Iris: Through These Eyes

A Saiyuki fanfiction by jadesword -- a giftfic

for El Caballo Blanco

Loosely based on the song Iris by the Goo Goo

Dolls

notes:

* * -- emphasis

The road to the West stretches to the horizon, endlessly.

By day it is a silver ribbon that taunts my eye with its

shimmer, and at night it is a dull light-path that

strains my vision.

For once there is some silence to be had in the Jeep,

under the overcast sky that has loomed over us for the

past week. We have been traveling these plains for some

time now, great flat expanses of land stretching out in

all directions. From time to time we pass small copses

of trees to break the monotony, but in this part of the

Journey to the West, we are just going this way because

this way is west, and the exhaustion is starting to

clamp down.

Goku, listless and quiet, cups his chin in one hand and

stares as is his wont, although right now I'm not sure

he's seeing anything. The same look is on Sanzou's face

-- or it would if his eyes were open; he has gone to

sleep again.

And Gojyo...he still seems somewhat conscious, although

the look in his eyes resembles mine and the others' --

completely disinterested in the world around us. His

hair hangs limp and dispirited around his shoulders,

without even enough life to reflect things, weakly or

not. I look at him in the rear-view mirror and watch as

he lights another cigarette -- with some difficulty in

the oppressively humid air -- and puts it to his lips.

I could reach back and put my hand on his shoulder, if

I try -- he slouches forward now, and puts his own chin

in his free hand to almost mirror Goku's pose -- but I

need to keep Jiipu on an even track, going straight

down this west-leading road through nowhere.

I need to keep him at arm's length for his own sake and

mine -- my hands are bloody, they have killed for

passion, and I will not go through it again.

And he has seen what happens when emotions rule and

beget violence, and I will have nothing to do with a

repetition of his experiences.

But I want to touch him somehow, so much.

He sees me looking at him then, and a small smile

takes its time spreading over his mouth. I give him one

of my emptily reassuring smiles -- he is too tired to

know the difference -- and when he looks away, unable to

make an effort, I let my smile become a little real.

Just a little. He cannot know how much that smile, tired

as it is and vacant, means to me.

***

A raindrop strikes the windshield with a loud splat, and

another, and another...and suddenly the storm long

promised by the brooding sky breaks around us with enough

force to shatter our senses. It is all I can do to keep

Jiipu on the road as it suddenly becomes muddy and unfit

for driving on, and it is barely in the nick of time that

Goku's eyes spot the abandoned house, set well back into

its copse of trees.

Dinner is a threadbare affair, and the pouring rain

provides a dreary, pounding background: something canned

from the bag of emergency rations that I keep in the

back of the Jeep, and cold water from the taps -- which

is all that they can produce.

Goku makes faces at the half-stale bread, canned beans

and cold oil-preserved fish, but he wolfs down his

share and asks for more. It's more of a reaction than

Sanzou's, who turns up his nose at the meager

provisions and walks off, locking the door of the

largest bedroom behind him with a loud click.

Gojyo accepts his plate silently and goes to stand near

the window, staring out at the gray without even seeing

the food he's eating.

Dinner has no taste for me either, not only because it's

cold but because this is a night when I, too, am

burdened by the unending rhythm of the water falling

endlessly from the sky. On a night like this, the rain

whispers to me of the crimes I've committed and the tears

I've caused to fall in my wake, in this life that is no

longer human.

In the flashes of lightning I watch Gojyo shovel his food

in, and wince when he is done -- he leaves no crumbs, but

he doesn't ask for more either. It makes me think that he

ate solely for the purpose of keeping his body alive, for

the sake of going on breathing in his own life that is

perceived as taboo by nearly every single human being

we've passed on this long westbound road.

He smells of sweat and salt as he walks past me towards

the kitchen and its door to the backyard, and I breathe

deep of the despair in his shadowed eyes.

***

At midnight I get out of the worn armchair near the

little fire and look around. It is time for my watch, and

with a small grunt Goku lowers himself into the spot that

I have just left. He is asleep within moments, Hakuryuu

draped loosely around his neck for warmth.

They make a tableau together, encouraging in its own

little way -- that those two could sleep through the

night before the end of the world as long as we're all

still together -- and I gaze at them for a moment by the

flickering fire, before noticing that one of us is still

missing.

The door to the kitchen hangs ajar and I go through it,

guided by the tiny pinprick of light that fades in and

out of sight -- Gojyo's cigarette, its tip glowing redly

in the deepening storm night.

With the firelight behind me I can just barely make him

out: he is braced against the kitchen sink, one hand

hovering near a glass, the other holding the cigarette

to his lips.

'What are you doing here?'

There is no anger in his voice, or even annoyance --

just a deep tiredness that makes me frown just thinking

about it, perhaps because I share the same feeling.

