Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is the intellectual property of CLAMP.
Author's Note: Please remember and consider before reading this further, this is rated M.
In the United States, 800,000 children go missing every year. Half of these are 4 to 11 years old and strangers commit 53 percent of child abductions that end tragically. Children of the Night, an organization that helps sexually abused children, lists the adverage number of child prostitutes in the United States at 300,000. In New York City, 51 percent of the prostituted children are estimated to be males and prostituted boys are also found in large numbers in San Francisco and New Orleans. ((information found on the amber alert official website and the children of the night official website))
Many, if not most, of these children will never be anything more than statistics to the average person, without justice of any kind.
~ All That I Am ~
Part 1, Chapter 5
Kurogane was beginning to wonder if he would ever make it to the Green Drugstore and again he had no one to blame but himself when he found out that Fai had taken them off course, continuing on westward instead of southwest when he wasn't paying attention, because he hadn't told Fai that the drugstore was in Survivor's City.
It was getting late in the evening and he was having fantasies of strangling whoever it was running that store when he finally got there so he decided to just call it a day.
"Just find someplace to pull off. We'll get a motel for the night."
Fai glanced in his direction briefly with a worried expression. "Hasn't Kuro-rin's headache gone away yet?"
"I'm fine."
They pulled off at the very next exit and picked up a pizza at an instant place on the way to the motel.
"I'll get us a room." Kurogane said, shutting the car door before Fai could protest. Kurogane figured he'd spent enough in Reno to cover his share on the next ten motels…if there were going to be a next ten motels. Kurogane figured there would only be one, maybe two, more.
Pushing open the door of the motel lobby, Kurogane found a single, middle aged man behind the counter. He lay down the newspaper he was reading to smile at Kurogane.
"One beds are fifty, two are seventy-five, cheapest rates in the area."
Two beds? Two beds. They had never been offered a two bed room since starting this road trip. But if he took one now, Fai would only say it was because they had given up the box-of-luck and he would never hear the end of it.
"Sir?" the man asked, becoming concerned with the amount of concentration his customer seemed to be showing.
"Give me a minute!" Kurogane snapped.
Sleeping in his own bed, with his own space, and no Fai clinging to him or invading his space…or constant gloating… Which one?
"One bed."
Kurogane pushed the door of their room open and Fai followed him inside with the pizza and drinks they'd bought. He said nothing of the room or its single bed.
"So where is it you're going?" Kurogane asked. They were sitting on the bed, the pizza box between them, pizza in hand. It was something that had needed to be said. Something he had put off because he knew that it was forbidden, but now that they had crossed into California, it was almost moot anyway.
Fai took a drink of his Pepsi and another bite of his pizza before answering.
"We're already there." he said simply. "Kuro-sama, we've crossed most of the country, you know."
"So…tomorrow?"
"Maybe."
Kurogane watched Fai sleep that night, curled slightly on his side. He'd begun the night facing away from Kurogane, but had rolled over later, a troubled look on his face. Kurogane had reached out, barely touching the bed-tousled blonde hair and Fai seemed to settle, losing the dream.
Kurogane could not sleep.
* * *
"Kuro-bu…" Fai was hovering, as they checked out of the hotel and took their things to the car, flitting around Kurogane back and forth.
Kurogane sighed. Having gotten no sleep had only given him a different headache and he had a good feeling he knew what Fai wanted anyway so instead of going through the preliminary begging he just dropped the keys in Fai's hand.
Fai didn't appear to understand. "But I didn't…"
"You were going to." Kurogane cut him off closing the passenger's door behind him, ending the discussion.
"I was just going to ask if we could go shopping before we leave." Fai said, closing the driver's side door as he spoke, his voice lacking something, as if by agreeing, Kurogane had taken something from him.
"As long as I don't have to participate." Kurogane answered. He felt as if a great weight was settling on him, weighing him down, but he tried to sound annoyed. Whatever it was he was feeling, it was none of Fai's business. Not now at the last moment it wasn't.
Fai stopped at a little clothing boutique with mannequins in the storefront window. They were wearing beach clothes and Kurogane had to stare at them while Fai was inside. Everyone who passed by pointed and stared and Kurogane scowled at the paint on the hood of his car, remembering that it was offending and realizing that he had completely forgotten it was there. It wasn't that he was blind. He saw those two dragons, flying in front of the full silver moon every time he drove or walked toward his car or around it. He'd just…gotten used to the colors being there.
Fai came out of the boutique wearing a long pale yellow sundress with a few white flowers decorating it and a large straw sun hat.
"What does Kuro-ri think?" he asked, dancing in a circle outside of Kurogane's window.
"I think I'm glad we're leaving town." Kurogane groused, looking away.
Fai threw his arms out happily and ran around the car to the driver's seat, handing Kurogane his hat before he got in.
Kurogane threw the thing in the back seat with a growl.
"Is it absolutely necessary that you embarrass me every damn place we go?" Kurogane ground out and Fai grinned, checking the rearview mirror as he backed up.
