Fanfiction: Wake Up Heart
~
Wake Up Heart
By Solitaire
Chapter 2: Uncool
Sanzo moved down the hall with the support of the wall and it was slow, painful going, but he needed two seconds of quiet so he could think, and he certainly wouldn’t get it if he went back to his own room, not with the chimp in there.
The veranda out behind the inn was empty, thankfully, and by the time he’d eased himself onto one of the benches--and fuck, that hurt--he was short of breath and his wounds were throbbing again. He’d managed to grab his gun and cigarettes from Hakkai’s room, at least, along with Gojyo’s lighter, and he was quick to light one of the Marlboros, though it took longer than expected with the shaking of his hands.
Curiously, Sanzo lifted a hand before his face. It trembled as he held it out palm-down, despite his best efforts to still it, and he had to attribute it to three days’ worth of nicotine withdraw. Because he wasn’t that pissed that Hakkai had struck him. Because he hadn’t really come out here in fear he’d take that anger out on Goku. With a growl, Sanzo clenched his fist.
It would be pointless to yell at Goku--satisfying, maybe, but ultimately pointless. There was a difference between consciously removing his diadem and the seeming lapse of sanity Hakkai had described. Hakkai hadn’t said the words, but he knew they were all thinking it. If that was the case, he wouldn’t hesitate to prove Gojyo right, to put a bullet right between Goku’s eyes. It would be for their safety, for the sake of the mission, and if Goku needed a grave, Sanzo would be the one to dig it for him.
Taking a long drag off his cigarette, the blond stared out over the railing towards the woods. If there was one thing he’d learned over the course of this journey, it was that any youkai might eventually succumb to the Wave’s effects, true, but when the individual was strong-willed there would be signs before the madness took hold, damnit, and it was irreversible--not there one moment and gone the next. And Goku wasn’t a youkai, not really. Not a typical one, at any rate. But Sanzo couldn’t let this incident slide.
With a snort, he dropped his spent cigarette to crush it beneath his sandal. As if it could ever be as simple as telling the stupid monkey: “Never do that again.” If Goku was overprotective to a fault, Sanzo had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who had too often allowed the boy to trail after him like a loud, annoying shadow, who had encouraged him to act as an unofficial bodyguard when it suited his purposes, and hadn’t their first meeting with the kappa been just like this?
A scuffed pair of boots entered his field of vision as he was considering lighting another Marlboro, and he cursed to himself when they remained there.
“Excuse me, but are you...are you the most honorable Priest Sanzo-sama?”
With a weary, ill-humored scowl, he dragged his gaze upwards. “Who wants to know?”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Oh--Goku.”
He felt Hakkai tense up slightly beneath his hand and frowned. They’d agreed to be careful about displays of affection where Sanzo might see, because if the monk was able to pretend he didn’t know what was going on between them, then he didn’t have to pretend he was supposed to say something about it.
It’d been sort of an unspoken assumption that were Goku to see, he would blab to Sanzo and ruin it for all parties involved, but Gojyo was no dummy. Hakkai thought they would set a bad example for the kid.
Which was ridiculous. If any of them were running the risk of ‘turning’ Goku gay, it was Sanzo.
Leaving his hand right where it was, he turned an irritated glare on the monkey. “Don’t you ever knock?”
“A choice about what?” Goku repeated, annoyingly persistent, and Hakkai sighed.
“Please come inside and close the door.” And then Hakkai was standing and ushering Goku into his vacated chair, “How are you feeling?” he asked, and the kid blinked stupidly at the abrupt change of subject.
“`M fine.”
“No dizziness?” their resident qi healer inquired as he poked and prodded. “Headaches? Nausea?”
‘Craving for human flesh?’ Gojyo almost wanted to add, but it would have been half-serious, and living with Hakkai had warned him against jokes that were Not Funny.
“No,” Goku insisted impatiently, shying away from the hands, “and what did you guys do to Sanzo?”
So much for distraction techniques, Gojyo thought, and plunked his untouched mug of tea in front of the kid. Time for guilt.
“You insensitive bastards are making it really hard on Hakkai, you know,” he drawled, and that certainly got Goku’s attention. “He’s been busting his ass just making sure you and His Holiness keep breathing, and you both come barging in here, playing Twenty Questions--”
“It’s alright, Gojyo,” Hakkai interrupted quietly, and Gojyo still didn’t think it was, but he knew when arguing wouldn’t get him anywhere. “I think Goku should know. After all, this involves him, too.”
“It’s `cuz I didn’t get to Sanzo in time, isn’t it?” Goku asked resignedly, already guessing the worst, but Hakkai raised a hand to stop him.
“Goku, if not for you, Sanzo would have died. Not only did you defend him after he had fallen, but your own blood--”
He was stopped short by the familiar retort of Sanzo’s gun from outside behind the inn, and with a shared look the three of them were out of their seats before the sound had faded from hearing.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
Predictably enough, Goku was the first one out onto the porch, and the other two of them arrived just in time to see him kick the knife out of reach. The young man kneeling on the ground, clutching his right hand, glared up at him hatefully, and Sanzo thumbed back the hammer of his gun.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the monk told him slowly.
It didn’t take Hakkai long to realize what Sanzo must have, even before he opened his mouth, that the male about their age was a youkai, though he must have been wearing limiters in order to sneak into town.
“What else could I do? My family’s dead because of you, you bastard!” and Goku moved to stand in front of him as he pushed himself to his feet, but Sanzo waved his charge back.
“We were defending ourselves against an unprovoked attack,” Gojyo snapped, “so don’t get all high ‘n mighty on us!”
“It was pre-emptive,” the youkai snarled back, reaching up to tug his cap more firmly over his head. “Were we just supposed to wait until the demon-killing priest and his pals showed up in the middle of our town?!”
“That’s not--!”
“What did you hope to accomplish here?” Hakkai interrupted quietly, drawing the young man’s attention. “We are deeply sorry for what happened to your family and fellow townspeople, but surely you didn’t think you could come here alone and have any good come of it?”
“He heard they’d managed to leave the Sanzo priest in bad shape,” the blond guessed, casually pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, “and thought he could sneak in here when I was alone and finish me off, is that it? Pretty pathetic plan, if all you’ve got with you is that knife.” Blowing a stream of smoke in the man’s direction, Sanzo curled his lip.
“I’ll never see my brother or my father again, or my hus--or my spouse. I’ll never forgive you!” There was the threat of furious tears in his voice, but while Sanzo remained unaffected, Goku was the one Hakkai found himself eyeing warily.
“At the very least, you’re outnumbered four-to-one,” Gojyo tried to reason. “Just go home,” and while Hakkai knew it was unintentional, the sympathy in the half-demon’s voice only served to further anger the other male.
“I’d rather fight you all and die like a man than be sent off with my tail between my legs,” he sneered, and he lunged toward Gojyo with his bare hands when Goku stopped him with a palm to the chest.
“Please,” Goku told him, his voice nearly inaudible and his eyes downcast, “don’t do this.”
“Didn’t you hear me?!” the young man growled lowly, and there was no mistaking the tears that dripped down his chin. “I don’t have a home to return to, not any more.”
“Goku, stop it,” Sanzo ordered. “There’s nothing you can do. You,” he added, addressing the other male. “If you want to die so badly, come on then.”
Hakkai’s eyes widened as the man tossed his gun aside in a gesture that was pure provocation, “Sanzo!” he exclaimed with alarm, but their self-proclaimed adversary had already snapped the chain of the necklace he was wearing under his shirt, and the piece of jewelry clattered to the ground as the tips of his ears elongated and his fingernails grew to long claws.
