A/N: Written for adventchallenge on Livejournal. Prompt was "Sometimes, Hisoka wants Tatsumi's quiet".

Smells Like Spring

The borrowed sweater is, as expected, several sizes too big; Hisoka pulls his knees up to his chest and feels engulfed by the texture of fine wool against his skin. He's holding a warm mug in his hands, letting the heat seep into his cold fingers through the smooth porcelain. He watches snowfall outside, studies the skeletons of trees bowed by its weight in the sharp glare of winter moonlight against frost.

The sweater smells like springtime, and the scent is a memory of something barely tangible now in the dead center of an opposite season. It's still warm from the dryer; Hisoka inhales a bit deeper. It smells, he realizes, like more than all of that—it smells like Tatsumi.

Hisoka can feel Tatsumi's presence somewhere at the edges of his consciousness; it sits there, nudging and soft, mellower than the oft-oppressive energy he's used to with Tsuzuki. He knows Tatsumi is in the next room, cleaning up after their dinner; he gave Hisoka a sweater and told him to relax when Hisoka attempted to help clear the table. Hisoka might have been shivering, but he knows that his chill is one that runs deeper than mere sensation of external temperatures.

When Tatsumi is content to just sit besides him and watch the landscape through the window, Hisoka sinks deeper against the cushions and allows his eyes to close. These new companionships are difficult after living through solitary torment such as Hisoka as known, and though he yearns for the feeling of Tsuzuki's hands (hesitant, gentle) in his hair, he also longs, sometimes, for Tatsumi's quiet.

The moment smells like springtime. Hisoka closes his eyes and dreams, eventually, of grass; long green blades moving in a soft breeze, silent.