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A torrential storm sweeps in after the oppressive heat of the afternoon, glass sheet of day collapsing under the weight of a dreary night. The thin roof of the tiny inn does little to muffle the sound of the rushing; outside it is grey, the slashes of rain indiscernible in the gloom.
The socket where his eye used to be throbs. Hakkai digs his index and thumb into the dip of his brow to relieve the pressure and inhales slowly, rotating his head to ease the tension in his neck. There isn't much in the way of insulation, either, an unpleasant chill seeping into his bones.
At least they had gotten their rooms before the downpour had started. And the room is quiet, but that train of thought leads to -
Gold hair, lustre dampened by the absence of light and a cloud of smoke. By the window Sanzo is silent as the grave he is no doubt thinking about, cigarette between slim fingers and five in the ashtray by his elbow. The violet glow of his eyes is banked beneath lax lids, trained unseeingly somewhere beyond the rain.
Picturesque - almost too much so. As if his suffering could be no less than perfect.
Foreign resentment bubbles up at the thought. Hakkai distracts himself by turning his attention outward and saying the first thing that comes to mind. "Sanzo."
A beat, then two, before Sanzo slides his gaze over under the heavy press of Hakkai's own. His lip curls, a hair closer to cruel than usual. "What?"
The twinge of irritation flares. He smothers it, attempting to recover from the lapse in persona, forcing the next sentence to be accompanied by a placid smile. "Could you mind the smoking a little? We can't air the room until the rain stops."
Sanzo's brow furrows in response. "You -" he starts, then just as quickly falls quiet.
He grimaces to reveal a cigarette hanging daintily in place, incongruous. Sanzo removes it between two fingers and stubs it out, dying embers the only trace of warmth in the room. Distantly: "Stops, huh."
Hakkai watches the movement of those practised, gloved hands, and doesn't want. It isn't like him, to be angry. It isn't like Sanzo to be mellow either. The space behind his prosthesis continues to ache.
"You know," he starts conversationally, making his way closer. He speaks almost before he can catch himself; in this space even the sound of his bare feet on wood rings loud. "I'm sure you’ll find this hypocritical, but for someone who supposedly eschews attachment, you do enjoy self pity."
Sanzo goes incredibly still. Hakkai notes with a detached interest the twitch in his hand, the way Sanzo visibly fights the instinct to scurry behind a veneer of violence, that time-tried wall.
After a moment he wins, and with a clear displeasure he crosses his arms, brow set low. “What’s crawled up your ass and died?”
He’s sitting up straight, now, facing Hakkai fully. It’s an odd show of respect you’d know only if you’d spent as much time with Sanzo as he has; fine, I accept your provocation. What do you want?
The brilliant hue of that gaze is nothing like that of a bruise, but the image comes to mind anyway, fingers digging into a fresh mottling bloom and pressing. Hakkai smiles, and at least part of it is genuine. “I was just thinking it isn’t very like you to mope.”
“Like hell,” Sanzo bites out, but he doesn’t flinch when Hakkai leans forward to take a hold of his chin, healer’s hands rough with calluses, an almost clinical, inspector’s touch. “Don’t project onto me.”
Involuntarily, his smile widens. It is exhilarating, to be seen through. “I really shouldn’t,” Hakkai agrees, his grip turning gentle as he leans in. “But what else is there to do, on a day like this?”
Later, he will think his own provocations were nothing but a bid for a reason. There is none of the resistance he had expected. Sanzo is warmer than he looks, alabaster left in the sun; in the back of his mind Hakkai flips a coin and doesn’t watch to see where it lands.
Sanzo smells like dust and wood and smoke, and tastes like it, too. His hands are rough over cotton, holding Hakkai in place like he’ll escape at any moment, a devil in a dream. It’s enough for a twinge of guilt to make itself known.
“Sanzo - wait. Do you really,” Hakkai starts, recovering part of himself, but Sanzo only urges him to lie flat, brusque impersonal touches at odds with the feverish urgency of his movements. His nose trails along the line of Hakkai’s neck. “Have you ever even -“
“If you’re not taking it back,” Sanzo bites, grip tightening against his shoulder, “then shut the fuck up.”
It’s written in the tense lines of his body, the way obstinate, fearless Sanzo won’t look at him all of a sudden. If he waits another breath shame will overtake them and the moment will pass, but he doesn’t want it to, not when something he’d never admit to having wanted is in his hands and the clouds are ravenous and desolate above.
“Okay,” Hakkai breathes, sliding his fingers through gold hair that is softer than it looks, arching up into the hard body above his own. A monk’s robe falls to the floor, then a cotton shirt.
Outside, the storm rages on.
---
In the morning, the instant widening of Gojyo’s eyes upon his arrival downstairs tells him he’s noticed.
“What the fuck,” Gojyo hisses at the same time Goku hoots with glee at his arrival and starts gushing about the dim sum, fortunately drowning him out. Hakkai smiles at him pointedly in a way that says Later, then calls a waitress over to prepare coffee on standby and orders another round of buns to share.
Goku’s voice is hopeful as he chews. “Hakkai, if the roads are too wet we won’t be able to leave today, right? It rained the whole night!”
Hakkai hums absently. That it had. His eye isn’t bothering him today. “It’ll be difficult, yes,” he says indulgently. “Was there something you wanted to look at?”
Goku’s exuberance fills the crowded dining room. “Something smelled really good! I bet there’s a ton of great food to eat here, and the main street sounds busy as well!”
