He can see everything--the blood seeping from Sanzo's wound, the terrifying length of his own claws eager to cause more damage, the sight of Goku standing at the door with Sanzo's gun. It is all happening again, instant replay, punishment. He must relive the horror he inflicted. He must remember the pain he caused.
He is back in the moment all over again, feeling the same hunger he had felt...
Hakkai grins and removes his hand from Sanzo's side, standing to address the young man who has just burst in through the door. "Such a loyal pet..." he laughs. "...coming here...to join his master in death..."
Squaring his footing, Hakkai no longer has reservations to keep him from killing Goku, and he launches himself forward, knowing the young brunette could never pull that trigger.
He doesn't pull the trigger--foolish boy--but instead steps to the side, leaving room for a new figure to take his place. The second that figure is in view, Hakkai stops dead, his claws dropping to his sides in disbelieving shock.
Gojyo.
The kappa looks so pained, so intent on speaking in order to turn Hakkai back from the darkened path he has begun to follow. But before he can speak, Goku rushes forward, hoping to bypass Hakkai on his way to the injured monk lying on the floor.
Now, now, Hakkai couldn't possibly allow that.
Goku runs unthinkingly forward, believing Hakkai to be immobile and no longer an immediate threat. Goku is wrong. Pulling back one of his clawed hands, Hakkai slams the talons into Goku's chest when the boy comes up beside him, the sickening crunch of his cracking ribs filling the quiet of the room.
While Gojyo stares on in humbling disbelief, Hakkai reels back and tosses Goku to the side to slam with shuddering ferocity into the wall, before crumbling in a rag-doll heap to the ground.
Now, there is only Gojyo--Goku and Sanzo both on the verge of death without immediate care--and Hakkai is not backing down.
Gojyo speaks, but Hakkai hears nothing. Gojyo holds up his hands in defense as Hakkai slowly approaches him, but Hakkai pays no mind. The cause is lost; Hakkai knows only his lust and thirst for blood. Rivers of blood would not be enough, could never be enough, to satisfy him now.
Once he is only a few feet from Gojyo's frightened stance in the doorway, Hakkai leaps, knocking Gojyo back to send them both to the floor, with Hakkai pinning the redhead to the ground. Gojyo speaks again and again, but still, Hakkai hears not a word. He strikes...and a new shade of red is splashed across Gojyo's face. Again...and Gojyo is screaming.
Again and again Hakkai slashes and claws, leaving nothing but a bloodied mess he would not recognize even for all the tangles of red hair, now so much darker.
Gone. All of them. In a flash of raging strikes, Hakkai has slew them all, even the one he had only meant to save...
---
"NO!" Hakkai screams, so loudly, every neighbor still in bed with the barely rising sun must have surely been woken by the sound. "No! Forgive me! I...I never wanted...Gojyo...oh, gods, please...please no..."
But Gojyo is right there to push Hakkai back down--the brunette having bolted upright, his eyes wild and unfocused--and the kappa speaks soothing words to bring his dear friend to his senses. "Hey, it's okay. I'm right here, Hakkai. Everything's fine."
Blindly, Hakkai searches above him, his right eye dim without his monocle, and when the final traces of sleep have faded, he focuses in on the face he has longed so much to see again. "G-Gojyo...?" he gasps, breathless as he clings to the arms holding him down. "You're here...you're alive...I didn't...kill you..."
"I'm fine. Of course you didn't kill me." Gojyo replies. "Everyone is fine. Well...Goku was a little spooked and Sanzo's pissier than usual, but--"
"Sanzo!" Hakkai cries suddenly, pushing up against Gojyo's hold. "Oh, gods, I almost killed him! And Goku. I could have ripped him apart. And...the Akaanai...I tore them all to shreds. Gojyo...wh-what have I done...?"
Forcefully, Gojyo pushes Hakkai down again, his features twisting with frustration and barely contained anger. "Stop it, Hakkai. Don't even start with that self-hating bullshit." he barks, stern and unwavering. Hakkai stops his struggling, too taken aback by Gojyo's harsh tone to fight. "It's over, okay. It's done. Leave it alone."
Gojyo releases Hakkai and collapses back into his bedside chair; the last thing he wanted to face and yet knew he would is Hakkai's consistent self-pity.
No words pass between them for a few moments--Hakkai is still shaken by his dream and the events that have passed in the last few hours, and Gojyo is busy cooling himself down. The last thing either of them wants is a fight, but there is little room for compromise when Hakkai is bent on hating himself for his destructive actions and Gojyo refuses to let the man indulge.
