Title : Cake or Death?

Disclaimer : Me no own, You no sue.

Warnings : Character death, language, suicide

Note: Future-istic; Title taken from a line during Eddie Izzard's "Dress To Kill" performance.

-z-

It is only when the soul shatters do we realize how truly mortal we are.

"There's a very big chance that you won't survive this," says the man with the golden hair and you know that you've fucked up royally as he raises the pistol and pulls back the hammer. His violet irises, the ones that you fell in love with, hold no emotion and you hate how indifferent he seems to be.

You want to apologize, to explain everything, to tell him why you did what you did and why it's you with the monkey's blood on your hands. You open you mouth to say something, anything, but before you even take in a breath to speak, he pulls the trigger and a pain like none you've ever felt before rips its way through your right shoulder.

"Don't you dare say a word," and the fury that you know he's been hiding has finally revealed itself and you wish that his painful apathy was back. "You have no right whatsoever to say one fucking word!" he pulls back the hammer again and you watch as the next bullet clicks slowly into place. "How dare you breathe when he no longer can!"

The next thing you know, the priest with violet drooping eyes, the ones you fell in love with, is shoving the Smith & Wesson into your mouth and you think that you can see tears on his face and you want nothing more than to apologize for the pain that you've caused him and you hate him just a little for being the one to end your life because you've always thought that you'd die having sex, not murdered by the one you love in some random forest clearing. And in a sadistically ironic way, you realize that the moment you touched him, the moment you took away... no, robbedthat damned monkey's innocence, you died.

He pulls the trigger and you feel the bullet rip through the back of your head and you thank every god and goddess that you can think of that there's no pain.

It is only when the soul is irreparable do we realize how truly fleeting our lives are.

Genjo Sanzo pulls the trigger over and over again so that when he finally runs out of bullets the face of Sha Gojyo is no longer recognizable. The tears cascade down his cheeks as his legs weaken and finally give out, landing him in a puddle of half-demon blood.

He looks over at the mangled carcass of his once-upon-a-time friend and mourns for everything. For the fact that he knew about Gojyo's crush, about the fact that he couldn't protect Hakkai all those years ago, but mostly, he mourns for his dead lover. The only being that was ever able to bring him out of his shell, into the sun and live life without being weighted down by his sins.

Sanzo knows that he can't change the world, that he can't love the dead, and knows that he can't move on and go back to the temple where Goku's scent is everywhere. So he lies here now, knowing that if the monkey were here he'd probably berate him for being the idiot this time 'round.

"Damned stupid monkey," Sanzo curses as he rolls onto his back, still in the blood, he can feel it soaking through his robes but finds himself no longer caring as he reaches in his long sleeves and pulls out a carton of cigarettes. He grabs a paper stick, the last in the box, and flicks open his lighter. Inhaling deeply, he leaves it between his lips, and, with his face to the sky, watches the white clouds roll on by and he remembers the days of the great journey west.

Sanzo likes to remember those times, when he was younger, as he and the rest of group traveled from China to India, in search of his master's sutra and to stop the experiments to revive Gyumaoh. He closes his eyes and dreams of riding shotgun in Hakkai's jeep, of fighting Rikudo… Kougaiji… Chin Yisou… the spider woman… the scorpion who though she had obtained eternal youth, what a bitch. He dreams of fighting his own fears and nightmares and finally coming to terms with life in general.

But, there's another dream, one that he loves above all others, it's the one about when he and Goku had first acknowledged that thing between them. They had been fighting and fighting before Goku just stormed off to his own room, Sanzo stomped to his own and slammed the door. He had later realized that it was his fault and that he had had no reason to criticize the chimp. So he made his way silently toward Goku's room. The rest of it was a blur, he remembers Goku opening the door, the awkward silence, the lame apology, and then the sudden lip-lock. He remembers Goku's body again his own, the coarse sheets clenched in his fist, the passionate need that came from somewhere deep in his gut.

He raises his hand to his cheeks and feels the wetness of his tears and is shoved back into the present, back to the place where everyone he has ever cared for is dead.

"I'm sorry," he says to no one in particular and he thinks that he can see Goku squatting next to him, a childish smirk on his face as he laughs silently at the priest with deep amber eyes.

"Come home, Sanzo," the apparition says as a sad smile slides across his features. "I'm tired of being alone, please come home. Hakkai wants to see you to."

"I should be the one ordering you around," Sanzo says. He's watching the face of his lover when a sudden noise jerks away his attention, he turns and sees two men enter the forest clearing, both are youkai.

"What the hell is going on here?" one of them asks, his dark blue hair covers one silver eye while the other glistens sharply. "We heard gunshots," his voice trails off as he takes in the corpse and the wallowing priest.

"What do you want?" Sanzo asks, his voice cold, he doesn't even brother trying to sit up, just watches them from beneath long lashes.

"We were just-. Did you kill him?" asks the other demon, pointing to what was left of Sha Gojyo.

Sanzo looks over at the carcass and just stares at it before he finally sits up, he can feel the tears threatening to spill over again. "I give just as well as I get," he says, purple eyes glaring darkly at the golden orbs of the second demon.

He could kill these two with a flick of his wrist; instead he picks up his tiny, child-sized gun and places one bullet into the chamber, and before the other two demons could stop him…

It is only when the soul is doomed do we realize how truly savage our hearts are.

-z-