Warnings: Language, rambling monologue and what couldn't really be considered shonen-ai.

Disclaimer: I don't own Saiyuki or the characters of said anime/manga. I also do not steal diner flatware.

Author's Notes:After the long spell of writing nothing at all, I have produced two posts for in as many days. I can't say that this is particularly good, or what spawned it, but I'm happy enough that worked out, and it was good practice for a character whose perspective I don't often use. If anything, it was fun. I didn't edit it beyond spell check, so I apologize beforehand for any errors I make.

Hakkai's Point of view about Gojyo.
Craven
Does he think I'm strange? Does he regret bringing me into his home, broken as I am?

Do my eyes mirror the glasslike shards that prick his insides, as the do mine? Does he see my pain those few times I meet his eyes?

Those red eyes, deeper and more innocent than blood.

He is innocent, a boy locked inside a gangly adult form, wiry muscles and swiftness. He tries, but there is little cunning in him. He simply does not think that way.

We're so different, white and black, South and North, an abused boy and a craven man.

But pain is the same in all languages. The experiences vary, the memories form different nightmares, but the knowledge, the look hidden beyond the color of one's eyes is obvious and similar among all. Youkai, human, half-breed, the same weight in the shoulders, the same hiss of paranoia, wariness that another would hurt him or her again…

Some days, he looks like a rape victim, slump-shouldered and hollow-eyed, flinching violently at loud sounds. Even now he backs away from raised voices, runs as soon as he can from a fight. His mother did that to him, instilled that self-preservation instinct in him so well that he's lived this long. Him, alone, sloppy and foul-mouthed and sadder than any other being I had ever seen before, sadder even than myself.

I must admit, I was moved to pity at the first sight of him, peering up from the mud, the physical pain coloring my thoughts. He looked so pathetic.

Does he hate me? Is his biding his time to kill me?

No.

One look at him could confirm that. He wouldn't kill the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. I might be the first man to show him any kind of kindness. I don't dare ask; it would be needlessly rude, possibly even hurtful.

I don't want to hurt the closest thing I'd ever had to a friend, not even to satisfy my curiosity. The answers, for once, don't seem important. I can wait to know or be happy never knowing.

I can tell he wants to know things, wants to ask questions, but he didn't the first time I was here, as another man, and he probably won't now. He's simply like that, unwilling to rock whatever peace comes to him.

Perhaps his way is wiser, just taking what we get and making the best of it, and doing all we can not to fuck it up.

I'm lucky. I get a second chance.

Him? If he messes things up here even once, I have little doubt that the townsfolk will hang him from a tree and burn his corpse. After all, he lives here by their leave, only as long as they accept his scavenging in bars to pay for his shanty house on the outskirts of their lands. He doesn't cause trouble for them, and they don't cause trouble for him.

Still, I know he wants more. I can see him look around our tiny four-roomed house and sigh, as if hoping something had changed and it had turned into a mansion, or at least something less cramped. The furniture is a mishmash of discarded sofas, tables, chairs, lumber that was turned into shelves, fresh flooring for the planks that had rotted out, or anything else he could build. Every flat surface is a place to set piles of his books, the windowsills a display for his collection of colored bottles or dusty prisms that throw rainbows on the walls and floor in the afternoon.

We drink out of jars he had dug out from the trash cans of restaurants, and our plates and chopsticks are his life's work of stealing from diners. We don't have electricity, so the refrigerator doesn't work, so he started stacking more of his moldy books or cans of beer in it. We have thick candles, the kind that can stand on their own and somehow gives out less light than normal candles. Whatever he can find or steal is dragged into this house, and he often tries to sell it at the marketplace to pay for the candles and winter's firewood.

He isn't permitted to cut his own wood, but that seems to be the only restriction they set for him, or at least the only one he bothers to follow.

He was never one for rules, anyway, far too used to going his own way regardless of others. I like him most for this, even though his attitude makes him exceedingly selfish.

But that's what's kept him around so long, stubbornness, selfishness and mistrust. No other man I've known was ever so careful, so able to act like he had any kind of ego.

In reality, he has no ego. In reality, every moment of his existence is torture, the long wait before his eventual execution.

It's cruel of me, but I love watching him like this, watching him wait for death as if it were both a relief and a horror.

Why hasn't he killed himself yet? What in this awful world could possibly appeal to him?

I've been watching him for months; watching him check behind all the doors after he gets in for the night and watching him drink himself into a stupor. Some days he doesn't care if he lives or dies and some days he has more tics than a qualified psychotic.

Does his pain control his actions? Do past experiences make him unable to hold an emotion steady for more than a couple days?

Did his mother drive him to drink? Do those scars on his cheek demand that he smokes until his lungs are black?

Or does he care at all?

Possibly. Possibly not.

I look down into my coffee mug, studying the swirls of black liquid, studying my own reflection. I can feel him moving around the kitchen, smoking over the food he is cooking on his gas stove. I used to care about things like that, but in all my days eating his food, I never once found ashes in my food. He is a careful man when he thinks about it.

