Not There, or 10 things that never happened in 'Be There' by Harukami
Index
Chapter 1: 1/10
Chapter 2: 2/10
Chapter 3: 3/10
Chapter 4: 4/10
He swallows hard and tastes blood. It won't be long now.
But he gathers himself and keeps walking because it seems unfair to Kanan to lay down now. It seems unfair to say "In that case, I'll follow you" because then she's actually dead. There's this vague hope that he can't pinpoint that maybe if he just lives he'll be able to save her. He knows it's untrue but he can't quite kill the hope. Maybe. Maybe. His lips twist in a bloodied bubbling smile and he thinks he's spent too long thinking that to stop now. Perhaps. These few months, since she was taken. Perhaps.
He wishes he could just let himself die.
He wishes someone would come along and kill him.
It's the only way, he thinks. A desperate gaping plea that opens itself somewhere around his middle and gapes its way out through his heart and soul and belief: Someone, please kill me. He's done enough, he thinks, to earn it. He has become the type of person, type of creature that needs to be killed. Someone, please--
He manages to draw himself up against the tree and press both hands against the rolling coils of entrails and walk on, stumbling, vision blurring and darkening as he goes. Until all he can see is a blur of red in the path and he stumbles, catches himself again, stops looking down on it.
It's just a boy. A man. About his own age. Red hair and poor dress and red red blood spilling on the ground. He's still alive, Gonou thinks, even like this. He's barely alive, but he's still alive.
Suddenly, Gonou finds himself smiling. He can't quite hold himself up any more and he slides down, falls in the mud in a way that would hurt if he could feel pain any longer. He reaches out a hand, tries to drag himself closer to the boy.
The boy lifts his head. "Hell," he groans.
Not dead.
It seems like he has to cross a great distance to do so, but Gonou purses his lips, forms words. "Are you -- all right-?"
"I'm dying, what do you think?" It comes out almost casual, wry, expectant.
"What happened-?"
A long silence. Then the other stirs in his blood and twists painfully to face Gonou. "Fight in a bar. Couldn't prove I was cheating. Normally I could take him ... could ... but ..."
"You let something-"
"Girl distracted me," he mutters, and there is a story there, Gonou can almost taste it, lurking just behind his red eyes and reddened mouth. "Got knifed pretty bad."
Gonou takes a few moments to just breathe. The air tastes like rain and mud and blood. "You should have seen a doctor."
"Speak for yourself," he says, and covers his eyes with an arm and a laugh. "I can see your guts."
"Mm," Gonou agrees, and smiles, and closes his eyes.
The darkness behind his eyelids is textured, deep and thick and a long long way to go. He examines it with a lover's gaze, reaches for it, thinks: Soon. He ponders the pleasure of drowning in it. He wonders if she will be on the other side. Soon.
"Oi," the other man says, sharp and suddenly annoyed. He sounds irritable, as if this weren't part of the plan, weren't part of some sort of schedule he'd been trying to keep to. "Open your eyes!"
Gonou manages to peel them open at the command but can't focus them; all he sees is a blur of red, and he extends a hand towards that, so slowly he can feel each muscle tense with the effort, so slowly that he's not sure he's moving it at all.
It gets caught and grabbed in a firm grip. Gonou stares at fingers curled around his and thinks it would be too much effort to cry, and so he just smiles again.
"Are you dying?" The other man's voice is disbelieving. "Are you fucking actually dying?"
"I suppose so," Gonou breathes. He's not sure for a moment if the words are audible, but then there's a tugging on his arm as the red blur struggles vaguely upright. It's alarming and he tries to pull his hand back, but there's no strength left in his arm.
A long moment of silence and then another tug. "Come on. We're getting you to a doctor."
"No," Gonou requests, soft and pleading. He tries to smile, thinks he succeeds from the way the hand holding his goes very still. "No. Please."
"You--"
"I've done so many things," Gonou breathes, and now he's sure the words can barely be heard. He doesn't know if this person who is trying to save him -- a laughable concept at best -- can hear them any more. "So many terrible things. I wasn't good enough. I couldn't save her."
"Oi--"
"I couldn't save her--"
And then he is getting pulled upright and the world is spinning. He swallows sudden bile because there is nothing to throw up in his belly and he is not sure he would survive the process. So near that he can smell the other's blood and it sends a twinge in his chest that he's able to do that now. He never was before. His vision has gone dark and he cannot see but he can feel and hear and smell and taste with those senses snapped into a sharp impossible awareness. Red hair is brushing his cheek. Breath is gusting against him with an impossible hatred of life and scent of blood. He groans.
"Shut up," the man says weakly, and drags them both along with him, heading for a path. "We're -- you're going to a doctor."
It's a futile struggle and Gonou smiles again helplessly. It's no good. The other man is dying as well. He won't be strong enough to move them far until one or both of them dies. His intestines are dragging and he slides one hand for them, finds them by feel, starts gathering them up slowly.
"Shit," the man says, and a sharp gagging sound. "What the hell--"
Gonou gives up halfway through. It's too much effort, and then there is a hand over his, hauling it in.
"You aren't even going to be grateful, are you," he hears muttered, and he tries to laugh at it. "Shut up, save your strength."
He doesn't have any, he wants to tell the man. If you have the strength to save someone else, save yourself but then he doesn't think this person will listen. This is someone who was well enough to talk and walk and survive who had let a stab wound lay him out in the mud, after all.
