evil_whimsey, pandoraculpa; Abort, Fail, Retry, part one; NC-17
Title: Abort, Fail, Retry
Author: evil_whimsey
Artist: pandoraculpa
Summary: They can't seem to do anything right together, but still Doumeki is there.
Rating: NC-17
The prompt:
In-character Watanuki/Doumeki or Doumeki/Watanuki Fail!Sex, because we never get to read it, at least not in this fandom.
Maybe they're having oral sex and the one giving the blowjob is using too much teeth. Maybe it's anal and the one at the bottom really isn't enjoying it, or the top can't over what those body parts are actually meant for. Maybe one of them is simply too tired/in too much pain/too stressed to enjoy sex altogether and would rather just sleep. Maybe one of them couldn't get it up. Maybe they can't get over the fact that there are children in the house and they could be overhead (Maru, Moro and Mokona count as such).
Either way, I want a scene in which one of them asks the other to stop, and the other actually stops. If there's one thing that annoys me of yaoi (ok, there are many), is how the uke's protests are almost invariably always ignored by the seme. Bonus points if you manage to avoid the seme/uke dynamics entirely. My love eternal if the one asking the other to stop is Doumeki. That one's gotta be hard to pull off.
Abort, Fail, Retry
1.
Contrary to what some people might believe, Watanuki has actually given more than two seconds' thought as to why the girl he adores most in all the world seems to bring him the most catastrophic luck, and the person who has always, unfailingly saved him gets under his skin like a ragged-edged splinter, making him want to gnaw his own arm off just to make the aggravation stop.
He's thought about it. For as long as a whole minute, before. The problem is, he's never managed to draw any useful conclusions before the headache sets in, the one that squeezes the base of his skull and grinds against the backs of his eyeballs, until he loses all interest in straining himself over impossible conundrums, puzzles without answers. His life has enough of those at it is, and just getting through most days in one piece takes all the energy he has.
And anyway, he suspects that no amount of thinking will change the way the world explodes with sunshine and butterflies, every time Himawari-chan beams her good-mornings to him. Nor will it change the way he has to grit his teeth and clench his hands to his sides sometimes, just to keep from knocking that insufferable smirk off that Doumeki's stupid face, with both fists and maybe a shoe for punctuation.
These things are just facts of his life, like gravity, like the sun rising in the east, like how any time Yuuko cracks the seal on a bottle of Isojiman (or any other absurdly expensive booze he's never heard of), she is guaranteed to keep drinking until it's all gone.
There are not many things in life Watanuki can absolutely depend on, and yes, maybe he clings to some beliefs more than he should. But since he can't remember life before Yuuko-san and Mokona, Himawari-chan and that irritating bastard Doumeki, he doesn't think he should really be blamed for taking reliability where he can get it.
Which is why it shocks him as much as anyone, on that crisp autumn day in the park, when he has the perfect excuse to punch Doumeki in the mouth, but ends up kissing him instead.
Kissing is probably the wrong word. But having never in his entire life kissed anyone, that he can recall, he has absolutely no better word to describe it. If there actually is another word for attacking another person and trying to eat their face, he doesn't think he wants to know it.
Needless to say from there, everything goes to hell.
**
"What do you mean, she's not coming?"
This was where it started: Watanuki kneeling on a picnic blanket, feeling that one vein throbbing in his forehead, just a little reminder that he could always die of an aneurysm one of these days. He was glaring up at Doumeki, who just stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking bored, looking like nothing in the world was ever his problem.
"A water main broke in her neighborhood last night. Everyone got flooded out. She has to help her parents clean up." Doumeki may as well have been reading from last week's newspaper, for all the feeling he put into it. And though Watanuki had long since learned better than to expect anything more, that didn't mean it didn't piss him right off, every single time.
"What, and you just left it like that? Didn't you ask if she needs help?"
"She doesn't."
Watanuki tightened his grip on the furoshiki he'd just unwrapped from the three-tier bento, sitting all by itself in the center of the picnic blanket. Unnecessary, now. And all his painstaking work, up since dawn, slicing and chopping, steaming and searing and seasoning, arranging every tray with loving care. Unnecessary.
Just once, he wanted to feel like everything he did wasn't ultimately futile. Was it really so much to ask?
And then, having ruined Watanuki's entire day--the modest hope of sharing a picnic with Himawari-chan, blown to dust and cinders yet again--Doumeki proceeded to dump salt on the wound; kneeling decisively by the bento and removing the lid to inspect the contents.
"Is that tebasaki?"
"Who invited you to open that?" Tossing the furoshiki aside, Watanuki took a swat at Doumeki's hand, which Doumeki avoided without even looking. "My god, were you raised by wolves? Do you think it's all right to go pawing through other people's things?"
"Too loud," huffed Doumeki, as if Watanuki were the only one making a scene here. He scooted to the other side of the bento to dodge another flailing arm, and pulled off the top tier, blind as always to everything that wasn't food.
Watanuki dropped his arms and took a wild-eyed glance around, confirming that this corner of the park was deserted. He could cave the greedy swine's head in with a brick, drag him off into the weeds somewhere, and nobody would know.
Keeping one eye out for a likely weapon, he growled, "Don't expect me not to yell, when you take things you haven't been offered! I did not get up before God, to prepare all this food, just to dump it down your thankless gullet! This was meant for a picnic! With Himawari-chan!"
"But she's not coming." Bland as a block of chilled tofu, and just looking at that face, Watanuki had to grip his skull to keep it from rupturing.
"YES I REALIZE THAT, I WAS THERE WHEN YOU TOLD ME."
"So it would just go to waste."
"THAT ISN'T REMOTELY THE POINT."
With a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, the soon-to-be-late Doumeki peeked in at the bento's bottom tier. "So you'd end up giving it to me anyway. What's in these harumaki?"
Watanuki would never be entirely sure what it was about this time (as opposed to every single other time Doumeki had pushed to him entirely too far) which made him finally snap. Maybe that vein in his forehead had reached its critical pressure point. Maybe it was because early this morning, tasting the pork for the harumaki, he couldn't tell whether to add more seasoning, because he had no recollection of how the dish was supposed to taste. Maybe it was the tired grim voice in the back of his head, asking why he even bothered anymore, when things always went sideways, no matter what he did. He was rootless and too disaster-prone for normal things like picnics or dates, or whatever the hell people his age did with themselves.
Whatever the cause, the effect was not so much an explosion, as this bizarre seismic shift in his brain; a slip and a thump and the world tilting off-kilter. Next thing he knew, Doumeki's collar was straining against his grip and Doumeki himself was scowling, half a spring roll still in his hand as Watanuki heaved him backward off the blanket.
"Oi. What was that for," he demanded, after swallowing hard.
"My name," Watanuki gritted out, collapsing to his knees, leaning in so Doumeki couldn't possibly miss the full force of his death glare, "is not 'Oi'. You insensitive jackass. And maybe it's all the same to you, but I think I deserve the choice about whether to share something which I, me, myself, spent four hours putting together. Does that sound reasonable to you, Doumeki?"
"A choice." The words dropped like a stone to the grass between them, and Watanuki would swear the air hadn't been this chilly just a second ago. And then Doumeki turned, looking at him, with a dangerous stillness to his expression. Mouth set. Brows pulled together to a straight dark line. Watanuki couldn't possibly overlook the cloudy cast to Doumeki's right eye, pale colored and dimmer than the left. Normally that sight alone was enough to shut him up. Make him stamp down on his frustration, bite his anger back and swallow it.
Except that on this day, this crisp cloudless autumn day, it wasn't enough. Something had been simmering in Watanuki's blood, always just under the surface for too long, and today it finally boiled over.
"What are you looking at? Don't even try and tell me you don't have a choice, when you do whatever you want, and never have to give a damn about anything. Maybe I'd like to do whatever I feel like, sometime. Maybe I'd like to not give a damn about the consequences, or what anybody thinks, the way you do. Did you ever think about that? Huh?"
Doumeki's eyes squinted down to slits, glittering like a sword peeking from its sheath. Had he been in his right mind, Watanuki would have known this was the time to back off and drop the subject, before one or the other of them drew blood. But he was furious, he was sizzling inside, and he saw no point whatsoever in trying to salvage the situation.
"Do it," came the sharp clipped answer, Doumeki crossing his arms. "If there's something you want to do, then do it. That's what a choice is."
"Do you seriously think I need to you to explain that to me?" Watanuki shot back.
"Do it."
"I will kick your ass so hard. Shut up."
