Doumeki practically inhaled his dinner and ignored the inferior flavor of the takeout food. Watanuki's cooking would forever surpass any meal made at even the finest of restaurants. With the poor boy still sleeping Doumeki would have to abide with take out. Even Akane knew her cooking skills were terrible and sometimes it wasn't worth the effort to try again. Especially not this time, with half of her family unable to get up from their beds.

The teenager cleaned his plate and set it in the sink for washing. His mother was at the table and swirled the tea in her cup passively, eating bites of food infrequently as her eyes glazed over an unturned page on the newspaper on the table. "Where's grandfather?" He asked, realizing he hadn't seen his elder since that morning.

"He's sleeping," Akane said, her gaze not leaving the words blurring before her.

"Through dinner?" Doumeki did not remember the last time Haruka had ever missed a meal. "Is he sick?"

"No," Akane shook her head. "He is very tired, though."

"Did he even eat anything?"

The woman set down her cup of tea on the table. "He drank some soup when I woke him an hour ago. I think he will be asleep for many days."

That was alarming. Doumeki sat back down at the table and looked at his mother's troubled expression. "What happened? I didn't hear or feel anything while meditating all day."

"Everything will be fine," Akane assured him, "but it will take some time. Your grandfather and I went to change Kimihiro-kun's bandages today and saw the extent of the damage." Her lips thinned and Doumeki felt his heart plunge.

"How bad is it? What did grandfather do?"

"It's not bad anymore." She smiled weakly at her son. "Kimihiro-kun's skin and muscles were nearly gone. The bone of the knuckle of his thumb was visible and there was puss everywhere. He would have needed surgery, but dad said there was a possibility of him being attacked by spirits while in the operating room. So, your grandfather performed what he called an extreme version of Reiki healing. Kimihiro-kun's skin is nearly restored and he won't need the pain medication anymore, but your grandfather said Kimihiro-kun while likely sleep for a while yet – he's still healing. The spell was taxing, and dad said he'd be asleep for days afterward, too."

Doumeki blew out a breath. "Reiki healing isn't supposed to leave the healer tired. It's supposed to simply be the transfer of the natural energy around us and into the person that needs to be healed."

"I know that, too," Akane said. She folded the newspaper back up properly. "This wasn't any form of Reiki I've ever seen, either. The heated stones that were placed on Kimihiro-kun shattered as his wounds were removed. I couldn't even touch the pieces to clean them up – dad said to not let any living thing come in contact with them. I had to use a set of tongs. I can only imagine what would happen to someone if they did touch them directly." She stood up and poured a tall cup of miso soup from the pot on the stove. Doumeki watched as his mother also acquired a cup of tea and a small bowl of rice, all of which she set down on a serving platter on the counter. "Here, take this to Kimihiro-kun. See if he can wake up enough to eat something."

The teenager rose and took the offered food. "He probably needs a bath, too. Is he still bandaged?"

"Yes. I'll get a bowl of hot water and some soft towels. He will need a sponge bath tonight. Later, when the bandages can come off, he'll get a proper bathing."

"Thanks." Doumeki took the platter and made his way down the hall to his bedroom. The shogi door was already slid half way open, which made it easy for Doumeki to use his foot to slide the door the rest of the way over and allow himself easy entrance.

Watanuki looked like he hadn't moved since the previous night. His sleeping yukata was still rumpled, his hair was getting a little greasy and his lips were dry and chapped from not being used. Doumeki knelt down by his side and set the tray to his right. He wondered if the boy would even wake up. He curved his hand around the slope of Watanuki's soft cheek and upper neck and placed his other hand just over the heart softly beating in his partner's chest. Not even a flicker under Watanuki's left eyelid from a dream at the touches.

"Kimihiro," Doumeki intoned soundly. He pushed gently and tried to rouse the boy by moving his body a little. "Kimihiro, wake up."

His left eye flickered for a moment before closing again, then nothing.

"Kimihiro," Doumeki said louder. He did not know if the other teenager was supposed to sleep so soundly after such a rigorous healing session or if perhaps something else was wrong. "Kimihiro, please wake up."

A thin eyebrow furrowed stiffly. "... Nnnnngh..."

"Kimihiro."

One dark blue eye blinked up at him. Dry lips smacked together before sucking in a greedy gasp of air. "Sh...Shizuka..."

"Wake up, Kimihiro." Doumeki smoothed his thumb over his partner's one visible eyebrow and cupped his cheek. "You need to eat."

Watanuki gasped again and his eye closed half way. "I..." His unbandaged hand shook and trembled as it was brought up to rub at his forehead. "What... what time? How long..."

