Chapter Five: Awakening

I see movement long before I manage to open my eyes. The shadows flicker past me, dark spots in the yellow light that surrounds me. I can see them through my eyelids, and the movements become so hasty that I start forcing my eyes to open. There is a panicky feel to the air; something is not right. Maybe I'm needed?

The voices return to me, the voices of the real world. I've never been so glad to hear them. I take a moment to just stare ahead (at a window with curtains drawn over it) and thanking all the higher powers there are that I'm back from my dreams. I guess usually in this state people feel they're still partly in the dream; they don't realize whether some memory is real or from a dream they just saw. Maybe they even try to grasp the fleeing memory of the dream; all too often, dreams are completely lost once the dreamer sits up and decides that he's wholly awake.

I wish that would be true for me, too. But I know exactly what my dream was about, and it's wishful thinking that I'm going to forget it once I find the strength to sit up. I know these kinds of dreams. I've had a similar one very often, ever since I died. I know these dreams are not *real*, but they are always about real events, they tell me things that I know are true. The cruelest kind of dreams: the merciless ones that leave nothing hidden.

I slowly start wondering about my current state. Where am I, and how did I come to be here? The last thing I can remember before the dreams is the scornful stare of a dead woman, the stare that says 'I want you dead'. In a fashion, the moment continues. I still feel the same irrational fear, although it's now dulled down into a continuous feeling of unease and helplessness. And cold.

Someone runs past, I can make out the long limbs and blond hair but everything else is too quick for me to grasp. Watari?

Yes, it's his voice that shouts, "Watch out, bon! I'll let you know as soon as I can!" And then, more figures, people I don't recognize, giving one-word comments to each other and then hurrying to the same direction as Watari. A door slams shut. It becomes almost completely silent.

My whole body feels heavy; I attempt to move my fingers and find that they move easily, but shiver. I think I could sit up, even stand up, if I didn't feel this cold. Part of the cold is just the feeling of plain misery that gnaws at me. I feel forlorn, forsaken, outcast. There is no escape, were I to close my eyes again and fall asleep, I'd most likely return to the dream, which would mean worse misery than the one that holds me now. Desperate for comfort but finding none, I close my eyes again and watch parts of the dream flicker past my mind's eye.

"Tsuzuki? Tsuzuki! Are you awake? Don't close your eyes!"

I wince as someone shouts the words almost straight to my ear, and then a shadow falls over my face. Someone is close, looking at me. And I know who it is. A piece of a dream: beautiful green eyes, filled with contempt and accusation. I don't want to see those eyes, that would break me, I know.

"Tsuzuki!" And now I'm shaken, literally, he's grabbed my shoulders and is *shaking* the real world back to my senses.

Oh. Hisoka. I give in. I always do when it's you, did you ever notice that?

His eyes immediately meet mine. He's staring at my face with a look of horror and unbelief that slowly turns into something close to relief.

"Don't do that again," he hisses, seeming out of breath for no reason. "Scare me like that again and I'll - I'll -"

"Hisoka," I manage to whisper, and then swallow. There's a cold lump in my throat, and what would I say to him? Pieces of the dream haunt me as I look at him. Think back. Recollect. "What happened? Where is she?"

Hisoka looks away for a moment. "The ghost's at its mother-in-law's house. After one of the letters, I suppose. The Western Apartment people were just here, and they were really upset and wanted Watari to go help them with the ghost, something about their powers not seeming to get through." He takes a deep breath and rubs his eyes irritatedly. "And just when Watari had finished saying that he thinks we can leave the rest to the very very able Western Apartment. Figures."

I look around the room - for it is a room, a smallish motel room by the looks of it. It is finally all starting to make sense - so what is this nagging feeling that something still needs to be put to right?

"I think she wanted to kill me," rolls off my tongue.

Hisoka glances at me and humphs. "Isn't that obvious? You think she tried to strangle you and freeze you to death because she liked you?"

That was harsh. Even for Hisoka. I think he's on the edge. "But she was strangled herself. So it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Strangled?" I got Hisoka's full attention with that comment. "What are you talking about? Didn't you read the file Tatsumi-san gave us?"

Oops. I always knew skipping over boring medical details would come back to haunt me.

"She committed suicide. By taking a lethal dose of painkillers."

That makes sense. The trail of vomit on her chin. her body was trying to get rid of the pills, or whatever the medical term for that is. People don't usually start vomiting when they're strangled, now do they? What was I thinking, where did I get that idea, anyway? It feels like someone put it in my head when I wasn't looking.

Wait. Wait a second here. That could be the case.

