Fic: Not Quite Paradise [7/?], R.

[reikah]

Title: Not Quite Paradise [7/?; ongoing]
Fandom: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Fai/Kurogane/Yuui
Author: Co-write between mikkeneko & reikah
Rating: R
Word count: 9350 this chapter (45276 so far)
Notes: "In a future where science and psionics rule the skies, and both are controlled by the iron fist of the Earth government, two young men make a desperate leap into the unknown in order to evade capture and slavery. AU, Kurogane/Yuui/Fai."

Part One - Earth: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Part Two - Mars: [8] [9] [10] [11]

← back to chapter six

Part one: Earth
but at least it feels like home

This was going to take some getting used to.

Yuui stood at the bottom of the ladder leading upwards to his room on the ship, one hand on the rungs for reassurance. Upwards was, of course, a relative direction; Sakura had explained it to him, and Syaoran had shown him a schematic of the Mokona, but it was hard to translate a shape on paper into reality.

The basic shape of the ship - like many others of its size and class - was an oblong cylinder, wider at the back than at the tip. Streamers of cargo pods trailed along in obedient tow from the stern of the ship, well clear of the thrusters, giving the appearance of fins or ears of some aquatic creature. The power plant and engine array ran down the core of the cylinder, with steering thrusters at the edges and a main acceleration cannon at the back. When the ship was in flight it generated its own gravity; down was always towards the engine, running along the center of the ship, and up was… any direction away.

The main hallway was a torus that ran around the inner ring of the core, and the various rooms and storage spaces were another, larger ring around that. Which meant that to get to his room, like any of the others, he had to climb 'up' through the hatch to the central hallway. It also meant, Yuui realized with a faint queasiness, that he could see the curve of the hallway as it arced along the central ring. His room was small enough that the arc wasn't apparent, but out here in the corridor the ceiling, the walls, and the floor all shared the same gentle twist.

From where he stood, the carpeted floor appeared to slope off downhill in both directions under his feet, and Yuui couldn't help the nervous sensation that if he tripped he would tumble unstoppably along that slope. And yet when he finally worked up the nerve to walk down that carpet, his feet and inner ear told him that he was walking along a perfectly smooth, level hallway.

Except of course, that if he walked forward in a straight line without turning for half a mile, he would fetch up exactly where he'd started.

Weird.

Neither of the teenagers nor the Captain seemed to pay any attention to the unnerving warp of the walls and floor, nor to the stomach-turning ninety-degree flip that the gravity made when they climbed onto the control room situated on the 'nose' of the ship. But then, they were all space-born - the kids from Mars, by their own admission, and the captain from God knew where, except that he'd made clear his disdain for all earthly things.

Including Yuui.

He pushed that thought away, instead grasping for some kind of optimism. The truth was out, and against all expectation these three spacers had accepted him. They had promised to help him and protect him, and more importantly, help Fai.

At least Kurogane no longer thought he was a… he couldn't help but blush at the mortifying thought. Had the captain really thought Yuui was some kind of slave merchant? On the other hand, if a hardened smuggler like Kurogane could be so disgusted and angry by the prospect… lawless the world Yuui had escaped into might be, but this man at least still had some kind of iron-hard ethics.

And as for the younger ones… they both radiated an innocence that Yuui found hard to accept, given their situation. Had he and Fai ever been that trusting, that optimistic, that happy? If so, he couldn't remember it. It was clear that Kurogane looked after his young crewmembers in ways that no adult had ever looked after him and his brother; and being around their open-hearted innocence was a balm for Yuui's frayed nerves and battered heart.

With those encouraging thoughts in mind. Yuui took a deep breath, let go of the ladder, and stepped forward. It was tricky, and he kept stumbling; his eyes insisted that he should be stepping down, only to find solid ground where he thought he should find open air. Eventually he just shut his eyes and walked straight forward, letting his body find its natural balance.

"Oh -"

Of course, walking down the middle of the hallway with his eyes closed had its disadvantages, Yuui realized as he collided with a smaller, warm body and sent them both bouncing towards opposite walls. His eyes flew open and steadied himself with an instinctive use of his power, then quickly reached out and grabbed Sakura before she could skin her knees on the carpet. "Sorry!" he gasped.

"Fai-s - I mean, Yuui-san!" she corrected herself hastily, clutching a sheaf of documents against her chest. Her carafe of coffee had flown out of her hands at the impact, but fortunately its lid prevented more than a few drops from leaking steadily onto the floor. Yuui retrieved it for her and handed it to her right-side up. "I'm sorry, I almost didn't recognize you… your hair…"

"What? Oh," Yuui said, automatically putting a hand up as though to check for his hair. "Yes, the - the dark color was just a disguise to get me through the spaceport." He'd washed it out in the bathroom earlier, somewhat awkwardly; it was his first time dealing with shipboard facilities. On the up side it was startlingly clean, almost sterile; on the down side, there was not much space and even less free-running water. He'd taken out the contacts, too, although he kept those in case he ever needed again.

"It's pretty," Sakura said. She sounded almost entranced, and Yuui wondered if she'd met many natural blonds before; Mars had been mostly settled by east and southeastern Asians. "That's your natural color, isn't it? I mean, it was the same as… your brother…"

Impulsively she reached out to touch his hair, and Yuui's first shocked impulse was to jerk away. He didn't usually let strangers into his personal space, let alone fool around with his hair. But after the first touch, he felt himself oddly pinned - Sakura wasn't really a stranger, was she? They were crewmates and besides, she was kind; her touch felt more like… Fai, stroking affectionately over the crown of his hair when they dozed together.

He swallowed against a lump in his throat, and tried to smile for her. "Anyway, I am sorry about nearly knocking you down," he said.

"Yes, why were you walking along with your eyes closed?" she said with a giggle.

