and this new chapter emerges from a keyboard precariously balanced on my
knees. my comp is temporarily set up at my bro's place...but i was
undergoing saiyuki withdrawal. you know how it is...leave a fic too long
and the urge to write for it sorta...atrophies.
PS: sorry if you guys are having trouble distinguishing the POV--i don't know how to describe it, but except for the first chapters where i didn't know what i was doing, it seems to mostly be third person. i figured since there's only four guys and not all of them are present, it shouldn't be too hard to use process of elimination? ^^;; i could be wrong... holla if it's bothering you...
------------------------
and though our hearts may bleed, my lad
to break the loving ties that bind
i cut them knowing you will learn
to love the freedom you will find
------------------------
He was caught in a current that flowed, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. When it tugged him under he tumbled, submersed in a stream of images and fear. Sometimes he bobbed up towards the world of light and voices. He could hear them, somewhere overhead, but they came from behind a thick curtain and he was too weak to reach up and pull it aside. He sank each time he rose as if his limbs had turned soft and heavy as gold. For a borderless span he went on drifting in the dark, and did not know that he moaned.
Sometimes a wash of cooling, soothing light would spread through the darkness and at those times the voices would sound nearer than ever, the thick curtain becoming a thin veil. Each time he was sure that on the next time, the next try, he would break through, be able to brush it away. But always the light would fade and he would sink back, exhausted. At one point he thought he could feel the brush of a hand over his face, simple and warm. It slipped away, and with a pang of loss he slid back into a darkness thicker than water.
---------------------------
It was hot.
He woke slowly, with the uneasy conviction that he had overslept. He, who had so long and so firmly believed that mornings were some sort of illusion, was now conditioned by Hakkai's rice porridge and Sanzo's gun to rise shortly after dawn. Now the full light of a day that had well and truly broken tilted into his eyes through the open shutters, and the yard below was filling with the sounds of routine: an axe falling, the perennial mindless excitement of chickens. There was a strange smell in the air, bitter and tarry.
His neck felt stiff, and his back tingling numb. Shaking himself into a state of awareness, he realized that he was still sitting against the foot of the bed. At some point, it seemed, the bed had chosen to crawl down around his shoulders and cocoon him in coarse layers of homespun cloth and wool. He twisted for a moment and tried to count to see if the man had left any for himself, then wondered why he bothered. It wasn't his business to interfere with martyrs. He'd had his fill of them.
He kicked himself free and listened for the others, another new-old habit. Gunshots, he'd learned, meant being more circumspect than usual. But today there was no whining, no cracking shouts or shots. Instead, voices riding low with anxiety were coming from next door. Noticing that the monkey was no longer lying in front of the fire, he felt a surge of concern that carried him into the hall. He leaned by the door, irresolute. Eavesdropping was an old-old habit, and a handy one.
The words swallow-dipped in and out of his hearing and he caught a few fragments, ". not sure why it's this high . " ". torn the inner lining ." ". must NOT move him ." It was Hakkai's voice, low and steady but with a push behind it of urgency. He was talking to Sanzo, likely, who was either saying nothing or saying it in a voice too low to be heard.
So. The kid was still sick, then. Somehow he'd expected that it would be all right today. It was rare for them to see the same walls for three days or more and he'd thought they'd be hustled into Jeep at sunup by a surly Sanzo, eager to make up for lost time. Goku would be pushing his invalid status to claim a bigger share of the backseat and Hakkai would be driving and stoically concealing his yawns.
The door jerked open, swinging through his comfortable scenario. Out stalked what he judged to be a highly pissed-off monk. He passed by without even a glance, sandals thudding against wood floor, a dull staccato of rage. He hadn't even thought of a flip remark and the man had already reached the end of the narrow hallway, was starting down the stairs.
"Where's he off to, in such a hurry?" he scoffed, angry with himself for feeling still so thick and slow with sleep.
