Title: Subconscious Imagination
Author: Gypsy Dancing Girl
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
Pairing or Characters: No pairing. Kurogane, Fay or Yuuhi, Real Syaoran, Sakura, Mokona, Fei Wong Reid, Original Fay.
Rating: T
Genres: Angst, Friendship (of the strained, not whole variety), Horror, Hurt/Comfort (if you squint . . . they all look out for each other by insulting and degrading each other . . . it's rather amusing but not very comforting)
Warnings: Spoilers through Chapter 165 for Fay's past. Attempted Murder. Takes place during the three month timeskip in the Infinity world between the Acid Tokoyo Arc and the Infinity Arc.
A/N: This was written for my roommate who adores Fay. My allegiance is to Kurogane, but the twins did catch my attention. Real Syaoran is my second favorite character and I found him exceptionally brave for taking Clone Syaoran's place. And all must hail Mokona.
Fay was sleeping. Then suddenly he was dreaming and it quickly worsened into a nightmare. But it had been pleasant at first.
"Yuuhi!" his twin called from across a grassy field. The other boy was so far ahead of him as he ran as fast as he could through the wildflowers. "Come on, Yuuhi!"
"Coming!" Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay shouted back. "Wait for me, Fay!"
"Hurry up!" the real-Fay shouted back. Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay finally caught up to his brother with a last burst of speed. The real-Fay rolled his eyes and grabbed Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay's shoulders. "Sit down, slowpoke. Catch your breath," the real-Fay lectured. He plopped down into the grass, laying back and Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay imitated him. "What would you ever do without me?"
Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay closed his eyes, pained by these words. "Don't ever leave me, Fay. Please don't leave me."
"You made me leave. You killed me."
Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay flinched and opened his eyes tiredly to meet the sunken eyes of the corpse that was all that remained of the real-Fay . . . that and Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay.
A skeletal hand gently closed around his throat. "I'll kill you before Ashura gets the chance. It's only fair after all."
"It's only fair," Yuuhi-who-would-be-called-Fay agreed softly, closing his pretty blue eyes as the hand tightened, hampering his breathing.
They flashed open when a gloating voice laughed. "He died to save you and his hand will be the one to kill you through your own petty guilt. I love irony." The voice got closer as if Fei Wong Reed was leaning over him, the sensation of a gloved human hand caressing his cheek. "But here's the kicker . . . I killed the real-Fay. You're innocent."
Tears began to roll down the cheeks of the small wizard. Then his left eye was gone and there was a fiery pain under it. Using his last breath as his twin continued to strangle him, Fay-who-had-once-been-Yuuhi began to scream.
Kurogane jumped a foot when the screaming interrupted his night watch. Having been already inside, Syaoran beat him to the mage's bedroom, but was blasted back by a blue transparent force-field. Kurogane stood back, gritted his teeth, channeling what little magic/spiritual power he controlled into shattering the field with his sword.
The mage was convulsing on the floor, his breathing erratic like when he had initially become a vampire. "Hime!" Kurogane shouted as Syaoran and he tried to restrain the mage. "We need to know what's wrong in order to fix it!"
"She's not an oracle!" Syaoran snapped at him, as Fay cracked his head against the kid's jaw.
"Could have fooled me," Kurogane snarled.
Sakura stopped in the doorway, Mokona hugged tightly to her chest as she watched distantly. "His dream is killing him, Kurogane-san," she explained softly.
By now, Kurogane was sitting on Fay's legs while Syaoran held the mage's shoulders down. "His dream, Sakura-hime?" the boy asked.
"Someone in his dream . . . you have to wake him up."
"Open to suggestions since he's slept through all of this chaos so far," Kurogane growled. What more did the mage need to wake up? He'd fallen out of bed upon being distressed somehow, cast some sort of defensive spell, had said-spell broken, and was being sat upon/restrained, and the man hadn't even opened his eyes . . . eye, whatever.
"Feed him. Remind him of what he is."
Oh. Well, yes, that would probably do it. "Come sit on his legs, kid," Kurogane ordered, moving to sit on the Mage's chest. He didn't fancy being kicked in the head. He unsheathed his knife with his teeth and reopened the slash across his wrist. He smeared his blood across Fay's face as the mage struggled, but finally got some of it into the mage's mouth.
