A/N: Time for another Douwata fic. Out of my years of fanfic writing, both Love Like You Wanted It and Meanings of Sacrifice have been two the favorite stories I've written, so I wanted to try my hand again at this pairing, this time with a little bit of a more lighthearted setting (the angst will we back again before I know it, I'm sure). Hope you enjoy!

Rating: T, for some friskiness.

Spoilers/Timeline: Spoilers only for the Dream Merchant, and chronologically happens after Watanuki gets introduced to the dream world and dream selling (in other words, not long after he meets Haruka)

Disclaimer: The boys belong to CLAMP, and the way I've made them belong to each other belongs to me.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

But a Dream Within a Dream.

Watanuki was exhausted by time he finally made it to school. He'd had a long night courtesy of Yuuko, Mokona, and the substantial cache of French wines the shop had received as payment for a wish Yuuko had forced Watanuki to undertake for her. Even though he wasn't a particularly big drinker, Watanuki had demanded the reward go directly to him since he had done all the leg work in earning it, but Yuuko for once had promised to cut down on his hours working in the shop if he agreed to share the wealth. Watanuki thought the bargain had been worth it initially, but six straight hours of Yuuko and Mokona singing the latest radio hits and gossiping about Syaoran's group of travelers without a sense of volume control had changed his mind.

"Three hours of sleep," he groaned, burying his face into his desk. "And then they woke me up, from a nightmare no less, demanding hangover medicine and water. At least I found some time to make Himawari-chan her favorite cookies since I was already awake anyways."

"They're good," came a flat voice from beside him. He turned his head and cracked open an eye to see Doumeki with the unwrapped package of cookies in his hands, biting into one of the treats without bothering to look guilty over it.

Most days, this would have sent Watanuki off into one of his fits, but lack of sleep and a headache numbed him enough to where he could only glare and tell Doumeki off with a waspish, "Save at least five for Himawari-chan, or I'll wipe that stupid look off your face."

Doumeki polished off the first cookie and picked up a second. "Kunogi won't be coming today. One of her neighbors is in the hospital, and her family is paying their respects."

"AND HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?"

"We had to trade off cleaning duties, so she called the temple. And since she can't be here, I'll finish these cookies for her."

Watanuki grumbled insults under his breath, but didn't stop Doumeki from working his way through the rest of them. It was pointless; if he yanked them away, he wouldn't have anyone else to give them to, and even if he bothered to protest, it wasn't as if Doumeki would stop. He had a whole-hearted love affair with Watanuki's cooking, and even though Watanuki hated to admit it, he was somewhat flattered by the way Doumeki would go through any lengths to get his hands on whatever the other boy had made for him or someone else. Himawari always appreciated the bento they shared, but Doumeki was the one sneaking more than his fair share and demanding extra helpings of Watanuki's best recipes.

"I had a good dream last night," Doumeki said, pulling out the last cookie and holding it in his hands. "To pay you back, I'll tell you about it."

Watanuki shook his head. "Bad idea." He couldn't remember why at the moment— his brain felt stale and heavy with exhaustion— but he knew from some prior experience that he wasn't supposed to get involved with the dreams of others unless he wanted to face the natural consequence of the exchange.

"Can you tell me why it's a bad idea?" Doumeki pressed.

All Watanuki could remember was a creature like a trunkless elephant who carried around a handful of balloons. Or was that a figure from a dream he'd had? He could hardly keep it straight sometimes. The more he explored the world Yuuko lived in, the more lost he became in its many intricacies, the blend between reality as he knew it and legend, and the surprising intermingling of spirits with the everyday forces most humans were aware of. He wondered half the time if the things he saw were just figments of dreams.

"Something about balloons," he said finally, yawning into his hands. Why did Doumeki have to pick today of all days to be conversational? After a full night's sleep, Watanuki was usually in fighting form and could easily shriek away these annoying interactions, but just now he couldn't muster it. He was beginning to wonder if Yuuko had done this on purpose, and was currently laughing the day away with Mokona back in the shop for yet again causing him grief.

