thenearshore | [semi-open]

Who: Tsuzuki, Hisoka, Battler (and you!)
What: Hisoka's dead (or is he?) and Tsuzuki's not coping well.
When: March 27 & 28, 2016
Where: Tajimamori's temple
Warnings: Discussion of character death, depression, self-harm.

Closed to Battler/Late Night March 27

[Tsuzuki isn't sure how he got back to the temple. There are blank spaces in his memory, spreading darknesses after that searing moment when he felt Hisoka dying and his name shattering into an equally blank and empty space where their connection had been.

The sunflowers are blooming all around the porch, and the cloying-sweet scent of orange blossoms rises from the trees along the far wall. He isn't looking at them: he knows by the scent and the flower shadows swaying over the front door.

He reaches out and fumbles, blindly, for the door handle. Smooth, worn wood under his fingertips. Door frame. His thoughts come more slowly with each moment, leaving most of the information of his senses to flow past without interpretation or comment.

A splinter stabs his index finger, and Tsuzuki notes the pain as if from a very great distance. He doesn't flinch. His hand falls on the door handle, he turns it, and the door falls open.

Tsuzuki stumbles over the sill and falls heavily against the wall just inside it, sliding down slowly until he is curled at the base of it.

He closes his eyes.

There's blood everywhere behind his eyelids.]

March 28/Open to Visitors, Hisoka in the evening

[The window is open in Tsuzuki's room. He's not sure if he opened it. It's ... familiar.

It doesn't smell like cherry blossoms outside.

This isn't Meifu.

Hisoka was a shinki, not a shinigami, and Tsuzuki couldn't protect him.

All that blood, and he couldn't heal him.

His thoughts wander by slowly, and the blanks grow between them, until he's staring out the window without thinking anything at all.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hisoka's hands are warm on his own, pulling them away from his face. Tsuzuki chokes back a cry before it's more than a half-formed sound against his own palms, and tugs weakly against Hisoka's grip.

(It's not Hisoka's grip. Hisoka's dead. If this were him returned, Tsuzuki would feel it, and he doesn't.)

His fingers come away from his face, and his eyes slide reluctantly open. He sees Hisoka there, too. It's not real. It's not real. It's notitsnot]

-- not real you're dead --

[ Breath hitching, Hisoka tightens his hold on Tsuzuki's hands briefly as he forces them down. It hurts, but that's a reflection of the magnitude of Tsuzuki's pain. He can't take it, but he can't move away either. Instead, he lets go of his hands so he can cradle his partner's face as he leans in. ]

I'm here. See? [ The words come out breathless. ] I'm here.

[ He doesn't understand, but he doesn't have to. All he knows is that he needs to make that unimaginable grief stop. ]

[It's the breathlessness in Hisoka's voice that makes Tsuzuki's heartbroken certainty waver. If Hisoka wasn't really there, if Tsuzuki just believed he was because he needed it so badly to be true, would Tsuzuki imagine him hurting like that? That's not what he wants --

It's not, he thinks, and lifts a hand to press against Hisoka's cheek.

He's warm and real to Tsuzuki's touch, too, and there's sweat sticking his bangs to his temple. Tsuzuki brushes them free with a little automatic gesture, and catches his breath on a sob as he leans forward to press his forehead to Hisoka's.]

How--

I don't know. [ He feels overheated, but he hangs in there as Tsuzuki starts to awake to the reality of his presence. His eyes flutter closed, and he drops his hands to instead drape his arms around Tsuzuki's neck. At this rate, he'll be leaning on Tsuzuki for support, but he couldn't begin to think to pull away. ]

Doesn't matter right now. [ Not to him, anyway. What's most important is simple. ] I won't leave you.

[Tsuzuki blinks against the stinging in his eyes, and a few hot tears slip down his cheeks. Starting to believe it's real feels like pins and needles all through him, as hope sneaks back in like blood to a sleeping limb.

Hisoka's back. Hisoka -- knows him...?]

I'm sorry. I -- I let you -- [That's an actual sob, and Tsuzuki takes his hand away from Hisoka's cheek so that he can fist it instead in the fabric of his partner's shirt and hold on as tightly as he'd wanted to yesterday, when Hisoka had been just a little too far away to reach in time.]

You didn't. [ It's a reflexive denial. Whatever happened, whatever left him with these gaps in his memory, he's positive it can't be Tsuzuki's fault. He always took too much blame for himself, and Hisoka lets out a slow, shaky breath. ]

I don't know what happened. [ It's a quiet confession, but he hopes maybe Tsuzuki won't catch on how upset that prospect makes him. ] But it's not your fault.

[He knows Tsuzuki, but he doesn't know what happened. Tsuzuki squeezes his eyes shut against the tears, taking a long breath, and tries to shake off the shocky fog in his mind.]

Hisoka... what do you remember?

[What's left? How much did he lose?

Whose shinki is he now, if his connection to Tsuzuki is still gone?]

We were in the Gensoukai, and... then I lost track. There was a cherry blossom viewing, but it's so surreal. Like I was someone else, or dreaming.

[ Someone that could feel so comfortable out at night among the cherry trees, but that couldn't be a dream. Not when he'd so vividly known of this house with its tall, beautiful sunflowers. Hisoka slumps against him, ends up with his face buried against the juncture of Tsuzuki's neck and shoulder while his words come out muffled. ]

And then this. I don't even know how to file a protest.

[ It's such a stupid complaint, but he's not actually all that okay himself. ]

Hisoka -- you remember?

[Tsuzuki wraps his arms around Hisoka's waist, staring down at the back of his head. The Gensoukai. That's why Hisoka knows him. It's not still, it's again.

Tightening the hug, he lets his own head fall against Hisoka's, breathing out on something that almost sounds like a shaky laugh.]

You remember....

[Tsuzuki really has him back.]

[ Tsuzuki's response drags him under briefly, and it might be obvious with how he seems to go slack for a moment. It's a release of a tightly wound tension, even if everything isn't alright yet. He shakes it off, hugging Tsuzuki right back again as he stays pressed against him. ]

Remember? [ He didn't, and that's half of the problem. Wasn't it?

He'd felt like someone else in that one fragment of time. ]

[Hisoka's right here and everything, right now, is so much closer to okay that Tsuzuki's relaxing against him in turn as his fear and grief ebb.]

You were my shinki. For the last month. You didn't remember anything about yourself, or me, or -- the Summons Department or anything.

[What is Hisoka now? Is he really back to who he was, or is he like Tsuzuki, another god?]

[ It's staggering. He knew something had been done to his memories, but a month? And with everything going as it had been in the Gensoukai, he can't imagine how it had fallen out.

The violation of his mind and the fact that he'd been forced to essentially abandoned Tsuzuki to deal with this new situation on his own are unforgivable offenses. Someone was going to pay for this. His fingers twist in Tsuzuki's clothes as he balls his hands into fists. ]

Whoever did that- I won't let them get away with it.

The memories -- it happened to every shinki. I don't know. [Tsuzuki swallows, and shifts, uncomfortable with the topic even with Hisoka holding him. He'd really failed on this one. He'd been supposed to take care of Hisoka, supposed to find what was going on and a way to fix it, but at the very least he'd needed to keep Hisoka safe.

He's back and that's broken the weight of a grief that Tsuzuki didn't know if he could bear, but he's not back because Tsuzuki made anything better. It doesn't change how badly he failed.]

... I don't know why they made you one and not me.

[Maybe Hisoka would've done a better job.]

[semi-open]

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