kurofai | [Team Drama] (Wingfic) In Babylon

Title: In Babylon
Prompt: Wingfic
Rating: PG
Warnings: All the spoilers for post-series fic?
Authors note: For Kyra, who held my hand and stayed up all night while I was finishing this. <3

Kurogane knows something is wrong before the magics have faded. He blinks through the haze of coloured lights - Mokona’s circle is folding and collapsing upon itself – and he squints against the bleached sky of this new world. They haven’t been here before: this, he knows at once, for the world is new, wholly, and he knows, too, that makes it dangerous.

But that is something separate: he can feel the wrongness in his body before he understands why, before he connects it to the ache in his left shoulder or the prickling in a part of his body he can’t quite pin down. He reaches up to rub at his shoulder – stealthily, for the mage has eyes like a hawk and a tendency to fuss - and he runs an eye over in his companions, quick, practiced, as he does after every jump between worlds. The kid, the pork bun, and the man whose ring Kurogane wears on his right hand: all three are accounted for, and with their limbs still attached to their bodies (‘You’re one to talk, Kuro-sama. You’re the only one of us who’s ever lost a limb.’ ‘Tche!’). And yet, still, there is that wrongness. Kurogane rolls his shoulder, tries to ease the ache that is settling into the joint; this fails, and for a moment he’s too caught up in the thought that he might have landed awkwardly – for his shoulder was good, in the last world, or at least, better than this – to consider that this new world may have some hand in his discomfort. But he discounts this eventually and looks around properly. No cause immediately offers itself: there’s no snow on the ground here, no slow creep of chill into his boots and gloves. Cold has become a problem, or in the last year, anyway: he’ll admit that in the privacy of his own thoughts, though Fai seems to have noticed that too. The man has taken to rubbing Kurogane’s shoulder with an oil he found in another world, infused with warming spices that perfume his skin and stain it deepest red.

But it’s not cold here, though the sky is so pale, the blue is turned to brilliant almost-white. In Nihon that would mean winter, the sun small and low in crisp, cold air; but Kurogane has seen many skies since he was last home. He takes each one as it comes, and this one comes with warmth on his skin and that curious prickle somewhere near his back (or is it his arm? He still can’t tell, and that’s strange in itself). But his shoulder is still aching; he starts to push his fingers carefully against the muscle, testing, testing. He shifts his gaze to Fai, to keep an eye out for narrowed eyes and pursed lips; what he finds makes him stare, makes his hand falter and stop. He can feel his own brow pulling into a frown; what he’s seeing doesn’t seem dangerous, exactly, but by the same token he’s not sure what it is: just a tumbling mass of white spilling beneath the mage’s cloak, at his back. And Fai himself seems equally perplexed, for he is twisting, craning, trying to see; and in the next second one quick, clever hand reaches out to grasp hold of part of it, to draw it up close.

Kurogane moves to the man’s side swiftly. Fai doesn’t seem to be hurt; he looks more surprised than anything else. He gazes down at the thing with round mismatched eyes, his eyebrows arching and making little lines in his forehead. Then, ‘My, my, look at that,’ he says softly. Kurogane does. And he can see, now, the thing in Fai’s hand is a feather, a single long plume, snowy white save for an iridescent spot towards the tip. It’s still attached to something beneath Fai’s travelling cloak, folded back on itself. Fai strokes the thing gently, but there’s something in his face that Kurogane doesn’t quite like. His smile, when it comes, is crooked and soft. He says, ‘Who would have thought, hmm?’ and if Kurogane knew what the fuck he was looking at, he might have a chance at answering that.

But, ‘Daddy’s wings are so big and shiny!’ cries Mokona. Kurogane turns, his mouth reaching for a retort before he’s had time to properly process what she’s said, and so what comes out is, instead, ‘What.’

‘Daddy’s wings!’ says Mokona again, gleeful. She launches from Syaoran’s shoulder towards him, and he tenses for the weight of her, scant as it is, to land on his shoulder. It doesn’t happen. Mokona hovers in front of him, mid-air, like a hummingbird, and Kurogane barely has time to gape before she’s spinning, giggling, effortlessly airborne; for on her back, part of her back, he can see a pair of perfect pink wings.

Syaoran says, ‘It looks like we’ve all got them,’ and Kurogane tears his eyes away from Mokona – now whizzing, jubilant, in the air over his head – to look at him. He supposes he isn’t surprised by what he finds, or shouldn’t be, at least. The kid just said it, after all. But seeing him there, his cloak folded over one arm and a pair of sleek tawny wings jutting awkwardly from his tunic – seeing that is one of the bigger mind-fucks Kurogane’s had to deal with lately. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just crosses his arms – surreptitiously sliding the left over the right, all the better to support his throbbing shoulder – and takes in the sight of them with their ridiculous new appendages. Fai has abandoned the study of his feathers, and now they trail behind him like the train of some elaborate gown, delicate and ruffled and perfectly white, broken only by those two spots of brilliant colour on the longest feathers of each flank.

Kurogane sighs. Mokona lands on his head.

‘Well,’ Fai says cheerfully, ‘I think we can safely say this is a new world. Mokona…’

But Kurogane doesn’t hear what comes next. He might be made of stone in that moment. He might be made of nothing. Fai’s words fade away and are lost, and Kurogane is frozen, utterly - he can’t remember the last time that happened – but what he can remember, vividly, is a different world, with a sky red with blood. He remembers the night set on fire and his chest tight with panic, and he remembers the shape that death made across the flames: huge and black and with great monstrous wings.

