This chapter is all about dream sequences and mindscapes and cool stuff like that. I think I sort of got the idea from one of Kouri's awesome fics…whichever one was the really confusing one with all the dreams…only mine's not quite as involved (or half as cool). See you at the end.
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Watari was dreaming, and the worst part was that he knew he was dreaming. He'd left his body in a metal chair in the infirmary, his arms folded over the guardrail of the bed Tatsumi was in, his head on his arms. And it wasn't even that he was having a horrible nightmare, visions of his lover never waking up or waking up too scarred to function. He was home, lying in bed in a tank top and a pair of boxer shorts, reading. It all seemed so familiar and mundane.
The door swung open and Tatsumi came in, loosening the tie to his bathrobe, glasses already in hand. He generally sat up and watched the evening news before going to bed. Watari hated the news, thinking the newscasters were obnoxious. He got up and crossed the room, throwing his arms around Tatsumi's neck and sobbing.
"Hey, Watari? What is it?"
"You're not real! This is all a dream and when I wake up you'll be lying cold in a hospital bed and I don't know how to reach you! I'm so scared…"
He smiled, embracing his lover. "It's going to be all right. Don't cry, please Watari, it'll be all right, I promise."
"You're just saying that because I want you to say that," he replied sulkily.
"I'm saying that because it's true. And, to correct you, I am real."
Watari shook his head. "You're just a figment of my subconscious."
"Damned stubborn scientist," Tatsumi retorted. "I gave you my heart, you idiot, Muraki couldn't taint that because it wasn't there. You've got it. I'm the part of me that goes along with it."
"But what about the rest of you? I can't cling to a memory the rest of my existence, because if you go, I don't think I can follow. They'll need me here, and I don't want to make Tsuzuki cry any more than he has to."
"I'll come back, I swear. You're the best thing to happen to me in about a hundred years; I'm not going to give that up now. Watari…come on, smile for me? I know you're scared, but we'll make it through this. I love you."
Watari started to cry again, his shoulders shaking. "I know…"
"At least look at me."
He looked up and saw those calm azure eyes smiling back at him and it really only made him hurt more. With a hiccupping sob he reached up and brushed his lips against his lover's. Tatsumi returned the gesture, tightening his grip on Watari's waist.
"I'll always love you, Watari."
"Don't leave me, Tatsumi, please don't. I don't know what to do, I need help, I…"
A single tear dropped from his twilight eyes. "Time you woke up, Watari…"
"No! Tatsumi, don't!"
He woke to Tsuzuki shaking him, holding out a plate of some noodly dish the Hokkaido girls had made. Watari gave him a look of suffering that said everything he needed to say.
"Oh Watari," Tsuzuki sighed, putting the plate elsewhere so he could hold his friend. "We'll get him back. Heaven help us, we'll get him back."
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It was dark wherever Tatsumi was. Comfortably warm, but dark. He could just faintly see what was in front of him, and that was a vast expanse of nothingness, littered with broken glass and barbed wire. And blood. There was a lot of blood. He was lying on the ground with his head in someone's lap, that person stroking his hair gently.
"I want to go home," he mumbled, his tongue feeling thick and foreign. "I don't know where home is…"
A pair of amber eyes looked down at him. "You've got to find it, Tatsumi. We're counting on you to get better."
"You know me?"
"Mm. I'm something of a psycho-physiological manifestation of my heart, which I gave to you. I can't be taken away from you, Tatsumi, don't be afraid."
"How did you…?"
The smiling man with the pretty amber eyes just kept smiling. "Scientific guess."
"Maybe I shouldn't go back there…there was a lot of pain. Memories…I killed my mother. I killed her; I killed my grandfather…people died because of me. And there was a man, I think I killed him too…he had purple eyes. I'm a terrible person, I don't think I should go back."
"You have to. We need you, Tatsumi…I need you."
He sat up, looking down at his hands. They kept phasing between those of a twenty-nine-year-old and those of a nineteen-year-old, both spattered with blood. "I don't think I can."
"There was a lot of pain," the amber-eyed man said, flicking his long tail of sunny gold hair, made duller by the darkness. "But there were some happy memories mixed in. You have friends; you have a lover who is falling apart without you. Tatsumi, you've got to go home."
"Why am I even listening to you? You're not real."
He shook his head. "I'm very real. And I love you, Tatsumi. With all that I am."
"The feeling of being loved…" he murmured. "You're Watari…your name is Yutaka Watari…my…my lover."
The space around Watari grew brighter, a patch of sunlight in all of the darkness. He smiled, standing up and putting his hands on his hips.
"Very good. And your name?"
He frowned. "My name…you've been calling me Tatsumi…Tatsumi…Seiichiro Tatsumi. That's me. Seiichiro Tatsumi."
The space around him grew bright as well, as if clouds were parting to reveal bright bands of sunlight. Watari was still smiling.
"Aha. That's what you've got to do, Tatsumi. You have to master your shadows to get out. You can do that, you know. Master shadows. You're a Kagetsukai."
"That's rather important-sounding."
"It is. You're the only person currently existing who can do it, command shadows like weapons. It's kind of beautiful until it slices somebody's head off. You've got to go, Tatsumi. Go on out there into that vast space that's your mind and send all those shadows back into the nice little corner you hid them in before all of this mess. I know you can do it."
He took two steps forward, but stopped and turned back to stare at the blonde man still standing in his sunny patch, an unforeseen breeze flicking at his hair and the hem of the labcoat he was wearing.
"You're a scientist…" The light brightened. "A pretty bad one, too. I think I yell at you a lot about some of the things you do. But I guess if we're lovers, I don't mind as much as I pretend to."
The light around Watari was almost blinding. "You'll pull through just fine."
"Watari!" he called, nineteen-year-old face contorting into something of a smile. "Is there a real you waiting on the outside for me? A real Watari?"
He was grinning now, his amber eyes vivid as he pressed his fingertips to his lips and blew the young man a kiss.
"You bet there is."
"Can you tell him? Can you go and tell him, the real Watari…tell him I love him. Please."
His Watari nodded. "I will. Good luck, Tatsumi."
Tatsumi wrapped his patch of sunlight around him and set off into the empty span of mind, ready to try and come back into the light and the life that he'd fallen out of. And in spite of the great feat in front of him, he smiled, knowing that there was somebody waiting for him on the other side.
"I'm coming home, Watari. Hold tight."
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Notes: This whole thing about the dream-Tatsumi and dream-Watari probably threw a lot of people, so I'm going to try and explain it as best as I can.
Dream-Tatsumi: Well, since Watari and Tatsumi were already a couple before the fic started, they'd pledged each other their hearts and/or souls. As immortal creatures who are, essentially, just a soul with a human body they use to blend in among mortals with, giving part of their souls away is kind of a literal thing. Watari has a small piece of Tatsumi in him, and vice-versa, so the Tatsumi in his mind is really part of the real man. It's kind of on a similar principle to The Neverending Story.
Dream-Watari: The Watari of Tatsumi's mind is similar to the Tatsumi of Watari's mind, with one fairly significant difference. When Tatsumi's mind shut down due to Muraki's torture and his own self-doubts (remember that part?) he kept one scrap of memory, the feeling of Watari's love. So the bit of Watari's soul that Tatsumi possesses has that fragment to hold it together.
Still confused? Don't worry, I confused myself. Just read the next chapter, I don't think it's quite so heavy.