Snow White and Rose Red
Disclaimer: I make no claim to Yami no Matsuei, which belongs to the mighty Matsushita-sensei. Nor can I claim the title of the fic, which came from but has nothing to do with a story by the Brothers Grimm…at least I think it was theirs.
Rating: Something like PG-13. There's some blood, ultra angst kitten Watari, language usually uttered at the back of a school bus, two guys making out, that sort of business.
Pairing: Tatsumi/Watari, and a little Tsuzuki/Hisoka, although I really don't care about the seme/uke. You can pick. Whatever makes you happiest.
Notes: This is just me, giving a nod to Watari, as he is often neglected by everyone else who still hold out hope that Tatsumi will hook back up with Tsuzuki…yeah right, and Terazuma's been making out with the Hokkaido girls in the break room.
++
Watari had been brooding ever since he and Tatsumi had returned from their last case, the first one either of them had in months. He'd grown sullen, snapping at anyone who happened to step into his laboratory, even if it were to offer some of the morning's pastries freshly wrestled away from Tsuzuki. That selfsame dessert aficionado jokingly called the blonde scientist the "older version of Hisoka" and earned a swat across the back of the head and a green-eyed glare for his effort.
The Shinigami of Enma-cho were becoming rather disturbed by this new hostility in their usually cheery companion, and wanted answers, fast. They elected Tsuzuki their sacrificial lamb, shoving him beyond the scorch-marked doors of the repeatedly combusted lab and scurrying away before anything potentially volatile could be thrown back at them. Not even Hisoka was willing to stand by his partner. Tsuzuki glared at the ash-blonde boy's retreating form, hissing the word "traitor" at it.
"Watari, is something bothering you?" the violet eyed man ventured cautiously, stepping slowly towards the lithe form perched on the windowsill, one leg dangling over the other side. "You haven't been yourself lately and everyone's getting worried."
The younger Shinigami turned and stared at his coworker, amber eyes seeming distant and cold. His clothes were wrinkled, dirtied, jagged tears leaving gaping holes across the knees of his formerly clean blue slacks. But odder still, he was spattered in blood, patches of crimson that had dried on his shin-length coat, smeared on his palms, splashed on his cheek. Even the curling tendrils of his golden hair were dipped in the rusty shade of drying blood. The boyish scientist looked like a butcher. By complete contrast, the lab was immaculate, papers neatly stacked, chemicals put away in their appropriate shelves, nothing more harmful than a kettle of tea boiling over a Bunsen burner.
"Go away, Tsuzuki."
The summoner of gods stood his ground. "Not until you tell me what's wrong. You're caked in blood, Watari, you can't tell me nothing is wrong with you."
"I can, and I am. Nothing is wrong. Now get out and let me be alone."
Tsuzuki didn't budge, his own amethyst eyes hardening, face set into an expression of sheer stubbornness. He said nothing, merely staring at the young scientist, at the blood on his face.
"I said, get out!" he cried, waving a hand. A jar of pens across the room rattled ominously, as though they would take flight and impale the brunette immortal. Watari's knack for giving life to the inanimate apparently gave him the power to turn any sort of innocuous-seeming utensil into a weapon. Tsuzuki was forced to concede.
"All right, I'll go. But you're not getting out of this so easily, Watari. Something is not right here, and I'm not giving up until whatever happened…un-happens."
He strode out of the room with all the confidence of the gods themselves, though inside he felt sick. Watari was one of Tsuzuki's best and oldest friends, twenty-six years of history between them, and damned if he was going to let anything jeopardize their relationship or Watari's physical and emotional health.
++
Everyone was standing outside, lined up against the wall: the Hokkaido girls Saya and Yuma, Wakaba, Terazuma with a cigarette already in hand, and Hisoka. Even some of the other Shinigami from the rest of the districts, well aware of the strange goings-on, were anxiously standing around, hoping to hear a definitive answer from the violet-eyed man.
"Well?" Terazuma prompted, his ruby eyes flashing with a trace of Kuro's shadow.
"Not only did he refuse to tell me what the hell is going on, but he threatened to impale me with a jar of pens. I'm telling you, something happened to Watari while he was out on assignment, something bad. He's sitting by the window in there covered in blood, and he doesn't even care!"
Hisoka gasped suddenly, his whole body jerking. He slid to the floor, clutching at his arms, the color draining from his face as the young man shuddered involuntarily.
"Tsuzuki!" he moaned, eyes wide with pain and fear.
"Shit, your empathy!" his partner cursed, wrapping the boy in an embrace. "It's all right, I've got you, Hisoka. Come on, we've been practicing this, remember? Focus on me."
