Transient
X-parrot
It was quite dark by the time Hakkai returned; the fire had burned down to embers, only faintly illuminating the three mounds which were his sleeping comrades. He was spreading his own bedroll between Goku and Gojyo when the darkness spoke.
"I followed you tonight."
Hakkai looked up. Not Gojyo after all, only his blankets, while the half-youkai himself crouched against a tree on the opposite side of the clearing. Hakkai could only make out the glow of his cigarette, and the faintest red gleam of his eyes. "Just so you know," Gojyo said, conversationally.
"Ah." He should have known. Coming back an hour apart was hardly advanced subterfuge. Hakkai glanced at the other two, wondered if Sanzo were asleep yet. Impossible to say. Shaking his head, he stood, crossed to Gojyo and sat down beside him. "So you saw."
"I'd guessed already." Gojyo exhaled a long plume of smoke. "After the last time Sanzo stuck me in an inn room with the monkey. But you're so...discreet."
"Yes." Hakkai gazed down at his hands, visually tracing the contours of his long fingers, the folds of skin. There was a time that he would have been virtually blind in the night, but his eyes were different now, even if they were the same deep green he had been born with. Lifeline, loveline...
"Guess it's hard to resist a lake, in this heat."
"Yes," Hakkai said again.
"You were beautiful, you know." Gojyo leaned forward, a shadowy profile just visible out of the corner of his good eye. "Both of you. Fucking gorgeous, in the water. You couldn't know how much. The monk's always been way too pretty to be something holy, but that...his head came back and his hair really was like the sun. Brighter than the moon. And you. You were..."
"Please," Hakkai whispered. "Don't."
"I've seen it all before, but not like that. Just your skin, and the water...it shines. You shine. I could see your face, and you weren't smiling. So damn beautiful."
"Gojyo..." Then Gojyo was leaning over him, all heat and the acrid scent of tobacco, a different brand than Sanzo's but just as familiar. So close Hakkai could see the moisture of the humid night beading on his scarred cheek, and his eyes were closed.
"He touched you, here." Gojyo's hand ghosted over Hakkai's body, hardly more pressure than a breeze. "Here, and here," and Hakkai twitched at what those phantom caresses evoked. "And you knew how to touch him, too. How much experimenting did that take? No way he'd tell those secrets...not even you. But I heard him moan. Or does it just come naturally? All instinct?"
"No." Hakkai closed his eyes, recalled hours groping and fumbling in the darkness, uncertain, unfulfilled. But they both needed it, and they learned.
Gojyo's touch now was sure, even so light it could hardly be felt at all, just fingertips gliding over his skin, and he gasped.
"Why him?" whispered Gojyo. "Why him? I told you, a long time ago. Whatever you wanted. Anything."
"I know. But...I didn't..."
The hand stopped, and he rolled off Hakkai, onto the ground, crushing ferns as he put his arms behind his head and gazed up at the branches above them. "You like blondes. Or is it the eyes? Or just that he's shorter?"
"Not that."
"He's so damn cold, Hakkai."
"He would never say he loves me," Hakkai said.
In the shadows he couldn't tell if Gojyo's eyes were closed, or watching him. "I wouldn't, either."
"You never had to."
Gojyo lay there a moment longer, then sat up. Reached into his pocket for another cigarette. "He's good, isn't he. He must be. Our Sanzo never does anything half-assed. And I saw your face."
"Very good," and the memory made him blush a little.
"And he wouldn't hurt you. Though I bet he likes it better when you hurt him. Just a bit."
"Gojyo..."
The half-youkai's teeth flashed white. "I saw his face, too."
For a time they sat in silence, Gojyo smoking, Hakkai only breathing, listening to the insects buzzing in the still night. They really should get some sleep. Sanzo would want to leave at dawn, as always, and would have no sympathy for their fatigue. At night he would, never pushing, always conscientious of Hakkai's moods, to the point that it was nearly impossible to tell what Sanzo himself actually wanted. But not on their journey, not when it was important.
They had sat just like this so many times, he and Gojyo, before they had left that home. Summer nights were always this way, there or here, the same sounds, the same smells. Sometimes they had talked, sometimes they hadn't. Sometimes Sanzo and Goku had been with them.
"It can't last forever." Gojyo tossed the cigarette butt aside. "I forget that. It feels like it will, sometimes. Like we're going to be doing this always. Going West. But we'll get there. Sooner or later you always do. Unless you die along the way. Or give up." He looped his arms around his bent legs, rested his chin on his knees. "The kid's growing up. Goku. He's gotten a lot older since we met him. He's not going to be that monkey-boy always. And eventually he's going to want more than to get hit with that fan.
"You can see it already, when he looks at Sanzo. Something in the back of his eyes. Sanzo's no father, not even his big brother. And Sanzo knows it."
"Yes."
"Doesn't miss much, that monk."
"Neither do you," Hakkai said.
"It scares him, doesn't it. He doesn't want it. Any more than you do. But one of these days Goku's going to ask for more of his sun than just burns. And Sanzo...maybe he'll be ready for it by then. And what are you going to do, Hakkai?"
"Nothing." He leaned back on his arms, tilted his head up toward the sky. "As you said. Nothing lasts forever."
"But will you miss it?"
"I might." Sweat trickled down his back, and he thought of the cool currents of the river, the heat of their bodies entwined.
"He's cold, our Sanzo. And he doesn't like to admit things. But that doesn't mean they're not there, somewhere. Even if he pretends that they aren't. Though it can be hard to tell."
"What do you think, Gojyo?" Hakkai didn't want to ask it. Didn't want it answered. But by then it was already spoken.
"What do I think." Gojyo didn't move, didn't turn his head, but Hakkai could see the scarlet of his eyes through his hair. "I already told you. I think things don't last forever. Everything changes. That's how we know what's real."
He stretched suddenly, arching his back, uncoiled his long legs and stood. "But just because you've gotten to where you're going doesn't mean you can't ever travel again. People forget that, sometimes. And I think...I think if this were just about that mission, we would be there by now."
He extended his hand, and Hakkai took it, let himself be pulled to his feet. He stumbled over the tree root in the darkness and Gojyo steadied him with a hand on his arm. And then they were apart again, but Gojyo was watching him.
"Please don't worry about me," Hakkai said quietly. "Whatever happens. I'll be all right."
"Sanzo was smiling." Gojyo glanced over to the fire, only ashes by now, speaking too softly for his voice to carry that far. "In the water. Barely, but he was. You looked good together. Really good."
"I will miss it," Hakkai said. Then he reached out, carefully brushed aside that fall of bloody crimson so he could see the deeper red behind it. "But you'll be there."
Gojyo looked at him, directly, at last. "Yeah," he said. "I will."
And forever was impossible, but there was still its promise in his eyes.