"Men Like Us," Yami no Matsuei, Tatsumi/Hisoka

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Title: Men Like Us
Author: lady_ganesh
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Hisoka/Tatsumi
Prompt(s): Sex with clothes mostly on- A sense of propriety is necessary at a time like this
Notes: I claimed this last round, but my excellent beta p_zeitgeist noted some structural problems that took a while to fix. I hope you still enjoy it, prompter!



The shadows felt like an ice burn; cold and hot at once, a searing pain that took all his senses even to comprehend. He was only vaguely aware now of Tsuzuki at his left hand and Watari at his right, holding him still, trying, in their own desperate ways, to reassure him.

Every breath was pain.

He couldn't feel anything from Tatsumi at this point; there had been concern, at first, but now everything was occupied by the secretary's focus, iron-sharp, the pain steady and unending. His eyes were fixed on Hisoka's chest now, scraping deeper into his skin.

The hair on the backs of Hisoka's arms was standing up, and there was a bead of sweat dripping slowly down his temple he was desperate to wipe off.

He closed his eyes, but that only made it worse. He opened them again, just as Tatsumi's gaze dropped further down to his waist.

Hisoka's face flushed.

"It won't be much longer, Kurosaki-kun," Tatsumi said gently.


Watari had been suspiciously cheerful that morning, but Hisoka had just chalked it up to the usual schemes and had avoided the coffee.

That had been his first mistake. His second had been not leaving the second he saw a large rectangular object under a sheet in the corner of the conference room.

Konoe looked over the agenda Tatsumi had carefully prepared. "Now, I believe we may have progress in the case Wakaba and Terazuma have struggling with. Watari--"

Watari jumped up from the chair and ripped the sheet dramatically off the object. "I have invented the perfect device for this case! It was remarkably simple once I thought of it--" He pressed a few buttons, and the machine whirred to life.

For a while, Hisoka believed his third mistake was not running right then.

Watari continued, eyes locked on his newest toy. "All you have to do is put a simple detection spell in the center, and use the principles of amplification to do the rest."

"Watari-san," Tatsumi said, hesitantly.

"If it works as planned, it will find not only the pattern, but the source of any curse within--"

"Watari-san." Tatsumi's voice was hard now.

Watari stopped and turned. "Oh," he said, his voice suddenly quiet and serious as he took in the glowing pattern emerging through Hisoka's shirt and pants. "I guess it works, huh?"


"So the curse carried on after death," Tatsumi said matter-of-factly. "That wasn't included in your file."

"I didn't know it at first," Hisoka said. Watari had turned the machine off, but he still kept his arms across his chest. "Then it didn't seem...particularly relevant."

They all knew that was a lie, but his coworkers wouldn't push him.

"Did you know it was still connected to Muraki?" Watari asked pointedly.

"I...suspected," Hisoka said finally. "But I assumed it would do us little good to investigate further. And honestly, I was reluctant to jeopardize my position here in the Shokan Division."

Konoe straightened up. "While that choice is understandable, I'm sure you can understand why you should have shared this information with us far sooner. We can discuss any reprimands later, though. Right now, I want you to work with Watari to see what, if anything, Muraki might be able to see from that connection."

"Yes," Hisoka said dully. "Of course."

And then he was left alone with Watari, who had the courtesy to seem embarrassed about the whole business. "There is one good thing about this," the scientist said, shuffling his notes so he wouldn't have to look in Hisoka's eyes. "If we get a better view of the curse...."


It's like reversing polarity, Watari had said. Now that we can see it, we can take the switch and pull it in the other direction.

We?

Curses are usually vulnerable to shadow powers. Tatsumi can--

Tatsumi has agreed to nothing, the secretary had interrupted.

It'll reverse whatever's been done to the kid, Watari said, his face disconcertingly still and serious.

It might, Tatsumi said. They stared at one another for a moment.

I'll have to think about this.

Of course.

And Kurosaki-kun will have to agree.

Anything that weakens him, Hisoka had said, I'm willing to try.

In the end, Tatsumi had agreed, and Watari had fired up the machine for a humiliating half-hour to stare at him and take notes. Tatsumi sketched in silence, pausing to quietly, respectfully ask Hisoka to change his position or adjust an item of clothing that might be in the way.

"It will hurt," Tatsumi said. "And I'm afraid there's no painkiller that will keep a shinigami sufficiently conscious while--"

"It's all right," Hisoka said. Didn't they remember what he'd been through? Didn't they remember the eye and arm he'd lost to Sagatanasu's rage? "I'll be fine."

