[fic] trc - concord
Feb. 24th, 2009 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damalurbackupTITLE: Concord
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai, mention of Subaru and Olive (from "Little Miss Sunshine")
NOTES: AU, set in the Collegeverse. Written as a belated Valentine's Day ficlet for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
orthewallpaper (hope you like it - I managed to work in ice cream and Olive ^^).
SUMMARY: When an unexpected phone call depresses Fai, Kurogane remedies the situation with ice cream.
CONCORD
The phone call comes in the middle of dinner. They're camped out on the floor in Fai's new apartment – he doesn't have the money for furniture yet – and Kurogane is trying to teach Fai to eat with chopsticks. Fai has this ancient yellow telephone sitting on an impromptu table made of D&D manuals, and it starts shrieking just when Fai finally manages to spear a piece of shrimp and bring it to his mouth.
He picks up the phone and answers around a wad of rice. “Y'hello? Olive? What's up?”
Kurogane cocks his head and stirs an extra packet of soy sauce into his kung pao pork. He's heard of Olive before, enough to know that she's one of Fai's high school friends and that Fai still keeps in contact with her.
“Olive, calm down,” Fai says. “Breathe. Okay? Good? What's the matter?” There's a rigid, immobile cast to Fai's features; his mouth sets in a straight line, and as Kurogane watches the other man tangles his fingers in the phone cord.
“Oh God,” Fai says, and Kurogane stills. “He didn't – how is he – do you need me to come? I can be out there by tomorrow morning at the latest - “
Fai shoots a furtive glance over his shoulder and then turns into the wall, hunching over almost protectively. “If you're sure,” he says, and sighs. “But I have a three-day weekend coming up. Yes. I'll see you then. Take care of yourself, and – Olive?” His voice drops. “Tell him I love him.”
Kurogane chokes on his pork. Fai takes no notice.
“What – mha – what was that?” Kurogane splutters.
Fai takes no notice. He stays in the corner, forehead pressed to the wall, back to Kurogane, one hand still resting on the reciever. “Nothing,” he says, and when he turns finally to face Kurogane his smile is as garish and empty as the sunflower-yellow telephone in the bare apartment. “Nothing at all, Kuro-tan, but I really think it's time for you to leave now.”
“I will not - “ Kurogane surges to his feet and stabs a chopstick at Fai's nose. Fai does not so much as flinch, but his eyes narrow to slits and his false smile widens. “What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing important, as I said,” Fai answers, and two blue chips of ice regard Kurogane from behind long blonde eyelashes: a warning. “And we both have class tomorrow, so it's time for you to be going. Wouldn't want to risk falling asleep in the middle of a lecture, would we?”
“Fine,” Kurogane snarls, stung by Fai's casual dismissal and the disruption of a promising evening and that last, whispered wish to the mysterious him. He hefts his backpack and storms to the door. When he looks back Fai is still standing beside the phone, still smiling, and still about to shatter.
Kurogane leaves without looking back. Not his problem. He doesn't want to be caught in the shrapnel, anyway.
-
That attitude lasts almost an entire day, but he refrains from calling Fai out of an effort to respect the other's wishes. Or, okay, he refrains for thirty-six hours, and when Fai hasn't called back by the third day he marches over to Fai's apartment and pounds on the door. “I know you're in there!” he shouts. “You don't have class on Thursdays, and besides, they're playing a classic Star Trek marathon on SciFi – open up!”
His hand's starting to get sore by the time Fai finally answers through the door. “Sorry, Kuro-rin, but the apartment's not clean, and I'm not dressed for company!”
“Don't care!” Kurogane returns, and when Fai doesn't answer he resumes pounding on the door.
“Go away, please!” Fai yells.
“No!”
“Dammit, Kurogane, just go away!” That's progress, at least, Kurogane thinks; getting Fai to cut the cute little excuses and pet-names means he's getting somewhere, even if it's not where he wants to be.
“I'm not going anywhere until you open this door,” Kurogane says. “I think my knuckles are about to start bleeding, and unlike some people I don't have another hand to fall back on.”