He nodded slowly, reaching out and absorbing Tsuzuki's emotions until everything else was shut out. He built his shields stronger, using the bright, clear love of his partner to strengthen them. Taking a few gulps of air he rose to his feet dizzily, braced by a pair of secure arms.
"All right now?" Tsuzuki asked.
"Fine. I'll go find Tatsumi-san, he should be able to give us a straightforward answer as to what in the name of the gods is going on," Hisoka replied, as if the previous moment had never transpired. Wakaba touched his shoulder gently.
"Are you sure you're all right now, Hisoka-kun? You scared me."
"Yeah, I just got thrown off guard. I'll be back."
Terazuma sighed, reaching into a pocket for his lighter as Hisoka headed off towards Tatsumi's office. He glanced up and noticed everyone staring at him expectantly.
"What? I'm going outside, all right?" he asked exasperatedly, tucking his cigarette behind one pointed ear and giving up on his search for the lighter.
Tsuzuki shook his head. "I think they're hoping you'll share, Terazuma. After this, I think we're all going to need a smoke."
++
Hisoka felt better the farther he got from Watari's lab. The young scientist was completely undone, frightened and in pain, his heart and soul completely shredded. Caustic self-loathing burned inside of him like acid, eating away at his fragile emotions. Tatsumi's office seemed to always radiate a sense of calm and composure, and it helped to ease the young empath and his jarred senses. He opened the door cautiously, not even bothering to knock.
"Tatsumi-san? May I have a word with you?"
Gushoshin Ani glanced up from the desk, from the ledger he was rifling through. "Hisoka-san?"
The boy stepped back, startled to see the god and not the secretary he'd expected.
"Where's Tatsumi-san, Gushoshin?"
"You don't know? He's been in the infirmary for the past three days, ever since he and Watari-san returned from Kyoto. Didn't Watari-san tell you?"
Hisoka shook his head. "Watari-san is…unwell. Is Tatsumi-san all right? Can I go see him?"
"Sure, I don't see why he wouldn't want you to. Something's going on around here, isn't it, Hisoka-san?" Gushoshin Ani inquired. "I can feel it in the air, there's something amiss."
"Yes, and hopefully it will be easily rectified. Thank you very much, Gushoshin."
++
There were two things in life that Kurosaki Hisoka feared: Tsuzuki abandoning him, and Muraki Kazutaka. While there was nothing he could do about the latter but be cautious and train extensively in case of another meeting, it seemed as though the two partners had rectified the first problem. About a week after their "Kyoto Incident," as everyone was calling it, Tsuzuki moved into Hisoka's apartment. While he wasn't entirely comfortable with Tsuzuki sleeping with him in the same bed, although it was the only option they had because the man certainly wasn't going to fit on the couch and it would be a cold day in Meifu before Hisoka gave up his bed, he had to admit that with his partner there he was having fewer nightmares.
But as his hand met the doorknob leading to the infirmary, Hisoka felt a small thrill of trepidation. For something to lay Tatsumi out, it would have to be serious. A Shinigami might be immortal, but there were still some instances where they were susceptible to death. He swallowed, mustering up his courage, and opening the door.
Tatsumi was sitting up in bed, the clean white sheet pulled over him. He was bare to the waist, chest wrapped in bandages, a patch of gauze firmly fixed just a little right of his sternum, over his heart. He glanced up, face pale, and set aside the book he'd laid across his knees. The blue-eyed secretary smiled, nodding his acknowledgment.
"Kurosaki-san, a pleasure seeing you." He coughed, blood spilling over his lips. Tatsumi carefully wiped it away, removing his glasses and lying back down on the pillows he'd propped up behind his back. "I apologize. I obviously am not well enough to be sitting up yet."
"Tatsumi-san…" Hisoka said, his voice sounding so small in the quiet room. "Something happened to you and Watari-san in Kyoto, didn't it? I mean, if you've been here for three days now…"
Tatsumi seemed taken aback. "You mean Watari-san hasn't told you? I thought it would be all over the office by now."
"Begging your pardon, Tatsumi-san, but Watari-san is completely out of his mind. He's shut himself off from the rest of us…he threatened Tsuzuki about ten minutes ago. I could feel his emotions from all the way across the hall, and they were enough to knock me to the ground. Tatsumi-san, everyone in Enma-cho is worried about him, and we just don't know what to do."
"This is my fault, then," Tatsumi murmured, running his fingers through his bangs.
"Tatsumi-san?"
The blue-eyed man shook his head, a hand resting on the swath of bandages wrapped around him. "Watari-san and I were investigating a series of serial murders in Kyoto, if you may recall. The victims were all young couples, their hearts and tongues torn out and their eyes slashed. Watari-san did some research and came up with a certain demon who fit the description, and we tracked it to an old temple…"
++
Watari looked up the long flight of stairs reaching towards the old temple, the sunlight gilding his bright hair. He frowned, jamming his hands into the pockets of his long jacket.
