Twenty minutes later he hadn't gotten anything figured out but was feeling quite a bit better, and only minimally due to the fact that the shimmery pink fairy princess bandaid was now in the trash bin. He'd been relieved to find that the shower had simple and perfectly sensible controls despite being ridiculously large and possessing two more shower heads than a normal person needed, and even more relieved that he'd thought to bring his own soap and shampoo. After setting down his plain bar of soap next to the array of suspiciously fruity-floral looking bottles already in the metal caddy, Kurogane stood a while under the hot spray, turning slowly to let the water rinse away the suds that still clung to him.
It felt good. He was warm, comfortable, calm...soothed. Not just the fat droplets drumming steadily against his body and the way he could feel his own weight anchoring him down solidly to the irregularly shaped tiles under his feet, but this whole strange hiccup in his life was turning out to be bizarrely enjoyable. Caring for a baby again; feeding and changing and holding her. Letting someone get near to him; relaxing and talking and sharing together. Things that had been high on the never-again list that he hadn't admitted that he had because he'd thought they would only resurrect painful memories at full strength. It hadn't occurred to him that it was only the loss that hurt and that keeping his arms and heart empty was actually perpetuating the pain, not suppressing it.
His thoughts meandered, trying to untangle themselves as his body continued relaxing into the warmth of the water, and so it was perhaps unsurprising that Kurogane nearly had a heart attack and almost broke his neck at the same time when Fai suddenly burst into the bathroom, yelling for him. The shopkeeper startled so badly that "flailed" was the only word to properly describe his reaction, and just barely saved himself from slipping and falling by slamming his hands against the glass walls of the shower stall to brace himself.
His shocked oaths were drowned out by the squeak of his hands against the glass and some frantic babbling from the other side of it, and some of the blond's panic soon transmitted itself to Kurogane when he remembered the third occupant of the cabin. Condensation obscured his view and the combined noise from the water and his thundering heartbeat muddied his hearing, so the shopkeeper gave the tap a violent wrench to shut it off and then threw open the door, making Fai backpedal quickly as the glass swung out, though it didn't make him stop talking.
"-did exactly what you said I swear, I checked the temperature and I used the right box and I don't know why-"
Kurogane only half-listened as he stepped quickly out of the stall and raked his gaze over the hotelier, imagining all sorts of terrible accidents (first sleep and now showers; he was going to develop a serious neurosis about doing anything while there was an infant under his care) and then pausing at the sight of the baby girl safe and sound and looking about as confused as he himself was beginning to feel. Fai was holding her in both arms, but for some reason had the infant slung sideways across his ribcage, her head cradled in the crook of one arm and little limbs waving uncertainly. She was making little mewing noises barely audible underneath her caretaker's continued talking and though her face was scrunching up unhappily she looked fine.
Tan hands came up to rake dripping hair out of his eyes so that a better second look could be taken, but with no different conclusions drawn. He stared hard enough to feel the strain behind his eyes but saw no blood, no swelling or angry red burns, not even a little welt or blossoming bruise, and most importantly there were no tears or piercing shrieks telling him he should be looking for the reason that she was crying and Fai was freaking out.
"Will you shut up for a second?" Kurogane snapped, finally bringing his eyes back up to the blond. He had to repeat the main part of his request and put his hands out in a classic stop gesture before Fai finally wound down. One dark eyebrow quirked up at the way the blond was practically hopping in place in agitation, and then the shopkeeper blurted out the first thing that popped into his head.
"What happened, and why the hell are you holding her like that?" he asked in pure perplexity.
"She threw up!" Fai blurted, his face all crinkled up in anxiety. "I'm making sure she's on her left side so she doesn't choke. I didn't poison her I swear, I checked-"
"Moron, that is what you do for blackout drunks, not sick babies." Kurogane interrupted before the guilt-ridden man could get going again on his confession, his own voice a mix of exasperation, disbelief and amusement. "Here, let me see her." He reached for the baby with damp hands and managed to wrangle her away from the flustered, fluttery man after a moment so that he could give her a more thorough once-over.
"Ammm," she complained to him once she was upright again, and at closer quarters he noticed that her chin and pajamas were liberally decorated with spit-up. He took a quick sniff to confirm his diagnosis, gave her a few pats and pokes and watched her critically for a few more moments to confirm that she was not unduly distressed, and finally gave a short sigh of relief.
"She's fine," he reported, cradling her against his bare chest and giving her an apologetic pat. Sorry, Princess. I shouldn't have left you in the hands of a bird-brain. "She just spit up a little. Babies do that. In fact I'm surprised she hasn't been doing it already." His relief turned into resignation as he realized that cradling her close had transferred some of the sticky mess to him, and then he froze when the thought of great, I just took a shower turned into no scratch that; I was taking a shower.
