Chapter Text
Because it’s gauche, or perhaps just because the feeling is only the beginning of the recipe for hard candy, a mess of boiling, bubbling glucose and sugar water, no color to it at all, Hisoka does not particularly enjoy showing off his boredom to others, even if it’s simmering down in the metal pot of his heart. Though, if he’s getting specific, though, his heart probably isn’t a metal pot, and is most likely some other sort of dark, cavernous space, though he supposes any kind of cauldron will do, with what he’s brewing.
He pushes his fork around on his plate politely. He considers using it to make a gross sort of scraping sound, to interrupt whatever’s going on around him, but maybe he should wait. The dining room tucked into the cold, slow-beating center of the Zoldyck mansion is not as frigid as he might’ve thought, in terms of physical temperature. The emotional vibe is, however, just as bad as he’d predicted, and the goosebumps that have started cropping up on the garden of his exposed arms are making him a little woozy with excitement. The thing about feelings is that they often stack and layer, sometimes like a cake and sometimes like the rings of the Inferno. The thing about rings is that Hisoka might be bored of them, but he might also be- amused. Maybe. You’ll have to get back to him.
The tableware - gorgeous crystal with no bubbles, only clean, repeating braille on the edges of its blossoms - shudders slightly as butlers lean over and sweep cloches and their underlying crystalline lovers from their place on the tablecloth and just as quickly replace them with the next course with a flourish. They’re all business; Gotoh has murmured to another butler only once, and it was when Hisoka dropped his spoon on the floor during the first course, just to lighten the mood. The dense thunk of silver against the carpet had only been heard for a slice of a second, as that young butler with the coiled hair had nudged it up into the air and into her hand before it could get any sort of spotlight. Another spoon had been placed near Hisoka’s elbow in moments. The other Zoldycks hadn’t even noticed the whole thing, unfortunately. Gotoh had merely frowned at him. Hisoka knows, obviously, intimately and rather perversely, that Gotoh is dead, but that’s none of his business, is it.
The stewed eel from the last course feels like it’s still in his mouth, which is quite nice. “Croquettes of fowl with a piquet sauce,” says the oldest butler, breaking the complete silence rather blandly. “As well as fricandeau of veal with spinach, with a gravy of brandy and sherry, and fried parsley on the side.”
Hisoka smiles fondly at his plate and says, into the subsequent retreat into discomfort, “A lovely spread. How Victorian.”
Kikyo Zoldyck, across the table at a diagonal, sighs and forks into some of the fowl. “Thank you. The cook is rather obsessed with birds these days, isn’t he?”
Bored grunts from the father and the grandfather. Hisoka barely looks at them. It’s too exciting. The youngest Zoldyck, Kalluto, is seated on Kikyo’s left and makes a humming sound of agreement. The sound itself is quiet, catlike, and oddly formal for something so short-lived. Milluki, the second eldest, is seated on Hisoka’s right and simply huffs in a similar way, though it’s more pretentious. The dining table itself is a long, dreary creature, though its shiny rim is impeccably maintained, it’s clear, and Hisoka lets his thoughts drift for a second as he thinks about Illumi fucking him over the tablecloth, though Illumi likely wouldn’t do that because of the uncomfortable angle. Hisoka politely spears his parsley and murmurs to Illumi, seated at his other side, “How many courses are there again, dear?”
Illumi’s mouth twitches with dissatisfaction. “There’s only the pudding, after this,” he says, with too much volume. Hisoka smiles wider.
“The pudding is the worst part,” agrees Milluki. There’s a seat on the other side of Illumi, at the end, that sits empty; Hisoka imagines Killua would have excused himself by now. He imagines Illumi would have told him not to leave before everyone is finished, but he knows who would win. As it stands, Illumi just peacefully chews on his veal, staring at nothing in particular. As it stands, Zeno sits at the head of the table and seems unconcerned with most of tonight’s proceedings, his physical position unfortunately traditional.
“Be grateful for your food,” says Silva flatly, though he doesn’t seem to be using the gravy boat at all.
Milluki sticks out his tongue, which makes Silva frown at him, though neither says anything further. Zeno mutters something to Silva, which makes him release a drawn-out, put-upon puff of air. The butlers stand with their hands folded prettily behind their backs, their eyes slightly closed, their posture rigid, placed at intervals around the perimeter of the room, which Hisoka thinks adds to the vibe, sure. Silva, only minutely strained - he’s all business, too - says, quite obviously to him and Illumi, “How did you two… meet?”
“Ah,” says Hisoka at once, happily grinding a small part of the veal between his molars, “why don’t you tell them, Lulu?”
No adult Zoldyck bristles at the nickname, though Hisoka notes a few of the younger butlers shifting uncomfortably. Illumi sighs, a genetically created behavior, it seems, and he sighs like he’s preparing to decline someone’s request to dance at a socialite party, Hisoka notes, and then he says, with little inflection, “We met years ago.”
“Yes, darling,” presses Kikyo urgently, apparently finally unable to help herself, “but how did you meet, exactly?”
Hisoka hums. Illumi says, with his big eyes blinking curiously, “I was working on the Gimmerton job.”
“Oh, nasty,” says Milluki appraisingly, to which Illumi clucks his tongue.
“Yes, gross,” he says airily, but then he eyes Hisoka in a way he can’t read at all, because of its utter vagueness. Hisoka wriggles around pleasurably in the look.
“I remember that one,” says Zeno, with some energy, waving his fork around just slightly. “The- man with all the…” He waves his fork around some more.
Illumi nods shortly. Kikyo says, “I don’t quite remember that one, darling dear, could you remind me?”
Kalluto pipes up, in his strange little voice, with, “Aniki came home with blood all over him, you don’t remember, okaasan?”
Kikyo blanches. “Oh, darling, not that one!” Hisoka watches in fascination, so much so that he almost stops chewing on his croquettes, but he remembers himself.
Illumi says, weirdly swirling his spinach around in his gravy, “You must be mixing it up with something else. That one wasn’t so difficult. The pay was satisfactory.”
“Well,” drawls Hisoka, after taking a cute sip of wine, “I remember it quite clearly, and I remember you telling me the pay was not nearly enough, Illu, so perhaps you’re mixing it up yourself, hm?”
Kikyo starts saying something but Illumi talks calmly over her, saying, “It would have been too small a fee if I’d actually had to kill you, but then we’d had that agreement, and,” Illumi swallows down some fowl, “then it was fine.” He slides an unamused look towards Hisoka. “I have a great memory.”
Kikyo’s general pallor suggests she’s heard about this agreement in the past, but she only says, “Ah, well, ah, I do remember it, yes.”
The others seem confused and frankly uninterested. Hisoka says, lovey-dovey dopey, “I do so adore drawing up contracts with you, Lulu.”
Illumi rolls his eyes. Milluki says, plainly, “Ew.” Kalluto’s gaze darts widely from Hisoka to his mother, who finishes up her wine like she’s lost in thought. Zeno just mutters something else to Silva.
