damalurbackup

TITLE: Endless - Chapter 3
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai, Karen
NOTES: This has been a long time in coming. Thank you so much to everyone for waiting so patiently! Previous chapters are here.
SUMMARY: In the land of Hail, a soldier named Kurogane eats lunch every day at a magician's restaurant. An attempt to work within the confines of canon and explain how Fai and Kurogane can still be soulmates.

ENDLESS

Chapter 3

i.

My son,

I have little time to write this, and much to say. Your father has already passed away; I can feel my own life leaving too, and there is something you must know before I am gone.

You know a little of my childhood, of the violence my parents inflicted on one another and on their only daughter. I will not dwell on them any longer in my last letter to you, save to say that I was poor, uneducated, and trapped in a rural life that wasted both my body and my spirit.

And here we come to my great shame, the one thing I have not revealed to you: to escape that life, I bought a spell from the village witch. That spell I used to summon a demon, and of that demon I asked to be taken from my life and given a new one, and in return the demon demanded a price. I was poor; I had nothing but my name, a handful of coins, and the clothes I wore. I say this not to excuse myself but so that you might understand.

The price demanded was the lives of my children: my first-born daughter to the demon in fifteen years, my first-born son in twenty-five. These were the terms of the demon's bargain. At the time I thought to never have children. My own parents were hardly kind or loving, and I wished to take no risks in exposing some future child to any traits they might have passed along to me. I thought to foil the demon, you see, I thought that if I had no children then nothing could be taken from me. I struck the bargain, sealed it in blood, and woke up the next morning in Hail's capital with enough money to enroll at any university of my choosing.

And then - and then I met your father. By that time I was a graduate student; I met him at a lecture, and I fell in love. I never intended to fall in love, you must understand; I feared there was something stunted and twisted in me. I had been shown so little love that I had none of my own to give. But fall in love I did, and when he asked for my hand in marriage I said yes. The pregnancy was an accident; we were careless one night, and once I found out I couldn't bear an abortion. I put the demon from my mind - told myself he was a hallucination, that my children could not be taken from me by some figment. It was foolishness and hubris, but for the first time I could remember I was happy.

Fifteen years after I struck that bargain, your sister disappeared. She disappeared from her bed as we slept. You wouldn't stop crying for weeks afterward; I thought that I had lost you both, but you went on as I could not.

My folly lost your sister her life. I cannot ask for your forgiveness, Fai. Some crimes are too great to forgive.

Your father could not bear to look at me for a very long time, after Chi was taken from us. I sequestered myself with books and scrolls, searching for some way to break this curse I had brought upon us. In time your father gentled, and together we worked for nine years, until I came across a ritual that might buy us - not a reprieve, but time. Together your father and I worked this ritual, and set a protection around you.

I will not lie to you. It was this that drained us so, not an illness or epidemic, but the price was worth the gain. As I write we have brought you another year, and I hope more than that.

I have enclosed the details of the protective ritual set upon you and what I remembered of the spell I used to summon the demon. I tell you this because I believe you have the skill to break the geis set upon you before your birth. You are very strong, stronger than any magician I have met, stronger even than the war-mages your father has known.

Words cannot express the depth of my love for you or of my pride in who you are. I am grieved beyond measure that I bought my freedom with your life; I ask not for your forgiveness, but that you would take all possible measures to save yourself.

All my love,

Your mother

ii.

Fai sat with his head bowed for a very long time before he turned the letter over. On the back were scrawled more words, in the same hand but hastily written. "The demon I summoned," he read hoarsely, "was in the likeness of a man, and the name of the demon - "

His breath hitched, and he met Kurogane's eyes for the first time since opening the letter. "The name of the demon was Fei Wong Reed."

"My god," Kurogane said, and then again, "my god." His hand fell on Fai's back with a heavy inevitability, then slid around the other man's shoulders, and then Fai was weeping, his face pressed to Kurogane's neck.

