Fic: Triple Lutz (4)
Title: Triple Lutz
Characters/Pairings: KuroFai, others mentioned
Rating: T
Summary: Fai D. Fluorite is a competitive ice hockey player, very much in love with the world on ice. A tragic accident during one game, however, forces him to drop the sport he loves, and he rapidly sinks into a semi-depression. To try and restore some of his previous passion for skating his brother and the once-champion skater Yuuko tie him up with the figure-skater Kurogane, a serious professional who sends the majority of his partners scurrying in fright, and doesn’t care for Fai’s defeatist attitude. They could be great together…but, before they admit that? Hell will freeze over first. AU
Chapter: 4/9?
A/N: Because real life rarely ever has the decency to make complete sense.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |
*****
Novosibirsk, Russia, August 2009
“Half an hour?!”
Sakura eeked as Fai suddenly burst through the door leading from The Cat’s Eye kitchen into the main part of the café, clipping the tray of used cutlery she was carrying back through to the dishwasher. “Fai-san!” The plates on the tray wobbled dangerously - but steadied, when Fai saw what he’d done and caught the back of Sakura’s waist with one hand, helping her keep her balance.
“Ah, Sakura-chan -” Fai still seemed distracted as he manoeuvred himself around the girl, one hand still on her waist, the other pushing what looked like his mobile phone into the back pocket of his trousers. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s nothing -”
“Yuui!” Fai suddenly leapt forwards when the front door of the café entrance jingled open and his brother came inside, bags of shopping on his arms, Yuui abruptly assaulted by flying limbs and a monkey-hold around his neck. A few of the customers stared at the display - the regulars only continued sipping at their drinks with the occasional smile at the two twins at the door, a few nods of recognition, a little girl brought in for an after-school treat by her mother waving a forkful of cake.
“Fai,” Yuui replied evenly in greeting, shifting his grip on his bags slightly so he could both half-return his brother’s embrace with affection and disentangle Fai from around his neck somewhat - Yuui appreciated breathing; truly, he did. “What-?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Fluorite?” There was a brown head half-poked around the front door, interrupting Yuui’s question. “You’re blocking the entrance.”
“Right -” Yuui shoved his bags into Fai’s arms and neatly pushed his brother back a few steps out of the way, Fai taking the items, blinking past his shoulder and seeing the Li twins coming in, also laden down with shopping. “I met them on the way in,” Yuui cheerfully explained. “And they were kind enough to offer to help me bring the things from the car.” It explained why Yuui hadn’t come in through the private entrance then, not wanting to trek the two teenagers through his precious kitchen.
“Where would you like these?” Syaoran raised the two bags in his hands for viewing, Syaoron waiting behind him for an answer as well.
“Just by the counter, thank you -”
“Yuui,” Fai tugged on his brother’s sleeve like a child half his age (and maybe half again), his arms still full of bags. He handed them off on a startled Syaoran who’d only just relieved himself of his own load, the youth having come up beside the two siblings to see if he could offer any more assistance. (Syaoran accepted them with vague bewilderment - Fai hadn’t even looked at him.) “Yuui, I need to go.”
“Go where?” Yuui was still heavily distracted, sliding off his coat and slinging it over one of his arms.
“The gym - Yuuko called an-”
There was another startled squeak from beside the counter - Sakura again, serving the customers still, this time armed with a tray of pastries, two china cups and a small silver teapot, all of it and the girl falling forwards after getting her foot tangled up in a handle of one of the bags that had been so recently deposited on the floor.
Syaoron caught her, darting forward before anyone else really had time to process the fact Sakura was falling, one arm somehow catching the tray, the other holding Sakura, and the café burst into a timely round of appreciative applause as somehow nothing ended up on the floor - aside from a packet of sugar and a teaspoon, but those weren’t breakable.
Sakura was blushing madly as Syaoron set her back on her feet, clutching the tray she’d been carrying as close to her chest as she dared without upsetting everything on it again. “I’m so sorry!” Sakura wasn’t clumsy - it just apparently wasn’t her day. Syaoron took a few minutes to remind her of the fact, Syaoran coming over to join in - but the younger boy only made Sakura’s blush darken further with his hasty assurances that it wasn’t her fault, that Sakura was a wonderful waitress, really, and Syaoron slid away with a laugh after picking up the dropped teaspoon and sugar packet and leaving them on the counter.
