cicer

Title: (You and Me) And the Devil Makes Three
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Mentions of violence, rape.
Author's Notes: For

briarwolf's request: Youkai!Hakkai/Gojyo: Gojyo shows Hakkai that he accepts everything about the other man. [Note: Rough sex a plus.] No sex, sadly. I just couldn't get them naked.

Beta'd by

lisa_bee.

***

Glasses clinked together as Gojyo set them down. Hakkai studied the condensation building on the cold bottles of beer that sat on the table. Gojyo pushed a glass over to Hakkai and gave him a quick, uncertain smile.

“Hey, help yourself, huh? Not everyday you come back from the dead, right?” Gojyo’s smile flickered and his eyes darted away, but he poured Hakkai a full glass of beer just the same.

For a moment, Hakkai felt a brief flash of anger: toward Sanzo for allowing Gojyo to think that he was dead and toward himself for not trying to contact Gojyo and let him know he was all right. Granted, he had been rather distracted at the moment. It had been quite disorienting, being dragged before the Three Aspects. And then the subsequent trial and being given a new identity, a new life. But that was really no excuse not to think of Gojyo.

After all, Gojyo had been unreasonably kind to him. He had taken Hakkai in without knowing who he was, given him medical attention without which he certainly would have died, offered him a place to stay, and never asked any questions. Gojyo deserved better from him.

Hakkai supposed there was nothing to be done for it now, though. Swallowing the faintly bitter taste of guilt, he said, “Indeed not. Though this is the first and last time, I hope.”

Gojyo laughed, though Hakkai thought it sounded vaguely strained. “Ah, come on. Might be nice to be immortal, don’t you think?”

Hakkai’s mind drifted to the carnage his own hands had caused: watching Kanan plunge a knife into her own belly, digging out his eye as his would-be murderer stared with an expression of horror.

He shut the memories away sharply. “No. I don’t.” His voice was rather colder than he’d meant it to be.

There was an awkward silence. Hakkai could hear the sounds of a noisy group of young people passing by outside. The sound filtered in through the dusty, smeared windows (had Gojyo washed them at all while he was gone?).

After a moment, Gojyo chuckled tensely, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled on the room. “Well, anyway. Drink up, huh?”

Hakkai obediently raised the glass to his lips and took a sip, swallowing against the burn of alcohol. Gojyo set his own glass back on the table and gave Hakkai the same hesitant smile he’d been giving him since they reached the house. There was an odd discomfort between them now. The weight of unasked questions was very heavy indeed. Hakkai had very little desire to share the answers to those questions with anyone, even Gojyo. But not answering them seemed almost equally painful.

“So,” Gojyo began slowly. Hakkai put his glass back on the table and looked at him. Gojyo was eyeing him carefully.

“What…” Gojyo trailed off hesitantly. “What exactly happened to you?” Hakkai sighed and studied the table, letting his eyes trail over the grain of the wood. The question was bound to be asked, and Gojyo certainly deserved the answer, he couldn’t deny that.

“After I went with Sanzo, you mean?” Hakkai asked. There was no point in evading the question or pretending he didn’t understand.

Gojyo’s eyes skittered away from his once again. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he said. “None of my business, I guess.” Hakkai frowned.

“I would say it is,” he said. Gojyo looked slightly surprised. “You helped me several times over, sometimes at a considerable risk to yourself, without asking for anything in return. I think the least I owe you is a full explanation.” Hakkai said quietly. Gojyo shook his head.

“You don’t owe me nothin’,” he muttered, reaching for his glass of beer once again, one hand fumbling for a lighter.

“I believe I do, but I won’t argue the point,” Hakkai said slowly. He watched Gojyo light a cigarette in short, jerky movements. “But if you would like to ask me anything, I would be happy to answer.” That wasn’t exactly the truth, and he supposed they both knew it. He would really rather not discuss the particulars of his crimes and his subsequent trial with anyone. He’d prefer to keep that guilt and shame to himself. Logically, he knew Gojyo was no innocent. Gojyo had doubtless seen a great deal of bloodshed in his own life, and Hakkai doubted that he would be disgusted by what he had done. Still, Hakkai was hesitant to tell him. But it was the least Gojyo deserved.

Gojyo licked his lips and studied his glass. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he hedged. “I was just wondering…” Gojyo trailed off before gathering himself and plunging on, “I was just wondering what exactly you did. But like I said, it’s your business.”

