(no subject)
Title: Dark Falls the Night
Author: Alura
Rating: light R for some descriptions
Pairing: Watari/Tatsumi
Genre: romance/general
Status: Direct continuation of Wish. Part XI of the Gravity series.
Summary: …if he let go of the illusion of his existence…then, would he finally be part of him, part of Tatsumi?
The music: “Dark Falls the Night” - Tim Wheater, “All That We Perceive” - Thievery Corporation, “Kiseki” - Kenji Nojima, “Tooi Hi no Kizuato” (Piano) - Takumi Masanori, “Gravity” - Maaya Sakamoto.
Dark Falls the Night
by Alura
Sweeping past from below, a warm updraft chased at the creeping chill; Watari tightened his hold on Tatsumi, as if that gust threatened to whisk everything away and throw it to the stars overhead.
"I do?" His throat constricted around his voice. Dangerous, the precipice of that moment - when something he'd wanted so fiercely, for so long, was there at last, in his hands. A brittle glass ornament, spun of repressed hope and a sigh.
Tatsumi pulled back just enough for Watari to meet his gaze. “Yutaka…" The sound of his name trailed off, dying with the soft brush of Tatsumi’s kiss. The warm slip of tongue along the sealed crevice of his lips brought a sigh from the scientist. Eyes sliding shut, Watari moved in closer, tasting heat and want and jasmine tea.
The kiss lasted for several long moments, stretching out in a silence underscored only with the slow, joined sound of their breathing. Unison of lips and breath, of warmth and things unspoken.
When at last Watari broke away, Tatsumi held his face in the palm of one hand, fingers laying across his cheek.
“Tatsumi-san,” Watari began, hardly finding a whisper. “I think...”
No regrets.
“I think we should go.” His hands slid down along Tatsumi's arms, till his slim fingers caught and tangled with his partner's. Taking a half-step back, away from the roof’s edge, a scattering of gravel crunched underfoot, and Watari pulled a cajoling tug. Tatsumi's eyes held his, unwavering.
“C'mon…your place, right?”
A dark brow capsized, drawing a curious angle on Tatsumi’s forehead.
“After all, it's getting cold out here and I don't want to get sick.” Golden eyebrows hitched upwards, his eyes level on Tatsumi as if he were explaining the logic behind his newest experiment to a room of inept coworkers. “And if I get sick, I'll miss work tomorrow, and I know you'll never stand for that. Though, I would invite you to my place, but it really is such a mess. Laundry everywhere, and I don't think the bed even has any sheets on...” He nodded as he swiftly spouted his list of reasons, hands giving another, faintly more insistent tug on Tatsumi's. “Besides, your place is so much closer...” His voice lowered, trailing off as he fixed his partner with a gaze that spoke more with silence than his words could with all their noise.
Was that a small tremble in Tatsumi’s grip? But if it were there, the Shadow Master quickly covered it with a hard squeeze. The space between them closed suddenly, and at the first cool rush of shadow, insinuating between skin and cloth, Watari gasped mutedly. Long fingers captured his chin, tilting his face up for Tatsumi to claim another kiss of his parted lips...
...and the night, as coldly beautiful as it was from that rooftop, stood no chance against the heat of the Shadow Master’s lips.
The next moments ran in a liquid-quick blur of heated breath and wetly sliding tongues. Tatsumi’s teeth grazed Watari’s chin, trailing along the line of his jaw, a repeating exchange of nips and damp kisses. He didn't feel the world shifting around him, only within him - irising to an intimate focus, centered on the exploratory journey of lips on his warming skin. Only when Tatsumi pulled away a small space did amber eyes wrench open, wrung out of his lustful daze by cool air slipping against his face.
He barely registered the new surroundings of the Shadow Master's bedroom before frowning slightly. He turned his face, lips reaching for Tatsumi’s again, only to have him pull back a small space. Warm breath crashed against Watari's cheek, and the blue eyes he looked up into were blurred, shadowed and glittering with lust.
With need...and something else, something gentler that reached into his chest to twist a delightful pain.
“What?” He mumbled faintly, realizing he’d missed something, caught up in that distracting gaze. His usually nimble fingers fumbled with the knot of Tatsumi’s tie.
The rare quirk of his smile flicked to life. "Your glasses. They're in my way," Tatsumi repeated, even as fingertips carefully plucked at the nosepiece of Watari's frames and slid them away. The world beyond a few feet or so became even more of a blur than Tatsumi's kisses had already smudged it into.
