evherie (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} evherie) wrote,@ 2006-11-22 16:57:00 |
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[Fic]xxxHOLiC, Donuts, R
Lots of stuff here
Title: With
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Pairing: Donuts (yes, I like that name! I don't care if I'm the only one!)
Rating: R-ish, there's some naughtiness in there
Disclaimer: Not mine, CLAMP's. No point in suing as I'm poor and annoying
Notes: It's basically a bunch of drabbles or false starts I thought I'd string together somehow. Succeeded more or less, you be the judge. Here's an earlier draft, parts of it are shoved in here and parts I have left out. And then there are deleted scenes at the end, sort of, or stuff I have also put together but couldn't fit into the actual fic. Just thought maybe somebody would get something out of reading them and since I most likely won't be doing anything else with them, they might as well go here. So basically this is one big fic dump.
WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 123
ETA:mangust already drew me an insanely awesome art for this story! Check it out here! It's beyond brilliant!
With
I
Life with Watanuki teaches Doumeki many things.
Watanuki doesn’t like people touching his nose.
He hates carrots and black beans and mint ice cream. He cannot stand people leaving the lights on when they leave the house, or the cupboard doors open.
He draws circles and stick figures (and on one occasion, there were two stick figures doing something naughty, with ‘HA HA HA, WHERE DID THAT COME FROM written next to the picture) on the shopping lists he leaves on the fridge door.
He likes games and quizzes and gets ridiculously excited, as well as extremely competitive, being the kind who will loudly yell, even to comparative strangers sometimes: “Ha ha, in your face! You suck, I kicked your butt!”
In his sleep, he sometimes mumbles unintelligible, round words, and sometimes he smacks his mouth just like Doumeki’s uncle’s dog used to do when it wanted to go out hunting in the fall. Once, Watanuki laughed, an adorable little hushed laugh and a giggle, and Doumeki dearly hoped it was him Watanuki was dreaming of. Another time, in the middle of the night, Watanuki sat up and said, in a very loud and clear voice: “You get that thing out of your mouth this instant, young man!” Doumeki had sat up with a sleepy “whuh?”, but Watanuki had only promptly lain back down and slept peacefully once more.
In his sleep, Watanuki’s mouth goes slack and some frown you never really see when he’s awake, straightens out.
It’s not that Doumeki watches Watanuki sleeping.
The noise Watanuki makes the first time Doumeki ever makes him come is one of odd surprise, as if he never really expected to be the kind to make noise; as if he never really understood that sex was actually supposed to be fun. Doumeki himself was, earlier in the evening, forced to spill wine on himself to get an excuse to go to the toilet and jerk off. The entire evening was excruciating, Watanuki having accidentally slipped out that the particular night was going to be ‘well, different, you know DON’T STARE AT ME LIKE THAT YOU WEIRDO”, and he was afraid he would be completely out of control the minute he’d manage to pry Watanuki’s pants off.
He is able to hold off for a good while, in a very manly fashion, and only comes against Watanuki’s slim abdomen when he hears the amazed “AahHUH?” breathed into his ear.
II
They rarely fight. Watanuki is as violent and passionate with his words as he ever was, and Doumeki pokes him back every now and then, but they grow softer and sometimes find themselves going through entire evenings without anything even remotely snippy in the air. Despite their superficial differences, they compliment each other nicely: both are well raised and polite and actually quite fond of each other.
But of course it’s not all smooth sailing.
One afternoon, Doumeki sits down to see Watanuki brushing Mugetsu with a tiny brush. The fox is laid flat on Watanuki’s lap, completely immobile, whether from fear or enjoyment, Doumeki really can’t tell.
“Are you supposed to be doing that?” he asks.
Watanuki snaps his head up. “He likes it!”
“What, you’re going to tie pink bows into his fur next,” Doumeki smirks and Watanuki rushes up, the Pipe Fox (the damn thing) quickly grabbing on and sliding into his sleeve to hide. Watanuki fumes, breathes through his nose loudly and stomps away, banging their bedroom door closed.
Apparently it was insulting.
Watanuki rants around in the bedroom and bangs the furniture about. He’s most likely cleaning, though, for Watanuki would never mess up any space he himself has to live in, probably not any other space voluntarily either. Just as Doumeki reaches for the handle, the stampede from inside shouts at him: “All your clothes and books and stuff are in here, so you better stay out of this room if you don’t want to have them back in about a million pieces!”
Doumeki let’s go of the handle, but does not retreat.
“I am not a girl!” the door vibrates at him.
“Well, yeah, I’ve seen you without your pants on.”
“Don’t talk to me about… about my pants!”
Doumeki leans his forehead on the door. He’s horrible with apologies.
“Look”, he finally begins, and knows Watanuki must hear the remorse in his voice because the bedroom grows quiet and the air still. “I’ll let you put pink bows into my hair.”
Something drops with a loud clink and Watanuki pulls the door open with force.
“What?”
Doumeki looks away and struggles to keep his arm from rising to scratch at his neck.
“I’ll. Let you. Put pink bows into my hair.” His face stays calm, but Watanuki knows better by now.
Watanuki leans slowly against the door frame, with a smile of a cat that has been eating your prize-winning canaries all day long and has no intention of stopping anytime soon.
“Say please,” he smirks.
Doumeki looks at him in the eye and knows he is forgiven. “Please.”
So they sit down, and Watanuki cheerfully ties two glaring yellow ribbons – he couldn’t find pink ones anywhere - into his short hair with care and love. Doumeki lets them stay where they are until it’s time for him to leave for his study group. He’s only a few feet into the night when he hears Watanuki’s footsteps following him.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Watanuki huffs at him. “You can take them off now, you hairy bastard of a monkey.” He reaches to extract the bows from his hair.
“I thought they suited me.” Doumeki says.
“You’re such a girl.”
III
During hot summer months, Watanuki barely lets Doumeki touch him. He’s grumpy and irritated, but then again he always is, during summer his irritation is only more restless, more absent. Sometimes, after a long day, Watanuki will sit down in the only chair that is in the shade in their tiny, poorly ventilated apartment, and he will allow Doumeki to fan him with a newspaper, if Doumeki just waits long enough for him to settle down, close his eyes, and sigh a few times.
Doumeki does not fan just because he is a good and loving boyfriend, but also because Watanuki does sigh, loudly and rather obscenely sometimes, and because he wears a big t-shirt with a wide v-shaped collar. He pulls on the collar, lets it slip, and it reveals hidden treasures; the collarbone, the shoulder, and sometimes a hint or a shadow of a nipple, and Doumeki forgets to fan.
“I hate this”, Watanuki will say, his words stretching just like his body as he shifts his legs and lifts his hands over his head, giving a glimpse of a pale, flat stomach. “Why is it so hot?”
“Because it’s summer, “ Doumeki says, and Watanuki sighs, exasperated, too tired to be in on the joke.
Watanuki may be willing to cuddle for a while, especially under the cool sheets during evening, but as soon as one of them, or both, gets even a bit sweaty, he pulls away. This usually happens while one of them has just managed to wriggle out of their boxers and is happily enjoying a hand job. Doumeki wants to inform Watanuki that if would be rather problematic to have sex without breaking a sweat, but he knows Watanuki won’t care. He will pull his hand away sometimes only a second before Doumeki can climax and yell: “It’s too hot, gaah; your sweat is all over! I don’t want to do laundry again in the morning!”