“Kurogane,” Fai snaps. “Drop it.” His voice sounds closer now, more distinct; he must be standing just inside.
“No,” Kurogane repeats.
“Fine!” There's a rattle as Fai undoes the chain, and then the door cracks just a sliver. Kurogane hesitates, sucks in a breath, and pushes the door open.
Fai is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall a few feet inside the entrance. He's barefoot, dressed only in a fraying pair of sweatpants and a wifebeater, and his hair hangs lank and greasy against his neck. Across the room, Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk are conversing on the bridge, but – most tellingly – the TV's volume is muted.
Kurogane takes in the room at a glance and snaps into command mode. He snatches Fai's shoes from a cardboard box by the door, drops them in front of the other man, and hauls Fai to his feet with a firm grip on one elbow. “C'mon,” he says. “Let's go.” Fai glares, but Kurogane hustles them both into jackets and out the door.
And then – they walk. They walk up one side of campus and down another, they walk past the dorm where Fai used to live and the coffee shop where they first met, they walk past the university bookstore and the across the quad, and Kurogane talks all the while. He's admittedly not much of a talker, but he does his best to fill the air with words. He tells Fai about his family and his love of kendo and even manages to tie in some references to Harry Potter, just in case the other is really paying attention.
When he's exhausted his supply of anecdotes, he recites information from his classes – most of which are in British history this semester, so it's British history Fai gets. Kurogane starts with William of Normandy's invasion of the British Isles in 1066 and works his way forward from there. By the time he arrives at James I his voice has grown hoarse and Fai's eyes are glassy, so Kurogane herds them toward the local ice cream parlor. He buys Fai a double-scoop of chocolate, wraps his boyfriend's hand around the cone, and guides him to a small table in the back corner. Then he watches Fai eat, and only when the other man is finished does he speak again.
“So, what's this all about?”
Fai licks chocolate from the tips of his fingers and sighs. “I've told you about Olive, haven't I? And Subaru?”
“You've talked about Olive, but I've only heard you mention Subaru in passing.”
“Oh.” Fai's gaze is fixed firmly on a point three feet above Kurogane's left shoulder. “Subaru – don't tell anyone this, you can't – Subaru moved to my high school from Japan halfway through my junior year. I sort of made friends with him – mostly because of Olive, I think because she reminded him of his sister or something.”
“His sister?”
Fai flinches almost imperceptibly. “Yes. His twin sister. She died in some horribly grisly way a few months before he moved. Subaru was – is – probably the most seriously screwed-up person I know.” Kurogane hears the unspoken: More screwed-up than me. “There were all sorts of rumors that he'd been molested by a teacher before he moved, but I don't think that's true – or if it was, it wasn't rape. I think he loved his teacher, and I think that his teacher hurt him.”
“Wow.” Kurogane sits back. “How did his sister die?”
Fai laughs, and it is the mostly heartbreakingly beautiful sound Kurogane has ever heard; Fai's laughter always is. “I don't know. I never asked.” I couldn't ask, you see, and please don't question me why. “At any rate, Subaru's been on bent on self-destruction from the first day I met him. He barely eats, he never sleeps – he seems to live entirely on cigarettes. He works as a private investigator, but I thinks that's mostly due to his sister.”
“So – you're not in love with him?”
Fai's eyes snap to Kurogane's for the first time since they sat down. “What? No! Kurogane, I spent the past decade of my life fixated on my brother's – my brother, and I just told you that Subaru's even more screwed-up in the head than I am. He's completely fixated on his mystery man, anyway. How could you think - ?”
Kurogane shrugs, but his loose-limbed sprawl has relaxed into its usual easy assurance. “What you said on the phone.”
Fai shakes his head, but some of the tension has drained from his posture, too. “No, never. Not like that. Olive called because she found him passed out on the floor of his apartment. She wasn't sure if it was an accident or if he – he's in the hospital now.”
It would be easy for Kurogane to snarl at Fai at this point, to call him names, to berate him, to say, You idiot, why didn't you tell me, I would have helped you -
Instead he reaches out and slips a finger under Fai's chin. “Hey,” he says. “It'll be all right. I'll ride up there with you this weekend. Road trip, right? Just like last summer.”
