Note: This story is rated R-18. Fair warning for references to child abuse and character death. Written for the Kurofai Olympics at the Dreamwidth kurofaicommunity. Voting for entries is still happening over there now: kurofai . dreamwidth . org / 18333 . html

The sound that woke Kurogane at quarter past three was… weird.

He blinked, and sat up, swung his legs out of the futon.

At first, he couldn't place it. He woke with the echoes of something shrill and pained in his ears, and his first thought - always his first thought – was Sakura. But truthfully, even as he jerked open the door and strode down the hall, he didn't quite believe it somehow. The noise was too high, too animal, too weirdfor any human to make.

He checked on her all the same, though, paused outside her door to peer through the darkness. Sakura lay on her side, clutching the weird rabbit thing the idiot had given her: she seemed peaceful enough. And so Kurogane had just decided the noise must've been a cat in the street, or some other fucking thing, when it came again, high and thin. Set the hairs on the back of his neck prickling on end.

This time, awake and from his better vantage in the hall, Kurogane realised it had come from Fai's room.

He pulled Sakura's door smartly shut and padded across the hall.

Outside Fai's door he hesitated, only for a second. He'd already decided to knock, but if there was no answer, he was going in, Fai's fucking privacy complex be damned, because that noise… That noise was weird. People – safe, OK people – didn't make noises like that.

Kurogane raised his hand, rapped once, twice, three times on the wood, and once a minute had passed with no stirring from within, he slid the door open. He might've felt guilty – taking advantage of the rule that left all bedrooms (mostly) unlocked in the event Sakura should need them – but he didn't. It wasn't like he wanted to poke his nose into Fai's business – his secrets, the ones he worked so very hard to keep locked up tight. Worked, even though Kurogane never said a word about them. It might've been comical if it wasn't so fucked up.

Because Kurogane didn't need to know Fai's secrets to know Fai. Tonight he just wanted to make sure the idiot wasn't dead.

But inside the room… Kurogane stopped. Inside, he found himself squinting slightly, only very slightly, but enough that he noticed. It was lighter in Fai's room than it had been in the hall, and that, well, Kurogane wasn't quite sure why that was. His first, gut-clenched thought was candle, fucking idiot! but the light was too steady for that. He glanced at the window and found the curtains snugly drawn. The light was coming from a spot low on the wall; he craned his head to get a better look and…

That noise. High, shrill. Weird. Coming from the shape hidden in the bed.

Kurogane crossed swiftly towards it, crouched down, and shook Fai with an even, solid motion.

He expected the man to startle or push him away. At least sit blearily up, rub at his eyes and ask Kuro-prowler what he was doing creeping about. But he didn't. Fai went stiff and still, and Kurogane wasn't prepared for the eye that suddenly glittered in the dark cave of the covers – just the one: Fai might've been a Cyclops – and blinked at him slowly for a second or two.

Just that. Only that.

Kurogane said, 'Wake up, idiot. You're making strange noises.' And Fai sat up, uncurled himself like a cat (like always). He had two eyes, then, to stare impassively back with.

Kurogane's calves started to protest the crouch. He said, again, 'You were making a weird noise. You injured?'

Fai smiled. Made his face was full of strange angles in the half-light. 'I was asleep, Kuro-chan,' he said: there was that sharp little edge to his voice. 'So, no, not unless I cut myself on the pillow.'

Kurogane could see the rise and fall of Fai's chest, see the tiny movements of his throat as he sucked air in. 'What's the matter with you?' he said shortly.

Because something was, and Kurogane was fucking sick of tiptoeing around it.

But, 'Probably just sleep paralysis.' Fai stretched, though it seemed forced. 'I get that if I roll onto my back sometimes. It's fine.' And he smiled again. It was colder this time. 'It's fine, Kurogane.'

Which was probably his cue to go. But Kurogane found, even as he shifted back on his heels and stood to depart, that he didn't want to. He wanted to stay there, by Fai's side in the half-light. Just until the panic faded, and his eyes grew heavy again. And that was stupid, because... Kurogane didn't know why he wanted to. He just did, somehow, for Fai. Not to say anything, because frankly he didn't have anything tosay at three in the morning, but just to be there, with him.

Kurogane pulled the door shut tightly behind him.

