FicWad

In nearly every way that counts Goku feels completely different from the starving kid Sanzo found in a cave five hundred years ago, but he still feels stupidly giddy when he sees those familiar eyes give him a surprised and mildly irritated glance. He feels even giddier when she kicks the legs of the chair next to her, pushing it out for him to sit.
Goku plops down close enough to almost touch her knee with his, and grins at everyone at the table. All three of them, right here at the same table with him. Shelly actually looks almost happy to see him.

Kubota, though, he looks back at Goku directly when their eyes meet. He's unsmiling, not wearing much expression at all until you look down at his hand where his fingers lace tightly in between the gloved fingers of the boy next to him and the knuckles whiten are the edges. The boy, who has a name that Goku has to learn before he falls into the trap of calling him Gojyo, has very dark blue eyes and looks poised on the point of fight or flight, like something is communicating to him from Kubota through their joined hands. Then his eyes meet Goku's and go wide, as if he's not sure what he's seeing.

"Hey," he says quickly, leaning forward, elbows splayed on the table as far as they go without letting go of Kubota. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Goku knows for absolute certain he's only met this boy once in his lifetime and he was conscious then, but the hopeful, curious expression makes Goku feel almost hopeful himself. Hakkai and Sanzo don't seem to remember a thing, but maybe, maybe Gojyo might?

"Where do you think you know me from?" Goku asks carefully.

"If I knew that I wouldn't be asking you, would I?" the guy says, intonation rising with every word. "What the hell is this, a question game? Why won't you just tell me?"

"He doesn't know anything, Tokitoh." And that's Kubota, neutral and level as always, but the anger he seems to keep just under the surface sounds much closer then Goku needs to hear it. At least now the boy has a name. Tokitoh. Goku repeated it silently, attaching it to those wide, not quite familiar eyes. "He was there on the day you and I met. That's all."

"Well, why doesn't he say so himself?" Tokitoh spits out, turning a vicious glare on Kubota, though his fingers don't even twitch in Kubota's grip. "Or doesn't he speak Japanese either?" Goku can't help but stare at their joined hands and wonder. Gojyo and Hakkai. Huh.

"Of course I do and it's true. I've never seen you in your life before that day. Or after until today," Goku says as honestly as he can and wonders when he took up telling idiotic half-truths, anyway. Probably about the time they started locking people in mental hospitals for talking too much about things no one believed in. Kubota giving him that weird 'I'm thinking about killing you now but it's not worth the effort to be rude about it' face doesn't help. It just makes Goku really, really want his Hakkai back the way he used to be, where if he thought about killing people those people weren't Goku.

"What does that even mean?" Tokitoh demands, and obviously stupid half truths don't really work on him.

"It means he doesn't know anything about you or WA," Kubota says, still giving Goku a look that makes Goku wonder what it was he actually did. "He just has a way of turning up at meaningful times." Kubota smiles, eyes crinkling, lips stretching over teeth and gives a very polite little nod. "Or isn't that so?"

"Uh," Goku blinks and back slowly against his chair. He can feel Shelly's soft, in drawn breath next to him and wonders if she can tell about Kubota too.

"Right," she says suddenly, pushing to her feet. "I don't know what the fuck you procession of idiots are talking about and I could actually give a shit. My day has been as bad as I need it to get already so I'm going home to find a goddamned shower. And if anyone bothers me without a really, really damn good reason- like the fucking apocalypse- They'll wish they hadn't."

With that she grabs the bag by her chair, pulls out a few bills and drops them on the table before marching out of the restaurant, head held high. All three of them stare after her for a very long moment.

"Hey," Tokitoh's voice breaks through the silence. "How come no one ever wants to tell me what she's talking about? I want to know!"

Kubota shrugs and his expression shifts away from the frightening side of mild and he smiles at Tokitoh. "She was just sharing some useful advice with us. About getting home and showering. What do you say?"

