Archive of Our Own

Eijun can admit to himself, standing on the sidewalk outside the hotel, that he's not ready yet for winter. Which is too bad for him because it's December now, and there's no getting out of it, no last hope for lingering warmth, and stores are already putting up Christmas decorations, carols playing everywhere, like some ancient ritual summoning the snow and cold and misery.

Eijun scrunches into the collar of his coat, and walks down the road to the restaurant he'd been recommended, something about the owner being a former hunter and it's good to support family.

His grandfather gave him a list before he left, all the places in Seattle with hunter ties. If you need something for your car go to this place, if you need bullets go to this place, if you need holy water here's a church that won't look at you funny for filling up bottles.

Eijun has two full pages in his notebook dedicated to hunter-friendly churches in all the states he's been.

At least it's warm in the restaurant, and he sits at the bar, easy angle for watching the room, and he hears music playing, Robert Johnson crooning out of the speakers and it makes him laugh soft and quiet. I can tell, the wind is risin'....

Arms come to rest on the bar in front of him, getting his attention, long grey sleeves and a teasing peek of tattoos at the wrists. "You gonna order something, or just sit there and laugh? Because that's okay too. We don't judge here."

The voice is smooth, taunting, and Eijun thinks of trickster tales, coyotes down in the desert, and he follows the grey sleeves up to a matching slant of a smile, amber eyes sharp behind black-rimmed glasses and he thinks he might not be far off with his first impression. "Well, laughing takes a lot of energy, I better eat something." He grins, and his trickster grins, and Eijun orders a burger with a stout beer, figures he can allow himself one before he gets to work.

"Good idea, keep up your strength." He grins again, and as he turns away, Eijun catches a hint of patchouli, something spicy underneath, and a fainter hint of pinyon smoke that he knows has to be his imagination, thoughts affecting his senses.

His grandfather tells him he's too suspicious, that there's not something inhuman lurking under everyone's skin, Eijun doesn't have to scrutinize everyone so intensely, but he can't help it, it's something he's automatically done since he learned the things that go bump in the night are actually real. He wonders how many people he passes in the grocery store are possessed by demons, shapeshifters in disguise, some unnamed horror waiting to unleash itself on the population. It's a big problem.

But he can't stop watching the pretty trickster boy as he tends to another customer, catching on random details, the way he bites his bottom lip as he pours cocktails, the little flash of spine when he bends to get something from a lower shelf, bones pressed tight against his skin, and Eijun feels a flip in his stomach that has nothing to do with supernatural creatures.

Well, this is an even bigger problem.

He comes back with Eijun's beer, sets it on a coaster, and leans on his arms again, like before. "So, what are you in town for?"

Eijun feels himself pout before he can stop it, and tries to cover it up by taking a drink, very carefully focused on not getting foam on his upper lip. "How do you know I'm not from here?"

Trickster boy laughs, bright but quiet, meant only for Eijun. "I can always tell."

He should probably be offended by that somehow, but instead he says, "I'm here to look for ghosts."

That time when the boy laughs, it's louder, fully amused. "Okay that's different, that's new. Tell me about it."

"There's an old closed-down hospital, don't know if you've heard of it, there was a doctor who did all these nasty experiments on patients and that's what got it closed down. I'm sure you've heard of the recent murders though, the Dr. Frankenstein killings?"

He rubs at a smudge on the bar while he thinks, and eventually shrugs. "I've heard of the recent stuff yeah, but not the hospital. You think there's a connection?" Then he grins, super fast. "Or do you think it's a ghost doing the killings?"

Eijun blushes, he knows how everyone thinks, and he's never been ashamed of what he does, never needed to hide it the way other hunters do, but this once, with this person, he doesn't want to be looked at like that. "Yeah, I think it could be the ghost of that doctor. There's a lot of similarities. And the bodies are all found within the vicinity of the old hospital."

Trickster boy smirks, and Eijun really likes the way his lips curl, even at his own expense. "Couldn't it just be a copycat then, someone who knows about the hospital?"

"It could be, but that's for the police to figure out if it is. That's not my job." Eijun takes another drink, and his boy excuses himself to go ring up some customers, fill a drink order, and Eijun watches and doesn't bother thinking about tricksters, only about how easy it would be to sit there and stare at him all day.

He comes back, leans in the same place, and there's a drop of grenadine on his sleeve, adding the smell of cherry to the smoke and spice. "I get it, you're a ghostbuster."

Eijun laughs, he can't help it. "Something like that. What's your name?" It's a fair enough trade, he figures.

"Kazuya." It comes out like a purr, and Eijun feels the vibrations of it, shivers as Kazuya leans the tiniest bit closer. "What's yours?"

"Eijun." His comes out soft, like a secret, and he's blushing again, feeling childish when he knows he should be focused on work, not flirting with the gorgeous bartender.

Kazuya's doing that smirk again, maybe it's a sign of trouble. "Okay, Eijun, what are you going to do about these ghosts?"

"I don't know yet. First I have to go check the place out, do some investigating, see if the ghosts actually exist. They might not."

"And then you'll have come all the way here for nothing. Except for a really good burger and a really good beer."

Eijun laughs, holds the glass up like a toast. "Worth the trip."

Kazuya grins, and pushes off the bar, standing up straight. "On that note, let me go check on your burger." He takes a few steps, then stops, turns and comes back. "If you're going to the haunted hospital place, I want to go too." Then before Eijun can do anything other than stare at him in shock, Kazuya's gone again.

A lot of things surprise Eijun, so it's really not unusual, and it takes him a moment to remember to close his fish mouth, take another drink of beer, and this time when his eyes drift toward Kazuya, he's a little more contemplative. Kazuya's leaning on another counter, chatting with the cook, and Eijun's wondering if it's a truly terrible idea, or only slightly terrible.

Or maybe not terrible at all, because there's always a general danger in investigating abandoned places, the chance of a rotten floor to fall through, all the ways he could get hurt and stranded out there alone, and having someone else with him is logical. His mother is always telling him to use more common sense, after all.

Then he thinks of his grandfather saying, never take civilians along, they'll get in the damn way.

Eijun's sullen and indecisive when Kazuya returns with his burger, and his stomach rumbles in excitement, gets Kazuya laughing again. "I can't take you with me, as much as I'd like to. It's too dangerous."

That makes him laugh even more. "Dangerous? I could get hit by a car walking home, frozen poop could fall out of an airplane, I could slip in the shower, everything in life is dangerous. Take me with you."

Eijun sees it, Kazuya really wants to go, and Eijun wants to believe he's being generous but he knows it's entirely selfish when he says, "Fine, you can come."

Kazuya brightens, satisfied, and snatches one of Eijun's fries, and Eijun has a brief moment of wondering how this guy hasn't got himself fired yet. "Awesome. I get off in an hour." Then he's away to the demands of the register, and Eijun can swear he feels his grandfather glaring at him all the way from Texas.

+

Eijun's waiting in his car when Kazuya comes out of the restaurant, and he rolls down the window enough to get his attention, and Kazuya falls into the passenger seat grinning like an excited child. "I almost didn't think you'd come back for me."

Eijun smirks, adjusting the heater vents so Kazuya can get some warmth. "I thought about it, but I'm not that mean."

Kazuya laughs. "Good." And there's stuff in the back seat, Kazuya has to turn around and peek, recognizes tiny cameras, lights, guesses the little black squares are motion and environmental sensors. "I see you came prepared."

Eijun kind of blushes. "I like to check out a place while it's daylight, get all the stuff set up, so I'll know what to expect when I go there at night."

Kazuya smiles, and it's soft and not teasing. "That's smart. I know you think I'm laughing at you, but I'm not. I wouldn't have asked to come if I thought this was all stupid."

"So you actually believe in ghosts then?" He gets his map out while they're at a stop sign, lines drawn to show him where to turn to avoid the one way streets, because he has enough tickets on his record, doesn't need to get another one with Kazuya in the car.

Kazuya has enough of his own, but it wouldn't stop him from laughing. "I do. I believe in a lot of things. Hey I live on this street." He laughs at that, and Eijun slows down.

"You need to stop, get anything?"

"Nope, I'm fine. Have you seen any ghosts, or are you still hoping for that first great proof on film or whatever?"

Eijun speeds back up, and Kazuya points at his building as they pass, and he thinks about the danger of telling a complete stranger where he lives, but he doubts Kazuya worries about things like that. Maybe he's got his apartment booby trapped.

"I've seen ghosts. I have video that would make you never want to sleep again." Eijun grins fast and wicked, and he looks over in time to see Kazuya's eyes glitter behind his lenses, like it's the best idea he's ever heard, and Eijun briefly wonders what he's got himself into, if he'll be able to get himself out.

Kazuya watches Eijun drive, takes the map to play navigator so he won't crash them into anything. "You're not one of those goofy paranormal investigators, are you. You're the real thing."

Eijun's hand tightens on the wheel a little, and he laughs. "What makes you say that?" He thinks again of his paranoid instincts, the scent of burning wood, that slightly too-bright glint in Kazuya's eyes, and the hair on the back of his neck prickles, right above the delicate swirls of a tattooed incantation.

He wants to say, if that's what I am, what are you?

Kazuya smiles like he heard the question anyway. "I can tell."

Eijun snorts, almost misses a stop light. "That's what you said about me being from out of town."

"I get a vibe about people."

There's something smug in his voice, something more than what he's saying, and Eijun feels a rush of adrenaline, defenses kicking in just in case. "How do you... how do you get these vibes?"

Kazuya wants to touch him, to see if he jumps, but instead he leans over close, whispers quiet, "Do you want to hunt me now, Eijun?"

Eijun doesn't jump, but he sort of squeaks, and he turns the car sharply into a parking lot, stopping with a harsh squeal of tires and horns blaring behind him. "What the fuck, Kazuya?!"

Kazuya's laughing, one hand braced on the dash, and he has to reach under his glasses to wipe his eyes. "Wow, you are hilarious. This is great."

Eijun glares like he could kill that way, like it's all the weapon he needs, and he waits for Kazuya to calm down and stop laughing, until he's simply smiling through his amusement. "I don't like to be fucked with."

"Nobody likes to be fucked with." He smirks, and Eijun's glare sharpens. "I'm sorry, get back on the road, let's go find your ghosts."

Eijun shakes his head. "No, you need to explain some shit."

Kazuya sighs, almost feels guilty, because he can see the tension in Eijun, the way his blood is all heated up ready for a fight. "Where I work, I know the owner, I know what he used to do. A lot of hunters come in, but you're the first one I've ever talked to."

Eijun wants to believe that, tries to make himself relax, but his heart won't stop racing. "Why me?"

Kazuya grins bright and dangerous again. "Because you're cute."

Eijun groans, and he turns away, leans his head on the window, and Kazuya snickers, watches his reflection blush.

"Seriously, I didn't know what you were, I mean you don't look like the ones that usually come in. They've always got that apocalyptic bunker commando look about them. You look normal and sane."

Eijun has to laugh at that, and that makes him feel a little better. "I think I'm the only hunter that shaves regularly. Even the women have scruffy faces."

Kazuya reaches over to touch the smooth skin of Eijun's jaw, and Eijun doesn't jump but he flinches, wariness in his eyes, and Kazuya smirks before pulling back. "Don't be scared of me, Eijun. I'm not anything you have to worry about."

Again, Eijun desperately wants to ask, but he doesn't want to know, and instead he says quietly, "I don't want to hunt you."

Kazuya gives him that original trickster grin. "Good. That would be disappointing."

"Yeah it would." Eijun exhales slow, and he's not shaking as much now, so he gets the car moving again, gets them back on the road. "At least I know now, you know what's going on, that this is something serious, we aren't going out to get videos of shadows to put on the internet."

"I actually thought you were kidding before, when you said the ghosts might be responsible for those murders. But you're not kidding."

Eijun shrugs. "Well, truthfully, I don't know. Nobody knows. But it's an option the police aren't going to check out, and I guess that's why we do what we do, we're the ones who investigate the shit other people dismiss as a joke."

Kazuya smiles, but he angles it toward the window, so Eijun won't see. "I think it's kind of brave." Then he laughs. "Hey! Does this make me your assistant?"

"What? Okay sure, you can be my assistant, that means it's your job to untangle all the cords in that box."

"Oh, you're a cruel master, I see." Kazuya smirks, and he waits a while, waits as Eijun passes through an intersection, then points back behind him. "Missed your turn."

"Goddammit!" He glares at Kazuya, who cracks up, overflowing with joy, and Eijun snatches the map back, which only makes him laugh harder. "I changed my mind. You'd make a shitty assistant."

Kazuya grins like sunlight. "Thank you."

Eijun exhales slow, finds a place to turn around, and takes the street where he should have turned the first time.