"Balloons," Doumeki echoed. He still hadn't eaten the last cookie yet, and was staring at it with his usual lack of expression. "The dream started at my family's temple—"

"Didn't I tell you not to say anything?"

"I can't say anything because of balloons." He said the word without inflection, but it still managed to sound scathing. Watanuki lifted his head up to glare at Doumeki, but the other boy was still gazing at his remaining cookie, the one in the shape of a bird. Watanuki sighed. That was the one he had been especially looking forward to Himawari accepting, since he had spent the most time on shaping it.

"Anyways, the dream started at my family's temple," Doumeki continued when Watanuki couldn't elaborate on his balloon remark. "It was hanabi season, and you and I were watching from the temple in our yukata—"

"Was Himawari-chan there?"

"No."

"Then I don't really want to hear it."

"That's not going to stop me from saying it."

Watanuki frowned, covering his ears and humming just to spite him. Doumeki shrugged and continued the narrative in any case, and every now and then when Watanuki paused to catch his breath, he could hear scattered words of it here and there. Sweet tea... moon... skin... heat. Knowing Doumeki, it would be the kind of dream where he would have to cook a huge meal in the end, while everyone else in the world except Watanuki got to enjoy it. Why couldn't Doumeki had been given the nightmare instead of him?

The moment Doumeki's mouth stopped moving, Watanuki lifted his hands from his ears and watched as the other boy finally took care of the bird shaped cookie with a lick of his lips.

"What's so great about two guys watching hanabi without Himawari-chan?" he asked, his normal thought process returning to him bit by bit. "She looks so cute in her yukata, too."

"You'll see soon enough, since you didn't bother to listen." Doumeki wrinkled the cloth heart patterned wrapper and lobbed it at Watanuki's head. "And since I shared that with you, you could at least tell me what your problem is today. You're too quiet."

"Problem? How ungrateful to the one who is deigning to allow you to speak. If you must know, Yuuko and Mokona drank enough bottles of wine to fill a swimming pool, and they kept me up all night singing and demanding that I cook them something to go with their drinks. And when I finally did get to sleep, I had to put up with this stupid dream about..." He trailed off, biting his lip. "Well, that's not important."

"I already told you my dream, you know."

"And I clearly didn't listen."

"That's not my fault. Don't be stingy."

"I'm not stingy." Watanuki folded his arms across his chest and sighed. "It was about Himawari-chan not liking something I made for her. That's all."

He hoped this was not too transparent of a lie; he did often voice concerns of Himawari's approval or disapproval of his cooking, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to pretend he'd been troubled by a dream in which he'd failed to meet her standards. At least he hoped Doumeki would assume it was reasonable and leave it at that.

"We'll see," was all Doumeki said. He wasn't smiling, but there was something in his eyes that spoke of mischief, which made Watanuki shift in his seat in discomfort. If he was feeling like himself, he'd quash whatever Doumeki had in mind before it developed further, but today he just didn't have the energy. The headache nursing in his skull had something to do with it, but the true dream playing through his mind was an even more bothersome trial to contend with. He had spent nearly sleepless nights in Yuuko's shop before, and what he was feeling now had little to do with her or how much sleep she had kept him from getting. What was going on in his heart was something else entirely.

Watanuki buried his head on his desk again. Please, just let this day be over. I don't want to think about it anymore. But he could feel Doumeki's eyes on him as he squirmed in his seat, and not a single secret of his felt safe, not even in the fortress of his mind. He had a feeling that everything was going to come out in the open somehow, and it would, as it always did, come out badly for him.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Now, now, what's this?" Yuuko asked when Watanuki collapsed through the door of the shop and sprawled out on the ground.

"What's this, what's this?" Maru and Moro echoed, dancing around his body. "Watanuki's dead! Watanuki's dead."

"No, I could see that on my own." Yuuko grabbed her assistant by the collar and shoved her face in front of him. "I was just thinking that you had entered into yet another contract unwillingly. It seems our Watanuki will never learn, will he?"

