Notes: Fair warning that this fic contains references to child abuse, character death, and is NSFW. AU fic written for the Kurofai Olympics going on over at the Dreamwidth kurofai comm!

Kurogane had met the idiot over a misunderstanding. An attempted misunderstanding. Blue eyes had gleamed wickedly in the dim of the hall, their owner silhouetted by the light escaping the flat. 'Deception' was probably a better word.

(It takes more than a pretty face to fool Kurogane.)

Kurogane had met the idiot on a Monday night two months before the wedding. Tomoyo had been at Yuui's flat, like always on Monday, because Yuui had that night off from the restaurant, and he would meet her after work, would help her turn off computers and video servers and lights; waited while she set the studio's alarm so they might walk to the station together. They would catch the train to Yuui's flat, to home – the place that would in time becomehome, or for that first year, anyway – where Yuui tied back his apron and started pulling things from the fridge, and Tomoyo looked at him with a smile so soft, so…

Well, Kurogane didn't know the details. Didn't care to know the details of his younger sister's intimate affairs, if it came to that.

But on Mondays, every Monday, Kurogane worked the night shift. He worked the night shift on Monday and Tuesday, in fact, having worked days on Saturday and Sunday, and no matter how often his captain clucked her tongue and shook her head and said, 'I really ought to rotate you off weekends,' she never did, because no-one wanted to work days on the weekend – no-one besides Kurogane – and having one willing man on permanent roster meant one less permanent complaint in Souma's ear each week.

Kurogane didn't particularly enjoy the stretch from Wednesday to Friday when he wasn't at work – but he didn't usually start thinking about that until Wednesday arrived.

And so, on Mondays, every Monday, Kurogane woke at five in the afternoon, drank some tea, checked his messages. Went for a run around his neighbourhood – in summer, the heat, if not the stifling humidity, tempered by the waning sun, and in winter, the chill biting at his bared arms for the first half-mile – and then back at his flat, he turned his attention to the assortment of weights kept in a crate on his tiny balcony. He had something to eat – more often than not, something grabbed from the convenience store at the tail end of his run – but that Monday, in fact, he had taken something from one of several plastic containers his sister had deposited in his fridge the day before: Sunday, while Kurogane was most assuredly not home. Tomoyo had let herself in with a key he had no memory of supplying her with. She'd probably been a pickpocket in a former life.

('Of course I have a spare key, Kurogane. What if you threw a fit and collapsed one day? Who would ever find you?'

'Tche. I think they'd notice if I didn't show up for work, don't you?'

'Not on a Thursday.'

And she'd looked at him with something soft and troubled muddying her warm violet gaze. He'd harrumphed, and turned away, told her not to lose the thing.)

That Monday, Kurogane had prised the lid off the Tupperware and peered cautiously at the contents: it wasn't Japanese, but then, he hadn't supposed it would be, having already guessed the cook as his sister's boyfriend. Fiancé. Whatever. The meal looked slightly less appetising than it probably had when fresh, the sauce solid and dark from the chill of the fridge, but he could make out pieces of chicken, and the noodles - pasta- he'd eaten often enough at Yuui's place.

He'd popped the container into the microwave, eaten it half-gazing out the balcony doors, half-listening to the weather report, and ignoring the part of his brain that thought, idly, of Yuui spooning the food into the containers, of the way Yuui's hair fell across his face as he worked, of the fact that Yuui had remembered not to include cheese for his lactose-intolerant brother-in-law. Soon-to-be brother-in-law. Whatever.

Kurogane caught a piece of chicken in his chopsticks.

People often remarked, the surprise plain on their faces, how unalike Kurogane and Tomoyo were – one delicate, one massive, one fair, one tanned, one gentle, one… well. Less gentle, anyway. Siblings different in every possible respect, it seemed, and people remarked upon it, of course they did, but Kurogane thought, meeting Yuui for the first time, clear blue eyes and a gentle, gentle smile, that perhaps he and Tomoyo weren't so different after all.

Naturally he promptly resolved never to think of it again. Yuui was Tomoyo's boyfriend, who became, in time, her fiancé – his soon-to-be brother-in-law – and that was all. Far more worrying was the prospect of having anything in common with his sister: however much he loved her, that was a disturbing thought all its own.

One of Kurogane's co-workers liked to joke that Kurogane was married to his job. And that, well, that was probably true, even if said co-worker was a poser bastard with a penchant for chatting up (hostile) nurses. Or true, at least, in the sense that it was as close as Kurogane would ever get to marriage. He worked weekends. He worked, full stop: Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and then he got up and worked some more.

