9-Nov-2003
Title: Degrees of Separation
Chapter: 1
Authors: bonnejeanne and Laekin
Series: Chaotic Alliance
Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Archived at: Currently at Love and Gundams and will also be at Katcom: http://katcom.squidkitty.org/
Pairings: Muraki x Watari, Tatsumi x Watari, Muraki x Oriya
Genre: Drama, Dark Angst, Psychological mindgames.
Rating for this Chapter: PG-13
CMA: Not intended for under-age readers.
Spoilers: None in this section.
Disclaimer: These characters are not ours. We seek no money from this endeavor, just having a bit of fun in the sandbox.
Feedback: positive feedback welcome
bonnejeanne@yahoo.com and/or seregill@aol.com.
Warnings and Author's Notes by Laekin:
Greetings! Well bonnejeanne and I ride again!!!! This time in the Yami no Matsuei universe. The following fic was collaborated on between us with Bonnejeanne handling Muraki, Tatsumi and a special guest star to be revealed later. I am responsible for Watari and Oriya.
Like "The Doll" this is a very dark fiction. It is psychologically complex, it deals with difficult situations as well as complex issues and it will not be to everybody's tastes. We ask, respectfully, that if you do not feel you can see Muraki as a three-dimensional character who is tragic in his own way, you pass over this fic. No need to explain why, we understand! Some may find the content, the emotions and the implications disturbing. If you are one of those who can be disturbed by such things, you've been warned. Any after effects are not our responsibility.
Bonne's Note: Muraki Friendly Fic, so skip if that's not your thing, no hard feelings.
Degrees of Separation: Part One
In the days following his return from Tokyo, Watari worked to maintain a facade of normalcy in his life.
Starting with that first morning when he'd eventually picked himself up off the floor and gotten into the shower. There, he'd stood for nearly an hour beneath scalding hot water, alternating between the very human urge to forget everything had happened and exploring his own natural curiosity.
Two points in particular kept coming back to him. Primarily that Muraki hadn't tried to throttle him when he'd had him in such a vulnerable position but also, try as he might, he couldn't quite explain away the doctor's approach to the night as a whole. The steps the mortal man had taken confused Watari, and though his mind kept trying to work on the puzzle, he also resisted trying to figure out the madman. He'd tried that at the beginning of the game and it had just blown up in his face. Watari felt no desire to repeat the same mistake.
But the one thing he could not quite completely dismiss was the doll. He could see the resemblance between himself and the implication of the doll kept buzzing around in his mind like a swarm of angry hornets.
It was obvious, to Watari, that at some point in the doll's history it had been a beloved toy. Despite the flaw, it had been meticulously kept and where it not for the crack collectors would have been salivating to have a doll of such age and good condition in their collection.
After getting cleaned up Watari had stood for almost an hour studying the doll, but if he'd expected it to yield its secrets he was in for more disappointment. Finally he'd taken the box laid the ribbon he'd found in his hair in across the doll's chest and then carefully replaced the lid, stashing the doll away in a safe place. He'd warded the box against both incoming and outgoing magic and tried to put the whole situation behind him.
It was over. The deal had been upheld by both sides and completed. It was time to move on.
It should have been that easy but as with everything involving Muraki it was never that easy. As the weeks bled together, the doll kept haunting Watari's ever-searching mind. Two weeks after the night in Tokyo, he had been working late in his lab and somehow found himself setting aside a project he was working on for Saya and Yuma and opening up Muraki's case file. Coffeepot working over time, Watari had spent the rest of the night studying the doctor's past and present.
He came away with even more questions than answers.
Alternating between anger at allowing Muraki to stay in his thoughts and a genuine need to sit down and think about the problem, Watari fought to remain his usual bright, chipper self in an effort to keep people from asking questions. He needled Tatsumi mercilessly for as long as the Kagetsukai would put up with it, and he spent just enough time encouraging Tsuzuki in the violet-eyes shinigami's wild starts to keep the elder man smiling. As for Hisoka, though being around Hisoka would have put a strain on even Watari's acting skills it was not too unusual for their paths not to cross so he could get away with dodging the kid without raising suspicion.
He'd been doing a pretty good job maintaining his facades, he thought, until that very afternoon in the break room. It was lunchtime and people were filtering in and out of the room but Watari was lost in thought his mind on the doll while he toasted a bagel for a snack. Tsuzuki had breezed into the room, bright-eyed and cheerful, chattering brightly to Wakaba, who was enjoying one of her homemade cupcakes at the small table.
Their happy voices had brushed across Watari's consciousness but for the most part he tuned out their conversation, which was probably to blame for what happened next. The scientist hadn't noticed that the container of cupcakes was on the counter in front of the toaster and when Wakaba pointed out the bevy of sweets, Tsuzuki had honed in on the treats like a bee to a flower.
Comfortable careening off his fellow mischief-maker at will Tsuzuki had scooted right up behind Watari and reached his arms around the scientist to get at the cupcakes. It was something the eternally boyish shinigami had done numerous times in the past, only this time, instead of a laugh and perhaps a playful scuffle, Watari had spun on Tsuzuki. The younger shinigami had shoved the other man away with such surprising force that Tsuzuki had stumbled over a chair and fallen on the floor.
"Don't touch me!" Watari could remember yelling, in a furious voice.
Though infinitely more powerful than the scientist, Tsuzuki had lain there in genuine shock, his violet eyes wide with bewilderment and hurt. His friend's amber eyes, normally so warm and inviting, were flashing with a deadly sort of intensity, which kept Tsuzuki from daring to so much as twitch.
After two breaths it dawned on Watari what he'd just done what he'd just said. Aware of the curious expressions on his coworker's faces, the blond shinigami had ducked his head and, muttered something about having a headache, apologized for over-reacting. He'd then bolted from the break room and stashed himself away deep in his lab for the rest of the day.
It wasn't until well after night had fallen across Meifu that Watari surfaced from his lab. Confident that he had the building mostly to himself, he went to the bullpen to collect his mail. Upon finding a fax for his district waiting for him, the scientist couldn't decide whether he felt relief or concern.
The Sixth really was not an extremely active district, a fact that Watari took comfort in most of the time because it allowed him to concentrate on research and other pursuits. However, when the Sixth did act up it was usually a doozy. A perfect example was the last case he'd dealt with. The case where he'd had to draw in Tsuzuki and Hisoka, the case where they had nearly lost Tsuzuki.
The case with Muraki.
Watari closed his eyes as the doctor's handsome face invaded his thoughts. Sometimes he thought he could feel phantom hands ghosting over his body, touching him in those intimate ways. His memories would slow his mind's activity as his body ached to respond to those illusions and he often had to fight his way back to reality with an effort.
Giving his head a shake - he'd been doing that a lot lately - Watari focused on the fax in his hand. The information was brief, a single line really.
Sixth District, Koyto General Hospital-Intensive Care Unit- Subject: Kimishima Kaga 15 year old male, living now 3 weeks beyond the extinguish point of his candle.
Watari's lips twitched ruefully. The damn faxes were just so helpful, not! A hospital this time... a hospital with doctors.
Doctors.
Sensei
Watari smacked himself in the face with the fax as once again, Muraki bullied his way to the forefront of the young shinigami's mind. His thoughts once again in turmoil the young shinigami wandered to the break room and made a cup of tea.
Tea in hand, Watari he ambled out to the garden. He always enjoyed the garden but found it particularly peaceful at night and often sought it's refuge when he was stumped by a particular problem. Finding a table, which gave him a good view of the star-studded night sky, he sat down in one of the wrought iron chairs, sipped at his tea and gave in to that which he'd been fighting for weeks.
He let Muraki invade his thoughts.
~ * ~
The lateness of the hour meant that the garden and its tables and chairs were deserted, so it was with some surprise that Watari realized someone was walked through the area towards him. The moment he saw the outline of the figure he knew who it was, and yet... for a split-second the height and shape of the shadowed man gave him a sudden thrill of recognition of someone... entirely different.
