I'm nervously awaiting the start of NaNo and also trying to shake myself into writing a somewhat intelligent essay. So instead of freaking out or doing anything that could be construed as useful I wrote this. It's been a while since I wrote some KaiRei and I missed it, you know?

A little knowledge of fairy tales (especially Rumpelstiltskin) wouldn't hurt but it's not essential. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Still don't own. Still lament.

Warnings: Some angst, some jumpiness, some homophobia.

Rei doesn't believe in fairy tales.

He doesn't believe that there is a clear cut good and evil. He doesn't believe in fairy godmothers or convenient woodsmen. He doesn't believe in happening upon the correct building materials to fight off the wolf. He doesn't believe in houses of candy or in poisoned apples. Most of all, he doesn't believe in happily ever after.

But sometimes he likes to pretend.

Once upon a time there was a boy called Rei. He was always smiling and he had lots of friends but he was still lonely. One day while he was walking through the forest, for all stories come complete with forests, he caught a glimpse of something. He didn't know what it was but he knew he needed it.

He likes to pretend that leaving the White Tigers doesn't hurt him every day and that the constant cold of Russia doesn't weigh on him. He's hidden a handful of photos of his old team in his old village with his old life in the lining of one of the drawers in the room he shares with Kai. he likes to pretend that it's secret, though he doesn't know if it is or not.

He followed the something deeper and deeper into the woods. But the further he went, the harder and harder it was to see the something. Eventually, he lost sight of it. He scanned the forest desperately, trying to find where the something had gone. But it was lost.

That's not to say that he doesn't love his life with Kai. Every time he sees the Russian his heart does a little flip flop. He's seen Kai at his absolute best when he gives out one of his rare genuine smiles, untainted by the sharp lines of a smirk. He's also seen Kai at his worst.

He closed his eyes in despair, knowing in his heart that if he had only found it and held it close to him he wouldn't feel the terrible yawning loneliness inside of him.

And then there are all the inbetween times. When Kai's eyes glint in the weak light that passes for sunlight in these parts. When Kai's arm snakes around his waist and he buries his face in the crook of Rei's neck. When Kai somehow knows exactly what Rei wants and needs without anything resembling a request passing his lips.

He heard a sound then. It wasn't much, just a soft exhalation of breath. Just enough to let him know that he wasn't alone in the woods. He called out, fear gripping him. What if this other person was here to take away the something?

Kai deals in absolutes. It occurs to Rei that Kai wouldn't be misplaced in a fairytale. When he sees something he thinks of as wrong there is no leeway. Rei's been on the receiving end of the endless and isolating chill that is Hiwatari Disapproval more than once. But, more often, he's been protected by it.

There was no answer. Rei tried calling again, pushing tree branches out of his way to clear his view. There was nothing, until a hand on his shoulder made Rei jump. 'What are you doing here?' came a harsh voice. Rei turned and stared at the man in front of him. Unruly blue hair framed a face marked with strange blue triangles underneath crimson eyes that were both questioning and accusing.

The White Tigers are only one example of Kai's protection saving him from more pain than he knows how to deal with. While he knows his old team would not reject him to his face, when he told them about Kai something had changed. And that something was there in every conversation, every letter and every photograph they'd shared since Rei had told them.

Rei also saw with dismay that he had been incorrect. This stranger wasn't here to hunt for the something Rei had been searching for. He already had it tucked into his pocket. The stranger's eyes narrowed and his hand tightened into a painful grip on Rei's shoulder. 'Answer me!'

When Rei had told Kai of this change there had been no reaction. Kai had sat still for a few seconds before lacing his hands in Rei's hair and pulling Rei towards him, kissing him in a way that made Rei's toes curl and made him cling to Kai, despite the way his friends acted around him now. Then Kai had never spoken of the White Tigers again and had expertly steered the conversation away from them whenever the topic came up.

'I saw something in the forest and I came after it but I didn't realise someone else had already found it.' Rei winced as the stranger's eyes tightened with disbelief. 'What do you mean?' the stranger asked.

Telling his parents was worse. He'd sworn the White Tigers to secrecy so he could do it properly. When he'd arrived in his home village with Kai in tow his parents had been overjoyed to finally meet someone from his life outside. Kai endured hundreds of questions about what it was like to captain a world champion team and he fielded them all graciously.