Yuui smiled, seeing Sakura wasn’t hurt and nothing was broken. “…We should rename this place Pandemonium.”
“I need to go,” Fai reminded him. “Gone, in fact.” He was already edging for the door.
“You’re working,” Yuui protested, perplexed, apparently having missed the comment his brother had given him before Sakura had tripped. “Fai -”
“Yuuko phoned.” Fai explained, facing his brother, but opening the door with his hand behind his back. “I’ve -” he glanced at his watch, “nineteen minutes to get to the gym.”
“But it’s at least twenty-five if you’re walking -”
“Exactly.”
“Fai -” Fai was out of the door, and running down the pavement. Yuui went to the entrance and called after him, ignoring the looks passers-by gave him. “What about your coat?!”
“Didn’t bring one!” Fai yelled back over his shoulder, and then sped up, manoeuvring his way through the people around him.
Yuui sighed, seeing the discussion - argument? Debate? - was lost, and went back inside the café. “Syaoron, Syaoran…” he spoke to the two boys, seeing they’d taken a seat at one of the tables, Sakura already taking their order. They both glanced up. “Would you two like a job for the evening?”
#
Kurogane was waiting when Fai finally got to the gym, leaning against a wall inside near the entrance with his arms folded across his chest, having already changed into a dark set of track suit bottoms and a t-shirt. A group of three teenage girls lingering in the foyer with their bags over their shoulders kept glancing over at the skater and giggling amongst themselves - Kurogane was, at first glance, staunchly ignoring them, but with a closer glance one could see that his right eye had developed a wonderful and most peculiar twitch that kept going off in time with each giggle.
“You’re late.” Black brows drew down into an expression of acute disgruntlement when Fai approached the scowling Kurogane, an expression that was all-too-quickly becoming quite familiar to the blond. Kurogane slanted his gaze down at the other’s side, noting immediately the lack of any sort of bag with clothes to change into being present there. “Where’s your stuff?”
“I was at work.” Fai himself was less than chipper - he’d run a good portion of the way, his cheeks pink from the breeze and the sun, his hair windblown. He smoothed a hand back through it and smiled at the girls across from them, ignoring Kurogane’s echoing snort. “I didn’t have time to pick up my stuff.”
“You mean you actually do work?” Kurogane eyed him - his disbelief was palpable.
“I actually do work,” Fai replied calmly, his smile fixed perfectly in place, and didn’t offer any more information. The girls had taken to studying him just as avidly as Kurogane, clearly liking the figure he cut in The Cat’s Eye uniform. “So something more than a half-hour warning before our next session - wherever it is - would be appreciated.”
“That has nothing t’do with me,” Kurogane said, pushing himself off the wall and unfolding his arms - they were strong arms, lined with muscle, an even tan all around. Did he work out in the sun without his shirt on or something? “See the witch with your complaints. Now, shift; you’ve held us up enough already.”
“By less than five minutes,” Fai protested as Kurogane began walking away, heading for one of the private-hire rooms again, and he slowly trailed after him. It had better not be the one they’d met in - that place was probably bad luck.
“Six,” Kurogane corrected him shortly, and Fai bristled.
“Clock-watching must be one of your many talents.”
“Generally, it’s called being punctual.”
“Generally,” Fai mimicked under his breath, “it’s called being anally-retentive.”
Kurogane glared at him, apparently having heard the comment, but was cut short of a retort by the door in front of them suddenly bursting open so forcefully it swung all the way around on its hinges and smacked into the exterior wall.
“There you are!” Yuuko. There was nobody else who it could possibly be - not that either of the two men left staring at the dramatically-posed woman in the doorway in front of them were in much doubt about her identity, anyway. It was Yuuko, Yuuko, Yuuko - and there weren’t really any other words that were needed to follow up that. She put her hands on her hips, and looked generally disapproving. “We thought you weren’t coming.”