He washed the little Tupperware container at the sink and left it to drain on the dish rack.

On that Monday, still a Monday like any other Monday then, he'd made his way to the tiny bathroom, the one that didn't quite allow him to turn sideways. He'd folded himself into the equally tiny shower, went about the business of getting ready for work. Blue t-shirt pulled from the line on the balcony, orange coveralls – rescue coveralls – from a hook on the wall. Yesterday's pair still soaked in the tub, a layer of scum floating upon the surface. They'd had to make Kurogane's uniform to measure – had never had someone so tall in the fire service in all its illustrious history, but Kurogane was used to hearing stuff like that. He'd heard it all his life.

Finally he stood before the tiny mirror in the bathroom to fix his badge to the coveralls – one star, one stripe – and run a hand through his hair. He went to the entryway, pulled on his boots, flicked off the lights, and then he slammed the door tight behind him.

If Tomoyo wasn't ready, he was going to be late.

Because on Monday nights, on his way to work the night shift, Kurogane stopped at his soon-to-be brother-in-law's flat, picked up his soon-to-be married younger sister, and drove her home. He heard how her day had been, avoided any and all probing questions insofar as humanly possible, and then gritted his teeth at his sister's inevitable commentary on anything from the disappointingly drab fire service uniform to Kurogane's choice of reading material.

('You know, there's an anime convention next weekend. Why don't you go as that samurai from the manga you read? I could have a costume made in two days! Who knows, you might meet a nice guy. The pair of you could cosplay together…')

Yeah, choice of reading material if he was lucky.

Kurogane picked up his younger sister and dropped her off at the house she shared with their older cousin. He didn't get out of the car, because at one (irritating) point, Tomoyo had somehow introduced their cousin to Kurogane's fire captain, who had somehow asked her out, and the pair had somehow fallen in love (or something). Souma had been installed at the house before Kurogane could even say 'U-haul', and the three of them lived there in an unholy union of female acquaintance: cousin, sister, boss.

Kurogane nevergot out of the car.

He did at Yuui's place, though. Once he'd parked his ancient hatchback, knees forced ridiculously high by the dimensions of the thing, he took a moment to smooth his collar, and then, out of the car, to straighten his back, square his shoulders.

He took the stairs two at a time to the third floor, knocked on the door, and waited.

And on that particular Monday evening, the door had swung open, and there… Kurogane had blinked, thrown, momentarily. There in the light spilling from the flat stood Yuui, his hair pulled into a scruffy plait, his skinny frame draped in a jumper Kurogane vaguely recognised, and yet there had been something about the glimmer in his eyes, something about way he leaned against the doorframe that…

'Ah,' said Yuui, looking him up and down. Something like a smirk was working its way into his smile: it didn't belong there. 'I thought I booked you for the 24th? And I wanted a policeman, although,' and with that Yuui, not Yuui, had run a hand down Kurogane's arm, 'I think I'm willing to compromise for you.'

Kurogane said, 'What.'

'For my bachelor party,' the not-Yuui said. He'd leaned closer, 'I'm getting married soon, but, well, no harm in looking, hmm?'

And at that, Kurogane had snorted. 'You're not Yuui.'

The not-Yuui's eyes had widened slightly. He'd laughed, sent irritation rippling up Kurogane's spine, and, 'Of courseI'm Yuui, Fireman-san,' he said, but then he'd given Kurogane a sly look beneath his lashes. He'd reached to tap a finger against Kurogane's chin, 'Or Kuro-chan, rather.'

So. The bastard knew exactly who he was. Well, at least one of them knew something.

'It's Kurogane,' he'd replied tersely, and then, 'Where's Tomoyo?'

The imposter pouted at that. 'How awful of you,' he said, but he said it carelessly: the game was over and his attentions already turning elsewhere. For there was movement in the hall behind him. The man with Yuui's face turned, and then Kurogane stared slightly as Yuui, the real Yuui, came into view. He'd smiled warmly at Kurogane, placed a hand on his doppelganger's shoulder, and said, 'I don't think you've met Kurogane-san yet, Fai.'

The liar, Fai, beamed, and said, 'We were just making introductions. Kuro-fireman promised to show me his hose later.'

(Kurogane had notspluttered.)

