He came suddenly awake and blinked rapidly, the remnants of a dream slipping away and leaving him disoriented in its wake. He couldn't recall what the dream had been about but he knew for certain that it had not been the same nightmare that disrupted almost every night of his life, and that in and of itself was unusual enough to make him feel a bit out of it. His heart rate and breathing were calm, his body was relaxed, and there was just this strange feeling of straining after some noise to make him a tiny bit anxious to know why he'd woken.

The room was still dark, but light from the hallway filtered in past the slightly cracked-open door and let him see faintly. The infant was happily right where he'd left her; in front of his face and within arm's reach. He stared at her fixedly for a few seconds to confirm that she was breathing before letting himself relax a notch. Kurogane then rolled over to squint at the digital clock on the bedside table and froze as a faint noise caught his attention.

A light snore.

He whipped his head back around and frowned suspiciously at the infant, but she was sleeping silently, and besides which the noise had seemed to come from somewhere around his feet. Kurogane carefully got up on one elbow and peered down the length of the bed, but saw nothing. Just as he was about to brush it off as his imagination or some misheard noise like a branch scraping against a window in another room, he heard another whisper-faint snore. Definitely coming from just beyond his socks. The shopkeeper sat the rest of the way up and crawled to the foot of the mattress to peer over the edge next, and spent a long moment just staring down in disbelief.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered quietly, shaking his head in a sleep-fuzzed mixture of befuddlement and bemusement.

The bedding that he'd stripped away and folded up neatly earlier had been unfolded most of the way to make a cushy pad on the floor, and there were six pillows - four more than had originally been in the room - packed close together on top of it like marshmallows rubbing cheeks across the top of a large graham cracker. He could have taken a dive off the bed face first and not bruised his nose, much less broken it.

It looked like a comfortable place to take a nap, but Fai was curled up on the carpet instead, just beyond what was apparently the hotelier's idea of a contingency plan in case of babies being able to roll five feet down a bed in their sleep and take a flying leap onto the floor. He lay on the outer edge of the redeployed bedding as if using his own body as an additional bulwark to separate the infant from the floor, still dressed in his sweater and slacks with his head pillowed on one arm and his free hand loosely cradling his smart phone. The man seemed to have fallen asleep while messing about with it and was now snoring faintly at odd intervals.

Kurogane peered at him for a while, rather surprised that he hadn't woken up during any of this sneaky bedding-shuffling within such close proximity. He wondered if he should be insulted at this proof that Fai's faith in his infant-related wisdom was not absolute, but found much more charitable feelings stirring instead. The blond had started off nearly dropping the poor mite and had seemed to pose a threat to her well-being through sheer ignorance, but was proving more and more to have her best interests at heart. The strange ways in which this caring cropped up were only adding to the endearing factor, and Kurogane found himself smiling faintly as he took in the calm, relaxed face below him.

He hesitated a moment before moving to wake the man, thinking that if Fai was an insomniac it might be doing him an injury to disturb any rest he was managing to get even if it was on the floor. He was also sorely tempted to choose this path of least effort from a simple desire to go back to sleep, but leaving his host snoozing away on the carpet didn't quite sit right with him and so Kurogane reached down and picked up one of the pillows, then promptly smacked that fair head with it.

His notions of politeness and propriety only stretched so far.

"Mmph!" Fai was scrabbling at the feather-fattened sack immediately, looking around in confusion with his eyes barely open. "Huh? What?"

"If you are going to sleep after all, do it in a bed like a normal person," Kurogane recommended, his voice as dry as it could get at such a low volume. When he saw the other man groggily sit up and rub at sleep-grainy eyes like a child, he gave in to the siren song of his warm spot on the mattress and crawled back to it, trusting Fai to be able to find his way to the door. His trust in the hotelier's abilities were likely not misplaced, but his trust of the man's decision making skills turned out to be so. No sooner had he laid himself back down than the mattress dipped under another weight, and just as he came up on one elbow to confirm with his eyes what his brain was protesting as impossible because come on, a long, lean figure wormed its way into the space left between him and the infant.

