From Silence to Smiles (1/2)
Title: From Silence to Smiles
1 | 2
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Spoilers for Fai's past. Violence, vivid traumatic flashbacks, sex.
Summary: Comforting always comes with a price. But after something awful happens in Yama, Fai lets himself be comforted by Kurogane, bridging them closer in more ways than one.
Author's Note: Written for a prompt at clampkink, where Kurogane catches Fai crying for the first time in Yama. Fai's honesty and Kurogane's kindness leads to comfort sex. I like the prompt because it challenged me to think what would upset Fai so much that he would cry.
There is love in our bodies and it holds us together
But pulls us apart when we're holding each other
We all want something to hold in the night
We don't care if it hurts or we're holding too tight
- “Hardest of Hearts” - Florence + The Machine
War, you think wearily, brings nothing but pain.
You can fight all you want to gain something or win that someone or to earn the right to possess a land.
But in the end, war brings nothing but regret.
You know this. You know it perfectly well, because you had been involved in wars against an unknown enemy for many years under your loyalty to Ashura-ou. Magic, offensive magic to be precise, is your forte, and it was precisely because of that the Celesian king had entrusted you to line up among the best of the ranks in his army, even occasionally lead other court magicians in the bloody battles to protect Luval. And you willingly did, because it was what your king had wished for you, and so you felt a sense of duty and honor to serve the land you still call home. Even though participating in bloody wars and killing other people goes against your principles and comfort, you thought for so long that at the very least nothing horrible could go awry.
But you were wrong.
And you wish you weren’t.
Because all that time the unknown enemy that had been responsible for the murder of innocent Celesians had been Ashura-ou himself, who was driven to kill to get stronger. In the end, you’re responsible for your king’s insanity because he had gone on his illogical, murderous path for your sake. It’s because of your presence and the curses you are dealt with that had caused him to be mad, and so once again it is because of you that someone you love and care for suffers at your expense. In other words, you had caused so much misfortune on him. And even though you had promised him that you would destroy the person who’s responsible for the peoples’ deaths and destructions of the land, no matter what, you didn’t have the heart to kill him and fulfill his wish. Murder’s the last thing you can do to him, so you still will do everything in your power to avoid it; even after all the deaths of the innocent Celesians that still taints your hands to these days in that bloody struggle that started because of Ashura-ou’s orders and in the end, because of him. The last thing you want is to be a murderer again, be that person who is purely responsible for ending a life even if that someone is threatening yours. Besides, you already have so many lives destroyed due to your existence and decisions, such as the people of Valeria and the people of Celes.
And you will never forget you are the reason your brother is dead.
So it’s true. War does bring nothing but pain and regret, and so far you had been able to avoid fighting ever since then.
Until now.
How cruel and ironic it is that you are now one of the two strongest warriors in the midst of another never-ending war that has lasted generations after generations in the name of the king of the land called Yama.
It was a predicament that you would have eventually landed in, considering the nature of traveling between worlds and dimension, and the witch had forewarned all of you about encountering dangerous conditions like this.
But you did not expect it to occur in a situation where it was only you and Kurogane left on your own means to survive until you reunite with Syaoran, Sakura, and Mokona. Perhaps worse of all, the timing had to be ill and happened in a place where you could neither communicate with the proud ninja or the people of Yama, which left you with very few options. To join the military of Yasha-ou meant you and the other man were not traitors, but it also meant you had to fully and willingly show that you’re capable of fighting and killing the enemies of the opposing clan. To not join would only spell out that you were not allies. And so if it meant you had to fight and get involved in a bloody war to save your skin so you can continue on your mission to resurrect your brother and atone for your sins, you silently went with it, even though every part of you wished otherwise.
Kurogane, on the other hand, had readily accepted to be enlisted in Yasha-ou’s army. He was willing to join for more than pragmatic reasons; he was eager, and you could easily tell in his eyes and his smirk that this was something a strong warrior like him had been waiting forever since you and he were stuck together in this journey. Nothing could satiate his appetite like a complicated and long, waging war. It was another aspect that you and he had no commonalities in. He would always anticipate for a good fight, a good challenge and would never run away from such opportunities while you would. Run away that was, because that was what you had been doing lately, and now that you couldn’t speak nor not participate in the war you had nowhere else to go. All you could do was literally keep mum and carry about just like how you would always be discreet and conceal your true fears and intentions.
So on the first day you and Kurogane were commanded to begin training it dawned on you as well as your traveling companion that you would have to be adept with a weapon, whatever that would be. Magic was clearly out of the question since there were no magicians in the army, which you had no qualms about. However, it still meant you had to work with something else, an agent and tool that served to maim and kill on your behalf. Still, regardless of the idea that the weapon does the killing and not you with your magic or, heavens forbid, your own hands, the notion that you’re tasked to rob more lives was unsettling.
At first, Kurogane tried to get you to use a sword by offering practices using wooden training ones, but after a few hours of poor attempts and lots of cursing and yelling from the other, the plan was abandoned. After all, you had purposefully tried to make it appear that you had no intention of honing even the basics of the weapon, unlike the serious and determined Syaoran. At the same time, you were relieved that sword fighting was something you would never be able to adapt in time before you and Kurogane were deployed for your first battle. At least that was something honest. But still, the others, especially the ninja, would not let you get away so easily.
After the taciturn warrior cooled down from his frustration at that waste of a training session, he spoke in his native language you could not understand at all while using hand motions at the same time. He kept using his thumb and index finger to grip onto an imaginary object and flick his hand forward, muttering away. Kurogane continued going on his serious charade before he seemed pleased and started dragging you over to the armory. There he enquired the man in charge to fetch something, and it turned out to be a longbow along with some spare arrows to practice with. Putting two and two together, you realized that Kurogane was mimicking the times you expertly used those darts to deal with the oni in Outo, and so he had selected bow and arrow for you to try out. You had to hand it to him - he was actually thoughtful. But it wasn’t simple and convincing. It never would be. He would never, ever understand that oni were just oni and that killing them was different from killing humans.
With that said and done, Kurogane gruffly handed you the weapon and you took it with a smile: bemusement on the outside but sorrow on the inside.
Now that you were presented a new weapon to try out with, the two of you stepped out of the armory tent and retreated to the archery field where other archers were polishing up on their finesse. You tried to let the ninja know that you would be fine on your own to test out the bow and arrows by smiling and patting him on the arm, in which he immediately scowled and shoved your hand away. But still he frowned and shook his head, indicating that he would stay to monitor your progress. And you couldn’t help but laugh nervously at why he would insist on doing that. You weren’t comfortable with him pushing you around to make yourself useful, lest he would gripe about you being a bloody idiot. But at the same time, deep down you knew Kurogane was just trying to make sure you would have a purpose in Yasha-ou’s army so that you wouldn’t be as suspicious and, therefore, he was watching your back just as much.
As soon as you stepped in front of a practice target range, the other man immediately took back the longbow and examined it. He then fetched an arrow from the quiver and carefully nocked it into a position. You simply watched his demonstration as he pointed the tip of the arrow at the target. Although this wasn’t the same as observing how he would handle a sword, which was clearly his forte, you couldn’t help but notice the sharpness in his eyes still as he finally released the arrow. Both sets of eyes followed the arrow as it flung towards the practice target where it landed within two rings closest to the center. Kurogane scoffed at his missed aim, but nevertheless he shoved the longbow back in your hands to let you give it a go.
