Day 14: The Kanan Reboot
Okay. So this is another idea that's been floating around in my head for a while, and it started to coalesce while I was in the shower this morning. (I was so worried I'd lose the details before I got into a towel and sat at the computer!) It's the Kanan reboot, wherein it is not Hakkai Gojyo finds, but Kanan. And things are a little different from there.
Rated R overall, I guess. A little language, the usual sorts of trauma that go with the whole Hakkai-and-Kanan backstory, a bit of gore. Mostly I think it's an R rated one because it's so crazy serious and dark. What a change from yesterday's lighthearted harem fic!
=====
Gojyo was half in the bag and walking home from the bar when he found her. It had been raining that evening, but now that it was really dark out, the rain had tapered off to a nasty drizzle.
He found out later the drizzle had probably saved her life. If it'd been rain like before, she would have frozen to death before he even got close.
He practically stumbled over her in the dark of the forest. He'd thought she was a rock, at first, except there'd never been a rock there before. Also, rocks didn't moan.
"Hey," Gojyo said. "Can you hear me?"
He didn't have much light, just the flame from his lighter and a slightly gray gloom from overhead, but it was enough when he knelt in the mud of the road. Shit. This was bad. He didn't know if she'd been knifed or clawed, but her insides were on the outside, and there wasn't much to keep them in if he stuck them back. He stood up again. She was going to die.
Except she kept breathing, and her face was untouched. The water that gathered on her face made it look like she was crying.
Gojyo took off his shirt and tied it tight around her middle after he did his best to put her back together. He lifted her up in his arms and carried her home. All the way, her warm breath moved, ever so gently, across his neck.
It was a week gone from that night before she opened her eyes, though the doctor'd said not to hope even for that. Gojyo was really, really glad he didn't have to bury her out back.
"Is this hell?" she said. "I'd imagined something different."
The tone of her voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Nope," said Gojyo.
He pulled the bedside chair a little closer, and gorgeous, kind eyes focused on his.
"You're in my house, in my bed," he said. "I found you out there, brought you back."
"You could have let me die," she said. "It would have been the kind thing to do."
Her eyes wandered to the ceiling then, and she said nothing more for a time.
"It's amazing that you're alive," said Gojyo. "I put your guts back myself, but that didn't kill you, either. You're stronger than you think."
"Not really," she said.
Gojyo brought out a pack of cigarettes.
"Doc said I couldn't smoke inside while you were asleep, but I'm smoking now," said Gojyo. "Hope you don't have a problem with it."
"It's your home," the woman said.
So Gojyo sat at her side and smoked, and she said nothing. And after, he got up and made some tea and brought her a cup. He could tell by the way she wrinkled her nose that it was shitty, but it was better than nothing. He didn't trust the water to be clean, and boiled water tasted like shit. Flat.
He was a gentleman while she stayed in his bed. He slept on the couch, didn't bring anyone home. He played endless rounds of solitaire on the coffee table, but one of the legs went on it, and he lost an entire game on the floor.
"Ah, shit," he said.
"Is something wrong?" she said. "You've stopped shuffling the cards."
And he felt guilty, because he'd been ignoring her this whole time, really. He'd pretended he didn't have a bedroom or a bed. He was still living like he was alone. Maybe he wasn't a gentleman after all. Gojyo snorted. No surprise there, really.
"D'you wanna play?" he said.
"It would pass the time," she said. "I think I know your ceiling by heart."
And he kicked himself again, though he thought she'd meant it as a joke.
Gojyo discovered the woman was unbelievable at poker.
"I do this for a living and you're beating the pants off me," he said.
"I'm afraid this sort of thing comes easily to me," she said. "It seems to run in the family."
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, and Gojyo kept his questions to himself. Something bad had happened, obviously.
"Another hand?" he said.
"Please," she said.
Another time, when he was tucking her back in after a staggering, painful trip to the bathroom, she looked up at him.
"Gojyo," she said.
"Yeah?" he said.
"Your hair and eyes are so red," she said. "They remind me of blood."
He froze. Women usually said it was like fire or wine or a fucking sunset. She'd cut to the heart of him. Gojyo hesitated, wondering if he should say anything. But what could he say? The truth, maybe.
"Me too," he said. "Good night."