"I meant in your own bed," Kurogane clarified as acidly as possible. Which was not very acidly at all, given his drowsy state and how distracted he was trying not to be by all the signals his nerve endings were sending back to his brain. A faint warmth, the irregular ridges of cable-knitting on Fai's sweater catching slightly at his t-shirt in passing, a sock-clad foot investigating the space between his ankles; he felt it all as distinctly as if he had no clothes of his own getting in the way...and that was not a mental image he needed at the moment.

Fai sleepily shushed him while spooning cozily into the tense curve of the taller's form with a languid squirm, which just made Kurogane growl and clench his hands - one into the sheets while trapped under a slim neck, the other floating in the air by a dark blue wool-clad shoulder with nowhere to land - into tight fists. His free-floating hand caught the blond's attention after a moment, and after making an interrogatory noise Fai reached up and tried tugging tanned fingers closer as if he were hoping to use the arm they were attached to as a blanket or shawl. Kurogane snatched his hand away as if burned by the contact.

"What do you think you're doing?" The question was ground out slowly, and the bits and pieces of chewed-up sentence seemed to fall down the neck of Fai's sweater and tickle him, because he shook faintly with laughter.

"Trying out this sleeping thing," came the rather groggy sounding response. A pale hand came up again to try and nab Kurogane's free hand for another tugging attempt.

"Quit that," Kurogane ordered, yanking his hand out of reach and then using it to jab his unwanted bedmate in the side. The whiny "ow" he got was mildly satisfying. "And you are not sleeping here."

"No sleeping?" Fai queried, sounding somewhat more awake now. He turned his head to gaze up at the other man over one shoulder, a smile teasing at his lips. "You want to talk some more instead?"

"No."

"So let's sleep."

"Seriously, what the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to sleep, silly bear. Also flirting a little," the blond replied matter-of-factly before breaking into a big yawn, and the simplicity of the answer brought Kurogane up short. Surprise and confusion nudged ire aside, and the shopkeeper faltered a bit at receiving honesty instead of some outrageous excuse or attempt to deflect. Finding a safe place for his hand to rest bought him a bit of processing time, and when he finally settled for just draping it along his own side, he had his thoughts marshaled.

"I thought I'd made myself clear," he began, but Fai mm-hmm'd and cut in before he got the rest of his sentence out.

"You did. You don't want to start something doomed to be temporary."

"And yet here you are..." Kurogane prompted, frowning down in confusion.

"Because after some consideration, I have decided that you, my dear grizzly bear, made a serious tactical error."

"Allowing you to set foot in my store?"

"Nope," Fai replied with a brief, airy laugh and a little squirm that Kurogane felt along every inch of his body. "Refusing to let my misunderstanding stand. You should have let it be, or even told me flat out that you're not interested in me at all. But you started that 'something' that you didn't want to start when you admitted that you are interested."

That silenced Kurogane, at least for a moment. It would be ridiculous to deny that there was in fact something between them already. He'd said it himself, and Fai had just confirmed it. There was interest.

Just because the blond was willing to pursue it didn't alter basic facts, however.

"It doesn't change anything," Kurogane said, voice still low to keep from knocking the sleep dust off of the baby. Or perhaps to hide the disappointment that he couldn't keep from creeping into his throat when he thought of the future together that didn't exist for the three people currently sharing the bed. He could make decisions all he wanted but the inclinations and want weren't put aside so easily.

"Of course it does," came the blithe response. The other man was still speaking in that low, languid murmur, as easily as if they weren't arguing at all. "It already has. As you said...here I am."

"It still isn't going to become anything...anything more, anything lasting," the dark-haired man clarified, words coming out crisper now, with frustration creeping audibly into his voice. There was no laugh this time, no subtle snuggling shift of that lithe body curled against him. Fai hadn't been wriggling incessantly or anything before, but Kurogane suddenly noticed that he'd fallen still.

Only briefly, however, and in the next breath Fai was wriggling and turning over, making the dark-haired man straighten up further on the elbow he was propping himself up with as he found himself face to face with the blond. He went a bit wide-eyed and prepared to fling himself backwards off of the bed, having little to no confidence any longer that he could predict how the other man would act or react.

