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matrixrefugeeFor me, this fic has been like the big mysterious-looking box that's been tucked under the tree all this time, the one you can't wait to open. I've been poking at it for some time and I'm glad to unveil it.
And with this one, I conclude the first 12 Days of Fanfic. I hope you enjoyed the fics and I'm looking forward to doing this again next year (and be better organized about it). Who knows? I might do something similar for Valentine's Day, if I can find a comm that's offering a similar challenge...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
Energy vampires and death gods in a snowstorm,
An Evangelion snowball fight,
Midnight Mass in the Trinity Blood-verse,
Doctor Hobby wracking Joe's brain,
One Meifu Christmas office party,
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
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"Baby, It's Cold Outside"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, aka Descendants of Darkness, it’s characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita, Hiroko Tokita, Manga Entertainment, Viz Media, Hakusensha, Central Park Media, et al.
Author's Note: The idea for this fic came to me on the morning of December 4th -- the not-so-good doctor's birthday, no less -- when I put the radio on as I was getting dressed and the Dean Martin version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" came on. I laughed to myself and said, "Has anyone done a male/male version of this song?" So of course I got the delightful -- and shuddery -- image of Muraki putting the moves on Tsuzuki, trying to keep him someplace where it's nice and warm, one blustery winter night...
WARNING: Contains definite slash (Muraki/Tsuzuki), nothing graphic or anything like that, but it's pretty obvious what's going on here...
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The end of December always seemed to bring a rush of work for the Ministry of Hades: souls of older people hanging on as they tried to hold out and see one more New Year come in, or souls of people for whom the season grew too much to bear. Tsuzuki hid it carefully from the rest of the team, and it was hard to hide it from Hisoka. But he could not hide from himself that he fully understood the latter.
They'd finished one especially hard case in Nagasaki, a retail clerk whose spirit had broken under the strain of the holiday rush, but who still lingered in the mortal world, afraid to leave her grieving family behind and worried that she had failed them somehow. Tsuzuki had told Hisoka to guide the girl's spirit into the afterlife while he lingered for a while in the human world. He found a secluded corner in a bar and ordered a few to take the edges off the pain memories, then a few more to try reviving his spirit, till the barkeep refused to serve him any more and offered to call a cab for him. Tsuzuki slurred a cheekily polite refusal, insisting he could manage under his own power, then staggered out, minus his topcoat, into the cold and the snow.
Snow had started to come down on a slant, the flakes wet on his face. The lights in the shop windows around him glowed like a colored mist that started to whirl around his head. He watched them slide sideways, realizing he had skidded on the icy pavement and sprawled in the snow. Several passersby walked a little more quickly past him, and he hardly blamed them. The warmth of his body melted some of the snow under him and the flakes that kissed his face.
He saw several pairs of feet gather around him and heard concerned voices above him. "Young people these days, wasting themselves on drink and drugs," one voice said and a foot nudged him rudely. He made no effort to get up or rebuke the person who'd kicked him. "Oh, the poor thing," another voice added. "Someone get a doctor," he heard one woman say.
The shadows that made up the crowd parted, making way for a pale shadow which knelt over him.
"Was it a fainting spell?" someone in the crowd asked.
"No, nothing like that," the pale shadow said, feeling his pulse at his throat and passing a hand before his eyes. "I think this young wastrel has merely indulged in a little too much holiday cheer."
"Muraki," Tsuzuki groaned, recognizing the voice. Pulling himself onto his knees, he tried to aim a punch at the pale man's jaw. Not only did he miss, Tsuzuki lost what little purchase he had on the icy ground. Muraki grabbed his arm, steadying him and keeping him from falling.
"Careful, Mr. Tsuzuki, you're in no shape to pick a fight with anyone, much less with me," Muraki said, with a hint of a dry laugh.
"Someone call a cab for him," another voice in the crowd said.