He laughed sheepishly. "Well, I'm just - I'm trying to get used to the gravity here," he said. "What my eyes see and what my body feels just don't match up."

"Really?" She tilted her head. "I guess I'm just so used to it, but - didn't you do any training in low-gee and null-gee environments, back on Earth?"

"Oh, yes," he said, memories coming back to him at her words. There were bad things lurking in those memories, but the gravity training itself had usually been good. His instructors had been other kinetics, not the paper-pushers who conducted the other training courses, and it had been fun. "But there was never anything like this. Besides, it's been a while - I'm afraid I'm getting out of practice."

"Moving in zero-gee, you mean?" Sakura was beginning to get excited, "You know, the engine room is always in zero-gee. If you wanted, you could go in there to train!"

"Oh no, I couldn't - I'd get in your way, and I might hit something -" he began, shocked.

"Not at all!" she countered his protests. "There's LOTS of room, and everything is so sturdy - you'd have to hit it really hard to damage it. Come on, it will be fun! I've always loved watching zero-gee dancers!"

"Well… if you're really sure…" Maybe he should have protested more, but honestly, the prospect was appealing. After the physical and mental strain of yesterday, he could really use some harmless exercise to relax. And besides, he missed freefall. The gravity on the station had been somewhat less than earth-normal - whether due to its altitude above the planet, or artificially induced, he wasn't sure - but it just wasn't the same. He never felt so free as when he was in null-gee.

Kurogane paused with his hand on the ladder descending into the engine room. He heard voices down there, and not the ones he was expecting. There was Sakura's familiar piping, but the other voice was neither Syaoran's light tenor nor Mokona's flat monotone. It took him a few moments to place the unfamiliar tone; it was Fai-or-Yuui, whatever the hell his name was, their passenger. What the hell was he doing in the engine room?

Curiosity warring with annoyance, Kurogane turned and started climbing down through the hatch. He felt the familiar staticky tingle wash over his body as he passed through the plate which generated the gravity field, and then the buoyancy that washed over his legs - like climbing down into a pool, but more so. Once he was fully in the null-gee space of the ship's core, he took a good handhold on the ladder and floated, watching.

Kurogane knew freefall, knew its tricks and hazards. Despite the similarity of sensation, it wasn't like swimming, or even like flying; you'd just make a fool of yourself, thrashing at the air to try to propel yourself forward. And despite what your stomach tried to insist, you weren't falling, either; there was no outside force acting to move you except your own fool momentum.

Moving in zero-gee was a skill and an art that people had to train for many years; it was not about brute strength but about control, a constant awareness of your own position and the nearest solid surfaces, handholds that could be used for leverage, and not making any hasty movements. Push off with too much force and you could break a leg when you hit the opposite wall; not enough, and you would be helplessly stranded in dead air without enough momentum to go anywhere. Kurogane, station-born, had grown up in and out of zero-gee and was quite adept at it. Nevertheless he was a clumsy amateur compared to the kinetics, who could control their own momentum and velocity without consideration for pushing off any other surface; cheating, as far as Kurogane was concerned.

But he could tell just from the few minutes he'd been watching that Yuui was incredible, even when compared to other kinetics. He swooped and soared, looping gracefully in the open space surrounding the engine core. A look of intense, inward concentration held his features, and he moved an arm, a limb gracefully outward to conserve angular momentum as he slowed and doubled back, looped and spun. Sakura, anchored firmly to the control station and clutching a hot drink in her hands, watched him with wide eyes like a child at a carnival show, and Kurogane didn't blame her. Yuui was something worth watching.

He looked like he was flying.

He looked… beautiful.

Sakura happened to look up and see him, and her gasp alerted Yuui, who braked to a stop mid-air and spun to face him. "Captain Kurogane!" she said, scrambling to put her drink aside and come to attention. "What is it? Have we encountered something?"

Kurogane shook his head. It was as stupid a question as it sounded; on the routine flight between Earth and Mars, there was nothing out there they should encounter… which only meant that if they'd met something - say, an uncharted asteroid or a brace of pirate-hunting feds - it would be bad. "I'd have put on the ships alarm if there was a problem," he said. "No, I just came down here to tell you Syaoran has lunch up."

Yuui perked up, and slapped a pretty smile on his face. "Yay, lunch!" he cheered, waving his arms in a maneuver that would have sent anyone else into an undignified mid-air tumble. "I'm looking forward to it. You have such a well-stocked kitchen, I'm sure -"

Kurogane snorted a laugh and Sakura actually blushed. Yuui looked from one to the other in confusion. "What?" he said.

"You won't be cheering after you've gotten a few of Syaoran's meals under your belt," Kurogane advised him drily.

"Syaoran does his best!" Sakura defended the boy hotly. "He… he always tries really hard."

"I don't understand," Yuui said. "If he can't cook, why is he the one doing it?"

Sakura gave a little shrug. "He won't let me do it all the time," she admitted. "He says it wouldn't be fair, and… to be honest, I'm not much better."

"I don't cook," Kurogane said in a flat, no-argument tone. "But I do eat, so let's get going. It's actually worse if it has time to get cold."

With that threat, the three of them made their way to the exits; Kurogane hauled himself up the ladder, closely followed by their new passenger.

"You know," Kurogane said on impulse as Yuui climbed out of the hatch to the deck beside him, in the moment when he was finding his balance. "You look a lot… different when you're not concentrating on pretending to be happy all the time."

"Different?" Yuui looked up at him, startled and wary. The ghost of a smile tried to flicker over his face, before he banished it with an effort. "Different how?"

"Better," Kurogane told him firmly, and turned to walk away.

