Clampkink Deanon: Crimes of War - Epilogue

[bottan]

Title: Crimes of War - Epilogue
Pairing: KuroFai
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: AU. An end to “Catharsis”, taking place years after the scene above. Written a few months back for following prompt at clampkink , “Kurogane/Fai Prison Sex. Kurogane is the head guard and Fai is a inmate.”

 

 

It was a warm day in early fall. The sun sank slowly behind the horizon and the mountains cast long shadows to coat Edo with darkness. The fields between city and hill were still illuminated, crops weaving in the breeze, and pollen was hanging in the air and glowing in the evening light. It was a long ascent to the castle and Fai’s skin was greasy with sweat and dust halfway up and his breathing was labored even whilst he gave up trying to match the rapid steps Kurogane took by now. There was a kind of calmness that he hadn’t felt in a very long time, when he let his gaze wander over the scenery in the valley.

He hadn’t been here since the peaceful days in which he’d lived in the city as a wandering mage. Those days, he had researched eastern magic in Nihon while his brother did the same in Chuugoku. And then, war had broken out. 

He remembered next to nothing of what had happened once he had received the encrypted message from Fei Wong Reed who had threatened to end Yuui’s life in case he wouldn’t support him in his warfare. And Fai couldn’t even seek help of the neutral nation of Ceres, as Yuui had had to receive citizenship and bind himself to Chinese law in order to live and work under the dictatorship of Chuugoku. 

In his mind, those days had melted into a long, gray tunnel and his memories were shadowy and blurred. He nearly hadn’t slept, ate next to nothing, and the days had rushed by in a haze of fear and worry. He all but couldn’t remember the audience with the Tsukuyomi when he had offered his skills as an envoy of Ceres. Lied to her in order to save Yuui. The only thing he did remember clearly was how much concentration he’d poured in holding his mental barriers up and steady to prevent her from reading his thoughts. 

A hare crossed his path and Fai watched it sprint down the mountain and vanishing into the high grass. 

The guilt was still there, but it was far from as overwhelming as it had once been. It had reduced to a quiet, lingering undercurrent that had so much become a part of his being that he couldn’t remember living without it.

Probably the Tsukuyomi had known that she was facing her death, when undertaking that mission. Fai remembered the morning before they had set out for the enemy’s field – he hadn’t slept at all that night and he’d experienced the morning in a strange state of lucidity. He had remembered the Tsukuyomi’s form deliberately, as though his love and appreciation for her could slim his guilt of the betrayal to come. Even though at that point he had still thought Fei Wong would want to seize the girl alive and with all her symbolic power. Nihon’s breath, its heartbeat. 

She had been riding a black horse that was far too tall for her, head held high, surrounded by women who were preparing their spell in a constant, low whisper. She had been pale in the gray light of morning, tightlipped and exhausted, and it had been the first time for Fai to see fear written across her face. And when she turned around and looked at him, there had been resolve in her gaze that had sent shivers down Fai’s back and that he had never been able to forget up to now. 

Years later, Kurogane had told him of the night in which Fai had come to the court to offer his help to Nihon’s warfare. Seemingly, she had accepted without even batting an eye, and then had sent him to the guest quarters politely. Kurogane had basically freaked at her rash and apparently naïve decision. He had recited the Tsukuyomi’s answer from his mind and the words stayed vivid within Fai’s mind as though he’d heard it from her own lips. 

“Some meetings are foreordained and sometimes we have to make choices that are no choices. I see that there will be peace and even though I don’t know what exactly is to come, I know that this man will play his part to restore it. I know that the future holds much pain for all of us, but there are sacrifices that can’t be averted in the eye of destiny.” Kurogane had confessed that he was all but sure that the clairvoyant had known of her own death at that time. 

It was the one and only time he had ever talked about her death, again. The only time, after the night in which both of them had been reborn, in blood, and rage, and shame, and guilt. And they had come out of it, free and ready to face each other, once again. Fai still didn’t entirely understand how much had shifted in that one night but suddenly, after he had been ready and prepared to die at the hands of the one man left on this world that still cared about him, that still loved him as much as he had hated him – after all of that, there lay a life before him, again. And they had made it out. Out of war, out of the constant pain. 

Fai reached the top of the hill. The cicadas sang loudly even though summer was over by long, and it smelled like grass and the musty tone of the blackened wood the Japanese castle was built of. Usually, there would be a busy air about the road at this time of the day, but today was a nation-wide holiday in remembrance of something that Fai for his part didn’t quite remember, and just a single lonely guard was standing on the white gravel, dozing away. 

Kurogane had stopped in front of the gate. Fai paused behind him and to his left. The muscles in the soldier’s back had relaxed and he had thrown his head back to look up to the arc of the towering gateway. He stepped closer, putting a hand to the dark wood, tenderly, as though afraid it would crumble under the lightest touch. And with quiet wonder Fai watched him slowly placing his forehead to the surface, eyes sliding shut. His brows were twitching in concentration and emotion and his thumb stroked all but lovingly over the aged wood. 

Fai knew that it was memories of better times that enveloped his lover. 

He did the same, closing his eyes and calling up the quiet memory of the brother whom he had lost to the war. Whose bones lay buried under Fei Wong’s castle, and whose face looked at Fai from each reflecting surface, like a dream of which Fai sometimes didn’t even know if it had been real to begin with. 

“I still can’t believe that it’s over,“ he murmured to no one in particular into the quiet day. Their eyes met and he knew that the other didn’t feel much different. 

Sometimes Fai wondered how deeply the blame for the Tsukuyomi’s death was buried inside Kurogane, nowadays. They had only once talked about it and even then Kurogane had cut the conversation short, as soon as his feelings started showing. Fai didn’t know if he should be thankful or worried. There had been a flash of anger and sadness and heat that bitterness that would never truly cool. And he knew, deep inside, that Kurogane would never be able to ever forgive a betrayal like that. 

It had never been like the old days again. Before shame and guilt and responsibility had piled up. Never again been this naïve sort of love that made you believe you could just overlook the other’s mistakes and be forgiven your own. There were things you couldn’t forgive. You couldn’t forgive yourself.  And Fai didn’t exactly remember when he had stopped regretting, but today he didn’t wish for those times to come back, when they had known next to nothing about each other and just as little about themselves. 

He had learned  that Kurogane could still love him, in a tender, sometimes almost sad way. Love was slow, nowadays, and hesitant, and they were touching like they couldn’t quite believe they had each other. And somehow, they both were still learning to accept. 

Fai stepped closer to Kurogane and his hand grasped the other man’s carefully, quietly, and he let his head rest against the shoulder of the man come home. The boy, the soldier, the general. 

They had learned that they couldn’t live without each other. Maybe it was just that living became completely unbearable without the other. And as hard as it was with the two of them, as deep as guilt and blame were buried within, they breathed, and lived, and raised each other from their screaming nightmares, and sometimes they were so close that love didn’t seem to be the correct word to describe what they had any more. 

“It’s peace, Kuro-puu,” Fai whispered with a kind of amazement. 

Kurogane just uttered an affirmative grunt that expressed finality. It was the tone he used to say, “Of course, idiot.” 

Fai closed his eyes. The wind was soft and warm and there was golden sun brushing his nape and Kurogane’s thumb unconsciously stroked across his fingers. And it made him nearly hope that better times had come. Even though he couldn’t believe it and even though doubt and fear still ran deep. Peace, breathed his heart. 

Kurogane pulled him along through the wooden arc and into the shadow of the castle walls. They were home.

Silent tears ran down Fai’s face.