alibi that night. Together we would have been the two gentlemen in a coffin of roses. You and me..."

Tears streamed down that beautiful face. "Stop..." came the tortured whisper. He tried to pull away further into his mind, to hide, but he could feel Muraki's hands on his body and his consciousness surrounded by that dark mind.

"I'm the one who accepts and appreciates you... even if you are not human."

"I'm human." Whispered back the shinigami pitifully, not really convincing anyone, not even himself.

"Let it go Tsuzuki-san. It's not healthy to live in denial."

Tears kept falling but he remained silent unwilling to trust his own lips.

"In time you will trust and understand me."

"But I can't." The gentle brush of the doctor's fingers against his cheeks, wiping away the tears, hinted on something that he just couldn't bring himself to trust. "I don't trust you... I don't understand you... You kill people... and you like it." He kept protesting but was getting weaker all the time.

"Do you know that right now I am protecting you?" The doctor's tone implying that he was hurt.

"What are you talking about?" Came the breathless question.

Muraki withdrew the shield and Tsuzuki understood.

They were in the asylum and suddenly he felt like a giant anvil had been dropped on him. He felt everyone in the building all at once... He couldn't even scream. A low groan was all that came from him. Instinctively his hands clutched at anything in reach... but there was only Muraki.

"See you need my help."

Even with his eyes closed he could hear the smile in Muraki's words. Tsuzuki choked.

"Concentrate on just me and I promise it will fade away."

Tsuzuki knew there was some truth in Muraki's words... but he couldn't help but think they were half-truths and that he would discover the lie too late.

"That's right." The doctor continued to say in a coaxing tone. "Focus on me."

Tsuzuki's breathing was in short gasps, like a child learning to swimming, coming up from his first experience of near drowning. Focusing on Muraki was like holding a knife by the blade. It cut into him but with nothing else to hold on to... there was no one else there for him.

"You know how I honestly feel about you don't you?"

Tsuzuki could tell that the doctor had deep feelings for him but they felt icy and foreign. His body began to shake. He groaned again.

He felt disappointment from the doctor and then the shield was back in place.

Muraki lips were toying with his ear. "I have so much to teach you." The shinigami was breathing evenly, his body asleep but his mind still awake... aware of the words the doctor was pouring into his ear. "We develop our senses over time. We also learn how to protect ourselves from our own senses."

Gently Muraki withdrew and quietly locked the door behind him.

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Stubborn to the very last... and yet Muraki was still obsessed. He would have wanted to take that beautiful body as the poker game prize but even now the prize was resisting his advances. The doctor was a little disappointed that Tsuzuki wasn't being as cooperative as he hoped but it just made his desire stronger.

He had Tsuzuki but he still didn't have all of him.

He thought that the unexpected load of empathy would make the shinigami more pliant. But as Muraki discovered even when Tsuzuki was drowning desperately in other people's emotions he wasn't like that boy. No. Tsuzuki was not like that boy; no matter how strong the emotions were Tsuzuki didn't mistake them as his own. Stubbornly clinging to his sense of self, thinking of consequences and judgments... didn't he know he would always find himself guilt? He could just choose to be free. It was so simple.

"Look at me."

The boy was so much easier to persuade. The hypocrite would loudly protest saying how horrid the doctor was for taking advantage of him, but never admitting that he enjoyed it. Giving himself to the moment in one touch, blaming his empathy, blaming other people and their emotions. They both knew that was the best night of his life, being the sole focus of a man who had the power of life and death over him. Having someone regard him as something else other than a monster... to be thought of as beautiful. The boy kept saying how much he hated that 'Muraki' but was he really honest on the why? Hate for the encounter or rather the abandonment?

The boy was so needful. Even now trying to find someone who would complete him... it was just dumb luck that they both choose the same person.

He couldn't blame the boy for choosing his Tsuzuki-san. He was irresistible.

He could blame the boy for thinking he could claim Tsuzuki. The boy was such a master of manipulation. Poisoning Tsuzuki's mind constantly about what a bastard the doctor was. Making Tsuzuki feel the need to rescue him from nightmares of his choice. He would draw his partner near and then push him away the next moment. No wonder the naïve shinigami was so confused.

The doctor smiled to himself recalling the horror of the boy thinking how his secrets would affect Tsuzuki. He could just lay all of them at Tsuzuki's feet and then what would he think. Oh! Really! As if the boy's secrets were worth anything at all.

Tsuzuki was made for much more than to be a companion for his puppet.

Tsuzuki was one of a kind and the doctor would have him.

The doctor's initial disappointment melted away as a plan began to form. There were still games to play.

He laughed at his own brilliance.

-----

tbc

Cliffhangers are ...

02-17-04