“It’s holier-than-thou humans like you who’re the real monsters!” he spat, and he stepped towards the priest, claws extended, when Goku blocked the movement again with his body.
“Get out of my way!” the youkai threatened, but there was fear in his eyes, and even he must have heard from the sole survivor of that fight about the things Goku had done.
Goku remained silent but immovable, and when the other lashed out to claw at the brunet’s face, Goku didn’t prevent it.
“What the hell, monkey?” Gojyo demanded as beads of crimson welled up across the teen’s cheek, and became bright lines of blood which dripped onto his collar.
“I’m sorry!” Goku cried suddenly, his eyes squeezed shut and expression pained, “I didn’t want to, and I’m sorry, but it was your family or mine!”
The youkai stuck out again, this time with a fist, and still Goku did nothing to defend himself. “Why?! Why do you side with him? A human who kills us just because we’re demons? Don’t we deserve to live, too?!”
“Goku, move!” Sanzo snapped.
“Hit `im back, at least!” Gojyo shouted at the brunet, exasperated.
“I’m not gonna hit a girl!” Goku shot back, and this time, when the claws came at him, he grabbed his assailant by the wrists and held fast.
“A girl?!”
The youkai struggled violently at these words, and when the cap was knocked from her head, it was indeed a young woman spitting and cursing at Goku.
“Bastard!” she hissed. “Don’t go easy on me because I’m not a man!”
So that was why she disguised herself, and Goku must have smelled it right away, Hakkai hardly had time to think before she had kneed her captor in the groin, and while Gojyo would have probably had enough experience with females to know it was coming and avoided it, Goku dropped like a stone, clutching his midsection.
“Idiot!” Sanzo grumbled, moving to laboriously push himself to his feet.
“Hey, come on,” Gojyo protested, his protective instincts kicking in, and he stepped in front of the girl, facing the monk. “She just--”
“Gojyo, look out!” Hakkai yelled, and Goku had reached out in an attempt to stop her from retrieving the knife, but his reflexes were still dulled by pain, and by the time Hakkai was near enough, she’d already sunk her blade between his ribs from behind.
Time seemed to freeze for Hakkai as the redhead stood there, a half-pained, half-incredulous look on his face.
“...You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Gojyo muttered before he crashed to the floor.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Moron!!”
The sharp crack of the paper fan against Goku’s skull echoed across the porch and Hakkai politely averted his gaze as he and the inn keeper’s son carried Gojyo inside.
“Ow, Sanzo, what th’ heck was that for??” Great, now his stomach and his head hurt, and he felt like crap about some of the things that girl had said, so if Sanzo was just gonna yell at him, he’d rather follow Hakkai and see how Gojyo was doing. Or better yet, he’d go back to bed so he could pull the covers over his head and wait for tomorrow, because today mondo sucked.
“What did you think you were doing, huh?” the priest snapped back, and he brought his arm up in preparation for another blow, “Are you trying to--”
Goku reached out and gripped Sanzo’s wrist. “Cut it out, you’re gonna make your injuries worse,” he warned, and when Sanzo’s bad knee finally buckled under his weight, Goku pulled that captive arm over his shoulder.
“Brainless fool,” the blond continued to mutter fiercely under his breath as he sagged against Goku, the still healing damage his body had incurred finally catching up to him, and Goku could smell fresh blood under the man’s robe.
“I’m only tryin’ to help,” he retorted defensively as Sanzo scoffed, moving sluggishly to stash the fan back up his sleeve.
“You never think before you do,” the other male berated him through clenched teeth, and Goku frowned at the pained expression on his face. Once Hakkai’d made sure Gojyo would be alright, he’d have to ask him to take another look at Sanzo--stubborn jerk never should’a gotten out of bed in the first place, and now he’d been attacked again--
“--get into messes like these,” Sanzo was saying angrily, and Goku hadn’t been paying attention, so he wasn’t sure if Sanzo was talking about him or himself. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry over nothin’,” he mumbled, refusing to look at Sanzo as he carefully helped him in from the porch, and just past the doorway Sanzo tugged away to glare down at him with narrowed eyes.
“‘Nothing?’ The way I heard it, you practically tore those youkai limb from limb--that’s not your usual fighting style.”
Swallowing thickly, Goku lowered his head so he couldn’t see Sanzo through his bangs, and Sanzo couldn’t see him.
“I dunno what came over me. I just--I just couldn’t stand there an’ watch them hurting you and not do something about it!” he insisted, his voice low and uncertain. “It’s stupid, but it’s like...Kougaiji’s guys are after you `cuz of the sutra, but these guys, they wanted to hurt you because they were mad and scared, and the looks on their faces were like...it was like they were sayin’ that you deserved to die and I was stupid for tryin’ to stop them, and--”
He hadn’t even realized he was shaking with anger, his hands fisted hard enough to make the tendons of his wrists ache, until Sanzo’s hand came to rest atop his head. He bit his lip, wondering if Sanzo had decided he needed a thicker limiter after all, because he had been getting more powerful, and for a while now, hadn’t he? Maybe too powerful. Maybe dangerous-powerful.
But Sanzo’s hand only lay there, warm and heavy against his skull, and when the blond finally spoke, it wasn’t what Goku had been expecting.
“Stop it,” he ordered curtly. “Shitty things happen to people all the time, whether they’re deserved or not. It does no good to get worked up over them, because that’s just the way things are.” With a weary sigh and a gentle shove to the boy’s head, he pulled his hand back. Goku risked a glance up at him, but Sanzo was staring out into the darkness past the porch with a considering frown on his face.
“No matter how self-righteous you get, there will always be someone out there twice as self-righteous who disagrees with everything you’ve ever believed.”
“Sanzo?”
The monk turned to face him once more, and that frown deepened. “You--” but he cut himself off with a disgusted shake of his head. And when Sanzo slung his arm over his shoulders once more, Goku found he was able to breathe easier than he had all day.
“So you’re not gonna kill me?” he wanted to know, only half joking as the two of them carefully made their way down the hall to the priest’s room.
“Do you want to die?” Sanzo shot back challengingly.
“No.”
“Then I guess I won’t.”
“...That’s it?” he finally had to ask, his gaze flicking to Sanzo’s profile, and if it was this easy, why couldn’t he help still feeling like he was--what was that expression Hakkai had used before?--waiting for the other shoe to drop? His arm tightened unconsciously around the blond’s waist.
“That’s it.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
When he next opened his eyes, Hakkai was hovering over him with that damned mother hen expression on his face. He hated when he was the cause of that look.
“Hakkai, `m fine,” he slurred, still half asleep, and there was something prickling at the back of his mind telling him it wasn’t such a good idea to sit up, but he tried it anyway and that was when he remembered what happened.
“Uuughh,” he groaned painfully, bringing a hand around to clutch at his ribs, and his fingers encountered one of Hakkai’s trademark ‘too tight, I know, but that’s to remind you against being such an idiot in the future’ bandages.
“That chick,” he asked suddenly, “did she--”
“She fled as soon as the commotion had drawn the inn keeper’s attention,” Hakkai assured him. “Fortunately, you provided enough of a distraction that it didn’t occur to him to send someone after her until it was too late.”
“Always glad to be of service to a pretty lady,” he joked. And because, despite the slightly passive-aggressive manner in which his wound had been dressed he was expecting at least a little coddling, it didn’t quite register at first when Hakkai sat back, looking relieved, and asked:
“Do you think you can get into Jeep on your own without too much trouble?”
“Whu--who’s--what?” Gojyo demanded. He was an injured man, here. Where was the love?? With a grimace, he forced himself upright. “If that prick Sanzo-sama can’t wait one more day--!”
