New pack. He ripped off the cellophane with his teeth, stashed the wrap in his pocket--Hakkai always scolded him for littering. One cigarette. Two.
It wasn't Hakkai. Hakkai he had met in a sunny marketplace, that quiet smile meeting his, a little painful, but genuine humor, too, an unexpected mischief. He had been surprised, absolutely astonished, and part of him had immediately starting cursing the damn monk for misleading him like that. Then there had been another part of himself, so deep inside he had never realized it was there, but that little corner of his soul had sung like a plucked string in joyful recognition of that smile...
Turn back the clock, rewind the tape. This was Cho Gonou now, that strange man, so strong and so broken, wounded so deeply he couldn't die. Cho Gonou, who he had found and saved out of obstinacy more than kindness; because Gojyo knew loss, and he had been so lost; because Gojyo detested the easiness of life, but even more the easiness of death. Because his eyes had been so green. For a month he had tended Gonou, had fought for him without question.
But Gonou was gone, and Gojyo had never mourned him, at first because he didn't believe in pity, and then because there was Hakkai, and Hakkai was worth Gonou's loss. Gonou had received the death he needed, and Hakkai born from his pyre.
Third cigarette, and after he lit it he let the lighter burn, watching the flame twist in the breeze.
Three years, it had taken, to burn that corpse, three years he had watched Hakkai put aside his ghosts, one day at a time, banishing a thousand three hundred spirits, and hers as well. There had been nightmares, and tears so well hidden that Gojyo knew them only as tissues crumpled in the wastebasket--and Hakkai was always so good about remembering to take out the trash. But every day his smile had been a little more real. He cooked, they played cards. "Gojyo, we need soy sauce." "We're broke, luck's been down." "But Goku and Sanzo are coming...if you want to eat tomorrow, cheat tonight..."
Strange, how he was hard-pressed to remember a single day, all flowing together, and yet the whole was clear as crystal in his mind. He always complained when Sanzo and Goku announced their coming, because the monk got under his skin like no one else, and the monkey always ate everything in the pantry and then some, and Hakkai always insisted that he help with the dusting beforehand. But Hakkai's smile was always at its most real when they were around, something about the openness of Goku's antics, or Sanzo's piercing intuition.
Three years, it had taken, and if nothing else this journey had at least buried those final ashes, when Cho Hakkai had torn out Chin Isou's fake life, and decided to live. Half his smiles still might be false, but they were all Hakkai's.
Not anymore. No matter how deeply he looked into those green eyes, he saw no sign of him remaining.
For a month he had cared for Cho Gonou, formed a kinship with him unlike anything he had known since Jien's parting. It shocked Gojyo a little, how completely he could hate him now.
He threw the cigarette butt down, ground it out under his heel.
"It's useless to blame him for this," said a voice from the twilight shadows. Gojyo looked over at Sanzo, standing stiff as the tree he stood beside, a cigarette glowing in his hand as well. "He has no desire to be here at all."
"I know."
"Hate the bastards who did it. It'll be more productive."
"You have your plan?"
"As much of one as is possible. Given we don't have a damn clue what we're actually up against. He remembers nothing."
Nothing at all. Not a trace of the last week; not a moment of the last three years. Nothing left of the man he was supposed to be. Gojyo thought he should feel sorry for him. Couldn't. "So what are we doing?"
"You're going to stay out here. Sulking. You're doing such a good job of it already, I'm sure you'll manage. But stay close enough to hear us. I'm going to keep a watch and Goku will pretend to sleep, but he'll signal if he senses anything--hears, sees, smells. If nothing happens in the first hour, Hakkai will take a stroll, alone. Be ready to tail him. We might catch the bastards off-guard."
"Not much of a plan."
"You got any better?"
Gojyo took out another cigarette. "You aren't asking--him to do much."
"No."
He eyed Sanzo through the wisp of smoke. "You don't trust him."
"Even if he's being honest with us, they might have a hold on him still. We don't know what we're dealing with. Post-hypnotic suggestion, brainwashing--they might be setting us up."
"But you think it's him. It's Hakkai. Gonou."
Sanzo took a long time to answer. It was getting dark enough that Gojyo could barely make out his eyes, except where they reflected the glinting tip of his cigarette. "It's him," he said at last.
