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Gojyo wasn't sure, at first, what had made him wake up suddenly, heart pounding and shakujo in hand. The sound of the rain on the inn's roof had changed, subtly, but that wasn't it. It was only a vague impression, but Gojyo felt like maybe someone had been standing over him a minute ago, someone he didn't know.
The other bed was empty, but there was no sign of disturbance; Goku might just have wandered out to the kitchen looking for a snack. Except there was really too little sign of disturbance--the sheets were neatly made up, like no one had ever been sleeping there at all.
Everything was quiet in the hallway, but in an eerie kind of way that didn't do anything to settle Gojyo's gut. Some weird shit was going down.
Both beds were empty in Hakkai and Sanzo's room, but only one looked like it had been slept in. When he stepped into the room, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and braced for an attack, but the figure that stepped out of the shadows was Hakkai. Or looked like Hakkai. Gojyo didn't put away his weapon, because fakes had been a thing before.
Seemed like Hakkai was thinking the same thing, because he had that smile on his face that only looked nice and polite if you didn't know him at all--the one that actually meant he was on the verge of wrecking some shit. "Well, this is a pickle. How shall we decide if one of us is a fake?"
Gojyo shrugged, keeping the shakujo in hand but letting his arm fall to his side. "Fuck it. You'll attack me eventually if you're a fake. That'll probably be a clue."
"Not the most elegant method, but simpler than playing the 'tell me something only the real you would know' game." The feel of threat in the air went down a couple notches, Hakkai reining in his chi. "I take it Goku is missing from your room, as Sanzo is from mine."
"Like he was never even there." Gojyo remembered the creepy feeling in the hall. "Feels like the whole place is empty except for us." And maybe whoever it was that woke Gojyo up, if he hadn't imagined it.
The faintest flicker of unease passed over Hakkai's face--Gojyo'd have missed it if he'd blinked at the wrong time. "Better to find out for sure."
They checked every room, and they were all empty. They were all pristine, beds made up, pots and pans clean and put away in the kitchen, the chairs stacked on top of the tables in the common room. But none of the windows or doors to the outside opened--not like they were locked or even nailed shut, but like they were just painted on or something, not real openings at all.
Gojyo tried breaking a hole in the wooden wall, but his shakujo didn't even leave a scratch. Neither did a blast of chi from Hakkai.
"Well that's disconcerting." It sounded like an understatement, but coming from Hakkai it was the next thing to panicky screaming.
"Nothing's tried to kill us yet." Which was weird. Gojyo wanted something simple that he could hit until it stopped being a threat. This silent, sealed building was not obliging. A couple times they'd passed mirrors, and Gojyo had thought he saw something--someone--standing behind them, but Hakkai never said anything so maybe he was just hoping there was someone else in here with them--a nice, convenient villain.
"No. I wonder if we're being kept out of the way of something?"
A lot of chumps did seem to think it would be easy to take out Sanzo if he was alone. "This seems like a heck of a strong spell, but if they were trying to isolate Sanzo they missed someone." Or if it was--for some insane reason--the Seiten Taisei they wanted, they really fucked up leaving Sanzo out there with him. Unless the other two were in their own version of this trap. They just didn't know enough to make any solid guesses.
Hakkai shook his head, frowning. "Well, we might as well see what we have to work with in here. We may be here a while, figuring this out."
As it turned out, the kitchen was fully stocked with both food and fuel. There was running water, and the lights worked. It didn't seem like anything was missing except all the other people. And a way out.
Most of the "figuring out" was Hakkai's kind of thing, which left Gojyo with not a lot to do as hours turned into days. He did the cooking--Hakkai was either too tired or too sensible to complain about how simple and plain everything was--and he worked out until he was tired enough to sleep despite the constant feeling of wrongness and the never ending sound of rain.
It was weird to find that he didn't know how to stand still, anymore. It hadn't been so long since their journey started, not really, but it was like Gojyo had forgotten how to exist without moving forward. Having nothing to do all day made his skin crawl.
Without really talking about it they moved into a different room, nobody really wanting to sleep in a bed one of their party had disappeared from, or sleep alone. Maybe it was cold to think it, but it didn't bother Gojyo so much if it was a stranger's bed. Or maybe the room had been empty from the start. Either way, every time Gojyo woke up and Hakkai was still there in the other bed, he was able to keep breathing. Even without anywhere to go.