Rei gestured to the stranger's pocket. 'You already picked it up. I can see it.' The stranger reached into his pocket to pull out a small, metal spinning top. Rei eyed it hungrily. That was what he wanted. That would cure all of his problems. It would take away the ever present loneliness and give him what he needed. He didn't know how but he knew it to be true.

When they led Kai and Rei to their shared room with two single beds, Kai had given Rei a look but hadn't said anything. Instead, he'd waited for Rei's parents to leave before shutting the door and wedging a suitcase in front of it. He'd then grabbed Rei and pulled him down to the bed with a mischievous smirk, ignoring Rei's whispered protests.

The stranger shook his head. 'I didn't pick this up now. My father gave me this.' His grip tightened on the object, possessiveness and suspicion in his eyes. 'Besides, you're the one who picked it up. I can see it there.' He indicated to the pendant around Rei's neck. Made of cheap nickel pressed into an intricate knotted design, over the years it had become a part of Rei. Ever since his mother had given it to him.

When Rei told his parents, things changed. Rei's father's face had darkened with anger, directed soley at Kai, Rei noticed, while his mother stared at Rei in shock, disbelief and hurt. Rei and Kai had left soon after, Rei's father making it clear that Kai was never welcome under his roof again and his mother pleading with Rei to reconsider. Both were unable to believe he'd made this choice for himself and by himself. Both thought that a heavy dose of parental guilt would make Rei stop and follow the path they'd always envisioned for him.

Rei put a hand protectively over the pendant, hiding it from the stranger. He had been right not to trust him. He could still remember the way he'd felt when his mother had gently tied the string around his neck and the way he'd complained that only girls wore necklaces. He could remember her laugh and her insistence that he wear it anyway. It was the last thing his mother had given him before the terrible loneliness had begun taking over everything like a cancer. 'This is mine,' he all but snarled.

Kai hadn't looked back. To him, Rei's parents were wrong and that was all that mattered. To him, he had Rei and that was all he needed. Rei tries to follow his example. Every day he tries. He tries to file his old life and his old team and his old home in the finished pile. And sometimes, when Kai stands beside him, he really believes that's how it is.

The stranger seemed to think about that for a second before shrugging and holding his hand out for the pendent anyway. 'I need it.' He said, simply. Rei's eyes narrowed into slits and he took a step away from the stranger, away from the implacable, reaching hand. 'Why?' Rei asked. The stranger shook his head. 'I don't know. But I need it'

But Rei can't pretend for long. So he ignores it and tries to pretend that it doesn't matter anymore. Kai doesn't talk about it in the same way Rei never talks about Kai's grandfather or his upbringing. They ignore those subjects in favour of the present. In the present, Kai is poring over a book of fairy tales they bought for Tyson and Hilary's new baby, Makoto. Kai's eyes are crinkled with pleasure (much more common than a smile, Rei has found) as he flips through the pages and his fingers trace the intricate drawings.

'Well you can't have it' Rei said defiantly, fear running thickly through his veins. The stranger was a bit shorter than him but what he lacked in height was made up in muscle. Rei knew how to defend himself but if it came to a contest of strength he was far outmatched. A quick glance behind him revealed forest that had closed over with no indication of how he'd gotten here in the first place.

Rei's hand closes over Kai's as the Russian's fingers trace over a picture of the grotesque Rumpelstiltskin. Kai looks up at Rei and his eyes hold a small sadness. "I never got to read these as a child." He says quietly, lifting both their hands to turn the page. On this page there is a beautiful illustration of the miller's daughter.

The stranger's hand closed and he brought it back towards himself slowly, a contemplating look in his eye. 'You can't stop me from taking it.' He said, a low note of threat in his voice. 'So give it to me now.'

"Does that mean you don't know these stories?" Rei asks curiously. Rei was never read these particular stories—His mother had her own repertoire of Chinese folk tales—but when he decided to leave the village he had studied them, hoping to gain some understanding of the outside by reading their stories.

'No.' Rei said, shaking his head. He could remember that warm burst inside his chest when his mother had kissed him after placing the necklace around his neck. He now identified it as love and knew that he hadn't felt it since. That wasn't his mother's fault. There was something broken in Rei. Since then, that warm feeling had been replaced with aching loneliness.

"Of course I know them," Kai says with a small smile. "I read them when I was a bit older, though." His eyes darken as he turned the page, revealing the King's reaction to the room of gold. "I think that by then they might have lost a bit of their magic." Rei squeezes Kai's hand and presses a kiss to his cheek.

