by K.A. Rose
Gensomaden Saiyuki characters et cetera © and ™ Kazuya Minekura, ENIX and TV Tokyo, 1997. Used without permission, for nonprofit fan appreciation.
This is an ideafic. It had its start as a single thought in my muse's head and spread out from there, without consideration for all the cardinal sins I was committing by writing it. I should stress quite emphatically that I have only read up to the fourth installment of the Tokyopop translations as of this time, and information about the series after that point is sketchy. I am fully expecting a lot of this to be uncanon. I am asking you not to care.
Why? Because it goes places. Because once again it dives into things I hadn't expected and surfaced with something triumphant and shiny in its grip. And it's not perfect, because by its nature it could never be, and it might seem rather lopsided and incomplete toward the end and it probably is, but you know what? I can't bring myself to mind it.
So, enjoy.
Proper disclaimers and fandom warnings:
-This fanfic is rated NC-17:VLS, meaning it is rated NC-17 (no one with
the emotional or physical age under 17 permitted) for violence, language,
and sexual content. Violence is raw, language is coarse in a variety of
ways, and while there is only one sex scene, sex itself is discussed quite
frequently.
-This fanfic contains homoerotic content involving a variety of characters,
some in pairings that the stricter shippers out there might object to.
(Pairings are: DoKou, minor 585, minor 83, minor 53, and incredibly subdued
KouSan. Plus a surprise pairing.)
-The views expressed by the characters in this story do not necessarily
reflect the views held by the author or anyone else connected with the
series.
For any and all questions, please consult the Notes
page (be mindful of spoilers) or feel free to email
me.
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First Beat
Day 1
The first thing Sanzo felt was his lungs.
As he struggled into consciousness it seemed that his lungs were going against direct orders to speed up breathing and help wake him up. The more he tried, it even seemed he had no way to stop them. They were defiantly keeping a metered pace without response or consideration for Sanzo's change in awareness. He was breathing without his consent. Almost as though...
And that was when he noticed the tubes.
Not just the ones fixed to the mouthpiece of his respirator, but the ones travelling up his nose, buried into skin, some whose destinations were unknown because Sanzo's range of vision and movement were severely limited. The stinging in his eyes and the lethargy of motion the cables exhibited indicated the greenish haze he had taken before to be oddly filtered sunlight was actually some sort of liquid, fairly viscous, and the priest didn't want to have to guess what it was.
The minute muscle twitching he'd dismissed before as nervous tics he found to be from wires imbedded in his skin, all along his body and especially, it felt, around his temples. Little jolts of electricity snapped through the wires in his skull, numbing and faintly burning, and a headache like he couldn't believe, worse than every last hangover, every last migraine gotten from those stupid youkai companions of his... where were they?
Sanzo could have kicked himself for the belated thought. Why hadn't it come to him sooner? Where were they? What happened? Where was he?
The attack. The final confrontation on enemy ground, full-on assault on the castle in which the resurrection of Gyumaoh was in its last stages to completion. Last round, ten minutes to the clock, no overtime, no rematch.
They must have lost.
And so where was this now, the place he had been taken to? His senses were too weak to self-locate, and there was no reference point from which to judge. He probably wasn't dead. If he was, Kanzeon Bosatsu had something to answer for. Though, not being dead left open a wealth of other options.
Some gut feeling, though, told him that he hadn't strayed too far from wherever he had fallen last ni-- however many nights ago. This was probably still the castle. He had been captured. Much as his enemies had ever let on, it had never been the intention of the head of these operations for the high priest to be brought in alive, so it must have been a show of opportunistic enterprising.
They must not have the sutra.
The thought struck Sanzo suddenly and he realized that wherever it had come from, it had to be true. They couldn't have the maten sutra in their possession. If they did, everything would be over and done with now, the resurrection would be complete, and Sanzo would have felt that for certain, no matter where he was. Even in the recent months as the demon king came closer to revival, his power had become a throbbing red mark on the aural radar in Sanzo's mind, so much so that he'd've known where to take his idiot youkai companions even without the Goddess of Mercy's rather vague instructions.
Any of the others get out?
I don't know! Sanzo yelled in his head. Quit asking me!