Gojyo kept seeing those flashes of something or someone in the mirrors, though, and it was like an itch in the back of his head. He found himself snapping at Hakkai more and more, over nothing at all. Not like goofing around fighting, but really wanting to punch Hakkai in the face for no real reason. And maybe it wasn't just him, because Hakkai was starting to look a little tight around the mouth, his smile gone all brittle every time he reported on his lack of progress figuring out their comfortable little prison.
Sometimes when Gojyo felt unfriendly eyes on the back of his head, it wasn't the mysterious something that might or might not be in there with them. Sometimes it was Hakkai.
The food never seemed to run out. Gojyo wasn't sure if that was because they hadn't been here as long as it felt like--without windows they were kind of guessing when it came to day and night--or if it was replacing itself somehow. The trash emptied itself every night, too. The dishes didn't wash themselves, which felt kind of pointed to Gojyo the one time he'd tried leaving them in the sink, dirty, just to see what would happen.
"Well, the plan doesn't seem to be to quietly starve us to death." Hakkai was pushing his food around on his plate instead of eating it, and Gojyo tried not to take it personally. He wasn't the best cook, but what he made was plenty edible--he'd fed himself for years and never poisoned himself.
"It's a very nice, polite kind of trap, I guess." Which actually kind of made it more insulting that they couldn't find their way out of it.
He tried not to think about what it might mean that it hadn't been broken from the outside yet, either.
When Gojyo took his bath that night, he caught another glimpse of that reflection, and for a second he thought it was Hakkai he was seeing. But no, the hair was much longer, and a different colour. The face wasn't even that similar, when he thought about it. But there had been something about the eyes... Whatever it was was gone before he could figure it out, but it worried him that it was getting clearer.
He still didn't tell Hakkai. He wasn't even sure why, at this point, but it just felt like he shouldn't. Like something would break if he did.
Hakkai started leaving the room as soon as Gojyo woke up. He was always awake before Gojyo, but he stayed long enough for Gojyo to see that he hadn't disappeared, and then he just left without a word. They started eating separately, too. Or Gojyo was eating, and the plates he was leaving out for Hakkai were empty later, but Hakkai was looking a little thinner, or at least Gojyo thought he was.
The constant irritation never left Gojyo--if anything, it was getting worse--but he never seemed to see Hakkai for long enough to pick a fight with him anymore. Maybe that was why Hakkai was acting like this--maybe it was getting to him, too. And wasn't that a pleasant thought? Hakkai on edge was never a good thing.
Gojyo wasn't sure at all anymore how much time had passed. Was it a few days since he started seeing the mystery reflection more clearly? Weeks? Longer? He couldn't even carve notches in the wall to keep track, since nothing they had would leave a mark.
He saw her pretty fucking clearly the night she pushed his head under the water in the bath. He could feel her hands on his head, holding him under, but when he tried to reach up to grab her arms, to force them away, there was nothing to grab. The look on her face was blank, as she just stared down at him while he thrashed and held his breath. His lungs were burning when something like sense came back into her eyes, and she let go. Vanished.
Hakkai burst in a moment later, and the look on his face when he saw Gojyo gasping for air and shaking in shock was... Gojyo wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't concern, or surprise. Relief? That couldn't be right. "So there is something else in here with us."
"No shit." Gojyo raked wet hair away from his face. "I figured I might be imagining it. Her. Guess not."
"What does she look like, to you?" Hakkai's voice was tight, his posture a little too casual. He wasn't making any move to help Gojyo up, just standing there in the doorway, almost vibrating with tension.
Gojyo narrowed his eyes at Hakkai, trying to see past that poker face, and an idea hit him like a sledgehammer. "Shit, it's your sister, isn't it?"
"It's something that looks like Kanan, at least." And then he turned and left before Gojyo could say anything. Gojyo let him go, his throat closing on any question he could ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
He definitely didn't want to be alone in that bathroom a second longer, either, so Gojyo heaved himself to his feet and grabbed a towel on his way out. If he dripped all over the floor, well, too bad.
Hakkai was waiting in their room, with one of Gojyo's cigarettes lit and in his hand. He held it like it was second nature, and Gojyo had a weird moment of déjà vu.
"Since when do you smoke?" Gojyo took another cigarette out of the pack--which thankfully never seemed to empty any more than the pantry--and leaned in to light it off the end of Hakkai's.
"It's strange, isn't it? I just felt like I needed one."
"Is it helping?" Gojyo sat on the bed beside Hakkai, and Hakkai shifted to lean against him, back to back.
"A little."