With sudden inspiration, Rei gestured towards the spinning top still held tightly in the stranger's hand. 'Would you give up that?' he asked. At that, the stranger's grip tightened on the top and he pulled it towards himself, the back of his hand hiding the top from Rei's view. The stranger looked down for a few seconds before looking back up at Rei. 'I...don't know.'

Rei remembers well the way his mother would tuck him into bed and sit next to him, running her hands through his already-long hair as she recited tales told to her by her own mother on just such nights. He remembers the feeling of safety and warmth that those nights gave him. The way that he knew that as long as his mother was there and as long as the stories were being told everything would be okay.

Rei's eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean you don't know?' He asked, his grip slackening on the pendant. 'I mean that I honestly don't know.' The stranger looked down at the top in his hand. 'I want it but I don't want to give up this. My father gave it to right before he left.' The stranger shrugged and looked away. 'He abandoned me to go follow his dreams and left me a stupid toy in his place.'

Rei remembers the look of heartbreak in his mother's eyes and the look of anger combined with helplessness in his father's as he said goodbye to them. Kai was already in the car, his arms crossed and his eyes focussed on the road ahead. His father simply shook his head at that, not understanding first what Rei had seen in this anti-social man and second what this man had done to change his son so much. Mostly, he couldn't understand why Rei was willing to give up his family for him.

Rei frowned. 'Why do you keep it then?' he asked, genuinely curious. He let go of the pendant and moved closer to the stranger cautiously. The stranger glanced down at the top, ignoring Rei's movement. 'Maybe so when I see him again I can throw it in his face?' The stranger's lips quirked. 'Maybe as a reminder? I'm not sure.'

When Rei's mother had pressed one last gift of food into his hands she'd pleaded with him to change his mind. She'd pleaded with him to not follow Kai into that car and not to drive away. She'd pleaded with him to live the life that she knew was best for him. Rei had kissed her cheek and turned away, holding the bundle of food in his hands so tightly he thought his hand would break from the strain.

Rei's hand closed over the stranger's, making him jump but not enough to break Rei's touch. 'I'll trade you.' he said softly, feeling his heart clench at the words. His pendant for the pain he could hear in the stranger's voice. His mother's love and the void that had replaced it in return for the stranger's vague hopes for the future.

"Can you imagine Tyson reading this to Makoto?" Kai asks, breaking Rei out of his thoughts. Kai had flipped to a page with an illustration of the queen's firstborn, his cheeks rosy with the joy of being alive. "Can you imagine Tyson being a dad?" Rei asks back, his eyes glinting at the thought. Kai shrugs at that. "He'd be better than some."

The stranger looked at Rei strangely. 'I never said I wanted to trade,' he said. Despite this, his hold on the top loosened and his eye was drawn to the pendant still hanging from Rei's neck. Seeing his sightline, Rei pulled the string over his head, ignoring the feeling of loss and the strange itchy feeling the absence of the necklace had left around his throat. 'I never said I wouldn't ever give it back.'

Rei looks at Kai sharply. Kai doesn't talk about his father. Never. Sometimes he talks about his mother. Sometimes, when he's very drunk, he talks about his grandfather. But his father has always been noticeably absent from Kai's history. What he knows has been gleaned from others. Tala, Mr Dickenson, people who know parts of the story but didn't experience it.

The stranger looked at Rei, understanding coming into his eyes. 'So you'll keep it safe for me?' The stranger asked. Rei nodded and held out the pendant, ignoring the way his hand shook. 'Until you need it,' Rei promised.

Kai looks down at the picture of the baby and his eyes harden. "Tyson's an idiot but you know he'll always be there for the kid." He says with a definiteness and slight desperation that Rei can't help but feel is Kai's way of trying to ensure it will come true. He knows Tyson and knows that Kai speaks the truth about their friend's personality but he can't help but feel an uneasy uncertainty. After all, no one knows the future.

Rei felt a weight lift from him as the pendant left his grasp and was replaced with the larger top. He looked at the stranger and saw the same expression of wonder on his face. And Rei realised that he'd found what he was looking for.

"You can't ask for much more than that, can you?" Rei asks, letting go of Kai's hand to cup his cheek. Kai gave up wearing those triangles on his face years ago. He realised that he didn't need help to make the world afraid of him. His personality and force of will were enough. Kai leaned in to Rei's touch, closing his eyes for a second before turning his attention back to the story.