"It doesn't matter," Watanuki groaned, falling limp within Yuuko's grip. "Just give me a few hours of sleep. Just a few hours, and we can talk about it."

"Hmm. Considering the nature of your transaction, it seems I will have to allow it. The possibility is too amusing to pass up. But be aware that your desire to sleep may have a price you weren't expecting... quite the intimate price, too."

"Whatever you say, Yuuko-san," Watanuki mumbled, dragging his body down to the guest bedroom. He was half afraid of falling asleep even without her warning, the memory of last night's dream still fresh in his mind. But that was a fluke, he coached himself, resting his head on the pillow. If you dwell too much on it, you'll never get any sleep for weeks. Think of something good. Think of Himawari-chan.

As he drifted off, he thought he could hear Yuuko laughing in the next room over, her soft voice cooing a Poor Watanuki as Maru and Moro and Mokona echoed her words, heralding in a new dream with their conspiratorial joy.

0o0o0o0o0o0

When he opened his eyes, he was sitting on the engawa of Doumeki's house and eating a watermelon. It was a warm evening, and he could feel beads of sweat collecting on his forehead and how nice and cool the melon felt in his mouth, its juice trickling slightly out of the corner of his lips.

"It's still summer," he noted, fanning himself with his hand. "How did I get here? Wasn't I...?" He tried to remember where he was fifteen minutes earlier, but couldn't.

"Here."

He turned around to see Doumeki holding out a glass of sweet tea for him to take, his body covered in a navy blue yukata that fit his athletic body neatly. Watanuki accepted the glass and took a sip before blinking and shaking his head in confusion. "Wait a minute," he asked, scooting over as Doumeki took a seat beside him. "Why are you wearing that right now?"

"Same reason you're wearing yours, idiot."

Watanuki glanced down at his lap. Doumeki was right: he was dressed in his summer yukata, and his feet were tucked into wooden sandals. He stared at them in confusion. He hadn't remembered wearing these earlier, or today being an occasion where he would need to. And why was he with Doumeki, anyways, rather than with Himawari or Yuuko?

"Hanabi," Doumeki clarified. "I invited you over to watch."

"Hanabi," Watanuki echoed. Something about hearing the term struck him as recent and familiar. "Is Himawari-chan here, too?"

"No. It's fine if it's just us. That's how I wanted it to be."

"WHAT?" Watanuki jerked his glass, and some of the tea spilled over onto his chest. "Don't say weird things like that! I wouldn't have come here if I had known you were going to act so strange."

Doumeki leaned into him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Watanuki. You've made a mess of yourself. Allow me." He began pulling at the sleeve of his yukata, tugging the damp fabric away from his skin.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not good to leave it like that. You might catch a cold."

"Not in this weather, I won't. Hands off."

"But your skin. I want to see it." Doumeki eased the rest of the fabric from his shoulders, and it slipped down to his waist. "It's pale, like the moon."

Watanuki tried to cover himself with his hands, his eyes widening. "Doumeki, what are you—"

His hands were pushed away, and his chest once again exposed. "Want to see you," Doumeki said again, running his hands along the lines of Watanuki's stomach. "I want to know what you feel like."

"T-that isn't your business!" Watanuki yelled, scurrying backwards to keep himself out of Doumeki's grip. The skin of Doumeki's fingers tickled, but felt strangely comforting, a cooling touch on his heated skin. He didn't want to feel it anymore. The more he gave in, the closer he would have to come to acknowledging that other than the shock of it, it didn't really bother him. He'd watched Doumeki's hands on a bow before, and that was how they felt against him; steady and deliberate, focused and intent.

Doumeki's arms snaked out and trapped him by the waist. "Don't run," he ordered, pulling Watanuki against him again. "It feels better when you're close."

