Don't Walk Away

Saiyuki AU: part 2 of the Ordinary World story.

Rating/Pairing: T/58

It's raining as I walk outside. The heavy air weighs down the edges of my hair, slightly dewing the ruby lengths as they cling against the edges of my face. I brush them back with mock frustration, I don't really care about the rain, or the hair, it's the memories that do me in. The leather jacket is great on a windy day, but not today, rain just oozes around the buckles and zippers, cold, clammy metal on feverish skin that does nothing but prolongs the inevitable and I know that I'll be soaked by the time I get home.

Stupid sky. Stupid weather forecaster and his 10% chance of rain shit. I'd be drenched before I got a block if he hadn't pressed me with the little umbrella. Oh yeah. Shit, now I feel stupid. Pausing under an awning I scrounge around in my bag before I find the hand-sized parcel and thumb open the skin taut cloth stretched tight between thin metal bones like a circular bats' wing vainly struggling to keep the sky from crying out her fury at me.

And why did I feel like the rain was a punishment from God? Well, maybe because I'd spent the last few years living with someone who swore up and down that it was a reflection of his heart or punishment for it. I never really could tell when he was like this.

My answer? Screw it. If you're alive, prove it, to yourself, to me, to God…live if you're alive. You'll have plenty of time to be dead when you really are.

He hadn't liked that answer. Something about how he was never allowed to stay dead even when he was. I didn't really get it, but I'd learned a long time ago the best way to deal with him on rainy days was to make some of that stupid flowering tea shit he liked so much and to just curl up in bed and hold him, lightly rocking him until he fell asleep, tea left forgotten in the bedside table, flowery petals swaying slightly in a counter beat to our movements.

The first time it had happened, I wasn't prepared. We hadn't even seen each other in almost a month. And just when I couldn't stand it any longer and had gone out for a ride I come across him almost getting raped in an alleyway not a block from the shop. Man had the shittiest luck I'd ever seen. The rain had started coming down hard that night too. His voice had been strained the rest of the night, his laughs a little too forced, even in bed, our actions frantic with need and the overwhelming sense of 'finally' wafting around us, his nails clinging to me as we moved together, even then I could feel it. He probably thought he hid it well, but each glittering flash of lightening had those same perfectly manicured nails biting a bit too hard into my shoulder, that honey sweet voice crying my name a tad too tuned into the raw emotion of the moment.

Yeah, I knew it then, that first night and every rain-storm since. I just didn't know why. It was, what, a month later when he'd finally told me. It was a rain storm, not like today's, it was pure, unadulterated fury from the heavens, the second coming bent on world destruction, like God had hit the restart button on some crappy imported PSP game he'd lost one to many times to. He'd really thought he'd die in that one. The whipping rain made the bike's tires spin uncontrollably across the wet asphalt; he'd almost spun out twice before he'd given up and finally walked the bike the last mile home.

Coming in and watching Jein hover at their closed door like he'd just watched someone die was enough of a hot poker to the ass as I'd ever needed. The locked door was kicked open and I was by his side before he registered what was happening, the butterfly knife skittering across the floor forgotten as I gathered him close and wrapped my fingers tightly against the thin weal of blood bubbling up through the parted flesh. He'd told me then, how his twin sister had also been his first, how they hadn't known at the time, that when they'd found out, how they declared they didn't care, and then she was kidnapped, raped, knocked-up by her attackers, how he'd almost killed to save her, only to have her kill herself from the shame.

Yeah, I'd started hating the rain after that.

I wasn't upset with him. There was no way I ever could be, but the sister…I think that was the night I started hating her. Selfish bitch; leaving him all alone like that. They were other ways to deal with that type of thing now-a-days; this wasn't pre-Christ China or someplace! I paused against the side of a closed bodega, hand clenching as the frustration mounts and then the stinging flesh is pushed up against cold lips as I suck the offended torn skin and bruised muscled into my mouth and keep walking, a fist-sized dent marring the corrugated metal as I disappear into the gray mist.

I need to get home.

He's been better since then. Not as terrifying around the cutlery, though Jein is always careful to stay in with him if I have to go out like today. Shit. No, no he isn't. Damnit that's right, I told him not to worry about it, it didn't think it would actually rain today. Fucking hell. Screw the umbrella, thumbing the button I slam the dripping cloth and metal back into it's prim little wrapper and bite the inside of my cheek, teeth gnashing painfully as they slowly slice through the damp warmth and there's a coppery flood in my mouth as I skid to a stop in front of the side door. Thank God I just went around to the corner store.

He's staring up at me as I burst into the living room, water flinging precariously across the multitude of magazines spread across the floor, swatches of fabric and pain samples spread out with this look on his face like he was a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But his eyes are clear, and other than a soft embarrassed blush rising in his cheeks he doesn't look like he's gone on some suicidal kick.

"Ah..haha..Gojyo, um…is it raining perhaps? I thought I packed you an umbrella…" and he's laughing nervously and trying to stuff the papers and lists into a bag, blush now tingeing his ears and I'm sinking to my knees and dragging him in against my heaving chest, not caring that I'm making a wet sopping mess across all his carefully laid plans and he's sighing contentedly and kissing the side of my mouth and mumbling "thank you" into it and I'm finally able to relax.

***

An hour later we're curled up on the couch, a blanket pulled up around our bare shoulders and I'm holding him close, not caring about the mess or what I'd say if Jein walked in, my brother's not that stupid to come in on us if it's raining. Looking over the top of his head, fingers lightly tangling in coffee-stained hair the small tendrils tickling the bottom of my chin as he nuzzles in closer, so impossibly close, and I smile softly.

"So, what's all that about anyways?"

"Hmm?"

"The magazines and stuff."

"Ah, I figured it was about time I finally made this place presentable."

"'Presentable'?"

"Ah, well, I haven't really made any of this mine yet and umm…if you don't want me to I understand but…umm…I kind of wanted to make it more of a home then just a shop and…I'm sorry, I've probably overstepped my bounds…"

"Idiot."

He blinked all confused and sleepy like up at me as I captured his lips in a brain scorching kiss. I wonder if he could tell just how deliriously happy his stupid wifely demeanor made me. Cooking and cleaning weren't a big deal, and we both worked, so nothing big there either, but him wanting to make some sort of physical impression on my life, to show that he was living, moving forward, it was like the small alter he brought home a few months ago. He hadn't asked permission, just one day I'd looked over into the corner of the kitchen and it'd been there, two small pictures and an incense stick burning between them.

I never did ask where he got that image from. Jein must have given it to him. Lords know I never would have kept it. But somehow it made me feel better. It was penance and forgiveness and understanding and a silent plea whispering into the darkness, I still love you, but I'm moving on, and I never asked, but maybe I can help with the incense next time, I don't think I'm ready for the prayers just yet. But maybe someday. I few more rainy days where I don't have to worry about our bedroom covered in crime scene tape and then maybe….

Right now I just chuckle and pull him close again. Another kiss has all thoughts of yellow tape fleeing my fuzzy mind and somewhere deep down on the still functional parts of my consciousness I try to remind myself to get cleaned up enough to let Jein in. he must be freezing standing out there in the cold.

***

"Fuck this, I'm going to Yaone's." he grumbled, ear to door for the third time in as many hours.

"I swear one more time and I'm moving out. Stupid horny bastard."

He was smiling as he left though. Pushing out from under the awning he pulled his collar up a little higher around his ears. At least the rain didn't feel as cold anymore. He guessed that was all the miracle he could hope for tonight. He didn't want the Gods to tire themselves out after all.

Not for rain of all things.

Fin.