[Generic Disclaimer: Saiyuki and all the affiliated characters are copyright to Kazuya Minekura. No profit has or will be made off of this fiction.]
===
~Face and Ghost~
Summary:
(939) the face and ghost my guide/ i must move on/ it's the face of one ravaged by love/ it's both dead and alive
Warnings:
PG-13, shonen ai, language
===
Hakkai pulled the needle a little too hard and Sanzou jerked his head back, which only made the stitching
even worse. "Damn," he said, reaching up to gingerly prod the gash on
his forehead. "Are you trying to fucking scalp me?"
"Yes, Sanzou," said Hakkai,
in a voice so devoid of sarcasm that Sanzou knew he
meant the exact opposite of what he was saying. "That is exactly what I am
trying to do. Never mind that I traveled all the way here when you have
perfectly capable surgeons among your own staff, interrupting a teaching
session with some very needy students, not to mention neglecting the dinner I
promised Gojyou... But yes. It happens to transpire
that I'm scalping you so that I can reach and squeeze that brain of yours.
Honestly, what is wrong with you lately?"
"Nothing's wrong with me. I went to teach. There were protests. I wasn't
quick enough dodging." Hakkai pulled again,
harder this time, and Sanzou had to bite his lip to
hold back a wince.
"And why did you not take Gokuu with you?"
"I don't need a bodyguard. Besides," Sanzou
said, letting out a breath as the pressure on his forehead finally lessened,
"he hates hearing a bunch of monks lecturing on Buddhism, and I don't
blame him."
A small smile, grudging, quirked Hakkai's
mouth. "I'm surprised you even agreed to it. You hate
teaching."
Sanzou shrugged.
"Bored, are you?"
Again, he shrugged. All he'd done was bless the temple, but even that was
uncharacteristic enough to warrant raised eyebrows from the monks at Chang'an, who were whispering that maybe finally, Sanzou-sama was becoming willing to pass on his knowledge
to his disciples.
Hakkai made a quiet murmur and stepped back, tapping
his chin. "Well, you're done," he said. "It should heal up quite
nicely in a few days. It will scar, though - I'm sorry."
"It's just a scar." Sanzou stood slowly,
careful of light-headedness, and nodded to Hakkai.
"Going back to the village, eh?"
"Yes," said Hakkai, smiling over his
shoulder as he began to pack up his equipment. "Gojyou
will be quite upset if I miss that dinner - especially for you, no less. Ah,
yes, I meant to ask - where's Gokuu?"
"Hasn't come back from his trip yet." Sanzou didn't say when he expected him back, because he
didn't know; he had made very sure to not keep track of how long the monkey had
been gone. After all, it didn't bother him how long he was gone - a day, a
week, a month, it was all the same. Besides, the monastery was much quieter the
longer he was gone.
"I see. Well then. I don't suppose I can persuade you to come back to the
village and spend the night with us?" Hakkai's
smile had a wry tilt to it, and when Sanzou shook his
head he gave a graceful nod and turned to the door. "Take care of
yourself, my friend - " and he paused at the door
for a moment, gave Sanzou a searching look; then
smiled again. "Well, come visit us soon, Sanzou."
[~:.:~]
The pain persisted into the evening, and by nightfall Sanzou
had retired to his room with a bit of booze (carefully snuck in under his
robes) to take the edge off. Outside his room, through the small slit of light
beneath his door, he could hear and see the rustle of the monks' footsteps, and
the hurried anxious whisper of their voices. He closed his eyes and tried to
sleep, but their mice-patter continued along with the clacking of their beads
and the low hum of someone meditating. The pain spiked.
Then he dozed, the light kind of sleep with the bright edge of pain, and
started awake at the creak of the door. He opened his eyes a slit - just enough
to see fuzzily - and Gokuu's face was looking down on
him, pulled into a wry, worried smile. When Sanzou
sat up, he was dipping a cloth into a small bowl of water and wringing it out,
fingers carefully splayed so his nails wouldn't get caught up in the cloth.
He didn't say anything, just raised his eyebrows at Sanzou
and held out the cloth. Slowly, Sanzou lay back down,
reached out and folded it, put it gingerly over his
gash. It was cold against his skin; he winced and gritted his teeth, and ground
out, "When did you get back?"
"I got into the village a while ago. I was gonna
stay the night there, but Hakkai said you got
hurt." Bowls clinked, and beads; Gokuu was doing
something to the little shrine in the corner of the room (not his own doing,
although it had proved useful for meditation). "Kinda stupid of you, huh."
"You're one to talk."
Gokuu snorted. He scooted over to Sanzou
on his knees and leaned over him; his eyes, brighter at night than they were
during the day, were half-lidded, tired - then the weariness, the old look
vanished, as they creased warmly with Gokuu's smile.
He touched foreheads with Sanzou, then
knocked an elbow into Sanzou's side, pushing him a
little to the left, and got into the pallet next to him.
He was slightly damp and smelled like dust; Sanzou
nudged him away, irritated all of a sudden. "Who said you could sleep
here? You've got a room. Go fucking use it."
"But I haven't used that room in two years!"
"Yeah, well. Then it needs to be aired out."
"Oh, fuck you," said Gokuu, digging an
elbow into Sanzou's side. "Just go to sleep.
Maybe you'll care in the morning that I've been gone two months."
He just barely managed to swallow his retort; closed his eyes instead, took a
deep breath, let it out on the count of ten. When he
didn't say anything, he felt Gokuu's body relaxing
into his, his comfortable warmth settling along Sanzou's
right side.