“Speaking of,” says Silva, his voice booming in that office coordinator way. “I wanted to be certain that you’re ready for what being a part of this family means, Hisoka Morow.” Hisoka flutters his lashes and says nothing. “We’re a secretive, important family, as you know. We follow very old traditions. We expect you to do the same.”
“Rituals?” says Hisoka, brightening.
“There’ll need to be some sort of test of strength,” says Zeno warily.
“Anything for the new in-laws,” says Hisoka sweetly.
Illumi glares at him. Kikyo adds, “And of course we’ll be planning the wedding!”
Hisoka’s eyes narrow just slightly as he dabs at his mouth with a napkin. Illumi says, “Of course.”
Kikyo claps her hands together and shrills, “Yes, dear, you do understand.” Silva inclines his head towards the two of them in acknowledgement. There’s this strung-bow hum in the air that Hisoka’s noticed since arriving, like everyone’s tiptoeing around each other. Hisoka lightly suspects the Alluka incident shook some of them up, though his more heavy suspicion is that they tend to do their own thing, when there’s not a marriage on the horizon. Illumi beforehand had said, with genuine casualness, We don’t usually eat together when there’s so much work to be done - it’s the holiday season - but Mother wants us to announce the engagement to the family. The butlers now descend upon their plates again like birds of prey, and soon there are new platters of food Hisoka hasn’t really eaten before, and the elder butler is saying, slowly, like she’s annoyed, “Steamed pudding made with sponge cake, ratafias, macaroons, rum, cream, and preserved cherries, with cheesecake and some blancmange for the young master.” Kalluto looks delighted.
“Don’t eat too much of that stuff,” says Zeno idly from his seat. He’s flicking his glass of wine with the end of a fingernail and doesn’t seem intrigued by the dessert as a concept. “It’ll ruin your teeth, Kalluto.”
Kalluto ignores him as Illumi says, “That amount of sugar isn’t consequential,” which Zeno ignores and Silva shrugs at, spooning into cream.
“What is blancmange?” says Hisoka cordially.
“A gelatin sort of thing,” says Milluki, pretty normally, and Kalluto’s eyes shine and he shoves one of his dessert plates towards Hisoka, who says, “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” before spooning into it with great relish. Illumi doesn’t like this at all; Kikyo scolds, “Kalluto, manners,” though it doesn’t make much sense to Hisoka, because it was quite nice of him. Illumi watches Hisoka pull a cherry off his stem with no small amount of performance in his direction and then says, “Can you tie it with your tongue?”
“Hm,” says Hisoka, before popping his tongue out cartoonishly and showing off his work, which makes Illumi nod, impressed. In Hisoka’s peripherals, he sees Milluki shoot Illumi a look of juvenile disgust, which Illumi doesn’t engage with.
Kikyo’s started chattering in quick, high-pitched intonations about the supposed wedding - Hisoka drinks his wine and doesn’t add much to her vision - and eventually she says, “And you’ll be wanting to use the Tsugumi then, presumably, won’t you?”
Before Hisoka can ask, Illumi says, again, “Of course,” and then tilts his head to Hisoka and adds, “The Tsugumi is our vacation home near the coast.”
“Yes, a beautiful stretch of land, dozens of acres, and Gotoh might even be able to-“ Kikyo seems to notice that Illumi is truly frowning, an act that seems to take enormous effort from his facial muscles. “What is it, dear? Is it the gardeners? I have a recommendation written down somewhere and they might be able to get those hedges under control-“
“We’ll have to get rid of the infestation, if we want to use it for our honeymoon,” says Illumi, without blinking.
Hisoka likes how he looks like a fish, dying in the desert, but without all the gasping and flailing. “Infestation?” he repeats politely.
—
Illumi looks frighteningly satisfied as he presses his slender hands over the top of their bedsheets again, adjusting nothing. Hisoka watches with open endearment as Illumi says, absentmindedly, “There’s a fortepiano in the basement of the Tsugumi. I’ll ask the draught there to dust it off.”
“For the wedding?” asks Hisoka, eight feet away and leaning against Illumi’s ornate childhood dresser. It doesn’t look much like a child’s room, gravely antique and darkly glowing, though he’s got some modern nonfiction paperbacks strewn around in weird places and has multiple stuffed animals on his desk, placed militarily against the curling faces of the expensive wallpaper. Hisoka had asked about them and Illumi had replied, I collect them, every few years, and hadn’t liked it when Hisoka waved one’s hand at him with his Nen.
“No?” says Illumi, finally unwrapping the sheets of the bed so he can squeeze himself inside like a sardine. “I like to play when it’s raining. The weather is supposed to be stormy.” Hisoka’s noticed that Illumi likes weighted blankets.
“I see,” says Hisoka, still fully dressed in his usual and flinging cards onto the floor without much enthusiasm. King, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, and so on. His side of the room is darker, as Illumi’s lamps sit far from the door, though the whole room is dreary, windowless. The Zoldyck Mansion lives largely underground, though some of its highest peaks spike up towards the tips of the pines. Illumi sits up under the covers, studying him, and says, “The tub is down the hall and to the right.” When Hisoka just keeps confettiing the cards, Illumi says, annoyed, “What?”
Hisoka finally peers at him slyly. “I’ve always wanted to have you in your childhood bedroom, you know.”
Illumi sighs. “I guess I can understand it.” He stands silkily - there’s a ceremony to his grace, even - and nears Hisoka with ethereal sort of violence. Hisoka expects it when he suddenly grabs him by the neck and slams him into the dresser with a neutral tilt to his head. Hisoka moans and drops all his cards at once, letting him grip his throat and change the pressure of each finger with curiosity. “I think I’ll fuck you, though,” Illumi says, voice indifferent.
Hisoka moans again. He wrenches himself around - Illumi lets him do it, but not easily - and desperately noses at Illumi’s neck. He loves how Illumi smells, that faint musk of traipsing around the catacombs of his home mixing in with the cologne Hisoka bought him as a gift this past Midsummer. “Oh, Illu,” he gasps thickly, “you spoil me.”
Illumi emotes colorlessly as Hisoka shoves him onto the dark planks of hardwood below - probably walnut, perhaps elm - so that his hair fans out felicitously upon it like ribbons. Hisoka presses him down by the arms, his muscles twitching underneath him, and finds himself excited by the idea that he’s physically stronger than Illumi, like this, and gets hard as he messily unbuttons Illumi’s darling, ivory nightshirt and slides a hand up his torso, pushing the fabric aside completely so that he can lean down and lick a stripe up from his stomach to his armpit. Illumi watches and says, “I like the notes of tonka bean, in this one.”
“Yes,” says Hisoka, voice liquid, “you smell…” He inhales at Illumi’s neck and then starts to mouth at the skin there in caressing lines, not quite kisses and not quite bites, though there’s nothing nice about it. Spit trails from his bottom lip just a bit, honey-like. Illumi barely twitches. Hisoka says, voice losing control, “I want to play with you, Illu.”
