Current mood:

tired

Three-way Coordination!
Written between me, dosetsu and shoiryu


Once upon a time there was a family of dark wizards, and they had two sons. The younger one was a model child- he hated Muggles and Muggleborn wizards, was interested in forbidden curses, and was arrogant, sneaky and clever. He was sorted into Slytherin, just like the rest of his family, where he proceeded to learn as many hexes, curses, and dark magic as he could. He caused quite a lot of trouble, but was never once caught. They called him Regulus, after the brightest star in the Leo constellation.

Now, it was a good thing they had this second child, as their first was almost a complete failure.

Oh, sure, he was arrogant and sneaky, clever and kind of a bully, but he was also brave and true to his friends, liked Mudbloods, and disagreed with his parents on almost everything. At school he was a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin, and though he also caused a lot of trouble, it was good natured trouble for the most part, entirely the wrong sort.

They named him Sirius, the dog star.

Now, the boys got older, and eventually Sirius moved into his own place, and graduated school, and Regulus after him, and the two of them went in very different directions. Sirius took up with the good guys, fighting dark wizards where ever he could find them, playing best man at his best friend's wedding, and spending a suspicious amount of time with a registered werewolf.

Regulus, on the other hand, attempted to kill a whole slew of potential professional Qudditch players at a national tryout one day, all in the name of the Dark Lord, who seemed to have some kind of aversion to the game. (Perhaps his favorite team had lost one too many times; who knows what goes on in the mind of Voldemort?)

Their parents were proud of their younger son, who was fighting the good fight.

They prefered to pretend the other one didn't exist.

This was fine by him, because Sirius Black tended to have much bigger things to worry about.

For example, the fact that he was definitely not where he'd been trying to get to. This was a bar. Sirius was familiar with bars, some intimiately. This was not one of them.

He stood quite still, giving his surroundings a lazy once-over, and then said, quite clearly, "Where the bloody hell am I now?"

Tatchi, meanwhile, was still lying on/in a pile of rubble next to a large hole in the wall, trying to piece together exactly what had just happened and whether or not he was, in fact, completely crazy.

The hole in the wall seemed to suggest otherwise.

...As did the continuing weight on his shoulder, which was quite definitely real, despite of there being no visible cause for it.

He shifted his shoulder around uneasily. Maybe it'd been buried under a bit of rubble, and he couldn't see it. He couldn't really -see- anyway.

Sirius was staring at Tatchi now, and the mess, wearing an expression that could almost be considered a sneer. His left hand was in his pocket, though, ready to "draw" should the need arise.

Being a wizard, he was accustomed to Apparating into the middle of strange scenes, but that didn't mean that this guy was friendly. Sirius raised one eyebrow, cocked his head to the right, and said clearly, "You, over there. Everything... all right?" If the guy could even hear him.

Yachiru, meanwhile, continues...well, continues to sit on Tatchi's shoulder, hunched forward a bit like some sort of perched bird, humming idly to herself. She spares an idle glance for the new entry, not paying him much attention, really.

But Sirius blinked. "...'ve got a tiny person on your shoulder, mate," he informed Tatchi. An elf, maybe? Didn't look like an elf.

Tatchi, with a groan, lifted his head up and in the direction that the voice was coming from. "I've got a what?"

"A tiny person on your shoulder," Yachiru chirped happily. And then, responding to Sirius: "Who he can't see or hear, but I can do stuff like this!" And with that, she planted a none-too-gentle kick on Tatchi's temple.

"......Ah." Sirius pulled out his wand, more than a little alarmed now, and held it at his side. ".....That's very interesting. Maybe you can tell me where the bloody fuck I am?"

Tatchi, meanwhile, was on the floor, swearing quietly. "What the hell did you just do?!"

"What, me?" Sirius looked indignant.

Ignoring Tatchi, Yachiru...hopped. A short, easy jump that somehow carried her, light as a feather, to land right on Sirius' head. "You're in EGC. And you can see me, which is kinda cool. You must not be as normal as this other guy, huh?"

Tatchi blinked, for the weight on his shoulder was suddenly gone. His new headache, however, was not.

