FicWad

COUNTERPARTS- PART II

Armor and Sword – Rush – Peart, Lifeson, and Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDejLrzSPHA

The snakes and arrows a child is heir to
Are enough to leave a thousand cuts
We build our defenses, a place of safety
And leave the darker places unexplored

Sometimes the fortress is too strong
Or the love is too weak
What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and angry sword

Our better natures seek elevation
A refuge for the coming night
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

We hold beliefs as a consolation
A way to take us out of ourselves
Meditation, or medication
A comfort, or a promised reward

Sometimes that spirit is too strong
Or the flesh is too weak
Sometimes the need is just too great
For the solace we seek
The suit of shining armor
Becomes a keen and bloody sword

A refuge for the coming night
A future of eternal light
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

Confused alarms of struggle and flight
Blood is drained of color
By the flashes of artillery light
No one gets to their heaven without a fight
The battle flags are flown
At the feet of a god unknown
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

Sometimes the damage is too great
Or the will is too weak

What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and burning sword
What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and bloody sword
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

A refuge for the coming night
A future of eternal light
No one gets into heaven without a fight
No one…





Chapter 6

Sanzo and Hakkai did their best to keep up a façade of normalcy when in the room with Gojyo. They would talk to him as if he was awake, tell him of events in the news, any funny stories they had heard, even share any gossip they had heard in the village – anything to keep the chatter going.

Hakkai started doing some basic physical therapy with Gojyo’s lifeless form so that his muscles would not atrophy completely, and tried his best to teach Sanzo how to do it as well. It was painful for Sanzo to see Gojyo’s beautiful muscles wasting away, and his wonderful tanned skin turning pale and wan. He wondered if he would ever again see the kappa alive and vibrant as he had once been, and he tried not to think too much about the future or the past, because both tormented him.

While Gojyo’s wound in his abdomen was healing nicely, there didn’t appear to be any progress at all with the head injury. He was breathing on his own, and he could swallow, barely, if liquids were trickled down his throat, but that was about it. There was no voluntary movement, and little or no response to sound or light or even pain if Hakkai stuck him lightly with a pin or scratched his bare foot with a fingernail. Everytime Sanzo saw Hakkai do that test he remembered how exquisitely sensitive the kappa’s feet had been, and how he used to beg Sanzo to rub them for him after long days of walking, and how he would moan deeply on the very rare occasions when Sanzo caved in. Sanzo would have given anything to see the happy sated look in that Gojyo got in his eyes when Sanzo simply put lotion on his bare feet and massaged them for him. Gods, the man was so easy to make happy – why hadn’t he done it more often? Fuck knows, all the kappa ever wanted was to make him happy… all he ever cared about was to try to make Sanzo love him…

Sanzo was sitting alone in the room with Gojyo, resting in the windowseat that paralleled the bed where the kappa lay so deathly still. He looked down at his friend, his partner, and remembered more of the times they had spent together. Times that seemed so taken for granted now that Gojyo was ill, so foolishly squandered now that Gojyo might die…

Might die. Might. Die. Sanzo said it slowly to himself and tried to wrap his mind around the reality of it, the absolute hugeness of it. As a Buddhist he knew he was supposed to be philosophical about death, that it was all part of the great wheel of karma. He realized he was supposed to be sure that Gojyo would depart this life and move on to another one in some form, but goddammit, none of that would keep him warm in bed on a long rainy night. It wouldn’t fill the empty seat in jippu, or the hollow silences in conversations that were inevitable when Gojyo wasn’t there. It would not repair how boring life in this world became without the kappa’s omnipresent jokes and laughter.

He tried to imagine life without Gojyo in it, without the constant irritation and embarrassment of his constant flirtations. Would he really miss the riskiness of the illicit relationship that he had insisted on hiding from everyone, even within their own group? Couldn’t he really live without the strain of having to constantly keep the kappa at arms’ length, and having to constantly discourage him from getting too serious? Come on now, life would be so much simpler without Gojyo in it, wouldn’t it?

But it would be so… empty. Sanzo looked out the window and tried to picture his life without Gojyo’s infectious smile, his teasing voice, his sense of edgy mischief and his constant outrageous ribaldry. He had this vivid pervasive image of a bright light simply going out, leaving only a dark hollow cold in its absence. He feared that his life would again be a sad hollow sham, hurled back into stark black and white after having been, for a short while thanks to the redhead, in glorious Technicolor. The memories he had of his life before Gojyo were small flat two-dimensional ones, but as he looked at his times with Gojyo, he was forced to admit that life with the kappa in it was always a colorful larger-than-life three-dimensional extravaganza.

He knew that one of the reasons he had resented the hanyou was because he had always challenged him and pushed him, but he also knew now that in doing so he made his life so much more interesting and fun. As he looked at Gojyo in the bed now so pale and lifeless, it seemed to Sanzo to be the ultimate cruel joke, that the man that had brought so much energy and passion into his life should be lying there so very cold and still. He banged his head cruelly against the window frame as if to jar all the memories loose. He heaved a deep sigh as he settled back into the corner of the window seat and stared out into the empty night.

He remembered with a pang of irony how it was Gojyo’s lion heart, his natural drive to protect those he loved, that had indirectly brought Sanzo to his bed the first time they had spent the night together. Gods, what a night that had been…

It had been raining, and they were in the middle of Bumfucked, Nowhere, without so much as a tiny village in sight. They finally gave up on torturing both themselves and poor Hakuryu in the late afternoon and stopped in an area where Hakkai’s maps showed some decent-sized caves not too far from the road. They gathered their gear and followed a trail that looked likely, figuring the further they got from the road, the safer they would be from youkai attacks when they settled in for the night. The forest was dense, the trail narrow, and the drizzle steady and cold. By the time they made it to an area that looked suitable for camping for the night, everyone but Goku was in a thoroughly wretched mood - even Hakkai’s normally cheerful veneer was beginning to wear thin.

“Gojyo, would you please get some firewood while I set up the tents? Goku, check out that stream and please try to get us some fish for dinner. Sanzo will you check out that cave please?” Although he still managed to include a ‘please’ in each command, he was starting to sound more than a bit shrill.

“Look asshole, don’t you yell at me,” Sanzo snapped back.

“Hey, guys…” Goku tried helplessly to mediate.

“Shut-up, monkey!” Sanzo barked, ”you heard the man. Fish! Now!”

“But Sanzo…”

“Don’t make me get my gun wet!”

“Ok. Ok….,” the chastened bakasaru scampered off before things got any worse.

“Look, Sanzo, he was just trying to…..” Gojyo tried to placate the sullen monk.

“I’ll shoot you twice as fast, cockroach,” he menaced, cutting him off.

“You can be a real prick, you know that?” Gojyo muttered as he stomped off to look for wood.

Hakkai had watched the whole scene in dismay, feeling somewhat responsible, but he had sunk too far in his own wretched mood to intervene at that moment. Hakuryu sensed his master’s discomfort and curled his long damp neck around Hakkai’s and kyuu’d as soothingly as he could. Hakkai absent-mindedly scratched the little dragon on his head as he squared his shoulders and set to his work arranging the campsite, doing his best to put his gloom behind him for the time being.

“Just what exactly is it I’m supposed to be looking for, Hakkai?” Sanzo growled.

“Look, Sanzo,” Hakkai said in as level a tone as he could manage, “ I know the rain puts you in a negative frame of mind. It does the same to me. Judging from the sky it looks like it may be letting up soon. But a little extra shelter against the cold for tonight would be prudent, I think. Since this cave looks rather large, judging from the entrance, I’m simply wondering if there is enough flat space in there to set up the two tents, and then we can put a fire at the entrance. That’s all I need from you. Here is the lantern.”

“Whatever.”

Sanzo seemed unmoved from his mood by Hakkai’s plea for moderation. He stood in the shelter of the entrance of the cave and lit a cigarette, took the lantern from Hakkai, and set off wordlessly.

Within two or three hours, despite sullen moods and uncooperative weather, circumstances were improving for the little group of travelers. The four men were sitting around a warm fire at the entrance to the cave, slowly drying themselves out. Their tents were set up, cushioned nicely underneath by the soft dirt floor of the cave. Their stomachs were full of roasted freshwater trout Goku had caught, a delicious vegetable ramen Hakkai had cooked in a pot over the fire, and two-thirds of a bottle of sake Hakkai had retrieved from the provisions. Despite all of this and the fact that the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, the moods of most the Sanzo-ikkou were still sober.

The persistent silence grated on Goku like chalk skittering on a blackboard, and he fidgeted where he sat until he could take it no more. “Hey, Sanzo, you think we’ll run across Homura any more now?” he queried brightly.

“Monkey, … just …be… quiet.” the houshi spat between clenched teeth.

“I just wanna kick his ass so bad!” Goku continued. It was hard to tell if he was really that oblivious, or if he was deliberately ignoring Sanzo at his own risk just to liven up the atmosphere around the campfire.

“We all know you do, bakasaru, just chill for a while right now, ok?” Gokyo said, ruffling the monkey’s hair lovingly.

Gojyo split the remainder of the sake between himself and his friends, hoping that it might help to mellow their moods a bit.

“And just who asked for your fucking opinion, cockroach?”

“Jeez, Sanzo, just lighten up, forgoddsake! I know you feel like shit, but you don’t have to take it out on the kid all the fucking time!”

Gojyo surmised that Sanzo must have neither the gun nor the fan of doom on his person, or they would have materialized by now.

“Tch. And since when was that any of your goddamn business?” Sanzo sneered menacingly. He cursed himself for having left the fan and gun in his tent when he changed out of his damp robes.

“Since I care about the kid, that’s when,” Gojyo responded, his voice beginning to rise in anger.

“It’s ok, Gojyo, I’m used to it, really I…”

“Bullshit! You shouldn’t have to be used to it! OK, so he’s supposed to be in charge of you. That doesn’t give him the right to beat up on you all the fucking time.”

Gojyo was really getting angry now, standing and glaring daggers at Sanzo across the fire.

“Just shut the fuck up moron. You have no idea..”

Sanzo glared darkly up at Gojyo. Damn and fuck, but he would kill to have the gun in his hands right now. Never again would he make this mistake.

“Fuck you!” Gojyo snapped, cutting him off. “ We all see it and nobody ever says a damn thing about it. Well, I’m goddamn tired of it…”

Sanzo stood up now and stared back at him with his characteristic ‘fuck-but-you’re-boring’ look and the one raised eyebrow.

“Now Gojyo, I think that’s really between Sanzo and Goku, and…” Hakkai said, feeling he had to at least attempt his usual peacemaking role.

“Shut up Hakkai!” Gojyo exploded, stalking over in two long strides to stand eye-to-eye with the priest.

“I spent my whole goddamn shitty childhood getting the crap beat out of me by someone who was supposed to love me. And I know how bad it fucked me up,” he was breathing heavily now, his face nearly the color of his eyes and hair.

“Get out of my face you, fucking moron, before I do get the gun. I’m in no mood for your shit.”