With a clatter, two pairs of glasses, neither neatly folded, sprawled together on the beside table.
Not that he really needed to see in the first place. Not for this.
Suddenly, the damnable knot of silk came undone, unraveling in Watari’s hands with a slick whisper. Brushing his hands away, Tatsumi hooked the tie with a finger and whipped it free, tossing it to a careless somewhere. His suit jacket slithered into a puddle on the floor… also somewhere. It didn’t matter where with those unswerving blue eyes fixed on him.
Watari grazed his thumbs along the line of Tatsumi’s collarbone, skin radiant with such heat, and drew open his dress shirt with a muted pop of a button or two. He half-expected to hear a soft reprimand, or at least some noise of disapproval from the usually fastidious Tatsumi, but his eagerness instead earned a tilted smile, a soft chuckle that trembled breathlessly between them. Tatsumi’s shirt didn’t make it far, catching on the shade of the bedside lamp and dragging it along to the floor in a noisy crash. Watari didn’t hear it; the rushing of his blood filled his ears. His world at the moment consisted entirely of the scintillating heat of the mouth he plundered, the pulse of the heart beneath his cool palms as they slid across Tatsumi’s bared chest.
His lab coat flashed a ghostly white streak, before quietly crumpling at the baseboards in modesty. A flung shoe thunked against the closet door, its mate hiding somewhere unseen.
Warm lips traced his cheeks, then locked over his again, and he shivered as Tatsumi's fingers threaded into his loosened hair, cradling the back of his head, fisting a tangle of bright gold. His other hand slipped under the edge of Watari’s shirt, skimming blunt fingernails across his stomach, and his warm palm slid lower.
Lower…
Watari groaned, teeth sinking into the tender flesh of Tastumi’s lower lip.
So much for that precipice - you’re in freefall now. The dangerous edge existed only in memory far, far behind.
He descended into the cold bed, strands of gold hair netting across lonely pillows. The scuff of skin to sheets mirrored the sound of their low, patient-impatient breathing. Watari’s hands moved and shifted, darting with quick, eager-fingered motions - only to be met and trapped in the careful, purposeful grip of Tatsumi’s each time, brushed and plucked gently away. He was inexorable, undeniable, with the deliberate molding of his body against Watari’s, the slow exhale of warm breath that teased the hollow of his throat. There were stars, inverted novae, on his eyelids and, oh God - was Tatsumi using his teeth?
The sharp burst of sensation at one nipple confirmed this hypothesis.
He jumped a little, involuntarily, and felt Tatsumi's lips smile against his skin. Suddenly in his body fully once more, Watari struggled to draw open his eyes. For a moment, the darkness seemed bright to his eyes. His pale arms gleamed, wrapped snugly around Tatsumi’s shoulders, his fingers sticks of ivory threading through dark hair.
“I said,” the Shadow Master repeated himself for the second time that night, “…if you don’t stop thinking so much, I’m going to cut your funding, Watari-san.”
Watari didn’t respond immediately, his hands sliding slowly down the back of Tatsumi’s neck, along the tensed line of muscles as they flared out across his broad shoulders. Puddles of shadow lingered on him here and there, in the contours of his construction, closer to the man that he might ever be, even as naked as they were. His own hands ached with cold, and he knew Tatsumi noticed, holding him so close with such burning contrast between their skin. The bed shifted slightly under their combined weight.
His fingertips ran a glissando down Watari's sides, copious flutters of touch along his ribcage, into the soft curves above his hips. Warmth brushed his cheek, feathered his limbs with ghost-touch - hands of shadow, flowing like ink across his pale skin, a stain of darkness he thought might blot him out of his separate existence and let him drift among them as nothing more than a delirious, blissful consciousness.
And if he did, if he let go of the illusion of his existence…then, would he finally be part of him, part of Tatsumi?
But he hadn’t before, hadn’t managed it, even when he lingered closer to a second death than he did now with Tatsumi’s reverent lips painting his skin with hot-breathed prayers. Then, it should have been easy - at least, he would have thought so. Maybe the crust of blood had kept him separate, too weak to break past that last feeble barrier, that shell of his own making. Or perhaps it had been his splintered bones, his soul too scattered among the pieces to muster itself together for escape. Now, the patient hands that moved over his skin - was it another imagining, or did they linger just a moment longer here and there, over the ghosts of should’ve-been scars?
