Tale as Old as Time, 3/4

[windfallswest]

Title: Tale as Old as Time
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Saiyuki
Pairing: Sanzo/Goku
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: <----
Notes: All hail my magnificent beta, htebazytook. How Sanzo and Goku might have met, if Saiyuki were more like Beauty and the Beast (you decide which is which).

Back to chapter two


Sheets of warm rain drenched Kouryuu instantly. He felt the anger in the storm coursing through his veins, running with the ire he hadn't realised he'd taken down from the tower.

"Goku!" Kouryuu shouted into the sky. After the insulated silence in the tower room, the storm's cacophony was deafening.

"Goku!" he yelled again. "Come down here, you stupid monkey!"

"You stupid ape!" he screamed.

The clouds spat out a flash of growling lightning as if in answer, outlining a shadow that glinted with flecks of gold high atop the wall.

"Goku!"

Kouryuu stood again in darkness. The lightning only told him Goku was no longer there.

Between one breath and the next he reappeared, less than a hand's breadth away. Kouryuu thought he must have inhaled and smelled heaven on him. The next he saw of Goku's eyes, they were accusing. Bolstered by his own sourceless rage, Kouryuu stood ramrod straight against the crazed force of Goku's fury and heat and power. He was boring through Kouryuu with white-rimmed, wide-pupilled eyes, so upset he couldn't speak. Kouryuu felt his skin starting to tingle, as though the lightning were zeroing in.

Dragging out his sodden fan, he rapped it upside Goku's head in one swift movement.

"Snap out of it!"

Goku glared. Kouryuu raised the fan again. Goku took another look at his face and seemed to grow almost a little abashed.

Kouryuu grabbed his arm and started walking. "C'mon. Idiot."

Not understanding, Goku dug in his heels a little at first; but Kouryuu tugged him firmly onward, toward the keep, and he caught on eventually. Prudently, Kouryuu took them in by a different door than the one he'd come out, further from the offending tower. They walked in draughty darkness to the kitchen.

Kouryuu nuked some soup and poked around until he found a cabinet that would magic him up some towels. He dropped one over Goku's head and wrapped himself in another. Goku had quieted down, and fast, but he was watching Kouryuu mistrustfully from underneath the towel.

"You forget how to talk again?" Kouryuu asked. He didn't bother with a spoon, just picked up the bowl and drank.

Goku didn't make a move. Stupid monkey was still being freaky.

"You're going to catch pneumonia," Kouryuu told him.

"You went up there again," Goku accused.

"So sue me. You're not my mother."

Goku frowned. "I was trying to protect you."

"Yeah, and then you tried to dismantle the mountain. I can handle myself."

The soup was finally warming Kouryuu's stomach, but his gut had clenched tight again. Suddenly, he didn't feel very hungry. Kouryuu got up and dumped his soup in the sink.

"Where are you going?"

Kouryuu scowled at him. "None of your business."

Goku was abruptly between Kouryuu and the door, towel abandoned by his chair.

Kouryuu stared him down. "Do you really want to start that up again?"

Goku snarled back at him with surprisingly un-pointy teeth in a manner which indicated he understood that tone of voice very well.

"Stupid monkey," grumbled Kouryuu. It was getting to be his mantra. He had the satisfaction of seeing the toothy shadow that was Goku bristle. "Try not to be such an idiot."

With that, he swept past a baffled Goku and hurried down the corridor towards where he'd left the lamp. Kouryuu goosebumped. For an enchanted fortress, this place sure had a lot of cracks. The baths were in the basement, and there was no way Kouryuu was going down there without a light. If Goku, who had recovered enough to follow him and was vibrating unhappily behind him, didn't like it, then that was his problem.

"Well, finally! It's been quite long enough, don't you think?" the lamp scolded him.

"Shut up," Kouryuu told it.

"You know, I've been very helpful to you. A little appreciation wouldn't-"

The lamp broke off abruptly when Kouryuu turned and it caught sight of Goku's face. "Er."

Gritting his teeth, Kouryuu started back the way he'd come. Goku looked even more confused then ever.

Kouryuu sat, thinking, in the water. Goku was moping all the way at the end, immersed in water hotter than Kouryuu could stand.

