Fanfiction: Wake Up Heart (chapter 1, part 1)
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Disclaimer: Saiyuki and its associated characters are the intellectual property of Kazuya Minekura. I just write them for the sex. >:d
Notes: For purposes of this fic, the events taking place occur shortly before the Even A Worm arc.
Also, a huge thanks to Xpyne, without whom I never would have been able to write this story half as well. From being my alpha beta, to throwing ideas back and forth with me (the ones I was willing to reveal, anyway), to staying up until 3 in the morning so we could argue about what the stupid summary should say, she has been a morale booster and an irreplaceable source of motivation. T3T x1000
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Wake Up Heart
By Solitaire
Chapter 1: The Desire to Protect
“--ku!”
Rip apart. The tear of flesh, crunch of bone.
“Goku!”
Nyoi-bo is a blur of movement, a reassuring weight in his hands, so heavy--and he brings it down on another of his opponents, reducing the body to little more than a gory pulp. His blood rushes in his ears, drowning out the sounds of their screams they deserved it the soundofhisownscreams...
“Goku, please stop this!!”
With a gasp, he sat straight up in bed, a hand shooting to his diadem reflexively. It felt as if his skull would split in two. His heart pounded so fiercely, he was sure he would be sick. The world seemed to lurch on its axis for a moment, and he lay back down before he could lose the contents of his stomach.
What... happened?
Blood everywhere it wasn’t enough it wouldn’t make up for what they’d done why, why? and he screamed and screamed and
His head ached and he was too tired to form a coherent thought, but as he sank into the comfort of darkness once more, he still heard that question echoing in his mind, raw with pain.
Why?
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
Hakkai was grinding the pills the town doctor had given them with an almost frightening intensity, pausing in his work only long enough to occasionally check on the kettle he’d rigged over the fireplace to boil. Whatever it was, Gojyo thought, it smelled god-awful.
“Is that for Sanzo, or Goku?” he asked, not because it made a difference to him, but because it was better than sitting here in the tense silence, worrying and watching Hakkai work. Not that he worried about the chain-smoking, abuse-slinging monk. That bastard would outlive them all, he was sure, if only out of spite.
“Sanzo,” the brunet answered shortly, but Gojyo didn’t take it personally. He knew Sanzo wasn’t really what worried Hakkai, either. With a weary sigh, the man set down the pestle and removed his monocle to rub the bridge of his nose. “Whether by luck or skill on Sanzo’s part, it’s a miracle there were no internal injuries aside from broken bones. If that spear had been on target--”
The half-demon shuddered. “Stop, you’re giving me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. (Damn, when I saw him, I thought for sure...)”
“The greatest damage sustained was probably psychological, but I can’t--” Cutting himself short, Hakkai scrubbed at his face wearily. “I wouldn’t dare presume.”
“Hey, at least he had the good fortune of being unconscious towards the end.” Grimacing, Gojyo ran a hand through his hair with affected annoyance. “Man, he’s gonna be impossible to live with, when he finally comes around.”
‘If he comes around,’ seemed to hang in the air between them, but neither was going to voice it. Sanzo wouldn’t suffer dying just yet--he probably didn’t trust them to complete this stupid journey without him.
“But Goku...” Hakkai began with reluctance, putting an end to their dancing around the subject, and Gojyo released a long column of smoke towards the ceiling.
“How is he, anyway?”
Hakkai turned his attention to the kettle and stirred the contents thoughtfully with a frown. “Still sleeping. I went in to check on him a while ago, to see if I’d need to administer more sedatives, but from what I could tell, he was sleeping soundly enough.” Removing the kettle from the flames, he set it on the table to cool. “I checked his diadem, too, just to be sure--“
Gojyo waited, and Hakkai shook his head with a grave look.
“It wasn’t even cracked.”
“That so?” The cigarette had lost its appeal, and he ground it out into the ashtray before lighting another. The ashtray was overflowing, but Hakkai hadn’t spared a word to nag him about it all night. Gojyo almost wished he would.
Hakuryuu, seeing his master taking a break, flapped his way across the room to settle himself lightly on Hakkai’s shoulder. The brunet raised an absent-minded hand to the dragon’s back.
“I’d be lying,” he admitted after a moment, “if I were to say the Minus Wave never crossed my mind.”
“No!” Gojyo protested vehemently, sitting up straighter in his chair. “If it was that, we’d know, we would’a felt it, too.”
“Yes,” Hakkai agreed as he pushed himself to his feet, grabbing the kettle and the pills he’d made a fine powder of, “but isn’t the alternative worse?”
Gojyo’s teeth clenched around the filter of his cigarette, but he could think of no response for that. He didn’t like it; he didn’t like it, and didn’t people sometimes do crazy, horrible things when they--when they cared for someone that much?