"Probably to buy cigarettes," Hakkai said, emerging from the room where they'd quartered Sanzo the night before. (Had it been only the night before? It seemed at least a week ago.) It was a narrow, rectangular space that held only one low bed, and was probably the bedroom of one of the resident servants, who was doubtless now sleeping in the straw or on a corner of the floor somewhere. "He's been smoking like a volcano all morning. He must be nearly out by now."
"Making up for time lost yesterday," he found himself saying, although what was on his mind was a combination of blankets and breakfast and the empty place before the fire. Why did you let me sleep so late, he'd wanted to ask, but some habits were too strong to break. He thought, between the four of them, they made a pretty good case for the saying that only children and fools tell the truth. The ape was somewhere in between the two, no doubt. "What's he so mad about?"
Hakkai's face was grave. As ever this frightened him because what he was used to and could deal with was screaming hysteria and by now, gunshots. "C'mon, doc, how's the patient? Is he ready for his bananas yet?"
"I'm afraid he won't be eating any bananas for a while," Hakkai replied, but the joke fell flat without his usual stiff cheer. For a moment he felt ashamed of having said it, Bananas, really, at a time like this. Then he got a grip and waited for Hakkai to tell him what was wrong.
"Peritonitis." The name fell hard and heavy. Something really bad, then. "What mercenaries call gutrot."
And that was bad, could kill a man in fevers while he couldn't eat and couldn't drink and dried up until he died. Which was sometimes quite soon. "Can you fix it?"
"I don't know." Hakkai sounded pained. "I should have done more work before I sewed up the wound. It must have torn open on the inside and gotten infected."
"So what's going on in there, then?"
"High fever. His breathing is still shallow and his pulse is weak. It seems to have set in sometime in the night, and has been growing worse." The calm diagnosis faltered "Perhaps you should go see for yourself." He pushed open the door and went in. Goku lay on his back under the sheets. The position looked unnatural. He was used to sleeping next to the monkey and not once had he ever found him looking so rigid. Stiff as a corpse, but no corpse ever breathed rapid and shallow like that, or had skin that was splotchy and fever-hot.
He wondered what happened inside when you had gutrot. It didn't take too much imagination, with a name like that. Hakkai moved to his side silently, as though he were fearful of disturbing the boy. He wished it were that simple, that he could simply cup his hands and holler into that shock of brown hair and watch those screwed up lids flutter open the way they did most mornings. He had a hunch it wouldn't work so well now.
"What can we do?" His own voice startled him, harsh and raw with waking. He cleared it and tried to swallow past his dry thick tongue.
"I've already compounded a brew of fever-reducing herbs," said Hakkai, "It's been stewing since midmorning."
"Ah, so that's what it was. It smelled horrible."
"The bitterest medicine is the best," quoted Hakkai absently, "But I'm not sure that he'll be able to keep it down. He's been retching at everything we've tried to give him." Retching, from someone who would eat dirt if he were hungry enough. "What about ki healing?"
"I've tried that too. Look," and the sheets were peeled back over the flat naked torso. He recoiled at the look of the angry flesh, the gash whose edges were now crusted and smelled of pus. "I'm afraid to close it, even if I could. The infection would only be trapped in."
He felt a kind of shock. Of the four of them, Goku had never seemed to be in mortal danger. The kid had always bounced back from harm quickly enough and his appetite had never been impaired; it was almost as if every scrap of food went straight into regenerating his lanky frame. Meatbun to muscle. He'd almost grown to think that it was a state of more than mortality. What could hurt a youkai over five hundred years old?
Infection and bullets, apparently. He found his voice again. "Will he be okay?"
"I don't know." The statement was flat. "I'm not a proper healer, I'm only just learning the rudiments of ki.I could do nothing when Sanzo was poisoned, and I can do precious little now." If the bitterest medicines were the best, then smearing a few of Hakkai's words across that ugly wound should have closed it right quick. "If I'd known I would deal in so much death I would have trained to be a doctor, not a scholar."