The polished and refined wood felt heavy, yet light and natural in the palm of your hands. For a moment, you didn’t clench them firmly around the longbow, but then you tug a smile at the corner of the mouth. Sure, your companion would probably not fall for your deceit, but at the very least, you wanted to try to pretend you’re willing to go through all of this effort for his sake; yours not so much. Nothing in Kurogane’s eyes or expressions changed as he finally let go of the weapon and stepped back to watch your progress, and you were a bit surprised that he wasn’t going to literally guide you through using it. There wasn’t much you could do except for trying to repeat what he had just shown you. So you let things went on a normal pace and proceeded to fit an arrow into the bow, adjusting it while pulling back the string. The center of the target was the center of your focus as you aligned the tip of the arrow with it. But your eyes briefly flickered to the left just as you release the arrow, and so it landed erroneously far from the center.
Kurogane crossed his arms and muttered under his breath, yet he didn’t berate you at all. Instead, he motioned for you to continue, which you responded back with a pout in a gesture of telling him that you weren’t that idiotic as he always presumed you to be. He rolled his eyes and shouted at you, most likely saying to just continue and stop with the silliness. Alas, the charades would have to end for now, you thought, as you resumed with your archery practice.
The practice lasted for another hour or so until even the ninja had said that it was enough for the day. Progress was going at a minimum pace, but at the very least, the arrows you released had become more concentrated in a particular area rather than being fired at random parts of the entire practice target. Yet even so, the tone and mannerism in Kurogane’s voice and body suggested that he wasn’t as strict and patronizing, therefore he expected and even understood that it would take some time before you master using the longbow with effortless precision. Besides, the first battle you and he would be employed in wouldn’t be until a few more nights anyways.
The routine was the same for the next few days. As soon as the sun rose in the horizon you and the other soldiers would wake up to a light, yet hearty morning meal, followed by a light rest before starting with group warm ups leading up to the daily grinds of practices.
Many arrows were used and reused as you continued practicing with the longbow. Beads of sweat perspired past your temples under the hot sun, and yet you kept finding yourself being disciplined. Your fingers would occasionally bleed from splinters in the arrows’ shafts, yet somehow you ignored the pain, maybe even let it continue. Soon your efforts and improvement became prominent and you found that more and more soldiers on breaks would come watch you along with Kurogane.
On the seventh day of grueling training under the sun, you made your first dead-center shot. There were scant hurrahs coming from several men, but still practice was not over. Nocking another arrow, which now became very familiar and at ease, you fired it and it landed squarely next to the other one. Two soon became three and three became four and so on until no more arrows could fit on the tiny center. With nothing left to accomplish, you lowered the longbow and wiped sweat off of your forehead. This wasn’t exactly something to be proud of, even though others were exclaiming and remarking about your superb archery skills. You didn’t even dare look over to see Kurogane, because even though he wasn’t exactly reacting like many of the others, you knew he was just as impressed as the others on your successful streaks. You wanted to smile, maybe even laugh, at all of this. Maybe it was for the better that no one, not even the man who was so good at reading you, would ever know.
Know that you were considered one of the best archers in the Celesian army - that was.
When you were still hesitant to use your magic for the good (or what you thought was good), for the people of Celes because of the Valerian superstition tied to it, your king was sympathetic. He therefore suggested you to try out something that didn’t deal with magic at all, and that happened to be archery. It wasn’t like magic where you picked it up naturally from the start, but it was something you worked on over the years when you were still new to Celes before you mastered it. In the end, archery was your second best way of fighting, and your talent never left you, even though you abandoned it when you finally started going back to using offensive magic. So why did this other method of fighting had to come back painfully to you now?
You only wanted to fool the others that you were a novice when it came to archery. And so you ensured that you would aim so poorly at first. But since you knew it was expected you would get better, you couldn’t get away by slacking off forever. So you advanced to the point it looked like you were improving when there was no improvement needed to be done in the first place. Now that many eyes, including a general, witnessed your prowess, there was no going back. The charades must end there. There was no more fooling them.
And that included even no longer fooling yourself, even hoping, that you were unnatural with this weapon.
Tonight is another battle. Perhaps it’s the hundredth one, but you do not know since you have lost track of it. Or worse, perhaps you have grown so accustomed to war that you do not even try to count anymore.
But you still keep count of the days, the long and relentless ones.
It has been approximately four months - one hundred twenty and so days- since you and Kurogane have been stranded in the land of Yama. Four months of being a soldier, a master archer. Four months of being continuously deployed to the barren battlefield high above the earth in the night sky that hovers by the beautiful, yet haunting full moon. Four months of pushing yourself against your own principles to be active in this endless war. Ever since the others had seen how well you are with the longbow, you and the other man have both proven just how strong you are, therefore impressing the king and causing you to advance through the ranks rapidly. Together, the two of you are now the strongest warriors in Yasha-ou’s army.
The night is still young yet the battlefield is already reeking with the stench of blood and fallen bodies. Already several of your arrows have been disposed of from your quiver into the men of the Ashura clan, yet none have become lethally fatal. Yet time can only tell if tonight, or some other time, that your attack will be fatalistic as soon as you let go of an arrow from your hand. But even so, you hope it will stay this way, because so far you have been able to remain guiltless of murder in your own hands. At the very least, it is all you can ask for, a compromise if you will for being the strongest archer (and Kurogane the strongest swordsman) at the moment on this side of the battlefield for the sake of surviving to fulfill your wishes.
More soldiers from the other side are advancing towards Yasha-ou, but you have been well trained for this. Hitching another arrow and drawing it in your bow, you effortlessly fire some more at them, striking shoulders in some and legs in others. The motions are continuous, almost as if your mind and body are one with the weapon. But you refuse to let it become that way, refuse for you to become a mindless, murderous machine. If anything, Kurogane fits that. He’s not afraid to fight at all. It runs in his blood and to him he is merely a predator among a field of weak preys. This is nothing new to him and something he eagerly anticipates. One strike from his sword follows with another and never before have you seen him so deadly in the entire journey. Such ruthlessness runs to the contrary of your perfectly maintained control of the extent of the damage you can possibly inflict.
And yet, one thing continues to puzzle you about the strong ninja.
This is a war, and a war in reality meant going straight for the kill as soon as you can. So why then, would Kurogane always attack the enemies with full brunt yet never completely kill them? Why would he, a warrior who had told you that he would never hesitate to kill those who threatens his life - not to mention the lives he sworn to protect - not deliver the final blow ever since you two started fighting here? It can’t be because he values his enemies’ lives over his and his allies. To do so would be wholly uncharacteristic of him. To do so would give you and him something to have common in, when in reality you prefer it not to be that way. If anything, if he refuses to kill much as you do, then it leaves you vulnerable with the obligation to do so.
The clashes of steel bring you back to full alert. This is no time to let your guards down. You cannot let anyone catch you momentarily distracted from the stakes in present time, let alone the fact that you truly have no desire to be here. You cast your eyes at the moon and observe how far high in the sky it is. It’s still far from its highest point before time is out and you and the others are taken back to Yama. The ground was already bloody from the beginning of the evening. But now, as steels meet blades fiercely and a siege of arrows whip from all ends, the battle gets uglier.
Observing the number of bodies left lying on the battlefield, it seems that both clans have sustained nearly an equal number of losses in men. It pushes the struggle on an edge and everyone of course knows it, even though it is evident that a true victor to emerge is still unlikely. Along with everyone else, you keep your weapon and your diminishing supply of arrows at the ready. If anything you must use them wisely, and of course the more you have in stock, the more assured you know nothing can go out of hand. Soon enough, you keep reminding yourself, the moon will reach its peak and send you back. Heavens permit that it stays this way until you and Kurogane can finally get out of all of this tangled mess and resume the journey with the others.