“Is that so,” says Illumi, and shoves him back with his knee - Hisoka lets him do it, but not easily - so that he falls back, and they wrestle slowly, languidly against the unforgiving floor, Hisoka stretching out into all the splendid bruises being birthed. Illumi gets him on his stomach and doesn’t let him move - suddenly Hisoka’s not sure he’s stronger, anymore, an even more thrilling prospect - as he runs a hand up the planes of Hisoka’s back over the fabric of his shirt, which has gotten pretty wrinkled. Illumi says, lowly, “I like how you look, like this.”
“Face down?” says Hisoka cheekily, his face crushed against the edge of the giant rug that sprawls out from under Illumi’s four poster bed.
“Immobilized,” amends Illumi, voice remarkably even, and this is how Hisoka confirms he’s gotten excited, too. “Like a bug.”
Hisoka sighs happily as Illumi slices his shirt in two with the tip of a needle, sharpened with impossible precision, and then sticks that needle right through his ring finger into the hardwood, so that Hisoka can’t really move without ripping the whole thing off. Hisoka makes a sound of pained pleasure, his mind fogging over with delight, and Illumi hums and rubs his hand over his scapula again, pinching at his rippling muscle. Hisoka turns his head so that he can see him a bit better and pants, “How mean,” and Illumi’s mouth twitches upward. Hisoka loves him.
Illumi pulls down Hisoka’s pants to an embarrassing position near his knees and then slobbers all over a perfect finger before patiently slipping it into Hisoka’s hole. When he gets like this, he’s slow and methodical, and no matter how much Hisoka begs for it, he doesn’t cede to letting him have anything he asks for- Hisoka’s in the mood for it, too, and so he slurs, “Take me apart, Illu, I want it,” and Illumi flatly replies, “I’ll do what I please, Hisoka,” which makes him shiver. He hooks his finger inside Hisoka curiously and then says, “You’re warm,” which seems to motivate him to press a second one inside, and then a third, which has Hisoka drooling.
Eventually Illumi abruptly stops fingering him and just as suddenly removes the needle from Hisoka’s finger, blood spurting out with glee. Hisoka wiggles his finger and slides into the pain like he would a hot tub. This thought is short-lived, however, as Illumi wrenches him up by his strands of crimson and shoves him towards his bed. Hisoka stumbles cheerily, slipping his pants off completely at last, and murmurs, “Did you lock the door, love? What if someone comes in?” which makes Illumi scowl and walk over to lock it properly, to Hisoka’s disappointment. “No one can hear us,” he says, at Hisoka’s expression, which falls even further. “We each have our own wing, as you know.”
The posters of Illumi’s vast bedframe are lined by ripples of creamy, thick fabric, and Hisoka asks him to close all of the curtains before Illumi starts to fuck him slowly, face-up, Hisoka clenching around him as his large eyes blink unhurriedly, and Hisoka reaches up a bleeding hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Illumi’s ear with pinkish affection. With the curtains drawn, it’s even dimmer, and Illumi’s a ghoul in the dark, an outline of violence that claws into Hisoka’s muscular shoulder and squeezes, like he likes that part of him, specifically. Hisoka bites his lip and says, “Mm, Illu, you’re perfect.”
Illumi breathes in a beautiful, desperate rhythm and murmurs back, with a sudden fervor, “Tell me about our wedding night again.”
Hisoka is spoiled. He whines out, “I keep imagining the way you’ll do it. My blood trickling down my chest, my arms torn off, but my mind’s still there, and you draw it out, mm, you’re-” He gasps, his longing dripping all over the words. “You’d reach inside me and grip my heart and feel it in your hands, like you’ve always wanted-”
Illumi makes a sound of pleasure. “I could do it now,” he whispers, “I could take you here. You believe it.”
“I do,” says Hisoka, closing his eyes and fluttering all over, Illumi grabbing him by the chin and spitting in his slightly open mouth. He tastes like cruelty.
“Good,” murmurs Illumi appraisingly, lashes spasming in the dark, his cock pressing further into Hisoka, and he can feel him leaking inside him, can feel the slide of his foreskin against the inside of him, and Hisoka’s thrusts up into Illumi, making him keen, in his way. The bed creaks pleasantly, and the curtains around them shimmy within their baby earthquake. Illumi lets out one of his weird little laughs, a raspy chuckle, as he leans closer to Hisoka and says, “Hisoka.”
Hisoka groans and adds, desperately, “When you get your fingers inside my rib cage, then you’ll really own me, won’t you, darling,” and Illumi croaks out a “Yes,” and then cums inside him, Hisoka’s favorite, rubs his cock around a bit so that it spreads all over, and Hisoka can feel it leaking out of his asshole, and he’s about to grip his cock with his hands and finish but then Illumi grabs his dick by the base without any gentleness and says, “Not yet, Hisoka,” and Hisoka shudders and almost does it, but he’s not allowed, he’s not allowed. He whines and kisses Illumi at once, pulling him down by the back of his neck like they do in romantic comedies, and it’s messy, and he sucks on Illumi’s tongue. Illumi always likes to pull back from a kiss so that their spit trails out like a spider web. Hisoka feels his scabbing finger throb with exhilaration.
A while passes and Illumi’s leisurely touching his cock as Hisoka ruts on his thigh like a dog. They’ve moved to one of his bedroom’s ornate seats, plush and adorned with too many stiff pillows, like no one actually ever sits in it. Hisoka wonders if Illumi ever reads his books about Dadaism on this chair, or if he ever reads in this house at all. Hisoka says, pushing a wayward bang out of his eyes, “Why does your mother think there’s going to be a wedding party, my love?”
Illumi sighs and twists his fingers just so. “It’s too much work,” he says distastefully. “The explaining.”
“But the honeymoon?” says Hisoka, amused.
“Well, we’ll have to clean the Tsugumi out eventually anyway,” says Illumi airily. “And I’d like to go somewhere before the Whale leaves for the Dark Continent. I thought it’d be nice.”
“We do have a lot of time before then,” says Hisoka, fangs showing. “And I do enjoy a vacation.”
“Exactly,” says Illumi, sighing pleasedly as Hisoka thrusts faster against his skin. “Isn’t it dry, doing it like that?”
“I like it,” explains Hisoka, mouthing at his bare chest. “Actually, can I fuck you in between them?” he says, meaning his thighs, and Illumi raises an eyebrow a smidge and says, “You’re strange,” which makes Hisoka giggle.
—
The gelatinous cold of November hits the coast of the Republic of Padokea, and then worms through the crack of the limousine’s window. It creates goosebumps on Hisoka’s skin as he’s driven through swathes of thickly humid green; stretches of bamboo grass and rolling fog cover the wetlands, which are hilly and not quite swampy but largely desolate, though Hisoka spots a few other impressive houses tucked behind the clusters of evergreen trees at spread-out intervals. He says, legs crossed on top of the backseat, no seatbelt, “It’s quite foggy, isn’t it?”
