OKAY! I went into my webmail to do this, so hopefully, there will be
no more problems with formatting. If there is, my head is going to
explode. u.u; 



Love Lies Bleeding

Chapter 6

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


The demon did not return until two days later. That had been enough
time to make his point, and to vent his rage in the service of his
Lord. Tenkou, the great Lord of Hell, had demanded the river of the
Rising Dragon rise and burst past it’s banks, and Hikou had obeyed.
It had felt good, to pound the earth with rain and hate and release
his frustration against his one-time lover.

As the sun crested on the third day it found Hikou, wings folded
against his back and perched in a tree, calmer for his brief period of
mass destruction. He had positioned himself just so not but an hour
before the sun began its trek into the sky, to watch the day at the
fortress begin. 

The sun rose from behind the great fort--it’s gateway faced the
east, the direction of the God of War, Seiryuu the azure dragon. It
indicated that this was indeed a warrior’s fort, and that they
welcomed conflict.

They seemed ready for it as well. As dawn came, guards changed. And
who came out to ‘supervise’, but the bandit-leader himself,
flanked by his ever-present ‘buddy’, Kouji. The sun kissed the
red-haired bandit’s wild mane and spangled it with streaks of gold,
and Hikou, for a moment, thought him a little more then just a dirty,
filthy robber posing as a shichiseishi. 

The impression fled the moment Tasuki opened his big mouth.

“This is gettin’ to be too much,” Tasuki said to Kouji, as they
watched the other killers and cut-purses move to their positions. 

“You really aren’t just gonna let him go, are ya, boss?” Kouji
queried, even as he took up a lean against the wall.

Tasuki frowned, refraining to answer as his men positioned themselves.
Once they were finished and he was satisfied, he turned back to his
cohort and replied, “You know Chichiri, Kouji. Once he gets some
crazy idea in his head, he goes with it. For the ‘greater good’ or
some other fuckin’ load of horse shit.”

“But he’s in no condition t’ travel, Genrou,” the blue-haired
bandit added, called Tasuki by the nickname he had borne since he had
joined the Leikauku clan.

“I know. But do you want t’ sit on him and try and make him
stay?” Tasuki snorted.

The other bandit shook his head. “No. That’s your job, ne?”
Kouji’s smirk was friendly enough. “Besides, I think this has
somethin’ to do with that damn thing that walked outta here. 

I’m a thing, am I,  Hikou chuckled inwardly, but made no sound. He
wanted to hear the bandit’s banter.

“No shit!” Tasuki all but blurted. “That sorry, soggy fuck! This
is all his fault!” A fist was lifted, and pounded into the
bandit’s callused palm. “He did something to Chichiri! I’m sure
of it!”

If they only knew, Hikou mused, as he finally slipped from his perch
at the tree. Deciding against making a grand entrance, if just to
prevent there being an outright attack upon his person, he decided on
the upfront approach: he simply stepped out of the shadows cast by the
trees and began to walk up the path toward the great gates of the
fortress. 

Kouji was the first to notice him; he looked up sharply, his brown
eyes widening at the brazen demon coming up the walkway toward the
gates. 

“Genrou!” he said sharply, before elbowing the red-head in the
side. 

The motion was enough to get Tasuki’s attention, and it found the
water demon with wide eyes, which rapidly narrowed to venomous slits. 

“What the fuck are you doin’, comin’ back here?” Tasuki
demanded. “This is a holy mountain, you fuckin’ shit!” 

“I have come for Houjun,” was Hikou’s simple answer, and he
enjoyed the way it seemed to gall the bandit—until it seemed that it
wasn’t gall, but confusion.

“Who the hell is Houjun?” Tasuki growled.

“I think he means Chichiri!” Kouji suggested helpfully.

Tasuki paused a moment, and then blurted, “I knew that!”

Both Hikou and Kouji favored the seishi with a long look with the same
expression as they sweatbeaded slightly: Sure you did.

But before either Tasuki could rant, or Hikou could sneer, Kouji
interrupted the staring with a question: “Just what do you want with
Chichiri, anyway?”

Tasuki was quick to leap on this with a rousing, “Yeah! You’re a
demon! He’s a monk!

The bandit paused, and the eyed Kouji a moment. “Still.” 