Sanzo bit the words out in a sharp tone of just barely-restrained fury. He stood stock still, his eyes narrowed and blazing directly into Gojyo’s. The kappa knew it was only because the gun wasn’t in his pocket that Sanzo was not brandishing it already, but he didn’t care, in fact it egged him on.

“You can just go straight to hell, Sanzo. I’m not gonna stand by and see the same bullshit that happened to me happen to him,” he ranted, waving wildly at Goku, “ not if I can stop it. If Jien hadn’t been there to fucking stick up for me, I don’t know what the hell would have happened to me.”

“Really, Gojyo, I don’t think the two situations really bear comparison…” Hakkai said, also standing now as he again tried to smooth the troubled waters, but was roundly ignored by both parties.

“The hell they don’t, and you know it, Hakkai. You’re just too scared of his goddamn assholiness here to admit it,” Gojyo said accusingly.

Hakkai blanched at this anger coming from Gojyo. It was extremely rare for the two of them to have any kind of disagreement, and he couldn’t remember the last time – if ever – that his friend had said anything that critical of him.

The fire crackled as Gojyo and Sanzo glared furiously at each other for a moment, locked crimson to violet in an intense struggle of wills. Sanzo raised his eyebrow and gave one of his typical ‘fuck-you-all,’ bone-dry, “Tch” sounds, and that was the last straw, that was all it took to push Gojyo over the edge.

With lightening speed and demon strength he grabbed Sanzo by collar of his shirt and wrenched it so hard with his large strong hands that the monk’s feet were lifted completely off the ground. Sanzo tried hard to maintain his blasé expression, and debated with himself whether or not to struggle when he was clearly physically outclassed when it came to physical strength. Failing that he cast about in his mind for the quickest and best way to try to out-psych the enraged redhead. His heart hammered in his chest as he and Gojyo stared in each other’s eyes, and he cursed himself again for having left the gun in his tent.

Goku and Hakkai were both standing appalled, both looking more than a little panicked, and Goku’s eyes were shining with the beginnings of puzzled frightened tears. He knew Gojyo would really never hurt Sanzo, and he hated like hell to see these two men he loved more than anything going at each other like this, especially over him. Gojyo’s eyes were wild and he was practically panting now, and he looked as close to an uncontrolled wild youkai as either Hakkai or Sanzo had ever seen him look. He was truly lost in a red rage.

“Now look here, you asswipe egotistical screwed-up fucking uptight sorry-ass excuse for a priest: for some reason – and it is beyond me- that boy loves you. He thinks you are the fucking sun, moon, and the stars. If you can’t stop being an asshole long enough to see that, and stop beating on him and busting his ass, you are going to have to fucking answer to me, because I am goddamn fed up with it. I am fucking tired of seeing it day-in day-out every damn day. It’s fucking WRONG and it’s fucking got to STOP! Do you read me, loud and clear??”

Gojyo let go of Sanzo’s collar but he leaned in to stand nose to nose with him, flushed and breathing hard. He was even more agitated and confused when he realized he had a considerable hard-on, and that it would surely be visible to everyone through his tight and still slightly wet jeans.

Sanzo’s attempt at maintaining his composure through all this was betrayed by the two bright spots of color in his cheeks and the deep flush on his neck that was visible over the tank top he wore under his shirt. Gojyo couldn’t help but notice- he knew it was one of the monk’s “tells.” His pale neck would always get deeply flushed whenever he got angry, upset, or turned-on. Sanzo could feel it too and tried to ignore it, along with the ridiculous swelling he felt in his cock that began from the moment the damn kappa had grabbed him. He tried his best to ignore it and prayed to the gods no one else noticed. Just what he needed.

“Are you quite through now?” he said with as sarcastic and dry a tone as he could manage under the circumstances.

Suddenly the kappa felt a strong need to put some distance between himself and the priest. He turned on his heels and moved all the way across the campsite, where he stood leaning against a tree with his back to the group, lighting a cigarette.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” he grumbled, still fuming.

Goku’s head had been whipping around following the whole discussion, and he now had tears running down his cheeks, he was so dismayed by the whole thing. He had absolutely no idea what to do or say… Sanzo was his Sun. Surely he couldn’t be doing anything wrong where Goku was concerned… But why was Gojyo so mad? Yeah, of course, he got tired of Sanzo’s bad moods, and he sure got sick of being hit with that hard fan. But he just figured it was mostly his fault, and that sooner or later he’d figure out how not to piss off Sanzo so much. The whole thing was making his head hurt, and he just wanted it to stop.

Hakkai saw Goku’s apparent distress, and was feeling pretty miserable himself by then. He felt the need for some quiet time think about what had been said.

He got up and touched Goku on the shoulder and quietly said, “come on, Goku, let’s turn in for the night.” Goku looked up at him with grateful eyes and followed him wordlessly.

Hakkai turned to the two remaining at the fire and said, “I trust you two will have resolved this by the morning. Please see to the fire before you turn in. Goodnight, gentlemen.” With that he disappeared into the tent after Goku.

Once inside, Goku sat down out on his side of the tent, his brow furrowed with worry. “What the hell was all that about, Hakkai?”

“Well, Goku, it’s just that Gojyo has a big heart, and he feels like Sanzo is overly hard on you sometimes I guess. It made him angry on your behalf.”

“But I don’t want him to be mad at Sanzo. And I don’t want it to make Sanzo mad at me.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about it making Sanzo mad at you,” Hakkai reassured the youth. “I feel fairly confident they will work it out one way or another, Goku. Try not to worry and get some sleep.”

He rummaged around in his pack and found a snack for Goku to distract him. The youth seemed cheered and was sprawled out on his sleeping bag and and snoring happily within a few minutes. It was not as easy for the pensive youkai, as he lay on his back in the tent, mulled over the events of the evening, and tried to settle his uneasy mind.

Sanzo shifted in his seat by the campfire, glaring at the kappa. “That was certainly a nice little scene you put on.”

“You sonofabitch…” Gojyo huffed, turning around, “I meant every freaking word I said, and you know it.’

“Tch”

“You know I’m right, too, if you’d just be honest with yourself.”

He was getting irritated all over again at the monk’s arrogance. All his statement brought from Sanzo this time was a haughty snort.

Gojyo was starting to lose his patience again, and he really did not want to end up in another physical confrontation. It’s not that he didn’t want physical contact with the monk, but smashing his face in wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

Unfortunately the hard-on he had gotten during the fight had only served to stir up all the feelings he had about Sanzo, which made this business about Goku all the more frustrating – he really did care about both of them, and the man was being so fucking hard-headed.

He sighed deeply, trying to hold back his anger. “Goddammit Sanzo, you know this is something that is really important to me. You know what happened to me when I was a kid, and you choose to completely ignore how it makes me feel when I see you beating up on the monkey.”

“Do I have to repeat myself, moron? I’ll say it again: it’s none of your damn business.”

Gojyo lost it again, exploding in a fury, “OOOOH!! You goddamn sonofabitch… I just … I … Oh….. Just go fuck the hell off, why don’t you?” At that Gojyo knew if he had to look at the monk’s arrogant puss one more minute he was going to ram his fist into it, so he spun on his heel and stomped off down the trail into the night.

Gojyo followed the trail they had come in on almost all the way back to the road. He was sitting on a fallen log smoking a ciggie, and he was beginning to contemplate chucking the whole damn thing, the whole fucking stupid “journey to the west.”

He could hitch a ride back east. He didn’t need the goddamn bouzu OR this little expedition of his. Fuck it. He could always go back to his little cabin, and his life of playing cards and chasing skirts. Maybe then he could get the thoughts of the damn monk and his sweet lips and his soft hair and his long elegant tapered fingers out of his freaking head once and for all, and just get the hell on with his life.

Yeah, it would be easy... just another hundred yards or so and he’d be at the road. Then all he’d have to do is wait, and stick out his thumb, and he’d be home before you know it. No more monkey stealing his food, no more Hakkai fussing over him and correcting him, and no goddamn prissy-ass monk making his life a living hell.

Sanzo sat at the campfire only a few minutes before he said simply “Oh, goddammit to hell,” out loud to no on in particular and took off.

A few minutes later he sat down quietly beside the kappa, startling him out of his fantasies of escape.

“What the … How the hell did you find me?” Gojyo asked him, surprised.

“Well, for one thing, you sounded like a two-thousand-pound gorilla crashing through the woods, so it wasn’t too hard.” He lit a cigarette of his own off of Gojyo’s.

“Why?” was the kappa’s simple query.

Sanzo took a deep drag on his cigarette and sighed, “look….I know I’m hard on the monkey. Sometimes I’m too hard. I didn’t have too much parenting for too long myself as you know, so I am flying by the seat of my pants here. He is such a loose cannon, I’m afraid if I cut him any slack he’ll go wild, so I keep him on a short rope. Sometimes I guess I try too hard.”

Gojyo looked up at the monk and smiled. He knew just how rare a treasure such a moment of self-disclosure was from Sanzo, not to mention how unusual it was for Sanzo to come that close to ever saying he was sorry or admitting he had been wrong. He was truly moved.

“Is that an apology, Cherry-Chan?” he flirted, leaning so hard against Sanzo on the log he almost knocked him off.

“Don’t push your luck…” Sanzo started to say, but before he could get the entire sentence out Gojyo had swept him into his arms and pressed his lips to the monk’s in a passionate kiss that set both of their heartbeats racing madly.

Sanzo’s arms quickly came up around the kappa, surrounding him and pulling him close. The tension of the fight had stirred up all the other feelings he had for the erogappa as well, and he had been thinking of just this the whole time he had been walking down the path after him, but had realized he had no idea how to press his suit. “How does one get from ‘hello’ to a passionate kiss without looking like a complete idiot?” The question had completely stymied him as he followed the kappa down the wooded path, but the thought of having the man in his arms again had filled him with nervous anticipation.

Gojyo was the first to break the kiss. Breathless, he dropped his head and nuzzled Sanzo’s neck below his ear.

“Gods, Sanzo, I was thinking about leaving…” he ran his tongue along the outside of the shell of Sanzo’s ear and the monk shivered.

“I don’t ever want to leave you…”

Sanzo pulled him closer and fisted Gojyo’s hair to pull his mouth to his again, taking possession of his mouth fiercely. He plundered Gojyo’s mouth with his tongue, groaning deeply in his throat at the feelings that swept through him. Gojyo pulled them both to their feet so they could better embrace each other’s full lengths, and it was obvious as they did that they were both already fully-aroused.

“I’ve thought about this ..about you…” Sanzo said huskily.

Gojyo pulled his head back far enough to be able to really look into Sanzo’s eyes when he said that.

“You have no idea what it means to me to hear you say that, Sanzo-chan,” he said, and kissed him this time with a tender passion that made Sanzo almost dizzy with want.

Gojyo looked into his eyes again and in a serious voice said two words, “Tent, now.”

With that he grabbed Sanzo’s hand and dragged the monk at top speed back down the trail to the camp. Fortunately when they got there the other tent was dark, and two steady snoring sounds, one soft and quiet and one loud and raggedy, issued from it. Gojyo dutifully policed up the campfire as he had been asked, and led Sanzo into their tent.

