by K.A. Rose
Gensomaden Saiyuki characters et cetera © and ™ Kazuya Minekura, ENIX and TV Tokyo, 1997. Used without permission, for nonprofit fan appreciation.
Yakumo/Sanzo, PT:S. Reposted from livejournal at the request of a reader. Enjoy!
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When Yakumo found him, he was seated in one of the
rear rooms of the cave. With a circle drawn out on the ground and candles
lit around its edge, placed to the four cardinal directions.
The gold of the priest's crown glowed under the
light and his hair did too, and Yakumo probably only imagined the jump
of his shoulders when he spoke.
"Couldn't sleep, Mister Priest?"
Genjo Sanzo didn't move his fingers, paused in a
complicated gesture Yakumo had once seen some of the priests in town do
at the Bending Time. Amazing how he could keep his hands so still like
that. How he could stay so unmoving, his own body frozen like a sculpture,
carved out of the ice. His eyes drifted to the side and looked up through
the golden fringe, the gaze so intent Yakumo didn't even notice whether
his lips moved when he spoke.
"There are spirits out," he said. Strangely smooth,
that voice, like a plucked bass chord. "They're hurting the air."
"I've noticed them," Yakumo said, ducking his head.
It felt better to acknowledge it. "So you're putting them to rest? They'll
like that."
"I'm just dispelling them," Genjo Sanzo answered.
His fingers moved. So fast. Yakumo blinked and barely caught the shift.
Again. Three times, hands curling into alien geometric shapes, bolding
brush strokes out of the air. "They disturb the energies, hanging around
like this. They'll ruin everyone's sleep."
"So considerate of you, Mister Priest."
"Hnh."
He couldn't see the effect of the gestures. He knew
they worked somehow --had had it explained to him by a villager once, back
in simpler days when he was suffered in the town-- but couldn't see what
those fingers were touching. Some line in the air that was not the air.
A complicated instrument. The threads of a blanket woven through too much
of everything to see the shape of it.
"Aren't there usually words?" Yakumo asked.
"Words aren't always necessary."
And he was looking at him again for that. Or at
least Yakumo thought he was. That flash of violet, like the base of a flame.
He was fire. He was a candle in the
snowstorm. The kind that wasn't letting anything blow it out.
How warm was he? How hot? Would he burn to the touch?
Turn it all to ash and smoke, if anything got too near?
Fingers dancing gestures like sparks. Glow on his
crown, in the hints of his eyes. Down his face. Over his lips. And how
hot were they?
"Cut the circle."
Yakumo's eyes refocused. "What?"
"Cut the circle. I'm done."
The priest blew out the candles in clockwise fashion
while the youkai rubbed out the chalk with his fingers. Their movements
around the circle aligned at the end and their shoulders bumped, and Yakumo
offered the human a hand to his feet. Sanzo took his wrist instead and
climbed up.
His skin didn't burn, didn't brand. And out of the
candlelight, standing so close, the glow was all but out of his eyes as
well. How much it mattered, the youkai wasn't so sure.
Yakumo smiled at him. Even wider when Sanzo didn't
step back or turn from his gaze.
He said, "You're the oldfashioned kind of priest,
aren't you? We don't see many of your type around here."
The human's mouth twitched near a frown at that.
It was hard to tell on such a face whether Yakumo had said the wrong thing
or he had a hard time with compliments. But it argued nothing.
And he hadn't moved his hand.
So Yakumo laced his fingers in his.
So warm. So hot. The golden edge of a flame. The
fire that didn't believe it could be nurturing or good. That was it, yeah?
That was what he hadn't thought to think.
But then Genjo Sanzo's hand withdrew. Pulled away.
And for a second Yakumo started to panic behind his eyes, worried how much
damage he'd caused, where it'd gone wrong--
--only to witness the priest move that hand up.
And slide the crown off his head.
It fell to the floor ringing like a bell and maybe
the whole cave, the whole mountainside heard, even the ghosts he'd just
scared away. It didn't matter.
Because his lips really did burn.
Blàths do ghaoil is deàrrs do shùl
The warmth of your love and the shining of your eyes
Mar chloich-iùil a ghnàth 'gam tharraínn.
Like a magnet always drawing me.
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finished at: 00:46, 09 December, 2005.
No OTPs were harmed in the making of this fanfic.