xxxHOLiC AU requests - second batch
On to batch two:
4. Movies
Requested by factorielle ( original thread):
This one kinda turned into a Tsubasa-AU somewhere along the way. But… maybe the holic characters are still floating around in the background somewhere or something? ^^;
It wouldn’t have been strictly untrue to suggest that Sakura (darling pop-singer of Japan and Piffle Princess brand star fashion model, three times Clover Award nominated and forever charmingly baffled by her own success) was every bit as clueless and sweet as her kind of celebrity came, but it wouldn’t have been entirely fair either. Because while a lot of her professional reputation may have come from her well known willingness to donate money to assorted causes left and right and throw enormous concerts for charity, it was never a publicity stunt when Sakura was involved. It was never for any other reason than that the mere thought that there were other people out there in the world less privileged than she horrified her to the very core of her being. Not even the most determined tabloid journalists - hungrily watching her every move for the slightest possibility of scandal - could ever produce any evidence otherwise. She had such a reputation for being easily talked into giving up money or time to increasingly ridiculous schemes that it wasn’t all that surprising that her security was getting a little over-zealous about policing who got to talk to her these days. It just wasn’t making Syaoran’s current predicament any easier either.
And if getting Sakura on board for this project was rapidly turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, getting Syaoran on board had been far to easy. It should have taken a lot of negotiation, should have gone through his agent, should have been attached to a lengthy contract listing all the training times and scheduled games that filming absolutely could not be allowed to interfere with. But in reality, the moment Fye has gotten as far as mentioning the hope that they might be getting Sakura involved, no force on earth could have stopped Syaoran from signing every document that was put in front of him. And with his life all signed away, if it then turned out that his help was needed to make sure Sakura signed up too, well, he wouldn’t even have known how to refuse.
The saddest part was, even if he had realised that this would involve himself and Fy disguising themselves and sneaking into Sakura’s garden in a last-ditch attempt to get far enough past security to suggest the idea to her, he probably still wouldn’t have refused. However, there was just one point, right as Fye hoisted him over that last, crucial garden wall that Syaoran wished, just for a moment, that he was a little better at saying no.
Five years of intensive, professional athletic training, and the best he could do on the other side was to land, over-balance and fall flat on his face. The first coherent thought that made it through his brain after it was done going ‘ow’ at him was a gentle reminder that he’d heard someone say ‘eek!’ right around the time he was falling, and it couldn’t have been him because his voice didn’t sound like that.
Syaoran looked up, and found himself looking right up at Sakura, not two metres away from him. Fye might not be getting any points for style over this heist, but he deserved at least one for accuracy. Sakura looked… well, like she’d just seen a stranger come flying over her wall and fall flat on his face, not to put too fine a point on it, but after a second or two more she recovered enough to hurry over and help him back to his feet.
“Oh no! What happened? Are you alright?” she asked all at once, eyes so wide with concern that Syaoran would have fallen over himself to reassure her if only he’d been able to speak without choking just yet.
“No, it’s okay, really, I’m fine!” he managed to splutter out, pulled back to his feet to discover he was standing far too close to Sakura for any kind of comfort.
Sakura peered at him curiously, miraculously oblivious to the way Syaoran’s heart was about to hammer its way out of his chest. “Do I know you? You look familiar, but… Ah!” she exclaimed, raising a hand to her mouth in surprise. “You’re Li Syaoran, aren’t you? The Li Syaoran who’s always on TV for the baseball?”
Syaoran felt the blush start rising from below his chin and didn’t feel it stop. The moment you discover that the most beautiful girl in the universe knows your name is a moment few other experiences will ever compare to.
The moment ended abruptly when Sakura said, “But what are you doing here? And why are you wearing the gardeners’ uniform?”
“It’s a long story,” said Syaoran, getting a hold on himself. “You see, I’m here to talk to you about something really important.”