As soon as the woman was on her feet again, she started to change Gojyo's house into a home. She cleaned everything. Gone was the dirty laundry, gone were the ancient beer cans, gone were the stains in the carpet that had been there when Gojyo had first moved in.
His little p.o.s. house didn't exactly shine, because it was really too old and worn to do that, but it was so much better he almost couldn't remember what things were like before she'd come along. He was still sleeping on the couch, though.
"You're the first woman I've ever lived with," he said. "And probably the last. Are you going to keep sleeping in my bed, or should I get one for you, too?"
The woman laughed until she cried, and Gojyo was worried she'd crack open the fresh new scars that twisted across her stomach. But she didn't let him touch her to check. As a compromise, she hiked up the hem of the old shirt she wore-his, since she didn't have any clothes to speak of and he wouldn't be caught dead shopping in the village for girl clothes-and she peeled back the bandages and he looked her over from three feet away.
"You could have an infection and I wouldn't be able to see it from here," he said. "Could I just-"
"No," she said.
And she smoothed the bandages back in place over the ridges of scarring and went back to her housework.
Gojyo thought about that moment a lot.
She had nightmares. Bloodcurdling, screaming, sweating through the sheets nightmares. Sometimes she groaned in her bed and it was like Gojyo was back to square one, like her guts were hanging onto the ground again and he was going to have to drag her back from the brink. Her nightmares gave him nightmares. So he stole into his bedroom and gave her arm-or whatever part of her was currently flailing-a stroke and he told her everything was going to be all right, even though he was pretty sure she would never be all right. Whatever'd brought her to his proverbial doorstep had been bad.
This worked for a while until he woke her up, by accident, on one of those miserable nights where no one in the house really slept.
At first, when her eyes blinked into his, he thought she was sleep-blind, not really awake and seeing him. He wondered who she saw instead.
"Go-" she said. "Gojyo?"
And then she saw he was touching her. She pulled back from him, like he was a dirty half-breed, unclean. She pulled back like he was poison.
The next day, he hit the bar early, drank himself a tab in the day and fleeced the hell out of everyone in his path in the evening. The girls all took turns hanging off his arms and pouring, and he felt like a king until the last call. Then he just felt like crap. Supremely drunk, barely stumbling out of the bar crap.
He tripped up the porch steps and opened the front door with scraped up hands. It didn't look like his house on the inside any more, but he knew his way to the bedroom well enough that he could do it blind drunk. Like now. Except he'd kind of forgotten about the woman until he actually climbed into the bed and she was there. Awake.
"Sorry," he said. "'m drunk. I'll…go."
She shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she said. "For yesterday. Stay."
He tried to get up and go anyway, but she held him by the shoulders until he quit trying. And then she rolled over, to the other side of the bed. It wasn't a big bed, a double, but the gap between them seemed huge. Gojyo went to sleep cold.
He woke up warm. She'd curled around him sometime in the night. She was warm and soft and she smelled like his shampoo and a whiff of sweat, his, mostly, because she was tucked under one of his arms.
His head was killing him. Gojyo disentangled himself as carefully as he could and went straight for the shower.
They slept in his bed again that night. And the next.
"It helps," she said. "It helps that I'm not alone."
But he knew she was still scared, so he did his best to keep a distance between them, even though waking up to her against him in all the right places was driving him crazy, and the way she pulled away from him if she woke first made him even crazier.
They never talked about how she'd come to be in his life. Hell. Even after all these months of her recovery, he didn't even know her name. He had never asked, because it was plain to him that she didn't want to share it.
That's what he told the priest who showed up, too. She hadn't done anything wrong under his roof, no matter what Sanzo thought she might have done before, and that was enough for Gojyo, and the priest could stick it up his ass if that wasn't good enough for him, and what's more, Gojyo would fight him for his contempt. And Sanzo's companion perked up at that, but they hardly even scuffled before the woman gave herself up. Gojyo couldn't believe it.
Even though Gojyo argued for her, she'd just smiled and told him not to worry. She deserved the temple's judgment. She was a murderer, or so Sanzo said, and she had not disagreed. And then Sanzo and Goku dragged her off to whatever stupid temple they'd come from.
Her name was Kanan, and he was never going to see her again.
=====
I can't believe I banged all this out today! And still, I've got miles to go....
