Author's Notes: This is my first Saiyuki fic, and hopefully many more will follow. I had to do it. I love Hakkai, and angst, and rain. It was just waiting to happen. –grin-

Down Like Rain

There would be rain soon.

Thunder haunted the skies, low rumbles that roared and faded, dancing from horizon to horizon before returning again. The clouds were thick, heavy in the air, tinged around the edges with a black so dark that it neared blue.

In the world beyond a window pane, life held its breath, waiting for the water to fall.

Dry and warm, a man sat before the glass, staring through it with emerald eyes that didn't see. He was waiting, too- but not for the rain.

For something that the rain brought with it.

The screams were like knives in the air, harsh and biting and so very, very loud. Wails, and shrieks, and half-sobbed cries for mercy.

Mercy.

Had she cried, when they touched her? Had she screamed for him? Begged him to save her, to stop them? To be there?

Another body fell to the ground, blood pooling beneath it, face twisted in an already-frozen howl of anguish. It had been crying; now the tears ran down to mix with the crimson that stained its throat.

Something was ringing in his ears, a steady sound under the noises of death.

Raining.

When had it started to fall?

He'd lost himself, sitting in front of the window, watching the darkness of the clouds and the sheets of water. Lost everything except for the screams and the blood and the way her eyes had been.

Shuddering softly, he turned from the rain, rising shakily to his feet and going to the bed. If he could sleep, she would still be there... but not as clearly.

And there was always the chance that she wouldn't see the blood that stained his hands.

Someone, kill me.

Gods, how he hated the rain.

Emerald eyes, so like his own, were full of bitter joy and untold horrors. "It's too late, Gonou."

It frightened him, the too-calm tone of her voice- but she was close, close enough that he could smell her, and almost in his arms. The halls were slick with blood, but she was here, and alive, and they could leave this place and never look back. They could put it behind them, and-

The glint of metal in the stormy light was what told him that the knife was gone.

And he knew, without wanting to, what she would do. Perhaps had known all along- had cut through the mountain and the piles of bodies in search of hope that never really existed. Because it was hers: her choice, and her body, and the knife in her hand.

She didn't scream. She had always been strong like that.

Just... pressure, until the skin yielded, and blood. Too much blood.

It soaked her clothes, spreading outward, a crimson stain like the pools in the hall, flowing down her chest, down and down, and always more, until she fell with it onto the ground.

And then the rest didn't matter.

Still raining, when he woke. Of course it was. It was always raining.

The sound was heavy in his ears, a low thrumming on the roof, tugging at the back of his mind. Haunting; mesmerizing. Something to lose himself in, if it didn't tie him so firmly to the past.

But, no. That was something that he couldn't leave behind so easily. Because he could still see her smile, and the blood- and hear the rain.

Kill me.

The tears fell down his cheeks, leaving their marks on a face too used to crying, down slowly and softly and full of despair. Because time had done nothing at all. Everything fell apart when the rains came. Somehow, nothing had changed, and he was still barely alive, wishing that he wasn't.

There were no people outside the door to his room- no man with bloody hair that had given him a life he didn't want. There was only pain, and water on the roof, and whatever was left without her.

Someone... kill me.

Outside, the rain fell harder.

-owari-