"He's an old friend of mine, I'll take care of him," Muraki said, managing to keep his tone professional, but Tsuzuki felt a seductive warmth flowing from the taller male's touch. He allowed Muraki to drape one arm over his shoulders, but he couldn't help cringing as Muraki slipped an arm behind his back to support him as he drew him upright and guided him along the snowy street.
"Wass th' big idea, Muraki? You followin' me?" Tsuzuki slurred.
"I do have a social life beyond you," Muraki said. "Though it pleases me deeply that you'd dare to think of me at this season. I'm in the city visiting relatives."
This creep has a family? Tsuzuki thought.
Muraki must have guessed his thoughts. "Oh, don't look horrified: I do have living relatives. Not all of my family has come to a tragic end."
He dimly sensed the light and warmth of the foyer of a posh hotel as they stepped out of the biting wind on the street, and the hovering shadow and concerned voice of a doorman drawing close by. "Who's this young fellow, Muraki-sensei? He looks half-frozen."
"He's an old friend of mine; I happened to find him half-dead from the cold."
"Ah, yes, the storm has grown worse," the doorman nattered. "Anyone would freeze to death if they stayed out for too long, especially in the state he's in, poor fellow. Do you need some help getting him upstairs?"
"Thank you, Sato, but I think I can take him from here on my own."
"Jus' leave me here, I'll warm up on my own," Tsuzuki said.
"Ah, but someone might see you in this muddled state. And it would be completely rude of me to just abandon you," Muraki said, guiding him across the marble floor.
Into an elevator and up several floors; Tsuzuki felt boxed in by the enclosed space, but the warmth just starting to return to his body caused him to ache all over.
Muraki must have sensed him tensing up. "Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything here: we're likely to get interrupted if another passenger got on, and I hate interruptions. I want every second that I spend with you in my arms to be focused on you alone, with no distractions or interlopers." That didn't stop Muraki from leaning in close to murmur these words in Tsuzuki's ear.
"Figgered a pervert like you 'ud like havin' someone watch," Tsuzuki said.
"I have my reputation to protect," Muraki said. A slow smirk crossed his face. "Though having someone watch us, someone who knows and accepts my predilections and who can keep them secret, that would add the moment a certain piquancy."
Tsuzuki cringed, groaning slightly. The very thought of being with Muraki intimately, much less with an onlooker made him nauseous; by an act of the will, he managed to keep his stomach from turning inside out.
"Don't you find it auspicious that I should find you at a time like this in the very city where we first met?" Muraki asked
"I came here onna case, stayed for a few drinks to settle m' wits," Tsuzuki said, closing his eyes and trying to shut out Muraki's face, only to find that pale, sardonic yet sensuous visage burned into his mind's eye like an after-image.
"Hmm, yes, I imagine you've been busy at this time of year: older folk just missing the new year, younger folk losing their grip on life," Muraki said. Tsuzuki opened his eyes and glared at him, but Muraki gave him a disarming twist of a smile. "No, none of them were mine, and even if any were, it would simply have been of natural causes. Not all of my patients come to the end of their lives at my hands. I can have the coroner's reports sent to you, if you wish."
"Don' want 'em, I jus' wanna warm up and get outta here," Tsuzuki mumbled.
"And no doubt that's why you got yourself into this state, trying to fog your mind so that you can't think of it any longer. I understand. You're not the only one with things in the past which you would rather keep locked away."
The elevator ground to a halt and the door pinged open. Tsuzuki nearly fell out onto his face, almost pulling Muraki down with him.
"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you're trying to rush things," Muraki said, with a chuckle deep in his throat. "Not in the hallway, either, Tsuzuki. Besides, you're still soaked to the skin."
He lead Tsuzuki along the hallway to a suite at the far end, unlocking the door with a keycard before helping Tsuzuki inside.
