wall
Tsuzuki is last to use the bath tonight, and rather than listen to him complain about how much the water's cooled off, Hisoka just offered to heat the bath for his partner, as Tsuzuki had done for him earlier. The little house in Kyoto may be lacking in a lot of amenities, but Hisoka doesn't really mind; the old-fashioned bath has its own sort of appeal, and at least the three of them are more or less removed from other people. He's always hated cities, so many people boxed up next to each other with just thin walls to keep them away... But Watari and especially Tsuzuki are both familiar enough presences not to be troubling, and as long as it's just the three of them here, he's fairly comfortable.
And now the water's been taken care of, and on the other side of the partition, Tsuzuki's been quiet for a while, other than the occasional small splash of water. Well... he's been quiet all day, really. That thought makes Hisoka hurt inside, a little, in a way he'd rather not admit to, and he tries not to let his mind follow it very far. Without much success.
"Let me know if you need anything else," he says abruptly, standing up; Tsuzuki makes a little sound of assent, and Hisoka heads for the door back to the rest of the house. He'll go lie down, he decides; he'll try to get some sleep, and maybe that will improve his mood. Or at least make him forget about things for a little while. Or he'll go discuss the case with Watari, or go out for a walk, or just find something else to do that isn't staying in this room, hovering near his partner who obviously doesn't want to talk about whatever's bothering him, as if he were some kind of pathetic teenager with nothing and no one else in the world to worry about than this dumb jerk who doesn't even seem to care.
After all, you'd have to be a real idiot to do something like that. You'd have to be a real idiot to stop here in this doorway, turn around, and go back to sit against the wall between this room and the bath, as quietly as possible, hoping he doesn't hear you. Or you'd have to be... well...
Never mind that. Just never mind.
The wall is faintly warm to the touch; apparently he did a good job with the temperature, at least. Hisoka leans his head back on it, and sighs as silently as possible. He doesn't know why that keeps bothering him, doesn't even really know why it hurt so much in the first place, but he can't seem to make his mind stop gnawing at it. Probably it was stupid of him anyway, expecting Tsuzuki trust in him just like that, but... but still. That doesn't keep it from hurting.
I've changed. I didn't even notice, but I have. I wonder when it was: when it started meaning so much to me what he thinks.
"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki's voice has the strange echoing quality given to words that bounce off of wet tiles. Hisoka holds his breath as faint splashing sounds filter through the wall. He doesn't answer, because how can he explain that he's been sitting here all this time, listening to his partner sigh and splash like some kind of... some kind of... some kind of something that he isn't sure he wants to be, that's for certain. And by now it's been too long to answer, and Tsuzuki spoke too quietly for him to pretend he heard him in the other room.
It doesn't matter. He probably wasn't going to say anything important to him anyway.
He finds himself with his hand pressed to the tiles of the outer wall of the bath, inches away from where the fire crackles calmly. For no more than the space of a few seconds, he imagines that if he closes his eyes and focuses just a little, he can feel Tsuzuki's heart beating and his touch against the wall would be as good as a touch against skin.
Idiot.
Hisoka opens his eyes and silently mouths a curse as he pushes away from the wall, rubbing his palm as though it burns.
So much, so damn much he hasn't even noticed. He doesn't know when it stopped being annoying and uncomfortable when Tsuzuki touched him; he certainly doesn't know when it started being... almost pleasant. Comforting, familiar -- and maybe something a little more than that. Something that makes him uneasy in no way that he can explain. He doesn't know when it was that he stopped yelling at Tsuzuki for treating him like a kid, and started being disappointed every time he moved away again.
He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to think about this more than he already has.
No sooner has he resolved this than he notices the faint thread of emotion at the back of his mind, creeping in from the other side of the wall; or maybe it's been there all along, playing subtly into his thoughts like a new instrument joining a fugue. Either way, Hisoka can't quite identify the pulse, and he sits forward a little from the wall, frowning. If it seems like Tsuzuki's in some kind of distress, he will break his silence, rejection and awkwardness be damned --
Not distress. More like a feeling of tension starting to release, like a tangle of thread slowly being unwound. As much as could be expected in a hot bath after a long day of refusing to communicate with your partner because he's an idiot child, Hisoka supposes. But still, he rests his head back against the wall and holds tight to that thread so it can unwind but not unravel.
He didn't notice when this started, either. How he can always feel Tsuzuki, across the room, through the wall, where anyone else would be blocked away and safe. He's told himself that it's Tsuzuki's fault; he doesn't know how to keep any of himself in, even if it means he'll just get hurt again and again. Everyone else in the world knows to hide their feelings, but not Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki is...
Tsuzuki is moaning.
He's told himself that it's all that idiot's fault, but at times like these, when he's pressing both hands to the wall to feel that shivering line of (can't believe it, he can't actually be, in the bath,Tzusuki?) arousal that he can admit that he feels Tsuzuki more than anyone because he wants to feel him more than anyone.
He feels everything so deeply. He feels everything so purely. Even now. ...Especially now.
Idiot!
He should go; Hisoka tells himself this firmly, as he turns his head to press his cheek against the wall too, his breath quick and warming the cool stones. He should get up and leave right now, before this gets... well, any more weird and complicated than it already is. Before something happens. He has to. Go talk to Watari, go take a walk, go to sleep, go anywhere but here, anywhere.
He's not moving.