Watari wanted to believe that it was because he had the doctor at the forefront of his thoughts but he realized that was not entirely accurate and it was that thought as much as the mistaken identity which caused his hand to tighten on the mug of tea. Covering the tension by lifting the mug to his lips, he cast his eyes back down towards the shadow-shrouded tips of his boots, his long ponytail sliding lazily across one shoulder.
Lowering the mug, he spoke in a soft voice, knowing it would carry to the Kagetsukai. "I know you have an apartment, Tatsumi. When was the last time you actually visited it?" A well-meaning nag wrapped in the needling words.
"Strange question coming from a man who has been locked in his lab for several days," the Secretary replied. He approached and stood looking down at Watari in the moonlight for a moment, before pulling out a chair and sitting down.
He leaned back and focused his attention on Watari in a way guaranteed to make the scientist fidget.
Slowly rotating the base of his mug on the table, Watari managed to hold out for a full three minutes before the penetrating blue eyes got the better of him and he squirmed in the chair. Sitting up, crossing his legs at the knees, Watari began to thread the fax paper through his fingers to give them something to do.
After a breath he looked up and met Tatsumi's eyes directly. A slender gold eyebrow lifted upwards, but no sooner had he invited Tatsumi to speak further, than Watari jumped into the silence and tried to fill it with a topic of his choice.
"Tatsumi, do believe that no soul is irredeemable?"
Already still, Tatsumi froze to a shape carved in ice.
"I believe there's one that is," he growled, snapping his teeth over the words. He was furious with himself for loosing control so quickly and easily. But the implication of the question landed like an angry wasp on something that had already been bothering him, had in fact brought him out here to find the blond scientist.
Despite the ferocity in Tatsumi's tone and face Watari refused to flinch. His amber eyes, shadowed by the night, danced across the Secretary's handsome features and studied Tatsumi's intense eyes. Then Watari lowered his head and nodded. Standing, finally, to pace the scientist sought to bleed off a little of his own restlessness.
"Yes. I suppose you have good cause to." Watari stood a couple feet away and reached his hands around to the middle of his lower back, stretching to gives his spine a good crack.
He turned then and his lips parted, as if to ask another question, but instead he took in the subtle tension that squared Tatsumi's shoulders that had the older man's spine ramrod straight in the chair and he bit back the words. Instead, he turned and waggled the paper in his hand.
"Looks like the lethargic Sixth has gone and produced a case. What can I expect to be reimbursed for, expense-wise?"
Tatsumi stood up and walked over to Watari and around him until they were face to face and only a foot apart.
"I am not going to allow that... man to harm every single person who is important to me," he said, his voice low and almost devoid of the anger it had been so filled with moments before. But the anger wasn't gone. His hands settled on Watari's shoulders and gave him a couple of shakes before Tatsumi could stop himself.
To the older shinigami, the words 'person who is important to me' seemed to shriek in the peaceful night air.
"You have been deliberately avoiding me since we returned," he said, stopping himself from any more shaking by an exertion of will over his own impulses, but he did not release his grip on Watari's shoulders.
Only Tatsumi's grip on his shoulders kept the younger shinigami from retreating as a form, so familiar and yet so different from the body that haunted his nightmares, stood so close to him. It was funny, but it wasn't until he came home from Tokyo and looked over Muraki's file that it had truly dawned on Watari how similar physically the doctor was to his partner.
And not just physically but in other ways as well. A thought, which had opened up a whole new can of psychological worms, and had kept the younger shinigami tense and restless.
Watari could not deny that he had actively avoided Tatsumi as much as he could get away with. But that was only part of it. There was also an almost desperate need to talk to his partner about the suspicions which were starting to fly around in his head and Watari feared that if he so much as breathed a word, to Tatsumi... hell, to any other soul in Meifu, he would probably risk getting wrapped up in a *hug-me* jacket.
It was with macabre humor that Watari found himself once again feeling alone and isolated.
Snapping back to the present, Watari's head snapped up and something softened in his amber eyes as he soaked up Tatsumi's words. But just as quickly as the warmth of his partner's voice and touch started to weave its spell through his body, other images... other hands... another voice leeched out of his memory and filled him with a thrilling dread.
Giving his head a shake, Watari pulled back a little, subtly requesting his freedom. "He didn't hurt me."
It amused a part of Watari's mind that he was able to get those words out without lacing them with many layers of meaning. Technically speaking, Muraki hadn't hurt him.
It would have been better if he had.
Tatsumi's eyes widened slightly and searched Watari's even more piercingly. After a moment, his hands dropped away.
"Then what *did* he do?" he asked, his voice very soft and devoid of tone.
Watari took a deep, inward breath and fought to keep his voice as low and inflectionless as possible.
"Tatsumi... it's over, let it alone, please."
The answer hit Tatsumi very hard because it confirmed his worst suspicions. There had been something. Something Watari would not now tell him. He had failed to prevent it, had, now that he was faced with the man before him, probably done more than allowed it to happen. He had gone along with it.
Hanging by his side, Tatsumi's hands curled into fists, then opened, then fisted again.
"Leeway?" he whispered, trying not to feel the knife-stabbing pain centered in his chest.
Watari stood there looking into his partner's face, listening really *listening* to his partner's voice and in his own chest he felt an answering stab of pain as he watched one corner of his plan start to unravel, risking failure.
Turning away from his partner, the scientist lifted his hand and pushed his glasses up towards his hairline, rubbing at his tired eyes.
"Damn it, Seiichirou," he whispered. "What do you want me to tell you? That I made a deal with the devil we know to help destroy the devil that could have brought us all to our knees?"
Watari lowered his hand letting his glasses fall haphazardly back onto his face. "If that is what you want to know then the answer is, yes."
He moved a few more steps deeper into the comforting blanket of the shadows before turning to face the elder shinigami, his arms wrapped around his chest, his face neutral.
"And it worked." There was a hint of firmness in his tone, something to let Tatsumi know that on that front, Watari could not regret his actions.
"Yes it did." The words were barely audible but the shadows around them, surrounding them, stirred ever so lightly though there was no wind at all.
"He killed a god for... for us," Tatsumi continued, his voice never raising a decibel. With the word 'us' he was accepting his complicity. "What did... he get in return?"
Watari tugged at the lapels of his lab coat, pulling it closed around his body. He chose his words carefully but tried to speak in as normal a tone and cadence as possible.
"It amused him to engage me in a game." It wasn't a lie and though Watari wanted to say something to indicate that it was all over and done with, some small part of his mind refused to let him make that final statement.
He wasn't sure he believed it was over himself.
"What did he get, Yutaka?" Tatsumi repeated himself in slow, measured tones.
Watari felt a sudden urge to scream his answer. He wanted to yell the words, which seemed to hang between him and the Secretary, to verbally give Tatsumi the confirmation that he knew the other man was looking for.
Instead, taking a shaky breath, Watari caught his lower lip between his teeth and looked up at Meifu's night sky.
"He got what it took to keep everyone involved safe."
The scientist silently wished on one of the stars above that Tatsumi's logical nature would help the older man come to terms with what was not being said. The night was so still it was like a frozen picture. Suddenly Watari saw a streak of light across the darkness of the heavens.
"You've noticed that the stars here are not the familiar stars we saw over Japan in life, not the same ones we see when we return there," Tatsumi said, and the tone of his voice was now almost matter of fact. "Did you learn from Mother why that is?"
In that instant, it was hard for Watari to keep from screaming with the pain of his torn soul. Part of him was desperate for Tatsumi to keep pushing at the wound until it tore open and bleed out... and part of him was equally desperate to keep his beloved friend from finding out the truth of what he'd done...
...and why.
Swallowing a couple of times, till he felt he could get the words past the lump in his throat, Watari's voice was genuinely curious when he answered, "No, no actually I didn't. Meifu's history was not part of the knowledge I gained."
"It's possible that the information isn't even in the master computer," Tatsumi said, almost idly, his profile barely visible against the sky as he looked up. "I heard a story once... the story went that these are stars that looked down over the Earth a billion years before man even came into being. Or, the same story says, they might be the stars that will look down on the Earth, a billion years after man has become extinct and all his works have turned to dust and every soul has migrated to some other existence."