Yuui had given Fai a look then, something caught between exasperation and amusement, and Fai's eyes had lingered across the curve of his twin's mouth, the faint furrow of his brow. Something had passed between them that Kurogane couldn't quite grasp, something full and fleeting and gone too quickly. But there Yuui had turned back to Kurogane. He'd introduced Fai as his brother – as if Kurogane hadn't deduced that by himself already – who had flown in from god knows where the day before and was due to fly out again in a matter of days; the last said too brightly, too glib. Yuui's eyes had crinkled as he spoke – but his twin would be back for the wedding, wouldn't he?

Fai said he would.

('Weddings are a good place to pick up, you know.')

Yuui had rolled his eyes. Kurogane waited for Tomoyo in the hall.

And so Kurogane had met Yuui's idiot (twin) brother. He'd made mental note notto meet him again any time soon, and yet, somehow, a week later, when Kurogane pulled on his boots and squared his shoulders and took the stairs two at a time… somehow Kurogane found himself remembering the idiot's too-wide smile, his messy-loose hair, the oh-so-quick flick of his finger – far too abrupt to be anything like a caress – against the crest of Kurogane's chin.

Somehow. For no reason at all.

Yuui opened the door, offered his gentle smile, and Kurogane drove his sister home on his way to night shift.

Fai was gone, flown back to god knows where, and Kurogane didn't think about him – never thought of him at all, in fact, except on Mondays, every Monday, in those scant seconds between knock and reception, when his mind dragged the memory back: fingers and smile and lashes and light.

Somehow. Always.

The bastard managed to be irritating even in absentia.

Still, Fai was certainly gone, and Yuui seemed quieter, then, the time or two Kurogane saw him after that. Not that he was wildly obtrusive at the best of times – he left that to his twin – but Kurogane sensed that this, the wake of Fai's departure, was not the best of times for him. The scent of baking, sweet and cloying, greeted Kurogane on Monday nights. Tomoyo mentioned an exhibition she'd wangled tickets for: it was, she said, something to cheer Yuui up. Her voice more subdued than it might otherwise be. And yet the man still smiled when he answered the door and said, 'Good evening, Kurogane-san.' Still smiled, always smiled.

It wasn't the same as the idiot's smile, but it wasn't honest, all the same.

But that was none of Kurogane's business. Kurogane kept to his routine – working and running and driving his sister home on Monday nights. He did his best to avoid his cousin, a venture in which he was largely successful, and to avoid his captain, one in which he largely wasn't. And then one afternoon, a Thursday with only about a week left before the wedding, he answered his phone and found himself plunged into a baffling conversation with his sister about that wedding. About, in particular, who he might be bringing to it.

And, 'Nobody,' Kurogane said, teeth gritted. He could feel the muscle at the side of his jaw beginning to jump. He'd circled 'I will/will not be attending with/withouta guest.' He'd been waiting for the lecture ever since.

But the chiding didn't come. 'There – I said so,' Tomoyo said. She sounded triumphant; it curled something slow and cautious in Kurogane's gut.

'So what?' he said guardedly.

Tomoyo was up to something – he could hear it in her voice – but, 'No, nothing,' she replied easily, tooeasily. He could hear her smile as well. 'We're just finalising the seating plan for the reception.'

Huh. Well, Kurogane had every intention of finding a quiet corner at the reception and drinking the night away in peace. Kendappa and Souma and whoever else Tomoyo planned to inflict on him could do what they liked with the spare seat at their table; Kurogane wouldn't be filling it.

So, 'Fine,' he said shortly. He said his goodbyes, ended the call before Tomoyo could quiz him about his planned attire for the occasion as well.

(Later, he would realise he hadn't been the only one eager to avoid questions during that particular conversation.)

Latercame just over a week later. Kurogane found himself staring at his place setting in the reception hall after his sister's wedding, and to his left, as he might've guessed, was indeed Souma, but to his right…

Kurogane's brow darkened. The idiot looked up, and smiled.

(Tousled blond hair backlit in the glow of the hall lamp, the brush of cold fingers rough against his chin.)

To his right sat the imposter: Fai, Yuui's idiot twin flown back from god knows where. He met Kurogane's gaze, raised his glass in something like a greeting, and that smile – lazy and bright, white teeth, pink lips – that smile made Kurogane want to pull his shoulder back and swing.

'Kuro-tan,' the idiot said. 'How charming to see you again. Though I confess I was rather hoping to see you out of uniform today.'

Kurogane looked down at his black dress suit and back up again. Fai watched with quick blue eyes. 'Still, maybe later, hmm?' he said. And smirked.

