A/N: If you would like to see my concept art, the URL is on my author page.
13. Bonding
Barely maintaining his footing, the younger Shinigami flew backwards from the force of his partner's blow.
Ignoring the now dull throb in his previously injured leg, Hisoka stood hunched over with his left hand lightly cradling his freshly broken jaw. Blonde hair shrouded the majority of his astonished expression as his head dipped with numb fragility.
A thick trail of crimson draped itself over his throbbing chin and around trembling fingers. Bruised lips parted in unreserved shock as metallic liquid thickly coated his tongue.
He began to become mildly aware of his partner's actions as paralyzing shock was slowly traded for feverish pain that primed his senses.
Horror immediately flashed across Tsuzuki's features as he cast desperate glances between his wounded partner and the Empath's own blood that now marred his tightly clenched fist.
Of all people in the world to hit, he would never have imagined hurting Hisoka.
Instantly struck by mind-numbing confusion, he was suddenly stopped by a pessimistic voice that dominated his chaotic mind 'Then why did you hit your partner?'
The cynical tone of the accusation stung his already ravaged nerves. Tsuzuki was taken aback by the harshness of his own self-loathing tone, only to be easily seduced by the familiar sensation. His stunned expression morphed into anxiety as his eyes glazed over and settled blankly on his trembling hand.
'Why do you insist on destroying those dearest to you, Asato?' the whispered tone laced itself with mock curiosity as Tsuzuki's spine tensed with an unnatural chill.
Guilt-ridden over willingly surrendering control to that malicious power, Tsuzuki fearfully cocooned his shivering body with protective arms, knees quivering beneath him.
'You already made the mistake of letting the boy see too much of your true self in Kyoto,' his mind informed him spitefully, 'and now you're exposing him to another, more dangerous side of yourself.'
Sweat beaded between quaking shoulder blades.
'You can't make the mistake of believing he will understand and forgive you a second time.'
'If you can't keep yourself from him, rejection is inevitable,' his mind ridiculed with disdain at the broken creature it created.
All he needed to be remotely content was the judgmental boy's approval, and his ruthless behavior was a sure-fire way to be denied that luxury.
Caught within his self-provoked inquisition, the panicked man was oblivious to the teenager now poised for attack in front of him; astonishment was traded for sheer anger across the youth's delicate countenance.
An emotion new to the boy coursed furiously through his frame as he launched himself at his partner. Hisoka's body flared with severity as he felt an intense need to release, to make his partner physically experience his empathic anguish.
Weakened by disbelief of his own actions, Tsuzuki stood frozen, aware only of the mounting distress that overshadowed reality.
Targeting his center of gravity, the Empath's small body collided with the stunned man's torso.
Crashing hard against solid chest, Hisoka effectively brought both of them tumbling to the floor, rolling several times before coming to a stop over the older man. Hisoka straddled his stunned partner, shooting one heavy fist into a sculpted cheekbone.
'You idiot! ...' Hisoka's head pounded fervently as though he felt the force of his fist against the brunette's skull.
'Why won't you trust me?! ...'
'Stop avoiding me! ...'
The boy's ferocity intensified.
'Just tell me that I've ruined everything again! ...'
Startled by the immediate shift in events, the brunette could do little more then raise uncertain arms to form a feeble barricade over the target of the boy's aggression.
'I don't want your pity! ...'
Regardless of the lackadaisical defense, the youth's violent blows still hit their mark with heated accuracy.
'I don't want any of this! ...' The Empath wailed chaotically within his fragile mind.
The blood from his partner's freshly split brow that stained small white knuckles did nothing to quiet the boy's desperate frustration.
Painful strikes not yet exceeding his threshold, Tsuzuki was more shocked then he was actually hurt. Confusion and disbelief clouded any cohesive idea of reaction.
Hisoka did not process the uncertainty emanating from his partner above his own powerfully raw mental torrent. The Empath welcomed his own recklessly sincere emotions, as they empowered his empathy to an elevated level; he callously mused to himself that he should be honest with himself more often.