The man drags him back towards what Gonou assumes is a town and they've barely got a small way -- it's hard to tell how much; they've only made a few heaving gestures towards it but it seems to have taken forever, or next to forever, to go that far. A stranger's blood is mingling with his own and he thinks that's all right. That's all right too. That's just fine. He won't go alone.
He never wanted to die in anyone's gaze, he thinks apologetically. I'm sorry, he thinks apologetically.
***
When the body against his goes limp Gojyo thinks he's finally -- finally, goddammit -- passed out because like hell he can make it far with this much resistance. Gojyo leans against a tree and swallows back appalling pain and nausea, then gathers the man's guts into a pile on his body and swings him up into his arms. At least nothing's dragging this way.
It's night and late and dark and raining and so pretty much nobody is in the streets. It's a shame, for once, that there's nobody who'd see him, Gojyo thinks. It'd be a hell of a lot faster to get this guy to a doctor if he could have someone take him. Then he wouldn't have to move around his own injury.
Stupid bastard, trying to just die in front of him like that --
He makes it to the doctor and nearly stumbles in the door. The doctor and his assistant are sitting around a table over some diagrams, sipping hot coffee and examining them. They look up with surprise as the door breaks in, then dawning horror.
"Hourin, I'll take that one," the doctor says. "You take Mr. Sha." He comes over and Gojyo's arms are suddenly empty. The lack of weight is terrible and he stumbles back from it, hits the wall, leaves a red smear as the pretty doctor's assistant comes over and puts an arm around him.
"Hourin, is it?" he breathes at her. "Ahhh, a pretty name for a pretty girl--"
"Thank you very much," she murmurs, and presses him down onto a bed, her fingers moving fast to cut away clothing. "Ah, this is terrible, did you wait to get this treated? That's no good, Mr. Sha--"
"Whatever you say," Gojyo breathes. "It's fine, whatever you say--"
The doctor comes over moments later and Gojyo finds enough strength to glare at him. "What the hell are you doing over here?" he says. "There's a guy over there who needs you more than I do--"
"I think I can decide who and what to treat," the doctor says. "And you're the one who needs help right now."
Like hell he needs help. This wound is nothing, it's nothing. He's survived worse. Somehow, he thinks, he's survived worse. "C'mon--" Gojyo struggles and it's too much effort; he can feel himself about to pass out and he curses it because if he didn't have this wound, maybe he could be faster, maybe he could go over there and shout at this stranger until he opens green eyes and smiles again, maybe he could--
"There's nothing I can do," the doctor says. He nods to Hourin, gets out materials to stitch him up and painkillers and all those other things doctors like to do. "He's gone, Mr. Sha. Let me take care of you."
He's gone?
It seems impossible, a million things passing through a dizzying head that's grown heavy and dark and fucking bloodloss he thinks and he's gone? he thinks and images of books and frogs and nonsense things makes him think he's got a chill on top of the injury and he imagines a thoughtful cunning smile he's never seen and thinks You're an idiot and you cause me so much trouble, did you know that and thinks What the hell are you doing, going without me? Didn't we talk about this and he's sick, he thinks, he's sick with these things and doesn't know what he's thinking or doing or saying; he just knows that it's wrong.
As consciousness fades, as he starts to pass out, he struggles to stay awake and tells the doctor in as sharp and annoyed a tone as he can dig out of his scrambled hurting guts, "Gone?"
"Mr. Sha--"
"Well, then, get him back."
Sanzo sighed.
This conversation wasn't the easiest one to have with the monkey at the best of times -- not the easiest one to have with anyone any time. It comes down nearly to contradicting himself with murder not being evil -- a contradiction only because it was the truth, and all good truths were contradictions. He could still remember that feeling as he descended the mountain -- terror, loss, fear, that sickening pit of revulsion in his stomach at the sight of what he had become but an inability to stop because stopping meant dying without fulfilling his promise to be strong and he'd rather put the bullet through his own temple than die by anyone's hand, anyway.
He finished and thought Goku might have understood; at any rate, he seemed absorbed in his food, and it was into that silence that he heard the people at the other table talking.
"--At any rate, the guy who did it couldn't have been the one who burned it down."
"That's right, they caught him, didn't they?"
"Yeah, on the same day," a man was saying. "As he slaughtered those guys. He got injured, and the lady who found him turned him in. They've got him up in the prison now -- I figure they don't really know what to do with him. On the one hand, no more threat from Hyakugan fucking Maou -- he deserves some kind of reward."
The girls at his table giggled.
"-- On the other hand, they say he's the same guy murdered half a town two months ago. Gotta be a fucking nutcase. They're not gonna give him a trial, but they've had him in prison for this month trying to decide whether or not to just execute him."
"Ah, how scary," a girl said. "If he's that strong, he might break free and attack us too!" Another nervous titter from the table. "He must be a huge man! Really fierce--"
"Nah, that's the thing," the man said, casually; there was something off in his voice that Sanzo couldn't quite place. Like he was enjoying the wrong sort of reaction -- he wasn't flirting with the girls, maybe that was the problem. Too busy telling his story, maybe. "I seen him up in the prison. He's not gonna attack anyone -- when I saw him he was sitting at the back of his cell just staring off into space. Not a big ugly guy, neither. Lean guy with green eyes and a pretty face."