“Really?” Fai asks, and Kurogane nods. Fai smiles shakily, but it's a real smile, if a small one. “Thank you, Kurogane.”
Kurogane lets his hand drop. “Don't call me that,” he says gruffly, and at Fai's puzzled look, adds, “I might get you mixed up with someone else if you don't use those stupid nicknames.”
“Well then, Kuro-tan, if you insist.” Fai's smile is showing a hint of teeth now.
“Knew I shouldn't have taught you any Japanese,” Kurogane says. “What do you want to do now?”
“A shower would be nice,” says Fai, and oh yeah, there's a definite flash of teeth. “And then there's a Star Trek marathon on, if you haven't heard...”
Kurogane groans.
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai, mention of Subaru and Olive (from "Little Miss Sunshine")
NOTES: AU, set in the Collegeverse. Written as a belated Valentine's Day ficlet for
orthewallpaper (hope you like it - I managed to work in ice cream and Olive ^^).SUMMARY: When an unexpected phone call depresses Fai, Kurogane remedies the situation with ice cream.
CONCORD
The phone call comes in the middle of dinner. They're camped out on the floor in Fai's new apartment – he doesn't have the money for furniture yet – and Kurogane is trying to teach Fai to eat with chopsticks. Fai has this ancient yellow telephone sitting on an impromptu table made of D&D manuals, and it starts shrieking just when Fai finally manages to spear a piece of shrimp and bring it to his mouth.
He picks up the phone and answers around a wad of rice. “Y'hello? Olive? What's up?”
Kurogane cocks his head and stirs an extra packet of soy sauce into his kung pao pork. He's heard of Olive before, enough to know that she's one of Fai's high school friends and that Fai still keeps in contact with her.
“Olive, calm down,” Fai says. “Breathe. Okay? Good? What's the matter?” There's a rigid, immobile cast to Fai's features; his mouth sets in a straight line, and as Kurogane watches the other man tangles his fingers in the phone cord.
“Oh God,” Fai says, and Kurogane stills. “He didn't – how is he – do you need me to come? I can be out there by tomorrow morning at the latest - “
Fai shoots a furtive glance over his shoulder and then turns into the wall, hunching over almost protectively. “If you're sure,” he says, and sighs. “But I have a three-day weekend coming up. Yes. I'll see you then. Take care of yourself, and – Olive?” His voice drops. “Tell him I love him.”
Kurogane chokes on his pork. Fai takes no notice.
“What – mha – what was that?” Kurogane splutters.
Fai takes no notice. He stays in the corner, forehead pressed to the wall, back to Kurogane, one hand still resting on the reciever. “Nothing,” he says, and when he turns finally to face Kurogane his smile is as garish and empty as the sunflower-yellow telephone in the bare apartment. “Nothing at all, Kuro-tan, but I really think it's time for you to leave now.”
“I will not - “ Kurogane surges to his feet and stabs a chopstick at Fai's nose. Fai does not so much as flinch, but his eyes narrow to slits and his false smile widens. “What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing important, as I said,” Fai answers, and two blue chips of ice regard Kurogane from behind long blonde eyelashes: a warning. “And we both have class tomorrow, so it's time for you to be going. Wouldn't want to risk falling asleep in the middle of a lecture, would we?”
“Fine,” Kurogane snarls, stung by Fai's casual dismissal and the disruption of a promising evening and that last, whispered wish to the mysterious him. He hefts his backpack and storms to the door. When he looks back Fai is still standing beside the phone, still smiling, and still about to shatter.
Kurogane leaves without looking back. Not his problem. He doesn't want to be caught in the shrapnel, anyway.
-
That attitude lasts almost an entire day, but he refrains from calling Fai out of an effort to respect the other's wishes. Or, okay, he refrains for thirty-six hours, and when Fai hasn't called back by the third day he marches over to Fai's apartment and pounds on the door. “I know you're in there!” he shouts. “You don't have class on Thursdays, and besides, they're playing a classic Star Trek marathon on SciFi – open up!”
