[Yami no Matseui] (PG)
Nov. 3rd, 2013 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtxref_ficAuthor's Note: Written for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fic_promptly's any, any, his/her worst nightmare was outliving them all Set pre-canon, featuring Muraki just after his possible awakening as an energy feeder.
The full awakening of the darkness within him had improved Muraki's health, but a thought weighed now in the back of his mind, a thought that came to him any time that Oriya, Ukyou and he spent any amount of time together: the thought that he might outlive his friend and his beloved. He considered not feeding often, the better to slow down the inevitable, opting to feed only when he needed it the most, but that only made the darkness within mutter and snarl and threaten to drive him into a frenzy the next time he went down to Shinjuku to seek out some company for the night.
He fell to pondering this one cold winter evening, as the three of them sat over a pot of warm sake, Oriya and Ukyou swapping reminiscences about some small but momentous thing that had happened to them in high school.
Now that he had come into the fullness of his darkness, his true nature, he would live as long as he continued to feed. Fewer things could harm him now: he no longer caught colds or any other infection that strayed his way, and while he could still suffer the usual injuries and harm if someone attacked him. Instead of perishing when the worst happened, he would slip into a torpor while the darkness within healed him. And as far as he could tell, he would also age more slowly, to a point where gaps would start to show between him and the two who cared about him and who meant the most to him. Very likely he would outlive them both and the idea brought a quiet, despairing panic into his heart. One day, time and entropy and human mortality would take them from him and leave a void in his life which few could fill because so few truly understood him or saw him as the man he once had been.
Perhaps the only other who could come close to filling that void was the mysterious patient of his grandfather's, the lovely, violet-eyed young man who, if any truth could come from the news clippings which his grandfather had collected in which the patient's face appeared, had transcended life and death and transmuted into some immortal like himself. The question remained, where and how to find the young man?
And for that matter, considering the mysterious patient's ability to heal from any and all injury, perhaps Muraki could find the means to isolate the root of that ability and graft it into Ukyou, the better to sustain her gentle life and heal her of the illnesses that had plagued her since childhood.
"Care to share what what's got you so quiet, Kazutaka?" Oriya asked, putting down his cup. "Usually you're harder to shut up thsn usual, when you've had a few."
Muraki lifted his head, blinking and rubbing his eyes to hide the tears that wanted to run from his good eye. "I'm sorry: I'm afraid that I wasn't following the conversation very well: I think I'm still tired from that emergency coronary blockage that came in the other night," he replied. Not a lie, since that surgery had cut into his usual time to sleep or to hunt for a potential source of energy.
"Would you rather turn in early?" Ukyou offered. "I'll be up to keep you company."
"I think I can manage another hour or so," Muraki replied, reaching for the ceramic flask, to top off his cooling cup.
Oriya waited till he had finished with the flask. "You must be tired, if you're not contributing to the conversation," he said, taking the flask as Muraki handed it to him.
"No argument here," Muraki said, with a wry smirk, and took a sip from his cup, the better to hide the shadows that his dark thoughts projected in his eyes.
fic_promptly's any, any, his/her worst nightmare was outliving them all Set pre-canon, featuring Muraki just after his possible awakening as an energy feeder.The full awakening of the darkness within him had improved Muraki's health, but a thought weighed now in the back of his mind, a thought that came to him any time that Oriya, Ukyou and he spent any amount of time together: the thought that he might outlive his friend and his beloved. He considered not feeding often, the better to slow down the inevitable, opting to feed only when he needed it the most, but that only made the darkness within mutter and snarl and threaten to drive him into a frenzy the next time he went down to Shinjuku to seek out some company for the night.
He fell to pondering this one cold winter evening, as the three of them sat over a pot of warm sake, Oriya and Ukyou swapping reminiscences about some small but momentous thing that had happened to them in high school.
Now that he had come into the fullness of his darkness, his true nature, he would live as long as he continued to feed. Fewer things could harm him now: he no longer caught colds or any other infection that strayed his way, and while he could still suffer the usual injuries and harm if someone attacked him. Instead of perishing when the worst happened, he would slip into a torpor while the darkness within healed him. And as far as he could tell, he would also age more slowly, to a point where gaps would start to show between him and the two who cared about him and who meant the most to him. Very likely he would outlive them both and the idea brought a quiet, despairing panic into his heart. One day, time and entropy and human mortality would take them from him and leave a void in his life which few could fill because so few truly understood him or saw him as the man he once had been.
Perhaps the only other who could come close to filling that void was the mysterious patient of his grandfather's, the lovely, violet-eyed young man who, if any truth could come from the news clippings which his grandfather had collected in which the patient's face appeared, had transcended life and death and transmuted into some immortal like himself. The question remained, where and how to find the young man?
And for that matter, considering the mysterious patient's ability to heal from any and all injury, perhaps Muraki could find the means to isolate the root of that ability and graft it into Ukyou, the better to sustain her gentle life and heal her of the illnesses that had plagued her since childhood.
"Care to share what what's got you so quiet, Kazutaka?" Oriya asked, putting down his cup. "Usually you're harder to shut up thsn usual, when you've had a few."
Muraki lifted his head, blinking and rubbing his eyes to hide the tears that wanted to run from his good eye. "I'm sorry: I'm afraid that I wasn't following the conversation very well: I think I'm still tired from that emergency coronary blockage that came in the other night," he replied. Not a lie, since that surgery had cut into his usual time to sleep or to hunt for a potential source of energy.
"Would you rather turn in early?" Ukyou offered. "I'll be up to keep you company."
"I think I can manage another hour or so," Muraki replied, reaching for the ceramic flask, to top off his cooling cup.
Oriya waited till he had finished with the flask. "You must be tired, if you're not contributing to the conversation," he said, taking the flask as Muraki handed it to him.
"No argument here," Muraki said, with a wry smirk, and took a sip from his cup, the better to hide the shadows that his dark thoughts projected in his eyes.
