Nothing Left for Me to Do, Challenge 45
Title: Nothing Left for Me to Do
Author: lady_ganesh
Characters: Hakkai, Gojyo
Spoilers: Hakkai's background
Rating: PG
Time: 20 minutes, more or less. I didn't get to look this over well, please alert me to any typoes!
"I know we're not Catholics, but they'll take good care of you," Mother had said, when she left him at the orphanage. Her lipstick was red, blood red, and smeared a little at the corners. "You'll get a good education."
She was half right, at least. And he never starved, never had to beg or rob-- later, much later, he'd realize how fortunate he was in that respect-- but still, kneeling for Sunday prayers grated on him, and at Midnight Mass on Christmas his only thought was for how little Latin his classmates knew, and how strange and forbidding the service must seem to them.
Back then, he thought he was immune; he didn't believe in God, or Jesus, or the little angels on the catechism book. He had no faith, he thought, to lose.
He learned better.
He learned better when he came home to chaos and broken furniture; when she smiled at him-- God, she had smiled-- before she brought down the knife-- he had had faith, faith aplenty, in the town, in her, in his belief that once he had found that one person the rest would be all right, would be easy....
How many times would he have to lose everything, before he learned he could never hold on to anything at all?
Gojyo stirred. In the half-light from the terrible inn curtains Hakkai could see his profile clearly, even with his glasses off. There were a few scars-- not many, Hakkai had seen to that-- across his bare back; Hakkai doubted Gojyo was even aware of them, doubted he could remember many of their sources. A stolen meat bun here, an angry husband there; it all blurred together for Gojyo, and perhaps that was just as well.
Gojyo never lost faith. He didn't believe in God, or Christ, or any of it, but Hakkai had watched as he extended his hand out to Kami-sama, and there was a faith that Hakkai had lost long ago, had perhaps never held so truly or deeply.
And it was hard, watching Gojyo, not to nurture some faith, in the end; not in some grand concept of human kindness or the humanity of strangers, but in the sheer tenacity of one person, one person who despite all common sense and logic could not, would not, be deterred from whatever on earth it was he set his mind to.
"You awake?" Gojyo asked, turning toward him.
"More or less."
"C'mere," he said, and held out his arm.
"Yes," Hakkai said, and moved into his embrace.
Author: lady_ganesh
Characters: Hakkai, Gojyo
Spoilers: Hakkai's background
Rating: PG
Time: 20 minutes, more or less. I didn't get to look this over well, please alert me to any typoes!
"I know we're not Catholics, but they'll take good care of you," Mother had said, when she left him at the orphanage. Her lipstick was red, blood red, and smeared a little at the corners. "You'll get a good education."
She was half right, at least. And he never starved, never had to beg or rob-- later, much later, he'd realize how fortunate he was in that respect-- but still, kneeling for Sunday prayers grated on him, and at Midnight Mass on Christmas his only thought was for how little Latin his classmates knew, and how strange and forbidding the service must seem to them.
Back then, he thought he was immune; he didn't believe in God, or Jesus, or the little angels on the catechism book. He had no faith, he thought, to lose.
He learned better.
He learned better when he came home to chaos and broken furniture; when she smiled at him-- God, she had smiled-- before she brought down the knife-- he had had faith, faith aplenty, in the town, in her, in his belief that once he had found that one person the rest would be all right, would be easy....
How many times would he have to lose everything, before he learned he could never hold on to anything at all?
Gojyo stirred. In the half-light from the terrible inn curtains Hakkai could see his profile clearly, even with his glasses off. There were a few scars-- not many, Hakkai had seen to that-- across his bare back; Hakkai doubted Gojyo was even aware of them, doubted he could remember many of their sources. A stolen meat bun here, an angry husband there; it all blurred together for Gojyo, and perhaps that was just as well.
Gojyo never lost faith. He didn't believe in God, or Christ, or any of it, but Hakkai had watched as he extended his hand out to Kami-sama, and there was a faith that Hakkai had lost long ago, had perhaps never held so truly or deeply.
And it was hard, watching Gojyo, not to nurture some faith, in the end; not in some grand concept of human kindness or the humanity of strangers, but in the sheer tenacity of one person, one person who despite all common sense and logic could not, would not, be deterred from whatever on earth it was he set his mind to.
"You awake?" Gojyo asked, turning toward him.
"More or less."
"C'mere," he said, and held out his arm.
"Yes," Hakkai said, and moved into his embrace.