Towers of Silence

On this occasion I want to apologize to the tea addicts among you, I’m just an inveterate coffee drinker so that is why they are just drinking nothing but coffee all day and night long ~D

Apparently you are all fine with the run of events in that story, I'll take that for granted because there are no complaints, no reviews, you are a wonderful audience, very easy to handle.


Towers of Silence
-Phoenix
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My life was like a piece of paper on the endless ocean of time… once dunked it had disappeared from the surface and was slowly sinking to the bottom - if it didn’t decompose first. Or maybe some fish mistook it for food and swallowed the pieces. A blank sheet of paper, with just one word written on it, saying nothing at all.

I had passed Gojyo and headed for my room. If I hadn’t been so sad I would have given a damn about his indifference but he had overdone things and I didn’t care what he was doing there. Now I noticed that that had been my last cigarette and I felt angry with myself because I hadn’t considered it important to keep a stock of packets in my room. It was going to be a long night. A very long night.

“Thud” and the door slammed shut. I took a deep breath and the air smelled of smoke; the furniture must have already absorbed the scent of my cigarettes. Besides, it smelled bilgly and I couldn’t even remember ever having opened the windows to let in some fresh air. Anyway, I didn’t need to because I had always slept and lived in Gojyo’s room, which had become ‘our room’. I sighed when I felt the pain again, the pain of being worthless and not important to anybody.

Hakkai had come to me to tell me to talk to Gojyo; he hadn’t given a shit about me. He wouldn’t even have bothered to come if he hadn’t felt sorry for Gojyo. Maybe he was happy about how things had turned out, maybe he still loved him and now was happy to be able to console him and to be there for him. Actually he had never cared about me. He always pretended to be interested in my feelings, but this just happened out of pure politeness. I couldn’t stand that deceitfulness anymore…

Gojyo hadn’t even bothered to come to see me or to ask me about anything. I was sad that I had believed him and his stupid words of eternal love, of never-ending forgiveness and of never hurting each other on bad purpose. That was the worst part of it - never hurt each other on bad purpose. He had raped me without touching me; he had violated my mind without saying a word. Actions counted more than a hundred words. I still don’t know why he had decided to love me, why he had worked so hard on changing my behaviour towards others… or why anything at all.

And Goku…Goku wasn’t able to come to see me anymore. I didn’t want to think about him now; I still wasn’t ready yet to bear that loss.
Maybe that had been my reason for loving Gojyo. I was looking for someone who was able to help me get over those bad times when Goku had left me. Gojyo was my substitute; he was there whenever I needed him - at least at first.

By hitting the wall with my head I tried to get rid of those thoughts about Goku; I hoped that pain would make it difficult for me to think.
No chance of banning him from my thoughts; I couldn’t stop thinking about him…

----------

We had been sitting on the porch of a restaurant, enjoying our free time and Goku was enjoying his meal. I think we celebrated the end of our journey… Kanzeon-sama had finally come down to earth to tell us that we didn’t need to chase after those demons and that fucking castle anymore. Somehow it had turned out that prince Kou and his fellows had destroyed the castle and killed that Gyokumen bitch. First I couldn’t believe it, but the next moment I was happy not to be forced to bother with that anymore. Prince Kou, killing Gyokumen, and with that destroying his hopes of a reanimation of his mother… or maybe his mother was alive again… no, it wasn’t worth it to think about those annoying things anymore. I was content with some blank spaces of logic as long as they let me spend the rest of my life just like I wanted it to be. Damn Kou, damn his mother and damn the world; Genjyo Sanzo was now a free man.

Well, we were sitting there, and it had been a nice day up until that point. I didn’t bother about the men who were coming our way, looking like trouble. I got a bit suspicious when they finally stopped in front of us, staring at us like we were criminals. The first of the 3 men now was so kind as to let us know their intention - more or less.

“Son Goku, finally we found you.”

Goku looked up with a puzzled gaze, and I saw him go stiff when he saw the men.

“It can’t… be…”

“Yes, you are right. We have come to take you with us.”

I didn’t really know what they were talking about, but they were starting to piss me off.

“Hey, don’t you think you should tell us who you are? I can’t stand people who’re stupid enough to ignore me like that.”

They shot me a brief glance, but didn’t seem to care at all.

“Goku, what are they talking about?”, Hakkai wanted to know from him.

Goku turned his head to look at him with a frightened gaze. It was weird, he had never been afraid of anything.

