Fic: "I Never Loved You Anyway - Chapter Four" [Yaone x Gojyo]

[redbrunja]

I Never Loved You Anyway” – Chapter Four

(You Remind Me Of Me, prompt 23)

Fandom: Saiyuki
Rating: PG-13
Author: redbrunja
Characters: Gojyo & Yaone.
Author’s Note: Written for un_love_you. Much love to my beta, pzb.
Summary: “There should be someone getting her to smile- she was too pretty for somber to be her default expression.” In the game of love, some lines you cross, some lines you leap over, and some lines require playing hopscotch with the rules. (Yaone x Gojyo)

(previous chapters can be found here and here.)



Gojyo was one more crack about his ‘failure’ to seduce women away from informing them all of his last, incredibly satisfying, assignation. With -oh who was she again? Oh, only the incredibly hot chick who’d tried to kill them all several times. God, Hakkai’s face would be so priceless if he ever said that. Gojyo’d managed to keep his mouth shut for nearly a month because gentlemen didn’t kiss and tell, but if this kept up...

“It must be nice to be in a state of denial,” Hakkai said, smiling cheerfully at him from across the table, and Gojyo almost heard his nice-guy-ness crumbling away.

Around them, the bar was humming quietly, the chatter of voices blending into a playfull murmer.

“Hey, hey, are you underestimating my skills?” he asked, cigarette in his mouth, trying to distract himself with nicotine. Unfortunately, his damn lighter was being just as fucking annoying as his traveling companions and refusing to light.

“Skills?” Sanzo said incredulously. Since when the hell did the virgin get to make comments about Gojyo’s sex life?

He was lost in reminiscing about how much he’d like to drown them all, distracted by his obnoxious lighter and then there was the tearing sound as someone - a fine, female someone with hair the color of spilled blood - struck a match, and hot damn, his luck was clearly changing.

She had lush features, full lips and wide eyes, but what really made her attractive was the slight, sure smile tugging at her lips.

He followed her back to the bar like a lodestone finding true north.

~~~

Gojyo enjoyed the warmth of her body as she leaned against him. They were walking down some pretty dark streets, but after a year of having people jump out and try to kill him, his always-good reflexes had become excellent.

He wasn’t worried.

Especially not when she had her arms wrapped around his, and he could smell the flowery scent of her perfume. It wasn’t as nice as the mix of soap and sweetness that was Yaone, but hey, Kougyoku was right next to him, soft, yeilding, and hadn’t tried to kill him.

Yet.

Gojyo told himself not to borrow trouble.

He didn’t even really notice that they’d been walking for quite a while until they were practically in the woods that circled the town.

“I don’t mind quiet,” Gojyo said casually, “but this is almost on the outskirts of town.”

“Who cares?” she replied flippantly. “I hate being in places with lots of people.”

Gojyo couldn’t say he was surprised by that. He’d gone though times when he’d wanted nothing more than to be left alone, himself. It wasn’t like their coloring brought out the best in people, ever, and even the few folks who didn’t know exactly what it meant got a little nervy when someone showed up with hair that looked liked the they’d just come from a particularly messy massacre.

“Yeah, but still...” there was “not at lot of people,” and there was the deserted, dilapidated outskirts of town.

And...

“Hey, now,” he said, annoyed. They didn’t make any noise, but Gojyo’s scalp prickled, and he knew that there were people around who were looking to get their asses handled to them. “Damn it.”

Gojyo scooped Kougyoku up on his shoulder. Her breasts pressed distractingly into his shoulder, her weight a pleasant stress on his back.“Hey, what are you doing?” she cried, worried.

“Sorry, just bear with me,” he said, nicely sauve. “It seems we’re surrounded.”

Like he’d rung a bell to start the fight, the first youkai jumped down from a rooftop, yelling and swinging his weapon.

Six.

Six stupid punks who didn’t realize they should have just stayed at the bar telling lies tonight.

Gojyo reached, and his shakujou was in his hand, the crescent blade sliding free.

It was too easy. Even with the woman’s form over his shoulder, it was still far too easy to slice them up and make them bleed.

“Retreat for now!” one of the remaining ones yelled, not terrified enough to forget to salvage his pride, and Gojyo heard footstep running away. They didn’t even try to stick around and avenge their pals.

“Jeeze,” Gojyo said, annoyed, setting the woman down. Her legs must have buckled, because she just slid down to her knees in front of him. And it wasn’t like that was a position Gojyo was opposed to in principle, it was just he liked his women to be a little more enthusiastic about it.

“Sorry, were you startled?” he asked softly. His mind conjured up an image of another women, pale hands coolly twisting a man’s wrist back, the sound her shoe had made against metal of the knife. He shook away the memory as he knelt down, focusing on the woman in front of him. He hadn’t even thought to try and warn her.

“I - I-” Kougyoku choked out, her crimson eyes (just like his) confused and then she stood, turned, and darted away, light gray dress fluttering like a moth’s wings as she ran.

“That’s why I hate being attacked when I have chicks around,” he said, equably. Course, sometimes it went really, really well, but most often it just sucked.

