Nov 3

My pillow won't tell me where he has gone

A/N: first attempt at xxxHolic, because I just read books 9 and 10 yesterday; I claim no responsibility for OOCs. :3 I did want to do a fandom I'd done before for this prompt, but nothing came up. And sorry, dying in a car fire – one of my friend's favorite phrases. -.- Also, re the posting time on 31days – I post in Australian time : ( so… sorry, if it seems that I'm posting before the actual day of the prompt, itself. And… I'm sorry, I cannot seem to spell Himawari's name, and my scanlations all have different opinions as to how it's spelled. TT

Negative phoenix

Watanuki instinctively rolled over into the warm spot of the futon and slammed his hand down on the alarm clock when it jarred him out of a very nice dream involving Himawari and strawberries (not the least scandalous at all, of course, she was such a sweet and pure girl that he would die before his subconscious could even come up with a sordid dream involving her) and the world caught up with him just as he wondered why the sheets smelled differently. Of. Doumeki.

"WHAT THE HELL." He sat up so quickly that spots danced across his eyes, and looked around wildly. Small apartment. Extremely and fussily neat. Nothing out of place (no wait the little framed photograph of him when he was a toddler, in the arms of his parents, was angled a little wrongly). Shoes also slightly displaced. But otherwise everything seemed normal.

He sniffed the futon again, his face darkening. How in the world? That would have to be disinfected, and someone was going to DIE. Even if he could remember what happened. And when he meant die, it would be in a car fire (slow, painful and merry). When had Doumeki been in his apartment, and why was there a fast-fading depression in his futon that looked like it would fit a frame longer than his, and why did his futon smell of him? (the last two were related, obviously, but Watanuki's mind firmly crawled under a metaphorical rock, whimpering to itself).

Where was the bastard, anyway?

Watanuki stared accusingly at the futon and pillow. However, as inanimate objects were famously incapable of speech – there was no help, to be had, there.

And a post-it note, stuck to the alarm clock, informed him that he was going to be late for preparing breakfast for Yuuko and bento for lunch, (and consequently, school).

--

Nothing came up on the mad dash to Yuuko's shop – though the Dimension Witch looked smug when he stopped, within the door, breathless and panting. She was dressed in something outrageously flimsy – a lattice of butterfly print silk that looked vaguely meant to be kimono-like – for the crisp weather. Mokona bounced onto his shoulder. "Breakfast! Breakfast!" On the second 'Breakfast!' Maru and Moro chimed in, and he forgot to ask Yuuko (discreetly, of course, and as manly as possible) about the Doumeki Futon Scent Incident.

Halfway through helping Yuuko finish off French toast, he choked on his mouthful as she drawled, "Did you wake up alone this morning?"

"I DID WAKE UP ALONE AND IT WAS PERFECTLY NORMAL TO DO SO," Watanuki said, as calmly as he could.

Yuuko nodded – there was a faint smirk, there. "So you don't remember anything."

"I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER ANYTHIN… yes." Watanuki amended, deciding that it would only be mature to want to know, and besides, there was no way there could be anything sordid or unusual about the reason. When Yuuko merely picked herself another slice of French toast, he added, "Well?"

"Information has a price," Yuuko reminded him. "So! I want chawan mushi tonight, and fried Alaska, and cheese fritters."

"Fine," Watanuki muttered. Yuuko reached into her flimsy, voluminous sleeves, and drew out a cork-stoppered tube – within it was a pale, downy feather that seemed to burn continuously with blue flame. When he took it from her, the glass was so cold that he gasped, and hurriedly gripped the cork, instead. "What is it?"

"Still don't remember?" Yuuko peered thoughtfully into his eyes. "Hn. Then perhaps he doesn't, either."

"Who doesn't? Doumeki? What is this?"

Yuuko turned her eyes with exaggerated surprise to the grandfather's clock (a recent acquisition, payment for a little job some blocks away that Watanuki was still trying desperately to forget, since it involved Doumeki having to save him for the one hundredth and thirty-eighth time, not that he was keeping count, it was just natural that he could remember the number, of course, anyone would feel so). "Oh. You're going to be late for class."

"Class! Class!" Mokona, Maru and Moro clamored, and that was the end of it.

--

On the mad rush to school, still nothing failed to come up, and he sat through the whole day with the ice-cold glass tube in his bag. He could feel the freeze through the canvas, whenever it bumped against his hip.

At lunch, Doumeki was blessedly silent, bent over the boxed lunch. Since the feather was very pretty, however, he showed it to Himawari "And Yuuko-san gave me this, this morning."

"Oh! It's so beautiful," Himawari's eyes sparkled with adorable and cute pleasure, and Watanuki felt like fainting into a puddle of happy goo under the table. He was just about to offer to give it to her, when Doumeki picked it out of his hands, studying it with a little frown, fingers on the cork.

