Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Love Lies Bleeding ❯ Grief And Suffering ( Chapter 9 )

(More Rampant Spoilers for Chichiri's gaiden novel, Shouryuu Den. This is a yaoi work, though there's no hot male-male action this time around. Sorry. ;D This chapter is Ranked A For Angst. You have been WARNED.)

Love Lies Bleeding

Memories are just where you laid them,

Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

What did you expect to find?

Was it something you left behind?

Don't you remember everything I said when I said:

Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.

Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,

In my hands again;

Leave love bleeding in my hands.

In my hands,

Love lies bleeding.

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel

Hikou had said he felt less fatigue than other men, just hours ago. But as he forced himself to hike up yet another rain-drenched slope, he realized he was weary beyond his bones. The very water that he was made from desired to simply lose form and let his body go. Then he could sink into the puddles and become one with them, resting in the damp. He wanted simply to let go, lie down within the earth, and sleep the sleep that only the dead could attain.

But he couldn't stop. He couldn't give in if the man before him, his only beloved, refused to rest.

They'd been moving since they arrived here. Between the anguish of their arrival and the guilt that set in after they began to move, Hikou was not finding this easy. Thankfully, Houjun was too busy to notice.

Pushing ahead, the Suzaku shichiseishi pushed himself up the hill, step by step, till his feet slid in the mud and he was dumped unceremoniously on his knees.

"Houjun!" Hikou cried out--but it was useless. Houjun was going to go on until he lost consciousness, he was sure of it.

The monk pushed himself up, trousers splattered with mud and heavy with the muck.

"I'm all right," Houjun said.

"I'm sure," Hikou replied dryly. "But Houjun, there's a camp nearby. I can sense it. Can we stop there?" This need to pause was born of concern for his lover. It was a strange emotion, unpleasant in the extreme.

Demons were not supposed to really emote. Most of the time they were creatures of base needs; more complex things were left to higher creatures--gods and goddesses. But he had been forged from a human soul... And he felt this strange, human emotion.

And he hated it sometimes.

He waited there, as Houjun stood and caught his breath, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Hikou was certain that Houjun was as winded as he, if not more so; as he bent and panted, one hand curled about Houjun's ribs, holding the bones that had recently mended protectively.

"Please," Hikou urged.

"All right. We'll check this camp, and then rest a little bit," Houjun conceded wearily. "But only for a little bit."

Relieved by even that concession, Hikou moved with a new hope. They would soon sit down for a bit at the very least! All they had to do was get to the top of the hill, to the camp tucked on it.

Carrion crows were their escort as the pair continued their march upwards. Hikou knew the birds well; they, like him, fed where others anguished and wailed. He had so far refused to taste of this sorrow spread out like a banquet for his senses. Houjun was here. These were the people that had taken care of him. They were important to him. Hikou could not feed on their pain. Not so much because it would be wrong, he told himself, but because it would hurt Houjun.

He didn't want to hurt Houjun any more then he already had.

The urge grew harder to deny as they made their way into the stragglers' camp; oh, the suffering found here! Just as in the village: fear, pain, sorrow! So much to be had here, if Hikou would but reach out and take it.

It was ashes on his tongue, bitter and unfullfiling.

Hikou simply reached out, as Houjun stopped before him, and steered him toward a lean-to. There were no fires to be enjoyed here: everything was soaked with water. But that did not stop him from forcing Houjun to sit down on the tattered blankets laid out over the damp earth.

Houjun grunted once as his backside made contact with the blanket, but Hikou simply said, "Rest. We will ask in a moment, about what's going on and what we can find here. Maybe they will know what else we can find."

Houjun sighed, trying to get the mud from his hands and failing. Realizing it was a losing battle, he simply let them settle in his lap, his head drooping. He radiated weariness like the campfire they so sorely desired might radiate heat.

Hikou was unsure of how to help him. Should he say something more? Touch him? Do something differently? He settled on the simplest, most familiar thing he knew, and eventually put his arm around his friend and lover.

Houjun needed him, he told himself. He would support him. He had to support him. This was his duty, at this moment.

Surprisingly, he found Houjun did not resist. Too tired to care about the casual and open display of affection, Houjun leaned into the demon's body.

Houjun was, if possible, more tired than Hikou: his face was streaked with mud, his hands and feet stained brown with it. The stink of rotting wood and bodies left to simmer in the sun and rainwater broth was on his skin. He was miserable.

His misery was Hikou's misery.

"Stay a little while," Hikou murmured in Houjun's ear, his voice, soft steady drone. "Just sit here with me and regain your strength. You're too weak to push yourself any further, Houjun. So just sit here a time with me and rest."

Hikou's constant croon eventually lulled the monk into leaning against him, and once there, exhaustion overtook him and dragged him down to sleep.

Hikou's body ached for release, to become one with this flood plain, but he did not rest. He simply shifted, lowering Houjun's weary body until he could rest against Hikou's lap.

The demon's hands slid through Houjun's hair as Hikou bent his head to kiss the monk's brow.

"I'm sorry," Hikou murmured softly, his voice strangling on the final syllables. "So sorry."

