[fic] Simple Things 16
Jun. 20th, 2009 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keTitle: Simple Things 16
Rating: 16
Pairings: 39, 58
Genre: horror
Warnings: cannibalism is discussed, vampirism is in effect
Summary: People want simple things. Sanzo wants his efforts recognised. Goku wants a home. Hakkai wants his friends to clean up after themselves. Gojyo wants beer.
Author notes: This fic is sponsored by Twilight, enabled by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moshesque and eyesofshinigami, and also sister (gee_nekoi), for keeping Twilight and sparkly vampires in my head by talking about them. XD For the record, this fic is a sparkle-free zone.
Most of the vampire lore in this fic (extra row of fangs, hidden in the tissue above maxillary teeth, beheading, the fact that they are not technically dead) I stole from Supernatural.
I should probably mention that the original draft (the one in my head) had the story ending here, more or less. It had since been revised. <3 Enjoy!
LX.
How did Goku land such a nice place, Pip wondered checking the address in her mobile. The building was well-kept and she was willing to bet somewhere in its basements there was enough artefacts to open a museum. Pip walked three flights of stairs and knocked on the door number 9, jumping back when it opened as soon as her hand touched the harsh wood.
“Pip, I am ever so glad to see you.” Goku bounced on the balls of his feet and pulled her inside by the elbow. “I was going stir-crazy. I mean, I know Sanzo means well, but he can be such a dickhead about it.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” From the way Goku sighed she assumed this was a question he’d heard fifteen times a day since Saturday night.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was hard to even be depressed, Sanzo was hovering like I would start spasming if he took his eyes off me for one second.”
“You didn’t, right?”
“Gimme a break. I am fine, I don’t go chomping on drugs every day.” Goku led her into the kitchen, made tea and offered up a plate of cookies. “Hakkai made them. He’s a wizard in the kitchen, let me tell you.”
Pip took one and took a deep breath. Goku went on chattering, the food, the cookies, the supper Hakkai promised. At last she had no choice but to interrupt.
“Goku, Zakuro is dead,” Pip blurted out and watched Goku freeze. It was very strange. Just a couple seconds earlier he’d been bouncing and now he froze, as if he looked back at a place so evil god himself had to burn it. “I heard today in class. He took a swan dive off the roof of his building during the night. His roommate found him this morning.”
Goku said nothing. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe; for a second Pip was worried this was a relapse.
“Are you okay?” she asked at last, moving to lay her hand on Goku’s shoulder.
“Why? Why would- why would he do this?”
Pip bit his lip. “I kinda yelled at him, in the hospital. Over the phone. I think he took it to heart. I talked to his friend, that funny guy with the cap, you know him, he said Zakuro took days to get out of ecstasy funk. Said he’d mope for ages. Once he caught him with a bottle of sleeping pills in hand.”
Goku kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. “He wasn’t surprised?”
“No,” Pip said. He had been sad, yes, and a little worse for wear, but not surprised. It did nothing to alleviate her guilt. She’d yelled at the bastard, and at the time she’d meant every single word, but she had never wanted him to die! Not for one second, not even when she thought Goku would die.
“Oh God,” Goku said, hiding his face in his hands. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t say that! It’s not your fault, you did nothing wrong!” Pip wrapped her arms around Goku’s hunched figure. “It was his own doing, start to finish.”
Goku bit his lip and smiled wanly. “Would be nice if you believed it too.”
“Me? I don’t blame you!”
“You’re blaming yourself, though.”
Pip allowed herself a small smile. Goku, though he appeared as complicated as a glass sphere, sometimes displayed remarkable powers of perception. “I yelled at him, while he was high. I Googled ecstasy before I came here, depression is a common after effect, and I’d yelled at him. I told him he killed you.”
“I didn’t die.”
“It looked pretty scary from where I was standing.”
Goku turned to envelop her in a hug in return. “Still don’t mean it wasn’t my fault.”
“Goku…”
“Can ya- Leave me alone?” Goku looked at her, and as usual Pip found that his eyes made the request impossible to deny. She didn’t want to leave, though at the same time she wanted nothing more than to go home and hide in her mum’s arms. She wasn’t sure he should be alone either. It’d only been two days, and wiki said the after effects of ecstasy could take as long as four days to pass. A sudden fear gripped her – what if Goku, too, would die? If this was the last time she’d get to see him?