"So…what do you think we should do?" he asked, amber eyes straying to the vivid sapphire of his pseudo-partner.
Tatsumi mimicked his frown. "I'm not exactly sure."
"Maybe we should pretend to be a couple going to make a wish at the temple shrine. You know, draw the bastard out into the open so we can nab him and not hurt any innocent people."
The russet-haired secretary did not look overly pleased by the prospects of having to be the overly exuberant scientist's lover, shifting uneasily where he stood.
"And you really think this demon will fall for that?"
"Sure!" Watari responded cheerily. "I'll bet he's up there, waiting for a couple of nice Shinigami to come and oust him, so he'll be all on guard and wary. But if a happy couple comes up to the shrine to make a wish, he's not going to expect it when we grab him with the binding spell. Do you follow?"
"Yes, Watari-san, your logic is crystal clear," he deadpanned.
The younger man slung his arm about his companion's shoulders and kissed him, his smile a combination of foolishness and seduction. "Now Seiichiro-kun, you're going to have to do better than that. Don't you love me?"
Tatsumi rolled his eyes, putting his arm around the scientist's waist nonetheless as they walked up the long flight of stairs to the shrine. Unbeknownst to him, though, this was no act for Watari.
"On top of being a brilliant scientist, I was the head of our theater group at school. Wasn't a bad actor, I must say," he remarked, sidling closer to the brunette. Tatsumi had to admit, he didn't dislike the affection his partner was showing him, even if it was an act. He'd managed to isolate himself after breaking it off with Tsuzuki, both as partners and as lovers; he hadn't felt an intimate touch in almost as many years as he'd been working in Shokan-ka.
"Be careful," Tatsumi murmured to Watari as they reached the top of the stairway. "Don't let your guard down for a single moment."
The temple was no different than any others in Kyoto, big and old. There were really no distinctive features about it, nothing that could possibly make it stand out against the scores of other temples in the district. There weren't even police markers where the victims had been slashed, or bloodstains in the neatly raked pathways. But the temple bells, with their red and white striped rope, were hanging in the shrine just as Watari had hoped.
"Isn't it beautiful, Seiichiro-kun?" he breathed, raking his hand through his hair, the coppery curls left to fly loose in the autumn air. "I'm so glad we decided to take this vacation."
Tatsumi nodded; drawing Watari closer, arm still around the slender waist. "You decided, Yutaka. I didn't come of my own free will."
"Oh, but you needed a break, Seii. I thought you were going to drop dead on your feet last week. You're going to overwork yourself one of these days," the boyish Shinigami sighed, turning and embracing the taller man.
A small part of Tatsumi rebelled at this, jumping up and down and screaming that this was wrong, that Watari was his partner, if even that. He'd already fallen for a partner before and that had turned into a disaster. But his voice of reason seemed to have been knocked unconscious by a little figure that, to Tatsumi's thoughts, looked suspiciously like a certain violet-eyed Tsuzuki-puppy with a very large dessert spoon cradled in his paws.
"Then I get the excuse to stay home and have you take care of me," he answered.
Watari inwardly grinned at the fact that the extremely proper Tatsumi seemed to be acting like a normal human being for once, talking to him as if they truly were a loving couple. He was going to hate having to give this illusion up once the case was over. Amber eyes shining with genuine adoration, he leaned into his partner's embrace, tilting his head up and kissing him. Slender fingers wound into his tangled golden hair, twining in the soft curls. Tatsumi tasted of the coffee they'd sprung for on their way over, dark and strong, like the man himself. Watari pulled away slowly, his whole face burning with a blush. He hadn't meant for the kiss to be such a production.
"Seiichiro…" he breathed, fingers touching his lips. Tatsumi hardly seemed flustered, though his insides felt as though they'd melted under Suzaku's scorching touch. The way his name was uttered was almost erotic, Watari's lilting Kansai accent only adding to the sensuality.
"Seii, let's make a wish at the shrine, all right?" Watari asked when he finally found his voice. Tatsumi nodded dumbly, letting the young scientist lead him by the hand.
They stood before the shrine, the incense burners empty and the fuda talismans weatherworn, the bell rope jerking in the breeze. Watari bit his lip, trying to come up with something to wish for, though in his heart he knew exactly what he wanted. Tatsumi glanced down at him, wondering exactly what to say.
"What are you wishing for, Yutaka?" he finally inquired, hand reaching for the bell pull.
"That you and I will always be happy together."
Watari stepped back; ready to chant the binding spell as soon as Tatsumi tugged the bell pull, which, they assumed, summoned their demon. But something in him didn't feel right, a nagging sense that he shouldn't just walk away from this case and let things be. Not after kissing Tatsumi like that. Not after Tatsumi let him.
