The Past Unburied
by icediamond
Chapter 4
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: Neither Yami no Matsuei nor Harry Potter belong to me. If they did, I'd be way too rich to bother writing fanfiction. As it is, I'm broke from completing my Christmas shopping, so please don't sue me.
Warnings: Yaoi. Slash. M/m pairings, whatever you want to call them. Het pairing (but it's a cool, screwed up one, I promise!). Generous adjustment of universes to match. Hints of NCS (remembered) later on in the story.
What has happened so far: Watari, Tatsumi, Hisoka and Tsuzuki were assigned to a new case: to stop Lord Voldemort from expanding into Japan. At the party which Narcissa told them to go to, Watari met his half-brother Lucius. They duelled, and Watari came out the definite loser, but was saved by the last minute appearance of the other three.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
~~~~~~
Watari
~~~~~~
That night, Watari dreamed... of another night that occurred twenty-two years ago....
Watari knelt naked on the cold stone floor. All the outward trappings of dignity had been stripped from him, he was dirty and naked and hurtingohgoddidithurt - but still, there was an aura of serenity about him completely alien to his dank surroundings. It was as though all he had been through had merely revealed the blazing stubbornness at his core. Either that, or it was simply that he knew he had been through everything, and nothing more could be done to him. Even Watari didn't know.
"Crucio!" His body convulsed as agony tore through him once more at Voldemort's whim. He had long ago given up on resisting the pain - now he simply endured it.
He knew it would soon be over.
Suddenly, the curse ended. He was abruptly levitated into the air. From his new vantage point, he could see the Death Eaters surrounding him on all sides. Surrounding him - and Voldemort.
"My followers," came Voldemort's voice, hissing as it crawled its way into its listener's brain, "before you is a man who was once an honoured equal among you. A brilliant researcher and potionsmaster, his concoctions aided us greatly in our fight against those too low even to crawl in the dirt before the lowliest of us. But now, look at him! This once-honoured wizard betrayed me - betrayed us all - and for Muggles! Three years ago, when I honoured him with a mission that, had he not betrayed us all, would have shortened our fight against the Muggles by years, he abandoned our cause, and went to live among Muggles, becoming no better than one of those animals. Worse, because he had the opportunity to be great! It was only by dint of the efforts of Lucius Malfoy, who proved his loyalty to me over the fleeting bonds of blood, that he was returned to our fold three months ago."
Watari listened to Voldemort's speech with one ear, as he idly scanned the assembled ranks of Voldemort's loyal Death Eaters. All of them were utterly focused on Lord Voldemort, projecting agreement so vehemently that Watari couldn't resist a tiny, almost unnoticeable smirk. They were so relieved that it wasn't them in the middle, facing Lord Voldemort's displeasure, that they were agreeing just as hard as they possibly could. All but one.
Watari's eyes met those of Severus Snape's. He could see in his old rival's eyes a look of horror - a realization that yes, death affected everyone, even those you love. Watari continued looking at him, seeing him come to some sort of decision. What it was, Watari couldn't guess.
He was distracted by Voldemort beginning to wind up his speech.
"And here before you, now, we will show you what happens to those who betray us. Lucius, step forward."
Watari saw the masked figure of his brother step forward from the assembled ranks of the Death Eaters. His eyes widened in horror as he realized what was going to happen.
"From my followers, I require a loyalty surpassing the bonds of friendship or family. Lucius, kill your traitorous brother before us all, now, to give your fellow followers an example of how they should behave."
"Yes, my Lord," Lucius murmured obediently. Turning towards his still convulsing brother, he raised his wand.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
And there was green, and then nothing.
"Watari-san? Watari-san!" He could feel someone shaking his shoulders gently. His eyes blinked open, but quickly closed again as the light hit them.
"What," he grumped, concealing his relief. He hated that nightmare.
'...Waitasec who woke me up?' he suddenly thought, eyes snapping open.
