Title: Clothes Make the Man
Rating: M for sexual situations, nothing explicit
Spoilers: Set post-series, although no specific series events are referred to.
Summary: Fai is despondent because Kurogane doesn't think he's sexy. What can Fai do to make Kurogane sit up and take notice? Fortunately, Syaoran has some advice...
Author's Notes: This was the second of the fics I wrote for the CLAMP anonymeme on livejournal. This version of the fic is edited for ffnet's content restrictions.

It was late, and there were not many people in the cafeteria; most of the other drifters-or-workers who ate there were already gone, either to bed or to late-night work shifts. Kurogane was on one of those, and so Syaoran decided to take the rare quiet moment to speak with Fai in private.

He dumped his tray of food on the hard table with a clatter, and sat down on the bench across from Fai as the older man looked up and smiled at him. The welcome and friendliness behind the smile was real enough; but Syaoran could sense a weariness and disappointment behind him that could not be chased away by the mug of coffee that he was nursing.

"Oh, hello Syaoran-kun," Fai greeted him. "Did you just get off shift?"

"Uh huh. Mokona went on third shift with Kurogane-san," Syaoran said. To be sure that they didn't miss anything, they'd divided up the work day between them; Fai had the morning shift, Syaoran the afternoon, and Kurogane took the small hours of the night. On the other hand, that meant that Fai properly ought to have been in bed by now, not haunting the refectory.

"So," Syaoran said, tentatively opening the topic he wanted to address. "It seems like you and Kurogane-san are getting along better these days."

"Do you think so?" Fai seemed to be reminded of the cup of coffee in his hands; he took a drink, then made a face as he lowered it quickly back to the table. "Eughh, this stuff is even worse when it's cold."

"I can't drink it myself," Syaoran commiserated. "But I can't help but notice that you seem a little... preoccupied about something. Is there anything I can do, Fai-san? If it's something you'd rather not say in front of Kurogane, I understand. But I want to help you if I can."

"Ah," Fai's smile turned wry, and the teasing glint was back in his eyes for a moment as he glanced over the table at Syaoran. "I do appreciate the thought, Syaoran-kun, but I really don't think this is something you can help with. It's between me and Kuro-pii, and besides, it's all grown-up stuff. I'm sure you really wouldn't want to know."

He chuckled, trying to make light of it, but Syaoran's frown only grew. He leaned forward across the table, and caught Fai's gaze with his own. "Fai-san," he said, "please don't patronize me."

Fai blinked at him, opened his mouth, but Syaoran cut across him. "We're all in this together - you know that. Your problems are our problems too. And I'm not a child to be protected and shielded by his elders any more. If there's anything I can do to help you and Kurogane-san, anything at all, please tell me about it. I'm part of your team now too."

Fai looked chastised, and Syaoran felt a little bad; but not too bad. Fai sat back, breath puffing out in a half-laugh, then covered his mouth with one hand. "Okay," he said. "You're right, Syaoran-kun, I shouldn't treat you like a little kid any more. It's just that this is something I really don't think you can help with."

"Even if I can't do anything to help, I would at least like to know what's making you sad," Syaoran said sincerely. "Please tell me. I promise I'll hear you out."

Fai sighed, and leaned his elbow on the table, chin resting on his hands. He seemed to stare off into the distance, but Syaoran happened to know that on the other side of that wall, somewhere out in the field, was the work team that Kurogane was a part of. "All right," he said. "The problem is, Kurogane doesn't want me back, and I don't know why not. I've tried everything I can think of to get him to look at me, but he still won't respond. I'm starting to think that I'm just not sexy enough for him. I just don't know what to do any more."

Syaoran opened his mouth, but all that came out was a small "oh." He could feel the heat flaming in his neck and his cheeks; he swallowed and tried to control his blush, but couldn't.

Fai chuckled, and pushed his coffee away as he started to stand up. "Like I said, it's something you really wouldn't be interested in. It's my problem, Syaoran-kun, you don't have to think about it."

"Wait!" Syaoran blurted, and grabbed the edge of Fai's sleeve. Fai stopped moving, staring at him with surprise. "I... promised I'd hear you out," he said, with some difficulty. "I meant that, and I meant what I said about not being a kid any more. So... so sit back down, and tell me a little more about it. Maybe... maybe we can think of something together."

Fai stared at him, eyes gone wide in shock, but after a moment his expression softened and his smile became a little more real. "Well," he said. "All right. Thank you."

