Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is the intellectual property of CLAMP
Author's Note: After the whole Halloween thing, I haven't been able to work much on the things I'm supposed to be working on. I started a new fic with gods and got to see the first four episodes of Kobato (love!). I hope to get back to this fic and Countless Worlds very soon though.
~ All That I Am ~
Part 1, Chapter 3
Kurogane took the wheel after they left the restaurant and drove through the night until dawn. It was clear that Fai didn't like it, but neither did he complain, he seemed to want to rest a while, not that he slept, Kurogane noticed, but he did nod off a time or two, awoken as soon as his head began to lull toward the window. Kurogane hoped that his lack of sleep would show in his energy levels later on. As soon as Fai had gotten into the passenger's seat, he'd turned the radio on, letting it play softly in the background as he closed his eyes for the remainder of the night. When the sun rose, he turned to look out the window.
Kurogane spared a sidelong glance at the blonde, wondering if his silence was a sign of tiredness or thought. He didn't look depressed; he just looked as though he hadn't spoken yet.
"What is it?" Kurogane had never been the one to break the silence but since he had met Fai, Kurogane had done a lot of things he'd never done before.
Fai started, turning to Kurogane with a plastered grin. "What is what, Kuro-kun?"
Kurogane frowned. "What are you thinking." he clarified.
"I've never slept in a car before." Fai said, quick enough that Kurogane knew that was about as far from whatever he'd been thinking as he could get.
"You didn't sleep last night either." Kurogane mumbled but Fai plowed ahead as if he hadn't heard.
"I've had sex in a car," Fai tilted his head as though he were merely thinking out loud, his gaze drifting off to the side "parked and moving, and a blowjob while the person was driving. That was a bad night because he just dropped me off when he was done and I had to hitch-hike back, and pay for that."
Kurogane threw the blonde a disgusted look but Fai didn't notice, staring out the window. "Don't tell me that shit." Kurogane said, turning back to the road in front of him, just a little disgruntled; maybe more than he should have been. "What do I care?"
Fai nodded but did not reply.
It seemed like more of his odd behavior to Kurogane; as if something was bothering the blonde that he refused to address but Kurogane couldn't say for sure. He hadn't really known Fai long enough to gauge what behavior was normal, had he? It hadn't been that long. He didn't really know Fai at all. The blonde was a stranger to him, sleeping next to him, eating across from him, and making him wash his back in the bathtub. If Fai had slipped back into his thoughts, Kurogane never noticed, lost in his own as he was.
-
They stopped in a Wyoming city around mid-morning and Fai found a café with outdoor tables so they sat and ordered coffee and tea to drink while they waited for their sandwiches from the brunch menu.
Fai seemed to be in a better mood. He was grinning as he leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand while he rambled on about the sights around them.
In an effort to tune him out, Kurogane zoned in on the man sitting down at the next table. He was thin, like Fai, somewhere in his twenties if Kurogane had to guess, with short, wispy platinum blonde hair so light that could have been called white. He had on a simple pair of wire-frame glasses and a long-sleeved cream-colored shirt.
Glasses were something Kurogane had never really seen the need for. Not when corrective treatment was available. If he'd needed them, he probably wouldn't have put up with them unless he was too poor to avoid it. But then, some people liked them for some reason. He had heard that once, that some people found glasses attractive. Kurogane studied the man at the table next to them more closely. He supposed the glasses were flattering to him. They certainly didn't make him look any worse. Kurogane decided that glasses probably wouldn't go out of style as long as there were people like that to wear them. Briefly, Kurogane wondered how Fai would look with spectacles and decided that they would probably flatter him too. The kind with the frame only on the bottom, maybe.
"Kuro-puu." Fai said, his voice taking on a very put out tone. "I'm starting to get jealous."
Kurogane hadn't really realized he'd zoned out looking over at their neighbor but frowned back at Fai anyway.
"Funny."
A sly grin slipped across Fai's face, eyes narrowing suggestively. "I didn't know you liked the glasses type. He's awfully cute."
Their neighbor, thankfully, was too busy placing his order to the young waitress at his table to have noticed them or overheard their conversation. He kept pointing to different things on the menu in his hands excitedly while she frantically tried to write everything in her small notepad.