"HEY THAT'S MINE," he yelped, scrambling for the tube. Uselessly, of course – Doumeki had longer arms – it was held calmly out of his reach. The free hand poked a finger into the ear closest to him, as a noise buffer. Himawari giggled. Then, when Doumeki's palm inadvertently brushed against the glass, there was a loud hiss, from the feather. Steam, then abruptly, it burst into orange flame. Watanuki's outraged gasp stifled itself, when he realized the feather was still burning, like before, only now he could feel the heat with his fingers only inches away from the glass.

"Hn." Doumeki frowned, and gave it back.

Watanuki growled, touching the tip of his forefinger to the glass – and snatched it back, scalded, sucking on it quickly. When the burn lessened, he hissed, "You broke it!"

Doumeki looked bored. "If it changed when I touched it, it's only because of my aura, idiot."

"WHO'S AN IDIOT YOU CLUMSY WRETCH."

"I think it's prettier," Himawari smiled, looking at the feather, "And this way, it's so much more practical!"

"Of course it's more practical! Himawari-chan is so smart! I could use it to keep food warm!" Watanuki brightened, his anger temporarily forgotten. Break was over too quickly…

--

His curiosity about the blue-feather-that-turned-orange, however, merely increased, and so he found himself waiting for Doumeki to finish his club activities, lounging by the gate to the school as casually as he could. Doumeki, the bastard, didn't even blink when he finally emerged from the school, or when he fell into step.

One street later, Watanuki finally swallowed his pride and asked, "Do you remember anything about yesterday? After school?"

Doumeki glanced at the merrily burning feather in the tube that Watanuki was carefully holding by the cork, and shook his head. "I remember walking you to Yuuko's shop."

"And then Yuuko sent us out to some weird disused parking lot to fetch some sort of stupid wildflower there for some probably male client who had one too many arms." Watanuki nodded. "And when I picked the flower… I don't remember anything else until this morning."

"I remember waking up at your place," Doumeki said, so matter-of-factly that Watanuki flushed.

"I AM SURE THERE WAS A GOOD REASON."

"In your futon, with you, and without clothes," Doumeki added.

"WHAT THE HELL." He was fairly sure he had woken up with clothes this morning. "YOU PERVERT."

Doumeki didn't even smirk – he frowned, as if trying futilely to grip some sort of memory. "You weren't dressed either, so… I dressed us both and went to the temple without waking you."

"WHAT THE HELL YOU PERVERT IT MUST BE SOMETHING YOU DID," Watanuki attempted Phase One of Killing Doumeki Slowly Without a Car Fire in Sight, which was to say attempting to strangle him. Doumeki, however, endured the neck wringing with a half-lidded, faraway stare that unnerved Watanuki so much that he stopped, panting, and muttered, "So why would Yuuko give me the feather? It's not even really an answer."

"We could retrace our steps," Doumeki suggested, reasonably. "The abandoned parking lot."

--

The flower was gone (though little clods of dirt suggested that it had been ripped out, probably in a hurry, and the dug-in arcs next to it fit his shoe size). Outside of a suspicious number of evaporating puddles about the weed-infested lot, and two deep furrows that looked as though something had been dragged against the ground, at one point, there was nothing really suspicious.

No strange spirits, even, and that was certainly not a strange horrible spirit that was suddenly welling up from the hole where the flower had been and he was certainly not screaming and even if he was screaming it was in a masculine fashion. "EEEEE."

Doumeki turned around sharply, and let out a soft "oof' as Watanuki backpedaled into him. He frowned, squinting with the shared-sight eye, at the blue smoke that coalesced into a large bird that burned continuously with a blue fire so cold that it withered the plants directly underneath it – a polar opposite of a phoenix, that radiated malevolence. It spread its wings, which flickered with a million hues of blue (and Watanuki noted, objectively, that if he had to die to this creature, well, at least it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen), and screeched its outrage. Some feathers seemed missing. Doumeki was hurriedly dragging him away (parallel furrows on the ground, now).

He did the first thing he could think of (cold bird, hot feather in tube) and threw the tube at it. The glass froze instantly when it hit the bird on its razor-sharp beak, and shattered. The bird screamed in ear-splitting agony, as the purified feather melted into the beak – and began thrashing on the ground, shuddering, rubbing its head blindly against churning soil, destroying all it touched with deadly cold.

And Watanuki remembered all a sudden – when they pulled the flower out of the lot the bird had appeared, and it had chased them down several blocks and jabbed its beak at Doumeki, and all unthinking Watanuki had pushed the other boy away, and the beak had pierced his shoulder. And when he'd screamed (oh-God-I'm-going-to-die), he realized that the beak had in fact passed right through, and back again, and instead of bleeding messily to death he seemed to be freezing up slowly, frost gathering over his skin, spreading from the impact. And then there was that probably-male many-armed client, just there, suddenly, and the bird had wheeled and fled. And then he remembered fainting, in a very dignified manner, considering the circumstances.

