A rather simple drabble this time. Still fighting urge to write crack.


Security guard

XX

The clock on the far wall announced the time as five minutes past one in the morning. The clock on the far wall also had a pendulum that ticked away every second and a cuckoo that stuck its annoying head from behind its painted wooden doors every hour.

The clock on the far wall announced the time as three minutes past one in the morning and Kurogane felt the sudden urge to rip the cuckoo from its clock the minute the clock ticked backwards to one o'clock.

The floor was mostly empty. It was just the entrance floor for all the high-class executives to walk through. It was the lift at the far end of the floor that would take the businessmen to their classy offices filled with important documents and expensive equipment.

The floor was mostly empty.

The tiles were cold and the walls were a muted beige. The air smelt of cheap air-freshener - ninety-nine cents per bottle of fake flower extract and an extra refill that smelt of something namelessly sweet - and the cuckoo clock was about to sing.

"It's boring, isn't it?" The woman next to him droned. In the past five minutes, she had switched between flicking through an outdated magazine, polishing her nails, and humming senselessly. Now she was tapping her fingers against the counter.

"Yeah," Kurogane grunted. It was extremely boring.

"Nothing ever happens at this time of night."

"Yeah."

"We could just go to sleep right here and it wouldn't matter."

"Yeah."

Silence washed over the two until the cuckoo poked his head out to sing.

A counter stood near the entrance, out of the way of the revolving doors. Large metal detectors were lined in rows in front of the entrance where a large pot-plant stood dutifully at the very end.

Outside, the streetlights were flickering on and a drunkard floated past the windows. Except that this drunkard back-tracked and stopped in front of the windows and Kurogane realised, to his surmounting horror, that it was no drunken tramp waving at him but an escaped mental patient.

He stood with such force that it almost sent his chair crashing to the floor, ramming his hands in his pockets for loose change. There was a mountain of copper coins in his pockets, which he suddenly shoved into his co-worker's hands.

"Hey, do me a favour, get me some cigarettes, would you?"

"I didn't know you smoked," she stood, almost dropping to coins on the floor.

"I don't," he twirled her around and ushered her to the door.

"Then why - " she began but Kurogane had closed the door after her. Of course, being revolving doors, the impact was not quite the same.

Kurogane watched the woman leave down the road until she was out of sight. He turned his back on the doors for a grand total of three seconds and turned back.

The escaped mental patient was leaning against the counter, waving and smiling devilishly.

Kurogane's eyes narrowed. "What are you here for?"

"Aren't you going to check me?" Fai grinned. "I thought it was standard to search me. I may have a gun, y'know?"

Kurogane glanced at the clock. It was now quarter to one at night.

"Walk through there," he gestured to one of the metal detectors. Fai strolled through it and it beeped and blinked an angry red. "Stand with your legs slightly apart and your arms held wide."

The wizard did as instructed; glancing around the building as Kurogane patted him down. "So this is where you work? Talk about a cobweb company."

"It's like this everywhere at night," he ran his hands down Fai's body, feeling every dip and curve through the thin linen shirt and the tight jeans the wizard seemed to enjoy wearing.

"Is that so?" Fai tilted his head and glanced around again as if seeing the mostly empty floor in a whole new way.

Ending the search at Fai's ankles, Kurogane sighed and stood up. "Where is it?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"The thing that made the metal detector go off. Where is it?"

The smile that curled Fai's lips was positively evil - the kind of smile that strikes terror in the heart of his subjects while remaining cute and sweet - the smile of an evil kitty.

"You just have to look more thoroughly."

Kurogane knew how this game was played.

"Open your mouth," he instructed and Fai opened wide with an exaggerated, "Ahh!"

The ninja tilted Fai's chin up with a finger. His other hand took the wizard's shoulder and pulled him towards him. His lips pressed against the psychotic wizard's lips. Kurogane's tongue slid in and began to explore Fai's mouth for any signs of something metal.

Fai groaned as he was pressed against the counter. Kurogane seemed to remember just what he was doing and backed away.

"Take off your shirt"

"You won't find it," the blond grinned but obliged him anyway.

