thenearshore | Terrible Idea Theater proudly presents...

His own eyes tightly closed as well, Gojyo's just getting used to the feeling of Hakkai's warmth pressed against his side when the world shifts, and shifts again. "Urp," he protests, clinging to Hakkai's chest as the ground tilts up beneath his feet. "Blaah."

If the guest room is stocked with a toothbrush, that would be a blessing.

He's still on his feet, though. It'll take more than all the booze in his bar to put Sha Gojyo on the ground. Not much more, granted, but he's standing, and even moving his feet voluntarily to keep up with Hakkai. He's doing great!

And then a figure glides into view, white hair, pointed ears, and a face that Gojyo can't image ever forgetting. It's Banri. It's fucking Banri, here, in Hakkai's house! Gojyo sucks in a deep breath, momentarily clearing his head, and he strides forward to punch that (imagined) smirk off Banri's asshole face.

"You!"

Alas, the stride is really more of a tumble. He manages to get free of Hakkai's grip, only to discover that he's too drunk to stand under his own power. Gojyo goes down like he's been poleaxed.

You! Gojyo yells, and Hakkai jerks to a stop just as Gojyo goes over face-first towards the floor. It slows him down too much to make the catch before Gojyo hits hardwood.

Banri? What he's remembered, what he called Hakkai over, is Banri?

Of all the damned things. Asshole is staring down at Gojyo with his usual lack of expression; Hakkai rubs his face.

"Open the first guest room, please, Asshole."

The white-haired youkai inclines his head and heads for the stairs. Hakkai kneels beside Gojyo to peel him off the floor and drag him up to bed.

When he wakes up it's still light outside, or maybe it's light outside again. He's got no idea how long he was out -- all he knows is that something shat in his mouth and punched him in the head and that even his own heartbeat is far too loud.

And, when he opens his eyes, he realizes he knows something else. He knows who the man in the corner of the room is.

He's aware enough not to call out to Banri -- just barely, but barely is enough. With a groan, he hauls himself up to a sit, rubbing his hands over his face as though that'll wipe away the last however many hours. (All it does is remind him just how long it's been since he washed his face, or his hands either, for that matter.) Fucking Banri. Here, a broken shinki, with no memories at all.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," he creaks out, immediately regretting the effort. Did he get in a fight? He sure feels like he got in a fight. He'd gone back to the bar, he remembers that much, and he'd looked around the place. Seen Ayumu's blood on the floor (and Tsuzuki's, too? He doesn't know how Tsuzuki is, doesn't know what happened to either of them, and a sick dread clutches at his gut.) He'd called Hakkai -- Hakkai had been there.

And then?

A quick glance under the blankets confirms that he hadn't managed to lure Hakkai into bed (although where his shirt's got to is anybody's guess). So he's hung over, possibly beaten up, in Hakkai's house.

With the ghost of his dead traitorous roommate watching him sleep.

"Ugh, get out." He buries his face in his hands, breathing slowly. It doesn't help. "Don't come back without breakfast."

Hakkai had, stubbornly, not let himself hang around his temple waiting to see if Gojyo woke up, and what he actually remembers of their conversation. He'd put him to bed (though he'd been unconscious well before his head hit the pillow) instructed Asshole to keep an eye on him, and gone about his daily business.

The buzz had worn off an hour or two after lunchtime, giving way to a headache in the deeply annoying manner of drinking done too early to sleep through, and by the time he's finished answering prayers, tutoring, and putting the braised pork in the oven to cook, his mood has gone sour for the day.

He's sitting at the kitchen table with a book when Asshole walks in and looks at him. Hakkai looks back, blinks, and sets his book down as he focuses on a particular one of the four names he can feel hooked in behind his breastbone. Asshole hasn't just abandoned his post. Gojyo's awake.

He'd left a glass of water and a hangover remedy pill on the nightstand in the guest room. The water, by now, is definitely going to be warm, so another glass (with ice) is the excuse he picks for heading upstairs.

"Stay here," he informs Asshole, who does, and climbs the stairs to Gojyo's room.

The water's been gratefully consumed, but the mystery pill is still sitting on the side table. It's not that he doesn't have the impulse to eat the unknown drug (he does), and not that he doesn't trust Hakkai to have left him something beneficial (that's not how Hakkai would hurt him). It's that he's pretty sure if he puts anything in his stomach, it's going to come back up. The water's even giving him a bit of trouble.

He can hear somebody approaching, a louder tread than Banri's ghostly glide, and for a moment he has the childish desire to fall back into bed and pull the covers over his head. He refrains. Barely.

Instead, he swings his legs around to the side of the bed, and slowly, carefully manages to get to his feet. The walk back to the bar will clear his head some, he assures himself (it's a lie, but he's willing to believe it for the time being), and once he's there, there's a lot of cleaning and repairs that have to happen. That'll keep him busy for some time.

