Butterfly Dream, Gojyo/Sanzo, NSFW
Aug. 17th, 2008 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedishampooTitle: Butterfly Dream
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jedishampoo
Pairing: Gojyo/Sanzo (past Hakkai/Gojyo)
Rating: Not Worksafe (NC-l7)
Summary: Post-journey. Sometimes you go from nothing, to something that’s at least better than nothing. Just over 10,000 words.
Author’s Notes: Finally another 53, wahoo! Based off the universe ininksheddings’s very sweet 89 story, Let Me Hold You (and we’ll both fall down). I read it and of course immediately thought, Gojyo’s at the temple with Sanzo? 53 Plotbunny! ;) You don’t need to have read that story to read this one, but you should, anyway 'cause it's good. Universe used with permission! Poems/scriptures used are from the Journey to the West novel. Big hugs to inksheddings, thanks to sharpeslass for the beta.
Butterfly Dream
What the hell am I doing here? Gojyo wondered.
He dipped his brush in the black ink-- an old-fashioned brush and bottled ink, for fuck’s sake-- and slowly, carefully, copied lines from the even more old-fashioned sutra spread out on the mat beside him.
The monastery gleams with the light of its lamps;
The village is lonely and silent.
The monks enter the trance and repair damaged sutras.
A good way to purify oneself of evil and nourish the true nature.
So. Copying this scripture was going to be a lesson as well as work, Gojyo thought. He wasn’t sure how he was going to purify himself of evil, or what, exactly, the true nature was. Still, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t copy the damned thing, and wouldn’t do it over and over until Sanzo was satisfied with Gojyo’s handwriting. He would do it all-- the manual labor, the scripture-copying, living without booze and sex-- because he wasn’t going to give up after only a week. And because he deserved it, and more, for what he’d done to Hakkai.
Hakkai. He’d left Hakkai. After all they’d been through-- death, rebirth, saving the world, death and more rebirth-- in the end Gojyo had run off, anyway. Funny, that he’d been scared plenty of times during their near-endless quest, but the end of the quest and the return of domesticity had scared him even more.
And he’d run here, of all places. To Keiun temple. Stupid, it was stupid.
“I’m not right, Hakkai. I love you, and that scares the crap outta me.”
Hakkai Hakkai Hakkai…
“Fuck,” Gojyo said aloud, and dipped the brush to copy some more. It had been such a stupid thing to say, there at the end.
Do not allow the thought-horse to run wild,
And don’t let the stubborn mind-ape howl at will.
Gojyo wanted to write something witty or dirty about horses and monkeys in the margins, then decided against it. It was true; the damned thoughts, silly names or not, did run wild and howl in his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d left Hakkai. His face burned every time he remembered how he’d shown up all runny-nosed, begging Sanzo to give him a place at the temple.
He hadn’t left Hakkai and walked to the temple with the shaky resolve he’d felt as he’d confronted Hakkai to say he was leaving. Oh, no. He’d detoured to an inn, the most run-down he could find in the city of Chang’An, and drunk himself stupid. Then he’d shown up at the temple, way past hours. He’d climbed a wall or two, covering himself in mud, and he’d climbed over Sanzo’s window-sill. And met the muzzle of Sanzo’s gun.
***
It had taken Sanzo a second or two to see that his intruder was, of all people, Gojyo. His first thought had been, good thing I didn’t pull the trigger before looking. His second had been, Gojyo looks like shit.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sanzo asked the dirty, stinking kappa that was sprawled flat on his back on Sanzo’s nice, clean floor-mats.
“Can I stay here, man?” Gojyo slurred.
“What the fuck?” Sanzo repeated.
“Ran away from home. Wanna be a monk.”
“Bullshit,” Sanzo said. He was starting to get an idea of what had happened-- a single glance out the window was enough to tell him that Gojyo had come alone. Something to do with Hakkai, then. Or Goku-- Sanzo didn’t want to know. Not even one tiny little bit. He nudged Gojyo in the shoulder with his foot. “Get the fuck off my floor, idiot.”
“’M an idiot, all right,” Gojyo slurred some more. He managed to prop himself on his elbows and stare at Sanzo with eyes that were as red on the outside as on the inside. “’M givin’ it all up, man. Cigarettes, booze… everything. Just give me something to do. Like penance, or something…”
“Tch,” Sanzo muttered and turned away. Something was stinging his eyes; probably the alcohol stink hovering around Gojyo. And irritation that his first sight of his old… traveling companion, after months of quiet, was this stinking pile of shit. Irritation, yeah, that was it. He’d been perfectly content with the quiet, and it was to be ruined.
Sanzo laid his gun back on his desk. Still, he couldn’t look at Gojyo. He lit a cigarette instead, heard Gojyo shuffling around on the floor behind him. “You’re not staying in my rooms.”
“Thass fine.”
“I’m sure you’ll last a day or so before you gather what little sense you have and go the hell back home,” Sanzo continued. He inhaled, deep, long drags from his cigarette. Exhaled. “Don’t expect any favors from me. Go to the front gates like any supplicant with any sense and ask for the assistant head monk. On second thought, don’t do that. He’s too pious. One look at you and he’ll run to me and I don’t feel like dealing with you again tonight.”
“Nah. Pious is good. I’ll tell ‘im to give me like the most ascetic cell, or something…” Gojyo started to sniffle. Sanzo heard him thumping about and glanced over to see him straddling the window-sill. “And I ain’t going back. I get my mind set... You oughta know.”
“Tch,” Sanzo said again, and exhaled a cloud of smoke, obscuring Gojyo as he stumbled off into the night.
Sanzo soon realized he’d been wrong: Gojyo had already made it a week at the temple, rather than the predicted day or two. Though it had only taken him three days before he’d again crawled his way over Sanzo’s window-sill.
“Gimme a cigarette, man. I’m dyin’ here,” Gojyo had said.
“Hell, no,” Sanzo said, puffing deliberately at Gojyo over his desk.
Gojyo looked better than he had when he’d first shown up. He looked pretty good, actually. He’d bathed at some point, though he hadn’t cut his hair. Sanzo had been surprised by that-- Gojyo had always been the type to cut, cut, cut whenever he felt like mourning. Sanzo supposed they’d all changed, in some ways, over their difficult years on the road.
Gojyo had also gotten some clean robes from one or other of the abbots. His long bare legs were stretched out, bare feet scratching at the mat of Sanzo’s office. His eyes were a little hollow but he managed a grin.
“C’mon, Sanzo. I’m so desperate I’ll even smoke one of your cigarettes. Gimme one. For old times’ sake.”
“Old times. Like it hasn’t only been a few months,” Sanzo said, relenting. He was secretly impressed; he didn’t think that he, himself, would have been able to go three days without a cigarette. He tossed a smoke at Gojyo and wasn’t surprised to see that Gojyo had his own lighter. They smoked in silence for a few minutes.
“So you don’t like my scriptures, huh?” Gojyo said after a while.
“Your handwriting needs more work than your soul,” Sanzo told him.
“’S getting’ better,” Gojyo said, and grinned again. He wore a blissed-out expression. He looked different with all his hair pulled back like that. His sharp features had only gotten more defined over the years. “You tell Brother Ozhuan to keep me busy?”
“I don’t have anything to do with it,” Sanzo lied. “He just handles those matters for me.”
“Uh-huh,” Gojyo said, and smoked some more. When he was done he loped over to stub the butt in Sanzo’s desk ashtray, and then headed back out the window. He saluted over his shoulder. “Night.”
“Hnn,” Sanzo told Gojyo’s back.
A few days later Sanzo sat alone in his office, remembering and reading reports and drinking tea and hating the heat and thinking that he didn’t want to go to bed.
Gojyo hadn’t come back since that night. Sanzo didn’t bother checking on him; Ozhuan gave Sanzo a steady stream of reports, especially when Gojyo had pissed him off in some way. Sanzo had told Ozhuan to give Gojyo something more exhausting to do, manual labor or something, if Gojyo didn’t behave the way Ozhuan wanted him to. Sanzo suspected that Ozhuan was afraid of Gojyo; afraid of what he didn’t know about Sanzo’s journey west with the three youkai.
To be truthful, that was fine with Sanzo. He’d never admit it aloud, but Gojyo had earned that little bit of fearful respect. As had they all.
Sanzo wondered if Gojyo would stay long at the temple. He wondered how Goku was doing, alone with Hakkai, or even if he was still staying with Hakkai in town. He wondered why he cared.
If Sanzo had noticed some of his cigarettes missing over the last couple of days, he didn’t care about that, either. He went back to reading Ozhuan’s reports and studiously not listening for activity outside his window. At some point he went to bed, and lay on his worn futon and wondered if he should have just given the monkey something, anything, to keep him there. He thought about how Gojyo was more… safe, when he was with Hakkai. He wondered if anybody was ever truly content.
***
Again: what the hell am I doing here?
A couple weeks later, Gojyo still didn’t know. Scripture-copying and whatnot was all well and good, but he still had too much time to think. He wasn’t finding the peace he’d hoped for.
Living at Keiun’in really wasn’t all that bad. Even Gojyo could see the allure of the path to Buddha. He got three meals a day-- vegetarian, of course-- and a place to sleep. Monks didn’t have to worry about where the rent-money was coming from. They didn’t have to worry about anything. Gongs woke them up and told them when to eat, the wooden-fish-paddle-clackers told them when to pray, and more gongs told them when to eat again and go to bed.
The other monks were okay dudes, mostly. The guys who didn’t know about Gojyo’s red hair and eyes soon heard the story from their buddies: the unholy union between a human and a youkai, yadda, yadda, yadda. After a while they got used to him. No one gave him any shit except for the second-to-Sanzo head monk, Brother Ozhuan. And Brother Ozhuan seemed to have developed a sort of kind, religious fervor concerning Gojyo. He told Gojyo on the side that the human part of him could still reach Nirvana if he worked at it.
To be free of troubles and earthly desires? Nirvana didn’t sound too bad, Gojyo thought. ‘Cause he desired. Oh yes, he did. And it hurt.
Of course, the big downsides to his new life were that he had to get up too early, and he couldn’t easily get booze, or even cigarettes, unless he stole them from Sanzo. Women were out of the question.
Not that Gojyo wanted women, anyway. He didn’t want anyone. Nobody but Hakkai Hakkai Hakkai. Hakkai, whom Gojyo had left.
Gojyo really needed something else to do, something besides thinking about sex, thinking about Hakkai, or feeling sorry for himself. So he weeded and raked and shit like that during the hot hours of the day, and at night he sat in a lamplit room and copied scripture.
Roosting birds perch in the withered trees;
The dhyana monks chant Sanskrit music.
On their seats with hassocks of rushes
They sit until the middle of the night.
Gojyo paused and examined his work. Sanzo was right about one thing, at least: Gojyo’s handwriting was getting better. Even if his soul wasn’t doing so well. It was doing pretty shitty, as a matter of fact.
Gojyo wanted to be punished, not led. He needed to be told what an idiot he was. Sanzo could do that for him, maybe. But Gojyo had mostly stayed out of Sanzo’s way. Of course he ran into him now and again, but while being near Sanzo-- because he was one of the group that Gojyo had been a part of for so long-- was comforting in a way, it didn’t mean he really liked Sanzo or anything, or that Sanzo would want to hang around him all the time.
Gojyo moved his brush, created words, marking the unrolled, fresh parchment.
Stilled were all sounds,
The Buddha lamp in the pagoda dimmed.
Last night the abbot’s bell and drum had sounded;
This evening the air was--
A hand clamped on Gojyo’s shoulder, stilling his brush. “Brother Gojyo? Master Sanzo wishes to see you.”
“What the hell for?” Gojyo said, and turned.
Brother Ozhuan looked down at Gojyo with a calmly disappointed expression. “You will never find the path with such an angry tongue, my brother,” Ozhuan informed him. “Perhaps Master Sanzo can show you the way.”
“Hah,” Gojyo said, and dropped his brush in the ink-bottle. “Are you gonna tell me what he wants?”
“It is not my place,” Ozhuan said, then bowed and shuffled out the door. The other monks were glancing Gojyo’s way, curious to see what was up. Some of them looked guilty.
“Right,” Gojyo said, and stood.
Gojyo was hit by a wave of-- nostalgia?-- when he went into Sanzo’s office via the door, and saw him sitting there, robes gathered about his waist, wearing his glasses and reading. It was just like old times. The old annoying times, when Sanzo had treated them like his personal servants or something. Them…
He was alone, now, except for Sanzo. “What you want with me, Sanzo sa-ma?” Gojyo drawled, and leaned on the doorjamb.
Sanzo pulled off his glasses in that old familiar gesture. “Why the hell would you be so stupid as to play poker with the goddamned monks? They don’t have any money.”
“Gimme a cigarette and I’ll tell you,” Gojyo said. He walked in and sat in the office’s other chair, and waggled his fingers at Sanzo. “I’ll just steal one later, if you don’t give me one now.”
“I should just kill you now and end all my troubles,” Sanzo said. But he came across with the smoke so the threat was lost on Gojyo. Sanzo looked… relaxed, Gojyo noticed. More relaxed than Gojyo had ever seen him on their trip, more relaxed even than the times Gojyo had seen him around the temple. There was something to his posture, a slouch he’d never maintained with any convincingness before. Gojyo couldn’t imagine why, but he wasn’t going to bitch about a mellowed-out Sanzo. He was better to look at, anyway. Gojyo had forgotten how… pretty Sanzo was. He always forgot, until bam! Sanzo would turn and face him fully. It had been the same with Hakkai. Damn, but they’d been a good-looking bunch.
“How’d you find out?”
“Ozhuan found a pile of IOUs. With your name on them.”
“I was bored,” Gojyo admitted. Fair was fair. “‘Sides, I wouldn’t have collected on ‘em.”
“Maybe you’re just not cut out for this.” Sanzo lit a smoke and blew a cloud at Gojyo’s face. He almost looked smug.
“I’m not doin’ too bad, all things considered.”
“Hnh,” Sanzo said. It wasn’t a denial.
“Maybe you should play poker with me, then, ya hypocrite,” Gojyo said. “You still have the gold card? I could use the money for smokes.”