Kurogane turned on his heel and set about locating the bar.

The reprieve was short-lived, of course. Too soon there were calls for all guests to take their seats, and, yes, that included the terribly grumpy puppy moping at the bar. Kurogane managed not to choke on his drink – perhaps because his throat was empty at the time – but he did look up, glared at the bastard wielding the microphone. Fai gazed back, smile blithe; apparently he was unperturbed by the look Fuuma claimed constituted assault under the Workplace Health and Safety Act.

Kurogane huffed and took his drink back to the table.

(Dinner carried on.)

Kurogane had endured three courses of ridiculous nicknames, stupid jokes, and blatantly made-up childhood stories when Fai leaned across, swooped on Kurogane's poached pear with wild berry compote with a cackle of glee. He stole it away before Kurogane could so much as raise his spoon, and,'Oi!'Kurogane objected. He made a grab for the plate.

The (imposter, doppelganger, liar) thief played keep-away.

'Yuui says Kuro-tan doesn't like dessert,' Fai said. His brow creased, and he might actually have looked truly sincere if not for the mirth dancing in his eyes.

Not the point. 'It's mine,' Kurogane growled. Reached (and missed) for the plate a second time. Fai pouted (laughed).

'But it'd be a waste,' he countered, and he had the fucking audacity to steal Kurogane's spoon then: started moving it towards the edge of the pear with long, slender fingers. 'Besides,' the spoon broke the pear, 'don't you want to show Tomoyo-chan that we can play nice after all?'

Kurogane decided – quite independently, because he could get his plate back at any time if he wanted – that dessert could go to hell. Even if it had looked less revolting than the concoction of chocolate and cream sitting (for now) untouched on Fai's own plate.

But Fai was still speaking, sliding berries about the plate with his stolen spoon. 'She and Yuui went to so much trouble to have us sit next to each other, you know,' he said casually, and then, meeting Kurogane's eye, 'Two single brothers side by side at the same table.' He grinned massively, waggled his fair eyebrows. 'It's like putting two pandas in the same cage at the zoo! Which of us is meant to be the girl panda, do you think?'

Kurogane snarled.

'Of course, you and Tomoyo-chan could compare notes,' Fai went on, and he was for all the world oblivious to the thunderous expression on Kurogane's face. 'Though I have to tell you, Yuui and I are completely different in bed.' And somewhere through the haze of what the fucking fuck?paralysing his brain, Kurogane was vaguely aware of the carry of Fai's voice, of Souma seated beside him… 'But we do both like it when you lick behind – '

'Oi!' Kurogane glanced about, fighting the heat creeping up his neck. Nobody was looking. Fai smirked again, and how Kurogane was sick of seeing that smirk!' How would you even know that, anyway?' he said sharply.

Fai's eyes gleamed. 'How do you think I know, Kuro-tan?'

He might've meant it a hundred ways – but he didn't. The insinuation was perfectly clear. Kurogane didn't say anything, and Fai watched him for a moment, waiting, waiting – and then he threw his head back and laughed. Idiot! 'We do talkto each other, you know, Kuro-fluster. Why, were you thinking of something else?'

Kurogane looked at Fai, with his brightly polished humour and barely there smile, and turned away.

(Tomoyo would never let him hear the end of it if he punched his new brother-in-law at her wedding.)

There were speeches then. Kurogane's cousin stood up and spoke for Tomoyo with her customary coolness, unnecessarily dragging up several anecdotes that involved Kurogane in the process. Kurogane scowled and turned his head, and caught – just at the very corner of his eye – Fai chuckling low in his throat, a softness on his face that he hadn't seen before.

Kurogane turned back to the speeches.

After that a colleague of Yuui's stood up to speak for him, and it was about then that Kurogane realised – peering across the heads of the guests – that Fai was, in fact, the only blood relative of Yuui's in the entire room.

He leaned closer, saw Fai stiffen at the gesture, but, 'Shouldn't you be up there speaking for him?' he said.

Fai shrugged. 'I'm hardly the right person to talk about love, Kuro-tan,' he said blithely, and he turned then more properly to the front of the room, feigned total attention before Kurogane could ask anything more.

But after the speeches, after Yuui, blushing slightly, had taken Tomoyo's hand and led her into a graceful, if brief, waltz around the little dance floor, Kurogane watched as Fai tapped his new sister-in-law on the shoulder, said something that set the three of them laughing. He took his brother's hand and held him about the waist and the pair of them waltzed then, still laughing, still graceful, across the floor in perfect, identical step. Kurogane saw Fai's lips move; his gaze turned serious suddenly, and he stayed that way until Yuui nodded back at him, smiled his gentle, gentle smile.