Tasuki paused again, and this time eyed Hikou. “I think.”

Hikou sighed softly, and opened his mouth to speak, only to be
interupted by the opening of a door in the great gates to the fortess,
and the man they were just arguing about stepped into the middle of
their argument.

Three sets of eyes turned to the monk as he stood there, blinking at
the collection of people on the doorstep of the lair of the bandits.
Faced with the tension already in the air, the monk stopped in
midstep, remaining in the door way within the gates and simply stared
at the three men staring at him in turn. 

“Ohayo!” Chichiri finally greeted the group with a heavy dose of
false cheer. He smiled slightly, only to have the expression wiped
right off his face when Tasuki planted himself firmly before his
brother seishi.

“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doin’?!” Tasuki began
his interrogation. “You’re beat to shit an’ you think you’re
just gonna walk outta here, like this?! You can’t even hold your
staff in the right hand!” 

“I have a promise to keep, no da.”  His gaze flickered briefly to
Hikou before returnng to Tasuki. “I have been delayed two weeks
already, and I am expected, no da. They’ll worry about me, no da. I
don’t want any body to fret, na no da!”

Hikou watched with detatched interest as Tasuki’s brows furrowed and
the two men engaged in a brief, intense face off—until the fist was
swung. 

All eyes widened as Houjun abruptly doubled over with a woof of
breath, curling over Tasuki’s fist that had contacted solidly with
his bruised stomach. He choked and gagged once, but wasn’t given any
time to really catch his breath as Tasuki plucked him up in his arms,
cradled him against his body like he might a child, and carefully
began to take him inside.

The urge to simply fill the red-haired seishi’s lungs with water and
make them burst was suddenly in his heart, choking off his reason,
until he realized Kouji was speaking to him.

“Genrou’s just doin’ what’s best, so don’t get your trousers
in a twist!” came the harsh reprove from the bandit for the glare of
death that was still boring into Tasuki’s back. “Chichiri would
probably get his fool self killed if he went out like he is now! So
why don’t we all just go inside, be real nice for a little while,
and sit on him till he recuperates, an’ then you and him can go your
merry way?”

A moment passed between the two men, before Hikou finally nodded,
stepping into the doorway behind the scarred bandit. They moved to
catch up to Tasuki, who was headed for the door with the kanji for
‘sho’ on the doorway. He kicked the door open and strode in with
the collapsed monk, and then laid him gently across his bed. 

Houjun struggled to breath, coughing harshly as he promptly tried to
curl in a fetal ball against the pain and found that cracked ribs did
not agree with that course of action.

Tasuki whirled ot find himself face to face with Hikou. 

He hollared once, and then demanded, “Who the hell let you in!?” A
moment later, the only possible answer came to him, and he bellowed
out, “Kouji! I’m gonna feed ya yer boots! You stupid fuck!” 

Kouji was safely behind the demon and outside the room, so the threat
was rather moot.

However, Tasuki was not through. He glared at Hikou for a long moment,
before he began to give orders.

“You’re gonna make sure he’ll stay put!” he says. “You stay
here with him, till he’s well! An’ I don’t wanna see you
anywhere else but THIS ROOM!”

Hikou’s hands lifted in mock submission, and he obeyed simply to
spite the tempermental seishi. Tasuki experted him to disobey. He
decided that obedience would make him all the more upset.

“No problem,” Hikou said.

Tasuki deflated slightly. Hikou had not given him defiance, and
acceptance was not something he had been prepared to deal with. And so
instead, he simply pushed his way past the demon. 

Kouji and Tasuki departed, leaving Hikou with the gasping monk.
Finally entering the room fully, Hikou shut the door behind him, and
then moved toward the bed, his robes whispering slightly around his
steps. 

Houjun was not one to stay down long, he noted, as the monk curled his
broken arm around his belly and tried to push himself up on his good
one. The limb trembled with the strain visibly, stirring the rough
linen of his sleeve.

Hikou couldn’t stand there any longer. He reaches out to help him
sit up, Houjun never protesting once. 

Once Houjun had a pillow behind his back and was upright, he looked up
at Hikou, his single eye seeming to weigh his options. On one hand, he
was terribly wounded. On the other he had to get to Kutou. 