Tokitoh looks like he's going to grumble for about five seconds before he shrugs and starts shouting for the waiter to come and wrap his noodles for him. Goku knows without having to ask that this conversation is entirely over. No spilled blood, no violence of any kind, and by the looks of the table only two packs of cigarettes and a six pack have been consumed all around. Goku figures it went pretty well.

**

Not long afterwards Goku fishes Shelly's address out of his pocket, deciding she might not mind seeing him again. He finds sunflowers at a corner store on Shelly's block and buys a bunch wrapped in bright yellow paper. He likes the idea of her face when she sees them. Maybe she'll get mad and whack him over the head with them but maybe she won't. It will be worth it either way.

When he knocks on her door, no one answers, so he knocks louder until a loud, "Yeah, what?" echoes out from the apartment.

"It's me Goku!" he yells back. For a long moment he wonders if he ought to yell again but then he hears the sound of deadlocks being unbolted and the door squeaks open. Shelly looks freshly scrubbed in a loose shirt and jeans; her damp hair is tugged back into a ponytail. She looks him up and down from head to flowers and then to feet, with almost no reaction before she takes a step back and leaves just enough room for him to come in.

"Hey," she says, taking the flowers from him with one hand when he holds them out. "I was hoping you'd get hit by a taxi and it would put your ass out of commission long enough for me to get some sleep. No, huh?"

Goku smiles. "No. Do you like them? I got them for you."

"Whatever. It was a waste of your time buying them, but at least it distracted you long enough to give me a chance for a shower." Shelly stares down at the flowers and makes a face, but she gestures for him to follow her toward the kitchen where digs up a pitcher to serve as a makeshift vase to put them in.

"I'm glad you like them," Goku says happily, hopping over to smell them after she puts them in the corner of her desk, right by a window in the tiny living room.

"Whatever. Sure," she says. "So, why are you here?"

Shelly has her arms wrapped around her chest as she speaks and the expression on her face makes Goku want to flinch and smile like an idiot all at the same time. That's a fan wielding expression right there. He's annoyed her. All is right with the world.

"I just came to see you," he says, because it's true. Really, there isn't anything more to it. He could say he wanted to make sure she was okay, but he had no doubts that Sanzo could take care of herself.

"Sure," she mutters. She looks down at the flowers and then back at him, like she's working out some kind of problem. "That's what you want. To see me."

"Is this how you usually operate?" she asks icily, after a brief pause in which Goku doesn't say anything. A restless fingertip taps against the button of her jeans and she's staring him down like he's a challenge. "Because I don't have the time or interest for playing these kinds of games."

Goku shakes his head, still grinning. Her eyes are impossibly blue and frozen and seem to go on forever. He wonders if he'll ever be tired of just looking at them. "No. No problem. I mean it I'm just happy to see you, that's all. It's not a game."

"Ah, so I see," she says, with a foreshortened glare, followed by another very strange, speculative stare from head to toe, as if assessing something. "You don't have any trouble looking. Was there something else you wanted to see?" Goku can't remember seeing that expression at all, at least not from Sanzo. It's almost like a youkai wondering if someone will taste good, but not really even that. It makes him turn just slightly pink without understanding why.

"Um- Shelly-" Goku's starting to get a glimmer of an idea of where this conversation is going and something weird and raw flutters in his stomach. She looks so strange, hungry and angry and upset all at once and Goku can't think of a good way to make it better when he isn't even sure what's wrong.

"Huh. Yeah, that's my name," she says and takes a step closer. "Well, since you seem so interested I think we should just get it out of the way, don't you?"

Shelly's still not smiling; in fact she looks like she ought to be carrying a gun. "Relax, I'll let you see what you wanna see and it'll calm you down and then you can stop acting like an idiot over nothing."

And then Goku realizes that her hand was resting on her jeans for a reason, because about two seconds later the jeans are in a puddle on the floor and she's unbuttoning her shirt. And. Goku can't find his jaw. He thinks he dropped it.

"Um. Um. Um." He blinks and between blinks her shirt is unbuttoned and he's looking at breasts. Naked breasts. Round and high and soft looking breasts with tendrils of golden hair brushing over pink nipples. Breasts like that.

