Spoiler Warning: Infinity arc
The other one would have been up, running around hitting things with spoons, but this one lay there sleeping. Kurogane supposed that he had a lot on his mind – just like the rest of them – so it should be no surprise that the alcohol sent him right to sleep.
But to be honest, he'd have liked the company. With all that had happened, and all that would happen still, it was nice to have someone around now and then that could remind him he wasn't going through it alone. It sure seemed that way anymore. In the beginning he had been fine with being in it alone. But time had changed his feelings about that, and he wouldn't deny it. He wouldn't admit it either, but that was beside the point.
The mage hardly even looked at him now, and the princess locked herself in her room the moment they'd return to the apartment after a tournament. All he had was the pork bun and a copy of the boy who'd betrayed them. And even they were shadows of themselves most of the time.
Quite frankly, the only thing worth getting up for anymore was the chance to fight. In the arena, he could vent all his frustrations at life; this world and everything else he could think of. It was a perk that by winning it meant they were one step closer to getting out of this hellish world. This dark, grey place known as Infinity.
No company tonight.
So he finished the entire bottle himself and decided the least he could do would be to haul the kid off to his room. The princess would fret about it in the morning if she saw him sleeping on the couch, and he'd rather avoid having to listen to it.
He had carried the other boy on his back a few months ago. Once. But he was far more used to carrying the princess, who was significantly lighter. Not that the boy was heavy by any means. But it was hard not to notice that he had grown considerably since they'd met; if one was to assume the two were the same age. Rather like twins. But not.
His fingers were longer now, his jaw-line more defined, his eyes harder, his face slimmer, his legs stronger. He was growing up. Syaoran was not a child any more, no matter which one that name happened to refer to.
The boy gave a sleepy grumble as Kurogane lifted him off the couch, cradling the youth in his arms as he carried the boy off to bed, soft brown hair tickling the underside of the ninja's chin as he walked down the hallway.
With each tournament they would win, they would get more money. And they soon had learned that being a significant part of the underground gambling ring paid exceptionally well. They each had their own rooms with big, soft beds. Plenty of food. Drink. New clothes. Wide, tall windows and spacious living areas. Bathtubs big enough to sleep in. It was a space big enough they could all avoid one another and wallow in their own self-doubts without having to so much as exchange glances.
Syaoran gave another sleepy murmur, his eyes fluttered open and closed at the strange sensation of having been moved without wanting to. Kurogane felt him tense up and then relax again, as soon as he realized his situation. He was too tired and too drunk to do anything about it anyway, so he just leaned his head against Kurogane's shoulder and allowed himself to be taken away.
Kurogane had to shift the boy so he could open the bedroom door, and in his attempts to be quiet, the black leather jacket the kid had kept draped over his shoulders fell to the ground with a clatter as the zippers and buckles and buttons bounced off the tiled floor. He'd come back for it later once he dumped the kid in bed, but he hoped it hadn't disturbed the princess across the hall. Or the mage - wherever he had gone off to.
Syaoran's room was large and had a window with a view of the fountain in the courtyard below. It was also stark clean and empty, just as all the other rooms in their flat, regardless of how many pieces of furniture they'd fill it with. Everything about them anymore was elegant and cold, like ice sculptures in a world that held no promise of a summer.
He gave a mumble again as Kurogane placed him on the bed and shivered slightly with the sudden absences of warmth in the cool room.
For a moment, he stood at the boy's bedside, gazing down with concern. His face was pale and carrying a frown.
At least the alcohol running through his system would make him sleep better.
"G'night kid," he said and ruffled his fingers through soft brown hair. He didn't quite understand him yet, but he liked the kid. Just as much as he had liked the other one, if not even more so. At least this one didn't seem to be prone go on fits of psychopathic rampage. Though that wasn't to say he had expected it from the copy beforehand.
He'd forgotten about the jacket, until he stepped on it while leaving Syaoran's room. And then almost fell over trying to retrieve it, forgetting for a moment that he had, in fact, finished a full bottle of sake on his own. Balance was always one of the first things to go…
When he reentered to return the kid's jacket, he was surprised to see him sitting up, chin tucked to his knees and staring forward at a spot on the wall. But he looked over at Kurogane the moment he realized he was back in the room.
"You ok kid?"
"I'm fine."
Kurogane raised an eyebrow. And then laughed to himself. At least the kid was a crappy liar. No one else in his life seemed to be.
"You worried about the princess?"
When he didn't even attempt to lie about it, Kurogane knew that's what it was.
"You shouldn't worry about things like that," he shrugged and tossed the jacket on the foot of the kid's bed.
Syaoran forced a chuckle. He appreciated Kurogane being nice to him. Trying to comfort him. But quite frankly, Syaoran was fully aware that the ninja had no room to talk. He may not have been at their side the whole time. But he had been watching. He knew Kurogane's situation as well as anyone did, and that Fai was driving him a brand of insane far beyond petty annoyances as it once had been between them.
"Do we have any more to drink?" Syaoran asked.
"I think you're done for the night," Kurogane chuckled.
"Just one more glass?"
"So you can pass out again?"
And Syaoran only shrugged. Maybe that was best anyway: falling into a dreamless sleep.
If he could only be so lucky.
But Syaoran only looked at him, serious amber eyes meeting red. Almost pleading.
"Fine. One more and that's it." He caved, and silently cursed himself for always doing so; mumbling to himself as he walked away to get them both more to drink that he should really just lock up the alcohol at all times and never let ANY of them have it.
