Where There Are No Roads (10/10)
Okay! This is the end of the story (at long last. The two-year gap has struck again! XD)
The rest of the story, summary, and warnings found here, on the master fic list. If you haven't read the rest of it, do it before you read the end, yeah? XD
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After Kanan stopped bleeding that first time, things got so normal, so domestic, that it made Gojyo want to laugh. Of all the things he'd expected in his life, this wasn't it. It was like he'd gone back in time or maybe to a different universe and was living the sort of life his stepmom had always aspired to: husband and wife and the perfect little house. Not that he and Kanan were married. Hell no. He knew how things went rotten if you got married, and he wanted to avoid rocking the boat. He was…kind of happy the way things were.
Kanan seemed happy too. Sure, it was still "Gonou" this and "Gonou" that, but it didn't bother Gojyo so much any more. It was clear to him that he was nothing like Gonou, except for liking Kanan, and Gojyo couldn't fault him for that. Kanan was easy to like.
He couldn't believe his luck in finding someone like her. She didn't hesitate with him, the way she did with everyone else. It made Gojyo feel…special, somehow. And Gojyo was able to really be himself with her, not that he'd kept much back anyway. He trusted her. She listened when he wanted to talk, and she didn't push him when he just wanted to sit and be.
Things were as close to perfect as Gojyo had ever had.
Gojyo almost wasn't surprised when Sanzo showed up one day, just before dinner, and told them to abandon all hope because they, Sanzo, Goku, Gojyo, and Kanan, would be going west. The whole country was on edge; the rumors of youkai terror weren't just rumors anymore, especially when you went west, and someone had to go figure it out. Gojyo wondered who Sanzo had pissed off to get stuck with the job. Gojyo wondered who he had pissed off to get stuck going with Sanzo.
Once Sanzo was gone, and Kanan had plated up the rice and chicken and vegetables-she was always making him eat vegetables-and put out a beer for him and some plum wine for her, she and Gojyo talked it over.
“I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen,” Kanan said. "I have a bag all ready to go."
It made Gojyo’s heart flop around in his chest to think that she was planning on leaving all this time. What if-what if she didn’t want to come back?
"I just had a feeling," she said. "The way the monks at the temple whispered made me wonder…"
Gojyo pretended to eat some dinner. It wasn’t him, he told himself. It wasn’t even her. He could almost breathe normally again.
"Sanzo said there might not even be any roads where we’re going," Gojyo said. "What the hell's that supposed to mean? Cryptic bastard."
Kanan smiled and, though Gojyo had seen her do it before, it made him have that goofy, funny feeling in his chest. At the same time, his guts squeezed. How could you feel two totally different things at the same time and not get torn apart? Gojyo was sure he was going to barf with the struggle.
"Sanzo told me the same thing," Kanan said. "But we'll manage, won't we?"
She smiled at him, and Gojyo smiled back. Maybe the good feeling had only gotten stronger and he had never stopped feeling it when it had started…whenever that was.
"Yeah," he said. "We've done it this long, we can do it some more."
He pushed the food around on his plate and watched Kanan. He loved how she smiled at him. He loved that she said ‘we.’ It made his stomach calm down, to hear her talk about their plans, like she wasn’t going to leave without him.
Also, watching her swallow her food made Gojyo remember, viscerally, last week's surprise blowjob. He felt his face getting hot. Sex with Kanan was unpredictable, infrequent, and, in some ways, the best he'd ever had. He loved her sudden urges and surprises, loved her willingness to tempt him into staying home all day so they could screw all over the house until someone pulled a muscle or collapsed from exhaustion. He loved how Kanan yanked his hair when she was hot to go, and how she stroked it back when they were sweating afterward.
Gojyo wondered if he could get away with adjusting himself under the table, or if she’d catch him at it. The thought made him hotter.
He cleared his throat.
"So, uh, are we supposed to walk all the way west?" he said. "What with there being no roads and all."
Kanan downright giggled at him. He’d never heard her do that before. He kind of liked it, though.
"Sanzo wants us to drive," she said. "I hope he realizes I'm the one at the wheel."
Gojyo snorted. He'd like to see anyone else try to get in the driver's seat. The one time he'd done it, while Kanan was in the bath, the jeep had shot flame at him through the vents. All the vents, including the ones that were aimed in the general direction of his crotch. Gojyo had smelled of singed hair for a week, and Kanan had laughed at him and made him trim his own bangs.
It entertained Gojyo to think of Sanzo hopping around, putting out fires on his robes.
"I bet his holiness tries to get you to do all the laundry and cooking," said Gojyo.
Because you're a girl went unsaid. He took a long pull of his beer. Kanan didn't even bat an eye.
"Well we can't have you doing it," said Kanan. "We'd be naked and starving by the end of the week."
Gojyo laughed so hard the beer went up the back of his nose. He hacked and coughed and suffered through a lot of fizz in his sinuses. When he could breathe again, everything tasted and smelled like beer.
"I wonder how dangerous it will be," said Kanan. "If it gets worse as we go further west…"
"You can take care of yourself," said Gojyo.
Kanan looked sideways at him and nodded.
"Thank you," she said. "However, it would be prudent for me to have a weapon, don't you think?"