"Tatsumi-san, wait," he instructed.
The blue-eyed secretary turned, and in doing so pulled the cord. The old temple bells clattered noisily, filling the air with their pealing.
A man in his mid-twenties stepped out of the temple, hands on his hips, glowering at the two Shinigami with orange eyes that hardly concealed his displeasure. However, he looked nothing like the vengeful demon Watari's research had uncovered. Rather, he looked more like a yakuza.
"That's it?!" the scientist balked. "He looks like somebody who'd hang around a street corner hassling school kids for cigarette money!"
The man snarled. "Well, I didn't expect you to be the Shinigami to bust me. The terms of my contract state that I'm supposed to be tearing some purple-eyed guy and a teenager to shreds. But if you're the team Enma-Daioh sent, then I guess I'm going to have to fight you."
"Sounds like our dear friend Kazutaka's been hiring out mercenaries to bloody his hands for him. We'll have to be sure to send him a thank-you note, ne, Tatsumi?"
The blue-eyed secretary was already summoning up shadows. "But why the yakuza body?"
"Do you know how hard it is to keep a corpse together after you've killed it? I had to keep killing these lowlife thugs in order to have a corporeal form!" the demon ranted. "However, this body does come with a few benefits."
He lunged at Tatsumi, the shadow-master skillfully wielding the shades in counter as Watari stood back, performing the intricate binding spell. He'd once asked Konoe-Kacho if there was any faster binding spell, one that didn't require so much chanting, but there was nothing simpler. The yakuza-demon's jackknife skittered out of his hands as the shadows the russet-haired man commanded closed around him. The demon leapt away, moving swiftly around the courtyard. Not as swiftly as the shadows that followed him. Tatsumi's eyes never strayed from that shifting form, though he did glance at his partner from time to time. Watari was working as quickly as he could, the intricate hand signs flashing by from pale fingers, the chant flowing from his lips.
There was the cold snap of a gun being loaded and cocked, the demon's crooked smile exposing chipped and bloodied teeth. He was chuckling, shoulders shaking with the thin, cruel laughter of a creature that had no reservations about taking a life, even an immortal one.
"A handgun?" Tatsumi asked with disgust. "You're a demon, could you find nothing less base than a handgun to use? Even the most primitive of creatures can wield something better than your average forty-five caliber pistol."
The demon growled. "Piss off, old man. This body doesn't take well to holding swords; it's better suited for a gun. But it will do its job nonetheless."
He aimed the barrel point-blank at Tatsumi, an easy kill, his callused fingers on the trigger. Without missing a beat, the demon in yakuza body whirled on his heels and fired…straight at the unsuspecting Watari, who was hurriedly finishing the last kata in the binding spell.
"WATARI!" Tatsumi screamed, sprinting across the yard. The binding spell struck the demon, ripping him from his stolen body and banishing him back to the lowest pits of Hell, just as the secretary skidded to a halt in front of the young blonde. Time slowed to a frightening pace as the shot flew. Tatsumi arched, blood spurting from his chest as he took the bullet that would have felled the scientist. His body tumbled to the ground, bouncing on the wet leaves, a thick crimson stain spreading across the clean blues and browns of his suit.
"Holy mother of the gods," Watari cursed, his stomach dropping to the soles of his shoes. He fell to his knees, hands shaking violently as he wrenched open Tatsumi's jacket, the vest and shirt. There was blood everywhere, sopping into the younger Shinigami's clothes as he knelt beside his partner. Tatsumi's breath came in rattling gasps, blood burbling in his throat, spilling over his paled lips. His bloodied hand clenched around Watari's slender wrist. The Meifu scientist found the demon's jackknife on the ground and scrabbled to pick it up.
"Forgive me," he whispered, cutting back the flesh around the wound. It was so close, too close to the man's heart. Slender fingers gently pried out the bullet, praying fervently that it hadn't struck the heart or lungs. Nothing seemed damaged, but Watari threw as much power at the wound as he could muster, using his art of giving the inanimate life to bring life back to the flesh torn by the demon's bullet. Pleading that the secretary be spared, Watari held Tatsumi together while his insides knit themselves whole again.
"I would have been fine!" he howled, holding the limp body. "I was shielded!"
The secretary smiled faintly, his teeth stained scarlet. "Shinigami's first rule: protect your partner above all." Blood burbled in his words, the soft and sibilant whispers.
He lifted his hand, tracing away the tears from Watari's cheeks with his fingertips, leaving bloody ones instead. Rose red blood on Watari's snow-white skin. His azure eyes, fogged with searing pain, slid shut.
