Wonderland's End [2/??]
Still haven't the slightest clue how long this is going to be. It wants to be a monster; I'd rather it not be, honestly.
Title: Wonderland's End
Chapter: 2/??
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Pairing: Doumeki Shizuka/Watanuki Kimihiro
Rating: PG
Summary: It didn't matter where he was; saving Watanuki was simply what he did.
- 1 -
Again, feedback is loved, but please ignore typos and the like. This is a rough draft; it will be edited once it's finished. Whenever the feck that is.
Many of Watanuki’s dreams held the same recurring theme: helplessness.
Very much a reflection of his waking life, he knew.
There were the stress dreams, where something wasn’t quite right; he’d be trying to dial numbers in a phone and would keep pressing the wrong ones (why couldn’t he call for help, even when he needed it the most?), or he’d call out to some retreating figure, usually Himawari-chan, and his voice would come out as an inaudible wheeze (would she ever notice him? Like that?). There were the dreams of being pursued, or chased, often by something unidentifiable (like the spirits he never had a name for), and then there were the dreams where he was suddenly stuck, frozen, and he knew there was something deadly approaching, something fatal (an everlasting sense of impending doom).
The worst dreams, however, were the ones where he had no control over his own body. These weren’t like the ones where he was frozen stiff and couldn’t move at all. In these dreams, he moved, but he moved with the overwhelming and terrifying feeling that he wasn’t the one moving himself; like he was a puppet on a web of strings, a hollowed-out costume that zipped up the back. Or maybe he was just possessed, but that didn’t sit quite right because he could still think and speak with his own mind and voice.
Right then, he was running through a cave towards the spot of light in the far distance. It grew into an opening faster than was logically possible at the sluggish speed he felt like he was running. He emerged, and slipped onto his ass; the landscape was a mountain crag covered with smooth, glistening ice. He was at an angle where he should have slid backwards into the cave, but he didn’t; that force took control and he was flying up and across the ice, the cold wind against his face making his skin throb with pain.
And then, the edge of a cliff was approaching, and he screamed at his uncontrollable body to stop with all the combined power of his voice and lungs. He stopped abruptly at the edge, almost careening over. Then he was on his feet, although he still was in no control of his body.
“Jump,” a voice said to his right, and he had the briefest of chances to look up and see who the speaker was before his own legs plunged him into a seemingly-bottomless black abyss.
---
The Old One sat on his rocking chair with a cup of tea, and watched out the window as the snow melted at an impressive pace. It wouldn’t be long now; the sun had already tinged the sky with a warm orange. Soon, it would be up, and the flowers would bloom.
“It’s going to be a warm spring,” he said to himself. His voice, although soft, seemed to disturb the sleeping human, who made an awful moan in his throat. The Old One clucked his tongue and felt bad for him. Wanderers into the Garden often met with strange, prophetic dreams; given by the distressed expression of the sleeping boy’s face, he had a taxing future to look forward to. Of course, given by what he’d heard from many and various travelers over the years, the dream’s shapes were often so bizarre as to be basically indecipherable. Although, it was said that the Witch could interpret any dream, she certainly would never bother herself with someplace as isolated and primordial as the Garden.
The boy seized up suddenly, as if he was caught in a trap. His mouth opened wide as if to scream, but (luckily) no sound came from his throat. The Old One wished he could wake him from the nightmare. Unfortunately, waking someone from a Garden dream, as he had discovered long ago, had dire consequences.
Best to wait it out for now. It was no trouble; he always had time.
---
Doumeki, at the good advice of Yuuko, sat at the table and stuffed his face with as many meat buns as possible.
“It might take you a long time to find him, and food may not be the easiest thing to find. Did you bring the necklace?”
Doumeki nodded with a mouthful of food. They were some leftovers Watanuki had apparently hidden the previous night. Naturally, they were delicious. Watanuki’s cooking made Doumeki want to become a glutton, growing fatter with each savory swallow.
Doumeki swallowed another meat bun, and tried not to think too much about Watanuki.
“Why do I need it?”
She had told him to bring his bow and the necklace, a ancient antique bequeathed to him by his grandfather, along with the rest of the temple. For Doumeki’s whole life it laid in a box of black stone, hidden beneath a wooden tile in the temple floor. He’d seen it once when he was young; his grandfather had taken it out to show to some important visitor, another priest or some such. He’d never thought to ask why it was so important when his grandfather was still alive, and his parents seemed not to know; then again, they never did when it came to these things. Needless to say, he’d been surprised that Yuuko had known he had it.
