[Rescue Fire/Gaia fusion] For Tatsuya

[hotshotlightning]

He wasn't going to pace. He was going to wait patiently for Tatsuya to arrive, not give in to nerves before he'd even got there. So what if they had a lot to talk about, that was no reason to be nervous.

Yeah, right. They had over ten years worth of stuff to catch up on and it wasn't exactly all sunshine and rainbows.

He glanced down at his watch and sighed. Come on, Tatsuya.

Comments

[hotshotlightning]

"Oh please. Like I'm not going to wipe the floor with you on those."

He went still as Tatsuya admitted that last. "I haven't really talked about it either."

How did you talk about something like this, though?

[fire1]

Tatsuya frowned, "yeah ... everyone at work has noticed something's up with me, but I didn't know what to say. Sorry." He realised what this might sound like to Katsumi, and his face paled, "I just mean it's awkward ... It's not like I'm embarrassed about you."

[hotshotlightning]

Katsumi's eyebrows rose slightly at that, pointedly ignoring the small stab of hurt the comment had produced. "Stop digging yourself in deeper," he suggested. "But I know what you mean."

He didn't actually think many people had noticed with him, but he was a lot more used to being closed off than Tatsuya was.

[fire1]

"No, really-" Tatsuya began but then broke off. He petted Katsumi's arm, though with more hesitation than usual, "It's just difficult, you know?"

[hotshotlightning]

"Yeah," Katsumi agreed after a moment, taking a breath before replying. "Yeah, I know."

It wouldn't surprise him if certain people on base started prodding to get answers but he didn't have to deal with that yet. "We'll have to talk about it some time, though."

[fire1]

"Like, us talking about it? Or telling other people?" Tatsuya had no other family besides Katsumi and that left only his friends and co-workers at UFDA. He felt awkward mentioning the subject but was sure they would be sympathetic.

[hotshotlightning]

Katsumi shrugged. "Either, I guess. Your friends will probably want some idea of what's going on with you."

Which was easy enough to say, not so easy to do in practice.

[fire1]

"Don't you have friends, too?" Tatsuya looked at his watch, and tugged on Katsumi's sleeve, "c'mon. You can't beat my Dragon Fighter score."

[hotshotlightning]

"I have friends!" he replied, stung. "And yeah, right. Any score you can get, I can get."

[fire1]

"Wouldn't they support you?" Tatsuya decided not to pursue it any further, and instead chased over to the nearest machine.

[hotshotlightning]

Before he could retort Tatsuya was already gone, bounding over to the closest machine.

"How did this even get turned around onto me?" he muttered under his breath, joining his brother at the game.

[fire1]

Tatsuya proudly loaded up the high scores for Katsumi to observe that he was 36th out of the top 50, "Bet you can't beat that," he bragged and then shovelled more coins into the slot.

[hotshotlightning]

"Oh, we'll see about that." Elbowing Tatsuya out the way, he took control of the console just as the game started.

[fire1]

Tatsuya rushed to select his player character before Katsumi did. He had every faith in his ability to beat his brother at this and every other game in the arcade.

[hotshotlightning]

"I hope you like losing," Katsumi taunted as Tatsuya scrambled for his controls. No way was he losing.

[fire1]

Tatsuya stuck out his tongue at Katsumi. He hammered furiously at the controls when the game started, and kept giving his brother little nudges in the side.

[hotshotlightning]

"Cut that out!" Katsumi hissed, elbowing him right back. Really, it was sad that Tatsuya couldn't play without resorting to cheap tactics to win.

[fire1]

"Shut up shut up shut UP." Tatsuya elbowed Katsumi back again, but had soon returned his attention to concentrating on beating Katsumi's score.

[hotshotlightning]

"Just because you can't play like an adult."

He was winning this game, damn it.

[fire1]

"You're jealous. Because I'm winning." Tatsuya increased the ferocity with which he was beating the controls.

[hotshotlightning]

"You are not."

[fire1]

"Am too-"

And that's when the power went out. Tatsuya's little voice piped up through the darkness, "hey, Katsumi-chan?"

[hotshotlightning]

"Hey! What's the big--"

Power failure. Damn it. He looked around but there were no back-up lights coming on and there were plenty of people sounding freaked out.

Including Tatsuya. He did a double take at the 'Katsumi-chan'; he hadn't been called that in years.

"Yeah?" he asked, reaching out to satisfy himself that Tatsuya was still next to him.

[fire1]

Tatsuya fumbled around for his brother, and grabbed onto Katsumi's hand in the dark, "Now we're gonna have to play again - hope they'll give us our money back." His fingers closed around Katsumi's palm.

[hotshotlightning]

"I don't think they're that generous."

He squeezed Tatsuya's hand lightly. Had he always been afraid of the dark? He was pretty sure he hadn't been, but that was a long time ago, maybe he was wrong.