crack_van | Earthly Attractions by Mistressrenet (R)

Fandom: YAMI NO MATSUEI
Pairing: Tatsumi/Watari
Length: ~3,000 words
Author on LJ:

mistressrenet
Author Website: Renet's Archive
Why this must be read:

Because, like my last rec, it gives believable happiness to a character who doesn't get nearly enough of that.

After Kyoto, Tatsumi decides to stop being a shinigami. After all, if Tsuzuki has Hisoka and no longer needs Tatsumi, what's left for him? Watari might have the answer.

Tatsumi/Watari always suffers from the risk of becoming a "pair the spares" sort of pairing, but there's none of that here. Their attraction to each other and burgeoning relationship feels real. The characterizations are excellent as well. Watari is both wiser than he usually lets on and absolutely alive (especially for a dead guy), while Tatsumi is practical and subdued, all the while concealing a huge potential for passion.

Plus, I'm always up for a story in which Tatsumi learns to stop torturing himself.

I know he will not ask me to stay.

I want him to. We could argue about it then. I could get angry.

It would be so much easier to leave if he asked me to stay.

I tuck him back into bed and get into the shower. I'll go into work early. I tell myself that this cruelty is really kindness; that it would be too much to ask him to eat breakfast with me, knowing I am leaving.

I wonder, not for the first time, if I will ever see him again. In all likelihood, I will not know him if I do. Perhaps, someday, a little boy with blue eyes will see a blond-haired man with a face like an angel...

But I am being foolish. It will not do.

I kiss his hair before I leave. 003 is watching me from the corner of the room. "I'm sorry," I say to her, before I go.

Earthly Attractions