It really is a wonder how good of an act you have been putting all this time, because in honesty you are now letting your clever acts of deceits get to the best of you. Perhaps it is all for the better, you wonder, as you act quickly once again and fire another arrow. The thought is very tantalizing as an escape from everything you have been hiding for these past few months and all those past battles. It is exactly what you need right now, you convince yourself.
Even if it is dangerous? For you?
Too late, you mentally argue, there is no going back.
Suddenly, the entire mood of the scene change. The stench of the blood, the bodies on the ground no longer bothers you. Rather, you block it out of your sight, out of your senses. It isn’t a matter that the more people you hurt, the more you feel satisfied. It’s a matter of feeling less vulnerable to your enemies, to your fellow allies. Even to Kurogane and yourself. This is how it is supposed to be. This is what you can control - how you feel, how you act, how you adapt to the current situation. You don’t know these people. Hell, the only one you are familiar with is the ninja, so it’s okay - it’s all goddamn perfectly okay and under control. Nothing can go wrong here, you insist, you so want to be convinced. Nothing can go wrong so long as you find the other three because that is all you need and want to do to keep your promises.
One by one you snatch an arrow and let them go. Bit by bit you feel the wood rubbing raw against your fingers. Little by little you feel your own blood running down. But this is nothing. That pain is nothing and so you let it continue. This won’t kill you at all. Nothing and nobody can kill you because you won’t. Not until you do the complete opposite of murder and bring Fai back to life. All you are doing now can really be nothing heinous, so you just fire those projectiles away and let your fingers and palm continue to bleed for a little. Time moves faster. The moon is getting closer to its zenith. You have this under your control. You surely have this under control.
Right?
All of a sudden, you hear so many yells going on at once. Somebody is proving to be quite a match. But that’s alright, because Kurogane should be able to take care of that, and you do not have to deal with this opponent, right? So this should not be a big deal at all, and you keep checking back at the moon. This too shall pass, and soon the battle, for now, should be over. Just keep these facades going and you should be fine.
But no, you keep hearing cries from your end, and they will not go away. And then you realize they are all coming at you. Somebody is literally shoving an arrow in your hand now with loads of swearing and that causes you to look at who it would be. But instead of doing that, you instinctively look forward and see that someone has been deceitfully going to attack you at your moment of vulnerability. You don’t even have to think. Your hand automatically positions the arrow and you point it at that other man.
You release.
Then all of a sudden you are cruelly jerked back to reality. And now to your horror, you can only witness as the arrow flies before it pierces him. Right in his heart. Dead center.
No, no, no!
Never before have had you heard such a deadly and cold bloodcurdling scream. And you swear it could be coming from you, too.
The loud wail reverberates once across the battlefield, yet to you it echoes on infinitely, ringing in your ears and vibrating against your heavy chest. It roars in your head, pounds in your ears, and blood leaves your cheeks in brutal shock; numbness and fear seeps in its place instead. Not wanting to see the man you had just slain slump to the ground in front of you, eyes rolled back and mouth left hanging open, you quickly tend to your quiver and bow. It’s okay is what you want to tell yourself, or at least coolly let others think you feel that way. But it’s not okay, not okay to have slain that man, not okay to have lost control like that, not okay to release the arrow just like that, not okay to let yourself forget about this and not okay to ever, ever forgive yourself.
Your fingers tremble along the leftover arrows and they inch further and further down the quiver so no one can see you so unforgivably unsettled, heart pounding so hard that you can’t even see or hear or feel anything but hurt and betrayal. All you can show is collective calm, smiling lightly as if nothing is really upsetting you, because taking an enemy’s life is just a part of being a warrior on a bloody battlefield. You just want to close your eyes and wish that you are away and anywhere but here, let the pain building in your chest, suffocating your lungs, and pouring into tears leak out of heavy eyelids, but you can’t because that will betray you and you can’t betray yourself - not yet.
Something heavy lands on your shoulder and you force yourself to see what it is, revealing a tan hand, fingers lightly coated in blood. Kurogane’s probably affirming you, praising you for your quick reflex, but you can’t look him in the eyes. He doesn’t know, but you can’t tell if he knows or not because lately he’s been focusing too much on you, reading you and it’s alarming. So you just smile, not too small or too big but it’s still a smile.
Finally the moon reaches its zenith high in the sky and the familiar magic whisks everyone away from the ruins of the battlefield. The cold stone of Yasha-ou's castle greets his men, and immediately soldiers and infirmaries rush in and out to tend to the wounded. A faint sigh escapes from your lips, released from your overwhelmed and fatigued body, but you can't lean back against solid stone. Not yet, not now, wait, wait, wait until you get back into your headquarters that the king had granted you and Kurogane as rewards for being the two strongest warriors among his ranks.
Someone throws a cloth at you and you use it to wipe off blood from your cheeks, your chest plate armor and everywhere. The material runs over your fingers coated in the dark red liquid, brazen from whipping out so many arrows that night and it cleans the blood off well - yet you can still feel it, feel the stains lingering on them from all the past murders under your conscience. No matter how many times they are wiped and cared for, they are still there, building and building ever since you were sentenced to that valley a long time ago. You were never in the mood to talk due to the language barriers, but especially tonight nothing should ever escape from your mouth for fear of losing control in front of everyone.
Silence.
And yet nothing is ever truly silent. The sounds of the battle and the excruciating scream of the man whose life you'd taken still haunts you when you quietly walk back to your and Kurogane's private quarter. All those times of talking endlessly can't spare you from the wretchedness that silence brings to you, and even the silence permeating from the ninja next to you lends to the loneliness. What good would it do to have an exchange with the other man when there were barriers to communication? Besides, you know the tones and inflections in your voice will betray yourself to him anyways - and if there were no translation issues to begin with, there's nothing much that can be spoken in the first place.
When at last the two of you arrive outside of the quarter, Kurogane speaks in his native tongue, making gestures with his hands and arms as always. Before the warrior would exaggerate with his non-verbal cues out of sheer frustration that you couldn't make anything out of his words, but four months later to this night, you know him better anyways and he knows that. He jabs his fingers down the corridor. I'm going that way. Kurogane raises his hand and draws a square in the air. To meet with the king. He then shoves you on the back towards the flap covering the door to the quarter. Stay there, and don't go anywhere, idiot.
Privacy. Kurogane's unintentionally giving you privacy just by choosing to give Yasha-ou a visit and you can't help but silently thank him for giving you that. You wave a hand nonchalantly, nodding your head and smile to let him know that you perfectly understand his plans. Before he can scrutinize you any further, you stumble into the room and shut the door and plant an ear on it just to make sure that Kurogane is still not standing outside. He's not, and with all coasts clear you slump along the door, breathing loud and hard.
Somehow, you push yourself to step away from the door and retreat closer to your own bed, where you start removing your armors and leave them lying on the floor. Change of clothes wait for you, but you can't bring yourself to change out of your warrior attire and settle down to a much, much needed sleep. There's no way you can sleep at this rate, and not even burying your face headfirst into the bed will spare you from conjuring the horrid images of corpses in your nightmares. And now, the thought of that man with an arrow affixed where his once beating heart was, mouth hanged open with blood and blank eyes rolled back will not, cannot leave you. Just the frightening thought snags your breath away and all of a sudden you lurch forward, clasping your stomach that's hurting.
