*headache*
Jun. 27th, 2008 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keHm... I kind of don't like where this fic is headed. I want to, I do, but it seems like there's just no happy ending in sight.
“So you’re saying blue,” said lady Katharine Withmore, the ambassador of Western kingdoms, unfolding fine powder blue silk from its bolt and holding it against her breast. She turned towards the mirror to consider the combination.
Goku nodded, looking at the reflection. He took the material out of her hand and draped it loosely against her shoulders. He slid the collar of the plain dress she wore aside, so that the new material was laid against her pale skin and golden hair.
“It looks lovely on you.”
Katharine had to agree with him.
“I will take it,” she told the girl waiting on them, enunciating the foreign language with care. She was fluent, at least that’s what everyone told her, yet speaking still required a substantial effort. “I will need the dress next week, so if your master could visit the embassy the day after tomorrow I would be grateful.”
“Of course, madam.”
“So what is next on the list?” Goku asked holding the door open and letting Katharine pass, giggling, under his outstretched arm.
“I do believe I’m finished with the shopping,” she said stepping out into the street. “The show doesn’t start for another two hours, so perhaps a snack?”
Goku beamed, as usual when food was mentioned. “Happily!”
Katharine has long since discovered that inviting Goku along for running errands in the city was relaxing and eased all sorrows. With Goku as a guide nothing was easier than finding a cosy establishment serving quality food anywhere in the city. Not to mention the comfort of being able to converse freely in her native tongue, which by some miracle Goku mastered. Her husband was a great conversationalist, but he tended towards facts and dry analysis of the current affairs, which was hardly relaxing, and the rest of the Westerners were, to put it mildly, insufferable. Goku, on the other hand, was blissfully unaware of the issues and intricacies of politics, despite the time spent accompanying Shangri La’s officials.
The café of the day was hard to notice, if one wasn’t already aware of its presence. The single storey building was erected on a square patch of land, around a garden pond, around which the tables were located. The barrier of the building isolated the little establishment from the busy outside world, hampering the sound and lulling the patrons into the delights of cosy golden afternoons.
Plus, their selection of sweets was to die for.
Goku happily indulged in a cake of the day, which the waitress supplied with a complimentary cup of tea and a wide smile. Katharine guessed the companion was on speaking terms with the staff of every establishment in the city.
“Goku,” Katharine said, watching him lick the cream from his spoon. He paused and looked at her, confused by the tone of her voice. “I would very much like for you to stay tonight.”
“With pleasure. Although I’m afraid I’d have to leave at noon.” Goku brushed her knuckles with the tips of his fingers as he leaned forward. At the small table in a public café the caress felt almost like a kiss. “If that’s all right with you?”
“It is. I know my request is unexpected.” She was fumbling for words and she knew how ridiculous it must seem. She was an ambassador. Lives depended on her ability to negotiate. Yet she was getting tongue-tied when asking for a companion to spend the night with her.
Granted, where she came from that was not a part of the curriculum. In fact where she came from the notion of hiring a bed partner was never acceptable. Katherine had spent some time getting used to the idea of having companions introduced to her formally during ceremonial events. So she was entitled to a little uncertainty, when venturing into foreign territory.
She waited for Goku to finish his cakes and offer her his arm. They moved to the business district, dealing with the rest of errands Katharine had planned. They were moving slowly, since it seemed that half of the city had the same plan as them. Worse still, the moving masses threatened to tear them apart more than once. Eventually they had to separate. The crowds thickened around Katharine, trapping her in place. She was too short to see what caused the commotion, but the rhythmical clatter of hooves on the pavement told her all she needed to know. Someone was riding with haste. Then the crowd moved again and Katharine felt someone’s hand close around her bicep and pull her along, to the front.
“I was worried you’d be crushed,” Goku said, finding a niche in between people of the first row.
“Thank you,” Katharine said. She looked up into his face and realised that the clatter of hooves, which should be loudest right now, silenced. The horse had stopped right in front of them.
“Your Grace,” Katharine heard Goku say, though to her ears his voice was oddly cool and strained. In all the time she’d known him, he had never sounded like he was unsure, like the person he was greeting was unwelcome, and Katherine saw him manage the clerics of her home country, who had been less than impressed with his profession.
All the more interested in the person who inspired such conflicting emotions in the otherwise amiable companion, Lady Katherine raised her head. His Grace, lord Genjo Sanzo was looking down at them from horseback, staring at Goku, and his hand tucked protectively around Katharine’s. She realised she was staring, but who in their right mind wouldn’t? The man was beautiful, and haloed by the sunlight light he looked like a god. Understandably, it took her a moment to gather her manners and properly greet a nobleman of Genjo’s standing.