Still looking up, Tatsumi stepped up close to Watari, standing beside him rather than facing him. His arm lifted and he pointed up. "You see that irregular triangle of stars just there, above the top of that sakura tree?"
Watari was a scientist to the bone, used to working with facts, not fiction, but he'd learned over the years that it paid to listen to *stories* because often, somewhere in the story lay a grain or more of fact. It also didn't hurt that Tatsumi's deep voice was amazingly soothing to listen to and the young shinigami felt his tense muscles start to relax a hair as he let himself be carried along with the story.
It felt good, even if it was only to be for a brief moment, to just follow along.
Leaning slightly, the scientist's long hair flipped so that it brushed against Tatsumi's shoulder as Watari ducked a bit in order to better follow where the older man indicated.
"Um... oh, yes right there." Watari unfolded one of his arms from his self-defensive hug to point where he was looking, to make certain he was right.
"Yes there," Tatsumi confirmed. "There used to be a fourth star. When my master was training me... he had a very odd way of training, but it's not for me to second-guess his methods, they apparently worked. When he was training me, he told me, on one occasion, to surround the fourth star with shadow and block it out. I was... I didn't think he was serious. I learned quickly that second-guessing him was a mistake, sometimes a painful one," his mouth quirked slightly at the side. "So I.... I tried. I had no idea what I was doing, we had only begun and my ability to gather the shadow was good but my control was erratic. I had been trying to do as he instructed me for... three hours... maybe longer, I'm not certain. And the star suddenly.... went out."
Tatsumi paused, looking up at the trio of lights and the empty space next to them. "I think... I think I threw up. Then I called him - he'd wandered off, he was always giving me a task and then leaving me for hours, sometimes days and I wasn't to stop until he came back and gave me permission to do so. I think I... ran around for a while yelling his name. He showed up finally and scolded me but good for giving up so quickly and was about to give me a thrashing. I just kept pointing like a... like a brain defective, and finally he looked up."
Tatsumi paused again. This one was longer and finally he looked away from the sky, but not exactly at Watari. "He swore forever afterwards that it was just some kind of amusing fluke, a coincidence. Stars do die and their last light eventually makes it here and if one happened to be looking at that exact moment one would, presumably see it go out. He refused to ever admit that it was the result of anything I had done."
He glanced back up and sighed. "But I was always certain he was lying. His attitude seemed to me to undergo a subtle shift after that day. Less... less bullshitting me, if that makes any sense, and more serious work. But... but I'm probably wrong about that."
Tatsumi turned a little, and his hand reached out and lifted Watari's chin, so the older shinigami could look into Watari's face. "I never... want to see another star go out. Please... don't make me watch that happen again..."
Watari listened to the story and part of him smiled with affectionate amusement as he couldn't help thinking My friend, my dear friend...you will take responsibility for the world and the stars on your shoulders won't you? But even more than that, he listened closely to what Tatsumi was saying and he recognized that he now stood at the edge of a fork, which led along two paths of darkness but which could be walked in two very different manners.
Chin in Tatsumi's hand, the younger shinigami stared back at his partner with equal intensity. His voice, when he finally spoke, was whisper soft.
"Will you listen... please listen to me?"
Tatsumi froze for a second and then his hand fell, but he nodded. And then he reached out and took Watari's hand - the one without the fax in it. Using it to tow him, he walked through the garden until he came to a comfortable wide bench under a bower of tree branches, sheltered from the night breeze, which had finally started to stir the leaves. Loosing Watari's hand, he sat down, leaving room for the scientist, and faced forward. If Watari sat, he could face forward as well and talk without having to look at the Secretary's face unless he wanted to turn his head.
"I'm listening," he said quietly.
Watari remained standing for a couple of minutes after Tatsumi sat down, just watching his partner's handsome profile. Then he pulled his lab coat tightly around himself and settled silently on the bench beside the shadow-master, close but not too close.
Leaning forward, hugging his abdomen, Watari watched the shadows cast by the leaves play across the raked gravel walkway, chasing each other in the moonlight.
"I... it's hard to pick where to begin really." The younger shinigami licked his lips and cast about for what he felt he could say easily. "We were in danger of loosing, Nagare-san, Rui-san... the whole village if it came down to Yatonogami resurrecting. The idea came to me one night when you were sitting with Nagare-san. It was that night he had the horrible nightmares... he was screaming, thrashing and you were trying to hold him so he wouldn't hurt himself. I realized then that we were desperately close to being out of time but still... I dismissed the idea, pushed it aside... ignored it as best I could until I exhausted all our other options. In the end, it was the only logical choice. The choice with the best chance of success with minimal... casualties... at least, that is what I fooled myself into believing."
Taking a deep breath, Watari fell silent for almost a minute, his eyes still downcast but he no longer saw the playful shadows, and his mind was lost, back in the throes of his memories.
"I summoned him. I proposed a deal. He refused the first deal. But... we agreed on a second deal." Watari paused again and gave a little humorless chuff of laughter. "Actually, considering what I offered him the first time around, the second deal was probably the one less likely to piss Enma off." Brushing a hand through his bangs, the scientist took a breath and continued.
"And so the game began. I thought I had all the angles covered. I was ready for everything I had read about the man in his file... everything I had heard of from you, from Tsuzuki, from Hisoka... but there was one small flaw in my plan and he saw it and he used it and it changed the dynamics of the game."
Watari scooted his heels in the gravel, listening to the stone crunch. It sounded so loud in the quiet stillness of the night.
"It... it would have been easier if he had hurt me. I was prepared for that but I came to learn that wasn't part of the game."
He stopped again, reaching up to rub at his temple this time, restlessness coming through in seemingly aimless gestures with his hands and feet.
"I don't suppose I'm making much sense..." Watari chuckled softly, "I'm not sure I've made much sense since the night I struck that deal." Finally turning so he could once again look at his partner's profile. One of the younger shinigami's restless hands reached up, as if to touch the diamond-cut cheekbone so close, but Watari lowered his fingers before making contact.
"The deal got me what I wanted... and took from me what I didn't even know I possessed."
Tatsumi remained quiet for a while after Watari stopped talking. His emotions, which had slipped so quickly and uncharacteristically out of control, were back, though they roiled under the carefully maintained shell.
This was where he had failed Tsuzuki. Exactly like this, while under circumstances that seemed completely different. He'd thought that if he didn't allow his feelings to progress into something physical and intimate that he would be able to preserve the detachment needed to protect... but this carefully reasoned theory had failed him utterly.
"Yutaka..." he said at last, keeping his voice soft and even. "Will you... listen to me?"
Watari took a long, deep and careful breath. He didn't answer Tatsumi immediately, because he didn't want to cheapen his answer by making it feel forced, or ill considered. Exhaling slowly, he looked back down at the ground between his feet and nodded.
"Yes." His voice was also soft, calm... though it was a brittle sort of calm.
Tatsumi rested his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together, looking into the space between them as he began to speak.
"I lost my perspective on the mission," he said, paring words as if they cost by quantity. "My emotions were affecting my judgment. You tried to point this out to me, but nothing you could have said would have changed it because... the thing than was causing them to do so wasn't what you thought. Yes, I was concerned for the family and Nagare-san. Yes, I lost my objectivity on their problems. But you've given me credit for a compassion I do not deserve. It was your presence that was throwing my judgment off."
Tatsumi paused and said, "I know that won't make any sense. I'm not sure either of us have enough time for me to explain why it was so. But my emotions... have hurt people I cared about... and my inability to make them connect the way they should. And it appears that in trying to prevent something from happening again, I simply caused it."
The younger shinigami sat very still for a long breath. Then he sat up and looked over at his partner, his face registering the tender sadness that always lurked in his heart when he saw Tatsumi looking so... bowed beneath the weight of the responsibility the man insisted upon shouldering.