"Gojyo...?" Hakkai begins tentatively, after a supposedly proper amount of silence had passed. "Sanzo and Goku are alright?"
"I said they were, didn't I?" Gojyo snaps, though he instantly regrets the lingering bite to his tone. Apologetically, he leans forward to offer his most caring and understanding expression, realizing what a fool he is being for getting so upset. Hakkai forgives him instantly. "They're okay. We're all fine, Hakkai. And you don't have to worry about any of us being weird around you, coz you know we'd never hold what happened against you. It's kinda flattering, if ya think about it." he adds, looking coyly at Hakkai from under his lashes. "I mean, you went all psycho just for me. Lost all sense because you thought I was dead, and couldn't be reached until I came back into the picture. A guy might get the wrong impression after a display like that."
"Wrong impression?" Hakkai repeats, raising an eyebrow as he slowly eases into playing along. "So it's the wrong impression for you to think I love you more than my own sanity or life? That I love you more than life itself?"
"Oh, it isn't?" Gojyo grins, leaning further over the bed, his face hovering just above Hakkai's. "Thank the gods for that. You damn well better love me for all the trouble I've been put through watching over you. Not to mention soothing your damn rat of a pet."
Hakkai's face draws a blank, his still weak smile instantly lost. "Pet...?"
"Kyu! Kyu!" Hakuryuu cries, appearing from the floor--previously hidden from Hakkai's view--where a little bed had been made for him after Gojyo's legs unfortunately fell asleep. "Kyuu!"
"Hakuryuu!" Hakkai exclaims happily, sitting up to pull the dragon in for a tender hug. This time, Gojyo knows there is no need to push the brunette back down again. "Oh, Hakuryuu, I'm so happy you're alright. The Akaanai's illusions were so real. You...almost cut in two...dead in my arms. I could never imagine losing you like that."
Chirping happily, Hakuryuu allows Hakkai's too firm squeeze, and soaks in every bit of praise. He had been equally worried about his master, after all.
Gojyo watches the exchange with a small quirk of a smile, musing over how the scene is something far too similar to that of a father welcoming back his lost son.
Eventually, Hakkai releases Hakuryuu and allows the dragon to hop beside him to sit on his pillow, while Hakkai sits up with most of the pillow at his back. They are their happy little family again, and all the better for it.
"I get the angst and he gets the affection? What happened to the 'I love you more than life' crap?" Gojyo teases, crossing his arms as he leans back in his chair.
Hakkai smiles. "Well, if you'd get in bed where you belong, you wouldn't be complaining." he jests back, humoring his friend's position, but underlying his statement with a look of obvious invitation.
Once again, Gojyo is not a man to be told twice.
In one swift movement, Gojyo slings his shirt off into a far corner, and then nudges Hakkai aside, slipping into bed. Hakuryuu is still on the edge of Hakkai's pillow, but Hakkai finds himself pulled in against Gojyo, leaving that pillow behind.
In noting Gojyo's clothing choice--his cotton pants for bed--Hakkai looks down at his own clothes. He is wearing his own cotton pants along with an oversized, black nightshirt. The state of his day clothes he can only imagine, and he hopes they are somewhere far away, being scrubbed clean of the filth and crime he had accumulated during his rampage.
"Gojyo...?" Hakkai whispers, his head on the kappa's chest as he twirls his fingers through a particularly vibrant strand of ruby hair. "I know you want this to all be forgiven and forgotten...but for that to happen...I have to say...I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being so...out of control. I don't know how to face Sanzo and Goku after this. I know you're right when you say they won't hold it against me, but...but I tried to kill them. I said such horrible things and caused them both so much pain--"
"Cut it out, already." Gojyo breaks in, gripping Hakkai around the shoulders. "I forgive you, and tomorrow, so will they. Don't think about it. No one else got hurt. The Akaanai deserved every blow you dealt them and none of the dimwit townspeople even realized the youkai attacking them was you. Now, if ya wanna cry on my shoulder, you go right ahead, but if you cling to this...I swear I'm gonna beat you senseless, ya hear me? I just want you to be happy, and dwelling on something that's never gonna change is no way to find happiness."
"No. You're right. Happiness is what I find here...with you..." Hakkai concedes, and lifts his head just enough to peck Gojyo's cheek. "All the happiness in the world is right here...and I won't let anything take that away from me."
Gojyo can't help smiling, despite his anxieties concerning how Hakkai will one day react to his actual death. But that is long in coming, he has decided, and there is much more that can be done in place of worrying.
