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Tenth Beat
Day 17
"I told you. I keep telling you," Kougaiji said angrily, pushing at his eyelids with his thumbs. "I can't just summon him out here. How much does it take to get that point across? I don't even know what went on to have him surface the first time. I don't even remember it. I told you I blacked out. I only have it on your word it even happened!"
"I don't believe that," Nii remarked tersely, glaring at him between the bars. "It's a commonly held view that one lie begets another, after all."
He held up a bundle of what looked to be print-outs.
"Asleep, is he?" he said. "Data suggests otherwise. Do you think that was clever on your part, that we wouldn't notice? You can't hide anything from us, boy."
"If you know we're talking, why the hell do you even bother to ask?"
"We see movement, we're not getting details. If you were wise you'd fill in those gaps for us." The human leaned closer to the cell bars. "If not for our research, then to save your own hide. Do you have any idea what kind of position you're in? It's only by the mercy of Gyokumen that either of you are alive to this moment. And you will submit. Sooner rather than later, if you please. Saves us a bit of trouble."
They held each other's gaze for one long, strong moment.
"Fuck you," Kougaiji said.
Nii smiled brightly as if he'd just been complimented. "Thank you."
It happened fast. In the space of a blink. Nii's hand dove between the two nearest bars and grabbed Kougaiji's hair with ripping force, pulling until he slammed the side of the prince's face into the metal, clawed hands scrabbling and remembering too late the shackles around his wrists put on some time in the night.
"Don't tempt me, brat," Nii hissed in his ear, over the stifled gasps of pain as he twisted the hair in his grip. "You know what Gyokumen said to me in bed? She said if only you had behaved--" tugged harder, waited until the cry subsided "--then everything would be a lot less complicated. Do you have any idea how much something has to annoy that woman to bring it up after fucking?"
"Sorry to be a mood-killer for you," Kougaiji said through clenched teeth.
He felt things tear, and begin to sting. The cold metal of the cell bar dug into his brow. Neck felt like it might just snap.
"You will bring him forth," Nii ordered. "You will submit. Or do you want to see your mother torn apart stone by stone, blasted into dust?"
Numbness. "...Take your fake threats somewhere else, human."
"You want to see her free? I can arrange it. Gyokumen has held off the demolition just for this purpose."
"Hn," Kougaiji said, glaring as much as he could from the awkward angle. "And my exchange would be...?"
"Your compliance."
Smirk. "I don't have time. Neither do you, actually."
"You'd send your own mother to her grave?"
"Thanks to your interference we're all heading there anyway."
"Not all of us."
And this time Kougaiji made sure he caught the scientist's direct gaze.
"She still has you believing that?"
What he could see of Nii's face twisted into something unreadable.
"Mei," he called to one of the assistants behind him, as he loosened his grip on Kougaiji's hair. "Alprazolam, if you would. Five milligrams."
"But-- Sir-- He isn't--"
But Nii only smiled wickedly through the cell bars at the prince.
"You'll find, quite soon, there's more than one way to skin a rat."
~*~
...
.
..
. .
. .
.
. .
. .
.
.
We're running out of time.
Has Doku tried anything yet?
I don't know.
...It hurts.
I'm sorry. I was stupid.
What time is it?
I don't know.
"Answer, highness."
"Two weeks ago," he answered automatically, throat dry. "A little over."
"What sort of things have you been talking about?"
"Death."
I promised I'd do something for you. Didn't I?
Don't talk about that.
"Why are you talking to him?"
"I don't know."
.
. . .
.
.
.. .
.
.
.
.
"Shut up."
"Answer."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up."
.
.
.
.
"Would you like to call out his holiness now?"
"I can't. I keep saying. I can't."
"Perhaps you should try harder."
What do I do? It's just going to keep going.
Can I do anything?
.
.
.
.
.
You could let me in.
Not for him. No.
"Whose plan was it to stop the revival?"
"I don't know."
"How were you going to do it?"
"War."
"War? We've had the war. The war's over. We won."
.
.
IT HURTS IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP
.
.
.
"What did you promise him?"
"The last rites."
"A careful planner."
.
"...twisted little love affair..."
"... .. . .... . ... ....
.. ."
"Are you happy now?"
Someone's satisfaction in his ears.
"Goodnight, highness."
Which night? How many?
It doesn't even matter.
We've lost.
Gone so far, so long, for it all to crash to a halt.
And sticky aftermath.
We're a disgrace.
Can we do nothing?
Are you strong?
No.
Me neither.
What do you see now?
What do you feel?
A heartbeat.
Yes.
~*~
Kougaiji woke to the immediate wish that he hadn't. An icy numbness pressed hard to an aching forehead, that his eyes snapped shut the moment he tried to open them.
"Two days," Nii said, before Kougaiji could even groan the question. "So I wouldn't suggest being petulant again."
"Asleep or--"
"Drugged, you idiot. We only spotted about fifteen minutes when you actually slipped into REM. Tell me what you dreamt."
"No."
"If I have to ask again, it's another five milligrams. And I really fear what that might do to you. The youkai nervous system doesn't appear to take well to this drug."
Kougaiji only moaned. He lifted a hand to push the ice pack off his forehead, but felt an odd resistance to his movement. He forced his eyes open a little to examine the wires and sensors taped to his forearm. Adjusting his ears a little, he could hear the whir of computers. Gods; they'd brought in the machines.