Gojyo thought of the umbrella and got a little harder. Down boy.
"Sure," he said. "Whatcha thinking about?"
Kanan pushed her plate aside. She leaned on the table with both elbows. He felt a slight breeze around his ankles; she was swinging her legs, too. It reminded him of that day in the rain, laughing all the way home.
"I don't know," said Kanan. "I've always made do, before, though I haven't had much need. If things are as bad as we've heard, I don't want to be stuck with anything ineffective."
The way she smiled told Gojyo that she was thinking about the umbrella, too.
“There’s always guns,” said Gojyo. “Of course then you’d be competing with Sanzo, and I’m not sure he’d like it if yours was bigger than his.”
Gojyo wiggled his eyebrows at her. She laughed behind a hand.
“Gojyo, really,” said Kanan. “Penis jokes?”
“Well it’s true!” said Gojyo. “You can’t tell me that he isn’t overcompensating. I mean, come on, d’you know how hard it is to find somewhere that sells bullets?”
Gojyo made a grand gesture and sent his dinner plate flying. Dammit.
Kanan collapsed, laughing. Gojyo could feel it vibrating through the table. He laughed too and laid his head down next to hers. He studied her, looking for something, though he wasn’t sure what. Rejection? Love? Not that he loved her. He loved the things she did, the things she said, the things they shared, but he didn't love her. (He thought.) Something told Gojyo that they were more than friends-way more than friends-but he didn’t know if she thought of him like he worried he might think about her.
Gojyo didn’t find any clues in Kanan’s face, but it could just be that he didn’t know what he was looking for. He wouldn’t know a stable relationship if it bit him on the ass. And love? Hah. He just knew that he liked her, and that he didn’t want her to go away and never come back, or for her to leave after they did whatever it was Sanzo had been sent to do. He wanted them to get old and wrinkly together, if they were lucky enough not to get killed out west.
"Wanna get married?" said Gojyo. "After we get back, I mean."
The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Kanan laughed, and Gojyo blushed, horrified. Shit, why’d he say that? (Because he wanted them to stay together.)
Kanan didn't look offended, but that didn't mean she wasn't.
"Save the world and get the girl?" she said.
He blushed a little more. Kanan was the kind of girl a guy married, wasn’t she? Come on. She was perfect for him, perfect in general, and he couldn’t imagine no one else ever seeing it. Not that being married was something he expected or even thought he wanted, except Kanan was…well…she made Gojyo think that she wanted to be married, someday. (Crap, he hoped she didn’t go and marry some other guy, because then Gojyo might have to murder him and make it look like an accident.)
Kanan poked him on the nose and he jerked his head back.
“Gojyo?” said Kanan. “Are you all right? You must have been a thousand miles away.”
He focused on her again and tried to smile.
"Something like that," he said. "I just…don't wanna come back and be alone, you know?"
Her eyes softened. This close, a man could drown in the green of her eyes. Gojyo tried to convince himself he wasn’t going all soft and mushy, but it was a half-hearted argument.
"I know exactly what you mean," she said. "But…I'd make a terrible wife."
Kanan got up then and cleared away the dinner. Gojyo's heart sank a little.
"Oh," he said.
Kanan's head popped out of the kitchen.
"Did you say something, Gojyo?" she said.
"Nah," said Gojyo.
"If you wouldn't mind, then," said Kanan.
She pointed at the food spilled across the floor.
"Sure," said Gojyo. "No problem."
Kanan smiled. It was the same smile she always had, and Gojyo couldn't tell what she was thinking behind it.
"Thank you, Gojyo," she said.
Gojyo focused on sweeping up the dinner he hadn't eaten and tried to sweep away his disappointment as well. He smeared rice across most of the living room floor and smoked his way through half a pack of cigarettes before he realized it wasn't going to work.
He went out on the porch, finished smoking the pack, and watched the smoke curling up to the stars like it was incense for the gods he didn't believe in.
Later, after they'd been lying in bed for long enough for Kanan to have fallen asleep with her arm on his chest and her breath whistling across his shoulder, and the crickets were chirping, and the house was creaking like it always did at night, Gojyo realized something very, very important.
Kanan hadn’t said no. And Kanan was very, very good at telling Gojyo no. She did it all the time-no, Gojyo, don’t smoke in here. No, Gojyo, go do that somewhere else. No, Gojyo, we are not buying the bar. No chocolate syrup in the bed, no, don’t try to fix the backed-up sink. No, no, no.
She hadn’t said no.
Even if she hadn’t said no because she thought he wasn’t being serious, Gojyo figured he'd have the whole trip there and back to convince her. They'd watch each other's backs and come home together, and then…then…
He smiled and slid his arm around Kanan’s waist. She shifted against him, and he celebrated in the feel of it. Gojyo could convince her, eventually, that he could be good for her.
He inhaled, deep, and smelled Kanan. Gojyo wondered if she could smell him as she slept.
The plan became a mantra in his head--go out west, save the world (if you believed Sanzo), come back east, and then everything else, side-by-side with Kanan.
Gojyo closed his eyes at last, settling his head into the pillows.
He could work with that.
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I am on metaphorical fire lately!
~later