A sharp sound. Twinging snips. Little by little, and Hisoka could feel his body loosening. He could feel the little binding threads constricted tight around him, so tight that he couldn't even twitch a muscle without the cords cutting into him.
For a long moment, he thought he'd wake to feel the hot stickiness of blood on his skin. The burn of salty blood in his eyes. His own blood.
Tied to an upturned bed.
The smell of dry rot and decay all around.
The iron taste of the gun against his lips…
Hisoka gasped aloud. "Tsuzuki…" His eyes opened. Everything swam for a second as the mechanical eye adjusted, a fraction of a second behind his real eye. Everything was white tinged to cream. Stiff hotel sheets. A vase of dusty flowers that were made so imperfectly that they seemed almost real, daubed with droplets of plastic water.
"Shh, I'm here. A warm hand covered his. "Tatsumi's uh…cutting you loose. Just hold still, all right?" Tsuzuki smiled, a worried twist of his lips. "You're going to be all right."
"Almost done, Kurosaki-kun." Tatsumi's voice had a forced edge of cheerfulness. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows, he was picking over something along Hisoka's body, tiny filaments of black. Shadows.
Hisoka looked over them and thought perhaps if the lighting had been just right, they would have gleamed like long black threads of strong women's hair.
His eyes wandered to the black ribbon on his right wrist, and then there was a sudden, hard snap.
"Shit…" Tatsumi jerked back, lines of blood appearing on his face and bared forearms.
"Aa…aaaah…!" Hisoka felt his muscles cramping, seizing up, first starting with his legs and then migrating upwards. "Tsu…Tsuzuki…!"
"Shhh, shhh…" Tsuzuki turned him over, as his body spasmed with convulsions. "It's all right..." Strong hands kneaded him, his shoulders, his calves…wherever the muscles constricted, trying to loosen them. "Tatsumi…"
"It's just muscle cramps. They'll pass. He's just been bound for too long in the wrong position. Already tensed up and then-" Tatsumi looked away, ashamed at himself for making excuses for Sato. "I…I suppose I'll go find something for him. A sports drink. Potassium. Um." Tatsumi mumbled, trying to numb himself with the mundane. "I'll be back."
The door closed with a clean click.
Hands kneaded him. Tsuzuki's hands. If he wasn't in so much pain, it would have been so nice. Strong, warm hands moving over him. The gentle heat of Tsuzuki's body as he leaned over him like the heat of dappled sunlight on a lazy summer day. But…it seemed hollow, distant, even when Tsuzuki's hand slid under the collar of his shirt, trying to get a stiff muscle to unclench in his shoulder.
It was so clinical. So impersonal. Not what he had ever hoped for, even if he could admit those hopes to himself.
"Better?" Tsuzuki sat back, tired.
"Yeah." His throat was dry, and the sound came out like the scrape of dead leaves.
"Here, drink some water." The sound of a glass, liquid burble of water. It was a moment of sweet torture before Tsuzuki sat him up and cold water passed between his lips.
"Thank you." Hisoka melted against his arm, the tremors subsiding, leaving behind a long echo of the ache. He felt as though he had run a marathon through a searing desert. He drank thirstily, messily, water dribbling down the front of his shirt.
He drank until he couldn't drink anymore, and then he closed his eyes, feeling limp. Empty.
"Hisoka." Tsuzuki sighed. "You…" He fumbled for the words, mouth going still.
"Yeah. I know." His hand closed around Tsuzuki's fingers and he reached out, trying to find out what Tsuzuki was thinking. Just a little eavesdropping; just enough to let him know where he stood. Where they stood. Because he was afraid to look up and see the disgust and disappointment that he was sure would be there.
It took Hisoka a long moment, but he realized he couldn't feel anything. Other than his own body, his own breathing, the tidal rush of his own blood. He couldn't feel Tsuzuki. Couldn't sense the lives all around him. Even the rhythmic whirr of a nearby vacuum cleaner…
He always wanted to feel like this. This was how everyone lived. But it just made him feel lonely, empty, a distant star lost on the edge of a vibrant galaxy, drifting and forgotten.