Hakkai in his usual chivalry had yielded the larger tent to them, the roomier one large enough to stand up in. Gojyo trimmed the lantern wick back to a soft glow and stacked all the sleeping bags and blankets together in one soft pile. He pulled the monk to him for a long lingering embrace.

Gojyo was grateful that Sanzo had exchanged his vestments for street clothes before dinner, as these were much easier to take off. They slowly stripped each other item-by-item and lay down together on the soft pallet to begin exploring the wonder of each other’s naked bodies. Sanzo reveled in the kappa’s dark skin, his long muscular arms and legs, and the rippled muscles of his abdomen.

Gojyo’s youkai senses went wild for the smells of Sanzo’s body, the spicy smell of his hair, the clean yet sweaty smell of his skin, the erotic man-smell of his balls, and the hot woody smell over all of him from the campfire. But the scent that got to him the most, the one went straight to his dick, was that distinct smell that human males emit when aroused, and that one was increasing with every minute.

Gojyo started worshiping Sanzo’s body with his tongue, laving him all over with little kisses and tiny licks, and the monk squirmed and moaned under his ministrations. He nipped gently at Sanzo’s hardened nipple and then sucked at it when Sanzo cried out in pleasure and surprise. He then knelt between the houshi’s legs as if worshiping at a fleshly altar, and kneaded the muscles of his lean thighs before washing his tight balls with a rain of little kisses and licks. When Sanzo panted and bucked his hips in excitement Gojyo decided to tease him a little more, and reached up and trailed his hand lightly up and down Sanzo’s shaft. Sanzo softly cried out Gojyo’s name, arching up into his hand and desperately wanting more.

Gojyo found he missed the monk’s sweet mouth, so he raised himself up over his lover, supporting himself on his arms, and stared into Sanzo’s amethyst eyes, now gone quite dark with need. Before kissing him he dipped and swiveled his hips and sensuously ground their hard shafts together twice and then he took possession of the monk’s groaning mouth once again.

The kappa then lay back down beside Sanzo on their soft pallet on the floor of the tent and kissed his way back down to the priest’s straining cock. Sanzo moaned as his lover teased the tip of his dick with swirls of his tongue, over and over, and tried to push himself up into Gojyo’s mouth, so great was his desire for more. He reached down and held Gojyo’s head in his hand, his slender fingers laced into the kappa’s crimson hair, and he sat up on his elbow watching the kappa intently with his hooded violet eyes.

Gojyo looked up at him and smiled, “ why, you little voyeur!” he teased. “So you like to watch, do you?”

Loving that Sanzo was watching him, he ran his tongue lavishly up and down the length of Sanzo’s pulsing member. Sanzo groaned in response, and Gojyo laughed wickedly deep in his throat. “OK my love, watch this,” he said and he deep-throated Sanzo all the way to his root.

The feeling of being completely engulfed in the kappa’s hot mouth, combined with the visual stimulation of seeing how erotic the whole thing looked by the lantern light in the tent, was more than Sanzo could bear and he cried out “AH Gojyo! ” and almost came then and there. The kappa felt his early spasms and stopped and held completely still for a few moments with Sanzo just as he was, buried deep in his mouth, to let him adjust to the feeling momentarily and regain a measure of control.

Feeling Sanzo’s climax so close and seeing him so turned on had brought the kappa dangerously close himself, and his own cock was dripping, hard, and twitching as it lay pressed against Sanzo’s muscular leg.

Once he felt they had both regained a little control Gojyo started slowly running his mouth up and down Sanzo’s shaft, sucking harder now, and swirling his tongue around the head each time he reached the top. As he made his strokes up and down he tightened his lips against his teeth so his mouth would feel tight and hard against Sanzo’s cock as he moved it up and down – that simple change drove the blonde man closer still to the brink of coming. Every few strokes he would pull his head up and just work on the head, running his tongue around it, lightly brushing it with his teeth, and gently pointing his tongue into the slit. Each new movement elicited more gasps and moans from Sanzo, whose eyes watched every move the kappa made with the intensity of a white-hot flame.

As Sanzo’s moans became louder his hips started moving involuntarily, he strained to thrust himself deeper into Gojyo’s mouth as he moved up and down his shaft. Without even realizing it, because he was so turned on by his lover’s enjoyment of his ministrations, the kappa was increasing the intensity of his strokes and his speed to match the monk’s need, and before long Sanzo started to feel a tightening in his groin and his muscles starting to spasm. He felt as if the entire universe had constricted down into the unbelievably intense ball of white hot pleasure he felt gathering in his cock and there was nothing left but for it to shatter into a million brilliant stars.

He tried to pull Gojyo’s head away, but the kappa only smiled and increased his speed and his tight hold on his lovers cock just enough to push him over that glorious edge. He pulled the whole of his length deep into his mouth as he felt Sanzo start to come and stilled there, only gently tonguing it in his mouth as his lover came.

Sanzo arched his back and froze as he felt those first spasms turn into a glorious electrical explosion throughout his whole body, burying his fingers deep in Gojyo’s hair and chanting his name in a deep moan. With the kappa’s hot mouth surrounding his cock, the feeling of coming in that delicious soft warmth was so intense it was almost beyond toleration. Gojyo held his lover’s pulsing dick as deep in his throat as he could as he came, buried and engulfed, swallowing his essence gratefully. He froze in place as Sanzo’s orgasm subsided, keeping his cock in his mouth, holding it afterwards sucking ever-so-gently as the pulsations continued and slowly subsided.

After a small while, when the world slowly started to return back to normal from that place of explosions and heat that it had been, Gojyo reluctantly let Sanzo’s cock slide out of his mouth. He kissed it softly as if he were saying goodbye to a dear friend and slid back up next to Sanzo on their pallet in the tent. Sanzo reached out to him and pulled him close, his heart still thrumming madly.

Gojyo’s heart was beating fast as well, but for a different reason. He was skittish about what would happen next, now that Sanzo’s desire was sated. The priest had let his walls down substantially, and with Sanzo that usually only meant one thing, that they would slam right back up. He looked at the monk with one eyebrow raised. “How’re you doing?” he inquired as softly and non-threateningly as he could.

“Mmmmm,” was the mumbled reply, sounding pleased, but nonetheless rather uninformative.

“You feeling ok?” Gojyo dared question a little further.

“Cigarette,” was the mumbled reply.

“Sure thing. Hang on.”

Gojyo scrambled around in the tent for their packs and his lighter. He lit one for Sanzo and one for himself, and lay down beside Sanzo pulling a light blanket over both of them. Gojyo lay on his side propping himself up on one elbow so he could look at Sanzo.

“Gods, Sanzo… you really look amazing in this light.”

“ Tch. Don’t be a moron.”

“No, really, you do. It makes my heart hurt.”

“Baka. Horseshit.”

Sanzo scowled at him from under lowered eyelashes, but Gojyo could see even in the low light that his slightly bemused expression somewhat belied his words. The monk did have his vain side.

Sanzo stubbed out his cigarette and stretched a lazily and yawned.

“You sleepy, baby?”

“Yeah, kinda. It’s been a long day. And quit calling me baby, stupid cockroach,” Sanzo grumbled sleepily, with just the slightest hint of a smile betraying him as he looked at Gojyo through drowsy eyelids.

“Sanzo?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I sleep next to you?”

“ Tch! You think I was gonna throw you out into the cold night and make you sleep under a tree?”

“Knowing you, you just might. No, I mean, can I sleep next to you, can I hold you?”

“Oh, good grief…”

Before he could put up too much fight, Gojyo held out his arms to him, and with only a moderate amount of grumbling Sanzo slid under, resting his head on the kappa’s chest and wrapping his other arm lazily around Gojyo’s waist. Gojyo kissed him on the top of his head and gently trailed his hand up and down Sanzo’s back. He heard a sigh from the monk that sounded dangerously like one of contentment, and within ten seconds he was snoring softly. Gojyo smiled to himself, and decided to simply enjoy the moment for what it was, and let tomorrow take care of itself

Two hours later the sky had cleared, the moon had risen high in the night sky, and a fine dew had fallen on the tents of the sleeping Sanzo-ikkou. Gojyo had fallen asleep about ten minutes after Sanzo, with his arms still happily wrapped around the monk.

Something seemed to be waking Gojyo up, but at first he wasn’t sure if he was really waking up or if it was just another of those dreams he seemed to be having so often lately, the ones that featured him and the monk in a variety of interesting situations, usually unclothed.

Something was different this time, though. He didn’t remember his dreams ever involving being able to smell Sanzo, and he could definitely smell him very clearly as he re-surfaced from his deep contented sleep.

And he now had the distinct and vivid sensation that the monk lying next to him was… was… was… biting and sucking on… his nipple? The Sanzo in his dreams didn’t usually bite, at least not… that… hard!!!…

“Oi!! Monk!”

Gojyo opened one crimson eye and looked down to see the top of Sanzo’s golden head as the monk kissed and sucked and nipped at his hardened nub.

“Yeow!” he yelped in obviously exaggerated pain.

Sanzo looked up at him, “I thought I was going to have to gnaw it off. What the hell does it take to wake you up, anyway?” he said with a feigned exasperation.

“What are you up to? I thought you were down for the count?” Gojyo asked, a smile crinkling around his crimson eyes.

“We have to talk.” Sanzo said, sounding somewhat grave.

Gojyo was totally puzzled now. “Ok”, he thought, to himself, “I gave him a blow job, so now he bites the crap out of my nipple, so he could wake me up in the middle of the night, just so he can dump my ass... Shit, this fucker’s way crazier than I ever imagined…”

“You forgot something very important about me, Gojyo. And that’s not good,” Sanzo pronounced in a very serious voice.

“Oh fuck me,” Gojyo thought, “fuck fuckity fuck fuck. What the hell did I do now? Well, so much for all hopes of anything ever happening between us again – he’s gonna call an end to that right now but good. He just wanted to get a little nap in before he dumped me. Fuck. Might as well take your medicine and get it on with it, Gojyo “.

“Ok Sanzo. Go ahead and give it to me. Just get it over with.”

He heaved a big sigh and started to get out of the pallet. Just because he had to take it didn’t mean he had to take it lying down…

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Sanzo’s hand snaked out like lightning and grabbed his wrist in an iron grip.

”Come here,” he commanded, and pulled Gojyo down to him for a deep passionate kiss.

Gojyo’s stomach instantly had a tight knot of heat in it from the monk’s aggressive invading kiss, and he was immediately aroused.

“Now, there is one thing you forgot about me, Gojyo, and it’s very important.”

He pulled the redhead down under him and started kissing and nipping his way down his neck and chest. Gojyo gasped in delight.

“What you seem to have forgotten is that I… “ he bit the kappa’s nipple, “always…“ he ran his tongue around his navel, “pay… my… debts.”

At that he took the whole of the kappa’s now fully-hardened length in his mouth, and proceeded to prove that earlier in the evening he had not been merely a simple voyeur, but also a very keen observer of everything that the kappa had done for him, and a little bit more.