Obviously Hakkai didn't want to talk about it, and Gojyo was kind of okay with that. Hakkai was warm against his back, and here, for now. With him, for now. So they just sat, and listened to the rain that never stopped.
In the morning, Gojyo woke to find himself still in Hakkai's bed. For a second he thought Hakkai was gone, and panic nearly stopped his heart, but then he saw that Hakkai was sitting on the floor, by the window that didn't open, turning the now-empty ashtray over and over in his hands.
"Something wrong with it?" Gojyo ran a hand back through his hair--or tried to--and winced; he'd fallen asleep with it wet, and it had dried into a mess of knots.
"It just seems like it's the wrong shape. I don't know why."
"It's an ashtray. It's ashtray shaped. What should it look like?"
Hakkai shook himself, and put the ashtray down. "I don't know. This place must be getting to me." There was that talent for understatement again. He shrugged, and stood. "Let's see if we can do something about that hair."
Gojyo settled on the floor beside the bed, while Hakkai took his spot on it. There was a comb in Gojyo's bag, somewhere, but Hakkai started with trying to unsnarl the knots with his fingers, first. There was some tugging--there would have to be--but Hakkai's hands were sure and careful. For some reason, it made Gojyo's heart hurt.
When Hakkai was done, Gojyo got up and stretched, then joined him back on the bed. "You're actually talking to me today. Feel less like biting my face off now?"
"It's a little better today. Like some kind of pressure was released." Hakkai noticeably didn't deny wanting to bite Gojyo's face off. It wasn't reassuring, but as long as the limiters stayed on Gojyo figured they were probably okay.
But now that Hakkai mentioned it, Gojyo felt it too--the irritation was still there, but less intense, like the tension had just built until something snapped. Or someone. She'd stopped, in the end, whatever that meant, but Gojyo wasn't going to forget the sight of those empty eyes staring down at him through the water. Would the pressure just build back up again until one of them lost it?
"Seems like a pretty fucking roundabout way to kill us." Gojyo didn't even really want to think it, much less say it out loud, but now that the shape of this trap was starting to get clearer... "We're sure Chin Yisou is really extremely dead this time, right?"
"This all seems a bit elaborate for him, even if he wasn't, as you say, really extremely dead."
"Doesn't feel like an illusion." Kami-sama's illusions had felt pretty damn real, too, but none of them had lasted anywhere this long, or been anything nearly this... passive. But they were always running into weirder and weirder enemies, so maybe this was one who liked the really, really long game.
"Whatever or whoever caused this, it seems we can only deal with the part in here with us." Hakkai didn't say her name.
"Okay, fine. But how?" Gojyo didn't ask if Hakkai was going to be okay. Okay was always a long way off for both of them, anyway.
Hakkai gave Gojyo that smile that never meant anything good. "She seems a lot more interested in you than in me so far."
That was one way to put it. "She tried to drown me in the fucking tub."
Though he was still smiling, Hakkai's eyes went hard. "So she did." His voice was deadly soft. "Whatever or whoever she is, I think I'd like to talk to her about that."
And there really wasn't much point in arguing when Hakkai said it like that, was there? Gojyo wasn't sure he wanted to, something tight in his chest easing just a little at the thought of Hakkai being angry for his sake. Not everything had changed, yet.
She wasn't too obliging, though; she didn't make even the vague appearances in mirrors anymore, after the incident in the bath. She was definitely still there--Gojyo could feel her watching them, sometimes--but she was avoiding any kind of contact. Weirdly, that made Gojyo more sure she was the real thing, and not some illusion or fake.
He thought Hakkai felt the same, but he didn't ask.
When Hakkai had suggested "more extreme measures," Gojyo wasn't sure what he was thinking. He definitely hadn't figured on it being "taking a bath together."
The way Hakkai was taking just a little longer than necessary washing his back made it pretty clear just how he planned on getting Kanan's attention. Gojyo just had to make sure he didn't let those clever hands of Hakkai's make him lose track of what they were actually doing.
That turned out not to be a problem--it was really hard to forget that all this was a show for Hakkai's dead sister-slash-lover. If Gojyo ever needed a surefire boner-killer in the future, remembering this would do it.
"Your back is a mess of knots." Hakkai's breath was warm against the back of Gojyo's neck and it made Gojyo shiver. Maybe not the way it usually would have, but if Kanan was watching she probably wouldn't know the difference.
"Yeah. Go figure I'm a little tense."
Gojyo could feel Hakkai smiling behind him. "I should have brought some sake, we could both use a little relaxation."
