It's now spring break! YAAAAAAY! (well, as of earlier today) - and as for that thing, with the chapter breaks matching Gonou? …Yeah, don't count on that happening too often. I've resigned myself to the annoying weirding of punctuation, too.
He drifts behind me silently to the commons hall in the central temple; I keep my eyes straight ahead, trying not to let the number of pricks of contempt aimed our direction claw too much at raw nerves freshly pulled to the surface. If anything's going to get my composure to crack, it's not going to be these assholes.
I take a plate and stare down at it dubiously while he's getting his; the mere presence of food is bringing up pangs of nausea, and I'm probably not going to get anything much down until either the frayed nerves unknot, or I get something to settle it, and I'm not sure how long it'll be until I can get a drink.
"Don't bother looking for a place to sit. We're not staying." If the prevailing mood is enough to bother me, then it's definitely worth making this a 'we'; he's sneaking glances around, then looking away at each accusing look. The overseeing priest pointedly looks from my plate, to his, to him, a rather obvious gesture with a sharp look of command.
"Then where shall I carry your plate?", he asks, shuffling his own plate to hold a free hand out for mine.
I give the priest a glower - they're trying to turn him into a servant already - and hand it to him, not wanting to start a scene here right now. "Whatever."
I stalk out, taking side paths that're less inhabited until I reach the north yard by the pond, the branches of the ornamental tree shading off some of the noonday sun. He hands me back my plate as soon as I sit down, then bows and turns to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"I thought I'd return to my cell. Isn't that what would be proper?" There's a definite barb of sarcasm as he looks back at me.
"'Proper' is not exactly a concern of mine." The offending word gets a sarcastic snarl, just a word used as an excuse when someone wants to justify being a pain in the ass without admitting it.
"I wouldn't want to disturb your meal." He's reaching the level of backhanded imperiousness I usually reserve for the head of the temple.
This is gonna be a real fun three years or so. "You're not disturbing anything." I probably shouldn't be taking the bait of his attitude like this, but I find myself in a staredown regardless, like a pair of unfamiliar wolves waiting for one or the other to do something. Then, he bows, stiff and forced. "As you wish, Sanzo." No, not the same backhanded maliciousness I give the temple-head; he somehow manages to be utterly snide and cutting and vaguely indirect at the same time. He sits down almost at the far corner of the pond, facing it. At first I catch his gaze flickering again, as if checking that I'm still watching him sidelong, then he pointedly focuses on his plate as if I'm not even there. He stares at it uncertainly, then starts picking at it, grudgingly.
I stare at mine, cooling, and try to remind my stomach that technically I do need food, as much as it may think otherwise; a few bites and it's even knotting on cool rice, threatening open revolt and rebellion. I'm just going to have to wait and eat later. He's still ignoring me; there's nobody else around, and it idly occurs to me that I have no clue if Goku might still be looking for him, or how to let the monkey know that he can stop without tearing the temple apart a second time today. Eh; he probably beat us to lunch, and knowing how many random rooms and gardens he's been chased out of for various reasons, he's probably going to use the excuse of "I'm on an errand for Sanzo" for all it's worth.
He gets up and starts to leave.
"Where are you going?" He stops and looks back at me oddly, and I start backpedaling; I'm not going to hover around him constantly. "Not that I care to follow you, but I want to know where to look if they decide they need to know where you are again."
There's a split-second confused falter before the attitude returns with a flat chill. "I'm returning my plate. Shall I take yours back as well?"
I spare it a glance; it's almost full, but if I eat any more, I'll just be making myself sick. "May as well.", I mumble, and hold it out to him.
He almost leaves, but stops just short of the arch separating the pond's courtyard from the north edge of the main yard. "If my presence won't sully the books too badly, I might look at the library." The casual sarcasm's veiling something - but it seems that he's turned the bitterness inward again. I'm not sure how much of it is asking permission.
"Go ahead." It's not like I've limited his movements here before.
He leaves without any further reaction.
The north courtyard remains empty and quiet; it's a narrow strip between the main yard and some little-used back gardens, where few people pass except the groundskeeper. The librarian won't bother him unless he goes out of his way to annoy the old man, won't brook someone else bothering him; if he's spending time in the library, I don't need to worry about him. The quiet, without even another presence to mind except an occasional flicker of koi under the lotus-leaves or anything I need to worry about elsewhere, is a relief. With the temple being in the middle of Chang'An, the only places with any real solitude are the less visited gardens like this, the streets at three am, or a good hour's walk out of town.
