Disclaimer: I do not own Sanzo and the gang, though I really wish I did. Can you blame me? Who wouldn't want to own four gorgeous men? I know Kazuya Minekura would, and she does. Lucky her.

Author's Note: This is my first attempt at slash, so don't be too hard on me. This fic was kind of born of what I've heard about Saiyuki's prequel, Saiyuki Gaiden. I haven't read it becuase it hasn't been published in English and my Japanese is not exactly what I wish it was, but people tell me that in it Gojyo and Hakkai were a couple in there previous lives, which is what Gaiden tells the tale of. Please enjoy!

Warnings: slash, sex, and language. What more could a Saiyuki fan want?

Gojyo collapsed into the Jeep, wiping the blood from his forehead. His hair was matted with the stuff, but because it was practically the same color, it was difficult to tell how bad the gash on his head really was. He was still standing, at least, and cursing, too.

"That sucked ASS!"

"No shit," Sanzo snapped, climbing into the passenger seat beside me. The front of his robes was stained red and there was an angry purple bruise beginning on his left cheek. There was a faintly glazed look about his purple eyes, and I supposed he had taken more of a hit than he was letting on. Today's onslaught of Youkai had been particularly vicious, and there had been more of them than usual.

Even Goku, who was usually all sunshine and roses after a fight, looked exhausted. None of his blood seemed to have been spilled, but he was favoring his left leg as he swung himself up onto Jeep's back seat, beside Gojyo.

"It was quite a nasty ambush," I supplied, turning the key in the ignition and letting off the break. Jeep and his usual cargo rumbled off along the country road.

"Yeah, but those jerks back there are a lot deader than we are!" Goku exclaimed, punching at the air and then wincing as he jarred his leg.

"Well, they usually are," I answered, "Which is a tribute to why we are all still alive."

"Way to be a smartass, Hakkai."

I glanced back. Gojyo was looking at me with something close to annoyance. It was not a look I was used to seeing on my best friend's face. Gojyo was well aware of my sardonic personality; it had never bothered him before.

It didn't take very long to get to the next town, which was lucky, as I was utterly drained. A huge amount of my Chi had been wasted in the fight, as I flung energy and shielded us from the enemy. We checked into an inn near the outskirts of town, then went our separate ways, as we usually did. Goku went off in search of food, Sanzo muttered something about needing to buy cigarettes, and Gojyo proceeded to drown himself in the shower.

I myself collapsed onto one of the two beds our room had been provided with. There was sure to be a squabble that night over who would sleep in them. My eyes closed and I must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I remembered was opening them to Gojyo sitting at the table, half dressed and hair dripping wet, his back to me.

He was thin, I saw, much thinner than a man of his strength should be. None of us was really at the peak of our health, but there you were. A few more marks and bruises seemed to have added themselves to the already generous supply on his back and shoulders. Wet his hair looked almost as black as my own. My thoughts traveled back to that time three years ago when he'd cut it so short the rest of us had barely recognized him. He had been making a statement, saying that he wasn't ashamed of the scars that decorated the left side of his face. But he'd let the hair grow back.

"Am I really that goddamned interesting?" Gojyo asked. He turned around to look at me. "I felt you watching me."

"Sorry," I said. I didn't really know what else to say, so I just smiled my usually enigma.

Gojyo shook his head, that pissed off look coming into his eyes again. "That's all you ever do, you know that?"

"What?"

"Smile, that's what. It doesn't matter if you're happy or mad or serious or in pain or any other normal human feeling. You always just…smile." Gojyo turned away again, leaning against the table like he was depending on it to support him. "You could be fucking dying, Hakkai, and you'd just smile. You did."

I sat up, the expression dropping off my face faster than a river falling from a cliff. Gojyo clenched a fist.

"You were lying there in all that blood. I swear, half of you was on the road next to you, and you smiled at me. Just a little." He shook his head again. "I could tell you were asking me to kill you. That's why I saved you."

"We've been through this before, Gojyo," I said. "You told me that three years ago."

"I know, I just mean…I don't know what I mean." He rubbed gingerly at the side of his head, wincing.

"Do you want me to heal that?" I offered.

Gojyo slapped him away. "No, man, you'll collapse. You Chi blasted those bastards to hell."

"Yes," I said. I went to smile again, realized what I was doing, and promptly stopped. We looked at each other for a moment.

"They've been gone awhile, haven't they?" Gojyo said, suddenly pulling his gaze away and gluing it to the door. "Wonder what the righteous prick is up to."

"The gods only know," I answered, "And I doubt they have a clue at times."