Kurogane had a staring contest with the baby as a couple of seconds ticked ever so slowly by. Years spent living alone had gotten him out of the habit of locking doors, and it had suddenly risen up and bitten him squarely in the ass. He blinked, and a bead of cooling water fell from one clumped-together section of hair to splat against his forearm, then slipped down past his elbow and over his stomach before sliding coyly along his inner thigh. Yep, he was definitely still naked. It was almost surprising that he hadn't been able to hear the droplet hit, since it had gotten so suddenly silent in the steam-filled bathroom. The baby stared quite calmly back at him while trying to eat the fingers of her left hand, and off in his peripheral vision, Fai had also gone completely quiet and still.
Brown eyes gone suddenly hard and glittery shifted slowly but surely toward the hotelier, and Kurogane's torso swelled with rage, not just the breath he was drawing in.
"You," he ground out venomously, and the slender statue flinched back into life. Blue eyes were ripped away - and up - and then hastily flung into a random corner of the bathroom.
"Um," Fai said, and then left his lips pressed together, biting them as if trying to keep himself from blurting out anything that might further damage his chances of survival. Color rode high on his cheeks as he stared fixedly at nothing, and the corners of his mouth twitched as if fighting a smile.
"You knew there was nothing wrong with her," Kurogane accused him, fuming, steaming and still naked damn it all because he couldn't think of anywhere to put the baby so that he could make himself semi-decent. Getting close enough again to hand her back to the other man was currently off the table for obvious reasons.
"No," came the immediate protest, accompanied by a shake of that blond head and an earnest look. "I didn't. I promise." The look didn't last very long; as soon as those wide-open blue eyes locked with his they seemed to stumble and fall down to his chest, and with a quick inhale the blond was flinging his gaze away again before it could drop any further.
"I really thought something was wrong," Fai told the medicine cabinet. "I didn't know what else to do except come and get you, and the fact that you were in the shower just...didn't register. Well, at least not at first." Blue eyes tentatively flickered over again, and this time the blond let his mouth go and smiled, half penitent, half totally not.
"...I'm sorry?" The cautious apology was accompanied by outstretched arms. "Well anyway since she's all right, let me take her back so you can get back to your shower. Which...I interrupted. With pure intentions, I assure you."
Fai seemed sincere, if a little too amused at the situation and not just a little too distracted by the peep show unintentionally put on for him, and Kurogane attempted to vent the rest of his anger in a deep sigh of resignation at the topsy turvy mess his life was right now.
"Whatever. I was done anyway," he grumbled dismissively. A couple of steps brought him within arm's reach of the current torment of his life and he grimaced at the way the goopy patch on his torso cooled as the baby was peeled away and handed off.
"Go get her changed," he ordered as he reached for a towel and took a couple of swipes at the spit-up on his chest. "There's another set of pj's in my bag. I'll be out in a few minutes and then I'll put her to bed." Fai paused in the doorway, half in and half out and still struggling a bit with keeping his eyes where politeness dictated that they ought to be.
"Won't she be hungry if she's just yucked up everything I fed her though?" the blond asked the doorframe. "Should I make her another bottle?"
He almost tossed off a quick negative and left it at that, but paused as he realized that he didn't know exactly how much the baby had spit up nor the amount she'd been able to drink down before this unfortunate interruption. The shopkeeper stepped close again, one hand rising to lightly nudge the infant's cheek a few times. The towel was held in front of him but only absently, his mind too absorbed with the infant to care much for modesty. Hazy blue eyes looked up at him but he didn't get any open-mouthed nuzzling, and so he shook his head.
"She doesn't seem hungry. She probably didn't spit up all that much; it just looked like a lot to you." Kurogane only got a rather absent-minded sounding hum in acknowledgement and shifted his gaze to the blond, cocking an eyebrow at the way Fai was looking up at him with a wry twist of a smile. At such close quarters he could even see a faint frown knitting together behind the messy fall of long bangs.
"What?" the shopkeeper demanded, dripping water and irritability.
"I can't figure out if you're being mean or are just plain oblivious," came the cryptic reply, making Kurogane roll his eyes.
"And I can't figure you out at all," he admitted, and then brought a large hand down on that fluffy head, clamping down with his fingers and firmly turning the hotelier away from the bathroom. "Get out. Get her changed."
"Bossy bear," Fai accused, but he stepped out obediently without any further comment and disappeared down the hallway, leaving Kurogane to get dried off and dressed in peace.