“You will,” Yuuko answered cryptically, and placed the box inside a little backpack. It was a small silver backpack adorned with two tiny angelic wings on the back. Doumeki assumed she meant for him to take it with him; he wanted to ask what else was in it, but decided it didn’t matter right then.
He washed the meat buns down with a cup of cold tea, which he swallowed in one long sip, and knew he was ready to go.
Yuuko zipped up the bag and held it up for him.
“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this with you!” she declared in a somewhat melodramatic voice.
Doumeki took it and strapped it securely on his back, only vaguely registering the disappointed mutter of “I always wanted to use that line.”
At that moment, the little black Mokona bounced onto Yuuko’s shoulder from seemingly nowhere.
“Doumeki-kun is always too serious.”
“Hmm . . . only when it comes to Watanuki though,” Yuuko said slyly, and Doumeki pretended not to hear.
He secured his bow safely onto his shoulder and stood patiently, as if he had all the time in the world. Truthfully, for the first time in his life, he felt actually, genuinely frightened of what he might have to face.
“Are you ready?” Yuuko asked, voice having taken on that serious, enigmatic quality she usually reserved for the most dire and demanding of her customers.
“I’m ready.”
“Things will not always be as they appear. Stay alert. Accept kindness only from those you have given a kindness to. Never give anyone your real name. To find him, look for the reddest star in the sky. If you become lost, and cannot see the sky, follow the butterflies.”
Mokona was expanding as she spoke, creating the wormhole that would lead him to Watanuki.
“Is that coming as well?” he asked, referring to Mokona.
“Mokona will remain here.”
“Then how do we get back?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll know when to bring you back.”
Doumeki felt there were other things he should be asking, but couldn’t think of any, and then it was too late to ask questions.
The ground gave out beneath his feet. The change was so sudden he almost lost his grip on his bow as he seemingly fell into an abyss of distorting colors and planes. Then he was floating, and he instinctually reached out to grab onto some ledge, but his fingers only slipped through air. His surroundings were either immaterial, or they were much farther away than they appeared. Considering how they seemed to be moving constantly, he supposed this second theory was more likely; the very place (if he could even call it that) was playing tricks on his eyes.
As he oriented his vision somewhat, he saw that his surroundings actually formed a sort of tunnel, and he was floating slowly through it in one direction. He felt intuitively that it was the right way, and also felt that it would take some time to reach his destination. He closed his eyes, feeling strangely safe in the atypical atmosphere, and tried to relax.
Naturally, visions of Watanuki immediately took over his mind. He shook the memory of Watanuki’s despair from his head, knowing he needed to remain calm. Instead, his mind wandered back to the first time he’d met the energetic idiot.
Doumeki had known, somehow, as soon as he saw him. The feeling that passed through him could only be described as odd and unfamiliar, and he realized it must be a spiritual sensation; he was feeling something on a different level, something that couldn’t be defined with the human vocabulary, as immense as it was. It wasn’t “an immediate connection,” and it wasn’t “love at first sight,” but it was something vaguely similar to that. And yet not.
In Doumeki’s thirteen-year old eyes, Watanuki looked something like a reincarnated kami in human skin. He wanted this boy to become a part of his life, even if he wasn’t sure what part he would necessarily play. He was clean and handsome with sharp, intelligent eyes, and moved in a way that was both confident and somehow anxious. On first glance, Doumeki thought he was a vision of aesthetic perfection.
And then he opened his mouth.
He’d never intended for Watanuki to hate him; it was, in fact, the last thing he’d wanted. But, well, Doumeki couldn’t really stop himself from calling a spade a spade; brutal honesty (even when that honesty was only a small fraction of the whole truth) was simply his way.
“Idiot.”
“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?!?”
And so their relationship digressed at the same rate it progressed. Odd, that.
Doumeki felt a breeze against his face and snapped open his eyes. In the distance (how far he simply couldn’t tell) was a pink spot of light. He looked at his watch and saw that he’d been in the portal for over an hour, which didn’t make sense. Had he fallen asleep unknowingly? It felt like it’d been no more than ten minutes.
The spot grew larger as he moved towards it, and the breeze grew into a wind that, strangely, didn’t deter his speed. On the air, he began to smell things he couldn’t really make out; rich, earthy scents, maybe trees and dirt. He remembered Watanuki had been in a sort of forest.
The light grew to gigantic proportions as he approached it, and he had to shield his eyes from the brightness as he felt a strange brush of something all over his body; he’d passed through something, he realized, and was now on the other side.
-
Watanuki awoke as a bright ray of sunshine passed through a hole in the window’s curtain and settled directly on his right eye. He immediately turned so it was touching the back of his head, and blinked wearily into consciousness. The terror from his dream was still lodged uncomfortably in his stomach, and made him feel slightly nauseated.