“Usually is,” says Amane, the butler tasked with driving him, her voice pulled tight. She hates Hisoka, he knows, though he’s unsure if it’s because of his murder of Gotoh or something else. He likes making her uncomfortable, but is largely uninterested in her Nen abilities - she’s quite young, and her grandmother is more impressive, though she’s no Gotoh - so he’s got to be satisfied with asking her lighthearted questions about the Zoldycks, most of which she says she can’t answer. Top secret, and all that. Hisoka wishes he’d brought a jacket, though he doesn’t really wear those.
“And Illumi’s already there?” he prods, just to be annoying. He’d flown down to Heaven’s Arena after the family dinner for a while, citing some loose ends he needed to tie up, which was a lie, but Illumi hadn’t batted an eye and had only said, I can have a butler come pick you up from the airport. I’ll be there in a week, citing a small assassination he’d been hired for, which was the truth.
Amane says, “Yes, sir,” with a great amount of professionalism.
“Hm,” says Hisoka, peering out his window. Amane’s pretty far from him physically, because it’s a limousine, though Hisoka had refused to raise the partition, which he could tell tired her out. They’ve reached a huge, wrought iron gate, though ahead of it he can’t see much at all, just fog and the mildly cold moors of the inner ring of the coast. Amane mutters something into her walkie-talkie type of thing, and the gate swings open with a horrible groan. The word coast had suggested a sunny beach to Hisoka in the theater of his mind, and he’d been looking forward to getting sunburnt as he had when he was a child, but apparently the Zoldycks enjoy a trip up north. “Is this the only vacation home they have?” he says to Amane, spinning a playing card on the tip of his finger, just to do something. He’s not the type to go on his phone when there are other people around.
“No, sir,” says Amane, as the car vibrates from the gravel it’s now traversing over, the fog savoring its immediate enveloping of their line of sight. “They have four others. This one is the second-oldest.”
“Is it a tradition?” hums Hisoka. “Having a honeymoon here?”
Amane shrugs, then seems to remember herself. “I believe so, sir. I haven’t been to the grounds myself, but I’ve heard stories.”
“Stories?” says Hisoka curiously.
Amane blushes, though it’s a green sort of flush, like she’s upset with herself. “I’m not one to gossip,” she says at once.
“I am,” says Hisoka lightly, leaning back against the leather seat. “They only told me that some of the help had been killed here, you know. Cooks and maids, and so on.”
“More like most of the help,” Amane clips. “Several butlers have also ended up dead. We even sent one of our best to see what was going on, last Spring, but apparently she went missing in June.” There’s more of an edge to her voice now. “Gotoh-san was going to go himself, but that was before all that business with Illumi-sama the other day.” A pause. “Sir.”
“Yes, there’s no need for all the pretending,” says Hisoka breezily, bored of it. The car shudders through the last of the fog, which starts to clear all at once, almost fantastically. “I find it strange that none of the Zoldycks are particularly angry about my behavior, though.” Amane purses her lips and says nothing. Hisoka eyes her nosily and adds, “Were they violent? The deaths of these butlers?”
“Well,” says Amane, “yes. But the wounds don’t seem exactly human, is the trouble.”
“An animal, then,” says Hisoka appraisingly.
“Perhaps, sir,” says Amane, tone flat. The car heaves to a stop and Hisoka blinks up at the looming faces of the Tsugumi, a four story manor with a spiraled tower that frowns above the mansard, dormered roof, all the windows open and spouting warm, golden light, and he can see movement in one the highest rooms, like the butlers are cleaning it out or some such. The manor itself is not enormous, and suggests short stays for the family, though the outside is pristine and darkly painted, a black hole in the center of coiling, joyful green. Many of the surrounding leaves have moved into yellow and orange, however. Hisoka says, leaning forward across the seat, “How Gothic.”
“I guess, sir.” Amane leaves the car running as she gets out and holds his door open politely.
Hisoka smiles as he snakes out and says, “So kind. All the other houses around here are more traditional to the area, though, aren’t they?”
“It was made to the great-great-grandmother’s taste,” says Amane, slamming the door behind him.
—
Loud, nimble THWACKS are sounding from somewhere not so far away. Hisoka has no luggage, and so the butlers waiting by the door for his arrival seem mildly disappointed, as well as generally weirded out. He doesn’t even go towards the front door, where they’re supposedly going to give him a lovely tour, and instead breezes around the side of the house over a path made of light wooden planks, trailing fingers along the white flowers lilting out of the tall grass surrounding it. There are a few hedges around the house in various states of disarray; Hisoka thinks he heard that a gardener had been murdered, too, but isn’t certain. The trees congregate around the house, like they’ve been trying to create some semblance of a forest out here on the moors with the Tsugumi as the center, though on the drive here it seemed that the area in general has not been developed much at all, as the trees are otherwise sprouting in limited factions wherever they please, lining the banks of cold-looking ponds and even smaller bodies of still water. Hisoka lets the Erman’s birch trees coo over him, leaning in the admittedly kind November wind, their leaves the color of apricots, their trunks the color of ghosts. A ghastly damselfly lands on Hisoka’s shoulder; he smiles at it and it flies away, the typical response. The THWACKS are getting closer. Hisoka rounds some trunks and suddenly there’s a tennis court where Illumi is hitting balls with his racket, not with fervor or violence but with steadfast firmness, like he’s faxing something important to a colleague.
He hasn’t broken out in any sort of sweat but wipes at his forehead daintily like he has, anyway. Hisoka suspects it’s really to secretly move the one wayward strand of black behind his ear. “Hello,” Illumi says, padding a few steps closer but still lingering quite far away, behind the net. A ball flies at lightning speed towards his nose, but he sidesteps it at the last second, pursing his lips. “That’ll be enough for the moment,” he says mildly, in no particular direction, and Hisoka notices a man on the other side of the net with a needle in his forehead stopping abruptly, the invisible strings on his arms stilling. Illumi, noticing Hisoka notice, says, “Ah, usually I had a butler throw balls for me, but the one who was great at Emitting died a few weeks ago, so.” He shrugs. “They found this one trying to sneak onto the grounds a week ago. I thought this would be a good use for him.”
He’s awfully nonchalant about it. Hisoka squints at the man with the needle in him, motionless in an immediately striking unnatural way. “I suppose this is common practice for the Zoldycks?”
“Hm?” says Illumi, picking at a part of his tennis racket with phantom-like pricks of his finger.
“The utilization,” explains Hisoka warmly, “of intruders.”
Abruptly, Illumi laughs only once, dead quiet, a disarming, villainous sound that doesn’t sound much like a laugh at all. His mouth barely even turns up. “Of course,” he says, not much inflection, but it’s clear he’s amused. A cute lift of his racket. “Do you want to play? I had them buy a few badminton sets.”