The same shape his own shadow is making right now.

Kurogane’s wings are indeed huge, just as Mokona said: black leathery hide, surprisingly supple, with hinged joints and a great curving span. He keeps them snapped in, tight, against his body; partly because it eases the strain on his shoulder, the sheared joint already unstable and now bearing added weight besides – but also, partly, because the shape of his silhouette – dark, ugly, monstrous – the shape of that is not something he wishes to see at literally every turn. These things are temporary, he understands that. This world will pass, like all the others, and he’s no longer the same boy that stood, paralysed, before the flames; he’s not the same man that lost himself in a haze of grief and blood and rage. He hasn’t been for a long time, and he knows that, he knows. But none of that means he has to like this while it lasts.

‘I don’t know,’ Syaoran is saying now. Kurogane looks, and sees the kid glancing about their new surrounds; there’s a little crease on his forehead. He’s not a kid anymore. (‘He’s learning bad habits, Daddy! Whatever will Sakura-chan say?). ‘If it’s a town, it’s strange that nobody else is here.’ They’re still where they landed, lush gardens on all sides: flowers drooping gently in the heat, fragrant grasses and flowering trees, and bordering everything, white gravel paths that wind, eventually, to what looks to be a walled courtyard of sorts. Beyond that lies a grand building, white towers topped by golden domes. Syaoran looks across at that, and says, doubtfully, ‘Perhaps they’re all inside, but it feels more like a temple or a palace to me.’

Kurogane nods at that. ‘A temple’s gonna be easier to explain what we’re doing here,’ he points out, and Fai hums his agreement. He puts up a hand to shade his eyes against the glare, peering across the flowers, the grasses, the lines of white gravel. The surprise is gone from his face now, that crooked little smile slipped away somewhere in between, and there’s a line of concentration between his brows now. Then, quite suddenly, he grins. He puts up a hand and waves hugely, and they must have company, so Kurogane looks around too. He can’t see anybody. He sweeps his gaze across the gardens, quick, practiced: there’s nothing there. But Fai’s still waving, and then Kurogane spots the shadows. He tilts his gaze up to find a small knot of figures, all winged, drifting down from one of the towers. No more than outlines in the empty, bleached-out sky, but as they draw closer, he can see uniforms, white, heavy with buttons and braid, and then swords, long and curved, buckled at their hips.

And he doesn’t blame them for that. Frankly, if a group of strangers had landed in Shirasagi on his watch, uninvited and unannounced, his welcome would have been less generous by far; but that was then, and this is now. Now he moves a hand to the hilt of his sword. The kid’s hand is twitching, ready to draw if need be, and he can taste the ozone of Fai’s magic on his tongue. Kurogane doesn’t regret any of the things that have happened since then. He’d choose them all again, he had to, to keep these people by his side.

But, ‘Yoo-hoo,’ Fai calls out happily. He’s still smiling, sunshine bright. The envoy set down a few feet away. There are magic-users among them: Kurogane can see their faint green outlines, and they must sense Fai in turn; they must know about Syaoran’s sword hidden just out of reach, and Kurogane’s is plain for all of them to see. Still, none of them draw, and so neither does Kurogane. There’s a quick flurry of movement as they re-assume their formation, and then one figure steps forward, wings folded and face stern.

‘There is no unauthorised flight on the grounds of the Nightingale Palace,’ the winged man says, and Kurogane stares: well, that’s not exactly what he was expecting to hear. None of them are flying, not even the pork bun, tucked into her hiding place inside Syaoran’s cloak and quiet for now, though Kurogane’s pretty sure a world with wing-people has no room to point fingers at anyone much. Syaoran’s wings are still poking beneath his tunic, and Fai’s feathers… Kurogane’s not even sure the man can use those to fly: they’re more plumage than wing. But the winged man is still pointing, unsmiling, and so grudgingly Kurogane holds his hands up, not in apology - for they’ve done nothing wrong – but a gesture of goodwill, maybe, that he’s got nothing concealed. He hopes the man gets the idea quickly too, because the angle sends pain screaming over his shoulder blade, makes him grit his teeth against the pain. But he’s someone they’ve seen before, Kurogane realises abruptly: a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair pulled into a queue. He has a captain’s stripes on his shoulders in this world, and some other symbols Kurogane doesn’t know, and beyond that, a pair of mottled wings, leathery, like Kurogane’s own. He’d folded them back after landing and now they’re rising anew.

The winged man says again, more sharply, ‘There is no unauthorised flight on the grounds of the Nightingale Palace,’ and then, to Kurogane directly, ‘I’d expect you to know better anyway.’

Well. Kurogane’s not sure exactly what he’s meant to say to that – but before he can throw back a response, there’s a hand on his shoulder, careful and warm. He knows who it is at once, and Fai says, ‘I think he’s talking about your wings, Kuro-sama.’ He doesn’t move his hand, just nods up into the air above him, and Kurogane realises then, with a flash of irritation, that the damn things have crept out, unbidden, from where he’d folded them over his back; the great leathery spans angled upright, twitching, as if ready to make flight.

The captain is staring at them pointedly, the displeasure plain on his face.

