AITE

We are--all of us--slaves to the whims of Fate. Days slip by unnoticed, while hours drag like half-dead corpses at our heels, and somehow, we continue on, never knowing where the next bend in the road will take us. No one knows what their future holds. We can dream as many scenarios as we like, but the truth will always take us by surprise.

On one of those days, when an entire week seems to have passed by while each hour ticks on endlessly to endure the current day, Fate will strike out and knock someone unsuspecting flat on their ass. It is inevitable. Especially...especially for those who mourn and carry heavy, unnecessary burdens on their backs. They are the ones who never see Fate coming, because once, long ago, they saw her face to face.

"Hey, Hakkai? You okay?"

It was raining. It was always raining.

Seated on the edge of his bed facing the rain-soaked window, Hakkai turns to address his vigilant friend who has come to stand nearby. They share the small room, separated from their comrades by a single wall. There are two beds, the lone window, and an end table. It is simple, but they are used to accommodations such as this.

"Yes. I'm fine, Gojyo." the brunette replies, his voice dim and soft, so light within its tenor pitch.

"No." Gojyo states back, sitting down to join Hakkai on the bed. "I mean really."

As if on reflex, Hakkai smiles, something not quite as convincing as the mask he usually wears so effortlessly. He sighs; he never could keep anything from the stubborn hanyou. "It's been four years." he explains, staring outside at the falling rain. "Four years to the day."

"Aa. Then I guess that makes it our anniversary."

Hakkai laughs, just as softly as he had smiled. "Yes, Gojyo...that it is."

Nudging Hakkai gently in the side, Gojyo captures his friend's attention. Once secured, he pats his own shoulder with one of his large, tan hands. "See this spot right here? Great for resting a head on. Or so I've been told." he grins, if a little crookedly.

Hakkai laughs again, his voice on the verge of cracking with every fresh sound uttered. "I think I might...take you up on that offer..." he breathes, scooting the few inches closer for his head to rest gently on the redhead's shoulder and for his side to relax against Gojyo's own.

In turn, Gojyo slips an around Hakkai's back, holding him in place with just the right amount of pressure and support. Comfort is always best when offered by a friend who gives it without asking anything in return. Few may understand that Sha Gojyo is one of those friends, but his true nature is not something he often broadcasts.

Hakkai, however, has long since known the truth.

"It doesn't hurt any less, does it?" Gojyo asks, after they had sat a few moments in contented silence. The way he has spoken makes it seem much more like a statement than an honest question.

"It does...but not less enough." Hakkai admits. "These past few years have made things easier merely by being with you. And Sanzo and Goku, of course." he adds quickly. "Honestly, it doesn't hurt the way it used to. I...I only...I only wish...I could finally let her rest."

"You can. All you gotta do is say goodbye."

Hakkai huffs out a falsely humored breath of air. "Is it really that simple?"

The fact that Gojyo has lived for many years with Hakkai's self-loathing and excessive mourning has done very little towards making it easier for him to handle rainy nights such as this one.

Projected pain does not induce wisdom.

"You loved her. I get that. But...did she mean more to you than living out the rest of your life?" Gojyo speaks through clenched teeth; his temper is getting the better of him, but out of sympathy, not anger. Sympathy...for a friend he has never known how to help. "Did she mean more to you than...than the people you have in your life now?"

Hakkai shifts in his position against Gojyo's side, but does not raise his head, still resting on the hanyou's shoulder. "What you're really asking...is did she mean more to me than you?"

"That's not what I said." Gojyo speaks quickly. "It'd be awful of me to make you answer something like that."

This time Hakkai does raise his head, lifting it just enough to stare into Gojyo's crimson eyes. "She didn't." he states simply, and then lays his head back down again. "See, it wasn't hard for me to answer at all. She didn't mean more to me than you do now, it was just...different. She held a place in my heart that is now empty, and always will be, but you...you hold a place all your own, Gojyo."

"Aww, you're making me blush."

Once more, Hakkai's light laughter slips out between his lips, and he finds himself snuggling in closer to Gojyo's warm, firm body. "Thank you." he whispers, his voice sounding faraway somehow within the still silence of the room.

