Title: Slow and uneasy
Pairing: Some C!SyaoranxC!Sakura, and Kurogane x Fai implied towards the end. Vaguely.
Words: 2596
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Bit of blah, bit of angst, bit of humour
Spoilers: for Tokyo and the events in Ch 211
Disclaimer: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?
Summary: Three takes on being comfortable/uncomfortable; pre-Yama, post-Tokyo-pre-Infinity, post-series in Nihon.

A/N: I wanted to play around with tones and moods, considering the way they shift throughout the series. I also have a silly thing for parallels, and they always seem to be the best way to cheat my way into writing fics that are longer than 1000 words (cheating, definitely)

The heat was maddening, heavy and slow.

They were travelling by train this time, to the top of a mountain – there was a temple there, and a source of great power – and the five of them had been crammed inside a tight compartment, with a window that barely opened and seats that clang to their skin. It felt dirty though it looked clean, and, even with the door open, the air was stifling.

The trip shouldn't have lasted long, around a quarter of an hour, but something in the thing had broken down, and they'd been stuck at a dead stop for what now felt like ages.

The kid had taken the princess to wander down the corridor – the scenery might prove interesting, he'd said (trees. There were only trees. Kurogane would have sighed at that, but he'd remembered that the two came from a desert country, and a forested mountaintop might have seemed wondrous to the princess. But they weren't at the top yet, there barely was a forest, and-- eh. What did he care. Maybe they'd wanted some alone time; and they'd at least taken that meat bun with them – which actually defied the notion of alone time, but, once again, what did he care.) There was just a little more air to breathe with only him and the mage in the cramped little box, and a cloud had finally moved just so to have some shade fall on their seats.

They'd barely found clothes in this place. There'd been a single shop where the meat bun had dropped them, mostly sold out at the end of the month, and few things there had fit them (Apparently, they didn't cater for people who were tall and fit). The kids had had some luck (though Syaoran had almost popped a vein to see his princess in a skirt so short) but Kurogane had been stuck with an almost flimsy green shirt that right now was stuck to his skin and itched, and calf-length, off-white slacks that did their own infuriating share of sticking.

The mage was decked in white (sleeveless, thin shirt, knee length trousers – damn; he had less stuff to cover him, the lucky bastard) and Kurogane wanted to rip off every thread of discomfort that lingered on Fai's face and feed it to him – he was miserable enough without that guy reflecting it.

Another insufferable thing was the legroom – there wasn't any (tall people had no breaks here), so Kurogane couldn't even stretch. Admittedly, he could take the seat next to Fai and be comfortable for a while (and let the mage be comfortable as well) but there was no telling when those three would come back, and then he'd have to move, and Kurogane'd rather not get used to a good thing if he knew that it wouldn't last.

And, worst of all, he couldn't walk along the corridor because the damn ceiling was low and he would have to stoop (blasted world and their blasted midget people!) So suffering in angry, fuming silence was the only thing left. Which Kurogane was busily doing, murdering the makers of this sad, faulty train in strange and painful ways every two thoughts or so.

He stared ahead without a thought. The mage was looking at him blankly, melted against the clinging cushions. A breeze of air picked up outside, and a small drop of sweat slithered down the Fai's pale neck. He shivered slightly; Kurogane watched, almost lost in a drift. The cloud moved once again and a sickly white stretch of light drifted against Fai's eyes, making them gleam, and the mage leaned forward, bonelessly, with the upholstery pulling at his bare arms.

He then woke Kurogane up completely.

His hands reached out lazily under Kurogane's knees and pulled him forward, dragging him from his seat until their legs were intertwined and both of them were slouching.

"Legroom!" the bastard announced, full of cheer, and Kurogane was debating the merits of staying like that against the brand new chance of venting out his anger, when the mage moved again. His fingers darted down at Kurogane's slacks and folded up their ends, one, twice, three times, one leg and then the other, until they rested bunched up at his knees.

"Ventilation," he declared this time, and grinned, his fingers light and cool against Kurogane's warm skin, and how was that even possible in this heat?! A drop of sweat trickled from Kurogane's right knee to his ankle just when the breeze drifted softly against his shins. The mage grinned again, leaning back.

When the train finally set off and the kids returned with the meat bun, the two of them were slouched down in theirs seats, legs twined together, shins not quite touching and relaxed. It wasn't comfortable but-- at least there was room.

"'Do you have really small chickens?' the man asked. 'No,' the shop-clerk answered."