He reached out and shoved the back of the other man's head. "Oi. Give it a rest, will ya? I'll keep the monkey company."
Hakkai started at the rough contact, knocked away from his inner turmoil. "Huh?"
"Well, it's not like he's going to get any better by you starin' at him, right?"
The man hesitated. "But his wound's got to be washed with salt water.and drained.the medicine--"
"But not every five minutes, right? Go, shoo, make like a normal human being and sleep or something." Hakkai left reluctantly, saying that he'd be back within the hour to administer another round of herbs, and instructing him to try and get the boy to drink.
When he had gone Gojyo pulled up a dusty crate from the corner over to the bed, and sat down on it. Placing his hands on his knees, he looked Goku, who didn't toss and turn as he normally did. Some nights he managed to turn himself around completely. It wasn't a pleasant sight, waking to a pair of monkey feet that probably hadn't been properly washed and gods only knew where they'd been. At the moment he was still, apart from the small rapid rise of his chest, and the occasional twitching groan. He wondered what was running through that careless head, to be giving him such painful dreams. Or maybe it was merely the fever running through his blood, and his head was as empty as always.
"Hey, monkey-boy," he said aloud, and waited for a response. None came, so he went on. "You'd better get well soon. Sanzo's going to be plenty pissed if we don't get on the road."
This didn't seem to be a grave enough threat. Sanzo was always pissed; they were more or less immune to his wrath by now. Even the dumb ape had caught on that for a man who could kill at fifty paces with his eyes closed, he was remarkably unsteady in his aim. He tried again.
"If you don't get well soon, that glutton for punishment is just gonna keep bashing himself over the head. You don't really want him to overdose on guilt, do you? He's only got one good eye left now."
Still nothing. "Aw hell. If you don't get up soon, I might even start to get a little worried."
He gave up on speech and dribbled water through the parted lips. Hakkai was right, Goku had a tendency to retch and splutter if you poured too fast. He slowed it to a trickle. Twice before the sun set Hakkai came back in to gently lave the edges of the wound, and once he pierced it with a long thin needle, eyes narrow with concentration as the pus flowed out. The herbs weren't bringing down the fever but they fed it to him anyway, a stewed concoction the color of used tea leaves.
Sunset found him still in the room, eating his dinner with the occasional one-sided gibe. He eyed the boy as if he half-expected him to rise up and snatch the food away, half-gnawed. He was almost disappointed when it didn't happen. Hakkai had asked just before if he wanted to be relieved of his shift and he'd waved his friend away, saying that it kept him out of the bad-tempered Buddhist's way. Hakkai had argued, but in the end, exhausted by another round of attempted healing, had gone back downstairs to eat.
He watched the flushed face. It was dry of sweat; the fever was burning him from the inside out. His mind wandered and he pictured the monkey drying up, shrinking into the hard black object he'd seen years ago in some herb-witch's yard, a little wrinkled thing she'd said was a dried monkey head. In his vision the little black thing wore a golden limiter the size of a thumb ring. He went on watching as the light coming in through the window turned blood red, then faded.
.........
Two more days the fever had lasted. Sometime on the second day Goku had curled into a tight ball on his side, and they had had to pull hard to uncurl him. Gojyo had been persuaded to leave when he'd run out of cigarettes. Sanzo had not come into the room since the first day, did not so much as direct an inquiry or even respond when he gave the few details that could be given anyway. It made him almost glad that the man mostly chose to stay away from the inn altogether. At times he felt his temper fraying painfully.
Finally, the fever had broken and Goku was breathing deeper, easier, the painful set of his face relaxed into something more natural. It seemed safe to leave him, now, and he slipped downstairs. He was sipping scalding tea, relaxing for the first time in days, when he looked up to find Sanzo's inscrutable gaze. "Yes?" he asked, because reflex was as close as you could come to safe with Sanzo.
For a moment the monk seemed almost disinclined to respond. Then abruptly, he asked, "Is he out of danger?"