From the other side, the only sounds are the soft lap of water against tile, and the rasp of Tsuzuki's breathing, punctuated by the occasional small sound: a whimper, a moan. Hisoka finds himself biting his lip as he listens, though it's not because he might moan himself, damn it, just because... because. The thread is picking up strength now, widening into a stream, and as it does it's gaining texture and nuance, more complex now than just arousal. Tension, and confusion... deeper things he can't quite find... and of course that warm, dark flood, winding around him and carrying him along. Why does Tsuzuki always have to be like that? It's enough to get lost in. It's enough to make him not care if he gets lost.
Arousal. He's sitting here against the wall in a half-dark, too-warm room and feeling his partner's arousal from no more than a few feet and a narrow barrier away. But then Tsuzuki makes another low, restless sound before that can sink in completely, and that's distracting enough to keep Hisoka right where he is.
He's... really making a lot of noise. He closes his eyes, and shivers just a little. I wonder... ... no. No, I don't.
An unsettling familiarity touches into the current that flows along his senses now. It reminds him of the dreams... no, the nightmares that he's woken from sweating and aching, but with the marks on his skin burning like veins of fire. He wants to pull away; he tries, but it's caught him now. Trapping him and holding him shivering on his knees against the wall, lost in himself, and in Tsuzuki, and in the laughing ghost of him...
The implications are almost as bad as the feelings themselves.
Water splatters loudly on the tiles of the bathroom; Tsuzuki makes a sound of frustration, and the stream of dark, suffocating emotion trickles away, leaving behind shivers of dampened arousal and unanswered need. Tsuzuki gasps in ragged breaths and whimpers quietly, and then there is silence.
But he didn't.... Hisoka draws in a long, cooling breath through his teeth and pushes himself a few inches from the wall. No. No, it's good. I can leave now. I shouldn't have....
Then it comes over him like a wave and he physically staggers, pressing back against the wall. As familiar as his own name now, but without the edges of fear, and without those, he can't reason through the sensation. Hisoka bites his lip now because he knows he will moan if he doesn't; there's no more denial to be had. The arousal is more than just what radiates from Tsuzuki, and as a soft, hungry moan filters through the wall, he finds it increasingly hard to remember exactly what the problem with that would be...
This need is different; it seems to reach directly for him, trying to pull him in, as if he is the missing piece that will satisfy it, and the sensation makes him dizzy and much too warm. It takes him a moment to realize that he's reaching for it, too, his hand fumbling out beside him and spreading his palm out on the wall. Like he belongs there, like all his pain and his misgivings are simply burned away by the heat... He presses his mouth into his arm, trying to keep himself quiet, and now he's arching and shifting in place, as though trying to push himself against the air, he's falling into the rhythm, now caught up in it and now gone and lost, it's so much, so much of Tsuzuki, himself, he's losing track, and it doesn't seem to matter anymore, it's all the same, so much, so hot, what is he doing?
What it seems like he's doing is trying to find the quietest and fastest way to unzip his jeans, but his mind can't quite credit that it would be involved in such a thing, so it drifts off again and leaves his hand alone. Back into the sounds of water and Tsuzuki, and the overpowering, drugging sensation of the arousal that -- to tell the truth -- belongs to them both. Back into a darkness that, somehow, isn't frightening at all.
I wish...
It's getting hard to breathe, so hard, like he's choking. Is it the steam or Tsuzuki? He opens his eyes, stares out without seeing into the shadows. The zipper's sticking -- stupid hands, won't stay steady. Won't stay...
All right. All right, that's good. Now he can breathe. Breathe and listen, and move his hand.
...wish the wall weren't...
When he closes his eyes, he starts to drown. But it doesn't matter. What matters is his hand on his cock, and it doesn't matter if it's his imagination, he can almost feel it, Tsuzuki's hand, shifting slickly through the water flowing hot around his fingers gripping hard flesh and he forgets to breathe again, doesn't need to breathe, just needs...
...wish it weren't there so I could touch you please think of me now I need you...
Tsuzuki moans loudly and water splashes onto the floor, but he doesn't hear it. It hits him like a gale of scorching wind and he bites his arm to keep from screaming. Blood pounding in his ears and hungry, aching lust pounding deeper than that, fingers (longer fingers, his fingers, please) tight and quick on his cock and then space, or perhaps the utter lack of it for the first time as the three second long eternity begins and he can't place with who or where it starts and the most frightening thing of all is that it doesn't matter, not at all, not now...
His other hand slips too close to the smouldering flames of the fire, and that actual, physical heat brings him back to himself again. Hisoka is almost suprised to look down and see the stickiness on his fingers and the faint incriminating stain splattered on his shirt. That was him? But it he could swear that that was... that it was...
Tsuzuki yawns softly and starts to move in the bath, and Hisoka knows what it really is now is a deadly embarrassing situation that he needs to get out of before he has to explain.
He draws his clean hand across his face once, shakily, and then pushes himself up from the wall, and tumbles right back with a wince and a thud that Tsuzuki's splashing fortunately disguises. Hisoka gets his balance on the second try, and pushes himself up along the wall, fumbling his pants closed again with one clumsy set of fingers. If he goes to get himself cleaned up, he should be fine.
He leans on the wall, waiting for Tsuzuki to make enough noise to cover his exit. Fine. Once he washes his hands, he'll forget all about this, whatever it was; he can believe it never really happened at all, it was just some weird dream brought on by all the stress and confusion. He'll forget about it, because the alternative is to finally let himself want what won't be his, and that choice is no choice at all. So he'll go clean himself up. And he'll go to bed. And in the morning, everything'll be normal again, and he'll be... well...
He'll be fine.
He leaves the room as silently as only a shinigami can, hidden by the burble of water from behind the wall, as Tsuzuki climbs out of his bath and into an empty room.