You promised me heaven then put me through hell

[erogappa]

Who: Sha Gojyo and the Kenren formerly known as General
What: WINE GOD PARTY
When: Afternoon/evening of 6 April
Where: Villa Dionysus
Warnings: ah ha ha ha will update as needed


Apparently he was just blessed. He had blessings coming out his ass (not that it was getting used for anything else lately) -- not an hour after he left the school and returned to the Far Shore, the place was attacked by a whole flock of ayakashi. Or maybe a wizard... reports hadn't all been the clearest. Monsters, that was the important part. Monsters attacked the place he'd just left, the place where all his friends, old and new, were holed up without him. As if he hadn't been feeling worthless enough as it was, fuck. And some guy had identified him not only as a youkai but as a fucking kappa and dredged up all kinds of feelings he'd thought he'd put aside as a child, and something was going on with Sanzo that he hadn't had a chance to poke into, and Elsa had basically accused him of forcibly enslaving Sanzo, and that wasn't even touching the creep who'd known he was a hanyou. Fucking blessed.

Gojyo shuddered, tossing back another swig of wine. There was something seriously wrong with that guy. He'd have to remember to tell Sanzo and Hakkai about him... somehow. Maybe he could send them a letter. Dear shit monk and Hakkai, please take notice of some scary asshole named Ni Jenny who knows things that I can't talk about because they might kill you, love Gojyo. Yeah. Brilliant idea.

At least he had plenty of wine to drown his pathetic sorrows. Gojyo drained the dregs of the one bottle (a red, so dark it was almost like drinking jam and it left a sour taste on the back of his tongue) and reached for another. His too-big house felt even bigger when he was the only soul inside (Banri's ghost was probably somewhere, but he tried hard not to think about that). "FUCK!" he yelled, just to hear his voice echo off the far wall. It didn't really make him feel better, but at least it didn't make him feel any worse? "FUUUUUUUUCK!"

Comments

[scatterproudly]

"You know, I usually don't get to hear that one until the part where I'm tangled in bed with someone. This is new."

Kenren grinned from the edge of the door and hoped Gojyo wouldn't be too drunk to forget they'd met before. All things considered, it had been pretty rude of him to waltz into Gojyo's—Dionysus's temple just like that, but how else was he supposed to figure out if he was home in the first place? The place had no doorbell and yelling for him from outside was sure to get other people's attention.

Plus, he had an invitation and from the looks of it, Gojyo did indeed need this as much as Kenren himself.

[erogappa]

Gojyo jerks up in his finely carved chair, dropping his bottle onto the plush carpet and spilling out a gush of bloody red wine onto the fine pattern (everything in the goddamn house looks like it cost so damn much money -- it pisses him off just thinking about it). "Kenren!"

He most decidedly had not been expecting company. The rest of the house is immaculate as always, but the great hall is a disaster. At one end -- the end Kenren enters -- the vast slab of a table is littered with empty bottles, cigarettes ground out into the varnish, and empty takeout and pizza boxes. The far end was probably intended to be the social area for after-dinner cigars -- there's a bunch of comfortable-looking chairs gathered in one semi-circle, and a pair of couches in a second semi-circle against the windows. The whole place would scream fine Greek-inspired taste, if not for the attempts of the drunken redhead lounging at the end of the table to turn the place into the worst example of a bachelor pad. At least he was wearing pants! No shirt, of course -- that particular item was probably one of the pieces of clothing crumpled up under the table -- but at least he's got pants on. Pants, and a growing smile.

"...Yo."

[scatterproudly]

The moment Gojyo drops the bottle on the carpet is the moment Kenren finally feels regret about having entered his house without permission. He grimaces, quickly looking away from the spreading red, only for his eyes to be met with... the rest of the room.

His own temple is not nearly as big as Dionysus. The architecture and some of the decorations are very similar, but Kenren's feels more open (at least to himself). Then again, he hasn't spent a lot of time in it yet, so maybe if he looks closer he'll find more (unsurprising) similarities. Idly, in the back of his mind, he starts worrying about the size of the messes Tenpou will be making in his own home and firmly he decides he's not going to be cleaning that.

"Sorry for the intrusion," he shakes his head to try and focus on the matter at hand and starts making his way across the hall. "Is it a bad time?"

Or are you always like this? is the implied, unsaid question. But Kenren suspects he's happier without an answer to that.

