For the past several days, the Sanzo-ikkou had been, collectively, rather... edgy.  There existed around them a general air of annoyance and frustration that they refused to confront and yet could not ignore.  Two nights of camping on the road had not improved matters any, and tempers were beginning to fray as they headed toward the next town.  

Sanzo had stopped even putting his gun away, opting instead to keep it handy in his lap for quick, efficient death threats.  He had found that it was most effective to apply this method of deterrent in an almost preventative manner.  Second syllables emerging from any of his companions had become quite rare, in fact.  Were he not so incredibly pissed off, he would have found it quite pleasing.

Hakkai's habitual smiles had grown more and more forced during this time, until he reached the point where he was consistently speaking through tight lips and clenched teeth.  His usual cutting brand of facetiousness had turned downright catty, and he had pushed Goku nearly to the point of tears more than once.  When he was able, he gave monosyllabic answers to questions, and made no comments at all.  For some reason he could not fathom, the others kept asking him if he was okay.

Gojyo was not much changed by events, save that he had developed a certain propensity for ducking at every unexpected noise or movement.  Certainly, his physical abuse of the monkey had become somewhat more intense over the past little while, but he chalked that up to three years' cumulative annoyance.  His ‘objective' opinion: it was not his fault.  He was a victim of circumstance.

Goku, the ikkou's favorite lightning rod, was brewing up a storm of his own.  He detested being treated as a child, and his companions' silence on the subject of the big ‘secret' (which was well known by all of them) was nothing short of insulting.  He was frankly running rather short on patience regarding this situation.  Whenever he asked about what was going on, Sanzo just told him to shut up and forget about it.  Secrets felt like lies, and as far as he was concerned, friends should not lie to each other.

Thus, an unusually subdued group entered the town that afternoon.  There were several inns here, and they drove around for a bit, until they found one that Sanzo was willing to try.  Fortunately, the innkeeper had several rooms available, and the dour monk asked for two (knowing that paying for four would be a waste of money, as one would undoubtedly go unused), and gave the host his credit card. 

The other three drifted back outside to begin unpacking the Jeep in silence.  Gojyo only hit Goku once, and received Hakkai's patented Look of Doom for his effort.   Effectively subdued and warned against further antics, the hanyou loaded his arms with as much as he could carry, and headed off toward their rooms.  Goku did likewise, and Sanzo appeared at the doorway in order to help by lighting a cigarette.  Hakkai's lips thinned to a fine white line as he and strode past the monk, weighed down with not only his own baggage, but Sanzo's as well.  Hakuryuu emitted a disapproving "kyuu," at the priest as he followed his chosen master inside. 

"If I didn't need a car, I'd let Goku eat you," Sanzo muttered when he was sure they were out of earshot.

"I heard that," Hakkai's voice carried back to him.

By unspoken agreement, directly after putting their belongings in the rooms and showering, the foursome set out to find a place to eat.  No one was in the mood to listen to Goku whine about his empty belly.  Some two blocks from the inn, they spotted a promising place and slipped gratefully inside.

Goku ordered copious amounts of food.  The others ordered copious amounts of alcohol, even Hakkai, for whom getting drunk was a near impossibility.  They ate, drank, fought and were generally inconvenient, as was their wont at meals.  Sanzo smoked when the others were eating, and Hakkai was snarky about it.  Gojyo hit ruthlessly on their waitress, and Sanzo was bitchy about it.  Goku ate like he was going to go another five hundred years without, and Gojyo was a prick about it.  Hakkai smiled a lot, and no one dared complain about it.

They had been informed by their waitress, (who had grown rather talkative in the face of Gojyo's rather obvious attentions) that there was a festival beginning that night.  Goku's face lit up at the mention of it, and Sanzo formulated a plan.  It was a lovely plan, one that involved a whole lot of quiet time for the priest.

Hot showers, good food and alcohol went a long way toward restoring the companions' usual humor.  As they walked out of the restaurant, Sanzo grabbed Gojyo's arm, and placed his card in the kappa's large hand.

