2008 Summer Contest Entry
Category: Read It
Rating: PG-13 (strong lime)
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai, Syaoran/Sakura
Betas: HG~♥ and songofthehawk
Theme: Yes
Title: "Bring This Ship Into The Shore"
Summary: What happens after everything you're destined for is over?
Spoilers: Up to manga chapter 193.
“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for
It’s time to bring this ship into the shore
and throw away the oars, forever.”
- REO Speedwagon
BRING THIS SHIP INTO THE SHORE
There’s something a little sad about watching Fai sit on the rim of the balcony, making friends with a princess it seems they’ve known for months, but not. He’s wearing the kimono they brought from Nihon and he’s barefoot, testament to the fact that he shouldn’t be up at all. Kurogane will shout at him about it later, but for now he watches from the doorway as Fai smiles and his mismatched eyes crinkle while his fingers walk across the stars.
“That one is called The Milk Maid,” he’s saying, his golden hair haloed by the moonlight. The constellation gleams above his thumb.
“It’s called the same here,” the princess replies. She leans on the balcony next to Fai and Kurogane wants to think he’s seen this moment before, but he hasn’t. This Sakura has never sat under evening skies and counted stars with Fai, she’s never made up silly names for them or giggled with him or fallen asleep in his lap after one of his ridiculous stories.
She’s never felt Fai’s blade slice through her abdomen.
Maybe, Kurogane thinks, it’s not so sad after all.
“Fai-san, which one is your world?” Sakura asks curiously, searching the heavens. Kurogane watches carefully but there is no crack in Fai’s expression, no welling of sorrow in his gaze. That wound is almost closed now.
“It’s not up there anymore, Sakura-chan,” the mage replies, smiling softly when the girl looks at him in confusion. “Wherever you and Syaoran-kun and Kuro-sama are - that is my world now.”
The princess’ mouth curves and Kurogane feels the warmth of it even from a distance. She reaches out and clasps both of Fai’s hands between her own. “You are a very kind person, Fai-san. I feel like…like…” she says and pauses, her forehead lining with effort as one trying to remember a dream upon waking.
This time something does flicker across Fai’s face but it’s gone before Kurogane can identify it. “Like we’ve always been friends?” Fai supplies and Sakura’s expression clears.
“Yes!” She looks up at him with an earnest gaze, a touch of pleading in her voice. “You and Kurogane-san will stay here for awhile, won’t you?”
“Until we both are healed,” Fai promises. “Speaking of which, we better sneak back inside before Kuro-wan finds us out here. We’ll be scolded!”
Sakura laughs and Fai smiles and Kurogane backs away, wondering what’s behind it.
“What was it?” Kurogane asks suddenly. Fai blinks and glances over at him, startled out of quiet contemplation. The lawns of Tomoyo’s castle are empty but for them. Water from a stone fountain gurgles musically nearby.
“What was what?” Fai asks, folding his hands into his long sleeves.
“Your name,” Kurogane says steadily. He doesn’t look at him. “What was it?”
Not long ago, Fai would not have answered that question, and even now he feels himself tensing reflexively, folding inwards like one of the paper shapes Tomoyo makes. It has been years, so many years, since he’s thought of himself as anything other than ‘Fai’. Fai hadn’t died that day, it had been…
“Yuui.” The word escapes him on an exhale, a fragile string of syllables that taste strange in his mouth. He can’t recall who Yuui was, what he liked, what made him happy. That man is a stranger to him. He can only remember Fai.
“Yuui,” Kurogane repeats, and suddenly the name is warm and beautiful and not so distant. It glistens out of sight, waiting. Fai wonders if Yuui has been sleeping all this time, somewhere deep inside him.
Fai wonders if maybe Kurogane has woken him at last.
The Clow castle is sun-warmed and comfortable, despite its lofty ceilings and elegantly curved walls. At night, when the desert cools, the air doesn’t turn chilly, almost as if the daylight has seeped into all the crevices and heats the place from the inside out. It’s a good place to recover from a battle that has left them - and others in far distant worlds - still reeling.
Kurogane is rather better off than most. His mechanical arm had been repaired and Yukito, the mage-priest, had given it skin that matched his own in shade and texture. His other wounds had been wrapped and dressed and were healing. They certainly did not keep from making his nightly rounds, a habit long ingrained in him from their travels in strange places.
With measured steps, he walks with Ginryu at his side and checks on the kids, first stopping at Syaoran’s door - the king having placed him in a room as far as architecturally possible from Sakura. The boy is still awake and is writing in a book, a feather quill in one hand, and Kurogane has a brief sense of déjà vu - but that was the other Syaoran, he tells himself, the archeologist.
“You should be sleeping,” he tells the kid, crossing his arms as he comes to stand by Syaoran’s shoulder. The boy smiles, a slow curve of his lips that seems somehow too old an expression for one so young.
“I’m writing a letter to my father,” he says. “Fai-san said he would send it for me, to that world.” Kurogane arches an eyebrow. That’s news to him. Fai is hardly fit to walk around the castle, let alone use inter-dimensional magic. What is the idiot thinking?
Looking at Syaoran’s wistful expression though, Kurogane knows exactly what Fai is thinking. Damn him.
“How’s the leg?” Kurogane asks gruffly, changing the subject. Syaoran puts a hand over his right knee cap.
“Better. Yukito-san did his best. He says a few more days and I won’t need to use the crutch.” It’s leaning near him against the desk. Kurogane had made it for him to replace the crude one he’d thrown together at the ruins.
Kurogane nods, waits a brief moment, and then turns towards the door again. “Get some sleep,” he says again, over his shoulder. “Or I’ll bring a dose of whatever it is they’re giving Fai. I hear it’s not so bad if you hold your breath.”
He doesn’t have to see it to know Syaoran’s face is stricken with the thought and his dutiful yes! follows Kurogane satisfactorily out the door.
Sakura is next and Kurogane has to take three flights of steps and one archway to reach her room. The door is half open when he arrives and he frowns momentarily before pushing it open the rest of way. All is well though. Sakura is asleep and there’s nothing for Kurogane to do put pull the covers up and quench the candle flame with two fingers. He closes the door on his way out.
