Something Worth Keeping (The Aquatic Remix) [Yami no Matsuei; Tsuzuki/Hisoka]
Title: Something Worth Keeping (The Aquatic Remix)
Author: busta_ryoma
Summary: In which Hisoka gets a goldfish and Tsuzuki broadcasts too much.
Rating: PG-12
Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Spoilers: (if applicable): Probably some for the first few episodes of the anime.
Title, Author and URL of original story: Something Worth Keeping, mistressrenet, http://community.livejournal.com/yaoi_challenge/20073.html
While Hisoka certainly didn’t hate working in Hades, once in a while there were moments when it lived up to its reputation. He should have guessed something was going on when Tatsumi handed him paperwork for Watari, all things considered the secretary normally seemed a tad keen on visiting their resident mad scientist, but the thought something could be up simply didn’t cross his mind at the time.
The reason why Tatsumi gave up the opportunity for a visit became very obvious, very quickly.
Hisoka wasn’t too fond of animals, by and large; they got jittery around him due to the technically being dead issue, and he got jittery around them because he couldn’t help empathising.
Granted, the ball of fluff Watari was trying to edge towards through the mountains of pet carriers wasn’t attacking him, but there was a goldfish bowl with a decidedly distressed goldfish in it undergoing a great deal of scrutiny from said ball.
“Bon!” Watari cried, trying to move without sending half-tons of carrier crashing onto his head or the fragile contents of his desk, “Stop it!”
A split second allowed Hisoka to realise Watari was asking for the kitten to be stopped, not himself, and he scooped it up to receive a sharp nip on the finger in gratitude. “Got it.”
Watari finally managed to extract himself from the carrier canyon, relatively slender physique doing him favours and not for the first time, and took the sulking kitten out of Hisoka’s hands, putting it away in one of the few cages left that was both empty and intact. “Thanks.” Watari paused for a second to look at the kitten with a disapproving frown, though Hisoka could sense it didn’t feel like responding to any reprimand. “You’ll eat what you’re given, you.”
“Why are there so many animals here?”
“Oh,” Watari said. “You weren't here last time. The veterinary team is taking a group vacation, so some of us doctors are acting as substitutes until they get back. As the animals don't get sick, it's just checking in the recently dead and making sure they don't have any living fleas or conditions requiring treatment-- a permanent disability or chronic problem that would carry through into death.”
“…animals stay in Meifu?” It wasn’t something Hisoka had really thought about despite seeing a few cats here and there in the afterlife; it was only seeing them en-masse that made him realise there was something a bit odd about it.
“Of course.” Watari loosened the ribbon in his hair and started putting the whole mass back into something more reminiscent of a ponytail. “Not every animal has had a happy life, Bon.” He looked at the kitten’s cage again, his frown taking on a different edge. “This one died in a plastic bag, in a garbage can.” Raising a finger now in Hisoka’s direction, aiming vaguely at the bowl. “And that one died because some college boy thought he’d try the swallow - vomit trick.”
Hisoka winced, couldn’t help wondering if any of the liquid in the bowl might be leftover student digestive juices. “What will happen to them?”
“Animal shelters. They’ll get adopted, sooner or later.” Hisoka looked back at Watari and was impressed by the way most of the scientists hair was actually flowing in the same direction now. He gave it ten minutes. “After a while, they’ll be ready to move on.” Watari gave Hisoka a look that he was more than a little nervous about, raising an eyebrow. "You wouldn’t--"
“I don’t want a pet.”
“It wouldn’t be for long,” Watari said. “And you get a subsidy for basics.”
“Tatsumi should take it, then.”
“He does better with dogs -- too much of a cat himself.”
“I meant the goldfish,” Hisoka said, instantly regretting it as Watari’s eyes brightened with an impossibly fiendish light. “I’m not taking it -”
Tsuzuki burst in with all the subtlety of a wild boar, setting off panic in the cages that wasn’t alleviated any when he announced, “Oh, they’re all so cute! Can I hold one?”
Hisoka could only be thankful that at least Watari didn’t handle babies, given the headache his empathy with the animals was giving him, and folded his arms, frowning irritably.
Having only just restored some semblance of peace to the lab, Watari wasn’t in too high spirits with Tsuzuki either. “Not until I can trust you to adopt one. Hisoka, a goldfish wouldn’t be any effort -"
"You’re getting a goldfish? Why?”
Hisoka wondered when ‘maybe’ became ‘definitely’. “I-"
“Hisoka’s the only person in the world who could have a maladjusted goldfish,” Tsuzuki half-laughed, getting a punch in the arm for the comment.