Kazuya stays quiet the rest of the way, and Eijun tries not to think about it too much, but he looks over at him now and then, half in shadow from the visor pulled down, half in sunlight, and nothing about him looks like anything other than an ordinary person so he puts all those questions away for now.

The map shows a small neighborhood road he has to take, twists and more turns, rambling through the trees until there it is, a greying, crumbling building that probably once was majestic and impressive.

Kazuya inhales beside him, and Eijun folds up the map, shuts off the car. "You ever visit someone in a mental hospital and get afraid they won't let you leave?"

Kazuya laughs hard. "I've never been to a mental hospital. I can see how you might have that problem though."

Eijun snickers and gets out, waits for Kazuya to get out before handing him one of the scruffy old army bags from the back seat. "Keep this with you, in case anything happens."

Kazuya of course instantly peeks inside, flinches back from the strong smell of herbs. "The fuck did you put in here?"

"Protective stuff, and there's a GPS thing, and a radio, in case we get separated and lost. It's easy to get lost in all the halls and wings and tunnels and shit. I stuck one of my spare cameras in there too, in case you saw something you wanted to take a picture of."

Kazuya's smiling kind of soft when he looks in again, shuffles through until he finds the camera, and there's a warm feeling in him that he can't fully manage to push away. "Most people wouldn't care if a guy they just met got eaten by ghosts or lost in the crazy house."

Eijun blushes and shrugs, ducks away in his coat collar. "Yeah, well, I'm not most people. Come on."

Kazuya grins at his back, and takes a picture of him with the crumbling hospital in the background, and it's a nice picture, everything in shades of grey and brown, Eijun's hair gone wispy in the slight breeze. "I could have taken pictures with my phone, you know."

"Phone photos are too blurry, you can't get a good analysis from them. I mean they're great if there's nothing else to use, but I don't like to rely on them." Eijun's not surprised that the front door is chained shut, and he picks the lock, aware that he can practically feel Kazuya's amusement beside him, and he gives him a glare before pushing the door open. The windows are all boarded up, so it's dark, and he remembers, "There's also a flashlight in your bag."

"Oh, nice. Good job with that door, by the way." Kazuya finds the light, predictably turns it on in Eijun's face. "Gosh, sorry."

Eijun sighs heavy, turns on his own light, and steps inside, checking the floor for stability as he goes. Though there's a big glowing circle in the middle of his vision that he has to try and look around, and he can't decide at all what he thinks about Kazuya, because even when he wants to choke him to death, his sadly deprived hormones say, what a waste that would be.

But it might be a losing battle for his hormones, because when he turns around, Kazuya's right behind him, flashlight under his chin, and Eijun shrieks like a little girl and drops his light. "Motherfucker!"

Kazuya's cracking up again, and Eijun chases his light across the floor, cursing under his breath because seriously, he's not an amateur, he's killed things, and he shouldn't get so scared of a stupid glowing face in the dark.

And he can't help that his voice is still kind of high and strained when he says, "Are you always like this? I mean is this what I have to look forward to the rest of the day? Because I'm really starting to fucking regret bringing you along."

Kazuya snickers, moves in close and lays a hand on the side of his neck, like the rapid pulse thumping into his palm is some kind of prize he's won. "Oh please, like you've never done that to someone."

Eijun's fully pouting, and Kazuya thinks it's too adorable, entirely worth the juvenile trick. "Not on a job, Kazuya. This isn't Scooby Doo." He moves away then, through the lobby strewn with rotting piles of furniture, scattered papers, magazines.

"I get it. I can be serious." Still he's smiling when he follows, taking a different path, past a collapsed bookshelf, all the sad old paperbacks melting into each other, and he wonders briefly what kind of story that would make, everything compressed into one.

He wonders what kind of story Eijun will turn out to be, this hunter who doesn't look like a hunter, cute enough to get Kazuya out of his usual misanthropic bubble, even though he's not aware of what he's done, what a rare thing it is to get Kazuya into an actual conversation. Eijun makes him laugh, Eijun makes him curious, and interested, and it's all new enough that even if the story has an unhappy ending, the ride will have been worth it.

There's a sign on the wall, fading paint, Westermere Home For Boys, and Kazuya hurries to follow Eijun's beam of light down a corridor, past another fading sign, North Wing. "Eijun, tell me about this place."

He waits for Kazuya to catch up, then shines his light into a room, empty except for an upturned desk. "It closed down in 1968, when someone figured out what the doctor was doing. Until then it was an average mental hospital I guess, it was for boys, and there's one for girls not far from here. Nothing ever happened there, and it's been torn down, I think it was where the golf course is now. But this one, I can't find too much information. It's obvious they suppressed it, mainly just that the doctor was arrested for performing, and I quote, unspeakable acts of mutilation and an abhorrent misuse of medical education. Doesn't that sound lovely?"

Kazuya snickers, but he can't deny that it makes the quiet blue halls seem ominous, that feeling of something horrible lurking beneath the surface of something ordinary. "How did he get away with it? It's not like standard abuse I'm guessing, he couldn't just say, Johnny fell onto a scalpel or three, oops."

Eijun doesn't want to laugh at that, but he can't help it. "From the little information I can get, he spread it out over a decade, and he always made up something like the kid escaped, or they died during a routine operation, and I remember one where he falsified papers saying the boy went home, so nobody would look for him. It was all really sneaky and careful, and back then these places weren't regulated so tightly, people could get away with shit. You see it everywhere, places like this where patients are treated horribly, all the abuse. People think that because someone's got a problem, that they have the right to do what they want to them."

Kazuya hums, and tugs Eijun's arm to get him to follow, wanting to check out this room that looks like a dining room, scattered broken dishes and silverware. "I bet it still happens."

"Yeah, it does." Eijun sounds a little sad then, and Kazuya wants to ask, remembering what he said about visiting people, but he doesn't think he's earned the right to those kinds of questions yet.

He finds the kitchen, and a dead rat on the countertop, clean and soft-looking among all the crumbled piles of debris, and the smell is so faint he might not have noticed it if he wasn't looking for it. "Hey, this is recent. Think it means anything?"

Eijun shines his light on the rat, pouts and makes a sad little 'aww' sound. "Poor guy. I don't know though, probably not. He's not mutilated or anything, so he probably got into some poison in a cabinet." He digs into his bag anyway though, pulls out a small square device that beeps when he turns it on, but does nothing else as he waves it over the rat.

Kazuya's eyebrow goes up, and he reaches toward the antenna, and the device screeches like he's killing it, so he laughs and jerks away. "Sorry. What is that?"

Eijun's caught in that rush of adrenaline again, and he waves the antenna toward Kazuya, lights flashing as it squeaks and squawks and Kazuya can hear Eijun's breathing speed up over the commotion.

He catches Eijun's hand, and the device flares so loud the speaker shorts out in a crackle. "I'm not a ghost, Eijun."

The lights are still flashing, but all he can hear is static, and Eijun thinks that's a perfect way of describing his brain right now, all fried out on the heat of Kazuya's hand wrapped around his own and the prickly feeling in his muscles as they tense up ready for action. "You killed my EMF meter."

Kazuya snorts a little, an almost-laugh, but even in the dim light Eijun thinks he looks kind of guilty, and he lets go of Eijun's hand. "I'll buy you a new one."

Eijun turns the meter away from Kazuya and it instantly goes quiet, though the dead speaker still faintly buzzes, and he's glad he always brings a spare, though he wants to turn that one on Kazuya too, see what happens. But the lights still work, and the rat is clean, the whole kitchen seems to be clean and he expected that, silence and peace in the daylight.

He puts the meter away, and takes a moment to compose himself, hasn't been this on-edge and strung-out since the werewolf in Atlanta and that was only after he watched three people die. It makes Eijun a little angry, because it's a distraction, and he has a job to do here, he needs to focus on finding this homicidal doctor ghost, not staring at Kazuya for clues.

Whatever he is, it's none of Eijun's business.

He looks back, and Kazuya is carefully unfolding a moth-eaten dish towel and draping it over the dead rat, and Eijun feels suddenly, weirdly protective, like if anyone ever wanted to hunt Kazuya, they'd have to get through him first.

When the cloth is properly settled, Eijun touches his arm, like a truce. "Come on, it's going to get dark soon."

Kazuya follows him out, quiet and subdued, and he really does feel like shit for breaking the meter thing, and he doesn't want to think it's some sort of omen, the dead rat and the dead meter, like it's symbolic for the two of them. "I am sorry about the meter."

Eijun shrugs, curls a little smile. "It's okay. I dropped it in the mud a few months ago, probably lucky it worked at all after that."

Kazuya hears it for the excuse it is, and if it keeps Eijun from looking at him like he's a monster, he'll take it. "You should be more careful with your equipment then. What kind of shitty hunter are you?"

"Shut up! I'm a great hunter!" But Kazuya's laughing again, so Eijun fumes, storms off down a different corridor.

He's not sure what he's looking for, not sure if he'll even know when he finds it, but the place is kind of fascinating to walk through, all the remnants of decades ago scattered around untouched. He's glad the local kids haven't found it and roughed it up, like happens to so many abandoned places. It would be easier with a floorplan though, to at least get some idea of where they're headed, where a ghost doctor might be hiding.

It hits him fast, like a punch to the nose. "I'm an idiot. We need to find the medical wing."

Kazuya laughs, has to lean on the wall. "We're looking for a doctor and you just now thought of that?"

"Shut up." Eijun's face is burning, and he's grateful for the dark, scowling at himself as he stops in the middle of a wide room. It's sort of like the lobby, full of wrecked furniture and the thick smell of mildew and age. "This is probably the common room, so down there is probably patient rooms, which means medical is probably in the other side of the building."

Kazuya's still smirking, passing through the room to the next hallway, to peek through the little window in the door, and Eijun's watching his footprints, scuffs in the dust. He scans his light around again, sees the way some of the furniture has been recently moved, lines of parted dust showing their path, but no footprints, no other disturbance.

Eijun gets his camera out, snaps pictures, bright nuclear moments with the flash on. "Kazuya, follow your footprints when you come back here. And look around the furniture, tell me what you see."

Kazuya walks back in his steps like he's sneaking through snow, stops beside Eijun and scans his light around the furniture. "It's been moved." Then he looks at their footprints, obvious and clear in the dirt, and nothing like that around the furniture, and he goosebumps all over in a quick rush, inhales sharp and fast. "Okay is this something that could naturally happen?"

Eijun smirks, and he's writing in a notepad, observations and reminders to put cameras in here. "Does your furniture move around on its own?"

Kazuya smacks his arm, jolts his writing and makes it smudge, and Kazuya grins because he earned that. "But it still could be earthquakes or something, right?"

"It could, or rats maybe, I don't know. We'll set up equipment in here, and find out." He takes a couple more pictures, then tugs on Kazuya's arm, getting him moving again, because they really do need to find the medical wing before it's dark.

Kazuya's arm is kind of shaking though, so Eijun doesn't let go, rubs over the fast pulse in his wrist, and he remembers his first time seeing something he couldn't explain, how the whole world became suddenly threatening. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Kazuya laughs fast, and pulls his arm away, refusing to contemplate how Eijun looks kind of disappointed. "Fuck no. I don't scare that easily, Eijun."

"Good." He grins then, going from disappointed to satisfied, and it's his turn to refuse to think about it, that he's actually enjoying having someone with him, now that Kazuya's not doing stupid shit to scare him.

They backtrack through the lobby, and he stops to look at the floor this time, looking for tracks and signs of movement, but there's nothing aside from their own footprints from before, and he takes that as a positive argument for supernatural activity back in the common room.

The only other hallway is the south wing, and the light coming in around the boards is getting dim, so Eijun walks quickly, dismissing rooms that look like basic offices, though he's curious, wonders if there are any patient files left to read through, but he's on a schedule and he can investigate that another time.

After a few turns, they find a hallway littered with filthy wheelchairs, and Eijun hears Kazuya gasp behind him, instantly spins around. "What?"

"Do you hear that?" Kazuya takes a carefully quiet step, and presses his shoulder against Eijun's for comfort, though he'll never admit it, and he feels Eijun hold his breath, listening.

When he answers, it's barely a whisper. "I don't hear anything. What are you hearing?"

Kazuya closes his eyes, like maybe he can hear more clearly that way. "Crying. Really faint. You think it could be a person in here, like the next victim or something?"

Eijun does the same thing, the eye-closing trick, and he can hear the soft rustle of fabric, breathing from both of them, a scritchy scratch noise on the wall that's likely an insect, and as he expands his hearing out, more scratchy noises that are probably rats, but nothing human, nothing like crying. His turn again for goosebumps, and he reaches into his bag, finds his recorder and switches it on. "If they were alive, I'd hear them. Be quiet for a sec."

