𝖍𝖝𝖍 𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙𝖘

Just The Way You Are

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Summary: llumi is worried that he's not good partner material.

Hisoka tells him why that's a silly concern.

Author: mrapplegate (on ao3)

🃏📍

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It's Hisoka's turn, yet again, to be pulled out of a deep sleep.

Hisoka can't pinpoint what draws him to the surface on nights when he knows Illumi is restless. Illumi generally does not create any noise or fuss (save the one time he decided to try count backwards by eights in an effort to lull himself back to sleep).

The assassin lives a silent life, and his wakefulness is silent: His arsenal of coping mechanisms consists of magazines, sometimes a book. He keeps a drawer full of softer graphite pencils and will occasionally pick up a No. 6, sketch something smudgy and indefinite in his black-covered journal.

No music, no headphones.

Hisoka had given him wireless earbuds for his last birthday. Illumi thanked him; uses them for his daily runs—puts on a punishingly loud metal playlist—and sometimes for his weightlifting routines at the gym. However, he never uses them when he's silent and still at home, which is the purpose Hisoka had in mind when he'd selected and purchased the gift.

Hisoka sits up. He knows Illumi is not in bed with him. In half-irritation, half-magnetism—this is his love—he pushes the covers off and goes into the living room.

Illumi is there, of course. No music, naturally; no earbuds. A magazine lies untended and opened to a disinteresting page on the coffee table. The assassin, dressed in his boring black underpants and nothing else, is staring at the floor with a frown.

"What's wrong now, darling?" says Hisoka.

Illumi doesn't startle or turn his head. Instead, he sighs, in a long exhale. "I was just thinking."

"That is usually how this song and dance goes," replies Hisoka, keeping his tone wry. "So, what are you thinking about?"

Illumi remains quiet for an uncomfortably long stretch. Hisoka knows better than to try and hurry things along.

"I'm a bad partner," Illumi finally says.

Hisoka, if nothing, has a well-honed sense of timing. Waiting a few beats, he finally says, "Why is that?"

"I'm cold," states Illumi. "You and I have been friends—and I'm not even supposed to have friends—since we met. Since the early days, during the Hunter exam. Now we are married, and you'd think I could have shaken this...this..."

"This what?" Hisoka, cautiously, walks to the couch and sits next to Illumi. He's dressed only in his underpants, too, but his are not boring.

"This stony fucking chill of mine." Illumi drops his head to his knees. "I want to love you, Sokie. I do love you. But I don't love the way you love."

Hisoka knows better than to put an arm around Illumi. He wraps his arms around his own, pulled-up knees instead. "Can I tell you something, Illu?"

Illumi glances out of the corner of his eye. "I don't want you feeding me some bullshit to make me feel better."

Hisoka doesn't allow any reaction. "Do you know why I fell in love with you? In the first place?"

Illumi is silent. But the one dark eye facing Hisoka glimmers, slightly, and his eyebrow goes up slightly.

"I wanted someone that I could, just, actually talk to." Hisoka regards his feet, rubs one ankle. "For me, that wasn't easy to find. But I found out that was you."

Illumi lifts his head, and a waterfall of tangled hair falls.

"Yes, it was you." Hisoka allows himself to put his hand on Illumi's shoulder. "What we went through? The exam? I knew then. I just wanted someone I could talk to."

Illumi sighs. In a slow motion, he turns and puts his head on Hisoka's shoulder.

"I would never change a thing about you, Illumi Zoldyck," Hisoka states. "That would ruin everything. Ruin it."

Illumi's head has dropped into Hisoka's lap.

"Everyone else exhausts me, darling," says Hisoka.

He moves, slightly, so their legs are intertwined.