Rhyming Games

HOLY CRAP, is it an update? It IS! I… have absolutely no reason why I suddenly resumed the writing of this story, and I can make no promises as to future updates. I can only apologize to the nth degree and say HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY to all of you who read, enjoyed, and still remember this story! It’s all for you!

First, a note:
You know what I hate? Outside forces that appear and miraculously fix a story. You ever find yourself reading a fanfic where there’s loads of hoops your favorite couple has to jump through to be together… then, out of the blue, some original character steps in and makes it work? Like a random ex-girlfriend we’ve never heard of (who would be a great Mary-Sue if she were a tad more ambitious) who sits down and convinces one of the main guys that *it’s okay to be who you are* and the guy’s troubles are magically solved by her advice and he runs off to be with his male love interest. I HATE it when some random OC solves every problem for the canon characters, especially when the OCs are complete strangers. I am a BIG fan of a pairing working out their problems on their own.

Now granted, I can admit that OCs are useful – downright helpful – on occasion (and here I nod in respect to an epic Gundam Wing fiction I read in which a psychiatrist is most welcome, a fic that won me over when I’d never even seen Gundam Wing). BUT. I can tell you right now that there will be no random OC bartender popping up to soothe Gojyo’s nerves and tell him “It’s okay to like another guy. That doesn’t mean you’re not you anymore. It’s not wrong or evil. If you love him, then tell him, and honesty is always best, etc…” Just like there will be no random student of Hakkai’s chirping up to say he won’t think any less of his teacher if he likes another man, and surely Kanan would want Hakkai to move on and be happy…

Grrr! Just drives me up the freakin’ wall. So be assured, there will be a confrontation this chapter, and sparks will fly (and hit things, and ricochet) but Gojyo and Hakkai are going to stumble through it the way two messed up, heterosexual bachelors would. Maybe Sanzo should have been their marriage counselor, eh? I’m sure he’d give some smashing advice.

Enjoy now (finally!) the eleventh installment of Rhyming Games!


Chapter 11: Treetop Spies and No More Lies

Gojyo was nearing the home stretch, and he was familiar enough with an experienced girl’s womanly bits to know that she was right there with him. He was almost relieved, in fact. The joy had gone from the activity now that Hakkai had made his perfectly platonic appearance into his thoughts, building orgasm or no. He only wished for it to be over, so that he could trudge home and scrub out the inside of his brain somehow.

He grasped the girl more securely as they picked up the pace. He was drawing a deep breath to take in her smell in the hope of getting his head back in the game, when what did he find suddenly assaulting his delicate olfactories?

HAKKAI.

And not just Hakkai, Hakkai and SEX. AGAIN.

Unfortunately he was too close to stop and ponder why Hakkai-smell was in his nose. He could only gasp as he felt himself get harder, and he thrust desperately into the unsuspecting girl with renewed passion.

There was something mesmerizing and wonderful about that Hakkai smell. It was heavy and dangerous and thrilling and absolutely lousy with pheromones. It sank into Gojyo’s brain like an airborne toxin, making his blood pound and his head swim, just as it had every time he’d encountered it. When the unexpectedly fantastic sensations of completion ripped through him at last, his thoughts were a million scattered pieces.

And as the splashing around him subsided, he said, “Oh fuck… Oh fuck, Hakkai.”

Gojyo expected her to at least ask him who Hakkai was, but it turned out she hadn’t even heard him. And after that, Gojyo’s motions were practically mechanical.

Detach the girl, compliment the girl, assist the girl getting out of the spring. Dry off and dress himself while ignoring her babble. Wrap a gentlemanly arm around her waist and walk the girl home.

Both still damp and shivering, Gojyo chivalrously leant her his manly and much warmer physique as a portable heater along the way, and wrapped her inside his coat. At least she babbled less than most, but Gojyo wasn’t really paying attention anyway.

Hakkai had stopped trying to justify his actions at this point. Maybe someday he could look back on this night calmly and detect just what it was that made him follow Gojyo and the girl from the library.

Still shaking and a bit out of breath, he’d done up his pants and leapt out of sight before the two below could exit the water. He didn’t watch, but when he heard them leaving, he picked himself up and followed quietly and mournfully, like a man heading to his doom. Only being a little sneakier about it.