The tiled room was ridiculously spacious considering it was just one of the guest bathrooms, and the shopkeeper had brought in a change of clothes with him so that he needn't tramp back to his bedroom in just a towel. He quickly went about wiping down the shower and fixing his coffee breath with a good brushing, and then had to stand around for a couple of minutes to finish cooling down. He always ran on the hot side and would have started to sweat right through his clothes if he'd gotten dressed immediately after toweling off.
Dark grey sweatpants went on first, and then Kurogane paused as he caught sight of his injured toe. It wasn't bleeding out afresh but the shower had washed away all the ointment, leaving the wound looking wet and raw. Not that he particularly cared if Fai had to spend a few extra dollars on cleaning the carpets, but the naturally fastidious man balked at the idea of dotting around the cabin leaving little red marks wherever he went. The shopkeeper went to the medicine cabinet to poke around for a new bandage, resigning himself to more sparkly pink crap on his body and consoling himself with the fact that he could at least cover it up with a clean sock. He froze in place when his eyes landed on a box of comfort-flex Band-Aid brand adhesives in assorted sizes, all in a pale, plain flesh tone with not a single fairy princess in sight.
Kurogane closed his eyes and tried counting to ten, but he only made it to three before snapping his eyes open again and snatching the thin cardboard box off of the shelves with a vicious swipe.
Faint strains of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" could be heard coming from the bedroom assigned to the two guests of the cabin, and Kurogane homed in on the sound, jaw tight and fists clenched. How he might have cornered and fallen upon his prey if it was just the two of them was not hard to deduce, but as before the presence of the infant acted as a choke chain on the hot-tempered man.
He strode purposefully down the hall and almost left dents in the doorknob with his grip, but the door was merely swung open, not slammed against the wall to come rebounding on the shopkeeper as he tracked down his quarry. He didn't grab Fai and make him eat the bandaids, either. Dark eyes almost throwing sparks landed first upon the baby girl, clad now in a muted pink onesie decorated with tiny white flowers, being cradled close and quietly serenaded. Just as it had at the foot of the stairs in his home, all his ire softened at the sight of the little girl being so tenderly cared for. She was not yet asleep but seemed only a few blinks away from it, all curled up and quiescent as she was with heavy-lidded eyes drowsily tracking back and forth between lazy blinks as she was waltzed around the room.
The singing and slow, swaying steps stopped at Kurogane's abrupt entrance and Fai turned to face him with quirked eyebrows and a calm smile at the ready, but this expression was quickly succeeded by blank surprise and then - strangely enough - a resurgence of that somewhat petulant frown-and-smile combination.
"All right, now you're just being mean," Fai said. His voice was a low murmur, but there were no other noises to compete with it save for the faint howl of the wind outside, and the words came through clearly. The accuser-turned-accused shook his head slightly as if trying to clear the cobwebs of confusion from his brain.
"Me?" Kurogane demanded, keeping his voice down to a rumble instead of a snarl while he shook the little carton in his hand at his host. "You're the one sticking stupid glittery bandaids on me and telling me they're the only ones you've got."
Blue eyes flickered over the somewhat menacing presence in the doorway and noted the little carton held - crunched - in one fist.
"That wasn't mean, nor was it a lie," said the blond, strangely cool in manner now. The smile was slipping away but the frown remained. Despite having come here to confront Fai with his little lie and subsequent trick, Kurogane began to feel as if he was the one who'd misstepped.
"I told you that those were the only bandaids I had in my bathroom, and they are," Fai continued. "I didn't say that they were the only ones I had in the cabin. And making you stalk around with a pretty princess on your toe is mischievous at most, not mean. That would be your department."
Kurogane frowned, naturally wanting to attack the other man on his childish sense of humor but hesitating at the repeated insistence that he himself was deserving of chastisement for his behavior. He felt like he was missing part of the conversation and chased after clarity instead of launching into a harangue.
"All right, what's with all the 'mean' comments?"
Fai had swiveled away again, still slowly bouncing the dozy infant, and he looked back over his shoulder. The smile was entirely gone now as he explained himself again.
"'Look but don't touch' is nothing if not mean," the hotelier stated. "You know I'm interested in you but you don't want to pursue anything. Fine. But I'd appreciate it if you'd stop parading around undressed-"
"I am not parading around undressed-" Kurogane protested. As he stood there in nothing but a pair of thin sweat pants.
Fai did not derail the main argument to discuss how much clothing constituted being fully dressed, half dressed or undressed. Instead he fixed a sharp look on the taller man and delivered an ultimatum.
"Put a shirt on or I'm going to take this to mean that you've reconsidered and are clumsily attempting to seduce me."