He just needs to find his shoes first.

"I'll be out of your hair in two minutes," he promises Hakkai, as soon as the other man enters the room. His vision is still bleary -- lights are too bright, everything's a blur -- but it shouldn't be this hard to find his boots. Where are they? "You see my boots?"

Still shirtless, still completely unshowered, and bleary-eyed, Gojyo's on his feet and looking for his damned shoes. Hakkai stares at him for a long moment, and allows himself the space to hate everything about this situation, and also himself.

Moment finished, he sighs, and holds out the glass of cold water.

"Take that pill," he advises. "It's for hangovers; it will help. Your shoes are downstairs by the front door, and..."

As much as he'd like Gojyo, and all of the pain and awkwardness having him in Hakkai's guest room brings back, to be out of his hair (at least for a while, at least until he has to deal with it) he has to admit this may be his only chance to try to set things right. Or, if not right, then less wrong. He's been aching over everything he's ruined for long enough.

"... you don't have to leave that quickly."

The water he'll take -- anything Hakkai held out to him he'd take -- although it requires two hands on the cold, condensation-slippery glass to bring it to his lips. It's so cold it's a shock, and he briefly considers whether he could get away with just pouring it over the top of his head.

Hakkai probably wouldn't like that, though.

"Your shinki. Asshole." He takes another sip of water -- it's so cold, and feels so good in his mouth. He swallows carefully, licking his lips to save every drop of the sweet water, and sets the glass on the end table. "You know who he is?"

Well, if he'd doubted what it was that Gojyo remembered, that's enough to make him certain. Hakkai eyes Gojyo, who still hasn't reached for the hangover medication, sighs a little, and picks that pill up too, holding it out.

"Yes," he says. "Do you?"

He meets Hakkai's eye, the blank, knowing look of a man who can see only too clearly what the future holds. But if Hakkai wants him to eat the pill, he'll eat the pill. Into his mouth is goes, and he chases it with a larger swig of the cold water. There. Done.

He glances at the door as he sets the glass down again (holding it is just asking to drop it), but there's no sign of Banri. "I know his name," he offers -- Banri's not anywhere nearby, right? "I know why I named him Asshole." He turns back to Hakkai. "If you know who he was, why do you let him stay here?"

"Well," Hakkai says, "it's rather gratifying to call him 'Asshole' and order him to clean my kitchen."

Petty schadenfreude aside, though-- he shakes his head, glancing back towards the bedroom door. Asshole is nowhere in sight, and Hakkai had ordered him to stay in the kitchen, so it's unlikely he'll show up to overhear.

His voice drops to a quieter register, almost resigned, as he continues. "And not only has he forgotten what he did, he's not even the same person who did it. What would be the point in taking it out on him?

"Sometimes, it's nice to have a familiar face around."

Especially when it's just a familiar face -- and when it's not anyone whose mind he'd mourn the loss of.

Ordering him around, Gojyo can understand. But waking up every morning to discover that the man who tried to murder your boyfriend has been watching you sleep? That he just can't get behind.

He shoots a quick glance at Hakkai, in case the man could tell that he'd just thought the word boyfriend with him in mind, but Hakkai seems oblivious. It's been awhile, but he's pretty sure the god-shinki connection isn't that revealing. And a good thing, too. Hakkai can have his exhaustion, his headache, and his frustration -- that other recalled memory is Gojyo's, and it's not for sharing.

Sharing his feelings never ends well.

"I guess," he agrees at last, rubbing a grimy hand over his grimy head. God he's gross right now. Maybe he'll find a river to fall in on his way back to the bar -- it's not like he's got clean clothes anywhere anymore. There's spilled maraschino cherry juice all over his meager belongings at the bar, (courtesy of a stray bullet) he's lost his jacket, his boots are theoretically at the front door... He lets his head fall back, eyes closed, and sighs heavily at the ceiling. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you've got terrible taste in your shinkis."

"Are you including yourself?" Hakkai murmurs. "I haven't revoked your name yet."

He feels foolish, and exhausted; after a moment, he looks away from Gojyo, and adds, "The bathroom is down the hall. I can lend you a clean shirt."

Maybe they are just circling one another, hopelessly and forever, he thinks, remembering Gojyo in one of his shirts, in Elsa's temple, months ago. Maybe he should learn how to say what he means, instead of sulking like a toddler when no one understands him.

In exactly the same mild, helpful tone -- he's trying very hard to ensure it's exactly the same -- he says, "I'm afraid that you hate who you are around me so much you'd rather die than let me get too close."

A shower and a clean shirt sounds amazing. Getting wet and naked in Hakkai's house and then wandering around in his clothes sounds... dangerous.

