Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle belongs to the brilliant minds of CLAMP. “How to Save a Life”, a beautiful, beautiful song, belongs to The Fray.

Zero Gravity

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

They say that there’s a feeling you get, an intense sensation creeping from your scalp all the way down to the tips of your toes.

Fai sits, breathing heavily, leaning against the wall, a familiar smile on his lips. The smoke curls around him, making it difficult for him to breathe. He’s helped as many as he could, but in the end, what could they do? They are trapped. The scent of fire engulfs his entire being, and never before now has he wished so much for ice and snow.

An intern a few years younger than him sobs quietly beside him, and he puts a comforting arm around her. “Shh, shh,” he soothes. “It will be all right. It will, it will.”

“I know,” she hiccups, “I don’t care about what happens to me, but my fiancé will never –“

Fai smiles, wryly, thinking of a red-eyed man. “Yes. They will have a hard time, won’t they?”

-.-

He had had a feeling that morning.

“I don’t think I want to go to work today,” he said, the covers still drawn up to his chin, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Crimson eyes stared at him. “What are you talking about? Get up and go.”

“I have a feeling,” the blond man replied, unmoving. “A bad feeling.”

The other man, true to his character, stomped up to the bed, threw the covers off, and glared. “Whatever. Go to work, don’t go to work. I don’t care. I’m going to work because we need to pay the goddamned bills.”

And marched off.

Fai remained motionless. When the door slammed shut, its final echoes ringing in his ears, he climbed slowly out of bed.

“Feelings are useless. They only get in the way. When you’re in battle, you don’t think about stupid things like ‘feelings’. You just get up and kill. Get up and kill. Get up and kill. And you don’t stop until you’re the last one standing.”

-.-

“Amber eyes,” the intern says, “he has amber eyes and he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever known.”

“Red eyes,” Fai says, “he has red eyes and he’s the meanest, grumpiest, most caring man I’ve ever met.”

-.-

When the plane initially crashed into the building, burning everything in its path into ashes, he’d considered jumping. It was the coward’s way out, but Fai had never been a brave hero. He was the sort of man, after all, who cared nothing about his life or honor. Wouldn’t it have been better to jump and fall to your death rather than to burn?

He imagined it. Free-falling, down hundreds and hundreds of stories, the wind rushing in your ears and caressing your hair, feeling uninhibited and free.

“Cowards are the most useless people on the planet. I detest them and have no qualms about killing them.”

-.-

“His name,” the green-eyed girl says, tears streaming down her cheeks, “is Syaoran, and I don’t want to leave him all alone because he’ll be so sad and he’ll hurt, so much…”

“His name,” Fai says, absently, while drawing the sobbing girl closer in a hug, “is Kurogane, and I want to leave him because he deserves so much more.”

-.-

He wondered if maybe he should start praying. Smoke, smoke, smoke, everywhere, anywhere, entering his brain and nose and gods it hurt to breathe.

If there was a God, Fai wondered if He would listen to his prayers. He didn’t seem to have a very good record with religion.

-.-

His phone begins to vibrate in his back pocket, and he doesn’t need to look at the screen to know who was calling.

“Kurorin,” he answers the phone, lightly, a faint smile on his face.

“What the hell is going on?” The voice on the other end is tight and strained. “Where are you? What the hell is wrong with you? DAMMIT, you –“

But Fai understands.

Why won’t you do something? How could you let this happen? How could you, how could you, how could you –

How could you leave me

“You – you damn mage, if I only had a sword I’d –“

Times are different.

The auburn-haired girl beside him lets out a long, shaky gasp before closing her eyes and falling limp in Fai’s arms. The blue eyed man sits and watches, smoothing her tousled hair away from her face. He rests her gently against the carpetted floor.

“Goodnight, Sakura-chan,” he murmurs, “I think I’ll be joining you soon.”

-.-

Fai only had very faint memories of his past life. But he could remember some details, like a world of snow and a beautiful, beautiful king. He remembered a powerful witch and a green-eyed girl and an amber-eyed boy and a fuzzy white thing that spoke and danced and sang (Sakura-chan. Syaoran-kun. Mokona. He recites the names in his head because he doesn’t want to forget).