As sharp currents of power were gradually becoming bearable, his body grew masochistically accustomed to the foreign force surging through his slight frame.
'Tell me...Just tell me you regret what happened...' Hisoka's mind sneered malevolently in bitter release.
Tsuzuki's eyes widened from behind a bruised forearm as he suddenly became aware of the boy's arm puling far back. Reacting in time to catch the boy's opposing fist in his broad palm, the assault temporarily stilled in acrimonious stalemate. Blinding fury raged through the teen's overwrought form as he locked his indignant glare with the distraught purple of his partner's.
'Tell me you regret continuing to exist for this insignificant creature!!!'
"Hisoka! I'm sorry...would you stop!!" Straining to retain some level of composure, the frightened voice was inaudible to the boy's enraged senses.
Ignoring the shadow of a voice completely, the boy refused to withdraw from his unusual bloodlust as the passionate emancipation of emotion comforted him while simultaneously instigating more of the same irrational behavior.
Fury wavered temporarily as he caught sight of crimson pooling about the tiled floor, transforming brown locks into dark cherry tresses.
Quickly dispelling the vacillating feeling, Hisoka stretched the hand not clutched by his partner out taut, fingertips poised at its prey as he pulled back, making a perfect line from his elbow to the apex of his fingers. The younger Shinigami drove it into his partner's exposed right flank with arrow speed, lacerating through warm flesh.
Breaking the staring match as he winched in pain, Tsuzuki's free hand involuntarily sprang out to grab the wrist of the offending hand embedded within his heated torso. Writhing beneath the boy in pain, broken ribs gashed the small crimson-stained hand that impaled his partner.
Around the pair, the infirmary room observed them with sadistic irony.
With a small fist held within his hand, and its brother jabbed in his side, Tsuzuki tensed, fighting the pressing urge to fight back until he was sure he had complete control over himself.
More then a little repulsed by the flesh healing around his hand, Hisoka ripped away from the already tender thorax causing his partner's pain to magnify.
Back arching from the cold floor in graceful misery, Tsuzuki's entire frame unwittingly contracted against the anguish as exhausted nerves informed his brain of his body's plight.
Hisoka's breath grew deeper and a distinct cracking sound pierced his senses as blood began to flow generously from the boy's previously captured fist. Cascading between his partner's fingers, gravity elegantly coerced it down the man's left arm.
Pulling back from the pain, Hisoka cradled his already regenerating fist. The older Shinigami effectively took the opportunity to halt the boy's erratic behavior.
As Hisoka broke free of his partner's grasp on his bloodied fist and began to fall back on his heels his arm was abruptly snatched up by the taller man.
Yanking the arm forcefully while twisting the small body around, Tsuzuki pinned the startled boy to the ground on his stomach. With Hisoka's wounded right arm twisted behind his back, Tsuzuki's knee ground into the small of his back for good measure.
"What the Hell is wrong with you!?" Tsuzuki growled through gnashed teeth. His left hand clenching his wounded torso as vermilion trailed its way from his brow to the corner of his mouth, tainting his exposed incisors in a daunting ruby enamel.
"You attacked me, asshole!" the boy screamed as he panicked in his current state of confinement beneath his partner. He struggled fervently in an attempt to regain his lost freedom and dignity.
Judging from the unwavering pressure mounted on his back, Hisoka soon realized the fight was futile and how pathetic he must have appeared. The boy slowly calmed to a stubborn lackluster writhing as emeralds started to glisten with a stinging heat as he accepted his defeat.
This experience had only reaffirmed what the boy had always known and feared.
He was disgusted by the failure of his attempts to prove himself. Hisoka knew he would never be trusted mentally if his partner could not depend on him physically.
'But I don't have to worry anymore...' his sardonically concluded to himself.
As Hisoka's own emotions began to subside to a numb despair, the harsh contact between him and his partner began to blaze against his skin. Sensing a powerful feral frustration radiating from his partner, the boy hissed in pain before he unintentionally launched a psychic torrent, sending torturous anguish coursing through Tsuzuki's heated body as he laboriously held his ground atop the boy.
