A/n: This really angsty and deals with cutting. It's also a Tsuzuki/Hisoka in the end. I'm just having one of those days where nothing goes right and I hate myself so I guess you could say I'm Tsuzuki. Except far too many people would notice if I actually cut myself, so this is just my way of getting things out...without the help of a knife. I'm also rather pissed that I wrote a fic with a cannon couple and have yet to get a review for it. I feel like I shouldn't bother writing if no one is going to read. This is my job in real life, to write, and if I don't get feed back I feel like I'm not doing my job good enough. So please review.

Tsuzuki clutched the doorframe trying to steady himself.

'Won't someone please save me? Why do you all just stare? Why am I so alone?'

He took only a few more steps into the dark room before falling to his knees.

He pushed the door closed and reached into his pocket.

He let out a soft moan as he stroked the blade, cutting open his fingers before pulling it out.

'Why do I have to hate myself like this? Can't anyone save me from myself? Why did you leave Hisoka? I needed you.'

He didn't need the light to know the best places to cut and a part of him wished the wounds wouldn't heal so quickly.

He needed the pain.

For Tsuzuki, cutting wasn't about bleeding.

It was about feeling pain to know he still had some semblance of feeling left.

It made him remember that he was only human.

A human given gifts and curses that made him insanely powerful.

He never seemed to be able to go through a day without screwing something up, either for himself or someone else and it was building.

The hatred he had for himself clawed its way through the bouncy exterior and reared its ugly, blood thirsty head.

Cutting himself was the only way he was able to find to kept that horrible place with the roses away.

For a brief second he was there, but he laid the blade to his wrist and screamed as he drove it into his flesh.

The image exploded into tiny sparks and he waited for the wound to heal before making another.

He could feel his warm blood seeping through his pant legs and breathed a sigh of relief as the pain set in.

'This is all I need. Just the knife and I. We'll be fine without them.'

But even as he thought those words, he felt that they'd never be true.

If they were he wouldn't hate himself so much.

'I'm just a screw up. That's all I'll ever be and no one will ever like me for who I am.'

Again he drove the blade into his wrist and dragged down, screaming for no real reason as the blood dripped down onto him.

"Why! Why can't I be loved! Everyone leaves!"

Suddenly he was assaulted by light and the knife went flying across the room.

"IDIOT!"

He stared up into furious emerald eyes.

"Hi-soka?"

Before he received a verbal answer, he was struck across the face as he watched tears form in his partner's eyes.

"So we get into a fight and you have to mutilate yourself! I didn't leave you Tsuzuki, I'm pissed at you!"

Tsuzuki curled himself into a ball and closed his eyes.

"What did I do?"

Hisoka kneeled beside him with a sigh.

"Tsuzuki...maybe I was wrong to yell at you. Didn't you know that Konoe was watching us? I don't like to let people know what's going on between us."

Tsuzuki held himself tightly.

"I guess I just don't understand. It's like when Wakaba was going out with Terazuma. He didn't want people to know and he dumped her a few weeks later. I don't want you to dump me. And all I did was hug you, it's not like I don't do that to everyone."

Hisoka sighed deeply.

"I just think those things should be left for places unseen by others. I don't want others to start thinking I'm just some love sick kid going after the only one who'll ever think of him as an equal."

Tsuzuki looked up at him.

"Hisoka...if anyone is thought of as a stupid love sick kid around here it's me. They call me an attention whore behind my back and I over heard someone saying they felt sorry for you having to be stuck with me because of how much I screw up all the time. Please don't be angry with me anymore...I can't take the thought that even you hate me."

Hisoka broke down into tears himself, the image of Tsuzuki cutting himself still fresh in his mind.

"I never said I hated you Tsuzuki, I said sometimes I didn't like you. Swear to me that you'll never do this again!"

Tsuzuki closed his eyes again.

"It's hard to give up something you've been doing for seventy years. It keeps me sane Hisoka. It keeps me from slipping back into that damn dream world."

Hisoka closed his eyes and lifted Tsuzuki's head into his lap, softly brushing his bangs.

"Let me be your sanity. You don't need that. You have no idea what I thought when I heard you screaming. And then to come in and find you slicing your arms open...it made me angry, and, sad, and guilty all at once. It was hard for me to learn to trust you after I'd been neglected and abused by everyone I'd ever come across...but I did and you can stop this."

Hisoka reached into his shirt and pulled a necklace from around his neck that Tsuzuki had no idea was there.

"I've been wearing this since it was given to me before my parents found out I was an empath. I want you to wear this always. You'll know that none of our fights are serious unless I ask for this back. It's the single possession I truly wanted to keep because for some insane reason it makes me think of my days as a small child...when I felt loved. So I want you to feel loved when you wear this."

Tsuzuki sat up, brushing away Hisoka's tears.

"I can't take that from you Hisoka. It's far too important."

Hisoka threw his arms around Tsuzuki.

"What I failed to say is that since you told me you loved me, it's been meaningless. I want it to have a meaning for you now."

Tsuzuki held him tightly.

"I swear I'll never cut myself again. Not as long as you're with me. But every now and then I need you to tell me that you love me. I know it, but sometimes I need to hear it."

Hisoka nodded slowly.

"Okay."

Tsuzuki stood, pulling him up too.

"I'm so sorry Hisoka, I never meant for you to see that. I don't want you to cry because of me."

Hisoka looked up into his eyes.

"I just was so scared."

Tsuzuki looked down into his eyes and spoke softly.

"Let me change and I'll walk you home. How did you get here in the first place?"

Hisoka took in a deep shuddering breath, unable to manage to stop crying.

He'd never seen something like that before and it scared the hell out of him to see Tsuzuki purposefully hurting himself because of what he'd said.

"Don't...make me go home now. That's where I was headed when I heard you screaming. I'm too scared you'll keep hurting yourself. I want to stay with you."

Tsuzuki smiled softly and kissed him.

"Okay."

Reluctantly he let go of the blond to change, but once he came back he took hold of him again and pulled him over to his bed.

He laid down first and pulled Hisoka into his arms, covering them with a soft blanket.

He kissed Hisoka's forehead, wrapping his arms tightly around him and smiled as Hisoka whispered softly.

"I love you Tsuzuki."

Tsuzuki yawned deeply and closed his eyes.

"I love you too Hisoka, so very much."

Soon the two fell asleep, holding tightly to each other through the rest of the night.