Kurogane opened his mouth, automatically wanting to protest the "clumsy" jab, but then snapped it shut again as he realized how stupid the impulse was. Arguing over how effectively he was trying to seduce the other man would only confirm that he was, in fact, trying. Which he wasn't. He pressed his lips into a thin line, returning that challenging stare with a glower for lack of ideas about what else to do, then whirled about and marched back to the bathroom to finish getting dressed.
The dark-haired man returned to the bedroom wearing a bit more clothing and exuding a lot less ire. The box of bandaids was back in the medicine cabinet minus one small adhesive strip, and his right hand was now holding a zip-up hoodie that he was still too warm to want to put on. A plain white t-shirt and socks made him decent enough for casual company and he paused in the open doorway, poking his head in instead of just striding right back inside in case...well, he didn't really know what to expect. Or fear. Or hope for.
Instead of a bright challenging stare and aggressive stance, he was greeted by the sight of the long, lanky figure curled up cross-legged on the bed, spine curved and fair hair falling like a curtain all around his face as he stared down at the little pink and white form in his arms. The baby was cradled close to Fai's body, draped along one forearm and cuddling quite contentedly into the available body heat. She seemed to have fallen asleep and her living cradle was no longer singing, only softly stroking one rosy cheek with a finger, barely getting close enough to actually make contact.
Kurogane stepped into the room, pushing the door wider though there was already enough room to let him in and letting the faint noise and movement announce his arrival. The blond head lifted and two blue eyes fixed on him immediately. There was a brief assessing look during which the shopkeeper felt himself unaccountably straighten up a fraction, and then he was offered a smile. Faint at first, growing quickly and finally warm and wide, spreading to the man's eyes and relaxing shoulders that he hadn't realized were tensed.
He moved closer, first to peer down at the infant and then to indicate with a look and jerk of his head that Fai should get off of the bed. A bit of cautious wriggling later, the blond was standing in the middle of the room, slowly bouncing back and forth on his feet to keep his little charge firmly planted in slumberland. Kurogane began turning down the bed, and while he wrestled with the ridiculously fluffy comforter, glanced over his shoulder briefly to speak to his companion.
"Sorry," he offered a bit awkwardly. One voice in his head argued strenuously that he hadn't done a damned thing wrong and shouldn't have to even feel like he ought to apologize. Another voice, more reasonable and right and therefore generally gaining the upper hand, responded that no matter his intentions - or lack thereof - he had made his host uncomfortable and at least owed the man an apology if nothing else. He heard no response from the hotelier, and comforter, blankets, sheet and pillows were methodically removed one by one in utter silence until all that remained over the mattress was the fitted sheet.
Ruddy eyes cut back again and this time lingered, caught by the sight of Fai standing still and just smiling at him in a fond and rather bemused fashion. Kurogane straightened up from looming over the mattress and gave the other man a what? sort of look, making Fai huff faintly in laughter and shake his head.
"Nothing," the blond murmured, still looking softly happy. Content and satisfied, like a cat in a patch of sunlight. "It's nice to know you don't have a mean streak after all. Just a thick skull."
Dark eyes narrowed at this last bit, but Kurogane had no desire to start another unexpected tiff after which he'd find himself feeling an inexplicable need to apologize. It was late, the relaxing aftereffects of the shower were lasting longer than those of its unfortunately tense denouement, and the atmosphere was peaceful and cozy. He had no desire to let his temper wreck all this unnecessarily. Satisfying himself with just growling at the lighthearted insult, Kurogane turned back to his work, and the stripped-down bed was carefully moved across the carpet until two sides of it were flush against the walls. After all the bedding was folded and left in a fluffy stack on the floor near the foot of the bed, the shopkeeper gave the whole arrangement a nod of satisfaction before turning and reaching out to take the little girl into his own arms.
Fai had been watching him with curious interest but at this, the blond blinked at him in surprise and twisted his upper body a bit, playing keep-away with the baby.
"You can't just plunk her down on nothing but a mattress and a bare sheet," the blond protested in a quiet yet clearly off-put murmur, frowning slightly at the bed. The hotelier was probably offended by the spartan accommodations being offered to their little princess. The taller rolled his eyes at the need for yet another baby care lesson as he replied.
"I can, I will and I should," he replied. "Pillows and blankets are smother hazards."
Fai seemed to see the logic in this after just a quick ponder, but immediately came up with another protest.
"But what if she rolls off the bed?"
"I don't think she's old enough to roll over even once," Kurogane posited, and to cut off any further argument based on a lack of absolute certainty, added, "and I'll be sleeping on the outside edge anyway."
"She might roll the other way."