“What did you dream about, human boy?” a old, soft voice said somewhere beyond his feet. Watanuki turned onto his back groggily, holding his arm up to shield himself from the blinding sunlight. His eyes, blurry with lack of glasses but still sharp enough to see decently, fell upon the speaker.
He panicked in typical Watanuki fashion; flailing about, finding a sense of solid ground, and using that ground to put as much distance between him and the thing that scared him in as quickly (and often awkward) a manner as possible. He, unfortunately, knocked into a table behind him with enough force that the cup of tea sitting atop tipped over and spilled its contents over the edge onto Watanuki’s head.
“H-H-H-H-HOT!!!!” he shrieked, then rolled astoundingly fast away from the table; at which point he tried to get up on his knees, got caught in the blanket he’d been sleeping under, and fell with a painful smack onto his face.
The creature, or whatever it was, couldn’t contain himself any longer, and slapped his bony knees as he howled with laughter.
“You’re an interesting one, boy!”
Watanuki then remembered his initial fright, and snapped his body back into a half-defensive, half-horrified position. “W-w-w-w-what are you? Where am I?” His voice, although considerably more calm than before, was still loud enough to make the creature wince.
“Relax, will you? And keep your damn voice down,” the creature growled softly. “You’re safe. Nothing can get you in here. You were wise to run into my house, although I dare say it would’ve been nice if you’d at least knocked first.”
Memories of the night before came back in flashes. “What happened? Where am I? What are you?” Watanuki repeated helplessly. “A-a-a-a demon?”
“How rude!” the creature huffed. “I’m an Old One. What the humans used to call a gargoyle.”
The name fit, although the logic of the situation didn’t. “A gargoyle? Are you a spirit?”
That made the creature laugh. “Oh no, boy, I’m as real as you. Now, how about a nice cup of tea to clear your head? I guess I’m gonna have to make you another one now. The sun is out and the ground is probably dry, and my legs are itching for a walk.”
To emphasize his point, he jumped from his chair to his feet and stretched, bones creaking here and there. “After your tea, we’ll take a walk, and you can ask me all the questions you want. Since you’re from another world, I’m sure you have many of them.”
“I’m in another world?!” Watanuki looked at him, clearly distressed. “Wait, how did you know I’m not from this world?”
The Old One chuckled. “Because, boy, humans are extinct here.”
---
to be continued
Title: Wonderland's End
Chapter: 2/??
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Pairing: Doumeki Shizuka/Watanuki Kimihiro
Rating: PG
Summary: It didn't matter where he was; saving Watanuki was simply what he did.
- 1 -
Again, feedback is loved, but please ignore typos and the like. This is a rough draft; it will be edited once it's finished. Whenever the feck that is.
Many of Watanuki’s dreams held the same recurring theme: helplessness.
Very much a reflection of his waking life, he knew.
There were the stress dreams, where something wasn’t quite right; he’d be trying to dial numbers in a phone and would keep pressing the wrong ones (why couldn’t he call for help, even when he needed it the most?), or he’d call out to some retreating figure, usually Himawari-chan, and his voice would come out as an inaudible wheeze (would she ever notice him? Like that?). There were the dreams of being pursued, or chased, often by something unidentifiable (like the spirits he never had a name for), and then there were the dreams where he was suddenly stuck, frozen, and he knew there was something deadly approaching, something fatal (an everlasting sense of impending doom).
The worst dreams, however, were the ones where he had no control over his own body. These weren’t like the ones where he was frozen stiff and couldn’t move at all. In these dreams, he moved, but he moved with the overwhelming and terrifying feeling that he wasn’t the one moving himself; like he was a puppet on a web of strings, a hollowed-out costume that zipped up the back. Or maybe he was just possessed, but that didn’t sit quite right because he could still think and speak with his own mind and voice.
Right then, he was running through a cave towards the spot of light in the far distance. It grew into an opening faster than was logically possible at the sluggish speed he felt like he was running. He emerged, and slipped onto his ass; the landscape was a mountain crag covered with smooth, glistening ice. He was at an angle where he should have slid backwards into the cave, but he didn’t; that force took control and he was flying up and across the ice, the cold wind against his face making his skin throb with pain.
And then, the edge of a cliff was approaching, and he screamed at his uncontrollable body to stop with all the combined power of his voice and lungs. He stopped abruptly at the edge, almost careening over. Then he was on his feet, although he still was in no control of his body.
“Jump,” a voice said to his right, and he had the briefest of chances to look up and see who the speaker was before his own legs plunged him into a seemingly-bottomless black abyss.
