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Waking the Dead by atolm2000
[Reviews - 4] Printer Chapter or Story

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…Erm, yeah, I don’t own them,
angst, blood, violence, self-inflicted injury, bitchy Sanzo train of thought,
I’m not sure I’m going to approach Gojyo’s little rant of last chapter again in
this entire fic so language feels redundant, the
usual.



----------------------



----------------------



The sky
is starting to turn the vague shade of pale-dark that comes just before sunrise
by the time the forest thins out to a clearing.
The air's thick with the smell of smoke; there's no towers or keep on
the hilltop, only a pile of burned-out rubble and cooling ashes, smouldering
down in silence. Gonou stumbles a few
more steps towards it in a daze; I keep my eyes down, on the wreckage. In a few years, it'll be impossible to tell
there was even anything here; all of Hyakugan Maoh's infamous rapacious
arrogance reduced to nothing.



Gonou
drops to his knees with a howl of pain and grief, and a hollow cry from the
blurring-off aura that buffets into me despite my best efforts at focusing to
not Hear it; raw sorrow prying another fleeting echo out of me, another ghost
of a pulse. For a minute, it's all I can
do to stand still and play statue, not betraying any reaction; I manage a flat,
"I heard that this place burned down a few days ago. Nothing survived.", and that’s about it.



Gonou's
digging through the rubble frantically, heedless of his own injuries, fighting
to find something in the ruin. I
struggle the sense back down to just a presence, awareness that yes, there's a
living aura in front of me and nothing more.
Goku's standing halfway between me and the ruin, looking torn between
wanting to help and not knowing where or how to start; he shoots me a pleading
look, whether for answers, explanation, or aid I can't tell. “Sanzo?”



“Tch. Don't look at me.” I almost snap the words, letting cynicism
bury anything else that might creep in. There's nothing I can give; the ruin
already happened, and I have no more idea how to answer Gonou's cries than Goku
does. I can't fix what's been broken
here, there's no help to give that'll change his loss.



The
ashes are burning down, and I don't have enough left to bleed out if I let
myself stop being detached, even while Gonou's frantically digging through the
rubble until there's nothing left to do but batter at the larger debris hopelessly. Gojyo's walked out to him, laying a hand on
his shoulder; he slumps, breathing hard, kneeling in the ruins that cover the
better part of the hillside. “Oy, I know how you feel, but even if her body did
survive….you could dig for a month and not get anywhere.”



“I'm
not leaving. Not until I've prepared her
a grave or monument.” His voice sounds
hollow, drained out, broken.



That’s one
pronoun that had been missing from my attempt at finding out what was happening
earlier that likely filled in a lot of blanks.
The line of why Gonou was a criminal and Hyakugan Maoh, not, was drawn
in lines where the temple and surrounding authorities became no less wolves than the Youkai lord or the organized crime
groups he associated with. Hyakugan Maoh
had gotten away with whatever he wanted because he was the authority in this
area, and politics had given him a nice insulating web where no one had dared
to speak up for fear of the complications and conflict that would follow, the
old established pecking orders that were more important than the victims. Because of that, I was supposed to treat Cho Gonou as a criminal because nobody else had cared to
act until things broke and went too far.



Gojyo's
walked back in silence to stand in front of me grimly, Goku sitting cross-legged
a few feet away.



“Shouldn't
you be saying a prayer for the dead or something - for Kanan?” Red eyes trying to skewer me with what I'm
supposed to be, an accusing glare.



“I only
pray for the living.” I meet the glare
and return it; I haven't said a prayer for the dead in years now. Prayers for the dead are the emptiest form of
apology on Earth when you were involved, a way to feel like you've done
something useful without putting forth any effort if you weren't; one fool in
robes chanting sutras changes nothing for someone who's already passed on. Prayers for the dead aren't for the dead, they're for the living left behind.



He
turns away from me in disgust, taking a few steps away with his back to me,
muttering something I can't catch besides edges of profanity barbed my
direction. Gonou is weakly rearranging
stones to build a cairn, blood running over the pieces from scrapes and cuts on
his hands as he stacks them awkwardly, the sky starting to tint red with dawn
casting shadows.