"Um. Okay. So." Syaoran took a deep breath, and tried to control his blush, to approach the subject rationally like an adult. "So, um, I really do think that Kurogane-san cares about you a lot, you know."

Fai smiled at the table, a little sadly. "I do know. After all he's done for me... even someone as thick as me can get the message eventually. But there's a difference, isn't there, between loving someone and caring about their well-being, and being physically attracted to them. You can have sex without love, easily - and you can have love without sex, as well." He looked up at Syaoran and grinned, a teasing sparkle in his eyes. "For example, I love Syaoran very very much, but I assure you that I don't at all want to do anything naughty with him."

His blush, which had just been starting to die down, flared back up with extra strength. "Um. Right," he said, and decided not to explore that line of thought any further. "Is it so important to you, then, the, um, physical side? Isn't it enough just to know that he cares about you?"

"It should be," Fai said in a low voice. "Sometimes I wish it was. But after a certain point, after a long time... then no, it isn't enough any more."

Syaoran didn't know if he could understand that distinction, but it was obvious that Fai felt it keenly, and that was the important part. "Why don't you just ask him?" Syaoran asked the, to him, obvious question.

Fai sighed. "Because... we're all in this together," he said, echoing Syaoran's words from before. "This isn't like a casual fling, where if it doesn't work out we could go our separate ways with no hard feelings. If something turns sour it could... it can... destroy a friendship forever, and we can't afford that." He added after a moment, "Besides, the only thing more awkward than having an unrequited crush on someone is having the other person know that you have an unrequited crush on them. Then you have two people trying to keep a secret and pretend that nothing's wrong, and not just one."

If this was the sort of thing that adults had to worry about, Syaoran decided, then he didn't envy them at all.

Fai added wistfully, "It may be that Kuro-pipi doesn't even like men. I've never seen him look at any. Maybe I should be trying on dresses if I want him to find me sexy."

"Uh," Syaoran said, and tried to push away the mental images that conjured. "I don't think that would fix the fundamental problem. Besides, I've never seen him look at girls, either. Not even during the times that you weren't there. I think he was just always too busy with other things to look at anyone, boys or girls."

"That's true." Fai brightened slightly, then sat back. "But just because he doesn't like girls, doesn't mean that he does like me. I've made my interest as clear as I possibly can, but he hasn't responded. If he'd give me a clear no, at least we could move on, but it's as if he just doesn't notice."

Syaoran thought about it for a moment. Despite Fai's attempt at keeping him from having to think about his adult companions' love lives, he wasn't completely oblivious. He'd had some clue of what was going on between the two men, enough to prompt him to start this conversation in the first place. But still... "I don't think you've been as clear as you think you have," he said thoughtfully.

Fai gave him a pained smile. "That's because you're still just a ki - ah -" he tripped over himself, at Syaoran's annoyed glance, and ducked his head sheepishly. "I wasn't exactly aiming all that flirting at you. Believe me, I've made myself very plain to Kuro-pon."

"Have you really? Fai-san, you look at girls more than he does," Syaoran objected. "You notice their clothes and give them compliments, and stuff."

"Just because I look at them doesn't necessarily mean I want to do anything about it," Fai defended himself. "A man can appreciate beauty wherever he sees it - this is different."

"I'm just saying, I wouldn't blame Kurogane-san if he was confused," Syaoran said firmly. "So if you still aren't willing to just ask him straight out -"

Fai shook his head stubbornly.

Syaoran nodded acceptance, if not agreement with Fai's reasoning. "Then you need to make it absolutely clear in some other way what you feel," he said. "You need to do something that can't be misinterpreted, where the only possible reason you have for doing it is to get his attention."

Fai blinked at him in astonishment for a few moments, his mouth opening and then closing again, before he finally said faintly, "Syaoran-kun is all full of ideas and determination tonight!"

"Well, did you want to just mope, or did you want to actually do something to fix the problem?" Syaoran demanded. Because I for one am getting tired of watching you mope, he thought.

Fai gave a shaky laugh, sitting back on the bench and running one hand through his hair. "You're right. All right," he said. "Okay. So. What do you think I should do?"

"Um." Syaoran rubbed his forehead, trying to clear it of the absurdity of the situation. Was he really holding a brainstorming session with one of his traveling companions as to how to seduce the other? Somehow it had all made sense at the time.