"Tatsumi?" the blonde queried, hysteria rising in his voice. "Tatsumi, stay with me, say something to me. Tell me you're cutting my funding, tell me my last experiment was a complete waste of time and money, tell me not to touch your coffee; just say something! Tatsumi! Seiichiro, don't leave me! Seiichiro!"
++
"…I woke up here, wounds bound and free of any shed blood. I've hardly seen anything of Watari-san, although today is the first day I've been fully conscious," Tatsumi explained carefully. Hisoka nodded, a look of contemplation on his young face.
"It's obvious what's going on here. I should've thought of this sooner," he muttered.
"What's that, Kurosaki-san?"
Hisoka ran his hand through his long ash-blonde bangs. "Watari-san almost lost someone he cares for, I'd go as far as saying loves. Speaking from experience, watching the man you place above all others almost die…a relative term, mind you…is absolutely agonizing."
"You think he loves me?" Tatsumi asked quietly, his hand going to the bandages taped across his heart.
The boy shrugged. "I can't really say; what I felt, his emotions are a tangled mess. You need to talk to him, Tatsumi-san. Watari-san is confused and depressed and in pain, he needs someone to comfort him…despite his pushing everyone away. He needs…"
"He needs me to be a Tsuzuki for his Hisoka."
"I don't understand why all of you insist he's acting like me. I'm nowhere near as brooding as he is right now," the green-eyed young man huffed. Tatsumi chuckled weakly.
"Not anymore, but you certainly were when you first got here. Kurosaki-san…Hisoka…will you help me? Will you loan me your strength?"
He smirked. "To get things around here to go back to something like normal, anything."
++
Watari sighed heavily, picked up a flask, and threw it against the wall. It bounced and hit the floor, rolling harmlessly across the tiles. He picked it back up and turned to his flock. 003, his beloved owl and official lab partner, ruffled her feathers in something like a shrug, the penguin and toucan that shared the counter space mimicking the actions.
"Clever, ladies. But when I'm in a flask-throwing mood, please don't replace them with the plastic ones. I want the glass to shatter."
The bloodied scientist set the plastic flask down on the counter and crossed the room with the intention of kicking the computer in. The birds chirped querulously.
"No, it's all right, I'm fine. Ask me again and I'll send you to Saya and Yuma," he snapped. "Doesn't anyone get it? I'm fine! Nothing is wrong with me, I'm not sick, I'm not upset, I'm certainly not suffering from PMS, I'm…"
"In denial," Hisoka suggested, standing in the doorway.
"Go away, Bon. You can tell Tsuzuki I'm sorry I flipped on him, but get out of here."
He shook his head, arms crossed, a look of contempt on his young face. "I'm not leaving. You might be able to convince everyone else you're all right, but there's no lying to an empath. I want to know what's going on. Everyone is concerned for you."
"Everyone's concerned? Of what? That crazy Watari has finally snapped? My problem, Bon, is that I've finally realized my inadequacy as a Shinigami. I'm set up as a researcher, but the Gushoshin can do it ten times faster and far better. I'm the office scientist and my inventions are absolutely useless. I've failed my own partner in our last case, a partner who's not even officially mine. All I'm good at is division doctor and that entails slapping on a bandage and sending you to bed because you'll be fine in a day or two. I'm useless! I'm a joke!" he cried, whipping off his glasses and throwing them.
"Watari, please stop this. You do matter to all of us; Shokan-ka wouldn't be what it is without you. You didn't fail in Kyoto, you accomplished the mission, human lives were saved."
The blonde man's pale face grew paler. "At what cost? You don't even know what happened! I let Tatsumi get hurt! He's fighting the goddamned demon with nothing protecting him but his suit and tie and what am I doing? I'm standing there in the middle of the fucking yard chanting with fifty layers of shielding! And he took the bullet! HE ALMOST DIED, AND DON'T YOU TELL ME HE'S ALREADY DEAD!"
"But you didn't let that happen, you were right there and you kept…him…from dying."
Watari's lips curled into a snarl. "It doesn't matter! The next time I might not be able to save him, and I'll have lost the man I'm too afraid to tell I love. Yes, I love him, Bon. I've worked here twenty-six years and in every moment of every day of my afterlife I've longed to tell him but I know better. You've seen how he acts around me! He's never so formal around Tsuzuki as he is with me. He doesn't care. So I just keep barging into his office and pestering him with my useless shit, just as long as I can be near him. Pathetic, aren't I?"
Hisoka crossed the room, his expression hard and bitter. He raised a slender hand and slapped the hysterical scientist across the face. "You are going to stop this right now, Watari Yutaka! I do care, I've always cared! Why do you think that in all those years I've never locked you out? Didn't it ever occur that despite your constant interruptions I wanted you coming in? I treat you differently than Tsuzuki because I've never known what to say around you!" he shouted.
