trains
His palms were sweating, and he wiped his free one dry on his jeans for what must have been about the twentieth time. The fabric near the tops of his thighs was getting almost too damp to be useful anymore. He hated this even more than he'd expected to, and that was pretty impressive work on his part, if he did say so. A woman jostled into him from behind, startling him, making him jump like a cat and his fingers curl by reflex, and he tried not to cringe away too obviously -- yes, you're afraid you'll miss your train, you're all afraid you'll miss your train, you are not that unique, is there really any need to broadcast it across the entire city?
"See anything?" he muttered into the phone, realizing suddenly how weird it might look just holding it up and not talking into it. He still wasn't used to the things; the fact that they hadn't really become popular until after he was dead somehow unnerved him. The little silver pod stayed silent so long he began to suspect he'd lost the connection or something -- and then Tsuzuki's voice, a little tinny but otherwise sounding close and normal. He paused by a column he was walking past and just closed his eyes for a second, listening. For a minute he could let himself do that.
"Nope, not yet. Why, have you got something?"
Some sort of munching sounds came through on the phone, too, in between the words, obviously disguised both very carefully and not very well. Typical. One corner of his mouth twisted up all on its own; he certainly didn't have anything to do with it.
"A headache," he said, and turned so his back was to the column, staring out without seeing at the rushing crowds. "Also a strong desire to quit my job. What the hell are you eating?"
A pause. "Um. Th-there was a stand, w--"
"You know what, forget I asked." He sighed, and then didn't give Tsuzuki time to start whimpering. "Where are you?"
"Up top. Near the edge." Hisoka refrained from turning and trying to look; that was the kind of ridiculous thing Tsuzuki would do, and moreover the kind of ridiculous thing Tsuzuki might answer with an even more ridiculous thing like waving. An announcement of some train boarding somewhere clanged over the address system, filling the atrium, and they both waited for it to be over before Tsuzuki started to talk again. "It's pretty nice up here! I'd probably want to wait here if I were waiting for a train. There's lots of places to sit and tables and stuff and not many people around..."
"Lucky you." He tented his hand over his forehead and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "Ugh. Look down here, not at how nice it is up on the balcony, all right? I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"I haven't seen him. Really. I... Hisoka, are you okay? Do you want to try to switch?"
He started to sigh again, imagined it blowing back in Tsuzuki's receiver, and stopped himself. "Yeah, if we wanted to completely defeat the purpose of this whole operation. And don't say I don't have to do this, because I know you're going to, and I do. If he gets on that train -- "
"I know." At least Tsuzuki had stopped chewing in his ear. "I'm watching. I'll tell you if I see anyone who even looks like him, I promise."
Hisoka nodded, and then scowled at himself. "Yeah." He pushed himself back off the column with a slight effort, and forced himself to mill back out into the crowd of people heading for train platforms, trying neither to get in the way too much nor get swept along anywhere. At least the phones didn't make them stand out, like he'd vaguely been afraid of; at least half the people here were doing the exact same thing. Pretty creepy, when you thought about it.
He tried to reach out with his mind, but it was ridiculous and he knew it. He could already feel everything that came anywhere near him perfectly well, and it was all normal, banal rush-hour feelings of mingled weariness and urgency. No cold, unnatural death, and no murder. You'd think those would be things he could be happy for.
Yamaguchi Saburo had been dead for just over a week, and you'd think Yamaguchi would have noticed that, too. It wasn't his fault, though, technically; investigation had made it clear that someone had raised him and was running him, and if they could get him back to the lab there was a good chance Watari could figure out who. Of course, for that to happen, there was the small prior matter of finding him, catching him, and keeping him from getting on the crowded evening train he was being forced to suicide-bomb. Sure. Simple enough. But still, presumably all of these things would follow very naturally on each other's heels, at least in theory. Which was all great if the dead gentleman in question would ever show up for his goddamn train, and spare Hisoka a messy and painful Death By Commuter Empathy.