"What's this for?"  Gojyo inquired.

"Get the saru out of my hair for a few hours."  Sanzo ordered as he pulled out his package of cigarettes.  "Go to that festival.  Buy him more food, get beer, whatever.  Just don't come back for at least two hours.  Got it?"  It was not unusual for Sanzo to demand time to himself, but the offer of his card to pay for the outing was sufficiently strange to warrant a puzzled look even from Hakkai.

"Oookaaay..." Gojyo drawled, obvious suspicion in his voice.  "Oi, Hakkai, you coming too?"

Hakkai laughed his little laugh, and shook his head.  "No thank you, Gojyo.  I need to get started on the laundry, and bring Hakuryuu his dinner.  Besides, I wouldn't mind being able to have a cup of tea and read for a while.  Today's drive has left me feeling rather tired, I'm afraid."  He smiled at Gojyo, and reached out to tousle Goku's unruly hair. "You two go have fun.  Please don't drink too much, Gojyo.  You'll spend too much if your judgment gets impaired." 

"Aa," the hanyou responded.  He clapped Hakkai on the shoulder, letting his hand rest there just a beat longer than necessary, and received one of the healer's true smiles in return.  Sanzo's eyes narrowed briefly at the exchange.  Gojyo turned quickly to grab Goku in a vicious headlock, leading him away toward the festival grounds.

Hakkai couldn't repress another genuine smile as he watched to two walk away, shoving each other back and forth for a while.  Eventually, they must have declared a race, for they both started running.

"'Ch" Sanzo offered around his cigarette, and they turned together to walk back to the inn.

Once back at their rooms, Hakkai fed the little white dragon, sorted through their laundry, and then put water on to heat for tea.  Sanzo sat at the table, his robes hanging around his waist, smoking and ostensibly reading a newspaper.  Hakkai was fully aware of the monk's surreptitious gaze as it followed him about the room.  He sighed inwardly, and waited for the storm to break.  Coming back to the inn had not really been his first choice, but Sanzo obviously had something to get off his chest. 

As the usually outspoken blonde had not yet declared his issue, Hakkai had concluded that he was waiting until Gojyo and Goku were not around.  The fact that he had freely given Gojyo his card for something other than groceries or cigarettes had confirmed this suspicion.  Thus, Hakkai had given up a chance to relax a little and enjoy himself, in favor of attempting to remove this latest stick from Sanzo's ass.

When the tea was prepared, he brought it to the table, poured two cups, and slid one across the table to Sanzo.  The monk grunted in the way the healer had come to recognize meant ‘thank you', and took a sip.  Hakkai pasted on his best false smile, sipped his own tea, and waited while Sanzo stared at him. 

A tense silence permeated the room as they regarded each other across the little wooden table.  Had they been different men, perhaps this mutual staring would have ended in less than the ten minutes or so that it lasted, but Sanzo and Hakkai were both stubborn as stone mules, so it did not. 

Sanzo was determined to make Hakkai break the silence, but the youkai had the advantage.  He had spent years cultivating an expression so patient and innocuous that it could make the Buddha kick a kitten.  His smile had developed gravitational force.  It was a conversational black hole, sucking the very air around it.  Sanzo's resolve crumbled in the face of the other man's vacuous gaze, and he heaved a sigh as he dropped his eyes.  Hakkai's delight was absolutely undetectable on the surface.

"What do you think you're doing?" the monk inquired.

Hakkai blinked.  "Pardon me?"

"I asked you what you think you're doing.  Have you gone deaf?" Sanzo spat back at him. 

"I'm not sure to what you are referring, Sanzo.  I'll be happy to answer you, if you would care to enlighten me."  Hakkai's smile widened and a muscle in the monk's jaw started to twitch.

"Don't play dumb.  I want to know what the hell you're doing in the kappa's bed!"

"Well, really Sanzo, that's a little personal, don't you think?" Hakkai deadpanned, watching closely for the vein in Sanzo head to pop out.  Ah, there it was!  Really, if he had not already been going to hell, this kind of thing might just do the trick, he thought. 