She needn’t have bothered, she noticed in no time at all; his Grace was paying attention neither to the ambassador, nor the woman. His intensity was, it seemed, reserved for Goku alone. Yet it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds before he dug his heels into the horse’s sides, urging the animal forth before the crowds closed before them. He didn’t look back.
Goku smiled at Katharine the moment the mass of people hid his Grace from view. She did her best to ignore the curiosity that budded within her chest and threatened to overtake each sentence she uttered from now on. She could see, plain as day, that Goku was not keen on talking about it.
She had resisted the temptation to ask, great though it was. Lord Genjo, so far as she got to know him over the course of her stay in Shangri La, was ruthless and tempestuous, brilliant and efficient. Not exactly someone who’d pause at the sight of a familiar face in a crowd, not unless they were the leader of a foreign army known to cause some mayhem. If that were the case, however, Katharine would have expected a little more action – possibly a beheading, or at least a swift arrest. It was understandable that the issue occupied her mind.
For his part Goku did an excellent job of distracting her. Katharine couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that worn out. As she lay in her bed, watching Goku play with her hair, the memory of the expression on the duke’s face returned, still as confusing, still as heart wrenching. She didn’t dare ask, in the end. The one moment she thought she might have enough courage (ridiculous in its very concept, she was an ambassador. Her job was to ask difficult questions in such a way so as not to offend), she squashed the urge down. But then Goku was looking at her, eyes wide open, knowing what was on her mind and waiting for the question to be voiced.
“His Grace was surprised to see us,” she said. She waited for a reaction, but Goku didn’t say anything. “Goku, have you ever been with his Grace?”
“Yes.” Goku hesitated and turned to lie on his back. “For quite a long time, even.”
For quite a long time, he had said, Katherine noted with surprise. To her knowledge there was no way to confuse that expression with “many times”, which is what she should have expected.
“What happened?” she asked, quietly. Oh, she meant to pry. Anything that made His Grace vulnerable was bound to be of use, to her and to her country.
But Goku didn’t take the bait. “We disagree on quite a number of things, it seems.” He smiled, brilliantly, and Katherine felt the feather-light touch of fingertips against her naked thigh. Goku turned towards her, drawing her into a loose embrace, distracting from the cerebral into the carnal plane.
And Katherine was happy to follow.
xxx.XXX.xxx
Sanzo got off his horse and threw the reins at the stable boy. “Good day, Your Grace,” the boy said, with a small smile.
“Stop smiling,” he said in reply and continued walking. What he’d actually said didn’t occur him until he reached the door to his mansion. The boy was still staring after him, his eyes wide and frightened. Sanzo shook his head and went inside. The boy could handle himself. Maybe he’d better find himself another job. That smile was annoyingly cheerful and soft, and Sanzo could stand neither cheerful nor soft at the moment.
He was going crazy. And seeing Goku in the crowd, with that woman, only made it worse. Now Goku was everywhere. Soon it might be time to start slitting his wrist and becoming the laughing stock of Shangri La. Sanzo snorted. Not bloody likely.
Let the whore do what he will. He didn’t care who he was with.
It was working too; by the time he reached the door of his day room, Sanzo had all but convinced himself he wasn’t thinking where was Goku right now and what was he doing with Katherine Withmore.
Then he walked into his room and came face to face with Cho Hakkai. “Sanzo, I think you are making a mistake,” he said, by way of greeting.
“Go to hell.” Sanzo walked into the room, avoiding his supposed best friend. Someone had to take the blame, and Hakkai was the perfect candidate. He had orchestrated the whole thing, and Sanzo wasn’t blind to the fact that Goku was being literally shoved down his throat since day one. Metaphorically speaking, he hasted to add within the privacy of his own mind, but his imagination already supplied adequate images, which were of now help at all.
“Sanzo.”
“What do you want from me?” Sanzo threw a book at the wall. “What the hell do you want?”
“You were being unfair to Goku.”
“It’s not my problem if he’s having delusions of grandeur.”
Hakkai hid a smile behind his hand. Sanzo couldn’t possibly believe what he was saying just now, even as he said it. “But calling him a whore?”
“He is a whore, Hakkai.”
“Indeed.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, on principle. I’m just saying, you are being unfair.”
“How exactly?”
“For starters, you realise it is a grave offence, to call a companion a whore?”
“Grave offence to whom?”
“Sanzo.”
“It’s not my fault they can’t handle the truth.”
