You'd think my muses would give me a break, but no, they just keep right on plugging... and I've gone and finished the first chapter of the Tatsumi/Watari fic!!! I present to you Something like Chemistry. Cute, funny, and a balm on my soul after Shooting Stars.
Title: Something Like Chemistry
Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Rating: PG-13 overall
Genre: Romance/humor
Characters/Pairings: Watari/Tatsumi with a side of Tsuzuki/Hisoka
Wordcount: 4,253
Description: Something is rotten in the state of Meifu. Tatsumi is confused, Watari is amused, and 003 is jealous.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei. For the plot, such as it is, and some of Tatsumi’s best lines, I must thank Hota, who had a huge part in making it happen.
Chapter One: A Deviation from Pattern
Watari had won the bet.
It was an obscene amount of money, all told-the stakes had been rising astronomically for over a year and most of them had been feeding a weighty percentage of their monthly salaries to the cause. Watari, personally, had been placing his bets almost automatically whenever one of the GuShoShin appeared to collect (they could be trusted with bookkeeping in the event when Tatsumi wasn’t in the know-and he wasn’t, of course), never really expecting to see any of the money again.
Then Wakaba, sweet soul that she was, had walked in on Bon kissing Tsuzuki behind the flimsy shield of the water cooler in the break room and instead of keeping it to herself as a more crafty person would have done (to disclose upon a day of her own choosing), had run immediately to the lab to pay her part to Watari and inform him the great stalemate of the Shokan division had been broken while hugging him and jumping up and down.
So Watari had won the bet and had the profound pleasure of collecting his winnings. Yuma and Saya paid easily enough-they seemed every bit as moonstruck as Wakaba and in no mood to put up a fight. The chief grumbled but paid, there was an envelope from Hakushaku when Watari poked his head into the lab at midday, as well as one all the way from Okinawa, and when he stopped by the library, the GuShoShin delivered not only their part but the part of the staff in Supply, the cleaning lady, and at least five more from various others who Watari had not even been aware were involved. Terazuma growled that he had never wanted any part of this to begin with and tried to cheat him until Wakaba kicked him under the table with a stern “Don’t you dare, Hajime-chan.”
When he had received his money from the last of them, he swept through the bullpen with a flourish, ignoring the glare a very flushed Bon was sending his way (he knew, of course, but wouldn’t dare say anything aloud). Tsuzuki didn’t seem to care, though he also had to know the secret was out, as it were. He only grinned and waved at Watari, for which the scientist decided to buy him cake with a portion of his winnings. It was only just, after all.
But when he got back to his lab and actually sat down to open the envelopes and count the money, he had to blink and do it again, and then a third time just to make sure. 003 was fluttering around his head, clearly bored and annoyed that her human was wasting so much time on scraps of paper. When he finally ascertained that the sum was indeed correct, Watari looked up at her with wide eyes. “We’re filthy rich, 003.” She hooted in response. “Of course I know what to do with it,” he replied, turning back to his money and starting to gather it into piles. The piles kept falling apart because he was making them too tall. “There’s about a hundred things for the lab I haven’t been able to wring out of the department the good old-fashioned way,” he continued. She hooted disdainfully. “No, I am not planning on blowing them up as soon as I get them,” he snapped at her. “Honestly, 003, you’d think I blew it up on purpose!” Hoot, hoot, hoot. “That was only once, and anyway, that was the penguin’s fault, if you recall…”
He looked around the disastrously messy lab, realizing it was actually quite quiet. More than a few of his birds were sleeping on various perches he had pushed against the walls. One of the highest perches was being occupied by his toaster-that was mildly worrying and probably needed to be looked into as soon as possible. “Where did the penguin go?” he asked, deciding the toaster could wait and returning to his money, settling for stuffing it into his lab coat pockets and his pants pockets and just about any other pockets he could find while 003 launched into a hooting tirade.
“Oh for the love of… 003, you’ve made your feelings on his subject perfectly clear!” he finally interrupted. “That doesn’t mean we can let him wander around. You’re the one saying he’s an idiot, and I fully agree with you. Just think what…” he listened for a moment, then shook his head. “That’s cruel, 003,” he chastised. “Why would I give him to Yuma and Saya to play dress-up with? Besides, all the clothes they keep around are mostly Bon’s size. They wouldn’t fit him.”
