Disclaimer: -sigh- I don't know why I have to repeat this. Sanzo and Goku aren't mine. Kazuya just won't relent, possessive bitch. I even gave her Pocky, but all to no avail. Saiyuki and all of its characters still remain firmly grasped in her greedy claws. Grrrr.

Warning: Whew! Thank God this is yaoi. The last fic I wrote was actually het, and when I got to the warning there was nothing to warn about. I nearly had a mental breakdown. Anyway, this contains ye ole all-guy lovin'. Either relish or leave me alone. Your homophobia is not my problem.

A/N: This is a response to a request to "bring Goku back, please," by a certain Catey whom I know absolutely nothing else about. But she put the idea in my head. Even though it could never technically happen. Written just to make myself (and Sanzo) happy. NOT a sequel to Within the Coil. Just a weird AU companion piece to it. Definitely should be read AFTER checking out Within the Coil. Or, on second thought, it might be okay without it. Hmmm.

-Nightfall-

I am here, calling the wind.

I am here, calling your name.

I am here, calling you back.

Return to me.

-"Return to Me," October Project

Sanzo pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut with slow, dull pain behind his thin, black-rimmed glasses. God, all this paperwork gave him a headache. Letters from simpering, groveling temples begging for charity or a quick visit. Fucking idiots couldn't do anything for themselves. Well, he sure as hell wasn't going to do anything for them. He ground his pen over clean paper, responding respectfully in the negative. The hours ate away at the day, and when he looked up with a scowl the sun was touching the mountains in the distance. He relished the oncoming night like nicotine; it would be a justifiable reason for him to leave his paperwork for another monotonous day.

He had gotten a lot done today. For the past three years, every day he had efficiently completed all tasks that were necessary. Before that, things had gotten in the way. Before three years ago, there had been the journey west, and before that, there had been Goku.

Goku. If he were still here, every other letter would have been interrupted with a "What's that?" or a "Sanzo, look at this!" or the ever-persistent whine of "Sannnzooo, I'm hungry!"

The monk's mouth went from a tight grimace to a relaxed straight line, the closest he ever came to a smile these past years. Before he had come home three years ago, of course, the only thing that had ever caused him to smile was that stupid monkey, and even those occurrences had been preciously rare.

Shutting his eyes against the harsh reality of the temple, he allowed himself a quick mental image of the journey to defeat Gyumaoh: Hakuryuu rumbling along, Hakkai patiently driving in the seat adjacent to his own, Goku and Gojyo arguing intermittently in the backseat. The danger had been constant, and the entire trip had been a pain in the ass, but when he compared it to answering letters and giving insincere sermons all day, he wondered which of the two he preferred. Looking back out at the setting sun, he imagined the silhouette of the jeep chasing after it, and knew the answer. But it only left him with more questions.

The journey was over. It was over, and it had not been free of prices. Forget the journey west, they had all gone to hell and back.

Except that one of them had not come back. Sanzo glanced at the coronet in the corner. Upon his return he had kicked it there after not knowing what to do with it. It glared goldenly from its corner, deep amber like Goku's eyes had been. The shadows grew longer, and Sanzo watched impassively as the coronet's sparkle shrank and shrank until it went out completely. The sun had buried itself beneath the mountains in the distance.

The question was, what happened after the sun went down? When the journey west was over, what came next? The answering glint of pale starlight shimmered icily above. For the past three years, the darkening sky and the austere glow of the moon and its tiny white offshoots had been his cold solace. There was no gold in night. It was dark, it was empty, and he had learned to live with it.

Yes, he knew, he was sure, what came after the sun went down.

This was what he was thinking when he heard the obnoxious rapping at the door.

"Oi, Sanzooo! Lemme in Sanzo; it's cold out here and I'm hungry! Come on, Sanzo, you always leave this door unlocked; why'd you lock it today?"

Sanzo's entire mind was stripped of all thought. Blankness went on for what seemed to be the most impossible eternity, until finally one bare, confused question clawed its way out of the white. What. The. Hell.

"Sanzoooooo, come onnnn! Are you eating without me? That's what it is, isn't it?"

The howling grew more vehement as the voice's owner began pounding violently on the door.

Sanzo took three awed steps toward the door.

It was an imposter. Had to be.

Two more steps.

"If you're having meatbuns...Sanzo, you know those are my favorite! You can't eat them! They're mine!"

Some demon taking on Goku's voice and possibly his form. Probably on some sort of vengeance trip.

Four more steps.

"You can't eat my meatbuns! It isn't fair!"

He was going crazy. All that time spent answering insipid, moronic letters had gone to his head. He was having auditory hallucinations.

Three steps again. The voice rose in pitch, both because he was closer and because it was reaching the zenith of its outrage.

"You can't eat them! You can't have food without me! You're the meanest cheapskate ever, Sanzo! You're eating my meatbuns while I'm stuck out here! I'm cold and I'm hungry and you won't let me in–"

The door was flung open. A starving, angry monkey pitched forward onto Sanzo, knocking both figures onto the unforgiving wooden floor. Said monkey looked rapidly about for signs that Sanzo had been eating without him. Seeing none, he pouted down at Sanzo, his jaw stuck out stubbornly. Sanzo, for his part, had yet to move.