He remembered red. Crimson red.

He remembered crimson red eyes. He remembered crimson red blood. He remembered drinking that blood, and how good it tasted and how guilty he felt for thinking such thoughts.

But even after everything else disappeared – the green and the amber and the white, the red was there. Always, always, neverending, now and forever (Kurogane, he thinks, that’s Kurogane).

-.-

“I think it’s almost time now,” Fai rasps, voice barely over a whisper.

There is only silence on the other end.

“I guess this time,” the blond man continues, closing his eyes, “I die first.”

-.-

“Kurogane-san – he’s – he’s –“ The amber-eyed boy groped for words. “He’s – I don’t know what happened, I tried to, I tried, but –“

He’s dead.

“Oh.” The placid mask slid back on smoothly against porcelain skin. “I see.”

The blond man died after a week, pale and thin and gaunt. Syaoran and Sakura took him to Yuuko.

“Shouldn’t Fai-san have been able to survive – I don’t know – a little bit longer, without Kurogane-san’s blood?” Syaoran asked, sadly.

“He was heartbroken,” Yuuko said, simply, as if that explained everything.

-.-

“It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” Fai says, conversationally, although his vision is clouding and his breathing is ragged and uneven. “To think that we’d meet up, after all of that. Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan… she’s here, you know… she said that she’s engaged to Syaoran-kun, isn’t that great?”

A hacking cough escapes his lungs.

Still, there is only silence at the other end of the line except for the almost unaudible sounds of harsh, carefully measured breathing.

“It’s getting a little hard to see, and it hurts to breathe,” Fai goes on, “but I’m okay, I’m okay, I’ve gone through this before anyway, you know? What about you? Where – where –“ Fai blinks rapidly, swallowing and beginning to panic just slightly, “Kuro – kuro –“

“I’m here.” Soft, quiet words.

Fai leans back against the remains of a charred wall. “Do you know if any others were saved? Were there any survivors?”

“It’s too early to tell,” comes the reply. “It’s chaos out here. It’s – it’s not a good sight. But you could –“

“I’m at least eighty stories from the ground,” Fai answers, closing his eyes. “I’m surrounded by fire on all four sides. It’s a miracle I haven’t died yet. Maybe – “ He coughs weakly, “maybe I’ll be a survivor and I’ll be on the news –“

They both know it won’t happen.

“Don’t worry about me, Kuro-wan,” he goes on, and it would have been more effective had his throat and voice not been trembling with the effort to speak, “I’ll be okay.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to work,” the other man says, tensely, “you – you had that – that feeling –“

Fai laughs. “Feelings are useless, aren’t they?”

Kurogane pauses, and then moves. “I’m coming.”

Fai listens to the sounds of yelling and orders for restraint. “Don’t –“ He coughs again, vision failing. “Kuro – Kurogane –“

One word, filled with anguish. “Fai…”

Fai smiles into the phone before the smoke clouds his brain and his grip grows limp and the phone clatters to the floor. “Maybe we’ll have better luck next time…”

-.-

On the other end, Kurogane listens, pressing the phone so hard to his ear that the buttons leave marks on his skin. He struggles against the crowd, shoving past the throng of hysterical people, only to be blocked by a bright yellow tape and what appears to be hundreds of policemen. His free hand gropes at his belt, wishing for the familiar feel of a steel blade in his fingertips.

But – the phone still pressed against his cheek, buttons cold and metallic, all he hears on the other end is the quiet roar of a fire, and the sounds of firemen rushing into the room, the violent spray of water scarring his ears.

Footsteps grow steadily louder as they draw closer to the fallen cell phone. Rustling. Muffled voices.

“Too bad,” one says, sorrowfully, “this one’s still warm. He can’t have died more than ten minutes ago.”

A long sigh from someone else. “There are just some unlucky bastards in this world.”

Kurogane slams his phone shut.

FIN –