Gojyo snorts. “How are you going to pay for that, you dumb monkey?”
“Sanzo’s card, obviously!”
Gojyo is halfway through Wanna bet if you can convince him to let you? when Hakkai cuts in smoothly. “Speaking of Sanzo, won’t you go upstairs and see if he’s coming down for breakfast? He needs to agree if we’re to stay another day as well.”
Goku brightens up. “Okay! I’ll get him down, don’t worry!” In a flash he’s gone, bounding up the steps two at a time.
Gojyo recovers from his whiplash quickly enough to turn his attention to Hakkai, dragging a palm over his face before he starts talking. “Oh, I see,” he says by way of acknowledging what had just happened, and then: “It was fishy the moment you weren’t here before us, but I thought that was just the rain.”
Peering through his fingers, Gojyo sighs heavily. “Didn’t think you and the damn monk would -“
“I started it,” Hakkai says, abruptly. “Don’t say anything to him.” He punctuates this with a smile that doesn’t go quite as far as he’d like.
His closest friend reels - actually looks taken aback. His jaw works for a moment as he processes. Finally, Gojyo seems to settle on something to say. “Hakkai,” he says slowly. “You haven’t - since -“
Since he was Gonou, but Gojyo isn’t going to say that. He doesn’t have to. They know how that story goes. The thought weighs heavy between them nonetheless, a tangible thing.
Hakkai lets him trail off. “It’s fine, Gojyo. We’re all adults here. I appreciate the concern, but don’t worry about it.”
“You,” Gojyo starts, then sighs. “Right, you know what, I’m not one to talk, yeah, whatever. Just … let me know if you need anything, okay?” From upstairs there is the sound of a slamming door, then the patter of Goku’s haphazard footfalls.
These moments are rare but precious, when Gojyo sobers up enough to make Hakkai feel like he is the childish one between them both. He smiles again, this one properly grateful. “Of course, Gojyo. Thank you.”
—-
Things proceed as they always have, and the West seems to grow further despite their best efforts.
They don’t speak when they're fucking. At first it was a wordless invitation on either end when it poured; in the present, Hakkai almost huffs a laugh as Sanzo scrambles across him for a lighter on the nightstand. Beyond the windows the moon is luminous and clear in the sky.
There's a click before a flame flickers to life, for a brief moment illuminating Sanzo's noble profile. Hakkai speaks around the tongue that has gone dry in his mouth. "Is talking out of bounds?"
Sanzo grunts, slanting that gemlike gaze over to him. "If I said yes," he drawls, "Would you listen?"
Always the charmer with a cigarette in hand. Hakkai does laugh this time. "No, I suppose not."
Sanzo exhales, a noxious cloud blooming in the space between them. Hakkai is privately grateful for something to hide behind. “You’re going to give the people a horrible fright when they find out what their saviour is like,” he muses.
Sanzo snorts. “Good.” Then, “I didn’t ask for this.” He takes another drag.
An unusual invitation. "You didn't," Hakkai agrees, but then, neither had he. His memories that sometimes feel like they happened to someone else - perhaps they should've been buried with him.
Is Sanzo beloved by heaven, or forsaken? The quiet doesn't make it any easier to puzzle out an answer.
"I won't apologise, in case you're wondering," Sanzo interjects. He taps the cigarette off into the ashtray Hakkai had silently pushed into place, looking over. There is a hint of a quirk to his lip when Hakkai takes a beat too long to tug his gaze away from long fingers, elegant and careless.
The very notion is absurd. “Perish the thought.” Reaching over he extracts the filter, and Sanzo lets him stub it out, place his lips to the pulse beneath a bony wrist. As he nips upwards he watches that beautiful face, counts the shallow breaths, the faint tick beneath his right eye.
"Cheap tactic," Sanzo grumbles, but there isn't any heart in it. In these moments he is clearer than he's ever been. Somehow familiar, impossibly indulgent.
"You wound me," Hakkai beams, pressing a kiss to a calloused palm. "We can stop, if you'd prefer to keep smoking?"
The glare he receives in response is bright, simmering with an intensity that feels far too much like a reflection. Desire, whispers a voice in the back of his mind, What a wicked thing.
The hand twists to cradle his jaw. A mouth crashes messily into his.
We are all sinners here, and the night is long. It would be too cruel to begrudge us the things we did to stay warm.
---
The harvest festival is a welcome sight, gilded as the streets are in warm, twinkling lights, overflowing with wine and song and fragrant delicacies on every corner, citizens of every age merrymaking in earnest.
When the ikkou had staggered, dusty and exhausted, into a town at the end of a stretch over a week long, they had found it buzzing with anticipation. Polite inquiry with the young, bright-eyed receptionist who'd checked them into our family suite, our best and only remainin' room, a real find given it's festival week'nd and it was cancelled not an hour ago, sir had revealed they'd arrived just in time for a weekend-long bonanza, and after an offhanded mention from her about bao and dancing there had been no stopping Goku or Gojyo from going, and Hakkai had felt the change of scenery would be welcome as well.
"No," had been Sanzo's only comment before the question had been asked. He'd saved them the effort, at least.
"I wish everyday was a festival," Goku chirps around five different types of street food, agog at the various happenings around them.
"Don't we all," Gojyo grins, winking winsomely at a street performer, all long hair and graceful movements. "Sure hope I'll be busy tonight."
Hakkai smiles as blandly as he can. "Please, Gojyo, not in the suite."