Hakkai stood to gather their bags, already packed and sitting by the door, and shook his head with a rueful smile.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have Sanzo leaving his room for at least another week yet. However, I’m afraid the choice is out of our hands; the management apparently doesn’t take too kindly to armed scuffles on the premises.”
The pain was making his mind a little fuzzy--wondered if he could get some of whatever those pills were the doc had given them for the monk--so it took a couple seconds for one and one to make two, and by then he’d already thrown his legs over the edge of the mattress.
“They’re kicking us out?! But we’ve got injured party members here, damnit! --Ow!”
“Please take it easy,” the brunet admonished as he returned to Gojyo’s side. “I’m afraid my energy reserves are still a bit too depleted to completely repair the damage, but the blade grazed your lung. You wouldn’t want it to collapse, now would you?”
“...That could happen?” he inquired nervously.
“It’s possible,” Hakkai agreed. “And of course there’ll be no smoking until you’re completely healed. Just to be safe.”
Heh. He liked how Hakkai managed to make a threat sound like a suggestion. As if they both didn’t know the second he tried to light up before Hakkai declared him one hundred percent fit, he’d be strung up by his--
The door opened without warning and Gojyo was reminded that the goddamn monkey seriously needed to learn some manners, was about to let the punk really have it on the topic of common courtesy, when he saw the both of them standing there in the doorway together.
Well, well. Something must have happened while he was out, ‘cuz Mr. I’m Too Good For All Of You himself was leaning heavily on the kid’s shoulder to support his weight--too proud for crutches to the end, huh, you bastard?--and Goku no longer had the ‘guess I’ll go eat some worms’ sulk on his face. Gojyo had opened his mouth and was about to make an instigative comment along the lines of ‘Did you guys kiss and make up?’ when Sanzo beat him to it.
“If you two are done with the old married couple routine,” the blond grouched, pausing to glance over his shoulder, “I’d like to get out of here before the mob arrives.”
“There’s a mob?”
“Ah ha, it’s a figure of speech, Gojyo.”
After a parting glare from Sanzo, he watched the monk hobble out of sight towards the lobby with Goku’s help, then shot Hakkai a questioning look. Snatching up the redhead’s pack before he could reach for it, Hakkai made a helpless gesture of incomprehension.
With a frown, Gojyo raked a hand through his hair. “Well damn.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Sanzo,” Hakkai suggested as they were tossing the last of their things into the jeep, “with your injuries it may be best if you stretched out in back with Goku.”
Digging his heels in, the blond abruptly withdrew his arm from around the teen’s shoulder and stood as straight and stiff as Hakkai imagined his wounds would allow.
“I’m fine,” he insisted with a scowl, and Gojyo made a rude noise from the other side of the vehicle.
“You’re gonna sit on that ass?”
This, of course, set Goku off. “How bad is it?” he wanted to know, shooting Sanzo a worried frown, and he was clearly irritated that he had yet again been the one left out of the loop, even if it wasn’t by design.
“None of your damn business,” Sanzo told him.
“Whatever. Let `em, Hakkai,” the redhead jeered, easing himself in back with an arm gingerly around his ribs. “Soon enough, he’ll be beggin’ to trade.”
The priest settled himself stiffly up front, and Hakkai wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t seen the grimace that passed over his face.
“Sanzo, are you absolutely certain you--”
“For fuck’s sake, stop nagging me, Hakkai!”
The brunet bit back the retort that formed and jerked on Jeep’s gearshift a little harder than intended.
“Suit yourself,” he replied with a cheerfully strained smile as he stepped on the gas and that was that, because whatever Sanzo said, went, and even the gods couldn’t convince Sanzo otherwise when he got like this.
“What the hell are you doing?” came Gojyo’s voice from behind him, and Hakkai glanced in the rearview mirror to watch Goku start a bit guiltily. “...Were you sniffing him, you little weirdo??”
“No!” Goku returned hotly, but he did certainly look sheepish, and he shrunk back in his seat a little when the blond glanced over his shoulder to glare at him suspiciously.
“What, then?” Gojyo continued, enjoying pushing the teen’s buttons. “You expect me to believe you have a cold?”
“Shut the hell up!” Goku snapped, kicking Gojyo in the leg. “Don’t project your perviness on’ta me!”
“Ooh, big word there, chibi-chimp. You been studying flashcards?”
“Don’t call me that, you--”
“If I have to move in order to kill you two,” growled Sanzo with a vein throbbing at his temple, “you’re really going to regret it!”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
It was time for him to shape up. Sanzo and Gojyo were injured, and Hakkai was exhausted from healin’ the three of them; it was up to him to pull his own weight, now.
He’d set up Sanzo’s tent and bedroll for `im first thing, then proceeded to help unpack the rest of the baggage from Jeep, gather wood for a campfire, fill their canteens and a pot for Hakkai down at the river, and even catch a couple slow, fat fish while he was down there--which ended up being...trickier than he’d thought it’d be. He was even gonna take first watch tonight voluntarily.
So when he had finally dragged himself back to camp, tired but determined not to complain, realizing his tent had gotten left behind in the rush to leave town was the last straw.
“C’mon,” he whined, hovering crouched at the open flap of Sanzo’s tent, “you’re the one who kicked me outta the room and wouldn’t let me make sure I had all my stuff! It’s your fault, so you should share, you stingy monk!”
Sanzo, resting with his good arm folded behind his head, didn’t bother opening his eyes, but rolled his cigarette in his mouth ‘til it stuck up at that ‘you’re pissing me off’ angle.
“What part of ‘die’ do you not understand?”
“You’re still wounded,” Goku reminded the man, trying a different tactic, “and what if somethin’ happens in the middle’a the night? It’d be better to have someone close--”
“Hunh!” was Sanzo’s highly incredulous response, and this time he did open his eyes, only to glare and shove Goku from the entrance of his tent with a boot to the boy’s face.
“Denied!” Gojyo declared loudly from across the clearing where Hakkai was starting dinner, as Goku rocked back onto his ass in the dirt. Pushing himself into a standing position once more, he scowled at the jackass-kappa.
“Shut up, you stupid--”
“Goku,” Hakkai interrupted helpfully, “you can take my tent until we get to the next town and can purchase you a replacement.”
He brushed off his pants, shook the dirt from his hair, and decided he could probably use a bath after the last couple’a days they’d had. “Thanks, Hakkai, but I’m not gonna make you sleep outside.”
As the teen shuffled his way over to check out what Hakkai was cooking, Gojyo waggled his eyebrows with a grin.
“Who said he’s gonna be sleeping outside?”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
A sponge bath, Sanzo thought with disgust, get real. Damn, but Hakkai was a manipulative bastard.
“Here, Sanzo, stand still a sec.” Goku frowned in concentration as he carefully helped wrestle him from the various slings and girdles Sanzo had been forced into to keep the mending bones immobile, his robe, leathers, and finally the pair of jeans Hakkai insisted he shouldn’t be wearing until his other wounds healed.
The man just didn’t understand. While wearing nothing under his robes had been fine at Chang ‘An, it wasn’t practical for the kind of shit they dealt with on a daily basis on the road. Like hell he was gonna to pull an up-skirt moment in the middle of a fight.
“Oh, man...” Goku’s voice trailed off as he got a good look at what was under the bandages. Blunt fingertips brushed the back of his thigh and Sanzo hissed.
“Don’t touch it, idiot!” he snapped, smacking the boy upside the head. “Go away, I’m not so injured I can’t wash myself.” The brunet backed off obediently, thought reluctantly, and Sanzo was able to breathe a little easier. “Go entertain yourself, monkey,” he muttered dismissively, and Goku shrugged, rubbing at his skull where Sanzo’s palm had connected.
