Title: At the end of all things
Pairing: Kurogane x Fai
Words: 696
Summary: First kiss scenario at the end of all things.
Notes: Writen in a single 20-minute-go on Saturday night. Man, I missed having inspiration really hit like that
It ends somehow, the final fight, the final struggle for the princess' soul. Fei Wang Reed is no more. Syaoran's clone disappears some time near to the end, in a burst of light and smoke and with Sakura's tears to join him.
Fai lies crushed to the ground, left leg pierced clean through by a spike of the wizard's power; the blood oozes slowly but steadily from the wound, and he can feel it trickling down. His clothes are torn and shredded, his arms and neck are scraped and the fingers of his right hand feel broken – the claws, extended, had snapped and torn at one point in the fight.
He feels weak as a kitten (hah…) and can't convince himself to move, can't even reach out with his mind to feel, because, yes, now he can, his power is returning, though it is still in halves, and the change (from a cold block to the air, from blindness to sight, from death to life) is so crawlingly slow that he could sleep through it – yet not.
"Oi! You alright?"
Kurogane. The ninja comes toward him from somewhere to his left and kneels down by his side. Fai peeks up at him through dirty strands of hair and doesn't sketch a move; he couldn't if he wanted to.
"Oi!" Kurogane says again, and picks Fai up to lean him, half-sitting, against his shoulder. The pose is familiar, somehow, only this time Fai's actually awake (though not by very much), and he has both his eyes (though the black sash is still tied securely in place), and Kurogane is the one with his strength cut in half. The angles of his left arm are hard under Fai's neck, and he forces his eye wider to look up at the ninja.
There is blood on Kurogane's face, drying against his cheek and staining the side of his mouth, and Fai wants to reach up and dab his fingers for a taste – just to make sure. But his arms are both leaden and he can't feel his wrists at all – and with his head on Kurogane's shoulder, and Kurogane frowning down at him, it seems so simple…
He tilts his chin up, reaches out with his neck – his back aches at the little stretch, but it's so close, so easy – and as his left shoulder bows down just so to allow for the movement he manages to touch his lips to the corner of Kurogane's mouth – he'd aimed, in fact, for the side of his face, but just couldn't coordinate enough.
The ninja flinches, just a little, and Fai can't see whether his frown has turned into a scowl because his eye has closed sometime while reaching up. But Kurogane doesn't move away, maybe thinking Fai needs the little drink, and so, lips pressed against tanned skin, he licks up at the drying red, and he tastes blood, and Kurogane, and doesn't feel the hunger.
Another soft, warm lick, because he's there, and then one of them moves, just barely, and it turns, slowly, to a kiss, tentative and strange.
Kurogane tastes of blood but Fai still cannot feel the hunger, and he can't think to pull away. His neck is aching, though, and his back and left shoulder give away, and when they shiver out their protest his head falls back against the ninja's shoulder – who is frowning, when Fai opens his eye, looking piercingly down at him and not saying a word; it does seem strange to speak. Fai just looks up and breathes, and feels a smile wanting to curl up at his mouth, if only he weren't so tired.
Kurogane reaches up his right hand – slowly, everything happens slowly, the moment asks for it – and unties Fai's black sash one-handed. He pulls it off – slowly – as Fai watches his eyes, and then Fai blinks, once, long-drawn, and when his eyes open they are mismatched and clear.
Kurogane's fingers curl around the sash, and then his arm curls around Fai, and Fai shifts his head once again to rest, content, and drawn out to the brink, and with his power growing steadily inside him.