His hand's starting to get sore by the time Fai finally answers through the door. “Sorry, Kuro-rin, but the apartment's not clean, and I'm not dressed for company!”
“Don't care!” Kurogane returns, and when Fai doesn't answer he resumes pounding on the door.
“Go away, please!” Fai yells.
“No!”
“Dammit, Kurogane, just go away!” That's progress, at least, Kurogane thinks; getting Fai to cut the cute little excuses and pet-names means he's getting somewhere, even if it's not where he wants to be.
“I'm not going anywhere until you open this door,” Kurogane says. “I think my knuckles are about to start bleeding, and unlike some people I don't have another hand to fall back on.”
“Kurogane,” Fai snaps. “Drop it.” His voice sounds closer now, more distinct; he must be standing just inside.
“No,” Kurogane repeats.
“Fine!” There's a rattle as Fai undoes the chain, and then the door cracks just a sliver. Kurogane hesitates, sucks in a breath, and pushes the door open.
Fai is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall a few feet inside the entrance. He's barefoot, dressed only in a fraying pair of sweatpants and a wifebeater, and his hair hangs lank and greasy against his neck. Across the room, Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk are conversing on the bridge, but – most tellingly – the TV's volume is muted.
Kurogane takes in the room at a glance and snaps into command mode. He snatches Fai's shoes from a cardboard box by the door, drops them in front of the other man, and hauls Fai to his feet with a firm grip on one elbow. “C'mon,” he says. “Let's go.” Fai glares, but Kurogane hustles them both into jackets and out the door.
And then – they walk. They walk up one side of campus and down another, they walk past the dorm where Fai used to live and the coffee shop where they first met, they walk past the university bookstore and the across the quad, and Kurogane talks all the while. He's admittedly not much of a talker, but he does his best to fill the air with words. He tells Fai about his family and his love of kendo and even manages to tie in some references to Harry Potter, just in case the other is really paying attention.
When he's exhausted his supply of anecdotes, he recites information from his classes – most of which are in British history this semester, so it's British history Fai gets. Kurogane starts with William of Normandy's invasion of the British Isles in 1066 and works his way forward from there. By the time he arrives at James I his voice has grown hoarse and Fai's eyes are glassy, so Kurogane herds them toward the local ice cream parlor. He buys Fai a double-scoop of chocolate, wraps his boyfriend's hand around the cone, and guides him to a small table in the back corner. Then he watches Fai eat, and only when the other man is finished does he speak again.
“So, what's this all about?”
Fai licks chocolate from the tips of his fingers and sighs. “I've told you about Olive, haven't I? And Subaru?”
“You've talked about Olive, but I've only heard you mention Subaru in passing.”
“Oh.” Fai's gaze is fixed firmly on a point three feet above Kurogane's left shoulder. “Subaru – don't tell anyone this, you can't – Subaru moved to my high school from Japan halfway through my junior year. I sort of made friends with him – mostly because of Olive, I think because she reminded him of his sister or something.”
“His sister?”
Fai flinches almost imperceptibly. “Yes. His twin sister. She died in some horribly grisly way a few months before he moved. Subaru was – is – probably the most seriously screwed-up person I know.” Kurogane hears the unspoken: More screwed-up than me. “There were all sorts of rumors that he'd been molested by a teacher before he moved, but I don't think that's true – or if it was, it wasn't rape. I think he loved his teacher, and I think that his teacher hurt him.”
“Wow.” Kurogane sits back. “How did his sister die?”
Fai laughs, and it is the mostly heartbreakingly beautiful sound Kurogane has ever heard; Fai's laughter always is. “I don't know. I never asked.” I couldn't ask, you see, and please don't question me why. “At any rate, Subaru's been on bent on self-destruction from the first day I met him. He barely eats, he never sleeps – he seems to live entirely on cigarettes. He works as a private investigator, but I thinks that's mostly due to his sister.”
“So – you're not in love with him?”
Fai's eyes snap to Kurogane's for the first time since they sat down. “What? No! Kurogane, I spent the past decade of my life fixated on my brother's – my brother, and I just told you that Subaru's even more screwed-up in the head than I am. He's completely fixated on his mystery man, anyway. How could you think - ?”
