voidtreckerexpress | Walk on broken glass, make my way through fire [CLOSED]

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Walk on broken glass, make my way through fire [CLOSED]

Who: Devero and Koumyou - CLOSED LOG
Where: Lower double sleeper 5
When: Nebula 19, after the wedding; continuation of this
What: Two insecure men blame themselves for making each other sad.
Warnings: Only for the boys to be acting on extreme insecurity; will update if anything specific comes up. UPD: Devero's abusive relationship has come up.

Devero doesn't respond to Koumyou's apologies, just carries him-- up a car, actually, but only to take the transgate in Standard straight to Sleeper One. It's barely a walk to get to their cabin in the double sleeper carriage from there. He lets Koumyou down to his feet gently, but a bit reluctantly, so he can unlock the door for them.

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"Koumyou." Normally gentle, normally kind Devero's voice is-- sharp, right now, though there's agony of a kind in his own expression. "Fuck 'should'. You aren't the one who gets to make that decision about what I 'should', okay? I am."

Koumyou swallows hard, and glances up from behind his long bangs, his expression just as wretched as one might expect.

He ducks his head again immediately.

"Sorry."

"Koumyou..." Devero says softly. He pushes away from the wall, crossing their room in a couple of steps and sinking to his knees in front of Koumyou. He reaches up, as if to take his cheek, but stops short of touching him.

"It's okay. I-- I know you're scared," he says softly, folding his hands together against his knees instead.

"I don't... I don't know why you even want a scared old man who can't even tell you he l-loves you without panicking." Even now, saying it makes his breath hitch audibly, and his narrow shoulders hunch up again beneath the sutra draped across them.

"Someone who sees you die nearly every night," Koumyou continues, shaky voice getting louder as he goes-- "someone who never even knows when he's hurting or scaring you because he's so fucking useless and warped!"

Devero flinches a little as Koumyou all but shouts the last words at him, but reaches up immediately for the other man, and this time he doesn't hesitate to clasp that narrow face between his big hands.

"Because I don't hold your PTSD against you, Koumyou," he says plainly, trying to meet his priest's eyes.

Koumyou's eyes meet Devero's, though his expression is crumpled and... faintly, confused.

"My... what?"

He's... not really surprised that Koumyou doesn't know what the abbreviation stands for. "It means post-traumatic stress disorder," he explains.

Those sure are words! Words that make no sense to Koumyou when strung together like that.

"...Am I having a stroke?"

It would be funny if he didn't mean it.

"Vice and virtue, are you?" he asks with sudden alarm, taking that very seriously. "You're speech seems okay-- can you smile for me? Or raise up both your arms?"

Smiling isn't going to happen right now, but Koumyou unlatches his hands from his forearms with some serious effort. And he lifts them even as color starts to visibly flow back into his bony, cold fingers, now exposed by his sleeves slipping down his cloth-covered forearms.

After a moment, Koumyou drops his hands to his lap and tries to bow his head again despite the gentle hands on his face.

"...I don't understand," he says softly, full of a despair that prickles at his eyes yet again, "Any of this. I'm too... I'm too broken, Devero."

How could he ever be anyone's life partner? He's no good for any of this.

"Maybe if we'd met when I was Houmei..." Houmei had been pretty traumatized too, sure, but that had still been before all the dead friends; before muichimotsu and then the abandonment of it. Before over twenty years of being hunted, and hounded, and not even always by enemies. The devout were just as bad, sometimes. And there had been Ukoku...

Who he'd egged on... who he'd found funny in that sick way of his, never thinking anyone else was in danger but himself. What an idiot. What a stupid, blind, ignorant old man he'd become.

And this is what Devero wants beside him for the long haul? In an infinite multiverse of possibilities, he wants this broken, terrified priest?

Devero doesn't see anything of neurological concern in the way Koumyou's arms raise and lower in sync, so there's that at least. He lets the other man lower and hide his face again, sitting back on his heels and gripping his knees.

"You're not broken," he says. "You're traumatized. That's what PTSD is-- it's the psychological response to severe trauma. The measurable, treatable response to severe trauma. And Koumyou--"

He ducks a little, trying to catch Koumyou's eyes past the screen of his bangs. "Your whole life has been a severe fucking trauma. All you've done up until now, all you've been able to do, is survive. But you can do more than just survive here!"