Uncertain how it would be received but unable to resist, Watari reached out with the hand closest to his partner, laying his splayed fingers warmly against the middle of Tatsumi's back right between his tense shoulder blades.
"I have watched you for decades try so desperately to be perfect. You try so hard to anticipate the needs of everyone around you and you try to be responsible for those needs...it hurts to watch you sometimes. I suppose that... in my attempt to... do what you fight to do daily...I let my own emotions cloud my judgment."
Tatsumi did not move when he felt the touch of Watari's hand on his back. He listened again to the blond's words, feeling them fall one by one into his own silence.
The quiet stretched out.
Finally, he straightened from the forward-leaning posture.
"I would be terrible at your job," he said, keeping his voice almost casual. "And it would be rather intimidating if you were good at mine."
Watari left his hand splayed against Tatsumi's back until the older man sat up and even then, he gave the tense spine a gentle, swift, rub before retreating back to his own personal space.
"I'd let the division go broke in a month because we both know *I* can't keep to a budget to save my life and I have less luck saying no to Tsuzuki than you do."
Tatsumi smiled with a corner of his mouth. "Yutaka... I have feelings for you that I have not had for anyone in a long time. I'd thought you'd be better off never knowing or having to deal with it. Instead I've..."
What have I done?
He shook his head sharply. "Not important," he muttered, cutting off the thought. Then he said, "You took out that loan anyway, didn't you? Don't answer. I only have one question you need to answer. Will you let me help you?"
The scientist was silent for what seemed like maybe five minutes and then he stood up. Turning on the balls of his feet Watari took a step, which brought him to stand in front of his partner and this time it was Watari who reached down and took Tatsumi's chin in his slender hand, lifting the older man's eyes up to his own. Little snippets of starlight slipped through the leaves, leaving marks of brilliance in the Kagetsukai's sapphire eyes.
Rubbing his thumb very lightly along Tatsumi's jaw, Watari answered, without answering, the first question.
"I deemed the price worth it." His voice was in direct communication with his heart, loading the words with what he felt for the older man.
He let those words and the softer expression on his face remain until he was certain Tatsumi had seen the whole of it, then his expression became... determined.
"I don't know if I can tell you how to help me. All I know is... there is something important about this game... and I have to see it through."
Tatsumi stared up into Watari's eyes. What he saw made him damn himself once again but he kept it under the shell of his control. Everything depended on making the right choice this time.
"In that case, see it through," he said. "But don't forget that I will always be ready to catch you."
Watari felt his gut tighten and the frightened part of him, the part which had waited for what seemed like so long for this moment, screamed at him to give up on Muraki and loose himself in Tatsumi. But he knew if he did that he'd never be able to be strong enough for his partner.
Hesitating a bit the younger man slowly bent down and though he almost felt as if he didn't have the right, he pressed warm lips against Tatsumi's silky bangs, whispering against the hair.
"I know. I've always had faith in you, Seiichirou."
Tatsumi reached out and caught Watari's hand in his. "Having something does you no good unless you know when to spend it," he said softly. "Thriftiness is admirable. Parsimony is sometimes dangerous. Remember."
Then he stood up and lifted his hand from Watari's finger to his cheek. Tilting his head up, Tatsumi placed a light, brief kiss on Watari's mouth, before leaning back and letting his fingers fall softly away.
Unable to help the impulse, Watari's tongue darted out to catch the remaining taste of Tatsumi's lips on his own and he closed his eyes, swaying a little.
"This has got to be the hardest thing I have ever done, in life or afterlife." And as the whispered words fell between them, the younger man took a deliberate step back. Moving away from the protective embrace he wanted to loose himself within.
Tatsumi let Watari step away. But he vowed that he would not let the scientist take more than that single step away. Whatever Watari was dealing with, he would not simply leave him to it.
"You have a mission," he said, glancing at the forgotten paper now sitting on the bench. "For expenses, draw 3000.00 yen. Make it last. Will you need a partner on this?"
Yes! Watari wanted to scream. Yes, I need you! I need my partner But instead he gave his head a shake and chuckled softly. "I swear, Tatsumi, one of these days I'm going to bring you back an itemized inventory of a grocery store in *today's* economic climate so you can see that 3000.00 yen will not feed a poor, hardworking shinigami."
It was... comfortable to slip back into the needling but even as he did it something niggled at the back of Watari's mind, niggled until it became a full blown need and it was one need he could fulfill.
The laughter once again becoming banked in his eyes, Watari stroked his tongue across his lips and reached for the paper on the bench. "Ah... there is something I need to show you."
Tatsumi nodded, and waited for Watari to reveal what he was referring to or lead the way.
Crooking a finger, Watari beckoned the Kagetsukai to follow him as he led the way back towards the building and towards his lab. He made the trip in silence, drawing the fax through his fingers as he walked along the familiar corridors.
Opening the lab doors, he stumbled back a step as a worried, chirping, miniature owl that, even to the uneducated ear, was obviously fussing him out like a worried mother hen, assaulted him.
"Gah, 003... baby... shoulders, shoulders...if you're going to yell at me don't do it in my face."
The use of the word *yell* started the owl off on a whole new string of hoots and chirps which he muttered low answers to, though Tatsumi probably heard the gentle spoken reassurance of, "Yes, yes...I've been talking to Tatsumi-san."
Those words seemed to have an instant soothing effect on the owl that, with a look towards Tatsumi, settled down on her human's shoulder and nipped affectionately at his ponytail with her beak.
Watari moved about his lab, clearing a space on one of the tabletops before disappearing into a back room. There was a subtle surge of magic as Watari removed the wards he'd placed around the box and its contents. Then, surfacing from the room, the scientist walked to the table and set the box down atop it.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled the lid off the gift, exposing the beautiful, flawed doll. Slender fingers quickly snatched up the ribbon, moving it aside so Tatsumi could study the doll lying inside its cradle of tissue paper.
The scientist didn't say anything. He didn't want to influence Tatsumi's reaction to the doll. He was genuinely curious as to what his partner might make of the gift... perhaps even hoping that Tatsumi's reaction would provide a compass by which Watari could measure his own thoughts.
Tatsumi frowned, coming over to look at the china doll, studying it closely. He glanced back at Watari, his brow furrowed. His eyes registered the mend, its age, the age of the doll itself, and everything he could guess about it.
Turning, he focused the same intense scrutiny on Watari. His eyes narrowed.
"I don't like this," he said slowly.
Watari nodded gravely, "I didn't imagine you would. I'm not entirely certain how to feel about it myself. There are, multiple implications in its gifting."
He stepped back up beside Tatsumi and reached to ghost his fingers across the childish mend, his voice soft and thoughtful.
"The hand that did this was... young... alone... desperate." Stroking his tongue over his lips, Watari continued, perhaps an attempt to spend some of that faith. "You know, better than most, what it can do to a child to be that alone and desperate. Everyone is different I know that... I think I know that... but then I ask myself, what is my *job*?"
Turning to look at Tatsumi, Watari laid himself vulnerable to his partner. "You didn't ask me what... you didn't ask what Muraki took. He took that which you probably wish he'd left me with above all else. He took my anger."
Tatsumi's eyes widened and his mouth opened just a little but if he had been about to speak he thought better of it, for a moment at least. "Yutaka..."
Reaching up to adjust his glasses, his hand lingered in front of his face for a moment.
As it fell back to its place at his side, Tatsumi cleared his throat and then he said slowly, "It was a high price." He was silent for a moment and then added, "You are a problem solver by nature. Put your intellect to solving this problem: what would he want with such a thing as your anger."
Watari turned away from Tatsumi, fingertips tracing lightly along the doll's fine face. "I don't know that I can speculate, Seiichirou. I've speculated on him too many times in this whole affair and it's gotten me into this corner." Watari shook his head very lightly as he spoke as if trying to shake away insidious little voices.
"Nevertheless it is a question I suspect only you can answer." Tatsumi said. He glanced at the doll again, caught by its innocence. For a moment he looked at it, then took the lid and placed it on the box.