Something's choking you, tightening your throat and it won't let those thoughts and images go away. You can't see and you can't hear but you can feel, feel the hurt and betrayal and heavens, oh heavens, tears are welling up and now, now you're crying.
It does not matter that you had to fire the arrow to protect yourself from that man. A murder is a murder. You had killed him and stole his life, adding to the list of numerous people whose lives you had robbed since the day you were born as one of an unlucky twin and princeling. A breath, a heartbeat and a thriving, loving soul that is taken away from the earth can never be reclaimed. You know this, know this even though you have bargained with the warlock to do as he wish and follow his bidding so that you can do the nigh impossible and bring Fai back to life. You know that this contract entails more deaths and betrayals under your conscience.
But that still doesn’t mean you wanted to, and ever since you and Kurogane faced that powerful witch under the pouring acid rain you have been able to avoid fighting confrontations with other humans - until now, until this world and its endless war. And you were close, so close, from having another night of no killings on your end tonight. So close just before the moon had reached its zenith and take you and the others away. But no, mere moments before the majestic lunar body hit its crucial moment that man from the land of Shura had to creep up to you and your body had to automatically react and aim an arrow dead straight at that vital organ that gives and sustains life.
It’s irrevocably silent, but the mimicking sounds of heart beats reverberate in your ears. Echoes of wails fire off as well, triggering memories of past wars and battlefields in Celes, memories of bodies falling down in the snow in your hands and the hands of other Celesian warriors, and the bloody hands of your king. You shut your eyes and clench your hands over your ears, willing, wishing them all to go away, but the horrible sight of blood burns underneath your eyelids. Blood on arrow tips and blades on the barren enclave. Blood in the snow and in the hands of your king. Blood dried on the cold stones where you once scaled endless times in vain of freeing your brother. Blood from the Valerian king who plunged a sword through him right in front of your eyes. Blood from your twin, your brother, your everything.
The flashbacks pit waves of nausea that sends you buckling on your knees, causing you to collapse on the bare floor. Leaning against the wall you pull your legs to your chest and rock back and forth, back and forth as tears pour out and you struggle to breathe through this and through all the pain. That heavy feeling in your chest is swarming through your throat and even though you cannot afford to let out loud wails lest you want other men or, heavens forbid, Kurogane to overhear you, you need to let it out. Your mouth opens, parched, already hoarse from the shaking motions reverberating down your throat and chest. And yet nothing else but those painful croaks are coming out, no words, no loud moans can come forth. All those cries, all those screams have been ripped out of you perhaps ever since Fai had fallen and died and yet you still are screaming, still crying your heart out into the silence of the night.
Just for once, these feelings, these fears and everything you had carefully put away and conceal can come out - but at the expense of the weight and the gruesome burdens and pain every fiber of your body is going through. The tears will not stop, can’t stop - will not subside, fighting, pushing to be released against your will, and in your surrendering to them they trail down your cheeks and coalesce into drops that drip onto your clenched hands that shake and tremble on your knees. Your head collapses and you feel rather helpless and vulnerable, incapable of controlling anything save for your barest grips to reality, or whatever left of reality is left that you can cope with.
Sometimes crying shows a sign of strength was what you once said to Kurogane, of all people, back in that first world when Syaoran was outside in the pouring rain, in tears and at a loss. Yet how can that be the case for you, when you’re struggling as is enough to just stop, stop crying, stop breathing so hard, stop feeling all of this and just stop feeling that you have to run away from everything. But you have to be strong so you can believe and hope that you will see the children and Mokona soon in order to resume fulfilling your wish.
The door opens.
You freeze and hold your choked breath. Kurogane is standing right there and hasn’t walked in yet but it’s already too late. There’s nothing you could do, nothing you could say in your own tongue that would reassure the taciturn warrior despite the language barrier. He locks his eyes on yours, and in sudden paralysis you can’t break way, because even if you did the cold, harsh truth has been revealed. Mute, body language can only do so much for you. For an agonizing moment you both stay there, frozen, and even in the dimness of the room, there’s something different in Kurogane’s eyes but you dare not interpret what is going on in the warrior’s mind. The room is eerily silent again, and you would do anything to make it go away.
Kurogane breaks it.
He starts speaking in his native language. It’s fast and it’s harsh and you’re not sure what he’s saying but by the sounds and his inflections the warrior comes across as irritated. He comes closer, the sound of heavy footstep breaking the cold floor, and for the first time you don’t know what to do in defense in order to not betray your true feelings. You can’t wipe away your tears on your sleeves fast enough; he already sees you drenched in them. With painful efforts you slowly exhale, feeling the tightness in your chest expand until you manage to swallow to halt yourself from shedding more salty tears. By then Kurogane hovers over you, staring with resolute dark eyes. All of a sudden you feel like a helpless child again, under the consternation of your uncle who never showed mercy to you and Fai, smiling madly whenever you and your twin brother were suffering and crying, never comforting you because you didn’t deserve it.
You break eye contact at last and fleetingly stare at the candlelight, and in the shadows on the floor you see Kurogane’s hand coming towards you. He’s going to close that hand into a fist, you realize in abject horror, and punch you for your sorry mess of a state. You’ve seen him like that before, always with Syaoran, always telling the teenager to keep his chin up and never be dragged down by his pain. But you’re not Syaoran who sometimes need uplifting support. Kurogane treats you differently, outright stating you’re the person he hates the most a world or two ago, and to be honest you do not blame him at the slightest. Heartbeat pounding erratically, you close your eyes, waiting for the punch to come, waiting for it to be over before you could do something to shake him off - whine to him, smile, push him away, anything to try to make him leave you alone so you can try to sleep. Seconds pass, but nothing hard hits you.
Instead, he places his hand on your shoulder, stripped from its steel pauldron, and squeezes it.
It stirs something in you, and in utter shock your eyes fling wide open, letting out a gasp. You start quivering again, wordlessly mouthing something, fighting that awful feeling in your stomach from overwhelming you again. For a brief moment you remember on the battlefield how he had clapped his hand on your armored shoulder in a similar fashion after you killed that soldier. You thought he was appraising you for your quick reaction in the name of self-defense, but you were wrong, oh how you were wrong. He wasn’t being proud of you in that awful, awful moment ago. No, Kurogane then was offering his comfort discreetly as he could since you were all still on the battlefield and couldn’t show such consoling. But now, in the privacy of the quarters reserved for the two strongest warriors for the king, he could.
All your life nobody wanted to be near you, didn’t want to touch you at the slightest, treating you and Fai as vermin that should be left to rot away, and rot away you two did at the valley. Your mother never comforted you when you cried, not even when you were just a baby wailing in your crib because she was too distraught at bringing the most accursed children out into the world. Nobody sought to touch you, comfort you, because when you suffered it was just a retribution for the harms your living presence brought to the Valerian citizens. The first touch of love and comfort came from your twin, your brother, your everything, and you and he were all that you had. But then he was taken away from you, ripped from your arms for eternity when he fell from the tower. Ashura was the next person who you never hesitated to seek comfort from, but even now he isn’t within reach, sleeping still in the pool of water right next to your brother. Comfort always came with a heavy price, and for the first time since you left Celes, you want it.
Kurogane’s eyes lock on yours again, and in the moment of fully understanding just what on earth is going on and feeling everything threatening to come out, you are finally, finally able to let out a loud wail as he wraps his other arm around you and pulls you towards him.