"He looks lonely." Fai said, and Kurogane instantly hated the way he said it. "We should invite him to sit with us."
Kurogane tried to stop him, but like a fifth grader, Fai proceeded to catch the man's attention. By this time Kurogane had slammed his forehead into his palm and was seriously considering just standing up and walking away. Let Fai do whatever the hell he liked.
It didn't happen though.
Fai introduced himself and "Kuro-shy".
"KUROGANE!"
And asked if 'glasses', now named "Yukito", would like to join them.
He did. And happily. It was just Kurogane's luck.
The way Fai was acting you would have thought his life was now complete. Kurogane sulked as Fai immediately launched into some cockamamie story about how they were driving cross-country to see all the sights and how they'd just come from the most amazing museum of cultural history and were hoping to see the world's largest ball of yarn.
Kurogane was so disgusted. Their order came and it was literally the highlight of Kurogane's day thus far. If he ate fast enough he could claim they had to hurry to that ball of yarn now and leave that stupid glasses guy behind before Fai had a chance to embarrass him any further. If that was possible. Kurogane knew better than to put it past him.
Glasses guy, Yukito, had to wait until Kurogane had food in his mouth before he commented that "You guys are such a great couple. You suit each other perfectly and you look so happy together."
Fai was agreeing wholeheartedly, nodding his head while Kurogane choked on the food he'd been trying to swallow. To his credit, Yukito did seem concerned and even offered to pat his back, a terribly worried look on his face. He was the only one.
Kurogane somehow managed to force his food down and glared daggers at Fai through the tears that were forming at the corners of his vision from choking and coughing.
Fai's grin brightened at least twenty watts.
"I'm sorry." Yukito was quick to apologize, preventing Kurogane from throwing the table aside and wringing Fai's neck. "I thought you two were already…But I guess you still have some things to work out. I…I'm here with my boyfriend. Well, I mean, he's my fiancé. We're getting married soon."
"Oh?" Fai interrupted. Kurogane figured he'd better eat his food quick while they were talking about Yukito's love life and Fai was less likely to claim the spotlight. "Congratulations!" Fai went on, happily.
"Thank you." Yukito answered and they had to stop for a moment as the waitress brought Yukito his order…or started to. First the waitress laid plates on the table, then a waiter, followed by another waitress, covering every available inch of the table with food.
"Are you really gonna eat all that?"
Fai shot Kurogane a dirty look and Yukito blushed.
"Oh, well, it's just, I've always eaten like this. I really like food, but…in the hospital, they don't let you eat much. And nothing there tastes good. So I…snuck away for a while."
Fai was giving the other a worried look, though whether or not Fai was genuinely concerned for their new acquaintance, Kurogane couldn't tell.
"Snuck away?" Fai asked, watching as Yukito nodded back and swallowed the food in his mouth, spearing more with a fork.
"Just for a while. Toya, that's my fiancé, drove my grandparents back to their hotel room. If I'm lucky, I should be back before he even misses me."
"If you belong in the hospital you shouldn't be sneaking out just for food." Kurogane grumbled and Fai lifted one eyebrow with mild interest.
"So we have an opinion now?"
"Shut up." Kurogane snapped back. "I just meant that if you've got people worrying over you it's rude and inconsiderate to worry them unnecessarily."
"Perhaps they shouldn't worry over nothing, then." Fai suggested levelly and Kurogane's frown deepened.
"It's what people do when they care. If it's an inconvenience, you shouldn't be bothering with them in the first place."
"Well, sometimes they do it to themselves."
Kurogane opened his mouth to reply when Yukito broke in, laughing, and trying to hide it behind one hand.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… It's just you guys…you guys are so…well suited."
"Well suited?" Kurogane mumbled. He couldn't for the life of him think of any less-fitting term. He and Fai were about as mismatched as two people could get. How they had even managed to ride together in the same car for such a long way was a complete mystery to him. In fact, thinking back on it, Kurogane couldn't even say with absolute certainty how long it had been that they had been traveling together. If he looked at it one way, it seemed like a few days and another way, an eternity.
