KuroFai Fic: Five Times + One

[kittenkin]

Title: Five Dead Kisses, Lying on the Floor
Author: Kittenkin
Rating: R
Spoilers: Outo/Edonis, Yama, Tokyo, Infinity, Nihon, Clow
Warnings: Romance/angst, vampirism, foul language
Summary: Five times they didn't kiss, and one time they did

Edonis' Fairy Park

Outo was a veritable paradise that offered everything to everyone. Despite their varied backgrounds, the country's administrative system had fitted the four (point oh-five) travelers easily into jobs appropriate for their talents and personalities. They were given a spacious and neatly appointed place in which to work and live, and found enough variety of clothing in the shops to suit each of them well.

The country was generous with information and assistance, not just resources, and all of its citizenry seemed very much aware of the ease and pleasantness of their life. There were no crimes being committed, nor even very many idlers looking for trouble to get into. Most everyone was cheerfully busy, with even the demon hunters throwing themselves into their work with enthusiasm like children on the hunt for play instead of being stained with the grim determination of contracted killers seeking to exterminate a threat.

Kurogane loathed Outo. Everything came too easily and what didn't come easily was only challenging because of annoying, irritating, petty little difficulties in the shape of blank-eyed little girls being coy about giving out information. A man became a man defined by the struggles he overcame. A world like this could only raise fat little piglets with success. Even the demons were strangely polite enough to never attack anyone but the hunters assigned to slay them, which was just one more unnatural thing about this soft-strange-silly world.

He hated the demons the most. They were everywhere, either rising up around him or on the lips of people around him. They were not like the demons of his home, with malevolent intent rippling off of them in tangible waves. They were more like animated shadows, with form but hardly any feel, and he found that he could not rely upon his unseeing sight to give him warning of attacks from behind and above. He had to rely on sight and hearing, and it irritated him because it was like battling puppets instead of the puppet master who was the true enemy.

Having to fight demons at every turn reminded him of his childhood and its abrupt end. Wasting his time on lesser enemies without having a clue as to who was controlling them reminded him of his frustrated, frustrating quest for vengeance. The unease that this unnatural world as a whole gave him reminded him of the way his life kept being turned upside down by mysterious others as if he was but a pawn on someone else's gameboard. He loathed Outo so much that he didn't think it was possible to loathe the place even one scrap more.

And then the wizard got himself overwhelmed, killed, and eaten. Not necessarily in that order. And Kurogane found that he'd been wrong; it had been possible to hate Outo more than he had before.

He refused to put the wizard's death on an equal plane with the loss of his father and the murder of his mother, but what he couldn't deny was the bitter, burning, seething rage that overtook him every time his unruly thoughts turned toward the blonde. Kurogane measured the hours until sunset and set himself to keeping his remaining companions safe, but his focus was shredded as badly as the little bit of red fabric tucked into his sleeve.

Kurogane had picked the remains of the cafe proprietor's neck ribbon up off of the floor on a random impulse. He would burn it later, and that would just have to serve as a funeral for the wayward wizard who had left behind no corpse to properly honor. The wizard who would now never need to fear his mysterious past catching up to him. The wizard who no longer needed to run and hide and lie and evade. He would never have to flee Souhi's bright edge again, never get to mangle Kurogane's name again, never smile again.

The aborted possibilities enraged the ninja, who knew - knew - that the man could have been so much more. There had been so much potential there. Instead of merely a traveling companion through chance, they could have been true comrades, battle-tested and -bound. Their quests could have been threefold, and not just the short-sighted wishes they'd made at the shop to go back to or run away from home; Kurogane could have used a man of the wizard's wit and talents in his quest for vengeance, and the ninja himself would have made a respectable - and willing - ally could the wizard have committed himself to making a stand and facing down his past. Instead of acquaintances they had become allies. Instead of mere allies they were becoming friends. Instead of friends, they could have been...more. They could have been something.

The wizard could have been stronger, braver, better. It had been in him already and only suppressed by lack of perspective or some other such thing. He could have been at peace; found it and made it and claimed it for himself. He could have been happy; truly and honestly happy. The wizard wasn't - hadn't been - stupid though he'd been an idiot. Kurogane felt that persistence and (im)patience could have done a great deal toward forcing those blue eyes to look forward instead of always peering fearfully backward, but it was useless to think of it now. He was dead, and so were the possibilities.

People grieved in different ways. Some broke down quietly, others screamed and raged, most wept and wailed. When deeply wounded, Kurogane looked around for something to kill, and so he was glad, so deeply satisfied to finally meet the elusive Seishirou and see in those cool, cold eyes that he need not waste pity or sympathy on this person. Two blooded swordsmen locked eyes across twisted space, recognized something in each other, and smiled. Kurogane cared nothing for the curse upon him at that moment; killing this killer - the opportunity to finally avenge someone he'd lost, someone important to him who'd been torn away from him when he hadn't been looking - meant more to him than his own strength.

And moments later when he caught sight of the wizard - alive - and saw that smile again and heard that voice again, he was too stunned and relieved and grateful to remember to even pretend to be offended at the nickname.