For a moment, the mage was still, then swallowing, he opened one crystal blue eye. "No thank you, Kurogane."
"Shut up and drink, Fay."
The mage sighed and obediently opened his mouth to catch the drips of blood. After a minute, Fay pushed Kurogane's arm away firmly. "No thank you, Kurogane."
"Fay-san?" the princess whispered softly, venturing closer, Mokona still clutched to her chest. Kurogane was disgusted to realize that the manju was still sleeping.
"Hai, Sakura-hime? I'm sorry to have frightened you," Fay consoled gently, resting one hand lightly on her head. "You can go back to sleep now. Everything is alright."
"Arigatou, Fay-san," Sakura murmured, wrapping one arm around the mage to hug him tightly. "Good night, Fay-san . . . good night, Kurogane-san . . . good night . . . good night, all." She fled the room, still hugging the infernal manju.
"You get to bed too, kid. We're going first thing tomorrow, and I'm not waiting for you if you have a lie-in. I'll watch over the fool mage."
"Hai, Kurogane-san." Syaoran bowed and followed Sakura out.
Kurogane turned back to the idiot-mage who was harder to keep alive than the fainting-oracle-of-a-princess. "You. Kitchen. Tea. Ten minutes. Or else."
Fay's tea was the stuff of legend. It was the only reason Kurogane put up with the whole lot of them. The tea kept him calm. It was probably illegal in that way, but Kurogane wasn't going to protest. It kept him sane and from killing them all. The time/dimension witch probably wouldn't be so kind as to drop him off in his Japan once the journey was rendered pointless by mass murder. Therefore, Kurogane needed the tea to continue his job of keeping four of the most reckless beings in the universe alive.
So he drank the first cup in a single gulp and waited semi-patiently for Fay to refill it. The mage was playing with his own tea and if he didn't stop it, Kurogane was going to drink it for him. The tea was that good.
"What were you dreaming about?"
"I don't remember." The mage's smiles had gotten even faker as of late. It annoyed Kurogane to no end.
"Is that another lie?" Kurogane asked coldly.
"No," Fay smiled serenely, head tilted to one side as he continued to stir patterns in his tea. Kurogane knocked his hand away and helped himself to the mage's tea. "I'm glad you like it, Kurogane."
Kurogane growled and drained the last of heaven-in-a-cup. Then he resumed glaring at Fay. "You didn't get enough blood, did you?"
"I got plenty, Kurogane!"
"Liar."
"I got plenty, Kurogane," Fay repeated.
"You're not even up to your usual standard of acting. If you slip too far, you'll worry the kids," Kurogane reminded him with a sneer. "So you better remember and fix that dream so it doesn't happen again."
"I can't remember it, Kurogane," Fay continued serenely. "I've never been able to. It's reoccurring, so I imagine it must be terribly important, but I'm never capable of recalling it."
"Doesn't that bother you?!"
"No. I don't think I want to remember it. Sakura-hime isn't the only one with missing memories, Kurogane. But I simply don't wish to recover mine. Much like how our Syaoran . . . the clone . . . didn't need his."
"He did in the end," Kurogane reminded him darkly. The dark eye patch still grated on him . . . it was very un-Fay-like and the fact that anyone had messed with any of his charges . . . even one of his charges messing with another was extremely insulting to the ninja.
Fay cocked his head tiredly. "It's not the end yet. Thank you and good night, Kurogane-san."
"I thought you said that you would never forgive me," Kurogane muttered irritably.
Fai smiled again, a serene but joyless smile. "I won't. But thank you for tonight. It would be horribly embarrassing to have made it this far only to die because of my own subconscious imagination. Good night, Kurogane." Fay headed for the front door.
"Where are you going?" the ninja asked, dismayed to find the last few words slurred together.
"To keep the night-watch. I added a sleeping potion to your tea," Fay continued on, undisturbed only pausing to don his cloak.
Kurogane sank in his chair, until his head rested against the table. "Fool . . . mage," he managed before sinking into slumber. The mage would pay for that in the morning.
The End.