As he watched him make these choices, Hikou could not simply stand by
and allow him to think that he’d be allowed to go anywhere in his
condition. He was broken and bruised, and Hikou was going to put a
stop to this right now. He would heal. That’s why the demon had
brought him here.

“Don’t even thnk about it,” Hikou’s voice was firm, and it
crushed both Houjun’s hopeful expression and any thoughts of
leaving. 

“Who made you my mother?” Houjun asked with a sliver of
irritablity worming it’s way into his tone.

Hikou’s brow quirked, but he gave no answer, simply folding his arms
over his chest. He watched his brother-turned-lover’s expression for
a long moment; the lines of his face were more pronounced, and there
were bags beneath his good eye. 

“Have you been sleeping poorly?” Hikou asked, his tone betraying
no concern. 

“Yes,” Houjun said flatly, turning his face from Hikou. 

“You know,” Houjun said after a moment’s silence, “I wish
I’d never thrown that mask away.” Ignoring the way Hikou’s brow
arched or the briefly curiously glance the demon gave, Houjun
continued, “Then none of you would know, and I wouldn’t have to
deal with this false concern.”

“Ah,” said Hikou. “This is what it is. May I remind you,
however, that no one took that mask from you. I didn’t even take it
from your at the riverside. You took it over, to look at me with your
true face. You only put it on again to face your seishi brother. I
never forced your hand with it.”

Houjun said nothing in reply.

Hikou moved quietly before him, before kneeling before his bed with a
rustle of cloth, his amber eyes glittering as they searched the
monk’s expression.

“Is that what you think?” Hikou asked, after a moment. “That we
don’t care?”

Houjun said nothing for a long moment, but once the agonizing seconds
had dragged out he replied, “What am I supposed to think? I don’t
know what we’re doing, what’s going on, or even why we’re here
together like this!”

Cool hands, oddly feminine in their slenderness and delicacy, reached
out to cup Houjun’s face, gripping his chin and forcing him to look
at Hikou. The demon held his face in his hands steadily, and brought
his gaze to Houjun’s. His experssion was that of dire seriousness,
as if he were about to impart some great secret. 

“I think you want me not to care,” Hikou said, his voice low. “I
think you would rather I used you. Then it can mean nothing, and you
can be a victim, and go on pretending that there was nothing between
us other then what I wanted from you.” The demon’s hands
tightened, tremor running down his arms as he continued, “That
isn’t so. That isn’t it at all.”

“If you’re not using me,” Houjun asked as an edge entered in his
tone, “just what do you want from me?” 

Surprised, Hikou blinked. He hadn’t considered his desires, truly,
in this. What did he want from the man before him, who’s face he
cupped in his hands? His mouth opened, closed, and he seemed lost for
a moment, searching for an answer.

“I don’t know,” Hikou finally answered. “No. I do. I... I want
you to let it go, Houjun..”

The monk’s single eye blink rapidly, as noncomprehension writ itself
across his scarred features. 

“Let it go?” Houjun asked. “What do you mean, ‘let it
go’?”

“This!” Hikou released Houjun’s face, only to wave impatiently
as his face, his scars. “All of it. The pentience and the guilt and
suffering and the pain...” The demon took a deep breath, and looked
at the monk intently. “I want you to let it go.”

Silence reigned between them, as Houjun visbily wrestled with this
concept for a moment. His gaze flickered over Hikou’s intense
visage, and then to where his prayer beads lay on his night stand, and
then to where the mask had been thrown. 

“But why?” Houjun finally blurted. “I don’t understand! My sin
against you gives you anything you ask of me! My blood, my life, my
flesh, whatever it is, it’s yours! But you want… want me to let go
of my pain?”

“Yes!” Hikou answered explosively, hands flying up with a flutter
of billowing sleeves. “Yes,” he said more gently. “Let it go. I
want you to let it go. None of this shit, poisoning you, anymore. And
maybe, just maybe... if you can find peace, then I can to.”

Houjun stared at him for a moment; Hikou could detect the slightest of
trembling that took him as he watched the man. But before he could
answer Hikou, the demon was speaking again.