“A stupid idea. But if it’ll keep you out of trouble...” Sanzo took another drag and gazed at Gojyo from under his half-closed eyelids. He pointed into the corner of the office. “Cards are in the cabinet. Thought you were quitting.”
“Can’t do it all at once.” Gojyo went to fetch the cards from the cabinet drawer, and smiled to himself. Being insulted by Sanzo was… it was blissful. He’d missed it. When he returned to the desk, he deliberately crossed to Sanzo’s other side, just so he could grab Sanzo’s shoulder when he slammed the cards down on the desk. To see just how pissed off Sanzo might get at being groped. Sanzo’s bare shoulder was slightly damp from sweat; it was a sticky-hot evening.
Touching Sanzo again was… it was nice, too. A familiar contact.
Sanzo’s gesture as he brushed Gojyo’s hand away was almost languid. “You do have a death wish,” he said, nearly calm.
Sanzo left the cards lying there, so Gojyo shuffled and dealt. He won the first couple of hands, then lost a couple. The usual. They didn’t speak except about the cards.
That began to drive Gojyo nuts after a while. He was with the one person who understood his problems, and the one person he couldn’t seem to talk about them with. Gojyo deserved the whole situation, maybe, because he’d left Hakkai, someone he could tell anything to. Still, Gojyo wanted to unload. Sanzo was the only one here. Shouldn’t Sanzo have changed his attitude about things, about Gojyo, by now? Everyone else had changed.
“So,” Gojyo said, tossing a couple cards face-down and gesturing for more. “You ever gonna ask what happened?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sanzo said, and handed him two cards. Sanzo had begun to tense up: Gojyo knew that rigidity from way back.
“You know what the hell I’m talking about. Don’t pretend you don’t care.”
“I don’t.” There were a few minutes of quiet, except for bet-calling, the demands of the game. Gojyo fumed.
“You’re such a dick,” he finally said.
“I’m sure it was your fault, anyway,” Sanzo retorted, creases marring the smooth skin between his brows.
“It was.”
“I’m not here to absolve you. So shut up.”
“Well, what about you?” Gojyo said, starting to get pissed. “Maybe if you coulda talked to Goku, rather than just telling him outright--”
Sanzo glared and threw his cards on the table. “That’s not your business,” he yelled.
It was just like old times, Gojyo thought. He wanted to clear the air. He wanted… yeah, he wanted to be absolved, or blamed, or something. Anything. “It ain’t? Well, it was my business when he showed up at my fucking house.”
“Well, it’s not your goddamned house anymore, is it, you moron?” Sanzo shouted back. “Shut up and play or get out.”
Sanzo’s fingers were white and gripping the table-edge. His eyes were bright between his narrowed, pale brows; his nostrils were practically flaring. He was truly pissed. It was then that Gojyo realized he didn’t really want a fight. He’d thought he had, but he’d been wrong. It was only making him sick to his stomach.
He’d forgotten the cardinal rule: he and Sanzo got along best when they just didn’t speak, because their views were ‘diametrically opposite.’ At least, that was what Hakkai always used to say. Hakkai. Gojyo reached over and clasped Sanzo’s wrist.
“Don’t bust a vein, man. I’ll drop it. I guess I just got used to talking about things.”
“Hn.” To Gojyo’s everlasting surprise, Sanzo slumped back in his chair. He did shake Gojyo’s fingers from his wrist, however. Then he lit a cigarette and avoided Gojyo’s stare. “It’s over. Shit ends.”
“It’s over,” Gojyo whispered, understanding silently what Sanzo meant. Everything was over, everything they’d just sort of gotten used to. Over, over, over, over-- Gojyo sure wasn’t going to get any hand-holding from Sanzo, was he? Stupid, he’d been stupid again. He sighed. “Yeah. It sure is.”
“Your deal.”
“Fine.”
They played a another hand or two, while Gojyo thought about how it sometimes felt better to not talk at all, if talking brought up bad memories and caused sick stomachs.
When Gojyo stopped worrying, he stated winning again. At one point he figured he’d better quit while he was ahead, but not too far ahead. He scooted his chair back from the desk and stood.
“Welp, better get back to my pallet,” Gojyo said. He was surprised when Sanzo briefly frowned. Then his usual bitchy-grumpy, straight-lipped expression returned.
“Fine,” Sanzo said. He opened a drawer, pulled out a few bills. “Buy yourself some cigarettes with your ill-gotten winnings. Then maybe you’ll stop stealing mine.”
“Thank youuuu,” Gojyo drawled. He felt stupidly happy. “I’ll see if Brother O will let me go into town tomorrow.”
Sanzo threw more bills at him. “Buy me some too, then, while you’re out.”
“Still your errand boy, eh?” Gojyo said, but he didn’t really mind. It meant he’d have to come back, but even not-talking with Sanzo was better than being lonely.
Then he realized that Sanzo understood the same thing. Sanzo wanted him to come back. Sanzo was lonely, too.
It was a night for realizations. Gojyo wondered when he’d started worrying about how Sanzo felt. He wasn’t through worrying about himself, yet.
***
It was mid-August, and about as hot and humid as it was going to get. At least, Sanzo hoped so.
He stood in the shade with a cigarette and cold tea, and watched Gojyo and a gaggle of monks erect a statue of Kannon in one of the temple’s alcoves.
Nominally, Sanzo was supposed to be supervising, but the assistant abbots had the situation well in hand. Besides, it was fucking hotter than hell, Sanzo was cranky, and he couldn’t give two shits about the Merciful Goddess. So he smoked and watched Gojyo. That idiot was sweaty and laughing, making the other initiates laugh with him while they worked. Bastard could fit in just about anywhere, couldn’t he? Sanzo thought. Sanzo had never really cared to do so, but he supposed it was a useful skill.
The workers finally pulled and pushed the fifteen-foot bronze monstrosity upright. Some of the monks bent over to cement it to the pedestal while others just bent and started praying. Whether they were thanking the bitch or asking forgiveness for manhandling her, Sanzo didn’t know or care. He’d met too many gods to face religion with any sort of faith or belief.
Gojyo saluted the statue. As if he felt eyes upon him, he turned and saluted Sanzo as well. Then he ambled over, dropping his robe halfway so that it hung from his waist and his shoulders were bare and gleaming. He did it to annoy the flabby, lazy monks, and to annoy Brother Ozhuan, who always pretended shock at Gojyo’s lack of modesty.
Brother Ozhuan seemed to have gone from being afraid of Gojyo to being half in love with him. It would come as no surprise to Sanzo if that were so; Gojyo was better-looking than any of the baldies, he’d been a terrible sinner from birth and was ripe to be saved, and he would actually make a pretty good Buddhist with a little work. He was certainly better at it than Sanzo-- believe it or not, meditation had seemed to help Gojyo. He’d lost most of that haunted look he’d had when he’d first shown up. He slid more easily into his old sly gaze. That gaze was fixed on Sanzo.
“Gotta hell of a lot of beer in town, today,” Gojyo said, eyeing Sanzo’s cigarette. “It’s on ice, in a secret spot only I know about. I can share it with my brothers, or I can bring it by later, if ya want some.”
Cold beer sounded excellent. Sanzo flicked his cigarette to the dirt and ground it under his sandal.
“Do whatever you want,” he said aloud, Inwardly he knew that Gojyo would bring it by and drink it with him, anyway. Over the last couple of months Gojyo had come by at least a couple nights a week. Sometimes they drank, sometimes they didn’t. They always smoked. They played cards, and if Gojyo had anything to say about the past, he kept it to himself, exactly how Sanzo wanted it.
All these people around, hundreds within the temple compound alone, and still, the only person he socialized with was Gojyo. How had Sanzo ever thought that he would be rid of his little ikkou? They were drawn together, over and over in different combinations, like they all had invisible strings attached to them. Like Hakkai’s connected joke-mittens that he’d given Goku as a gift one winter.
“Whatever I do, I’m showering before dinner,” Gojyo said, and ambled off again.
Sanzo decided that he wanted a shower, also. A cold one, something to banish the infernal heat that was cooking his insides. Part of him wanted to drop his own robes, shed his traditional Sanzo-wear, see what the monks thought of a half-naked head priest wandering about. The thought only tempted him for a second or so: he didn’t want to attract any more attention than he already did.
Savior of Shangri-La.
Ruminating on Gojyo made Sanzo think about the others. Goku had actually dropped by a week before. The visit hadn’t been as uncomfortable as Sanzo might have feared, and he’d been more…content at seeing the monkey than he’d ever expected. Goku was doing well, had a job, had a place. He saw Hakkai a lot. He’d grown up more than ever since leaving Sanzo’s side; had grown up more than any of them, Sanzo suspected. The monkey had surpassed the broken people. Not bad for a kid born from a rock.
Sanzo had not seen Hakkai in quite a while. Sanzo didn’t leave the temple unless he had to, and Hakkai didn’t come because he probably didn’t want to run into Gojyo. Besides, ever since they’d saved the world, or whatever, the Sanbutsushin had released Sanzo from his Sinner-Cho-Hakkai-watching duties.
Despite his earlier statement that he didn’t care, Sanzo had given some thought to the reason why Gojyo and Hakkai had… broken up? Whatever. He figured that it was because they were too much alike. They both needed someone to worry about-- it was the only thing that kept them from feeling sorry for themselves. They’d probably smothered each other half to death with being thoughtful of each other all the time.
Sanzo half-suspected that Gojyo was worrying about him. He looked at Sanzo a lot-- not like he used to when he wanted to yank Sanzo’s chain, but with a calculating or curious gaze. It was annoying. Gojyo was one of those people who made you aware what you looked like. Sanzo resented, a bit, the return of his own conflict at feeling self-conscious in that way. Gojyo had been safe with Hakkai.
No, Gojyo was still safe.
When Sanzo reached his rooms he stripped and jumped into the cool not cold enough shower, and thought about how good that icy beer was going to taste. He ate dinner alone.
Just after dark Gojyo showed up as expected. He didn’t bother to knock, just backed in the door, both arms wrapped around a dripping barrel. The barrel shook a bit as Gojyo kicked off his sandals.
“Don’t spill that on my floor, idiot,” Sanzo greeted him.
“Screw you,” Gojyo replied genially, and plonked the barrel next to Sanzo’s desk. He pried open the lid and pulled out a sweating can of Asahi. He tossed it at Sanzo and pulled one out for himself. Then he pulled up a chair, fell into it, propped his bare feet on Sanzo’s desk and popped the tab. “Hey, it’s fucking stifling in here. Ain’t you in charge? Can’t you order a monk or two to wave palm fronds, or something?”
“Don’t want any monks in here.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gojyo said without irony. He closed his eyes and sucked at his beer. Sanzo watched him, thought again how much he’d changed physically. Not necessarily for the worse. In a lot of ways Gojyo was a different person from the man Sanzo had traveled with, or the one who’d crawled into the temple gates a few months ago.
For one thing, Gojyo was getting an education, even if it was a Buddhist education. Sanzo dug into the neat stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a cut strip of parchment. He waved it at Gojyo.
“Ozhuan tells me you wrote this.”
“Lemme see.” Gojyo grabbed the strip of paper from Sanzo and looked at it. Sanzo had already read it.
As the sun sinks, plants and trees are veiled in mist
While the capital echoes to the bell and drum,
After three chimes of the bell nobody moves;
The streets throughout the city are still.
“That’s mine, all right. Pretty, ain’t it?”
“It’s legible. It can’t be yours.”
“Ha. I’m getting pretty good. Hakkai would be impressed if he could see it.”
Sanzo couldn’t help lifting an eyebrow. It had been a while since Gojyo had mentioned Hakkai aloud to Sanzo.
Somehow encouraged, Gojyo continued after another sip of beer. “I saw him in town. He seems to be doing okay.”
“Nnh,” Sanzo only said, not wanting to hear too much.
“He’s teaching again.”
“He was good at it,” Sanzo said, noncommittal.
“Yeah. We always land on our feet, don’t we?” Gojyo gave his head a short shake and guzzled the rest of his can of beer.
“Hnh,” Sanzo said.
“Well, anyway, hurry up and drink. Gotta finish the beer before it gets warm.” Gojyo pulled out a couple more dripping cans, popped the tab on one and waved the other in Sanzo’s direction.
They were silent for another beer, or two, or three, and another cigarette, or five, each. Nobody had suggested playing cards. Outside the window Sanzo could see a three-quarter moon rising over the outbuildings; they watched it grow above the roofs, white and misty in the humid air. Eventually Gojyo seemed to become bored with it.
“So what else does the good Brother O report about me?” Gojyo asked, voice not slurring but definitely relaxed.
“He says he also caught you with pornography,” Sanzo told him. He’d sunk back into his chair a bit. He felt good. He scratched at his belly behind the desk.
“Oh, that. That shit was here long before me.” Gojyo gestured with his cigarette. “I just found it.”
“You would,” Sanzo said.
“It was good porn, though. Don’t suppose he gave it to you…?”
Sanzo only raised his eyebrow again.
“Didn’t think so,” Gojyo said.
Silence reigned again while they drank with purpose. Sanzo stretched his toes. He remembered Ozhuan bringing the magazine to his office and whispering to Sanzo to beware, because it contained “lewd pictures of females, Master.” He’d expressed disappointment that Gojyo hadn’t managed to conquer those types of physical urges. He’d seemed even more disappointed that the lewd misconduct had involved women. Sanzo supposed he could have told Ozhuan that Gojyo wasn’t choosy about gonads.
Without wanting to in the slightest, he thought about Gojyo and Hakkai, together. He’d had to listen to them going at it, now and again on the road. His stomach muscles shuddered a little.
Gojyo belched, breaking the silence. “That’s gonna be hard. The hardest part, I think. Giving up sex.”
Gojyo was reading his mind. “I wasn’t aware you were giving up anything.”
“I was just following your example. You are the head priest, after all,” Gojyo grinned. He sipped, smoked. “Seriously, though. Forever? No sex, ever? Don’t know how you do it. Never could figure it out.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Sanzo muttered. The conversation was making him uncomfortable. Gojyo had always been too preoccupied with his own prick. Sanzo tried to light a smoke but his hand on the lighter was a little unsteady, and the lighter just didn’t want to work. Gojyo leaned over and lit Sanzo’s cigarette with his Zippo. Sanzo looked up to grunt his thanks, and Gojyo was… staring at him. Leering at him.
