reckoning
by Bethany Ten
prologue: breathing
He listened.
The limiter loosened on his ear; the rustle of fabric was magnified. Sanzo always shifts precisely four times in his sleep—one for every twilight bell and one for every dying star that Hakkai can see through the opaque windowpanes of wherever-they-are.
There was a shift, soft: a door, a shrill but soundless creak tempered by oiled brass. Tilted upright in bed, Hakkai's awareness gently probed the area beyond his bedposts. Twist-runes rippled through the dampened mahogany of the walls, like hole-punched protection spells, only meaningless; he shivered and swore they glowed at him, grinning indecently through the hazy outlines of everything undefined by moonlight.
His feet rested on the ground like they were meant to be there; he tested his left ankle first, then the right.
He stood.
The floorboards protested; he tasted apprehension, and his tongue jutted out of his mouth to dab at it where it might've been tangible.
There was a sound, inaudible (to all but him—he who was conscious).
There was a smell, like ashes and the beach and cheap cologne and sex and…
…change.
● ● ●
"Didn't expect to see you up."
Gojyo was change. Gojyo was the wind rustling through the trees, the disregard for all-things-moral, silver-tongued and aggressive, the starved and the insatiable; he was change and he had changed—or maybe he hadn't, and Hakkai was twining his mind around a new set of lies. He was frightening; he was fascinating, taboo accessible, a paradox without a fashion sense. He was Sha Gojyo—
—and he was alone.
Even an amateur litterateur could seek a poem there; blood rippled like velvet in Gojyo's respectful, averted eyes. He wondered if tonight would be the night Gojyo would start to love him.
"What're you doing?"
Even the most unobservant child could see that the cigarette—half-twiddled between those puckered lips, half-charcoal—was unlit. Hakkai reasoned quietly to himself that Gojyo probably hadn't had the time to light it uninterrupted; his hands fisted distractedly in his bedclothes, Hakkai said, as blandly as he could manage, "What are you doing awake, Gojyo? You need your rest."
"I'm not the one driving," Gojyo shot back, sounding almost affronted.
Touché.
He felt a serene calm that wasn't his; it was a red tidal wave, a sea of not-blood he could remain adrift on for who-knows-how-many eternities. He smelled cheap cologne and knew Gojyo had purchased no such thing. He lingered there, taking his seat beside the kappa, because it was the only seat of which to be aware—there was nowhere else; there was no one else. He breathed deeply, imperceptibly, and pointedly did not wonder how intoxicating sex was if the mere scent of its walking embodiment was a dull fog in his mind.
"I've been thinking of quitting," Gojyo said.
Hakkai thought supportive thoughts, even as he said, "You won't."
"Just—thinking," Gojyo said, leery.
Hakkai tried on his best smile, his fakest smile, and felt open. "I couldn't imagine—"
"You could."
Hakkai's heart might've stopped when Gojyo shivered, but not out of any sudden chill—it was a sallow summer night; it might've been Hakkai's hands, which slipped from that angular face and those angular scars with unceremonious surprise—they must've been cold. They retreated into his bedclothes soundlessly, and Gojyo's palms were upturned, drawing stars in the sky, trembling all the while.