He suppressed a blush at the sight of Tatsumi sitting in a chair next to his bed. He couldn't decide if having his long-term crush wake him was a good or bad thing. On the plus side, Tatsumi cared for him. On the minus side, he knew Tatsumi was still too obsessed with Tsuzuki to ever consider anyone else. He dismissed his idle thoughts as Tatsumi spoke.
"Are you okay?" Tatsumi asked. "You seemed to be having a nightmare."
"Yeah, sure," Watari answered evasively. "What are you doing in here anyways?"
"After you were injured yesterday, I didn't want to leave you on your own in case there were unforseen results from your injuries," Tatsumi responded calmly.
"Please don't tell me you slept in that chair," Watari said, focusing on the most innocuous thing he could think of. "That's the worse chair in the lab to sleep in."
"It was fine." Tatsumi got up carefully and stretched. Watari watched with interest. "I'll go make some tea, and then we can talk about what happaned last night."
Watari winced. 'Damnit.' "Oh, sure," he said unconvincingly.
"I'll be back in ten minutes."
For a moment, Watari lay there, contemplating various escape routes, before getting up reluctantly. 003 chirped indignantly at him as her perch was disturbed. Watari scratched her head in apology.
He quickly grabbed a change of clothes from his closet and changed, feeling relief at getting out of the remnants of the tuxedo he had been wearing for well over twelve hours now. He quickly brushed his hair, but before he could braid it, Tatsumi walked back into the lab.
~~~~~~
Tatsumi
~~~~~~
Once out of the lab, Tatsumi quickly made some tea in the break room. He had been up all night, watching over Watari with worry, and felt in desperate need of some. As the tea finished, he quickly drained a cup to wake himself up, then poured himself and Watari a cup apiece before returning to the lab.
"Watari-san?" he said, not knowing if Watari was decent or not.
Watari came out from his bedroom, his hair still loose, and 003 happily nestling in it. Tatsumi felt the sight of the scientist hit him almost like a physical punch in the gut. He had never seen him with his hair loose like that, and had to sternly discipline himself not to touch it. It looked so soft...
"Oh, goody, tea!" Watari chirped, taking the cup that Tatsumi handed him gratefully. He drank half of it on the first sip, and looked almost human again.
Tatsumi winced mentally. Poor phrasing, that.
He sat down carefully on one of the chairs in the lab, gesturing for Watari to do the same. Watari did so slowly, obviously feeling every single leftover ache from last night.
Watari fiddled absently with his hair a moment as he decided where to begin. "Well, as you may or may not have figured out, that guy last night was my brother. He's also Voldemort's second in command."
He would have continued, but he was paused by a coughing noise as Tatsumi choked on his tea. Since when did Watari have family affiliations with foreign evil wizards? Watari helpfully pounded on his back as he recovered. "You okay?"
"Yes, thank you. I was merely taken by surprise." Tatsumi arched an eyebrow at Watari, inviting further explanation. He wanted more information - now.
"He attacked me last night partially on personal grounds, and partially because he's here to start Voldemort's power base in Japan. He admitted as much to me last night."
"I see," Tatsumi said briefly, not really knowing how to react to that. "Are you alright?" He looked at Watari with concern over his glasses. Both of them knew just how many shinigami freaked out when they had to deal with a mission that involved something from their life. Hisoka was hardly the only one.
"Of course!" Watari was ignoring the way he had been acting since they had gotten the assignment. Tatsumi realized that it was going to take some effort to get him to reveal anything much about Lucius and his past. "There are a couple of problems with Lucius discovering about shinigami, though..." He trailed off, frowning.
"What?" asked Tatsumi alertly.
"Well, actually I'm thinking more about Voldemort's reaction when he finds out. You see, Voldemort has an obsession with immortality, and has ever since he killed his father. Everything he does reflects it. Even his name translates to flight of death! And his followers are called Death Eaters, and his symbol is a skull with a snake sticking out of its mouth... With a guy that obsessed with immortality, I don't know how he'll react to shinigami! It was really stupid of me to tell Narcissa in the first place."