He poured the kid another glass and sat with him on the edge of his bed there in the darkness. Neither of them spoke as they sipped on their drinks. An occasional siren from the midnight streets below or a bump or rustle of movement from the flat above them were the only noises they heard.
Syaoran was about halfway through with his glass when he began to fidget. Fumbling with his bandages that wrapped around his upper torso and arms. His wounds weren't even that bad. Fai had just been a little overzealous that evening, apparently. The boy began to pull and tug at the strips of cloth around his neck; slide his fingers under the ones around his ribcage to scratch at the irritated skin.
Kurogane only laughed at him.
"You need some help there, kid?" he eventually asked. He could relate to his uncomfortable frustration. He'd been a victim of Fai's eager medical attention a time or two himself.
His face was a little bit softer now, and he giggled. "Could you?"
If he hadn't been drunk before, he certainly was now. Syaoran wasn't much of a giggler. Kurogane didn't have to know him well at all to know that.
He set his bottle down on the ground and scooted next to the boy so he could help him take off all his bandages. The poor kid would have been miserable trying to sleep in them the way Fai had wrapped the poor kid up like a mummy.
His skin was warm and surprisingly smooth. Kurogane didn't really think much of it. He'd never cared. But it was something he noticed as the two of them pulled and tugged and unwound bandage strips that seemed to go on for miles.
"I always thought you were scary at first," the boy randomly confessed.
He smelled like sake.
"I am scary," Kurogane only shrugged and tossed an handful of white cloth to the floor.
Syaoran shrugged. He wasn't going to argue with him. Kurogane still was rather frightening at times. He was sure never going to do anything to get on his bad side, that was certain. But that wasn't really what he had meant. Kurogane was intimidating. But once you got past that, he was really very nice. He just didn't like people knowing about it.
"Someday," he sighed and then took a long gulp that nearly drained his glass, "it would be nice if she would do things like this for me."
Kurogane tried to sustain the eyebrow twitch, but it was difficult and he wondered if maybe he preferred Fai meowing and rolling around on the ground over where this was about to go. So he shrugged, hoping it wouldn't encourage him.
Heart-to-heart conversation was not Kurogane's forte.
"She won't even look at me."
He just threw another handful of bandages to the ground and silently sighed with relief to almost be finished with this little project of his so he could leave.
Another drink from his glass and it was all gone. His shoulders slumped and he sighed as he tossed the empty glass to the floor. It landed with a loud thud that echoed through the room before the glass rolled under the bed to be discovered by a cleaning lady in the morning.
Fresh scrapes, cuts and bruises covered a good portion of him, but it was nothing that wouldn't heal on its own in a few days. Red lines from where the bandages had been wrapped stained his skin, and he shivered once in the cold, now that his chest was completely bare.
He certainly was not a child any more. Strong lines of muscle were plainly seen even in the dim light, and Kurogane was strangely reminded of Fai. Lean, slender limbs that were stronger than they appeared at a glance.
He wondered if Fai was asleep.
"Don't you think it would be nice," Syaoran sighed, "to be smiled at now and again?"
"Yeah," he shrugged. He hadn't meant to speak at all, but sometimes things would slip because of too much sake.
Syaoran sighed again and practically toppled foreword, his head landing on Kurogane's arm. "Me too…" he said sadly.
The poor thing was too drunk for his own good.
"Come on kid," Kurogane grabbed him by the arms to prop him up. "I think it's time you get some sleep."
"I don't want to sleep," he whined, his head hanging, neck straining to land himself a place against Kurogane again.
"I don't care what you want right now. You're drunk. Go to sleep."
He whimpered, but relaxed himself and allowed Kurogane to push him away and force him to lay down.
The other had every intention of leaving right then. Of wandering down the hall to make sure everyone else was sleeping and then hop into the shower to wash off all the frustration and worry of the day. He had just gotten the kid to lay down when he was back up again, arms wrapped around his torso and face dug into his chest.
He wasn't crying, but he may as well have been. It made Kurogane just as uncomfortable.
"It's alright," he said awkwardly, patting him on the top of the head. "You'll feel better in the morning," which was a lie if he had ever told one.
No, things wouldn't be better in the morning. They would be exactly the same. The alcohol pumping through his veins would just be gone and it would be easier to force such thoughts back into the depths of his mind where they belonged.
"You should get some sleep," he insisted as he sat there ridged and uncomfortable as the boy clung to him as though his life depended on it.
He whimpered and reluctantly let go before dramatically flopping backwards onto the bed, landing on the pillow with surprising grace for a drunk kid, his arms splayed wide on either side of him his hair sweeping over his forehead. And Kurogane had to look away. He was again, strangely reminded of Fai doing the same thing: laying sprawled out and frustrated. And shirtless. And it was not helping his evening one bit to be thinking about things like that.
He had every intention of leaving. But things were apparently not going as planned. The room spun and his knees refused to support him, so all he found himself doing was bouncing back onto the bed, almost crushing Syaoran's poor leg.
Stupid sake.
And when he found himself staring at the ceiling of a room that was not his, he wondered for a moment, what Fai and the princess would say when they found him there in the morning.
He doubted that there would be any strange conclusions from the princess, be he was unsure what Fai would think. He never knew what Fai was thinking; that was part of the problem.
But it would do no good thinking about things like that. So instead, he rolled over next to Syaoran who was already passed out, and with a soft smile, ruffled his brown hair once more and fell asleep at his side.
For one night, at least they could be alone together.