"Your parents," Fai began, voice gone serious and barely visible face following suit. "Have you ever thought that they made a mistake chasing after their dream, considering your mother's health? They might still be alive today if they'd just settled in the suburbs and settled for a goldfish instead of going for a cabin and kids, after all."

Kurogane didn't answer at first; only bit the fingers of his free hand into his sweatpants and clenched his jaw to stifle his first reaction. Insult, anger, something very near rage welled up in his chest and stuck in his throat that someone should question his parents' devotion to their dream, which had been part of what made them so admirable and good despite how tragically it had ended. But Fai hadn't actually questioned it; only asked if Kurogane ever had, and so the dark-haired man slowly unclenched jaw and fists and took in a careful breath to reply.

"No. Just because it ended too soon doesn't mean it was wrong. They were happy, pursuing their dreams."

"Because it was fate, right? Because it was love at first sight and they'd never had any other options?"

"What? No, it wasn't anything as stupid as that," Kurogane replied, growling in a much more casual confusion now instead of his voice coming out tight and taut and ready to snap. "Where'd you get that from?"

Fai only smiled at first, contributing to the diffusion of tension in the darkness. He'd apparently only been teasing with the fate and first sight comments, and was satisfied with the taller's response.

"So why is it such a bad idea to see where this goes, like they did?" Fai asked, the smile now reaching to his voice though he still sounded sober and serious. "Where it could go? Maybe it'll end too soon. Or...maybe it won't. Maybe you'll buy me a goldfish someday."

A pregnant pause followed, broken only by a faint sputter which soon revved up into proper speech.

"You just met me," Kurogane protested, as soon as he could find his voice. He seemed to only get a clumsy grip on it and the words came out a little strangled. "How do you get from 'good afternoon' to...to...goldfish in half a day?"

"I didn't say I'd fallen madly in love with you already and wanted to get married in the morning," Fai responded, mouth open as if to burst out laughing but only a breathy little thing escaping. "I'm just saying that you seem like someone I could fall madly in love with someday, and that's just too good a thing to pass up."

The hotelier's candidate for possible soulmate just stared down, eyes wide and mind a jumble of confused thoughts from which nothing useful was issuing forth. The main problem lay in the fact that he kept trying to make sense of what the blond was saying, and it was just impossible to reconcile his convictions and these not-so-simple facts. Or rather his logic and Fai's own special brand of it. No, it was not in fact impossible that he and this stranger had the potential to become something. After all, his parents had been strangers the day they'd met too, and look at what had happened there. But the circumstances and people and just everything involved seemed too different and incompatible and complicated.

"I don't know you," Kurogane finally said, sounding plaintively confused where he'd meant to be rational and stern. Seriously, who talked like this? Who thought like this?!

"Of course you don't," came the unexpectedly logical response, accompanied by an even more unexpected smile, affectionate and warm and as delighted as if Kurogane had quite happily agreed to fling himself headlong off a cliff into fathomless love. "We only just met today."

"So..." Kurogane trailed off without knowing where to go next, wondering if - almost hoping - he was having a really, really strange dream, and struggling with the impulse to give the blond a good thwack upside the head in retaliation for the headache he was getting from this conversation.

"So," Fai mimicked, and then elaborated on next steps with, "I want you to get to know me."

Several seconds ticked softly by, during which they just watched each other, Kurogane warily and Fai expectantly. The room was dark, but the light from the hallway was enough to see expressions by, especially at this close range. Amusement and cheerful confidence soon faded away from the pale face turned up toward him, succeeded by something like wistful worry. Fai's well of patience seemed to run dry before Kurogane had gotten his brain untangled, and the silence was broken by a barely audible murmur.

"There's something about me," the blond suggested hesitantly, "that makes you certain already that you could never seriously care for me?"

