1.000 words of Gojyo/Hakkai, because permetaform said she wanted some 58 for Christmas, and I've been wanting to write these guys for a while.

Thank you for the beta, Solo!

***

Somehow he'd never learned to say no. It didn't matter if it was a pretty young girl, a wrinkled old bat with more hair on her teeth than on her head, an underage brat with a chest as flat as a board, or not a woman at all.

He killed people, youkai and human, and felt not so much as a sliver of remorse, and he knew that he was the kind of guy you wouldn't lend money to, and certainly wouldn't trust with your daughter's virtue. Or with anything, really, unless you had no choice. He didn't mind — in fact, it made things easier.

All the same he couldn't turn away, couldn't refuse that look in the eyes of someone who needed something — needed it so badly that they would turn even to Sha Gojyo. He wasn't what anyone needed, really. But when they were desperate enough to forget this, and look at him with that burning, hungry need, he would still try to do something, anything. Just to get that look out of their eyes. To stop them looking.

He didn't like to be looked at. It wasn't the color of his eyes and hair, that he let grow until it fell down his back loose and glossy and shining in the hue of abomination, silken sign of sin that girls who didn't know any better cooed over. He didn't mind lustful stares, or angry glares, or even superior once-overs. He just didn't like to be *looked* at.

There had been something in the eyes of the man he'd stumbled across bleeding his life out into the rain and the mud, who'd looked up at him without expectation or hope of rescue. Later, Gojyo decided that it must have been subconscious, buried so deep within his psyche that Hakkai — Gonou — whoever he had been that night — hadn't known of it himself.

But Gojyo had seen it.

There hadn't really been any choice. He could no more have walked away than he could have voluntarily stopped breathing.

Hakkai still looked at him, even now that he was patched up and set up with a new name and a new life, calm and smiling and in control all the time. And there was still that raw desperation buried somewhere deep, and Gojyo didn't know what to do, because there wasn't any way he could give Hakkai what he needed, to make him stop looking. Hakkai didn't need to be protected, at least not from things Gojyo could protect him from, and it was too late to save him. Gojyo had always been too late for that, even when he'd carried him home, his blood mingling with rainwater to trail onto Gojyo's floor and bedclothes.

It was unsettling, and lately when Gojyo went out to find someone to share a bed with, he did it more to escape that look than to slake his own desire.

"What do you want?" he'd asked Hakkai more than once, and it had come out aggressive because he felt helpless, didn't know what to do, how to supply the need that was there, like an open wound.

Hakkai had always lowered his gaze and smiled and bowed slightly, apologizing and explaining that he'd just been daydreaming, and hadn't meant to stare. And when he looked up again, the raw look would still be in his eyes, and he would be looking at Gojyo even when he was turned elsewhere, talking calmly to the monk or clucking gently at Hakuryuu.

When Hakkai cornered him one evening, just as he'd returned to the inn they'd found that day, it wasn't a surprise, although Gojyo suspected it should have been.

"I'm cold," Hakkai said, and his voice was dark and raw and open, not at all like his usual Hakkai-voice. "I'm so cold, Gojyo."

It wasn't even a surprise when he backed Gojyo against the wall and caught his mouth in a kiss, not gentle so much as testing, his body pressing close, the power that hummed beneath his skin almost burning Gojyo's palms when he put his hands on Hakkai's shoulders.

There was nothing Gojyo could do but open his mouth to the kiss. Hakkai gave a stifled, curiously uncontrolled little sound and surged against Gojyo's body, crushing him against the wall as the kiss turned suddenly demanding, ravenous. Wild. He buried a hand in Gojyo's hair to tilt his head a bit, just the way he wanted it, and not long afterwards he buried himself in Gojyo's body, and his hand on Gojyo's hip urged him to rise against him just so.

Gojyo tilted his head into the suddenly wild kiss, and his hair sheeted forward, falling around them like a scarlet curtain. Not long afterwards his body rose obligingly, long used to such cues from lovers, well-trained and eager.

He couldn't refuse Hakkai, and it was good, the feeling of Hakkai against him, his lips on Gojyo's skin, his teeth biting down hard enough to mark him, the feeling of Hakkai inside him, Hakkai's hands and body and mouth and eyes all rapacious on him, ravaging him with a skill that — while not expected — was not a surprise, either.

Lying in Hakkai's bed afterwards, with Hakkai sprawled over him sweaty and naked and asleep, Gojyo wondered if he'd helped, or just made matters worse. But Hakkai's arm tightened around his waist when he shifted, so he stayed and watched his friend sleep until dawn lightened the night outside the window and Sanzo's bellow from across the hall announced that it was time to get back on the road.

"Gojyo," Hakkai murmured, and the look when he looked at Gojyo now was different, the need softened into something unfamiliar and unexpectedly painful. Hakkai's touch was gentle as his fingers ghosted over Gojyo's face, as he combed a hand through his hair, untangling it and spreading it out over the pillow.

Gojyo wasn't what anyone needed. Not really. But… maybe he could pretend, for a little while.