A/N: This doesn't take place anywhere in particular, except before/alternate to Tokyo. A couple of sentences of dialogue are referenced directly from chapter 112 of the manga and the Tokyo Revelations OVA.
"First you want me to stop smiling, then you get angry when I don't smile," Fai told him impassively. "Make up your mind."
"That's not what I said! I said you shouldn't smile unless you're happy!" Kurogane shouted at him through gritted teeth, hands balled into fists. He knew it was his fault, but he couldn't admit it. He'd let his temper get away from him and he'd done terrible things to Fai, but it was the mage's own fault he'd snapped – or so he told himself.
"There are only two things that would make me happy. One is impossible. The other... is my death."
Fai didn't dodge or even flinch, but calmly took Kurogane's fist to the side of his face. It sent him flying, and Kurogane winced at the sound of his head connecting with the bed post. Fai crumpled, and lay there on the floor unmoving. Kurogane stared at him for a few moments, waiting for him to open his eyes and get up.
"Get up. This isn't funny, you stupid..."
He wanted to deny it. He wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, that he hadn't done anything, that he wasn't the one responsible. He tried to swallow the knot in his throat. "Come on..." Finally, Kurogane knelt down to pick him up off the floor. As he slid his hand around the back of Fai's head he felt something warm, wet...
Blood. He got scared.
"Shit...!" Frantically, automatically, he got the first aid kit down from the shelf and quickly cleaned and bandaged Fai's head and put him into the bed, then started to clean up the blood on the floor. Cover his tracks.
There was knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer, Sakura opened it and peeked in. She saw the bandages on Fai's head.
"What happened to Fai?"
Kurogane thought fast. "He... he was just being clumsy and tripped and hit his head. I'm sure he'll be fine," Kurogane lied. Syaoran appeared in the doorway as well, Mokona in his arms.
"What's the matter?"
"Fai tripped and hit his head," Sakura explained to him, and Syaoran seemed to believe her explanation though he gave Kurogane a rather hard stare.
"He hasn't seemed himself the past couple of days."
"I know..." Sakura said, and looked down. "He's been so sad ever since the other morning. I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he said it was nothing..."
"Will Fai be okay?" Mokona asked.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Kurogane repeated. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on him. You two go on and gather some more information about where the feather might be."
"Are you sure? I could stay here with Fai while you and Syaoran look," Sakura suggested.
"No, really, it's okay. I'll stay," Kurogane replied. He didn't want Fai to wake up and tell Sakura what had happened – though he doubted Fai would say anything, as usual – and he also wanted to get rid of any suspicion against himself by saying he'd take care of it.
"Okay, if that's all right with you... I guess we'll go, then," Sakura said, and closed the door.
"I think something happened between Kurogane and Fai the other day that made Fai really sad. But I don't know what," Mokona said.
"You don't think Kurogane..." Syaoran started to suggest, but Sakura stopped him.
"Of course not! Kurogane would never hurt Fai," she protested.
Syaoran believed that Sakura believed her own words, and he wanted her to believe that, but he wasn't sure he did himself. However, he kept silent. Mokona didn't say anything either, and they left.
"You'd better hurry and wake up," Kurogane told the unconscious Fai as he sat down in a chair by the window and looked out. Stubborn as always, he refused to admit to himself that he was worried. He tried to think about other things, but his thoughts kept drifting towards what had happened the other night...
#
"Don't try to cover it up, mage. I don't know what your problem is, but you need to cut it out. I'm not concerned about your past. Quit playing around and think about the present."
"I don't see it that way," Fai said calmly. "After all, I'm still running. How could I expect you to understand? Especially since I don't want anyone to get hurt because they were involved with me."
"Maybe if you stopped and faced up to it you wouldn't have that problem," Kurogane growled.
"That's easier said than done," Fai said, and smiled.
"I told you not to do that!" Kurogane shouted angrily at him, and swung his fist. It connected with Fai's jaw, but it wasn't enough to knock him over.
"Don't pull your punches for me," Fai told him.
"Why you..." Kurogane growled, and instead of trying to hit him again, took him by the shoulders and forced him up against the wall.
"Ah, I'm scared," Fai said jokingly, and Kurogane slapped him.
"Cut it out, damnnit. You don't have to smile all the time if you're not happy."
"How do you know I'm not happy?" Fai asked, and reached up to touch his stinging cheek. "That's not like you at all..."
"How do you know what I'm like? And this isn't about me! You need to— "
Fai kissed him. That was the one reaction which Kurogane had no idea how to handle, and it only served to piss him off more when Fai smiled at him. He quickly reduced that smile to a grimace of pain as he dug his fingernails into Fai's shoulders and shook him, knocking him up against the wall again before pulling him away and forcing him down onto the bed.
"W-what do you think you're doing?" Fai asked with surprise, but Kurogane silenced him with and elbow to his back.
"Just shut up," he growled. "I don't want to hear any more of your damn excuses!"
"Kurogane..."
"I said shut up!" Hearing Fai say his name instead of Kuro-something just made him more pissed off, for some twisted reason he couldn't fully comprehend in his enraged state.
Even Fai could tell when enough was enough, and that Kurogane was genuinely angry, so he bit his lip and said nothing.
"Is this what you want? Huh?" Kurogane demanded as he tore off Fai's clothes. He wasn't sure what he was doing, or why, but it seemed a good idea at the time. "Answer me!"