The
living left behind - is enough reason to relent. I carefully settle down into lotus position;
Goku looks back from the ruins to me, blinking, having been around me long
enough to know how rare this is. There's
a break in Gojyo swearing under his breath as he glances back, then does a
double-take.



The
sutra returns to me easily; surprisingly easily - I haven't spoken it
since…since the week before I'd found Goku; six years, thereabouts, but perhaps
I should've expected it to never leave, it'd become such rote by the time I
gave it up. For the first time in years,
it feels like the words might have meaning again, something restored after
having been said so many times to have started ringing hollow. It's the sutra intended to be read for the
dead, but they won't need it; the ones here most in need of prayers are still
alive, however cast-off we might be - where life's gone on whether fate seems
to have intended it or not - a dead-inside heretic of a Sanzo praying for a
forgotten, innocent prisoner of five hundred years, a gambler that never
should've been born…



And a
fledgling youkai with nothing to go back to, building a grave for a victim
nobody else cared enough to defend.



A
prayer for the dead said for the living - but perhaps it's the only appropriate
prayer for people who're living in spite of the best efforts of the world to
take everything away.



By the
time I reach the end of it, Gonou's finished his cairn, kneeling before it with
his back to us, and the sunrise has begun clearing
from burning red to blue. For a moment,
there's a peaceful calm over the hillside, silence save for a breeze and
birdsong.



Then
there's a sudden movement from Gonou that I can't make out at first, except
that there's a renewed flow of fresh blood on the stones as he collapses.



"Fuck!" In an instant, all three of us are scrambling
to his side, and the one word's trailed off as it's my turn to mutter a string
of profanity under my breath. Gojyo
helps me shift Gonou onto his back, to get a better look at the wound, Goku's already dumping out our pack to retrieve the
bandages and supplies I keep. Gonou's
drenched down the front with his own blood, turning a nasty shade of pale, how
the Hell did he practically gut himself that quickly - he was bleeding already,
he must've just reopened the wound, there's no way we can get him back to town
like this, Gojyo's actually keeping him from literally falling apart and
already snatching up the cloths Goku's tossing our way to try to staunch the
blood.



"Needle,
thread, hot water!", I snap at Goku, and snatch a
flask from the pile of other supplies - not my somewhat spiked tea, the
stronger whiskey, that Goku's griped "could peel paint". He passes me needle and thread, then flinches
as he realizes he needs a fire and dashes off gathering firewood for the hot
water.



I take
the lid off the flask and drop it, and there's a momentary conflict between
Gojyo and I as I'm trying to move him to his side again and Gojyo's trying to
staunch the bleeding and keep him prone before I snap, “I need to clean the
wound!” He blinks with a “yessir” and helps shift Gonou so the alcohol drains out,
keeping a hand with one of the cloths so that Gonou's organs stay inside where
they belong. Gonou's aura is still
there, he's still breathing, he's not dead yet, that's what counts, but
whatever's left of the whiskey is going for me when this is over; you'd think
someone who's killed as many times as I have would be less rattled by the sight
of blood and this kind of injury. I'm not sure if everything is exactly where
it's supposed to be, but it looks about right and I'm going to end up taking
him straight to a doctor anyway.



It's
strange how it's easier to cause wounds than to deal with it afterwards; cause
an injury, it's one shot and you can turn away, work on closing it and you have
to study it, go over every detail of the damage, the ragged lines where the
wound had almost healed before it was pulled open again…and realizing that the
scar tissue spreads further than the reopened injury enough to make suturing it
shut almost an impossibility. I ended up
settling for enough of a jury-rig that we could move him without worrying about
anything falling out, then snatching the small metal teakettle from where
Goku's been holding it over the fire on a stick; we may not be able to boil the
rags we'd kept with us here, this will have to do.