It was a golden opportunity to shut things down, but like he had with the question of whether or not he was interested, the dark-haired man let the opening slip by without even glancing toward it. He was shaking his head slowly before he'd really thought it through. It was possible, of course, that they were utterly incompatible and doomed to be unable to nurture a healthy romance no matter how much effort was thrown into it. As mentioned already, he didn't really know the man. Fai could prove to be perfect in all ways except that he had a penchant for kidnapping pretty young things and pickling their eyeballs in his basement. His idea of fun potentially involved cans of gasoline and a box of matches. He might try to make Kurogane switch to Miracle Whip.

Could, might, maybe, possibly. But Kurogane hadn't yet discovered anything for certain about the man that he could hold up as incontrovertible proof that they were most definitely incompatible. Even the hotelier's general family history and background were now faded into nothing more than points of curiosity in the face of how he actually conducted himself.

Fai waited a while for something more than just a head-shake, eventually nestling down onto the sheets - and resting his head against Kurogane's forearm again - to wait in a more comfortable attitude. Blue eyes shaded to inky darkness in the barely lit room would drift this way and that now and again, but they always returned to look hopefully up at the other man. Sometimes Kurogane got a faint smile, sometimes a quick quirk of slender eyebrows.

"Um," he said intelligently, and then had to stop and gather up a few of his wits so that he could try to inject some reason into this romantic tangle. "Look, say we start something...you don't even live around here."

"I'll visit," Fai said immediately, chirking up noticeably at this small concession the other man was making, of speaking about a relationship between them as a hypothetical matter instead of an impossible one. "And we can chat and talk on the phone and text and email. We can even exchange handwritten letters if you want."

Kurogane snorted at this last offer. "All right, so we get to know each other, and then what? If we never break it off, then...well, then we're together, and long-distance is going to get stupid after a while." And frustrating. Very, very frustrating.

"Can we discuss crossing that bridge once we're a few miles away from it?" Fai asked with a soft chuckle and a plaintive quirk of his eyebrows. "You haven't even agreed to get in the car, much less go on the road trip with me."

"I'm not getting in a car and going on a road trip that ends at a 'bridge out' sign," Kurogane retorted.

He got a pouty huff and then a playful grin as his reward for going along with the metaphor, but just as he felt wry amusement at how being off-balance was turning out to be an around-the-clock matter when in Fai's company, the hotelier said something that wiped the faint smirk right off of Kurogane's face.

"Well then, maybe the bridge leads to my place," the blond suggested, ducking his head while snuggling contentedly closer. "We've got plenty of room and you can finally see your favorite blue; play in the surf instead of holing up in your cabin-cave."

Kurogane frowned, but his bedmate was finding something interesting about the collar of his t-shirt and the expression was wasted.

"Confident, aren't you?" he asked, a feeling like insult at the implication that his life was so easily set aside making his tone harsh, though he still kept his voice down. Startling the infant awake and making her cry would just put the nail in his mood-coffin, though he couldn't help but continue expressing thoughts not exactly calibrated for a calm and cozy conversation. "You think I'll throw away everything I've worked for so far, everything my parents dreamed of, just to go play house with you?"

He had a place to direct his glare now, as Fai lifted his head to blink at him in surprise. The blond even flinched back a bit while shaking his head.

"I didn't mean..." Fai began, but then stopped, pressing his lips together while looking searchingly up at his suddenly growly-again companion. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper that spoke more of being afraid of Kurogane's reaction than of disturbing the baby.

"Your parents are gone," the blond said softly. "I just thought you might someday be ready to live your own life, not theirs."

There might have been reasonable deductions and wisdom born of experience behind the statement, not just a stranger's skewed perspective, but Kurogane had only just begun skirting around the idea himself that his life had been shaped too much by the loss of his family. He certainly hadn't faced the logical conclusion yet, of re-shaping his life around his own desires. He most definitely wasn't ready to hear it from this walking talking catalyst for upheaval of said life, and so his instinctive reaction was defensive in the extreme; a snarl, a swipe and a warning growl to keep away.