One Sunday, when Doumeki is feeling particularly desperate, he figures sex in the shower might be a good idea, but is soon cured of this misconception when he tries to sneak into the bathroom after Watanuki and Watanuki screams bloody murder for ten minutes straight. It may have something to do with how Doumeki thought it would be amusing to approach him with a surprise ice cube in the neck.
(The neighbours, for many many years forward, talk about the odd boys living in 3B who are into black magic and voodoo and gut and torture cats. “In the dead of the night”, they say. “You can sometimes still hear the cats shriek as their bones are torn from their bodies.”)
IV
They both received an impressive pummelling the previous night, from whatever spirit-creature it was this time, something more akin to a demon or a God. It was so powerful even Doumeki could see it as clear as day: the black scales and the wild red mane burning in the dying sunlight. He, obviously, took most of the physical beating while trying to keep Watanuki out of harm’s way and now sports a black eye, a sprain on his wrist and a lot of smaller bruises. Regardless, it was still Watanuki’s part to face the fight, as it always tends to be. Yuuko shows up just a second too early to let Watanuki die; she swishes to the scene to do her magic; to throw a twig, or to a summon sharp-toothed, iridescent creature from the pond to crunch the monster between its teeth. But still, it is Watanuki who sucks up the magic, who sucks up the poison the spirits emit into the human world.
Doumeki can do nothing, in the end, even if he would anything in his power.
He sits in the breakfast table, ladling his soup into his mouth, too exhausted to care even if it burns his tongue and there’s too much salt. He doesn’t know what to do, or how he can survive and it’s moments like these that almost do in him: moments where he looks up and sees Watanuki’s white skin splotched red when a thin red line of blood drips from his nose to his plate, and Watanuki is too exhausted to even realize.
It is a sinking feeling and his hands shake too much when he reaches across the table. What if he cannot protect this boy, what if there is not enough life between the two of them to sustain even one person. He has given his eye, his blood, two of his fingers and more magic he ever thought he possessed; what if he runs out of body parts to give, runs out of bargaining chips to buy time with?
Doumeki has been taught to be strong, and he is, but it has never meant that he would not feel, that he would be unbreakable. He has been taught not to deny fear; to give it just enough space to keep him careful but not too much to make him paranoid or overly cautious. But there have been times; like the hours painted with glass shards and Himawari’s broken smile, when he thought, for the first time in his life, that he could not keep the fear at bay and it would eat him up and make him undeserving. No matter what his grandfather tried to teach him, he was still not really prepared.
Those moments are in the past now, and one should never dwell on the past, but the touch of them never really fades. He was forced to put his faith in Yuuko, forced to turn Watanuki over into somebody else’s hands and it never leaves him. He knows it is human to be afraid and he is human, after all, only human. But he wants to be strong enough. He grits his teeth and fights to control the doubt and the trepidation in his gut.
V
At first Watanuki seems to be afraid of touch, though not afraid of Doumeki, which is a relief to discover. No, Watanuki is afraid of another person breathing, existing so close and taking up his own precious space, so he squirms and fidgets and talks about useless things endlessly, and if Doumeki even dares to imply he would be nervous, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Doumeki doesn’t think Watanuki is being mean on purpose when he pulls away from Doumeki’s touches, or when he frowns and slaps him when he’s trying to put his hand down Watanuki’s pants in the breakfast table. Watanuki tends to be busy – Yuuko still makes sure of that – and there’s always something he has to do now, something he’s trying to figure out, or somewhere he’s going to have to be in a moment.
“And it’s not nice if I’m all sleepy and red, and I always am, then, if we… do something,” he says irritably. Doumeki has been around Watanuki long enough to know that red means flustered and sleepy means relaxed and takes this as a compliment. Watanuki may be ridiculously easy to put into a blushing fit (especially from rage), but relaxing him is a task that Doumeki suspects nobody but him manages in.
It’s only that Watanuki has not yet fully understood that somebody’s satisfaction and happiness could depend on him. Doumeki knows Watanuki and forgives this, and after all it is him, of all the men and women in the world, who ever has access to any part of body, any patch of skin, or any tuft of hair belonging to Watanuki.
It takes him a while to understand the way Watanuki shows affection, or the way he attempts to initiate any sort of contact. Watanuki pinches his neck sometimes, or pulls absently at his hair when he passes Doumeki in the hall, smiling a little. When Doumeki sits on the sofa picking pieces of tissue off freshly-laundered clothes (“We are not that poor that we would need to wash our tissues, you domestic horror!” Watanuki tells him, every time, but he still tends to forget to check all his pockets), Watanuki will suddenly pull Doumeki’s socks off and start tickling him. A few times he has woken up, very early in the morning, to Watanuki stroking his hair and blushing furiously when he realizes Doumeki’s eyes are open
“There was a knot in your hair!” Watanuki defends noisily. Doumeki closes his eyes and tries not to smile. Watanuki’s fingers linger.
At first, Watanuki’s touches on his body are unsure and shivery, scared and careful in the darkness of their bedroom. Watanuki’s fingers barely stray beyond his navel and Doumeki carefully – very carefully – takes his hand and settles it around himself. Watanuki buries his face in Doumeki’s neck, the heat revealing his blush. But his hands are eager, even if inexperienced.
They aren’t the kind to speak words of love, neither of them, really. Doumeki has, a few times, attempted to call Watanuki honey or darling or some such other endearment, but it usually comes out from his mouth sounding so ridiculous that Watanuki will threaten him with a frying pan.
But he still smiles, secretly.
Lazing around in an afterglow, Watanuki traces his finger down Doumeki’s back, caressing the base of his spine, the slope of his back.
“I like this part of you,” Watanuki whispers into his chest.
VI
Looking at Watanuki’s frail body, big round eyes and bony shoulders, Doumeki tries to make himself distinguish what’s in there, what is it that the other world and its creatures see that he cannot. Watanuki is a riddle to him, a puzzle or a code he can’t even see to try and solve. Maybe Watanuki doesn’t belong in this place, maybe there’s a hidden depth in him Doumeki can never reach and one day they will be torn apart and Watanuki will return to the universe he was always meant to be in. He wants to see a future where they are fat old men; a future where they argue over the possession of the remote control and compare their digestive problems, but he cannot see it, for he has not the gift of precognition. He can only hope, hope with every fibre of his being. But some days, he feels his hope is a small thing against an entire world.
Some days, when he hasn’t seen Watanuki in a while, he starts to fear that it will all suddenly disappear; that he will no longer be able to return to the apartment of which he pays half of the rent and Watanuki the other half; that if he were to run into Watanuki on the street, they would no longer recognize each other.
He fears he will blink and find himself still hunched up on the cold floor of Yuuko’s shop, staring at the curled, odd black figures adorning the floor tiles, the black tendrils stretching to a future without Watanuki. He remembers his body growing stiff, and his clothes sticking to his skin, he remembers the weight in his arms and the cold fingers sinking into his skin, the laboured way Watanuki fought for his breath and probably tried to apologize.
He remembers straining his ears to hear through the door, remembers how he tried to trick himself into believing he could keep Watanuki alive just by breathing himself, just by pulling Watanuki along, tying them together tighter and tighter.