Just then, as if sensing the conversation was about him, the large penguin stuck his head out from behind a towering pile of papers. “Oh, good, you’re here,” Watari said, then promptly forgot all about him. 003 looked like she wanted to go over there and turn her tirade into a confrontation, but he snagged her out of the air. “Come on, we’re going. Unless you want to stay and baby-sit?” That was enough to quiet her.
He headed out of the lab, tugging his overcoat over his lab coat, realizing he couldn’t button it because his pockets were stuffed too full. “Would have been too easy to pay in large bills instead of small change,” he muttered. The thought that Tatsumi would have, simply because it was the more efficient thing to do, came unbidden when he nearly ran into the secretary just outside of his office. Which was silly, because Tatsumi didn’t know about the bet, or he would have killed them all.
“Watari-san,” Tatsumi said.
“Hiya, Tatsumi!” In vain, he tried to close the buttons of his coat again.
Tatsumi did that thing he did with one raised eyebrow and a glance over the rim of his glasses that was half curiosity and half disdain. “I realize it’s cool out, but I didn’t know you needed that many layers. Were you planning a trip to the Arctic?”
“I’m always cold,” Watari said, wondering just how overdressed he looked. He patted his pockets nonchalantly. “Better safe than frozen. Did you need something?” On the usual run-of-the-mill day, he would have been more than happy to waste time bantering with Tatsumi in the hallway-that was sadly rare as it was. But he realized, too, that he couldn’t afford questions about the contents of his pockets, in the most direct sense of the verb. He wasn’t about to give up his winnings and disclose the office secret.
Tatsumi continued watching him for a moment, almost as if he was aware of just how much Watari wanted to escape him, then finally asked, “Are you neglecting to tell me something?”
“Wherever did you get such an idea?” This was definitely, definitely not good. He wondered if he could get 003 to bite the other man-as a manner of distraction, of course.
“You’re the only one who hasn’t been by my office today to request funding.” The rest of the sentence, unspoken, was obvious: And usually you’re the only one crazy or brave enough to hang around my office every day and beg for money.
Watari couldn’t help grinning when he realized that was all it was. Bon’s the one who reads minds, not Tatsumi. Fortunately for me. He supposed the rest of the staff would be feeling the press on their expense accounts for a while. He must have really cleaned them out thoroughly if they had gone to Tatsumi for help-only Watari and Tsuzuki were ever really comfortable in his office, and Watari had a notion he was the only one not afraid of the strict secretary, and that included Tsuzuki. “Oh, that. I don’t need funding today.”
He tried to slip past Tatsumi and out the door, but was stopped by the other man’s hand on his shoulder, even if it was quickly withdrawn when 003 finally roused herself enough to try biting him. We need to work on that timing. “Watari-san, you always need funding.”
“Would you have found me any, if I’d asked after all the others?” Watari queried with amusement in his voice, turning to face Tatsumi once again and giving 003 a look that promised chastisement later. The question seemed to take Tatsumi aback, enough that Watari could cheerfully bulldoze over any answer he could have given. “Of course not, meaning it was rather efficient of me not to ask. Since you’re all about efficiency, that should please you. Besides, I don’t need funding today. See you!” With that, he brushed past the secretary and escaped from the building before Tatsumi could ask any more questions. Only once outside did he permit himself to laugh.
***
11:08 am. Exactly eight minutes later than Watari ever was for their morning battle of wills. For someone who appeared so scatterbrained, the Shokan division’s arguably mad scientist was actually almost fastidiously punctual. Kurosaki might wander in ten or fifteen minutes early to stare blankly out of the window until the beginning of shift, and the days Tsuzuki was actually on time were as rare as rain in Meifu, but one could set one’s watch by Watari. Tatsumi appreciated that about him; however chaotic and incomprehensible the blond was, at least his timing had a pattern.
This morning, however, Tsuzuki had come in early, grinning from ear to ear, followed by Kurosaki, who for once wasn’t glaring at anyone at all. The boy had gone to the coffee machine and Tsuzuki had meekly sat at his desk and pulled out a file and a pen, going immediately to work. Ten minutes before the beginning of shift. Without whining about it. And was still mostly on task two hours and twenty minutes later. And to add insult to injury, Watari was now nine minutes late for their scheduled bargaining session.