Kurogane scowls, but it’s nobody’s fault but his own, he knows, for not paying more attention. He doesn’t like that, he’s not used to it; he’s used to knowing what every fucking hair on his head is doing at all times. But there’s nothing to be done about that right now. He says, ‘Yeah. My bad,’ and pulls the treacherous things down tight once more. Fai’s hand slips from Kurogane’s shoulder; it skates over his back as it goes, feather light, and the warm shiver that runs up his spine is just about enough to knock the scowl off his face. It’s all he can do to stop a smile sprawling across his face.

The captain pretends not to notice any of this. He makes a small salute then, sharp, military, and his guards follow suit; and with the formalities out of the way, his face grows pleasant, his eyes bright. His wings return to their resting place over his back; he smiles rakishly round at them all and says, ‘A message from Her Royal Highness, the Nightingale Princess.’ There’s a bit of a pause as a girl emerges from the centre of the guards. She’s small and fey-looking, wide green eyes and a sweet face. She’s a magic user too: Kurogane can see the green glow, much richer than the other winged guards – but more distracting than that are her wings – or, more accurately, the contraption around them. An elaborate framework of copper rods and polished flanges and tiny wooden rudders.

The captain takes her hand. He escorts her forward with considerable flourish, though whether she’s impressed with this, it’s impossible to say. She turns her wide green gaze instead to Syaoran (and stares at his cloak until Mokona sheepishly emerges). Next is Fai, and at last, Kurogane; she doesn’t say a word through all of this. A seer, Kurogane guesses, or maybe some kind of witch, and that’s fine with him – they have nothing to hide – but, ‘You could get the same answer by asking,’ he snorts, for good measure, anyway.

The girl looks back at him with something that’s not quite a smile. ‘The same cannot be said for everyone, however,’ she says, and then, a little louder, ‘All is well.’ The guards relax, and the girl moves closer then. Her caged wings creak and shudder with each step. She says, ‘The Nightingale Princess welcomes you to the palace, and offers sanctuary for as long as you remain here. She grants you an audience in the Butterfly Pavilion directly.’ Behind her, Kurogane registers the guards shuffling into a makeshift guard of honour, three on one side, four on the other, spread along the path that leads to the walled courtyard.

Syaoran nods. He says, ‘That’s very kind of Her Highness, thank you.’ He meets Kurogane’s eye, and Fai’s, to check that this is OK, and beside him Kurogane can see the mage nodding his assent. Syaoran nods again. He moves off with Mokona, and the seer-girl. The captain trails one step behind, his mouth puckered in a sulk. Fai watches them go, and his face stills for a moment. He looks as if he wants to say something, and he reaches out, blindly, to touch his fingers to the feathers at his back, as if reassuring himself, almost, that they are still there. Kurogane waits, watches the bob of Fai’s throat as he swallows, the pink of his tongue as it darts out to wet his lips; but then he grins up at Kurogane. He nods at the pavilion, says, ‘Shall we?’ and they go, crunching over the gravel side by side after the kid.

Kurogane knows there’s something wrong about Fai’s wings; that much is plain, just as there’s something wrong about his own. But he’ll hear about that in time, he figures. He’s OK with that. He has nothing to fear from Fai’s secrets, he knows that; he’s known it far longer than Fai’s known it himself. He’s shared this man’s bed and worn his ring and fought alongside him, back to back, far too long for anything else to be true.

Fai nods up at the palace. Evening is coming on, Kurogane realises, despite the colourless sky; the gold domes of the towers blaze in the red of the setting sun. Fai says, thoughtfully, ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, Kuro-chan?’

Kurogane doesn’t need to ask what Fai means. A welcome party and an invitation to tea with the queen isn’t how they’re greeted in most strange new worlds. He says, ‘Yeah,’ and casts an eye about the gardens: quick, practiced. ‘I don’t sense anybody hidden. How about you?’

‘No, nothing,’ Fai says. There’s that crease in his brow again. He reaches up to tug at his hair, thinking, thinking – it’s an old habit, subconscious, and one he’ll deny to his deathbed, Kurogane wagers. The silver of his ring stands bright against his skin, and the sight of that still makes Kurogane’s lips quirk up at the edges. He’s OK with that too.

But at last Fai stops worrying at his hair. He tosses his ponytail back over his shoulder, and evidently with it whatever concerns he has about their hosts, for he says, ‘Well, I hope the royal reception includes a royal bath. I can still smell the sheep in my hair.’ He leans out towards Kurogane. ‘Yours too, Kuro-shearer. How’s your shoulder, hmm?’

Kurogane avoids Fai’s eye this time. ‘Fine,’ he lies; his shoulder has grown steadily worse. He doesn’t reach up to rub it - he doesn’t do anything at all, just keeps his wings snapped tight against the arch of his back – but the ache has intensified now to a gnawing, bone-deep pain. It starts at the shattered joint and ends at mid-spine and it burns relentlessly through all the muscles between. But he’s not going to complain, because he’s lived through pain worse than this, and that’s all this is, pain, nothing that can hurt him – and he ignores, too, the shape that follows him along the path, the great hulking gargoyle of his shadow, twisted and grotesque in the last rays of the sinking red sun.

