Author note: Welcome back! Hope you all our having good days.

Disclaimer: I don't own Clamp or X

Chapter start

It had never been this way before. Kamui frowned when he realized it. Upon entering the home Nokoru had given him, Subaru on his heels, Kamui felt a little lost. Confusion hit him. Dully he recognized he was nervous.

He couldn't pinpoint why exactly. This was hardly the first time Subaru had been in the house.

To distract himself he wandered into the hall.

"I'll get the first aid kit," Subaru muttered briefly.

"Alright." Kamui waved it off but then he paused. "Uh, it's in the-…"

Subaru had already traversed up the stairs, with easy familiarity. Kamui debated going after him but his side told him to think better on it. Amethyst eyes glanced down to his injury and he sighed. This was going to be a bitch to hide from Nokoru.

Subaru wasn't aware of anything until he had bent to open the cabinet in the bathroom. Before his eyes were the first aid kit and he froze. It would have looked odd to anyone walking in on him, emerald eyes having a stare-down with the innocently sitting there container.

It was slightly discomfiting, making him feels almost itchy in a sense. He shook his head and grabbed it, shutting the door firmer than necessary.

It was only natural, he convinced himself. Though he had no memory of anything in specific about the outline of the house he also knew, with startling clarity, where everything was once he thought of it. He knew which door was Kamui's and that the walls were not very thin.

He also knew that the third and fourth steps down creaked alarmingly and that the banister would groan if he put too much weight against it. He assumed these were all things from his subconscious. Subaru refused to put much thought into any of it.

When he descended, he glanced around for Kamui. Not seeing the teen in the living room, he restrained a curse. Of course, it was stupid to think Kamui would have stood still in his own entrance like a stray puppy, but why didn't he stay close?

Noises from the kitchen drew his attention and he made his way. It wasn't his fault he paused in the doorway, a little shell-shocked. Kamui wasn't paying him the least bit of attention as he fiddled with whatever he was doing. A big husky was at attention beside him. The teen muttered something with playful vexation at the dog, before tossing a piece of lunchmeat into the air that the dog rose on hindquarters to catch in a powerful maw.

Before his eyes, Subaru was seeing something very few ever saw. Kamui normally looked, in his opinion, like someone who had the weight of the world on his thin frame. And if he didn't look like that he was spitting fire at some bully or other. The teen floated between the two extremes depending on the day and who was near him.

A smile, a genuine smile, was hard to win from the teen. Subaru didn't need his memories of the relationship he'd foolishly fallen into to know that much about the youth.

Yet, seeing this, his heart gave a stunned thump. Something inside seemed to spin around and lay down, content at the imagery. Then the teen glanced up and smiled with hesitancy. Warmth spread into his muscles but Subaru merely cleared his throat.

"You're injured," he began, leaning on the frame. "And yet you're making sandwiches." He framed it as a statement rather than a question.

The teen seemed more relaxed in any case, picking up a bag and shaking it. "And chips."

"Kamui…" Subaru closed his eyes.

The teen rolled his own eyes and huffed. "You've seen me with-… I've had worse injuries."

Both stilled at the way Kamui corrected his sentence. Kamui felt like a fool. This was all a mistake. It was too easy to fall into old patterns when he was around the older person, too easy to forget, briefly, the way his life had gone to hell.

"I made you one too," he muttered.

Subaru accepted the new distraction gladly. "Let's get the wound taken care of."

Kamui grunted softly. "The living room is this way." he took the time to clean up his mess, putting the sandwiches in the fridge.

It was almost surreal how little care the younger teen had to stripping his upper clothing off. He tugged his tie over his head and dropped the uniform jacket and shirt carelessly to the floor. While he did that, flopping next to Subaru, the older teen busied him pouring some warm water onto a towel.

"I'm going to clean it first."

"Whatever."