“Okay. Just gimme a holler when you need to me to do your back and redress your bandages,” Goku told him, and Sanzo sent him scurrying off with an exaggerated scowl and a threatening lift of his hand.
He hated bathing in fucking cold rivers out in the middle of nowhere where an enemy could ambush them at any moment, but he hated being filthy more. The water was freezing when he lowered himself carefully, but it did numb the fire that ran up his thigh to his ass, so he couldn’t complain. Luckily for Goku, when he dove on in, he was far enough downstream that he didn’t splash the monk in the process.
“C-cc-cold!” he exclaimed with chattering teeth when he finally broke the surface. Retard.
Sanzo began to wash himself as well as he could with one working arm and wondered with annoyance how much this little fiasco had set them back. Hakkai had said he’d been out for three days. Yesterday had been the fourth, and there was no telling how much time they might have wasted at that inn if they hadn’t gotten kicked out of town. Today had been spent almost entirely on the road, but Hakkai had been so obviously driving slower and making more frequent stops that they’d made crap time.
Goku had finished his own perfunctory bath and begun doing laps to warm himself, but it looked as if the laps now had given way to merely floating on his back, a foot braced against one of the larger rocks in order to keep himself from getting pushed downstream.
With a snort, Sanzo watched him float there, naked and completely unself-conscious. To look at him now, one would never guess at the power his body contained, kept in check--maybe just barely--by the diadem around his head. It was hard to believe that behind those wide eyes, that stupid grin, lurked something so...mindlessly feral.
Right, Sanzo thought as the teen lazily stroked his torso and scratched at his stomach, as if this idiot is something to be afraid of.
Goku’s hands encountered and lingered at his nipples, and Sanzo rolled his eyes; and maybe he was staring now, but he told himself it was only because he envied Goku’s easy ability to lose himself to his cares so completely, and he found himself calling out to Goku to get him to (stop) come over and help him finish washing.
Goku jerked guiltily and sank below the surface with a flailing of limbs, but Sanzo made sure he was looking away. Not as if he took a malicious satisfaction in embarrassing the moron. Not at all.
He waited for Goku to wade his way over to him, then thrust the bar of soap at him. Thankfully, it was brisk and efficient, though Sanzo did find himself leaning into the touch the slightest bit when Goku moved on to his hair. The weakness irritated him and he pulled away.
“Alright, I’m done,” Sanzo groused, so Goku dumped water over him with the pot from dinner. It was getting dark and cold now and he was shivering, “All right,” he repeated ill-temperedly, shaking the water from his hair, and Goku squawked as he leaned heavily on the boy’s shoulder in order to haul himself to his feet.
He had to submit to being bundled up, rubbed dry, re-bandaged and re-girdled and it chafed--literally and figuratively--but coming down here had exhausted him, and at least he got to smoke while Goku did a fair, if less skilled, imitation of Mother Hen Hakkai.
“Aren’t you done yet?” he demanded for the third time in as many minutes, because damnit, he was falling asleep here on his feet.
“Done,” Goku finally affirmed, looking ridiculously proud of himself, and Sanzo pulled on his robes with an exasperated noise.
“Hey, wait up!” Goku called as the priest began to limp back towards their camp, and he scrabbled to collect the rest of Sanzo’s clothes, the cooking pot and their toiletries.
“Finally,” Gojyo bitched once they reappeared, but Sanzo summarily ignored whatever smartass comments came next and managed to shove Goku off so he could crawl into his own tent.
“’Bout goddamn time, make us wait all night, why don’t you?” came the kappa’s muffled griping from outside as he and Hakkai took off towards the river. He ignored that too--whiner--as he fell onto his sleeping bag, which he suspected Goku had padded with extra blankets.
“Good night, Sanzo,” he heard indistinctly before he lost consciousness.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Mmm,” Hakkai murmured with a smile against the back of Gojyo’s neck, “maybe we should have saved the bath until later.
“Screw that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to...get you alone?” Gojyo gasped, arching into the man behind him, and Hakkai lifted his thigh a bit higher.
“Too much?” he questioned softly, his nose buried in the half-demon’s hair as he gave another careful thrust.
“Fuck, no,” Gojyo groaned, and reached back to grip the brunet’s hip as if to keep him from leaving. “I can--ahh--do it like this, lying on my side...”
“I always appreciate your flexibility as the situation dictates,” Hakkai teased. Shifting as much as their positions would allow, he dropped wet, sucking kisses along Gojyo’s neck to his shoulder, and watched avidly over the curve of that shoulder as Gojyo palmed himself.
“Your nipples, Gojyo,” he reminded the other man breathlessly. “You do have two free hands, which is more than I can say for myself.” Hakkai tightened his fingers in the lush mane of Gojyo’s hair and spread his thigh just that slightest bit more in order to more effectively drive his point home.
Moaning throatily, the redhead shuddered against him. “I love it when you talk dirty,” he joked when he could finally speak once more, but obediently licked his thumb and first two fingers to toy with one of the hardened nubs.
“Hakkaaaai...” he whined as the brunet halted his thrusts to grind his hips in a slow circle.
“I didn’t say to stop,” he admonished gently, leaning in to run his tongue lovingly over Gojyo’s scars.
“Fuck,” Gojyo hissed, tugging at his own nipple harshly as he began to stroke himself in earnest. “You’re so...” The rest was lost in a groan as he fingered the slit of his erection, and Hakkai sucked at his earlobe. A full-body shudder ran through him and into Hakkai, and he was making that almost inaudible whine in the back of his throat that aroused the brunet to no end.
“‘So’ what?” he prompted with amusement, though he himself was hanging on by a thread at this point.
Gojyo didn’t answer, but turned over his shoulder his capture his mouth in a wet kiss. “C’mon, Hakkai,” he whispered against the man’s lips with a wicked grin. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
Hakkai moaned aloud at that look, dimly seen in the dark of the tent through one good eye, and he withdrew just enough to push back in forcefully, aiming to graze Gojyo’s prostate.
“Alright,” he panted with a smirk threatening to tug at his mouth as the redhead’s body went taut against his. “But please don’t say you didn’t ask for it.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“What about my blood?” he had finally asked after finishing a double shift on watch and waking Sanzo briefly to force the blond to take some more pain pills. Goku had been practically dead on his feet by that point, but he knew it was probably the best chance he’d get to talk to Hakkai alone, and it was worry and a nagging sense of curiosity which had made him hesitate at the mouth of his borrowed tent and blurt the question.
“A blood transfusion,” the other man told him, and after listening to him explain what it was and how it worked, Goku accepted the fact that Hakkai wouldn’t have agreed to it if he didn’t think it was their best option, but he still wasn’t sure how he should feel about it. At least now he knew why Sanzo smelled different--smelled darker and richer. Smelled like him.
“Why me?” he’d wanted to know, because he would have thought his blood, out of the three of theirs, would be the most dangerous inside a human. If his blood turned Sanzo youkai, he’d never forgive himself--but he’d take a youkai Sanzo over a dead Sanzo any day.
Hakkai said it was because he wasn’t really a true youkai, because he was the only one whose body could tolerate the donation of so much blood, and because of something called ‘antigen compatibility’ that Goku wasn’t sure he would have been able to follow even if he’d been one hundred percent awake.
But he did understand that it had to be him. His blood and no one else’s could have saved Sanzo, and the thought sorta secretly made him proud. His blood and Sanzo’s blood, together in Sanzo’s veins, running through Sanzo’s lungs and heart and fingertips.
He just hoped it didn’t do anything...weird to Sanzo.