1 | 2
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Spoilers for Fai's past. Violence, vivid traumatic flashbacks, sex.
Summary: Comforting always comes with a price. But after something awful happens in Yama, Fai lets himself be comforted by Kurogane, bridging them closer in more ways than one.
Author's Note: Written for a prompt at clampkink, where Kurogane catches Fai crying for the first time in Yama. Fai's honesty and Kurogane's kindness leads to comfort sex. I like the prompt because it challenged me to think what would upset Fai so much that he would cry.
There is love in our bodies and it holds us together
But pulls us apart when we're holding each other
We all want something to hold in the night
We don't care if it hurts or we're holding too tight
- “Hardest of Hearts” - Florence + The Machine
War, you think wearily, brings nothing but pain.
You can fight all you want to gain something or win that someone or to earn the right to possess a land.
But in the end, war brings nothing but regret.
You know this. You know it perfectly well, because you had been involved in wars against an unknown enemy for many years under your loyalty to Ashura-ou. Magic, offensive magic to be precise, is your forte, and it was precisely because of that the Celesian king had entrusted you to line up among the best of the ranks in his army, even occasionally lead other court magicians in the bloody battles to protect Luval. And you willingly did, because it was what your king had wished for you, and so you felt a sense of duty and honor to serve the land you still call home. Even though participating in bloody wars and killing other people goes against your principles and comfort, you thought for so long that at the very least nothing horrible could go awry.
But you were wrong.
And you wish you weren’t.
Because all that time the unknown enemy that had been responsible for the murder of innocent Celesians had been Ashura-ou himself, who was driven to kill to get stronger. In the end, you’re responsible for your king’s insanity because he had gone on his illogical, murderous path for your sake. It’s because of your presence and the curses you are dealt with that had caused him to be mad, and so once again it is because of you that someone you love and care for suffers at your expense. In other words, you had caused so much misfortune on him. And even though you had promised him that you would destroy the person who’s responsible for the peoples’ deaths and destructions of the land, no matter what, you didn’t have the heart to kill him and fulfill his wish. Murder’s the last thing you can do to him, so you still will do everything in your power to avoid it; even after all the deaths of the innocent Celesians that still taints your hands to these days in that bloody struggle that started because of Ashura-ou’s orders and in the end, because of him. The last thing you want is to be a murderer again, be that person who is purely responsible for ending a life even if that someone is threatening yours. Besides, you already have so many lives destroyed due to your existence and decisions, such as the people of Valeria and the people of Celes.
And you will never forget you are the reason your brother is dead.
So it’s true. War does bring nothing but pain and regret, and so far you had been able to avoid fighting ever since then.
Until now.
How cruel and ironic it is that you are now one of the two strongest warriors in the midst of another never-ending war that has lasted generations after generations in the name of the king of the land called Yama.
It was a predicament that you would have eventually landed in, considering the nature of traveling between worlds and dimension, and the witch had forewarned all of you about encountering dangerous conditions like this.
But you did not expect it to occur in a situation where it was only you and Kurogane left on your own means to survive until you reunite with Syaoran, Sakura, and Mokona. Perhaps worse of all, the timing had to be ill and happened in a place where you could neither communicate with the proud ninja or the people of Yama, which left you with very few options. To join the military of Yasha-ou meant you and the other man were not traitors, but it also meant you had to fully and willingly show that you’re capable of fighting and killing the enemies of the opposing clan. To not join would only spell out that you were not allies. And so if it meant you had to fight and get involved in a bloody war to save your skin so you can continue on your mission to resurrect your brother and atone for your sins, you silently went with it, even though every part of you wished otherwise.
Kurogane, on the other hand, had readily accepted to be enlisted in Yasha-ou’s army. He was willing to join for more than pragmatic reasons; he was eager, and you could easily tell in his eyes and his smirk that this was something a strong warrior like him had been waiting forever since you and he were stuck together in this journey. Nothing could satiate his appetite like a complicated and long, waging war. It was another aspect that you and he had no commonalities in. He would always anticipate for a good fight, a good challenge and would never run away from such opportunities while you would. Run away that was, because that was what you had been doing lately, and now that you couldn’t speak nor not participate in the war you had nowhere else to go. All you could do was literally keep mum and carry about just like how you would always be discreet and conceal your true fears and intentions.
So on the first day you and Kurogane were commanded to begin training it dawned on you as well as your traveling companion that you would have to be adept with a weapon, whatever that would be. Magic was clearly out of the question since there were no magicians in the army, which you had no qualms about. However, it still meant you had to work with something else, an agent and tool that served to maim and kill on your behalf. Still, regardless of the idea that the weapon does the killing and not you with your magic or, heavens forbid, your own hands, the notion that you’re tasked to rob more lives was unsettling.
At first, Kurogane tried to get you to use a sword by offering practices using wooden training ones, but after a few hours of poor attempts and lots of cursing and yelling from the other, the plan was abandoned. After all, you had purposefully tried to make it appear that you had no intention of honing even the basics of the weapon, unlike the serious and determined Syaoran. At the same time, you were relieved that sword fighting was something you would never be able to adapt in time before you and Kurogane were deployed for your first battle. At least that was something honest. But still, the others, especially the ninja, would not let you get away so easily.
After the taciturn warrior cooled down from his frustration at that waste of a training session, he spoke in his native language you could not understand at all while using hand motions at the same time. He kept using his thumb and index finger to grip onto an imaginary object and flick his hand forward, muttering away. Kurogane continued going on his serious charade before he seemed pleased and started dragging you over to the armory. There he enquired the man in charge to fetch something, and it turned out to be a longbow along with some spare arrows to practice with. Putting two and two together, you realized that Kurogane was mimicking the times you expertly used those darts to deal with the oni in Outo, and so he had selected bow and arrow for you to try out. You had to hand it to him - he was actually thoughtful. But it wasn’t simple and convincing. It never would be. He would never, ever understand that oni were just oni and that killing them was different from killing humans.
With that said and done, Kurogane gruffly handed you the weapon and you took it with a smile: bemusement on the outside but sorrow on the inside.
Now that you were presented a new weapon to try out with, the two of you stepped out of the armory tent and retreated to the archery field where other archers were polishing up on their finesse. You tried to let the ninja know that you would be fine on your own to test out the bow and arrows by smiling and patting him on the arm, in which he immediately scowled and shoved your hand away. But still he frowned and shook his head, indicating that he would stay to monitor your progress. And you couldn’t help but laugh nervously at why he would insist on doing that. You weren’t comfortable with him pushing you around to make yourself useful, lest he would gripe about you being a bloody idiot. But at the same time, deep down you knew Kurogane was just trying to make sure you would have a purpose in Yasha-ou’s army so that you wouldn’t be as suspicious and, therefore, he was watching your back just as much.
As soon as you stepped in front of a practice target range, the other man immediately took back the longbow and examined it. He then fetched an arrow from the quiver and carefully nocked it into a position. You simply watched his demonstration as he pointed the tip of the arrow at the target. Although this wasn’t the same as observing how he would handle a sword, which was clearly his forte, you couldn’t help but notice the sharpness in his eyes still as he finally released the arrow. Both sets of eyes followed the arrow as it flung towards the practice target where it landed within two rings closest to the center. Kurogane scoffed at his missed aim, but nevertheless he shoved the longbow back in your hands to let you give it a go.
