3: This is how you remind me
-------------------
I love to wear my work inside of my head
I can't complain
But you should never react
The way you did.
I feel your time.
~Just Another/ P.Yorn~
-------------------
They always fought. She hated it when they fought. They always shouted at each other, they always threw things against the wall---and when it really got bad they threw things at each other and accidentally hit each other. He would be like a stormcloud in the small room, dark and hostile and angry, She would be pale and cold and shouting. Anger was a static feeling in the air she had come to know all her life, burning and churning the spaces between.
All through the night, it happened; sleep only came rather hesitantly and never long enough to take her away from it. From her father's frustrated negations, his angry words stumbling over pent-up and rushing emotions flooding through the gates of anger, forming incoherent gibberish when they would have shaken the heavens otherwise. From her mother's refusal to stand down; her stubborn claim of righteousness in the face of her own confusion.
"She is not of demon blood!"
"Then explain why she has--"
"THAT does NOT come from my blood line. Why don't you consider checking yours? Or is it so ingrained in your /personality/ that blood pales in comparison?"
"Don't speak to me of riddles, you liar."
"I never lied to you!"
"Then explain--"
"I told all the gods' honest truth when I took you for my wife--"
"Demons do not believe in truth!!!"
She would always wake up when her mother shouted. And it was always those words that he would hit her, that she would hit him with something in return. They always fought. She hated it when they fought. And worse, when the sun came up, they would cease, and yet keep the ice thick around them.
//No more fighting.//
============
Gojyo ambled down the stairs the next morning, and saw the girl off. It was strange how he had looked at her as some "hot and fuckable" thing last night, and now, in the light of day, he felt like meeting her for the first time: Her brown eyes seemed more soulful--more 'innocent' if it could be the proper word used for one like her--and her movements were like a shy young girl's, oblivious to the birds and the bees.
"Thank you," she said softly when he pressed the bills[1] in her hand as she walked out the tavern doorway.
He amazed himself by actually replying in a courteous tone, "Don't mention it... thank YOU. Mika-chan, wasn't it?"
She nodded and smiled as she went out, turning to wave at him when she was about to turn the corner. Usually he was up for a second round, up in is bedroom and sleeping in until it was time to go out and find another one; or she would be gone the moment he would awake, or she would go about coldly arranging her things and demanding money in a very, well, whore-ish manner.
He was therefore convinced that it was a dusk-til-dawn thing with the girls in this town, irrisistable sirens at night, placid and well-mannered ladies during the day. //It must be the makeup or the heat or something.//
As he made his way up the stairs quietly (he had no shoes on, and the wooden plank floor felt nice on his bare feet) the door beside his room opened and a yawning Sanzo emerged, dressed in a spare linen shirt that promoted comfort in the hot weather of the day. It was somewhat refreshing to see him dressed in something else, something more... human, and not godly, holy, 'omi toh foh' clergyman. The monk was rather sleepy-eyed and he yawned, for a moment looking like a sleepless young schoolboy after a night of playing midnight catch.
The kappa blinked, realization dawning on him slowly. The room he and the girl had slept in wasn't his. He now remembered, with a brain that was both sober and rational, that his commissioned room was further down the hall beside the monkey's. Caught in the fury of a storm of lust in a semi-drunken state, he had entered the first door he could get open. He had assumed it was a free room; nobody had beaten him out with a chair leg, so he obliged.
Oh, /sh~IT./
Which meant sleeping in the room beside the fastidious monk. Fastidious //prude// monk, he added to himself, trying to supress his---embarrassment? Why would he be ashamed of Sanzo hearing his actions? Fear? What would the monk do that he had not already done besides successfully putting a bullet through his head?
"Oohayo, Sanzo-sama." Well, it was always easier to slip back to the smooth operator tone. He was hoping the monk had a good night's rest last night, and that if he was a *little* bit disturbed he would find it in his holy heart to forgive. And a morning greeting never hurt anybody. Yet.
The mouth snapped shut at the sound of his voice, and purple eyes ringed slightly around the corners like a light bruise stared at him owlishly for several moments, whereupon they narrowed customarily and shot slivers of ice in his direction. Apparently the monk had not slept well, and he had not been forgiven.
