Respice Finem -- Look to the End.
by sf

Begun : September 13, 2002
Rating : PG-13
Warning : Angst, Swearing.
Dedicated to Lux -- For support and inspiration in dire times.

Notes : A Hakkai and Gojyo centric piece, written from character PoVs. Obscure references to obscure events. Know your canon before you read this. Attempting to do a Hakkai-Gojyo medium length fic (est - 5-6 chapters?) while remaining as in character and as close to canon as possible. Which means *glances at PG rating* -- don't get your hopes up. Written on a not-rainy angsty night. Depending on my mood, it may degenerate into a death fic. *pauses*. Yes, I'm morbid these days. Set along the journey, in a random inn in a random town, so Sanzo and Goku might make an appearance -- it's hard to write a fic without all of them.

Summary : A rainy night and too much sake sends Hakkai into a depression, with disastrous consequences.

PROLOGUE - Crimson Tide

It is raining again.

The clatter of the rain drops as they splatter across the rooftop and against the windowpane is not music to my ears. It is nothing as innocent as that. It has never been and will never be. Not since the day she died and nothing was left, not love, not life, not even the sound of the rain.

And the darkness closes in, like that night and the nights after that, dark and deep and soundless as a tomb, a tomb in which I was caught, and yet was still alive.

And the rain was falling again the night I met him... or was it the same night? One fails to remember; the line between dream and reality is too blurred for memory to distinguish. All I beheld was red, a crimson tide, blood misting over my vision to match the blood sweeping over my hands.

She said she loved my hands. A quaint thing to say; she will not love them now, blood-stained as they are.

As she would not love me now. Gonou at least was honest, but I live a lie like the smile I wear. A life that is a lie and a life that should not have been, save that he intervened and petitioned for clemency. For my sake. That was folly... folly to believe that I deserved a life after death, for such a life is exists only on borrowed time. The debt must be repaid one day.

Perhaps that time is running out. The shifting of droplets drums into my ears like the shifting of sands in the hourglass of the soul, that which counts heart beats, not seconds. And it wears thin, running out with each passing breath. Wearing thin, running out, closing the circle; the specters of the past returning to haunt the starless night.

It is impossible to escape from the past.

In the morning all things will be normal. The sun will shine down on a new day, washed clean by the rains of the night. By the morning, all will have passed, and the world and I will rest easy.

But there is something about this night that says that there will be no morning. A sunless day will dawn upon a dying world.

Something whispers in my heart that this night will be the last.

And as I toss and turn, seeking the blissful nothingness of sleep, the rain hammers upon the doorway of my soul, the executioner demanding entry. Not now, not yet. It is not time.

Not now, but soon.

Unlike him, I cannot escape my ghosts by drowning them in a bottle. I have tried, but while he has been long asleep, sleep continues to elude me. And the rain continues to fall.

Perhaps I will stand in the rain for a while, to hear its unmuted roar and to feel its chill caress upon my face. Then I will know that it is just rain, just water, insensitive to our pasts and ghosts and fears. Perhaps I will face this darkness instead of running from it; face it and conquer it forever, until nothing is left but the rainbow after the storm.

Perhaps.

***

The door creaks open.

No, not my door, but the one across the corridor. The room that he's sleeping in tonight, except that he obviously isn't sleeping. He's been edgy all day, and so has the monk... the cloudy sky and the smell of approaching rain must have something to do with it. It's going to be a real storm tonight.

The storm of the drops splatting against the rooftop mask the quiet tread of his footsteps. He's always quiet, so polite and so considerate, minding his own affairs and tiptoeing around the place so as not to tread on your personal space.

That's the reason why he's the only one who can room with the monk. Sanzo has a real problem with personal space.

But we have our own rooms tonight, which means that I don't have to put up with the monkey's snoring all night. Which is great. But I can't sleep. It's not the rain, not the lightning and the thunder that's starting to crash overhead, not even the sound of insomniac companions prowling the corridors at night.