So I've got what I'm doing for however long this takes set; all I have to do, is keep him in one piece. And try to keep the other priests from harassing him too much. And keep the Waterfront District crowd from realizing he's not dead. And try not to let his attitude when he's lashing out drive me too nuts. And try not to let the inward-spiral drive me too nuts dealing with it. Oh, and on that note, keep him from self-destructing. And keep an eye on Goku while I'm at it. And put up with whatever 'duties of my position' the Temple higher-ups might push off on me. And keep all of that going until he seems capable of surviving and I can think of somewhere for him to go.
The groundskeeper comes in, feeding the fish and with tools to tend the pond; he does a bewildered double-take, then when I don't acknowledge his presence, he goes about his work, giving me odd glances while trying not to disturb me. Probably not a good idea to make a habit of sitting out here - Hell, just putting up with the reaction of the higher-ups to hearing that I was "out meditating" and "acting vaguely Sanzo-like" is going to be obnoxious enough, much less if I fall into a pattern where they know where I go for peace and quiet. The head of the temple expects this to last for almost three years; if they don't push him over the edge, they sure as Hell will me.
The groundskeeper finishes up there and moves on, leaving me alone again, trying to sort out what I've gotten myself into. Temple politics is a known equation; it's just going to be nastier than usual. The one big unknown variable remains the one I'm directly responsible for. If he continues reacting the way he has so far today, I'm looking at months or years of juggling porcupines, and I'm damned if I know how to defuse his attitude, toward me or himself.
Go over what I know - objective details - the Sanbutshin didn't tell me overly much. He'd killed around a thousand youkai in a few days. Neither clan was exactly pleasant - Hyakugan Maoh had terrorized his subjects besides his depredations on women, and the Dark Crow were flunkies for every crime lord and bloody-minded Maoh this side of the Great River. Knowledge of the motives is sketchy; he'd gone back to the ruins looking for a body - Kanan, Gojyo had said - almost definitely a victim of Hyakugan Maoh's. The attack could've been either a rescue that didn't work, or a very bloody streak of vengeance; possibly elements of both. He hadn't known how to handle a gun; that may not mean much, since guns aren't horribly common. If he'd had previous dealings with the criminal element, it wasn't in any respect I'd heard of; he didn't seem known around Gojyo's village save as "That guy Gojyo took in", so he's from somewhere else, either from another area in Hyakugan Maoh's territory, or traveling through. His reactions haven't been stable or predictable; river's thawing and I think I've gotten myself knee-deep in rapids already. I'm going to have to go through the temple library to check archives quietly; research into his background through normal avenues might draw attention from people I want believing he's literally dead.
"Hey Sanzo!" Goku's flouncing in from the side, dashing up to where I'm sitting. "Did you find him yet? I looked all over and I heard some of the monks muttering about him being in the library, and I'm not sure the librarian won't chase me out, but I thought you'd want to hear...Sanzo?"
"I found him earlier. He said he was going to the library."
"Oookay...so you're just sitting here?"
"Yes. It's peaceful and quiet here. Usually." I finally actually move, to give him a sharp look on the 'usually'.
He turns on his heel whistling, and walks off in a hurry, breaking into a run with a yell of "Okayseeyabye!"
Quiet settles back in after he's left except for an occasional flicker of fish under the lotus-leaves. The edges of the whole tangled dilemma are taking on a sort of dim fuzzy quality; things running in circles and grey areas until the mess of politics, bits of actions and events, and unknowns becomes a sort of fuzzed mush among the green leaves and splashes of fish-color, reweaving themselves somewhere just out of my reach, as if there's some pattern I'm just not seeing except in snatches; gold, white, green, and red, cobwebs and shadows.
Then there's movement to my right, something offered, and I start out of it; I'd managed to doze off without even realizing, last night's insomnia catching up. It's - he's just handed me a plate of food? The sun's dropped down I must've drowsed through the dinner bell. The fuzzy cobwebs are slow to go away, although a tentative attempt at eating finds food still unwelcome, and I give up on it; I'm not going to get anything down at this point without something to settle it, so I'll just have to sneak out when I get a chance and get a drink.
"Sanzo?" There's actual honest concern instead of the confrontational tone of earlier, and I catch myself blinking over at him blankly for a minute as it registers that he's looked between me and my full plate, while his is empty.
"I'm fine, I'm not hungry." A practiced mantra from the questions of others.
"You should eat more than that. You barely touched lunch." It's a controlled, gentle prod, leaving me lost in the lurch again at the sudden behavior-shift - so drop deciphering, and deal with what I'm faced with.