To say that he had Sakura’s full attention did not do the situation justice. Syaoran took a deep breath and tried desperately to figure out just exactly what he should say. He just about had it sorted out too, when the imposing bulk of Sakura’s chief bodyguard appeared seemingly out of the blue behind her, and - not for the first time that day - every coherent thought Syaoran had been having flew right out of his head.
“You’re not a new gardener,” said Kurogane.
“K…Kurogane-san?” said Sakura, twisting to look at him, and inexplicably sounding very nearly as guilty as Syaoran felt.
“Well… no… but I’m… I’ve got to…” Syaoran stammered helplessly, knowing all was lost. He’d been so close.
“And you didn’t come through the main gates either, or I’d know about it,” Kurogane went on, with the gravity of a judge passing out a life sentence. He grabbed Syaoran by the shoulder. “You’re coming with me.”
“But… but Li-san had something really important to tell me!” Sakura protested.
“Let me guess what,” grumbled Kurogane. “If that damned director has anything to do with this…”
“Hah, well, so funny you should mention me…” said Fye, head sticking over the wall. With one big pull of his arms he was over, and climbing the rest of the way down with so much casual ease that it made Syaoran’s bruises ache in viscous envy. “And you’d never believe it, but we did just come past reception, but there must have been some sort of horrible mix-up, because they wouldn’t let us in. So we had to get a little bit creative.” He fished in one of his pockets to produce his sunglasses, and suddenly, despite the fact he was still wearing the same ugly gardeners’ uniform as Syaoran, how anyone had failed to recognise him coming in here was impossible to imagine. “You see Kuro-G - you don’t mind if I call you Kuro-G, do you? - we’re simply far too tight on time to risk any delays on this project now. You know how it is in the movie business, you don’t keep to schedule in those all-important early weeks, why, by the time you have everyone signed on and ready to go the studio has completely forgotten they ever gave you the green light. It’s just rush-rush-rush every moment of my day.”
“Why you…” said Kurogane, glowering.
“Movie business?” said Sakura, which was all the opening Fye needed.
“Not only am in the movie business,” said Fye, treating Sakura to his widest smile, “but I’m here today for the express purpose of casting a leading lady in my next film.”
Sakura blinked at him for a second before it clicked. “Me?!” she squeaked.
“That’s right,” beamed Fye. “In fact, Syaoran here has already signed on too, isn’t that right?” Words were still escaping Syaoran, but he nodded vigorously.
“I could really be in a movie?” squeaked Sakura. “But I’ve never acted in anything before! Do you really think I’d be okay?”
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have!” said Fye happily, twirling his sunglasses. “Why don’t I tell you a bit more about the role?”
Kurogane rolled his eyes. He could already tell he’d lost.
5. Vaguely Medieval
Requested by wind_tear ( Original thread):
I do believe this request was very nearly longer than what I got out of it. And somehow, the bit about Doumeki rather needing Watanuki’s assistance despite whether or not this was a good idea turned into the bit that stuck with me…
“What part of ‘apprentice’ do you not understand?” Watanuki complained.
“No fireballs then?”
“Nothing remotely close to fireballs! Do you have any idea what the first two years of apprenticeship to Yuuko is like? I’ve hardly even seen a spellbook yet!”
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you do something? Isn’t slaying monsters what your lot is all about?”
“I’m an archer.”
Watanuki looked at him, then looked pointedly at the longsword strapped to his hip.
“Mostly an archer,” Doumeki amended.
“Aargh! This is all your fault!”
“Why my fault?”
“If you hadn’t practically kidnapped me, I wouldn’t be here at all!”
“I wouldn’t have had to kidnap you if you’d just come along when I asked,” Doumeki reminded him patiently.
“That’s exactly what makes it kidnapping!”
Up above, the monster growled at them impatiently.
“Perhaps this is an argument we should leave until later,” Doumeki suggested.
“Fine,” Watanuki had to concede.