His friend looks briefly foiled. "Hm," Gojyo says, thoughtfully. The look of uncharacteristic introspection rings a bell somewhere in Hakkai's own mind, like -
The space on his shoulder is decisively empty, because the tiny dragon had been in dire need of a rest. And he'd left the window open after airing his room, hadn't he?
A festival would be the best time for burglary, and Hakuryuu is as striking a target as any. He must be more exhausted than he'd thought, to have made such an elementary mistake.
He stops abruptly in his tracks. "I'm afraid I need to head back to the room for a bit," he tells the other two. "I'm worried about Hakuryuu."
He acknowledges neither Goku's sprightly okay! nor Gojyo's suggestive eyebrow wiggle in favour of hurrying back.
The bad feeling in his gut is soothed for a mere split second when he throws open the door to Hakuryuu flying into his face, only to return in full force when his senses are inundated with the vivid tang of fresh blood and the dragon's distressed cries.
Sanzo. Hakkai bursts into his room in a mounting panic to find it in a state of chaos, window smashed and bodies strewn on the floor. In the midst of the disarray, a blond head is visible slumped against the side of the bed.
An irate gaze is leveled at him before it falls closed in exhaustion. Hakkai falls towards him, quickly locates the most critical injury - three large, deep demon-claw gashes in Sanzo's side - and sets about healing, hands shaking. The room narrows until it becomes a single point.
He is jolted out of his trance when Sanzo bats his hand away. "Stop it, Hakkai," he grunts. "You're freaking out."
He isn't imagining the beige monk's robes dyed crimson, surely, or the colour having drained straight out of Sanzo's face. His own trousers are sticky with blood.
Breaths turning shallow, he starts gathering his qi again. An objective voice in the back of his head whispers that this happens all the time, but he’s seeing double, seeing a long dark braid and green eyes closed in apology just beyond his reach. A rough grip seizes his wrist, squeezing tight enough to hurt. "Stop it. The bleeding's stopped." Bone meeting bone. “Hakkai.”
It doesn’t help him stop trying. He can't help it. His voice quivers. "You're human, Sanzo, whether you know it or not."
Stubborn as always Sanzo's reply is bitten back at him, voice worn ragged with the clear effort of remaining upright. "So are you!"
Hakkai is shocked into complete stillness by the rebuke in that tone. The glow in his hands fades. "Am I?"
Sanzo, for once, looks as perplexed as he does. He loosens his grip. At length he speaks.
"Durability wise, admittedly not, but that doesn't make qi free." He keeps an eye on Hakkai suspiciously, as if waiting for him to flip and try to heal him again. With the hand on his good side he rummages in his jean pocket for a cigarette which he shoves into his mouth, unlit. "And in others, we're all the fucking same anyway."
Hakkai blinks a few times, but the familiar image helps in recovering his equilibrium. Human, huh. In the periphery Sanzo's gaze is watchful, his breaths shallow.
Now he's looking at him, Sanzo does look stable; he hadn't seemed that way earlier. Odd. Absently Hakkai fumbles for the lighter he knows Sanzo keeps on the nightstand and leans forward to light the cigarette, then sits back against the wall, abruptly worn. A silence descends upon them.
"You should've come with us," he tells him, apropos of nothing. "I know you don't like this sort of thing, but the atmosphere really was lovely." He doesn’t say, it’d stop you from being too easy a target. Sanzo wouldn’t listen, anyway.
Sanzo grunts, and it's as much permission to continue as he's ever going to get. The sound of his own voice, distantly speaking of the mundane, is soothing.
"The main street was bursting with lights and people were dancing and singing, and there were any manner of games to try your hand at. You’d have swept the prizes at the shooting games, I’m sure.
"Goku kept looking out for food you might like, even though we all know you hardly eat, and even Gojyo was keeping an eye out for liquor to share. I'm sure they're enjoying themselves even now. "
Hakkai folds his arms upon his knees, and draws them in, feeling very tired all of a sudden.
"Even though it feels like this journey will last forever, one day it'll be done, and hopefully the world will be at peace, but there won't be a reason for - for the ikkou, anymore. And I -" Here he stops himself, realising he's rambling, careful to return to his trademark neutrality.
"And I would like us all to have moments like these as pleasant takeaways." He finishes, opaquely, safe again where he has retreated into the shade. “So you should join us, next time.”
Sanzo's mouth is a perfectly even line as he smokes. Hakkai has never liked the smell even at the best of times, but now it makes him lightheaded, tar and iron blending into a heady, viscous mix that tints his vision dimmer in the grey light.
"Fine," Sanzo breathes at last in a cloud of smoke, "Maybe next time, but I'm leaving if the beer is shit."
---
They’ve been rained on and poorly dried out and are all exhausted by the time they set up camp in a moderately wooded clearing, which is why there is no more than a token complaint when the tents are divvied up and, in accordance with their rotations, Sanzo is to share with Hakkai.
Gojyo had muttered something about libidinous monks, but if Hakkai is to be frank, there is a smidgen of relief. The anxiety that has been gnawing at him since the night of the festival refuses to budge, even when the sky is clear and they can see for miles.
Not that he doesn’t trust anyone in the party to hold their own, but - but.
I’m worrying again, he notes absently, himself half-changed, watching the way Sanzo shrugs off his robes to prepare for sleep. The ink-black material of his turtleneck looks liquid in the lamplight, glistening like oil. What even about?
It doesn’t quite match up. How had the attackers known exactly which room was theirs, and when it would be empty but for Sanzo?