Ridiculous, she told herself. Goku was the last person on the planet to commit suicide. But Zakuro hadn’t seemed the type either, not to her.
“I’ll be fine,” Goku said, as if he sensed her dilemma. “I promise. I just need to think.”
“Will you really be okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks. For telling me, I mean. Thanks Pip,” Goku said at the door and when it closed she was left with the urgency to knock again. Goku wasn’t going to disappear, was he?
LXI.
Goku’s bedroom window opened onto the street leading to a bus stop, and further on to an underground station. Goku watched Pip march down the street, one hand down the enormous pocket of her jacket, the other gripping the strap of her bag. He watched to make sure she left.
As Pip walked out of his line of sight, his eyes drifted downwards, to the glint of metal between the mattress and the wooden frame of the bed. Goku sat and waited, considering the conversation. He didn’t promise not to do anything stupid, at least he was reasonably sure he hadn’t. He had forgotten about the machete, so comforting had Sanzo’s presence become. Vampires. Goku snorted. Who would have thought. He didn’t move from his spot by the window, secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t need to wait long. He was right.
There was a knock on the door and before the last of it was done vibrating through the air the knob was turning and the door opened. Sanzo was back, no doubt to make sure Goku was heeding his orders and not doing anything that could get him killed, like stubbing his toes. Goku rose from the bed and walked to meet Sanzo in the living room.
Sanzo paused, seeing him in the middle of the room, machete in hand. Goku watched him hesitate at the door, but the moment was gone before it truly began. “You son of a bitch,” Goku growled. “How could you?”
“How could I what?” Sanzo asked, though he must have known what Goku meant.
“You killed Zakuro, didn’t you?”
Sanzo said nothing for a long while. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Bullshit!”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Look at me! Look at me and say you had nothing to do with his death and I will believe you.” It hurt, dear god how much it hurt to see Sanzo avoid his gaze. Truth wouldn’t set any of them free, not this time.
“He almost killed you.”
“He didn’t mean to! Jesus Christ, Sanzo! Zak’s just a kid!”
“He gave you drugs.” Sanzo’s eyes blazed with fury. “He gave you drugs and you were unaware of it. Even if you weren’t allergic, that was unacceptable. He deserved what he got.”
Goku bit his lip. His eyes stung, his lip hurt, but he knew if he stopped tears would start falling and that would just be bad. “Get out,” he said. “Get out of my flat, get out, get out! I don’t ever want to see ya again!”
“No.”
Goku crossed the room in three steps and slammed Sanzo into the wall. “You sick son of a bitch!” There was a small problem with attacking a creature whose default mode was to try and kill him, Goku remembered when the room flashed before his eyes and he was thrown onto the couch. Sanzo leaned over him, his weight, so comforting when it was the two of them tangled in the cotton sheets, naked and blissful, was suddenly a threat as blatant as the extra teeth. “Fuck you,” Goku growled, though the vampire pressing against his gut made breathing difficult, “ya ain’t scarin’ me! Get the fuck off!”
“You’re mine,” Sanzo said, and Goku’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” he hissed. “No, ’m not. I’m my own.”
Sanzo kissed him then, his tongue forcing its way into Goku’s mouth, as if he were trying to suck out his very soul. Goku wished he could, and that he would take the pain and guilt with it, because he fucking deserved every ounce. Zakuro had been a kid, nothing but a kid who’d made a goddamned mistake! He didn’t deserve to die for it, any more than Goku deserved this.
“Leave,” he said, when the machete he was holding bit into Sanzo’s skin at the throat. “Leave or I will kill you.” He couldn’t bear to look into Sanzo’s face. He focused on the machete, reflecting the sunshine, and the blood, trailing down its blade. The rivulets slid towards the handle and pooled until the surface tension could hold it no more and a fat drop spilled over the edge, onto Goku’s shirt.
Goku tightened his grip and looked up, into Sanzo’s eyes. “Leave,” he said again.
