Spoilers: Outo arc
A/N: Your obligatory Outo fic. This can be read either by itself, or as a prequel to "the sword to my shield".

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and its characters do not belong to me.

silly paintings and lava cakes

Outo is both real and unreal.

In the not-quite-natural way that the edges of buildings sometimes blur from the corners of his eyes, and in the way the stray cats on the streets never seem to do much more than chase each other's tails and tumble around, Fai notices that the strange static on the streets of Outo makes his senses tingle, like there is something rather wrong about this place.

Yet, in Outo, Mokona's magic still works; her eyes go so wide they can see her bottomless irises, and she spits out a bowl of perfect chocolate lava cakes from Yuuko, each with its individual doily and icing sugar sprinkled on—masterpieces that taste every bit like chocolate should. There is earthiness in the faint bite of bitterness, the subtle hint of sweet, and the cake is dense cloud in his mouth.

Even Kurogane doesn't mind it, past the unruly (rude) glaring after Fai's shoved a bite past his lips. He chews and swallows it. Chews and swallows.

And he snaps at Mokona when the creature steals the rest of his cake.

.

In Outo, Fai realizes that the warrior Kurogane is every bit a study in contrasts.

.

Where the man scowls at most anything around them (and especially at Fai himself), he also maintains a watchful silence over the children, and trusts them to be safe when he and Fai leave the cafe. He clicks his tongue and looks away when Fai straightens out the kinks in Sakura's dress and perky hat before they go, but does not grumble overmuch at the smiles they exchange, instead instructing Syaoran to keep an eye out for anything strange.

Where Kurogane is a killing machine in the face of demons without a signature, he also protects. When Fai is slammed so hard into a wall that the brickwork shatters around him, and he remains miraculously intact, Kurogane annihilates the beasts around them, and proceeds to cut into Fai himself—not because he wants Fai broken, but because he wants something better that Fai cannot provide.

Kurogane hauls metal and glass so they can repair the broken windows, and later carries Fai and flour to places, but he really only grouses when Fai is around, never the kids. (Syaoran, perhaps, but never, ever Sakura.)

(It's very clear that for all of the ninja's brashness, he knows how a princess should be treated.)

(Fai is so very amused that he doesn't have to train the growly Big Doggy on the proper care and treatment of delightful Little Kitties.)

.

Fai paints their pseudo-family on a large spare backdrop as a joke. He hangs it on the far wall of the cafe, where there is just undecorated paint, not windows and no doors leading anywhere. Kurogane returns after sword training with Syaoran and shouts the building down.

"Why the fuck is that on the wall?" he thunders, jabs a finger at the innocent (if simplistic) features of, in order, Big Kitty, Little Kitty, Little Doggy and Big Doggy, with Mokona bounding around on the side.

"Why shouldn't it be on the wall?" Fai asks, all bright eyes and sharp smile. "Does Big Doggy take particular offense to it?"

It triggers some sort of a temper, and they go on their nightly chase around the cafe, with (surprisingly) no tables broken and just a few chairs toppled.

Kurogane never lands a hit on Fai.

He seethes at the unfairness of it all.

.

Later, when the kids have retired to bed and they each have a glass of good wine on the polished counter between them, Kurogane tells him about Syaoran's training, and how the kid is doing without the use of his right eye.

Fai listens quietly (the boy's secrets are not his to share, after all), and the temper that tints the warrior's behavior is strangely absent when he's calm like that.

The night is quiet and it is nice.

He knows that Kurogane knows the idiocy is a (so very enjoyable) facade, so he doesn't bother to continue the charade—driving the ninja up the wall isn't on his cards right this moment.

Fai offers news on the princess when Kurogane falls silent. He talks about how she's learning to bake cakes, but she is clumsy and still hasn't managed to crack an egg without bits of shell falling into the mixing bowl, and he mentions that Sakura has suggested adding little paper umbrellas with cat stickers on their tall iced coffees. They'll be out shopping for a while tomorrow, so can Kuro-tan and Syaoran-kun please watch the cafe for a while?

Kurogane grumbles that he can't cook. Fai assures him that he's taught Syaoran the basics, so the boy and his princess could work the cafe on the night they visited Clover.

They don't share anything about themselves, and that is fine.

The conversation slows to a lull; Fai's attention invariably drifts over to the grand piano sitting in the corner, the one that Kurogane near blew a vein when Fai had it dragged in.

Kurogane asks why he doesn't play it. Fai gives the piano a wistful smile and says he can't.

(But he wishes to, he's felt the magic in his fingertips the one time he sat at the piano, and it's too dangerous an endeavor to attempt it. Particularly so with an audience.)

(So Fai looks at the piano and plays the melodies in his heart instead.)

Kurogane makes a dismissive noise and maintains that he's an idiot.

Fai doesn't disagree.

He really is an idiot if he's allowing this rude, sharp-eyed maybe-comrade to get under his skin.

But it isn't real, is it? Outo is ethereal and ephemeral and will not last, even if the relationships that bind them draw each of them closer with every "breakfast is delicious thank you Fai-san" and every cat-dog chase around the establishment.

.

More than once, he sneaks a glance at Kurogane, and finds those red eyes staring right back at him.

Fai gulps and pretends that it is just coincidence.

(Except there is only the inevitable.)

.

Outo bleeds into Edonis through a gash in computerized reality. Past his unspeakable disappointment (because he should have died when Seishirou's demons struck him), Fai watches Kurogane at his angriest as the ninja fights to avenge the people he thought dead. (Most definitely not him, only the boy and his princess.)

My only goal is to return home rings in his ears.

Kurogane is changing, and so is he. Fai doesn't know what to make of it.

A/N: I wrote this largely because of the animal family paintings, and to highlight Fai's connection to the piano. Fai/Piano relationship is explored in "when flight falls short", if you haven't read it yet. :) To those of you who are waiting on the Yama arc of "sword to my shield", I'm working on it! :) If there is any confusion over the order of this series, it is as follows:

1. silly paintings and lava cakes - Outo
2. the sword to my shield - alternate world
3. when flight falls short - alternate world
4. ink, fire and fiddle - Yama

Also as a bonus, have the summary to "ink, fire and fiddle": In Yama, Kurogane loses control. In Yama, Fai chooses to be brave. In Yama, they're on fire.

I'm so excited about this new fic ;)