Kurogane looked across the table at Fai, who was being uncharacteristically silent, finishing off his tea. Fai was just using him to run away. When he found the Green Drugstore, or maybe before that even, when he parted ways with Fai, he would never see him again, never hear of him. It would be as if they had never known each other, what little of each other they knew would be irrelevant information and Kurogane would go back to his own life.
"I'm glad I came out." Yukito said, looking up to the blue, cloudy sky. "It's such a beautiful day today."
Fai followed his gaze to the sky and hummed an agreeance.
Kurogane discretely finished his sandwich.
"It must be fun to sight see." Yukito mused, half-way through the food on their table. "I mean, to just get out and see the world, without a destination or a time table. Someday, I'd love to…"
"Kurogane glanced over at the other, finding his sudden pause ill-placed, and was shocked to find Yukito clutching a hand over his chest, fisting the t-shirt he was wearing with white knuckles.
Kurogane shot to his feet, alarmed.
"Yukito?" Fai, just as shocked, leaned across the table, a hand hovering just above the other man's shoulder. "Kuro-rin, call an ambulance!"
"I can't. Somebody call an ambulance!" Kurogane yelled.
* * *
Kurogane hated hospitals. He assumed he hated them along with most of the general population of the planet. His mother had been in and out of the hospital until finally they had had nothing left to do but give her the choice of dying there or at home. She had died at home. It was the only memory that brought tears to Kurogane's eyes. The pain was still fresh in his heart, but at least he had had time to prepare.
"What kind of person doesn't have a cell phone?"
They were the first words Fai had spoken since they'd arrived and they were quiet and soft. They had followed the ambulance to the hospital and Yukito had been stabilized and was resting.
"I don't know, where's yours?" Kurogane wasn't in the mood for these games.
"In a trash can in New Chicago…last I saw."
Fai let the silence take over.
"I dropped mine in the ocean."
Fai turned to look at him. "The ocean? Like the ocean ocean?"
"I took a ferry from Japan so I could bring my car and I lost the phone over the side trying to pick up a call."
Fai laughed. It started out slow but it picked up into a steady sound that for once, Kurogane was glad to hear.
Fai, who was sitting in the chair at the bedside, jerked when Yukito reached out, brushing his hand.
"Sorry for worrying you guys." Yukio mumbled sleepily.
Fai quickly plastered on a smile and took Yukito's hand in his. "Don't be ridiculous."
-
Just then, the door flew open and a tall, dark haired man stepped in.
"Yuki, you promised me you would stay put."
"I promised that yesterday." Yukito said, smiling brightly in return. "They tried to feed me that glop again, so I just went out to that café down the road. And look, I made new friends."
The man paused to take note of Fai and Kurogane and sighed. "Thank you."
"We didn't do anything." Kurogane returned.
"It's true." Fai agreed. "Kuro-tan threw his phone out in the ocean so we were pretty much useless."
The dark-haired man raised an eyebrow pointedly in Kurogane's direction and it was a sickening realization to Kurogane that he had missed his cue.
"Kurogane." he growled.
"I'm Toya." the man supplied.
"And I'm Fai!" the blonde added, pointing to himself with a wide grin.
Toya sighed, pulling up the room's only other chair to Yukito's other side, opposite Fai.
"It's minor surgery." Toya said, "but if anything happens beforehand…"
Yukito lay his hand over Toya's. "I'm sorry."
Toya gripped Yukto's hand in his own and smiled, or tried to. "You guys are welcome to stay." he said, turning to address Kurogane. "I'll make us all dinner."
"Yukito is lucky." Fai said with a grin. "Kuro-puu never cooks for me, I have to do everything myself, the cooking and the laundry and the sewing…" Fai pouted and Yukito seemed sympathetic.
"Don't tell lies!" Kurogane shouted. "You don't do anything!"
"And he yells all the time." Fai whined.
"You bastard!" Kurogane growled. "Leave me out of your lies and twisted fantasies!"
"Yukito's surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, early in the morning." Toya said, changing the subject fluidly. "I sleep here but if you'd like, I can recommend some good hotels."