“Yuuko-san,” there was a voice from behind Yuuko, a harassed teenager looking around the woman. He looked like the boy - was the boy - that had been hovering around Yuuko on that day at the ice-rink, when Yuui had put forward the whole crazy idea, “you only texted him half an hour ago. If you want people here on time you should really give them more warning -”
“No matter!” Yuuko reached one hand out and latched onto Fai’s wrist, dragging the man into the practice room with her - the boy with her quickly shifted out of the way with the verbal equivalent of a flailing squawk, immediately launching into a rant against Yuuko’s manners. Yuuko ignored him. “We’ll begin right away. Well,” she paused, suddenly seeing the sleeve of the white shirt beneath her hand, the black waistcoat Fai was still wearing, “as soon as you’re changed. Kurogane,” she turned to sigh at the other man, Kurogane having followed them in with an eye-roll, “why didn’t you take him to get changed before bringing him here?”
“He didn’t bring clothes to change into.” Kurogane took a seat against the wall, largely uncaring - he seemed to have a thing for skulking against walls.
The flailing kid started up again. “I told you -”
Yuuko only smiled. “We’ll just send Watanuki to go pick your things up.”
“What?!”
“…Ah.” Fai smiled politely, his wrist still in Yuuko’s possession, one hand hanging rather limply, useless. “If it’s alright by you, I’d rather not.” Yuuko raised an eyebrow at him, but silently waited for him to go on. “My house is some way from here - it doesn’t seem terribly fair to send poor Watanuki all that way just to fetch a change of clothing. By the time he got back here we’d probably already be done and ready to go.”
Yuuko continued to look at him, before slowly nodding at head to his outfit. “Can you exercise in those?”
“As long as you’re not planning on our activities being incredibly complicated, I’m sure doing so just this once won’t be a problem.” Fai deliberately softened his expression, his eyes dropping shut against Yuuko’s gaze and his smile turning intentionally disarming. “I’ll take off my waistcoat and roll up my sleeves, and ditch my shoes at the side.”
“Very well.” Yuuko released him and Fai did exactly as he’d said, pulling off his tie, waistcoat, shoes and socks, putting all but the shoes neatly on a chair at the side of the room. The floor was cool against his bare feet. As he was rolling up his sleeves he was a little surprised to have a can of deodorant suddenly thrust at him - thankfully, on his right side, so he saw it coming and was able to shift before it jabbed him in the arm.
Fai’s gaze flicked up - Kurogane was the one responsible for the abrupt assault, the other man looking at Fai rather impatiently as the blond did nothing but stare at the can. Fai actually paused in rolling his sleeves, lips quirking upwards. “…Is this a hint that I need to take more baths?”
Kurogane only glared at him - the seemingly perpetual expression. “Do you want the damn thing or not?” When Fai only continued to regard him with his mildly amused expression Kurogane shoved the deodorant into the smaller man’s hands with a growl, stalking off to do his stretches on the mat that was the furthest one away from Fai. Oh, he sulked well.
Fai followed soon after. He used another mat, absorbing himself in his task. Kurogane was doing the same and Yuuko appeared to be giving Watanuki a mental shopping list, the youth loudly complaining about the absurdity of half the items she was asking him to fetch. Despite his protests - most of which were rather feeble anyway - Watanuki went, and Yuuko busied herself with unzipping a gloriously shiny miniature stereo from her bag, plugging it in at the nearest socket and flicking the radio on. Loud, painfully obnoxious club music immediately blared out -
“Witch!”
Yuuko changed the channel, murmuring what sounded suspiciously like ‘spoilsport’ under her breath. A classical piece came on instead, mid-crescendo, and Kurogane went back to finishing off his stretches. Seated on his mat, Fai smiled mostly to himself, and curved over his leg, reaching for one foot with his hands, holding on to the tip for ten seconds before releasing and stretching for his other foot. It was The Blue Danube that was playing, a familiar twinkling he hadn’t heard in years. It had been one of the ones Yuui had had difficulty with, back when they’d been younger, and he’d practiced the stupid tune again and again on their aunt’s piano until both of them had been hearing it in their dreams.