Little mirrors of memory glittered amongst the web of his thoughts, stringing themselves together with nothing more substantial than the sound of Tatsumi’s breath. Same dance, different music. Déja vu was an intriguing feeling - but, he reminded himself distantly, this touch was only the same on the thinnest surface.
Watari breathed, pinching his eyes shut, forehead pressing against Tatsumi’s shoulder. A paper thin imitation of a chuckle to his ears, it tasted bitter on his tongue, another half-truth to string around his neck. Someday, they would all catch up to him, but at least then the noose would be one of his own crafting.
But for now, he didn’t want to be Watari anymore - not now, when they were like this. Watari-san couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go long enough. But Yutaka…
Yutaka could brush his lips along his lover’s neck, and did; could hook his knee at Seiichiro’s hip, and pull him closer, arch his back up against him a little, just…like…this. He swallowed Tatsumi’s gasp with a kiss, tired of words and thoughts, just needing touch. Closeness in the dark and silence but for the accelerando of breathing, and throat-caught moans.
A shadow carded through his tangling hair, or it may have been Tatsumi’s careful fingers. The feeling reminded him of water, of suspended immersion in warmth. Water and shadow, they wrapped him, held him fast. How the water once slithered through his hair as he swam and invaded every submerged sense until he felt no physical shell to hold his mind in place - oh, he remembered this feeling now, remembered Tatsumi’s careful, almost fearful, touch, washing the blood from his hair, trying not to pull or tangle it as he cleansed away more than just blood - evidence of his mistake and failures, residual sins and shortcomings, the guilt of secrets and unspoken lies.
Wash it all away, Tatsumi…
The tongue at his earlobe surprised him; the sigh of his name against his neck…undid him.
“Yutaka…” Tatsumi breathed. The hand that gripped his thigh paused, warm fingers singeing their shape into his white skin.
“Just do it already...” Pale fingers dug sharply into the muscles of the secretary’s tensed ass, nails leaving matching rows of half-moon impressions.
Tatsumi pulled back slightly, his face hovering over Watari’s. Blue eyes filled his field of vision - nothing but blue, shifting in and out of shadow as they watched him so closely, intently. Fingertips brushed at his temple and slid down, across his cheek, till his jaw lay nestled in the groove of Tatsumi’s hand. Their quiet, shallow breathing marked the stretching pass of moments; the pregnant silence loomed like another shadow in the corner of the room. His partner’s hesitation tasted disappointing on Watari’s tongue.
Clearing his throat a little, Tatsumi raised up on his elbow a little further. A tilt of his head, and a convenient shadow laid against his face, working with the tousled fall of chestnut hair to partly shield away his features. “Yutaka,” he began, the pad of his thumb brushing the blonde’s kiss-swollen lips - a blink quelled the momentary spark of desperate desire he saw light those blue eyes. The bed frame creaked mutedly beneath them while their shadow-audience awaited. “I think that we…that is…” His words stumbled a little before finally halting; he pressed his lips tightly for a moment as he seemed to gather himself.
A quiet snap broke the moment, scattering the words poised at Tatsumi’s lips; the world seemed to suddenly fall away from beneath them. His arms instinctively tightening around Tatsumi, Watari’s stomach knotted instantly, a brief second of weightlessness sweeping through his body like a hollow breeze - Tatsumi’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, the white sclera flashing around blue irises.
Everything teetered, then careened down to a jolting, skewed halt of tangled limbs and scattered pillows.
Subtly, Watari ruined the stunned silence with a low, barely repressed snort of mirth - and then another. Eyes squinted shut, he turned his face against Tatsumi’s neck, hiding the grin that would not be denied. “It broke,” he spluttered. “We broke the damn bed…” Words swiftly degenerated into full on laughter, his head tossing back onto the pillow.
“But…that -” Tatsumi stuttered, dark brows knitting tightly over his eyes. Laughter wracked Watari, and he clung to his partner feebly as he tried to roll away. Tatsumi’s balance wavered, and he nearly tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor; only a panicked grip of sheets kept him from sliding completely from the off-kilter mattress. Just one corner leg of the bed survived, the highpoint of the crazily sloped mess of blankets, pillows and two entwined Shinigami.
Watari covered his face with his hands to hide the tears leaking out. He simply couldn’t stop them; they spilled warm and wet across his temples, his chest heaving with raucous bursts of deep-throated laughter - it was getting hard to breathe. Blindly, one hand reached for Tatsumi, grasping the bewildered secretary by the wrist and pulling him back to his side.