I'm going to start blowing these people up if he doesn't show up soon, he almost said, and then at the last minute decided Tsuzuki probably wouldn't think that was funny.
"Man, where is he?" Tsuzuki echoed Hisoka's thoughts finally, although at this distance it was hard to tell whether out of sympathy for Hisoka or out of boredom for himself. "He's pretty late, isn't he?"
"Yeah. He's going to miss his train at this rate." He checked the clock above the timetable, and amended, "No, there's still about fifteen minutes to go. Still, I would have thought he'd need time to prepare."
"Maybe he's preparing somewhere else." He could almost hear Tsuzuki shrug, and again resisted the urge to look up and try to find him. "I wish we were home."
Hisoka rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. It won't be that much longer, quit whining about it."
"No, I mean, I wish we were home and naked."
That made him stop walking very suddenly.
Which was stupid, because as soon as he did yet another woman with a briefcase plowed right into him. She excused herself and returned his dipped head, but he caught the flash of irritation both in her eyes and in her mind as she passed. He entertained a brief, insane thought about yelling after her, Well, he's right, you know, you are neurotic, and probably lousy in bed! ...This crowd was really getting to him. He juggled the phone to his other hand and fell out of the stream of traffic as much as he could.
"I, um. ... ...what?"
"And having sex, I mean. Not just naked."
Hisoka rubbed his temples again. "...yes, I gathered that. Tsuzuki, are you at all aware that we have a job to do?"
"What? You'll feel him if he goes by."
"Right. So we just wait for him to come to us, I guess? Out of charity? Because at this rate -- "
"Oh, relax, will you? You said we've got a few minutes. I'm just saying, I'm horny."
Hisoka hiccuped his next breath slightly, and barely avoided a coughing fit. He turned away from as many other people as possible to hiss confidentially into the phone, "Tsuzuki -- " -- although where he was it was sort of like trying to get out of the air. On the other end of the line he could hear Tsuzuki smothering laughter, and oh, was someone going to die again very shortly? "Shut up! I'm in the middle of a crowd, it's not funny! What's wrong with you?"
"Sorry, sorry," Tsuzuki was saying, sounding both chastened and not sorry at all. "I'm sorry, I'll stop." The pause was just a little too impish, and Hisoka just had time to close his eyes in resigned anticipation. "...talking about how much I want you in me."
This time Hisoka tripped, even in spite of his preparation. It nearly got him run over again; at least the businessman in question barely cast a glance in his direction. "I'm going to hang up on you." His voice still sounded more or less reasonable, and all he could really do was hope Tsuzuki wouldn't be able to see through him.
"You can't," Tsuzuki's voice said sweetly, immediately. "We've got a job to do, right?"
Crap.
"I hate you." That had no particular conviction behind it, though. He tried to pay attention to drifting across the station; this had to be the third or fourth time he'd walked aimlessly through the sea of commuters from one end to the other. At least there was enough turnover no one was likely to notice. "I don't know why I put up with you, you know. You see anything?"
"Nope. You worry too much, we've still got plenty of time. You know what? I think we should take a shower when we get home."
"Tsuzuki -- "
"Well, or maybe not, the landlady keeps sending me notes about wasting too much water, I guess she's right. Maybe we should just go to bed. I like having you on top of me best anyway."
"--not what we have cellphones for, you kn--"
"It's really good like that, isn't it?" And that growing breathy note, that was unfeigned. At least there was that. "Now I've gotten started, I can't stop thinking about it, it's driving me crazy. It always makes me feel so good. I really like the way you feel. Just thinking about it makes me want you."
Somehow, Hisoka found, he was making his way back to the column again, a little too slowly and distractedly to really suit anyone around him. "Are you even looking?"
"Yeah. There's a guy behind you who looks kinda like him, but he's too tall. I like your mouth too, though. Mmm. I don't know which I like better."