“You need to get accustomed to working with music in the background,” Yuuko explained when Fai finally pushed himself back up onto his feet, one hand on her hip and the other waving lazily in the air, as if to demonstrate her point.
Kurogane came up behind Fai, and grumbled. “Just don’t let her pick the music.”
“Now,” Yuuko ignored him - her selective hearing was truly a sight to behold -, and pointed one finger directly at Fai, “I want you to fall.”
Fai blinked at her. “You want me to do what?” His usual manners got lost to confusion.
“Fall,” the coach told him eloquently, “backwards. With your eyes closed, and your arms folded across your chest.”
Fai looked at her appraisingly. “I’d hit the ground.”
“Kurogane will catch you.” Fai didn’t even need to open his mouth to convey what he thought of that idea - apparently the look on his face said everything. “He hasn’t dropped anyone yet.”
“But -” Yuuko continued to look at him, and Fai couldn’t think of an adequate argument as to why he couldn’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t do as she was telling him, other than that he just really, really didn’t want to. “Alright.”
Fai tried not to swallow when Kurogane stepped closer to him again, the heat from the other man’s body prickling the hairs down the back of his neck, consciousness of another body too close trickling down his spine. On the one hand, Kurogane being really close was a good thing - it meant less distance to fall, a lower likelihood of ever hitting the floor -, but on the other -
“What’s the point of this exercise?” Fai asked, skittish, suddenly wanting very, very much to bolt. The question was asked at Yuuko, but his eyes kept flickering to the door. A large hand closed around his arm, and Fai tried not to jump.
Kurogane answered, a rumble at his back and overhead. “If you don’t trust me to catch you doing something as simple as this, how the hell d’you think you’re going to be able to trust me to be the only thing keeping you from whacking your head off the ice during a spin?” Fai stiffened but Kurogane continued on regardless, sliding his grip down the paler man’s wrist, pulling it up onto his opposite shoulder and holding it there. “I’ll catch you.” And then he let go, and stepped back.
The Blue Danube came to an end. There was a silence before anything new started up again, the gentle tap of a conductor’s baton from the radio and the rush of blood through Fai’s own ears. Kurogane was still behind him, Yuuko was still looking at him, and he suddenly felt horribly, terribly sick, staring at nothing and feeling bile at the back of his throat. The room’s walls were a horrible white, cold and unfriendly, and the gleam of metal fittings on them could’ve easily been the light glancing off of a blade, sharp skates cutting over the ice -
“Mr. Fluorite.” Yuuko’s voice, and Fai came away from staring at the wall, back to the red of her knowing gaze. She was wearing purple lipstick that day, and there was another classical waltz playing, sweetly lilting, and he wanted to turn the radio off.
Mon amour, je t'ai vu
Au beau milieu d'un rêve -
Tchaikovsky’s waltz from The Sleeping Beauty - Yuui had played it, Disney had used it, and his mother had sung the song as she’d worked around the house such a long, long time ago. (But Yuui had lost the music sheets in the move, auntie didn’t sing, and they’d both thought themselves far too old for Disney at that point, anyway.)
“Sorry,” Fai apologised. And smiled. “I was somewhere else.” And he raised his other hand so his arms were crossed across his chest, fingers pressing into his own shoulders. His stomach felt like it was somewhere about his ankles.
Fai fell - or tried to, anyway. Something caught as he rocked back on his heels, an internal instinct to stop his decent, and he tried to steady himself again with one foot - but he was too far into his backward arc already and stumbled, awkward, losing his straight posture as his knees buckled beneath him. Kurogane, true to his word, reached out to catch him, but it was a clumsy fall, and Fai continued his descent even though Kurogane’s hands grabbed his arms, digging in harder than they usually would’ve done. Fai’s behind and the base of his spine hit the ground, and his head whacked rather painfully off of Kurogane’s thigh and hip. (What the hell was the man made of?! Steel?!)
“Oww…” Fai complained as Kurogane hauled him up again - mat or not, he was going to hurt -, rubbing the small of his back and shooting a dark look at Kurogane from under his lashes. “Puppy, you make a horrible catcher.”
