Appearance

 

 

            “Ne, Sanzo, I’m hungry!” Goku pouted as he watched the monk exit the room without a backward glance, muttering to himself. 

 

     “Goku, you just finished eating,” Hakkai murmured, pointing to the clean dish in front of them.  They had arrived late in the night, very late.  No light had been shining in the village – except for the local bar, every populated area seemed to have one – and only Sanzo’s status as a monk had gotten them the three remaining rooms in the singular inn occupying this remote area.  The innkeeper had been quite unreceptive, too.

 

     Well, Hakkai amended with a sigh, it had been late and both Sanzo and Gojyo had been…less than polite.

 

     “Yeah, I know.”  Hakkai turned his attention back to his temporary roommate, the thoughtful look on the young man’s face almost troubling to see.  Goku flopped backwards onto his bed.  “But no matter how much I eat, this hunger never seems to go away.”

 

     Something was nagging Hakkai in the back of his mind, like an important piece to an invisible jigsaw puzzle – a jigsaw puzzle that kept its secrets locked from view until the last piece had been set in place. “ ‘A hunger that never goes away’?” He echoed, tilting his head to the side.

 

     “Yeah.”  Goku frowned, leaping out of bed.  “And no matter what I do, Sanzo never pays any attention to me!”  He walked out of the room, determination in his stride as he left a slightly dazed Hakkai in his wake.  Said healer was trying to sort things out – how did the conversation jump from hunger to Sanzo?  The nagging voice in his brain increased to a fever pitch.

 

     Then it clicked. A hunger insatiable by food usually meant a craving for attention.  But the attention Goku was craving couldn’t be the kind from close friends so it had to be a need for a…Hakkai’s visible eye widened.  And as of late, Goku complained of his hunger to…to Sanzo…

 

     Oh dear.  Well, if his instincts were right, the next few weeks were certainly going to be interesting.

 

     “Oi, Hakkai,” Gojyo’s voice pulled the healer out of his thoughts.  “Lets go for a drink.”  The redhead grabbed a hold on his friend’s nearest arm, half dragging him out of bed.

 

     “Ano…isn’t it a bit…late?”

 

     “I want a drink.”  Gojyo insisted, dragging him out of the bedroom.  “And you’re going with me.”

 

     Ack.

~~~~~~~~~

          Goku threw himself down on the bed, one hand holding the bump he’d acquired on his brief trip to Sanzo’s room.  The monk’s skill with that paper fan seemed to be improving.  But that wasn’t what bothered Goku – he was used to being hit and yelled at by Sanzo.  Sanzo yelling at him meant that Sanzo deemed him worthy of at least that much effort.

 

     No, what bothered the young man was Sanzo hitting him and then ignoring him.  It was unusual and unnatural, and despite his self-reassurances a little worm of fear burrowed in his heart with a simple – but terrifying – question.

 

     Did Sanzo think he wasn’t worth the effort anymore?

~~~~~~~~~

     Said monk was staring out the window, puffing furiously on a cigarette.  There was something different about the saru – he wasn’t quite sure what, but it was enough that he had forgotten the stern lecture that always followed the appearance of his fan.  He wasn’t too worried, though – if the saru couldn’t learn from all the previous lectures he’d received, the absence of one wouldn’t hurt.

 

     But something had happened to change the younger man, spiritually if not physically and Sanzo didn’t know what it was.  He hated not knowing.

~~~~~~~~~

     It was nearly free, it could feel the mental leash binding it start to weaken.  Then it would be free once more to rip and –

 

     No.  Not to rip and tear.  Not to kill.  It had a mission; there was something more important it had to do.  Something that kept it calm, kept it sane.  It would complete this mission first – it would get rid of the problem that had given it this bittersweet gift of consciousness.

 

     And then it would be free to rip and tear.

~~~~~~~~~~

     It was a precarious balance at best – sanity and madness teetering upon steel scales, a game whose victor could not be determined unless you gazed into the golden eyes of a young man  - a young man who had unwillingly lent his emotions to be the battlefield in a decision that could make or break not only him, but all that which he held dear. 

 

     But for once in their existence, those golden eyes betrayed nothing.  And so to even the most careful of observers everything appeared to be normal.  And those who might have – or should have – known would have been surprised to see the balance tipped by such an ordinary event.

 

     Those who were wise, however, would have nodded their heads as if they had expected no less.  Those who were wise knew that the greatest of changes occurred because of one sand grain rather than the foolish that watched the desert.

 

     The sand grain this time came in the form of a dumpling – a dumpling, a man, yet another man, and the Fan.  Those who were wise could have prevented it if they had so desired.