He sipped at the tea, wincing as it burned the tip of his tongue. "I think so, yes. As long as further abscesses do not appear."
"Then we start tomorrow."
At this he looked up, and did not smile. "I don't think that's advisable. Surely you can spare one more day for him to heal?"
"He can heal all he likes," Sanzo said as he turned away. "He's not coming."
Hot tea sloshed over his hand, but he barely noticed the sensation. "Sanzo, you're not serious."
"We've already wasted more than enough time," the man said curtly, stopping but not turning around. "I can hardly trust him to behave himself after a stupid prank like this. I refuse to let this sort of thing drag us down."
"This sort of thing?" Some part of him was amazed that he could still produce rage, in his weary state. "I agree Goku was a bit impetuous but surely he's allowed one mistake? Especially since he only did it because-- "
"One mistake?" Sanzo filled his words with scorn. "This isn't a game where you get three tries at everything. His mistakes will cost us lives."
"Sanzo, he's only a boy!" He was well and truly angry. He didn't see why it was necessary to go through this elaborate charade each time, when the monk was fooling no one, not even himself.
"Exactly. And boys don't belong on dangerous journeys. I don't know why I brought him along in the first place." He said the words with a weary disgust that made Hakkai wonder for a split second if he really knew the man as well as he thought he did, which was not very well at all. Stymied, he spoke without calculation.
"And the last thing he asked us was to tell you not to be angry!"
Sanzo whirled around at that, his face dark with anger. "What good is it if he doesn't make his apologies in person?"
He went on, relieved to have struck a chord. "It'll kill him if you leave him behind."
"It might kill him if I bring him along, too, did you think of that?"
The response caught him by surprise and he was silent just long enough for Sanzo to escape up the stairs. He wasn't going to let the matter rest, however, and had his argument ready by dinner. Gojyo had wandered out, claiming that he needed to look at pretty faces after staring at the monkey's. He wondered how the redhead would react to Sanzo's suggestion.
Setting another kettle of boiled water to cool, he thought he heard a noise from the adjoining room. Could Goku be waking, he wondered, and moved quietly to check. It would be a good opportunity to get some simple food into his body if he were, although he was loath to wake the boy from his first true sleep.
The door stood a crack open, and he saw that someone was already in the room. Sanzo was finally breaking the silent vow he seemed to have made on the first day. Even as he wondered whether to speak he saw one hand reach out, hesitate, then lay itself on the boy's head, smoothing back the tousled hair. It was not a graceful gesture; the arm moved as if it were wooden. It lay there for a moment. He backed away, feeling relieved that Sanzo's back was to him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see the man's eyes, but knew that he would never be forgiven if they had seen him. He wondered why it was so hard to do this when the boy was awake. When it might make a difference.
That night, he took Gojyo away from the inn and into a suitably distant location where he proceeded to explain. Listened as Gojyo scoffed, then shouted, and explained again. There was more shouting as the meaning of his words sunk in, but less of it was directed at him, and more of it at Sanzo. Then Gojyo stopped even shouting about Sanzo and just started swearing, he could only assume at the situation in general. And how Goku would feel ("He ain't gonna like this one bit, yanno.") Somehow the hand in the hair played a part in the explanation, and so did that moment in the desert when the two of them had collapsed back into the sand together. But in the end he felt that Gojyo had finally yielded more out of a gratifying faith in him.
Whatever the reason, after strict instructions to the innkeeper, the following morning they packed their things quietly and left. And if Sanzo wondered at the lack of surprise on the half-breed's part, he said nothing, nor did he acknowledge the muttered asides about cruelty to dumb animals.
It took a while to convince Jeep to start with only three of them there. The little dragon had been wary since the last wild ride and kept stalling.
.........
Good? Bad? Or just plain Ugly?
