Another chapter, although you readers might really hate me for this one. It's the start of the Tatsumi torture, and I've got to say, I was pretty damn brutal to the poor man. I'll make it up to him eventually, maybe write a nice fluffy hearts-and-flowers fic. But for now, it's gore central. See you at the end of the chapter, folks.
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Smell was the first thing Tatsumi regained, and it was immediately unwelcome. He could smell the cloying stench of fresh blood, his blood, as it stuck to everything, a thick odor that made him gag. Behind that was the older smell of must and decay, the fetid reek of death and rotting corpses, the rank stench of a mausoleum. He opened his eyes, surroundings blurry without his glasses, though it hardly mattered. Wherever he was being held prisoner was shrouded almost totally in darkness, and what bare bits of light there were, it was not enough to call upon shadows. Tatsumi tried moving, his ears assailed with a thin squealing sound, like fingers strumming across piano wires, and the squelch of these wires hitting flesh and muscle. Sticky wetness seeped into his clothes, the thin fabric of his shirt, the smell of blood growing stronger. He coughed, blood and spittle flecking his paled lips, the effort of breathing only slicing the flesh of his neck more. A binding charm, no doubt made from the hair of murdered women, he knew of few people who used such an item.
A tiny glowing light like a firefly blinked into view, and Tatsumi realized it was the smoldering end of a cigarette held between thin, colorless lips as the familiar face of his captor reeled into view. Even mostly blind, Tatsumi could recognize that face anywhere.
"Muraki," he breathed, unable to speak louder than a choked whisper.
The mad doctor smiled, plucking away his cigarette. "It has been some time, hasn't it, Mr. Tatsumi? And yet still that same contemptuous sneer. Not very becoming of you at all."
"Let me go," the secretary hissed. "Cut me loose."
"Why? So you can rend me limb from limb with your obedient shadows? I think not. You see, Mr. Tatsumi, if it hadn't been for your interference, I would've had everything I wanted. Because of you, I lost everything that was mine."
"Tsuzuki and Hisoka were never yours."
The pale doctor's lips curled up in a hideous scowl as his palm cracked across Tatsumi's cheek.
"Shut your mouth! You are in no position to speak to me like that. I have spent these long years thinking of you, Mr. Tatsumi. Thinking of ways I could make you suffer in the way I have suffered. And believe me when I say you will suffer. When I am through, you will be begging me for death," Muraki remarked, his voice low and threatening.
"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction," Tatsumi retorted, spitting a mouthful of blood at his captor. Muraki wiped his cheek, an odd smile on his face. A cruel kind of smirk.
He leaned close to the Kagetsukai, that horrid leer of his still tugging at his lips as he crushed his mouth against the brunette's, forcing his tongue into the captive man's mouth, tasting his blood, his life. He slammed his body against the bound and gashed one, hands buried in russet hair, his tongue plundering the warm heat, raping his prisoner with a single kiss. That hideous smile stayed on Muraki's lips as he pulled away, moving to whisper in Tatsumi's ear.
"Your broken and bloody body will be mounted on a pike for all of Meifu to see, I will slaughter those you love most and drink their blood…but I will keep your blonde whore alive, just so that you will not have the pleasure of spending your afterlife with him," he murmured, licking his lips. "I can almost hear his tortured screams as I drag him to the ground and fuck him."
Tatsumi's fingers twitched, the most movement he could make under his restraints. "I'll kill you, you bastard, if you so much as look at him. You stay away from Watari."
Muraki's chuckle cut through him more than the binding charm's threads.
"Still making threats in the face of death, how noble of you, Mr. Tatsumi. Perhaps I won't kill you right away, perhaps we shall prolong this. I was considering putting you under my influence, inviting your little bitch here so he could watch as you screamed out my name in ecstasy, let him kill you for me. But that would be such a waste, after all, I used all of this time to find a suitable way to destroy you with my own hands."
The doctor vanished from sight for a moment, the glowing embers of his cigarette the only thing visible in the dark. He returned moments later, holding a stiletto in one hand and a small jar in the other. With the blade he cut lose the binding spell, dropping Tatsumi to a dusty and cold stone floor slimy with his blood.
"This will be more enjoyable if you have room to writhe," he stated. "And, just so you are aware, I've disabled your healing abilities. So, even if you survive this, I can still bleed the life out of you."
"Muraki…" Tatsumi gasped, reaching out a hand to grasp the man, pull him down to the floor. A fine leather sole stomped down on the fine-boned hand, the silver-haired man crushing it under his heel. Tatsumi bit back cries of pain, clutching his mangled hand, his writing hand. He wouldn't scream, he wouldn't give Muraki the pleasure.
"I found this in the Andes, the ancient South American peoples used this in rituals for human sacrifices. Their language had no words to describe it; I like to think of it as a shadow-eater. It will quite literally consume you from the inside out."
He uncorked the bottle, tossing the stopper somewhere in the dark, the cork skittering across the floor. One thin-fingered hand forced Tatsumi's mouth open, the other tipping the bottle down the man's throat. Tatsumi coughed and gagged, forced to swallow a dark, viscous fluid that tasted absolutely rancid and burnt his throat going down. His body quivered with a spasm, the bitter liquid seeping into his veins.
"Enjoy your sanity while it lasts, Mr. Tatsumi," Muraki said with a cold sneer, disappearing into the darkness once again. Tatsumi gasped and dry-heaved, his battered body convulsing on the filthy ground. Only his mind still remained intact, unpolluted by the drug.
"I can't die," he thought, trying to raise himself from the ground. "Too many people depend on me."
The faces of his coworkers, his friends, flashed before his eyes. There was Hisoka, the barest of smiles on his young face. Tsuzuki, grinning like a fool, a cupcake in his outstretched hands. And Watari, leaning on one hand, smudges of soot on his cheeks and nose, his eyes bright with love.
"Watari…" he whispered, reaching for that intangible vision. "Help me…"
Tatsumi fell forward, consumed in darkness, the name of his lover tumbling from his lips as blackness swallowed him whole.
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Notes: I don't have anything to say, I'm still horrified that I brutalized Tatsumi, and this is only the start of the hurty chapters. I'm going off into a corner now to cringe at my own evilness.