They separated from the teenagers in the next world temporarily, to go scouting around in the jungle for signs of civilization or a feather. The blonde was his usual self, filling the air with meaningless noise like he was one of the songbirds flitting about them. Kurogane just glared darkly at him while mentally sorting out all he'd learned about Outo and Edonis, and it seemed like everything was back to normal, or at least the way they had been before, until suddenly the wizard paused before slipping between two close-growing trees and tipped his head at him in a playful, curious manner.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

The wizard could have simply been querying about Kurogane's stony silence since landing in this lush, tropical world. Those blue eyes were open and seeking, however, and the ninja thought he could see questions swirling in the back of them; Were you sad when I died? Are you glad I'm alive? Don't care either way? Aren't you even going to say anything at all?

Kurogane was better with actions than words and he almost, almost just grabbed a fistful of that fluttery blonde hair and hauled the idiot in for a hot, hungry kiss that would have told everything the wizard wanted and didn't want to know. But he didn't move, only growled a dismissive negative before moving on through the underbrush, and cursed the little white bun's restrictive presence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yama no Kuni

He had more reason to curse her later, though for the opposite of her presence. Days passed, then weeks, and finally they began to count their time in Yama in months and there was still no sign of the kids or bun.

For both their safety's sake he taught the pretend-mute to recognize simple phrases and hand signals that they could use in battle. The wizard wasn't always within grabbing range nor were Kurogane's hands always free to do the grabbing. It was easier to be able to yell at the idiot to duck, or to signal to him that there were a whole bunch of enemy who needed to be decorated with fletching behind him. Days passed, then weeks, and by the time they began to count their time in Yama in months the two had perfected their partnership on the battlefield. They relied upon each other to watch their backs, and Kurogane trusted the wizard to stay attentive to the signals and commands through which he translated the general orders that came down.

When they were not at the castle in the sky, there were yet many demands that Yasha-ou and army life in general made on their time, but Kurogane still found hours to call his own. After their mounts had been tended to and their equipment cleaned, after the drills had been mastered and the meals eaten, Kurogane grabbed the wizard - or later, curtly ordered him to stay put in the private tent they'd been accorded - and took off on a search. The ninja's strength and swordskill had quickly won him respect in this new country, and he traded on it to gain information. But days passed, then weeks, and by the time they began to count their time in Yama in months Kurogane had to face the fact that there were no dreamseers or magic-users powerful enough to cross dimensions in this world. They were stranded.

Their 149th day was marked by their fifth New Moon feast, when the bright orb in the sky went full dark and travel to the castle was made impossible. They had become an accepted part of Yasha-ou's army long ago, and even the wizard's fair hair and strange mannerisms were now only fodder for occasional jokes and teasing from their fellows. But this New Moon feast, Kurogane stayed apart from everyone, only taking a bottle to avoid being constantly offered a drink, and stood in the shadows, watching the fire and thinking. The days had turned to weeks, and now their time in Yama numbered well over five months. There seemed to be no way out of this world without the bun, and though there was still a chance that the others might catch up to them, there was also the possibility that they were separated forever. It was time to decide.

"Kuro-seir," came the call softly from about his shoulder, and he glanced down. It had been strange, upon landing here, to hear things like "Kuro-zanth" and "Kuro-lili" and "Kuro-grou" come tripping off the wizard's lips. Learning that they'd become separated from the bun - again, damn her - was a nasty surprise, and it nearly drowned out the surprise of discovering that the little dumpling had even been translating the wizard's nicknames.

"We have to stay in this country, probably this region, just in case the brats do ever catch up to us," he said without preamble. The blonde head tipped to the side and the pale face next to him assumed the intent but uncomprehending look that the wizard always wore when Kurogane spoke quickly. The ninja had taught his companion some of his language, but when he made conversation at a normal pace, the blonde couldn't keep up.

"But we don't have to stay here, in the army," Kurogane continued. "Five years at the most, but with how well we do Yasha-ou may grant us a favor and make it two, and then we can get out. I'll keep teaching you the language and then we'll find something else. Something a little less pointless. Our pay will get us started, and...well, we'll see." Another year and a half at least in the army would give them enough to get a place of their own with enough left over to live on while they searched for work. It might be that the place itself would provide them the work; the wizard might want to run an eatery again, as he had in Outo.

He wasn't one for flights of fancy, but it was an idea he'd been tossing around for a while now and the details came easily to his mind. Kurogane was as determined as ever after vengeance and home, but he was also practical. If he was stuck here for now, then he was stuck here for now, and he wasn't going to waste his time fighting the same battle - someone else's battle - over and over, night after night. He would build a new life for himself, and who knew but that with improved communication with the wizard and more time to research and travel, they might yet be able to find a way to meet up with the others again, or at least to get back in contact with the Dimensional Witch. And between now and then, he imagined time well spent in hard work, good meals and someone to share all the joys and struggles with.

Kurogane had fallen silent and just stared down at his companion for a while, and slender brows quirked up at him now over curious eyes glittering darkly in the firelight. The pale face tipped the other way to redouble the unspoken query, and Kurogane automatically reached out to brush away the curtain of hair that fell across the wizard's face. Compared to the way they had been months ago, it was a ridiculously intimate gesture, but one that he'd been making more and more. Without words, they needed eye contact and expressions and body language to communicate, and he'd threatened to shave the man bald - while brushing away those long bangs - many times in the past few months.