You guys have voted mostly for long, and I guess I'll go with that. But do let me know if it starts to drag, ok? *mwah* I love you all, my darling reviewers, and will thank you properly in the next chappie. For now, post, and then off to bed. Sorry if this one came out a little rough-it was written under disjointed conditions ^^;;
PS: sorry if you guys are having trouble distinguishing the POV--i don't know how to describe it, but except for the first chapters where i didn't know what i was doing, it seems to mostly be third person. i figured since there's only four guys and not all of them are present, it shouldn't be too hard to use process of elimination? ^^;; i could be wrong... holla if it's bothering you...
------------------------
and though our hearts may bleed, my lad
to break the loving ties that bind
i cut them knowing you will learn
to love the freedom you will find
------------------------
He was caught in a current that flowed, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. When it tugged him under he tumbled, submersed in a stream of images and fear. Sometimes he bobbed up towards the world of light and voices. He could hear them, somewhere overhead, but they came from behind a thick curtain and he was too weak to reach up and pull it aside. He sank each time he rose as if his limbs had turned soft and heavy as gold. For a borderless span he went on drifting in the dark, and did not know that he moaned.
Sometimes a wash of cooling, soothing light would spread through the darkness and at those times the voices would sound nearer than ever, the thick curtain becoming a thin veil. Each time he was sure that on the next time, the next try, he would break through, be able to brush it away. But always the light would fade and he would sink back, exhausted. At one point he thought he could feel the brush of a hand over his face, simple and warm. It slipped away, and with a pang of loss he slid back into a darkness thicker than water.
---------------------------
It was hot.
He woke slowly, with the uneasy conviction that he had overslept. He, who had so long and so firmly believed that mornings were some sort of illusion, was now conditioned by Hakkai's rice porridge and Sanzo's gun to rise shortly after dawn. Now the full light of a day that had well and truly broken tilted into his eyes through the open shutters, and the yard below was filling with the sounds of routine: an axe falling, the perennial mindless excitement of chickens. There was a strange smell in the air, bitter and tarry.
His neck felt stiff, and his back tingling numb. Shaking himself into a state of awareness, he realized that he was still sitting against the foot of the bed. At some point, it seemed, the bed had chosen to crawl down around his shoulders and cocoon him in coarse layers of homespun cloth and wool. He twisted for a moment and tried to count to see if the man had left any for himself, then wondered why he bothered. It wasn't his business to interfere with martyrs. He'd had his fill of them.
He kicked himself free and listened for the others, another new-old habit. Gunshots, he'd learned, meant being more circumspect than usual. But today there was no whining, no cracking shouts or shots. Instead, voices riding low with anxiety were coming from next door. Noticing that the monkey was no longer lying in front of the fire, he felt a surge of concern that carried him into the hall. He leaned by the door, irresolute. Eavesdropping was an old-old habit, and a handy one.
The words swallow-dipped in and out of his hearing and he caught a few fragments, ". not sure why it's this high . " ". torn the inner lining ." ". must NOT move him ." It was Hakkai's voice, low and steady but with a push behind it of urgency. He was talking to Sanzo, likely, who was either saying nothing or saying it in a voice too low to be heard.
So. The kid was still sick, then. Somehow he'd expected that it would be all right today. It was rare for them to see the same walls for three days or more and he'd thought they'd be hustled into Jeep at sunup by a surly Sanzo, eager to make up for lost time. Goku would be pushing his invalid status to claim a bigger share of the backseat and Hakkai would be driving and stoically concealing his yawns.
The door jerked open, swinging through his comfortable scenario. Out stalked what he judged to be a highly pissed-off monk. He passed by without even a glance, sandals thudding against wood floor, a dull staccato of rage. He hadn't even thought of a flip remark and the man had already reached the end of the narrow hallway, was starting down the stairs.
"Where's he off to, in such a hurry?" he scoffed, angry with himself for feeling still so thick and slow with sleep.
