What’s Waiting Beyond (3/7)
Oct. 20th, 2011 04:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bottanTitle: What’s Waiting Beyond (/7)
Chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [epilogue]
Pairings: KuroFai, SyaoSaku
Word count for this chapter: 3,120
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, gore, depicted death, stupid silliness, semi-coherent rambling on technology I barely understand
Summary: On one of his missions, Kurogane meets a strange woman at a devastated space station. The nightmares from his past return. And he somehow won't get rid of that particular idiot blabbering at him about dragons.
Author’s Note: This is a remix of the highly recommended Catch A Dragon By The Tail by![[info]](https://konnichipuu.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=3)
reikah. I stole her dragons put them into space. Because this is fanfic. :Db (I'm really not doing the fic justice, I'm very much reccing the original.)
When Kurogane was torn from a deep sleep phase, bathed in cold sweat and heart racing, he needed a moment to realize that it wasn’t the nightmares that had woken him.
He was used to travelling space, the deepness of vacuum surrounding him on all sides, and after a few years of working alone, there came a certain kind of peace with the knowledge that he was the only breathing, conscious thing within a light year of travel. He hadn’t had real nightmares within years, and now, they didn’t seem to stop.
But they weren’t what had woken him, today. He could feel someone aboard. It wasn’t a demon – Kurogane had learned to wake calmly and ready for battle to the aura of those under Souma’s training ever since he had turned fourteen. This aura hadn’t woken him until it had grown into a slow, steady pulse that seemed to fill his whole ship, making the air too thick too breathe and making his skin crawl.
He didn’t bother to turn on the lights or get dressed as he drew the force field pistol, from under his mattress and threw on the weapon belt with the short sword, the wakizashi, atop his loose sleeping pants. The hiss of the opening doors would give him away, but Kurogane’s feet were still noiseless on the warm tiles under which the spaceship’s heart, the generator, worked with a steady hum.
Now that he concentrated, he could feel the presence distinctly emerging from the Souhi’s cockpit. He passed a hand over the sensors in the tiny corridor and the door opened, the emergency lights painting the crammed room into a dim shade of red. The shutters of the thick windows had been retracted and gave way to the deep blackness of space that was alight with the oscillating colors of the stars as they passed by at a speed faster than light. A figure occupied the pilot’s chair, arms crossed behind his head and feet up on the softly glowing consoles, red and rainbow lights catching in his hair. Kurogane didn’t need to see the bowler hat hanging from the main console to recognize the asshole.
“You’re really very attentive, aren’t you?” Fai turned to look at him, ever-present smile ghostly in the darkness.
“And you’re a pain in the ass,” Kurogane gave back, suddenly feeling ridiculous, standing there bare-chested and in pajama bottoms, pointing his pistol at the utter moron. Which didn’t mean it was safe to put it down, yet. “How did you trick the security system? I checked for life signs before take-off, I’d have known had anything been aboard – and you can’t have docked while the ship’s moving faster than light.”
“You must have overlooked me,” his stowaway said with a grin. “Besides, it is not very nice to just leave your partner behind, even though I told you I was coming-“
“This ship doesn’t ‘overlook’ people,” Kurogane barked. The whole thing stank to high heaven. “If you’ve been tinkering with the security, you better tell me right now – I’ll throw you out the airlock if I find out, later!”
“I didn’t tinker with it,” he gave back with a slight pout. “Maybe I’m just good at going undetected.”
“Yeah. No,” Kurogane grunted. “And you’re not my partner. In no way.”
“Partner for catching your dragon – see, we’re following her,” he smiled. Kurogane followed his pointed finger to find out that the idiot’s pocket watch was somehow attached to the controls. With red wire. Through a ripped open control panel.
“Don’t. Fucking dabble with the controls,” Kurogane growled and lowered the pistol, in favor of pulling the idiot out of the pilot chair by his lapels. “Catching my dragon, what the hell! You better haven’t broken anything! I’ll chuck you out at the next human outpost, and you can see how you get home from there!”
“Whatever you say, Captain Foul Mood!” the man said agreeably, holding his hands up in a calming gesture as Kurogane dumped him into the unused assistant chair behind. He didn’t seem terribly worried by the prospect of being stranded somewhere in space.
“And stop calling me that!” Kurogane barked. “I have a name, and it’s Kurogane!”
“Okay, Kuro-min!”
“It’s Kurogane!”
“I heard you, Kuro-pedantic!”
