2: They all come out at night.
-------------------
Voices in the darkness
Scream away my mental health
Can I ask a question
To help me save me from myself?
~Lovesong/A Perfect Circle
-------------------
//It would have been nice if the monk himself had come over.//
Recalling his earlier 'conversation'---if, really, exchanging barbs with the haughty monk was 'conversation'---with Sanzo, he could not help but notice that maybe, just maybe, albeit his very annoyed, pissed-off exterior, the monk was internally affected. Had he not flipped the newspaper pages just a little roughly, just a little too quickly? Had he not tried to cover his face casually once or twice? And he had called Hakkai "Cho", something he never called the green-eyed man, always settling for the formal "Hakkai".
He sometimes let his groin do the thinking, but Sha Gojyo was not stupid, nor was he completely oblivious. Being oblivious was the monkey's job, and hitting and flirting taught him to be more susceptible to another's emotions or thoughts at least, basing on the most subtle action or facial expession. That was how most of his lays ended up in his bed anyway.
//And Stick-Up-My-Ass Sanzo was *certainly* affected. Haha.//
It was the thought that pervaded his mind the entire evening he was out, the entire time he had been in the brothels doing what he did best. Even as he spoke the smooth lines of a playboy accustomed to playing at women like a musician his lute, he had imagined what it would have been like if Sanzo had tried to push a pick-up line to get a lay.
'He'd probably just draw that damn gun and threaten you to bed, honey.' The mental image brought a grin to his lips that served to inflame the girl in front of him more. She probably thought he had gotten a kick from her storytelling. What was that about again? Oh yeah. How she managed to give the burly bartender the slip once.
As a 'been-there-done-that' he was naturally picky when it came to 'entertainment'--from choosing the places of 'entertainment' to the girls he actually slept with. But travelling had taught him to at least tolerate the former criterion; sometimes in the seediest places if you looked hard enough, you could unearth a prize. Maybe he had grown linient after some time; after all, sex with a class-C was better than no sex at all.
This town had proved to be an example. It had pretty girls, but they were a little too shy. Maybe it was lack of new faces that entered the town? Familiarity breeds contempt, and the lack of refreshing new people to keep the brothel house up and running was felt much. He expected to be a little bored, but was mistaken.
It was a fun game he played all evening, to keep himself entertained. He would say something very suggestive; he would imagine it in Sanzo-speak. He snorted several times in his drink, twice at the wrong moment of a girl's story, excusing a morsel stuck in his throat. The girls didn't mind. They found him charming, as usual. Hot, bad-ass, and charming. With a slick mouth.
Not that Sanzo would dare say such things of course. It would not take one much to imagine the monk cooped up in the corner with an impatient look, a 'finish-what-the-hell-you're-doing-so-we-can-get-this-over-with' look. Still, it was so damn funny, even though it was rather a strain on his imagination.
//The damn prude doesn't know what he's missing.//
He was startled from his thoughts when the dark-haired girl beside him trailed a well-manicured hand down his chest. "And where are you headed for, I thought I asked you to get me another beer?" His grin belied his words as fingers feathered over his crotch.
"I need to fix something. You haven't introduced me to your friend yet." She smiled, puckered perfect red lips as her fingers reached their destination.
The kappa grinned wider. It had been a long evening, and he wanted what he came here for.
============
The heat was intense even at night. He had taken off his robes, his arm warmers, and had opened the windows. The humid air clearly indicated rain in the near future. Well that was good. He figured the dry desert-like town, with its dustdevils and tumbleweeds, needed to quench its 'thirst'.
But the humidity...! If the humidity were a living, breathing person, if it were a god at all dozing in one of the seven heavens... well at the very least he felt like shooting the arrogant bastard. Let the rain come. Fuck the sticky feel of air.
A knock. The door opened. The knock was not to request permission for entry but to at least inform him before entering. "Oh." A soft surprised expression from his visitor. He didn't have to turn to see it directed at him. "You haven't left."