They were riding an underground express and there was barely any air. The cart was black and white, sterile, the seats were smooth but hard as rocks, and there was very little legroom. Another time Kurogane might have sneered at the stark coincidence, the things that were and weren't the same. Whoever was watching their steps must surely have been laughing; Kurogane's palms itched as he tried to keep calm.

"Syaoran" had offered to stand and let the princess stretch her wounded leg across his seat, but she'd just shaken her head and he'd sat down as well; they were not looking at each other. In front of him, the mage had most likely managed to cut away all circulation with the contorted way he sat, back held painfully straight, legs crossed and perched on the side wall, anything not to touch another; he wasn't looking at them either.

"The next day he came again – 'Do you have really really small chickens?' he asked. And there was another 'No'."

There must have been at least a hundred people cramped in the seats around them, and everyone was chattering away but them. The atmosphere was lively, and these two little girls kept running back and forth along the aisle between the seats, laughing loudly and almost jostling the princess every time they went by; and, every time, the three of them would watch them closing in like hawks, even if they couldn't do a thing to stop them if they somehow hit the seat. Another time the princess would have laughed with them and asked their names; the mage would have gushed, because the two were vaguely pretty. They'd start to talk, and their stop would arrive too soon, and the four of them would be friends already by the time they had to part ways.

Now everything was quiet in their group; even the meat-bun was subdued, perching silently in the crook of the princess' arm, and Kurogane was surprised to miss the noise when there was loud noise all around them, from arguments to laughter, to a dumb kid telling a stupid joke one foot away.

"Do you have really really really small chickens?' he asked the third day, and the shop clerk gritted his teeth and said 'No, no we don't.'"

Kurogane's back ached and burned, and he was careful to not shift too much, to even breathe carefully, because somehow the wounds still felt too fresh. Walking wounded, the four of them, bloodied backs, ruined legs, and torn out eyes, and, if Kurogane had bothered with the thought, it would have grated at him that what had brought them down at last had been a broken spirit; a missing one, at that.

"Do you have really really really really small chickens?' he asked the fourth day, and the man hid a snarl and said 'No, we don't' once again."

His stomach felt heavy and full from the strange meal they'd had in the last world, which "Syaoran" had barely touched and the princess had only stared at. He wondered how often vampires would need to eat – the mage hadn't fed once since he'd been at the brink of death, and it had been more than a week. It seemed the Witch was right, and he would have to take some steps.

"Do you have really really really really really small chickens?' he asked the fifth day, and the man got very angry but said 'No'."

They were going to find a library, of all possible things they could have had to find, and that was surely adding to the heavy mood, because everything was too fresh, both the bad and the good.

The girls ran back and forth another time, almost touching now, almost jostling, and the kid's fingers twitched. The mage's shoulders may have shifted, then again maybe not; ostensibly, he'd been looking at his knees. The princess barely sketched a move, and Kurogane frowned – it was getting ridiculous. If their stop didn't come round next he'd have a talk with the two girls when they passed by again.

"Do you have really really really really really really small chickens?' he asked the sixth day, and then the shop clerk screamed 'Yes! Now we DO!,' And the man paused a little, and then he said 'Who do you think would buy them?'" And the boy laughed and laughed and laughed.

Kurogane wanted to strangle him.

The two girls were careening back their way again.

Their stop came.

They got off.

When they climbed the stairs back to the surface, the princess leaning on the mage's arm, the three of them were fanned around her, guarding left, right and from behind, matching their walk with hers as she struggled with every step.

He figured some things had stayed the same.

Kurogane had never been much of a rider after growing up, not having had a reason to wander too far from the castle (at least not before Tomoyo had shipped him off dimension-travelling). He'd always walked to get somewhere (or climbed, or jumped, or crawled), so riding was a pain now, his muscles moaning dully after more than five hours in the saddle. In Shura he'd got used to it, spending a quarter of the day on dragon-back, or whatever they'd called those things-- and Kurogane stopped the thought right there.

When in Shura he'd thought of home, the soldiers and the training and fighting in the dead of night; now he was home and he remembered Shura; and Outo, and Rekord, and every other world. The whole thing was annoying, and the aches in his back and legs weren't helping, but they'd have to keep going for at least three more hours, so he gritted his teeth and put up with it all.

They were riding that day because one of the main kekkai had fallen in the South. The miko tending it had died and the Empress had sent her men to keep the region safe until a new replacement could be found, and that was similar enough (and not) to the events in Suwa that Kurogane was carefully not thinking about it; much. He'd settled on cursing the road and glaring at the weather – a black, overcast sky and winds strong enough to make his eyes water. At least it wasn't raining, though even that would have been fine because that way the awful chattering would stop.