“No,” Hakkai said, taking a slow breath. “No. I don’t mind.” How to begin? Hakkai took another deep breath. “I told you about my…sister? Kanan?”

Gojyo looked sharply at him. “Yeah.”

“I told you that I had lost her,” Hakkai said carefully. Gojyo nodded, his eyes fixed on Hakkai’s face now. “She was kidnapped from the village where we lived.”

Hakkai could clearly see the shock on Gojyo’s face. This was obviously not what Gojyo had expected to hear. He nodded for Hakkai to continue.

“She was taken by Hyakugan Maoh, a centipede demon.” Gojyo startled slightly, and swore quietly under his breath. Hakkai turned to look at him more closely. “You know of him?”

“Heard of him, yeah,” Gojyo said, a slight frown creasing his face. “Not a very nice guy.”

Hakkai chuckled, low and humorless. “No, indeed he wasn’t.”

Gojyo seemed to catch the use of the past tense and gave a short little laugh. “Wasn’t, eh?” Hakkai smiled faintly.

“I went after her, after I found out she had been taken.” He paused, trying to think of the best way to put the next part. “She was at Hyakugan Maoh’s castle in a demon village. I killed all its inhabitants to reach her.”

Hakkai looked at Gojyo to see his reaction. He was slightly surprised that Gojyo didn’t seem particularly shocked.

“I was too late, though.” Hakkai went on quietly.

“She was dead already?” Gojyo asked softy.

“No,” Hakkai said, smiling thinly. “She was alive. But she was pregnant with Hyakugan Maoh’s child.”

Gojyo was very still. Hakkai was silent a moment. Before he’d been gone before Sanzo and the Three Aspects, it would have seemed incredible to him to be talking to anyone about this. But after telling his tale to the gods and Sanzo, it seemed slightly easier. It was still painful, though.

“She took my knife before I could stop her,” Hakkai continued. “She stabbed herself in the stomach.”

Gojyo looked away, closing his eyes briefly. “Jesus,” he said.

Hakkai studied his hands, smiling faintly. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t even protect her in the first place. And the people I killed in my attempt…many of them were quite innocent. They had done nothing wrong, only had the misfortune of existing in Hyakugan Maoh’s village. But I killed them all. The soldiers, the men even the women and children.”

For the first time, Gojyo flinched a little, but didn’t recoil. Hakkai wondered vaguely what exactly it would take to make this man hate him. What it would take to make him see Hakkai as monster

“Those were the crimes I had to pay for,” Hakkai finished. “And I suppose part of my punishment was what happened to me afterward.”

“What do you mean?” Gojyo asked, his voice low. Hakkai smiled again.

“Have you ever heard the legend of the demon slayer? They say that one who kills a thousand youkai will become one himself.”

Gojyo was staring at him rather blankly, in apparent disbelief. “So you’re saying you…” he trailed off, blinking at Hakkai.

Hakkai pushed a bit of his hair back so that Gojyo could get a better look at his new power limiters. “Yes. It appears that this is one legend that has some truth in it.”

Gojyo stared, mouth slightly open, for several moments before he recovered himself and closed it.

Gojyo looked so startled that for a moment Hakkai reconsidered the wisdom of telling him this. Finally Gojyo barked a short laugh. “Wow,” he shook his head, still looking shocked. “Wasn’t expecting that that. So…the whole time…you were…?”

“Yes,” Hakkai said. Gojyo shook his head and laughed quietly.

“Well,” he said, “That’s some story. I mean, I had a few ideas of what you might’ve done, but I was pretty far off the mark.”

“Oh?” Hakkai asked, faintly amused and gratified at Gojyo’s easy acceptance of his past. “What did you think had happened to me?”

Gojyo chuckled and took and took another drag off his cigarette, refilling his glass of beer. “I dunno. Maybe some bar fight gone wrong, or something. Just…wasn’t expecting that.” He put his cigarette out and studied Hakkai more closely. “I really couldn’t tell by just looking at you.” He tilted his head, one hand toying with the glass. Hakkai nodded, his faint smile back in place.

“The gods were kind enough to provide me with these limiters,” he answered. Gojyo’s relaxed attitude reassured him and he felt comfortable to speak of this more easily. “They restrain my youkai powers and allow me to maintain a human appearance.”