He strides ahead of Fai, the last few paces to the pavilion, and at the entranceway he stops. He takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe – in through the nose, out through the mouth, pushing out pain with each expulsion of air. His father taught him this, standing in the lee of the house, scant minutes after Kurogane, four years old and barefoot, had stubbed his toe on one of the courtyard pavers. No matter how many years pass since that day, the moment Kurogane closes his eyes and does this, he can hear his father’s voice, ‘Slowly, Youou, let it fill your chest. Not too much, kid, you might float away and what will I tell your mother…' And it helps, it always helps, but his shoulder still fucking hurts. He hears the crunch of Fai’s feet over the gravel behind him. Fai’s hand comes up to his shoulder, and he doesn’t say anything, but here, hidden from curious eyes, he gently massages into the muscle behind Kurogane's left shoulder, close to the attachment of his mechanical arm. The man makes a small noise of disapproval, no doubt feeling the spasm in the flesh beneath his fingers, but he doesn’t stop working, and Kurogane lets himself have this for a few seconds more. They both know they need to be inside, though; and when Kurogane opens his eyes, Fai steps forward to stand at his side. He says, ‘More later, Kuro-stubborn,’ in a voice that brooks no argument. Not that Kurogane feels inclined to argue much anyway; all pretence is gone now. He rolls his shoulder, once, twice, under Fai’s watchful gaze, and then they make their way, together, inside, to join Syaoran, where he stands with Mokona and the guards.

The captain has lost his frown now. He’s standing with the seer-girl on a dais of sorts – raised, and at the centre is a chair, lavishly padded and embroidered with coloured thread, suspended several feet off the ground from rich velvet ropes. It’s empty at present, but not too much of a leap to assume it’s designed for a princess. And just as Kurogane has the thought, the guards jump abruptly to attention. The captain stands a little straighter. A shadow is falling across the pavilion, and one by one, their heads angle up to see a winged woman, dressed in rustling silks and attended by half a dozen fluttering wing-people, drifting down towards them on silent golden wings. No-one speaks, the silence part of the spell.

She looks the part for a princess, anyway, Kurogane supposes; or at least, some part of his brain suggests Tomoyo would approve. He can’t quite see her face, from this angle, but there’s something familiar about her, all the same, and he’s trying to figure out what that is when she opens her mouth; sings a melody that takes him back to another world, another time.

To find happiness with you, she sings, and it’s a pure, sweet sound. Beside him, Fai stiffens, his odd-coloured eyes wide. His mouth hangs open a little as he stares. To be your happiness, so take me away, take me far…

The Princess sings on. Fai doesn’t move for a moment, he doesn’t do anything at all, but then, all at once, a smile breaks over his face, brilliant and true. It’s the kind of smile that makes Kurogane’s heart feel strange in his chest, rising, bursting; the kind that makes the corners of his mouth slant inexorably upward – and he doesn’t look away, because he kind of likes feeling like that.

Then Fai leans close, and says, quietly, ‘Kuro-blush has a soppy expression on his face.’ Glances up at Kurogane with smug mismatched eyes.

Kurogane huffs. Short-lived as it is, anyway. He tries to force the stupid grin from his face – he knows it’s not working, because Fai’s still wearing that smile, but, ‘You were gaping like a fish, idiot,’ goes some way to restoring his dignity, at least.

Fai just laughs, softly. The Princess is still singing: her notes have begun to turn to tiny flickers of golden light, drifting in her wake; a shimmering cascade as she descends into the heart of the pavilion. Fai turns back to watch the show, but he shifts closer, a tiny movement, just enough that Kurogane can feel the heat of his body. He’s given up fighting with his own smile – and he’ll never smile the way the mage does, but there’s a softening of lines that’s become comfortable, over the years; the proof of his contentment, or something like that.

Please take me to happiness.

The song draws to a close. The Princess lands on the dais, her attendants arranging themselves daintily to the side, and then there’s a quick bustle of activity as the captain and the seer-girl both move to take one of her hands. They escort her to the suspended chair, and Kurogane can see her face now. She looks just the same as she did in Outo, he thinks.

She smiles round at them all and says, ‘Welcome to the Nightingale Palace. As sovereign, it is my duty to offer sanctuary to all who wander onto these grounds,’ and Kurogane thinks, somewhere through warm haze currently fogging his brain, that’s probably one of the stranger royal notions they’ve come across in all the worlds. Still, she goes on, ‘And as sovereign, it is my pleasure to host you for as long as you remain here.’ She holds out a hand, then, and one of her attendants flutters over with a scroll. It's handed off to the captain, who brings it across to the edge of the dais. He eyes the four of them, dubiously, before entrusting it to Syaoran.

The Princess says, ‘You’ve arrived in good time, travellers. Be at ease, and accept this with the blessings of the sovereign.’ She’s smiling warmly now, her voice and posture less formal than moments ago, and in the pavilion, around them, there are low murmurs of conversation; evidently protocol has been observed, Kurogane thinks, or whatever the hell type of protocol sees a princess greeting strangers (that have shown up in her garden) with only a handful of guards for protection. But that’s their business. Kurogane leans forward as Syaoran opens the scroll, eyeing the thing warily.

The scroll, once it’s unfurled, is mostly harmless, for all that. He can’t read the thing in its entirety, of course, but there are enough letters he recognises to make out the basics: songbird, invitation, cage, honoured guest, tomorrow, and the most salient one, ball. It’s not a prospect that has him turning cartwheels, but there are worse ways to spend an evening; Kurogane can think of several from their last world alone. A night with decent food and decent booze, more to the point, might be welcome about now, though if they wake to the earring glowing and Mokona’s magics stirring, he won’t be sorry either.

His shoulder is still killing him.