Both of them stand there trying not to move, trying not to make the slightest sound. Kazuya's listening to the pained sobs and cries, something that might be "please let me go", and it does sort of make him want to run, because holy shit, he can fucking hear dead people.

After a couple of minutes, Eijun stops the recording, rewinds it and turns the volume up, and it's nothing but the hiss of empty sound until finally there's a voice. It's fainter than the way Kazuya hears it, but Eijun gasps, looks at Kazuya with his eyes wide, and there it is, please let me go, and Kazuya swallows hard, and Eijun won't stop staring at him. "You can hear that."

He nods, makes a quiet, pathetic laugh. "Yeah. Guess I'm a good assistant after all."

Eijun exhales in a whoosh. "Holy shit. I wonder if you'll be able to see them. Can you see anything yet?"

"Not right now. You'll know if I do." Kazuya giggles then, almost hysterical sounding, but mostly just amused. Because this is more interesting than he could have ever guessed, and he's scared as hell, but fascinated, and he was right, Eijun is definitely fun. "Come on, keep going, this has to be the right way. I'll tell you if I hear anything important."

Eijun leads through the wheelchair maze, carefully moving them out of the way when he has to, wincing at every rusty creak and groan from the tired old wheels.

There are small empty rooms painted green, hooks on the ceiling, cabinets and broken sinks, scattered packages of gauze, needles, alcohol swabs, what might have once been cotton balls. It's like everything was packed and moved out in a hurry, no time to stop for something dropped on the floor, and Eijun thinks, it's like that everywhere he goes, like nobody knows how to leave a place clean. People could have been using these wheelchairs somewhere else, and the whole thing feels needlessly wasteful, makes Eijun kind of frustrated.

Finally there's an office, wood-paneled and classy looking, desk and chairs and various tables and shelves like nobody wanted to even touch this room, just closed the door and tried to forget about it.

Kazuya gasps again, grabs Eijun's arm to stop him from entering the room. "He doesn't want you in there."

"What are you hearing?" It's entirely against his hunter's instinct, but he closes the door, steps back away from it, bumps into Kazuya and they stay that way, warm where they're touching and the hall is suddenly much colder than it was before.

"He's pissed, he knows what you are. Fuck, Eijun, is this a joke? Did you set this all up to fuck with me? Because if not we really need to get the fuck out of here, like right now."

Eijun doesn't bother answering with words, thinks it's clear enough when he grabs Kazuya by the arm and pulls him quickly down the hall, moving wheelchairs carelessly this time because he doesn't know what Kazuya's hearing, doesn't know how to prepare for what might happen.

He doesn't let go until they're in the lobby, and he has to use both hands to open the door. "I guess we don't need to set up cameras now."

Kazuya laughs at that, out in the fresh air, where he feels silly for being so scared and panicky. "No I guess not. So you really... that's not a joke?"

"No, it's not a joke. You didn't know you could hear ghosts?" Eijun chains the door back the way it was, locks it, and it almost feels like something rattles the door under his hands, so he hurries to the car.

Kazuya sits down, still laughing. "I had no fucking idea. Maybe that explains some shit though." Realizing, he blames a lot of sounds in the night on the neighbors and their televisions, radios, and maybe that's not what he's hearing at all. The voices he heard as a kid, his mother's voice, singing in the kitchen.

Eijun nods, and he gets that funny protective feeling again. "Just don't tell anyone, it's not the kind of stigma you want."

Kazuya grins, and it's mostly dark in the car, but Eijun can still see it in the dash lights. "I already have a big enough stigma, hearing ghosts isn't going to make any difference."

Eijun thinks about it for a moment, adds it to his mental list of curious things about Kazuya, not sure how it fits in, but he's pretty much ruled out any traditional sort of trickster, because tricksters don't massacre EMF meters. "Do you want to tell me about this stigma?"

Kazuya watches him, focused on the road, deliberately not looking at the passenger seat, and his grin slides back into place. "Nope. But you can take me to Starbucks, buy me a coffee and a sandwich, since I saved you so much time tonight."

Eijun huffs, but concedes. "Fine, guess you earned it."

"Damn right." He smiles a little less crazy that time, and actually manages to behave for the entire drive back to his neighborhood.

+

Eijun detours them to the hotel, wants to take his equipment inside, doesn't trust leaving it in his car because there's no way he could replace everything he's collected over the years, and with Kazuya's help, it only takes one trip instead of two.

There really is a bonus to this assistant thing.

Kazuya's usual Starbucks is only a couple of streets away, so they walk, and it's crowded, and they stand leaning against the wall while they wait for their names to be called.

Eijun relaxes into the smell of coffee beans, but Kazuya's on edge, can't stop replaying the sound of the screams and cries for help, thinking of what little he's seen on the news about the Frankenstein murders, and he says quietly, "I think you're right about the doctor and the recent murders. How are we going to stop him?"

Eijun's eyebrows go up. "Did you say 'we'?"

Kazuya snorts, gives Eijun a look. "You think I'm going to leave you to deal with this on your own?"

Eijun flushes warm, wants to hold on to the comfort of it but he has a responsibility, and Kazuya might hear ghosts but he's still a civilian, he's not a hunter. "Yeah, I am. I'll take you home after this. I don't want you getting hurt."

Kazuya looks actually pissed for a moment, but he turns away before Eijun can focus on it. "I can handle getting hurt, Eijun. But I'm the only one who can hear him, who knows what he wants to fucking do to you, and I can't... I don't...." He exhales hard again, and Eijun leans away from the wall, where he can see that Kazuya is blushing, flustered, and Eijun thinks he understands.

"Okay, but when I tell you to do something, like run, you can't question it, you have to do it. Can you do that?"

Kazuya's still blushing, but he nods. "I can do that."

"Good. So what did you hear, what does he want?"

"Lots of shit, like about hunters, powerful blood. He thinks you'd make a good strong vessel for the pig." Kazuya laughs, shivers a little. "I don't know what that means, but I don't fucking like it."

Eijun shivers too, and he goes kind of pale, doesn't want to think what might have happened if he'd gone into the hospital alone, if he'd shoved his way into the time-capsule office like he usually would. Maybe he'd be the next victim, and the thought of his parents, his grandfather, getting that phone call, it makes his throat tighten, and he wants to thank Kazuya, but he's not sure how to phrase it so it's as sincere and weighted as it feels. Instead he says, "I don't fucking like it either."

The barista calls for them before either can think of what to say next, lost in their own weird little moments of things they don't know how to say to near-strangers, and there's still nowhere to sit, so Eijun holds Kazuya's latte while he eats.

"You want to know how we're going to stop the doctor?" Kazuya nods, and hums around bread. "I have a banishment ritual, well first I do a summoning ritual, have to get him fully here before I send him away, for what sense that makes. I guess the banishment only works on ghosts who are on our mortal plane or whatever. Anyway, that usually works. Sometimes there's something holding a ghost to this world, and we have to find that and destroy it with the ritual, which means we'll need to get in his office, and in the tunnels where the bodies were found. Which means after this, we need to go to the library and look for blueprints of the hospital, and I like to start with university libraries. They usually have the weird shit."

Kazuya snickers at that, and he wipes herbs from his lip, and grins at Eijun. "We can catch the bus out there on Market, go straight to the campus."

Eijun grins right back. "That's convenient." There's another problem though, and he's quiet when he says, "I don't know how we're going to get in the office without him attacking us, unless we lure him out somewhere else, trap him there. I've never had to do that before, but I'll find a way. Maybe combine a trapping ritual with the summoning, get him stuck in a different room."

"Maybe in the cafeteria. It's a neutral place, right? Maybe he wouldn't have as much power there."

Eijun nods. "We can try it. You couldn't hear any voices there, so let's say that's a good sign."

They share a smile, as if anything can actually be good when they're dealing with ghosts that want to kill them, and Kazuya's finished with his sandwich so he takes his plate to the counter, takes his latte from Eijun's patient hand when he returns. And there's no reason to stand around holding up the wall, so Eijun lets Kazuya lead him down the street to the bus stop.

"It's so cold, why is it so fucking cold. Next job is gonna be in Florida or something."

Kazuya laughs, both hands wrapped around his cup to keep warm, and he doesn't object when Eijun leans against him with a little 'brr'. "Be glad it's not raining. Or snowing."

Eijun makes another unhappy cold noise. "So not ready for snow."

Kazuya loves the snow, but he'll keep that to himself. "Where do you live, is it warmer there?"

"Not really. It's Texas, so it still gets cold. I take jobs in Mexico whenever I can." Eijun grins, gets lost in thoughts of good food, good tequila, warm sun.

Kazuya watches him daze out, and snickers. "Is it nice, getting to travel so much?"

Eijun's grin fades, and he shrugs. "Sometimes. I wish I could do more though, you know? I have to go home and work between hunts, save up enough for the next hunt, and I think, all that time I could be out there stopping something. I wish I could find a way to live on the road."

"That would be fun, endless road trip. Maybe you could stay in one place for a while, like a couple weeks, do those shitty day labor jobs or something, and hunt what you can find in that area. Hey, take me along, I have great luck at casinos." Kazuya winks and nudges Eijun with his elbow, but Eijun's dazed out again, thinking, that's not such a bad idea.

The bus arrives, and he's still thinking, maybe there's enough hunter-friendly places where he could get a temporary job, earn what he needs to get him to the next place, and he's feeling self-indulgent enough to imagine taking Kazuya with him, that crazy beautiful boy in his passenger seat all across the map.

He says finally, "It's a good idea. But I might have to save up a while first, in case it's hard to find jobs. Or you hit a losing streak."

Kazuya smirks, and purrs into Eijun's ear, "Oh I never lose." They both know it's a lie, but it still makes Eijun shiver and blush, and Kazuya smiles content.

In the library, Eijun lucks out and finds a huge old book on hospital architecture in the Pacific Northwest, and there's nothing about the murders, but there's enough photographs to make Eijun sad for what the place has become. There's a photo of the lobby, glistening marble floors that Eijun hadn't even noticed for all the dirt, and Eijun wonders how it would look if he took all the boards off the windows, let the sunlight in.

Kazuya leans over his shoulder, points at the row of smiling doctors and nurses. "Is he one of them?"

Eijun squints at the dotty little faces, thinks about stealing Kazuya's glasses, but he recognizes him easily once he sees. "That one."

Kazuya snorts. "Fucker looks so ordinary."

Eijun laughs, and stifles it quiet. "You expected him to have horns or something? Big alien eyes?"

Kazuya snickers into Eijun's shoulder. "No, that's you."

"Hey!" Eijun shoves him, and they laugh a bit too loud, get some dirty looks, and Eijun whispers "Shh, library," which makes Kazuya laugh harder, muffled in the leather of his jacket sleeves.

Eijun smirks and goes back to flipping through the book, and there, luck upon luck, blueprints of the hospital just big enough to see the room labels. He takes pictures because it's easier than figuring out where and how to get copies of things, then puts the book away, pulling Kazuya along with him, like somehow he doesn't trust him to stay out of trouble if he's left alone too long.

Eijun's probably right about the trouble part. But Kazuya follows quietly, looking at the camera, the blueprint photos. "What next?"

Eijun blushes, and Kazuya wasn't expecting that response, gives him a raised eyebrow for it. "Well there's this room, it looks really gorgeous on the website. So I want to see it."

Kazuya almost laughs, but Eijun looks so serious. "You want to see a room."

"Yes." He takes his camera back, makes it clear he also wants to photograph said room, and Kazuya thinks it's really adorable, wonders what kind of sulky expression he'd get if he told him so.

Instead he shrugs, bumps his shoulder. "Let's go see your room."

Eijun leads him to it, doesn't want to say, they call it the Harry Potter room, because he knows Kazuya will laugh, and Kazuya has his head tilted back, looking way, way up at the ceiling, and the look on his face is soft and almost awed. Eijun takes a picture of him, hopes he doesn't notice, then quickly turns and photographs the room.

It's so quiet, and Eijun's aware of every sound his clothes make as he moves, blurring in with the sound of turning pages, other people's sniffs and muffled throat clearings, Kazuya's muted footsteps as he catches up to him.

Kazuya's not so quiet though when he says, "You're right, this is awesome."

Eijun quickly shushes him, whispers directly into his ear, "This is a quiet room, we can't talk in here."

And leaned in close, he misses Kazuya's grin, that danger warning. "Shut me up then."

Eijun gets a shivery rush, and he moves back enough to see Kazuya's eyes doing that thing where it's like they're lit from within, and he knows it's a trap, knows it's trouble, but it's all he's wanted since he first saw him, trickster-wild and too damn pretty, so he takes the bait. Eijun leans back in and kisses him, and Kazuya's lips part easily, like he'd been waiting for it too, one hand raising to Eijun's neck to pull him in closer.

