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The Lost and Found by smillaraaq
Author's Notes: I'd never intended to write Saiyuki, honest, but an angsty kappa muse followed me home and I think I'm going to keep him -- he's kind of pushy, but cute enough to get away with it. Written under the influence of the October Project, Oysterband, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's "Perversion" (the perfect Gojyo scent, IMO), and a few too many sleepless nights of my own. Title borrowed from the Oysters' song of the same name, but the real soundtrack to this piece would have to be their lovely song "No Reason To Cry". The introductory quote is from Sherman Alexie's First Indian On The Moon. If you think you've spotted an echo or two of Due South here, you probably did. I'm an old Duesies fan and 5 + 8 strike me as being what Ray K. and Fraser would be like if they were youkai in Shangri-La...
The Lost and Found
When you visit, I'll sleep
on the couch while you sleep
in my bed. I'll leave
my best blanket
for you, take my nightmares
with me. In the morning
tell me how well you slept
and make coffee
while I crawl back, nearly
sleepless, into my bed
and leave you
to the silence
of your first cigarette
of the morning. Watch over me
as I sleep, please
shake me awake
if I begin to struggle
against the next loup garou
shifting its shape, against
the new werewolf
too cruel to notice
its moon has gone down. -- Sherman Alexie
I wake up suddenly with a gut-churning lurch that feels almost like falling. There's no sound but my own pulse hammering too loud in my ears, my own gasping breaths, and for a long moment I just lie there on the lumpy mattress, not quite sure where I am and half-afraid to open my eyes and find out. Threadbare cloth catches on the fresh crop of stubble along my jaw as I turn my head on the thin pillow, and a faint shudder passes over me. I can't smell anything on the pillow but my own sweat and the lingering harshness of bleach, but I stretch my arms out slowly to either side, making sure nobody else is in the unfamiliar bed with me. The mattress is as narrow as it's uncomfortable, and I'm alone on it, no thanks to the lousy gods. Most nights, I'd be disappointed at the lack of female company, but not right now, not after waking up from that. My nerves are still too far on edge, and fending off awkward questions from some babe whose name I can't even pretend to remember wouldn't help any.
Damnit, I really need a smoke. But that means I'm going to have to open my fucking eyes first.
Cursing myself for five kinds of coward, I take a deep breath and force my eyes open. The room's pretty dark, but the dull glimmer of moonlight through the window is just barely enough for me to see by. Greasy windowpanes, bare walls...yeah, it's a shitty little room in some backwater inn, just like all the other shitty little backwater inns we've passed through on the journey west. Not that I'm complaining...much. I've slept in worse places. And on a night like this I'm fucking grateful we weren't all stuck trying to sleep outside, crammed into Jeep.
The sheets are tangled around my legs, and I mutter curses under my breath as I kick them away and sit up to better scan the room. My Hi-Lites and Zippo are on a battered nightstand by the bed; I grab them and light up with unsteady hands, glance around the room a bit more as I suck down the first sweet hit of nicotine. There's another shabby little bed on the far side of the room, a silent, sleeping figure stretched out under smooth covers. Hakkai, of course. Who else could look so damn neat and proper, even unconscious? It used to freak me out, back in those first few days after I'd dragged home that nameless stranger I'd found bleeding his guts out in the rain. He'd just lie there in my bed, never moving or making a sound, like he was already dead; I'd sit and watch for any sort of change, and wind up constantly checking just to see if he was still breathing. Back then I thought it was just because he was hurt so bad, his body just didn't have the strength to spare on tossing and turning like normal people...but in the years we roomed together afterwards, it became pretty clear that sleeping like the dead is just another one of those weird Hakkai things. Weird, but kind of nice, at least compared to having to listen to that damn monkey's snoring, or the way that unholy monk mutters...even asleep, I swear he manages to sound surly.
