The cold didn't bother Goku. Five centuries imprisoned in a cave had accustomed him to just about any variation of temperature. He had hated snow for all that time, but now he could enjoy it, appreciate the beauty of a frosted fir, or the fun of a well-thrown snowball.

This, though, was neither fun nor beautiful. His ears ached from the ceaseless wind, and he could see nothing but white on white on white--and Hakkai, when he looked back, steadily plodding behind him. The snow was past his waist, gathering in his cloak and on his pack, weighing him down. And there was no sign of Sanzo or Gojyo. The wind blew too hard for him to scent out anything--blind, deaf, and dumb, they were searching. With the key word being 'dumb', he was sure Sanzo would tell him. Bakazaru, he'd say, do you really think luck is on your side?

Of course not. But they hardly had a choice about it, did they? Sanzo was human, Gojyo half-human. They wouldn't survive being buried under this blizzard. Even Hakkai was starting to struggle; Goku could feel him raising his energies to keep himself warm. A barrier against the storm, which made sense, because it was an attack of a sort. If only there were a way to really fight it.

Even as he thought it, the gale picked up again, great gusts driving snow into his face, as if it were trying to beat him back. There was malice in its force, in how it threw ice into his eyes. A challenge. Goku threw back his head, raised his fists and howled his answer into the wind.

"Goku?"

Hakkai touched his shoulder, peered down at him anxiously. Goku shook his head, mumbled, "It's nothing. Sorry."

There was strain in Hakkai's smile. "I know how you feel."

The wind lashed them again. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Goku frowned. "It doesn't like us. No...it wants..." He could almost hear it. Voices in the storm, cruelty without conscience. "It wants us dead."

"Nature is a harsh mistress," Hakkai quoted, lightly.

"This isn't nature." He knew well the viciousness of the natural world. This was a less indifferent malevolence. "I think--" He took a step forward, and tripped over an unexpected unevenness under the snow. Regaining his balance, he frowned down at the ground. Something wrong about its texture under his boots; it was too smooth, and lacking solidity, the definite weight of stone. He retreated a step, feeling the slight give. "Hakkai...we should go back."

"What do you mean?"

"We're walking on water." At Hakkai's blank expression he explained, "A river or a pond or something. Look." He pointed mere feet ahead. Barely visible through the snow was a patch of gray, a churned-up mass of ice and a mouth of open water, swallowing the falling flakes. Something must have broken through it, not too long ago, if it wasn't frozen over yet. Maybe the storm had dislodged a boulder higher up the mountain.

"The innkeeper did mention a waterfall," Hakkai remarked. "If it's close," and Goku thought he might hear a faint roar, under the wind, "then the moving water might not fully freeze."

"So we should go back."

"Yes, that's probably--" Hakkai stopped, so abruptly Goku blinked up at him in concern. The youkai bent down, picked up something Goku's forging footsteps had uncovered and shook the snow off it, a limp, dark green shape.

Goku squinted at it. "Isn't that your hat?"

Hakkai nodded mechanically, clutching it to his chest as if it were an injured pet.

"How'd you lose your hat here?"

"I..." Hakkai's head came up, and Goku watched him pull his lips into a smile, not his usual comforting smile, but the false one, the one which hid things. He hated that smile on Hakkai. It made him want to punch whatever was causing it. "I don't know how it got here, Goku," Hakkai said, as if he thought Goku wouldn't notice he was lying. "Let's get off this ice."

It wasn't a wide river; they were back on solid earth within fifteen feet. Hakkai immediately set off, backtracking as if he knew where he was heading. Goku followed him, shouting, "Where are we going?"

"We passed trees here earlier," Hakkai said, which wasn't entirely accurate. 'Ran headfirst into a pine and knocked most of the snow off its needles' was closer to the mark, in Goku's case. But they found the stand again without too much trouble. The circle of trees provided a little shelter from the snow, enough that one could see from one trunk to another. Hakkai paced the distance between and nodded. "This will do."

"What will do?"

"It's getting dark," Hakkai said, and Goku realized he was right. Night was falling; the sun had probably already gone down. "And the blizzard's still going strong. I think it'd be best to take a break, see if it dies down any. Hakuryuu?" He withdrew the little dragon from his tunic. "Are you warmed up enough to change for us?"

Hakuryuu kyuu'ed obligingly, slipped down from his arms and took position under the largest tree, then transformed. Snow was plowed aside as dragon swelled into jeep. "Thank you," Hakkai said, patting the hood, and Hakuryuu's headlights flashed.

"What are you doing?" Goku demanded.

Climbing into the back, Hakkai shrugged off his pack and began pulling his tent from it. "We can make some shelter with the tarp--"

"We can't hide here all night! What about Sanzo and Gojyo?"

Hakkai went still, as if the cold had frozen him all at once. The smile slipped, was restored with an effort of will Goku recognized from their most difficult battles. "Perhaps they reached the hunter's shelter."

"What if they didn't? We need to find them--"

"Which we can't do in this storm."

"We have to try!"

"Goku." Hakkai took his shoulders, looked him in the eyes. Goku met them squarely, looking for whatever it was he was hiding, but saw only concern in the green. "Sanzo...Sanzo would kill me if I let you get lost in the snow. We have to trust him and Gojyo to take care of themselves. Until we have a chance of finding them. All right?"

"But..." Hakkai was right. Sanzo probably would be furious with him--Sanzo hated to be rescued even when he needed to be; he got even angrier when Goku worried without reason. And Gojyo would tease him about it--"Aww, the bakazaru cares!" He could imagine the ero-kappa's leer. They were strong, so much stronger than the malice in this storm. They wouldn't need help.