But Watanuki will risk himself, again and again, for stupid reasons, and sometimes for good reasons as well, even if Doumeki can never rate any reason good enough. He grows angry, furious and then disgusted by his own rage. He will clutch Watanuki to him tightly on those nights when he has again escaped something only barely. Doumeki is never rough but knows he can be forceful and does not bother to rein it in.
Watanuki asks him if something is wrong, but he stays quiet, absolutely and completely quiet, now too close to even berate Watanuki, too close to make it into a joke.
At first, Watanuki does not know what to do, so he tries to understand, but when he can’t his innocent questions and apologies will only worsen things. When Doumeki is silent for too long and avoids eye contact for almost a week, Watanuki turns into a frightened cat, creeping around listlessly, every movement making him jump. The look in Watanuki’s eyes is hunted and must be the exact same he wore years and years ago when he was still so very young.
He asks: “Are you leaving?”
Doumeki can’t really say anything, ‘of course not’ would seem stupid, ineffective and even insulting; a simple ‘no’ would sound insincere. Eventually he only shakes his head, ready to grab on if it begins to look like Watanuki is ready to walk out. But Watanuki yells: “Why don’t you say anything, what is wrong with you? You open your mouth and you talk, that’s what it’s there for, you, you brainless oaf!”
It’s a relief to hear Watanuki shouting at him, but he still does not know what to say. He opens his mouth, tries for words but nothing comes.
“Come on, just say it! What is it? I have heard you talk before; I know you can do it!” Watanuki demands.
Doumeki buries his face in his hands, knuckles digging into his forehead.
“What is there that I can do to keep you alive?”
Later on, he lays his head on Watanuki’s lap and Watanuki pets his hair.
“I’m not with you as a reward, you know,” Watanuki says, his tone gentle. “I’m not a prize you get for a job done well. You don’t have to deserve me to get me.”
Doumeki holds on tightly to the fabric of Watanuki’s pants (he doesn’t cling, for he’s a grown man and grown men don’t do that).
“I don’t need you to keep me alive.”
Doumeki feels like choking, his body trying to clench in on itself and curl up into a space that’s just too small for his frame. He’s never been much for crying, but it’s still a bit surprising that he can’t immediately recognize the want to cry.
“I’m not here because I need you to save me. I’m here, because, well – “ and here Watanuki clears his throat. “Because I, for some reason I’m sure no deity in the world can decipher, like you.”
Doumeki is quiet for a long, long time, and Watanuki waits.
“I can’t stand you dying.”
“I won’t die. You have to trust me.”
“But you…” Doumeki slips off, swallows his breath and his voice, but he knows the words are there anyway, existing between them, out of his reach to erase. For other people, you will go to any lengths. Watanuki bows down his head, his hair reaching Doumeki’s ear and tickling his cheek.
“I…” Watanuki says.
They stay still, for a long while, the apartment bathed in the blood-red tones of sunset and the two of them eventually embraced in the merciful blues of twilight. Watanuki continues to pet Doumeki's hair and will soon come to realize that his lessons, even if perhaps already learnt, still need some repeating and absorbing. He no longer lives for himself only. Doumeki, in turn will eventually understand that he can’t always be strong; he has to be weak and imperfect and human, because that is exactly what he is. He needs to better appreciate the difference between a duty, a human in a distress and a person he shares his everyday life with.
It is not an easy thing to trust oneself into somebody else's hands, but sometimes there is no other way to survive.
They don’t speak in unison, because they are two different people after all, but they think the same thing and it comes out in the same way.
“I will try harder for you.”
VII
A few months after their eighth anniversary, on a chilly December night, they meet at the train station to go home together and Doumeki opens his coat to let Watanuki burrow inside. The difference in their height is just big enough that he could zip his coat up and Watanuki would be wholly swallowed up in the warm darkness of their shared space, almost inside Doumeki.
He is careful to leave enough room to breathe.
Watanuki’s lips are red and swollen from the cold, the tip of his nose freezing as he presses it against Doumeki’s neck.
“Why aren’t you wearing anything on your head, you idiot,” Doumeki tells him.
“Oh but I was, it’s just that I ran into this adorable little girl and she looked like she was so cold, so I gave her my hat,” Watanuki says. “But then the girl said she didn’t need the hat for herself, but for her small rabbit, she had this rabbit, you see, in her pocket, and so I took the rabbit and put it in my cap and suddenly the rabbit turned into this marvellous, huge phoenix and told me that that girl was a princess from a magical country and she had been put under a horrible spell, but now when somebody from the magical community had shown her kindness and she had shown it to him, he, the Mighty Phoenix of All the Little Bunny Rabbit Wizards, could now carry her back to her country and help her save the world! And I was really very horribly cold, but since I had helped to save a world, I thought it would all be okay.” Watanuki’s words melt into a smirk.
Doumeki bumps his chin against Watanuki’s forehead and smiles into his black hair. “Smarty-pants.”
“Smarty-pants? Didn’t the big kids teach any better insults?” Watanuki says and bites into the sensitive skin of Doumeki’s neck, worrying the skin gently with his teeth like a puppy trying out his first fang.
In retribution, Doumeki digs his cold fingers under Watanuki’s sweater, just inches above his waistline, making him yelp.
“Bony.”
“Fatty.”
-----
And then some of the stuff I couldn't fit anywhere in there. Number one is just something dumb that amused me a lot but made no sense, number two went too much against canon (a cookie for anyone who can spot what book was sort of my inspiration for the beginning of drabble number two) and number three is sort of pointless. But anyways, I hope you enjoy and commenting on these too is like Christmas come early.
1.
He had thought Watanuki wouldn’t take the concept of anal sex very well. In his imagination, Watanuki screams: “Say what? Are you insane! You love me, so you want you stick something up my ass?! In what god-forsaken universe is that logic?”
The reality, though, luckily turns out a bit different, even if Doumeki does end up with a black eye. The reason, however, is more in the lines of the neighbours’ dog suddenly barking loudly and scaring Watanuki enough to bump his elbow into Doumeki’s eye and less about Watanuki’s reluctance to let Doumeki touch his private body parts.
2.
Doumeki has seen Watanuki drunk three times.
Watanuki isn’t really very good with booze.
The first time can, obviously, be blamed on Yuuko, even if Doumeki never actually manages to find out if it was intentional or not. It comes out later that Watanuki had been cleaning the store room and since it had been so hot, he had asked for something to drink. He was given permission to refresh himself with raspberry juice he’d found in the back of some cupboard. Only, of course Watanuki being Watanuki, he had accidentally drunk not the juice, but a very expensive and rare alcohol mix Yuuko was not very happy to find she had unwittingly parted from.
Of course, Watanuki’s drunken state is not immediately obvious; when Doumeki comes to pick Watanuki up, the boy is in perfect health even if he perhaps looks a bit flushed and strangely happy. He doesn't say a word to Doumeki during the trip, not at least until they happen to pass a playground and Watanuki squeals: “Ooh, ooh, swings, I want to swing!” After which Doumeki spends a good two hours running after Watanuki around the park and trying to keep him from breaking his neck. Swinging isn’t enough, oh no, Watanuki also wants to try the slide many times (and wears a very attractive hole into his pants), and then the jungle gym, climbing and twirling around swiftly and in the end Doumeki is forced to drag him to the ground by his shirt before he splits his head open.