"This is my life," Kurogane said sharply, dark eyes narrowed under a deepening frown, leaning in as he spoke to close the already insignificant distance between them. As soon as the words were out, he pushed off of the mattress and sat up, dislodging Fai none too gently and making the hotelier scramble up as well. Beyond him, the baby stirred at the sudden movement and increase in noise, but Kurogane was past caring about disturbing her just now. His patience and reason got tangled up in offense and a sort of vulnerability, and he was suddenly fed up with the invasions into his personal life; tired of feeling so out of his comfort zone, angry at how this stranger could make his life seem unsatisfactory just by stepping into it, wanting nothing more than to recapture the sense of control he'd once had over his own life even if it had been mere illusion. One hand shot out and grabbed at a slender arm, assisting - or perhaps "hustling" was a better word - the blond off the bed and toward the door.

"Where do you get off telling me I'm not making my own choices? How do you even know what I want out of life? And don't bring my parents into this. I told you one bedtime story and you think you know-"

"No, that's not it. I don't think-," Fai protested, cutting in to the hissed tirade and then cutting himself off as he tripped over the blankets and pillows he'd laid out on the floor earlier. He recovered his voice sooner than his footing, lifting his head up to speak while letting the taller half-hold him up. "I wasn't trying to tell you you were wrong. It's just that I, that we...Yuui and I-"

"Just stop," Kurogane demanded, interrupting right back as he managed to keep the stumbling man on his feet. They faltered to a halt just before the door, and when Kurogane let go of Fai's arm, the hotelier stumbled back a bit as if he'd been relying on the other man to keep him steady. Or had been trying to get away and was taken by surprise at being suddenly released.

"It's late," Kurogane said with a sigh, anger guttering out as quickly as it had flared up, more spark than heat from the beginning and with nothing solid behind it to keep it fueled. "I'm tired, you're making my head hurt and I don't want to talk anymore. You are exhausting, all right? Go away and let me sleep."

Fai looked as if he would have complied, pressing his lips together into a thin, unhappy line while rubbing his arm where he'd been manhandled, but both men stilled and looked back toward the bed as a faint noise caught their attention.

"fffwrawh," the baby complained, and then began crying.

"Of course," Kurogane said dryly, and then frowned as Fai immediately padded over to the infant. "I got it," he mentioned, but the blond did not stop moving until he'd regained his former seat on the bed. He only lingered a moment, kneeling down to scoop the wailing infant up and settle her against his chest. Once that was done, he wriggled off of the mattress and started back toward the door, this time of his own volition.

Fai rather looked as if he would have tried to flee, but Kurogane had unthinkingly blocked the doorway and the blond was apparently not equal to trying to shove, slide or smile his way past the man. His steps slowed as they drew nearer, and when the shopkeeper did not immediately step aside (already regretting his outburst but prickly pride keeping him from apologizing so soon and something else preventing him from letting the other man escape just yet) Fai started attempting to soothe the fussing infant where he stood. He bounced lightly on his feet, shifting his weight from side to side and keeping up a rhythmic patting of the baby's back.

She seemed more upset than hungry or uncomfortable - perhaps from being woken up by the sound of less than happy voices - and the soothing soon had her winding down into grumpy little mews and awrs though she did not settle down completely. As Kurogane watched the both of them, the infant began finding ways to entertain herself, gumming one of her own fists or peering into the darkness around her with wobbly lifts of her head. Once the noise level in the room had lowered again, Fai met the even stare being leveled at him and spoke, straightening up slightly as if gearing up to fight or flee.

"I want to say something," he stated quietly. Kurogane cocked an eyebrow at this, finding it to be just as redundant as the query of "can I ask you a question?"

"So say it," the shopkeeper replied, still blocking the doorway and trying to figure out what he himself wanted most to communicate.

"I want to say something without you jumping down my throat and trying to rip my lungs out," Fai clarified, and this time he got a snort and a twist of the mouth which was something in between an amused smile and a regretful wince.

"Just spit it out," sighed the sometimes - ofttimes - unfortunately tetchy man.

This was far from agreement or even a concession, but Fai gamely went on, perhaps taking courage from the idea that he was not likely to suffer a mauling while holding a baby.

"What I was trying to say," the hotelier began, the words coming out evenly but more slowly than his usual rapid-fire chatter, "was that that your parents' dream was beautiful and right and good, but I was thinking it was their dream. For themselves. Not you." Blue eyes were fixed on the taller man, watchful and waiting, and when this opinion did not drawn out any new explosions Fai continued explaining himself.