Rei smiled and tucked the top into his pocket, determined to keep it safe. 'My name's Rei' he said. The stranger put the string around his head, tucking the pendant down underneath his shirt and against his skin. 'Kai.'

Rumpelstiltskin looms over the child with an evil grin on his face as the horrified queen tries to hide the child behind her. "It's almost the Chinese New Year, isn't it?" Kai asks quietly. As his eyes scan the page. Rei's hand drops away from Kai's face like touching him now burns. "So?" Rei manages, trying not to think of the way he used to go home every single year and be welcomed by his village and his family as they prepared to celebrate.

Rei and Kai talked for some time. Of everything and of nothing, each acutely aware of the other's treasures. Rei's hand continually snaked down to pat his pocket and Kai's hand constantly touched his chest, ensuring that the pendant was still there. But eventually the sun started to go down.

"I think you should go home this year," Kai says. He turns the page again to reveal a picture of Rumpelstiltskin dancing gleefully in front of a fire. "They can't still be angry at you." Rei turns away, unable to look at Kai. He must have noticed the way Rei was constantly finding excuses to dig through the drawer where he kept his memories of his old life. He must have noticed the way Rei had become more and more subdued as the date rolled nearer. Had he noticed every year? Or just this one in particular?

Kai and Rei stood, wincing as stiff limbs complained about their inactivity. Rei's hand once again ventured down to touch the pocket with Kai's top in it but his wrist was caught by Kai. 'You won't lose it will you?' he asked, his voice strained with genuine concern. Rei shook his head. 'No. I think I need it as much as you,' he said quietly, more to himself than to Kai.

Kai flips the page again to reveal the king and queen cradling their baby between them with gigantic smiles on their faces. After finishing the story he reaches into his bag with exaggerated casualness to withdraw a single ticket to China. Rei stares at it, shock and confusion warring in his mind. A single ticket? For the next day? Is Kai not coming with him? Is this how it is going to end? Rei can't help but see the words emblazoned at the end of the story 'Happily ever after'. Liars.

'Will I see you tomorrow?' Kai asked, releasing Rei's wrist, his hand automatically going to pat his chest again to ensure that the pendant was still there. Rei felt a burst of warmth in his chest as he considered seeing this mysterious stranger who now held his dearest treasure. 'Of course.'

"You may notice that it's a return ticket," Kai says gently, leaning forward to kiss Rei on his forehead. He remains close, breathing in the fruity scent of Rei's shampoo. "Come back to me, Rei," he whispers. "Do what you need to do, but afterwards come back to me." Rei takes the ticket, wondering how Kai had known, wondering what his thoughts had been as he'd bought the single ticket and as he'd watched Rei constantly return to the drawer with the photos of his old life. He wonders how Kai would react if someday Rei could give him the chance to reconcile with the father he never talks about. He moves to catch Kai's lips in a kiss that tries to cement that unspoken promise.

As they turned and went their separate ways, Rei realised that he'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted. Kai's treasure was important but it wasn't what he'd needed. The promise to see Kai again and the feeling of that gaping void of loneliness beginning to be filled, however, had been enough to change everything. He left the woods with a spring in his step, sure that things would get better from now. And he was right. Because, as with all good fairy tales, Kai and Rei lived happily ever after.

"Tyson's going to be a good dad, isn't he?" Rei asks. Kai's eyes widen a little at the change in subject but he quickly shakes it off. "If he can make himself sit still long enough to read to his son then I think he'll be okay," Kai says, closing the book with finality. "I'll mail this on our way to the airport." Rei smiles and leans against Kai, loving the way that he fits at Kai's side. Like he'd always belonged there and nothing, not even their pasts, could change that. They will probably never really discuss their old pains and Rei will probably never tell Kai what this chance to reconcile with his family really means to him. Likewise, Kai will probably never tell Rei about his father. But they know each other and they need each other. And maybe that is enough. With Kai maybe there can be a happily ever after.

The End

I was experimenting with the whole 'two stories interwoven' idea but I'm not sure how that went. Did it work for you? Did it feel like they were somehow related or did it just jump around a lot and leave you wishing that I just stuck with one or the other? Am I terrible at writing pseudo-fairy tales? (The answer to that one is yes, by the way). Most importantly, is there anything you think I could improve on?

Please tell me what you think