But Tsuzuki's strength was nothing compared to the burn of the shadows. The agony seemed to reach back to his spine and rip his nerve endings apart, and the curse marks flared with their familiar anger.

It was hard to breathe.

"Don't breathe," Tatsumi said, his eyes focused on something at the base of Hisoka's spine-- another humiliation, to be naked through this.

Hisoka obeyed.

The curse marks flared, and Hisoka could see in the reflection from Tatsumi's glasses that their color had shifted from red to white. And then his vision shifted, and the world shifted, and--

Tatsumi took a breath. The shadows dissipated.

"Kurosaki-kun," he said.

Hisoka's knees buckled for a second; not from weakness, from surprise. Shock. He breathed in, then out, then in again. The pain washed away, so swiftly and decisively it was only then Hisoka realized Tsuzuki and Watari had been gripping his arms tightly enough to bruise. They were all asking if he was all right; Tsuzuki, mercifully, pressed a cotton robe into his hand. "I'm fine," he said, disentangling himself from their hands and pulling the robe on.

He was fine.

Once, after they'd decided he wasn't contagious and when the current medicines had given him a few lucid days, he'd shared a room with an asthmatic boy a few years younger. Hisoka couldn't remember his name any more, but one of the things he'd said stuck in his head: It's funny: I never realize how bad I've felt until the medicine kicks in and I feel better.

Reverse polarity. Was it possible? Had Muraki been...draining him all this time?

Was he now draining Muraki?

The cuts the shadows had made were healing; some had already healed. Tatsumi had, unsurprisingly, used a surgeon's precision. It was easier to breathe, easier to move, even now with some of the wounds still open.

Watari shut off the machine. "Kid, are you--"

Hisoka nodded. "Could someone get me something to drink?"


Watari insisted on a complete physical exam every day for the first two weeks after 'the procedure,' and Hisoka didn't really mind; Watari, for all his frivolity, was always respectful, and it was good to have physical confirmation of the changes he was sensing.

Physical strength: Increased twenty percent, then forty. Endurance doubled. Increased oxygenation in the blood (and how did that even work, when he was dead?). "It's incredible," Watari said, pushing his hair back. "You're feeling stronger too?"

"Yes," Hisoka said. "Much stronger." They still couldn't trace the curse back to its source, and Hisoka had felt nothing that might give him any idea what Muraki was doing (useless for preventing him from doing any more damage, but Hisoka had to confess that was something of a relief to be spared witnessing that man's murders).

"It's remarkable," Watari said. "I wish I could tell how much is from the curse and how much is your natural strength returning. Not to mention, if this curse has been used often..."

Watari didn't have to finish. The thought of multiple people cursed this way, an endless network of power that Muraki could call on whenever he wished--that Hisoka might be able to call on now--

Hisoka once again pushed the thought, and the galling sense of helplessness it raised, from his mind. "I know," he said.

Watari pursed his lips. Hisoka know how much he'd restrained himself; he could feel it, most of the time. A thousand questions, concerns, curiosities, pushing at the edge of his consciousness. But now, Watari just gathered his notes. "Thanks for coming in again. I want to be sure--" You're all right. We can't learn anything more. This is going to last.

"I know," Hisoka said. "I do too."


He was stronger, and that was good. It was satisfying to open the jar Wakaba'd been struggling with, to run half a mile after a suspect without getting winded. Fuda in his hand crackled with power. Once he'd even matched Tsuzuki, and his partner's surprised, delighted expression had kept Hisoka smiling to himself for a week.

He hadn't expected there to be any downside.

Watari still expected a check-in once a week, and while he tried to keep himself in check, he was still Watari, and the examinations cut against Hisoka's reticent nature. Saya almost fell on the ice when they worked together in Hokkaido; when he caught her, he found he'd gripped her so tightly her shoulder hurt. And his body finally realized it was a teenager's, full of hormones and desires and inappropriate reactions to a myriad of situations. He was used to that part, but not the level of urgency he'd begun feeling.

Tsuzuki and Watari were easy; he was used to their strange affections and affectations, used to Tsuzuki's emotions flooding in like a tsunami, Watari's maverick energy and the sensual sweep of his hair when he lifted it back in a ponytail. Yuma and Saya's attentions were flattering, but their overenthusiasm tended to dampen any interest his body might have. Wakaba seemed more like a sister, and one kiss from Terazuma was enough for a lifetime.

Tatsumi....