On their graduation day, they, just as everybody else from their classes, are invited to a party and as the evening draws to a close, Watanuki, who has politely downed a good amount of sake and beer, insists on hugging everybody goodbye. When he comes to Doumeki, he puts his hand over his mouth and stage-whispers – very loudly – “I won’t hug you because they’ll think I’m putting my hands down your pants, but I’ll make it up to you when we get home.”
Making up, though, does not include anything kinky, as Doumeki might have hoped, but instead it's a very big cake which Watanuki serves while bawling his eyes out, in the very unhappy state of teary and remorseful drunkenness that usually precedes the stage of Puking Your Guts Out by only a few minutes.
A few months into university, Watanuki gets another part-time job. It’s a restaurant; not the best establishment in town, but good enough. The chef is an odd Italian man whose Japanese nobody can really understand, but he’s good at what he does and likes Watanuki, who is endearingly enthusiastic about his new learning opportunity.
After a few months, one of the older employees is going into retirement and wants to host a party in honour of his newfound liberty. The party takes place in a rather seedy karaoke bar and is of course accentuated with a lot of cheap and strong alcohol. Doumeki comes to pick Watanuki up at ten thirty, just like they agreed, but after waiting for Watanuki outside for twenty minutes, he goes inside. At the bar, a young woman, a little flushed with alcohol but not disoriented or outright drunk, stops him.
“Ah, you must be Doumeki-san!” she yells over the noise.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” Doumeki inquires.
“Oh, no,” she giggles. “He’s just been talking about you all night long! I’m assuming you came to take him home, and well, he’s a very nice boy, but I think it’s best he goes home before he does something he’ll regret.”
Doumeki doesn’t have the time to ask further, for he soon hears a screeching, loud wail, distantly resembling singing from the karaoke. He most likely cares more about Watanuki than about anybody else in the entire world, but even he has to admit that the poor boy can’t sing to save his life.
Watanuki is propped on the stage, an alarming amount of very adult salary men and a few older women wobbling closer and closer to him with docile but far from innocent, drunken smiles. Doumeki sends a thank you to any God available that Watanuki is still fully dressed, even if he has stripped off his jacket and opened a bit too many buttons of his shirt. His tie is nowhere to be seen.
I got a house with windows and doors
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,
Gotta let me in, heeeee, heeee, heeeee
Let the fun begin
Watanuki screeches at the top of his lungs. He tries to twirl, almost trips over the microphone chord and just about manages to evade landing on his ass. Instead, he lands on his knees with a thump, leaning back and revealing a bit too much of his stomach and white throat, glistening with sweat.
I’m the wolf today, heeeee eeeeegh eeeeeegh
I’ll huff, I’ll puff
I’ll huff, I’ll puff
I’ll blow you awayyyyyyyy
Watanuki’s mutilation of the English language continues and nobody knows how his English teacher ever managed to let him graduate. Doumeki isn’t sure if he should cry or laugh, but as one of the men edges closer to reach for Watanuki’s writhing body on stage, Doumeki is sure that it’s best to put an end to this, for everybody’s sake.
He climbs on to the stage, not paying attention to the catcalls or boos. Watanuki, on seeing him, explodes with joy and dumps the microphone coldly, attacking Doumeki bodily. It’s a lucky thing he’s still so skinny, so they manage to stay upright when Watanuki hooks his legs around Doumeki’s waist and almost strangles him.
“It’s you! Heeyyy!” he screams, stinking of enough alcohol to put Yuuko in shame.
“Yes,” Doumeki replies calmly. “I’m thinking we better get you home.”
Watanuki only giggles as a reply and unashamedly humps himself against Doumeki, who tries to get them off the stage as easily and quickly as possible, having given up on attempting to be discreet among the hoots and random coins thrown at them.
“I’m not wearing any underwear,” Watanuki confides in him, sticking his tongue in Doumeki’s ear.
“Where’s your tie?”
“I don’t know. I’m hard.”
“Yes, I can tell. We need to find your coat.” He deposits Watanuki against a wall and tries to look around, but it is rather difficult when Watanuki is incredibly intent on undoing his pants.
“Cut that out.”
“I love you!” Watanuki’s smile is so sunny and genuine that Doumeki doesn’t have the heart to even feel annoyed by his drunkenness.
“Let’s just go home.”
Finally he locates Watanuki’s things and throws the boy over his shoulder, since walking seems to be a bit too difficult a task for his brains to accomplish. Watanuki keeps professing his love and rubbing himself against Doumeki’s shoulder. He puts his hand down Doumeki’s pants, palm caressing the left buttcheek.
“I love you, Mr Butt,” he sings.
Doumeki pulls his hand out gently. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”
This time, the evening includes many kinky things indeed and Watanuki doesn’t stop being extremely red for the next seven days. For the next week, he cooks all of Doumeki’s favourite foods, as well as diligently works overtime without even being asked.
For his next birthday Doumeki buys him a copy of B*Witched’s C’est La Vie – single.
3.
A woman comes to the shop, tall and beautiful with long, flaming red hair. She almost rivals Yuuko in her looks. But she has a problem. She has been followed by a nasty spirit that haunts her and she can’t get rid of it.
Or so she claims, for a few scuffles and spells later it turns out she had, long ago, killed a god-like creature to remain eternally young and gorgeous. The creature however, managed to keep something of himself alive inside her and was gathering strength to fight back. So what Yuuko and Watanuki are left with, in the end, are dried up bones as the only remains of a greedy old witch and a lanky, sullen young man with red hair and big, black wings. He remains in the shop, as a guest, to heal himself and his powers.
Watanuki can’t stand him. To Doumeki, he calls the magical being Crow Sourpuss the Sulky, and Crow Sourpuss can’t stand Watanuki any better. They scuffle all the time, to the extent that Doumeki finds himself jealous, for it was him, earlier, who jabbed at Watanuki and made him so furious. He does spot the difference, though; where he was usually gentle and well-meaning in his sarcasm, Mister Sulky (for that’s the only name he can recall after a while of Watanuki’s ranting) is truly nasty and condescending towards a mere mortal helping out a super powered witch.
Doumeki brings Himawari to the shop, to cheer Watanuki up; all the three of them don’t get to spend as much time together anymore, not after graduating from high school. Watanuki is insanely angry later, because the moment Himawari and Crow Sourpuss lay their eyes on each other, they realize they are made to be together. Their love isn’t as tragic as one might imagine: Himawari’s bright personality and practical touch can cure any young man from moodiness and detachment and there’s no amount of bad luck that could hurt a near immortal demigod.
A year later, Yuuko kindly (and for a very kind price as well) performs a ritual that will marry the two. Watanuki cries profusely at the wedding, as does Himawari, though her tears sparkle like silver and moonlight and make her more beautiful than ever.
“I’m so happy, to not even have to want to be normal anymore,” she says when she hugs Doumeki to thank him for her congratulations.
When it’s Watanuki’s turn to hug Himawari, he wails louder and Sourpuss more or less accidentally sheds feathers into Watanuki’s cake.
------
Extra! I kept listening to this song while writing and it just started to feel like the perfect crack theme song for our dear boys:
The Crash - Still Alive
(nevermind the video, just listen to the song)
So come on and take my hand
Oh grab my ass and smile
We'll make it together baby
You and me
Because me and you
Yeah, we are woodoo
Heartbeat in stereo
Stereo!
Oh, we're serial
Serial!
You and me!
I was the wild boy
You we're the furious
Furious!
We: a miracle
Miracle!
O-o-o-oh!
