He supposed he should have had something more profound to think about, but the first thing that struck Hisoka as Sargatanus finally faded from view, twisting and straining against the hold of Byakko's maw at his throat, was how much he hurt. His back was a dull, throbbing ache, vertebrae rasping and grating against each other from his collision with the wall, joints still shredded from the violence in the hotel room reopened and bleeding sticky liquid through his clothes. He collapsed to his knees, barely able to muster enough energy to snap his head back up before he hit the ground entirely, swaying uncertainly and wondering if it were possible that he had run on adrenaline alone during the entire battle.

 

But Tsuzuki was alive.

 

His eyes raised enough to focus on the crumpled form in front of him, a good three feet and an obstacle course of rubble away, back torn and bleeding a horrible puddle over the polished marble of the entryway floor. The puddle told him that Tsuzuki's heart was still beating and he was grateful for that small reassurance as he fought to remain at least partially upright. There would be no one to assist them for some time, not with the force field Watari had erected to keep Tsuzuki's possessed rampage confined to a small area of the JuOhCho complex left standing in the engineer's haste to get the once again critically injured Minase to his lab for treatment. Otonashi Kazusa was beyond help, but her actions had given Minase a fighting chance, and as guardians the human boy took precedence over a couple of injured immortals.

 

He hadn't expected to survive this, hadn't really expected anything when he'd vaulted into battle except that he would have to kill Tsuzuki to keep his partner from trampling over everything the man held dear. It hurt, that thought; made him bitter and angry enough to continue, adrenaline feeding the fire of raw fury guiding his actions even as he clashed against a literal monster more powerful than he could ever hope to be. They had just begun, and they had almost ended. He hadn't even realized how much he depended on Tsuzuki until he was forced to confront the idea of a world without him. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had no idea how he would have sanctioned such an existence.

 

Tsuzuki shifted slightly, limbs finally unlocking from the crouched position Sargatanus had thrown them to as Tsuzuki's body rejected the demon, crumpling him onto his side. His eyes were wide, slowly focusing on Hisoka where he knelt, head bowed against the pain, and Tsuzuki let loose a small, keening whine as he drew his arm roughly forward.

 

"I can't move," said Tsuzuki, voice rough and strained against clenched teeth, features almost humorous beneath a mask of pain.

 

Hisoka would have been startled if he'd had the energy, but the most he managed was a vaguely questioning look before he roused himself enough to use his empathy and realized what Tsuzuki wanted. It took more coordination than he expected to fall forward onto his hands, to drag himself all of three feet to where his partner lay and throw himself down beside the older man. And for all his efforts he ended up level with Tsuzuki's knees, head pillowed on a thigh jerked outward just in time to keep his head from cracking against the pavement. He was sure his weight was hurting Tsuzuki, but his partner only smiled as best he could and reached out to catch his hand, barely mustering the strength to grip back as Hisoka curled his fingers against the hand in his.

 

The damage Tsuzuki had taken was terrific up close. Blood streaked across the floor and soaked into Hisoka's coat where it fanned out behind him, an ever-expanding puddle facilitated by a severed artery near what remained of Tsuzuki's spinal column, a flow staunched only slightly as the musculature of his back knitted slowly together to resemble something more human than the mashing of organic tissue the demon had left behind. He was barely mobile, lying in nearly the same position the last great crumpling had left him in, eyes focused, aware, and frightening in the clarity with which the mind behind them worked, as though pain of this magnitude was an almost expected occurrence--neither frightening nor terribly out of the ordinary.

 

"You're hurt," said Tsuzuki, voice grating mournfully as his eyes swept over the bloodied patches on Hisoka's uniform. Hisoka was suddenly grateful that Minase's school wore darker colors, the blood was only noticeable where light hit the wettest patches, saving Tsuzuki the full horror of the marks Sargatanus had left on him.

 

"Don't," he snapped, pressing his face against the trouser clad leg beneath him. It smelled of blood and dirt, and several other things Hisoka wasn't sure he wanted identified, but beneath it all there was just the barest hint of Tsuzuki, proof that his partner was still here, still alive and mending, if not whole.

 

And the last thing he wanted was to watch his partner guilt trip about injuries Tsuzuki had not given him, that would not even be an issue in an hour or so.

 

"Don't what?" Tsuzuki rasped, looking mournful. His partner's facial muscles seemed to be regaining some of their vitality, but the pathetic little moue Tsuzuki was throwing at him with his regained control was only rekindling his rage at Sargatanus for putting Tsuzuki in such a horrifying position.

 

He knew now. He'd seen the anguish in his partner's mind as the demon plied whatever painful memories it could scrape from the fettered vaults of his memory, the anger seething in Kacho's thoughts sealing Hisoka's certainty of the unforgivable trespass. Whatever the history behind it, Tsuzuki's greatest fear was losing control, hurting those supposedly under his protection and it sickened Hisoka to watch the demon force him to do just that, snickering and jeering all the while. It horrified him more to feel Tsuzuki's sudden spike of terror at his own appearance, the pain in Tsuzuki's realization that it had been Hisoka to take the killing blow meant for Minase, an undeniable fondness tangled up in mindless panic as he called the demon out. Tsuzuki cared for him in ways he hadn't realized, hadn't bothered to see as he was dismissing his exuberant partner for a fool, and only now did he truly realize what Tatsumi-san had been trying to tell him when he said Tsuzuki took everything seriously. Tsuzuki took everything personally, Hisoka's own wellbeing most of all.