Something was grievously wrong in Meifu.
Unable to stand it anymore, Tatsumi stood with a jerk from behind his desk, pushed his glasses habitually up on his nose, and headed to the lab to ascertain that Watari was still breathing and functional, as well as to hopefully find some scrap of normalcy in this decidedly abnormal day. As Tatsumi passed through the bullpen, Kurosaki looked up at him absently with something vaguely reminiscent of a smile before going back to his work.
Bizarre. Everything was just bizarre.
He found Watari in the lab, humming tunelessly under his breath and examining something through the lens of a top-notch electron microscope which Tatsumi knew had not been budgeted. An animated stick figure was diligently stirring a beaker of something violently green that was boiling on the Bunsen burner with a pencil, and a small hawk was ripping into one of the two sealed boxes stacked precariously on the counter with abandon. It had already torn off the label, which hung limply from the corner of the box-it seemed to be a detailed list of chemicals included within. A large penguin was trying to do the same with what looked like a cake box, with considerably less success. New supplies hadn’t been budgeted this month, either.
Tatsumi tended to stay out of the laboratory for the simple reason that here, insanity and chaos reigned. He had never understood what possessed Watari to set up a veritable aviary in his space, though thankfully he managed to keep the birds confined to the lab, his small owl excluded. The birds weren’t the only living things here, either: the moving stick figure was actually a fairly common sight, and on occasion Watari would manage to animate something a little more solid. The results of that were invariably disastrous. Most recently, Tatsumi had received a complaint from Torii about a clawed toaster that seemed to double as a paper shredder, though that may have just been a new way to get an extension on paperwork. In any case, there didn’t seem to be a toaster anywhere in the room when Tatsumi looked. He tried to remember if the lab had had a toaster.
That wasn’t as easy as it should have been, since the lab was always a royal mess, with stacks of papers that were usually too tall and ended up tilting drunkenly and eventually sliding onto the floor with no hopes of ever getting them back in order. There were sticky notes in neon colors scattered all over the place. Tatsumi had tried to make sense of them once, but even though he hadn’t considered himself to be entirely helpless in science, the one he had once found stuck to the bottom of his shoe had given him a headache deciphering it and ended up looking more like a cookie recipe with explosives replacing flour-which was probably why the lab had blown to high heaven the very next day. That was the largest part of the reason to stay away from here, of course: the birds and the mess and the animate objects that should have been inanimate aside, the place was the more combustible than the rest of Meifu put together. At least, Watari blew it to pieces with an alarming regularity. Anyone who willingly ventured within was putting his or her immortal afterlife in grave peril.
Surrounded by all this chaos, the blond scientist was in his element. He wouldn’t even have noticed Tatsumi’s entrance if the small owl perched on his head hadn’t tugged sharply on a lock of golden hair that had escaped its ribbon, causing Watari to curse and jerk his head upwards. “003, I’ve told you and told you not to pull! Would you like me to start yanking out your tail feathers?” Then he looked at his watch, muttered, “Eleven-fifteen,” under his breath, and looked up at Tatsumi, who was standing in the doorway, with a cheerful smile. “Five minutes later than I thought,” he said, tucking the errant lock of hair behind his ear and walking over to the Bunsen burner to check on the stick figure’s progress. The pencil it was using as a stirring stick seemed to be melting, but that didn’t appear to bother Watari. “What can I do for you, Tatsumi-san?”
You can start by telling me why everyone’s gone mad around here. First everyone but Watari-the chief, even!-in his office the day before demanding additions to their expense accounts or an advance on their salaries-even Kannuki, who was so tidy with her accounts and never asked for anything!-and now fifteen minutes past Watari’s morning begging session and the second day that the scientist hadn’t demanded anything at all, and he had the gall to act like nothing was amiss?
Despite all of these thoughts, the only thing Tatsumi voiced was, “You didn’t come by my office this morning. I was just ascertaining that you were alive and well.”