Then they turned and were lost.

Fai knew something about love, at least: fierce, clinging love, uncompromising, unchanging, the love of allies and co-conspirators. Childish, protective love that never wavered, never dulled.

Tomoyo glanced towards him, her face flushed and happy, and, yeah, Kurogane knew something about that as well.

But inevitably the evening wore on – wore on and wound down. Guests began to disappear from the hall: older relatives, first, and those with small children, until eventually there were just the tables and chairs and a handful of figures amongst them. Tomoyo and Yuui – still smiling, but tireder now – were saying their farewells to the guests as they left. They stood at that moment with Fuuma and his (hostile) nurse – and why he'd merited an invitation, Kurogane didn't know.

'They look good together,' Fai commented. Kurogane glanced towards him: he was watching his brother and Tomoyo. His hair was pulled back into a rough little ponytail, his cheeks pink in the warmth of the hall. His jacket was slung over the back of his chair. 'Being in love suits them.'

Yeah, well. They'd just gotten married. Looking happy about it was part of the deal.

Then, 'Well,' said Fai, a little more briskly, 'now Yuui is all respectably married off, I ought to see about getting you home to your bed,' and Kurogane growled a warning low in his throat. Fai laughed. He stood up, starting pulling on his rumpled jacket. 'Though Kuro-panda doesn't seem to be in a very loving mood.'

They were just empty words. Kurogane knew it – they both knew it. Idle banter to amuse Fai for a moment while he straightened his tie. Something to make Kurogane glare and shout and give Fai his smirk.

Instead, Kurogane said, 'Tche. I thought you didn't know anything about love.'

And at that, Fai looked at him – looked for too long, in fact. He smoothed down his sleeves, and then he said, in a neutral sort of voice, 'Well, you don't need love for sex, you know, Kuro-tan.'

The words hung between them in the air: not idle any more at all, suddenly. Things too heavy, too raw. But then Kurogane turned back to his drink. He took a mouthful and swallowed it. 'You're an idiot,' he said flatly, and Fai laughed again. The sound carried clear and sharp across the hall.

'How mean,' he said. He reached to take one of the heart-shaped chocolates from the table, dug his nail into the foil to unwrap it. 'I don't think I like you any more.'

And he popped the thing in his mouth and left.

Kurogane imagined, then, that it would be the last he'd see of Fai. But of course, he had imagined a lot of things, then.

Some things changed after the wedding, and some didn't.

Tomoyo moved into Yuui's little flat, the one Kurogane had driven to every Monday night, and he saw less of her after that: his fault, not hers, but there it was. 'You could still drop by on your way to work,' she said, her voice angled somewhere between hopefulness and reproach. 'You could have dinner with us before your shift.'

Kurogane did sometimes, but not often.

(Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and then he got up and worked some more.)

But time marched on anyway, with or without Monday nights to punctuate it. Tomoyo and Yuui moved to another flat, one with a different set of stairs for Kurogane to trudge up less often than he ought. It was a flat with three bedrooms - Kurogane didn't know how they were affording that - but they needed it, you see. Tomoyo told him with her face soft and light. They needed it because children really deserved to have a place of their own.

It took him a minute for what she was saying to sink in. Then it did. Kurogane kind of wished she had waited until he wasn't slurping spaghetti to break the news – but he swallowed the food anyway, wiped his mouth against his napkin. Didn'tacknowledge the part of his brain trying to remind him just how babies were made.

'Hn,' he said, and eyed her warily. Glanced across at Yuui, saw his gentle, gentle smile. It was a good smile for a father, Kurogane supposed. He lowered his gaze back to the (treacherous) spaghetti. 'Just don't call it anything stupid.'

Tomoyo chuckled at that. 'Of course not, Kurogane,' she said.

(Time marched on indeed.)

As it happened, Tomoyo named her daughter Sakura. Kurogane grunted when he heard it. He supposed it made sense for a child born in the spring.

And Sakura was the sort of baby that everyone adored. Not that there was anyone in her small sphere that wouldn't have loved her blindly – this, noted by Kurogane as he watched his sister pass the child to Kendappa in the warmth of the flat – but she was a happy baby all the same: bright eyes and eager hands and cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. She smiled plenty too. Smiled, gurgled, laughed. She sat entranced by her own reflection in the mirror, reached out for things unseen. Tomoyo fell in love with her from the first: from what Kurogane understood, that was how it was meant to work.

