Warning: This chapter contains sexual content. For me that's a bonus, but I thought I'd mention it now in case not every reader feels the same way. For those who do feel the same way, read on and enjoy! :-)

-o-o-o-o-

Hisoka's dinner was an assortment of leftovers, microwaved and eaten at the kitchen counter because the thought of carrying his plate over to the small kotatsu table in his living room seemed like more effort than it was worth. When he was done, he shoved his bowl and chopsticks in the sink and drizzled a few globs of liquid soap over them. He was reaching for the faucet when his phone rang.

"Hisoka?" It was Tsuzuki's voice on the line. "You never came back to the office. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Watari said it was allergies."

Tsuzuki sighed. "I'm sorry. I'd never have worn that cologne if I'd realized."

"It's okay." Hisoka took a deep breath. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're okay."

Hisoka shrugged, forgetting that his partner couldn't see him. "You don't have to wear that stuff to impress anyone." He cranked the faucet as far as it would go and watched as the sink began to fill with frothy suds.

There was a soft laugh from Tsuzuki. "So I've been told."

"By Tatsumi-san?" A cold feeling gripped Hisoka's insides.

There was a flicker of startlement from Tsuzuki, and Hisoka marveled at how clearly he could sense his partner's emotions, even over the phone. "Yeah," Tsuzuki said finally. "How did you know?"

"Just a guess."

"Hisoka?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure you're okay? Maybe I should come over. Don't worry about the cologne, I washed it all off."

"Don't be stupid. I'm just tired, that's all."

There was a long pause. "Hisoka?"

The sink was almost full. Hisoka reached to shut off the tap. "What?"

"Are you still mad at me?"

Hisoka's hand hesitated in mid motion. "No, of course not."

"Then I can come over?"

"No."

"You are mad at me."

"No, I'm not!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Hisoka suddenly felt sick of the whole conversation. "I already told you. Go and enjoy yourself, I'm... fine." He hung up the phone. It started to ring again almost immediately. He turned it off and then reached to shut the tap off as well, but it was too late. Sopay water slopped over his bare toes. He cursed and went to get a tea towel.

Once he'd restored a semblance of order to the kitchen, he took his evening bath, put on a clean t-shirt and pair of boxers, and crawled into bed. He really was tired, but he forced himself to read for a while anyway. The book of Solomonic summoning rituals he'd borrowed from the library was due in a couple of days, and he was only on chapter three. He propped it open on his lap and dutifully tried to immerse himself in the explanations of magical alphabets and black mirrors and demons with strange Latin-sounding names. He couldn't focus. The more he stared at the pages the more the words seemed to crawl, forming images of Tsuzuki and Tatsumi out on their date.

He saw them kissing and holding hands just as Wakaba had suggested that dating people might do. He imagined them gazing into one another's eyes and finishing each other's sentences. The book wasn't helping. He snapped it shut and turned off the light. In the dark he curled over on his side, burrowing his cheek against his pillow.

Tsuzuki's scent was still there, faded but still perceptible. He gripped the pillow against his chest and breathed in, letting it fill his senses. "Asato," he whispered. The boy on the riverbank turned into his arms, seeking warmth. A wet face pressed against his collarbone, and he buried his hands in matted hair. A deep stillness filled him, as it had every night since he stole the pillow, and he let himself fall.

Tonight, his sleep wasn't dreamless. It started on the riverbank with the boy and the fireflies but his phone kept ringing, and when he got up to answer he realized it wasn't his phone at all, it was his doorbell. And when he opened the door...

"Muraki!" He stumbled backwards, tripping on the hall carpet in his panic to escape. The man in the trench coat glided towards him, blotting out the light of the full moon. Hisoka couldn't run. Some unseen force was slowing his movements, and it felt like he was trying to run through heavy syrup.

The room wavered. When it became solid again, the man was on top of him. Hisoka could feel his weight pressing him down into the carpet while the folds of the trench coat settled around them like great dark wings. His own clothes were gone. Sick terror choked his breathing as his whole being shriveled with terror not again! He twisted against the man's grip, fighting to dislodge him.

