Abandoned Driveways

10-I'll Keep You Up So You Cannot Dream

Fai was lost in his thoughts as he made his way up the porch stairs after school that day. Needless to say, he was caught completely unaware when he reached out for the door handle and the door flew open under his fingertips to reveal Ashura.

The elder cousin stood frowning down at him, his eyes like chips of ice. Fai gulped, he could practically feel knuckles meeting his tender skin in just the way the other was looking at him. It was the look Ashura wore when he'd discovered something about Fai that displeased him.

"How was your day?" Ashura asked conversationally. His body language was nonchalant, but his voice was too sweet, too cheerful; it fell on Fai's ears like slimy old gym socks.

Instinctively, Fai stepped back. Ashura's eyes caught the movement and hardened. Trying to recover his mask, Fai smiled shakily up at the darker-haired man.

"Oh, you know how it is," he replied in a tone saturated with false cheer, "How was yours? How are Mom and Dad?"

The reference to Fai's so-called parental figures brought an interesting response from Ashura. He looked torn between rolling his eyes and showing either sadness or surprised. Fai usually didn't bring up his parents with his cousin. Instead of answering either question, Ashura simply made a graceful gesture as if to wave them away.

"I saw you today," Ashura commented suddenly. His tone was conversational now, but the look in his eyes hadn't changed. If Fai let himself, he would have been afraid of where the seemingly offhand comment was going. It couldn't be anywhere good if Ashura had brought it up, much less confronted him at the door.

"Checking up on me, were we?" he asked cheerfully. He was curious as to when Ashura had been around, but too cautious to ask directly. The dark smile that answered his flippant question told him he was right to be afraid.

"Something like that," Ashura replied mildly. He stepped aside to let Fai into the house beyond his imposing figure. Fai knew that was usually the sign that Ashura wouldn't restrain himself to simply verbal abuse, and his heart sank. If Ashura was done with him, he would just walk away and leave Fai alone. Clearly, however, he wasn't done. With a sinking heart, Fai forced a smile onto his face and pranced into the darkness of the hallway behind his cousin.

Closing the door behind them, Ashura turned and followed Fai to the kitchen, pausing only to curl his lip at the petite, dirty mess hanging over the side of the couch that was Fai's mother.

"The boy next door," Ashura began, his tone dark, imploring, and borderline accusing.

Fai dropped his bag into one of the wooden chairs around the table, which groaned under the meager weight of his textbooks. He turned to look at Ashura, who let his words hang ominously in the air between them.

"Yes?" Fai asked finally, raising one slim, pale eyebrow, "What about him?"

"He goes to your school," Ashura continued finally, the beginnings of frustration creeping into his voice and the look in his eyes, "You know him."

Fai continued to give him the same blank smile. "Of course!" he chirped, "I mean, you should always know who lives next door to you, right? Isn't that what they say about asylums?"

Ashura rolled his eyes, but couldn't stop himself from correcting Fai. "The saying goes, 'When you live next door to an asylum, you need to keep an eye on the inmates."

Fai just shrugged noncommittally. "Same thing," he told Ashura. It was a little brasher than Fai usually was with the other man, but he was nervous as to what this confrontation was about. Fortunately, Ashura seemed to let it slide.

His nervous energy prompted him in open the fridge, looking through the contents despite his lack of hunger. Really, he just wanted to busy himself with something while Ashura took his sweet time getting to the point of this confrontation.

"Tell me," Ashura said suddenly, after the room had been quiet for several long moments, "Isn't there a school rule about the roof? Something about not being on it without permission?"

Fai's blood froze. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. His mind flashed back to that morning, to when he and Kuro-wan had been on the roof during their lunch break. He felt himself relax slightly as he came to the conclusion that he hadn't been too forward during that particular encounter. There was nothing he couldn't explain away as his usual overbearing exterior.

"I'm sure there is somewhere," he replied instead, smiling into the depths of the refrigerator, despite the fact that he was sure his cousin couldn't see his face.

"And whose permission did you have?" Ashura continued, his voice still too sweet, "That man who came out after you? He didn't look too pleased to see you and your friend."

Fai shrugged. "I was just looking for Kuro-Kurogane. He's the one who wandered off," he lied easily. It was easier than telling the truth at this point. For a second, Fai was plagued by the black hole-like feeling in his chest that sometimes overcame him whenever he realized how much of his life he spent lying.

Ashura sniffed, looking down his long, pale nose at Fai. His cold blue eyes seemed to assess the tall blond who faced him, giving nothing away. Finally, he snorted softly and turned away.

"Of course, you would keep the company of people with such dubious morality. It's only to be expected from someone like you."

Fai smiled, not allowing himself to show how much Ashura's words hurt him despite their familiarity.

There was another long silence in the room. Fai wondered if Ashura had made his point yet, or if there was more on the way. It seemed like there would be more, seeing as the darker-haired man hadn't left the room yet. Fai watched him warily out the the corner of his eye, still looking through the kitchen for a snack he didn't want.