Yeah, compared to those two, Hakkai's a freakin' role model of blessed sleepy-time silence, and if I can't be alone then I'm just glad I wound up sharing a room with him tonight, instead of one or all of the others. Even in the bad times when he's had nightmares about his sister and that godsawful place, he barely moves, barely whimpers, I mean compared to an average night of listening to Goku thrashing around and mumbling about meatbuns in between fits of snoring it's NOTHING, nothing at all. And then he'll sit there afterwards with those haunted eyes and try to APOLOGIZE for making such a rude disturbance, like he wanted to be reliving all that horrible shit in the first place? Idiot. Sometimes he's too damn polite for his own good.
I pad over to the window and crack it open as quietly as I can to let the smoke out, slump to the floor beneath it and take another long drag. Today would be a prime example of that sort of idiocy. There'd been one of the usual packs of assassins early in the morning, a fairly pissant bunch but we still weren't entirely up to speed, and there'd been enough of the bastards that we took a bit of damage just coping with the sheer numbers. Hakkai'd fought as hard as any of us, and then of course he insisted on patching everybody up afterwards. And then it was back to the road, and hours and hours of him driving while the monkey whined and the monk bitched and I sat around on my useless ass and egged them on because really, what the hell else could I do? That damn dragon doesn't like to let anyone else drive if he doesn't have to, so Hakkai winds up working twice as hard as the rest of us. Hell, maybe three or four times harder than Sanzo since gods forbid His Surliness should ever have to lift a lily-white finger...
"Is something the matter, Gojyo?" The voice is quiet and pleasant as usual, but so close and unexpected that I damn near jump out of my skin.
"Shit, have you been waiting all this time to get revenge for that time I sneaked up on you? Way to hold a grudge, Hakkai. That's not buddies." I try to keep my voice in its usual bantering tone, for all the good it's likely to do; not much gets past him. "Sorry if I woke you, man. Couldn't sleep, there's no bars in this shithole..." My free hand's clawing my hair forward out of habit, stupid and still shaking; I take a long, vicious drag of smoke and turn towards the window, staring out at nothing. From the corner of my eye I can see Hakkai slipping down to sit next to me on the chilly floor. He doesn't say anything, just makes a vague little noise in the back of his throat, and it's all I can do not to laugh. So typical. I always thought I had the gift of gab, but shit, Hakkai can bamboozle you with a whole speech so full of those bigass college-professor-ey words that you don't even realize it's pure hot air, or he can turn around and say fucking VOLUMES with just one little not-even-a-real-word. I've gotten pretty fluent in deciphering Hakkai-speak these past couple of years, and this translation was obvious enough even for a dunce like me: it said I know something's upsetting you, and I'm not going to pry, but if you want to talk about it, I'm here. And maybe it's just the guilt speaking, but I can't help but think there's a faint reproachful note of I remember the last time you tried to act like nothing was bothering you... mixed into it too.
"Yeah, OK, maybe I deserved that..." I mumble around the filter.
"Pardon me?"
"Eh, it's nothing. Just a bad dream, left me a little shook up, that's all. Stupid shit, really, nothing you need to worry about. Go on back to bed, dude, you need your rest for another day of dealing with that slavedriver Sanzo..." I'm babbling like an idiot, until a hint of a frown passes over Hakkai's face, and the meaningless words die on my tongue.
"Nightmares are hardly 'stupid' matters, Gojyo." His voice is as neutral as if he were talking about the weather, but really it doesn't need to sound recriminating, I'm already kicking myself inside my mind. Stupid mouth, running on by itself without me bothering to think about the words coming out, or who was listening to them...
"Shit...I didn't mean it that way. Sorry. I know the sort of things you have nightmares about, didn't mean to diss that...mine just wasn't anything like that kind of serious, that's all I was tryin' to say. It was just stupid meaningless crap, nothing you need to bother yourself with." I stare at the scuffed floorboards under my feet. The silence hangs in the air between us like smoke, and when Hakkai finally speaks again his voice is extra-soft, like he's worried the sound of the words themselves might hurt me.
"Was it your mother again?"