The meal was set out on the shiny countertop when they trooped into the rec room, and Yuui could smell burnt almost immediately. Syaoran was rather sheepishly putting something black and crispy in the centre of the table; when he saw them he flushed. "Sorry," he said. "I set the timer for thirty minutes, I swear, like it said on the packaging..."

"I'm sure we can manage," Sakura said, brightly. Kurogane just shot Yuui a warning look over the top of her head, and Yuui swallowed and smiled at Syaoran as he slid into one of the stiff high-backed chairs bolted to the counter surface. Sakura took the seat next to him and nudged him in a friendly fashion.

"Thank you," Yuui said with a small smile, aware of Kurogane's eyes on him. He couldn't let go of the charming smile that easily. It had served him well so far.

"Do they have real cooked food on Earth, Yuui-san?" Sakura asked wistfully as Yuui poked at the burnt thing with his chopsticks, trying to work out what it was before it became charcoal.

"Yes," he said. "I grew up reading cookbooks. I even used to help out with the cooking at the academy."

When he glanced up all three of the crewmembers were staring at him, with matching thoughtful expressions. Kurogane's red eyes were narrowed, while Syaoran's were wide and eager. Sakura had paused with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth.

"So you cooked for yourself?" Kurogane asked, at the same time as Syaoran said, "Real books?"

"... Yes?" Yuui said puzzled, looking between them, and Kurogane leaned back in his chair, his chopsticks grasped still in his hand, and smiled slowly. It was the first time he'd seen anything but a scowl on the big man's face, and it was rather unnerving. He reached for the glass of water next to his plate and took a sip to hide his reaction to that wicked smile. "I used to read the cooking books because... well. It doesn't matter. I didn't have a chance to book much at home, and most of what I did at the Academy involved assisting the real cooks; I haven't had much practice."

"Your family must have been incredibly rich, Yuui-san," Syaoran said enviously, right as he was drinking, and he nearly spat the contents of the glass right out; as it was he choked and had to take another gulp to soothe his throat.

"What makes you say that?" Yuui asked, thinking back over what he'd said, trying to grasp where he'd given them the impression he came from wealth. It stung rather, reminding him of too many nights huddling with his brother for warmth, too many days filled with too-hard work and little food.

Sakura looked embarrassed. "Well, you went to a special school," she said. "And you paid so very much money to the captain to get onboard..."

"Oh," Yuui said, his voice going flat. He looked from one face to another and could see it in each of their eyes, even in Sakura; contempt and disdain for the pampered, useless Earth boy, the resentment and envy of the poor for the rich. He'd felt it himself, many times, he and Fai clustered at a window watching people walk past whose fancy, jeweled electronic toys could have paid for food and heat all winter.

He didn't want these people to feel the same way about him as he had towards those people. So he looked down at the plastic tabletop as he said plainly, "My family was never rich. All we had growing up was whatever money Fai and I could get for - odd jobs." He couldn't bring himself to admit to this crew of spacers that they'd been decom rats, the lowest of the low in any space dock facility.

"Really? But -" Syaoran stuttered, and Yuui could almost hear him reshuffling his assumptions. "The Captain said you gave five hundred thousand, and your credit checked out -" Kurogane shot the boy a fierce scowl, and he blushed and shut up; no doubt he wasn't supposed to admit that he was in on the Captain's finances.

"It did check out," Yuui said quickly, with just a hint of defiance. The last thing he wanted was for them to decide he was trying to cheat them.

"It's - oh, hell." He sighed, and put his hands over his eyes; he hadn't wanted to admit this, but what were they going to do, tell the police? "I stole it. I snatched an armored car off the road and broke it open. Someone downside helped launder it for me so it wouldn't be traceable. It should be fine."

This announcement was greeted by silence. He looked up, no longer able to bear the silence, to meet three astonished gazes. "What?" he demanded.

"You hijacked an armored car?" Syaoran said in an awed voice. "All by yourself? The anti-theft measures on those things are unbreakable!"

"Not really," Yuui said. He still remembered the screeching sound of the wheels on the pavements, smelled the burning brakes as the driver tried frantically to stop the car; to no avail, as Yuui's telekinetic talent dragged the vehicle from its path and off the side of the road, sparks flying as it burst through the metal barrier and over the edge of the cliff.

No anti-theft measures were proof, it seemed, against falling a hundred feet through the air onto solid concrete. Yuui had been glad, as he tore apart the wreckage in search of his goal, that he could not see the bodies of the drivers and guards who had been in the armored car; only a slowly spreading pool of blood over the ground. But after he'd killed so many in the raid on the base, what was one or two more deaths on his conscience? They'd needed the money. Fai needed it. And so he'd done whatever was necessary.

"That's amazing!" Sakura said, eyes sparkling. Yuui looked at her with some surprise; he hadn't expected sweet Sakura to be so, well… approving. But then again, she was a pirate.

"There sure is more to you than meets the eye," Kurogane said, making a short gesture with his chopsticks as he chewed thoughtfully on the caramelized food. "You look like a harmless, useless Earthboy dandy -"

"Hey," Yuui objected.

"- but within the course of a couple days you've raided a base, hijacked an armored car, robbed a hospital and fooled all of Earth-space port security," Kurogane went on. Those red eyes turned on him, sizing him up.

"And he can cook," Sakura added, beaming. "You can cook for us!"

"Yes, I'm not very good at it," Syaoran said excitedly, turned over the blackened lump of lunch with one of his chopsticks, and both kids turned their eyes on Kurogane, who actually looked slightly unnerved at the dual gaze effect. For a second Yuui was reminded of two children turning big sad puppy-dog eyes on their father, and dismissed it hastily, a little surprised at himself.

"I guess," Kurogane said slowly. "If he's going to be part of the crew, he can do some useful chores."

"Great!" Sakura enthused, her green eyes bright and warm, and turned back to Yuui. "You will, won't you, Yuui-san?"

