Title: Adjusting the lines
Pairing: KuroganexFai
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3347
Disclaimer: I don't own anything TRC-related
Summary: Takes place between Shura and Piffle. Fai acts weird, but not; Kurogane notices - in the meantime, Sakura falls in love with bed sheets and Syaoran is a stain-removing-fiend... and this isn't actually humour XD
Note: "inspired" by the splash page for Chapitre 122

"…Grab it! Grab it!"

"Aah! Everyone, I felt some drops! The rain will ruin them!"

"Hyuuu! Look at them fly!"

"They're so pretty!"

"Pretty! Pretty!"

"Mage! Quit your staring and help me hold them down before they end up in the dirt!!"

Sigh "Kuro-bun is such a spoil-sport…"

xxxx

They'd landed near a country town this time.

The feather was hidden somewhere inside a central building, one of the only three around; the problem was, it seemed to move every few hours, as Mokona would cheerfully point out – which could mean that somebody carried it, maybe some town official or another, moving around doing the business of the day.

Waiting to pinpoint it had meant finding employment, and so, they'd all taken up odd jobs at the local inn, as payment for the room and board – which might not have been quite so wise, as they'd soon learned. Despite all first appearances, the customers were many (the town was quite the summer retreat, judging from all the tourists), and so, their days were mostly full.

They would manage to get away at times, though never for long hours, and never more that one each time (Syaoran hadn't much liked that) and they would trail the feather, with Mokona's instructions, to sketch some sort of schedule for its comings and goings. After four days of scouting it had started to come together, and now they could fairly predict where the feather would be at any point in time – all that was left was to find the one holding it, and that was proving trickier.

But in the meantime they could enjoy their time spent at the inn, since, while their days may have been busy, the people there were kind, thankful for all the help, and the tourists themselves greeted them all with smiles.

Fai, at least, found it a relaxing line of work, hectic nature aside. And he was happy to observe that Sakura had taken it to heart.

She'd love doing the washing most, having fun with soap-suds and bubbles, and running between sheets hung up to dry. She'd also drive Syaoran to distraction as he tried to convince her that no, Sakura-hime, princesses aren'tsupposed to wash another person's clothes! Fai had a feeling that, deep down, he was enjoying it as well. He'd keep himself quite busy, hanging up lines, taking the linen down, folding them to be ironed, and if he did watch the white sheets fluttering in the breeze it was because Sakura happened to be there, smiling for all the world to see.

Fai would follow his gaze with thoughtful eyes and hope it boded well.

He'd then distract himself by goading Kurogane, which was, after all, the best method to keep dark thoughts away. He'd sneak peeks at the ninja too, notice him staring now and then at the inn's wooden porch or half-listening to the gossip of the washing women; he'd always look away as if even another moment would burn a mark in him, and Fai would be left wondering. He wouldn't ask, though, never once, since sharing any interest might prompt Kurogane to ask some questions of his own.

As for himself, Fai loved drinking in the sight of all the fresh, white sheets, and didn't make a secret of it. The country they were in was warm, third in a string of summer-places, and while a constant spray of sun from world to world worked wonders on their pockets (less money for the clothes, at least), he did handle the warm weather just that little bit harder. Plus, the monotony was dreadful.

So Fai watched the long cloths sway gently (or sometimes not so gently) with the winds, and thought of soft, cold snow – light unfettered, all over the place and free.

He liked snow.

When he had been taken to Celes, the ice and the cold had been the only things to stay the same, and he had taken comfort in them. There had been a new country, new people with their customs, a new language to grasp, and learning how to read and write, with only Ashura-ou to know Valerian, with only he to wear the patterns of Fai's country in those short first few days.

There had been a new name, a new way to be treated, and everything, everything past had changed – except for snow.

It would, of course, remind him of where he had last been, of his people left lying frozen in a never wilting waste, of his cold, empty country, if it even existed still – but so very few things did not serve as reminder.

Most of everything had two sides for Fai. There was the aching side of what had been or should have been, and the barely-daring-to-reach side of what was now – and Fai could like snow if he ignored the first part, he could look at it with careful, shy (guilty) affection, and like the warmth it brought to people through fires needing to be lit and warm lined clothes and cheer.