He wasn't mad at Goku. If anything, he was mad for Goku, and mad at...well, things it wasn't useful to get mad at. But damn the way he'd been sent here, he didn't answer to the grabby little shit.

He still didn't really know what he was supposed to be accomplishing here. Something was changing, though; he could see it happening. It would be easy to say he knew what was happening, but the whys were much harder to pin down. The most he had were very strong suspicions about how any of this tied in to Goku's bloody past, as obscuring and ephemeral as the steam rising off the bath.

Maybe he could ask Goku, since Goku was talking now. If Goku would talk to him. Kouryuu had no desire to go dragging him out of the middle of another thunderstorm. Tomorrow would probably find him back in the library. Kouryuu had no illusions that he'd like anything he found any better than he'd liked what he'd found in the tower, but he was sick and tired of being yanked around blind. It was as though his very presence was altering Goku. From what? To what? Against his will? A month ago, Goku's only word had been his name.

Kouryuu wasn't certain he wanted any part of this. Not that anyone had asked him.

Kouryuu sank deeper into the warm water, trying not to think of anything. When his eyes started drooping closed, he clambered out and dried off. His own robes, clean and dry, were lying on a bench by the door. They had a warm and comforting weight. Familiar, like the heft of his gun.

Goku hurried to follow him. Kouryuu was too tired to snap at him for it.

Goku trailed him up the stairs and all the way around to his room. Keeping to his default policy, Kouryuu ignored him and crawled into bed, robes and all. He'd had enough of being cold.

"Good night, lamp," he said and settled in with his back to Goku. "Good night, Goku," he added somewhat pointedly.

The lamp said, Good night, Kouryuu, and promptly switched itself off. Goku stood breathing in the direction of the bed for a while. Then, hesitantly, he picked up the covers and slipped in behind Kouryuu.

Kouryuu tensed, but Goku only curled up behind him like he couldn't get warm enough either. This didn't feel like paranoia. It felt like...

With a wry snort for his own sentimentality, Kouryuu let his eyes fall closed.

Kouryuu woke up the next morning far more pleasantly than he had in quite some time. He was warm, rested, and comfortable.

That lasted all of five seconds, until Kouryuu realised two things: he was also hard, and Goku had him in a death grip. Fuck morning wood.

Well. Kouryuu grit his teeth and slipped very carefully out of Goku's grasp. Wiggling against Goku's firm, muscular body didn't help his situation.

The dresser snickered. Kouryuu readjusted his robes, which had hiked up, and flipped it off. That was the nice thing about robes.

It was barely fifteen minutes before Goku found him in the library. Kouryuu wondered if he'd skipped breakfast. Most of the time Goku wasn't hovering around Kouryuu, he was in the kitchen. Kouryuu knew for a fact he hadn't eaten in days. Stupid monkey.

"Do you remember anything before you were here?"

Goku curled a little tighter in the chair next to Kouryuu's, hugging his knees.

"I remember something that smelled like the tower. And...and blood. That's all."

"Well, that's helpful. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, monkey."

Goku unwound slightly.

"What're you doing?"

Kouryuu glanced discreetly sideways. Goku was fidgeting. Kouryuu suppressed a smirk.

"Seeing if the books remember more than you do," he replied.

"Oh." Goku subsided.

"Kouryuu." He'd made it a whole half an hour this time. "Kouryuu, I'm hungry."

"What do you want me to do about it? You know where the kitchen is."

Goku looked at him with pleading eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere, you stupid monkey. Get a grip."

Despite his best efforts, Goku remained all but glued to his side. As though their confrontation had burst a dam, Goku was a river of words, burbling constantly in his ear as he had in his mind for all those years. When Kouryuu took to spending his nights in the library again-mornings when Goku insisted on bedding with him were getting too embarrassing-Goku fell asleep in the comfortable chair by the windows.

Kouryuu allowed himself to be dragged outside to doze once more. Goku bounced and chattered, evidently not caring whether Kouryuu listened or not. Every now and then, a compact, solid presence would settle down next to him on the grass. The monkey probably slept almost as much as he ate.

"Are you two fucking yet?" the armoire asked out of nowhere one day.

"Excuse me?" Kouryuu stopped pulling on his shirt mid-motion.

"Well, it's not like you sleep here anymore. I was just curious whether you're only metaphorically attached at the hip, or if it's literal, too."