"Great day, ne?" the kappa tried to joke. Sanzo opened his mouth to say something, struggled for a while, and then closed it. He did not want to say something he would regret later, something that would reveal just how /affected/ he was.
"Tch," he settled for a reply, and stalked down the stairs, elbowing the other roughly on the way. He didn't have a single cig since the last one burned the night before, and he was going on a frighteningly low fuse. If the kappa said anything else, he would punch the bastard right then and there. What kept him perhaps, was the fact that he did not want to embarrass himself while other people looked on.
Wisely Gojyo said nothing, and watched in bewilderment as the blonde head disappeared below the staircase. "Oh boy, he's going to be a prick today," he murmured to himself. A passing young maid carrying a broom eyed him strangely, before continuing on with her work.
============
He was sitting on a field of poppies, and the tickly things kept blowing in his face making him sneeze whenever the wind blew his way. The sky above him was blue, and cloudless; for miles around all he could see were rolling plains and flowers of every color dancing in the summer breeze.
"Hey, what are you waiting for? Sa~ru-cha~n. Hee."
He turned to the direction of the voice. The figure was further away now, and he could make out the flowing robes and the mirth in the very, very familiar eyes. He wondered where he had seen them before. The figure called out a second time, childish impatience and excitement causing him to stand up and squint at the direction the figure was pointing.
"The raspberry orchards are just across the meadow. They're very pretty, and nobody will bother us there. Hurry!" The figure turned and ran across the grass, laughing. He scrambled up to follow and was about to call out to the figure to wait, he was going too fast, when something flashed before him.
Empty blue eyes pierced his own with a sadness incomparable. With a sad shake of her head, "No," and a finger on his lip, the world swallowed him up.
=============
"How is he."
Hakkai looked up from where he sat playing solitaire on the coffee table beside Goku. "He's going to be okay, I suppose. The old man was right; just a little feverish. Delerious sometimes, but it's normal." The amicable swindler reached a hand to ruffle the soundly sleeping boy's head. The little dragon Jeep was curled around the foot of the bed, his beady red eyes flicking open once to note the presence of the monk before it closed shut once more. "Like I said, he should be okay tomorrow."
"Hn." He tossed his blonde head lightly toward the window where a breeze shifted the leaves of the olives outside the window. "I don't understand how any one place can be so hot," he mused to himself. He saw Hakkai nod at the corner of his eye.
"Hai. It's almost searing, no? Whew." Green eyes blinked as they noticed the slight rings around glaring purple eyes staring off out the window. "Hey--Sanzo..." He cleared his throat embarrassedly when the monk looked at him questioningly. "Goku. He should be okay tomorrow."
The monk sniffed softly in disdain. As when he talked with Hakkai, no elaboration was needed. But he understood perfectly well what the latter meant. "I want him to carry his business elsewhere." A slight snarl in his voice.
Green eyes regarded him seriously. "Oh, but he can't. You know that." Of course, thought the monk harshly. He knew that. They had made a deal---all four of them---to always end up in the same place where they were to spend the night irregardless of where they had gone. With a dangerous mission on their shoulders and a brigand of demons and wayward gods too happy to derail them from their objective, it was a reasonable enough deal. "I take it it wasn't a very 'silent night'?"
"Tch." he pulled out a slim cylinder from the pack he'd bought from the newspaper girl on the corner. He respectfully kept to the open window so as not to let the smoke hang in the room. "Sleeping in the room beside the noisiest porn movie in the world, /no/ it wasn't particularly /quiet/." He took a deep drag. The flavor was rather dry, bland, and somewhat stale, but coming from a town like this one, it was expected. Still, a cig was a cig nonetheless.
This made Hakkai laugh out loud, slightly startling the slumbering Jeep. "It's been particularly stressful. Gomenasai, though." Did he hint some sort of amusement the smiling man hid in his apologetic tone? Amused at him being /bothered/ by the other's late-night debauchery?
"Tch," he snorted again indifferently, showing off perfect nonchalance. He flicked ash on the sill before he turned to leave. "Just make sure the damn monkey heals fast enough so we can get out of here."