"Hush," Kurogane murmured, and then wrapped his other arm around Fai and pulled him even closer, until their legs tangled together and Fai was shaking against Kurogane's chest, his breath coming in great, heaving sobs. The act of comfort was utterly foreign to the soldier, but as with all things related to Fai he understood what was required. He cradled Fai until the shadows were long on the ground and the room was silent.

When Fai finally sat up, his face was a study in misery. His eyes were red-rimmed, he was leaking tears and mucus and God only knew what other fluids, and his hair was sticking up in odd tufts from where Kurogane had run his fingers through it. He looked far from attractive, Kurogane reflected; in his experience, nobody looked attractive when they cried, but some people looked less attractive when upset than others. Fai fell into the latter category.

Still, the other man's eyes were very bright, and very blue, blue like arctic ice; and looking into them, Kurogane remembered the ease with which Fai threw those brawlers from the bar, and a shiver ran down his spine.

Fai shifted to move again, dragging a sleeve under his nose in a gesture that was oddly endearing. "Talk to me about something," he demanded. "Anything." His voice was raw and a little breathy.

"Che," Kurogane said. "Alright. You haven't ever told me about your books."

Fai choked. "That's what you want to talk about?"

Kurogane shrugged.

"Well, then, if that's what Kuro-rin wants." The nickname was stilted as it fell from Fai's lips, but Kurogane wouldn't deny Fai the privilege of intimacy. He wouldn't deny Fai anything right now, really, even if the other man insisted on childishly ignoring his problems.

Fai must have read something of Kurogane's thoughts on his face, for he said, "Don't worry. It's not - not for long, I promise. Just give me time?"

Kurogane let out his breath slowly, between his teeth, and Fai flopped back on the couch and perched his feet in Kurogane's lap. He was barefoot. Kurogane ran a languid hand over Fai's left arch, then threaded his fingers between Fai's toes. "You run around barefoot a lot?"

Fai tried to smile and nearly succeeded. "No, I was just that anxious" - to get to you - "to see Kuro-pii again, of course!"

"Right," Kurogane said.

"Ahh, and you asked about my books, didn't you?" Fai's eyes drifted shut and he hummed in contentment as Kurogane dug his knuckles into the fleshy pad of Fai's foot. "You missed your calling, going in to the army," Fai said. "You could have made a killing as a masseuse."

"I made a killing as a soldier," Kurogane said with a perfectly straight face, and was pleased to see that this time the sliver of Fai's smile seemed genuine. "Your books?"

"Must I?" Fai slitted one eye open; his nose was still red, but he didn't seem to be leaking anymore.

"You told me to pick a topic."

"Fine." Fai groaned, contorted himself into a stretch that cracked his back twice, and slithered off the couch. He padded his way across the room to Kurogane's small bookcase; the poor thing was overflowing with books. Manga and military volumes alike teetered on top, and Kurogane had a rather thorough collection of vaguely foreign comics stacked around the base. Fai went unerringly to to bottom shelf and picked out one of the few examples of unillustrated fiction. He crossed the room again, deposited the paperback in Kurogane's lap, and settled back on his end of the couch.

"'A Thrilling Tales Anthology!'" Kurogane read. "'The Collected Works of That Sovereign of Suspense, That Wizard of the Weird, That Overlord of Adventure' - you write pulp fiction?"

"That's not all I write," Fai protested, and fluttered his eyelashes coyly.

Kurogane scowled. "Fine," he bit out. "What else do you write, besides - " He glanced down at the book. "'The Chonicles of the Phantom Agent?'"

Fai might as well have been licking the cream from his whiskers. "Erotica, Kuro-sama," he said. "What else?"

"Erotica - porn? You write porn?"

"Not porn! My novels are very tasteful."

"Pulp fiction and erotica," Kurogane muttered to himself, and turned the book in his hands over to study the back. "And you gave me this, too."

"And I notice it hasn't been read," Fai said.

"Well, no, but - and your pen name is Yuui? What kind of a name is that?"

