XXXHOLiC, Anew, Watanuki, Doumeki (PG)

[ciircee]

I know. I haven't felt like the computer or the fandom in ages. RL is made of suck at times.

If you wanted to view this as mild Doumeki/Watanuki, you probably could. Whatever floats you.



The end of the world was in Doumeki's hand.

"Take it," he said, holding the egg out to Watanuki. "Take it," he repeated when Watanuki stared at it. "It will all be here."

Watanuki looked at him. "What?"

"This world," Doumeki said, his face blank. "Your dream. Take it and it'll be safe inside. He won't be able to enter." And he inclined his head ever-so-slightly at Fei Wong Reed, standing regal and imposing and smirking in Yuuko's parlor. Standing over Yuuko, pale and straight in a butterfly kimono, seated in the parlor chair usually reserved for clients.

"You knew?"

Doumeki made a face. "There isn't time," he said. "Take it. Wake up in the real world. You'll dream of us even if you don't remember."

Watanuki slapped the egg out of his hand. "I don't want to dream about you! You stupid creep!"

Doumeki caught the egg before it could hit the floor. "Then dream about Kunogi. And the oden Fox's son. And Kohane and the Zashiki Warashi and Mugetsu and everybody else." He stood, his pants ripped at the knee now, and held out the egg again. "Take it."

"I'm not going to."

"Save yourself, you stupid--" and his voice broke. Watanuki stared at him as Doumeki's face, the almost mask-like face, broke. "Haven't you learned anything? Hasn't what we've done to save you got through to you? Don't you know what I've given up for you?"

"No."

Yuuko spoke. "Watanuki-kun, do you know what's in the other world?"

Until she spoke, he hadn't. "My parents," he said. "My school. My friends. Both eyes. No monsters." He could feel it, remember it. He could feel it just beyond him, like the dawn light against closed eyelids.

"It's your wish."

"And we're a dream," Doumeki said. He offered out the egg again. "We're just a dream you have to wake up from."

Watanuki looked at Yuuko. "Whatever world I wish for most becomes reality, you told me that."

Fei Wong Reed laughed. "At the cost of the other. One world becomes nothing but a thought. Can you do it, Watanuki Kimihiro? Kill those that gave you life to live in a fantasy world? She's counting on you to do just that."

"Shut up," Watanuki told him waspishly.

Fei Wong Reed smiled patiently as, all around the room, his soldiers crouched ready.

Yuuko's eyes dipped down, as though hiding a mild laugh.

Doumeki held out the egg, his arm untired, strength forged from the string of the bow and faith.

"Shut up, all of you," Watanuki folded his arms. "The world I wish for is both of them."

Yuuko's eyes came up, inscrutible. "Watanuki..."

Fei Wong folded his arms as well, still smiling. "No."

"Take it," said Doumeki. "If all I am is a dream, it's all right when it's you dreaming it."

"What the hell would you eat while I'm awake, you stupid Doumeki?" Watanuki asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "You can't even boil water for tea right. And if you think I'd leave you alone with Himawari-chan all day, you have another think coming."

"And so do you," he said, pointing a finger at Reed. "The world I wish for most is the one that's real. That's what I can do. And Clow Reed wished for this world and I was brought here to make it real. To help that Sakura who came here. His son, that Syaoran who came second, he gave up his life so that I could have this one. You took it from him. You told him I'd die if he didn't but you didn't tell him it would be the other me."

"The real you," Fei Wong corrected. "And it was very true, what I said to that child. And it is still the truth. If you choose this world, you die in that one. That whole world dies."

Watanuki glared at him. "I don't chose this world."

Doumeki's arm trembled, the egg still outstretched.

Yuuko sat as still and untouchable as ice, even the smoke from her pipe seemed frozen in the air.

"That's what I learned," Watanuki said. "Valuing one thing more than another, that's not right. It doesn't make one thing worthless, it makes them both that way. If I had died saving the Zashiki Warashi, that would have made her sacrifice to save my eye worthless. If I picked that world over this one, that makes everything that I've learned here worthless. But if I pick this one over that, then that's worthless too. A fair price, a proper price is only when both things are equal."

Fei Wong Reed sighed. "Make up your mind, child."

"Watanuki," Doumeki said. "What I wish for most...is for you to be alive." One reality for another. A life for a dream.

Wataunki looked at him. "I don't know why all the girls think you're so smart," he said. And then he smiled and looked to Yuuko. "The world I wish for most is all of them," he said. "For that other world and other me to be my real past. For all the worlds to be possible pasts and futures. I want for people to be able to travel to them and learn that our souls are all the same, no matter what else is different. I want for the world of the Hyakkiyakou to be real. Because in every world people are making sacrifices for the people they care for. And you," he pointed at Fei Wong Reed again and smiled, a little sadly. "You're the unhappiness and the pain and the hopelessness for all those worlds. Because you don't value them. But because I want those things, because that's my true wish, the price is that you become my nightmare every night."

So saying, still smiling sadly, Watanuki took the egg from Doumeki and held it to his heart. "You are only a nightmare. You are only the nightmare of failure and worthlessness and meaningless sacrifices. Hopelessness and pain and sorrow with no compassion and no empathy and no memory of the joy and hope and good feelings."

He lifted the egg, gone from white to black, to look at it. "Maybe one day, the shell will be red," he said with a shrug.

Doumeki stared at him. "Maybe the shell will be red?"

Watanuki blinked. "Well, I can hope he'll learn from me, can't I?"

"You--and all you have to say is 'maybe one day the shell will be red'?"

"Yes?"

"You saved the world. Every world."

Watanuki looked at Yuuko. "He's jealous that I stole his pointless sort of answer, isn't he?"

Yuuko laughed.