You Will Not Be Alone Tonight

Chapter 4 - Different Than Words

Hisoka knew that something was wrong as soon as Tsuzuki shuffled into the office the next morning; not only was he missing his customary box of pastries and the plastic bag full of drugstore candy that usually served as his lunch, he was actually on time.

"Tsuzuki?" he said as he closed his book over one finger. "What's wrong?" Is he possessed again? Hisoka reached out with his empathic abilities, and the carefully woven barrier with which his inquest was met both reassured and worried him. Not possessed... just extremely depressed. Something must have happened last night.

Tsuzuki sat down in the chair next to Hisoka's and promptly put his head down on his partner's desk. "I can't face him, Hisoka," he said, so quietly that Hisoka had to strain to hear.

"Who?" Realizing that this was a stupid question, Hisoka leaned closer to Tsuzuki. "Tatsumi?"

Tsuzuki nodded, his hair brushing the desk's surface with a light swishing noise. "Uh-huh."

"Why? Did something happen?" Hisoka's eyes narrowed. "Did he catch you?"

"No." Tsuzuki swallowed, and turned so that he could look into Hisoka's eyes as he spoke. "He... I found out something last night. He told me, in the dream."

"What was it?" Hisoka asked once the following silence became too thick.

Tsuzuki closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "He didn't want to... He would have..." He sighed, and turned his face away from Hisoka and toward Tatsumi's closed office door. "Back in Kyoto, when I summoned Touda... he didn't mean to save me. He only wanted to save you: I was a mistake."

Hisoka blinked. "Did he actually say that?" It sounded so unlike Tatsumi, and yet at the same time strangely in character. His duty really was even more powerful than his love for Tsuzuki... and the way things unfolded, he failed to uphold either sentiment. "You might have misunderstood. Maybe he--"

"No. It was totally clear." Tsuzuki swiped impatiently at his eyes, and Hisoka noticed the faint traces of red that encircled them. "Tatsumi didn't care if I lived or died."

"That's not true." Hisoka shook his head slowly. "All he wanted that night was what was best for you: he just didn't know what that was, and so he decided it would be best to honour your wishes, even if that meant letting you die." He paused. "He was... so selfless, and all I could think about was how much I needed you, and the void you'd leave in my life. I didn't care what you wanted: Tatsumi did, because he loves you."

"Hey, Hisoka." Tsuzuki lifted his head slightly, and looked back in Hisoka's direction. "Whether or not you were being selfish, you know I'm happy you came for me, right? You know I'm glad to be alive?"

"Yes. And I'm sure Tatsumi does too: that may be what's making it so hard for him to come to terms with his choice. Every time he sees you, alive and happy, he's reminded that he was willing to let you destroy all that. Even if everything worked out okay, Tatsumi believes that he failed you."

'I did right by no one. Do you see?' "You're right," Tsuzuki said, and he exhaled heavily. "I'll tell him. I'll forgive him for that as soon as I can. I just... it's still too soon. It still hurts too much."

"I understand. I'm sure he knows, at least on some level, that you don't hate him for it; he just has to learn not to hate himself."

"Thanks, Hisoka. For everything. I feel better now." Tsuzuki smiled, sat up straight, and ran a hand through his rumpled hair.

"It's nothing," Hisoka said, reopening his book and hoping that the movement would draw attention away from his reflexive blush.

Tsuzuki grinned. "Nope, it's something. And you're extremely cute." He leaned over and kissed Hisoka's cheek lightly. "You're blushing again, 'Soka-chan." His breath traced a warm line over Hisoka's cheekbone to the upper shell of his ear, and Hisoka felt a familiar arm slide around his shoulders. As soon as he began to relax into it, however, a borderline-impolite clearing of someone's throat startled him into throwing it off instead.

"Here are the files for your next case," Tatsumi said, setting the folders down on Hisoka's desk as Tsuzuki fumbled for an appropriate explanation. "Oh, and Tsuzuki, while I realize that you arriving on time is a miracle in itself, I'd appreciate it if you'd try to get some of your work done. While I can nearly reproduce Kurosaki's handwriting, I've forgotten what yours looks like."

"Yes, Tatsumi," Tsuzuki managed, and the noise of his head connecting with Hisoka's desk once again overlapped with the closing of Tatsumi's office door.