During the girls' ear-scratching giggles, Sanzo rose. It was almost certain, and the case seemed just about open-and-shut. He snorted; he'd never thought the Sanbutsushin would give him an easy one.
He put a hand down at the table and glared at the man. "Hey. You," he said. "Tell me more about this man."
The man turned and smiled at Sanzo in a way that made his skin itch with the memory of men's hands on the way down the mountain and the feel of his cold metal gun, the spatter of blood when he'd fired. That would be why he wasn't flirting with the girls, then. "You like men, priest?" he drawled, and his hand came out just below waist height. "Well, I don't mind telling you if you don't mind--"
The gun came to his hand as lightly as the ghost of a memory and Sanzo jabbed it hard into his forehead.
"You'll what?" he growled. "Motherfucking asshole."
***
Information had come pretty easily at that. The man did shifts as a guard, it turned out, and after one warning shot he was more than willing to help Sanzo and Goku get in to see Cho Gonou.
"I warn you," he said sullenly, as he lead Sanzo down the long hall, Sanzo serious and erect and standing as if everything would move for him, Goku behind him with his hands tucked behind his head and a bored expression on his face, "you're not gonna get much out of him. He's not talking to anyone. He barely even moves. That said, I wouldn't go too close to the bars if I were you. He may be a catatonic headcase now, but he did commit mass murder."
"I know that, dumbfuck," Sanzo said.
"Suit yourself," the guard said irritably, and pointed to a cell.
The man slumped at the back hardly fit what Sanzo imagined of a mass murderer -- true to what he'd heard, he was barely moving, his head down. His eye had been bandaged, and his belly as well; he was shirtless and must be cold, but he showed no sign of it. Other than the bandages, all he seemed to be wearing was pants; his feet, also bare, were tucked in front of him, the toes curled together. His youryouku was suppressed somewhat by the limiters but still tangible, leaving an almost bitter taste on Sanzo's tongue as he inhaled.
"Oi," Sanzo said. "Cho Gonou."
Slowly, very slowly, the man lifted his head.
Sanzo nodded with some satisfaction and dug a piece of paper out of his robe's sleeve. "You," he told the guard. "Take this to people in charge."
"What is it?"
"None of your fucking business," Sanzo growled, and indicated it with a jab of his gun. "But I expect them to send you back with a key."
"You can't just expect to take them--"
"I expect them to take one look at that and allow just that," Sanzo said. "It's not up to you to decide. Even insects should know their place."
Cursing slightly, the man withdrew with the paper.
Sanzo turned back to the cage and found that Gonou hadn't moved since but was watching them, visible green eye flickering with the light from the hall.
"Nah, Sanzo," Goku whispered too-loud. "He was watching your gun."
Interesting. Sanzo slid it back into a sleeve and the interest in Gonou's eyes faded at once. "...Cho Gonou."
Gonou didn't say anything but continued to watch.
There was something strange about the situation, Sanzo thought. Something bizarre, nearly something terrible. His lack of response didn't sit quite right. He scowled faintly and thought that it was a damned waste -- He'd been hoping to find Cho Gonou a bit more alive than this. Failure could kill a man as much as anything, but he should have had some strong drive to have gotten this far, and do all that he'd done. It had been almost admirable. Maybe it was the prison, Sanzo thought with distaste; a month without action could do a lot to someone. Maybe something else. Hard to know. But something was wrong.
He held out a hand through the bars of the cell. Behind him, he felt Goku go very still.
Gonou stirred at that and slowly came forward. He didn't quite rise, just dragged himself into the light and looked up at Sanzo again, quiet, unassuming, bland and empty.
Sanzo's fingers twitched in the air in front of him.
Gonou opened his mouth and spoke. His words came out dull and scratched. "What do you want?"
"I'm taking you," Sanzo said. "To stand trial before the Sanbutsushin."
"Me?" Gonou sounded dully surprised. "That's not--"
"I'm not saying you have a choice here."
Gonou raised a hand to Sanzo's almost thoughtfully and Sanzo suddenly realized what felt wrong to him: there's no voice. He'd been expecting to hear a voice crying to be let free, a voice begging for something, in a way that words couldn't cover, but instead just silence. Even when Gonou had spoken, his words had been full of that silence lurking just behind their surface.
Sanzo's teeth gritted.
"There's something I need to do," Gonou said, his voice soft, beggingly soft. The words were empty.
"Like I care what you want," Sanzo said.
***
Sanzo brought him in but the trial was delayed. It was enough to give him a headache -- if they hadn't wanted Gonou what had they sent Sanzo for? In his experience gods were ready whenever they damn well pleased and that didn't involve leaving an empty mass-murderer with anyone.
He's shut Gonou up in the storage without complaints from anyone but the monks and felt a bit better about the whole deal.
Except that the monkey wouldn't shut up.
"Nah, Sanzo," Goku said, after reappearing from an absence most of the day. "I think you should talk to him."
"Talk to him yourself if you want him talked to."
Goku scowled at him. "I did, cheapskate!"
"Then?"
"It's not enough," Goku said. "He was nice enough and chatted with me but..." Goku shook a hand. "Nothing, nothing at all."
"It's not our job to make him be something, monkey."