Sanzo listened this time. Goku had no idea – he didn’t want to have an idea – what convinced him. He didn’t know himself whether he was capable of following through with what he threatened, even if it was self-defence, even if the vampire deserved death. Even if Goku loved him and needed to know he wouldn’t become a nightmare, preying on anyone who dared to offend his twisted ideas of reality.
The door slammed and he was gone. Goku didn’t move from the couch. He lay there, gripping the handle of the machete, and wept. He cried for Sanzo, for Zakuro, but most of all he cried for himself. He could’ve pretended, when this first started, that it was going to work, that he and Sanzo could have a happy ending, but he’d been lying to himself, he knew that now. It had always been going to end in blood and tears and now it had.
LXII.
It was a gorgeous day. March spared no expense to make it so. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting up in the trees and Gojyo had plans to spend a lovely afternoon with naked women and several bottles of champagne. Too bad his contract prohibited him from drinking. Stupid house rules.
Nonetheless, Gojyo whistled as he walked, the heavy camera bouncing off his hip. He was walked past a bus stop when his nose tapped him on the back. He turned to follow the as of yet unidentified scent. There was a girl reading a timetable. That wasn’t what caught his attention, though. She had the tendrils of Goku’s smell about her, curling and mixing with her own. Gojyo looked around. There should be no other vampires around, but it never hurt to be careful.
“Hi,” he said, standing next to her with a wide grin. “You wouldn’t happen to be Pip, would you?”
Pip gave him a look. “Depends.”
“I’m, what’s the abbreviation, BFF with Goku.”
“BFF, seriously? How old are you?”
“Old enough to know I just made a juvenile idiot outta myself.” Gojyo grinned and Pip laughed. Goku had a decent eye. She was cute, and her chest, though a couple letters up the alphabet too early for Gojyo’s tastes, was indeed adorable.
There was some irony in the fact that Gojyo, who had no plans to ever again touch anyone that wasn’t a green-eyed male vampire with serious mental disorders, enjoyed his women busty.
“I live with the landlord, apartment number 5. We hang out with Goku a lot and he’s mentioned you a couple of times.”
“And you recognised me just like that?”
“I take photos for a living,” Gojyo said, shaking the camera. “You wouldn’t believe how descriptive people can be, even when they’re not trying.” Still sounded better then “hey, smelled you! You were in my building just now!”
Pip’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. He showed you the pictures, didn’t he?”
“I won’t mention them ever again if you don’t,” Gojyo said. He made a mental note to have Goku show him the photos when he went home. “What brings you here?”
“I was just at Goku’s,” Pip said, looking down. “This guy from our class died last night. I thought Goku might want to know.”
To say the words rang a warning bell in Gojyo’s brain was an understatement. They rang a symphony of horror and dread. There had been a taint of fear on Sanzo, fear that couldn’t have been the product of a vampire body. Gojyo’d ignored it, because it had been there consistently ever since the dickhead hijacked his mobile and took off for the hospital, but he had thought it was richer this morning.
Fuck.
“Did you leave Goku alone?” he asked urgently, grasping Pip’s shoulder.
“He asked me to!” Her voice carried the hint of panic.
“I’m sorry.” Gojyo let go. “That’s not how I meant it. I’m sure he’s fine, but I’d rather not see him mope. He’s no fun when he’s moping.”
“There is such a thing as grief.”
Gojyo smiled, already turning towards home. “I know. Have a good day Pip. Thanks for telling me. Oh, and the name is Gojyo, by the way.”
“No problem,” she said, confused. “Bye!”
Gojyo strode into an alley and, with nothing but a cursory glance to the sides, leapt onto the roof. If Sanzo fucking killed that kid, if Hakkai found out…
But Pip had said she was just getting back from Goku. Hakkai must have already known. Gojyo ran, though he knew he was going to be too late.
LXIII.
One hundred and sixty-five years of existence and twice now Sanzo’d had his world ripped out from underneath his feet. The shock he understood. What he didn’t understand was why and how could it have been Goku who ripped him open so thoroughly with only a few small words. It made no sense. The boy was just human, nothing but a human child. Sanzo brought his fingers to his neck, to the shallow cut, which had already begun to heal.