Where were they? Did any of them make it out alive? Were they coming to get him? Could they? Or would they just assume he was dead and carry on the mission as best they could in his absence?
Goku's probably crying.
I don't care.
It hurts. It hurts a lot.
I don't know what you're talking about.
The electricity shooting through Sanzo's heart shuddered. He lurched forward, until the wires chaining him upright restricted him. The pain in his head was like someone both trying to overstuff it and then suck everything out through a tube; it felt like he might explode. His body wanted to vomit, if only the respirator and his own stomach could accomodate.
Things had never been so bad.
How was he going to...?
He wasn't.
Through the haze in the tank Sanzo caught sight of something below him, outside the glass whose edge he hadn't noticed before. It was an indistinct figure, could have been anyone for how much the priest could see, but the way in which the person stood gave him away.
The youkai prince Kougaiji, son of Gyumaoh, looked up at him. His expression blank, neither sympathic nor malevolent, not gloating or pitying. Slightly as though he himself was at a loss for how to respond.
He saw Sanzo's eyes on him, and looked away for a moment, unable, it seemed, to meet that kind of gaze. Pathetic as it was, Sanzo couldn't derive any pleasure from the youkai's shame. For the same reasons a caged bird doesn't smirk at the remorseful owner that trapped it.
I'm sorry.
Sanzo jerked back. The voice he had mistaken before to be nothing but some facet of his own thoughts he recognized now as not a voice belonging to him at all.
Why do I hear you? Sanzo asked.
But it wasn't a two-way communication, if Kougaiji's lack of reaction was any suggestion.
As the monk strained to listen --few people are accustomed to trying to hear with their brains, but Sanzo had had sufficient practice-- he found that even Kougaiji's one-sided conversation drifted in and out of clarity, reducing down to nothing but the aural equivalent of radio static more times than not. Was he just hallucinating? Sanzo had never professed to psychic powers, borderline telepathy not being very effective at all except hearing more subtext to his companions' words than he rather cared for, and he didn't see how that could have enhanced itself now.
Yet there was something there, if Sanzo concentrated hard. Sometimes under particular strain he was able to visualize the aural network, that extra dimension of energy employed by gods and high-up clergy, very near the area of space that youkai magic was drawn from. Some theories argued that the two reservoirs were one in the same, but filtered differently.
To the priest, though, the network's true nature was immaterial for the moment. The thing was that if he focused, he could visualize its behavior in his mind, see the crisscrossing threads that coiled around objects and creatures far outside his scope of sight. There was a huge mass of them swarming around Kougaiji, and himself as well. This was right and part of the natural order; that wasn't at issue. But the harder Sanzo looked, or rather thought, the more it seemed that there was an errant line somewhere in the grid, some freak displacement brought on by--
Ah--
Youkai magic and human aural energy may or may not have been one and the same force, but youkai magic and human technology were as inherently compatible as ducks and merchant banking. This was on a minute scale the problem that the Sanbutsushin anticipated with the resurrection experiment. The presence of all this machinery in channelling... whatever from his body had had an unexpected abberation. Threads were not going where they were supposed to. Things were getting linked that should not have been except in very extreme cases.
Presently the connection was very weak, tenuous at best. Easily broken if either he or Kougaiji shut their mind off. It was like watching a sickly little bean sprout just break the soil and struggle for sunlight. If Sanzo left it, it would wither and disappear. But if he nursed it and strengthened it, then...
Why would I want to? With him?
But the sight of another vaguely humanoid face was both incomparable comfort and agony, to see a being so close at hand and be unable to reach them, even speak so that they might hear. Being bound and looked up at from below with numb and confused half-reverence, helpless unreadable sadness not defined enough to be called pity. It was sick. But at this point, left with no other option but to be all alone again, he'd take anything.
Something drew Kougaiji's gaze back up to him, a hint of guilt there in his eyes and the twinge of his mouth. The embarrassed way he kept his vision at chest-level and above told Sanzo he was probably nude. And also that he was more angry that the youkai was bothering with propriety at a time like this, what with everything else.
He wanted to hurt the man for looking.