"Only a day." He clutched the trembling hand in his own, willing his warmth and calm to still the quivering limb.

"A day..." He moved his head to the side and closed his one eye. "I... I feel strange." His chest shuddered with breath. "My head... it hurts..." He looked back up at Doumeki, unable to see the features of that handsome face but knew who it was nearly by instinct. Only Doumeki made sandalwood and incense smell of musk and comfort and remembered intimacy. "I'm not... dreaming?" His blue eye pleaded for an answer. "I... must have slept for... weeks? Days?"

Doumeki felt his heart skip a beat as a tear slipped out of Watanuki's eye. He brushed it away quickly with his thumb. "Just a day."

"It feels like it's been forever. I was alone... I missed you..." His hand tightened around the one holding it. "It was awful..."

"You had a bad reaction to the pain pills. You were hallucinating," Doumeki tried to explain. "You're not going to take it anymore. Grandfather made sure you won't need it."

"Shizuka..." He winced as Doumeki deftly lifted him up to a slight sitting position. His partner moved behind him and acted as a wall of support for him to lean against. Arms wrapped around his midsection securely and even though his head swam at the new position he felt infinitely safer. A warm cup of what smelled like miso soup was brought to his lips.

"You need to eat," Doumeki's voice rumbled next to his ear.

"...'M tired," he managed to mumble.

"Please," Doumeki urged.

The glass moved and Watanuki clumsily slurped the soup. A piece of too-tender tofu slipped passed his teeth and practically melted on his tongue before being swallowed. This was not his soup, he realized. Eating was a slow and tedious affair, and in the end he couldn't summon the power to chew any rice. Doumeki was at least glad the soup and tea was completely consumed. By the time he laid Watanuki down proper on the futon Akane came into the bedroom with her promised bowl of hot water and a handful of white cotton towels.

"Will you need help?" His mother asked.

"No, it's fine." Doumeki took one of the towels and dipped it in the water. "Please check on grandfather again."

Akane smiled a little and placed a kiss on her son's head. "I will, and he will be fine."

Doumeki nodded as Akane left the room. His mother closed his door to give the occupants some privacy after bidding them goodnight. Doumeki set to work gently untangling Watanuki from his sweaty sleeping garments. Uncertain hands tugged away the tie to the boy's yukata. The material freed itself under the force of his fingers and the gap over the pale chest widened. With one careful movement at a time Doumeki managed to extract one arm from the robe, then move the boy over slightly and freed the other. He was glad to see the bandages were not soiled already.

"S...S'cold," Watanuki shivered once he was fully exposed to the night air.

"And yet you're sweating," Doumeki replied. He delicately daubed his partner's damp skin with the soaked towel and started to clean him.

"I'm sorry."

The one blue eye was too tired to follow his movements fully as Doumeki dipped the towel back in the bowel of warm water and wrung it out. "Stop talking." It was deeply unsettling to hear the normally lively boy act so meek. Doumeki didn't like it at all.

By the time he'd finished with Watanuki's arms and chest another tear slid down the boy's still damp cheek. He decided it was a good time to wash his face and try to wipe some of the oil in his hair out. He used the towel to soak up the tear drop he didn't want to see and tenderly cleaned the accessible flesh while being careful to not touch the bandages. By now the shaking had stopped but Watanuki's left hand never stopped clutching at the hem of Doumeki's temple robe.

It was going to be difficult to roll him over to his side but it needed to be done. Watanuki needed clean clothes and his back likely needed a wash as well. He'd need to be rolled to his left side. Even though his mother said his skin was healed Doumeki felt uneasy at the thought of putting pressure on the previously injured areas.

Watanuki was practically asleep again as Doumeki carefully tipped him to his side and finally removed the garment left on the futon. Eventually, after what felt like an hour of tense caution and the ache in his chest making him weary, Doumeki finished and wrapped Watanuki up in a clean robe and tucked him back in bed proper. By then all he did was lay down and he was asleep right as his head hit the pillow.

. . . . . . . .

Watanuki came to sometime just after sunrise. Young pink light bathed the room in a soft glow. He moved his right leg to stretch it and found with a little shock just how sore the rest of his body felt. Were his shoulders and rear supposed to be so sore from sleeping for... how long was it? A couple of days or more? He seemed to remember a lengthy period of dreaming that felt like it was longer than that. Maybe he'd been out of it for longer than a few days. He didn't really remember.