"You going to do something, or not?"
Later on, with a cold rag over his face and a screaming migraine, Watanuki would attempt to piece together the very short sequence of events which followed. He would try his utmost, to understand where his blazing desire to hit Doumeki square in the face went so horribly awry.
It started with a hard shove to Doumeki's chest, which of course made no impression at all because Doumeki was built like a tree and existed to spite him. Immediately after that, he remembered grabbing Doumeki's collar, and then everything stopped making sense. His glasses got knocked askew by Doumeki's cheek, and Doumeki's hair was bristling between his fingers. He bruised his kneecap on a rock, and then bruised his upper lip on Doumeki's front teeth. The pain just made him more angry, and when Doumeki got his mouth open, either to gasp or say what the hell has gone wrong with you, Watanuki bit his bottom lip in retaliation.
After that it was suffocating, and wet, and he was pretty sure Doumeki ended up with a fistful of his hair before it was over. And then--Watanuki remembered this vividly, as the precise moment his fate was fixed and everything started going to hell--a child's plastic ball came bounding across the grass and thumped him in the head.
He shoved himself back, mouth wet and stinging, a cool breeze slipping in where his shirt had come untucked, and catching sight of Doumeki's expression, knew it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.
"Fuck," he stated, grabbed his shoes, and ran for his life.
*****
2.
If he hadn't raced off in a blind panic, leaving Yuuko's bento container, furoshiki, and blanket to Doumeki's dubious care, things might not have escalated. Had Doumeki, when Watanuki finally tracked him down at his family's temple, not recovered from his shock and resumed his air of haughty superiority to all and sundry, Watanuki might have found some way to apologize for his temporary insanity that afternoon.
Granted it was a long shot, but alas, it was not to be.
"You ate all of it." Watanuki stared down at the bento, pristine, and quite definitely empty.
"I was waiting to see if you'd come back." Spoken in a tone which might have been chastening, if Doumeki had cared.
Still, Watanuki couldn't take his eyes off all that empty space. "You ate an entire picnic for three people. Actually, two people and you." Frankly, he was having trouble getting his head around it.
"I washed the bento," Doumeki pointed out, sounding just a little tetchy now.
"What are you, hollow inside?" He glanced up to see Doumeki scowling, and by now it was practically a reflex, to scowl back.
"I waited 'til sundown. After you took off. Do you really want to talk about food?"
What a stupid question. Of course Watanuki didn't want to talk about food. He didn't want to talk about anything, he just wanted to retrieve Yuuko's belongings, so she didn't cast him into a pit of eternal darkness for misplacing them, and get out of here. But trust Doumeki to be stupid enough to wait around in the park for five or six hours, for someone who had plainly run off and left him, someone who was so obviously too much of a coward to come back.
And there, again, suddenly he was furious beyond all reason. He spat some answer at Doumeki, something pithy and acidic, but ultimately forgettable. Doumeki's brows pulled together, mouth turning down at the corners, when he said something back. Watanuki didn't hear it; his blood was pounding too loud in his ears, and he was too busy watching Doumeki's mouth, thinking I've tasted that, and god, surely he was possessed by a demon, because why else would he have reached out, grabbing at Doumeki's shoulder this time, crowding into his space?
"Stop talking," he ordered. And of all miracles (or maybe it was just the dumb shock of lightning striking twice), Doumeki did.
They were terrible kissers, both of them. Clumsy and too aggressive; fighting for control of the kiss, fighting for balance; Doumeki trying to push off the wall while Watanuki struggled to keep him pinned. His bruised lip stung like a bitch, Doumeki's fingers digging into his shoulderblades hurt, but there was that incredible heat again, crackling down his nerve endings, and as long as he didn't open his eyes, none of this had to make any sense. He didn't have to wonder How or Why, didn't have to consider any reason for the warm hand sliding up under his shirt, calloused palm cupping his ribcage. Or the way a voice he had never heard came trickling out of his own throat, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, when Doumeki's hot slick mouth traveled down his jaw to his neck.
There came a dicey moment, when Doumeki's ridiculously warm hands were framing his waist, kneading at the tight muscle in his lower back, searching and grasping, never still, and Doumeki's greedy mouth was suckling at his throat. Watanuki's anger wavered, threatening to become something different, something as frightening as that look on Doumeki's face in the park; wide-eyed, demolished, like a hole had just opened up in the clear blue sky and shown him the entire vast universe, all at once.
But then Doumeki started talking.
"What. What are you--."
"Don't," snapped Watanuki, deciding he had no time or patience for idiotic questions. To emphasize the point, he slipped his hand down Doumeki's waist, down the front of his yukata, to the hard bulge at his groin. He cupped his hand around and squeezed, and Doumeki sucked in a breath, an obscenely gratifying sound. Unfortunately the move put him off balance, and then Doumeki stole the advantage and surged forward, spinning them about and pinning Watanuki to the wall.
Before Watanuki could get out his shout of protest, Doumeki had latched onto his mouth, shoving aside his hands and going for the fastening on his belt. He yanked and tugged at it blindly, jerking at Watanuki's hips, until Watanuki hissed in irritation and knocked Doumeki's fumbling hands aside. Got his belt open one-handed, thumbed the trouser button loose, had exactly one split-second to think this will end in disaster oh shit what am I doing, before Doumeki, being bull-headed and stupidly persistent, took over with the zipper, slipped his hands down into Watanuki's pants, warm skin slightly rough against Watanuki's bare hips, easing downward.
He couldn't breathe. Even when Doumeki's weight moved off his chest, and his tongue left off plundering Watanuki's mouth. There wasn't enough air, and his head was spinning in the darkness behind his eyelids. Doumeki's mouth slid along his collarbone, nipping and licking, and then down to his bare belly, leaving a cool wet trail over his hip, and Watanuki's knees started to shake.
Rage and relief and dread were all melting into the same thing, and in the dizzy darkness, slumping down the wall while Doumeki mouthed his dick through his briefs; humid breath and just enough to pressure to torment, Watanuki knew he could die like this. Blind, stripped of all rational thought and right on the edge of screaming; it could all end right here and be somehow perfect. Better than any end he'd ever expected to meet, anyway.
Then his briefs were tugged down his hips, freeing his aching erection. A puff of cool air on the heated flesh before wet lips descended, tongue flicking across the slit, sending a hard jolt straight up Watanuki's spine. His head thumped back against the wall, but he scarcely noticed the pain, or his own hoarse cry bouncing off the ceiling. He needed more, more friction, more heat, fucking something, and couldn't help thrusting his hips forward. What he got was teeth scraping his dick, and Doumeki's hand clamping into his thigh as he choked on the sudden intrusion.
Watanuki flinched--"Oww--shit!"--doubling over as Doumeki gagged, and then from somewhere outside there rose a long squeal of car brakes, horns blaring, and a brittle, glassy crunch of impact.
"What the--?" It was like being jarred too suddenly from sleep; Watanuki's eyes popped open, glasses smudged and half-sideways on his face, giving him a bent, fractured view of Doumeki staring up at him, disheveled and equally startled, his swollen mouth glistening red.
For just one flashbulb instant, that sight almost stopped his heart.
And then it struck him head-on, that Doumeki was on his knees looking hungrier and more naked than Watanuki had ever seen, despite being fully dressed. He had one hand still curled in the elastic of Watanuki's briefs, and Watanuki himself was half-stripped, pants down, and had just been on the cusp of receiving the most awful blowjob in a temple, of all places.
There were so many things so utterly wrong with this situation, Watanuki didn't even know where to start. Luckily his fight-or-flight response was still in good working order, and in the absence of any better plan, it directed him to retreat, ASAP.
"Was that a car wreck outside? It sounded like a wreck. Maybe--," shoving Doumeki's hand from his underpants, gingerly tucking his hardon back in, refusing to spare one millisecond of thought for what he was actually doing. "You should go check that out. Somebody might be hurt."
Doumeki just stared up at him, with a disturbing glazed expression. Slowly, he blinked. "Wreck?"
Watanuki might have reached down and rattled some sense into him, just on principle, but he knew he had a very short window for escape, here. Best not to give Doumeki any chance to come to his senses.
Instead, he concentrated all his attention on making himself reasonably decent, as fast as possible. Yanking at his stuck zipper before giving it up as a lost cause, buttoning his pants, fastening his belt, and pulling down his shirt hem to cover his fly. He set his glasses straight, snatched up the bento, furoshiki, and blanket, and was all set to run like his ass was on fire.