“Not especially,” drawls Hisoka, eyes flitting around. “I think I’ll go explore the grounds after all.” He can feel at least three pairs of butlers’ eyes on him at this very moment, though he’s sure they’re doing something better than just squatting in the nearby bushes. He half-twirls over to Illumi and playfully lifts up some of his hair with the tips of his fingers, humming. “Won’t you show me to my room, dear?”
Illumi watches him flatly and says, turning away, “We have the butlers for that express purpose, you know,” and tells the needle man to throw him a tennis ball.
“Lazy,” replies Hisoka, teeth glittering, and then he glides off in between the tall grass. It’s not cold enough outside to sting and not hot enough to hurt, and he thinks of many things, and he throws a card into the trunk of a particularly vulnerable-looking tree and makes the bark go everywhere. Boring.
He hums something tuneless as he arrives upon a group of gardeners squatted in between some clearly newly-made rows of dirt a ways behind the house, removing the natural whites of the mouth of the ground and replacing them with what look like rhododendrons and azaleas, bubblegum petals perking up under the gentle caresses of a variety of workers, all looking exhausted, like they were called just this morning, perhaps, and Hisoka leans over one and croons, “Orders from up high?” and they all just look at him with vacant eyes, and he realizes they’ve all got needles in their foreheads, though one of them is using nen and doing something to the flowers that seems rather pure in its intention. Hisoka leans back and frowns, feels something inside of him twitch. The wings of the sagi grass lining his ankles spread out in the kind, gorgeous breeze, and everything starts to rustle around him like they’d been calling out to the rest of the vegetation to shimmer and shake for him, and Hisoka doesn’t sigh so much as stride off and wrench one of the back doors of the house open in a way that breaks the lock with a satisfying crack. The act creates a deliciously rapid sensation in his hands, and his whole body hums in pleasure, so much so that he finds himself stretching in the quiet, unmoving kitchen of the Tsugumi until his bones pop a bit, groaning lowly with something like anticipation.
For an unfortunate moment, he kind of misses his apartment that sat high within Heaven’s Arena, with its simple layout and its easy access to rooms where he could train, along with, well, access to fighting interesting people that he could really tear apart with salivating bliss, but then a butler enters the kitchen with a nervous immediacy - it’s the girl with the coiled hair - and he’s thrust back into the present again, though it’s not with the violence he craves. He blinks at the girl and says nothing. She says, eyeing him warily, “Sir. We’ve gotten your room ready, if you’ll follow me.”
“How nice,” says Hisoka politely, because he’s polite, and now she eyes him even more uneasily. She says, as she gestures for him to leave the room first, “I haven’t introduced myself. My apologies. My name is Canary.”
“Hm,” agrees Hisoka, sailing past her. “A bird within a bird, yes?”
Canary’s expression doesn’t waver. Her small, beautiful hands spindle a little more around the base of the ball of her staff. Her collar quivers in the breeze coming through the broken back door. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
Hisoka sighs, and it’s genuine. “Never mind,” he says. “I’ll go and settle in my room, yes.” He thinks, without much force, I could kill her. He should’ve ripped the door fully off its hinges. He should’ve broken in through a window.
The window of his bedroom spreads its panes in such a way that Hisoka gets a nice view of the needled-up gardeners out in the grass, still placing azaleas with plastic movements. Most of the furniture in his room is adorned with ornate latches and handles, curling golden frosting on dark mahogany cake. The lamps are aging, and the walls are covered in paint, showcasing a beautiful mural of some nondescript version of the view outdoors, though in the painting all of the trees are placed wonderfully, the sagi grass in its rightful place instead of in ugly, murdered clumps in the mud. Most of everything in the house is curtained, lined, thickly hidden or draped over, or at least carved like someone had taken a puzzle-piece chunk out of what’s supposed to be a child’s wooden miniature castle, turreted and frankly too antique for Hisoka’s taste. After some deliberation, and after most of the butlers have stopped fussing over the placement of his housewarming gifts - flowers placed in a crystal vase, and some chocolate or something, not Hisoka’s thing - Hisoka sits prettily on the edge of his bed and grins at Canary, who lingers politely in the doorway like she’s been formally assigned to him now.
Hisoka eyes the gardeners in his peripherals. He says, casually, “I suppose it’s cheaper this way, isn’t it?” Amane, the one who’d driven him, maneuvers around the hallway outside his room, fiddling with something pointlessly like she’s pretending she’s not waiting for Canary to come and talk to her after.
Canary, with her tightly perfect hair and her cold gaze, is smart, and so she immediately knows what Hisoka’s referring to without looking outside herself. “Yes, sir,” she says, and Hisoka blows out a puff of air, turning towards his lap as he conjures up some playing cards, a tick he’s had since he was very small.
“I don’t suppose you’d want to play cards with me,” he says, tone pouring out like molasses.
“Well,” says Canary after a moment, “I’ll play if that’s what you desire, sir.”
Hisoka slides her an unimpressed look. “On second thought, I’ll entertain myself.” He waves a hand around slowly. “I apologize for breaking that door, by the way.”
Canary is already leaving, but she turns her head in his direction again from within the gilded frame of the door and says, slowly, “No need for apologies to us, sir.”
Hisoka tilts his head to the side. “Who should I apologize to, then?”
“No apologies are needed at all,” amends Canary at once.
“Ah,” says Hisoka. He looks out the window again. Rather dramatically, he adds, “I could apologize to the house itself, I guess, if it’s preferable.”
Canary purses her lips. After a moment she says, “We can fix the door quite easily, as well as the vase, sir. The house has no feelings on the matter.”
“The vase?” repeats Hisoka pleasantly. Canary blinks at him. Hisoka blinks back a few times so that his eyelashes flutter like bat’s wings (she doesn’t like it), and then adds, “By the way, I’d like to take a quick look underground with the rest of you, if you don’t mind.”
—
The expedition is scheduled for the foggy early hours of tomorrow morning, and so Hisoka does not get to take a look underground just yet, though he considers going alone anyway. And as he considers, he wanders the halls of the Tsugumi - spectral footsteps and murmurs are always just around the corner, butlers never leaving him be, though it’s only minutely grating to him right now - until he eventually arrives upon a wraith sitting primly upon a stiff, substantial couch in the middle of a room stuffed with rotting books, his legs draped strangely over the arms of the couch as politely as they can manage, like they’ve been to finishing school but didn’t like it all too much, the sentiment a festering secret living down deep in the cavern where their heart should be.
Hisoka shuts the door behind him and smiles, really smiles, takes his time reaching this lover of his, crafted by fate into a haunting of what his family wants from a child, and he takes his strong wrist into his own palm like a withering flower and kneels upon the marvelous carpet of the library, presses his lips upon it and fantasizes, for a few moments, of drawing blood. In terms of reality: Hisoka feels it deliriously, horribly, giddily, and he does not bite.