That was a long post. Comments are incredibly appreciated, please feed the writer! Thank you!
Lots of stuff here
Title: With
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Pairing: Donuts (yes, I like that name! I don't care if I'm the only one!)
Rating: R-ish, there's some naughtiness in there
Disclaimer: Not mine, CLAMP's. No point in suing as I'm poor and annoying
Notes: It's basically a bunch of drabbles or false starts I thought I'd string together somehow. Succeeded more or less, you be the judge. Here's an earlier draft, parts of it are shoved in here and parts I have left out. And then there are deleted scenes at the end, sort of, or stuff I have also put together but couldn't fit into the actual fic. Just thought maybe somebody would get something out of reading them and since I most likely won't be doing anything else with them, they might as well go here. So basically this is one big fic dump.
WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 123
ETA:
mangust already drew me an insanely awesome art for this story! Check it out here! It's beyond brilliant!With
I
Life with Watanuki teaches Doumeki many things.
Watanuki doesn’t like people touching his nose.
He hates carrots and black beans and mint ice cream. He cannot stand people leaving the lights on when they leave the house, or the cupboard doors open.
He draws circles and stick figures (and on one occasion, there were two stick figures doing something naughty, with ‘HA HA HA, WHERE DID THAT COME FROM written next to the picture) on the shopping lists he leaves on the fridge door.
He likes games and quizzes and gets ridiculously excited, as well as extremely competitive, being the kind who will loudly yell, even to comparative strangers sometimes: “Ha ha, in your face! You suck, I kicked your butt!”
In his sleep, he sometimes mumbles unintelligible, round words, and sometimes he smacks his mouth just like Doumeki’s uncle’s dog used to do when it wanted to go out hunting in the fall. Once, Watanuki laughed, an adorable little hushed laugh and a giggle, and Doumeki dearly hoped it was him Watanuki was dreaming of. Another time, in the middle of the night, Watanuki sat up and said, in a very loud and clear voice: “You get that thing out of your mouth this instant, young man!” Doumeki had sat up with a sleepy “whuh?”, but Watanuki had only promptly lain back down and slept peacefully once more.
In his sleep, Watanuki’s mouth goes slack and some frown you never really see when he’s awake, straightens out.
It’s not that Doumeki watches Watanuki sleeping.
The noise Watanuki makes the first time Doumeki ever makes him come is one of odd surprise, as if he never really expected to be the kind to make noise; as if he never really understood that sex was actually supposed to be fun. Doumeki himself was, earlier in the evening, forced to spill wine on himself to get an excuse to go to the toilet and jerk off. The entire evening was excruciating, Watanuki having accidentally slipped out that the particular night was going to be ‘well, different, you know DON’T STARE AT ME LIKE THAT YOU WEIRDO”, and he was afraid he would be completely out of control the minute he’d manage to pry Watanuki’s pants off.
He is able to hold off for a good while, in a very manly fashion, and only comes against Watanuki’s slim abdomen when he hears the amazed “AahHUH?” breathed into his ear.
II
They rarely fight. Watanuki is as violent and passionate with his words as he ever was, and Doumeki pokes him back every now and then, but they grow softer and sometimes find themselves going through entire evenings without anything even remotely snippy in the air. Despite their superficial differences, they compliment each other nicely: both are well raised and polite and actually quite fond of each other.
But of course it’s not all smooth sailing.
One afternoon, Doumeki sits down to see Watanuki brushing Mugetsu with a tiny brush. The fox is laid flat on Watanuki’s lap, completely immobile, whether from fear or enjoyment, Doumeki really can’t tell.
“Are you supposed to be doing that?” he asks.
Watanuki snaps his head up. “He likes it!”
“What, you’re going to tie pink bows into his fur next,” Doumeki smirks and Watanuki rushes up, the Pipe Fox (the damn thing) quickly grabbing on and sliding into his sleeve to hide. Watanuki fumes, breathes through his nose loudly and stomps away, banging their bedroom door closed.
Apparently it was insulting.
Watanuki rants around in the bedroom and bangs the furniture about. He’s most likely cleaning, though, for Watanuki would never mess up any space he himself has to live in, probably not any other space voluntarily either. Just as Doumeki reaches for the handle, the stampede from inside shouts at him: “All your clothes and books and stuff are in here, so you better stay out of this room if you don’t want to have them back in about a million pieces!”
Doumeki let’s go of the handle, but does not retreat.
“I am not a girl!” the door vibrates at him.
“Well, yeah, I’ve seen you without your pants on.”
“Don’t talk to me about… about my pants!”
Doumeki leans his forehead on the door. He’s horrible with apologies.
“Look”, he finally begins, and knows Watanuki must hear the remorse in his voice because the bedroom grows quiet and the air still. “I’ll let you put pink bows into my hair.”
Something drops with a loud clink and Watanuki pulls the door open with force.
“What?”
Doumeki looks away and struggles to keep his arm from rising to scratch at his neck.
“I’ll. Let you. Put pink bows into my hair.” His face stays calm, but Watanuki knows better by now.
Watanuki leans slowly against the door frame, with a smile of a cat that has been eating your prize-winning canaries all day long and has no intention of stopping anytime soon.
“Say please,” he smirks.
Doumeki looks at him in the eye and knows he is forgiven. “Please.”
So they sit down, and Watanuki cheerfully ties two glaring yellow ribbons – he couldn’t find pink ones anywhere - into his short hair with care and love. Doumeki lets them stay where they are until it’s time for him to leave for his study group. He’s only a few feet into the night when he hears Watanuki’s footsteps following him.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Watanuki huffs at him. “You can take them off now, you hairy bastard of a monkey.” He reaches to extract the bows from his hair.
“I thought they suited me.” Doumeki says.
“You’re such a girl.”
III
During hot summer months, Watanuki barely lets Doumeki touch him. He’s grumpy and irritated, but then again he always is, during summer his irritation is only more restless, more absent. Sometimes, after a long day, Watanuki will sit down in the only chair that is in the shade in their tiny, poorly ventilated apartment, and he will allow Doumeki to fan him with a newspaper, if Doumeki just waits long enough for him to settle down, close his eyes, and sigh a few times.
Doumeki does not fan just because he is a good and loving boyfriend, but also because Watanuki does sigh, loudly and rather obscenely sometimes, and because he wears a big t-shirt with a wide v-shaped collar. He pulls on the collar, lets it slip, and it reveals hidden treasures; the collarbone, the shoulder, and sometimes a hint or a shadow of a nipple, and Doumeki forgets to fan.
“I hate this”, Watanuki will say, his words stretching just like his body as he shifts his legs and lifts his hands over his head, giving a glimpse of a pale, flat stomach. “Why is it so hot?”
“Because it’s summer, “ Doumeki says, and Watanuki sighs, exasperated, too tired to be in on the joke.
Watanuki may be willing to cuddle for a while, especially under the cool sheets during evening, but as soon as one of them, or both, gets even a bit sweaty, he pulls away. This usually happens while one of them has just managed to wriggle out of their boxers and is happily enjoying a hand job. Doumeki wants to inform Watanuki that if would be rather problematic to have sex without breaking a sweat, but he knows Watanuki won’t care. He will pull his hand away sometimes only a second before Doumeki can climax and yell: “It’s too hot, gaah; your sweat is all over! I don’t want to do laundry again in the morning!”