It made a sad, pathetic sort of sense that now his heart would twinge to think of it, that it would fill not with fear, no, no, never that, but anguish, apprehension, despair at the inevitable.

But he would look at the white sheets, look long at them, as a reminder – everything he touched turned to ruin, whatever he drew close to would suffer for it in the end. Even his thoughts of snow.

Fai would remind himself of that, and be glad they'd left Shura.

xxxx

"Pass me the seasoning, please, Sakura-chan." Smile.

"Here you go, Fai-san."

"Thank you!" Smile

Giggle

"Ne, Fai-san?"

"Hmmm?"

"Did you do all the cooking when you and Kuroane-san were in Shura, as well?"

"Oh no, not usually. You see, they cooked the food differently there – I'd only have got in the way."

"Oh. So, what did you do?"

"Well-"

"He was a bother, most of the time." The sound of wooden logs, freshly chopped, being dropped to the floor.

"That's mean, Kuro-puu!" Pout

"He took care of things that bothered other people, too."

"Oh! Were you a doctor, Fai-san?" Honest excitement.

Stare.

"Something like that."

xxxx

This country bothered him.

Everyone smiled and everyone was cheery; there was too much trust, too much open enjoyment, and, worse off, all of it seemed real.

It made him think of home.

Of all the worlds they'd traveled to, none of them'd made him think of Suwa, not Outo with the demons he'd fought and clothes he'd worn, not Shara with its buildings, its alcohol, its food, not Shura with its language or Yama with its war. Something was wrong enough, each time – the people weren't the same, the air wasn't the same – and to remember home in a country so different was wrong in every way.

So he'd look at the place, really looked at it, when memories tried crawling back, focused on all the differences that made it nothing like what he remembered. He'd snap out of it with a blink and get back to whatever he was doing; but the memory'd be there, prickling and scraping at his patience.

Which was fine – it wasn't like he was running away from his own past. There were some parts he'd rather not remember – the vividness; the detail; the smells, the sounds, the hurt – but they'd all made him who he was, brought him to now, wherever now would go, and he wasn't about to smother them.

But he'd be looking at the wooden porch, and the light falling down on it would suddenly seem too familiar; the women working at the inn would start chattering near him and he'd remember people long since gone – and he would walk away; he didn't need the bother. And memories like that had no place in the daylight of this world, in-between meal fixing and laundry doing; no place among these people.

And if the mage would look at him at times like those he'd just ignore the stare – he wouldn't tell and the man wouldn't ask. He'd known that since their time in Shura, when the mage'd had to loosen up his masks for any meaning to pass through. And he had learned, they both had, to read the other's moods, interpret every gesture – but they had never asked, not at first, when there'd been no words, not later, when they'd started to share some.

The mage had smiled then too, put everything he'd had in smiles, to him, to Yasha's army, to the men made their enemies. He'd smiled in mockery and in contempt, in comfort to the wounded; in pain, one time, in playfulness, a few. And they'd been real, the smiles (even the blank ones, stand-ins for easy answers) but the mage had felt wrong – restless, defeated and devising, and biding his time, altogether.

His guard still held, had always held, from the first day and all thorough Yama – Kurogane still knew nothing except that the mage was hiding something. But he had learned to look, had had to read each little clue, and he got so damn used to it that, when the whole thing had been over, and the mage had picked up his cheery self again, Kurogane had seen the gears shifting (and screeching), had felt them moving even in himself in answer.

Something had changed in Yama, and something felt off now – the mage wasn't quite himself, not even by his standards.

But plain asking would get him nowhere, so Kurogane would just have to watch and wait. It always paid off in the end.

xxxx

Mornings were cool here.

It had been warmer in Shura, with the thicker clothes and linen and their bed made of blankets.

You get used to things, after a while.

When Fai woke up he felt his right arm pressed against a warm back.

Kurogane seemed to sleep on.

Fai got carefully out of bed and was out the door in less than a minute.

We'd wake up one after the other then start fixing up breakfast. We wouldn't say a word – not that we would have understood each other, anyway – but the silence would be comfortable, wouldn't feel like a lack.