"I wasn't hungry then, either." If I'd been able to eat, I would've.
"What shall I tell them, then, when I bring your plate back still full?" The edge returns quickly once it shows itself. "That my presence turned your stomach?" Does he really think I'm that arrogant? No, no assumptions; the dark spiral in his aura's tangled, but undirected, looping at random - strangling inward just as much as lashing out.
I'm a sinner and an abomination. How could I not be a stain on your reputation?
If my presence won't sully the books too badly...
The dark spiral in his cell, the hell-painting - centipede devouring itself...
There hasn't been a single barb at me that hasn't been couched in an equal or worse barb at himself; any anger at him only acts to reinforce it. The almost-snap-in-response dies with a mental flicker of his assertion that I'd preserved him solely to suffer, and the wording I'd used in the trial - I'd fed the spiral-in well, said much to justify its existence. I drop my gaze back to the pond. "It has nothing to do with you. I've always been this way."
There's a moment of silence, then he suddenly leans over, scraping most of the food off my plate to his own - currents shifting again, and I look back to him, lost.
The accusing barb's retreated, back to a calm reassurance, the spiral warping to another intent - of taking whatever questions might've been directed at me; he looks down to shift the food so that it looks picked at instead of just dumped onto the plate. "If you keep that up, you'll put a hole in your stomach.", he almost whispers; the spiral's tangled into something else, shifting again, pulling apart and re-fusing; the only direction I can pick out is a conscious tug away from being directed at me. Honest concern earlier - taking the blame for my lack of appetite -
Damnit, I'm supposed to be the responsible one here; have I slipped that much? "I'll get sick anyway, if I eat this." I don't think I've commented on it since...since well before I found Goku.
"What should I bring you, next time?" He's talking more steadily, picking words carefully, no readable inflection.
How am I supposed to explain what most healers have been at a loss to comment on besides confirming 'that's all that works'? "A drink."
Very predictably, the quiet worry turns back into the barbed outward spiral, cold sarcasm and all. "Just one?"
"I wouldn't want to piss them off too much." Every time my eating habits come up, from the time I was thirteen and that toothless old coyote had hit on the only working solution half-accidentally, I've had to go through the disbelief, the questioning and derision, nevermind that I've been through every folk remedy and tested medicine on the bloody continent.
"And what sort of drink does my honored savior require?" There's the disgust coming in, right on schedule; the old 'that's a sorry excuse for drinking'.
"What ever you can sneak past the monks." I will not glare at him. I was going to avoid feeding his self-loathing any more, and will not allow something this trivial, worn, and stupid to get to me.
"And if I bring you food, will you eat it? Or will you just drink yourself sick?" Sarcasm's gone, the hostility's open; what options do I have if I'm not going to meet it? It's starting to become juggling broken glass - no sarcasm, no hostility.
"If I have something to drink, I'll eat." It almost surprises me, the flat defeat that's left.
The dark barbs roll back inward, as badly as if I had snapped back at him. He takes the plates and leaves wordlessly, and I'm left with the feeling that somewhere, I'd dropped one of those broken-glass bits I was juggling, and I'm not even sure what I did this time. I'd thought that not choking out the empathy in his case might help figure out what I was dealing with, but it's just driven home how treacherous the footing really is; no sooner do I start to get a handle on his mood than it shifts into something else. Some of the self-destructive patterns were there when I found him, I know that, but…the first time he'd lashed out at me, he'd brought up what I'd said during the trial, so I can't say it's not justified the times I've been included among its targets. The more I sit by the pond trying to think of something, the more I realize that I don't really have the slightest clue how to uncoil his inward spiral; reading intentions, moods, states of mind doesn't cover the reasoning behind it, it's just adding to the feeling that in some respects, I'm still a spectator on the sidelines of a wreck. The sun all but sets without any answer presenting itself, as the cobwebs start knitting thoughts together in patterns with a few more sharp edges.
"Sanzo?" I hadn't really been drowsing, but I still hadn't heard him enter the garden - he caught me by surprise; I catch the twitch too late, then stand up stiff.
"It's getting dark. You should go inside and get some sleep." He's back to the quiet, controlled concern.
I cover a yawn, and try to get blood back in my feet without wobbling on my way to the arch. He'd stayed up while I'd been asleep, and he's probably still recovering - how is he managing to comment on my sleeping habits? "You too."
He shadows me into the temple, then heads off toward the acolyte's wing; I must've lost more sleep than I thought over the last few days. I drop the outer robe on the floor, fold the sutra and my gun under the pillow, and drop off asleep on the bed.
