Title: Though My Vision May Be Clouded
Series: Saiyuki
Paring: 58; Rating:
AN: I got a migraine writing this, what's that say about me?
Hakkai awoke in the still grey hours of pre-dawn. Blinking slowly to try and push the restless sleep out of his eyes he was startled to see Gojyo leaning over him, dark merlot eyes watching him intensely.
"Go…jyo?"
"Hey Hakkai, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"If I do this…" Gojyo leaned in and flattened his palm against Hakkai's left eye, "can you see me when I do this?" he waved back and forth in front of the obscured right one.
"Is there a point to this odd questioning? Of course I can see you waving at me."
"How?"
"I don't understand…"
"How can you see me wave at you? You ripped the eye completely from the socket, there's glass floating around in there, so how can you see me wave? And why do you wear that?" he jabbed half-heartedly at the nightstand table.
"What?"
"That, the monocle."
"I do believe you were there when it happened Gojyo."
"I know! That's what's confusing me. I saw you reach in and…and do that. But I don't know how it's possible for you to still be able to see me!"
Hakkai sat up slowly, crawling in between Gojyo's legs as the red-head scrambled back against the footboard.
"Should I show you how, Gojyo." Hakkai's gentle voice purred in his ear.
Gojyo gave a little shutter as one pale hand tangled long fingers in his own before dragging them up into his coffee-colored hair, lightly slipping through the silky locks and skimming the soft shell of his ear.
Hakkai held his hand there, whispering into the suddenly too quiet room, "Should I, Gojyo? Do you really want to know how you look to me?"
Gojyo ran his tongue across dry lips and nodded once, eyes going wide as Hakkai pressed one of his nails under the edge of the lowest silver cuff, the tiny clatter as it dropped to the worn wooden floors unbearably loud.
The trembles started immediately, a soft rolling over his skin as the power bubbled to the surface. Gojyo pulled Hakkai in closer against his chest, the warm puffs of breaths coming out raggedly as Hakkai tried to speak.
"We…wear limiters…not to make us look human…but to keep the power from taking…over…completely. Mine...are no exception. I still haven't...learned to control it...yet."
The swishing of vines lightly unfurling across his flesh, the normally dark inky markings a shadow of their true power drew Gojyo's eyes. Hakkai pushed back out of Gojyo's embrace and steadied himself.
"Let me show you what you really look like to me." Pressing his right palm into his socket he felt the familiar shift of glass on bone, the tightness that was not quite tight enough to make it a perfect fit and breathed deeply.
Gojyo watched in morbid fascination as Hakkai pressed his hand in against the fake eye, tilting his head slightly as he realized that it wasn't a trick on the light, the vines on his hand were actually getting darker while the ones on his forearm were almost transparent. It must have something to do with only having one limiter off.
"Gojyo?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
"I know. Do you want to see now?"
"…."
"Gojyo?"
"Shit. Yeah, okay, let's do this. What do I have to do?"
A soft smile played across Hakkai's lips as he reached in and gently placed his free hand over Gojyo's right eye, splaying the fingers over fluttering eyelids and savoring the caress of his lashes as they brushed across his palm. Closing his eye again he focused his chi and let it wind down his arm, across his chest and up his other arm, before letting it flow out through those same open fingers and over Gojyo's skin, the quick indrawn breath and tiny jerk if his head telling him it was time.
"I don't know how others see things. Before I lost my eye I didn't see like this either, but since then…I think it's like our powers or our markings, they are tailored to the individual. For me, opening my eyes after that moment was the first time I'd ever looked at the world with youkai eyes. The first thing I saw was you. Do you want to see what I saw Gojyo?" barely a whisper but it was enough, slowly, he opened his eyes and Gojyo finally understood.
He could see...everything. He was looking through Hakkai's eyes and as Hakkai moved his head he was awed by the sight. Items like the bed posts, the chair leaning against the wall, the door left partially opened, even the crisscross patterns of the bed sheets, they stood out sharper than he was use to, but when Hakkai finally looked back at him, he couldn't breathe; it was just too intense a sensation.
It was as though two different images overlaid each other, the normal one everyone could see, opaque skin and clothes and light in eyes or dancing across hair, and then the other one; the one where everything seemed to glow and pulse slightly, as though his skin were humming with a silent energy. His skin appeared even tanner than normal, almost a light brass color. But it was his hair and eyes that drew him, and he understood why Hakkai liked running his fingers through those ruby lengths.
Have you ever held up a glass of burgundy wine to a candle? The interplay of shattering golden light that skips across the surface, slowly drifting down to the bottom as it fights with shadows and twists into mysterious unending reflections of ruby warmth and glowing embers. He sighed contentedly and realized that his hair did not look like blood to these eyes. It looked warm and comforting and inviting. He understood now why Hakkai had said it was the color of passion, because it was oh so much more than just regret tinged with loneliness and despair; it was heat and lust and the world on fire.
Gently Hakkai closed his eyes and pulled his hand back, pulling Gojyo with him as he slipped back under the sheets and curled in closer against the hanyou.
"Now do you understand? This is not blood and death to me." Slipping his fingers through Gojyo's hair he smiled and reached across him to pluck this discarded cuff from the floor and carefully tightened it back around his ear.
Smiling again he slipped in closer, sighing as strong arms wrapped around him, "This is the color of life."
Hakkai was about to say something more when he felt warmth dripping into his hair. Glancing up he pressed soft kisses to the ruby eyes, another to the pale mouth, one more to the beating heart, and then finally, they slept.
Fin.