~tbc...~
Please let me know what you think! :D This is the first time I've tried to write such an in-depth fanfic (uwah, such hard work ;;;;), so I would love detailed feedback to death. ♥
on to chapter 3
Wake Up Heart
By Solitaire
Chapter 2: Uncool
Sanzo moved down the hall with the support of the wall and it was slow, painful going, but he needed two seconds of quiet so he could think, and he certainly wouldn’t get it if he went back to his own room, not with the chimp in there.
The veranda out behind the inn was empty, thankfully, and by the time he’d eased himself onto one of the benches--and fuck, that hurt--he was short of breath and his wounds were throbbing again. He’d managed to grab his gun and cigarettes from Hakkai’s room, at least, along with Gojyo’s lighter, and he was quick to light one of the Marlboros, though it took longer than expected with the shaking of his hands.
Curiously, Sanzo lifted a hand before his face. It trembled as he held it out palm-down, despite his best efforts to still it, and he had to attribute it to three days’ worth of nicotine withdraw. Because he wasn’t that pissed that Hakkai had struck him. Because he hadn’t really come out here in fear he’d take that anger out on Goku. With a growl, Sanzo clenched his fist.
It would be pointless to yell at Goku--satisfying, maybe, but ultimately pointless. There was a difference between consciously removing his diadem and the seeming lapse of sanity Hakkai had described. Hakkai hadn’t said the words, but he knew they were all thinking it. If that was the case, he wouldn’t hesitate to prove Gojyo right, to put a bullet right between Goku’s eyes. It would be for their safety, for the sake of the mission, and if Goku needed a grave, Sanzo would be the one to dig it for him.
Taking a long drag off his cigarette, the blond stared out over the railing towards the woods. If there was one thing he’d learned over the course of this journey, it was that any youkai might eventually succumb to the Wave’s effects, true, but when the individual was strong-willed there would be signs before the madness took hold, damnit, and it was irreversible--not there one moment and gone the next. And Goku wasn’t a youkai, not really. Not a typical one, at any rate. But Sanzo couldn’t let this incident slide.
With a snort, he dropped his spent cigarette to crush it beneath his sandal. As if it could ever be as simple as telling the stupid monkey: “Never do that again.” If Goku was overprotective to a fault, Sanzo had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who had too often allowed the boy to trail after him like a loud, annoying shadow, who had encouraged him to act as an unofficial bodyguard when it suited his purposes, and hadn’t their first meeting with the kappa been just like this?
A scuffed pair of boots entered his field of vision as he was considering lighting another Marlboro, and he cursed to himself when they remained there.
“Excuse me, but are you...are you the most honorable Priest Sanzo-sama?”
With a weary, ill-humored scowl, he dragged his gaze upwards. “Who wants to know?”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Oh--Goku.”
He felt Hakkai tense up slightly beneath his hand and frowned. They’d agreed to be careful about displays of affection where Sanzo might see, because if the monk was able to pretend he didn’t know what was going on between them, then he didn’t have to pretend he was supposed to say something about it.
It’d been sort of an unspoken assumption that were Goku to see, he would blab to Sanzo and ruin it for all parties involved, but Gojyo was no dummy. Hakkai thought they would set a bad example for the kid.
Which was ridiculous. If any of them were running the risk of ‘turning’ Goku gay, it was Sanzo.
Leaving his hand right where it was, he turned an irritated glare on the monkey. “Don’t you ever knock?”
“A choice about what?” Goku repeated, annoyingly persistent, and Hakkai sighed.
“Please come inside and close the door.” And then Hakkai was standing and ushering Goku into his vacated chair, “How are you feeling?” he asked, and the kid blinked stupidly at the abrupt change of subject.
“`M fine.”
“No dizziness?” their resident qi healer inquired as he poked and prodded. “Headaches? Nausea?”
‘Craving for human flesh?’ Gojyo almost wanted to add, but it would have been half-serious, and living with Hakkai had warned him against jokes that were Not Funny.
“No,” Goku insisted impatiently, shying away from the hands, “and what did you guys do to Sanzo?”
So much for distraction techniques, Gojyo thought, and plunked his untouched mug of tea in front of the kid. Time for guilt.
“You insensitive bastards are making it really hard on Hakkai, you know,” he drawled, and that certainly got Goku’s attention. “He’s been busting his ass just making sure you and His Holiness keep breathing, and you both come barging in here, playing Twenty Questions--”
“It’s alright, Gojyo,” Hakkai interrupted quietly, and Gojyo still didn’t think it was, but he knew when arguing wouldn’t get him anywhere. “I think Goku should know. After all, this involves him, too.”
“It’s `cuz I didn’t get to Sanzo in time, isn’t it?” Goku asked resignedly, already guessing the worst, but Hakkai raised a hand to stop him.
“Goku, if not for you, Sanzo would have died. Not only did you defend him after he had fallen, but your own blood--”
He was stopped short by the familiar retort of Sanzo’s gun from outside behind the inn, and with a shared look the three of them were out of their seats before the sound had faded from hearing.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
Predictably enough, Goku was the first one out onto the porch, and the other two of them arrived just in time to see him kick the knife out of reach. The young man kneeling on the ground, clutching his right hand, glared up at him hatefully, and Sanzo thumbed back the hammer of his gun.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the monk told him slowly.
It didn’t take Hakkai long to realize what Sanzo must have, even before he opened his mouth, that the male about their age was a youkai, though he must have been wearing limiters in order to sneak into town.
“What else could I do? My family’s dead because of you, you bastard!” and Goku moved to stand in front of him as he pushed himself to his feet, but Sanzo waved his charge back.
“We were defending ourselves against an unprovoked attack,” Gojyo snapped, “so don’t get all high ‘n mighty on us!”
“It was pre-emptive,” the youkai snarled back, reaching up to tug his cap more firmly over his head. “Were we just supposed to wait until the demon-killing priest and his pals showed up in the middle of our town?!”
“That’s not--!”
“What did you hope to accomplish here?” Hakkai interrupted quietly, drawing the young man’s attention. “We are deeply sorry for what happened to your family and fellow townspeople, but surely you didn’t think you could come here alone and have any good come of it?”
“He heard they’d managed to leave the Sanzo priest in bad shape,” the blond guessed, casually pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, “and thought he could sneak in here when I was alone and finish me off, is that it? Pretty pathetic plan, if all you’ve got with you is that knife.” Blowing a stream of smoke in the man’s direction, Sanzo curled his lip.
“I’ll never see my brother or my father again, or my hus--or my spouse. I’ll never forgive you!” There was the threat of furious tears in his voice, but while Sanzo remained unaffected, Goku was the one Hakkai found himself eyeing warily.
“At the very least, you’re outnumbered four-to-one,” Gojyo tried to reason. “Just go home,” and while Hakkai knew it was unintentional, the sympathy in the half-demon’s voice only served to further anger the other male.
“I’d rather fight you all and die like a man than be sent off with my tail between my legs,” he sneered, and he lunged toward Gojyo with his bare hands when Goku stopped him with a palm to the chest.
“Please,” Goku told him, his voice nearly inaudible and his eyes downcast, “don’t do this.”
“Didn’t you hear me?!” the young man growled lowly, and there was no mistaking the tears that dripped down his chin. “I don’t have a home to return to, not any more.”
“Goku, stop it,” Sanzo ordered. “There’s nothing you can do. You,” he added, addressing the other male. “If you want to die so badly, come on then.”
Hakkai’s eyes widened as the man tossed his gun aside in a gesture that was pure provocation, “Sanzo!” he exclaimed with alarm, but their self-proclaimed adversary had already snapped the chain of the necklace he was wearing under his shirt, and the piece of jewelry clattered to the ground as the tips of his ears elongated and his fingernails grew to long claws.
“It’s holier-than-thou humans like you who’re the real monsters!” he spat, and he stepped towards the priest, claws extended, when Goku blocked the movement again with his body.