“Stop fucking staring at me!”
“I wasn’t fucking staring!” Gojyo retorted. He stared at the wall and drummed his fingers on Sanzo’s desk for a few annoying moments. “Or maybe I was. You never really cared about it.”
Sanzo didn’t answer. He smoked, drank.
“Or did you?” Gojyo sounded genuinely curious.
Sanzo still didn’t answer, just mustered up a glare.
Now Gojyo looked as perturbed as Sanzo felt. “You son of a bitch,” he finally said, around his cigarette.
Sanzo focused on the beer can in front of him, watching the droplets of condensation as they joined and rolled down the cool metal sides. Gojyo jabbed his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk. Sanzo waited for Gojyo to leave.
He was a bit surprised when Gojyo’s hands slapped, palms down, on the desk. He glanced up and Gojyo was close, too close, leaning down until his nose was on a level with Sanzo’s, less than a foot away.
“Well, what?” Gojyo said, and that time he definitely stared. This close, his eyes weren’t just red; they were all sorts of colors.
Sanzo’s brain wasn’t working at full capacity-- he’d drunk to much for that-- so he didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Gojyo was asking.
“Fuck off,” he said.
“No.” Seemingly emboldened by booze, overactive hormones, or the way in which Sanzo hadn’t killed him yet-- or all three, maybe-- Gojyo moved his hand to cover Sanzo’s on the desk. His fingers were cold from holding his beer and warm at the same time. He leaned even closer, eyes only a couple inches away.
Sanzo didn’t move, just stared back. He didn’t try to find his gun because one hand was captured and he had a lit cigarette in his gun-hand, anyway, and he was drunk. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Sanzo almost didn’t see Gojyo move, just felt Gojyo’s mouth on his. He was more stunned than anything else. So he let it happen, just for a bit, because he could always kill Gojyo later. It was insanity: that was the only way to describe it.
Gojyo tasted like Asahi and Hi-Lites. He moaned into Sanzo’s mouth and tilted his head, shoving his tongue between Sanzo’s lips. And he was slow and intent and good, too good, true to all his idiotic boasting. It had to be that, because Sanzo wasn’t attracted to Gojyo, and never had been. He kissed Gojyo back, as best as he knew how, and tried to plan exactly how he was going to kill him.
But Sanzo was too distracted for death-dealing; he became intensely aware of his own body, aware that he was clothesless under his brown night-robe. A stupid decision it seemed, now, though the heat had made it seem like a good idea earlier.
He didn’t stop the insanity until Gojyo tried to climb over the desk, his knee knocking Sanzo’s beer into his lap.
“Fuck,” Sanzo said and jerked away, almost tipping his chair over. Gojyo backed off just as quickly, looking stunned himself and a little guilty.
“Hey, man--”
“Just get the fuck out,” Sanzo growled, and swiped at his beer-wet crotch with a handful of his brown robes. He put out his cigarette, burned down to the filter.
“Hey! I wasn’t the only one-- shit. Fine.” Gojyo backed away a couple more steps, slapping at the air with sharp, disgusted gestures. Then he shoved his feet into his sandals and yanked open the door. He stomped out, whispering shit, shit, shit, shit! as he left.
Sanzo stopped swiping between his legs because… well, because his cock was too interested by the friction, and he wanted to go to bed and he wanted to take it elsewhere and then forget about it.
Gojyo had left his beer barrel. Sanzo snorted a fuck or two, blew out the closest lamp, and stomped the few steps to his sleeping-room. He slid the door shut, dropped his robe and fell sideways, naked, onto his futon. The room only spun a little.
Music was playing somewhere, drifting through the open window with the moonlight. Sanzo tried to think about nothing, to not think about how he’d have to fucking kill Gojyo, because it was too much trouble to think about that right then.
It was harder not to think about Gojyo kissing him. Gojyo had always been too attractive, too earnest, too fucking stupid for his own good. Sanzo’s cock twitched, still interested. Sanzo sighed and slid his hand down, caressing himself with lazy strokes.
He decided he could worry in the morning. He was alone. He had all the time in the world. He thought about how Gojyo’s tongue, his breath had felt, and squeezed his cock a little harder.
He had all the time in the world to be alone, and nobody could tell Sanzo what to-- or not to-- fantasize about, except himself. And he’d lost that inner battle long ago..
***
“Shit.”
Gojyo stopped outside and leaned against the wall to catch his breath. He’d forgotten his beer. And he had a boner.
He was totally hard for Sanzo. He shouldn’t be hard for Sanzo. He loved--
He’d left.
Gojyo lit a smoke, thought for a few moments, let the beer-and-lust-fueled revelations just invade his mind all at once.
Well, he wasn’t in love with Sanzo, anyway. The bastard. But he wasn’t in love with anyone, anymore. Only because he never could be.
Kissing Sanzo had been a fucking stupid thing to do, the sort of half-cocked thing he always did. Still, it had been pretty good. Shockingly good. It had certainly given him the boner without any trouble. Sanzo had liked it, too-- that much had been clear. Sanzo, who’d not even touched his gun, who’d taken to being kissed by Gojyo like an eager--
Gojyo wondered when he’d gotten so comfortable with the asshole priest. Gotten used to being around him, to feeling like he had to keep him company, or wanting to keep him company. He’d always been attracted to Sanzo, fascinated by him, under all the everyday asshole-ishness and animosity, maybe. Well, more than maybe. But Hakkai had always been there and made any other attraction or not-hate useless, not worth thinking about.
Sanzo, with his taking in of losers like himself and his damned amazing, intense face, and his little hups of caught breath when he was kissed and his naked chest all peeping out of his robe--
Gojyo heard something that sounded like the breaths he’d just been remembering. There was music coming from somewhere, but this organic noise was somewhere close.
It was coming from the window above his head. Sanzo’s window. There was a moan.
And that was fueling his boner like nothing else. Shit, Gojyo wanted sex. No, he wanted Sanzo. And maybe Sanzo wanted him, too.
Fuck this “not-talking” about shit. Gojyo had to know for sure.
He dropped his smoke to the ground and stepped on it, then just pushed back in the door. The noises stopped but Gojyo didn’t: he went up the few narrow steps to the other room. He slid the door open.
In the grey moonlight he could see Sanzo, naked on the bed and turned on his side, pulling a sheet over himself. He looked dangerously fuckable.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sanzo growled.
“What the hell do you think?”
Praying Sanzo had left his gun in the other room, Gojyo dropped to his knees on the futon, and then flopped onto Sanzo. Naked, sweaty Sanzo. Who had a hard-on, and who’d totally been jerkin’ off after kissing Gojyo.
“Get the fuck--” Sanzo took a swing but only clipped Gojyo’s ear. His arm ended up behind Gojyo’s head. “Mmph--”
Gojyo took advantage, shut Sanzo up by kissing him again, hard, so hard their lips were mashed into their teeth. To still Sanzo’s hands he shoved his fingers between Sanzo’s thighs and oh yeah, Sanzo wanted him, too. His cock was nice and hard and slick.
Sanzo’s answering high-pitched moan sounded like no but Gojyo ignored it. Sanzo was fully capable of fighting him off, if he really wanted to.
It only took a few short moments of Gojyo working his magic fingers for Sanzo to stop trying to pull Gojyo’s hand away. When Sanzo stopped struggling Gojyo slowed everything down, his hand on that slick flesh, his tongue in Sanzo’s mouth, the crawl of his thigh over Sanzo’s. Gojyo’s pulse, however, only raced higher.
Shit, he wanted the bastard, couldn’t believe how much. Why hadn’t they done this before? Would Gojyo have tried if it hadn’t been for Hakkai? Gojyo didn’t want to think about Hakkai, not right then. Not when he had Sanzo gasping under his fingers.
Sanzo managed to pull his mouth away briefly. “Bastard. Ah--” he mumbled into Gojyo’s forehead.
“Yeah,” Gojyo said, and kissed Sanzo’s chin, his neck, his collarbone, tasting sweat like he’d tasted smoke and beer earlier. “Feels good, don’t it?”
“Arrogant bastard,” Sanzo corrected.
Gojyo gave Sanzo’s cock a nice, hard squeeze, slid his thumb over the slippery head. “Don’t it?” he repeated.
“Shut up,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo whisper-laughed; he got the picture. Don’t gloat and maybe I won’t kill you. Gojyo wanted to get laid, not shot. Shit, it’d been a long time, too long. And Sanzo was too hot, hotter than Gojyo’d ever imagined. ‘Cause maybe, just maybe, he’d imagined Sanzo jerking himself off, all those sexless nights on the road.
Sanzo’s hah-hah-hah-ing of breath reminded Gojyo that he had immediate business to take care of. He stilled his hand for a moment so he could untie his own robe, shift his body, feel skin on skin. Geeze, Sanzo was thin. When Gojyo shoved a knee between Sanzo’s thighs, he could feel every bone, every muscle tense. Sanzo’s eyes were wide.
“What are you-- Wait, you asshole!”
“Shut up and lemme do this,” Gojyo said and rubbed Sanzo’s belly with his palm, felt the nervous up-and-down of his breathing.
“Do what?”
Sanzo was in for a treat. “Gonna help you out in my own special way,” Gojyo said.
“Nnh,” was Sanzo’s reply.
It wasn’t a ‘no.’ Gojyo coaxed Sanzo’s hands up and around his neck, trying to get him to hold on. Then he kissed him again, slow, loving how Sanzo followed his lead, breathed and moved his tongue against Gojyo’s. He was a natural. More passionate than Gojyo had ever expected. Of course, this had been a long time in coming.
Hopefully, Sanzo wouldn’t be. Without making any interesting exploratory detours, Gojyo pulled his mouth off Sanzo’s and scrambled back on his knees, then wrapped his lips around Sanzo’s cock.
The harsh, short gasp he received in return made Gojyo’s hair stand on end. To make it even better, he slipped his tongue in a circle around the tip, tasted salt and flesh and semen. Then he wrapped his fingers around the base, slid the soft skin up and down. Sanzo’s hips twitch-jerked up and he yanked at Gojyo’s hair.
“Ow! Don’t do that, man.”
“Shit,” Sanzo said, but complied, clenching Gojyo’s shoulders instead.
Sanzo moaned when Gojyo licked the underside of his cock, slow and easy. Sanzo had a nice cock, decent-sized, not too thick, pretty. Gojyo had never seen it erect before, or this close. Shit, he loved sex. He loved--
Mmph, Gojyo said, and took it halfway in his mouth again, squeezing the bottom with firm pressure. Maybe, if he was extra good, Sanzo would do this for him, sometime. Gojyo probably moaned but his mouth was full, sucking, licking, sucking harder and lower, until Sanzo’s legs were trembling.
“Stop,” Sanzo groaned, chest heaving, and grabbed Gojyo’s hair again.
Gojyo kept his mouth going but slapped around his own head until he found Sanzo’s hand and extracted it, again, from his hair, then laced his fingers into Sanzo’s and pressed them into the sheets, palm against palm, holding them still.
To Gojyo’s surprise Sanzo didn’t fight it. He was more surprised that Sanzo was holding his hand, clenching Gojyo’s fingers, hard. Come on, Gojyo thought, pressing his hand back. Go ahead…
Sanzo’s breath hissed and his body seized up all over. He said something that sounded like “Muh” and came, hips spasming under Gojyo’s forearm.
Gojyo swallowed, only right since he’d meant for that to happen. He was a pro, he was king, he was so fucking hard he thought it might kill him.
There was an undercurrent of surprised moan to Sanzo’s post-orgasm breathing when Gojyo crawled back up his body and kissed him, showing Sanzo how good he tasted. Sanzo let him, still held onto his hand, buried his other fingers in Gojyo’s hair and opened his mouth, humming low and steady in the back of his throat. It was the mellowest and sexiest that Gojyo had ever seen him.
Fuck, Gojyo was a traitor, he wanted to fuck him, his cock was so hard and throbbing against Sanzo’s belly, but Sanzo wasn’t ready for that, yet, would never be ready in time. Gojyo usually had pretty good control but Sanzo’s flushed, shiny face and wide, staring eyes in the dark-- it was too much, he’d never have time-- Sanzo, it was Sanzo--
“Sanzo,” he whispered into Sanzo’s mouth and grabbed his own dick, jerking himself off against his own fingers and Sanzo’s sweaty belly, shit, it only took less than a minute before he felt the swelling build in his own gut, building to that edge and over--
“Ah!” he coughed and came, hot and sticky into Sanzo’s skin, the sheets, everywhere. Holy hell, but that had felt good. Better than it ever should have. Gojyo flopped down with his head in Sanzo’s shoulder and thought about blacking out.
He only got a couple minutes of heavy-breathing recovery time, however, before Sanzo spoke.
“Now get the fuck off me,” Sanzo said from above Gojyo’s head.
“Wha?” Gojyo mumbled. He was drooling, and the bastard monk’s voice had been almost steady.
Sanzo was yank-shaking Gojyo’s fingers from his and trying to push him off. “I said get the fuck off me.”
“Shit, man.” Gojyo moaned. Obviously the old Sanzo was back, and the mellow, happy Sanzo was gone. What had that been, five minutes, maybe? Gojyo’s pride took a hit.
He rolled off and Sanzo rolled over, facing the other wall in the tiny room. He was using the sheets to wipe himself off. No more hand-holding, no sweet nothings. Well, it was Sanzo, after all. And he’d always had to call the shots, no matter what.
“Don’t you wanna…?” Gojyo started to suggest, hopeful anyway.
“No.” Sanzo’s voice sounded weary and still kinda drunk. “Just… go.”
Gojyo watched Sanzo’s back for a minute, watched his spine moving under the sweaty sheen on his skin.
You and Sanzo work best together when you say the least, he could hear Hakkai’s voice saying. You’re good as a sort of controlled release for each other, sometimes, but things are much more calm when you aren’t. It’s a conundrum.
A conundrum was a puzzle, Hakkai had said. Hakkai, who would talk about shit. What would Hakkai think of this?
Yeah, Gojyo still loved Hakkai. Yeah, he could still take his advice, because it was still good. But Gojyo wanted to stay here, liked it here, wanted to get along with Sanzo. If nothing else.