For some reason, maybe the mechanical nature of this world, his thoughts went back to Piffle, to the Tomoyo of that world and how obsessed she had been with customized outfits. "Well... how about clothes? If you dress up real nice for him, wearing something that you wouldn't otherwise have a reason to wear..."

"That's a good idea, Syaoran-kun," Fai said. He clasped his hands underneath his chin and hummed a little as he thought. "...do you think I should try to get some women's clothes? Maybe, if I make myself all pretty -"

"Please don't," Syaoran begged the older man earnestly. "I mean this in the nicest possible way, Fai-san, but even in women's clothing, you're not going to look like a woman, let alone be one. So what would be the point? You want Kurogane to see you, don't you?"

Fai subsided, pouting a bit. He really did seem obsessively attached to this idea of dressing up in women's clothes, Syaoran thought, then decided not to think about that any more. "What else is there, then?" Fai asked. He grimaced. "We've gone to so many different worlds and dressed in so many different kinds of clothes, they all are beginning to look the same. I don't think even something really sexy and exotic would even get him to look twice."

"It doesn't have to be exotic," Syaoran pointed out. "You don't need to worry about what the rest of the world would think is sexy. You need to think about what Kurogane-san would like. Something that makes him feel happy, something that makes him feel good."

"But I don't know what he -" Fai started to say, then cut himself off, slowly straightening up and blinking rapidly at some internal vision. "Maybe," he said more slowly. "Maybe..."

"Fai-san?" Syaoran asked nervously. "You have an idea?"

"I think so," Fai nodded. "But I'm going to need your help. And Mokona's, too."

Kurogane woke in the late afternoon, when the light shining in from around the blinds stabbed him in the eyes and jolted him awake. He groaned and rolled away from the light, flinging up one hand to block out the incessant gleam; then sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face vigorously. The light crept up over his bed at the same damn hour every day; he could find a piece of paper or canvas to block it out if he really wanted to, but it was a signal that he'd had enough sleep and it was time to get up.

He pulled his legs over the edge of the bed, and for a moment just sat there, surveying the dusty room that he shared with Fai. (And also, technically, with Syaoran; but since they were never home at the same time he rarely saw the boy sleep in here.) The slanting sunlight gave him a disorienting sense of time distortion that was creeping up on him. His tired brain, not quite in sync with the rhythm of the day, crept from one idea to another in a kind of foggy twilight.

He hardly ever saw Fai sleep either, with this skewed schedule they were all keeping; but maybe that was just as well, and just as well they were rarely ever alone together. It was getting harder, sleeping in the same room as Fai, being too aware of the man; of his breathing, the sound his skin made as it slid over fabric. He'd lost far too many hours of sleep out of his life already, lying awake on his own bed and staring at the ceiling, listening to Fai breathe and wondering if he was dreaming. What he was dreaming.

It was safe enough to wonder what Fai dreamed of; he'd long since given up on trying to figure out what the mage was thinking. There'd been a time, early in their journey, when he'd thought Fai was coming on to him; certainly he had taken every opportunity to flirt with him and embarrass him without mercy. But Fai would flip from hot to cold again at a moment's notice; one moment he'd be all come-hither, but then as soon as Kurogane started to get close, he'd slam up a fucking brick wall. Kurogane was completely confused and disoriented by the massively mixed signals; eventually he'd just decided that Fai was screwing with his mind, and he had no intention of letting Fai screw around with any other part of him. So he'd retreated, refusing to rise to Fai's bait any more, refusing to play his little head-games.

So much had changed since then, though. Had Fai's feelings changed too? Were his smiles and invitations genuine now? Kurogane couldn't know for certain, but he was sure of one thing; all they had in the worlds was each other. If Kurogane saw a come-on where there was none, and responded to where it wasn't wanted, he could fuck things up permanently - not only for him and the mage, but for the kid and the pork bun as well. They were all sharing the same boat; Kurogane was not going to be the one to throw a ticking time bomb into the bilges.

A knock on the door startled him out of his bleary thoughts. Fai's voice, slightly muffled by the wooden paneling; "Kuro-forty-winks? Are you awake yet?"

Kurogane rubbed his hand over his face to clear away the last of the sleep, before dropping his hand to his lap and growling back, "If I hadn't been before, yelling at me through the door would wake me up, wouldn't it? Dumbass."

