Erich hauls a new box onto Kisuke’s workbench and absently uses his reiatsu to slice it open, mind still focused on what he sensed — or rather didn’t sense — from Kisuke earlier; the rough edges of the man’s soul and the shadings of desire-longing-want were almost expected — such intimate reiatsu sharing had a tendency to invoke similar reactions no matter who was doing it — but the complete lack of anything that could have drawn Tessai’s attention…
That he doesn’t have an answer for.
Nothing had stood out, everything seemed right to him, and yet… and yet Tessai’s reaction tells him there’s something there, something he’s missed no matter how deep, how thorough, his search had been.
The whole thing has left him uneasy and off balance, like there’s something hanging over his head, ready to strike the minute he looks away—
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long,” Kisuke declares as he sweeps into the room, once more dressed in his usual outfit; it’s both a relief and a disappointment, because Erich has eyes and Kisuke wasn’t the only one affected by the earlier reiatsu sharing, but he also knows that they’re friends and little else.
“You didn’t,” Erich says as he nods towards another open box on the other side of the workbench. “I hauled a box over and opened it for you, and just opened my own.”
Kisuke makes a pleased noise and darts around the table to the other side, peering into the box that Erich set out for him. “Mou, just more bottles and knives,” he says with a put upon sigh, then pulls the first one out and holds it up. He frowns as he stares at it, tipping it back and forth, and then asks, “Or maybe not the same?”
“The histories mentioned more than one potion,” Erich tells him in amusement, then steps around to stand at Kisuke’s side and leans in to peer through the amber glass. It’s not sparkling like the glamour bottles — nor is it translucent like them — so he’s inclined to believe it isn’t one, instead of it having lost its potency. “I’m… not sure which this is, though,” Erich admits after a moment. “There’s nothing particularly distinctive about it, which… describes about half the potions I’ve heard stories of.”
“Potions,” Kisuke repeats with a tiny laugh, then leans away and raises his hands in surrender when Erich scowls at him. “Sorry! It’s just… hearing you talk about potions—”
“What else am I supposed to call them?” Erich asks grumpily as he rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. He knows exactly how Kisuke feels — he used to snicker at all the stories too, before he realized exactly what his people had lost — but hearing it from someone else, someone not a Quincy, is… different. Wrong. Infuriating. “The terminology was established centuries ago. It’s not my decision.”
Kisuke sobers at that, a strange glint in his eyes and hints of regret-awkwardness-uncertainty in his reiatsu as he sets the bottle down. “Sorry,” he murmurs, reiatsu filling with sincerity-regret-determination in the process. “I won’t do that again.”
Erich grimaces and frees a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. He takes a breath, sets aside his absurd reaction, and says, “It’s fine. It is hilarious, you’re right about that. I don’t… really know why I reacted like that.”
“Because in the end, friend or not, I’m not a Quincy,” Kisuke says easily, then shrugs when Erich shoots him a puzzled look. “What? It’s not exactly a mystery why you’d take offense at a Shinigami laughing at pieces of your history. Isn’t that exactly why you didn’t want the Twelfth involved?”
Erich bites his lip and looks away, disliking the implication that he doesn’t entirely trust Kisuke with helping him. If he’s still thinking of Kisuke — of his friend — as a Shinigami—
Kisuke steps closer, reaching out—
Only to hesitate, hand hovering near Erich’s shoulder as uncertainty blooms in his reiatsu, so heavy that Erich can almost taste it, and it’s… odd.
(He’s never felt Kisuke’s emotions so clearly before.)
(He’s never known the man to wear his heart on his sleeve, so why now…?)
(What’s changed?)
Even as Kisuke pushes past his nerves and grips Erich’s shoulder, Erich continues to turn the question over and over in his mind. Contact doesn’t seem to change a thing, so it probably isn’t a result of their proximity, so what in the world…?
(There’s something he’s forgetting.)
(Something he’s overlooked…)
(But what?)