Goku’s anger was understandable. He had such a soggy little heart that he would weep for every rat he’d have to bite into to stay alive. All the same, Sanzo knew Goku would come around, eventually. He was too stupid to hold a grudge forever especially against someone he loved. For all his anger the emotion that threatened to spill out and overwhelm him had been sadness, more than anything else, even fury. Goku, bless his idiocy and lack of self-preservation, loved him, which was exactly what was wrong with the picture.
Goku would have killed him. That thought rattled in Sanzo’s brain, toppling over the foundations of Sanzo’s universe. The damned kid had made the decision, he had made the fucking choice and he would have followed through.
Worst of all, was that Sanzo hadn’t the first clue why he hadn’t let this happen. Surely it was better to die at Goku’s hands than Hakkai’s, which was now bound to happen. He had broken Hakkai’s rules; he’d known that he’d break them when he went after the boy who’d almost killed Goku. Sanzo was not one to mince his words when he was angry. It helped that the boy had been dying with fright and depression when he’d found him. He’d barely looked up when Sanzo’d grabbed him by the neck and hauled him to the roof.
He had wondered, afterwards, why had there been no urge to make the child his next meal. He could easily have disposed of the body. London was kind to its nightlife – there would have been zero problems in finding a resting place for one teenager. But of course that would have made no difference. Sanzo would have had broken the rules either way. He went to Islington with the intention to kill, whether he’d killed for food or for revenge, Hakkai’s rules were clear.
Sanzo found, to his great surprise, that he was in no hurry to lay his head on the chipping block. He didn’t want to die, even with his world swaying dangerously, admitting all kinds of unwelcome things into its boundaries. When was it that he started enjoying life, he asked himself, when the fuck did he start fearing death?
He had an immediate opportunity to consider this, when the world turned on its axis and Sanzo was flat on his back in the middle of Hakkai’s living room. “I had suspected something was amiss,” the other vampire said. He didn’t raise his voice. Hakkai rarely did. He was brandishing a kitchen knife, and that, for Sanzo, was a cause to worry, perhaps even panic.
“You eavesdropped?”
“Hardly. Goku’s little friend arrived in a cloud of dark feelings, which she shared with Goku; it required no genius on my part to put two and two together.”
“He deserved it,” Sanzo hissed.
“Why do you assume I care?” Hakkai closed the door. “I have no interest in justice, nor righteousness.”
“Your rules say otherwise.”
“They are in place to protect you,” Hakkai said. “No one else. It is strange, though. I rather thought it would be me.”
“What?”
“When I imagined the rules finally coming into play. I really thought it would be me who broke them first.”
“I’m not going to make this easy for you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that. We want to keep a low profile, falling out the windows in a flurry of glass isn’t what you call inconspicuous.”
This was not his day, Sanzo thought as he leapt to his feet and threw a punch at Hakkai’s head. This was not his day at all. Hakkai countered, grazing the side of his arm with the knife.
The very notion that he was fighting Hakkai who was armed with a knife was the stuff nightmares were made of. Sanzo tread softly through the unfamiliar land, seeing the demons rise from their graves and grasp for his soul. Was this madness, he wondered, was this how the vampires lost the last of themselves?
Sanzo dodged the knife and delivered a blow to Hakkai’s stomach. He heard a crunch and Hakkai let out a groan. Sanzo wasn’t so lucky as to hit hard enough to damage the spine, though. The other vampire straightened and retaliated with a kick that splintered Sanzo’s femur. Sanzo went down, grasping a cupboard for support.
“You of all people should know that madness grants many things, but clarity of thought and planning ahead is not one of them,” Hakkai said. He picked up the knife and stood over Sanzo. “Tell me, are they here yet?”
Sanzo started.
“Oh yes, I know about the darkness. I hardly think you should be surprised. You see them yet? See them crawling out of the shadowy corners, all the people you had destroyed. I always found madness to be a bit of a paradox, myself.”
Sanzo bit through his lip in an effort not to scream. The break was no great handicap, nasty though it was. The bone would heal, even without proper setting it would return to its natural state. The key word was time, of which he had none. Right now he was beaten; Hakkai needed no more advantage to do away with him.
“I don’t want to die,” Sanzo whispered.
“I am sorry it had to come to this. Goodbye, Sanzo.”