The first contact caused Kamui to tense. The muscles underneath the bruise contracted swiftly before it all drained away. Subaru ignored it in favor of studying. The bruise had gotten uglier, crusted blood covering it. He had not realized the skin had been broken. Neither had Kamui by the way he was looking at it.

"You must have been hit pretty hard," he said.

Kamui shrugged. "The bigger one had a pipe. Fucking coward."

"A pipe?" Subaru couldn't stop the tone of incredulity. "Kamui, why were you even fighting them?"

"I was hardly going to run away." he winced when Subaru sprayed alcohol all over it. Nevertheless, he didn't cry out from the burning lance of it, proof he had become used to this procedure.

"One of these days, you'll be hurt worse."

"As if you care," the teen snorted derisively.

Subaru didn't answer because he was now smoothing an antibacterial cream over the bruise. His fingers happened to brush over some of the unblemished skin, filling him with the sense of familiarity, almost like coming home. He splayed them over the soft skin, feeling as though the amount of flesh between skin and bone could be more.

Kamui didn't seem to notice until they traveled to the front, tickling just above his navel. Until then he had been steadfastly looking away, head cushioned on his arm, which rested on the back of the couch. The teen stiffened slightly.

"Subaru?"

"I…" he shut his eyes briefly, trying to gain control over his feelings, which overflowed happily. He told his hand to move but it was content to ignore him. "I do care, Kamui. Whatever else, I do care."

A small image of him and Kamui rose unbidden before his closed lids, echoing in his mind. He had the teen on his lap, thighs clutching around him tightly while Subaru attacked his neck, hands running a course over exposed skin. He could recall the heat and the absolute coating of devotion he had felt in that moment.

"Subaru?" Fingers snapped in his face, making him lose the thread of memory.

"Kamui…"

He was caressing skin that had, in a sense, belonged to some now buried version of him. He had known this body. That thought hit Subaru a moment before he felt his hand tighten slightly, pushing a startled Kamui into the back of the couch.

The teen was too stunned to resist when Subaru latched their lips together. Dimly, Subaru registered the couch smelled like smoke almost, recognizing it as his brand. He wondered briefly how often he had smoked in this room before his accident, that the air still held a hint of him in it.

Kamui groaned a little as he felt familiar weight settle over him, unable to fight the kiss. Subaru knew exactly what to do it seemed, still aware of the body under him. He expertly bit and suckled the lips he enclosed, knew to trail his tongue over the jaw line he nipped at.

For a few heady moments, both allowed themselves to succumb to the fog. Then Subaru seemed to come to himself, jerking away as though Kamui had bitten him. The teen covered his mouth and Kamui swallowed at the glimmer of lust in the emerald eyes. Then he felt cold. Lust, heat, and passion were there to be seen and devoured. But not the love that he also had seen lurking in the past.

"I'm sorry." Subaru apologized.

"Don't… don't be," Kamui muttered.

The teen got up and began to stalk from the room. "Kamui that was-"

"Procedural memory," the teen spat suddenly, whirring to fix him with a stare. "Your body was just remembering what it had done before. Hell, you could have forgotten your own name and still been able to fuck me into submission."

Kamui left the room and Subaru blinked, unable to resist lighting a smoke. Procedural memory, the teen had called it. Which meant it didn't mean anything. Subaru had a single memory of the relationship now but he still didn't know anything about it.

"Here."

Kamui was back and handed down a paper plate. Subaru recognized it as food dimly. The big husky had trotted in after him and now laid his big head on the couch next to Subaru.

"What's its name?"

Kamui glanced over from the seat next to him, before grabbing the remote to flick the TV on. "Inuki. And he thinks you're going to feed him."

The big eyes on him did look sure of this fact. "Why would he think that?"

Kamui shrugged, eating a chip off his own plate. "He knows you."

Subaru grunted noncommittally, sensing dangerous waters. His slim fingers broke off a piece of the sandwich and held it down. The dog… Inuki… chomped it delicately, as well as the chip he offered next.