Veins searing from the Empath's attack and brimming with extreme frustration, Tsuzuki parted lips that were best kept shut.
"One day you're going to be all alone and you'll only have yourself to blame!" Tsuzuki bellowed in a mix of pain and aggravation.
He immediately regretted the words the moment they left his ardent throat as his eyes widened on the boy beneath him.
Hisoka tensed and was barely aware of the weight of his partner quickly lifting from his fractured vertebrae.
The blaze behind his eyes had finally reached a breaking point.
Without realizing it, crystalline tears streamed silently down from the boy's wide eyes, over adrenaline-flushed cheeks.
Shock and exhaustion kept the boy weighted against the tiles, as he vaguely sensed Tsuzuki's presence becoming more remote. Fear and uncertainty crashed into the Empath's mind in crushing waves.
Cautious of his mending back, he slowly rose to an inelegant seated position and wrapped his arms haphazardly about his quivering torso as watery eyes stared anxiously at the floor.
"I was scared at first," Hisoka started shakily, "but now...now I don't even care..."
His body began to wrack with sobs as he attempted to form words.
Several feet away, an astonished partner looked on in trepidation and confusion.
"...But you don't have to worry anymore..."
The rest of the sentence was finished in a hushed whisper.
His partner was able catch the last of the fleeting words causing amethyst to widen in astonished disbelief.
With his back to his partner, Hisoka abruptly rose to uncertain feet, the floor swimming beneath him. The boy's fragile frame still convulsed with slight, random sobs as his vestibular sense slowly stabilized.
Tears veiled green and streamed down heated cheeks. Unwilling to allow himself to be seen in his broken condition any longer, Hisoka broke into a blind sprint through the door and down the corridor.
As distraught eyes followed the retreating form of his partner's back, Tsuzuki sat aghast on the floor as the words his partner whispered to him echoed repeatedly in his mind.
To Be Concluded...
13. Bonding
Barely maintaining his footing, the younger Shinigami flew backwards from the force of his partner's blow.
Ignoring the now dull throb in his previously injured leg, Hisoka stood hunched over with his left hand lightly cradling his freshly broken jaw. Blonde hair shrouded the majority of his astonished expression as his head dipped with numb fragility.
A thick trail of crimson draped itself over his throbbing chin and around trembling fingers. Bruised lips parted in unreserved shock as metallic liquid thickly coated his tongue.
He began to become mildly aware of his partner's actions as paralyzing shock was slowly traded for feverish pain that primed his senses.
Horror immediately flashed across Tsuzuki's features as he cast desperate glances between his wounded partner and the Empath's own blood that now marred his tightly clenched fist.
Of all people in the world to hit, he would never have imagined hurting Hisoka.
Instantly struck by mind-numbing confusion, he was suddenly stopped by a pessimistic voice that dominated his chaotic mind 'Then why did you hit your partner?'
The cynical tone of the accusation stung his already ravaged nerves. Tsuzuki was taken aback by the harshness of his own self-loathing tone, only to be easily seduced by the familiar sensation. His stunned expression morphed into anxiety as his eyes glazed over and settled blankly on his trembling hand.
'Why do you insist on destroying those dearest to you, Asato?' the whispered tone laced itself with mock curiosity as Tsuzuki's spine tensed with an unnatural chill.
Guilt-ridden over willingly surrendering control to that malicious power, Tsuzuki fearfully cocooned his shivering body with protective arms, knees quivering beneath him.
'You already made the mistake of letting the boy see too much of your true self in Kyoto,' his mind informed him spitefully, 'and now you're exposing him to another, more dangerous side of yourself.'
Sweat beaded between quaking shoulder blades.
'You can't make the mistake of believing he will understand and forgive you a second time.'
'If you can't keep yourself from him, rejection is inevitable,' his mind ridiculed with disdain at the broken creature it created.
