(Untitled)

[successoroftime]

Who: Doumeki Shizuka (drainedpaladin) and Watanuki Kimihiro (successoroftime)
When: Afternoon of July 23
Where: A laundromat in sector 4
Summary: More domestic stuff. Talk about Doumeki's new job.
Warnings: none!

Comments

[drainedpaladin]

He could feel Watanuki relax slightly when his hand settled on the boy's hip, could feel the way it affected him, and that gave him hope, somehow. He swallowed, and half-shut his eyes, looking down at Kouki and relaxing his hand against Watanuki's hip, just staying still with his little 'family' for a few moments.

"And you." he said, his voice soft, and low, his forearm resting against Watanuki along with his hand. Watanuki responded by twisting slightly away from him and putting his tea down. Doumeki frowned slightly, watching as the boy moved a bit closer and carefully rested the side of his head against his shoulder, nearly against his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment, exhaled, and shifted the hand on Watanuki's hip to the small of his back, following his spine up to the space between his shoulder blades. Both the kitten and the boy were in his arms, and he exhaled softly, only tensing when Watanuki asked him what he'd been thinking about.

He frowned again, closing his eyes, "There were a few things." he said, his voice soft, "It's hard to say."

[successoroftime]

Doumeki wasn't one to talk about what bothered him. Watanuki couldn't blame him when he himself didn't like talking about certain topics that were too personal for him. He exhaled softly, closing his eyes for a moment as Doumeki's hand rested on his back.

"Say what comes to mind," he said quietly, shifting to slide his arm under Doumeki's and loop it around the other's waist. Doumeki's frame had truly grown compared to when he was in high school, and he laid his palm flat on the other's back.

"Don't hold back. If something's troubling you, I want to know."

[drainedpaladin]

His lips pursed as Watanuki moved closer, his arm sliding around his waist and his palm pressing to his back. He could feel the warmth of it through his clothing, and he stayed still for a few moments, Watanuki holding him and holding Watanuki, the boy's head pressed to his shoulder, breath fanning against the kitten that purred in his other arm and Watanuki's living body against him.

Watanuki asked him to share something again, told him he wanted to know. His heart beat hard, feeling like it was clenched in a strong fist as he stood there, frowning.

"I don't know what you think of me." he said, after a long, long pause, his fingers curling against Watanuki's back, "You've sent...mixed messages."

[successoroftime]

Doumeki seemed more rigid, tense, and Watanuki could feel the other's fingers shifting on his back. He took a breath, and his feet moved to close the last step between them, the floor beneath them feeling unsteady when his heel touched it again as if he had made one long leap.

"I guess... I haven't said anything clear yet, have I?"

Doumeki was warmer this close. More solid. More real. More fragile, more afraid, more vulnerable and open and tired and burdened. Watanuki pressed his forehead next to Doumeki's throat and exhaled shakily, his own fingers closing on the material of Doumeki's samue. The samue Watanuki gave to him on his birthday a season ago, four months of change that had opened his view of the future from simply protecting people and keeping them from getting hurt to protecting people and keeping him close. To hold them as much as they want to hold him.

To be free to love and not be afraid to let change happen once again. To change, and be changed, and grow, because the time of his soul was different from the time of his body and they need not be the same for him to live. He did not have to remain the same as he was yesterday because there would be none of his soul left.

"I like you," he said, his voice quiet and strange to his ears. He had never been this direct with what he felt.

Pause. Stop. Inhale.

Exhale.

"I wouldn't have said I'd say yes if I didn't."

He pressed his face on Doumeki's shoulder and felt his spectacles digging on his cheeks. Watanuki knew he had to be careful. He didn't want either of them to get hurt because he said something in a clumsy manner.

"I needed to know from myself if I could return your feelings to the fullest because anything less would not be fair for either of us. I want you to be cleared from AGI because I want you to be my equal."

His grip tightened. His throat felt tight.

"I got you out from AGI because I want you to be here with me, Doumeki Shizuka. Not with someone else."

[drainedpaladin]

Watanuki moved closer to him, pressed his head near where Doumeki's heart was pounding hard and a little fast under his ribcage. When the boy pressed himself against him, pressed his face into his neck, when he felt the cool edges of his glasses against his throat, the boy's breathing and heartbeat, his own arm tightened around him, fingers twining into the back of Watanuki's clothing, closing a handful of it as if to keep him closer. His breathing was shallow, and he was too aware of the feeling of his own body and Watanuki's.