~~~

“She could have just been really scared and ran off!” Gojyo protested.

Hakkai was wearing an amused smiled that said he knew different.

Damn, his former roommate could be insufferable, sometimes.

“Gojyo, isn’t that...?” Hakkai said, looking out the window and not sounding condescending at all. Gojyo practically teleported down the stairs, managing to be lounging against the doorjamb right when she started to walk away.

He saw the mixed disappointment and relief in the line of her body as she lowed her head and began to leave. It was stupid to go after someone who was so suspicious but hell, Gojyo’d never been one to do the smart thing.

Besides, failing to get killed was thirsty work, and what fun was drinking without company?

~~~

He knew she was trying to kill him from the very beginning. After a year and a half of assassins of various levels of bad, he knew when people were trying to kill him, and he’d had people trying to set him up for a fall since.... for a long time. Just part of the joys of existing when everyone said you shouldn’t. Still, after she’d gotten herself nicely sloshed and passed out, and he’d seen that knife slide out of the top of her dress and clatter against the floor like an admonition.... That hadn’t been a fun moment.

And he’d had plenty of time to think about what that knife meant as he carried her back to her place.

He listened to Kougyoku moan in her sleep. He wondered who was forcing her hand in this, who’d given her that knife. She could just have it to protect herself; that seemed reasonable. Pretty girl like that would always have some jerk hanging around who couldn’t take a hint.

Gojyo slunk deeper into the couch.

Still, no woman tried to get her out-night stand plastered; it was a dumb move, and despite the way someone was clearly jerking Kougyoku’s strings, she didn’t seem like a stupid woman.

Her breath caught as she woke, and Gojyo kept his body loose and relaxed on her very comfortable couch.

He heard the slide of metal withdrawing from a sheath.

Her footsteps were loud as she walked over to him, and Gojyo felt suddenly weary. His hand moved without conscious thought, slapping around her wrist before his eyes were even open.

“Let go of me!” she said, outraged.

“So it was something like this,” Gojyo said, hating that part of him that was surprised, even after the rest of this evening.

“You knew?” she gasped, horror in her voice, dusky skin paling further, even in the dim light. “Then why?”

“Because you’ve a beautiful woman,” he responded, voice low. It wasn’t the right thing to say.  She slid to her knees, knife falling onto the floor with a low thunk and tears dripping down her face.

“Don’t mock me,” she sobbed, “You’re still just a kid!”

Which was completely untrue, because fuck it, hadn’t he been making pretty girls cry for hundreds upon hundreds of years?

He reached out, tilting her chin up.

“We should be a little quieter,” he said, taking his own advice and dropping his voice to a murmur. “Everyone’s probably asleep at this hour.”

Damn, he hated it when women cried. There was a fraction of a pause, a flash of nascent regret that he hadn’t let her kill him, but he had better ways to make her stop crying.

Their lips met. She tasted like the red wine she’d been pounding back at the bar, the dry chalk of pain, and beneath that, the salty tang of tears.

She moaned into his mouth, and Gojyo felt a flicker of satisfaction deep in his chest.

Her hands ran over his chest, and he obediently stripped off his shirt. She ran her palms along his pectoral muscles, stroking her fingers through his hair (the same shade as hers, and he knew, he knew what it meant to live with that color hair. It didn’t matter if you cut it or dyed it or ignored it, it was always there, even if no one else knew that is was a sign of sin.)

When Kougyoku came, she made a sound like ripping cloth deep in her throat.

Afterwards, she pressed close to his back, trailing a hand up and down his chest, and he he watches the opposite wall through the smoke of his cigeratte..

“Why don’t you break up with a guy like that?” he asked, responding to her description of the jerk yanking her strings. He inhaled a lungful of smoke, the tabacco of his cigarette bitter on his tongue and the smell of the smoke almost masking the scent of sex.

“You should understand,” she responded, voice matter of fact beneath the post-coital lethargy, “with everything that’s going on between demons and humans. We’re neither demons or humans. We have no place to go.” She pressed against his back, and the warmth of her body felt fleeting.

She was right. Neither of them were supposed to exist, and finding people who didn’t hate the sight of crimson hair... he wondered how many men had treated her worse than rotten, for someone who was merely the wrong kind of guy to be a step up. She deserved better, but hell, it wasn’t like Gojyo had room to talk.

“Even if he’s a rotten guy, he’s the only one who was nice to me,” she continued.

“You could just be making yourself believe that,” he offered, knowing she most likely wasn’t.

“You think so?” she asked, voice almost coquettish.

“Most don’t know that those with red eyes and hair are taboo.” Which was true, as far as it went, but they always seemed to find out, always seemed to know that you weren’t quite like the others, always seemed to shove you down just that much harder.

“You’d be just fine living in another town,” Gojyo offered, and he could almost see her, almost imagine her happy, living somewhere with decent guys who’d fall at her feet like she deserved, who’d kiss the beauty mark under her eye and make her laugh...

“I’m scared to be alone,” she admitted, running her cheek along his shoulder.

Gojyo exhaled, smoke curling up towards the ceiling in smooth, wispy arcs. “You only feel like that in the beginning,” he told her. After a while, you learned how to ignore it, leaned how to pick up useless things to fill that empty hole.

He remembered green eyes laughing at him, shoving Hakkai’s guts back together, and later, a bitchy monk with an unruly pet standing on his doorstep. If you were really, really lucky, eventually you ended up picking up something worth keeping, and then you never got a moment’s peace again.

Gojyo thought of the feel of cards in his fingers, the way Yaone had danced away from what’s-his-name’s punches, the way Kougyoku had felt under him. Okay, so there’d be moments, but they were sure as hell rare.

“You’ll get sick of all the guys who’d pay attention to a pretty girl like you,” Gojyo said, like she was actually going to take his advice and leave.

He wondered if she would have taken him up on it if he’d had anything better to offer than a ride to the next town.

