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I do not own Saiyuki. I only wish I did.

Rated PG-13.

This is a stream of consciousness fic of Gojyo’s thoughts as the group sits and waits out the rain.

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Gojyo lit his cigarette and took a deep, relaxing drag. Rain poured down onto the tent they had hastily erected, falling in sheets off the sides and making the inside of the tent seem like it was completely cut off from the rest of the world. It was almost… intimate.

He grinned to himself, his mind lingering over some of the more provocative images that word evoked. He’d get himself shot well and good if he ever even breathed a word about those thoughts in front of the others, but he was a lustful creature and, while men weren’t normally his gig, he couldn’t help his brain’s knee-jerk reaction to anything even remotely suggestive.

He glanced at his companions… his friends, for lack of a better word. They weren’t really friends, though, were they? Friends didn’t shoot at other friends, after all, and Sanzo would have a fit if he were even to imply that they had some sort of bond. Hakkai didn’t mind being called his friend, but then again, Hakkai was a strange one. Goku would have scoffed at the very though of he and that ‘pervy kappa’ being buddies of any kind. And yet… these three very quirky, very different guys were the closest things to friends he’d ever had.

Most people would look at them and think they actually were friends, of a sort. But they knew better, didn’t they? It was more than that, more than friendship and closer to a form of love. They were brothers and they would be stuck with each other forever, whether they wanted to be or not. There was a strange sort of connection holding them together. He’d never felt anything like it before, but it was powerful and he bowed his head before it. The blood that tied them together may not have been their own, but it was potent nonetheless.

He chuckled softly, drawing Sanzo’s gaze for a brief moment. The priest looked at him from beneath those blond bangs with eyes the color of the brightest amethyst. They glittered at him in the near-darkness. Gojyo conjured up his most winsome, annoying smile and Sanzo snorted quietly and turned away to stare out at the rain once again.

Gojyo took a moment to examine their resident Mr. High Priest. He couldn’t see Sanzo’s eyes from this angle, but he knew what they looked like- cold, hard, measuring. They were the eyes of someone so supremely arrogant that he had no need for hiding his opinions. They were the eyes of someone who just didn’t care what other people thought of him. And right now, with the rain pouring down, those normally clear eyes were clouded with pain and doubt and memories. He had never bothered asking Sanzo what those memories were. He didn’t really care and it was none of his business anyway. But everyone could feel the tension in Old Baldy when the sky decided to fall on them like this and nobody wanted to disturb him when he was in this foul, pensive mood.

Yup, Sanzo’s face may have possessed an almost feminine fragility, but those eyes dispelled any notion of his weakness, even when he was like this. Not that those eyes were enough to scare people away at all. There was just something about the surly monk which drew people to him… some indefinable quality that Gojyo felt was sometimes almost tangible…

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Yeah, the priest had a powerful charisma, which even worked in the taming of small animals.

Gojyo glanced over to where Goku lay sprawled, the monkey already fast asleep and snoring. He wondered how the kid could sleep like that, like he didn’t have a care in the world. If it had been him who’d been caged up for 500 years, he would be having nightmares about now. But he’d always heard that children were resilient, so maybe that was the case. Or maybe it had to do with the presence of the monk. Goku always seemed most comfortable when Sanzo was near at hand. The priest’s presence was like a balm to the kid’s wounded psyche, and wherever Sanzo went, Goku’s smile was quick to follow.

He envied Goku that blind faith. Life would be so much easier if he could just believe that everything would be okay because someone said so. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that luxury. His innocence had been ripped away at too early an age, in too violent a manner, for him to be able to lie to himself that way. He knew what the darker side of people’s souls could hide, knew all about the lies and betrayals people were capable of. He couldn’t find it in himself to hold that kind of faith in anyone anymore. Not anymore.