Kurogane cursed under his breath. He didn’t recognize half the programs the idiot had activated on the screen, and there were about five red lamps blinking (those never boded well). For a moment he was about to rip the dragon compass out of his controls, but he really didn’t know whether that wouldn’t fuck things up, further. He settled closing down everything he didn’t recognize.
“What the fuck is this?” he said and pointed at some kind of bar graph that he hoped was not pointing towards the gas tank exploding.
“Solitaire?” Fai worded it like a question. Kurogane stared at him and Fai laughed. “It’s a game, Kuro-worried.”
“Whatever. Just don’t touch anything,” he grumbled and started altering the coordinates to go right towards Lecourt, where he would throw the idiot out to never see him again. Silence settled over the cabin, long enough to make Kurogane suspicious. There was a sudden, almost inaudible gasp from behind him. Kurogane looked over his shoulder to make sure the idiot hadn’t taken to dismantling the controls. Again.
Fai had indeed taken to punching buttons on the next system available – but now, he was hunched over in his chair, pale and a hand pressed over his mouth as he stared at a silent recording. Kurogane recognized the camera images his suit had taken at Jade – he had reviewed them, earlier. The image of the inflated, frozen corpse in the main room was just flickering over the monitor, showing Kurogane’s gloved hands as he checked for name and identifications.
Fai made a noise that sounded like he was going to be sick.
“I just told you not to touch stuff,” Kurogane repeated, getting up to reach for the controls. “And don’t watch this shit if you can’t stomach-“
“Don’t,” Fai hissed, clamping down on his hand before he could reach out to turn off the screen. Kurogane made a noise of surprise at the strength of his grip. Fai looked at him briefly, and his eyes were glassy and red rimmed. “Sorry, just… don’t,” his mouth was opened as though he wanted to say something else, but then turned back to the screen instead.
Research station monitoring a dragon. Self-proclaimed dracologist. Kurogane watched Fai as his eyes filled with tears while the image changed to show the rip in the outer mantel of the station.
“Friends of yours?” he asked silently.
Fai twitched, as though he had forgotten Kurogane was still there and released the wrist he had held onto. He hugged himself. “Yeah, I guess,” he replied, pale and small. He shook his head in slow disbelief while the screen tilted over the destroyed room. “I didn’t know they… I didn’t know.”
The Kurogane in the recordings stepped through the airlock and came out on the other side, facing the woman behind. Fai made a noise that was almost a snarl and when Kurogane next looked down onto Fai, his features had hardened into an unreadable mask.
“Who is she?” Kurogane asked him.
“No idea,” Fai said eyes still glued to the screen and his mouth pulled into a scowl.
“That was a terrible lie,” Kurogane murmured. A bit of the tension melted out of the other man#s shoulders.
“She’s no one,” Fai said silently and pressed the button to fast-forward the recordings. “I thought I’d seen her at New Tokyo, but I don’t know her. It doesn’t matter,” his eyes flickered back and forth as he watched the conversation take place, Kurogane going to the next room, finding more of the dead crewmembers.
“She told me the station was attacked because they had contact with a dragon,” Kurogane mentioned.
“Yes,” Fai said, his voice tight with emotion as his hands dug into the armrests of his chair. His nails left scratches across the leather. “Yes, they were.”
A shiver ran up Kurogane’s spine and he remembered he should really go get a shirt. He sat down at the edge of the controls and studied the tips of his toes in the dim, red light, as silence fell. Maybe this was the reason the man was so obsessed with finding and killing a dragon – because he thought, exactly as that woman, that they were killing people.
“You took her with you, didn’t you?” Fai suddenly asked, his face still pale with the flickering, bluish light of the monitors.
“It’s my job. In contrast to giving crazy idiots rides across the universe,” Kurogane answered. “She was hurt, I took her to the hospital, end of the story.”
“Keep away from her,” Fai said so fast that he almost cut off Kurogane’s sentence.
“What are you, my mother?” Kurogane asked incredulously. Fai actually snorted in amusement at that.
“She’s dangerous, Kuro-stupid,” he grinned lopsidedly, and then so softly that Kurogane almost didn’t catch it. “It’s a small miracle you’re still alive.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kurogane asked, shivering again, even as he folded his arms across his chest.
“It’s,” Fai broke off and avoided Kurogane’s eyes. He fiddled with that stupid dragon lighter, again. “complicated,” he finished lamely.
