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Kurogane did not like the snow.
It was cold, and wet, and made travel even more of a pain when he couldn't walk to school without ending with wet socks and cold feet. He was positive that his students were cheering for the lack of school tomorrow, or likely the next day, if the snow kept up the way it was supposed to.
The silver lining was that given the fact they had no school, he did not need to leave. So, he didn't have to go out in this snow.
Breathing in the steam over his cup of tea, Kurogane could appreciate the beauty of the snow. There was no contesting such a thing, the whispery way the snowflakes slowly danced to the ground. The snowfall had lessened, for the time being. The snow pack on the ground caused the trouble. But all was serene and quiet, something Kurogane did not get enough of at Horitsuba Academy.
Until there was a muffled yelp, and Kurogane glanced to the window to see something decidedly not snow falling from the rooftop, one house over.
". . . Fai." He slammed his mug down and ran for the door, freeing his coat from the hook and managing to step into his shoes before he was out in the snow that he had very much been glad that he had no reason to go out into.
Until his stupid neighbor fell off the roof, apparently.
"Fai!"
A disarray of blonde hair popped up from the snow. "I'm okay!" He waved; the idiot practically blended in with the snow in that white coat of his.
Well, he was alive, at least. Kurogane tromped over. "You idiot!" he growled, crouching next to him, the edge of anxiety still plucking at his nerves. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. Good thing there's already so much snow on the ground or else it might have hurt more than it did!" Fai pushed himself to sit, sweeping his hair out of his face - with his non-dominant hand, Kurogane noted.
"It doesn't matter how soft the landing is if you land wrong." Kurogane huffed. Stupid chemist, shouldn't he know better? He was supposed to set an example for their students, not go flying off roofs. "What were you even doing?" He answered his own question as he glanced up and saw the strand of fairy lights half hanging, pathetically, from the gutter. "Don't you know not to put up lights when we're in the middle of a snowstorm!?"
Fai looked up at him balefully. "But it stopped snowing as much, and we're only gonna have a couple days off and by the time I get the chance to put up lights, it's gonna be too close to Christmas." He was slipping into pout mode, and it was nothing Kurogane had patience for when his breath was nearly turning to crystal in the cold air around him.
"Okay." It was the most simple and non-argumentive answer he could dredge up, and then he grabbed the chemist and hauled him up and over his shoulder.
"Kuro-rin!"
"Maybe that'll help you reassess if you're hurt or not," Kurogane grumbled, stomping to Fai's door since it was closer.
"I'm not hurt!"
"Then why are you favoring your non-dominant hand, idiot?"
Fai didn't reply, or if he did, Kurogane didn't hear it over stomping the snow off of his shoes in the entrance. Wet socks and cold feet again. Winter was abhorrent when he was forced to be in the thick of it.
"I need to see that hand," he ordered, depositing the chemist back onto his feet.
Fai mumbled something to himself, stomping his boots on the floor. "I'm really fine, Kuro-run. You didn't need to come running so dramatically."
"It's a good thing I did," Kurogane grumbled. "If you'd have been knocked out."
"Well, I wasn't, thank goodness- ow."
Kurogane exhaled slowly through his nose. Rounding back on the chemist, he said "I knew you were hurt".
Fai frowned. "It's just my wrist."
"That's what happens when you go jumping off of roofs," Kurogane said matter-of-factly. He held out his hand expectantly.
"I just want to put up my lights," Fai grumped, resting his hand in Kurogane's. Well, he must be feeling the pain now. He wasn't reacting like a child, and throwing a temper tantrum.
"Hurt to move?"
"Yeah..."
Lips twitching towards a frown, Kurogane gently pulled the glove away from Fai's long fingers, letting it fall with a splat onto the hardwood floor. Fai's hand was already a little red and a little swollen and that was not a good thing.
"Ah hell, Flourite."
"That doesn't look very nice," Fai remarked, flexing his fingers a little and then wincing, inhaling sharply in what was Fai's warning warning. Pain. beacon.