“Yes, well, I’ve got work to get on with, so if you don’t mind -“ Hisoka suddenly found himself with hands full of goldfish bowl and Watari’s door in his and Tsuzuki’s faces. He wasn’t quite sure when the getting nudged out of the room part had happened, but if Watari could get his hair into a ponytail for any length of time, there was no doubting the man had some skills in strength and subtlety.
“What are you calling it?” Tsuzuki asked, staring down into the bowl, at black eyes that seemed very dazed if anything and not all that maladjusted as far as Hisoka could tell. Maybe it just had a few fears to face up to. The kitten probably hadn’t helped. How in god’s name had he ended up reasoning out a goldfish’s psyche...
“Does it need a name?”
Tsuzuki stared, before tapping his finger against the bowl and sending the previously calmed fish into a fit of worry that would have resulted in attempted suicide if Hisoka hadn’t clamped a hand across the top of the bowl before it could jump out. “Maybe Jitters.”
“If I have to it’ll be something simple, like ‘Fish’.”
“Hate fish,” Terazuma shouted out as he passed by, and the fish stirred again. Hisoka felt he might agree with it on that one.
Bubbles. Flounder. Kikkoman. The Great White Bastard, Jaws of Steaming Hot Death, Tour Guide of the River Styx, Gilled Terror, and Your Ass Between My Teeth. Hamish McSporran.
It was just a fish. Coming up with a thousand and one names for cats or dogs Hisoka could understand, but it was a fish - not something inclined to live for years on end and certainly not the type of animal that ever had the opportunity to live up to its name.
It wasn’t as if the fish minded going nameless, being as it seemed happy enough just alternating between eating, swimming and sleeping in its bowl in Hisoka’s home, but the others kept asking after the fish and getting irritated that they had to refer to it as ‘Fish’ rather than by a ‘real’ name.
Eventually Hisoka gave up, knowing it wasn’t hugely imaginative but figuring it would be enough to satisfy the others, and began to refer to Fish as Moby Dick.
It didn’t seem to mind that, either, although it didn’t start putting on weight to live up to its new name. Hadn’t he read somewhere that goldfish grew bigger if given a bigger bowl? Still, being a dead goldfish, it probably wouldn’t grow under any circumstances. He certainly wasn’t showing any signs of growing himself. And by all rights Tsuzuki ought to be really fat by now, although Hisoka had his suspicions the older shinigami had probably been one of those bastards who could eat like a horse without putting on a pound even when alive.
The next morning, there was a sign at Hisoka’s desk.
The fish’s name is Moby Dick.
Pretty unoriginal name.
Don’t you have any work to do?
Tsuzuki smiled at him over his cream puff, and Hisoka pretended not to notice the way he licked the cream off his fingers.
There wasn’t much to worry about with regards to keeping a fish, but Hisoka did find himself pondering where to find tank-cleaning equipment on his day off and wandered off in search of Watari, figuring the scientist was probably the best person to ask. Given the glass in the laboratory that survived explosions never got too grimy, it figured he’d have some ideas of how to clean it.
Tatsumi looked a little bit surprised to see Hisoka as the secretary emerged from Watari’s place with an impressive-looking Golden Retriever, but didn’t do much other than stop for a moment to exchange slightly awkward but friendly greetings.
“I thought Watari would know something about cleaning glass,” Hisoka explained, not really needing to, but feeling as if he had to say something to clear the air. It seemed to work, Tatsumi’s shoulders relaxing slightly. “So, does everyone end up with a pet?”
Tatsumi just smiled.
By the end of the month, it was easier to name people who hadn’t taken in pets than those who had. It wasn’t as if they were going to stay around forever, animals recovering from whatever injustices they’d suffered far quicker than humans did and not bonding with others in the afterlife to a depth where it was difficult to move on, and that seemed to help encourage people to take them in. That, and Watari had a knack of somehow making anyone who wandered into his office end up stood outside with a door in their face and a pet in their arms five minutes afterwards, provided they didn’t have one already. Even Terazuma took a ferret in, though he’d claimed it was just because he could feed it from the bad bits he cut off meat.
Tsuzuki hadn’t taken one in. Hisoka asked why.
“Don’t you know I have trouble letting go?”
When sleeping, the mind sorts through everything that happened that day, filing away what it can as best as it knows how, making links where it deems necessary, and dreams often come when it struggles with the filing system or something doesn’t want to be forgotten.