“You’re staring.” Sanzo is inches from his face, all at once, a near bruising grip on his shoulder. The line of his usually furrowed brow dips deeper still. “And a mile away at the same time.”
Hakkai smiles. His senseless nervousness must be palpable. “I beg your pardon.” The last few groups of hostile encounters had not called them the ikkou or ranted about the sutra, but they had known Sanzo’s name, and they had seemed fixed on drawing the battle out, looking for something to happen.
The purple of those unforgivably beautiful eyes is at once made more lucid and muddied by the reflection of flickering amber. “And pissing me off,” he adds, then slots their mouths together, hand sliding up under Hakkai’s thin undershirt to run calloused fingers over scarred skin.
Sanzo’s kiss is very much more like a bite. It’s almost vicious, now, and Hakkai responds in kind, skittish thoughts forced to bay under the onslaught. He slips his hands up that skintight shirt. He lets his neck be marked. Under his hands Sanzo is skin and bone and corded muscle and very little else. His waist is incongruously small.
He should eat more, Hakkai thinks, inanely, then has to suppress the near-hysterical shake that threatens to overtake him at the thought, the very mental image of Sanzo being sat down to a table as a grandmother nags at him. Of any of them having that sort of luxury.
If Sanzo notices he’s drifting again he doesn’t say anything. Time is wasting; against the heat a small vial of oil is shoved into his grip. Hakkai frees them both and takes their lengths into his hand, fisting them to the low bass of Sanzo’s groans and his own unsteady breaths until they spill.
A cloth is found, dampened from a canteen and each of them wiped off without ceremony. Sanzo produces a pack of Reds and tips it in his general direction - as much explanation as one might ever get from him - and disappears through the tent flaps.
There is a tension lingering, but the edge has been taken off. Wearily, Hakkai tugs his blanket about him and tips into a restless sleep.
-
It’s a dream, if anything, because Chin Yisou is there, and he’s smiling with a knife through his chest as he staggers over, marionette-like. In the waking world he wouldn’t flinch, but here, in this dreamscape, Hakkai is alone and so very, very afraid.
Do not be so sure that I am dead, he sings, without opening his mouth, because I will always live within you.
He staggers abruptly, as if hit, and then his head twists at an unnatural angle, looking Hakkai squarely in the eye.
After all, I made you. And I will make them, too.
As Hakkai watches he leaps gracefully into the air and spins. The scene blurs, meshing together in a horrible flurry - when it slides back into focus Goku, Gojyo and Sanzo writhe before him, faces frozen in grotesque agony, each clawing at seeds embedded in their skin.
You will never find peace.
Don't, he wants to plead, because they have nothing to do with this. His sins are his to bear alone.
They're calling his name, again and again. The name they know him by overlaps and folds in upon itself, a chant, a plea, a cacophony of violent song -
Before it can morph Hakkai surfaces into consciousness in an icy splash, chest heaving in desperate attempts to grasp for air. That feeling of being hunted - he had almost forgotten it. He shivers despite the relative warmth of the tent, longs for a bit of light.
But that dream - he hasn't sensed any unusual personal danger recently. An underlying anxiety manifesting itself, then. Even before he'd always been a little bit of the nervous sort, clinging to religion for stability and comfort, the rosary an ever present anchor.
Enough of that. After his vision has stopped swimming he pulls himself upright, surveying his surroundings. Nothing but quiet, right down to his tentmate, fast asleep in his own bedroll. In rest Sanzo looks unexpectedly peaceful, almost holy.
He wants to touch him, to be sure that he is real, but he would surely wake then. Instead Hakkai simply looks, for what feels like a long time, counting the beats of his slow breaths and matching to them his own.
There will be no more sleeping tonight. Hakkai draws his outer shirt about him and tidies his bed, slipping out of the tent. The moon lights his way to the perimeter of camp. At least Gojyo is unlikely to bemoan being relieved of his watch early.
---
It is six days later that they actually pull into a proper village - small as it is, with a single inn to its name - and the four of them are all antsy. Even Hakkai feels dangerously close to being snippy, his personal relief tangible as they come to a halt and his passengers stir.
"My ass hurts," Gojyo grumbles as he gets up, promptly tripping out of the jeep and stumbling to a stop by the wayside. "We're never taking the 'shortcut' that has no village stops for nearly 2 weeks ever again."
"It was by unanimous vote, and we shaved a week off our total travel time," Hakkai reminds him, trying to stamp out the fire before it starts. "And there was supposed to be a larger village about midway."
Goku nimbly appears next to him, helpfully carrying their extremely limited remaining supplies. "Yeah, that was weird," he pipes. "Like it'd just disappeared off the spot, zero trace."
"Maybe the map is just outdated," Gojyo shrugs, already propping the front door of the inn open with his foot. "C'mon, are we going in or what?"
That doesn't make sense, Hakkai is about to say, but there's no real point in debating the matter, not when they're all only interested in a hot meal and a bed that isn't made of soil and rock. He turns to catch Sanzo's eye as Goku bounds in after Gojyo, half seeking agreement on this matter.
What he gets is a brief brush against his shoulder. "C'mon," Sanzo says, terse as ever, the lines around his eyes a little darker than usual.
Yes, we're all exhausted. Hakkai follows him in to the reception, where Goku and Gojyo are already causing a commotion and attracting attention.
"Those two with you?" The counter girl has the carefully affected nonchalance of someone who's just come of age and thinks they have to act like an adult. "They're right noisy. Hope you have money."