"Why yes, yes it is."
It was obviously going to be one of those days. How Kurogane wished he had fallen asleep at five o'clock in the morning and slept through all this.
* * *
"Do you have any idea where you're going?!" Kurogane yelled. They were in the middle of nowhere on an old country road, it was past noon, he was tired, hungry, and they had passed that forked tree three times now!
Fai bit his lip. "GPS-san doesn't know." he muttered, looking worriedly at the GPS screen instead of the road.
"I'm asking you not the goddamn GPS!" Kurogane yelled, slamming a hand over the device's off switch.
"I'm sorry, Kuro-ta, I thought we could find a southbound highway this way. …Maybe…we're lost…"
Kurogane took a deep breath, trying desperately not to explode. "NO SHIT!"
Fai winced and pulled off the road, parking the car in front of a tall wooden fence surrounding the yard of a modest white house with a small silver car parked in the drive near the front door.
"Go and ask whoever lives here how we can find the highway." he said, watching out the window as the wind rustled the trees in the distance. A storm was coming, looming on the horizon.
"You go and ask!" Kurogane argued. "You're the one who got us lost in the first place! If you think I'm just going to march up to some strange house and ask for directions, you're even crazier than you look." he said, punctuating each word and driving it home with narrowed eyes indicating Fai's pretty dress.
"You think I should ask them?" Fai returned, grinning back at Kurogane, indicating the pretty dress himself. "What if we stay lost? This seems to be a pretty big rural area, Kuro-tan, we could…" Fai's ramble was cut off by the slam of Kurogane's door as he marched down the street behind the car and up to the strange house to ask for directions.
Once he cleared the fence, Kurogane could see the large yard. There was a child sitting on the lawn, picking flowers. Her hair was long, platinum blonde and lay on the green grass around her and her dress was pale pink, creating an almost storybook scene. The house was in good condition, the paint fresh and flowers blooming in window boxes. The car was clean, parked on a gravel drive that led right to the door. It was really a picture-perfect home but for two things. The fence was tall and tan; it really took away from the image, a small white picket fence would have fit much better. And the mailbox looked as though it had seen at least a lifetime, even though the letters on it were fresh. They read Valeria in slanted, elegant font, gold on black.
Kurogane knocked on the door and it instantly flew open, revealing a much older version of the little girl on the lawn. The woman looked as though she would have liked to be warm and welcoming, but had used up her quota of those things long ago. She looked to Kurogane with a look of slight apprehension and curiosity.
"Yes? May I help you?"
And Kurogane trussed his pride up like a Christmas turkey and threw it in the trunk. "I'm trying to find the highway that leads south from here, but…the idiot…" Kurogane looked back and saw that the little girl had drifted toward the fence. Fai was probably trading fashion tips with her from the other side. "I'm driving with got us lost."
"Ah…I'm sure I have a map in the car." the woman said, a keen eye trained on her daughter as she reached inside for a set of keys, hanging on a hook near the door. "Hold on."
The woman got into her car and produced a map from the glove box, laying it out on the hood for Kurogane. She pointed to where they were and showed him how to get to the highway and he thanked her, rescued his pride, and made his way back to the aforementioned idiot.
Fai was waiting by the fence for him. He was wearing his sun hat and holding one of the yellow flowers the little girl had been playing with and when he saw Kurogane he waved back at her and rushed to beat Kurogane to the driver's seat, throwing his hat in the backseat as he slammed the door.
"So!" Fai chirped. "Where are we going?"
"Back the way we came." Kurogane growled.
Kurogane was able to direct Fai to the highway that followed the new coastline south and it wasn't until they were safely on it, driving south, that he could close his eyes, blocking out Fai and his ridiculous yellow dress and his ridiculous idiocy, if only for a moment.
The time passed quietly with only the radio droning on softly in the background and Kurogane was finally beginning to settle down, watching the scenery fly by outside the window, the occasional raindrop sliding down to obstruct his vision, when suddenly, Fai slowed the car and turned right, onto a side road.
Kurogane turned and glared at him. "Where the hell do you think you're going?! Haven't you gotten us lost enough for one day?"
"But Kuro-pyon, I saw a sign that said there's an overlook this way. And we haven't seen the ocean since we got to California!"
"It's going to rain."
"It'll only take a minute."
Fai found the overlook - surprisingly. There was a small parking lot and they had to walk to it on foot for a few yards. Raindrops kept falling down and splattering on Kurogane's face, promising a storm, and making him irritable. When they reached the overlook it was a disappointment to say the least. It had obviously been abandoned by the county; a small clearing, cracked cement covered in leaves from several years, and a rickety wooden fence overlooked a view of the pacific ocean, grayed and choppy with the coming storm.
"We can find a better overlook." Kurogane offered. "I'm not going to drive all night in the rain so we can get a motel to wait it out."