But apparently Hakkai's in the mood for dangerous. Gojyo was starting to turn, to find some way to politely refuse the shower -- maybe he'll just throw up some more, and Hakkai will get disgusted and kick him out -- when Hakkai drops a bomb on him. If he could name the jolt that slices through his chest, he'd probably call it fear.

"What... what am I supposed to say to something like that?" His voice trembles as though he's laughing, but this isn't a funny joke at all. "It's not just you," he continues, his mouth apparently having decided that his brain is taking too long to process this information. "I hate who I am when you're not here, too," he quips. "Does that help?"

"Not really." Hakkai looks up at him, meets his eyes, and then glances away too fast to look anything but skittish. His pride isn't going to survive this conversation at all; he may as well not try too hard to hold onto it. "I was hoping to be able to do something to help."

If that thing had to be never speaking to Gojyo again, it would still be better.

But all that's done, apparently, is make Gojyo think he's not even a person anymore.

No, of course it didn't help. This isn't the time to joke about shit, he chides himself, forcing himself to not look away from the expression on Hakkai's face. He did that. He hurt this man, this man who is trying so hard to do right by the thing walking around in his lover's body.

Call him Asshole and order him to clean the kitchen, huh?

Because really, when it comes right down to it (and Gojyo's poor booze-soaked brains just aren't up for this conversation right now, but it's happening, and he's not running away again), are he and Banri all that much different? They were both assholes in life, both died, both had their memories stripped away, and now they're here, with a chance to make things right. If he's willing to throw away the only two friendships he ever hoped to know, if he's willing to live on the streets in order to get rid of some of the yakuza scum out there, then he can be honest with himself, and he can be honest with Hakkai.

Getting stabbed was so much easier than this. Wearily, he sits down on the bed.

"I know you loved him." He half-turns, not quite meeting Hakkai's gaze. "He loved you too, in case you didn't know." The ceiling is a safer conversation partner, so Gojyo directs his words up that way. "It's kinda embarrassing just how much he loved you. I mean..." He takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow. "I got hard every time I was around you because he loved you so much." Which was probably really uncomfortable for Hakkai, huh? "Sorry about that."

That's not love, is what Hakkai wants to say, bitter and defensive, warding off not just the claim that Gojyo had loved him, but the idea that Gojyo is gone, and this shaven-headed man slumped on the bed across from him is someone else. Desire isn't love, but that doesn't mean Gojyo doesn't know what he feels.

He leans his shoulder against the doorjamb, wondering what his face looks like. It feels like a mask, numb and slack.

"He was you." He doesn't even try to deny what Gojyo had said about his feelings; it's true, and he's glad that Gojyo knows. That he knew. "I was a shinki, too. Even if you don't remember, you're the same man. I just..."

He closes his eyes, trying to pick the right words. He wants them to be home again. Traveling again-- they were both going to die, but they'd both known that, and it would be all right. This is all some sick, extended joke.

"I want you to be someone you can live with," he says at last, leaving his eyes closed. "If that's someone who never sees me again, that's all right. If you died, however you died, ayakashi or yakuza or your own hand, it would kill me."

A week ago, that would have been the best thing Hakkai could have said. A week ago, he would have made some noises of reassurance, You're not worth dying for, never speak to me again, and he would have walked out the door and very happily never laid eyes on Hakkai again. But he's remembered a handful of things, and the only good ones have featured this man.

It might kill him, to never see Hakkai again. But isn't he making things worse by sticking around, taunting Hakkai with the idea that Sha Gojyo is still alive?

"I'm not him. I'm not going to die," he interrupts himself, kneading at the tight muscles in the back of his neck. "This is my chance to make up for all the shit that I did when I was alive, and I'm not throwin' that away." The pill's hit his stomach by now, and he licks his lips, debating whether it wants to stay down. A breath in, a breath out, and things seem to be stable so far. Okay.

Okay.

"But I'm not him anymore. And you know I'm not." He shouldn't be saying this. He's going to regret it. "You've never once looked at me the way you looked at him."

"You never wanted me to." Most of that time -- almost every time they've met, if Hakkai's being honest, it's started with suspicion and fear and gone downhill from there. Does Gojyo miss the trust between them? Does he miss Hakkai teasing him or laughing at his jokes? Hakkai's tried, but it goes so wrong, every time.

He's tried trusting Gojyo, and even that goes wrong. He opens his eyes, at last, seeking Gojyo's gaze.

"I don't know what you think you did when you were alive, and I couldn't tell you if it were true or not if you told me. You're not a saint, but you're a kind man, the sort who'd do anything for a stranger just because they needed help."

The corner of his mouth quirks, just a little, and he adds: "You still are."