"For what?"

"For being there. For being you." Hakkai smiles, and it is one of his rare, honest smiles, though Gojyo cannot see it with the brunette's head bent down as it rests against his shoulder. They remain in silence for a moment or so, before Hakkai gently speaks again, his voice even more on the edge of breaking than it had been not long before. "Goodbye..." he breathes, so softly, Gojyo almost doesn't hear him. "...goodbye...Kanan..."

And the dam breaks, blown open and blown apart, with pieces of debris sent flying in every direction.

Slowly, Gojyo begins to feel that the man in his arms is shaking, shivering against him, and when a strange, too tender sob breaks the silence, he is certain he is treading territory he does not know how to tread. Hakkai is whimpering softly, and as the tears fall, Gojyo feels his shirt becoming damp through the downpour.

"Shit, man, don't cry. You're a guy, for Heaven's sake." he orders, though his voice is weak, and honestly, he has given the order only because he doesn't know any other way to handle what is happening. He can play the macho guy with ease, the guy who tells his friends to buck up and look on the brighter side of Hell. But...to hold another man while he cries...?

"I...I'm sorry...I know this is very...unseemly of me..." Hakkai sniffles, his voice a broken pane of glass while all the rain from outside is seeping in through the cracks. "I...I just...I..." But he cannot speak anymore; there is nothing left to say.

Hakkai's attempt to compose himself fails, and as the last of his held back tears burst free, he turns to bury his face in Gojyo's chest, clutching at the kappa's shirt, desperate for something to hold on to as he drowns-- deeper and deeper--inside the rain.

What else can Gojyo do but hold him tighter? So he does.

Pulled in flush against Gojyo's chest, Hakkai is being held with one arm still around his back and the other up in his hair, and soon, he is digging deep into the shoulder he had so recently been leaning on. Yes, this is the comfort he longed for tonight. No questions, no words, just the feel of another person's body and tender hands.

Tears fall for a good many minutes before Hakkai finally pulls away, still clinging to Gojyo's damp shirt with fisted hands. Gojyo still has one arm slinked around Hakkai's waist with the other holding the brunette's head as his fingers become tangled in the soft strands of hair. Their eyes meet--ruby and emerald in the dim lighting. Gojyo smiles. Hakkai sniffs back the last of his tears. And...somehow...they both begin to lean forward.

Their noses touch and Hakkai laughs, pulling back. But Gojyo isn't about to let the magic end there. The hand that had been nestled in Hakkai's hair slips free and travels down to touch the man's pale face, still glistening with tears. Gojyo runs his thumb beneath each green eye, one at a time, to banish the remaining wetness, but once the job is done, his hand does not fall away. Instead it strokes at that smooth skin, mesmerized by the foreign feel of it. Then, when Hakkai's eyes drift closed, both men are suddenly leaning in again.

Lips meet fleetingly, shocked that they have actually touched, but soon, they get over the strangeness of it all, and meet again. Hakkai is still trembling slightly from releasing so much sorrow through those many tears, but Gojyo's lips are determined to still him.

The kiss is light and soft, though desperate all the same. It wants to become more. Much more.

There is no conscious effort by one man or the other to search for something deeper, suddenly, they have merely surrendered, and their tongues are intertwined, exploring inside each other's mouths. No rational thought is in either man's head, only adjectives.

Wet. Warm. Sweet. Wonderful.

Should rational thought enter their minds for even a second, they will have to stop. And now, in the moment, that is something neither of them wants.

Hakkai feels himself being pushed back onto the bed, and he ignores the alarms that go off in his head, allowing himself to be laid down. When the kiss breaks, the instant contact of their eyes is too much, even as Hakkai quickly looks away to stare instead at Gojyo's heavily rising and falling chest. Eye contact will break the spell, Hakkai reasons, though the heat from Gojyo's eyes still locked on his face proves that the kappa is not thinking along those same lines.