His and Fai’s chambers are just down the hall and Kurogane doesn’t bother to knock on the mage’s door but lets himself inside. The room is dark but for the moonlight that pools in through the open windowsill. There’s a sitting area by the windows and Fai is there, bare feet half-curled beneath him as the night wind ruffles blonde hair. He turns when Kurogane closes the door and smiles the smile that makes Kurogane’s chest tighten, but in a way that makes him want to smile in return.
“Come look at the stars, Kuro-sama,” he says, and his voice is not the giggly, teasing voice the ninja remembers from the beginning. It’s Fai’s voice, still amused sometimes, but mostly smooth and light and real. “They’re very clear tonight.”
Kurogane crosses the room to the windows and feels the temperature drop a little. The desert gets cold at night but Fai has ever been immune to it, a remnant of Celes and its frigid ice castles. His golden eye shines as he tilts his head back to look up at the sky and Kurogane follows his gaze but sees nothing more than what he has seen every night since arriving there. After a moment, he speaks into the quiet.
“Sakura was happy tonight,” he says, and Fai laughs a little, sweet and steady.
“I thought I felt you there,” he replies easily. His gaze drifts for a moment. “She likes for us to talk to her. I think it makes her feel like… she was with us, somehow.”
Kurogane grunts in acknowledgement and they spend another few moments there in the moonlight. Kurogane likes their silences now. It’s peaceful - a word he would never have thought he’d ever associate with Fai. The mage no longer feels the need to fill every moment with chatter, lest Kurogane have a chance to see past his fragile façade. Now, if Kurogane looks at him, Fai looks back and not away.
Yuui, Kurogane remembers suddenly, and he turns the name over in his head. It’s a gentle name but he knows Fai won’t use it. Not yet. The things he’s lost still haunt him in the night.
“Is Syaoran-kun alright?” Fai asks.
“What’s this about you helping him send a letter to his father?’” Kurogane grumbles, remembering what he’d meant to bring up in the first place. “Two days ago you couldn’t walk properly and now you’re ready to cross dimensions?”
Fai tilts his head at him. “I’m not going to go there, Kuro-sama, but I can send a messenger there with his letter. My magic recovers more each day. I’m sure I’ll be able to do it.”
Fai isn’t lying to him but Kurogane can read between the lines. “But it’ll drain you,” he replies shortly. He frowns down at the mage. “You don’t owe anyone anything, idiot. Let the priest send it.” It takes a moment but Fai finally nods and Kurogane relaxes. He leans over and shuts the windows, putting the latch in place. “Come on, it’s getting colder.”
Fai rises with a little sigh and shuffles across the room to his bed. His walking is better, but he still moves sometimes as if his side hurts him. He sits on the edge of his bed gingerly and Kuro reaches over for the crystal bottle of potion on his nightstand.
Fai’s hand closes over his wrist before he can reach it.
“I don’t want any.”
Kurogane’s eyebrows furrow for a moment before he shrugs and straightens. It just means he’ll leave the connecting door between their rooms open tonight.
He waits until Fai has settled before retreating to his own room, barely managing to keep from asking if the mage is hungry as he does so. Fai no longer needs him.
Not that way, at least.
The blade with the bat on the hilt impales him just beneath the rib cage and he coughs blood at the force of it, crimson droplets splattering Kurogane’s face which is caught in a expression of such horror that Fai’s only response is to smile.
“If you die, I die, remember?” he croaks, and cries out as Fei Wong Reed jerks his sword free again. The same sword that had imprisoned Syaoran and threatened Sakura.
The same sword that had killed Kurogane’s mother.
“Out of the way,” Fei Wong orders. “A pawn should know its place.”
Fai, somehow, is still on his feet and he turns, standing between Fei Wong and Kurogane, blood dripping to the tiles under his feet. His eye burns gold.
“It’s right here,” he says hoarsely. His nails grow into claws.
See, Kuro-sama? If you die, I die.
So this is how I live.
Early the next morning, Fai sits in Yukito’s solar, haloed by sunlight, and admits one of his greatest personal failings.
“I cannot heal.”
Yukito leans forward a little, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together like a man contemplating a serious puzzle. “Why not?”
Fai’s fingers trace the pages of the book in his lap. “I read the spells, but I can’t remember any of the words, after. I lose them.”
Yukito is quiet a moment. “I wonder…”
Fai sits forward a little. “What?”
“Hitsuzen,” he answers. “Have you ever thought that perhaps there is a reason you can’t do healing spells? Weren’t there many times in your journey where an ability to heal would have changed events? Kurogane-san’s arm? Sakura? Maybe even the other Syaoran’s heart?” The priest’s eyes soften. “Your brother?”
Fai startles before reminding himself that Yukito had once pressed his fingers to Fai’s forehead and seen his memories.
“Hitsuzen,” Fai repeats softly and Yukito nods, an understanding look on his face.
“Hitsuzen.”
“Then,” Fai says slowly, “do you think I could learn now?”
Yukito answers carefully. “It depends. Is the purpose for your inability to heal finished?” It’s a rhetorical question and the priest gets out of his chair and crosses the room to kneel by Fai’s. “Here.” He runs a finger over a single line of text. “This one won’t require much effort. It heals small cuts.” Yukito slices the pad of his thumb with the edge of the page and smiles encouragingly. “Try it.”
Fai takes a breath, looks down at the book, and hesitantly writes a single word in the air.
Something explodes. Yukito is thrown back across the solar into the furniture and Fai drops to the floor, out of breath and as weak if he’d tried to dimension hop four times in a row. Eventually the ringing in his ears stops and Yukito scrambles up onto his elbows, his glasses askew.
He starts to laugh.
After a minute, Fai joins him weakly.
Yukito’s paper cut is gone.
“Of all the ridiculous things to try,” Kurogane rants at them when he finds them. Yukito is still on the floor, as is Fai, though now they’re sitting together, their backs against the feet of Fai’s chair. “I know you don’t have any common sense,” he snaps, pointing at Fai, “but I thought at least the priest would know better.”
“Now, now,” Yukito says, standing up and brushing off his clothes. “There’s no harm done.” He very carefully doesn’t look at the overturned furniture and tapestries that have crumbled to the floor. “Fai-san, you feel alright, don’t you?”