A gas fire burned on a hearth at one end of the front room. Muraki gently pressed Tsuzuki down onto the rug which before the fire. He half expected Muraki to take him then and there and he felt too tired and cold to resist. But to his surprise, Muraki helped him out of his clothes and into a white terry cloth robe, leaving him relatively unmolested. If he ignored the way Muraki's hands had lingered over his chest as he undid the buttons on his shirt and along his hip as he helped Tsuzuki out of his trousers. He realized how cold he actually grown when he realized his teeth had started to chatter again.
"I really c-can't stay," Tsuzuki said.
"But you only just got here," Muraki said, over his shoulder as he clattered about with something on a sideboard in the shadows of the room.
"You got me under some spell?" Tsuzuki asked.
"Nothing of the kind: they say that at this time of year, dark magic loses it's potency, 'No witch has power to charm/So hallowed and so gracious is this time', to quote an English poet."
Muraki approached and kneeling beside him, pressed a warm mug into Tsuzuki's hands. "Drink this. It won't sober you up, but it will make you feel more alert and the heat will warm your blood."
"Wuss this?" Tsuzuki said, eying the mug suspiciously.
"Black coffee, nothing more."
Tsuzuki took a gulp from the mug, but for the sweet taste, something did not seem right. "Wuss in this drink?"
"Nothing besides several lumps of sugar," Muraki said, with a phony air of innocence as he seated himself on the hearth rug and slid one arm around Tsuzuki's waist. "Do you mind if I move in closer? The best remedy for a chill as deep as yours is the warmth of another body next to you."
"Yeah, I do mind," Tsuzuki replied, trying to back away from Muraki and barking the small of his back against the ledge around the hearth.
"Move any further and you'll be sitting in the fire," Muraki said. With a chuckle, he added, "And if you must be aflame, I would rather it was with desire for me."
"Not gon' happen," Tsuzuki said, hiccuping. "Hass it let up out there?"
Muraki glanced over his shoulder to the windows at the far end of the room. "Not at all: if anything, the snow is coming down thicker and harder than when I found you." Almost as if in reply, a fierce gust of wind blew a cloud of snow against the darkened panes.
"I better get goin' once my clothes dry an' I warm up," Tsuzuki murmured.
"And leave me all alone at this time to be with one's loved ones? You wound me," Muraki said with a small pout that managed to look sinister. "Besides, what little conscience I have left could not bear it if you were to develop hypothermia and die."
"I'm already dead, Muraki," Tsuzuki groaned, taking another swing from the mug.
"There is always the final death," Muraki noted solemnly, but the look of desire had not left his pale eyes.
"I should head back: I gotta report to file," Tsuzuki hedged, trying to slip sideways along the edge of the hearth.
Muraki only moved in closer. "You'd write it sloppily and your superiors would call you onto the carpet; better to wait until your head has cleared."
"Tatsumi 'll be supicious if I hang around in the human realm too long."
"He should be able to understand your situation: you needed to thaw out and sober up, and you bided that time with a long time friend and admirer."
"Chief Konoe's been on me to file my reports punkshul... punshell -- dammit, on time."
"Thinking of business at a time like this?" Muraki tsked under his breath. "You have no idea how delicious you look: I could devour you here and now."
Tsuzuki started to his feet, determined to get going, but his knees wobbled under him. "Should jus' fine a phone and call a cab..."
"If there are any still on the streets in a storm as fierce as this... As fierce as my longing for you..."
Tsuzuki got one leg to straighten, but the other buckled and he sprawled on his back on the hearth rug. The fog in his mind left him too muddled to tell, but he suspected that Muraki had tugged his ankle from under him before pinning him to the rug and kneeling over him.
"Well, I guess I'm as much a mess as the weather. Can't sober up any faster than I am," Tsuzuki said, with a laugh that sounded like a sob.
"You're hardly that rumpled... but I would gladly leave you as much of a mess as the storm will leave this city... and make you enjoy every second of it..." Muraki said, leaning in and tracing a burning row of kisses down the side of Tsuzuki's neck. And somehow, Tsuzuki caught himself welcoming the warmth and heat from within which the touch of his enemy's mouth inspired...