He closed the door behind him and did not hear the soft, almost inaudible chuckle that escaped the amused Hakkai.
==============
It was inevitable, really. It was a small town, it was a small tavern, and there were only four of them save the old weaving lady who stayed down the corridor and the scowling merchant with the skinny donkey. There was only one bar, there was only one kitchen, and the dining space was cozy, tight, empty.
It was inevitable that he would have to face the short-tempered monk who obviously had a good memory for any minor offense on his person. What did one do when one offended Sanzo? One apologized. From afar, of course, lest he change his mind and be rather vindictive to decide to put a bullet through your head.
Oh, but he wasn't like that. If it had been a foolish gag, naturally he would have taken that course of action. But he was entitled to his own pleasures wasn't he? It was just an /accident/ that he had stumbled in the room beside Sanzo's. But he had been at fault, he knew. Or at least, that's what peacemaker Hakkai told him.
//Go apologize to Sanzo. He didn't particularly like being an indirect spectator of your, er... pasttimes. Go apologize.//
//Well it isn't my fault. Anyway it's not as if he doesn't know how those things work just because he's a monk. I'm willing to bet--//
//Gojyo, we have enough problems already.// A put-upon sigh and a gentle pat on the feverish Goku's forehead. //
So he went up to apologize.
The monk had his back to him and was sitting on one of the barstools reading the newspaper. One hand nursed a cup of tea. It was still too early for a hard drink. It wasn't completely dark outside anyway, and he figured 'Mika-chan' and her friends were still prepping themselves up.
He sat one stool away from the monk. Just to be safe. The bartender came around and he ordered two rounds. When the drinks came he slid one over to his companion, a peace offering. Which was ignored.
"Oi."
"Fuck off, kappa." A pissed snarl.
He had half-expected to be ignored anyway. Sanzo was very good at that. Of making you feel like you didn't exist. He was also very good at making you wish you were talking to someone else. So he mentally took a deep breath and surged on. "Listen, sorry for last night. I'm aware that the monkey did something stupid again, so Hakkai has to go nurse him back to health. Really didn't mean it."
"Mean what, whoring out, or keeping half the town awake with the animal noises you and your bitch were making? I wonder why you don't get anything from all that pimping up to now."
He sat stunned. Just as he had planned to be nice and serious and for once sincerely meaning what he said, and Sanzo had to embarass him in front of everyone. The bartender clearned his throat embarassedly and went to the backroom, while two other patrons ducked to their drinks and hid their faces.
"Hey that's going too far." His voice had raised a bit. He knew he had to raise it. In arguments like these---and there hadn't been a few between both of them---Sanzo either hit him soundly or ignored him completely to make a fool of himself. Well he was /not/ backing down. "I'm sorry. There. I apologized already, hadn't I?" He had meant it too.
"If you're planning to look stupid all night, don't talk to me. Go take your exercises somewhere else." The monk emptied his tea which was still quite hot and tipped the clay pot beside him roughly to refill his cup with the very warm green liquid. A wine-colored eyebrow rose at the rash act.
"You know, Sanzo-sama, another way of getting rid of fear is to face it." He decided a different tactic this time. If being nice and rational didn't work, then he would have no choice but to slip back to being 'annoying'. "I invited you to come join me last night and maybe I'll give you a re-education about what it is I do. Maybe, once you get to actually know what it is like, you'll..." He would what? Like it? Was there something even remotely human inside that cold-marble statuette with amethyst eyes?
They tore towards him now, stunning and shimmering in the dusk light. Furious, annoyed, confused, relatively deciding to smack him upside in the face. Confused...? The only other time the kappa had seen that look on the other's eyes was when Sanzo was drunk. Tea did /not/ induce drunkenness. So maybe what /he'd said/ did? Before he could stop it, a grin crept up the side of his face at the thought.
"Shut up and stay away, kappa. Do me a favor and stay the fuck away." Did he sense desperation in the tone? Oh, it was dripping with ice, that was for sure. But plum eyes flickered for the tiniest bit before the ice sought to cover it. Aha. He /was/ affected.