"You don't need a last name when you sell as many books as I do," Fai pointed out. "There's a small fortune to be made in the market of lurid fiction for any soul brave enough to set pen to paper."

Kurogane huffed. "I can't believe I'm in love with someone who writes about heaving bosoms and 'The Death Skull Murders.' Of all the..." He trailed off when Fai shifted. The magician was wearing a strange expression on his face, soft, almost tender. With one hand Fai reached out and trailed the tips of his fingers across Kurogane's cheek. "What?" Kurogane said.

Fai shook his head. "Nothing." He let his hand fall away, and his face tightened. "Kurogane, what am I going to do?"

"Idiot," Kurogane said. "What do think we're going to do? You think between the two of us we can't figure out some way to beat some stupid, weak demon? Hn. Not likely."

"Kurogane..." Fai's gaze was boring into Kurogane; the magician seemed astonished, almost awed, but he soon shook his head and let out a strained chuckle. "You're really something else, you know that?"

"Yeah, well," Kurogane muttered, "I won't let it go to my head or anything."

iii.

They wasted fifteen minutes walking to Fai's apartment. "I have many tomes of arcane and powerful rites," Fai explained.

"'Tomes of arcane and powerful rites?' I'm beginning to see how you can make a living at dime novels."

Fai shrugged and dug both hands into his pockets. "It sounds better than saying I still have my old Academy textbooks, Kuro-pon. Now where did I put my keys?" He twisted around and searched both back pockets, then performed an odd patting ritual on the front of his jacket. "Hm."

Something jingled. Fai spun around and nearly overbalanced; Kurogane was dangling his housekeys nonchalantly from one hand, a smirk on his handsome face. "Looking for something?"

"Not anymore," Fai said. "Will you yield?"

"Yield what?"

"My keys." Fai felt he was displaying a remarkable patience, considering his life was on the line.

Kurogane flicked his wrist and sent the keys flying; Fai snatched them easily out of midair and unlocked his door. Nadeshiko was waiting just inside, her tail lashing as she scrutinized her human.

"Hey, girl," Fai said, and scooped her up with one hand. "Mommy's sorry that poor Nadeshiko-chan had such an upsetting day! Should we get out the special treats?" He cooed to the cat as he carried her to the kitchen; she stretched her neck and licked him on the nose. Fai laughed and deposited her on the counter.

"You call yourself mommy?" Kurogane's expression was less shocked and more outraged.

"Of course," Fai said. His tone suggested that he was speaking to a very young and slightly daft child. "If we were both daddy, Nadeshiko would get very confused, wouldn't she?"

"If we were both - I'm not - you're a man!"

"Yes," Fai said. "And?"

Kurogane huffed. "I just don't understand how you can be so blasé about this."

"I'm really not," Fai said, and turned away. His hands where trembling where they rested on the counter. Nadeshiko mewled, and Fai tucked her under one arm and started for his bookshelves. "But what am I supposed to do?" He sighed, and murmured again, this time more to himself than Kurogane, "What am I supposed to do?"

Kurogane brushed past him. "You're supposed to get researching," he said gruffly. "You're some sort of magic prodigy, right? So invent a spell." Fai's bookcases were angled in one corner of the room, and instead of a desk he had a long, low table with a typewriter and several sheafs of paper spread across the top.

"It's not that simple," Fai said, and sat Nadeshiko and his mother's letter on the table. The cat batted at the letter. "The spell Mom used is very powerful. It's more of a contract than a spell, really. I'm not sure I understand all of it."

"So where are your books?"

Fai pointed to the south wall. The three cases each stretched nearly to the ceiling; Fai had what amounted to a small library on magical history. "Just your old textbooks, huh?" Kurogane said.

Fai rolled his shoulders. "You'd be surprised. Sorcery is an intensive course of study, and Caliban's Academy is more demanding than most." He pulled three books from the shelves, each thicker than the last and all covered with a rich brown leather. "Start with these. We're looking for protection spells or anything that can break a demonic contract. Pay particular attention to anything that references wishes, fulfillment of your heart's desire - that sort of thing."

