Sooo I wasn't going to return to fic this soon, but Ohkawa's tweet about Fai sleeptalking inspired me. Somewhat angsty, despite the behest of superyuui ;) Also inspired by Letters to the Broken (on AO3), which is one of my favorite kurofai fics ever.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and its characters do not belong to me.
Stories to the Untold
There is something suspicious about the wizard. There is something suspicious about the wizard, with his crinkled eyes and broad wide grin, and Kurogane does not trust him.
They meet for the first time on the grounds of a shop much in the style of the buildings back in Nihon, but there are shiny, gleaming towers rising up all around them, and it's raining. The rain soaks them through. Kurogane feels it trickling over his scalp, down the back of his neck, along the inside of his clothes, but it doesn't bother him.
The wizard smiles through it all, beads of rain collecting round and pearlescent on the outside of his cloak, like glass perched on fabric, and everything about this man imprints in Kurogane's mind. His overt friendliness, the flicker of surprise when the witch demands a tattoo from his back.
He goes back to smiling, though, and his name is Fai.
x
x
They are both far too tense to sleep in Hanshin. Kurogane does not want to sleep, period, because his skin prickles, and he needs to get home, and he's too strung up to want to sleep in the company of this man. The other guy, the teacher, put them in this room together.
Where the wizard clamored for them to share a room, he is now silent, watchful, surveying Kurogane with the same shrewd gaze that reflects back at him.
Kurogane knows, instinctively, that this man is dangerous, powerful, just like he is. He may be his equal, but they have different goals. They have opposite goals, and Kurogane does not need him. Kurogane needs to return to Tomoyo.
They sit on the floor under the cool rectangular light shining from the ceiling. The wizard is the first to talk. He talks about this world, about its food and people, and Kurogane only half-listens to him. He feels like an anomaly here, out of place with his clothes and skin and height.
The wizard's chatter trails off when Kurogane doesn't answer, and they sit in silence.
Neither of them sleeps.
x
x
Strain begins to show on the wizard when they reach Koryo. As far as Kurogane knows, he did not sleep through the three nights they spent in Hanshin, and there are faint shadows beneath his eyes by the time nightfall descends on this village of a world.
Kurogane, himself, knows better than to function with no rest. He has managed some fitful sleep in the previous world, even if this still feels all wrong, even when he cannot trust the man sharing a room with him.
In Koryo, they borrow clothes from a little short girl who reminds him of Tomoyo, but there is fire in her eyes where Tomoyo's are calm. Different girls. Kurogane feels no desire to protect this one.
At night, when the wind whispers through the holes in the half-repaired roof, the wizard begins to nod off.
They're seated on opposite sides of the room, just the two of them—the kid has elected to remain with the princess, and the spitfire has her own room. The white food-stealing thing is somewhere in this mess.
Kurogane sits cross-legged, arms folded, wishing he still has his sword. He misses the weight of Ginryuu, the comforting sturdiness of it, and its absence echoes with loss. Against the other wall, the wizard struggles to keep his eyes open. His eyelids flicker shut, and he opens them with some effort, tries to crack a joke about rabbits that isn't very funny at all.
Kurogane does not respond, and interest flickers in him when the wizard's chin dips, and he doesn't struggle to pull it back up. The wizard is asleep.
For how experienced in combat this man seems to be, he is really an idiot. Surely he knows that it's better for one to snag short naps, than to stay awake until sleep drags him under, and he's no longer aware of his surroundings.
Curious, Kurogane watches him in his sleep. There is nothing for him to do here, no enemies to fight, no portal to send him back to Nihon, so he thinks about all the rude things he wants to yell at Tomoyo the moment he gets back, wonders about the gold-thread hair on this man's head. Where his hair was wispy after the shower in Hanshin, it is dull and matted now, and it looks a little more real.
Kurogane doesn't track how long he watches the wizard. He takes a short nap, wakes, and the wizard's head has lolled to the side, mouth hanging open. He's not as pretty when he does that, but Kurogane doesn't care. It's none of his business.