"Ah… I'd love to!" Yuui said; still shaken by that part of the crew comment. He'd been too busy for the past few days to think further than the next few hours. The idea of having a place here - to be part of something again - was almost more than he could grasp.

"Yeah," said Syaoran, and smiled. "Honestly, Yuui-san, you have to be better than me. All the culinary skill in my generation went to my brother."

"You have a brother?" Yuui asked, in genuine surprise. It hadn't occurred to him that the crew would have families beyond the ship. Syaoran nodded, but didn't reply as he finished off the black lump of... whatever it was he had cooked; Yuui wasn't a starving child anymore and was not been particularly keen to try it.

"He has a twin," said Sakura, covering for him; Syaoran gave her a grateful smile. "Not an identical one, like you and... Fai-san."

"Oh," said Yuui numbly. That explained why twins hadn't been Syaoran's first thought on seeing Fai in the cryo-capsule; to him, twin meant non-identical. For a moment he felt a kind of kinship, borne out of being halves of a whole, and then pushed it away. Syaoran was capable of leaving his twin and travelling all over the solar system for a girl he liked. Yuui was Fai's, nobody else's.

"Kimihiro lives back on Mars with the rest of the family," Syaoran said. "We won't see him this trip. I'm from... well, I'm from the boondocks, not like Sakura-chan," and he flushed here, "but we email from time to time. I'm not half the chef he is."

There was a particularly loud crunch from Kurogane's end of the countertop as he broke his food in half, and he raised an eyebrow when the three of them looked at him in surprise. "You don't say," he said dryly. "I'd put it more like one tenth."

"Captain," Sakura said, frowning, but Syaoran was grinning, obviously unoffended, so she hmphed and turned back to her own meal. Following her example, Yuui curiously picked up his, aware of Kurogane's eyes on him.

It tasted awful, but he found he didn't mind. His thoughts were already racing ahead to tonight's dinner, and what he would cook to repay this odd band of miscreants, to show his gratitude for how they treated him. He felt something he never had before, not at any of his miserable childhood jobs or in the hallowed walls of Earth's prestigious psionic academy.

He felt welcome.

Once lunch was finished with Syaoran showed him around the kitchen while Sakura and Kurogane slipped out to do whatever it was they did around the ship; Yuui didn't know, but figured he'd find out sooner or later. For now his attention was focused on the shiny steel of perfectly stored kitchen knives, and the baskets and bags of ingredients just waiting to be prepared. They had a cryo-freezer for storing meat and vegetables as fresh, to his delight, and it was full.

After Syaoran had shown him the kitchen's contents and taught him how to use its various bits of machinery, he vanished too, leaving Yuui with nothing but the stainless steel. It was many hours yet before dinner, but he took one of the electronic books off its shelf and flicked through it until he found a good guide to spacer cuisine. He spent a good hour sitting on the sofa with the little book, paging rapidly through list after list of recipes, many of them making his mouth water with the title alone.

The apartment he and Fai had grown up in had had very little in the way of cooking facilities: a microwave, an electric kettle, and an ancient behemoth of a refrigerator that was always empty. He had tried his best, once they started working, and what things he had been able to make had turned out edible, but he had never been happy with them. It wasn't until they'd left for the school - or more accurately, been thrown out - that he had been able to experience a larger kitchen. He had gladly taken Fai's share of kitchen duties, and the cooks had responded to his interest and taught him more and more recipes, and even let him practice on his own with the school equipment during his break hours, Fai dragged downstairs and watching him with a bored expression. Cooking was never Fai's thing.

Fai liked math, and science. He always had. He never had to think when it came to numbers; Yuui was quick but Fai had been fast. He'd loved space and engineering, and when Yuui closed his eyes that was what he saw; Fai, writing out equations longhand with the pen Ashura had bought him for their nineteenth birthday, the desk lights turned down low and his eyes bright and alert.

Yuui wondered if he could wake Fai up before they arrived in Europa. If Fai would be in any condition to notice the ship. He used to talk about space travel, back before Yuui accidentally outed himself as kinetic and the military school staff thought they were nothing more than two bright normal young men, possibly with a good career ahead of them. Fai had been tempted by a poster recruiting for... the marines, Yuui thought, but he couldn't remember. It had been years ago.

As he flipped through the recipes footsteps sounded in the hallway and the door hissed open again; Sakura took a few steps into the room and paused, seeing him. She had changed out of her mechanic's coveralls into some plain but obviously comfortable exercise clothing; she blinked in surprise when she saw him on the sofa.

"Yuui-san," she said, tilting her head to one side. "What are you doing still...?"

"Looking up recipes," he said, hefting the book, and she smiled. "I know I don't have to worry about it yet, but I wanted to have a bit of an idea."

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "Chicken wouldn't go amiss. We haven't had it in a while, you see."

"I see," he replied, tapping 'chicken' into the search bar of the reader. It flashed him a small hourglass symbol briefly, and then displayed '1-50 of 30,000' results; he settled himself against the arm of the sofa and began scrolling through them, looking for something tasty, within his ingredient range, and that would test him and please the crew. It was at least a very comfortable sofa, long enough for him to stretch out in full and quite wide. He suspected it was Kurogane-sized.

Sakura came into the room fully, letting the door close behind her, and raised her voice. "Mokona, may I access the exercise equipment, please?"

"Confirmed," Mokona replied, her disembodied voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. Yuui hunched quietly into the sofa; there was something unnerving about that voice, flat but also sweet and willing to please. It reminded him of someone he had known.

"Thank you," Sakura said as the machines detached from the wall. She took off the towel she'd been wearing around her shoulders, folding it neatly and placing it on the arm of the sofa by Yuui's feet. "We all have to do a few hours a day on these things," she said, attracting his attention, "But I have to do more than the others, because I spend more time in zero-g." She pulled a face.