 

"You didn't do anything wrong," said Hisoka, forcing eye contact. "You didn't hurt me."

 

Tsuzuki laughed. "The blood says otherwise."

 

"The blood says I was attacked by a demon. Twice."

 

"It says you're in pain, and it's my fault."

 

"It's my fucking blood, I get to determine what it says."

 

Tsuzuki's eyes twinkled. "What, are we role playing body fluids now?"

 

He snorted, grip tightening on the hand in his. "Good to see this hasn't killed your sense of humor."

 

"My sense of humor has weathered worse," Tsuzuki replied, adjusting his head to rest more comfortably as Hisoka extended a leg for him to pillow it against. "Tell me you'll be okay."

 

"I'll be okay," Hisoka obliged, rolling his eyes. "I am okay, idiot."

 

Tsuzuki forced a smile. "You must be okay if you're being properly insulting."

 

The hand that wasn't clutching at his own rose to tangle in his hair, carefully moving his bangs out of his eyes, and Hisoka wanted to cry from the relief of it, the sudden dexterity of Tsuzuki's movements and the affection pouring from his partner's mind. It felt as though their relationship had changed irrevocably, some stray moment during this fiasco when something in the dynamic had shifted and he had either been too blind or too stupid to see it happening until now. It was a frightening thought, but as Tsuzuki smiled at him, looked at him as though he was the only person in the world worth watching, he found he didn't care.

.....................................................................................

 

"Aw, isn't that adorable?"

 

Tatsumi turned long enough to spare Watari a disapproving glance, shaking his head at the smile spreading across the engineer's face as he watched their friend cling to his partner as though Kurosaki were a tether to all that was right in the world. He supposed he should have felt something, some spark of anger or jealousy, but after the events of the day, after raging ineffectually at the barrier Watari had erected while Sargatanus walked Tsuzuki to his fate, he found there was simply nothing left for his old friend. The fact of the matter was Kurosaki-kun had been willing to do what was necessary, to put Tsuzuki down before he hurt more people and destroyed all of Meifu in his search for Otonashi Kazusa.

 

Tatsumi wondered if he could say the same.

 

Granted, none of them had thought Kurosaki-kun capable of the task, and Tatsumi was certain Konoe-sama would have tried harder to talk him out of his foolish confrontation had he not been so aggrieved. It just didn't seem to matter all that much when he was confronted with proof positive that Tsuzuki was only becoming more attached to his new partner with every trial they faced. It happened more suddenly than it had with any of the others, and Tatsumi had long since decided that his place was on the sidelines, watching, regulating, and perhaps cleaning up the mess if and when the relationship imploded as tradition decreed it was likely to do.

 

"It would be," he acceded, "were they not both covered in blood."

 

Drenched might have made a better word, the gaping hole in Kurosaki-kun's coat attesting to the damage he'd suffered from a rebounding spell. Tsuzuki, on the other hand, was lying in a literal pool of liquid from the injury the demon inflicted as it fled his body. Tatsumi couldn't see it from where he stood, but judging by the amount of blood congealing on the entryway floor, the rending had to run deep. They lay entwined together, hands clasped, heads resting on each other's bodies and Tsuzuki's fingers seemed unable to still as they moved over Kurosaki-kun's hair and facial features. It was a touching scene made grotesque, two immortals entwined as their bodies regenerated, an unnatural union so marked by the macabre combination of blood and pale skin like vampires in a clichéd dime store novel.

 

"Man, you have no sense of romance," Watari insisted, shooting him a look. "I think we should leave 'em there to regenerate. Give 'em a few more minutes to stew in their own juices and see if we get lucky."

 

Tatsumi fought the urge to roll his eyes at the mention of juices, wondering if it were worth the effort of drawing the man's attention to the tackiness of the pun for a moment before deciding that Watari had probably meant it to sound that way.

 

"Are you suggesting that we deny them treatment in deference to your interest in their sex life?"

 

"I'm not suggesting we deny them anything," Watari countered, throwing him a shrewd look over his shoulder as he began to make his way back inside. "They can bleed out here as well as they can bleed in my office."

 

Tatsumi watched the scientist go, humming an off key tune as he skipped through one of Suzaku's blast holes. Kurosaki-kun had moved in the interim, murmuring something too lowly for Tatsumi to hear as he shifted around to lie face to face with Tsuzuki, hand disentangling from his partner's to cup the side of the older man's face. A few more words, what looked like a protest from a rather forlorn looking Tsuzuki, and Kurosaki was levering himself closer, wrapping a careful arm around his partner and drawing their lips together.

 

Tatsumi turned away, almost laughing out loud at the sheer, strange coincidence of it. A lot of people in the office were going to owe Watari rather a lot of money come morning, and he was sure if he pondered that long enough there would be some sort of cosmic justice in it all.

 

In the meantime, he had repairs to supervise.