Wolf's-own: Koan (34 page)

Along with too many other things, but that was hardly the point. And he wouldn't give Asai “Jacin.” Asai could've had it once and he'd disdained it. So fuck Asai. If this was all in Jacin's head, he could bloody well make a few demands, and if it wasn't... well, fuck Asai anyway.

"Jacin-rei, come down here
now
."

Just that, a simple demand, in a voice rich with authority that made reactionary heat bloom in Jacin's gut and in his groin, no matter how tight it made his teeth clench. Everything in him leaned toward the comfort of the command, the sensual flush of acid-sweet nostalgia it stirred inside him, the bitter lust.

He was instantly enraged, and couldn't tell if it was at Asai for deliberately using that name, or at himself for letting the tone swamp through him like hot arousal.

Rage had always made him reckless. Knowing it just made it funnier. There was at least one way to test this nonreality to see just how real it was. And you know what? Fuck it all, anyway.

With a snarl, Jacin tensed screaming muscles, bunched them tight, then shoved himself away from the side of the building.

"
Jacin-rei, no
!” Shouted this time, and with a swath of panic inside it Jacin never would have believed.

Airborne, for only a moment that threatened to stretch, but really only long enough for Jacin to realize that maybe this hadn't been the smartest thing he'd ever done. It was only two stories, after all—if this was real, and with his luck, the fall probably wouldn't kill him; he'd just end up making himself even more of a cripple. Jacin clamped the free fall down tight, flipping then twisting his body in a wide arc as he plunged the last story to the ground. Vertigo took a menacing swipe at equilibrium, sending everything atilt inside his head for a few seconds, but righted itself in time for him to spring his feet forward and aim. He was surprised he remembered to spin, surprised he didn't completely blow out the joints in both his ankles, but he landed relatively smoothly, all things considered, and in time to witness with astonished eyes what seemed like genuine alarm all over Asai's face. Jacin almost didn't notice the thick spikes of agony that shot through what was left of his calf muscles, the satisfaction was that heady.

There. It was settled. No way could he have made that jump with so little leverage and with his leg screaming at him. And no way would the possibility of Jacin splattering himself—or at least doing himself some serious damage—have put that look on Asai's face.

The grin that stretched Jacin's mouth was probably not a very nice one. It probably shouldn't be such an absurd relief to know he'd gone completely ‘round the bend, and yet his chest felt instantly lighter.

"It's
Fen
,” he said, through his teeth this time, then he spun and headed to the alley's mouth.

"Jacin-rei,
stop
!"

Long-conditioned obedience almost halted Jacin, but he made himself keep walking. Limping. Fucking ow. He'd have to work on feeling no pain next. Perhaps insanity had its uses after all.

"Jacin-rei!” From behind him, and then Asai was standing right in front of him, blocking his path, dark eyes going even darker with... it looked like uncertain anger, but that couldn't be right, because Asai was never uncertain about anything. “You will stop, and you will—"

"And what will you do if I don't, Beishin?” Jacin growled. “Kill me?” He spread his arms. “Do you really think I care?"

"If you want your brothers to stay alive, you should.” Spoken so smoothly it almost skirted right around the harsh threat.

Jacin lowered his arms slowly, hands fisting, palms itching for the grip of a knife, but what would he do with it if he drew one? He'd pulled up from inside himself whatever it was he'd needed to kill Asai once—only once, out of all the opportunities he'd had—and whatever it had been had apparently burned itself out in the doing, and anyway, it had failed, hadn't it? If it hadn't—if
he
hadn't—Asai wouldn't be standing here haunting him now, and using the one threat they both knew would work. Just like Malick. Just like Imara. Just like everyone who wanted something out of Jacin that Jacin didn't want to give. Even Samin had used it against him once.

"There is no surer way,” Jacin said, softly and very clearly, “to get me to do exactly what you
don't
want me to do than to harm my brothers."

Something very strange happened inside of Jacin with the steady utterance of words he'd had no idea were so very true, a threat all their own. A weapon, perhaps, where the ones he'd been relying on for years kept steadily failing him. He peered up at Asai, met the hard gaze and acknowledged it for what he was pretty sure it was—frustration, ambition in the process of being thwarted... maybe even a little bit of fear, but that had to be wishful thinking. Except Asai couldn't see inside Jacin's head, he never could, no one could, and Asai had always been one who relied on what he could
see
.

