A/N: Welp, this was a doozie. -.-;

Originally the first story wasn't supposed to have a partner in crime but I got to the end of XxXholic and it just about broke my heart. No, I haven't seen the OVA (nor do I know if it's already out yet) and maybe I will see it someday but I'm just... ARGH! When I become emotionally invested in any long term manga/anime I can be a bit irrational about how it's ended but I feel like Clamp didn't even try with this one! Tsubasa had a better ending than did this! Damn it, I can even accept X/1999 crappy cliffhanger! BUT CLAMP, HOW COULD YOU?

Anyway, I tried to take the original concept of the first story and have it flow into even more canon-like settings with this continuation. Idk if I'll make another part to this universe (as it's becoming) but I think it's very, very much possible. Please let me know what you guys think and whether or not a continuation would work or not! :D

And the title? Probably my favoritest story title to any fanfic I've written. Ever.

Disclaimer: DO. NOT. OWN. NOT. MAKING MONEY. And yes, I mean that about both XxXholic and "Cat and Mouse" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. ^.^ NOW GOES READS NOWS!

"Am I supposed to be happy?

With all I ever wanted, it comes with a price.

Am I supposed to be happy?

With all I ever wanted, it comes with a price.

You said… you said that you would die for me.

You must live for me too…"

– "Cat and Mouse" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Title: Cinders Falling

Tiny white flakes of snow fell over the veranda, spilling over onto his equally pale hand but dissolving seconds before touching skin.

Though the scenery was impeccable in its wintery wonder Watanuki did not feel the same innocent joy he would have years and years ago. These things, these precious earthly things, did not belong to someone like him.

Someone who could not even feel the harsh cold let alone the wet warmth that came soon after.

Winter would come and go and spring would arrive in all its evergreen splendor. Time would continue to spread itself thin and Watanuki would be forced to watch it flow by him but never truly feel it.

All he could do now was continue to wait and hope that the tiny slivers of himself still there somewhere didn't disappear along with the sands of times swept under his feet.

It was unsettling walking into the shop and waiting for someone to re-appear that probably never would… at least, not in his lifetime.

Doumeki brushed off the stray snow from his broad shoulders, eyebrow twitching as Watanuki's indolent form did not appear to greet him.

The sound of children sleeping and small mumbles from Mokona led the college student to the veranda, a long lithe figure swathed in a beautiful dark blue kimono meeting his sights from behind. The pure white landscape encompassed the time-sorcerer, giving his ivory-skin a faint silvery glow. Still falling snow created the halo of innocence needed to finish the look.

Stone cold but still somewhat naïve…

When would Watanuki be granted his own wish?

Softly, Doumeki pattered next to the bluish-golden-eyed young man and held his hand out.

The snow felt freezing cold to the touch.

"Many are saying it's going to be a harsh winter this year." Doumeki stated, voice loud against the quiet of the shop. The shop keeper didn't even bother to say a word, his eyes steady on one point.

"Classes will probably be canceled for the most part. Do you want me to stock up on groceries before hand?" Once again, Doumeki didn't really expect a response but the sound of his voice was better than silence.

Watanuki didn't say a word as a long arm came around his waist, eyes still glued to that tanned appendage catching snowflakes.

"It's hitsuzen."

Watanuki awoke quietly, eyes relaxed even as his heart raced within his chest cavity.

Trembling hands smoothed back smoky black bangs.

'Whatever happened to things being simple and clean?'

Mokona stared up at him with sad eyes, quivering with empathy.

"It's hitsuzen." Watanuki echoed, straightening out his legs and walking forward.

Always walking forward.

Mokona did not bother to hide his disappointment as he followed Watanuki out of the room, wondering when the real Kimihiro would quit hiding behind this well-placed façade and bring back the strange peace that his true personality always managed to convey with ill-placed remarks, wild wails and hyperactive spastic movements.

"Yuuko isn't the only one we're all waiting for Watanuki…"

Pale hands weaved through the air, blue-gold eyes seeing things that Doumeki could never hope (or wish) to see.

Wiping away the remnants of smoldering ashes lingering just above his head, Watanuki barely gave his "guest" a second glance before turning onto his side and pushing the pipe still steaming with smoke onto the desk beside him.

Lackadaisical eyes fluttered closed as the luminal state of relaxation the younger (deceptively so) boy achieved became somewhat tense with expectation; what could Doumeki hope to accomplish continuing coming here, watching his friend quite happily fall into the jagged pieces which used to make his old mistress?

Biting his lip in frustration with the little recourse he had at hand, Doumeki remained quiet and stoic; even if Watanuki had changed he would not.

He would be the remembrance of a time that held so much promise and when he too faded along with the reality that did not even exist for Watanuki anymore he would rest as a memory.

"I bought food." Doumeki simply stated, dropping them on the floor beneath his feet as a glassy blue eye appeared behind a pale milky lid and feathered lashes.

