A/N: This is short because, well, I had to cut it off here because there's a much larger section that needs to keep together...and I'm not done with that bit yet ^.^

Isaac Paul is an original character of mine, and has been for a long time. He just strikes me as the lawyer type that's enough like Kanzeon to bug Sanzo but not -so- alike that Kanzeon also dislikes him for the similarity. ^.^

Notes to reviewers at the end...

Enjoy

***

Sanzo didn't look at anything but the stairs up to his room. And the door to his room. And the interior of his room. And the window to the snow-covered acre lot on the far wall of his room. The sun was setting, later than before, but setting. The sky bled into the shining snow, red-orange staining pristine white in the reflection on a million tiny crystals. Naked trees cut into the brightness, black and gray and paralyzed a step from life. Tense, like the hands that clutched the sill until the knuckles whitened and stretched skin pulled painfully at everyday rips near the nails.

Sanzo pulled his hands away from the wood and just leaned out into the cold, clearing his head. It had become almost as soothing as the cigarettes themselves, but no placebo. Moments later, his lungs burned in contrast with his frozen face and the glow of a cigarette rivaled the red sky. He'd shed his school jacket long before, loosened the white button-down shirt so he could breathe and move his hands.

It hadn't helped earlier that afternoon. Riding stiff-backed and tense in Gonou's deathtrap to his house only to find his aunt and a lawyer and no Gojyo to pin his frustrations upon. She'd had the nerve to explain the situation to him as if he'd been -worried- about The Fucktoy. They'd reached an agreement. Gojyo had moved out earlier today. My, won't the house seem empty when he's gone?

The lawyer was irritatingly like his aunt, a man by the name of Paul, with loose honey-colored curls and chocolate eyes and a gray pinstriped suit that looked gaudy in tandem with his attitude. He sat Gonou and Sanzo down and quizzed them about That Day, asking for each and every detail they could give up. His face was stern and aloof, but his eyes held the same bit of disrespectful humor and his thin lips were ever quirked in a half-smirk. He recorded their voices, his face never changing and his eyes searching for hidden meanings when really there were none. He tried to make connections and failed miserably.

Gonou and Sanzo were permitted to leave, and told to Call Mr. Paul (remember the rhyme, boys) if they happened to remember anything else. Gonou had politely nodded and left without another look at Sanzo. And Sanzo was fine with that.

The cigarette burned his fingers when he reached up to pull it from his mouth, and he tossed it into the snow. Sanzo turned at a familiarly unobtrusive knock. "What?"

"That lawyer guy just left. I've got food for you," Goku said. "I was told to send you down to dinner, but I figured you wouldn't want to go."

Sanzo frowned at having a good rant taken from him by sweet forethought. Nevertheless, he crossed the room and opened the door, letting Goku sidle in with a tray of salmon and salad. Goku set the tray down on Sanzo's bare desk, and the blonde thought fleetingly of the homework he'd have to make excuses for the next day.

"So when's the trial?" Sanzo murmured, indicating that Goku didn't have to leave as rapidly as planned. The brunette shrugged, watching as Sanzo sat and took a bite of salmon.

"He said it'd take a few months before the trial even came up for consideration in court. But the guy - Homura - he's gonna go to prison for holding as soon as the suit's filed."

Sanzo swallowed. "Hn." He watched Goku for a moment, then rolled his eyes. "Have you eaten yet?" Without waiting for an answer, he held out the plate of salmon. "I hate fish anyway."

Goku's jaw dropped. "You do? I can get you something else..." He stopped when he saw the look on Sanzo's face. Take-the-damn'-fish. So he did. It wasn't so bad, grilled and spiced with lemon pepper and rosemary. Richer than he was used to, but made so well. Goku wondered how Sanzo could hate any food like this. He sucked at his thumb, trying to catch a bit of lemon juice and olive oil before it stained the shirt cuff at his wrist.

Sanzo ate slowly, trying not to listen to the sickening sounds coming from Goku and yet perversely enthralled by the spectacle the boy provided. His own hunger was a minor addition, not really having been sparked even though he'd eaten nothing more than a few of Goku's fries at lunch. The salad was spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, light and in no way filling, and the vinaigrette left a film over his mouth. The kid had forgotten water, but Sanzo didn't really trust him to make it up the stairs with even a glass filled halfway.

"I heard what you guys said to Mr. Paul. Did you know his first name's Isaac?"

Sanzo honestly didn't, but the question was overshadowed by Goku's first statement. He chose to sit silently, licking the fork once and dropping it in the salad bowl with a clang of metal on ceramic.

"I saw Gonou that day too, when Gojyo was fixing him up." Goku stopped when Sanzo raised an eyebrow. "What?"

So Gojyo and Gonou had spent God-knows-how-long together, talking and touching and learning to trust. And Gonou wouldn't talk to him about it. Granted, their relationship was never one for revealing many feelings, always one more of experience and advice and companionable silence and refuge. But it explained why Gonou was so jumpy earlier on, with Gojyo's hands on his body under the pretense of healing. He disliked Gojyo enough to make it heinous, and was attached to Gonou enough to elevate the charges against the redhead.

There grew in Sanzo the indecipherable and foreign spark of jealousy that often comes to children and teens and even adults deprived of a new experience not withheld from their peers. Worse, one that makes someone else so happy has shattered the circle of normalcy upon which we all so fervently depend. Someone has come into -my- home and become the center of -my- attention and distracted -my- friends and ruined -my- life. I think I'll isolate myself further by being cold and aloof to the one person I want to keep around. It seems logical enough.