The ninja blinked. Many people considered him a very frank person but he also had his pride and for him to say, 'Find it? I just want to see you with your shirt off,' would surely earn him more of Fai's taunting and so he simply shook his head and asked, "What makes you so sure?"

"We had a bet," Fai glanced at the clock. It was twelve forty. "Mokona bet five chocolate Mokona bars that you wouldn't find it. Sakura-chan wouldn't back the bid once we passed seven bars so I made a bet in your favour!" he made a thumbs-up sign at him, as if Kurogane was supposed to find that encouraging.

"I'm glad to know that you find me a great source of entertainment," Kurogane said, utterly deadpan.

Fai's smile was positively evil.

"So, you don't mind that I bid your sword?"

There was a time when Kurogane believed that he was a reasonable man. Perhaps he could sometimes be rather hot-tempered and quick to anger and maybe just a little too blunt, but for most part, he believed that he was a perfectly reasonable person able to function normally in any normal society.

Therefore, it was also perfectly reasonable of him to grab the cuckoo clock from the wall and hurling it at the mage, thus killing two birds with one stone.

Fai ducked as the clock soared over his head. It hit the far wall and crashed. The cuckoo sprung from its home, clucking endlessly.

"Mokona had ten bars on the table! I didn't have anything else!"

"Since when have you ever been allowed to bet my sword against Mokona-shaped chocolate bars?" he yelled. No, that was not the right question. The right question was; since when did Souhi ever equal ten chocolate bars?

"Well, then you'll just have to find it," Fai said teasingly, drawing out it his words on the tip of his tongue.

"Strip down," Kurogane glared at him.

"Here?"

"Strip down!"

"Whatever you say," Fai grinned as he pulled off his jeans.

"Walk through it again," he ordered and as the wizard did so the detector beeped again.

He pulled the blond towards him, running his hands across skin, from his legs up to his stomach. His deadly serious expression made Fai laugh and Kurogane scowled at him and ran his fingers further up, across his chest, to his neck.

His hands felt Fai's quick pulse. Hot fingers lingered by his jugular before sliding up, cupping the wizard's face in his hands. Fingertips brushed against soft lips, silencing the laugh bubbling from Fai's throat. His hands ran through golden threads of hair, pushing his hair back behind his ear. Something shone on Fai's lobe, gleaming against the dim light.

Kurogane touched the cold metal head with the tip of his finger, wondering how something so small could have possibly set the alarm off.

"An earring?"

"Congratulations!" Fai cheered, clapping his hands together in long, over-exaggerated gestures.

With warm, callused hands, Kurogane unfastened the earring, feeling that perhaps he was being dragged around just for the amusement of one spastic blond (and possibly an overly cheerful pork bun.)

"I knew that you could do it, Kuro-pon!" Fai congratulated him again. "Now I get my Mokona bars and you get to keep Souhi. It's win-win!"

No, he took that back, He was definitely being dragged around by an insane, hopeless wizard; spinning in the grips of someone whose mental age indicator was constantly flicking between the age of three to the age of fifty.

Growling, he tossed the earring over his shoulder and pushed Fai back against the counter again.

"You…" he raised a shaking fist in front of Fai's face but instead of striking out he assaulted him with fierce kisses, running hot hands against burning skin.

Fai found his back pressed against the cold counter. He smiled coyly and wrapped his arms around Kurogane's neck, beckoning him closer.

Two days later, Kurogane and Fai left the world with the rest of their companions.

Two days later, when doing a mandatory check on the security tapes, two unwitting security guards would find a video that would leak onto the Internet and underground markets at a phenomenal speed.

Two days later, such a tape would trigger a fanatical search for the ones depicted within it in hopes of recruiting them for other 'jobs.'

And indeed, two days later, depite claiming to have never seen the other person before, the media picked up on a small-time owner of a dojo and a hapless art student going by the names of Kurogane and Fai.


In case that was confusing (okay, it probably was) think same soul, different world. I'm sure that there's at least another Kurogane and Fai in at least one world that they've visited. And thus, another Kurogane and Fai end up meeting. Isn't that sweet?