holic : the one where watanuki makes him a scarf 1/1
happy motherfucking christmas motherfuckers.
I feel better now but earlier I felt that clearly the only thing that could save Christmas was receiving a pony. Even now if you have some spare porno kicking around, I would be obliged. OR YOU COULD PET ME.
I think this is the dumbest Watanuki and Doumeki fic I have written or read, like ever.
1. "I don't suppose," said Watanuki, stalking into the room, holding a damp scrap of cloth carefully, "I don't suppose that you have a set of knitting needles one could borrow without going into debt for the rest of one's life." He scowled. "Or that I could get some normal yarn without you charging half again as much as my total debt."
Yuuko considered pointing out that there was a Knifty Knitting store two blocks from her shop, but she knew why Watanuki was trying to avoid going in there. People put things they felt in handcrafts and the atmosphere in a shop like that could get a little ... intense. "You did know about the sweater curse," she said.
"No?" said Watanuki warily.
"If you make someone a sweater they'll break up with you."
"That's great!" said Watanuki. "I know someone I'll make one for right now." He stamped further into the room and Yuuko saw that the scrap of fabric was the remains of a muffler. He laid it down carefully. It was torn and a bit chewed looking and Yuuko saw some darker stains that looked almost black. Watanuki looked relatively unscratched. Yuuko reflected it was a good thing that Doumeki healed quickly. "What sort of moron goes around throwing around perfectly good scarves to distract monsters?"
"Someone who doesn't want you to die?" suggested Yuuko. Watanuki glared speechlessly at her. "I think I have something you could use," she said. "But I need some help with something else."
"Fine!" said Watanuki. His hands were shaking a little as he grabbed the scarf again and stamped off. "God, you'll probably make me ask a dragon for booze. Or worse. I don't know why I work here."
In point of fact she handed him a large skein of soft red thread, a sort of chair leg and instructions to make Doumeki hold the thread while he wound it.
Himawari tilted her head in her most birdlike and charming way. "So what exactly are you doing?" she said curiously. Doumeki was sitting with his legs crossed, his hands held out and apart, and wearing a stolid expression. Watanuki was winding something invisible onto a chair leg with quick irritable movements.
"Winding something," said Watanuki, darkly. "For my boss. Who is crazy."
"I don't see anything," said Himawari. "What does it look like?" She looked at Doumeki. "Can you see it?"
"No," said Doumeki. He lowered his hands as Watanuki apparently came to an end of his winding, although Doumeki still had his hands outspread as if he was holding something. "It's some sort of thread."
"Yuuko-san refused to tell me what it is," said Watanuki, irritably pulling something invisible off the chair leg and putting it in a silk bag. "It's some sort of red thread. How should I know why she wants to have us wind red thread that only I can se--"
There was an extended, ghastly silence.
"Aww," said Himawari happily.
"I refuse to think about it," announced Watanuki, looking nauseated. "At all. And you can just stop smirking," he added to Doumeki, who was wearing a rather peaceful and happy smile.
Yuuko-san examined the balls of yarn, sniffed once or twice, and then told him that the things he wanted were 'in the storeroom', which was sort of like saying they were 'in Tokyo'. Kimihiro detached Mokona from lurking significantly over the soup pot, told Yuuko-san that if the volume of the soup decreased by so much as a milliliter he would know and cut her booze ration accordingly, and ventured in the vast and mostly uncharted expanses of the storeroom. He and it never got along because just when he thought that maybe, possibly, he had finally reached the end and could start dusting at the beginning again, he tripped on something and another door slid open, revealing new and untouched realms of dust so thick you could make bricks with it given a cup of water and possibly a handful of grass from the lawn. It was like the stables that the guy in Greece had to clean out. The Argheon stables or whatever. ("Augean," said Doumeki, eating his lunch and eying Kimihiro's meaningly. "Same difference," said Kimihiro, darkly. "That doesn't even make sense," said Doumeki, and stole the pastry that Kimihiro had made in case Doumeki was a greedy pig again. It did not have laxative herbs, but it did have extra sugar on top. Sugar was totally bad for you. Everybody said so.)
Kimihiro stood with Mokona on his shoulder and his hands on his hips. "All right," he said loudly. "Yuuko-san says there's something I can use in here, and I damn well paid for it, so cough it up." It was better to be firm with the storeroom. Otherwise it tried to bully him into staying in it for a while and scrubbing floors.