While not terribly experienced at leaping through the trees, he managed a good way before landing lightly on the ground and continuing on foot. The couple were a good fifty meters ahead of him, and his youkai instincts did at least know how to be silent, so he highly doubted they knew he was there. His thoughts went like this:

He said my name.

I guess he’s walking her home. She seemed like a nice girl, so it’s good that he’s being a gentleman about it. Hn. Coat and all, look at that.

He… he said my name.

Why am I doing this? Following… sneaking… spying… I don’t know. I would blame it on being minus one limiter, but that hasn’t changed my thoughts. I’m still just as much of a mess when I’m fully human-shaped. There is no excuse for me right now.

I suspect Gojyo must have felt this way at some point. Not comfortable in his skin because of what he is. He must have felt some disgust with himself for being half…

Well now, I wonder which is worse to him. Being half youkai… or being half human?

He said my name. Out loud. During sex. With a girl. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

I wonder if… if I am following because some part of me thinks that Gojyo has the answers. I’m certain he doesn’t, but… I’ve already tried to talk to Sanzo. There…

At this Hakkai came to a full stop. Coincidentally, Gojyo and the girl had reached her street and the two were saying their good-byes. Hakkai could see them through the trees, just flecks of red and brown and flesh tone in the distance, wavering in lamp light from the corner.

There really isn’t anyone else to consult, is there? I have no one else at all.

Hakkai heard a voice speaking in cheerful, if quavering good-bye tones, and launched upwards into a tree again. Despite his recent adrenaline rush and the natural heat of his youkai metabolism, Hakkai was beginning to feel the chill night air seeping into him. His hands felt cold.

Gojyo would understand, you idiot. You shouldn’t have kept this from him. Private or not, you live with the guy, and he deserves to know what he’s living with. Clearly it’s bothering him still. You must be driving him mad if he can still find a reason to curse you while he’s with an attractive woman.

He looked magnificent down there. I’ve never looked like that during sex, I sure of it.

No, stop it.

Hakkai frowned at his own thoughts. It was getting tiresome, this new trend.

A moment later his nose picked up the trace of fresh cigarette smoke on the air. An upward glance confirmed that his roommate had left his date for the night and his dark silhouette, cancer stick in hand, was now trundling back towards the darkened woods… towards Hakkai’s hiding place.

Hakkai was tired, and he decided to stay very still as Gojyo took the path only a few yards below. He’d slink back home after Gojyo had made a good head start. Hm. He’d do best to find his shoes first. The redhead was now strolling almost directly beneath him, and Hakkai held perfectly motionless, waiting for him to pass.

Gojyo stopped, as though he’d merely paused to take an extra thoughtful pull on his cigarette. He exhaled a stream of smoke, and from above his expression was hidden by the fall of his hair.

“Get down here before I decide to murder your scrawny ass.”

The angry tone of Gojyo’s voice gave a fairly accurate impression of what his expression might be. Hakkai was only half-surprised, really. And he was so tired of all of it.

“I’m not kidding, Hakkai. Down here, now, or I’m telling the monk you went on a killing spree and letting you rot in jail.”

From this distance Hakkai could smell the anger, the determination, and the lingering odors of sex coming from his friend, mingling with the smoke and leaving no doubt in Hakkai’s mind that Gojyo was just as fed up as he was, and not in the mood for games. And Hakkai had promised to tell Gojyo his secret a while back, now that he thought of it. There was nothing for it, then.

Hakkai leapt lightly from the tree and landed cat-quiet on bare feet in front of Gojyo. Still youkai in appearance, Hakkai kept his eyes downcast and waited patiently for Gojyo’s reaction.

Red eyes widened, but it wasn’t that Gojyo was all that surprised to see Hakkai looking less than human. Much like Hakkai’s assumption that he’d someday see Gojyo naked, Gojyo had simply taken for granted that he’d eventually see his friend’s youkai form. No, it wasn’t that. He knew Hakkai wasn’t human anymore. He’d known, if he’d thought about it, that there would be changes.

But he wasn’t prepared to see this slim, bare-chested, tautly muscled, elemental creature standing where his friend should have been, with a shaggy mane of dark hair and a twisting, sprawling, captivating pattern of black vines flowing across planes of pale skin. He wasn’t prepared to see dark claws hanging long and deadly from familiar fingers or silver ear cuffs adorning unmistakable pointed ears.

