XLVI.
"Where are we going?" Goku asked, nearly running to keep up with Sanzo's pace. "And slow the hell down!" Sanzo didn't apologise, but he did slow down. Gojyo had said this would take a while, for Sanzo to get used to normal pace of walking. He was used to travelling by means unavailable or inadvisable to humans, the werewolf had said. Goku understood his plight, he was used to a light jog whenever he wanted to get somewhere, which got him in all kinds of trouble with Pip, but this running to keep up with Sanzo thing was ridiculous. Goku wondered how come he never noticed Sanzo's speedy walking back when he didn't know what Sanzo was.
It was close to a couple months since Christmas, during which time Sanzo had acquired his schedule and started walking him home from school and work. Goku had to admit, aside from the mild creepy factor (dude, Sanzo was damn near everywhere! Goku started having thoughts about carrying the machete around), it was kinda sweet. Plus, when Goku told him to go to hell, Sanzo mostly went.
"Where are we going?" Goku asked again.
"Dinner."
"Yeah, I know that. Where?"
"Kensington High Street."
Goku stopped and gawked at Sanzo. "Okay, stop right there," he called.
Sanzo stopped and turned his head. "What?"
"We are so not eating on Kensington High Street. You can just forget it."
"Why not? They serve adequate food."
"Adequate is what they serve in McDonalds. Screw you and your gourmet tastes." Goku wondered if there was a place within city limits that served a tall glass of chilled A positive.
"What do you want then? Cook?"
"Yes!"
Sanzo turned to face him and stared, surprised. "You want to cook?"
"Or order Chinese, whichever, really."
"I rarely eat normal food."
"I heard. C'mon, we can go back to my apartment, I could cook something, maybe?" Goku scratched the back of his head.
"Is this about money again?"
"Kinda."
"It's no big deal."
"It is a big deal! Besides, it's not the money, it's me." Goku spread his arms and turned on the balls of his feet for Sanzo to inspect his attire. "Do I look like I belong in those fancy restaurants?"
Sanzo stared at him, clearly out of his depth. Goku remembered this was because Gojyo was in charge of picking their wardrobe, on account of the vision impairment the vampires had. Gojyo made the purchases with all the means available to him, which was plenty. Goku, though fashion wasn't his forte, made a cautious estimate that Sanzo's shirt alone had cost more than the clothes he had on his back, jacket and shoes included.
That, and the fact Goku dressed like a teen, cargo pants, hoodies – the works – meant it would take a bribe to get him into any food establishment on Kensington High Street.
"What's your point?"
"I mean," Goku said as they started walking again, "you're the fellow who's got cape and tuxedo in the job description. I fix stuff. Like toasters, or vacuum cleaners. Your people hire people like me to do stuff for them!"
"I don't have people."
"You know what I mean!"
"Fine. What do you want to eat?"
"Dunno. Let's get take away and go to my apartment? I have a whole shelf of Dracula movies."
"We are not watching Bela Lugosi again."
"C'mon, he's fantastic."
"He's an old guy with plastic teeth."
"You oughta be happy I'm into elderly guys, else where would you be?"
"I'm not elderly!"
"Given your age I kinda feel like a necrophile."
"Did Gojyo let you at the word-a-day calendar again?"
"Not my fault you're so old and cranky."
"I'm…" Sanzo trailed off and slowed in his step as he did so. "I've stopped counting," he admitted. "When I hit a hundred. I wasn't sure what to count, at first, and then it was pointless."
"I see how that could be depressin'." Goku thought about taking Sanzo's hand, but in the end didn't. Sanzo wasn't eager for physical contact, unless it was tame, lame kissing. Goku was starting to feel like the favoured doll of a ten-year-old. It was a little upsetting. For all Sanzo's issues with being a big, bad, scary vampire, Goku was barely out of puberty and, damn it, kids his age had needs that close-mouthed kisses wouldn't satisfy. This whole affair was getting very frustrating.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Goku asked, after a few minutes of silence.
"What?"
"That I'm so much younger?"
