Screen Memories, a saiyuki fanfic

Disclaimer: Hardly mine

Author's Notes of Some (Debatable) Importance:

I'll put this all at the beginning, and hope that it deters no one from reviewing enjoying herself. Anyway, while I consider myself well-versed in Saiyuki canon, this fic focuses on part... of which I have a...shaky... knowledge. Mostly I hope that this is due to the fact that the events were never specifically covered, but perhaps they were and I was too thick to interpret. Which is almost more possible.

So. The point, there is one, of this, is to explore the Tragic Happenings of Sanzo's Tragic Past of Tragedy and Sadness-specifically, Koumyou's gory and poignant death scene. Because, personally, I find it hard to believe that Sanzo would dislike rain for a reason as simple as Koumyou-died-when-it-was-raining. Simply because that seems a little bit trite. Something utterly out of his control or immediate knowledge, well, I'll end this sentence awkwardly with ellipsis because I can't think of a better way to end it...

As per reviews, you are more than welcome to just give your thoughts on the whole scenario, though criticism of the writing is more than welcome. And, as I end these beastly author's notes, I caution you to please read the whole thing, even if it's sort of annoyingly deja-vu.

Okay, I'm done.

Thanks for suffering through that.

Screen-Memories

"...problems concerning the operation of memory and its distortions, the importance and raison d'etre of phantasies, the amnesia covering our early years..."

Rain falls cold, hard, in flat, shifting shapes. Sanzo has wedged the window open, and sporadically a sharp push of rain will dart through and wet his robes. The cigarette in his hand stays lit. Hakkai is sitting on a bed, a safe distance away, towelling Hakuryuu.

Across the hall, Gojyo and Goku ware, presumably, waging a necessary argument. Hakkai does not presume. Hakkai suspects that, alone, Gojyo and Goku get along well. The room is typical, although not the level of derelict which they have come to expect from the inns far West. There are two beds, at least, with clean linens which nevertheless have settled for months without use.

A swath of rainwater slashes a horizontal track along Sanzo's eyes. Droplets mist on Hakkai's knees, and he gives Hakuryuu's damp neck a brief petting. Then his eyes and brows harden, suicidally, and he goes in:

"You don't like rain, do you, Sanzo?" he keeps his eyes away from the wet, glinting pistol placed to hold the windows open.

Sanzo's shoulders do not move, but his lips thin quickly, "No."

"My," says Hakkai, his voice sounding absent.

"Not exactly news, is it?"

"No."

Sanzo puts his cigarette out on the window sill, and it hisses in the water and breaks messily, "Then why the hell do you ask?"

"Out of curiosity. Why is it, that you hate rain?"

"You fucking know,"

Hakkai's smile loosens and is gone, but in his eyes he is grinning. Murderously. "Of course I do. I do not know the, ah, veracity of the story I was given, however."

Sanzo is young, and Kouryuu, and the perspective of his memories places the temple as a thing of goliath proportion. The clear matte rice paper walls of Koumyou Sanzo's room are towering and solid. They are illuminated like large sides of a lamp with sunset. Koumyou Sanzo is smiling, talking-loudly, slowly. Something flutters, silhouetted against the paper walls, and the shadow is bluish in the orange sunset.

Koumyou names his heir.

Blue on orange, blue on orange, Kouryuu thinks, and he is given a choked second of elation before he blinks and the rice paper is split and Koumyou Sanzo is on the floor, his arm traced to his body by the scythe-shaped line of blood.

Blue on orange, blue-Kouryuu feels his knees hit the floor, damp and warm, and he stares, he does not blink, and his mouth opens and his eyes are raw when he blinks.

"Of course I do. I do not know the, ah, veracity of the story I was given, however."

Koumyou names his heir.

Blue on orange, blue-Kouryuu feels his knees hit the floor, damp and warm, and he stares, he does not blink, and his hand falls open, the blade shining and clattering the floor and lying there, dripping.

"You fucking know."

Hakkai's smile loosens and is gone, but in his eyes he is grinning. Murderously. "Of course I do. I do not know the, ah, veracity of the story I was given, however."

Sanzo stares into the gunmetal of the horizon and is slashed across the neck with rainwater. It drags along his leather collar and soaks his robes.

"You fucking-"

"-Know"

Koumyou names his heir.

Blue on orange, blue-Kouryuu feels his knees hit the floor, damp and warm, and he stares, he does not blink, and his hand tightens as he throws the blade again, hard, into the curled body of the youkai, and he strains his teeth against each other and wants badly to strangle the warm dead meat of the youkai's throat.

"Just wondering. Just curious," says Hakkai.

The muscles in Sanzo's jaw are tight and steel-ribbed against his skin. He does not comment. His eyelids do not move. "They thought- they thought I killed him. They thought ."

Hakkai doesn't nod for him to continue-he thinks that if he does, Sanzo will stop talking, and take the gun from the window.

"It was reasonable," Sanzo continues, "I was there, with the blood on my hands."

The blood is stained deep in the creases of his palms. The rain cuts in sheets outside, thinning the stains, overflowing down his wrists. That is the first thing he sees, concretely, and next he notices Koumyou, and his arm, then the blade. In a row. In order. He does not know what happened-and when he turns back to his hands they are clean, bone-white and cold, without any blood at all.

"They thought-"

"Naturally-"

"Fuck off, Hakkai."

Sanzo looks far off into the rain, feeling it hit his eyes, dampen his hair, wash his hands.

"I'm sorry," Hakkai's smile is back.

(it's over)