thenearshore | Enthusiasm (n.), orig. the state of having a god within

Entry tags:

Enthusiasm (n.), orig. the state of having a god within

Who: Gojyo (

erogappa), Kurama (

ivegotasword)
What: Retrieving a missing god
When: Forward-dated to the afternoon of May 11th
Where: Starting in Sapporo, Near Shore
Warnings: Overblown drama, suicide attempt

Sapporo, Japan

It wasn't the right restaurant. He knows his shrine, the special spot, the door to heaven, and it's in a Greek restaurant. He can't read Japanese -- not on his best day, and today is far from that -- but he knows the smell of the place by now. After this last week, he'll never get the smell of Greek food out of his nose ever again.

He shudders, leaning heavily against the chilly cement side of a towering office building. The cold shocks him awake, but it's only a temporary reprieve. Sleep is hard on his heels, sleep and him and his army -- they're lurking in every shadow, behind every corner, ready to spring the instant Gojyo closes his eyes. He can't close his eyes. Not until he's safe.

But it was the wrong restaurant. He tricked him, made him think he was in Japan, in Tokyo, on the right street the right town the right planet the right universe, but he's not. This isn't where he's supposed to be.

His foot slips out from under him, exhausted muscles failing. Without any forethought he punches the side of the building, hard enough to split the skin on his knuckles and leave a brillint red smear on the mottled grey wall. The pain helps, until it doesn't. He stumbles on.

He needs to find the restaurant. He can't go home without the restaurant, but if he heads right for it, then he will know where it is. He will learn Gojyo's secrets. If he gets to heaven, then he'll kill everyone. Gojyo tucks his bleeding hand into his stomach. It hurts. He can't remember why -- he must have been fighting. They keep trying to catch him, drag him back. He won't let that happen.

The wind whispers as it zips through the city streets, airy voices that promise a failed hunt and a swift and brutal recapture. He has to run, but running is impossible. Walking is impossible; he stumbles, catching himself on the edge of a dumpster. He can't keep going.

He'll rest then, okay. Just for a few minutes. In the alleyway behind a Layton Station, Gojyo tucks himself into a ball and tries desperately not to fall asleep.

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Hakkai's grip on him tightens, pulling him out of the coils of the snake, lifting him out and out of the sticky climbing clawing bog that had trapped him for so long. Gojyo clings back, hands knotted in Hakkai's clothes and face buried in the crook of Hakkai's neck.

"Are you real?" he murmurs softly, fatigue adding a childish lilt to his voice. "I don't know what's..." He trails off, then his grip tightens.

"Don't let me sleep."

"I wouldn't make anything stronger than a gentle nudge, but if you'd rather convince him to sleep on his own instead, I won't interfere." Not that he thinks it'll work, given the state Gojyo's in, but Hakkai's not his shinki so Kurama's not about to try ordering him around. (The fact that Hakkai is a grown man and a demon currently operating on a hair trigger are considerably less important.)

"Thank you," Hakkai says politely, and inclines his head very slightly to Kurama (slightly, so as not to startle Gojyo, whose breath is warm against his neck.) "I think I can manage him."

He shifts his grip on Gojyo's shoulders, from supportive to something a little more like a comforting embrace, and he strokes his hand along Gojyo's sweat-matted hair. His glance at Kurama is bland.

"Yes," he says softly to Gojyo. "I'm real. You should rest, Gojyo..."

Gojyo doesn't answer. His grip on Hakkai's shirt hasn't relaxed one bit, but he's fallen asleep right where he's standing.

Putting Gojyo to bed hadn't turned out nearly as challenging as Hakkai had feared. Leaving him there to sleep off whatever was affecting him, though, had been harder. It was only midafternoon, but he'd found himself checking in at the door every few minutes, or pausing to focus on the hint of youki on the other side of the temple. Shinki didn't know when their gods were distressed or hurt. The bond only worked in one direction, and he hadn't noticed when Gojyo was taken from the temple before.

He'd found his phone, though, and made tea, and brought that with a pitcher of water and a glass upstairs just in case Gojyo woke up thirsty.

Then, giving up, he'd settled into the armchair in the corner of the bedroom to watch Gojyo sleep and pass the word that he'd returned to the handful of other gods and shinki who'd been helping to look. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd fallen asleep too, relief combining with several days of bad sleep to ambush him as his initial outrage slowly faded.