After, neither of them mentioned the little lamp plugged into the socket near Fai's bed. Kurogane didn't ask, wouldn't ask: partly because he didn't want to hear whatever bullshit story Fai would make up – that it was for Sakura or some other improbable thing – but also, partly, because it wasn't his business why Fai didn't sleep in the dark. He was an adult. He could do what he liked.

But the next time Kurogane had cause to go in Fai's room – mid-afternoon, to retrieve Sakura's weird rabbit thing– the lamp was nowhere to be seen. It had been hidden firmly, carefully away.

Kurogane found the weird rabbit thing and shut the door behind him.

(Much like everything else pertaining to Fai.)

But it was only a matter of time, after that.

And then, one Wednesday, this happened: Fai tucked back his hair and furrowed his brow and said, 'Maybe you'll feel better if I make you some soup.'

He was talking to Sakura, in fact. She'd woken scratchy-throated and pale in the morning, grown progressively miserable as the day ticked along. Fai had kept her in bed with a cooling strip on her forehead. She'd smiled wanly at him and she'd managed some porridge, but she stayed quiet. Unhappy. Fai apparently thought soup was the answer.

Kurogane was pretty sure her mother was the answer – but there was absolutely nothing he could do about that.

He didn't like feeling helpless. He'd been feeling it too much lately.

But Fai was going to make soup. He'd had taken off Yuui's jumper and stolen Kurogane's car keys ('You have to pay for it if you smash it up, idiot.') and gone from the flat with a strange, twitching purpose. And then Kurogane remembered all the boxes he had stowed safely away. In a hatch above a cupboard in the room that he slept in.

He'd pulled out the first box, taken the first DVD cover that came to hand, and saw, in Tomoyo's delicate handwriting Yuui – piano, with a date after that.

Kurogane figured that would do.

He took the thing into the living room and made up the couch with blankets. They were still in the hamper that Tomoyo had always used. Then he went to find Sakura, exhausted and quiet, and carried her from her bedroom to nestle amongst it.

Once she'd settled back amongst the cushions, she said, 'What are we watching, Uncle Kurogane?'

Kurogane sat beside her. Flicked a button on the remote, and said, 'You'll see.'

And she did. For there on the screen, quite smoothly – Tomoyo's camera hand had always been ridiculously steady – appeared Yuui. Kurogane blinked, and perhaps he hadn't quite been prepared for the sight of him – because Yuui looked like Fai, and he saw Fai every day – but he started, slightly. Struck yet again by all the difference in the world.

On the screen, Yuui was seated at the piano, hands moving fluidly. Some gentle, romantic melody that Kurogane didn't know. And then Yuui glanced over his shoulder, caught sight of the camera, and colour rose softly into his cheeks. He kept playing all the while. Smiled that gentle, gentle smile.

Beside him, on the couch, Sakura moved closer; curled her small fingers tight around Kurogane's thumb. And Kurogane wondered then, if he'd done the right thing – 'cause this was supposed to help, not make her feel fucking worse – but when he looked there was a brightness in her face that he hadn't seen for… a while.

Brightness, mixed in with the sorrow and longing and all the other grey things – but those were unavoidable. They were already there, Sakura felt them, and shutting things away just didn't work. Sakura deserved better than that. That thought caught hold of Kurogane, sent irritation through him. They all deserved better than that. Not living at the edges of Fai's make-believe fine.

Then the door opened. Fai came in, less graceful than usual. He was struggling with two shopping bags. He looked at Sakura on the couch and blinked in surprise, 'Sakura-chan, what are you doing up?' And then Kurogane didn't know what it was that caught Fai's attention – the sound of the piano or his twin's face on the screen - but Fai turned towards it. Blinked. His face all at once bloodless and awful.

He said, in a nothing sort of voice, 'Sakura-chan ought to be going back to bed now. She'll get worse, lying out here in a draught.'

Kurogane scowled. 'Why do you think she's drowning in blankets, idiot?'

But Fai wouldn't look. 'Come on, Sakura-chan,' he said, still in that nothing voice, 'Let's get you settled in your room.'

And then Kurogane sighed. Because there was no fucking point.

Or not then, anyway. But once Fai had carried Sakura back to her room and tucked her in, he came looking for Kurogane. Thin lips and stiff jaw and blue flashing eyes.

Yeah, well, Kurogane had been waiting for it.

Fai said, 'What do you think you were doing, showing her that?' He nodded sharply towards the television. 'She's already sick, and now you've upset her.'