Fai nodded absently and turned back to Kurogane, smiling hollowly. "We wouldn't want Kuro-woof to melt." he teased. A boom of thunder sounded and Fai squealed with delight. "It's going to rain, Kuro-chan! Hurry!"
Kurogane ran after him back to the car and as soon as they got inside the sky opened up and it started to pour.
* * *
Kurogane watched the rain coat the glass from the window of their motel room. It was a dump this time; run by a skinny, tattooed man in a bad neighborhood. Kurogane wouldn't have been surprised to see cockroaches but he hadn't spotted any yet.
"Staring at it won't make it stop." Fai commented from the bed where he was flipping channels on an old flat screen bolted to the wall. "Might as well relax."
Kurogane turned back to look at the blonde. Fai had changed into his "special" butterfly pants and a simple blue shirt and had fluffed his pillow behind his back to lay against.
"If I don't go out and find something to eat, are you going to be bitching about it later?" Kurogane was hungry. All they'd had to eat that day was breakfast and a few snacks but he didn't really want to go out in that weather when he didn't even know where to look for food.
Fai smiled a small, private smile. "I'm not hungry."
Maybe he was thinking of the rain too, Kurogane thought.
Fai didn't seem to be in a very talkative mood, so Kurogane sat with him and watched tv. It was about all they could do. They let an action movie with a good share of explosions play on in the background while the storm howled outside, neither one fully paying attention.
Kurogane could feel himself drifting off as he lay back with one arm behind his head and the other folded over his stomach when Fai shifted over, snuggling into his arm and laying against his side, head resting on his chest. Kurogane was too tired to push the blonde away, so he let his arm curl around Fai's shoulders.
"I'm so sorry." Fai whispered, his cheek pressed against Kurogane's shirt, barely audible.
Kurogane waited, but Fai abandoned the words there to dissipate in the air and he couldn't stay awake with the blonde's comfortable warmth lulling him to sleep. He would ask Fai tomorrow what he had meant.
* * *
At some point in the night, Kurogane awoke. The warmth was gone from his side and he reached out, disoriented, but Fai wasn't in the bed. Kurogane sat up, looking toward the bathroom but the room was still and dark. A bolt of panic raced through him. Outside, the rain still beat against the glass of the window and thunder roared overhead. Whirling around, Kurogane fumbled for the lamp on the bedside table but in a flash of lightening, he saw a thin notepad sitting underneath the lamp and in thin, elegant scrawl, the words that Fai had apologized for in advance.
Goodbye Kurogane
For a moment, just a moment, Kurogane froze. There was a terrible storm outside. Where the hell would he go in weather like this? Why now?
"Why are you going to California?"
"I wanted to see the ocean of course!"
Kurogane frowned. The entire time he'd known Fai, his moods had gone up and down like a damn rollercoaster. But he was never happy. Not truly, honestly happy. Fai had wanted to go to Reno. Kurogane had met Fai on a street in New Chicago. People didn't do that sort of thing for fun. And even though Fai's clothes were always extravagant, he had spent hundreds of dollars in Reno. More than a thousand easily; maybe two.
"We'll part ways soon."
Fai had gotten close to him but he had always tried - so hard - not to get too close.
"It always looks so perfect and blue on tv and I thought I'd like to jump in it."
There had always been something off about Fai. Something Kurogane just couldn't pin down. The thing Fai had hidden from him. The thing he was forbidden from knowing.
"Splash!"
A loud boom of thunder signaled the lightening that split the sky not a second later and Kurogane threw open the door, making a break for his car.
It was there, right where he'd left it, black as the day he had first painted it. His heart twisted in his chest but he ripped the door open, jumping inside, already soaked through and turned the key in the ignition, slamming the door with one hand and throwing it in reverse with the other.
Fai mattered.
Kurogane stomped the gas petal to the floor and prayed he would make it in time.
"Splash!"
"Idiot! Stupid!"
Kurogane swerved around another vehicle ahead of him, his backend fishtailing on the pavement but he didn't slow down.
Fai couldn't have been gone long. Kurogane glanced to the clock on his radio. It was only one o'clock and he had done this to his car before he left.
"I just want to be …free…"
"I'm sorry."
Kurogane gritted his teeth and concentrated on what little he could make out of the road ahead of him. But he felt sick.
"Damn you."
* * *
Kurogane found the overlook. He nearly missed the entrance and when he threw the car into park he didn't bother to turn it off or shut off the headlights. He slipped on the wet dead leaves and fell but it didn't slow him down. He had never ran so fast in his life and when he finally made it to the clearing, his heart leapt to his throat at the sight of a lone figure standing on the edge of the cliff, on the wrong side of the fence.
Fai swung his arm back and threw his open, empty suitcase over the edge, watching as it spun out of sight. Kurogane wasn't about to stand by and let Fai go next.
The rain was so heavy that Fai never heard him approach or saw him vault the fence behind him. He cried out in shock when Kurogane fisted a hand into the wet, heavy cloth of his shirt and whirled him around. Not even the rain could hide the tears spilling from Fai's eyes, red from crying and Kurogane didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do.