Goku glared. "You dragged him out here," he said.
"Like he was better off before?"
"It wouldn't kill you to!"
"Shut up! Just shut up already," Sanzo groused, and rose. "I'll go talk to him, I won't be able to do anything, and then maybe you'll let me have some peace and quiet."
Goku grinned. "Thank you!"
"Whatever," Sanzo snarled at him and stalked out.
The bars of the storage room cast familiar shadows down when he peered in. Gonou was staring at his hands and didn't seem to notice Sanzo at the bars.
Sanzo cleared his throat. "Oi. Cho Gonou."
Gonou looked up slowly. He'd been smiling steadily at his bare hands, Sanzo saw. The smile was wan and wry and ultimately empty. Creepy bastard. "...Sanzo, wasn't it?"
"That's right," Sanzo said. "What are you doing?"
"They washed the blood off," Gonou said. "When they pulled me in. I suppose they thought it was a good thing."
Sanzo's lip curled. He'd think it was self-pity if there were more acknowledgement there but it was still enough like it to be revolting. "And?"
"It's no good," Gonou said, almost breathed. "I try but my sin slips away from me. I stare but I can't imagine the shade of it on my fingers, in front of my eyes, blinding me. There's no reminder."
"You can't leave blood on your hands forever," Sanzo said. "Like it or not, it has to come off."
Gonou smiled at him painfully. "There's something I need to do," he repeated. "Please..."
If the gods had wanted him to not bring Gonou in yet, they could have damn well said something. Gods, he thought bitterly, and jerked the door back. They thought too damn much of the big picture and not enough about the people who have to get by without them. "Then go do it. Come back when you're done."
Gonou didn't seem to realize he was free, just stared up at Sanzo with a stupefied expression. It was almost familiar -- enough so to make discomfort stir in Sanzo's breast. There was something terribly wrong here still. "Then--" Gonou began.
"Go already," Sanzo said and turned his back and left.
***
"We should go after him," Goku said. He didn't look happy, had that same discomfort that Sanzo had felt day in and day out.
Sanzo's headache throbbed deeply in his skull. It had been another month and Gonou had shown no signs of returning. "Yeah," he said.
***
In town, through the usual methods, he found out that a man fitting Gonou's description had been found injured on the edge of town -- one eye gone and only surviving a youkai attack through a miracle of timing. It was a wonder he hadn't been recognized as the killer; presumably one attractive young man wasn't enough to be worried about when he was supposed to be safely disposed of by the temple.
He'd been taken in by a young man who went by the name of Sha Gojyo. Not the sort of person who sounded like he usually did charity deeds -- a gambler and a womanizer and bad news, from the sound of things in the bar; the women may have loved him but Sanzo recognized his description right away as taboo. Bad news all around.
He got directions, and headed out, Goku tagging along behind him, close enough to call for help if necessary, far enough to be inconspicuous.
When he knocked, there was a momentary pause before a drawled call came -- "Yeah? Yeah, who is it?" and the door opened on a young lean man with red hair and red eyes and death marking his posture.
Sanzo's lips twisted and he laughed a short harsh laugh. Cho Gonou had found his reminder, it seemed.
Sha Gojyo eyed him oddly at the laugh. "What?"
He managed to compose himself. "I'm looking for a man," he said, and added a wry touch to the voice, "on the run after committing mass murder. His name is Cho Gonou."
A slow smile. "Never heard of him--"
And then, from inside. "Sanzo-san? Is that you?"
"Eh? You know this guy?" Gojyo twisted. "You don't seem the sort to hang around with a monk-- Oi! Hands off!"
Sanzo ignored him, pushing past.
Gonou smiled up at him from a table. There was something strange about him -- a deadness in his eyes, but at the same time, a calmness and an acceptance in that death.
"They burned it," he told Sanzo.
"I could have told you that," Sanzo told him. "You didn't come back after."
Gonou's smile didn't fade. "Once more, I wasn't able to save her."
"Oi," Gojyo said, and Sanzo wondered if this halfbreed gambler had gone with Gonou and dragged him back after and how the hell he'd managed to keep Gonou alive this long after, both of them with expressions on their face like they were waiting for death.
"I see you found your reminder," Sanzo told Gonou sourly.
Confusion marked his features. "Yes? Pardon?"
"Never mind," Sanzo said. "Come with me." He stopped and eyed Gojyo too with some disgust. "You're coming too."
"Hey, now," Gojyo said. "You may be pretty but I don't take requests from guys..."
"It wasn't a request," Sanzo snapped, and shook his head irritably as he waved a hand, drawing Gonou up after him like a puppet and turning to stomp out the door.
"Eh? You found him!" Goku said, and dropped from a branch. "Hi! Hey, Sanzo, can't we stay longer? I'm hungry!"
"Ehhhh?" Gojyo eyed him. "You'd better not expect me to feed your pet monkey --"
"Who're you calling a monkey?!"
"Food can wait," Sanzo snapped. "They're both coming back now so I can get them out of my hair as quickly as fucking possible."
They followed like a strange crew and Sanzo felt his shoulders stiffen at the sulky movement of Gojyo's lanky half-alive body and the slow walk affected by Gonou. Only Goku was really energetic, almost bouncing around beside them, chirping up to Gonou as if there were something to actually 'catch up' about.