The solid warm presence of Doumeki's body to the left of him was a surprisingly huge comfort. He had vague recollections of a deep, soulful ache from missing him while dreaming. Somehow it felt like he'd seen half a dozen other existences where he was alone and Doumeki was nowhere to be found. In some of these dreams Doumeki had died somehow, while in others he'd never been there in the first place. The memories were fuzzy, however, and each time Watanuki thought he remembered a tidbit of information from a dream the details slipped away into nothingness. The longer he was awake the more distant the memory of the dreams became. He was sure within a day he would forget about the details entirely and only be left with the almost-painful heartache they left behind.

Doumeki turned to his side and opened his eyes, suddenly awake as well. Watanuki was sure he hadn't made any noise and didn't think someone could wake up from the feeling of someone looking at them. The other boy rubbed the sleep from his amber colored eyes and tried to wake up some more. "Kimihiro?" He asked. He normally bored voice had a hint of hopefulness in it.

He moved his right hand to rest on his chest and turned his head further to the left. "Shizuka," he said back. He tried flexing his right hand a little. It felt hot, but not painfully so. He was glad for that.

Doumeki sat upright and looked at his partner intently. "How are you feeling?"

"Groggy, tired..." Watanuki started. He shifted his leg again. "Also restless." His body did not want to be in this position anymore. He puzzled as Doumeki blew out what seemed to be a sigh of relief.

"You're not in pain, then? Do you know where you are?"

He furrowed his eyebrows together. "What? What kind of question is that? Of course I know where I am! We're in your bedroom!"

"Our bedroom," Doumeki automatically corrected. He almost smiled.

"Quit picking semantics and answer the question!"

A hand buried itself in Watanuki's hair. "You had a bad reaction to the pain medication. You were delirious and you hallucinated all day yesterday."

"I... I did?" How strange that he remembered none of this. Embarrassing, too. He could only imagine what nonsense he must have uttered.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I..." He frowned and tried to pull the last real memory he had from the drudges of his hazy mind. "The hospital, I guess. You said you were suspended for a week. Then, after that..." He shook his head. "Nothing after that."

"You don't remember signing yourself out of the hospital?"

Watanuki frowned and shook his head. He had no memory of that at all. He had a vague impression of warm and solid arms around him and the humming noise of a moving vehicle just after the hospital, no scenery to go with it, or voices or other noises. "What did I do when I was reacting to the medication?"

Doumeki held Watanuki's left hand and fiddled with the ring on his partner's finger. "You slept a lot. When you did wake up you kept crying."

"What? No way! What would I cry for?" A sinking feeling in his gut told him this seemed entirely plausible, considering the terrible dreams he'd had.

Doumeki shrugged, his expression blank. "You asked about a dead cat you found in a gutter, and wanted to know if I was a dream." He laced his fingers through Watanuki's. "You would hardly eat anything."

At the reminder of his recent lack of food his stomach growled loudly. "Oh." He also hadn't wanted anyone to know about that stupid cat. It was a low time for him. He was convinced he would die all alone, too, and at the moment it seemed perfectly natural to happen to him. He had no friends at the time at all and no one that said they loved him. It was during those miserable years it was very easy to wish for an end to it all.

Doumeki went to place the hand he was holding on his partner's chest to stand. "I'll go get you something to eat."

His large and calloused hand started to leave and for some strange, unexplainable reason Watanuki's grip latched back onto Doumeki's wrist as a sense of alarm and urgency tightened his throat. "Wait!"

The taller teenager sat back down fully at looked at him, an eyebrow raised slightly in concern. "What's wrong?"

What waswrong with him? Watanuki was puzzled at his response as well. He decided to chalk it up to leftover emotions from his prolonged nightmares. "I...I'm tired of being in this position. Help me sit up?"

Doumeki got to his knees and moved behind his partner. He hooked his arms under Watanuki's shoulders and lifted the boy upright, just as he had the previous night. Feet kicked at blankets that tangled themselves around his legs as he tried to push for more leverage. His head swam dizzily from laying down for so long. He didn't think he'd be able to stand on his own. "Crap." He felt Doumeki's arms wrap securely around his chest.

"What?"

He sighed. "My head hurts. I'm not going to be able to stand." Shuffling movement behind him alerted him to the fact that Doumeki was moving things. After being jostled around gently and briefly he felt himself lowered down to a stack of pillows. He wasn't as upright as he was in Doumeki's hold, but it was better than lying flat.

"I'll be right back with some breakfast." He kissed his partner softly on the forehead.

"Thank you," was all Watanuki found he had the will to say. He wondered if someday Doumeki's unending affection would stop baffling him so.