The polished and refined wood felt heavy, yet light and natural in the palm of your hands. For a moment, you didn’t clench them firmly around the longbow, but then you tug a smile at the corner of the mouth. Sure, your companion would probably not fall for your deceit, but at the very least, you wanted to try to pretend you’re willing to go through all of this effort for his sake; yours not so much. Nothing in Kurogane’s eyes or expressions changed as he finally let go of the weapon and stepped back to watch your progress, and you were a bit surprised that he wasn’t going to literally guide you through using it. There wasn’t much you could do except for trying to repeat what he had just shown you. So you let things went on a normal pace and proceeded to fit an arrow into the bow, adjusting it while pulling back the string. The center of the target was the center of your focus as you aligned the tip of the arrow with it. But your eyes briefly flickered to the left just as you release the arrow, and so it landed erroneously far from the center.
Kurogane crossed his arms and muttered under his breath, yet he didn’t berate you at all. Instead, he motioned for you to continue, which you responded back with a pout in a gesture of telling him that you weren’t that idiotic as he always presumed you to be. He rolled his eyes and shouted at you, most likely saying to just continue and stop with the silliness. Alas, the charades would have to end for now, you thought, as you resumed with your archery practice.
The practice lasted for another hour or so until even the ninja had said that it was enough for the day. Progress was going at a minimum pace, but at the very least, the arrows you released had become more concentrated in a particular area rather than being fired at random parts of the entire practice target. Yet even so, the tone and mannerism in Kurogane’s voice and body suggested that he wasn’t as strict and patronizing, therefore he expected and even understood that it would take some time before you master using the longbow with effortless precision. Besides, the first battle you and he would be employed in wouldn’t be until a few more nights anyways.
The routine was the same for the next few days. As soon as the sun rose in the horizon you and the other soldiers would wake up to a light, yet hearty morning meal, followed by a light rest before starting with group warm ups leading up to the daily grinds of practices.
Many arrows were used and reused as you continued practicing with the longbow. Beads of sweat perspired past your temples under the hot sun, and yet you kept finding yourself being disciplined. Your fingers would occasionally bleed from splinters in the arrows’ shafts, yet somehow you ignored the pain, maybe even let it continue. Soon your efforts and improvement became prominent and you found that more and more soldiers on breaks would come watch you along with Kurogane.
On the seventh day of grueling training under the sun, you made your first dead-center shot. There were scant hurrahs coming from several men, but still practice was not over. Nocking another arrow, which now became very familiar and at ease, you fired it and it landed squarely next to the other one. Two soon became three and three became four and so on until no more arrows could fit on the tiny center. With nothing left to accomplish, you lowered the longbow and wiped sweat off of your forehead. This wasn’t exactly something to be proud of, even though others were exclaiming and remarking about your superb archery skills. You didn’t even dare look over to see Kurogane, because even though he wasn’t exactly reacting like many of the others, you knew he was just as impressed as the others on your successful streaks. You wanted to smile, maybe even laugh, at all of this. Maybe it was for the better that no one, not even the man who was so good at reading you, would ever know.
Know that you were considered one of the best archers in the Celesian army - that was.
When you were still hesitant to use your magic for the good (or what you thought was good), for the people of Celes because of the Valerian superstition tied to it, your king was sympathetic. He therefore suggested you to try out something that didn’t deal with magic at all, and that happened to be archery. It wasn’t like magic where you picked it up naturally from the start, but it was something you worked on over the years when you were still new to Celes before you mastered it. In the end, archery was your second best way of fighting, and your talent never left you, even though you abandoned it when you finally started going back to using offensive magic. So why did this other method of fighting had to come back painfully to you now?
You only wanted to fool the others that you were a novice when it came to archery. And so you ensured that you would aim so poorly at first. But since you knew it was expected you would get better, you couldn’t get away by slacking off forever. So you advanced to the point it looked like you were improving when there was no improvement needed to be done in the first place. Now that many eyes, including a general, witnessed your prowess, there was no going back. The charades must end there. There was no more fooling them.
And that included even no longer fooling yourself, even hoping, that you were unnatural with this weapon.
Tonight is another battle. Perhaps it’s the hundredth one, but you do not know since you have lost track of it. Or worse, perhaps you have grown so accustomed to war that you do not even try to count anymore.
But you still keep count of the days, the long and relentless ones.
It has been approximately four months - one hundred twenty and so days- since you and Kurogane have been stranded in the land of Yama. Four months of being a soldier, a master archer. Four months of being continuously deployed to the barren battlefield high above the earth in the night sky that hovers by the beautiful, yet haunting full moon. Four months of pushing yourself against your own principles to be active in this endless war. Ever since the others had seen how well you are with the longbow, you and the other man have both proven just how strong you are, therefore impressing the king and causing you to advance through the ranks rapidly. Together, the two of you are now the strongest warriors in Yasha-ou’s army.
The night is still young yet the battlefield is already reeking with the stench of blood and fallen bodies. Already several of your arrows have been disposed of from your quiver into the men of the Ashura clan, yet none have become lethally fatal. Yet time can only tell if tonight, or some other time, that your attack will be fatalistic as soon as you let go of an arrow from your hand. But even so, you hope it will stay this way, because so far you have been able to remain guiltless of murder in your own hands. At the very least, it is all you can ask for, a compromise if you will for being the strongest archer (and Kurogane the strongest swordsman) at the moment on this side of the battlefield for the sake of surviving to fulfill your wishes.
More soldiers from the other side are advancing towards Yasha-ou, but you have been well trained for this. Hitching another arrow and drawing it in your bow, you effortlessly fire some more at them, striking shoulders in some and legs in others. The motions are continuous, almost as if your mind and body are one with the weapon. But you refuse to let it become that way, refuse for you to become a mindless, murderous machine. If anything, Kurogane fits that. He’s not afraid to fight at all. It runs in his blood and to him he is merely a predator among a field of weak preys. This is nothing new to him and something he eagerly anticipates. One strike from his sword follows with another and never before have you seen him so deadly in the entire journey. Such ruthlessness runs to the contrary of your perfectly maintained control of the extent of the damage you can possibly inflict.
And yet, one thing continues to puzzle you about the strong ninja.
This is a war, and a war in reality meant going straight for the kill as soon as you can. So why then, would Kurogane always attack the enemies with full brunt yet never completely kill them? Why would he, a warrior who had told you that he would never hesitate to kill those who threatens his life - not to mention the lives he sworn to protect - not deliver the final blow ever since you two started fighting here? It can’t be because he values his enemies’ lives over his and his allies. To do so would be wholly uncharacteristic of him. To do so would give you and him something to have common in, when in reality you prefer it not to be that way. If anything, if he refuses to kill much as you do, then it leaves you vulnerable with the obligation to do so.
The clashes of steel bring you back to full alert. This is no time to let your guards down. You cannot let anyone catch you momentarily distracted from the stakes in present time, let alone the fact that you truly have no desire to be here. You cast your eyes at the moon and observe how far high in the sky it is. It’s still far from its highest point before time is out and you and the others are taken back to Yama. The ground was already bloody from the beginning of the evening. But now, as steels meet blades fiercely and a siege of arrows whip from all ends, the battle gets uglier.
Observing the number of bodies left lying on the battlefield, it seems that both clans have sustained nearly an equal number of losses in men. It pushes the struggle on an edge and everyone of course knows it, even though it is evident that a true victor to emerge is still unlikely. Along with everyone else, you keep your weapon and your diminishing supply of arrows at the ready. If anything you must use them wisely, and of course the more you have in stock, the more assured you know nothing can go out of hand. Soon enough, you keep reminding yourself, the moon will reach its peak and send you back. Heavens permit that it stays this way until you and Kurogane can finally get out of all of this tangled mess and resume the journey with the others.
