Title: Babysitting Idiots
Author: Gypsy Dancing Girl
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
Pairings/Characters: No pairings. Includes Kurogane, Fay, and mentions of Yasha.
Genres: Um, does homicidal rage and infinite patience count as genres? snicker Probably not. Friendship and Humor then.
Rating: T
Warnings: There's a mention of Fay drinking and the idiocy that follows.
Author's Notes: I wanted to read a Shura/Shara/Yama/whatever fanfic where the characters are actually in character. I could only find one. So I decided to write one. It's up to you who's babysitting which idiot . . . I'm just kind of curious how they made it through six months without the kids to prevent mass murder . . . although Fay staying out of reach sounds pretty probable. Oh, and Fay is speaking French which I'm currently in the last semester of studying. I know a lot of people use Russian to represent his language, but I know zilch. So Fay speaks French, and I didn't give translations cause he hardly speaks and that's kind of the point not to understand him. Invisible bonus points for those who know Fay's nicknames, however.
Kurogane scowled at the blade that he was polishing. The tent was perfectly silent and that silence was getting on his last nerve. He turned his glare to the mage across the room. As usual, the idiot was to blame for this.
Fai was sitting cross-legged on his own futon scribbling nonsense into the book that Kurogane had bought to occupy the mage. Kurogane had wisely predicted the end of peace in the camp and his own sanity if the mage was left without words and with time. But while Fai had surprisingly taken to the book, Kurogane's sanity was fraying anyway from the unnatural silence. He had spent two and a half months learning to tune out the voice while still remaining alert to any potential dangers. Now he couldn't seem to focus without the voice to ignore.
"Talk!" he bellowed across the tent. Fai jumped a foot in the air, but caught the ink before it spilled and turned to look at Kurogane inquiringly. "I said talk already!"
"Kuro-pomme?" he whispered hesitantly. The mage had taken to pretending he was completely mute to avoid questions in the camp. Why he had persisted, even in the tent they shared when no one was stupid enough to disturb the deadly right hand men of Yasha-ou, was beyond Kurogane.
"Just talk! I can't stand you sitting there and sulking over not being able to babble nonsense at me!"
Fai looked at him in blank concern, reaching for his weapons. His message wasn't getting through. The stupid mage thought that there was some sort of threat. Which was ridiculous, because Kurogane didn't yell, shout, and make a fool of himself when there was danger . . . danger made him calm . . . it was the mage who drove him crazy.
Kurogane put down the weapon so that the mage would realize there wasn't a threat. As much as Kurogane would have loved to argue otherwise, Fai wasn't actually stupid. It was beyond Kurogane why the mage hadn't tried to learn the language yet. Then again, learning the language made sense and Fai usually avoided things that made sense.
Fai had finally set down the bow and looked at Kurogane in confusion.
"Talk . . . what you do with your mouth that makes me want to decapitate you . . . how you communicate . . ." Kurogane stood, but resisted further action. He was not going to resort to pantomime. Just because the mage was being even more difficult than usual didn't mean that Kurogane was going to sacrifice even more of his dignity, just to get through to the man.
Fai's brow furrowed and he frowned slowly. "Je ne comprends pas," he offered, softly, still trying to be quiet.
"Exactly! Now just keep doing it, so I can ignore you."
Fai was silent and still confused. Kurogane threw up his arms, knocking down the central pole of their tent and gave up on dignity as the whole thing came down around them.
Fai eventually freed himself and set the lantern that he had rescued on a nearby stone to prevent any more accidents. Kurogane was still standing straight up under the tent's covering, providing a marvelous new central pole. Fai debated whether checking on the man was a hazard to his health and after a long moment, did it anyway. Lifting one edge, he peered up at the shadowed countenance of his annoyed companion. Kurogane stood, eyes closed, arms crossed, and scowl firmly in place.
"Kuro-chien?"
Fai back-pedaled hastily as Kurogane exploded. The tent covering went flying along with the few remaining poles that hadn't come completely loose and Kurogane sprinted after Fai with a deadly glint in his eye. Fai decided to let the ninja enjoy the chase and took off for a few laps around the camp. Luckily the other soldiers had become accustomed to the random attempts on Fai's life by Kurogane and the noise that generally accompanied such tantrums. A few spectators clapped, some money exchanged hands (but not as much as it had in the beginning-Fai's speed was well known by now), and eventually Fai scaled the tree outside Yasha's tent to wait until Kurogane was no longer homicidal.
The exercise was good for both of them.
Kurogane gave the leaves that concealed the mage a glare that would have withered a lesser tree. Chasing the idiot was one thing, he wasn't about to climb a tree just to drag the mage out of it. The idiot would probably assume he was being rescued, and Kurogane was not encouraging Fai's delusional idea of animal nicknames and behavior.
Especially not after the last feast where Fai had drunkenly tried to climb Yasha to perch on the king's shoulders with pathetic meows (and wasn't that fun to explain to the king and his generals?), followed by yowling like a disturbed alley cat when Kurogane dragged him away from the sake. Kurogane had dumped the mage in bed and returned to the festivities only to have to leave again. This time in order to rescue the mage from the dragon-beast corral, and then Kurogane had to listen for the rest of the night to the mage's heartfelt, but foreign, conversation with the pitchfork that Fai had stolen from said-dragon-beast corral.
Kurogane should have gone with his first instinct and told the recruiting soldier that Fai was his brain-damaged half-brother and that Kurogane had promised their sainted mother on her deathbed to look after the idiot. However, brain-damaged half-brothers would not be going into battle with the rest of Yasha's army and skilled archers with apparent invulnerability to the laws of physics do. Contrary to popular opinion, Kurogane did prefer having Fai watch his back in battle to the young upstarts who were constantly trying to take the title of "Strongest Warriors in Yasha-Ou's Army" for themselves.
Fai's head became visible briefly as he peered through the branches, but Kurogane scowled and the mage disappeared within the foliage once more. Relatively certain that the mage would be out of trouble for another fifteen minutes, he returned to their flattened tent.
His annoyed expression as he began to very slowly reassemble the tent (Kurogane was not a carpenter, tent-builder, or very handy with anything but weaponry-as evidenced by his one short-lived attempt at roof repair), kept away all offers of help until Fai reappeared on the other side of the mess. Fai took each step one-at-a-time, measuring Kurogane's killing intent before taking another, fully prepared to sprint away again if necessary. Kurogane glared and threw a tent pole at him. Catching it, Fai smiled and cheerfully righted it.
They worked together in silence, and soon no one would be able to tell that Kurogane had knocked over the entire tent in a rage. The slight lopsided angle wasn't even that noticeable. Temporarily appeased, Kurogane stood in the entrance watching Fai put the inside of the tent back to rights.
"It's time for dinner, mage."
Fai glanced up at him, brow furrowed. "Je ne comprends pas."
Kurogane grimaced. That sentence was the only thing repeated on a regular basis besides the awful nicknames. At the rate they were going, it was more likely he'd learn Fai's language than Fai would ever learn his.
"Kuro-pierre est très inutile," Fai chuckled, half-tackling the ninja in a highly-misguided show of affection. Kurogane swiped at him once, Fai evaded, and Kurogane chased him all the way to the makeshift dining hall.
The End.