“They punished me… they brought me to the cave... in mount Gogyo…”

I had never seen him so scared of anything, not even while fighting against that Kami-sama.

Now one of them even dared to grab Goku’s arms and pull him up.

“HEY!!”

Goku tried to defend himself from them, but they were a lot stronger than him, which started to worry me. He was mine. I didn’t let anybody touch him with their dirty paws. In a second I had pulled out my gun and was pointing it at the man’s head.

“Let go of him,” I told him with a threatening and demanding voice.

They seemed strange... they wore black coats and grey hats like they had escaped from a western. Their eyes were shaded by the shadow of the hat and they wore their hair pretty long, I think it even reached their thighs. The next thing I remembered was hitting the floor. All of a sudden I must have felt so weak that I had sunk to the floor. What the hell was going on there?? It seemed like a dream; everything happened like thick syrup dripping from a spoon, inevitable, unstoppable.

I looked at Hakkai and Gojyo, and with unease I saw them also sitting on the floor, staring up at the men. In the meantime they had caught Goku and dragged him away from the veranda. It was hard for them because he was kicking and trying to hit them.

“You are not done yet, you still have to spend another 200 years in the cave, and you know this. Why did you leave the mountain?”

What? What were they talking about…another 200 years in that cave? Goku? But I had freed him; why hadn’t anybody complained about that at the beginning of our journey? I felt panic rise in me while thinking about leaving him to these men who were going to chain him in that awful place again…

“Let me go! No!! I don’t want to go back there, I want to live with Sanzo!!”

His desperate calls were useless; there was nobody who would have dared to help him. Those men were frightening the townspeople. Scared, but also curious, they were watching the scene. I felt helpless; I wasn’t able to get up again. But I was still able to raise my hand to shoot at them… They couldn’t take him away from me, it wasn’t fair, he didn’t deserve it and neither did I deserve that. The shots echoed and the next moment I saw one of the men standing in front of me; I hadn’t even seen him moving… one second and he was there... impossible.

I saw him smirking, just before his fist hit my forearm and I swallowed some air in shock… I let the gun drop and closed my eyes.
It was terrible to listen to the cracking sounds of splintering bones and it was even more terrible to feel it happen to you. I cried out in pain and bent down to hold my hand while I heard Goku shouting my name in real despair, and then I heard the sounds of the townsfolk, sounds of amazement were escaping their mouths and I looked up with tears in my eyes.

Goku was fighting the three men. Well, SON Goku was fighting them; the pieces of the limiter were scattered on the dirty floor…
The pain made me blind, but also furious, so I tried to get up for a second time and failed miserably.

In a thundering voice one of the men shouted while defending himself, “You leave us with no option but to kill you if you resist coming with us!”

My eyes went wide with shock. Just the imagination of Goku falling on the floor and not moving anymore caused pain in my heart.
I had the impression that they had just been looking for an opportunity to justify his murder, and suddenly it seemed pretty logical to me: Goku had been told to stay in the cave for 700 years, but when I had come to free him from there they were just watching because the Gods thought that we would need him as a fighter during our journey. Now that the journey was over, they had sent their assassins to murder him. All I knew was that he was damned to live in that cave because he had commited a really bad crime… maybe they didn’t want him to be on the loose; he wouldn’t be granted the privilege to enjoy his freedom.

But he didn’t deserve death. It was my fault; I hadn’t known that he should have stayed there a bit longer. If they just dragged him with them I could at least visit him there and enjoy his presence, but if they shot him… no. Just no.

Goku didn’t listen to them. With a wild look on his face he even laid more power into his kicks and blows, and he was able to defeat one of these creatures. It flew back and heavily landed on the floor. The other two men now pulled out their guns and started shooting at Goku. What if he got hurt there? What if he got seriously injured in that silly fight? They would kill him.

“Noo!! Stop it!!”

I tried to get on my feet again, and after some seconds of fighting with gravity I was able to stand up, dragging my body up with the help of the table.

A volley of shoots now followed, and I held my breath.

He was falling.

And he was still falling when I opened my eyes again.

Blood was flowing from his body; from his head as well as from his feet and stomach…

That’s a dream. In a second I will wake up.

Minutes passed and I hadn’t woken up. Minutes during which the men had picked up Goku and now carried his dead body with them, his feet lifelessly forming a line in the dirt of the street.

It was like a bad film to me…guys with black coats, sent from the gods…shooting him… making him dead…it wasn’t supposed to be like this, no… Irrespective of feelings, I started chasing after them, furiously shouting and screaming. I simply didn’t believe that he was dead. No, he was alive. Of course, he must have been alive. Otherwise… no, there didn’t exist an ’otherwise’.