“Any other ideas?”
“….I’m pretty good at running away.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Doumeki. “On three?”
(Sometime later that day, once those pesky monster problems have been dealt with)
One thing Watanuki could do, Doumeki discovered later, was summon forest spirits - though what this might be good for other than a chat, advice or to pass on a message that he’d been kidnapped and was desperately in need of rescuing, Doumeki couldn’t think. She was a pretty little thing, with leaves and sunflowers woven into her long, dark hair, but Watanuki’s body language suggested what she was saying to him was more frustrating than it was helpful. When she vanished at last with a happy little wave and Watanuki turned back around, he did not look in the least surprised or embarrassed to discover he’d been being watched.
“I told her everything,” he declared. “How you kidnapped me in the middle of the night completely against my will and dragged me off into the wilderness.”
“And?” said Doumeki.
“And she thought it was cute!” Watanuki wailed.
Doumeki decided he might actually like this forest spirit more than he’d been expecting to.
Extra: Pirates (Act 1, Scene 3)
Just as promised! And if you haven't seen it yet, mushroom18 has some art for this world up here. =3
It turned out that the second mate’s main duties involved scrubbing the deck. Since Doumeki had already discovered by this point that the first mate’s main duties were cooking and transporting rum from the hold to the captain’s cabin, he didn’t see much reason to complain about his lot. Sea-life treated him fine, and the crew certainly never bothered him. It was all pleasantly dull, or would have been if Yuuko and Watanuki hadn’t been on board.
There didn’t seem to be much actual piracy going on, which was frankly disappointing. The first opportunity they got - a merchant ship which appeared around noon as a sail on the horizon and went on to pass within a few hundred metres of their vessel - went by without either ship so much as acknowledging the other was there. And since a ship like the Butterfly - with a captain with a reputation as wild as Captain Yuuko’s - should have been anything but hard to recognise, this surprised Doumeki for several reasons.
“Aren’t we supposed to do something?” he asked Watanuki.
“What, like attack them? Just what sort of people do you think we are?” said Watanuki, typically putout by the nerve Doumeki showed by existing all over the place like that.
“Pirates?” Doumeki supplied.
“We aren’t that sort of pirates,” said Watanuki firmly. “Besides, it’s not like they can even see that we’re here.”
“Of course not,” said Doumeki vaguely.
“Are you patronising me?”
“It’s hard to tell sometimes,” Doumeki muttered.
Watanuki ignored him. “Anyway, we’ll have more important things to worry about soon, with the storm coming in,” he said briskly.
Doumeki looked up into what seemed to all intents and purposes like a perfectly innocent blue sky. He knew just enough about the sea to have some idea that this didn’t necessarily mean anything - storms in these parts could blow in with no warning at all, but in that case… “How can you tell?”
Watanuki started uncomfortably and looked momentarily awkward. “Just because there is, that’s all!”
And right up until the gale-force winds started up an hour later, that was all he would say on the matter.
6. Hired Guns
Requested by stormantia ( Original thread):
This is one of the darker universes in this lot, but really, HIRED GUNS, people! How could I resist writing the boys as HIRED GUNS!
Watanuki’s presence always made everything about the job harder.
“We can’t just go around killing people!” he’d complain.
“What do you think they hire us for?” Doumeki would argue. It was an old argument that they never really resolved, because they were both stubborn as hell, utterly convinced of the merits of their own side and completely unwilling to consider that there might be any merit to the other’s. At this rate, it could well go on for the rest of their Professional (capitalisation intentional) lives.
But the other problem with Watanuki was that he was so good with a gun he was damn near superhuman - that, or he was an ordinary shot with a gun but had beyond superhuman luck. Doumeki could never entirely make up his mind which it was, but it had to be one or the other. There was no other explanation for how Watanuki ever pulled off half the crazy things he came up with. Doumeki was fairly certain even Watanuki wasn’t sure how he did it a lot of the time. So even if Watanuki wasn’t quite the sort of partner Doumeki couldn’t have worked without, he was sure as hell the sort of partner he couldn’t ever afford to risk losing to the competition. Also, between jobs when they actually had the chance, he made a terrific curry, and even without all the rest of it, it would have taken a lot of work for Doumeki to convince himself to give that up.
