Sentenced to life
A/N: I found five lists of these words, so this is one; I'll get to the others eventually. Warning: POVs do not change on schedule. Also, the Gaiden is here, hence the ghastly pun in the title. (10K is too adorable and it's the same pairing really, so it's not cheating, she said virtuously.) And one sentence in here is 98 words. Appalling.
#1 Air:
'This,' Kenren declared, 'is incredibly boring,' and as he discreetly dragged Tenpou out of the meeting by one arm, Tenpou reflected dryly that Kenren was apparently determined to be a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.
#2 Apples:
Hakkai cut his apples into eight neat pieces, peeled them, cut as close to the core as possible and kept a plate to deposit the seeds on; Gojyo bit into them with great relish, took large bites and tossed the core over his shoulder in the general direction of the waste-basket – it was hard to tell whose behaviour annoyed the other more.
#3 Beginning:
He placed a gentle hand on the ugly scar that spanned Hakkai's stomach, waiting for the familiar flinch, and when none came his only thought through the overwhelming relief was well, that's a beginning.
#4 Bugs:
Once, when they slept in the open, Gojyo whined incessantly about the bugs before he dragged Hakkai from the campfire to a more secluded place, where they bantered and fooled around all night; and in the morning, when he loudly insisted that he'd only taken him away because the bugs didn't bite away from the river, Hakkai smiled indulgently and passed him the salve for insect bites when Goku wasn't looking.
#5 Coffee:
Once, Hakkai greeted Gojyo with a fresh cup of coffee made to his taste; he was horrified by his friend's crumpled, near-tearful expression until Gojyo shakily explained that nobody had ever made him coffee in the morning before, and never the way he liked it.
#6 Dark:
All cats are grey in the dark, he remembered, and decided that in the dark, red hair was nearly black and limiters didn't glow either, and maybe they could just pretend for a while, together.
#7 Despair:
Tenpou despaired of changing anything about the world he hated, Kenren knew that; but it was a controlled, icy, furious sort of despair, which only fuelled his ambition and sharpened his edge.
#8 Door:
Opening Tenpou's door was usually a dangerous business, and not just because of how dangerous the man inside was; he was fairly sure that Death by Cascade of Assorted Things was not how he wanted to go.
#9 Drink:
'Damn it, it's my bed too,' he insisted when he came home drunk; but he found himself spending the night on the floor anyway, because Hakkai was pretty freakin' scary when he smiled like that.
#10 Duty:
At some point, Hakkai had become cook, launderer, healer and all-round mother of their little group; he relished that duty, Gojyo knew; it kept him busy and kept him useful, and that was the closest Hakkai had allowed himself to come to happiness back then.
#11 Earth:
The scent of earth after rain was one he'd always loved; he still loved it, for a different reason.
#12 End:
'We've been here before,' Gojyo said suddenly after a long silence as they lay curled together; Hakkai wondered if it was wishful thinking, because the last thing he'd said had been 'Gojyo, do you think that death is the end?'
#13 Fall:
He hated seeing Hakkai in the fall; there seemed too much colour around him, and it only brought out how painfully inconspicuous and faded he attempted to make himself.
#14 Fire:
Fire had become his definition of Gojyo: blazing temper, fiery hair and eyes, passion, crackling intensity – and the flame at the edge of his cigarette, a silent reminder of his presence even when darkness separated them.
#15 Flexible:
'I recall your saying you weren't flexible enough to work under just anyone,' Kenren murmured; Tenpou laughed, waved a hand and said he wasn't just anyone, and that was that as far as that discussion went.
#16 Flying:
It was the nth time he was watching the familiar meal-time runaround; Gojyo and Goku grabbing food from each other's plates, Gojyo's insults flying even faster and smoother than his fists, his outraged yelp as a bullet streaked between what Sanzo fondly called his antennae; really, there was no need for him to feel a sudden wash of tranquil happiness and this odd feeling of……belonging, as if something long-repressed within him had taken wing at that moment.
#17 Food:
The food was clearly horrible, Gojyo knew from Hakkai's polite expression that it was; and if he'd cherished any hopes to the contrary, they were dispelled when Hakkai gently but firmly chivvied him out of the kitchen and did the cooking every single day after that.
#18 Foot:
If there was one thing about Hakkai that Gojyo envied, it was his ability to talk for any length of time without sticking his foot in his mouth.
#19 Grave:
Gojyo was boyish when he slept, sensual when he flirted, ridiculous when he played with Goku, and these were moods Hakkai knew well and adjusted to instinctively; but when he was grave and vulnerable and uncharacteristically serious he was almost beautiful, and he never knew how to deal with that.
#20 Green:
He found that Gojyo hung-over was an endlessly entertaining spectacle; there was something very adorable about how sulky and whiny and childish he became, although he had to admit that pale green wasn't really a very nice colour on his skin.
#21 Head:
It wasn't that Gojyo was unintelligent, far from it; he simply had a regrettable tendency to lose his head – or his temper – which was often a source of vast amusement.
#22 Hollow:
His smiles were hollow, his eyes were empty, and every word he said made Gojyo want to punch him in the mouth just to see something come alive inside that pretty shell of what had once been a man.
#23 Honour:
For someone who arguably had the longest list of vices even among their none-too-virtuous group, Gojyo was probably the one with the deepest sense of honour.
#24 Hope:
Hope was one thing Hakkai didn't have; and though Gojyo couldn't boast of much either, he found that he had trained himself to be optimistic, to balance him out, and at some point it became automatic.
#25 Light:
He didn't know how Hakkai did it, but the flash of light off that monocle served as a more reliable warning signal than a shout or a blow.