“Don’t take him with you!! You goddamn… goddamn…”

I was crying and I wasn’t even able to think of a curse. They had hurt my heart. I wasn’t able to live with a dead heart inside of my body.

“Why?!! Just why…” Slowly I realized what they had done.

They didn’t even turn around to face me.

I hyperventilated and couldn’t breathe any more; the world was a spinning mess and the floor seemed to swallow me.

----------

Now that I was thinking about that scene...how I had lost my life for the first time...I got as desperate as I had been when I was forced to understand what had happened. Those men, those human beings had murdered him just because I had freed him from that cave 200 years too early, and because he had become useless to them…I was guilty of his death. I was guilty of a lot of deaths but I had never felt so remorseful, so sad… Then Gojyo had caught me. When I had woken up he had embraced me; he had embraced an empty shell. I hadn’t even bothered to shove him away.

That was when we had decided to settle down in a peaceful area in the woods… no, they had decided to do that, they hadn’t asked me. It was just like they were babysitting a little child that was prone to do stupid things when it was alone. I had felt… I felt and I still feel so alone. No matter how many people were around me, as long as I was caught in that mood I always felt lonely. The first days they had treated me like an insane psychopath who could go nuts any minute. There was a wood outside with a nice waterfall, not far away from our little house…it was disgusting how nice and optimistic that had seemed. Like a nice wood would make me feel better after such a loss…

As always, I had tried not to think about his death, and I had pretended to be okay just for god’s sake. And Gojyo had been my substitute. I still didn’t want to think about that scene; it was just part of another trauma in my life. I had never thought about Komyou’s death and I have never thought about Goku again.

I wasn’t able to remember the many details of that story anymore… step by step I had managed to forget about things, until perhaps I would even be able to forget about him one day. Therefore, nightmares claimed my sanity and I never got used to them. Every time Goku would fall in my dreams, it was worse than the time before, and I was looking for distraction.

Pain seemed to be a good thing to me. It was alright to hurt myself and to get hurt. Now that I was sitting on the floor, wet from the sweat and out of breath from recalling that awful scene, I wasn’t able to move. I saw his face, his bloody face, with a desperate look. And a disappointed one. That was really the worst part of it; his eyes had been so full of disappointment.

He had thought that I would protect him like he had always protected me. And I hadn’t been able to save him. I was damned to suffer from my humanity; if I had been a youkai I would have overcome the pain more easily, and I would have been able to get up much sooner. I had let him down. Goku had the right to look at me with those eyes, he was damn right about that.

Minutes before his death he had said that he wanted to live with me…I had been so happy about that little sentence...but that happiness had quickly faded when I had seen him falling.

I wasn’t able to stop myself from thinking about him because once in that mood I couldn’t flee that easily from my past. So much death…so much misery…so much pain…. All this caused by me. I should be able to carry the burden of life as a Sanzo. That was what they had told me. But the burden of life itself was unbearable.

My back ached, my lungs burned and my tortured body forced me to gag. I had forgotten about the milk. As I coughed and tried to throw something up, tears were dripping on the floor. Death. That word had become my second name; whenever I had gained a good friend he had to die in front of my eyes. Fate. They might have said, “hey man, that’s life!”

I collided with the ground; my nose mopped up the floor and I tasted bitter dirt in my mouth. I was at the end of my strength, it all became too much to bear.

The unpleasant recall of Goku’s death… the fact that Gojyo had left me… the awareness that Hakkai had never cared about anything… and the fact that this all had been my fault. I passed out.


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Wise men said that when you were suffering psychically it wouldn’t take your body long to get ill too. Your soul was responsible for everything. And I really cursed those wise men when I woke up again with a headache. It was really warm in there; maybe I should have tried to open a window… yes, good idea. I stood up and stumbled backwards until I felt the door behind me. It wasn’t that easy to open a window though.

No, wait…it had never been that warm in my room that I had ever felt like opening a window, it had always been damn cold here because my room wasn’t well insulated. Wonderful. Just wonderful, I thought, when I attempted to take some steps towards the bed. Not good at all. While leaning against the walls and making tiny steps, I managed to get to the bed. Shitty body, I hated myself for my weakness. I let myself fall on the bed, and with disgust I realized that I was covered in sweat. It may have come from that little walk...but I was sure that I was already ill.

