Title: Keep Me Warm
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Rating: pg
Length: 700 words
Content notes: Post-canon. Mentions of vampire-ism/blood drinking and canon injuries.
Author notes: VERY SHORT FLUFF. :D Also I cannot title anything ever, and give up. XD
Also for cottoncandy_bingo, 'safe'.
Summary: Fai/Kurogane. Fai finds the heat of Clow uncomfortable. But he doesn't really mind.
oOo

Everyone said the nights in the desert were cold, but they were the only time Fai felt comfortable. The heat in Clow was so alien to everything that he’d known growing up; hot and dry together, leeching the moisture from his body. His skin ached from the pressure of the sun on it, through the creams the high priest had gifted him. Sweat kept slowly gathering at the base of his neck, trickling down between his shoulder blades, even indoors, and he kept drinking. Water tasted so good, now. He wasn’t sure how much was the heat, and how much was so long tasting only blood – being able to drink something cool instead of always that thick heat rolling down his throat – or if the water here was special.

(Could the presence of the feather have made it taste different? Or perhaps he was tasting something more than the physical properties of the water… His magic might have restored him to ‘normal’ again, but it had not precisely taken away the vampire’s blood mingled with his. His senses were just slightly enhanced in ways he was still getting used to.)

They had been resting here for several days now, recovering after the battle with FeiWang. Safe to rest and relax, strange though that felt. Fai was himself again, and the children were both well in body, if still adjusting to all that had happened, to carrying the memories of the other two. Kurogane was the worst off, though he wouldn’t admit it. But they were sharing a room – and a bed – and Fai alone was privy to the bandages, the slow caution with which he stretched in the mornings.

(The Priest had shown them to the room without prompting. Fai wondered if Sakura had said something, or if they were merely that obvious. Then again, he had seen the glances which passed between Sakura’s brother and the Priest; perhaps their relationship had been recognisable through familiarity. Fai hadn’t objected, and neither had Kurogane; they hadn’t spoken about it, but there had been an understanding between them, since Kurogane had given up his arm and failed to die, since Fai had given up the last of his magic and relied on Kurogane’s gift of blood for his own life.)

Neither of the children seemed bothered by the heat – unsurprisingly, perhaps. They were used to it. Kurogane was also unaffected, so far as Fai could tell – was even enjoying it, stretching out in the sunlight during the day to drowse while they had nothing else to do. But at night, when the temperature dropped, he pulled the covers high over his damaged shoulder, and tension gathered in his back as he lay facing away from Fai – facing the door, because it wasn’t in his nature to ever actually come off guard. Not though they were now safer than Fai had felt for decades, more.

Then Fai would move closer, though it grew uncomfortably warm again. He lay pressed against Kurogane’s side, feigning sleep – more from habit than need, he still wasn’t used to this permission to be close, to be intimate. He draped an arm over Kurogane’s shoulder, carefully, and tucked his head down so his forehead rested against the back of Kurogane’s neck. The warmth of their bodies pressed together warmed the covers, and the air about them, until Fai was stuck to the thin material of the trousers he wore to sleep in, abandoning the top which was supposed to go with them. And slowly the tension eased again from Kurogane’s shoulders, until he relaxed into sleep.

Fai was too warm to drift off, but he didn’t mind. Not all the discomfort in the world would make him move away when he was able to help. If it meant that he spent the afternoons drowsing in the shade, while they were here? So be it… and if he lay the right way, he could see Kurogane stretched out on the balcony outside their room.

It might be too warm, but Clow did have some of the best views Fai had seen on their whole journey.

oOo

end

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