Title: Advice from Hitchcock

Author: Proverbial Pumpkin

Rating: T

Summary: Tohma had done his best to cover things up for Yuki Eiri. But years later when the police get involved, who's covering for Tohma? Post-anime, KxTohma.

Author's Note: This chapter has a little more crazy shit than my usual, particularly towards the middle and end.

Now, without further ado…

Eiri had been incoherent.

The facts were easy enough to patch together, when Tohma got there. The alcohol and gun and... bodies. But Eiri was a wreck and after some terrified sixteen-year-old sobbing, had stopped answering completely. Tohma had let him pretend to talk about other things. And Tohma pretended to listen, but he was more intent on surveying the scene himself, shaking, holding Eiri close to him and covering the boy's eyes while he took in as much as possible. Kitazawa, what was left of the man Tohma had known for years, was half-way across the room. Dead. Tohma closed his eyes for a moment, turned his mind off, and let his brain simply commit the relevant facts to memory. Kitazawa, dead. Tohma could see something was crumpled in his hand.

Eiri had shot three people, none of whom even had guns. Kitazawa was so far away from the others; he wasn't even anywhere close, but shot just as dead. What exactly had happened here?

Tohma waited one night, whisking Eiri away and asking questions only when the boy had had the night to become less hysterical. Did they all hurt you at once, Eiri? he'd said. Eiri, are you listening? I'm not angry with you, just tell me why you killed them all.

All he got in response was a mix of syllables and a traumatized look, and Tohma realized that when charged as an adult, triple 'self-defense' could possibly not hold in this nightmare.

I need you to tell me, he'd begged again. And I'll fix everything. I'm so sorry.

"I don't want to tell you things," Eiri had said. "Can't you do it without me?" He was so pale, and his eyes were deceptively bright from Advil. He was exhausted and hurt and just those two sentences were bad for him. He had never been completely healthy.

And so Tohma told him he would. He would make it all disappear, and he would do it alone.

Tohma went back as soon as he could discretely. Blood, bodies, alcohol, gun. Old furniture askew but that could have been from anything. There was nothing else, nothing traceable. Tohma put two fingers to his forehead and in the middle of the dark apartment he thought, hard.

At first nothing came. He was twenty-six, and his head felt dizzy just from being there. Everywhere were spots of blood, big spots, and moths, and gnats, and open eyes. What he was going to do about the spots and eyes, he didn't know yet. In the confines of a single room, in a cube filled with nothing but a few chairs and a few people, Tohma felt a world of uncertainty. Spinning. Some of the blood was smeared, some of it crusting in even, round pools, and some of it seeped into the wood below. He supposed he'd pull up the planks and simply burn them. In a fireplace, so as not to arouse suspicion.

And the eyes? The dead bodies they stared out from?

Eiri had shot Kitazawa in the head, the other two in the chest. Most of the blood was browning. Kitazawa's gun. Tohma could sterilize it, take off Eiri's prints- make it a double murder, and a suicide? The other two were already haphazardly fallen, and Kitazawa could be arranged.

Tohma could do that. This. He could actually stage it. He grabbed hold of the dead man's wrists, jaw set, and found the paper in Kitazawa's fist was an American bill- a hundred dollars. Almost second-naturedly, Tohma slipped it in his own pocket...

...and realized with a jolt that Eiri had been paid for. Tohma frantically threw the wad across the room as if it burned his fingers. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of the two men lying near where he'd found Eiri, and nearly gagged, but he absolutely could not vomit here because there was still work to be done.

Kitazawa's clothes snagged along the splinters as Tohma dragged him a further distance away from the other bodies. The man had been left-handed and the bullet hole was on the same side, so Tohma arranged the gun in front of him, slightly to the left. And what else? Would that be it?

Tohma straightened. What was Kitazawa's relation to these men? How far would police look into a suicide for a motive? Tohma didn't know, but he knew the man was a registered tutor and the relation between him and his tutees was definite and obvious. Somewhere, some employer had Eiri's name on a list of Kitazawa's students. Would it come up?

Tohma's head whirled. Of course it would, and Yuki could barely handle questioning from Tohma- let alone keep quiet to the authorities. This wasn't going to be enough.

He sat with his back against the peeling wall for a moment. It was then, there, that Tohma made the first gruesome decision of his life: These bodies had to be made unidentifiable.