"That's precisely what I'm going to do after I get my catch for tonight, sire." Reaching out, he tossed his shot back and purred at the burning sensation in his throat. Fixing glazed but piercing eyes at the rigid monk, he continued, "I think I'm feeling generous tonght, so I'll bring you a little take-home present too. I prefer mine to be fiesty. Sometimes they can be such lousy bitches when they know it's your first time. Or you could share with me. What would /YOU/ li--"
*smack*
His eyes riveted toward the open door as his head snapped sideways from the blow. A stinging sensation spread from the side of his face as the metal ring of the armwarmer connected with his cheekbone. It took him a few seconds to regain his composure. With it came a blossoming anger that welled up from deep inside him.
He turned to face the monk slowly, noting the look of almost-surprise mar the livid man. Like the other did not know what he just did. //You nearly broke my face, goddamn you.//
"You're full of goddamn shit, you know that."
"Not half as an asshole as you are," Sanzo spat back, recoiling somewhat as if to tell him that 'there's more where that came from.' Oh he so wanted, /wanted/ to grab the pot of hot tea and crash it over his haughty blonde head. Maybe press it against the worn wood of the bar until the proud bastard apologized.
It was a near comical irony of the situation. Him coming over to apologize in the very first place. And now this. "Taa, look at his majesty squirm," he couldn't help but snipe sarcastically as he rubbed his cheek softly. "Resulting to violence to affirm yourself because you've got nothing to say, ne? Typical of you."
He gave the monk a chance to speak but the other just sat there, livid, angry, /accused/....
//and guilty// he thought smugly. He decided to take it one more step, the sadistic, victorious part of him not content with just cracking glass but feeling the jagged edges underfoot. He wasn't really thinking rationally, all he knew was that he was very angry, and he wanted to unseat the monk from his high and mighty mountaintop by making him as uncomfortable as he could.
It was as if, if all the abuse he had taken from Sanzo compounded into this one moment of revenge, he would gladly do anything to acquisience his battered pride. Rational thought humbly stood aside and smiled bemusedly.
He brushed against Sanzo suddenly as he passed his way to the door. The smell of sandalwood[2] only fuelled his malicious little revenging side, drinking in how light golden hairs at the back of a very stiff neck stood on end at his breath. He laid a hand on the monk's rigid shoulder. "I told you it's not healthy, Sanzo-*sa~ma*," he drawled out deliberately. "By the way, good luck on playing 'god', I'm giving it a C+ so far." He reached out to squeeze a tense hand , the hand that smacked him in the face.
Casually lighting his cigarette as he strolled out the door, the kappa disappeared into the early dusk, eager to be anywhere else but the bar. It would disturb him later on, as he was getting up and fixing himself after a quite satisfying bout with his two new 'friends', how he had managed to pull off such a stint back at the bar and not get decapitated for his efforts.
And that, after all he had been through in that frenzied, reckless copulation, his hand---the hand that touched the stone 'god'---still smelled of sandalwood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tsuzuku
notes: Fixed the Chinese thingy in chapter 2. Arigatou, tensaispira, and Rook ^_^. I can write Chinese characters but I barely speak them. Strange no? But then again, Kira is always strange... Do you know how vexing the anti NC-17 rating is? *sharpens stake* I believe it's the responsibility of the reader to choose the stories he/she reads. True, there are really dark, really disturbing and freaky ones (freaker than a TOOL video... though I liked it, sorta...) that deserve to be chloroformed once in a while, but isn't that another way to 'free your soul'? *points at FF.net ad* *frowns* Yeah, /WHATEVER./ (Kira is ranting. Obviously I haven't had a cup of good SB coffee in the past 12 hours so...feel the lunacy.)
[1]I don't think they ALL depend on Sanzo for money. Maybe the big inn finances, yeah. I'm willing to bet that, like any good traveller, Gojyo has his own 'stash' for 'private purposes'. ;j
[2] My brother's room. It smells like sandalwood. I like it. It's... masculine, not quite sweet, but rather intriguing...very Sanzo-ish ne? I was thinking 'lemons' but... Need a nice, woodland smell for this guy. There's another fic describing sandalwood smell on the monk too... and I liked how it turned out--I forgot what title it was?