Illumi peers down at him with his loathsome pupils. His skin might as well be translucent. He looks barely there. His hair doesn’t catch the light, makes it run away. He says, in his airy, uncaring tone, which is his most organic, “You look like you want something.”
Hisoka laughs stutteringly, breathily, the exhale snagging on the moment because he’s so excited. “Illumi,” he whispers happily. “I always want something.”
Illumi raises an eyebrow only slightly. He’s reading a book in a language Hisoka doesn’t know how to read, and the cover betrays nothing. The pages are dog-eared, yellowing, and Hisoka can feel, just by looking at it, that it was used by someone before they were born. Illumi places this book next to him on the couch and doesn’t even sit up properly as he wraps his hands around Hisoka’s chin and tilts him this way, that, like he’s a doll he’s thinking of buying. Hisoka melts into it; Hisoka purrs. Illumi’s face doesn’t move, and some branch of a tree rasps against the diamonds of the window panes a few feet behind him, wavering outside in the golden breeze.
Hisoka leans the top part of his body forward, one hand pressed onto the floor and eagerly lifting him up, his posture vaguely feline. When Illumi just tightens his fingers around his jaw, he says, voice low, “I’ve missed you.”
Illumi exhales disbelievingly. “Really,” he says, just as quiet, even more nonchalant, and he presses a finger into Hisoka’s mouth, opening him wide. “We weren’t even apart, Hisoka.” Hisoka grins and thinks of blood, again, but his teeth line themselves up respectfully in a gleaming position. “I dislike autumn,” Illumi absently starts to say. He’s running the pad of his thumb against the ridges of Hisoka’s molars. “The wind here makes it hard to find total silence.”
“They have things to help with that, dear,” croons Hisoka, pulling his hand out of his mouth with a flourish. “White noise machines. Ear plugs.”
Illumi tilts his head and wraps a quick, unempathetic hand around Hisoka’s throat. “I don’t like static.” Hisoka chokes in an ugly way, delighted. “I don’t like objects in my ears.”
Hisoka laughs that jagged, frightening breath of a laugh again, this time even drier than before because of all the choking, and leans forward. He gently runs a hand up Illumi’s thigh. Illumi seems to take pity on him and lets him go, though some of his fingers linger, pressing on skin like you would on bubble wrap, or for a foot massage. It’s like he can’t help himself. Hisoka coughs with an affable amount of rigor, makes it sound as enjoyable as he can. It takes him a few moments to recover enough to continue, during which Illumi tucks a strand of dark hair behind his ear, his tell that he’s interested.
“You know what you like,” Hisoka pants, brazen despite it all. “Who can blame you?” Even with the hair-tucking, Illumi still seems mostly unmoved. Hisoka doesn’t care; he mouths up Illumi’s leg, still on the floor, crawls up his limbs a bit and spiders over his thighs, bites into the skin there. Illumi sighs a pretty sigh and leans back into the plush of the couch, pleased as Hisoka sucks near a vein. Hisoka says, “Ah, Illu, won’t you-”
Illumi opens an eye, monstrous, and cards some fingers through Hisoka’s hair like he’s charmed. “Remove your pants.”
Hisoka leans back, licks his lips. “I love your assertive side, Illu,” he says appraisingly, mouth twitching. Illumi crosses his arms. Hisoka stands up but doesn’t remove any clothing, just palms himself through his pants with leisurely, kneading movements, and hums, “I can’t stand it, darling. Take what you want from me.”
Illumi’s eyes flicker with something. The books around them curl in on themselves in fear. Illumi says, “I’m not the one who’s wanting.”
“Semantics,” preens Hisoka. He spits in his hand, makes sure it’s gooey and elastic, then slips a hand into his pants, takes a few steps back to lean against the classically ornate desk across from Illumi, an unused, elderly thing, and makes sure he’s angled in his most appealing way as he fists himself and pumps, makes sure Illumi sees he’s asking for it, makes sure the angle of his head is more coquettish than frightening, though he’s never been sure Illumi knows the difference. Illumi eyes him darkly from the couch as Hisoka says, “I so adore seeing you plan the wedding, Lulu. So cute. Are all those flowers for little old me?”
Illumi says, without any inflection at all, “I told the gardeners to choose something that suited you. I didn’t think much about it.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” says Hisoka affectionately, eyelashes seizing and then shaking. He bites his lip and really looks at his fiance. “I have these fantasies, you know,” he says, “about… well.”
Illumi sits there and says nothing. The leaves outside make the soon-to-be-evening light flicker all over his neck like a gorgeous, halcyon rash.
Hisoka murmurs, “You should send everyone away and take me against the dining room table.”
“The angle,” tries Illumi, but he starts to get up, and Hisoka’s teeth scratch hard against his own lip, and he tastes iron.
The first thing Illumi does is press him against the shelf by the shoulders and the cheek and lick the blood off his lips with a small whine. “Our wedding night,” he whispers, and when Hisoka opens his eyes amidst the pleasure of Illumi pressed up against him, he notices that Illumi’s mouth is smiling the smile of a killer. Hisoka replies, humoring him - is it humoring, though - in a soft voice, “I dream of it, I have nightmares, my love,” and so Illumi tears into him.
Hisoka thinks: I want to be your anatomy theatre. Hisoka senses something underneath the house. Hisoka says, as Illumi pushes slowly inside of him from the front, savoring it, lifting one of Illumi’s legs up with his hand, Illumi, tell me you’re going to keep my heart after I’m gone- you’re so sweet when you want to be, aren’t you?
But Illumi says, “I have no interest in your rotting internal organs,” and when Hisoka makes a questioning sound amidst all the fucking, he says, “I want to put a needle in you, after you’re dead, and then I’ll-” and then Hisoka cums immediately, he gets so excited. Unfortunately, after, Illumi insists that he simply has to finish his book, and Hisoka leaves to his own room instead of Illumi’s, because Illumi says - and this is news to Hisoka - that fornicating in the master as an unmarried couple isn’t respectful. There’s only a bit of laughter from Hisoka, who eventually touches himself in his rippling lake of a bed with the giant headboard, alone and just barely simmering, but then he thinks, There’s someone shrieking, down there.
—
The house groans as Hisoka pads his way across its innards; his eggs are runny, and he eats in the dining room by himself, because he’d slept in later than Illumi likes to, the monster, and there aren’t any butlers who’d want to hang out with him, though he’d asked them to leave him anyway. The new chef hadn’t listened to his request, and now stands a few feet away from him with his hands laced together, his forehead pierced by a large needle. These pins are Illumi’s gift to the household, he’s said. He’d lined up all the butlers in the living room and set himself up on the settee only to express exactly that and also to tell them that he expects at least one of them to die when venturing underground into the tunnels below the house. No one had said anything, except Hisoka, who had giggled. Hisoka does not have a gift for the household; he dreams of matches. Well, he doesn’t dream. These things are largely conceived in the daytime. Envisioned. Visualized. Though: he’s not a Conjurer, and has to work with what he’s got.
