double-brooding

Double-brooding: The attempt to raise a second brood subsequent to the successful completion of a nesting in the same breeding season. (WILDPro)

*

Sunset was golden, dappling through the trees in spots of color chased by shadow back through the village. Standing at the edge of the open screen, he could see light glinting off water somewhere down the mountain. It was very quiet, under the voices of the cicadas, but he couldn't even see any of the other houses for the trees; it was impossible to know if they were occupied, or if there were Tengu passing somewhere just out of his sight, doing whatever made for a normal day here. Difficult for him to imagine. Gensoukai seemed much larger now.

Easy for you to say, Hisoka thought, but he didn't say that either.

*

Many things about people will change as they respond to different situations, but some are constant. Even now, Kotarou uses his mouth the most, while Kojirou works with his hands. Or at least, the fingers loosening Hisoka's borrowed clothing around the waist seem to be coming from Kojirou's side. In the total darkness it's hard to keep track, especially with Kotarou's tongue pressed between his lips. Well, at least someone knows how the robe works. He's not sure he could have gotten it off himself.

Two years, even a year ago, Hisoka knows he couldn't have handled this. Being surrounded by two sets of foreign emotions would have given him cold sweats just thinking about it; he would have been shaky and nauseated in a matter of moments. But crowds, people, even touch have gradually become easier to take in his years as Tsuzuki's partner, and much more so in the handful of weeks that he's been Tsuzuki's new and awkward lover, and now this is only a little overwhelming. Maybe not much more so than it would be for a normal person. They just both feel so clear and calm, so focused, stretching out a delicate warmth between them that closes around him as if it were made up of spiderwebs. He floats, at the center of their affection for one another and their gratitude for him. Swimming in feathers and love.

Kojirou's hand -- probably -- touches bare skin low on his belly, and his muscles flutter and relax under the cool fingers. There's a wing wrapped across his chest, too, a dry spicy smell rising from each rustle of its feathers. Which...? Hisoka reaches up to touch it, and Kotarou moans softly into his mouth. Oh. He leaves his hand there, anyway, exploring the ridge of pinfeathers and the softer down underneath.

For the first time since he came here, he feels like an adult. He tells himself not to get too attached to it.

When the hand stroking his belly slips down to tease its fingers along the base of his cock, he closes his eyes, and remembers the way the sunset bounced off water somewhere down on the mountain, a slow orange finger of light.

*

"How is Kojirou?"

welcome," Kotarou said behind his shoulder, and Hisoka was unable to keep his throat from tightening.

*

The evening breeze has churned up into a high wind outside, and the trees mutter amongst themselves as it passes. Underneath that sound the room is still, except for the small, wet sounds of Kotarou's mouth on the side of Hisoka's neck, and the uneven chorus of their breathing. Hisoka's fingers are shaky now as he follows the long wingbone under Kotarou's tiniest feathers, tracing it out to its full length and back. He can't imagine how it feels, but Kotarou seems to like it. Do Kojirou's wings feel the same? He's afraid he'd hurt the newly-healed one if he tried to touch them.

Kotarou's tongue sweeps past that incredibly sensitive spot on his neck again, and Hisoka jumps a little, hissing in breath. He has just enough time to wonder ruefully how everyone always finds that, anyway, when warm breath brushes across his cheek from Kojirou's side, and then there's a tongue on the spot on the other side of his neck, working in an uneven rhythm with the other. Hisoka's head swims and lurches in a way that has nothing at all to do with empathy, and his hips twitch up into the hand loosely circling his cock. A few seconds after they do, another hand wraps around him there, too, from the other side. A little smaller, a little warmer. He moans out loud.

Wings flutter and resettle around him as the Tengu adjust themselves to this new position, puffing cool dust-scented air across his overheated face. Hisoka swallows it in a gulping breath, and mostly concentrates on holding still. It isn't easy; between the two hands, they completely encompass him, and they move in a perfect understanding of one another, brushing their hands together, sliding them apart, then moving as if they were the same hand. Kojirou's hand -- probably -- the lower one -- shifts around to stroke its palm over Hisoka's balls, keeping just the fingertips on the base of his cock, while Kotarou's strokes him to his head over and over in a steady rhythm. Hisoka has to turn his head and press his mouth into Kotarou's hair, just to keep from crying out as loud as he wants to.

