It was actually requested of me quite a while ago – I want to say around August of last year – that I write a short story for a Saiyuki doujinshi. The topic was going to revolve around the seven chakras, and mine was to be based on the heart charka. Unfortunately, the doujin fell through, as many of the artists that has signed up found they weren't able to keep up their end of the art. So the doujin was never printed.

I had originally withheld this as a sort of 'find it only in the doujin' kind of thing, but since it fell through (and I sincerely doubt it's going to come back), I'll go ahead and post it here. Who knows, if it DOES come back to life, I'll just have a write a new story. :3

Saiyuki not mine, etcetera and so on.

Embrace Nothing

:\

Embrace nothing:
If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.
If you meet your father, kill your father.
Only live your life as it is,
Not bound to anything.

---

"There," the man said, and touched two long, graceful fingers to the boy's sternum. "That is where you will find peace."

Kouryuu frowned. "I don't understand."

The man smiled – lines of age around his mouth and eyes deepening with the expression – and pulled away again, tucking his hand inside the sleeves of his robe. "Peace comes from absolute balance," he explained. "When you are nestled perfectly in the center of all emotions, in the center of your self, then you will find peace. Like floating on the river, with the water below you and the sky above you, safely caught in the balance and trusting, knowing you will not sink into the water or into the sky… that is like peace."

The child dropped his eyes. He was not even five years old, still a tiny replica of mankind, with miniature hands and feet, a head of unshaven, messy gold hair and wide, violet eyes. He had only five short years of life, five years of experience, all of which had passed in a quiet, tranquil temple that was constantly strewn with leaves no matter how often one swept. And yet, for all that he was living a monk's life, for all the meditation and religion he was observing and learning and living on a daily basis, this concept of 'peace' eluded him.

"I hate the river, osho-sama," he said finally, and raised his eyes back to his master.

Something about the smile, about the lines on his face, turned sad. "I know, Kouryuu," he said. "The river is deep, and its depths are dark and uncharted. But you can't fear what you don't know or don't understand forever. Someday you will have to learn how to float. Or you will drown."

"I'll never drown," the golden-haired child said, with all the confidence of youth, "but I will never love the river."

Koumyou Sanzo only continued to smile.

---

Night reigned. There were no clouds overhead, no trees, no moon, only the broad, endless expanse of night and its multitude of stars. There were thousands of them, millions of them; they clustered together in some parts of the sky as though desperate for company, painted in streaks and scattered droplets like paint from a brush. Still others were solitary, individual pinpricks of light that shone all the more brilliantly for being on their own.

Even without the moon, the night was still bright enough to read by. The stars were always brightest, after all, when there was no other light against which to compete.

The thin mountain air might have also had something to do with it; surely if the air was thinner, there was less obstruction between the viewer and the stars he was watching. This far up in the mountains, the air had turned ephemeral, like a will-'o-the-wisp that was gone when you turned your eyes to see it. Obviously the air was there, but it was so hard to breathe that it might as well have not existed at all. No matter how long they had been navigating these mountains, no matter how many months they had been living at this elevation, he would never get used to the suffocating sensation of never getting enough oxygen to satisfy.

It was almost enough to make one quit smoking. Only, of course, Sanzo didn't.

The back of his head was cushioned against the headrest as he stared at the sky, his arms crossed over his chest and hands tucked into his sleeves. It was cold, at night, at the top of a mountain, but no matter how many layers of clothing he wore the priest could never quite feel warm. When the sun was up then some heat could still be found, but this far into the night all the warmth had seeped out of the stone that surrounded them. There was the heat of the jeep, of course, and that of the man who slept in the driver's seat to his right, but they were small comforts. A cigarette would provide better heat.

A warm body in a warm bed would provide better heat still.

But they were days from civilization, months from any inns of true quality, and there was simply no point in setting up camp at the top of a mountain where there was no cover from the wind should any come along. The four of them, divinely assigned assassins that they were, had long ago gotten used to sleeping upright in the jeep; it could almost be called comfortable. Far more comfortable than the cold, rocky mountain slope, at least.

The other three occupants of the jeep slept on, heedless of his restlessness; or, at least, they sounded as though they were sleeping. Three sets of breathing patterns, deep, slow, all as familiar to him as the worn grip of his pistol or the beat of his heart between his ears. Of course they were sleeping; they all typically slept better than him, even in the best of situations. And all four of them needed all the rest they could get.

Because they were going to die in the morning.

Funny that the thought disturbed him. Sanzo had gotten so used to the idea of dying in next day, in the next hour, in the next minute, that if he'd ever said he wasn't jaded he'd be lying through his teeth. For a Buddhist priest he had been – still was – ridiculously well acquainted with death. After all, it was everywhere; one started dying from the day one was born. Death was inexorable. Death was a fate that all beings eventually shared.

Death had once been as enticing as the cigarettes he smoked. One slip-up in battle, one step taken in the wrong direction, one twitch of a finger on the trigger when he was alone – and it all would have ended. And he wouldn't have cared. Because death, after all, came for everyone. Why bother prolonging the inevitable?