"But you told me to shut up..." Fai replied quietly into the sheets.
"Stupid!" Kurogane shouted, and grabbed a fistful of Fai's hair and yanked his head back.
"Stop it, that hurts," Fai whimpered, but Kurogane seemed not to hear him though he did let him go – only to step back from the bed and take his own clothes off. Fai watched him out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn't bring himself to move or try to defend himself.
"This isn't how I wanted it..." he whispered to himself, but Kurogane only saw his lips move.
"Huh? What did you say?"
"Nothing," Fai murmured, and turned his face to the mattress and closed his eyes.
"That's what I thought, you stupid mage," Kurogane said, and then he was on top of him. Although Fai had been expecting this outcome it still surprised him, and it still hurt, burning like fire. "How do you like this?"
Fai didn't reply, just gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into the mattress until his knuckles were white and tried not to make a sound. If Kurogane wanted him to cry and scream and beg for mercy, he wouldn't give him that pleasure.
After it was over, he did what he always did – blocked it out, closed his eyes and hid the pain deep within himself. But it still left him feeling empty, broken. For a long while after Kurogane had left, he lay there on the bed in the dark, unmoving, eyes half closed, and tried not to think of anything at all.
If that was what Kurogane wanted then he would get it, and Fai would let that be his lesson. He'd already known it wouldn't be simple or easy, but that didn't stop him from hoping that it wouldn't have needed to come down to this.
#
Let Kurogane realize his own mistake. It didn't matter if he got hurt in the process; in fact, he fully expected it. That didn't lessen the pain in his head, or the still-lingering pain from the other night, but it helped a little bit. It was true that he didn't want to hurt anyone else, but that didn't apply if Kurogane had brought it upon himself, and hurt Fai too in the process.
Without opening his eyes, he lay there on the edge of consciousness and listened as Syaoran, Sakura and Mokona left. The scraping of a chair across the floor told him Kurogane was at the foot of the bed, and "you'd better hurry and wake up" was the last thing Kurogane mumbled before a long silence.
Fai continued to feign unconsciousness; it wasn't difficult.
After about ten minutes, Kurogane stood up and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Come on, wake up," he grumbled as he poked Fai's cheek with a finger. But Fai had already made up his mind. He wasn't opening his eyes until he heard an apology.
"You brought this upon yourself, you know," Kurogane said. "If you weren't so stubborn..." He sighed, then looked down at his hand and curled it into a fist. "Damnnit! It's all your fault!"
Kurogane was lying to himself, still struggling with the evidence laid out in front of him. "If that's what you want, then I won't say anything about it again... we can pretend this never happened, okay? Just please, wake up."
Pretending was not something Fai wanted to do, not with this, even though he was good at it. His eyes stayed closed. Kurogane touched his face again – not a poke to wake him up, but a gentle caress.
"Why did you have to say that? You know how much I hate it, someone who would just throw their life away like is was nothing. And why... why did you have to do that..." Kurogane extended one finger to push against the corner of Fai's mouth, then pulled his hand away and touched his own lips. "I just want you to be able to be happy, that's all," he said. "I didn't intend to hurt you like... like this. And the other night, I... I don't know what happened. I don't know what I was thinking. I..."
He stood up from the bed, his back to Fai, head down, looking at his hands, and whispered "I'm sorry" before heading towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
Kurogane whirled around. "You...!" It seemed he knew Fai had been listening and that it made him angry, but seeing him lying there on the bed, bandages on his head and eyes half closed, Kurogane deflated. He looked away. "Nowhere."
Fai pulled back the covers and sat up slowly, then reached up to feel the back of his head. "Good. Then why don't you clean this better and put a new bandage on?" Silently, Kurogane did as he was asked.
As he was gently washing the blood from Fai's hair with a cloth, Fai said, "You know... maybe there is one other thing that would make me happy."
"What?" Kurogane asked, and paused
"Finish first," Fai teased. With a grunt of mild annoyance, Kurogane resumed his work.
When he was finished replacing the bandages, Fai leaned back on to him and tilted his head back to look up as he reached up to touch Kurogane's cheek – the same thing Kurogane had done to him.
"What would make me happy... is if Kurogane would stop covering his own feelings up."
"I don't—! "
"Yes you do. You get defensive and cover them with anger... and then I get hurt like this." Fai smiled a little, sadly. "But I know you can change that because you did just now, didn't you?"
Kurogane looked down and didn't say anything. Fai twisted around so that he was facing Kurogane, and slid his fingers under Kurogane's chin to lift his head up.
"Let's start right now." Instead of taking the initiative like he'd done the other night – and look where that had gotten him – he simply said, "Kiss me."
"What?"
Fai smiled. "You heard me."
Kurogane gave him a long, dumbfounded look.
"You want to, don't you? After all, look what you did the other night..." The smile faded from Fai's face, and Kurogane winced at the memory and looked away.
"I..." He reached up to grasp Fai's wrist and pull his hand down.
Fai smiled again. "Please?"
Even if he'd wanted to, Kurogane couldn't resist Fai. He leaned down, hesitated a moment, then kissed him lightly, quickly, on the lips – just a peck.
"No, do it like you mean it," Fai scolded him. He took Kurogane's hand in both of his and brought it up to his cheek, not letting go until Kurogane's fingers curled around his hair of their own accord and he pulled Fai closer to kiss him like he always had wanted to but could never admit to himself that he did.