One Sunday, when Doumeki is feeling particularly desperate, he figures sex in the shower might be a good idea, but is soon cured of this misconception when he tries to sneak into the bathroom after Watanuki and Watanuki screams bloody murder for ten minutes straight. It may have something to do with how Doumeki thought it would be amusing to approach him with a surprise ice cube in the neck.
(The neighbours, for many many years forward, talk about the odd boys living in 3B who are into black magic and voodoo and gut and torture cats. “In the dead of the night”, they say. “You can sometimes still hear the cats shriek as their bones are torn from their bodies.”)
IV
They both received an impressive pummelling the previous night, from whatever spirit-creature it was this time, something more akin to a demon or a God. It was so powerful even Doumeki could see it as clear as day: the black scales and the wild red mane burning in the dying sunlight. He, obviously, took most of the physical beating while trying to keep Watanuki out of harm’s way and now sports a black eye, a sprain on his wrist and a lot of smaller bruises. Regardless, it was still Watanuki’s part to face the fight, as it always tends to be. Yuuko shows up just a second too early to let Watanuki die; she swishes to the scene to do her magic; to throw a twig, or to a summon sharp-toothed, iridescent creature from the pond to crunch the monster between its teeth. But still, it is Watanuki who sucks up the magic, who sucks up the poison the spirits emit into the human world.
Doumeki can do nothing, in the end, even if he would anything in his power.
He sits in the breakfast table, ladling his soup into his mouth, too exhausted to care even if it burns his tongue and there’s too much salt. He doesn’t know what to do, or how he can survive and it’s moments like these that almost do in him: moments where he looks up and sees Watanuki’s white skin splotched red when a thin red line of blood drips from his nose to his plate, and Watanuki is too exhausted to even realize.
It is a sinking feeling and his hands shake too much when he reaches across the table. What if he cannot protect this boy, what if there is not enough life between the two of them to sustain even one person. He has given his eye, his blood, two of his fingers and more magic he ever thought he possessed; what if he runs out of body parts to give, runs out of bargaining chips to buy time with?
Doumeki has been taught to be strong, and he is, but it has never meant that he would not feel, that he would be unbreakable. He has been taught not to deny fear; to give it just enough space to keep him careful but not too much to make him paranoid or overly cautious. But there have been times; like the hours painted with glass shards and Himawari’s broken smile, when he thought, for the first time in his life, that he could not keep the fear at bay and it would eat him up and make him undeserving. No matter what his grandfather tried to teach him, he was still not really prepared.
Those moments are in the past now, and one should never dwell on the past, but the touch of them never really fades. He was forced to put his faith in Yuuko, forced to turn Watanuki over into somebody else’s hands and it never leaves him. He knows it is human to be afraid and he is human, after all, only human. But he wants to be strong enough. He grits his teeth and fights to control the doubt and the trepidation in his gut.
V
At first Watanuki seems to be afraid of touch, though not afraid of Doumeki, which is a relief to discover. No, Watanuki is afraid of another person breathing, existing so close and taking up his own precious space, so he squirms and fidgets and talks about useless things endlessly, and if Doumeki even dares to imply he would be nervous, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Doumeki doesn’t think Watanuki is being mean on purpose when he pulls away from Doumeki’s touches, or when he frowns and slaps him when he’s trying to put his hand down Watanuki’s pants in the breakfast table. Watanuki tends to be busy – Yuuko still makes sure of that – and there’s always something he has to do now, something he’s trying to figure out, or somewhere he’s going to have to be in a moment.
“And it’s not nice if I’m all sleepy and red, and I always am, then, if we… do something,” he says irritably. Doumeki has been around Watanuki long enough to know that red means flustered and sleepy means relaxed and takes this as a compliment. Watanuki may be ridiculously easy to put into a blushing fit (especially from rage), but relaxing him is a task that Doumeki suspects nobody but him manages in.
It’s only that Watanuki has not yet fully understood that somebody’s satisfaction and happiness could depend on him. Doumeki knows Watanuki and forgives this, and after all it is him, of all the men and women in the world, who ever has access to any part of body, any patch of skin, or any tuft of hair belonging to Watanuki.
It takes him a while to understand the way Watanuki shows affection, or the way he attempts to initiate any sort of contact. Watanuki pinches his neck sometimes, or pulls absently at his hair when he passes Doumeki in the hall, smiling a little. When Doumeki sits on the sofa picking pieces of tissue off freshly-laundered clothes (“We are not that poor that we would need to wash our tissues, you domestic horror!” Watanuki tells him, every time, but he still tends to forget to check all his pockets), Watanuki will suddenly pull Doumeki’s socks off and start tickling him. A few times he has woken up, very early in the morning, to Watanuki stroking his hair and blushing furiously when he realizes Doumeki’s eyes are open
“There was a knot in your hair!” Watanuki defends noisily. Doumeki closes his eyes and tries not to smile. Watanuki’s fingers linger.
At first, Watanuki’s touches on his body are unsure and shivery, scared and careful in the darkness of their bedroom. Watanuki’s fingers barely stray beyond his navel and Doumeki carefully – very carefully – takes his hand and settles it around himself. Watanuki buries his face in Doumeki’s neck, the heat revealing his blush. But his hands are eager, even if inexperienced.
They aren’t the kind to speak words of love, neither of them, really. Doumeki has, a few times, attempted to call Watanuki honey or darling or some such other endearment, but it usually comes out from his mouth sounding so ridiculous that Watanuki will threaten him with a frying pan.
But he still smiles, secretly.
Lazing around in an afterglow, Watanuki traces his finger down Doumeki’s back, caressing the base of his spine, the slope of his back.
“I like this part of you,” Watanuki whispers into his chest.
VI
Looking at Watanuki’s frail body, big round eyes and bony shoulders, Doumeki tries to make himself distinguish what’s in there, what is it that the other world and its creatures see that he cannot. Watanuki is a riddle to him, a puzzle or a code he can’t even see to try and solve. Maybe Watanuki doesn’t belong in this place, maybe there’s a hidden depth in him Doumeki can never reach and one day they will be torn apart and Watanuki will return to the universe he was always meant to be in. He wants to see a future where they are fat old men; a future where they argue over the possession of the remote control and compare their digestive problems, but he cannot see it, for he has not the gift of precognition. He can only hope, hope with every fibre of his being. But some days, he feels his hope is a small thing against an entire world.
Some days, when he hasn’t seen Watanuki in a while, he starts to fear that it will all suddenly disappear; that he will no longer be able to return to the apartment of which he pays half of the rent and Watanuki the other half; that if he were to run into Watanuki on the street, they would no longer recognize each other.
He fears he will blink and find himself still hunched up on the cold floor of Yuuko’s shop, staring at the curled, odd black figures adorning the floor tiles, the black tendrils stretching to a future without Watanuki. He remembers his body growing stiff, and his clothes sticking to his skin, he remembers the weight in his arms and the cold fingers sinking into his skin, the laboured way Watanuki fought for his breath and probably tried to apologize.
He remembers straining his ears to hear through the door, remembers how he tried to trick himself into believing he could keep Watanuki alive just by breathing himself, just by pulling Watanuki along, tying them together tighter and tighter.
But Watanuki will risk himself, again and again, for stupid reasons, and sometimes for good reasons as well, even if Doumeki can never rate any reason good enough. He grows angry, furious and then disgusted by his own rage. He will clutch Watanuki to him tightly on those nights when he has again escaped something only barely. Doumeki is never rough but knows he can be forceful and does not bother to rein it in.