"Okay," Kurogane said, and took a seat at the table. The book in front of him R. Giles' Treatise on Demonology. He flipped it open and ran his thumb down the index.

"One of the biggest problems," Fai said, and took a seat across from Kurogane, "is that we don't know for sure how long the protection ritual will last. I could be taken five minutes from now or five years."

Kurogane grimaced and kept reading. R. Giles didn't seem to know a terrible lot about rituals; he seemed more interested in vampiric social customs, and kept going off on tangents about nests and feeding practices. Kurogane groaned and moved on to the next book, and when that wasn't any help, the next. Somewhere along the way he must have fallen asleep; he woke abruptly with his head cradled on Standard Compendium of Elemental Spells, 5th ed. and Fai lost to sight behind stack of books.

It was light out. Kurogane grunted and cracked his neck. An ink-stained hand shoved into view, and pushed aside a cat and a teetered pile of periodicals, and there was Fai, wearing a pair of square, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose.

"It's no good," Fai said. "I think we're going to have to go to the University Library. I keep hitting dead ends - references that I can't track any further, vague hints that are supposedly expounded upon in some other text..."

"You sound like your mom," Kurogane said. "Stuffy academic."

Fai's lips quirked, and he pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. He looked like someone who had sobbed hard and then stayed up all night without rest; his skin was chalky and paper-thin. Kurogane shoved away from the table. "C'mon," he said. "We need a few hours of sleep."

"But - "

"Hush," Kurogane said. He snared Fai by the elbow and pulled him over to the bed beneath the window. "We'll work better if we're rested." Fai toppled backwards with one shove of his shoulders, and Kurogane sat heavily beside him and began to work on his bootlaces.

"If you insist," Fai said, and let out a jaw-popping yawn. His eyes were already fluttering shut. Kurogane toed his boots off and fell back; Fai rolled over and snugged his head into the crook of Kurogane's shoulder.

They slept the sleep of the profoundly weary until dusk.

iv.

The library of Caliban University Sorcerer's Academy was an enormous brick building twice the size of the University Library proper and situated in the most distant corner of the campus. Fai, fortunately, was well known to the staff, and the head librarian allowed him after-hours access without any fuss.

If the outside was intimidating, the inside was a revelation. The library was vast and dark, the ceiling so far overhead that Kurogane couldn't even make out rafters in the shadows. Fai led the way with - of all things - a candle; he'd gotten a sackful from the head librarian. "Electricity doesn't work so consistently around magic," he explained to Kurogane. "It tends to short out at the most inconvenient times."

Five minutes of brisk walking must have passed before Fai finally settled his bag on a table. "The books in this section are old and valuable. Very old and valuable, so be careful."

"Fine," Kurogane said.

"And if you see anything marked with a spine marked with a red strip, like this, don't open it. Red is for dangerous books."

"Dangerous? How can a book be dangerous?"

"Like this," Fai said, and pried apart the covers of the book he was holding. A shrill, terrified scream split the air, building and echoing in the limitless eaves, on and on and on until Kurogane could feel his bones start to melt away -

Fai slammed the book shut. "That's one of the nicer ones, so do be careful, Kuro-tan."

"Great. Killer books. Where should I start?"

Fai ran his hand along a shelf just behind the table. "Start here," he said. "I keep finding references to a wish-granter, someone who grants your heart's desire."

"That sounds like the demon," Kurogane pointed out. "Fei Wong. What good would that do?"

"The wish-granter is presented as a neutral force, but always fair." Fai shook his head. "I don't know if that line of inquiry will help, but if there is such an entity, he might be able to substitute the terms of the contract for something of equal value."