"Well?"
Kougaiji blinked some of the sting out of his eyelids, examining his wire-ridden skin. "I dreamt I killed you, and ate your liver with a nice chhabri," he answered, without emotion.
"Cute."
Instead of trying to move his hand any farther, he sat up. There was a faint tugging along his spine, and something fell with a clatter.
"Do you mean to make our operations difficult?" he heard Nii demand angrily. A rusty creak behind him indicated the open of the cell door, someone with fussy high-heeled steps scurrying in to right the fallen IV stand.
Kougaiji was numbly aware that the door to his freedom was wide open and that this was an opportunity he should have siezed, should have gone out with proverbial guns blazing and left them all painfully regretting their carelessness.
Wow. Where had that person gone?
The cell door clanged shut again.
The half-melted ice pack fell into his lap.
Nii had his bunny doll with him.
Fuck.
"You're wasting your time," Kougaiji said plainly, hoping the tone was convincing. "You seem to think I can offer something I can't."
"We could always recreate the circumstances that brought about the possession the first time, if you would prefer that."
Something in the way that hand stroked the doll's ear sent a shiver down Kougaiji's spine, more than anything else.
"I've told you," he said again, eyes not leaving that doll. "I don't know why it happened. I don't know what would make it happen again. If I could do it myself, I would."
"Why?"
"He hates all of you more than anything."
"Hmmph." The fingers swirled in the fur around a pudgy plush cheek, made Kougaiji's stomach twist. "More than you?"
"No. But he doesn't care as much."
He could tell Nii smiled, not by looking at his face, but how the hand stroked the doll's head half with the intent of ripping it off.
"Does it strike you at all as sort of cosmically ironic, that the two of you ended up this way? One of you a parasite, feeding off the other to stay sane." A harder pet, meant that smile got even crueler. "Not that either of you are managing well."
The prince glowered. "Do you find it cosmically ironic to be fucking your boss?"
"Do you find it cosmically ironic to be fucking your servant?"
Kougaiji froze.
But he-- he couldn't know about that, could he? There was no way...
Around the room, a few assistants were looking up from their tasks. There was an awful, ringing silence around the hum of the machines.
"No answer, highness?"
He swallowed, with effort. "...How did you..."
The siezing, predatory grin turned itself into fingernails clawing at that poor harassed fabric. "The thing that gave you away, of course; your grievous indiscretion. Some show of self-control on your part, wouldn't you agree? Although you did settle some in-office bets, all those rumors flying around about you and that girl."
...Girl?
Oh gods. You're kidding.
"You caught me," Kougaiji said, shrugging and tearing his gaze away, for the look of it. "Yes. That's right. Yaone."
Inwardly, he had to laugh. It seemed better than the alternatives.
~*~
That evening, or what he guessed was evening, Kougaiji fell into a dreamscape, rather than straight into uncontrolled dreams. It was still a poor construct, just gray and indistinct, but there was a little structure now, wherein he could imagine himself reclining back.
Sanzo sat up on a higher perceived-ledge and smoked a cigarette without flavor or texture or any way to ease withdrawal pains. But Kougaiji had lost his pack, and had no place to get away to smoke now anyway, so it did the job well enough.
"'I wonder about that,'" Kougaiji said.
"'About what? Yaone?'" Sanzo answered. "'People have been saying it for years.'"
"'It's not true?'"
"'Not at all. Look. I don't like women. Not like tha--'" Sanzo paused, frowning. "Good lords, don't tell me we're that synchronized."
Kougaiji cringed and helped to set their conversation on the proper track. "I don't like women," he said this time. "Not like that. It bothered me for a while that she was so infatuated when I couldn't do anything about it."
"But you like her quite a bit."
"She's a good person. But. Sometimes I think it's because I'm this way that she's drawn to me at all. I think if I was an option most of these women would run away after getting close. I'm amazed Doku puts up with me."
"Why? 'I'm a wreck'? Everyone's a damn wreck." He took an angry imagined drag on his cigarette. "Goku's a wreck. Gojyo's a wreck. Don't even get me started on Hakkai. I'm well aware that I'm a fucking mess too. Somewhere under it all, Doku's probably one too, for as simple as he makes himself out to be. Maybe complicated's the hip thing to be these days."
"You destroyed both your relationships, willingly. I want to know why."
"I could give you excuses. You said you didn't like it when I was honest."
"It's fine now."
"...It's because I'm not good enough."
Kougaiji looked up, puzzled. "You're not good enough? That's not giving much hope for the rest of us."
"You don't understand. I'm..." The edges to the dreamscape form fuzzed for a moment, as Sanzo tried to quiet his side to the frequency. "...I don't deserve to be touched."
"In that respect," Kougaiji said gloomily, casting his eyes down again, "I'm probably the same way. Beyond me how anyone could go so far to want to sleep with me, either."
"I'd sleep with you," Sanzo volunteered. Then amended, "...Favor to a friend, sort of."
"You have a weird idea of favors."
They could both manage out a weak chuckle at that, but then Kougaiji's mind hooked on something.
"...Friend?"
Sanzo seemed equally surprised. And the only response was to just go with it.
"Sure. Why not?"
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