These were important things to remember on days like this one, when Watanuki had come within inches of falling out of a second storey window, barely saved even by Doumeki’s best efforts, and well before they’d ever so much as confirmed the existence of their target. Watanuki’s attitude to near-death situations was another annoying feature. Unless he had some reason to declare it was Doumeki’s fault, he didn’t seem to mind getting seriously injured on the job. He seemed to think it was something like retributive karma for what they did - or worse, that there was a divine tally up there somewhere listing all injuries to be taken in the process of their work, and that by taking on a couple of extras for himself it would mean someone else out there would be spared them. It often seemed to Doumeki like his whole reason for going into a line of work like this was that he believed that if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have had to instead, and they wouldn’t have done it half as well as Watanuki could.
The first thing Doumeki said after he’d heaved Watanuki back over the railing, heaved him off where he’d landed bodily on Doumeki’s person and given him long enough to stop panting and get over all the adrenaline so that he’d be listening when Doumeki started talking to him was, “This is the last Kunogi job we’re ever taking.”
“What?” said Watanuki, as if nothing more mortifying had happened to him that day. “Himawari is the best client we’ve got! Not to mention the only one who ever hires us o do anything that doesn’t involve killing anyone. And she’s a very nice girl.”
A very nice girl who hires professional gunmen on a regular basis, thought Doumeki. What he said was, “She’s bad luck.”
“What?” said Watanuki again. He did this a lot, it tended to mean not that he’d missed Doumeki’s point, but that he was devoting every fibre of his concentration to avoiding it. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re letting superstition get the better of you again.”
“Then you explain to me why you’ve nearly gotten killed at least twice on each of the last five jobs she’s sent us on,” said Doumeki. Even he didn’t know how much of this he believed anymore - except for the bit about avoiding Kunogi. His gut had been telling him that since before they took the first job from her. Having his gut proven so thoroughly right since had not been vindicating in any sort of satisfying way.
“That was all just bad luck,” Watanuki snapped back, unloading, checking and reloading his gun in the deliberate way that meant he was avoiding eye contact. “The ordinary kind that has nothing to do with Himawari at all. Besides, I’m not dead yet, am I?”
Yet, Doumeki thought, not remotely comforted by it. Whether he might have liked Watanuki or not, he was very sure he didn’t want him to die - for all sorts of inconvenient reasons. But mostly because, when you lose a partner like Watanuki, you don’t ever find another one like him again.
Just one more lot left to go now.
ETA: Quick links to the other two batches
Round 1: Pirates, vampires and Piffle Country office politics
Round 3: Superheros and lands post apocalypse (and more Piffle Country)
4. Movies
Requested by factorielle ( original thread):
- I GOT SOMETHING!
In his latest press conference, FCC official Fei Wong Reed has declared his intent to shut down the production of famous movie director Yuuko Ichihara's latest opus on account that he really doesn't like her.
In what is generally regarded as a bold creative move, Ichihara and her long-time associate, controversial screenwriter Fay D. Flourite, have gathered key personalities from various fields as the stars of what they describe as a supernatural movie sprinkled with fantasy and romance.
Model Kunogi Himawari, baseball MVP Li Syaoran, and national kyudo champion Doumeki Shizuka have all separately confirmed their participation in the movie. So far no statement has been heard from pop idol Kinomoto Sakura due to her bodyguard Kurogane being a little too enthusiastic in shoving the journalists away.