[erogappa]

If he cared what Kenren thought of him, he might actually have flushed at that. As it is, Gojyo looks away under the pretense of finding his lighter from where it's fallen onto the floor. He knows he's a mess, okay? This kind of pathetic shit isn't like him at all, but he's got too many lines pulling him in too many directions, and he keeps feeling his grip slip on the ones that matter the most. So maybe he gets sloppy drunk sometimes, fucking sue him.

He doesn't say any of that, of course. "Bad for you, maybe." The lighter gets tossed onto the table and he reaches back underneath, fishing around in the crate at his feet. He pulls out an unopened bottle -- this one's clear glass, and the wine inside is a gleaming orangey-gold. "I'm at least two bottles ahead, so you'd better hurry an' catch up."

[scatterproudly]

"Heh. How generous of you, O Great Dionysus", Kenren bows in an exaggerated manner and pulls a chair for himself. Then, he takes the bottle of wine and holds it up to scrutinize the liquid inside against the light.

"Any idea what it is? I mean, I'll drink it anyway, but it's always nice to know." Kenren would be lying if he wasn't excited at the possibility of some fancy, god-exclusive wine he'd never tried before.

[erogappa]

Gojyo just shrugs. "Wine?" They aren't poisonous or anything... and if Kenren's turned off by the gold color then there's plenty of crisp whites and ruby reds and pinks and even a bottle of brandy in there somewhere.

He lights his cigarette and exhales a long cloud of smoke, enjoying the rush that comes from a truly lip-tinglingly deep drag. Or maybe that's just all the wine. "Grape wine, mostly. I know that Asshole makes some from th'grapes out back, but most of this was here when I got the place." It's not bad wine, either, not that he knows the difference. "Too bad I couldn't be th'god of beer, though. That'd be so much better than wine."

[scatterproudly]

Kenren shrugs at the non-answer, works for him. He opens the bottle and sniffs it first, whatever this wine is, it doesn't smell bad. If anything, he feels slightly bad at how good it looks.

"Yeah, I would've preferred to be the good of sake myself—wine's always felt like a waste on a heavy smoker like me."

He finally takes a swig of the bottle and hums in approval. "Who's 'that asshole'? Your shinki?"

[erogappa]

If he was paying money for it, it might have been a waste. But since it's free and just sitting in the basement? Fuck it. He's a god, and no wine served to a god is wasted, right?

...Yeah, he doesn't believe that shit either.

"He's a creepy fuckin' ghost, is what he is," Gojyo mutters, glancing warily over his shoulder to make sure Asshole hasn't magically appeared there. He's so damn quiet that it wouldn't be the first time Gojyo turned around and bam -- face to face with a dead man. Thankfully, Asshole seems to be willing to leave them alone for now. "Doesn't talk, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep... he just wanders around th'place scaring the shit outta me."

[scatterproudly]

Kenren instinctively looks around and behind him as well. "You know that sounds awfully familiar, I thought only mine was like that and was starting to worry."

He had barely interacted with his own shinki so far, she was cool-looking lady who seemed very efficient at... whatever it is that she did, but she wasn't the talkative type. Kenren figured it would be better to keep a strictly business-like relationship, though he had to admit he would have preferred an associate he could be on friendlier terms with, especially if they were going to spend so much time together.

Without asking, he reaches for the pack of cigarettes on the table, ready to light one for himself before he realizes that even though they are exactly the same brand, these are not his smokes. He chuckles to himself, leaving it back in its place and fishes inside his pocket to get his own.

[erogappa]

They smoke the same brand, huh? Well of course they do! Hi-Lite is the best cigarette, and Kenren's clearly got good taste. He wouldn't smoke something nasty like a Marlboro -- that would just be wrong!

"Oh yeah? Does yours sneak up on you too?" He takes another swig of his wine, and makes a face. The golden one is pretty, but it's really sweet. It's got fruit in it, he thinks... or fruit other than the grapes. Peaches, maybe. "I woke up a couple times in th'middle of the night and the asshole was just standin' over my bed." It still creeps him out, just to think about it. "I almost killed him right then and there."

[scatterproudly]

Back in Heaven Kenren had never been able to stick with the same brand of cigarettes for too long; he'd always just smoke whatever he could get his hands on while they were on missions down Below. His current job made things much easier, though, and he'd developed a taste for Hi-Lites.

"What the hell, no." No wonder Gojyo called him asshole. Seemingly lacking a will of their own was creepy enough to Kenren. "Have you tried telling him not to do that...?" Hey, it was worth asking.