"Know?" Tsuzuki teased him gently and there was a smile in that voice. "If there's anything I know it's that you're tired. Why don't you just rest a little? We'll talk later."
"I screwed up…" Hisoka began, and Tsuzuki just smiled and pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shh. We'll talk about it later." The bed tipped slightly as Tsuzuki got up to turn off the light, and the motion made him dizzy. A faint throbbing pain began creeping along the edges of his eyes, and he realized how tired he was.
How long the journey had been. Shards of broken memories filtering in.
The end of his fight with Kurikara. The Shikigami laughing as he hefted his blade over his head. The pact; two claw-like fingers dripping blood and his green eye caught between them, shiny and surreal. The pain had seemed so far away then. His eye; a marble, a toy carved from glass. Kurikara lifted it and for a moment Hisoka thought he would eat it. But then he put it in his own empty eye socket, the scar parting like velvet. A gem fitted into a foreign socket.
The rush of power as it consumed him whole, burning him inside out.
Hisoka's eyes were scared when he looked up again at Tsuzuki.
"Don't leave me." A throaty whisper. It sounded pathetic to his ears, and he was sure Tsuzuki would be ashamed of him. "Please don't…" Hisoka's hand reached out for him.
"You know I couldn't." Tsuzuki took his hand, sitting back down on the bed beside him. "I told you I'd protect you. And…I will. As well as I can. Promise." Tsuzuki smiled. It seemed to pierce his loneliness, the empty hole inside where his empathy had been. "Just get some sleep, okay?"
"Okay." And suddenly it seemed that things wouldn't be so bad, feeling Tsuzuki's breaths as they moved gently through the bed, the warm beat of his pulse beneath his fingers.
A new way of looking at things. In his sleep he dreamt he could feel Tsuzuki's feelings again, and they cocooned him in warmth.
*****
90 yen.
120 yen.
110…
Tatsumi's eyes blurred for a moment as he stared. He rubbed his eyes, exhausted. It was late, only a few hours to dawn, and he felt like he hadn't slept in days. Over and over, the same lines of drinks, backlit and glowing softly, little magic potions trapped in plastic cases.
Suddenly, a drink dispensed itself, clunking out of the machine.
Along the entire row, machines began to spit out bottled drinks. UCC coffee with milk. Pocari Sweat. Green tea. Apple soda. Pepsi Ice Cucumber…
Tatsumi stared for a second, and then turned. "Sato." A little twinge went through him as he realized how much faster Sato found them this time.
Sato leaned against a machine casually, the way he would back in his old sprawling house as if it were nothing more than a convenient pillar or doorway, looking oddly out of place among the glowing neon signs. "I see you're thirsty." A machine nearby spat out a green plastic bottle, and Sato leaned down to pick it up, looking it over.
Tatsumi shook his head and began collecting drinks, putting them into knotted furoshiki, indigo with a white geometric print . "I could have just paid for this. You didn't have to do that."
Sato shrugged. "You didn't want to pay for it. You never want to pay. And the machines aren't hard to manipulate."
Tatsumi's mouth quirked in the edge of a smile. "Even still…"
"It's just drinks. If this is the worst thing I do today…so much the better." Sato's pale eyes betrayed nothing but calm. He opened the bottle and took a curious sip, long sleeve folded back as though he was drinking tea. "I will never understand why anyone would want to drink anything cold…"
"If you wanted a hot drink, you should have gotten one from the machines over there." Tatsumi pointed. "It's not like you can't read."
"I can't." Sato looked amused. "But you knew that."
Tatsumi stifled a chuckle. "Oh yes. I forgot. Instead of asking someone to read for you, you just do this. Drinks Roulette, right? I saw you do this once before."
Sato smiled faintly. "I just go by what feels interesting. Or heavy. Or…well, one of each kind works too." He stared at his drink for a long moment, as if weighing his thoughts. When he looked up at Tatsumi, his eyes were sharp in the low light.
Tatsumi could feel the rapport between them disappear, draining away as the weight of their responsibilities settled over them.
"Tatsumi. You shouldn't have brought him here."
"I know. But there was nowhere else."