“Yes,” the mage answers slowly, putting a hand over his side. “I’m just tired, I…” He gives Kurogane a somewhat sheepish look. “I didn’t actually think anything would happen.”
Kurogane huffs but leans down to put his arms under Fai’s back and knees, lifting him effortlessly. Fai gives Yukito a little wave.
“Thank you, Yukito-san,” he says, “for the lesson.”
The priest waves back. “Anytime, Fai-san.”
It’s only when they are safely down the hall and Yukito can no longer see them that Fai allows himself to deflate, his head resting against Kurogane’s shoulder.
“I’m very tired, Kuro-rin,” he says, and feels the ninja’s arms tighten just a little.
“Then go to sleep, idiot.”
“Kurogane-san?”
“Mm?”
“Do you think the other me is happy?”
Kurogane looks up.
Sakura is only a few feet away, determinedly picking tiny purple flowers from a rather thorny plant. Kurogane had agreed to go with her outside of the castle as Syaoran had been working on his letter with Fai. They’d gone to a sandy scrub of land outside the marketplace where Sakura had found her flowers and where Kurogane had sat down to polish Ginryu.
Now he puts the rice paper away and slides Ginryu back into its sheath. It’s a moment before he answers.
“I think so.”
Sakura looks at him, green eyes imploring. “Why?”
It should really be the mage talking to her about this. They’ve always been the closest - well, Fai had been the closest to their princess, but this one is different.
It’s hard, sometimes, for Kurogane to remember that.
“Because I believe that when you die, you are at rest.” He holds the princess’ gaze steadily. “And she’s not alone. They’re together, wherever they are.”
Sakura nods once, looking a little tearful. “Do you think…Do you think she knew she would have to…”
“Disappear?” Kurogane supplies, and then wishes he hadn’t. The princess bites her lower lip. He clears his throat. “She wanted to protect us. It was her choice.”
Sakura nods again and she looks away, downwards. Kurogane gets to his feet and comes to stand next to her, one hand falling awkwardly to her shoulder.
“She wouldn’t want you to look back,” he tells her. “Her future is yours, now.”
He watches her contemplate that for a moment and is soon rewarded with a small, watery smile.
“Thank you, Kurogane-san,” she says, and lifts a fragile violet blossom. “Do you think Fai-san and Syaoran will like these?”
He snorts. “If they’re from you, I can’t see why not.”
Sakura’s smile grows.
It’s with a deep and fierce satisfaction that Kurogane watches Syaoran thrust Ginryu through the bastard sorcerer’s heart. Fei Wong Reed has the audacity to look surprised, as if he has never imagined a future in which his wish wasn’t granted. Syaoran’s face is grim with determination and there is blood running into one eye.
Kurogane has never been more proud of him then he is at that moment.
As Fei Wong breathes for the last time, Sakura’s glass prison breaks and Syaoran turns to go to her. Kurogane moves as well, leaving Ginryu where it’s at, a silent sentinel to the final convergence of so many destinies. He goes instead to Fai, his shoes crunching across shattered mirror shards.
The mage is lying on his side, his gaze fixed on Fei Wong’s still form. His golden eye shifts to Kurogane as the ninja drops to his side. His blue one, the one that has returned to him, is hidden by loose, blonde hair.
“I’m no longer a pawn,” he says, quite clearly, despite the blood that drenches his clothes. Kurogane reaches over and pulls Fai up against him, holding him as he once did in the basement of a skyscraper, when Fai had given everything to return a boy’s heart.
“My mother is avenged,” Kurogane says quietly.
Fai closes his eyes but pale fingers brush Kurogane’s cheek ever so lightly, a comforting gesture. And Kurogane stands and carries the mage out of that twisted pocket of time, to where the priest waits, to where the princess walks, blinking, back into the world.
The ground of the inner garden is littered with empty bottles of alcohol and wrinkled blankets. Sakura had wanted to have a picnic and, since Fai was not quite well enough for a trip outside, she’d decided on the garden - the only green Kurogane has seen since coming to Clow. It was a magical place, supported by the priest’s spells and the innate workings laid down by Sakura’s father.
They had eaten and talked and laughed and Mokona had hidden himself in Kurogane’s clothes and it had felt like all the other nights they had spent together. It had felt right.
Now Sakura lies curled up next to Fai, spots of color on her cheeks and a content look on her face. One arm is tucked up against the wizard, fingers resting lightly on his shirt as she dreams. As for Fai, the mage lays on his back with a crown of purple flowers in his hair, a disheveled prince sleeping soundly, without nightmares.
Kurogane watches them for a long while, remembering other times and wondering how many more nights they’ll have, or if this one will be the first of the last. Almost, he doesn’t want to wake them, but the hour grows late and it’s too cold for the princess to sleep in the garden.
He has only to walk over to Fai’s side for the mage to open his eyes, feeling his presence. He blinks sleepy and makes a sound in his throat.
“Is it time to go?”
Kurogane nods and Fai sits up, gently disentangling himself from Sakura so that Kurogane can scoop her up. The mage stands and goes to wake Syaoran, linking his arm through the boy’s as they start back to their rooms.
They drop Syaoran and Mokona off first, the white meat bun still asleep in the kid’s shirt, before taking Sakura to her chambers. Kurogane lays her down as carefully as if she’s made of something infinitely fragile and Fai tucks the covers around her, brushing a lock of hair from her face.
“Good night, Sakura-chan,” he says.
Kurogane closes the door softly behind them.
Fai’s arms wind around his neck so smoothly that Kurogane barely knows something is happening until the mage’s voice sounds near his ear, making him jump.
“That felt like the last time we’ll put the kids to bed,” he says, and there’s a melancholy note in his voice. He’s standing on his tiptoes, his cheek against Kurogane’s jaw, his body pressed against the ninja’s.
The scent of desert blossoms fills Kurogane’s head and it’s all he can do to answer. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, and finds himself holding Fai closer, arms wrapping around the other man’s slim form. “We’re not going anywhere yet.”
And he says we’re and Fai makes a sound, like happiness unlooked for, and Kurogane can’t help but kiss him, flowers and all.
Fai doesn’t miss feeding from Kurogane. It had felt too much like taking, stealing away Kurogane’s life just to keep his own. That wasn’t the case, of course, but it had still felt that way, sometimes.