"Do you expect it to become an immediate problem?" Tatsumi asked, frowning thoughtfully.
"Not yet, but I think it means that he has a chance of becoming a repeating problem."
"I see," Tatsumi pushed his glasses up thoughtfully. He hadn't seen the scientist affected with self-doubt before, but knew reassurance was important anyways. "I really don't think that it was your fault though. Narcissa-san knew something was wrong. From my impression of her, she would have found out everything eventually anyways. All you did was give her specifics."
Watari frowned. "Yes, I suppose." Tatsumi could tell that he didn't really believe him, but Watari continued before Tatsumi could say anything. "Moving on, I think the best thing might be to," he paused, tried to phrase it diplomatically, "stop Lucius before he reports."
Tatsumi was shocked. "Kill your brother?"
Watari laughed drily. "Believe me, if Lucius were dead, I would probably sleep a great deal better." He closed his mouth with a snap. Tatsumi looked at him, and wondered.
"Why?" said Tatsumi carefully. Very carefully.
"He killed me." Watari said this flatly, without any hint of expression on his face. He did not continue. 003 started nibbling on his hair in concern.
Tatsumi looked at him a moment, debating the wisdom of pushing Watari further on this. Eventually, he decided that Watari wasn't going to answer him no matter what he said. Tatsumi desperately needed reinforcement. "I think I see," was all Tatsumi said.
"Yes, well, the problem there is fairly obvious. None of you have any experience fighting Western magic, and I, as has already been rather forcibly demonstrated, am out of practice. I used to be about equal with him, but now..." Watari was that good with magic?! Tatsumi desperately needed to research his coworker's past before he tried to pry any further. He decided to go on with business.
"Who do you think would be best to send against him?"
Watari absentmindedly retrieved 003 from chewing up the rest of his hair as he considered. "Honestly, I'd say probably you and me. I could counter his magic, since I'm the only one familiar with this type of magic, and you could use your shadows to fight him. Give me a couple hours on the computer, and I'll be able to find out where he's staying."
'And if he even tried to harm Watari again, I will kill him,' thought Tatsumi, the fierceness of the thought surprising him. Since when had he come to care that much about Watari? For that matter, when had he dropped the honourific, if only mentally? But visibly, he only nodded. "And Narcissa-san and Draco-san?"
"Draco?" Watari couldn't remember... "Oh! Lucius' son! He's here?"
"Oh, yes, you didn't encounter him." Tatsumi gave Watari a verbal sketch of the odd encounter with Draco.
"Hmm... That kid's playing an interesting game... I think I'd like to talk to him, but I don't believe that he'll be any real problem." Tatsumi wondered what on earth Watari was thinking of, with that tiny thoughtful frown etched onto his forehead. "But Narcissa could pose a problem..." Watari continued, frowning. He didn't really want to kill her though. "I don't really know for sure if she's a Death Eater or not..."
"Why don't we send Tsuzuki and Hisoka to spy on her to see if she's a danger?" Tatsumi suggested.
Watari thought for a moment, and nodded. "Yes, that would work." He stood up, signalling an end to the conversation before Tatsumi had a chance to pry for information. "Well, I'm going to get started on trying to find Lucius' whereabouts. The sooner the better you know!" He gave Tatsumi a cheerful grin. "Time is money, after all!" He concluded in a mimicry of Tatsumi.
With that, Watari disappeared into his computer room, and Tatsumi was left alone at the cramped lab table so recently enlivened by Watari's company. With a silent sigh, he got up... and went to find Tsuzuki.
Back in the hotel room on Earth, Tsuzuki blinks innocent amethyst eyes at Tatsumi. "You want me to what?"
Tatsumi sighed. "Talk to Watari-san. Find out whatever he's willing to tell you about his brother. You're the most likely person to succeed in getting Watari to talk to someone."
Hisoka, standing quietly at the window, interjected, "You and Watari get along well, anyways. Why are you objecting?"
Tsuzuki protested vehemently, "I'm not protesting! I'm just surprised!"