It's not a gentle kiss but it's slow, and Eijun childishly thinks his mouth was made for Kazuya's, lost in the soft motion of his lips, the slick curl of his tongue, the catch of sharp teeth against Eijun's tongue, and he tries not to think that they might be overly sharp, blames it on imagination. Tries not to think of how good they would feel on his skin, and he's suddenly embarrassingly aware that they're in a library, with people probably watching.

Eijun forces himself to break away, blushing, every part of him resisting the detachment, and he blames it on the fact that he hasn't been laid in a while, not because kissing Kazuya felt so fucking perfect.

Kazuya's left looking satisfied and content, and he smiles crooked, but it's real and not a sign of trouble, and he walks off to look at the carvings on the bookshelves, and Eijun has to calm himself down, hold his camera steady.

When he glances back, Kazuya's using the camera Eijun gave him to take pictures of the carvings, and Eijun can't stop smiling about it.

He knows it's going to be a terrible heartbreak when he has to leave, and he'll deal with the pain and self-loathing when it comes to that part, but it feels good right now, warm and not alone for once. It's something to distract him from the violence and horror of all the things he hunts, and Eijun needs that, something besides blood on the backs of his eyelids when he closes them at night.

He has enough nightmares, maybe he deserves something nice, even if he knows he can't keep it.

+

Eijun gets the blueprint photos printed out once they're back at the hotel, his tiny portable printer running out of ink but it's better than nothing, and he spreads them on the desk, taping them together.

He traces over them while he eats, not hungry but he knows he needs to keep up his strength, his grandfather saying, strength of body equals strength of mind, and the old man would slap him into next week if he screwed up a hunt from lack of nutrition.

Kazuya's on the bed, going through Eijun's files, all the police reports and photos of the modern murders and the old, and he can't decide if he's disgusted or fascinated, like what kind of distorted mind thought this was a good idea to do to people, and how the fuck did he become a respected doctor with that kind of lunacy inside him.

The modern photos are clear, high-definition, three specific crime scenes and at least five different victims, but at the time of the report Eijun found, they were still doing DNA tests.

It's hard to tell, because there are body parts sewn onto other people, extra arms, legs, heads.

The reports say these extra parts were grafted in carefully enough that they were actually functioning for a while, that these people were alive, and the cause of death in all three main victims was a heart attack, the stress of living with someone else's body attached to them.

Kazuya looks at the photos of a man with two heads and wonders what it felt like, if the nerve centers in his brain recognized it as a head, or if it was something like a large tumor, some unnecessary thing growing out of his shoulder. He wonders, if the victims had not died, could they have learned to use their extra legs or arms, how awesome and convenient that would be.

Then he gets a flash of that voice in his head, vessel for the pig, and he's hit with a vertigo nausea, has to take off his glasses and press his hands against his eyes because holy shit, that doctor wasn't trying to invent convenience, and he doesn't realize how close he is to panic until Eijun shakes him out of it.

"Kazuya! What is it?" Eijun's voice wavers, and it takes him a minute to get Kazuya's hands away from his face, get his attention.

Kazuya inhales, and the nausea fades, just the result of the initial shock, and he points to the photos, those mangled, altered, purposeful bodies. "Vessels."

"Oh god." Eijun's back thuds against the wall, and Kazuya falls back with him, and they look over the photos together, how much they look like insects with their extra limbs. "I thought it was some kind of basic scientific experimentation, but if you're right, what the fuck are they vessels for?"

Kazuya shrugs, laughs mostly silent. "I don't know. The pig? What does that even mean?"

Eijun sighs, and picks up the stack of old photos, starts laying them out over the new, multiple heads and multiple limbs. "I hope we don't have to find out. I want to just banish him and be done with it."

Kazuya has his glasses back on, and he looks at the old photos, stares longest at the one where all the bodies are in a pile, like the doctor had thrown them aside when they became useless. "When will we do these rituals?"

'We' again, and Eijun wants to protest, but he's also curious now, wants to know what kind of energy Kazuya will add to the old magics, whatever it is that he is. "Tomorrow night. I want to go back in the morning, follow the blueprint and find the tunnels, set up some equipment. I like to record things when I can. And I like your idea of trapping him in the cafeteria, that's good."

Kazuya grins at that. "Okay. Good plan." He starts picking up the photos, putting everything back in Eijun's tidy folder, and the crisp clean white of the bedsheets is a startling contrast, so he shuts his eyes again.

Eijun takes the folder, touches his hand like he might want to hold it, but they've only known each other a few hours, so he gets up and moves to where his bags lay scattered on the floor, and Kazuya smells herbs, sour pungent things when he opens one.

He wants to call Eijun back to the bed, but instead he pulls out his phone, texts his boss. I can't work tomorrow. I'm on a hunt. ;-)

Eijun has to get his notebook out, can't remember exactly what he needs for the trapping ritual, if he needs the High John sliced or powdered, and he's not expecting it when Kazuya asks, "Is your last name Sawamura?"

"What?"

He says it slower that time. "Sa-wa-mu-ra."

"What? Yeah, why do you know that?" He watches Kazuya smirk, watches him type something on his phone, and he's not paranoid yet but he's getting there.

Then Kazuya grins bright. "My boss knows your grandpa." And Eijun relaxes, laughs because he should have known, that old man knows everyone. "And he says if we get stumped we can call him, and that you better take good care of me, I'm a sweet little innocent civilian."

They both crack up at that, like there's anything sweet and innocent about Kazuya. "Tell him I'll protect you. And tell him thanks."

Kazuya hums affirmative, goes back to his phone, and Eijun goes back to his book, sorts pouches and bottles into a tidy line.

He gets everything prepared for tomorrow, makes a few extra protective mojos to stick in their pockets, and he's still thinking of vessels, maybe he needs to draw some sigils on Kazuya to be safe, and he gets a very belated thought. "Hey, Kazuya, what's your last name?"

"Miyuki." He watches Eijun repeat it to himself, likes the way his pretty mouth forms the syllables. "Are you finished down there yet?"

Eijun looks everything over again, and nods. "Yeah. I think so."

Kazuya's grin that time is absolutely filthy. "Good, come entertain me."

Eijun blushes, and he rolls his eyes despite the thrill that runs through him, the absolute overwhelming need to get his hands on Kazuya as soon as possible. "You really have no shame, do you."

Of course Kazuya shakes his head. "Nope."

Eijun laughs, moves toward the bed, and Kazuya grabs his shirt, pulls him down beside him, and Eijun kisses that bratty grin right off his face.

He's getting those embarrassing thoughts again, that he could kiss this boy forever, and he briefly wonders if Kazuya is some kind of incubus, if he's going to die like this, and he decides he's okay with that, he can think of so many worse ways to go. Kazuya kisses like heaven anyway, like some kind of otherworldly utopia, and Eijun is never going to tell him that, not ever.

Still he whines a protest when Kazuya breaks away and sits up, and Kazuya laughs, tugs at Eijun's t-shirt. "Get this off already."

Eijun laughs but complies, tosses it somewhere across the room, then Kazuya's shirt is off, and Eijun makes another shameful sound as he reaches for Kazuya's nearest arm. "Tattoos. Oh hell."

Kazuya cracks up, but he lets Eijun turn his arm around, a whole sleeve of color for him to explore. "So what, you have them too."

"Yeah but mine are functional, yours are wow." Kazuya's still laughing, but Eijun's lost in tracing the lines of tree trunks, moss, an entire forest on Kazuya's right arm, and he thinks there might be words in the branches, all tangled in with the watercolor swirls of green and brown. "What does this say?"

Kazuya touches the words, points out the letters. "Be careful what you wish for."

Eijun looks away from the art for a moment, mostly serious and contemplative again as he searches Kazuya's face for answers, and there's something in his eyes as hidden and vague as the lettering, something Eijun still can't clearly see. "What does it mean?"

Kazuya only smirks, and shakes his head. "That's a story for later." He leans back over to kiss Eijun again, before he can ask any other questions, and Eijun gets a glimpse of flowers on his left arm, coppery salmon shades of something that might be poppies, but he tells himself, later. Later for tattoos and answers, now for Kazuya's devilish mouth and soft skin pressing in warm against his.

Eijun slides a hand over Kazuya's chest and presses him down to the bed, feels the vibration of his quiet laugh, the way his ribs shake under his fingers. Kazuya reaches for Eijun's hair, slides through it, tightens and pulls and gets a low whine that makes him laugh again, and maybe it's retaliation when Eijun drops down against him, rolls his hips into Kazuya's and makes his laugh stutter into a quiet moan.

It's frustratingly not enough though, too many layers of denim in the way, and they're reaching for buttons, zippers, sitting up again to kick jeans and underwear onto the floor, and Eijun takes a minute to laugh at Kazuya's socks, mismatched pink and green.

Kazuya pulls off the socks, smacks them on Eijun's head. "You have Superman boxers, how can you even laugh at me?"

"Hey, Superman's awesome. Your socks are colorblind." He laughs though, peels out of his perfectly matched socks and throws them all on the floor, and there's nothing really left to laugh about because Kazuya is stretched out naked beside him and that's much more interesting.

"Stop staring at me like that, it's embarrassing."

Eijun looks up, and Kazuya's blushing, adjusting his glasses as a way to try and hide it, and that's ridiculously cute. "I'm sorry it's just, do you not even know...." He wants to say, how fucking gorgeous you are, but that's embarrassing too, so he sort of falls over on the bed, catches Kazuya's mouth for another kiss.

Eijun thinks again, incubus, and, I am going to die, then Kazuya's pulling his hair again and he doesn't care about life or death anymore. He shifts back to how they were, presses against him with nothing in the way, and it's so perfect and electric that his mind blanks out for a moment, leaves him shivering and kind of hopelessly desperate. Kazuya bites his lip and Eijun's intensely aware of the heated line of his erection pressed against his own, and he has to pull back, just a little, for the sake of his sanity.

Kazuya follows though, arches up for another jolt of pleasure, and Eijun makes a hopeless noise against his throat, bites into it and makes Kazuya purr.

"Eijun, please tell me there are condoms in this room, and that you can reach them without having to get up."

Eijun laughs hard, but it's kind of miserable. "Shit, they're in my bag. Across the room. Don't you have telekinesis or something?"

Kazuya laughs, growls out a demonic-sounding, "That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras," and Eijun cracks up, rolls off of him with a muffled "oh my god", and crawls off the bed.

Kazuya watches him with a voyeuristic smile, admiring the pretty line of his back, the faint trace of scars over his side, like something with claws had a tight grip on him once, delicate curls and flourishes of the tattoo across his shoulders and something in that tattoo makes his head ache, makes him have to look away. It also reminds him to take his glasses off, and he sets them carefully on the floor, stays there stretched out on his stomach and he hears Eijun's miserable groan when he turns around and sees.

Kazuya can't help snickering again. Eijun is so much fun.

He makes it worse, raises his hips enough for Eijun to get the hint, and Eijun blanks out again, has to get his mouth on the smooth curve of Kazuya's ass, settling in behind him. He bites a flushed line up to his back, the points of his spine that he'd admired in the restaurant, and Kazuya shifts partly onto his knees so he can push up and Eijun takes that as a hint to bite harder, feels the muscles slide under his teeth as Kazuya moves.

Eijun sits back, and there's a deep red mark where his teeth were, and the sight of it makes him shiver, makes him somehow even harder than he already was. "So is it okay like this, or did you have something else in mind?"

Kazuya laughs but it's silent, out of breath and at the edge of impatience. "This is fine. I'm assuming you know what to do?"

Eijun squeaks a protesting "Of course!" and Kazuya laughs with sound then.

Eijun is blushing and adorable and Kazuya can't really handle the warm feeling he gets when he thinks about it, so he distracts himself by pushing back against Eijun. "Hurry up."

Eijun snickers, reaches for the lube he dropped on the blanket and slicks up his fingers, and he can't resist leaning again, mouth sliding over Kazuya's ribs as he presses one finger inside. He feels the expansion of his inhaled breath, feels him shiver, and he fits in a second, bites into the twisting line of his side as he fucks him slow like that, and there's no headboard so Kazuya gets his hands on the wall, leverage so he can push back into Eijun's hand.

His horrible, sadistic brain reminds him that he might be experienced, but he's never wanted anyone as much as he wants Kazuya. And that makes the whole thing kind of new, because he's not focused on the rush to get off, he wants to take his time and enjoy every moment. He knows he's completely ruined himself, he'll compare everyone now to this obnoxious, pretty idiot, and he piles that in with all the other shit he'll have to deal with when he goes home.