“I’m dead,” Watari reminded him cheerfully, folding himself into a chair beside the computer terminal. It was an old joke and painfully easy, but the younger man never seemed to tire of it. “I’m quite well, however, thank you for asking. Did you want some tea? Pull up a chair.” He jumped up because not being in motion went against his nature, and used a towel with singed edges to pull a second beaker off of its burner. This one was full of a dark amber liquid; when the smell hit his nose, Tatsumi realized it was Earl Grey. From somewhere in the chaos of his cabinets, Watari produced two mismatched mugs. The owl, looking miffed, fluttered to one of the perches near the window, fluffed her feathers, and turned her back.
Tatsumi never took tea breaks in the middle of the morning just because, but the desire to find out what was going on was strong enough to have him silently moving a box off of the second chair. It was heavy, and a glance at the label revealed that it contained a neutron scale, as yet unassembled. His eyebrows rising, Tatsumi set it on the floor and sat down, accepting the mug of tea the scientist pushed set at his elbow. “What is all this?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, bits and pieces,” Watari said, waving his hand dismissively and taking a sip of his tea. “A few renovations for the lab; I haven’t had a new microscope in ten years, you know, and the old one was so obsolete it was painful. A restock of chemicals, a set of test tubes since I keep breaking them, and so on. Well, the cake isn’t for the lab, it’s for Tsuzuki. I’ll give it to him at lunch.”
“But where did it come from?” Tatsumi said, striving for patience.
“From a bakery, obviously. What, did you think I had made it myself? Don’t worry; I didn’t make any alterations in the recipe. About the only side effect it will have is making him bounce off the walls, but that’s nothing new.”
I am going to develop a nervous tick dealing with him. Tatsumi took a sip of tea to calm his nerves; to his surprise it was extremely good. “I do not mean the cake, Watari-san,” he said slowly. “Where did the rest of it come from?”
The look of complete innocence in the golden eyes behind the protective lenses of Watari’s glasses was nearly as well-developed as Tsuzuki’s-and as deceiving, Tatsumi was sure. “Why, from Supply, of course.”
He was definitely going to start twitching any moment. “And how was it paid for, Watari-san?”
The smile on Watari’s face was so sparklingly innocent that if Tatsumi hadn’t known any better (and had not had many years of dealing with Tsuzuki under his belt) he would have been completely convinced of Watari’s simplemindedness. “Tatsumi, I do believe you missed me this morning!” the blond man exclaimed delightedly. “What a nice surprise. I had thought it would be a relief to not have me underfoot begging for an advance on my allowance.”
“Watari-san.” Tatsumi’s voice was a warning, low and ominous.
Watari lifted his hands in front of him and waved his innocence, chuckling. “I didn’t acquire any of it in an illegal or amoral way,” he said. “I didn’t even threaten anyone with having to be my guinea pig. I’ve been good.”
“Why do I doubt that, somehow?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea, Tatsumi. I’ve never given you a reason to distrust me.”
“I assume that was meant to be sarcasm?”
“You know me so well, Tatsumi. It warms my heart.” Tatsumi had a pithy reply all ready when the little owl in the corner suddenly fluttered off of her perch to land on the edge of Watari’s mug and address a series of hoots and screeches at him. The blond man, as always, seemed to understand and sighed heavily. “003, go back to your nap. Haven’t we discussed this, or are you playing stupid on purpose today?” The owl only argued back, then jumped onto his shoulder and began wreaking havoc with his long hair, screeching her displeasure as Watari tried to get her to let go, looking rather like a ruffled golden bird himself.
Feeling inexplicably irritated, Tatsumi looked at his watch to realize he had spent nearly a half hour of good work time drinking tea and arguing with his coworker. He stood. “I’ll leave you to it, I suppose.” Whatever ‘it’ was.
“Don’t worry so much, Tatsumi!” Watari called behind him as he walked towards the door to the lab, stepping gingerly over the box he had set on the floor. “Relax a little!” Tatsumi didn’t consider that to merit a response.
Shutting the door behind him, he headed back to his office. Kannuki started giggling when he passed her in the hallway. “What is so funny?” He knew his voice was clipped, but he had this sneaking suspicion everyone was making fun at his expense, and that made him irritable.
“You have a…” Kannuki trailed off and reached up to pick up something off his shoulder. It was a feather; Tatsumi didn’t even know which of Watari’s birds it had belonged to, nor when and how it had ended up on his shoulder. Somehow caught on its stem was a long, waving golden hair which was almost invisible until it caught the light from the window. “Here,” the girl said with another giggle, holding it out to him.
