Summary: Doumeki is feeling ill, Watanuki is taking action and Yuuko is a peeping tom. (Some Doumeki x Watanuki)

AN and Spoiler warning for this author note: the xxxholic manga killed me this month. Killed me ded, as it were. Also, in an interview I read with clamp, I think I know more about the ending of xxxholic than I want to… sighs maa.

Warnings: Unedited. Slightly higher rating for … er… well, yeah.

Lucky Charm

It was hot and he could not move. But it was silent. There were no cicadas or wind chimes; there was just the heat weighing down on him, preventing him from moving. Or maybe. Maybe he didn't want to move.

It was pleasurable torture, making him question his decency. His thoughts had grown hot. Swirling around in his mind without pattern or association every image seemed to swim and ripple like the end of the road on a summer afternoon. It was agonizing. With no way to resist the sensation there was nothing left to do but to experience it in every detail with all his body. To let it consume all of his body. To let it hold him and burn him and tease him until he was breathless.

These were fiery dreams, even for someone like him. It was white-hot with a constant red glow on every bit of skin exposed and sweat trickled and evaporated because of the blaze it created. The sun on that same summer afternoon had clawed its way into his stomach and was burning away his insides. His mind was smouldering around the edges and his breathy gasp rung loud in his ears, supplied him with scorched air and gave no release. Not yet.

But almost.

Almost…

He knew he was still digging his fingers into the sheets when he opened his eyes.

He knew Watanuki was sitting right next to him.

He didn't know how long the boy had been there.

"Good afternoon." Watanuki said, though his face didn't mirror that sentiment.

Doumeki cleared his throat to the best of his abilities and waited for his heartbeat to slow down.

"When did you…?"

Watanuki huffed. "'Thank you for looking after me' is what you want to say, right?"

Doumeki swallowed before responding, but regretted it immediately. Watanuki used that chance to continue.

"Then I believe it is 'Sorry for causing you so much trouble', isn't it?"

Doumeki took the water Watanuki held out for him and sipped it as well as he could without getting up.

"How about 'I recognize that I was wrong and Watanuki was right and I brought this upon my-"

"Hn." Doumeki interrupted, putting the cup down on its side and closing his eyes again. He was sticky, and sweaty and would not move as long as Watanuki was in the room.

He could hear the boy pick it up and refill it and imagined what he would see when he would open his eyes. After all this time of watching Watanuki, it was not hard to imagine the way he moved about, or the facial expression he had or even the thoughts going through his head. There were only a few moods he hadn't heard or seen Watanuki in. Though with all the information he had, he assumed his animated guess would be accurate. Doumeki could predict the boy's moods by simply listening to his breathing. So he could imagine how sharp it would be drawn in other situations, how raw it was expelled and how smooth it whispered over his skin in a hush.

"Damn."

Doumeki sat up so fast his vision fell behind.

"What are you doing?" Watanuki demanded immediately.

"Bath." Doumeki answered and got up with less grace than he would have liked. Watanuki made to grab his arm but Doumeki avoided that skilfully and wrapped his yukata tighter around him.

"I am going to the bathroom." Even if he had to crawl his way over, he was going to take a bath and cool down right now.

"Wait a minute!" Watanuki called after him. "Are you sure-"

"Yes." Doumeki said.

Watanuki moved his hands in big gestures.

"But, do you-"

"No." Doumeki said.

The boy looked like he wanted to say more, but remained quiet.

Doumeki struggled over to the bathroom, tore off his yukata, threw it in the hamper, locked the door and opened the window. Despite the cool air coming from outside the water was still too warm for his liking. Unfortunately he had both his hands firmly against the wall and if he moved he would topple over, so for the time being he let the hot beam of water stream down his back.

It had been a long time since he'd fallen ill and by now he'd forgotten how to deal with it. Three years ago he had caught some sort of bug that had taken out the entire archery-club. For days his fever had been so high he hadn't been able to leave his bed and at one point his family had considered taking him to hospital. Doumeki was not the type to get ill easily. Well, not anymore at least. Not for a long time.

After a minute Doumeki felt well enough to move, so he gathered his things and sat down to wash his hair. It was nice to get clean, it was always nice to relax and have a bath. It was a time to think, and Doumeki had always been fond of sitting and doing nothing, as his grandfather had always said.

