Timepiece, finally cont'd!
Title: Timepiece (p5) (p4) (p3) (p2) (p1)
Author: smokexscribbles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Meeeh. Nothing too bad.
Disclaimer: I am not CLAMP.
Summary:


It is a few hours before Watanuki wakes up. When he finally does, he opens his eyes and sees stars stretching out far into a black sky. He's lying on his back. The grass is chilly and damp. His arm aches in a dully disconnected way, and he's fairly sure that the lightheadedness he's feeling is from blood loss. He wonders where Doumeki is. "Hello?" he asks, but it comes out a scratchy-throated moan.

Doumeki is next to him in a split second. "You're awake."

Watanuki wants to say something sarcastic about "You're getting really good at stating the obvious," but he's having trouble talking. Instead, he just asks, "Water?"

Doumeki shakes his head and helps Watanuki to sit up. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," Watanuki says. Because it doesn't matter if he can walk or not, he's going to have to no matter what, so he might as well say yes. He's feeling slightly better, now - He can't lean on his arm, but the lightheadedness is fading and he's capable of speech. He notices, now, that Doumeki no longer has a shirt on under his suit jacket, and asks why.

"You were bleeding a lot," Douemki says flatly, and Watanuki realizes for the first time that someone has bandaged his arm. He finds it strange that Doumeki would be good at this, but then a memory rises unbidden. He remembers being chased, he remembers falling, and he remembers someone standing in front of him, arms outstretched, a more-than-willing human shield. After that, blood and bandages and saving one another because nobody else cared enough -

"Oh god," he says, and curls up, covering his eyes to try to get rid of the splitting headache that has insinuated itself in his skull. It fades after a minute, but the memory has faded and try as he might he cannot recall the specifics. All he knows is that with that person in front of him, he felt saved.

Doumeki looks concerned, and reaches a hand out to him, and this is when Watanuki notices that the taller man's wrist has sprouted thick, ugly scabs in the last few hours. "You're hurt."

"I'm fine," Doumeki says.

"No," Watanuki insists.

"Don't worry about it."

Watanuki feels like a manipulative bastard, saying this, but it has to be said: "How can you expect to shoot a bow with your wrist like that?"

Doumeki frowns, but allows Watanuki to clean off his wrist as best he can with wet grass and damp cloth. When the blood is no longer caked around the puncture holes where the thorns ripped into him, Watanuki does as the archer did earlier and rips a strip off his shirt, using that as a makeshift bandage. Doumeki does a very good job of muffling the hiss of pain that forces its way out when fabric rubs already-raw skin. Watanuki notices it, but says nothing. It hurts to know Doumeki was injured while saving him. He doesn't want to add to it by admitting anything uncomfortable.

They sit on the grass, getting their breath back, and then Watanuki says, “Did you mean to sit this close to the maze?”

“No,” says Doumeki. His eyes are hard and his voice is grim, and suddenly Watanuki is about five times as scared as he’s been through this whole ordeal. Because if Doumeki is rattled, they’re in trouble. “I got as far from that thing as I could without going inside. It’s moving.”

“How fast?”

Doumeki shrugs. “It was slow before. It’s speeding up. I think it’s growing.”

Watanuki, pale but steady on his feet, stands up and grabs the archer’s hand. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Doumeki nods wordlessly, and together they start to hurry back into the ballroom. After a few seconds, they look back.

Not for the first or last time that night, they begin to run.

The ballroom throws the sound of their shoes back at them as near-deafening echoes. The clock is ticking, and Watanuki isn’t sure, but he thinks it’s going faster.

“The clocktower,” he begins, “We have to get up there and – “ He’s stopped in mid-sentence by the sight of one of the hundreds of dancers. She’s like a beacon. He’d have to be blind not to notice her, and deaf not to hear the way his memory is screaming at him that this is important!

She’s lovely, but he doesn’t notice that. He notices her smile, and the way it hides some deep pain. He’s frozen in time and space, and he can hardly hear Doumeki yelling at him, Move, idiot, move, it’s coming! There’s a roaring in his ears that covers all that up. He’s moving slowly, dreamlike, almost-dancing.

“I know her,” he says. “We can’t let her die. I know her.”

There’s the headache again, intense and painful, as if the thornbush has opened his skull and is poking around in his brain. He pushes the pain aside and tries to think, tries to remember.

Watanuki gasps and grabs at Doumeki’s jacket. “Ah. I remember. My dreams. And. Oh God.” He pushes Himawari towards Doumeki. “Take care of her. Please take care of her!”

Doumeki is more than a little surprised when Watanuki kisses him, fiercely, like life and death hang in the balance. But it’s not a bad surprise. And it keeps him distracted, briefly, long enough that he can’t stop the smaller man from running towards the clock tower.

Douemki remembers, with a kiss. He remembers, or at least he remembers a little bit. Some of the good bits and some of the bad. He remembers, and oh God he wishes he didn’t, because if he didn’t remember how things were it’d be so much less painful when Kimihiro died.