"You put that goddamn dragon back on my hood, damnit!" he yelled, shaking Fai erratically. His fist tightened in the material, as if Fai could turn to smoke and escape him. He was afraid to let go.
Fai stared back at him with wide eyes, shocked and confused. "Kuro-sama…"
"Is that what this whole trip was for you?" Kurogane asked. His voice sounded broken to his ears. "You were looking for a place to die?!"
Fai lay a hand over his, gently for a moment but then he tried to pry Kurogane's hand from his shirt and the effort increased the tighter Kurogane's grip became.
"I don't want to live anymore!" Fai shouted above the rain, clawing at his hand hysterically.
"You haven't lived yet!" Kurogane yelled back, for once gaining the exact reaction he wanted from Fai. The blonde stilled, paralyzed in Kurogane's grip and he pulled Fai into his arms, wrapping them around the small frame tightly.
"You could have asked anyone, but you asked me! I'm not going to let you throw your life away now. Whatever you were running from is a thousand miles away. It can't hurt you anymore!"
"You don't understand." Fai's fists pushed at his chest feebly and in that moment, Kurogane understood just how broken Fai was.
"I'm not Fai."
* * *
Fai no longer seemed inclined to put forth any effort on his own behalf.
"You can't save me, Kurogane." he said, his tone defeated as he sat on the bed at their current motel dressed only in one of Kurogane's dry shirts. He had taken his own underwear off but Kurogane had had to get him started on the rest and his hair dripped water down onto the shoulders of the t-shirt, creating dark crimson stains as it spread.
"There's nothing left to save."
He didn't seem angry. If anything, he seemed to pity Kurogane's feelings and efforts and that just pissed Kurogane off even more.
"I wasn't running away." Fai said, in that same tone, as though every word he said from here to eternity would make him sound like the living dead. "I was never running away."
Had he given up so long ago? Kurogane had never seen this…desolation in Fai. Fai had been a very good actor…an expert at "pretend".
"A person can always find a reason to live." Kurogane said in return. "If you really want to die so bad, all you have to do is wait."
"I waited a long time." Fai answered. "I waited for someone who didn't come. Someone from a fairy tale."
"That isn't what I meant!" Kurogane yelled.
"I'm sorry."
He was apologizing for Kurogane's feelings and it only felt like a knife to Kurogane, twisting in his heart.
"Stop saying that!"
"I'm already dead…inside."
"Stop it!"
"Kuro-sama doesn't understand because he's never been broken."
"Broken things can be fixed."
"Not when the pieces are missing." Fai countered, evenly. "My pieces were cut up and burned away."
Kurogane fell silent. Fai's resolve lay in his past and Kurogane couldn't shoot it to hell until he heard the whole story.
"Who is Fai?"
Fai laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. "It's just like Kuro-tan not to ask 'Who are you?'."
Fai looked down at the comforter beneath him, hiding his empty, dead eyes from Kurogane. "Fai is the one I was running to."
Kurogane could see how Fai wished this single statement could explain everything but he didn't wait for Kurogane's prompt to continue.
"There's only one person in the world who knows this." Fai began. "When I was very small, my name was Yuui Valeria and Fai…was my twin."
"Wait…" Kurogane interrupted. "Valeria?" Why did he know that name? Valeria…was the name on the mailbox… "The house we stopped at for directions."
Fai nodded. "That's why I had to come here. To make sure momma was ok. I had to know she'd moved on or I couldn't…"
"No one moves on from their kids!" Kurogane snapped.
"I have a sister now. She looks just like momma." Fai murmured. When Kurogane said nothing, Fai knew he had to continue. "But the story can't start at the end."
Kurogane pulled the desk chair closer to the bed and sat, waiting for Fai to continue.
"When Fai and I were little, momma took us with her to New Chicago. I…don't remember why we were there. We stopped at a city park and walked along the sidewalk. It was daytime. Fai and I wanted to run ahead. We were laughing and playing. I remember momma telling us not to go too far. It was the last time I ever saw her…until yesterday. A man in the bushes grabbed us. He put washcloths over our mouths and when we woke up, we were in a room…with cement bricks. I'm sure they could have heard us screaming though the door but it was a long time before anyone came.
Eventually, a man came. He told us that we wouldn't ever see momma again and that we belonged to a man named Fei Wong and we would have to do everything he said from now on. Looking back, I know now that we were lucky to have gotten that man in the beginning. He wasn't a bad man and as I grew up, I learned more and more to appreciate him.
He explained to us that Fei Wong was going to use us to make money, lots of money. Fei Wong owned lots of people like us. He generally didn't want anything to do with them. He just wanted to make money. I guess it was put best by Ashura. Ashura said that everyone has dreams and wishes. Fei Wong's dreams were just more expensive than most. But that happened later. The man who we first met became our handler and it was his job to teach us to do the things that would earn Fei Wong money.