But the demon did not allow himself the respite of weeping; he held on until he too was asleep sitting up, bent over his friend protectively. The sun dipped behind the mountains, trekking from East to West, vanishing somewhere among the sands of Sairou, on the other side of the world from the two tired men.

They were allowed a few scant hours of slumber, before a rude awakening brought them both to consciousness.

"Shuusei-san!"

A hand was on Hikou's shoulder, and it did not belong to Houjun. It was old and gnarled, and belonged to an aged woman, who was hunched over them both and trying to rouse him from his sleep.

She was calling him by another name. He knew who it belonged to, and it made his heart sink. What did he say? He groggily mumbled, not making any real, coherent words, and feigned exhaustion. The woman, however, had words that roused them both from their slumber.

"Shuusei-san! You must come see your wife! She is on the edge of death, Shuusei-san."

"My wife," Hikou repeatedly numbly, as sleep was torn from him with but a word. "My wife," he said again, his voice rising. "Oh, gods. Kouran."

To anyone else, it was the lamentation of a confused and sick husband over his wife, but in all honesty, it was a refusal. He did not want to see this woman. But the old hag who had brought both their terrible news AND woken them up was trying to drag both men to their feet with her claw-like hands on their flesh.

Both men were forced to their feet by her insistence, and Hikou was who the woman dragged forward. Neither heard his desperate whisper as they walked; the woman ahead, Houjun behind.

"Yamero, Tenkou-sama," he murmured hoarsely, eyes widening with growing panic. "Yamero, onegaishimasu. Onegaishimasu. Kudasai. Yamero kudasai, Tenkou-sama. Onegaishimasu..."

Finally, he turned from the woman who held his wrist as surely as a manacle would, and reached for his lover. "Houjun, Houjun!" Hikou cried, and tried to jerk free. The woman yelped out in confusion as she found her grip tested with the demon's wild jerks and thrashing.

While Houjun could not truly fathom the terror that gripped his brother-turned-lover, he knew he had to do something or Hikou would suffer some sort of fit. Extending his hands to steady Hikou by his shoulders, Houjun looked up into the demon's panic-stricken gaze, and then brushed his hair back from his face, one hand going to the arm he kept trying to jerk from the grip of the bewildered hag.

Confusion was writ across Houjun's face, but he could not simply leave Hikou as he was. Houjun was afraid if Hikou's fear was strong enough, he might hurt the woman to be free of her. He had to calm him, and quickly

"Saa, saa," Houjun murmured, as if he were calming a skittish stallion, ready to bolt from the bridle. "I'll take care of it." His hands continued to sooth the demon with gentle touches, stroking over his face, hair, until the frantic need to escape was eased away.

The woman looked on in confusion, till Houjun bent his head to her ear and whispered in it. It seemed to have the affect that Hikou desired; she released him as if he had suddenly grown too hot for her aging hands to handle.

Eyeing him suspiciously, the woman finally said, "May Suzaku be kinder then Seiryuu has been, monk. I fear for their souls."

With only a warding gesture as her goodbye, she spirited away from the pair. Hikou looked briefly to Houjun, and then forward toward the tent they were being led to.

"Is she...?"

"Yes," Houjun replied. "She's there. I can sense her now; her ki is dangerously low." He stood there a moment, eyeing the demon as Hikou began to calm, and said, "You don't have to go in. I will go alone."

Hikou relaxed visibly, and then dipped his head. Pathetically grateful, he could only hoarsely give his thanks.

Houjun strode forward, and Hikou watched him move beyond beyond tent's flap. Hikou found he could not give Houjun any privacy; he knew that if something went wrong, the monk would need him. Stepping closer to the entryway, he listened to the private words between monk and his one-time savior, peering in through the gaps in the cloth that blocked the cold, wet air.

Houjun knelt before the bedroll and the woman that lay wrapped in heavy, tattered blankets. He reached out to smooth her hair back from her brow, fingers coming away damp with her sweat.

"Kouran?" Houjun said gently, causing her to rouse slowly from the rest that had her.

She twisted on her bedroll, and then peered up at the face, her gaze blurred by fever. Eyes colored hazel, the one difference between Houjun's one-time beloved and the woman that laid before him, narrowed in confusion.

Relief flooded her face when she saw who it was. "Houjun," she murmured. "You are safe. We feared for you, when you did not come to us."

"I...was delayed," Houjun lamely explained, voice failing him. He could not explain that Hikou had beaten him, molested him, and then waited for him to heal.

"The gods kept you safe," Kouran corrected. "Safe from this flood."

Hikou felt his hands clench as they spoke on, trying to swallow the bile that he knew could not be real. But still, he could not move from this tragic tableau presented to him, even as he refused to feed upon the pair's pain.

"The gods did not have anything to do with it, Kouran," Houjun said gently. "I wish I could have been here to aid you. But now, I must bring you home to your father, Kouran."

"My son," she interrupted. "My son is with my father?"