Eijun shifts his hand, twists until he hits the right spot and Kazuya shudders, muffles a shout into the pillow, and of course he laughs about it, and the way he tightens around Eijun's fingers when he laughs is kind of overwhelming and awesome.

He does it again, and that time Kazuya flattens his hands on the wall and pushes back, and Eijun suddenly wants nothing more than to get properly inside him, to feel this the right way, and he pulls his fingers out fast, makes Kazuya curse. Eijun grins and kisses the bruise where he bit, and somehow manages to get the condom on without fumbling and embarrassing himself.

Then he's pressing in, and he hears the scratch of Kazuya's fingernails on the wall, the catch of his breath, and Eijun bends forward until he's close enough to drag Kazuya into a loose, messy kiss. The angle sinks him in the rest of the way, and Kazuya clenches and shivers around him, and both of them lose the kiss to just sort of moan and breathe for a moment.

Eijun can't wait too long before he begins to move, setting a fast pace, hard enough to have Kazuya pushing back from the wall again, and Eijun's fingers tighten on his hips, nails digging in sharp.

Kazuya gasps out a laugh, catches Eijun's mouth again, alternates between rough licks along Eijun's tongue and bites to his bottom lip, his over-sharp teeth breaking through the skin easily. Eijun makes a stuttering cry, hips losing their rhythm and crashing into Kazuya hard, and Kazuya's laughing again, manages to barely coherently say, "So you like pain too, huh."

Eijun huffs as an answer, a gust of air over Kazuya's cheek, and Kazuya grins bratty and triumphant, so Eijun licks up the blood from his lip and kisses him, and the shiver that goes through Kazuya then is his own victory. Kazuya bites him again, makes him whimper, and the kiss stays bloody and slick, and Eijun's a wreck from the heated stinging burn of his lip and the too-good way Kazuya clenches every time he shivers.

He's so close, chasing the pleasure faster, and he drops one hand over Kazuya's tense stomach, slides down to stroke him tight and hard. Kazuya groans through the blood in his mouth and shifts his hips to get a better angle, get Eijun to hit that wonderful spot again, and that's all it takes before he's coming, barely aware of laughing, caught giddy in the bright hot rush. Eijun gasps out something like "holy shit, you," then bites into Kazuya's shoulder, muffling a sharp sound as he comes into him.

Kazuya's knees give out and they both crash to the bed, giggling about it, and they manage to untangle, Eijun sitting up to peel off the condom, and he completely misses when he throws it at the trash can, and that sets Kazuya laughing again so Eijun slaps him hard on the ass. The bright red handprint is nicely rewarding.

Kazuya finds his glasses, tired of the blur, and pulls Eijun to lay down again, curls on top of him satisfied and relaxed. "Well, that was fun."

Eijun laughs, runs a hand through Kazuya's messed up hair. "Yeah it was. Great idea."

And they're both going to feel it for a while, Eijun realizes, with his sliced lip still weakly oozing blood, and the bite on Kazuya's shoulder might bruise and the one on his back is already red and purple, and he can only see one of Kazuya's hips but it's clearly marked with the lines of Eijun's fingers so he suspects the other is the same.

He likes the idea that the marks he's left on Kazuya will be there long after he's gone.

Kazuya's forest arm is draped over him, so he goes back to admiring it, picking out details in mossy logs and mushrooms, a brightly colored frog that looks so real Eijun thinks it could hop away, centipedes on wood, and he says without thinking, "Everything is poisonous."

Kazuya shrugs. "Yeah." Then he grins. "Better hope I'm not, since I already bit you."

Eijun laughs, and gives a lick to the little scabbing cuts. "I think I'm safe. Can I see the other arm now?"

Kazuya smirks and rolls onto his back, and Eijun was right, his lower arm is a field of poppies, wasps fluttering over the petals. His upper arm is gnarled with vines, huge thorns that look deadly even in two dimensions, and below that are the distinctive spiny curves of datura flowers, and it hits Eijun with an unexpected sadness, that everything is toxic and dangerous like Kazuya has built his defenses onto his skin.

Eijun sighs, stroking over the poppies at his wrist, the still quick pulse under the delicate lines of petals, and he kisses him there, licks the blue shadow of veins where they disappear into bright colors, and Kazuya barely gasps, and that makes Eijun bold. "Tell me about 'Be careful what you wish for'."

Kazuya rolls back to his side, hiding the thorns and datura, and Eijun takes one hand off the poppies to trace the letters he can now see clearly in the branches. "It's about my mother, I guess. There was something she really desperately wanted, more than anything in the world, and she went through some horrible shit trying to get it. And she did get it, she got what she wished for. But it came out all fucked up and wrong. So I guess it's a lesson I felt I should learn from."

Eijun holds his breath, feels like he's right on the edge of something important, and when he speaks, it's quiet. "What did she want?"

The pulse beneath his fingers speeds up, and Kazuya laughs. "A baby."

"Oh." Eijun feels that adrenaline rush again, like he's no longer at the edge but falling over it. "You."

"Yeah." Kazuya laughs again, and pulls his arm out of Eijun's grip. "Okay, your turn, let me see yours."

"No no wait, Kazuya.... What do you mean by wrong?"

Kazuya looks almost serious then, a little sad, and Eijun is looking at him so open, so honest and almost childishly innocent in how desperately he wants his answers and Kazuya gets it, Eijun isn't going to judge him, he isn't going to hunt him, he just wants to know.

Kazuya has to laugh at that, a thick heavy laugh that wracks out of him like a sob, having to turn his face into the pillow to try and silence it, because there aren't any answers, there never have been. "I don't know, Eijun. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Eijun makes a stuttered, cut-off sound in his throat. "What? What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean I don't fucking know!" He doesn't mean to shout, he never shouts, but there's something about Eijun that makes him forget how to guard himself against these kinds of things. It makes him want to find his clothes and walk out the door, but he doesn't, he takes a slow breath and adjusts his glasses and pretends everything is normal.

"All I know, is my mother wanted a baby, but she was sterile, and she tried everything she could with doctors, even went to her Wiccan friends and tried every fertility spell they could find. In her diary she says she stuck so much tea tree oil up her twat she thought she was going to turn into a tea tree."

Eijun cracks up. "Fucking tea tree oil, oh god." That gets Kazuya laughing, and that's much better than the lost, hopeless expression he almost had before, and Eijun scoots in close, wipes at a spot of drying blood on Kazuya's chin. "I'm sorry, go on."

Kazuya snickers. "It's okay. Anyway she tried everything she could find, and eventually she found some really old ritual, like it was on crusty, nasty old paper and that's why she thought it would work, because it was so ancient. And she was right, it worked. She got pregnant. But I'm... well, you know, or you wouldn't keep asking me all these questions. But I can't find the source of the ritual, I can't find anything that tells what it all means."

Eijun fidgets, like he's trying to reach for the answers physically, like he could pull them out of the air. "What did she ever say about it?"

"That I'm the devil, but we know that's not true." They both laugh at that, and Kazuya almost does another Exorcist impression, but he can't think of an appropriate line. "I went to one of Mom's Wiccan friends once, and she said I'm caught between worlds, not human, not inhuman, and then she told me to get out of her house and never come back. So there you go, the mystery of the great Kazuya Miyuki."

Eijun wants to laugh, or at least tease him about 'the great Kazuya Miyuki', but his mind is lost in possibilities, scanning for legends, myths, anything that sounds familiar but nothing is coming up. "Maybe I can help you figure it out, if you let me see the ritual."

Kazuya shrugs. "Yeah okay, I could do that. Maybe you'll recognize it." Then he laughs again. "You know, all the hunters that come into the restaurant, all the time I spend talking to Frank, and you're the first one to ever notice."

Eijun gets that protective feeling again, and it's almost familiar now, something he's becoming used to. "I hope it stays that way."

"Me too. I like being alive." He grins, then shoves at Eijun's shoulder. "Okay really now, your turn, roll over."

Eijun laughs and lets Kazuya roll him over, and he can't help the goosebumps and shivers as Kazuya traces the lines, finding the hidden patterns and symbols.

"I recognize some of these, Frank has these rings and bracelets he never takes off. They're protective, right?"

"Yeah, they're -- Ow! What the fuck!" The back of his neck is suddenly burning hot, aching sharp pain and he has to reach up to make sure he's not actually on fire, and Kazuya's drawn back and staring, visibly shaking, and Eijun fully panics. "Oh shit, which one did you touch?!"

Kazuya leans in to see, careful not to touch again, though he wants to, he's curious, all these new things he's learning about himself. "It's in the middle, made up of little daggery lines. It looks like that really old language, like the first language, I can't remember, you know what I mean?"

Eijun turns over, his eyes wide, and Kazuya feels awful for the way Eijun's breathing so fast, how freaked out he looks. "Sumerian. The Sumerian reacted to you, holy shit." He reaches quick for Kazuya's hand, making sure there's no damage, making sure he can still touch him after that, that the protective spell isn't going to continue reacting. "This has never happened before."

Kazuya starts laughing, there's really nothing else he can do, because Eijun's still looking at him like he's the eighth wonder of the world, and it's actually pretty funny, the best punchline he can imagine. "Fucking... Sumerian tattoos and EMFs and evil ghost doctors and...." He trails off, muffled laughing into the pillow again, almost hysterical and it's all so fucking goddamn hilarious because it's not.

"Kazuya." Eijun sighs, and pets through his hair, over a cheek flushed from so much laughing. "At least, if this recognizes you, then it gives us a place to start looking, right?"

"Right, I guess." Kazuya shrugs one shoulder, and Eijun's close enough to kiss so he does, then he sits up, rubs a hand over the mess dried on his stomach and laughs again, lighter this time. "Do you mind if I go take a shower?"

Eijun accepts it for the escape route it is, the excuse to get away from Eijun's questions, and he blushes, instantly regrets taking a room without a private bathroom. He thought it wouldn't matter, wasn't expecting to have a guest. "Sure, it's down the hall though. Sorry."

Kazuya's nose scrunches, and it's cute, and Eijun sits up to kiss him again for absolutely no reason except that he's becoming kind of addicted, and Kazuya licks gentle over the scabs, maybe he's addicted too. "I don't know how you can keep kissing me, when I could be some kind of awful Sumerian demon. I could be Pazuzu."

Eijun laughs. "I don't care, I don't care what you are. Now go take your bath, unclean spirit."

Kazuya cackles at that, and stands up. "Good one. You really are fun, Eijun Sa-wa-mu-ra." And there's that trickster grin, a quick bright flash of it before he busies himself with trying to put his jeans on and keep them mostly clean.

Eijun gets up to find his bag of soaps and stuff, and towels, and when Kazuya's gone, the weight of everything sinks in, pushes him to sit on the floor and reach frantic for the sharp tattooed lines. He knows he should call his grandfather, that this is kind of a big deal, but he doesn't want anyone to know, doesn't want to take any chances of Kazuya being hunted.

He thinks of how badly he wanted to know, and hears the words echo soft, be careful what you wish for.

+

The hospital seems less threatening in the full light of the morning sun, and Kazuya's not hearing dead voices, but they still avoid the office for now, instead setting up cameras and various equipment in the common room with the moved furniture, and all over the south wing.

They spent the rest of the night going over the rituals, making sure there's nothing in the spells or ingredients that could hurt Kazuya, so he helps Eijun set up the dining room for the trapping ritual, not having to worry that something might accidentally react.

Eijun's smearing a foul, thick oil into the corners of the room, and the smell is enough to make them both kind of nauseous, but Eijun knows it could be much worse, and he doesn't want to think about that.

Kazuya has his t-shirt pulled up over his nose, filtering out some of the smell. "Hey, do you think it's like cold medicine, like the worse it smells the more powerful it is? Is that how this shit works?"

Eijun laughs, pouring oil onto a rag, trying to avoid getting it on his hands. "I don't know. You might have a point."

Kazuya snickers, and he has to pass Eijun to get where he needs to go, so he stops, crouches and pulls his shirt-mask down so he can kiss the back of his neck. He discovered that morning, the tattoo can't hurt him through clothing, so he kisses that too, feeling only the warmth of Eijun's skin, and he whispers, "I don't care if you hate me, but please protect Eijun."

Eijun watches him continue on his way to the bags, preparing to grind up seeds in a small bowl. "Were you talking to the tattoo?"

Kazuya flashes a grin. "Yep."

Eijun wants to laugh, but it makes him feel so warm, all he can do is blush and turn back to his work in the corner.

He still sneaks glances at him as they go, a little proud of how quickly Kazuya learns, following Eijun's directions and instructions, like he was made for this, and they finish in half the usual time. Eijun's not surprised anymore, this teamwork stuff is great.