And then Doumeki spoke again. "You're going?"
"Yuuko-san. Waiting on dinner," Watanuki gestured hurriedly, already making rapid strides toward the nearest exit, praying his stupid troublesome erection would just disappear, already. "Gotta take off, seeya later bye."
"...Oi."
"I have no idea who you're talking to," Watanuki shouted back, trying to sound rushed instead of nearly frantic, scooping up his shoes at the door and breaking into a sprint.
*****
3.
He knew better than to be relieved that Yuuko was nowhere to be seen, when he returned to the shop. Sure it meant he didn't have to endure her raised eyebrows and thinly veiled suggestions, or the inhuman glee she always took in dragging out his worst embarrassments. But it didn't mean he was off the hook; far from it, knowing his luck.
Just because Yuuko wasn't there to see him pelting up the front walk, soaked in sweat, shirttails flapping, hair sticking out at all angles and looking unmistakably debauched, Watanuki knew it was only a matter of time before she had him pinned and squirming over it. He had a temporary reprieve, that was all. He should probably make the most of it. Get his head together. Figure out this inexplicable force that was making him do insane things, and put a stop to it.
**
A couple hours later, after a thorough scrubbing and a long bath, lying on his usual futon with a cold rag draped over his eyes and his skull pounding fit to burst, Watanuki had to admit he was at a total loss, here.
Doumeki made him crazy. That was a given, always had been. The mere sight of him was generally enough to drive Watanuki into paroxysms of rage, wailing and gnashing of teeth. That stuck-up chilly attitude, communicating in grunts and monosyllables, staring stone-faced at Watanuki, every time Watanuki turned around. He hated it. He hated that goddamned 'Oi', like he was a dog, supposed to heel when Doumeki snapped his fingers. He hated the way Doumeki loomed all over the place, stern and grim, hulking around like he had anything to be pissed about.
Suffice it to say there was no reason, whatsoever, in any universe for Watanuki to ever, ever, ever want to kiss him.
But he had. More than once in the same day. And the only thing which could possibly be worse, was the fact that Doumeki had kissed him back. He'd done more than that, and Watanuki had let him, and to make the whole thing even more horrible and hopelessly confusing, Doumeki had somehow managed--for those scant few moments--not to be an unrepentant asshole about it. As a matter of fact, when Watanuki had been forced to actually look at him, he had....
No. Ugh. He couldn't think about that. With the heels of his hands, he pressed the damp cloth against his eyeballs, until multicolored sunbursts drowned out any errant images from the day.
He did not like Doumeki. Couldn't stand the bossy freak. This was an ironclad rule of Watanuki's existence, and the minute he started tampering with those, everything was bound to go haywire. He had to keep things in perspective.
Doumeki was a spoiled, selfish nuisance, and always would be. Today was just a slip, one of those weird anomalies, like schoolmates growing parasitic wings and disembodied hands popping up around the drinking fountain. Watanuki had only acted out because he was stressed, and who wouldn't be, putting up with a humorless shadow all the time?
Tonight he'd get some rest, put all thought of that person out of his mind, and tomorrow he'd be fine. Everything would go back to normal, and there would be no more surprise attacks of kissing, or anything else weird and incredibly ill-advised.
It was a good plan, and Watanuki repeated it to himself several times as the night wore on, refusing to make any room for doubts or startlingly vivid memories which didn't mean anything and it was a waste of energy to even contemplate them.
Eventually, he slept.
**
As good as his plan was, he should have accounted for Doumeki finding ways to thwart it. And he really shouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find Doumeki lying in wait for him, as soon as he stepped outside the gates of the shop, on his innocent way to school. Too bad he had to see all this in hindsight.
He strolled out, occupied by thoughts of classes, saying good morning to Himawari-chan, and not losing his mind today, and practically walked into Doumeki before he saw him. Lurking there with his feet planted, hands in his pockets, and serious displeasure written all over him.
"Hey."
More startled than he really should have been, Watanuki jumped back like a firecracker had gone off in his face, tangling his legs up, arms pinwheeling--"GAH!"--and fetched up against the wooden fence, heart pounding wildly.
"Don't--don't DO that, you freak! You could've given me a heart attack!"
Doumeki eyed him dispassionately. "I'm making sure you don't run off again."
"By scaring me to death?" Watanuki had one hand clutched to his chest, and the other was digging into the planks at his back. "Did it even occur to you, that might defeat the purpose?"
Then he caught his breath, and rewound the conversation a bit. "And where am I supposed run off to? I'm going to school."
Doumeki said nothing, just raised an eyebrow in one of several withering expressions guaranteed to drive Watanuki berserk. He had an entire repertoire of them. Probably practiced them in front of a mirror, for maximum effect. Just thinking about it made Watanuki want to bite something.
But he wasn't falling for any looks of any description this time. He was going to school, going to spend the whole day minding his own business, and for the sake of everyone's sanity, ignore all signs of Doumeki's existence. With that goal in mind, he pushed himself off the wall, dusted off his uniform blazer, and took his briefcase firmly in hand.
"School. That is where I'm going. I'm not running anywhere. So you can....," he flapped his hand in Doumeki's direction, before setting his eyes determinedly down the sidewalk, and setting off.
It took all of half a block, before he could sense the glare aimed at his back, and two blocks before that spot between his shoulderblades started to itch, like a rash was forming. Nonetheless, he pressed forward with long steady strides, jaw set.
Halfway to school, that glare crawled up, over his shoulder, scorching his earlobe as the Person of No Consequence who just happened to be following along, pulled even with him.
"You know this won't work," said That Person.
Resisting the urge to bristle, Watanuki lifted his chin and replied as airily as he was capable of, "I can't imagine what you mean. I've been walking to school for years. It works just fine."
This bought him half a minute of silence, during which he could almost hear Doumeki's eyes rolling in his head. One of these days, Watanuki was tempted to mention, Doumeki's beady eyes were going to stick like that, and it would serve him right. But he didn't say anything, and eventually Doumeki sighed. Watanuki knew it for an irritable sigh, and hated that he could even tell the difference.
"Whatever."
He couldn't help it. He shot a sideways glare at Doumeki, burning to ask, Whatever, what? What's that supposed to mean, Whatever? Were you born a massive dickhead, or was it something you had to grow into? But the dickhead in question picked up his pace, passing on ahead, leaving Watanuki staring at that funny little cowlick on the back of his head, annoyed and maybe the tiniest bit baffled.
**
"Ah, Watanuki, I'm truly sorry I had to miss your picnic." Dear Himawari-chan, she looked so sincerely regretful that Watanuki's heart swelled and burst into millions of tiny pieces within him. "I felt terrible, after all the trouble you must have gone to."
Unlike certain other people (Of No Consequence) he could name, forgiving Himawari-chan was effortless. She could probably have roasted him on a spit over a high flame, or run him over with a bus, and Watanuki would never even think to hold any grudge. She was just too sweet, too perfect to ever blame for anything.
"No, of course it was no trouble, please don't feel badly. Your house is okay, right? Nothing was damaged?"
"The floors got a little wet, but we moved everything in time, so it should all be dry soon." Himawari-chan dimpled at him, and Watanuki's brain floated up to a serene, cheerful place full of pink fluffy clouds and sparkles. "And at least you had Doumeki-kun to enjoy your picnic. I was glad to hear he could come with you."
Watanuki's brain thumped hard back to earth. "Eh..."
"Did you have a good time, Doumeki-kun? Wasn't the weather perfect, yesterday?" She turned that glorious smile on Doumeki, completely unaware of Watanuki's cringing, and Doumeki glowering sidelong at him. Or if she did notice, Watanuki thought, she pretended not to, because she was too gracious and kind for the company of undeserving mortals (and most especially Doumeki).
"The tebasaki was okay," Doumeki answered, staring right at Watanuki, just as he had done all day so far, to the point that Watanuki was more than ready to bounce his thick stupid head off the grass.
"Hmph. I guess you would know," Watanuki muttered.
"You could have had some." Doumeki's voice was flat, but there was a glint in his eye that Watanuki didn't like one bit. "That is, if you'd bothered to--."
Watanuki jabbed a warning finger at him. "You do not want to finish that sentence."
"How was work last night?" Doumeki asked, leaning in, matching his ferocious stare against Watanuki's near-volcanic ire.
Himawari-chan saved Doumeki from an immediate messy death, with a cheerful giggle. "It's so nice, that you two are such good friends. I'm glad you can keep each other company."