“Right,” Kurogane answered, annoyed by the non-answer. “Whatever.” He stood up and checked one more time that the coordinates towards Lecourt were entered correctly. “Stay away from the controls, while I’m asleep,” Kurogane reminded him, uneasy to leave the moron without supervision.
“Of course, Kuro-pon,” the man flashed him an uncaring smile. Kurogane didn’t like the way that sounded. Not at all.
“I don’t care where you sleep, as long as you stay out of my way. There are blankets in the living room.”
His smile grew a bit softer, “Alright, Kuro-sweet.”
“it’s Kurogane!”
“If you keep scowling like that, sometime your face will freeze up and stay that way, Kuro-min.”
Kurogane threw his hands up in surrender and left the idiot his own means. He even ignored the snigger that floated out after him as the doors shut.
*****
5.3 Acid Spitters
Powerful fighters. Originated on earth, have since spread to the galaxies of Dracunculi Minor as one of the known space-travelling species. The acid is assumed to be produced in glands near the head of the dragon, and funneled through horns protruding from under the jaw. [It is] known that their acid can burn themselves, if spilled. Strong, psychic abilities, letting them communicate with each other over light-years of distance and control matter around them. (The Dragon of Mt. Pilatus is assumed to have been an Acid Spitter.)
Servants to the Storm Dragons, who have reigned in strict hierarchy over the races for as long as known. Before dragons started decimating, a single silver Storm Dragon was known to have been followed by a swarm of black Acid Spitters to serve it.
*****
Maybe it was a small thing to happen, but it happened, and somehow it changed things.
Three days after starting from New Tokyo, Kurogane was up to his elbows in oil trying to repair the autocook, after he had had to listen to forty-eight hours of non-stop whining about the food from Fai. He had planned to do this for some time now, really. Spacer food was ghastly. It wasn’t like he gave in to Fai’s nerve-racking complaints. Because he didn’t. Besides, the idiot would be gone in another day, thankfully enough, so Kurogane wouldn’t have to think about that, anymore.
“That part goes the other way up, Kuro-pinta,” Fai’s breath tickled his ear and Kurogane jumped hard enough to slam his head against the ceiling of the oven. He cursed colorfully pulling back out of the damn machine with his hand pressed to the back of his head.
“Fuck, have you ever even heard of the concept of private space?” he hissed between gritted teeth feeling the tender back of his head for the lump forming there.
“Sounds complicated,” he said blithely and shoved the manual in front of Kurogane’s eyes, so close that he had to inch backwards to be able to see the figures. “There, you see? You got it upside down.”
“You’re holding the fucking book upside down,” Kurogane deadpanned.
“Huh? Yeah, but that valve still goes the other way round, Kuro-pup,” Fai turned the book to check. Kurogane ripped it out of his hands to skim the screen. Yeah, well, so the idiot was right. Whatever. Anyone could do this if they looked at the manual.
“It would have worked, anyway – it’s just a valve,” Kurogane murmured but turned it around, regardless.
“Actually, it wouldn’t,” Fai said with a small frown. He held the book the wrong way up, again. “I think I’m getting an impression as to why this cook didn’t work the first time round, Kuro-min.”
“Yeah, if you know so much about this shit, why don’t you repair it, smartass,” Kurogane grumbled, his voice sounding hollow in the cavity of the oven. Stupid, tiny valves on stupid, thin tubes, going into fucking small holes.
“So let me,” Fai said and shuffled up behind him, way too close, again.
“So that you can make it explode?” Kurogane gave back.
“I’ve built a machine to locate dragons!” he argued.
“That points at yourself, half of the time, for no good reason at all,” Kurogane growled.
“Just let me-“ Kurogane pulled out of the oven to give back something spiteful and came up so close to Fai’s face that their noses almost bumped. Any normal person would have reared back at the proximity, but Fai didn’t. His breath smelled like Kurogane’s toothpaste and was warm, cool mint against his cheeks. For a moment, Fai looked surprised, then his lashes lowered as his gaze flicked down to Kurogane’s mouth. Kurogane tried to say something, but instead just took a nervous, shaky breath. Fai swallowed.
“You have soot on your nose,” Fai commented. That was when the situation slammed in to meet Kurogane’s cerebrum, which led to his body stumbling backward over the toolbox and falling smack on its ass. Kurogane cursed loudly as a wicked grin was spreading over Fai’s face. After a few seconds the scientist was snickering so badly that he was doubled over and tears were running down his face.