It's closer to daybreak that Kurogane hears him wake. The wizard mumbles words that muffle and distort.
"...too big and angry. He will not listen."
Kurogane frowns. "Are you insulting me?" he growls, because the idiot has described him as big and angry more than once in Hanshin.
"...disagreeable? He's worse than that. He—"
"Damn you," Kurogane snaps. He pushes to his feet, his joints slow to wake, and he storms over the wooden floorboards, snagging the wizard by a thin arm. "If you're gonna insult me, do it to my face!"
The wizard's head snaps up when he loses his balance. For a moment, his eyes are wide and blue, panic flashing through them as they flick over their surroundings, then at Kurogane, and Kurogane sees it smothered with recognition and confusion, then humor. Suffocating humor.
"Good morning, Kuro-rin!" the wizard chirps. "How nice of you to wake me up!"
"Don't you fucking lie," he snarls, shaking the thin man again. The wizard is all but skin and bone in his hand, light as a ragdoll, and Kurogane wonders how he'd deal any damage if he were to fight. All he did on Hanshin was dodge and intimidate. "You were insulting me, damn you."
The wizard blinks at him. There is momentary surprise, and dread, and the inane smile is back. "Well, that's because you need a reminder or two, you know. Was there something you'd rather not have me say?"
"All of it," Kurogane snaps.
"Very well." But there's something not quite right about this. The wizard reacts as though he doesn't know what he mumbled earlier. For lack of evidence, Kurogane releases him.
The wizard doesn't sleep the next night in Koryo, and by the end of the day, they're swept into another world.
x
x
Jade is a cold place, full of blustery snow and icy winds, and Kurogane shares a room with the wizard, the boy, and the white thing. The white thing goes to snuggle with the boy, and Kurogane is glad for it, glad that it's not trying to swing off his ear or sit on his head or something equally stupid.
The clouds are an angry purple outside the window, threatening snowfall, and Kurogane sits in his bed, a new issue of his maganyan spread open in his hands.
The idiot dances across the room, long limbs thrown every which way, and it's distracting.
"Sit the fuck down," Kurogane grumbles. The wizard smiles, and doesn't.
He reads, and when he gets tired, turns off the light by his bed. Outside, the gale rattles against the window, carrying the first fat snowflakes, and his bed is unbelievably warm in contrast. Kurogane falls asleep.
He wakes to quiet muttering. They're too muffled to make out from beneath his covers, so Kurogane inches them off, turns his head to listen.
It's the wizard again. Kurogane recognizes his voice now, but it's pitched lower when he's freshly awake. At first, he thinks the wizard is talking to the boy, since they're sharing a bed. But the boy does not answer, and the wizard pauses, as though he's waiting for an answer.
Is the wizard talking to him?
Kurogane throws the warmth of his covers off, stalks over to the other bed, ready to punch the idiot, but he discovers that the idiot isn't even facing the kid. His head is turned to the side, the sharp edges of his shoulders pressed into his pillow, and his eyes are closed, forehead furrowed. Kurogane crouches, silent as a panther.
"Please don't. You can overcome this. I know you can."
He feels stupid, then, because the wizard is talking to himself. Not to Kurogane, not consciously, even. The wizard is still asleep.
It's none of his business, so Kurogane stalks back to his bed, pulls his covers over himself, and goes back to sleep. The idiot is an idiot, even when he isn't aware of it.
x
x
Things change in Outo, a little. The shophouse they rent is large enough that they all have their own rooms. Kurogane gets to sleep alone, and no one wakes him with muffled words and half-formed thoughts.
He does, however, catch the wizard saying things. These days, Kurogane trains late with the kid, and he walks the staggering boy back to their shop. More often than not, the wizard has a cup of liquor waiting for him on the cafe bar counter.
Kurogane did not trust his liquor, at first, but the wizard has been cooking for them for some time, now, and he could have poisoned Kurogane long before this. Sometimes, he drinks together with Kurogane, all long limbs and quiet smiles, and Kurogane does not forget the one fight against the strange demons of this world, when the idiot fell and he had to step in.
