Ficbit!
Wow! It's been a long time since I posted one of these.
I don't know if anyone on flist actually reads xxxHolic, but I am enjoying Rou immensely! Basically everything I thought was eventually going to happen in the series did, and it has been wonderful. After all this time, CLAMP are still the masters of making characters suffer. But I can give it a try, too.
Night has fallen while they've been sitting. Watanuki has put down his kiseru for the night, although the smell of smoke still hangs in the air. He kneels barefoot on the tatami, gazing out the window, silently. At times like this they are always silent.
Apparently, Watanuki was a good study. His movements have the same quality now as the Witch's did; that languid sensuality, perfectly inscrutiable and mesmerizing. Even at rest he resembles nothing so much as an Edo-period courtesan waiting for a client. Doumeki reminds himself, forcefully, that this is the same boy who rages and gnashes his teeth at him whenever he takes a red bean bun without asking. Not that it does much good. It's difficult for him to look at Watanuki now without being left breathless.
"It's gotten late," he says.
This remark is purposefully vague. Depending on Watanuki's response, he will either excuse himself and head back for the night, or spend the night in the guest room of the store.
More and more often now it's the latter. He even keeps a change of clothes in the closet. It's partly out of convenience, since the store is closer to campus than his house. But mostly it's to quell the fear - not neccesarily so irrational - that one morning he will come to visit and be met with nothing but a vacant lot between two high-rises, a cyst in the flesh of the world, a life without Watanuki.
Watanuki himself accepts the fact of his presence without argument. He complains of it now and then when he has to make breakfast for two, but he does it anyway, every time. He seems to understand by now that Doumeki will stay even if he has to sleep on the ground in the backyard.
But tonight, instead of grudgingly offering to lay out the futon, he turns towards Doumeki with half-lidded eyes and a smile like an invitation. One side of his yukata slides down, revealing his bare shoulder, cream-coloured in the soft lamplight.
"So it has," he murmurs. "Why don't you stay the night?"
There is no mistaking the meaning of his words, and desire hits Doumeki like a punch to the gut. If he had known in high school, jerking off furiously every night with his eyes squeezed shut and never satisfied even when he finally came, that a day would come when Watanuki would not only consent to the content of his barely-acknowledged fantasies but actively entice him towards it... well.
He wants nothing more than to press his mouth to that shoulder.
But he only hesitates for a moment.
It's impossible to say what he should. He should say: if I were sure that this were what you really wanted, what you needed, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I'm sure that it's not - no. Even if it is, that's not the only reason. I know how you think. Right now you're playing a role. You think that by doing this you can make that role into the real you. You're trying to push yourself across a boundry, using sex as the final step in a transformation I don't want you to complete. I don't know if you could succeed in changing yourself like that. But I don't want you to, and I won't help you try.
"Not like this," he says, instead, as gently as he possibly can, willing Watanuki to understand the meaning behind his words.
He barely catches it, but he thinks there is a flash of real pain in Watanuki's eyes. Then the door slams shut and whatever he thought he saw is replaced with a cool irritation.
"Okay," he snaps, rising immediately from his repose, so clumsily it seems intentional, "well, you know the way out. Far be it from me to try and show you some hospitality! Why do I even bother? Stupid Doumeki." He keeps this up, more to himself than anything else, as Doumeki too rises from the tatami. Order has been restored to their relationship. It is a victory he feels little pleasure in.
Maru and Moro fetch him his coat. He thinks their smiles look somewhat melancholy tonight, but maybe it's just his imagination. Who can tell what they think of their master's trials? Or of his?
"Goodnight," he says.
It is the longest his trip home has ever taken. When he gets there, he manages to take two steps and then flops onto the floor, as though exhausted. For a long time he just lies still on the ground and turns the egg in his pocket over again and again. Feeling how heavy it is. His heart is beating madly.
He's not sure how much more of this he will have to take.
I don't know if anyone on flist actually reads xxxHolic, but I am enjoying Rou immensely! Basically everything I thought was eventually going to happen in the series did, and it has been wonderful. After all this time, CLAMP are still the masters of making characters suffer. But I can give it a try, too.
Night has fallen while they've been sitting. Watanuki has put down his kiseru for the night, although the smell of smoke still hangs in the air. He kneels barefoot on the tatami, gazing out the window, silently. At times like this they are always silent.
Apparently, Watanuki was a good study. His movements have the same quality now as the Witch's did; that languid sensuality, perfectly inscrutiable and mesmerizing. Even at rest he resembles nothing so much as an Edo-period courtesan waiting for a client. Doumeki reminds himself, forcefully, that this is the same boy who rages and gnashes his teeth at him whenever he takes a red bean bun without asking. Not that it does much good. It's difficult for him to look at Watanuki now without being left breathless.
"It's gotten late," he says.
This remark is purposefully vague. Depending on Watanuki's response, he will either excuse himself and head back for the night, or spend the night in the guest room of the store.
More and more often now it's the latter. He even keeps a change of clothes in the closet. It's partly out of convenience, since the store is closer to campus than his house. But mostly it's to quell the fear - not neccesarily so irrational - that one morning he will come to visit and be met with nothing but a vacant lot between two high-rises, a cyst in the flesh of the world, a life without Watanuki.
Watanuki himself accepts the fact of his presence without argument. He complains of it now and then when he has to make breakfast for two, but he does it anyway, every time. He seems to understand by now that Doumeki will stay even if he has to sleep on the ground in the backyard.
But tonight, instead of grudgingly offering to lay out the futon, he turns towards Doumeki with half-lidded eyes and a smile like an invitation. One side of his yukata slides down, revealing his bare shoulder, cream-coloured in the soft lamplight.
"So it has," he murmurs. "Why don't you stay the night?"
There is no mistaking the meaning of his words, and desire hits Doumeki like a punch to the gut. If he had known in high school, jerking off furiously every night with his eyes squeezed shut and never satisfied even when he finally came, that a day would come when Watanuki would not only consent to the content of his barely-acknowledged fantasies but actively entice him towards it... well.
He wants nothing more than to press his mouth to that shoulder.
But he only hesitates for a moment.
It's impossible to say what he should. He should say: if I were sure that this were what you really wanted, what you needed, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I'm sure that it's not - no. Even if it is, that's not the only reason. I know how you think. Right now you're playing a role. You think that by doing this you can make that role into the real you. You're trying to push yourself across a boundry, using sex as the final step in a transformation I don't want you to complete. I don't know if you could succeed in changing yourself like that. But I don't want you to, and I won't help you try.
"Not like this," he says, instead, as gently as he possibly can, willing Watanuki to understand the meaning behind his words.
He barely catches it, but he thinks there is a flash of real pain in Watanuki's eyes. Then the door slams shut and whatever he thought he saw is replaced with a cool irritation.
"Okay," he snaps, rising immediately from his repose, so clumsily it seems intentional, "well, you know the way out. Far be it from me to try and show you some hospitality! Why do I even bother? Stupid Doumeki." He keeps this up, more to himself than anything else, as Doumeki too rises from the tatami. Order has been restored to their relationship. It is a victory he feels little pleasure in.
Maru and Moro fetch him his coat. He thinks their smiles look somewhat melancholy tonight, but maybe it's just his imagination. Who can tell what they think of their master's trials? Or of his?
"Goodnight," he says.
It is the longest his trip home has ever taken. When he gets there, he manages to take two steps and then flops onto the floor, as though exhausted. For a long time he just lies still on the ground and turns the egg in his pocket over again and again. Feeling how heavy it is. His heart is beating madly.
He's not sure how much more of this he will have to take.