Sanzo gave him a long look, and smiled. Goku's heart hammered in his chest. Sanzo was beautiful, not merely handsome or good-looking. He never got enough sunlight (no duh, Goku thought in the back of his head), but that worked well with his naturally fair colouring. His eyes though, they were what made his face most memorable. Despite his pale complexion his eyes were a very curious variation on the purple theme, dark and often narrowed in a frown. Plus, he had a damned fine rear view.
"You're interesting," Sanzo said, interrupting Goku's musings. "I can't explain it well enough. There are no words. I just don't think I got old the way people do, so no, it doesn't bother me."
"Strangely enough, that makes sense ta me." Either that, the little voice in the back of Goku's head said, or you don't wanna think too hard about it. Goku promptly told it to shut up and stop over-analyzing. "So, how about that Chinese?"
XLVII.
Sanzo had deliberately provoked another minor spat when they'd exited the Sichuan place, each with a bag of steaming food. This was because the one thing he didn't want to do was watch Goku giggle at a vampire in a cape. For one thing, this usually prompted questions of whether Sanzo ever wore a tuxedo to a meal, and while Sanzo would admit to wearing a tuxedo, capes were a "No fucking way." There was also that it wasn't healthy for Goku to have too much fun with vampire movies. The more he laughed the less afraid he'd become, and that was just bad. It must have been bad, right?
"Okay, fine!" Goku had said, throwing one arm into the air. "Where do we go, then?"
"My apartment is close."
"Is it a basement with coffins?"
It wasn't. Goku's mouth opened when they stepped out of the elevator and into the open living area of Sanzo's studio, with a view that encompassed the City of London. "It's amazing!" he said, dropping the food on the cupboard and moving to stand by the window. "Wait, it's sunny as hell. How do you live in a place that's sunny as hell?"
"I have a bedroom." Sanzo pointed to the door right by the entrance. "It's got no windows whatsoever."
"That's depressing."
"Not so depressing when the sun can give you fatal sunburn."
"I guess," Goku said. His stomach rumbled at the same time. "Can we eat now?"
They ate, that is to say Goku ate and Sanzo chewed his way through a portion of egg-fried rice, which he washed down with a glass of cow's blood. To his surprise it didn't taste half-bad when with every breath he could inhale Goku. It wasn't a substitute for drinking ihis/i blood, but it was enough. For now.
They didn't bother with chairs, on Goku's insistence, not when the carpet was soft and the view too awesome to ruin it by sitting away from the vantage point. Sanzo snorted when he was presented with this reasoning, but didn't argue. The sky cleared as they walked and now the afternoon was at its best; the sky was blue and the sun, past its peak, spilled liquid light onto the city below.
"So anyway," Goku started swallowing the last of his pork, "how does it work?"
"How does what work?"
"You not seeing any colours thing."
"I don't see any colours. It's that simple."
"But you said I look goldish, back in the mountains."
"It was more of a pale yellow then."
"Yeah, that. How does that work?"
"How should I know? I'm not a scientist."
"You could at least try explaining."
Sanzo sighed. He got up and started rummaging through the cabinets, coming up with a pack of pencils and a sketching pad. "This is idiotic," he said, seating himself back in the shadow next to the window. "You're going to explain the colours to me." Sanzo pushed the box in Goku direction.
"But they are labelled," Goku said, picking up one. Sanzo saw it was marked as green. "This is green. Wait, no, this is 'the other green,'" he read, turning the pencil over in his hands.
"Gojyo's idea of an amusing gift. I'm going to need more than just 'green' to work with."
"Like what? And what's wrong with green?"
"What are you, blind and stupid? There're about a million shades of green."
"And you know that, why? You're supposed to be colour-blind!"
"I wasn't always a vampire."
"What were you back then?" Goku asked, leaning forward like an eager child. "Some kinda artist?"
"I was studying to be a minister."
Goku said nothing, but by the way his mouth opened Sanzo could tell this was something of a shock.
"I was born to a minister," Sanzo said. "It seemed like a natural thing to do. I was an only child."
"Wow," Goku said quietly. "So when did you learn how to draw?"
Sanzo shrugged. "It was useful. What kinds of yellows are there?"
"There is yellow, bright yellow, yellowish and orange-y yellow."
"That is fucking useful." Damn that werewolf.