Kurogane shrugs, but his loose-limbed sprawl has relaxed into its usual easy assurance. “What you said on the phone.”
Fai shakes his head, but some of the tension has drained from his posture, too. “No, never. Not like that. Olive called because she found him passed out on the floor of his apartment. She wasn't sure if it was an accident or if he – he's in the hospital now.”
It would be easy for Kurogane to snarl at Fai at this point, to call him names, to berate him, to say, You idiot, why didn't you tell me, I would have helped you -
Instead he reaches out and slips a finger under Fai's chin. “Hey,” he says. “It'll be all right. I'll ride up there with you this weekend. Road trip, right? Just like last summer.”
“Really?” Fai asks, and Kurogane nods. Fai smiles shakily, but it's a real smile, if a small one. “Thank you, Kurogane.”
Kurogane lets his hand drop. “Don't call me that,” he says gruffly, and at Fai's puzzled look, adds, “I might get you mixed up with someone else if you don't use those stupid nicknames.”
“Well then, Kuro-tan, if you insist.” Fai's smile is showing a hint of teeth now.
“Knew I shouldn't have taught you any Japanese,” Kurogane says. “What do you want to do now?”
“A shower would be nice,” says Fai, and oh yeah, there's a definite flash of teeth. “And then there's a Star Trek marathon on, if you haven't heard...”
Kurogane groans.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 08:04 am (UTC)I can't even begin to say how much I loved this (the fact that it's Collegeverse, which has burrowed itself into my little heart, aside) There were such wonderful little and not so little moments, like the yellow phone on a stack of books and learning to use chopsticks and the walk around town and Kurogane talking and reciting history and closing Fai's hand around the ice cream cone and the TV being muted and Kurogane refraining for, okay, 36 hours, and the use of his full name and the hesitation/catch in I spent the past decade of my life fixated on my brother's – my brother and I would probably end up quoting half the fic back to you if I started, so I won't. But oh, how I liked this, and how alive and from-the-real-world it seems.
One thing I didn't understand, though, was how this line of Kurogane's Knew I shouldn't have taught you any Japanese,” tied in with the moment. Did the fact that Fai learned some Japanese give him the idea for the structure of the nicknames (what with Kuro-Kuroi-black)?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 07:10 pm (UTC)And it helps that when I say that I have five slots open for story requests, the first three people request Kuro/Fai. I don't think the fandom will let me quit it, either. *g*For some reason I'm really fond of the image of Fai having this really old, garish telephone and displaying it on top of D&D manuals. I...can't say why, but that's the image that got this story rolling.
Re: nicknames, I think I mention very briefly here that Kurogane taught Fai about honorifics (and presumably a little bit of Japanese). I kind of imagine that Fai found out about the nicknames from there; as I understand it, the suffixes he tacks on Kurogane's name are used by Japanese schoolgirls to make themselves sound "cutesy." On the other hand, I never stated that explicitly and I'm not even sure it's entirely factual, so sorry for any confusion!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 09:05 pm (UTC)Good! *shakes hands with Fai for a job well done*
The appearance of the nicknames makes sense now (it had from the beginning, but I'm, you know, slow ^^;;) and the image of the telephone is still lovely ^^ *cuddles fic again*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 02:16 pm (UTC)You write beautifully, and the characters' portray is perfect !
Collegeverse is so much ♥
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 06:40 pm (UTC)I still can't get over your marvelously writing style, simple, yyet still so descritptive.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 09:47 pm (UTC)I mean, that's why I love him too. I kind of regret I didn't think of Trecker nerd Fai who goes to Star Wars premiers in costume and loves Harry Potter books before you did.
Oh well, you write him better than I could.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 09:12 pm (UTC)That was so wonderful. Ah, and look at this! *points to reviews* You see how many people love the Collegeverse? Huh? ^_^ Doesn't it make you want to write more?
Anyway, this was amazing. I loved it, and I am very happy. Little Miss Sunshine crossovers with Tsubasa are love, and as far as I know you are the only person who ever thought to do that, so yeah. Kudos to you!
Thank you again!
~Wallpaper
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:17 am (UTC)