Instead of continuing the lecture or whatever it was that Ashura had been building up to, the older of the two pulled a rickety chair away from the table and seated himself gracefully, apparently focusing on the grain of the wood in front of him as he folded his hands on the table in front of him. Silence permeated the room, making Fai uncomfortable enough to fidget slightly. It usually took a lot to coax even that much out of him.

"How do you feel about him? This neighbor of...ours?" Ashura asked finially. His face screwed up as he spoke, as if he was disgusted by mere association with the man next door. Fai couldn't understand why. If anyone fit the "tall, dark, and handsome" stereotype, it was Kuro-puppy.

"He's a little slow," Fai replied easily, barely smothering a giggle. He could feel Ashura's eyes on him, but he was sure his answer couldn't be seen as incriminating in any way. He was simply stating a fact, not declaring the undying love he most definitely did not feel.

"As in, he doesn't realize how you feel?" Ashura prompted, his eyes boring into the other sapphires across the room.

Fai let his surprise show at that remark. "What-"

Ashura cut him off with a snarl. "Don't labor under the delusion that you're so clever," he snapped, "I can see how you look at that oaf. Even if you don't deserve someone with class, I'm shocked that you would let yourself be taken in by filth like that. Didn't I raise you better?"

Ashura's voice was low and nasty, and his features were screwed up until his expression looked almost bestial. Fai gaped at him, any hurt he felt from the words was buried under a thick layer of honest shock. His mind had come to a shuddering halt under the weight of the accusations.

Ashura continued to rant, but as his brain slowly shifted back into gear, Fai tuned him out.

The one thing that confused him the most was how Ashura had seen his feelings when he hadn't even been aware of them himself. Ashura knew his act, so he couldn't have been taken in by it. If he saw something, it had to be real.

Reality. Truth. That, more than anything else, scared Fai. Despite the constant reminders, he continued to run from the truth of his past. He tried to forget while simultaneously trying to keep anything like it from happening again. The pain scared him.

And now, he had somehow let himself end up in this position where a man he barely knew could hurt him worse than anyone with only a handful of words.

Swallowing hard, he turned his head in an almost robotic fashion to look through the open doorway at his mother. She lay sprawled on the couch, one arm hanging off the side. Even at this distance, Fai could see the bruises on the inside of her arm. Long, stringy hair covered part of her face, but what Fai could see of it didn't look peaceful, even in sleep. His heart clenched as he watched the shallow rise and fall of her torso.

Blinking away his tortured expression, he turned back to Ashura. The dark haired man's lips were moving, but Fai couldn't hear his words over the roaring in his ears. Ashura's eyes were no longer cold and hard; instead, they were wild and desperate and full of panicked rage. He seemed only moments away from making wild gestures to accompany his speech, something Fai had never known him to do.

"Are you listening to me?" Ashura demanded suddenly, his voice suddenly coming back into focus. Fai just stared blankly at him, his mind still trying to catch up to the situation. Something flashed in Ashura's eyes, and before Fai could even flinch away, his hand came up.

The slap rang through the house, loud enough to startle even Fai's mother from her drugged-up slumber. Fai simply stared at the wall, which his gaze had been turned to by the force of the impact.

In the other room, his mother started to look around wildly. "Fai? Yuui?" she called, her voice sounding young again, innocent and worried for her children.

Something broke in Fai. He turned and quickly made his way through the dirty house to his room, Ashura's accusatory glare haunting him as he left.

Hours later, Fai lay on his back watching the sky darken through his window. Chii had popped her head in to check on him hours ago, turning on the light as she did, and the glass became more reflective as the world behind it deepened in color.

Fai's own eyes were glassy as he stared at it. He hadn't moved in hours, unless you counted his stomach, which seemed to be rearranging its contents depending on the hopelessness of his thoughts. His check had quit stinging maybe an hour or two before, but his mind apparently had no interest in giving him similar peace.

Finally, he convinced himself to roll out of the sheets and turn his light off. There was no clock in his room, but he judged the time to be at least midnight. He was about to crawl back under his sheets and hide from the world when something outside his window caught his eyes.

It was the light in Kuro-pon's room, twinkling at him in its friendly little way from across the distance that suddenly seemed too vast to be acceptable. Fai frowned at it, trying to convince himself that he didn't need this-he didn't need to be held, to be comforted and assured that nothing he did was his fault.

But he wanted it.

That was the problem, he mused, his eyes fixed on the brightness and warmth that was so near but seemed so far. Kuro-chan made him feel safe and wanted, no matter how much the front he put up tried to disagree. He wanted to protect Fai, and all Fai wanted was to be protected. Put in such simple terms, it was as if they were two puzzle pieces just waiting to be fit together.

Life wasn't that simple though. Fai knew that better than anyone, or so he liked to tell himself. Kuro-chii deserved someone good and whole, which he most certainly was not. For his part he didn't deserve someone as good as the serious, protective, caring boy next door.

But he wanted him.

Groaning at himself, Fai hopped up onto the bed and pushed the window up, glancing around once before slipping out and pulling it down behind him.