Hisoka peers at the chef, middle-aged and brunette, peers at his nice arms, and says, lowly, “When I was a child, I hated eggs.”
He forks into the yolk, playing with his food, and waits for a response. The man, of course, says nothing.
“I didn’t like eating living things,” Hisoka continues. The man drools.
Hisoka eyes him. There’s a ghost in here now, and it’s not his lover. He was going to ask, If you could go anywhere in the world, would you choose the tropics, or somewhere in the snowy mountains? but the thing is swallowing the man whole, like it’s desperate. Hisoka frowns in the face of its plain expression of desire and slowly swallows his eggs. He doesn’t move much within his seat at the long, lavish dining table, his placemat unstained but ancient. The ghost - and he’s not sure it’s a ghost at this point, mind you - doesn’t look much at him, doesn’t seem interested. It wants this corpse of a cook, it seems, and when it leaves, it slips back into the cracks of the floorboards with a deep shriek that isn’t physically there- a side effect of some awful nen, probably. How lovely.
Tsubone comes trudging through the door with Amane and some other guy, eyes darting across Hisoka’s form, the other two hovering nervously behind her. Hisoka gives her a little wave and sips at his orange juice.
“That scream,” says Tsubone shortly. “Was that in this room?”
Hisoka smiles at her after he dabs at his lips with his cloth napkin. “I think so, yes.”
“You think,” says Tsubone, “so.”
Hisoka shrugs - this seems to annoy her further, though she’s arranged herself into extreme politeness again - and says, “The cook is dead, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He and Tsubone stare at each other for a long while. Amane and the other butler fidget. She’s very good at being pleasant, but Hisoka’s even better at reading masks, and so he can tell that she dislikes him further now, though he’s sure she hates Illumi even more than that, these days. She straightens her collar with a practiced professionalism and begins to say, “Well. We’re about to open the door that leads downstairs, so if you’ll excuse me-”
Hisoka starts to speak at the tail-end of excuse. “Why do you work for this family, if you dislike it so much? Surely there are better things for a woman like you to be doing, at this time in her life.”
Tsubone isn’t even fazed, sadly. She just turns to leave and says, “The issue does not lie in what’s better, Mr. Morow. Surely you can understand that.”
Under the table, Hisoka crosses his ankles like a princess and hums. He spears into his last piece of bacon.
The cellar is filled with aging wine from centuries ago, cobweb nets keeping Hisoka from picking up a bottle and throwing it, just to startle everyone. There’s a dampness, a gross sort of humidity down here, which is to be expected, he supposes. The door leading into the tunnels below the house looks nearly medieval, though Hisoka’s not so great with remembering historical time periods and their related architectural movements. Hisoka picks his nails in a corner of the cellar near an enormous chandelier that someone’s tucked under a sheet. As the younger, weaker butlers attempt to pry the door open, sweating and groaning, Tsubone keeps pretending Hisoka isn’t there, which is pretty funny, and directs them to move aside after a few minutes of failure involving four of them trying to do it at once. She sighs and opens it with one hand. “Training will be rigorous, when we get back,” she says, which no one groans at, because it’s not a children’s summer camp, but Hisoka sees Amane’s eyelid twitch. The dust is busy shooting out of the doorway like ash from a volcano but finishes that up now that Tsubone glares at it. She says, lips pulled downward, monocle slightly dirty, “All right. Canary and Uehara, you’ll be up front. Amane, you’ll take up the rear with me. The rest of you are staying here. Take care of Master Illumi, and the house as well, of course.” She finally looks over at Hisoka, who makes sure his eyes gleam in the dark, and then purses all her facial muscles tighter. “You may also come, as Master Illumi requested.”
“But?” croons Hisoka, strutting over and licking his lips.
Tsubone adjusts her monocle. Gotoh is not here, had stayed back on Kukuroo Mountain. “But. You are not a member of the Zoldyck family just yet. Keep that in mind.”
“Ooh,” salivates Hisoka, brushing past her impolitely, “I’ll remember my place, then.” She doesn’t reply. None of the butlers in the cellar murmur, but Hisoka can tell they want to.
The tunnel is immediately cold, though it isn’t frigid enough that Hisoka thinks about it too much. There’s a pause as Amane turns on a flashlight and they stare at the impossibly long path ahead, an infinite distance of stone and rotting shelves. Hisoka heads to the front, past Canary and Uehara, the young and polite-looking butler that’s been trailing her this morning. Hisoka supposes he’s the one who’s going to die, if he’s got this story right.
His heels clack in musical arcs on the stone. This part of the tunnel is built more neatly than one might expect of the catacombs below a house like the Tsugumi - the stonework gets more haphazard the farther they go - and there are the decaying tatters of some coffins lining the walls, though they don’t look that important. Hisoka says, stopping to trail a finger over the edge of one, “Are these important?”
The other four stop and look unamused. “No,” says Tsubone politely. “The Zoldycks store various bodies here, from time to time, but it’s usually insignificant thieves, and so on.”
“I do love a history lesson,” says Hisoka, turning away from the remains of a very old candle, no longer lit. He looks at Tsubone through his eyelashes. “And what about the shrieking?”
Tsubone frowns at him. “Are you hearing noises, Mr. Morow?”
“I hear many noises, all the time,” says Hisoka candidly. “I have great ears. The world is very loud, don’t you think?”
The young butlers raise their eyebrows in tandem. Tsubone just says, “Well, I’m sure there are many things to hear, in a place such as this.”
“Agreed,” says Hisoka, prancing on.
The tunnels drip; Amane and Canary pretend not to be trying to perform telepathy with each other. Hisoka draws a card for funsies, and gets a two, which is ominous. The darkness keeps going; Amane has backup batteries for her flashlight. Hisoka says, when they get to their first corpse, “What else do the Zoldycks use these tunnels for, exactly?” He nudges the edge of the person’s rotting leg with his shoe.
Tsubone looms behind him and also stares down at the body. “This is the old gardener, I believe.” She looks at Uehara over her shoulder. “Is that correct?”
“Yes, m’am.”
“Hm. And we’re not sure, Mr. Morow. They haven’t been used very much in the last century. This house was designed by the great-great-grandmother, as you know, but none of the written plans suggest any tunnels, Master Illumi tells me.” She squats down and lifts up the rotting arm of the corpse with brief interest.
“It would be quicker on wheels,” pipes up Amane.
Tsubone looks at her and then eyes Hisoka. She says, “It would, yes.” Hisoka grins. Canary closes her eyes and folds her hands behind her back, scrunches up her nose like she smells something.
Then: the shrieking! Uehara is beside himself, he clutches his head, crawls forward on the ground as he’s swallowed by the beak of a large animal, a nen beast, actually, mostly indiscernible in the immediate darkness - Amane puts her flashlight down - and Hisoka dodges the peck of it indignantly and then watches Uehara get swallowed up all nice and clean. Well, not exactly clean- there’s less blood than perhaps would be expected, but there certainly is some blood, and Tsubone uses both her hands to slice right through the beast, which screams like it’s in an aviary. The body of the nen beast twitches as it dies - Hisoka isn’t sure it’s really a death, mind you - and then quickly rots, taking parts of Uehara with it.