The Sanbutushin had better not expect him to make these guys live on top of everything else.
Now it's down to it, the nitty gritty and Gojyo looks up with a casual smile that refuses to say 'I know you're going to die' and asks him, "Ah, are you leaving?"
The smile on his stray's face is peaceful, and Gojyo thinks There's that at least. Something chokes in his throat and he refuses to let it show on his face with years of practice at the poker table. It's not that different -- losing your living or losing your life, either way there's a disappointment that you feel building throughout the entire hand. Gonna lose. He shows none of this the same way he didn't show it when he first realized he'd saved this guy just to let him die again, when the stray had admitted that he had nowhere to go and just one thing to do. Hell, it was a tragedy waiting to happen. Best he was out of it. Best he didn't get involved. It wasn't like he had the right to save anyone anyway.
"Yes," the stray says, and his smile doesn't waver, calm, accepting, pleased.
The look in his eyes is familiar like the feeling of the wall against his back and the glint of an axe in the air. Gojyo doesn't look away from it, just meets it with tired eyes and knows.
***
The stray sits across from him with a cup of coffee and spills his life story like his soul. It's a last confession -- Gojyo's heard of that sort of thing but he never was much for it himself. He curls his lips around the cigarette and draws smoke into his lungs and holds it there until he feels he might explode from it, then lets it slowly trail out. Better to take his secrets to the grave so they don't burden anyone. A lot better that way.
But it's okay to listen, he thinks, attentive as he hears of death and lust and incest and he thinks -- hell, this isn't so bad. It feels good, even, in a way he can't quite pinpoint, to have those sea-green eyes on him and that voice softly describing terrible things. He thinks, I'll be the only one who knows this, huh and he wants something he can't really put into form. He can't describe it. It has something to do with the curl of long elegant fingers on his table's surface. It has something to do with a stiff posture and relaxed face and--
Though most of his stray's speech was given calmly now there's something else that's come into his voice, pain and regret--
"You know how people sometimes have a sixth sense for the ones they love? I didn't have anything like that." This sounds more like a confession than the rest of it, guilt and agony. "While that happened to her, I was off playing with the children at school. Why didn't I sense something and come running home?"
The silence hangs in the air thick and choking with the scent and taste of the stray's grief and Gojyo rises, has to turn away from that before he can speak. He's got no right to speak but he does it anyway because his stray wants it. "Isn't that just how life is?" he asks, soft. "It doesn't mean you didn't love her enough." And he doesn't know where the words are coming from because hell. What does he know about love, anyway? He wants to believe his own words because if he can love someone that much and not change a thing -- but he can't believe his own words because it's not like he's ever had love. It's not like he wants it any more. It's not like he's got a standard to judge by, it's not like he even knows that what he'd felt for Mom was love.
***
"Hey, just one thing."
"Yes?"
Gojyo says it casually like it doesn't matter, like he isn't looking for some name to give himself as a gravestone inside and like he isn't trying to wrap this intangible ghostly stray down to something solid he can bind to himself like some kind of crazy magic. "What's your name?"
A smile, startled and pleased. Gojyo wonders if this is the first thing he has asked of the stray. He wonders if the stray was ever expecting more. "My name? My name is--"
"Yeah?"
A moment of silence hanging in the air where anything could happen, where the stray could become just about anyone or anything, where identity is uncertain and Gojyo half thinks they're going to get interrupted like this, interrupted and he'll never know never be sure never hear it from those lips and have it set in stone forever and ever--
"My name is Cho Gonou," the stray says pleasantly.
Gonou -- the name doesn't suit him and Gojyo gives a wry smile. The moment is over and he feels the letdown of it, the exhaustion, and he laughs, rests his chin on a hand. "Not a good name."
Gonou chuckles. "Not really," he agrees. "But it is the only one I have." He inclines his head. "Then, if you would excuse me--"
"Yeah, of course," Gojyo says, and watches Gonou go off to die.
***
The next few hours are an agony of indecision, which really sucks because he's already made his decision. He knows what he wants to do and what he doesn't want and that's to -- he wants to step back, let Gonou do whatever the hell he wants, whatever the hell he needs to do, and not interfere. He wants not to fuck up anyone else's chance at a future they want or a death they want.
It's what he wants -- only it isn't, and the hardest part is that he knows that. He's got a crazy inexplicable desire to rush out there and play hero and he smokes half a pack in an hour, burning smoke into his lungs in a desperate attempt to supplement ... supplement... he isn't sure.
He doesn't have the right, he reminds himself. If a man wants to die then they can just... and his sister, he's gotta be heading back there to find her remains and, let's face it, he reminds himself. Gonou's just a little fucked up. Who knows what he'll want to do with that month-old body? Let's not think too hard about it, he tells himself.
But he does, thinks about a pale form waking up in his bed and wishing he were in hell.
And then he curses and crumples his package of cigarettes in his hand and throws it at the wall because why was he like this? He wasn't sure. Why am I the sort of asshole who can't leave well enough alone and he doesn't even bother with a shirt, just draws himself up and tromps to the door and opens it thinking God, I suck and loathing even the ease which he has when he steps outside.
He doesn't know where he's going -- who the hell takes note of how to get to Hyakugan Maou's place, anyway? He knows it's off in this direction and so he walks off that way. He feels stupid no more than ten feet out because what the hell will he do or say? Hey, come to help you out, let me be the one to hold the axe? Shit.