 

     But those who were wise were also not present.  Or, if they were, they wisely kept their mouths shut.

~~~~~~~~~~

     They had four rooms this time.  Perhaps if someone had been present, they could have stopped the wheels of fate as they started to move.  Or, perhaps, they would have simply been crushed underfoot.  But Fate in not concerned with ‘perhaps’, only with ‘what is’.

 

     Besides, ‘what is’ happened to be much more entertaining.

    

Goku lay curled up in his bed, alone save for the cold breeze drifting in from the opened window in his bedroom.

 

Alone.  That word terrified him to no end.  Alone meant abandonment, darkness, and the pain of detachment.  Alone reminded him of those days of slow torture – slowly going mad yet unable to succumb to the madness.  Waiting for a day when it would all end – and the crush of bitter disappointment at twilight as he was forced into his imprisonment for another day.  An imprisonment that he was forbidden to know the reason for. 

 

Unbidden, it all came back.  The loneliness, fear, and disappointment – a crushing weight that seemed determined to break him.  An image came to his mind: Sanzo, his retreating back facing him as the man who saved him walked out of his life forever.  He tried to follow but was stopped short at a sudden weight holding back his limbs.  He was chained again, the clanking of cold metal bringing back more memories that he wished to forget once he had been freed.

 

Freed? A small part of his mind whispered.  Whenever have we been freed?  We are a thing of the wild, yet we have been continuously chained by humanity.

 

No!  He yelled back. Sanzo saved me!  He reached out, removing me from my chains, removing me from those stone bars –!

 

Stone bars? The voice answered back silkily.  Do you mean those stone bars?

 

Panic shining clear in his golden eyes Goku looked up.  They sat there, unmoving, yet he shrunk back like a frightened animal.  The rock was nearly invisible, peaking out here and there in the small spaces left uncovered by the ofuda.

 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!!!  I don’t want to be alone again!  I don’t want to be chained! 

    

Goku could hear a snap in his dreams, like the snap of metal chains, and a primal roar of triumph.  That roar sent shivers up his spine – shivers of horror at what could have been released, and shivers of pleasure in anticipation of what it would do.

 

     Anticipation?  Yes, the new presence was like a familiar stranger, yet part of himself.  It reveled in death and fighting, something that horrified the young man to no end, but it was his fierce protector to the very end.

 

     He could feel sleep overcome him as he was engulfed in a gentle warmth.  His other side was gaining control, he really should stop it, but he was so tired…and Sanzo didn’t care.

 

     Sanzo!  No, like this he would hurt Sanzo!  That was his last conscious thought before everything went black.

 

     And the golden diadem hit the wooden floor with a dull clang.

~~~~~~~~

 

     A blast if cold punched Sanzo in the gut, the all too familiar feeling of youki warning him before the scrape of boots on the hardwood floor.  He leapt up, grabbing his nearby Smith & Wesson as he spun. The gun barked as he pulled the trigger. 

 

     A pair of golden eyes blinked at him, and the monk relaxed.  “Bakasaru! Wha -?” 

 

     He never saw the blow coming, only the sharp pain in his wrist and the sound of his gun falling to the ground with a clatter, sliding a few feet away.  He opened his mouth for a retort, but the acid words never left his tongue as he was slammed into the wall.

 

     It was then that he noticed the long, slim ears peeking out beneath brown hair.  Cat-slitted eyes peered at him yet the youkai made no other move, simply stared at him.  Cautiously, so as not to startle the feral boy before him into attacking, Sanzo lifted one hand toward the bare forehead.

 

     Youkai-Goku pinned the hand to the wall with ridiculous ease, leaning up against him to hinder any other movement.  He grinned, almost as if daring Sanzo to try something else.  This bastard was playing with him!

 

     “What the hell are you doing, you damn monkey?!”

 

     “Trying to see.”  Sanzo furrowed his brow – that had not been an anticipated answer.  The youkai tilted his head to the side, his grin widening.  “Trying to see why we like you so much.” 

 

     ‘Na-ni?!’

 

     His shock must have shown on his face, because Goku’s smile became playful.  But it was like a tiger trying to look as playful as a house cat.  “You don’t believe me?”

 

     Angry retorts were muffled by the contact of skin on skin.  For one of the few times in his life, Sanzo was unsure of what to do.  Divided plans of action were forming in his brain, each with an insistent clamor for attention. And each and every one of them contradicted with another.

 

     It felt like an eternity had passed, when the younger man had first engaged the lip-lock.  He could feel every nerve come alive, tingling, sensitive to the slightest touch – what the hell was that saru doing to him?

 

     Goku released him, a smug look on his lips.  “Oyasumi nasai, he purred, His hips swaying in a deliberate, sensual fashion, the young youkai left Sanzo with only his thoughts.  Which, quite frankly, could be summed up very neatly. 

 

‘What the fuck?’ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author’s Notes ~ Finished ch1 in record time!  Actually, when I posted the prologue I had around 90% of this chapter completed.  It was simply a question of finding Appearances (*Grumbles* 3 hard drives, 7 rooms, and 800 billion floppy disks later…)

 

          Ah, I like this take on the Goku/Sanzo relationship…well, the hilarious thought of Sanzo playing uke probably has something to do with it (though, trust me, I doubt it will stay that way for long).  Now, from chapter two on, this fic will go up to rated R – it won’t become NC-17, since there’s no need to go that far in this story…

 

Next Chapter ~ Possession and Jealousy

 

{Enter Standard Disclaimer Here}  You can e-mail me at [email protected] or [email protected] with C&C.  Flames will be used to threaten my muses to work faster. ^_^

 

Mitsuu: Oi!

Shinnite: *Innocent whistle*