"Even the captain?" Yuui asked blankly, trying to imagine Kurogane using the treadmill and failing. He couldn't even picture Kurogane in sweatpants. Did they even make sweatpants for his size? He was so very tall...

"Even the captain," Sakura confirmed, as she climbed onto the exercise bike. "Too much time in low gravity is bad for all of us."

Yuui thinned his lips, studying the rack of equipment dubiously. He was no stranger to it, and he knew all about the effects of gravity on the human body, but he wasn't sure whether or not he could coax Fai onto it, and if he could, how easy it would be to keep him going. Whatever Earth had done to him had left him... strange.

"Sakura-chan," he said, and she looked over at him quizzically although she didn't stop moving, "What's it like to be a precog?"

"What's it like to be a kinetic?" she replied, with a small smile. "I've never been anything else, Yuui-san. I just am."

"It's just - " he paused, struggling to find the words; opened his mouth, thought better of it, subsided. Tried again. "I met one other precog before you, just one, and... she was different."

"How so?" Sakura asked. There was a note of caution in her voice. "Who was she?"

"She was - her name was," he paused, groping through his dusty recollections, finds it. "Kohane."

This is Kohane-chan, General Ko had said, her old wrinkled face still and unyielding as she looked out over the classroom full of young psionics. The girl at her side stood there, docile and unmoving before their curious eyes. She posses the rarest of the lesser three talents - Fai! Tell me what the talents are, if you can't pay attention.

His brother stopped squirming and raised his eyebrows, pulling the touchscreen stylus out of his mouth. He'd already chewed the end of it pretty badly, Yuui noticed, and winced, but Fai seemed supremely calm and unnerved as he put the bitemark-covered stylus down and said, she's a precognitive, obviously. The other lesser talents are clairvoyance and empathy. The greater two are 'paths and 'kinetics.

Hmm, the General said, her mouth looking more pinched than it usually did. Fai didn't look away or blink, just stuck the plastic pen back in his mouth, and eventually she broke eye contact first, putting her hand on Kohane's shoulder. The girl just stood there like a doll, and Yuui found he couldn't look at her for too long; she felt wrong, like a marionette with its strings in the General's hands.

"I don't recognize that name," Sakura told him, frowning. "Where did you meet her?"

"At the Academy. She worked for the Earth government," Yuui said, and then hesitated. Sakura was running faster as the treadmill sped up. "I... there was a rumor that she was sold to the authorities by her mother," he said, carefully, and saw Sakura's shoulders stiffen. "There's... a reward, for helping Earth find psionics."

He should know. His father had tried to claim it for him after he'd accidentally outed his powers to the staff of the ordinary Peacekeeper school, before they'd shoved him and Fai in another suborbital to be shipped back south to Hong Kong. Fai had punched the man again, this time in the face.

"I take it she didn't see it coming either," Sakura said with a sad smile, but he shook his head.

"No. She did. She just didn't do anything about it."

Why? Fai asked, straddling the bench next to her in cafeteria; Kohane lifted her head in response to his question, her eyes soft and cool. Yuui was skulking behind his back, torn between his own curiosity and horror at Fai's forwardness.

Because, Kohane said, and blinked slowly; up close she was even more disconcerting, less a girl and more a robot. Yuui wondered if she was always this way, or if it was something that happened to all precogs. Because I wanted my mama to be happy, she said, and smiled her sad sweet smile, turning back to her food and writing them out of her existence just like that. Fai shifted back, uncomfortable.

Stop me if I get that far, he said in a low voice meant only for Yuui's ears, and Yuui swallowed and nodded and didn't say, how?

Sakura said nothing for several seconds, just jogging on the treadmill, and Yuui watched her cautiously over the ebook. She had her back to him, her face unreadable, but he thought he saw tension in her shoulders; doubt, perhaps, for the people in her life, wondering who had sold her out.

"No," she said, suddenly. She switched the machine down and slowed down accordingly. "Nobody I know would have given me away. Mars isn't Earth, we all stick together, even in the cities!" She flashed him a look, daring him to deny this. "My mother was already gone, but... no. There's no way Father or Touya or Yuki would have. My brother and his boyfriend," she added to Yuui's quizzical look. "You met Touya. He was the bartender on the space station who sent you to the Captain."

"He was?" Yuui said, although looking back he could remember a few details of the bartender's face. He didn't look that much like his sister. "No wonder he sent me here then, if he's your brother," he said. "He must send a lot of people your way."

Sakura halted, putting her hands on her hips, and stood there, quietly. Eventually she said, "He doesn't know I'm here."

Yuui frowned, not understanding.

"He doesn't know what happened to me after I was kidnapped," Sakura explained, reluctantly. "It's better that he doesn't know. Last time we went back to Mars, Yuki said Earth was still looking for me. They have surveillance on my father. They don't know Syaoran-kun helped rescue me or his family would be in danger too. "

"Oh," Yuui said quietly, and she turned and gave him a wan smile.

"How about your family, Yuui-san?" she said. "Are they safe?"

Yuui snorted despite himself. "Our mother died when we were twelve," he said. "Our father... we're not really... he threw us out when we were seventeen."

"He threw you out?" Sakura said, her eyes going wide. "But... but he's your father!"

Yuui thinned his lips. "He was an alcoholic," he said. "We raided his liquor collection and... well. Did something he didn't like."

He couldn't meet her eyes. It wasn't a lie; they had broken into his liquor stash. Fai had said their father was out, and Yuui had believed him, and he'd had a bottle of vodka in his hand when their father came out of his bedroom to see them, Fai leaning back against the couch with his pants around his ankles and Yuui at work with his tongue between his brother's spread thighs.