He wasn't a lustful man. He explained exactly what he wanted us to do and he waited for us to do it on our own. We were…innocent, and scared so as long as he gave us a choice, we said no. Every time he came he brought cheeseburgers and ate them while he waited. We were just little kids. The hungrier we got, the faster our resolve crumbled. I don't think we lasted very long. We decided that it would be ok, as long as we did it together. He wasn't a scary man. He didn't yell or hurt us. So first it was a hand job and we got to eat. It wasn't bad at all because he was smart. Baby steps." A smile flitted across Fai's face, but it faded as quickly as it had come.
"We'd get good at one thing, then it was another step. We had to do it with no clothes on. And later after we got used to touching him, he could touch us. It was embarrassing but at the end of the day, we got to sleep together on the floor and we didn't know how bad it could get.
And then Kyle came. And Kyle was a bad man. He was sent by Fei Wong to see if we were ready for customers yet and our handler said no. They got into a fight. Our handler said we needed more time, that if we went too soon we wouldn't last as long, that he'd seen them waste people that way. Kyle didn't like to be talked to that way, so he shot him.
It was the first time I had ever seen anyone, anything, die. And Kyle called for Ashura and then he locked us inside with the dead man. We were terrified. His eyes were still open and he was bleeding all over the floor. We cowered together in the corner and cried.
Ashura was what they called "The Cleaner" because he was the one who came and cleaned after people died or were killed. Ashura said that he was the one they called to clean up Kyle's messes. Kyle refused to move us. He told Ashura to do it in front of us. I don't…really know if Ashura is a good man or not, but he was always a good man to us. He made us turn around and cover our ears. He wouldn't let us watch. He sat up this big…tent and took the dead man inside and then he called people in to carry the bags away."
Kurogane had never heard anything so disgusting and to imagine experiencing that as a child. It was no wonder Fai was so screwed up. That would have screwed him up too.
"I'm not really sure what happened after that." Fai continued. "I'm sure Kyle was going to do something but he must have gotten distracted because he put a guard outside our door and we just stayed there alone for a month. Ashura came to see us every day. He bribed the guard for time and brought us candy and chocolate.
Ashura had a habit of leaving the door unlocked when he left and sometimes the guard would get drunk and fall asleep outside the door so Fai and I started taking turns sneaking out. We were afraid to escape because our handler had said that if we ever did run away, then Kyle would come after us and then we actually met Kyle and…yea. But we figured if we only snuck out one at a time then, if the guard woke up and looked into the room and saw one of us, he would figure he could just go back to sleep.
Eventually, Kyle came back for us. He said it was about time we quit loafing around and did our job. That was the first time that I ever met Fei Wong. He was standing outside of a room. He told us that the man inside had paid a lot of money to be the first one with us and that we had better not disappoint him.
We were terrified. We had never met anyone like him; the way he looked at us…like he wanted to do terrible things to us." Fai was beginning to have difficulty, but he went on. "He said…terrible things, called us such pretty little whores. He wanted us to do things…that seemed dirty…he was so…lustful and…fast. We tried to keep up but then he…" Fai paused, covering his mouth as he tried to gather himself.
"You don't have to say it." Kurogane offered. He was sure by now he could get the picture.
"He picked Fai. There's a difference…between unwanted sex and rape. It's not the same thing." Tears began to flow down Fai's cheeks but he couldn't stop, not now. "Fai was bleeding…and screaming…that man held him down while he… So I hit him. I'm sure it didn't hurt very much. He laughed at first. But then, I guess I must have hurt him because he turned around and started hitting me and yelling. And Fai…Fai threw a chair at him. That probably didn't really hurt either. He couldn't have thrown it very hard. It didn't break but all the noise brought the guards in and they started hitting him and everyone was yelling and the man was arguing with Fei Wong and Kyle and Fei Wong told him everything would be taken care of. And Fai was on the ground but they wouldn't stop kicking him…even when he stopped moving. I heard Kyle call for Ashura. I tried to stop them. I tried to get to him. I was screaming. I guess somebody asked Which one are you? "Fai" was all I could say.
They…killed him and…they wouldn't let me get near him. They took me away and I couldn't do anything at all. And it's in my head!" Fai cried, sobbing, clinging desperately to the bed's comforter. "How Ashura had to cut him up, in tiny pieces and carry it all away in a bag and burn it in the incinerator. I can't…"
Kurogane didn't wait for Fai to finish. He sat on the bed next to the blonde and pulled him into his arms and Fai, shaking and wet from the storm, inside and out, could only cling to him and cry.
"I tried later," Fai said when he could speak again, though he was muffled slightly against Kurogane's chest "to kill myself. But they wouldn't let me. Kyle told me that he knew where momma lived and if I ever ran away, in any way, he would find her and make her pay. That's why I couldn't leave. Ashura came after that. He said how sorry he was but I couldn't blame Ashura. He kept coming." Fai was beginning to settle as he spoke of Ashura. "Ashura taught me about pretend. He said that if I just smiled enough, someday, good things would happen.