Master Post :: Next Part
Rating: 16
Pairings: 39, 58
Genre: horror
Warnings: cannibalism is discussed, vampirism is in effect
Summary: People want simple things. Sanzo wants his efforts recognised. Goku wants a home. Hakkai wants his friends to clean up after themselves. Gojyo wants beer.
Author notes: This fic is sponsored by Twilight, enabled by
moshesque and eyesofshinigami, and also sister (gee_nekoi), for keeping Twilight and sparkly vampires in my head by talking about them. XD For the record, this fic is a sparkle-free zone.Most of the vampire lore in this fic (extra row of fangs, hidden in the tissue above maxillary teeth, beheading, the fact that they are not technically dead) I stole from Supernatural.
I should probably mention that the original draft (the one in my head) had the story ending here, more or less. It had since been revised. <3 Enjoy!
LX.
How did Goku land such a nice place, Pip wondered checking the address in her mobile. The building was well-kept and she was willing to bet somewhere in its basements there was enough artefacts to open a museum. Pip walked three flights of stairs and knocked on the door number 9, jumping back when it opened as soon as her hand touched the harsh wood.
“Pip, I am ever so glad to see you.” Goku bounced on the balls of his feet and pulled her inside by the elbow. “I was going stir-crazy. I mean, I know Sanzo means well, but he can be such a dickhead about it.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” From the way Goku sighed she assumed this was a question he’d heard fifteen times a day since Saturday night.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was hard to even be depressed, Sanzo was hovering like I would start spasming if he took his eyes off me for one second.”
“You didn’t, right?”
“Gimme a break. I am fine, I don’t go chomping on drugs every day.” Goku led her into the kitchen, made tea and offered up a plate of cookies. “Hakkai made them. He’s a wizard in the kitchen, let me tell you.”
Pip took one and took a deep breath. Goku went on chattering, the food, the cookies, the supper Hakkai promised. At last she had no choice but to interrupt.
“Goku, Zakuro is dead,” Pip blurted out and watched Goku freeze. It was very strange. Just a couple seconds earlier he’d been bouncing and now he froze, as if he looked back at a place so evil god himself had to burn it. “I heard today in class. He took a swan dive off the roof of his building during the night. His roommate found him this morning.”
Goku said nothing. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe; for a second Pip was worried this was a relapse.
“Are you okay?” she asked at last, moving to lay her hand on Goku’s shoulder.
“Why? Why would- why would he do this?”
Pip bit his lip. “I kinda yelled at him, in the hospital. Over the phone. I think he took it to heart. I talked to his friend, that funny guy with the cap, you know him, he said Zakuro took days to get out of ecstasy funk. Said he’d mope for ages. Once he caught him with a bottle of sleeping pills in hand.”
Goku kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. “He wasn’t surprised?”
“No,” Pip said. He had been sad, yes, and a little worse for wear, but not surprised. It did nothing to alleviate her guilt. She’d yelled at the bastard, and at the time she’d meant every single word, but she had never wanted him to die! Not for one second, not even when she thought Goku would die.
“Oh God,” Goku said, hiding his face in his hands. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t say that! It’s not your fault, you did nothing wrong!” Pip wrapped her arms around Goku’s hunched figure. “It was his own doing, start to finish.”
Goku bit his lip and smiled wanly. “Would be nice if you believed it too.”
“Me? I don’t blame you!”
“You’re blaming yourself, though.”
Pip allowed herself a small smile. Goku, though he appeared as complicated as a glass sphere, sometimes displayed remarkable powers of perception. “I yelled at him, while he was high. I Googled ecstasy before I came here, depression is a common after effect, and I’d yelled at him. I told him he killed you.”
“I didn’t die.”
“It looked pretty scary from where I was standing.”
Goku turned to envelop her in a hug in return. “Still don’t mean it wasn’t my fault.”
“Goku…”
“Can ya- Leave me alone?” Goku looked at her, and as usual Pip found that his eyes made the request impossible to deny. She didn’t want to leave, though at the same time she wanted nothing more than to go home and hide in her mum’s arms. She wasn’t sure he should be alone either. It’d only been two days, and wiki said the after effects of ecstasy could take as long as four days to pass. A sudden fear gripped her – what if Goku, too, would die? If this was the last time she’d get to see him?