"Your store - your home - is full of memories and reminders of what good people your mother and father were, and anyone would want to keep something like that alive. But your parents' dream wasn't simply to have that store, was it? It was to have a good, safe place to raise their children into healthy, happy people and let them have their own dreams."

Fai paused again and this time waited, and when Kurogane found that he was expected to reply, he simply nodded. He'd never heard such declarations from his parents per se, but he'd grown up knowing that their wish, distilled down into its simplest form, was for him to be happy. Someday taking on the management of the shop from his father had of course been an option but he hadn't been burdened with any heavy expectations regarding it. His parents had left ambition and passion to time and his natural inclinations and only done their best to instill values and good work ethics into him, so that when he did find a dream to chase he'd be well equipped to run after it.

When nothing further was forthcoming beyond this one nod, Fai nodded himself and then spoke again.

"So...instead of doing what your parents wanted to do," the hotelier murmured, still slightly hesitant, "you could do what your parents would have wanted you to do."

"...and in hindsight, what you want to do may be exactly what you're already doing," Fai added with greater rapidity and an uncomfortable shrug of the shoulder not currently being drooled on. "I got a little stuck on the idea that you wanted to see the ocean."

The soft voice trailed off and made no immediate reappearance, though Fai looked as though there was more he wished to say and perhaps only feared to say too much. There might have been an apology lurking in his chest for speaking a bit too casually and cheerfully on such a sensitive subject, or a long explanation to give on all the varied motivations he had for not letting sleeping bears lie. Thin lips actually parted as if for speech a time or two, but soon fell shut again to curve into a faint smile. It was a little apologetic, a little rueful, and combined with the look in those blue eyes more than just a little hopeful and making Kurogane wonder at himself for wanting to answer it so very badly.

First things first, however. He wanted to clarify a few points before moving on to other matters. There were various similes applicable to what he was doing; wiping dust off a table before setting out a meal, erasing a mistake before rewriting a line, cleaning up before moving out. He was preparing to open the metaphorical car door so that he could go on the road trip he'd received an unexpected invitation for, though he hadn't quite realized it yet.

"I haven't been holing up in a cave," he said, and pointedly, but his tone had come down several notches from the affronted anger of before.

"Poor choice of words on my part," Fai conceded immediately.

Kurogane continued, after a brief pause to nod acknowledgement and acceptance.

"My parents wouldn't have been disappointed to know that I kept up the home and business they worked so hard for," he stated, and Fai nodded in turn, all attentiveness and agreement. "I don't regret the choices I've made and I'm not unhappy with my life. It's a good one. I'm serving a purpose."

That fair head nodded again and then Kurogane let the next pause stretch out for a while as he considered all that he'd said and what remained unspoken. The possibilities stretched from apology and agreement to a cold cutting-off of possibilities, but the extremes did not suit his personality or his feelings.

"I do want to see the ocean someday," he finally admitted, the words released unwillingly as if he were confessing to something far more dark and dire. It was a ridiculously simple statement, perfectly innocent and unremarkable, and yet something about the admission felt almost dangerous (too much potential opening up on the horizon that had always seemed so fixed and focused before) when made in the blond's presence. Fai's reaction to this confession was to straighten up slightly with an expression of delight, and when the hotelier took a quick breath and opened his mouth, Kurogane quickly cut the other man off with a clarification.

"See it someday," the taller said emphatically, "not put my place up for sale tomorrow and move in with you so I can play in the water all year long."

Fai hadn't shut his lips even when interrupted, and at this he laughed softly and grinned up at the dark-haired man, all sparkling eyes and pearly teeth and long arms wrapped snugly around the infant making it look like he was hugging himself in delight.

"I was just going to suggest that we could both get what we want without much trouble," the blond said airily, and if not for the sly little quirk at one corner of his mouth Kurogane might have believed him. "We get to know each other, which is what I want, and you could eventually come visit me and see the ocean, which is what you want." Kurogane didn't respond right away, and Fai's voice took on a sweetly wheedling tone when he spoke again.