Syaoran’s murmuring quietly with Fai now, pointing out parts of the scroll and Kurogane leaves them to that: the captain’s approaching, purposefully, with several of the guards from their welcome envoy. He says, ‘Please permit us to show you our humble lodgings,’ with a bow and another boyish smile. Kurogane nods, though he’s pretty sure humble isn’t going to be an accurate assessment; and half an hour he’s proved right, as he and Fai are ushered into a room bigger than their entire cottage in the last world; more white and gold, and a divan richly adorned with the same embroidered silks.

‘What about the kid?’ Kurogane says, suspicious; the prospect of a private room is tempting, for sure, but they’ve been here less than a day and they don’t know these people. Fai’s hand comes to rest of Syaoran’s shoulder, wordless, pointed.

The captain laughs and says, ‘Not much fun sharing with pair-bonded mates, in my experience.’ He sweeps along the corridor to another elaborate door, and one of his guards leaps forward to open this as well. He waves a hand at the interior. ‘This was going to be your room, kid, but I’ll leave it up to you.’

It takes Syaoran about half a second to look at Kurogane and look at Fai and the expanse of the bed standing between them; he says, quite decisively, that he will be perfectly fine down the hall, and adds, ‘Mokona, you can share with me, but no sheep impersonations tonight, OK?’

‘Mokona would never…’

‘Well, I don’t think it was one of the lambs bouncing up and down on my stomach in the middle of the night.’

Mokona gives up the pretence, peals of bright laughter; she’s still occasionally breaking into bursts of (unauthorised) flight, but the captain seems willing to turn a blind eye to this. Syaoran laughs along with her, his face open and warm, and Fai’s hand moves from the kid’s shoulder to his cheek, just briefly, before he smiles and lets him go.

Some things change, Kurogane thinks, but others never really do.

‘Does it hurt?’ asks Fai, alone, in the privacy of their room. It’s late now, the sun disappeared completely and replaced by a pale waning moon. The four of them joined the Princess for the evening meal – an elaborate series of dishes, each meatless and heavily spiced, served with a kind of fruity liquor that he’s pretty sure Fai consumed in equal measure to his food. He's pretty sure, come morning, some of the younger courtiers will regret their attempts to keep up with him as well.

Kurogane… didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, if he’s honest. He can recall Syaoran’s shining eyes as he accepted an invitation to the seer’s library; Mokona bouncing onto the shoulder of the captain, and the seer-girl reaching up to take her paw; Fai, his face lit up with warmth as he thanked the Princess for her song. ‘Such a beautiful melody,’ he’d said. He’d glanced across at Kurogane. ‘Will you sing again at the ball tomorrow night?’ and the Princess said she would.

He can recall the Princess inclining her head, curious, at the silver rings on their hands; Mokona chirping proudly that Mummy and Daddy got married, and the Princess’s sudden smiling comprehension as she made sense of that. ‘You are pair-bonded?’ she’d said, and the captain, at her left, had nodded before either of them could say a word.

Syaoran had said, his cheeks faintly pink, ‘You said that before – it’s not a term we’re really familiar with.’

‘Pair-bonded,’ the Princess said, smiling. ‘Mates for life.’

But the meal had drawn to a close, eventually, and the Princess had retired. Fai had looked at Kurogane with a faint crease in his brow; he’d asked Mokona for the soft leather pouch he keeps his oils in (and other things besides). And now Kurogane is lying on the divan, on his stomach – a practicality, all things considered – with Fai moving nimbly around him. His left wing is splayed gently to the side and propped up by what must be every pillow in the room – maybe a chair as well – and the relief this gives his shoulder is… good. He can hear the chink of an oil stopper as the mage settles beside him, and then there’s the warm, slick slide of Fai’s hands over his skin.

But, ‘Does it hurt, Kuro-sama?’ Fai says again. He hasn’t begun pressing deeply yet, his hands working, broad and light, across the taut, scarred tissue of Kurogane’s shoulder, but even this is enough to make Kurogane tense against the pain.

‘A bit,’ he admits. He closes his eyes and breathes and forces himself to relax. He hates this, hates feeling so useless and feeble and trapped in his own fucking body – but if he can’t be feeble in front of this man, he’s not sure where he can. Pair-bonded, the Princess said. Mates for life. Yeah, Kurogane thinks that sounds right to him.

Fai’s hands on his shoulder are still gentle. Kurogane knows from experience he can work much deeper than this: the man is strong, inhumanly so, and has a penchant for sticking his bony fucking fingers behind Kurogane’s shoulder blade, finding the most tender point and pressing there hard. But tonight he seems to have eschewed his usual toe-curling methods: his touch is slow and shallow and rhythmic and good, and Kurogane can feel the tension slipping away, lost somewhere into the space between Fai’s skin and his own. He feels as if he is melting beneath Fai’s touch; he can feel his taut, overworked muscle, his skin, shiny with scar tissue, softening, lightening, dissolving to nothing. He can feel the whisper-soft trail of Fai’s feathers against his legs, and he doesn’t know he’s fallen asleep until he wakes, a time later, to find the lamps snuffed out and Fai tucked against his side, snoring quietly.

He shifts slightly, trying out his shoulder. His wing is still propped up to the side, and it’s not fixed, but it’s a hell of a lot better; the searing pain has damped back to dull, persistent ache. He doesn’t move around too much – he doesn’t want to dislodge the pillow tower or jolt his shoulder and aggravate the fucking thing again so that he can’t sleep – but he reaches out, carefully, to rest his other arm across Fai’s back, draw him in close. Fai makes a small noise; he doesn’t wake, but he nestles into Kurogane’s embrace, all the same. This is normal. Kurogane closes his eyes. He strokes his hand, gently, over Fai’s smooth side – and he realises, as sleep starts to take him, that the softness against his legs is not a blanket but Fai’s feathers, that tumbling white plumage protecting them both.