(Watanuki can be Doumeki's buttboy personal assistant, and hate every minute of it. >D)
This one kinda turned into a Tsubasa-AU somewhere along the way. But… maybe the holic characters are still floating around in the background somewhere or something? ^^;
It wouldn’t have been strictly untrue to suggest that Sakura (darling pop-singer of Japan and Piffle Princess brand star fashion model, three times Clover Award nominated and forever charmingly baffled by her own success) was every bit as clueless and sweet as her kind of celebrity came, but it wouldn’t have been entirely fair either. Because while a lot of her professional reputation may have come from her well known willingness to donate money to assorted causes left and right and throw enormous concerts for charity, it was never a publicity stunt when Sakura was involved. It was never for any other reason than that the mere thought that there were other people out there in the world less privileged than she horrified her to the very core of her being. Not even the most determined tabloid journalists - hungrily watching her every move for the slightest possibility of scandal - could ever produce any evidence otherwise. She had such a reputation for being easily talked into giving up money or time to increasingly ridiculous schemes that it wasn’t all that surprising that her security was getting a little over-zealous about policing who got to talk to her these days. It just wasn’t making Syaoran’s current predicament any easier either.
And if getting Sakura on board for this project was rapidly turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, getting Syaoran on board had been far to easy. It should have taken a lot of negotiation, should have gone through his agent, should have been attached to a lengthy contract listing all the training times and scheduled games that filming absolutely could not be allowed to interfere with. But in reality, the moment Fye has gotten as far as mentioning the hope that they might be getting Sakura involved, no force on earth could have stopped Syaoran from signing every document that was put in front of him. And with his life all signed away, if it then turned out that his help was needed to make sure Sakura signed up too, well, he wouldn’t even have known how to refuse.
The saddest part was, even if he had realised that this would involve himself and Fy disguising themselves and sneaking into Sakura’s garden in a last-ditch attempt to get far enough past security to suggest the idea to her, he probably still wouldn’t have refused. However, there was just one point, right as Fye hoisted him over that last, crucial garden wall that Syaoran wished, just for a moment, that he was a little better at saying no.
Five years of intensive, professional athletic training, and the best he could do on the other side was to land, over-balance and fall flat on his face. The first coherent thought that made it through his brain after it was done going ‘ow’ at him was a gentle reminder that he’d heard someone say ‘eek!’ right around the time he was falling, and it couldn’t have been him because his voice didn’t sound like that.
Syaoran looked up, and found himself looking right up at Sakura, not two metres away from him. Fye might not be getting any points for style over this heist, but he deserved at least one for accuracy. Sakura looked… well, like she’d just seen a stranger come flying over her wall and fall flat on his face, not to put too fine a point on it, but after a second or two more she recovered enough to hurry over and help him back to his feet.
“Oh no! What happened? Are you alright?” she asked all at once, eyes so wide with concern that Syaoran would have fallen over himself to reassure her if only he’d been able to speak without choking just yet.
“No, it’s okay, really, I’m fine!” he managed to splutter out, pulled back to his feet to discover he was standing far too close to Sakura for any kind of comfort.
Sakura peered at him curiously, miraculously oblivious to the way Syaoran’s heart was about to hammer its way out of his chest. “Do I know you? You look familiar, but… Ah!” she exclaimed, raising a hand to her mouth in surprise. “You’re Li Syaoran, aren’t you? The Li Syaoran who’s always on TV for the baseball?”
Syaoran felt the blush start rising from below his chin and didn’t feel it stop. The moment you discover that the most beautiful girl in the universe knows your name is a moment few other experiences will ever compare to.
The moment ended abruptly when Sakura said, “But what are you doing here? And why are you wearing the gardeners’ uniform?”
“It’s a long story,” said Syaoran, getting a hold on himself. “You see, I’m here to talk to you about something really important.”
To say that he had Sakura’s full attention did not do the situation justice. Syaoran took a deep breath and tried desperately to figure out just exactly what he should say. He just about had it sorted out too, when the imposing bulk of Sakura’s chief bodyguard appeared seemingly out of the blue behind her, and - not for the first time that day - every coherent thought Syaoran had been having flew right out of his head.