"Oh, good." Cheerfully undeterred by Kurogane's early-morning manner, Fai opened the bedroom door and breezed inside. "Syaoran and Mokona have gone off to the site, so it's just you and me now, Kuro-sleepy. Did you have a nice rest? Starting to think about dinner yet?"

"I don't -" Kurogane started to stand up from the edge of his bed, but as he turned and caught sight of Fai standing in the doorway, his eyes widened and he dropped abruptly back down as though someone had just hit him in the stomach with a sack full of bricks.

Fai turned towards him, smiling his most inviting smile, and the hem and sleeve of the garment he was wearing swung as he turned. The mage was fully dressed in a man's kimono, the full formal version with obi, haori and kamon. The color of the kimono was a dark, rich blue, with a subtle geometric pattern picked out in the thread but no other decoration except for the kamon adorning each panel of fabric crossing over the chest. The overcoat was a darker, more severe navy color, a blue almost black; but threads of the same lighter blue as the kimono traced faint patterns upwards from the hem, like ivy starting to encroach on a stone wall.

It was a picture that Kurogane hadn't seen since he left his homeworld, and he was struck with a sudden intense pang of nostalgia and homesickness. But that was only part of it, because it was Fai wearing this kimono, and the picture presented was as striking and unnatural as finding an elephant sitting casually in one's kitchen. Even with the folds of the kimono arranged painstakingly around him, he still did not look anything like one of Kurogane's countrymen. The deep colors of the richly dyed fabric stood in stark contrast to his pale skin, making his throat and wrists and hands glow in the dim light of their room. His eyes outshone the blue of the kimono, and his pale blond hair - thought tied neatly at the nape of his neck - tumbled in waves and floating strands around his face, giving lie to the crisp neat lines of the carefully folded panels.

He looked incredible, supernatural, like an air spirit from some ancient fairy tale brought to life from a scroll; a creature of wind and sky who had deigned to take on human form, but who still stood out against the heavy lines and dull colors of the mortal world like a golden bauble dropped into the mud of a pond.

"Kuro-sama?" Fai asked him; he was still smiling, but Kurogane realized he'd missed all of whatever the man had been saying. He shook himself awake as though from a dream, and flushed as he realized he'd been staring - actually, the proper word was ogling, what he'd been doing.

"Where did you get those clothes?" he finally managed to croak out. That didn't come out quite right, but it was the only thing he could think to say.

"Do you like them...?" Fai raised his arms over his head, the heavy cloth falling back around his elbows, and did a little twirl. Kurogane's heart did a funny little flip in his chest, turning over before plunging a trail of heat straight down through his stomach to his groin. Fai finished his turn and fetched up smiling before Kurogane once more.

"Some of the parts we found in this world, but I had to ask Mokona for help on others. And Syaoran-kun was very helpful in telling me how it all went together, and how it was supposed to go on. It was all very confusing and complicated, so many things you have to get right." He plucked at the edge of the kimono, where it crossed over his chest, and chuckled. "Although from some of the things he was telling me about the female versions of formal wear, I think I got off easy!"

Kurogane's imagination, without any input on his part, immediately leapt to a vision of Fai decked out in a furisode, with the long sweeping sleeves and the elaborate, colorful illustrations winding from hemline to neckline. He had to shake his head to clear it of the vision, and said, "What I meant to ask is - why do you have those clothes? If anybody sees you in that getup - nobody in this world wears clothes like that. There's no reason for you to be wearing them either!"

"No, there isn't," Fai said; his tone was teasing, but there was a serious look in his eyes as he took a step towards Kurogane; the bars of light and shadow shifted across him as he moved. "I got these clothes because... I thought Kuro-chan would like them. I thought Kuro-chan would like me in them."

Okay, that was unquestionably a come-on. Kurogane had no doubts on that score; it was just that his brain and his tongue and his libido had all fuse-locked. Words weren't his strongest suit at the best of times, and with his heart hammering and his mouth dry and all the blood rapidly departing his brain towards points south, he could not for the life of him think of what to say.

Saying nothing seemed to be the wrong response, however; although the magician kept on smiling, Kurogane knew him well enough by now to see the gradual dimming of the light behind that smile, the slow wilting of his normally exuberant demeanor. "You don't like them?" Fai asked quietly.

"I... see." He started to turn towards the door, his expression sliding away into shadow as the bars of light played over his ponytail, lighting over his neck and shoulders and back. "I'll just go change, then."

