Uh... I needed to credit/link someone else... uh... oh yes, Fences by Celrevia, and Breakfast. Void. by Solaas. Not for direct influence, maybe, but for amusing the hell out of me with amazing takes on Gojyo.

Right. The Fic.

Breathe

~~~~~~~

"Gojyo~o!" someone shrieked, at a volume and pitch best reserved for intentionally shattering glass.

He winced. Winced, dammit, and had to be grateful to the haze of smoke in the air for covering his slip. "Hey, doll," he drawled, sliding an arm around a waist that wasn't as thin as its owner wanted you to believe it was. "Miss me?"

"Of course!" she oozed.

"It's so bo~oring without you," someone else chimed in.

And then there were cards, and drinks, and damn if his luck wasn't in again. It'd be easy to pad his wallet tonight. Not like he needed to, now. Not when he wasn't having to buy for two.... Shoving the thought away, he stubbed out a cigarette harder than he needed to. Someone replaced it for him, and he smiled a thanks.

The "ladies," though. They were gettin' on his last nerve tonight. Making something in him itch and growl and long for silence and a plain face and...

Fu~uck.

Someone touched the back of his head, fingers running lightly up the short hair there. Rubbing it the wrong way. Throwing his cards down, he stood up. "Right, that's it. I'm out. Have a nice night, boys." It was an effort to keep his expression even. It shouldn't have been. Collecting his winnings, he tucked a wad of bills into the front of his too-tight leather pants and sauntered out.

Yeah, dressed to kill. Yeah, he shouldn't have bothered.

Stepping outside, he tilted his head back and blew a stream of smoke at the star-filled sky. Save me from this, he growled silently, daring the night to give him an answer.

And of course, of course a goddamn shooting star streaked overhead.

He gave it the finger, and set off through town.

Maybe it was time to move on. Get himself out of this rut by changing the scenery. But he liked it here. Liked his place, even if it was a little too small for... Dammit. Nah, it was convenient, this town. Familiar. Comfortable, if you wanted to go that far. Too many little things he'd miss, things he'd have to get used to all over again, in some new town. So long as no one was stupid enough to bring up the taboo thing, he could stay here for years.

And yet...

He wanted to hurt something. Wanted the chance to be righteously violent. Kick some ass and not have to pull punches. A bar brawl would barely even scratch the surface. Whetting his appetite was not what he needed. He could drink himself stupid instead, but he had the weird feeling that it wasn't gonna work tonight.

A face in the rain haunted him. Tied his hands with indecision. And what the fuck was wrong with him anyway, that he was moping around town, mourning -- if you could call it that -- for a dead guy?

Shit.

Closing his eyes, he turned towards home.

~*~*~

"Sanzo," he said softly.

The newspaper twitched, the only obvious indication that the monk was listening.

"I would like to find Gojyo... speak to him again."

Silence. One finger curled around the edge of the paper, folded it down long enough for one eye to peer at him above the edge of both paper and glasses. "Do what you will." The paper snapped back up.

He breathed a small sigh and bowed slightly.

"Life is suffering," Sanzo offered, from behind the comforting wall of his newspaper. "Are you prepared to embrace that again?"

He closed his eyes, let the light of a golden afternoon pass him by for a moment. Opening them again, he fixed his gaze on the window behind Sanzo. "Are we ever 'prepared' to suffer?"

"Hn."

~*~*~

Morning.

Or, if you wanted to get specific, dawn.

A time of day he preferred to come at backwards, from having been up all night, rather than waking up early enough to greet it in the morning. Hopeless. He was halfway domesticated and there was no one left to appreciate it.

Crawling out of bed -- his bed, and not the damn futon, and that should have been a pleasant change, so why the hell was he missing the floor? -- he stumbled into the shower in an attempt to bring himself closer to reality. Hot water was a guilty pleasure of his, and he'd use it all, given the chance. And since there was no one else to bitch about it this morning...

Suds attacked his face. Right. Short hair equals less shampoo. He'd get it one of these days.

...not that he'd ever bitched, no. It was only the women, on those nights he'd been stupid enough to let them stay. A pretty face in a bar was never even half as pretty at home, in the daylight.

Suddenly, he wasn't in the mood for a long shower anymore.

Attempting breakfast was pointless. He didn't have the stomach to eat his own cooking so early in the day. He'd managed just fine for years, thankyouverymuch, but that was mostly take-out, and days that didn't begin before noon. Breakfast was best left to the respectable folk, and he was not about to fall into that category.

