fall for you

For an unending, sluggish moment, Doumeki was frozen in shock. Stood in the hallway, twenty feet from meeting with his usual morning routine, eyes blown wide as Watanuki's body was there, and then not. The window pane gone, Kunogi in horror. There was no struggling, no grasping, no shouting. It seemed to happen all in a suspended state, a sight that only the three of them could experience. Doumeki couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Rooted to the spot in abject fear. Abject fear.

"Watanuki-kun!"

Kunogi's scream shattered the illusion of the world belonging solely to them. Doumeki wrenched his feet free of the floor and took off running, pushing the gaggle of students beginning to loiter out of his way. He didn't stop to look out the window like so many of them were doing; there was no need. No one could survive that fall, no one, except. Watanuki. Had to.

He flew down the stairs, the echo of Kunogi's footsteps behind him spurring him on. Not only for him. Watanuki had to be alright for all of them. Watanuki had to be alright for himself; he still had things he needed to do. Things he had to accomplish. Certain things that Doumeki had promised he would help his classmate to do, even if the classmate in question had never heard those promises.

He rounded the corner and shouldered the courtyard doors open, the heavy metal flinging out of his way to fill his vision with red. So much red. Deep, dark crimson staining bright green grass, and Doumeki's breath left him in a quick rush as he took in the scene before him. Glass, shattered like so many pieces of bizarre, macabre confetti, bespeckled and drenched with vital life force, and, in the midst of it all, a familiar, crumpled body, unmoving, unseeing.

Invisible tethers wrapped around Doumeki's chest, tightening agonizingly, making breathing even more difficult when his throat was impossibly so closed up already.

Watanuki wasn't supposed to be so still.

"Watanuki," Kunogi cried, still dogging Doumeki's footsteps. He was the first one to Watanuki's lifeless body, the first one to say "Stay back" in more threateningly tone than he planned to Kunogi, the first one to pass his fingers over Watanuki's wrist to catch his pulse.

Weak. Faint. Barely there.

Wrong, wrong. This was so wrong.

Doumeki sat back on his legs and looked back at Kunogi. She was pale and shaking, one hand pressed over her mouth, tears on her cheeks. He wondered, briefly, if he looked at all as rattled as he felt. He hoped not. "Phone," he demanded, because he hadn't changed into his uniform from kyudo practice, and if there was ever a time to not be without his cellular device, it was now .

Kunogi handed it over. Her fingers were cold and shaking against Doumeki's blood-stained ones, and his fingers slipped over the smooth buttons as he called for an ambulance. Some part of his mind was begging himself not to make the call. He had seen enough to know when injuries weren't treatable, and miracle was a word that rarely was within their dictionary. The logical part of his mind knew, but the emotional part of his mind hoped.

The thought hit him all at once, as though his body was submerged in ice cold liquid only to be replaced with warmth. Yuuko-san. She could do something. She would do something, because she cared for Watanuki perhaps more than all of them put together. If he doubted any part of the mysterious shopkeeper, Doumeki did not doubt her love for Watanuki.

She would do something.

"We need to take him to Yuuko-san," he said bluntly, after he had hung up with the emergency service. How he could explain why the ambulance would need to take them to a perpetually vacant lot in the center of town, he didn't know. It was trivial, Superficial. Compared to the things that Yuuko would have to do, Doumeki directing the ambulance to the shop was a small favor to ask.

He knew it wasn't beneficial, and perhaps even more potentially harmful towards their companion, but he couldn't leave Watanuki lie in a pile of glass and a pool of his own blood until the ambulance arrived. So, carefully, with gentleness reserved for only the most revered of tasks, Doumeki distinguished body from blood and broken glass, slowly and painstakingly, he lifted Watanuki into his arms and cradled him close to his chest until the ambulance could arrive. His skin was warm and sticky, the blood saturating his clothes even warmer and impossibly more sticky. The feeling made Doumeki's skin itch; he wanted to wash it away, he wanted to wash it all away, all of Watanuki's injuries, all of Watanuki's pain.

He swallowed back the rampant emotion beneath his skin. He could not afford to panic now, and he could not afford to falter.