-------------------
I love to wear my work inside of my head
I can't complain
But you should never react
The way you did.
I feel your time.
~Just Another/ P.Yorn~
-------------------
They always fought. She hated it when they fought. They always shouted at each other, they always threw things against the wall---and when it really got bad they threw things at each other and accidentally hit each other. He would be like a stormcloud in the small room, dark and hostile and angry, She would be pale and cold and shouting. Anger was a static feeling in the air she had come to know all her life, burning and churning the spaces between.
All through the night, it happened; sleep only came rather hesitantly and never long enough to take her away from it. From her father's frustrated negations, his angry words stumbling over pent-up and rushing emotions flooding through the gates of anger, forming incoherent gibberish when they would have shaken the heavens otherwise. From her mother's refusal to stand down; her stubborn claim of righteousness in the face of her own confusion.
"She is not of demon blood!"
"Then explain why she has--"
"THAT does NOT come from my blood line. Why don't you consider checking yours? Or is it so ingrained in your /personality/ that blood pales in comparison?"
"Don't speak to me of riddles, you liar."
"I never lied to you!"
"Then explain--"
"I told all the gods' honest truth when I took you for my wife--"
"Demons do not believe in truth!!!"
She would always wake up when her mother shouted. And it was always those words that he would hit her, that she would hit him with something in return. They always fought. She hated it when they fought. And worse, when the sun came up, they would cease, and yet keep the ice thick around them.
//No more fighting.//
============
Gojyo ambled down the stairs the next morning, and saw the girl off. It was strange how he had looked at her as some "hot and fuckable" thing last night, and now, in the light of day, he felt like meeting her for the first time: Her brown eyes seemed more soulful--more 'innocent' if it could be the proper word used for one like her--and her movements were like a shy young girl's, oblivious to the birds and the bees.
"Thank you," she said softly when he pressed the bills[1] in her hand as she walked out the tavern doorway.
He amazed himself by actually replying in a courteous tone, "Don't mention it... thank YOU. Mika-chan, wasn't it?"
She nodded and smiled as she went out, turning to wave at him when she was about to turn the corner. Usually he was up for a second round, up in is bedroom and sleeping in until it was time to go out and find another one; or she would be gone the moment he would awake, or she would go about coldly arranging her things and demanding money in a very, well, whore-ish manner.
He was therefore convinced that it was a dusk-til-dawn thing with the girls in this town, irrisistable sirens at night, placid and well-mannered ladies during the day. //It must be the makeup or the heat or something.//
As he made his way up the stairs quietly (he had no shoes on, and the wooden plank floor felt nice on his bare feet) the door beside his room opened and a yawning Sanzo emerged, dressed in a spare linen shirt that promoted comfort in the hot weather of the day. It was somewhat refreshing to see him dressed in something else, something more... human, and not godly, holy, 'omi toh foh' clergyman. The monk was rather sleepy-eyed and he yawned, for a moment looking like a sleepless young schoolboy after a night of playing midnight catch.
The kappa blinked, realization dawning on him slowly. The room he and the girl had slept in wasn't his. He now remembered, with a brain that was both sober and rational, that his commissioned room was further down the hall beside the monkey's. Caught in the fury of a storm of lust in a semi-drunken state, he had entered the first door he could get open. He had assumed it was a free room; nobody had beaten him out with a chair leg, so he obliged.
Oh, /sh~IT./
Which meant sleeping in the room beside the fastidious monk. Fastidious //prude// monk, he added to himself, trying to supress his---embarrassment? Why would he be ashamed of Sanzo hearing his actions? Fear? What would the monk do that he had not already done besides successfully putting a bullet through his head?
"Oohayo, Sanzo-sama." Well, it was always easier to slip back to the smooth operator tone. He was hoping the monk had a good night's rest last night, and that if he was a *little* bit disturbed he would find it in his holy heart to forgive. And a morning greeting never hurt anybody. Yet.
The mouth snapped shut at the sound of his voice, and purple eyes ringed slightly around the corners like a light bruise stared at him owlishly for several moments, whereupon they narrowed customarily and shot slivers of ice in his direction. Apparently the monk had not slept well, and he had not been forgiven.