"...he's probably a Muggle," Sirius told her, looking puzzled. "What the hell are you?"

"Shinigami," was the reply, and Yachiru hopped down a "level," perching with that same impeccable balance on Sirius' shoulder. "What's a Muggle?"

Sirius looked at her. "Never heard of a Shinergammie, or whatever that is. A Muggle's someone who's not got any magic. Non-wizard, y'see?" he held up his wand for emphasis.

Tatchi blinked. This strange guy, who apparently had given him his headache, was now TALKING TO HIMSELF.

And not only that, he was waving a stick around.

"Shi-ni-ga-mi." Yachiru hmmmed, peering at the wand. "Weird. I thought our terms for that stuff were the only ones. Well, whatever. I think the other guy thinks you're crazy now. He can't see me, remember? Well, he could before, when his soul was out of his body, but not anymore."

"Lots of people think I'm crazy." Sirius seemed quite complacent. "I'm rather beginning to suspect I am, as I've no idea what I'm doing here- what did you say it was called? "eejeesee?""

"Yeah, that's the name! And I just got here myself. But I know what I'm doing, so I guess I've got one up on ya, huh?"

"Ijishi," said Tatchi, though he wasn't sure why he was interrupting the man's conversation with himself. "The Orphan City. EGC is what the... uh..." He suddenly realized that saying "the English speakers" to an English speaker in English would be somewhat hypocritical.

Sirius glanced over at Tatchi. "You. No sudden movements 'til I know whether or not you're on the Other Side, understand?" Looking back at Yachiru- she seemed to be a sensible sort, and he respected that- Sirius said, "Well, I know what I was /going/ to do... which reminds me, if I'm here, he might be, too- have you seen a chap, looks a lot like me, shorter hair, darker eyes, radiates evil?"

Tatchi didn't know what the hell the madman was talking about, but the Other Side? Did he mean NGC?

Yachiru shakes her head. "Nope. I've officially met two people here, you and the guy who thinks you're crazy. I saved him from a Hollow. ...You might not know what those are. But hey, if you see any freaky creatures with big white masks, run. Let someone dressed like me take care of it."

"Oi, what d'you think I carry this for?" he held up his wand, looking sulky. "I fight Death Eaters. Might go in to be an Auror, I dunno yet. I can handle myself, thanks."

Yachiru's bright, cheery smile doesn't fade for a second as she says, "No, I don't think you get it. If someone like me catches you fighting one of those, they will kill you for it. It's not your job."

"Very impressive," Sirius drawled, a bit arrogantly, obviously not in the least impressed. He was looking at Tatchi again, consideringly. "So what /are/ you, then? If you're one of Them, I'm going to have to kill you now, you know." He said all this quite easily.

The boy stared at him, or rather, -seemed- to stare at him, though it was hard to tell with all that hair in front of where his eyes ought to be. "I'm.... I work for the Demiurge," he said, uneasily.

"Your funeral. Look forward to getting assigned to District 80." Whatever that means. Yachiru pats Sirius condescendingly on the head and hops down to the ground.

".....Demiurge?" Sirius said, his voice rising suspiciously. He raised his wand a little.

Tatchi practically jumped in his skin. "You don't know who the Demiurge is?" He said with dismay. "What, have you been living under a rock all this time?"

"I don't like your tone," Sirius growled, sounding distinctly... canine, all of a sudden. "Watch yourself, if you like all your limbs."

"Geez, all he did was call you dumb," Yachiru pointed out.

"I've fought worse," said Tatchi, and he meant it, though he had no way of remembering the numerous fights he had been in that would back this statement up. As if to prove his point, he slid into a casual fighting stance.

Sirius looked at him. For several long seconds. Then he lifted his wand in an almost lazy fashion, pointed it at Tatchi, and said, "Petrificus."

Sparks flew up in the air between the two, and then... nothing.

Sirius blinked, raised his wand and stared at the tip. He scowled, whirled it between his fingers so that it pointed at Tatchi again, and said, in a slightly louder voice, "PETRIFICUS!"

