"Are you in love with me, Shotarou?"
The detective in question choked on his coffee. What didn't end up in his windpipe wound up all over his tie and the desk in front of him, and it took him several long seconds to regain control of his own lungs. All the while he could feel his partner's eyes on him, very nearly burning holes straight through his already ruined clothing, and one of these days he was going to find a way to make Philip regret doing this kind of crap.
Once he was sure he could breathe without setting off another coughing fit, Shotarou lifted his head. Just as he had expected, Philip was staring at him over the top of his book with a mildly curious tilt to his eyes. Shotarou returned his stare with as venomous a glare as he could muster, before muttering a curse and reaching for a napkin.
"Don't surprise me with questions like that," he grumbled. Now his favorite tie was ruined, and Windscale wouldn't repeat the design for another season or two at least. Maybe more, if they were feeling particularly creative this year. "Why would you need to know something like that?"
"I was reading," Philip began, and Shotarou snorted. Philip screwed up his face at him and continued. "I read that people who share intense experiences with each other often forge a bond stronger than simple friendship. You and I are partners, aren't we?"
Shotarou's stomach bottomed out. Of all the conversations they could be having, why this one? He'd been having a good day today. They'd already spent the morning with a client, helping her canvas the park for a stolen bicycle. They had even succeeded in finding it. And Philip had made fun of him for not making a thirteen-year-old spend her allowance to pay for their detective services, and Shotarou had smacked his shoulder, and everything had been perfectly fine until this exact moment.
"Of course we are," he said, "but that's not—"
"We've shared all of the same experiences," Philip said, steamrolling right over him. "We've fought together. We've shared a body and mind. You witnessed the birth and the death and the rebirth of the person I am now. Doesn't that make us very close, even as partners go?"
Shotarou dabbed at his tie, his lips pressed into a taut line. "That's not how it works," was the only thing he could think to say. There was a better explanation, a more accurate one that would make more sense to Philip's inquisitive mind, but Shotarou wasn't exactly known for his elegant locution under pressure.
This had always been Philip's problem. He read and read and read, and nothing he read was ever quite the way the Gaia Library described it. What did the earth know about how something like this might feel?
He looked up, and started back so hard that he almost knocked his chair over backwards. Philip was leaning against his desk now, staring hard at him with narrowed eyes. The small part of Shotarou's mind that wasn't busy trying to restart his heartbeat noted that it should be an office rule that Philip wasn't allowed to go barefoot any more. Maybe they should get him a bell. Akiko would think it was hilarious, she would probably find the biggest bell that Philip could reasonably wear. Maybe even sew a bunch of little bells into his beloved sweater-jacket-hoodie-things. Something.
"You're uncomfortable," Philip said, amusement curling through his voice. "Why?"
Shotarou glanced to either side. If he tried to bolt, Philip would catch him no matter which direction he went. He was too close to the desk, very nearly lying on it with how far he had leaned over. Instead Shotarou sighed and threw the wet napkin in his partner's face. "Because it's not a comfortable question! You don't just walk up and ask people if they're in love or not!"
Philip brushed the napkin aside and gave him an unperturbed smile. "But I want to know," he said. "What does it take to fall in love with a person? If caring for someone is all it takes, then we certainly fit the bill. We even live together, after all, and I don't know about you, but I can't imagine living anywhere else."
Shotarou unwound his tie. He could feel his partner's eyes boring holes into him, but instead of meeting Philip's gaze, he pursed his lips and studied the damage. Eventually he sighed and set it aside. "No good," he said. "That stain's going to be permanent. Thanks a lot, partner, I really appreciate that."
"Akiko has an excellent stain-removing detergent pen," Philip said mildly, "and you're ignoring me."
"Of course I'm ignoring you!" Shotarou said, exasperated. "I already told you, I'm not talking about this. If you want to talk about something, we should talk about how you owe me a new tie."
Philip picked up the offending article of clothing and examined it. Then he tossed it over his shoulder, and Shotarou was already halfway to his feet with indignation rising in his throat when Philip's hands closed around his own.
"I don't think you understand," he said gently, and ice went straight down Shotarou's spine. "Maybe I should have said it more clearly."
He was smiling, but Shotarou felt too cold for the expression to warm him at all. The chill crept from his chest up into throat and numbed his tongue. He shook his head and pulled his hands away, and confusion flashed across Philip's face.
"Shotarou?"
"Don't," he heard himself say as though from a great distance. "Just. Hang on a minute, will you?"
Philip frowned. His eyes were narrowed again, searching, analyzing, and Shotarou had to close his own for a moment to escape the feeling of being read like another one of the Library's books. He opened them again, but though he still felt a little like his lungs had been shoved in a freezer for a few hours, he breathed out a very slow sigh.
"You can't just decide you love someone based on what the Library says love is supposed to look like." He leveled his gaze at Philip, and the intensity he met made his resolve waver, but it held. "Just because we've done all those things you said, just because we've fought together and we live together and we've done all those other things, it doesn't... There's not a checklist you can run down and tick off all the boxes, and if you've met all the right qualifications, then that's it, you're in love with each other. It can't work like that."
Philip tilted his head to the side. "Is that what you're thinking? Why?"
Shotarou ran one hand down his face and sighed. "Look," he said. "You have the Library, right? You must have read about hundreds, thousands of different people who met all those checkmarks and weren't in love. You can't look at it as the obligatory thing once you've been around each other long enough. It's not fair on you, not when you could be anywhere you wanted or with anybody else right now instead of stuck here with me."
Something flashed in Philip's expression. His lips went thin, and Shotarou had half a second to regret saying everything he had said in the last thirty seconds and also the last two years of his life before his partner spoke.