"Probably to buy cigarettes," Hakkai said, emerging from the room where they'd quartered Sanzo the night before. (Had it been only the night before? It seemed at least a week ago.) It was a narrow, rectangular space that held only one low bed, and was probably the bedroom of one of the resident servants, who was doubtless now sleeping in the straw or on a corner of the floor somewhere. "He's been smoking like a volcano all morning. He must be nearly out by now."
"Making up for time lost yesterday," he found himself saying, although what was on his mind was a combination of blankets and breakfast and the empty place before the fire. Why did you let me sleep so late, he'd wanted to ask, but some habits were too strong to break. He thought, between the four of them, they made a pretty good case for the saying that only children and fools tell the truth. The ape was somewhere in between the two, no doubt. "What's he so mad about?"
Hakkai's face was grave. As ever this frightened him because what he was used to and could deal with was screaming hysteria and by now, gunshots. "C'mon, doc, how's the patient? Is he ready for his bananas yet?"
"I'm afraid he won't be eating any bananas for a while," Hakkai replied, but the joke fell flat without his usual stiff cheer. For a moment he felt ashamed of having said it, Bananas, really, at a time like this. Then he got a grip and waited for Hakkai to tell him what was wrong.
"Peritonitis." The name fell hard and heavy. Something really bad, then. "What mercenaries call gutrot."
And that was bad, could kill a man in fevers while he couldn't eat and couldn't drink and dried up until he died. Which was sometimes quite soon. "Can you fix it?"
"I don't know." Hakkai sounded pained. "I should have done more work before I sewed up the wound. It must have torn open on the inside and gotten infected."
"So what's going on in there, then?"
"High fever. His breathing is still shallow and his pulse is weak. It seems to have set in sometime in the night, and has been growing worse." The calm diagnosis faltered "Perhaps you should go see for yourself." He pushed open the door and went in. Goku lay on his back under the sheets. The position looked unnatural. He was used to sleeping next to the monkey and not once had he ever found him looking so rigid. Stiff as a corpse, but no corpse ever breathed rapid and shallow like that, or had skin that was splotchy and fever-hot.
He wondered what happened inside when you had gutrot. It didn't take too much imagination, with a name like that. Hakkai moved to his side silently, as though he were fearful of disturbing the boy. He wished it were that simple, that he could simply cup his hands and holler into that shock of brown hair and watch those screwed up lids flutter open the way they did most mornings. He had a hunch it wouldn't work so well now.
"What can we do?" His own voice startled him, harsh and raw with waking. He cleared it and tried to swallow past his dry thick tongue.
"I've already compounded a brew of fever-reducing herbs," said Hakkai, "It's been stewing since midmorning."
"Ah, so that's what it was. It smelled horrible."
"The bitterest medicine is the best," quoted Hakkai absently, "But I'm not sure that he'll be able to keep it down. He's been retching at everything we've tried to give him." Retching, from someone who would eat dirt if he were hungry enough. "What about ki healing?"
"I've tried that too. Look," and the sheets were peeled back over the flat naked torso. He recoiled at the look of the angry flesh, the gash whose edges were now crusted and smelled of pus. "I'm afraid to close it, even if I could. The infection would only be trapped in."
He felt a kind of shock. Of the four of them, Goku had never seemed to be in mortal danger. The kid had always bounced back from harm quickly enough and his appetite had never been impaired; it was almost as if every scrap of food went straight into regenerating his lanky frame. Meatbun to muscle. He'd almost grown to think that it was a state of more than mortality. What could hurt a youkai over five hundred years old?
Infection and bullets, apparently. He found his voice again. "Will he be okay?"
"I don't know." The statement was flat. "I'm not a proper healer, I'm only just learning the rudiments of ki.I could do nothing when Sanzo was poisoned, and I can do precious little now." If the bitterest medicines were the best, then smearing a few of Hakkai's words across that ugly wound should have closed it right quick. "If I'd known I would deal in so much death I would have trained to be a doctor, not a scholar."
He reached out and shoved the back of the other man's head. "Oi. Give it a rest, will ya? I'll keep the monkey company."