Amane flicks on her flashlight and points it at Tsubone, who is, surprisingly, running a hand over her face in exasperation. Canary and Amane seem mostly unruffled, their expressions militarily set in stone, but Uehara is definitely dead, there on the floor, his face chomped in half, the nen beast disintegrated into the energy of the tunnel. Hisoka hears a lot of noise from further inside the tunnel but doesn’t comment on it. He makes his own noise of derision and says to Tsubone, “You’re going to lose a few more butlers, if you don’t turn back.”
Tsubone pulls out her phone and says, as she dials a number, who knows how she has service down here, “Well, that’s that, then.”
—
Illumi falls back luxuriously on the settee, the slight breeze of it lifting up his hair in gorgeous rivulets, and sighs, saying, “I so wanted a real vacation. What a shame.”
Hisoka is fingering the edges of the books lining the sitting room, trying to get a paper cut, maybe. Tsubone and the two girls are standing rigidly and cheerily in a line at the center of the room, eyes crinkling with the effort of smiling so falsely. Tsubone says, “Yes, Master Illumi. It is quite a bother.”
“And you’re sure you couldn’t just…” Illumi waves a hand around and angles his leg like he’s posing for a photoshoot. “Get a bunch of your team down there and air it out?”
“If you’ll forgive my insolence in saying so, Master Illumi, it wouldn’t be worth so much trouble,” says Tsubone, genial. “You or Mr. Morow could take care of it in an hour or two, I dare say.”
Illumi frowns and stares at the ceiling. “It would be a boring hour or two.” Hisoka laughs openly from his shelves of books, though he doesn’t turn around fully.
“Yes,” agrees Tsubone, ignoring him. “I could also accompany you, if you’d like the assistance. I simply can’t bring the other butlers with me, as they’re not skilled enough for that sort of nen, but I also can’t go alone, because I need someone to watch my back.”
Illumi tilts his head towards Hisoka. “Would you do it? Watch her back?”
“No, thank you,” says Hisoka pleasantly. “It does sound awfully uninteresting.”
Tsubone looks at him with cold eyes and a pristine smile. “Then perhaps you could hire further help.”
Illumi sighs again, and it reminds Hisoka of when he was a teenager. “That would be better, I think. Though maybe it’s not so serious, right now.”
“I saw the head chef get eaten in the dining room, this morning,” Hisoka offers, leaning against a teetering bookcase. The three butlers look at him, annoyed.
“Oh?” says Illumi, arm draped around the back of the chair, his toes flexing curiously. Hisoka craves being stepped on, maybe, but he has to wait for the butlers to leave, because this house is boring. “Well, I can find another one.”
“If I may,” starts Canary, but Illumi frowns at her, which makes her stop.
“I’ll call someone to come and help, but it’ll be a few days before they arrive, at the very least,” he says flatly, and then he gives Hisoka a look that says, We’re fucking in the bathtub, and this makes everyone else scatter out the door with ferocious civility.
—
“I saw that they brought the piano out of the cellar for you,” pants Hisoka, thrusting inside Illumi with lethargic fondness, the only light in the vast bathroom a dying candle that flickers every time Illumi sighs too hard. The tub itself is made of porcelain, one of those that doesn’t have curtains and sits too far from the walls, and though the pipes creak, the water is hot enough that Hisoka feels that it’s just this side of too hot, which turns him on.
Illumi smiles at this, kind of sweet. “Yes,” he says, clutching at Hisoka’s shoulder happily. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”
Hisoka nods and breathes in the scent of his shampoo, mint and something darkly dense, most likely expensive. Illumi is not the vainest person he’s met, though he cites genuine utility as a good reason for higher prices, and seems to expect that most things at home will be premium quality only because they’re truly better. However, he doesn’t say much about it when they’re in hotels or in Hisoka’s apartment, like he figures there are two parts of the world: Kukuroo Mountain, and everything else. Home, and the temporary jobs he has. Hisoka wonders where this house falls, in terms of these rules, and wonders where other things fall, too. Thrusting faster - the slide of Illumi’s hole is wonderfully slicker underwater - he says, “And the day after tomorrow, we’ll have some visitors, then?”
“You want to tag along again,” realizes Illumi, kissing him messily, beautifully. “That can be arranged.”
“You don’t want to join?” hums Hisoka, moving even quicker. Ilumi’s so tight around his cock, and he squeezes around him, whines a bit as he tucks his head into Hisoka’s shoulder, impossibly cute.
“No, I said already,” breathes Illumi, hand running over Hisoka’s back in the dark, “it’ll be a boring hour of work. I get enough of that out in the world.”
So Hisoka falls into the former, then. Thrilled, he whispers, “Mm, I understand. Why don’t you do me a favor in return, then? Since I’m working so hard.”
“A favor,” repeats Illumi, amused, from Hisoka’s neck. He’s nipping at the skin there, but now he lifts his head up and nips at the corner of Hisoka’s lips. Hisoka moans brazenly and pushes Illumi further against the tub. Illumi murmurs, “All you do is ask for favors,” but one of his hands is fervently gripping the rim of the tub.
“I’m greedy, aren’t I,” purrs Hisoka. “I was going to ask that after, you make it so we have the house to ourselves, Illu.”
“I don’t know,” says Illumi, hesitating, but his cheeks are dusted pink. His hand reaches down under the water to skim over his own cock, hard underneath the soap bubbles. Hisoka adjusts him so that he can slip a finger inside of his hole alongside his cock, rocking farther forward, everything a bit too cramped but Illumi seems to like it, curling into him, mouth pouting prettily. He gasps, “I suppose I could-”
“Yes, baby,” croons Hisoka, folding into him in reciprocation. “You could. Look who’s a good listener.”
Illumi breathes out slowly, doesn’t seem to notice the condescension, or maybe just likes it, Hisoka isn’t sure. It’s truly late, some two or three in the morning, and the rest of the house might be asleep, but you never know in a house belonging to the Zoldycks. Hisoka pushes his tongue inside Illumi’s mouth and runs it over his teeth. “Want you alone,” sighs Hisoka, closing his eyes after watching Illumi’s lashes flutter around in sumptuous shock. “Want you on the-”
“Bold,” exhales Illumi, mouth twitching with pleasure. “Mm, Hisoka-”
“Yes, our wedding night,” finishes Hisoka, smiling and letting Illumi dig his incisors into his shoulder so that he bleeds. He says, “Oh, darling, you’ll get to claim what’s yours, won’t you?” and then he adds, desperate, feathers fanning out in all directions, “Can I finish inside? Please, Illu, you feel so good,” and what do you know, Illumi lets him.