I nearly drop my cigarette. "Man, you are one creepy fucker sometimes! Sha Gojyo is nothing but an open book to you, eh? Probably one of those short kiddy books, the ones with lots of small words and shiny pictures."
Hakkai's mouth quirks into a tiny smile, one of those rare ones that actually goes all the way to his eyes. "Not to mention the obscene comments scrawled in the margins." And this time I can't hold back a bark of laughter, shaking my head at the craziness of it all. The smile broadens for a moment, then fades.
"So, I take it that I was correct?"
I take another long drag of smoke, concentrate on the process as I try to steady my still-ragged breathing. "Yeah. Of course you're right. I'm nothing if not predictable, eh? But it's really not that big a deal. Just a stupid dream, that's all."
"Gojyo, the things that you endured as a child were hardly trivial. The only mother you knew tried to kill you. It's hardly surprising that you should still be haunted by such a fundamental betrayal." He's using that oh-so-patient schoolteacher voice of his, like I'm the stupid chimp and he's trying for the umpteenth time to explain basic math by waving food around to illustrate the sums.
"It...it wasn't that." The words seem to grate their way out all by themselves. "I mean...it's not like I haven't had dreams where she's there with the ax again. And don't get me wrong, those aren't exactly my idea of fun. But this was something different."
"Different?" His voice is soft and serious again, and I have this weird hysterical urge to laugh some more. That's so Hakkai. He won't pry, he'll just ever so kindly offer me enough rope to hang myself with. And dumb prick that I am, I almost always end up taking it. Shit, it's not like there's really anyone else I can talk to about this stuff...
"Different. Worse." The cig's burned down to almost nothing and I barely even tasted it. I stub the damn thing out and toss the butt out the window. Hakkai frowns at me for littering but hey, at least I didn't stuff it in a beer can, right?
"Worse than trying to murder a defenseless child." And his voice is still quiet, but there's that knife-edged tone under it that means he's getting seriously pissed off. It's probably a good thing mom's been dead all these years, because that's the sort of voice that holds vengeance as its only true religion, and I've seen just what Hakkai is capable of when he stops trying to put on that nice-guy act.
"It's not like that. It's not anything she did that was so much worse, it's just...rougher to dream about." I flip the lighter a few times, wondering if another cigarette would help. Maybe not. There's this queasy feeling gnawing in the pit of my stomach and somehow, I don't think nicotine's going to fix it. Hakkai's still sitting there, silent, patient as the grave. Like he's got nothing better to do than sit here on this dirty floor and wait for me to get my shit together. I flip the lighter a few more times. Click. Click. Flame hisses to life and I snuff it back out. Click.
"The other dreams...it's like I'm really there, livin' it through all over again? And back then, I won't lie to you, I was scared shitless. But it's not like you probably think." I shift a bit on the hard floor, trying to get comfortable. My hair falls over my face and I don't bother to brush it away. "I wasn't scared of dying. I knew it was gonna happen, and the knowing was...almost a relief. It would finally be over, y'know? I'd be gone and she'd finally be happy. And I was OK with that." My voice is getting smaller, somehow, but I can't seem to stop the words from spilling out. "Mostly I was just scared that...that it'd hurt. That she was so far out of it she wouldn't be able to do it quick enough and...yeah. That's all, really. You know what happened next." Something I don't want to think about is prickling at the corners of my eyes. I hunch forward a bit, wrap my arms around my knees and try to will the sting away.
"And your dream tonight was worse than that."
"Yeah. It was. But it'll just sound really stupid..." I sigh and fight the urge the rub at my eyes. "I'm a kid again, back in the house with her. Jien's gone somewhere, and it's just me and mom. Sometimes she's yelling, or beating on me. Mostly she's just crying, and I can't do anything to make her stop. But really, it's not anything she's doing that makes it so bad. It's just...being there again. Being so damn small and weak and scared, and not knowing what's gonna happen next. Sometimes I dream like that and when I wake up it takes me a minute to figure out I was only dreaming..." I let the words trail off; I've already dug a big enough hole for myself, and my throat's feeling too tight for talking much anyway. Hakkai doesn't move, doesn't say anything for a long while; that bland expression doesn't change, but his eyes are glittering in a funny way.