Something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. He turned around slowly and saw a very ordinary looking box on the floor where none had been a second ago. He approached it warily. It was made of wood and had burned English letters on top. They were too elaborate for Kimihiro to read.
Kimihiro knelt warily and opened the box. Inside was a rainbow of soft, neatly wound balls of wool and cotton, with a narrow, rolled bundle of needles and another case of supplies lying on top.
"I have the weirdest job ever," said Kimihiro, sincerely, and grabbed wool more or less at random, plus a set of needles made of pinewood.
Shizuka would not have admitted it in a million years but he vaguely regretted the loss of his muffler enough to think of getting a new one. It was cold in December and the muffler had been quite warm. He hunched turtlelike into his school coat and waited for Watanuki to show up.
Watanuki was wearing a muffler in a deep blue color that almost matched his eyes. It was tied with a sort of irritable sharp-edged elegance that Shizuka could only admire. Before he had met Watanuki it hadn't even occurred to him that there was an art to tying a length of knitted fabric around your neck, just as surely as there was an art to tying an obi.
"Hold still," snapped Watanuki from behind him. It wasn't like he was moving anyway, so he waited patiently. Something soft went around his neck and was jerked into order by Watanuki's thin nervous hands. He squinted down. It was a red scarf, not quite the color of the one he had lost, but redder and more brilliant, like pictures of cardinals he had seen.
"What the hell?" he said.
"If you lose it," said Watanuki, giving an expert and annoyed twitch to the ends of the scarf, "I, Watanuki the Great and the Terrible, will extract such vengeance that not even a thousand years of unending agony will compare to it. I will never make you lunch ever again."
Doumeki picked up the fringe of the scarf and rubbed it between his fingers. "You got this for me?"
"No," said Watanuki, even more irritably, "I made it."
"What?" said Doumeki.
"I guess," said Watanuki, coming beside him and looking anywhere but at him, "it might have been because I was there. That your other one was ruined. And so."
"Oh," said Doumeki. They were silent for a moment, Watanuki stalking along like a cat who was there merely because you happened to be going the same direction and not because you had called it and Doumeki still fingering the ends of the fringe. "I like red," he said finally.
"Hmmph," said Watanuki.
I feel better now but earlier I felt that clearly the only thing that could save Christmas was receiving a pony. Even now if you have some spare porno kicking around, I would be obliged. OR YOU COULD PET ME.
I think this is the dumbest Watanuki and Doumeki fic I have written or read, like ever.
1. "I don't suppose," said Watanuki, stalking into the room, holding a damp scrap of cloth carefully, "I don't suppose that you have a set of knitting needles one could borrow without going into debt for the rest of one's life." He scowled. "Or that I could get some normal yarn without you charging half again as much as my total debt."
Yuuko considered pointing out that there was a Knifty Knitting store two blocks from her shop, but she knew why Watanuki was trying to avoid going in there. People put things they felt in handcrafts and the atmosphere in a shop like that could get a little ... intense. "You did know about the sweater curse," she said.
"No?" said Watanuki warily.
"If you make someone a sweater they'll break up with you."
"That's great!" said Watanuki. "I know someone I'll make one for right now." He stamped further into the room and Yuuko saw that the scrap of fabric was the remains of a muffler. He laid it down carefully. It was torn and a bit chewed looking and Yuuko saw some darker stains that looked almost black. Watanuki looked relatively unscratched. Yuuko reflected it was a good thing that Doumeki healed quickly. "What sort of moron goes around throwing around perfectly good scarves to distract monsters?"
"Someone who doesn't want you to die?" suggested Yuuko. Watanuki glared speechlessly at her. "I think I have something you could use," she said. "But I need some help with something else."
"Fine!" said Watanuki. His hands were shaking a little as he grabbed the scarf again and stamped off. "God, you'll probably make me ask a dragon for booze. Or worse. I don't know why I work here."
In point of fact she handed him a large skein of soft red thread, a sort of chair leg and instructions to make Doumeki hold the thread while he wound it.
Himawari tilted her head in her most birdlike and charming way. "So what exactly are you doing?" she said curiously. Doumeki was sitting with his legs crossed, his hands held out and apart, and wearing a stolid expression. Watanuki was winding something invisible onto a chair leg with quick irritable movements.
"Winding something," said Watanuki, darkly. "For my boss. Who is crazy."