It
doesn't take any communication to get help from Gojyo bandaging him enough to
stop most of the bleeding and keep him together; Goku just sits hunched next to
the cairn, watching with silent worry.
Once that's done, there's a pause; Gojyo checks briefly that he's still
breathing, while I just kneel next to him, wiping the blood off my hands. I don't bother with the red stains on my
white robes, it's a lost cause by now anyway, and as long as the idiot lives,
it won't bother me.



Goku
leans in to look up at both of us, watching our faces. “Is he going to be okay?”



“He'd
better be. We'll need to get him to a
doctor before we can take him back to Chang'An.” I give Gojyo a pointed look on that one; he's
local, he said he'd had a doctor in to look at Gonou before.



“Any
particular reason you're worried?”
There's that challenge again, baiting me, trying to draw me out.



“I was ordered
to bring him back to the Temple of the Setting Sun to stand trial, and corpses
don't stand trial. That's all I'm
worried about.” The brief “yeah, right”
look Goku gives me mirrors the murmur from some half-dead corner of my mind
that I've been trying to ignore; it's almost impossible that this is going to
end well, particularly when Gonou wants to die like this, and I'm going to stay
detached, Damnit. Fortunately Gojyo
seems to have been intent enough on reading my expression to have missed Goku's. There's another quiet pause. “I'm not carrying him.”,
I point out, and again I look to Gojyo; Gonou may be at least as light-built as
I am, but he's still taller than me, and doubtless outweighs me; and while Goku
might be strong enough, it'd be awkward enough that Gonou would likely get hurt
further en route.



“Wha? Me? But-“



The
glance up turns into a 'do or I'll kill you' glare.



“Alright,
I'll carry him.”, he mutters grudgingly, picking Gonou up with a slight, almost
imperceptible wince; it occurs to me that I'd caught him pretty hard in the
ribs last night, but as much as he's blowing it off, it shouldn't be that
bad.



The
trip back to town is mostly quiet except for the occasional commentary from
Goku; Gojyo seems to have mercifully given up on pressing my buttons. I end up fighting the urge, more than once,
to look back and check; if Gonou got any worse, Gojyo would say something, or
call a halt. He's too protective to do
anything less, and seems slightly less leery of me by now. The temptation to fret reaches a point where
I finally give in, pull out a cigarette as I'm walking, and light it, letting
the worse parts of the raw nerves drain out into the
smoke. Worrying more here won't do me
any good; getting back to town, to a doctor, is the best I can do right now.



Wait,
I'm not worried.



Damnit.



Within
seconds I can feel that confused, questioning look from behind. A quick glance back confirms that I'm getting
another look of dumbfounded disbelief.
Hell, it's not like Goku hadn't said it outright earlier... "What?!", I snap back at him.



"Nothing,
nothing..." If his hands were free, I don't doubt they'd be in the air in
feigned innocence.



So maybe
I do act more like a criminal than a priest.
Maybe I should be surprised my identity's not challenged more often;
maybe I should kill this train of thought since I don't need an identity crisis
when lives are at stake.



Concentrate
on the task at hand. Get Gonou to a
doctor until he's well enough to walk back to Chang'An, to stand trial for over
a thousand deaths, however redundant it might seem with how intent he seems on
punishing himself, however much sympathy I probably shouldn't be feeling right
now. Not all of the victims of his vengeance
were guilty, as much as many of them had earned it. There is no justice here, only cleaning up
lost and broken pieces.



"Nyaah, how slow can you two get?" Goku's running back from where the path
disappears into the trees; I hadn't even realized he'd gotten out of
sight. "We need to hurry up and get
him to a doctor, right? What's taking
you guys so long?"



"You
think I don't know that?! I'm going as
fast as I can here!" Gojyo griping from behind me saves me the trouble of
responding for the moment.



"He's
too thin to be that heavy! You're just slow!
Sanzo, can't we get there any faster?"



"We're
moving as fast as we can without hurting Gonou, so shut up and learn what
patience is, stupid monkey!"