A glance at Doumeki – the other boy had remembered, as well – there was a frown. "So, what happened?" Watanuki asked, as conversationally as he could – the bird was still thrashing in the lot, and they were watching from a relatively safe distance.

"I was going to take you to Yuuko-san's shop," Doumeki said, with a tight set to his chin as though he were remembering something unpleasant. "I thought you would die. The client was apologizing all the way, babbling about cause and effect, but in the end he said he could take most of the cold away, but in exchange, our memory would have to go, as well, as a safeguard to us returning to this place out of curiosity. But afterwards when I took you home, you were so cold, still… so…"

"Ah," Watanuki said, awkwardly, and pushed his hands into the pockets of his school uniform.

Doumeki was about to continue, when the bird seemed to implode into blinding white fire, with a final screech – and Watanuki found himself turned and sandwiched against the wall by the other boy, who was shielding him with his body – and he was instinctively clinging to Doumeki's uniform, his eyes squeezed shut, red novas bursting into his retinas.

When the flare died away, he cautiously looked over his arm, blinking away spots – the bird was still there, but orange now, and the heat was like a furnace, even this far away – though nothing around it burned, the air rippled around it. When it turned white-flame eyes towards them, it seemed no longer hostile, only curious, and benevolent.

And the many-armed client with the too-large head appeared (one moment merely a shadow on the ground) and let out a sigh of sheer, heartfelt joy-relief-love, at the sight – the bird sang out a phrase in response; in a language that Watanuki didn't understand. The client bowed at them – Watanuki remembered himself, suddenly, with a flush, and pushed roughly away from Doumeki. One of the many hands pushed the flower into his palms. Then both client and bird vanished.

Feeling that he now had more than enough reason to be hysterical, Watanuki was instead surprised to find that he was feeling calm – gloriously at peace with the world – and it seemed to be radiating from the white bloom in his hands – the petals were open now, not half-furled like yesterday's. Blindly, he reached out and grabbed Doumeki's hand, not registering the soft gasp from the other boy, and let him cup half the flower. From the sudden erasure of tension written into the taller boy's body, he supposed they both felt it. The unnatural, beautiful peace.

And something else. The flower was whispering to him, almost inaudibly, papery, impossibly, in his mind. Doumeki and a not-quite-friendship. Deeper. He recalled the diviner's words, and the whispers grew louder and faster – he realized it only after the cold. He doesn't like it when you speak of girls. And when he had to make sure you were warm… He helps you all the time despite whatever he may be doing. He likes walking you home. His favorite food is what you cook even though it's not the best he's ever eaten. He asks for the hardest food to make because he likes to think you'll spend that much time doing something for him, even if he has to share with Himawari. He always seeks to please, where it's important. And you like – then when he felt he could grasp the proffered epiphany, Doumeki suddenly pulled his hand away, leaving Watanuki holding the flower and blinking, dumbly, into the fading light, as the whispers were abruptly cut off. "Eh?"

"I have to get back to the temple," Doumeki said, and uncharacteristically, started walking without even waiting for him. Watanuki stared at the flower – it was wilting rapidly, now – and eye blink later, shriveling into nothing, save a faint, fading scent of peace, in his palm.

"What did you do that for, you jerk," Watanuki sped his steps, realizing with a start that he wasn't shouting – he sounded bewildered, instead. "It was just about to tell me something important."

"You should think such things out yourself," Doumeki retorted, his voice oddly strained, then it smoothened out into calm, before Watanuki, frowning, could begin to grasp how that thread lead to the one that had faded to a scent only in his hand. "Tomorrow, I want inari-zushi and anago-ippon-nigiri."

"DIE."

--

Later, while serving Yuuko her rather esoteric choice of appetizers, he asked, "Yuuko-san. What was that bird, and that flower?"

"A negative phoenix," Yuuko said, in between reverent mouthfuls of cheese fritters. "A phoenix whose heart was mostly corrupted, because its area of rebirth became polluted by humans. The client was a powerful and ancient kodama – a friend of mine - who used to know it before its transformation."

"But the flower…?"

"The remnants of a phoenix's pure heart is said to be a powerful tool for communication, understanding and peace," Yuuko said, as she ate another fritter, then she smirked. "Why, what did it tell you?"

"NOTHING." Watanuki flushed. And you like…

"OHO." Said Yuuko, quickly echoed by Mokona.

"DOUMEKI PULLED AWAY BEFORE I HEARD ANYTHING." Watanuki said in his Mature Voice of Calm.

"OHOHO!"

"STOP THAT PLEASE."

"It's bad luck to deny the truth whispered by a phoenix's heart," Yuuko grinned, looking deeply amused. The gleam in her eyes informed Watanuki that he would never, ever hear the end of this. "Why, you should go over to the temple, right now! There are so many fritters, and I am sure he'll like them."

"I HATE ALL OF YOU."

-fin-