”Don’t you know I have trouble letting go?” Tsuzuki’s hands so large on Hisoka’s waist, his body broad but slender, kisses deep and long and everything Hisoka once pretended he didn’t dream about because it frightened him, made him wake up needy and aching and slightly queasy, and it had taken so long to get over the worst of that nausea but it did pass eventually because that nausea had never been for Tsuzuki -
The clock read three and he knew he ought to be sleeping still because otherwise he was never going to wake up, but he was hard, his hand already on his erection as a less than subtle hint from his subconscious, and he let himself go back over the better parts of the dream. Eyes closed, picturing Tsuzuki’s grip, his pretty face, strong body under and over and inside -
Yeah. That felt better. Nice, even.
Wasn’t the first time, so he just grabbed a wet wipe from the bedside table, wiped the slick from his skin and went back to sleep.
Morning came and the last he remembered of his slightly odd dream was moving through thick darkness up towards sparkling sunlight that hurt his eyes, greenery shifting around him, and he’d smelt something from that darkness up in the sunlight, emerged to gasp for mouthfuls of that delicious smell before moving back down where he could breathe.
The goldfish floated serenely in the bowl on the other side of the room, startled awake when Hisoka pulled out one of the drawers from the chest it was sitting on, removing his clean clothes.
“Of course,” He muttered, pulling on a T-shirt before snorting at the idea of empathising with a fish and promising himself he’d move it out of the bedroom.
Still. Wouldn’t have thought fish were dreamers.
Aside from being a dreamer, it also seemed his fish wasn’t very fond of relocation. All things considered he’d let someone with a larger tank look after it while he went out on a case, Hisoka would have expected it to be tetchy about returning home; turned out that as soon as it was back in its bowl it calmed down, but he doubted Saya was going to forgive Moby for bullying her own fish while it was a resident in her tank.
“It hated being moved,” he told Tsuzuki that night over the phone. “Why would a goldfish hate being moved? Don’t they have five-second memories? Dumb thing.”
“Maybe it just got used to things being a certain way. So when they changed...”
Hisoka just managed to resist banging his head against the nearest wall. First he was empathising with a goldfish, now Tsuzuki was jealous of it. There was something wrong with the afterlife.
And Tsuzuki was still talking, which really wasn’t helping the headache that was threatening him. “Tsuzuki,” he interrupted, cutting off any further rambling.
“Yes?”
“Do you want to come over and have dinner tomorrow?” Wait. Why had he said that? Both possible answers, “No” or “I’ll bring something” were not good. “I’ll cook,” he added, before figuring that Tsuzuki might take that to heart, and it was so not fair that as an empath he’d fallen for pretty much the most over-reacting creature ever born. “If you want you can bring dessert.”
“I - yeah, I’ll come,” Tsuzuki half-stuttered, sounding more surprised than concerned and that had to count for something. “After work? I can help -“
No, no, no, Tsuzuki helping in the kitchen was like a natural disaster helping in the kitchen. “I have to run some errands. Why don’t you just come around eight?”
“Sure,” Tsuzuki said.
Hisoka hung up the phone and touched his palm to his chest, annoyed at his heart for beating hard enough his ears could hear it. Or feel it. Either way, his heartbeat was in his ears. And that was stupid.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had Tsuzuki over at his house hundreds of times for various reasons. It wasn’t as if it was different from any of those previous times.
Even so, everything in him kept saying that actually, no, it was different, and when Tsuzuki showed up belatedly they were both nervous, the bunch of bedraggled tulips in Tsuzuki’s hand looking a little bit like he felt.
“I thought they’d be pretty,” Tsuzuki apologised, handing over the tulips and a cake Hisoka had seen at the corner market but decided against getting snippy about; at least he’d tried it before and knew it was half-decent. And at least Tsuzuki hadn’t been the one to cook it. “Thank you. They’ll probably perk up in water.” He nearly cut himself off with a quick intake of breath as their hands brushed, his mind choosing that moment to prompt him with a reminder of his recent dreams, but he pushed it down quickly to go and put the flowers in water. Very cold water.
They did look happier in it.
Tsuzuki’s eyes wandered over to the fish more and more during the course of the meal before finally he asked, “Isn’t it ready to move on yet?”
“Maybe,” Hisoka replied without much commitment. “I think it should stay a little bit longer.” Just in case. Way to sound convincing. Tsuzuki smiled just a little bit at the comment before his eyes returned fixedly to his plate, and Hisoka caught on to the embarrassed arousal, realised he’d been nursing an empty spoon after finishing off his thin slice of cake. If it weren’t for the fact the situation was often reversed, he would have felt guilty for the accidental tease.
