AUTHOR: Macx and Lara Bee
DISCLAIMER: not ours. Definitely not! We just play with them and hope we tread on no one's toes.
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):
English is not my our language; it's German. This is the best we can
do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize
g> The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how
trustworthy those thingies are.....
ARCHIVE: yes
WARNINGS: violence
Additional warning: due to recent comments concerning our other stories we expressively want to point out that this is an AU, which means: we play with the characters of the canon manga and give them a little of our flavor. All background for Watari is made up; we repeat: it's made up! The mangaka gave no hint as to what his past was like, so we did it for her. This is our take. This is NOT canon.
TYPE: yaoi
RATING: R, for FFNet specifically. The full version will be up on my site the moment all parts have been posted here.
PAIRING: Tatsumi/Watari, OMC/Watari (Flashbacks)
FEEDBACK: empty inbox seeks emails g>
The weekend had come and gone. Two days, and Friday evening for that matter, had been spent in the company of the man he loved. Watari Yutaka entered the Judicial Building of Meifu with a bright smile on his face, a bounce in his step, and the knowledge that his lover was feeling just as good as he was.
Tatsumi had gone in early, as usual, and Watari had woken to the smell of coffee, warm food in the oven and a note that they would see each other later.
He wasn't fazed by the early hours; he had known Tatsumi for all his undead existence and becoming partners had meant getting to know him on a different level, already accepting what he knew about the man. Tatsumi was a work-a-holic, though not to the brink of complete exhaustion. He took his job seriously and he had a responsibility that warranted the overtime.
Watari lived with it, and he lived well with it.
Remembering the weekend he had to say they both lived well with it.
It had been almost a year now since they had finally gotten together as more than colleagues, and it had been a year that had shown Watari a lot about the man who was both his boss and a friend. It had given him an insight into Tatsumi Seiichiro few people probably got. He suspected Tsuzuki knew more about the older shinigami than he let on, but that was only a wild guess. There was a depth to the Shadow Master that many thought unreachable, that they would never be allowed to look so deep, but Watari had. He had looked, he had seen, and he had understood. Like all shinigami serving Enma-Daiou, Tatsumi was a wounded soul that had been given a chance as an angel of death. Like Watari and Tsuzuki and Terazuma, and everyone else, his past was far from happy.
Happy people didn't become shinigami. Happy people went on, their souls didn't cling to life. Watari had his own painful past to deal with and he had yet to let Tatsumi know more about him than the secretary probably knew from the files. Sometimes he wondered if Tatsumi would ask, if he would want to know; sometimes he dreaded it.
But the past year had been good. It chased away his dark thoughts from time to time, had helped him recover from the demon attack on his mind, and it had given him a security like nothing else ever had. Tatsumi was safety, was warmth and empathy, and he was stability. Tatsumi meant the world to him and he would never willingly give him up.
Whistling softly Watari entered the lab, looking around his home away from home, and clapped his hands together.
"Okay, let's get going!"
003 fluttered from her perch on his shoulder to a new outlook, the computer screen, and hooted in agreement. He chuckled as large, yellow eyes watched him expectantly.
"You think emails first, hm?"
She hooted again, nodding her tiny head.
"Well, let's see what has collected in the inbox over the weekend."
And he set to work.
###
It was just after his first coffee break that Watari got a call from Konoe and the information that there was a case for him. Surprised by the fact that his usually so quiet and uneventful sector had apparently spawned a case worthy of a shinigami's attention, Watari walked into the office. Tatsumi was already there, as not otherwise expected, and he flashed his blue-eyed lover a small smile. Nothing tell-tale, nothing private, just a warm smile that Watari would bestow on a colleague as a greeting. He got the same in return.
"We have a new case," Tatsumi announced, opening the manila folder lying on the desk. "And it looks like a big one. The soul in question appeared in the books this morning and apparently it's a bit more complicated than just someone who's not letting go."
Watari frowned, listening up. "Why? What's wrong?"
"The man's name is Fujikama Yukihito. He's the head of a large business company and was abroad for the last twenty years. He hasn't been to Japan for all that time, spending his life traveling the globe. He came back this morning and we got notified of something quite outstanding: he's dead."
Watari had frozen at the name, his mind flashing through memories of a similar name, of a man he knew, of places they had been together, of... his past. But the man he knew had died with him over thirty years ago; he was dead.
Like this man should be.
A mere coincidence?
Fate, he mused dimly.
"His soul is still in the world of the living," Tatsumi went on, "but according to the books we checked he isn't alive and hasn't been for quite a while; decades actually. Because he was abroad we never got a notification of this irregularity, and the foreign offices missed him again and again."
"The foreign offices?" Watari blurted, surprised.
That was new. Of course, they worked in cooperation and conjunction with every single department of the underworld, be it Europe, Africa, the Americas or anywhere else. Usually there was little contact. They all had their own problems and border incidents were rare; rare to non-existent.
Tatsumi nodded, looking grave. "He set off alarm bells all over the world. He never stayed long enough for any guardian, whatever the department, to get a hold of him. Now that he's back in his home land, he's our responsibility, and since he's landed in Osaka and is staying there, it's your sector, Watari."
Watari nodded, more and more intrigued, his mind already starting to work on several hypothesis and possibilities. It sounded like the man in question knew that his soul was being chased by guardians and was evading them, but how should he? He was dead but unaware of it... but... if his soul was supposed to be dead, why was his body still working? A dead soul usually destroyed the body within a year of its death, making it unusable. The soul would then free itself and roam around, possess others, cling to life like a leech...
Something was not right.
Blue eyes met golden ones and Tatsumi smiled grimly. "You're noticing the discrepancies already?"
Watari nodded. "If he's been traveling the world for decades... he can't be dead."
"According to the books he is," Konoe finally entered the conversation. "Investigate the case, Watari, and bring him to Meifu. But be careful."
The blond nodded. Of course he would be. Maybe there was more involved that the fervent wish to stay alive; maybe it was something demonic, too.
"Tatsumi will be coming with you since you have no regular partner."
As if that would be a problem, Watari mused, happy to work with the Shadow Master again.
Tatsumi handed him the file. "Read it. We'll be off to Osaka in an hour. I've gotten us hotel rooms for the time being."
He nodded and flicked through the files, then froze as he looked at the picture of the dead man.
Fujikama Yukihito...
No... impossible!
Watari felt his mind whirl. No, no, no! He was dead!
I saw you die! part of him screamed. You died with me!
Another part was simply numb.
"Watari?"
The voice came like from far away. He looked up, into the blue eyes that meant so much to him and that were nothing like the dark brown ones he remembered from another life.
"Watari, you all right?" Tatsumi asked.
"Uh, yes. I... I'll see you in an hour."
And with that he was out of the office, almost running down the
corridor, clutching the file.