When he finally says something again, it's almost too faint to hear, like he's not really talking to me, just thinking out loud. "Sometimes, I do believe it's a pity your brother didn't put her down years earlier."
"Shit, you make it sound like she was a mad dog or something!"
"Wasn't she?" Hakkai's voice is still calm and bland as his expressionless face, but that sharpness hasn't left his eyes.
"She couldn't help it if she was sick, Hakkai. And it's not like she had such an easy time of it, with my dad dying and leaving her stuck raising two brats all on her lonesome...and one that wasn't even hers, and a stinking halfbreed to boot? Shit, I was just a walking reminder that he'd slept around on her, and then expected her to take care of the mess he left behind! What a jerk. I can't blame her for hating me." That damn stinging won't leave, no matter how furiously I try to blink it away.
"Can't you, Gojyo?" The knife-edge is creeping back into his voice. "You had no problem blaming Kami-sama for what he did to those boys, no matter what excuses Kinkaku made for him."
"Yeah, well, he was brainwashed. Stupid brat didn't know any better..." I mumble past the lump in my throat, trying not to meet Hakkai's narrowing gaze.
"And what of all those times I've seen you beat some ruffian within an inch of his life for mistreating a child? Mistreatment that's rarely been a fraction of the horrors you lived through. You've pity enough in that big heart of yours for the entire world, Gojyo. Why can't you spare any of it for yourself?"
"Don't need it. It wasn't that bad...I survived, didn't I? No sense crying over the past. It's dead and gone."
"Mm. I suppose that's why you've been fighting those tears for the last five minutes."
"What...? Shit, no. I don't cry! Crying's for babies and girls. I didn't cry then, I sure as hell don't need to cry now." I'd glare at him to punctuate my words, but the blinking seems not to be working too well and I really, really don't need to let him see the proof of my lies right now, I'm having a hard enough time convincing myself. And I've lost enough poker games to Hakkai to know my chances of fooling him are slim-to-freakin'-none. Hell, with his full youkai senses I've probably lost this hand before I've even begun; it wouldn't surprise me if he could smell the damn saltwater, or feel some kind of disruption in my chi, or something weird like that.
I am so screwed.
"There's no shame in tears, Gojyo." And something about his quiet voice reminds me of Jien, all those years ago, ruffling my hair and saying don't cry, kid when he really meant the opposite. My guts are churning worse than ever and that lump in my throat seems to be expanding, squeezing all the air out of my lungs until something snaps. There's a sick choking noise in the air that sounds like it's coming from someplace a million miles away. It can't be me because I don't ever fucking cry.
I don't look up, don't want to face the reality of someone else witnessing the pathetic spectacle I've become. I don't have to look up to know that Hakkai's still sitting there, don't want to see the pity that's sure to be on his face. I don't need it. I don't want it.
I sure as hell don't deserve it.
I sit there strangling on myself for what feels like an eternity before Hakkai speaks again. I want to cover my ears before I can hear whatever unbearable sympathetic platitudes he's sure to spout, but my hands are clenched too tight to move and somehow, improbably, he's using that schoolteacher voice again, so quiet and calmly matter-of-fact that I have to strain to hear it over all the noise I'm making.
"I don't suppose that you've spent much time studying medicine, have you, Gojyo? Oh, I know that you've at least got an understanding of the more basic elements of first aid -- blood and viscera belong on the inside, ha ha! But there's often more to proper wound management than simply stuffing back all the loose bits and stitching up the holes."
Right. I'm having a nervous breakdown and Hakkai's trying to be educational for the poor dumb kappa. I'd laugh my ass off if I could only manage to breathe through the fucking sobs. But he just keeps on going, like it's a perfectly ordinary day and he's having one of his little pedantic fits.
