My Hands

(Author intro, you may skip if you wish)

As you walk into H.E.N today you find the mood rather somber. The mistress isn't even typing away at her typewriter; instead the girl is ruining her ruffles on the floor as she attempts to stack two sand castles on top of each other. You pause at the door, unsure of how to greet the situation but are saved the awkward entry as Skrit scuffles up to you with a very battered brown leather book.

"Read that's if you wants' something" he lisps out before moving to the large messy desk and beginning to clear away empty sake bottles. The bottles distract you for a moment as you take in the pretty containers that are made of frosted glass with goldfish painted over the surface. You find it hard to believe by the sheer number of them that the mistress of the establishment had finished them all herself. Perhaps that explained the sandcastles?

"Skrit finds that specials for you" The pygmy looks at Lady Rouge pointedly for a moment before sighing and pointing at the scrappy brown book in your hands. "She was goings to trashes it"

Lady Rouge: "No comment. This story was buried for a reason"

Interested despite yourself, you take a seat in your normal chair and flick the cover open. It can't hurt to take a look.

Songfic xxxHolic fan-fiction of a sort. Disclaimer: Clamp owns it. I borrow because they just have so much unwritten potential. Song: Leona Lewis – My Hands. God damn FF13 Trailer! Hearing that for 9 hours a day at work… Little wonder where this monstrosity came from!
Genre: ...Angst? And Romance? There was a Bloody reason it was buried!
Rating: (M) to be safe. Bits get a little violent here and there.
Warnings: The main story is between two guys. Don't Like? Don't Read. Also, I like to make people cry. I will not apologize!

Lady Rouge: This song is not my normal listening genre, it just won't leave me. Therefore I may as well put it to good use.

Prologue

It was not as he had imagined it would be.

The earth did not break, rain didn't pour from the heavens, and the stars did not dance. He had simply opened the door one night, and she had been standing there. A fourteen year old vision in a simple school uniform, her dark hair flowing freely around her shoulders and her red eyes smiling at him with an unworldly humor.

Over a hundred years after she had left, the shops master had returned.

There had been no formal procession as the shop had changed hands. She had simply taken his hand gently and pulled him forward until he had stood at the front gates, at the very edge of the shops reality.

"Thank you Kimihiro Watanuki. Your price has been paid in full" Her soft hand had moved to his chest, right above his heart. "Now you don't have to live alone anymore. Live, and finally find your true happiness"

She had pushed, and he had fallen.

As his body tumbled to the asphalt on the other side, the rain had fallen with him. In the real world the rain had been falling for hours, and quickly went about assimilating him into its reality. In moments he was soaked to the bone, the ornate kimono he had been wearing turning to a waterlogged burden of see-through white silks and fraying embroidery.

The pain had come suddenly.

Still face down on the pavement where he had fallen, Watanuki grazed his bottom lip as his mouth tore open in a scream. His chest seized up, and pins and needles flowed in every vein of his body. Bones shattered and ligaments tore themselves into new shapes. His scalp burned as if all his hair was being torn out, and his clothes shredded themselves as his figure transformed. His hands fisted in pain, and his body withering in agony. He could not have told you when he came to be kneeling, yet as he twisted the gold cord that had hung an innocent moon ornament at his throat constricted and began to choke him. Grasping the gold, he ripped it from his neck and arched his back as a new wave of agony assaulted him. Arms and legs that had already been long and graceful elongated to proportion with his growing frame. His dark hair that had been cropped short flowed in a sudden bloom until it fell onto the street beneath him, and in a final act of cruelty, his scream deepened as it hit its crescendo and his vocal cords ripped his throat raw.

He was no longer a boy. He was now a man.

He slumped forward as the pain subsided and released him from its administrations, but even the cold concrete did not sooth the burn that still pumped in his blood. Somewhere in the back of his clouded mind, a voice told him that it was his magic, reacting to this dimension and growing with his body. Within moments, it was a raging torrent that pounded in his ears and made his teeth ache. The pressure was building, and the little that he had learned of his powers was not enough to contain the thunderous surge that was hammering through him now.

He needed a release.

Hands moving without a conscious thought, they reached out and found the first thing that they could grasp. The moon ornament that had hung against his throat during the day dug into his hand and sliced it open effortlessly. Blood flowed out as easily as the rain fell down, and suddenly, the magic had a destination.

The agony moments before had only been a precursor.

Watanuki's sight blacked out as he released another scream into the night. Both hands closed over the ornament, and the golden shard made quick work of them. Magic shattered and ripped all in its way as it flowed into its new home. His blood glowed silver as it left his mutilated hands, flowing both into the gold moon, and down with the rain to pool about his broken self. The rain stopped as the sky rumbled and the clouds split, pouring clear white light onto the scene from the real lunar host above.

Watanuki had received a blessing from the moon itself.

The red eyes that watched on filled with tears at the sight. Without the pain it would have been beautiful. Holding her hand out just beyond the threshold of the store, the girl held out a handful of sakura blossoms. They were taken by the wind instantly and spiraled away in the shape of a swallowtail butterfly, the rain mysteriously doing nothing to hinder their progress.

"Thank you Kimihiro Watanuki. Your price has been paid in full"

The glow subsided, but did not quiet vanish as Watanuki's body slumped onto the concrete for a second time. The body had grown, the magic had been passed, and the moon had blessed its new caster. Her job was done now. There was only one thing left.

"You must go now; this chapter of your life is over and you will never see this shop again"

Glazed blue eyes watched on distantly as the lights of the shop went out one by one. The trees vanished, and the lot before him became insubstantial to his sight. 'No' he thought absently, reaching towards the fence as the wood shimmered a myriad of rainbows. 'Please, this place is my home; I know nothing of the world anymore!'

"You must go now; you must find a new purpose in this new world."

"Please I have a wish!" he choked out, his voice a little more than a rasp as panic forced clarity back into his eyes. The shop owner simply looked at him as the lot continued to vanish. 'Please don't do this…'

"I'm sorry Kimihiro Watanuki, but I cannot grant that wish. You must go now; and live"

There was no bright flash and no loud noise. The stars didn't dance, and earth didn't break. The shop simply faded away in a patter of rain. The clouds closed above, and the heavy rain began to fall once again on the wreck of a man far below. The world returned to its normal state and life moved on.