"No." Unlike the monkey, or the kappa, he knew he could speak to Hakkai. The latter was like an older brother who knew how to deal with any kind of person. And despite the fact that Hakkai knew how to speak with everyone, he was not irritating. In fact, true to the latter's healing abilities, sometimes just sitting quietly with Hakkai was soothing.
Silence. "Well, they make very good spring rolls here. You should try it sometime. When are we leaving?"
"In two days." He had used the time alone to busy himself with the ever-pressing journey west.
The brown-haired man nodded. "Well tomorrow then. My treat." The monk could hear the quiet triumph in the tone. Obviously a very successful night of gambling for Hakkai. He turned around and raised an eyebrow at the man outside his door. "Why's the monkey...?"
Hakkai smiled and looked down at the unconscious form in his arms. "Well Goku ate something bad when he tried out the fishmonger's stall. Obviously uncooked butiti[1] he mistook for dried meat. Fainted on the spot, I was told, after puking every single drop he had in him, surprising he didn't turn blue from poisoning. The old man at the stalls said he'd be a little feverish tomorrow."
"Stupid monkey," he snorted, opening his paper fan in an attempt to cool himself somewhat. The man at the door honestly thought he took out the thing to whap the (albeit unconscious)monkey . "You'll have to take care of him then?" Goku had acquired a strong stomach from all the devouring he did, but uncooked butiti... the fish he had just consumed was a nasty little thing indeed.
Hakkai nodded. "He'll be a little weak for, oh, give him a day and a half. Just in time for us to move out again. First, he needs to rest though. He may have what I'd like to think of as a strong natural defense system but he's dehydrated. Um..." The green-eyed man hesitated. "Do you mind if Gojyo and I trade rooms?"
The rooms they landed in the inn were rather tight, so that each one had his own space instead of sharing a room like what they did usually. Originally, Sanzo's and Hakkai's rooms were in the corridor facing the east; along the hallway was Gojyo's, and then Goku's. By trading places with Gojyo, that meant Hakkai would be sleeping in the room closest to Goku's; that meant the kappa would occupy the room across the wall , that meant he would have to suffer the idiosyncracies of the redhead. Especially when they had the luxury of having a room each; that usually meant Gojyo would be home with a 'prize', enjoying her for the rest of the night and sleeping in tomorrow morning. Hakkai could tolerate the sounds they made, he always did; Goku was a sound, sound sleeper.
But the monkey was sick, and Hakkai was the only one who knew how to tend an illness properly. It would be very inefficient for him to scurry back and forth the hallway. So he had to relent.
"Hn." He took a drag. It was the last stick and he planned to go out after it burned to get a new pack.
"Thank you." The relief in the voice showed the depth of the gratitude, once again amazing Sanzo how someone could be so... /nice/. "And... I'm sorry," he added a little embarrassedly. Hakkai didn't have to elaborate exactly what he meant.
He took a drag and grunted again. He Didn't Care. "Hn. I'll shoot him."
"Hai," came the chuckled reply from the door as Hakkai turned away with the feverish boy-monkey. "Just don't be too carried away, ne? It may not look much but the furnitures are actually antique." With that, he quietly closed the door behind him.
===========
Oh. God. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
Don't stop.
glad you...came home...
to the side... heat-waves
i... /bitch./
...yeah... open wide...
Yeah.... shit.... crushed....
Smothered.
Blonde.
Aah.
===========
Fumbling in the darkness for his sutras. Too sleepy to be graceful, rather, too tired to care. Not sleepy. Sleepy only applied to people who were on their way to the realm of slumber and dreams and nightmares, and to people who had been pulled out of that realm quite violently or suddenly so as to yearn for it again. He was nowhere near either.
He needed a smoke. But he remembered going out for that earlier that night and not succeeding in obtaining a fresh pack. Liquor. At least after a couple of rounds he would be knocked out. But that would mean going out, going down to the bar and rousing the bartender below. Gods he wished he weren't human, that he had the supernatural power to shut out sound.