"Right, right. Okay. This one," Goku said, holding up the one marked as yellowish, "is kinda brown. Only not. It's a little like clean brass."
"It will do," Sanzo said, and started sketching. No one had been more surprised than he was when he picked up a pencil one day and, half an hour later, presented a convincing, if monochromatic, likeness of the stupid wolf. Now a picture of Goku was coming alive under his fingertips, colourless to his eyes, but with any luck would convey the way Sanzo perceived humans.
"This one is red, like the roses. The really pretty, dark ones," Goku said when Sanzo asked for a red pencil. "This one is more orange. Not carrot orange though, tomato maybe?"
"The second one," Sanzo said. From time to time he would look up, to confirm that the line of Goku's jaw was indeed as curved as he remembered. Every single time he'd find Goku looking at him, his bright eyes open wide, his posture so completely relaxed Sanzo contemplated hitting him over the head.
"You are such a bloody moron," he said at last, slamming the sketchpad onto the floor.
"What the hell?"
"Didn't you notice?" Sanzo grinned and let his fangs slip out of his gums. "You're alone here. There's no one to hear you scream. The studio takes up the whole floor and the building was built to be as soundproof as possible."
"The guard saw me," Goku said. He sat back on his haunches, but otherwise didn't move back, even when Sanzo moved out of the shadows so that their noses almost touched.
"I could kill you," Sanzo hissed, "and no one would know." The sun assaulted his skin, but he resisted its anger. He was strong now; a few hours wouldn't be a problem in this light.
"You wouldn't."
"How do you know? For all you know I do this every fucking week."
Goku looked away, careless of the way the movement exposed his neck. "You wouldn't hurt me," he insisted.
Sanzo took a deep breath. "Your trust may be misplaced. I'm a monster, after all. I feed on blood of humans."
"You said you wouldn't hurt me," Goku repeated, stubbornly, and Sanzo felt his fingers twitch towards the sketchpad. Shit, he should slam it into Goku's stupid head a couple of times, until he learned not to trust everyone who gave him food and a smile.
"I almost killed you once," he said. "Just because you cut yourself with a razor. Do you know how good you tasted? How much I didn't want to stop, how much I wanted more of you? All of you?"
"I stabbed you in the eye." Goku held up a chopstick. Sanzo had no reply to that. Instead he watched, unmoving, as Goku set the utensil aside and brought his hand to Sanzo's face. His fingertips slid from the brow onto the cheekbones, and lower, tracing the contour of Sanzo's nose, his upper lip, and finally the extra row of teeth. "It's kinda awkward," Goku whispered, the pads of his fingers almost, but not quite, in Sanzo's mouth. They were so close Sanzo tasted the salt in his sweat and yet too far for a fang to draw blood.
Goku licked his lips and Sanzo, almost unconsciously, did the same. His tongue swiped at Goku's fingertips, even as his hand shot up to grip Goku's wrist. "Be careful," Sanzo whispered, willing his fangs away, "they are very sharp."
He moved closer as Goku rose to his knees. He knew this was a very bad idea, of course he did. It didn't stop him from kissing Goku, like he'd been dying to kiss him these past months. The kiss was deep and sweeter than he would have imagined, tainted by neither a secret, nor fear. Sanzo lost himself in that kiss, for the first time in a lifetime.
XLVIII.
"What the fuck?" Gojyo asked when the open door revealed Goku, timid and embarrassed on the threshold. "Oh god, please tell me you're not here for the birds and bees."
"I never got the birds and bees, actually. Why is it birds and bees? I mean, bees are insects, it's not like they copulate, right?"
"Your biology is lacking."
"Whatever. It's drones that have sex, even I know that."
"Did you just come in here to discuss entomology? I gotta tell you, there's a whole bunch of subjects I know more about. Hell, ask me about sex, I know plenty about that."
Goku flushed and looked away. "I don't need advice. I just wanna talk to someone who's normal, you know?"
"What do I gotta do, tattoo 'hell, I'm a werewolf' on my forehead? Right next to where it says 'Hi, I care about your problems, talk to me if ya need advice,' that's be a great spot."