"Goodness, Tsuzuki," Watari exclaimed as he walked into the office a few moments later, "you need sugar!" He dug around in his pockets, eventually coming up with three-quarters of a Hershey bar, which he placed into 003's talons. The owl floated over to Tsuzuki,
tapped his head with the unopened end of the chocolate bar, and dropped it in front of him before returning to her master. When Tsuzuki didn't immediately lunge for the chocolate, Watari frowned and turned to Hisoka. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing that candy's going to fix," Tsuzuki groaned, even as he unwrapped the chocolate and inhaled a healthy chunk of it.

"Fine. Don't give the mad scientist any details." Watari folded his arms in a classic 'miffed' pose, but Hisoka could sense, and therefore appreciate, the sincerity of his concern. "I'll leave you alone, then. Hisoka, remember that you need to pick that thing up today."

"Sure," Hisoka said.

"Alright. Until then." Watari waved at them and continued toward his lab. Hisoka set his book aside completely and took up the new files instead, and Tsuzuki devoured the rest of the chocolate on his way to his own desk, where stacks of two-week old paperwork had begun to gather dust.

"Are you okay?" Hisoka asked a few minutes later.

"I'd be better if you'd do some of this work for me." Tsuzuki's smile was almost imperceptible.

Hisoka sighed, and tossed the files on top of his discarded book. Definitely headed back in the direction of 'normal'. "Hand me the stack under the pencil holder."

 

----
 

When lunch break came, Hisoka took advantage of Tsuzuki's desperate sprint to the candy machine in the cafeteria to visit Watari's lab. As usual, Watari seemed to be working through his break, but Hisoka didn't feel guilty about disturbing him. I know it's not the kind of work that Tatsumi pays him to do. "Watari. Can you give me the potion now?"

"Be with you in a minute, kid." Watari removed a boiling beaker of clear liquid from the gas burner on which he had been heating it and added the contents of a vial of brown powder to it before even looking at Hisoka. "Sorry about that. The potion, right?"

Hisoka nodded, and Watari gestured toward one of the drawers closest to Hisoka. "It should be somewhere in there. Just don't dig around too deeply, and you should be fine. It's in a paper bag." With a glass rod, he stirred the brown, opaque mixture in the beaker, carefully measuring out an indeterminate amount of a white powder before dumping that in as well. "Did you find it?"

The third drawer Hisoka opened contained a paper bag, and Hisoka pulled it out delicately, holding it between his thumb and index finger as though it were a used Kleenex. "Is this it?"

Watari bent his head to peer at the bag over the rims of his glasses. "Yes, exactly." He straightened his neck and turned back to his concoction. "As I told Tsuzuki, it takes about five minutes to act, and should outlast your spirit power. It may take effect on you sooner, though, considering your... smaller frame." He met Hisoka's frown with a chuckle. "Do you need anything else?"

"That depends. Do you have any other information that you think I might be able to use?"

"Just go in with a sincere desire to help, and you'll be fine. You should do even better than I did, what with your abilities and all."

I wish everyone would stop saying that: I'm an empath, not a mind reader, or even a psychiatrist. Besides, I know the least about Tatsumi: not only does that cancel out even the minute advantage my abilities may give me, but it puts me at a big disadvantage. If anyone's efforts are going to be useless, it's going to be mine. "Also, I wanted to thank you for before," Hisoka said, seeking a reprieve from the extolling of his cursed talent in a change of subject. "For trying to help Tsuzuki without being pushy. Tsuzuki... both of us appreciate that."

Watari stopped stirring the beaker's contents and turned around. "That means a lot, kid. You're welcome." He smiled, and Hisoka nodded.

"I should get back to my desk," he said, unused to this sort of exquisite awkwardness, the kind that is recorded so fondly in memoir and yet so tainted at the time by the fear of not living up to the moment containing it. As he turned to leave, however, he couldn't resist asking, "What are you making?"

Watari grinned as he poured the beaker's contents into a mug, holding it under his nose in order to inhale the fragrant steam that had begun to permeate the lab. "Tea, of course. What did you think it was?" He took a sip, and sighed. "Hmm... Perfect."

Hisoka blinked, and the stunned look remained on his face until he arrived back at his desk. Only Watari would cook with laboratory supplies. He stashed the paper bag in an empty drawer of his desk just as Tsuzuki came back with his arms full of packaged candy.

"Hi, Hisoka!" He dropped the assorted bags onto his desk, drowning the still-unfinished paperwork in a sea of vibrant wrapping. "Want some? I have enough for two."