As things stood, he decided against saying anything and picked up his dishes, saying nothing but not complaining either when Tsuzuki followed him through to the kitchen with his own. He’d mostly expected it; even though Tsuzuki sometimes came off as absent-minded, and quite rightly so, he always tried to be polite.
Dinner and a movie ought to take place in reverse order. Digestion is a tiring process, and watching some movies can be an endurance test. Unsurprising, then, that Tsuzuki fell asleep halfway through the movie, leaving Hisoka to take care of getting a blanket for him before retiring for the night, theoretically to fall asleep but the daft temptation to walk back in and ravish a fatigue-confused Tsuzuki meant there was an issue to take care of first. Given the fact he could hear Tsuzuki snoring faintly in the other room, it didn’t take long.
Hisoka woke up, startled, feeling awkwardness with a strange detachment that he knew had to come from it not being his own originally, and realised Tsuzuki had one hand on the bed, as if he’d considered sitting down but hadn’t quite made a decision about whether he would yet. “What...” Wait, wait. Slow down for a second, or the idiot was going to get frightened and run off, he could feel uncertainty already in painful waves. “What time is it?”
“About half three,” Tsuzuki replied, pulling his hand back but sitting down. He’d put his jacket back on. “I was going to leave, but, um...”
Hisoka sat up, feeling his own confusion combined with Tsuzuki’s, making it irritatingly hard to get his thoughts straight. “Stay. Stop worrying about it and stay.”
Tsuzuki nodded, before pausing for a minute and shaking his head, arousal and denial hitting hard and fast. “I shouldn’t, I don’t -“
“You won’t hurt me,” Hisoka interrupted, frustrated at Tsuzuki’s feelings of guilt, this ongoing mutual want they never seemed to find time for. “He wasn’t - I know it doesn’t have to hurt.”
“What if -“
“Tsuzuki, stop thinking,” Hisoka snapped, putting his arms around Tsuzuki’s shoulders and wincing at the headache-like pain of physical contact with someone who broadcast their emotions so loudly until the older shinigami’s nerves settled a little with the hug. The jittery nature of Tsuzuki’s thoughts became even clearer as the tension slipped from them - he was exhausted, thoroughly shattered. “Go to sleep.”
Tsuzuki couldn’t protest much, Hisoka helping him take the jacket off and unbutton his shirt most of the way before passing out. It was pretty much impossible not to follow him into sleep.
Hisoka woke up slowly with the satisfaction of a good long rest, Tsuzuki looking similar in between broadcasting that he was hungry. “You should have made yourself breakfast,” Hisoka grumbled, knowing even before Tsuzuki protested that there was a ban on any cooking in the kitchen being done by anyone other than Hisoka himself.
“I think -“
“Stop that,” Hisoka urged, kissing Tsuzuki on the nose and finding to his own amusement that it was cold. “There should be cereal in the top cupboard. I think I can trust you to fill a bowl.”
“Mm.” Tsuzuki went quiet for a long moment before leaning in and giving Hisoka a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t move.”
“It’s my house!”
“Don’t leave, then,” Tsuzuki suggested, smiling brightly for a second before getting up, his absence making Hisoka aware of how much warmth he’d added to the bed. Funny how the one night he slept with Tsuzuki he didn’t wake up with morning wood.
Tsuzuki returned in record time, cheeks packed with cereal like a hamster’s as he climbed back into the bed, still chewing.
“If I kiss you now, you’ll be crunchy,” Hisoka scolded teasingly, but couldn’t help feeling stupidly happy at the huge, literally flaky grin Tsuzuki gave him for a second before swallowing.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not enough for second-hand breakfast.”
Tsuzuki smiled again - less flakily this time - before blinking. “Is that an empty goldfish bowl?”
“For now,” Hisoka confirmed of the object sat on top of his dresser. “I think I should get a Captain Ahab.”
“You’re keeping the goldfish?”
Hisoka briefly pondered saying something trite about not being very good at letting go either, but decided against it, opting to nod instead before cuddling up a little closer.
Sex with the benefits of empathy turned out to be a lot better than he remembered. Or maybe that was just a Tsuzuki thing.
Hisoka blinked on leaving Watari’s office at the slightly more impressive than a goldfish specimen he held in his hands. Well, in a tank in his hands, but the idea was the same. Still, a betta was probably best suited for Captain Ahab’s role.
“He’s good at that,” Tatsumi commented, startling Hisoka out of his mild confusion. “I hear you’re keeping the goldfish.”
“Mm. Maybe. Yes.”
Tatsumi nodded, smiled a little sadly, but a little gladly as well. “I’m glad things are working out for you.”