[erogappa]

Gojyo just snorts. "Yeah, thanks mom, I hadn't thought of that." The wine is still too damn sweet, but he's too lazy (read: drunk) to bother searching for a better bottle right now. "He follows orders okay, I guess, so I can tell him to leave, but..." But it's complicated, okay.

"I don't like tellin' him what to do. He's a creep and he used to be worse'n that, but still. It doesn't feel right."

[scatterproudly]

Kenren's eyebrows arch up at that. "Wait, is he someone you actually know?" Awkwaaard. "Sorry, man." The more Kenren learns about Gojyo, the more the state of this room makes sense.

For what it's worth, he is doing his best to catch up with Gojyo's state of drunkenness, and he doesn't seem to mind the sweetness of the wine nearly as much. The problem is that when you're Kenren, your alcohol tolerance tends to be higher than the average person's; he idly wonders if he should have warned his host about that.

[bon_bon]

[ ooc: Coming in from here ]


They arrive some time late, in the blink of an eye. It's going to take a while to get used to this mode of transport. Konzen keeps forgetting that it's even possible. Funny that he never had such miraculous powers when he actually was a real god. Back then, all he really had was his heavenly rank and immortality, neither of which ended up doing him much good.

How he's been convinced to make this trip at all, he hardly knows. He did object rather vehemently at first, when Tenpou suggested it.

Why should Konzen have to hang out with Kenren (the dumbass with a stupid psycho shinki gun) and not-Kenren (the dumbass lookalike and associate/servant to the psycho shinki)? He's quite sure they're both being idiots.

Konzen looks upon the entrance-way to the garish and overblown house of Dionysus and frowns with disapproval.

"This place is hideous," he mutters, running his hand through his hair. He's wearing jeans, by the way. And a button-down shirt with a pair of (un-heeled) sandals on his feet. His other clothes didn't quite make it out of the jello fight in good order.

[blossomstorm]

Tenpou glances around. He's just wearing his usual labcoat over a dark shirt and white pants. His lab coat was taken away by his shinki last night, and when he returned it looked just like it did before the fight... Or maybe it's a new one? It looks tattered enough to be the original, though.

"It's not that bad," he says, amused. "This is Dionysus's place, so it shouldn't look too sober, don't you think?"

He takes out his phone and texts Kenren: We're coming in.

And then he speaks to Konzen again. "I told them we're here, so let's just go inside," since he seriously doubts they would be able to make it to the door in that state. But he's not saying that out loud. After all it took to bring Konzen here, some things are better left unsaid.

[scatterproudly]

Inside, Kenren appears to have followed Gojyo's example and mysteriously lost his shirt. He's catching up on the riveting answers to Gojyo's heavenly BBS post when a notification pops up on his screen, accompanied by a sudden buzz.

The following series of thoughts unfolds more or less like this: They're coming in? → Already? → But didn't I text him like five minutes ago? → Am I really that drunk? → Yeah, I guess I am, huh. → ... → ....... Wait, why did he say we? → Who is he coming with? → Konzen? It has to be Konzen, right? → Shit, I haven't told Gojyo yet. → Welp, I hope he doesn't get mad. → ... → But if he does, he can fight me again.

"Fight me, Gojyo," he blurts out flatly.

[erogappa]

Gojyo (shirtless, red-faced with drink, missing a shoe and with cigarette ash on his face) looks up from his phone with a confused disinterest.

"Huh? ...No, go fuck yourself, we already did that," he slurs, still poking at the tiny (so tiny! Why are they so tiny?) on-screen letter squares on phone. "You wanna fight, go fight Banri or something. I'm not fightin' you."

[bon_bon]

​"Huh?" How does a house look sober? Sometimes Tenpou says things that make little sense, but there's Tenpou for you. Konzen assumes that this means that whoever designed this house must've been sloshed out of their mind. As they walk through the house, he becomes more certain of this assessment. Some of the rooms are so gaudy he wonders if any sober person would find them comfortable. At least everything is clean.

Then they enter the dining room.

Konzen doesn't even have to step over the threshold before he realizes this is a mistake. The place looks like a typhoon hit it. Bottles everywhere. Greasy boxes of half gone food tossed haphazardly around. Overturned furniture. And two half-naked idiots sitting stupidly in the midst of it all, looking way too pleased with themselves. They're clearly drunk off their asses. Konzen ought to be more surprised, but he realizes this is probably exactly what he expected.

Still, he takes a moment to shoot a dangerous glare at Tenpou for making him come out here. Because he clearly knew what was waiting for them and deliberately chose not to say.