#26 Lost:
For somebody who lived in a virtual avalanche of junk, and who never quite knew what he was wearing or where exactly he was, Kenren thought it was an amazing talent that Tenpou could find any of his books within a minute, no matter how deep in the mess it had lost itself; that was his first indicator of the complexities of the man.
#27 Metal:
Gojyo in conversation was like metal forged in loving hands; clean and honest, bright and sharp with an unexpected edge; and it was the keenness of that very edge that cut away his pretences, sliced apart his masks and forced him to reveal the truth.
#28 New:
After every fight, Hakkai mended their clothes, no matter how tired he was; worked meticulously and ceaselessly until all trace of damage was gone, as if that would undo the fight itself; which would have been tragic if it hadn't been so endearing.
#29 Old:
It would be nice, Hakkai thought, to find out if Gojyo's hair would remain that flame-red, improbably vibrant colour, or if it would fade into a dark pink, or merely become shot through with silver; to be there when Gojyo squalled and sulked and complained about growing old, and laugh at him.
#30 Peace:
'This is peaceful,' Hakkai said happily as they drove one day, and Sanzo knew better than to believe he was talking about the drive, not with those two bickering in the back-seat like a pair of insanely loud toddlers.
#31 Poison:
It was very hard not to hate her, not when he could see her insidious hold over his best friend, seeping into his every insecurity, every action, every fear like poison.
#32 Pretty:
Hakkai's chi was pretty, just like he was, bright and harmless-looking; but like him, it could both heal and kill.
#33 Rain:
On rainy nights he watched Hakkai silently, and didn't know whether to mourn for what Hakkai had lost or be glad for what he had gained.
#34 Regret:
A fortunate side-effect of having no regrets was that at some point, it became impossible for him not to be happy at least some of the time.
#35 Roses:
Just once, he tried to give Hakkai roses; the converted youkai gave him one of his deceptively bland smiles and courteously requested that he not be wooed like a barmaid, and the ice in his eyes was far more convincing than any words he could have used.
#36 Secret:
At first, he pursued the elusive marshal, trying to discover his every secret, thinking that that was what he wanted: but soon he realised that Tenpou was utterly sincere about keeping his secrets, and would tell him exactly what he had earned the right to know, and not a word more; and he could respect that, because he was the same.
#37 Snakes:
Hakkai was very pretty, of course he knew that, with his eye for beauty; but danger lay beneath, like a coiled snake, a blade, or a storm waiting to break.
#38 Snow:
As they trudged through the mountains, Hakkai looked at the snow, thinking about Yakumo and wondering what would happen if and when he, too, finally snapped; as if he knew what Hakkai was thinking because maybe he had been thinking the same thing Gojyo laid a warm, heavy hand on his shoulder and whispered 'You won't' in his ear, and Hakkai smiled distantly and covered that hand with his own, thinking that if it had to be someone, please let it not be Gojyo, because that would mean two deaths, and he felt terribly selfish for the thought.
#39 Solid:
They wound up back-to-back in battle, protecting each other with metal and chi, and the feel of that solid, steady warmth at a vulnerable point was both blissfully comforting and annoyingly distracting.
#40 Spring:
Eternal spring was boring – flowers always blooming and everything always picture-perfect; he wanted storms, rain, lightning, and clarity and integrity, and Kenren was all that and much more.
#41 Stable:
He definitely wasn't the most mentally stable person Gojyo knew, but Gojyo had never found safety a very attractive thing, and besides, Hakkai was the only stable thing he wanted in his life, and if that meant they had to support each other to not shatter, then so be it; he would do what was necessary.
#42 Strange:
'You're a very strange man,' Tenpou told him contemplatively, and Kenren was caught so off-guard by the statement that any sarcastic remarks he might have made about pots and kettles flew clean out of his mind.
#43 Summer:
Even in the height of summer, Hakkai could sleep peacefully in his black undershirt and long pyjamas while Gojyo sweated and tossed on his bed and was grumpy in the mornings; was the man made of ice?
#44 Taboo:
Hakkai once remarked, laughing darkly, that of the two of them, Gojyo would probably be considered less taboo; it was years later, when he finally learned the whole truth of who Kanan had been, that he understood that statement.
#45 Ugly:
There was always an ugly twist to his mouth when he spoke of his childhood; it was the only time he could ever even imagine anything ugly about Gojyo.
#46 War:
They had a brief, wordless, bitterly determined war over cigarette etiquette in the house; it was about the time when he began looking for an ashtray before he lit up that Gojyo realised he'd lost rather badly.
#47 Water:
Hakkai knew from experience that running fingers through Gojyo's hair was like placing them under flowing water, and every time Gojyo tied his hair up, he wondered how it could defy gravity like that.
#48 Welcome:
From the very beginning, Gojyo treated him as if they had known each other all their lives, taking all sorts of liberties and being as relaxed and teasing as an old friend. From almost anyone else it would have been uncomfortably intrusive, but Hakkai knew that this was just his way of saying he was welcome there.
#49 Winter:
Gojyo said hated the cold: he shivered and huddled and even stopped talking in his misery – even his hair didn't seem as bouncy; but when he used the excuse to cuddle shamelessly with Hakkai whenever the opportunity arose and he didn't seem to be shivering too much the healer began to wonder just how devious the redhead really was.
#50 Wood:
It should have been easy to read Hakkai's thoughts while playing poker, but it wasn't; while Gojyo could unravel the most wooden façade he was helpless against someone whose eyes said exactly what he wanted them to say.
A/N: Do let me know which ones were your favourite in your review; I might expand on them in later chapters. But God, these list things are like pulling teeth. Without anaesthetic.