Halfway domesticated...

Damn.

Grabbing a jacket, lighter, and a fresh pack of smokes, he headed out the door. And if it slammed closed behind him a little too hard, well, that was the fault of the damn hinges.

Morning.

~*~*~

He wasn't a stranger to dawn. Living at the temple for the past several weeks had made him intimately acquainted with her rosy fingers on a daily basis, of course, but he preferred his own quiet routine to the monks' habit of breaking the day with loud silences. He greeted her with a small, private smile, and greeted them with an entirely different smile. Much like the difference between the smile he wore for Goku and the one he wore for Sanzo.

Dawn, then, and chores, done quickly and quietly, and he was free to slip out through the gates, down the endless stairs, into the city. A small, placid smile firmly in place, and behind it, his heart racing like an over-revved engine.

~*~*~

Had he known it was market day? He couldn't remember. His head was being an ass and carrying on like he'd drunk himself stupid last night instead of going home, to bed, alone, like a respectable person. Except that didn't work either, because then he'd be still at home, nursing a hangover.

Of course, respectable people didn't have to deal with meeting their one-night stands on the street in the fucking daylight. It didn't improve his mood any to have to side-step the girls's questions without making too much of an ass of himself. And since when had he started thinking about him as a "tragic and emotionally screwed beauty?"

Sure, sure. Make light of it all. That was the way to get these things off your mind. Oh, yeah, and it had worked so well so far. Nothing changed. Cutting his hair didn't change the colour. And nothing could change the colour of his eyes.

"They remind me of blood," he'd said.

"Do you seriously think blood is the only red thing in this world?" the monk had asked.

Nah, of course it wasn't. There were other things like... like flowers (and he managed not to cringe at the thought) or like... sunsets. And apples.

Picking up an apple from the young lady's fruit stand, he bounced it on his palm and almost smiled. "Miss? One of these."

"Yes, sir."

The apple disappeared from his hand. He wasn't used to fruit pulling vanishing tricks on him, so he just blinked at his hand and wondered, idly, if maybe he'd finally get to do a little of that self-righteous violence routine on whoever'd swiped it.

"These are such a beautiful red, aren't they?"

The words and the voice sent shivers down his spine, and his hair -- all of it -- tried to stand on end. He looked sideways and -- gods help him, what had he done to deserve this? -- it was him. Apparently you couldn't even trust a Sanzo to get the last rites right so that honest people wouldn't be haunted by a damn shade.

But if he wasn't a shade...

And in that instant, he died himself and was not yet reborn, as he seemed to have been. So they were left standing there, dead man speaking to dead man.

"Gojyo." Said with eyes closed, sunny smile saying "there's nothing wrong, is there?" And when the hell had he acquired a sunny disposition? It was damn creepy.

He closed his mouth, teeth clicking sharply together, and silently vowed he'd kill the monk, if he ever got the chance. "...Guess you could say that," he muttered. Better yet, he could make an opportunity, to get an explanation, if nothing else. "Hey, missy! On second thought, I'll take four."

Four apples went in a paper bag, and of course he insisted on carrying it, so Gojyo stalked away, trusting him to follow. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he smoked furiously.

And he was still smiling that creepy smile, or a variation on it. "We are going to the temple, then?" he asked quietly, a few blocks later.

"Yeah," Gojyo drawled. "I got a sudden need to... pay my respects to a certain monk."

"Ahh. In that case, I should tell you..." He stopped, in the middle of the goddamn street, and tilted his head forward a little.

Drawing to a halt, Gojyo turned back to face him. "Tell me what?"

He hesitated, uncertainty visible even behind the smile when he raised his head again. "...My name."

That wasn't what he'd been going to say. Gojyo'd stake dinner on it. "Tch. I know your name --" he began, dismissing it with his cigarette.

"No," he interrupted, "My new name."

Oh. Oh.

Well, a name would be easier than going on thinking of him as "the dead man." And fucked if he wasn't gonna slap Sanzo senseless the moment he saw him. Change the man's goddamn name and declare him dead like it was nobody's business but his own. Way to fuck with people's heads. Oh, they'd have words about it, that was for sure, provided he could get the damn monkey out of the room.

He took Gojyo's sudden silence for an agreement -- was it? damned if he could tell -- and glanced up again, almost shyly. The smile was gone, for which Gojyo was grateful.

"Hakkai," he said softly. "Cho Hakkai."