"Oh come on, you can agree to at least that much," the blond pressed. "No crazy promises, no 'for sale' signs, no goldfish. Just give me a chance. And yourself a vacation."

Put that way, the proposal sounded so reasonable - either that or he was much more tired than he realized - that Kurogane found himself giving in, though in his own rather ungracious way.

"You're not going to let this go until I say yes, are you?" he asked in resignation.

"Ding ding ding," Fai chimed cheerfully, which the taller interpreted as a signal that he'd guessed correctly.

"Fine," Kurogane sighed, and then eyed Fai with amused exasperation as the other man gave a quiet cheer and danced the baby around in a celebratory twirl.

"Yes, yay, now get out," the dark-haired man growled, stepping forward to reach for the baby. She was still awake but rather heavy-eyed instead of snuffling around alertly for food, and he thought he might be able to get her to go back down for the remainder of their interrupted nap. She was relinquished without any fuss, but Kurogane found a blond satellite hovering in close orbit as he knelt on the bed and carefully set her back down on the sheets. Little arms flapped a bit even though he tried lowering her slowly enough to prevent her from feeling as if she was falling, and so he planted his hand over her stomach and gave her a few firm pats and a little jiggle.

Just as he sat down, the mattress dipped under an additional weight, and Kurogane turned with a short sigh to find Fai once again on the bed.

"Is there room for one and a half Goldilockses on Papa Bear's bed?" the blond asked hopefully.

"No," Kurogane replied firmly. He'd only agreed to get to know the man with an eye toward deciding whether or not they could become something, and in his book - and he hoped the book of every sane person; a demographic that obviously did not include the hotelier - that excluded sleeping together. Even if it was just sleeping together.

He got a pout that seemed to involve at least half the blond's body; that fair head tipped to the side, thin lips pouted out and seemed to draw all the chipper cheer right out of the face they were attached to, slender shoulders slumped down while the hotelier's spine seemed to crumble in disappointment, and pale hands clasped together over one knee as if seeking mutual solace in an embrace.

"Aw? Why?"

"Wh-" The taller choked on his incredulous repetition of the simple question, finding it not quite so simple a thing to explain because it seemed so obvious. He didn't know why two plus two equaled four; it just did and everyone was supposed to know this, and he shouldn't have to explain why a man wouldn't be allowed as a matter of course to bed-share with someone he'd just met that afternoon. After a short sputter Kurogane just blurted out something spawned more from honesty than logic.

"Look, so far we've just talked and I feel like my head's going to explode. You mess with me just by being in the same room," he confessed. Thinking all of a sudden that statements such as these would only bring on fresh arguments or appeals, he made a request of his own. "Just leave me some space until I get my brain wrapped around all this, all right?"

Hope of having succeeded was sustained for a few moments as Fai just stared at him, straightened up from his woeful slouch and his expression smoothed out into something thoughtful instead of dramatic. And then hopeful anticipation turned right into a tangled ball of what? as the blond grinned cheekily.

"You're terrible at this, you know that."

"The hell?" Kurogane asked, half plaintively perplexed, half straight-up annoyed. "Terrible at what?"

"This." A slender finger was flicked quickly back and forth between the two men, and then Fai elaborated on his comment. "If you really want to keep me at a distance you shouldn't be telling me how to get to you, oh bear of little-to-no relationship strategy."

"Excuse me for being terrible at something I've got no experience in," he huffed in offense, the words tumbling out before he could do a mental review and edit.

"...what?" The grin had fallen off the blond's face and blue eyes were now fixed on him in surprise instead of amusement. The shopkeeper sighed again, but this time at his malfunctioning mouth filter. He tried to think of something to say that might end the conversation immediately and get the other man out of the room, but ended up without any other options than getting through this new segment of their chat as best he could and then demanding solitude at its conclusion.

