I wrote this for xturncoatxiii at LJ a while back, and somehow it expanded into a series. A huge series. I'll try to update weekly, but don't hold your breath. Especially once November shows up.
Expect cameos. Lots of cameos. Not necessarily only CLAMP character cameos.
And please, review!
Darkness had fallen when Watanuki returned to the place he was loathe to call home, and yet he knew someone was watching him. It was strange and more than a little frightening, all the more so because the same thing had been happening for the past month.
It had all started when he was taken into the possession of the wealthy doctor whose name was still an unknown but whose reputation for cutting-edge technology hushed up the more sinister rumours of experimentation that shouldn't have been legal. Watanuki never would have chosen to go into service at this place, but he hadn't had a choice. With his debt, it was that or the military, and military was not option for someone who would have the possibility of meeting the people he killed afterwards. Vengeful spirits were bad enough when their wrath was bent upon someone else.
But the doctor had smiled kindly at the courthouse and signed the papers without asking a single question. Somehow that had made Watanuki wish for a second he had chosen the other option. But that had passed, and when he learned the truth of his situation it was already too late.
The reason he was so late in returning to his own little niche in the doctor's huge estate was that he had passed out after the day's work. This work had involved painful chemicals in his right eye – not for the first time for a long shot – which was by now completely blind. It had also involved making the rounds of – were it possible – less fortunate test subjects than he, who lived out their relatively short lives in small cells and hated his guts for his liberty. Not that it was worth much.
He'd felt as if someone were watching almost ever since the first time his eye had been tampered with, and was beginning to think it wasn't a spirit as he'd expected. For one thing, the watcher had never shown itself or made sound, unlike most spirits Watanuki had met thus far. And once he'd heard muffled noise – as if the watcher was trying to hush it. A spirit would not have made such noise, or would not have bothered trying to mask it. But the alternative was that it was a human, and what human would spend almost a month watching him of all people?
Tonight Watanuki did not merely shrug the feeling off and sleep. This was mostly because he was not thoroughly exhausted, thanks to the bout of unconsciousness. Instead, he stopped before the small shed-turned-sleeping quarters that he had unhappily called home for the past six months or so and looked around. "Who's there?" he called softly, suspiciously.
A soft thump was all the warning Watanuki received; by the time he'd started turning around the presumed watcher had grabbed him and pulled him down. "Quietly!" he – it was definitely a he – ordered in the lowest voice audible. "You don't want to be heard."
"What do you know?" Watanuki demanded as softly, finding himself growing more annoyed than panicked. "The guards are all around the wall, anyway."
"There's worse things," his captor said in such a matter-of-fact tone that Watanuki was almost inspired to violence. He refrained – barely – and snorted quietly instead.
"Doesn't matter," he elaborated. "Could you get off of me?"
"Will you listen?"
Watanuki had been contemplating making a break for it as soon as he was free, but in spite of himself nodded and furthermore stayed put when he was released – although the grip on his right arm had helped to persuade him to follow this course of action. Turning his head, he could just barely see his captor. No details could be discerned, and poor vision coupled with no depth perception did not make trying to do so any easier.
"Good," Watanuki's captor told him. "You're working for the doctor?"
"I'm indebted to him," Watanuki felt the need to correct. "I had no choice!"
"I'm not making comments about your lack of judgement skills," the man replied. "I'm making sure I have the right person."
"And if I'm not?" Somehow, Watanuki felt he wouldn't like the answer.
"I silence you and keep going."
He had been right about not liking the response. "How do you know I'm the right person?" he asked with no small amount of fear and irritation. Mostly fear.
"I don't," the man said, as it were the obvious and logical response. "I was sent here to find the one who Doctor Kyle hired most recently, and speak to him. I've been watching you for the past month. Are you him?"
"Yes, I am," Watanuki said, "but I don't know everyone that comes and goes here," he pointed out.
"He doesn't hire very often," his captor told him. "You sound young enough to be the most recent."
"Young enough?" Watanuki asked.
"Young enough," came the reply.
Making a decision he hoped he would not come to regret too much, Watanuki made to stand up. He was pulled back down. "I'm just going to open my door," he explained irritably. "Then I can sit down comfortably and you can explain, because I'm tired and I don't enjoy sitting in the wet grass and listening to someone I can't see at all unless I turn my neck to uncomfortable angles, and then only indistinctly, not to mention the fact that I'm freezing cold and you might be at your leisure to work all night but I have to get up early in the morning and –"
"I'm not staying," the man interrupted calmly. "I'll be back tomorrow night."
"I – what?" demanded Watanuki, at a loss for words for the first time in a long time.
"I need your name," the man continued.
Watanuki hesitated for a moment, then realised that no further request would be forthcoming. "It's Watanuki Kimihiro," he told the man, and felt his arm be released from its former grip. "You could just ask, you know! And you should tell me yours. It's only polite."
The man didn't say anything for a moment, and Watanuki just about gave up on a response. "Doumeki Shizuka," was the final response, and before anything else could be said his shadow climbed up the nearby wall and disappeared from view. After a moment, Watanuki stopped staring in disbelief at the spot he'd last seen it and finally entered the shed, muttering very quietly about rude late-night visitors and the incredible injustice that was his life.