All he needed to be remotely content was the judgmental boy's approval, and his ruthless behavior was a sure-fire way to be denied that luxury.
Caught within his self-provoked inquisition, the panicked man was oblivious to the teenager now poised for attack in front of him; astonishment was traded for sheer anger across the youth's delicate countenance.
An emotion new to the boy coursed furiously through his frame as he launched himself at his partner. Hisoka's body flared with severity as he felt an intense need to release, to make his partner physically experience his empathic anguish.
Weakened by disbelief of his own actions, Tsuzuki stood frozen, aware only of the mounting distress that overshadowed reality.
Targeting his center of gravity, the Empath's small body collided with the stunned man's torso.
Crashing hard against solid chest, Hisoka effectively brought both of them tumbling to the floor, rolling several times before coming to a stop over the older man. Hisoka straddled his stunned partner, shooting one heavy fist into a sculpted cheekbone.
'You idiot! ...' Hisoka's head pounded fervently as though he felt the force of his fist against the brunette's skull.
'Why won't you trust me?! ...'
'Stop avoiding me! ...'
The boy's ferocity intensified.
'Just tell me that I've ruined everything again! ...'
Startled by the immediate shift in events, the brunette could do little more then raise uncertain arms to form a feeble barricade over the target of the boy's aggression.
'I don't want your pity! ...'
Regardless of the lackadaisical defense, the youth's violent blows still hit their mark with heated accuracy.
'I don't want any of this! ...' The Empath wailed chaotically within his fragile mind.
The blood from his partner's freshly split brow that stained small white knuckles did nothing to quiet the boy's desperate frustration.
Painful strikes not yet exceeding his threshold, Tsuzuki was more shocked then he was actually hurt. Confusion and disbelief clouded any cohesive idea of reaction.
Hisoka did not process the uncertainty emanating from his partner above his own powerfully raw mental torrent. The Empath welcomed his own recklessly sincere emotions, as they empowered his empathy to an elevated level; he callously mused to himself that he should be honest with himself more often.
As sharp currents of power were gradually becoming bearable, his body grew masochistically accustomed to the foreign force surging through his slight frame.
'Tell me...Just tell me you regret what happened...' Hisoka's mind sneered malevolently in bitter release.
Tsuzuki's eyes widened from behind a bruised forearm as he suddenly became aware of the boy's arm puling far back. Reacting in time to catch the boy's opposing fist in his broad palm, the assault temporarily stilled in acrimonious stalemate. Blinding fury raged through the teen's overwrought form as he locked his indignant glare with the distraught purple of his partner's.
'Tell me you regret continuing to exist for this insignificant creature!!!'
"Hisoka! I'm sorry...would you stop!!" Straining to retain some level of composure, the frightened voice was inaudible to the boy's enraged senses.
Ignoring the shadow of a voice completely, the boy refused to withdraw from his unusual bloodlust as the passionate emancipation of emotion comforted him while simultaneously instigating more of the same irrational behavior.
Fury wavered temporarily as he caught sight of crimson pooling about the tiled floor, transforming brown locks into dark cherry tresses.
Quickly dispelling the vacillating feeling, Hisoka stretched the hand not clutched by his partner out taut, fingertips poised at its prey as he pulled back, making a perfect line from his elbow to the apex of his fingers. The younger Shinigami drove it into his partner's exposed right flank with arrow speed, lacerating through warm flesh.
Breaking the staring match as he winched in pain, Tsuzuki's free hand involuntarily sprang out to grab the wrist of the offending hand embedded within his heated torso. Writhing beneath the boy in pain, broken ribs gashed the small crimson-stained hand that impaled his partner.
Around the pair, the infirmary room observed them with sadistic irony.
With a small fist held within his hand, and its brother jabbed in his side, Tsuzuki tensed, fighting the pressing urge to fight back until he was sure he had complete control over himself.
More then a little repulsed by the flesh healing around his hand, Hisoka ripped away from the already tender thorax causing his partner's pain to magnify.