He is hunching today, hung over from last night's work of hustling cards and drinking until he could smile more honestly. He smiles a lot when he's sober, but looking at it makes my stomach twist in discomfort. He smiles because he doesn't want to care anymore and he finds he cares too much, about everything. Himself, me, the world around us, the next month's rent, the next winter's firewood, about getting enough food for the both of us, about being so depressingly poor…

A plate is set in front of me, so gently that it barely makes a sound on the wooden tabletop, and he cuts the flame off from under the pan before he slides into his own chair across from me and picks at his eggs. I glance up at him, but he is intent on ordering his bits of egg around the rim of his oval diner plate. He drinks his coffee and ignores the bacon he served himself completely, probably unable to handle the grease just yet.

"Not hungry this morning?" I ask, my voice soft. Any louder and it might rile his headache even more, or he might flinch. It doesn't bother me, to address him like a spooked animal. It's really nice not to have to project to be heard. He seems to hear everything, ears far more sensitive than a human's and far more trained to simply listening than a youkai's. He listens, he just chooses whether or not to ignore, and he never ignores me.

"Not really," he replies, his own voice a rattle of a whisper. He sounds like he was screaming all of last night, or vomiting. Probably the latter.

I had always depended on other's to make conversation, always wanted to be pleasant for them, even as a child. Coming to live here had been a bit of a shock, because he so rarely speaks. Either he doesn't like to, or he assumes subconsciously that I'll go at him with a kitchen knife, but he never speaks much unless he's drunk.

He keeps to himself, but it's easy to see how much he wants to talk, and really, truly be listened to. The kind of listening that he treats others with, the kind of listening no one would bother with, because of his hair, his eyes, his fucked-up family.

No one but me. I relish being his only secret-keeper, being the only man in his life to just shut up and let him speak.

I wait now. I eat my eggs and bacon; I drink my coffee. I wait.

And because I waited, he speaks. Slowly at first, as if forming words were too much effort, as if his thoughts couldn't get into order. A review of the past week's work, how he kept getting thrown out of bars for accused cheating, how no one even bothered to see if he was. They always judge him for his hair, and if he had the money he might dye it, just to avoid the trouble. His worries, about making rent for the lease, repairs for the door he tried to fix himself, money, money, money.

Everything's money to him. He often says he only thinks about it so much because he doesn't have any. He does his best, but it's hard trying to support himself without actual labor skills and all the judgment of humans and youkai on his existence.

Soon the words are rushing out now, almost too fast and too pushed together for me to follow. He barely pauses for breath, muttering aloud to himself about things he needs to fix around the house, books he hasn't had time to read, how he can't find an honest job.

I wait until his thoughts begin to break up and his talking slows. He looks exhausted, as if simply exhibiting his woes sucked his energy. I wait until his eyes close for a long moment, when he's at the peak of despair to offer my words, still calm and quiet, almost a hush.

"I got a job," I say. He looks up so suddenly it makes me jump, his expression a mix of horror, anger, relief and joy, each fighting for dominance. Finally he sags against the table, a large hand pressed against his mouth, merlot eyes watching me, trying not to look as happy as he feels.

"They don't like me much-" I meant the townsfolk. I was an outsider to them.

"-So it isn't anything really great, just small jobs and menial work for the butcher in town. Deliveries, grinding meat, things like that, nothing to do with customers, but it's a decent wage."

He's fighting with himself not to thank me, not to look as relieved as he is. He even manages to ask me if I really want to work, if I can.

"It'll be good to work. And the money would be good to have on hand," I counter easily, well-prepared for his reluctant consideration of my health. "Besides, you need a new coat for winter. The old one you have is practically dissolving on its hanger."

He laughs softly and looks down, seeing nothing as he takes a long sigh. He knows already what to do with our new money, what is needed and how much longer he can survive. If he skimped by on the meager sums he brought in these past months, then we're sure to live like kings once I get my routine paychecks. Neither of us likes to spend our cash, more likely to take whatever's free or cheap first.

"I work from eight to twelve five days a week, and I might, in time, be able to get some scraps for us."

He looks so happy it nearly hurts me to look at him. He looks overwhelmed.

"Are you all right?" It obvious he is, that he only needs a moment to catch himself, but I won't let him think the show on his face went unseen. I want him to know I watch him just as much as he watches me, though for very different reasons.

"Fine," he grumbles and grips his trembling fingers tighter around his mug. "It would be good to have a new coat…"

That's right; he can't stand being cold. He doesn't like how chill weather can freeze water and is convinced that it could freeze the blood in his veins, though I told him it didn't work like that. He chose to ignore me on that, stubborn in his superstition.

I smile and he smiles back, wide lips splitting his face like the gash on the throat of a murder victim, stained off-white teeth crooked in his mouth. It nearly makes me wince, though I'm sure this isn't as much an act as the others.

I know very well that his coat will be the last thing he thinks of once the money comes in.

"When do you start working?" he finally asks, more cheerful now that I've made his day, possibly even his week.

"Two days, beginning of the week."

Another grin, more subtle, more to himself than for me.

Does he know that he's all the keeps me alive? Does he know that his existence is proof that I can carry on, regardless of my self-loathing and the youkai that want me dead? Does he know that he gives me strength because he is stubborn?

Does he know that I, cruel and selfish creature that I am, do everything for him?

I watch him as he thinks, finishes his coffee and gets up to store his food in a mouse-proof box. I watch his short red hair swing as he moves, and smile privately.

He doesn't know anything, innocent that he is. After all, boys don't know anything about love. And he wouldn't trust me if I told him.

We're both cowards in our own way, but it suits us. It keeps us alive.

Fin Craven

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