On some level he knew that none of this was really happening, but that never helped. He could never escape the grasping hands, the pain, or the suffocating weight of emotions. That was the worst part, worse even than the physical violation. There was no way to stop himself from feeling the pleasure that Muraki took in breaking him, in tearing him open and watching him die over and over, night after night.

But the tide of feelings flowing over him now weren't those. They weren't Muraki's. The hand that cupped the side of his face was gentle, the thumb tracing his cheekbone in what felt like a wordless plea. Hisoka forced his eyes to open. "Tsu... Tsuzuki?"

There was a quiver of relief from the man, and the shadowed face above him smiled. The boy from the riverbank was gazing down at him through the eyes of his partner. "Hisoka." A damp forehead pressed against his own, and the rush of feeling that came with that gesture was unmistakable.

How could he ever have thought it was anyone but Tsuzuki? And now that he knew, it seemed natural to touch him. To bury his hands in soft hair, to close his eyes and breathe in the familiar scent of him. He curled a hand around the back of Tsuzuki's neck and pulled their faces close without knowing why. But when Tsuzuki's mouth brushed his own, he understood.

Oh. Yes, of course.

This should frighten him, but it somehow didn't. The kiss was so warm and gentle, yielding rather than taking, and the arms wrapping around his torso felt like a support rather than a trap. He felt anchored there, sheltered within a secret darkness of arms-cloth-feathers. An ache of longing welled inside him and he opened into the kiss, a groan escaping without his permission.

He was becoming very aware of his nakedness, of Tsuzuki's body pressed against him full length. His body was doing things on its own, things that didn't make sense. He was lifting his knees, winding his legs around a taut waist, his palms gliding restlessly on heated skin. Tsuzuki was scattering kisses on his eyes, his cheeks, his throat, and he let his head fall back with a groan of Tsuzuki's name.

"Please." He didn't know what he was asking for. Only that there was something he desperately needed, something he didn't have a name for just now. But that didn't seem to matter. A raw, aching heat was slowly filling him, touching all the craving places inside him and lighting them one by one. Like stars. It felt as if they were becoming molten in all the places where they touched. As if they were merging, melting into each other.

Then they were moving together in a weightless dance. It was like flying. Hisoka's body arched into Tsuzuki's, following a rhythm all its own, and then without quite intending to he grabbed hold of Tsuzuki's arms and rolled on top of him. He bent low and sealed their mouths together, his need for oxygen apparently suspended along with the usual laws of physics.

Tsuzuki made a tiny sound at the back of his throat, almost a whimper, and Hisoka's answering groan didn't even sound like his own voice. It was deep and raspy and seemed to come from somewhere down around his toes. He broke the kiss and threw his head back--

--screamed--

--and his eyes flew open.

He was in his bedroom. Astride Tsuzuki's pillow, hips grinding frantically. Alone. He froze, staring down at himself as his brain struggled to catch up with what his body was doing. Then he dove for the box of tissues on his night stand in a desperate bid to prevent the inevitable. It was too late. His body spasmed, and he felt a gush of sticky warmth inside his shorts.

For a moment he remained exactly where he was, hand poised above the tissue box. Then he collapsed in a heap, listening to the slowing of his heartbeat while he tried really, really hard to not think about what had just happened. Apparently, he'd been monumentally stupid. Not that that was anything new, but he sensed that he'd crossed a whole new threshold of idiocy.

Who the hell would steal their coworker's sweaty, jam-stained pillow? No one. Well, with the possible exception of the Count, but that wasn't a very comforting thought. How could he have failed to see where this whole pillow-swiping business was going? Normal people didn't go around stealing other people's dirty bed linens. And they certainly didn't sleep with them.