In body, anyway. He tipped his head back against the tree, catching his hair in the rough bark. "You think it's permanent, what they did? Is everything just...gone? Or is Hakkai still in there, somewhere?"
"We don't even know what's causing this. It might be what they did. Or it could be him--psychological. A deliberate regression. Hiding from what they did to him, or what he did because of it." The monk shrugged. "But the mind isn't a book, that you can burn and erase what's written. It's hard to lose something so that it can never be found again."
There was this to be said about Sanzo. You could be sure he wouldn't say something to be comforting. It made it possible to believe him, when you wouldn't anyone else. Gojyo slid down the tree trunk, crouched at the roots with his head rocked back against the bark, staring up at the branches, cigarette hanging forgotten in his fingers. "What'll it take to get it back? Get him back?"
"Who knows?"
"It might be my fault, couldn't it. What I did, snapping him out of it like that. It shocked him out of attacking us, but maybe if we'd gotten through to him some other way..."
"Maybe."
"Go ahead, Sanzo. Tell me how stupid I am. I didn't even see this coming, I didn't even realize it when he woke up this morning. I was talking to him and until he said his name I didn't notice, I was just so damn glad to--I wanted--dammit, you fucking monk, tell me how worthless--"
"Stupid moron," Sanzo said. "It's just as useless to blame yourself. Stop carrying on or I'll shut you up with a bullet."
"You--you'll--you're gonna kill me..." Before Gojyo could help it, he was laughing, breathlessly, but it didn't tear at his throat like it had been. He saw Sanzo's hand raise to slap him out of it, got it under control and hauled himself up with help from the tree, wiping his eyes. Sanzo was staring at him, and Gojyo could see the debate twisting his face, whether to go for the gun and make good on his threat, or smack him upside the head, or simply ignore it. Somehow, too, he could see clearly--was it him seeing more, or was it that Sanzo was too worn to hide them--those things that Sanzo was so very good at burying, panic and concern and everything else that made him more than the bastard he tried so hard to be.
And usually Gojyo was infuriated by such pointless stubbornness, but tonight he saw himself mirrored in those violet eyes--it's so much easier, isn't it, Sanzo-sama, to tell yourself it doesn't matter and you don't care and you hate it and it angers you; it's so much easier to hurt than to be hurting. But until this minute Sanzo hadn't sworn to kill either him or Goku, not for a week, and it wasn't until Gojyo had heard that threat that he realized its lack, and realized too that things could be--not normal, but as they should be. That it was possible, that they would get him back, that hope is something real and Sanzo had it too.
"Damn kappa," Sanzo grumbled. "Get a grip."
"I'm trying," Gojyo said, and the look that flashed across Sanzo's features, a lightning strike of sympathetic worry that was conquered in an instant, almost set him laughing again. "No, I'm all right, I'll be okay. I can do this. It's getting dark, you better get back to them to start this sorry excuse for a plan."
"Don't screw it up," the monk warned, Sanzo-speak for 'don't let us down' and 'we're counting on you' at the same time, and Sanzo didn't put his trust in anyone unless he had absolute faith.
"Ah, damn you, Sanzo-sama," Gojyo murmured, just loud enough. "You're making it too difficult to hate you."
For a moment he thought the monk would take the easy way out and pretend he hadn't heard. Then Sanzo's head turned back, his sharp profile pale against the shadowed trees. "So save it for those who hate us, idiot," he said, and then he was striding back to their camp, leaving Gojyo alone in the twilit forest, with half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter heart than should be possible these days.
to be continued...
The next part should be longer, and something will actually happen in it, promise. Will try to get it out in a more timely fashion, too.
OTP = One True Pairing, the term for those fangirls who get rabidly attached to particular relationships. I've got my favorite couples, and I'll stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly if you try to convince me of alternatives ^^; Some of my wonderful readers follow other pairings - which pleases me, that I'm writing something that can appeal despite that difference of opinion. That might be because I really enjoy relationships I don't see as romantic - Sanzo & Gojyo might be my favorite pair to write, but they're not a couple to my mind... (ah, and firedraygon97, no offense taken - I was surprised myself to find I'm not the only one who enjoys a little not-quite-shounen-ai, now and again ^^)