What would happen if Jacin just... stopped showing him?

He tilted his head. Hadn't Asai told him before that the danger was from the
Temshiel
? Hadn't Asai told him before that he had to leave his brothers to keep them safe? A small frown tried to twist at Jacin's brow, but he didn't let it. Maybe Asai thought Jacin didn't remember. Or maybe the realities in Jacin's head were melting together, and he just couldn't keep them straight.

He took a step toward Asai, trying to keep the bewilderment locked down tight when Asai too obviously made an effort not to step back. Jacin couldn't understand it. He reached out, took hold of Asai's sleeve, just to test the solidity of him. Real fabric, real flesh and bone beneath it, real rainwater squeaking between Jacin's fingers as he held on.

It was too much. He was Asai, except he couldn't be Asai, and he was real, but he wasn't, and he was not-Asai with dark-dark eyes that could swallow Jacin whole and a wicked mouth that wanted to eat Jacin's soul, gobble him with kisses he couldn't really have until he forgot he'd killed Asai, and Asai couldn't be here, except he was—

"
Stop
!” Jacin cried and shoved himself back and away from Asai until he hit the building behind him and couldn't go any farther. Asai kept eyeing him warily, and Jacin had absolutely no idea what to do with that.

Fuck
, he needed a smoke.

"Why are you afraid of me, Beishin?” he asked, thin and strained, and damn it, he hadn't wanted to
show
anything, but he couldn't help it. “What do you want from me so badly that you would threaten my brothers to make sure I do it?"

And if this wasn't real, how could something so treacherous have come from inside Jacin's own head?

"The whys and wherefores are not for the little
Ghost
,” Asai hissed. “You will do as your beishin tells you, Jacin-rei, or they will pay for your arrogance. You will—"

"You are nothing more than my own bad dream, Beishin. You won't—"

"Do you really want to take the chance that you're wrong, Jacin-rei?"

Jacin paused at that one, convinced he hadn't flinched, because he'd been making a conscious effort not to and he was pretty sure he would have noticed. Asai was watching him, waiting for Jacin to give in, to crumble, but it was wrong somehow, the dark gaze wasn't... confident enough, like Asai was anxious and unsure. Asai was never unsure, not where it concerned “his Ghost,” because “his Ghost” had never given him a reason to doubt. Jacin had always been obedient, had always flayed himself to please the unpleaseable, right up until he'd put a knife through his beishin's chest and dug his heart out through his ribs.

Couldn't be real. This couldn't be Asai. It was all in Jacin's own head, and if he gave in to “Beishin” now, he'd... well, he didn't know. Stay lost? Get even more lost?

Was he lost now? He couldn't tell. And wondered with a crystal-sharp moment of clarity if that would really be so bad. He was a Ghost—wasn't “lost” what he'd been meant for all along? Maybe he should just give in to that too. He'd been throwing himself at Malick for months, grasping so desperately for that illusive state of
not alone
, and it was fleeting and fickle, but he'd had it sometimes, he'd
had
it, and... well, look how that had turned out. If he'd never found it, he wouldn't be missing it so badly now, would he?

The rain had changed. Jacin thought at first it was snow, but it was cherry blossom petals, coating Jacin's skin. He hadn't even noticed until they'd dusted him in a thin layer. And none of them touched Asai.

Jacin looked for Caidi—hoped for Caidi—because she'd always come with the petals before. A thin shard of devastation spiked through him when she didn't come.

"Do you think,” Jacin finally answered, surprised at the hardness of his voice, the rasp of it dipping it low and perhaps a bit sinister, “that more losses could make it
worse
? Do you think that living through your betrayals once has rendered me unable to do it again?” He stepped in, right up close, and hovered his mouth just a breath away from Asai's, slanting a look at him through his lashes, because it always worked on Malick. “I'm seeing ghosts, Beishin.” He slid his hand up and over Asai's chest, settled his palm over Asai's breastbone. “I'm feeling the beat of a heart that shouldn't be there beneath my hand. I'm....” With a slight tilt of a smile, Jacin leaned in, brushed his lips over Asai's, swiped out the tip of his tongue to catch the rain that dripped past the corner of Asai's mouth. “I'm kissing a dead man in the rain,” he whispered. He pulled back and let the smile bloom, let it pull up the corners of half-lidded eyes. “I really don't think you can make me
more
insane."