Ridiculous, she told herself. Goku was the last person on the planet to commit suicide. But Zakuro hadn’t seemed the type either, not to her.
“I’ll be fine,” Goku said, as if he sensed her dilemma. “I promise. I just need to think.”
“Will you really be okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks. For telling me, I mean. Thanks Pip,” Goku said at the door and when it closed she was left with the urgency to knock again. Goku wasn’t going to disappear, was he?
LXI.
Goku’s bedroom window opened onto the street leading to a bus stop, and further on to an underground station. Goku watched Pip march down the street, one hand down the enormous pocket of her jacket, the other gripping the strap of her bag. He watched to make sure she left.
As Pip walked out of his line of sight, his eyes drifted downwards, to the glint of metal between the mattress and the wooden frame of the bed. Goku sat and waited, considering the conversation. He didn’t promise not to do anything stupid, at least he was reasonably sure he hadn’t. He had forgotten about the machete, so comforting had Sanzo’s presence become. Vampires. Goku snorted. Who would have thought. He didn’t move from his spot by the window, secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t need to wait long. He was right.
There was a knock on the door and before the last of it was done vibrating through the air the knob was turning and the door opened. Sanzo was back, no doubt to make sure Goku was heeding his orders and not doing anything that could get him killed, like stubbing his toes. Goku rose from the bed and walked to meet Sanzo in the living room.
Sanzo paused, seeing him in the middle of the room, machete in hand. Goku watched him hesitate at the door, but the moment was gone before it truly began. “You son of a bitch,” Goku growled. “How could you?”
“How could I what?” Sanzo asked, though he must have known what Goku meant.
“You killed Zakuro, didn’t you?”
Sanzo said nothing for a long while. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Bullshit!”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Look at me! Look at me and say you had nothing to do with his death and I will believe you.” It hurt, dear god how much it hurt to see Sanzo avoid his gaze. Truth wouldn’t set any of them free, not this time.
“He almost killed you.”
“He didn’t mean to! Jesus Christ, Sanzo! Zak’s just a kid!”
“He gave you drugs.” Sanzo’s eyes blazed with fury. “He gave you drugs and you were unaware of it. Even if you weren’t allergic, that was unacceptable. He deserved what he got.”
Goku bit his lip. His eyes stung, his lip hurt, but he knew if he stopped tears would start falling and that would just be bad. “Get out,” he said. “Get out of my flat, get out, get out! I don’t ever want to see ya again!”
“No.”
Goku crossed the room in three steps and slammed Sanzo into the wall. “You sick son of a bitch!” There was a small problem with attacking a creature whose default mode was to try and kill him, Goku remembered when the room flashed before his eyes and he was thrown onto the couch. Sanzo leaned over him, his weight, so comforting when it was the two of them tangled in the cotton sheets, naked and blissful, was suddenly a threat as blatant as the extra teeth. “Fuck you,” Goku growled, though the vampire pressing against his gut made breathing difficult, “ya ain’t scarin’ me! Get the fuck off!”
“You’re mine,” Sanzo said, and Goku’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” he hissed. “No, ’m not. I’m my own.”
Sanzo kissed him then, his tongue forcing its way into Goku’s mouth, as if he were trying to suck out his very soul. Goku wished he could, and that he would take the pain and guilt with it, because he fucking deserved every ounce. Zakuro had been a kid, nothing but a kid who’d made a goddamned mistake! He didn’t deserve to die for it, any more than Goku deserved this.
“Leave,” he said, when the machete he was holding bit into Sanzo’s skin at the throat. “Leave or I will kill you.” He couldn’t bear to look into Sanzo’s face. He focused on the machete, reflecting the sunshine, and the blood, trailing down its blade. The rivulets slid towards the handle and pooled until the surface tension could hold it no more and a fat drop spilled over the edge, onto Goku’s shirt.
Goku tightened his grip and looked up, into Sanzo’s eyes. “Leave,” he said again.