“Poor Kuro-pon,” he gasped. “Repairing the cooker is a dangerous task.”
“Shut the hell up!” Kurogane yelled and threw a wrench at Fai that he ducked under so that it bounced back from the wall behind him. Fai was still laughing when Kurogane came back up doing his best not to rub his abused behind.
Fai did manage to repair the autocook and serve them both meals that didn’t taste like dissolved cardboard box. And the incident had Kurogane find out that being around Fai was dangerous.
*****
“I know you’re there, in case you think you’re being subtle,” Kurogane said into the darkness of the cockpit. The only thing that was alight was the main screen, as was going through the logs of Jade, again. Fai shifted behind him.
“You should be sleeping, Kuro-pup,” Fai smiled as sank into a crouch next to the pilot seat, arms draped over the controls in a way that made Kurogane want to shove him off of there before he hit any buttons. Kurogane waited for him to speak. Fai usually did speak the moment he entered a scene. When he didn’t he looked down at the other man. A wistful look had spread on his face and he looked out of the window and at the streaks of stars beyond.
“What’s it?” Kurogane asked suspiciously. Fai drew a long breath and let it out in a shivering sigh. He buried his face in his arms.
“I shouldn’t be traveling with you,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I told you that, before,” Kurogane said. Fai let out a snort and then fell silent.
“Kuro-min, I’m… running away from something,” Fai said after a silence long enough to make Kurogane think he wouldn’t speak, anymore, at all. Fai looked up and out of the window into the darkness, again. “And I’m putting you into terrible danger. I should leave.”
“I told you, I’ll chuck you out at Lecourt,” Kurogane said, throwing him a sideway glance. The scientist had taken to study his own hands. Crouching as he was, he seemed like a child confessing that it had done something wrong. Kurogane drew a breath. “About what you told me. When we met. Maybe you were right – I’d have gone looking for that dragon, anyway, so don’t worry about that.”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to protest. Then he closed his mouth, and all that spoke were his eyes, lost and sad in the darkness.
“Look, if you got a problem, you should just face it,” Kurogane told him. “It probably won’t go away if you don’t do anything about it.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fai said quietly. “I know.”
“Stop moping and just do it,” Kurogane grumbled. That merely evoked a bitter laugh.
“Your world is so easy, Kuro-pon,” the tone of voice was somewhere between a sigh and a complaint.
“The hell, it’s not as hard as thinking about it, day and night,” Kurogane murmured. For some reason, he thought about Tomoyo and what she would tell Fai to do. She always knew how to deal with these things. Fai was silent for a moment.
“If I leave now, you’ll find and fight the dragon anyway, won’t you?”
“Depends on whether I find the right one,” Kurogane replied scrolling through the text on his screen unseeingly. A black one, with horns protruding from under its jaw. An Acid Spitter with a wingspan large enough to fill the entire breadth of a torus.
“You will die if you do that,” Fai whispered. Kurogane looked down at him. There was naked fear on his face. He had slung his arms around his legs; skinny and tall as he was, he looked incredibly small, right now.
“I’m not that easy to kill, dumbass,” Kurogane grumbled, almost offended by the reaction.
“I know you’re not,” Fai smiled thinly, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. He suddenly looked away and pushed himself to his feet. “Go to bed, Kuro-stubborn. I don’t think I’ve seen you outside this room within the last 20 hours.”
“I’ve been outside,” Kuorgane mumbled. The scientist was right, though. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he was rather tired.
“And thanks,” Fai said over his shoulder, as he left.
“Thanks for what?”
“Helping me make up my mind, Kuro-dummy,” Fai hummed.
Chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [epilogue]
Pairings: KuroFai, SyaoSaku
Word count for this chapter: 3,120
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, gore, depicted death, stupid silliness, semi-coherent rambling on technology I barely understand
Summary: On one of his missions, Kurogane meets a strange woman at a devastated space station. The nightmares from his past return. And he somehow won't get rid of that particular idiot blabbering at him about dragons.
Author’s Note: This is a remix of the highly recommended Catch A Dragon By The Tail by
reikah. I stole her dragons put them into space. Because this is fanfic. :Db (I'm really not doing the fic justice, I'm very much reccing the original.)________________
__CHAPTER THREE__
__CHAPTER THREE__
When Kurogane was torn from a deep sleep phase, bathed in cold sweat and heart racing, he needed a moment to realize that it wasn’t the nightmares that had woken him.
