Author's Notes: you know whose fault this is? xeriah's fault. it's all xeriah's fault. sally forth, angry mob! .:giggles and flees from hakkai, who has a vein pulsating in his forehead and gojyo in a chokehold:.
would he have all
my
by Bethany Ten
There's that one toy, on your mind, that which you can't ignore.
His footfalls, to the trained ear, are disfigured cadence, uneven like the choppy set of his hair, and then they metamorphose into a waltz—one-two-three-one—and he leads; his arm would curl nicely around the small of your back, wouldn't you agree? He seems like a leader. He seems like a dancer. He would wear leather on Thursdays and draw faceless patterns on his flesh, in your eyes, with his long-long fingers. His nails would skim figure eights through sheens of sweat that would collect on his abdomen; his perspiration would smell like seawater. He'd like exhaustion, yes-he-would.
He doesn't smile when you exhaust him.
But that's mostly his fault. Really, it is. He should've given up ages ago; he should've forgotten you, your name, your face, the second he thudded his fist on the ground and asked you in his mind and with his blade, Why? He exhausts himself. He flits around. He's like a bumblebee with banked tedium. He swings the fists that would look awfully nice around the small of your back.
So, in your opinion, he should smile.
He owes it to you.
He probably has a pretty smile, could turn you into jelly instead of scattering you like the gaggle of pearls you are. He could make you whole and he could make you melt. You bet he could.
He's in front of you again. You move.
(He brings out the dreams you shouldn't have and he promises to buy your redemption if you let your life hide in the rough, sunset-warm calluses of his fingers; he'll shelter you from everything, from the Sanzo that will hate you for as long as you not-live, from the demon slayer that will hate you for sharing his shield, from the Monkey King that will forgive and forget. He'll buy you nikuman and you'll eat it if he wants you to.
That one toy, he fulfills that one fantasy, the first fantasy you've had in who-knows-how-long.)
He even smells like a new toy—like leather, smoky and soapy and buttery. You don't own leather toys, but maybe having one—just one, so he'll feel special—wouldn't be so bad. Get it on a Thursday, tie strings to its fingers and make it dance.
Touch his hair, swing and miss. He's looking at empty air again.
Yes—yes. You could like him. He's pretty. He could be your favorite.
Reach out, touch his hair just as he swings and misses. It's too red; it has to be doll's hair. Has to. But he's too alive for that, too lively for your strings—
—is it Thursday yet?
(And your smile isn't so half, not as half as he is, as he always will be, when you say goodbye, when he slides his arms beneath your back and says hello.)