Title: No Tears

Fandom: Saiyuki

Characters: Sha Gojyo

Prompt: 10-Cry

Word Count: 270

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Spoilers for Gensomaden Saiyuki. Young Gojyo and his thoughts.

Gojyo refused to weep anymore. Not even as the blows rained down upon him from angry hands. Not even as the cruel words that tumbled from his mother's lips cut into him as if they were her sharp claws. Not even when the flowers that he brought her were trampled into the dust beneath her feet. His tears had always fed her anger, as well as the shimmering flow from her eyes as she gazed at him in silent reproach.

He had vowed long ago that he would never cry again. Even as jealousy burned him at the sight of his mother in his brother's embrace, as he watched her tearfully declare that she loved Jien alone. Not even at the anguish in his brother's eyes, the pain Gojyo saw there laced with regret and pity. His tears had dried up long ago.

Gojyo would often sit in his room, his face stinging from her slaps, listening through the thin walls to her squeals of delight at his brother's hands and lips. His stomach would turn as he heard it, knowing how wrong that this all was, and yet, part of him wondering if that was what it took to win his mother's love. Wondering if given the chance, would he, even if only for a kind word from her, if only for a momentary embrace? For a touch that didn't involve her spite?

So he would sit and cover his ears against the crescendo of sound, rocking himself against the onslaught of his conflicted feelings, the moisture burning his eyes threatening to erupt, but the tears never fell.

End