"Deep wounds, in particular, can be most troublesome to manage. Simply closing up the damaged tissues isn't enough; arrangements must be made to drain off the fluids that will accumulate in the course of the healing process. Without allowing for proper drainage, that fluid buildup can serve as a breeding ground for bacteria, leading to infections that if left unattended may prove to be more painful, or even life-threatening, than the original wound itself..."
Shit. I'm slow on the uptake sometimes, and my brain's definitely not firing on all cylinders right now, but even so I finally get the point. He's not really blathering on about Med School 101 garbage. He's just trying not to hurt what little pride I've got left, sure that I'll catch up with what he means but isn't saying sooner or later. Just like my brother...goddamn subtext. And it's like a dam is breaking somewhere inside my head and I'm sinking in a flood of memories I'd tried so hard to keep walled away. Creaking bedsprings and moans from behind mom's closed door. Rubbing soot and ink in my hair to try to make it stop being red. Burning myself in the kitchen trying to make something to eat when she was too far gone to even manage to feed herself. Jien walking out the door for the last time, tears on his face cutting through her blood. More blood on my hands as they blistered and broke open on the shovel as I'm digging her grave. Kicks and curses and spit and thrown stones for trying to steal a bit of food from a street vendor, or scavenging from a restaurant's garbage, or just for having the nerve to exist. Sleeping in ditches, parks, abandoned buildings, anywhere I could find until someone came along and chased me off to the next place, screwing my eyes shut as I'm turning tricks in filthy alleyways, until I'm finally old enough to start sneaking my way into bars and charming my way into women's beds. Always cold, always hungry, always alone.
I can't even hear my own sobs anymore, can't feel the tears that must be covering my face by now. I'm drowning, drowning and cold and numb and I don't even know which way is up, until the shocking warmth of a hand on my bare shoulder cuts through the haze. And I cling to that touch like a lifeline, like it's Jien's arm hauling me back up over the cliff to safety, until I finally come back to myself, curled up in a ball and shaking, covered in tears and snot and gasping for air.
I scrape my knuckles against my swollen eyes, for all the good it does, and finally uncurl myself enough to look up. Hakkai's leaning over me, a worried little smile on his face, and holding out something my foggy brain takes a long moment to identify as a handkerchief.
Oh gods. A handkerchief. Clean and perfectly pressed. Gods, only Hakkai! Wiping your nose on your sleeve must be as big of a crime in Hakkai-land as leaving cigarette butts in empty beer cans. I can't help it, I start to laugh almost as uncontrollably as I was bawling a minute ago, and it must be infectious because he's laughing too, laughing as he dabs at my face with the soft cloth since I'm clearly shaking too hard to manage that level of motor control, and that just makes me laugh even harder.
When the fit finally passes I take the damn handkerchief and finish wiping my face dry, push my soggy hair out of my eyes. I feel strangely light and hollow, a bit like when I cut my hair after hearing the news of Gonou's death. Some weights are just so familiar, so constant, you don't even realize they're there until they're suddenly gone...
"Better now?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I think so." Hakkai smiles and nods, like he does this sort of thing every day, and stands up. His hand starts to slip away from my shoulder, but I grab his wrist and haul myself to my feet as well. "Wait." He quirks an eyebrow at me, and there's so goddamn much I want to say, but I'm not sure I can string together the words coherently right now. So I just yank him close enough for a rib-crushing hug. His back goes a little stiff for a second, but then it relaxes and his arms curl back around my shoulders. And I want to say something like you are the craziest, scariest bastard I've ever known, and the best damn thing that ever happened to me, that night I scooped your dying ass out of the mud it was really my own life that I was saving, what did I ever do in this or any lifetime to possibly deserve a friend like you?, and a million other things besides. But instead I hold him a little tighter for a minute, and let go, and just say "Thanks." And he smiles, one of those real smiles again, not the usual cheerful mask, and somehow I'm sure that it's OK if I'm too tongue-tied and stupid to say any of it because he already knows.
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