"There are things not in the records about our friend the doctor. His files are incomplete. I'll wager even Mother couldn't tell you that." Tatsumi adjusted his glasses again and then looked at Watari. "I've done some digging in my own way, but I haven't been able to uncover the missing information, only enough to convince myself that there is indeed something omitted from the files. None of my inquiries through channels have ever been answered. That may be because the missing information is a figment of my... imagination, or because I'm not cleared for it. It isn't always easy to determine. There's a reason we operate in a bureaucracy. It's a wonderful place to conceal mysteries."
Watari blinked. First at the revelation that Muraki's files were incomplete, then at the idea of the existence of information that Tatsumi, with his pull and his connections, couldn't access. Turning about and leaning back against the counter, Watari caught the edge with the palms of his hands, appearing to hold himself up. Exhaling a deep breath, he stared at a point across the lab from where they stood.
"Wow... I suppose I should find some comfort in the fact that after nearly five decades, at least when I miscalculate, I do it on a grand scale... no more little goofs... straight to the big explosions."
His voice was soft as he retreated to the dark humor that seemed to be like a security blanket to the young scientist.
Tatsumi's mouth curved ever so slightly. "I would expect nothing less from you, Watari-kun," he said. Glancing at his watch, he looked up again. "If you plan to leave for Kyoto tomorrow, you might want to get some sleep for what's left of tonight." It was a gentle nag, not unlike the one Watari had used earlier in the evening.
Mind still buzzing with this new information at first Watari didn't react. When he did, he turned and looked up at Tatsumi grinning softly. He didn't have the heart to refuse the gentle nag... he recognized that he'd asked so much of the older man this night. Asked Tatsumi to give in ways that were extremely difficult for the Secretary.
Straightening away from the table, he turned around swiftly, one hand sort of flying out, so it could have been an accident that fingertips ran along Tatsumi's forearm for a brief moment.
"Right. Just let me put this away. I'm keeping guarding wards on it."
Just a little thing really, but wanting to show Tatsumi that he wasn't totally dropping his guard.
"Prudent," Tatsumi gave his approval, conscious of the light touch that had brushed his arm. "I'll leave you to it." Pausing at the door, "You know where my personal quarters are... should you..." he left it at that.
Watari lifted the lid long enough to replace the naughty ribbon. His fingers were still wrapped around the silky fabric at the same time Tatsumi spoke of his personal quarters and for a brief second Watari felt heat stain his cheeks.
Dropping the ribbon as if burned, Watari shoved the lid back down on the box then turned, looking at Tatsumi and for a rare moment he couldn't find words. So he dropped all those natural barriers he held erect and just let Tatsumi see his thoughts through unfettered windows of burnished gold.
Tatsumi stopped once again as if frozen, looking into Watari's wide eyes.
Then he moved, striding back and pulling Watari against his chest in a movement as natural as breathing. He folded his arms around the blond, stroking his back just once. After a moment, he bent and pressed his lips to Watari's forehead, just where his bangs began to fall into his face.
It was a sudden embrace and a surprising one but instead of the shock Watari imagined he would have felt at such a time, he felt incredible warmth and for those few precious seconds an unfathomable sense of peace. His arms looped around Tatsumi's broad chest, hands curled up to rest against those powerful shoulders. The younger shinigami turned his face into Tatsumi's shoulder, and as he'd ached to do all those weeks ago, rested against his partner's strength. The soft brush of tailored wool against his cheek, Tatsumi's warmth, Tatsumi's strength, it felt as good as Watari could have imagined.
Then sensations were fleeting, they had to be but the embrace helped. As Tatsumi's lips pressed against his forehead, warm, and soft... desired, Watari whispered against the man's throat, "You are helping."
Tatsumi's arms tightened for a moment. Then he relaxed. "Good," he murmured in answer. "Don't forget... the only reason for hoarding something... is so that you can spend it when you truly need to."
He pressed another light kiss on Watari's hair and touched his face oh so briefly. "Can you sleep?"
In that hold, as Tatsumi relaxed, so did Watari for what felt like the first time in months. Hands stroking a slow, lazy pattern across the precisely cut suit jacket his partner wore, he chuckled softly, "That, is a loaded question, my dear friend." The words breathed warm air across Tatsumi's throat, just above his collar.
"Then give me a loaded answer," Tatsumi said, infinite practicality in his voice. "Shall I stay?"
Watari felt his stomach knot in a way that was both delicious and terrifying. He suddenly felt like his heart's desire was being laid out in front of him but he was afraid to reach for it, least he tempted the fates. Breathing in two deep breaths of air, he leaned back and answered honestly.
"I'm not strong enough, not to say yes... but *can* you... knowing the game is still being played?"
Tatsumi looked down into Watari's face and a slight frown appeared. "You think that makes any difference to me?" he said. Then he shook his head. "Well, it does, but not in any way that matters tonight. Yes, Yutaka, I can. Even knowing."
Watari leaned forward till his forehead rested against Tatsumi's collarbone. He knew that the wisest thing to do would be to send Tatsumi on his way with a cheerful little needling but now that he'd taken those steps into his partner's arms, he couldn't make himself pull away.
Not this night... not after sharing so much.
"Please, stay." He said in a low, gentle voice, unlike his usual explosive, energetic tones.
"Of course," Tatsumi answered, as if no other answer were practical.
Watari exhaled a breath he wasn't even aware he was holding and turned his face back into Tatsumi's shoulder. He leaned tentatively against his partner, telling himself that he'd straighten back up in a minute, just... a minute.
Tatsumi stayed where he was, one hand lightly resting on Watari's back, the fingers barely moving, brushing that incredible hair. It wasn't the way he would have chosen to spend the night with Watari. If he could have written a better version, it would have been much different. It would have happened very slowly. After long talks and shared meals, and a few meetings outside of the office, they'd have grown closer, words almost unneeded, learning trust and accepting each other's various... quirks. Then sometime there would have been a clasped hand. Then a walk under the trees, and in the right time Watari would have come to him...
Tatsumi stopped the train of thought abruptly, using all his will to keep his body relaxed, not to let his muscles clench at the recognition of his own stupidity, his selfish, criminal stupidity. What a sweet picture... one entirely devoid of risk to himself...
Shoving it away, he lifted his hand and stroked down the length of Watari's back. Bending his head next to Watari's, he said, "This is nice but I'm not sure either of us are capable of sleeping while standing up..."
Somehow the minute went beyond the sixty seconds Watari had thought to allow himself. Being this close to Tatsumi, held in his partner's arms and holding his partner just as close, there should have been some awkwardness... that brief limbo as a relationship begins to slowly morph from one set of comfort zones to another. However, instead there was only a peaceful sense of belonging and with each breath, Watari had felt his muscles relaxing, molding his lean form to the older shinigami's body.
Early on, when he'd first arrived at Meifu, he'd entertained himself with images of how a relationship, a... personal relationship, with Tatsumi might have gone. There would be talk, lots of conversations, philosophical, historical, just about anything either of them could think of. Gradually those talks would have gone from just standard office chatter to conversation over a meal, lunch or perhaps a late dinner one night when both of them were working in the office.
It was during one of those imagined late night conversations, when the talk had shifted to more personal topics that Watari had imagined being able to look up into those blue eyes and see something... something that would invite him over to Tatsumi's side of the desk.
Of course, in the following years, there had been conversations, debates, needling, and occasionally genuine talking... though those were rare. But he'd never made it to the other side of the desk, and after a while, he'd pushed away the fantasy so it could stop torturing him with the unattainable.
Chuckling softly against the older man's shoulder, Watari's voice was muffled where his face was pressed into soft, warm wool. "Actually, there was a study done on the ability for humans to sleep standing up. The trick was to find a way for us to lock our knees, the way horses do. I don't think the experiment was overly successful though."
Taking another deep breath, catching hints of Tatsumi's cologne and the cedar clothes hangers the shadow-master probably stocked in his closet for his suits, Watari forced himself to straighten up and lean back.