He was used to travelling space, the deepness of vacuum surrounding him on all sides, and after a few years of working alone, there came a certain kind of peace with the knowledge that he was the only breathing, conscious thing within a light year of travel. He hadn’t had real nightmares within years, and now, they didn’t seem to stop.
But they weren’t what had woken him, today. He could feel someone aboard. It wasn’t a demon – Kurogane had learned to wake calmly and ready for battle to the aura of those under Souma’s training ever since he had turned fourteen. This aura hadn’t woken him until it had grown into a slow, steady pulse that seemed to fill his whole ship, making the air too thick too breathe and making his skin crawl.
He didn’t bother to turn on the lights or get dressed as he drew the force field pistol, from under his mattress and threw on the weapon belt with the short sword, the wakizashi, atop his loose sleeping pants. The hiss of the opening doors would give him away, but Kurogane’s feet were still noiseless on the warm tiles under which the spaceship’s heart, the generator, worked with a steady hum.
Now that he concentrated, he could feel the presence distinctly emerging from the Souhi’s cockpit. He passed a hand over the sensors in the tiny corridor and the door opened, the emergency lights painting the crammed room into a dim shade of red. The shutters of the thick windows had been retracted and gave way to the deep blackness of space that was alight with the oscillating colors of the stars as they passed by at a speed faster than light. A figure occupied the pilot’s chair, arms crossed behind his head and feet up on the softly glowing consoles, red and rainbow lights catching in his hair. Kurogane didn’t need to see the bowler hat hanging from the main console to recognize the asshole.
“You’re really very attentive, aren’t you?” Fai turned to look at him, ever-present smile ghostly in the darkness.
“And you’re a pain in the ass,” Kurogane gave back, suddenly feeling ridiculous, standing there bare-chested and in pajama bottoms, pointing his pistol at the utter moron. Which didn’t mean it was safe to put it down, yet. “How did you trick the security system? I checked for life signs before take-off, I’d have known had anything been aboard – and you can’t have docked while the ship’s moving faster than light.”
“You must have overlooked me,” his stowaway said with a grin. “Besides, it is not very nice to just leave your partner behind, even though I told you I was coming-“
“This ship doesn’t ‘overlook’ people,” Kurogane barked. The whole thing stank to high heaven. “If you’ve been tinkering with the security, you better tell me right now – I’ll throw you out the airlock if I find out, later!”
“I didn’t tinker with it,” he gave back with a slight pout. “Maybe I’m just good at going undetected.”
“Yeah. No,” Kurogane grunted. “And you’re not my partner. In no way.”
“Partner for catching your dragon – see, we’re following her,” he smiled. Kurogane followed his pointed finger to find out that the idiot’s pocket watch was somehow attached to the controls. With red wire. Through a ripped open control panel.
“Don’t. Fucking dabble with the controls,” Kurogane growled and lowered the pistol, in favor of pulling the idiot out of the pilot chair by his lapels. “Catching my dragon, what the hell! You better haven’t broken anything! I’ll chuck you out at the next human outpost, and you can see how you get home from there!”
“Whatever you say, Captain Foul Mood!” the man said agreeably, holding his hands up in a calming gesture as Kurogane dumped him into the unused assistant chair behind. He didn’t seem terribly worried by the prospect of being stranded somewhere in space.
“And stop calling me that!” Kurogane barked. “I have a name, and it’s Kurogane!”
“Okay, Kuro-min!”
“It’s Kurogane!”
“I heard you, Kuro-pedantic!”
Kurogane cursed under his breath. He didn’t recognize half the programs the idiot had activated on the screen, and there were about five red lamps blinking (those never boded well). For a moment he was about to rip the dragon compass out of his controls, but he really didn’t know whether that wouldn’t fuck things up, further. He settled closing down everything he didn’t recognize.
“What the fuck is this?” he said and pointed at some kind of bar graph that he hoped was not pointing towards the gas tank exploding.
“Solitaire?” Fai worded it like a question. Kurogane stared at him and Fai laughed. “It’s a game, Kuro-worried.”
“Whatever. Just don’t touch anything,” he grumbled and started altering the coordinates to go right towards Lecourt, where he would throw the idiot out to never see him again. Silence settled over the cabin, long enough to make Kurogane suspicious. There was a sudden, almost inaudible gasp from behind him. Kurogane looked over his shoulder to make sure the idiot hadn’t taken to dismantling the controls. Again.