"Tatsumi, there are millions of people in this city. Thousands just in these few blocks. If that shikigami gets loose, a lot of people are going to die."
"Don't you think I know that?" Tatsumi's fists clenched tight. "I just need a little time. I think Tsuzuki-san and I can fix this. But if we go back to Meifu as things are…"
"Then you'd have to face Enma." Calmly, almost too calmly.
"It's easy for you to say it so casually. You're not the one that has to accept the consequences."
"I'm not?" Sato finished the drink and dropped the bottle absently. With a frown, Tatsumi picked it up with the edge of a shadow, dropping it into a waste bin. It crushed itself on the way in. "Like I said, Tatsumi, if this is the worst thing I do today..."
"Then you're willing to walk right in there and kill that boy?"
"I do what I have to. But I'd rather not kill him."
"I find that difficult to believe, Sato. I can't…imagine that every Shinigami you retrieved has basically destroyed themselves with no help from you. You can't tell me every single Shikigami wants to eat its owner alive."
"I don't care what you imagine, and I don't care if you don't trust me. This is just what I have to do." Calm and collected, and more than just a little annoying.
"You're a monster."
"What?" Sato looked bewildered, and Tatsumi felt a little thrill of victory at having cracked his composure.
Tatsumi could feel the anger welling in him, and the machines began to wobble as their shadows trembled. "I know the things you've done. Don't you even care why I stopped being your student?"
"But you were ready. You didn't need me..."
"Then…why I stopped being your friend."
"I -" Sato looked pale in the sickly blue-green glow of the machines.
"You…you're a murderer. I know. I looked into it. You've killed more partners than you've hunted runaways. Half…half your partners. Even the first one who trained you. The-the one who was your friend. That woman who left those diaries in your house…"
"You don't understand-" Sato's eyes were cold again, devoid of expression.
"Don't try to justify yourself, you…" Tatsumi could feel something snap inside of him, and the machines began trembling so hard that their internal loads of cans and bottles began to rattle, clinking against plastic and steel and tin and aluminum… "You murderer. Everyone…everyone knew it except me. And, and-"
"So you think…that I have no feeling except for duty? And that…I'm a monster?"
"Yes. That's…exactly how I think. But that's the least of it" Tatsumi's jaw tightened. "Whatever excuses you might have for what you've done in the past in the name of duty or your own sick reasons, I won't let Kurosaki-kun be another one of them."
Sato drew a long, slow breath, his hand moving in a calming gesture. Slowly, the drink machines wobbled to a halt. "The ribbon has another two hours of life to it. Once it's done, that boy's shikigami will lose its containment. Whatever happens, I have to stop it. With my life. Or his."
"That won't be necessary. I can handle things from here."
"Good night, Tatsumi."
"You can't just leave!" Tatsumi could feel the fear welling up inside him. If Sato found him, it would only be a matter of minutes before he found Hisoka, before he found Tsuzuki. And what he'd do...
Blood, and the splatter of organs. Limbs, sliced through by slivers of shadows, past the ability to heal, to pull together, even as they tried. Tatsumi had seen it once before, and it was too much then. But to put a face…a beloved face to that…
A sick feeling ran through him, filling him with horror.
"I can." Sato closed his eyes, arms folded across his chest. "Don't try to stop me."
But before Sato could move, before he could teleport out…Tatsumi caught the edge of his ankle in a swirling pool of shadow, dropping him into the shadow dimension.
"Two hours." With a snap of his wrist, he shut the gate, trapping Sato in.
Author's notes:
A furoshiki is the traditional answer to the shopping bag. Tatsumi's either environmentally aware, old-fashioned, or a cheapass. Feel free to pick one or more.
Thanks to RubyD for all the help in beta-ing. She's the awesomest.
Omake!
Sato looked over the can, turning it in his hands. "This drink...is made from crabs?"
Tatsumi raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"See? There's a picture of a crab on it." Sato pointed it out. "So it's made from crabs, right?"
"Uh ..."
"By crabs? For crabs?" Sato gave the pink can a tentative shake, and then tossed it to Tatsumi. "I'll never understand the modern world."
Tatsumi peered at the label. "Um, Sato. This…is uh. Hello Kitty..."