It really is a wonder how good of an act you have been putting all this time, because in honesty you are now letting your clever acts of deceits get to the best of you. Perhaps it is all for the better, you wonder, as you act quickly once again and fire another arrow. The thought is very tantalizing as an escape from everything you have been hiding for these past few months and all those past battles. It is exactly what you need right now, you convince yourself.
Even if it is dangerous? For you?
Too late, you mentally argue, there is no going back.
Suddenly, the entire mood of the scene change. The stench of the blood, the bodies on the ground no longer bothers you. Rather, you block it out of your sight, out of your senses. It isn’t a matter that the more people you hurt, the more you feel satisfied. It’s a matter of feeling less vulnerable to your enemies, to your fellow allies. Even to Kurogane and yourself. This is how it is supposed to be. This is what you can control - how you feel, how you act, how you adapt to the current situation. You don’t know these people. Hell, the only one you are familiar with is the ninja, so it’s okay - it’s all goddamn perfectly okay and under control. Nothing can go wrong here, you insist, you so want to be convinced. Nothing can go wrong so long as you find the other three because that is all you need and want to do to keep your promises.
One by one you snatch an arrow and let them go. Bit by bit you feel the wood rubbing raw against your fingers. Little by little you feel your own blood running down. But this is nothing. That pain is nothing and so you let it continue. This won’t kill you at all. Nothing and nobody can kill you because you won’t. Not until you do the complete opposite of murder and bring Fai back to life. All you are doing now can really be nothing heinous, so you just fire those projectiles away and let your fingers and palm continue to bleed for a little. Time moves faster. The moon is getting closer to its zenith. You have this under your control. You surely have this under control.
Right?
All of a sudden, you hear so many yells going on at once. Somebody is proving to be quite a match. But that’s alright, because Kurogane should be able to take care of that, and you do not have to deal with this opponent, right? So this should not be a big deal at all, and you keep checking back at the moon. This too shall pass, and soon the battle, for now, should be over. Just keep these facades going and you should be fine.
But no, you keep hearing cries from your end, and they will not go away. And then you realize they are all coming at you. Somebody is literally shoving an arrow in your hand now with loads of swearing and that causes you to look at who it would be. But instead of doing that, you instinctively look forward and see that someone has been deceitfully going to attack you at your moment of vulnerability. You don’t even have to think. Your hand automatically positions the arrow and you point it at that other man.
You release.
Then all of a sudden you are cruelly jerked back to reality. And now to your horror, you can only witness as the arrow flies before it pierces him. Right in his heart. Dead center.
No, no, no!
Never before have had you heard such a deadly and cold bloodcurdling scream. And you swear it could be coming from you, too.
The loud wail reverberates once across the battlefield, yet to you it echoes on infinitely, ringing in your ears and vibrating against your heavy chest. It roars in your head, pounds in your ears, and blood leaves your cheeks in brutal shock; numbness and fear seeps in its place instead. Not wanting to see the man you had just slain slump to the ground in front of you, eyes rolled back and mouth left hanging open, you quickly tend to your quiver and bow. It’s okay is what you want to tell yourself, or at least coolly let others think you feel that way. But it’s not okay, not okay to have slain that man, not okay to have lost control like that, not okay to release the arrow just like that, not okay to let yourself forget about this and not okay to ever, ever forgive yourself.
Your fingers tremble along the leftover arrows and they inch further and further down the quiver so no one can see you so unforgivably unsettled, heart pounding so hard that you can’t even see or hear or feel anything but hurt and betrayal. All you can show is collective calm, smiling lightly as if nothing is really upsetting you, because taking an enemy’s life is just a part of being a warrior on a bloody battlefield. You just want to close your eyes and wish that you are away and anywhere but here, let the pain building in your chest, suffocating your lungs, and pouring into tears leak out of heavy eyelids, but you can’t because that will betray you and you can’t betray yourself - not yet.
Something heavy lands on your shoulder and you force yourself to see what it is, revealing a tan hand, fingers lightly coated in blood. Kurogane’s probably affirming you, praising you for your quick reflex, but you can’t look him in the eyes. He doesn’t know, but you can’t tell if he knows or not because lately he’s been focusing too much on you, reading you and it’s alarming. So you just smile, not too small or too big but it’s still a smile.
Finally the moon reaches its zenith high in the sky and the familiar magic whisks everyone away from the ruins of the battlefield. The cold stone of Yasha-ou's castle greets his men, and immediately soldiers and infirmaries rush in and out to tend to the wounded. A faint sigh escapes from your lips, released from your overwhelmed and fatigued body, but you can't lean back against solid stone. Not yet, not now, wait, wait, wait until you get back into your headquarters that the king had granted you and Kurogane as rewards for being the two strongest warriors among his ranks.
Someone throws a cloth at you and you use it to wipe off blood from your cheeks, your chest plate armor and everywhere. The material runs over your fingers coated in the dark red liquid, brazen from whipping out so many arrows that night and it cleans the blood off well - yet you can still feel it, feel the stains lingering on them from all the past murders under your conscience. No matter how many times they are wiped and cared for, they are still there, building and building ever since you were sentenced to that valley a long time ago. You were never in the mood to talk due to the language barriers, but especially tonight nothing should ever escape from your mouth for fear of losing control in front of everyone.
Silence.
And yet nothing is ever truly silent. The sounds of the battle and the excruciating scream of the man whose life you'd taken still haunts you when you quietly walk back to your and Kurogane's private quarter. All those times of talking endlessly can't spare you from the wretchedness that silence brings to you, and even the silence permeating from the ninja next to you lends to the loneliness. What good would it do to have an exchange with the other man when there were barriers to communication? Besides, you know the tones and inflections in your voice will betray yourself to him anyways - and if there were no translation issues to begin with, there's nothing much that can be spoken in the first place.
When at last the two of you arrive outside of the quarter, Kurogane speaks in his native tongue, making gestures with his hands and arms as always. Before the warrior would exaggerate with his non-verbal cues out of sheer frustration that you couldn't make anything out of his words, but four months later to this night, you know him better anyways and he knows that. He jabs his fingers down the corridor. I'm going that way. Kurogane raises his hand and draws a square in the air. To meet with the king. He then shoves you on the back towards the flap covering the door to the quarter. Stay there, and don't go anywhere, idiot.
Privacy. Kurogane's unintentionally giving you privacy just by choosing to give Yasha-ou a visit and you can't help but silently thank him for giving you that. You wave a hand nonchalantly, nodding your head and smile to let him know that you perfectly understand his plans. Before he can scrutinize you any further, you stumble into the room and shut the door and plant an ear on it just to make sure that Kurogane is still not standing outside. He's not, and with all coasts clear you slump along the door, breathing loud and hard.
Somehow, you push yourself to step away from the door and retreat closer to your own bed, where you start removing your armors and leave them lying on the floor. Change of clothes wait for you, but you can't bring yourself to change out of your warrior attire and settle down to a much, much needed sleep. There's no way you can sleep at this rate, and not even burying your face headfirst into the bed will spare you from conjuring the horrid images of corpses in your nightmares. And now, the thought of that man with an arrow affixed where his once beating heart was, mouth hanged open with blood and blank eyes rolled back will not, cannot leave you. Just the frightening thought snags your breath away and all of a sudden you lurch forward, clasping your stomach that's hurting.
