Fanfic: Aftermath

[rhea-samma.livejournal.com]

Title: Aftermath
Rating: PG
Pairings: n/a ((<--shocker))
Summary: A short one, a little angsty.. ish. (Might rework a little..) Watari has more nightmares than everyone else.

Aftermath 


Watari Yutaka has nightmares.

It was not a unique fact as all Shinigami have them, accquire them.

Watari once estimated that if he could somehow put every nightmare, every hellish dream, into solution and pour it out, he would run out of beakers.

Watari was an active field agent in one of the quieter sectors, yet he probably had more nightmares than all his friends and collegues put together.

Some of it probably had to do with how his mind operated--constantly turning the wheels, ever on the alert for some (new) horrible situation or catastrophe to arrive. (And therefore, be ready for it.)

Some nightmares were spun from his own cases, his past that he could recall, his faliures, his dissapointments, his futile hopes.

Yet he still had it easy, yes, and Watari would be the first to admit that.


He had no Muraki plauging him, dogging his every step.

He had no curse, no hex to haunt his dreaming time.

He had no partner to interfere with his style, to slow him down. (Though sometimes working without a partner was hard, even for a genius.)

He got to work in his lab as much as he wanted, which was probably too much.


Yes, all in all, Watari had a pretty fine afterlife, compared to some.


So why was he burdened with so many, so many, awful dreams?


It was because Yutaka was forced to care for his friends. Always 'after.' In the end, when they came back from their haunts and trials, he was the one who sewed them back together. He was the one who rejoined muscle, drew out poison, who realigned tendons.

He was the one who bandaged wounds that should have healed alone.

He was the one who saw their haunted, paniced, frightened, deadened eyes.

Watari was the one who monitored them, observed them, heard the noises they made in private nightmares--big or small.

He was the one who soothed their sleep, listened to their harrowing tales (while his vivid imagination provided pictures and sound), healed them, helped make them whole--or as whole as they could be--again. Watari was forced to form them back into the spectres of themselves--a duty he took upon himself to do, something that he gladly did.

But voluntarily going through such a task, caring for his friends, didn't change the fact that Watari too often woke from troubled dreams.

It didn't get rid of those horrifying images, those awful thoughts.

Just because he had volunteered, didn't mean he did not see his friends reaching out to him with bloodied, injured muscle and bones in his dreams.

Watari still woke, covered in sweat--always convinced, in horror, upon waking that it was blood.

And though he bore it all with a grin--because he knew he was at least keeping them safe from something--and never said a word, he knew his intentions could not change his dreams. His love, his compassion, his desire to help others...

It didn't change the aftermath.


-FIN-