He rolled off the bed with a groan, taking most of the bedclothes with him, and dumped them, pillow and all, into his laundry basket. It took a shower and two loads of laundry, with extra bleach, before he started to feel somewhat capable of approaching the topic in his mind. This he did over a breakfast of coffee and dry toast at an all-night restaurant, since the idea of going back to bed at this point was clearly unthinkable.

It wasn't like he hadn't known, or at least suspected, that he might be gay. In the back of his mind he'd always wondered if Muraki had sensed that about him, and if that was what had motivated him to attack him in the particular way that he had. Sometimes he wondered if his parents had known it too. But as unpleasant as those ideas were, they paled in comparison to the disturbing realization that some part of him--maybe a large part--wanted Tsuzuki to do that to him. The thing that Muraki had done.

The dream had couched it in metaphors, but the meaning was obvious. And that made no sense at all. He wasn't naive, he knew that guys did that. And apparently liked it, though he couldn't imagine why. Even without the accompanying blood-soaked memories, the act seemed, at the very least, incredibly unsanitary.

Perhaps he should consider himself lucky, then, that it wasn't something he'd ever have to worry about. His reflection stared back at him from the restaurant window like one of King Solomon's mirror demons: a boyishly round face with wide green eyes, a small mouth, and ears that stuck out because he'd never had a chance to grow into them.

The overall effect was child-like, and it didn't make the least bit of difference that he was actually eighteen. He'd look the same when he was eighty, when he was a hundred and eight. He'd never be tall enough to hold an umbrella above Tsuzuki's head, he'd never be able to set foot in a bar without being asked for ID, and people who saw them together would always assume they were teacher and student, uncle and nephew.

Tsuzuki needed someone mature, someone who could weather the storms of his depression and force him to see his own worthiness. Someone who could reassure him he was lovable, and loved. He needed an adult. And if Tatsumi happened to be that person, as Tsuzuki had said that he was, well that just made sense.

Hisoka gulped down the rest of his coffee and headed for the library. He had two hours to go before work started, two hours in which he could, with any luck, finish another chapter of his book. It was Gushoshin Younger, one of the librarians, who woke him.

"Hisoka-san!" the little chicken-god chirruped. "What are you doing sleeping here?"

Hisoka straightened woozily. He'd been slumped face down over his book, his head resting on his arms. "Hnn... what time is it?" he asked. Beams of multi-colored sunshine were streaming down through the stained glass skylights, turning Gushoshin Younger's white plumage an unlikely shade of violet.

"It's just after ten," the librarian informed him. "Tatsumi-san asked me to see if you were in here."

"Shit!" Hisoka jumped to his feet, and instantly regretted it. His head felt like it had been split open with a machete, and there now appeared to be two purple chicken-gods hovering in front of him. "You don't have any aspirin, do you?"

When he arrived at work, everyone was at their desks looking conspicuously busy. He hung his fawn coat next to the empty peg where Tsuzuki's trench coat would normally hang, and slunk towards their shared office. He'd only made it about halfway before Tatsumi's door swung open.

"Kurosaki-kun. Could I have a word with you?"

"Whoops," Terazuma said under his breath. Hisoka pretended not to hear him, and that he couldn't feel the speculative glances of his co-workers following him across the room to Tatsumi's office.

"Shut the door," Tatsumi ordered. He was standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back, his attention seemingly captivated by the cherry branches swaing in the breeze outside.

Hisoka hovered inside the door, unsure whether he should say anything. "I'm sorry," he said finally, when the silence became too much. "It won't happen again, I promise."

Tatsumi turned towards him with an odd intensity in his eyes, something Hisoka couldn't interpret. Then he waved his hand as if brushing the apology aside. "Your punctuality has never been of concern to me, Kurosaki-kun." He nodded to the visitor's chair. "Please. Sit down."

Hisoka sat.

Tatsumi drew a slip of paper from the pocket of his brown jacket and held it out to him. "I'm sending you and Tsuzuki-san into the field today."

"What?" Hisoka was on his feet again before he quite realized it. "Tsuzuki's still recovering! You can't just send him back out there."