But Goku could, and that was a refreshing change for someone as jaded as Gojyo knew he was. Of course, he couldn’t help but pick on the little chimp. It was too much a temptation for his sense of irony, and he’s never been very good at resisting temptation. It was almost a kind of therapy for him, arguing with that idiot monkey. It let him vent his deeper, darker frustrations and insecurities in a safer way. The kid kept him grounded. It was like looking at himself from a time he thought he’d already long forgotten. It made him remember who he was, who he had been and who he hoped one day to be.

In fact, it was a sign of Goku’s complete inexperience in relationships that he hadn’t already recognized the glaring fact of Gojyo’s feelings for him. How could anyone not know by now that he thought of that walking stomach as a brother?

Gojyo smiled again, this time a little ruefully. He was uncomfortable aware of the fact that he wouldn’t make a very good older brother. He was much too selfish a person for that. He liked his life uncomplicated. Smokes, liquor and women, not necessarily in that order, were all he really needed for happiness, and that wasn’t the type of person one would want for an older sibling. Maybe it was better this way, with the monkey thinking of him as just another guy. Yeah, maybe it was for the best.

He took another drag and gazed at Hakkai this time, the smoke obscuring his vision for just a moment and making Hakkai’s face seem to loom out at him through a swirling mist. His eyes were closed, head resting against a makeshift pillow. Gojyo’s mood took a definite downward turn as he considered the man lying there so seemingly peacefully.

Hakkai was probably the closest friend he’d ever had. His calm, gentle manner was the perfect foil to Gojyo’s own brand of outrageousness. He was the soul of their little group, the heart that beat in each of their chests. His kindness soothed them and his smile disarmed even the worst of enemies. Arguments could be forgotten within the span of a heartbeat when Hakkai got involved; though whether that was due to his gentle prodding or his wry humor was hard to tell. Ironic, wasn’t it, that the one of them with the most blood on his hands would be the most moral of the bunch?

Gojyo remembered the night he found Hakkai dying on the ground very well, and he had made an oath to himself that he would never let it come to that again. Not if he could help it. Hakkai always took too much pain and responsibility onto his own shoulders. Gojyo wanted to help remove some of that weight from him. After all, that was the least he could do for the man who was helping him come to grips with his own tortured heritage. Hakkai may not have known it, but he was already becoming somewhat of a savior himself, and if Gojyo could provide to him even a fraction of what he’d already received, he would die a very happy man.

Happiness… would any of them ever truly find it? Could Hakkai come to terms with his past and let go of Kanan? Would he one day be able to look at Gojyo with eyes that were clear of self-judgment? Would those emerald eyes of Hakkai’s one day sparkle with the joy that Gojyo knew they had once possessed? Would he ever be able to see that?

He wanted to. Before he died, he wanted to see Hakkai truly smile. Not those small, fake smiles he was so good at granting to everyone, but an honest to goodness grin filled with laughter and sunlight. Gojyo wondered sometimes if Hakkai even knew he was smiling anymore, or if the act had become so automatic that it no longer even registered on his senses. Was it so ingrained that he just didn’t notice it anymore? Hakkai’s smiles now were mere camouflage, much like Sanzo’s haughty superiority and Gojyo’s own reckless attitude. Was it just another defense now? When had it stopped being a real attempt to be happy?

When had Hakkai stopped trying? That was what scared Gojyo more than anything, and he had to admit that he was truly scared by it. Hakkai was his other half, the yin to his yang, and somewhere along the line while nobody was looking, Hakkai had stopped trying to make that smile real. Now smiling was just what he did, whether he was delivering good news or bad. It was eerie and never failed to give Gojyo the chills. Hakkai would have that smile on his face even if the sky were falling on their heads, raining fire around them.

There was nothing he could do, though. There was no way for him to make Hakkai ‘better’. It was something his brother would have to face on his own when the time came, but Gojyo was determined that if Hakkai ever needed his support, he would be there. No questions asked. He owed him that much, at least.

He sighed and turned to look out at the rain, unconsciously mimicking Sanzo’s pose. And they sat that way long into the night, smoking and waiting for the sun to rise on them all and take their unshed tears away.