Abruptly Kurogane found himself free to move: he lunged off the bed and in two steps had reached Fai, reaching out and grabbing Fai's arm, holding him in place. Fai froze, neither pulling away nor turning back, and Kurogane pressed himself up against Fai's back, circling his arm around the front of Fai's chest as he nuzzled the intoxicating white skin at the base of Fai's neck. "I like the clothes," he said, and his voice came out much huskier than he'd expected. "But I think I like you more."

Fai exhaled, and seemed to melt into Kurogane's arms, pressing back against him. He turned his head to intercept Kurogane's lips with his own, and Kurogane lost himself in the kiss; he almost didn't notice when his grip on Fai's arm loosened, and Fai turned around to face him, his hands sliding up Kurogane's back to thread through his hair and pull him insistently forward.

Kurogane's hands slid under the haori, landing on Fai's hips, and he backed the man up across the dusty room until the back of Fai's knees hit the edge of his mattress and he sat down abruptly. The movement broke their kiss, and Fai looked startled and outraged for a moment before he began to laugh.

The sound of Fai's laughter, bubbling and joyous as it was, broke Kurogane momentarily out of his lust-driven haze; he put his knee up on the mattress beside Fai's thighs, and leaned down, but he raised one hand and placed his fingers across Fai's lips, stopping another kiss.

"If we're going to have sex," he said, his voice low and warning, "you'd better not get all weird on me later."

"Get weird on you?" Fai murmured. "Whatever could Kuro-lusty mean by that? Is he afraid that I'm going to start clinging to his arm in public... slipping bad poetry under his door... serenade him with love songs outside his window at midnight...? I admit I hadn't been planning on it, but it's a thought..." With a wicked grin, he parted his lips and captured Kurogane's fingers, sucking and swirling his tongue around each of the digits.

Kurogane groaned. "Fuck, you would, wouldn't you?" he gasped. It took him several moments to get his thoughts straight again. "No, by 'weird' I mean... you know... that thing you always do..." He was having a lot of problems finding his vocabulary when Fai was doing that with his tongue.

"If it's something I always do, then how can I avoid doing it?" Fai said breathlessly, still making a joke out of it. "Kuro-sama doesn't make any sense."

Kurogane stopped, opened his eyes and pulled away. He put both his hands on Fai's shoulders, and looked straight in his eyes. "If we're going to go forward with this," he said, "you have to promise me that you aren't going to... run away, afterward. Push me away, or try to pretend that it doesn't matter. If we do this it means something, mage."

"I promise," Fai whispered. His eyes were wide, and dilated in the room's dim light as he stared into Kurogane's; almost as dark as they had been in Yama country. He licked his lips, seemed to be trying to say something more, but in the end he just repeated, "I promise."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," Kurogane warned him, but the promise eased his heart; as much as Fai had lied and deflected and evaded and mislead, he knew just exactly how seriously Fai took his promises. "This is for the long haul."

"Yes..." Fai closed his eyes and let his head tip back, his lips parted. "That's all I wanted... Kuro-sama..."

"I know you've got to be into it, if you can't think of any more stupid nicknames," Kurogane muttered; but he followed Fai down onto the bed, and they were both beyond speech for a while.

"So the kid helped set this up for you, huh?" Kurogane said quietly, fingering the edge of the now much-despoiled kimono.

"Uh-huh," Fai said, propping himself up on one elbow to watch. "He and Mokona both helped."

Kurogane sighed, more resigned than annoyed. "Well, I guess there's no point in trying to hide anything from either of them now," he griped.

Fai laughed, and rolled back flat on the bed, snuggling against Kurogane. "There'd be no point anyway, Kuro-papa. Syaoran is a very smart boy - and besides, he's not a child any longer," he added, with a thoughtful look on his face. "He'll be just fine. They both will be."

"Good," Kurogane said, and they fell into drowsy silence for a time. "Because after we get some laundry done, I'm going to have that pork bun store this outfit for later." He sounded faintly smug when he said that - perhaps as revenge for some of Mokona's teasing.

Fai grinned. "That sounds like a plan to me!" he said, and rolling over to straddle Kurogane's stomach, set about to make sure that the laundry would have to be very thorough indeed.

~end.

More author's notes: I had to do some research on Japanese kimono styles to be able to write this fic; all I can say is, I'm definitely glad Fai is a guy, because the female kimono styles are a nightmare of intricate variations and levels of formality. Also, haori are sexy. Google images them if you don't believe me.