From somewhere to his right, the mage was prattling stiltedly (something that clearly only he could do), pausing now and then as he searched for words. Tomoyo'd had someone teaching him Nihon's language from the very first week of their return, and, Kurogane could admit, Fai had caught on quite fast for someone who could barely understand his teacher one word out of ten. After three months he could keep up a conversation, and he'd plough on ahead using words and forms he could guess were wrong, waiting for the polite correction and filing it away for future use. Kurogane wondered sometimes if that's what he'd have done in Shura, had they finally lost all hope-- which brought his thoughts right back to Shura, and Kurogane scowled again.

So Fai had learned a lot, and well, but it was unnerving to hear him speak, to anyone, but mostly to Kurogane himself, because he spoke politely (occasional nicknames included, which made things even worse), and the mage hadn't been exactly rude before, but the way he talked now was different and so obviously wrong. The level of respect his words implied often clashed with his tone of voice (and his expression), but until his lessons went on for long enough there was nothing Kurogane could do without causing confusion. He'd have to wait until the mage slipped towards informal speech himself (which was a strange thing to look forward to), so for now there'd be polite words curled around teasing smiles, and halting breaks every two sentences or so.

Of course, the reason Fai kept pausing in his current story (something about determined rabbits. The men were trying not to laugh, but Kurogane had a feeling it wasn't about what the mage was saying; he had a feeling that Fai knew it too) wasn't only because he was struggling with the language. The wind was messing up his hair; it was tied at the nape, like always, but the shorter bits in front were fluttering away like crazy, and Fai looked thoroughly annoyed as he kept trying to smooth them back in place.

Kurogane was amused.

The wind hadn't let up by the time Fai's rabbits had climbed half-way up a steep hill (the story was one hell of a weird one), and eventually Kurogane started to wish he hadn't brought along his cloak; it might have been keeping him warm, but it had almost escaped his hold four times already, and he could just imagine the ribbing if it started to billow.

They still kept going, though, wind growing worse with every mile, until at one point the horses started to balk under the strain. There was no shelter near, and they'd started dismounting to the sick sound of trees uprooting, the awful howls and neighs, when suddenly the world went numb.

Kurogane looked up through the sudden calm and saw Fai still mounted, left arm outstretched; with the spell curling at his fingers he'd have looked grand and stately, if not for the stupid hair.

The mage had raised a barrier, and in between its bounds everything was dead-silent, except for the pants of the horses and the quiet sounds of the riders' awe; old trees were breaking in the distance and echoes of their groaning could make their way to them, but other than that all was still.

It was eerie.

It gave Kurogane ideas.

"Hey," he began, "how far can you stretch that?"

"The barrier?" Fai turned to him, hair an entire mess, far, far worse than before; he looked incredibly stupid, Kurogane thought. "I do not know its limits. I have never had to test—" His eyes widened, "Kuro-sama… you are not thinking—"

"Not just yet," Kurogane grinned, mounting again (oh god, the aches) and prodding his horse forward. "Your hair's a mess," he called over his shoulder, smirking, in far too good a mood.

Fai snorted, "Yes, Kuro-sama, it is."

The men finally burst out laughing and nothing more was said until they reached the village.

That night Fai rubbed down Kurogane's back and legs with a cool-scented ointment and took some of the strain away. And Kurogane found out what had happened with the rabbits.

A/N 2: Don't ask what the deal is with all these animals I bring up lately. I have no idea. None. But the chicken-joke was real, I actually did hear in on a train ride. The rabbits demanded they be mentioned because of an RP I'm in. The bad hair day idea came from this panel http:// www. onemanga. com /Tsubasa_Reservoir_Chronicles /211 /11 / (don't get me wrong, I love it, but it got me thinking; that and the horrible winds two weeks ago, and me without a hair tie), and the leg-twining in the heat of summer is a true story, people, true I tell you (two middle aged dudes on yet another train ride in the middle of July; it was perfectly innocent, though XD)

The sad, sad thing is that I've been working on and off on this thing for weeks and weeks, picking it up and putting it down and not being in the mood at all, and if I try to tweak it anymore I'll go insane; right now, I can't make it any better, and, with the way my mind works, I can't see it in a new light until I post it somewhere to make it official *sigh*. So rub my nose in its mediocrity, please, and I'll pick it up again after a month ^^;;