He reaches up again, trying to take his Sanzo's hands this time. "You can heal. I swear to you, you can heal. And I want to help you... the-- the way--"

He has to pause there as a couple of pieces slot together in his head, allowing to realize something that might have been obvious to him if he wasn't so bad as self-evaluation: "The way you've been helping me with my PTSD. From. From Valdana."

Those bony, pale hands bracketed by the black fabric of his arm-warmers, hold loosely onto Devero's hands in turn. Those slender fingers are cold, circulation interrupted for a while by his earlier, bruising grip on his own arms.

"What if I don't heal?" Koumyou has to ask, softly, eyes met briefly through his bangs before he has to look away again. "What if I'm just... like this for the rest of my life? I'm forty seven years old, Devero. I don't know how to be another way. You could be stuck, with this."

He's had so much longer to steep in his trauma than Devero has. Forty seven years of hell...

"If you have broken wings I've been helping you rest and heal, mine might just be ripped off completely. This might be it, Devero. For the rest of our lives? You deserve better."

"Koumyou, I'm real tired of getting told what I deserve by people," Devero says, and damn him if that warning bite isn't back in his voice. But he can't help it, because isn't that how Valdana kept him under her thumb for as long as she did? By telling him that all her 'discipline' was exactly what he deserved?

His fingers have tightened, but he forces them to relax again as he gentles himself. "If you can't heal, then we find ways for you to cope," he says. "If your wings are ripped off completely, then we build you a jetpack, and we fly together when we're both ready."

"What if I'm too scared to fly at all?" Koumyou asks softly, "I don't want to weigh you down. I don't want to be the reason you can't do things or experience things or... or live your life."

He ducks his head even further, hot tears slipping free again.

"I don't want to be a burden."

Hello, trauma that goes all the way back to young, earnest, bald little Houmei.

"No one's a burden," Devero murmurs immediately. Hello, beliefs that go all the way back to young, earnest, gangly little Devero in his comfortable creche. "Not one fucking person. That's a lie that people in power tell to--"

There's another one of those hesitations, one of those pregnant pauses where Devero realizes that something he's saying applies to himself as much as the person he's talking to.

"To the people they want to control." And what has Valdana made him feel like? A burden on the government that's supposed to support everyone equally? He actually laughs, soft and humorless, taking one of his hands back so he can strike himself in the forehead with the heel of his palm. "I'm such an idiot."

That causes some immediate concern from Koumyou, glancing up through his bangs. "Devero?"

Devero reaches for Koumyou's cheek with the hand he just hit himself with. "Just realizing another way she lied to me," he says. "Which I can only do because of you."

He sits up on his knees, his eyes intent on Koumyou's. "I don't want to live my life just because of you, Koumyou, I want to live it with you. And I-- I want you to want to live your life with me. Not just-- enjoying what you can while you're-- you're waiting for me to leave you."

Koumyou lifts his free hand to cover the one on his cheek, but not to pull it away. Just to cover it, leaning very slightly into the touch.

His face is still... concerned, but. Less... less scared.

(Not entirely free of it, but less.)

"You've... you've given it serious thought?"

That's what he'd asked Dev to do the last time he'd brought up marriage, the last time they'd danced at someone else's wedding.

"I think about it almost every day," he admits.

He stands then, disengaging but only so he can sit beside Koumyou on the bunk they share. He puts his arm loosely around the other man.

"...It's going to be hard sometimes," he says, his voice low and serious. "We come from very different places and we've both got-- got landmines, right? And maybe you have-- more than I do-- but-- But just because you have more landmines in your head than me doesn't mean you don't deserve to have them disarmed, just as much as I do!"

That metaphor's getting a little tortured. He takes a deep breath and says it more plainly: "You deserve to be happy, my love. It's-- it's okay to want a happy ending for yourself. Especially if it includes me, because as far as I'm concerned, you're my happy ending."

Almost every day? Koumyou is... a little stunned by that, honestly. Sure, he's had to stop himself from thinking about it, just as often, but.

He leans into Devero's side a little as the big guy continues speaking. As always, the 'my love' gets a physical reaction from him because the mental one is so strong -- a slight shudder, and a slight relaxing.

Does he, Koumyou Sanzo, deserve a happy ending...? He's not entirely convinced, but he says nothing, turning his head to bury his face in Devero's shoulder as new tears slip free of him.