“Even an idiot can fall over properly,” Kurogane snapped back at him, dropping his hands from Fai like the blond had the plague.
“Aw, is Kuro-kuro saying I’m indescribable?”
“That’s one way of - what the hell did you just call me?!”
“Kuro-kuro! Because you said you didn’t get ‘Kuro’ I thought I’d double it up so it was acceptable.”
“You-!”
Fai only laughed at Kurogane’s temper and the two bickered for a while - and then Yuuko called them to attention, and made them try the falling exercise again. And again. And again. Fai fell every time - he hadn’t even known there were so many ways to fall ‘wrong’ off of the ice.
After the seventh attempt - and all the arguing that went with it - Watanuki returned, laden down with bags, and Yuuko called a break. They drank some of the water Watanuki had brought - citrus flavour for the boy himself, peach for Fai, plain for Kurogane and they didn’t even think Yuuko was drinking water (although the contents of her bottle were relatively clear they certainly didn’t smell like anything that could be brought near minors) - and relaxed, and then Yuuko had Fai and Kurogane work through their stretches again, this time together. Fai twitched all the time and Kurogane grumbled, and when Fai started making innuendo-laced remarks Kurogane started swearing -
When their time in the gym was up, all of them were thankful for it.
#
Nearly all the lights were on in the house when Yuui finally got home that night - in the hallway, the kitchen, living-room, study and Fai’s room. Fai himself, however, was in none of them, but the pile of clothes dumped unceremoniously on the floor of his brother’s room gave Yuui some clue as to where Fai could be; he got his answer for certain when he knocked on the bathroom door and got a muffled, weary ‘what?’ from within.
Yuui pressed his forehead against the wood. “I’m back.”
“I guessed.” The bathroom’s acoustics gave Fai’s voice a hollow ring, a very brief echo that chased after the end of his words. “Robbers don’t knock.” There was the sound of shifting, and water splashing. “Welcome home.”
Yuui smiled. “You’re taking a bath?”
“You need the toilet?” More splashing.
“No, it’s alright.” The splashing quietened down again. “Just don’t forget to wash behind your ears.” Something thumped off the other side of the bathroom door - it made a quietly mournful quuuuaaaack when it did so, so Yuui thought it was safe to bet that it was very likely the rubber duck that Fai had bought to decorate the bottom of the bathtub (and be used as an occasional projectile). He laughed, Fai making a petulant ‘Yuuuuui’ from the tub. “Enjoy your bath.”
Yuui went back downstairs to the study, flicking off the house lights as he went, and sat there for a while working over The Cat’s Eye’s finances, before eventually deciding to stop for the night about an hour later. He went to his room to get changed into more comfortable clothing and frowned slightly as he passed the bathroom again - the door was still shut, and Fai wasn’t in his room. He didn’t knock again though, heading for the kitchen as soon as he’d changed to put a frozen pizza into the oven, his stomach rumbling, and ate a large portion of it when it was cooked in front of the television in the living-room, legs tucked up beneath him on the couch. What he didn’t eat he put back in the oven - although turned off, the heat left over from cooking would keep the pizza warm for a while.
Fai came downstairs later - much later - with wet hair and bare feet, dressed in navy-blue pyjama pants and an old t-shirt that had Clones Are People Two emblazoned across the front. He took a seat on the opposite end of the couch to Yuui and used the towel hanging around his neck to dry his hair, leaving a tousled mess of dark gold fluff around his face. After a while he padded through to the kitchen to grab the leftover pizza, hanging his towel over a radiator as he went, and returned once he’d done with clean hands, taking the spot beside his brother and dropping his head on Yuui’s shoulder. Neither of them said anything, content to watch the overdramatic explosions of the film onscreen, and Yuui wrapped his arm around his twin, letting his fingers move soothingly through the still-damp strands of Fai’s hair.
When Yuui woke up later, having dropped off shortly after the film ended, he was perfectly alone in the living room. The lights had all been switched off, the television too, and the blanket from the cupboard had been brought out and draped over him. The house was quiet so Yuui went to bed, leaving the blanket to be put away again in the morning proper.