Influences on this story include: the horiffic nightmares I've had every night, multiple times a night, for the past week. I've been in a muzzy funk today especially, and I think the lack of proper sleep is taking its toll. To sleep, perchance to dream?
~later
Rated R overall, I guess. A little language, the usual sorts of trauma that go with the whole Hakkai-and-Kanan backstory, a bit of gore. Mostly I think it's an R rated one because it's so crazy serious and dark. What a change from yesterday's lighthearted harem fic!
=====
Gojyo was half in the bag and walking home from the bar when he found her. It had been raining that evening, but now that it was really dark out, the rain had tapered off to a nasty drizzle.
He found out later the drizzle had probably saved her life. If it'd been rain like before, she would have frozen to death before he even got close.
He practically stumbled over her in the dark of the forest. He'd thought she was a rock, at first, except there'd never been a rock there before. Also, rocks didn't moan.
"Hey," Gojyo said. "Can you hear me?"
He didn't have much light, just the flame from his lighter and a slightly gray gloom from overhead, but it was enough when he knelt in the mud of the road. Shit. This was bad. He didn't know if she'd been knifed or clawed, but her insides were on the outside, and there wasn't much to keep them in if he stuck them back. He stood up again. She was going to die.
Except she kept breathing, and her face was untouched. The water that gathered on her face made it look like she was crying.
Gojyo took off his shirt and tied it tight around her middle after he did his best to put her back together. He lifted her up in his arms and carried her home. All the way, her warm breath moved, ever so gently, across his neck.
It was a week gone from that night before she opened her eyes, though the doctor'd said not to hope even for that. Gojyo was really, really glad he didn't have to bury her out back.
"Is this hell?" she said. "I'd imagined something different."
The tone of her voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Nope," said Gojyo.
He pulled the bedside chair a little closer, and gorgeous, kind eyes focused on his.
"You're in my house, in my bed," he said. "I found you out there, brought you back."
"You could have let me die," she said. "It would have been the kind thing to do."
Her eyes wandered to the ceiling then, and she said nothing more for a time.
"It's amazing that you're alive," said Gojyo. "I put your guts back myself, but that didn't kill you, either. You're stronger than you think."
"Not really," she said.
Gojyo brought out a pack of cigarettes.
"Doc said I couldn't smoke inside while you were asleep, but I'm smoking now," said Gojyo. "Hope you don't have a problem with it."
"It's your home," the woman said.
So Gojyo sat at her side and smoked, and she said nothing. And after, he got up and made some tea and brought her a cup. He could tell by the way she wrinkled her nose that it was shitty, but it was better than nothing. He didn't trust the water to be clean, and boiled water tasted like shit. Flat.
He was a gentleman while she stayed in his bed. He slept on the couch, didn't bring anyone home. He played endless rounds of solitaire on the coffee table, but one of the legs went on it, and he lost an entire game on the floor.
"Ah, shit," he said.
"Is something wrong?" she said. "You've stopped shuffling the cards."
And he felt guilty, because he'd been ignoring her this whole time, really. He'd pretended he didn't have a bedroom or a bed. He was still living like he was alone. Maybe he wasn't a gentleman after all. Gojyo snorted. No surprise there, really.
"D'you wanna play?" he said.
"It would pass the time," she said. "I think I know your ceiling by heart."
And he kicked himself again, though he thought she'd meant it as a joke.
Gojyo discovered the woman was unbelievable at poker.
"I do this for a living and you're beating the pants off me," he said.
"I'm afraid this sort of thing comes easily to me," she said. "It seems to run in the family."
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, and Gojyo kept his questions to himself. Something bad had happened, obviously.
"Another hand?" he said.
"Please," she said.
Another time, when he was tucking her back in after a staggering, painful trip to the bathroom, she looked up at him.
"Gojyo," she said.
"Yeah?" he said.
"Your hair and eyes are so red," she said. "They remind me of blood."
He froze. Women usually said it was like fire or wine or a fucking sunset. She'd cut to the heart of him. Gojyo hesitated, wondering if he should say anything. But what could he say? The truth, maybe.
"Me too," he said. "Good night."
As soon as the woman was on her feet again, she started to change Gojyo's house into a home. She cleaned everything. Gone was the dirty laundry, gone were the ancient beer cans, gone were the stains in the carpet that had been there when Gojyo had first moved in.