This time, however, the tan hand didn't drop immediately away. Kurogane caught up a section of that silky hair between his fingers with a thoughtful look and something in the gesture or look made the breath catch in the blonde's throat. Not that Kurogane heard it - his ears were preternaturally keen but they couldn't catch a little noise like that over the crackle of the fire and the dull roar of revelry all about them - but he saw the slender frame still under that dark tunic. Obeying impulse now instead of thought, Kurogane leaned in ever so slightly, making it seem almost like he was merely shifting his stance for comfort's sake, but also tugged on that captured lock. Pale lips parted and this time he leaned in toward them without making any pretense of this being anything other than what it was.

"Kuro-sama?"

He froze, and blinked his eyes all the way open again, and that breathy little question formed into his name was repeated, but with a bit more confusion.

"What did you call me?" he asked, uncertain if he'd actually heard it clearly.

"I called you Kuro-sa--oh! You're speaking...I mean..." Fai exclaimed, and then quickly glanced around with one hand over his mouth to see if anyone else had caught his stumble into speech. It gave Kurogane a split second in which to recover from the shock of hearing the wizard speak in perfect Nihongo, and also to strangle down that thick, bitter feeling of regret that rose up in his throat.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tokyo

The others left him alone with his unconscious companion, and at first he just stood near a column, leaning his hip against the stonework since his back wouldn't bear too much more abuse without permanently damaging some of the muscle tissue. He had to stay fit in order to protect his companions, aid them in their quests, and finally return home and resume his duty.

The ninja had failed spectacularly in the first item today, and it rankled. He'd been doing nothing, literally sitting on his ass babysitting a sleeping princess, while the clone - the kid, the kid, the kid he'd grudgingly grown to like and respect, the kid he'd taken under his awkward wing to train - had ripped the wizard's eye out of his skull with bare, bloodied fingers and eaten it. Kurogane cursed the clone, cursed the mysterious murderer behind so many of their tragedies, and finally cursed the wizard himself for allowing hope and love - the things so often disclaimed and denied - to bind his hands when it came to protecting himself.

If you loved someone, and hoped for a good future for them, then you lived and did your best to be a part of that love and future. You didn't sacrifice yourself to them and hope things turned out all right.

Kurogane found himself angry at even the bed that the wizard - vampire - was laid out upon. In this world stripped of everything that could be considered a luxury, great concrete blocks served as mattresses and the pale, still form lying atop this stone slab resembled nothing more than a sacrifice readied for burning. He wanted to stride over there and rip the cloak away from the slender body, shake the man awake, and punch him for being so ass-backwards about embracing life. Anything to break the impression of an altar or pyre or gravestone.

But because any abuse of that too-much abused body might send the wizard right back over that thin line between life and death, Kurogane did none of that. Jerking away from the column that he leaned against, the ninja walked silently across the room and sat down on the edge of the stone, turning it from a table into a bed. Bodies were laid out on various surfaces, but concerned visitors didn't sit down at the edge of them to peer at their friend's pale faces unless it was a bed. And bodies didn't rise from altars or pyres or graves, but they did rise from sickbeds.

The wizard was fragile but resilient, an idiot but wise, weak but strong...he would rise again, - phoenix - and Kurogane would stick closer this time. Be near enough to catch him if he backslid, protect him if he wavered, help him up if he fell. The hot-tempered ninja's last overture - which, in his style had shaped out to be more of a harangue - had seemed to reach past those cool eyes and fixed smiles just a bit. Ice, when thick enough, could withstand the heat from a fire and refuse to melt, but it couldn't shut out the light from the fire entirely. The wizard could dance around and deny him all he liked. Kurogane was persistent, and knew he was, no knew they were getting closer.

He sat and thought and vowed and watched, and when his thoughts calmed he noticed that with the bandages and all that unruly hair, he could barely see any of the wizard's face. One tanned hand braced against the edge of the stone bed for balance while Kurogane leaned over and used his other hand to carefully swipe at those long sunsilk strands. Acid rain and the lack of opportunities to groom had done some damage to the fair hair, and it took several careful passes before enough of the tangled-sticky strands were cleared away so that the wizard's face was better exposed to view.

And then Kurogane finally noticed the frown.

The high brow was creased as the man's eyebrows knittted together, and a thin sheen of new sweat glistened over the too-pale skin. Kurogane mirrored the expression and brought his hand closer to check for fever, but as if sensing the ninja's intent, the wizard moved his head away restlessly. A low noise of distress bubbled up from within that thin chest clad in a black turtleneck but was checked by a mouth still shut tight, and Kurogane lightly smoothed his hand along the wizard's hair, thinking that the man was suffering a nightmare. Events had certainly provided enough fodder for them to be plentiful.

The body under his watchful gaze stilled, and Kurogane repeated the caress, red eyes roving over that careworn face for clues. Where his eyes went, his hand soon followed, failing to smooth out that stubborn wrinkle between tightly knit eyebrows, brushing over a parchment-pale cheek as if he could share some of his blood and warmth, carefully pulling a strand of hair out of a fold in the bandage. His hand fell away entirely, then, to curl into the cloak that separated them as he leaned closer. He'd vowed to stay close to this idiot who needed him and whom he admitted now to himself that he needed right back, and on impulse changed out comforting caress for ceremonial kiss. Dark lashes began to shutter closed, but then snapped open again as the wizard made another restless writhe.