(In another lifetime, there was another house, with another mother and another father, and two very different children in it.)

But Kurogane found that he visited the flat more often after that, and the little family that lived there. He watched his niece take her first unsteady, determined steps across the tatami; let her stumble and fall and didn't move to help. Felt a swell of pride when she blinked as her nappy hit the ground, hauled herself upright with nothing less than a smile.

She was strong, he thought. She would figure everything out by herself.

There came autumns, when Kurogane held her against his shoulder in the cool of the evening, let the breeze rustle through their clothing and hair. Winters, with Sakura nestled into his side, pink bunny pyjamas and bubble bath skin. He let her turn the pages of the manga he read to her, the samurai still trying to complete his quest after all these years. His story no closer to completion than it ever had been.

'He looks sad,' she said one evening, peering at the page. Kurogane had grunted – how did you explain the weight of destiny to a little kid in fuzzy slippers? But then she'd gazed up at him. She'd leaned closer, and Kurogane felt his heart squeeze painfully tight at the brush of tiny lashes against his cheek. 'Butterfly kiss,' she told him, all earnest green eyes. 'Daddy taught me how.'

(Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and on Monday nights, quite often, he trudged up the stairs to his sister and brother-in-law's flat to curl pasta around his fork, tousle his niece's hair.)

And so it seemed that things would last that way forever: butterfly kisses and bunny pyjamas and finger paintings on the fridge. The things in containers that mysteriously appeared in it. Days when he kept away because 'Uncle Fai' was coming to visit, and nights he slammed the phone down on another guy who greeted him with, 'I got your number from your sister.'

(Working, running, sleeping, working.)

Mondays nights. Sticky little hands that tugged at his sleeve, begged a giant of an uncle for a ride atop his shoulders. Reminded Kurogane, driving home in the quiet of Tuesday mornings, of times long forgotten. Long put away.

It seemed that things would last that way forever, but of course, things rarely do.

Kurogane didn't expect to get a personal call from Souma late on a Thursday night.

In truth, he didn't expect to get a personal call from her at any time, but there it was: the display on his phone lit up, Souma, and that made him frown. For a second he considered letting it go, stretching out on the sofa to finish watching his movie in peace, but then he reached for the remote. Curiosity got the better of him.

He pressed the answer button on his phone.

Straight away, Souma said, 'Kurogane-san?' And that was enough to make Kurogane tense, because her voice sounded strained, tight in her throat: it was the voice she used when there was a major incident at work. Kurogane flicked off the TV and sat up. 'Kurogane-san, are you there?' she said.

'Yeah, I'm here,' he said. 'What's happened?'

He heard her hesitate. Then, in that tight, strained voice, she said, 'There's been an accident. Tomoyo-chan's family – their car was involved. We…' Souma's voice drifted in and out. 'We're driving to the hospital. You need to come too. Right now. All right? I'm sending Saiga-san to get you.'

Kurogane said, 'I can drive myself,' because that was automatic, and then, 'How bad is it?'

Souma hesitated again. 'It sounds bad,' she said. 'Very bad. Wait for Saiga-san –'

He hung up on her. He didn't want to hear it. He wasn't a child, he was a fucking adult, a fireman; he didn't need someone to drive him to the hospital. Kurogane grabbed his jacket from the rack by the front door, stooped to pull on his boots. He heard Souma's voice again, looped back in his head: it sounds bad, she'd said. Words that managed to be both vague and horribly unambiguous all at once.

Kurogane flicked off the lights, pulled the door tight behind him, and it was only as he strode across the car park, started planning the fastest route in his head, that he realised he didn't have the faintest idea where to go.

Shortly after that, Saiga showed up.

They passed the drive more or less in silence. Kurogane didn't have anything he needed to say, and he was glad Saiga didn't try to find something. They crossed the city in an everlasting stream of lights – green, amber, red, amber. Watched the asphalt swallowed up in the glare of the headlamps. It felt like forever. Kurogane was starting to suspect Saiga was fucking lost when they pulled into the drive of the place.

They stopped in an emergency parking bay. 'Let me know if you need a ride back,' Saiga said. He was still wearing his house slippers, had on a pair of tracksuit pants with an old cardigan thrown over the top. Kurogane hadn't seen him out of uniform before.

