cigsandbeer | IC INBOX

Surprise flickers over Hakkai's face, and he ducks his head in a little nod.

"Ah... no, I haven't yet. I'd like that," he admits, a little warily, and steps inside.

The cabin strikes him immediately with its familiarity. His own is the main room of their house, with a bedroom attached, but he'd been an inmate when he came; it's not the whole house. This is, as if it had been picked up from the last time they'd been there, what seems like thousands of years ago.

Aside from Gojyo's jacket from yesterday thrown on the floor it's also tidy in a way it's only been since Hakkai moved in (which surely says nothing about what Gojyo considers 'home').

Gojyo puts the plate down on the kitchen table on his usual side, before silently going to put on coffee.

Hakkai, completely on reflex, picks the jacket up off the floor, shakes the dust off, and folds it over the arm of their elderly sofa before settling down in his own usual spot.

He does realize what he's doing about halfway through setting the jacket down, but it's not as if he can put it back on the floor.

"Have you... had the chance to meet anyone else so far?" he offers, awkwardly, and folds his hands on the table.

"Yeah, uh, a bunch of people through that thing" -- the communicator -- "and I met that Xie Lian guy up on deck. He was your warden, right?"

Returning to the table with two mugs, Gojyo too sits down, pulling his plate closer to him.

"...Er. I don't have any food in here to offer."

Hakkai will have to settle for just coffee.

"Yes, he was," Hakkai agrees, settling his hands around the coffee cup. "This is fine, please don't worry about it..."

Although he may find some quiet reasons to bring actual leftovers by and fill Gojyo's refrigerator. Just in case, and since it'll be a long time before the next port.

"He told me he liked you," he adds a little ruefully.

"'Course he did. I'm super good-looking and the nicest guy around, what's not to like?"

You know, aside from the fact that he's complete trash who can't open his mouth without fucking things up with his best friend. No wonder he's worth shit when some perfect non-human guy comes around.

--He does at least accept Hakkai's Apology Plate in the sense that he digs into the scrambled eggs.

"That is almost exactly what he said," Hakkai agrees - colorful is at least sort of like good looking - and takes a sip of the coffee. He's more of a tea drinker, but since Gojyo made him excuse-to-stay-and-talk coffee, he will sit here and drink the whole cup no matter how vile.

"I really have missed you," he adds in a quieter voice. "Although not much else about home."

You have a funny as hell way of showing that, Gojyo thinks but doesn't say.

"......I mean. I can't really return the sentiment."

From Gojyo's perspective, they haven't even been apart.

"Guess that makes sense, though, about home." No matter what they say about coexisting peacefully together, there only ever was so much of that even before the Minus Wave...

"What's this place like, then, in comparision? It's already weird that there's no money."

"It's strange, the way time works here. When I first arrived - when I was an inmate - it was back when Sanzo had first arrested me. I didn't even have my eye yet--"

He waves a hand in the direction of his glass eye.

"I had an eyepatch for nearly my first year on board. Then I graduated and the ship sent me home, right to the time I left. I forgot having ever been here, spent five years living with you and traveling west, and then... woke up back here again. It had only been a few days on the ship."

It had required... some adjustment.

"But overall, I do like it here," he adds. "Maybe once a month or so, some inmate decides to cause trouble and we get a fight, but it's peaceful otherwise. Even the floods usually aren't so bad."

So basically, Hakkai also went through some weird inverse 'time has passed for one person but not the other and it's Weird', but the only one being all insecure about it is Gojyo. That's... great.

"...'Peaceful' sounds super weird, too."

When was the time they weren't two seconds away from getting killed at any given moment?

He'd been trying for, I understand how disorienting it is from your side, but--

"Isn't it?" he says wryly. "The really strange thing is all the people who complain about how out of control the violence is. No one even stays dead on board... ah, it's not like Hazel, if something happens you come back as yourself and remember it all."

"Still fucking creepy." He'd heard about the no dying thing, and sure it's an upgrade if it doesn't come with stuffing dead people's souls into other people, but even so...

"Maybe the Admiral should arrange, like, a field trip, like they do for school kids."

Send the fussy people to Saiyukiverse for a week for some perspective!

Edited (I can't English today apparently) 2024-05-23 12:28 (UTC)

"Well, I can't exactly complain about the results...."

Hakkai flashes him a wry little smile. He's died twice, himself. Not counting the time at home, where it had been wiped away by graduation.

