like ribbons worn bright on my sleeve
These NaNo write-ins are frighteningly productive, but I think that might all be simply caffeine. I'm still buzzing from it, I think. However improbable that may be. But caffeine has pervaded my system and it is 2:30 in the morning and I have fic for you that isn't Code Blue, for a change. XD
Title: Strange How We Fit
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Wordcount: 1,120
A/N: More street musician!Watanuki, as I am ahead in NaNo and I promised
flakedice that I would. :D
Part I Part II Part III
As the weather lightened, you returned to busking on your off-days. It became a routine that each time you walked by, you would nod and he would glare right back. You weren’t sure how he always knew exactly when to open his eyes, but suspected that he cheated and looked ahead for you. It was nice to think at least that you caused him to pay a little more attention, not only to you but also the world in general.
On the first of April, you didn’t leave him spare change but a wrapped package that he didn’t acknowledge in your vision until the next day. But on the second of April when you passed by it was not a flute case but a hat upturned in front of him, and you smiled to yourself and dropped your offering in, where it landed with a thump and three clinks.
The temperature climbed steadily through April and May, and then your classes abruptly ended for the summer. You had planned to catch the Greyhound bus south, to one of the surfing towns where you could catch some waves for a day, and though your plans seemed to have been eternally interrupted, you don’t see why this one would not work out. Watanuki, of course, was less than convinced until you presented him with the total cost of the trip. He agreed to think about it, which you recognised as his delusional attempt to save face by not agreeing too easily. As expected, the next day he announced his reluctant willingness and mumbled something about bus fares being taken care of by his boss.
(You learned later that his boss had threatened dire things if he did not accompany you, and furthermore took the payment for the bus from his paycheck; this was ever so slightly offending but mostly endearing that he went along with it anyway. But when you asked him about it later, he averted his eyes and muttered about how you didn’t know her well enough to fully understand.)
So it followed that one foggy morning in mid-June you and he caught a Greyhound bus south and over Highway 17 to the university town of Santa Cruz to surf for the day. You hadn’t been here for several years now, but he was completely foreign to the area. And to your disappointment but lack of real surprise, he did not surf. Neither did he particularly wish to learn, but instead sat on the sand and engaged himself in a doomed glaring competition with the ocean as you, wetsuit-clad and clutching a rented surfboard, took to the waves.
After a few hours had passed in this manner and the fog had begun to burn off, you paddled back to shore to cut the yet-continuing glaring contest short by transferring Watanuki’s irritation back to you. “What,” he demanded at your intrusion, “isn’t it enough to drag me out here? Do you need to come bother me as well?”
“Why did your boss want you to come with me?” you asked instead of replying
“Ah - she said I needed to ‘expand my horizons’,” he mumbled.
“Come on, then.”
He stared blankly at your proffered hand before catching on. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “You know I can’t surf! And there’s only one board anyway.” Thinking he had won, perhaps, he folded his arms and resettled himself, but you weren’t quite finished yet.
“It’s not hard to learn,” you told him. “Unless you really think you can’t.”
As you had expected, his competitive nature - at least, in regards to you - kicked in, and his glare shifted from stubborn to outraged. “What are you implying? That you think I can’t? I’m sure I could surf much better than someone like you ever could.” Radiating irritation, he stood up and stalked to the water’s edge. Smirking now, you followed him.
He nearly jumped back when the first wave of cold ocean water hit his knees, and you remember the reason that every surfer was wearing a wetsuit - the Pacific Ocean was frigid. But he glanced backwards at you and walked forwards once more.
Out in the water, as you waited your turn, you showed him how to stand on the board. He hmphed and pretended not to listen, but when it came his turn for a wave he climbed up properly, if awkwardly. For a glorious moment he was standing on the curve of the wave, looking intently at the tip of his board and standing at his full height. Then he wobbled ever so slightly, flailed his arms wildly, and wiped out with a cut-off cry.
You swam over, concerned despite yourself, but both he and the board surfaced in one piece and his face was set in determination. “I almost had it,” he told you. “I’ll get it next time, I know it!”
He tried four more times with no better results, the other surfers shouting mixed encouragement and jeers. Then, shivering by that time, he sat out a few rounds while you took your own turn with the board. By your third wave, Watanuki was glaring at you in the way he did whenever he interpreted your actions as winning competition.
“I could hold you up,” you finally offered, bringing the board back to the shore. He declined aggressively and tried again. After another spectacular wipeout, he grudgingly changed his mind.
“But only once,” he grumbled. “Then I’ll do it on my own.”
You would wonder later if the extent of your relationship would be failures to hold to the “just once” rule; now you simply climbed on the surfboard behind him and planted your feet, clamping your hands around his ribs where no offense could possibly be taken. Nevertheless you felt his scowl, a well-known expression that you had come to recognise as the closest thing to agreement that you would ever receive from him at this point in time.
But the water was blue and cool and his skin quickly sapped the remaining warmth from your hands, another type of offering that you didn’t mind making at all. You were more than a little surprised to find that you were comfortable here - more than that, everything made sense on a board in the blue. You could see yourself doing this again, holding him upright, letting your body heat seep away to a colder person, and maybe - if you stayed around long enough - seeing him thaw just a little.