Gojyo seemed to be wrestling with something. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, but nothing came out. For some reason, it worried me. Gojyo never had been one to mince words. If he thought something, he said it, and then some.

"Gojyo…"

"Do you ever get the feeling we've met before?" he asked suddenly, spitting out the words very fast. "I mean, before I found you half-dead. That was the main reason I let you stay with me. I felt like I knew you." He stood up and began to pace, little drops of water breaking free from the tips of his hair as he did so. "I…I couldn't work out whether it was like, De Ja Vu, or something, or if…I don't know…if I met you when I was a kid-,"

"I know exactly what you mean."

Gojyo looked round. "You do?"

"Yes." I folded my hands in my lap, my usual position whenever I spoke of something of particular seriousness. "Meeting you just reminded me of it, I believe."

"It?" Gojyo repeated. "What's 'it'?"

I moved the way I move in battle, quick and sinuous, so that I was on the bed one moment, and beside Gojyo the next. "This," I answered, and kissed him. His mouth opened under the pressure of mine, though I'm sure that was from shock more than anything else. We broke apart after just a moment, as reality caught up.

I could feel a blush working its way up my neck, which wasn't something that happened very often. I glanced at Gojyo, almost afraid at what my friend's reaction might be, but Gojyo was simply looking introspective. It wasn't a look that was usually on his face.

"Damn, Hakkai, I never took you as the 'make the first move' kind of guy."

"What?" I asked, taken aback. "You mean-,"

"What? That I'm not freaked out?" He snorted. "Hell yes I'm fucking freaked out!" His eyes were a little crazed, but there was something else gleaming inside them that made the muscles in my stomach constrict. It was the look he got whenever a particularly beautiful woman walked by.

We were standing so close to each other that I could feel Gojyo's breath on my neck. "Sanzo and Goku we'll probably be gone for awhile…" he muttered.

"Most likely."

This kiss lasted longer than the last one, much longer, and bled into another. I was beginning to realize that all of Gojyo's bragging about his so called 'talents' were not all just hot air. He did indeed seem to know what he was doing, even if he probably wasn't used to doing it to a man. It was all relatively new to me too, though memories of something long forgotten seemed to be stirring inside my head. No, not my head, some place much, much deeper. My soul, maybe. For some crazy reason, I was getting the idea that we had had done this before. A long time ago, maybe hundreds of years ago.

Gojyo didn't seem to be feeling any of this, but you never knew with him. "Maybe traveling with dudes isn't all that bad," he said, tossing my glasses to the floor.

"Maybe not," I agreed, kissing his bare shoulder. Strangely, I seemed to recall Gojyo liking this. Indeed, it did seem to be making him shiver.

My sash was a rather intricate article of clothing, tying under my arm and crossing my stomach to tie in the back as well. For the life of me I couldn't say why I chose it as a clothing item, but Gojyo seemed to know exactly how to remove it, which he did, pulling up my shirt as well. His eyes lingered for a moment on my scar, the ugly expanse of ruined skin running across my stomach, the souvenir of my exploits of three years ago, when Kana had been kidnapped. They had left one thousand dead and me a demon.

I didn't often find myself in situations like this one. And I don't mean just because Gojyo was a man. I hadn't been with anyone since Kana, and she had died three years ago. The reaction my body was having to the presence of Gojyo on top of me was so intense it almost frightened me, and it takes a lot to frighten me. The feeling of him was intense, but at the same time, reassuringly familiar.

"Are you up for this?" he asked me, a very un-Gojyo-like seriousness in his voice. Though from the look in his eyes, I don't think it would have mattered if I was up for it or not.

I didn't answer him with words.

"Oh my fucking god, I think I just had sex with a guy."

I smiled. Outside the window, the sun had begun to set, sending shadows scurrying inside the room. I was lying beside Gojyo, my head resting on his chest. "I would agree with you in that respect," I answered him.

"It's…much different."

I laughed a little. "I would agree with that as well."

He looked at me. His crimson hair was dry now, though his brow was streaked with sweat. "I hope I was a step up from your sister," he said.

I laughed much louder at this, horrible man that I am. "You're terrible."

"You have no idea," he answered, running his calloused fingers through my damp hair.

"So…you think we were gay in our previous life?" he asked me suddenly.

"You don't think we're gay in this one?"

"Hell no. I much prefer it with chicks. That was just a fluke."

"Rather pleasant for a fluke."

"Yeah."

We lay there like that for the next few minutes, in companionable silence, until the sound of Sanzo's voice in the hall sent us running for our clothes.