Summary: "If you aren't going to do it, then I will."
Written for clampkink. This is rated M, but is an erotic character study kind of thing. Yay?
No Bumps
It happens on one of the worlds after Outo, when they are all easing into the spaces around each other, discovering gaps and filling them without quite meaning to. The princess and the boy are becoming more like kin, despite how Kurogane protests that they aren't, and the wizard drags them close in cheerful, smiling hugs. The princess smiles a little brighter; the boy grows warmer for it.
They don't quite realize how the bonds between them have grown close and tight, until they stumble into a world with cloudy water in sewers, rats scuttling between shadows, and Fai double-checks to make sure that the kitchen utensils are clean before he cooks. Everything he makes is overcooked in this world, but it's just to be safe, he tells them, and none of them complains.
It's just one more minor inconvenience when the kid hurtles into their dingy, bare-walled apartment one afternoon with the princess in tow, orange pamphlet in hand.
"There's a parasite going around on the other side of town," he exclaims breathlessly. "They are little worms, water-borne. They burrow into your skin. I'm sorry I didn't find out about this earlier!"
Kurogane crosses the common room to snatch the paper from his hand, though he can't read any of the words. There are pictures, though, in black and white, showing bumps on a body and strange, curling, back-lit shapes he's learnt comes from something called a "microscope". "How do we tell if we've got them?"
"They live just beneath the skin," Syaoran says. Next to him, the princess is pale, and Mokona is clutched tight in her hands. "They'll present as bumps."
"If we find them?"
"We'll have to cut them out."
It isn't a pretty prospect. Kurogane dispatches the kids into the two bedrooms they've got in the apartment. Fai hovers around outside their doors, twisting his hands together with worry. He's looked at the pamphlet, too, though it's not like he can understand any of it, either. Kurogane jerks a thumb towards the kitchen. "You check yourself in there."
Fai frowns. His lips are pressed tight. He looks like he's about to argue, though he finally retreats to the kitchen, and Kurogane turns his back on that open doorway.
The princess emerges from one of the bedrooms first. She shakes her head. "No bumps."
Fai hurries out of the kitchen to fuss over her, and Kurogane flicks a suspicious glance at him. The wizard is far taller than the princess is; he would have more skin to cover. Kurogane has seen how the idiot cares little for himself. He wouldn't be surprised if the wizard's examination is a cursory check, abandoned the instant he hears the bedroom door squeaking open.
Syaoran emerges ten minutes later. "I checked three times," he says. "I didn't find any bumps."
"Good." Kurogane turns to Fai, catches his elbow, and drags him into one of the bedrooms. He locks the door behind them.
Fai raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Why, Kuro-pon, I didn't think you'd want me to do your examination."
He ignores the prattle. "Are you going to do a proper job on yourself?"
The idiot smiles slyly, and Kurogane has a moment to think that he should have phrased that better. "What sort of a job?" Fai asks, waggling his eyebrows. "Does Kuro-rin really want to watch?"
It's all calculated to elicit embarrassment. Kurogane studiously ignores all his suggestions (tempting though they might be) and shoves the other onto a bed. "You didn't complete yours. Don't think I don't know."
"Were you watching?" Fai gasps, all horror a pretense. He turns toward the bed, sweeping over it with his gaze. "Well, at least the bed looks clean enough."
"Tch. Strip and check yourself. Either I watch, or I don't. Bottom line is you have to do it."
Kurogane places himself between Fai and the door, tugs his shirt off so he can do his own survey. Behind, Fai draws a long breath.
When he looks over his shoulder, Fai's still sitting in bed, motionless, staring at him. "What?"
"So you lock me in here to give me a striptease?" Fai's eyes are roving down his hips, and Kurogane should not be feeling the prickle of interest that sparks between them.
"I locked you in here so you can damn well check for parasites," he snaps.
There's a flicker of remorse on Fai's face.
"Look, if you aren't going to do it, then I will."
Fai's mouth falls open in surprise. "Really, Kuro-tan?" he lilts, recovering. "Are you really going to get your big doggy paws on me?"
He's closing the distance between them, standing over Fai and glaring down at the sheer idiocy of this man. "Are you, or are you not going to do it?"
Blue eyes lock with his. Fai's mouth curves into a smirk, challenging.
Kurogane swears. He reaches down, curls his fingers into the hem of Fai's shirt, and the heat of Fai's skin burns into the backs of his fingers. The shirt goes up (Fai lifts his arms so it slides right off), and surprise still lingers on that pale face by the time Kurogane looks again.
"Well, I didn't peg you as someone who would—"
"Shut up." Kurogane bristles. He tosses the shirt further up on the bed, seats himself heavily behind the wizard. This is a lot more pale skin than Fai has ever shown, and he can't help looking, quietly glad that Fai is facing away right now.
He starts with smoothing his fingers beneath Fai's jaw, checking his throat, then down along his shoulder blades and his arms.