“Thank you,” Hisoka replied, realising as he spoke that he meant it. “I am too.”
The End
Author: busta_ryoma
Summary: In which Hisoka gets a goldfish and Tsuzuki broadcasts too much.
Rating: PG-12
Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Spoilers: (if applicable): Probably some for the first few episodes of the anime.
Title, Author and URL of original story: Something Worth Keeping, mistressrenet, http://community.livejournal.com/yaoi_challenge/20073.html
While Hisoka certainly didn’t hate working in Hades, once in a while there were moments when it lived up to its reputation. He should have guessed something was going on when Tatsumi handed him paperwork for Watari, all things considered the secretary normally seemed a tad keen on visiting their resident mad scientist, but the thought something could be up simply didn’t cross his mind at the time.
The reason why Tatsumi gave up the opportunity for a visit became very obvious, very quickly.
Hisoka wasn’t too fond of animals, by and large; they got jittery around him due to the technically being dead issue, and he got jittery around them because he couldn’t help empathising.
Granted, the ball of fluff Watari was trying to edge towards through the mountains of pet carriers wasn’t attacking him, but there was a goldfish bowl with a decidedly distressed goldfish in it undergoing a great deal of scrutiny from said ball.
“Bon!” Watari cried, trying to move without sending half-tons of carrier crashing onto his head or the fragile contents of his desk, “Stop it!”
A split second allowed Hisoka to realise Watari was asking for the kitten to be stopped, not himself, and he scooped it up to receive a sharp nip on the finger in gratitude. “Got it.”
Watari finally managed to extract himself from the carrier canyon, relatively slender physique doing him favours and not for the first time, and took the sulking kitten out of Hisoka’s hands, putting it away in one of the few cages left that was both empty and intact. “Thanks.” Watari paused for a second to look at the kitten with a disapproving frown, though Hisoka could sense it didn’t feel like responding to any reprimand. “You’ll eat what you’re given, you.”
“Why are there so many animals here?”
“Oh,” Watari said. “You weren't here last time. The veterinary team is taking a group vacation, so some of us doctors are acting as substitutes until they get back. As the animals don't get sick, it's just checking in the recently dead and making sure they don't have any living fleas or conditions requiring treatment-- a permanent disability or chronic problem that would carry through into death.”
“…animals stay in Meifu?” It wasn’t something Hisoka had really thought about despite seeing a few cats here and there in the afterlife; it was only seeing them en-masse that made him realise there was something a bit odd about it.
“Of course.” Watari loosened the ribbon in his hair and started putting the whole mass back into something more reminiscent of a ponytail. “Not every animal has had a happy life, Bon.” He looked at the kitten’s cage again, his frown taking on a different edge. “This one died in a plastic bag, in a garbage can.” Raising a finger now in Hisoka’s direction, aiming vaguely at the bowl. “And that one died because some college boy thought he’d try the swallow - vomit trick.”
Hisoka winced, couldn’t help wondering if any of the liquid in the bowl might be leftover student digestive juices. “What will happen to them?”
“Animal shelters. They’ll get adopted, sooner or later.” Hisoka looked back at Watari and was impressed by the way most of the scientists hair was actually flowing in the same direction now. He gave it ten minutes. “After a while, they’ll be ready to move on.” Watari gave Hisoka a look that he was more than a little nervous about, raising an eyebrow. "You wouldn’t--"
“I don’t want a pet.”
“It wouldn’t be for long,” Watari said. “And you get a subsidy for basics.”
“Tatsumi should take it, then.”
“He does better with dogs -- too much of a cat himself.”
“I meant the goldfish,” Hisoka said, instantly regretting it as Watari’s eyes brightened with an impossibly fiendish light. “I’m not taking it -”
Tsuzuki burst in with all the subtlety of a wild boar, setting off panic in the cages that wasn’t alleviated any when he announced, “Oh, they’re all so cute! Can I hold one?”
Hisoka could only be thankful that at least Watari didn’t handle babies, given the headache his empathy with the animals was giving him, and folded his arms, frowning irritably.
Having only just restored some semblance of peace to the lab, Watari wasn’t in too high spirits with Tsuzuki either. “Not until I can trust you to adopt one. Hisoka, a goldfish wouldn’t be any effort -"
"You’re getting a goldfish? Why?”
Hisoka wondered when ‘maybe’ became ‘definitely’. “I-"
“Hisoka’s the only person in the world who could have a maladjusted goldfish,” Tsuzuki half-laughed, getting a punch in the arm for the comment.
