"They're what?  You're crazy, saru," Sanzo did not even try to keep the incredulity out of his voice.  He would have noticed something like that.  Clearly, the idiot monkey had lost his mind.

       "But, haven't you noticed th' way they been actin'?"  Goku was quite disturbed that Sanzo didn't believe him.  This was important, and he had proof.  Well, no real hard proof, but his nose never lied, and Hakkai and Gojyo had definitely been acting strangely.  "Like, they keep goin' ta do th' shoppin' without me."  This amounted to incontrovertible evidence in the boy's mind.

            "Not surprising.  You're annoying."

            "San-zo!  You're not takin' me seriously.  I can smell it on ‘em.  They used ta smell completely different.  Now Hakkai smells kinda like Gojyo.  Underneath, y'know?"  he could tell that he was starting to sound whiny, but he couldn't help it.  He hated it when Sanzo didn't take him seriously.  He hated it almost as much as he hated knowing his friends were keeping secrets.

            "Hakkai's probably been using the kappa's soap," Sanzo reasoned, adding, "The gods know Gojyo doesn't," under his breath.  Could Goku be right?  He knew better than anyone that the monkey's nose was ridiculously sensitive.  Hell, he could smell a meat bun buried under six feet of silt, at the bottom of a river. 

            Goku sat staring at Sanzo, watching his habitual frown deepen by degrees as he assimilated this possibility.  "Uh-uh, that's not it!  I know what I'm talkin' about, Sanzo!  You guys just all think I don't see nothin', but I do, and I'm tellin' ya there's somethin' fishy goin' on with them!"

            "Shut up.  I've said all I'm going to say on the subject.  You will not speak to me of this again."  Sanzo retreated to his fall back position: Make the Monkey Stop Talking.

            "But, Sanzo, I..."

            "I said shut up, idiot.  You're imagining things."  The priest's voice carried the first edge of the day.  He would bet Gojyo's life that it wouldn't be the last.

            "But, what about the way they look at each other all th' time, an' when they think no one's lookin'..."

            Sanzo became aware of a kind of a squeaking noise.  Ah, that was him, gritting his teeth.  Right.  The sound of the Smith & Wesson's hammer cocking back did not even register with the boy, who was, inexplicably, still babbling.

            "...an' there was this one time," Goku's train of speech stopped dead as the gun was leveled on him.

            "Did I not just tell you to shut up, monkey?  I refuse to discuss this any further.  If you say one more word, I'll kill you."  Sanzo put on his best Don't Fuck With Me face, hoping against hope that it would be enough.

            "But..." Goku began.

            "Oi."  It was his final warning, and he really wanted Goku to stop talking.  If he did not, Sanzo was going to have to shoot him.  He had had enough of shooting his companions, though several weeks in the world's best torture chambers could not have pulled that admission from him.  It was useful to let them believe he was perfectly willing to end their stupid lives.

            "Okay, Okay!  Sorry!  I'm gonna go for a walk.  Geeze."  With that Goku got up, bumping his hip on the table as he tried unsuccessfully to circumnavigate it, and left the room.

            As soon as the door closed, the pretty, blond monk heaved a deep sigh of relief and gently released the hammer of the gun.  He secreted the weapon in the depths of his robe once again.  Clearly, a cigarette was in order.  He reached out for his pack, shook one out and lit it before settling back to really think this through.

      The monkey was right, of course, but Sanzo had been rather discomfited by the thought of discussing it with him.  It was weird, and besides, he hated the fact that Goku had seen it first.  For weeks, those morons had been sticking him with Goku at night, though he was never quite sure how.  There were excuses, reasons, and on more than one occasion, they had simply kept him up so late playing cards in their room that Goku had fallen asleep in his.  He never had the heart to wake the monkey just to change rooms, so he didn't. 

      There were the shopping trips, as Goku had mentioned, and the late night trips out to the bar together, the walks, the looks, and most of all, the surreptitious touches when they believed they were unobserved.  Sanzo rolled his eyes.  All the classic signs, and Sanzo had not noticed.  He felt like a world-class idiot.

      The thought of it made him vaguely nauseous, frankly.  Images rose unbidden and extremely unwanted in his mind.  Gojyo slithering all over Hakkai, giving him those corny fucking lines of which he was so inordinately proud.  Gojyo's gnarled hands on Hakkai's waist, Gojyo's slimy lips covering Hakkai's in a deep kiss, Gojyo running his big knobby fingers over Hakkai's chest, then sliding down to slip into the waistband of his pants...

      No! It was insupportable.  The idea of Hakkai letting that...kappa...touch him that way was simply not to be borne.  He was going to have to have a talk with the healer as soon as he could make it happen.  Stupid bastard was going to pay for making him have that conversation with the monkey, too.