“I don’t mind,” Kisuke says firmly, dragging Erich away from the faded memory niggling at the back of his mind. “Just being allowed to see all these strange uses of reiatsu is enough for me,” he adds with a wry smile. “I hope you’ll let me help you decipher at least some of it—”
“I plan to,” Erich interrupts, temporarily giving up on whatever it is he’s overlooked; it’ll either come to him or it won’t, but now isn’t the time to be distracted. “I’m good at adapting or redesigning things I already know, not reverse engineering mysterious creations from hundreds of years ago.”
The anxiety-regret-nervousness in Kisuke’s reiatsu melts away as Erich talks, and Kisuke’s smile widens, crinkling the corners of his silvery eyes and brightening his expression into something almost breathtaking. “Well now, that I can certainly do.”
Erich swallows. Tears his gaze away from his friend and back to the box in front of them. “I’m sure you can,” he says as dryly as possible, trying to inject a bit of normality back into their conversation. “It’s what I was counting on, after all.”
“I see how it is,” Kisuke says playfully, letting go of Erich’s shoulder and stepping back. “You just want me for my brain.”
“It is an exceedingly clever one,” Erich agrees with perhaps a touch more fondness than necessary, then gives himself a mental shake and retreats back to the other side of the workbench before… before something happens.
(He’s not so sure he wants to know what that something will be.)
(Maybe that chalice did leave an effect behind…?)
(Damn, if only he knew what it was for!)
He leans against the workbench and pretends to peer into the box in front of him, using the moment to reorient himself and tuck away the last, lingering traces of longing-interest-want from when they shared reiatsu earlier. He can’t afford the distraction, not now, not when they have so much to do, not when Kisuke almost certainly doesn’t feel that way about him.
(Kisuke can’t feel that way about him, surely.)
(A powerful-clever-cunning man like Kisuke would never look at him like that… would he?)
Erich pauses. Casts a glance through his eyelashes at Kisuke. Tries to discard his assumptions in favor of assessments like he was once trained.
It’s… hard. Harder than he’d like it to be, because he’s always been terrible at assessing how others view him. It’s why he’s always let his actions speak for him instead of trying to put himself forward; at least then he can’t misread someone and thus misspeak and ruin his chances at whatever it is he wants.
But Kisuke…
Kisuke had been awkward this morning, a blush staining his cheeks and his gaze constantly roaming from Erich to the room and back again, as if he couldn’t bear to look away but didn’t want to stare.
They’d done nothing but sleep in the same bed, much of their clothing still on, and yet…
Kisuke had rambled like a waterfall and then fled as if his life depended upon it.
Erich absently plucks a little decorative box out of the collection of things and turns it over in his hands just as he turns the idea of Kisuke wanting him over in his mind.
Several months ago, he would have been infuriated by the idea, would have done his best to be colder-sharper-stricter, but after needing to work together for Kurosaki and Ishida’s sakes, after spending long evenings and longer nights pouring over tomes and modifying techniques in search of an answer to Kurosaki’s power loss, after fighting alongside each other against other Quincy…
He doesn’t know when it happened, when his mind changed, but… if Kisuke is in love with him…
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all…
(Does he dare test his theory?)
(How would he even go about it?)
(He hasn’t tried to show interest in anyone in decades!)
(He… doesn’t know how…)
(Alexis always just knew, but Kisuke isn’t Alexis and it’s unfair to hold them to the same expectations.)
(So how…?)
Erich sighs and sets the little decorative box aside without trying to open it — there’s no point right now, not really — and tries to set his thoughts aside the same way. There’s no use driving himself into a frenzy over a possibility, not when he has so much to do. He can’t afford to be distracted while handling ancient and damaged relics, as the previous evening already proved; they have a long day ahead of them and no time to waste on a possibility that Erich doesn’t know what to do with.
He might even be wrong, might be reading more into the situation than there truly is to see; Kisuke might just be uncomfortable with sharing space like that, or… or simply unused to it after so long as an exile.
(His instincts say he’s right.)
(His mind says it can’t be possible.)
(Which does he trust…?)
Erich clenches a hand, nails digging into his palm just hard into to send pain skittering up his nerves, and breathes out. Refocuses.
(He’ll… deal with this later.)
(That… that sounds like a plan.)
(Maybe if he just—)
(No.)
(Later.)
(…)
(Or never.)
(Never sounds good too.)
(…he’s such a mess…)