"Sanzo?" he squeaks.

Shelly actually laughs, and slides the loose white shirt off her shoulders. Even laughing, even like this, she still looks angry and upset. As if she weren't standing in nothing but a pair of white boxers and bare feet. "That's the weirdest mispronunciation of my name I've heard yet. You had it down better than that just a minute ago."

"Um. Sorry." Got to stop staring, but it feels like his eyes are glued on. Her face. She's laughing and it isn't a nice laugh, but he doesn't think it's aimed at him. She's beautiful.

"Come here," she says, offering a beckoning hand to him, fingertips curled inwards. Close enough for him to reach out and take without stretching. "This is what you want, isn't it?"

Goku feels the heat on his cheeks, bright, bright red. "Erm. Uh. Idunnoyourfreakingmeoutpleasestop," he mumbles. He's holding her shirt. How did he end up holding her shirt? His fingers are clenched in the thin fabric, too hard, and he can't look at her anymore. Pretty as the sun under a blue, blue sky and pale as ivory and all, all wrong.

"No?" she says, but he's staring at her shirt. Staring, staring so he doesn't even notice how close she is until her fingertips are lifting his chin and he has to look into her blue eyes and see the questions reflected there. He gulps to keep from saying something he shouldn't, or maybe drooling. Either one. "Why not?"

"Um. Well you see-" Why not, why not, why not? The question might be answerable if it made any sense to begin with. Shelly's still looking him up and down and making him look at her.

"You're kind of weird. Are you a virgin?" she says slowly, thoughtfully, like she's just pulled the idea from thin air and Goku bites back the urge to ask her why she would think that. Is he acting like a virgin?

She's so close and there are breasts right next to his cheek. And smooth, fair, fair hair. And he's looking into her angry, tired eyes and he realizes that something here is completely not fair, even if he doesn't know what. "Um. Please not now. Please put your shirt back on?"

For a moment nothing happens at all, like time's gone sticky and painful and this awkwardness will go on forever. Then Shelly shrugs, her face gone completely still and closed. Goku has absolutely no idea what she's thinking because nothing Sanzo ever did came close. Sanzo would never have done this to calm him down or whatever other reason she has. Goku can't help but feel like he's done something really, really wrong to get here in the first place if he only knew what.

"Okay," she finally says and lets go of his chin. "Whatever. If you don't want to you can just say so. It's not like I really wanted to anyway." Not only is he not holding her shirt anymore, now she's buttoning it up again with swift, pale fingers. "I just want you to quit bugging me. Got it?"

"Wait I-"

"Got it?" she says in a tone like grinding rocks. He's never seen anyone get dressed that quickly. "Don't fuck with me."

"I'm not. I-" Goku's over his head so far and drowning in mud and knows it, but not how to fix it. This was not how it was supposed to happen. It was just, yelling and then, wham, breasts, and her eyes and his head's spinning and oh, man he fucked up.

"Just shut up and don't do it again."

Goku doesn't have a chance to say anything before she walks out of the room with fast but steady, evenly paced steps, managing to abandon him completely. Really tricky in a way since it's a tiny apartment. And frankly, it's her tiny apartment. Goku almost wants to cry like a little kid, wondering if there's anything he can possibly do to fix any of this. He doesn't know, but he's still here so he has to do something. He trails after her and stops by the slammed bedroom door, waiting a few breaths before calling out to her.

"Shelly! I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry," he says, and hopes he sounds as sorry and confused as he feels. "If you want I-"

"Just shut the fuck up!" a voice screams from the bedroom. Goku blinks when he realizes she sounds more pissed off then upset. "I've had a long night and I'm going to sleep. You can do whatever you want as long as you leave me alone for the next eight hours."

Goku stares at the closed door for an endless moment, just contemplating the doorknob. He feels slow and lost in a sea of muck, so it takes him at least that long to realize that he hasn't actually been ordered out of the apartment. In fact, that she seems to assume he plans to stay.

"Score," he mutters under his breath, and then he grins and settles in to wait on the comfy looking sofa, turning the television on low.