And with this one, I conclude the first 12 Days of Fanfic. I hope you enjoyed the fics and I'm looking forward to doing this again next year (and be better organized about it). Who knows? I might do something similar for Valentine's Day, if I can find a comm that's offering a similar challenge...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
Energy vampires and death gods in a snowstorm,
An Evangelion snowball fight,
Midnight Mass in the Trinity Blood-verse,
Doctor Hobby wracking Joe's brain,
One Meifu Christmas office party,
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Baby, It's Cold Outside"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, aka Descendants of Darkness, it’s characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita, Hiroko Tokita, Manga Entertainment, Viz Media, Hakusensha, Central Park Media, et al.
Author's Note: The idea for this fic came to me on the morning of December 4th -- the not-so-good doctor's birthday, no less -- when I put the radio on as I was getting dressed and the Dean Martin version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" came on. I laughed to myself and said, "Has anyone done a male/male version of this song?" So of course I got the delightful -- and shuddery -- image of Muraki putting the moves on Tsuzuki, trying to keep him someplace where it's nice and warm, one blustery winter night...
WARNING: Contains definite slash (Muraki/Tsuzuki), nothing graphic or anything like that, but it's pretty obvious what's going on here...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The end of December always seemed to bring a rush of work for the Ministry of Hades: souls of older people hanging on as they tried to hold out and see one more New Year come in, or souls of people for whom the season grew too much to bear. Tsuzuki hid it carefully from the rest of the team, and it was hard to hide it from Hisoka. But he could not hide from himself that he fully understood the latter.
They'd finished one especially hard case in Nagasaki, a retail clerk whose spirit had broken under the strain of the holiday rush, but who still lingered in the mortal world, afraid to leave her grieving family behind and worried that she had failed them somehow. Tsuzuki had told Hisoka to guide the girl's spirit into the afterlife while he lingered for a while in the human world. He found a secluded corner in a bar and ordered a few to take the edges off the pain memories, then a few more to try reviving his spirit, till the barkeep refused to serve him any more and offered to call a cab for him. Tsuzuki slurred a cheekily polite refusal, insisting he could manage under his own power, then staggered out, minus his topcoat, into the cold and the snow.
Snow had started to come down on a slant, the flakes wet on his face. The lights in the shop windows around him glowed like a colored mist that started to whirl around his head. He watched them slide sideways, realizing he had skidded on the icy pavement and sprawled in the snow. Several passersby walked a little more quickly past him, and he hardly blamed them. The warmth of his body melted some of the snow under him and the flakes that kissed his face.
He saw several pairs of feet gather around him and heard concerned voices above him. "Young people these days, wasting themselves on drink and drugs," one voice said and a foot nudged him rudely. He made no effort to get up or rebuke the person who'd kicked him. "Oh, the poor thing," another voice added. "Someone get a doctor," he heard one woman say.
The shadows that made up the crowd parted, making way for a pale shadow which knelt over him.
"Was it a fainting spell?" someone in the crowd asked.
"No, nothing like that," the pale shadow said, feeling his pulse at his throat and passing a hand before his eyes. "I think this young wastrel has merely indulged in a little too much holiday cheer."
"Muraki," Tsuzuki groaned, recognizing the voice. Pulling himself onto his knees, he tried to aim a punch at the pale man's jaw. Not only did he miss, Tsuzuki lost what little purchase he had on the icy ground. Muraki grabbed his arm, steadying him and keeping him from falling.
"Careful, Mr. Tsuzuki, you're in no shape to pick a fight with anyone, much less with me," Muraki said, with a hint of a dry laugh.
"Someone call a cab for him," another voice in the crowd said.