Those first few hours of sleep, Gojyo was dead to the world. He didn't wake up when Hakkai brought him inside, and didn't so much as turn over between one visit and the next, his breathing deep and slow. But his sleep could only be dreamless for so long.

Around the time the sun begins to set, changing the light in the room to a cooler, darker blue, Gojyo's sleep stops being quite so restful. His movements are small at first -- a muscle in his arm jumps, there's a quick hiss of indrawn breath -- but as the nightmare progresses his responses become more agitated. The sheets tangle around his legs, and in his unconscious attempts to free himself he falls right out of the bed, hitting the floor with a crash.

The crash of Gojyo hitting the floor brings Hakkai out of the chair to his feet, ready to lash out before he even remembers where he is. The light's almost gone, twilight gloom settling heavily across the tangled sheets and bulking furniture. They must have been asleep for hours.

"Gojyo?" He stoops, reaching out for Gojyo's shoulder among the welter of sheets that had followed him to the floor. A nightmare? Or had he woken in the same confusion he'd gone to sleep in?

And what had they done to him -- Hakkai's mind supplies a thousand dark what-ifs, breathing a chill down his neck, and his expression closes blankly down. No, he's not thinking about any of that until Gojyo's recovered enough to hint at who was responsible.

More to lighten his own mood than Gojyo's, he adds, "You didn't fall on your head, I hope? It's only just healed from last time."

Still half-asleep, Gojyo fights frantically with the sheets, yanking them from his body and kicking hard until he's free. Only then do his surroundings register.

"Hakkai?" He clamps his own hand over Hakkai's on his shoulder, staring hard at the man's face, waiting for it to shift into another nightmare vision. But it seems real enough. The room he's in... this is his room in the temple. "How did I get here?"

Gojyo's eyes focus as though he's seeing Hakkai, and not whatever hallucinations had tormented him before. Relief wells up into a small, reassuring smile, and Hakkai frees his hand from Gojyo's shoulder, holding it out in a silent offer to help him up.

"Kurama found you in Sapporo," he says. There's a part of him that wants to stay there on the floor, curl up around Gojyo like a climbing vine restored to its trellis, and soothe him back to sleep from the nightmare. It's outvoted, slightly, by an uneasy coalition of pride and practical concern about how much both of their backs would hurt in the morning from sleeping on the floor.

Gently, instead, he suggests, "You should rest."

He takes Hakkai's hand automatically, before his brain even catches up to the intent behind the action. Oh -- he should stand. Okay. He tightens his grip on Hakkai's hand and pulls himself unsteadily up. He's not physically injured -- he's not even physically exhausted -- but getting his arms and legs and everything to coordinate enough to stand takes more effort than it should.

He definitely needs more rest.

But he shakes his head. "I'm good." If it turns out that this is just a dream -- or a spell -- then he thinks he might actually go mad. The only way to be sure is to stay awake and in the moment, and make sure that what he's seeing is real.

He might not want to sleep, but he definitely needs to rest. He's more than a little wobbly. "Gonna sit down, though," he chuckles, dropping back heavily onto the bed. He doesn't seem to realize that he's still holding Hakkai's hand.

Gojyo's hand is still clasped firmly around his own, and Hakkai considers the awkwardness of standing next to his bed holding his hand for a few seconds before settling down on the edge of the mattress next to him. He doesn't make any effort to free his fingers. The grip is obscurely reassuring.

Not wholly reassuring, though, when he still has no idea how Gojyo might have been spirited away. When he doesn't know, he doesn't know how to stop it from happening again.

Into the silence, he murmurs, "Do you remember what happened?"

Please think about what happened to you all over again, and say it out loud so everyone can know how weak you are and what you were forced to do, Hakkai asks, and Gojyo closes his eyes. He's right. It needs to be said.

"It was an old wizard," he offers at last, opening his eyes again and fixing them on a point on the far wall. "A priest, I think. He wanted to call down a god to, I don't know. Bless his town or something." At least, that's what he gathered in the few minutes the old man had remained alive. "But he was too old, his body wouldn't bear the strain, so he summoned me to possess his grandson instead."

He can't hide his disgust at the memory of the grandson; his grip on Hakkai's hand tightens to a point where it's got to hurt. "The grandson wasn't exactly civic minded."

The shadows in the room aren't enough to soften the way Gojyo's face twists at the memories. Hakkai doesn't flinch as his grip goes from comfortable to bone-grindingly tight, watching his face instead. So it was some sort of spell. The summoning of a god, by a mortal priest -- into the body of some man who used Gojyo's power for his own ends...?