Sanzo listened this time. Goku had no idea – he didn’t want to have an idea – what convinced him. He didn’t know himself whether he was capable of following through with what he threatened, even if it was self-defence, even if the vampire deserved death. Even if Goku loved him and needed to know he wouldn’t become a nightmare, preying on anyone who dared to offend his twisted ideas of reality.
The door slammed and he was gone. Goku didn’t move from the couch. He lay there, gripping the handle of the machete, and wept. He cried for Sanzo, for Zakuro, but most of all he cried for himself. He could’ve pretended, when this first started, that it was going to work, that he and Sanzo could have a happy ending, but he’d been lying to himself, he knew that now. It had always been going to end in blood and tears and now it had.
LXII.
It was a gorgeous day. March spared no expense to make it so. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting up in the trees and Gojyo had plans to spend a lovely afternoon with naked women and several bottles of champagne. Too bad his contract prohibited him from drinking. Stupid house rules.
Nonetheless, Gojyo whistled as he walked, the heavy camera bouncing off his hip. He was walked past a bus stop when his nose tapped him on the back. He turned to follow the as of yet unidentified scent. There was a girl reading a timetable. That wasn’t what caught his attention, though. She had the tendrils of Goku’s smell about her, curling and mixing with her own. Gojyo looked around. There should be no other vampires around, but it never hurt to be careful.
“Hi,” he said, standing next to her with a wide grin. “You wouldn’t happen to be Pip, would you?”
Pip gave him a look. “Depends.”
“I’m, what’s the abbreviation, BFF with Goku.”
“BFF, seriously? How old are you?”
“Old enough to know I just made a juvenile idiot outta myself.” Gojyo grinned and Pip laughed. Goku had a decent eye. She was cute, and her chest, though a couple letters up the alphabet too early for Gojyo’s tastes, was indeed adorable.
There was some irony in the fact that Gojyo, who had no plans to ever again touch anyone that wasn’t a green-eyed male vampire with serious mental disorders, enjoyed his women busty.
“I live with the landlord, apartment number 5. We hang out with Goku a lot and he’s mentioned you a couple of times.”
“And you recognised me just like that?”
“I take photos for a living,” Gojyo said, shaking the camera. “You wouldn’t believe how descriptive people can be, even when they’re not trying.” Still sounded better then “hey, smelled you! You were in my building just now!”
Pip’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. He showed you the pictures, didn’t he?”
“I won’t mention them ever again if you don’t,” Gojyo said. He made a mental note to have Goku show him the photos when he went home. “What brings you here?”
“I was just at Goku’s,” Pip said, looking down. “This guy from our class died last night. I thought Goku might want to know.”
To say the words rang a warning bell in Gojyo’s brain was an understatement. They rang a symphony of horror and dread. There had been a taint of fear on Sanzo, fear that couldn’t have been the product of a vampire body. Gojyo’d ignored it, because it had been there consistently ever since the dickhead hijacked his mobile and took off for the hospital, but he had thought it was richer this morning.
Fuck.
“Did you leave Goku alone?” he asked urgently, grasping Pip’s shoulder.
“He asked me to!” Her voice carried the hint of panic.
“I’m sorry.” Gojyo let go. “That’s not how I meant it. I’m sure he’s fine, but I’d rather not see him mope. He’s no fun when he’s moping.”
“There is such a thing as grief.”
Gojyo smiled, already turning towards home. “I know. Have a good day Pip. Thanks for telling me. Oh, and the name is Gojyo, by the way.”
“No problem,” she said, confused. “Bye!”
Gojyo strode into an alley and, with nothing but a cursory glance to the sides, leapt onto the roof. If Sanzo fucking killed that kid, if Hakkai found out…
But Pip had said she was just getting back from Goku. Hakkai must have already known. Gojyo ran, though he knew he was going to be too late.
LXIII.
One hundred and sixty-five years of existence and twice now Sanzo’d had his world ripped out from underneath his feet. The shock he understood. What he didn’t understand was why and how could it have been Goku who ripped him open so thoroughly with only a few small words. It made no sense. The boy was just human, nothing but a human child. Sanzo brought his fingers to his neck, to the shallow cut, which had already begun to heal.
