Disclaimer: Don't own Saiyuki.
Sound of the Night
Chapter 2: Tension in the Jeep
The atmosphere in the Jeep was like that game where you stand in a tight circle, turn to the side, and everybody sits on each others' laps. If one person can't hold the stress, then the rest of the circle collapses.
If one of the four was pissed about something, the other three would know about it whether they liked it or not.
After a few half-hearted jabs at Goku, Gojyo sat limply in the back seat, hoping he was burning a hole in the back of Hakkai's oblivious head.
Gojyo didn't want to be pissed at Hakkai. He knew that would just drive another wedge into the ever-expanding rift between them. But Gojyo had never been good at thinking with his head.
The problem with chain-smoking, Gojyo thought, is that when you are really stressed about something, you can't start smoking more.
Gojyo's smoke had burnt down to the filter, so he ground it against the side of the jeep and threw it over the side. He then reached into his pack of Hi-Lites and took out not one, but two smokes, lit them both, and stuck one out of either side of his mouth.
A strangled noise came from beside him and Gojyo turned to face Goku, who was barely constraining hysterical laughter.
The dam broke; Goku burst out laughing as Sanzo landed his annoyed gaze upon them as Hakkai took a quick glance behind him before turning back to the road ahead. He merely raised an eyebrow.
"Really, Gojyo."
"Hey." Gojyo huffed. "I wanted to treat myself."
The atmosphere in the jeep was lightened considerably after that.
Things went back to a certain level of normalicy for a week or so. Gojyo bickered with Goku in the backseat. Sanzo fired off a few shots. Hakkai laughed his private little laugh. Gojyo could almost forget the night he had sat with his back to the wall of Sanzo's room, listening to noises that gouged him as much as they aroused him.
Things were almost normal.
He just hadn't looked Hakkai in they eye for over a week, that was all.
He was frankly scared of what he would see. Sadness? Pity? Distraction? Disinterest?
Or nothing at all?
That's what he was afraid of most, the nothingness. Every time he'd looked at Hakkai before, he'd seen a sort of something, something that wasn't there when Hakkai looked at other people. Hakkai often turned that blank gaze on others, but never Gojyo.
God, never Gojyo.
He'd avoided even being in the same room as Hakkai unless all four of them were there together. But that ended when Goku said that he wasn't rooming with 'that perverted kappa' any more, and he was staying with Sanzo.
So Gojyo sat on his bed, smoking, his eyes trailing Hakkai as he bustled about the room, preparing for sleep. Finished changing into his pyjamas, Hakkai clambered into bed and turned off the light at his bed and said 'goodnight'.
Gojyo didn't lie down. He ground his cigarette into the ashtray (Not the empty can fuck I remembered this time Hakkai) and continued to stare at Hakkai's form under the blankets.
"So was Sanzo a good fuck?"
Shit.
He'd said it.
Hakkai said nothing. Gojyo wondered if perhaps he was asleep, and if Gojyo's moment of bravery (or idiocy) had amounted to nothing.
"I don't think that is any of your business." Hakkai's voice. Clear, crisp. Controlled.
"It's not?" Gojyo leaned to the bedside table once more and withdrew another stick, lighting it was a practiced flick and raising it to his lips in a casual and relaxed motion that had everything to do with habit and nothing to do with his nerves. "I think it's my business who my friends are fucking."
"Please... don't use that word."
"Well that's what you were doing, right? Fucking. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. The dirty deed. Riding the baloney poney. Screwing. So did you give him head, or did he do you from behind? Did you –"
"Gojyo, please." Hakkai's voice became muffled, buryed under his blankets.
Gojyo wasn't about to stop. He was too far gone. "So yeah, give me all the details, buddy-o-mine, so I can have something to jerk off to at night when I have to listen to the sound of you coming on his chest and breathing his name like a whore in a cheap porn flick. And when – "
"Gojyo!" Hakkai's bedside lamp flicked on. Hakkai was sitting straight up in bed, his eyes boring straight into Gojyo's skull. "Why don't you get your face out of my love life and slake that over-driven libido of yours on the first slut who stumbles into you in the bar, and then when you're done, take another one. I don't want you around when I'm... otherwise occupied."
Gojyo's anger exploded in that moment. "Your love life? You think that tight-assed motherfucker knows a thing about love? He wouldn't know how to express anything if you gave him a fucking manual and a tutor!"
Still calm, controlled. Ice. He was standing now, eyes glued upon Gojyo's. "Strange. I recall that you were the one telling me that you don't know what love is."
Gojyo froze, the heat drained out of him by that one phrase. "I suppose I don't."
The door slammed violently as Gojyo left. A sort of smothered keening sound was all that emerged from Hakkai's throat as he fell forward onto Gojyo's bed, breathing in the scent of sweat, tobacco, and Gojyo.