He
stops sullenly and waits for us to catch up, then trudges along just in front
of me, kicking rocks out of the road here and there and muttering darkly. I catch a louder word here and there,
"Still say it's too slow", "Have a name damnit",
"gonna die before we get there at this rate.".



I look
back while I'm walking; his breathing looks even at least, and if he's still
bleeding it's not visible, so it's at least slowed if not stopped. He may not be in good shape, but he should be
stable enough to make it to a doctor.



Gojyo
stops. "Something
wrong?"



"Just
keep walking." I don't wait to see
if he's going to keep up; his footsteps start back up when he realizes that.



"You
really need to stop doing this to me.", I can
hear him mutter to Gonou. I'm probably
still going to have to assume that Gojyo might interfere with taking Gonou back
to Chang'An.



When we
get into town, it's well into the morning, and while
we draw quite a bit of attention, nobody seems inclined to bother us; that
makes this easier. I back off to let
Gojyo take the lead, since he knows where the doctor is; he's slowing down
more, starting to look tired and dragging.
It's not too surprising; none of us have gotten any sleep, and I even
catch Goku yawning in between muttering about breakfast.



Goku
gets the door, and before he's even inside Gojyo tiredly calls, "Guess who's
back.".



The
doctor - middle aged, thinning dark hair, lines starting to show in his face -
gets up from his desk, waving his teenage assistant to go on in back. "What happened?"



"Wound
reopened. Pretty
bad." Good Gojyo; this
situation's messy enough without telling the doctor how it reopened.



"Anything to do with the gunshots last night?" The doctor sounds resigned, like he'd almost
expected it; like this kind of trouble isn't new around here.



"Something
like that."



"And
you're just getting him here now?"



"Well,
it wasn't exactly - we got here as soon as we - Talk to him!" Gojyo jerks his head back at me; the doctor
looks startled at first, then gets an appraising,
warning look, and I put my cigarette out.
The assistant pokes his head out of the back room, and the doctor
motions us all toward it.



"Get
him safe, I'll be getting my things, I'll ask later. Neither of you smoke in
here!" He jabs the warning
at me and Gojyo, who whimpers slightly; and I thought my withdrawal got
bad. His assistant follows him, casting
curious looks back at us as we disappear into the back room.



Gojyo
lays Gonou down, grinding his teeth with a clear wince, one hand going to his
ribs where I'd kneed him briefly as he straightens up; he must've been hiding
that it bothered him the whole time - no wonder he's been so short.



Goku
bounces over and pokes him right in the surprisingly large red and black bruise
barely visible under his vest; he squawks awkwardly and almost doubles over,
twitching and looking ready to strangle Goku.
"Heeey, Sanzo, how hard did you hit
him?" Apparently hard enough; I'd caught him by surprise, and he'd been so
intent on blocking the door that he hadn't moved with it at all - I might've
broken something without realizing it.
Gojyo takes a weak swing at him, which he dodges easily. "You should get that looked
at!" Any pang of guilt is lessened
by my own bruises, sore spots, and raw nerves.



I push
the door open a crack, leaning out just enough to see the door the doctor had
gone through. "There's more than
one idiot wounded in here." As the
door shuts again, from the wounded, angry look Gojyo's giving me, you'd think
I'd kicked him again.



It only
takes a few minutes for the doctor to get back, setting Gonou's shirt aside and
stripping off the bloodied bandages we'd put there. "So how did this happen?"



"There
was a scuffle last night; things got complicated. The wound didn't get reopened until sunrise,
but we were aways from town by then."



"Who
tried to stitch the wound?" He's
cutting out the stitches.



"I
did. We couldn't move him with it open
like that."



"Well,
I can't fault you that, but you can't keep a wound like this stitched; the best
we can do at this point is keep it bandaged tightly enough to hold everything
in, and get him to a youkai healer as soon as possible." The doctor pauses in cleaning the wound to
rub his eyes. "The closest that I
know of, at this time, is in Chang'An."



That
gets a sharp "Feh" from Gojyo and a
mistrusting glare at me; he knows it gives me an easy excuse to take him as
soon as he can walk, and I'm willing to bet he's planning on following.