“Get out of my way!” the youkai threatened, but there was fear in his eyes, and even he must have heard from the sole survivor of that fight about the things Goku had done.
Goku remained silent but immovable, and when the other lashed out to claw at the brunet’s face, Goku didn’t prevent it.
“What the hell, monkey?” Gojyo demanded as beads of crimson welled up across the teen’s cheek, and became bright lines of blood which dripped onto his collar.
“I’m sorry!” Goku cried suddenly, his eyes squeezed shut and expression pained, “I didn’t want to, and I’m sorry, but it was your family or mine!”
The youkai stuck out again, this time with a fist, and still Goku did nothing to defend himself. “Why?! Why do you side with him? A human who kills us just because we’re demons? Don’t we deserve to live, too?!”
“Goku, move!” Sanzo snapped.
“Hit `im back, at least!” Gojyo shouted at the brunet, exasperated.
“I’m not gonna hit a girl!” Goku shot back, and this time, when the claws came at him, he grabbed his assailant by the wrists and held fast.
“A girl?!”
The youkai struggled violently at these words, and when the cap was knocked from her head, it was indeed a young woman spitting and cursing at Goku.
“Bastard!” she hissed. “Don’t go easy on me because I’m not a man!”
So that was why she disguised herself, and Goku must have smelled it right away, Hakkai hardly had time to think before she had kneed her captor in the groin, and while Gojyo would have probably had enough experience with females to know it was coming and avoided it, Goku dropped like a stone, clutching his midsection.
“Idiot!” Sanzo grumbled, moving to laboriously push himself to his feet.
“Hey, come on,” Gojyo protested, his protective instincts kicking in, and he stepped in front of the girl, facing the monk. “She just--”
“Gojyo, look out!” Hakkai yelled, and Goku had reached out in an attempt to stop her from retrieving the knife, but his reflexes were still dulled by pain, and by the time Hakkai was near enough, she’d already sunk her blade between his ribs from behind.
Time seemed to freeze for Hakkai as the redhead stood there, a half-pained, half-incredulous look on his face.
“...You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Gojyo muttered before he crashed to the floor.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Moron!!”
The sharp crack of the paper fan against Goku’s skull echoed across the porch and Hakkai politely averted his gaze as he and the inn keeper’s son carried Gojyo inside.
“Ow, Sanzo, what th’ heck was that for??” Great, now his stomach and his head hurt, and he felt like crap about some of the things that girl had said, so if Sanzo was just gonna yell at him, he’d rather follow Hakkai and see how Gojyo was doing. Or better yet, he’d go back to bed so he could pull the covers over his head and wait for tomorrow, because today mondo sucked.
“What did you think you were doing, huh?” the priest snapped back, and he brought his arm up in preparation for another blow, “Are you trying to--”
Goku reached out and gripped Sanzo’s wrist. “Cut it out, you’re gonna make your injuries worse,” he warned, and when Sanzo’s bad knee finally buckled under his weight, Goku pulled that captive arm over his shoulder.
“Brainless fool,” the blond continued to mutter fiercely under his breath as he sagged against Goku, the still healing damage his body had incurred finally catching up to him, and Goku could smell fresh blood under the man’s robe.
“I’m only tryin’ to help,” he retorted defensively as Sanzo scoffed, moving sluggishly to stash the fan back up his sleeve.
“You never think before you do,” the other male berated him through clenched teeth, and Goku frowned at the pained expression on his face. Once Hakkai’d made sure Gojyo would be alright, he’d have to ask him to take another look at Sanzo--stubborn jerk never should’a gotten out of bed in the first place, and now he’d been attacked again--
“--get into messes like these,” Sanzo was saying angrily, and Goku hadn’t been paying attention, so he wasn’t sure if Sanzo was talking about him or himself. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry over nothin’,” he mumbled, refusing to look at Sanzo as he carefully helped him in from the porch, and just past the doorway Sanzo tugged away to glare down at him with narrowed eyes.
“‘Nothing?’ The way I heard it, you practically tore those youkai limb from limb--that’s not your usual fighting style.”
Swallowing thickly, Goku lowered his head so he couldn’t see Sanzo through his bangs, and Sanzo couldn’t see him.
“I dunno what came over me. I just--I just couldn’t stand there an’ watch them hurting you and not do something about it!” he insisted, his voice low and uncertain. “It’s stupid, but it’s like...Kougaiji’s guys are after you `cuz of the sutra, but these guys, they wanted to hurt you because they were mad and scared, and the looks on their faces were like...it was like they were sayin’ that you deserved to die and I was stupid for tryin’ to stop them, and--”
He hadn’t even realized he was shaking with anger, his hands fisted hard enough to make the tendons of his wrists ache, until Sanzo’s hand came to rest atop his head. He bit his lip, wondering if Sanzo had decided he needed a thicker limiter after all, because he had been getting more powerful, and for a while now, hadn’t he? Maybe too powerful. Maybe dangerous-powerful.
But Sanzo’s hand only lay there, warm and heavy against his skull, and when the blond finally spoke, it wasn’t what Goku had been expecting.
“Stop it,” he ordered curtly. “Shitty things happen to people all the time, whether they’re deserved or not. It does no good to get worked up over them, because that’s just the way things are.” With a weary sigh and a gentle shove to the boy’s head, he pulled his hand back. Goku risked a glance up at him, but Sanzo was staring out into the darkness past the porch with a considering frown on his face.
“No matter how self-righteous you get, there will always be someone out there twice as self-righteous who disagrees with everything you’ve ever believed.”
“Sanzo?”
The monk turned to face him once more, and that frown deepened. “You--” but he cut himself off with a disgusted shake of his head. And when Sanzo slung his arm over his shoulders once more, Goku found he was able to breathe easier than he had all day.
“So you’re not gonna kill me?” he wanted to know, only half joking as the two of them carefully made their way down the hall to the priest’s room.
“Do you want to die?” Sanzo shot back challengingly.
“No.”
“Then I guess I won’t.”
“...That’s it?” he finally had to ask, his gaze flicking to Sanzo’s profile, and if it was this easy, why couldn’t he help still feeling like he was--what was that expression Hakkai had used before?--waiting for the other shoe to drop? His arm tightened unconsciously around the blond’s waist.
“That’s it.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
When he next opened his eyes, Hakkai was hovering over him with that damned mother hen expression on his face. He hated when he was the cause of that look.
“Hakkai, `m fine,” he slurred, still half asleep, and there was something prickling at the back of his mind telling him it wasn’t such a good idea to sit up, but he tried it anyway and that was when he remembered what happened.
“Uuughh,” he groaned painfully, bringing a hand around to clutch at his ribs, and his fingers encountered one of Hakkai’s trademark ‘too tight, I know, but that’s to remind you against being such an idiot in the future’ bandages.
“That chick,” he asked suddenly, “did she--”
“She fled as soon as the commotion had drawn the inn keeper’s attention,” Hakkai assured him. “Fortunately, you provided enough of a distraction that it didn’t occur to him to send someone after her until it was too late.”
“Always glad to be of service to a pretty lady,” he joked. And because, despite the slightly passive-aggressive manner in which his wound had been dressed he was expecting at least a little coddling, it didn’t quite register at first when Hakkai sat back, looking relieved, and asked:
“Do you think you can get into Jeep on your own without too much trouble?”
“Whu--who’s--what?” Gojyo demanded. He was an injured man, here. Where was the love?? With a grimace, he forced himself upright. “If that prick Sanzo-sama can’t wait one more day--!”
Hakkai stood to gather their bags, already packed and sitting by the door, and shook his head with a rueful smile.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have Sanzo leaving his room for at least another week yet. However, I’m afraid the choice is out of our hands; the management apparently doesn’t take too kindly to armed scuffles on the premises.”