"We'll stay too." Fai said, answering for them both and Kurogane narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out just what Fai was doing. They had no business here, and they didn't have enough room for them to begin with. "We couldn't just abandon our new friend, right, Kuro-tan?" Fai added, as though sensing Kurogane's suspicion.
Kurogane grunted and turned away. It wouldn't kill him to make sure glasses lived, he supposed. It would have made his mother happy. She'd always wished he would show that he cared about others more. Not that it would impact him in any way if Yukito didn't live, but it wasn't as though he disliked the guy. He could stick around.
-
That night, Fai brought up the box of luck from the car and set it on the end table next to Yukito's bed, open. He explained all about how it worked while Kurogane listened on from the chair in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, waiting to get tired enough to actually fall asleep there. Toya had left to use the bathroom and stretch his legs for a few minutes.
"Does it really work?" Yukito asked, in curious awe.
Kurogane rolled his eyes.
"Of course it works!" Fai insisted. "Would you believe that every single motel we've been to since our journey started had only rooms with one bed?"
"That has nothing to do with that stupid box." Kurogane argued. "It was just a series of unfortunate coincidences."
"And we haven't crashed even once or had one single fight." Fai continued as though Kurogane hadn't spoken.
That couldn't be true. Kurogane tried to think back. Surely they had fought over something. Fai was the most annoying person on the face of the planet. If they hadn't had one single fight, something was wrong. But Kurogane couldn't think of any particular incident that would qualify as an actual fight.
"Kuro-rin's only blaming the box because we haven't gotten to second base yet." Fai whispered, loud enough for Kurogane to hear across the room.
"Shut up!" Kurogane yelled, bolting up from the chair. His face was burning. He could feel it. "God, I'm going for a walk." he said, with what he hoped was disgust and not embarrassment.
As he shut the door behind him, Kurogane was engulfed in the nighttime silence of the hospital hallways. Deciding to find a vending machine, he turned and followed the hall to his right. Every step that he took sounded loudly around him, echoing off of the hard, shinning floors and white walls.
He almost wished he'd stayed in the room, where the hospital smells weren't so predominant. Kurogane could remember when he'd first left New Chicago with Fai, how the other man's smell had seemed so intruding; the scent of his shampoo and his fabric softener and other smells that made a person an individual. He didn't seem to notice Fai's smell so much anymore and when he smelled the scent of Fai's shampoo, it wasn't as loud as it had once been. It had become more of a pleasant accent. He must have been getting used to the other's presence, and Fai gathering the smells of his car and…him…when they slept together.
Kurogane shook his head. He didn't want to think about Fai. Why had he left the damn room in the first place? To get away from the idiot, not to think about him.
Kurogane looked up, hearing a thunk sound and found he had come across the vending machines. Toya was stooping to pick up a candy bar from the food machine.
-
Kurogane got himself a coke and the two sat on a bench in the hallway. After a moment of silence, Toya turned to Kurogane, probably figuring he should have a conversation with the other as long as they were both there. Kurogane really just wanted some peace and quiet; and he didn't care who was there to witness it, but Toya spoke.
"Your…friend is…interesting."
Kurogane rolled his eyes. Must've been a difficult sentence for the guy to get through, seeing as it was entirely bunk.
"He's not my friend." Kurogane muttered, taking a swig of his soda and wishing they'd had tea that wasn't completely disgusting.
"Seems he thinks he is." Toya countered and Kurogane frowned.
"The guy lies for a living. If he told you he was an alien from outer space, you'd probably believe that too."
Toya chuckled. "Guess it must be hard to see something you can't get to."
Kurogane quirked an eyebrow and turned, giving the other man his attention.
"That's what you meant, isn't it? When he's lying you see through it. He knows that but it doesn't matter, because he doesn't trust you enough yet to let that defense go."
Kurogane turned his gaze across the hall to a painting hanging there; an ocean, clear and blue stretching into the horizon, framed in black.
"The guy's neurotic, or something… He switches gears as fast as a goddamn race car. He probably had a different attitude for every person he ever knew. Now since I'm the only one around, I'm gettin' 'em all."
Somehow, that ocean reminded him of Fai, or maybe the thought of Fai, so small against that vastness, so easily lost in it…
"I don't even think he knows who he is."
