It had been a completely typical day. He'd been fighting with the monkey, Sanzo had already threatened them into shutting up and Hakkai had still been chuckling in the driver's seat. And then all of a sudden it had hit him like a fucking freight train. He couldn't live without them. He couldn't even begin to think about what that might be like. And for a single, brief moment, the realization had him completely floored.
Once that was over he tried to balk away from it as quickly as possible.
He was Sha fucking Gojyo. Alive these past twenty-fucking-two years because he'd been forced to realize that you either relied on yourself for everything or you made yourself the world's fucking punching bag. He'd vowed to himself to never let anyone close enough to hurt him ever again. That he'd never get invested in anyone so much that he'd miss them when they left.
And here he was, sitting in the back of a fucking jeep, with four other living beings – counting said vehicle – that he all of a sudden realized he was fully willing to kill for, and had on multiple occasions in the past.
Well, shit.
The longer he thought about it, the more true it got. He knew he'd never survive without Hakkai. The both of them had come to a kind of consensus about that. After the first night they'd shared as more than just buddies forced to bunk with one another it had become pretty damn clear that their combined abandonment issues would see them through hell and high water to see the both of them safe and sound at the end of whatever fucked up finale this road trip got to. What he'd never counted on was feeling a definite shade of that towards the other two members of their merry band.
He could understand wanting to keep the monkey around. He thought of the kid like the little brother he'd never had. Goku was just so…Goku that they'd all picked up roles to take and he didn't have it in him to be either mentor or teacher like the others were. Big brother had always seemed like the best step to take and at some point he seemed to have made the subconscious decision not to follow that closely in Jien's footsteps and leave the annoying little monkey in the lurch. The fact that the kid seemed more than happy to keep each of them nearby – for reasons Gojyo was fairly certain he'd never understand – suited him just fine in the end. Maybe Goku felt it like he did, what with having been sealed up in a cave for god knew how long…the need to keep the few connections he had… though it was just as plainly clear that the monkey had none of his issues when it came to making new ones.
The one that really and truly baffled him, though, was the fact that he felt the same way about Sanzo. The man was a constant pain in the ass with an ego big enough to reach from Chang 'An to India all by itself, but for all that Gojyo hated his fucking guts nine times out of ten, he couldn't see life feeling right without that biting, sarcastic drawl somewhere nearby. The sharp snaps of malice mixed in with the general aura of simmering malcontent that followed the blond around like a personal-sized storm front. He couldn't seem to process what it would be like to be missing the harsher smell of the bastard's cigarettes in the air or the sharp rustle of newspaper in the evening. The mulish but not always overtly malicious murmur of insults. Gojyo had found himself offering a light in silence sometimes when they both went for a cigarette at the same time. Found himself wordlessly accepting one in return from time to time, and if they weren't buddy-buddy, Sanzo didn't seem to actively not like him, to the point where Gojyo had been noticing Sanzo letting him get away with little things, like invading his personal space on occasion, by accident. For a man who he'd seen shoot someone for looking at him funny…that meant a lot.
But…he figured they understood it in an unspoken kind of way. They gave him space when he needed it and never seemed surprised when he came back. They talked to him and accepted him and sometimes seemed surprised when he wound up where they weren't…and it was starting to seem less like they were predicting his actions based on what they knew about him and more like they were starting to take for granted that he'd just…be there.
…And really…on reflection…he was absolutely fine with that. In fact, he wouldn't have it any other way.