Hakkai started at the rough contact, knocked away from his inner turmoil. "Huh?"
"Well, it's not like he's going to get any better by you starin' at him, right?"
The man hesitated. "But his wound's got to be washed with salt water.and drained.the medicine--"
"But not every five minutes, right? Go, shoo, make like a normal human being and sleep or something." Hakkai left reluctantly, saying that he'd be back within the hour to administer another round of herbs, and instructing him to try and get the boy to drink.
When he had gone Gojyo pulled up a dusty crate from the corner over to the bed, and sat down on it. Placing his hands on his knees, he looked Goku, who didn't toss and turn as he normally did. Some nights he managed to turn himself around completely. It wasn't a pleasant sight, waking to a pair of monkey feet that probably hadn't been properly washed and gods only knew where they'd been. At the moment he was still, apart from the small rapid rise of his chest, and the occasional twitching groan. He wondered what was running through that careless head, to be giving him such painful dreams. Or maybe it was merely the fever running through his blood, and his head was as empty as always.
"Hey, monkey-boy," he said aloud, and waited for a response. None came, so he went on. "You'd better get well soon. Sanzo's going to be plenty pissed if we don't get on the road."
This didn't seem to be a grave enough threat. Sanzo was always pissed; they were more or less immune to his wrath by now. Even the dumb ape had caught on that for a man who could kill at fifty paces with his eyes closed, he was remarkably unsteady in his aim. He tried again.
"If you don't get well soon, that glutton for punishment is just gonna keep bashing himself over the head. You don't really want him to overdose on guilt, do you? He's only got one good eye left now."
Still nothing. "Aw hell. If you don't get up soon, I might even start to get a little worried."
He gave up on speech and dribbled water through the parted lips. Hakkai was right, Goku had a tendency to retch and splutter if you poured too fast. He slowed it to a trickle. Twice before the sun set Hakkai came back in to gently lave the edges of the wound, and once he pierced it with a long thin needle, eyes narrow with concentration as the pus flowed out. The herbs weren't bringing down the fever but they fed it to him anyway, a stewed concoction the color of used tea leaves.
Sunset found him still in the room, eating his dinner with the occasional one-sided gibe. He eyed the boy as if he half-expected him to rise up and snatch the food away, half-gnawed. He was almost disappointed when it didn't happen. Hakkai had asked just before if he wanted to be relieved of his shift and he'd waved his friend away, saying that it kept him out of the bad-tempered Buddhist's way. Hakkai had argued, but in the end, exhausted by another round of attempted healing, had gone back downstairs to eat.
He watched the flushed face. It was dry of sweat; the fever was burning him from the inside out. His mind wandered and he pictured the monkey drying up, shrinking into the hard black object he'd seen years ago in some herb-witch's yard, a little wrinkled thing she'd said was a dried monkey head. In his vision the little black thing wore a golden limiter the size of a thumb ring. He went on watching as the light coming in through the window turned blood red, then faded.
.........
Two more days the fever had lasted. Sometime on the second day Goku had curled into a tight ball on his side, and they had had to pull hard to uncurl him. Gojyo had been persuaded to leave when he'd run out of cigarettes. Sanzo had not come into the room since the first day, did not so much as direct an inquiry or even respond when he gave the few details that could be given anyway. It made him almost glad that the man mostly chose to stay away from the inn altogether. At times he felt his temper fraying painfully.
Finally, the fever had broken and Goku was breathing deeper, easier, the painful set of his face relaxed into something more natural. It seemed safe to leave him, now, and he slipped downstairs. He was sipping scalding tea, relaxing for the first time in days, when he looked up to find Sanzo's inscrutable gaze. "Yes?" he asked, because reflex was as close as you could come to safe with Sanzo.
For a moment the monk seemed almost disinclined to respond. Then abruptly, he asked, "Is he out of danger?"
He sipped at the tea, wincing as it burned the tip of his tongue. "I think so, yes. As long as further abscesses do not appear."