The frown was deeper than ever over eyes screwed tightly shut and flaring nostrils, and the moan escaped this time from lips that parted to let them escape, showing Kurogane the gleaming point of a spit-slick fang. His wizard was not suffering under a nightmare that he couldn't escape. His vampire was disturbed by the scent of blood that clung to his injured prey. Kurogane jerked himself up and away, and those lips fell closed. He stood, and the vampire let out a softly shuddering breath. He backed away from the stone table until he fetched up against a wall, and watched with bile in his throat as the lines of his Predator's face smoothed out in peaceful slumber once again.

Even unconscious, the idiot managed to put distance between them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Infinity

Sometimes, when his patience snapped, the idiot wasn't the only one to suffer.

The twins had been rather unhelpful when it came to information on the proper care and feeding of a newly created vampire. Purebloods themselves without any practical experience of a single-Prey vampire, they merely told him that the blonde would know when he was hungry and would act accordingly.

But that was exactly what Kurogane was afraid of.

He could accept that fledgling vampires weren't the same as newborns; hungry from the moment of birth. He also theorized that his Predator wouldn't need blood in the same amounts and frequency as he had regular food and drink; otherwise Kurogane was looking at a very short career as Prey. But he didn't know what to look for in terms of signs of hunger, and the vampire was not exactly receptive to his overtures any longer. (Had he ever been?) Kurogane had presumed, and was being punished for it. He understood, and respected the decision and distance though he also hated it with every fiber of his being.

It was a bitter, biting thing to get exactly what he'd so often wished for and find that it was not for his happiness after all. The exact opposite, in fact. The wizard was in a serious frame of mind, respected his personal space and called him by his full name...and Kurogane hated it. He supposed it was an improvement over the laughing pretense that nothing was wrong, but he still found himself missing the bright laughs - there had been some real ones in there, he knew it - and the cheerful, expectant cries of his mangled name.

Wishes were dangerous things. He'd wished the wizard would stop calling him those idiotic nicknames and now would have given much to just hear "Kuro-sama" one more time. He'd wished for the blonde to live so that his hopes for the future - their future - need not die on that stone table and look what it had gotten him. He'd wished to go home. He hadn't known what the journey to get there would be like.

Two weeks after they landed in Infinity, one hour after their first official match, Kurogane snapped. The blonde had been cooly insistent all this time that he wasn't yet hungry, but a shallow cut on Kurogane's left arm had made the wizard's remaining eye flare golden in an instant, and the battle hadn't allowed the man to hide it. There was no opportunity to fake a nap, bury his nose in a book, or even just studiously keep his back turned to the ninja for a while. The fight was over within minutes but Kurogane stuck close to the vampire all the way back to their apartment, even keeping the vampire on his left, near the wound, to press the point and keep that golden eye in view.

He hounded and herded the vampire about the apartment and when the blonde would have escaped into his bedroom Kurogane even followed him in there, bluntly stating that they needed to talk. Or rather, that Kurogane needed to say something and the other was going to listen, like it or not. Probably not.

"Drink," he ordered, and Fai reacted predictably. If the ninja had accused him of thirsting, he might have lied, but he was cornered now in more ways than one and reduced - worn down - to honesty.

"No."

Kurogane growled at him for a stubborn idiot and in a flash of silver, a blade he'd snuck from the kitchen was in his palm. Anyone else would have backed away from what looked like a threat to maim or murder, but the blonde knew and lunged for him with a repetition of his denial, but in a far more panicked tone.

Too late, for all his speed and agility. Kurogane laid his wrist open before Fai could stop him, and the vampire hissed as the coppery-sweet smell of blood hit him. It hit him physically as well; the blood spraying out and flying from the edge of the blade as it flew across the room, the blonde wrenching it out of Kurogane's hand and Kurogane letting him, and the drops spattered and bloomed across the pale skin of the vampire's face and neck like roses.

One fat drop hit high on the lips and then trailed down into the darkness of Fai's open mouth. A soft, hurt, lost-hungry-wanting cry slithered out from between glistening fangs and then the vampire was on him, grabbing him by wrist and shirtfront and slamming him up against the wall hard enough to send books tumbling off a shelf and a small mirror crashing to the floor to shatter into pieces.

Letting the soul escape, Kurogane thought randomly as he tried to get his footing, a superstition from his childhood flitting across his mind as he watched the sparkling shards dance over the floor. Everything that didn't have to do with the vampire seemed a little bit far away; he heard as if across a great distance the bun's voice raised in an anxious query but it was followed by the kid's, and thankfully no one opened up the door to see if everything was all right. Nothing was all right. He could feel his own heart thudding in his chest and his pulse against the blonde's greedy lips and could almost imagine that he felt it thrumming through his Predator's body as well. The vampire drew hungrily at his wrist, worrying at the shallow cut with tooth and tongue, inelegant and crude now in his near-starvation.

It lasted a minute or two before the mouth at his wrist was only passively letting blood flow into it, and after a breath Fai suddenly swept his tongue wetly across the wound and pulled away. Kurogane cut his eyes from that bowed head to his wrist and quirked an eyebrow at seeing the wound already half-sealed, only weeping slightly. From all the gnawing he'd been suffering he'd almost expected to see a gushing, ragged tear. That red-tinged tongue darted out again to give the injury a couple more licks, and he watched in strange fascination as his skin healed itself, slowly but far faster than it ought to have, taking seconds instead of hours to form a fresh scab.