Now that his eye has been returned, Kurogane is no longer his prey and he no longer needs blood in order to live. His magic sustains that part of him now and his vampire instincts have gone to sleep somewhere in the corners of his mind. He no longer heals at an abnormal rate and can not make his fingernails grow into claws. Only the gold of his left eye remains to remind him of what he had once been.
Fai does miss being able to feel where Kurogane is, to know without looking if he is in a room.
Maybe now it doesn’t matter though.
Curled up against a lightly snoring Kurogane, Fai has no need to look for him. The ninja is right there, one arm thrown haphazardly over Fai’s middle, their feet tangled together under the sheets.
Maybe now Fai won’t have to look further than the space at his side for Kurogane’s tall, steady form.
It’s a comforting thought.
“Kuro-sama,” Fai manages, between breathless kisses, “maybe we…should…go somewhere…mmmmm…less-“
“Shut up,” Kurogane mutters, but his hands are gentle as he pushes Fai down on the table in the library. Books and parchment are shoved aside and Fai’s hair glows like spun sunlight against the red mahogany.
Fai laughs in the back of his throat and runs his hands underneath Kurogane’s shirt, feeling the smooth, toned skin underneath. Kurogane’s mouth moves to the curve of Fai’s shoulder, insistent, hungry.
Fai hopes they remembered to lock the door.
“Yuui…” Kurogane half-moans the name as he comes and Fai gasps, his body filled with Kurogane’s warmth, his mind filled with Kurogane’s voice.
Never has his name sounded so loved.
“Why are you crying?” Kurogane’s thumb smooths over his cheek afterwards and the ninja is frowning a little, doubt and worry crowding into his gaze. Fai catches his hand and leans into it, letting it cup the side of his face.
For a moment he doesn’t know quite what to say. No words seem adequate enough for everything Kurogane has given him.
He settles for, “I’m happy,” and watches as Kurogane’s expression clears and the ninja leans down to kiss him as if it’s their first.
And maybe for Yuui, it is.
Days pass.
Kurogane practices sword forms with Syaoran, working out the kinks in his bio-mechanical arm. They duel until they’re sweaty and tired and covered in sand, but Syaoran’s eyes are alight again and every day Kurogane seems surer of himself.
Sakura and Fai applaud from the sidelines. Fai is much better, full of warm smiles and tinkling laughs and little cat faces on the edge of his papers. He is studying a language, one with complicated looking characters. He shows them to her sometimes, sounding out the corresponding word and Sakura always compliments him though she has no idea if he’s right or wrong. She just likes sitting with him, listening to Kurogane lecture Syaoran about technique in the background. It feels like this is where she is supposed to be and, after so long of not being anywhere at all, she doesn’t want to let it go.
Kurogane and Fai haven’t said anything, but she senses that they are saying a slow goodbye. Something has changed in the last week and the two of them seem settled now, as if something has been decided. She’s too polite to ask what it is but she’s curious. Whatever it is has made Fai decide to study and sent Kurogane back to work with his sword. And sometimes, just sometimes, they look at each other in a way that makes Sakura blush and glance elsewhere.
If Syaoran sees it too, he doesn’t mention it.
She supposes it’s inevitable. Kurogane has his own world, another princess he’s sworn to, and though once she thought Fai might remain in Clow, it’s clear that now he will go with Kurogane. It wouldn’t be right otherwise, she thinks. Kurogane is meant to stay with Fai, and Fai is meant to stay with Kurogane.
She’ll miss them terribly, but it’s time for her to live now, too.
Syaoran’s brown eyes catch hers from across the courtyard and he smiles, a bit ruefully, a smudge of dirt on one cheek while Kurogane barks at him to pay attention.
Sakura’s heart fills to the brim and she smiles back.
It’s time for them to live.
“I feel like we’re forgetting something,” Fai says, brows drawn together. Kurogane sighs.
“That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
“It’s as true now as it was before.”
Kurogane feels his eyebrow start to twitch. “More importantly, WHY IS THIS THING IN MY CLOTHES?” He pulls Mokona out of his sleeve by its ears.
“Mokona is hitchhiking!” it squeals, giggling wildly. Kurogane glowers. Fai grins.
“I knew we were forgetting something.”
They say goodbye on a sunny hill of sand.
Syaoran is solemn but he smiles and clasps arms with Kurogane and allows Fai to hug him with feeling.
“Thank you, Kurogane-san, Fai-san, for everything you have done,” he says, and bows formally. Fai tilts his head, heart aching, and Kurogane huffs slightly.
“Just remember to keep your wrists loose, kid,” he says, and Syaoran rises, looking up at his teacher.
“I will.”
Then it’s Sakura’s turn and there are tears in her eyes when she hugs Kurogane, the big ninja hunkering down a little so she could reach. He pats her back clumsily and doesn’t quite know what to say.
“You’ll be okay now,” he finally tells her, and she gives a little nod. Then she is flinging herself into Fai’s arms and they are both crying and Sakura tucks one last violet into his shirt for luck.
“I will miss you, Fai-san,” she says, her voice hitching. Fai smiles with his heart and Kurogane feels the healing in it, feels his own soul smooth over with that warm glow. And it’s then he realizes why Fai has never been able to heal before now. He wasn’t made to heal the wounds you could see.
“I’ll miss you too, Sakura-chan,” Fai murmurs. “I’m glad I got to meet you-“ his glance encompasses the boy as well- “and you, Syaoran-kun.” He steps back a little, releasing Sakura with one last squeeze. “Please take care of each other.”
“We will,” Syaoran answers solemnly, and he comes to stand by Sakura’s side, their fingers intertwining without thought.
And then its Mokona’s turn and only after does the multi-colored warp of dimensions whirl around them, creating a wind that ruffles their clothes and hair. Sakura and Syaoran are waving and Fai waves back even as his free hand finds Kurogane’s.
They’re still holding hands when they arrive. Mokona is gone but a little purple flower still rests over Fai’s heart and Kurogane thinks they’ll never really part, not really.
“Welcome home, Kurogane, Fai-san,” Tomoyo says, as if she’s known all along that Kurogane would bring a wizard back with him. And maybe she has.
Fai inclines his head and when he straightens, his eyes are very bright.
“Please call me Yuui, Tomoyo-hime,” he says.