"Okay, we'll do the summoning in here, and he'll be stuck, so if we do the banishing and it doesn't work, we can run off to burn down the office or whatever."

Kazuya smirks, bumps Eijun's shoulder as they zip up the bags, ready to move on to the next task. "Or whatever. You sound so confident."

Eijun pouts, defensive. "It's different every time. I never know what will work, even if it worked before. It's not like in the movies, where everything is conveniently obvious."

He's still pouting as he turns to go, and Kazuya catches him, slings an arm around him and smacks an obnoxious loud kiss to his cheek. "I was teasing. This is still the most awesome thing I've ever done."

Eijun huffs, but he turns around to kiss him properly, carefully, because his lip really hurts, and this isn't the time or place to enjoy that. "Hope you won't regret it."

"I won't." Kazuya kisses him once more, on the corner of his mouth opposite the cuts, and they grab their flashlights, head out to find the tunnels.

Eijun's patchwork blueprints lead them back to the south wing, into a corridor for laundry and storage and various behind the scenes maintenance stuff, and at the top of the stairs, Kazuya stops. Eijun stops one step down, quickly takes that step back up. "What?"

"This is where they found the bodies, right? Down here?" Kazuya's voice doesn't shake, but there's discomfort in it, and Eijun runs a hand over his arm, feels it tense.

"Yeah, not sure exactly where."

Kazuya looks into the dark, pure black past the reach of their lights. "Can you imagine dying down here, where it's so dark and there's no way out, and no one's going to come looking for you...."

Eijun shivers, and he looks down, following the darkness. "I try not to think about things like that."

Kazuya laughs then, loud enough to echo, and Eijun jumps, thinks about hitting him. "Yeah me too. Come on, let's go let's go!" He hurries down the stairs then, and Eijun hears the fake cheer for what it is, but he doesn't ruin it by saying anything.

The stairs take them deep, and it's cold, breath fogging up in front of them, and Eijun loves abandoned old buildings, but he'll never get used to places like this, dark and empty where anything could happen. He meant it when he said he tries not to think about it, but the thoughts sneak in anyway, press in tight against him.

Eijun focuses instead on the creak of Kazuya's leather jacket as he moves, how he can't smell the patchouli anymore but he can still smell the wood smoke, layers of spice underneath, and he tries to identify it all, gets to cardamom, saffron, sage, before his flashlight hits on dark stains in the floor.

Kazuya stops beside him, beams scanning over splotches and streaks. "How did no one fucking know?"

"They didn't want to. There's a lot of excuses you can make for blood on the ground in a hospital." Eijun follows the line of stains to a door, and they both recognize it from the photos, the room the victims were all found in, and there's still a police crime scene sticker stuck at eye level, do not enter.

Eijun turns the knob anyway, isn't surprised to find it unlocked, and Kazuya reacts first to the smell, a quiet "holy fuck" muffled by his hand. Eijun does the t-shirt mask trick but it doesn't help much, and his light shines over blood that isn't so old, still red-brown and vivid against the grey concrete. He remembers from the photos, the bodies were stacked against the left wall, and when he moves his light that direction, he sees the source of the smell, fresh rotting parts, limbless torsos, a head with matted blond hair.

These are the parts that didn't make it to the final product, and Eijun knows they connect to the extra limbs and heads found on the recent victims. "We're gonna have to call this in."

Kazuya pulls Eijun out of the room, closes the door and shuts the smell in. "What the hell do we say?"

"We say we're urban explorers, don't say anything about ghosts or the Frankenstein murders, just say we found some body parts in a room." It hits Eijun hard then, that distinct mortal fear that comes with seeing death, and he steps back to lean against the wall, trembling and sick and wanting to run, and then Kazuya's arms are wrapped around him, holding tight.

It's the proof they need, proof that the doctor is responsible and that getting rid of him will keep this from happening to anyone else, and Eijun badly wants to put up cameras here, but it's not a good idea if he's going to be calling the police.

"Eijun, you're not going to like this, but I feel something else down here."

Eijun whimpers a curse into Kazuya's shoulder, and he laughs, which makes Kazuya pinch him, though it's barely felt through the wool of Eijun's coat. "That's great. Should we be running now?"

Kazuya shakes his head. "It's not like that, it's... okay this sounds really stupid but it's like an energy, not like a... a thing, or person, ghost whatever."

"Okay, that's good I guess." Eijun pulls himself away, adjusts the strap of his bag, and he's still shaking but he's not so close to panic anymore. "Can you find it?"

"I can try."

Kazuya files it in with all the other new, strange things about himself, and he lets it lead him down the hall, into a room that doesn't smell of anything but old dust and general mildew and mold, and it's empty, but there's another door at the end.

Eijun can smell it though, the electric sulphur crackle of old magics, the sweet rot of fruit, food long gone sour, and he knows what he's going to find behind that door, isn't surprised when he drags it open and exposes the remnants of an altar for summoning. "Fucking hell."

Kazuya leans over Eijun's shoulder and sighs heavy. "Why is everything so gross?"

Eijun laughs quiet, steps inside toward a stack of papers. "I guess crazy mad scientists aren't much on hygiene. Hey look at this, holy shit."

Kazuya moves in, and Eijun hands him a piece of paper, old and faded but he can still make out the illustration of three male figures, six-limbed and three-headed and it's exactly like the bodies, the 'vessels'. He feels a little breathless, adrenaline riding him hard and fast, and he sees a word written beneath the largest figure, possibly Latin but he doesn't need to know the language to know what it means. "Porcus, Eijun. The fucking pig."

"Holy shit, what the absolute fuck." Eijun takes the paper back, and underneath the others are Leo and Aquila, lion and eagle, and he sees the gross distortion of animal traits in their faces, in claws and hooves and talons. "These are apparently some kind of demons, something related to fallen angels, cherubim, I don't really understand it all. And the pig guy is supposed to be the devil. I've never seen this kind of representation before, this is fucked up."

Eijun starts packing the papers into his bag, and Kazuya finds his borrowed camera, takes pictures of the altar, in case they need to remember. "So, he's trying to create vessels for the devil and some fallen angels?"

"That's what it looks like."

Kazuya laughs, gives Eijun a nudge. "You should feel pretty special then. Hey, maybe he'd use me for your extra parts."

Eijun makes a sound that's half nausea, half desperation to get the fuck out of there. "That's not funny, god, don't even joke about it."

"Sorry." Kazuya rubs over Eijun's back for a brief soothing moment, and he thinks, I won't let them get you.

"It's okay." Eijun smiles then, and he's changed his mind about the cameras, doesn't want to risk missing anything important, so he takes one out of his bag, sticks it as high up in the corner as he can reach. He does the same as they leave the tunnels, sticking up a camera now and then, and it's not a perfect set up, but it will do.

"Please don't let me forget to grab these before we call the cops."

Kazuya nods. "I'll do my best." And for his own curiosity, he stops and turns back, snaps a picture of the dark hallway. He'd never admit it, but he's afraid to look at it, doesn't want to know what might be lurking behind them, silent and unseen.

They both feel a little better when they reach the stairs, running up fast to the relative normalcy of the maintenance hall. Eijun closes the door and breathes out a sigh, and he pretends he's shaking from the cold, but he knows he's never going to get used to this, the blood and the death, and it makes him even more determined, makes him want to work harder, kill and banish and exterminate everything he can.

Kazuya follows him to the lobby, quiet and thinking too much, and he's not expecting it when Eijun stops at the door, turns around and hugs him tight and awkward from all the bags they're carrying. But he leans into it, holds Eijun as he shivers, and he sees Eijun for what he is then, a scared boy doing a job that's too heavy and immense, and he wants to tell him how brave he is, but instead he says, "Did we get everything done in here?"

Eijun nods against cold leather. "I think so. We'll come back tonight and kick this bastard out."

Kazuya snickers. "We'll get all Rambo on his ghostly ass."

That makes Eijun laugh, and it warms him enough that he can let go of Kazuya, get the door open so they can leave. "Like they say, don't mess with Texas."

Kazuya fully cackles, and Eijun gives him a huge grin, and locks the door behind them.

+

Eijun is tired of reading Latin, tired of squinting at old faded writing, and he puts the final paper on the stack face down so he doesn't even have to look at it. "I am like one hundred thousand percent sure this is not the devil. But if these things actually exist, then he might be protected by them. I wonder if a simple standard exorcism would work."

Kazuya has the laptop with him on the bed, and he looks up from the screen, kind of wants to laugh, or make more movie quotes, but Eijun looks so exhausted and frustrated. "Have you ever done an actual real exorcism?"

Eijun pales, enough for Kazuya to notice. "I've assisted with two. I'll tell you an honest thing, Kazuya. I don't believe in God, or Satan, or anything written in anyone's religious texts, but there are things out there that do believe, and they are horrible. You've seen The Exorcist, you've seen all the movies, that's pretty much how it goes. Something takes hold of an innocent person, and it's hard to get them out. You have to find what they're afraid of, and sometimes they aren't afraid of anything."

Kazuya's aware of gawking, anyone else saying this and he wouldn't believe them, he'd laugh himself right off the bed, but he can feel it in Eijun, the honesty and truth. "I've tried asking Frank about this stuff, but he says I'm better off not knowing."

Eijun sighs at that, and he gives up on the papers, moves to sit on the bed because it's warmer there, beside Kazuya. "That's how most hunters think. They want people to stay innocent, like, we all have enough shit to worry about in life without adding monsters into it. But I also think if people knew, they'd be better at protecting themselves, a lot less people would die. That's why if anyone asks what I'm doing, I tell them, and I let them decide if they want to believe or not. Most people don't."

Kazuya snickers and pulls Eijun over to lean against his shoulder. "I don't know what I'd believe if I was normal. I never really got the option of being a skeptic. But I guess it's the same way for you, with your grandfather?"

"Yeah, mostly. My parents were pissed, they didn't want me to know, but he wanted me to be safe. Hey can I ask you something?"

Kazuya quietly laughs. "You've been dying to ask about my mother. Is that it?"

Eijun blushes, but he nods. "Yeah, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"It's okay. She died when I was eight, she... she killed herself. Tried to kill me too, so I guess that's fair. Quit looking at me like that."

Eijun's staring with some kind of adorable mixture of shock and sadness and indignation, like he's about to cry, or yell, like he might summon up his mother and give her a piece of his mind. Kazuya can't help thinking, that would be pretty funny.

Eijun looks away though, and finds Kazuya's hand where it's resting beside the computer. "I'm so sorry. I guess I don't understand why she would be so upset. Okay you're a little different, but there's nothing really wrong about you, there's nothing bad -- What?"

Kazuya's laughing again, that hopeless, hysterical laugh, and Eijun hears it catching in his throat, like he's trying not to cry. "I'm a fucking monster, Eijun, and you don't see it because I've learned how to hide it."

Eijun's hand tightens on Kazuya's, and he knows this is the point where he should shut up, stop asking, thinking so clearly, be careful what you wish for. But he has to know, he has to fucking know. "Stop hiding it then, let me see."

Kazuya lets out one more short laugh, and then Eijun feels everything change, feels the sudden heat in the air like standing at the edge of a forest fire, ripples in his vision like a mirage, and there's a curl of smoke from the edge of the bed, and Eijun instinctively wants to be scared by that, but he trusts Kazuya. Kazuya, who is still exactly the same, and Eijun wasn't sure what he would see when he looked back at him after watching the bed begin to smolder, but it's just his beautiful trickster.

"When I was a baby, I used to set the crib on fire. When I was five, I burned down the neighbor's house. When I was eight, I set my teacher's heart on fire inside her chest. That's when my mother decided I had to die."

Eijun thinks of the ever-present smell of wood smoke, that glint he sees sometimes in Kazuya's eyes, and he gets it, everything is fire. "But you learned to control it, you didn't need to die."

Kazuya laughs again, and Eijun feels the heat begin to fade, the fire on the bed dying out to harmless black scars, and he'll have to pay for the damage, but it was worth it. "Yeah, well, she didn't see it that way. I'd killed three people, I probably would have done it again."

"But you haven't?"

"No, but I can think of a lot of people who would deseve it."

Eijun laughs at that. "I can relate. You've seen the weapons I carry around, and I'm not allowed to use them on regular living humans, and sometimes that's hard."

Kazuya fully cackles, and elbows Eijun in the ribs. "You little fucking psycho."

"Shut up, Firestarter." He grins though, and faintly blushes. "It's just, there are people out there who are worse than any monster I've ever hunted."

"Yeah, I know." Kazuya doesn't want to say, I know because I've killed three of them, but he guesses Eijun gets the hint anyway, by the way his hand tightens again.