"It's too hot for this," Watanuki tried to protest, although that had to be last on his list of worries. "But more than that, this is—"

Without warning, Doumeki leaned forward to trap Watanuki's lips underneath his own. Watanuki cried out in surprise, but the sound was muffled by Doumeki's mouth and its slow movements against his. He could taste sweet tea and watermelon on his teeth, and even more alluring, the feeling of his breath moving inside him, and then his tongue as it broke through Watanuki's lips and teased his skin. He was finding it hard to think or object, even though he knew it was necessary to do the former to lead toward the latter and end this embrace he had not consented to. But consent or no consent, the word 'no' stuck in his throat, and his hands balled into Doumeki's yukata rather than pushing him away. Somewhere, in a distant place they no longer inhabited, the first of the fireworks were exploding in the air.

When they pulled apart, Watanuki realized he had somehow ended up pinned to the engawa by Doumeki's larger frame. The other boy was looking down at where he held Watanuki in his arms, his eyes made bright by the moon overhead and the flashes of color above them, first red than yellow than green. Watanuki couldn't tell if the resounding burst he heard around him was the light exploding in the sky or his own traitorous heart.

"Watanuki," Doumeki murmured, drawing his finger across his prize's lips. "Is it okay like this?"

"I... I don't understand..." Watanuki pulled his eyes away and looked at the spot over Doumeki's head. The firework that came to life in front of him was in the shape of a heart; he had to be dreaming.

"Idiot," Doumeki muttered, turning Watanuki's head back to him. "There's only one reason for this. Is it that hard to understand?"

"But for me, I—"

"You're the person I want to be here with. Every year. Every season."

Watanuki's mouth fell open. He stared into Doumeki's unblinking eyes, but he could tell it wasn't a joke. He had never looked so serious in his life, which was something unlikely to begin with, but it was real. He could see it in front of him, he could reach his hands out to feel that expression, he could taste a kiss again if he wanted, he could hear how they breathed in and out together, he could smell the way their different scents mixed together on their joined skin.

"This has to be a dream," he said aloud, closing his eyes. He couldn't bear it any longer. He couldn't bear knowing whether or not he was living in dreams again, or whether this was what he wanted or what he was fooling himself to believe in.

"It doesn't have to be," Doumeki whispered into his ear. "Even if you wake up, this doesn't have to be a dream. This was my wish, and only by waking up can you make it come true. So wake up, Watanuki. Wake up."

Wake up, wake up, wake up...

0o0o0o0o0o0

"WAKE UP!" Mokona shrieked into Watanuki's ear before leaping onto his forehead and jumping up and down. "Yuuko says your sleepy time is up!"

"Mmm?" Watanuki swatted Mokona off of him and rubbed his eyes with one of his hands. A dream, he thought with a sigh. Only a dream.

It doesn't have to be.

A dream.

"Look, Watanuki was drinking tea in his sleep!" Mokona grabbed a half empty glass from his free hand and lifted it up in the air. "Watanuki's a sleep walker!"

"Not in this case," Yuuko corrected, taking the glass from Mokona. "This is the memento of a dream transaction that has been fulfilled. If we wish, we can preserve this to sell to the dream merchant for his personal collection."

"Dream merchant!" Watanuki yelled, sitting up in bed. "That's why I wasn't supposed to..." He trailed off, losing his train of thought. "Wait, a transaction? That dream was because of a transaction?"

"Yes. Between you and Doumeki, I assume. He told you his dream today for the price of the cookie you put the most of your love in, did he not?"

"But I wasn't listening!"

"It doesn't matter. The terms were made, and you allowed him to speak aloud his dream and accept the price he had chosen. Just as you have once before, you purchased his dream."

"That was Doumeki's... ALL OF IT?"

"Your actions within the dream were your own, but the setting and circumstances were of his choosing." Yuuko grinned. "Why, did you not find it to your liking?"

Watanuki stared at the glass of iced tea in Yuuko's hands. "If you sell that to the dream merchant, will he know what the dream was?"

"He certainly will. As will the one who buys it from him." She shook the glass in her hand, causing the tea to churn back and forth. "It should get us a good price. It was an unusually good dream, after all."