Prayer. What he needed was desperate prayer. Hear no evil, after all. The porous, un-soundproofed walls were the devil's advocate then.
//Omi toh foh.//
It had been going on, the noises. The kappa's distinct way of announcing to all who would listen that he was home and would be a little busy.
A faint but pained cry sounded in the night suddenly, accompanied by a whiny, "But the soup s~uucks!!!!" which promptly faded as quickly as it had come. He surmised it was probably the monkey yelling in his sleep, or Hakkai rousing the boy to take some medicinal concoction to alleviate the fever.
//Omi toh foh...omi toh foh...//
He muttered the words now. Muttered them to drown out his neighbor's more nonconsensual, passionate ones. Oddly now that he murmured them they formed a rythm with his neighbors', particularly the deep bass of the redhaired kappa. So he alternated his feverent prayers with equally feverent curses.
//Omi toh foh... goddamn Gojyo.... Omi toh foh... fucking kappa...//
That, after all, was what the kappa was doing right now. The thought stopped his personal novena short and almost forced an ironic laugh he'd managed to reign in at the last moment. The prayer beads seemed too short. So he calmly tried to lie down again, to wear out the storm.
The night carries monsters. And his weren't finished tormenting him. For the moment he laid back down to try to ignore the noise, the voices escalated; a part of his mind got away with the thought that 'they are nearing their peak of passion' and fed off the night-monsters, flashing racy pictures in his mind's eye.
He shuddered. Passion. Did Not. Affect. Him. There was only the intensity of battle, the bitter taste of bloody victory, the prodding anger for all the stupid fates and gods that managed to make his life look like a very bad hand of cards. Only that. Only that. Only that.
It was almost stifling hot. He could almost feel every pore in his body as it strove desperately to cool his person, despite the fact that he had stripped off his tight turteneck undershirt and armwarmers for a lighter, white linen spare travel shirt he carried on him.
Genjo Sanzo never liked it when he was disturbed. And affected, and trying to fight off the demons of man's most basic carnal desire. He'd kept them away just fine by not caring about them. By putting them outside the chicken wire fence of his mind, knowing they were there but not caring. What Genjo Sanzo did with demons in general was to put a bullet through their head.
Just as he was really just about to get up and shoot a hole through the wall (and hopefully through the kappa and his bitch's brains as well...) the noises stopped. Stopped. Abrupt, without warning, just...
Stopped. Sanzo had to blink, despite himself. He self-consciously pressed an ear to the walls, half expecting them to suddenly burst out in passionate exclamations. Nothing. Were they spent? Were they finally sated of their animal interactions, tired and weary as if soldiers surviving from a siege?
"K'so" he muttered to himself, angry, and pulled away from the wall to settle against the headboard of the bed. Oh that he would have Hakkai's neverending tolerance for all things stupid! Or at least Goku's impenetrable naivette; He would be well on his way to a good night's rest.
He thought his monsters had diminished now that whatever /they/ were doing had ceased. Now. Before they could put together coherent thoughts about doing it again. Now was the time to lose himself in sleep. Hopefully he would be lost enough not to be torn away from it when if they started making noises again.
He set his slightly sweating self back on the hot sheets. His pesperation was not entirely caused by the humid weather this time.
===========
Iris-less eyes watched from the garden downstairs the quiet tavern. They flicked from one window to the other, with the four strange occupants. They blinked for a moment as if to memorize the scene, and disappeared into the night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tsuzuku
notes: Er, 'Omi toh foh' is Mandarin for 'Buddha bless you' and is a common Chinese prayer (or so my Chinese friends Ririn and Silas-chan tell me... Tensaispira recommends 'amitabha' but I think 'omi toh foh' is okay...) Thanks for the reviews. *Blinks stupidly* Have seen a total of only...*ticks fingers* nine-eleven Saiyuki eps, so I'm really thankful for your corrections. ;) K!ra Kudou is happy. Sorta.