Slowly, he nods, and looks away from Gojyo's face, at that same vague area of the opposite wall that's absorbing the other man's attention. The emotion on Gojyo's face is too raw to continue intruding on, and even if Hakkai has one more question, he wants to offer that little sliver of privacy.

"Are either of them still alive?"

The power to summon a god into someone else's body, he thinks, is the kind of power it's better no mortal retain. If there's someone still living who does know how to do it, he's quite willing to solve that particular problem himself.

Gojyo doesn't need to be troubled with it.

Hakkai might have only one more question -- Gojyo shakes his head, glancning at Hakkai briefly but then looking down and away again -- but there's more that has to be said.

"It was like we were the same person." It's easier to tell this part of the story to the far wall, his face fully turned away from Hakkai's. He'd like to curse himself for a coward, but he's got too many reasons to be damned that have to come first. "I saw out of his eyes, when his arm moved mine did too. I kept forgetting it wasn't me doing those things."

And those things are the main reason he's not asleep. They're the reason he's not going to sleep much for the next several days. "He... I... we killed people. And worse." So very much worse. He can't keep holding on to Hakkai when he confesses this, not now that his hands are this filthy. "I still see them."

Gojyo lets go as he speaks, looking away, as if drawing into himself, and Hakkai's gaze shifts back to his face.

Very deliberately, he reaches over to take Gojyo's hand again.

"You didn't kill them," he says. His voice is quiet, but utterly certain. Gojyo didn't kill them; Gojyo didn't do worse to them. "You were the weapon."

He's never been forced to kill against his will -- he's never had a god who wasn't trustworthy, and a shinki can sting to defend their own conscience -- but he knows that sense of helplessness. He's been forced not to act, before, against his will. It's not as bad. It's not nearly as bad, but he still knows, in his bones, exactly why Gojyo is not to blame.

Gojyo looks down at Hakkai's hand wrapped around his own, a confused frown sketched broadly across his face. "You don't understand," he murmurs. But how can he? How can anyone really understand? He'd fought at first, sure, but only at first. How can you fight against your own hands, your own body? After those first few days, after he'd grown too tired to fight anymore, after the drugs and the sleep deprivation had started putting flickers in the corners of his/their eyes... after he had grown bored with granting quick deaths... after he'd begun to forget that they weren't one person, it had gotten easier. "It was still me." Sometimes, he'd even enjoyed it. Sometimes, he'd...

He can't stay still. Tearing himself off the bed, Gojyo paces the length of the room, hands knotting in his hair as he yanks it out of his face. He's got to have cigarettes in here somewhere, right? In a table drawer, behind the clock? Somewhere. "I need a goddamn cigarette."

"I might not understand, but I know you didn't choose to do it." Hakkai leans over to pull open the bedstand drawer. He'd found a half-empty pack crumpled in the kitchen and put it away there a few days ago. In case.

Matches he doesn't have, but he tosses the pack underhand to Gojyo regardless.

This doesn't seem like the moment to make a fuss about smoking indoors.

He snatches the pack out of midair, but he doesn't have any matches either. All his lighters have disappeared, there's none on any of the surfaces he can see... he shoves a pile of crap off the endtable, and takeout menus from a double dozen places go flying, but there's no lighter in there. There's nothing.

He spins on his heel -- fuck, he can't even manage to light a damn cigarette, how much more worthless can you get? -- and his back hits the wall. He slams his fist back into it, hard enough that the plaster creaks, and slides down into a crouch, face buried in his hands, trying to catch his breath.

The papers spin to the floor in a silence broken only by Gojyo's harsh breathing. Hakkai watches, startled still, as the seconds tick by and he tries out helpful phrases for usefulness. It's all right. It's not your fault. You're safe now. No. Worthless, all of them, and mostly false: even the true one, it's not your fault, falls dead on repetition.

Instead, at last, he gets to his feet with a whisper of fabric and crosses the room. A Domino's menu crumples under his foot as he crouches down beside him, and another glossy sheet of paper slides under his knee as it hits the floor. He reaches out to rest a hand on Gojyo's shoulder, very lightly, offering whatever comfort his presence might be worth.

Gojyo's much better at this than he is, he concludes, and the corner of his mouth tilts up at the not-really-funny-at-all thought.