Watari clutched his reddened cheek, staring at the teenager in shock. "You're not Hisoka…oh gods…"
The young Shinigami's eyes were not the piercing emerald they should have been, instead, they were a vibrant sapphire. His hands were visibly shaking as he stood there, lips trembling as well.
"Did you really think I could get out of that bed on my own? I haven't even been conscious a full day. Fortunately Kurosaki-san came in and told me of your odd behavior and loaned me his body in order for me to see you myself. Kacho has done an excellent job teaching him the Soul Transference technique. Now you are going to stop bottling up all of this emotion. You're making yourself sick and you're making yourself crazy. Go ahead, Yutaka, talk."
"Tatsumi…"
"Yes, me. I'll give you a choice, Yutaka, and yes I'm calling you by your given name. You can talk to me here, now, and in Hisoka's body; or we can go down the hall, I let Hisoka take back possession of his body and I go back in mine." He held out his hand, offering it to the currently older man.
"I'll go with you," he said quietly, obediently following the young blonde.
++
Tsuzuki was loitering outside the break room as they walked by, Hisoka with his hand curled around Watari's bloodied wrist. The lanky brunette stopped them, wrapping an arm around his partner's shoulders.
"What's this? Did somebody actually show human emotions? Hisoka-kun! We're making real progress here!" he cheered. "Now if I can get you to go on an apple pie date with me, we'll be all set!"
The boy rolled his eyes, still Tatsumi's blue, but Tsuzuki didn't seem to notice. "Idiot."
Tsuzuki grinned rakishly. "But your idiot nonetheless."
"That's sweet of you to say," the young blonde murmured, kissing Tsuzuki lightly, "and I'll tell Hisoka that when he regains control of his body. But right now, Watari's the only idiot I want."
They'd gone about ten feet before Tsuzuki realized what happened. He blushed furiously and ran down the corridor, stopping as the two young men entered the infirmary.
"Tatsumi, you son-of-a-bitch, don't do that to me! Don't you play with my emotions in Hisoka's body! That's just low!" he shouted, frantically waving a fist. "TAT-SU-MIIII!"
++
Watari calmly shut and locked the door as Hisoka and Tatsumi broke the link between them and each returned to their proper selves. The young blonde bowed respectfully to Tatsumi, who nodded in return, acknowledged Watari and quietly left the room. The blue-eyed secretary motioned to his partner, who came and sat down at the foot of the bed.
"The Watari Yutaka I know would be seated right beside me and trying to spoon-feed me his latest attempt at a gender reversal potion."
The young man smiled sadly at him. "The Watari Yutaka you know doesn't want to play today."
"Are you going to tell me why you've suddenly gotten so depressed? I know Kyoto was difficult, and I shouldn't have been so rash in my actions…but in that one instant I forgot about my own safety because it hardly mattered. You did…you do. I'm sorry I frightened you like that, Yutaka," he apologized, reaching to touch glasses that weren't there.
"I…" he began to cry, silent tears streaming from bloodshot amber eyes, washing away the blood that Tatsumi had streaked it with three days prior. "I was scared. I was so afraid you wouldn't make it out of there. I know I did what I could for you, but there was so much blood and you wouldn't wake up and…what would I do if you were gone? I'm sorry, but I really do love you, Tatsumi."
"I know. I know you do. And I know you didn't mean half of what you said in the lab because you were acting out of your fear and concern. You are a vital asset to this division…and my life. I don't think I could continue were you not here. I might not show it, but I do love you as well, Watari Yutaka."
Watari began to sob, flinging himself across the bed and weeping into the crook of the other man's neck. His shoulders heaved as he cried, making the whole of his slender body shake. Though still weakened from recovery, his ability to heal reacting slowly due to his own exhaustion, Tatsumi embraced the younger blonde and held him close.
"It's all right, go ahead and cry," he murmured. "Don't think that you have to be happy all the time just because most of us here are wretched bastards. You're human too. You have the right to be completely miserable as well. Besides, this is the first mental breakdown you've had since you got here, I think it will be overlooked, especially considering Tsuzuki's track record."
Watari said nothing, at least, nothing coherent, his scalding tears still trickling down the older man's warm flesh.
"Aren't we a sorry pair? If it takes my getting shot and bleeding all over you for us to confess our love, I don't care to imagine what sort of catastrophe it's going to take to initiate a first kiss," Tatsumi sighed, staring up at the ceiling.
"Total Armageddon before we have sex," Watari mumbled into his skin.
"Right."
Bloodshot amber eyes flicked up at him. "Can we say there's a catastrophe going on right now?"