"I don't see anything," said Himawari. "What does it look like?" She looked at Doumeki. "Can you see it?"
"No," said Doumeki. He lowered his hands as Watanuki apparently came to an end of his winding, although Doumeki still had his hands outspread as if he was holding something. "It's some sort of thread."
"Yuuko-san refused to tell me what it is," said Watanuki, irritably pulling something invisible off the chair leg and putting it in a silk bag. "It's some sort of red thread. How should I know why she wants to have us wind red thread that only I can se--"
There was an extended, ghastly silence.
"Aww," said Himawari happily.
"I refuse to think about it," announced Watanuki, looking nauseated. "At all. And you can just stop smirking," he added to Doumeki, who was wearing a rather peaceful and happy smile.
Yuuko-san examined the balls of yarn, sniffed once or twice, and then told him that the things he wanted were 'in the storeroom', which was sort of like saying they were 'in Tokyo'. Kimihiro detached Mokona from lurking significantly over the soup pot, told Yuuko-san that if the volume of the soup decreased by so much as a milliliter he would know and cut her booze ration accordingly, and ventured in the vast and mostly uncharted expanses of the storeroom. He and it never got along because just when he thought that maybe, possibly, he had finally reached the end and could start dusting at the beginning again, he tripped on something and another door slid open, revealing new and untouched realms of dust so thick you could make bricks with it given a cup of water and possibly a handful of grass from the lawn. It was like the stables that the guy in Greece had to clean out. The Argheon stables or whatever. ("Augean," said Doumeki, eating his lunch and eying Kimihiro's meaningly. "Same difference," said Kimihiro, darkly. "That doesn't even make sense," said Doumeki, and stole the pastry that Kimihiro had made in case Doumeki was a greedy pig again. It did not have laxative herbs, but it did have extra sugar on top. Sugar was totally bad for you. Everybody said so.)
Kimihiro stood with Mokona on his shoulder and his hands on his hips. "All right," he said loudly. "Yuuko-san says there's something I can use in here, and I damn well paid for it, so cough it up." It was better to be firm with the storeroom. Otherwise it tried to bully him into staying in it for a while and scrubbing floors.
Something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. He turned around slowly and saw a very ordinary looking box on the floor where none had been a second ago. He approached it warily. It was made of wood and had burned English letters on top. They were too elaborate for Kimihiro to read.
Kimihiro knelt warily and opened the box. Inside was a rainbow of soft, neatly wound balls of wool and cotton, with a narrow, rolled bundle of needles and another case of supplies lying on top.
"I have the weirdest job ever," said Kimihiro, sincerely, and grabbed wool more or less at random, plus a set of needles made of pinewood.
Shizuka would not have admitted it in a million years but he vaguely regretted the loss of his muffler enough to think of getting a new one. It was cold in December and the muffler had been quite warm. He hunched turtlelike into his school coat and waited for Watanuki to show up.
Watanuki was wearing a muffler in a deep blue color that almost matched his eyes. It was tied with a sort of irritable sharp-edged elegance that Shizuka could only admire. Before he had met Watanuki it hadn't even occurred to him that there was an art to tying a length of knitted fabric around your neck, just as surely as there was an art to tying an obi.
"Hold still," snapped Watanuki from behind him. It wasn't like he was moving anyway, so he waited patiently. Something soft went around his neck and was jerked into order by Watanuki's thin nervous hands. He squinted down. It was a red scarf, not quite the color of the one he had lost, but redder and more brilliant, like pictures of cardinals he had seen.
"What the hell?" he said.
"If you lose it," said Watanuki, giving an expert and annoyed twitch to the ends of the scarf, "I, Watanuki the Great and the Terrible, will extract such vengeance that not even a thousand years of unending agony will compare to it. I will never make you lunch ever again."
Doumeki picked up the fringe of the scarf and rubbed it between his fingers. "You got this for me?"
"No," said Watanuki, even more irritably, "I made it."
"What?" said Doumeki.
"I guess," said Watanuki, coming beside him and looking anywhere but at him, "it might have been because I was there. That your other one was ruined. And so."
"Oh," said Doumeki. They were silent for a moment, Watanuki stalking along like a cat who was there merely because you happened to be going the same direction and not because you had called it and Doumeki still fingering the ends of the fringe. "I like red," he said finally.
"Hmmph," said Watanuki.