***********

Dear Yaone,

I was pleased so pleased to hear from you again. I had not expected to hear from you prior to your visit, so it was a pleasant surprise. I am glad that Dokugakuji was so understanding regarding the circumstances that led to his brother’s injury. While it would be understandable for him to be upset, it would be an unfortunate thing for Sanzo to have to deal with right now, as I fear he is punishing himself far more severely about this matter than anyone else ever could.

Yaone, I wish you could see the pain in his eyes as he looks at Gojyo lying there in that bed… it simply breaks my heart. Nothing I can say seems to convince him that it was not his fault, that Gojyo was simply being Gojyo, and that he acted out of love like he always did, and that was simply the kind of man he was. Oh, Yaone there I go again, talking about Gojyo in the past tense, like he has left us already. But it is so hard, when I see him lying there day after day getting, weaker and weaker, and in my head I know with every day that passes his chances get less and less for a meaningful recovery.

It’s just breaking my heart, Yaone. Sanzo never leaves his side, except to go for a walk in town now and then. It’s more than just that he blames himself for what happened. I think he is tormented with things he never said and feelings that he took for granted. I remember from when I lost my Kanan, how easy it was to get buried in regrets and guilt– it is a thing I still struggle with to this day.

Well, please forgive my running on so like this. It has been so lonely – normally Gojyo is my friend that I talk with and unburden myself to, and I certainly can’t let Sanzo or Goku see me being upset or melodramatic. Things are tense enough here as it is.

I truly look forward to seeing you as well as the rest of your party later this week. Your rooms are ready, and your presence will be a welcome respite in these gloomy days.

Warmly,

Hakkai




Chapter 7


Sanzo fidgeted and paced on the opposite side of the room as the doctor looked at Gojyo. From his limited experience with western medicine, you could fucking well keep it. He didn’t trust it. He would take a chi healer like Hakkai, an apothecary like Yaone, or a good old acupuncturist, any day. But Hakkai had been so worried and needed to feel like he was doing everything possible for his friend, so Sanzo had agreed to let the goddamn doctor take a look at Gojyo. But it was against his better judgement right from the start.

The doctor was a youngish man, who had apparently been educated overseas somewhere, and he seemed intelligent enough. But he was one of those arrogant ones who assumed he was ever-so-much smarter than everybody else because of all this arcane knowledge he had, and that there was no point in his explaining anything he was doing to mere peasants, when of course they wouldn’t understand.

This pissed Sanzo off on Hakkai’s behalf, because he knew just how well-informed his healer friend was, how many books on the human body he had read, and how many books and journals on Eastern and Western medicine Hakkai poured over in libraries every chance he got. He also knew how often, when they stopped in a new town or village with any kind of person in the healing arts, Hakkai would show up on their doorstep and politely invite himself in for tea and learn every thing he could from the person. Their healer was a very smart man, and he took his job very seriously. Here this junior jerk-off with a diploma and a stethoscope was condescending to the youkai healer, when Hakkai had probably performed more miracles in the several months than this jerk would do in his whole life. Sanzo lit a cigarette and fumed.

“Oh, sir, you really shouldn’t smoke that around the patient,” the doctor clucked disapprovingly at Sanzo.

Sanzo fixed the doctor with a stare that would melt glass and snarled, “ ‘The Patient’ has been smoking like a factory since he was nine years old. It probably does him good to get the second-hand smoke – I’m sure he’s going through major nicotine withdrawal right about now. Bite me.”

Hakkai intervened, as usual, “Oh it’s alright…please doctor… Continue with your exam.”

The doctor performed several more tests on Gojyo and then summoned Hakkai and Sanzo over to sit with him at the small table in the other side of the room. He looked at the notes he had made for a few moments before he took off his glasses and spoke.

“I’d go ahead and put him in a home if I was you. He’s in very deep coma, what we call a persistent vegetative state.”

Sanzo had been looking towards the window as if completely totally bored, but at the words “vegetative state” his head whipped around and he drilled into the doctor’s young eyes with his angry violet ones.

“Just what the hell do you mean by that?” he bit out.

The doctor nervously looked away from Sanzo’s stare and looked down at the table.

“This man will never have any substantial recovery from the level of deep coma he is in now. He will most likely either stay at this level or decline. The brain damage appears to be considerable and irreversible.”

All three men sat in silence for a long moment. The muscles in Sanzo’s jaw worked visibly as he struggled to process the implications of the doctor’s statement.

“Just how can you be so fucking sure of this?” said between clenched teeth.

“Of course without the more sophisticated tests that I could do in a large hospital I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but all the signs are there – deep reflexes, response to stimulus, pupil reactions, and so on.”

“So what happens now?” Sanzo said in a low voice.

Hakkai sat very quietly, hands folded in front of him on the table, his head down, his face a complete blank.

“Well, his brain could still be swelling or have some bleeds, so he could go downhill rapidly at any time. Or, he could stabilize and he could linger like this for years, if adequate care is taken of him. Sometimes patients like this live twenty or thirty years, if their bodies are otherwise healthy, sometimes pneumonia gets them fairly quickly because they aren’t coughing up their own secretions…”

“That’s enough! Out!! “

Sanzo had reached the limits of his tolerance with this arrogant young prick. He refused to admit – even to himself – that it had anything to do with the fact that he didn’t want to hear anything that the man was saying.

Sanzo’s outburst seemed to wake Hakkai from his daze.

“Ah, yes, doctor, thank you very much for coming. I think we have all the information we need for the moment,” he stood and motioned for the doctor to follow and shepherded the man to the door. “I’ll walk you out,” he said, nodding back at Sanzo, who sat at the table smoking and seething.

Hakkai reappeared several minutes later and slumped back down at the table.

“Well, that was considerably much less optimistic than I had hoped for,” he sighed.

“The man was an arrogant prick,” Sanzo snarled. “It was all I could do not to get out the gun and teach him some manners.”

“Now, Sanzo, just because he didn’t say what we wanted to hear doesn’t necessarily mean he was incompetent.”

Hakkai tried to soothe the monk’s obviously jangled nerves.

“What makes you think he knew a fucking thing about what he was doing? The white coat and the stethoscope? ‘Tch. Any fuckwad with a credit card can buy those. Besides, do you know what they call the guy that graduates dead last in his class at medical school, Hakkai?”

“No, Sanzo, what do they call him?”

“The call him ‘Doctor.’ I rest my case.”

Sanzo lit another cigarette from the one he had been smoking and Hakkai bit his lip not to say anything. He knew the bad news about Gojyo must be making Sanzo die a little inside, and it was the absolute worst time to chide him about his smoking.

“Maa maa, Sanzo. He wasn’t all that bad. Besides, as much as I truly hate to say this,” he cast his deep green eyes down at the tabletop, unable to look at Sanzo as he spoke, “what the man said simply confirmed what I had been suspecting for the past few days, but afraid to say.”

Sanzo stood up abruptly, also refusing to make eye contact with his youkai friend.

“I’m going out. I need shave cream and some smokes.”

He went to grab his denim overshirt from the windowseat.

“Sanzo, please let me send Goku for those things for you – he would be happy to help. We really need to talk about all this. Especially since Gojyo’s brother will be here tonight.”

Hakkai’s voice was tinged with strain and exasperation, as hard as he tried to keep it from showing.

“No, Hakkai. Not yet. I can’t. I …. I just can’t. I’ll be back.”

The priest turned from his friend without any further explanation and quickly left the room.

Sanzo strode quickly down the hall, pulling on his denim shirt as he went. A casual observer would have thought he was late for an appointment, his stride was so brisk and intentional. A closer look would have revealed that the young man’s beautiful violet eyes were swimming with tears, and his hurry was to get out of the hotel and to his secluded park bench before he was overtaken by weeping.

Having to sit there and listen to that little prick of a doctor talk about Gojyo like he was some animal that should be put down or shut up in a cage had been more than Sanzo could take.

All he could think of was how, of the four of them, Gojyo had always been the most alive- the one the most likely to take a chance and to try a new experience. He was the one that most embraced the sheer joy of living in spite of the constant horror that his childhood had been and the death and destruction that they encountered every day on their journey.

Sanzo’s chest knotted with sharp pains and large tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought about all the time he had wasted with Gojyo by adhering so strictly to his own damned “I don’t need anyone but me” credo. All that time that the kappa had been flirting with him and trying to get him to play along, they could have been together, been getting to know each other better, and now that chance was gone forever. What a stupid fucking waste. “Who’s the moron now, priest?”

“Does this surprise you… really? Everybody that loves you leaves you. You should have expected it”. That thought stabbed through his gut especially cruelly, bringing a fresh well of tears. Images of Koumyu lying in the pool of blood on the temple floor came unbidden to his mind, and he remembered how helpless he had felt as he watched his master depart this world, leaving him behind and alone. “I felt so goddamn helpless then, just like now. So fucking useless to anyone. What a joke I am. A fraud… If they only knew…”

He thought of the gun back in the drawer of the bedside table in the inn, and it brought a certain comfort to him. He had always considered suicide a viable option, almost from the day they had given him the damned thing. “So easy… just point, and ‘click.’ “

No reason not to if Gojyo was gone, really, it was not as if they could go on with the damnable trip. The Talking Heads could get themselves another batch of suckers to fight their fight for them. And if that cocksucker doctor was right about Gojyo being a hopeless vegetable, well, then he’d just need two bullets… he wasn’t about to let that happen to the wonderful being that had once been his lover, friend, and comrade. He deserved so much better. First he’d take care of Gojyo, and then himself. Fuck it if it made him a bad Buddhist – he’d take his chances.

Sanzo closed his eyes and realized that all the weeping had completely exhausted him. He felt empty, totally wrung out, and immensely hopelessly tired. He concentrated on the sounds around him in the park to try to relax, and listened to the minutiae he heard: the children playing in the distance, the rustling of the leaves around him, and the gentle wooshing of the fountain at the entrance to the park. He slowly started to unwind, and his mind drifted aimlessly. The fragrance of the last few roses of the season lingering on the hedgerow behind him brought a smile to his tear-streaked face as it triggered one of his most cherished memories of the kappa.

After their fight and then the torrid night in the tent, Gojyo had been more relentless than ever in his pursuit of Sanzo. He had very little doubt in his mind that, despite his history as babe hound extraordinaire, he was ready to give an actual relationship with the monk a real shot. He knew he had genuine feelings for Sanzo. He was afraid for obvious reasons to give voice to these feelings, the kappa was nobody’s fool. But he did believe it was worth taking the chance to pursue Sanzo and see what could happen between them if it was given a chance to develop. He also realized this would take some finesse, and consequently he put a fair amount of thought into the matter. He was especially careful due to his theory that Sanzo was – other than their interactions – completely inexperienced in matters of love, with either women or men.

After considerable thought Gojyo developed a singular plan: he was going to woo him. This was going to be no small feat considering their situation and the need to be discreet, not to mention Sanzo’s prickly disposition. But being the optimist that he essentially was, Gojyo was convinced that it was a doable plan, and set about putting his plan in action. He started shortly after that night in the tent, on a night when they were all camped in the open and there was no possibility for hanky-panky between them. He put a carefully-penned note in Sanzo’s sandal while he was sleeping, so that he would have to find it in the morning.

