A/N: Largely inspired by MOG's The Tangled Webs We Weave. Arguably her best work that I know of. I wrote this partly to explore a dimension she made explicit, and partly to tease an old friend. So I suppose, I have to dedicate this to you MOG. Live well and live strong.

Disclaimer: Yaoi; read at your own risk. Obviously Clamp does not have a new member named Porticulis.

Stiff Dignity

Dignity, like the loose ends of the starched white shirt he had buttoned against the hesitance of my chest earlier that morning, spread crumpled tonight before the flow of Watanuki's supple thighs. Tides of milk and moonlight, surging and retreating in the force of an inexorable compulsion, they broke against my taut midriff and were forced to slip down the arched ridges of my pelvis.

"Hn- ahh- mn-!" His moist moans seeped out of crushed breath, running like the juice of amarantine berries, the thick ambrosiac juice chasing down my thirsting intoxication only to draw a parched groove across my beaten senses. A course through which indulgence could never flood onto the banks of satiation; a course through which nectar sublimed into æther.

"Hah-uhnn… Dou… meki… how long… uhn… will you… just… mhn… sit there?" In the curtaining shadows, his gaze was an unreadable veil of deep lustre, but those long delicate brows twisted in naked helplessness.

I didn't trust myself to speak, nor was I foolhardy enough to blunder into an argument where the initiative had already been wrested away. My pretence of passive resistance belied the fevered perspiration shivering in the tremors of bound pleasure- the pitiful subterfuge of a plundering guardian. Each swollen throb of my manhood seared the scattered pulses of sense, each sheathing thrust of his glided willingly with the savouring slickness of my baser self. Though unseen, the effusive fluidity churned with mortifying wantonness, each soaked agitation smacking noisily against raw hidden lips.

The racing ache assaulting my ragged senses frayed whatever restraint I forced into my hips. Harder still was it for me to cling on to the weak rationalizations I fought to hold, for whatever scant excuse I might hide behind when she thanks me for looking after him.

"Hn! Haa- You're… so stubborn…" he reproached, his arms nevertheless flung over my locked shoulders while his hands drove up against my nape and through the slope of my hair. I flinched involuntarily as his body leaned in closer to mine, caught in the shift of the covetous cushion of inner walls that imprisoned me for a torrid ransom. This close I could see that boyish triumphant grin wavering between broken sighs and hitched breaths. The dark gleam of his leer was almost as obscene as the quiver of his bright lower lip.

Just as the flaring currents tormenting my body began to thicken into a stiffening cord, he slipped. Our mutual hisses burned eagerly against each other, but when I could reopen my eyes, my breath froze before I could release it.

Pain, raw and unmasked, contorted the satisfaction of a moment ago into an injured confusion that slapped me back to my senses. There was Watanuki, the familiar fool who hated to appear foolish even when he was at his most. Even as he struggled to pry open his lids, lashes glinting with suffering tears, the unsettling hues of his dichromatic eyes glared at me as if they dared me to laugh.

It couldn't have been less funny.

For the first time I looked squarely at the heated rod that trembled against my abdomen, truly noticing its state.

"What are you staring at!" He snapped in flustered outrage, but the nostalgic tone only deepened my dismay.

His arousal was only barely stirring, as if Watanuki willed it more than he felt it. As if his entire pretence of wicked confidence had really been too painful for that honest part of him to lie on behalf of his pride.

And I had been too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice.

"Don't get all smug just because I stumbled- I'll make you beg for- wha- Hey!"

Despite the surprise in his flushed face, he didn't resist as I slowly toppled myself over him, carefully lowering his body against the futon's thick quilted covers. In the darkness the delicate embroidery was as indistinct as the world beyond this room, but Watanuki glowed with a subdued sensuality that approached the demure. It was a rare and beautiful sight.

"What are you up to?" He demanded quietly, gold and violet watching me cautiously.

In response, I only leaned down and brushed my lips against the edge of his ear, tracing it as I laid my breath along it, feeling his body shudder beneath mine in reply.

"Dou…meki…?"

Idiot… why didn't you stop when it hurt?

Hands searched for… and found the half-hearted arousal, gently kneading a grip right beneath its head, as if stroking a kitten's neck, ever so slightly, ever so carefully. Would he purr for me?

"Haa… no… Doumeki… this way is too embarrassing…"

No, I'm the one who's ashamed.

The panting youth below jerked his face away from me in the vain hope of escaping my gaze. Already my grip widened as the strength of his heated pulse grew steadily in my grasp. I brushed a few more kisses on his exposed cheek, sneaking in a few tastes in the last couple. Good. I knew it would be. He fussed a bit, but was strangely obedient.

Or perhaps not so strangely.

As the pace of my strokes quickened, what nectar initially forced out from mere pressure of penetration, now coated my fingers in a pleading stream. The liquid confessions of his pleasure guided my fingers to all the secrets of the barely matured manhood.

"Hn! Haa! Hngh! Unhh!"

So sweet. That his voice could be so sweet… Just for now, I wanted to keep it that way.

Just for now?

"Getting bigger… Dou… meki… yours is…"

What words! My stunned gaze swept over that darkly-coloured cheek, tainted with the awareness of how brazen their owner had just been. Yet his whispers continued to beckon.

"Move a bit…"

"… there's no rush," I calmly declined, though my baser core twitched plaintively inside of Watanuki, making him gasp.

"It's troublesome for me too! With you… in there…" he retorted while I attempted to hide my chagrined frown.

But there was something more important than our mutual awkwardness.

"Promise me," I began, "you won't hold it in."