It didn't change anything. It was almost disappointing, really. Gojyo stuck his cigarette back in his mouth, sucked on it for a moment, then removed it long enough to ask, "Are you happy now?"

His -- Hakkai's -- eyes widened slightly, and then that damn smile was back, hiding any emotion. He hated it. Hated it with a passion, and would have done anything to wipe it off and bring back the strange blankness of Gonou's expression.

"Oh, yes," Hakkai began, "I suppose I am, at least. To have a second chance at life --"

"That's not what I meant," Gojyo growled, around his cigarette, and waited for Hakkai to ask what he had meant.

Not that he had an answer.

But Hakkai only looked up and met his gaze evenly, smile firmly in place. "I'm so glad to be here," Hakkai said, in that quiet, demure voice he remembered too well.

But it didn't mean anything. How could it? The words were as hollow as the smile fixed on his face -- false and empty and not at all what he remembered. Not what he wanted. Not the smile he'd seen in the rain and the mud and the blood. Not the smile that was just for him. Shit.

Shit.

The middle of the goddamn street was no place to be having this conversation.

"What... why...? Son of a bitch..." he swore softly.

Hakkai's smile took on an icy edge. "'Who that hath an hed of verre, fro caste of stones war hym in the werre,'" he murmured.

Gojyo blinked at him. "What?" The hell kind of language was that?

Shaking his head, Hakkai started walking again. "I'm afraid I am somewhat out of practice in the art of polite conversation," he said. "Please forgive me. It is the price one pays for time and solitude to restore one's sanity."

Falling into step beside him, Gojyo grunted a non-reply.

"The temple has become rather... stifling," Hakkai continued.

"Hunh," Gojyo muttered. "You been there that long?"

"Long enough," Hakkai replied with a short laugh. "And... there is no one... to play cards with..." He glanced sideways at Gojyo, a hesitant smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

Grinding his teeth together, Gojyo scowled. "Not even the monk?"

"Sanzo? Ha, ha. No. I have not seen much of him."

That surprised him. It took him a moment to realize that he'd been blaming the monk for everything that had gone wrong since the first time he had tried to tell him his name.

"I was hoping," Hakkai said, in a rather cheery tone, "That you might be agreeable to allowing me to move in with you again." Tilting his head to one side, he gazed mildly up at Gojyo. "Perhaps I was wrong..."

He really shouldn't gape. It was starting to become a real bad habit. "Why the hell would you want to?"

"Ah-ha-ha..."

Gojyo's teeth grated together, and he stopped, turning sharply and suddenly toward Hakkai. "Cut the crap. Drop the act. It's pissing me off. Gimme a straight answer or just fucking forget about it."

"It's not entirely an act," Hakkai replied. His smile took on that edge again before sliding away. "Life at the temple... it's not living. It was just a chance for me to become accustomed to the processes and functions of life again."

What, like you forgot how to shit? Clamping his lips tight around his cigarette, he smoked, and waited.

"I thought... maybe if I could breathe the air you breathe... see what you see... share the life you live... maybe... I could learn to live -- truly live -- again."

"Isn't the monk supposed to be teaching you that?" he drawled around a cigarette, still feeling bitchy. Glancing sideways, he saw Hakkai wince. Wince, dammit. What the hell was going on between the two of them?

At least he didn't laugh.

"He's not teaching me anything," Hakkai said, frowning at the ground. "He refused that."

"Lousy excuse for a monk," Gojyo growled. Taking a deep breath, he ran his fingers through -- scratch that: over -- his hair. "So, what, like roommates? What're you gonna do if it doesn't work out?" Gojyo's eyes said, "I couldn't protect you from yourself... hope that I don't let you down again."

Hakkai's eyes said, "Let me breathe the air of freedom."

After a long moment, he nodded slowly.

"I suppose... we'll burn that bridge when we come to it," Hakkai finally replied.

"Hah," Gojyo said, smirking. "Even I know that's one fucked up saying. Y'cross your bridges. Then burn 'em."

Hakkai smiled, an honest-to-goodness smile, and Gojyo's heart did a strange lurching thing that left him breathless and... uncomfortable. In some places, anyway. And strangely at ease in others. If only he could just believe...

Dropping the butt of his cigarette, he ground it out beneath one boot heel. "Right. Let's go find us a priest, then," he said.

"Thank you," Hakkai whispered.

Maybe mornings weren't so bad after all, Gojyo thought, lighting up a fresh smoke.

~owari~