"Oh, I don't know." Toya followed Kurogane's line of sight to the picture frame, but Toya did not find in it what Kurogane had found. "Maybe he does know, and that's why he's hiding. People like that hide their true selves, because they're either disgusted themselves, or afraid other people would be disgusted. Not that I'm saying I know Fai, or anything, but I did do pretty well in my college psychology courses." Toya offered Kurogane a grin and got up, throwing his empty candy wrapper into a nearby trash can.
Kurogane heaved a sigh, leaning back against the wall as Toya rounded a corner and disappeared on his way back to the room.
He shouldn't get invested in Fai. It seemed he had told himself this already. The guy was annoying and fake, two things that Kurogane despised in people. If he could only blind himself to what lay beneath the surface, this wouldn't be so hard. But no matter how long he stood on the shore, the ocean would never part for him, giving up its long-hidden treasures without a fight. If someone wanted something from the ocean, they would have to jump in.
If only he knew what it was that he wanted from it in the first place.
-
"Kuro-tan! Play strip poker with us!"
Fai waved a deck of cards around from his chair next to Yukito's bed.
"I would never!" Kurogane yelled. "Don't do such lewd things in a hospital! Do you have any sense of public decency at all?"
Fai's outfit for the day consisted of faded blue jeans and an oversized white shirt that purposefully fell down one shoulder with a large collar. It was probably meant to be worn with a tighter shirt underneath but Fai, of course, had nothing underneath it.
Fai cocked his head cutely. "Decency?" he repeated, feigning confusion.
"Yeah, that little voice in your head that tells you to stop when putting on revealing clothing and coercing sick people to play strip poker in a hospital!"
Yukito seemed to be enjoying the show immensely.
"It's okay, Kuro-ruu, I'm sure you're bigger than one of us, we'll get some other people to play."
Kurogane turned an irritating shade of purple, his fists clenched at his sides, shaking with the force of holding them back. "You bastard!"
"Eeee! Kuro-puppy is angry!" Fai thrilled and Kurogane lunged for the blonde, missing him by a hair.
He didn't give a shit what was under the stupid ocean. They could have the whole fricking city of Atlantis down there for all he cared.
"Get back here you stupid shit!" Kurogane yelled, grabbing the doorframe as he swung into the hallway in pursuit.
-
Yukito was not allowed to leave the room or to eat anything but the hospital's diet-inducing food so close to the time of his operation, so Toya, Fai, and Kurogane spent the day there with him, running through every card and board game the hospital would lend them.
Kurogane had not played such games since he had played them with his mother and now they gave him a sense of nostalgia he couldn't say he disliked.
"Awwww! Kuro-pyon! I lost agaaain!" Fai whined, grabbing onto Kurogane's arm pathetically.
"Don't tell me you've never played card games before!" Kurogane countered, shaking his arm in an attempt to dislodge the blonde.
"Kuro-puu is so mean! Of course I've played cards. But when you get paid for one skill, they generally expect you to spend your time working on that and not playing games."
Kurogane's arm eased itself back to his side and in response, Fai let it go.
"What is it that you do, Fai?" Yukito asked, conversationally and Fai replied with a brilliant grin.
"Why don't you ask Kuro-tan."
Kurogane remained silent for a moment, then turned his cards over two at a time.
"Full house."
-
When the hospital staff brought Yukito his lunch, Kurogane and Fai walked to the hospital's lunchroom for something to eat.
Kurogane looked in at all of the food in the machines and finally decided on a simple cup of Ramen for a dollar and a half. Dumping the change from his wallet into his hand, he started picking out quarters, but Fai reached over and put a five in the machine for him. Kurogane frowned at the blonde, a comment along the lines of his ability to pay for his own food on the tip of his tongue when Fai smiled and Kurogane paused. This smile was a bit dimmer than the smiles that seemed to proceed his idiocy.
"Consider it my apology. For earlier. I won't do that again, I'm sorry. I just want to enjoy my time together with Kuro-mu while it lasts."
Kurogane grunted and took his ramen and moved aside for Fai to chose his food.