"I can, and I already have," Tatsumi said firmly. "Watari-san assures me that he's well enough to start work again on Monday, so there's no reason he can't just as easily start today. And this is an assignment that simply cannot wait."

"Why, what is it?" Hisoka demanded. "What could be so urgent that you'd endanger--"

"Kurosaki-kun!" Tatsumi's voice was like a whip-crack.

Hisoka glared at him. He knew his tone was insubordinate, but right now he was beyond caring. Tatsumi had said that he cared about Tsuzuki, that his happiness mattered to him. Yet here he was, sending him out on an assignment where he might have to face just about anything. Images of blood, of tortured bodies and broken lives rose in his mind's eye. And Muraki. Always Muraki. The doctor was out there somewhere, still alive and perhaps killing again, perhaps already starting a new trail of bloody breadcrumbs to pull Tsuzuki into his clutches.

"It's easy for you," he said through gritted teeth. "You don't have to deal with the consequences. You're not the one who has to watch him fall to pieces. You just hang out here in your nice tidy office and sign the paperwork afterwards as if nothing ever happened, and--"

"Hisoka-kun."

Hisoka fell into stunned silence. Tatsumi had never called him by his given name before, and the fact that he didn't immediately follow it with "You're fired," or "Go and clean out your desk," or even "I am adding a letter of reprimand to your file," was even more astonishing. And then, before he had a chance to fully process the weirdness of the situation, Tatsumi did something even more surprising. He smiled.

It was a slow, sad little smile, so full of longing and regret that Hisoka felt his anger draining away in spite of himself. "It's not the kind of assignment you're thinking of," Tatsumi said. He extended the slip of paper again, and Hisoka took it numbly. "Tsuzuki-san will explain when you get there."

There was an address written on the paper in Tatsumi's small, neat handwriting. It was vaguely familiar, but Hisoka couldn't place it. He tucked it in his pocket. "I will do as you ask," he said, a bit stiffly. He bowed and turned towards the door.

"Wait, Kurosaki. There is one other thing." Tatsumi sank down behind his desk and pulled a stack of reports towards himself as if he was erecting a barrier. "I need to discuss something with you concernning the Kyoto case. Please, sit."

Hisoka sat down warily. "What about the Kyoto case?"

"I think you deserve to know," Tatsumi began slowly, his gaze fixed on the paperwork in front of him. "When I summoned the shadow vacuum to pull you and Tsuzuki-san from the flames, I was only trying to save one of you."

"Ah." Hisoka picked at a fraying thread on the cuff of his black sweater. "I understand. You and Tsuzuki have known each other for a long time, and I know that he's... important... to you."

He felt surprise from Tatsumi, followed by a glimmer of wry amusement. "That's all true, Kurosaki-kun, but I think you misunderstand. It was you I was trying to save."

Hisoka dropped the thread. He glanced up, but Tatsumi's gaze was still veiled.

"I couldn't have him lose you," the Secretary went on, quickly now as if he was in a rush to get the words out. "I couldn't let him die thinking that he'd dragged you down with him."

There was a surge of intense feeling behind those words, an emotion that ached and bled like an infected wound. He needs something from me, Hisoka realized. The knowledge was so sharp and clear it actually hurt. "It wasn't like that," he said softly.

Tatsumi glanced up, waiting for him to go on. Hisoka took a deep breath, his hands clammy on the knees of his jeans. Tatsumi needed forgiveness, so that he could forgive himself. So that he could open himself up to Tsuzuki, be there for him in the way that he needed. Hisoka's stomach clenched in rebellion at the thought, but he forced himself to continue. For Tsuzuki's sake. For his happiness.

"In that last moment, he was... at peace," he said. The words sounded weak, pitifully inadequate to describe something so big and powerful that his own body and Tsuzuki's had felt too small to contain it. Even together. "He wasn't afraid any more," he finished, almost in a whisper. Rocks were crushing his chest, he couldn't breathe.