"Doumeki… if you're asking me to get you in the mood with some dirty talk…" The boy warned testily.

"No!" I snapped before I could restrain myself and he flinched. "Sorry." I mumbled as I leaned down to brush my cheek against his. "Sorry."

"You don't want this?" I heard him ask, hurt and doubt plain in his timid question.

Yes and no. I'm overwhelmed that you want this, but wounded that you need it more than you want it.

"I want this," I answered simply instead, "but it's no good if you're holding the pain in."

"It's not like I'm your lover."

Ouch. Ah. That hurt more than I had imagined it would.

"Could you bear to continue knowing that H- … knowing that someone was in pain as you held them?" I asked him gravely, somehow keeping my tone level while I managed the pangs of guilt and self-disgust.

I couldn't read his expression, but I felt the turbulence in his silent gaze.

"If… if it were you," he started abruptly catching me off-guard, "would you show if it hurt?"

He must have seen something in my face because before I could consider a reply, his hands were reaching up to ease themselves against my shoulders.

"You're not even honest when it feels good," he teased distractingly, his smile caught between mirth and exasperation.

I reflected on this for a moment, briefly allowing the weighted concerns to slide off my tender conscience.

"I'll work on that, so you work on being honest too." I declared, drawing an arched brow from Watanuki.

Yet even that cocky smirk vanished as I nudged my hips closer against his thighs, and his lids lowered vulnerably just above a narrow gleam of enduring consciousness.

"It hurts?" I demanded.

"It's so deep," he whispered hoarsely, his breaths turning long but fragile.

Merely nodding as I frowned, I drew back a bit, wincing as his inner walls fought against my retreat with their soft but insistent grasp.

But I had promised I would work on being more honest.

"Haah- mmhhn…" I felt the warmth of a blush creeping up my nape to my cheeks as my breath quivered with the lewd sounds, and against my better judgment, glanced down at Watanuki who happened to be looking back at me with undisguised amazement.

It… it turned my mouth dry…

"Watanuki… I won't go in too deep… so…" I didn't really have to ask but his pink rage was always nice to see.

"Don't ask every single little thing! Hn-!" His agitation shifted my half-buried manhood in a sensitive angle.

"You're so noisy," I murmured soothingly as I pressed my body over his to support his smaller frame. But I don't really hate that about you.

Sounds, ever so scarlet, crushed between his timid anticipation and my wary rhythm, made even our rough breaths keen against our senses, leaving them to glide effortlessly through all reason and self. Where one stroke ended and where another began seemed to be as meaningful as the swells and dips of the rocking tides, each blending into the other, till what began in a determined shallow course flowed with greater boldness and depth.

"Unh-hah! Uah! D-dou- Hngh!"

"Ahh… un… fff… mnhhh… tch!"

I had lost control, and as much as Watanuki was breaking before the rushing crash of my body, so was I undone in the churning unsurpassed tenderness of his furnace. Venting my frustration, my pumping grasp narrowed its elliptical trajectory around the flared head of Watanuki's core, kneading the edge of my thumb into the sensitive groove where the two fiery crimson arcs met.

"Haunh-!"

His slender form collided into mine as the sensations fought the confines of his boyish frame to no avail, his body striving in vain against mine. His racing heartbeats, his wild heat, flooded my awareness, and my blurring vision poured lustfully over his brilliant eyes, bright with tears that swam like stars reflected in a clear lake.

"Does it… nnn… hurt?" I struggled to ask as levelly as I could manage. My heart sank as he nodded anxiously but his fingertips brushed soothingly against my dismay.

"But… it feels good…" His fragile whisper accompanied by streaking tears. Only the thick pulse of his manhood assured me that the eternal youth was not humouring me. "But… don't you dare… haa… bring that up… hnn… tomorrow…" he added, sounding more like himself though he remained so painfully vulnerable.

"I want you to feel good…" I informed him, a little bemused by his warning. This was classic Watanuki- going off in all kinds of perplexing tangents.

"Conceited- nghah!" His retort was cut off as he buried his moans against my throat, surprising me with a rewarding lick.

"No- haah- just scared," I murmured, but perhaps he didn't hear me. The flares and jolts that both whipped and paralyzed our damp bodies, had grown to stretch our very consciousness in indescribable torment. Watanuki's sporadic thrashes against my stiffening huddle brought our mutual agony into mounting conflict- but one of us had to break.

"Ah-nghaaah- Dou- plea- ah- ahh- hah- HNGGH!"

White heat amidst molten pelting. As Watanuki's effusions scalded my endurance, an inner incandescent fire obliterated me. Inner? No, this sensation surrounded me- Watanuki, clenching in his release, and in so doing, the part of me that drove so desperately within him, that part of me- I was-

"I- hah- uh- nhhhm!"

Accept me!

…

…

…

Rousing to a new day, I realized I had been robbed. What I had believed secured by the moonlight, dawn had secreted away. Like the dreamlike frost of last night lost in the merciless glare of day. Watanuki was gone. I sat up, drawing my thoughts together as the streaming sunlight touched my bare back with its innocent warmth.

Bare?

I looked up at the elegant black clothes stand, and soft amusement threaded my forlorn frown.

Spread proudly along the steel frame- a new white shirt stiff with starched dignity.

…

…and sure enough, a pair of briefs tucked modestly below a fresh pair of pants folded just beside me (he never liked the idea of me tracking across the room completely naked)…

…

It had never crossed my mind before, but I wondered now what goes through his mind as he irons my underwear.

Slowly, but surely, I savoured my first smile of the day.

…