Kouryuu finished wriggling into the shirt, suddenly acutely conscious how tight it was. He glared at the wardrobe.

"There has been a certain amount of speculation regarding the sexual tension," the lamp chimed in. "Demonstrably, even a block of wood can pick up on it."

"Hey!"

"Would the both of you shut up?"

Kouryuu grabbed the lamp and walked out.

"It wouldn't hurt you to take the stick out of your ass!" the armoire called after them. Kouryuu ignored it.

"I don't know why you're being so unreasonable," the lamp continued. "Clearly, you're not wholly adverse to the idea."

"Why do you care, wax-brain?"

Kouryuu had the odd impression of the flame shrugging.

"I didn't know if you've noticed but this isn't a terribly interesting place, and there is only so much of Goku throwing himself at the mountain you can live vicariously without it getting old."

"I can make your life a whole lot more interesting," Kouryuu threatened.

"Ah no, no, that won't be necessary."

"Tch."

All that night, Kouryuu found his eyes drifting from his books to Goku's ungraceful sprawl under the moonlight spilling in through the windows. When he noticed the light's slow movement had progressed a full six inches, he yanked his eyes back to the scroll in front of him, mentally berating himself for staring.

What the hell did a hunk of talking cherrywood know about anything? Kouryuu's eyes slid back again as he thought. Goku was slumped diagonally across the chair, limbs spilling out over the arms and sides, drool oozing from one corner of his mouth. Kouryuu had never in his life had an overwhelming desire to fuck something, and this was supposed to excite his interest? Ridiculous.

The text was useless. Kouryuu had gone through more Buddhist philosophy in the past three months then he'd swallowed in all his time under Koumyou. Dammit, that hadn't come out right. It would be just like Koumyou to put him through all this for no other reason.

Kouryuu was ready to shoot something by time the moon passed above the castle and Goku was touched only by the flickering lamp light. He felt like he was going in circles. The lines of characters were spidery little blobs scrolling in ranks down the page.

Goku's ears were almost completely rounded now, his pupils all but indistinguishable from human. Kouryuu looked at the hand-wide limiter and thought he knew what his master had done. But someone-well, Someone-had interfered.

Kouryuu closed the book and slumped, letting his head tip backwards over the slats of the chair in the grey dawn light, feeling prickly all over and deeply unquiet.

"What's wrong, Kouryuu? C'mon, you can tell me!"

Kouryuu stared up through greening branches at the clouds wisping overhead and rubbed the dark circles under his eyes. It had been about three days, stretched by pointless insomnia. Goku's enthusiasm for everything, evidently including worrying, was appalling. Firmly, he kept his gaze locked on the safely distant clouds, not Goku's habitual shirtlessness. This was patently ridiculous.

"Kouryuu!" Goku whined.

It was almost as bad as the incessant calling in his back-brain had been. The monkey seemed genuinely distressed, which only made it worse. Kouryuu certainly wasn't going to tell him...! Not that there were any grounds for that overdressed cupboard's innuendos. Ought to set the damned thing on fire.

"I'm trying to sleep, monkey. Go away."

"No you're not," Goku contradicted him.

Kouryuu shot him a dirty look.

"You're not! You're brooding. I recognise it 'cause you do it a lot."

"Tell me," said Kouryuu sourly, "Why was it necessary that you learn to speak?"

Goku frowned. "Why aren't you ever happy, Kouryuu?" he asked more seriously.

That struck a genuine chill in his bones. It was a little too close to what Goku had said outside the west tower.

But it didn't look like Goku was going to go off again. He looked frustrated, not feral. The question hung unasked in the air. Don't you like it here? Kouryuu shifted uncomfortably.

It was so hard guessing what all Goku knew, or remembered. Did he know why Kouryuu was here? (Kouryuu's certainty that he did had flagged substantially.) Remember shouting through the back of Kouryuu's mind for all those years? Or pounding himself jack-hammer-like against the encircling walls? All of Goku's babble was in the present; he avoided the past like a swarm of locusts.

Kouryuu didn't know what Goku was aiming at with all of this snuggling up next to him, giving comfort or seeking it. He seemed to have figured instinctively that he got to Kouryuu better without words than with them. After a few stubborn moments of resistance, Kouryuu gave in and relaxed. Just a little.