Kurogane could still feel the prickle of irritation running up his spine. 'They were her parents,' he said. He was trying to keep his voice even: it was difficult. 'This stuff shouldn't be hidden away just 'cause you can't stand to see his face.'

Fai smiled: razor-edged. 'I see his face every day, Kurogane,' he said calmly. 'In the mirror. Hazard of being a twin, you could say.'

'Yeah? Well, you're not him and he's not here,' and Kurogane breathed, trying to hold back all the anger threatening to spill out. 'He's not here, and you are, so you need to deal with it.'

Now he'd said that too.

Fai looked away, cleared his throat. Then, 'Well, I'm afraid not all of us are so quick to cast aside the ones we…' He moved a hand to his hair. 'The ones we love... My apologies if that's an inconvenience for you – '

'It's not an inconvenience, idiot, it's a fucking pain! You think this is love?' Kurogane's voice was getting louder, but he just couldn't help it. 'You think it's this – making you and me and her live in some fucking vacuum? That's not love. He wouldn't have wanted that!'

And Fai went very still. He said, low, 'What would you know about what he wants?'

He'd said something like that before. Kurogane wasn't letting it go this time. 'Wanted,' he said bluntly. Watched Fai's face as he spoke. He wanted to make sure Fai got the fucking message, because none of them – Fai included –were living right now. Just existing amongst all the chatter and bright smiles and names that couldn't be mentioned. Tomoyo was his sister. Kurogane was sick of it. 'What he wanted. He's dead.'

Fai stared back at him. Stood sucking in great lungfuls of air.

Kurogane said, roughly, 'So, stop being so fucking selfish! He's gone. They're both gone. She needs you now. You said you want to be here, so you deal with it.' And he could hear his voice growing loud again. Fai looked frozen and white and smooth, and Kurogane was so fucking sick of that too. He snarled, 'Find a way, idiot, 'cause you're no use to her like this!'

Then nothing. They stayed that was for a minute, Fai glaring and sewn-tight and angry at Kurogane. Then his smile pulled tighter. 'Kuro-tantrum should keep his voice down,' he said, icily. His blue eyes were narrowed and dark. 'There's nothing worse than a big, shouty uncle, you know.'

Kurogane just looked, and after another few seconds Fai gathered up his groceries, went stiffly to the kitchen and began putting them away. As if nothing had happened. As if everything were fine.

(It wasn't fine. It wasn't even close to it.)

But later, after he'd cooled down, after Sakura was asleep in her bed and the flat had grown still and quiet, Kurogane pushed open the door to his room, padded down the hall in search of Fai. He wasn't sorry for what he'd said – because it needed to be said, but he was sorry, maybe, for how he'd said it. Which meant he had to apologise sooner or later. Kurogane's preference was for sooner. Whether the idiot did the same was his own affair, but Kurogane didn't like to be served breakfast by someone he couldn't even look in the eye.

He stopped briefly outside Sakura's door, peering through the murk to see her curled beneath the covers. She looked so small just then, and Kurogane was reminded, suddenly, of Tomoyo as a child; of the sight of his sister in her childhood bed, surrounded by soft toys. Of her face, so wonderfully serene even in sleep.

Something caught at his throat, mixed up in the heavy, unhappy air of the evening. The flat was dark, save for the fluorescent ring in the kitchen, and the gloom seemed to press close against him, make him long for soft smiles and gentle voices in a way he hadn't before.

But there was nothing to be done about that. It was just as he'd said: Tomoyo was gone, and Yuui, if it came to that. The only people left were him and Fai, sharp and bitter and angry at each other.

Kurogane sighed, and moved away down the hall.

He was about to knock at Fai's door when a faint noise made him stop, look in the direction of the darkened living room instead. Music, perhaps, or the radio. Some sign of life. So he went cautiously towards it, rounded the corner away from the kitchen, and there he found Fai, hunched in front of the television, the remote in his hands and his brother's face on the screen.

Kurogane sighed again.

Yuui smiled at the camera – at the camerawoman, Kurogane thought distantly – his hands never faltering in their movement on the piano. It was the same bit of video Kurogane had watched with Sakura that afternoon; he recognised the dip and rise of the melody, the way Yuui's hair fell forward as he reached forward to turn the sheet music. Earlier, he'd thought the tune too romantic, too sweeping, but now, in the dim and the quiet, it felt bittersweet, mournful, almost.

In the glow of the television, Kurogane could make out the movement of Fai's throat as he swallowed.