-
Halfway through his ramen, Kurogane became frustrated with the silence between them. Somehow, Fai and silence just didn't seem to fit well. But there were boundaries around and between them, questions they were not allowed to ask and skeletons they were not allowed to exhume. Fai could ask him nothing, for fear of receiving questions in return and Fai's life was a taboo subject and Kurogane's life was a taboo subject and these boundaries served to keep them at arms length but they were riddled with windows and small rips and tears and lost their effectiveness with time.
"We should leave tomorrow." Kurogane said. The present was their only neutral ground; only today and only tonight.
"We should leave tonight." Fai countered in the same tone. "Yukito's grandparents will come back tomorrow for the surgery. We'll just be in the way."
Kurogane wasn't sure. Weren't they going to stick around until things were settled? But he nodded his head anyway.
"They'll be ok." Fai said, and possibly he was talking to himself, but Kurogane nodded anyway.
-
"Fai," Yukito said while they were watching sitcom reruns on the room's embedded tv. Fai gave Yukito his attention, turning away from the television show. He was sitting on the bed next to the other man, reclining with him while Kurogane read a book Toya had brought and Toya was working on the internet via his cell phone.
"I'd like it if you and Kurogane came to our wedding. It'll just be a small thing with a few people, but if you want to come, I'd be happy to see you again."
Kurogane looked up from the book, studying Fai's reaction.
Fai smiled, predictably, but Kurogane couldn't read into the expression.
"I'd really like that! I'm sure Kuro-chan would too, but we might not make it. Kuro-pu lives all the way in Japan and I don't know if we'll be able to come back here for a while."
Kurogane quirked an eyebrow.
"Well, that's ok." Yukito said understandingly. "I'll just give you all the information and if you can make it, that'd be great!"
"It would!" Fai agreed, trying to mirror Yukito's tone. He was so close, Kurogane didn't think that the other two could notice the difference. Kurogane noticed.
"I'll let Kuro-ta hang onto it." Fai said, taking the note to Kurogane. "Since I tend to lose small things." He would not let Kurogane see his eyes as he smiled at the other and Kurogane took the slip of paper from his hand.
-
Fai took up his chair next to Yukito's bed at nine-thirty and folded his arms on the mattress to rest.
"Fai," Yukito said, tired from the medication he was being given. "thank you for staying here with me. We're friends, right, Fai?"
"Yes." Fai whispered in the dim light of the monitors.
"Promise me you'll be happy when we see each other again."
"…I will."
-
It was eleven thirty when Fai slowly got up and crossed the floor to Kurogane, waiting in the chair in the corner. Fai stooped to his knees and folded his arms across Kurogane's leg, laying his head to rest over them.
Kurogane didn't move, just let him stay there.
"Let's go." Fai whispered at length and both stood, taking note of their sleeping companions on their way out and closing the door gently behind them.
On the nightstand, the box-of-luck sat open.
Omake! : Since this story is told from Kurogane's point of view, anything that happens outside his awareness can't be told (although I have broken that once for one line that I had to have) but just because he doesn't know certain things doesn't mean that I don't need to know them. So this scene, taking place in the hospital while Kurogane was talking with Toya can't be in the fic but you can still read it since it was written anyway.
---------
"You're very lucky. Kurogane, he's a good man."
Fai laughed lightly. "I didn't know you could tell."
"I can tell how much you care about him. You should show him."
"But I do show him!" Fai's wide grin seemed heavy, weighted, even to him.
"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. It isn't any of my business. But if you don't give him a chance, he can't prove himself."
Fai's smile became small but it felt lighter and was easier for him to bear. "You shouldn't worry about Kuro-tan and me. We'll both do alright. We're on our way to the places we belong. I'm sure we'll both be very happy once we get there."
Post whatevers: Last time, I said that The Doctors was a panel of 3 doctors. I don't know why I said that. It's 4, not 3. Just imagine I held up four fingers and said "three".
A note on medical advancements: Advancement in medical treatments steadily occurs over time so Yukito's "minor surgery" would, by today's standards, be considered "major surgery" and corrective treatment in regards to glasses has also advanced considerably.
Fai with Glasses: Kurogane's vision of a Fai with glasses comes from an official clamp artwork.
As always, if you liked, please review. Ja!