"He's an old friend of mine, I'll take care of him," Muraki said, managing to keep his tone professional, but Tsuzuki felt a seductive warmth flowing from the taller male's touch. He allowed Muraki to drape one arm over his shoulders, but he couldn't help cringing as Muraki slipped an arm behind his back to support him as he drew him upright and guided him along the snowy street.
"Wass th' big idea, Muraki? You followin' me?" Tsuzuki slurred.
"I do have a social life beyond you," Muraki said. "Though it pleases me deeply that you'd dare to think of me at this season. I'm in the city visiting relatives."
This creep has a family? Tsuzuki thought.
Muraki must have guessed his thoughts. "Oh, don't look horrified: I do have living relatives. Not all of my family has come to a tragic end."
He dimly sensed the light and warmth of the foyer of a posh hotel as they stepped out of the biting wind on the street, and the hovering shadow and concerned voice of a doorman drawing close by. "Who's this young fellow, Muraki-sensei? He looks half-frozen."
"He's an old friend of mine; I happened to find him half-dead from the cold."
"Ah, yes, the storm has grown worse," the doorman nattered. "Anyone would freeze to death if they stayed out for too long, especially in the state he's in, poor fellow. Do you need some help getting him upstairs?"
"Thank you, Sato, but I think I can take him from here on my own."
"Jus' leave me here, I'll warm up on my own," Tsuzuki said.
"Ah, but someone might see you in this muddled state. And it would be completely rude of me to just abandon you," Muraki said, guiding him across the marble floor.
Into an elevator and up several floors; Tsuzuki felt boxed in by the enclosed space, but the warmth just starting to return to his body caused him to ache all over.
Muraki must have sensed him tensing up. "Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything here: we're likely to get interrupted if another passenger got on, and I hate interruptions. I want every second that I spend with you in my arms to be focused on you alone, with no distractions or interlopers." That didn't stop Muraki from leaning in close to murmur these words in Tsuzuki's ear.
"Figgered a pervert like you 'ud like havin' someone watch," Tsuzuki said.
"I have my reputation to protect," Muraki said. A slow smirk crossed his face. "Though having someone watch us, someone who knows and accepts my predilections and who can keep them secret, that would add the moment a certain piquancy."
Tsuzuki cringed, groaning slightly. The very thought of being with Muraki intimately, much less with an onlooker made him nauseous; by an act of the will, he managed to keep his stomach from turning inside out.
"Don't you find it auspicious that I should find you at a time like this in the very city where we first met?" Muraki asked
"I came here onna case, stayed for a few drinks to settle m' wits," Tsuzuki said, closing his eyes and trying to shut out Muraki's face, only to find that pale, sardonic yet sensuous visage burned into his mind's eye like an after-image.
"Hmm, yes, I imagine you've been busy at this time of year: older folk just missing the new year, younger folk losing their grip on life," Muraki said. Tsuzuki opened his eyes and glared at him, but Muraki gave him a disarming twist of a smile. "No, none of them were mine, and even if any were, it would simply have been of natural causes. Not all of my patients come to the end of their lives at my hands. I can have the coroner's reports sent to you, if you wish."
"Don' want 'em, I jus' wanna warm up and get outta here," Tsuzuki mumbled.
"And no doubt that's why you got yourself into this state, trying to fog your mind so that you can't think of it any longer. I understand. You're not the only one with things in the past which you would rather keep locked away."
The elevator ground to a halt and the door pinged open. Tsuzuki nearly fell out onto his face, almost pulling Muraki down with him.
"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you're trying to rush things," Muraki said, with a chuckle deep in his throat. "Not in the hallway, either, Tsuzuki. Besides, you're still soaked to the skin."
He lead Tsuzuki along the hallway to a suite at the far end, unlocking the door with a keycard before helping Tsuzuki inside.