It struck him as typical that years of well-taught discipline could so easily be reduced to nothing through a simple case of a cold. Maybe if he were made of stronger stuff.

Doumeki grunted. If that were the case he would not even be here, if that were the case he would have made different decisions a long time ago and this situation would never have been. In which case stronger stuff was not what he needed to be, since this life was fine. Doumeki made a point out of not regretting what he decided to do. To him a decision was something made when it was the best time for it. Something like 'the day you do it is-

"The day you do it is your lucky day, is what you're thinking, right?"

Doumeki stopped, waited for his stomach to sink back down and turned his head with his hands still in his hair.

Yuuko was leaning in through the window.

"Good morning!" She waved, and Doumeki had to admit he had to process this for a moment before he could answer. "A bath in the morning looks like an interesting night." Yuuko went on, smirking.

"I slept." Doumeki replied, continuing to work the shampoo into a lather.

"Hooo?" She leered.

"I am not discussing my dreams with a woman." Doumeki said simply. Grabbing the tub of water and pouring it out over his head, shivering slightly at the delicious cold and deciding to repeat the entire process.

"So it was scandalous! How unbecoming of a priest to be."

Doumeki smoothed his hair back and frowned.

"I have no intention of becoming a priest."

"Oh my, the tongue is not steel, yet it cuts." Yuuko sighed, and shrugged, for as far as that was possible, leaning through a window. "So tell me, tell me, what was the dream about? Did I make an appearance?"

Doumeki poured more cold water over his head and held the tub in his lap as he met Yuuko's expectant gaze with an empty one.

"I did!" She clapped her hands and hung over the windowsill even more, her breasts barely contained by her top, he hair hanging down in a straight black curtain and her feet probably in the air on the other side. "Come on, we're both adults, tell me."

"You had nothing to do with that part."

"So cruel."

Yuuko placed her hands against the wall and used them to push herself into the window even more. Her ass and feet were now visible, sticking in the air. A little bit further and Doumeki would have to explain to the rest of the shrine why there was a grown woman in his bath.

"Say, shouldn't you try to cover up?" Yuuko suggested, making a small circle in the air with her index finger.

"Why?" Doumeki said.

"Chivalry?" Yuuko smiled. "You are naked, and I am a woman."

With x-ray vision, Doumeki suspected.

"If you are embarrassed you can leave." He said.

"Hmm, you're no fun. I'm guessing people say 'he is expressionless' right? So it won't be embarrassing to tell me what I said in your dream."

"No." Doumeki admitted.

"Well?"

"What can you offer in return?"

Yuuko blinked.

"Eh?"

"I'm haggling." Doumeki said, getting into the bath.

Yuuko blinked twice more.

The birds stopped singing.

'And the world slowly spun to a hold', Doumeki thought.

Then Yuuko broke out in the widest grin he'd had seen her carry in all these years. Wider even than that time Watanuki had fallen asleep and the manjuu had drawn on his face and she had woken him up too late on purpose so he rushed off without checking himself.

And that had been a pretty big grin.

He'd never heard her laugh that loud either, and she could be a very loud drunk. He supposed he should revel in the fact he had the Witch of Time and Dimensions reduced to hanging limp through his bathroom window, laughing so hard she cried.

"Doumeki you are something else!" Yuuko choked out. "Ah, this is great, this is wonderful. You win! This fever has made you sharper! Oh yes, this is exactly the way I like it."

"In that case, we can do this after my bath."

Yuuko put a finger to her lips and exaggerated the process of thinking something over. After a second or so she cackled again.

"How about, no?"

Doumeki closed his eyes; feeling like his head was full off cottonwool and his mind full of butterflies. His ears were ringing with Yuuko's laughter.

"Oh, be more cheerful." She hiccupped. "You're ill, somebody has to keep an eye on you; you might as well talk to me now that I'm here, or do you want me to get Watanuki instead, huh?"

"Hnn." Doumeki replied, up to his chin in the water.

"You're so stubborn." She laughed, being the one hanging through the bathroom window of a shrine for a full hour.

"I can't believe it." Watanuki grumbled.

"I'm thirsty." Doumeki remarked.

"You're an idiot."

"I'm thirsty."