The pain was making his mind a little fuzzy--wondered if he could get some of whatever those pills were the doc had given them for the monk--so it took a couple seconds for one and one to make two, and by then he’d already thrown his legs over the edge of the mattress.
“They’re kicking us out?! But we’ve got injured party members here, damnit! --Ow!”
“Please take it easy,” the brunet admonished as he returned to Gojyo’s side. “I’m afraid my energy reserves are still a bit too depleted to completely repair the damage, but the blade grazed your lung. You wouldn’t want it to collapse, now would you?”
“...That could happen?” he inquired nervously.
“It’s possible,” Hakkai agreed. “And of course there’ll be no smoking until you’re completely healed. Just to be safe.”
Heh. He liked how Hakkai managed to make a threat sound like a suggestion. As if they both didn’t know the second he tried to light up before Hakkai declared him one hundred percent fit, he’d be strung up by his--
The door opened without warning and Gojyo was reminded that the goddamn monkey seriously needed to learn some manners, was about to let the punk really have it on the topic of common courtesy, when he saw the both of them standing there in the doorway together.
Well, well. Something must have happened while he was out, ‘cuz Mr. I’m Too Good For All Of You himself was leaning heavily on the kid’s shoulder to support his weight--too proud for crutches to the end, huh, you bastard?--and Goku no longer had the ‘guess I’ll go eat some worms’ sulk on his face. Gojyo had opened his mouth and was about to make an instigative comment along the lines of ‘Did you guys kiss and make up?’ when Sanzo beat him to it.
“If you two are done with the old married couple routine,” the blond grouched, pausing to glance over his shoulder, “I’d like to get out of here before the mob arrives.”
“There’s a mob?”
“Ah ha, it’s a figure of speech, Gojyo.”
After a parting glare from Sanzo, he watched the monk hobble out of sight towards the lobby with Goku’s help, then shot Hakkai a questioning look. Snatching up the redhead’s pack before he could reach for it, Hakkai made a helpless gesture of incomprehension.
With a frown, Gojyo raked a hand through his hair. “Well damn.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Sanzo,” Hakkai suggested as they were tossing the last of their things into the jeep, “with your injuries it may be best if you stretched out in back with Goku.”
Digging his heels in, the blond abruptly withdrew his arm from around the teen’s shoulder and stood as straight and stiff as Hakkai imagined his wounds would allow.
“I’m fine,” he insisted with a scowl, and Gojyo made a rude noise from the other side of the vehicle.
“You’re gonna sit on that ass?”
This, of course, set Goku off. “How bad is it?” he wanted to know, shooting Sanzo a worried frown, and he was clearly irritated that he had yet again been the one left out of the loop, even if it wasn’t by design.
“None of your damn business,” Sanzo told him.
“Whatever. Let `em, Hakkai,” the redhead jeered, easing himself in back with an arm gingerly around his ribs. “Soon enough, he’ll be beggin’ to trade.”
The priest settled himself stiffly up front, and Hakkai wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t seen the grimace that passed over his face.
“Sanzo, are you absolutely certain you--”
“For fuck’s sake, stop nagging me, Hakkai!”
The brunet bit back the retort that formed and jerked on Jeep’s gearshift a little harder than intended.
“Suit yourself,” he replied with a cheerfully strained smile as he stepped on the gas and that was that, because whatever Sanzo said, went, and even the gods couldn’t convince Sanzo otherwise when he got like this.
“What the hell are you doing?” came Gojyo’s voice from behind him, and Hakkai glanced in the rearview mirror to watch Goku start a bit guiltily. “...Were you sniffing him, you little weirdo??”
“No!” Goku returned hotly, but he did certainly look sheepish, and he shrunk back in his seat a little when the blond glanced over his shoulder to glare at him suspiciously.
“What, then?” Gojyo continued, enjoying pushing the teen’s buttons. “You expect me to believe you have a cold?”
“Shut the hell up!” Goku snapped, kicking Gojyo in the leg. “Don’t project your perviness on’ta me!”
“Ooh, big word there, chibi-chimp. You been studying flashcards?”
“Don’t call me that, you--”
“If I have to move in order to kill you two,” growled Sanzo with a vein throbbing at his temple, “you’re really going to regret it!”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
It was time for him to shape up. Sanzo and Gojyo were injured, and Hakkai was exhausted from healin’ the three of them; it was up to him to pull his own weight, now.
He’d set up Sanzo’s tent and bedroll for `im first thing, then proceeded to help unpack the rest of the baggage from Jeep, gather wood for a campfire, fill their canteens and a pot for Hakkai down at the river, and even catch a couple slow, fat fish while he was down there--which ended up being...trickier than he’d thought it’d be. He was even gonna take first watch tonight voluntarily.
So when he had finally dragged himself back to camp, tired but determined not to complain, realizing his tent had gotten left behind in the rush to leave town was the last straw.
“C’mon,” he whined, hovering crouched at the open flap of Sanzo’s tent, “you’re the one who kicked me outta the room and wouldn’t let me make sure I had all my stuff! It’s your fault, so you should share, you stingy monk!”
Sanzo, resting with his good arm folded behind his head, didn’t bother opening his eyes, but rolled his cigarette in his mouth ‘til it stuck up at that ‘you’re pissing me off’ angle.
“What part of ‘die’ do you not understand?”
“You’re still wounded,” Goku reminded the man, trying a different tactic, “and what if somethin’ happens in the middle’a the night? It’d be better to have someone close--”
“Hunh!” was Sanzo’s highly incredulous response, and this time he did open his eyes, only to glare and shove Goku from the entrance of his tent with a boot to the boy’s face.
“Denied!” Gojyo declared loudly from across the clearing where Hakkai was starting dinner, as Goku rocked back onto his ass in the dirt. Pushing himself into a standing position once more, he scowled at the jackass-kappa.
“Shut up, you stupid--”
“Goku,” Hakkai interrupted helpfully, “you can take my tent until we get to the next town and can purchase you a replacement.”
He brushed off his pants, shook the dirt from his hair, and decided he could probably use a bath after the last couple’a days they’d had. “Thanks, Hakkai, but I’m not gonna make you sleep outside.”
As the teen shuffled his way over to check out what Hakkai was cooking, Gojyo waggled his eyebrows with a grin.
“Who said he’s gonna be sleeping outside?”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
A sponge bath, Sanzo thought with disgust, get real. Damn, but Hakkai was a manipulative bastard.
“Here, Sanzo, stand still a sec.” Goku frowned in concentration as he carefully helped wrestle him from the various slings and girdles Sanzo had been forced into to keep the mending bones immobile, his robe, leathers, and finally the pair of jeans Hakkai insisted he shouldn’t be wearing until his other wounds healed.
The man just didn’t understand. While wearing nothing under his robes had been fine at Chang ‘An, it wasn’t practical for the kind of shit they dealt with on a daily basis on the road. Like hell he was gonna to pull an up-skirt moment in the middle of a fight.
“Oh, man...” Goku’s voice trailed off as he got a good look at what was under the bandages. Blunt fingertips brushed the back of his thigh and Sanzo hissed.
“Don’t touch it, idiot!” he snapped, smacking the boy upside the head. “Go away, I’m not so injured I can’t wash myself.” The brunet backed off obediently, thought reluctantly, and Sanzo was able to breathe a little easier. “Go entertain yourself, monkey,” he muttered dismissively, and Goku shrugged, rubbing at his skull where Sanzo’s palm had connected.
“Okay. Just gimme a holler when you need to me to do your back and redress your bandages,” Goku told him, and Sanzo sent him scurrying off with an exaggerated scowl and a threatening lift of his hand.
