Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover, Coda: Life in the years after.

Written because Reikah demanded a happy ending.

They made love slowly, lazily in the rainy afternoon. There was not much else to do; this being Nihon's rainy month most outdoor pastimes were suspended as the gutters ran high in the streets and the skies opened up with a steady rumble for most hours out of every day. It had been so last year, and would likely be so again next year. It felt strange, being able to rely on something like that; the fixed patterns of the weather, of the seasons. They had spent so long moving from one world to the next that the idea that something could be the same after a whole year was still an astonishing novelty to them.

Kurogane liked it, though. And although he whined constantly about the rain in the spring, the heat in the summer and the soggy abundance of snowfall in the winter, Kurogane suspected that Fai liked it too.

There was no more hurry, no urgency in their sex. They'd been lovers for years, by now, and had time to learn each others' ways and rhythms, their good points and sensitive points. More importantly - despite the fact that both of them had long deeply-buried fears of the ones they loved abandoning them - they'd both had time to learn that the other wasn't going away.

Afterwards, though, while Kurogane lay on their futon and dozed, Fai got up. He pulled a light robe around himself and left the room; quietly so as not to disturb Kurogane, but it wasn't like the ninja could fail to notice his departure. His eyes fluttered open and he stared at the crossbeams of the ceiling, hearing the raindrops thrumming against the roof steadily, before he finally growled and rolled over to the edge of the mattress. While he really would have preferred to laze about or possibly take a nap, instead he had to go looking to the damned mage again.

It was the damned dreams. Kurogane had hoped that after all this time, they would finally leave Fai in peace, but it seemed not. They would go months without one, and then with no apparent trigger he'd have one or two in a week. For a while after having the dreams, Fai would get restless and agitated after sex, and not want to stay; he'd always go and find something else to do for a while, and flinch away if Kurogane tried to touch him. Kurogane knew why, knew that it wasn't really him that Fai was afraid of, but it still hurt like a dagger in his stomach to see Fai cringe away from his touch.

He found Fai in the castle's music room, now quiet and still between rehearsals, staring out the open shouji door into the rain falling across the garden. He had a koto in his lap but seemed in no hurry to do anything with it, just tracing his fingers absently along the scrollwork surrounding the soundbox.

Kurogane stood by the door and just watched him for a while. He knew better than to crowd Fai at times like these. "Hey," he said, softly announcing his presence.

Fai turned towards him and smiled at him, and even now, even now the sight of that sweet smile put a lump in Kurogane's throat. "Hey there, lover," he said in his light, husky voice. "Not sleeping?"

"You weren't there."

Fai's smile faded a little, and sadness clouded his eyes, although it wasn't enough to destroy his underlying happiness. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Kurogane said gruffly. "I don't want you to apologize for shit like this. I hate seeing you suffer."

Fai put aside the koto and stood up, walked over to Kurogane and put his hand on his cheek. "I'm all right," he said softly.

Kurogane closed his eyes and put his hand up too, resting lightly over Fai's. "I hate seeing you suffer," he repeated quietly, "and knowing it's partly my fault."

"It's not your fault," Fai said quietly but firmly. "It was never your fault. These dreams started before you and I ever got together. It's all in my head, not yours."

Kurogane knew that, he knew it as well as Fai did but that didn't make the feelings of sorrow and regret go away. "I was a bit of a brute back then," he said ruefully.

Fai laughed, and while it was a conscious attempt to lighten the mood, it wasn't entirely fake. "You were just being your grouchy puppy self," he said in a light tone. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."

"I wouldn't have hurt you, even back then," Kurogane said. It was an assurance he'd repeated many times, so many times that it had become its own ritual between them, like Fai's nicknames.

Fai nodded, accepting the assurance as he always did. "I know," he said. "I know it now, and I knew it back then, too. But knowing something in your head doesn't make the thoughts and feelings go away."

Kurogane knew that well. He sighed, sliding down to sit on one of the wooden benches lining the room. His joints creaked; although it was hard for either of them to tell how much time really had passed, during their journey, he knew he was starting to feel the years before Fai was.

"I wish I could make the dreams go away," he said sincerely. He did. He hated that Fai still had nightmares of dying, that he still could not bear to be in Kurogane's presence immediately after sex for the old constant trauma that the nightmares had burned into him. He hated, in a corner of his mind, that Fai still could not fully trust him enough to let the old ghosts of fear and punishment rest. He felt guilty for that, blaming Fai for something the mage could not control. But just knowing something was untrue in your head didn't make it go away. "I just don't want you to be in pain any more."

"I'm alive, Kuro-pon," Fai said seriously. "Surviving always entails some pain; only the dead are beyond it. It's all right. I get them less often now every year, even if they're never fully gone. And I know they're not real, so I don't let them bother me."

"But - when you're having the dream itself," Kurogane said, worrying over the topic like a dog with a bone, still not quite able to let it go. "How can you know?"

Fai smiled and took hold of Kurogane's hand, bringing it up to rest on his own chest, above his breastbone. "I know," he said. "Because in the dreams, I can't feel you."

Kurogane remembered now. It was another marking that had never gone away, this one of the time Fai had spent transformed into a vampire, drinking Kurogane's blood to survive. A bond had developed between them then, between predator and prey, so that one had always known exactly where the other was.

Fai no longer needed to drink his blood to survive, and over time the prey bond had faded. But not, for Fai, faded completely.

Kurogane focused on the feel of Fai's heartbeat beneath his fingers. He looked into Fai's eyes, clear and blue and honest. That was all right, then. Let one scar heal the other. Moments of pain and sadness still came and went, like thunderclouds, but Fai's life was still a happy one.

"Are you ready to go back now?" he asked.

"I think so," Fai said. He stood and held out his hand, helping Kurogane up from the bench.

His hand still in Fai's, Kurogane led the way back into the castle.

~end.