This little blurb came to me just now. It's kind of adorable really, magpie!Tatsumi.
I tried not to kill Tatsumi's personality, but he may be slightly OOC. Sorry 'bout that. I am going to have to write a sequeal chapter to this methinks. x3
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Collections
Tatsumi Seiichiro was not one to randomly hoard things. Money and recources perhaps, yes, but things? That was a habit he'd given up decades ago.
Or so he'd thought.
It had started innocently...so innocently it hadn't even been a 'start' (because to keep the object he'd picked up had not been his intention in the first place).
The man was always a bit of a mess, a walking embodiment of disorder and chaos. So it was no surprise that he would drop things here and there, that he would accidentally forget something in the places he so often frequented around the office.
So it had been, with a dutiful sigh, that Tatsumi scooted out his chair and bent over to pick up the hair tie that lay crumpled and forgotten on the floor. He turned it over in his hands, running his fingers along the soft, cottony length of fabric. It was dark, orange-ish brown and quite well worn. Not one of his friend's finer hairties. Tatsumi smiled to himself. His favorite was one he'd only ever seen twice, once when the younger Shinigami had dressed up for a nice dinner on a case, and once before going to a convention.
His favorite hair tie, and probably the scientist's best hair-binding apparatus, was a scrap of peacock-blue silk(or possibly satin, Tatsumi wasn't great with textiles), colored with a pattern of robin's-egg-blue swirls, tiny gold sunbursts, and green crescents, the elegant diamond of fabric was rimed with short, artistically frayed tassels, with threads of each color represented, though mostly blue and teal.
Tucked away in the curled, gold tresses, the tie set off the hair around it magnificently.
As he caressed the comparativly plain hair tie in his hand, he smirked softly--thinking perhaps he should invent an excuse for formal wear during the weekly meetings. He tucked the fabric into his pocket, vowing to give it back to Watari later, and to tell the man to keep better track of his belongings.
One for Sorrow/Two for Joy...
The hair tie had never made its way back into the possession of its owner. When Tatsumi had next seen the blonde Shinigami, a new hairband was already in place--a blue one which reminded Tatsumi of his favorite hair tie. Because of that, and the fact that Watari had to run off to see to a minor explosion, Tatsumi never got a chance to bring up the missing hair piece.
If it didn't bother Watari, it didn't bother him either.
But there he was somewhat wrong.
When he got home that evening, he tossed the article onto a relativly empty shelf of his bookcase, sternly telling himself to give it back tomorrow morning. As he made himself some rice and cooked eel for dinner however, he couldn't concentrate. And when he sat down in the living room, he couldn't eat with the hairband just sitting there, looking at him ever-so plaintively. With a sigh, Tatsumi set down his chopsticks and folded the band, smoothing out any creaces or wrinkles that dared show their faces. As he sat down to eat again, he found himself distracted. No, no, no. That wasn't right at all. He sighed and got up again.
It took a good five or ten minutes to find some way of storing the small strip of fabric that would both satisfy the spirit of Watari lingering in the strands, and Tatsumi's need for order. His rice had turned a little cold.
Three for a Girl/Four for a Boy...
The next morning Tatsumi found he'd overselpt a few minutes, and so in his rush he forgot to grab the troublesome little hairband.
It never made its way back to Watari.
Five for Silver...
That's how it began. Suddenly, Tatsumi had a lamentable habit of.. of collecting things touched or left by the scientist.
The shelf back at his home had expanded to two, and now Tatsumi had three different hair ties in addition to the original one, a set of broken, shattered spectacles that Watari had long since replaced, a small 100 ml beaker left in Tatsumi's office one day, a couple memos, a few invites to coffee, piles of post-it-notes and doodles, and all of Watari's (late) original reports--all the while hoping his odd behavior had gone unnoticed. (He turned in copies of them, with the excuse of translating the near-illegible writing of the resident mad scientist.)
If Konoe's expression was anything to go by while turning in the copies of those reports, then no it hadn't gone unnoticed.
Tatsumi almost winced as he pocketed another sticky-note on his desk.
This problem was seriously getting out of hand...
When had his habit turned into a problem?
And more importantly, when had it turned into a habit? Maybe the third hair tie had been a bit much... Or the fact that now he kept one on him at all times, and another one hidden away in his desk?
Maybe it earned the classification of 'problem' when he started to rely on and confide in those hair ties. It was foolish really, but mostly harmless.