This was not Hakkai. This was a dangerous, alien version of his Hakkai, who clearly had not trusted Gojyo with this side of himself, giving off the same tainted scent as before. For a good long moment, there was nothing but the rustling of the trees to be heard as the two men faced each other.

Gojyo moved his cigarette to the safety of his hand as his jaw clenched and released.

“This is your big secret?”

“I never meant for it to affect you,” Hakkai replied immediately in a low voice. There were deeper tones in it than usual, a faint accompaniment to his gentle tenor. It surprised them both for a moment, but Gojyo recovered quickly.

“What, you spying on me from the treetops? How was that not supposed to affect me, exactly?”

Hakkai didn’t look up completely, but Gojyo finally glimpsed a green eye as it widened in shame and stared desperately off into the bushes.

“That wasn’t planned. I’ve been… I…”

Gojyo took three slow steps forward and stood barely a foot away from Hakkai, leaning in to get the attention of the shorter man. Hakkai braced himself and finally looked up to meet Gojyo’s insistent gaze.

“I’m not human, Gojyo.”

Gojyo’s chest had clenched the second he’d been pinned by that luminous green eye, and he had a moment’s trouble remembering to breathe before arriving at a reply.

“No shit.”

The green eye closed in mild, very Hakkai-like exasperation. When it opened again, Hakkai’s tattoo-riddled face was stern. “I’ve never known how to be anything but human. Sometimes not even that. But I am not one, not anymore, and all this time I’ve never tried to understand the thing that I’ve become. I… I need to understand what I am, Gojyo.”

The redhead appeared supremely unimpressed. “By spying on me from the treetops?”

“By removing my limiters and learning what I’m capable of and how to control it!” Hakkai snapped back. He sighed, then, and continued more slowly. “I didn’t plan on spying on you. That was… that was a mistake, and I don’t think I can explain it right now. But this…” he gestured vaguely at himself with a downward glance and a weary spread of his arms “…this is something I needed to confront. And I don’t believe I’ve managed to control it all yet. There is still so much I don’t know, and no way to learn it than by facing it on my own. By facing… myself.” At this, Hakkai scowled. “I’m not human, no matter how much I can look like one, and there is so much of me that’s still a mystery, possibly a dangerous mystery. It’s what’s been affecting me these past few months. I can’t stand it, this… not knowing.” He looked up again at Gojyo, who had not moved, not toward him or away, and had not stopped staring. “Please, Gojyo. I didn’t want this to touch your life at all. I’m sorry that it has. I can’t explain everything yet, because I can’t explain it to myself, but… I’ll do what I can to… to put things right again. If you’ll let me.”

There was a lengthy pause as they stared each other down, Hakkai silently pleading for Gojyo to accept this explanation and let the rest drop (knowing he wouldn’t) and Gojyo experiencing a rising thrill in his blood, like the anticipation of a good fight.

The redhead glided closer, weight shifting smoothly like a predator, until he was inches from his roommate’s transformed face. Every muscle he possessed was tensed and alert, his eyes narrowed with intent. When he spoke, it was a low, deliberate whisper, impossible to escape.

“Why do you smell like sex, Hakkai?”

The human-turned youkai was locked in place by the ruby eyes, darkened to black by the night, and the question that suddenly hung between them like the resonation of a gunshot. Gojyo’s stare didn’t waver even the slightest amount, and Hakkai’s heart thumped brutally in his ears.

How could he lie? How could he possibly explain and retain any semblance of dignity? Best to give the answer that answered nothing at all, that instrument of deflection that came so easily to him…

Hakkai’s lips were parted for only a second before his cool, calm, dismissive reply was swallowed expertly by Gojyo’s blazingly warm mouth, sealed inescapably to his own, and his bare arms seized by large firm hands.

There was no subtlety, no seduction, only a solid, heated connection between the two of them, a determined tongue wrestling with his, with barely enough time to consider a reaction before Gojyo’s mouth pulled away. The sudden warmth and flavor and dizziness ended abruptly, though the grip on his biceps remained. Gojyo stood mere inches away, as before, staring at nothing and breathing shallowly. Nearly invisible puffs of steam formed before his lips.

It was a simple matter to break away from Gojyo’s hold on him, for the kappa seemed to have shocked himself as well, and as soon as he had, Hakkai took three hurried steps backwards, then turned and fled, disappearing instantly into the blackness of the forest.


To Be Continued! (Hopefully!)