He couldn't kill Doumeki in front of Himawari-chan. And he couldn't communicate his promise through eye-contact, to kill Doumeki later on, while at the same time gently reassuring Himawari-chan that honestly, things were not as they seemed.
It was tremendously unfair. Especially since Doumeki was free to continue staring holes in Watanuki every time they saw each other, for the rest of the day. Which made for an extraordinarily long and difficult day, and by the end of it, when Himawari-chan was smiling her precious farewells to them, Watanuki had forgotten all about his original plan of ignoring Doumeki for his own good.
"Oh my God, what did I ever do to deserve you hanging around all the time? Haven't I been punished enough?" Watanuki launched into the tirade as soon as Himawari-chan was out of earshot, storming down the sidewalk, gesticulating wildly, just to burn off an entire day's worth of bottled rage so he didn't explode.
"I am done! I'm at the end of my rope, do you hear me? I have had it up to here! What the hell is your problem, anyway? It wasn't enough that you were always....always around, now you have to start this--this looking at me, do you have any idea how annoying that is? No, wait, of course you do. This is all part of your plan, isn't it. Admit it, you just want to drive me batshit crazy, it's what you've always wanted, to see me carted off to the nuthatch in a straight jacket, every night I bet you lay awake and think, 'Hm, what can I do that will send Watanuki completely over the edge?' You do that, don't you?"
Doumeki didn't answer for several steps, striding along shoulder-to-shoulder with Watanuki, mouth pressed to a thin line, and Watanuki nearly plowed into a light pole, watching him, waiting for some kind of answer.
"Damn it--," he muttered, dodging around at the last second, while Doumeki didn't even break stride.
"You don't need my help being crazy," he finally answered. "You get there fine on your own."
Watanuki could actually feel himself turning purple. "FOR YOUR INFORMATION! I dunno, maybe you want to file this away somewhere. But I'll have you know I'm a perfectly reasonable individual!" He was stomping down the pavement, waving both arms, briefcase careening freely through the air. "I am sane, rational, and perfectly well-balanced when you're not around! So what does that tell you?"
Doumeki slowed, turning a pointed look toward a woman with a baby stroller, hurrying across the street toward the opposite sidewalk. "Beats me."
"You enjoy it! Admit it!" Having lost all sense of self-consciousness in the mad flush of hysteria, Watanuki jerked a finger toward the fleeing woman. "You see that? That is a normal person's response to someone going crazy. But you are still here! I scream at you every single day, and you just stand there! You keep coming back!"
"And what," asked Doumeki, turning to face him, both of them halted in the middle of the sidewalk now, "does that tell you?"
If it had just been that one sardonic eyebrow cocked at him, Watanuki probably would have stormed off right there. But Doumeki was watching him, with just a glimmer of genuine curiosity peeking through, like in spite of himself, he really did want to know. In spite of his general lack of give-a-damn about everyone and everything on earth, there was this tiny traitorous part of him that truly had a stake in the answer.
You're either crazier than me or stronger than almost anyone I know. Yuuko being the obvious exception, but the whole idea was too much like a blasphemy, it rattled Watanuki to his very core, and threatened to topple everything he believed in and depended on, to ground himself to a world that seemed to be slipping further from his grasp by the day.
He actually staggered back a step, teetering between unspent anger and deep paranoia, suddenly certain that if he told the truth, everything he had ever known, the whole world as he understood it, would disappear. Leaving him alone in that strange blank darkness he sometimes fell into, or woke up in. A world where there was no school, no wish-granting shop, no bentos in the park on Sunday. No Himawari-chan, or Yuuko, or even Doumeki.
Truth be told, he often wondered if it wouldn't be easier just to give up and slip away to that place. Especially those times when he felt sort of blank, dark, and empty himself. He would think that if he just let himself disappear, all would be said and done and he wouldn't have to be afraid anymore. You can't lose what you don't have, after all. And once he lost this world, and these few people he knew, that would be it. There wouldn't be anything else left to lose, and he wouldn't have to worry, ever again.
As he worked it all through, for the umpteenth time, watching in a distant detached way, as Doumeki went from looking mostly sarcastic and the tiniest bit wondering, to looking sharp and hard at him, Watanuki felt himself tipping forward again, into Doumeki's gravity, pulled along by a force of will stronger than he was at that moment.
"Oh to hell with it," he might have muttered, stumbling toward the abyss, sick and tired of trying to differentiate anymore between what meant staying here and what meant slipping away. Doumeki's chest was solid enough beneath his forehead, and both his arms were undeniably there, when Watanuki gripped him at the elbows, and then by both shoulders.
"If you could try not to be a jerk, just for five minutes," he started, losing the rest of it as he looked up, zeroed in on Doumeki's mouth. It was like an epiphany, like a lightbulb switching on in his head, and everything seemed so very simple. The rest of the idiot's expression was irrelevant; he wanted that mouth, right now.
Lurching upward, he bumped his nose against Doumeki's, then his chin, then had the brilliant idea to hold Doumeki's aggravating head still. And for a too-brief second, it was just right. He would have the rest of his life to gloat over how Doumeki's lips parted for him, the sharp strong taste of him, like hot green tea. The way Doumeki's breath drew in hard, his hands fisting in Watanuki's blazer, snatching him close.
Then Doumeki was mumbling some nonsense about doing this in public, idiot, grabbing his wrists, and the next time Watanuki blinked his eyes open, they were in a claustrophobic narrow alley, with yet another wall at his back. He had time for a full-sensory flashback of Doumeki on his knees, greedy hot mouth sucking at his hip, and he was goddamn sure not doing that in a filthy alley, but couldn't resist sucking Doumeki's tongue in, between his lips, before somewhat breathlessly making his point.
"Can't go to my house," came the hurried answer. "Visitors."
"M'not fucking you in a temple anyway," Watanuki managed, between hungry little nibbles down the line of Doumeki's jaw. "S'just wrong."
Doumeki hissed, working one knee between Watanuki's thighs and rucking his shirt up from his trousers. "Who said you were--."
"Quit. Arguing." He dragged Doumeki's hips forward until he could feel the hard line of his erection against his thigh. Doumeki let out a half-strangled moan, and Watanuki caught it, tasted it, swallowed it down. He wanted to hear it again, wanted to hear that voice rasping and begging, wanted to strip down the strong body pressing him to the wall, and suck Doumeki 'til his eyes rolled back in his head.
He hadn't realized he was saying any of this out loud until Doumeki shoved against him, grinding up his thigh with a deep hungry growl, "Yes oh fuck yes, you have no idea." And surely those words melted Watanuki's brain, because there was no other way on earth he would have suggested they go to a hotel.
"No money," pointed out Doumeki, whose brain was still intact, apparently. Or maybe not.
"Let's go to the shop."
"C-can't," answered Watanuki, shuddering mindlessly, at the feel of Doumeki's tongue tracing the shell of his ear. "Yuuko-san. Kill us both. Or blackmail us."
"She's not back 'til tomorrow."
He was too engrossed in nipping the tendon standing out on Doumeki's neck and sliding his hands down Doumeki's ass for Doumeki's words to register at first. "Bwuh? Where'd she go?"
"Didn't say. You didn't read her note?"
"Note?" This was too many details for Watanuki to process in his current lust-fogged state. And he didn't particularly care to be too coherent right now. Coherence hadn't been much of a friend to him, lately.
Although there was a significant gap in the logic, here. "How did you know?"
Despite the fact that he was shamelessly rocking against Watanuki, licking his collarbone, and working his hands beneath Watanuki's waistband, Doumeki managed to shrug. "She called."
This news ought to have prompted a certain amount of outrage on his part, Watanuki recognized that, but currently he was having trouble mustering anything more than momentary irritation. Even that was pretty feeble, compared to the offense in question. Yuuko had left without a word for him, and yet found the time to call Doumeki, no doubt to request his babysitting services? She had a lot to answer for, and at some point when he wasn't so preoccupied with Doumeki's hard thigh flexing against his crotch, Watanuki would definitely work out a suitable line of accusation.
But that was for later. Right now he had more important matters to attend to.
"Fine, the shop. Ow, dammit, don't bite there."
Squirming out from under Doumeki's weight was like struggling from a vat of warm taffy, while heavily inebriated. Doumeki clung to his body with every move, and he had no business tasting like he did, a rich clean savor Watanuki couldn't begin to place, and couldn't seem to get enough of. The only things that kept him moving, slowly but stubbornly back toward the street, were a staunch refusal to come in his trousers, and a fierce impatience to drag every stitch of Doumeki's clothing off his body.