He cleared his throat. 'Do you know if… whether she's alive?'

Saiga shook his head. His eyes were hidden by the tint of his glasses. 'I don't know,' he said.

(Kurogane got out of the car.)

Kurogane went to reception in the hospital proper and talked to the woman behind the desk. Waited while she made one, then another call in an attempt to locate his younger sister. Got given directions to the casualty department. He pushed through the glass doors, made his way through a mess of bloodied faces and screaming infants to yet another reception desk, fought to control the surge of fury he felt when the man behind it held up a hand, turned away to the telephone instead. He flexed his palm against the countertop, counted to ten, and then, when, a hand touched his arm, he glanced sharply down. Found his cousin by his side amongst all the glare and the din.

Kurogane looked at Kendappa's face, saw the tautness in her brow, the set of her jaw, and knew what she was going say.

'When?' he heard himself ask.

She said, 'Before we got here.' She hadn't moved her hand from his arm: it felt strange, her palm against his skin. Unfamiliar. 'It happened at the scene, I think. Straight away. They didn't tell us until we got here.'

Kurogane didn't say anything. Stared at Kendappa's hand, white and oddly fragile. Then she said, 'Yuui-san,' and he frowned, looked at her uncomprehendingly, 'is still in surgery. I gather it's not good. They told his brother…'

And, 'He's here?' Kurogane asked. He could hear the shock in his own voice, the anger seeping into it.

Kendappa studied him for a moment. She said, 'Yes,' but nothing more. If it had been Tomoyo there with him, she would have teased him about that: taken him playfully to task over his disdain for his brother-in-law, over the disapproving tone she would have claimed was absolutely unwarranted, because Fai-san was charming and Sakura loved him and…

Kurogane breathed out, very slowly, and back in again.

He wouldn't hear Tomoyo say that again. Not ever again. The realisation of it sagged cold and heavy in his stomach.

He said, 'What about the baby?'

Strictly speaking, Sakura hadn't been a baby for a while; somehow the name still applied.

'She's all right,' Kendappa replied. Her back was very straight, but there was a faint wash of relief in her voice as she said it. 'They're still checking her over, but she's all right.'

Then she pulled her hand back and moved away.

She made him follow her then to a door at the edge of the waiting room – Relatives Room, the sign said. That was all. Inside they found Souma, red-rimmed and bleak; she was still wearing her uniform. There was no sign of Fai.

Somewhere inside Kurogane, a tiny alarm flared at that.

But there were other things demanding his attention at that moment. Things he needed to hear. And so Souma told him about the call that had been assigned to a fire station four districts over: a car collided with a truck, two adults and a child trapped inside. She told him how emergency despatch had requested a rescue unit equipped with hydraulic shears: a unit, in other words, like Kurogane's own. She told him that it had taken about 40 minutes to cut through the wreckage. And Kurogane thought of the clank and grind of the hydraulics, of the terrible graunch of metal on metal. He couldn't begin to guess the number of times he'd attended crash sites like that in his career.

(Tomoyo, lying heavy and wet amongst the debris. Blond hair turned dark and sticky and red.)

Kurogane shifted. 'Where's the brother?' he said abruptly.

Souma shook her head. 'I haven't seen him since earlier,' she said. Her eyes flicked to Kendappa, but she didn't elaborate further. Perhaps she didn't know. Kurogane opened the door.

'I'll find him,' he said, and went.

It took both more and less time than Kurogane expected to find Yuui's twin. Less, because Fai was an idiot that might've been anywhere at all, and more, because where he should've been was waiting with the others in that fucking awful room. As it was, Kurogane found him outside: a smoking area of sorts, with grit-blackened ashtrays and a narrow wooden bench. Fai was sitting on it with his head in his hands.

Kurogane went over to him and said, 'Any news?'

There was no reply. Fai didn't look up, but he let his hands fall away from his face – they folded awkwardly over his knees, cast strange shadows in the orange glow of the security floodlight. Then he said, thickly, 'They. They told me that Yuui… They said he died.'

Kurogane stared at the top of Fai's head. Felt something drain away sharply inside him. Fai still didn't look up – didn't move at all, in fact – but after a moment Kurogane became aware of a whining, low and pitiful, and shuddering, stifled breaths. Fai curled into himself, and Kurogane watched until there was hardly a thing left of him: just a creature of shoes and knees and hair.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

Kurogane sat on the bench, heavily. He could still feel that draining inside him, sharp and thin. He felt hollow. Blown out, like an egg. It was weird. Because he was fairly certain something usually occupied that great gaping space in his chest.

