Pairing: Well, nothing obvious, but KuroxFai, or eventual KuroxFai implied. If not, just drabbles focusing on either one, really
Rating: PG-13-ish?
Summary: I get on the drabble meme bandwagon. This is the result
Notes: First batch, written in the morning, at /work/ dontcha know (a drabble here, three drabbles there... what? it was a quiet morning until about 10:30. Then all hell broke loose... oy vey)

Meme rules:

1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them

1) R-Evolve – 30 seconds to Mars 3:59

Kurogane had never had cause to take a castle by siege before. All the rending he'd brought had been for the good of his princess and the defense of their lands. Everything he'd done had been, ultimately, in defense of another.

But, as they'd skipped from world to world, he'd learned.

He'd learned to take high walls by storm and to batter at doors, to see through traps, break through defenses, and do this with the grinding of attrition. He'd learned to aim for the keep and feel the rush and want of taking it – and leaving it standing.

Another string of words, another day, and the magician's walls still stood. But he could see the cracks.

2) Year Zero – 30 Seconds to Mars 5:01

He'd smile and he'd lie and he'd keep himself away.

That was the plan, that was the point, that was the one safe thing to do. Earn their trust, keep them in sight, keep them near, enough to protect or to protect against – they were a means to an end, and with this over his brother would live.

Keep them close, keep them away. Keep them in place.

But his smiles came too easily and his lies were thinner and thinner, and there'd never been a cause to guard against something except what had come their way to threaten them, the five of them, their group, their family, and too easily the lies were lost and Fai forgot the meaning of a means.

And then he had to keep away because that would be safest for them.

3) Harbour – Vienna Teng 4:23

The morning is fresh and crisp and he wakes with the sound of waves crashing against the docks. When he opens his eye the sun is streaming through the half-open window, its rays skewed gently and falling on the soft sheets of the bed.

Fai stretches with a content sigh.

In the bed across, Sakura sleeps with a smile on her face, wearied from the ordeal but well and safe again. Syaoran is curled uncomfortably in a wooden chair beside her, wearing a tired frown. Fai turns and softly leaves the room, a smile warm on his face.

Outside, the smell of seawater and foam makes him shiver for a moment. The wind runs through his hair.

Nearby, Kurogane leans against a wooden post close to the docks, and when Fai reaches him he hands over a cup of tea. The tea is nearly cold and bitter, and Fai takes the cup in his hands and warms it to his chest. He leans against the man, and Kurogane's frame half-shields him from the breath of wind. The ninja glances down at him; Fai is happy.

4) Hanging – Craig Armstrong 4:17

"Many years passed, or so the story goes, and the war raged on; many died, to the glory of all. Their names were remembered and praised by their fellows, their long list of deeds recalled and retold all around campfires, from village to village, and in the songs of their people they found life eternal-"

"Tch. There's no eternity if you're dead."

5) Passage – Vienna Teng 4:17

Fai dies and they plant a tree in his name.

The tree withers a short year later. Kurogane tears it from its roots and plants another.

After two months a fire burns it stiff. Kurogane tears it away and plants another; a storm uproots it not long after.

Kurogane replants it. It dies.

His hands are brown again as he plants yet another tree, in the same spot, in the same way. When this one dies he will begin again. His hands will be smeared with earth, as they had been with red not many years before. He will plant and replant – this life, at least, he can keep going.

6) Buddha for Mary – 30 Seconds to Mars 5:45

There is a quiet rumble in his ears as Kurogane feels Fai tear away from his grip. It dies as the mage swings his sword and then there is a scream, loud, loud, so loud, and the world is strange.

The floor breaks and the walls tear, the flow of power deafens him and his legs are stuck still where he stands. When he looks up the mage raises his sword and stares. Kurogane runs and lunges – he grabs Fai's hand, and there is blood on the man's face, the princess' blood, and Fai is pale and scarred and horrified and Kurogane can only grit his teeth and plow on ahead.

There's little else to do

7) Because I want you – Placebo 3:24

It will be over soon, or later on, whenever, but it will end, somehow, sometime. And then, maybe, if they're all alive and well, maybe-

But no, it would be wrong, Fai thinks, this is the price paid for his sin. The price should take away, shouldn't give back, he should gain nothing from this, he should hope nothing from this.

But he does, he does, and he wants- he hopes, against his every thought, against his every fear, he hopes that by the end of it he won't be- he wouldn't be the only one, he wouldn't be alone.

8) J'ai fait une promesse – Anathema 2:40

There is the smell of rain in the air, and the sky is clean and high. A willow moves in the wind, bending towards the green earth below.

Two figures, light and dark, rest against its trunk, leaning against each other. Their hands are bare and barely touch. Their sleep is gentle.

Sunlight falls down between the leaves, twining with the soft shadows easily. The day is warm.

9) All that easy - Limp Bizkit 1:31

They fight with swords and they fight with fists, they run and they jump, attack and avoid. Their rhythm is set, each of the other's moves guessed in the blink of an eye, in the turn of a thought.

They fight together, and it is so, so easy to imagine themselves at the other's back.

10) Infrared – Placebo 3:17

Kurogane can see in the dark. Fai knows this because he's seen (heard) the man move in darkness. Fai knows this because Syaoran has told him. Fai knows this because the ninja has the gait of a man who's never been blinded in his life.

He lies awake at night and laughs at the connections his mind creates around this simple fact – to see in the dark, to see through shadows, see through lies, through masks, smiles, everything.

Fai lies awake because he cannot sleep for dreams; he laughs and laughs because, late, late at night he can't decide whether Kurogane's sight should be something to fear.