Besides, if Sanzo were truly in trouble, he'd know. He always knew. "All right," Goku sighed, and helped Hakkai raise a canopy over the jeep.

***

There was pain, but it was a distant thing, a candle across the room. He could have reached for it, but he preferred the darkness, the safety of emptiness, where there was nothing to hurt him, nothing to frighten him. But from somewhere far away he heard a voice. He didn't want to listen, didn't want to make that admission, that he existed at all. There was something insistent in the voice, however. Persuasive. Irresistible. He remembered it, remembered the peace it brought...sunrise, and that voice shone like dawn.

He listened now, and heard, not a prayer, but his own name. His name, and a long string of words, of which he knew perhaps three-quarters. The voice was methodically working through every curse in existence which could be set upon his head, most mundane but biting, a few horrifically exotic and detailed. And safety was important, but he was never one to take an insult lying down.

Gojyo returned to consciousness unwillingly, and it was as excruciating as being born. Every nerve in his body seemed to have something to say, none of it good. He was trembling like a virgin about to be bedded and couldn't stop, couldn't even figure out where to begin. And this despite being under several layers--of snow? No, not that soft, and heavier. Blankets, and he should be sweating like a pig, covered up and so near to the fire. It glowed, close enough he could see the embers of logs sparking and collapsing in on themselves.

So close he could feel the pressure of its heat, pulsing, dry waves, but he still was freezing. In the orange firelight he could see the ground was stone, but his head was on something soft, and warm, a warmth he could feel, unlike the fire. With a little groan he nestled against it.

It moved. It spoke to him, in a tone drier than the fire. "So you're going to live after all?"

Coming awake all at once, Gojyo saw violet eyes studying him, and shoved himself away, as far as he could without rolling into the flames. Everything was blurry, mirages in a makeshift desert, but he could see the cave's rough walls, the heavy log door, and Sanzo. He could see Sanzo all too clearly, stretched out beside him under the blankets, bare-chested and looking, as he usually did, in need of a cigarette.

"What the hell are you--I only sleep with girls! Only girls and--uh, get outa my bed!"

Sanzo's face screwed up, suffused with color, and Gojyo ducked his head, expecting a fan to fall on it. Instead Sanzo made a strange sound, odd in how it was familiar, and yet so bizarre it took him a moment to recognize...laughter. Sanzo was laughing.

Apparently Gojyo wasn't the only one who had frozen more braincells than was good for him.

"Baaka," the monk drawled, when he had recovered from his fit. "If I were going to break that vow you wouldn't be my first choice."

"Then...then..."

Sanzo rose abruptly, all smooth feline grace as he slid out from under the blanket and stalked to his robes spread over the cave floor. He was at least wearing his jeans--

Gojyo peeked under the covers, and saw..."Wha--I'm not wearing anything. Why am I not wearing anything?"

"Your clothes were wet."

"I'm not wearing anything at all!"

Sanzo sighed as he pulled on his leather. "Everything was soaked. It's drying," and he gestured to the clothes draped over the rocks around the fire. "And you're dry and warm, which was the important thing."

Warm? This wasn't warm, at least not as far as Gojyo remembered it. Which wasn't much. His teeth clattered like Goku running up stairs.

"Warmer, anyway." Sanzo was in front of him suddenly, golden in the firelight and moving like the flames, wavering and too fast to follow. "Here. Drink."

The cup was so hot it burned his skin, and yet he was still shivering, enough that Sanzo had to wrap his own hands around Gojyo's to guide it to his mouth. The tea was bitter, strong, and he coughed on it, but the shivers were less when he finished, and the roaring in his head had died down to distant thunder.

"You're such a terrible monk," he said, as he lay back down again.

"Am I really."

Gojyo turned his head against the stone pillow--carefully, yet it still spun. Sanzo was sitting cross-legged, within reach if he stretched out his arm. But too far away to feel his warmth; he was only light and shadow, a hazy ephemeral pattern against the solid rock. "Terrible," he said again.

"You only just noticed." Strange, too, for Sanzo to sound that calm; usually he was so easy to bait. Cool fire. "Was sharing a bed the final straw?"

"Not that." It seemed to Gojyo that his words were stretching, like melting taffy, or maybe it was just his voice running away. Smart voice, but it didn't escape fast enough to stop him. "Seriously. The only thing you say you follow...that thing, that you'd kill the Buddha you met, that you'd kill anyone who gets in your way...shouldn't you be letting me save myself?"

"Perhaps."

"Terrible...you wanna know something, though?" Gojyo mumbled. "I don't think I could save myself right now..."

"Stupid kappa," he thought he heard Sanzo say, but by then all words were fleeing, and if there were more he couldn't reach them. He was falling again, but this time the water was warm and shining gold. There was someone, too, who caught and held him, and he knew that he was saved.

to be continued...

Ahh, didn't make it to a cliffhanger. Come back anyway? There'll be one next time!

Thank you, everyone, for the reviews! It's so great to know folks are having as much fun with this as I am. For those who have opinions on the matter ^^ - that last scene is about as close to shounen ai as this is going to get. Though you're not the only one with her mind in the gutter, sf - my inner hentai had all *kinds* of plans, which I cruelly squashed. And NekoMegami-chan, the chapters will be getting a bit longer, but it shouldn't slow the posting down - hope you and everyone else continue to enjoy 'em!