"You
said someone else was wounded?", he adds while
finishing winding the fresh bandages.



"Gojyo." I
wave a hand at the dark mark he's trying to hide under his vest.



The
doctor stands in front of where he's sitting, and he sullenly takes off the
vest, leaning back so the doctor can examine it. The doctor’s oblivious of the staredown
that's started over his shoulder; Gojyo doesn't break it even when he winces
slightly as the doctor's feeling out how bad the damage is. "How did this happen?"



"Oh, just some overzealous, corrupt, bitchy, violent,
hypocritical pissant." I mime a slight mock-bow in reply; the
doctor's back is to me and his attention on the injury, so he doesn't see.



"Well,
they're not completely broken...just cracked rather badly. You'll need to keep them bandaged and stay at
home resting for at least a week."



"A...week?"



If this
means what I think it means...



The
doctor turns and motions for the other bandages; I gather up the ones next to
me and toss them to Gojyo, who catches them one-handed with a glower.



"How
long's he gonna be out?", Gojyo asks, nodding toward Gonou.



"Mmm, probably a day and a half; he'll need someone to help
him to Chang'An right then, and you need to rest..."



"I'll
do it - it would be no trouble at all; I was going to Chang'An
anyway." The doctor raises an
eyebrow at the odd, oily smug edge on my mood.
This makes things so much easier, if I don't have to worry about keeping
track of Gojyo or wondering about what Gojyo is going to do; I have enough to
worry about with just Gonou.



"Well,
that will make this simpler."



"But-but-"



The
doctor doesn't even turn around, ‘I don’t want to know’ written
all over his face. "Your dedication
to helping is admirable, Gojyo, but if you travel in that condition, you'll
only break your ribs further."



Gojyo
grumbles a response and hunches over, glaring sullenly at me.



"I'll
have other patients to take care of; can you keep an eye on him for a
while?" He’s addressing it to me.



"I'll
stay here."



Gojyo
wordlessly scrunches more into the bench, making it clear he's not going anywhere,
either.



The
doctor bustles out, pausing only to re-iterate the no-smoking rule, leaving us
alone with Gonou. There's a terse
silence while Gojyo sulks at me for a few minutes. I indulge the staredown, then
notice that Goku's been unusually quiet; he's sitting cross-legged on the
ground near Gojyo, nodding off. Nothing
seems to bother him for long.



"Goku!"



He
starts awake suddenly. "HuhIwasn'sleepingwhendoweeat?"



I toss
a small bag of coins to him. "Go
get food and bring it back; we're staying here for now."



"Should
I get anything for Gojyo?"



"I
don't care, just don't waste money."



He
darts out, leaving the door to swing shut in his wake.



"Well,
looks like you win this one." The
words drip with derision.



"I
told you, you can't protect him forever."



His
face lapses into a brief snarl, then he breaks out of the challenging glare,
turning more pensive watching Gonou sleep; he flips out a cigarette, but
doesn't light it, just holding it in his mouth thoughtfully.



"You
know what he did - why are you so protective?" Too tired to put the usual sting into it, and
there's no reason to here anyway; he can't feasibly challenge me anymore.



"Put
enough time into keeping him in one piece; why shouldn't I be?"



"You
know you could be ruled an accomplice for helping him, nevermind if anyone else
comes after him on personal vengeance.
Why risk getting yourself in trouble over his crimes?"



"What,
you gonna try and arrest me too?" The edge to his voice promises a fight, even
while he’s hurt, if I so much as move his direction.



"Feh. I've gotten you out of my hair for the trip back, I'm not going to mess that up. I just want to know why you're so
involved." And how likely he might
be to do something stupid - I've learned to always bet on stupidity.