"Kouryuu." It was true, he was incapable of keeping quiet.

Kouryuu made an aggrieved sound. But Goku had apparently changed his mind and trailed off into silence.

Kouryuu slept; he didn't think Goku had. He woke slumped over on the lawn, tangled up in his robes and Goku's limbs. Goku's eyes were there watching when Kouryuu opened his own.

He found he had drawn Goku to him in his sleep, one treacherous arm draped over his waist, fingertips brushing Goku's shoulder blades. Kouryuu's pulse had risen dramatically, his nostrils flooded with Goku's loamy scent. Moist, parted lips. The steady bellows movement of his chest had paused.

Kouryuu inhaled deeply, arm tightening fractionally. Leaned in just barely, just enough. Moist, parted lips yielded a taste that was something like electricity, down to the buzzing jolt that shot through him all the way from his teeth to his toes.

Goku's arms were already around him. Kouryuu hadn't noticed through the robes, but now they were crushing them together so he couldn't escape the ardent kiss. Goku kissed him like it was a revelation, hot and messy and eager. Kouryuu felt himself spinning over the edge of some rational precipice. This was like falling. At least half of him was convinced he'd tumble through a pit in the ground if he let go. The dizzying rush was the only reason he clung to Goku so tightly. Sure.

The need for closeness was overwhelming, an insensible desire to fuse himself to Goku, body to body. It wasn't until their hips ground together, almost by accident, that Kouryuu paused plundering Goku's mouth in turn. The kiss had progressed quickly to something deep and arousing. Kouryuu hissed at the pressure on the hardness in his jeans, a language Goku seemed already to understand because he rocked his hips forward with a little growl of his own. Sharp teeth nipped a reminder at Kouryuu's mouth: pay attention.

Kouryuu pulled Goku in closer, if that was possible, and made this kiss fierce and demanding. Goku responded enthusiastically. One of his hands carded up through Kouryuu's hair. What was his obsession with Kouryuu's hair? Remnant hints of claws elicited a shudder; strong fingers gripped.

Inhaling sharply with the accompanying rush of heat, Kouryuu rolled them over, Goku pinned beneath him. He rocked his straddling hips against Goku's, taking panted breaths as often as kisses from Goku's mouth as he arched up, lifting them both off the ground.

Naked, naked, naked. Daft gods above, they needed to be naked. Kouryuu scrambled at his heavy, cumbersome, stupid robes, getting tangled up in them and Goku's arms. Their combined efforts to free him resulted only in a lot of distracting wriggling that left them more desperate and less coordinated than ever.

Kouryuu was almost shaking with the mounting pressure. Goku emitted another low growl that sent jolts of fire down Kouryuu's spine to his dick, and ripped through the inconvenient fabric. Gods. Gods. Kouryuu would worry later about how hot that got him. He was close, so close, skin to Goku's skin at last, taste of his skin, his sweat, feel of his throat vibrating.

Liberated, Kouryuu's hands started working on jeans, someone's jeans, frantically pushed them down and kicked them off.

Yes, yes, finally, yes. They didn't even have the brain function to coordinate a kiss. Hands and mouths wandered; messy, clumsy bites and strokes, hips working independently to drive their erections together, forcing strangled, guttural sounds from both of them.

Goku's hand with its callused fingers closed around their cocks and worked them hard. Fast. Kouryuu could feel the moans being pulled from somewhere deep in his chest, but couldn't hear them for the sound of his name in Goku's mouth.

Goku's hand was rough and nimble, his body hot and smooth. His free hand was buried in Kouryuu's thick hair again, holding him still so that mouth could bite and suck marks onto his skin. He was somehow on his back in the grass, overwhelmed and surrounded. Their rhythm was already broken and uneven, too near something bright and terrible.

Orgasm was like an avalanche, bursting out of him until he was as bare as a mountainside. Goku yelped and came after him, shuddering his climax out between them in cool stripes on Kouryuu's stomach.

They lay exhausted, simply breathing. Kouryuu tilted his face up into the sun, Goku collapsed on top of him like a puppet with its strings cut. He felt no inclination whatever to move. Or to think. God, don't let me start to think. If he thought, he was going to freak out about this; thinking could wait.

On to chapter four.