And he smiles.
THE END.
Rating: PG-13 (strong lime)
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai, Syaoran/Sakura
Betas: HG~♥ and songofthehawk
Theme: Yes
Title: "Bring This Ship Into The Shore"
Summary: What happens after everything you're destined for is over?
Spoilers: Up to manga chapter 193.
“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for
It’s time to bring this ship into the shore
and throw away the oars, forever.”
- REO Speedwagon
BRING THIS SHIP INTO THE SHORE
There’s something a little sad about watching Fai sit on the rim of the balcony, making friends with a princess it seems they’ve known for months, but not. He’s wearing the kimono they brought from Nihon and he’s barefoot, testament to the fact that he shouldn’t be up at all. Kurogane will shout at him about it later, but for now he watches from the doorway as Fai smiles and his mismatched eyes crinkle while his fingers walk across the stars.
“That one is called The Milk Maid,” he’s saying, his golden hair haloed by the moonlight. The constellation gleams above his thumb.
“It’s called the same here,” the princess replies. She leans on the balcony next to Fai and Kurogane wants to think he’s seen this moment before, but he hasn’t. This Sakura has never sat under evening skies and counted stars with Fai, she’s never made up silly names for them or giggled with him or fallen asleep in his lap after one of his ridiculous stories.
She’s never felt Fai’s blade slice through her abdomen.
Maybe, Kurogane thinks, it’s not so sad after all.
“Fai-san, which one is your world?” Sakura asks curiously, searching the heavens. Kurogane watches carefully but there is no crack in Fai’s expression, no welling of sorrow in his gaze. That wound is almost closed now.
“It’s not up there anymore, Sakura-chan,” the mage replies, smiling softly when the girl looks at him in confusion. “Wherever you and Syaoran-kun and Kuro-sama are - that is my world now.”
The princess’ mouth curves and Kurogane feels the warmth of it even from a distance. She reaches out and clasps both of Fai’s hands between her own. “You are a very kind person, Fai-san. I feel like…like…” she says and pauses, her forehead lining with effort as one trying to remember a dream upon waking.
This time something does flicker across Fai’s face but it’s gone before Kurogane can identify it. “Like we’ve always been friends?” Fai supplies and Sakura’s expression clears.
“Yes!” She looks up at him with an earnest gaze, a touch of pleading in her voice. “You and Kurogane-san will stay here for awhile, won’t you?”
“Until we both are healed,” Fai promises. “Speaking of which, we better sneak back inside before Kuro-wan finds us out here. We’ll be scolded!”
Sakura laughs and Fai smiles and Kurogane backs away, wondering what’s behind it.
“What was it?” Kurogane asks suddenly. Fai blinks and glances over at him, startled out of quiet contemplation. The lawns of Tomoyo’s castle are empty but for them. Water from a stone fountain gurgles musically nearby.
“What was what?” Fai asks, folding his hands into his long sleeves.
“Your name,” Kurogane says steadily. He doesn’t look at him. “What was it?”
Not long ago, Fai would not have answered that question, and even now he feels himself tensing reflexively, folding inwards like one of the paper shapes Tomoyo makes. It has been years, so many years, since he’s thought of himself as anything other than ‘Fai’. Fai hadn’t died that day, it had been…
“Yuui.” The word escapes him on an exhale, a fragile string of syllables that taste strange in his mouth. He can’t recall who Yuui was, what he liked, what made him happy. That man is a stranger to him. He can only remember Fai.
“Yuui,” Kurogane repeats, and suddenly the name is warm and beautiful and not so distant. It glistens out of sight, waiting. Fai wonders if Yuui has been sleeping all this time, somewhere deep inside him.
Fai wonders if maybe Kurogane has woken him at last.
The Clow castle is sun-warmed and comfortable, despite its lofty ceilings and elegantly curved walls. At night, when the desert cools, the air doesn’t turn chilly, almost as if the daylight has seeped into all the crevices and heats the place from the inside out. It’s a good place to recover from a battle that has left them - and others in far distant worlds - still reeling.
Kurogane is rather better off than most. His mechanical arm had been repaired and Yukito, the mage-priest, had given it skin that matched his own in shade and texture. His other wounds had been wrapped and dressed and were healing. They certainly did not keep from making his nightly rounds, a habit long ingrained in him from their travels in strange places.
With measured steps, he walks with Ginryu at his side and checks on the kids, first stopping at Syaoran’s door - the king having placed him in a room as far as architecturally possible from Sakura. The boy is still awake and is writing in a book, a feather quill in one hand, and Kurogane has a brief sense of déjà vu - but that was the other Syaoran, he tells himself, the archeologist.
“You should be sleeping,” he tells the kid, crossing his arms as he comes to stand by Syaoran’s shoulder. The boy smiles, a slow curve of his lips that seems somehow too old an expression for one so young.
“I’m writing a letter to my father,” he says. “Fai-san said he would send it for me, to that world.” Kurogane arches an eyebrow. That’s news to him. Fai is hardly fit to walk around the castle, let alone use inter-dimensional magic. What is the idiot thinking?
Looking at Syaoran’s wistful expression though, Kurogane knows exactly what Fai is thinking. Damn him.
“How’s the leg?” Kurogane asks gruffly, changing the subject. Syaoran puts a hand over his right knee cap.
“Better. Yukito-san did his best. He says a few more days and I won’t need to use the crutch.” It’s leaning near him against the desk. Kurogane had made it for him to replace the crude one he’d thrown together at the ruins.
Kurogane nods, waits a brief moment, and then turns towards the door again. “Get some sleep,” he says again, over his shoulder. “Or I’ll bring a dose of whatever it is they’re giving Fai. I hear it’s not so bad if you hold your breath.”
He doesn’t have to see it to know Syaoran’s face is stricken with the thought and his dutiful yes! follows Kurogane satisfactorily out the door.
Sakura is next and Kurogane has to take three flights of steps and one archway to reach her room. The door is half open when he arrives and he frowns momentarily before pushing it open the rest of way. All is well though. Sakura is asleep and there’s nothing for Kurogane to do put pull the covers up and quench the candle flame with two fingers. He closes the door on his way out.