Exhaustion was exuded by the brunet’s every movement as he headed for the door and Gojyo didn’t like that, either. He disliked it even more when Hakkai turned to eye him knowingly before he disappeared from sight.
“There are some sacrifices no one would want made in his, or her, name.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Sanzo...” Goku protested unhappily, leaning forward slightly in his seat.
“You won’t finish that sentence, if you want to keep breathing.”
“But your arm still doesn’t work! If there’s trouble--”
The blond shot him a death glare, and Goku immediately shut up, though he wasn’t happy about it.
“Well, that’s why he’s got two arms, see?” Gojyo piped up from the back seat. “So when one of `em goes dead, he’s got a spare.” He just barely managed to dodge the bullet Sanzo sent his way. “(Way to prove me right, you shitty priest!)”
“Now, now,” Hakkai interjected in an attempt to keep the peace. “Sanzo insisted he’d be able to heal just as well, on the road, as he could have being forced to stay at the inn for an indeterminable amount of time.” With a smile at no one in particular, he added, “Though he really is the worst patient I’ve ever seen.”
“Look,” Sanzo snapped, “we’re on a tight schedule. We don’t have time to sit around on our asses, waiting for something that’ll happen on its own. The arm is fine. Drop it.”
Frowning, Goku wrapped his arms around his upraised knees and rested his chin atop them. He watched as Sanzo attempted unobtrusively to flex his right hand. The action was sluggish, and the monk grabbed his injured arm with a soft “`Tch!” Goku’s jaw clenched.
“Oi.” Gojyo prodded him with the toe of his boot, and Goku’s head whipped around as he prepared to fend off another fight. “Don’t worry about it. After the size’a that last group of youkai, it’ll probably take `em at least a few days to regroup.” He grinned. “Hey, we may even make it to the next town before then.”
“It’s a good-sized one, according to the map,” Hakkai agreed.
“Great,” Sanzo snorted. “Then they’ve probably heard of us.”
“Ooh, that mean we’ll be ‘incognito’ again?” the redhead quipped. “That’s awesome, I just love walking around in a blanket and sunglasses in broad daylight like some kinda vampire...”
“You’ll do it,” the priest threatened, “or you can go find your own room and board.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got some serious control issues, Sanzo-sama?”
Goku fisted his hands tightly. Gojyo could joke about it all he wanted, but the teen couldn’t shake the nagging sense of dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Full house.” Gojyo sighed. “Why does it seem I can only win when you’re not paying the least bit of attention to the game?”
“Hmm?” Blinking, Hakkai’s gaze landed on the redhead sitting across from him. “I’m sorry, I was...”
“Staring at Sanzo, yeah, I got that.” He plucked the cards from Hakkai’s hand and covered it with his own. “You’re gonna drive yourself crazy with worry. Go. Go take a bath, get something to eat, anything, but don’t sit here beating yourself up.”
“Gojyo--”
Ignoring the half-hearted protest, Gojyo leaned over the table and pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of the brunet’s mouth. “You haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Please.”
Hakkai’s eyes slid shut and Gojyo almost smirked, to see the man’s defenses crumbling so easily at a little kiss and a ‘please.’
“I’ll keep an eye on Master and his Pet,” he promised, “and I’ll call you right away if it looks like something’s wrong.”
“...Alright,” Hakkai finally conceded, and it was a good thing, too. The bone-deep weariness rolled off him in nearly palpable waves, and Gojyo would hate to have to sucker-punch the guy, just to get him unconscious for a few hours.
“But if anything happens, if there’s any change at all--”
“I’ll send for you immediately, via homing dragon,” the half-demon assured him with a mock salute. From the foot of Sanzo’s bed, Hakuryuu kyuued his assent.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Shit,” Sanzo swore. “We’ve got company.”
Goku immediately sat up straighter in the back seat. He couldn’t even smell them yet, but he trusted Sanzo’s ability to sense qi before any of the rest of them could; it had given them a crucial few moments’ warning on more than one occasion.
“Damnit, Gojyo, I thought you said we wouldn’t get attacked again so soon!” he accused as Jeep skidded to a halt and they all climbed out.
“What’re you blaming me for? I said ‘probably’!”
“This does seem amazingly resilient of them, doesn’t it?” Hakkai inquired. “And only two days after such a large-scale attack.” He politely pretended not to notice Sanzo’s wince as the man pulled his right arm from the make-shift sling the three of them had bullied him into wearing.
“Everyone’s just begging to die,” the blond growled, and flicked the safety off his gun.
“Sanzo, I still think--”
“And that’s the problem right there, isn’t it, you stupid monkey?”
