One of the prevailing concepts in "In My Father's House" is the belief that thought is not inherently truthful, nor meant, and that stream of consciousness is accompanied quite frequently with a lot of dead ends into stagnant ponds. I elected to describe this in the story with strike-throughs. First these were limited only to characters' conscious thoughts, then subtly the process seeped into more informal thinking, and finally I found they were cropping up in the general narrative. This is because by its nature Father's House is a thought-based story, and so full of the same accidental flows in writing as Kougaiji and Sanzo experience in their conversations. (Needless to say, the two intersected quite a bit, which is why a good quantity of the files below are between the two of them.)

These are what happen when your writer lets a scene carry on in ways she doesn't intend, before clearer heads prevail and her finger moves for the backspace key. Except here, I didn't delete them. I just saved them.

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#1

From Sixth Beat:

Off-limits. By order of Gyokumen Koushu.

Bit of a risk, isn't it?

It will be if someone asks about it. But she's busy these days. Last guy who came in and bugged her over something trivial was put up by the east gate.

That doesn't sound so bad...

In several pieces.

Oh.

By the sound of it, it seems they don't really mind.

That's so unusual?

Surprise. You really just take it as a given?

But they're my servants.

Yeah, so? I've known a hell of a lot of servants who turned tail and ran the second their masters got into some deep shit.

What about you with those three?

They're not weren't servants, for one thing.

No, they just doted on you like anything for the hell of it, huh?

Watch yourself there, Kougaiji...

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#2

Undesignated fragment (pre-story):

Hakkai mmed politely. "You shouldn't be too harsh on him," he told Sanzo gently. "Someday he'll be taller than you."

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#3

Flashback scene (designed for near fifth or sixth beat):

But just when it seemed the priest had been completely lulled into the embrace, he suddenly came alive, head twisting until his lips broke contact with Gojyo and his whole body squirmed back.

The shock hit first, and the shock turned to anger. Frustration. "The hell--" Gojyo started.

"I can't," Sanzo muttered coldly. No shyness, none that he was letting on, just a pure unbridled revulsion for what he'd just allowed himself to do.

Gojyo tried and failed to collect himself before making his response. "Might I ask-- why the hell not?"

"I hate you. Duh. And I don't do this shit."

"That the same thing you told Hakkai?"

"Holy hell," Sanzo said with amazement. "Are you two in on this together or something?"

"We're only trying to do our best."

"Feh. Your best, huh? What is your sick malfunction?"

Gojyo growled. "It's not our fault we're in love with you."

"Oh, just die."

"No. Do you think we like this? You bastard monk. You drag us in hook line and sinker and then you treat us like shit no matter what we do, and we can't help it that we feel this way. If you didn't hear it from me you'd never hear it," he added. "Hakkai thinks he deserves whatever you dish out and Goku doesn't know any fucking better."

"It's your depravity, not mine. I'm fine to let you suffer it."

"What the hell's good enough for you? We just want to know."

Sanzo turned over in his sleeping bag, back to Gojyo entirely now.

"Nothing you morons could offer. Give it up."

"We can't. If we could we'd've done something about it. I would have done something about it, at least. Like I really want to be in love with you."

"You're an idiot."

"Why can't you just let someone in for once? Any of us? Or anyone at all, ever?"

The priest grunted, thoroughly frustrated with how this argument was refusing to end. "What would it do for me?"

And that was the sting. That was the final slap.

What would it do for you, huh? Is that really how you let your mind work?

Gojyo stared at him for a long time, hollow silence between them punctuated only by the crackle of the fire. He stared, with all the emotional hurt and resentment of a puppy that's just been kicked.

He said, "Someday you're gonna wind up all alone. And you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

Sanzo harrumphed and pulled the sleeping bag cover up closer to his shoulders. "I welcome the day."

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#4

Undesignated segment (post-conclusion, pre-epilogue):

"It's for the good of commerce."

"Not my commerce. Doku, if I have anyone by my side, it's going to be you."

"Someday you'll have to take a legal wife."

"Some monarchs out west did just fine never marrying."

"Yeah. Well. That worked because they were tragic figures. Are you tragic-shaped? No, you're Kou-shaped. No angst for you."

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#5

Undesignated segment (between third and fourth beat):

This where we say goodnight, priest?

You don't need to keep saying that. I have a name, you know.

Sanzo? Sanzo isn't a name.

You were fine calling me that before.

That was around others, and they all called you that. Call me cocky but I don't really consider myself roped in with all the others now.

You're right. That is cocky.

Genjo?

Genjo is my surname.