Clinging to what he can, Hakkai grabs at Gojyo's tank top and pulls, surprised at how easily it slips up over the hanyou's head and off to fall to the floor. Almost instantly, he pulls the redhead down again for another kiss, his hands digging deep into that flaming hair. Gojyo moans, forcing Hakkai to kiss him even more fiercely if only to block out the sound of a voice he knows too well.

Within the kiss, it is Hakkai's shirt now that is being tugged up, and the article is discarded quickly when they break again, before having to immediately reconnect, as if their breath is stolen by lack of contact instead of by contact itself.

Both feel dizzy, disoriented, as if dreaming. Their hands stray to each other's bare chests and anywhere else they can reach as their lips and tongues continue to assault.

Hakkai tenses as a certain pair of straying hands begins to pull at his pants, bringing his boxers down with them, but he does not break away. He does not break away at the feel of cool air striking his suddenly naked body as his pants disappear. No. He rolls, pinning Gojyo with his weight as he had been pinned, and begins to remove the kappa's pants in return.

Gojyo couldn't be closer to Heaven if he died this very minute. Hakkai is on top of him--naked--the brunette's lips pressed hotly to his with their tongues dancing to a rhythm he can hear as clearly as if music were playing beside the bed. The amazing thing is, the fact that all of this is happening, and that Hakkai is the person it is happening with, does not take away. It adds. It matters. It means everything.

And Gojyo never even saw it coming.

He shivers at the sudden absence of his own pants--he hadn't been wearing anything else--and the realization that both men are now stark naked is very--VERY--apparent. Gojyo's mouth opens wide with the onset of another groan, but Hakkai's mouth is right there, eager to silence him with a bruising kiss.

Hands stray to places they could have only dreamed of before, and as they kiss, forever locked together, their bodies move and thrust against each other, working them both into a frenzy of need. Both men are shivering now, their ribs in tight contact as their heavy breathing synchronizes into a single, giant breath.

Hakkai has forgotten the rain.

Another roll and their positions are once again flipped, with Gojyo on top and Hakkai squirming deliciously beneath. Then, suddenly, Gojyo is lifting them up, his hands gripping Hakkai's shoulders as he lifts and leans back until both are up on their knees instead of lying down. Slowly, he falls back into a sitting position, his legs spreading, and he hoists Hakkai up so that the brunette is straddling his waist, practically sitting in his lap.

Their lips have yet to pull apart for more than a few moments at a time, but as Gojyo shifts Hakkai further, into that perfect, desirable spot, they are forced to break apart. Hakkai gasps, cringing in pain as Gojyo finds the entrance he had been searching for. He clutches at Gojyo's back, the kappa's face buried in the crook of his neck since the position they are in has Hakkai lifted to a slightly higher advantage.

Hakkai shudders deeply--a sheath never before used--but the pain is passing, replaced by something equally blinding that climbs up his spine to the back of his head and explodes. Gojyo is fully inside now, holding Hakkai tight, their chests pressed close together. And then...just then...Gojyo begins to move. They are only small thrusts at first, a gentle rocking, and even when the movements pick up pace, it is still amazingly gentle, as if the two young men are merely slow dancing to the rhythm Gojyo is certain he can still hear.

They are locked in that position, Hakkai holding tight to Gojyo's back, his legs gripping the kappa's hips, while Gojyo kisses Hakkai's chest and neck, and together...they move, they rock, they dance.

Their breathing is the only sound in the room, and it is not rough or terribly heavy, but soft, made up of contented grunts and huffs, like a rumbling purr that fades into the distance.

The passage of time means very little, until all the glorious friction is suddenly over, the soiled sheets tossed to the floor, with a single, remaining blanket left to pull up around them as they drift off to sleep. They haven't spoken. They haven't looked deeply into each other's eyes, or found any great revelations. They are merely a tangle of limbs suddenly, resting in a contented heap on the bed--exhausted.

A/N

This will be two parts total, the next part dealing with the morning after. This is an example of how I actually think things could go down for this oh so possible couple, and I hope it is to everyone's liking. There is a reason they don't speak and that everything is so gentle and rhythmic. It just...had to be that way. I can picture it all happening in my mind, and I hope you all can, too. Please Review, minna, and thanks as always for reading.

Crim