“You…broke it!” The blonde practically wheezed the words, alternately laughing and giggling near-uncontrollably. Of all the things…of all the moments…
“Watari-san,” Tatsumi’s frown dripped from his voice. “This was most certainly not my fault. I have slept in this bed for many years without ever encountering such a problem. As a scientist, you should understand that the only variable in this unfortunate situation is yourself.”
Slender arms snaking around Tatsumi’s waist, Watari turned into him, tear-streaked face nestling in the warm, shadowed crook of his neck. Still grinning, he made a soft, noncommittal noise to let the Kagetsukai know, or at least think, he was listening as he rattled on, seeming to find his own refuge from acknowledging where they’d just been forced back from. A few small laughs lingered in his chest, breathlessly working past his lips.
“…and the deduction to cover the replacement of that lamp will come out of your next allotment as well.”
“Of course,” he offered, finding contentment and distraction of his own in Tatsumi’s warm skin, his nearness, the low murmur of his voice. Even if the spiraling dance of seduction were delayed - for now, this, he decided firmly as they lingered wrapped in the quiet, in each others arms, this was enough.
“Tatsumi?” His laughter had subsided, though the grin remained firm in place on his lips. The muscles of his face ached a little from the force of his smile, the continuous laughter.
“Hm?” Strong arms drew him in closer, hands warm and smooth-palmed as they skimmed idly down his back.
Watari flicked open one eye, glancing up at Tatsumi’s face, so close. Blue eyes peered back at him curiously, features blanketed in a similar contentment, despite the angled state of affairs. Pointedly, the scientist turned his gaze away, down the long-limbed entanglement of their bodies, to the foot of the toppled bed. “Your socks,” he stated simply.
Tatsumi’s eyes followed his, and at the mention of the dark dress socks the secretary still wore - the only thing either of them still wore - his toes wriggled in reflexive response. “What about them?”
Already grinning again, Watari squirmed a little closer. He brushed warm lips against Tatsumi’s skin, and murmured quietly. “They’re hot.”
Gravity: one of those irresistible forces of nature, no matter which theory you subscribe to.
Author: Alura
Rating: light R for some descriptions
Pairing: Watari/Tatsumi
Genre: romance/general
Status: Direct continuation of Wish. Part XI of the Gravity series.
Summary: …if he let go of the illusion of his existence…then, would he finally be part of him, part of Tatsumi?
The music: “Dark Falls the Night” - Tim Wheater, “All That We Perceive” - Thievery Corporation, “Kiseki” - Kenji Nojima, “Tooi Hi no Kizuato” (Piano) - Takumi Masanori, “Gravity” - Maaya Sakamoto.
Dark Falls the Night
by Alura
Sweeping past from below, a warm updraft chased at the creeping chill; Watari tightened his hold on Tatsumi, as if that gust threatened to whisk everything away and throw it to the stars overhead.
"I do?" His throat constricted around his voice. Dangerous, the precipice of that moment - when something he'd wanted so fiercely, for so long, was there at last, in his hands. A brittle glass ornament, spun of repressed hope and a sigh.
Tatsumi pulled back just enough for Watari to meet his gaze. “Yutaka…" The sound of his name trailed off, dying with the soft brush of Tatsumi’s kiss. The warm slip of tongue along the sealed crevice of his lips brought a sigh from the scientist. Eyes sliding shut, Watari moved in closer, tasting heat and want and jasmine tea.
The kiss lasted for several long moments, stretching out in a silence underscored only with the slow, joined sound of their breathing. Unison of lips and breath, of warmth and things unspoken.
When at last Watari broke away, Tatsumi held his face in the palm of one hand, fingers laying across his cheek.
“Tatsumi-san,” Watari began, hardly finding a whisper. “I think...”
No regrets.
“I think we should go.” His hands slid down along Tatsumi's arms, till his slim fingers caught and tangled with his partner's. Taking a half-step back, away from the roof’s edge, a scattering of gravel crunched underfoot, and Watari pulled a cajoling tug. Tatsumi's eyes held his, unwavering.
“C'mon…your place, right?”
A dark brow capsized, drawing a curious angle on Tatsumi’s forehead.