"So you'll do it?" Tatsumi asked calmly. He supposed he could have blackmailed Tsuzuki with his debts, but it didn't feel quite right for this sort of thing. Besides, Tsuzuki got enough of that with the Earl.
"Of course!" said Tsuzuki.
"Wonderful." Suddenly, with the removal of his responsibilities, Tatsumi realized that he was exhausted. "I'll be going to bed now. Goodnight."
With that, Tatsumi left the room, and headed to bed. He went to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes: Okay, this was the chapter from hell to write. I wrote three bloody versions of Watari and Tatsumi's conversation before I did one I halfway liked. I never do more than one draft usually. That sucks. I was going to have Watari and Tatsumi get together at some point during this chapter, but everything I tried came out sounding really awkward. After spending a couple days on that alone, I gave up and rewrote the chapter. I think those two are only going to get together under far more extreme circumstances than this. Therefore, I now have a new plan for getting those two together. I've also been going over my mental outline of the story, and it's going to be a great deal more complicated and long than I originally thought. Hopefully, I'll retain interest long enough to get through it.
For those of you who think this chapter sucks... deal with it. I hate this chapter, but I'm seriously sick of rewriting it, and this is the best it's going to get. Sorry. I promise to do better with the next chapter. And thank you, Kafers, for agreeing to beta-read for me.
Draconsis: Thanks. All authors need ego-stroking on a regualr basis. Especially since I have a tendency to delete half my stories in a fit of irritation. (Sad, but true.)
Clea: Please don't associate getting hit with a flying object with reviewing me. Then I'd NEVER get any reviews. :( And I'm afraid the whole 'fast updater' thing isn't going to be consistent. But I will try.
Ms.Author: Now, would I ever do that to my sweet, charming Lucius? (The answer here is, of course, yes.)
free4ever: :) Only the end. I'll explain the rest of it later... maybe.
In the next chapter: Tsuzuki talks with Watari. Watari talks with Draco. And other things happen, which I haven't wuite figured out which of them I'm going to include.
by icediamond
Chapter 4
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: Neither Yami no Matsuei nor Harry Potter belong to me. If they did, I'd be way too rich to bother writing fanfiction. As it is, I'm broke from completing my Christmas shopping, so please don't sue me.
Warnings: Yaoi. Slash. M/m pairings, whatever you want to call them. Het pairing (but it's a cool, screwed up one, I promise!). Generous adjustment of universes to match. Hints of NCS (remembered) later on in the story.
What has happened so far: Watari, Tatsumi, Hisoka and Tsuzuki were assigned to a new case: to stop Lord Voldemort from expanding into Japan. At the party which Narcissa told them to go to, Watari met his half-brother Lucius. They duelled, and Watari came out the definite loser, but was saved by the last minute appearance of the other three.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
~~~~~~
Watari
~~~~~~
That night, Watari dreamed... of another night that occurred twenty-two years ago....
Watari knelt naked on the cold stone floor. All the outward trappings of dignity had been stripped from him, he was dirty and naked and hurtingohgoddidithurt - but still, there was an aura of serenity about him completely alien to his dank surroundings. It was as though all he had been through had merely revealed the blazing stubbornness at his core. Either that, or it was simply that he knew he had been through everything, and nothing more could be done to him. Even Watari didn't know.
"Crucio!" His body convulsed as agony tore through him once more at Voldemort's whim. He had long ago given up on resisting the pain - now he simply endured it.
He knew it would soon be over.
Suddenly, the curse ended. He was abruptly levitated into the air. From his new vantage point, he could see the Death Eaters surrounding him on all sides. Surrounding him - and Voldemort.