Watanuki liked him, wanted them to be equals, and got him back because he wanted them to be equals, to be together. Because he wanted to return his feelings...to the fullest. That was why he said yes.

They were words he'd wanted to hear for a long time. A very long time, too long. So many years of waiting and watching and denying himself and nearly losing himself sometimes. The times he held Watanuki as he died, the time he got there too late, watching him go away and become someone else's, touching him when he was upset, those moments all blurred together into something that was past and now gone, solidifying into this new thing. New. Very new.

He'd been waiting for so long to hear this that it seemed almost surreal. He wasn't sure what to do. And there was still the matter of Watanuki's choice.

Doumeki exhaled, feeling Watanuki's breath against his throat, and closed his eyes, tilting his head forward and resting his mouth against the boy's hair.

'I want you to be here with me, Doumeki Shizuka. Not with someone else.'

He swallowed hard, his arm pulling the boy closer, squeezing lightly.

"I see." he said, his voice low, slightly rough, and then after a few more long moments, "I felt like..."

He trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

[successoroftime]

Watanuki strained his ears after that, nervous for any sort of response. It was only when Doumeki held him closer that he allowed himself to feel a little relief that his response had been heard, that it hadn't been denied or thrown away.

He sagged a little and leaned more fully on Doumeki, careful enough not to press on Kouki, and let out a shaky breath.

"What did it feel like?" he asked quietly when he felt he could speak without his voice cracking, his grip on Doumeki's samue as tight as Doumeki's hands were on his own clothes.

[drainedpaladin]

His heart was beating too hard - he'd thought he was over feeling like this. Things had felt so dead for such a long time, since long before he came to this new place. Since Watanuki's choice, and for some time on that Island as well. But now he felt alive again, and he had to hold tighter to Watanuki's clothing to keep his hand from shaking slightly.

Kouki was sandwiched between their bodies, purring, obviously enjoying the contact from both of his favourite people, warm and soft just like Watanuki felt. His clothing was soft and silky, his body warm, and he was clutching to Doumeki's shirt like a dying man, his weight resting on Doumeki's body.

He took the weight. He liked taking the weight, holding Watanuki up, being strong for him.

'All of this will end with the end of my life.'

"It felt..." he started, his voice low and hoarse, "...it felt like I was a disant second." He paused again, his voice slightly strained - it wasn't natural for him to reveal things like this, "To that woman..." He paused, and swallowed hard, his heart still beating hard, "I was one of the ones you left behind to wait for her." There was another long pause, and the twist in his chest and throat was made obvious in his voice when he spoke again, "You chose a life where you won't be able to grow old with me."

[successoroftime]

There was no denying the difficulty of the circumstances they were in. Watanuki would have to remain at the shop until he and Syaoran find a way out, and while he had already implied to Doumeki before that waiting for Yuuko was not all there was to it...

This talk had to come up sooner or later, a reprise of the questions they used to ask in the cradle of a present when neither of them really knew the weariness of the years and how the consequences of omitted words and hazardous protections shaped their future: the now where Watanuki waited for Yuuko and Doumeki waited for Watanuki and the days seemed to drag on like one thousand, four hundred and sixty-one moments of death and weariness.

Watanuki shifted his weight back on his feet and brought his hand up Doumeki's back, reaching across those broad shoulders. To cradle the back of Doumeki's head and brush his fingers on the short strands - like he had done before when they were younger, he remembered, in that brief respite before he had to return to the shop's enclosure, where the two of them could forget what faced them at home and they could have a few true moments of peace.

Doumeki was taller now, and Watanuki no longer had the advantage of being able to sit up on a bed to look at him while the other rested his head on the mattress. However, perhaps this moment would shatter that last wall between them. An acceptance of the past that allowed hope to breathe in.

"At the time, I wanted none of you involved in this," Watanuki began, and sucked in a breath, hanging his head and closing his eyes. The warm pressure of Doumeki's shoulder on his forehead helped him find a focus through the dull aching of his head. "Not one of you deserves to be harmed or hurt because of the choice I made, given the extent of how much all of you would try to find a way to change something of this magnitude. Especially you."