“Sanzo-chan, Thank you for the wonderful night in the tent. I will always remember it. Yours, G.”

He didn’t want to lay it on too thick the first time. He watched discreetly from the edge of the camp as Sanzo discovered it in the morning. The houshi first looked surprised, then blushed, then looked around sheepishly see if anyone had noticed. Gojyo smiled to himself and pumped his fist in a silent triumphant “yes!”

Goku was sitting on the sleeping bag next to Sanzo pulling on his boots, and of course, noticed Sanzo reading the note, and asked, “what’s that Sanzo?”

He tried his best not to look flustered, “oh, uh, nothing, monkey – just a note I wrote to remind myself of something. Go help Hakkai. Now!”

The chastised saru trotted off, and Sanzo shook his head, mumbling under his breath about damn freaky kappas.

Gojyo’s next step in his campaign came two nights later when they were staying in separate rooms in an inn. It had been raining, and as usual Sanzo was being pissy. He had made it plain during dinner that he was not interested in socializing with anyone in the group afterwards at all, in any shape, form or fashion. He then went to the bar in the inn and had a couple of solitary drinks before retiring for the night.

Unbeknownst to him, while he was drinking in the bar, the kappa had slipped out to the local sundry store and purchased a small box the best chocolates in the store. He had the girl wrap them prettily and inscribed a small tasteful card, “sweets for my sweet one – g.” and stuck the card in an envelope and put it under the bow. He then sweet-talked one of the female desk clerks into giving him a copy of Sanzo’s room key by feeding her some story about Sanzo having left his important medication in the jeep and getting very grumpy without it – for some reason she believed him very easily. He then stole into the room, turned down his covers of the bed, and left the box of chocolates on Sanzo’s pillow.

The next morning as they were walking down the hall on their way to get in jippu in the morning, the monk sidled up beside Gojyo and sotto voce said, “it’s not going to work, you know.”

Gojyo flashed his best high-beam smile at him, feigning innocence, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You know goddamn well what I am talking about, and it’s not going to work,” Sanzo looked around as he growled under his breath, afraid the others would hear.

Gojyo smiled broadly again. He first ensured that Hakkai and Goku were a sufficient distance ahead of them. As he loudly and cheerily sang out “oh, lighten up, monk!” he simultaneously reached around and lovingly pinched Sanzo’s behind. He then wasted no time, escaping Sanzo’s certain retribution by jogging ahead and catch up with Goku and Hakkai, leaving a confused and semi-angry monk sputtering in his wake.

The next couple of days of travel were particularly brutal, and Hakkai requested a two-day layover at the next town in order for Hakuryu to have some time to recuperate when they finally stopped for a rest. This immediately set Gojyos’s mind to work, seizing on yet another opportunity to further “Operation Woo the Houshi.”

He decided it was time to be bold, and when Sanzo went to his room in the inn that night there was a tall crystal vase with a dozen long-stemmed peach-colored roses in it. The smell of these particular flowers was amazing, far fruitier and less acrid than red roses, and the roses themselves were large and beautiful, just barely starting to open.

There was a handsome tan linen envelope propped next to the vase. Sanzo looked around the room reflexively before he opened it to make sure nobody saw him, and immediately felt the fool for having done so. “Goddamn kappa’s making me into a nutcase,” he thought as he pulled the card out of the envelope. He hated to admit it to himself, but his heart was beating terribly fast as he opened it up and scanned the words in the childish blocky writing.

“Would you do me the great honor of dining with me tomorrow night, and a movie afterwards? Please say yes. I’ll meet you here at 7:00 p.m. Yours, G.”

“What the fuck? That sounded like a … a date? The cockroach wanted to take him on a bloody ‘date’? What kind of fucking erogappa madness was this? What the blue hell was he up to?”

Sanzo’s mind reeled as he tried to get to sleep that night in his bed alone in the inn. He couldn’t stop remembering that first night in the cabin with Gojyo and that silly bet and –ye gods… he definitely did clearly remember kissing him now, and how turned-on that had gotten him. What the hell else had happened that night? A few fuzzy images came back to him in bits and pieces, just enough to tantalize him and make him wonder…

He started to get aroused just thinking about it, about the fiery aggravating redhead. Images bounced around in his head … of Gojyo wielding his shakujou like a medieval warrior… Gojyo in onsun baths… Gojyo fighting with him in camp that night, holding him by his collar, his hot breath in his face… Oh gods…Gojyo in the tent that night… Sanzo was fully-hard now and grudgingly admitted to himself that the kappa did have his undeniable charms. He realized he’d never be able to get to sleep now, as turned-on as he was, and he stroked himself to a solitary climax while running through all these images over and over again in his mind.

As he wiped his spend off of himself with the corner of the bedsheet, it occurred to him that maybe giving up a little of his precious solitude for one evening wasn’t such a bad idea after all, and he resolved to accept the kappa’s invitation, for better or worse.

The next night at one minute before seven, a soft tapping sounded on the priest’s door. Once again Sanzo’s damn heartbeat betrayed him, beating far faster than it had any reason to as he opened the door to let the kappa in.

He had to summon all his monk’s training not to gasp out loud at what he beheld. A new man stood before him, and he was really quite splendid. Gojyo had obviously done some major shopping for the evening, as he was attired in new clothes from head to toe.

He wore form-fitting (stylishly tight but not tacky) black leather pants, a beautiful cobalt blue silk and linen blend shirt that looked like it had been made just for him, and a gorgeous silk paisley tie that matched it all perfectly. On his feet were a handsome pair black boots made of soft glove leather. They had slightly pointy toes and blocky heels that added over two inches to his height, so that he now towered over Sanzo. His hair had been trimmed and pampered and shone in a glossy ponytail, and he was fresh-shaven and manicured. Gojyo like this would have turned heads in any of the world’s fashion centers, and he was certainly going to turn a few in this little burgh.

Sanzo was stunned. He stood with his mouth slightly open, taking in Gojyo’s new look, forgetting even to invite him in.

“For you,” the kappa said, handing him a longish beautifully-wrapped package.

Sanzo recovered himself and ushered him in. “You really do have to stop doing this,” he protested, looking at the gift. “Where are you getting the money for all this?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Gojyo said, as he closed the door and pulled Sanzo to him with one arm for a quick but clearly possessive kiss. Sanzo detected a distinctive and very enticing men’s cologne on the kappa that he had never smelled before.

“There’s a few thing’s you still don’t know about me, priest. I have a little money of my own, and it makes me feel good spending it on you. Now open it!”

He smiled and fidgeted expectantly, like a small child about to open a gift of his own. Sanzo was unable to resist and was carefully unwrapping it to preserve the paper. The impatient kappa reached over and ripped the paper for him, revealing an expensive carton of a brand of French cigarettes Sanzo had tried once and truly enjoyed. He had never thought he would see even a pack of them again, much less an entire carton, especially not on this hellhole of a trip. “What the … how did you…?”

Gojyo beamed, “nevermind. I have my connections. Like it?”

Sanzo was genuinely amazed and touched, “uhm, well yeah, thank you – a lot. This was …nice….”

Color rose up in his cheeks as he looked down at his gift, embarrassed – he had never done gratitude very well. Nor had he had that many reasons to since Koumyu had died.

Gojyo leaned in and grabbed his chin gently with one hand and tipped it up so Sanzo was facing him eye to eye, “all you have to do to thank me is enjoy them, ok?”

He kissed the monk again, deeply this time, claiming his mouth with his own, exploring Sanzo’s soft warmth with his tongue and pulling the monk’s whole body close to his for a lingering embrace. Just as Sanzo was really beginning to return the kiss, moaning slightly in his throat and bringing his arms up around Gojyo, the kappa broke away.

“Let’s go eat!” he said happily and headed for the door, towing a slightly-stunned monk behind him by the hand.

As they were on their way out they passed Goku and Hakkai coming back from their dinner in the dining-room of the inn. Hakkai whistled appreciatively at Gojyo’s sophisticated new look, and Goku plucked at his leather pants leg.

“Whoohoo! Look at ‘Mister Rock Star!’” he teased.

Gojyo just calmly waved them off as royalty waves to the peasants, and herded Sanzo on out of the lobby before he could say anything.

When they got outside to the street, Gojyo stopped and lit cigarettes for both of them, making a show of lighting the monk’s very chivalrously.

“We have reservations at Lee Ho Fook's at 7:30,” he said, “it’s about three blocks. We can walk there, or would you rather take a cab?”

Sanzo looked at him like he was sprouting wings and horns. A cab? No one in this group ever took a cab. He shook his head slightly to shake off the growing confusion.

“Uhm, it’s a nice night, we might as well walk.”

They started off in the direction of the restaurant. Gojyo was on his best behavior, even attempting to keep his colorful language to a minimum. Hakkai had been conscripted to help, having been let in on the plan, and the kappa had been in training with him for weeks. He had been stockpiling things to talk about so that he could keep their dinner conversation lively. Gojyo wanted the conversation on this special night to stay away from the usual humdrum subjects they dealt with everyday on their journey: youkai, weapons, death, travel, more youkai, and more death. With Hakkai’s help and some diligent work on his part he was prepared to discuss the politics and news of the day, a couple of books he knew Sanzo had read, and even some of the essentials of Buddhist theology if he really got stuck for a topic.

Sanzo looked at Gojyo in amazement as they carried on a relatively intelligent conversation regarding political developments in the capitol as they approached the restaurant. He had never seen this side of the kappa before- he had always assumed that successfully cheating at cards was the highest intellectual achievement the cockroach could reasonably aspire to. He knew Gojyo’s schooling had been given short-shrift by his lousy childhood, and that he and Hakkai had been attempting to remedy that with the odd reading lesson here and there, but he had no idea…

“Shall we go in?…” Gojyo held the door for Sanzo and waited for him to go in.

As they entered the maitre’d greeted them quickly, bowing deeply to both of them.

“Ah, Sha Gojyo, I am so glad you could be with us this evening! Your table is prepared for you just as you requested.” He then turned to Sanzo, “and may I say, Priest Genjyo Sanzo, what an extreme honor it is for us to have a cleric of your stature dining in our humble establishment,” he bowed again, more deeply this time.

Gojyo was grinning a mile wide, looking extremely proud.

Sanzo was profoundly embarrassed, as he mumbled, “yeah, sure, can we sit down?”

“But of course sirs, this way, if you please.” The maitre ‘d bowed again and led them to a private room in a quiet corner of the restaurant. He slid open the paper screen and ushered them in, “your waitress will be with you right away. Please enjoy your meal.”

