Gojyo didn't particularly feel like saving the world. He was more interested in having a nice beer, a quiet smoke, and maybe getting a massage by a pretty girl. If things were really good, he'd flirt with the bartender and get some free drinks out of the deal.
"Where do you keep the soap?"
The plan was ruined the moment Gojyo found a bleeding guy in the middle of the road. The plan was blown to pieces and stomped into the ground when the pissy monk and his insane monkey showed up at Gojyo's door, demanding the bleeding guy. Now, instead of lounging at a bar with drinks and women, Gojyo was showing Hakkai his cleaning closet and helping to prepare dinner, the last one he was to eat in his home for a long while, no doubt.
"You don't have to go," Hakkai said, taking the bar of soap and tossing it onto a pile of clothes. "The journey's going to be-"
"Tons of fun. Yeah, I got that much." Gojyo lit up a cigarette and pulled a chair over from the dining table. Straddled across it, he watched Hakkai do laundry in the kitchen sink. "It probably beats sitting around here, waiting for some farmer to come kill me for planting my heretical seed in his daughter." Gojyo rarely slept with the women he brought home. Usually they started getting clingy and emotional the moment he closed the front door, wanting him to hold them and woo them and make them dinner. When he offered them some toast and brandy, they usually left, which was just as well. If he really wanted someone to have and hold rather than someone to give him a quick one in the alley on the way to his place, he wouldn't be trolling bars.
Hakkai scrubbed at a blood stain on Gojyo's spare pair of pants. "I just didn't want you to feel obligated because-"
"I'm not obligated. Don't worry about it." Just because there was a quick moment of crazy between them after the whole Shitty Priest Incident didn't mean they were married and Gojyo had to run after Hakkai and protect him. That was ridiculous. He just had nothing better to do, that was all. "Hey. You think the priest and that monkey have any idea where we're supposed to go?"
"Not a clue." Hakkai rang out the pants and looked to Gojyo. "Where's your clothesline?"
"Some crazyass monk ripped it down when he was trying to get into my house through my bedroom window. Don't know how it happened." He winked.
"Ah. Of course." Shaking his head, Hakkai headed toward the bathroom. "I'll hang them on the shower, then. I don't know if they'll dry by morning, though."
"I can always buy a new pair. I'm sure we're going to be stopping in a lot of shitty little towns on our way to wherever. I'll tell the monk he owes me a pair since he was the one who got blood all over me."
"He was saving you, Gojyo."
"My ass. He aimed for that guy's head because he wanted to get brains all over my pants." Nevermind the reason the guy's head was so near Gojyo's pants; that was irrelevant. The fact remained that the monk didn't need to burst into the room and shoot first; he could have kicked the guy away from Gojyo and then shot.
"Perhaps you should re-evaluate how you spend your time if the results are not as you expected." Hakkai left the room a moment, presumably to hang up the pants. The quiet only lasted a few moments, though. "Gojyo, what is this red thing in your bathtub?"
Ah, that was Mariko-chan's parting gift. At first, Gojyo thought it was a bomb. After a few experiments, he found that it was less a bomb and more a portable shiatsu massager. After a small puking issue – the wine he'd bought was stronger than he'd been lead to believe – he had to rinse it off in the bathtub. After that, he'd found Hakkai, Gonou at the time, and hadn't had time to think about removing it. It was probably water damaged now and completely unusable.
"Gojyo?" Hakkai returned with the massager in hand. "Is this something you'd like to keep or is it another item you've conveniently forgotten to throw out in the last three years?" He eyed a pile of burlap sacks in the corner, ready to be thrown out.
"Trash it." Gojyo stretched, reaching his arms up toward the ceiling. He winced as his back popped, the sound echoing through the kitchen. "Hope that car you've got has some comfortable seats. I think I just wrecked my back."
Before Gojyo could say that maybe he was too injured to go on the trip, Hakkai's hands were on his shoulders, kneeding out a week's worth of tension. "I'm sure the car will be suitable for our needs. And I'm certain your back would be fine if you stopped wrestling with Goku."
Gojyo didn't call it wrestling, he called it subtly getting his ass kicked. "Right, no wrestling with the monkey."
"Good." Hakkai's lips pressed against Gojyo's neck. "Now that that's settled, perhaps we could discuss your smoking habit. We're on a limited budget and I doubt Sanzo will want you taking up our funds with unnecessary cigarette purchases."
"Absolutely not." He had to put his foot down somewhere. He was already letting this guy rearrange the furniture and drag him off into the desert. He'd even given up his nightly bar hopping. "You want me to give up my smokes, you've got to give up your poker habit."
"It's an essential component to our income, Gojyo. Don't be silly." Another quick kiss and Hakkai was back at the sink, scrubbing clothing. "But I can see how your carcinogens might bring you limited happiness on our journey. We'll discuss it later."
If any of the girls from the bar told Gojyo that they would "discuss it later," Gojyo would have laughed and never seen that girl again. When Hakkai said it, Gojyo sighed and made a note to not smoke so much around the other man. "So what time are they coming tomorrow?"
"Dawn."
No way in hell the monk was going to get up before Dawn. Or maybe he didn't sleep and that was why he was so grouchy. Whatever. If they didn't answer the door, then….
"I'll make sure you're up in time so Sanzo doesn't shoot your door down again." Hakkai took his now clean shirt and left to hang it up.
"Great," Gojyo grumbled. "Let's get up early so we can drive across the desert in the middle of summer with no damn idea where we're going." Why the hell was he part of this again?"
"Hurry up and turn out the kitchen lights, Gojyo. We'll need to get to bed early if we want to get enough sleep."
Gojyo's lips turned up and he bustled about, snuffing out the few candles that were lit in the room. Outside, the sun had just finished setting through the forest trees.