I wished that Yuui had died on that day, so I let everyone call me Fai and after years and years had passed I decided that it would be ok to be with Fai again. I just had to make sure momma was ok, and not let Kyle catch me. If he can find me, he can take me back. And if he can take me back, he can punish me. But he wouldn't have any reason to hurt momma if I'm already gone.
I turned down a lot of people, people that said they wanted to save me, run away with me. They only said those things after sex. But When I met you, and you didn't want sex or company I thought you would be safe, because you wouldn't care. But I hurt everyone who knows me and you…got too close. It's all my fault. I'm sorry."
"I'm going to belt you the next time you apologize." Kurogane growled. "Whatever's done is done. … And can't be undone. The only thing left is the future."
Fai shoved him away. "Don't you get it?! I'm tired! I've spent my entire life giving everybody else what they want. You're too late to get in line!"
Kurogane fisted a hand and bopped him over the head with it.
Fai's hands flew to his head as he cried out. "OW!!"
"Then find something to live for!" Kurogane barked. "Your brother isn't waiting on some platform for you to kill yourself. If he loved you at all, he would want you to be happy, not dead!"
Fai glared at him from under his arms.
"You didn't look very happy standing on that cliff in the rain to me."
Fai's arms fell to his side and he bowed his head in defeat. He no longer had the strength to argue with Kurogane. He lay back, staring up at the ivory-white ceiling.
"I don't have anything." he muttered. "No money or clothes. I can't…go home. I can't tell momma that Fai is dead…"
"It doesn't matter." Kurogane said. "Because I'm not driving back there anyway. We're going south, to the Green Drugstore in Survivor's City."
Fai said nothing, just continued to stare at the ceiling as if that were the only direction in the world.
* * *
Fai said very little on their drive south to Survivor's city. He only spoke when Kurogane prompted him to do so: "No, I'm not hungry." "No, I don't have to go to the bathroom." "No, I'm not tired." So Kurogane was left to drive in silence, any life that his car had once had, sucked out the exhaust pipe and left far behind. And his view didn't make things any better. A sea of black accosted his field of vision. Kurogane had never thought he would miss all of the color on his hood, but the color had come to represent something else and now it was gone, and he mourned its loss.
No one else had ever made him feel the things that Fai made him feel; anger, rage, frustration, despair, helplessness and longing. He longed for Fai to smile, because he was happy; for Fai to laugh, and not because he had felt the need to cover something up. He remembered the taste of Fai's lips coated in sake and peach brandy and wished that Fai had never kissed him at all, feeling as if he were making a last offering.
By the time they reached Survivor's City, Kurogane was sure that he shared Fai's feeling of death. Every nerve he had was frayed, he thought that maybe the last time he had actually slept had been Reno. His eyes had taken to darting back and forth between the blonde and whatever it was he was meant to be paying attention to, be it the road or the traffic on it… His stomach had given up on being filled, leaving him with a dull, sour ache in his gut and his mouth felt like paste.
He had put off sleep, trying to make it to Survivor's City in once piece, before hell crashed down on his head or some other such catastrophe, now he was afraid not to sleep. His vision was blurring. Three, or four, days ago, Fai would have been concerned, now he just sat there, ignoring him.
Fai's past had been a difficult pill to swallow and the idea that it wasn't just some unthinkable news program - that it had actually happened to him, was still trying to make connections in Kurogane's brain to the person sitting next to him. But he knew that dying was not really what Fai wanted. Nobody really wanted to die, they just, maybe, didn't want to live and there weren't a whole lot of other options out there.
He didn't have whatever it was that Fai needed, didn't know how to make Fai want to save himself, but he had to believe that, with enough time, one of them would figure it out. He just needed time; to think, to collect himself, to find new pieces that might fit into the holes that Fai seemed to be filled with. Because Fai mattered. And he wasn't going to give up on him.
They were somewhere on the outskirts of Survivor's City when Kurogane stopped at a moderately-priced hotel; nice, but not expensive, and paid for the cheapest room available. Fai followed him up to the room where Kurogane collapsed on the single bed, intent on finally finding some parody of rest for as many hours as he possibly could.
"Take a shower." he said, knowing Fai could hear but wouldn't respond. "Wear whatever you want. Get some sleep."
Don't go.
* * *
When Kurogane woke up, he found Fai at the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged, eating a bagel. He pushed another toward Kurogane. It was wrapped in plastic and Fai sat a small carton of orange juice next to it.
"It was free." he said.
Kurogane nodded as he sat up to join the other in silence.
Fai was wearing his butterfly pants and one of Kurogane's black shirts that, even tucked in, looked ridiculously large on him. His blue shirt was gone. Kurogane said nothing of it. Good riddance to the damn thing, he thought bitterly and wondered just how well Fai had planned his suicide. A blue shirt would have made his body harder to spot to anyone looking over the cliff's edge.
Fai saw him watching, glanced to him briefly, but said nothing. He didn't care.
