SAIYUKI FANFICTION:
When Water Comes Together With Other Water

by Sherry Marie (click here to see more of this author's work)

Sanzou cursed as he crumpled the empty cigarette pack and tossed it to the damp ground. He half-listened to the noises outside of Hakkai trying to teach Gokuu how to properly pitch the tarp for their shelter securely, and Gokuu clearly not getting it.

//Not getting it was something that the dumbass monkey should be use to by now// Sanzou thought reflexively.

He looked over at Gojyo who appeared lost in his own thoughts. The scarlet of his eyes reflected degrees of wistfulness, and Sanzou felt a pang that was almost jealousy as he acknowledged that the rhythmic pounding of the outside cool autumn night rain brought something other than excruciating painful memories to his companion.

Sanzou hated the rain The splash of falling water against the side of their hastily rigged shelter served as a reminder of the night when innocence and pure possibility was ripped forever from his life. Each time that sky opened, so did the memories of the final moments of the life of the first and last person whom he had ever allowed himself to believe in. No matter how chilled the rainwater felt splashing down and across his skin, it always reminded him of the warm blood that splattered against his young face fresh with the sour metallic scent of death. The death of his teacher. The death of hope.

His darkening thoughts were briefly interrupted when Gokuu's drenched form entered the shelter in a blur of dripping noise.

"It sure is wet out there Sanzou!" he chirped coming over to stand near the brooding priest.

"You were expecting something else, idiot? Get away from me you dumbass monkey! If you get me wet I'll kill you." He snapped darkly.

He heard mutterings as Gokuu made his way to the other side of the fire, but his hand moving to rest on the hilt of his gun managed to silence the disgruntled ape.

Temporarily, at least. Five minutes, tops.

In all honesty, Sanzou knew he was still pushing it with the estimated five minutes of quiet. That monkey had been driving him crazy with his never- ending noise even before they had ever met face to face. The sound of utter despair in the unknown voice calling out to him over and over had pissed him off to no end, until he had no choice but to seek it out in the hopes of shutting it up. But his anger and drive had faded as soon as he was greeted with large golden eyes staring up to him in question and wonder, and the monk found himself reaching out and inviting the dazed monkey into his life before he consciously knew what he was getting himself into. There simply had been no other course of action at the time but to reach out when he had only ever closed himself in.

He saw an equally soaked Hakkai enter the shelter moments later with the ever-present smile fixed firmly on his lips. Gokuu immediately started chattering to Hakkai about how hungry he was and could the green-eyed man please start dinner before the he passed out from starvation? A soft laugh and a cheerful nod assured the drooling monkey that he would soon be saved from such a fate. Sanzou once again marveled at the quiet man's patience when dealing with the noisy idiot, when dealing with all of them, really. Especially knowing as he did that the sounds of the pouring rain drew equally bitter memories for the seemingly cheerful man.

Only if you looked very closely on nights like this could you notice the tension marring the fair skin fixed at the corners of the smoky emerald eyes.

Gokuu, whether as a result of sustained innocence or sustained idiocy, failed to notice this, or perhaps simply chose to ignore it. But Sanzou had looked closely enough at his companion to notice, as had Gojyo, who had always looked closer at Hakkai than anyone else.

The redhead was looking now; covertly following Hakkai's movements as he bent over the fire and cheerily chatted up Gokuu about tonight's meal. The look was one reserved for when Gojyo thought that no one was paying attention to him, sharpening the previous wistfulness with something more honest, more straightforward, and more hungry.

Just as the rain darkened both Sanzou and Hakkai's moods, it seemed to send the half-breed into an almost reflective state. Well, as reflective a state that the perverted kappa was capable. It was a night just like this three years ago that Gojyo had found a torn man laying in a puddle of mud mixed with blood. Something had compelled the self-proclaimed selfish loner to pick him up and bring him into his home to nurse, or, more accurately, force life back into the shredded body. Sanzou had not been there that night, but he had longed suspected that the irresistible compulsion was similar to the one he himself had experienced that had caused him to extend his own hand to a dirty and confused boy.

The almost jealousy he had been feeling toward Gojyo melted into weary pity. As the rain whispered raw and forever unhealed loss at both Sanzou and Hakkai, Gojyo saw such rainy nights as a reminder of an unexpected gain. A gain of what exactly Sanzou shied away from speculating on too closely; companionship in a previous lonely existence at the very least. At the most, well, the reality that was Cho Hakkai should have been enough to halt any further expectations.

Cho Hakkai was at best a flat mirror surface reflection of what had once been Cho Gonou as far as Sanzou could observe. Watching him was like watching someone's shadow mimicking its owner, but remaining an unsubstantial specter.

The priest knew this and accepted the empty smiles and hollow laughter as part of who Hakkai had become, an imitator of life in lieu of an active participant. Gokuu, well, as much as Sanzou could hastily assume that the monkey was just too dense to notice anything amiss, the truth was that Gokuu was far more observant than any of them readily guessed.

Sanzou also knew that Gojyo recognized this existing hollowness in his friend. The priest saw the realization in the sudden and momentary darkening of hot anger in the ruby eyes from time to time when Hakkai smiled his meaningless smile.

But with those looks of anger also came these stolen looks of tonight of what Sanzou could only disgustedly call longing. A longing for his friend to be something more solid and real. To be that unnamed something that had been missing Gojyo's entire life.

Sanzou felt himself becoming angry with Gojyo for his foolish hope, because the other man should know as he knew that hope was just as much an illusion as was the soft meaningless laughter used to cover up an agony so great it could exist only as emptiness.

And with this anger came bitter honesty because as foolish as Gojyo was in his expectations, Gokuu was twice the fool whenever he allowed his face to be lit with complete trust and joy while looking at Sanzou. Because the dumbass monkey pleaded with every rise of the thin and deceptively juvenile chest 'please be my savior I need you to be, Sanzou, please give me hope' while refusing to realize how impossible it is to give something when it had been stolen from you so long ago in a wash of hot blood and freezing rain.

If he could find the words to shout at Gokuu to convince him that he was asking the impossible he would scream them. And if he could shake or punch or slap the sense into the moron so that it was clear that all he would ever get from Sanzou would be hurt and disappointment because it was nothing but the worse kind of mistake to place faith in the faithless.

But he did shout at Gokuu, all the time, and he was constantly slapping him and calling him a dumbass monkey, but none of that seemed to matter because he had not yet found the right words or hit with enough force to get through to a 500 year-old child that believing in Sanzou was a waste of time. Just like Hakkai's silent rejection of Gojyo's heated glances failed to convince the half-breed that the love that he was looking for he could not get from a heart that had been bled to such a small size that it seemed to barely beat.

There were no simple answers, which was fitting in a way considering the complicated times in which they now lived. There was nothing more that any of them to do but to continue on with their journey as far as it would take them, sometimes fighting the youkai, often times fighting with each other, and always fighting with themselves. It was the way of life, and life was a useless struggle until the day that you died.

A struggle accepted, and fought anyway.



*The title of this story was borrowed from the title of a poem by one of my favorite writers, Raymond Carver.

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