Hisoka tried to concentrate for a minute; it never hurt to be sure. The guy behind him was tired and vaguely hungry. Not him. "I can't describe how much you are not helping."
"I'm making it more interesting, though. Right?" He didn't even have to make up a lame line about how he could almost hear Tsuzuki grinning around that; he actually could, in the way it shaped the words. "I really can't wait to get out of here and get you home. Really."
He glanced around, and then turned toward the column this time, standing facing it with his head turned away from most of the echoing traffic. "...yeah. Me too." And of course the tiny shiver he could hear in Tsuzuki's breath was the worst yet. "Where are you now? Can you see me?"
"Mm-hm. I'm right across from you. You look really good in those jeans, have I ever mentioned?"
"You are ridiculous." He exhaled, leaned his forehead on the concrete pillar. It felt cool and good. It seemed like there were a lot less people in here suddenly. "...You were saying?"
"Umm... oh, I don't remember now!" Tsuzuki's laughter in his ear, as dumb as ever and yet with a dark smoky edge on it that made Hisoka want to dig his hands into the column, scratch at it like skin. "But you do look good in them. Really. You have a nice butt."
He pushed his temple a little closer, making a face at all the stupid colors he knew he was probably turning, wondering how good most people were at recognizing other people having phone sex. In public, god damn him. Well, hopefully the dead man would have the courtesy to walk right by this particular column. Why didn't anyone ever fire Tsuzuki again? "...Stupid. Shut up."
"You do! Wish I were there. It's really nice." A little more laughter, but this was basically just an excuse to purr. He was standing in the middle of one of the largest train stations in the area, leaning his head on a concrete column, listening to his stupid boyfriend purr in his ear. "Maybe I should come down. I just want to be touching you. I bet no one would even notice."
"That would defeat pretty much the whole purpose of this setup, I feel obligated to point out." He tried to make it come out sounding bored, and winced a little at how badly it failed.
"Well... maybe later. Sometime when I can really touch you. You feel so good..." Hearing the soft catch in Tsuzuki's voice at the end of that sentence, a stutter of shaky breath that could mean almost anything at all, did nothing to help matters. Hisoka swallowed.
"You -- " he started, and then stopped. "...Have you moved? Are you still close?"
"Yeah. I mean, no. I'm still here, I can see you. Still looking at your butt."
"Yes, thanks. It -- um. Seen any sign of him yet?"
"Nope. Nothing."
"Okay. You can go back to looking at my ass now."
"Well, thank you, I will!" Tsuzuki's shaky laughing breath blew across the earpiece, like he'd been afraid of his own doing earlier, but it didn't seem annoying now. Well, only on a much higher mental level than he was capable of right now. Right now all he could feel was the ghost of the breath, a phantom on his ear that prickled up his skin in goosebumps. "I wish I could come down, though. Get up behind you. Just touch you right here. Here in the middle of everything." He made a small, indescribable noise in his throat, and Hisoka's hands twitched again. "I don't think anyone would mind."
"I -- think a lot of people would mind, pervert." His voice sounded rusty and old. He opened his eyes and rolled his head so his temple rested on the pillar instead of his forehead, stared without seeing out the glass doors of the train station. Weird, not to feel Tsuzuki during this, to feel just a babble of other people instead. "...I probably wouldn't, though."
Tsuzuki sighed. "Mmm. Yeah. Or kneeling in front of you? You taste good, too..."
Oh, shit. "Tsuzuki..."
"You'd like it too. Wouldn't you? Tell me you would. Having me there."
"Yes." Breathing fast, hard to stay standing, the air coming out of him smoky on the cool surface, spilling out words as if by accident. "Don't be stupid, come on, yes."
"God, I want you. Glad I wear this coat. You're..." Indistinct, fuzzing out on the other end of the line. It didn't really matter at this point. He didn't even dare try to make for the restroom across the floor; the crowd was still thick (and it seemed weird, it seemed like they'd been there such a long time now), but if he moved back in among them someone was bound to notice -- "God, Hisoka, I want -- "
"Got him," Hisoka said suddenly, and he was standing upright erection or no erection because he did. A cold, dead pocket in all that uncomfortable life. "He just came in."