Controlled release. Huh. Gojyo grunted and rolled up to the balls of his feet, then stood and tied his robe. “See ya,” he said in a low voice as he left. And wondered.
***
Sanzo forced himself to sleep, to not think about anything at all. He was mostly successful. That had actually felt pretty damned good.
***
Gojyo didn’t get an order to leave, nor did he see Sanzo at all the next day. He didn’t go to Sanzo’s rooms that night, not even to fetch what was left of his beer. He tried not to think about what had happened; it had probably been a one-time thing, and was meant to be forgotten.
During the day Ozhuan had him planting shit, flowers or bamboo or something. At night it was back to the scripture, the brush and the ink and the half-unrolled parchment. Was Brother Ozhuan looking at him funny? Gojyo couldn’t tell.
With passions stilled and one’s nature firm, all destinies are in harmony;
When the full moon of contemplation is reached, you will be pure.
Brother Ozhuan said that Gojyo had a natural feel for the characters, that he gave them life. Gojyo wasn’t sure about that; trying to still passions only made him think about passions. Of course Brother O meant all sorts of passion, like anger and fighting and even sadness and whatnot, but to Gojyo, who could still hear Sanzo’s breaths in his ear, it meant bodies, skin, being close to someone.
Gojyo was learning to contemplate, though he would never be pure. Because when he saw Sanzo the day after that in the dining-hall, wearing his full Sanzo-gear and doing the eating prayers-- for the first time in a long time-- Gojyo instantly thought about those robes being off, thought about Sanzo’s bare back, about running his fingers over that knobbly spine as he’d last seen it.
Sanzo caught his gaze and Gojyo was sure Sanzo could read the thoughts behind it. There was no hostility in his stare, though; it was just the usual steady glare. Perhaps it was tinged with… curiosity? Gojyo couldn’t be sure. So he waited and contemplated.
The day after that Gojyo saw Sanzo again. He was standing, arms crossed, outside the building that housed his rooms, and bitching at a baldie who was on his knees. The monk, Brother Ming-tze, had something squealing and wriggling in his arms. Gojyo couldn’t help it; he had to walk over to see what was going on. Just to see what was going on. Really.
“If you have to have a goddamned pet pig, keep it away from my window,” Sanzo was saying. His hair was bright in the mid-day sunlight, and Gojyo remembered how soft it was.
“Yes, Lord. Thank you, Sanzo-sama,” Ming-tze said, over and over, crawling backwards and nodding his head at Sanzo’s mercy. Under the window to Sanzo’s office, Gojyo could see little piles of dirt where there had once been some carefully-arranged, Buddhist-approved azalea.
Sanzo looked up and saw Gojyo. He had that steady stare again, the one that outwardly said nothing but to Gojyo, somehow said that everything was okay. Gojyo grinned, feeling stupidly happy.
“I’m good at planting. I’ve had lots of practice,” Gojyo said to the two of them. “How ‘bout I fix those for you? Sanzo sa-ma.”
Ming-tze looked like he wanted to weep. “Thank you, Brother Gojyo. Thank you,” he said, now bowing to Gojyo.
Sanzo tched. “Do it, then,” he said, and wandered off.
Gojyo turned away to hide his wide smile and went to get the tools. When he returned and knelt in the dirt, arms full of fresh green plants, he could smell cigarette smoke drifting out the window. He dug for a bit. At one point he shrugged off the top of his robe because it was fucking hot and humid and because he wanted Sanzo to get a good look at his nice, gleamy muscles, to let him see what he was missing.
After a few minutes the smell of smoke became stronger. Gojyo wiped sweat out of his eyes and glanced up to see Sanzo standing in the window.
“How’s it look, Master?” he said, trying not to quirk his lips.
“Looks like shit. You gonna water ‘em?”
Gojyo looked down at his admittedly floppy plants. “You still got my beer barrel?”
Sanzo blew a cloud of smoke at him. “I sure as hell wasn’t going to dump it.”
“Then I’ll come in and get it, Sanzo sa-ma.”
Gojyo kicked off his sandals and jumped over the window-sill. Sanzo backed a few steps out of Gojyo’s way, just staring at him. He had his white robes bunched about his waist, those black silk-things hugging his slender frame. Gojyo stared at the slide of his muscles under the tight material and wiggled his bare toes against the floor-matting, thinking about how it might feel to run his fingers over Sanzo’s chest.
Sanzo glared back for a moment or two and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
“You smeared dirt all over your face. You look like an idiot,” Sanzo said.
A conundrum. Gojyo laughed. “Yeah,” he said, and then he was kissing Sanzo again, shoving him up against the desk and tearing at the black silk to feel Sanzo’s sweaty skin underneath, and Sanzo was grabbing his hair and sliding his hand over Gojyo’s back and moaning and oh, shit, it felt good.
There was Gojyo’s beer, cans floating in warm water but he was drunk on Sanzo, the tight, controlled power and poison that was Sanzo. His mouth tasted like the cigarette Gojyo hadn’t had since that morning.
Gojyo clenched Sanzo’s ass and pulled him closer, felt the lack of jeans under Sanzo’s robe, but that was okay because it was too hot for jeans and hell, he’d forgone pants almost since he’d come to Keiun’in, and besides, that way they could rub their dicks together through only two layers of material.
Gojyo was just gonna hump Sanzo there, against the desk. Shit, Sanzo was skinny, but he was stronger than he looked, strong enough to push back, to up that straining-adrenaline struggle that felt so great. His neck tasted great, too, almost as good as his hair smelled. His panting in Gojyo’s ear sounded like pure sex.
Sanzo was saying something.
“What-- ah-- what are you trying to do, idiot?”
“Wanna fuck,” Gojyo said, truthfully, and stuck his tongue in Sanzo’s ear. They were pressed so closely together that he could feel the shudder in every inch of Sanzo’s body, ear to thigh. “C’mon, Sanzo…”
“Not here,” Sanzo grunted, shifting his legs and arms out of Gojyo’s grasp.
Oh yeah. The window, Gojyo realized. He jumped back like he had the night he’d spilled Sanzo’s beer on him and peeked outside; he couldn’t see any monks but getting out of the office was still a good idea.
Sanzo walked with wordless, quick steps to the short stairway that led to his room. Gojyo followed, dropping his robes on the stairs. He’d planned to be equally silent but just couldn’t.
“Do I get to be on top?” he whispered when Sanzo slid the door open.
“Fine,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo's dick flipped a one-eighty; he was almost too thrilled to be surprised. “Really?”
Sanzo stood there, sticking his finger in his ear in his most casually uncaring pose, but Gojyo had watched him for too long and too closely to fall for it. Even in the darkened room he could see the sensual tension in every line of Sanzo’s silhouette. “Too much work for me,” Sanzo said.
“Typical lazy-ass priest,” Gojyo laughed. He slid his hands around Sanzo to begin undressing him from behind.
They got him stripped of just about everything but the arm-covers but Gojyo didn’t care. There was a discussion at some point about whether or not Sanzo had something nearby that would help in the ass-lubrication department and it turned out that Sanzo had some gel he used for easing joint-aches. In his Nirvana-like state of sexual happiness, Gojyo didn’t even make a joke about Sanzo’s age.
It all seemed matter-of-fact but it didn’t feel matter-of-fact, thank Buddha or whoever. Forget the other night; once Gojyo had Sanzo on his back and had his knees hooked over Gojyo’s forearms, and had him all stretched and Gojyo had squeezed his throbbing-alive dick into that tight ass, all was about as wonderfully surreal and felt as amazing as it could get.
Gojyo wanted to move but he also wanted to just rest there, to feel how Sanzo’s body clenched at him with every huh, huh of his expelled breath. To stare into Sanzo’s half-lidded eyes, focused on Gojyo with an intensity he’d never had directed at him before.
Until Sanzo huffed, “Idiot. Are you just gonna sit there…Gojyo?” and his own name, heard so rarely from that mouth, spurred Gojyo’s hips to move, in and out, rocking back and forth to find that sweet spot, to make it as good for Sanzo as it was for Gojyo. And Sanzo was a natural, all right; he just clenched his knees on Gojyo’s arms and let his head fall back and let his own hips roll and swell smoothly under Gojyo’s.
Shit, it felt too good. Gojyo fell forward and buried his nose in the crook of Sanzo’s neck, tasted the heartbeat thumping ferociously under Sanzo’s salty skin, felt Sanzo’s cock mashed and sliding between their sweaty bellies.
“Sanzo,” he whispered, to thank him for saying his name and to thank him for the rub of flesh on flesh, the earthy pleasure that only sex and warm bodies could bring. He wanted to think about nothing but the tight ball of ache that was pressing, growing somewhere between the cool air on his spine and the hot smooth clench on his cock. “Sanzo.”
Gojyo wasn’t in love with Sanzo, maybe. But he could love fucking him; he didn’t have to have a name for it. “Sanzo,” he said again when Sanzo came and he followed in a white-out blur of convulsing release.
Gojyo got a full ten minutes of good, leisurely, thankful, sticky-bodied kissing in before Sanzo threw him out.
***
As the moon sinks, flower shadows climb the rails,
The stars are a jumble of light.
The hours are called,
The night is already half way through.
Over Gojyo’s shoulder Sanzo could see the white flash of the scripture as it fluttered about the floor, caught in a breeze and a strip of moonlight. Gojyo’s excuse for showing up had been that he wanted Sanzo to see his newest Buddhist literary and artistic masterpiece. Yeah, right.
The breeze felt good. The weather had finally gotten cooler. Sanzo was still hot, though, burning through and through as that whole-body ache took over, tightening and building and seeming to go nowhere, only growing.
Gojyo had him up against the wall, was going to shake the building down by pounding into him like living hell. Sanzo had his arms wrapped around Gojyo’s shoulders, his legs around his waist, was holding on, and they were as close as they could get but Gojyo was still trying to go closer, deeper. Gojyo was everywhere, mouth stealing Sanzo’s breath, ramming his dick into Sanzo’s ass, red hair sticking to his face, everywhere. Sanzo held on, let every shove push the hot ache higher, higher, surely it would have to break soon--
Gojyo pulled his tongue from Sanzo’s mouth to urge him on.
“Come on, dammit,” he huffed into Sanzo’s ear. “Hah-- come on, you fucking monk-- Hah, you’re gonna be first, I mean it--”
“Shut up,” Sanzo said and set his teeth on Gojyo’s shoulder, swirled his tongue on the sweaty skin. That shut him up for a little while; Sanzo would come when he was good and ready--
“Shit!” Gojyo’s movements became jerkier, less controlled. “Shit--”
But Gojyo was a cheater; he snaked a hand between them and yanked at Sanzo’s dick a couple of times.
Sanzo broke. He couldn’t help the Ah! that spilled from his throat when the tight build snapped and pushed his body into sharp, spasming release. The next few spiked waves were lost in the haze of Gojyo clenching his ass and jerking into him a few more times, the loud, hoarse groans in his ear, the smell of sex and sweat. They both shuddered a bit, then were still. Sanzo unlocked his ankles from Gojyo’s back and Gojyo half-dropped, half-let him slide down the wall.
Once Sanzo caught his breath he crawled over and fetched his cigarettes from the nightstand. Somewhere behind him Gojyo was digging for his own smokes. Sanzo couldn’t find his lighter. Gojyo found his and Sanzo could see the flash of the yellow-orange flame and then the red-cherry light of Gojyo’s cigarette. Fucker had lit his own cigarette first. He tossed the Zippo at Sanzo.
Sanzo lit, inhaled, leaned against the wall, listened to their huffs of breath as they returned to normal, then the moonlit near-silence, the quiet whistle of the cool breeze through the window.
At some point Gojyo chuckled. “Shit, Sanzo. Don’t remember ever fucking anyone like that before.”
“Hn.” Sanzo certainly couldn’t remember anything exactly like it. As it had turned out, one of the benefits of having Gojyo around. “Next time it’s you.”
“You always promise.”
Sanzo hnhed again. He felt pretty good. He smoked, and speculated briefly. It was pretty easy to fall into a routine, but this wasn’t one he particularly minded. Sometime he might switch things up, if Gojyo was around, and if he felt like it. Sanzo called the shots, as always. If Gojyo was still around. It didn’t seem like he was leaving any time soon. But, one never knew.
Gojyo still pissed him off, now and then. A lot, if truth were told. But he stayed away when it rained.
“Goku came by looking for you today,” Sanzo informed him.
He got the expected reaction: Gojyo sat up straight and glared at him across the dark room. “You’re shitting me! Why didn’t you send someone to get me?”
“Turns out he didn’t need you after all,” Sanzo said, hiding a smirk behind another drag from his smoke.
Gojyo banged the back of his head against the wall and pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes with his fingers. He uttered a short laugh. “Asshole.”
Sanzo never much liked talking about things, but Gojyo had been pretty well-behaved lately. Sanzo saw to that. Still, he wondered just how much Gojyo knew.
“Seems he spends a lot of time with Hakkai…”
“Yeah, I know,” Gojyo sighed and swiped at his hair again. “I saw Hakkai in town a couple of days ago. Suppose I should be glad… Nah, I am glad.”
“Luckily for you,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo didn’t say anything to that. The cherry on his cigarette glowed brightly, faded, glowed and faded as he smoked. He bent over to pick up the scripture that was flapping about his bare feet. As usual, he couldn’t stay silent for long.
“Did you read the whole thing? Or I suppose you already know it,” Gojyo said, and read aloud. “‘Pure is the monastery as the reed smoke curls in the breeze; Men disappear in the butterfly dream.’ Hah. Butterfly dream. I think I get it. You Buddhists know some strange shit.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Sanzo said.
“Nope,” Gojyo said, and opened his fingers, letting the paper flutter away in the breeze. “It lasts while it lasts.”
END.
Thanks for reading! This one took me a while to get it where I wanted it, and I'm always trying to improve my writing, so comments, concrit, flames, a hello, all are much appreciated.
Author:
jedishampooPairing: Gojyo/Sanzo (past Hakkai/Gojyo)
Rating: Not Worksafe (NC-l7)
Summary: Post-journey. Sometimes you go from nothing, to something that’s at least better than nothing. Just over 10,000 words.