He wanted to be able to hurt him. He wanted out, he wanted his lungs to draw breath as fast as they wanted, he wanted his hands wrapped around that throat and feel the pulse of a heart through the veins as it slowed to a stop-- No, he just wanted to feel the pulse. Stopping it would be self-defeating.
Just don't go away.
Either Kougaiji heard, or this was his intent anyway, because he remained for a good twenty minutes without either word or thought between them, the guilt and discomfort worsening on his face. For a long time Sanzo feared that that fragile mental link that had popped up between them had broken, then--
It shouldn't have to be this way.
The prince looked up again, this time directly into Sanzo's eyes, locking him into sight and refusing to let the image go.
This isn't right. This isn't fair. It's sick and wrong.
I have to do something.
The thoughts were coming in painfully clear and loud now, as if he'd switched to a clean frequency. There was pure unmitigated remorse in every syllable, a sadness so profound it would have made the air vibrate if it had been vocalized. It came as a bit of a shock, Sanzo so used to the soft-spoken but tight-lipped warrior that it would never have occured to him how emotional he might be inside.
Kougaiji's hand was on the glass of his tank.
Don't treat me like some fucking canary.
He tilted his head a little, but-- no. The youkai might have received a clear sense of resentment from him but the words themselves were lost. Empathetic communication was never Sanzo's strong suit; if he couldn't get full-on telepathy with the man, it wasn't worth trying.
In either case, his hand did not move from the glass. Sanzo saw him heaving a large breath.
I'm going to get you out.
What?
Stronger this time. Kougaiji clearly felt the question, even if he couldn't identify its speaker as existing outside himself.
I have to. I'll find a way. I have to put a stop to all of this. Gyokumen's... and you... Goku's crying.
Huh. Not too fucking likely. What gives you that idea?
Kougaiji's brow knitted with the effort of comprehension. No. No good. No room for flowery language; only a direct, simple thought was going to possess the clarity to be heard. At least at this point.
Sanzo rephrased himself, How do you know?
I feel it.
A direct answer? But-- no, Sanzo would see it if Kougaiji realized he was hearing more than just the echoes in his own head. People didn't usually take naturally to telepathy, even of the accidental variety.
And what did he mean, he felt it? He didn't have a mental link with Goku too, did he? Or, perhaps one wasn't necessary. Kougaiji did know Goku almost as well as Sanzo himself, and nearly as intimately-- wasn't there something said of understanding one's true nature through battle?
Or maybe he saw.
Yes, Kougaiji confirmed, at least to himself. Crying and screaming, as you were dragged away. Awful. A kid like that should never have to...
The thoughts became indistinct, branching too much on ambiguous language, indecisiveness over what word to choose. Sanzo was hit with the emotion instead, so brutally that he winced. What sense did it make that such an externally collected figure could exude strong empathetic thought like that, that it could send a high priest through a physical reaction?!
The hand on the glass spread its fingers out into a fan, before collecting into a fist.
Going to get you out, Kougaiji thought decidedly, gaze not on Sanzo any longer but fixed on some distant point in space. Save. Rescue. Free. You're going to die. I'm going to kill you, not her. It's the least that you deserve.
Somehow, it seemed an earnest declaration. Sanzo didn't know if it was just the honesty of the prince's thoughts or his own present weak state, but the power wasn't coming to him to mentally scoff and dismiss it as idiocy.
Really, he didn't want to die. But if it had to be Kougaiji to kill him, there were far worse things. Come right down to it, dying at Kougaiji's hand would actually feel cosmically right in some ways.
It was a different kind of nakedness, that Sanzo hadn't considered before. Here, disabled and completely at the mercy of others, his mind was shedding layers he hadn't even known he had. Did he really want to encourage a two-way link with this youkai, then? Even if it was his only means of contacting anyone at all?
What's the danger? he reasoned. Dying in indignity? Like you aren't already.
Love you.
Sanzo's eyes opened wide. A gurgle of bubbles sputtered out from his respirator, mechanized breathing struggling against a sudden gasp.
Hate you. Goddammit, I hate you, you fucking priest. Going to get you out. Kill you myself. Fair fight for both of us. Hands around your throat. You're beautiful.
