Title: Hold On
Author: akisawana
Genre: Rainy-day angst, of course.
Disclaimer: If, by some miracle, I did own them, I'd probably smack Certain People Who Shall Remain Nameless every time they open their mouths for being Whiney Bitches.
Warnings: One day, I shall return to writing stories that do not end in sex. That day is not today.
Notes: I'll take the burning needles under the nails next time, plzthx. And I tried to make this all subtle and double-triple-quadruple meanings and all, but I think all I ended up with was a little man jacking my temples apart and some very purple prose. On the other hand, I didn't use the phrase "pulsating love stick" once, for whatever points that is worth.
Did you ever notice how many stories have Hakkai and rain? There's a reason for that; Hakkai is really only awake in the rain.
If it's not raining, he can wrap himself in cotton wool and pretend everything is alright, can pretend that nothing can stop them because they're on a mission from the gods themselves, that the others not only can but will take care of themselves and if someone is bleeding, well, corpses don't bleed; can pretend that he's not hurting, that there's nothing left inside him to hurt, can pretend that nothing left in this world can hurt him. If it's not raining, he can just turn off that part of his brain that insists on remembering the end of the world and he does so, half his mind holding back the other half and the bare minimum spared for what's outside his own head. But, in a shoebox of an apartment he cleaned to keep his hands and mind busy as much as to keep anything from crawling out from under three month's worth of garbage and attacking him in his sleep, he discovered that his lies are not waterproof.
Long ago, when they were still trying to fit two men in a place that may have been physically big enough but really wasn't, there was rain and Hakkai was alone, and it was either luck or the will of the gods that it wasn't the last rain he'd have seen.
Gojyo would put money on it being the will of the gods, because they seem to enjoy pissing on Hakkai, but not too much because he may not be as smart as some people and he may be slow about some things but that doesn't make him stupid enough to blame the gods for things he knows perfectly well are (his) no-one's fault. And now, with the rain sheeting down outside the shitty little inn they're staying at tonight, he knows better than to think that just because the door's locked he's unwelcome.
Besides, it's his room too and he has a key.
Hakkai's sitting on the bed, back to the door, and though he's seen him much worse Gojyo hasn't seen him lock himself away like this in a good many months; doesn't mean he doesn't remember what to do. He sits next to him, drops a careless-seeming arm around the smaller man's shoulders and stays alive.
Not that hard, compared to the other things he's done for Hakkai. Not smoking inside for an entire week will always and forever top the list, but traipsing around at god-forsaken hours of the morning, in the rain and the dark, (scared shitless) looking for someone too idiotic to remember his coat is right up there. He doesn't understand the hold the rain has over Hakkai; Sanzo's aversion to it is all too easy to understand, as is Goku's to snow. Both resent the restrictions the weather brings and the way it forces them to think, and remember. But Hakkai thinks about her nearly every waking minute, thinking about not thinking about her, which amounts to the same thing, and he doesn't understand what it is about rain that makes it so much worse.
Nor, he suspects, does Hakkai.
There's a cigarette in his mouth before Gojyo really realizes it, and he has to let go of Hakkai to smoke it, or someone's hair will catch fire. Hakkai hasn't said or done anything to show that he knows Gojyo's there, but he leans against his arm now and Gojyo can feel cool metal and glass against his skin for a moment before Hakkai sits up straight and proper again. "Sumimasen," he says, and takes the cigarette burning away between Gojyo's fingers and puts it to his own lips, takes an experienced drag.
"Thought you didn't smoke."
"I don't." Hakkai inhales again, slowly. "Kannan…" and he stops.
"Forget it." Gojyo takes back the stick and taps the ash off against the foot of the bed. If Hakkai caught him, there'd be hell to pay, but Hakkai's looking at his own hands.
"She didn't like it. She made me stop," Hakkai finishes like he hasn't heard Gojyo, and turns his head toward his friend. "Well, actually, she just threw out all the ashtrays until I gave up." He smiles, so fake it hurts something inside.
Gojyo grins back anyways, just as fake but less painful somehow, because Hakkai never, ever talks about himself, only in the dark when the rain is over, and lately, if it's raining and there is absolutely nothing else he can possibly distract himself with, but that was just before Sanzo showed up demanding that they come with him and the stupid-ass monkey on this stupid-ass mission as decreed by the stupid-ass gods, may they all fall ass first on large, sharp objects.
Hakkai takes the cigarette, and leans against his arm again, and when Gojyo wraps it around his shoulders again, close and careful like he's afraid the other man will break, or run away, Hakkai puts his free hand on Gojyo's leg and twists around and says, "Arigato," right against the pulse in his neck.