Pulling a little on Hakkai's shoulders, Gojyo shifts the slighter man so that he is lying face-up, half on top of him, and settles Hakkai's brown head just under his chin. Hakkai is completely compliant to his whims, still groggy and bursting with contentment at being able to rest next to Gojyo at all.
But Gojyo is in no mood for resting.
Expertly subtle, the redhead begins to glide his left hand down the front of Hakkai's chest, applying just the right amount of pressure along the firm muscles beneath the brunette's shirt. He does not stop his descent when he reaches the waist of Hakkai's pants, doesn't even lose a step, but instead, slips that hand boldly beneath the elastic and fluidly reaches all the way to the prize
Hakkai gasps. He had curiously noted Gojyo's trailing touch, but wasn't entirely sure how far the kappa would go. Granted, only hours before this they had been quite intent on pushing their relationship right off the deep end into the next level, but...that was before the chaos. That was before Hakkai lost control and threatened the lives of his dearest friends.
"Gojyo...wh-what...?"
"Shhh..." Gojyo breathes beside Hakkai's ear, sending a new wave of chills through the brunette's rapidly heating body. Then...Gojyo's well-placed hand begins to move.
His fingers are experts at applying just the right amount of pressure in their caresses, and they move slowly down the shaft of Hakkai's most sensitive skin, encircling everything before moving back up--teasing, aching. They continue their assault, pumping at the extremity becoming so stiff at his touch, while his other hand moves to slips under the waist of Hakkai's pants as well, giving attention to Hakkai's hips, massaging deep into the groves.
Hakkai's hands clutch back at the sheets--déjà vu--and his breathing picks up pace, gasping, pleading. He had been the one to inflict such pleasure before, but now...now...he is the one being granted the rush, the marvelous feeling of Gojyo loving him with a touch.
"Uh...ahhh...G-Gojyo...should we be...d-doing this...?"
Gojyo's hand does not let up, switching from feather-light...to brutal...and back again, while Hakkai, completely at his mercy, gives a soft cry of pleasured pain. "You were pretty damn eager before, ya know? Besides...I'm sick of getting interrupted. Who knows how soon Sanzo's gonna want to be on the road again, and then who knows when we'll reach another town with two or more rooms for us to be alone in. None of the shit that's happened makes a damn bit of difference. I want you, Hakkai, and I want you now..."
If the movement of Gojyo's hand wasn't already enough to bend Hakkai's will, the sultry, won't-take-no-for-an-answer tone of the kappa's voice banishes every last thought of dissention.
Gojyo's digits never miss a beat, one hand digging deep into the nerves at Hakkai's hips, the other stroking between his legs, and all the while, Hakkai's breathing is becoming more shuddering and loud, until his gasps seem loud enough to wake the dead with the dawn.
"Itai!" Gojyo cries suddenly, his hands unfairly pulling from Hakkai's pants to reach up and clutch back at his head.
Fluttering above him, Hakuryuu has just yanked at Gojyo's hair, and isn't looking all too happy with what is going on between the kappa and his master. "Kyuu! Kyu! Kyu!" Hakuryuu chirps angrily, darting his beak at Gojyo threateningly as he hovers around their heads.
"Ow! Quit it, you flying rat!" Gojyo barks, covering his head with his arms. "Hakkai, will you call him off already!? He's trying to kill me!"
"Hakuryuu, that's enough!" Hakkai commands, sitting up after having stabilized his nerves and erratic breaths. "Come here." he speaks gently, gathering the small dragon into his arms. "Now, what is the meaning of this? You like Gojyo. Why attack him?"
"Kyu! Kyu, kyuuu!"
"Oh. It seems...he thought you were trying to cause me injury." Hakkai chuckles, biting back an all-out laugh.
"Don't you dare find this funny!" Gojyo growls, still favoring the back of his head, and sitting up beside Hakkai to glare at the spoiled pet in his friend's arms. "I try to be smooth and confident and make the first move, and he goes and interrupts. What was I just saying about that!? Is it so much to ask to want to fuck the man you love?"
Hakuryuu's little, white body tenses, and he falls into a string of rapid chirps.
"What now?" Gojyo groans.
Hakkai, however, is endlessly patient as he explains. "Yes, Hakuryuu, Gojyo and I are in love, and we've been trying to be...intimate with one another for quite some time now, without success. I don't mean to put you out, of course, but--"
"Kyu, kyuu!"
"Why thank you. You're so thoughtful."
