I hurt. In fact, I'm hurting in muscles and organs I didn't know I had...or ever wanted to know I had. The last few months have spoilt me - not that I'm admitting that out loud. Youkai with more muscle than brain and Hakkai always there to patch me up if I got careless. And the monkey and his monk to cover for me when I did.

...There's a huge part of my mind that doesn't even want to think that.

It's not going be my night. There's nothing to do, nothing to distract me. Only Hakkai's light breathing - I swear he's even polite and considerate when he's unconcious! - and the barely-there rasping from the monk. Gods only know where the monkey's gone off to. Little shit barely hung around long enough to let the doc patch him up. He even left his shirt.

Damn but I wish he'd stuck around. I could have left him to keep an eye on the monk - kid's got a fucking gift for knowing when the bald bastard is in trouble. They're the oddest couple (Apart from me'n'Hakkai) that I've ever known. The monkey's pretty straightforward - give 'im food, Sanzo and fights and he's happy. Never figured out what it is that keeps the monkey around. It's not like Sanzo-sama's all sunlight and giggles.

Still, while he doesn't ever lower himself to - I dunno - 'acting like a human being', there's something different about the way he reacts to Goku. He's not actually nice or anything (sometimes I think the world'd blow up if he let himself smile). I mean he whacks the shit out of us both on an almost daily basis, he's got a mouth that would put a lifetime criminal to shame and he's driven us towards India with a single-mindedness that's terrifying in it's intensity. But he's never backed down, never wavered, never looked away from what he wants.

Not like me. I've managed fairly well but each day's a new challenge. I live for the moment. No attachments, no expectations. Take Jien or Dou-whatever-it-is-he's-calling-himself-now, my brother. Or my surrogate father/childhood friend. I never really admitted it but he was the biggest influence on me when I was younger.

He did what he needed to do. What he needed to survive. Killing his mother, sure it saved my life but it saved her too. She'd never been happy, never content. Bad enough that Daddy-dearest screwed anything with a pulse but when he brought me back and vanished off into the wilderness again. I wonder, when she screamed she hated me, was it because she resented my mother or because my father never came home?

But once it was done, once she was dead and I was dropped off at the local doctor's clinic with the bill prepaid, Jien just...left. Now, I'm not knocking his decision. He's not a bad guy. In fact, he's turned out really well considering the shit he went through but his actions left a helluva big impression on me. Waking up in a bare room, with strangers all around you, can have a fucking bad effect on a kid.

Lesson learnt; Don't rely on people.

I've been lucky. Got my health, got my lady-killing good looks, got my strength and got brains. I learnt to gamble, learnt to steal and even learnt a bit of carpentry and home improvement shit. ...don't tell Hakkai that. He's convinced I can't do anything for myself, never mind that I managed for twenty years before he came along. It was a...n acceptable lifestyle. I didn't starve, I didn't freeze and I didn't care that much about anything.

A girl turns me down; plenty more fishes in the sea. A bad night at the poker table; there's always tomorrow. Some punk trashed my current home; no problem, I'll just move on.

Growing up on the streets strips your illusions away pretty damn fast. By the time I was sixteen, I trusted no-one but myself. People were divided into two groups - the ones who'd use me and the ones I could use. I learnt to tell which was which. The users were always easiest to spot - they'd look at you and you'd see the smile that said 'kid', 'brat', 'tramp' or simply 'prey'. It was harder to learn how to get the fuck away from them.

Then one rainy night, I picked up a stray and everything changed-

Shit! Sanzo's moving again. Long arms thrash and he cries out. Not screaming, not wailing just this guttural howling that sends shivers down my spine. I lunge up, ignoring the flash of pain that races along freshly-scabbed injuries and try to pin him to the bed. He struggles wildly but ineffectively - never thought I'd be wishing for Sanzo to punch me into a wall.

The cries sound almost animalistic - sorta like Goku does when he'd having one of those really bad nightmares. The ones only Sanzo can coax him out of. I hiss a string of curses, wishing the monkey would get his ass back here. If Sanzo's this fucked up, then there's something really wrong.

Mid-thrash, Sanzo freezes and goes limp, like someone knocked him out. I stay where I am for a minute, feeling the rapid heartbeat against my chest, before sliding back down the floor and leaning to look through to Hakkai's room. He's still asleep.

I wish he wasn't.

I wish he would open his eyes. I wish he'd look at me with that fond exasperation. I wish he'd tut and sigh and just fix everything. I wish he'd wake up. I wish he'd come and fix Sanzo.