Author’s Notes: Finally another 53, wahoo! Based off the universe in
inksheddings’s very sweet 89 story, Let Me Hold You (and we’ll both fall down). I read it and of course immediately thought, Gojyo’s at the temple with Sanzo? 53 Plotbunny! ;) You don’t need to have read that story to read this one, but you should, anyway 'cause it's good. Universe used with permission! Poems/scriptures used are from the Journey to the West novel. Big hugs to inksheddings, thanks to sharpeslass for the beta.Butterfly Dream
What the hell am I doing here? Gojyo wondered.
He dipped his brush in the black ink-- an old-fashioned brush and bottled ink, for fuck’s sake-- and slowly, carefully, copied lines from the even more old-fashioned sutra spread out on the mat beside him.
The monastery gleams with the light of its lamps;
The village is lonely and silent.
The monks enter the trance and repair damaged sutras.
A good way to purify oneself of evil and nourish the true nature.
So. Copying this scripture was going to be a lesson as well as work, Gojyo thought. He wasn’t sure how he was going to purify himself of evil, or what, exactly, the true nature was. Still, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t copy the damned thing, and wouldn’t do it over and over until Sanzo was satisfied with Gojyo’s handwriting. He would do it all-- the manual labor, the scripture-copying, living without booze and sex-- because he wasn’t going to give up after only a week. And because he deserved it, and more, for what he’d done to Hakkai.
Hakkai. He’d left Hakkai. After all they’d been through-- death, rebirth, saving the world, death and more rebirth-- in the end Gojyo had run off, anyway. Funny, that he’d been scared plenty of times during their near-endless quest, but the end of the quest and the return of domesticity had scared him even more.
And he’d run here, of all places. To Keiun temple. Stupid, it was stupid.
“I’m not right, Hakkai. I love you, and that scares the crap outta me.”
Hakkai Hakkai Hakkai…
“Fuck,” Gojyo said aloud, and dipped the brush to copy some more. It had been such a stupid thing to say, there at the end.
Do not allow the thought-horse to run wild,
And don’t let the stubborn mind-ape howl at will.
Gojyo wanted to write something witty or dirty about horses and monkeys in the margins, then decided against it. It was true; the damned thoughts, silly names or not, did run wild and howl in his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d left Hakkai. His face burned every time he remembered how he’d shown up all runny-nosed, begging Sanzo to give him a place at the temple.
He hadn’t left Hakkai and walked to the temple with the shaky resolve he’d felt as he’d confronted Hakkai to say he was leaving. Oh, no. He’d detoured to an inn, the most run-down he could find in the city of Chang’An, and drunk himself stupid. Then he’d shown up at the temple, way past hours. He’d climbed a wall or two, covering himself in mud, and he’d climbed over Sanzo’s window-sill. And met the muzzle of Sanzo’s gun.
***
It had taken Sanzo a second or two to see that his intruder was, of all people, Gojyo. His first thought had been, good thing I didn’t pull the trigger before looking. His second had been, Gojyo looks like shit.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sanzo asked the dirty, stinking kappa that was sprawled flat on his back on Sanzo’s nice, clean floor-mats.
“Can I stay here, man?” Gojyo slurred.
“What the fuck?” Sanzo repeated.
“Ran away from home. Wanna be a monk.”
“Bullshit,” Sanzo said. He was starting to get an idea of what had happened-- a single glance out the window was enough to tell him that Gojyo had come alone. Something to do with Hakkai, then. Or Goku-- Sanzo didn’t want to know. Not even one tiny little bit. He nudged Gojyo in the shoulder with his foot. “Get the fuck off my floor, idiot.”
“’M an idiot, all right,” Gojyo slurred some more. He managed to prop himself on his elbows and stare at Sanzo with eyes that were as red on the outside as on the inside. “’M givin’ it all up, man. Cigarettes, booze… everything. Just give me something to do. Like penance, or something…”
“Tch,” Sanzo muttered and turned away. Something was stinging his eyes; probably the alcohol stink hovering around Gojyo. And irritation that his first sight of his old… traveling companion, after months of quiet, was this stinking pile of shit. Irritation, yeah, that was it. He’d been perfectly content with the quiet, and it was to be ruined.
Sanzo laid his gun back on his desk. Still, he couldn’t look at Gojyo. He lit a cigarette instead, heard Gojyo shuffling around on the floor behind him. “You’re not staying in my rooms.”
“Thass fine.”
“I’m sure you’ll last a day or so before you gather what little sense you have and go the hell back home,” Sanzo continued. He inhaled, deep, long drags from his cigarette. Exhaled. “Don’t expect any favors from me. Go to the front gates like any supplicant with any sense and ask for the assistant head monk. On second thought, don’t do that. He’s too pious. One look at you and he’ll run to me and I don’t feel like dealing with you again tonight.”
“Nah. Pious is good. I’ll tell ‘im to give me like the most ascetic cell, or something…” Gojyo started to sniffle. Sanzo heard him thumping about and glanced over to see him straddling the window-sill. “And I ain’t going back. I get my mind set... You oughta know.”
“Tch,” Sanzo said again, and exhaled a cloud of smoke, obscuring Gojyo as he stumbled off into the night.
Sanzo soon realized he’d been wrong: Gojyo had already made it a week at the temple, rather than the predicted day or two. Though it had only taken him three days before he’d again crawled his way over Sanzo’s window-sill.
“Gimme a cigarette, man. I’m dyin’ here,” Gojyo had said.
“Hell, no,” Sanzo said, puffing deliberately at Gojyo over his desk.
Gojyo looked better than he had when he’d first shown up. He looked pretty good, actually. He’d bathed at some point, though he hadn’t cut his hair. Sanzo had been surprised by that-- Gojyo had always been the type to cut, cut, cut whenever he felt like mourning. Sanzo supposed they’d all changed, in some ways, over their difficult years on the road.
Gojyo had also gotten some clean robes from one or other of the abbots. His long bare legs were stretched out, bare feet scratching at the mat of Sanzo’s office. His eyes were a little hollow but he managed a grin.
“C’mon, Sanzo. I’m so desperate I’ll even smoke one of your cigarettes. Gimme one. For old times’ sake.”
“Old times. Like it hasn’t only been a few months,” Sanzo said, relenting. He was secretly impressed; he didn’t think that he, himself, would have been able to go three days without a cigarette. He tossed a smoke at Gojyo and wasn’t surprised to see that Gojyo had his own lighter. They smoked in silence for a few minutes.
“So you don’t like my scriptures, huh?” Gojyo said after a while.
“Your handwriting needs more work than your soul,” Sanzo told him.
“’S getting’ better,” Gojyo said, and grinned again. He wore a blissed-out expression. He looked different with all his hair pulled back like that. His sharp features had only gotten more defined over the years. “You tell Brother Ozhuan to keep me busy?”
“I don’t have anything to do with it,” Sanzo lied. “He just handles those matters for me.”
“Uh-huh,” Gojyo said, and smoked some more. When he was done he loped over to stub the butt in Sanzo’s desk ashtray, and then headed back out the window. He saluted over his shoulder. “Night.”
“Hnn,” Sanzo told Gojyo’s back.
A few days later Sanzo sat alone in his office, remembering and reading reports and drinking tea and hating the heat and thinking that he didn’t want to go to bed.
Gojyo hadn’t come back since that night. Sanzo didn’t bother checking on him; Ozhuan gave Sanzo a steady stream of reports, especially when Gojyo had pissed him off in some way. Sanzo had told Ozhuan to give Gojyo something more exhausting to do, manual labor or something, if Gojyo didn’t behave the way Ozhuan wanted him to. Sanzo suspected that Ozhuan was afraid of Gojyo; afraid of what he didn’t know about Sanzo’s journey west with the three youkai.
To be truthful, that was fine with Sanzo. He’d never admit it aloud, but Gojyo had earned that little bit of fearful respect. As had they all.
Sanzo wondered if Gojyo would stay long at the temple. He wondered how Goku was doing, alone with Hakkai, or even if he was still staying with Hakkai in town. He wondered why he cared.
If Sanzo had noticed some of his cigarettes missing over the last couple of days, he didn’t care about that, either. He went back to reading Ozhuan’s reports and studiously not listening for activity outside his window. At some point he went to bed, and lay on his worn futon and wondered if he should have just given the monkey something, anything, to keep him there. He thought about how Gojyo was more… safe, when he was with Hakkai. He wondered if anybody was ever truly content.
***
Again: what the hell am I doing here?
A couple weeks later, Gojyo still didn’t know. Scripture-copying and whatnot was all well and good, but he still had too much time to think. He wasn’t finding the peace he’d hoped for.
Living at Keiun’in really wasn’t all that bad. Even Gojyo could see the allure of the path to Buddha. He got three meals a day-- vegetarian, of course-- and a place to sleep. Monks didn’t have to worry about where the rent-money was coming from. They didn’t have to worry about anything. Gongs woke them up and told them when to eat, the wooden-fish-paddle-clackers told them when to pray, and more gongs told them when to eat again and go to bed.
The other monks were okay dudes, mostly. The guys who didn’t know about Gojyo’s red hair and eyes soon heard the story from their buddies: the unholy union between a human and a youkai, yadda, yadda, yadda. After a while they got used to him. No one gave him any shit except for the second-to-Sanzo head monk, Brother Ozhuan. And Brother Ozhuan seemed to have developed a sort of kind, religious fervor concerning Gojyo. He told Gojyo on the side that the human part of him could still reach Nirvana if he worked at it.
To be free of troubles and earthly desires? Nirvana didn’t sound too bad, Gojyo thought. ‘Cause he desired. Oh yes, he did. And it hurt.
Of course, the big downsides to his new life were that he had to get up too early, and he couldn’t easily get booze, or even cigarettes, unless he stole them from Sanzo. Women were out of the question.
Not that Gojyo wanted women, anyway. He didn’t want anyone. Nobody but Hakkai Hakkai Hakkai. Hakkai, whom Gojyo had left.
Gojyo really needed something else to do, something besides thinking about sex, thinking about Hakkai, or feeling sorry for himself. So he weeded and raked and shit like that during the hot hours of the day, and at night he sat in a lamplit room and copied scripture.
Roosting birds perch in the withered trees;
The dhyana monks chant Sanskrit music.
On their seats with hassocks of rushes
They sit until the middle of the night.
Gojyo paused and examined his work. Sanzo was right about one thing, at least: Gojyo’s handwriting was getting better. Even if his soul wasn’t doing so well. It was doing pretty shitty, as a matter of fact.
Gojyo wanted to be punished, not led. He needed to be told what an idiot he was. Sanzo could do that for him, maybe. But Gojyo had mostly stayed out of Sanzo’s way. Of course he ran into him now and again, but while being near Sanzo-- because he was one of the group that Gojyo had been a part of for so long-- was comforting in a way, it didn’t mean he really liked Sanzo or anything, or that Sanzo would want to hang around him all the time.
Gojyo moved his brush, created words, marking the unrolled, fresh parchment.
Stilled were all sounds,
The Buddha lamp in the pagoda dimmed.
Last night the abbot’s bell and drum had sounded;
This evening the air was--
A hand clamped on Gojyo’s shoulder, stilling his brush. “Brother Gojyo? Master Sanzo wishes to see you.”
“What the hell for?” Gojyo said, and turned.
Brother Ozhuan looked down at Gojyo with a calmly disappointed expression. “You will never find the path with such an angry tongue, my brother,” Ozhuan informed him. “Perhaps Master Sanzo can show you the way.”
“Hah,” Gojyo said, and dropped his brush in the ink-bottle. “Are you gonna tell me what he wants?”
“It is not my place,” Ozhuan said, then bowed and shuffled out the door. The other monks were glancing Gojyo’s way, curious to see what was up. Some of them looked guilty.
“Right,” Gojyo said, and stood.
Gojyo was hit by a wave of-- nostalgia?-- when he went into Sanzo’s office via the door, and saw him sitting there, robes gathered about his waist, wearing his glasses and reading. It was just like old times. The old annoying times, when Sanzo had treated them like his personal servants or something. Them…
He was alone, now, except for Sanzo. “What you want with me, Sanzo sa-ma?” Gojyo drawled, and leaned on the doorjamb.
Sanzo pulled off his glasses in that old familiar gesture. “Why the hell would you be so stupid as to play poker with the goddamned monks? They don’t have any money.”
“Gimme a cigarette and I’ll tell you,” Gojyo said. He walked in and sat in the office’s other chair, and waggled his fingers at Sanzo. “I’ll just steal one later, if you don’t give me one now.”
“I should just kill you now and end all my troubles,” Sanzo said. But he came across with the smoke so the threat was lost on Gojyo. Sanzo looked… relaxed, Gojyo noticed. More relaxed than Gojyo had ever seen him on their trip, more relaxed even than the times Gojyo had seen him around the temple. There was something to his posture, a slouch he’d never maintained with any convincingness before. Gojyo couldn’t imagine why, but he wasn’t going to bitch about a mellowed-out Sanzo. He was better to look at, anyway. Gojyo had forgotten how… pretty Sanzo was. He always forgot, until bam! Sanzo would turn and face him fully. It had been the same with Hakkai. Damn, but they’d been a good-looking bunch.
“How’d you find out?”
“Ozhuan found a pile of IOUs. With your name on them.”
“I was bored,” Gojyo admitted. Fair was fair. “‘Sides, I wouldn’t have collected on ‘em.”
“Maybe you’re just not cut out for this.” Sanzo lit a smoke and blew a cloud at Gojyo’s face. He almost looked smug.
“I’m not doin’ too bad, all things considered.”
“Hnh,” Sanzo said. It wasn’t a denial.
“Maybe you should play poker with me, then, ya hypocrite,” Gojyo said. “You still have the gold card? I could use the money for smokes.”
“A stupid idea. But if it’ll keep you out of trouble...” Sanzo took another drag and gazed at Gojyo from under his half-closed eyelids. He pointed into the corner of the office. “Cards are in the cabinet. Thought you were quitting.”