As they sat on plush black velvet pillows at the low table Sanzo looked around the room and realized what an exquisite place it truly was. Several large ebony carvings of the Buddha, Quan’yin, and other spiritual figures filled niches in the walls, and where there weren’t niches there hung splendid embroidered silk panels depicting waterfalls, ocean waves, mountains, and other elaborate nature scenes. One corner of the room was filled with a small fountain with water bubbling quietly over natural river stones, surrounded by lush tropical plants. The other corner held a tall hexagonal aquarium filled with the most astounding assortment of tropical fish Sanzo had ever seen. Somewhere in one of the other backrooms someone was playing traditional Chinese music with flutes and strings, and playing it quite well, too. The sumptuous feel of the whole place reminded him of an poem his master had given him to read once – it was by a European, but about the East. It started, “In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…” (1)

Gojyo simply sat watching him taking it all in, enjoying it immensely. He finally couldn’t resist, and said to Sanzo simply, ”Nice, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Sanzo was trying not to sound too impressed.

He had been in some grand temples in his travels, but his adventures in high style in the secular world had been few and far-between. He looked down at his khaki-colored jeans and his plain white collared shirt and suddenly felt woefully underdressed, especially compared to Gojyo’s new sartorial splendor. Gojyo picked up on what he was thinking, and quickly tried to make him feel better.

“Don’t worry about it, man. It’s just you and me in here. That’s all that matters. I only dressed this way for you- nobody else. And by the way, you look pretty damned good to me, blondie.”

With that he leaned over and kissed Sanzo. The perception and sweetness of his words, along with the depth and intensity of his kiss took Sanzo by surprise, and he felt himself being caught up in Gojyo’s kiss completely. His mind raced as he realized how vulnerable he was becoming to this man. He knew that he was feeling himself starting to open up to him as he had to no one since his master, and while it scared the hell out if him, at the same time he was quite swept up in that feeling. He began to kiss Gojyo back with a new feeling of passion and urgency he had never felt before, something that was lust, but beyond lust, too.

Just as Sanzo was bringing his arms up around the kappa to fully allow himself to explore this feeling, they heard the shushing of the paper screen again. A small slender young woman stepped in, bowed, and smiled sweetly. She had been told ahead of time of the young lovers that would be in the special room tonight. The management had picked her to serve them because she was the best, and she was happy to serve them because young people in love were always appreciative of fine food and good service, and she was sure they would treat her nicely and give her a large gratuity when the evening was over.

“Good evening, kind sirs” she said, “my name is Shu Ying and I have the honor of being your waitress tonight.” She caught herself staring at Gojyo for a minute before regaining her composure and resuming, “is everything so far to your satisfaction?”

“Good evening, Ying, and thank you, yes, everything is just perfect,” Gojyo said, his hand on resting lightly on Sanzo’s knee under the table. “The room is just beautiful.” He turned to Sanzo, “I hope you don’t mind, I came earlier and took the liberty of pre-ordering the meal…?” he asked, slightly nervous, knowing how little the monk relished giving up control over anything, even his menu.

Fortunately, Sanzo seemed willing to go with the flow this time. He waved his hand and simply said “whatever,’ in a tone of voice that was dangerously close to happy for the monk.

Gojyo took this as an encouraging sign. “Sake?” he asked Sanzo, who nodded in return, and the kappa ordered one of the house’s best bottles of sake. He asked Ying to bring their appetizer with that, and their meal began.

Two and a half hours later, the two were making their way out of the restaurant. Both men were very happily-sated, having had one of the best meals they had enjoyed since they had started their road trip together, if not the best. Sanzo had been impressed with Gojyo’s job of choosing their meal, as well as the stimulating conversation he had carried on throughout dinner. He also very much appreciated the fact that, despite the fact that she was cute as a box of puppies and was obviously quite taken with the hanyou’s looks and charm, not once had the kappa flirted with little Shu Ying in front of him. Not the least little bit.

They had also consumed a little over two bottles of the Lee Ho-san’s best sake, and were carrying the remainder of the bottle back to the inn with them for ‘afters’. Sanzo shivered involuntarily as they stepped out into the chilly night air, his thin shirt not a match for the damp night air. He could hear mother hen Hakkai’s voice in his ear chiding him “now where is your jacket?” He was dreading the cold walk back to the inn when a large yellow vehicle with a placard on its roof glided up in front of them.

“Sire, your chariot awaits,” Gojyo said as he opened the door of the cab with a grand flourish.

Once again, Sanzo was stunned. “Another minor miracle. How was he managing to do all this?” he wondered as he slid in and across the seat of the cab. The kappa got in behind him closed the door.

“Where to, gents?” inquired the older gentleman behind the wheel.

“Give us a minute,” Gojyo said, to which the cabbie replied jauntily,

“Your dime, fella.”

Gojyo checked the time on the dashboard of the cab. “oi, Sanzo, we’ve missed the beginning of the movie, we stayed so long at the restaurant. I’m sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sanzo said, “the reviews in the paper of that one were lousy.” Gojyo seemed so concerned at this blip in his plans for the perfect evening, Sanzo was trying in his way to reassure him.

“What would you like to do now? How about we just cruise around a bit?” Gojyo sat back and put his arm around Sanzo’s shoulder in the large uphoulstered back seat of the cab.

Normally Sanzo would have thought the last thing he would have wanted to do for recreation after all the time they spent in the jeep would be to get in a vehicle and ride. But here, in the quiet enclosed space of the cab, leaned into Gojyo’s silky-warm chest, feeling the happy warmth of the sake and the good food, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

“Why not,” he agreed.

Gojyo leaned up to the driver and mumbled a few words. The cabbie nodded and closed the sliding partition between the front and back of the cab. As the vehicle slid off into the night, the redhead used the long arm around Sanzo’s shoulder to pull him closer to him on the seat. In a natural relaxed gesture Gojyo reached over clasp Sanzo’s hand with his free one. Sanzo stiffened briefly, but surrendered to the moment and settled in to enjoy the ride with his handsome “date.” What the hell?

They both were surprised at how pleasant they found the trip in the cab. The driver took them first around the town to see what few highlights there were to see, and then on a circuit through the rolling back country roads. The soft deeply-padded leather seat was such a contrast to the hard seats in jippu, and they had forgotten what a difference shock absorbers could make.

Even though it was quiet enough in the cab for them to carry on an in-depth conversation, they said very little. They both were content to simply lean into each other and enjoy the darkened scenery they saw rolling by them lit only by the street lights and the nearly-full harvest moon. Occasionally one of them would see something of interest and point it out to the other, but other than that they sat in companionable silence. A feeling of expectation marred only by jangled nerves hovered between them, and they stole sidelong furtive glances at each other in the night as they rode along.

After the road had climbed for a while and gone through a series of switchbacks, the driver pulled the cab into a small parking lot and stopped under a streetlight, idling the engine.

Gojyo turned to Sanzo, “got something to show you,” he said somewhat mysteriously.

Sanzo looked at him with mild consternation, but nonetheless followed him as he got out of the car and crossed the parking lot. The lot was surrounded by forest, and lit with two streetlights. There were two picnic tables and trashcans, complete with graffiti, indicating this was obviously a spot loved by the locals. At the edge of the parking lot there was a small cut in the woods where a path began, which was where Gojyo pulled Sanzo.

“Where the hell are you taking me? It’s fucking dark out here, you moron,” he complained.

“Have I steered you wrong so far?” Gojyo replied, relentlessly towing the monk down the footpath through the woods.

The path only lasted a hundred yards or so until it ended in a broad fenced-off overlook. The view provided a panoramic view of the twinkling lights of the town below and on beyond, and above was a blanket of stars and a huge golden moon. An impressionist painter could not have painted it any better – it was simply breathtaking.

Gojyo led the monk up to the fence overlooking the remarkable view and stood behind him, wrapping his arms around Sanzo and curving his long fingers around his waist so the monk was fully in his capture. He lightly rested his chin on the top of Sanzo’s head – in his new boots he was tall enough to do it. He smiled to himself, secretly he enjoying having the height advantage on his lover. He also liked feeling like maybe - just maybe - Sanzo was suitably wowed by this step in his operation “woo the bouzu.”

“Nice, huh?”he asked him, softly in his ear.

Sanzo silently nodded his assent, and crossed his arms across his front and covered Gojyo’s hands with his. Gojyo’s heart glowed at the triumph he knew that small gesture represented.

“Do you know what direction that is?” He pointed straight out from where they stood towards the horizon.

“Back to the inn?” Sanzo asked, not wanting to admit he had no idea.

“Besides that. I mean that direction, straight that way, is due west. And that is the way I intend to keep going, with you, and this is the way I would like to keep doing it, if you will let me.”

With that he turned Sanzo around and kissed him as fervently and as soulfully as he possibly could. He wanted the monk to know that he meant more to him than any in the endless string of women had had before him. He wanted to tell him that he had deeper feelings for the man than he had ever felt for anyone before. He wanted to give Sanzo all the love that he had locked up inside, that he had never really been able to give any of those women, or Jien, or even his mother. He wished he had better words to say all that to him, but failing that he did his best to tell him with the kiss, pulling him as close as he could and crushing his lips against the priest’s sweet mouth, exploring it with all the fiery intensity he had been holding back for so long.

Sanzo moaned deep in his throat, wrapping one arm around the kappa and with the other reaching up to feel the silky surface of his hair, crushing the crimson ponytail in his fist. He tasted like tobacco and sake, just like Sanzo, but there was always something else in the kappa’s kisses, some fire, some spice, some wild addictive foreign agent, and nothing else in this life caused Sanzo pure relentless cravings like that taste of the kappa’s kisses. As he kissed Gojyo there under the stars Sanzo tried to devour it, to pull some of that mad sweetness into himself to warm up his stone-cold core. He wanted to get enough of it inside him so that on those lonely nights when the kappa wasn’t there, when the priest denied himself the luxury of admitting human need, he could recover the taste of Gojyo’s kisses for himself, recall that taste in all its spicy heat and urgency, its luxury and fire.

A short polite “errrkkkhhh” of from a car horn interrupted their embrace. Gojyo laughed sheepishly, and a blush crept up Sanzo’s cheeks in the dim light as they remembered the waiting cabbie.

“Let’s go home,” the kappa simply said and led the priest back to the cab.

When they got back to the inn Sanzo started to retreat behind his familiar interior walls again, certain Gojyo had nefarious plans for him, and somewhat uncertain how he felt about it it. As they came in, Gojyo stopped at the front desk and conferred quietly with the desk clerk for a moment. The man nodded and handed Gojyo a key. He came back to Sanzo, still carrying the remaining sake from the restaurant, and simply said, “follow me.”

He led Sanzo back to the onsen of the facility, which he unlocked with the key. Gojyo had made prior arrangements with the management for them to be allowed private use of the bath after it was closed it for the night. As Gojyo switched on the lights and locked the door they looked around at a beautifully-appointed small inside onsen. Sanzo stared at Gojyo in frank amazement at this latest rabbit trick produced in his honor. This place was simply wonderful and the hot bubbling water was going to feel damned good.

The floor was dark grey flagstone, and the walls were covered with cedar shakes that added a lovely aromatic smell to the steamy air of the room. There were large tropical plants lining the periphery of the room, and the lighting in the room came from beautiful hanging lanterns as well as recessed lighting cleverly built-in to the edges of the bath. The bath itself was a natural one, bubbling and quite warm, judging from the steam rising from it, and it beckoned them. They grabbed fluffy white towels from a bench near the door and proceeded to the shower stalls.

