Title: Of Home and The Room

Author: isumi'kivic'

Characters/Pairings: Soushi/Kazuki.

Disclaimer: Soukyuu no Fafner is rightfully owned by XEBEC, Ubukata Tow, Hirai Hisashi, and Nakanishi Go. In no way do I make money out of this ficlet.

Warnings: Implied shounen-ai. Also, this is one of those Timeline? What Timeline? ficlet; though I'd like to imagine this should take place after episode 17 or 18 of Dead Aggressor.

A/N: This was written back in 2012 for redcrest's birthday. :D Some of you might have seen it in LJ, but I'm uploading this here for archiving. If you haven't seen this, happy reading, please enjoy, and reviews would be much appreciated. :D

A Soukyuu no Fafner Fanfiction

Of Home and The Room

He likes to check on Soushi sometimes, late at night—one or two in the morning—to make sure if his friend was already asleep or still up on his desk, poring over the most recent battle report. Not every night, just the times after particularly hard battles, when they nearly didn't survive. After a while of this new habit, Soushi relents and gives Kazuki his room card; a silent permission for his best friend to check and worry and spend the night.

"It's more convenient," Soushi tells him after his fourth night visit, when Kazuki saw him in one of Alvis data rooms. "And if I'm already asleep, you can let yourself in."

"Alright." Kazuki hesitates, but takes the card key. "Did you get a good sleep? You still look exhausted."

"I'll take a break after this." Suppressing a yawn, Soushi compiles all the papers strewn all over his working table. "I just have to take this to Commander Makabe."

"I'll take them," Kazuki says hurriedly, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You should get some rest."

"Thank you, Kazuki." The sincere tone is enough, and Kazuki smiles before taking the papers and turning around. But then Soushi says, "I'll be in the room. Come back if you're done."

-o0oSoushiKazukio0o-

Kazuki gets worried over Soushi more often after finding those bottles of painkillers. Sure, he never comes in to find Soushi doubled-up or curling in pain in that small compact bathroom he calls convenient. Mostly he comes in to find Soushi awake, the room dimly lit; sounds of a pen scratching papers or beeps of a machine penetrating the silence of late night in Alvis. On rare times, he finds Soushi asleep on the table—never, never in bed—too exhausted working on something (or perhaps the flashbacks drain him? Kazuki never knows). He'd wake him up, shake his shoulder gently (because Soushi gets startled easily, and Kazuki hates to see the guarded gaze veiling his brown eyes even to him) and tucks him back to bed. He'd wait then, to make sure that Soushi is comfortable and wouldn't wake up until morning comes, before tiptoeing out of the sterile room—or, if he is particularly lazy to go back home (which happens more and more often), he creeps under the same blanket, curls against Soushi's side and goes back to sleep.

The first time he does this, he wakes up to Soushi's uncertain gaze.

"This is," he says unsurely, "sort of inappropriate, isn't it?"

Kazuki shrugs. "Good morning, Soushi."

"Good morning."

"Would you like some breakfast?"

"I'll get something from the vending machine."

"Soushi," Kazuki says, half-amused. "I meant proper breakfast."

"Oh." Soushi says, as if he has no idea what a 'proper breakfast' is. "Are you going to cook?"

"We'll have time if we go back home now."

-o0oSoushiKazukio0o-

And so Soushi's room becomes 'the room' and Kazuki's house becomes 'home', but the change is oddly natural and neither thinks to question it at all.

-o0ofinito0o-