Something's choking you, tightening your throat and it won't let those thoughts and images go away. You can't see and you can't hear but you can feel, feel the hurt and betrayal and heavens, oh heavens, tears are welling up and now, now you're crying.
It does not matter that you had to fire the arrow to protect yourself from that man. A murder is a murder. You had killed him and stole his life, adding to the list of numerous people whose lives you had robbed since the day you were born as one of an unlucky twin and princeling. A breath, a heartbeat and a thriving, loving soul that is taken away from the earth can never be reclaimed. You know this, know this even though you have bargained with the warlock to do as he wish and follow his bidding so that you can do the nigh impossible and bring Fai back to life. You know that this contract entails more deaths and betrayals under your conscience.
But that still doesn’t mean you wanted to, and ever since you and Kurogane faced that powerful witch under the pouring acid rain you have been able to avoid fighting confrontations with other humans - until now, until this world and its endless war. And you were close, so close, from having another night of no killings on your end tonight. So close just before the moon had reached its zenith and take you and the others away. But no, mere moments before the majestic lunar body hit its crucial moment that man from the land of Shura had to creep up to you and your body had to automatically react and aim an arrow dead straight at that vital organ that gives and sustains life.
It’s irrevocably silent, but the mimicking sounds of heart beats reverberate in your ears. Echoes of wails fire off as well, triggering memories of past wars and battlefields in Celes, memories of bodies falling down in the snow in your hands and the hands of other Celesian warriors, and the bloody hands of your king. You shut your eyes and clench your hands over your ears, willing, wishing them all to go away, but the horrible sight of blood burns underneath your eyelids. Blood on arrow tips and blades on the barren enclave. Blood in the snow and in the hands of your king. Blood dried on the cold stones where you once scaled endless times in vain of freeing your brother. Blood from the Valerian king who plunged a sword through him right in front of your eyes. Blood from your twin, your brother, your everything.
The flashbacks pit waves of nausea that sends you buckling on your knees, causing you to collapse on the bare floor. Leaning against the wall you pull your legs to your chest and rock back and forth, back and forth as tears pour out and you struggle to breathe through this and through all the pain. That heavy feeling in your chest is swarming through your throat and even though you cannot afford to let out loud wails lest you want other men or, heavens forbid, Kurogane to overhear you, you need to let it out. Your mouth opens, parched, already hoarse from the shaking motions reverberating down your throat and chest. And yet nothing else but those painful croaks are coming out, no words, no loud moans can come forth. All those cries, all those screams have been ripped out of you perhaps ever since Fai had fallen and died and yet you still are screaming, still crying your heart out into the silence of the night.
Just for once, these feelings, these fears and everything you had carefully put away and conceal can come out - but at the expense of the weight and the gruesome burdens and pain every fiber of your body is going through. The tears will not stop, can’t stop - will not subside, fighting, pushing to be released against your will, and in your surrendering to them they trail down your cheeks and coalesce into drops that drip onto your clenched hands that shake and tremble on your knees. Your head collapses and you feel rather helpless and vulnerable, incapable of controlling anything save for your barest grips to reality, or whatever left of reality is left that you can cope with.
Sometimes crying shows a sign of strength was what you once said to Kurogane, of all people, back in that first world when Syaoran was outside in the pouring rain, in tears and at a loss. Yet how can that be the case for you, when you’re struggling as is enough to just stop, stop crying, stop breathing so hard, stop feeling all of this and just stop feeling that you have to run away from everything. But you have to be strong so you can believe and hope that you will see the children and Mokona soon in order to resume fulfilling your wish.
The door opens.
You freeze and hold your choked breath. Kurogane is standing right there and hasn’t walked in yet but it’s already too late. There’s nothing you could do, nothing you could say in your own tongue that would reassure the taciturn warrior despite the language barrier. He locks his eyes on yours, and in sudden paralysis you can’t break way, because even if you did the cold, harsh truth has been revealed. Mute, body language can only do so much for you. For an agonizing moment you both stay there, frozen, and even in the dimness of the room, there’s something different in Kurogane’s eyes but you dare not interpret what is going on in the warrior’s mind. The room is eerily silent again, and you would do anything to make it go away.
Kurogane breaks it.
He starts speaking in his native language. It’s fast and it’s harsh and you’re not sure what he’s saying but by the sounds and his inflections the warrior comes across as irritated. He comes closer, the sound of heavy footstep breaking the cold floor, and for the first time you don’t know what to do in defense in order to not betray your true feelings. You can’t wipe away your tears on your sleeves fast enough; he already sees you drenched in them. With painful efforts you slowly exhale, feeling the tightness in your chest expand until you manage to swallow to halt yourself from shedding more salty tears. By then Kurogane hovers over you, staring with resolute dark eyes. All of a sudden you feel like a helpless child again, under the consternation of your uncle who never showed mercy to you and Fai, smiling madly whenever you and your twin brother were suffering and crying, never comforting you because you didn’t deserve it.
You break eye contact at last and fleetingly stare at the candlelight, and in the shadows on the floor you see Kurogane’s hand coming towards you. He’s going to close that hand into a fist, you realize in abject horror, and punch you for your sorry mess of a state. You’ve seen him like that before, always with Syaoran, always telling the teenager to keep his chin up and never be dragged down by his pain. But you’re not Syaoran who sometimes need uplifting support. Kurogane treats you differently, outright stating you’re the person he hates the most a world or two ago, and to be honest you do not blame him at the slightest. Heartbeat pounding erratically, you close your eyes, waiting for the punch to come, waiting for it to be over before you could do something to shake him off - whine to him, smile, push him away, anything to try to make him leave you alone so you can try to sleep. Seconds pass, but nothing hard hits you.
Instead, he places his hand on your shoulder, stripped from its steel pauldron, and squeezes it.
It stirs something in you, and in utter shock your eyes fling wide open, letting out a gasp. You start quivering again, wordlessly mouthing something, fighting that awful feeling in your stomach from overwhelming you again. For a brief moment you remember on the battlefield how he had clapped his hand on your armored shoulder in a similar fashion after you killed that soldier. You thought he was appraising you for your quick reaction in the name of self-defense, but you were wrong, oh how you were wrong. He wasn’t being proud of you in that awful, awful moment ago. No, Kurogane then was offering his comfort discreetly as he could since you were all still on the battlefield and couldn’t show such consoling. But now, in the privacy of the quarters reserved for the two strongest warriors for the king, he could.
All your life nobody wanted to be near you, didn’t want to touch you at the slightest, treating you and Fai as vermin that should be left to rot away, and rot away you two did at the valley. Your mother never comforted you when you cried, not even when you were just a baby wailing in your crib because she was too distraught at bringing the most accursed children out into the world. Nobody sought to touch you, comfort you, because when you suffered it was just a retribution for the harms your living presence brought to the Valerian citizens. The first touch of love and comfort came from your twin, your brother, your everything, and you and he were all that you had. But then he was taken away from you, ripped from your arms for eternity when he fell from the tower. Ashura was the next person who you never hesitated to seek comfort from, but even now he isn’t within reach, sleeping still in the pool of water right next to your brother. Comfort always came with a heavy price, and for the first time since you left Celes, you want it.
Kurogane’s eyes lock on yours again, and in the moment of fully understanding just what on earth is going on and feeling everything threatening to come out, you are finally, finally able to let out a loud wail as he wraps his other arm around you and pulls you towards him.