"Y'know, I'm not sure."
He looks back to Gonou, the challenging edge vanishing almost
immediately. "At first, I just
found him torn up and couldn't just leave'im like
that...and he was a nice enough sort, even if he was a bit depressed all the
time, insisted on helping out, even with the messy stuff...an' when I started
finding bits out, well..." For the
first time, he looks at me without hostility or suspicion. "I thought about it, and I couldn't
really blame him; if I ever found someone that important to me, and had somethin' like that happen to'em,
I don't know what I'd do." If I
ever
found someone important - everything I've heard is that he lives
mostly alone, nobody seems to know much about where he came from; he’s just
some womanizing gambler with crimson hair and eyes that nobody here seems to
grasp the significance of, and old scars nobody seems to know the story behind.
"Besides," he twirls a lock of red around one finger, gazing at it
distantly, "he's the first other person to call this the color of
blood." Great; so
everyone here besides Goku is morbid.



"Blood
isn't the only thing that color."



He
flinches in surprise, then leans back against the
wall. "Well, I guess I just got a
bit lonely then. Not like you'd probably
understand that, eh?"



Fuck. I should've known he couldn't stay away from
challenging me for long. "What's
that supposed to mean?"



"Well,
you've got the kid with you all the time, he said you lived in the temples and
had some rank, eh? Power, authority, all
the other priests..."



"Goku
is just some stupid castoff I found that I can't push off on anyone else, and
the other monks are all thoughtless fools that never mean what they say and
think acting holy and moralistic somehow makes them better than everyone
else."



"So
you are lonely." He says it
matter-of-fact, and far too smug.



"I
don't need anyone else." My best
ruffled, imperious glare isn't leaving a dent; he knows he hit a nerve
somewhere in there, one corner of his mouth quirking upward in triumph.



He
produces a deck of cards practically out of nowhere, shuffling easily.
"You work pretty hard to cut everyone out, don'tcha,
priest-boy? What're you so afraid of,
anyway?"



I'm not
going to take the bait this time.



"You've
got a lot of spite for anything holy, and you certainly don't act it yourself,
so it can't be that someone might figure out you're not the perfect meek little
priest." He starts toying with the
cards, fanning them as he shuffles, showing off. "Kid says you're high up, but you're
quicker with the gun than you are with your rank, so you're not insecure in
your authority." He flips out two
of the kings, flashing them between his fingers and slipping them back into the
deck as he's riffling through it.
"The whole pissy bit about you not being
a hitman - you get that a lot, don'tcha? Really rubs you the wrong way; like you don't
like the criminal types either, so you're not as corrupt as you look. But y'know the
strongest reaction I've seen outta you so far, only
time you've consistently dropped your guard?" He claps the deck between
his hands, eyeing me with a sly, eager grin; I pull back closer against the
wall. "All your cool goes 'piff' when someone gets hurt who's not supposed
to." He holds up the top card - Ace
of Hearts.



Showoff.



"And
that, is why I'll be a good boy and stay here and heal
while you take him to Chang'An, because I'm willing to lay strong odds that
you're not going to let anything happen to him, bitch though you might
be." He's acting far, far too
pleasant; I'd put a bullet through some of that red hair he's so funny about,
but he'd only take it to mean he's right and I do care.



He flips
the ace back into the deck, his eyes never leaving my face; the more chill I put up, the more smug he seems to get.



Before
it reaches a point that there's gunshots, Goku bursts
in the door juggling bags and boxes that most would call enough for six
people. We'll probably still end up
packing some of it with us; he always overshops.



"Sanzo,
I got din-" He
freezes, looking between me and Gojyo curiously. "I'll just start putting stuff down
then." He pulls one of the boxes
out and passes it to Gojyo.
"Here! Got
this for you."



He
blinks in brief surprise, then puts away the still-unlit cigarette and takes it
with a sunny, “Why thank you.”; glancing at me, he
tags on, “At least someone here has some manners.”



“Sanzo? What about him?” Goku points to Gonou. “Is he gonna be
okay without eating this long?”



“I’d
have to ask the doctor to be sure, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to
put food into someone with a gut wound like that.”