No, in the same way Sanzo isn't your first name. You know the mechanics behind naming, right? The family name is a grouper, and the first name is a personal identifier. That's how it got started, back with tribes. And that's all it means now. Looking at it like that, Sanzo is just a term for a grouping, but there's only one Genjo Sanzo. So, you're Genjo.

No one calls me that.

No one else has gotten up inside your head.

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#6

From Eighth Beat:

(quick author's note: this is by far my favorite thing written for the story. I would have kept it, but the muse pointed out that that wasn't what the flow of the rest dictated. And flow was a big deciding factor for this story.)

I'd sooner believe we were doing something wrong, Sanzo told him, the undercurrent acknowledging this was a reversal of many long-held principles, and that he couldn't bring himself to care right now. Knowing them, I just can't see them going into retreat. Or dying stupidly.

Kougaiji couldn't either. It ran counter to everything Sanzo had ever said about them, and that aside, the confidence in Sanzo's tone was absolute. It was a certain, direct thought that he could have communicated clearly even when their link had been at its weakest, weeks ago. From Sanzo, who claimed atheism though he was a high priest, who denied attachment to anyone though he could tell when someone else was in love, sure thoughts like these were few and far between. Where there was no doubt. None.

Bafflement. Wha?

Going around giving your diagnosis of my feelings and never once turning that skill of observation on yourself. 'Me, have ties to other people? Why, I never!'

Sanzo's end was nothing but silence.

You want to find your monkey, you better reconcile a few things with yourself. About all three of them, preferably. Otherwise this all is going nowhere.

You... complete... bastard...

You have until sun-up. After that and we'll have wasted the night.

As it turned out, Sanzo needed every second of that time.

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#7

From Ninth Beat:

Dokugakuji said, "Who do we serve? Gyokumen and the king?"

She shook her head quickly. "Only Lord Kougaiji. That's been our decision."

"Then where he goes, we follow. That's how it's always been, hasn't it? Even if it means our open opposition to the revival. Even if it counts as treason."

Yaone nodded this time, slower, reconciling this with herself.

"He's grateful for you too."

"Not at all like that. No. Often I think he must really despise me--" She stopped with a jerk, as Dokugakuji's hands clapped down on her shoulders.

"He likes you a lot. Just because he isn't into women doesn't make you mean any less to him. Hell, you almost had him considering a few times, okay? But there's some things you can't change."

She frowned a little, despite herself. "You like women," she pointed out.

But Dokugakuji only shrugged. "Yeah. I like Kou too. I can't change that either, not that I'd want to now."

"You lead a life so uncomplicated, Dokugaku..."

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#8

From Eleventh Beat:

"Actually, close doesn't sort of cut it. More like overlapping," he suggested. "Which is something I think you can have some idea of, so if you have the right to call him whatever you like, that more than extends to me."

"Excuse me," he said, trying to keep his voice level, "but you're in no place to be making any sort of assumptions. As far as we can tell there's no way you have to prove you're even really--"

"Your brother's got a bigger cock."

There were various small squeaks of shock.

Sanzo-Kougaiji grinned malevolently over his cigarette, as the two servants made several failed attempts to say anything. At all.

Finally, beet red and just barely containing rage now, Dokugakuji managed, "You-- you were there when we--"

"For every living moment of it," the thing confirmed, relishing this turn in the conversation. "And another thing? You suck. Gojyo's way better. Knows foreplay, for one thing--"

"We were sort of rushed!" Dokugakuji protested in vain. Beside him, Yaone looked like she was about to faint.

"Rushed, hell. He did me up against a tree once. In the rain. With a flood coming in. You don't know the meaning of a quickie until you--"

"ALL RIGHT!" the warrior shouted, coming to an end of his tolerance. He growled. "Okay. Fine. You're Sanzo. I don't know anyone else who could be that much of an asshole."

"Love you too, honey."

"That's fucking it. I give up."

"Dokugakuji, wait!" Yaone pleaded, pulling him back down as he started to climb to his feet.

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#9

From Twelfth Beat:

The message had been in the demon prince's distinctive script transplanted messily to Mandarin, but still somehow coming off sophisticated, which was one of the few holdovers from a 500-year-old royal education he hadn't managed to dispel. And it had been a single line. Nothing more was needed, or wanted, or possible to say.

(Which might have been a nice thing to put, if it, first, wasn't going just a bit too far, and second, didn't mean Kougaiji knew somehow that Dokugakuji would give the note to Hakkai. Or else figured whoever got it would take it on his word and accept that bit of flattery, which would miss the point of the line.

(...The alternate alternate version goes: "He lost his virginity to you in an elevator shaft" which would have also worked swimmingly in assuring Hakkai either this was all authentic or Sanzo was under heavy torture.)

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