Tatsumi grabbed one of the hair ties as he got ready for bed that night--another annoying habit, now it was almost impossible to sleep without holding one of the stupid things. (He was over sixty years old! He didn't need to cling onto some piece of fabric like a miniature blanket!) This had to stop. He told himself. It would stop, he would make himself stop.
But telling himself that couldn't make his hands unclench from around the fibers that made him feel a lot less lonely.
Six for Gold...
The Kinki sector was fairly quiet, as things went. However, being a Shinigami meant eventually things got very ugly sometimes. And when things go ugly for a Shinigami who is an exception to the "All Shinigami must work in pairs" rule, things get really, really ugly.
So when the head of sector #2 materialized in the middle of the Shokan division, bloody, swaying, crying, babbling incoherently, and half-way out the door to unconciousness, Tatsumi found himself both terrified and sucumbing to urges best left alone.
Tatsumi caught the man as his split and torn hamstring finally crumpled, and carried Watari to the lab protectively, all the while barking out orders to the rest of his staff.
Tatsumi found himself cleaning up his friend's demonically tainted injuries with care and concern that he hadn't known still existed within him. Tatsumi found himself consoling and rocking the man gently to sleep when he screamed at night terrors with volume enough to (literally) rouse the dead.
The secretary found himself caresing the golden spill of Watari's hair over the infirmary pillow, after scrubbing away all the horrendous blood clots matted in there, as he chided the scientist for not calling for help or hailing some sort of distress signal.
And when Konoe came in at 2 AM on the second consecutive day of this, to order him to go home, Tatsumi stood and reluctantly made his way to the door.
But he stopped by the lab on his way out. He scooped out some food for Watari's birds, and left out a couple petri dishes of fresh water for them.
He wasn't even thinking when he reached out and snatched the white labcoat laying over the back of the chair.
At least.. not until he was on his couch snuggled up to it, and surrounded by everything else he had that was Watari.
Damnit! When had that stupid, stupid scientist become so important to him? (Didn't he know by now when to call in for back-up?) Granted, when he first had laid eyes on the scientist he'd had some distant, vauge thoughts along the lines of of 'oh my isn't he blindingly attractive,' but this was completely different. This was.. a realization.. an epiphany. The feeling that if he lost Watari, he lost everything he'd ever had worth having. He inhaled Watari's comforting scent stemming from the labcoat again--wondering just when exactly his olfactory gland had learned to recognize that understated aroma... That particular, unique blend of majorum, burning leaves, and winterspice, all amplified by the blonde's herbal shampoo.
He was back in the infirmary before the work-day started. As he sat down, amber eyes opened and stared up at him sleepily. They looked at each other for a few moments, and then Watari's face broke into a smile, which made his dry lip start to bleed.
"Hey Tatsumi." The secretary swallowed, torn between shouting at the man for making him worry, crying in relief, or laughing at such a typical response. He chose none of these options.
"Hey Watari." The blonde shifted and tried to sit up. Tatsumi helped him, betting that the man was probably still sore and stiff. The scientist looked his injuries up and down. He was silent for a moment. Then,
"I guess I screwed up, huh?" Tatsumi was taken aback by this decleration,
"Watari, what do you mean? You held your own against one of Lucifer's chosen." Watari shrugged and grinned again--masking some sort of inner pain that Tatsumi couldn't guess at,
"I dunno. It seemed like the right thing to say."
"Watari..." The smile became broader, all the more false. "What did that demon say to you?" The grin dropped, along with most of the pretense,
"Nothing I can't handle with enough time, Tatsumi." A hand reached out to rest on his shoulder,
"'Tari..." The scientist blinked, he was sure Tatsumi said his full name, it was just said so softly that the first syllable was lost.
"'M tired. You don't happen to have a hair tie do you?" Automatically Tatsumi held out the one that resided in his breast-coat pocket. "Thanks." Watari took it, also automatically, and started to tie back his hair. Suddenly they both paused and time froze as they realized what just happened. With trembeling hands, Watari finished off his knot and then fixed Tatsumi with a serious eye. He had recognized that hair tie--it had been missing for ages!
The secretary bit his lip. Damnit! What had he been thinking?
"Tatsumi..?" Watari's voice drew him out of his paniced stupor, "Is there something you're not telling me...?"
Seven for a Secret, Never to be Told
Flushing a little, Tatsumi coughed delicately, "Well..."
He had to make up something quick.
And it had to be good.
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Yay First chapter finished! x3 And I thought that the whole magpie counting rhyme was appropriate, so I threw it in there. Leave a review why don't you? XDD