I lean
down snatching a container of soup and ignoring the rest; I'm not really
feeling up to eating much. Looking at
even that gets the hint of nausea I've learned to heed as a warning - the 'food not welcome here' sign.
There's only one thing that seems to help it; I'd resolved to claim the
rest of the whiskey anyway. Somewhere
while I'm eating, drinking, and seeking some kind of peace and quiet, I realize
that once again I'm getting the disbelieving look from Gojyo.



"Y'know, at this point, all you've got to do is go out
picking up women."



That
calls for another shot of whiskey and pointedly ignoring him.



Goku
closes one eye at that quizzically, thinking.
"That doesn't make any sense...what's that supposed to mean?"



"Don't
ask.", I snap at Goku.



"...Hey,
that's the same kind of don't-ask-twitch you got when I asked why that drunk
girl was trying to hang off you, or why that other lady you were avoiding kept
saying it was too bad you were a monk, or why you broke that one guy's elbow
backwards in that place you called the bad part of town or why you pulled your
gun on..." He continues on in that
vein for a few minutes, Gojyo getting more and more of a bemused smirk while I
bury my head in my hands and try to disappear into me robes, finally growling,
“Shut. Up.” ,
in a tone that promises injury and maiming if not complied with.



Gojyo
finishes eating before I’m done picking at mine or Goku’s done decimating what
was brought in; after sitting drowsily for a few seconds, he stands, and starts
to walk out.



“Where
are you going?”



He stops next to me, in front of the door. “Home. He’s not gonna be
up for a while, and I haven’t slept in two days; as long as you behave, I’ve
got no reason to hang around here while he’s out.”



I shrug, and go back to ignoring him as he leaves.



Goku does a lot of the picking up while the lack of
sleep starts catching up to me; I try to stave it off, and don’t even realize
I’ve failed until I start awake, already snatching the doctor’s wrist in a
prelude to either twisting it immobile or doing damage. It looks like my reflexes have about given
him a heart attack; I let go and lean back, still feeling drowsy; Goku’s curled
up by the far wall, still asleep.



“All I did was tap your
shoulder, you were asleep when I walked in!”



I mumble something dismissive at first, not really
trying to make it anything coherent.
“How long have I been here?”



“Several hours; it’s after sunset. I’m going to be closing up here.”



“It’s probably not a good idea to move him right now, is
it?” It’s not so much a question as a
tired statement checking for confirmation.



“Not unless he can be kept steady the
whole time.”



“We’ll stay here then.”
With the way things are going lately, I’m not taking my eyes of him for
a second; there’s doubtless still someone after him. “Just in case.”



“Are you sure?”



“Yeah. Go ahead and lock up; we’ll be here in the
morning.”



“…I’ll leave a set of keys here in case you need
anything then; I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He sets down a ring of keys next to me on the bench, keeping a cautious
distance now, and backs out.



There’s probably enough in what’s left over from lunch
to scratch a dinner out of when Goku wakes up; I doubt I’ll need to use the
keys for much. It’s dark, and quiet, and
I’m the only one awake. Gonou still
looks too pale, especially in the dark; too much blood lost, but at least he
shouldn’t get any worse. I’m
half-tempted to smoke, just for something to do in the dark, but I’m not about
to break the doctor’s prohibition.



He looks so frail and fragile, bandages on his face and
around his stomach, shadows cast over his face marking his bone structure starkly,
almost barely seeming to breathe in the twilight; like something would break if
he were moved or touched wrong. It’s
almost hard to believe, seeing him like this, that he practically wiped out two
entire clans of youkai single-handedly; if I hadn’t seen that glimpse of
something in his eyes and aura last night, I might’ve questioned that this was
the man I was looking for, even with his own admission of guilt, much less that
he might have it in him to be more dangerous than I am. My worst record in one night so far is what,
fourteen? Probably more than that in
some of the tangles in the bad parts of the cities, but I didn’t have much
cause to stick around and keep count those nights.



Not like he seems inclined to do something like that
again, or Goku’d be dead now.1



Frail, fragile, vulnerable…definite danger to self,
possible danger to others; can’t walk on the rapids when the river thaws.