"I'm afraid I can't promise that my bed is going to be comfortable for two adults. Some frugal Secretary wouldn't approve my fund request for a double mattress, only a single." Watari grinned as he gently teased his partner.
"Perhaps he was hoping that the single would become uncomfortable and you might be persuaded to nap occasionally on his. It happens to be a full." The truth was, even a full-sized mattress was miserly for a man of Tatsumi's stature, but it was certainly possible to sleep two, provided the two were willing to sleep very close.
However the Secretary's tone wasn't flirtatious. On the rare occasions when Tatsumi could be caught out in a humorous comment, the origin of the humor was rarely obvious, and nearly always self-directed. His one allowable exception was tormenting Tsuzuki over his love of sweets.
The grin slowly grew into a full-featured smile that even reached up into habitually laughing brown eyes. Reaching up, Watari stroked his hand down across Tatsumi's tie, straightening it. It was such a familiar gesture but there didn't seem to be an action he took for granted.
"You got the full? Remind me that I need to do a full, full diagnostic on your computer." Tatsumi's sub rosa bank accounts were one of the best, worst kept secrets in the Shokan Division. "However, if you are offering... I think I'll save your poor legs from hanging off the end of my bed and umm... accept." And despite his normal devil-may-care attitude, there was the barest hint of a blush brightened Watari's cheeks. "Let me reset the wards, on..." he gestured over to the table where the box sat.
Tatsumi nodded and his arms fell away, as he waited for Watari to do what he needed to do.
Watari picked up the box and carried it back into the room where he'd fetched it from originally. Speaking softly, tracing the characters that would normally be mapped out on a piece of fuda paper in the air, he settled the wards back into place, and then lowered his hand. The box sat; innocent enough on a wide shelf but Watari couldn't entirely dismiss the haunting image of the doll laying so peacefully within.
Chewing on his lower lip, he turned and exited the room hands tucked into the pockets of his lab coat. Looking around briefly, he saw that 003 was busy harassing the toucan. For a moment, he seemed to forget that he wasn't alone in the lab and his features softened to an almost paternal expression as he watched his two creations interact, but it was a brief moment and then he was turning back to Tatsumi.
When he saw that the scientist was ready, Tatsumi turned towards the door, pausing on the threshold to wait for Watari to join him.
Standing in the familiar landscape of his lab, looking over at the familiar form of his partner, Watari felt a small shiver run along his spine as he considered the way the world had so... discreetly tilted into a new pattern. The slightly fanciful little thought brought an enigmatic grin to his lips but then he shook his head at his own thoughts and moved to follow Tatsumi.
For a brief second, the image of a white suit... the image of a similar body form, waiting for him at the base of the stairs, tried to push its way into his mind's eye and Watari drew up sharply, blinking a couple of times in an attempt to dispel the double image he suddenly saw.
No, please no... not now. Tomorrow... you can have me back tomorrow but give me tonight. Watari found himself thinking towards that shadowed form in his mind and he shuddered as he seemed to hear the doctor's wicked, slightly condescending laughter.
Exhaling a deep breath, Watari frowned and strode with deliberate steps over to Tatsumi. As he reached his partner's side he grinned at the older man.
"Okay, ready."
~ * ~
Watari knew where Tatsumi's personal quarters were but he had never been inside, only as far as the door on a couple of occasions when an emergency - like the lab blowing up - had required that he seek out his supervisor at irregular hours. He'd seen through the open door a desk, neat as a pin but piled with regimented stacks of ledgers, and a computer, a small green glass shaded lamp, and an old-style wooden desk chair that looked like something recycled from a previous century. Beyond that, Watari had only the impression of shadowy bookshelves.
As they entered the apartment and the door closed behind them, Watari saw that the desk was still there, the green glass lamp was still there, the stacks of ledgers and the shadowy bookshelves were still there, covering the walls of the small apartment foyer. But now he could also see that there were two doors, archways actually, one to the right and the other to the left.
Tatsumi led Watari towards the left archway. The hallway and room beyond were pitch dark but Tatsumi seemed to have no problem finding his way, it could have been because of decades of familiarity with the space or it might have been a fringe benefit of his arcane specialty. Turning into another doorway, he reached out a hand and a lamp came on in that room. This lamp looked like an antique, though again it could have been scrounged from an apartment or an office that was being remodeled. It was round, with a deep burgundy colored glass shade, and hung from a sconce on the wall. Though it was electric, with a low wattage bulb, it looked as if it could have been a gas lamp that had been refitted to use the bulb and cord.
The room was very plain: a low dresser, a small table, this one holding a two-cup tea service and a small electric pot for heating water along with a small tin box for tea, a clothes rack next to the closet door, and a small, straight-backed chair.
And there was, as advertised, a full-sized bed, covered with a burgundy colored silk spread.
Turning to Watari, Tatsumi gestured with one hand. "The bathroom is across the hall. Kitchen, on the other side of the foyer. That's about all there is to it," he said, trying not to watch Watari's face too closely to see if the blond thought the space as miserly as most people considered him to be.
As he followed Tatsumi, the scientist was trying to remember the last time he'd had to come and disturb Tatsumi in his home. It wasn't often, even when he did set off an explosion late at night because the Secretary worked some deep, deep hours and it was rare not to find him at the office.
Four years ago, it was four years ago when I was working on that swamp water for Terazuma and Wakaba. Some of it got down the drain and contaminated the building's water supply, I had to wake Tatsumi up and tell him.
Watari chuckled softly as he recalled his adorably rumpled partner's glare in the split second before a shadow had jumped out of the corner of the corridor and smacked him upside the head. Coming back to the present, he entered the room, and started to look around.
It was classical, stylish, neat... just like its occupant. Watari's deal with the Five Generals had left him with the huge, modern complex that was his lab and though he put the space to good use, he often felt like he was rattling around in it. Part of the reason he'd taken to animating the different birds and the toaster was just so he could have something else *moving* around that space with him.
Tatsumi's personal space was, warm... comforting, like being wrapped in a blanket. Watari poked about the small room, touching the lamp and peering up under the shade curiously, trying to figure out if it had been a gas lamp changed over to electric. As he poked respectfully about, he turned and grinned, an almost shy boyish grin, at his partner.
"It fi..." He almost repeated the words he'd said to Muraki, but he stopped himself, biting his lower lip before continuing. "It's you, Tatsumi. No nonsense, but at the same time, warm... comfortable." He tapped the lamp and the grin grew. "Adaptable."
Tatsumi's eyebrows lifted. He wondered for a moment how Watari could get 'warm' and 'comfortable' out of this apartment, or out of him for that matter. The apartment was comfortable for him, because he'd set it up to fit him like a second skin. But someone who had once spent a lot of time there, almost more than he had, had told him that it was cramped. Spartan. And at the time, the adjectives had actually pleased him.
Shrugging, he gestured at the clothes rack and the closet. "You can hang your things there," he said, taking off his own jacket and hanging it in the closet with a number of others that looked very similar. In his shirtsleeves, he picked up the electric water heating pot, and then put it down. Force of habit. Turning to the wardrobe, he opened a drawer and pulled out, after a little looking, a clean, in fact new-looking pair of light blue silk pajamas. They were cut in a Chinese style, and had a little same-color embroidery around the sleeves and neck. He placed the folded garments on the bed and then glanced at Watari a little awkwardly, covering it by adjusting his glasses.
"You can wear those," he said. "They're clean. They might be a little big."
Then he picked up the water pot and walked across the hallway to fill it, coming back and plugging it in to start the heating process.
If asked, Watari would have explained that open space, after a while, enhanced one's loneliness and became a cold sort of welcome of its own. But instead he touched his fingers to the bed cover, turned as Tatsumi laid out the pajamas and Watari couldn't help grinning a little. Usually he crashed out in either his clothes or his shorts depending on how long he intended to sleep and he couldn't help wondering how Tatsumi usually chose to sleep.
