TILL THE LONELINESS SHADOWS
THE SKY
Chapter 6 – Return
Chou’An loomed into view, all golden and shining in the light of the evening sun. Damn, but he was glad to be done with this journey. Weeks of negotiation, of knocking both side’s heads together, of threatening bloody murder. Weeks of soggy cigarettes and bad accommodation, all eerily reminiscent of the Journey. Weeks of bad sleep, where he would drift into dreams he didn’t quite remember, but which left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth in the morning, and the general sense of unease.
He was getting too old for this shit.
Something wasn’t quite right, and it certainly wasn’t the treaty. The treaty was fine, picture perfect, one of the best pieces of work he had ever done.
Grey skies and autumn leaves.
Sunlight on gold.
There would be sake tonight, he vowed to himself. And he would sit by the window and watch the moon, and drink himself into the state where no dreams would come.
Gravel crunched under his feet as he dismounted, handing his horse off to one of the stable hands. He nodded impatiently at the cries of welcome, sweeping past the bowing and scraping acolytes, brushing off their queries as to whether the great Sanzo-sama needed anything, and headed off at a quick trot. Fully intending to get straight to his rooms, and plunge into the bath for a long and badly needed soak.
That particular plan fell short just a dozen steps from his goal.
“Sanzo.”
A boy stood in his way, all glittering gold eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw. It looked like Goku, alright, but Goku’s tone had never been so abruptly with him, nor those eyes alight with angry directed his way. Goku had never blocked his path, shoulders squared and clearly provoking a fight, hands clenched and disapproval written all over his face.
“What?” he demanded, curt.
“You’ve had three months, one week and five days to think about it. What do you think?”
Shit. Neither forgiven nor forgotten. And the kid… was obsessed. Definitely. “Exactly what I thought three months, one week and five days ago,” he snapped back. “Did I give you the impression that my mind was going to change?”
Anger flashed to hurt in those oh-too-readable eyes. Hurt and disappointment and dashed hope, and for a moment Sanzo thought he was going to burst into tears all over again. But as he watched, something darkened in Goku’s face, some resolution rising to the fore.
“You really are selfish,” Goku said, his voice low. “Would it kill you to, for once, be something other than a cold bastard?”
Gods, but he was too tired for this shit. “If you think you can force someone to love you, you’re even more of an idiot than I thought.”
“Idiot?” fury flared through that single word, lacing Goku’s tone with fire. “Who’s the idiot here? You’re the one who’s caught up in some stupid philosophy that everyone agrees is bullshit. You’re the one who doesn’t understand a thing – never tried to understand a thing. You’re so bloody selfish that you’re caught up in your own stupid little world, so caught up that it’s beyond you to show nice for a change!”
He had to have been rehearsing that speech for the longest of times, Sanzo reflected sourly. There were probably drafts in his trashcan.
“Come back and yell at me when you know what the hell you’re talking about,” he returned coolly. “Or better still, don’t come back and yell at all.”
“That’s how it is, isn’t it? You’re just going to brush me off. Like you’ve always brushed me off. After all that I’ve done for you. After all the times that I’ve fought beside you, fought for you, saved your life… doesn’t that count for anything, you ungrateful bastard? And did you ever say thank you? Hell, no. ‘Stop getting in the way’, maybe. ‘That was idiotic’, quite often. Oh yeah, and ‘I never asked for your help’ was a favorite, wasn’t it?” Goku had shoved himself up in his face, and now that the boy had finally attained his growth spurt, he was almost at eye level with himself.
“But you know what? Just because you didn’t ask for help doesn’t entitle you to be an asshole about it when someone freely offers you that help!”
It was a sign of the times, maybe. A couple of years ago, he would have taken the harisen to the boy’s head and hit repeatedly until the stupid notions had all fallen out. But that no longer worked – that hadn’t worked for a while, and…
Damnit, he was just going to have to do this the hard way.
-
Goku’s eyes widened in surprise as Sanzo lunged, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and dragging him into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. The boy started struggling as the click of the lock echoed after them, then froze in shock as Sanzo rammed him up against the wall. He was soft and pliant underneath as he kissed him brutally, hard enough to bruise inexperienced lips, biting down viciously with no thought for gentleness.
“Is this what you wanted?” Sanzo growled softly, fingers sliding to the belt buckle and ripping it away, descending to the button and zipper of the jeans below that.