What the fuck, he'd said, standing framed in the doorway, and Yuui had leapt back from his twin instinctively, so fast he knocked the vodka bottle flying. Their father was filling the doorframe, a big man, broad across the shoulders; Yuui had always thought they had inherited his height but their mother's build.

Do you mind, Fai said lazily, showing his teeth. He stood up, pulling his pants up while Yuui frantically wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand as though getting rid of the evidence would change anything. I was busy, his twin continued, drawing their father's attention as he no doubt wanted; the man swung for him and missed, and drew back to hit him again, but Fai was no longer a starving child and he didn't stay still. He simply stepped forward and slugged their father first, a good solid blow to the gut that made him double over, and then chaos really descended.

They'd been shipped up north to the military school the next morning, Fai with a huge black eye and a tense smile that almost completely hid whatever was going on in his head, nursing bleeding and bruised knuckles. Fai always said his only regret was not hospitalizing the bastard; Yuui had said nothing, and didn't like to dwell on it even now.

"Our father won't miss us," he said, firmly, and gave Sakura a small smile before returning his attention to the book in his palms. A few more screens and he saw a recipe for Chinese-style lemon chicken he thought he could pull off.

He got to his feet, meaning to go look through the kitchen and see what else he could make to go with it, when the door hissed open again; Sakura paused her cooldown stretches and huffed out a breath when Kurogane stepped inside, ducking his head to get under the doorway. His strange eyes flicked from Sakura to Yuui to the exercise bikes, and he huffed out a breath.

"Captain," Sakura said cheerfully. "We were just -"

"Talking, yeah," he interrupted. "I guessed. You done with the machines?"

"No, I -" she paused. "That wasn't really a question, was it."

"Nope," Kurogane said. "Captain's privilege."

"You can help me with dinner, Sakura-chan," Yuui said, somewhat stiffly, and she made a small face at her captain and hopped off the treadmill, going for her towel. Kurogane grunted and stepped further into the room. He wasn't wearing sweatpants, which Yuui suspected might be a good thing. He wore a strange garment, loose and flowing, like the samurai in the fantasy flicks playing back home.

The robes showed more of his chest and throat than the spacer's garb had, and without the line of the shoulder protectors it was obviously just how broad he was across the chest; he was huge but somehow didn't look out of place, despite being tall enough that he had to duck to fit through a doorway that could accommodate Yuui's own not inconsiderable eighteen decimeters. Yuui was reminded of the old footage they'd shown him at the school, of the children born to the early spacers who had grown up in low-gravity environments. Some of them had grown as large as twenty-four decimeters before they died, their hearts unable to keep up with the size of their bones, and after that growth regulating hormones became mandatory for all extraterrestrial populations.

Kurogane wasn't quite as tall - he looked just over twenty decimeters - but still, he had height enough. He towered over the kids. Yuui wondered idly if his parents had skimped his dosage of the drug, but doubted it; he didn't carry himself like someone who had grown up hungry.

"You got something to say?" Kurogane growled, and Yuui snapped out of his maunderings as he realized he'd been staring. Kurogane had paused with the weight bar halfway up his chest - holding it effortlessly still despite the high settings on the machine - and was half-glaring at him.

"Mm? Oh, just disappointed that Captain Bodybuilder isn't wearing a sexy spandex gym outfit," Yuui said, giving the man a cheeky grin. It was easy to fall back into teasing; it was a distraction from bad, old thoughts. "It means I can't call you Captain Tightpants any more!"

Kurogane snorted and resumed his reps. "This is what I always wear. It's more comfortable. You're going to need to get your skinny ass on these machines too, you know, if you don't want your bones to rot in the low gravity."

"Why, Captain, I didn't know you cared," Yuui said in a sing-song voice. "But if you would stop interrupting me, I could get dinner started to feed up all our skinny asses."

Sakura was giggling, watching them; Kurogane just snorted and turned his back, shifting the bar into place for pull-downs. Yuui couldn't help it - his gaze lingered for a moment longer on the rippling muscles of that broad back before he managed to shake himself and turn away.

It was good to have so much variety of food to choose from, he thought as he mixed the sauce. And comforting to have it so close by. He and Fai had been overwhelmed by the military school and its food, and had gotten in massive amounts of trouble in their first few months for stealing food and hiding it in their dorm room, building a stockpile in case it stopped miraculously appearing before them every day. The psionic academy had laid on even better food, as was suitable for its students. Fai had been pretty approving of that much, even if he hadn't trusted the academy staff and had made Yuui lie the whole time he was there, even to Professor Ashura who had been nothing but kind to them, about the extent of his talent.

Speaking of his twin, Yuui thought - his hands working on automatic as he pulled ingredients from drawers, Sakura helpfully fetching certain named items from the list on the electronic book - he really ought to run that tox screen after dinner. The Mokona could probably help him do it, he'd have to ask. Fortunately the triage capsule was made with such medical procedures in mind; he should be able to do it without bringing Fai out of sedation.

If he wanted to have Fai awake and alert he needed to find out what was wrong with his brother, what drugs they had given him. By tracing the drugs he might be able to find out what his brother's gift had been, that they had been so desperate for it and so uncaring about his physical state. Perhaps they had been trying to create another Kohane; a hollowed-out doll, sweet and unthinking and docile. If so... well.

They wouldn't get their wish, Yuui thought. Whatever it took, he would spare Fai her fate. His brother would never be a puppet for them.

There was no night or day on a spaceship, not in the way Yuui thought of the term; in space there was no once-a-day rotation to cast them into planet shadow, no timekeeping at all except for the mechanical running of Mokona's mechanical clock. But the human body still needed night and day, periods of darkness and light; and so the ship had a scheduled night period, where the lights were dimmed and all sensible people took themselves to bed.