He looked up at Kunogi, feeling the fear and the worry and the trepidation rising as he parted his dry lips to speak.

"We have a wish to make."

"You can help him, right, Yuuko-san?!"

Yuuko's presence was more encompassing than usual. Her face was stern, but not unkind, although without a trickle of emotion in her eyes. She just looked down at him calmly, as though Watanuki wasn't broken, battered, and covered in blood; as though Doumeki wasn't unsettled, and in the shop, and covered in Watanuki's blood. Doumeki was overwhelmed with exhaustion as he looked up at him.

"I can," Yuuko replied calmly, transferring her gaze to Kunogi. "But I require compensation."

Of course, Doumeki's mind supplied. It was expected, yet unwanted. Even still, he was here. "Take whatever you need," he said. It was enough that he was in the shop, that he was able to enter it. He had a wish, and he desperately wanted it granted. Needed. God, did he need it.

"It's a pricy thing, saving a life." Yuuko looked at the sliding door seperating them and Watanuki.

Doumeki curled his fingers into a fist. The drying blood on his knuckles crackled, flaked off. "What do you need?"

Yuuko seemed to speculate for a moment, and then turned back to him. "Life."

The jolt that Doumeki supposed ought to have come with that statement did not. He continued to look up at her evenly, hands clenched at his sides, and did not doubt his resolve for a moment. "Do it."

Yuuko regarded him for a long moment, and then smiled with a tenderness that left Doumeki longing for family, friends, anyone. Long, pale fingers extended and ran through his hair, and Doumeki only looked up at her tiredly as she ruffled his hair as though nothing else was happening.

"You are too good for this world, Doumeki-kun," she said softly.

Is that why I'm paying the price of my life to save someone else? he wondered for a moment before Yuuko continued, shattering his illusion of what was to happen.

"But, no, the meaning is not quite so literal. Watanuki has lost a lot of blood."

Oh. Now he understood. "Take mine," he said immediately.

Yuuko assented with a nod. "Yes... and..."

"What can I do?" Kunogi asked.

"... His scars will be extensive," Yuuko said slowly. "If you were to take on the scars he would no doubt have from this experience, I would say that the price would be even. There is an additional party at play, as well."

What? Doumeki wondered, but Kunogi was agreeing to the price and the payment, so effortlessly like he had, and so suddenly, Doumeki was so tired. He reached out to steady himself against the door, leaving a bloody handprint in its wake. And that blood was fresh, and dark, and flowing, and he looked dumbly at his own palm to see blood oozing from nowhere, an invisible wound bleeding with a steady pace and no pain.

"Sleep now, Doumeki-kun." Yuuko passed her fingers against his cheek in the softest of touches, and her skin came away stained with blood. "All will be right when you awaken."

He had little choice, whether through a recent lack of sleep, worry, apparent blood loss, or some other supernatural element at work. His eyes slipped closed, and only by sliding to the floor could he prevent collapsing. He heard a soft noise of pain, one that didn't come from him, realizing belatedly that Kunogi must be fulfilling her payment as well.

He had to speak. He had to find the will, the will to make the wish. "... Save him," he mumbled, whispered, a plea, hands falling heavily to the floor as he was overtaken with a soft and encompassing darkness.

He awoke in the middle of the night, confused at first why he was sitting in the hallway of an unfamiliar building with blood dried onto his skin. And then he remembered, remembered everything, and cast a long look towards the closed door behind him before getting to his feet.

There was a single kimono sat in the hallway next to where he had been sitting, where his blood and Watanuki's blood had mingled and dried onto the wall, the floor, his clothes. Doumeki hesitated and, moving slowly, gathered the kimono and found his way to the bathroom.

Most ot he blood was caked on, and he would require a thorough shower when he returned home (whenever), but for the time being he scrubbed the substance from his face and hands with frightening determination, and changed from his clothes into the kimono Yuuko had provided.

He wasn't sure where the shopkeeper was, although he expected that she was asleep. He didn't know where Kunogi had gone, either, or even if she was still here. He doubted that she would have left Watanuki, left any of them, in such a situation. More likely, Yuuko had provided her with a futon, and she was sleeping with the rest of them. He didn't feel the need to check on her, but he couldn't resist the urge to see for himself that their efforts hadn't gone unrewarded, and that Watanuki was still alive. Still with them.

