#6 - Sanguine
Title: Sanguine
Author: andmydog
Warnings: Angst? Excessively poetical phrasing?
Pairing(s): Hakkai/Gojyo
Notes: #6 - Humour. 52 minutes (I fail at watching the clock), 588 words.
The last of the wine sloshed around the bottom of the bottle, thick and dark and sharp with vinegar. How much had they drunk tonight, between the two of them? Four bottles? Five? The grape wine was sweet, and stronger than it tasted - Gojyo had been snoring halfway through the third - but Hakkai, for all his attempts, was still dry. Dry as a desert, dry as old bone with the meat long peeled away. Sinewless. Bloodless.
He upended the bottle slowly over the table, watching the blood-red drops splash against the wood, one by one. It all came down to blood in the end. You were born in blood, and died in it, and it was blood that kept you moving and warm for all the days in-between. It was blood, not viscera or flesh or the intangible, laughable soul that stained his hands. It was blood that he heard falling from the sky, thickly dripping from the eaves and pooling in the dank corners. It was blood... it was always blood.
He was drowning in it, and small wonder, for the amount he’d let. He traced the word torrent in one of the drops on the table, pressing the lines into the surface with his nail so the bloody wine would stain. A stain of a thousand youkai, and five hundred twelve humans before that. And how many since then? He’d stopped counting. He liked to pretend that he’d stopped counting. He killed from a distance now, two here, five there, and not a drop of their blood fell on him, but he could still see it, in the creases of his knuckles, deep beneath his nails. So much blood, and still not enough. How many more would it take?
Or perhaps it was his blood he should be letting, though he’d done that time and again as well. From his belly. From his eye. From a slip of the knife at dinner, a moment of unsure footing in a battle. From the wrath of a god. Blood in abundance, abundantia, caked in his hair, sloshing in his shoes...
“Hakkai?”
Oh, but then there was Gojyo. Gentle, giving Gojyo, vibrant even here in the dark, his eyes reddened further and fogged with wine. Sweet, soft Gojyo, so easy to hurt, in so many ways. Lovely, loving Gojyo, who would do anything he asked, even those things he was too cowardly to request.
“I’m empty,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth shaking as he wrenched it into a smile. It was funny, after all. He carried the blood of a thousand inside - how could he be empty? He should be swollen with it, stretched and tight, it should pour from his mouth and his ears and his eye, should burn in his veins, hot and pounding, but he was empty, voided, dry and dark and cold. “There’s nothing there.” Fill me? You have so much, give yourself to me? Drain yourself for me, pour yourself into me, spill yourself so this cowardly shell of a man can continue to move and murder and destroy everyth--
“You’re thinkin’ too much again,” Gojyo whispered back, his big mouth stretching out in a smile, his big hand stretching out in an invitation. “Come here.”
One day Gojyo would learn. One day Gojyo would tell him no, would recoil in disgust, would strike him down and leave him in the cold and the dust. But, spread out beneath Gojyo's big mouth and big hands, Hakkai allowed himself the hope that that day was far, far away.
Author: andmydog
Warnings: Angst? Excessively poetical phrasing?
Pairing(s): Hakkai/Gojyo
Notes: #6 - Humour. 52 minutes (I fail at watching the clock), 588 words.
The last of the wine sloshed around the bottom of the bottle, thick and dark and sharp with vinegar. How much had they drunk tonight, between the two of them? Four bottles? Five? The grape wine was sweet, and stronger than it tasted - Gojyo had been snoring halfway through the third - but Hakkai, for all his attempts, was still dry. Dry as a desert, dry as old bone with the meat long peeled away. Sinewless. Bloodless.
He upended the bottle slowly over the table, watching the blood-red drops splash against the wood, one by one. It all came down to blood in the end. You were born in blood, and died in it, and it was blood that kept you moving and warm for all the days in-between. It was blood, not viscera or flesh or the intangible, laughable soul that stained his hands. It was blood that he heard falling from the sky, thickly dripping from the eaves and pooling in the dank corners. It was blood... it was always blood.
He was drowning in it, and small wonder, for the amount he’d let. He traced the word torrent in one of the drops on the table, pressing the lines into the surface with his nail so the bloody wine would stain. A stain of a thousand youkai, and five hundred twelve humans before that. And how many since then? He’d stopped counting. He liked to pretend that he’d stopped counting. He killed from a distance now, two here, five there, and not a drop of their blood fell on him, but he could still see it, in the creases of his knuckles, deep beneath his nails. So much blood, and still not enough. How many more would it take?
Or perhaps it was his blood he should be letting, though he’d done that time and again as well. From his belly. From his eye. From a slip of the knife at dinner, a moment of unsure footing in a battle. From the wrath of a god. Blood in abundance, abundantia, caked in his hair, sloshing in his shoes...
“Hakkai?”
Oh, but then there was Gojyo. Gentle, giving Gojyo, vibrant even here in the dark, his eyes reddened further and fogged with wine. Sweet, soft Gojyo, so easy to hurt, in so many ways. Lovely, loving Gojyo, who would do anything he asked, even those things he was too cowardly to request.
“I’m empty,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth shaking as he wrenched it into a smile. It was funny, after all. He carried the blood of a thousand inside - how could he be empty? He should be swollen with it, stretched and tight, it should pour from his mouth and his ears and his eye, should burn in his veins, hot and pounding, but he was empty, voided, dry and dark and cold. “There’s nothing there.” Fill me? You have so much, give yourself to me? Drain yourself for me, pour yourself into me, spill yourself so this cowardly shell of a man can continue to move and murder and destroy everyth--
“You’re thinkin’ too much again,” Gojyo whispered back, his big mouth stretching out in a smile, his big hand stretching out in an invitation. “Come here.”
One day Gojyo would learn. One day Gojyo would tell him no, would recoil in disgust, would strike him down and leave him in the cold and the dust. But, spread out beneath Gojyo's big mouth and big hands, Hakkai allowed himself the hope that that day was far, far away.