By Mitsima
Dedicated to sf: *hugs* I hope you like this poor attempt at a Hakkai/Sanzo oneshot, but I made it for you. I know you like that pairing and I felt like I needed to write a fic quick before my promise started gathering dust.
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The whole universe was a mess of concentric circles, Sanzo concluded as he dragged his mind from his stagnant peat bog dreamland. He dreamed that it was raining, even though it clearly wasn’t. Simple as that. An echo of reality still resonating within his memory and clinging to him like mud.
Concentric circles. Heaven on the outside, encasing everything into a neat(looking) little package of reality. Somewhere under that umbrella was Earth, and stuck inconveniently smack dab in the bull’s eye of the whole map, like a lob of chewed gum beneath park benches on a sunny day, was hell.
So, accepting the fucked up nature of this and that, Sanzo knew he was screwed from the beginning because he didn’t care much for either side simply because it was all the same thing to him. Chasing that randomly pessimistic admission was the slightly more optimistic daydream that this whole mission west was just like helping a dragon eat its own tail. What comes around…
That was karma for you, and even heaven’s on-the-field exploits should find a way, however roundabout, of giving the High Ones a dose of the unexpected. An over-dose would be nice; karma up their- but that was being too hopeful.
Speaking of hopeful things, where were his cigarettes?
Sanzo reached over to the nightstand where he thought he put them last, but his hand only made contact with the dusty wood, causing a hollow thud to reverberate through the dry darkness.
“You lost them to Gojyo at last night’s poker game, remember?” Hakkai’s voice almost seemed to echo the echo. Then there was silence, as if he had not spoken at all. He waited for a ‘shut up’ from the priest but when it didn’t come, he continued with riskier topics of conversation.
“The same with your last can of beer. We can buy tomorrow if you like, which reminds me…um…it might take me a while to update my maps, so if this humble, trying-not-to-be-a-nuisance servant of yours would request another day here…”
This nose-in-the-dirt false humility grated on the Sanzo’s nerves.
“Fuck it, Hakkai I just want to get out of this area.” Sanzo turned and squinted. The shimmer of a glass eye in the moonlight told him that Hakkai was looking his way. No, not Hakkai, but just the eye —he could see no other part of him- and there it floated, disembodied and showing none of the warmth of its owner.
“We all do, so please give me time enough to make sure we don’t get lost.”
Like concentric circles going round and round…
‘We’ll never get lost. One step off the path and that bitch’ll kick us back on it. I guarantee it.”
“All the more important that you give me time. I personally would rather not receive any of heaven’s enlightening kicks. I think you hold enough enlightenment for the four of us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, asshole?” Sanzo growled and was about to summon that paper fan when the joke sunk in. He gritted his teeth. “I forbid you to attempt humor at my expense.”
“As you wish.” The force of Hakkai’s smile somehow found its way through the darkness, followed by a muffled chuckle.
Sanzo was prepared with a retort to drive his point, but the pain in his abdomen caught him first and he cringed into the mattress. The suck of air between his teeth snapped Hakkai to attention and he was at the bedside in a matter of moments, reaching under the covers and under Sanzo’s clothes to where the bandages held everything important from spilling out in a messy heap.
It was that warmth again, Sanzo thought as he fought with his battle wound. It was Hakkai’s touch again…that felt too intimate to be clinical. The way his hands pressed close to the bandages (he was sure Hakkai didn’t even necessarily have to touch him at all). The way he managed always to brush softly against Sanzo’s skin as he pulled away.
Too many shameful nights stealing away to do away with his desire. Too many dreams about getting him into bed- or anywhere at all- and having his way. But fossilized memories haunted him to no end. In his mind, in the darkness, Sanzo could see Hakkai’s smile float out into the void before him. And around that smile he would construct a different face; a different body.
When did his mind start recycling images? Were they just stuck there, doomed to be forever preserved as long as he had his wits about him?
Master… And the thought disturbed him because the image of ‘master’ was always paired with the image of ‘blood’ and a gaping slash across the middle. That night was another moment frozen.
As Genjo Sanzo was not a man of much imagination, he blamed both the Heavens and Hakkai for the likeness. And he would destroy either one or the other for being so cruel; but heaven was beyond him and Hakkai…
And Hakkai —even though the pain was gone and Sanzo was ready to plunge back into his tar pit unconscious despite the fact that chances were he’d dream he were awake again- Hakkai was still there.
But now his hands were elsewhere on Sanzo’s body. One on his hip and the other discovering the arousal this episode had caused.
“I figured as much,” Hakkai said, smiling Komyou’s smile as Sanzo desperately sought a non-memory to cling to before the moment went any further. Hakkai dipped his head down and grazed Sanzo’s cheek with his lips before whispering, “But the walls here are especially thin. Another night, perhaps?”
Before he knew it, he was staring into that dead glass eye which only minutes before had been floating about across the room. An absurd relief spread through him.
There was a certain degree of comfort found in looking at part of Hakkai that was pure Hakkai- not even the former Cho Gonou- however cold. However artificially created. Heaven had no hand in it and that’s why Sanzo liked it in a perverse sort of way.
“Whatever. It’s not like this trip’s gonna end anytime soon.”
If the gods created man’s body from the mud of the earth, then Hakkai gorged his eye out to spite them and from a sea of blood made himself into a hellish, unclean being. And now…here…subject to his ministrations was the man closest to heaven. And here, and now was when the dragon began on a journey to consume itself.
Hakkai’s lips tasted sweet. This betrayal tasted sweet. And all the bitter contentment of this instant was sealed by the coldness of an unseeing eye.