*****
part two
Author: evil_whimsey
Artist: pandoraculpa
Summary: They can't seem to do anything right together, but still Doumeki is there.
Rating: NC-17
The prompt:
In-character Watanuki/Doumeki or Doumeki/Watanuki Fail!Sex, because we never get to read it, at least not in this fandom.
Maybe they're having oral sex and the one giving the blowjob is using too much teeth. Maybe it's anal and the one at the bottom really isn't enjoying it, or the top can't over what those body parts are actually meant for. Maybe one of them is simply too tired/in too much pain/too stressed to enjoy sex altogether and would rather just sleep. Maybe one of them couldn't get it up. Maybe they can't get over the fact that there are children in the house and they could be overhead (Maru, Moro and Mokona count as such).
Either way, I want a scene in which one of them asks the other to stop, and the other actually stops. If there's one thing that annoys me of yaoi (ok, there are many), is how the uke's protests are almost invariably always ignored by the seme. Bonus points if you manage to avoid the seme/uke dynamics entirely. My love eternal if the one asking the other to stop is Doumeki. That one's gotta be hard to pull off.
Abort, Fail, Retry
1.
Contrary to what some people might believe, Watanuki has actually given more than two seconds' thought as to why the girl he adores most in all the world seems to bring him the most catastrophic luck, and the person who has always, unfailingly saved him gets under his skin like a ragged-edged splinter, making him want to gnaw his own arm off just to make the aggravation stop.
He's thought about it. For as long as a whole minute, before. The problem is, he's never managed to draw any useful conclusions before the headache sets in, the one that squeezes the base of his skull and grinds against the backs of his eyeballs, until he loses all interest in straining himself over impossible conundrums, puzzles without answers. His life has enough of those at it is, and just getting through most days in one piece takes all the energy he has.
And anyway, he suspects that no amount of thinking will change the way the world explodes with sunshine and butterflies, every time Himawari-chan beams her good-mornings to him. Nor will it change the way he has to grit his teeth and clench his hands to his sides sometimes, just to keep from knocking that insufferable smirk off that Doumeki's stupid face, with both fists and maybe a shoe for punctuation.
These things are just facts of his life, like gravity, like the sun rising in the east, like how any time Yuuko cracks the seal on a bottle of Isojiman (or any other absurdly expensive booze he's never heard of), she is guaranteed to keep drinking until it's all gone.
There are not many things in life Watanuki can absolutely depend on, and yes, maybe he clings to some beliefs more than he should. But since he can't remember life before Yuuko-san and Mokona, Himawari-chan and that irritating bastard Doumeki, he doesn't think he should really be blamed for taking reliability where he can get it.
Which is why it shocks him as much as anyone, on that crisp autumn day in the park, when he has the perfect excuse to punch Doumeki in the mouth, but ends up kissing him instead.
Kissing is probably the wrong word. But having never in his entire life kissed anyone, that he can recall, he has absolutely no better word to describe it. If there actually is another word for attacking another person and trying to eat their face, he doesn't think he wants to know it.
Needless to say from there, everything goes to hell.
**
"What do you mean, she's not coming?"
This was where it started: Watanuki kneeling on a picnic blanket, feeling that one vein throbbing in his forehead, just a little reminder that he could always die of an aneurysm one of these days. He was glaring up at Doumeki, who just stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking bored, looking like nothing in the world was ever his problem.
"A water main broke in her neighborhood last night. Everyone got flooded out. She has to help her parents clean up." Doumeki may as well have been reading from last week's newspaper, for all the feeling he put into it. And though Watanuki had long since learned better than to expect anything more, that didn't mean it didn't piss him right off, every single time.
"What, and you just left it like that? Didn't you ask if she needs help?"
"She doesn't."
Watanuki tightened his grip on the furoshiki he'd just unwrapped from the three-tier bento, sitting all by itself in the center of the picnic blanket. Unnecessary, now. And all his painstaking work, up since dawn, slicing and chopping, steaming and searing and seasoning, arranging every tray with loving care. Unnecessary.
Just once, he wanted to feel like everything he did wasn't ultimately futile. Was it really so much to ask?
And then, having ruined Watanuki's entire day--the modest hope of sharing a picnic with Himawari-chan, blown to dust and cinders yet again--Doumeki proceeded to dump salt on the wound; kneeling decisively by the bento and removing the lid to inspect the contents.
"Is that tebasaki?"
"Who invited you to open that?" Tossing the furoshiki aside, Watanuki took a swat at Doumeki's hand, which Doumeki avoided without even looking. "My god, were you raised by wolves? Do you think it's all right to go pawing through other people's things?"
"Too loud," huffed Doumeki, as if Watanuki were the only one making a scene here. He scooted to the other side of the bento to dodge another flailing arm, and pulled off the top tier, blind as always to everything that wasn't food.
Watanuki dropped his arms and took a wild-eyed glance around, confirming that this corner of the park was deserted. He could cave the greedy swine's head in with a brick, drag him off into the weeds somewhere, and nobody would know.
Keeping one eye out for a likely weapon, he growled, "Don't expect me not to yell, when you take things you haven't been offered! I did not get up before God, to prepare all this food, just to dump it down your thankless gullet! This was meant for a picnic! With Himawari-chan!"
"But she's not coming." Bland as a block of chilled tofu, and just looking at that face, Watanuki had to grip his skull to keep it from rupturing.
"YES I REALIZE THAT, I WAS THERE WHEN YOU TOLD ME."
"So it would just go to waste."
"THAT ISN'T REMOTELY THE POINT."
With a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, the soon-to-be-late Doumeki peeked in at the bento's bottom tier. "So you'd end up giving it to me anyway. What's in these harumaki?"
Watanuki would never be entirely sure what it was about this time (as opposed to every single other time Doumeki had pushed to him entirely too far) which made him finally snap. Maybe that vein in his forehead had reached its critical pressure point. Maybe it was because early this morning, tasting the pork for the harumaki, he couldn't tell whether to add more seasoning, because he had no recollection of how the dish was supposed to taste. Maybe it was the tired grim voice in the back of his head, asking why he even bothered anymore, when things always went sideways, no matter what he did. He was rootless and too disaster-prone for normal things like picnics or dates, or whatever the hell people his age did with themselves.
Whatever the cause, the effect was not so much an explosion, as this bizarre seismic shift in his brain; a slip and a thump and the world tilting off-kilter. Next thing he knew, Doumeki's collar was straining against his grip and Doumeki himself was scowling, half a spring roll still in his hand as Watanuki heaved him backward off the blanket.
"Oi. What was that for," he demanded, after swallowing hard.
"My name," Watanuki gritted out, collapsing to his knees, leaning in so Doumeki couldn't possibly miss the full force of his death glare, "is not 'Oi'. You insensitive jackass. And maybe it's all the same to you, but I think I deserve the choice about whether to share something which I, me, myself, spent four hours putting together. Does that sound reasonable to you, Doumeki?"
"A choice." The words dropped like a stone to the grass between them, and Watanuki would swear the air hadn't been this chilly just a second ago. And then Doumeki turned, looking at him, with a dangerous stillness to his expression. Mouth set. Brows pulled together to a straight dark line. Watanuki couldn't possibly overlook the cloudy cast to Doumeki's right eye, pale colored and dimmer than the left. Normally that sight alone was enough to shut him up. Make him stamp down on his frustration, bite his anger back and swallow it.
Except that on this day, this crisp cloudless autumn day, it wasn't enough. Something had been simmering in Watanuki's blood, always just under the surface for too long, and today it finally boiled over.
"What are you looking at? Don't even try and tell me you don't have a choice, when you do whatever you want, and never have to give a damn about anything. Maybe I'd like to do whatever I feel like, sometime. Maybe I'd like to not give a damn about the consequences, or what anybody thinks, the way you do. Did you ever think about that? Huh?"
Doumeki's eyes squinted down to slits, glittering like a sword peeking from its sheath. Had he been in his right mind, Watanuki would have known this was the time to back off and drop the subject, before one or the other of them drew blood. But he was furious, he was sizzling inside, and he saw no point whatsoever in trying to salvage the situation.
"Do it," came the sharp clipped answer, Doumeki crossing his arms. "If there's something you want to do, then do it. That's what a choice is."
"Do you seriously think I need to you to explain that to me?" Watanuki shot back.
"Do it."
"I will kick your ass so hard. Shut up."
"You going to do something, or not?"