Hakkai tries not to wince visibly. "I'm very sorry about the trouble," he says. "Do you perhaps have rooms available for four?"
Her gaze turns briefly calculating as she picks up a notebook and scans through it, sliding a worn sheet of prices across with the other hand. "We have two doubles, or four singles. What'll it be?"
Hakkai is about to opt for the cheaper option of doubles before Sanzo slides the Card across the desk in a manner that very clearly brooks no argument. "Four singles." He sounds a second from an aneurysm.
"Hmm." The receptionist looks at Sanzo appreciatively before smiling in satisfaction, taking the card and fishing out four room keys for them. Something about that expression unnerves Hakkai; Gojyo sidles up and nudges him in the side.
"Someone's after your man," he mutters, punctuating the statement with an arch of one crimson eyebrow.
Hakkai lets out a sigh he hadn't been aware he'd been holding. "None of the constituents of that sentence are true." At least, he doesn't think so - the look he'd seen seemed more predatory than interested. And as for the other part - he can't imagine it in the least.
He really must be tired.
Gojyo hums to himself in that way he has when he's convinced he knows something you don't. "If you say so," he shrugs, swiping a set of keys off the counter and turning to go, twirling them around his finger as he does. "See you assholes when I see you."
-
Dinner ends up being only Hakkai and a Sanzo who is even more prickly than usual, the latter having been sick enough of Goku and Gojyo to actually authorise the giving of an allowance for a few hours of peace.
Above the tofu soup and vegetables they'd ordered to share with rice Hakkai attempts to catch Sanzo's eye. "Don't you think it's odd?" he starts, quietly.
Sanzo quirks one shoulder. "No," he says, instead of asking what it is Hakkai might be referring to.
"The missing village," Hakkai presses. "And at first we were being chased by groups of demons who seemed bent on tracking you down, but after a certain point, it was so peaceful it was disconcerting."
"Old map," Sanzo retorts, brusque, "And they got bored, whatever." He helps himself to a spoonful of soup, then turns back to the newspaper he must have acquired at the front desk earlier that evening.
It is abundantly clear that Sanzo is avoiding the topic on purpose. "Sanzo," he stresses, frustrated. "I'm trying to have an actual discussion here."
In lieu of a response Sanzo picks up his pint and takes a swig for a few long moments before setting it down loudly on the table. "And I'm trying to have a fucking break, Hakkai, but if you keep on at this rate I'm going back upstairs where it's quiet."
Hakkai can't help it - he's genuinely taken aback. The expression on Sanzo's face isn't quite hostility, but it's close, and not something that is usually directed at him. He tries not to catalogue the emotion too closely, but knows what it is anyway - he's hurt.
How presumptuous of me. "I'm sorry concern for all of our wellbeing is such a burden to you," he bites, tightly. Secondary to the hurt is a wave of humiliation, burning hot in his throat. Gojyo's earlier comment rings in his ears, and he feels unbearably foolish. Abruptly he stands up. "I'll leave you to it, then."
Traitorously, he finds himself waiting a split second for a reaction, a response. Anything. Sanzo's grip tightens briefly, crumpling newspaper, his lips stubbornly drawn.
He should have expected nothing more. Silently, Hakkai takes his leave.
—
He wakes to the sound of Goku's fists urgently banging on his door, calling Hakkai, Hakkai! For the briefest moment a half-remembered nightmare surfaces - but this Goku is alive and well, and Hakkai puts himself together as he hurries to the door, alarmed.
"Goku? What's -"
Gojyo's handsome face comes into view, looking concerned. "The damn monk's gone," he says, while Goku bursts through the gap to cling to Hakkai's arm in worry. "Bed is made, so he probably wasn't kidnapped while sleeping. Weren't you with him yesterday?"
Hakkai grimaces, silently grateful for Gojyo's uncharacteristic tact in choice of language. "I saw him briefly at dinner, but not after."
Now he's awake he thinks he remembers cold, dry fingers brushing across the side of his face, but his slumber had been sticky, clinging hard to him even as he thought to open his eyes. It is more likely to have been a dream. Still, he says, "...I think he left of his own accord."
As Gojyo swears and Goku's eyes grow wide, Hakkai’s mind races to put the pieces together.
The demons who targeted Sanzo, not the sutra or the group as a whole. The conveniently missing town. The receptionist's hunter's gaze, and Sanzo's deliberate ignorance.
"A group who has use of Sanzo lured us here," he says, realisation dawning. "And he knew. He must have left to deal with them himself."
Even though he had expected it, the depth of sorrow on Goku's young features is crushing. "But we're his friends," he protests, feebly. "We'da helped him out."
Gojyo punches the wall. "Asshole and his lone wolf complex," he curses. "You'd think he'd have some basic trust in the rest of us by now."
It's not us he doesn't have faith in. The knowledge is instinctive. "We can interrogate him later," he says. "We have a stubborn monk to find first."
-
It goes like this: The receptionist isn't in. They interrogate her replacement, who protests his innocence and hurriedly directs them to the house where she lives with her father.
The frightened old man isn't lying when he says she hasn't been home since yesterday, but tells them she'd been saying weird things lately, about how she was going to be paid a lot for just a little bit of work. Had she been going anywhere recently? Yes, he thinks, she's been seen coming and going from the mountainous area to the northwest. Is his poor Minli in any trouble?
"Of course not," Hakkai had lied graciously, pushing his nails deep into his palms. The girl is only unfortunate collateral.