Dry and tense. "Where?"
"Must be from the outside doors. I'd have felt him more gradually if he came through the station."
"I don't -- wait, I see him. Yeah, he's heading in. He's going to come past you, other side of the column, a few more meters away."
"Got it. Get down here, I'll hold him."
"On my way." There was a beep in his ear and Tsuzuki was gone. Hisoka shoved his own phone in his jacket pocket without looking at it, shouldering through the crowd again with much more purpose this time, the hard-on that had been bothering him mostly forgotten. Mostly. Nothing for it now, he'd have time to kill his partner later.
Yamaguchi was a tall man, fairly recognizable in that respect at least, his hair swept back neatly from his temples; he'd been dressed for the occasion in a suit and carried a briefcase that Hisoka suspected was a lot heavier than it should have been. At close range you could almost tell that there was something wrong with the man's eyes, but Hisoka wasn't surprised that nobody else seemed to have noticed. He imagined he wouldn't have wanted to notice Yamaguchi either, if he hadn't had to. When you got close he looked like a corpse, like his eyes were glass that a gifted taxidermist had fitted into his head to give the illusion of life. He moved a little stiffly, as though he had just woken up.
Hisoka intercepted him just under where the dome of the high ceiling started, catching the dead man by his wrist just below where most anyone would think to look. "Excuse me, sir," he said in a low voice. Yamaguchi turned his head to look at him, and Hisoka really wished he hadn't; he was like a sleepwalker looking around, except that the skin of his wrist below his sleeve was cool and waxy. The hand that had ferried his cellphone into his pocket came out tweezing a fuda, neat as you please. "Can you help me with something?"
He touched the paper to skin, and Yamaguchi jerked and hissed, the first really lifelike movement he'd made so far. Hisoka glanced around to see if the process had been observed, but there were just too many people, too busy with other things; it was as private as if there were screens set up around them. His fuda magic for stuff like this was still frankly terrible, but it just had to hold until he could get Yamaguchi out of immediate sight --
Of course. He'd been thinking about slipping off to the bathroom, hadn't he? Well, better late than never.
"I want you to follow me," he said to the dead man, quieter now -- not the public script anymore, not really -- and held his dead glass eyes. Eye contact was important, he remembered both the chief and Tsuzuki saying that. He let go and started to walk, resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder, chasing off stupid thoughts of Orpheus, there was a time and a place for mythology. Yamaguchi was following him, anyway. Even through the echoing din he could hear the man's footsteps. They were heavy and somehow arrhythmic, like a bad heart.
He got inside, and turned back to Yamaguchi, who, comfortingly, was still there and being very creepy. A couple of the stalls were closed, but for a mercy there was no one at the urinals or sinks; he gave the walking corpse a push toward the nearest stall --
-- and its hand snapped up and caught his wrist.
Oh, shit, he managed to think, quite distinct and with something that wasn't entirely unlike amusement, before Yamaguchi threw him against the wall.
Not hard enough to break his spine, though, that was something. Regenerating that kind of thing hurt like hell.
He didn't know if that hadn't been loud enough to alert anyone in the bathroom that something was going on or if they had just decided that a lot of loud thumping suddenly in the men's room was a good reason not to come out of the stall, and sliding down the wall dizzy and dazed it was hard to tell, but right now it was really the least of his worries. Yamaguchi -- or whoever was controlling him and breaking simple binding spells cast on him, one assumed -- seemed to have lost interest in him, but he was also picking up his briefcase again in a slow patient way that was almost as awful as his eyes. He'd made more than the one fuda, but what if none of them held? Or if someone came in, or out?
He got up, spat blood on the tiles, and the moving body of Yamaguchi swung an arm at him again in an absent sort of way; this time he ducked out of the way, hiccuping breath, and the man's head swiveled toward him with a terrible limberness. He fished in his pocket as fast as he could, fingers fumbling, and then the door to the bathroom banged open and someone did come in. Tsuzuki.