His and Fai’s chambers are just down the hall and Kurogane doesn’t bother to knock on the mage’s door but lets himself inside. The room is dark but for the moonlight that pools in through the open windowsill. There’s a sitting area by the windows and Fai is there, bare feet half-curled beneath him as the night wind ruffles blonde hair. He turns when Kurogane closes the door and smiles the smile that makes Kurogane’s chest tighten, but in a way that makes him want to smile in return.
“Come look at the stars, Kuro-sama,” he says, and his voice is not the giggly, teasing voice the ninja remembers from the beginning. It’s Fai’s voice, still amused sometimes, but mostly smooth and light and real. “They’re very clear tonight.”
Kurogane crosses the room to the windows and feels the temperature drop a little. The desert gets cold at night but Fai has ever been immune to it, a remnant of Celes and its frigid ice castles. His golden eye shines as he tilts his head back to look up at the sky and Kurogane follows his gaze but sees nothing more than what he has seen every night since arriving there. After a moment, he speaks into the quiet.
“Sakura was happy tonight,” he says, and Fai laughs a little, sweet and steady.
“I thought I felt you there,” he replies easily. His gaze drifts for a moment. “She likes for us to talk to her. I think it makes her feel like… she was with us, somehow.”
Kurogane grunts in acknowledgement and they spend another few moments there in the moonlight. Kurogane likes their silences now. It’s peaceful - a word he would never have thought he’d ever associate with Fai. The mage no longer feels the need to fill every moment with chatter, lest Kurogane have a chance to see past his fragile façade. Now, if Kurogane looks at him, Fai looks back and not away.
Yuui, Kurogane remembers suddenly, and he turns the name over in his head. It’s a gentle name but he knows Fai won’t use it. Not yet. The things he’s lost still haunt him in the night.
“Is Syaoran-kun alright?” Fai asks.
“What’s this about you helping him send a letter to his father?’” Kurogane grumbles, remembering what he’d meant to bring up in the first place. “Two days ago you couldn’t walk properly and now you’re ready to cross dimensions?”
Fai tilts his head at him. “I’m not going to go there, Kuro-sama, but I can send a messenger there with his letter. My magic recovers more each day. I’m sure I’ll be able to do it.”
Fai isn’t lying to him but Kurogane can read between the lines. “But it’ll drain you,” he replies shortly. He frowns down at the mage. “You don’t owe anyone anything, idiot. Let the priest send it.” It takes a moment but Fai finally nods and Kurogane relaxes. He leans over and shuts the windows, putting the latch in place. “Come on, it’s getting colder.”
Fai rises with a little sigh and shuffles across the room to his bed. His walking is better, but he still moves sometimes as if his side hurts him. He sits on the edge of his bed gingerly and Kuro reaches over for the crystal bottle of potion on his nightstand.
Fai’s hand closes over his wrist before he can reach it.
“I don’t want any.”
Kurogane’s eyebrows furrow for a moment before he shrugs and straightens. It just means he’ll leave the connecting door between their rooms open tonight.
He waits until Fai has settled before retreating to his own room, barely managing to keep from asking if the mage is hungry as he does so. Fai no longer needs him.
Not that way, at least.
The blade with the bat on the hilt impales him just beneath the rib cage and he coughs blood at the force of it, crimson droplets splattering Kurogane’s face which is caught in a expression of such horror that Fai’s only response is to smile.
“If you die, I die, remember?” he croaks, and cries out as Fei Wong Reed jerks his sword free again. The same sword that had imprisoned Syaoran and threatened Sakura.
The same sword that had killed Kurogane’s mother.
“Out of the way,” Fei Wong orders. “A pawn should know its place.”
Fai, somehow, is still on his feet and he turns, standing between Fei Wong and Kurogane, blood dripping to the tiles under his feet. His eye burns gold.
“It’s right here,” he says hoarsely. His nails grow into claws.
See, Kuro-sama? If you die, I die.
So this is how I live.
Early the next morning, Fai sits in Yukito’s solar, haloed by sunlight, and admits one of his greatest personal failings.
“I cannot heal.”
Yukito leans forward a little, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together like a man contemplating a serious puzzle. “Why not?”
Fai’s fingers trace the pages of the book in his lap. “I read the spells, but I can’t remember any of the words, after. I lose them.”
Yukito is quiet a moment. “I wonder…”
Fai sits forward a little. “What?”
“Hitsuzen,” he answers. “Have you ever thought that perhaps there is a reason you can’t do healing spells? Weren’t there many times in your journey where an ability to heal would have changed events? Kurogane-san’s arm? Sakura? Maybe even the other Syaoran’s heart?” The priest’s eyes soften. “Your brother?”
Fai startles before reminding himself that Yukito had once pressed his fingers to Fai’s forehead and seen his memories.
“Hitsuzen,” Fai repeats softly and Yukito nods, an understanding look on his face.
“Hitsuzen.”
“Then,” Fai says slowly, “do you think I could learn now?”
Yukito answers carefully. “It depends. Is the purpose for your inability to heal finished?” It’s a rhetorical question and the priest gets out of his chair and crosses the room to kneel by Fai’s. “Here.” He runs a finger over a single line of text. “This one won’t require much effort. It heals small cuts.” Yukito slices the pad of his thumb with the edge of the page and smiles encouragingly. “Try it.”
Fai takes a breath, looks down at the book, and hesitantly writes a single word in the air.
Something explodes. Yukito is thrown back across the solar into the furniture and Fai drops to the floor, out of breath and as weak if he’d tried to dimension hop four times in a row. Eventually the ringing in his ears stops and Yukito scrambles up onto his elbows, his glasses askew.
He starts to laugh.
After a minute, Fai joins him weakly.
Yukito’s paper cut is gone.
“Of all the ridiculous things to try,” Kurogane rants at them when he finds them. Yukito is still on the floor, as is Fai, though now they’re sitting together, their backs against the feet of Fai’s chair. “I know you don’t have any common sense,” he snaps, pointing at Fai, “but I thought at least the priest would know better.”
“Now, now,” Yukito says, standing up and brushing off his clothes. “There’s no harm done.” He very carefully doesn’t look at the overturned furniture and tapestries that have crumbled to the floor. “Fai-san, you feel alright, don’t you?”
“Yes,” the mage answers slowly, putting a hand over his side. “I’m just tired, I…” He gives Kurogane a somewhat sheepish look. “I didn’t actually think anything would happen.”