But he goes and there's a feeling inside him he doesn't like, uneasy and -- something's gone wrong, he's sure something's gone wrong and he picks a direction at random and starts to run.
***
When he gets there he's too late, he thinks, but maybe not much too late. He swallows vomit at the sight of Gonou's face, eyeless and bloodied, almost drowning in the blood. He doesn't know what's going on here but there's a youkai staring at Gonou's standing smiling eyeless form and the youkai's scared. Never mind he's got every possible advantage for taking Gonou out, he's scared.
Gonou is saying, in a soothing, gentle voice, "I understand, you see. Now we're even. A sibling for a sibling, and eyes for eyes. So you'll let me go, won't you? There is something I must do, in the way that you brought those." He gestures aside in a general indefinite direction of what Gojyo sees as a tube with eyes in them. Sick. But that's Gonou, he thinks.
The gesture draws the youkai's attention to Gojyo. "You brought a friend?!"
"Pardon?" Gonou looks around as if he could see.
"Nah," Gojyo says, hoarsely. He's never quite earned that from Gonou. Besides, what the hell did he think he could do in this situation? Gonou wants to die. Maybe Gan could witness it, maybe that's all he needed.
But I'm an ass, he thinks miserably.
"Gojyo, what are you doing here?" Gonou's voice is mild and surprised. "I thought you were--"
"I dunno," Gojyo says. "I went for a walk, that's not a crime here."
"I suppose--"
"Just die, already!" the youkai screams, and runs towards Gonou. It's still fear, not bravado. Gojyo recognizes that fear. "You sick freak!"
Gonou goes down under the youkai and Gojyo thinks, this is it, but I'm an ass and he's moving before he can help it. It's not that it's a good thing, he thinks. Hell, if anyone could make Gonou live it should be Gonou. But Gonou's not going to live and he thinks he could handle another few months of Gonou on his couch waiting to die.
The youkai's head explodes under the pressure of his hand.
"Gojyo?" Gonou says as blood and brains rain down and he has a look on his face like he is seeing Gojyo even if there's nothing there but a bloodied emptied wreck.
"He pissed me off," Gojyo said.
Gonou struggles upright, nods, and starts to push his way on, his hands groping out in front of him to catch trees.
"Hey, hey, hey," Gojyo protests. "You can't--"
"I need to, there's something I need--"
He swallows, comes over, slings Gonou's arm around his shoulders. "Hyakugan Maou's place, huh?"
"Yes," Gonou says, softly.
"Right," Gojyo says, and hates himself again. "Let's find it together."
***
He can feel the disappointment that rushes through Gonou as they enter the clearing and the sharp smell of acrid smoke penetrates the air and Gonou's damaged senses. "What -- is it--"
Gojyo stares onto the burned frame of the building and knows he can't say this, he can't tell Gonou this, he can't let the words break the air like that. He swallows. "Yeah--"
"No," Gonou breathes and he pulls away from Gojyo, stumbles a few steps forward with blind hands outstretched and falls to his knees. Blood runs down his face like tears. "Once more, I couldn't..."
There has to be something to say at times like this, Gojyo thinks, vague and indistinct and useless. Prayers for the dead. He's never heard any sutras and couldn't repeat them if he had. He's never heard any prayers beyond curses. The only grave he'd ever marked he'd done so with a wooden stick to mark it and no words at all because what the hell words exist for a situation like this? There's a pain in his chest that can't escape.
Gonou can't even cry, just bleed.
Slowly, Gojyo comes over and sinks down beside Gonou. Gonou's face turns vaguely towards him, wrecked and pained.
Gojyo digs in his pockets, finds a cigarette, lights up. The smoke trails up into the air and blends with the smoke of Hyakugan Maou's burned castle. It fills his lungs with resignation and anticipation and regret and he exhales smoke. They're not words, he thinks. He needs words, he thinks, and looks at Gonou's face.
Very softly, he begins: "When I was a kid, my mother..."
It should be odd to be every woman's fear -- men are meant to protect women, after all. But they're not far enough away from the influence of Hyakugan Maou for any woman to feel safe about her man, not when Hyakugan Maou takes them and uses them as men shouldn't be used, not when they vanish like ghosts on the air and the only rumour left is: Hyakugan Maou took them, and that over-serious face that hides nervous laughter.
Women should have to fear for themselves, she thinks numbly, not for their men as well. Sometimes it seemed like youkai were the only safe people--
And not Gonou, not Gonou with his pretty hands and his lovely eyes and his softened almost-feminine face, not Gonou, not--
"You gave him away?!" She can't even -- she can't even focus on it, she's crying, tears running down her face, laughing at the same time because she can't even believe it. It's like she hopes laughter will drive away the sudden fury. "You just--"
"He would have taken one of our sons, otherwise," says a woman, and yes, they need their sons for farming and education and all those important things men do when they have families to take after and take care of, and she can't stand it. She can't stand it any more.
She wants them dead, she wants them all dead, they should just die.
