Kurikaeshi
by Trismegistus
Hakkai sat in the far corner of the room and let the silence wash over him, a silence which might have seemed, to other people in other conditions, oppressive or perhaps even threatening, yet both he and Sanzou understood it as being preferable to some forced and artificial attempt at companionable small talk. And really, what could they do? Sit over a few cups of coffee and a cigarette for Sanzou and compare notes on personal loss? Yes, silence was infinitely preferable.
Both windows were open, dingy motel curtains billowing into the room on small puffs of breeze, then hanging limp and flaccid in the evening humidity. The nightnoise was broken by the precise metallic chink of a lighter and a nearly silent intake of breath as Sanzou drew a first dose of smoke into his lungs. Hakkai knew, without looking, that after the first few drags Sanzou would sit propped against the pillows and headboard and stare blankly into the far distance, forgetting the cigarette until it burned down to the butt and scorched his fingers. Then he would start, nearly imperceptibly, reach for another cigarette, begin the whole ritual anew.
So different from Gojou, who went through about as many cigarettes as Sanzou, but who actually smoked them, and who used the burning cylinders of paper and tobacco to great effect, gesturing wildly with one pinched between index and middle finger, letting another hang rakishly from his bottom lip while he made some wise comment or leaned over to murmur into another woman's ear.
"I'm going to sleep. Make noise and I'll kill you."
"Yes, yes," he murmured, without even a cursory effort to appear concerned by the threat. Sanzou knew perfectly well that he was the least likely of any of them to be loud and disruptive, and Hakkai understood that what Sanzou was doing was bidding him goodnight.
"Hmmph." Sanzou dropped his lighter and pack on the nightstand and then the bedsprings creaked as he settled his body more firmly into the mattress, and Hakkai stayed awake, aware of but not focusing on Sanzou's breathing as it slowed and deepened and then became lost into the drone of the insects outside the window and the rustlings of mice between the walls. Eyes unfocused, Hakkai let images of the past few days filter through his mind, random thoughts coming and going as they pleased, before he too drifted off to sleep.
And emerged just as gently from it, the voices echoing down the hallway drilling ever more persistently into his consciousness.
"...you, you son of a bitch!"
"Aah! I'll kick your ass, Gojou!"
"The hell you will!"
"Sanzou. Sanzou!"
By the time Hakkai pulled himself completely from whatever abyss his sleeping mind had been occupying Sanzou was sitting stock upright in his bed, pistol already in hand, glowering at the door behind which the voices were steadily approaching.
Hakkai counted one, two, perfunctory knocks before the door flew open, banging against the wall, and Gojou stormed into the room, a loudly protesting Gokuu following close in his wake.
"Sanzou, do something!" he demanded. "The damn gaki snores so loud the dead couldn't sleep through it!"
"Bastard! Pervert! Cockroach!"
"Who the hell are you calling a cockroach, you fucking monkey?"
And Gokuu's eyes had widened dangerously as, nostrils flaring, he dove for Gojou's hair, the perfect image of an incensed child. "I told you not to call me monkey!" And Gojou, always the bigger, cooler brother, had leaned back just far enough to be out of Gokuu's reach, smiling, the ever-present cigarette dangling from his lip. Gokuu, robbed of his original target, settled instead for grabbing Gojou by the arms and shoving for all he was worth. "Oh?" Gojou responded. "Let's see what you've got, monkey." Legs braced against the floor, they grunted and twisted, each trying to break the other's hold.
They would have continued on in this fashion indefinitely, or until one or the other of them had decided that something - food or women - was more interesting than fighting, had a shadow not fallen over them as they struggled. Half a second elapsed, and then they froze, and raised suddenly wary eyes to the figure, now standing, at the head of the bed.
"Shut up, both of you." Sanzou's voice was barely pitched above a whisper, but no less deadly for lack of volume.
Gokuu's eyes widened, whites visible around golden irises. "Buh.." he ventured, then shut his mouth again just as quickly, wanting to protest, but this was Sanzou, and the desire to please was stronger.
Sanzou stood for a brief moment, utterly still, shimmering with suppressed tension. "Hakkai. Gojou. Out." A brief flick of wrist and pistol and both Hakkai and Gojou were heading obediently for the door and the abandoned room down the hall.
New rooming arrangements thus settled and Jeep safely ensconced on another anonymous hotel pillow, Hakkai listened patiently as Gojou ran through his token complaints concerning Sanzou, adding a mild "Mmm," or "Ahh," wherever it seemed appropriate. "Damn self-righteous, holier-than-thou, asshole monk thinks he can..." the sentence trailed off as Gojou lit another cigarette, took a deep hit, then, grinning impishly, produced a deck of cards from some nether region of his attire. "Poker?" he inquired, with the faintest twitch of an eyebrow.
"Well," Hakkai responded, amused by the abrupt change of subject, "I don't know if I'll be on top of my game tonight, but..."
So they pulled up chairs at the rickety hotel table and played out a ritual that had been played out countless times before, Hakkai seated companionably across from Gojou, sharing small talk, silence, second hand smoke, smiling benignly at Gojou's displeasure at having lost another hand.
You some kind of card shark or something?
No, it's just that I've always had a feel for the game.