"Yes. But Shuusei--"

"Shuusei is dead," Kouran confirmed for the monk. "I saw him swept away, on the front lines of the barricade." She took a shuddering breath, reaching up for the monk, who gladly took her into his arms to cradle her gently against his chest.

"My son, my Houjun, he must have a father," Kouran said.

"And a mother," Houjun hastily added, even as he pulled her blankets tighter around her. "We must get you back to the village."

"No," Kouran said softly. "First, you must promise me, Houjun. Promise me you'll be the father to my son."

As another rattling breath was taken, Hikou turned from the pair and stalked a few steps away from the door. Her pain was palpable, her loss intoxicating. He could have supped on her and be satiated for months.

"No!" Houjun said abruptly. "No, Kouran! You must get well. You... Your heart will heal, as will your body. Your son will need you, Kouran!" His voice rose over her wheezing breaths like the cry of a hawk over the whisper of a breeze. He seemed intent on carrying her away, gathering her into his arms.

"Promise me, Houjun," Kouran insisted. "Promise me. Please, Gods, Promise me you will watch over him..."

Houjun paused in his motions, and looked into her wan, empty face.

Hikou could feel the monk's resolve shatter in the face of his once-love's misery. He was not seeing Ou Kouran anymore. He was seeing another, begging him to care for her child.

"I will, Kouran," he finally said, his voice breaking.

A calm smile split Kouran's cracked lips.

She seemed to settle against him peacefully. Her breath rattled in her lungs. Hikou counted them.

There, Again.

And again.

And again.

And...

Nothing.

Hikou's eyes clenched shut as he felt the tether between body and soul snap, and her suffering was swept away. The gods opened heaven to her, he was sure, and peace was hers.

Hollowness was left within him at her passing, and he could not explain why. He did not have time to contemplate it, though, for there was a new sound coming from the tent.

"Kouran? No, Kouran. You can't be dead. You can't be dead! I need you! You can't die too!"

Houjun. Houjun!

Hikou turned, no longer afraid of the woman he knew was gone. He tossed back the tent flap and braved the interior only to find that his beloved was on the verge of a breakdown.

Houjun began to rock almost imperceptibly, with the now-empty vessel of his one-time friend, the woman he owed his life to. The monk's trembling hand fluttered over her face, delicately touching eyelids, nose, lips, seeking some tiny sign of life, denying the reality he held in his arms.

Hikou slowly approached Houjun from behind, till he could kneel quietly down behind the monk, reaching out to settle his hands on Houjun's slowly moving shoulders. Hikou swallowed thickly, trying to think of what to say, what he could say. He knew there was no way he could truly ease this blow.

"Houjun," he began weakly, "She's gone, Houjun. Let her go. She's free of her suffering now." He knew. He felt it flee.

Houjun's tears fell freely, but as Hikou's fingers tightened on his shoulders, Houjun stopped his motions and became as still as the woman in his arms. But then he finally relaxed his grip upon her body, and almost reverently laid her body on the bed mat, compulsively tucking her in as if the cold still mattered to her.

Hikou's heart broke, watching Houjun's pathetic, wasted kindnesses.

"She's dead, Houjun," Hikou repeated; it was cruelty, but he could not stand to watch Houjun fuss over the woman's body. She was dead. She was free of suffering. He could not pity her any longer.

But he could pity Houjun as grief finally shattered his last remaining strength. He bent over her body, trembling hand covering where two eyes had once been.

"I know, I know," Houjun sobbed brokenly. "I failed her. Why couldn't I save her, Hikou? Why could I not save just one?" His shoulders began to shake with the force of held-back sobs under Hikou's hands, and he hiccoughed with his grief.

"Just one!" he lamented to his lover, "Just one. Why couldn't I save just one?"

"It..." Hikou searched for the right words, but finally just gave in to rambling, unsure of what could ease his friends pain. "It's just fate, Houjun. Just stupid fucking fate. You couldn't change it if you tried!"

But it did nothing. Houjun only fell to incoherent sobbing then, and finally turned to grip Hikou's tunic tightly, as if he might anchor the demon to this existence.

Drawing him close to his chest, Hikou soothed him the best he could; his hand stroked over the monk's short hair, rubbed his back as he sobbed harshly. Grief reduced the Suzaku shichiseishi Chichiri to red-eyed weeping, and Hikou found he could not fault him for it.

Houjun cried miserably for hours, and finally succumbed to exhaustion shortly after. Hikou plucked him up in his arms, and carried his exhausted lover from the tent to another. Once he found an empty space, Hikou laid Houjun down in the safety of the shadows. The demon stayed by his side, holding Houjun against his chest as Houjun slipped into unconsciousness from grief and exhaustion.

It was only then did Hikou allow himself his own pitiful sobs in the dark, nuzzling at Houjun's neck and murmuring against the monk's skin, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His tears streaked his face even as he held tightly to his charge, and confessed in the darkness to ears that could not hear his sins. "I was only doing what Tenkou-sama told me to do. I didn't know it was this village. I didn't know."

The soft whimpers continued through the night, until the demon was equally emptied of strength, "I'm sorry. So very sorry, Houjun."