Touch

Saiyuki “393” fic
by
Ro Anshi

Goku was touching him far too often.

And not with his usual uncontrolled enthusiasm, either—a shout of “Hey, Sanzo, guess what!” followed by a quick series of schoolboy punches to his upper arm that nearly had the monk pulling his revolver. Or practically jumping on him in greeting when Sanzo had—unwisely, according to the other monks—left the monkey behind when he’d been away for a few days. Or even a hug—which Sanzo irritably broke if he hadn’t been able to dodge or otherwise avoid it in the first place—when Sanzo finally succumbed in the marketplace and bought him some whined-for treat to shut him the fuck up for a while.

This was different.

Passing each other, in the temple hallways, or in its serene gardens, Goku’s hand would graze Sanzo’s, light as a breeze, and Sanzo almost felt as if he could have imagined it. Or else Goku would enter a room when Sanzo was doing what he called meditating, but what others called enjoying a beer and a smoke, wait for a moment until Sanzo’s contemplative mood started to crack with anticipation of what is the bakazaru going to do now, then quickly, quickly, brush by on his hasty way out, nothing more than a bump of shoulders as if the encounter was accidental. And when he wanted Sanzo’s attention, rather than shouting for it—from as far away as across the temple grounds—he’d approach on silent feet from behind, and gently tap Sanzo on the back or the head or the hip; or lightly catch his arm to spin him around, fingers lingering a moment or two longer than necessary before falling away.

It was not even enough to cause Sanzo to bring out the fan, deliver a brisk smack to the top of Goku’s tousled head, which would make the boy alternately laugh, or sometimes cry out in dismay, “Sanzo, why’d you do that, huh?”

Because, indeed, there was no reason to punish the boy just for… touching him, was there, when it was—almost—obvious that he didn’t mean to?

*** 

Heat of summer. The depth of August lay across the countryside, heavy and humid and filled with the buzz of insects, even at night. Sanzo sat in his room, cross-legged on his bed, the last cigarette of the night between his fingers. Smoke, stirred by not the slightest breath of air, rose in a thin hazy stripe to the ceiling, its straight path painting a fine line across the surface of the yellow moon framed in his window.

He took one final, deep drag, held his breath, at last let the smoke escape slowly; snuffed out the cigarette, flipped the butt onto the gravel path outside his window, and then, in the suspended stillness, slept.

A faint breeze, a puff of air moving through the thickened atmosphere—not from the window, but from his door swinging open—stirred him awake not a long while later. “Hn?” He blinked. The moon was higher now in the jet sky, golden light—

—as gold as Goku’s eyes—

spilling into his room.

Light footsteps moved across the varnished wooden floor, the pad of bare feet approaching his bed. Another touch, insistent fingers curling around his biceps, and he turned now toward it.

Goku was there, smiling at him, and in the next moment he’d thrown off his yukata, leaving it puddled on the floor. Sanzo barely had more than a glimpse of that sleek naked body, all sinew and awkward limbs, before Goku had climbed into bed with him. And then they were pressed together, warmer than the summer night, but bathed with a luxurious dry heat like an oasis in the middle of the desert.

Cicadas thrummed outside the window, in a throbbing, asynchronous rhythm that matched first his heartbeat, then Goku’s, then sometimes, for an instant, both.

Wordlessly, Sanzo shifted away, sat up… but merely to strip off the garment he wore to bed, and then lay back down, now paying no more notice to the boy than he was to the shadow of the moon. Goku whispered his name, with none of the shrill harshness his voice held by day, solemn as a prayer.

When the boy kissed him, softly on the cheek like a fallen blossom, Sanzo made no sound; yet he did not move to push him away. He was a leaf, fallen from a tree and gilded by autumn soon to come, carried by the rippling surface of a stream… not acting but being acted upon.

Goku’s hands began to move on him, exploring, without shyness, touching everywhere. He flicked and teased with sharp nails—not sharp as a youkai’s would be, but sharp enough to trail fine red weals on Sanzo’s skin as he stroked across the plane of chest and dip of belly, then drifted to the join of his thighs. There, the hand curled and wrapped and stroked in a different way, up up UP, tugging and coaxing. And Goku’s mouth followed, nipping and licking and sucking in the wake of his hands, wet heat as unlike the oppression of the summer humidity as night was to day.

Sanzo closed his eyes and let his head sink into the pillow, this moment but a circle a ring an eternity oh yes.

And then at last Goku clambered atop him, his body blanketing Sanzo’s, limbs matched and twined, legs hooked together and trapping that double-hardness between them. His mouth went to the monk’s, kissing him with tongue and heart, filling him with small sharp sounds, gasps and yips and even something like an erratic, pleasured purr, that were—not surprisingly—almost those of an animal.

Goku began to move faster, rubbing himself against Sanzo’s thigh, all heat and friction as he chanted like a prayer, “Sanzo-sanzo-sanzo-sanzo—" He himself kept silent until the way the monkey-boy’s hands were moving and grasping managed to pull a groan out of him. And suddenly it wasn’t enough—to be acted upon instead of acting—and he shoved himself forward, up, over, pressing Goku down into the mattress.

And Goku stared up at him, with eyes shiny-bright even in darkness, glittering like rare coins, and nodded.

Sanzo’s hand slid down, groping toward Goku’s groin, finding the irrefutable proof there that his saru was far more man now than boy. Sanzo knew how to touch, touch as he would be touched, granting his own mercy, and soon Goku was writhing… was ready… was spurting over his hand and sagging and breathing “Sanzo…” into his ear, soft as the whisper of the fading wind.

One more touch, by his own hand, and he was over the edge himself, breathless with completion. He slumped to Goku’s side, wet, sticky, in the black-hot night, and it was as if he could still feel smoke curling in the depths of his lungs, escaping in that same thin mist that had bisected the summer moon, dividing them now.

Goku, quiet, kissed Sanzo again on the cheek, letting his lips linger, catching and tongueing away a few slick sliding beads of sweat. At the very moment Sanzo would have moved away, it was Goku who shifted instead, stretching, gaining his feet, bending over to snatch up the discarded yukata from the polished floor and cover himself once again, shielding that taut body, those lithe limbs.

“G’night, Sanzo,” he whispered, moonbeams dancing in his eyes, and he turned to leave.

Tomorrow, Sanzo knew, the rambunctious monkey-boy would be back; Goku’s pokes and prods to him would be insistent and deliberate, and Sanzo would have to answer them in kind with swift discipline and harsh words, and Goku would only laugh at him, even as he still gazed up, at the sun to his moon, all shining and gold.

For that brief moment, before the door closed behind Goku, Sanzo very nearly called him back to his bed.

But no.

He would simply wait until the next time those soft touches became more frequent, somehow even in their delicacy more insistent, and then, as ever, leave his door unlocked.

~end~