"Oh, little Ghost,” Asai breathed, then he dipped his head and slid his mouth along Jacin's jawbone, “I really don't think you have any idea."

"Nothing matters,” Jacin told him softly, “because nothing's real. Not even you, Beishin."

"No?” With an arrogant smirk, Asai took Jacin by the arms and shoved him up against crumbling brick, pushed in, hard, a firm line of warmth that shouldn't be there from chest to thigh. And then he kissed Jacin, forceful and gritty, a reach for domination in the slide of his lips and tongue. Asai's knee pushed between Jacin's thighs, hip grinding in with obvious purpose, and there was reaction sizzling all through Jacin, but not the sort he would've expected. Not the sort that should've been pulled from a man who was being handed what he'd craved since his beishin had strolled through the dooryard of his father's house and claimed him.

Because this wasn't real. Beishin didn't want Jacin. Beishin never had. Beishin...
wouldn't
.

Heat drove through Jacin's gut, fizzing up his spine, but it didn't blossom in his groin like it did with Malick, didn't fill his head with a cool wind that smelled of pine and sage and set him flying. There was no overwhelming scent of jasmine, and it was wrong, the absence of its heady perfume cutting through confusion, lending an odd bit of lucidity that Jacin couldn't define, but couldn't deny, either.

Jacin slanted his mouth more firmly against Asai's, strangely detached and analytical in the face of what should have been taking the last of his sense. Asai's hands pulled him in, Asai's body pressed up against him, Asai's hips pushed in and rocked with intent. And Jacin just stood there and let it happen. Shockingly unmoved.

He didn't miss the jasmine. He missed the pine-sage wind. He didn't want Asai's mouth devastating him, or Asai's body owning him. He wanted Malick's smirks, and Malick's demands—even the ones that scared the shit out of him.

He wanted to fly, and here he was, being handed what he'd wanted for so very long, even if it was all some fantasy he couldn't seem to stop imagining, and yet his feet were still nailed too firmly to the ground. This wasn't the ethereal bliss for which he'd pined and simpered. This was base, somehow, coarse. Dirty, rough sex in an alley in the midst of a flurry of cherry blossom petals, his for the taking. And that was all.

It shouldn't matter. He'd been whoring himself to Malick since... well, since their worlds had collided. He would have willingly whored himself to Asai once, except Jacin hadn't thought of it that way back then. Giving himself. Handing Asai everything he was and begging him to accept it. And Asai hadn't. Wouldn't.

And hadn't that ultimate, undeniable realization been the one thing that had enabled Jacin to finally kill his beishin, when he'd failed so many times before? Hadn't getting it from another—from
Malick
—been what had kept Jacin haunting the world through his grief, giving in to gutless inertia, because maybe it was real, and maybe one more minute-hour-day-week would sink it home and
make
it real. And then maybe life wouldn't be so fucking terrifying.

Give me what you hide inside yourself because he told you it's not worth having.

Not a ghost-voice, but
Malick's
voice; no slant of mocking sibilance, but the credible tones of true remembrance. And a tiny whiff of pine-sage that wafted gently through Jacin's mind and bent the disorder into rational shapes.

His face was wet, but it wasn't tears, he could tell.

This wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't even close.

With a growl, Jacin shoved Asai away, panting, and wiped at his mouth with the back of his wrist. “You know what I think, Beishin?” he asked hoarsely. He dipped his head to the side and spat, then tilted another sideways smile up at Asai. He heaved himself away from the wall. “I think you want something from me. And I think that for the first time ever, whether you're real or in my head, you're going to have to ask me nicely."

"Jacin-rei, you will—” It ended in a spray of blood.

Jacin jerked the knife to the side and down through solid muscle and thick-laid tendon. “Not nicely enough,” he said, and he savored the look of shock on this not-Asai's face as Jacin yanked the knife free, scraping rib on its way back out.

He watched from somewhere outside himself as Asai went down, gasping out a gurgling wheeze as he fell facedown into a puddle, guts spilling onto the cobbles. Jacin tipped his face up into the petals, closed his eyes and breathed them in.