He let himself into Watanuki's sick room without regard to courtesy. More likely than not, Watanuki was still asleep, and so was the rest of the shop. Common courtesy also had very little standing when it regarded their group to begin with.

He slid the door closed behind him, folding his hands into his sleeves. The dusky atmosphere of the room provided him with little to see, but there was comfort in hearing the reassuring inhale and exhale of Watanuki breathing in the darkness.

"... Doumeki...?"

Doumeki jumped slightly, trying to look more closely at the form in the bed. "... You're awake...?"

"Mmm..."

Doumeki moved away from the doorway, padding silently closer to the bed. "Go back to sleep."

The verbal backlash didn't come to Doumeki's blatant command. Instead, Watanuki just looked up at him wearily, nothing in his eyes except exhaustion, and a vacant sort of thing that Doumeki had only seen in Watanuki's eyes twice: once, on the riverbed, and second, as the spirit woman had faded away.

"Why are you... here, Doumeki?" he asked slowly, like the question was a difficult one to ask.

"Hm?"

"... You aren't... supposed to be here," Watanuki mumbled. "In the shop..."

Doumeki tilted his head slightly. Wasn't it obvious. "Had a wish."

Watanuki stared at him blankly. "... What was it?"

"I have to protect the things I care about," Doumeki said, and whatever else he may had added or how Watanuki may had responded was interrupted by a wave of vertigo that nearly put Doumeki on the floor. He had to catch the bedpost for support, which prompted a concerned

"What's wrong?" from Watanuki.

"Tired." He wasn't going to give him the real reason. Watanuki would try to make some ridiculous wish to give his blood back, or some equally as moronic ideal. And on top of that, it would probably hurt Watanuki to know that he had hurt - unknowingly - someone else, even if Doumeki didn't mind the pain.

"Why are you awake, then?" Watanuki sighed, shifting slightly. He winced and then froze up, mumbling an "ow" under his breath.

"Could ask you the same thing," Doumeli replied.

"Yeah..." Watanuki laughed breathlessly. "... but I asked first."

The lack of rude comments worried Doumeki more than he would admit. "I just woke up."

Watanuki blinked sleepily. "... You're sleeping here?"

Doumeki nodded once.

"Oh." Watanuki's eyes fluttered shut.

He ought to let him sleep, Doumeki reasoned, but something couldn't bring him to leave. Instead, he raised his gaze to the window in the room, the one with the blue silk and patterned with butterflies. The blinds were drawn, and the moonlight seeping through wasn't enough light to really see much of anything.

"... You could sit down."

Doumeki looked back at Watanuki. "What?"

Watanuki wasn't looking at him, his head turned away. "... You look horrible."

Doumeki raised his eyebrows. Same to you. He didn't say it out loud, though, and hesitated only for a moment before sinking onto the foot of the bed. He would do whatever Watanuki asked of him. If he demanded Doumeki jump off a cliff, Doumeki would do it, provided that it was for good reason and not because he'd eaten the last piece of food in the bento.

"You never did say... what your wish was," Watanuki mumbled, "and the com...pen..." he trailed off with a sigh. He should not be talking.

"Is it really that difficult to guess," Doumeki intoned.

Watanuki opened his eyes again, heterochromia blue and gold meeting Doumeki's gaze briefly. There was emotion, then, in those mismatched eyes, and Doumeki looked away. "Go back to sleep," he said, in a tone he hoped was brooking no argument.

Watanuki didn't respond, although he did yawn, and that was an answer in itself.

"Doumeki's back!"

"He's back!"

"Yo! Did you bring more saké?"

"Now, now, Maru, Moro, Mokona. Let our esteemed guest get in the door," Yuuko's reprimanding voice echoed from the hallway.

"Yes, Mistress!"

"In the door!"

"Saké!"

Wondering if Watanuki received this type of greeting every time that he returned to the shop, or if it was reserved for just him, he stepped out of his shoes and headed down the hallway.