Then Eijun is shifting, his other hand coming to rest on Kazuya's cheek, and he kisses him, tasting brimstone and ashes and something like lightning. "You're one of the good ones though. I can tell, I get vibes about people too."

Kazuya grins wide. "And how do you get these vibes?"

Eijun snickers, purrs quiet into Kazuya's ear, "Do you want to hunt me now, Kazuya Mi-yu-ki?"

Kazuya gives in and laughs, shoves Eijun over on the bed so he can hold him down, pressing in close to purr just as low and smooth in his ear, "What do I get if I catch you?"

Eijun grins and licks what he can reach of Kazuya's neck. "Anything you want."

Kazuya leans back then, laughter faded to seriousness, and Eijun worries, thinks he's messed the game up somehow, said the wrong thing. "What if I said I want to keep doing this with you, hunting things. I know I'm just an innocent civilian, as you all say, but I want to learn."

Eijun's automatic protests rise up, the way he's been taught, but he pushes them away because when it comes down to it, they all started out as "innocent civilians", and they're all hunters now because they've made the choice to be, and he's hit with that sudden immensity of emotion for Kazuya again, protective, and proud, and an overwhelming kind of awe. "Okay. I'll teach you."

Kazuya smiles, and it's a pretty smile, not one of his taunts, and he kisses Eijun on the tip of his nose before sitting up. "Thank you, Eijun-sensei."

He laughs again at that, and stays laying there, watching Kazuya adjust his glasses, pulling the computer over from where he'd kicked it aside, and he sees images on the screen, old illustrations of devils and demons. "Found anything that looks like our three dear friends?"

"Well, kinda. I've found a few descriptions where cherubim have three heads, or two heads, and always multiple faces, a lion, eagle, man, and ox. And there's a lot where they have four arms, sometimes four wings. So it's like someone divided up the faces of the cherubim into individual cherubs I guess, or maybe something somewhere got interpreted or translated wrong. But I've also found things that say the devil was a cherub at first, so that explains the unusual depiction there."

"Huh. That's definitely different. Usually people go with the whole Lucifer the archangel version." Eijun slides off the bed to go back to the papers, laying out all the artwork. "What about the pig though?"

Kazuya shrugs. "All I know is the story where Jesus did an exorcism, and he cast the demons into a herd of pigs. We're back to The Exorcist again, because the demons were Legion." He laughs then, and Eijun kind of miserably sighs. "But pigs were considered unclean, symbols of gluttony and filth, so I guess that's why they picked it for the devil."

Eijun thunks his elbows on the desk, shoves his hands in his hair, and stares down at the hideous pig-cherub thing. "So we have Legion, we have Pazuzu, what's next?"

Kazuya snickers. "I don't know. But I guess you were right, a standard exorcism would probably work on this, since it's non-traditional imagery but we're still dealing with biblical devils and demons. I mean do standard exorcisms work on places?"

"We have variants of the texts, some work better on places. It really depends on what actually answered the summoning, if anything did at all. It might only be the doctor and nothing else." Eijun sighs again. "I'm sorry, Kazuya, I'm not very good at any of this."

"Yes you are. You're making it more complicated than it is."

Eijun snorts, a tiny laugh. "Oh really now."

Kazuya gives him a look, though he doesn't see it. "Yes. The main point is to get rid of the doctor, and we already know what we need to do there. If your banishing ritual doesn't work, we find what he's tied to and destroy that. If it's these cherub things holding him here, we try all your exorcisms until one works."

"Then I guess I need to find my list of churches, because we're gonna need more holy water. And salt. I'm almost out."

"Yay, the shopping trip of the damned."

Eijun laughs and throws a pen at Kazuya's head, missing completely, and Kazuya cackles.

"Shit you have the worst aim. If we have to throw anything at these things, let me do it." He throws the pen back, and hits Eijun directly in the forehead. "I'm not the local darts champion for nothing."

Eijun pouts. "Lesson learned." Then he gets up to find the address of the church, might as well get started.

+

The church is downtown, one of those old beautiful ones that Eijun can't help feeling awed by, and it's something Kazuya's noticed, the way Eijun goes all soft and reverent around old buildings, the way he'll sometimes touch an elegant architectural detail in passing. It's cute, something else to add to the list of adorable things about Eijun Sawamura.

Eijun's hunched into his coat collar again, throwing a sharp glare at the sun because for all its shining, it's not doing any good. He grouches his way into the church, where it's still chilly, but lovely enough to be a distraction, and he stops in front of the baptismal font, reaches into his bag. "Okay I'm gonna fill these bottles, you keep a look out."

Kazuya snickers all villainous and sly and watches the room, two people at the far end by the pipe organ paying no attention, one person sitting in a pew. He hears the quiet sound of water, and Eijun's quieter giggle. "Can I ask you a stupid question?"

Eijun fills the last bottle, mission complete. "Yeah sure."

Kazuya watches him step away from the font, head tilted up toward the stained glass, and he moves in beside him so he can whisper. "If you don't believe in God, how can you do exorcisms? I thought it was about faith."

"Well, I do have faith, I have faith that the text will work. And it's mostly about the demon or whatever's beliefs, it's psychological more than physical. And I've never done one alone anyway, so maybe you have a point, maybe it's not going to work." Eijun pouts for a moment, then he shrugs. "If that's the way it goes, then there's nothing I can do."

He turns to leave then, and Kazuya follows, dips a finger into the water out of curiosity and snickers to himself when nothing happens. Maybe he's a little disappointed. "It will work, Eijun." He wants to say, you're worth having faith in, but instead he bumps Eijun's shoulder as they walk out the door.

Eijun smiles, and doesn't even notice the cold.

+

Kazuya wants to stop at his apartment on the way back, wants to change into clothes he doesn't mind getting dirty, in case it comes to that. He also thinks there's an unopened canister of salt in the cabinet, and he leaves Eijun to search for it while he disappears into his bedroom.

While he's there, Eijun tucks a little protective bag in the corner of the shelf, thinks he might take the time to throw some spells around before he goes home, something to keep Kazuya safe.

He doesn't really want to think about it though. Going home, leaving Kazuya behind.

Kazuya comes out of the bedroom in a bleach-stained black shirt, and black camo pants, going for that apocalyptic bunker commando theme, and Eijun thinks he's the prettiest hunter he's ever seen.

"It looks good on you, the whole 'I'm ready to kick some supernatural ass' look."

Kazuya laughs, and gets close enough to kiss Eijun, shoves him against the fridge and presses in tight. Eijun's coat is in the way though, so he tugs at it. "Get this off already. And hey, are you hungry? I've got some leftover sweet and sour chicken I can heat up."

"That sounds really good, yeah. Thanks." Eijun slips away to take off his coat, hangs it on the rack beside Kazuya's leather. "And I found the salt."

"Oh good. Was it expired?"

Eijun laughs, and leans on the cabinet to watch Kazuya sorting leftovers into microwave bowls. "Does salt even expire?"

Kazuya actually thinks about it. "I have no idea." He sounds so serious, Eijun cracks up, and Kazuya kicks at him a few times. "Shouldn't you know these things? You shitty ghostbuster, don't even know if salt expires."

Eijun laughs harder, has to wipe his eyes. "Shut up. Just look on the fucking can."

"Wow, god, just look on the fucking can, he says. Are you going to say that to the ghosts? Like hey wait hang on, let me check the expiration date on this first."

Eijun can't speak so he shoves at Kazuya, pounds on his shoulder a little to get the point across, then the microwave is beeping and Kazuya escapes to get forks, leaving Eijun flushed and grinning.

He doesn't have a table, so they sit on the couch, legs folded up and facing each other. Eijun thinks it's the best sweet and sour he's ever had, and it hits him like the goddamn proverbial brick, how bad he's got it for this boy, all the thoughts he's been pushing away coming back in an unstoppable rush, poison in his blood because he knows he has to leave tomorrow. He doesn't know what to think, what he's supposed to do about this.

"Eijun. You've been glaring at your fork for like two minutes, are you okay?"

Eijun laughs short and quiet, eats the bite of rice he'd been holding halfway to his mouth. "Yeah I'm fine. Just stupid."

Kazuya grins so bright, it's an obvious warning. "Business as usual then."

Eijun squawks indignation, and Kazuya's laughing, and Eijun wonders if this is how Kazuya's teacher felt before her heart burst into flames.

Eventually Kazuya calms down. "Really though, what's wrong?"

Eijun takes a big bite of chicken, so he has some time before he has to answer, and he thinks about lying, would be easy to say he's thinking about the doctor and the demon things. But he quietly says, "I don't want to leave tomorrow."

"So don't."

Eijun startles. "What?"

"Don't leave. You said you wanted to travel, right? Why not start here, save up some money, I bet Frank would give you a job. Anyway you promised you'd teach me this stuff, I doubt I can learn it all in one night."

Kazuya's smiling like what he's saying is casual, ordinary, like he's not completely restructuring Eijun's world in less than five sentences. Eijun stares at him for a while, then reminds himself to breathe.

He thinks of home, his parents, his grandfather, his friends, all the things he'd miss. But then he thinks of how he feels whenever he comes home from a hunt, goes back to his regular safe job at the bookstore, and how he spends every moment waiting for the next one, all those things out there killing people while he's stocking shelves, counting out change. It's not really a difficult decision.

"Okay. I could do that. I'll have to go home and pack, explain everything to everyone, but it won't take long."

Kazuya nods, and he's blushing, and Eijun sees something soft in his eyes, something unexpectedly new. "Good, because I didn't want you to leave either."

Eijun can't help grinning, his heart turned to ash and reborn like a phoenix, and he doesn't care that it's stupid, that it's hopelessly storybook cliche, but maybe it's his turn to have a happy ending, someone to come home to at night and fight away the darkness with.

Kazuya nudges him once with his foot, and they finish their chicken in silence.

The sun is setting, and Kazuya gets them each a beer from the fridge, and now he's getting nervous, because it's soon, soon that he'll be facing ghosts and demons and things he never thought he would get to actually see. "What time do you want to go out there?"

"I don't know." Eijun checks the time on his phone, still late afternoon, but dark is dark. "Maybe in an hour, we can try then. I want to get this over with." Because he keeps thinking of that stack of body parts, and he worries if they take too long, there might be more when they go back.

Kazuya gives a serious nod, his mind drifting in the same direction. "Last time I heard him right after sunset, so it should be fine."

Eijun can't help shivering. Those voices on the tape, the things Kazuya heard but he could not, and all he can think is they have to get this right, they have to end it.

Eijun drinks his beer and recites exorcisms in his head, Latin and English, every one he can remember, and hopes they will be enough.

+

It's so cold in the hospital dining room, and Eijun can't stop shaking, holding his hands around candle flames but it's not doing any good. He lights the last one, and tells himself, the sooner they finish, the sooner he can bribe Kazuya to let him take a long scalding soak in his bathtub. "Okay, I think we're ready."

Kazuya steps inside the salt circle, the thick line Eijun poured around the table to keep them safe. He feels it like a faint shudder under his skin, like something reaching in and pulling until it catches on the heat inside of him, and the candles flare up and Eijun shouts, backs away. Kazuya can't help but laugh.

Eijun looks panicked, and Kazuya feels a little bad. "Was that you? Did you do that?"

Kazuya snickers, waves a hand through one of the massive flames. "It's your salt thing, it doesn't like me."

Eijun huffs and looks entirely disapproving. "You eat salt all the fucking time."

Kazuya laughs again. "I know. Fuck, I don't know, just do your thing. I won't set you on fire."

"I know you won't." At least he's a little warmer, and his hands aren't shaking when he picks up the book, beginning the summoning.

Eijun knows how this goes. He knows the windows are supposed to rattle, the tables and chairs and anything not bolted down are going to vibrate across the floor, very slightly clockwise, following the vacuum of power that rises with each spoken word. Kazuya beside him seems fascinated, that bright grin on his face, and nothing else is bursting into flames so Eijun stops worrying about him.

He finishes the incantation and the candles flicker, and Kazuya gasps, has to grab the back of a chair to steady himself, and Eijun doesn't have time to ask before there's a man standing in the second circle of salt. There's a flash of heat, and Eijun gets his hand on Kazuya's arm, entirely out of the loop because the doctor is laughing and Kazuya's snarling like he's about to tear something apart.

Then the table catches on fire and Eijun has to snatch up his book before it burns, and everything is suddenly, intensely hot. "Kazuya, calm down. He can't do anything now."

"He wants to though." The doctor isn't speaking but he can hear him, mocking, everything he wants to do to Eijun, and Kazuya doesn't think he's ever been so angry. "Is this real, Eijun? Is this really a fucking ghost standing there?"