His little p.o.s. house didn't exactly shine, because it was really too old and worn to do that, but it was so much better he almost couldn't remember what things were like before she'd come along. He was still sleeping on the couch, though.
"You're the first woman I've ever lived with," he said. "And probably the last. Are you going to keep sleeping in my bed, or should I get one for you, too?"
The woman laughed until she cried, and Gojyo was worried she'd crack open the fresh new scars that twisted across her stomach. But she didn't let him touch her to check. As a compromise, she hiked up the hem of the old shirt she wore-his, since she didn't have any clothes to speak of and he wouldn't be caught dead shopping in the village for girl clothes-and she peeled back the bandages and he looked her over from three feet away.
"You could have an infection and I wouldn't be able to see it from here," he said. "Could I just-"
"No," she said.
And she smoothed the bandages back in place over the ridges of scarring and went back to her housework.
Gojyo thought about that moment a lot.
She had nightmares. Bloodcurdling, screaming, sweating through the sheets nightmares. Sometimes she groaned in her bed and it was like Gojyo was back to square one, like her guts were hanging onto the ground again and he was going to have to drag her back from the brink. Her nightmares gave him nightmares. So he stole into his bedroom and gave her arm-or whatever part of her was currently flailing-a stroke and he told her everything was going to be all right, even though he was pretty sure she would never be all right. Whatever'd brought her to his proverbial doorstep had been bad.
This worked for a while until he woke her up, by accident, on one of those miserable nights where no one in the house really slept.
At first, when her eyes blinked into his, he thought she was sleep-blind, not really awake and seeing him. He wondered who she saw instead.
"Go-" she said. "Gojyo?"
And then she saw he was touching her. She pulled back from him, like he was a dirty half-breed, unclean. She pulled back like he was poison.
The next day, he hit the bar early, drank himself a tab in the day and fleeced the hell out of everyone in his path in the evening. The girls all took turns hanging off his arms and pouring, and he felt like a king until the last call. Then he just felt like crap. Supremely drunk, barely stumbling out of the bar crap.
He tripped up the porch steps and opened the front door with scraped up hands. It didn't look like his house on the inside any more, but he knew his way to the bedroom well enough that he could do it blind drunk. Like now. Except he'd kind of forgotten about the woman until he actually climbed into the bed and she was there. Awake.
"Sorry," he said. "'m drunk. I'll…go."
She shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she said. "For yesterday. Stay."
He tried to get up and go anyway, but she held him by the shoulders until he quit trying. And then she rolled over, to the other side of the bed. It wasn't a big bed, a double, but the gap between them seemed huge. Gojyo went to sleep cold.
He woke up warm. She'd curled around him sometime in the night. She was warm and soft and she smelled like his shampoo and a whiff of sweat, his, mostly, because she was tucked under one of his arms.
His head was killing him. Gojyo disentangled himself as carefully as he could and went straight for the shower.
They slept in his bed again that night. And the next.
"It helps," she said. "It helps that I'm not alone."
But he knew she was still scared, so he did his best to keep a distance between them, even though waking up to her against him in all the right places was driving him crazy, and the way she pulled away from him if she woke first made him even crazier.
They never talked about how she'd come to be in his life. Hell. Even after all these months of her recovery, he didn't even know her name. He had never asked, because it was plain to him that she didn't want to share it.
That's what he told the priest who showed up, too. She hadn't done anything wrong under his roof, no matter what Sanzo thought she might have done before, and that was enough for Gojyo, and the priest could stick it up his ass if that wasn't good enough for him, and what's more, Gojyo would fight him for his contempt. And Sanzo's companion perked up at that, but they hardly even scuffled before the woman gave herself up. Gojyo couldn't believe it.
Even though Gojyo argued for her, she'd just smiled and told him not to worry. She deserved the temple's judgment. She was a murderer, or so Sanzo said, and she had not disagreed. And then Sanzo and Goku dragged her off to whatever stupid temple they'd come from.
Her name was Kanan, and he was never going to see her again.
=====
I can't believe I banged all this out today! And still, I've got miles to go....
Influences on this story include: the horiffic nightmares I've had every night, multiple times a night, for the past week. I've been in a muzzy funk today especially, and I think the lack of proper sleep is taking its toll. To sleep, perchance to dream?
~later