“Can’t do it all at once.” Gojyo went to fetch the cards from the cabinet drawer, and smiled to himself. Being insulted by Sanzo was… it was blissful. He’d missed it. When he returned to the desk, he deliberately crossed to Sanzo’s other side, just so he could grab Sanzo’s shoulder when he slammed the cards down on the desk. To see just how pissed off Sanzo might get at being groped. Sanzo’s bare shoulder was slightly damp from sweat; it was a sticky-hot evening.
Touching Sanzo again was… it was nice, too. A familiar contact.
Sanzo’s gesture as he brushed Gojyo’s hand away was almost languid. “You do have a death wish,” he said, nearly calm.
Sanzo left the cards lying there, so Gojyo shuffled and dealt. He won the first couple of hands, then lost a couple. The usual. They didn’t speak except about the cards.
That began to drive Gojyo nuts after a while. He was with the one person who understood his problems, and the one person he couldn’t seem to talk about them with. Gojyo deserved the whole situation, maybe, because he’d left Hakkai, someone he could tell anything to. Still, Gojyo wanted to unload. Sanzo was the only one here. Shouldn’t Sanzo have changed his attitude about things, about Gojyo, by now? Everyone else had changed.
“So,” Gojyo said, tossing a couple cards face-down and gesturing for more. “You ever gonna ask what happened?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sanzo said, and handed him two cards. Sanzo had begun to tense up: Gojyo knew that rigidity from way back.
“You know what the hell I’m talking about. Don’t pretend you don’t care.”
“I don’t.” There were a few minutes of quiet, except for bet-calling, the demands of the game. Gojyo fumed.
“You’re such a dick,” he finally said.
“I’m sure it was your fault, anyway,” Sanzo retorted, creases marring the smooth skin between his brows.
“It was.”
“I’m not here to absolve you. So shut up.”
“Well, what about you?” Gojyo said, starting to get pissed. “Maybe if you coulda talked to Goku, rather than just telling him outright--”
Sanzo glared and threw his cards on the table. “That’s not your business,” he yelled.
It was just like old times, Gojyo thought. He wanted to clear the air. He wanted… yeah, he wanted to be absolved, or blamed, or something. Anything. “It ain’t? Well, it was my business when he showed up at my fucking house.”
“Well, it’s not your goddamned house anymore, is it, you moron?” Sanzo shouted back. “Shut up and play or get out.”
Sanzo’s fingers were white and gripping the table-edge. His eyes were bright between his narrowed, pale brows; his nostrils were practically flaring. He was truly pissed. It was then that Gojyo realized he didn’t really want a fight. He’d thought he had, but he’d been wrong. It was only making him sick to his stomach.
He’d forgotten the cardinal rule: he and Sanzo got along best when they just didn’t speak, because their views were ‘diametrically opposite.’ At least, that was what Hakkai always used to say. Hakkai. Gojyo reached over and clasped Sanzo’s wrist.
“Don’t bust a vein, man. I’ll drop it. I guess I just got used to talking about things.”
“Hn.” To Gojyo’s everlasting surprise, Sanzo slumped back in his chair. He did shake Gojyo’s fingers from his wrist, however. Then he lit a cigarette and avoided Gojyo’s stare. “It’s over. Shit ends.”
“It’s over,” Gojyo whispered, understanding silently what Sanzo meant. Everything was over, everything they’d just sort of gotten used to. Over, over, over, over-- Gojyo sure wasn’t going to get any hand-holding from Sanzo, was he? Stupid, he’d been stupid again. He sighed. “Yeah. It sure is.”
“Your deal.”
“Fine.”
They played a another hand or two, while Gojyo thought about how it sometimes felt better to not talk at all, if talking brought up bad memories and caused sick stomachs.
When Gojyo stopped worrying, he stated winning again. At one point he figured he’d better quit while he was ahead, but not too far ahead. He scooted his chair back from the desk and stood.
“Welp, better get back to my pallet,” Gojyo said. He was surprised when Sanzo briefly frowned. Then his usual bitchy-grumpy, straight-lipped expression returned.
“Fine,” Sanzo said. He opened a drawer, pulled out a few bills. “Buy yourself some cigarettes with your ill-gotten winnings. Then maybe you’ll stop stealing mine.”
“Thank youuuu,” Gojyo drawled. He felt stupidly happy. “I’ll see if Brother O will let me go into town tomorrow.”
Sanzo threw more bills at him. “Buy me some too, then, while you’re out.”
“Still your errand boy, eh?” Gojyo said, but he didn’t really mind. It meant he’d have to come back, but even not-talking with Sanzo was better than being lonely.
Then he realized that Sanzo understood the same thing. Sanzo wanted him to come back. Sanzo was lonely, too.
It was a night for realizations. Gojyo wondered when he’d started worrying about how Sanzo felt. He wasn’t through worrying about himself, yet.
***
It was mid-August, and about as hot and humid as it was going to get. At least, Sanzo hoped so.
He stood in the shade with a cigarette and cold tea, and watched Gojyo and a gaggle of monks erect a statue of Kannon in one of the temple’s alcoves.
Nominally, Sanzo was supposed to be supervising, but the assistant abbots had the situation well in hand. Besides, it was fucking hotter than hell, Sanzo was cranky, and he couldn’t give two shits about the Merciful Goddess. So he smoked and watched Gojyo. That idiot was sweaty and laughing, making the other initiates laugh with him while they worked. Bastard could fit in just about anywhere, couldn’t he? Sanzo thought. Sanzo had never really cared to do so, but he supposed it was a useful skill.
The workers finally pulled and pushed the fifteen-foot bronze monstrosity upright. Some of the monks bent over to cement it to the pedestal while others just bent and started praying. Whether they were thanking the bitch or asking forgiveness for manhandling her, Sanzo didn’t know or care. He’d met too many gods to face religion with any sort of faith or belief.
Gojyo saluted the statue. As if he felt eyes upon him, he turned and saluted Sanzo as well. Then he ambled over, dropping his robe halfway so that it hung from his waist and his shoulders were bare and gleaming. He did it to annoy the flabby, lazy monks, and to annoy Brother Ozhuan, who always pretended shock at Gojyo’s lack of modesty.
Brother Ozhuan seemed to have gone from being afraid of Gojyo to being half in love with him. It would come as no surprise to Sanzo if that were so; Gojyo was better-looking than any of the baldies, he’d been a terrible sinner from birth and was ripe to be saved, and he would actually make a pretty good Buddhist with a little work. He was certainly better at it than Sanzo-- believe it or not, meditation had seemed to help Gojyo. He’d lost most of that haunted look he’d had when he’d first shown up. He slid more easily into his old sly gaze. That gaze was fixed on Sanzo.
“Gotta hell of a lot of beer in town, today,” Gojyo said, eyeing Sanzo’s cigarette. “It’s on ice, in a secret spot only I know about. I can share it with my brothers, or I can bring it by later, if ya want some.”
Cold beer sounded excellent. Sanzo flicked his cigarette to the dirt and ground it under his sandal.
“Do whatever you want,” he said aloud, Inwardly he knew that Gojyo would bring it by and drink it with him, anyway. Over the last couple of months Gojyo had come by at least a couple nights a week. Sometimes they drank, sometimes they didn’t. They always smoked. They played cards, and if Gojyo had anything to say about the past, he kept it to himself, exactly how Sanzo wanted it.
All these people around, hundreds within the temple compound alone, and still, the only person he socialized with was Gojyo. How had Sanzo ever thought that he would be rid of his little ikkou? They were drawn together, over and over in different combinations, like they all had invisible strings attached to them. Like Hakkai’s connected joke-mittens that he’d given Goku as a gift one winter.
“Whatever I do, I’m showering before dinner,” Gojyo said, and ambled off again.
Sanzo decided that he wanted a shower, also. A cold one, something to banish the infernal heat that was cooking his insides. Part of him wanted to drop his own robes, shed his traditional Sanzo-wear, see what the monks thought of a half-naked head priest wandering about. The thought only tempted him for a second or so: he didn’t want to attract any more attention than he already did.
Savior of Shangri-La.
Ruminating on Gojyo made Sanzo think about the others. Goku had actually dropped by a week before. The visit hadn’t been as uncomfortable as Sanzo might have feared, and he’d been more…content at seeing the monkey than he’d ever expected. Goku was doing well, had a job, had a place. He saw Hakkai a lot. He’d grown up more than ever since leaving Sanzo’s side; had grown up more than any of them, Sanzo suspected. The monkey had surpassed the broken people. Not bad for a kid born from a rock.
Sanzo had not seen Hakkai in quite a while. Sanzo didn’t leave the temple unless he had to, and Hakkai didn’t come because he probably didn’t want to run into Gojyo. Besides, ever since they’d saved the world, or whatever, the Sanbutsushin had released Sanzo from his Sinner-Cho-Hakkai-watching duties.
Despite his earlier statement that he didn’t care, Sanzo had given some thought to the reason why Gojyo and Hakkai had… broken up? Whatever. He figured that it was because they were too much alike. They both needed someone to worry about-- it was the only thing that kept them from feeling sorry for themselves. They’d probably smothered each other half to death with being thoughtful of each other all the time.
Sanzo half-suspected that Gojyo was worrying about him. He looked at Sanzo a lot-- not like he used to when he wanted to yank Sanzo’s chain, but with a calculating or curious gaze. It was annoying. Gojyo was one of those people who made you aware what you looked like. Sanzo resented, a bit, the return of his own conflict at feeling self-conscious in that way. Gojyo had been safe with Hakkai.
No, Gojyo was still safe.
When Sanzo reached his rooms he stripped and jumped into the cool not cold enough shower, and thought about how good that icy beer was going to taste. He ate dinner alone.
Just after dark Gojyo showed up as expected. He didn’t bother to knock, just backed in the door, both arms wrapped around a dripping barrel. The barrel shook a bit as Gojyo kicked off his sandals.
“Don’t spill that on my floor, idiot,” Sanzo greeted him.
“Screw you,” Gojyo replied genially, and plonked the barrel next to Sanzo’s desk. He pried open the lid and pulled out a sweating can of Asahi. He tossed it at Sanzo and pulled one out for himself. Then he pulled up a chair, fell into it, propped his bare feet on Sanzo’s desk and popped the tab. “Hey, it’s fucking stifling in here. Ain’t you in charge? Can’t you order a monk or two to wave palm fronds, or something?”
“Don’t want any monks in here.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gojyo said without irony. He closed his eyes and sucked at his beer. Sanzo watched him, thought again how much he’d changed physically. Not necessarily for the worse. In a lot of ways Gojyo was a different person from the man Sanzo had traveled with, or the one who’d crawled into the temple gates a few months ago.
For one thing, Gojyo was getting an education, even if it was a Buddhist education. Sanzo dug into the neat stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a cut strip of parchment. He waved it at Gojyo.
“Ozhuan tells me you wrote this.”
“Lemme see.” Gojyo grabbed the strip of paper from Sanzo and looked at it. Sanzo had already read it.
As the sun sinks, plants and trees are veiled in mist
While the capital echoes to the bell and drum,
After three chimes of the bell nobody moves;
The streets throughout the city are still.
“That’s mine, all right. Pretty, ain’t it?”
“It’s legible. It can’t be yours.”
“Ha. I’m getting pretty good. Hakkai would be impressed if he could see it.”
Sanzo couldn’t help lifting an eyebrow. It had been a while since Gojyo had mentioned Hakkai aloud to Sanzo.
Somehow encouraged, Gojyo continued after another sip of beer. “I saw him in town. He seems to be doing okay.”
“Nnh,” Sanzo only said, not wanting to hear too much.
“He’s teaching again.”
“He was good at it,” Sanzo said, noncommittal.
“Yeah. We always land on our feet, don’t we?” Gojyo gave his head a short shake and guzzled the rest of his can of beer.
“Hnh,” Sanzo said.
“Well, anyway, hurry up and drink. Gotta finish the beer before it gets warm.” Gojyo pulled out a couple more dripping cans, popped the tab on one and waved the other in Sanzo’s direction.
They were silent for another beer, or two, or three, and another cigarette, or five, each. Nobody had suggested playing cards. Outside the window Sanzo could see a three-quarter moon rising over the outbuildings; they watched it grow above the roofs, white and misty in the humid air. Eventually Gojyo seemed to become bored with it.
“So what else does the good Brother O report about me?” Gojyo asked, voice not slurring but definitely relaxed.
“He says he also caught you with pornography,” Sanzo told him. He’d sunk back into his chair a bit. He felt good. He scratched at his belly behind the desk.
“Oh, that. That shit was here long before me.” Gojyo gestured with his cigarette. “I just found it.”
“You would,” Sanzo said.
“It was good porn, though. Don’t suppose he gave it to you…?”
Sanzo only raised his eyebrow again.
“Didn’t think so,” Gojyo said.
Silence reigned again while they drank with purpose. Sanzo stretched his toes. He remembered Ozhuan bringing the magazine to his office and whispering to Sanzo to beware, because it contained “lewd pictures of females, Master.” He’d expressed disappointment that Gojyo hadn’t managed to conquer those types of physical urges. He’d seemed even more disappointed that the lewd misconduct had involved women. Sanzo supposed he could have told Ozhuan that Gojyo wasn’t choosy about gonads.
Without wanting to in the slightest, he thought about Gojyo and Hakkai, together. He’d had to listen to them going at it, now and again on the road. His stomach muscles shuddered a little.
Gojyo belched, breaking the silence. “That’s gonna be hard. The hardest part, I think. Giving up sex.”
Gojyo was reading his mind. “I wasn’t aware you were giving up anything.”
“I was just following your example. You are the head priest, after all,” Gojyo grinned. He sipped, smoked. “Seriously, though. Forever? No sex, ever? Don’t know how you do it. Never could figure it out.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Sanzo muttered. The conversation was making him uncomfortable. Gojyo had always been too preoccupied with his own prick. Sanzo tried to light a smoke but his hand on the lighter was a little unsteady, and the lighter just didn’t want to work. Gojyo leaned over and lit Sanzo’s cigarette with his Zippo. Sanzo looked up to grunt his thanks, and Gojyo was… staring at him. Leering at him.
“Stop fucking staring at me!”
“I wasn’t fucking staring!” Gojyo retorted. He stared at the wall and drummed his fingers on Sanzo’s desk for a few annoying moments. “Or maybe I was. You never really cared about it.”
Sanzo didn’t answer. He smoked, drank.