"I'D RATHER DIE!" Watanuki shrieked, grabbing the glass back from her. "I won't let anyone else see this. It belongs to me!"

"Ahh, I see Watanuki has grown attached to Doumeki's dream. It was so lovely, after all. I suppose you can keep it, as long as you work to make up for sleeping all afternoon. Fair is fair."

Watanuki narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't happen to know what that dream was, too, would you?"

"What on earth would make you think that?" Yuuko chuckled to herself and winked. "Besides, what matters is whether you liked it. As it seems you did, surely there can be no complaints with this transaction." With another chuckle, she flounced out of the room, leaving Watanuki clutching on to his half empty glass of sweet tea.

"A dream," he murmured when everyone had left him. "A dream that doesn't have to stay a dream. Doumeki's dream."

He held the glass close to his heart. He wasn't quite sure what he would say when he saw Doumeki again. It was going to be awkward, and there was no avoiding the subject— this exchange had clearly happened because Doumeki wanted it to— but he couldn't exactly say what he wanted to outright, not without sacrificing a great deal of his pride along with it.

Suddenly he sat upright in bed, his heart racing. The other dream... was that exchanged, too? He had lied about it to Doumeki, and he couldn't remember accepting something that Doumeki had given him before or after telling it, unless the heart patterned cloth Doumeki had returned to him counted. It couldn't, right? That had belonged to Watanuki all along, and it wasn't Doumeki's to give. And even if it did count, would the fact he had lied about his dream assure that Doumeki would dream of Himawari turning down the goods he had made her?

He pulled his hands through his hair and grit his teeth. He was right; this was turning out badly for him, after all.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Back at his house, Doumeki was sleeping in peace underneath his covers. Filling his head was a vision of a long buffet table filled with cakes and his favorite dinners, each cooked to perfection and smelling of Watanuki's expert handiwork. Watanuki himself was setting the table, his apron coming untied a bit and slipping down his back.

"For me?" Doumeki asked, taking a seat.

"D-don't get the wrong idea about this!" Watanuki insisted, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. "These are all leftovers from the meal Yuuko made me cook for her!"

"You usually make Yuuko-san omurice with 'I love you' written on it?"

"I meant that the ingredients were leftover!" Watanuki's face was turning a lovely shade of pink, which made Doumeki feel satisfied with himself for bringing the words up to begin with.

"Did you mean what you wrote, though?"

"I... I... it's Valentine's Day, so I thought I was obligated to do something nice for you."

"You were obligated to write 'I love you'?"

"Well... I..." Giving up, Watanuki fell onto his knees and thrust a bag of homemade chocolate into Doumeki's hands. "I'm sorry, but I can't lie anymore. Please go out with me, Doumeki! I've had feelings for you from the very beginning!"

Doumeki stared at him. "Oi, are you for real?" That wasn't something Watanuki would say in a million years. Even if this was a dream, as he knew it was, he could barely process the sight of Watanuki acting like a lovelorn school girl, professing his love as if it were really so simple to transition from being one sided rivals to lovers at the drop of a hat.

"Of course I'm telling the truth," Watanuki said, a few passionate tears gathering in his eyes. "Do you think this is easy for me? I like you, but... it's just so... so... so embarrassing. I hardly know what to say around you anymore."

Doumeki blinked. "Idiot," he said finally. "So that's what you were trying to hide from me?"

Watanuki's shoulders slumped. "Idiot? Does that mean you..."

Instead of answering him directly, Doumeki leaned forward and placed a kiss on his lips. Tomorrow was going to be such an interesting day at school, just like he hoped it would be. Although something told him that this version of Watanuki was going to be a lot more forthcoming than the real one. It was too bad, really. He looked so cute the way he was now, wordlessly gawking at Doumeki's lips as they drew away, just as he had in the dream that had been Doumeki's wish for him.

In his sleep, Doumeki's hands clenched around a bag of chocolates, the memento of a contract fulfilled.

0o0o0o0o0o