Hakkai might think this is funny, but Gojyo sure as hell doesn't. "What I'm doing now, it's penance," he insists. Maybe Hakkai's pill is doing some good after all, because he's able to speak above a whisper and not feel it like a bolt through his head. Or maybe that's the anger and the guilt spurring him on. "A kind man wouldn't have done the things I've done." He holds up his wrong hand, counting off points on his fingers. "He wouldn't lead the mob to his friends' front door. He wouldn't have snapped at every hand that was reached out to him, and driven them away." His heart hurts by the time he's finished naming that sin. Sharak's loss is going to weigh heavy for a long time to come.

Looking away, he waggles his fingers. "He wouldn't have killed a man just to steal his arm." Hakkai needs to understand: just because he's been trying to help doesn't make him a good person. He's not good. And he's not a person. "A kind man would lie to you. Pretend to be who you want him to be."

"An unkind man wouldn't regret it so much." Hakkai steps forward, before he can second-guess himself, and takes Gojyo's new arm by the wrist, looking down at it. The tattoos, the heavier bone, the new shape of the hand: some dead man's, once, and Gojyo's now. "I've killed men for less."

He doesn't let go, not just yet, and he doesn't look up from the shape of Gojyo's new hand.

"And I don't want you to lie to me. But I do think you're wrong."

Hakkai can probably hear Gojyo's heart pounding. He can almost certainly feel the emotional shift that washes through Gojyo when he takes his hand -- it's desire, but not the physical kind. He wants, and that's the problem. He wants what that dead man had, wants to keep those gentle fingers against his skin. Wants to be held. Wants to be wanted.

To his shame, Gojyo feels the heat of tears prickling at the backs of his eyes. He jerks his hand away, launches himself off the bed, locks his arms across his chest and moves away until his back hits the far wall. "Agree to disagree," he snaps out, his voice gone rough and cruel. "Next topic."

The emotion hits Hakkai like a blow, all the complexities washed together into simple pain, an ache at the center of his chest. He has to force himself not to press his hand against it.

"I hope you don't expect me to tell you that you were a monster," he says, keeping his own voice conversational. "I'm biased. Take a shower. Borrow one of my shirts. Take dinner when you go, if you don't want to stay for it; I'm making braised pork."

His stomach snarls audibly at that, voicing its displeasure at the thought of walking away from a meal of home-cooked pork. Ashamed, Gojyo tightens his grip on his own chest and tries harder to press his back through the wall.

Every time he's let himself hope, the rug's been pulled out from beneath him (by others, by himself, by the goddamn universe itself). If he says yes, he's setting himself up for more pain, more grief. Gojyo will do something to destroy whatever this tentative thing is, Hakkai will come to his senses, they'll fight. He'll say things he'll regret later, and he'll find himself back in the back of a seedy bar, with no friends, no family.

(Assuming that Mr Boss even lets him back in. Gojyo's not sure who the muscle is that causes all those crates of liquor to fall off the backs of trucks, but he's either been killing his boss's co-workers or he's brought a war to his boss's front door. Either way, it'll be a wonder if Kinyobi opens again anytime soon.)

If he says no, if he walks away... where will he go? Finding a place to sleep is easy, stealing food is easy. Living is easy. Maybe he'll get lucky, he thinks, and he'll vanish next. His mouth twists into a wry grin, but then he meets Hakkai's gaze and then it's not funny anymore.

"I'll stay." He really couldn't sound more defeated, or look more pathetic. But what choice does he have? If he leaves, it'll hurt Hakkai. If he stays, this will fall apart and they'll go back to hating each other, but hate is easier to live with than grief. He can at least give Hakkai the chance to hate him.

Surprise flickers over Hakkai's face, and, glass-sharp behind it, a cautious flicker of hope.

Things could, after all, hardly be worse than they've been. (He'd say, without someone dying, but he's died, Gojyo's disappeared, Gojyo almost shot himself; it's simply that things can't be worse.) He doesn't know how long this truce will last, but if it's long enough to claw Gojyo back from his self-destructive spiral, perhaps that'll be enough.

He has to wonder, though, how the hell remembering Banri was enough to give away to Gojyo that Hakkai had loved him. Yes, there were quite a few dead gangsters in a basement, killed with an umbrella, but it's not as if he wouldn't have also done that for a friend.

Deciding not to question it, he nods towards the door.

"I'll show you the bathroom." And get a towel, and some of his clothes for Gojyo to change into; they're not exactly the same size, but they're close enough to borrow from one another.

He'll follow along, hands tucked into his pockets, head down, looking like a man on his way to his execution. When he finally gets into the shower, he'll use up every drop of hot water the temple can generate, and half of whatever soap Hakkai offers for him to use. But before any of that can happen, he has a phone call to make.

Terrible Idea Theater proudly presents...

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