"My followers," came Voldemort's voice, hissing as it crawled its way into its listener's brain, "before you is a man who was once an honoured equal among you. A brilliant researcher and potionsmaster, his concoctions aided us greatly in our fight against those too low even to crawl in the dirt before the lowliest of us. But now, look at him! This once-honoured wizard betrayed me - betrayed us all - and for Muggles! Three years ago, when I honoured him with a mission that, had he not betrayed us all, would have shortened our fight against the Muggles by years, he abandoned our cause, and went to live among Muggles, becoming no better than one of those animals. Worse, because he had the opportunity to be great! It was only by dint of the efforts of Lucius Malfoy, who proved his loyalty to me over the fleeting bonds of blood, that he was returned to our fold three months ago."
Watari listened to Voldemort's speech with one ear, as he idly scanned the assembled ranks of Voldemort's loyal Death Eaters. All of them were utterly focused on Lord Voldemort, projecting agreement so vehemently that Watari couldn't resist a tiny, almost unnoticeable smirk. They were so relieved that it wasn't them in the middle, facing Lord Voldemort's displeasure, that they were agreeing just as hard as they possibly could. All but one.
Watari's eyes met those of Severus Snape's. He could see in his old rival's eyes a look of horror - a realization that yes, death affected everyone, even those you love. Watari continued looking at him, seeing him come to some sort of decision. What it was, Watari couldn't guess.
He was distracted by Voldemort beginning to wind up his speech.
"And here before you, now, we will show you what happens to those who betray us. Lucius, step forward."
Watari saw the masked figure of his brother step forward from the assembled ranks of the Death Eaters. His eyes widened in horror as he realized what was going to happen.
"From my followers, I require a loyalty surpassing the bonds of friendship or family. Lucius, kill your traitorous brother before us all, now, to give your fellow followers an example of how they should behave."
"Yes, my Lord," Lucius murmured obediently. Turning towards his still convulsing brother, he raised his wand.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
And there was green, and then nothing.
"Watari-san? Watari-san!" He could feel someone shaking his shoulders gently. His eyes blinked open, but quickly closed again as the light hit them.
"What," he grumped, concealing his relief. He hated that nightmare.
'...Waitasec who woke me up?' he suddenly thought, eyes snapping open.
He suppressed a blush at the sight of Tatsumi sitting in a chair next to his bed. He couldn't decide if having his long-term crush wake him was a good or bad thing. On the plus side, Tatsumi cared for him. On the minus side, he knew Tatsumi was still too obsessed with Tsuzuki to ever consider anyone else. He dismissed his idle thoughts as Tatsumi spoke.
"Are you okay?" Tatsumi asked. "You seemed to be having a nightmare."
"Yeah, sure," Watari answered evasively. "What are you doing in here anyways?"
"After you were injured yesterday, I didn't want to leave you on your own in case there were unforseen results from your injuries," Tatsumi responded calmly.
"Please don't tell me you slept in that chair," Watari said, focusing on the most innocuous thing he could think of. "That's the worse chair in the lab to sleep in."
"It was fine." Tatsumi got up carefully and stretched. Watari watched with interest. "I'll go make some tea, and then we can talk about what happaned last night."
Watari winced. 'Damnit.' "Oh, sure," he said unconvincingly.
"I'll be back in ten minutes."
For a moment, Watari lay there, contemplating various escape routes, before getting up reluctantly. 003 chirped indignantly at him as her perch was disturbed. Watari scratched her head in apology.
He quickly grabbed a change of clothes from his closet and changed, feeling relief at getting out of the remnants of the tuxedo he had been wearing for well over twelve hours now. He quickly brushed his hair, but before he could braid it, Tatsumi walked back into the lab.
~~~~~~
Tatsumi
~~~~~~
Once out of the lab, Tatsumi quickly made some tea in the break room. He had been up all night, watching over Watari with worry, and felt in desperate need of some. As the tea finished, he quickly drained a cup to wake himself up, then poured himself and Watari a cup apiece before returning to the lab.
"Watari-san?" he said, not knowing if Watari was decent or not.
Watari came out from his bedroom, his hair still loose, and 003 happily nestling in it. Tatsumi felt the sight of the scientist hit him almost like a physical punch in the gut. He had never seen him with his hair loose like that, and had to sternly discipline himself not to touch it. It looked so soft...