Tatsumi was a problem.

Tatsumi was cautious and considered. His hands were large and well-sculpted, and Hisoka found his gaze lingering on them when his attention would better be directed elsewhere. He was beautiful, but of course almost everyone in the office was beautiful. Tatsumi was still.

And in the back of his mind, he remembered the shadows, how they'd felt on his skin. In his skin.

What was wrong with him? (Nothing. Everything.)

Hisoka tolerated it for the better part of two months, throwing himself into cases and using any spare moments to try to unwind what the curse had done, what it might still be doing. Muraki kept his mind distracted, worried, enough off balance to keep his thoughts from circling to the Secretary's office.

He did his best to ignore the steady drumbeat of desire in the back of his mind, the way Tatsumi looked at him sometimes when he thought he wasn't being observed. He said nothing when Konoe threw out two of the office plants, dead from overwatering. He spent long hours at the library, where no one asked anything from him, and where insomnia was a common and unremarked affliction. If he noticed Tatsumi's office light still on those nights when he walked home, he did nothing about it.

But as Hisoka had learned over and over again, even shinigami were only human.

He'd stayed too late in the office doing Tsuzuki's paperwork; Watari had headed off to his home lab a half hour before. Hisoka checked his spelling carefully and tried not to notice the movement in Tatsumi's office.

He saved the file, printed it, and shut the computer down. Tatsumi had gone out to the coffeemaker, and Hisoka half-hoped to put the report in his inbox before he returned, but instead, he was walking out of the office just as Tatsumi walked back in, coffee in hand, his expression unreadable behind his glasses.

"Tatsumi-san," he said. "The last of the reports from the Sasebo case are on your desk."

"Thank you," Tatsumi said, nodding. The doorway was narrow; they navigated carefully around one another--

Hisoka caught Tatsumi's wrist. He was dimly aware of the thwack as Tatsumi's coffee cup landed heavily against the desktop. More immediate, infinitely more important, was the solidity of Tatsumi's chest, the heavily shielded (but still sweet and wrenching) mix of desire and need Hisoka could feel in his emotions. More important still was the feel of Tatsumi's mouth on his, Hisoka's hips meeting the edge of the desk, fingers scrabbling at zippers resolving into touch, skin finally meeting skin, Hisoka's heart hammering against his chest.

Tatsumi was forty-three years older but lasted only a few seconds longer.

They stared for a moment; Hisoka wondered if he looked as wild-eyed as Tatsumi did. Tatsumi cleared his throat and found a handkerchief in his pocket; Hisoka used the tissues on the desk. "Perhaps," Tatsumi said cautiously, "we should be done with work for the day. I could cook dinner, if you--"

"Yes," Hisoka said, zipping up his fly and attending to his tousled clothing. "That would be...thank you."

"It would be my pleasure." Tatsumi's voice was calm, but Hisoka could still feel the surging emotions. "I'll just empty my coffee cup..."

"Yes." Hisoka watched him go, catching his breath, still leaning back against the desk. Dinner. Adults had dinner, had dates, had sex without indulging in a therapist's notebook full of frustrations and anger and fears. Thousands-- millions-- were doing it even now. There was no reason Hisoka couldn't be one of them, no matter what else might lie ahead.

He fussed with the sleeves of his sweater again and told himself he would be.

Comments

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Tatsumi/Hisoka writing seems to be of an unusually high standard, and this fits right in.

What an excellent and Muraki-ish idea about parasitising through the curse. And what a Watari way to cure it.

Hisoka learning to be healthy is a pleasure, and I love the touches about Hisoka seeing his curse marks in Tatsumi's spectacles, and Tsuzuki's surprised, delighted expression at being equalled.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! They're such an interesting pairing (my working title for this for forever was "A weakness for high-maintenance men," thinking of Hisoka

I'm so glad it worked so well for you.

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nice.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

This is definitely a piece worth waiting for.

I love Hisoka here; the way he has to relearn himself. The way you've written this makes the experience come through so strongly. And the sex scene is great, the way passion mixes with their natural restraint.

Finally, I love it because something good happened to Hisoka. He needs more happiness.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm so glad!

He really does, poor kid.

[animaven.livejournal.com]

Hisoka always feels so fragile, both mentally and physically, after all the abuse suffered in his lifetime, it is to be expected. But to find him being cured was so heart-warming, and having Tatsumi participating in doing the healing was very gratifying.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Ooh, nice. I love fic for these two with so much attention on their magics.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's really fun to play with their powers, I think.