In contrast to his normal devil-may-care behavior with his clothes, Sanzo noticed that the kappa was acting more like Hakkai with these new garments. He carefully removed each item and folded it before putting it in the small basket by his shower stall.

He was very much still Gojyo, however when he turned to face Sanzo, in all his naked glory, and sang out, “I’m all yours, Cherry-chan!” with his arms spread wide and a huge smile on his face. Not having his harisen, Sanzo was forced to settle for a brisk snap of his towel on the kappa’s bare butt.

“Kidding! Kidding!” Gojyo protested as he escaped to his stall to shower off and left Sanzo to tend to his own ablutions.

The hanyou was nobody’s fool, and his intention had primarily been to relax Sanzo and lighten the mood with some of his usual clowning. He had felt the monk begin to tense up when they had hit the inn, and realized the need to normalize things just a bit to make Sanzo less nervous. What a skittish boy, his Cherry-chan, but he was so worth it.

Shower completed, Gojyo took his towel and the sake bottle and padded over to the onsen and climbed in, waiting expectantly for Sanzo. The blonde finished his shower and came over, wrapped chastely in a towel which he dropped only as he stepped into the onsen to sit beside Gojyo. Just as they settled into the steaming pool a polite rap came on the door, and Gojyo beckoned them to come in. One of the hotel staff let himself in with a key and set a tray down on a small stand beside the two men in the bubbling pool. Gojyo thanked him and he bowed and quickly left, locking the door behind him on his way out.

The tray was laden with two small cups for the sake as well as several small plates of cut-up fruit and sweet treats. They both groaned to look at the food, still feeling full from their large meal. They began to relax in the steaming hot water and let it seep into their limbs, and as they sipped the sake, they were surprised to find how good the fresh fruit and sweets bit started to taste to them after all. Gojyo delighted in feeding Sanzo juicy bits of peach and mango, and seized on one occasion to taste a bit of the sweet juice with his tongue as it dribbled down the blonde’s chin.

The kappa pulled the hair tie off of his hair and dipped his head under the water to fully get his hair wet. As the darkened crimson strands were streaming around the dusky skin of his bare chest he was an image of sheer masculine beauty. Sanzo was mesmerized, and felt his cock twitching in the hot water just looking at him. Without even realizing what he was doing, he reached out and touched one of the darkened crimson strands of hair where it trailed near Gojyo’s nipple. The redhead felt a surge of adrenalin shoot up from his gut at the priest’s touch and looked straight in his eyes. Sanzo froze, not moving his hand.

Gojyo brought his hand up to Sanzo’s cheek and held it, cupping the whole side of the monk’s head with his long strong fingers. Sanzo leaned his head into the kappa’s hand slightly, instinctively.

“Sanzo…” Gojyo started to speak but was at a loss for words, his heart was so full. His eyes welled slightly as he stared intensely into Sanzo’s violet ones.

Sanzo moved his hand up to gently still the kappa’s mouth with his index finger. “Shhhhh,” he said quietly, “not now.”

Sanzo moved off of the onsen bench into the chest-high water and stood looking at the kappa. When he held out his hand Gojyo stood and took it, and from that small touch they curled into a tightly-entwined embrace, both gasping at the sudden feeling of all that hot skin against skin. Sanzo grabbed a fistful of the kappa’s hair, grateful at last to be able to get his hands into the fiery auburn silk he had been wanting to touch at all night. Gojyo ran one strong hand down Sanzo’s back, kneading as he went, ending up cupping the small firm muscles of Sanzo’s butt. Sanzo made a louder groan deep in his throat when Gojyo used his grip on the monk’s ass to push his hips against the priest’s as he ground against him. Both of them were fully-hard now, their cocks crushed between their firm bodies as they kissed deeply and strained against each other in the steaming water.

“,,,Oi! the door!?” Sanzo gasped, concerned for their privacy. The last thing he needed was for some inn staffer.. or a guest.. or gods forbid, Hakkai or the monkey to come busting in on them…

“No worries, love.” Gojyo smiled as he worried little nips into Sanzo’s neck. “It’s locked from the inside,” he mumbled as he nibbled and sucked on the houshi’s earlobe and Sanzo growled softly. “The only way the clerk got in with our treats was with his key. They are under strict orders not to bother us.”

Sanzo marveled once again at the planning and forethought that the erogappa had put into this whole evening – into his whole effort to win him, actually. He had read about whole military campaigns mounted with less precision and efficiency than all of this. Really, the man could be a fucking general. And before this, he had always thought he was such a bumbling incompetent…

His musings on this were interrupted as Gojyo picked him up out of the water and sat him down on the edge of the onsen on a towel. Sanzo felt exposed and vulnerable for only the briefest of moments before the kappa kneeled before him on the bench in the onsen. He started raining kisses and nips all over his body in a delightful trail Sanzo knew would inevitably lead to his pulsing-hard dick. Knowing where it was headed, he couldn’t protest, he could only look down and marvel at this gorgeous hanyou, and revel in what he was doing for him and how absolutely incredible it felt as Gojyo’s mouth closed around his straining hardness. A little while later a very light-headed monk tried to remember some of the finer points of what had been done for him as he returned the favor to an extremely happy erogappa.

Momentarily spent, the pair toweled off and wrapped up in fluffy bathrobes the hotel provided, collected their things, and headed up to Gojyo’s room.

“Why are we going to your room? All my things are in my room,” Sanzo predictably groused as they quietly trod through the halls of the inn.

“Haven’t you learned to trust me by now? …Have I steered you wrong yet?” Gojyo smiled confidently.

Sanzo didn’t reply but he had to grudgingly admit to himself that the kappa was right. Gojyo unlocked the door to his room and grandly swept the houshi in.

The room was only dimly lit, and some kind of heavenly-smelling incense was burning – Sanzo usually hated the stuff after all those years in the monastery, but this was nice – sandalwood maybe? The bed here was about two sizes larger than the one in Sanzo’s room and was nicely turned-down, the pillows plumped. On an ample table beside the bed were Sanzo’s roses, his new cigarettes and an ashtray, and a tray with two large white mugs and a fresh pot of coffee on a chafing-base to keep it warm. Sanzo happened to glance at the dresser on the other side of the room and noticed that all of his belongings were neatly stacked there, including his robes, the harisen, and his crown.

“The Sutra…” he fretted.

“Stored away safely in here. So is the gun,” Gojyo said reassuringly. “All your stuff is in here,” he said, smiling broadly as closed and locked the door and pulled the monk into into his arms.

Sanzo pushed back and looked up at him, raising one eyebrow, “ tch, someone is pretty damn sure of themselves.”

“Nope. I just know my Sanzo-chan,” said the kappa, claiming the priest’s mouth for his own once again.

Once again Sanzo’s resistance left him as the combination of his accumulated need and the deeper feelings he was fighting for the kappa proved more than he could overcome.

Gojyo led Sanzo over to the bed and sat him down, lighting cigs for both of them.

“We need to talk a minute,” he said, his voice laden with caring and concern.

“What now?” Sanzo was immediately wary.

“You’ve trusted me this far, I need to know if you are ready to trust me the rest of the way,” he said. “I don’t ever want to ask you to do anything you aren’t ready to do. And I want you to know I will never hurt you – at least not if you don’t want me to!” he teased, rolling his eyes and waggling his eyebrows. “You can always say stop anytime. I know this is all new to you. It’s not exactly old hat to me, you know. I want this to be really good for you.”

“I’m a big boy, I know what I’m doing,” Sanzo replied.

The he wondered if the confidence in his voice adequately concealed the trepidation he felt – not at being with the kappa as much as the actual physical act he was contemplating, which was a totally new thing to him, as loath as he was to admit it.

“I know that, Sanzo. But your well-being is the most important thing in the world to me. Don’t ask me why, but it is. And I would never want to do anything that was bad for you or wasn’t just what you wanted, ok? “

“Understood. Uhm… and..ah.. appreciated.”

He looked around the room nervously. He started to feel like he needed another cigarette…. Then he looked at Gojyo, and the roses, and the French cigarettes. And he remembered the restaurant, and the cab ride, and the chocolates, and the note in his sandals, and….

“Good. Excellent. So you are sure you want to go ahead... with this to its… uhm, natural conclusion?”

His voice betrayed the fact that he was still nervous and afraid of rejection in spite of all that he had done to bring them to this point.

“Gojyo…”

“What?”

“You still talk too much,” Sanzo said, said, pulling the kappa down onto the bed in a fierce embrace.

Relief flooding through him along with elation and lust, Gojyo pulled off his lover’s robe and threw it to the floor in his need to better access all of his body. He marveled at how Sanzo’s smooth hard chest felt like cool marble under his alabaster skin, the surface broken only by the hardened nipple he teased now with his tongue. The blonde groaned and arched his back as Gojyo nipped at his nubbin and suckled at it roughly.

The kappa reached down and found Sanzo fully-erect as he had hoped, the tip glistening with silver drops. Sanzo gasped as the hanyou wrapped his long fingers around his cock and used his the pad of his thumb to sensuously run the silken liquid all around the head. Gojyo moved his head up and nuzzled and sucked at Sanzo’s neck as he began sliding his hand up and down Sanzo’s shaft, and the combined sensations were almost more than the monk could bear.

He groaned and reached down between them for the kappa’s dick, and began stroking it in time with Gojyo’s ministrations to him. He wanted more, and with his free hand pulled the redhead’s hair back to force his mouth up to his and claimed it in a deep frenzied kiss. He moved his hips to thrust himself into the kappa’s large strong hand and Gojyo chuckled deep in his throat at his lover’s urgency.

He broke from the kiss with Sanzo and looked into his violet eyes now hooded with intense want. “Ok, tenshi, we need to try something a little new if we are going to take this to the next step. You ready?”

“Whatever…” Sanzo growled impatiently.

Gojyo reached into the nightstand and brought out a bottle of expensive lubricant. This wasn’t the generic stuff he had used before when the girls occasionally needed a little extra help, this was quality stuff. He had gone to a pharmacy in one of the bigger towns they had gone through and had a little frank conversation with the clerk, and he had produced this stuff. It was a lot more expensive, but it was all-natural, and it didn’t have that chemical taste or smell that a lot of the other ones did. This one had kind of a slightly sweet taste and smelled like vanilla. He kissed Sanzo again, and reassured him, “remember now, any time you want, you can say stop.”

“I’m not some fucking porcelain doll.” Sanzo groused, grabbing at Gojyo and pulling him into his arms again.

“Ok, ok,” Gojyo laughed, “here, let’s see how you feel about this.” He poured a generous amount of the lube into a small bowl on the tray by the bed and dipped his index finger into it. He then he reached down with the other hand and started stroking Sanzo’s cock to make sure he was good and turned on when he took the next step. When he had Sanzo moaning again he reached between the blonde’s legs and slipped the lubed finger in Sanzo’s tight hole. Sanzo stopped moving his hips and his eyes opened wide momentarily as he realized he had been invaded. Gojyo kept stroking the blonde’s dick, and little by little started moving his finger inside of him, searching for his sweet spot. Sanzo relaxed fairly quickly under his efforts, and gave a startled gasp when Gojyo found his prostate. Gojyo realized, in his naivete, the monk may not even have even known that there was a part of his anatomy down there to contribute to his pleasure, and he loved being the one to show it to him.