Kurogane finished his food quickly and took a five minute shower, throwing on a clean set of clothes. Fai was waiting for him by the door when he emerged from the bathroom and they left together, one solemn, the other determined.
Survivor's City was indeed the sprawling metropolis Kurogane had imagined. Everywhere he looked, people flooded the sidewalks and his GPS was useless in such a condensed area; by the time it told him to turn it was too late to switch lanes.
"Shit! How the hell are we supposed to find this place!"
Predictably, he was ignored and Kurogane turned to look at Fai. He was staring out the window with no discernable expression. He looked so much smaller in Kurogane's clothes.
"I noticed the money you put in my wallet." Kurogane said. He had noticed when he'd gone to pay for the hotel that he had extra money. Fai must have given him whatever he had left. He hadn't planned to say anything. It was an awkward subject to breech but now it served as an ice breaker. What a sad state they were in, he mused sardonically. "And we aren't finding the Green Drugstore like this. We'll go shopping. You need some clothes and maybe we can find somebody who knows where it is."
He waited for Fai to protest, wondering if he would keep silent or tell Kurogane he wasn't interested. Instead, Fai nodded silently, accepting it, and somehow, that was worse. Kurogane was getting tired of leading him on by the hand like some emotionless shell. He thought of screaming at Fai, throwing things at him, hitting him, wondering if any of it would pull some reaction from the blonde but he lacked the energy to do those things, as if Fai's new attitude had somehow sucked it out of him. The last thing Kurogane needed was to start feeling sorry for himself. Fai could do enough of that for both of them.
Lips set in a firm frown, Kurogane began looking for a city parking garage.
Fai walked with him down the sidewalk, ignoring the people staring at them. God only knew what they must have thought of them but if one of them so much as said a word about it, Kurogane was all too eager to hand them their teeth.
"Pick a shop." he growled, not bothering to look at all the shops they were passing and heard Fai sigh in response.
Fai turned and walked into the very next shop without a glance as to what it sold, Kurogane following close behind.
It was a children's clothing store. Fai turned around and walked back out, his small rebellion squashed. Kurogane took hold of his arm and pointed to another shop with men's clothing displayed in the window. "Let's try that one."
For a moment, Fai seemed a little surprised that he hadn't commented on his failure, but he cast his eyes downward again and followed Kurogane into the store without a word.
The store Kurogane had picked was a little overpriced for his taste, but he wasn't going to waste his time looking for a decent place to shop for clothes in downtown Survivor's City. A sales girl came to ask if they needed any help. She was a short little thing, probably a teenager, with short black hair that curled in around her face. She started out with a welcoming smile but then got a better look at Fai and became somewhat less certain.
"We're fine." Kurogane said, trying to get rid of her without being overly rude about it. Who in the hell needed help finding a shirt to wear, anyway? Picking out clothing was a personal choice and anyone with two good eyes could find what they liked in such a small room by themselves.
The girl gave him a nervous smile and nodded at him as she slowly sidled over to Fai, pulling him aside as discretely as possible. "If you need anything, or you're having any problems, I can contact the authorities." she whispered secretively, laying a hand supportively on Fai's arm.
To Kurogane's surprise, Fai removed the hand and glared…Kurogane had to look again to be sure, but yes, it was a glare, a glare so ice cold that it sent chills down Kurogane's spine just to look at it…and replied in the same low tone "That won't be necessary."
The sales girl couldn't get away from them fast enough.
Fai proceeded to look through their clearance clothes and found a pair of bell-bottom pants and two shirts, one white and one black. Kurogane paid for them without complaint. Fai was obviously making a statement, one that Kurogane was not about to address.
When Fai took Kurogane's shirt off and replaced it with the white shirt while they walked down the sidewalk, surrounded by people, Kurogane said nothing. This was a test of his patience and endurance. He narrowed his eyes at Fai, but refused to shout. Two could play that game.
They walked for a while. Kurogane hated asking for help, but eventually he singled someone out and asked if that person knew where to find the Green Drugstore. That person, an elderly man sitting on a bench waiting for a cab, didn't know.
And so it began.
Kurogane asked several people "Do you know where I can find the Green Drugstore?" No one seemed to know. All the while Fai stood silently by, awaiting an answer he cared neither one way or the other for. Kurogane had decided to walk only in a straight line, otherwise he was afraid they'd get lost. Still, they had walked a long way. As they were passing by a café, Kurogane remembered the last café they had eaten at. They had met Yukito that day; Yukito who had commented on how "well-suited" they were. Kurogane turned to look at the person walking next to him.
"Let's get something to eat."
It had gone from something that wasn't worth thinking about, to something he couldn't bear to think about.
Fai sat with him but when the waiter came to take their orders he only asked for water. He didn't meet Kurogane's frown across the table.
"I'm not hungry right now. I'll eat at dinner, don't worry." Fai whispered the last part and Kurogane sighed.