The next day is lost in a whirl of unfamiliar routine and even less familiar faces. The ball is to take place in the Birdcage, Syaoran tells them, the heart of the palace and of the country itself; it transpires this is the same shimmering dome above the Butterfly Pavilion that the Princess emerged from the day before. Kurogane thinks of the height of the tower, thinks of Fai’s formless trailing feathers and his own wrecked shoulder. He says, ‘How do we get up there?’ and Syaoran’s expression says he’s been wondering the same.

Fai smiles and waves a hand. ‘I’m sure we’ll work something out, Daddy,’ he says, airily, ‘I bet Mokona would be the perfect courier if we asked very nicely.’

But the question isn’t resolved by the time one of the palace clothiers, and her assistant, arrive with an armful of silk. There are garments for all of them, she announces grandly – she has green wings to match her eyes, twitching as she speaks – and between them and her (and the entirety of the tower, if volume is any indication of intent) she’s done a fabulous job, given the short notice. She sends Syaoran, red-cheeked, off with the earnest assistant as valet; Kurogane can hear him protesting, as he’s bundled back towards his room, that it’s very kind of him, but he’s sure he can dress himself quite well…

The clothier turns her green eyes on Kurogane. He’s not sure he likes the gleam in them – in his experience, that look on a tailor’s face is generally bad news – but one look at what she’s made tells him the woman knows her trade. The silk she draws out for him is black, almost wholly, with a shape of something like a kimono, but more flowing, lacking the kimono’s clean lines: a cut, he has to admit, better suited to accommodate his wings. Accents of red flare at shoulders and throat, stark relief against the dark.

And Fai’s garments… Kurogane turns, having been left (mostly) to his own devices once the clothier explained where to put his arms - and warned him, with a threat of real violence, not to put his wing tips through the silk - and finds Fai, dressed in blue silks, his long, snow-white plumage flared behind him like a lace train. There are sapphires in his ears and a choker at his throat and on his right hand, that bright band of silver, the one that matches Kurogane's own.

Kurogane doesn’t care too much about appearances, really. He prefers simple things for himself, but yeah, he’ll admit there are things about Fai that makes the breath catch in his throat - and right now, those dark lowered lashes and the sharp angle of his hips, the faint bulge of his cock beneath the silk of his robe - right now all of that is pretty hard to ignore. Fai meets his gaze, a feline smile on his face, and the look in his eye reminds Kurogane that he is Fai’s. The urge to skip the ball and pull this man between his legs here and now is difficult to resist; if the clothier weren’t standing there, he’s not sure they’d make it out of door.

But she is, and they do, and they join Syaoran - having survived his overeager valet - now dressed smartly in green and black silks. Mokona, still flying illicitly, is draped in an embroidered silk shawl. They make their way to the pavilion, all four, and across the darkening evening sky they can see, from every direction, wing-people fluttering to the Birdcage up above. Flashes of teeth and silk and wings in the gloom.

‘We still don’t know how to get up there,’ Kurogane points out, but, ‘Wait a minute, Kuro-rin,’ Fai says. He points, and Kurogane looks to see Su, a little way off, talking to a woman with a missing piece of wing. Beyond them, leading to the terraces up above, there is a staircase of metal rods and shiny flanges and wooden beams, with a steady stream of wing-people moving up and down it.

Su catches sight of them. She smiles at the woman and makes her excuses and flits across to greet them, caged wings creaking as she goes. She says, ‘Oh, good, you’ve arrived! Let me take you to the ballroom.’ She leads them up the fairywork staircase and over the terraces, and Kurogane hears, as they enter, that now familiar refrain: so, take me someplace far from here. The Princess’s voice drifting, sweet, in the lantern light of the Birdcage.

‘Do they hurt very badly?’

Kurogane turns, caught by something like surprise. It’s quiet, mostly, in the pavilion, the noise of the ball up above strangely muffled and remote. At this time of night, the butterflies are nowhere in evidence, and the space is turned over to the moths, great luminous things with pale wings and feathered antennae. They drift lazily between the lanterns in an endless fluttering waltz. Kurogane’s been down here for… a while, away from the noise and the flurry. He’s got a bottle of some liquor that tastes suspiciously floral; and he’s kept half an ear out for Fai or the kid, but this voice belongs to neither. It’s the Princess, and now she floats down beside him, attendants trailing at a suitable distance. She gathers her own skirts, deft, and settles into her velvet swing, and after a moment it begins to move, soundlessly, nudged by the occasional beat from her wings.

She angles her face towards him, pleasant: she’s waiting for an answer. but Kurogane isn’t sure he likes the question. He says, ‘How do you mean?’ He keeps his shoulders perfectly square. Because Fai might see through that façade, but Fai is Fai, the exception to every rule – or at least, every rule Kurogane had ever set upon himself. This woman, however, is a stranger, barely met.

But, ‘Your wings,’ she says. She glances at them, her brow heavy with concern. ‘Your mate said they trouble you. Do they hurt very badly?’