There was nothing Kurogane could say to make this right. Yuui was gone, Tomoyo was gone, and Fai and Kurogane were just the ones left behind. Sakura had been left behind; their daughter, the baby that Kurogane had picked up, oh, so, gently at the hospital a day after she'd been born. She'd been so small her entire torso almost fit in his palm.

Sakura needed them now. That was all Kurogane could do.

He said, 'I came to apologise.'

Fai jumped, and fumbled the remote, turning to look at Kurogane through the gloom. His hair was turned a funny shade by the light of the screen, and it made him look strange, all gold and white and blue in the darkness. After a minute, he said, 'How like Kuro-pin to make amends before bed.'

And turned back to the screen.

Kurogane took a breath and tried not to let the little flash of anger at Fai's words flare into the rage of earlier. 'Don't you have something to say to me too?'

Fai shrugged. 'Do I?'

There didn't seem to be much to say to that. Fai's apologies were his own affair, much like his secrets. But this – the space between them jagged and cold – Kurogane didn't want this. Not just for himself or Sakura. For Fai as well. Because Fai was… he was important. Kurogane remembered the flicker-fast touch of fingers across his chin, remembered devious blue eyes that met his own in the hall light, and… he didn't want this for Fai. Not sitting alone and untouched in the dark like this.

He wanted to do something for him. Just be there, at least. Allowed to be there.

Looking at Fai, hunched on the couch now, it seemed almost impossible.

Kurogane cleared his throat. 'I am sorry,' he said.

Fai shook his head, a small sad movement, his eyes never leaving his twin on the screen, and Kurogane supposed that was all that needed to be said for one night.

From there four days passed – awkward, fumbling days, where Kurogane woke to one hot meal and came home to another, hardly a word passed between them save for Sakura's benefit. Difficult days. And things couldn't carry on that way, that much was fucking obvious, but for four days Kurogane waited. Worked and ran and slept and waited.

On the fifth day, he did something else.

Because on the fifth day, Wednesday, once Sakura had gone to pre-school and silence descended over the flat once more, Kurogane went to the cupboard in his bedroom, the room that Tomoyo always used as a study, and began sorting through the boxes stored in the top of it. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.

He went out into the living room and set the laptop down on the table beside Fai's own.

'Here,' he said, ignoring the look of irritation that flitted across the other man's features. 'I want your help with something.'

Irritation gave way to surprise, gave way to smooth-faced cordiality. 'Kuro-ru can have my help any time he wants it,' Fai said. He ran a finger over the touchpad of his laptop, moved the machine aside. 'All he has to do is ask nicely.'

Yeah, well, that was the idea. Kurogane pressed the biggest button in sight on the laptop he'd brought from the cupboard – hopefully that would turn the fucking thing on – and said, 'I need you to help me find a good picture of Yuui. And Tomoyo, I guess. I'm no good at stuff like that.'

Fai stared at him. He stayed that way for a minute, smooth and unmoving, but it wasn't, Kurogane was relieved to note, the same white-faced blankness of that otherafternoon. That, at least, was something.

Then, 'Why does Kuro-tan want something like that?'

'For a shrine,' Kurogane said. He waved vaguely, taking in the room. 'There should be one in here.'

Another silence. 'What for?'

Kurogane studied Fai's face for a moment, still so perfectly smooth. 'Respect. Some people pray to them, I guess, but I'm not really...' He glanced down briefly at another chime from the machine. 'Mostly,' he said, 'it's just about remembering.'

Fai would react one of two ways, he figured – good or bad.

And then Fai said, very quietly, 'It would be good for Sakura-chan, wouldn't it?'

Kurogane looked back towards him, saw something soft in the other man's face. Fai hesitated, just for a second, and then he shifted, angled his body towards the little white machine.

Kurogane shoved it closer. 'Be good for all of us, idiot,' he said shortly, and Fai laughed at that.

Kurogane didn't know what it was that Fai and Yuui had run away from, but he could guess at parts of it: fit little pieces together into something dark and ugly. It wasn't hard. Kurogane didn't need all the details to see the bigger picture.

('It's fine,' Fai said. Blinking, breathing in the dark. Wore a smile like glass, cut himself to shreds with it. 'It's fine, Kurogane.')

Although details, it seemed, were the things Kurogane had most of. Things Fai imagined made no sense, all the finer points of damage reduced to blessed obscurity: bad dreams and scar tissue and the shameful little nightlight that lived its days in Fai's bedside drawer. 'There's nothing worse than a big, shouty uncle,' he'd said. Kurogane could only suppose he knew something about it.