"Is this your first time, Kuro-myu? Your fingers are so experienced," Fai says lightly, until Kurogane completes the circuit of his arms and touches the tops of his sides. There's a quiet breath then, quick and surprised.
Fai's back is narrow and pale, unmarked skin stretching from his shoulders to the waistband at his hips. No bumps. Kurogane brushes his hands along those shoulders, down and out, and Fai shivers into his touch. He presses his fingers into skin, just to make sure that there aren't any bumps too small to be seen, and as he makes his way down lean muscle, the wizard falls completely silent.
Fai's breathing changes. Where it was deep and long before, it is now quick and shallow, sharper when Kurogane digs his thumbs in close to the valley of Fai's spine.
"Hey," he says. "You all right?"
The wizard doesn't reply immediately. He swallows noisily, takes a couple of breaths, then answers, "Why, yes, Kuro-min. Why would you think otherwise?"
There's a slight breathlessness to that voice. Kurogane frowns. He hasn't done anything to the idiot save for probing along his back. Why would anyone be scared of being touched there?
"Turn around," he says, when he completes the survey of Fai's back and sides. Fai doesn't move. He remains sitting, breathing and still. "Tch. I don't have all day."
Fai shuffles over after another long moment, one leg crossed awkwardly over the other, and he's half-facing Kurogane, gaze lowered, lips red like he's been biting on them. If Kurogane's attention lingers on those lips, he's not mentioning it.
This is not like Fai at all, and when he scans the pale smoothness of Fai's chest, it hits him like a blow to his gut.
Fai's nipples are hard.
It's not cold in here. He's seen Fai wearing thin shirts. This is— "This is turning you on."
Fai's shoulders tense; he doesn't look at Kurogane at all, and he has no smart retort. Kurogane glances down, to where Fai's tried to hide his arousal. (It isn't very effective.) His cheeks are pink.
"I can leave you to finish this," Kurogane says, his mind a little hazy because it's somewhere inside Fai's pants. "But you have to promise to complete the exam. Or, I can finish it for you."
The offer hangs open-ended between them.
Fai swallows again, licks his lips. "I— I can't make promises," he says thickly.
"Then you want me to do it."
Fai doesn't reply, but he breathes in quick and sharp, and doesn't move away.
"Tell me if you want me to stop." Kurogane settles back down, continues where he left off. He presses fingers into Fai's pectorals in straight, methodical lines, sees the way Fai swallows when he approaches his nipples. Fingernails scrape quietly across rough sheets. Kurogane rubs his thumbs into pebbled pink, and Fai shivers hard, a gasp tearing from his lips.
It doesn't really feel like an ordinary examination anymore. He presses fingers firmly down Fai's midriff and abs, and Kurogane isn't one to deny the pressure building in his groin. "These have to come off," he says, when he reaches the waistband of Fai's pants.
Fai wriggles out of them. Kurogane sees the hard line of Fai's erection in his underwear, and it sends heat jolting down his spine. He tries not to stare for too long.
He gets through touching Fai's legs somehow—there is so much pale skin and he wants to taste—and when he returns to Fai's hips, he struggles for a moment to find the right words. "This," he says, gesturing towards white cotton, "you have to take off."
Fai's fingers twitch. Kurogane won't be the one to undress him, and the silence is painful while he waits, trying time and again to drag his eyes away from the stretch of cotton over hard flesh.
"I'll leave you to this," he says eventually, even though he doesn't want to, and Fai whimpers.
Long fingers come up to grasp and tug and it's forever before Fai struggles free of the last of his clothes. Kurogane stares at the moist, red tip of his shaft. He wants to touch, with more than his fingers. He doesn't.
Fai flicks a cautious glance at him after an eternity, pupils wide and dilated, and his expression is full of please touch me.
Kurogane gulps. He's throbbing when he smooths his hands over Fai's hips, bringing them in, sifting through coarse hair, and then down, to the soft skin of Fai's balls (taut and drawn up) and when he finally curls his fingers around Fai's cock, both of them groan.
He tries (desperately) to remember what he was looking for, barely centers his mind around it, and the slide of his palm along velvety skin takes it away again. Fai doesn't object when Kurogane presses him down onto the bed with one palm on his chest. He keens and arches his back instead, and Kurogane strokes a handful of times before he's bending in close, reaching his tongue out to lick.
Fai is musky and salty and slick, and Kurogane takes him into his mouth, lapping and sucking. Fai rolls his hips, almost choking Kurogane as a moan slips from his throat.
They unravel from there; Fai thrusting, Kurogane greedily tasting, his own erection straining in his pants.
When Fai comes, Kurogane swallows all he has to offer, and he watches as the tension in Fai's body slowly leaks out into the mattress.
It takes a while for Fai to recover. When he does, he doesn't look at Kurogane, but his voice is raw and rough around the edges when he says, "I should be the one to examine you. That's— That's only fair."
If Kurogane isn't declining that offer, well, there's no one here to stop them from doing more.