Tomorrow they would step into Houtou Castle, to stop a resurrection, to regain a lost sutra. And, in almost every situation Sanzo could think of, to die.

But he didn't want to die. Not anymore.

This was the horizon that he had been chasing for so long. This was the ending, the final confrontation, that had been his mission in life since before he had come out of puberty. This was the end that he had wanted, damnit, never mind the fact that he also hadn't cared that much if he died before he retrieved his master's sutra. So long as he hadn't died because of something stupid – because he hadn't fought back, because he'd slipped in the tub and cracked his head open on the tile – then it didn't really matter. Because Sanzo knew, in the end, he would die. The when hadn't mattered so much as the how.

Things changed, he supposed. Change was just as inexorable as death.

Sanzo closed his eyes, closed off the sight of the stars overhead. If only it was so easy to close off the cold that had sunk down into his bones and made his hands ache, to close off the realization of what the future didn't hold, and just be. Meditation wouldn't come to him now, no more than sleep would. There were too many things to distract him.

Like the thin air. Like the cold. Like the castle in the distance. Like the breathing of the men who shared the jeep with him. Like the presence of the one that sat behind him, always sat behind him, no matter the circumstances.

Fuck muichimotsu. Sanzo had tried to follow the goals of non-attachment his entire life, and where had it gotten him? Where was the inner peace that came from casting off all desires to end all suffering? He had yet to reap the benefits.

He was too piss-poor a priest to even claim he followed muichimotsu, anyhow. Look at everything he craved – alcohol, meat, cigarettes, a bed, warmth. A body to share the bed with him. A true Buddhist priest could shrug those things off and move on without dwelling on the lack, but he was not a true Buddhist priest. Sanzo had been deluding himself with thinking he could ever be the kind of priest Koumyou Sanzo had been. He could never aspire to that kind of greatness.

He could never be a true Buddhist priest. But perhaps that was the only reason why he was still alive.

Someone in the back shifted, clothing rustling against leather. Weight leaned against the back of his seat, slowly, and a hand slipped between the door and the seat to find his own. Sanzo didn't move, didn't open his eyes, didn't flinch at the touch. He didn't resist when blunt, strong fingers slipped between his more slender ones, twining them together.

'Why?' he wanted to ask, but didn't dare. Never dared to, even when they were alone and there was no chance of the other two overhearing. Sanzo wasn't so sure he was ready to hear the answer.

He had lost track of how long they'd been on this journey, how many years it had been the four of them on this road going nowhere. How many demons they had killed, how many times they had almost been killed themselves. The ending of the journey, the whole bloody reason they were out here risking their lives, didn't even seem to matter anymore; it had become the trip itself that mattered, not the destination. And now that they were here, almost to that final destination, he wished that it was just one more day away, just one more mile down the road instead.

One would think that by now he'd be tired of the endless traveling. But in this instant he would prefer if the road went on forever.

But it was too late now. They would die in the morning, and all he could do now was wait and mull back over the events that had gotten him here and wonder where he changed along the way. Wonder when he stopped thinking about putting the barrel of his own weapon to his temple and squeezing the trigger. Wonder when he'd stopped obsessing over the seiten-kyoumon. Wonder when it had changed from just sex and physical gratification to quiet moments with no speech, no touch save for their linked hands.

Sanzo didn't bother wondering what they would do if they did survive, if they did stop the resurrection. There was no way of knowing if Kougaiji and his subordinates would fight back or step aside or even join them; there was no way of knowing if Gyumaoh's resurrection would be completed before they could stop it. There was no way of knowing what else was in that castle, waiting for the first fingers of dawn to creep over the horizon. There were just too many unknowns to contemplate life after this venture.

But if, for some ungodly (or godly, at that) reason, they did survive…

Goku squeezed his hand gently, and said nothing.

Well.

That was something they could decide later.

---

"Here." Sanzo reached out and laid his palm on the tanned, slicked chest, sliding his hand down the soft skin until it rested on his partner's sternum. The other's heart-beat was still rapid in the aftermath of climax.

Goku blinked at him, rolled his head tiredly in Sanzo's direction, rested his hand on top of the slim pale one on his chest. "Here?"

The priest stared at the younger man – the older man – the ageless not-demon not-human not-god that shared the inn room bed with him. "That's where you find peace."

A faint smile twirked up the corners of lips he had not long ago kissed and wanted to kiss again, even now. "That's peace?" Those lips curled up even further, broadening the smile. "What's it feel like to you?"

Sanzo concentrated on his breathing – inhale, exhale, pause, inhale, exhale, repeat. Stared at those golden irises for a long moment before looking away again, pulling his hand away, rolling over onto his back. He stared at the ceiling and wondered if there was even a way to put something like that into words.

"Like floating on a river," he said finally.

---

Sanzo opened his eyes to look up at the stars again.

Together, they waited for the dawn to come.