---
The Old One sat on his rocking chair with a cup of tea, and watched out the window as the snow melted at an impressive pace. It wouldn’t be long now; the sun had already tinged the sky with a warm orange. Soon, it would be up, and the flowers would bloom.
“It’s going to be a warm spring,” he said to himself. His voice, although soft, seemed to disturb the sleeping human, who made an awful moan in his throat. The Old One clucked his tongue and felt bad for him. Wanderers into the Garden often met with strange, prophetic dreams; given by the distressed expression of the sleeping boy’s face, he had a taxing future to look forward to. Of course, given by what he’d heard from many and various travelers over the years, the dream’s shapes were often so bizarre as to be basically indecipherable. Although, it was said that the Witch could interpret any dream, she certainly would never bother herself with someplace as isolated and primordial as the Garden.
The boy seized up suddenly, as if he was caught in a trap. His mouth opened wide as if to scream, but (luckily) no sound came from his throat. The Old One wished he could wake him from the nightmare. Unfortunately, waking someone from a Garden dream, as he had discovered long ago, had dire consequences.
Best to wait it out for now. It was no trouble; he always had time.
---
Doumeki, at the good advice of Yuuko, sat at the table and stuffed his face with as many meat buns as possible.
“It might take you a long time to find him, and food may not be the easiest thing to find. Did you bring the necklace?”
Doumeki nodded with a mouthful of food. They were some leftovers Watanuki had apparently hidden the previous night. Naturally, they were delicious. Watanuki’s cooking made Doumeki want to become a glutton, growing fatter with each savory swallow.
Doumeki swallowed another meat bun, and tried not to think too much about Watanuki.
“Why do I need it?”
She had told him to bring his bow and the necklace, a ancient antique bequeathed to him by his grandfather, along with the rest of the temple. For Doumeki’s whole life it laid in a box of black stone, hidden beneath a wooden tile in the temple floor. He’d seen it once when he was young; his grandfather had taken it out to show to some important visitor, another priest or some such. He’d never thought to ask why it was so important when his grandfather was still alive, and his parents seemed not to know; then again, they never did when it came to these things. Needless to say, he’d been surprised that Yuuko had known he had it.
“You will,” Yuuko answered cryptically, and placed the box inside a little backpack. It was a small silver backpack adorned with two tiny angelic wings on the back. Doumeki assumed she meant for him to take it with him; he wanted to ask what else was in it, but decided it didn’t matter right then.
He washed the meat buns down with a cup of cold tea, which he swallowed in one long sip, and knew he was ready to go.
Yuuko zipped up the bag and held it up for him.
“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this with you!” she declared in a somewhat melodramatic voice.
Doumeki took it and strapped it securely on his back, only vaguely registering the disappointed mutter of “I always wanted to use that line.”
At that moment, the little black Mokona bounced onto Yuuko’s shoulder from seemingly nowhere.
“Doumeki-kun is always too serious.”
“Hmm . . . only when it comes to Watanuki though,” Yuuko said slyly, and Doumeki pretended not to hear.
He secured his bow safely onto his shoulder and stood patiently, as if he had all the time in the world. Truthfully, for the first time in his life, he felt actually, genuinely frightened of what he might have to face.
“Are you ready?” Yuuko asked, voice having taken on that serious, enigmatic quality she usually reserved for the most dire and demanding of her customers.
“I’m ready.”
“Things will not always be as they appear. Stay alert. Accept kindness only from those you have given a kindness to. Never give anyone your real name. To find him, look for the reddest star in the sky. If you become lost, and cannot see the sky, follow the butterflies.”
Mokona was expanding as she spoke, creating the wormhole that would lead him to Watanuki.
“Is that coming as well?” he asked, referring to Mokona.
“Mokona will remain here.”
“Then how do we get back?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll know when to bring you back.”
Doumeki felt there were other things he should be asking, but couldn’t think of any, and then it was too late to ask questions.
The ground gave out beneath his feet. The change was so sudden he almost lost his grip on his bow as he seemingly fell into an abyss of distorting colors and planes. Then he was floating, and he instinctually reached out to grab onto some ledge, but his fingers only slipped through air. His surroundings were either immaterial, or they were much farther away than they appeared. Considering how they seemed to be moving constantly, he supposed this second theory was more likely; the very place (if he could even call it that) was playing tricks on his eyes.
As he oriented his vision somewhat, he saw that his surroundings actually formed a sort of tunnel, and he was floating slowly through it in one direction. He felt intuitively that it was the right way, and also felt that it would take some time to reach his destination. He closed his eyes, feeling strangely safe in the atypical atmosphere, and tried to relax.
