Author's note: The following is the third part in my Damaged series, following Damaged (naturally) and Gone to Earth. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time recapping in this part, just jump in where I left off, so fair warning it might be useful to have at least a skimming idea of what went on in part two. It is my hope, however, that you will find it interesting regardless.

Standard YnM content warnings apply.

For HopeOfDawn, who introduced me to YnM and Evanescence, thereby linking them forever in my mind, and whom I blame for this enduring fascination.

Lost in Paradise

—=o=—

{You might wake up some mornin'

To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind. . . .}

Consciousness filters in slowly.

His surroundings: an Impressionist painting in shades of white. Cotton on his skin. The bright light of morning. The scent of antiseptic: biting, metallic.

And that song. Beats of tambourine going round and round his brain, each English word stretched out an eternity. Toruses of musical sunshine, splitting his head open wide awake.

{And if you're quick enough to rise

You'll catch the fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow. . . .}

Tsuzuki tried to rise.

A grunt, and the sharp pain in his chest put him back down. Sightlessly, he put his fingers to the source of the hurt. Linen bandages surrounding his chest beneath a soft yukata, holding a gauze pad over his heart. Slight pressure of his fingertips gave way to tenderness in the flesh. Unexpected. He hissed.

And remembered. The gun in Ukyou's hands, trying to convince her to lower it. . . . Muraki making a move and the gun going off and . . .

He had died for a moment. Immortality had brought him back, as his flesh began to stitch itself back together.

But something wasn't right. This wound should have been long healed by now. And why did he feel so weak?

Drugs? A shinigami's body was still susceptible to their effects. But drugs wouldn't leave him feeling so drained, so hot and unsteady and light-headed, like he was on the mend from an intense fever.

{Don't be concerned

It will not harm you

It's only me pursuing somethin' I'm not sure of. . . .}

He pushed through the pain. His arm still worked, and was able to set him up. His vision reeled; he couldn't say how long it had been since he'd been upright; and when it stabilized again, he saw a room with spare but comfortable furnishings. Almost old-fashioned. Harkening back to—

No. It couldn't be. The same rattan chair from the clinic? The one the doctor's orderlies had set him up in day after day, in some hopeless attempt to get him to speak, to make an effort to keep living. . . .

And that nightstand . . . He remembered glass bottles on it, not a vase of roses. The glass he broke. It cut his wrists so neatly. . . .

The roses had none of that same potential. They even lacked thorns. Tyrian purple, he thought the color was called, more red than violet, in an otherwise pale room. Like wine. Or the blood of mollusks. It was like staring into his own eyes.

Tsuzuki slid off the bed and onto his feet. Stood there for a moment until he was certain they would support his weight. The song played on in a jaunty, repeating melody of airy violins, taunting him. He wanted to turn it off. He wanted silence. He needed to think.

{You might have heard my footsteps

Echo softly in the distance through the canyons of your mind

I might have even called your name

As I ran searching after something to believe in. . . .}

An old gramophone played the offending record on a table just outside his room in the hall.

Tsuzuki braced himself against the wood of the door frame. He had spent too much of what strength he could muster on just the walk this far. The furnace that had started to burn out inside him found some new fuel, sweat trickling down his brow. His knees shook, and he saw the bandage blossom with fresh blood beneath the fold of his robe. The record spun in his peripheral vision, bringing a tide of vertigo.

"Do you understand English?"

By now, it was no surprise to hear Muraki's voice. His last waking memory was of being taken up in that man's arms, again, unable to stop himself from being spirited away. That voice had been there in his dreams, what little of them he could recall.

{. . . It's only me pursuing somethin' I'm not sure of

Across my dreams

With nets of wonder

I chase the bright elusive butterfly of l—}

Muraki raised the needle off the record and set it aside. And Tsuzuki let his eyes fall closed and breathed in the blessed silence.

"Enough," he said through dry lips. He understood enough to feel like that butterfly, being endlessly chased. Once he had envied their freedom, from his bed in the elder Muraki's clinic, before he knew what new chains death would bring. Reality was hard enough without being mocked by music as well.

"It was a popular song when I was a child. I remember Mother playing it often. On repeat. Even before I learned what the lyrics meant, I think I could sense the longing in it. The feeling of being obsessed with such a distant, intangible thing."

Again, with that tired old line? It's not like he's never caught me before.

But when Tsuzuki looked up, something stared back at him from Muraki's eyes that surprised him. He had seen it before, when Muraki had tended the wounds of that little girl in the park, the day they first met. The doctor reveled in his power to fix people.

Only now Tsuzuki understood that breaking them was no less fun for Muraki than putting them back together.

"In some cultures, butterflies are believed to be the souls of deceased loved ones, returning to visit the living. When I was young, I often wondered: If such an unlikely thing turned out somehow to be true, whose soul was coming to visit me? Can you guess who I was hoping it might be, Tsuzuki?"

And now you finally have me. Don't you? Your elusive butterfly. "Where am I?"

A twitch of a smile. "My sanctuary."

Which was somehow less than an answer; it told Tsuzuki nothing. "How long?"

"A little more than a week."

More than a week . . . Since that night at Ukyou's house when everything had happened. It seemed like yesterday and a lifetime ago and a dream all at once. A week since she had been taken by the devils. A week since Enma's forces had come for him, and Hisoka—

Had burned up in Rikugou's light.

God, he didn't want to remember! It had to have been a dream. Otherwise . . . Otherwise . . .

Tsuzuki hardly noticed as he sank to the floor. This ache in his chest wasn't from his wound, but it seemed to cut right through and twist in his heart, over and over. He wanted to scream it away, but he couldn't even catch his breath for it. He's gone. He's really dead. And because of me. . . .

He didn't push away the fingers that gently wiped the tears from his cheek. Muraki crouched beside him, his voice tender, and for once Tsuzuki didn't feel like fighting it. What would be the point anyway? Who would he be fighting for?

"You were shot. The bullet punctured your aorta and a lung. I expected you to heal quickly, as you always do, but you did not. During the fight, one of your colleagues hit you in the back with a blade. I presume it was laced with some sort of toxin, one which I've yet to identify but which appears to disrupt your body's ability to heal itself."

A poisoned blade could explain the way he felt. If Tsuzuki didn't know Muraki better. "You drugged me."

For a moment, Muraki looked as though he was going to deny it.

"Yes," he said at last, reluctantly. "But only to keep you at peace. Keeping you unconscious seemed the only way to do that. When you were awake, you were delirious with the pain, and unable to move much regardless, except to worsen your wounds. My intent in putting you under was to spare you from that hell and stop the bleeding the best that I could. Do you not remember?"

Tsuzuki tried to find any memory of that time . . . but failed. Shook his head.

"Please give me some credit, Tsuzuki. I may be a monster, but I am not without feeling. It still pains me to see you suffer at the hands of others."

"Right," Tsuzuki groaned, since he couldn't bear to laugh. "That's your job. You're the only one who's allowed to hurt me, aren't you?"

"Ultimately I have your best interest at heart," said Muraki, "no matter what I may do to you. You may not want to believe me, but the sooner you accept that truth, the better."

"And I suppose you plan to keep me locked up in this place indefinitely? A playmate for your sadistic games?"

"No," Muraki chuckled softly. Almost sympathetically. "I will let you leave here—"

"When you've used me up?"

"When you're ready. And not a moment before."

To be continued.

{lyrics} borrowed from "Elusive Butterfly" by Bob Lind. Take a listen and tell me it doesn't sound a tad stalker-y.