“Yes, well, I’ve got work to get on with, so if you don’t mind -“ Hisoka suddenly found himself with hands full of goldfish bowl and Watari’s door in his and Tsuzuki’s faces. He wasn’t quite sure when the getting nudged out of the room part had happened, but if Watari could get his hair into a ponytail for any length of time, there was no doubting the man had some skills in strength and subtlety.
“What are you calling it?” Tsuzuki asked, staring down into the bowl, at black eyes that seemed very dazed if anything and not all that maladjusted as far as Hisoka could tell. Maybe it just had a few fears to face up to. The kitten probably hadn’t helped. How in god’s name had he ended up reasoning out a goldfish’s psyche...
“Does it need a name?”
Tsuzuki stared, before tapping his finger against the bowl and sending the previously calmed fish into a fit of worry that would have resulted in attempted suicide if Hisoka hadn’t clamped a hand across the top of the bowl before it could jump out. “Maybe Jitters.”
“If I have to it’ll be something simple, like ‘Fish’.”
“Hate fish,” Terazuma shouted out as he passed by, and the fish stirred again. Hisoka felt he might agree with it on that one.
Bubbles. Flounder. Kikkoman. The Great White Bastard, Jaws of Steaming Hot Death, Tour Guide of the River Styx, Gilled Terror, and Your Ass Between My Teeth. Hamish McSporran.
It was just a fish. Coming up with a thousand and one names for cats or dogs Hisoka could understand, but it was a fish - not something inclined to live for years on end and certainly not the type of animal that ever had the opportunity to live up to its name.
It wasn’t as if the fish minded going nameless, being as it seemed happy enough just alternating between eating, swimming and sleeping in its bowl in Hisoka’s home, but the others kept asking after the fish and getting irritated that they had to refer to it as ‘Fish’ rather than by a ‘real’ name.
Eventually Hisoka gave up, knowing it wasn’t hugely imaginative but figuring it would be enough to satisfy the others, and began to refer to Fish as Moby Dick.
It didn’t seem to mind that, either, although it didn’t start putting on weight to live up to its new name. Hadn’t he read somewhere that goldfish grew bigger if given a bigger bowl? Still, being a dead goldfish, it probably wouldn’t grow under any circumstances. He certainly wasn’t showing any signs of growing himself. And by all rights Tsuzuki ought to be really fat by now, although Hisoka had his suspicions the older shinigami had probably been one of those bastards who could eat like a horse without putting on a pound even when alive.
The next morning, there was a sign at Hisoka’s desk.
The fish’s name is Moby Dick.
Pretty unoriginal name.
Don’t you have any work to do?
Tsuzuki smiled at him over his cream puff, and Hisoka pretended not to notice the way he licked the cream off his fingers.
There wasn’t much to worry about with regards to keeping a fish, but Hisoka did find himself pondering where to find tank-cleaning equipment on his day off and wandered off in search of Watari, figuring the scientist was probably the best person to ask. Given the glass in the laboratory that survived explosions never got too grimy, it figured he’d have some ideas of how to clean it.
Tatsumi looked a little bit surprised to see Hisoka as the secretary emerged from Watari’s place with an impressive-looking Golden Retriever, but didn’t do much other than stop for a moment to exchange slightly awkward but friendly greetings.
“I thought Watari would know something about cleaning glass,” Hisoka explained, not really needing to, but feeling as if he had to say something to clear the air. It seemed to work, Tatsumi’s shoulders relaxing slightly. “So, does everyone end up with a pet?”
Tatsumi just smiled.
By the end of the month, it was easier to name people who hadn’t taken in pets than those who had. It wasn’t as if they were going to stay around forever, animals recovering from whatever injustices they’d suffered far quicker than humans did and not bonding with others in the afterlife to a depth where it was difficult to move on, and that seemed to help encourage people to take them in. That, and Watari had a knack of somehow making anyone who wandered into his office end up stood outside with a door in their face and a pet in their arms five minutes afterwards, provided they didn’t have one already. Even Terazuma took a ferret in, though he’d claimed it was just because he could feed it from the bad bits he cut off meat.
Tsuzuki hadn’t taken one in. Hisoka asked why.
“Don’t you know I have trouble letting go?”
When sleeping, the mind sorts through everything that happened that day, filing away what it can as best as it knows how, making links where it deems necessary, and dreams often come when it struggles with the filing system or something doesn’t want to be forgotten.