The inhalation he drew was short, echoing the ache squeezing his chest.

"It may not have been the best solution, though that was what we decided on. I can't take it back, and I don't wish for my existence to be a burden to others."

The aching sensation spread to his throat. It was more difficult to speak, and he swallowed.

"You don't look at it that way. Not you, not Kohane-chan, not Himawari-chan nor 'baa-san."

There was another pause, and his hands clenched in that brief silence. He didn't know if he was using the right words for this - everything he could think of sounded wrong, too weak in the light of what Doumeki had said, always at the risk of unjustly cheapening the pain he had caused to others and, perhaps... no, definitely. The pain he had caused even to himself.

"I don't know when my time will return to me, and that's why I hesitated at the beginning. Now, I know. If you grow old and this is not over, the I that you know will be changed as well."

He lifted his head by just a few millimeters. The weight in his chest was solidified certainty.

"Watanuki Kimihiro may pass on with Doumeki Shizuka's blood and sight, while the keeper of the shop must remain to grant wishes and keep the hope from the past to look to the dream of the future. Even if that is the outcome, I'll still take this chance. Because I'm happy to be with you."

[drainedpaladin]

Doumeki closed his eyes as Watanuki moved closer, put an arm around him, spread fingers against the back of his skull, over where the tightness had spread, muscles hard under Watanuki's palm at the back of his neck. He didn't relax even as Watanuki leaned against him - he couldn't, because this mattered to him, and even if it felt nice for Watanuki to touch him like that, it wasn't what he was looking for, or what he desired. Too little, too late, to make this decision better.

He breathed evenly and slowly, his mouth set in a frown as Watanuki talked, small surges of anger rising in his chest as Watanuki explained that he hadn't wanted any of them involved in this, that he didn't want to be a burden - it was stupid, and his face heated slightly, his hand rising to take a rough hold on a handful of the back of Watanuki's kimono.

"Didn't you learn anything?" he asked, his voice low and rough, "With the spider, the window, all of it?" He paused, his breathing deeper and more ragged as he spoke again, "Being shut out is a burden. Being treated like my feelings don't matter is a burden."

He made a low noise in his throat and exhaled sharply, "Whether or not you changed, you will stlil be Watanuki. It was Watanuki who chose to stay in the shop, it was Watanuki who chose to wait for her. Not the shopkeeper."

He made another soft sound in his throat, his eyes opening slightly to look at the far wall through his eyelashes, "You're too inconsiderate."

[successoroftime]

There it was, the anger Doumeki had lapsed into silence with after Watanuki told him of his decision. He could still remember that day clearly, seeing Yuuko disappear, Maru and Moro crying, the two Syaorans... Doumeki's shock, as the terms of Watanuki's tenure in the shop became clear to him.

"I knew you'd all be angry and hurt." He could feel Doumeki's closed hand solidly on his back, and readied himself to be able to see those emotions come to the forefront. To accept them. To embrace them and be burned. "I felt it clearly for these past four years."

Though not as close as this, when physical contact made Doumeki's turmoil more palpable and each deserving word cut deeper. Shutting them out... yes, that was what he had done, hadn't he? A move for non-involvement that translated to rejection, no matter what justification he had for the situation.

"You're right." It was easier to admit that in his thoughts even as his throat threatened to choke the words. Emptiness welled up in his chest, and his grip wavered for a moment. "I was selfish. I wanted Yuuko-san back because I didn't want those days to end."

Slowly, he slid his hand down Doumeki's shoulder, his fingers skimming down a cloth-covered arm before tracing a horizontal line to Doumeki's chest. Over his heart, each pulse a sign of life and death passing by, of chances taken and passed on and scattered in time. Strong and fragile, and not without scars.

"Neither did you, though in a way different from mine."

Watanuki ran his thumb over the fabric of Doumeki's samue, feeling the contrast of cloth and thread beneath is fingers. He remembered working on it during the mornings when there were lesser rolls of bandages in the medicine cabinet and there were other shirts that needed to be mended. Doumeki usually recovered quickly from injury, but even he would wear down at the pace things were going.

