[FIC] Yuugiou/xxxHolic - The Difference Between
Title: The Difference Between (Dreams & Reality) Author/Artist: Tyger Fandom: Yuugiou/xxxHolic Pairing/characters: Bakura, Watanuki Rating: M, 2071 words. Warnings: aaaangst. Um. Hand-coded tabs. Again. Prompt/challenge you're answering: Watanuki and Bakura: an unexpected act of kindness. Notes: Yuugiou is post-canon; xxxHolic is sometime after volume 8, but references rather a while after that, so.
He's not sure where he's going, exactly. Not sure where he is, either. He's not lost, though; he could get back if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. He's too tired to remember why. All he remembers is he needs to keep moving. Just keep moving. Where he is doesn't matter. Where he's going doesn't matter. Just keep moving. Just keep moving. Just keep moving. Just keep - he trips, falls. He needs to get up. He needs to - The concrete is rough, against his face, a never ending grey taking up most of his vision. It's wet, and cold. It's raining, though not hard; he can feel it falling on his face. His hair feels like wet ropes, across the back of his neck. He hears a car pass. Two. They don't stop. They probably don't even see him. It's late at night, after all. He needs to get up. To keep moving. The darkness is closing in. It's not the reason why; he almost welcomes it. It curls around him, batting up against him like Amane's cat used to- Amane. Amane, Amane, AmaneAmaneAmane. He wishes she were here. She won't be. She won't ever be. She's dead - he'd been dead too - and gone - like he had, but he'd come back, and come back and come back - until he hadn't. He hadn't. He hadn't and he won't ever again. Just like her. Just like her, just like - they're dead and gone and he's so alone, so incredibly alone... The darkness wraps around him. He can still feel the cold, and the rain, but somehow it's warm, too. Being warm is kind of nice. He wouldn't mind ending like this. Just... fading away, into the dark. Maybe he'd be dead and gone then, too. Maybe not. He should get up. It's hard, maybe. It hurts, maybe, body burning with strain... he gets one hand up, flat on the ground, starts pushing - and an eye opens, in the darkness in front of him. It's not a human eye. He freezes. That's not a monster. Not one he knows, not one he's seen, not one connected at all, to blood and darkness and cursed gold. It's not a monster. It's a thing. It's a hungry thing, and maybe he wouldn't mind fading into the dark, but he doesn't want to be eaten. Not by a thing. Not by anybody. He'll fade if he choses to, but not by anything else's will. His life. His choice. If there's one mistake he's learned from, it's that. They face off; the thing uncertain of him - how many people does the dark warm? - and he not willing to provoke it. He's not sure of his strength. It's about to jump, and he's about to push himself back, with everything he has, when the salt hits them. The thing dissolves into oily black smoke. He feels he should, too, but the salt just... hits him. Doesn't burn. Just feels like salt, grainy and coarse like sand. The darkness leaves, though - he's not surprised. It was probably just there for the thing, anyway. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS." He looks up. There's a boy there, maybe his age, glaring down at him in indignation. He uses the strength he'd been going to dodge with to push himself up far enough to sit. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING," says the boy. He has no reply, though it doesn't matter; the boy keeps yelling. And walks over, pulling him up by the arm. He sways on his feet, a little. That's fine, he'll be fine, once he keeps moving again- "Where the hell do you live, anyway?" says the boy, glaring up at him. "Domino," he says, without thinking. The boy stares at him, for a long second. "DOMINO!? What the hell! That's hours away! HOURS!" He's not surprised to hear that. It feels like he's been moving forever, though he can't have been. "And it's after the last train! You moron! What the hell were you thinking!?" He still doesn't have an answer, for that. "Well," says the boy, scowling even more and running a bright blue eye up and down him. Blue eye. Foreign blood, then. Like him. But only one eye is blue. Only one? "Okay then. The Great Watanuki-sama is going to deign to let you into his home for the night, you sodden bedraggled thing! Be grateful!" He stares. "You don't - I'll be fine," he says. "Ha!" says the boy, pulling him along by one arm. "You'll die of pneumonia or something, is what you'll do, if I leave you out here! You have a name?" "I," he says. He really has to think about it. Thinking is... difficult. "Bakura," he remembers eventually. "Bakura Ryou." The boy frowns down at him. "That's your real name, isn't it?" he asks. "Yes," he says. The boy snorts. "Watanuki Kimihiro," he says. And that's his real name, too, he can tell by the way the scraps of dark left in the back of his mind glee. "It's a pleasure," he murmurs, more out of habit than anything else. "...yeah," says Watanuki, and strongarms him home in silence.
He wakes. The concrete is wet and cold on his cheek. There's rain dripping off his eyelashes. He gets to his feet, silently; he's slept so long that the sun's come up. Not that it's visible, though the clouds, but at least he can see where he is. He looks at the broken-down empty lot that he'd fallen in front of. He looks at the outline of a house, he can see through the darkness. He thinks of the things he wants. He keeps walking. He knows he has nothing to pay with.