~~~

In the hills surronding the town, after he’d dealt with Bakura and his buddies, he watched Kougyoku look after her boyfriend, clinging to the side of the pit he’d tried to trap Gojyo in.

Gojyo really hopes that the next words out of Kougyoku’s mouth are ‘let him drop screaming to his death.’

The wind was ruffling the ends of her hair, chopped short and ragged, the rest of it probably still lying on his hotel floor, Bakura’s way of proving that he was playing hardball. Nah, Hakkai had mostly likely cleaned it up. He wished Hakkai were here - he’d know exactly what to say to get Kougyoku to realize what a waste her boyfriend was.

Gojyo was quite sure that that he doesn’t have anything to worth enough to entice her to leave Bakura, even if he redefined the word ‘worthless’ and fuck, what was it with these scumbags thatthought their girlfriends were only good for bait? If he’d had a woman who was half as devoted to him as Kougyoku’d been to Bakura... well, that was never going to be an issue. Which was just as well really, because a steady girlfriend would really....

“What do you want to do?” he asked her. Say, ‘Let him drop screaming to his death,’ say, ‘Let him drop screaming to his death,’ Gojyo thought, trying to develop telepathy.

“He’s not a good man, but he’ll stay with me,” she said,

...because a steady girlfriend would really break into his exciting life of rescuing jackasses for the women who loved them. Yep, lucky him, all footloose and fancy free.

Gojyo gave a little shrug and then fished the guy out before trying to discreetly vanish from the scene. The last think this day needed was they sight of them kissing all joyous and thrilled to be together.

Which was what would have happened if worthless bastard hadn’t tried to stab Gojyo in the back.

That was actually par for the course, really, he should have been expecting it.

But why had Kougyoku stepped between them?

~~~

Once she was dead, breath gone from her body, Gojyo spent an inordinate amount of time smoothing her raggedly shorn hair.

She deserved better. She deserved much, much better. She deserved better than her than her boyfriend, truly the worst kind of guy, and for her to think he, Sha Gojyo, was a good man... He wasn’t, he really really wasn’t, and for her to think so... Gojyo felt something hot and tight gnawing deep at his chest. He exhaled sharply, got up,walked three paces away, summoned his shakujou, and stabbed it into the ground like he was killing Bakura all over again.

He dug her grave deep and wide, and he buried both of them together. He said he would, after all, and a Sha always keeps his word.

Comments

[sharpeslass.livejournal.com]

The Yaone/Gojyo tag is a bit misleading for this chapter. I don't mind though. I liked this episode of the anime and thought you did an excellent job filling in Gojyo's POV. I especially liked him wishing so hard for her to want her boyfriend dead near the end... nicely done.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

And the label is a little misleading, but since the whole think is Yaone/Gojyo... I didn't label for Kou/Yaone in earlier chapters, either, so...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

New chapter, YAY!!!

Your Gojyo inner-voice is love, as always. And wow, I don't think I've ever seen a fic that's paid this much attention to Kougyoku, so extra awesome points for you there. *hearts*

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (And it wasn't like I could really ignore her - although I admit, I did bitch a bit about how NOW Gojyo finally got laid, when I have to deal with it in my fic.)

[kalium-kx.livejournal.com]

It's a really well-written complement to the episode i must say..

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you!