Goku’s anger was understandable. He had such a soggy little heart that he would weep for every rat he’d have to bite into to stay alive. All the same, Sanzo knew Goku would come around, eventually. He was too stupid to hold a grudge forever especially against someone he loved. For all his anger the emotion that threatened to spill out and overwhelm him had been sadness, more than anything else, even fury. Goku, bless his idiocy and lack of self-preservation, loved him, which was exactly what was wrong with the picture.
Goku would have killed him. That thought rattled in Sanzo’s brain, toppling over the foundations of Sanzo’s universe. The damned kid had made the decision, he had made the fucking choice and he would have followed through.
Worst of all, was that Sanzo hadn’t the first clue why he hadn’t let this happen. Surely it was better to die at Goku’s hands than Hakkai’s, which was now bound to happen. He had broken Hakkai’s rules; he’d known that he’d break them when he went after the boy who’d almost killed Goku. Sanzo was not one to mince his words when he was angry. It helped that the boy had been dying with fright and depression when he’d found him. He’d barely looked up when Sanzo’d grabbed him by the neck and hauled him to the roof.
He had wondered, afterwards, why had there been no urge to make the child his next meal. He could easily have disposed of the body. London was kind to its nightlife – there would have been zero problems in finding a resting place for one teenager. But of course that would have made no difference. Sanzo would have had broken the rules either way. He went to Islington with the intention to kill, whether he’d killed for food or for revenge, Hakkai’s rules were clear.
Sanzo found, to his great surprise, that he was in no hurry to lay his head on the chipping block. He didn’t want to die, even with his world swaying dangerously, admitting all kinds of unwelcome things into its boundaries. When was it that he started enjoying life, he asked himself, when the fuck did he start fearing death?
He had an immediate opportunity to consider this, when the world turned on its axis and Sanzo was flat on his back in the middle of Hakkai’s living room. “I had suspected something was amiss,” the other vampire said. He didn’t raise his voice. Hakkai rarely did. He was brandishing a kitchen knife, and that, for Sanzo, was a cause to worry, perhaps even panic.
“You eavesdropped?”
“Hardly. Goku’s little friend arrived in a cloud of dark feelings, which she shared with Goku; it required no genius on my part to put two and two together.”
“He deserved it,” Sanzo hissed.
“Why do you assume I care?” Hakkai closed the door. “I have no interest in justice, nor righteousness.”
“Your rules say otherwise.”
“They are in place to protect you,” Hakkai said. “No one else. It is strange, though. I rather thought it would be me.”
“What?”
“When I imagined the rules finally coming into play. I really thought it would be me who broke them first.”
“I’m not going to make this easy for you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that. We want to keep a low profile, falling out the windows in a flurry of glass isn’t what you call inconspicuous.”
This was not his day, Sanzo thought as he leapt to his feet and threw a punch at Hakkai’s head. This was not his day at all. Hakkai countered, grazing the side of his arm with the knife.
The very notion that he was fighting Hakkai who was armed with a knife was the stuff nightmares were made of. Sanzo tread softly through the unfamiliar land, seeing the demons rise from their graves and grasp for his soul. Was this madness, he wondered, was this how the vampires lost the last of themselves?
Sanzo dodged the knife and delivered a blow to Hakkai’s stomach. He heard a crunch and Hakkai let out a groan. Sanzo wasn’t so lucky as to hit hard enough to damage the spine, though. The other vampire straightened and retaliated with a kick that splintered Sanzo’s femur. Sanzo went down, grasping a cupboard for support.
“You of all people should know that madness grants many things, but clarity of thought and planning ahead is not one of them,” Hakkai said. He picked up the knife and stood over Sanzo. “Tell me, are they here yet?”
Sanzo started.
“Oh yes, I know about the darkness. I hardly think you should be surprised. You see them yet? See them crawling out of the shadowy corners, all the people you had destroyed. I always found madness to be a bit of a paradox, myself.”
Sanzo bit through his lip in an effort not to scream. The break was no great handicap, nasty though it was. The bone would heal, even without proper setting it would return to its natural state. The key word was time, of which he had none. Right now he was beaten; Hakkai needed no more advantage to do away with him.
“I don’t want to die,” Sanzo whispered.
“I am sorry it had to come to this. Goodbye, Sanzo.”
Master Post :: Next Part
