Title: Ash on the windowsill
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Kurogane x Fai
Summary: AU. It's the end of the world, and Fai is still keeping secrets.
Warnings: this fic contains mentions of child abuse, some (minor) character death and some quite probably inaccurate medical jargon.
Other notes: This fic is complete - I will be posting a new chapter every day as I go through and edit it.

And the heart is hard to translate
It has a language of its own
It talks and turns and courts sighs and present proclamations
In the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures
And short shallow gasps

"Is this a fucking bobblehat?"

Fai grinned. "It might be."

"Why the fuck do you have a bobblehat?"

"Tomoyo sewed it for me! Don't you think that was kind of her? She said she's making another one for you, and for Mokona -"

"What."

"Didn't you hear? Moko-chan turned up at the gates yesterday! Fuuma brought her to Subaru and she came right to me~"

"Oh, fuck me," Kurogane muttered.

They were gathered in Fai's old room in the clinic, shifting his stuff into crates. It had been a week. Fai was more than happy to move out of the drafty clinic and into Kurogane's house with him, but Kurogane was being stubborn about lugging all of Fai's stuff over for him. He kept objecting over the silliest of things -

"We are not bringing the entire village's supply of condoms."

Fai frowned. "But that's part of my job," he pointed out. "People know they can come to me for these things!" He leaned forward - groped a bit until his fingers closed around one of the foil-wrapped packages in the box - and dangled it in the air. "Besides, maaaaybe we'll need them. I am planning on helping Kuro-sama introduce me to his bed. Thoroughly."

Kurogane yelped, and it was amazing, Fai thought, how his eyes still weren't working properly and yet he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man was flushed bright red.

"Look," Kurogane growled, "We are not having sex with that fox in the room. I told you it was a spy for the witch!"

Fai pouted at him and patted the bed - Subaru's bed now, he supposed - next to him. Mokona jumped up onto it helpfully, the bell on her collar jingling. "Kuro-sama hates you," he said to her, sadly. "He's mean and hopeless -"

"I didn't say she couldn't stay!" Kurogane snapped. "I just don't want the witch using that thing's eyes to... to watch us. 'S weird!"

Mokona meeped at him. It was as good a retort as any.

"Fai?" Syaoran poked his head in through the door. "Is that everything? Sakura says it's almost finished over there... uh..."

"Can't believe I was kicked out of my own fucking house all afternoon," Kurogane grumbled.

Fai grinned. "I can't wait to see it after Tomoyo and the others have finished redecorating," he said happily.

"Idiot, you can't see anything," Kurogane groused. "You would have believed me if I'd told you it had fucking unicorn wallpaper -"

"... No," Fai said, and Syaoran made a noise suspiciously like a snort of laughter before silencing himself hastily, no doubt after a glare from Kurogane. Fai resumed kicking his feet absently over thin air while Mokona picked her way over to his lap, and then he dropped a hand to her thick fur as she daintily curled herself into a little ball there.

"My house," Kurogane was grumbling.

"Nope," Fai said, and couldn't keep the genuine grin from his face, wide and expressive and stupidly happy, when he added, "Ours."

"Tch," Kurogane said. He didn't sound as cranky as he could, and when Fai held out a hand he took it, his fingers rough and calloused against Fai's palm. He let Fai draw him closer - Mokona meeping indignantly as Kurogane shoved her off Fai's lap - until Kurogane settled between Fai's thighs; Fai tipped his head up and tugged at Kurogane's hand by way of hint, and the big man growled under his breath for show before bending down to kiss him. He was smiling into the kiss, though, so Fai figured it didn't really matter.

"I'll just... go," Syaoran said, with a sigh. "Come on Moko-chan, they're going to be like this for ages."

Yeah, Fai thought. With any luck, this feeling - the glow of happiness in his chest, satisfaction and affection and love - would be sticking around for a long time. Forever, if possible.

He'd thought - long ago now, in a far less clear time - that there would be two world-endings in his life; the one Fai had died to bring about - ash storms and monsters and a few struggling survivors, and another, a more personal one. His situation would have qualified for it; secrets revealed, Fai dead, blind with no guarantee of ever regaining his sight... but it hadn't turned out that way.

Life went on. His life went on. And he was happy to keep it that way.

Maybe he was the lucky one, maybe he wasn't. Either way, he was content, and wasn't that what mattered?

-the end

Author's notes: Annnd that's the end, folks! Thank you for staying with me if you read through to this far, and I hope you enjoyed the story! Some notes -

Songs: Certain chapters had italicised song lyrics at their beginnings, and chapter titles themselves based on songs. They are: Chapters 1&2 (and the fic title): 'Woman King', by the band Iron & Wine; Chapters 3&4 'Hysteric', by the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Chapters 5, 6&7 'Haemoglobin', by the band Placebo; Chapters 8&9 'Bixby Canyon Bridge', by the band Deathcab for Cutie; Chapters 10, 11&12 'Monochrome', by Yoko Kanno for the Ghost in the Shell anime series; and finally for this epilogue, 'All this and heaven too?' by Florence & the Machine for the epilogue.

Trivia: The fairy tale of the Lady of the Crossroads is obviously a variant of Orpheus and Eurydice, a classic Greek myth. The Physician's Oath is directly copied from the modern Hippocratic Oath that most doctors swear before they graduate, the full text of which, in its various forms dating since antiquity, can be found on wikipedia.

I had a lot of fun writing this, and as it marks my longest completed fanfic project to date, I believe I am going to go shout, 'Huzzah!' and crack open a bottle of wine. Or, since I don't drink... wine, a can of dr pepper. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it (hopefully with less red-eyed, deadline-induced frustration), and hopefully you'll drop a review in on the way out! I don't get paid, so reviews are my primary motivation for finishing fic.

Thanks a bunch!

~Reikah, 9th May 2012, LIKE A BOSS.