Hakuryuu suddenly darts from Hakkai's arms to sit on Gojyo's lap, and the dragon nuzzles the redhead's chest in apology, ashamed for having jumped to conclusions. Then, after Gojyo abashedly accepts Hakuryuu's affection, the dear creature suddenly flies out the open window into the dawn.
"Hakuryuu is very sorry about your hair." Hakkai explains, fully composed again, even after so recent an excursion. "Also, he said he would be happy to give us some privacy, and went to see if Sanzo and Goku's window might be open for him to sleep in there."
Without a word, Gojyo reaches over between Hakkai's legs with a firm grip. Hakkai yelps, and Gojyo is happy to discover the brunette is still very hard. Well, he had damn well better be, the kappa muses.
"Ano...you said something about wanting to fuck the man you love, ne?" Hakkai grins, swallowing deeply to try and overcome the presence of Gojyo's hand. "But how about letting the man you love fuck you?"
"Still set on that, huh?" Gojyo asks with a sly smirk, not yet removing his hand from its very content spot.
Hakkai takes that hand, however, and moves it for him, reaching over to take the other as well and placing both at the hem of his shirt. "Yes. Now, if you would be so kind..."
Gojyo's dominating hopes are dashed, but he isn't about to complain. He grips the bottom of Hakkai's nightshirt, and when the brunette raises his arms, he jerks it up and off, tossing it backwards onto the floor. Gojyo then reaches towards the waist of Hakkai's pants.
"You first." Hakkai instructs, stopping Gojyo's advance. "Lie down and remove them...slowly."
Damn, Hakkai really is a dominatrix, but Gojyo doesn't have the willpower to stop now. Happy to comply, he lies back and shifts his hips from side to side as he wiggles free, slipping his black, cotton pants down, revealing every hidden inch, until finally kicking them to the floor.
This time, Gojyo knows to wait to be instructed before making another move, and indeed, Hakkai isn't one to disappoint. The brunette lies down next to Gojyo, propped up on his side. "Now...remove mine."
Turning onto his own side now, Gojyo stares straight ahead into Hakkai's emeralds as his hands grip the waist of the brunette's pants and begin to tug them down. He doesn't look away from Hakkai's face once as he slips the pants free, not even when he has to lean down to retrieve them from being trapped around Hakkai's ankles before tossing them to join his on the floor.
Gojyo is hesitant to pass his gaze over Hakkai's body. It isn't that he hasn't seen Hakkai naked before--the hot tub incident aside, they had lived together for over three years--but the look on Hakkai's face is one so much a mixture of passion and vulnerability, he doesn't want the brunette to be scared off.
Besides, Gojyo has never gotten this good of a look before, and he has a very strong feeling he is about to be envious.
He passes his gaze down. "Damn." he gapes, his suspicions well-founded as he takes in the entirety of the sight before him. "You're too beautiful for your own good, ya know that? I'm not going to be able to keep my hands off you the rest of this journey."
"I have no problem with that." Hakkai grins back, and in a flurry of limbs, he suddenly has Gojyo pinned beneath him, their bodies pressed tight together. "I want every inch of you...and I'm going to be wanting it for many more nights than this one." Hakkai dips down, capturing Gojyo's lips for the first time since the kiss they had shared while he was still youkai.
The movement of Hakkai's tongue inside Gojyo's mouth reminds the kappa a little too much of where else that tongue has been, and he finds himself becoming just as hard as the man on top of him.
When Hakkai pulls back, the brunette seems very pleased with the reaction he has caused. "Gods, I want you..." he speaks huskily, digging his hands into Gojyo's fiery hair. "I want...I want to..." Hakkai suddenly stops and lifts up, looking down at Gojyo sheepishly. "Oh dear. I hate to have to say this again, Gojyo, but--"
"Top drawer." Gojyo cuts in, brimming with perhaps a little too much confidence.
Hakkai looks at him warily, but then reaches over to pry open the end table's top drawer where he discovers just what he had been thinking about: a bottle of massage oil.
"I picked it up." Gojyo explains. "Not that I was being presumptuous! I was just...being presumptuous."
"Have I mentioned how much I love your hentai mind?"
"Not recently."
A moment of shared smiles, and then...laughter. Such perfect, equal laughter. Every time a couple makes love, the moments before should be filled with laughter. After all, true laughter is merely joy given a voice.
"So...how do you want me?" Gojyo winks, quirking a half-smirk at his companion.
"Hmmm...what would be the most comfortable for you?"