The hours ticked by; it was late, and Sanzou, who had no doubt gone to sleep in an extraordinarily foul mood would also without a doubt rouse them as early as light permitted tomorrow morning. Hakkai glanced at his cards, at the stars twinkling lazily in the sky outside, at Gojou worrying his cigarette with his lips as he surveyed his hand. And the hours ticked by, and Gojou disappeared briefly and reappeared with a case of beer and some oden. Jeep slept contentedly atop his pillow, the stars twinkled on as before, and Hakkai told himself, just one more hand, and when that hand ended, just one more...but only half meant it.
"Oi. I need another beer," Gojou announced, and as he leaned forward to retrieve a bottle from the case at Hakkai's side his hand, as if for balance, came to rest on Hakkai's knee, slid upward as Gojou reached for the beer, curled around Hakkai's inner thigh and then was gone so quickly, so smoothly, that Hakkai wondered for a moment if he had imagined it all. And there was Gojou, sitting across from him, beer in one hand, as if nothing had happened.
But the fingers of the other hand twitched against the pitted wood of the hotel table, fingers naked without the ever-present cigarette, and Hakkai knew that he had not imagined it.
Gojou met his gaze, all dark red eyes and dark red scars and dark red hair, flame and rawness and completely, utterly open to him. It was frightening, this kind of connection, one that had always, always been there just under the surface, hinted at and danced around, but never openly referred to. Until, perhaps, now.
It was heady. As heady as Gojou's Hi-Lite and Kirin lips as they closed around Hakkai's own, as warm and velvet as the back of Gojou's neck under his hand and somehow although he had never imagined that this could happen he knew that it was right. Blood flared, not into an old scar, but elsewhere.
And, thought Hakkai, I am a fool, because it had always been there. Of course I'm going to live with Gojou, he'd told Sanzou, someone has to take out his garbage...
..and had at that point believed that that was all there was to it, and maybe that was all there had been to it at that point, but hadn't it been gratifying, for some strange reason, to hear the petulant voices of the bar girls: Gojou hasn't been back into town since he took that dead man home and Hasn't Gojou just changed so much and Why doesn't Gojou spend time with us anymore?
...and Gojou's mouth was still over his own, Gojou's tongue between his lips, and Gojou's hair a curtain of scarlet as it swept gently against his face.
And they rose together and stumbled together and fell into the bed together and although it should have felt strange to be in another man's arms, in Gojou's arms, it didn't, because it wasn't exactly the first time Gojou's arms had held him.
"Stop trying to outdo yourself, idiot," Gojou had said, and Hakkai, half-delirious from loss of ki and blood and worry about the other three hadn't realized that there was something more lurking behind those words and the look on Gojou's face, had chosen not to hear anything in Gojou's voice that he didn't think should have been there, had been guided into Jeep without really understanding or trying to understand what was occurring around him. And even after that Gojou had not wanted to or would not give it up and his hand had closed over Hakkai's own....
Hakkai sought out Gojou's fingers, found them against the musty, stained pillow near his head, and they were warm as he twined his own fingers through them.
...hand, "Hakkai, let me drive."
And Hakkai, his smile so deep it almost hurt, shut his eyes and pressed his body up toward Gojou's own. Yes, Gojou, please drive. And he felt rather than saw Gojou's lips bow into an answering smile against his skin and knew that his request had been heard.
"...how many times have I explained to you, Gojou, that this is what will happen if you discard your cigarette butts into empty cans."
"Oh yeah. Sorry 'bout that."
...and they had met one another's eyes, truly looking, and for that moment the world had contracted until they were they only two people in it.
They were the only two in it now. And Gojou's fingers...
...Gojou shredding his empty cigarette pack between those blunt, tobacco stained fingers, and letting the confetti flutter gently down in front of his face, both of them laughing because yes, we're going to die but we're going to do it together and that at least is all right.
...untangled themselves from those of Hakkai's hand and twisted instead against his shirt and then moved lower and wherever they went they traced fire. Hakkai shut his eyes, and breathing came in rapid, constricted bursts and he was certain that he had absolutely parted from his sanity, because he had never, ever shared anything like this with Gojou, and yet the memory was there, that playful, aggravating, captivating man above him, "...imagine the bricks they'd shit if they could see us now."
To which he had replied, exhilaration mounting with every thrust of his lover's hips, "Honestly, I don't understand what the fuss is about, really. You're just acting on a ranked superior's orders..."
And Gojou had thrown his dark (dark? thought Hakkai) head back and laughed that devil-may-care laugh that he (and was he really Hakkai?) loved so much. But by that time Hakkai was lost, absolutely lost, because wherever he stretched or twisted or writhed, wherever his skin lay exposed to the humid night air, there were Gojou's hands or the touch of Gojou's mouth and Hakkai could not, did not want to think about anything else. "We're gonna get this straight right now, alright? You're the first and last man I carry to bed," Gojou had told him. Oh, Hakkai thought, truly...
And when they were done... He had always held Kanan, afterwards. Could he hold Gojou like that, ever? Somehow he doubted it, but for now he was content to lie like this, long slender fingers of one hand loosely entwined with Gojou's, and to stare into those dark crimson eyes until sleep took them both.