He should have been stronger. He should have fought harder. He should have found some way to stop the man, should have at least found some way to warn all those people. He's a god. He should have been better. He should have saved them. His breath comes in short harsh gasps, uneven and not nearly deep enough, until he finally slaps his hand over his own mouth, fingers together like he's holding a cigarette to his lips. Only then, miming a drag off a cigarette, is he able to get his breathing back under control.

Hakkai's touch is so light Gojyo can barely feel it. It feels uncertain, distant. Like he's not really there... like he doesn't want to be there. Hell, Gojyo can't blame him for that. This is the second god Hakkai's had vanish -- he must have been so worried, and for what? For some fake drunk god who couldn't even manage to break free of a man so high he was chewing on his own hands? If he was worthy of feeling shame, this would be the most humiliating moment of his life.

...And if he keeps up acting like this, Hakkai's going to start feeling guilty, isn't he? Shit. Gojyo scrubs at his face with his palms -- he's not crying, but god, right now he kinda wishes he could -- and sucks in a chest-rattling lungful. Get it together. Quit feeling sorry for yourself.

"I should get some more sleep," he says at last.

Gojyo is back, and yet, watching him struggle to breathe, struggle to control himself, Hakkai feels as though he's still miles away. Miles away, and utterly incompetent, he corrects: this pain calls for warmth, for support and comfort.

Also, he supposes, for sleep. At this rate, the nightmare that had shaken Gojyo onto the floor just minutes ago wasn't going to be the only one.

And here he is hovering at arms'-length. Abruptly, disgusted at his own uncertainty, he leans forward to pull Gojyo into an embrace.

And then, just when he's managed to convince himself that Hakkai is only hiding his disgust out of some perverse form shinki loyalty, Gojyo finds himself crushed against the other man. He raises his hands to push Hakkai away, but his traitor body betrays him: first resting flat against Hakkai's chest, then clinging to his shirt... and then, finally, wrapping around his back and holding on for dear life.

It's like a weight's been lifted off his chest. A jaw-cracking yawn works its way free, but instead of pulling back he leans more into Hakkai, turning his face into the crook of his shoulder, flooding his senses with the other man's presence. He's back. He's safe. He'll find a way to atone for what he did. Hakkai's still here... and Goku and Sanzo too, he's sure. He was lucky, this time. There won't be a next time. He swears it.

"I'll get stronger," he promises into Hakkai's pulse, an echo of a long-ago Goku. "Will you help me?"

For a moment, as Gojyo's palms press against his chest, Hakkai thinks he's guessed wrong, that Gojyo needs that distance between them after all. He catches his breath against the sinking cold of the thought, waiting for the shove until he realizes that Gojyo's fingers are, instead, clenching in the fabric of his shirt to hold him close.

He turns his face against Gojyo's hair, taking another, deeper breath. Stronger. As if he's to blame, still... but the words seem right despite that. Strong enough that he won't be stolen away.

... Indestructibly strong. That would be enough. Hakkai's smile is invisible, in the dark, buried against Gojyo's loose hair. Perhaps he'll manage to get a little stronger in the meantime, too.

"Yes."

Gojyo just nods, not wanting to ruin the moment with words. He'll get stronger, yes. And with Hakkai helping he'll do a much better job of it than he would on his own. He's been given powers -- it's about damn time he learned how to use them. Once he's recovered -- once he's rested -- he'll go see Kurama again. And that war god, what was her name? Bitchymon? He'll take Hakkai out, and they'll fight together, side by side and as god and shinki.

And then, when he can let himself think about it, he'll figure out some way to make it up to the families of those... of those he...

Shit.

He wants nothing more than to pull Hakkai in even closer, but instead he lifts his face back, hands loosening. "Damn, this is embarrassing," he chuckles, and there's almost a thread of real humor in his tone. "You've got to be tired of lookin' after me by now."

"You can make it up to me later," Hakkai assures him, dryly, and sits back on his heels without quite yet letting go. He hesitates for a moment, considering Gojyo's face. It's still marked deeply with exhaustion.

Gojyo is right: he should rest, and not fight himself screaming onto the floor.

"May I sleep here tonight?" It's not an unselfish question. He won't be resting well in his own room, not as afraid as he is of another abrupt disappearance, and the armchair is a thoroughly terrible place to get a night's sleep.

Enthusiasm (n.), orig. the state of having a god within

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[timeskip - May 12th]

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