The thoughts were rushing now, some onslaught of unsettled emotions forcing them all to a head at once. Unthinking, half of them unmeant, or not even consciously recognized.
What the hell are you? What are you doing to me? Why don't I know more about you? Who are you? Want to know everything. Beautiful. Fragile. Delicate. Not right, not right to trap you. Better to kill you outright. Mercy killing, I'll do it myself, I lov--
SHUT UP!
Kougaiji's head jerked up so suddenly it looked as though someone had grabbed hold of his head by the hair and yanked. He lost his balance for a moment, caught his breath, an absolute silence of the mind such as sentient creatures rarely experience as he stumbled back a foot or two and swung his gaze right up to Sanzo and locked eyes in new awareness.
You hear me.
Yes.
How--?
I don't know.
He couldn't answer truthfully. The ideas were too complex, even he could have trouble wording it properly. And to convey it all mentally, in a way that could be coherent, may as well have been impossible. At least with the way things were.
But the link had been made. Two-way. It was little stronger than before, still a thin, tenuous thing that might shatter at any moment, but now, at last, Sanzo could reach back.
Then you heard... the thoughts branching off again into incoherency. So many different things too afraid to even mention, wanting to guard them in case they were still secret.
Want to take it all back? Sanzo asked, putting forth enough dare in the mental inflection in the hopes that even if the words didn't get through, the challenge itself would.
...No.
Where am I?
Castle.
The others?
Escaped. I think.
What's happening to me?
He wanted to ask, what's the purpose of these machines and what are you people planning? But knew before he even tried that it would be too complex. At least right now. He needed to sharpen language down to the clearest possible point to keep what little hold he had.
She wants your... The youkai prince struggled for the word. She wants your power. As a filter. Converter. AC/DC adapter, he tried finally, lasping into exasperation over his own vocabulary.
I get it.
You do?
Am I going to die?
Very soon.
Can you stop it?
I can't.
You said--
I lied. It's wishful thinking. What can I do?
With some effort, Sanzo tilted his head back with what he hoped looked like righteous indignance.
You're the son of Gyumaoh the Demon King.
The hand slammed on the glass, sound reverberating through Sanzo's tank and shaking through the cables dug into his skin. He cringed back a little.
I am a weakling who can do nothing! he roared, the thoughts themselves rattling inside Sanzo's unprepared skull. It was Gyokumen Koushu that revived me, and I am under her power! An underling to my father's mistress! Do you understand?! If it was at all in my power to undo her will I would have! I can do NOTHING, not for you or anyone! Not even my mother! Not ANYONE!
Silence fell, stinging, awful silence, of the kind that rang the ears of hearing not bound to any physical state of being. Sanzo's brain felt like it had been washed with rubbing alcohol.
Kougaiji tore his eyes away, stared at the floor. Though it had taken no real air to vent his rage, he still breathed heavily.
...Then just stay.
He looked up.
What?
Stay here. Keep talking to me. Can you do that much?
You don't want my company.
There's no one else.
You like solitude.
I'm going to die, Sanzo stressed, at the end of all possible reserves. There was an ache in his chest entirely unrelated to the respirator.
I have nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, except your voice in my head. No comrades, no sutra, I can't even breathe under my own power. We've lost and I've failed and there won't even be redemption waiting for me once I die. Don't call yourself a weakling when you're looking at someone who's even worse. I'm going to die with nothing, less than nothing, except your goddamn thoughts in my skull. So, just...
He broke off then, knowing none of it was passing through, too sophisticated data put through too primitive a filter. It was all static.
So it was the emotion that got through instead.
Kougaiji breathed out hard, lines of his ribs showing on his torso, tortured exhalation as though it might pull his flesh back enough that his heart would bleed right through.
Pure, uncensored pleading such that Sanzo had never even thought himself capable of, sent directly from mind to mind without anything to weaken the impact, soften the blow. Nothing that the priest had ever expressed to anyone, ever, since before Sanzo had even been his name.
Kougaiji fell to his knees, as though he might grovel in reverence. But he didn't. Just hunched forward, head ducked, unintelligible thoughts dancing scattered in his brain.
He stayed.
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