“You’d be lucky if a companion ever agrees to deal with you again. Or, you would be, if Goku reported it, as he should.” Hakkai opened the wardrobe that hid Sanzo’s armour.
“Do I look like I hire them on a regular basis?”
“You’ve hired Goku.”
Sanzo stared at Hakkai narrowing his eyes. “What?”
“I’m just saying, you’ve had Goku at your home at least once a week for months, following the New Year’s celebrations.”
“That’s it, I’m firing my staff.”
“I advise against that. Loyal staff is hard to come by and I don’t expect you have much talent in the culinary department. That is not the point though.”
“What is the goddamned point then?”
“If it was a whore you wanted, I’m more than certain you have more than enough maids or valets who’d be willing to service you. I’m certain it would be a lot cheaper.”
“Because screwing my household staff is what I do in my spare time.”
“Which is my point, precisely.”
“I still fail to understand.”
“Well, I don’t think I can help you much, then. Maybe it’s for the best that you are relinquishing your hold on Goku.”
Sanzo stared at Hakkai. “What?”
“I’m sure you are aware Goku is in high demand.” Hakkai smiled. “He is young, attractive and has a unique manner of conversing, that’s very refreshing if one spends their days conversing with politicians.”
“Thank you for the advertisement. I’m certain it is appreciated by the interested parties.”
“He certainly proved useful to me,” Hakkai continued. “Not only because he is skilled in bed.” Sanzo’s teeth gritted.
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Tremendously. If it wasn’t for the fact that Goku is suffering because of it.”
“I’m sure he can find himself another procurer.”
“Indeed.”
Sanzo closed his eyes. “Hakkai, leave. Now.”
“Suit yourself.” Hakkai gently straightened the last map on the flat surface of the desk. “But Sanzo, denial won’t get you very far.”
Sanzo tried not to pay attention to Hakkai’s words. He failed. The problem with Hakkai was that while the bastard believed he knew what was best for everyone and he often set out to make sure it’d come to pass, he was more often than not, correct. And that knowledge didn’t help Sanzo any.
“Go to hell, Goku,” he whispered in the silence of his room.
“So you’re saying blue,” said lady Katharine Withmore, the ambassador of Western kingdoms, unfolding fine powder blue silk from its bolt and holding it against her breast. She turned towards the mirror to consider the combination.
Goku nodded, looking at the reflection. He took the material out of her hand and draped it loosely against her shoulders. He slid the collar of the plain dress she wore aside, so that the new material was laid against her pale skin and golden hair.
“It looks lovely on you.”
Katharine had to agree with him.
“I will take it,” she told the girl waiting on them, enunciating the foreign language with care. She was fluent, at least that’s what everyone told her, yet speaking still required a substantial effort. “I will need the dress next week, so if your master could visit the embassy the day after tomorrow I would be grateful.”
“Of course, madam.”
“So what is next on the list?” Goku asked holding the door open and letting Katharine pass, giggling, under his outstretched arm.
“I do believe I’m finished with the shopping,” she said stepping out into the street. “The show doesn’t start for another two hours, so perhaps a snack?”
Goku beamed, as usual when food was mentioned. “Happily!”
Katharine has long since discovered that inviting Goku along for running errands in the city was relaxing and eased all sorrows. With Goku as a guide nothing was easier than finding a cosy establishment serving quality food anywhere in the city. Not to mention the comfort of being able to converse freely in her native tongue, which by some miracle Goku mastered. Her husband was a great conversationalist, but he tended towards facts and dry analysis of the current affairs, which was hardly relaxing, and the rest of the Westerners were, to put it mildly, insufferable. Goku, on the other hand, was blissfully unaware of the issues and intricacies of politics, despite the time spent accompanying Shangri La’s officials.
The café of the day was hard to notice, if one wasn’t already aware of its presence. The single storey building was erected on a square patch of land, around a garden pond, around which the tables were located. The barrier of the building isolated the little establishment from the busy outside world, hampering the sound and lulling the patrons into the delights of cosy golden afternoons.
Plus, their selection of sweets was to die for.
Goku happily indulged in a cake of the day, which the waitress supplied with a complimentary cup of tea and a wide smile. Katharine guessed the companion was on speaking terms with the staff of every establishment in the city.
“Goku,” Katharine said, watching him lick the cream from his spoon. He paused and looked at her, confused by the tone of her voice. “I would very much like for you to stay tonight.”
“With pleasure. Although I’m afraid I’d have to leave at noon.” Goku brushed her knuckles with the tips of his fingers as he leaned forward. At the small table in a public café the caress felt almost like a kiss. “If that’s all right with you?”