Fai had indeed taken to punching buttons on the next system available – but now, he was hunched over in his chair, pale and a hand pressed over his mouth as he stared at a silent recording. Kurogane recognized the camera images his suit had taken at Jade – he had reviewed them, earlier. The image of the inflated, frozen corpse in the main room was just flickering over the monitor, showing Kurogane’s gloved hands as he checked for name and identifications.
Fai made a noise that sounded like he was going to be sick.
“I just told you not to touch stuff,” Kurogane repeated, getting up to reach for the controls. “And don’t watch this shit if you can’t stomach-“
“Don’t,” Fai hissed, clamping down on his hand before he could reach out to turn off the screen. Kurogane made a noise of surprise at the strength of his grip. Fai looked at him briefly, and his eyes were glassy and red rimmed. “Sorry, just… don’t,” his mouth was opened as though he wanted to say something else, but then turned back to the screen instead.
Research station monitoring a dragon. Self-proclaimed dracologist. Kurogane watched Fai as his eyes filled with tears while the image changed to show the rip in the outer mantel of the station.
“Friends of yours?” he asked silently.
Fai twitched, as though he had forgotten Kurogane was still there and released the wrist he had held onto. He hugged himself. “Yeah, I guess,” he replied, pale and small. He shook his head in slow disbelief while the screen tilted over the destroyed room. “I didn’t know they… I didn’t know.”
The Kurogane in the recordings stepped through the airlock and came out on the other side, facing the woman behind. Fai made a noise that was almost a snarl and when Kurogane next looked down onto Fai, his features had hardened into an unreadable mask.
“Who is she?” Kurogane asked him.
“No idea,” Fai said eyes still glued to the screen and his mouth pulled into a scowl.
“That was a terrible lie,” Kurogane murmured. A bit of the tension melted out of the other man#s shoulders.
“She’s no one,” Fai said silently and pressed the button to fast-forward the recordings. “I thought I’d seen her at New Tokyo, but I don’t know her. It doesn’t matter,” his eyes flickered back and forth as he watched the conversation take place, Kurogane going to the next room, finding more of the dead crewmembers.
“She told me the station was attacked because they had contact with a dragon,” Kurogane mentioned.
“Yes,” Fai said, his voice tight with emotion as his hands dug into the armrests of his chair. His nails left scratches across the leather. “Yes, they were.”
A shiver ran up Kurogane’s spine and he remembered he should really go get a shirt. He sat down at the edge of the controls and studied the tips of his toes in the dim, red light, as silence fell. Maybe this was the reason the man was so obsessed with finding and killing a dragon – because he thought, exactly as that woman, that they were killing people.
“You took her with you, didn’t you?” Fai suddenly asked, his face still pale with the flickering, bluish light of the monitors.
“It’s my job. In contrast to giving crazy idiots rides across the universe,” Kurogane answered. “She was hurt, I took her to the hospital, end of the story.”
“Keep away from her,” Fai said so fast that he almost cut off Kurogane’s sentence.
“What are you, my mother?” Kurogane asked incredulously. Fai actually snorted in amusement at that.
“She’s dangerous, Kuro-stupid,” he grinned lopsidedly, and then so softly that Kurogane almost didn’t catch it. “It’s a small miracle you’re still alive.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kurogane asked, shivering again, even as he folded his arms across his chest.
“It’s,” Fai broke off and avoided Kurogane’s eyes. He fiddled with that stupid dragon lighter, again. “complicated,” he finished lamely.
“Right,” Kurogane answered, annoyed by the non-answer. “Whatever.” He stood up and checked one more time that the coordinates towards Lecourt were entered correctly. “Stay away from the controls, while I’m asleep,” Kurogane reminded him, uneasy to leave the moron without supervision.
“Of course, Kuro-pon,” the man flashed him an uncaring smile. Kurogane didn’t like the way that sounded. Not at all.
“I don’t care where you sleep, as long as you stay out of my way. There are blankets in the living room.”
His smile grew a bit softer, “Alright, Kuro-sweet.”
“it’s Kurogane!”
“If you keep scowling like that, sometime your face will freeze up and stay that way, Kuro-min.”
Kurogane threw his hands up in surrender and left the idiot his own means. He even ignored the snigger that floated out after him as the doors shut.