"Through the wall?" Kurogane asked dryly. "I doubt she's capable of picking up that much speed."
"She might get stuck between the wall and bed."
"Oh for-" The dark-haired man bit off the impolite imprecation welling up over his tongue and whirled away, bending swiftly to snatch up the loose sheet he'd folded up and set aside. It was partially unfurled and then rolled tightly to make a long sausage of fabric, and then Kurogane spent some time muttering darkly to himself while tucking it under the inside edge of the fitted sheet. It made a nice little bumper along the long edge against the wall, and he turned back to the blond with a grumpy sigh.
"Happy?"
"What about the head of the bed?"
"She's not going to rotate in place in her sleep and then go rolling off," he hissed, barely remembering to keep his voice down to levels acceptable for use around sleeping babies.
Fai gave him a wounded look and then glanced unhappily between the infant and the bed a few times, his expression conveying a conviction that these might be his last moments with the baby were he to hand her trustingly over to be laid onto the cotton covered death trap. Kurogane withstood the waffling but found himself caving in when the blond turned those big blue eyes onto him and threw in an anxious nibble of a lower lip. A thin blanket was retrieved from the floor with a grumble and tucked under the fitted sheet next, creating a low hill at the head of the mattress.
"Happy now?" Kurogane asked, expecting a quiet cheer or something. Instead Fai gazed sorrowfully at the foot of the bed.
"You've got to be kidding me," the dark-haired man growled.
"But-" Fai began, and immediately got cut off.
"No. We're done. Get out." Kurogane reached for the infant once more, and this time succeeded in getting her out of the hotelier's overprotective clutches.
"Mean," Fai accused, but this time the word held no frosty bite and instead of making the taller man pause in unease, it only drew forth a derisive snort.
"Good night," Kurogane said, with more command than courtesy, and herded his host out of the room. He nudged the door most of the way shut with one foot, muffling the stream of complaints about ill-tempered and ill-mannered grizzlies, and then turned back to actually take a good look at his quarters for the night. The overhead light was off but a lamp on a bedside table filled the room with a warm glow, pushing the darkness back until it was nothing but faint shadows pooling in the folds of the blanket thrown over the chair in the corner and lingering underneath the desk, behind the table and bed.
Like the parts of the cabin he had already familiarized himself with, the guest bedroom was expensively furnished but also tastefully so. The theme of nature-inspired colors and simple furnishings only dressed up with splashes of color or texture here and there continued. The room was predominantly oatmeal-ish, both in wall and carpet color and the nubby texture of the upholstery and curtains. The plainness was broken up with dark brown wood, brassy accessories and dark green trim, burnt orange-red blankets from the bed and on a chair by the window, and a framed piece of art on one wall made of random curls of birch bark interwoven with branches that looked like a royal bitch to dust but was pleasing to the eye.
Even better than the decor was the fact that he had it all to himself now, and Kurogane exhaled slowly, reveling in the silence. No less worthy of reveling in was the warm little bundle draped against his chest, but it took him a few more seconds to realize that she was providing the lion's share of the contentment that he was experiencing.
The tall figure bowed slightly, hunching over as if to try and curl himself around this little nucleus of damp heat, muscular arms tightening about the infant ever so slightly. Kurogane rested his face against the head of short blond fuzz, not nuzzling or scattering kisses as her other temporary caretaker had done but simply taking in her scent. The evocative smell of baby powder mingled with a faint hint of soap and the mealy scent of formula, stirring up memories that he only hesitated at for a split second before letting them wash over him. He had no experience of the ocean but he thought suddenly occurred to him that facing the waves might be a little like this; so much easier when you didn't fight it.
Breaking out of his brief reverie, the dark-haired man pressed his lips to the top of the baby's head in a quick arguably-not-an-actual-kiss, then carefully set the infant down on the bed, placing her somewhat near the corner. Kurogane took a moment to turn off the bedside lamp - keeping one wary eye on the infant just in case she did in fact evidence a sudden talent for rolling - and then laid himself down as well. He sighed as he did so, but this time it wasn't aggravation or regret or any other such thing that had been drawing similar exhalations from him that day.
He sighed, and it was just a sigh, nothing more. If anything it was a satisfied sound; the long strange day was finally over, he was warm and clean, the mattress felt firm enough that he didn't fear waking up needing a chiropractor, and it was calming to be able to watch the rhythmic rise and fall of the baby's torso as she slumbered. He rolled over onto his side and let his hand fall just by the little girl, not weighing her down but close enough to feel her move against the backs of his fingers as she breathed.
Instead of counting sheep, Kurogane began marking off her breaths, and fell asleep before he got to thirty.