"You unbelievable bastard."

[blossomstorm]

Tenpou purposefully doesn't acknowledge that comment. He doesn't mind disaster areas, and he expected them to be drunk, but can they even talk in this state?

If they can't, he'll just grab a bottle for himself and Konzen and go back to his place. And never let Kenren live it down.

"Helloooooo, we're here," he calls out loudly. "I hope you didn't just make us come to show us there's someone messier than I am, Kenren. You could have just sent a picture."

[scatterproudly]

Before Kenren can ask who Banri is, Konzen and Tenpou make their triumphant entrance.

He sits up straight and waves at them cheerfully. "Yo!" Which right now, to Kenren, counts as shorthand for: Look! Totally not as wasted as I probably look! To-ta-lly.

Except then Tenpou has to remark on the state of the room. Kenren clears his throat and all but pouts at him. "Look, listen, most of it was already like this when I showed up. Sooo shut up, let's just drink and have fun."

Then he turns to Gojyo, as if to explain. "Alcohol tastes better when there's more of us, so I invited some company."

[erogappa]

Gojyo sits bolt upright when Konzen and Tenpou enter the room. He's met Konzen before (although he still does a double-take at the sight of Sanzo with long hair and an even bitchier expression), but it's Tenpou that really catches his attention.

Kenren says something about inviting company, but Gojyo's not listening. He shoves back from the table, kicking (stumbling, let's be honest) an empty wine bottle out of the way as he makes a beeline (again: stumbling) for Tenpou.

"No way," he breathes, enough wine on his breath to fell an ox. It's Hakkai, only it's not. His face is almost the same (only, like the other two, it's him-but-prettier), but he's... dirty. It's a dirty Hakkai.

He turns to Kenren with a mixture of shock and glee. "It's another Hakkai!" Sorry Tenpou. Welcome to villa Dionysus.

[scatterproudly]

Kenren sounds the opposite of impressed with this assessment.

"It's not a Hakkai."

He met Hakkai, Hakkai helped him during his Home Economics class, he would know.

[blossomstorm]

Excuse you, Gojyo, it's barely been twenty-four hours since Tenpou's last bath. There is a witness in the room and everything.

"Please call me Tenpou," he says. Gojyo's breath is something else, but hanging out with Kenren has apparently made Tenpou stronger than an ox, because he barely flinches at that.

Tenpou can tell this is going to be a trainwreck, but at least both Gojyo and Kenren are still capable of conversation, and his curiosity is piqued. So he turns to look at Konzen. He won't try to talk him into staying, especially not when he's making that face, but it might be good for him not to be alone now and distract himself a little. Tenpou could use some of that himself.

"What do you say, Konzen? Shall we join them?"

There's a hint of challenge there, of course, but it's also an honest question. He's not taking responsibility for this.

[bon_bon]

Tenpou ignores his comment, Kenren is completely wasted, and Gojyo stinks to high heaven and calls Tenpou Hakkai. What in the world did Konzen do to deserve this bullshit? The comparison to Hakkai just irritates him even more. The fact that Konzen's seen the resemblance too is irrelevant. That asshole sent him on his way so he could blindly run into the barrel of Sanzo's gun. And he probably didn't care if the bullet went through Konzen's skull, too. (Though really, why should Hakkai care? It's not like he's Tenpou. But being shot at can make you a little testy and irrational).

At least Kenren has enough wits about him to correct Gojyo's idiotic mistake.

And Tenpou ... is being especially sneaky. It's not like Konzen feels any pressure to stay, but how could he ignore that challenging tone that he swears he can hear? Tenpou looks all amiable and smiles, but Konzen knows better.

"Che," is all he says, which might be a yes. (But don't quote him on it).

Honestly, the alternative is his empty house. And while hanging out with drunken winos is hardly how he envisioned his evening, he finds it even more intolerable to be back there, in his white washed walls with just his thoughts. There've been too many messy ones to deal with lately.

[erogappa]

"Che," Gojyo mocks him back, pulling a face. He strides up to Konzen, jabbing a finger in the man's face.

"Don't you che my hospitality, you sham monk lookin' bastard!" He gestures roughly behind him, the movement briefly setting him off balance. "I'm offerin' you godly wine, okay, that shit's fancy enough for gods, so sit your god ass down and have a drink!" If anybody needed a drink, it was Sanzo's surly lookalike, Gojyo has decided, and he folds his arms in challenge.

"Unless you're too good to drink with th'likes of us."