Saiyuki drabble
It had been Goku, of course, who climbed up into the rafters and caught the sparrow. The bird flapped and struggled, darted from one end of the temple to the other, but his charge had sat up there, uncharacteristically still and silent, though his eyes never once left the little creature. Finally, when the dumb thing had knocked itself silly by flying full-tilt into one of the wooden support beams and started to fall the long way back to the ground, Goku had moved then, almost faster than Sanzo’s eye could follow.
The boy leapt from his perch, swung halfway across the temple in a way which did nothing to lessen the simian association in Sanzo’s mind and reached out to catch the bird. You’ll break your neck, idiot, he wanted to say, and for what? but by that time Goku was already back on his feet, crouched atop the central rafter and cradling the thing in his hands.
Sanzo snorted and turned on his heel, leaving Goku where he was. With the other monks pacified and the monkey distracted, maybe now he’d have ten minutes of peace and quiet.