"Sounds like you're substituting one demon for another," Kurogane muttered, and thunked himself down at the table. Fai kept him supplied with a steady stream of books; they'd worked out a system where Kurogane would search the indices for a list of words Fai had written up. When he came across one of the topics, he passed the book to Fai. They worked their way down one row and halfway up the next when Kurogane slammed his book shut.

"This is stupid and pointless," he snarled. "Can't we just shove a sword through this thing when it shows up?"

"I wish," Fai said, and propped his forehead up with one hand. "It's starting to look like the only way I can escape is to move through dimensions, which I'm not even sure is possible, and even that's not a sure bet. Damn!"

"What?"

"Paper cut," Fai said.

"Let me see." Kurogane reached out and coaxed Fai's fist open. The laceration was deeper and longer than Kurogane would normally expect from a paper cut; he mopped Fai's palm with his sleeve, then pressed until the blood stopped welling.

"You must have violated a dozen health code - " Fai started to stay, and then froze, his hand still cradled in Kurogane's larger one.

"What is it?"

"Someone's coming," Fai hissed. They sat and listened; in another minute Kurogane heard the noise, too. Light footsteps, amplified in the still air - probably a woman, Kurogane thought. He wasn't sure why the prospect of another person set them both on edge. They were both tense and anxious for obvious reasons, but the library itself only heightened the effect; the darkness crept in like some living wraith, kept at bay only by their dim circle of candlelight.

The footsteps grew louder. Kurogane's hand tightened around Fai's -

And Karen emerged from the dark.

"Karen!" Fai said. "What are you doing here?"

She held up a paper sack. "I though you two might be hungry. You didn't show up for work today or yesterday. What's going on?"

Fai glanced at Kurogane. "I don't want to drag her into this," he said.

"We could use another set of eyes," Kurogane said. "Your decision, though."

Fai heaved a sigh. "Karen, we need your help for something. It's potentially dangerous, and you can't tell anyone."

"Absolutely," she answered without hesitation. "What can I do?"

Fai launched into an explanation which Kurogane mostly ignored; he was far more interested in Karen's bag of food. He managed to slide it away from her without any protest - although Fai sent him a sideways glare - and rooted around inside. She'd packed four shepherd's pies, all still steaming, and a carton of stir-fry, and what looked like an entire of beef goulash.

Kurogane groaned in pleasure. He was halfway through his second shepherd's pie when he picked the thread of conversation back up. "Hey," he cut in. "How did you find us, anyway?"

Karen smiled and toyed with one of the unlit candles. "I have something of a talent myself," she said, and the candle burst into flames.

"Karen!" Fai said. "You've been keeping secrets."

"Maybe," Karen said. "What do you think will stop the demon, anyway? I don't know of anything that can break a magical contract, and it cost both your parents their lives just to delay it for a little while."

Fai looked down. "I've found a reference to the Witch of the East, who grants - "

Abruptly, the candles went out. The world plunged into darkness.

"Fai!" Kurogane called.

"I'm here. Karen?"

"Yes," she said. "Fai, something's going on, I can't call on my fire - "

"I can't cast any spells either," the magician said grimly. "Something's here, in the dark. Just hold on."

He felt a slim hand grasp at his arm; she squeezed once, and he began to chant. There was something heavy pressing down on him, stilling the strength of his spells, and he knew, he knew beyond a doubt that he had been found, that the past forty-eight hours and his family's deaths had been for naught.

The demon was here. Fai could feel it.

He wished that he could have seen Kurogane's face one last time. God, he wished -

With enormous effort Fai banished all thought, all desire, and focused on a place deep inside himself: his wellspring of power. Beside him Karen muttered low incantations; his mind hunted desperately for some way to banish -

The weight lifted from his chest. A bolt of light shot from his fingers just as Karen caught fire; the light was too bright, and he shut his eyes and recalled his power frantically. When he dared look, he cracked open one eye. Karen had thrown herself away from him, but his sleeve was singed anyway. A heavy, acrid smell hung in the air, and Kurogane -

Kurogane was gone.

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