Gojyo smiled a bit wryly at this and Hakkai could guess what was going through his mind. Gojyo himself could pass for a human only among those who were ignorant of the meaning behind his unique coloring. Hakkai himself had not known that red hair and eyes were the mark of half-breeds until Gojyo told him so. When Hakkai had first awoken in Gojyo’s home, he had thought himself in hell. Even after Gojyo had convinced him otherwise, he still half-believed that Gojyo was there to serve as his personal memory of the crimes he had committed, to remind him of his guilt and the penance he had yet to pay.

Your red hair and eyes strike me as an admonition, Gojyo-san.

His own words. And it was not until he had left Gojyo that he understood how much he had taken advantage of him.

It was not only that he had taken advantage of Gojyo’s hospitality and willingness to let him live in his house and sleep in his bed. He had seen Gojyo as a punishment and a salvation, as someone to remind him of his guilt with his coloring and his very presence. And at the same time he had allowed himself to gain comfort in Gojyo’s company. He had reassured himself with the “human-contact”, so to speak.

He felt guilty about this now, guilty for taking advantage of what Gojyo could provide him. He had been happy to take all the reassurance he could take in Gojyo, in the odd domesticity they had established together.

But he had never considered Gojyo’s feeling about the matter, or what he might need from their friendship. It was this guilt that had partly pushed Hakkai to return to Gojyo. He felt he needed to offer explanations and try to make amends.

Gojyo leaned forward, studying Hakkai again. “So when you take those off, do you look like a youkai?”

“Yes,” Hakkai said softly. When he had been before the Three Aspects, they had forced him to transform, for the first time since he had been in Hyakugan Maoh’s village. He had been thoroughly ashamed to appear before such holy beings in such a demonic form, but they had insisted it was necessary for them to create to limiters that would maintain his human appearance and contain his bloodlust. It was necessary, they had said, for him to shed his past and truly become Cho Hakkai.

As much as that event had been his rebirth and salvation, it was not a memory he cared to revisit. His own youkai blood was a stain to him, and he would rather not focus on the times it had been most apparent.

Gojyo’s next words shook him out of his retrospections forcefully. “Can I see?”

Hakkai just stared at Gojyo in shock for several seconds, until Gojyo finally flinched back. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I didn’t mean…never mind. I was just…just curious. I guess you’re not…too comfortable like that. I didn’t think. Sorry.”

Still somewhat aghast at Gojyo’s request, Hakkai lacked the presence of mind to respond as he would’ve liked. He meant to say something along the lines of, that’s all right, Gojyo, never mind, and quickly change the subject. Instead, what he blurted out was, “Why would you want to see me like that?” in a tone of rather obvious horror.

Gojyo flinched again, and looked quite uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Still caught up in his own feelings of shock and horror, Hakkai did not think as he replied, “It is a disgusting form. I’d rather not be reminded of my own filth.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. The look of shock and hurt on Gojyo’s face was obvious and Hakkai felt an immediate rush of guilt and self-revulsion. This was how he intended to make amends to the man who had helped him in the darkest hour of his life? By insulting him and bringing up memories of his own broken family? How sensitive of you, he thought to himself rather savagely. How very compassionate and tactful. That will certainly make him understand. Well done, Hakkai.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone quiet and apologetic. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

Some of the hurt eased off Gojyo’s face, and the shock faded away. “It’s okay. I understand. After what happened to your sister…I guess it’s natural you’d feel that way.”

“It was uncalled for,” Hakkai repeated, feeling the need to make Gojyo understand what he had meant by his harsh words. “It is…how I feel about myself, and the people who hurt Kanan. That’s all.”

Gojyo smiled at him, somewhat shakily, and Hakkai felt a sudden glow of emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since Kanan was alive. She used to look at him and just smile. He knew she loved him and would forgive him anything, even his failure to save her.

Hakkai supposed it seemed odd to compare Gojyo and Kanan. They were such outwardly different people. But on the inside…they were both deeply caring people, capable of great love, loyalty, and forgiveness.

“It’s okay,” Gojyo told him, offering him another quiet, understanding smile.

I do not deserve them, Hakkai thought. I did not deserve her, and I do not deserve a second chance.

But wouldn’t it be a greater crime to throw that second chance away, now that he had it? If the gods saw fit to offer him another chance at life and love, it was not his place to reject it, was it?

Forgive me, Kanan. Perhaps, if I can find a way to redeem myself, I will see you again someday.

Hakkai watched Gojyo as he reached over to fetch fresh beers for both of them, red hair falling in his face.

Perhaps, then, he had misunderstood. Perhaps the color was not meant as an admonition but as an opportunity. Perhaps, through Gojyo, Hakkai could finally find a way to peace with himself.