“For a long time, I hated you. I plotted and I planned, Houjun, I
did. And then, when I finally got to you, I... all my plans, they all
fell to dust. I don’t think I know what I’m doing anymore.”
Suddenly sheepish, Hikou reached up to scratch at the back of his
neck, looking away. “I don’t think you do either. But I could be
wrong.” 

Houjun’s head drooped, and he was silent still, taking in Hikou’s
words. He remained there, simply trembling until he found his voice
again. 

Then, the words could not be stopped.

"I tried," he said softly, "For so long... to deal with it. It ..." He
paused, and took a breath, before exhaling it in a rush. "Everything
was gone. The monks that found me took me in. They never asked
questions, they accepted me unconditionally. Taught me things...
about... about serving one's dharma and finding peace. But they knew I
was restless, and couldn't be bound to a temple. So they let me
wander. And that gave me nothing, either. This ... Nirvana was still
unreachable. I couldn't get it with both hands!” Couldn't let
anything go. And I don't... I just..." 

Houjun took another moment to gather his thoughts, before saying, "I
became a monk to find peace. To find some salvation, cleanse myself of
sin. I thought, if I dedicated myself to my vocation. If I did well, I
could find some peace. And it never happened. It wasn't until...” He
swallowed hard, and then coughed once, now bordering on hiccuping
sobs.

Hikou finally moved from from before the monk, till he could get up on
the bed, and sit beside him; he did not speak or move to close. He
simply allowed himself to be a physical presence. Houjun was purging
himself to the person Hikou thought mattered most in this case: The
man he had done wrong. He would be further damned if he did not
listen.

“I found some solace with Miaka-sama,” Houjun finally said, once
he could continue “It was something... I didn't want to be a seishi,
at first, but then I realized it was my only chance to do something
right. And so much was on a group of eight people. The fate of
nations!" He laughed once, strangled, high-pitched, and unnatural.
"And most of them were just kids. And they all died. All but Tasuki
and Tamahome, and /he/ went to be with Miaka."

Houjun stopped, and shook his head and sighed out, “We saved the
world, Hikou.” His gaze finally lifted to the demon’s visage,
tracing his impassive features. “But through it all, you were never
far. Your ghost was just behind me, and K-K..." he cannot finish Her
name, it seemed. “You were always with me. Reminding me of why I was
doing this. Oh, gods, you may be a demon now, Hikou, but you were a
spectre to me long before I saw you at the riverside.”

“I know,” Hikou acknowledged, reaching out slowly. His touch was
hesitant, but he wanted to draw the monk into his arms. Fortunately,
Houjun did not resist his embrace, but slowly leaned against is
shoulder, his sobs quieting slightly. 

"We won, Hikou,” Houjun murmured softyly, once he was in the
shitenou’s arms. “In the end we did what we were supposed to do...
And we have nothing to show for it. Four dead young men. A kingdom
with a child-emperor and a silent dowager empress. Eiyou is a City of
the Dead. War ravaged countrysides... one frustrated bandit who's
scared to death he's going to be alone... and me. And I have no idea
what to do, and... and my dharma as a seishi was fulfilled. So... if I
did what I was supposed to, why am I not yet at peace?"

It took him this long to answer Hikou’s question. A rambling
diatribe that only made sense once he began to say, "I spent all this
time grieving for you, punishing myself for my sins... and now, here
you are, and you... you want me to let it all go. Finally... let it
go." He reached up, brushing his hand through his short hair. "And I
don't know how I can accept that, or what it means, or...what I would
do. Everything has been for penance. Everything." He blinks dimly,
dark eye searching the sheepish demon's face, as if he might find
hidden meaning there. "And... I... I don't know what I'm supposed to
do. Everything was laid out for me for so long... as a monk, as a
seishi... the idea of just doing something because I wan to is
foreign.” 

Houjun looked up at Hikou, his burgundy eye bloodshot from his harsh
tears, “What do I do now?" 

The demon sighed softly against Houjun’s short hair, and then
murmured, “Let it go, Houjun. Find a new path. I know you can do
it.”

Houjun had no immediate answer; he simply leaned against his one-time
lover and closed his eyes. 

“I’m so tired, Hikou... But if I let it go, what will anchor
me?” he asked softly.

“I will,” the demon answered, and it seemed to satisfy them both
for the time being.

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