“Or did you?” Gojyo sounded genuinely curious.
Sanzo still didn’t answer, just mustered up a glare.
Now Gojyo looked as perturbed as Sanzo felt. “You son of a bitch,” he finally said, around his cigarette.
Sanzo focused on the beer can in front of him, watching the droplets of condensation as they joined and rolled down the cool metal sides. Gojyo jabbed his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk. Sanzo waited for Gojyo to leave.
He was a bit surprised when Gojyo’s hands slapped, palms down, on the desk. He glanced up and Gojyo was close, too close, leaning down until his nose was on a level with Sanzo’s, less than a foot away.
“Well, what?” Gojyo said, and that time he definitely stared. This close, his eyes weren’t just red; they were all sorts of colors.
Sanzo’s brain wasn’t working at full capacity-- he’d drunk to much for that-- so he didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Gojyo was asking.
“Fuck off,” he said.
“No.” Seemingly emboldened by booze, overactive hormones, or the way in which Sanzo hadn’t killed him yet-- or all three, maybe-- Gojyo moved his hand to cover Sanzo’s on the desk. His fingers were cold from holding his beer and warm at the same time. He leaned even closer, eyes only a couple inches away.
Sanzo didn’t move, just stared back. He didn’t try to find his gun because one hand was captured and he had a lit cigarette in his gun-hand, anyway, and he was drunk. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Sanzo almost didn’t see Gojyo move, just felt Gojyo’s mouth on his. He was more stunned than anything else. So he let it happen, just for a bit, because he could always kill Gojyo later. It was insanity: that was the only way to describe it.
Gojyo tasted like Asahi and Hi-Lites. He moaned into Sanzo’s mouth and tilted his head, shoving his tongue between Sanzo’s lips. And he was slow and intent and good, too good, true to all his idiotic boasting. It had to be that, because Sanzo wasn’t attracted to Gojyo, and never had been. He kissed Gojyo back, as best as he knew how, and tried to plan exactly how he was going to kill him.
But Sanzo was too distracted for death-dealing; he became intensely aware of his own body, aware that he was clothesless under his brown night-robe. A stupid decision it seemed, now, though the heat had made it seem like a good idea earlier.
He didn’t stop the insanity until Gojyo tried to climb over the desk, his knee knocking Sanzo’s beer into his lap.
“Fuck,” Sanzo said and jerked away, almost tipping his chair over. Gojyo backed off just as quickly, looking stunned himself and a little guilty.
“Hey, man--”
“Just get the fuck out,” Sanzo growled, and swiped at his beer-wet crotch with a handful of his brown robes. He put out his cigarette, burned down to the filter.
“Hey! I wasn’t the only one-- shit. Fine.” Gojyo backed away a couple more steps, slapping at the air with sharp, disgusted gestures. Then he shoved his feet into his sandals and yanked open the door. He stomped out, whispering shit, shit, shit, shit! as he left.
Sanzo stopped swiping between his legs because… well, because his cock was too interested by the friction, and he wanted to go to bed and he wanted to take it elsewhere and then forget about it.
Gojyo had left his beer barrel. Sanzo snorted a fuck or two, blew out the closest lamp, and stomped the few steps to his sleeping-room. He slid the door shut, dropped his robe and fell sideways, naked, onto his futon. The room only spun a little.
Music was playing somewhere, drifting through the open window with the moonlight. Sanzo tried to think about nothing, to not think about how he’d have to fucking kill Gojyo, because it was too much trouble to think about that right then.
It was harder not to think about Gojyo kissing him. Gojyo had always been too attractive, too earnest, too fucking stupid for his own good. Sanzo’s cock twitched, still interested. Sanzo sighed and slid his hand down, caressing himself with lazy strokes.
He decided he could worry in the morning. He was alone. He had all the time in the world. He thought about how Gojyo’s tongue, his breath had felt, and squeezed his cock a little harder.
He had all the time in the world to be alone, and nobody could tell Sanzo what to-- or not to-- fantasize about, except himself. And he’d lost that inner battle long ago..
***
“Shit.”
Gojyo stopped outside and leaned against the wall to catch his breath. He’d forgotten his beer. And he had a boner.
He was totally hard for Sanzo. He shouldn’t be hard for Sanzo. He loved--
He’d left.
Gojyo lit a smoke, thought for a few moments, let the beer-and-lust-fueled revelations just invade his mind all at once.
Well, he wasn’t in love with Sanzo, anyway. The bastard. But he wasn’t in love with anyone, anymore. Only because he never could be.
Kissing Sanzo had been a fucking stupid thing to do, the sort of half-cocked thing he always did. Still, it had been pretty good. Shockingly good. It had certainly given him the boner without any trouble. Sanzo had liked it, too-- that much had been clear. Sanzo, who’d not even touched his gun, who’d taken to being kissed by Gojyo like an eager--
Gojyo wondered when he’d gotten so comfortable with the asshole priest. Gotten used to being around him, to feeling like he had to keep him company, or wanting to keep him company. He’d always been attracted to Sanzo, fascinated by him, under all the everyday asshole-ishness and animosity, maybe. Well, more than maybe. But Hakkai had always been there and made any other attraction or not-hate useless, not worth thinking about.
Sanzo, with his taking in of losers like himself and his damned amazing, intense face, and his little hups of caught breath when he was kissed and his naked chest all peeping out of his robe--
Gojyo heard something that sounded like the breaths he’d just been remembering. There was music coming from somewhere, but this organic noise was somewhere close.
It was coming from the window above his head. Sanzo’s window. There was a moan.
And that was fueling his boner like nothing else. Shit, Gojyo wanted sex. No, he wanted Sanzo. And maybe Sanzo wanted him, too.
Fuck this “not-talking” about shit. Gojyo had to know for sure.
He dropped his smoke to the ground and stepped on it, then just pushed back in the door. The noises stopped but Gojyo didn’t: he went up the few narrow steps to the other room. He slid the door open.
In the grey moonlight he could see Sanzo, naked on the bed and turned on his side, pulling a sheet over himself. He looked dangerously fuckable.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sanzo growled.
“What the hell do you think?”
Praying Sanzo had left his gun in the other room, Gojyo dropped to his knees on the futon, and then flopped onto Sanzo. Naked, sweaty Sanzo. Who had a hard-on, and who’d totally been jerkin’ off after kissing Gojyo.
“Get the fuck--” Sanzo took a swing but only clipped Gojyo’s ear. His arm ended up behind Gojyo’s head. “Mmph--”
Gojyo took advantage, shut Sanzo up by kissing him again, hard, so hard their lips were mashed into their teeth. To still Sanzo’s hands he shoved his fingers between Sanzo’s thighs and oh yeah, Sanzo wanted him, too. His cock was nice and hard and slick.
Sanzo’s answering high-pitched moan sounded like no but Gojyo ignored it. Sanzo was fully capable of fighting him off, if he really wanted to.
It only took a few short moments of Gojyo working his magic fingers for Sanzo to stop trying to pull Gojyo’s hand away. When Sanzo stopped struggling Gojyo slowed everything down, his hand on that slick flesh, his tongue in Sanzo’s mouth, the crawl of his thigh over Sanzo’s. Gojyo’s pulse, however, only raced higher.
Shit, he wanted the bastard, couldn’t believe how much. Why hadn’t they done this before? Would Gojyo have tried if it hadn’t been for Hakkai? Gojyo didn’t want to think about Hakkai, not right then. Not when he had Sanzo gasping under his fingers.
Sanzo managed to pull his mouth away briefly. “Bastard. Ah--” he mumbled into Gojyo’s forehead.
“Yeah,” Gojyo said, and kissed Sanzo’s chin, his neck, his collarbone, tasting sweat like he’d tasted smoke and beer earlier. “Feels good, don’t it?”
“Arrogant bastard,” Sanzo corrected.
Gojyo gave Sanzo’s cock a nice, hard squeeze, slid his thumb over the slippery head. “Don’t it?” he repeated.
“Shut up,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo whisper-laughed; he got the picture. Don’t gloat and maybe I won’t kill you. Gojyo wanted to get laid, not shot. Shit, it’d been a long time, too long. And Sanzo was too hot, hotter than Gojyo’d ever imagined. ‘Cause maybe, just maybe, he’d imagined Sanzo jerking himself off, all those sexless nights on the road.
Sanzo’s hah-hah-hah-ing of breath reminded Gojyo that he had immediate business to take care of. He stilled his hand for a moment so he could untie his own robe, shift his body, feel skin on skin. Geeze, Sanzo was thin. When Gojyo shoved a knee between Sanzo’s thighs, he could feel every bone, every muscle tense. Sanzo’s eyes were wide.
“What are you-- Wait, you asshole!”
“Shut up and lemme do this,” Gojyo said and rubbed Sanzo’s belly with his palm, felt the nervous up-and-down of his breathing.
“Do what?”
Sanzo was in for a treat. “Gonna help you out in my own special way,” Gojyo said.
“Nnh,” was Sanzo’s reply.
It wasn’t a ‘no.’ Gojyo coaxed Sanzo’s hands up and around his neck, trying to get him to hold on. Then he kissed him again, slow, loving how Sanzo followed his lead, breathed and moved his tongue against Gojyo’s. He was a natural. More passionate than Gojyo had ever expected. Of course, this had been a long time in coming.
Hopefully, Sanzo wouldn’t be. Without making any interesting exploratory detours, Gojyo pulled his mouth off Sanzo’s and scrambled back on his knees, then wrapped his lips around Sanzo’s cock.
The harsh, short gasp he received in return made Gojyo’s hair stand on end. To make it even better, he slipped his tongue in a circle around the tip, tasted salt and flesh and semen. Then he wrapped his fingers around the base, slid the soft skin up and down. Sanzo’s hips twitch-jerked up and he yanked at Gojyo’s hair.
“Ow! Don’t do that, man.”
“Shit,” Sanzo said, but complied, clenching Gojyo’s shoulders instead.
Sanzo moaned when Gojyo licked the underside of his cock, slow and easy. Sanzo had a nice cock, decent-sized, not too thick, pretty. Gojyo had never seen it erect before, or this close. Shit, he loved sex. He loved--
Mmph, Gojyo said, and took it halfway in his mouth again, squeezing the bottom with firm pressure. Maybe, if he was extra good, Sanzo would do this for him, sometime. Gojyo probably moaned but his mouth was full, sucking, licking, sucking harder and lower, until Sanzo’s legs were trembling.
“Stop,” Sanzo groaned, chest heaving, and grabbed Gojyo’s hair again.
Gojyo kept his mouth going but slapped around his own head until he found Sanzo’s hand and extracted it, again, from his hair, then laced his fingers into Sanzo’s and pressed them into the sheets, palm against palm, holding them still.
To Gojyo’s surprise Sanzo didn’t fight it. He was more surprised that Sanzo was holding his hand, clenching Gojyo’s fingers, hard. Come on, Gojyo thought, pressing his hand back. Go ahead…
Sanzo’s breath hissed and his body seized up all over. He said something that sounded like “Muh” and came, hips spasming under Gojyo’s forearm.
Gojyo swallowed, only right since he’d meant for that to happen. He was a pro, he was king, he was so fucking hard he thought it might kill him.
There was an undercurrent of surprised moan to Sanzo’s post-orgasm breathing when Gojyo crawled back up his body and kissed him, showing Sanzo how good he tasted. Sanzo let him, still held onto his hand, buried his other fingers in Gojyo’s hair and opened his mouth, humming low and steady in the back of his throat. It was the mellowest and sexiest that Gojyo had ever seen him.
Fuck, Gojyo was a traitor, he wanted to fuck him, his cock was so hard and throbbing against Sanzo’s belly, but Sanzo wasn’t ready for that, yet, would never be ready in time. Gojyo usually had pretty good control but Sanzo’s flushed, shiny face and wide, staring eyes in the dark-- it was too much, he’d never have time-- Sanzo, it was Sanzo--
“Sanzo,” he whispered into Sanzo’s mouth and grabbed his own dick, jerking himself off against his own fingers and Sanzo’s sweaty belly, shit, it only took less than a minute before he felt the swelling build in his own gut, building to that edge and over--
“Ah!” he coughed and came, hot and sticky into Sanzo’s skin, the sheets, everywhere. Holy hell, but that had felt good. Better than it ever should have. Gojyo flopped down with his head in Sanzo’s shoulder and thought about blacking out.
He only got a couple minutes of heavy-breathing recovery time, however, before Sanzo spoke.
“Now get the fuck off me,” Sanzo said from above Gojyo’s head.
“Wha?” Gojyo mumbled. He was drooling, and the bastard monk’s voice had been almost steady.
Sanzo was yank-shaking Gojyo’s fingers from his and trying to push him off. “I said get the fuck off me.”
“Shit, man.” Gojyo moaned. Obviously the old Sanzo was back, and the mellow, happy Sanzo was gone. What had that been, five minutes, maybe? Gojyo’s pride took a hit.
He rolled off and Sanzo rolled over, facing the other wall in the tiny room. He was using the sheets to wipe himself off. No more hand-holding, no sweet nothings. Well, it was Sanzo, after all. And he’d always had to call the shots, no matter what.
“Don’t you wanna…?” Gojyo started to suggest, hopeful anyway.
“No.” Sanzo’s voice sounded weary and still kinda drunk. “Just… go.”
Gojyo watched Sanzo’s back for a minute, watched his spine moving under the sweaty sheen on his skin.
You and Sanzo work best together when you say the least, he could hear Hakkai’s voice saying. You’re good as a sort of controlled release for each other, sometimes, but things are much more calm when you aren’t. It’s a conundrum.
A conundrum was a puzzle, Hakkai had said. Hakkai, who would talk about shit. What would Hakkai think of this?
Yeah, Gojyo still loved Hakkai. Yeah, he could still take his advice, because it was still good. But Gojyo wanted to stay here, liked it here, wanted to get along with Sanzo. If nothing else.
Controlled release. Huh. Gojyo grunted and rolled up to the balls of his feet, then stood and tied his robe. “See ya,” he said in a low voice as he left. And wondered.
***
Sanzo forced himself to sleep, to not think about anything at all. He was mostly successful. That had actually felt pretty damned good.