Properly equipped less than an hour later, Tohma tackled the teeth first. And only then, he felt the threat of tears in the corner of his eyes for the first time. He'd felt like the air had been knocked out of him when he saw Eiri on his knees on the floor, and he'd thought he may actually vomit as he listened and watched the boy sputter out what happened... but only now, with his fingers losing their grip on the mortar slab and the cold moisture left on the inside of Kitazawa's mouth sticky against the back of his hand, did Tohma begin to cry as he worked. The salt in his eyes angered him, got in his way. He wondered if he was losing it. Eiri's life could well be shattered, Tohma had been far, far too late, the one man Tohma had trusted with Eiri had knocked his world off-hinge, and now his damn teeth wouldn't crush. The drying blood on the side of Kitazawa's head was smearing in streaks from his hair onto the sheet... burned, all of it would have to be burned.

Tohma rocked back on his heels for a moment to breathe in air that hadn't been hovering stagnant over the body for the past twelve hours. It was still wretched. Tohma stood up shakily. The mortar fell from his hands- he'd finish in a moment. How long could he leave Eiri alone? Not long.

Back to the teeth. Tohma knelt back down, and desperately wanted to open a window, but the smothering stench would escape. Tohma breathed through his mouth and doubled his efforts. The fingers and toes were next.

The fingers. He used a simple lighter. That was when he realized something inside him really had twisted and was settling warped. Keeping an eye on the time – Eiri would be awake in an hour or so – Tohma watched Kitazawa's digits burn off his limbs. He hadn't known how it would work, if the ridges on the tips of his fingers would melt and ooze down the fingers like wax, or if the whole hand would catch fire and Tohma would be left stomping out the smoldering ashes, bones cracking against each other beneath his sneakers.

If they'd been on a lower floor, if Tohma had found even the slightest realistic escape route, he definitely would have just set fire to the whole room. Nevermind that the building was unstable and there were hobos on the first floor. In fact, damn the hobos on the first floor; anything would be better than this.

On the other hand, Tohma couldn't imagine any better penance. The fingers didn't turn red and ooze together. They turned dark, darker, black and charred, and then wrinkled in on themselves like he was burning paper, with only a little pus appearing between the crisped skin and the healthy skin below. Tohma did each fingertip one at a time, watching. He was less awed with the toes, now that he knew he could keep the flame under control.

And he was determined to keep it all under control. That horrid spinning he'd felt amidst the eyes and broken bottles and the memory of Eiri kneeled on the floor was not a feeling Tohma ever intended to feel again. Off went the shoes, and the socks, and with patience and care he was able to scorch and crinkle all five digits at once.

Here was a person and friend, and now a cadaver.

The face wasn't hard to disfigure, which was good because Tohma didn't have the energy to exert the same amount of effort he'd put into pulverizing the teeth. And it was fortunate that this had so irrevocably ceased to be Kitazawa Yuki, friend and mentor. Tohma dealt only with the remains of a sick man. And if they must be dealt with, they would be thoroughly. Everything thorough, everything controlled.

Tohma checked his watch. Not all tonight, though. He was so close to being done, but he'd risk six or seven hours. What mattered even more than the bodies was that Tohma was there when Eiri woke up, to keep him safe and together. He'd need help.

Tohma closed the door as tightly as he could on his way out, in case there were animals around.

Medical and professional help. How would Tohma pay for it all? He had the money, but not un-scrutinized access to any substantial bank account. He needed cash without people knowing. His keyboard, maybe- that would buy Eiri an examination, maybe a couple sessions with a tight-lipped psychiatrist. If Eiri wanted. Whatever Eiri wanted.

Tonight he'd leave Kitazawa, destroy their wallets and buy some old clothes from a thrift store, and tend to Eiri. Tomorrow he'd dress them, burn their richer, identifiable clothes, and bury the bodies in a nearby town, a bad town where no one would look too far into the remains if they were eventually found. With any luck they'd be decomposed by the time that happened, but the mortar and lighter had proven valuable insurance. Tohma prayed it was enough to make it disappear. And Eiri could move on, and pretend nothing happened if he wanted, and Tohma would take care of him until Eiri didn't care anymore that it was Tohma's fault.

End Ch. 3

A/N: Yeah, this fic is headed all over the place. Anyway, while feedback is always appreciated, I'm going to respectfully ask that readers don't respond simply to say "NUH-UH THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT BECAUSE..." unless it's something I really should know. I know it's not right. I know my logic here is stretched and wonky, and that there was a head stone for Kit's body, and it was actually more like ten dollars, not a hundred. (Seriously, ten bucks? Wtf.) If you're after an air-tight plot, my only regret is that it wasn't clear before now that this isn't the story for you. To those willing to go with the flow on this one for the sake of Tohma fic... bless you.