When there was no response, he pressed his lips to Goku’s own again, ruthlessly thrusting his tongue into the mouth beyond, even as he tore the boy’s pants open, reaching in to squeeze—
--he heard the hitch, the change in breathing, which gave him the time to duck aside as Goku instinctively struck back. The fist sailed past his head, the wrist that he had pinned against the wall breaking his grip easily. The knee intended for his stomach hit his robes instead, and he was across the room, reaching for but not drawing the pistol, even as Goku stumbled forward, gasping.
“You… you…”
Shock, which dilated his pupils until they nearly swallowed the irises. Shock and betrayal and hurt.
“I thought not,” Sanzo sneered. “You prattle on about love with no thought for the consequences.”
The boy’s senses snapped back into place, as his mind returned from wherever it had been. “That wasn’t love, damnit! That was—“
“You have no idea what love is,” Sanzo cut him off calmly. “You think love is about what you want. For me to cuddle you? To whisper sweet nothings into your ear? To tag along in your path like a puppy, feeding you adoring looks and vowing to do anything for you? Have you ever, ever considered that love could be about what I want?”
He wanted for an answer. All that punctuated the silence was the sound of Goku’s ragged breathing.
Seconds passed and turned into minutes.
When it was evident that no reply was forthcoming, he let himself out of the room, and walked away from it all.
-v-
“Kouryuu…”
“Oshou-sama.” He turned from where he
had been standing, amidst ever shifting mist upon an endless field of grey.
“Oshou-sama…”
Blood ran across the palms of his hands,
bleeding from the sutras that he grasped desperately. “I got the sutras. I
brought them back…” his voice had changed – it was high pitched and breathy,
scratchy in its desperation. “Take them, please!”
White robes billowing in spectacular
contrast from the dreariness. Warm hands closing around his own, steadying them
even as they shock violently. But not relieving him of his burden. Never
relieving him of it.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted?” he asked.
“Didn’t you want me to get them back?” He looked up, but the light was against
him, and Koumyou’s face was shrouded in darkness. Unreadable. Distant.
Disapproving.
“I was wrong, wasn’t I?” he found himself
whispering. “You didn’t want me to do that.”
And still Koumyou did not reply.
“Tell me! Tell me what you wanted me to do!
Tell me what you want me to do!”
His voice, his young thirteen year old
voice, echoed through the mist, ringing with fervor and desperation. And at
last his master shifted, and light sprang from nowhere to fall upon that face,
that dearly loved face…
Koumyou was smiling, sad but peaceful, with
no sign of condemnation whatsoever.
“I love you,” Sanzo said. “I love you and I
can’t love Goku because the only one I want, the only one I ever wanted by my side was… is… you…”
And finally, finally, Koumyou Sanzo spoke, and his voice was just as he had remembered it,
strong enough to reach into his battered soul and warm the remnants therein.
And Sanzo snapped awake with those words echoing in his heart.
Tears tracked, unnoticed, down his face, as he turned to stare, unseeing, out of the window.
--
It was perhaps dawn when Goku turned up. Sanzo had been awake for hours, unable to return to sleep. The ashtray beside him overflowed with spent cigarettes, and a cup of green tea was clutched firmly in his hand. Not sake. He needed the clarity of mind to think, to sort out the jumble knot of pain that had formed in his chest.
The intrusion, while not unexpected, was certainly unwelcomed at this tumultuous time.
“What is it?” he asked harshly.
Goku froze in the doorway, the glint of light off his limiter the only illumination in the room. Then he gulped, inching all the way in and shutting the door behind him. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“Oh?” he cast aside the cigarette, reaching for another. Light blossomed in the darkness as he lit it, enough to see Goku shifting nervously from foot to foot.
“If it’s sex that you want…” the boy’s voice was soft, uncertain, hesitant.
And Sanzo sighed, an exhale of smoke that reached up to curl across the surface of the moon.
“I said I’ll do anything for you,” Goku continued. “I meant it. I love—“
That word again.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Sanzo asked.
There was only a confused silence.
His master’s lips moving, saying the words he knew but didn’t want to hear…
“Love isn’t about what you think the other wants.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
Sanzo turned to face him. “Has it ever occurred to you just to ask what I want?”
He got it then. He must have. He wasn’t that stupid. “I… I’m sorry. What… do you want?”
Kouryuu, Koumyou said.
The cigarette fell from his fingers, spiraling end over end, a light spinning towards infinity. Koumyou stood before him again, those calm, kind words falling like freezing rain upon his heart…
“Do you,” his lips moved in time with the phantom’s, even as he felt his heart break, “love me enough to let me go?”
-v-