Disclaimer- and I still have no ownership of these bishies. Just playing around with them for the duration.

Wow. Thank you all so much for the reviews! Means a bunch to me, since this is the first fic I have ever written, and is turning out much longer than originally intended. Like I said, feedback makes me write more and faster. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

a hundred thousand glompings to you all

-Fireun

"...and I don't know what to do, Watari. I don't know how to need someone, at least not how to express it. Hell, I am not good at expressing anything but irritation when it comes to him..."

"Bon, has it ever occurred to you that irritation might be your way of avoiding affection?" Watari slouched back in his chair, disrupting the balance of 003, who fumbled into flight with a disgruntled chirp. He regarded his friend with a critical eye, taking in the boys abrupt, brisk movements, his uncharacteristically anxious expression. 'What am I going to do with you, bon? My first inclination is to lock you and Tsuzuki in a room, have Tatsumi guard the door, and hope you can sort it out before you are both driven insane!'

Hisoka blinked, catching the edge of the other mans amused...frustration? Anxiety? He couldn't quite make it out...

"Well, bon, as for how to deal with Tsuzuki, have you considered not trying to need him? I am sure he knows you need him, though the way you are prone to smacking his emotional involvement in your well being can't be helping..."

Hisoka's face fell, brilliant green eyes growing misty with disgust and unhappiness. "I don't mean to hurt him, Watari. I really don't. I just don't know...I can't understand..." He sighed deeply, pulling his hands down his face in aggravation. "Can't you just tell me what to do? Fix this situation? Is there some potion you can force down his throat that will make everything make sense?"

"Well, if I was sure to put enough sugar in the potion I could get him to drink just about anything I think. Well, apart from the sex changing potion. I can't seem to find any volunteers for that one..." At Hisoka's baleful glare, Watari attempted to steer himself back towards the general neighborhood of the situation at hand. "Hisoka, I am about to have a rare moment of complete seriousness. If you don't feel you can talk to him about this, try to just enjoy his company. Try to just enjoy having him with you, begging for food or avoiding paperwork, or just sitting near you. Try and enjoy every little bit of him instead of trying to repair his personal...flaws. If you can figure out how to do that, then maybe you can figure out what it means, on a rational level, to need him around."

Hisoka blinked, having just been smacked across the head with an epiphany from a most unlikely source, he attempted frantically to find some sort of stability so as to be able to gather his dignity, leave the room on his own, and find someplace to practice kata until the sanity of the world reestablished itself.

'Your biggest problem, bon, is you analyze everything far too much. You are not used to people enjoying your company yet. Our Tsuzuki must be quite the puzzle to you. Well, he is a patient man, just don't drive him away Hisoka...you really do need him and I think he needs that.' Watari glanced almost halfheartedly at the lab, at all the creative work he should be doing. His attention lighting on something pinkish and kind of...glowing, Watari smiled. 'I wonder what happens if I add this...' He mused, reaching for a small vial of an orange powder.

"Hisoka?"

The voice was awkward, hesitant, and unmistakably belonged to Tsuzuki. Hisoka finished the kata he was working on and turn around slowly. Tsuzuki hovered in the door, clearly uncertain as to whether he should enter or not. Beautiful purple eyes widened in joy as Hisoka motioned for his partner to enter.

"Hisoka...erm, I was wondering if you would want to go get some dinner...?"

"Tsuzuki, you do realize it is well after dinner time, correct?" Hisoka winced at the tone his voice. He was not trying to be discouraging. He really wasn't...

"Ah...you have already eaten then?" Tsuzuki's voice drooped almost as dramatically as his posture. "I knew it was a little late, but you forget to eat sometimes, so I thought maybe..."

"I haven't eaten yet. I was just pointing out the time, I guess."

It was Tsuzuki's turn to wince internally. His presence obviously was upsetting his partner. Hisoka was clearly uncomfortable, his bearing a bit too stiff, his voice so politically neutral..."I am sorry, Hisoka. I didn't mean to interrupt."

'...try to just enjoy his company...'

"Ah, Tsuzuki?" Hisoka called out, attempting to stop the other man's dejected retreat. Tsuzuki paused, looked over his shoulder, and Hisoka almost sobbed at the tentative hope in those expressive purple eyes. "I am not hungry, but I know a coffee house...I mean if you still wanted to go out...I know it isn't dinner but they have good cake there...and they have a mocha drink thing..."

Hisoka was most definitely not prepared for the enthusiastic glomping he received as he attempted to force the invitation out of a mouth which appeared to have ceased to function upon Tsuzuki's entrance. The man radiated such massive waves of pure happiness that Hisoka was hard pressed to keep a silly little grin off of his face.

'...enjoy...'

'Ah, why the hell not.'

And he stopped trying to cover his own shy happiness with safe distancing, and allowed a tiny, awkward smile to slide into face as Tsuzuki pulled him anxiously out of the room, forgetting in his excitement that Hisoka was the one who knew where they were going.

"Hey, idiot, unless you know where we are headed perhaps you should let me do the leading."

And for some reason or another the word 'idiot' carried no sting.