He reads the wizard a lot better, now, reads the admiration and interest in his eyes, reads the bitterness, reads the fondness when he makes breakfast for the kids.
Kurogane has been tempted, once, twice, (more than,) and he doesn't follow when the wizard treads up the stairs, angling a look over his narrow shoulder.
But there is only so much satisfaction to be found in his hand, and when the wizard presses up against him one night, wariness heavy in his eyes, as though he expects Kurogane to shove him away, Kurogane... doesn't.
Kurogane lets him linger against his collar, lets him slide slender fingers down the buttons of his shirt, and the wizard follows him back to his bed, liquor warm on his breath, in his mouth.
In the morning, he stirs awake to find the wizard's face pressed into his shoulder, lips against his skin.
"It's always warmer with you," he murmurs.
Kurogane doesn't know if he's asleep, but the wizard doesn't say anything else, and he drifts off.
When he wakes again, the idiot is gone, and there are no traces of him left in his room.
x
x
They spend the one night drinking in Shara. Neither of them sleeps, and Kurogane is too invested in the conversation about decapitating people to want it to stop.
x
x
The cesspool of a mess that is Yama doesn't help. They share a tent with people, and then they share a tent by themselves, and Kurogane doesn't understand all the words falling from the wiz— Fai's mouth.
He spends enough time with the idiot to hear the range of things he says in his sleep. Most of them are quiet murmurs. Sometimes they're playful, sometimes they're calm. But sometimes Fai snarls in his sleep, sometimes he yells, and sometimes he's crying and he isn't even awake, and Kurogane turns him on his side so he doesn't suffocate with his snot.
Sometimes Kurogane puts an arm around him and wishes the white thing were around so he can understand. He badly wants to.
The kids show up with it, and there are no more nights cloistered in tiny little tents.
x
x
In Piffle, Kurogane makes Fai share a room with him. It's not a big issue with the kids, but the white thing is around now, and he wakes with Fai.
He notices a trend. On the nights he pins Fai down and makes him forget everything else, Fai sleeps in longer, deeper, and he doesn't talk in his sleep quite so much. Little things slip by, like "He's big and strong, I think you'll like him too," and "I would like you to meet him," and "I think this shouldn't be happening."
On the nights Fai draws away, hiding in himself, Kurogane doesn't touch him. Fai sleeps fitfully, wakes earlier, and his mouth is full of words like "Don't go," and "Take me away," and "Why didn't you tell me earlier," and he is full of anguish.
Kurogane tries putting his arm around the wizard, but it doesn't help once he's dreaming.
x
x
In Lecourt, Kurogane's dreams are full of fire, and he doesn't wake to hear Fai talking in his sleep.
He wakes to thin hands on him, shaking him, and he sees blue eyes hovering over his face, resigned and knowing. Fai doesn't ask, and Kurogane is grateful for that.
He pulls Fai down, meets his mouth, and Fai freezes above him, breath puffing against his skin, a trapped animal.
Kurogane lets him go.
x
x
In Tokyo, the world collapses around Kurogane, and Fai doesn't dream anymore.
x
x
They make it through worlds and harsh worlds to Infinity, ragged and weary, worn thin, Fai's arms clutching himself together. Kurogane looks at him, but Fai's eyes never meet his, not anymore, and he wonders if the idiot can feel the gaping hollow in his chest just as vividly as he can feel Fai's hunger.
Fai shuts himself in a room with the princess. Kurogane drinks with the new kid, looks sidelong at him drunk and asleep, and he misses the days when he had another drinking companion, one who would smile and talk about nerves and muscles and which arteries are the best to sever.
Kurogane carries the kid to the other bedroom, lets him have the bed, and he takes the couch, himself. He's used to these kinds of things. He wants to know when Fai leaves his room.
Fai doesn't talk to him anymore, even when he says things directly or indirectly, only pulls further into himself, and Kurogane has already shouted at him, slammed doors, and there is little left between them, now. It hurts. Kurogane has already lost his parents and the other kid. He's losing Fai, now.