"Oh, goody, tea!" Watari chirped, taking the cup that Tatsumi handed him gratefully. He drank half of it on the first sip, and looked almost human again.
Tatsumi winced mentally. Poor phrasing, that.
He sat down carefully on one of the chairs in the lab, gesturing for Watari to do the same. Watari did so slowly, obviously feeling every single leftover ache from last night.
Watari fiddled absently with his hair a moment as he decided where to begin. "Well, as you may or may not have figured out, that guy last night was my brother. He's also Voldemort's second in command."
He would have continued, but he was paused by a coughing noise as Tatsumi choked on his tea. Since when did Watari have family affiliations with foreign evil wizards? Watari helpfully pounded on his back as he recovered. "You okay?"
"Yes, thank you. I was merely taken by surprise." Tatsumi arched an eyebrow at Watari, inviting further explanation. He wanted more information - now.
"He attacked me last night partially on personal grounds, and partially because he's here to start Voldemort's power base in Japan. He admitted as much to me last night."
"I see," Tatsumi said briefly, not really knowing how to react to that. "Are you alright?" He looked at Watari with concern over his glasses. Both of them knew just how many shinigami freaked out when they had to deal with a mission that involved something from their life. Hisoka was hardly the only one.
"Of course!" Watari was ignoring the way he had been acting since they had gotten the assignment. Tatsumi realized that it was going to take some effort to get him to reveal anything much about Lucius and his past. "There are a couple of problems with Lucius discovering about shinigami, though..." He trailed off, frowning.
"What?" asked Tatsumi alertly.
"Well, actually I'm thinking more about Voldemort's reaction when he finds out. You see, Voldemort has an obsession with immortality, and has ever since he killed his father. Everything he does reflects it. Even his name translates to flight of death! And his followers are called Death Eaters, and his symbol is a skull with a snake sticking out of its mouth... With a guy that obsessed with immortality, I don't know how he'll react to shinigami! It was really stupid of me to tell Narcissa in the first place."
"Do you expect it to become an immediate problem?" Tatsumi asked, frowning thoughtfully.
"Not yet, but I think it means that he has a chance of becoming a repeating problem."
"I see," Tatsumi pushed his glasses up thoughtfully. He hadn't seen the scientist affected with self-doubt before, but knew reassurance was important anyways. "I really don't think that it was your fault though. Narcissa-san knew something was wrong. From my impression of her, she would have found out everything eventually anyways. All you did was give her specifics."
Watari frowned. "Yes, I suppose." Tatsumi could tell that he didn't really believe him, but Watari continued before Tatsumi could say anything. "Moving on, I think the best thing might be to," he paused, tried to phrase it diplomatically, "stop Lucius before he reports."
Tatsumi was shocked. "Kill your brother?"
Watari laughed drily. "Believe me, if Lucius were dead, I would probably sleep a great deal better." He closed his mouth with a snap. Tatsumi looked at him, and wondered.
"Why?" said Tatsumi carefully. Very carefully.
"He killed me." Watari said this flatly, without any hint of expression on his face. He did not continue. 003 started nibbling on his hair in concern.
Tatsumi looked at him a moment, debating the wisdom of pushing Watari further on this. Eventually, he decided that Watari wasn't going to answer him no matter what he said. Tatsumi desperately needed reinforcement. "I think I see," was all Tatsumi said.
"Yes, well, the problem there is fairly obvious. None of you have any experience fighting Western magic, and I, as has already been rather forcibly demonstrated, am out of practice. I used to be about equal with him, but now..." Watari was that good with magic?! Tatsumi desperately needed to research his coworker's past before he tried to pry any further. He decided to go on with business.
"Who do you think would be best to send against him?"
Watari absentmindedly retrieved 003 from chewing up the rest of his hair as he considered. "Honestly, I'd say probably you and me. I could counter his magic, since I'm the only one familiar with this type of magic, and you could use your shadows to fight him. Give me a couple hours on the computer, and I'll be able to find out where he's staying."