Watanuki asks him if something is wrong, but he stays quiet, absolutely and completely quiet, now too close to even berate Watanuki, too close to make it into a joke.
At first, Watanuki does not know what to do, so he tries to understand, but when he can’t his innocent questions and apologies will only worsen things. When Doumeki is silent for too long and avoids eye contact for almost a week, Watanuki turns into a frightened cat, creeping around listlessly, every movement making him jump. The look in Watanuki’s eyes is hunted and must be the exact same he wore years and years ago when he was still so very young.
He asks: “Are you leaving?”
Doumeki can’t really say anything, ‘of course not’ would seem stupid, ineffective and even insulting; a simple ‘no’ would sound insincere. Eventually he only shakes his head, ready to grab on if it begins to look like Watanuki is ready to walk out. But Watanuki yells: “Why don’t you say anything, what is wrong with you? You open your mouth and you talk, that’s what it’s there for, you, you brainless oaf!”
It’s a relief to hear Watanuki shouting at him, but he still does not know what to say. He opens his mouth, tries for words but nothing comes.
“Come on, just say it! What is it? I have heard you talk before; I know you can do it!” Watanuki demands.
Doumeki buries his face in his hands, knuckles digging into his forehead.
“What is there that I can do to keep you alive?”
Later on, he lays his head on Watanuki’s lap and Watanuki pets his hair.
“I’m not with you as a reward, you know,” Watanuki says, his tone gentle. “I’m not a prize you get for a job done well. You don’t have to deserve me to get me.”
Doumeki holds on tightly to the fabric of Watanuki’s pants (he doesn’t cling, for he’s a grown man and grown men don’t do that).
“I don’t need you to keep me alive.”
Doumeki feels like choking, his body trying to clench in on itself and curl up into a space that’s just too small for his frame. He’s never been much for crying, but it’s still a bit surprising that he can’t immediately recognize the want to cry.
“I’m not here because I need you to save me. I’m here, because, well – “ and here Watanuki clears his throat. “Because I, for some reason I’m sure no deity in the world can decipher, like you.”
Doumeki is quiet for a long, long time, and Watanuki waits.
“I can’t stand you dying.”
“I won’t die. You have to trust me.”
“But you…” Doumeki slips off, swallows his breath and his voice, but he knows the words are there anyway, existing between them, out of his reach to erase. For other people, you will go to any lengths. Watanuki bows down his head, his hair reaching Doumeki’s ear and tickling his cheek.
“I…” Watanuki says.
They stay still, for a long while, the apartment bathed in the blood-red tones of sunset and the two of them eventually embraced in the merciful blues of twilight. Watanuki continues to pet Doumeki's hair and will soon come to realize that his lessons, even if perhaps already learnt, still need some repeating and absorbing. He no longer lives for himself only. Doumeki, in turn will eventually understand that he can’t always be strong; he has to be weak and imperfect and human, because that is exactly what he is. He needs to better appreciate the difference between a duty, a human in a distress and a person he shares his everyday life with.
It is not an easy thing to trust oneself into somebody else's hands, but sometimes there is no other way to survive.
They don’t speak in unison, because they are two different people after all, but they think the same thing and it comes out in the same way.
“I will try harder for you.”
VII
A few months after their eighth anniversary, on a chilly December night, they meet at the train station to go home together and Doumeki opens his coat to let Watanuki burrow inside. The difference in their height is just big enough that he could zip his coat up and Watanuki would be wholly swallowed up in the warm darkness of their shared space, almost inside Doumeki.
He is careful to leave enough room to breathe.
Watanuki’s lips are red and swollen from the cold, the tip of his nose freezing as he presses it against Doumeki’s neck.
“Why aren’t you wearing anything on your head, you idiot,” Doumeki tells him.
“Oh but I was, it’s just that I ran into this adorable little girl and she looked like she was so cold, so I gave her my hat,” Watanuki says. “But then the girl said she didn’t need the hat for herself, but for her small rabbit, she had this rabbit, you see, in her pocket, and so I took the rabbit and put it in my cap and suddenly the rabbit turned into this marvellous, huge phoenix and told me that that girl was a princess from a magical country and she had been put under a horrible spell, but now when somebody from the magical community had shown her kindness and she had shown it to him, he, the Mighty Phoenix of All the Little Bunny Rabbit Wizards, could now carry her back to her country and help her save the world! And I was really very horribly cold, but since I had helped to save a world, I thought it would all be okay.” Watanuki’s words melt into a smirk.
Doumeki bumps his chin against Watanuki’s forehead and smiles into his black hair. “Smarty-pants.”
“Smarty-pants? Didn’t the big kids teach any better insults?” Watanuki says and bites into the sensitive skin of Doumeki’s neck, worrying the skin gently with his teeth like a puppy trying out his first fang.
In retribution, Doumeki digs his cold fingers under Watanuki’s sweater, just inches above his waistline, making him yelp.
“Bony.”
“Fatty.”
-----
And then some of the stuff I couldn't fit anywhere in there. Number one is just something dumb that amused me a lot but made no sense, number two went too much against canon (a cookie for anyone who can spot what book was sort of my inspiration for the beginning of drabble number two) and number three is sort of pointless. But anyways, I hope you enjoy and commenting on these too is like Christmas come early.
1.
He had thought Watanuki wouldn’t take the concept of anal sex very well. In his imagination, Watanuki screams: “Say what? Are you insane! You love me, so you want you stick something up my ass?! In what god-forsaken universe is that logic?”
The reality, though, luckily turns out a bit different, even if Doumeki does end up with a black eye. The reason, however, is more in the lines of the neighbours’ dog suddenly barking loudly and scaring Watanuki enough to bump his elbow into Doumeki’s eye and less about Watanuki’s reluctance to let Doumeki touch his private body parts.
2.
Doumeki has seen Watanuki drunk three times.
Watanuki isn’t really very good with booze.
The first time can, obviously, be blamed on Yuuko, even if Doumeki never actually manages to find out if it was intentional or not. It comes out later that Watanuki had been cleaning the store room and since it had been so hot, he had asked for something to drink. He was given permission to refresh himself with raspberry juice he’d found in the back of some cupboard. Only, of course Watanuki being Watanuki, he had accidentally drunk not the juice, but a very expensive and rare alcohol mix Yuuko was not very happy to find she had unwittingly parted from.
Of course, Watanuki’s drunken state is not immediately obvious; when Doumeki comes to pick Watanuki up, the boy is in perfect health even if he perhaps looks a bit flushed and strangely happy. He doesn't say a word to Doumeki during the trip, not at least until they happen to pass a playground and Watanuki squeals: “Ooh, ooh, swings, I want to swing!” After which Doumeki spends a good two hours running after Watanuki around the park and trying to keep him from breaking his neck. Swinging isn’t enough, oh no, Watanuki also wants to try the slide many times (and wears a very attractive hole into his pants), and then the jungle gym, climbing and twirling around swiftly and in the end Doumeki is forced to drag him to the ground by his shirt before he splits his head open.
On their graduation day, they, just as everybody else from their classes, are invited to a party and as the evening draws to a close, Watanuki, who has politely downed a good amount of sake and beer, insists on hugging everybody goodbye. When he comes to Doumeki, he puts his hand over his mouth and stage-whispers – very loudly – “I won’t hug you because they’ll think I’m putting my hands down your pants, but I’ll make it up to you when we get home.”