It's almost laughable how crudely hidden the hideout is. In a dip of the shade of craggy cliffs is the mouth of a cave. They hurry through, dispensing of the watchmen as they go; the entire thing seems unsophisticated, so what had they wanted from Sanzo so specifically?
There is clear evidence Sanzo fought back, the area in disarray and bullets lodged in the walls, the bodies they passed through long banished.
Eventually they hear the sounds of violence and taunts ring out from a chamber, the other party conspicuously silent. The trio arrives to find Sanzo on the ground, hands bound and face in the dirt, surrounded by a ravenous group.
"Use it," one demon says, stepping on Sanzo's shoulder. "Go on, we left you ungagged for a reason." He's holding a strange object in his hand, a stone that evades direct perception.
Another kicks him in the side. "Hurry up, Mr Monk, we haven't got all day." There's a knife in his hand, which he flips a few times warningly. "Or do you need some more encouragement?"
Goku leaps into the fray with an enraged howl; the other two of them follow suit, and the room is cleared with pitiful ease. Through the fracas Sanzo remains prone, unbearably still. As soon as he is satisfied that the situation is under control Hakkai rushes to his side to assess the damage.
Rage simmers under his skin. Most of Sanzo's bones are broken, and he's lost a lot of blood. He quietly arranges Sanzo's head in his lap, then sets about healing. It must be testament to how much it hurts that Sanzo lets him.
The odd object rolls to a stop next to them, and Sanzo openly grimaces. "Get... fucking thing... away from me."
Hakkai eyes it. He can't sense much from the item other than the fact that he hardly seems to be able to perceive it at all, but that alone is unnerving. He indicates with a tilt of his head to Goku, who is dusting his hands off, to assist with the demand.
Gojyo comes over into a squat to peer at the item in Goku's hand. "Why didn't y' just, y'know, makai tenjou the hell out of those bastards?"
Sanzo grits his teeth as his clavicle is knitted back together. "'s ...what they. Wanted."
Gojyo's brow creases in confusion. "Eh?"
With the closure of one more haemorrhaging wound, Sanzo is no longer in immediate mortal danger. Hakkai allows him to sit up on his own. Gives him a full moment to adjust.
And then punches him squarely in the face, a jab aimed straight at his elegant, high nose.
The scene explodes into confusion. Goku and Gojyo let out mirrored yelps of surprise; Sanzo’s pupils blow wide as doubles over, clutching at his face.
Gojyo quips something about how Sanzo probably deserved that but isn't sure it's a good idea to hit a patient; Goku is clearly torn between defending his hero and the part of his brain that says Hakkai always acts rationally. Sanzo forces his head up in laboured increments, glowering at Hakkai in clear irritation but no genuine resentment -
- and Hakkai kisses him.
This time he is aggressive, teeth and punishing force. He can taste Sanzo's blood in his mouth. He wants so badly to dissect him, to crawl inside his veins that he feels insane.
He has the presence of mind to pull away soon enough to let Sanzo breathe, leaving the nose as-is out of spite. He's angry, but they all are - no, there is a fear there, lurking, the question of what would you do if we had been too late? Sanzo's stubbornness could very well have killed him.
Mass murder, a tiny voice offers, and he almost smiles. The realisation is not as damning as it should be. Hakkai has always been hardcoded for obsession.
"Whoa," Goku says, dumbly. Gojyo looks mildly impressed.
Hakkai gets to his feet, wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and takes the strange item from Goku, placing it in his pocket. His head spins a little. "Goku, help our leader to Hakuryuu, will you? I can only heal him more after we get back."
"R - roger that," Goku says, hurrying over to help Sanzo up with haste, more clumsily than usual. Gojyo watches each of them in turn for a moment, then approaches Hakkai briefly to nudge him as if to say, You okay?
He is, more or less, considering his baseline is a rather dubious standard. He settles for starting Hakuryuu up, Gojyo shotgun while Goku supports Sanzo in the backseat, a curious silence following them back to the village.
---
One moment he is bandaging Sanzo's superficial wounds, and the next he's on his back on cheap sheets while rough fingers tug at his layers, the current of an unknown urgency live in the air.
"I'm mad at you, just so you know," Hakkai tells him evenly, traitorous hands running their way up denim to rest where it gives way to bare skin. "Completely livid."
Sanzo only takes off the monocle and sets it on the nightstand. His gaze doesn't waver. "That's your problem."
They're just - there isn't a they. It doesn't detract from the relief he feels at Sanzo, alive and whole on top of him, and somehow wound up enough to do this, whatever this is, clasping his jaw and breathing him in.
"I wanna fuck you," Sanzo murmurs into his mouth. Not the other way around, not today, when he's only been tentatively knit back together and nothing short of a fight ever satisfies him. His skin is a landscape of bruises. At least it's a sign of healing.
Hakkai smiles faintly. His own hunger is surely plain as day. "Be my guest."
Sanzo’s already hard as he grinds against him. Hakkai lets out a raw sound at the friction, hands roaming across pale, scar-riddled skin, both fiddling with clothing until they’re freed of it. When he takes it into his hand Sanzo’s length is heavy, beading at the tip; he runs his thumb over the head and strokes, grip tight the way Sanzo likes it, his own hips straining sympathetically.
An oiled finger probes inside him. The sensation of Sanzo reaching in - oh, he moans, and then it’s two, stretching him out so patiently he feels like he’ll lose his mind, because it’s not enough, he needs -
“Sanzo,” he pants, gripping himself to take the edge off. “Hurry. Now.”