The vampire rose to his feet, neither graceful nor clumsy, rather wavering up like a wisp of smoke or some other insubstantial, ephemeral thing. Kurogane grabbed him, half to convince himself that the wizard was still there and half to keep him from running. He'd force-fed him; now he wanted to talk this thing out. Contact had been re-established, and not the accidental brushes of living together in a small space or the necessary bumps of battle, and he felt that if he could just hold on to this person for a few more minutes, they could bridge that distance between them.

The blonde allowed himself to be dragged in close and even took a heart-stopping half-step closer so that there was hardly a finger's breadth between them. Thoughts of talking fell to the floor and shattered like the mirror. Kurogane leaned away from the wall and bent his head, bringing his hands up to tangle in that blonde hair, exulting within himself over the way the other man reached up to cling to him that the blonde should be allowing this, chasing after it himself, finally admitting what it was that lay between them instead of denying and fighting and fleeing.

"I want more," Fai whispered, and at almost the same instant Kurogane thought to himself, so do I and also saw his mistake in that ferocious golden glittering eye that was suddenly lifted up to him. The vampire surged upward and instead of connecting their lips, sank his teeth hard into the ninja's neck. Kurogane jerked back despite himself but his Predator only followed along, fangs hooked into tense flesh and lean arms locked around the taller's shoulders.

The blonde's lips were hot against his skin, their bodies were locked together, arms and legs and fingers tangling and teeth, and it was what he'd wanted and exactly the opposite. He couldn't pry the suddenly-stronger man off and the last thing he remembered before blacking out was Fai telling him that he hated him, over and over, like a ward to keep away the darkness.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Nihon

The night was growing old, but his mind was still too full for sleep, and among the things crowding his thoughts was the knowledge that they had days yet before they would need to travel. Kurogane knew his body well; he could feel that he was restored and rested enough that he could suffer one sleepless night and still be in fighting form when they were to finally depart on what might well be the final step to their quest to undo what had been done to the princess. And final, gods be gracious, because they would defeat the manipulative mastermind behind so many of their losses, not because they would be defeated by him and be unable to fight anymore.

Kurogane didn't go in for blind optimism but he didn't jump at shadows either. He had a faith of his own, built on a thousand different stones that together formed a firm foundation that he stood on and grinned confidently from. The gods' favor, the good blood running in his veins, and his father's sword a comforting weight in his hand. His power, the kid's will, the wizard's wit. The desert princess' inborn luck, the Dimensional Witch's cooperation, - such as it was - and his own Tsukuyomi's blessings. The soft, real, open and honest and loving look the wizard had given him earlier that day as they stood together under the soft snowstorm of cherry blossom petals.

That last wasn't exactly a solid asset on which it was proper to gamble their lives, except that it was. He scorned to put it in so many words, but that look was armor and weapon and heart for the ninja. Emboldened with the memory that he had that to fight for, to earn and keep safe and look forward to, he felt that he could have gone off to battle wearing a thin cotton robe, armed with a toothpick. He wouldn't, because he wasn't a total fucking idiot. But he felt like he could.

The shadowy figure in the moonlit room paused in his musings and glanced at the door leading to the outer room that connected to the hallway.

"Come in," he said curtly for the second time that night, and there came a soft breath like a laugh on the other side of the paper screen. The door slid smoothly open and the wizard - only a vampire now but still and always his wizard - slipped inside; a wisp of fair hair, pale skin and light blue cotton with bits of inky cloth visible here and there, like leaf-lace across a moonbeam. His visitor crossed the room, silent save for the soft sweep of his robe across the matting, then stood quietly by his bedside a moment as if uncertain whether to sit or stand or speak or what, and suddenly Kurogane was reminded of his first waking after Celes.

"I'm armed this time, in case you feel like punching me again," he warned dryly, and there was that breathy little laugh again that tugged at the corners of his mouth and spread warmth like good sake in his belly. The threat of violence seemed to melt the tension right out of the blonde's frame and he folded himself down easily onto an unclaimed section of the ninja's bedding.

"I finally sent Syaoran to bed," Fai reported, voice soft so as not to carry too far in the pre-dawn hush that had settled over the castle. Kurogane grunted, a little noise that somehow managed to convey both approval of the fact that the young man was attending at least minimally to his body's needs for rest and gratitude to the wizard for acting as catalyst and messenger.

"Bun's with the Mikado," he mentioned, offering up a bit of intelligence of his own. "Probably curled up dead drunk in a bowl of sake." He knew otherwise, and the faintly sorrowful cast to the wizard's face bespoke the fact that Fai knew it too, but the man said nothing to shatter the pleasant mental image. Instead, he dropped his eyes to the sword that lay across one of the ninja's knees, seemingly unsurprised to see it there.

"Ginryuu," Fai said softly, and it was more like a reverent greeting than a remark of identification.

"You remember?" Kurogane asked, eyebrow cocked. He'd only mentioned the name once, at the Dimensional Witch's shop when he'd been forced to give up the copy Tomoyo had commissioned for him as payment for the ability to cross worlds and dimensions. He wouldn't have thought it would be a detail that would have stuck with the wizard, considering that they'd just met and especially knowing what he did now about what Fai's hidden role had been in their group.

"No, I'd forgotten," Fai replied, shaking his head slowly and reaching out to lightly stroke one fingertip across the intricately crafted dragonshead. "The princess Tomoyo told me while you were sleeping that there was a gift in readiness for you, to replace what you'd left behind, and then told me about your father's sword." The faint smile lingering about the wizard's lips curled impishly into a grin and that now-golden eye flickered up to crinkle at him, and he wondered how it was that a one-eyed man could still convey the idea of a wink without actually doing it.