“It is. I know my request is unexpected.” She was fumbling for words and she knew how ridiculous it must seem. She was an ambassador. Lives depended on her ability to negotiate. Yet she was getting tongue-tied when asking for a companion to spend the night with her.
Granted, where she came from that was not a part of the curriculum. In fact where she came from the notion of hiring a bed partner was never acceptable. Katherine had spent some time getting used to the idea of having companions introduced to her formally during ceremonial events. So she was entitled to a little uncertainty, when venturing into foreign territory.
She waited for Goku to finish his cakes and offer her his arm. They moved to the business district, dealing with the rest of errands Katharine had planned. They were moving slowly, since it seemed that half of the city had the same plan as them. Worse still, the moving masses threatened to tear them apart more than once. Eventually they had to separate. The crowds thickened around Katharine, trapping her in place. She was too short to see what caused the commotion, but the rhythmical clatter of hooves on the pavement told her all she needed to know. Someone was riding with haste. Then the crowd moved again and Katharine felt someone’s hand close around her bicep and pull her along, to the front.
“I was worried you’d be crushed,” Goku said, finding a niche in between people of the first row.
“Thank you,” Katharine said. She looked up into his face and realised that the clatter of hooves, which should be loudest right now, silenced. The horse had stopped right in front of them.
“Your Grace,” Katharine heard Goku say, though to her ears his voice was oddly cool and strained. In all the time she’d known him, he had never sounded like he was unsure, like the person he was greeting was unwelcome, and Katherine saw him manage the clerics of her home country, who had been less than impressed with his profession.
All the more interested in the person who inspired such conflicting emotions in the otherwise amiable companion, Lady Katherine raised her head. His Grace, lord Genjo Sanzo was looking down at them from horseback, staring at Goku, and his hand tucked protectively around Katharine’s. She realised she was staring, but who in their right mind wouldn’t? The man was beautiful, and haloed by the sunlight light he looked like a god. Understandably, it took her a moment to gather her manners and properly greet a nobleman of Genjo’s standing.
She needn’t have bothered, she noticed in no time at all; his Grace was paying attention neither to the ambassador, nor the woman. His intensity was, it seemed, reserved for Goku alone. Yet it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds before he dug his heels into the horse’s sides, urging the animal forth before the crowds closed before them. He didn’t look back.
Goku smiled at Katharine the moment the mass of people hid his Grace from view. She did her best to ignore the curiosity that budded within her chest and threatened to overtake each sentence she uttered from now on. She could see, plain as day, that Goku was not keen on talking about it.
She had resisted the temptation to ask, great though it was. Lord Genjo, so far as she got to know him over the course of her stay in Shangri La, was ruthless and tempestuous, brilliant and efficient. Not exactly someone who’d pause at the sight of a familiar face in a crowd, not unless they were the leader of a foreign army known to cause some mayhem. If that were the case, however, Katharine would have expected a little more action – possibly a beheading, or at least a swift arrest. It was understandable that the issue occupied her mind.
For his part Goku did an excellent job of distracting her. Katharine couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that worn out. As she lay in her bed, watching Goku play with her hair, the memory of the expression on the duke’s face returned, still as confusing, still as heart wrenching. She didn’t dare ask, in the end. The one moment she thought she might have enough courage (ridiculous in its very concept, she was an ambassador. Her job was to ask difficult questions in such a way so as not to offend), she squashed the urge down. But then Goku was looking at her, eyes wide open, knowing what was on her mind and waiting for the question to be voiced.
“His Grace was surprised to see us,” she said. She waited for a reaction, but Goku didn’t say anything. “Goku, have you ever been with his Grace?”
“Yes.” Goku hesitated and turned to lie on his back. “For quite a long time, even.”
For quite a long time, he had said, Katherine noted with surprise. To her knowledge there was no way to confuse that expression with “many times”, which is what she should have expected.
“What happened?” she asked, quietly. Oh, she meant to pry. Anything that made His Grace vulnerable was bound to be of use, to her and to her country.
But Goku didn’t take the bait. “We disagree on quite a number of things, it seems.” He smiled, brilliantly, and Katherine felt the feather-light touch of fingertips against her naked thigh. Goku turned towards her, drawing her into a loose embrace, distracting from the cerebral into the carnal plane.
And Katherine was happy to follow.
xxx.XXX.xxx
Sanzo got off his horse and threw the reins at the stable boy. “Good day, Your Grace,” the boy said, with a small smile.