He'd got comfortable in Shura. It was good that they'd left.

xxxx

"Kid, you're trying too hard."

"But Kurogane-san, the stain won't come off!"

A long pause. A long hard look.

"I-, I know it's early, but if I don't get this out now, then when Sakura-hime wakes up she might want to do it herself, and-"

"Let her learn, if she wants to."

"But Kurogane-san, as a princess, really, she shouldn't! I keep trying to tell her, but she just-"

"Doesn't listen."

"No." Dejected.

"Stubborn."

"… Yes."

A pause.

"Keep at it."

xxxx

"Waaaah, Kuro-pii, isn't this wonderful?"

"They're just sheets, mage" Kurogane's words were a bored drawl as he straightened to take another set of cloth pegs off. Fai grinned to himself in anticipation.

"But they're so cool and fresh!" he went on happily, mushing his face into the heavy folds; they smelled of soap and clean. "You know," he backed up, toning down his cheer, "this town doesn't have enough shaded places."

"Go jump in the well if you're too hot. Otherwise, make yourself useful and help me gather up the laundry."

"Oh my, is Kuro-rin annoyed? Three seconds flat, that must be a new record!" His tone became just a shade put upon. He wondered how much Kurogane saw through him.

"Hmph."

"Kuro-bun just can't appreciate the finer things in life."

"Again, what the hell is so special about a bunch of bed sheets?"

"But if Kuro-gruff would just use his imagination!" he began with new momentum. "Look, look how white this one is (my, the ladies have been outdoing themselves) and look," he twisted, took hold of the sheet's edges, made it flutter and sway, "if it moves just a little in the wind, like this, it wouldn't take much work to imagine it into a snowfall, right?" Fai's smile was happy and excited, because Fai was having fun.

Kurogane stared at him for a moment or two.

"You've gone completely crazy, haven't you? The heat must finally have gone to your head."

"Ahahahaha, if that's what Kuro-wan thinks!"

Kurogane ignored him and moved to take the next sheet off the line. Fai could have let it drop, but he wanted to rattle, and he wanted to push, and when the ninja got just close enough Fai spun around and threw the edges of the cloth right in his face.

"Hey!" Kurogane snapped, jumping over the basket with a somewhat surprising ease – he barely missed Fai by a hair's breadth.

"Uwah! I've made Kuro-wanwan angry!"

A chase ensued, of course, with Fai jumping from end to end and twisting round the innocent white bed sheet, laughing and taunting and reveling in the familiarity of it. Stupid, Fai thought, so stupid, but it'll keep his eyes away - when Kurogane broke the rules Fai hadn't realized he'd counted on.

"Stand still!" Kurogane barked, grabbing him over the folds of the sheet, over his arms and round his chest. The cool white of the linen brushed over his right cheek, and Fai thought of a shroud, of snow covering still, still bodies, of water round two cold boxes of glass.

"I can't!" he beamed, and no, he couldn't. "Not with" he grasped at air"all this bright snow- "

"It isn't snow!"

A pause.

Fai dropped his smile – Kurogane couldn't see it, anyway. And Kurogane's silence sounded like the way he'd look on some nights back in Shura when he'd pause in the polish of his armour or fasten Souhi to his belt.

Fai waited. The arms didn't move.

You aren't asking me anything, thought Fai warily, why aren't you asking?

"You'll dirty the sheets," he said, because, somehow, it mattered.

"I won't."

"You'll wrinkle them." Aren't I stubborn?

"They'll mend."

Aren't you just the same?

Fai drew one breath, not very deep, enough to strain against the hold. The arms held still.

What do you think you'll gain? Fai wondered, because he'd forgotten what it was all about. He dropped his head against a shoulder - the left one – slowly, measuredly. He closed his eyes. Sunlight streamed bright and brittle between his lashes. The circle might have tightened, but then again, it might have not.

Fai felt tired.

He thought This isn't safe.

What is this, anyway?

His eyes opened, his shoulders tensed, and the arms fell away. Fai felt at once relieved and disappointed, and wasn't surprised at himself at all.

"I'll go see if the children need some help," he said, and walked away.

xxxx

"Here's the washcloth, Fai-san."