"Then we start tomorrow."
At this he looked up, and did not smile. "I don't think that's advisable. Surely you can spare one more day for him to heal?"
"He can heal all he likes," Sanzo said as he turned away. "He's not coming."
Hot tea sloshed over his hand, but he barely noticed the sensation. "Sanzo, you're not serious."
"We've already wasted more than enough time," the man said curtly, stopping but not turning around. "I can hardly trust him to behave himself after a stupid prank like this. I refuse to let this sort of thing drag us down."
"This sort of thing?" Some part of him was amazed that he could still produce rage, in his weary state. "I agree Goku was a bit impetuous but surely he's allowed one mistake? Especially since he only did it because-- "
"One mistake?" Sanzo filled his words with scorn. "This isn't a game where you get three tries at everything. His mistakes will cost us lives."
"Sanzo, he's only a boy!" He was well and truly angry. He didn't see why it was necessary to go through this elaborate charade each time, when the monk was fooling no one, not even himself.
"Exactly. And boys don't belong on dangerous journeys. I don't know why I brought him along in the first place." He said the words with a weary disgust that made Hakkai wonder for a split second if he really knew the man as well as he thought he did, which was not very well at all. Stymied, he spoke without calculation.
"And the last thing he asked us was to tell you not to be angry!"
Sanzo whirled around at that, his face dark with anger. "What good is it if he doesn't make his apologies in person?"
He went on, relieved to have struck a chord. "It'll kill him if you leave him behind."
"It might kill him if I bring him along, too, did you think of that?"
The response caught him by surprise and he was silent just long enough for Sanzo to escape up the stairs. He wasn't going to let the matter rest, however, and had his argument ready by dinner. Gojyo had wandered out, claiming that he needed to look at pretty faces after staring at the monkey's. He wondered how the redhead would react to Sanzo's suggestion.
Setting another kettle of boiled water to cool, he thought he heard a noise from the adjoining room. Could Goku be waking, he wondered, and moved quietly to check. It would be a good opportunity to get some simple food into his body if he were, although he was loath to wake the boy from his first true sleep.
The door stood a crack open, and he saw that someone was already in the room. Sanzo was finally breaking the silent vow he seemed to have made on the first day. Even as he wondered whether to speak he saw one hand reach out, hesitate, then lay itself on the boy's head, smoothing back the tousled hair. It was not a graceful gesture; the arm moved as if it were wooden. It lay there for a moment. He backed away, feeling relieved that Sanzo's back was to him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see the man's eyes, but knew that he would never be forgiven if they had seen him. He wondered why it was so hard to do this when the boy was awake. When it might make a difference.
That night, he took Gojyo away from the inn and into a suitably distant location where he proceeded to explain. Listened as Gojyo scoffed, then shouted, and explained again. There was more shouting as the meaning of his words sunk in, but less of it was directed at him, and more of it at Sanzo. Then Gojyo stopped even shouting about Sanzo and just started swearing, he could only assume at the situation in general. And how Goku would feel ("He ain't gonna like this one bit, yanno.") Somehow the hand in the hair played a part in the explanation, and so did that moment in the desert when the two of them had collapsed back into the sand together. But in the end he felt that Gojyo had finally yielded more out of a gratifying faith in him.
Whatever the reason, after strict instructions to the innkeeper, the following morning they packed their things quietly and left. And if Sanzo wondered at the lack of surprise on the half-breed's part, he said nothing, nor did he acknowledge the muttered asides about cruelty to dumb animals.
It took a while to convince Jeep to start with only three of them there. The little dragon had been wary since the last wild ride and kept stalling.
.........
Good? Bad? Or just plain Ugly?
You guys have voted mostly for long, and I guess I'll go with that. But do let me know if it starts to drag, ok? *mwah* I love you all, my darling reviewers, and will thank you properly in the next chappie. For now, post, and then off to bed. Sorry if this one came out a little rough-it was written under disjointed conditions ^^;;