This time the sparks that flew up between the two were a solid, emerald green.

"My turn!" cried Tatchi, and with a blur, he sent a solid roundhouse kick to Sirius's side.

Sirius made a choking sound and stumbled back against a table, giving a genuine snarl of anger and pain. "Oh, that's HAD it," he exclaimed, and threw himself at Tatchi with bare fists.

Tatchi sidestepped this motion easily, jabbing Sirius in the back with his elbow as he passed him back.

He stumbled, and then turned quickly, aiming his wand again and this time at close range. "STUPEFY!"

Tatchi stood still for a moment, and then.... keeled over, right into a table.

Sirius stumbled into the nearest table and nearly fell over himself, cursing vicious at the pain in his side and back, and glaring at the now motionless form on the floor. "Serves... you... right..." he wheezed. "See if I... Ennervate... you... Bloody hell..." He ran a hand through his long hair, and straightened a bit shakily. "Wanker."

A crowd of people stood and stared.

"What the fuck are you all looking at?" Sirius growled, tossing his hair out of his face.

The crowd stopped, and the people in it gave each other looks of dismay. But then, the crowd parted, and a woman in a tank top and short skirt approached, adjusting the straps on some nasty looking fighting gloves as she did so.

"I'm really getting tired of you people fighting in here like it's the street," she said, looking down at him.

"......He started it," Sirius said, but his tone was suddenly rather silky, and he gave this new woman a roguish grin. "I can probably pay for damages, anyway-"

"Really. Are you going to pay for -that-?" she said, nonchalantly pointing to the hole in the wall with her thumb.

"......Well I didn't do that, did I." He wasn't even looking her in the face.

"Probably not," she said. "But it's either that or I kick you in the face for staring at my breasts."

"They're very nice, though," Sirius said reasonably. "It's not wrong for a man to appreciate beauty, is it?" He beamed, the very expression that had once had dozens of Hogwarts females falling all over themselves to get to him. This always worked!

Tifa looked thoroughly unimpressed. "Don't wrap it up in rhetoric; you're staring at my chest, and if you don't stop, I'm going to kick your ass. Capiche?"

Maybe not. Sirius drooped, and reached into his pocket. "Okay, fine, let me see what I've got here..." he pulled out a handful of gold and silver coins. "Hmm... How's fifty Galleons sound?"

She stared at him with one eyebrow raised. "What the hell are those things?"

"Money- Oh!" Suddenly Sirius was looking a little pained. "You must be a Muggle, then. You'll be wanting... I forget what they call it.... pounds?"

"More like a rim," she said, folding her arms.

Wait, stop, hold the phone. ".........A what?"

"A rim, damn it." She seemed particularly annoyed with his inability to grasp this simple concept. "R-I-M. Rim."

Sirius' dark blue eyes were decidedly wide. "Well, uh, I guess I could, but you know, I only just met you, and even /I've/ got standards, and there was the bit about your breasts a second ago-"

A pause. "What?"

He looked uncertain. "You said you wanted a rim, love."

"Well, not literally _a_ rim," she said, eyeing him with suspicion. "I'd need a helluva lot more than that if I'm going to have that hole in the wall repaired."

"So you want... more than one." He had to repeat it, just to clarify. "More than one rim?" Either this was the best day of his life, or the worst- either way, he was trying very hard not to think of The Significant Other, who didn't USUALLY have a problem with this sort of thing.

"Well, isn't that obvious? Repair is expensive." She began to tap her foot impatiently. "So? Are you going to or not?"

".....You mean right HERE?" Sirius practically yelped. "Look, I may be a bit loose, but I'm not into voyeurism!"

Tifa blinked at him. "What? What the heck are you on?"

That's what I'd like to ask you!" Sirius looked panicked. "Can I take a raincheck on this?"

"So you can run off without paying?" She snorted. "I don't think so."

Wild-eyed now, Sirius had his wand out again. "I think I'm going to have to insist," he said. He turned and ponted his wand at Tatchi, saying, "Ennervate!" And with that, he disappeared completely, as though he'd never even been there.