A gas fire burned on a hearth at one end of the front room. Muraki gently pressed Tsuzuki down onto the rug which before the fire. He half expected Muraki to take him then and there and he felt too tired and cold to resist. But to his surprise, Muraki helped him out of his clothes and into a white terry cloth robe, leaving him relatively unmolested. If he ignored the way Muraki's hands had lingered over his chest as he undid the buttons on his shirt and along his hip as he helped Tsuzuki out of his trousers. He realized how cold he actually grown when he realized his teeth had started to chatter again.
"I really c-can't stay," Tsuzuki said.
"But you only just got here," Muraki said, over his shoulder as he clattered about with something on a sideboard in the shadows of the room.
"You got me under some spell?" Tsuzuki asked.
"Nothing of the kind: they say that at this time of year, dark magic loses it's potency, 'No witch has power to charm/So hallowed and so gracious is this time', to quote an English poet."
Muraki approached and kneeling beside him, pressed a warm mug into Tsuzuki's hands. "Drink this. It won't sober you up, but it will make you feel more alert and the heat will warm your blood."
"Wuss this?" Tsuzuki said, eying the mug suspiciously.
"Black coffee, nothing more."
Tsuzuki took a gulp from the mug, but for the sweet taste, something did not seem right. "Wuss in this drink?"
"Nothing besides several lumps of sugar," Muraki said, with a phony air of innocence as he seated himself on the hearth rug and slid one arm around Tsuzuki's waist. "Do you mind if I move in closer? The best remedy for a chill as deep as yours is the warmth of another body next to you."
"Yeah, I do mind," Tsuzuki replied, trying to back away from Muraki and barking the small of his back against the ledge around the hearth.
"Move any further and you'll be sitting in the fire," Muraki said. With a chuckle, he added, "And if you must be aflame, I would rather it was with desire for me."
"Not gon' happen," Tsuzuki said, hiccuping. "Hass it let up out there?"
Muraki glanced over his shoulder to the windows at the far end of the room. "Not at all: if anything, the snow is coming down thicker and harder than when I found you." Almost as if in reply, a fierce gust of wind blew a cloud of snow against the darkened panes.
"I better get goin' once my clothes dry an' I warm up," Tsuzuki murmured.
"And leave me all alone at this time to be with one's loved ones? You wound me," Muraki said with a small pout that managed to look sinister. "Besides, what little conscience I have left could not bear it if you were to develop hypothermia and die."
"I'm already dead, Muraki," Tsuzuki groaned, taking another swing from the mug.
"There is always the final death," Muraki noted solemnly, but the look of desire had not left his pale eyes.
"I should head back: I gotta report to file," Tsuzuki hedged, trying to slip sideways along the edge of the hearth.
Muraki only moved in closer. "You'd write it sloppily and your superiors would call you onto the carpet; better to wait until your head has cleared."
"Tatsumi 'll be supicious if I hang around in the human realm too long."
"He should be able to understand your situation: you needed to thaw out and sober up, and you bided that time with a long time friend and admirer."
"Chief Konoe's been on me to file my reports punkshul... punshell -- dammit, on time."
"Thinking of business at a time like this?" Muraki tsked under his breath. "You have no idea how delicious you look: I could devour you here and now."
Tsuzuki started to his feet, determined to get going, but his knees wobbled under him. "Should jus' fine a phone and call a cab..."
"If there are any still on the streets in a storm as fierce as this... As fierce as my longing for you..."
Tsuzuki got one leg to straighten, but the other buckled and he sprawled on his back on the hearth rug. The fog in his mind left him too muddled to tell, but he suspected that Muraki had tugged his ankle from under him before pinning him to the rug and kneeling over him.
"Well, I guess I'm as much a mess as the weather. Can't sober up any faster than I am," Tsuzuki said, with a laugh that sounded like a sob.
"You're hardly that rumpled... but I would gladly leave you as much of a mess as the storm will leave this city... and make you enjoy every second of it..." Muraki said, leaning in and tracing a burning row of kisses down the side of Tsuzuki's neck. And somehow, Tsuzuki caught himself welcoming the warmth and heat from within which the touch of his enemy's mouth inspired...
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