Notes: Complete and utter fluff. I have no excuses. No real spoilers, although if the name 'Haruka' doesn't ring any bells, you probably haven't read far enough into the manga to recognise everyone in it.
Watanuki woke to the sound of footsteps moving over the floorboards. He blinked his eyes open sleepily, a little surprised to discover that they were focusing fine even without his glasses, until he could make out the man who was now sitting near the futon.
"H... Haruka-san?"
The elder Doumeki held a finger to his lips. "Shh. You don't want to wake Shizuka."
Watanuki was suddenly very aware of the other warm body he was sharing the futon with. Oh. Oh. That bit wasn't part of a dream, was it?
The blush rose at lightning speed. "Ah… it's not what… I mean – well, obviously it's exactly what it looks like, but it's not – " Watanuki flailed for words, in the physical as well as the metaphorical sense. It was probably a good thing he was dreaming, or Doumeki would definitely have woken up by now and wanted to know what was attacking them.
Haruka chuckled. "Were you worried I wouldn't approve? Don't be. Nothing that brings Shizuka such contentment could be anything I'd object to."
Watanuki let out a sigh of relief. In retrospect he should have realised this would be the case – if anything, Haruka has been nudging him in his grandson's direction since the first time they met – but having it confirmed was still a weight off his mind. "I… don't know what I thought, really, but – it was just startling to have you show up like that. I'm glad though – that you don't mind."
"I didn't mean to startle you either," said Haruka, smiling fondly "but this is my own house you're staying in." Watanuki started to apologise for the intrusion, but Haruka cut him off. "Don't worry, you'll always be welcome here. I'm sure Shizuka has already told you that."
Doumeki had indeed made that pretty clear.
"You're still having some trouble understanding Shizuka, aren't you?" Haruka inquired gently.
"A bit," Watanuki admitted. "I get some things better now, and the rest – well, it doesn't always seem so important, but I still have no idea what he's thinking most of the time." This was putting it mildly, but something about these meetings with Haruka made it hard to remember why – even in light of recent developments – Doumeki still drove him nuts as often as not.
"Isn't that true of everyone though?" Haruka gave another soft smile. "Watanuki, as accustomed as you are at being independent, aren't you the sort of person who would have always assumed that someday there'd be someone like this for you?"
"Yeah. I guess I did." Though he'd always assumed it would be someone more like Himawari than Doumeki. Life always had been out to get him with things like this at every turn.
"Most of us do, but Shizuka isn't like that," Haruka told him, ever the master of the lost wisdom of Doumeki. "He never assumes anything that isn't obvious, and when he does think about the future, he doesn't presume it will be like everyone else's. It's going to be very unusual for him, to have something like this which he can't take for granted. It will probably be some time yet before he truly figures out how to deal with this. You'll keep that in mind, won't you?"
Watanuki wasn't entirely sure what to do with that information, but it sounded true, and knowing Haruka, it'd turn out to be important somewhere along the line. "Okay." He filed it away to think about when he was more awake. "I'll think about it."
"Please do. If I could make another suggestion…" Haruka started to get to his feet, "if you can get used to the idea, try calling him 'Shizuka' sometime. He'd like that."
"He hasn't… said anything about that," said Watanuki, a little surprised. Personally he was still getting used to only being referred to as 'Oi' about one time out of two – the subject of first names was yet to come up.
"He wouldn't have. Just trust me on this."
Watanuki nodded.
Haruka nodded back. "Take good care of him for me, until next we meet …"
Watanuki woke up a second time to Doumeki poking him. There was sunlight streaming in through the windows, but it was still too early for there to be any need for them to get up. Doumeki looked a little sleep-mussed, but very much awake.
"What do you want?" Watanuki mumbled.
"Breakfast," was Doumeki's reply.
Watanuki hit him with a pillow. "Make your own. I know you can handle the complex mechanisms of a toaster."
"I want pancakes."
"Well too bad! You're out of flour. I used the last of it up on that cake the day before yesterday." What went on in the kitchen between Watanuki going in there and a cake coming out an hour later was one of those mysteries Doumeki had never shown enough interest in to uncover, so Watanuki gave him a few minutes to make the necessary mental connections between no-flour and no-pancakes and no-Watanuki-is-not-a-food-dispensing-machine to work their way through his brain. Meanwhile, he sat up and groped around beside the futon – now that he was really awake he needed glasses between himself and the rest of the world to see much of it.
"I saw your grandfather again last night," he mentioned, locating his glasses at last. "He sends us his blessings. Well, not in those exact words, but that was the gist."
"Oh."
"What do you mean 'oh'? It's good news! You're capable of phrasing a more coherent reaction than that."
Doumeki shrugged. "I can't imagine he'd have objected. Not when it's you. But I'm glad," he said vaguely, but he did sound like he meant it.
"Well, sure we should have expected it, but… Huh?" he added, because Doumeki had slumped back down to the futon, pulling Watanuki with him. "I thought you were getting up?"
"If you're not making pancakes, there's no need to get up early," said Doumeki, his voice slightly muffled by Watanuki's shoulder.
Watanuki had a vague recollection a statement like that would have irritated him not so long ago, but with them both in the comfortable sleepiness of the early morning, none of his protests seemed so important.
Shizuka, huh? he mused. Maybe it wouldn't seem so strange to start thinking of Doumeki as that before too long.