Syaoran and Sakura were both asleep but Yuui, pressing his ear carefully against the door, thought he heard movement in Kurogane's quarters. He hesitated, torn between a daunted desire not to draw the Captain's ire by disturbing him in the middle of the night, and the determination that now was the best time to make his pitch.

He shut his eyes and red lines played across the inside of his eyelids, the final readout of the triage unit's toxicity scan that had seared itself into his brain. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't. Fai had always been so careful, so strict about what either of them put into their bodies. After their mother's death he'd taken a hard-line stance against drugs of any kind, anything from overdoing caffeine or alcohol to the more sneakily seductive drugs available on the street. And now all that had been taken away from him against his will.

With the image of his mother's frozen face fixed in his mind, Yuui took a breath and raised his fist to knock. Before his hand touched the surface of the metal, though, the door slid suddenly open and he was confronted with an expression like a thundercloud.

"It's the middle of the damn night, can't you see the corridor lights?" Kurogane growled at him. "What do you want?"

Off-balance, Yuui responded by flashing him a brilliant smile. "Just to talk about a few things, Captain Sleepyhead," he said. "Can I come in?"

Ungraciously Kurogane opened the door the rest of the way and stood aside. "Make it quick," he said. He was wearing another loose synthetic robe, not unlike the one he had worn in the exercise room; most likely he was getting ready to sleep. That could be good, in that it would make him suggestible; but it could be bad, since he would also be irritable.

But then again, he was always irritable.

Yuui stepped quickly inside, his bright blue eyes doing a quick scan of the room before returning to Kurogane's face. Captain's privilege, indeed; this room was three times the size of his, rivaled only by the engine room or the galley. It was surprisingly free of clutter, though; only a few subtle touches of ornamentation on the walls or floor, probably everything was locked away in the cabinets that lined the long room. The only things out in the open were a futon, laid out for the night, and a Shinto-style shrine along the wall. He caught a glimpse of a pair of portraits, some gently curling incense and bells, before Kurogane stepped into his line-of-sight and glared at him.

"Well, what do you want?" Kurogane said again.

Yuui took a few nervous steps around the entry area of Kurogane's quarters, hands flitting out as though to touch things before falling away. "I… just wanted to talk," he said. "To find out more. About this ship, and where we're going." He turned and gave Kurogane a winsome smile. "You know, if I'm going to be part of the crew and all."

"We're going to Mars," Kurogane said. "No changing that. We have a delivery there."

"And…" Yuui hesitated. "What about after that?"

Kurogane frowned, his red eyes narrowing. "Europa. That's where you wanted to go, and I took your money, so that's where we're going. Unless you changed your mind."

Yuui gave a little shrug. It didn't much matter to him where they went; Europa had just sounded nice and far away from… everything. He groped for words. "I wondered if… we could get something on Mars."

"You can get pretty much anything on Mars," Kurogane said. "It's a whole damn planet, after all. Be more specific."

"Um… some medicine," Yuui said quickly. He swallowed, feeling his pulse speed up in his throat. "For Fai - my brother. I can't keep him asleep forever, and he's going to need help when he wakes up." There. That was a perfectly reasonable request, how could Kurogane refuse that?

But the captain's suspicious frown only deepened. "What medicine did you have in mind?"

Yuui took a quick breath. "Ketazolam. Tropium. Sominem if we can't get either of those. Thebaine, though we shouldn't need much of that."

He anxiously watched Kurogane's expression darkened; it would have been too much to hope for that a smuggler wouldn't know those names, wouldn't know the common street names behind those fancy scientific-sounding words. Crash. Time-outters. Sleeper. Queen's Lace. "I don't deal in drugs," the man snarled. "What the hell are you thinking, that I would -"

"I ran a toxicity scan," Yuui said, "and the results are… He's just a mess. They must have been pumping him full of tranqs and sedatives nonstop to keep him docile - he's got a dependency on three different major drugs and tolerance for half a dozen more." He shut his eyes, still seeing the red text parading across his field of vision, casting a new ghastly pallor over Fai's sleeping face. "I'll pay for everything, I just need you to find a supplier for me. It's not like it's going to be long term - all I want to do is get him off the addictions."

"Then do that," Kurogane said coldly. "Cold turkey. I won't have anything to do with it. You hired me to transport you and your cargo - not to be your drug mule."

"That might kill him!" Yuui clenched his teeth, resisting the urge to scream in frustration. He took a deep breath and struggled to find his way forward. He didn't want to start another fight with Kurogane. The other man was bigger, stronger, but what did that matter to a telekinetic? He could always throw Kurogane against the ceiling if necessary - but then what? He wasn't afraid of losing, but he didn't know how to win; the only way of ending fights he knew was to kill his opponent. And he couldn't kill Kurogane; he needed him.

How could he persuade Kurogane? Maybe - maybe he should try seduction again. The thought wasn't as repellant as it had been before; he'd seen the way Kurogane looked at him in the engine bay, and truth to tell had done some looking of his own during Kurogane's workout.

Yuui shifted his posture slightly, going from tense and anxious to inviting, and stepped into Kurogane's personal space. "You don't really want that," he murmured. "A strung-out crash addict, with God only knows what kind of psychic powers, on a sealed-up spaceship like this? It wouldn't be good for anyone."

"I don't deal drugs," Kurogane said stubbornly, standing his ground, although he leaned back slightly. The look he shot Yuui was eloquent; what the hell do you think you're doing?

"Oh please," Yuui said in a coaxing tone. "Why do you have to be so stubborn, Captain? Why can't you just… bend a little for once? I'd be really grateful…"

Kurogane shifted, and Yuui knew he was about to push him away; he moved faster, using just a light kinetic touch to keep Kurogane within range of his grasp. His arms came up and wrapped over Kurogane's shoulders, and he went up on his toes - damn, he's tall! - to kiss him.