"Great day, ne?" the kappa tried to joke. Sanzo opened his mouth to say something, struggled for a while, and then closed it. He did not want to say something he would regret later, something that would reveal just how /affected/ he was.
"Tch," he settled for a reply, and stalked down the stairs, elbowing the other roughly on the way. He didn't have a single cig since the last one burned the night before, and he was going on a frighteningly low fuse. If the kappa said anything else, he would punch the bastard right then and there. What kept him perhaps, was the fact that he did not want to embarrass himself while other people looked on.
Wisely Gojyo said nothing, and watched in bewilderment as the blonde head disappeared below the staircase. "Oh boy, he's going to be a prick today," he murmured to himself. A passing young maid carrying a broom eyed him strangely, before continuing on with her work.
============
He was sitting on a field of poppies, and the tickly things kept blowing in his face making him sneeze whenever the wind blew his way. The sky above him was blue, and cloudless; for miles around all he could see were rolling plains and flowers of every color dancing in the summer breeze.
"Hey, what are you waiting for? Sa~ru-cha~n. Hee."
He turned to the direction of the voice. The figure was further away now, and he could make out the flowing robes and the mirth in the very, very familiar eyes. He wondered where he had seen them before. The figure called out a second time, childish impatience and excitement causing him to stand up and squint at the direction the figure was pointing.
"The raspberry orchards are just across the meadow. They're very pretty, and nobody will bother us there. Hurry!" The figure turned and ran across the grass, laughing. He scrambled up to follow and was about to call out to the figure to wait, he was going too fast, when something flashed before him.
Empty blue eyes pierced his own with a sadness incomparable. With a sad shake of her head, "No," and a finger on his lip, the world swallowed him up.
=============
"How is he."
Hakkai looked up from where he sat playing solitaire on the coffee table beside Goku. "He's going to be okay, I suppose. The old man was right; just a little feverish. Delerious sometimes, but it's normal." The amicable swindler reached a hand to ruffle the soundly sleeping boy's head. The little dragon Jeep was curled around the foot of the bed, his beady red eyes flicking open once to note the presence of the monk before it closed shut once more. "Like I said, he should be okay tomorrow."
"Hn." He tossed his blonde head lightly toward the window where a breeze shifted the leaves of the olives outside the window. "I don't understand how any one place can be so hot," he mused to himself. He saw Hakkai nod at the corner of his eye.
"Hai. It's almost searing, no? Whew." Green eyes blinked as they noticed the slight rings around glaring purple eyes staring off out the window. "Hey--Sanzo..." He cleared his throat embarrassedly when the monk looked at him questioningly. "Goku. He should be okay tomorrow."
The monk sniffed softly in disdain. As when he talked with Hakkai, no elaboration was needed. But he understood perfectly well what the latter meant. "I want him to carry his business elsewhere." A slight snarl in his voice.
Green eyes regarded him seriously. "Oh, but he can't. You know that." Of course, thought the monk harshly. He knew that. They had made a deal---all four of them---to always end up in the same place where they were to spend the night irregardless of where they had gone. With a dangerous mission on their shoulders and a brigand of demons and wayward gods too happy to derail them from their objective, it was a reasonable enough deal. "I take it it wasn't a very 'silent night'?"
"Tch." he pulled out a slim cylinder from the pack he'd bought from the newspaper girl on the corner. He respectfully kept to the open window so as not to let the smoke hang in the room. "Sleeping in the room beside the noisiest porn movie in the world, /no/ it wasn't particularly /quiet/." He took a deep drag. The flavor was rather dry, bland, and somewhat stale, but coming from a town like this one, it was expected. Still, a cig was a cig nonetheless.
This made Hakkai laugh out loud, slightly startling the slumbering Jeep. "It's been particularly stressful. Gomenasai, though." Did he hint some sort of amusement the smiling man hid in his apologetic tone? Amused at him being /bothered/ by the other's late-night debauchery?
"Tch," he snorted again indifferently, showing off perfect nonchalance. He flicked ash on the sill before he turned to leave. "Just make sure the damn monkey heals fast enough so we can get out of here."