”Don’t you know I have trouble letting go?” Tsuzuki’s hands so large on Hisoka’s waist, his body broad but slender, kisses deep and long and everything Hisoka once pretended he didn’t dream about because it frightened him, made him wake up needy and aching and slightly queasy, and it had taken so long to get over the worst of that nausea but it did pass eventually because that nausea had never been for Tsuzuki -
The clock read three and he knew he ought to be sleeping still because otherwise he was never going to wake up, but he was hard, his hand already on his erection as a less than subtle hint from his subconscious, and he let himself go back over the better parts of the dream. Eyes closed, picturing Tsuzuki’s grip, his pretty face, strong body under and over and inside -
Yeah. That felt better. Nice, even.
Wasn’t the first time, so he just grabbed a wet wipe from the bedside table, wiped the slick from his skin and went back to sleep.
Morning came and the last he remembered of his slightly odd dream was moving through thick darkness up towards sparkling sunlight that hurt his eyes, greenery shifting around him, and he’d smelt something from that darkness up in the sunlight, emerged to gasp for mouthfuls of that delicious smell before moving back down where he could breathe.
The goldfish floated serenely in the bowl on the other side of the room, startled awake when Hisoka pulled out one of the drawers from the chest it was sitting on, removing his clean clothes.
“Of course,” He muttered, pulling on a T-shirt before snorting at the idea of empathising with a fish and promising himself he’d move it out of the bedroom.
Still. Wouldn’t have thought fish were dreamers.
Aside from being a dreamer, it also seemed his fish wasn’t very fond of relocation. All things considered he’d let someone with a larger tank look after it while he went out on a case, Hisoka would have expected it to be tetchy about returning home; turned out that as soon as it was back in its bowl it calmed down, but he doubted Saya was going to forgive Moby for bullying her own fish while it was a resident in her tank.
“It hated being moved,” he told Tsuzuki that night over the phone. “Why would a goldfish hate being moved? Don’t they have five-second memories? Dumb thing.”
“Maybe it just got used to things being a certain way. So when they changed...”
Hisoka just managed to resist banging his head against the nearest wall. First he was empathising with a goldfish, now Tsuzuki was jealous of it. There was something wrong with the afterlife.
And Tsuzuki was still talking, which really wasn’t helping the headache that was threatening him. “Tsuzuki,” he interrupted, cutting off any further rambling.
“Yes?”
“Do you want to come over and have dinner tomorrow?” Wait. Why had he said that? Both possible answers, “No” or “I’ll bring something” were not good. “I’ll cook,” he added, before figuring that Tsuzuki might take that to heart, and it was so not fair that as an empath he’d fallen for pretty much the most over-reacting creature ever born. “If you want you can bring dessert.”
“I - yeah, I’ll come,” Tsuzuki half-stuttered, sounding more surprised than concerned and that had to count for something. “After work? I can help -“
No, no, no, Tsuzuki helping in the kitchen was like a natural disaster helping in the kitchen. “I have to run some errands. Why don’t you just come around eight?”
“Sure,” Tsuzuki said.
Hisoka hung up the phone and touched his palm to his chest, annoyed at his heart for beating hard enough his ears could hear it. Or feel it. Either way, his heartbeat was in his ears. And that was stupid.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had Tsuzuki over at his house hundreds of times for various reasons. It wasn’t as if it was different from any of those previous times.
Even so, everything in him kept saying that actually, no, it was different, and when Tsuzuki showed up belatedly they were both nervous, the bunch of bedraggled tulips in Tsuzuki’s hand looking a little bit like he felt.
“I thought they’d be pretty,” Tsuzuki apologised, handing over the tulips and a cake Hisoka had seen at the corner market but decided against getting snippy about; at least he’d tried it before and knew it was half-decent. And at least Tsuzuki hadn’t been the one to cook it. “Thank you. They’ll probably perk up in water.” He nearly cut himself off with a quick intake of breath as their hands brushed, his mind choosing that moment to prompt him with a reminder of his recent dreams, but he pushed it down quickly to go and put the flowers in water. Very cold water.
They did look happier in it.
Tsuzuki’s eyes wandered over to the fish more and more during the course of the meal before finally he asked, “Isn’t it ready to move on yet?”
“Maybe,” Hisoka replied without much commitment. “I think it should stay a little bit longer.” Just in case. Way to sound convincing. Tsuzuki smiled just a little bit at the comment before his eyes returned fixedly to his plate, and Hisoka caught on to the embarrassed arousal, realised he’d been nursing an empty spoon after finishing off his thin slice of cake. If it weren’t for the fact the situation was often reversed, he would have felt guilty for the accidental tease.
As things stood, he decided against saying anything and picked up his dishes, saying nothing but not complaining either when Tsuzuki followed him through to the kitchen with his own. He’d mostly expected it; even though Tsuzuki sometimes came off as absent-minded, and quite rightly so, he always tried to be polite.