“After all, it's getting cold out here and I don't want to get sick.” Golden eyebrows hitched upwards, his eyes level on Tatsumi as if he were explaining the logic behind his newest experiment to a room of inept coworkers. “And if I get sick, I'll miss work tomorrow, and I know you'll never stand for that. Though, I would invite you to my place, but it really is such a mess. Laundry everywhere, and I don't think the bed even has any sheets on...” He nodded as he swiftly spouted his list of reasons, hands giving another, faintly more insistent tug on Tatsumi's. “Besides, your place is so much closer...” His voice lowered, trailing off as he fixed his partner with a gaze that spoke more with silence than his words could with all their noise.
Was that a small tremble in Tatsumi’s grip? But if it were there, the Shadow Master quickly covered it with a hard squeeze. The space between them closed suddenly, and at the first cool rush of shadow, insinuating between skin and cloth, Watari gasped mutedly. Long fingers captured his chin, tilting his face up for Tatsumi to claim another kiss of his parted lips...
...and the night, as coldly beautiful as it was from that rooftop, stood no chance against the heat of the Shadow Master’s lips.
The next moments ran in a liquid-quick blur of heated breath and wetly sliding tongues. Tatsumi’s teeth grazed Watari’s chin, trailing along the line of his jaw, a repeating exchange of nips and damp kisses. He didn't feel the world shifting around him, only within him - irising to an intimate focus, centered on the exploratory journey of lips on his warming skin. Only when Tatsumi pulled away a small space did amber eyes wrench open, wrung out of his lustful daze by cool air slipping against his face.
He barely registered the new surroundings of the Shadow Master's bedroom before frowning slightly. He turned his face, lips reaching for Tatsumi’s again, only to have him pull back a small space. Warm breath crashed against Watari's cheek, and the blue eyes he looked up into were blurred, shadowed and glittering with lust.
With need...and something else, something gentler that reached into his chest to twist a delightful pain.
“What?” He mumbled faintly, realizing he’d missed something, caught up in that distracting gaze. His usually nimble fingers fumbled with the knot of Tatsumi’s tie.
The rare quirk of his smile flicked to life. "Your glasses. They're in my way," Tatsumi repeated, even as fingertips carefully plucked at the nosepiece of Watari's frames and slid them away. The world beyond a few feet or so became even more of a blur than Tatsumi's kisses had already smudged it into.
With a clatter, two pairs of glasses, neither neatly folded, sprawled together on the beside table.
Not that he really needed to see in the first place. Not for this.
Suddenly, the damnable knot of silk came undone, unraveling in Watari’s hands with a slick whisper. Brushing his hands away, Tatsumi hooked the tie with a finger and whipped it free, tossing it to a careless somewhere. His suit jacket slithered into a puddle on the floor… also somewhere. It didn’t matter where with those unswerving blue eyes fixed on him.
Watari grazed his thumbs along the line of Tatsumi’s collarbone, skin radiant with such heat, and drew open his dress shirt with a muted pop of a button or two. He half-expected to hear a soft reprimand, or at least some noise of disapproval from the usually fastidious Tatsumi, but his eagerness instead earned a tilted smile, a soft chuckle that trembled breathlessly between them. Tatsumi’s shirt didn’t make it far, catching on the shade of the bedside lamp and dragging it along to the floor in a noisy crash. Watari didn’t hear it; the rushing of his blood filled his ears. His world at the moment consisted entirely of the scintillating heat of the mouth he plundered, the pulse of the heart beneath his cool palms as they slid across Tatsumi’s bared chest.
His lab coat flashed a ghostly white streak, before quietly crumpling at the baseboards in modesty. A flung shoe thunked against the closet door, its mate hiding somewhere unseen.
Warm lips traced his cheeks, then locked over his again, and he shivered as Tatsumi's fingers threaded into his loosened hair, cradling the back of his head, fisting a tangle of bright gold. His other hand slipped under the edge of Watari’s shirt, skimming blunt fingernails across his stomach, and his warm palm slid lower.
Lower…
Watari groaned, teeth sinking into the tender flesh of Tastumi’s lower lip.
So much for that precipice - you’re in freefall now. The dangerous edge existed only in memory far, far behind.
He descended into the cold bed, strands of gold hair netting across lonely pillows. The scuff of skin to sheets mirrored the sound of their low, patient-impatient breathing. Watari’s hands moved and shifted, darting with quick, eager-fingered motions - only to be met and trapped in the careful, purposeful grip of Tatsumi’s each time, brushed and plucked gently away. He was inexorable, undeniable, with the deliberate molding of his body against Watari’s, the slow exhale of warm breath that teased the hollow of his throat. There were stars, inverted novae, on his eyelids and, oh God - was Tatsumi using his teeth?