"In the morning," Gokuu said, quieter now,
"you can ask me how my trip was." He had settled a hand in Sanzou's hair, at the base of his neck, and his fingers
threaded through some of the tangles there, smoothing them out. His other hand
he reached up to rest on Sanzou's face, fingers on
his forehead near the gash, palm cupping his cheek.
Sanzou closed his eyes, breathed out against Gokuu's hand. Gokuu's fingers
were chapped, nails jagged against Sanzou's skin; his
lips, when he pressed his face into Sanzou's neck and
started snoring softly, were cold.
[~:.:~]
It rained the next morning, the freezing rain of winter. Sanzou
sat out on his deck to let the cool wetness soothe his headache, and, when Gokuu joined him, let him burrow under his robes to get
warm. He asked how the trip had been and Gokuu sighed
and hmmed and couldn't find the words to explain
anything right. "It was fun," he said, wrapping Sanzou's
outer robe more tightly around himself. "You're right. I like villages
better than I like mountains."
Sanzou pulled on a cigarette and snorted. "If
you'd think about it, you would have realized you don't like mountains."
"Eh. I know why. I just thought I might've gotten over it. It's been a
long time, you know?" Gokuu was silent for a
moment, wrapping one corner of the robe around his finger, unwrapping
it and repeating the process; then he said, "I dunno.
It was fun, but I don't think I'll do it again."
"You'd better. You're rotting in a place like this. A monastery's no place
for a kid like you."
"Naaaah," said Gokuu,
flashing his teeth; "maybe others are, but this one isn't. You're here,
after all."
Sanzou recognized that smile; he frowned and put out
his cigarette, and yanked his robe away from Gokuu.
"Don't even think about it."
"But Saaaanzou! I *missed* you."
"No! Damn you, you really are a monkey. Start humping me and I'll kill
you."
Gokuu just grinned and reached for him with
long-nailed hands - which, unless they were trimmed, would soon be lethal
weapons - then bore his weight onto Sanzou's,
knocking them both with a huff onto the floor and ending up with them tangled
up with each other, and with one of Sanzou's wrists
very unpleasantly trapped under Gokuu's thigh.
"Gokuu," he said, trying not to focus on
those gold eyes so close to his own. "Someday I am going to blow off your
goddamned dick."
Gokuu kissed him, rubbing his tongue over Sanzou's lips, lightly, before pushing into his mouth. Sanzou smirked into the kiss, brought down his teeth - not
hard, not enough to hurt, but enough to make Gokuu
hiss and pause for a moment, hands fisting in Sanzou's
robes. Then he pressed on, maneuvering one hand under Sanzou's
head and tangling in his hair, tongue moving leisurely in Sanzou's
mouth; his hips bore down on Sanzou's, warm, heavy. Sanzou narrowed his eyes and arched up, just slightly;
wrestled his hand free of Gokuu's leg and wrapping
his arms around Gokuu's neck, dragging him harder
into the kiss.
He heard a scratching against the floor: Gokuu
curling his toes. He always did that.
"Sanzou," Gokuu
muttered against his lips, "why won't you leave with me? You don't like it
here, I know you don't." He kept his hand in Sanzou's
hair, used the other to prop himself up enough so he was looking into Sanzou's face, all wistful wide eyes and pursed lips.
Sanzou sighed through his teeth. "We've talked
about this. Get off me, will you? I need a smoke." He pressed his knee
into Gokuu's stomach, sitting up when Gokuu rolled reluctantly away.
"I know, I know we did." Gokuu
stretched out on his back and dug one hand under his head,
spread the other out across the deck, close to Sanzou's
thigh. "I just... don't get you, sometimes."
It hurt to light his cigarette, his fingers were so cold. Sanzou
shook them out, then curled them in on each other and took a hard drag off his
cigarette. "Maybe someday," he said shortly.
Gokuu sighed. "Yeah, okay."
"Gokuu. Don't whine at me."
"I'm *not.*"
"You are. You've been hanging around me since you were twelve,
you think I don't recognize it when you fucking whine?" Gokuu's lips pressed so hard together they went white, and Sanzou sighed again, ashed his
cigarette. He reached out and set a hand on Gokuu's
head, threading his fingers through his hair, and said, "Tonight, tell me
where you went and who you saw. Unless you don't want me to
know, of course."
"Of course I want you to know!" Gokuu
looked surprised. "I just thought you'd get bored with it."
"Yeah," said Sanzou, "I probably
will."
"Hey, Sanzou."
"What?"
"You're a jackass sometimes."
Inside, one of the monks had begun to sing; others were joining him, tenors and
baritones and basses, and clacking their beads together. Sanzou
pressed his thumb into Gokuu's cheekbone, then
dropped his hand and said, "So you tell me."
Gokuu's mouth quirked; he sat up, pressed himself
against Sanzou and set his cheek on Sanzou's knee, curling around him like a well-fed cat. Sanzou hesitated, then sighed to himself and rested his
hand in Gokuu's hair, to warm his hand against Gokuu's warm scalp. "Monkey," he muttered, just a
breath, and Gokuu curved his lips and brushed them,
gently, over Sanzou's knuckles.
"There's not much to tell, anyway," he said. "It was boring
without you."
The singing and the clacking grew rhythmless, grew
softer, until they stopped, but the rain kept beating against the ground in
rhythm with Gokuu's breathing.
[~:.:~]
you got it bad
you got it good
you saw the sun
like you knew that you would
we gotta make this better
gotta make this right
ain't no peace in the valley baby
'til the darkness turns to light
can you hear that children's song?
can you take me to that place?
high above the lamentation up on the desert plane
do you hear that children's song?
can you take me there?
...
the face and ghost my guide
i must move on
it's the face of one ravaged by love
it's both dead and alive
-- Face and Ghost (The Children's Song), Live
[~:.:~]
[~owari~]