She doesn't know where she finds the strength to re-enter her home. Her home, Gonou's home, a beautiful small place just for the two of them -- it's not much, or hadn't been, but now it's less; they tore into it, signs of a struggle, plates smashed a torn shirt on the floor a dresser overturned oh god oh god--
Kanan remembers where she kept the knife, however, and with all her strength, tears making her cheeks pick up the dirt all the more, she manages to heave the dresser upright again and open the bottom drawer, pull out the box, unwrap it. She sets the knife in her lap and looks at it and looks at its sheath. She tugs and bares a few inches of steel.
Slowly, she draws a deep breath.
It's fine. They deserve this.
***
Guilt; it's amazing how much guilt she can fit inside herself, she thinks with amazement and lifts a hand and smiles at it. Around her are the dead. She has been breaking into houses -- these doors aren't built to withstand someone intending to kill. She has been breaking into houses and killing. It's not that they don't fight back.
She just doesn't care.
"I'm sorry, Gonou," she whispers at her hand. He has never thought a woman should have to do this, be like this. He has always promised to protect her, but this time, she must -- "I'm sorry, Gonou."
There's a banging from the front hall of this house and she looks around bleakly at the bodies scattered around her, thinks of her years and years--
-- Years and years in the orphanage all alone her belly aching with the need for someone with the need for him; you have a twin brother, they have told her and she has thought terrible things, wanted terrible things, would do anything and promise anything to meet him. As her body buds into puberty she withdraws more from the rest of the orphanage, from the boys and girls with their laughing sunny faces and no real needs, from the sisters with their gently condemning eyes, as if it's her fault to have hips and breasts and a brother she doesn't know to find. It was lonely then because he wasn't there. So lonely because he wasn't there and to be lonely is to be cold and to be cold is to be capable of anything --
and she rises again, the knife in one hand, and stalks forward to meet them.
***
Father, I have sinned.
The rain might drive her mad.
***
"Gonou?" The figure in the cell can only be him; she recognizes it at once with a sudden wholeness again and rightness and the cold flees from her body like a demon dispelled. She rushes forward, throws herself on the knees before the bars of his cell. There is a sheathed knife tucked into the waist of her skirt, and she puts beside her a sword she had found in Hyakugan Maou's room, taken from him after she'd killed him because there would be more killings she would have to do. He had smelled like her brother, she'd noticed or thought she'd noticed, or imagined she'd noticed. "Gonou, is that you--?"
He moves into the light and looks at her with soft green broken eyes and horror at the sight of the blood on her, reaches vaguely through the bars for her face. Her eye has been sore long enough she's forgotten it was injured in a struggle but it must look terrible. "Kanan, your eye--" he whispers.
She's crying now, great huge gulping sobs, and smiling through them, because Gonou's here, Gonou's here, Gonou's here, and she catches up his hand and can feel him through it, his life his love; he has touched her with these hands and she loves him so much and it's all right because Gonou's here. "Let's go home, Gonou," she whispers. "I'll protect you, so--"
And discord: A sudden horror on his face. "Please kill me," he whispers.
Her heart almost stops. "Gonou?!"
"It's too late," he says, and he takes the knife from her waist and draws it from the sheath and she reaches for it, prepared to lose some fingers to snatch it back if necessary, but he's gone again, out of her reach. "It's shameful, isn't it? That a man should live on after something like this. That's why he hasn't eaten me yet -- to let me live with the--"
"Gonou!"
"I'm sorry, Kanan--"
"Gonou!" and blood everywhere there's so much blood she can't reach him through the bars crying screaming him on his front with his guts spilling out -- not like this -- she thinks madly -- not like this -- and she reaches again as if she can reach him as if she can touch him but we were supposed to go home we were supposed to go home together
blood on her vision blood everywhere blood it drowns everything out in a haze of red and the noise of rain and she can't remember much she can't even notice much even when that person comes and violates her and then violates her another way and power thrums through her as she uses new claws to rip a hole through him and then stumbling off and finding -- things -- to control this part of her -- and stumbling off again into the night to die because blood. and that is all. just blood.
just that.
***
"To me, it rather looks like the colour of--"
There's a figure in the road, blocking his path. A girl, sprawled out on her front with her guts hanging out. Gojyo winces. It's familiar. And he can't see things like this and just step over her, so he ducks and asks the impossible question: "Oi, you still alive?"
Miraculously, she is. (He thinks people should not be able to survive things like this -- women, at least -- his mother didn't.) She raises her head and meets his eyes with misty distant ones and smiles at him.
The world might have seemed to stop.
She's crying as she smiles.
***
This is more of a woman than he's ever seen without planning to have sex with her, he thinks irritably, and tries to swallow back his desperate craving for a smoke. Doctor's orders, he thinks irritably.
Which is to say: he'd hauled her home despite himself, and, no time to waste on a professional, had stripped her naked, shoved her guts in, sewed it up the way he'd stitched up cuts of his own on parts of himself he'd been able to reach. There was something pretty shitty about pressing a needle into a girl's flesh but hell, desperate times.
After that, he can afford to call the doctor and get orders.
And then days pass and finally he knows she's awake because she's said something: "Hell's very commonplace," in a soft broken voice and his heart breaks again and he leans over her and smirks and says,
"Well, 'scuse me for being commonplace."
She is shocked, and she is quiet, and she hardly even talks to him throughout this, listens and smiles and plays cards badly and doesn't cry any more. But he can't really look her in the face, because he thinks, even if he can't see it on the outside anyway, she's crying.
He's got some experience with recognizing it and damn but that's no good.