#
They went back to train at the ice-rink again. Yuuko had hired it after-hours once more, but this time she refused to let either Fai or Kurogane out on the ice until they’d tried the falling exercise again - the result was both men thoroughly irritated with one another before they’d even got their skates on, both of them bruised, and Yuuko pronouncing them both unsatisfactory before disappearing to put the CD she’d brought with her in the rink’s sound system.
Fai put his white skates on, stepping onto the rink and warming up by lapping it a few times. Kurogane put his own skates on - but sat in a chair by the rink entrance, and waited for Yuuko to come back. The music started up coming from the speakers, an instrumental piece he didn’t recognise, and Yuuko came clicking back in her heels, apparently totally unsurprised to see Kurogane waiting there for her. She walked past him, heading for her bag and rifling around it, before withdrawing a packet of Galaxy Minstrels, and promptly opening them up to eat two.
Kurogane eyed her, frustrated. “He still won’t fall properly.”
“Then,” Yuuko told him simply, coming back over to take a seat beside her tutee and popping another minstrel into her mouth, “you’ll have to find some other way to get him to trust you, since you being your usual charming self doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Like what?”
Yuuko shrugged, a fluid motion. “You could always try asking him out on a date.” Kurogane glared at her. “No? And here I thought he was exactly your type.”
“How the hell would you know what my ‘type’ is, witch?”
“Well -”
“Miss. Ichihara?” Fai’s voice called out to them, breaking gently into the conversation. While Yuuko and Kurogane had been talking he’d finished another lap of the rink, coming to a halt by the entrance and looking over at the both of them, gloved hands resting uncertainly on the half-wall.
“One moment, Mr. Fluorite.” Yuuko smiled over at him, before neatly closing the plastic packet of her sweets and putting them down, finishing her conversation with the man beside her. “It doesn’t take much common sense, Kurogane, to know people are much more likely to trust those they actually know a little about.” She stood, her long skirt rustling with the movement, and raised her voice, so that both of her companions could hear her. “You’re going to practice using the toe-pick today, Mr. Fluorite - for changing your speed, direction and coming to a stop altogether. Kurogane’s going to be the one advising you more personally today - I can’t stay for very long, so I’ll leave you in his capable hands.”
“You’ll what?” Kurogane was aghast - Yuuko had never mentioned any plans for leaving early to him.
“Leave,” Yuuko said with a satisfied smile, and looked over the man’s shoulder to the clock hanging on the wall. “In about twelve minutes. I have some things I need to pick up.”
“But you always make the kid pick up all your stuff!”
Yuuko flapped her hand. “Even Watanuki-kun has his days off, Kurogane.”
Kurogane only eyed her distrustfully. “Since when?” Yuuko never gave the kid a break - never.
“Since always!” Yuuko huffed out a breath. “Really, you make me sound like a slave-driver.” Kurogane opened his mouth to protest, and Yuuko smoothly kicked his ankle. Whatever the skater might have said was lost in his yelp of pain. “Pick up the CD from the office before you leave here, alright?”
“I’ll be sure to remind him.” Fai was grinning, and Kurogane shot him a dark look for his amusement.
They practiced, as Yuuko had bid them, using the toe-pick - instinctively, when asked to stop out on the ice, Fai used the hockey or t-stop, but Yuuko shook her head and Kurogane made him do the same thing again and again and again until he was eventually pushing the tip of his skates down, getting used to the new device at the front of his blade. Yuuko left, and they practised for a long while before Kurogane moved back to let Fai skate normally - the rink suddenly seemed so much emptier without Yuuko there as an audience, just Kurogane and Fai, the scrap of a man, who skated closer after a little while, Kurogane having drawn to a standstill on the ice with a brooding expression on his face. Fai actually seemed relatively concerned -
And then he opened his mouth. “If Kuro-pon scowls like that long enough,” Fai teased, his hands behind his back, “his face will freeze that way.”
Kurogane just stared at him with a kind of blank disbelief, dragged rather rudely from his thoughts. “What did you just call me?”