As well as for all the rest of the Ministry. Though Hisoka didn't actually want anything, he accepted a few of the smaller packets and ate their contents dutifully while Tsuzuki began his ritual of sugar-gorging. Stomaching the sickening clumps of over-processed sugar was, in his opinion, a small price to pay for the maintenance of Tsuzuki's good mood.

 

----
 

Tatsumi's mind placed Hisoka into the back seat of a car that had clearly seen better days. The windows were so caked with dirt that they had become completely opaque; the upholstery was split, and had begun to spill yellowing stuffing from the seat like foam spills from an over-full cappuccino mug. A glance behind him told Hisoka that the back window had been completely smashed out, leaving only a few shards of glass behind in its rusted frame. The symbolism is obvious, but what do I do with it?

In the driver's seat, which was directly in front of Hisoka, Tatsumi sat, flicking his wrist back and forth as though he were trying to turn the non-existent ignition key. Hisoka's gaze moved up to Tatsumi's face, and followed the line of Tatsumi's vision directly to the small rectangle of the rear-view mirror, from which the ignition key dangled like a misshapen air freshener.

"What are you doing?" Hisoka asked quietly, and Tatsumi's hand stopped.

"It's not working," he said, his eyes never moving from the rear-view mirror. "I can go no farther. Perhaps there is no farther to go." He sighed. "There is only what I have left behind me, and the void of remembrance that immortalizes it." He closed his eyes and adjusted the rear-view mirror slightly: the key brushed his hand, but passed right through the flesh, and Tatsumi seemed not to notice it. "The future is nothing but an extended version of the present, Kurosaki, which is itself differentiated from the past only by one's inability to change anything."

"Tatsumi." Hisoka worked his mouth, but couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't just be dismissed as placatory. Say something... say anything! "The future is what you make it." He took a breath, gathering the workings of a more elaborate thought. "And every day that you spend sitting here, every day that you let yourself feel bound by the past, you choose not to change things. Silence is itself a choice."

"It's so hard," Tatsumi said. "There might as well not be a choice at all."

"But there is. And a lot of people never even get that." Hisoka felt frustration rise in him as he thought about how Tatsumi was squandering the blessing that he himself had so desired growing up. "If you want to be free so badly, let yourself out."

"How?" Tatsumi sounded as though he were entranced.

With a soft growl, Hisoka surged through the space between the car's front seats; his fingers gripped the rear-view mirror firmly, and he snapped it off. It disappeared from his hand as soon as it left the windshield, and the key that had been dangling from it flew off, cutting Tatsumi's face on its way to his lap. "Stop looking behind you, and use the key. You've had it all along; you've just never been able to see it."

Tatsumi bent over the wheel, hooking one arm around it and supporting his forehead on the palm of its attached hand. "I... I can't. I'm afraid, Kurosaki."

"So is everyone else, but if we can get up and live every day, so can you." Hisoka reached over, intending to take the key from Tatsumi's lap and hand it to him, but his hand passed through the key as Tatsumi's had moments earlier. "I can't do this for you, Tatsumi. You have to do the rest."

"I can't," Tatsumi repeated.

"Do you really think anything the world can throw at you is as bad as this? This..." Hisoka paused. "...existence, this constant self-demolition?"

"You used to," Tatsumi reminded him feebly.

"Yes. And now I know better." Thanks to Tsuzuki. "Use the key, Tatsumi. Take what's yours; take your life back."

It seemed too long before Tatsumi lifted the key from his lap by the royal blue ribbon that had previously held it suspended from his rear-view mirror. "It seems so... small. So insignificant."

"It's those things that make the biggest difference: small objects, small kindnesses." Hisoka remembered Tsuzuki standing above him, holding out a cold drink to a day-old acquaintance. "Even though it's in every book, you don't get it until it actually happens to you."

"No. I don't suppose you do." Hisoka could hear the smile on Tatsumi's face as he placed the key into the ignition and turned it. The dirt on the windows vanished completely, and the sudden light blinding Hisoka was accompanied by the sound of the long-neglected engine flaring back to life.

"Thank you," he believed he heard Tatsumi say. "I can handle the rest now."

When Hisoka's senses cleared, he was already back in Tatsumi's bedroom. With a nod and a small smile, he shifted into spirit form and began to make his own way back home.
 

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