"I've made so many mistakes concerning him," Tatsumi said, almost to himself. "And yet, in some way, it has all worked itself out for the best." Their eyes met for the first time and Hisoka felt a sudden lightness from Tatsumi, as if a burden had been lifted. "Thank you, Kurosaki-kun, for telling me."

Hisoka managed to nod. "Is that everything?" The question sounded abrupt, but he couldn't help himself. He needed to get away from Tatsumi, away from everyone. To bury himself under mountains of paperwork so he wouldn't have to feel this. Except, of course, that he couldn't. He'd have to go and face Tsuzuki now, work on a case with him and pretend that everything was normal.

"There is one other thing," Tatsumi said. He pushed up his glasses up his nose so that his hand hid the lower part of his face. "There will be a general budget meeting at eight-thirty on Monday morning, and I expect both of you to be there on time. Is that clear?"

When Hisoka stepped from Tatsumi's office, he immediately felt the missed beat in everyone's conversation. And then, much worse, the ripples of surprise-curiosity-concern spreading towards him like tentacles. He grabbed his coat and beat a hasty retreat from the building. Ten minutes later he was in Nagasaki, standing on the front steps of a rather fancy Chinese restaurant.

It wasn't just any Chinese restaurant. It was the place he and Tsuzuki had gone to on the day they first met, which explained why the address had sounded so familiar. He took a moment to compose himself, to settle his breathing before going inside. The last thing he wanted was to make Tsuzuki worry.

The host at the front desk greeted him with a smile and, thankfully, no sign of recognition. Hisoka couldn't remember all the details from that night two years ago, but there had definitely been something about a chopstick swordfight. And something else about passing out under the table. If the host remembered any of it, he was too polite to show it. "Your table's right this way," he said, leading the way past well-dressed tourists and business people to a curtained doorway at the back of the restaurant.

"Make yourself at home," the man said, lifting the curtain aside. "Someone will be in momentarily to take your orders "

Hisoka hesitated, wondering if it was a trap. His hand drifted automatically to the pocket of his jeans where he kept a few fuda slips just in case. Not that he was that great at using them, but it made him feel better just knowing they were there. But there was a familiar sense about the room, a warm safe presence that seemed to beckon him. He stepped inside, letting the curtain fall back into place behind him.

He was in a private dining room. It was small and tastefully furnished, with the table screened off from the rest of the room by a tall paper room divider to give an added sense of privacy. A softly gurgling fountain created an atmosphere of peace, and he felt himself starting to relax in spite of himself.

When he peeked around the edge of the screen, Tsuzuki was there at the table. He was engrossed in folding a cloth napkin into what was apparently supposed to be a crane, and an earlier attempt sat by his elbow, its neck flopped over at a tragic angle. He didn't glance up right away, and Hisoka just stood for a moment watching him.

He's beautiful.

The thought came unbidden, surprising Hisoka. But it was true. Everything about him, from his frown of concentration to the way his hands moved, strong and yet graceful as they folded the napkin, to the glossy mess of chocolate bangs that tumbled down over his forehead, half hiding his eyes... those amazing eyes. So gentle, with all their many shades of expression.

Hisoka's chest tightened, his heart closing around an ache in the shape of Tsuzuki's name. He suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here. Case or no case, Tsuzuki was the last person he wanted to see right now. He took a step backward, then another. He was about to walk away when Tsuzuki glanced up, suddenly, as if he'd heard his name spoken.

"Hisoka!" He launched to his feet. His hip banged against the table and rattled the dishes, but he seemed not to notice. His face lit with a smile that took Hisoka's breath away--literally. Images from his dream came rushing back with mind-numbing clarity, and it felt as if every drop of blood in his entire body had suddenly gone straight to his face.

"Hi," Tsuzuki said, still beaming. "It's so good to see you."

-o-o-o-o-

AN: There it is, the third chapter! Hope you enjoyed it. Hats off to Trans for her insightful beta comments, which really pushed me to go deeper on this one and to think harder about the characters. This chapter, in particular, is far better as a result. Thank you so much.