"Do you know, we get regular field trips to more dangerous places, and it usually makes people complain more?"

Maybe they'd like a trip to Chang'an. Or, well... maybe not. Hakkai takes another sip of the coffee, the corners of his eyes crinkled wryly.

It takes a few moments for Gojyo's hungover-and-still-sleepy brain to catch on to Hakkai's meaning-- ahh, fuck. He was an inmate, he's died at and been resurrected at least once. Gojyo stuffs a bite of toast into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee before he says anything else insensitive.

"So basically it's usually quiet and peaceful for so much of the time that people got nothing better to do than bitch about stuff?"

"Exactly," Hakkai says with a soft chuckle. "Oh, and gossip about sex, which seems to be the other major hobby. You should look through the network -- it saves everything, it's very useful for learning about the ship...."

"Guess I know what I'll entertain myself with for now, then. Pretty sure I didn't get an inmate yet."

Granted, he only skimmed the network when he woke up and might have missed an announcement.

"No, not yet. Probably not for another month," Hakkai adds with a tiny shrug. "It's about every thirty days that inmates are re-paired, until they get a permanent warden."

With a glimmer of amusement, he adds, "Have you met Karlach yet? Lovely woman."

Slightly on fire, but only slightly. His first thought on meeting her had been how well she would get along with Gojyo -- so.

"Uh, I don't think so? I talked a bit with a woman named Maggie, and a kid who's never had a crush on anyone before."

That's it in terms of women so far. Boo.

"Why, is she especially hot?"

Could anyone resist a straight line like that one?

"Oh yes," Hakkai agrees.

After a moment, with less amusement and more seriousness, he adds, "Also, very straightforward and friendly. A little like Goku, actually."

...? Having yet to meet Karlach, Gojyo obviously doesn't get what's so amusing about that.

"Yeah, well. Dunno if 'similar to Goku' is something anyone'd want in a woman. But you'll have to introduce us, yeah?"

"I will," Hakkai agrees, lifting the coffee cup in a toast to seal the promise. He does quite like Karlach, after all, and he does think Gojyo will too. And -- well.

Hakkai can recognize that part of the problem is that he knows almost everyone here and Gojyo only knows him. He doesn't think that'll last -- Gojyo is about ten times as social as Hakkai is, and more than ten times as sincere -- but for the moment, introducing him to people who aren't Hakkai or Jedao can only help.

"You said you'd already met Xie Lian...?"

Gojyo has, in fact, already made one drinking buddy, one gym buddy, and managed to convince Hilbert to have drinks with him. None of which is at his mind right at this moment: right now, he's focused on trying to maintain this shaky approximation of normalcy for however long it can last.

"--Oh, yeah. He really wanted to talk about you. Tried to pull some bullshit about having 'only heard good things' about me, but whatever.

...Real smiley."

Hakkai is equally determined to keep the shaky approximation of normalcy in place. It's not comfortable, not the way their conversations over the dinner table used to be, but it's closer than hovering at his door trying to fit together an apology for having gone on with his life without Gojyo around, on purpose.

Which might, possibly, turn out to have been an unforgivable sin. But he still very much hopes not, so he's going to continue to pretend.

"He has only heard good things about you," he assures Gojyo over his coffee. "He read my file."

Which, to the extent that it mentioned Gojyo -- Hakkai never read it himself -- should have been wildly complimentary. He'd done all the initial work on the wreck he'd dragged out of the mud, after all.

"Oh, in that case! Why didn't you say so."

Hakkai did just say so, but you know. It's an expression. So basically all it said was 'guy who pulled me out of the mud and gave me a place to crasch' and Hakkai has possibly not even talked about Gojyo with his former warden. Why should he have, especially if he originally arrived here three years back in time? Gojyo takes a sip of coffee.

"Anyway, I guess he seemed okay? Although it's kinda weird: I thought he looked like a monk or something? But he's all polite and smiley, so it's kinda like you and Sanzo--"

He brings his palms together and makes a 'crashing' sounds: very clearly not implying anything sexual ~~for once~~, just 'a weird combination of the two of you'.

"Oh, he's a god, actually."

Hakkai takes a sip of his coffee in turn -- what does 'oh, in that case' mean? He finds himself slightly unsure -- and adds, "I had to change my opinion of gods slightly."

Apparently, at least one god is not a complete sack of useless shit.

"I think he's actually more judgmental than me or Sanzo...."

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