It's amazing how this can be so different from everything he's known with Tsuzuki, what he'd thought was perfect, and still be so good. And how it can be so good, and still be so lonely.

Kotarou and Kojirou's mouths meet over his throat, and he can hear them kissing one another now, soft and wet and warm. The love that belongs just to them flares up, hot and strong, and though it's a step removed from him, he clings to it. It's one of the most beautiful things he's ever felt. Their hands work faster on his cock, smooth and in unison now, and listening to them love each other he feels his blood starting to sing.

At the end, he finds that he's thinking of Tsuzuki; he thinks that probably he'll see Tsuzuki tomorrow, and imagines the older shinigami in the high thin sunlight of Mount Kurama, wind racing through his hair, coming for his partner. He thinks about when they made love the night after the party the Earl had, how he'd stood over Tsuzuki, sitting on the couch still in his tuxedo, and said Are you sure you're all right? and Tsuzuki had smiled at him and said I think so and said I'm not sure at all with his heart. He thinks about the way the clock ticked when he sat up by Tsuzuki's bedside in the infirmary after Kyoto, filing away each second of all the hours before morning. He remembers lying in bed with Tsuzuki, their legs and their fingers tangled together, and calling Tsuzuki an idiot, some dumb joke he'd made, and Tsuzuki saying Your idiot, and how he'd suddenly been almost in tears and tried to hide it, so Tsuzuki wouldn't see.

He comes arching his back into the futon, sighing a long shaky breath through his teeth; aware only of warmth, and Tsuzuki, and the fluttering of wings.

After he's rested for a moment, they reach for each other, and slide to the other side of the futon. Hisoka lets them go. He just lies on his back and stares into the darkness, petting Kotarou's wing where it brushes against his shoulder every now and then to feel the echoes of what passes between them, but mostly he stays outside it all. He doesn't mind. They have their love, and he has his.

*

The silence that followed seemed to make Kotarou uncomfortable, and

By then the orange sunset light had turned a cool blue, and the hut was swimming in shadow; specks of light began to appear through the trees, where lanterns were being lit deeper in the village. Nothing more was really said, and Kotarou soon announced it too late for any more serious thought; and when he insisted that Hisoka be his and Kojirou's personal guest for the evening, there was no way Hisoka could possibly have refused.

*

Kotarou and Kojirou both apologize all the way to the meeting point at the base of the mountain, and after awhile Hisoka gives up on trying to fend it off. After the council meeting this morning, he's mostly just relieved to be leaving the anger of the Tengu behind, but of course he can't explain that to them. He agrees that Soujoubou's decision is final, and aside from that keeps his mouth shut.

Tsuzuki should be arriving at any time, and Hisoka screens out the sunlight with a hand up to his forehead, so that he can watch the horizon. He wonders again if Tsuzuki will be angry, which would be bad, or if he'll just cry and cling until Hisoka gets fed up and pushes him off, which is much more likely and will be much worse.

If forgiveness is offered, accept it, he remembers Kotarou telling him, but he can't make the words take root in his heart with any strength.

Is that a speck over the edge of the mountain range? He can't tell. It could just be a flock of birds, or a bit of mist in the distance.

I'll tell him all this, when I see him, Hisoka tells himself, with sudden firm resolve. I'll tell him I missed him and I'm sorry, and I should have listened to him in the first place, and I was worried about him the whole time I was gone. I'll tell him I thought about him when I was alone in the desert, and for strength when I thought for certain I was dying. I'll tell him I love him, and I need him, and that's all that matters to me.

But when the speck on the horizon resolves itself into an enormous white tiger speeding closer through the sky, Hisoka finds a rare smile on his lips, because he knows he won't.

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