[1] Yes, this is a kind of fish. If anyone recognizes the language... =D
-------------------
Voices in the darkness
Scream away my mental health
Can I ask a question
To help me save me from myself?
~Lovesong/A Perfect Circle
-------------------
//It would have been nice if the monk himself had come over.//
Recalling his earlier 'conversation'---if, really, exchanging barbs with the haughty monk was 'conversation'---with Sanzo, he could not help but notice that maybe, just maybe, albeit his very annoyed, pissed-off exterior, the monk was internally affected. Had he not flipped the newspaper pages just a little roughly, just a little too quickly? Had he not tried to cover his face casually once or twice? And he had called Hakkai "Cho", something he never called the green-eyed man, always settling for the formal "Hakkai".
He sometimes let his groin do the thinking, but Sha Gojyo was not stupid, nor was he completely oblivious. Being oblivious was the monkey's job, and hitting and flirting taught him to be more susceptible to another's emotions or thoughts at least, basing on the most subtle action or facial expession. That was how most of his lays ended up in his bed anyway.
//And Stick-Up-My-Ass Sanzo was *certainly* affected. Haha.//
It was the thought that pervaded his mind the entire evening he was out, the entire time he had been in the brothels doing what he did best. Even as he spoke the smooth lines of a playboy accustomed to playing at women like a musician his lute, he had imagined what it would have been like if Sanzo had tried to push a pick-up line to get a lay.
'He'd probably just draw that damn gun and threaten you to bed, honey.' The mental image brought a grin to his lips that served to inflame the girl in front of him more. She probably thought he had gotten a kick from her storytelling. What was that about again? Oh yeah. How she managed to give the burly bartender the slip once.
As a 'been-there-done-that' he was naturally picky when it came to 'entertainment'--from choosing the places of 'entertainment' to the girls he actually slept with. But travelling had taught him to at least tolerate the former criterion; sometimes in the seediest places if you looked hard enough, you could unearth a prize. Maybe he had grown linient after some time; after all, sex with a class-C was better than no sex at all.
This town had proved to be an example. It had pretty girls, but they were a little too shy. Maybe it was lack of new faces that entered the town? Familiarity breeds contempt, and the lack of refreshing new people to keep the brothel house up and running was felt much. He expected to be a little bored, but was mistaken.
It was a fun game he played all evening, to keep himself entertained. He would say something very suggestive; he would imagine it in Sanzo-speak. He snorted several times in his drink, twice at the wrong moment of a girl's story, excusing a morsel stuck in his throat. The girls didn't mind. They found him charming, as usual. Hot, bad-ass, and charming. With a slick mouth.
Not that Sanzo would dare say such things of course. It would not take one much to imagine the monk cooped up in the corner with an impatient look, a 'finish-what-the-hell-you're-doing-so-we-can-get-this-over-with' look. Still, it was so damn funny, even though it was rather a strain on his imagination.
//The damn prude doesn't know what he's missing.//
He was startled from his thoughts when the dark-haired girl beside him trailed a well-manicured hand down his chest. "And where are you headed for, I thought I asked you to get me another beer?" His grin belied his words as fingers feathered over his crotch.
"I need to fix something. You haven't introduced me to your friend yet." She smiled, puckered perfect red lips as her fingers reached their destination.
The kappa grinned wider. It had been a long evening, and he wanted what he came here for.
============
The heat was intense even at night. He had taken off his robes, his arm warmers, and had opened the windows. The humid air clearly indicated rain in the near future. Well that was good. He figured the dry desert-like town, with its dustdevils and tumbleweeds, needed to quench its 'thirst'.
But the humidity...! If the humidity were a living, breathing person, if it were a god at all dozing in one of the seven heavens... well at the very least he felt like shooting the arrogant bastard. Let the rain come. Fuck the sticky feel of air.
A knock. The door opened. The knock was not to request permission for entry but to at least inform him before entering. "Oh." A soft surprised expression from his visitor. He didn't have to turn to see it directed at him. "You haven't left."