Sometimes, Hakkai's acting ability was really creepy.
Suddenly, there she was, standing at the foot of the tub, watching them. There was none of the scary blankness in her eyes, today, but Gojyo still remembered the feel of her hands on his head, impossibly strong as they held him under the water.
Hakkai didn't sound like he was smiling anymore--not even the scary smile--when he said, "Hello, Kanan."
Frustration twisted Kanan's features and when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. Then her eyes met Gojyo's and she frowned, thoughtfully. She reached for him and he flinched back, but there was nowhere to go in the confined space. He felt Hakkai shifting his weight behind him, but then Kanan's hand was sinking into his chest and everything was spinning.
Then, darkness.
When he came to, he was lying on the floor of the bath room, Hakkai kneeling over him and shouting his name. Or, his body was lying on the floor, but Gojyo couldn't quite feel a part of it, like he was somehow out of phase from his own flesh. Then his eyes opened and his hand cupped Hakkai's cheek, and none of it was his doing.
"Gonou." His voice, but different, softer.
Well, shit.
He wanted to close his eyes, to just not see this. Block his ears, so he wouldn't have to hear him choose her. But he wasn't the one driving, and didn't know how to get control back.
"No." The coldness in Hakkai's eyes was absolute. "You can't have him."
What?
Kanan faltered, her hand--Gojyo's hand--falling away from Hakkai's face. "But we could be together again."
"The man who lived for you died with you, Kanan." Hakkai's tone softened, only a little, old sadness tempering the cold anger in his eyes. "Cho Gonou died."
"That's a lie."
"No." There was no room for doubt in Hakkai's denial. "Cho Gonou died, and Cho Hakkai was born. As Cho Hakkai, I made the choice to keep living."
"And Cho Hakkai can't be with me?"
Instead of answering directly, Hakkai leaned in close and said, "Give. Him. Back."
"No! You were mine first! It wasn't fair, what happened to us! That man said so!"
That man?
"That man?" Hakkai sat back again, narrowing his eyes in thought. "He told you to do this? Made it possible for you to do this?"
"I..." Kanan hesitated, and Gojyo could feel her confusion. "He said it was my right. That you'd been stolen from me. But I... how did I get here?"
Hakkai took her hands--Gojyo felt it so dimly he couldn't say they were his hands--and the last of the anger left his eyes. "You have to give him back to me, Kanan. Our time passed, long ago, even if it wasn't fair that it was so short."
A fog lifted inside Kanan, and Gojyo felt her hold on his body start to slip. "That man said you were mine first, but he was wrong. It sounded so right when he said it, but I was only ever borrowing you."
"Kanan?"
"I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough. Then, or now. I'm sorry I let that man use me to hurt you. Good-bye, Hakkai. I'm glad I got the chance to meet you."
She was gone before Hakkai could find the words to reply. Gojyo settled back into his body with a nauseating lurch. "That sucked."
Hakkai's answering laugh was a little strained, his expression a little battered, a little bruised, but nothing seemed broken beyond repair.
Someone started pounding on the bathroom door. "Hey, are you guys okay in there? It's been like an hour!"
Gojyo sat up with a jerk, and regretted it immediately as his vision swam and his head started to throb. "Ow."
A second, louder bit of pounding started up. Gojyo bit back a groan--it felt like it was his head getting hammered on.
"I don't give a shit what you two do on your own time but if I have to drag your naked, unconscious asses out of there you won't survive the experience!"
"We're fine, Goku, Sanzo. Thank you for your... ah... concern. Gojyo got a bit dizzy, but he's fine. We'll be out shortly." Hakkai's voice sounded totally normal, sharply at odds with the look on his face.
The things Sanzo was muttering as he stormed away were not complimentary, but Gojyo was weirdly happy to hear the familiar sound. "We're back."
"So we are." Hakkai closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again his grief was buried under that perfect poker face. "Don't try to get up yet, I'm going to grab us some towels."
Not getting up seemed like a very good plan, for the moment, because Gojyo's head still felt like... well, like it had had two people's worth of thoughts jammed into exactly enough space for one, probably. Felt a lot like a really bad hangover.
He watched Hakkai walk away, just that short distance across the bath room, and for a moment the shape of Hakkai's back reminded him of someone else. He felt like he'd almost caught a glimpse of what Kanan had meant, but then it was gone and Hakkai was Hakkai. It didn't matter anyway. The past might weigh on them, might try to hold them back, but they didn't know how to stand still anymore--they'd just keep fighting their way forward.