"I cheated Yuuko-san a bit," Fai admitted, and Kurogane's admiration for the man's talents rose another notch. "I used my magic once more after I made the deal with her for your arm, to re-cast that storage spell on your right hand." The ninja blinked at this, and then looked down. He already had his hand resting on the scabbard, but this time he consciously held Ginryuu, and the magic he'd only used once before activated again to seal the sword into his body. He stared at his palm for a while even after the last swirls of blue light had faded, thinking of how badly drained the wizard had been at the end of their battle in Celes and wondering what it had cost the man to cast this one last spell.

Red eyes rose back up to settle on the pale form seated so near him. As he had so many times in Yama, and fairly often in Piffle out of sheer habit, and LeCourt a few times when the brats weren't watching, and Tokyo when the man was sleeping and in Infinity when he was dreaming...Kurogane raised his hand and brushed Fai's bangs aside so that he could better see that face. Back in Yama he'd found himself missing the clear blue that the wizard's eyes had been, but this molten metal color held no bitterness for him. The magic was gone, but the man was whole and healthy again, just as Kurogane was now missing an arm but felt complete and right.

"Thanks," he said, and let his fingertips linger for a second at the delicate arch of brow just over the blonde's remaining eye to say what he wasn't saying. Thanks for everything. I'm grateful to you. I take pride in you. You are worthy and you are worth it. The mischievous grin that the wizard had worn while confessing to using up a bit of the magic he'd promised the Witch gentled again into the soft, sweet smile that Kurogane was already tagging as his favorite - and his - but Fai said nothing, only reached over and curled his fingers into the cool metal of Kurogane's left hand.

They stayed like that for a while, and Kurogane didn't even know when they began drifting closer, gently tugging, shifting, softly rustling the bedding they sat on and never breaking eye contact even as they brushed against each other and settled themselves down again like two birds fluffing and shuffling close on a single twig. They were alone, sheltered by walls and silence and resting peacefully in the calm before the final storm, and yet Kurogane hesitated, and did not slip his fingers free of the little strands of hair they were tangling in to cup the back of that blonde head and draw the wizard close for a long overdue kiss.

Timing was everything, and now was not the time. Such a thought wasn't even fitting for his general philosophy; Kurogane generally took opportunities as they became available. A man could never know when - or if - the next one might arise. And yet there it was, lying between them, and the wizard seemed to feel it too. He'd scooted close so that they were knee-to-hip, thigh-to-thigh on the blankets, still held on to Kurogane's artificial hand with enough pressure that the ninja could feel the resistance even as the digits lay passive, and the look in that bright eye spoke the same yearning that thrummed through the dark-haired man's blood. But though his eye was raised, his face was tipped down and away just a bit. It was subtle but easily read; he was not begging or even inviting a kiss.

They had some days yet before they would need to travel again, but days were only days. A kiss...a simple, chaste kiss to promise more for the future would only take a moment. Even were he to take the wizard to bed, it need not delay or hinder their departure. But days were only days, and what Kurogane wanted to start was an entire future. They needed to go forth and reclaim it first.

He would not celebrate their victory before they'd gained it. He would not even promise nor hint at what the two of them already knew existed and would be between them. He would wait.

They ended up with their foreheads touching, eyes closed and lingering second guesses showing in the way one or the other of them would move slightly, nuzzling at a cool cheek or brushing noses. Their movements never brought their lips dangerously close, however, and the tension in the air that had mounted as they shifted closer slowly dissipated. Time passed softly and without further speech.

Eventually Kurogane laid himself down to slumber, not just rest, and Fai gingerly settled down against the ninja's right arm, careful not to jostle the injuries which, while as neatly mended as well as the castle healers could make them, were still sore and liable to tear open without care. Kurogane traded out blonde strands for slender fingers and Fai's other hand remained tangled with metal plates and cables over the taller man's midriff. They fitted themselves neatly together, never stopped touching but kept their hands between them, and slept.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Five dead kisses, lying on the floor
One kiss to tell it all and a thousand more

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Clow

His mechanical arm had not given him the same pains when it had shattered as a flesh and bone limb would have, but the root-like connectors that had allowed him to use the piece of machinery as an extension of his body hadn't exactly weathered such violent shocks very well, and had needed to be cut, dug and dragged out of his shoulder one by one. Add to this all the other abuses he had suffered, and Kurogane was hardly in any better shape the day after their return to Clow - the restored Clow - than he had been upon his return to his home country a scant couple of weeks ago.

The wizard had come out of it a bit better, the kid even more so, and the princess had been nearly unscathed. Physically, at least. Kurogane was thankful that they were all doing well, but he got a bit surly when he was ordered to stay quietly in bed for no less than ten days to let his body recover from the battles and surgeries it had undergone. While there were physicians to attend him and medicines to heal him, Clow was not Piffle with its advanced technologies or Nihon with its powerful restorative and regenerative magics. Time and nature had to fill in and do what the healers could not, and that meant Kurogane had to be patient.