*****
5.3 Acid Spitters
Powerful fighters. Originated on earth, have since spread to the galaxies of Dracunculi Minor as one of the known space-travelling species. The acid is assumed to be produced in glands near the head of the dragon, and funneled through horns protruding from under the jaw. [It is] known that their acid can burn themselves, if spilled. Strong, psychic abilities, letting them communicate with each other over light-years of distance and control matter around them. (The Dragon of Mt. Pilatus is assumed to have been an Acid Spitter.)
Servants to the Storm Dragons, who have reigned in strict hierarchy over the races for as long as known. Before dragons started decimating, a single silver Storm Dragon was known to have been followed by a swarm of black Acid Spitters to serve it.
*****
Maybe it was a small thing to happen, but it happened, and somehow it changed things.
Three days after starting from New Tokyo, Kurogane was up to his elbows in oil trying to repair the autocook, after he had had to listen to forty-eight hours of non-stop whining about the food from Fai. He had planned to do this for some time now, really. Spacer food was ghastly. It wasn’t like he gave in to Fai’s nerve-racking complaints. Because he didn’t. Besides, the idiot would be gone in another day, thankfully enough, so Kurogane wouldn’t have to think about that, anymore.
“That part goes the other way up, Kuro-pinta,” Fai’s breath tickled his ear and Kurogane jumped hard enough to slam his head against the ceiling of the oven. He cursed colorfully pulling back out of the damn machine with his hand pressed to the back of his head.
“Fuck, have you ever even heard of the concept of private space?” he hissed between gritted teeth feeling the tender back of his head for the lump forming there.
“Sounds complicated,” he said blithely and shoved the manual in front of Kurogane’s eyes, so close that he had to inch backwards to be able to see the figures. “There, you see? You got it upside down.”
“You’re holding the fucking book upside down,” Kurogane deadpanned.
“Huh? Yeah, but that valve still goes the other way round, Kuro-pup,” Fai turned the book to check. Kurogane ripped it out of his hands to skim the screen. Yeah, well, so the idiot was right. Whatever. Anyone could do this if they looked at the manual.
“It would have worked, anyway – it’s just a valve,” Kurogane murmured but turned it around, regardless.
“Actually, it wouldn’t,” Fai said with a small frown. He held the book the wrong way up, again. “I think I’m getting an impression as to why this cook didn’t work the first time round, Kuro-min.”
“Yeah, if you know so much about this shit, why don’t you repair it, smartass,” Kurogane grumbled, his voice sounding hollow in the cavity of the oven. Stupid, tiny valves on stupid, thin tubes, going into fucking small holes.
“So let me,” Fai said and shuffled up behind him, way too close, again.
“So that you can make it explode?” Kurogane gave back.
“I’ve built a machine to locate dragons!” he argued.
“That points at yourself, half of the time, for no good reason at all,” Kurogane growled.
“Just let me-“ Kurogane pulled out of the oven to give back something spiteful and came up so close to Fai’s face that their noses almost bumped. Any normal person would have reared back at the proximity, but Fai didn’t. His breath smelled like Kurogane’s toothpaste and was warm, cool mint against his cheeks. For a moment, Fai looked surprised, then his lashes lowered as his gaze flicked down to Kurogane’s mouth. Kurogane tried to say something, but instead just took a nervous, shaky breath. Fai swallowed.
“You have soot on your nose,” Fai commented. That was when the situation slammed in to meet Kurogane’s cerebrum, which led to his body stumbling backward over the toolbox and falling smack on its ass. Kurogane cursed loudly as a wicked grin was spreading over Fai’s face. After a few seconds the scientist was snickering so badly that he was doubled over and tears were running down his face.
“Poor Kuro-pon,” he gasped. “Repairing the cooker is a dangerous task.”
“Shut the hell up!” Kurogane yelled and threw a wrench at Fai that he ducked under so that it bounced back from the wall behind him. Fai was still laughing when Kurogane came back up doing his best not to rub his abused behind.
Fai did manage to repair the autocook and serve them both meals that didn’t taste like dissolved cardboard box. And the incident had Kurogane find out that being around Fai was dangerous.
*****
“I know you’re there, in case you think you’re being subtle,” Kurogane said into the darkness of the cockpit. The only thing that was alight was the main screen, as was going through the logs of Jade, again. Fai shifted behind him.
“You should be sleeping, Kuro-pup,” Fai smiled as sank into a crouch next to the pilot seat, arms draped over the controls in a way that made Kurogane want to shove him off of there before he hit any buttons. Kurogane waited for him to speak. Fai usually did speak the moment he entered a scene. When he didn’t he looked down at the other man. A wistful look had spread on his face and he looked out of the window and at the streaks of stars beyond.