The sharp burst of sensation at one nipple confirmed this hypothesis.
He jumped a little, involuntarily, and felt Tatsumi's lips smile against his skin. Suddenly in his body fully once more, Watari struggled to draw open his eyes. For a moment, the darkness seemed bright to his eyes. His pale arms gleamed, wrapped snugly around Tatsumi’s shoulders, his fingers sticks of ivory threading through dark hair.
“I said,” the Shadow Master repeated himself for the second time that night, “…if you don’t stop thinking so much, I’m going to cut your funding, Watari-san.”
Watari didn’t respond immediately, his hands sliding slowly down the back of Tatsumi’s neck, along the tensed line of muscles as they flared out across his broad shoulders. Puddles of shadow lingered on him here and there, in the contours of his construction, closer to the man that he might ever be, even as naked as they were. His own hands ached with cold, and he knew Tatsumi noticed, holding him so close with such burning contrast between their skin. The bed shifted slightly under their combined weight.
His fingertips ran a glissando down Watari's sides, copious flutters of touch along his ribcage, into the soft curves above his hips. Warmth brushed his cheek, feathered his limbs with ghost-touch - hands of shadow, flowing like ink across his pale skin, a stain of darkness he thought might blot him out of his separate existence and let him drift among them as nothing more than a delirious, blissful consciousness.
And if he did, if he let go of the illusion of his existence…then, would he finally be part of him, part of Tatsumi?
But he hadn’t before, hadn’t managed it, even when he lingered closer to a second death than he did now with Tatsumi’s reverent lips painting his skin with hot-breathed prayers. Then, it should have been easy - at least, he would have thought so. Maybe the crust of blood had kept him separate, too weak to break past that last feeble barrier, that shell of his own making. Or perhaps it had been his splintered bones, his soul too scattered among the pieces to muster itself together for escape. Now, the patient hands that moved over his skin - was it another imagining, or did they linger just a moment longer here and there, over the ghosts of should’ve-been scars?
Little mirrors of memory glittered amongst the web of his thoughts, stringing themselves together with nothing more substantial than the sound of Tatsumi’s breath. Same dance, different music. Déja vu was an intriguing feeling - but, he reminded himself distantly, this touch was only the same on the thinnest surface.
Watari breathed, pinching his eyes shut, forehead pressing against Tatsumi’s shoulder. A paper thin imitation of a chuckle to his ears, it tasted bitter on his tongue, another half-truth to string around his neck. Someday, they would all catch up to him, but at least then the noose would be one of his own crafting.
But for now, he didn’t want to be Watari anymore - not now, when they were like this. Watari-san couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go long enough. But Yutaka…
Yutaka could brush his lips along his lover’s neck, and did; could hook his knee at Seiichiro’s hip, and pull him closer, arch his back up against him a little, just…like…this. He swallowed Tatsumi’s gasp with a kiss, tired of words and thoughts, just needing touch. Closeness in the dark and silence but for the accelerando of breathing, and throat-caught moans.
A shadow carded through his tangling hair, or it may have been Tatsumi’s careful fingers. The feeling reminded him of water, of suspended immersion in warmth. Water and shadow, they wrapped him, held him fast. How the water once slithered through his hair as he swam and invaded every submerged sense until he felt no physical shell to hold his mind in place - oh, he remembered this feeling now, remembered Tatsumi’s careful, almost fearful, touch, washing the blood from his hair, trying not to pull or tangle it as he cleansed away more than just blood - evidence of his mistake and failures, residual sins and shortcomings, the guilt of secrets and unspoken lies.
Wash it all away, Tatsumi…
The tongue at his earlobe surprised him; the sigh of his name against his neck…undid him.
“Yutaka…” Tatsumi breathed. The hand that gripped his thigh paused, warm fingers singeing their shape into his white skin.
“Just do it already...” Pale fingers dug sharply into the muscles of the secretary’s tensed ass, nails leaving matching rows of half-moon impressions.