“You’re not a new gardener,” said Kurogane.
“K…Kurogane-san?” said Sakura, twisting to look at him, and inexplicably sounding very nearly as guilty as Syaoran felt.
“Well… no… but I’m… I’ve got to…” Syaoran stammered helplessly, knowing all was lost. He’d been so close.
“And you didn’t come through the main gates either, or I’d know about it,” Kurogane went on, with the gravity of a judge passing out a life sentence. He grabbed Syaoran by the shoulder. “You’re coming with me.”
“But… but Li-san had something really important to tell me!” Sakura protested.
“Let me guess what,” grumbled Kurogane. “If that damned director has anything to do with this…”
“Hah, well, so funny you should mention me…” said Fye, head sticking over the wall. With one big pull of his arms he was over, and climbing the rest of the way down with so much casual ease that it made Syaoran’s bruises ache in viscous envy. “And you’d never believe it, but we did just come past reception, but there must have been some sort of horrible mix-up, because they wouldn’t let us in. So we had to get a little bit creative.” He fished in one of his pockets to produce his sunglasses, and suddenly, despite the fact he was still wearing the same ugly gardeners’ uniform as Syaoran, how anyone had failed to recognise him coming in here was impossible to imagine. “You see Kuro-G - you don’t mind if I call you Kuro-G, do you? - we’re simply far too tight on time to risk any delays on this project now. You know how it is in the movie business, you don’t keep to schedule in those all-important early weeks, why, by the time you have everyone signed on and ready to go the studio has completely forgotten they ever gave you the green light. It’s just rush-rush-rush every moment of my day.”
“Why you…” said Kurogane, glowering.
“Movie business?” said Sakura, which was all the opening Fye needed.
“Not only am in the movie business,” said Fye, treating Sakura to his widest smile, “but I’m here today for the express purpose of casting a leading lady in my next film.”
Sakura blinked at him for a second before it clicked. “Me?!” she squeaked.
“That’s right,” beamed Fye. “In fact, Syaoran here has already signed on too, isn’t that right?” Words were still escaping Syaoran, but he nodded vigorously.
“I could really be in a movie?” squeaked Sakura. “But I’ve never acted in anything before! Do you really think I’d be okay?”
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have!” said Fye happily, twirling his sunglasses. “Why don’t I tell you a bit more about the role?”
Kurogane rolled his eyes. He could already tell he’d lost.
5. Vaguely Medieval
Requested by wind_tear ( Original thread):
- Mediaeval AU where Watanuki's family knew about the curse et al and decided to harness it - so Watanuki's been brought up by a family of enchanters/sorcerers to be an enchanter/sorcerer (and hey, family might not be dead. Or might be off in an alternate universe learning new mad leet skillz but phone home regularly). Yuuko could be the sorceress the family apprenticed Watanuki to when they realised he didn't have exactly the same powers they did. Or maybe she's a business rival. And Doumeki's the local farm kid who turned outlaw when the town sheriff took his family's farm in lieu of punitive taxes. Or maybe he turned soldier for hire (but I like the outlaw version). He wants Watanuki the Sorcerer's Apprentice on his side and Watanuki knows he really shouldn't be friends with the archer. Himawari is the local forest spirit who keeps pushing the silly human boys together to a) make them happy and b) give her cute boykissing to watch.
I do believe this request was very nearly longer than what I got out of it. And somehow, the bit about Doumeki rather needing Watanuki’s assistance despite whether or not this was a good idea turned into the bit that stuck with me…
“What part of ‘apprentice’ do you not understand?” Watanuki complained.
“No fireballs then?”
“Nothing remotely close to fireballs! Do you have any idea what the first two years of apprenticeship to Yuuko is like? I’ve hardly even seen a spellbook yet!”
