"Sanzo..." Goku began presently.

"Don't make me shoot you," Sanzo cut him off at once, an exhausted warning growl. His voice seemed faintly softer, perhaps, than usual, but it could have been fatigue, pain, or sheer relief at the death of someone who was not only a homicidal maniac but also had a bad case of wandering hands. This was perhaps what the handcuffs and chain had been for, if any of the gods had any sense whatever. In which case, probably not.

So Hakkai was prepared to ignore it. But then, in the strong, deep voice that was more to be expected, Sanzo blankly demanded, "The fuck?"

Hakkai slit open his good eye and, seeing nothing in front of him, closed it again. If anything menacing was behind them, Sanzo would shoot it or Goku would howl with glee and start bashing it with Nyoibou, but until then he was saving his energy. There was quite a lot of healing in his immediate future, after all. In fact, perhaps someone else might drive for a while. He was going to sit here with the light of his own world's sun warming his face and regenerate his qi for a few minutes, and if they really needed him, they could scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Oh, my!"

That was... Goku. Not alarmed, but surprised. Also a surprised Gojyo and three female persons who had happened on a battered jeep full of bleeding men.

Definitely Gojyo's territory. Gojyo could deal with it.

"Holy shit," Gojyo said after a moment, with the absent pleasure of the absolutely blindsided. "I'm stacked!"

"Are not!" Goku shouted, indignant. "Mine are bigger!"

Hakkai squeezed his eyes shut tighter, unobtrusively curled lower in his seat, and deliberately did not double-check his chest. There was, he thought severely, really no excuse for the kind of day he was having.

"It only looks that way 'cause you're a shrimp, monkey-boy," Gojyo sneered.

A shot rang out, cutting the air with a clear silvery whine. One of Sanzo's, not followed by a scream of pain. No need for concern, then. Although why Sanzo wasted sanctified crystal bullets on warning shots at people everyone knew he wasn't going to shoot...

"Watch your mouth," said Sanzo, but there was that soft, deadly tone to his sour Chang'An accent again, which was unusual. Tired or not, Sanzo was more of a snarler.

"Is your friend just going to sit there?" one of the women demanded in a jagged velvet alto that sounded disturbingly like Gojyo's 'I'm about to poke you' voice.

Yes. Yes, he was.

"But Saaaaaaaanzo," Goku said, "it's so weird. Look! Hey, hey, are they real? Are they?"

Another shot.

Jiipu screamed like squealing tires and suddenly Hakkai was sitting on nothing. "Hakuryuu!" he shouted, pushing the ground away with a splayed palm and twisting in midair. Before even landing, he snatched the keening little dragon out of the air with one cradling arm and with the other shot a blast of green fury towards the sound of the gun. Not that he could afford it, but it wouldn't be wasted. Hakkai didn't do warning shots.

His blast met a resistance that felt bizarrely familiar. It was, he saw when he was steady on his feet, green. The flickering shape behind it was curved.

"Cut it out, both of you idiots," Sanzo snapped irately.

In stereo.

Cautiously, he and his opponent lessened their force until her shield and his lance flickered out. He didn't bother to look at her. It wasn't a qi-blast that had shot his friend.

"Hakuryu," he crooned, dropping to his knees and spreading his friend out carefully on the ground. "Let me see." He stroked down the long, shivering back until Hakuryu unfurled, and took a delicate, sluggishly bleeding paw in his hand. "There," he murmured. "You'll be well in just--"

"Don't you fucking dare," Sanzo said, irritated. "The jeep's not our only casualty."

"But Sanzo," he returned equably, which was about all the enthusiasm he could muster, "Hakuryuu is the casualty which will keep us here."

He didn't need to mention, certainly not in front of unknown quantities with guns and qi and the devastatingly insidious power of giving Gojyo a set of breasts of his very own to play with (and why just him and Goku? Had they simply been unable to reach the front seat? Hakkai knew he hadn't gotten any, because if he had his balance would have been off and he would almost certainly have fallen on them), that if he used enough energy to heal them all completely or even well enough to get through a night outdoors, especially if there was no food or shelter to be had, then Sanzo was facing a very cranky, whiny morning with an incapacitated mediator and chauffeur.

"Hakkai," Sanzo growled in his 'I'm trying to make allowances, Jade Emperor only knows why I bother, and it's not working' voice, "we have a situation. Put the dragon fucking down."

"Excuse me, Sanzo," he said politely, "but the situation is not an urgent one, since Goku isn't hitting anyone, ne?"

"Goku," said Sanzo at once, "hit someone."

"Okay!" Goku said brightly, and a moment later he and Gojyo were fighting again.

Two of the young ladies--there were, he noted vaguely, four of them--were starting a giggly betting pool.

"Fine," Sanzo grumbled, defeated. "Just don't come crying to me later asking me to drive."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said solemnly. "After all, it's really about time Goku learned, don't you think, Sanzo?"

Sanzo twitched. Sanzo glared. Sanzo had lost.

Of course, Hakkai would end up driving anyway, but the exchange was worth the energy for sheer entertainment value. And in any case, being bested would reassure Sanzo, who really worried too much.

"If you morons are finished playing around," the voice he'd decided to call Chang'An Marginally Liter said impatiently, "I for one would like to know what the fuck is going on."

"Are you finished, Hakkai?" Gojyo broke off screaming at Goku to ask.

"For the moment," he said, scooping Hakuryuu up in his arms. "All better, yes, Hakuryuu?" The dragon pii'ed at him affectionately and lifted his sleek head to bump their jaws together before swarming up to sit on his shoulders.

Finally he looked over at the young ladies, and crashed into green, green eyes, wide as the bowl of the sky, and a sweet, sweet voice that breathed, "Gonou?"

On the whole, he thought he would have preferred it if Gojyo had sprouted breasts.

The SEME At The End Of This Fic

starring lovable, placid old HAKKAI
Hakkai (bows): Ohayo gozaimasu.
And adorably vague but considerably older TENPOU
Tenpou (waves): 'Hayo.
...
Tenpou: This is a very dull page, and it isn't very polite. Moving on!
Hakkai: (double take) Ano... excuse me, Tenpou-san, but what did that say? Did it say there will be a seme at the end of this fic?
Tenpou: Well, yes. So I think we should hurry, don't you, Hakkai-kun?
Hakkai: O.O I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Tenpou-san. You see...
(flashbacks to Chin Iisou, Hyakugun-Maou, the bat-youkai with the whip, Homura, that deranged illusion-maker from Requiem)
Hakkai: ...You see, Tenpou-san, the fact is (I'm ashamed to admit it, but) I don't really get along very well with semes.
Tenpou: O.O Why on earth not?!