"Yeah, it's real." He gives Kazuya's tense arm a squeeze, then lets go, so he can turn pages to the banishment ritual.

Three lines in, the walls begin to shake, and the doctor is cackling, a laugh like a roar, like all the air being sucked out of the room and Eijun stops reading. "Oh fuck. This isn't normal."

"What?!" Kazuya's voice kind of squeaks out high, and Eijun wants to laugh but the ceiling is splitting along the corners, and he can smell sour fruit, offerings gone bad, rot and decay and Kazuya is saying, "Something is coming."

It all happens at once.

The room tilts and everything goes slipping to the side, crashing into the wall, Eijun and Kazuya on the floor with a curse, and the fires go out, leaving the room as black as nothing. Eijun fumbles a flashlight out of his pocket, and the doctor is gone, salt lines smeared and made useless by gravity and sliding furniture. "Fuck!" He shines his light around until he finds a candle that still has a wick, and he can hear the walls rumbling as he gets it lit, and it's dim but it's enough to see the cracks spreading and all he can think is, please don't let this place collapse.

He realizes what's wrong then, Kazuya is quiet.

"Kazuya!" Eijun finds him under the table, has to shake him a few times before he moves, sits up fast and dizzy, and Eijun can see the crack in one lens of his glasses, ash smeared on the curve of his cheekbone.

"It's them, isn't it. Those pig devil cherub things. They're fucking real, holy fucking shit." Kazuya laughs, and he tries to climb out from beneath the table but Eijun holds him back, running a shaking hand over Kazuya's head, searching for bumps, blood. He finds the sore spot when Kazuya flinches, and Eijun makes a high, worried sound. "I'm okay, Eijun. Are you okay?"

Eijun sighs, and everything around them has gone calm and still, and that's somehow more worrying. "No I'm pissed off!" He crawls out through the dust, Kazuya laughing behind him, and he finds his book crumpled against the wall, but at least not ruined. Their bags look like they survived, and he's grateful he never stores anything in glass containers. "The trapping ritual failed, I don't know why, and we can't do it again because I don't have another room prepared."

Kazuya picks up the sad little candle, and takes his bag from Eijun. His entire right side aches, but he's not going to complain about it. "Well, can you do the banishment without needing him in the same room? Or what about the plan, weren't we going to exorcise the demon things first anyway?"

"Yeah but now he'll be in the way. I can do the banishing no matter where he is, but now he can bother us during the exorcism." There's no choice though, so Eijun steps carefully over the crack in the floor, the dividing line where everything tilted, and he's not as worried about the building crashing down on them now, but it's still way too quiet. "Can you hear them at all?"

Kazuya pauses a moment, and listens. "Nope. Maybe they left?"

Eijun pouts, and at least it's dark so Kazuya can't see and tease him for it. "The summoning can't have failed too, they have to still be here. Let's get back to the lobby and try the exorcism, and then we're right by the door if they start tearing the place up again."

Kazuya snickers, and lightly bumps into Eijun. "Smart plan."

It's still quiet in the lobby, and Eijun makes them another salt circle, sets up candles so they can see what they're doing, and he watches as Kazuya steps into the circle, wary of the flames, but nothing happens.

Kazuya gives him a sort of surprised look. "Oh. It's not bothering me this time."

Eijun relaxes, though it's one more curiosity to add to the list, one more question without an answer. "Maybe it was something in the rituals."

Kazuya hums, and Eijun gets into his bag, finds the bottles of holy water and switches out the lids for squirt-trigger tops, and he probably should be expecting it when Kazuya starts laughing. "Shut up. It's more convenient, and longer range."

Kazuya takes a bottle, squirts Eijun with a spray of water, and laughs so hard his breath wheezes. Eijun's just grateful he didn't bring the squirt guns instead, thinks Kazuya would have died over the big yellow supersoaker. Eijun's also grateful he's never needed to use that.

Eijun flips through his book, finds the page with the exorcism he needs, and the handwriting is smudged but it's not torn. "Are you ready? Cause I still don't know what we're dealing with, I don't know what's going to happen when we start saying this stuff."

Kazuya nods. "We'll deal with what happens when it happens." He steps over then, steals Eijun's attention from the book and kisses him, slow and focused like he's saying the things he doesn't have words for, because he doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in love, but he believes in Eijun, and that's something he never thought he would feel, this blind unwavering faith.

Eijun's breathless when he pulls away, and he rests his lips against Kazuya's chin, not sure if the ash he tastes is from the room or just Kazuya. "Don't kiss me like that, like we're going to die. It's just a stupid exorcism." But Eijun kisses him again anyway, the hand not occupied with the book curling into Kazuya's jacket, cold leather and metal studs in his fist.

Kazuya barely smiles, nips gentle at Eijun's scabbed lip. "My glasses are broken."

Eijun pouts, kisses him for a long moment before replying, "I'll buy you a new pair."

"Consider us even for the EMF meter." They both smile then, and Kazuya moves away, and he'd swear he can feel the protection scrawled onto his back, remembering how Eijun had held him down, drawing symbols in sharpie, prayers in half a dozen languages. "Okay let's do this."

Eijun goes serious, and Kazuya can sense the change, a prickle on his skin, and Eijun faces the room, makes the sign of the cross. Barely saying "In the name of the father, the son," before the air rushes in, the roar like a train, like a tornado, and Eijun has to shout "the holy spirit!" over the noise.

The air is barely touching them, swirling around the outside of the salt circle, a light breeze to make the candles flicker and send Eijun's hair fluttering into his eyes so he has to brush it aside. "Amen."

It fades quickly, furniture and pages of torn books crashing down to the floor, collecting in corners, dust like snow settling in drifts. Eijun takes a shaky breath, hears Kazuya laughing quietly beside him. "Holy shit."

Kazuya snorts. "Are you supposed to curse during an exorcism?"

Eijun laughs. "I don't know. Probably not." He inhales slow and lets his shoulder press against Kazuya's, beginning the first prayer, and he makes it halfway through before a loveseat slides across the floor to stop at the edge of the salt circle.

Eijun keeps reading, makes it to "In the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord our God," and the ceiling ignites, flames reaching impossibly upside down, and Eijun ducks, though they aren't low enough to hurt him.

Kazuya fully shamelessly clings to Eijun, points the holy squirt bottle at the ceiling like a threat. "That's not me, I didn't do that."

Eijun has to laugh again. "I know." He finishes the prayer, and it's almost painfully hot in there now, sweat dripping stinging into his eyes, and he barely hears Kazuya's "oh shit" before the roar hits him again.

The fire from the ceiling rolls down to coalesce in front of the door to the south wing, spreading outward along the walls, and he can see them then, three dark shapes behind the flames, like cast shadows. "Kazuya, do you see them?"

"Yeah. The doctor's not here though." And the roar is making his head ache, splitting into separate voices, screams and whispers, the sweet lightness of his mother singing in the kitchen. "Shut them up!"

Eijun doesn't ask, just shouts into the noise, "We cast you out, every unclean spirit! Every satanic power! Every onslaught of the infernal adversary!" The air swirls again, furniture flying to crash into the wall, a sofa smashing through a window, and Eijun's somewhat grateful for that, the fresh air to counter all the gathering smoke. "We command you, begone!"

Kazuya watches the three figures move, random stuttery movements like an old broken projector, and he can make out the arms, the heads, Eijun's voice fading as theirs grow sharper.

"God the Father commands you! God the Son commands you!" Signing crosses, and he can feel the heat rising in Kazuya, wood smoke on his tongue as he speaks. "Kazuya, don't listen to them, listen to me!" He continues, all the commandings, and the floor is splitting, a chasm through the middle of the room and the fire pours into it like water.

All the windows are blown out, books and desks circled around the salt perimeter, Eijun's voice like a soft breeze beneath it all, and Kazuya's not aware he's moving until his foot lands outside the circle. His fire burns a path through the debris, giving him room to walk, and Eijun's screaming for him, like he's miles away. "Keep going, Eijun!"

He does, and Kazuya reaches the chasm, opens the bottle of holy water and pours it into the split, and the three demonic things screech loud enough to make his ears pop, but they're flickering again, fading back into shadow.

Eijun calling out behind him, "Lord, heed my prayer," and Kazuya remembers the response he's supposed to make, "And let my cry be heard by you."

The floor splits again, the shape of an inverted cross, and Kazuya has to laugh because how fucking original. Eijun back in the circle saying, "The Lord be with you," and Kazuya replying, "May He also be with you," and there's an explosion that he can't comprehend at first, so much noise and heat and pure fucking rage. But he clearly hears Eijun's scream, turns in time to see Eijun crash into the wall, candles and salt flying out of formation and that's all Kazuya can take.

The fire around him rises, and Eijun opens his eyes right as the three shadowed figures ignite, and he hears Kazuya shouting, "Finish it!"

Eijun fumbles for his book, singed now along the edges, and he finds his place, the last prayer.

The demons are writhing and burning, Kazuya's flames overtaking the room like a blanket, and Eijun calls out the final lines with blood and saffron in his mouth, Kazuya's echoed "Amen" behind his own, and there is nothing left to say. There's only fire rushing past, and Eijun's sure he's going to die there trapped by the force of the wind, then it's gone. He opens his eyes to the gentler glow of small fires scattered through the room, enough for light and warmth, and Kazuya carefully picking his way through it all.

Eijun stands, shaky and drained, and catches Kazuya in his arms, kisses him through the residual heat. "Did it work?"

"Yeah, they're gone." Kazuya's voice trembles like the rest of him, and he laughs at himself, laughs because this whole thing is fucking hilarious and awesome. "Do the banishment now."

Eijun can't find the salt, so he pours a circle on the ground with the last of the holy water, and the whole thing is kind of anticlimactic after all that fire and raging. Just the building shaking and rattling around them until the doctor is gone, leaving everything silent again.

Eijun exhales, begins packing up so they can leave, and Kazuya's laughing again, that hysterical mess of a laugh, and Eijun slides up against him, kissing a clean spot on the side of his throat. "So this is my life. You sure you wanna do this?"

Kazuya laughs until he's giggling, face pressed into Eijun's shoulder. "Oh yes."

Eijun snickers, and he wants to say, if you weren't here I would have died, but he doesn't want to think about that, all the things that could have gone wrong. "Good. I guess I should find all my cameras, so we can get out of here."

They put out the rest of Kazuya's little fires, switch to flashlights, cracked and dim from being thrown around, and Eijun only finds one of the lobby cameras intact, figures that's a miracle itself. Even more of a miracle if it managed to film anything other than the floor.

It's late when they finally make it out, and the entire front courtyard is covered in glass, wood splinters, furniture. It gets Kazuya laughing again, and Eijun has to drag him to the car, shove him into the passenger seat, and his hands still shake when he starts the engine, turns the heater up as high as it will go.

Kazuya slouches in the seat, wipes fog from the window. "Should I burn it down?"

Eijun has to look at him to see if he's joking, but Kazuya only looks serious, thoughtful, and Eijun thinks about the bodies in the basement, their fingerprints and footprints all over the place, the scorched-out lobby with the giant chasm in the middle. "Yeah, burn it down."

Kazuya ripples warm for a moment, then Eijun sees the glow through the windows, and he waits until the first curl of black smoke drifts out before driving away.

+

They shower at Kazuya's apartment, where it's private and nobody has to see them covered in soot and moldy building remnants, and Eijun insists on a bath afterward, both of them sitting with their legs tangled together in the middle.

Kazuya's wearing his other pair of glasses, tortoiseshell frames, and Eijun thinks it makes him look softer, without the harsh black lines. And sometimes the light hits them the right way, and it matches the shine in his eyes, and Eijun thinks he's earned the right to feel all romance-movie-giddy, at least for a little while.

"You're leaving in the morning?"

"Yeah, but it won't take me long to pack up what I need. You're sure you're okay with me staying here?"

Kazuya kicks him in the ass, as much as the awkward position will let him, and Eijun laughs, kicks back. "You don't even need to ask."

Eijun smiles, and he knows he's blushing, but maybe he can blame it on the hot water. "Thanks. We make a pretty awesome team."

Kazuya laughs. "Fuck yeah. I don't want to be your assistant anymore though. I think we should be partners."

"Partners?" Eijun laughs, splashes some water. "You think you're tough enough for that?"

Kazuya's grin is sharp and dangerous. "I can set demons on fire, so yes." Then Eijun is laughing again, and Kazuya crawls forward, spilling water everywhere and cramping Eijun against the back wall, both of them giggling like idiots as they shift to fit together, and Kazuya kisses him sloppy and content. "Partners, Eijun."

Eijun reaches up to adjust his crooked glasses, leaves his hand there on the soft line of his cheek. "Partners."

One word has never felt so right.