"There!" The boy said, slamming the cup down in front of Doumeki so hard the tea sloshed over the edges. The words on the papers started to dissolve, drifting away, forming serpentine patterns of green and black. Watanuki didn't even seem to care about his homework. "You're even more stupid than I thought."

One of these days that boy was going to pop a vein, Doumeki was sure of that.

"Just drink plenty, and sweat it out." Yuuko suggested, taking the tea from Watanuki.

"Plenty!" The manjuu agreed, nursing his cup of green tea. "Alcohol preferred." It remarked.

"Hmpf!" Watanuki snorted, mopping up the mess he'd made and laying each sheet of paper out on the floor to dry.

Doumeki had to admit though his real family wasn't here these people acted enough like the real thing to not notice the difference. They all even had the extra family traits such as nagging, invasion of privacy and bad advice. They all milled about him now that he was ill and fussed over him in their own way.

"Don't be grumpy, Watanuki." Yuuko smiled.

"Who is grumpy?"

They were a surrogate family. A makeshift family because they lacked the real thing, Doumeki had observed some time ago. All of them were just slightly too weird to completely function in society, but they were certainly too social and functional to ever consider something like hikikomori, if that were possible at all in these circumstances. Doumeki knew Watanuki spend a lot of time in Yuuko's shop, and he knew there were more people in there than just those two. People who couldn't leave.

It was almost like some sort of secret fan club. Access only to those too weird to pass for normal.

That thought was slightly unfair. Watanuki had been in the same school with Doumeki for many years now. In fact, they might have even been in the same class when they were young, Doumeki could not remember. Which was the point. He could not remember Watanuki, which meant all in all the boy acted normal enough. Loose from the dancing around in the corridor, of course. Doumeki remembered talk about a kid dancing in the corridor and screeching. It sounded a lot like Watanuki.

"I don't want this!" Watanuki said slowly after the silence.

"It might just be what you need." Yuuko said.

Watanuki sat down with his arms and legs crossed and put on his best scowl.

"To get that woman to leave, you mean?"

Yuuko nodded and stared in her tea. "She has been a good friend for very long…"

Watanuki and Doumeki exchanged a glance. How long 'long' was in Yuuko's world was something neither of them knew. It was probably longer than either of them cared for.

"I remember going out with her and her sisters, those were good times. Sometimes the others joined us; it would be a big party. It was back in the day that there was less constriction on travel. But, today I hardly see any of them anymore. They've grown jaded, sometimes completely stuck physically and mentally into their jobs. I always think it would be terrible to end up like that."

Neither Doumeki nor Watanuki moved. Yuuko continued, more at her own reflection than at them, tracing her finger over the edge of the cup.

"When she came to visit me, I knew it would not be like the olden days. I was glad to see her still. Jaded is bad, but jaded and knowing it, is even worse. I think she realized that and came to me to seek help. And that is why she's still here... She has been good company for a long time."

Yuuko fell silent, and with that everything fell silent. Even the manjuu didn't move.

"Buuuut company gets sour after a long time, right? At least that's what they say!" Yuuko laughed and drank her tea. "You don't know when you're happier, when they come or go. Aah, that hit the spot. Watanuki, another cup."

Watanuki poured out the tea without much comment or hesitation.

"Besides, I think our Watanuki here isn't build for the task." Yuuko teased.

"Of course not!" Watanuki said. "How many times do I have to tell you? I am a human. Human!"

"But quite a pitiful one. Doumeki here is ill because of you, and he doesn't complain."

Doumeki would rather have been left out of this family quarrel since, as Yuuko had pointed out, he was still feeling terrible.

"That's not true!" Watanuki said. "It's his own fault for giving me his luck. What type of person does that anyway, huh? It's stupid."

Doumeki didn't retaliate or answer that. Yuuko frowned a little.

"A person who wants to help you."

Watanuki glowered. "He should have asked for something practical."

"He did, but I could not let him do something that wasn't designed for him. So we had to discuss the price and the exchange. Eventually he figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

"How to help. You should thank him."

"Hnn." Watanuki said and glared.

Doumeki thought Watanuki's pout quite enough. He hadn't done it for the gratitude anyway; he knew he wouldn't get it that way. Actually all he wanted now was to go back to bed. Perhaps eat something. Anything that wouldn't turn his stomach and that wasn't tea.