"Hisoka," I voice the thought, "I don't think it was my idea that Mrs. Harvey was strangled. I think it was her own. She told me how she was killed."

"What are you talking about?" Hisoka snaps. "If Harvey had killed her wife we would have known it. It would've been in the files. Besides, her body showed signs of poisoning, and there was an empty container on the floor of the bedroom where she was found. So what exactly points to strangling?"

I think back, although I'd really rather not. "She was. making these noises in her throat. Gagging noises. I don't know. Maybe it was just in my dream. It was one of worst dreams I've ever had." I close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath. It doesn't make me feel relaxed at all.

There is a moment of silence.

"Can you sit up?" Hisoka then asks, his voice almost gentle.

I nod. "I think I could, but. I'd rather. rather not."

Hisoka seems to have made up his mind, however. He certainly sounds like it. "Come on, try it. Here." He grabs my shoulders, and then my hands, helping me up. I tense each time he touches me, as though I haven't been touched for ages.

I don't feel particularly weak, not really. Just vulnerable, and cold. Obediently, I scramble up into a sitting position and lean against the wall. I wonder why Hisoka insists on this, though. "Why do you insist? To find a better angle to hit me for making everybody worried?" The humor refuses to return to my voice, and I sound plain miserable, at least to my own ears.

Hisoka looks back at me, and for a second his emerald eyes meet mine before he looks away again, in that self-conscious way he acts most of the time.

"No, you idiot," he says, in a small voice, and throws his arms around my neck.

It is rare that Hisoka does something like this, and I always treasure those moments. Even now, when there's a chill that reaches my heart of hearts, his simple, awkward hug creates enough warmth to make me feel alive again. There have not been many embraces this sincere in my life. Hisoka might have tied himself into knots to keep every trace of his emotions inside of him, tight, tight knots that I can't imagine are good for anyone, but sometimes. Just sometimes, he forgets himself. And I'm happy that he does, because forgetting is sometimes the only way to deal with the past.

I lift up my arms and wrap them around his lithe form, to hold him there, knowing that he is going to let go soon, flushed and self-conscious. No, Hisoka. I need you now, gods, do I need you, to keep the cold at bay. He shifts uncomfortably upon finding that he has to use force to free himself from the embrace that he initiated. Normally, I would let go immediately, make a joke, tease him a bit. Any sign of discomfort from Hisoka and I always do my best to put him to ease. It's the big brother role I have been trying to play as best as I've been able, though not always successfully. The boy's too damn smart, for one thing, too powerful and too professional. And I've come to love him too damn much.

Which is why, oddly enough, I occasionally feel a little distance is good. For our work, anyway, and for Hisoka. I believe, as I believed from the start, that what he needs, what he's never really had, is a friend.

Hisoka sighs a bit and shuffles his hands nervously behind my neck. I can sense the tension in the air. He's waiting for me to pull the usual joke so that he can tell me I'm an idiot and everything can go back to normal. And there is a part of me that points out, mimicking Tatsumi's speech pattern, that I'm dangerously close to going over the 'big brother' line. The vulnerability becomes my weakness now, allowing Hisoka's closeness to affect me wholly and deeply, making it impossible to tuck my feelings into my sleeve and smile that it's all good. It is not. He's not close enough. The sudden *need* to have him close confuses me, but it doesn't make it any less urgent. He's leaning forward, arms around my neck, sitting on his knees beside me. A friendly hug; nothing to impose a closeness too intimate.

*No.*

On sudden impulse, I tighten my hold on him and pull him closer, so that he has to scoot closer or fall down on my lap. At first, he is about to do the latter, letting out a surprised noise.

"Tsuzuki," he gasps, and starts removing his arms from around my neck, "what are you *doing*?" His voice holds more than a little bit of discomfort, mixed in with innocent puzzlement that I so often see underneath all the cynicism.

For just a split second, I wonder exactly the same thing - what am I doing here? Why am I doing this to him, making him uncomfortable? - and then I know the answer. I have to. He's asking for it.

"Shhh," I say, trying to gather him again in my arms as he tries to decide whether to fight or do something else. "Just a moment. Please."

"But I'm. you're." He's blushing, I can hear it from his voice, his words are dripping with embarrassment. Then I see it with my own eyes as he looks up at my face. "Tsuzuki, let go of me, this is really -" And then he suddenly freezes and stares at me in unveiled horror.

"What?" I murmur, the hunger eating at my insides. I'm getting tired of this tag game. Why must he be so stubborn?

As I begin to slide my hand under the boy's shirt, he gasps out a few words. I don't really care.

"Tsuzuki, your eyes, they're ice blue again. Gods, you're not Tsuzuki! Who *are* you?"