Later on, with a cold rag over his face and a screaming migraine, Watanuki would attempt to piece together the very short sequence of events which followed. He would try his utmost, to understand where his blazing desire to hit Doumeki square in the face went so horribly awry.
It started with a hard shove to Doumeki's chest, which of course made no impression at all because Doumeki was built like a tree and existed to spite him. Immediately after that, he remembered grabbing Doumeki's collar, and then everything stopped making sense. His glasses got knocked askew by Doumeki's cheek, and Doumeki's hair was bristling between his fingers. He bruised his kneecap on a rock, and then bruised his upper lip on Doumeki's front teeth. The pain just made him more angry, and when Doumeki got his mouth open, either to gasp or say what the hell has gone wrong with you, Watanuki bit his bottom lip in retaliation.
After that it was suffocating, and wet, and he was pretty sure Doumeki ended up with a fistful of his hair before it was over. And then--Watanuki remembered this vividly, as the precise moment his fate was fixed and everything started going to hell--a child's plastic ball came bounding across the grass and thumped him in the head.
He shoved himself back, mouth wet and stinging, a cool breeze slipping in where his shirt had come untucked, and catching sight of Doumeki's expression, knew it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.
"Fuck," he stated, grabbed his shoes, and ran for his life.
*****
2.
If he hadn't raced off in a blind panic, leaving Yuuko's bento container, furoshiki, and blanket to Doumeki's dubious care, things might not have escalated. Had Doumeki, when Watanuki finally tracked him down at his family's temple, not recovered from his shock and resumed his air of haughty superiority to all and sundry, Watanuki might have found some way to apologize for his temporary insanity that afternoon.
Granted it was a long shot, but alas, it was not to be.
"You ate all of it." Watanuki stared down at the bento, pristine, and quite definitely empty.
"I was waiting to see if you'd come back." Spoken in a tone which might have been chastening, if Doumeki had cared.
Still, Watanuki couldn't take his eyes off all that empty space. "You ate an entire picnic for three people. Actually, two people and you." Frankly, he was having trouble getting his head around it.
"I washed the bento," Doumeki pointed out, sounding just a little tetchy now.
"What are you, hollow inside?" He glanced up to see Doumeki scowling, and by now it was practically a reflex, to scowl back.
"I waited 'til sundown. After you took off. Do you really want to talk about food?"
What a stupid question. Of course Watanuki didn't want to talk about food. He didn't want to talk about anything, he just wanted to retrieve Yuuko's belongings, so she didn't cast him into a pit of eternal darkness for misplacing them, and get out of here. But trust Doumeki to be stupid enough to wait around in the park for five or six hours, for someone who had plainly run off and left him, someone who was so obviously too much of a coward to come back.
And there, again, suddenly he was furious beyond all reason. He spat some answer at Doumeki, something pithy and acidic, but ultimately forgettable. Doumeki's brows pulled together, mouth turning down at the corners, when he said something back. Watanuki didn't hear it; his blood was pounding too loud in his ears, and he was too busy watching Doumeki's mouth, thinking I've tasted that, and god, surely he was possessed by a demon, because why else would he have reached out, grabbing at Doumeki's shoulder this time, crowding into his space?
"Stop talking," he ordered. And of all miracles (or maybe it was just the dumb shock of lightning striking twice), Doumeki did.
They were terrible kissers, both of them. Clumsy and too aggressive; fighting for control of the kiss, fighting for balance; Doumeki trying to push off the wall while Watanuki struggled to keep him pinned. His bruised lip stung like a bitch, Doumeki's fingers digging into his shoulderblades hurt, but there was that incredible heat again, crackling down his nerve endings, and as long as he didn't open his eyes, none of this had to make any sense. He didn't have to wonder How or Why, didn't have to consider any reason for the warm hand sliding up under his shirt, calloused palm cupping his ribcage. Or the way a voice he had never heard came trickling out of his own throat, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, when Doumeki's hot slick mouth traveled down his jaw to his neck.
There came a dicey moment, when Doumeki's ridiculously warm hands were framing his waist, kneading at the tight muscle in his lower back, searching and grasping, never still, and Doumeki's greedy mouth was suckling at his throat. Watanuki's anger wavered, threatening to become something different, something as frightening as that look on Doumeki's face in the park; wide-eyed, demolished, like a hole had just opened up in the clear blue sky and shown him the entire vast universe, all at once.
But then Doumeki started talking.
"What. What are you--."
"Don't," snapped Watanuki, deciding he had no time or patience for idiotic questions. To emphasize the point, he slipped his hand down Doumeki's waist, down the front of his yukata, to the hard bulge at his groin. He cupped his hand around and squeezed, and Doumeki sucked in a breath, an obscenely gratifying sound. Unfortunately the move put him off balance, and then Doumeki stole the advantage and surged forward, spinning them about and pinning Watanuki to the wall.
Before Watanuki could get out his shout of protest, Doumeki had latched onto his mouth, shoving aside his hands and going for the fastening on his belt. He yanked and tugged at it blindly, jerking at Watanuki's hips, until Watanuki hissed in irritation and knocked Doumeki's fumbling hands aside. Got his belt open one-handed, thumbed the trouser button loose, had exactly one split-second to think this will end in disaster oh shit what am I doing, before Doumeki, being bull-headed and stupidly persistent, took over with the zipper, slipped his hands down into Watanuki's pants, warm skin slightly rough against Watanuki's bare hips, easing downward.
He couldn't breathe. Even when Doumeki's weight moved off his chest, and his tongue left off plundering Watanuki's mouth. There wasn't enough air, and his head was spinning in the darkness behind his eyelids. Doumeki's mouth slid along his collarbone, nipping and licking, and then down to his bare belly, leaving a cool wet trail over his hip, and Watanuki's knees started to shake.
Rage and relief and dread were all melting into the same thing, and in the dizzy darkness, slumping down the wall while Doumeki mouthed his dick through his briefs; humid breath and just enough to pressure to torment, Watanuki knew he could die like this. Blind, stripped of all rational thought and right on the edge of screaming; it could all end right here and be somehow perfect. Better than any end he'd ever expected to meet, anyway.
Then his briefs were tugged down his hips, freeing his aching erection. A puff of cool air on the heated flesh before wet lips descended, tongue flicking across the slit, sending a hard jolt straight up Watanuki's spine. His head thumped back against the wall, but he scarcely noticed the pain, or his own hoarse cry bouncing off the ceiling. He needed more, more friction, more heat, fucking something, and couldn't help thrusting his hips forward. What he got was teeth scraping his dick, and Doumeki's hand clamping into his thigh as he choked on the sudden intrusion.
Watanuki flinched--"Oww--shit!"--doubling over as Doumeki gagged, and then from somewhere outside there rose a long squeal of car brakes, horns blaring, and a brittle, glassy crunch of impact.
"What the--?" It was like being jarred too suddenly from sleep; Watanuki's eyes popped open, glasses smudged and half-sideways on his face, giving him a bent, fractured view of Doumeki staring up at him, disheveled and equally startled, his swollen mouth glistening red.
For just one flashbulb instant, that sight almost stopped his heart.
And then it struck him head-on, that Doumeki was on his knees looking hungrier and more naked than Watanuki had ever seen, despite being fully dressed. He had one hand still curled in the elastic of Watanuki's briefs, and Watanuki himself was half-stripped, pants down, and had just been on the cusp of receiving the most awful blowjob in a temple, of all places.
There were so many things so utterly wrong with this situation, Watanuki didn't even know where to start. Luckily his fight-or-flight response was still in good working order, and in the absence of any better plan, it directed him to retreat, ASAP.
"Was that a car wreck outside? It sounded like a wreck. Maybe--," shoving Doumeki's hand from his underpants, gingerly tucking his hardon back in, refusing to spare one millisecond of thought for what he was actually doing. "You should go check that out. Somebody might be hurt."
Doumeki just stared up at him, with a disturbing glazed expression. Slowly, he blinked. "Wreck?"
Watanuki might have reached down and rattled some sense into him, just on principle, but he knew he had a very short window for escape, here. Best not to give Doumeki any chance to come to his senses.
Instead, he concentrated all his attention on making himself reasonably decent, as fast as possible. Yanking at his stuck zipper before giving it up as a lost cause, buttoning his pants, fastening his belt, and pulling down his shirt hem to cover his fly. He set his glasses straight, snatched up the bento, furoshiki, and blanket, and was all set to run like his ass was on fire.
And then Doumeki spoke again. "You're going?"