('I won't let Sakura-chan grow up the way we did.')

Something dreadful, something papered over with smiles and sunshine and pretend, pretend, pretend. Drab little horrors borne out in childhood homes, things desperately forgotten, until they weren't, over and over again.

(It wasn't fine.)

As a child, before the fire, and sometimes after, Kurogane dreamed of monsters – great multi-headed creatures that screeched death across the sky; but the monster in Fai's dreams, he suspected, had had a driver's licence and everything.

And Kurogane wasn't sure when this had become home - Fai raising his eyes over the frame of his glasses, distracted, momentarily, by the thud of boots hitting the lino. He was wearing Yuui's jumper. But when Kurogane nodded towards him, Fai smiled – and it wasn't happy and it wasn't bright and it wasn't particularly fun to look at. It was, Kurogane suspected, something close to honesty.

Fai looked down at Sakura, curled into his side.

'She tried to wait up for you,' he said quietly. 'She wanted to wish you happy birthday.'

Kurogane didn't blink. Just stood there, taking in Fai and Sakura and the warm shape they made together. It was probably as well that she was asleep. He didn't know what he would've said to her. He didn't know… He didn't know what to do about the feeling filling up his chest, rising up into his throat. Fai gazed back at him, bittersweet and tired and that small, soft smile. The red marks on his nose where his glasses pinched too tight: Kurogane had told him countless times to get them fixed. And Fai hadn't. Idiot. Looked up at Kurogane every evening (morning), sometimes washed out, sometimes cheerful, and other times still brittle and sharp, but always… Kurogane snorted. Always with those stupid fucking marks on his nose.

On his next day off, he would drag the idiot to the glasses place if necessary.

But not now. Now he stepped forward, shifted his weight lower towards the couch. Waited as Fai set his book aside and drew the blankets back. He picked Sakura up, carried her against his shoulder, and he didn't falter when he saw the pink-ribboned present – so carefully wrapped – waiting atop her drawing table when he stepped into her room.

Fai said, from behind him, 'You'll have to pretend you didn't see that.' Said it with a smile, his tone amused now. He'd leaned close to say it against Kurogane's ear.

And Kurogane huffed. On principle.

But he set Sakura on her bed and pulled the blankets up. Just like every night, or the ones he was home, at least. Most nights. And afterwards… afterwards Fai didn't go off to Yuui's room straight away. Because this was something else they'd started to do: Fai and Kurogane and the nightcap they shared. Fai reached to pour Kurogane's drink, his fingers curling around the bottle, and Kurogane wasn't sure when this became something else too. Something warm, good. Not always easy, not always clear, but something. He thought, maybe, it was something. He wasn't good at this stuff, and he didn't know what Fai wanted, but maybe. It could be something.

That night, Fai poured the drinks and handed a glass to Kurogane and said, 'Happy birthday, Kuro-sama.' Said it with a smile. Too bright, but old habits died hard. Kurogane knew something about that from experience.

He said, 'Yeah,' and they both drank in time.

And that night, Fai lay back on the couch, his toes pushed into the padding of the armrest. 'I remember,' he said, chuckling, and Kurogane glanced across. Fai was studying the bottle. 'I got disgustingly drunk on something like this when I was 12, and Yuui,' he paused briefly, 'Yuui tried to cover for me, but Ashura found out, anyway. He made me drink four tall glasses of water and sent me to sleep it off. Apparently I broke a figurine – by accident, of course, but that gave me away.'

Kurogane grunted, 'Idiot,' and then said, 'Ashura your dad?'

Well, it was worth a shot. He wasn't sure if Fai would answer – that was anyone's guess. But Fai put down the bottle. He started to shake his head, and then the motion slowed. 'We weren't related to him – biologically, I mean,' he said, carefully, 'We didn't call him 'dad' or 'father', but he acted like it.' There was another smile now, small and wistful and soft. 'In a good way, I mean, you know?'

Kurogane thought of the kind voice calling out to the silent, solemn twin, and nodded. Yeah, he knew.

'10-3 to Despatch, do you copy, over?'

'Copy, 10-3. This is Despatch. Go ahead, over.'

'Fire personnel injured in partial building collapse. Require ambulance, over.'

'Copy that, 10-3. What is your location, over?'

-tbc