You didn’t wipe out, but both stayed upright to the end of the wave. And when he tried again, you couldn’t help but feel proud of him when he kept to his feet for the entirety of the time.
Title: Strange How We Fit
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Wordcount: 1,120
A/N: More street musician!Watanuki, as I am ahead in NaNo and I promised
flakedice that I would. :D
Part I Part II Part III
As the weather lightened, you returned to busking on your off-days. It became a routine that each time you walked by, you would nod and he would glare right back. You weren’t sure how he always knew exactly when to open his eyes, but suspected that he cheated and looked ahead for you. It was nice to think at least that you caused him to pay a little more attention, not only to you but also the world in general.
On the first of April, you didn’t leave him spare change but a wrapped package that he didn’t acknowledge in your vision until the next day. But on the second of April when you passed by it was not a flute case but a hat upturned in front of him, and you smiled to yourself and dropped your offering in, where it landed with a thump and three clinks.
The temperature climbed steadily through April and May, and then your classes abruptly ended for the summer. You had planned to catch the Greyhound bus south, to one of the surfing towns where you could catch some waves for a day, and though your plans seemed to have been eternally interrupted, you don’t see why this one would not work out. Watanuki, of course, was less than convinced until you presented him with the total cost of the trip. He agreed to think about it, which you recognised as his delusional attempt to save face by not agreeing too easily. As expected, the next day he announced his reluctant willingness and mumbled something about bus fares being taken care of by his boss.
(You learned later that his boss had threatened dire things if he did not accompany you, and furthermore took the payment for the bus from his paycheck; this was ever so slightly offending but mostly endearing that he went along with it anyway. But when you asked him about it later, he averted his eyes and muttered about how you didn’t know her well enough to fully understand.)
So it followed that one foggy morning in mid-June you and he caught a Greyhound bus south and over Highway 17 to the university town of Santa Cruz to surf for the day. You hadn’t been here for several years now, but he was completely foreign to the area. And to your disappointment but lack of real surprise, he did not surf. Neither did he particularly wish to learn, but instead sat on the sand and engaged himself in a doomed glaring competition with the ocean as you, wetsuit-clad and clutching a rented surfboard, took to the waves.
After a few hours had passed in this manner and the fog had begun to burn off, you paddled back to shore to cut the yet-continuing glaring contest short by transferring Watanuki’s irritation back to you. “What,” he demanded at your intrusion, “isn’t it enough to drag me out here? Do you need to come bother me as well?”
“Why did your boss want you to come with me?” you asked instead of replying
“Ah - she said I needed to ‘expand my horizons’,” he mumbled.
“Come on, then.”
He stared blankly at your proffered hand before catching on. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “You know I can’t surf! And there’s only one board anyway.” Thinking he had won, perhaps, he folded his arms and resettled himself, but you weren’t quite finished yet.
“It’s not hard to learn,” you told him. “Unless you really think you can’t.”
As you had expected, his competitive nature - at least, in regards to you - kicked in, and his glare shifted from stubborn to outraged. “What are you implying? That you think I can’t? I’m sure I could surf much better than someone like you ever could.” Radiating irritation, he stood up and stalked to the water’s edge. Smirking now, you followed him.
He nearly jumped back when the first wave of cold ocean water hit his knees, and you remember the reason that every surfer was wearing a wetsuit - the Pacific Ocean was frigid. But he glanced backwards at you and walked forwards once more.
Out in the water, as you waited your turn, you showed him how to stand on the board. He hmphed and pretended not to listen, but when it came his turn for a wave he climbed up properly, if awkwardly. For a glorious moment he was standing on the curve of the wave, looking intently at the tip of his board and standing at his full height. Then he wobbled ever so slightly, flailed his arms wildly, and wiped out with a cut-off cry.
You swam over, concerned despite yourself, but both he and the board surfaced in one piece and his face was set in determination. “I almost had it,” he told you. “I’ll get it next time, I know it!”
He tried four more times with no better results, the other surfers shouting mixed encouragement and jeers. Then, shivering by that time, he sat out a few rounds while you took your own turn with the board. By your third wave, Watanuki was glaring at you in the way he did whenever he interpreted your actions as winning competition.
“I could hold you up,” you finally offered, bringing the board back to the shore. He declined aggressively and tried again. After another spectacular wipeout, he grudgingly changed his mind.
“But only once,” he grumbled. “Then I’ll do it on my own.”
You would wonder later if the extent of your relationship would be failures to hold to the “just once” rule; now you simply climbed on the surfboard behind him and planted your feet, clamping your hands around his ribs where no offense could possibly be taken. Nevertheless you felt his scowl, a well-known expression that you had come to recognise as the closest thing to agreement that you would ever receive from him at this point in time.
But the water was blue and cool and his skin quickly sapped the remaining warmth from your hands, another type of offering that you didn’t mind making at all. You were more than a little surprised to find that you were comfortable here - more than that, everything made sense on a board in the blue. You could see yourself doing this again, holding him upright, letting your body heat seep away to a colder person, and maybe - if you stayed around long enough - seeing him thaw just a little.
You didn’t wipe out, but both stayed upright to the end of the wave. And when he tried again, you couldn’t help but feel proud of him when he kept to his feet for the entirety of the time.