Tatsumi pulled back slightly, his face hovering over Watari’s. Blue eyes filled his field of vision - nothing but blue, shifting in and out of shadow as they watched him so closely, intently. Fingertips brushed at his temple and slid down, across his cheek, till his jaw lay nestled in the groove of Tatsumi’s hand. Their quiet, shallow breathing marked the stretching pass of moments; the pregnant silence loomed like another shadow in the corner of the room. His partner’s hesitation tasted disappointing on Watari’s tongue.
Clearing his throat a little, Tatsumi raised up on his elbow a little further. A tilt of his head, and a convenient shadow laid against his face, working with the tousled fall of chestnut hair to partly shield away his features. “Yutaka,” he began, the pad of his thumb brushing the blonde’s kiss-swollen lips - a blink quelled the momentary spark of desperate desire he saw light those blue eyes. The bed frame creaked mutedly beneath them while their shadow-audience awaited. “I think that we…that is…” His words stumbled a little before finally halting; he pressed his lips tightly for a moment as he seemed to gather himself.
A quiet snap broke the moment, scattering the words poised at Tatsumi’s lips; the world seemed to suddenly fall away from beneath them. His arms instinctively tightening around Tatsumi, Watari’s stomach knotted instantly, a brief second of weightlessness sweeping through his body like a hollow breeze - Tatsumi’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, the white sclera flashing around blue irises.
Everything teetered, then careened down to a jolting, skewed halt of tangled limbs and scattered pillows.
Subtly, Watari ruined the stunned silence with a low, barely repressed snort of mirth - and then another. Eyes squinted shut, he turned his face against Tatsumi’s neck, hiding the grin that would not be denied. “It broke,” he spluttered. “We broke the damn bed…” Words swiftly degenerated into full on laughter, his head tossing back onto the pillow.
“But…that -” Tatsumi stuttered, dark brows knitting tightly over his eyes. Laughter wracked Watari, and he clung to his partner feebly as he tried to roll away. Tatsumi’s balance wavered, and he nearly tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor; only a panicked grip of sheets kept him from sliding completely from the off-kilter mattress. Just one corner leg of the bed survived, the highpoint of the crazily sloped mess of blankets, pillows and two entwined Shinigami.
Watari covered his face with his hands to hide the tears leaking out. He simply couldn’t stop them; they spilled warm and wet across his temples, his chest heaving with raucous bursts of deep-throated laughter - it was getting hard to breathe. Blindly, one hand reached for Tatsumi, grasping the bewildered secretary by the wrist and pulling him back to his side.
“You…broke it!” The blonde practically wheezed the words, alternately laughing and giggling near-uncontrollably. Of all the things…of all the moments…
“Watari-san,” Tatsumi’s frown dripped from his voice. “This was most certainly not my fault. I have slept in this bed for many years without ever encountering such a problem. As a scientist, you should understand that the only variable in this unfortunate situation is yourself.”
Slender arms snaking around Tatsumi’s waist, Watari turned into him, tear-streaked face nestling in the warm, shadowed crook of his neck. Still grinning, he made a soft, noncommittal noise to let the Kagetsukai know, or at least think, he was listening as he rattled on, seeming to find his own refuge from acknowledging where they’d just been forced back from. A few small laughs lingered in his chest, breathlessly working past his lips.
“…and the deduction to cover the replacement of that lamp will come out of your next allotment as well.”
“Of course,” he offered, finding contentment and distraction of his own in Tatsumi’s warm skin, his nearness, the low murmur of his voice. Even if the spiraling dance of seduction were delayed - for now, this, he decided firmly as they lingered wrapped in the quiet, in each others arms, this was enough.
“Tatsumi?” His laughter had subsided, though the grin remained firm in place on his lips. The muscles of his face ached a little from the force of his smile, the continuous laughter.
“Hm?” Strong arms drew him in closer, hands warm and smooth-palmed as they skimmed idly down his back.
Watari flicked open one eye, glancing up at Tatsumi’s face, so close. Blue eyes peered back at him curiously, features blanketed in a similar contentment, despite the angled state of affairs. Pointedly, the scientist turned his gaze away, down the long-limbed entanglement of their bodies, to the foot of the toppled bed. “Your socks,” he stated simply.
Tatsumi’s eyes followed his, and at the mention of the dark dress socks the secretary still wore - the only thing either of them still wore - his toes wriggled in reflexive response. “What about them?”
Already grinning again, Watari squirmed a little closer. He brushed warm lips against Tatsumi’s skin, and murmured quietly. “They’re hot.”
Gravity: one of those irresistible forces of nature, no matter which theory you subscribe to.