Goku shut his mouth with a snap and silently fumed. Fine. Let Sanzo see who would come to his rescue, when he was getting his ass-and-one-working-arm kicked.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
Half an hour of solitaire. Check on monkey-boy. Go to the can. Sneak to the kitchen to grab a beer (or six). More solitaire. Peek in on Hakkai--damn straight, he’d better be sleeping. Back to Sanzo to change his bandages, because it was a rare opportunity for a free show, and it beat the hell out of waiting ‘til he was awake and could fight it tooth and nail. More fucking solitaire, and that boring-ass book Hakkai had been reading was actually starting to look pretty good.
When Sanzo woke, shooting up in bed with a harsh gasp like that of a drowning man, it scared the shit out of him. Abandoning his cards, Gojyo stood from the table so quickly, he almost sent his chair toppling.
“Goku,” the priest rasped, and it didn’t sound like he was fully awake, he was fumbling with the sheet that covered him as he tried to get out of bed. “Where’s...fucking animal, I’ll--” He didn’t seem to realize where he was, but had managed to push himself into a sitting position despite the obvious pain he was in, because Sanzo was just that stubborn.
“Whoa, whoa there.” Gojyo was across the room in a second, and shoved the blond back down with a hand in the center of his chest. Sanzo struggled against him, grabbing his wrist with a surprisingly tight grip for a man who’d been near-comatose for the better part of three days.
“Goku,” he tried again, his voice raspy from disuse, “his limiter--he was...goddamn bloodbath.” His eyes clearing somewhat, he glared up at the redhead. “Let me the fuck up.” Sanzo jerked at the arm holding him down, but Gojyo wouldn’t budge. “What happened? Did Goku lose it? The limiter, I need to--”
“No,” Gojyo started to explain uncomfortably, “it never broke, Sanzo. Hakkai--”
“Hakkai put it back on,” came Goku’s voice suddenly from the doorway, and both men turned to stare at him. “It just got knocked off, but Hakkai grabbed it and was able to get it back on.”
Confused, Gojyo released Sanzo and took a step back from the bed with a frown as Goku quickly bounded over. “What the hell? That’s not--”
“It’s fine now,” Goku insisted, and Gojyo might have classified the look he got as threatening, if the kid hadn’t looked so scared and desperate at the same time. “It’s fine, see?” he repeated, dropping to his knees at Sanzo’s bedside and pushing back his hair to reveal the golden diadem, clearly intact. “I’m really, really sorry, but it’s fine, now, Sanzo, honest--”
The priest lifted a pale hand and set it atop the boy’s head with a sigh, and if Gojyo didn’t know any better, he’d swear Sanzo’s expression was one of visible relief. Except no one had any reason to be relieved, Goku had not lost his limiter and was lying about it, and if he’d gone ape-shit once that meant it could happen again, didn’t it? It meant any of them could, maybe.
“Where’s Hakkai?” Sanzo asked, and Goku definitely flinched.
Dragging a hand through his hair, Gojyo jerked a thumb next door. “Sleeping. But I’m not gonna--”
“Forget it,” the monk told him, “it can wait,” and Goku’s shoulders un-tensed slightly. “I feel like shit. He’d better have left some painkillers.”
Goku’s eyes were glued to the splinted fingers of Sanzo’s left hand as it slid from his hair to rest on the mattress.
“Um, yeah,” Gojyo said, snapping out of his thoughts. “Hold on, I’ll get `em...”
“You really are a moron,” he heard Sanzo berate the kid quietly, once his back was turned. “Your limiter was ‘knocked off?’ `Tch. They weren’t even assassins, just a bunch of riled-up perverts looking for a convenient outlet. And you--”
“I know,” Goku murmured with chagrin, and that much, Gojyo figured as he held the bottle of pills in his fist and listened while pretending he wasn’t, was genuine. “I messed up, I let my guard down and one of `em must’ve snuck up on me an’--”
“No shit, you screwed up,” the priest told him coldly. “You’re of no use to me if you allow yourself to get distracted every goddamn time you think I’m in danger! I never asked you to protect me.”
“Sanzo--”
“What would you have done, if Hakkai hadn’t been able to stop you? I won’t always be around to clean up every fucking mess you make.”
Gojyo returned with the pills and a glass of water, before this conversation had a chance to really get ugly. “Here,” he said, thrusting them at the blond. “And for Chrissake, cut the kid some slack.”
Psychological damage, Hakkai had suggested. If Sanzo remembered any of it, he was playing it off like a Grade A bitch. But that scream, when they had finally-- Gojyo shuddered at the memory of it.
“Mind your own goddamn business,” Sanzo snarled, and Gojyo only managed to keep from really giving him a piece of his mind by reminding himself how pathetic the bastard was right now, all bruised and beaten up. ‘Extremely defensive’ was an understatement.