It was not so bad as he'd darkly predicted to himself, nor did he break himself out of his own sickroom after only three days, and these things were due to the wizard imposing a confinement on himself to the very same room. The blonde forbade all interruptions save for such necessary visits as healers come to change dressings, servants carrying in the next meal, or Sakura and Syaoran and Mokona, and even these last were only allowed in on the condition that Mokona burp up a small but fine bottle of alcohol each time she came to visit. The blonde even politely kicked the king and queen away from the door, asked them not to come again until Kurogane was better recovered, and somehow made it sound as if it were out of concern for them instead of a selfish desire to keep Kurogane all to himself.

All this was rather impressive, but the wizard's initial entrance into his room had started off less than spectacularly. Battered and bruised and still seeping blood from a dozen open wounds, he'd staggered in, leaning on the princess of all the undersized people in the country and Kurogane had nearly come off his bed in concern that the two blondes were going to topple over and crack their heads open on the floor. With an additional influx of healers surging into the room after the foreign prince and desert princess, practically buoying them up and along with chatter and anxiously fluttering hands, the room was suddenly full to bursting and yet all that Kurogane could hear was his own thundering pulse, and all he could see were two feverishly bright, glittering golden eyes fixed on him.

Shit.

He hauled himself up into a seated position and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, more to get attention than anything, and when one of his own healers squawked and dashed over to protest any movement, he grabbed the man by the throat and dragged him in close.

"How much blood can I lose right now without dying?" he rapped out, voice taut and tense, red eyes still locked on his wizard's - vampire's, gods damn that Witch - desperate gaze.

"Wha-- None!" the startled physician choked out, but Kurogane growled and gave him a quick shake. His bound and bonded Predator was halfway across the room now, shaking and pale, so pale and fuck they hadn't even thought about this possibility.

"HOW MUCH?!" he roared, and this time he tore his gaze away to burn a vicious hole right into the now-terrified healer's head. The man gaped and then raked his wide-eyed gaze over Kurogane's form, murmuring to himself while rapidly calculating his patient's weight, the amount of blood he'd lost already, the hours since surgery, and other things that tested the ninja's nonexistent patience.

"A...a liter. Maybe!" The healer's voice pitched higher in a confused panic, having no idea why his patient should be asking such a question with such a look in his eyes but knowing that no good thing could be at the source.

"It'll have to do," he muttered, more to himself than the healer whom he threw away from himself, clearing the path between the bed and the starving vampire as best he could. The princess' voice, startlingly clear and commanding, did the rest. He saw the blur of bodies part from between them to give him a clearer look at that drawn, desperate face and clenched his jaw at what he saw.

Starving, and so afraid. Not of dying of thirst but of being unable to control it. They both remembered the vampire's first feeding and he saw in the blonde's stricken look that he was afraid of this being his last, and Kurogane shifted his eyes to the princess instead. She was already looking at him and though this one wasn't the princess they'd traveled so long with, she had dreamed and she had seen and she had been there with them, with Fai, and understood.

"You're going to have to stay," he said to her, low and quick, and she nodded.

Five more paces, and the vampire would be on him. The ninja was lying across all the sheets and too tired to shift himself, so he reached up and ripped down one of the gauzy bed-curtains that hung next to him, the metal circles it had been suspended from ringing and shimmering overhead as he wadded up the material next to him. He was covered in bandages but he might very well need more.

Four more paces. Kurogane shifted back against the pillows piled high against the headboards, and he distantly heard the slam of the doors closing after the fleeing healers with a heavy sort of finality.

Three. Even as Fai shook his head in terrified denial, those trembling hands were reaching for him.

Two. It's going to be okay, he promised silently.

One.

His world contracted into a bright ball of pain and then exploded outward, all his nerves going supernova as his vampire quite literally fell upon him. The blonde was slender but still six feet tall and sleekly muscled; his weight was considerable and full half of it landed on the ninja. There was hardly anywhere that he wasn't wounded, and as he felt stitches give way and cracked bones creak, Kurogane had a sudden, unpleasant mental image of a ripe plum bursting under pressure. He was crushed back into the pillows by the impact and then hauled up out of them by desperately clutching hands raking at his scalp, neck, shoulders, upper back; anywhere Fai could get purchase. Almost before he could register the sob breathed hot against his neck, there were two fangs piercing into him, tearing his neck open and letting life flood hot and sweet and salty into his Predator's mouth.

His eyes had slammed shut against the pain, but as he crushed the groan that had escaped him between gritted teeth, he pried his lids open and sought out the princess. She hovered there by his bedside, arms still outstretched as if waiting for her once-knight to return to them. Both Kurogane's hands were clutching the blonde convulsively to him, as if there were some danger that he might escape, but he carefully unclenched one and gave it to her instead.

There was no way to measure how much blood he was losing in those deeply drawing sucks and gulps followed by shallow little gasps and moans, so Kurogane focused on the cold slowly creeping up his limbs and the dizziness closing in on him. Fai was hot against him, practically burning through the bandages and clothing to sear his skin wherever they touched, but the chill was inexorable and moved steadily into his core. It grew harder to focus on staying focused, so Kurogane bounced his attention around a bit, first nuzzling into that fluff of golden hair tickling at his cheek to catch a whiff of that snow-and-spice scent that still lingered under the dry desert air and cloying tang of bloodied salves, and then running his free hand down that slender body to feel the trembles start to recede as the vampire grew fixed on his feeding, the greedy suckling at his neck growing less urgent, less frantic.

One corner of his mouth quirked up a bit as Fai gave a deeply contented hum, like a low purr, while shifting his arms to cling instead of claw.