"I agree," Philip said. There was a crackle and tear in his voice like twigs snapping under a fierce wind, and Shotarou wasn't sure any more if Philip agreeing with him was something he really wanted to experience. "Those are all important points. But you have to know that I've read up on every single one of those examples. You know I like to be thorough in my research." He leaned in again, close enough for Shotarou to see the stormclouds gathering behind his eyes. "This isn't about any of that, is it?"
Shotarou stepped back almost on reflex, alarm sending his heart leaping somewhere into the vicinity of his throat and making a damned good effort to push higher. "What are you talking about? Of course that's what I meant, I don't—"
"You said it yourself." Philip prowled around the desk, each movement slow and cautious. "You called it being stuck with you. But I already told you, didn't I? I can't picture living anywhere else. Or with anyone else. So why do you keep insisting that I'm wrong?"
His steps brought him closer and closer. Some logical part of Shotarou knew there was no threat, not from his own partner, but Philip moved like a predator and Shotarou felt nothing if not cornered. Was this how mice felt right before the end? Maybe he would have to ask the Library someday, if Philip would let him. And if it cared to remember something as trivial as a passing emotion.
Philip looked him up and down, then reached out and pressed his fingertips very carefully against Shotarou's wrist, and all he wanted at this precise moment was for the ground to open up beneath him. Maybe he could dig his way down to whatever mass hive consciousness hosted the Gaia Library and have a chat with it about how it collected and hosted its data. Anything to get out of this before the dark thunderclouds in Philip's eyes spilled over into a proper tempest.
"You really think I messed up," Philip said slowly. "You think I made the wrong choice. That this was a mistake."
"I never said that," Shotarou protested, but his voice sounded weak even to his own ears.
Philip's eyes flashed with lightning. "Then answer the question," he said.
Shotarou pulled back again, away from the touch on his wrist. "I can't!" he snapped. "I can't do that to you! What if you miss something important, huh? What if there's something better you could be doing, something you would love or something that would make you happy, and you'll never find it because I'm still holding you back?"
His chest felt heavy now, as though the ice inside of it had grown too heavy for his bones to support its weight. Philip's eyes grew wider and wider, but now that the words were rushing out, pushed inexorably upward by the glacier growing in his ribs, he wasn't sure he could stop them.
"It's just like before," he said, his vision growing more blurry the faster he spoke. "You could have been partners with Terui Ryuu. You could even have been partners with Akiko, for all I cared—if you had asked me to give W to her or anyone else, I would have! But out of everybody who could've made you stronger, out of every single choice you could make to go find something new and better to learn about, you keep picking me! You already know everything about me! Aren't you bored with me yet?!"
Philip clapped his hand over Shotarou's mouth. His words came to a juttering halt, and when had he started breathing so heavily, when had he gotten so dizzy?
He could have backed away. But his fists were clenched so tightly that his palms hurt, and he had to keep blinking to fight back how his eyes prickled, and Philip was still staring at him as though his own lightning bolt had stabbed him square between the eyes.
"Shotarou."
Shotarou blinked hard again, once, twice, three times. Philip's hand moved to Shotarou's cheek, and that hazy background part of his mind noted that his palms were more calloused than they had been before. Before when? Before they became W for the first time? Before Philip had finally started leaving the bunker and venturing out into the world instead of relying on the Library's descriptions of it? Before he had died?
"The Gaia Library has more information on more things than you could ever imagine," Philip said. The storm in his voice had softened now to a gentle breeze. "It's never wrong, not exactly. But I've noticed something. The earth never remembers the most important things."
He pressed his thumb against the ridge of Shotarou's cheek. "It remembers big things. Definitions and examples and sometimes anecdotes. It even remembers you, Hidari Shotarou. But if the Library thinks a detail only has subjective importance, then it doesn't remember. So it doesn't remember that you used to make yourself take your coffee black even though you hated it, because you thought it made you look cooler. It doesn't remember that you only sleep with one sheet in the summer because it's too hot, but you need three blankets in the winter because it's too cold. It doesn't remember that you like putting pinwheels in the windows or that you like bubblegum pop and go to karaoke parties or that even though you complain about it, you've never turned down a job to find a lost pet."
He brought his other hand up to match the first and cupped Shotarou's face in both palms. "The earth doesn't remember you buying me hair clips in whatever colors I was missing. It doesn't remember you trying to cook food for two people and failing a lot for the first few months, but never giving up until you did it right. It doesn't remember how, even when I was a devil who thought he knew everything, even when I didn't really deserve it, you did your best to at least give me a home and keep me safe. And it doesn't remember that you cried for me when you had to let me go."
Their foreheads were touching now. Shotarou wasn't certain when they had drawn so close. All that mattered was that Philip was smiling now, and finally, finally, that ray of sunlight pierced down into his chest and melted away at the glacier that had formed up inside of him.
"The earth won't remember," Philip said softly. "But I will."
Shotarou let out a shaking breath. He pressed one hand against Philip's, and the other found its way to his chest, fingers curling into the lapel of his coat. But there was a sudden flash he hadn't expected in Philip's eyes, one of recognition and anticipation and triumph, and indignant fire wasted no time in roaring up to fill Shotarou's chest, replacing the now-forgotten chill.
"You already knew," he said, and even though his voice still crackled with the last vestiges of melting ice, accusation rang through it. "Even before you asked the damn question."
The corners of Philip's smile curled upwards. "Of course I did," he said with a wicked glint in his eyes. "That's the first rule of being a detective, isn't it? Never ask a question if you don't already know the answer."