"Nice to see you again, Doumeki-kun," Yuuko greeted. She was stretched out on the chaise, too much smoke in the air and too much skin revealed beneath her silk yukata, looking more lethargic than he thought perhaps he had seen her. But he knew what she desired from him, and he reached for the wrapped bottle and held it out to her. It wasn't a gift, because she didn't accept such things, but he had received shelter and food for a few days prior, staying with Watanuki in his free time, and they had decided his saké would make up for it.

Her eyes lit up as Doumeki offered her the bottle, and her lazy demeanour was instantly gone. "Oooh, this is the good stuff!" Her yukata slipped from her shoulder as she sat up and grabbed the bottle, looking at it lovingly. "Doumeki-kun, you dog. You're quite the supplier!"

"Saké!" Mokona cheered into Doumeki's ear, bounding away from the perch on his shoulder and straight onto Yuuko's lap. It reached its small arms towards the bottle, holding it as lovingly as the shopkeeper herself was looking at it. Small wonders, Doumeki thought, and his thoughts inevitably returned towards one of his own.

"How's Watanuki?" he intoned.

It had been six days since Watanuki had last woken up. Doumeki wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. The bespectled seer had gone through quite the ordeal, and yet, it wasn't a natural thing for someone to sleep so long.

Yuuko smiled at him over the bottle. "He was just awake within the hour. I left him to rest."

Doumeki's eyes widened infinitesimally. He turned and strode for Watanuki's current room.

"My, he can move as quickly as our Watanuki."

"But Doumeki-kun doesn't make as many funny faces!"

Yuuko and Mokona's voice chased him down the hallway, but Doumeki ignored them. He curled his fingers against the door and slid it open slightly, peering into room. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure what to say, and he didn't want to wake him up if he had already gone back to sleep.

"You can come in."

Doumeki sighed quietly. "You're awake." He pushed the door open and then closed it behind him, folding his arms behind his back. He stayed near to the door, and watched the fragile, bandaged body in the bed with some hesitation.

He was certain that he would never be able to fully get over seeing Watanuki in that moment: lifeless on the ground, covered in blood and surrounded by glass.

He blinked to dissolve the memory, and looked to Watanuki for response.

"Yeah... after six days," Watanuki murmured.

Doumeki stood silently, knowing that Watanuki would inevitably continue - which he did.

"Have you..." Watanuki shifted, shuffling over onto his side with a grimace that was full of pain. His eyes found Doumeki from across the room, looking needlessly all the more feeble without his usual glasses. "Have you been here the whole time?"

"I've been at school." But in the meantime, of course.

"Right..."

Doumeki stepped away from the door. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired... still." Watanuki's eyes blinked, and stayed closed a second too long as though to prove that statement. "Stiff... sore... I fell out of a window."

Doumeki allowed him a brief nod. Fell out of a window because of Kunogi's bad luck, and because Doumeki hadn't been there to blockade that supernatural influence.

"I can barely move," Watanuki sighed, and there was definitely a little bit of a whine in his voice. If there was that, only the slightest, then he knew that Watanuki really was improving.

"You shouldn't be."

"Mmm... Yuuko-san told me the same thing." He blinked again, and his eyes stayed closed this time. "... but I can rely on you to help me, I s'pose..."

Doumeki lifted an eyebrow, looking at his companion curiously. Months ago and Watanuki would have been mortified at the idea, but now he was offering to let him carry, while maybe not in the physical sense, some of the burden.

"Yes," he said solemnly. Because that was what he had chosen to do. Half of the burden. He would do what it took for Watanuki.

Watanuki laughed breathily. "... Thanks."

Watanuki's eyes were still closed, and Doumeki was still unbeknowest to what flashed in Watanuki's eyes when he actually had to say that. He wondered how he felt.

"... Go back to sleep," he murmured.

"That's all you can say?" Watanuki retorted, eyes opening a slit. "... Jerk."

"Sleep," Doumeki repeated. And then, quietly, under his breath: "... Moron..."

"What?"

This is a rewrite of my story from years ago: Most of All. I knew very little about xxxHolic then, and I wanted to rewrite it with the intention of making it better. Because, hopefully, I'm a better writer than I was four years ago.

Carry onto the second chapter for DouWata!