“Kuro-pon!” Fai beamed at him. Kurogane wanted to throttle him instantly. “I did some research on honorifics after our last session together since Kuro-myu was so grumpy when I used ‘chan’ - but most of them were terribly boring, so I made up some of my own.”
“Don’t.”
“Kuro-kun’s just jealous because I came up with such wonderful names all by myself.” The time of relative peace - where Fai had actually acted like a semi-sane individual - was apparently at an end. Kurogane growled, and saw the answering gleam of mischief in Fai’s eyes - the idiot was doing this just to piss him off. (He wasn’t quite sure why, though - hadn’t they actually been getting along?) “If you like, you can borrow some of them for when you talk to me~.”
“No.”
“Ahhh,” Fai pouted - another action calculated to annoy, “Kuro-chii really is a spoilsport.”
“It’s Kurogane.” Kurogane growled, but Fai only laughed at him. The CD’s music continued to play in the background, and Kurogane got an idea. “Give me your hands.”
Fai stopped laughing. “…What?”
“Your hands,” Kurogane held one of his own out but Fai took a step back on his flats away from the limb, apparently wary. “Give them to me.”
“Kuro-lu,” Fai’s hands were still firmly behind his back; he was acting like a three year-old. “I’m not really into palm-reading or anything like that -”
“We already know your lifeline’s stupidly short.” Kurogane made a grab for the other man before Fai could dive away again, holding on to the top of blond’s arms. Fai seemed to have a death-wish.
He wasn’t smiling at all. “Patience isn’t one of Kuro-fo’s many virtues, is it.”
“Most of the time you’re too busy trying it,” Kurogane retorted, “so it’s hard to tell.” Fai’s mouth quirked, but his lowered gaze seemed resigned. Yet again he presented a face full of contradictions, but slowly brought his hands forward and presented them between their two bodies, palms up to the ceiling. Kurogane reached down and took them. “…Do you lie to your brother like that?”
Fai’s head snapped up. “I would never lie to Yuui!” He tried to tug his hands back, but Kurogane didn’t let go.
“I’m not,” said Kurogane simply, “just talking about the lies that come out of your mouth.”
“I don’t lie,” Fai replied, his lips pressed together in a thin line. Apparently he had to be startled or annoyed to drop the idiot act (how much was an act though, was anyone’s guest).
Kurogane just snorted at him and began slowly moving backwards, only stepping at first, lightly pulling Fai with him. Fai went with him automatically at first, still clearly displeased, but when Kurogane began to pick up speed, still holding both of Fai’s hands, the ex-hockey player started to look confused. Kurogane drew his hands apart a little further, spreading Fai’s as a result as well - but he didn’t say anything, and Fai didn’t ask anything, not until they’d somehow managed to get around three-quarters of the rink.
Then came the question, coupled with a mildly bemused smile edging onto Fai’s face. “What are we doing?”
“Skating,” Kurogane told him, “together.”
“Well, yes, Kuro-yip, I can see that -” Kurogane resisted the urge to snap about the nickname and instead let go of Fai’s left hand, placing his right hand on the idiot’s waist. Fai stiffened, and shot hasty eyes down at the new point of contact between them, before glancing back up at Kurogane. They were still moving, a steady speed. “What are you doing?”
“Skating,” Kurogane replied, still maddeningly unspecific. He dropped Fai’s other hand, picking up the blond’s left hand again with his own left, keeping his right hand on the other’s waist. “Turn.”
Fai looked at him as if he were mad. “I’d be skating backwards.”
“That’s the point.” Fai frowned. “Can’t you do it?”
Kurogane leaned into a curve the moment he felt his companion shift, Fai twisting himself around so his back was facing Kurogane’s chest, Kurogane still holding his left hand and both of them keeping their backward momentum. After a few more metres Kurogane dropped that hand to place his own left opposite his right on Fai’s waist. “From here I could raise you into a number of lifts - and if we moved out in the middle of the ice it would be the work of seconds to go into a spiral.”
Fai didn’t turn his head to look back at him. “You wouldn’t, though.”