"Yuuko-san. Waiting on dinner," Watanuki gestured hurriedly, already making rapid strides toward the nearest exit, praying his stupid troublesome erection would just disappear, already. "Gotta take off, seeya later bye."
"...Oi."
"I have no idea who you're talking to," Watanuki shouted back, trying to sound rushed instead of nearly frantic, scooping up his shoes at the door and breaking into a sprint.
*****
3.
He knew better than to be relieved that Yuuko was nowhere to be seen, when he returned to the shop. Sure it meant he didn't have to endure her raised eyebrows and thinly veiled suggestions, or the inhuman glee she always took in dragging out his worst embarrassments. But it didn't mean he was off the hook; far from it, knowing his luck.
Just because Yuuko wasn't there to see him pelting up the front walk, soaked in sweat, shirttails flapping, hair sticking out at all angles and looking unmistakably debauched, Watanuki knew it was only a matter of time before she had him pinned and squirming over it. He had a temporary reprieve, that was all. He should probably make the most of it. Get his head together. Figure out this inexplicable force that was making him do insane things, and put a stop to it.
**
A couple hours later, after a thorough scrubbing and a long bath, lying on his usual futon with a cold rag draped over his eyes and his skull pounding fit to burst, Watanuki had to admit he was at a total loss, here.
Doumeki made him crazy. That was a given, always had been. The mere sight of him was generally enough to drive Watanuki into paroxysms of rage, wailing and gnashing of teeth. That stuck-up chilly attitude, communicating in grunts and monosyllables, staring stone-faced at Watanuki, every time Watanuki turned around. He hated it. He hated that goddamned 'Oi', like he was a dog, supposed to heel when Doumeki snapped his fingers. He hated the way Doumeki loomed all over the place, stern and grim, hulking around like he had anything to be pissed about.
Suffice it to say there was no reason, whatsoever, in any universe for Watanuki to ever, ever, ever want to kiss him.
But he had. More than once in the same day. And the only thing which could possibly be worse, was the fact that Doumeki had kissed him back. He'd done more than that, and Watanuki had let him, and to make the whole thing even more horrible and hopelessly confusing, Doumeki had somehow managed--for those scant few moments--not to be an unrepentant asshole about it. As a matter of fact, when Watanuki had been forced to actually look at him, he had....
No. Ugh. He couldn't think about that. With the heels of his hands, he pressed the damp cloth against his eyeballs, until multicolored sunbursts drowned out any errant images from the day.
He did not like Doumeki. Couldn't stand the bossy freak. This was an ironclad rule of Watanuki's existence, and the minute he started tampering with those, everything was bound to go haywire. He had to keep things in perspective.
Doumeki was a spoiled, selfish nuisance, and always would be. Today was just a slip, one of those weird anomalies, like schoolmates growing parasitic wings and disembodied hands popping up around the drinking fountain. Watanuki had only acted out because he was stressed, and who wouldn't be, putting up with a humorless shadow all the time?
Tonight he'd get some rest, put all thought of that person out of his mind, and tomorrow he'd be fine. Everything would go back to normal, and there would be no more surprise attacks of kissing, or anything else weird and incredibly ill-advised.
It was a good plan, and Watanuki repeated it to himself several times as the night wore on, refusing to make any room for doubts or startlingly vivid memories which didn't mean anything and it was a waste of energy to even contemplate them.
Eventually, he slept.
**
As good as his plan was, he should have accounted for Doumeki finding ways to thwart it. And he really shouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find Doumeki lying in wait for him, as soon as he stepped outside the gates of the shop, on his innocent way to school. Too bad he had to see all this in hindsight.
He strolled out, occupied by thoughts of classes, saying good morning to Himawari-chan, and not losing his mind today, and practically walked into Doumeki before he saw him. Lurking there with his feet planted, hands in his pockets, and serious displeasure written all over him.
"Hey."
More startled than he really should have been, Watanuki jumped back like a firecracker had gone off in his face, tangling his legs up, arms pinwheeling--"GAH!"--and fetched up against the wooden fence, heart pounding wildly.
"Don't--don't DO that, you freak! You could've given me a heart attack!"
Doumeki eyed him dispassionately. "I'm making sure you don't run off again."
"By scaring me to death?" Watanuki had one hand clutched to his chest, and the other was digging into the planks at his back. "Did it even occur to you, that might defeat the purpose?"
Then he caught his breath, and rewound the conversation a bit. "And where am I supposed run off to? I'm going to school."
Doumeki said nothing, just raised an eyebrow in one of several withering expressions guaranteed to drive Watanuki berserk. He had an entire repertoire of them. Probably practiced them in front of a mirror, for maximum effect. Just thinking about it made Watanuki want to bite something.
But he wasn't falling for any looks of any description this time. He was going to school, going to spend the whole day minding his own business, and for the sake of everyone's sanity, ignore all signs of Doumeki's existence. With that goal in mind, he pushed himself off the wall, dusted off his uniform blazer, and took his briefcase firmly in hand.
"School. That is where I'm going. I'm not running anywhere. So you can....," he flapped his hand in Doumeki's direction, before setting his eyes determinedly down the sidewalk, and setting off.
It took all of half a block, before he could sense the glare aimed at his back, and two blocks before that spot between his shoulderblades started to itch, like a rash was forming. Nonetheless, he pressed forward with long steady strides, jaw set.
Halfway to school, that glare crawled up, over his shoulder, scorching his earlobe as the Person of No Consequence who just happened to be following along, pulled even with him.
"You know this won't work," said That Person.
Resisting the urge to bristle, Watanuki lifted his chin and replied as airily as he was capable of, "I can't imagine what you mean. I've been walking to school for years. It works just fine."
This bought him half a minute of silence, during which he could almost hear Doumeki's eyes rolling in his head. One of these days, Watanuki was tempted to mention, Doumeki's beady eyes were going to stick like that, and it would serve him right. But he didn't say anything, and eventually Doumeki sighed. Watanuki knew it for an irritable sigh, and hated that he could even tell the difference.
"Whatever."
He couldn't help it. He shot a sideways glare at Doumeki, burning to ask, Whatever, what? What's that supposed to mean, Whatever? Were you born a massive dickhead, or was it something you had to grow into? But the dickhead in question picked up his pace, passing on ahead, leaving Watanuki staring at that funny little cowlick on the back of his head, annoyed and maybe the tiniest bit baffled.
**
"Ah, Watanuki, I'm truly sorry I had to miss your picnic." Dear Himawari-chan, she looked so sincerely regretful that Watanuki's heart swelled and burst into millions of tiny pieces within him. "I felt terrible, after all the trouble you must have gone to."
Unlike certain other people (Of No Consequence) he could name, forgiving Himawari-chan was effortless. She could probably have roasted him on a spit over a high flame, or run him over with a bus, and Watanuki would never even think to hold any grudge. She was just too sweet, too perfect to ever blame for anything.
"No, of course it was no trouble, please don't feel badly. Your house is okay, right? Nothing was damaged?"
"The floors got a little wet, but we moved everything in time, so it should all be dry soon." Himawari-chan dimpled at him, and Watanuki's brain floated up to a serene, cheerful place full of pink fluffy clouds and sparkles. "And at least you had Doumeki-kun to enjoy your picnic. I was glad to hear he could come with you."
Watanuki's brain thumped hard back to earth. "Eh..."
"Did you have a good time, Doumeki-kun? Wasn't the weather perfect, yesterday?" She turned that glorious smile on Doumeki, completely unaware of Watanuki's cringing, and Doumeki glowering sidelong at him. Or if she did notice, Watanuki thought, she pretended not to, because she was too gracious and kind for the company of undeserving mortals (and most especially Doumeki).
"The tebasaki was okay," Doumeki answered, staring right at Watanuki, just as he had done all day so far, to the point that Watanuki was more than ready to bounce his thick stupid head off the grass.
"Hmph. I guess you would know," Watanuki muttered.
"You could have had some." Doumeki's voice was flat, but there was a glint in his eye that Watanuki didn't like one bit. "That is, if you'd bothered to--."
Watanuki jabbed a warning finger at him. "You do not want to finish that sentence."
"How was work last night?" Doumeki asked, leaning in, matching his ferocious stare against Watanuki's near-volcanic ire.
Himawari-chan saved Doumeki from an immediate messy death, with a cheerful giggle. "It's so nice, that you two are such good friends. I'm glad you can keep each other company."
