Fic: Thoughtless

[maudite_a_deux]

Just a little something that came to me this afternoon. I've been reading a fair bit of YnM fanfic lately, and thinking that Tsuzuki doesn't always get a fair shake -- he ends up playing buffoon to Hisoka's straight man, and isn't often credited with the depth you'd expect of a man who is, after all, nearly 100 years old and able to summon twelve shikigami. So this is my take on why it is that Tsuzuki comes off like such a flake.

Unbetaed. Comments/criticism welcomed.

Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Genre: Angst, angst, and more angst
Pairing: None.
Rating: G
Warnings: Angst?
Summary: Tsuzuki doesn't think. Hisoka doesn't get it.


Thoughtless

"Baka!"

Hisoka's voice follows him through the door; Hisoka is following him.

"Why do you do these things?"

Tsuzuki is only half-listening, the words battering against his consciousness like hailstones on a windowpane. He's done it again, messed up, made things more difficult for his partner. It's nothing new. He's always like this, always so --

"-- careless! I can't believe --"

-- stumbling through his days only semi-aware of his surroundings and how he moves through them, grasping for quick, simple pleasures --

"-- wondering what you'll have for dessert --"

-- sweet things to fill the hollow inside that can never be filled because there's not enough cake in the world, just like he fills his mind with meaningless trivia --

"-- forget your own head if it wasn't attached --"

-- anything to keep his memories at bay, a century's worth of tears, of suffering, of death that no one can possibly --

"-- understand, Tsuzuki, I just don't --"

-- least of all this boy, this broken child, only barely older than he looks and so exquisitely sensitive to every flicker and nuance of feeling. He can't stand to think what it would do to Hisoka if he lost control --

"-- no self-control! You're like --"

-- a tsunami of anguish, sweeping away all in its path and laying the boy bare, leaving nothing in its wake but nerves flensed raw and bloody by the grinding, razor-edged horror of it all. He can't bear to imagine it, not when those wide green eyes have already seen so much pain, too much for one so painfully young, more than enough to drive most men mad --

"-- are you insane?"

Yes. Probably. Aren't we all, here in the Meifu? We wouldn't be here otherwise.

Tsuzuki comes to a stop beneath the endlessly-flowering sakura and turns to look at Hisoka, whose irritation with him is a palpable thing, sandpaper across sensitive flesh. A mere shadow of what Tsuzuki's emotions, unchecked, could do to the empath.

It hurts, but oh, so much less than the things in his own head, and Tsuzuki is used to it. Someone is always angry with him about something. He tries to make it up to them with jokes and smiles and little gifts. It usually works; anger turns to exasperation, and then to affection.

"Oh, Tsuzuki," they say. "You're so hopeless."

And it's true, he is hopeless. He has no hope.

Hisoka is still shouting.

"-- not even listening, are you?"

"I'm sorry." Tsuzuki hangs his head, and just like that, the boy's anger evaporates. Or, more likely, he's realized he was projecting and put his barriers back in place.

Hisoka sighs heavily. "I know," he says, sounding tired. "I know you are."

There's nothing he can say to that, so he doesn't bother trying.

"But Tsuzuki..." He can feel Hisoka's eyes on him, that too-intense green stare burning through him, seeing too much and yet not nearly enough. "Don't you ever think?"

"I guess not," he murmurs apologetically.

Not if I can help it, anyway.