I hate to see the monk like this. I'm not used to it. Normally when he gets hurt, it's Goku or Hakkai who look after him until he's on his feet again. It's one of those things that gets decided in the gaps of conversations, without anyone saying a word. I wonder if Hakkai knows why I don't want to watch Sanzo fight for his life.

I hated him on sight. So confident, so relentless, so beautiful and so goddamn determined. I knew he'd find Hakkai but I tried to chase him off anyway. I needed to; not for Hakkai's sake but for mine. I needed to prove he was just like everyone else I'd ever met. Cocky, cruel and weak. I hated him for being different. I hated him for not being broken, for not having a crack I could use to exploit. I hated him when he turned away, hated him for not thinking me good enough to use.

It wasn't 'til later on that I learnt Sanzo doesn't use people. He doesn't let himself be used either. He was the first person to challenge my picture of how people worked. Sanzo never needed or wanted help. If he couldn't do it the first time, he went at it again and again until it was done. He never let anything or anyone slow him down. He was fiercely and unrepentantly independant. He never made excuses, never pretended to be anything but what he was. He was everything I wanted to be and I hated him for it.

I never thought about what in his past made him so determined never to need anyone. I never thought about the things that drove him on towards some impossible perfection. I never thought about what sort of hell he had to go through to be that hard. I probably never would have if it wasn't for Hakkai.

He was the one who saw something in those cold eyes - damned if I know what. He was the one who persisted, despite threats, insults and on one memorable occaision gunshots, in trying to reach out to Sanzo. He was the first one to call Sanzo a friend. He'd spend hours talking with Sanzo over anything and everything; helping out with Goku and offering his perspective on the stuff Sanzo had to do.

I learnt all about Sanzo from Hakkai. He'd come back from the Temple and tell about what he'd done there. His suggestions on the hows and whys of Sanzo's life drove me mad at first but then when we started to spend more and more time with the monk and monkey, I started to see it for myself.

Sure Sanzo's strong. Physically and mentally, he's the strongest human I know. But it wasn't until his freaky friend showed up that we had it brought home to us that Sanzo wasn't invincible. Even so, as soon as he could stand, he was off after the freak and he got him. All by himself. Then came stalking out of the woods and dozed in the Jeep like nothing'd happened.

I've seen him injured before. Hell, I've seen him dying before but right up to that second when that fucking asswipe of a smug bastard stripped off the sutra, I'd never seen him beaten. Even when he couldn't stand, he'd be watching, waiting for a chance to fight back. He says he'd spit in the Buddha's eye if he had to and I believe him.

He's the one who's led the way west. He's the one that never quits, never throws in his hand. He fights dirty when he has to. He's cruel. He's demanding but he never asks anything from us that he would do. He's the one that holds us together for all his bitching about how he doesn't want us here. He's the one who keeps us going, no matter what.

I look over my shoulder at that pale, pained face and I make a promise. If-if he doesn't make it, we'll go back anyway and we'll use Kamisama's bones for the funeral pyre.

It's bullshit and I know it. If Sanzo dies, the monkey'll loose it and I doubt even the gods'd get that thing back on his head. Hakkai'll loose it one of two ways. He might join in Goku's rampage or he might just slip away into that blank, broody despair. And me? I don't know what I'll do.

Damn fucking monk. You come blazing into my life, rip me outa my nice comfy rut and show me this fucking magnificent life. You don't get to just die and run out on me. You die and...and I'll find you and I'll drag your ass back just so I can kill you myself!

I'm angry - no, I'm fucking pissed - right up until I turn to glare at him.

He's stirring restlessly, brows drawing together in pain both real and remembered. His hands are starting to twitch and a strangled moan slips through clenched teeth. This isn't natural. I wonder. I've seen him and Goku in action, seen the way they have a whole conversation just by trading casual glances. There's a link there and I'm betting whatever the hell the monkey's doing is adding to the hell Sanzo's going through.

I do my best, but there's nothing I can do. They came back for me - even Sanzo did - and I nearly got them killed. There's nothing I can do but sit and watch Sanzo fight for his life. I haven't felt so helpless since that day Mother found the axe. I twine my fingers together and bow my head.

I've never prayed before. The gods never listened so I never asked. Not when Mom beat me senseless. Not when Jien didn't come home. Not when we were lost in the fog. Not when I got beaten up. Not when Hakkai nearly died in my bed. Not when we fought youkai. Not when we fought Kougaji.

I hope someone up there's listening 'cause I'm asking now.

"Please..."