Tatsumi opened his mouth to question such a response when Watari leaned up and kissed him, thrusting his tongue in before the brunette had a chance to protest. Fingers splayed against the scientist's shoulder blades, he accepted defeat at the hands of his enthusiastic suitor, permitting the perpetually youthful blonde to plunder the warmth of his mouth, the metallic tang of blood still on his own tongue. They kissed with the ardent fervor that met two men who had gone without the caress of a lover for decades, desperate passion stabbing immortal souls. Tongues sparred within that moist heat, fighting for dominance and yet at the same time not really caring who claimed whom as their mouths worked against one another.
"And here I thought you died a virgin," Tatsumi gasped when they finally broke apart, lungs burning from the lack of oxygen.
Watari smiled faintly. "I did, but that doesn't mean I didn't make out with a few colleagues back in my day, O ye who got to screw around with Tsuzuki for three months."
Tatsumi kissed his forehead gently. "That's the Watari Yutaka I know."
"I'm so sorry, Tatsumi. My behavior these last few days was completely…"
"…Understandable, given the circumstances. I probably would have reacted similarly had our roles been reversed, only I might have pinned Tsuzuki to the wall with a few well-thrown shadows."
"I love you Tatsumi, you miserly son-of-a-bitch."
"And I you, you flamboyantly obnoxious scientist who is never again going to attempt to create a sex-change potion unless it's to terrorize coworkers other than myself."
Now Watari's trademark grin returned full force. "I've always wondered how Kuro-chan would react if Terazuma, his host, turned into a girl."
The thought of Terazuma Hajime's misogynistic and almost parasitic Shikigami waking up to find himself in the body of a woman elicited a slow smile from the brunette.
"Are you going to be all right now, Watari?" he asked, reverting back to the man's familiar name, a more comfortable moniker than his rarely used first name.
"I guess. I don't know…I don't know if one can recover from being so depressed. I just felt sick, sick all the way through. It was so bad that I avoided having to come in here and seeing you, if only to keep myself from vomiting. Are you sure you're not going to somehow punish me?"
Tatsumi wound a coppery curl around his finger. "As I told you several times now, it isn't something that grand. Yes, you acted irrationally and completely out of character, I can't deny that. But you haven't slept properly in at least a month; your eating habits have been, at best, more disgusting than Tsuzuki's; and you've been bottling up your emotions for twenty-six years, including your attraction to me and all of the fears of rejection that came with it. It was about time for an explosive, cathartic mental breakdown."
"Well put. You should get some rest; you're never going to get better if you don't start taking it easy yourself. Anyone else would already be back out on their beat again," Watari suggested, nudging one pale, bare shoulder. "…Seiichiro-kun."
"Call me that in public and you'll never see a single cent from me again."
The scientist laughed, draping himself across the infirmary bed. "Oh, fine. How about Seii-chan?"
"Never," he replied. "But I am glad you're back to your usual overenthusiastic self. From what Kurosaki-san has reported, you were a spectacle grander than anything we've seen."
"I don't know about a spectacle, but I've never seen Tsuzuki run so fast before."
Tatsumi kissed his forehead. "This isn't going to be an easy relationship, you know."
"I was just going to go on like nothing happened and keep badgering you about budgets and potions like always. Things aren't going to change much between us, Tatsumi. I mean, there is the possibility of my coming into the office some boring Tuesday, throwing you over the desk and having my sinful little way with you, but when all's told, you'll still be busting my ass over putting something in the coffee and I'll still be begging for a hundred thousand yen to further my research. It's not like we're part of some shoujo manga or something…unless we start seeing those floating flowers and hearts. You don't see any, do you?"
"No, we're safe. Now go on and get some rest, Watari…and in the name of the gods, shower. I can't believe you've been moping about still covered in my blood for the past three days."
"I have been?" the boyish scientist patted himself down, taking up a handful of curls and scrutinizing the rust-colored bits of blood dried into them. "Well, look at that. So I have been."
"Watari…you're ridiculous."
++
The door to the infirmary opened some time later. Terazuma, in an impressive display of former detective-ness, had picked the lock with a paperclip and the entire office piled into the small hospital ward. Hisoka had carefully explained to Tsuzuki everything that Tatsumi had spoken to him about, trying not to make the issue too grandiose. But Tsuzuki, being overzealous about nearly everything, blew the situation far out of proportion and ran around the office recanting a wild tale to his coworkers, churning up the frenzy of rumor.
The whole of Shokan-ka stared at the one occupied bed with openmouthed shock, struck dumb by the vision that befell them. Tatsumi was laid out in the bed, bare to the chest save for the stretch of white bandages wrapped about his ribcage. His eyes fluttered open and shut in a struggle to stay awake, completely unaware of the company that had barged their way in. Watari was curled up beside him, sound asleep, his head resting on the secretary's shoulder. The tracks of dry tears and faint lines of blood were visible on his pale cheeks.
