the warmth of a whisper

"I feel sorry for you, Saru. You couldn't find someone to save you." – Yata Misaki, Yata & Fushimi Trading CD

He just needed a minute to rest. Fushimi slipped into an empty alley and collapsed against the side of one of the buildings, letting his eyes slide listlessly to the sky. Bar HOMRA wasn't all that far off, but god, he'd nearly been skewered, and by amateurs too.

Angrily, he fingered the small knives hidden down his sleeves and replayed the fight before his eyes. The arc of spinning blades throwing afterimages of silver into the air, ribbons of red lacing them together between his fingers… He'd drawn blood from flesh, but all the same had been overwhelmed by the enemy clan's numbers. Thinking about it, he let an irritated breath slip from his mouth. He could kill—he knew it, never questioned it; it was bone-deep, that certainty. Still, he lacked that essential something that made men like Mikoto and Kusanagi dangerous. At this rate, Yata and his toy skateboard would outfight him.

"Fushimi-san?"

He started, lifting his head from where it had fallen sideways against the wall.

"It is you!" The figure sidled into the alley. "Uwaa, you're bleeding! Should I grab the others?"

"Don't bother," Fushimi said pointedly. The other didn't take the hint, and sat across him against the other building, legs sprawled outward. Totsuka Tatara was a hard man to hate, but Fushimi was determined to manage it before the man could distort his opinion of HOMRA.

"You're so beat up!" Totsuka ignored Fushimi's annoyed exhalation, and reached forward to tug on his sleeve. "Did you try to fight the Greens by yourself again? You know Kusanagi-san said that you and Yata-san aren't ready to—"

"Lay off it. This is the only way I can get stronger, because—" He flicked his tongue against his teeth, interrupting himself. "Not that you would understand."

"I wouldn't, huh?" Totsuka leaned forward, the cupid's bow of his lips curved in a curious smile. "You against the world, Fushimi-san. Why is that?"

"Stop it." Fushimi flexed a fist, weary rather than annoyed. A spume of red flared from his fingers, and he sent it careening into the sky above them. Totsuka started, but before the flames could fall back on them, he extinguished them with a careless wave of the hand.

Totsuka nodded in answer to his unsaid statement, maddeningly complacent. "You're something different, Fushimi-san. You're going to take this place by storm."

The comment knocked him off balance for a second, before he snapped his fist shut. "HOMRA isn't big enough for it," he murmured.

"You're right. Maybe there's nowhere that can hold you, Fushimi-san."

He looked up sharply. Totsuka lifted his shoulders in an almost helpless motion. "Still…" He twitched a finger, beckoning.

"Tch," Fushimi sighed, but leaned in anyways.

Before he could pull away, warm arms folded around his neck, elbows resting on his shoulders. Fine sandy hair swathed his cheek, softer than grass. There was a whisper at his ear. "These arms can always try."

He froze, muscles tensed in an unfulfilled motion, and wondered when his first reflex at being touched had become to push the offender away. But for all the flame he could call forth, this was a different kind of warmth—all light and heat, and no burn. It would be so easy to slump into those arms.

So easy, and so careless. It might not burn now, but it would smolder if he let it.

So he yielded to the reflex that bid him jerk back and mutter "The hell?", even as his bruises stung with the indignation of sudden movement. Totsuka withdrew his arms graciously, and laughed.

"I got blood on you," Fushimi stated simply after a moment. Totsuka's white button-down shirt was streaked with a muted red already darkening to maroon in the summer heat.

The other shrugged it off, jumping up. "It's fine, fine. Shall we go back?"

Fushimi stood, ignoring Totsuka's extended hand. Familiar annoyance engulfed him. Still, as they ambled out, Totsuka skipping and him sauntering after, he couldn't figure out why he so hated the sight of blood on this man.

Because Fushimi needs a hug to make up for all the torture I have and will put him through in my other fics *cackles*