"Don't make me kill you," the priest threatened, his expression promising that a slow and painful demise, in the event.

"Okay, if you insist on knowing, usually Gojyo..."

"Hakkai," Sanzo interrupted, his violet eyes narrowing to tiny slits, "if you say one more word, I'll shoot you in the head."

"Okay, okay!" Hakkai laughed and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.  "I offer you my deepest and most humble apologies, O Great Houshi-sama!"  He was giggling outright by the end.

Sanzo subsided a little, but added, "You're really looking for death today," just to press the point.  It wouldn't do to have any of them thinking he found their jokes even remotely entertaining. 

"Actually, I'm curious as to how you figured it out.  We tried to be discreet, so that you wouldn't be bothered by it."  Hakkai asked this seriously.  He knew that they hadn't been perfect, but both he and Gojyo had permanent dents on the insides of their lips from biting them in order to keep quiet.  They had wanted some time to find out what this new thing was between them was, before they subjected it to the scrutiny and jibes of their companions.

"Hey," Sanzo replied, "I'm not as stupid as Gojyo looks."  His tone sounded defensive, instead of the usual annoyed-slash-condescending.

"Ahahaha, I see," Hakkai said, his smile returning.  "You didn't figure it out at all, did you?"  The dour expression on the monk's face answered for him.  "I'd bet that Goku saw it first, since Gojyo and I have been together for some time, and you've only been...out of sorts, as it were...for a few days.  That's the part that really bothers you, isn't it?  That he figured it out first?"  He couldn't control his mirth at this, and his smile had become a blatant grin.

"Hakkai, I'm warning you..." Sanzo growled, and Hakkai hastily rearranged his face, resuming the blank look that he usually wore.  "He smelled it, probably right away.  He started watching you guys.  When he was sure, he told me.  That was back at the last town."  He delivered this whole speech in a near monotone that spoke volumes about how angry Sanzo was that the monkey had known something - anything - before he had.  He studiously avoided Hakkai's gaze.

"Ah, right," Hakkai mused, "I hadn't thought about that."

"So...?"  The monk let the question hang in the air, not wanting to specify.  The very thought of Gojyo sliming his way all over the healer was just about more than he could stand.

"Well, after that...village girl...when I was injured in the ambush, Gojyo took care of me.  He was the only one who saw...what really happened.  I was reliving everything that happened before we met, every moment of every day.  I'm ashamed to admit that I was surprised - unpleasantly surprised - to find myself alive when I woke up."  Here Hakkai paused, to give Sanzo time to assimilate what he had said.

The monk's eyes narrowed again, his face grew rigid.  There was a distinct thinning of his lips as he listened to the brunette's words.  The muscle in his jaw began to twitch again.

"Go on."

"When I was up and about, I went into Gojyo's room and borrowed a cigarette... uh, Sanzo? Are you okay?"  Hakkai had grown alarmed at the sudden darkening of his companion's expression.

"Since when do you smoke?" the blonde ground out through clenched teeth.

"Ah, Goku again?" he inquired, and was favored with one of the smaller man's death glares.  "Right, well, um... I used to smoke...before...and I quit.  I only do it now when I'm under a lot of stress."  He tried a small smile, and was thoroughly disappointed at the lack of reaction from the monk.  He looked to Hakkai as though he was about to have an aneurysm.  The healer was not sure he could fix that.

"Hurry up, damn it, before I puke."  The normally pale monk did indeed look even whiter than usual. 

"Yes.  Um...Well, Gojyo confronted me about my actions during the ambush, the discussion got heated...one thing led to another, and..."

""Ch!" Sanzo interrupted Hakkai again, "Figures.  The horny bastard took advantage of your weakness!  Couldn't even wait until you were healed!"  These observations he offered as facts, not questions.  Hakkai frowned slightly (his face had nearly forgotten how to do it, now) at the gratuitous conclusions the monk had drawn.  Once in a very great while, he was unable to discern the reality of a situation.  He was completely nonplussed now, by Sanzo's anger.