He hated bathing in fucking cold rivers out in the middle of nowhere where an enemy could ambush them at any moment, but he hated being filthy more. The water was freezing when he lowered himself carefully, but it did numb the fire that ran up his thigh to his ass, so he couldn’t complain. Luckily for Goku, when he dove on in, he was far enough downstream that he didn’t splash the monk in the process.
“C-cc-cold!” he exclaimed with chattering teeth when he finally broke the surface. Retard.
Sanzo began to wash himself as well as he could with one working arm and wondered with annoyance how much this little fiasco had set them back. Hakkai had said he’d been out for three days. Yesterday had been the fourth, and there was no telling how much time they might have wasted at that inn if they hadn’t gotten kicked out of town. Today had been spent almost entirely on the road, but Hakkai had been so obviously driving slower and making more frequent stops that they’d made crap time.
Goku had finished his own perfunctory bath and begun doing laps to warm himself, but it looked as if the laps now had given way to merely floating on his back, a foot braced against one of the larger rocks in order to keep himself from getting pushed downstream.
With a snort, Sanzo watched him float there, naked and completely unself-conscious. To look at him now, one would never guess at the power his body contained, kept in check--maybe just barely--by the diadem around his head. It was hard to believe that behind those wide eyes, that stupid grin, lurked something so...mindlessly feral.
Right, Sanzo thought as the teen lazily stroked his torso and scratched at his stomach, as if this idiot is something to be afraid of.
Goku’s hands encountered and lingered at his nipples, and Sanzo rolled his eyes; and maybe he was staring now, but he told himself it was only because he envied Goku’s easy ability to lose himself to his cares so completely, and he found himself calling out to Goku to get him to (stop) come over and help him finish washing.
Goku jerked guiltily and sank below the surface with a flailing of limbs, but Sanzo made sure he was looking away. Not as if he took a malicious satisfaction in embarrassing the moron. Not at all.
He waited for Goku to wade his way over to him, then thrust the bar of soap at him. Thankfully, it was brisk and efficient, though Sanzo did find himself leaning into the touch the slightest bit when Goku moved on to his hair. The weakness irritated him and he pulled away.
“Alright, I’m done,” Sanzo groused, so Goku dumped water over him with the pot from dinner. It was getting dark and cold now and he was shivering, “All right,” he repeated ill-temperedly, shaking the water from his hair, and Goku squawked as he leaned heavily on the boy’s shoulder in order to haul himself to his feet.
He had to submit to being bundled up, rubbed dry, re-bandaged and re-girdled and it chafed--literally and figuratively--but coming down here had exhausted him, and at least he got to smoke while Goku did a fair, if less skilled, imitation of Mother Hen Hakkai.
“Aren’t you done yet?” he demanded for the third time in as many minutes, because damnit, he was falling asleep here on his feet.
“Done,” Goku finally affirmed, looking ridiculously proud of himself, and Sanzo pulled on his robes with an exasperated noise.
“Hey, wait up!” Goku called as the priest began to limp back towards their camp, and he scrabbled to collect the rest of Sanzo’s clothes, the cooking pot and their toiletries.
“Finally,” Gojyo bitched once they reappeared, but Sanzo summarily ignored whatever smartass comments came next and managed to shove Goku off so he could crawl into his own tent.
“’Bout goddamn time, make us wait all night, why don’t you?” came the kappa’s muffled griping from outside as he and Hakkai took off towards the river. He ignored that too--whiner--as he fell onto his sleeping bag, which he suspected Goku had padded with extra blankets.
“Good night, Sanzo,” he heard indistinctly before he lost consciousness.
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“Mmm,” Hakkai murmured with a smile against the back of Gojyo’s neck, “maybe we should have saved the bath until later.
“Screw that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to...get you alone?” Gojyo gasped, arching into the man behind him, and Hakkai lifted his thigh a bit higher.
“Too much?” he questioned softly, his nose buried in the half-demon’s hair as he gave another careful thrust.
“Fuck, no,” Gojyo groaned, and reached back to grip the brunet’s hip as if to keep him from leaving. “I can--ahh--do it like this, lying on my side...”
“I always appreciate your flexibility as the situation dictates,” Hakkai teased. Shifting as much as their positions would allow, he dropped wet, sucking kisses along Gojyo’s neck to his shoulder, and watched avidly over the curve of that shoulder as Gojyo palmed himself.
“Your nipples, Gojyo,” he reminded the other man breathlessly. “You do have two free hands, which is more than I can say for myself.” Hakkai tightened his fingers in the lush mane of Gojyo’s hair and spread his thigh just that slightest bit more in order to more effectively drive his point home.
Moaning throatily, the redhead shuddered against him. “I love it when you talk dirty,” he joked when he could finally speak once more, but obediently licked his thumb and first two fingers to toy with one of the hardened nubs.
“Hakkaaaai...” he whined as the brunet halted his thrusts to grind his hips in a slow circle.
“I didn’t say to stop,” he admonished gently, leaning in to run his tongue lovingly over Gojyo’s scars.
“Fuck,” Gojyo hissed, tugging at his own nipple harshly as he began to stroke himself in earnest. “You’re so...” The rest was lost in a groan as he fingered the slit of his erection, and Hakkai sucked at his earlobe. A full-body shudder ran through him and into Hakkai, and he was making that almost inaudible whine in the back of his throat that aroused the brunet to no end.
“‘So’ what?” he prompted with amusement, though he himself was hanging on by a thread at this point.
Gojyo didn’t answer, but turned over his shoulder his capture his mouth in a wet kiss. “C’mon, Hakkai,” he whispered against the man’s lips with a wicked grin. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
Hakkai moaned aloud at that look, dimly seen in the dark of the tent through one good eye, and he withdrew just enough to push back in forcefully, aiming to graze Gojyo’s prostate.
“Alright,” he panted with a smirk threatening to tug at his mouth as the redhead’s body went taut against his. “But please don’t say you didn’t ask for it.”
@}xxxxxxxxxxxx{@
“What about my blood?” he had finally asked after finishing a double shift on watch and waking Sanzo briefly to force the blond to take some more pain pills. Goku had been practically dead on his feet by that point, but he knew it was probably the best chance he’d get to talk to Hakkai alone, and it was worry and a nagging sense of curiosity which had made him hesitate at the mouth of his borrowed tent and blurt the question.
“A blood transfusion,” the other man told him, and after listening to him explain what it was and how it worked, Goku accepted the fact that Hakkai wouldn’t have agreed to it if he didn’t think it was their best option, but he still wasn’t sure how he should feel about it. At least now he knew why Sanzo smelled different--smelled darker and richer. Smelled like him.
“Why me?” he’d wanted to know, because he would have thought his blood, out of the three of theirs, would be the most dangerous inside a human. If his blood turned Sanzo youkai, he’d never forgive himself--but he’d take a youkai Sanzo over a dead Sanzo any day.
Hakkai said it was because he wasn’t really a true youkai, because he was the only one whose body could tolerate the donation of so much blood, and because of something called ‘antigen compatibility’ that Goku wasn’t sure he would have been able to follow even if he’d been one hundred percent awake.
But he did understand that it had to be him. His blood and no one else’s could have saved Sanzo, and the thought sorta secretly made him proud. His blood and Sanzo’s blood, together in Sanzo’s veins, running through Sanzo’s lungs and heart and fingertips.
He just hoped it didn’t do anything...weird to Sanzo.
~tbc...~
Please let me know what you think! :D This is the first time I've tried to write such an in-depth fanfic (uwah, such hard work ;;;;), so I would love detailed feedback to death. ♥
on to chapter 3