I feel my way toward the kitchen table and one of its

chairs before answering him: 'I'm watching out for

anything that could happen. I've just relieved Goku,

and he's sleeping now. Even if we're out here in the

middle of someplace we'll never be familiar with

because we're just passing by, I can't forget that

there are still many out there who are trying to stop

us.'

'Shit, don't even talk about it,' is his reply,

taking another deep drag off his cigarette. 'I don't

even have the strength to fight anyone or anything.'

'You don't have to,' I tell him. 'You don't even have

to notice me here. And at least I can assure you that

I can handle any minor incursions until morning.'

'Why do you keep doing that?' Gojyo asks after a few

minutes of storm-sounds and thunder.

'I'm sorry,' I say, 'doing what?'

'It's not just that you're telling me not to notice

you here -- well shit, obviously you're here because I

*don't* talk to myself! And you do that invisible

thing all the time...when we're in a town and it's time

to sleep, the monkey snores like he's fuckin' sawing

logs and the monk mutters like he's nuts -- but you and

that dragon of yours, it's like the moment you two fall

asleep you two cease to exist...that's frigging

creepy....

'Even in that little house I always had to keep

checking up on you and your injuries -- you were

always too quiet a sleeper except when you were having

nightmares, I tended to think you were dying all the

time just because I couldn't hear you breathe! --

Hakkai, why do you *like* vanishing like that? Spare a

thought for us, will you?'

Lightning flashes overhead and he is lit up -- his red

hair and eyes glow in the storm and the expression on

his face is unreadable to me.

Even then, he takes my breath away...I hear myself gasp

and the sound is clearly audible in the silence after

the thunderclap.

He smiles then, a little crookedly. 'Y'know, Hakkai,'

he begins in a conversational manner, 'there are some

of us here on this earth that wouldn't like it if you

suddenly up and vanished without a trace on us.'

'Of course,' I say quietly. 'The Three Aspects sent me

along on this Journey to the West, and if I leave, I

think they would be most displeased. And, let us not

forget that Goddess of Mercy -- she would probably want

to kill me herself if I did that.'

'They can all go hang,' he mutters fervently. 'And none

of them count, they ain't on this earth. I'm talking

about that idiot monkey because he looks up to you as

family. I'm talking about that corrupt monk because if

you never noticed he talks sense to you, while the rest

of us are fuckin' trash....'

'And then there's you,' I say quietly, interrupting him

as he takes his next breath. 'Who saved my life and

helped me when I was in need. Those things are important

to me -- I think about them when I'm being invisible, as

you call it, Gojyo. In fact that's what helps me remember

that I am *not*.'

'You confuse me, Hakkai, you really do.' Gojyo stubs out

his cigarette and comes around the table, stopping in

the one place with any warmth in the kitchen: in the

doorway to the main room, where the fire in the fireplace

continues to burn.

It places him behind me -- he is directly between the

door and my chair. Now he is the invisible one, and his

next words seem to come out of the storm itself.

***

'You aren't invisible, Hakkai, and you never will be.

You're just kidding yourself if you think we're not

aware of you...how can we not be? You're just standing,

or driving the Jeep, and we know you're there. If we're

fighting those goddamned youkai you just can't be missed

-- heck, those blasts of yours, right?

'When you were getting well and all that I knew you were

at home all the time -- I'd come back and the house'd

still be clean and you'd be sitting quietly in bed,

pretending all the time it hadn't been a bother or a pain

but I always thought about you pulling stitches or

reopening an injury. And sometimes I'd see blood on your

bandages and I could never get mad at you for what you

were doing....

'Gods help me, Hakkai, you can't be invisible to me, not

when I feel so strange when you're around me. You make me

feel like I can do anything, so long as you could see it.

And you make me feel like I couldn't live in a world

without you. You're no woman but I keep thinking about

doing that sort of thing with you, being super nice and

trying to win your heart and all the shit I do to get

another girl...heck, do you know how long I've wanted to

hold you?'

His words fall against my defenses like the storm

outside, and wash them away.

'Maybe I do.' Again I interrupt him, and the lightning

strikes to illuminate the shock in his features.

'Because I've wanted the same, for a very long time.'

I rise to my feet and step toward him, and we stop

together between the table and the door into the main

room of the house.

'You do?'

I nod, once. 'Yes, I do.'

He moves between one lightning strike and another

-- one moment, I can see him standing some three feet

away from me and in the next, his arms are around me

and his forehead is resting on my shoulder.

I bring my own arms up to hold him and breathe deep.

And in the next moment, somehow, we are moving together

-- my feet and his stepping softly on the worn wooden

floor of this empty house, our bodies swaying together

in a silent dance.

The storm fades into silence and the fire darkens into

the dying glow of its embers; still we are there,

standing together, wrapped in each other. I can see him

and he sees me.

Now, in this moment...I think I know who he is completely.

And I know he feels the same about me.

~owari