Kurogane sighs. There might come a day, he supposes, where the idiot isn’t the cause of every awkward exchange he’s ever had in his life; he’s lost track of the times he’s been questioned about the sort of topics he always considered private - his preference for undergarments, one time, and another (more disturbing) his preference for Fai’s - and in the end the story always, always comes out the same: ‘That blond fella told me…’ ‘The tall, skinny one said…’ ‘Well, your husband reckoned lace, but I wouldn’t like to say we keep your size...’ Kurogane is used to this: that Fai has discussed his wings isn’t even worthy of an eye-roll. ‘It’s fine,’ Kurogane says. The Princess looks disbelieving, but Kurogane drinks his flower-wine and says nothing more.

For there’s nothing to be done about this. Nobody can change it; nobody can change his scarred, broken shoulder, roll back time to make him a whole man again. Kurogane… Kurogane would not accept it if they could. Because he’s seen where that leads, and besides, he has everything he needs already: quick blue eyes and clever hands and the warm weight of the man who possesses them against his chest every morning. Kurogane’s pretty sure he got a good trade for his arm. They’ll leave this world when the earring glows, not before, and that’s fine. Kurogane will endure it until that time comes.

She’s still considering his wings, though; there’s something pained in her expression, like she wants to ask more. But in the end she doesn’t, and it’s quiet for a bit then. Kurogane doesn’t have anything he wants to say, though he’s still curious about this country, about their almost foolhardy duty towards hospitality; in Kurogane’s mind, at least, half a dozen palace guards and a slip of a seer aren’t exactly the kind of security that ought to stand between a sovereign and armed strangers (and he refuses to think about what Tomoyo's opinion would be about that). But perhaps she seems to sense the direction of his thoughts, for at last she clears her throat and says, ‘I understand you prefer asking outright to our less direct methods.’ Her tone stays light, but there’s a challenge to it, all the same. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it is you wish to know?’

That’s fair enough, Kurogane supposes. He glances across at her, weighing it up, but he’s not afraid of this woman, pretty sure he doesn’t need to be. He says, ‘Well, why did you? Bring strangers into your castle. You could see we were armed, and you don’t have so many guards it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d meant you harm.’

The Princess laughs at that. ‘Kazuhiko was right about you,’ she says brightly, ‘but the hospitality of the sovereign is what makes us who we are. We are a small country, and proud. Our custom of sanctuary goes back generations. If anything, since I came to the throne, we’ve… tightened our measures.’ He gives her a look that says what he thinks of that. ‘It’s true, you know,’ she says, ‘Su insisted on it – and Kazuhiko, of course. The old practice used to be that sovereigns met those seeking sanctuary at the gate!’

Kurogane shakes his head. He’s long suspected some unseen cosmic force guides the steps of idiots – the utter ridiculousness Fai gets away with, regularly, is evidence of that all on its own. The fact this royal line has survived generations can only lend weight to the theory.

The Princess is still speaking. ‘Some of us are magic-users, like your mate,’ she says, ‘and we have seers amongst us too. Su, who you’ve met, and several others as well.’ She hesitates for a moment; when she speaks again, her voice is strange. ‘The royal line is touched with seer’s blood as well. Not strong magic, nothing like Su, or… But it’s useful magic, given our station in life.’ She gives a queer little smile, matching her voice. ‘We see our own death, in detail, do you see?’

Huh. Well, that’s a new one. Kurogane eyes her carefully. Maybe that’s useful for these people - Kurogane doesn’t know - but he does know it’s a burden, to see what will come to pass and stand powerless against it; he has seen this burden carried by Tomoyo, by Syaoran, by Sakura, by his mother. He’s seen it carried by Fai, his mate, as this world calls him; seen his terrible burden to bear along with all the other wretched things. And Kurogane wouldn’t wish that for anyone. There are some things, he thinks, maybe, that are better left unknown.

He can join the dots, though. He says, ‘So, you knew you weren’t going to be attacked by us anyway.’ He’s taking another pull of the flower-wine when she laughs and says, ‘No.’

To his credit, he doesn’t choke on it, just glares in her general direction. Her smile is playful again. She beats her wings once more to make the swing move. She says, ‘There was something I wanted, so I traded it away.’

‘To the witch?’ he can’t help asking, and her smile widens still.

‘Yes, though it was a long time ago now.’

She’s looking upwards now, towards the Birdcage, and Kurogane follows, to see what she sees. The captain is up there, with his spectacles; he’s stepped onto the terrace with the young seer-girl. The pair are talking quietly, their voices swallowed by the night. The Princess doesn’t look away from them, and her eyes are still laughing, but still, there’s something bittersweet mixed in with all the joy.

Kurogane grunts and says, ‘You wished for them, huh?’

That gets her attention. ‘That’s a secret!’ she says, winking, but again her gaze drifts upwards almost at once. She says, ‘Su is the most powerful natural talent we have. She’s incredibly strong: she’ll train the next generation of seers to better use their gifts. And she works so hard.’ The Princess’s voice is a tender, aching thing. ‘She works so hard and she never complains.’

Kurogane’s thoughts turn to Syaoran, who swallows his disappointment when every new world isn’t Clow; of Sakura who never cries when Mokona’s earring starts to glow. He shifts his shoulder again, trying to ease the pull on his tight, aching muscles. He says, ‘So, if you didn’t know, why trust us so soon?’

The Princess looks thoughtful a moment. Then, ‘Su and Kazuhiko tested you first: that was part of it, but I knew, you see. We all knew, because of your wings. Not everybody has wings like that, you know.’