Dinner and a movie ought to take place in reverse order. Digestion is a tiring process, and watching some movies can be an endurance test. Unsurprising, then, that Tsuzuki fell asleep halfway through the movie, leaving Hisoka to take care of getting a blanket for him before retiring for the night, theoretically to fall asleep but the daft temptation to walk back in and ravish a fatigue-confused Tsuzuki meant there was an issue to take care of first. Given the fact he could hear Tsuzuki snoring faintly in the other room, it didn’t take long.
Hisoka woke up, startled, feeling awkwardness with a strange detachment that he knew had to come from it not being his own originally, and realised Tsuzuki had one hand on the bed, as if he’d considered sitting down but hadn’t quite made a decision about whether he would yet. “What...” Wait, wait. Slow down for a second, or the idiot was going to get frightened and run off, he could feel uncertainty already in painful waves. “What time is it?”
“About half three,” Tsuzuki replied, pulling his hand back but sitting down. He’d put his jacket back on. “I was going to leave, but, um...”
Hisoka sat up, feeling his own confusion combined with Tsuzuki’s, making it irritatingly hard to get his thoughts straight. “Stay. Stop worrying about it and stay.”
Tsuzuki nodded, before pausing for a minute and shaking his head, arousal and denial hitting hard and fast. “I shouldn’t, I don’t -“
“You won’t hurt me,” Hisoka interrupted, frustrated at Tsuzuki’s feelings of guilt, this ongoing mutual want they never seemed to find time for. “He wasn’t - I know it doesn’t have to hurt.”
“What if -“
“Tsuzuki, stop thinking,” Hisoka snapped, putting his arms around Tsuzuki’s shoulders and wincing at the headache-like pain of physical contact with someone who broadcast their emotions so loudly until the older shinigami’s nerves settled a little with the hug. The jittery nature of Tsuzuki’s thoughts became even clearer as the tension slipped from them - he was exhausted, thoroughly shattered. “Go to sleep.”
Tsuzuki couldn’t protest much, Hisoka helping him take the jacket off and unbutton his shirt most of the way before passing out. It was pretty much impossible not to follow him into sleep.
Hisoka woke up slowly with the satisfaction of a good long rest, Tsuzuki looking similar in between broadcasting that he was hungry. “You should have made yourself breakfast,” Hisoka grumbled, knowing even before Tsuzuki protested that there was a ban on any cooking in the kitchen being done by anyone other than Hisoka himself.
“I think -“
“Stop that,” Hisoka urged, kissing Tsuzuki on the nose and finding to his own amusement that it was cold. “There should be cereal in the top cupboard. I think I can trust you to fill a bowl.”
“Mm.” Tsuzuki went quiet for a long moment before leaning in and giving Hisoka a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t move.”
“It’s my house!”
“Don’t leave, then,” Tsuzuki suggested, smiling brightly for a second before getting up, his absence making Hisoka aware of how much warmth he’d added to the bed. Funny how the one night he slept with Tsuzuki he didn’t wake up with morning wood.
Tsuzuki returned in record time, cheeks packed with cereal like a hamster’s as he climbed back into the bed, still chewing.
“If I kiss you now, you’ll be crunchy,” Hisoka scolded teasingly, but couldn’t help feeling stupidly happy at the huge, literally flaky grin Tsuzuki gave him for a second before swallowing.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not enough for second-hand breakfast.”
Tsuzuki smiled again - less flakily this time - before blinking. “Is that an empty goldfish bowl?”
“For now,” Hisoka confirmed of the object sat on top of his dresser. “I think I should get a Captain Ahab.”
“You’re keeping the goldfish?”
Hisoka briefly pondered saying something trite about not being very good at letting go either, but decided against it, opting to nod instead before cuddling up a little closer.
Sex with the benefits of empathy turned out to be a lot better than he remembered. Or maybe that was just a Tsuzuki thing.
Hisoka blinked on leaving Watari’s office at the slightly more impressive than a goldfish specimen he held in his hands. Well, in a tank in his hands, but the idea was the same. Still, a betta was probably best suited for Captain Ahab’s role.
“He’s good at that,” Tatsumi commented, startling Hisoka out of his mild confusion. “I hear you’re keeping the goldfish.”
“Mm. Maybe. Yes.”
Tatsumi nodded, smiled a little sadly, but a little gladly as well. “I’m glad things are working out for you.”
“Thank you,” Hisoka replied, realising as he spoke that he meant it. “I am too.”
The End