"No." Unlike the monkey, or the kappa, he knew he could speak to Hakkai. The latter was like an older brother who knew how to deal with any kind of person. And despite the fact that Hakkai knew how to speak with everyone, he was not irritating. In fact, true to the latter's healing abilities, sometimes just sitting quietly with Hakkai was soothing.
Silence. "Well, they make very good spring rolls here. You should try it sometime. When are we leaving?"
"In two days." He had used the time alone to busy himself with the ever-pressing journey west.
The brown-haired man nodded. "Well tomorrow then. My treat." The monk could hear the quiet triumph in the tone. Obviously a very successful night of gambling for Hakkai. He turned around and raised an eyebrow at the man outside his door. "Why's the monkey...?"
Hakkai smiled and looked down at the unconscious form in his arms. "Well Goku ate something bad when he tried out the fishmonger's stall. Obviously uncooked butiti[1] he mistook for dried meat. Fainted on the spot, I was told, after puking every single drop he had in him, surprising he didn't turn blue from poisoning. The old man at the stalls said he'd be a little feverish tomorrow."
"Stupid monkey," he snorted, opening his paper fan in an attempt to cool himself somewhat. The man at the door honestly thought he took out the thing to whap the (albeit unconscious)monkey . "You'll have to take care of him then?" Goku had acquired a strong stomach from all the devouring he did, but uncooked butiti... the fish he had just consumed was a nasty little thing indeed.
Hakkai nodded. "He'll be a little weak for, oh, give him a day and a half. Just in time for us to move out again. First, he needs to rest though. He may have what I'd like to think of as a strong natural defense system but he's dehydrated. Um..." The green-eyed man hesitated. "Do you mind if Gojyo and I trade rooms?"
The rooms they landed in the inn were rather tight, so that each one had his own space instead of sharing a room like what they did usually. Originally, Sanzo's and Hakkai's rooms were in the corridor facing the east; along the hallway was Gojyo's, and then Goku's. By trading places with Gojyo, that meant Hakkai would be sleeping in the room closest to Goku's; that meant the kappa would occupy the room across the wall , that meant he would have to suffer the idiosyncracies of the redhead. Especially when they had the luxury of having a room each; that usually meant Gojyo would be home with a 'prize', enjoying her for the rest of the night and sleeping in tomorrow morning. Hakkai could tolerate the sounds they made, he always did; Goku was a sound, sound sleeper.
But the monkey was sick, and Hakkai was the only one who knew how to tend an illness properly. It would be very inefficient for him to scurry back and forth the hallway. So he had to relent.
"Hn." He took a drag. It was the last stick and he planned to go out after it burned to get a new pack.
"Thank you." The relief in the voice showed the depth of the gratitude, once again amazing Sanzo how someone could be so... /nice/. "And... I'm sorry," he added a little embarrassedly. Hakkai didn't have to elaborate exactly what he meant.
He took a drag and grunted again. He Didn't Care. "Hn. I'll shoot him."
"Hai," came the chuckled reply from the door as Hakkai turned away with the feverish boy-monkey. "Just don't be too carried away, ne? It may not look much but the furnitures are actually antique." With that, he quietly closed the door behind him.
===========
Oh. God. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
Don't stop.
glad you...came home...
to the side... heat-waves
i... /bitch./
...yeah... open wide...
Yeah.... shit.... crushed....
Smothered.
Blonde.
Aah.
===========
Fumbling in the darkness for his sutras. Too sleepy to be graceful, rather, too tired to care. Not sleepy. Sleepy only applied to people who were on their way to the realm of slumber and dreams and nightmares, and to people who had been pulled out of that realm quite violently or suddenly so as to yearn for it again. He was nowhere near either.
He needed a smoke. But he remembered going out for that earlier that night and not succeeding in obtaining a fresh pack. Liquor. At least after a couple of rounds he would be knocked out. But that would mean going out, going down to the bar and rousing the bartender below. Gods he wished he weren't human, that he had the supernatural power to shut out sound.