***
Gojyo didn’t get an order to leave, nor did he see Sanzo at all the next day. He didn’t go to Sanzo’s rooms that night, not even to fetch what was left of his beer. He tried not to think about what had happened; it had probably been a one-time thing, and was meant to be forgotten.
During the day Ozhuan had him planting shit, flowers or bamboo or something. At night it was back to the scripture, the brush and the ink and the half-unrolled parchment. Was Brother Ozhuan looking at him funny? Gojyo couldn’t tell.
With passions stilled and one’s nature firm, all destinies are in harmony;
When the full moon of contemplation is reached, you will be pure.
Brother Ozhuan said that Gojyo had a natural feel for the characters, that he gave them life. Gojyo wasn’t sure about that; trying to still passions only made him think about passions. Of course Brother O meant all sorts of passion, like anger and fighting and even sadness and whatnot, but to Gojyo, who could still hear Sanzo’s breaths in his ear, it meant bodies, skin, being close to someone.
Gojyo was learning to contemplate, though he would never be pure. Because when he saw Sanzo the day after that in the dining-hall, wearing his full Sanzo-gear and doing the eating prayers-- for the first time in a long time-- Gojyo instantly thought about those robes being off, thought about Sanzo’s bare back, about running his fingers over that knobbly spine as he’d last seen it.
Sanzo caught his gaze and Gojyo was sure Sanzo could read the thoughts behind it. There was no hostility in his stare, though; it was just the usual steady glare. Perhaps it was tinged with… curiosity? Gojyo couldn’t be sure. So he waited and contemplated.
The day after that Gojyo saw Sanzo again. He was standing, arms crossed, outside the building that housed his rooms, and bitching at a baldie who was on his knees. The monk, Brother Ming-tze, had something squealing and wriggling in his arms. Gojyo couldn’t help it; he had to walk over to see what was going on. Just to see what was going on. Really.
“If you have to have a goddamned pet pig, keep it away from my window,” Sanzo was saying. His hair was bright in the mid-day sunlight, and Gojyo remembered how soft it was.
“Yes, Lord. Thank you, Sanzo-sama,” Ming-tze said, over and over, crawling backwards and nodding his head at Sanzo’s mercy. Under the window to Sanzo’s office, Gojyo could see little piles of dirt where there had once been some carefully-arranged, Buddhist-approved azalea.
Sanzo looked up and saw Gojyo. He had that steady stare again, the one that outwardly said nothing but to Gojyo, somehow said that everything was okay. Gojyo grinned, feeling stupidly happy.
“I’m good at planting. I’ve had lots of practice,” Gojyo said to the two of them. “How ‘bout I fix those for you? Sanzo sa-ma.”
Ming-tze looked like he wanted to weep. “Thank you, Brother Gojyo. Thank you,” he said, now bowing to Gojyo.
Sanzo tched. “Do it, then,” he said, and wandered off.
Gojyo turned away to hide his wide smile and went to get the tools. When he returned and knelt in the dirt, arms full of fresh green plants, he could smell cigarette smoke drifting out the window. He dug for a bit. At one point he shrugged off the top of his robe because it was fucking hot and humid and because he wanted Sanzo to get a good look at his nice, gleamy muscles, to let him see what he was missing.
After a few minutes the smell of smoke became stronger. Gojyo wiped sweat out of his eyes and glanced up to see Sanzo standing in the window.
“How’s it look, Master?” he said, trying not to quirk his lips.
“Looks like shit. You gonna water ‘em?”
Gojyo looked down at his admittedly floppy plants. “You still got my beer barrel?”
Sanzo blew a cloud of smoke at him. “I sure as hell wasn’t going to dump it.”
“Then I’ll come in and get it, Sanzo sa-ma.”
Gojyo kicked off his sandals and jumped over the window-sill. Sanzo backed a few steps out of Gojyo’s way, just staring at him. He had his white robes bunched about his waist, those black silk-things hugging his slender frame. Gojyo stared at the slide of his muscles under the tight material and wiggled his bare toes against the floor-matting, thinking about how it might feel to run his fingers over Sanzo’s chest.
Sanzo glared back for a moment or two and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
“You smeared dirt all over your face. You look like an idiot,” Sanzo said.
A conundrum. Gojyo laughed. “Yeah,” he said, and then he was kissing Sanzo again, shoving him up against the desk and tearing at the black silk to feel Sanzo’s sweaty skin underneath, and Sanzo was grabbing his hair and sliding his hand over Gojyo’s back and moaning and oh, shit, it felt good.
There was Gojyo’s beer, cans floating in warm water but he was drunk on Sanzo, the tight, controlled power and poison that was Sanzo. His mouth tasted like the cigarette Gojyo hadn’t had since that morning.
Gojyo clenched Sanzo’s ass and pulled him closer, felt the lack of jeans under Sanzo’s robe, but that was okay because it was too hot for jeans and hell, he’d forgone pants almost since he’d come to Keiun’in, and besides, that way they could rub their dicks together through only two layers of material.
Gojyo was just gonna hump Sanzo there, against the desk. Shit, Sanzo was skinny, but he was stronger than he looked, strong enough to push back, to up that straining-adrenaline struggle that felt so great. His neck tasted great, too, almost as good as his hair smelled. His panting in Gojyo’s ear sounded like pure sex.
Sanzo was saying something.
“What-- ah-- what are you trying to do, idiot?”
“Wanna fuck,” Gojyo said, truthfully, and stuck his tongue in Sanzo’s ear. They were pressed so closely together that he could feel the shudder in every inch of Sanzo’s body, ear to thigh. “C’mon, Sanzo…”
“Not here,” Sanzo grunted, shifting his legs and arms out of Gojyo’s grasp.
Oh yeah. The window, Gojyo realized. He jumped back like he had the night he’d spilled Sanzo’s beer on him and peeked outside; he couldn’t see any monks but getting out of the office was still a good idea.
Sanzo walked with wordless, quick steps to the short stairway that led to his room. Gojyo followed, dropping his robes on the stairs. He’d planned to be equally silent but just couldn’t.
“Do I get to be on top?” he whispered when Sanzo slid the door open.
“Fine,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo's dick flipped a one-eighty; he was almost too thrilled to be surprised. “Really?”
Sanzo stood there, sticking his finger in his ear in his most casually uncaring pose, but Gojyo had watched him for too long and too closely to fall for it. Even in the darkened room he could see the sensual tension in every line of Sanzo’s silhouette. “Too much work for me,” Sanzo said.
“Typical lazy-ass priest,” Gojyo laughed. He slid his hands around Sanzo to begin undressing him from behind.
They got him stripped of just about everything but the arm-covers but Gojyo didn’t care. There was a discussion at some point about whether or not Sanzo had something nearby that would help in the ass-lubrication department and it turned out that Sanzo had some gel he used for easing joint-aches. In his Nirvana-like state of sexual happiness, Gojyo didn’t even make a joke about Sanzo’s age.
It all seemed matter-of-fact but it didn’t feel matter-of-fact, thank Buddha or whoever. Forget the other night; once Gojyo had Sanzo on his back and had his knees hooked over Gojyo’s forearms, and had him all stretched and Gojyo had squeezed his throbbing-alive dick into that tight ass, all was about as wonderfully surreal and felt as amazing as it could get.
Gojyo wanted to move but he also wanted to just rest there, to feel how Sanzo’s body clenched at him with every huh, huh of his expelled breath. To stare into Sanzo’s half-lidded eyes, focused on Gojyo with an intensity he’d never had directed at him before.
Until Sanzo huffed, “Idiot. Are you just gonna sit there…Gojyo?” and his own name, heard so rarely from that mouth, spurred Gojyo’s hips to move, in and out, rocking back and forth to find that sweet spot, to make it as good for Sanzo as it was for Gojyo. And Sanzo was a natural, all right; he just clenched his knees on Gojyo’s arms and let his head fall back and let his own hips roll and swell smoothly under Gojyo’s.
Shit, it felt too good. Gojyo fell forward and buried his nose in the crook of Sanzo’s neck, tasted the heartbeat thumping ferociously under Sanzo’s salty skin, felt Sanzo’s cock mashed and sliding between their sweaty bellies.
“Sanzo,” he whispered, to thank him for saying his name and to thank him for the rub of flesh on flesh, the earthy pleasure that only sex and warm bodies could bring. He wanted to think about nothing but the tight ball of ache that was pressing, growing somewhere between the cool air on his spine and the hot smooth clench on his cock. “Sanzo.”
Gojyo wasn’t in love with Sanzo, maybe. But he could love fucking him; he didn’t have to have a name for it. “Sanzo,” he said again when Sanzo came and he followed in a white-out blur of convulsing release.
Gojyo got a full ten minutes of good, leisurely, thankful, sticky-bodied kissing in before Sanzo threw him out.
***
As the moon sinks, flower shadows climb the rails,
The stars are a jumble of light.
The hours are called,
The night is already half way through.
Over Gojyo’s shoulder Sanzo could see the white flash of the scripture as it fluttered about the floor, caught in a breeze and a strip of moonlight. Gojyo’s excuse for showing up had been that he wanted Sanzo to see his newest Buddhist literary and artistic masterpiece. Yeah, right.
The breeze felt good. The weather had finally gotten cooler. Sanzo was still hot, though, burning through and through as that whole-body ache took over, tightening and building and seeming to go nowhere, only growing.
Gojyo had him up against the wall, was going to shake the building down by pounding into him like living hell. Sanzo had his arms wrapped around Gojyo’s shoulders, his legs around his waist, was holding on, and they were as close as they could get but Gojyo was still trying to go closer, deeper. Gojyo was everywhere, mouth stealing Sanzo’s breath, ramming his dick into Sanzo’s ass, red hair sticking to his face, everywhere. Sanzo held on, let every shove push the hot ache higher, higher, surely it would have to break soon--
Gojyo pulled his tongue from Sanzo’s mouth to urge him on.
“Come on, dammit,” he huffed into Sanzo’s ear. “Hah-- come on, you fucking monk-- Hah, you’re gonna be first, I mean it--”
“Shut up,” Sanzo said and set his teeth on Gojyo’s shoulder, swirled his tongue on the sweaty skin. That shut him up for a little while; Sanzo would come when he was good and ready--
“Shit!” Gojyo’s movements became jerkier, less controlled. “Shit--”
But Gojyo was a cheater; he snaked a hand between them and yanked at Sanzo’s dick a couple of times.
Sanzo broke. He couldn’t help the Ah! that spilled from his throat when the tight build snapped and pushed his body into sharp, spasming release. The next few spiked waves were lost in the haze of Gojyo clenching his ass and jerking into him a few more times, the loud, hoarse groans in his ear, the smell of sex and sweat. They both shuddered a bit, then were still. Sanzo unlocked his ankles from Gojyo’s back and Gojyo half-dropped, half-let him slide down the wall.
Once Sanzo caught his breath he crawled over and fetched his cigarettes from the nightstand. Somewhere behind him Gojyo was digging for his own smokes. Sanzo couldn’t find his lighter. Gojyo found his and Sanzo could see the flash of the yellow-orange flame and then the red-cherry light of Gojyo’s cigarette. Fucker had lit his own cigarette first. He tossed the Zippo at Sanzo.
Sanzo lit, inhaled, leaned against the wall, listened to their huffs of breath as they returned to normal, then the moonlit near-silence, the quiet whistle of the cool breeze through the window.
At some point Gojyo chuckled. “Shit, Sanzo. Don’t remember ever fucking anyone like that before.”
“Hn.” Sanzo certainly couldn’t remember anything exactly like it. As it had turned out, one of the benefits of having Gojyo around. “Next time it’s you.”
“You always promise.”
Sanzo hnhed again. He felt pretty good. He smoked, and speculated briefly. It was pretty easy to fall into a routine, but this wasn’t one he particularly minded. Sometime he might switch things up, if Gojyo was around, and if he felt like it. Sanzo called the shots, as always. If Gojyo was still around. It didn’t seem like he was leaving any time soon. But, one never knew.
Gojyo still pissed him off, now and then. A lot, if truth were told. But he stayed away when it rained.
“Goku came by looking for you today,” Sanzo informed him.
He got the expected reaction: Gojyo sat up straight and glared at him across the dark room. “You’re shitting me! Why didn’t you send someone to get me?”
“Turns out he didn’t need you after all,” Sanzo said, hiding a smirk behind another drag from his smoke.
Gojyo banged the back of his head against the wall and pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes with his fingers. He uttered a short laugh. “Asshole.”
Sanzo never much liked talking about things, but Gojyo had been pretty well-behaved lately. Sanzo saw to that. Still, he wondered just how much Gojyo knew.
“Seems he spends a lot of time with Hakkai…”
“Yeah, I know,” Gojyo sighed and swiped at his hair again. “I saw Hakkai in town a couple of days ago. Suppose I should be glad… Nah, I am glad.”
“Luckily for you,” Sanzo said.
Gojyo didn’t say anything to that. The cherry on his cigarette glowed brightly, faded, glowed and faded as he smoked. He bent over to pick up the scripture that was flapping about his bare feet. As usual, he couldn’t stay silent for long.
“Did you read the whole thing? Or I suppose you already know it,” Gojyo said, and read aloud. “‘Pure is the monastery as the reed smoke curls in the breeze; Men disappear in the butterfly dream.’ Hah. Butterfly dream. I think I get it. You Buddhists know some strange shit.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Sanzo said.
“Nope,” Gojyo said, and opened his fingers, letting the paper flutter away in the breeze. “It lasts while it lasts.”
END.
Thanks for reading! This one took me a while to get it where I wanted it, and I'm always trying to improve my writing, so comments, concrit, flames, a hello, all are much appreciated.
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Date: 2008-08-18 08:18 am (UTC)...
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You beautifully described Sanzo and Gojyo's relationship (and come on, the SMEX was damn hot too LOL)!!! I also love the title XD
>> adding to memories!!!
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Date: 2008-08-18 12:06 pm (UTC)I guess the fact that it got such an emotional rise out of me speaks for the piece itself. Wonderful work! Perfectly in character... kudos!
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Date: 2008-08-19 02:43 am (UTC)Thanks so very much. :) You are very kind (and nothing wrong with sappy).
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Date: 2008-08-19 02:42 am (UTC)