"I hate to say it, but...pillow-biting. If I stay like this, I'll end up with my knees at your ears."
Hakkai chuckles, ever the same composed, congenial, young man. "Then...to pick up where we were so rudely interrupted before...on your stomach, please."
To be honest, Gojyo is terrified right now. He has never done this with a man before, and he has certainly never entertained trying it from the recieving end. If it wasn't for the fact that he loves Hakkai more than his cigarettes, or women, or booze, or anything else for that matter, he would probably be running out the door. Or, at the very least, demanding to be seme.
Once Gojyo is on his stomach, his face indeed pressed into the pillow, he feels Hakkai shift, lifting up to better apply the massage oil. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hakkai place the bottle back on the nightstand, and then feels Hakkai's cool, slick hands apply the oil to a part of him he never imagined someone's hands would go.
It is when he begins to feel Hakkai's fingers prodding ever so gently that he realizes he can only handle this if it is all or nothing.
"...cut the formalities...'Kai...I'm ready for you now..." he grits out, already gripping the pillow in anticipation.
Hakkai laughs lightly, breathy, and bends his head to kiss at Gojyo's neck. "So impatient..."
"...yeah, yeah...real funny..."
Hakkai laughs again, reaching around Gojyo's hips to hoist the hanyou up, making it more accessible for him to give Gojyo a little of what he had been given a few minutes before. After all, it is the least he can do. At the same time, he pushes his hips forward, teasingly slipping inside, gradual enough to be tenderly brutal.
"Ah!" Gojyo's jaw clenches and he blinks past the initial wave of pain, surrendering to the rolling torrents of pleasure that ascend as Hakkai pushes further, soon so consumed, the brunette's chest is flush against Gojyo's back.
Gojyo is shuddering and breathing so heavily, his gasps pound in his own ears, melding with the softer huffs of Hakkai's breath against the side of his face. Then, Hakkai lifts slightly up and away, before pumping his hips back down again.
"...holy...shit...'Kai...I...oh, gods..."
Hakkai had been about to pump again when Gojyo says this, and is suddenly troubled. "Am I...hurting you...?"
"No...it's just...fuck...I never thought it could be so...incredible..."
This tender admission sets Hakkai back at ease, and he finishes his movement, reeling back to deliver the same force again...and again...and again. "I...love you...so much, Gojyo..." he gasps, his words muffled with his lips pressed hotly into Gojyo's back, his hands still working between Gojyo's legs to ensure he doesn't finish too much sooner than the kappa.
Actually, Hakkai's beautiful hands are far more tender and generous than Gojyo's ever could be, and Gojyo realizes he is about to burst already under the teasing pressure of those caring fingers. With Hakkai's hands pumping in front of him and the brunette's hips pumping behind him, there is no way he could have lasted much longer.
With a great sigh, Gojyo releases, and a moment later, he feels Hakkai do the same, ending with the brunette collapsed exhaustedly on Gojyo's back.
As much as both would like to stay that way, the stickiness of discomfort quickly gets to them, and by some miracle of stamina, they manage to disentangle themselves, wipe off with the bottom sheet they have just soiled before tossing it into a corner of the room, and then fall unceremoniously into bed together, pulling the remaining blankets up around them.
"I've never been so tired..." Hakkai muses, nuzzling Gojyo's neck. "...but it was worth the effort, wouldn't you say?"
"Worth the effort? It was hot, sweaty sex with the man I love. I'd say that's worth just about anything." Gojyo replies.
And it is.
"I love you, Hakkai. I never thought I'd be lucky enough to share something like this with you."
"Luck has nothing to do with it." Hakkai corrects, already drifting off to sleep, despite the rays of sunlight peaking in through their open window. "Fate is in no one's hands but our own, Gojyo, and I intend to keep it that way."
"You have this really weird kick about being in control, doncha?"
"Only a little."
"Yeah, well, I get to drive next time."
"You didn't enjoy things the way they were?"
"Enjoy it? I'm about ready to beg you for another round. Still...gotta keep things equal, right?"
"Absolutely."
tbc...
A/N: Okay, so to reiterate, this is not the last chapter. Things just worked out differently and I still want to write one more, if you don't mind. :-)
Again, I can't thank you enough for all your support. This has been one of the most enjoyable fics I have ever written, and so much of that is thanks to all of you. This time the next chapter WILL be the last. Hope you enjoy it. Ja!
P.S. The Hakuryuu grabbing Gojyo's hair thing was inspired by "Happy Little Family." Go read it!
Crim