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you do something? Isn’t slaying monsters what your lot is all about?”
“I’m an archer.”
Watanuki looked at him, then looked pointedly at the longsword strapped to his hip.
“Mostly an archer,” Doumeki amended.
“Aargh! This is all your fault!”
“Why my fault?”
“If you hadn’t practically kidnapped me, I wouldn’t be here at all!”
“I wouldn’t have had to kidnap you if you’d just come along when I asked,” Doumeki reminded him patiently.
“That’s exactly what makes it kidnapping!”
Up above, the monster growled at them impatiently.
“Perhaps this is an argument we should leave until later,” Doumeki suggested.
“Fine,” Watanuki had to concede.
“Any other ideas?”
“….I’m pretty good at running away.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Doumeki. “On three?”
(Sometime later that day, once those pesky monster problems have been dealt with)
One thing Watanuki could do, Doumeki discovered later, was summon forest spirits - though what this might be good for other than a chat, advice or to pass on a message that he’d been kidnapped and was desperately in need of rescuing, Doumeki couldn’t think. She was a pretty little thing, with leaves and sunflowers woven into her long, dark hair, but Watanuki’s body language suggested what she was saying to him was more frustrating than it was helpful. When she vanished at last with a happy little wave and Watanuki turned back around, he did not look in the least surprised or embarrassed to discover he’d been being watched.
“I told her everything,” he declared. “How you kidnapped me in the middle of the night completely against my will and dragged me off into the wilderness.”
“And?” said Doumeki.
“And she thought it was cute!” Watanuki wailed.
Doumeki decided he might actually like this forest spirit more than he’d been expecting to.
Extra: Pirates (Act 1, Scene 3)
Just as promised! And if you haven't seen it yet, mushroom18 has some art for this world up here. =3
It turned out that the second mate’s main duties involved scrubbing the deck. Since Doumeki had already discovered by this point that the first mate’s main duties were cooking and transporting rum from the hold to the captain’s cabin, he didn’t see much reason to complain about his lot. Sea-life treated him fine, and the crew certainly never bothered him. It was all pleasantly dull, or would have been if Yuuko and Watanuki hadn’t been on board.
There didn’t seem to be much actual piracy going on, which was frankly disappointing. The first opportunity they got - a merchant ship which appeared around noon as a sail on the horizon and went on to pass within a few hundred metres of their vessel - went by without either ship so much as acknowledging the other was there. And since a ship like the Butterfly - with a captain with a reputation as wild as Captain Yuuko’s - should have been anything but hard to recognise, this surprised Doumeki for several reasons.
“Aren’t we supposed to do something?” he asked Watanuki.
“What, like attack them? Just what sort of people do you think we are?” said Watanuki, typically putout by the nerve Doumeki showed by existing all over the place like that.
“Pirates?” Doumeki supplied.
“We aren’t that sort of pirates,” said Watanuki firmly. “Besides, it’s not like they can even see that we’re here.”
“Of course not,” said Doumeki vaguely.
“Are you patronising me?”
“It’s hard to tell sometimes,” Doumeki muttered.
Watanuki ignored him. “Anyway, we’ll have more important things to worry about soon, with the storm coming in,” he said briskly.
Doumeki looked up into what seemed to all intents and purposes like a perfectly innocent blue sky. He knew just enough about the sea to have some idea that this didn’t necessarily mean anything - storms in these parts could blow in with no warning at all, but in that case… “How can you tell?”
Watanuki started uncomfortably and looked momentarily awkward. “Just because there is, that’s all!”
And right up until the gale-force winds started up an hour later, that was all he would say on the matter.
6. Hired Guns
Requested by stormantia ( Original thread):
- Watanuki and Doumeki are HIRED GUNS. >D
...who more or less get the job done. Just...not so much the killing part. Or the violent part. Watanuki cares too much.
(Bonus points if Himawari or Yuuko hire them!)