"Thanks, Syaoran-kun! Not much of a window-wiper without it, am I?" Smile

Smile. Pause.

"Is anything the matter?"

"Fai-san… in your world, do they interpret dreams?"

"Sometimes." Quiet attention. Patience. The very look of kindness.

"What does it mean, if you dream of yourself? Outside yourself?"

"… It could mean many things. A questioning of oneself, worry or doubt; but it could also mean a path to self-discovery."

"What if…"

"…Yes?"

"Nothing, Fai-san." Smile. "Thank you."

For a moment, two reflections stare silently at their owners.

xxxx

The final part of locating the feather hadn't been quite as simple as they'd thought.

First off, there hadn't been just one man carrying it around, but many. It'd turned out that this country was paranoid with keeping state-secret decisions secret, while still wanting to have the key people of each province involved (Well, so much for the honesty). A gods-forsaken-little-town would serve as information point for each such province, and messages would be personally handed in, in secret-and-yet-in-the-open locations (like, say, an inn), then redistributed, still by hand, among each key official – who would, conveniently, find themselves having some well-deserved rest right in the gods-forsaken-little-town. Counter-intelligence agents were bound to be plenty (hence the heavy inflow of guests), and each message would be carefully guarded and, for the sake of even more security, passed on from man to man along with a special token to guarantee the truth of its contents. Each token was, of course, different from one town to another – the one Kurogane and the others had landed in had just happened to be the princess' feather.

These crazy country bumpkins (the mayor, the prefect, 5 state reps and 9 other officials) wouldn't have known a thing of power if it had hit them in the face – they'd ended up using the feather because, years and years ago, someone had found it wedged high up in a tree and had thought it pretty enough to serve.

Crazy, the lot of them.

And their paranoia cost us two weeks' worth of cooking, cleaning, wood-chopping and general chore-doing from sun-up to sun-down.

Kurogane had just barely stopped himself from knocking their heads together; all of them at once.

Still, having to deal with unobservant idiots did have its good sides, since they'd agreed to hand over the feather after only a minor disagreement (in the middle of which, when the "token" had been produced to be angrily waved about as a sign of their status, the princess had helpfully done her thing and the feather had vanished in a burst of light). Wisely enough (Kurogane had looked at them) they'd finally agreed to use another object for their token, provided, of course, that the central administration would approve of the switch (their little hearts must have been giddy with anticipation at the thought of the extra paperwork).

After that they'd finally left, without once looking back.

Now they were waiting for their orders and trying to get some bearings in the first eating house they'd walked into since coming to this latest country.

The weather here was warm (oh, the mage must be thrilled), and their food long in coming, but they didn't exactly mind – the troubles of the hired help seemed easier to understand, all of a sudden.

The princess was asleep, in any case (all the hustle and bustle of the last world must have tired her out), the pork-bun held securely in her arms, and the kid was busy trying to unobtrusively sneak peeks at her, while also sneaking peeks at their neighbours for clues of any sort.

The mage was looking bored, staring distractedly out the nearest window, chin in one hand.

He hadn't acted strangely after that bed sheet snow episode (meaning he'd teased, taunted and pranced about, but no more than was usual), but that had been enough to settle Kurogane's mind for good.

The mage was trying to tie things back together the way they'd been before, but somehow couldn't do it – the way he'd grabbed at everyone when they had left from Shara was proof of that. The mage knew this; and, right now, he was floundering.

And there was something more –

Dirty the sheets, eh?

Something must have happened in that cold world of his, something to make him keep his distance from anyone and anything, and make sure that it stayed that way.

Kurogane frowned down at the table top.

Their journey had recently turned a little bit more complicated – he could feel it in the air, in the nagging feeling that there was someone watching them – and they couldn't afford to have the mage act half-assed all the time (never mind that he still refused to use his magic, even if it killed him – maybe them, for that matter). The man needed to get his act together, and focus on the present.

And if I won't be getting answers, might as well look for some results.

Kurogane narrowed his eyes and poured himself a drink. He stared across the table at the mage, kept looking until the man met his eyes, blue against red. He took a swig and drained the glass.

Results, he thought. And soon.

xxxx

… eheh… thoughts?