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“The Count is visiting today?”
Steam from the hot bath fills the dimly lit room, partially obscuring the singular green eye that peers up at Urie. Mutsuki sits with the water up to his shoulders in the circular, wooden tub, ever docile as he waits for his butler to finish setting up the bath. He holds a purple lollipop in one hand.
“Yes,” Urie replies, rolling up the sleeves of his dark blue kimono. He kneels by the edge of the tub, pouring oils of pastel shades into the steaming water. Pink, blue, green. Nice salts. (What a whole lot of excess and wealth.) Even he has to admit, though, that they smell nice.
(This could be mine soon. I wouldn’t even use all this, though…) A twinge in his chest, a bit of feeling. What folly, this sense of morality.
And Mutsuki’s eye bores into him, ever watchful, bright and trusting. (Trusting?) The hints of a smile tug at his lips, sticky with sugar. “So that’s why you made me bathe.” The twinge blossoms and jolts through Urie’s body, an immobilizing sort of hesitation.
(Guilt.) He ignores it, pushes it away. Urie is meant to play the Count’s dog, after all, but he supposes even hounds feel bad when they do something wrong. He silently stirs the bath water with his hand, the floral scent wafting up into the room. The mid morning light of an overcast, white-skied day casts the room in fuzzy shadows, the shapes all blurred just enough for Urie to hide himself away.
Wrong? Is what he is doing wrong? He’s not really sure.
“Urie.” Mutsuki’s speaking to him again. He looks up from the water, to the blurry image of his lovely face. “Why did you give me this lollipop?” He’s holding the purple sweet in front of his face, as if inspecting it in the light.
“I always gave babies candy when I bathed them at home,” Urie replies, continuing to stir the water. “To teach them that bathtime is sweet.” (And to keep them quiet.)
Mutsuki tilts his head up at him, smiling. “You’re very kind when you want to be.”
(I’m really not.) Urie shrugs. “What sort of caretaker would I be if I’m not?”
The heir looks like a doll, sucking on the grape candy with a cloth eyepatch over one eye, seemingly enjoying the heat. His dark green hair is tied up to a bun on the back of his head, but there are a couple strands lost and dangling down over his ears, framing his face like willow strands.
(The willow tree in the backyard, Mutsuki’s screams, Urie comforting him after his nightmares of his mother hanging from their branches. Urie holding him until he was still and asleep once more, running his fingers through long, veridian locks pooling on the mattress over his small back. He looked so small.)
Urie doesn’t know why he is reminded of that all of a sudden, nor why it makes his insides feel warm and twisted. He keeps stirring the water, as a good butler should, because he is good and will play his part. The ripples obscure the lines of Mutsuki’s body, the scars over his chest, his bent knees and crossed legs. Urie looks away. This all feels too intimate, too near, too kind.
But it is his job, and Urie always does his job properly with a blank face.
Mutsuki tugs the lollipop from his mouth with a small, sticky sound, his free hand coming up to his left cheek. His eyes narrow just the tiniest bit, and Urie sees discomfort written in the twitch of his shoulders, the faint scrunch of his nose. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“One of my teeth is sharp,” Mutsuki mumbles. “It keeps cutting me.”
(...) As a good butler, Urie should take care of the heir’s every demand. He dries off his hands and slips around the side of the tub, leaning over it and cupping Mutsuki’s face with one palm, opposite to the side with the sharp tooth. (Warm and soft.) One shiny green eye bores into his, like an emerald, the precious jewels Urie loves so much. He ignores the heat that blossoms through his guts, the sudden tenderness of his sinews, and tries to keep his voice steady. “Open your mouth.”
Mutsuki obliges, parting his lips and permitting Urie to run the thumb of his free hand along the inside of his mouth, wet and red. Urie feels his chest tightening, the heat rising to his face, but carries on — because what choice does he have, and really, why is he enjoying this so? The tops of Mutsuki’s molars are rough against Urie’s finger, sending a shudder down his spine.
“...yeah. It’s sharp.” Urie steps back, pulling his hands away from Mutsuki’s face; soft skin rubs against his calloused fingertips, and it feels as if it burns. He turns and hurries to an adjacent room to find the metal thimble needed to wear down the tooth. His thumb is still wet with saliva, warm and tingling. He hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels.
Because why should this make him so flustered? Why should he be so nervous about completing his simple duty as a butler?
When he returns, Mutsuki is staring up at him, licking the lollipop like a little kid. He silently opens his mouth again, and Urie leans over him once more, cupping his olive-skinned face and all its soft edges in one hand. He runs his thumb with the thimble on it against the sharp tooth, wearing it down with gentle pressure. The metal and enamel meet one another with a steady clicking lull.
Mutsuki’s mouth is very warm.
Urie doesn’t know where to place his eyes once he is certain the thimble has successfully found the sharp tooth. The clicking sound is hypnotic in the hot, steamy air. He lets his gaze lift to Mutsuki’s face and is immediately ensnared in the one green eye that finds him, wide and soft and doll-like. But there is a touch of softness, of darkness, in it; Mutsuki is searching his face for… something. For the lie? For a hint of feeling?
Urie feels his mask starting to crack, and yet he can’t look away.
He feels laid bare, caught in that green gaze with its deceptive naivety. And at once, he realizes, grinding down his teeth — Mutsuki surely knows everything about him, knows his past and the plot and all of him, and yet here he is, naked in baby’s bathwater and rose salt and leaning into Urie’s touch.
And Urie thinks he could fall in love, frozen in time in the steam-filled room, his hand cupping Mutsuki’s cheek, his thumb in between the fangs of a creature who could snap down and end Urie’s life whenever he wants to. And yet, Urie is not afraid.
Perhaps he’s already fallen in love. What other name can he give this feeling, the heat that threatens to degrade his insides until he is nothing but a pile of mush at Mutsuki’s feet? But love would be dangerous, feeling would be dangerous—feeling would ruin the plan.
(Do you even want to follow through with the plan, now?)
Darn it, this love, this urge to be kind and gentle and caring. Mutsuki thinks he is kind. He pushes the thoughts away.
It’s then that he realizes he has stopped moving for several breaths, simply staring at Mutsuki with Mutsuki staring back at him. Urie lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and removes the thimble, using his pointer finger to check the now-worn tooth. “...it’s smooth, now,” he whispers, averting his gaze as he quickly rises and turns away to clean and replace the thimble.
No, he cannot feel. He cannot ruin the plan.
So why does he feel so guilty, and why do Mutsuki’s eyes tempt him so?
He doesn’t see Mutsuki looking away, lifting one hand to his cheek where Urie had touched him, absentmindedly sucking on his candy.