Kamui watched in amusement. "I made that for you, not the dog. Besides, he's getting too fat."

The husky woofed in seeming offense at the comment, turning his back to them both and curling up. Subaru chuckled while Kamui grinned. "You used to always feed him. Yuzuriha never minded though."

Subaru tore off a piece of his sandwich, popping it into his mouth. He expected to find a concoction like what was in Kamui's plate. The boy had piled his with tomatoes, onion, and what seemed like mayonnaise dribbling out the side.

Subaru had a lot less. He liked his food mostly plain with light seasonings, nothing obnoxious and messy. There was a single layer of mayo between the bread and meat, a piece of lettuce, and some cheese.

Kamui knew him.

Subaru had the guts to remark on this fact, deciding something.

"You know me so well," he commented lightly. "But I don't know anything about you."

"That's not my fault Subaru." Kamui chomped on a chip again.

"I'm aware. Kamui, you have to understand." Subaru placed his barely touched plate onto the table before them. "I know we were in a relationship before the accident. I had text messages and pictures, not to mention you and everyone else confirming it. I know even now I… care what happens to you. My body obviously remembers things.

"I don't. The first recollection I had of you was of Fuma dragging you with him and forcing you to study. I don't remember tutoring you myself even, which Yuuto informs me I had started doing before we got together."

The lashes were getting to be impossible to ignore. Finally, Kamui tsked. "I know all this Subaru. I know you don't remember us. Everyone tells me to be patient. Fuma says even if you never remember, then I can just make you fall in love with me again even…

"But I…" and now Kamui faltered, the expression of strength vaporizing to show the insecure child that lurked. "I don't know if I have the strength to try anymore. I picked up the pieces Seishiro left once and now… it's all gone. All those months of trying to learn each other… gone.

"I told you about Seishiro…" Subaru knew his eyes were wide. He never, ever, spoke about that year he was Seishiro's lover, his infatuated puppet.

Kamui looked sardonic. "Yeah. Little by little, you trusted me. The man was sick, Subaru. I couldn't say it then but I can say it now. I'm glad the fuck is dead."

"You shouldn't talk ill of the dead, Kamui." Subaru chided it automatically, his heart beginning to pound at the mention of Seishiro. He had never been over the older man, any chance of untangling lost when he had died.

Subaru had never been able to gain the strength to leave the man. It had been taken from his hands.

Kamui laughed now and Subaru knew he was withdrawing into his own shell, refusing to show any more weakness. His aim was to be aloof now, quick with words. Subaru knew because it was what he had learned to do.

"I don't care. Or, I don't care about him. I care about you, Subaru, making you happy. I can see though… I don't know what happened differently, what made your feelings for me change. I just know they did and you were never cold, like you are with Fuma, Yuuto, and Satsuki. Or… you were a damned good actor.

"Fuma also commented…" Subaru was going to have a very stern talk with his friend, for filling Kamui up with these things. "… he said that I didn't know the real you and I believe him now. You showed me what you thought I wanted, always kind and… patient…"

Kamui shifted so he was facing Subaru directly who tried to look focused. "But see, here's the thing. If there really isn't a piece of me in there now, then I don't want that love anymore. It was… it was never real to begin with."

Subaru sighed heavily, ignoring the pointed way Kamui was looking at him. The elder rose to his feet, followed by the teen.

Subaru paused, unable to leave without one last thing. "You see, Kamui that's smart. I am not the kind of person you should love. I'm too broken to love anything like you deserve."

Subaru left then, wrapping his trench coat around him like a second skin that would ward off his sudden melancholy. He didn't look back, didn't see the way Kamui leaned on the doorframe. He was too far away to hear the way the teen slammed the door closed, and he couldn't know the fact the teen slid down it to his knees, tired defeat in the amethyst orbs.

End chapter

Author note: Well, please leave a review! And I'll see you all next time.