Maybe, it occurs to Gojyo, Hakkai wasn't so lost in the past that he didn't realize he'd locked himself away again. Maybe, in this unfamiliar place, there's nothing for him to clean, or mend, or read, or anything else, and maybe if Gojyo bothered to stop and think for three seconds, he would have realized that long ago.
Oh well, Gojyo thinks as he puts the monocle on the beside table for safekeeping and kisses Hakkai. Better late than never.
It's familiar and not, kissing Hakkai. He's done it before, a time or two, when the need to (be held) get laid is too strong to deny but weaker than the need to (hide) keep some secrets from the gossipy tarts down at the bars, and he ended up with Hakkai's tongue in his mouth and Hakkai's hands in his hair and Hakkai's dick in his ass. It's different, though, this time; he's kissing Hakkai, gentler than he'd kiss a woman, and one hand's buried in thick, dark hair and the other's slowly stroking down a straight spine until it gives and Gojyo can lay him back on the bed (is the door locked? Can he stop long enough to make sure? Does he care?). He knows Hakkai's still thinking about her, can see it in the way his eyes are too focused and his smile is fixed, and so he does his best to send her away with lips and fingers and heat and while he doesn't think he can, Hakkai at least pretends she's gone for his friend's sake, and Gojyo pretends to believe him and Hakkai pretends to believe Gojyo believes, and meanwhile Hakkai's giving back as good as he has gotten so finally Gojyo's cock mutinies and makes him give up, let Hakkai think whatever he wants as long as Gojyo gets to touch, to taste.
She's not going to give up her hold on Hakkai lightly, though he fights it in his own way. She may not have tasted like cigarettes, and her skin may have never been so rough, but she never held him so tenderly, as odd a word as that is to apply to anything Gojyo does. She never gave herself to him so completely, trusted him to never need her to.
Hakkai is vaguely ashamed of these thoughts, but more ashamed that he isn't paying more attention to Gojyo and Gojyo is being quite nice to him.
Gojyo could quite happily just kiss Hakkai all night, but he'd be even happier if he got to do more, so when Hakkai wakes up a little more and tangles his hands in blood red hair, Gojyo takes that as a signal to step it up a bit. He finds skin, stretched tight over hard muscle and harder bone, traces wordless promises across it. No chicks here, written with delicate circles along Hakkai's collarbone. Stop thinking, I'll help, painted in wide, firm brushstrokes down his ribs. Safe, running up his spine and kissed down his neck. Hakkai lets go of his double handful and pulls Gojyo's shirt off, tries to pass the fire waking in him to the man on top of him, but Gojyo's got a hand between them, squeezes not at all gently, and Hakkai grabs at his hair again to have something to hold onto as the world comes dangerously close to exploding. The kappa smiles, Hakkai can feel it against his chest and he wishes he could let go of his handhold long enough to wipe that surely smug look off his face.
Gojyo knows the shade of Kannan is gone when Hakkai yanks hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. He grins fiercely, finds a spot that shouldn't be that sensitive but is with his teeth, and keeps stroking, hard, fast and sweaty, until he can feel every fiber of Hakkai's body shake with the struggle to not lose control. Just before Hakkai loses, half a second, not possibly more, he stops everything and lets go.
Hakkai looks at him confusedly, a question on lips that are claimed by Gojyo with a kiss that should be bruising but isn't, just through and fiery and when did they lose all their clothes, exactly? There's nothing to help Gojyo's long fingers slide in but the old standby, spit and a prayer, so he makes up for quality with quantity, until Hakkai is sobbing for breath against his shoulder and twisting against him in a way that means he's as ready as he'll ever be, and he still hasn't let go of red hair.
When Gojyo finally is in Hakkai, filling him until both are satisfied there is no room for anyone else, it is all things bright and beautiful, all miracles great and small.
They are still, for a moment. Gojyo brushes hair out of emerald eyes.
Then Hakkai moves against his friend, a deliberately draconian undulation, afraid of what will happen if he is given enough time to think. Gojyo moves inside him, his strong arms that picked him out of mud and death and held him together and through the storms now clutching him close as they push and pull against each other, moved by tides that they can't really control and why on earth would they want to? They move as if they will never stop, as if they could become one and Gojyo presses his mouth against silver limiters, one two three, and again and again, almost biting, timing it as best he can, until the smaller man screams under him and carries them both off the edge.
Through it all, Hakkai never lets go.