Priorities, Male (Challenge #58, Gojyo Tops Hakkai; 585; PG-13)
Title: Priorities, Male
Author: opalmatrix
Warnings: Gojyo's mouth, smutty innuendo
Pairing(s): 585
Spoilers: nothing much
Notes: written for saiyuki_time, Challenge #58, Gojyo tops Hakkai. Not necessarily in sex; time allowed: 15 minutes; time taken: 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes of research at the start. Sorry about the title ... .
Summary: One night, Gojyo is just on top of things.
It was a good hand, Gojyo thought, but was it good enough to beat Hakkai's usual bizarre luck?
He risked a glance across the kitchen table. Hakkai had his usual absent-minded half-smile. Gojyo was getting a little better at reading him, but it was still damn tough. He thought the set of Hakkai's shoulders was a little tense. Maybe ... .
The ticking of the wall clock seemed loud in the expectant silence. Gojyo stared at his cards, calculating odds. He looked up to catch Hakkai's smug smile.
"Now, Gojyo, make up your mind. Remember what Zhuge Liang said: 'The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.'"
Gojyo looked back at his cards and discarded the nastiest. "Gimme one. And it was Sun Tzu."
Hakkai stared at him mutely for a moment. "I beg your pardon?"
"The guy who said that: Sun Tzu. I need another card, Hakkai."
Hakkai reached for a card, blindly. "Gojyo ... it was Zhuge Liang."
"Nuh uh. It was that Sun Tzu dude. You talk about him a lot." Gojyo smiled at his hand. So fuckin' pretty.
Hakkai made a huffing noise, looked at his own hand, looked at Gojyo, added a chip to the pile. Gojyo matched him. "Well?"
Slowly, Hakkai laid down his hand. A straight.
Gojyo chuckled. He slowly laid down his hand: full house - two eights, three fives. Hakkai stared at it, then bolted for the bookcase. Gojyo sipped his beer as his friend frantically leafed through his fat book of military strategy and stopped, staring at one of the pages as though it had bitten him. He look up with a manic grin.
"Ah ha ha ha ha! Gojyo! How in the world ... ?"
"Hey, it's a name. I'm good with names. How the hell d'you think I keep all those chicks from killin' me? Can you imagine if I called Ji-jiang 'Mei Huan' .. ?"
The manic grin turned sharp. "And yet you can't recall on which day garbage collection occurs?"
Gojyo smiled sweetly and shuffled the cards, ending with a showy bridge. "C'mon, Hakkai, a man's got to have priorities."
Hakki closed the book with a snap and set it carefully back into its place, then stalked back to his seat. "Indeed," he said, drily.
Gojyo guessed, as he dealt, that Hakkai was going to make someone's ass his special priority later on. Maybe one day I'll learn to keep my mouth shut.
Still, it had been totally worth it.