Sanzo blinked and realized he'd been staring at his clenched fist, locked inside his own head. Goku was talking.

"I didn't know why he'd got banged up so bad. You too. If I had, I'd of gone and knocked his block off right then! Why didn't you tell me?"

Sanzo bit back the urge to relinquish his grip on his scowl. "You answered your own question, idiot."

Goku paused, then laughed. "Okay, yeah, then I'd probably have gotten in trouble and stuff. Hey, that means you were looking out for me?"

Sanzo's first response was to deny that, and vehemently. So when the word "Maybe" came out of his mouth, the most shocked person in the room was Sanzo himself. Goku just beamed at him.

"Well, still. Gonou told Gojyo, so you could have told me."

Sanzo nearly winced at the parallels Goku had begun to make. "Gojyo," he said, "squealed."

Goku came over near Sanzo, setting the empty plate down on the tray and brushing his hands on the sides of his pants. He smelled of lemon and rosemary. "Well, would you rather that guy not be brought to court?"

"Justice, sure. Court, no." Overlarge halls exuding severity, coldfaced old woman in a chair like a queen, uncomfortable hard wooden chairs and table and railings and witness box, tile floors that echo when the infernal gavel strikes on ceremony alone. Sanzo had been there once before, as a young child, and had no desire to return. The similarities of the two sets of circumstances occurred to him, shocking and mollifying and twisting deep in his gut.

The first time had been a man called Shuei, a man he trusted until the cold hard Court beat other influences into him. His father's friend Shuei, the family friend Shuei, the priest Shuei had defiled a confessional with a sweet-faced blonde boy with eyes of swampwater green instead of blue-violet. The witness stand was a cell for Sanzo as he was unable to meet the eyes he once adored boring into his body, almost pawing at his skin. Suddenly every time Shuei had been near him was tainted with suspicion.

It wasn't much later that The Accident occurred, leaving Sanzo with no family but this derisive woman he was expected to call an aunt.

"Court is hell," Sanzo murmured, trying to push lecherous patchwork eyes from his mind. They were dirty like Shuei might have been if Sanzo had only been paying attention.

Goku grunted softly. "Still, if Gojyo hadn't squealed, would you have?"

Maybe not. Not if he didn't want to relive Shuei, to admit again the pitfalls of his simply being alive. And if he wouldn't, Gonou wouldn't. At least, he thought Gonou wouldn't. Would he?

Sanzo dismissed these thoughts with a wave of his hand. "It doesn't matter. Gojyo talked and that's all there is to it."

"Okay." Goku accepted the statement without argument, at once providing relief from the barrage that seemed to be aimed at Sanzo all day. "Hey, do you always have that window open? It's really cold in here."

"I'm fine."

Goku reached out a hand and rested it on Sanzo's shoulder. "Liar! You're freezing. You were smoking again. Aw, geez, Sanzo..."

Funny, how a bit of genuine caring can overshadow any other bitterness, can gently untangle the knots in your guts. It slides over like oil on water and just as spectacular when the thin sheen is exposed to sunlight. In this instance, sunrise started when Sanzo cut Goku off with a "Shut up."

Goku shook his head. "Nuh uh. And you didn't eat anything either! What am I getting paid for?"

"Hanging around me like a sick dog."

Goku's eyes narrowed. "Bodyguarding! If that's a word. From outside and inside, too. So you're gonna take better care of yourself, and you're gonna start by at least closing the window. I'm cold and I'm wearing more clothes than you."

Sanzo frowned. "When did you decide to become my mother?"

"'Cause you're important to me!" Goku stopped, stared at the wall, and reined himself in. As the realization of his words sank in, Goku stammered, "I...I ought to take this tray back down to the kitchen."

Sanzo batted his hand away when he tried to take the tray. "Close the window first. I'm cold."

***

Notes to reviewers:

Bakasaru Boi: *grin* You make me happy, buddy! Don't faint now. Hee, thanks for reviewing as much as you did - it was cool that you took so much time to do that for me.

Merf: Well, I'm glad people are thinking along the same lines as I am - means I'm working realistically ^.^ Zenon and Shien...well, I have no room in here for them. Plus, for some reason I have an intensely hard time getting a good grip on their characters beyond the role of "Homura's Lackey #1" and such. One of them may make a cameo as a defense attorney, perhaps.

Drelfinya: Gojyo was a whore ever since his teen years, working for food and a place to sleep and stealing what pocket change he could to buy clothes. Private investigator, nothing ^.^ That would have been pretty interesting, but totally detrimental to my original plot. Hee, but that kinda gives me ideas for later fics...

Hanae da Firefly: The Red String is a Japanese tradition (idiom?) where the two people who are destined to be together for life (or some other romantic mumbo jumbo) are tied together by a red string attached to their fifth fingers. Note episode 15/16 (not sure which) in which Gojyo holds up his fifth finger to verify that when Gonou talks about Kanan, he's talking about his koi (beloved).

345: Hopefully this chapter cleared up your questions about Sanzo's opinions on Gonou and Gojyo ^.^ Gojyo is disappearing = dropping from the radar = won't be appearing until the end of this fic. He's leaving Gonou's life while the "Homura fiasco" blows over.

Keistje: Hee, I'm glad you finally found an AU fic to your liking - I'm trying to keep this as close to canon as possible. Although Sanzo in only a pair of tight jeans is rather scintillating, it's not too logical seeing as he'd be leaning out the window into a snow-filled night. There's a line in that paragraph talking about him being in one of Gonou's old sweaters - go back and look for it, I swear it's there. Hope you enjoyed this little bit of 39 bonding ^.^