Devero turns as well, wrapping both arms around the priest's narrow shoulders and cradling him close as he begins to cry anew. "I've got you," he murmurs, bending his lips to Koumyou's pale, pale hair. "I'm here. I'm yours, my Sanzo."

It doesn't last too long, at least. Koumyou's just... a little overwhelmed.

The 'I'm yours, my Sanzo' overwhelms him even more, but it's... not in a bad way.

He can pull away a little after a few minutes, sniffing audibly and lifting a hand to wipe at his face, forehead still against that warm, solid shoulder.

"...If you're proposing," guess what time it is? "You could at least get on one knee."

It's jokes time.

Jokes time could be good or bad; Devero knows Koumyou uses them to both deflect and defuse. This-- oh, this is a defusing joke. That's very good.

Moving slowly, Devero pulls away from Koumyou and slides off the bed. He goes to one knee in front of the other man, looking up at him with the biggest, sappiest expression on his face, and says, "Koumyou Sanzo, my love--"

"Are you willing to hear my proposal if I want to ask you to marry me?"

Koumyou's not the only one who's got jokes!

Koumyou wipes at his eyes with a sleeve, and gives a wet, wobbly little laugh.

"You clown," he accuses, then more seriously-- "yes. I'll listen."

"Only because of you," Devero says earnestly, still down on one knee. "I've never felt like more like who I'm meant to be than when I'm with you."

"I... I'm glad," Koumyou admits quietly, like it's a secret, his hands knitting together in his lap.

Devero doesn't doubt that they've cleared something heavy out of the air between them, but the way Koumyou says that makes him suspect there's still a storm cloud lurking. He sits seiza in front of Koumyou and surrounds those clasped in his own.

"Tell me what you're thinking?" he prompts softly.

Damnit, they'd nearly climbed out of the pit of Koumyou's thoughts.

He ducks his head again, damp bangs swinging forward.

"I... I may never be able to believe that you still want to be with me for life," Koumyou confesses, or warns, or both. "Or that I'm not doing something wrong by staying by your side. I might always doubt, Devero. Even if -- even if we get married. I might always worry, I might always be waiting to be discarded. I might not be able to stop."

He wants to, but Gods, it's so ingrained in him. His only value in his entire life has been as a Sanzo priest, and briefly as a father. Before all that, he'd been nothing, just points-losing Houmei at Taisouji, and Houmei the unwanted burden back at his home temple...

"I don't want to upset you with that, but it's there. And it might always be there. I need you to know that it's not your doing."

Edited 2021-10-19 08:37 (UTC)

"Thank you for telling me," Devero says, squeezing Koumyou's clasped hands. He'd already known, thanks in part to Yondu's warning, but hearing it directly from the priest means he can directly address it: "I won't take it personally, I promise you that.

"But I need you to promise me something: that you'll respect my choice to be with you even if you think I shouldn't, or that I deserve better, or that you don't deserve me. That you won't try to push me away for my own good." Because damn if that isn't a trigger of his, he's realized.

His expression is a little drawn as he tries to catch Koumyou's eyes under the bangs. "Can you do that for me?"

"I... I can promise not to push you away on purpose," Koumyou tells him softly, eyes downcast behind his bangs. "But it might still happen without me knowing it."

And this is who Devero wants to have as his husband? Really?

Really. Devero squeezes his hands again, giving them a little shake. "That's all I ask," he says, "that you don't do it on purpose. If it happens otherwise, then...."

Another shake. "Then we'll get past it the same way we've gotten past all the other landmines so far, yeah?"

"Then I promise," Koumyou says quietly, pulling one bony hand free to pat Devero's.

"Thank you," Devero says with a faint smile. He rises to his feet--

And immediately gathers Koumyou into a hug, bending to kiss the top of the priest's head.

Koumyou hugs him right back, squeezing fiercely and resting the side of his head against Devero's chest for a moment. But only for a moment, before he lets go so the big guy can straighten back up.

"You can go back to the party if you want," the priest suggests, "I'm okay now, and I know Seto's your friend."

Koumyou has got a lot to process, anyway.

Devero's not sure he feels like going back to a party after all of that, but honestly, he could use the space too, so he nods. "I'll see you later, then, my dear." If nothing else, he can return his borrowed duds to the dressing car.

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Walk on broken glass, make my way through fire [CLOSED]

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