This, at least, he had plenty of practice in; he knew he was a good kisser, and at first Kurogane seemed receptive enough. But just as Yuui tried to move deeper, press his body up along the other man's, it ended. Kurogane wrenched himself backwards, putting his arms on Yuui's shoulders to hold him at arm's length. "Don't do that," he said through his teeth, exasperated.

Yuui backed off a step, shooting Kurogane a look full of bewildered hurt. "Why not?" he said. "You didn't mind…"

"Stop trying to seduce me for favors," Kurogane snapped. "It won't get you anywhere and I'm pretty damn insulted that you think I'm that kind of man. For that matter, I'm getting sick of you pretending like you're disposable. You're worth more than that, so start acting like it."

"What?" Confusion overtook resentment, and Yuui took another step backwards. "What are you talking about?"

Kurogane crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. "Y'know, you really suck at this," he remarked.

"Kissing?" Yuui's eyebrows went up. "I am not -"

"I'm not talking about that," Kurogane said, waving a hand in exasperation. "I mean you're terrible at… being a criminal. Getting what you want. You've spent the last couple of days blundering around the Earth sphere like an elephant, not knowing where to go or who to talk to, just smashing things when they get in your way. It's sheer damn luck that you weren't caught a dozen times by now."

"I know," Yuui said, his voice strained. He'd been fighting against his own ignorance, it felt like, every step of the way: that he should have known better, that he should have done better, but he just didn't know how. "I didn't - I didn't know what to do. But I had to do something. I couldn't let them -"

"Hundreds of people at the airbase," Kurogane reminded him remorselessly, and saw Yuui flinch as though Kurogane had struck him with a flail. "Not to mention whoever was in that armored car, I bet. Anyone else that you failed to mention? That's still a pretty respectable body count for an amateur. And most of them didn't really deserve to die, did they? They were just collateral damage."

"I didn't want to," Yuui whispered, his heart pounding. Could he have spared them? How? He had had such a limited timeframe, and it had been so easy...

Too easy, he realized, with a burst of shock. Kurogane was right, but... he groped desperately for a defense. "I didn't have a lot of -"

"Don't get me wrong," Kurogane cut him off. "I'm a killer myself. I'm not preaching morality here. But if you're going to kill people, then you ought to want to kill them. There ought to be a reason, otherwise it's just waste. But you didn't mean to kill them, and you didn't want to, and - here's the thing - you didn't have to.

"There are a hundred ways of getting money, if you need to, that don't involve crushing armored cars," he went on. "And if you'd planned the raid on the airbase a little more carefully - hired some help - you might have been able to get in and out without killing anybody at all."

Yuui couldn't think of what to say; his stomach was a tight knot of guilt and grief. Yes. He had crashed that fuel drone because it had been quick and easy; he could have planned and waited. He had raided the facility on his own because killing people was easier than anything else, and how low had he fallen that that was the case? What would Fai say if he were here?

"You're not just an ordinary kinetic, are you?" Kurogane said in a deceptively soft voice. "The kids might not have noticed, but I did; I've never known a kinetic who could pull apart an armored car, or pull a drone down out of the sky. You're powerful, but you're dumb, and that's a bad combination - you keep wandering around the galaxy like this and you'll be a danger to everyone. Including yourself. And your brother."

Kurogane paused, and Yuui could not think of a thing to say. His mind had whited out as if in shock, because Kurogane knew too much, and Yuui knew that everything he had said was true. For a moment Yuui's instinct, borne of his time spent lying to academy staff, was to deny it, to pretend that he was an ordinary kinetic. Fai had always insisted on that, and he had been wise to do so; but somehow the familiar lie wouldn't come, and after a few seconds he let it go. There was no point, anyway. This man saw him as him, not as Yuui-shadow-of-Fai. How many more lies of his would the spacer captain have to pick apart before he remembered?

Kurogane sighed, and his stern features looked suddenly tired. "You know, despite all that, I don't think you're completely hopeless," he said, in a voice that was a little softer. "I don't waste my time on hopeless things. You're ignorant, but you've got a brain; you could learn how to do things, if you tried. And you're brave, and you're loyal. That counts for a lot in this world; you can buy brains, but you can't buy heart."

Yuui linked his hands in front of him, staring at them. They weren't shaking, he supposed he ought to be grateful for that small mercy. He felt so lost, suddenly, all the confidence he had gained stripped from him; there was blood on his hands and no Fai around to give him orders and - he sneaked a peek at Kurogane behind his hair. He wasn't Fai, but Yuui didn't know who else to turn to. In a small voice, a voice that was little more than a shadow of itself, he said, "What should I do?"

"Well right now," Kurogane said, "It's after midnight ship-time, so you should go the hell to bed. We've still got seven days until we reach Mars space; we can decide what to do about your brother later."

Yuui gave a small nod, his face hollowed and desolate. He didn't want to sleep; he was afraid of seeing the bodies again, crowding around him, accusing him, insisting that they didn't have to die. After a moment he looked up, and tried to smile; Kurogane just rolled his eyes. "Well, all right then, Captain Sage Advice," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

Kurogane keyed open the door and moved aside, and Yuui walked past him into the corridor. Before closing the door, Kurogane hesitated. "Hey," he said. "Just so you know."

Yuui stopped two steps in the corridor, his back to Kurogane. "What?" he said.

"As a matter of fact, you don't completely suck at kissing," Kurogane said, in a tone that tried too hard to be casual. "If you get to a point where you want to do that again - for your own reasons, not because you want favors from me - then you can come back."

Astonished, Yuui whirled around to face him, but the door was already sliding shut.

Well. That would at least give him something else to think about, as he didn't sleep tonight.

Onto chapter eight & Part Two: Mars →

-tbc