When he's had too much to drink one night, Kurogane waits until everyone in the apartment is asleep, before he tries the doorknob to the room. It opens, surprisingly, and he slips inside, searches out the princess and the wizard in the darkness.
Fai has left the bed to the princess. He, himself, is curled into a solid chair with no cushions, and his head is tucked into his arms, knees brought up for support. He doesn't move when Kurogane steps further into the room, and Kurogane doesn't know if he's asleep, so he waits for a reaction.
There is none, not for dragging minutes, until—
"I need," Fai gasps, and he chokes himself awake.
In the time it takes for his eye to fly open, it changes from dull blue to a luminous gold, and their eyes meet across the room, across the black of Sakura on her bedspread.
Kurogane extends his hand, drags his sword from his hilt, and Fai shivers at the sound. It paralyzes him, the anticipation of blood. Kurogane just wants them to touch again.
He cuts his wrist, and Fai bounds over the bed in a clean leap.
It's a shallow cut, and they both know it. There isn't a lot of blood at the wrist. Kurogane wants Fai to stay, just a little longer, wants to feel his heat, but Fai isn't warm anymore. His skin is cold, his mouth is cold, and this is a poor imitation of what they used to have.
Fai bites into his wrist, puncturing holes so he has more access to blood, so this can be over with sooner, but there still isn't a lot, and Kurogane looks at the dull blond of his hair, at the gauntness of his cheeks, and his chest aches.
When Fai is finally done, he pulls away, slips out the door, and the silence of the room is just another slap to his face.
x
x
Celes is just as bad as the things from his nightmares.
x
x
In Nihon, they sit together on the edge of Kurogane's futon, fragile, uncertain, aching.
Slowly, Kurogane curls his fingers around Fai's hand, and Fai's fingers curl over his. He relaxes ever so slightly, leans against the idiot, and Fai leans back, huffs a soft breath that is both disbelieving and self-deprecating, and Kurogane finds that they don't need many more words than this.
In the morning, when he wakes, Fai is pressed against him, bare, and his face is nestled into the crook of Kurogane's neck, lips against his skin.
"Better now," Fai (Yuui) mumbles. "I think."
It's an improvement from before. Kurogane pulls him closer to himself.
x
x
In the never-ending loop of Clow, they fall asleep before they know it, and it's so unnatural that Fai doesn't dream at all. Kurogane hovers close to this man, and they seek out the other boy that has become their son.
x
x
It takes a while for them to recover, back in the altered Clow. Kurogane meets the new princess's family. Fai brings him out to eavesdrop on the kids. They stroll through the street bazaar, dressed in new clothes, and Kurogane has grown used to this by now, walking in a whole new world, looking at odd fruits and new weapons and more useless trinkets.
What he still isn't used to is waking up next to Fai. It's been a long while, a lot of hurt, and he's quietly grateful for the mop of blond hair next to him when he wakes.
These days, Fai doesn't have as many bad dreams. When he mumbles in the scant light of the Clow Country dawn, it's calmer, and Kurogane lies still, listens to him talk.
Today, Fai nuzzles into his shoulder, one hand across Kurogane's stomach, and he murmurs, "Good morning, did you sleep well?"
"Yeah," Kurogane answers. "You?"
Fai doesn't respond to that. Curious, Kurogane tilts his head to study him, and he realizes that Fai is still asleep, his chest rising and falling, his eyes firmly shut.
He snorts, his amusement barely suppressed. Fai hasn't mumbled something so... everyday in some time. But it's a sign, a good one, that things are getting better for him, so Kurogane will not be the one to protest.
He leans back against his pillow, drags his fingers through wispy hair, and drifts back to sleep.
A/N: Happyish ending, I hope?
ANYHOW! If you made it all the way through, tell me what you think! :) And also go read and vote on the Kurofai Olympics fics on the Dreamwidth Kurofai community! There are 14 awesome fics waiting to be read! ! ! !