Sanzo’s eyes narrow imperceptibly, but he doesn’t make Hakkai say it twice. Withdrawing his fingers he aligns his cock, taking hold of Hakkai’s hips, and starts to push in, thumbs rubbing circles into the juts of his pelvis as he goes deeper.
“Fuck, Hakkai.” He pauses when he bottoms out, giving him a moment to adjust. “You’re so tight.” For a few moments there is nothing but the sound of their heavy breaths.
Underlining the intoxicating pleasure is a pain that stirs something frantic and wild in his gut, and it's an exhilarating reminder he's alive. They both are. "More," he pleads, and Sanzo only grunts, slowly pulling out to the tip before slamming back in hard enough the bed creaks.
Hakkai thinks he might see stars. His pulse is racing so fast he can hear it, a torrent of rushing blood. Ah, ah, ah. Faster. Harder. Please. Hakkai clings to the sharp planes of that body, hands fisted in silken gold, face buried in his neck. It feels like forever. It feels like a second.
They come in near unison, Sanzo spending inside while jerking him off, and Hakkai kisses him so hard he bleeds.
After, he sits on the edge of the bed, trousers having been put back on, and checks his patient over to make sure no wounds have reopened. On his part Sanzo is uncharacteristically tolerant.
When he prods a sensitive area, Sanzo flinches. "I won't apologise for the punch," Hakkai tells him, "Because you deserved it."
Sanzo almost smiles. Almost. "Using my words against me, I see."
Unfair, how beautiful he is drenched in moonlight. "I've had very little self-control, lately," Hakkai laughs, self-deprecatingly. In the moment he feels, suddenly, like he will lose something forever if he fails to be honest now. "I'm... uncertain if it's because I'm being affected by the Minus Wave, or if I've always been like this."
Sanzo eyes him, fingers flying briefly to his nose, now cleanly healed with no trace of the earlier break. "You're making excuses," he states.
Hakkai considers him wistfully, wanting to resent the bluntness but unable to. How hateful he is, how immeasurably lovely. His self acknowledgment is liberating. "Maybe."
From where he lies Sanzo says nothing further, only reaches out to tug Hakkai back down into an ungainly sprawl on top of him in the narrow bed. Through that prominent ribcage Sanzo's heartbeats are slow and even.
Does he know, Hakkai wonders, would I want him to?
"Go to sleep."
There is no answer for either of those things. Hakkai chooses, for now, to rest.
---
"So you're telling me," Gojyo starts, fidgeting with a strand of his hair, "That this - this thing - can absorb the power of a sutra if it's used on it? Then what? What's it become?"
Sanzo takes a deep drag of his cigarette, exhaling a miasma. He seems loath to even look at the object. "Don't know for sure. Heard them ranting about enhanced power, or something. Not about to find out."
"It has to be a strong enough motivator that they'd actually try to get you to use it rather than just take the sutra from you," Hakkai observes. "But whoever gave it to them could've just as well been lying."
Because there was no way that class of demons could've been working alone, not with the power that could make a town disappear, nor the eerie artifact. Even at the end they hadn't seemed clear on who Sanzo or his party were, as if they had been fed a very specific line of instruction and simply didn't know better.
Of course, the sutra, if stolen from Sanzo, could always be taken back. But if its power had been converted...
Hakkai feels his jaw tick, not least because again and again he is reminded of all the ways that encounter could've gone horribly wrong.
"Let's smash it," Goku suggests, cheerfully.
Gojyo looks thoroughly disturbed. "You think we can set it on fire?"
"Just get it out of my sight," Sanzo growls.
Goku strikes a salute. "Gotcha!" With that he and Gojyo scamper off, a quarrel about how to deal with the object already brewing.
The clearing is suddenly quiet with the two livelier members of the group gone. They had set out before dawn, no longer willing to stay in the town, and with Sanzo's condition in mind had resolved to have an early night. It's just about sunset now, the day burning out bright before the moon rises.
"How are you feeling?" It's neutral enough of a question.
"Like I got the shit beaten out of me, healed just to the point of no longer dying, then stuck in a rickety vehicle for an entire day." The statement is punctuated by a fog of cigarette smoke.
Charming, as ever. "Maybe you should cut down on the smoking while you're recovering."
"Over my dead body."
"That does seem to be happening soon, yes."
A lull in the conversation. Hakkai keeps his tone and expression pleasant. There's always a river between them, but he doesn't particularly resent it, not when Sanzo's never relearned how to let bridges be built.
The cigarette is finished and a second one lit before Sanzo speaks again. "Thanks," he mutters, staring at a point somewhere off in the trees. "For the constant healing."
Hakkai startles. Goes with the flow. "And the sex?"
Sanzo hacks a noise that might be a laugh. One shoulder lifts in admission. "And the sex."
They fall back into quiet. In the distance, there are the sounds of Goku and Gojyo potentially starting an event of mass deforestation. Thoughts wandering, Hakkai says, "Do you suppose Minli and the others are alright?"
When they'd stumbled back to the inn and been accosted by worried townspeople they'd directed them to the base. Sanzo hadn't remembered seeing the girl, but then again, she'd been a mere informant, and he'd been preoccupied with more pressing matters.
"Maybe." Sanzo's tone is grim. "Hopefully having learnt there's no such thing as a good thing."
What a sorry pair they make, without an ounce of naïveté between them. But still -
"Some things are good," Hakkai chides, softly.