This was no different. Doumeki's dissatisfaction and pain were apparent, a black sludge of miasma that he was too tired to fight for much longer. It was almost too late to stop the ball rolling. Or, perhaps, it already was. The situation was too delicate, a balancing act on a knife that could sever the last threads that bound them together.

"You aren't a burden." Something in him collapsed when he said those words, and he took a shaky breath, pressing his forehead on Doumeki's shoulder once more, placing his palm flat on the other's chest. "Though if you don't believe me... I understand."

[drainedpaladin]

There were a lot of things he wanted to say, a lot of hurt and anger that he held, couldn't get rid of even as he tried to properly forgive, but he didn't know how to verbalize them. He didn't care to. He kept his eyes locked on the wall across from him as Watanuki pressed hands and face against his chest, accepted responsibility, and told him he wasn't a burden.

Watanuki hadn't wanted those days to end, and so he chose to remain and wait for Yuuko. Doumeki's chest rose and fell slowly under Watanuki's flat palm, his spread fingers, his eyes still locked on the far wall. Something in his chest felt pinched, but he just stayed quiet, still, for a while, before replying.

"Those days..." he said, his voice low and quiet, slightly strained, "Was I not part of them, then?"

It hurt. It was true that nothing Watanuki said or felt now could change his feelings in the past or his decisions, but it still stung to know how little he'd mattered to Watanuki, even then. It brought back the turmoil of his emotions on that Island, the feeling of always seeing Watanuki's back as he walked away. He took a careful, measured breath, and loosened his fingers against the delicate fabric of Watanuki's kimono, glancing down at where Watanuki's fingers and head were pressed against him, then spoke again, quietly.

"If I'm not a burden, then what am I?"

[sight_unbound]

The gentle pressure on his back loosened and almost fell away.

Watanuki tensed, and his eyes stung. It was a step away from rejection, close to the complete withdrawal of support. A year ago, he thought he'd be able to survive this - not without regret, but secure at least in the knowledge that Doumeki wouldn't have to overextend himself again. Wouldn't have to pay the price of working against the problem of his and Syaoran's existence, which no person could pay.

He remembered seeing the silent accusation that Doumeki brought with him, the unspoken challenge for Watanuki to stop and rethink his path. Doumeki really had such beautiful eyes - clear, striking, unwavering.

Just like him.

"A lot of those days involved the two of us fighting, you know."

Watanuki's voice was thick to his ears, and he paused, swallowing. Why was it difficult to talk this time when he was fine before? He should be able to talk. He needed to talk because it was important to give what he had to say, because the situation hung by a thread and he'd never get a chance to say such things again.

He didn't know if he'd ever be able to recover if this tie between them was severed, too.

"Yet you still chose to save me every time I was in trouble." A little better. He tried to will his hand to stop shaking, too. "Before I knew it, I was no longer alone."

Watanuki didn't look up. He knew he looked like a mess. Yet he was caught in another wave of uncertainty, torn between holding on and letting go. What if Doumeki had just decided he didn't really want this? That it just wasn't worth it anymore?

A fresh stab of pain went through his chest, and Watanuki bit his lower lip to stifle a breath, barely aware of the hot tears that slid down his cheeks. Being unwanted was the most painful thing in the world, and he had made someone feel that way, no matter what his intentions were.

It was absolutely inexcusable. A gasp rattled through his lips as he tried to clear his throat.

"You're mine. For as long as you want to be."

Everything else he could say seemed feeble. The past was something he couldn't change.

[drainedpaladin]

His fingers remained slack on the back of Watanuki's kimono as the boy continued to lean against him. There was a maelstrom of feelings inside him, bitterness, anger, hurt, regret, and something more intense, some kind of desire. He didn't know what to do with this situation - Watanuki told him he would say yes, but he still didn't know why. He didn't feel as if anything had changed, he didn't know where he stood, though he expected it was - and always would be - lower than he wanted.

It did no good to wish to be Watanuki's most important person, whether or not he wished it, it wouldn't happen without Watanuki's consent, and whether Watanuki could even give that anymore was debateable. Doumeki's wishes didn't matter, couldn't be granted, and all the effort he'd put in had amounted to...what? He didn't know.

Watanuki pointed out that those days had involved them fighting, and his heart sank, his stomach twisted. Fighting. Always fighting, and maybe he'd been the only one to see something else beyond just fighting. Maybe he'd been misleading himself when he thought he heard other things in Watanuki's shouting voice. Something.