He closed the door behind him and did not hear the soft, almost inaudible chuckle that escaped the amused Hakkai.
==============
It was inevitable, really. It was a small town, it was a small tavern, and there were only four of them save the old weaving lady who stayed down the corridor and the scowling merchant with the skinny donkey. There was only one bar, there was only one kitchen, and the dining space was cozy, tight, empty.
It was inevitable that he would have to face the short-tempered monk who obviously had a good memory for any minor offense on his person. What did one do when one offended Sanzo? One apologized. From afar, of course, lest he change his mind and be rather vindictive to decide to put a bullet through your head.
Oh, but he wasn't like that. If it had been a foolish gag, naturally he would have taken that course of action. But he was entitled to his own pleasures wasn't he? It was just an /accident/ that he had stumbled in the room beside Sanzo's. But he had been at fault, he knew. Or at least, that's what peacemaker Hakkai told him.
//Go apologize to Sanzo. He didn't particularly like being an indirect spectator of your, er... pasttimes. Go apologize.//
//Well it isn't my fault. Anyway it's not as if he doesn't know how those things work just because he's a monk. I'm willing to bet--//
//Gojyo, we have enough problems already.// A put-upon sigh and a gentle pat on the feverish Goku's forehead. //
So he went up to apologize.
The monk had his back to him and was sitting on one of the barstools reading the newspaper. One hand nursed a cup of tea. It was still too early for a hard drink. It wasn't completely dark outside anyway, and he figured 'Mika-chan' and her friends were still prepping themselves up.
He sat one stool away from the monk. Just to be safe. The bartender came around and he ordered two rounds. When the drinks came he slid one over to his companion, a peace offering. Which was ignored.
"Oi."
"Fuck off, kappa." A pissed snarl.
He had half-expected to be ignored anyway. Sanzo was very good at that. Of making you feel like you didn't exist. He was also very good at making you wish you were talking to someone else. So he mentally took a deep breath and surged on. "Listen, sorry for last night. I'm aware that the monkey did something stupid again, so Hakkai has to go nurse him back to health. Really didn't mean it."
"Mean what, whoring out, or keeping half the town awake with the animal noises you and your bitch were making? I wonder why you don't get anything from all that pimping up to now."
He sat stunned. Just as he had planned to be nice and serious and for once sincerely meaning what he said, and Sanzo had to embarass him in front of everyone. The bartender clearned his throat embarassedly and went to the backroom, while two other patrons ducked to their drinks and hid their faces.
"Hey that's going too far." His voice had raised a bit. He knew he had to raise it. In arguments like these---and there hadn't been a few between both of them---Sanzo either hit him soundly or ignored him completely to make a fool of himself. Well he was /not/ backing down. "I'm sorry. There. I apologized already, hadn't I?" He had meant it too.
"If you're planning to look stupid all night, don't talk to me. Go take your exercises somewhere else." The monk emptied his tea which was still quite hot and tipped the clay pot beside him roughly to refill his cup with the very warm green liquid. A wine-colored eyebrow rose at the rash act.
"You know, Sanzo-sama, another way of getting rid of fear is to face it." He decided a different tactic this time. If being nice and rational didn't work, then he would have no choice but to slip back to being 'annoying'. "I invited you to come join me last night and maybe I'll give you a re-education about what it is I do. Maybe, once you get to actually know what it is like, you'll..." He would what? Like it? Was there something even remotely human inside that cold-marble statuette with amethyst eyes?
They tore towards him now, stunning and shimmering in the dusk light. Furious, annoyed, confused, relatively deciding to smack him upside in the face. Confused...? The only other time the kappa had seen that look on the other's eyes was when Sanzo was drunk. Tea did /not/ induce drunkenness. So maybe what /he'd said/ did? Before he could stop it, a grin crept up the side of his face at the thought.
"Shut up and stay away, kappa. Do me a favor and stay the fuck away." Did he sense desperation in the tone? Oh, it was dripping with ice, that was for sure. But plum eyes flickered for the tiniest bit before the ice sought to cover it. Aha. He /was/ affected.