“No,” Kurogane agreed, and once more took Fai’s left hand from behind. “Turn, and then slowly stop.” Fai did as he was told without a comment or requiring baiting - wonders would never cease - and Kurogane dug in his own blades, both of them gradually slowing until they were at a standstill. “I wouldn’t.” He nodded to the clock on the wall. “We need to leave.”
Fai dropped his hand and took a step back immediately.
They moved off the ice together and took off their skates, sliding on the blade-guards and putting the skates away in their bags. Fai was wearing his stupid boots again, black on the tight black of his trousers. The only real purpose for boots that high seemed to be to attract attention to the slim legs beneath - but Fai covered up the most of his choice of footwear with a long coat, unbuttoned (and untied - the thing had far too many straps and ties and little fiddly complicated bits on it) but coming down to just below his knees. It fit his chest closely, but flared out past his hips in a swirl of dark cloth.
Kurogane eyed the ensemble, and pulled on his own - thin - jacket. “You wear that during the day?” How didn’t the idiot melt?
Fai picked up the bag with his skates in it, and eyed Kurogane back. “You’re going out in that tonight?” Late summer or not, it was night, and they were in Siberia. Kurogane scowled at him, but Fai ignored the look and straightened out his collar. “Kuro-pu, don’t forget to pick up your CD.”
“Kurogane,” his companion corrected waspishly, stalking towards the exit. He looked for some signs pointing towards the office where the sound controls would be kept as he went - but saw nothing but signs for the rink, the rink’s café, the reception, exit and toilets. “Where the hell’s the soundboard in this damn place, anyway?”
“This way.” Fai, keeping pace with Kurogane’s longer stride, suddenly veered off down a side-corridor, causing Kurogane to stop in his tracks and hastily alter his own direction to follow. The rink had a labyrinth of corridors and storage rooms and nonsense around it, the sound system tucked away in a tiny office up a long flight of stairs (how Yuuko had got up them in heels would forever remain a mystery), large windows looking down on the ice. Fai went inside, and went straight to a heap of complicated looking machinery that Kurogane, coming in after him, could only look at blankly. “Should I take your CD out for you, too? Only Kuro-do looks very much like a ‘hit it until it works’ kind of person to me, and the bill for you wrecking this equipment would be rather high.”
Kurogane growled at Fai - but noticeably didn’t complain when Fai pushed a button and withdrew his CD, popping it into the case Yuuko had left on the top. (When Fai handed the then-cased CD over to him, however, he did have a few choice words to say - ‘for the puppy’ was scrawled over the front in permanent ink, and Yuuko’s handwriting was easily recognisable. Fai teased him all the way out of the rink - running, as the CCTV cameras would later pick out, as Kurogane had apparently grabbed a mop from a storage cupboard and was wielding it like some sort of lethal sword. (The rink later charged Yuuko for the missing item - Yuuko took revenge by hiding all of her tutee’s mangayan for a fortnight.))
A/N:
- ‘Why Novosibirsk?’: It’s more ‘why Russia?’, really. I wanted a country where east meets west, close enough to Japan to allow for close travelling, and where ice-hockey - and most ice-related sports - were considered pretty big things. Russia seemed the obvious answer. Novosibirsk was chosen for the city mostly out of a process of elimination - I didn’t want to use either Moscow or St. Petersburg but still wanted a big city - and practicality - Novosibirsk is big enough to have plenty of information available about it. Ergo, easier to research. ^^
- On Tchaikovsky, Disney, and pretty songs: Disney used music from The Sleeping Beauty ballet in their movie of the same name. If you look up the Sleeping Beauty Waltz on youtube you should hear a pretty familiar tune - a large segment of ‘Once Upon a Dream.’ (Which…is a Tsubasa song if ever I heard one.) Look it up in English, then in French, then in Japanese, if you’ve the time and are interested (and aren’t sick of the melody by that point). The English and the Japanese versions have pretty similar lyrics in terms of meaning, but the French…in French, it’s even more of a love song. The amount of ‘my love’s and ‘our destiny’s thrown in there… The exact same music for all of them, but oh, such very different songs.