Naturally, visions of Watanuki immediately took over his mind. He shook the memory of Watanuki’s despair from his head, knowing he needed to remain calm. Instead, his mind wandered back to the first time he’d met the energetic idiot.
Doumeki had known, somehow, as soon as he saw him. The feeling that passed through him could only be described as odd and unfamiliar, and he realized it must be a spiritual sensation; he was feeling something on a different level, something that couldn’t be defined with the human vocabulary, as immense as it was. It wasn’t “an immediate connection,” and it wasn’t “love at first sight,” but it was something vaguely similar to that. And yet not.
In Doumeki’s thirteen-year old eyes, Watanuki looked something like a reincarnated kami in human skin. He wanted this boy to become a part of his life, even if he wasn’t sure what part he would necessarily play. He was clean and handsome with sharp, intelligent eyes, and moved in a way that was both confident and somehow anxious. On first glance, Doumeki thought he was a vision of aesthetic perfection.
And then he opened his mouth.
He’d never intended for Watanuki to hate him; it was, in fact, the last thing he’d wanted. But, well, Doumeki couldn’t really stop himself from calling a spade a spade; brutal honesty (even when that honesty was only a small fraction of the whole truth) was simply his way.
“Idiot.”
“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?!?”
And so their relationship digressed at the same rate it progressed. Odd, that.
Doumeki felt a breeze against his face and snapped open his eyes. In the distance (how far he simply couldn’t tell) was a pink spot of light. He looked at his watch and saw that he’d been in the portal for over an hour, which didn’t make sense. Had he fallen asleep unknowingly? It felt like it’d been no more than ten minutes.
The spot grew larger as he moved towards it, and the breeze grew into a wind that, strangely, didn’t deter his speed. On the air, he began to smell things he couldn’t really make out; rich, earthy scents, maybe trees and dirt. He remembered Watanuki had been in a sort of forest.
The light grew to gigantic proportions as he approached it, and he had to shield his eyes from the brightness as he felt a strange brush of something all over his body; he’d passed through something, he realized, and was now on the other side.
-
Watanuki awoke as a bright ray of sunshine passed through a hole in the window’s curtain and settled directly on his right eye. He immediately turned so it was touching the back of his head, and blinked wearily into consciousness. The terror from his dream was still lodged uncomfortably in his stomach, and made him feel slightly nauseated.
“What did you dream about, human boy?” a old, soft voice said somewhere beyond his feet. Watanuki turned onto his back groggily, holding his arm up to shield himself from the blinding sunlight. His eyes, blurry with lack of glasses but still sharp enough to see decently, fell upon the speaker.
He panicked in typical Watanuki fashion; flailing about, finding a sense of solid ground, and using that ground to put as much distance between him and the thing that scared him in as quickly (and often awkward) a manner as possible. He, unfortunately, knocked into a table behind him with enough force that the cup of tea sitting atop tipped over and spilled its contents over the edge onto Watanuki’s head.
“H-H-H-H-HOT!!!!” he shrieked, then rolled astoundingly fast away from the table; at which point he tried to get up on his knees, got caught in the blanket he’d been sleeping under, and fell with a painful smack onto his face.
The creature, or whatever it was, couldn’t contain himself any longer, and slapped his bony knees as he howled with laughter.
“You’re an interesting one, boy!”
Watanuki then remembered his initial fright, and snapped his body back into a half-defensive, half-horrified position. “W-w-w-w-what are you? Where am I?” His voice, although considerably more calm than before, was still loud enough to make the creature wince.
“Relax, will you? And keep your damn voice down,” the creature growled softly. “You’re safe. Nothing can get you in here. You were wise to run into my house, although I dare say it would’ve been nice if you’d at least knocked first.”
Memories of the night before came back in flashes. “What happened? Where am I? What are you?” Watanuki repeated helplessly. “A-a-a-a demon?”
“How rude!” the creature huffed. “I’m an Old One. What the humans used to call a gargoyle.”
The name fit, although the logic of the situation didn’t. “A gargoyle? Are you a spirit?”
That made the creature laugh. “Oh no, boy, I’m as real as you. Now, how about a nice cup of tea to clear your head? I guess I’m gonna have to make you another one now. The sun is out and the ground is probably dry, and my legs are itching for a walk.”
To emphasize his point, he jumped from his chair to his feet and stretched, bones creaking here and there. “After your tea, we’ll take a walk, and you can ask me all the questions you want. Since you’re from another world, I’m sure you have many of them.”
“I’m in another world?!” Watanuki looked at him, clearly distressed. “Wait, how did you know I’m not from this world?”
The Old One chuckled. “Because, boy, humans are extinct here.”
---
to be continued