He felt heavy, and very tired, his head bowing, even as Watanuki spoke in a thick voice, acknowledged that Doumeki had made it so he wasn't alone. Doumeki's stomach twinged, his heart felt coiled in his chest, stalled - anyone could have done that, it didn't have to be me, it was also her, and Kohane, and Kunogi - and he made a shaky exhalation.

He had been part of something, something that changed Watanuki's life. A part. He exhaled, listening to the sounds and feeling the vibrations of Watanuki's body. The boy was crying, he could tell that much, and his stomach twinged in sympathy. Empathy. He couldn't stand strong against Watanuki's tears.

Bowing his head again when Watanuki claimed him that way, he made a shaky exhalation, and finally spoke, his voice low, "Everything I did was to keep you from dying alone. To keep you from living alone now, it's impossible." he took a shaky breath, "Why is it that you want me, now?"

[sight_unbound]

It hadn't always been about fighting, or fighting because he was irritated. He fought at first because he thought Doumeki was an arrogant pig. Then they fought when Doumeki's eye was taken, and Watanuki had taken it back at the price of his own. That had been their first real quarrel, the first hint he got that things weren't as simple as they are, though Watanuki couldn't understand a lot of things at the time, why Doumeki continued to stay.

His right eye throbbed worse than his left as he bit his lower lip, face still hidden on Doumeki's shoulder, the spot on his back where Doumeki's hand was firmly pressed moments ago rapidly cooling. He was too conscious of that sensation, feeling the distance between them grow as the moments passed by, time slipping between his fingers.

So different. It was no longer as simple as giving his thanks and receiving an equally awkward comment that he had hit his head in return.

Watanuki remembered those moments sharply, holding on to them even as they cut him so he wouldn't forget. Doumeki had always been exasperated with him and his choices, but his youth had protected him from the weariness that enshrouded him today, always, always sapping him of his strength and exchanging this with uncertainty and the torment of duty without rest.

He still didn't know if he had made the correct choice, shielding Doumeki from the enormity of his own situation. What he had learned, however, was that a lot of his fears had been realized as a result of his other actions. The distance, their pain -- he had pushed everyone away because he didn't want to be a burden. More than that, he was afraid. Afraid of becoming too close, because he didn't want them to worry about him so much because it was his own damn fault that they were hurt, and they deserved much better than what little power he could use to protect them. Protect them from what dangers would come, from his own tenuous existence.
And yet they stayed. Doumeki the closest of all, his presence the very reminder of what Watanuki feared.

Unconditional acceptance. Watanuki's breath shook as he strained his ears, his senses, anything to sense the slightest movement, the slightest reaction from Doumeki. This one life dedicated to him, strong against threat yet vulnerable to that which he had protected. Fragile, and his fingers stilled on Doumeki's samue, carefully searching his pulse and making sure it was still there, his own chest aching, making it difficult to breathe, and he forced himself to draw quiet breaths through his mouth.

Only Doumeki would have been able to follow him to this point. That's why, for the sake of protecting Doumeki from himself, Watanuki had fought him. Yet it had done the opposite of what he had intended, and he could feel his own shame failing, grief and guilt hallowing out his heart.

It wasn't just that he wouldn't be himself without Doumeki. He wanted Doumeki to stay because he cared for him. More than care for him.

"I don't hate you," he said quietly, and he swallowed, trying to clear his throat. His voice sounded raw, thick. "Far from it. Though I really had thought you were killing yourself by staying with me, so I tried to stop you."

His fingers moved down the front of Doumeki's samue, trying to smoothen out the wrinkles that he had placed there earlier.

"It turns out I almost did. Kill you, I mean. The last thing I wanted... but I know I'd deserve it if you left." A wan, broken smile crossed his lips, too thin. "You'd be safer if you were far from me, even if I'd be alone - at least, I thought I would be able to handle it, for as long as you were happy. Somewhere."

His fingers stilled. He took a quiet breath, suddenly uncertain. His back felt cold.

"I wouldn't. Now that I know what I had almost given up on."

There was a long pause. His other hand closed on Doumeki's sleeve, and he shook a little.

"I want this as much as you do because I love you."