'And if he even tried to harm Watari again, I will kill him,' thought Tatsumi, the fierceness of the thought surprising him. Since when had he come to care that much about Watari? For that matter, when had he dropped the honourific, if only mentally? But visibly, he only nodded. "And Narcissa-san and Draco-san?"
"Draco?" Watari couldn't remember... "Oh! Lucius' son! He's here?"
"Oh, yes, you didn't encounter him." Tatsumi gave Watari a verbal sketch of the odd encounter with Draco.
"Hmm... That kid's playing an interesting game... I think I'd like to talk to him, but I don't believe that he'll be any real problem." Tatsumi wondered what on earth Watari was thinking of, with that tiny thoughtful frown etched onto his forehead. "But Narcissa could pose a problem..." Watari continued, frowning. He didn't really want to kill her though. "I don't really know for sure if she's a Death Eater or not..."
"Why don't we send Tsuzuki and Hisoka to spy on her to see if she's a danger?" Tatsumi suggested.
Watari thought for a moment, and nodded. "Yes, that would work." He stood up, signalling an end to the conversation before Tatsumi had a chance to pry for information. "Well, I'm going to get started on trying to find Lucius' whereabouts. The sooner the better you know!" He gave Tatsumi a cheerful grin. "Time is money, after all!" He concluded in a mimicry of Tatsumi.
With that, Watari disappeared into his computer room, and Tatsumi was left alone at the cramped lab table so recently enlivened by Watari's company. With a silent sigh, he got up... and went to find Tsuzuki.
Back in the hotel room on Earth, Tsuzuki blinks innocent amethyst eyes at Tatsumi. "You want me to what?"
Tatsumi sighed. "Talk to Watari-san. Find out whatever he's willing to tell you about his brother. You're the most likely person to succeed in getting Watari to talk to someone."
Hisoka, standing quietly at the window, interjected, "You and Watari get along well, anyways. Why are you objecting?"
Tsuzuki protested vehemently, "I'm not protesting! I'm just surprised!"
"So you'll do it?" Tatsumi asked calmly. He supposed he could have blackmailed Tsuzuki with his debts, but it didn't feel quite right for this sort of thing. Besides, Tsuzuki got enough of that with the Earl.
"Of course!" said Tsuzuki.
"Wonderful." Suddenly, with the removal of his responsibilities, Tatsumi realized that he was exhausted. "I'll be going to bed now. Goodnight."
With that, Tatsumi left the room, and headed to bed. He went to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes: Okay, this was the chapter from hell to write. I wrote three bloody versions of Watari and Tatsumi's conversation before I did one I halfway liked. I never do more than one draft usually. That sucks. I was going to have Watari and Tatsumi get together at some point during this chapter, but everything I tried came out sounding really awkward. After spending a couple days on that alone, I gave up and rewrote the chapter. I think those two are only going to get together under far more extreme circumstances than this. Therefore, I now have a new plan for getting those two together. I've also been going over my mental outline of the story, and it's going to be a great deal more complicated and long than I originally thought. Hopefully, I'll retain interest long enough to get through it.
For those of you who think this chapter sucks... deal with it. I hate this chapter, but I'm seriously sick of rewriting it, and this is the best it's going to get. Sorry. I promise to do better with the next chapter. And thank you, Kafers, for agreeing to beta-read for me.
Draconsis: Thanks. All authors need ego-stroking on a regualr basis. Especially since I have a tendency to delete half my stories in a fit of irritation. (Sad, but true.)
Clea: Please don't associate getting hit with a flying object with reviewing me. Then I'd NEVER get any reviews. :( And I'm afraid the whole 'fast updater' thing isn't going to be consistent. But I will try.
Ms.Author: Now, would I ever do that to my sweet, charming Lucius? (The answer here is, of course, yes.)
free4ever: :) Only the end. I'll explain the rest of it later... maybe.
In the next chapter: Tsuzuki talks with Watari. Watari talks with Draco. And other things happen, which I haven't wuite figured out which of them I'm going to include.