Kurogane huffs but leans down to put his arms under Fai’s back and knees, lifting him effortlessly. Fai gives Yukito a little wave.
“Thank you, Yukito-san,” he says, “for the lesson.”
The priest waves back. “Anytime, Fai-san.”
It’s only when they are safely down the hall and Yukito can no longer see them that Fai allows himself to deflate, his head resting against Kurogane’s shoulder.
“I’m very tired, Kuro-rin,” he says, and feels the ninja’s arms tighten just a little.
“Then go to sleep, idiot.”
“Kurogane-san?”
“Mm?”
“Do you think the other me is happy?”
Kurogane looks up.
Sakura is only a few feet away, determinedly picking tiny purple flowers from a rather thorny plant. Kurogane had agreed to go with her outside of the castle as Syaoran had been working on his letter with Fai. They’d gone to a sandy scrub of land outside the marketplace where Sakura had found her flowers and where Kurogane had sat down to polish Ginryu.
Now he puts the rice paper away and slides Ginryu back into its sheath. It’s a moment before he answers.
“I think so.”
Sakura looks at him, green eyes imploring. “Why?”
It should really be the mage talking to her about this. They’ve always been the closest - well, Fai had been the closest to their princess, but this one is different.
It’s hard, sometimes, for Kurogane to remember that.
“Because I believe that when you die, you are at rest.” He holds the princess’ gaze steadily. “And she’s not alone. They’re together, wherever they are.”
Sakura nods once, looking a little tearful. “Do you think…Do you think she knew she would have to…”
“Disappear?” Kurogane supplies, and then wishes he hadn’t. The princess bites her lower lip. He clears his throat. “She wanted to protect us. It was her choice.”
Sakura nods again and she looks away, downwards. Kurogane gets to his feet and comes to stand next to her, one hand falling awkwardly to her shoulder.
“She wouldn’t want you to look back,” he tells her. “Her future is yours, now.”
He watches her contemplate that for a moment and is soon rewarded with a small, watery smile.
“Thank you, Kurogane-san,” she says, and lifts a fragile violet blossom. “Do you think Fai-san and Syaoran will like these?”
He snorts. “If they’re from you, I can’t see why not.”
Sakura’s smile grows.
It’s with a deep and fierce satisfaction that Kurogane watches Syaoran thrust Ginryu through the bastard sorcerer’s heart. Fei Wong Reed has the audacity to look surprised, as if he has never imagined a future in which his wish wasn’t granted. Syaoran’s face is grim with determination and there is blood running into one eye.
Kurogane has never been more proud of him then he is at that moment.
As Fei Wong breathes for the last time, Sakura’s glass prison breaks and Syaoran turns to go to her. Kurogane moves as well, leaving Ginryu where it’s at, a silent sentinel to the final convergence of so many destinies. He goes instead to Fai, his shoes crunching across shattered mirror shards.
The mage is lying on his side, his gaze fixed on Fei Wong’s still form. His golden eye shifts to Kurogane as the ninja drops to his side. His blue one, the one that has returned to him, is hidden by loose, blonde hair.
“I’m no longer a pawn,” he says, quite clearly, despite the blood that drenches his clothes. Kurogane reaches over and pulls Fai up against him, holding him as he once did in the basement of a skyscraper, when Fai had given everything to return a boy’s heart.
“My mother is avenged,” Kurogane says quietly.
Fai closes his eyes but pale fingers brush Kurogane’s cheek ever so lightly, a comforting gesture. And Kurogane stands and carries the mage out of that twisted pocket of time, to where the priest waits, to where the princess walks, blinking, back into the world.
The ground of the inner garden is littered with empty bottles of alcohol and wrinkled blankets. Sakura had wanted to have a picnic and, since Fai was not quite well enough for a trip outside, she’d decided on the garden - the only green Kurogane has seen since coming to Clow. It was a magical place, supported by the priest’s spells and the innate workings laid down by Sakura’s father.
They had eaten and talked and laughed and Mokona had hidden himself in Kurogane’s clothes and it had felt like all the other nights they had spent together. It had felt right.
Now Sakura lies curled up next to Fai, spots of color on her cheeks and a content look on her face. One arm is tucked up against the wizard, fingers resting lightly on his shirt as she dreams. As for Fai, the mage lays on his back with a crown of purple flowers in his hair, a disheveled prince sleeping soundly, without nightmares.
Kurogane watches them for a long while, remembering other times and wondering how many more nights they’ll have, or if this one will be the first of the last. Almost, he doesn’t want to wake them, but the hour grows late and it’s too cold for the princess to sleep in the garden.
He has only to walk over to Fai’s side for the mage to open his eyes, feeling his presence. He blinks sleepy and makes a sound in his throat.
“Is it time to go?”
Kurogane nods and Fai sits up, gently disentangling himself from Sakura so that Kurogane can scoop her up. The mage stands and goes to wake Syaoran, linking his arm through the boy’s as they start back to their rooms.
They drop Syaoran and Mokona off first, the white meat bun still asleep in the kid’s shirt, before taking Sakura to her chambers. Kurogane lays her down as carefully as if she’s made of something infinitely fragile and Fai tucks the covers around her, brushing a lock of hair from her face.
“Good night, Sakura-chan,” he says.
Kurogane closes the door softly behind them.
Fai’s arms wind around his neck so smoothly that Kurogane barely knows something is happening until the mage’s voice sounds near his ear, making him jump.
“That felt like the last time we’ll put the kids to bed,” he says, and there’s a melancholy note in his voice. He’s standing on his tiptoes, his cheek against Kurogane’s jaw, his body pressed against the ninja’s.
The scent of desert blossoms fills Kurogane’s head and it’s all he can do to answer. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, and finds himself holding Fai closer, arms wrapping around the other man’s slim form. “We’re not going anywhere yet.”
And he says we’re and Fai makes a sound, like happiness unlooked for, and Kurogane can’t help but kiss him, flowers and all.
Fai doesn’t miss feeding from Kurogane. It had felt too much like taking, stealing away Kurogane’s life just to keep his own. That wasn’t the case, of course, but it had still felt that way, sometimes.