"Don't move it," Kurogane snapped. "You've probably sprained it, or worse. Now I'm gonna have to drive you to a hospital."
Fai whined a little, but the expectant I don't wanna go to a hospital! didn't come. Instead, "sorry, Kuro-sama", softly.
That worried Kurogane a little more than he would let on, but he turned and went to Fai's kitchen instead, calling "Then don't go climbing on the roof, idiot". He rummaged through Fai's freezer of ice cream and ice cream and ice cream mochi and was everything in Fai's freezer made of milk and sugar? He grabbed an ice pack from the very back and shook the frost off it.
"But I just want to put up lights." Fai repeated, but he was getting progressively more pale beneath the rosy glow on his cheeks. Feeling the pain, probably, since he wasn't pressed up into the snow.
Kurogane pressed the ice pack against Fai's wrist. "Well, you're not," he grabbed Fai's other hand, pressing it against the ice so that Fai would hold it himself, "going to be putting up lights at all now, are you happy?"
"Nooo." Fai slumped against the wall slightly.
"Then we're in the same boat. Where's your wallet, house keys?"
"I'm sleepy," Fai mumbled.
And I'm cold and wet and tired as hell, Kurogane grumped internally, but only shifted his grip around Fai's legs and spoke. "It's just the medication."
Fai mumbled something incoherant, head lolling onto Kurogane's shoulder. One arm was slung around Kurogane's neck so that he didn't slide off from the awkward piggyback ride, which was choking Kurogane in the process, and the one that wasn't slung around his neck was tucked away in a sling.
And Kurogane had just wanted tea today, tea and silence.
Instead, he got towel-drying damp blonde hair and tying it back clumsily and tucking the chemist into the bed with some sleepy gratitude. When Fai was tucked into the blankets and already mostly asleep, Kurogane wound his way into the kitchen to get himself a hot cup of coffee. Fai could afford him that much, after all of the crap they'd been through today.
The klutz was still sleeping when the coffee was finished, so Kurogane let himself out. Promptly walking into the strand of fairy lights that Fai had tried to hang up earlier. Kurogane batted them away with a grunt and they swung right back, hanging far enough off the roof that they were mostly not on the roof at all at this point.
"... Chemist," he griped, tugging on the strand of lights. They didn't give - go figure? Where did the idiot leave that ladder?
"Kuro-sama!"
Kurogane groaned at Fai's overexuberant voice shouting into his ear. Ears still ringing with the sound of too happy at too early o'clock... it was one in the morning, Kurogane realized, squinting at the clock. "... Chemist, what the hell?" He tried to snap, but it came out thin, battered by exhaustion and disturbed sleep. If someone woke him up in the middle of the night, something had better be on fire or dying. Fai's voice was too happy for all of that.
"The lights! They look amazing!"
Uncomprehending words fell into Kurogane's mind as he entertained the idea to hang up on the chemist and go back to sleep. What idle-minded things the guy was on about now- oh. Lights. He must have saw the fairy lights, the ones that Kurogane had fixed and put up around the rest of Fai's house. He'd been frozen to the core afterward, ready to strangle the chemist again for all the hectic trouble that had gone into today when he had expected a day off, if only said chemist didn't look so damn peaceful all sprawled out in bed, fast asleep, finally not as pale as he'd been earlier, hair splayed all around him like some twisted halo.
"You put them up while I was asleep, right? I love it so much!"
Kurogane's retort of you called me at one in the morning to gush about Christmas lights was already dead in his throat; he muffled his sigh into his pillow and said nothing, listening to Fai continue to chirp happily in the background about how pretty they were and how happy he was and how Kurogane was the best neighbor. A comment was required from him every now and then, but mostly Fai - probably unaware of the time, since he had passed out earlier - carried the conversation.
They were on the phone until three.
By seven, Fai had bounded through the accumulated snow and was standing at his door with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, two travel mugs full of hot chocolate held awkwardly in his grip.
Kurogane still wanted to strangle him (four hours of sleep!).
In the spirit of the season? He did not.