Pairing: Gojyo/Sanzo

Rating: PG-13

Notes: This is for Karwyn () just for the hell of it.  It may be slightly out of character, but that's because I'm not as familiar with a series as a lot of people are.

Disclaimer: I don't own Saiyuki, or any of the characters in it.  I simply taking the characters from Saiyuki to provide entertainment for my friends and I – no profit is being made from this piece.

Noticing Wonders

There are four of us: Genjo Sanzo, a Buddhist priest who acts like anything but that; Cho Hakkai, a man turned demon after slaughtering 1,000 demons, avenging the rape and eventual death of his sister and lover Kanan; Son Goku, a stupid short monkey with nothing to keep him going but a never-ending appetite for anything and everything around him; finally, there is myself.  I am Sha Gojyo, a half-demon, which can be told by my red hair and eyes.

The four of us travel together day after day, and the only people we have really come to know and come to rely on – if that term can be used for us – is each other.  Our friendships are limited, and so is our trust.  Although none of us would ever admit it, and you'll never hear this repeated from me again, the four of us have rather grown on each other, and have come to like and trust each other.

Other things happen, however, when your social life, and your life in general, is confined to being with the same damn people day in and day out in the same jeep for almost every hour of almost every day.  You start to notice things about those people that no one else would really notice unless they paid close attention.

You notice thing like how he always puffs his cigarette three times before ensuring that it's lit, and how he always flicks the ass of it immediately after it's been lit.  You notice other things, too, like how, though he may treat everyone equally as cold, he cares a surprising amount about those he travels with, namely a stupid monkey he found chained to a rock.  You notice how his lips have a slight pout to them when he tries to yell at us, calling us morons.

Another thing you start noticing is his hair.  When the trip began, his hair was short, and controlled purely by him.  Since departure, however, his hair has grown longer, more unruly, controlled only by the wind from the jeep and its own natural waves.  He used to constantly brush it back out of his face, but has since given up, and he lets it stay on his lips, right where it landed when Hakkai pulled over so Goku could get a bite to eat.

Then you notice things about yourself… Like, for instance, why are you only noticing things about a damned priest who doesn't even seem to care for you?  Why are your eyes only ever on him, and not on the monkey you're currently arguing with?

I started question myself for a little while, wondering if maybe… there was something more?  For a while, I actually considered that I could possibly be in love with him, a sentiment I never care to think of again.  After a while, though, I realized that I wasn't "in love" with him.  I had a lust for him.

For so long had I been starved of any kind of relationship with a woman that I began to crave one.  Since there were no women around, my mind settled on the closest it could get.  Next to me, Sanzo had the nicest body in the jeep.

I didn't love him, no.  That wasn't it at all.  I wanted to fuck him, and that's all there was to it.

Thus comes the reason he and I share a room tonight in the hotel – there were only to vacant ones.  Hakkai and Goku shared the other.

He and I both lay next to each other in the same full-sized bed, not looking at each other.

"That was good," I said simply, taking a cigarette from his pack.  He didn't say anything.  Instead of responding, he clicked his lighter, puffed three times, and flicked the end of his cigarette out of an old habit.