Wash Me Clean (Challenge #43, Water; Hakkai/Gojyo; PG-13)
Title: Wash Me Clean
Author: opalmatrix
Warnings: gore, nonexplicit nudity, swearing, m/m suggestiveness
Pairing(s): Hakkai/Gojyo
Spoilers: Hakkai's backstory
Notes: written for saiyuki_time, Challenge #43, Water; time allowed: 60 minutes; time taken: 75 minutes. And I've written this concept three or four times already. I fail. Title and theme from k.d. lang: "Wash me clean / Mend my wounded seams / Cleanse my tarnished dreams ... "
Summary: Not Hakkai's best evening: rain, and a drunk, muddy Gojyo.
Hakkai started harder at the words on the page: "... data supporting the contention that 3500 years ago Venus was ejected from the planet Jupiter, became a comet, and grazed the Earth and Mars a number of times before settling into its current orbit. He attributed many ancient recorded catastrophes coincident with the Israelites’ Egyptian Exodus to this Venus-Earth interaction ... ."
It was no use. No matter how hard he tried to immerse himself in the safe, sterile words of the astronomy text, he could still hear the increasingly active pattering outside, millions upon millions of raindrops striking the leaves of the trees, the muddy dirt of the road, the roof of the house. Life-giving water from the heavens, drops as numerous as the stars in the sky, reminding him, reminding him ... .
He let the book fall from his hands to the table and scrubbed his face, his closed eyelids with the palms of his hands, trying to wipe out the pictures that came floating up, seeping out of the crevices of his brain like rain finding its way through the roof tiles to drip onto the floor in the far corner ... he was struggling through a crowded corridor of grey stone, slashing with with blade in his hands, and past the shouting and the grunts of effort came the drip, drip, drip of the blood on the polished white of the floor, and his left clog came off so he kicked off the other, and his hair was in his face, but he couldn't find the tie, and there was a set of claws coming right for his face, and he slashes that hand right off, and the blood pours out, a storm of blood, drip-drip-drip, too fast to count, and a cracking sound as one steps on his fallen spectacles, and then they are all dead and the uneven stony stairs lead down - look, here's another, cut right there to his carotid, and the blood pours out, splash, drip drip drip - and there in the cell, in the cell, she stands, she stands in the cell. He takes a step closer, he can hear his own footfall ... .
No, the footstep he heard was real and outside the door: Gojyo, arriving home.
Hakkai's mind was strangely reluctant to be dragged back to the comfortable, blood-free present, to deal with the man who saved his life, gave him a roof over his head, and continued to provide his only real reason for existence. He dragged himself to his feet. There was a scrabbling sound: Gojyo attempting to put the key in the lock, an effort likely misfueled by more than a couple of beers.
"Hakkai?"
Now he had to hurry. Gojyo worried about him Hakkai knew that. He crossed the small space to the door, turned the lock, and flung open the door.
"Gojyo! What happened?"
Gojyo's face was half tawny, flushed skin, half melting, oozing, slimy ... mud. He smiled beatifically, apparently not bothered by it at all. "They gotta stop movin' those tree roots, Hakkai. I swear some jerk's got a really strange sense a humor, doin' that ...."
Hakkai realized that in fact, most of Gojyo was covered with muck. "Oh, dear gods in heaven! Look at you ... ." The smell of rain and wet earth was overwhelming. Just like that time, back then. I looked up at him and ...
Even through the beer haze, Gojyo read his face with ease. His smile slipped a fraction, and he giggled uncertainly, taking half a step toward his roommate.
"No! Stop - right there! Stay on the mat!"
Hakkai ran to the bedroom and rummaged in the old traveler's trunk that served them as a linen chest. The rain roared at the windows, and he found himself wondering why he was worried about mud on the floor. He bit his lip and pulled out two of the old, ragged sheets that hadn't yet been torn into dusters.
When he returned to the front room, Gojyo was standing obediently on the mat, dripping muddy water and looking forlornly at the soggy pack of cigarettes in his cleaner hand. Hakkai spread one sheet, folded in half, in front of him. "Strip," he ordered, sternly.
The visible half of Gojyo's face brightened up, and he grinned. "For you? Any time, man!"
Hakkai breathed in sharply through his nose, exasperated: "Gojyo!"
"OK, OK ... look, I'm doin' it ... ."
"No, not on the floor! Drop them on the sheet, that's why I put it there! Now - here."
Hakkai carefully draped the other sheet around Gojyo, then bundled up the muddy pile of clothes and took them to the little lean-to where he kept the wash tubs. When he got back, Gojyo was still on the mat, wrapped in the sheet and blinking drowsily. Hakkai sighed.
"I would have thought you'd be able to get yourself into the shower."
"Maybe not. I'd probably bump into walls and shit. An' I'm still awful muddy."
"Yes. You are."
Gojyo looked penitently at the muddy mat. "Can you gimme a hand, here? Please?"
How long can you resist that face, even mud-smeared?
And I know that I'm only angry because he won't let me go back and wallow in my bloody past. The mud is such a good excuse, isn't it? How stupid can one educated man be?
Hakkai kicked off his shoes, slowly took off his shirt and trousers, put the clothes neatly on his chair. In his shorts, he slipped an arm around Gojyo's waist. Smilling woozily, Gojyo wrapped an arm around his shoulders, smearing him with mud. Two of a kind, thought Hakkai, as he helped his friend stagger toward the shower. The step up and over the rim of the shower pan nearly did Gojyo in: he tripped, and in recovering, collapsed against Hakkai, leaning his head on Hakkai's chest. "You smell good," he mumbled, against Hakkai's skin.
"You still smell like a mud puddle. And beer. Let me take that sheet,"
"Now'm cold."
"Just wait." Hakkai folded and set down the muddied sheet, then started the water running, holding the spray away from Gojyo until it warmed. "There."
Gojyo lolled against the wall under the warm spray. The water swished and pattered on his flesh and the tiles, so like the rainfall outside and yet so completely different. The mud was running off, swirling around the bottom of the shower pan and disappearing down the drain, and Gojyo's face was revealed again, flushed and sleepy and utterly enchanting. What a difference a little water can make.
Gojyo opened his his eyes, warm crimson, a little bloodshot. He held out his long arms and smiled: "Hey, you're pretty muddy too, Hakkai."
Steam wafted out of the shower, bringing with it Gojyo's scent, clean and wet, curling into his brain, occupying every crevice, leaving no room for anything else. Hakkai stepped out of his shorts, defiantly leaving them where they fell, and submitted himself to the healing touch of the water.