The temple can’t execute him, but the rate he’s going,
it’s not very likely he’ll live long after anyway; all I need to worry about is
my job here, getting him back to Chang’An in one piece.



Why do I always get the fucked up cases?



----------------------



The
first thing I’m aware of the next morning is being poked with a stick, a stick
that is very swiftly in pieces, and my own hissing growl.



“Good
morning! The doctor brought breakfast by
when he came in this morning, yours is right here, I finished off the stuff
from last night though, he was kinda afraid to wake you up for some reason so I
said I’d do it, not that I really blame him, that wrist trick stings and you’re
always so cranky when you wake up!”
Nobody should be allowed to be that cheerful in the morning. There’s coffee on the tray, however, and
that’s enough to prevent a murder.



There’s
light coming in from outside; probably well enough into the morning, but it’s
still before noon. Day
and a half…that gives us until sometime this afternoon most likely, early
evening maybe. Gojyo’s doubtless
going to be back to see us off before then, and that’ll be another opportunity
for him to change his mind about taking care of his ribs and try to follow us;
he’s just stupid enough to do it, too.



If I
have to put up with him for another day, I will kill him.



That
leaves the option of leaving town before Gojyo can catch us; but that’s
probably going to require moving Gonou before he’s awake somehow.



“Goku -
can you go find a merchant, or someone with a cart I can hire, who’s heading
out of town toward Chang’An and will get us partway out of town before Gonou
wakes up?”



“Is it
really OK to move him like that?”



“We
need to get him to Chang’An as soon as possible, and the longer we stay here,
the more likely something else will catch up chasing him.” Perfectly valid and accurate reasons, I’m
just leaving out the other, more ulterior motive.



“What
about Gojyo?” That look of unblinking
innocence, and just what I was trying to avoid.



“We’ll
fill him in later; he needs to heal.
It’s more important to get moving.”



Goku
nods and runs out to do that.



----------------------



I tell
the farmer that gave us a lift on the haycart to drop
us off by the side of the road when Gonou starts to stir; it’s at least a few
hours out of town, far enough that even if Gojyo’s found out we’re gone, we
have a head start on him. It’s a bright,
warm, sunny day, and as incongruous as the good weather is at a time like this,
at least it’ll make the trip easier.
Goku quickly finds various distractions while I just sit kneeling next
to Gonou, propped up against a tree by the roadside. The cuts around his eye are still
cringe-worthy, although they’re cleaned up, and the doctor had insisted that
the bandages not be on any longer than necessary - a risk of him going blind in
that eye if it’s not used while healing from that kind of trauma; of course,
it’s another injury that normal medicine and healing won’t deal with
properly.



He
moves, shifting against the tree, with a flicker under his eyelids; waking up.



“If you
ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll kill you.” I’ve got too many raw nerves right now to
care about the glaring fault in logic, threatening to kill someone for trying
to commit suicide.



He
opens his eyes, the right not quite tracking properly with the left, just
staring off into space, then closes them again, shaking slightly, with the
calm, gloomy look changing to one of utter suffering. I catch his chin, forcing him to look at me;
there’s nothing but cold, hopeless despair in his eyes or the aura that’s
gnawing up my hand, impossible to ignore from the contact. The injured right eye ticks off away from me
with red staining around the green, the left barely
seems to focus. He’s not walking for a
while yet. “You are going to lie there
and rest - my orders are to bring you back to the Temple of the Setting Sun
ALIVE, got that?”



He
pulls away, closing his eyes and looking away from me, the blank misery
actually deepening. I amend out the
“possible danger to others”; he doesn’t have the mental strength in him to be a
threat to anyone but himself right now, maybe not even that. Any punishment for his crimes seems more and
more like a redundancy; he’s self-destructing on his own, without any prodding
from anyone, the trial’s just going to be a formality.



I had
to finish the whiskey before we left and not replace it, didn’t I.



--------------------



--------------------



1 - Yes, he’s forgotten that Gonou didn’t know how to work a
revolver at the time. Don’t remind
him. He’ll just give you the Glare Of
Paint-Peeling.









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