"That's precisely what I'm going to do after I get my catch for tonight, sire." Reaching out, he tossed his shot back and purred at the burning sensation in his throat. Fixing glazed but piercing eyes at the rigid monk, he continued, "I think I'm feeling generous tonght, so I'll bring you a little take-home present too. I prefer mine to be fiesty. Sometimes they can be such lousy bitches when they know it's your first time. Or you could share with me. What would /YOU/ li--"
*smack*
His eyes riveted toward the open door as his head snapped sideways from the blow. A stinging sensation spread from the side of his face as the metal ring of the armwarmer connected with his cheekbone. It took him a few seconds to regain his composure. With it came a blossoming anger that welled up from deep inside him.
He turned to face the monk slowly, noting the look of almost-surprise mar the livid man. Like the other did not know what he just did. //You nearly broke my face, goddamn you.//
"You're full of goddamn shit, you know that."
"Not half as an asshole as you are," Sanzo spat back, recoiling somewhat as if to tell him that 'there's more where that came from.' Oh he so wanted, /wanted/ to grab the pot of hot tea and crash it over his haughty blonde head. Maybe press it against the worn wood of the bar until the proud bastard apologized.
It was a near comical irony of the situation. Him coming over to apologize in the very first place. And now this. "Taa, look at his majesty squirm," he couldn't help but snipe sarcastically as he rubbed his cheek softly. "Resulting to violence to affirm yourself because you've got nothing to say, ne? Typical of you."
He gave the monk a chance to speak but the other just sat there, livid, angry, /accused/....
//and guilty// he thought smugly. He decided to take it one more step, the sadistic, victorious part of him not content with just cracking glass but feeling the jagged edges underfoot. He wasn't really thinking rationally, all he knew was that he was very angry, and he wanted to unseat the monk from his high and mighty mountaintop by making him as uncomfortable as he could.
It was as if, if all the abuse he had taken from Sanzo compounded into this one moment of revenge, he would gladly do anything to acquisience his battered pride. Rational thought humbly stood aside and smiled bemusedly.
He brushed against Sanzo suddenly as he passed his way to the door. The smell of sandalwood[2] only fuelled his malicious little revenging side, drinking in how light golden hairs at the back of a very stiff neck stood on end at his breath. He laid a hand on the monk's rigid shoulder. "I told you it's not healthy, Sanzo-*sa~ma*," he drawled out deliberately. "By the way, good luck on playing 'god', I'm giving it a C+ so far." He reached out to squeeze a tense hand , the hand that smacked him in the face.
Casually lighting his cigarette as he strolled out the door, the kappa disappeared into the early dusk, eager to be anywhere else but the bar. It would disturb him later on, as he was getting up and fixing himself after a quite satisfying bout with his two new 'friends', how he had managed to pull off such a stint back at the bar and not get decapitated for his efforts.
And that, after all he had been through in that frenzied, reckless copulation, his hand---the hand that touched the stone 'god'---still smelled of sandalwood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tsuzuku
notes: Fixed the Chinese thingy in chapter 2. Arigatou, tensaispira, and Rook ^_^. I can write Chinese characters but I barely speak them. Strange no? But then again, Kira is always strange... Do you know how vexing the anti NC-17 rating is? *sharpens stake* I believe it's the responsibility of the reader to choose the stories he/she reads. True, there are really dark, really disturbing and freaky ones (freaker than a TOOL video... though I liked it, sorta...) that deserve to be chloroformed once in a while, but isn't that another way to 'free your soul'? *points at FF.net ad* *frowns* Yeah, /WHATEVER./ (Kira is ranting. Obviously I haven't had a cup of good SB coffee in the past 12 hours so...feel the lunacy.)
[1]I don't think they ALL depend on Sanzo for money. Maybe the big inn finances, yeah. I'm willing to bet that, like any good traveller, Gojyo has his own 'stash' for 'private purposes'. ;j
[2] My brother's room. It smells like sandalwood. I like it. It's... masculine, not quite sweet, but rather intriguing...very Sanzo-ish ne? I was thinking 'lemons' but... Need a nice, woodland smell for this guy. There's another fic describing sandalwood smell on the monk too... and I liked how it turned out--I forgot what title it was?