Kurogane nods, taking this in. He’d wondered, in fact, if it had something to do with the mage, for it seems nobody else has feathers like that in this world. He says, ‘Is it because he can’t fly?’ and she looks momentarily confused. Then she laughs, bright and clear. She says, ‘No, your wings. They’re rare in our world. They’re… special.’

Kurogane doesn’t follow. The Princess laughs again. She says, ‘Our people are born without true wings; we have false wings - juvenile wings, I suppose - on our backs until we reach maturity, then they begin to develop.’ It’s about then that Kurogane realises they haven’t seen any little kids flitting about yet. ‘Nobody develops the same wings, not even twins. They are unique, the outward manifestation of our true inner self.’ And she beams at Kurogane, her eyes crinkling around the edges. ‘Your wings – dragonkin wings – only come to those with the desire to protect. They are wings of strength, of sacrifice. Special wings. Kazuhiko is the only one left with them now.’

She glances back up at the Birdcage, at the captain: he's still standing with the seer-girl, but he's looking down at the Princess now too. He raises his hand and waves, and Kurogane realises those mottled wings are the only ones of their kind in the room; the sole exceptions attached to his own aching back.

But now the Princess rises, taking her leave. She says, ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting.’ He looks, and she’s talking to Fai. He smiles at her warmly and makes her a bow, and then she’s gone, floating upwards towards the Birdcage, to the terraces where the captain and the seer-girl stand waiting for her.

Fai sits down beside him. He says, ‘Kuro-dragon left me all alone at the ball,’ and sniffs. There’s a smile twitching underneath his pout.

Kurogane sighs. ‘If you were there the whole time, why didn’t you come join us sooner?’ but Fai shakes his head. He says, ‘I wouldn’t listen in on your conversations with pretty girls, Kuro-suspicious!’ which is patently untrue, but he explains the nickname anyway; says the Princess told him about the dragonkin wings, earlier, after Kurogane slipped away from the ball. ‘I told her she should find you and tell you about it,’ he says: there’s something quiet and tender in his voice. ‘I know your shoulder isn’t the only reason they’ve been bothering you, is it?’

Kurogane supposes he couldn’t hide that from this man either. He turns to look at Fai, his mate; the man’s eyes are almost the same colour in the lantern light, and the smile on his face is so gentle, it makes Kurogane’s heart ache. He puts a hand to Fai’s chin and tilts his face up, parts his lips for Fai’s tongue to swipe lazily into his mouth. Fai makes a small noise into the kiss, and they do that for a bit, lips moving in a long-familiar fashion together. And after a while, Fai nips the tip of Kurogane’s nose. He says, ‘My wings have been bothering you too.’

Kurogane nods and keeps quiet, waiting. Fai shifts, wriggling slightly where he's seated in Kurogane's lap, bringing his tail of feathers up to spread over both of their legs. He reaches out to hold one of the long plumes, runs the scarred tips of his fingers through its snowy white fibres. He says, ‘There used to be birds like this in the castle gardens, before. Birds with tails like this, I mean. Fai and I used to watch them from our nursery window.’ It takes Kurogane a second to catch up, to understand. Fai goes on. ‘We always used to pester the nursemaids about going to see them: we weren’t allowed to leave the nursery, of course, in case we met someone and cursed them.’ Kurogane nods, and doesn’t bother to keep the scowl from his face. Fai runs one pale, long finger across the ridges of Kurogane’s brow, and says, lightly, ‘Eventually one of the serving girls let us out. I think she was scared about being in the room with us; she was probably only about 13. So we went down to the gardens, together, and we fed them scraps she gave us from the kitchens.’ And here Fai pauses for a moment, his smile stretching thin. The words stick, it seems, in his throat, for he swallows, once, twice, until he finally says, ‘Anyway, they all died soon after that. I don’t know what happened to the serving girl, we never saw her again after that.’

‘Idiot,’ Kurogane sighs, and Fai laughs softly at that. His smile wavers; it's smudged into something else by the crumple of his chin, and he rests his forehead against Kurogane's for a moment, quiet and still. Kurogane pays no attention to the anger roiling in his stomach, because that can't change anything, and he knows that Fai needs this - the release that comes with speaking words that have been hidden for so long; to speak of his past without fear of causing pain in turn.

Kurogane breathes deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He gestures at the feathers and says, ‘It doesn’t matter if they were the same.' He covers Fai's palm with his own, the plume caught in between. 'They’re yours now. They're part of you. That’s what matters.’

Fai lets go of his feather. He twines his fingers with Kurogane’s and nods, once. He says, very quietly, ‘Yes, that’s what I decided as well.’ He smiles, and it’s definitely one of those smiles. It’s enough to make the anger drain out of Kurogane, to make his heart swell, bursting, in the small space in his chest. Fai leans into Kurogane, warm and lithe, his weight angled carefully towards Kurogane’s good shoulder; and the pair of them stay there, just like that, together, as the sweet voice of the Princess drifts down in soft, tinkling light.

END

~the end.

Thank you for reading! How did I do?
Please score my fic according to these guidelines:
1. How in-character was this fic? (1-10)
2. How well did this fic handle the trope? (1-10)
3. How much did you enjoy this fic overall? (1-10)
Remember that you must provide some form of identification (a link to a blog or profile on another site will suffice) for your vote to be counted!

[Team Drama] (Wingfic) In Babylon

no subject