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The lights flicker on as Illumi opens the front door and steps slowly into the apartment. The borrowed heels clatter against the faux wood flooring in a way his customary slippers never would, and the staccato noise makes Illumi bite his tongue. Wearing Hisoka's face - and body, and clothes - had made it so he could leave the country, and simplified getting into the building, but it was exhausting. He made so much noise -
Except that it is perfectly quiet in the apartment now. The house computer didn't try to greet him as Hisoka, which can only mean the magician is already here, and choosing not to make any noise -
Noise noise noise. If illumi had a singular enemy, it would be noise.
Illumi drops straight down and pushes his legs forward with his hands behind him as a trio of cards sink into the wall where his head had just been. Sliding this way exposes his stomach, but rolling, turning his back to Hisoka, affords no way to block.
He had lost several centimeters of hair, once, on a duck and roll that was a little too slow. That won't happen again.
Hisoka catches his ankles in bungee gum, but this lets Illumi transfer the momentum and sling upwards, stretched height and over-broad shoulders not balancing perfectly with a move styled for Illumi's build, and for a split second a wave of consternation flashes across their features.
It's an emotional slip borne from exhaustion, but that's all it takes for Hisoka to recognize his opponent, even if it’s an expression built for a different face.
"Illumi!" Hisoka smiles, gleeful, dropping his cards and swooping in to kiss what is, essentially, his own mouth. The bungee gum twists higher up his borrowed legs for just a moment before reaching Hisoka's hand on his thigh and draining away.
"I didn't know you were coming to town, baby."
Illumi rolls his eyes - he is much more expressive around Hisoka, even when - maybe especially when - this tired, because if the magician was going to act like such a clown, it seems like he deserves some sort of reaction.
"I'm not in town. I'm not even in the country."
"So you've been wearing me for hours? days, maybe? Am I comfortable, baby?"
Hisoka purrs when he's being lascivious, and Illumi isn't sure he could replicate that, even if he wanted to.
xXx
Hisoka brings a large metal mixing bowl with him into the shower, and sets it at Illumi's feet. Pins immediately clatter into it, falling from long, bruised fingers. The hot water seems to help them remove each stretching, stabbing pin, but Hisoka still watches closely as red and blue bruises bloom behind the haze of the steam, followed by pale stretch lines that fade as their skin relaxes.
"How long have you been wearing my body, Illumi?"
"Five days,” he says, once a bloody pin from his throat has joined the others in the bowl with a clatter, and when he does, his own voice has returned.
"Five days straight?"
Illumi doesn't answer, too involved with scrabbling at the pins tucked into the gaps in his spine, behind heavy wet hair.
Hisoka lifts the smooth black mass and ties it, gently enough, into a loose bun with a strand of bungee gum, no hair ties in sight. You'd think they would have some laying around, But they are both too aesthetic-conscious to wear them on their wrists, so there's never one where they need it.
"I don't want rubber bands in my hair."
"It's bungee gum, you know I know better. Five straight days? You're bruised black and blue, 'Lumi."
"And yellow, " Illumi allows, sounding out of breath. He doesn’t sag against Hisoka, even with the heat of him so close, and he doesn’t lean too far into the tile wall, but there's a visible waver in balance.
Illumi would never normally show Hisoka that weakness.
"Baby, you never let me get this rough with you. Have you found someone new to play with?"
“I’m only letting you see me like this because I know you love me, even though you try to hide it. You should kill me while I’m weak, but you won’t. Because you’re weak.”
Hisoka doesn’t respond to Illumi’s accusation. There’s nothing to say - Illumi is turning, now, exposing their face and chest to Hisoka. It’s terrible. If this had happened in the arena, Hisoka would have been calling Maitchi. But this is nearly a week old.
“Illu -”
Illumi doesn't respond, still and silent in the hot spray. The bruises curling around the side of his neck look suspiciously like the fingerprints Hisoka himself has left before.
If Illumi has found someone new - no, that doesn't work. The third member of their little triad, the only person on their level with similar tastes, was Chrollo, and Illumi found him distasteful. This isn't the work of another lover.
"I am unfit to carry out the contract between us." His voice is flat, dead in a way that not even Hisoka can hear real emotion through.
"As stipulated in our contract, you are now free to kill me. I know you will not, because you have made the mistake of loving me, even though you try to hide it, but the contract has been broken and duty must be fulfilled."
Hisoka isn't impressed by Illumi's grandstanding. That's the most he has ever said about love, which metrits a further examination, but he's stuck on illumi's request. Illumi wants Hisoka to kill him.
Trying to goad Hisoka into a fight, here in the hard-tiled shower, with grand statements about love and contracts and unworthiness - It's smart, but Hisoka knows Illumi's every strategy inside and out by now, and no more than an ember of fighting spirit is roused by the words.
"There's a second clause to that contract, 'Lumi."
"Yes," He allows, voice soft behind the spray.
That's all Hisoka needs to hear. Illumi had agreed when they signed the document originally, but Hisoka wanted him to acknowledge the option again. If he wouldn't, Hisoka would give them what they wanted - death - but if the second clause was still in-force -
"Then we're getting married! Oh Illumi, you'll be a most beautiful - " Hisoka's voice dies in his throat as Illumi kisses him under the spray.