Tsuzuki was behind Yamaguchi and didn't waste a second of his advantage. He just took the three big strides forward that brought him up to the man's back and reached around in front of Yamaguchi, pressing another piece of paper to his forehead and chanting very fast and very low, almost too quietly for Hisoka to hear. The fuda and then Yamaguchi's skin ignited with pale, heatless white light. Something moved around them, something swift and heavy and strong, the wind that decompresses a jet that's lost its door. Then Yamaguchi was gone, and Tsuzuki was holding air.
A toilet flushed just as Tsuzuki finished brushing off his coat and was bending down to commence fussing over Hisoka, and one of the stalls opened to admit a middle-aged salaryman, stiff and silent and desperate to be completely ignorant of his surroundings. Tsuzuki glanced at Hisoka, then at the man, and produced from nowhere a huge, stupid, sheepish grin.
Hisoka just stepped on his foot, before he could say a word.
---
They faded to invisibility as soon as they were out of sight again, and got on the train back anyway, not discussing much in the way of why or how it would be easier just to flip back to Meifu. It seemed easier than usual to follow the line boarding the train unseen and unfelt, maybe because Hisoka had just had a lot of practice dealing with crowds. The line seemed very slow, and he tapped his feet and fidgeted all the way through it, hyperaware of being able to feel Tsuzuki's warmth next to him again in both body and mind. The train doors hissed closed and it lurched ahead, still end-of-rush-hour crowded, but there were some seats empty by now. Not that it really would have mattered if there hadn't been.
And there was a blur of motion and confusion and then Tsuzuki had sprawled across a small empty seat and had Hisoka by the wrists, his long legs kicked out at an angle that actually made Hisoka feel light-headed, and it was all he could do to keep his balance and upright for a second longer. "Wait, quit it," he hissed, barely a whisper, which at least hid some of the rattle in it. "If there's a sensitive on the train or something -- "
"Do you really care?" Tsuzuki returned in a stage whisper, half-laughing, and yanked again; Hisoka fell into a kneeling straddle across his thighs with a soft thump. His groin slid up against Tsuzuki's and they made a muffled noise almost in one voice.
"...well, not reall--" and the end of the word was swallowed in Tsuzuki's mouth, his body, his hands shoving up Hisoka's shirt and down the back of his jeans, squeezing him, touching.
The roar of the train covered most sound, but they still whispered and shoved fingers in each other's mouths, mouths in each other's necks and hair, mouths crushed up into mouths. Working men and women stood around them and held the overhead handles, sat and read newspapers, talked little or not at all, and Hisoka ground his hips on Tsuzuki's lap, his erection straining into Tsuzuki's, pulled Tsuzuki's mouth to his with a fistful of Tsuzuki's tie. A soft, tasteful announcement dinged over the loudspeaker and Tsuzuki took the chance to nip the line of Hisoka's throat, startling out a short startled moan that was almost too loud for its camouflage. They groped hands into the disappearing space between their bodies and fumbled zippers open, hands jittering and bumping into tangled clothing and other hands, making the process too hard and snickering at each other in muffled heavy breath in each other's mouths. He lifted himself on his knees and pushed back down, shoving into Tsuzuki's fisted hand around both their cocks. He did it again and again, his muscles shaking, both of them sweating, Tsuzuki's head lolled back on the back of the seat with his eyes closed and his mouth open. His forehead pressed to Tsuzuki's and he found that he could breathe, and then that he couldn't, and then that he couldn't do much else. Grinding, pressed to Tsuzuki's chest, arms clamped tight around his back, feeling what he hadn't been able to feel before, feeling finally right and at home and ready to burst into heat and light and color. Buried in Tsuzuki's hand, buried in Tsuzuki, coming close and closer and then coming as the train barrelled on through the dark.