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Downstream by hibem
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For 'dog, with love and wrongness.


Downstream
by: hibem

The smell of the river followed him everywhere, rising from the grime ingrained in his palms, his secondhand coverall made waterproof with years of splattered fish oil. The dark, low ceilinged bar could almost have been the same bar, the one from before everything, if it weren't for that scent of rank water. Gojyo could never get used to it, though he'd been working summers on the silt-thick Yangtze for many years. Food and work were scarce back home, with the drought stretching into a sixth year; and though the Minus wave receded further into memory with each passing season, his red hair and eyes still made people suspicious and afraid. No one had money to waste on poker and beer any more and it was unfair, really, that Hakkai with his limiters and cheerful false politeness could find steady work. Gojyo could have just stayed home with him, probably, but running errands for the monk still grated on his nerves, and, as Hakkai himself had once said, it's hard to feel like a man when you're living off someone else.

He tipped back the last of his fish-tangy beer feeling muzzy and a bit morose. He was getting old, he guessed, to be as drunk as he thought he might be already. Hakkai would have laughed silently at him and led him back to their room, bed, strong thin arms. Instead, Gojyo slouched on one elbow and watched the fishermen and villagers and pilots laugh loudly and jiggle whores on their knees. And before the drought it had been worse drought and years of violent storms and flooding as the new youkai king struggled to help the magics of the world realign themselves. Gojyo sometimes dreamed the hum of wrong in the roots of his teeth as Gyumaoh shuddered halfway back into life.

Shattered, all shattered, except that the world had just kept going. It was still there every time he woke up, and he was still here and not in their little house with a clean ashtray on a clean table.

Gojyo pulled out a cig and fumbled through his pockets for his lighter until a slim, white hand held a flame in front of his face. For a moment- For a moment- But her eyes were as raven-dark as her hair, her glasses stylish and new-looking. Her breasts were firm and smallish but still a nice handful, cleevage careless in the unbuttoned neck of her rumpled white shirt.

Her smile was flawless and empty.

"Thanks," Gojyo muttered, prying his eyes off this girl who was not Hakkai, not even close. It was just her expression that had thrown him, the disorientation of seeing under someone else's mask so easily. He ducked his head to light his cigarette, and she bent forward to light hers at the same time and inches away her eyes were so old. Far too old.

"It's all so tiresome, isn't it?" she asked, words flowing from her smoke. Her gaze was steady on him, but the knowledge in it took in the whole seedy bar, the dark wharves, the grimy cities and drying farms beyond.

"You're too young for me," Gojyo muttered, his stomach lurching strangely at her scrutiny. He felt raw and naked, unable to look away. She couldn't be more than 16. "But, look, if you need money, something to eat, I can give you some-"

"I'm not a prostitute," she said, gesturing with her the glass of ice-and-something-amber, "I'm just looking for something to do."

He looked at her some more, and she smirked back at him, calmly, before deliberately letting her eyes slide down his body. And yeah, he was forty this year but he was still tall and straight-backed and strong, the calluses of hard labor layered on the calluses of hard battle, layers of survival. His shakujo tingled close to the surface of his thoughts, gleaming with adrenaline. He sat up straighter, got his feet under him, but the rush of dizziness when he pulled his head erect kept him on his stool. Shit.

"Do you believe in god?"

"Huh?" he said, intelligently, and blinked at her. Her smile had gone cruel at the edges.

"You're a child of taboo, and I was wondering if you believe in god," she said deliberately, as one would speak when instructing a child.

Brat. Those words didn't cut like they used to, though his wonder at the lack of hurt was long gone as well. He sucked the last drag from his cigarette and crushed it out before answering.

"The gods don't save anybody. At least, that's what a shit-smelling monk keeps telling me."

For just a moment there was light in her expression; the face of a child who's been given a new toy appeared then was submerged in heavy-lidded womanhood. Her fingers on his wrist sent a strange shiver down his back, straight to his groin, and apparently he wasn't that drunk. Fuck.

"Gods devour everything in their path," she said, voice curling hot through the shell of his ear.

"And?" he asked, with difficulty. Somehow all his weight was leaning on her, solid under softness.

"I want to be devoured," she whispered. Her mouth tasted of gin and burned his tongue to clumsy numbness.



He woke from a nightmare of firm young thighs and a blood-streaked lab coat he did not want to lift for fear he'd find Hakkai's smile frozen underneath, and felt something scuttle ticklishly over his ankle. The hotel room was all in shades of unwashed beige, empty but for him. It had already been paid for when he stumbled to the desk. A faint hint of sex and acrid perfume clung to him as he headed up the cobblestoned street, not quite drowned by the dark scent of the river.

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