"You never asked why I was looking for the Green Drugstore." he said, an attempt to hold some sort of conversation with the other, however futile. "My mother passed away recently." Kurogane went on, not bothering to wait for a cue that wouldn't come. "She left a letter there for me."
"… What's in the letter?"
Kurogane raised his gaze to Fai, pleased that he had found some curiosity in the matter, but not ready to let on that he had noticed. "I don't know. But it must be something she couldn't have said to my face. I can't think of anything she could have left me that she would have had to entrust to someone else."
"…Do you miss her?"
Kurogane stared at the blonde for a minute. He was looking away, down the sidewalk, with the look a person gets when what they're looking at isn't what they see.
"Yea."
"I don't have the face of a cat damnit!!!"
Raising an eyebrow, Kurogane turned to look across the street at the source of the outburst. There were two boys standing on the sidewalk. The shorter of the two was hunched over, growling comically at his taller companion who didn't seem at all intimidated by the display, in fact, the dark-haired boy looked highly amused.
Fai laughed. It was one of those under-your-breath kind of laughs that turned into a few chuckles and then died off but it was the first positive emotion he had shown since Kurogane had found him on that cliff in the rain. He was afraid Fai might never laugh again, so he was glad, and Kurogane smiled at the display himself. That boy with his uneven dark blonde hair really did look like a cat.
"I don't think I've ever seen Kuro-sama smile like that." Fai commented. "It must be rare, like seeing a comet or a double rainbow."
Kurogane turned to look at him but before he was forced to really find something to say, his order came and he was saved. Fai politely ignored him while he ate and they left soon after, heading back toward the car.
"There has to be an easier way to find this place." Kurogane muttered. It was already afternoon and they still had to find a place to spend the night. When he had looked the Green Drugstore up online there had been no actual address attached to it, just the city. He wondered, not for the first time, if this Kakei person was actually trying to hide.
"You could try calling the information hotline," Fai suggested "or maybe a local phonebook."
"Do they still make those?" Kurogane couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a phonebook. All that information was part of the telephone's software nowadays, even landlines.
Fai shrugged and Kurogane sighed. Having the address wouldn't help him if he didn't know how to get to it.
"Have you ever lived in a big city?" Fai asked.
Kurogane shook his head. "My mother and I moved around a couple of times but we always lived in rural places."
Fai nodded but didn't seem inclined to continue the conversation.
"Don't make me do that again asshole! You're supposed to be doing this too! If I have to share my pay with the likes of you, you should at least do half the work!"
Kurogane and Fai both stopped to look across the street and found the same two teens from earlier. The shorter boy was shouting at the taller one again but this time the taller boy seemed less humorous about the situation.
"I'm doing my share just keeping you from getting picked up by guys without black cars."
"As if I would just walk off!"
"That last guy said he was looking for it and you believed him. You're lucky I was just down the street."
"I don't need your help!"
"They certainly seem to be having problems." Fai said, continuing on ahead, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Kurogane followed suit, averting his attention back to the problem at hand.
"We'll wait until late tonight and try the GPS again. It should be easier to find and get to with less traffic." he said.
Fai nodded in silent agreement.
Kurogane decided to drive in the direction they had been walking to look for a hotel. Taking a side-glance at Fai, looking out the passenger window, Kurogane decided that tonight, he would get a room with two beds. It wasn't right that they should sleep in the same bed, there was no excuse for it now. It was another one of those things like the paint on the hood of his car.
"Look out!"
Kurogane slammed on his breaks before his eyes had even gone back from his hood to the road and his heart plummeted to his stomach when he saw the blonde teenage boy frozen in his headlights, standing in the middle of the road. Other cars swerved around them, honking their horns. When it finally registered in Kurogane's brain that he hadn't, in fact, hit the boy, he threw open his car door angrily.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" he yelled, his pounding heart still calming as he drowned out the sound.
The boy, still in shock, didn't speak.
Fai opened his own door, standing behind it to watch.
Kurogane walked around his open door and took the boy by the arm, dragging him back to the sidewalk. "I've had enough of this shit to last an entire lifetime." Kurogane warned him, quiet enough so that only the boy could hear. "So if you want to die that bad, just ask."
The boy looked back with wide eyes, obviously believing him and still shaken up over the incident.
"Kurogane…" Fai came to join them on the sidewalk, standing next to the teen.
The boy looked from Fai to Kurogane and back. "I didn't…I wasn't…I tripped! I'm sorry! It's just, my boss sent me out here this morning and I've been out here all day with that guy. He thinks I can't do anything right but how many black haired guys are there that drive…black cars…"
The boy was looking around Kurogane at his car and then he looked back at Kurogane who was giving him a strange look, and suddenly he grabbed Kurogane's shirt with both hands, his eyes as wide as saucers as he looked up at the dark-haired man.
"Please tell me you're looking for the Green Drugstore!"
Post whatevers: As always, if you liked, please review. This was that dark place at the middle of the tunnel and as they keep moving forward, things can only get brighter, right?