Truth be told, he'd felt a faint tinge of regret at the thought that there would no longer be this tie between them. There were other bonds, of course, and ones less unnatural and unhappily forged, but this was still a part of who and what they were to each other while they traveled, and he'd been illogically loathe to give it up. Bloodletting held no joys for him and honestly it was an annoyance to have to worry about the mess - Fai never spilled a drop; that was only Kurogane bullying the blonde - and yet there had been pleasure in it too. Not in the pain, but in the contact. The union.

When he closed his eyes, the wizard burned brighter and hotter than ever in his field of vision, and he could see himself in those bright whiplash flares and crackling sparks. When he closed his eyes, he could see them in him and he exulted in it. With his eyes open, he could see his Predator draped over him or surging up under him or straining against him, but with his eyes closed, he could see the two of them together.

Kurogane's eyes drifted shut, and the princess let fall the hand grown lax between her fingers.

Struggling up through layers of sleep, the ninja hazily felt himself jostled about and tried to growl irritably at being so rudely awakened. He didn't quite manage to wake entirely up to deliver that wordless threat, but he did peer blearily from under one half-raised lid, and saw something rather odd. The princess and idiot were probably drunk again (Outo? no, that was so long ago) for they were wrestling like children right in front of him. The little girl had jumped on her knight-errant from behind and seemed to be trying to haul him over backwards. Stupid, thought Kurogane chidingly. All that weight on her and she'd just be pinned, but there she was, with one arm hooked around the wizard's throat and one pale hand covering the man's mouth. Bright red ribbons trailed from her fingers and Kurogane wondered where she'd gotten them (wrong, they're mine, that red is mine), but dozed off again before he could ask or even think to kick them off of his bed. (...bed?) He would yell at them later.

He opened his eyes to find himself still propped up against a mound of pillows, but with the bedding straight and smooth and all the bed-curtains properly hung once more. As he turned his head to glance around the silent, empty room, he could feel new bandages pulling at the skin of his neck. He also had six feet of lanky blonde curled up next to him, fair head pillowed on his thigh.

Not the worst way to wake up.

Fai's awakening was slightly less pleasant. Kurogane flicked him hard on the forehead and the blonde came startling awake. Surprise, irritation and realization chased each other across that sometimes-so-expressive face, and then contrition came crashing down over it all, and Kurogane sighed to see it.

"Kuro-sama..." Fai began, but the ninja cut whatever it was that was about to fall out of those pale lips right off.

"It's all right. I'm all right, you're going to be all right, and so are we," he said, and then mentally dared the idiot to make a fuss. He could see a hundred and one responses jostling for position in those wide eyes, blue again like the sky and sea and nothing in this world, and then snorted when the wizard just picked one word to respond with.

"We?" Fai repeated. Questioned. Teased. Asked.

Kurogane didn't even growl a reply; he just rolled his eyes and put the conversation into the ground by grabbing the man by the collar and swiftly hauling him in close for a kiss. Not the kiss he'd wanted to give him after Edonis, when he'd wanted to just show the idiot what he felt and what he wanted and what they could be. Not the kiss he'd wanted to give him in Yama, when he'd been uncertain but hopeful and wanting to ask with a soft brush of lips if Fai would be willing to start a new life, and with him. Not the kiss he'd wanted to give him in Tokyo, when he was afraid and trying to seal over all of the wizard's wounds with his own will. Certainly not the kiss he'd wanted to give him in Infinity; all lust and possessiveness. And not even the kiss they'd held back from sharing in Nihon, when they'd known and yet waited, not yet able to step over the edge they'd come to.

This was a kiss for now, for who they were and had become together. For what they wouldn't have been able to become without each other. Everything he'd ever wanted to say...you're strong, you're brave, you're someone I can admire and I do, I'm watching and I'm listening and I'm here, I'm sure of you proud of you part of you, I see you know you need you love you want you have you...everything was in this quick, confident grab and drag and press of lips.

When Kurogane grabbed him, Fai's smile broke wide. When Kurogane dragged him close, Fai already had a hand splayed out on the sheets to support himself as he leaned in. And when Kurogane kissed him, Fai kissed right back, right away, and it was as if they'd been kissing for years already. No hesitation, no quick breath of surprise, no awkward bump of noses, no hasty clash of teeth. Neither a quick chaste peck nor a lustful, hungry devouring. They kissed, and kissed again, and by the time they parted Fai had squirmed in close to sit right next to him, practically leaning over into his lap and only still upright because he had a hand planted firmly on one of Kurogane's thighs. Or because the ninja had given in to his fixation with all that flyaway blonde hair and had both hands fisted in it.

Kurogane took a breath and leaned back a bit, eyeing his wizard - his wizard - in an admittedly self-satisfied manner. He thought of saying something, but as he watched those blue eyes sparkling merrily at him he decided he'd already said quite enough, and drew the other toward him again. They kissed until the ninja got dizzy from a combination of lust and inadequate blood supply, then slept tangled together until the princess arrived with food, drink and a small huddle of master healers. Kurogane endured the healers while the blondes plotted together, and after Fai underwent a brief examination himself, the two began their convalescence together.

They traded a thousand kisses over the course of ten days, stopping only to sleep, let Kurogane eat and then Fai drink, and take turns terrorizing the healers with impatient glares while one or the other was having their dressings changed. Kurogane supposed he'd suffered worse confinements. Fai said he'd never been happier.