He couldn't kill Doumeki in front of Himawari-chan. And he couldn't communicate his promise through eye-contact, to kill Doumeki later on, while at the same time gently reassuring Himawari-chan that honestly, things were not as they seemed.
It was tremendously unfair. Especially since Doumeki was free to continue staring holes in Watanuki every time they saw each other, for the rest of the day. Which made for an extraordinarily long and difficult day, and by the end of it, when Himawari-chan was smiling her precious farewells to them, Watanuki had forgotten all about his original plan of ignoring Doumeki for his own good.
"Oh my God, what did I ever do to deserve you hanging around all the time? Haven't I been punished enough?" Watanuki launched into the tirade as soon as Himawari-chan was out of earshot, storming down the sidewalk, gesticulating wildly, just to burn off an entire day's worth of bottled rage so he didn't explode.
"I am done! I'm at the end of my rope, do you hear me? I have had it up to here! What the hell is your problem, anyway? It wasn't enough that you were always....always around, now you have to start this--this looking at me, do you have any idea how annoying that is? No, wait, of course you do. This is all part of your plan, isn't it. Admit it, you just want to drive me batshit crazy, it's what you've always wanted, to see me carted off to the nuthatch in a straight jacket, every night I bet you lay awake and think, 'Hm, what can I do that will send Watanuki completely over the edge?' You do that, don't you?"
Doumeki didn't answer for several steps, striding along shoulder-to-shoulder with Watanuki, mouth pressed to a thin line, and Watanuki nearly plowed into a light pole, watching him, waiting for some kind of answer.
"Damn it--," he muttered, dodging around at the last second, while Doumeki didn't even break stride.
"You don't need my help being crazy," he finally answered. "You get there fine on your own."
Watanuki could actually feel himself turning purple. "FOR YOUR INFORMATION! I dunno, maybe you want to file this away somewhere. But I'll have you know I'm a perfectly reasonable individual!" He was stomping down the pavement, waving both arms, briefcase careening freely through the air. "I am sane, rational, and perfectly well-balanced when you're not around! So what does that tell you?"
Doumeki slowed, turning a pointed look toward a woman with a baby stroller, hurrying across the street toward the opposite sidewalk. "Beats me."
"You enjoy it! Admit it!" Having lost all sense of self-consciousness in the mad flush of hysteria, Watanuki jerked a finger toward the fleeing woman. "You see that? That is a normal person's response to someone going crazy. But you are still here! I scream at you every single day, and you just stand there! You keep coming back!"
"And what," asked Doumeki, turning to face him, both of them halted in the middle of the sidewalk now, "does that tell you?"
If it had just been that one sardonic eyebrow cocked at him, Watanuki probably would have stormed off right there. But Doumeki was watching him, with just a glimmer of genuine curiosity peeking through, like in spite of himself, he really did want to know. In spite of his general lack of give-a-damn about everyone and everything on earth, there was this tiny traitorous part of him that truly had a stake in the answer.
You're either crazier than me or stronger than almost anyone I know. Yuuko being the obvious exception, but the whole idea was too much like a blasphemy, it rattled Watanuki to his very core, and threatened to topple everything he believed in and depended on, to ground himself to a world that seemed to be slipping further from his grasp by the day.
He actually staggered back a step, teetering between unspent anger and deep paranoia, suddenly certain that if he told the truth, everything he had ever known, the whole world as he understood it, would disappear. Leaving him alone in that strange blank darkness he sometimes fell into, or woke up in. A world where there was no school, no wish-granting shop, no bentos in the park on Sunday. No Himawari-chan, or Yuuko, or even Doumeki.
Truth be told, he often wondered if it wouldn't be easier just to give up and slip away to that place. Especially those times when he felt sort of blank, dark, and empty himself. He would think that if he just let himself disappear, all would be said and done and he wouldn't have to be afraid anymore. You can't lose what you don't have, after all. And once he lost this world, and these few people he knew, that would be it. There wouldn't be anything else left to lose, and he wouldn't have to worry, ever again.
As he worked it all through, for the umpteenth time, watching in a distant detached way, as Doumeki went from looking mostly sarcastic and the tiniest bit wondering, to looking sharp and hard at him, Watanuki felt himself tipping forward again, into Doumeki's gravity, pulled along by a force of will stronger than he was at that moment.
"Oh to hell with it," he might have muttered, stumbling toward the abyss, sick and tired of trying to differentiate anymore between what meant staying here and what meant slipping away. Doumeki's chest was solid enough beneath his forehead, and both his arms were undeniably there, when Watanuki gripped him at the elbows, and then by both shoulders.
"If you could try not to be a jerk, just for five minutes," he started, losing the rest of it as he looked up, zeroed in on Doumeki's mouth. It was like an epiphany, like a lightbulb switching on in his head, and everything seemed so very simple. The rest of the idiot's expression was irrelevant; he wanted that mouth, right now.
Lurching upward, he bumped his nose against Doumeki's, then his chin, then had the brilliant idea to hold Doumeki's aggravating head still. And for a too-brief second, it was just right. He would have the rest of his life to gloat over how Doumeki's lips parted for him, the sharp strong taste of him, like hot green tea. The way Doumeki's breath drew in hard, his hands fisting in Watanuki's blazer, snatching him close.
Then Doumeki was mumbling some nonsense about doing this in public, idiot, grabbing his wrists, and the next time Watanuki blinked his eyes open, they were in a claustrophobic narrow alley, with yet another wall at his back. He had time for a full-sensory flashback of Doumeki on his knees, greedy hot mouth sucking at his hip, and he was goddamn sure not doing that in a filthy alley, but couldn't resist sucking Doumeki's tongue in, between his lips, before somewhat breathlessly making his point.
"Can't go to my house," came the hurried answer. "Visitors."
"M'not fucking you in a temple anyway," Watanuki managed, between hungry little nibbles down the line of Doumeki's jaw. "S'just wrong."
Doumeki hissed, working one knee between Watanuki's thighs and rucking his shirt up from his trousers. "Who said you were--."
"Quit. Arguing." He dragged Doumeki's hips forward until he could feel the hard line of his erection against his thigh. Doumeki let out a half-strangled moan, and Watanuki caught it, tasted it, swallowed it down. He wanted to hear it again, wanted to hear that voice rasping and begging, wanted to strip down the strong body pressing him to the wall, and suck Doumeki 'til his eyes rolled back in his head.
He hadn't realized he was saying any of this out loud until Doumeki shoved against him, grinding up his thigh with a deep hungry growl, "Yes oh fuck yes, you have no idea." And surely those words melted Watanuki's brain, because there was no other way on earth he would have suggested they go to a hotel.
"No money," pointed out Doumeki, whose brain was still intact, apparently. Or maybe not.
"Let's go to the shop."
"C-can't," answered Watanuki, shuddering mindlessly, at the feel of Doumeki's tongue tracing the shell of his ear. "Yuuko-san. Kill us both. Or blackmail us."
"She's not back 'til tomorrow."
He was too engrossed in nipping the tendon standing out on Doumeki's neck and sliding his hands down Doumeki's ass for Doumeki's words to register at first. "Bwuh? Where'd she go?"
"Didn't say. You didn't read her note?"
"Note?" This was too many details for Watanuki to process in his current lust-fogged state. And he didn't particularly care to be too coherent right now. Coherence hadn't been much of a friend to him, lately.
Although there was a significant gap in the logic, here. "How did you know?"
Despite the fact that he was shamelessly rocking against Watanuki, licking his collarbone, and working his hands beneath Watanuki's waistband, Doumeki managed to shrug. "She called."
This news ought to have prompted a certain amount of outrage on his part, Watanuki recognized that, but currently he was having trouble mustering anything more than momentary irritation. Even that was pretty feeble, compared to the offense in question. Yuuko had left without a word for him, and yet found the time to call Doumeki, no doubt to request his babysitting services? She had a lot to answer for, and at some point when he wasn't so preoccupied with Doumeki's hard thigh flexing against his crotch, Watanuki would definitely work out a suitable line of accusation.
But that was for later. Right now he had more important matters to attend to.
"Fine, the shop. Ow, dammit, don't bite there."
Squirming out from under Doumeki's weight was like struggling from a vat of warm taffy, while heavily inebriated. Doumeki clung to his body with every move, and he had no business tasting like he did, a rich clean savor Watanuki couldn't begin to place, and couldn't seem to get enough of. The only things that kept him moving, slowly but stubbornly back toward the street, were a staunch refusal to come in his trousers, and a fierce impatience to drag every stitch of Doumeki's clothing off his body.
*****
part two