"This," Kurogane said with a slightly uncomfortable shrug, defaulting to Fai's expression because he was unable to hit upon a good word for...well, whatever it was that was taking shape between them. He mimicked the little finger-flicking gesture that Fai had made a moment ago as well. "I dated a little when I was younger but by the time I was old enough for anything serious..." His family had died and he'd locked himself into the solitary, shut-in, shutting-out existence that Fai had dropped into like a lit stick of dynamite with a three millimeter fuse. He trailed off, not knowing how to end the sentence and feeling, anyway, that he didn't need to. Those blue eyes were fixed on him and expressing understanding now, not confusion.

There was also a healthy dollop of curiosity, which Fai soon indulged.

"When you say 'dated'," the blond prompted.

"Typical kid stuff I guess," Kurogane replied. "See a movie, hang out at shops, stuff like that." His first romance had in fact been a brief schoolyard fling, impelled more by the clamorous encouragement of mutual friends rather than any real love budding in scrawny little chests. Subsequent entanglements had been a little more adventurous, a little more passionate, but still probably rather pale and pristine compared to most adults' romantic histories. He really didn't want to go into too many details, of which he suddenly felt he had too few of, and when Fai opened his mouth for another question Kurogane cut him off.

"Can we have the rest of this conversation tomorrow?" he asked, in a tone that could have been pleading if it hadn't been delivered in such a deep growl. "I'll get to know you, I'll let you get to know me, but right now you need to let me get some sleep."

Just as he finished speaking, little tremors spreading across the mattress caught at his attention, and he cut his eyes over to the infant. Instead of falling asleep once she was left to her own devices, the little girl had become more active and was now kicking like an over-caffeinated frog while gnawing on her fists and peering wide-eyed into the dimness.

"Really?" Kurogane asked her, tone expressing resignation at the sleep-deprived fate he had apparently been assigned.

"Is she hungry again?" Fai asked, crawling up further onto the bed to hover over her. One slender hand came up to give the rotund little tummy a brief tickle, and the infant responded by flapping her arms and gurgling happily.

"No, she just wants to play," Kurogane answered, absently tapping a finger into a drool-damp palm and engaging in a quick game of tug-of-war with the baby. "Want to take her for me? She'll either tucker herself out or want to eat again soon, most likely. You can wake me up if you need help."

"Will do," the blond singsonged easily, carefully scooping up his wriggly, squirmy little charge - with a little oof as he took a foot to the ribs - and then straightening up so that he could begin scooting toward the edge of the mattress.

The key to kicking Fai out of his room seemed to be letting the man hold the baby. The hotelier had attempted to escape with the child once before but Kurogane had been blocking his escape route. Now that the taller was out of the way - and Fai had wrangled a concession from him, not just the infant - the blond departed with not a single fuss or bother, only pausing in the doorway to call out a cheerful goodnight while making the baby wave a dimpled hand.

Kurogane gave the gaped-open door a light shove to close it most of the way and then turned back to the room that was now his alone. He climbed immediately back onto the bed, resolutely ignoring the feeling that the mattress wasn't quite so comfortable as when it had been graced with a little pink and white dollop of humanity. Be that as it might, he was still tired enough that he fell asleep fairly quickly, undisturbed by any new baby care emergencies or ridiculous notions of what constituted fun in the mind of a Fluorite.

On his side, facing away from the bedside table, he had no way of knowing when he awoke what time it was or how long he'd been asleep. He hadn't moved from his original position, which was as usual, and he hadn't dreamt of tiny little wails turning into piercing shrieks, which was unusual. It was possible that he simply hadn't slept long enough to fall into that deep, dark dreaming state where a particular nightmare was always waiting to ensnare and torment him. It was also possible that he had been asleep for hours, and that the warm, cotton-clad mite now tucked along his chest and cradled protectively by his arm had acted as a charm against ill dreams bred by painful memories. Both possibilities made sense, and he didn't waste any time pondering which might be true.

The fact that Fai was curled up on the other side of the mattress, snoozing away, didn't cause much more than an eyebrow twitch. The man was just weird, and Kurogane was getting accustomed to this fact through (over)exposure.

Kurogane took the materialization of two blonds in his bed with reasonable aplomb, considering the circumstances. If nothing else had caught his notice, he would have given a mental shrug and gone back to sleep. He was thrown for a loop, however, when he noticed that he'd apparently been holding Fai's hand while sleeping.