Without conscious thought the memory of his partner, in the bath bare-chested, provided Watari with a clean picture of Tatsumi in only silky pajama bottoms and he felt heat pulse through his veins as the image became clear in his thoughts. Firmly setting aside the lascivious mental picture, Watari shrugged out of his lab coat and carried it over to hang neatly where Tatsumi had indicated he should put his clothes. Stepping out of his boots, tucking his socks into the scuffed, comfortable footwear, he reached for the hem of his turtleneck in a completely natural manner.
After all, they were both men and it wasn't like they had anything the other hadn't seen. He had his shirt halfway up his own torso when suddenly the memory of his green silk shirt being pulled over his head by warm, deft hands assaulted him. Then the memory of those same hands reaching for the fastening of his trousers hit him like a follow-up punch and Watari froze, blinking in shock.
What the hell... Watari thought to himself. He'd been dressing and undressing since that night in Tokyo with no hints of those memories coming back to haunt him, yet haunt them they now did, vivid... so vivid his skin shivered as if those large hands were touching him even at that moment in the sanctuary of Tatsumi's bedroom.
Turning, Watari wondered if it was the fact that he was moving to get undressed in front of Tatsumi. He tried to remember if he'd gotten changed in front of anyone recently, maybe 003, and realized that subconsciously he'd made certain that even she had been out of the room when he dressed and undressed in the mornings and evenings.
Exhaling a slow, quiet breath, Watari lowered his shirt and faced the closet for a minute until he was certain he had control of his features, and then he turned and smiled at Tatsumi.
"Er, I need to use the bathroom." He moved around the bed, picking up the pajamas, taking them with him. Hopefully, Tatsumi would just figure he was killing two birds with one stone.
Such an unfortunate phrase that was.
Tatsumi's eyes narrowed as he watched Watari, without seeming to stare at him. He saw the blond begin to undress, and then stop. He saw an expression flicker, just barely visible, in the scientist's eyes. What he saw there so briefly did not make him very happy. In fact, it set his teeth on edge and came near to causing his blood pressure to rise.
Once Watari had left the room, Tatsumi pondered what he'd seen, sitting in the straight-backed chair as he waited for the water to boil. When it did, he poured it absently into the small teapot, where he'd already added a double of his normal portion of tea, to brew.
~ * ~
Once in the bathroom, Watari calmly shut the door and leaned back against it. Rubbing his hand over his face, pushing his glasses out of the way, he smothered a groan into his palm.
What the hell was that? What is wrong with me? I'm a reasonably intelligent huma... errr... shinigami. I should not be having these flashes. I'm here, with Tatsumi and Muraki is invading my mind almost as if at will.
Giving his face a light slap, Watari muttered softly, "Get it together, Yutaka," and shoved away from the door, moving towards the sink.
Setting the pajamas on the back of the toilet, he caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. This time, alone, he was able to do it without the phantom memories of Muraki's sensual touches. Exhaling a breath the young shinigami splashed water into the basin and washed his face a couple of times before reaching for the pajama top.
Once he had changed all the way, Watari pulled his hair out of its daytime ponytail and brushed his fingers through it. He considered braiding it but he realized he wouldn't be asleep for very long, if at all and really... who could tell what state his hair was ever in, given its wild nature.
His hair was an entity unto itself.
Taking the time to fold his clothes neatly, Watari finished up getting ready for bed and exited the bathroom. Padding barefoot across the hall, he slipped back into Tatsumi's bedroom with a cheerful grin.
"Not too bad, you're only a couple of inches taller than I am." He held out his arms to model the pajamas. The legs really weren't a bad fit but Tatsumi was quite a bit broader in the shoulders than Watari and that caused the cuffs of the pajama tops to flop halfway down the blond's slender hands, almost obscuring his fingers. He looked like almost like a young teenager wearing his older brother's pajamas.
Chuckling as he flapped his hands to flip the cuffs back, Watari walked over to the closet and set his clothes down by his shoes; one thing about Tatsumi's home, it did seem to scream 'a place for everything and everything in its place' and for once the scientist seemed content to respect that without question. Moving on silent feet back towards Tatsumi, since there wasn't another chair in the room, the young shinigami perched on the foot of the bed, sniffing the fragrant air, while rolling up the cuffs of the pajama sleeves.
"Mmm... tea. Smells good."
Silently, Tatsumi poured some tea, which had had plenty of time to brew, into one of the two cups, the one he never used. Watari could tell, because the other one had a very faint tea stain at one side of the rim. The tea was jasmine, which is why it was so fragrant. Tatsumi never drank jasmine tea in the office; he only drank it here, in his apartment, in fact only here in his bedroom. He had other tea in the small kitchen for drinking when he was working all night.
To Tatsumi's eyes, Watari looked fragile and precious in the overlarge pale blue silk pajamas.
He looked like a doll.
Handing the cup to Watari without speaking, Tatsumi continued to sit, one elbow on the small table, fingers resting lightly across his chin and mouth.
The jasmine tea smelled soothing and when Tatsumi held the cup out towards him, Watari took it gratefully. He drank coffee for stimulation in the morning but he would drink tea for comfort, when he needed something warm or just something special to help calm his restless mind. He liked the taste and the mystic of tea and as he cradled the cup in his hands, he closed his eyes and inhaled deep breaths of the steam.
It brought a smile to his face.
Blowing softly on the liquid within the cup, he took a cautious sip and then another. After the third sip, he seemed to become aware of his partner's stillness. With the cup pressed against his lips, Watari peered across the rim and perked his eyebrows upwards, making an inquisitive noise at Tatsumi.
Tatsumi seemed to come to life, and shook his head in silent answer to the wordless inquiry. He stood up and took something out of a drawer, and left the room to go into the bathroom. Watari heard the sound of running water on the other side of the bathroom door.
Watari blinked at his partner and watched Tatsumi thoughtfully as the older man moved around the room. Drawing his leg up so that he now sat perfectly cross-legged on the comforter, the scientist gave a small nod of his head in acknowledgement to Tatsumi's silent answer and turned his attention back on the cup in his hand, being extra careful not to risk spilling a drop on the fabric.
Maybe they could already communicate without words, even without the careful planning that the elder shinigami had thought necessary.
As Tatsumi took care of his business in the bathroom, Watari continued to sip his tea and tried to get his thoughts into some sort of order. Everything was jumbling together like a haphazardly mixed beaker of chemicals and it frustrated the normally practical scientist that he couldn't seem to get his thoughts straight. Lowering the now half empty cup down to rest against one bent knee, Watari lifted his hand and pulled his glasses off his face, rubbing his thumb and his forefinger up and down the bridge of his nose.
"Maybe I do need to try to get some sleep. See if everything makes sense in the morning," he muttered out loud.
A few minutes later, Watari heard the water shut off and the bathroom door open. Tatsumi came into the bedroom, making sure the light in the bathroom was shut off. When he entered, he was carrying his clothes over one arm and he went to the closet and hung up the pants, discarding the shirt and socks and a sleeveless undershirt into a hamper inside.
He was dressed in pajamas similar in cut and style to the ones he'd lent Watari. These however were not as new looking, in fact the silk was quite worn, the fabric soft and almost clingy in its thinness. And the color of the pajamas was black.
Walking over to the tea set, Tatsumi poured his own cup, took a drink from it and then set it down. He moved to the bed and began to turn down the covers, putting the two pillows on either side.
Then he took the cup from Watari and set it on the table. The cup had been almost empty when Tatsumi reached to take it, so Watari didn't try to hang on to it.
After drinking a little bit more from his own cup, before setting it down as well, Tatsumi came around to the side of the bed nearest the door and sat down, facing away.
"Are you ready?" he said quietly.
Sans tea mug to hold his attention, Watari tracked his partner's movements with curious intensity. The well-worn black silk seemed to cling to Tatsumi's strong frame in a loving manner and Watari couldn't quite dispel the way his heart wanted to jump a couple of beats at the handsome picture his partner made. Watari felt that the elder shinigami always looked... well he was always handsome but there was something particularly fetching about him with he was slightly ruffled.