"Um, Sanzo..."

"Cockroach bastard..." Sanzo was grumbling, no longer even looking at Hakkai.

"Sanzo?" he tried again

"Ought to ventilate his fucking head..."

"Sanzo!" he barked.  The monk instantly jerked his gaze back to Hakkai's.  He had stopped mumbling, but it was clear in his eyes that his brain was still at it.  "Gojyo most certainly did not take any advantage whatsoever."  There was something he was missing here, and if he did not get it figured out quickly, Gojyo was likely to wind up chewing on a gun barrel before the night was out.

"Whatever," Sanzo huffed, and looked away again.

"Now, Sanzo, listen to me, please," Hakkai cajoled in his best schoolteacher voice, "All he did that night was kiss me.  Then I locked myself up for two days.  Remember that?  Once I had a chance to think things over, I went to him.  That's when it started."

"Have you gone stupid?" the priest demanded, "I knew it would happen to one of us, sooner or later.  Too much time with morons."  This conversation really was making him feel sick.  Every time Hakkai opened his mouth, Sanzo's traitorous mind offered up various and sundry opinions as to the things Gojyo would put in it.  Ugh. 

"Why are you so angry about this?" the converted youkai asked, in his usual tone:  all soft and fuzzy on the outside, with a core of pure iron.  "Apart from the fact that we are traveling together for this mission, it has nothing to do with you at all."

"'Ch," was Sanzo's eloquent reply.

"Please answer me, Sanzo," Hakkai wheedled. 

"Why him?"  The question came out so low that Hakkai had to ask the priest to repeat himself.  "Why him?"  Louder, this time.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

Sanzo heaved a deep sigh, rolled his eyes, and leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table.  He looked Hakkai directly in the eye as he clarified:

"Why would you choose him?  His point of view, I can understand."  Sanzo was getting a headache, now.  He wanted to end this quickly, and then promptly forget that it had ever happened.

"Why would I...?"  Hakkai mused, "You don't mean..." Hakkai blushed furiously, "Sanzo, are you...are you...jealous?"

When he was of a mind, Sanzo was quite capable of moving with near-youkai speed.  Hakkai became well acquainted with this little fact at that moment.  Before he could blink, the monk stood up, pulled his fan out of wherever he kept it, leaned across the table, whacked the healer rather viciously with it, and sat back down.  He did not, Hakkai noticed, put the fan away.

"I don't want you, you imbecile!"  The blonde's face was a mask of incredulity.

"You mean you..."  Hakkai was again interrupted, this time by the soft click of the Smith & Wesson's hammer cocking back.

"I suggest you think very carefully about what your next words will be."  Sanzo truly believed he just might be angry enough to use it, if the other man continued.  The priest could not imagine anything more repulsive than what he had been about to say.

"Ahahahaha," Hakkai laughed nervously, "okay, so how about you tell me what you do mean." 

"I mean, Gojyo leaves a slime trail!  How could you spread your legs for that?" he clarified.

"How do you know I do?"  Hakkai's gaze turned deadly cold in an instant.  "I understand what you're saying, now, Sanzo," his voice could have frozen fire.  Pushing his chair back, he rose.  "I appreciate your concern, but I find I'm suddenly very tired.  Good night."

With that, Hakkai turned on his heel and strode over to the door.  He opened it, walked halfway out, and stopped.  For a moment, neither man said anything, then:

"Sanzo, I do understand, and I do thank you for it."  He turned his head so that Sanzo could see his profile against the darkness of the hallway. 

"Aa," the monk replied, knowing that the other man really meant these things.

"He's good to me, Sanzo," Hakkai added, a soft offering to carry reasons and apologies.

"Aa."  An equally soft acceptance.

Hakkai stepped out, closing the door quietly behind him.  Sanzo heaved another sigh as he put the gun and the fan back in their proper places, then reached for a cigarette.

"He'd better be."