“What’s it?” Kurogane asked suspiciously. Fai drew a long breath and let it out in a shivering sigh. He buried his face in his arms.
“I shouldn’t be traveling with you,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I told you that, before,” Kurogane said. Fai let out a snort and then fell silent.
“Kuro-min, I’m… running away from something,” Fai said after a silence long enough to make Kurogane think he wouldn’t speak, anymore, at all. Fai looked up and out of the window into the darkness, again. “And I’m putting you into terrible danger. I should leave.”
“I told you, I’ll chuck you out at Lecourt,” Kurogane said, throwing him a sideway glance. The scientist had taken to study his own hands. Crouching as he was, he seemed like a child confessing that it had done something wrong. Kurogane drew a breath. “About what you told me. When we met. Maybe you were right – I’d have gone looking for that dragon, anyway, so don’t worry about that.”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to protest. Then he closed his mouth, and all that spoke were his eyes, lost and sad in the darkness.
“Look, if you got a problem, you should just face it,” Kurogane told him. “It probably won’t go away if you don’t do anything about it.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fai said quietly. “I know.”
“Stop moping and just do it,” Kurogane grumbled. That merely evoked a bitter laugh.
“Your world is so easy, Kuro-pon,” the tone of voice was somewhere between a sigh and a complaint.
“The hell, it’s not as hard as thinking about it, day and night,” Kurogane murmured. For some reason, he thought about Tomoyo and what she would tell Fai to do. She always knew how to deal with these things. Fai was silent for a moment.
“If I leave now, you’ll find and fight the dragon anyway, won’t you?”
“Depends on whether I find the right one,” Kurogane replied scrolling through the text on his screen unseeingly. A black one, with horns protruding from under its jaw. An Acid Spitter with a wingspan large enough to fill the entire breadth of a torus.
“You will die if you do that,” Fai whispered. Kurogane looked down at him. There was naked fear on his face. He had slung his arms around his legs; skinny and tall as he was, he looked incredibly small, right now.
“I’m not that easy to kill, dumbass,” Kurogane grumbled, almost offended by the reaction.
“I know you’re not,” Fai smiled thinly, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. He suddenly looked away and pushed himself to his feet. “Go to bed, Kuro-stubborn. I don’t think I’ve seen you outside this room within the last 20 hours.”
“I’ve been outside,” Kuorgane mumbled. The scientist was right, though. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he was rather tired.
“And thanks,” Fai said over his shoulder, as he left.
“Thanks for what?”
“Helping me make up my mind, Kuro-dummy,” Fai hummed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*incoherent gargling*
Date: 2011-10-20 02:28 am (UTC)Oh Fai. You beautiful thing you. Don't ever stop invading Kuro-grump's private space, please. XD
Apart from that, I'm fairly sure I can't function properly right now because the grin on my face is too wide and crazy. This wonderful, so very much so, and I can't wait for the next bit~! <3
Re: *incoherent gargling*
Date: 2011-10-30 01:52 am (UTC)I'm sure he'll never stop
just that Kurogane will start to grudgingly miss him after a time, if he doesn't~ &heart;Soooo glad I made you grin! :DDD /snuggles you beautiful thing
Re: *incoherent gargling*
Date: 2011-10-30 02:57 am (UTC)AHAHAHAHA that icon <3 <3 <3
Obviously, someone's been getting into the christmas spirits a bit too early XDOf course Kuro-naut would miss him. He'd never admit it in a million years, but he likes having beautiful blonde
dragonsmen all up in his private space <3YOU ARE THE MASTER OF MAKING ME GRIN :DDDDD
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Date: 2011-10-20 03:16 am (UTC)This was sad and funny and made me want moar!, so I´m off to chapter 4 *is awed by the sheer number of words you wrote*
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Date: 2011-10-30 01:56 am (UTC)*shoves the words into corner and looks at them disapprovingly until they make sense*
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Date: 2011-10-23 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 09:21 pm (UTC)And I would very much like to know what Fai has made his mind up on, so off to chapter 4!
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Date: 2011-10-30 02:01 am (UTC)Eheheh, thank you so much! :DD I'm really, really glad you liked the scene with the cooker! *blushes and grins like a loon irl from praise* ♥
Uhm, his decision will still have to wait till chapter 5... *nudges it* I will do my best to get it out as soon as possible! *pumps up*