This is one of the darker universes in this lot, but really, HIRED GUNS, people! How could I resist writing the boys as HIRED GUNS!
Watanuki’s presence always made everything about the job harder.
“We can’t just go around killing people!” he’d complain.
“What do you think they hire us for?” Doumeki would argue. It was an old argument that they never really resolved, because they were both stubborn as hell, utterly convinced of the merits of their own side and completely unwilling to consider that there might be any merit to the other’s. At this rate, it could well go on for the rest of their Professional (capitalisation intentional) lives.
But the other problem with Watanuki was that he was so good with a gun he was damn near superhuman - that, or he was an ordinary shot with a gun but had beyond superhuman luck. Doumeki could never entirely make up his mind which it was, but it had to be one or the other. There was no other explanation for how Watanuki ever pulled off half the crazy things he came up with. Doumeki was fairly certain even Watanuki wasn’t sure how he did it a lot of the time. So even if Watanuki wasn’t quite the sort of partner Doumeki couldn’t have worked without, he was sure as hell the sort of partner he couldn’t ever afford to risk losing to the competition. Also, between jobs when they actually had the chance, he made a terrific curry, and even without all the rest of it, it would have taken a lot of work for Doumeki to convince himself to give that up.
These were important things to remember on days like this one, when Watanuki had come within inches of falling out of a second storey window, barely saved even by Doumeki’s best efforts, and well before they’d ever so much as confirmed the existence of their target. Watanuki’s attitude to near-death situations was another annoying feature. Unless he had some reason to declare it was Doumeki’s fault, he didn’t seem to mind getting seriously injured on the job. He seemed to think it was something like retributive karma for what they did - or worse, that there was a divine tally up there somewhere listing all injuries to be taken in the process of their work, and that by taking on a couple of extras for himself it would mean someone else out there would be spared them. It often seemed to Doumeki like his whole reason for going into a line of work like this was that he believed that if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have had to instead, and they wouldn’t have done it half as well as Watanuki could.
The first thing Doumeki said after he’d heaved Watanuki back over the railing, heaved him off where he’d landed bodily on Doumeki’s person and given him long enough to stop panting and get over all the adrenaline so that he’d be listening when Doumeki started talking to him was, “This is the last Kunogi job we’re ever taking.”
“What?” said Watanuki, as if nothing more mortifying had happened to him that day. “Himawari is the best client we’ve got! Not to mention the only one who ever hires us o do anything that doesn’t involve killing anyone. And she’s a very nice girl.”
A very nice girl who hires professional gunmen on a regular basis, thought Doumeki. What he said was, “She’s bad luck.”
“What?” said Watanuki again. He did this a lot, it tended to mean not that he’d missed Doumeki’s point, but that he was devoting every fibre of his concentration to avoiding it. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re letting superstition get the better of you again.”
“Then you explain to me why you’ve nearly gotten killed at least twice on each of the last five jobs she’s sent us on,” said Doumeki. Even he didn’t know how much of this he believed anymore - except for the bit about avoiding Kunogi. His gut had been telling him that since before they took the first job from her. Having his gut proven so thoroughly right since had not been vindicating in any sort of satisfying way.
“That was all just bad luck,” Watanuki snapped back, unloading, checking and reloading his gun in the deliberate way that meant he was avoiding eye contact. “The ordinary kind that has nothing to do with Himawari at all. Besides, I’m not dead yet, am I?”
Yet, Doumeki thought, not remotely comforted by it. Whether he might have liked Watanuki or not, he was very sure he didn’t want him to die - for all sorts of inconvenient reasons. But mostly because, when you lose a partner like Watanuki, you don’t ever find another one like him again.
Just one more lot left to go now.
ETA: Quick links to the other two batches
Round 1: Pirates, vampires and Piffle Country office politics
Round 3: Superheros and lands post apocalypse (and more Piffle Country)