Back arching from the cold floor in graceful misery, Tsuzuki's entire frame unwittingly contracted against the anguish as exhausted nerves informed his brain of his body's plight.
Hisoka's breath grew deeper and a distinct cracking sound pierced his senses as blood began to flow generously from the boy's previously captured fist. Cascading between his partner's fingers, gravity elegantly coerced it down the man's left arm.
Pulling back from the pain, Hisoka cradled his already regenerating fist. The older Shinigami effectively took the opportunity to halt the boy's erratic behavior.
As Hisoka broke free of his partner's grasp on his bloodied fist and began to fall back on his heels his arm was abruptly snatched up by the taller man.
Yanking the arm forcefully while twisting the small body around, Tsuzuki pinned the startled boy to the ground on his stomach. With Hisoka's wounded right arm twisted behind his back, Tsuzuki's knee ground into the small of his back for good measure.
"What the Hell is wrong with you!?" Tsuzuki growled through gnashed teeth. His left hand clenching his wounded torso as vermilion trailed its way from his brow to the corner of his mouth, tainting his exposed incisors in a daunting ruby enamel.
"You attacked me, asshole!" the boy screamed as he panicked in his current state of confinement beneath his partner. He struggled fervently in an attempt to regain his lost freedom and dignity.
Judging from the unwavering pressure mounted on his back, Hisoka soon realized the fight was futile and how pathetic he must have appeared. The boy slowly calmed to a stubborn lackluster writhing as emeralds started to glisten with a stinging heat as he accepted his defeat.
This experience had only reaffirmed what the boy had always known and feared.
He was disgusted by the failure of his attempts to prove himself. Hisoka knew he would never be trusted mentally if his partner could not depend on him physically.
'But I don't have to worry anymore...' his sardonically concluded to himself.
As Hisoka's own emotions began to subside to a numb despair, the harsh contact between him and his partner began to blaze against his skin. Sensing a powerful feral frustration radiating from his partner, the boy hissed in pain before he unintentionally launched a psychic torrent, sending torturous anguish coursing through Tsuzuki's heated body as he laboriously held his ground atop the boy.
Veins searing from the Empath's attack and brimming with extreme frustration, Tsuzuki parted lips that were best kept shut.
"One day you're going to be all alone and you'll only have yourself to blame!" Tsuzuki bellowed in a mix of pain and aggravation.
He immediately regretted the words the moment they left his ardent throat as his eyes widened on the boy beneath him.
Hisoka tensed and was barely aware of the weight of his partner quickly lifting from his fractured vertebrae.
The blaze behind his eyes had finally reached a breaking point.
Without realizing it, crystalline tears streamed silently down from the boy's wide eyes, over adrenaline-flushed cheeks.
Shock and exhaustion kept the boy weighted against the tiles, as he vaguely sensed Tsuzuki's presence becoming more remote. Fear and uncertainty crashed into the Empath's mind in crushing waves.
Cautious of his mending back, he slowly rose to an inelegant seated position and wrapped his arms haphazardly about his quivering torso as watery eyes stared anxiously at the floor.
"I was scared at first," Hisoka started shakily, "but now...now I don't even care..."
His body began to wrack with sobs as he attempted to form words.
Several feet away, an astonished partner looked on in trepidation and confusion.
"...But you don't have to worry anymore..."
The rest of the sentence was finished in a hushed whisper.
His partner was able catch the last of the fleeting words causing amethyst to widen in astonished disbelief.
With his back to his partner, Hisoka abruptly rose to uncertain feet, the floor swimming beneath him. The boy's fragile frame still convulsed with slight, random sobs as his vestibular sense slowly stabilized.
Tears veiled green and streamed down heated cheeks. Unwilling to allow himself to be seen in his broken condition any longer, Hisoka broke into a blind sprint through the door and down the corridor.
As distraught eyes followed the retreating form of his partner's back, Tsuzuki sat aghast on the floor as the words his partner whispered to him echoed repeatedly in his mind.
To Be Concluded...