“I don’t want it,” he said, feeling hopelessly like the whole world had gone crazy.
She only shrugged and tucked it into one of the knots of pink ribbon holding her curls from her face. “Smile!” she suggested. “It’s a lovely day!”
Tatsumi barely held back a growl as he covered the rest of the ground to his office and closed the door between himself and the spreading insanity.
***
A few minutes after Tatsumi had left, Watari at last persevered in extracting the miffed ball of fluff from his hair. She put up a good fight, and still had his hair ribbon, considerably worse for wear, in her talons when he finally succeeded. “What is wrong with you today?” Watari asked. A few scornful hoots and a chirp were his response. “You should be so happy I’m too busy to deal with you properly right now,” Watari said ominously. “Give me that.” He reached for the hair ribbon, but the owl deftly avoided his grip and took her prize with her to the highest perch in the room. She eyed him from up there with challenge. “See if I don’t get you back for that,” Watari warned, then turned to the Bunsen burner and sprinkled some cinnamon into the poisonously green mixture.
She and I need to have nice long talk about her possessiveness. She seems to have forgotten our last one.
He had finally gotten the elusive secretary to come to him for a change, and to forget everything else, even if it had only been for half an hour and based on curiosity and the possible fear that Watari had robbed a bank or done something equally ghastly. But he had come, and 003, silly jealous bird that she was, had decided that simply couldn’t be and had promptly ruined what had been doubtlessly a step in the right direction. A small step, but a step nonetheless.
“Stupid female,” Watari muttered loud enough for her to hear as he gently removed the cake box from the penguin’s reach, waved the hawk irritably off of the box of supplies, and got back to work.
It wasn’t as if he was asking for much, he thought. Was it really that difficult to get the blasted man to look at him? Yes, apparently. Eyes only for work and for Tsuzuki.
It was probably the challenge of that which had appealed to him initially, that and the ridiculous daydream of seeing what the dark-haired man would look like with mussed clothes and hair, maybe his glasses crooked on his nose, and something other than cool indifference in his eyes. A little breathless would be best, perhaps even a bit off balance. The daydream had quickly sprouted something that edged perilously close to an obsession as, no matter what Watari tried, Tatsumi seemed completely immune.
I’m as bad as Tsuzuki. Except Tsuzuki had worked out his issues with Bon, whereas Watari was no closer to finding a solution to the tantalizing problem of Tatsumi. “Stupid,” he repeated in 003’s direction, because it was easier to blame someone other than himself. He watched the beaker’s contents slowly turning a sickly shade of orange and made a note on the clipboard he had set next to it, ignoring her.
She seemed to feel properly ashamed of herself a few minutes later, as she fluttered back to him, landing on the lab table and proffering the hair ribbon as a peace offering. She hooted consolingly as he gathered his hair into a messy ponytail. After a moment, Watari gave up on glaring at her. It’s not her fault Tatsumi isn’t falling obligingly into my arms. Mostly.
“You’re right,” he said a little later when she was perched in her usual spot on his shoulder, clearly trying to cheer him up. “At least he missed me when I didn’t come.” He had made it a point to be in Tatsumi’s office every day at exactly the same time, cajoling funds out of him, though with how much leeway Tatsumi gave him (he was stingy but not entirely unfair) every day was certainly not necessary. Once a week would have sufficed. Even Watari’s pockets didn’t have metaphorical holes that big, but it was a good excuse to be an eyesore for a little while without taking risks he wasn’t quite ready to take. Surely Tatsumi had to have realized by now that Watari came more to see him than to haggle over a few extra yen.
Apparently not, however.
003’s warning screech had him turning and rushing to take the beaker off of the burner just as it threatened to boil over. It was giving off an odor reminiscent of week-old garbage and began to crystallize the moment Watari removed it from the flame, something it definitely wasn’t supposed to do. Another failure.
“I’ll get it yet,” Watari said with a cheerful doggedness as he picked up his notes and flipped back a few pages to see where he could have gone wrong.
He wasn’t talking only about the potion.
Chapter 2: Hair Ribbons and Humidity