“Stop smiling,” he said in reply and continued walking. What he’d actually said didn’t occur him until he reached the door to his mansion. The boy was still staring after him, his eyes wide and frightened. Sanzo shook his head and went inside. The boy could handle himself. Maybe he’d better find himself another job. That smile was annoyingly cheerful and soft, and Sanzo could stand neither cheerful nor soft at the moment.
He was going crazy. And seeing Goku in the crowd, with that woman, only made it worse. Now Goku was everywhere. Soon it might be time to start slitting his wrist and becoming the laughing stock of Shangri La. Sanzo snorted. Not bloody likely.
Let the whore do what he will. He didn’t care who he was with.
It was working too; by the time he reached the door of his day room, Sanzo had all but convinced himself he wasn’t thinking where was Goku right now and what was he doing with Katherine Withmore.
Then he walked into his room and came face to face with Cho Hakkai. “Sanzo, I think you are making a mistake,” he said, by way of greeting.
“Go to hell.” Sanzo walked into the room, avoiding his supposed best friend. Someone had to take the blame, and Hakkai was the perfect candidate. He had orchestrated the whole thing, and Sanzo wasn’t blind to the fact that Goku was being literally shoved down his throat since day one. Metaphorically speaking, he hasted to add within the privacy of his own mind, but his imagination already supplied adequate images, which were of now help at all.
“Sanzo.”
“What do you want from me?” Sanzo threw a book at the wall. “What the hell do you want?”
“You were being unfair to Goku.”
“It’s not my problem if he’s having delusions of grandeur.”
Hakkai hid a smile behind his hand. Sanzo couldn’t possibly believe what he was saying just now, even as he said it. “But calling him a whore?”
“He is a whore, Hakkai.”
“Indeed.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, on principle. I’m just saying, you are being unfair.”
“How exactly?”
“For starters, you realise it is a grave offence, to call a companion a whore?”
“Grave offence to whom?”
“Sanzo.”
“It’s not my fault they can’t handle the truth.”
“You’d be lucky if a companion ever agrees to deal with you again. Or, you would be, if Goku reported it, as he should.” Hakkai opened the wardrobe that hid Sanzo’s armour.
“Do I look like I hire them on a regular basis?”
“You’ve hired Goku.”
Sanzo stared at Hakkai narrowing his eyes. “What?”
“I’m just saying, you’ve had Goku at your home at least once a week for months, following the New Year’s celebrations.”
“That’s it, I’m firing my staff.”
“I advise against that. Loyal staff is hard to come by and I don’t expect you have much talent in the culinary department. That is not the point though.”
“What is the goddamned point then?”
“If it was a whore you wanted, I’m more than certain you have more than enough maids or valets who’d be willing to service you. I’m certain it would be a lot cheaper.”
“Because screwing my household staff is what I do in my spare time.”
“Which is my point, precisely.”
“I still fail to understand.”
“Well, I don’t think I can help you much, then. Maybe it’s for the best that you are relinquishing your hold on Goku.”
Sanzo stared at Hakkai. “What?”
“I’m sure you are aware Goku is in high demand.” Hakkai smiled. “He is young, attractive and has a unique manner of conversing, that’s very refreshing if one spends their days conversing with politicians.”
“Thank you for the advertisement. I’m certain it is appreciated by the interested parties.”
“He certainly proved useful to me,” Hakkai continued. “Not only because he is skilled in bed.” Sanzo’s teeth gritted.
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Tremendously. If it wasn’t for the fact that Goku is suffering because of it.”
“I’m sure he can find himself another procurer.”
“Indeed.”
Sanzo closed his eyes. “Hakkai, leave. Now.”
“Suit yourself.” Hakkai gently straightened the last map on the flat surface of the desk. “But Sanzo, denial won’t get you very far.”
Sanzo tried not to pay attention to Hakkai’s words. He failed. The problem with Hakkai was that while the bastard believed he knew what was best for everyone and he often set out to make sure it’d come to pass, he was more often than not, correct. And that knowledge didn’t help Sanzo any.
“Go to hell, Goku,” he whispered in the silence of his room.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 01:05 am (UTC)although i dont think you'll reach that place without
a lot of angst, as sanzo is staying true to form with his denial
we have a local saying about that
tulak ng bibig, kabig ng dibdib
deny with the mouth what you embrace fiercely would be a loose translation.
that's sanzo.
i cant imagine goku thought with lots of partners, sexually at least
no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 08:35 am (UTC)Ah, that is so true in Sanzo's case, I don't even know where to begin. XD
Hey, Goku is, well, a whore. Prettied up and respected, but Sanzo's definition isn't so far of the mark. XDDD