ANs: My first TRC fic, also my first fic outside the HP fandom in years. Kurogane and Fai are very hard to get into their heads, so if there's slight OOC-ness, it's due to that mistake. But hopefully, in time I'll be able to write them as they should be.
Warnings: No major spoilers here, just maybe some few lines taken from various volumes. But it's not enough that should make you go "Oh My God, my manga reading experience is ruined!", hopefully. But if anyone finds this kind of spoiler-ish, let me know, it's mostly dealing with implied stuff.
IN SLEEP
The only time he sees him without that smile is when the blond is sleeping. The blond is an easy sleeper; he sinks into bed and takes slumber as a refuge. Sometimes he gets awakened by bad dreams and late night noises, but overall Fai is an easy sleeper.
Kurogane takes note of the slight creases near Fai's eyes, as if those lines were ingrained into memory, never to return into smooth skin. Too many lifetimes of pain seem to echo in those lines, lines that should not be so defined.
In sleep, Fai seems to let go of everything he's holding onto, and then, it's the only time he knows the blonde isn't lying. The face he sees at night makes the smiling mask a mockery of the true Fai, nothing but an imitation.
And now, on a night like this when Kurogane can't sleep, gazing at the full moon through the window, he thinks how much better the blond looks, better than his waking days.
The moon casts a beautiful glow on Fai, magnifying his elegance. The blond tresses become golden, skin so smooth, as if marking him in fluid lines. Complete and whole, this is the true Fai.
But this sleeping phase conveys only half of him, not of the raging emotions inside of his frighteningly blue eyes. Like this, he could be recalled as dead, asleep, casting off all the things Fai wears on a daily basis.
True, it is a glimpse of the real Fai, but he is not living, just merely breathing within a dream. No true human being can be himself if the real him is revealed during the night, when no one sees, Kurogane thinks. It is a cowardly way out. True people let their real selves out in the open where eyes can see.
He is sure if Fai let himself out in the open, he wouldn't mind his smile.
Only then, Kurogane thinks gazing at the moon, the man sleeping will stop being a liar for good.