"What's the big idea, huh? Locking me out like that. You never lock that door!"

Sanzo opened his mouth a total of four times, casting about for his voice, before it scratched out, "You...you were...gone...I...there was no reason...to..."

"Just because I got lost for a little while doesn't mean you have to lock the door on me. That was really mean, Sanzo! That's like something the other monks would do!"

There was some sort of whistle spinning around in Sanzo's head, like a teapot letting off steam, but in with the whistle were a thousand things that he had said to Goku, that Goku had said to him, all whirling and whistling about like a plague of locusts, and he didn't understand, he didn't...

"I mean, why lock it? Did you lock it to be mean? Did you lock it as punishment? It's not my fault I got lost!"

This was insane, This was beyond insane, this was absolutely, utterly, perfectly impossible and he couldn't move, couldn't bring himself to throw off the thing weighing on his chest...

"Did you–" Goku stumbled, unsure, "Did you forget about me?"

The whirlpool stopped. Sanzo had no clue, no fucking clue what was going on. But he knew the answer to that question.

"No. No you moron, I didn't forget you. There was no way I could forget you."

Goku stared down, eyes seeming to hold enough sun to erase the night forever.

"You're far too annoying to forget."

Goku's intent face relaxed into a smile.

"Now get off me."

The runt obliged, scrambling to his feet. Sanzo walked over to the door. "One of the monks in training must have locked this. It won't happen again."

This seemed convincing enough for Goku, who bounded off in search of food, yammering the whole way.

"Man, I'm starving! What is there? I bet I could eat an entire restaurant! Two restaurants! And a bag of fortune cookies! I'm so hungry, I–"

Sanzo smiled, the first actual upturn of the mouth in three years.

"Oi, Goku."

Goku turned. "Hn?"

The paper fan crashed down on top of one brown, blissfully familiar head.

-o-

Eventually Goku dragged himself to his room, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, no matter how good the food was and how not-quite-mean Sanzo was being. Collapsing dramatically onto his futon, Goku wriggled gleefully in its comforting embrace. That food had sure been delicious...

Just as his consciousness had been tiptoeing away, an opening door pulled Goku back into awareness.

"Oi. Saru," came a voice form the edge of the hall, "Stop snoring. You're keeping me awake."

Goku frowned from his curled-up position on the futon, refusing to turn over and face Sanzo out of fundamental dignity (he was pretty sure those words applied to what he was feeling).

"I am not snoring. I haven't snored at all! It's probably you, you're just sticking it on me!"

"I'm not the one snoring, Goku. Now, if you want to wake up in the morning, you had better stop."

"But I'm not snoring! I'm not! You can't prove it! You can't–"

A hand clamped over his protests. Apparently Sanzo was no longer in the doorway.

"Keep your mouth shut," Sanzo whispered dangerously, "And maybe I'll believe you."

Goku swallowed as Sanzo's hand ran along his jawbone as it drew away from his mouth. He heard Sanzo settle slowly onto the futon behind him, and tried to still the frantic pulsing in his chest when Sanzo's robe brushed against his calves. He had touched Sanzo before, of course, and Sanzo had touched him, but there had always been some circumstantial excuse for it, like earlier, when Goku had fallen on top of him. This, this...willing intimacy...was completely unprecedented. Goku could feel his throat sticking when a warm chest pressed up against his back, and he bit down on his tongue to keep form crying out when a lightly muscled arm snaked around his waist and held it firmly. He could feel Sanzo's lips just below his ear as they whispered, "If you ever get lost again, I'll kill you."

That cruel, hard, violently protective utterance was reassurance enough for Goku. He leaned into Sanzo in reply.

-o-

Eyelids peeled away resignedly to reveal bleary, sleep-fresh violet. Consciousness swelled in Sanzo's mind as he realized that he was lying in Goku's futon.

He blinked with detached slowness.

And Goku was not lying next to him.

It had been a dream, then. He didn't know why he hadn't realized it earlier. He had had so many of them before. It had been a dream, and Goku was still dead.

Footsteps were followed by a tan body and an ingenuous expression.

"Oi, Sanzo, what's this?" Goku held up the dusty coronet with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. "I found it in your study, and I know you don't like it when I go in there, but I saw something in the corner and I thought maybe you were hiding some kind of food, except now I know you weren't, because it's this, but...why do you have an extra coronet? Is it in case mine breaks? I didn't even know you could have two coronets at the same time; you always just make new ones when I need them..."

The sun crept up above the mountains and shot little mocking beams through the window.

Yes, Sanzo knew what came after the sun went down. He had just forgotten about it coming back up again.

-fin-

A/N: Awwww. All that sunset-nightfall-sunrise-metaphor crap was actually not part of the original plotline; I just sort of stumbled onto it while writing. So, yay, Sanzo gets his happy ending. -sigh- I'm such a sap. All I end up writing is fluff, and when I do write angst, I renege and make it all better. I'm so terrible. My only defense is that this is NOT A SEQUEL to Within the Coil. Just a wishful-thinking companion piece. Oh, fluff is so very foul. Freaking happy endings. Hmph.