Title: Little Conversations

Author: Hawk Clowd

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing and I want nothing. I think these boys would cost me too much money in condoms and lubricant, quite frankly, if they didn't run me dry from with the beer and cigarette runs.

Blood Type: NyQuil

Warnings: sleep-deprived insanity.

Part: Three

Author's Notes: Thank goodness my Spring Break starts today. Maybe I'll finally be able to get some sleep. That would be nice. In other news, I got my ear pierced (again) last Sunday and it's finally stopped hurting. Yay to that!

"I don't know why you're making me do this," Tatsuha grumbled into his cell phone. He used his free hand to straighten some of the knick-knacks and figurines sitting on a shelf in Mika's old room, then wiped traces of dust off on his pants. "I mean, who honestly gives a damn about a stupid button?"

"I do," Eiri snapped. "I may need it."

"For what? It isn't as though you know how to sew a button onto... well, anything."

"I can have someone else sew it on for me," Eiri said in an injured tone of voice. Tatsuha was almost certain it was an act and a very bad one at that.

"Like who?" Tatsuha asked, frowning at the phone. "Shuichi?"

"Hell no. I don't trust him to make cereal by himself, much less handle a needle."

Tatsuha rolled his eyes. Eiri had called his cell about an hour ago and, somewhere along the line of conversation, convinced the younger brother to go on a quest in search of a missing button. Since Eiri hadn't been to Kyoto in... well, forever, Tatsuha hadn't a clue as to why Eiri was so sure the button was somewhere in the house, but Tatsuha had started looking already, so there didn't seem to be much point in stopping now.

"Have you found it yet?" Eiri asked.

"No," Tatsuha answered. "And why would it be in Mika's room, anyway?"

Tatsuha could practically see Eiri's look of disdain over the phone. "Because it's part of the house, dumbass."

Of course. "Whatever."

"Have you found it yet?"

"No," Tatsuha snapped. "Stop asking me that."

There was a long pause before Eiri spoke again. "How about now?"

"Shut up, Aniki!" Tatsuha hissed. He tip-toed out of Mika's old bedroom and back into the hallway. He was careful not to make a noise as he passed his father's room. "I'll tell you when I find it."

"Mmhm." Eiri yawned and Tatsuha frowned.

"Aniki, why don't you go to sleep, huh? It's three in the morning." Tatsuha also had to go to some cheap-ass funeral the next morning, too, and if he didn't get a good night's sleep, he'd end up falling asleep while chanting. Then his father would throw a fit.

Eiri grunted and ignored off his brother's question. "Have you found it yet?"

God, was idiocy some sort of freak disease going around Tokyo? Tatsuha made a face at the phone. "No," he snapped. "I told you, I'll tell you when I find it." He started toward his bedroom door. This was stupid. He quit.

Eiri answered with an incoherent mutter.

"Anyway," Tatsuha went on, "I've already looked through the entire house, except for Dad's room, and I can't find your stupid button. Just go out and buy a new one."

"But I need the button now," Eiri complained. Tatsuha found himself wondering how his brother, normally so stoic and ass-holicy, could be so... so petulant sometimes, and then praised himself for having used one of his third-grade vocabulary words in real life.

"Why do you need it?"

Eiri paused. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No."

The elder brother sniffed indignately. "It's lonely there all by itself! It's terrified that a rat will pick it up and eat it while it's seperated from its shirt family. Really, Tatsuha, you should be more sensitive to the plight of a button..."

Tatsuha ripped the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Realizing that he couldn't stare at his brother through a phone line, he put the phone back to his ear.

"Er, Aniki...?"

"Hm?"

"When was the last time you actually slept?"

Given the long pause (about three minutes, by Tatsuha's watch), it seemed that Eiri actually had to think about that before he answered, and that was not a good sign.

When Eiri did answer, he still sounded uncertain. "About... a week?"

Tatsuha's hand, which had just moved to open the bedroom door, froze in mid-air. "A week?" he exclaimed. Then he shot a guilty look down the hallway, to where his father was hopefully still sleeping. He quickly quieted his voice. "You honestly haven't slept for a week?"

"I've been busy," Eiri said by way of defense.

"Busy my ass."

Eiri murmured something, but Tatsuha didn't hear it.

"Sleeping is supposed to be a nightly thing," he pointed out. "Put Shuichi on the phone."

"He's sleeping."

"And you should be, too!" Tatsuha hissed. "Put him on the phone."

Eiri grumbled, but did as he was told. After a few minutes of whining on Shuichi's part and gruff explanations on Eiri's part, Shuichi took the phone.

"'ello?" he asked sleepily. "Tatsuha?"

"Knock that asshat on the head with a two-by-four," Tatsuha ordered, creeping into his bedroom, "and put him the fuck to bed."

Shuichi paused. "Mmkay," he said, yawning. "You want to talk to Yuki again?"

"No," Tatsuha said, rubbing his forehead irritably. "Just make sure he gets some goddamn sleep." That said, Tatsuha hung up the phone and went back to bed, not bothering to wait for a reply. Before finally drifting off, he found himself hoping that the idiot disease wasn't so contagious that he could contract it over the phone.