***
He brings her get-well flowers. Red ones -- not because he wanted to bring up that time, hell no, and buying them hurt one hell of a lot. But they were the best things there in the price he could afford and who the hell brings daisies to a girl who's recovering? So he buys them and tries to ignore the anticipation and fear and memories of injuries falling down and puts them in a vase and slams the vase down on the table beside the bed.
She looks up at him with wide confused eyes. "Gojyo-san?"
Gojyo looks away, towards the window. "Girls like get-well flowers, I've always found," he said. "And hey, nobody's ever accused me of not treating a girl right."
She touches a petal with a fingertip. "Are you a sentimental person?"
"I guess so," he says, because, yeah. Yeah, what else can he say when she's smiling that sad smile again? Anything to make her stop.
"Me too," she says, and the smile brightens.
***
"Gojyo-san, may I talk with you for a moment?"
There's a final fatality in her voice and he pushes his chair back. Lived with her a month and never once had sex, he thinks numbly. He wants to tell himself he's losing his touch but can't even form the words in his mind in a way that will let him throw them at himself. "Yeah? You leaving?"
"Yes," she says, and smiles gently.
He makes coffee.
They sit across the table from each other and the girl talks and Gojyo listens. "I've killed many people," she says, and yeah, he guessed that; in town, the news of the Hyakugan Maou murders had got out some weeks ago and the timing had seemed to match up.
The story winds on: An inexcusable, inescapable sin, a brother she would kill for who was also a lover -- "Nah," he says, "some women are into that" and she smiles and makes excuses but there are no excuses; he remembers the sound of desperate voices seeping through the wall, his brother silent, his mother moaning and gasping and needy -- but hell, it's not his place to judge. He never had a place to judge it there, though he thinks of this woman naked under an imagined brother and envies a little.
"You know how they say that people often have sixth senses for loved ones?" she says, quietly. "When they came to take him, I was out shopping at the time. I took my time, picking things out for dinner that night." Her face crumpled a little. "Why didn't I know? Why couldn't I have rushed home to be with him?"
He's hurting and he tilts his face to the ceiling and smokes to cover it up. "Isn't that just life? It doesn't mean you didn't love him enough," he says, and wishes he had something he loved enough to fight for, who loved him enough to fight for him.
But it's not like it matters. He doesn't particularly need something like that.
***
And now she's stumbled off bleeding and carrying the monk's gun and he's had the whole story explained to him. He doesn't like it much.
Living or not living -- what does it mean, anyway?
***
So she's a little insane, ripping her eye out like that -- thank God Goku stopped her on the second one -- but her blood is like tears because of it and she has that expression on her face, that expression Gojyo knows; that either the other person has to die or she does. He steels himself.
"The gods don't save anybody. Only you can save yourself. If you die, nothing will change," the monk told her. "But if you live, some things might change."
It's like holding out the axe to her. "You know you need to kill him," he tells her. "Go ahead. But -- those who kill won't be spared. Karma sees to that." And then he's ashamed because he has no right, really. "...Just repeating what some stinking monk told me," he says, but she's raising the gun.
He closes his eyes.
The shot rings out and he feels something inside him tear loose and relax a little, like -- it's okay now. It's okay. The youkai who she'd been fighting collapses with the back of his head blown off and Gojyo opens his eyes and looks at it with a small smile. Wetness prickles at his eyes.
"Idiots," the monk mutters.
Gojyo doesn't care. Right now, he could care less, and he turns, smiles at the girl, offers her a hand. "Can you walk?"
"Um ... yes."
"You'd better like company," the monk says. "Because we're all going to Hyakugan Maou's."
***
It was burned and gone and she had collapsed and cried again, thin pink tears, as the monk chanted. And then they had returned to town slowly and weakly and painfully and she had said she would go with the monk, accept whatever punishment was her due.
Hell, it's her business. And maybe when they were done, she'd come back.
It's the monk who shows up instead. Gojyo doesn't exactly invite him in, but he comes in anyway. "Cho Kanan is dead," he says, that simply.
He feels the world stop, and he reaches out to grab Sanzo, shake him. "What?! You were the one who told her to live--!"
"I also said: The gods don't save anybody," Sanzo is tall and cold and untouchable. "She chose this fate for herself. Would you take that away?"
Yes, he thinks, and doesn't say it, sinking back into the chair. "Goddamnit," he moans, burying his face in his hands. "This is the second time I've been dumped by a beauty," and he's known enough of her blood by now to know what her body must have looked like after her death --
"Were you flattering yourself?" Sanzo asks caustically.
She's never loved anyone but her brother anyway. Gojyo's lips twitched. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe."
***
He smokes three packs and thinks about it. And then he waits a month and thinks about it.
Everyone always says whatever they want. Everyone always does whatever they want. It's like he's the only one separate from it. The flowers have wilted but he can't quite throw away their dried up brown husks. Instead, he takes scissors to his hair, cuts it away, watches it fall into the sink like blood and expose his cheek, expose his eyes, expose him.
Pretty girls don't need to die deaths like this, he thinks vaguely and smiles. But that's the way the world is. Isn't that just life?
He's out of supplies here anyway, and so, exposed, he goes out to head down to town and buy food. Maybe some fruits; he's out of fruits.
He's out of a lot of things.
Maybe that's okay too.