With a scowl--because Sanzo would never suffer others worrying about him--Gojyo turned his back. “C’mon, Goku. We can come back when he’s slept off most of the bitchiness. Let’s get you something to eat, huh?”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
This was wrong.
It had felt wrong from the beginning. There was an intent to kill here, yes, but it didn’t seem driven by the madness that often resulted from the Minus Wave. They were...terrified for their lives, which didn’t make sense.
The force was well-organized, but smaller than those which were usually sent after their party, and the constituency wasn’t normal, either. Usually the groups of youkai they came up against, the ones sent from India, consisted of the general ‘cannon fodder,’ as he’d once put it to Sanzo. Occasionally, these were led by one youkai with specially developed powers: summon-able qi weapons, commonly, or hypnotism, or illusion. But this force... There was so much ambient qi floating around, it was difficult for Hakkai to pinpoint, but surely they couldn’t all possess such powerful--
“Shit!” Gojyo cursed behind him, dodging the razor-sharp edge of a staff thrust recklessly in his direction. “These guys sure get points for effort. Killing `em’s almost too easy, but they just keep comin’ back for more!”
He raised Shakujou over his head in a sharp arc and let the chain reel out, the crescent blade chopping limbs and the closely surrounding trees indiscriminately. A shower of small qi projectiles like firecrackers hit him from his left, and Gojyo held up his arms to shield himself, even as Hakkai erected a barrier.
‘Almost too easy,’ Hakkai thought, and his heart stuttered in his chest.
“Gojyo,” he murmured anxiously over his shoulder when the redhead pressed to him, back to back, “don’t you think there were many more attackers, earlier?”
“Well, we killed a lot.” Shakujou’s blade sang through the air.
“But we’ve no idea where Goku and Sanzo are. They’ve separated us.”
“They can’t be far,” Gojyo reasoned. “Just a little while ago, I heard a couple of `em ranting about fellow demons siding with a youkai-killing priest. Morons,” Gojyo spat vehemently. He sent a kick to one attacker’s chest, and Hakkai buried an elbow in the face of another who’d moved in when the man was distracted.
“But I haven’t heard even one of them mention the sutra. And listen. Do you still hear Sanzo’s gun?”
Straining his ears, Gojyo listened for it over the sounds of the cursing and howling. “No. (Fuck!)”
“They’re not trying to kill us, they’re just keeping us busy! I think we made a terrible mistake. We have to find the others before--”
A scream ripped through the air, making the hairs at the back of Hakkai’s neck stand on end. He met Gojyo’s eyes, and they were wide and horrified.
It had been Sanzo’s voice.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
When Goku snuck back to the room an hour later, Sanzo was asleep again, which was good. Hakkai always said your body did its best healing when you were asleep and Sanzo...had a lot of healing to do.
As quietly as possible, he grabbed one of the chairs from the table and set it beside the bed, so he could watch over Sanzo.
He and Gojyo had eaten in the third room, the one that had been for him when he was recovering, and it had been really quiet and awkward, but it was better than sitting down in the dining room with all the people.
The town wasn’t all that friendly towards youkai, Gojyo had explained--tensions ran high with an all-youkai town so close, one that could potentially go kill-happy any day--so Hakkai had given the story that they were humans traveling through the area when they were attacked by territorial youkai. It probably didn’t help much, playing off the bad blood between the two towns, but they hadn’t had a choice. Sanzo was in serious need of professional medial attention, and there was nowhere else they could get it.
“What happened back there...” Gojyo had started, and Goku slowly set down his chopsticks, staring into his bowl but not really seeing it.
“I don’t know,” Goku whispered. “You saw what they did to Sanzo. I just...I couldn’t let them get away with it.” He fisted his hands under the tabletop. “Sanzo never did anything to deserve that,” he growled, and told himself not to remember it, not to picture it in his head. “Sanzo’s a Sanzo! That means he’s really, really special, and they--” He was cutting crescent-shaped marks into his palms, and tried to take a deep breath.
“I don’t know that I’m in much of a position to say who deserves what,” Gojyo finally drawled, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling as he took a deep pull off his cigarette. “Maybe we were wrong, maybe those guys were--probably both--but if it had been me...” With a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair and laughed a little, darkly. “I’da done the same goddamn thing.”
Goku took Sanzo’s hand, mindful of his broken fingers, and curled his own around it. Sanzo didn’t wake, which was also good, `cause he was extra nasty when he was hurt, like he had to make up for the fact that his body wasn’t working properly or something. The desire to touch Sanzo’s hair, to push it from his face and reassure himself that everything would be okay, was a physical ache like a knot in his chest, but Goku didn’t want to push his luck.
Instead, he tightened his hand marginally around Sanzo’s and let his head rest on his own arm, propped over the back of the chair.
Because everything would be okay. He wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
Chapter 1 (2/2)