Making up, though, does not include anything kinky, as Doumeki might have hoped, but instead it's a very big cake which Watanuki serves while bawling his eyes out, in the very unhappy state of teary and remorseful drunkenness that usually precedes the stage of Puking Your Guts Out by only a few minutes.
A few months into university, Watanuki gets another part-time job. It’s a restaurant; not the best establishment in town, but good enough. The chef is an odd Italian man whose Japanese nobody can really understand, but he’s good at what he does and likes Watanuki, who is endearingly enthusiastic about his new learning opportunity.
After a few months, one of the older employees is going into retirement and wants to host a party in honour of his newfound liberty. The party takes place in a rather seedy karaoke bar and is of course accentuated with a lot of cheap and strong alcohol. Doumeki comes to pick Watanuki up at ten thirty, just like they agreed, but after waiting for Watanuki outside for twenty minutes, he goes inside. At the bar, a young woman, a little flushed with alcohol but not disoriented or outright drunk, stops him.
“Ah, you must be Doumeki-san!” she yells over the noise.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” Doumeki inquires.
“Oh, no,” she giggles. “He’s just been talking about you all night long! I’m assuming you came to take him home, and well, he’s a very nice boy, but I think it’s best he goes home before he does something he’ll regret.”
Doumeki doesn’t have the time to ask further, for he soon hears a screeching, loud wail, distantly resembling singing from the karaoke. He most likely cares more about Watanuki than about anybody else in the entire world, but even he has to admit that the poor boy can’t sing to save his life.
Watanuki is propped on the stage, an alarming amount of very adult salary men and a few older women wobbling closer and closer to him with docile but far from innocent, drunken smiles. Doumeki sends a thank you to any God available that Watanuki is still fully dressed, even if he has stripped off his jacket and opened a bit too many buttons of his shirt. His tie is nowhere to be seen.
I got a house with windows and doors
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,
Gotta let me in, heeeee, heeee, heeeee
Let the fun begin
Watanuki screeches at the top of his lungs. He tries to twirl, almost trips over the microphone chord and just about manages to evade landing on his ass. Instead, he lands on his knees with a thump, leaning back and revealing a bit too much of his stomach and white throat, glistening with sweat.
I’m the wolf today, heeeee eeeeegh eeeeeegh
I’ll huff, I’ll puff
I’ll huff, I’ll puff
I’ll blow you awayyyyyyyy
Watanuki’s mutilation of the English language continues and nobody knows how his English teacher ever managed to let him graduate. Doumeki isn’t sure if he should cry or laugh, but as one of the men edges closer to reach for Watanuki’s writhing body on stage, Doumeki is sure that it’s best to put an end to this, for everybody’s sake.
He climbs on to the stage, not paying attention to the catcalls or boos. Watanuki, on seeing him, explodes with joy and dumps the microphone coldly, attacking Doumeki bodily. It’s a lucky thing he’s still so skinny, so they manage to stay upright when Watanuki hooks his legs around Doumeki’s waist and almost strangles him.
“It’s you! Heeyyy!” he screams, stinking of enough alcohol to put Yuuko in shame.
“Yes,” Doumeki replies calmly. “I’m thinking we better get you home.”
Watanuki only giggles as a reply and unashamedly humps himself against Doumeki, who tries to get them off the stage as easily and quickly as possible, having given up on attempting to be discreet among the hoots and random coins thrown at them.
“I’m not wearing any underwear,” Watanuki confides in him, sticking his tongue in Doumeki’s ear.
“Where’s your tie?”
“I don’t know. I’m hard.”
“Yes, I can tell. We need to find your coat.” He deposits Watanuki against a wall and tries to look around, but it is rather difficult when Watanuki is incredibly intent on undoing his pants.
“Cut that out.”
“I love you!” Watanuki’s smile is so sunny and genuine that Doumeki doesn’t have the heart to even feel annoyed by his drunkenness.
“Let’s just go home.”
Finally he locates Watanuki’s things and throws the boy over his shoulder, since walking seems to be a bit too difficult a task for his brains to accomplish. Watanuki keeps professing his love and rubbing himself against Doumeki’s shoulder. He puts his hand down Doumeki’s pants, palm caressing the left buttcheek.
“I love you, Mr Butt,” he sings.
Doumeki pulls his hand out gently. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”
This time, the evening includes many kinky things indeed and Watanuki doesn’t stop being extremely red for the next seven days. For the next week, he cooks all of Doumeki’s favourite foods, as well as diligently works overtime without even being asked.
For his next birthday Doumeki buys him a copy of B*Witched’s C’est La Vie – single.
3.
A woman comes to the shop, tall and beautiful with long, flaming red hair. She almost rivals Yuuko in her looks. But she has a problem. She has been followed by a nasty spirit that haunts her and she can’t get rid of it.
Or so she claims, for a few scuffles and spells later it turns out she had, long ago, killed a god-like creature to remain eternally young and gorgeous. The creature however, managed to keep something of himself alive inside her and was gathering strength to fight back. So what Yuuko and Watanuki are left with, in the end, are dried up bones as the only remains of a greedy old witch and a lanky, sullen young man with red hair and big, black wings. He remains in the shop, as a guest, to heal himself and his powers.
Watanuki can’t stand him. To Doumeki, he calls the magical being Crow Sourpuss the Sulky, and Crow Sourpuss can’t stand Watanuki any better. They scuffle all the time, to the extent that Doumeki finds himself jealous, for it was him, earlier, who jabbed at Watanuki and made him so furious. He does spot the difference, though; where he was usually gentle and well-meaning in his sarcasm, Mister Sulky (for that’s the only name he can recall after a while of Watanuki’s ranting) is truly nasty and condescending towards a mere mortal helping out a super powered witch.
Doumeki brings Himawari to the shop, to cheer Watanuki up; all the three of them don’t get to spend as much time together anymore, not after graduating from high school. Watanuki is insanely angry later, because the moment Himawari and Crow Sourpuss lay their eyes on each other, they realize they are made to be together. Their love isn’t as tragic as one might imagine: Himawari’s bright personality and practical touch can cure any young man from moodiness and detachment and there’s no amount of bad luck that could hurt a near immortal demigod.
A year later, Yuuko kindly (and for a very kind price as well) performs a ritual that will marry the two. Watanuki cries profusely at the wedding, as does Himawari, though her tears sparkle like silver and moonlight and make her more beautiful than ever.
“I’m so happy, to not even have to want to be normal anymore,” she says when she hugs Doumeki to thank him for her congratulations.
When it’s Watanuki’s turn to hug Himawari, he wails louder and Sourpuss more or less accidentally sheds feathers into Watanuki’s cake.
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Extra! I kept listening to this song while writing and it just started to feel like the perfect crack theme song for our dear boys:
The Crash - Still Alive
(nevermind the video, just listen to the song)
So come on and take my hand
Oh grab my ass and smile
We'll make it together baby
You and me
Because me and you
Yeah, we are woodoo
Heartbeat in stereo
Stereo!
Oh, we're serial
Serial!
You and me!
I was the wild boy
You we're the furious
Furious!
We: a miracle
Miracle!
O-o-o-oh!
That was a long post. Comments are incredibly appreciated, please feed the writer! Thank you!