Now that his eye has been returned, Kurogane is no longer his prey and he no longer needs blood in order to live. His magic sustains that part of him now and his vampire instincts have gone to sleep somewhere in the corners of his mind. He no longer heals at an abnormal rate and can not make his fingernails grow into claws. Only the gold of his left eye remains to remind him of what he had once been.
Fai does miss being able to feel where Kurogane is, to know without looking if he is in a room.
Maybe now it doesn’t matter though.
Curled up against a lightly snoring Kurogane, Fai has no need to look for him. The ninja is right there, one arm thrown haphazardly over Fai’s middle, their feet tangled together under the sheets.
Maybe now Fai won’t have to look further than the space at his side for Kurogane’s tall, steady form.
It’s a comforting thought.
“Kuro-sama,” Fai manages, between breathless kisses, “maybe we…should…go somewhere…mmmmm…less-“
“Shut up,” Kurogane mutters, but his hands are gentle as he pushes Fai down on the table in the library. Books and parchment are shoved aside and Fai’s hair glows like spun sunlight against the red mahogany.
Fai laughs in the back of his throat and runs his hands underneath Kurogane’s shirt, feeling the smooth, toned skin underneath. Kurogane’s mouth moves to the curve of Fai’s shoulder, insistent, hungry.
Fai hopes they remembered to lock the door.
“Yuui…” Kurogane half-moans the name as he comes and Fai gasps, his body filled with Kurogane’s warmth, his mind filled with Kurogane’s voice.
Never has his name sounded so loved.
“Why are you crying?” Kurogane’s thumb smooths over his cheek afterwards and the ninja is frowning a little, doubt and worry crowding into his gaze. Fai catches his hand and leans into it, letting it cup the side of his face.
For a moment he doesn’t know quite what to say. No words seem adequate enough for everything Kurogane has given him.
He settles for, “I’m happy,” and watches as Kurogane’s expression clears and the ninja leans down to kiss him as if it’s their first.
And maybe for Yuui, it is.
Days pass.
Kurogane practices sword forms with Syaoran, working out the kinks in his bio-mechanical arm. They duel until they’re sweaty and tired and covered in sand, but Syaoran’s eyes are alight again and every day Kurogane seems surer of himself.
Sakura and Fai applaud from the sidelines. Fai is much better, full of warm smiles and tinkling laughs and little cat faces on the edge of his papers. He is studying a language, one with complicated looking characters. He shows them to her sometimes, sounding out the corresponding word and Sakura always compliments him though she has no idea if he’s right or wrong. She just likes sitting with him, listening to Kurogane lecture Syaoran about technique in the background. It feels like this is where she is supposed to be and, after so long of not being anywhere at all, she doesn’t want to let it go.
Kurogane and Fai haven’t said anything, but she senses that they are saying a slow goodbye. Something has changed in the last week and the two of them seem settled now, as if something has been decided. She’s too polite to ask what it is but she’s curious. Whatever it is has made Fai decide to study and sent Kurogane back to work with his sword. And sometimes, just sometimes, they look at each other in a way that makes Sakura blush and glance elsewhere.
If Syaoran sees it too, he doesn’t mention it.
She supposes it’s inevitable. Kurogane has his own world, another princess he’s sworn to, and though once she thought Fai might remain in Clow, it’s clear that now he will go with Kurogane. It wouldn’t be right otherwise, she thinks. Kurogane is meant to stay with Fai, and Fai is meant to stay with Kurogane.
She’ll miss them terribly, but it’s time for her to live now, too.
Syaoran’s brown eyes catch hers from across the courtyard and he smiles, a bit ruefully, a smudge of dirt on one cheek while Kurogane barks at him to pay attention.
Sakura’s heart fills to the brim and she smiles back.
It’s time for them to live.
“I feel like we’re forgetting something,” Fai says, brows drawn together. Kurogane sighs.
“That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
“It’s as true now as it was before.”
Kurogane feels his eyebrow start to twitch. “More importantly, WHY IS THIS THING IN MY CLOTHES?” He pulls Mokona out of his sleeve by its ears.
“Mokona is hitchhiking!” it squeals, giggling wildly. Kurogane glowers. Fai grins.
“I knew we were forgetting something.”
They say goodbye on a sunny hill of sand.
Syaoran is solemn but he smiles and clasps arms with Kurogane and allows Fai to hug him with feeling.
“Thank you, Kurogane-san, Fai-san, for everything you have done,” he says, and bows formally. Fai tilts his head, heart aching, and Kurogane huffs slightly.
“Just remember to keep your wrists loose, kid,” he says, and Syaoran rises, looking up at his teacher.
“I will.”
Then it’s Sakura’s turn and there are tears in her eyes when she hugs Kurogane, the big ninja hunkering down a little so she could reach. He pats her back clumsily and doesn’t quite know what to say.
“You’ll be okay now,” he finally tells her, and she gives a little nod. Then she is flinging herself into Fai’s arms and they are both crying and Sakura tucks one last violet into his shirt for luck.
“I will miss you, Fai-san,” she says, her voice hitching. Fai smiles with his heart and Kurogane feels the healing in it, feels his own soul smooth over with that warm glow. And it’s then he realizes why Fai has never been able to heal before now. He wasn’t made to heal the wounds you could see.
“I’ll miss you too, Sakura-chan,” Fai murmurs. “I’m glad I got to meet you-“ his glance encompasses the boy as well- “and you, Syaoran-kun.” He steps back a little, releasing Sakura with one last squeeze. “Please take care of each other.”
“We will,” Syaoran answers solemnly, and he comes to stand by Sakura’s side, their fingers intertwining without thought.
And then its Mokona’s turn and only after does the multi-colored warp of dimensions whirl around them, creating a wind that ruffles their clothes and hair. Sakura and Syaoran are waving and Fai waves back even as his free hand finds Kurogane’s.
They’re still holding hands when they arrive. Mokona is gone but a little purple flower still rests over Fai’s heart and Kurogane thinks they’ll never really part, not really.
“Welcome home, Kurogane, Fai-san,” Tomoyo says, as if she’s known all along that Kurogane would bring a wizard back with him. And maybe she has.
Fai inclines his head and when he straightens, his eyes are very bright.
“Please call me Yuui, Tomoyo-hime,” he says.
And he smiles.
THE END.