"Well?" Yuuko said.

Watanuki took a deep breath, took another and opened his mouth.

"I'm hungry." Doumeki interrupted.

"There." Yuuko beamed. "An opportunity presents itself for you to repay him."

Watanuki grumbled something that was probably not very nice before talking to the floor.

"…there is okayu. I can heat it up for you."

"Tamagozake." Doumeki coughed.

"What? You're already ill, you have a fever! A magical fever, how can alcohol help you there?"

"Magic alcohol." Yuuko suggested.

"Tamagozake! Ta-ma-go-za-ke!" the manjuu sang, dancing in circles.

"Better to prevent than to regret." Yuuko added.

"But he is already ill!" Watanuki ground out slowly. "Don't use that as an excuse to drink! Besides you're the one who made him ill!"

"Ta-ma-go-za-ke!" the manjuu squealed.

Doumeki tripped over nothing.

"Watch where you're going." Watanuki said, slipping an arm around Doumeki's waist and holding him firmer.

Doumeki didn't say anything. Watanuki's hands were cold against his wrist, cold around his waist, even through the cloth.

"You're heavy." Watanuki said.

In the end, they had gotten their tamagozake, and even Watanuki had drunk some, in case Doumeki's luck didn't work, as he claimed. After Yuuko had coaxed the rest of the sake out of Watanuki –and Doumeki's kitchen, more importantly- the morality of the conversation had quickly declined and in the end Yuuko and Mokona had left inebriated and happy respectfully.

Doumeki hadn't drunk anything, apart from the first one.

"You shouldn't drink when you're ill, look at you." Watanuki groaned.

"You complain a lot." Doumeki said.

"You would complain in a situation like this."

"There is nobody to complain to for me. You are always unconscious."

Watanuki shoved Doumeki through the doorway with less love and care than a sick person was supposed to be treated with. Doumeki tripped over nothing again and after a short stumble and some cursing on Watanuki's part they ended on the bed in a heap.

Doumeki flinched when Watanuki put an elbow on his stomach.

"I was never so unlucky that I needed all your luck." Watanuki said suddenly.

"Hmm." Doumeki said when Watanuki had successfully extracted himself.

"How can you be so calm? You're ill because you have no luck. You can't live without luck. You need some, even if it's bad, but to give it all away, that is just stupid."

"Yes."

Doumeki lay back and sighed.

"Sorry. That is-" Watanuki bit his lip and placed a hand on Doumeki's forehead. "What can I do?"

Doumeki considered.

"You can go to work, watch the dog and do your homework."

The boy grimaced. "How about I go and quit?" He offered.

"Will you go to her?"

Watanuki nodded, removing his hand.

"Hey, I might be lucky and manage her to cheer up. If the deal was for you to have your luck back when I don't have to do this anymore, I will not do this anymore. It is so simple even an idiot like you can understand that."

"Hnn." Doumeki commented.

"Just try to... to 'not move' so you won't fall or break anything. I'll be back later."

Doumeki closed his eyes and listened to the rustling of the sheets, felt the bed dip and rise slightly as Watanuki got up and left.

He inhaled deeply. If nothing happened, then the chances of something happening to him were slim. Which was a funny thing to say. Language was not designed for paradoxes like this, Doumeki found. It was hard enough to grasp the concept of 'no luck'; rather his mind would process it to be bad luck. Seeing as that was all he seemed to be experiencing.

Bad luck and bad headaches.

But if Watanuki was lucky enough to get rid of the 'Aurora', goddess of dawn, watcher of a big dog in the sky for reasons Doumeki could not grasp, then he supposed he'd made the right decision after all. Which was not a bad deal for a phone-number.

And a free dream-reading.

Doumeki frowned.

Maybe he should go to business-school.

Tbcontinued

Ah, yes, well. Usually I don't leave notes like this at the end of a chapter, but well. I don't know, for me Doumeki on the first page is, well, hot. I had that image in my mind for so long and decided to just do it. I am very pleased with myself about that. I can picture it too… I wish someone would draw that. This story is shounen-ai-like. Which is rare because I am a super perv. Anyways

Please leave a review, even if you hate it. I'd be ever so grateful –unless you hate it, then I'll be petty and scroll past it- and thank you for everybody who has reviewed and beta-ed me so far.

See you next month!