As Sanzo got more turned on, Gojyo pulled out his finger, which elicited a small “ooo” of disappointment from the monk. That small sound swelled the kappa’s heart, encouraging him to press on. He dipped two fingers in the slick liquid and gently introduced them, all the while stroking the monk’s prick. With so much sensation overwhelming him, Sanzo had forgotten about tending to his lover’s dick. Gojyo didn’t care, he was so turned on by what he was doing to Sanzo and how the houshi was enjoying it, it was all he could do to keep from coming without anyone even touching his crank. Besides, at this point he was fairly confident a greater reward was in store for him soon, and it would all be worth it. He moved his two fingers more vigorously inside Sanzo, slowly stretching his opening. As he moaned and rotated his hips, Sanzo was now thrusting his dick into the kappa’s hand with his forward motions, and onto his slicked probing fingers going back.

Seeing how thoroughly turned-on Sanzo was at this point gave Gojyo the confidence to take things to the next step. He worked Sanzo’s prick more vigorously to get him even closer to his climax, massaging his sweet spot relentlessly the whole time with his digits. As Gojyo heard deeper more urgent groans from the blonde and felt his muscles clenching around his fingers, he knew Sanzo was close to coming and it was time.

“OK babe, here we go,” he said, pulling his fingers out of Sanzo and rolling onto his back. “Since it’s your first time I’m going to let you drive,” he grinned and grabbed the bottle of lubricant and held it out to Sanzo.

Sanzo lay mute and slightly stunned for a minute until a little bit of blood returned to his brain and he processed the change in the situation. He understood right away about lubing up Gojyo, and he poured a fair amount of the lubricant into the palm of his hand and began slathering it on his lover’s cock.

The sensation of Sanzo’s hot hand smoothing the cool slippery liquid up and down his steel-hard shaft was nearly too much for Gojyo, especially with the visual of a naked, flushed, and obviously wildly turned-on Sanzo doing it to him. He purred a low growl deep in his throat and ran his hands over any part of the monk’s skin that he could reach. His need was starting to take control of him now- he needed Sanzo to touch him, but even more, he needed to have him, to mark him and claim him. Gojyo’s human side was swiftly losing out to his far more sexual youkai one. But it felt so good, so hot, and he had wanted Sanzo for so long, he couldn’t hold back much longer…

After he had finished preparing him, Sanzo looked at Gojyo with a slightly puzzled look. It was obvious he had the basic idea of what came next, but he was uncertain how exactly to proceed, and being Sanzo he hated to ask for guidance or ever seem uncertain.

Gojyo pulled the monk over on top of him and kissed him furiously. He swiftly sat him upright on top of him, placing him over his lubed cock, resting on his heels. Gojyo looked at Sanzo lovingly and thoughts shot through his head of everything that had brought them to this moment. He wanted so badly to say something to Sanzo about how he felt about him but he dared not – for now he was going to have to settle for showing him how he felt.

He felt so much, so fiercely at that moment, but he said only what he had to say, “now lower yourself onto me. This way you are in control, you can stop if it …” Before he could get the entire sentence out Sanzo had lowered himself onto his cock. He bit off his sentence with a surprised gasp and a long quiet groan.

Sanzo was silent, concentrating on the intense feelings flooding his body, biting his lower lip to get through the pain, riding it out for the pleasure he was confident would come. When Sanzo had taken the Gojyo’s full length they were both still momentarily - the redhead knew Sanzo would need to adjust to having his fullness inside of him. They locked eyes, scarlet to violet, and slowly Sanzo began to rock his hips back and forth, up and down, slowly testing what movements felt best to both him and his lover. Gojyo reached over and snagged a little of the lubricant on his hand and began sensuously stroking the monk’s cock in rhythm with his thrusts. The kappa had managed to somehow maintain his composure up to this point, he was so focused on wanting to make the experience good for Sanzo. But now, feeling his dick encased in Sanzo’s tight heat as he moved up and down, combined with feeling the monk’s slick cock in his hand and the look of sheer ecstasy and want in those lust-darkened purple eyes, Sha Gojyo finally lost all control. He groaned deep in his throat with each of the monk’s thrusts, and held fast to his lover’s cock like it was the only thing keeping him from him from spinning away in a towering wave of desire, lust, and pure unabashed emotion for the man above him.

Suddenly Sanzo became the one in control of the situation. He kept the speed of their lovemaking to a sensous, almost tortuous pace. He would pull himself almost all the way off of the kappa’s cock and then come back down slowly and forcefully, rotating his hips. Gojyo groaned with each dilatory thrust, and arched his hips up to meet Sanzo’s motions. The monk was learning how to find his own sweet spot with his lover’s dick and pleasure the kappa all the more at the same time. Gojyo became frantic for more of Sanzo, and grabbed one of Sanzo’s free hands and began kissing his slender fingers, plunging them deep in his mouth and sucking on them, biting the pads gently, all the while keeping the monk’s eyes locked with his.

That extra layer of sensation for both of of them was all it took to start sending them both over the edge. Sanzo groaned loudly and quickened his maddening pace. He wrapped his own slender fingers around Gojyo’s long strong ones curled tightly around his dick and urged him silently to keep up. They matched their tempo and urgency and as Gojyo felt the beginnings of his own sweet glorious spasms of release he also felt Sanzo’s muscles clenching around him inside. He sat up and wrapped his other arm around Sanzo, holding him tightly, with the monk still firmly seated on his lap.

The world narrowed down for the two lovers to his cock, his ass, his dick, and his hand. It became one glorious circle of exploding intense red heat as Gojyo gave Sanzo’s twitching cock several short quick jerks. They each cried out together as Sanzo felt Gojyo spasm and empty his white-hot seed inside of him. Gojyo peaked again, moaning along with Sanzo as he felt the monk’s dick go off in his hand, feeling Sanzo’s spasms clench around his dick inside of him. The blonde’s heart hammered furiously in his chest and they both felt soft pulsations in his core like shared aftershocks as their climaxes subsided. The two held each other tightly and struggled to breathe normally again.

Gojyo nuzzled Sanzo’s neck and bit his earlobe, and kissed him again several times before he was willing to break the sweet embrace. They finally reluctantly slid apart in the big bed, their sweat immediately making them feel chilly in the cool room. Gojyo propped himself up on pillows on the side by the bedside table, and beckoned Sanzo to come lie in his arms under the covers.

Sanzo looked at Gojyo with a jaded violet eye, and the kappa could see his habitual walls start to come back up even before the sweat was dry on their skin.

“You know I’m not really much of a cuddler,’ he mumbled.

“Could have fooled me a few minutes ago,” Gojyo responded wryly.

He felt so good after what they had just shared, he was almost not afraid of Sanzo’s usual retreat back to his dry cynical pretense.

“That wasn’t exactly what I would call cuddling.”

“OK…so humor me. Consider it a favor, because it makes me feel good,” he asked. He wasn’t begging, it was only a simple request.

After all the special things the kappa had done for him that night, Sanzo felt he could hardly say no to when Gojyo demanded so little of him, it really would be in poor form considering…

“You tell anybody about this…”

“Yes, yes, I know, you’ll make sure I die the death of a thousand cuts … Let me get us some smokes. Then, come to me my white hot flame…” Gojyo said merrily.

Gojyo lit one of Sanzo’s French cigs for him and one of his old stand-by’s. He pulled Sanzo in under the shelter of his long muscular arm and they lay propped up on the pillows. “Wanna cup of coffee? I think it’s still hot…” the kappa offered.

“In a few minutes.” Sanzo finished his smoke and the two lay intertwined in the big bed in comfortable silence. He realized as he was lying there, drowsily getting hypnotized by the kappa’s strong steady heartbeat, that he felt something he had rarely felt in his life. It was something so rare for him that he had to really cast about in his mind to find the right word in order to give it a name. Feeling like this surprised him, and it moved him to give the hanyou a deep sweet kiss.

“Thank you… for tonight… you know,… for everything,” he said to Gojyo, who simply kissed him lightly on the top of the head in response.

Just before Sanzo fell asleep, he found the right word for how he felt- contentment. Yes, that was it, contentment. He said the word over and over to himself like a mantra as he drifted off to sleep listening to the soft rain falling outside.

The first few cold drops of rain plinking on his face brought Sanzo back with a start to the cold cruel reality of where he was. Fucking wonderful, he thought. “Just what I need. Rain.”

He stiffly got up from the park bench and headed back towards the hotel, pulling his collar up around his neck against the cold rain. He knew the Kougaiji party would probably be there when he got back, and he wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. He had no major heartburn with the woman, and Gojyo’s brother seemed to be a nice enough guy when they weren’t fighting each other, seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. But he just hoped they weren’t bringing that damned little brat girl with them – that might just push him over the fucking edge at this point. She always seemed to focus on making his life miserable when she was around, and he could really do without that right now.

And he wasn’t too sure about her onii-san, the Brat Prince Kougaiji, either. He usually seemed to have enough attitude for about twelve people as far as Sanzo could see. He tried to act all like he didn’t need anybody, and was all grouchy-ass all the time, treated his people like shit, too. Who could have any respect for a leader like that? Yeah, he knew the brother wanted to see Gojyo, but he really wasn’t looking forward to this whole thing. People could be such a fucking pain.
***TELEGRAM***

CHO HAKKAI, KAM LING INN

HAKKAI,

PLS BE ADVISED WE HAVE BEEN DETAINED FOR THE EVENING AT HOUTOU. SO SORRY.

WILL DEPART IN A.M. AND HOPE TO BE WITH YOU BY NOON.

MY ABJECT APOLOGIES.

YOUR SERVANT,

YAONE

***************

~TBC~





Author’s Notes

(1) From the beautiful poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge was a 18th Century English Romantic poet, and he said Kubla Khan was “composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium.” Anyone wishing to read the entire text can do so at: http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Kubla_Khan.html

(2.) For anyone that caught it, yes, the name of the restaurant Gojyo took Sanzo to was taken from the song ”Werewolves of London” by the late great Warren Zevon. Could have been worse – I could have had them order a “big plate of beef chow mein.” J

(3) The name of the Inn, Kam Ling, is lifted from one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in my hometown. Another minor tribute. The devil is in the details.

(4.) For anyone that wants to track it down and pay the high price for it, there really does exist a sexual lubricant that is all-natural, has a light sweet vanilla taste and scent, and apparently both works well and tastes good.

(5.) My medical expertise is only amateur from library work and my own years of health problems and learning to research medical issues for self-defense when dealing with medical professionals. I did my best to be accurate when dealing with the medical issues in this story, but one can only get so far researching on the net. If this happens to be read by anyone with any expertise who wishes to correct me on any errors I may have made, I encourage them to contact me.