Aware that he was in danger of having a possibly insipid smile on his face, Watari gave his hair a quick comb through with his fingers and nodded, belatedly realizing that Tatsumi couldn't see him.
"Ah, yeah... yes."
Watari slid down off the foot of the bed and moved up towards the side he assumed was to be his for the night. As he grabbed the corner of the bedclothes he paused, waiting to see if a memory jumped out at him but he couldn't remember Muraki joining him on the silk-covered futon. He remembered being carefully attended to and tucked up under a warm blanket but then sleep, deep, deep sleep had claimed him and he'd woken up alone.
Frowning a little, Watari realized that the flashbacks he was having weren't... unpleasant. Of more concern was the fact that they were intense and brought with them the memory of the pleasure, which brought with it, the memory of the shame.
Giving himself a firm mental smack, the young shinigami tugged the blankets down and crawled in between them, sitting now on Tatsumi's bed, under Tatsumi's covers, waiting for his partner to join him.
Tatsumi lifted his hand and the light went out, leaving them in near-total darkness, which was when it became apparent what the apartment was missing. There was not a single window.
The bed moved as Tatsumi slid his long legs beneath the covers.
Then something unexpected happened.
Tatsumi's arms reached out, finding Watari's shoulders unerringly and pulling the blond shinigami close, folding him against Tatsumi's chest. So close that Watari could feel Tatsumi's powerful, well-defined body beneath the thin, worn silk.
Watari had never been overly fanciful about the dark, but he could not completely deny the small inward sigh of relief that escaped him when he felt Tatsumi's familiar touch.
Familiar and yet, so new.
The silk they wore wanted to conduct heat and as he was pulled down and against his partner's body, Watari, he who was sensitive to the slightest chill, felt almost overly warm beneath the covers with Tatsumi. Focused on their shared warmth, Watari was startled when Tatsumi spoke.
"I don't know how he is reaching you, Yutaka," Tatsumi said, his voice low and deliberate. "But he will not be permitted to share this bed with us. I will keep him out of it. I hope you understand and I hope you can give up you fascination for one night because this is the way it is going to be." And the next thing Watari felt was Tatsumi's mouth, covering his own.
The words hit the younger shinigami almost like a physical force but in those words, he found something his mind was desperate for, direction.
He did not share the bed with me... -that you know of- ... shut up. If I don't know it for certain, I shall not assume it. This is something I have left to give Tatsumi.
Watari was parting his lips to respond to his partner's words, but instead they were met Tatsumi's mouth, and there was little chance that the Kagetsukai could have missed the way the blond inhaled a quick, responsive breath.
Tatsumi hadn't really intended for the kiss to go any further than a close-mouthed caress, but when Watari's lips parted under his, and he took in that quick breath, the Kagetsukai followed it with an act that he thought he had forgotten how to perform. His tongue ran lightly around the edge of Watari's lips, just inside, tasting the warm tissue. A tiny bit of suction sealed their mouths together, and Tatsumi's tongue entered further, sliding between Watari's teeth and along the flat side of the blond shinigami's tongue. Lifting, his own slid along Watari's soft palate, retreating, then returned a bit further. Tatsumi felt himself begin to sink into his partner, as if his flesh were becoming permeable and sinking into Watari's body to share the same physical space. He heard and felt the rhythm of Watari's pulse and followed it, matching the slow increase of its tempo perfectly. Every heartbeat seemed to meld them closer together.
In the first seconds of the kiss, Watari was perfectly still. The sort of stillness you adopt when you believe yourself in a dream and fear that the slightest wrong move will cause the dream to evaporate around you, leaving behind cold reality. Quick, small breaths helped seal their lips together and as Tatsumi's tongue began its second, deeper penetration of his mouth, the blond broke the spell he'd held over himself and began to respond. As Tatsumi's tongue moved across the sensitive skin of his soft palate, Watari's tongue slid forward, tickling across the Kagetsukai's sensual lower lip. He could taste the jasmine tea layered over Tatsumi's own unique flavor and as their tongues continued to dance, Watari drove his subtly deeper and deeper into his partner's mouth, seeking out more of the older man's taste.
At some point, the younger shinigami reached his free hand up and twined slender fingers in the silky soft, short chestnut brown hair at the back of Tatsumi's skull, cradling his partner's head in his palm and kneading him gently, like a content cat.
After what seemed like a long time, Tatsumi slowly withdrew, his mouth parting from Watari's with a soft sound, as the suction was broken.
When Tatsumi began to withdraw, Watari seemed to follow him for half a heartbeat before letting the older man part their mouths. Lying back against the cradle of the pillows and the shadow-master's arms, the scientist looked up even though in the darkness he couldn't see as well as the man sharing the bed with him. He couldn't see Tatsumi but he could hear both their breaths as well as the heavy thud of his own pulse.
For about ten heartbeats, Tatsumi was absolutely still.
Finally Tatsumi broke the stillness, by stroking his hand down Watari's back. He wanted... he wanted to try another kiss. He wanted to feel Watari's sweet, unhesitating response, so in tune with the scientist's usual fearless, curious and exploring nature.
With a sigh, he kissed Watari's forehead, and then his eyelids, instead. Another slow stroke down his back.
"I want you to sleep," he said. "Sleep in my arms, free of dreams or compulsions. Find yourself again. Then go do what you have to do in Kyoto. When you come back, we will take some time, just the two of us, to... to talk."
It was difficult, so difficult, because Watari wanted his partner to kiss him again. He wanted to feel Tatsumi's lips, warm, strong, surprisingly mobile against his own. He wanted to feel the older man's controlled strength against his mouth and he wanted to explore what it took to slowly unravel that control until he tapped into the fiery passion he could feel in his partner.
Over the decades, he had seen Tatsumi's formidable intensity unleashed from time to time and while these had all been instances where the Kagetsukai had been seriously aggrieved, they had been awesome to witness. Yes, the fire was there and part of Watari didn't know which would be more exciting, tapping it or the path it would take to reach it.
Yet, even as he shivered with anticipation of that journey, when the time was right, he recognized that the time was not now.
Exhaling a soft breath, he turned into the gentle, almost chaste kisses Tatsumi placed against his face and nodded, nuzzling with his face until his head rested on the pillow just slightly above Tatsumi's shoulder. The hand that had been playing in his partner's hair lowered till it was wrapped around the older man's torso and after two deep breaths, the subtle tension in Watari's limbs began to relax.
Watari smiled a little into the darkness. "I like this," he whispered, meaning that he liked being held, he liked the shared warmth, he liked just *being* with his partner.
Tatsumi stroked his back gently again. "Yutaka..." Then he stopped, changing his mind about what he was going to say. "I, too. Come back. Completely. I... am not looking for a doll. But I need... a partner. Not just to work with."
The scientist's hand moved back up across Tatsumi's broad chest, and somehow, despite the darkness, he was able to find and stroke the back of his knuckles lightly across the older man's cheekbone. Shifting a little closer, as if trying to reassure his partner of his presence, he hesitated a moment then leaned and pressed his lips feather-light against Tatsumi's neck.
"It will be all right, Seiichirou. I ... I know how hard this is for you. I promise to be... cautious."
Watari wasn't sure if he meant about the case he would be leaving for in a few hours, or about his curiosity for Muraki. Perhaps the honest answer was, both.
Tatsumi shook his head in the dark, Watari could feel the movement, but he didn't say anything else. One last, light stroke and he settled, willing the blond scientist to sleep, peacefully, until duty woke him in the morning. Wrapped in his arms, in the deep darkness of his room, Tatsumi vowed somehow to keep the silver-haired demon away from Watari even in dreams, at least for this night.
Watari could feel the movement and his lips parted as if to ask but instead of words he just exhaled softly against Tatsumi's neck. Lowering his hand till his fingers could curl loosely around Tatsumi's shoulder, Watari did the only thing he could think of to give his friend peace. He coaxed his busy brain to slow down focused on the incredible warmth, the cocooning darkness and the strong comfort of Tatsumi's arms until all three sensations melded together and Watari felt himself slip into a dreamless sleep.
TBC