There's just something fundamentally wrong with this night and this place. There's a dry, acrid sense of danger in the air that tickles the back of throat and annoys the crap out of you. Like smoke that's almost too faint to smell. But it's there, anyway, and it seeps into your nose and your clothes and stinks. It sure as hell isn't because someone's holding a barbeque outside my window tonight. And it isn't, damn you, because of the cigarettes. Cigarettes smell fine. Tonight just smells.. okay, feels bad.

I'm not going to fall asleep anytime soon.

Maybe I should talk to him. Play a round of poker... or a few. A few beers and a few smokes. A few jokes to pass the time. And then this bitch of a storm will end and the static or whatever that's making all of us so edgy will die down, and we can all go back to sleep. Yeah, right.

Ah shit, I should go after him, anyway. Better than sitting Sleepless in Some-place-whose-name-I-can't-remember and staring at the rain. Spooked by the weather. How inane.

Shit, my door creaks too. Just what you need for a B-grade horror movie - creepy storms, rickety inns, and fucking creaky doors. Even the floorboards creak. Perrrr-fect.

He's not in the common room, but the door's slightly ajar and the rain's sleeting in. He can't have gone out, can he? Standing in the rain's going to give you pneumonia, you nut.

Yeah, like the time I stood in the rain after she died. Stood in the rain and waited for it to wash everything away -- the rain, the scars, the pain. It didn't work, of course. Nothing but time can get rid of those, and sometimes, time's just plain sucky as a Stain-Remover-for-Bad-Memories. I figure it's the same for that green eyed dude. He's never taken kindly to rain.

Damn, he really is standing in the rain. Not on the porch, where there's at least a roof, but in the rain. Yo, Hakkai, something's wrong? You wanna talk about it? Or at least drown it behind a few good bottles of sake?

Oh wait, he's already tried that, hasn't he? The kid and I came back this evening to find several crates worth of empty bottles on the table, and the monk on the verge of passing out. But Hakkai doesn't get drunk.

Instead, Hakkai goes and stands in the rain. Freaking brilliant, smart guy.

Oh great. Now he's walking off. Let's see... footing's too slippery for me to run after him, rain's too loud for me to yell at him. So what do I do?

Follow, of course.

Bah.

***

Perhaps... perhaps I should not have come out.

Here there is no barrier between the darkness and I, no shield from the lashing rain, no protection from it's unfettered fury. It is not just water after all; it is a powerful force, an angry one, and the wind howls in tandom to the roar of the thunder.

But... what matter? Here I am in my element, a beast in the dark. I do not fear the rain. I do not fear the darkness. I do not fear the threat that lurks ahead. I walk, patient, towards the dark line of trees beyond.

Ahead, I can sense them, lurking in the shadows and waiting to pounce. The rain cannot mask their presence, the darkness cannot mask the sharp tinge of youki that permeates towards me. Unmistakable.

They shift, uneasy, fearing the one that approaches. Undecided in their course. For theirs is the way of the coward; to strike while the lights are out and when they are least expected. A direct confrontation is not what they seek.

But they will not run. To run is to admit defeat, and they will not back down. Rather, they will charge, each towards his death, believing that they can defeat me.

I halt my footsteps. I will not advance into their territory, but stand just within it, a clear challenge. It is I who chooses the battlefield, and I choose this place, this borderline between the darkness and the rain.

***

There are youkai in the woods. Damn you, Hakkai, don't you sense them? You're walking straight towards them!

"STOP!"

He can't hear me, of course. Not with the wind screeching past our ears, with the damn rain hammering and pouring, and with the distance between us.

But he stops anyway. Pausing. Waiting. Oh shit. He knows they're there. And he's just waiting for them to attack him. Hakkai, Hakkai, just what do you think you're doing?!

There's something terribly wrong with him.

Perhaps Hakkai does get drunk.

I quicken my paces, trying to bridge the distance between us.

***
TBC
***

A quick poll :
To switch to 3rd person narrative, or to remain in character PoVs, which gets tiring, after a while?