('Not on a Thursday.')

At the other end of the bench, Fai sobbed as though his heart were broken. Kurogane figured it was.

There was nothing he could say – nothing he wanted to say, because Fai didn't need someone he barely knew telling him everything was going to be OK. It wasn't going to be OK. Not any time soon, anyway, and Kurogane had no fucking idea when it would be again. Whether it would be again. Life would go on, because that's what it did; that didn't mean it would be OK.

Then, 'It's my fault,' said Fai. Kurogane looked across at him. He'd uncurled slightly. His eyes were dark and terrible under the orange light. 'It's my fault. They were driving back from dropping me at the hotel. I said I could…' But there was no point in that. Fai put his shoulders up in a defeated little shrug. 'If I hadn't been here,' he said instead, 'They would never, never have been out driving at that time of night, if I hadn't…'

'Shut up,' Kurogane said sharply.

And Fai did. Sat blinking in silence, didn't look at him at all. Kurogane didn't care. He didn't have the patience for self-recriminations from a man who was old enough to know better. He said, 'It's not your fault. There was a fucking accident. That's all. Got it? It's no more your fault they're dead tonight than it was mine…' but there he stopped. He hadn't meant to bring that up – a fire and a boy and guilt that curled through the years. Fai didn't seem to notice, anyway. Kurogane licked his lips. 'It's not your fault, idiot, so just shut up.'

Because Fai had to know better than that, surely.

(Surely.)

They sat without speaking after that. Kurogane leaned back on the bench and tried not to think about his sister's lips and cheeks and eyes – about all the ways they could be broken. He tried not to think about her hand – so much smaller even then – that had slipped into his once upon a time. That had drawn him back from terrible things. He was supposed to protect her. What the fuck happened to that?

He didn't wonder what Fai was thinking about, silent and blinking at the other end of the bench.

But at last someone came towards them – a patient from one of the wards. He had a dressing gown over his pyjamas, walked unsteadily with one hand on his drip trolley. He peered curiously at Fai as he drew closer, and Kurogane decided then to slide along the bench, give his place to the man rather than let him sit between. Better Fai bunched next to Kurogane than some stranger who wanted to chitchat – or worse still, stare.

The man gave Kurogane a look, but settled without comment in the vacant space. He produced a pack of cigarettes, and presently there was the click and hiss of the lighter, the coughing and snorting of the man as he took his first drag.

Fai said, bleakly, 'Sakura-chan is an orphan now.'

That was another thing Kurogane wished he didn't have to think about. He said, 'Yeah.'

But, 'We were orphans too,' Fai said. So quietly, it was almost lost to the smoking man's cough, the rattle of his trolley as he manoeuvred it about – but only almost. Kurogane heard it. And it made sense: he'd never heard Yuui or Tomoyo mention any of Yuui's family – any outside of Fai, anyway, and of him, Kurogane had always heard more than he cared to. But before he could think too much on that, Fai went on. 'I won't have Sakura-chan grow up the same way we did,' he said. He sounded steadier now. When Kurogane looked, there was a firmness about his mouth that hadn't been there before.

Kurogane didn't know a thing about the way Fai and Yuui grew up. Wasn't in the mood for a history lesson just then either.

He said, again, 'Yeah.'

Fai turned to look at him properly then. He was completely devoid of the kind of bright humour that usually irked Kurogane, and it might've been nice if it wasn't so unsettling. Fai looked, and then he said, very precisely, 'I'll find out tomorrow what I need to do to get the custody arranged. The sooner the better, I think. Don't you?'

Kurogane blinked. 'The fuck are you talking about?' he asked.

'Sakura-chan's custody.' The idiot repeated the words as if they'd make better sense the second time around. 'After the funeral…' and there he broke off. Turned his face away as if would make any difference. When he looked back, his expression was smooth. 'After that,' he began again, 'I think it would be best for us to leave straight away. As soon as possible.'

Kurogane still didn't know what Fai was talking about, but, 'You're not taking her anywhere,' he said bluntly.

And then it was Fai's turn to blink. He looked at Kurogane, and a frown started to creep across that smooth, white brow. 'Well, I hate to be difficult,' he said slowly, 'but I don't have residency here. How do you propose I tuck her in at night – via webcam?'

Something like understanding began to claw its way into Kurogane's brain.

Oh. Fuck, no.

-tbc