Sanzo's head whips towards him at that, eyes wide for an instant. Hakkai watches him - gold, always, what was it Goku always said in his sleep, like the sun - and sighs. "You're not as selfish as you think you are, Sanzo."
Sanzo looks appalled at the suggestion for only a second. Mercifully, he doesn't fight it. "You, on the other hand."
He knows. Hakkai tries, and finds himself short of anything to say.
But Sanzo's gaze is firm, and above that intent. Like he's waiting for something.
Boldly, Hakkai reaches across the space between them with a hand that quivers until it comes to rest just by the side of Sanzo's face. Sanzo turns his cheek into his palm, eyes fluttering shut. For him, for them - this is frighteningly intimate.
Hakkai marvels. Even his terrible personality doesn't stop Sanzo from looking celestial.
He frowns, an eye flicking open. "Stop that right now."
Hakkai’s eyes crescent, although Sanzo can't see him. Daringly he rubs the crease out with a thumb. "What?"
"You're thinking something stupid."
If not that, then perhaps something more worldly. Perhaps a large feline? Hakkai’s hand trails down to rest, idle, in the hollow of Sanzo’s collar. Sanzo briefly chases the touch before he opens his eyes, looks at Hakkai, and sighs.
“You’re thinking something even worse, now.”
He is rather fond of retribution. Perhaps something divine, after all.
---
“You know,” Gojyo starts, dragging out the second word. “It’s real nice to be able to celebrate Mid-Autumn in an actual city and all, so don’t get me wrong, but…”
He jabs a thumb over his shoulder, cocking his head at Hakkai. “What the hell is that bastard doing over here with us?”
Hakkai and Hakuryuu turn to look at Sanzo, who is begrudgingly allowing Goku to lead him along, occasionally dodging the lantern being flailed around so that his robes don’t get set on fire. “Enjoying the festivities, perhaps?”
The streets are ablaze with activity, children running and screaming with their lanterns as hectic parents struggle to manage them and browse the festival stalls at the same time. In the sky the moon is ponderous; on earth the group inches through the crowd, sweating despite the cool season.
Sighing thunderously, Gojyo runs a hand through his hair and messes it up in frustration before continuing. “I just know you had a part in this.” Lowering his voice and dipping his head, he adds, “So? What’re the stakes?”
The accusation is honoured with a smile. “I’m afraid I can’t disclose that.”
“Stingy,” Gojyo hoots, then, straightening up: “He’s whipped. I haven’t been shot at in an entire week.”
Hakkai can’t help it - the back of his neck heats up at the very implication. “Gojyo, I’m not so sure of what you’re implying -”
With an exaggerated yawn and an outwards stretch, Gojyo throws a heavy arm around Hakkai’s shoulder and tugs him flush against his side. “I’m sayin’,” he mutters conspiratorially, “The damn monk actually cares about you. Even though he’d rather die than say it.”
He scrunches up his nose like he’s smelled something foul, then adds, “Actually, I kinda wanna die saying it.”
But he’s doing it anyway, because he knows Hakkai and his propensity for self-doubt, the way his history has coloured his view. Gojyo had found him then, and continues to nudge him along now.
Gratefulness blooms warm in his chest. “Thank you, Gojyo,” Hakkai says, very sincerely. “I’m glad it was you who was there that day.”
Gojyo blinks, genuinely stunned for a moment, then kicks back into gear, an affected leer forming. “Aww, shucks,” he purrs. “You’re gonna make me blush.”
“What do you think you’re doing.” A growl materialises in the space between their heads.
Gojyo immediately throws both his hands up and backs away. “Just having a little bestie talk, promise,” he says, tossing Hakkai a deliberate wink, as if to say, I told you so. Conversation abruptly ended, he lags behind to make sure Goku doesn’t get lost trying to acquire his fifth entire mooncake of the night.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Hakkai tsks softly. The thronging crowds are an excuse for him to slip an arm into the crook of Sanzo’s elbow, sliding down to squeeze his hand before letting go. “Gojyo means well, you know.”
If they were other people - if they'd been a little more carefree, if loss didn’t weigh on their psyches everywhere they turned - he thinks he might’ve teased Sanzo, even, asked if he was perhaps jealous.
They walk for a while before Sanzo calls his name. “Hakkai.”
“Hmm?”
“Sorry,” Sanzo says. He seems to feel the words out in his mouth before he says them, and he keeps his gaze steadfast on the road ahead. “That the damned sprite has to make my excuses for me.”
He watches that solemn face for a while. Sanzo’s trying, he really is. “That’s quite alright,” Hakkai says, gently. “Between the three of us, we’ll understand you enough to get by.”
Their eyes finally meet. Sanzo is guarded, careful. "And you?"
"You said it before, didn't you?" Even in the cast of the festival the moon turns Sanzo’s crown of gold silver, brings him a step closer to earth. "I'm the selfish sort."
Sanzo huffs, but there’s a hard-won grin there, faint as it is. "Is that supposed to be comforting?"
Hakkai bumps lightly into him as he walks. "Well, if you want it to."
“Evasive bastard.” Sanzo might be the only person alive who can make that sound even moderately fond.
Tomorrow the sun will rise and light their backs, and the ikkou will resume their fool’s errand, wherever it may take them. For now, there is light and song and laughter, and somehow it will be enough.
明月几时有 / 把酒问青天 / 不知天上宫阙 / 今夕是何年
When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the clear sky.
In the heavens on this night,
I wonder what season it would be?
- excerpt from 《水调歌头﹒明月几时有》, 苏轼