Prayer. What he needed was desperate prayer. Hear no evil, after all. The porous, un-soundproofed walls were the devil's advocate then.
//Omi toh foh.//
It had been going on, the noises. The kappa's distinct way of announcing to all who would listen that he was home and would be a little busy.
A faint but pained cry sounded in the night suddenly, accompanied by a whiny, "But the soup s~uucks!!!!" which promptly faded as quickly as it had come. He surmised it was probably the monkey yelling in his sleep, or Hakkai rousing the boy to take some medicinal concoction to alleviate the fever.
//Omi toh foh...omi toh foh...//
He muttered the words now. Muttered them to drown out his neighbor's more nonconsensual, passionate ones. Oddly now that he murmured them they formed a rythm with his neighbors', particularly the deep bass of the redhaired kappa. So he alternated his feverent prayers with equally feverent curses.
//Omi toh foh... goddamn Gojyo.... Omi toh foh... fucking kappa...//
That, after all, was what the kappa was doing right now. The thought stopped his personal novena short and almost forced an ironic laugh he'd managed to reign in at the last moment. The prayer beads seemed too short. So he calmly tried to lie down again, to wear out the storm.
The night carries monsters. And his weren't finished tormenting him. For the moment he laid back down to try to ignore the noise, the voices escalated; a part of his mind got away with the thought that 'they are nearing their peak of passion' and fed off the night-monsters, flashing racy pictures in his mind's eye.
He shuddered. Passion. Did Not. Affect. Him. There was only the intensity of battle, the bitter taste of bloody victory, the prodding anger for all the stupid fates and gods that managed to make his life look like a very bad hand of cards. Only that. Only that. Only that.
It was almost stifling hot. He could almost feel every pore in his body as it strove desperately to cool his person, despite the fact that he had stripped off his tight turteneck undershirt and armwarmers for a lighter, white linen spare travel shirt he carried on him.
Genjo Sanzo never liked it when he was disturbed. And affected, and trying to fight off the demons of man's most basic carnal desire. He'd kept them away just fine by not caring about them. By putting them outside the chicken wire fence of his mind, knowing they were there but not caring. What Genjo Sanzo did with demons in general was to put a bullet through their head.
Just as he was really just about to get up and shoot a hole through the wall (and hopefully through the kappa and his bitch's brains as well...) the noises stopped. Stopped. Abrupt, without warning, just...
Stopped. Sanzo had to blink, despite himself. He self-consciously pressed an ear to the walls, half expecting them to suddenly burst out in passionate exclamations. Nothing. Were they spent? Were they finally sated of their animal interactions, tired and weary as if soldiers surviving from a siege?
"K'so" he muttered to himself, angry, and pulled away from the wall to settle against the headboard of the bed. Oh that he would have Hakkai's neverending tolerance for all things stupid! Or at least Goku's impenetrable naivette; He would be well on his way to a good night's rest.
He thought his monsters had diminished now that whatever /they/ were doing had ceased. Now. Before they could put together coherent thoughts about doing it again. Now was the time to lose himself in sleep. Hopefully he would be lost enough not to be torn away from it when if they started making noises again.
He set his slightly sweating self back on the hot sheets. His pesperation was not entirely caused by the humid weather this time.
===========
Iris-less eyes watched from the garden downstairs the quiet tavern. They flicked from one window to the other, with the four strange occupants. They blinked for a moment as if to memorize the scene, and disappeared into the night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tsuzuku
notes: Er, 'Omi toh foh' is Mandarin for 'Buddha bless you' and is a common Chinese prayer (or so my Chinese friends Ririn and Silas-chan tell me... Tensaispira recommends 'amitabha' but I think 'omi toh foh' is okay...) Thanks for the reviews. *Blinks stupidly* Have seen a total of only...*ticks fingers* nine-eleven Saiyuki eps, so I'm really thankful for your corrections. ;) K!ra Kudou is happy. Sorta.
[1] Yes, this is a kind of fish. If anyone recognizes the language... =D