"I don't think it would fit." Goku gave him a fond stare and Gojyo deflated. It was really hard to resist a sweet kid who liked you. It was right up there with kicking kittens and eating puppies – things Hakkai did when they required doing. Sure, you could, it was no problem, but… "You're easy to talk to," Goku added, and Gojyo knew he'd lost.
"That makes me feel better. Whatcha want?"
"It's about Sanzo," Goku said, careful not to meet Gojyo's eyes.
"Holy shit, seriously?"
"Seriously what?"
"Did you finally do it? God, please say yes," Gojyo said, though he knew the answer was no. He would have smelled it. "Sanzo needs to get laid, like ten years ago."
"No, we didn't," Goku said. He was still staring out the window. Gojyo gave it a glance, just in case there was a naked babe there. There wasn't.
"So what's the problem? And please, keep the details to yourself. I wanna know Sanzo had sex, but I don't particularly want to imagine it."
"Why not? He's hot."
Fuck, Gojyo thought, slapping his forehead. Way to forget the most crucial characteristic of the human race – the "what does this button that says 'do not ever press' do" impulse. "Yeah, but I'm kinda involved with his best chum. I rather not explain I'm having thoughts. It could get ugly."
"Yeah."
"So what is it?" Gojyo asked, flopping onto the couch.
"Well," Goku started, and reddened again. "I think I might be a little sick."
"Fucking hell. If this is about the strange new feelings and what's happening to my body, then go to hell and don't come back until you've talked to Hakkai."
"No! I mean. We kinda snogged a little," Goku blurted out at last. "He's really creepy! Half the time he was telling how nice it was to drink my blood and such."
"Ah," Gojyo said, grinning. There it was, out in the open at last.
"I just…" Goku went a little more red.
"You ain't sick for finding that hot."
"What? No! I mean-- Yes, but-- huh?"
"That's what's been worrying you," Gojyo said, throwing his legs over the armrest of the couch. It wobbled. It hadn't been the same since Sanzo'd broken it. "First of all, dude, relax. We all have our little kinks, nobody's judging."
"You call that a little kink?"
"Am I the only one who paid attention when you stabbed the guy in the eye when he tried to literally eat you up? There's nothing wrong with you, trust me. Well, nothing that ain't wrong with the rest of us, except for the living longer and being basically cannibals."
"I don't know if that's supposed to make me feel better," Goku said.
"I'd take what I can get, if I were you."
XLIX.
It was easy, Hakkai found, to get things done, when one had funds and a mind keen enough to avoid hoaxes.
"This is all?" he asked upon being presented the results of his current quest for information.
"Yeah. It ain't a lot, but I swear, that's all there was," Cook said, fingers drumming nervously against his forearms. Hakkai glanced inside the folder. There was very little inside, but he hadn't been expecting wonders.
"Thank you. You've been very helpful," he said, handing over an envelope of cash.
"Thanks Mr Gonou. Any time." The boy called himself Cook, for reasons Hakkai didn't care to speculate on. He was quite resourceful with acquiring information, which was a skill that Hakkai had a use for, on occasion. He lived in the West End, in a cellar that, despite the lack of natural light, had a very cosy feeling to it. He was reasonably priced and discreet, asked little questions, provided big answers and made sure he didn't venture into the illegal side of the business. The grey area suited him fine, kept him invisible. Hakkai appreciated that.
He studied the folder on the way home. There was a copy of a birth certificate – Goku Son, born in 1990, no surprises. There were quite a few places of residence on record, easily explained by the father's work. Both parents killed in a car accident, 2006. Son was fostered by a distant relative from then on; no trouble was reported. Average school record, no history of employment, but that was to be expected. Goku didn't officially work, even now. The record ended with Goku's arrival in London, with all his paperwork.
Hakkai wasn't sure what he hoped for, but he knew it wasn't a few pages of emptiness. He'd known Goku didn't have a wide circle of friends, his scent had told him that. But this… Goku had lead a solitary life, there was nothing tying him down to anywhere. Up until fate had taken him to London and into the welcoming arms of a coven of vampires.
Hakkai burned the folder in a trashcan on his way home. It wasn't a wonder, for a child so alone, to forge connections whenever and however possible, even at the risk of his life. Why shouldn't he? Hakkai thought wryly. He had very little to lose.
