Author's Note: Spoilers for the fifth volume (storybook arc) and a tiny bit for the Kyoto arc. Definite leanings toward Tatsumi/Tsuzuki as a pairing, but nothing definitive. This was written in response for a challenge on the Tatsuki LiveJournal community. Dialogue is credited directly from volume five.
How is it to have only a few hours left to be with someone?
Tatsumi involuntarily glances up at the clock on the wall. Five hours, twelve minutes, twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-nine clicks into twenty-eight as his breath hitches in his throat and he lets it out in a sigh.
Why must something so necessary be so difficult?
The answer is beside him, where Tsuzuki Asato sits with his head pillowed on folded arms, drooling ungracefully on the desk blotter. Tatsumi would ordinarily reject such close proximity—and did, indeed, protest it—but Tsuzuki was persistent. And it was quickly learned around the Shokan Division that what Tsuzuki wheedled for, he usually got.
His cheerful insistence that they write their report together finally made Tatsumi give in, where they crowded at the same desk with elbows brushing and feet touching beneath the table. Tatsumi is relieved now that Tsuzuki is asleep, finds some guilty pleasure in enjoying his silent company. He hasn't had it in his heart to wake his partner before now, no matter how undignified his position; while most people look more peaceful in repose, slumber is the very place where Tsuzuki's weaknesses come slipping out, where his carefree exterior slides away and vulnerability shows through.
Tsuzuki's vulnerability is Tatsumi's weakness.
The shadow master pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turns back to the report he rescued from beneath Tsuzuki, twirls his fountain pen over in his hands and thinks of things left unsaid. The entire three months of their partnership seem as if a long, never-ending dream—but pragmatic Tatsumi realizes the time must come to wake up, shake away the weakness Tsuzuki makes him feel.
Never minding the other things he makes him feel.
Tatsumi signs his name and drops the report neatly into the paper tray on the desk. Then he sits back in his chair to count the hours again.
Four hours, fifty-six minutes, ten seconds.
He wonders if the doing will be more difficult than the waiting.
"Tsuzuki-san, wake up. It is time for breakfast."
Tatsumi walks down the hallway from Konoe's office. Tsuzuki is waiting, amethyst eyes half-darkened by shadows, how appropriate.
"... eh? Tatsumi ... just now ... what did ..."
"I am sorry, Tsuzuki-san ... I am not going with you on this case."
Nine minutes.
"Ah ... right. Okay. It's an easy one, anyway. Next time then—"
Silence, and the pain is shared. Tatsumi fights the need to turn his head in shame. To cause you this much pain ... I cannot heal you ...
"Not next time. Or the one after that."
Tsuzuki falters. Tatsumi cannot.
Not again ...
Five hours later and the dull ache still hasn't gone away.
Seventy-five years later and he still can't heal their pain.
fin