A memory that hopefully would not dissolve as easily as the ever growing ashes of Watanuki's former self.

"I suppose you'll be wanting dinner then?" The sorcerer didn't even blink as he hefted himself up and made his way to the kitchen, each stride graceful and full of a hidden light that laid buried within layers of darkness culminated after years of painful solitude. "I'll try to be as prompt as your stomach allows."

Before, Doumeki knows he would have felt happy at these words, but that before is long gone, a time he wasn't ever awake to see.

Walking forward, the golden-eyed young man beat down the angerragemelancholy and kept to his nonchalance like a pro.

He would endure.

He had to.

The first time Doumeki kisses him, Watanuki actually has to hold back the urge to cry.

'Why are you doing this now?' The eternally youthful man wished to scream, even though he foresaw it and simply disregarded it all as a daydream that would never come true. 'It's too late for us! There was never even supposed to be an 'us' at all!'

Instead the pale-skinned sorcerer tilts his head to the side and regards the golden-eyed man with a blank stare, even as a separate set of lips pried his own apart and a slick muscle caresses the tip of his own tongue.

Now, however, there is nothing but a resigned acceptance.

No matter how many first kisses there will be, he knows there will always be a last as well. Their prologue is really just an epilogue and it continues on with a death grip that won't let go of Watanuki's sanity no matter how many times he tries to repel and ignore and dismiss.

But Doumeki refuses to let go. He is just as stubborn as his counterpart and just as assuredly as Watanuki will continue to wait for Yuuko Doumeki will continue to wait for Watanuki, and oh, what a twisted cycle this has become.

His soul, or what's left of it anyway, cries every time it feels that first kiss, because each first kiss is really their last kiss without the hopelessness Doumeki will eventually experience as another lifetime is wasted and all they continue to do is wait.

Immortality was not as pleasant as some might think.

Watanuki stared at the young woman's retreating back, face a statue of apathy even as loud sobs echoed within the shop's walls.

The stars sang behind him, lighting the sky with their own special swan song that was never-ending; the tempo slow and steady, but never ever faint.

A choppy giggle rang from the next room but halted after a moment's time. The silence the shop had adapted was reticent and filled with somber acceptance. There was no real noise in "nowhere", the place just between an existence he could not partake in and a non-existence not meant for him to delve into quite yet.

Behind the sorcerer's blue-amber eyes, the stars began to fall and the hum of song exploded into a cacophony of agony.

There would be no requiem for him, just as there was no requiem for Yuuko.

The balance they kept in check for all was their reward, their lives the ultimate price.

The moment Kimihiro's memories became forfeit he had known this, even if only subconsciously.

All around him sparkling lights burnt out, his own inner flame snuffed alongside them.

Regret was pointless in any matter.

All he had left was his unerring, unrelenting apathy.

"I will stay in this shop… for however long it takes."

Not-Doumeki nods as he rises from his knelt position, lips still burning from their last encounter.

Watanuki does not dare to look at him, his pipe clutched tightly between age-less fingers, smooth skin mocking him with its flawlessness. Blue-amber eyes close as the sun sets on another day, the fabricated display unnecessary and painful.

Another reminder…

As if he needed more.

The glass beside his foot was still filled to the brim with alcohol but Watanuki did not have the urge to imbibe it.

It would only taste like another what could have been anyway.

One day, she will come.

She will come and I will be here waiting for her.

I must believe that…

Because if not…

"It's hitsuzen."

Her echoing voice was like a hit to the gut, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes.

The indomitable spirit beside him roused, the inexplicable urge to get closer almost breaking the shop keeper until there was nothing left but Kimihiro and he couldn't do this again, he couldn't, not when everything he had sacrificed up until this moment was Yuuko and nothing of himself.

"Are you alright?" Doumeki blandly questioned.

"My heart is yours…" Kimihiro gently whispered, the bed wet and warm from their previous activities. "But please don't ask for anything more than that."

"You look unsettled." The dark-haired archer mindlessly pointed out, the smallest crack of worriment peering out of the edge of his peripheral vision.

"It's Hitsuzen." She drawled lazily on her couch, pipe perched precariously in one hand as the other pillowed her head up. "You must feel it don't you?"

"Memories always linger when you least want them to." Watanuki quietly admonished. A small sip of sake and a puff of smoke later and the smile that usually graced the eternally youthful face replaced the reminiscent frown that had been hovering over Watanuki's visage. "But never mind that. How was your day today?"

Doumeki hesitated for one moment before he began a full itinerary of his day, blunt and straight to the point as always.

Watanuki listened as closely as ever, the placid expression warding off any further questions.

"I'll wait… forever if need be." Doumeki quietly repeated, his own words not heard as the younger boy stared out at the expanse in front of him, determined to a fault. "Forever for you."

Memories could never measure up to the real thing…

Watanuki knew this for a fact.

If she never comes

And all I am left with is the ashes of my old life scattered around me

Then I truly know

My existence means nothing.