"You're all seeing what I'm seeing, right?" Tsuzuki asked, rubbing his eyes.
"If you're seeing Tatsumi-san and Watari-san snuggled up together, then yeah, we are," Gushoshin Otouto replied, hovering mid-air beside his twin.
Tatsumi's eyes opened slowly, focused on the blurred group beside him. His arm pinned down by Watari's warm weight; he was unable to reach for his glasses.
"Do you mind telling me what you all are gawking at and why you are not working? I don't pay you to stand around and stare at me, you know," he said pointedly.
Tsuzuki ran his hand through his hair. "Just making sure you're both okay."
"Hisoka-chan told us you'd been hurt and we hadn't seen Yutaka-kun since this morning, so we all grew concerned and wanted to check on you," Wakaba explained.
Saya and Yuma nodded simultaneously in confirmation. "Right."
"Your concern is appreciated, but we're both fine. Watari-san just had a nervous breakdown, he's going to take some time off for recovery but it isn't anything you should be concerned with. Now get back to work. I might be injured, but I can still deduct from your paychecks."
The group scattered, either from fear of losing anything from the meager sums they were paid or from the shadows writhing on the walls around them. Tsuzuki and Hisoka remained, though, each leaning on the opposite doorframe, arms folded across their chests.
"Watari-san said nothing about taking time off, did he?" Hisoka asked wryly.
Tatsumi smiled slowly. "Of course not. I'm enforcing it. He's either going to take a week off or I'm cutting off his lab funding."
Tsuzuki shook his head, chuckling. "He's going to be pissed, you know he hates it when you give him ultimatums like that."
"He's going to have to deal with it. I have a few things I can hold over his head as well. Watari-san will be doing as I request whether he wants to or not. For his own good."
Hisoka sighed. "I'm getting back to work. Let's go, idiot."
Tsuzuki lingered in the doorway a little longer. Tatsumi's azure gaze locked with his, neither man's expression readable. Tsuzuki's eyes grew a little hard.
"You're a good friend, Tatsumi, so I can tell you this with all honesty…and I don't care if you cut my pay for saying so. Watari is my very best friend. If you hurt him in any way, I will be the one to personally kick your ass."
Tatsumi tightened the one-handed grip he had on the sleeping scientist. "No offense to you, but I'd sooner whore myself to Muraki than let anything happen to him."
"Good, since we're agreed on that, have a good night," he said with a wave, turning to go. "And go easy, too. Speaking from personal experience, having sex after a giant hole's been blasted in you is no picnic."
"That was far more information than I needed to know, Tsuzuki."
The younger brunette laughed, scampering off to fulfill whatever self-imposed mission he was currently on, most likely raiding the break room and divesting it of any and all food items. Tatsumi settled back, relishing in the silence of the ward, punctuated only by the soft sound of Watari's breathing. He could feel his flesh dully prickling as it slowly wove itself back together, the foul, tinny taste of blood finally leaving his mouth, replaced by something both bitter and honey-sweet. The immortal secretary contemplated this for a moment, and upon reaching an impasse in his ponderings, leaned over and tenderly kissed his sleeping lover. That was it; it was the taste of Watari's tears in his mouth.
"I suppose that wish of yours came true after all, Yutaka," he sighed, trying to shift the weight of the younger man off of his arm, the limb beginning to tingle with numbness. "What irony."
He smiled, making a mental note to have someone check in on Watari's birds at some point, as well as retrieve the glasses the blonde had thrown across the room. It was ironic indeed, the stoic secretary in love with the bubbly, occasionally mad scientist. The fact that red-and-white ropes fastened the temple bells when Watari's snow-white skin would become spattered with Tatsumi's rose-red blood. Somebody in the upper echelons was probably having a field day, maneuvering them like chess pieces. Tatsumi absently thought of Hakushaku-sama, that damned invisible fiend. Chances were very good that it was him mucking with everyone's fates.
"Enough contemplation, Seiichiro. Stop thinking so much and go to sleep," he muttered to himself, closing his eyes. Watari heaved a quiet sigh, and the afterlife continued on without any ceremony. Such as it was, and such it would be, for a group of immortals who neither walked in darkness nor in light.
++
[fin]
Notes:
Yeah, Watari was kind of a bitch, but sometimes we all get a little sick of the stereotypical uber-happy mostly cracked mad scientist forever hunting for that elusive sex-change potion. Just because he doesn't have a tragic past full of rape, murder and/or suicide doesn't mean he can't pull a Hisoka every now and then.
I feel like I need to comment on something else, but nothing's leaping off of the page at the moment. I tried to tone Tsuzuki down as well, and at the same time give the ultra-serious Hisoka and Tatsumi more emotion. Authors tend to make them as equally flat as poor little Watari. Ah well, that's my little slice of life.