Actually, that matched well with my current mood, because I felt like dying. My soul was decaying and my body now also had started to give in. It was difficult to swallow down all the saliva, and with every minute my throat got more and more swollen until I wasn’t able to even try to swallow anymore. The spot where my face was buried in the blanket got wetter and wetter, but I didn’t bother about that. Beautiful darkness was already calling on me.

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The next day Gojyo started to get worried about Sanzo.

Had he really shot himself ? No, he would have heard the shot. But maybe he had asphyxiated himself or… cut his wrists again… he was so emotionally unstable.

That thought really frightened him and he tried to open Sanzo’s door, but of course it was locked. He didn’t hesitate much this time, and tried to break through the door by ramming his shoulder against the piece of wood. After the fourth try he was successful, and the door burst open. He stumbled into the room.

There he was lying on the bed, silent and … seemingly pretty dead. And what was that scent…? It smelled rotten and…very unfamiliar… Gojyo felt his heartbeat in his throat, and with a few quick steps he had crossed the room. He wanted to turn Sanzo around, and therefore grabbed his shoulder, but quickly pulled back when he felt the heat. He swallowed. Sanzo wasn’t dead. Dead people weren’t that hot.

He reached out again and now turned him on his back. Sanzo’s eyes were closed and his mouth was half open. From time to time he moved his throat as if he were trying to swallow, but he wasn’t able to anymore. He was very hot, abnormally hot even compared to other people who were suffering from fever.

All of a sudden an image of Sanzo, mad in his delirium, screaming and crying, appeared in Gojyo’s mind. That was really the last thing he needed now. He was sorry anyway about the way things had turned out. So awfully sorry that he would have committed suicide if he wasn’t hoping to be forgiven by Sanzo. He was aware of his mistakes; he had always tried to live in peace with his precious honey. But it was also tempting to see him suffering, twisting in fear and pain…but now he knew - had known from the very instant Sanzo had fled to his room - that he had overstepped the limits of trust and love. Sanzo had been right not to trust him; he had to admit that, no matter how painful it was.

…maybe if he had told him what he was going to do with him, if he had asked him about it, it would have been a completely different situation. Assuming that he would like it without any doubt now seemed such a shitty idea to him that he flinched from the mere thought. If Sanzo had done that to him… he would have committed suicide. For sure, sure as hell.

“Hakkai!!! Sanzo is…”

His voice dropped, and he paced back and forth while gnawing on his lip and waiting for Hakkai to come. Seconds after his call Hakkai hurried into the room to stare at Sanzo and then at Gojyo.

“He has a fever, Hakkai… must be over 42 degrees…”

Hakkai bent down to feel his forehead, and what he felt didn’t make him happy.

“Gojyo, hurry up, get a bucket and fill it with cold water. Bring a cloth with you!”

“Yes.”

And Gojyo came running into the kitchen and did what Hakkai had told him to do.

Cold water. Was that the blue or the red thing on the water tap? Quick, idiot, Sanzo is suffering. Of course, the blue.

When he came back into the room he saw how Hakkai was undressing Sanzo…hey, that was his job. Forever. Hakkai noticed the strange look on Gojyo’s face and smiled in embarrassment.

“Well…ehm...yes.”

And he turned his attention to the bucket with the cold water to dip the cloth into. While taking off Sanzo’s pants, which were also wet from the sweat, Gojyo examined his face. It was as beautiful as ever. A sudden stinging pain in his ribcage made him tense up and catch his breath. He had to avert his eyes because the red streams of dried blood on Sanzo’s cheek had reminded him that he had already spent one day without any Sanzo-groping or Sanzo-looking-at. When Hakkai appeared at the bed, Gojyo took a step back. He watched him warily as he placed the wet piece of cloth on Sanzo’s forehead.
After that Hakkai kept standing there, and his look got even more worried.

“Hakkai, is something wrong ?”

“Actually...there is a lot wrong,” he smiled at Gojyo, then stared at him seriously, “Something is wrong with him indeed.”

They both bent over Sanzo, who now was coughing and turning his head to the side so that the cloth nearly slid down on his face.
While Gojyo was intent on putting it back where it belonged, Hakkai pressed his ear against Sanzo’s chest.

“Don’t tell me you can hear anything with just laying your ear on his chest.”

Hakkai looked up at him, and smiled again.

“Yes, I can. I have learnt to focus on the important things even if it is just little details.”

“So…what does his chest tell you, other than inviting you to lick over it ?”

“It tells me that he’s suffering from the lungs.”

“Are you serious?”

Hakkai just sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of annoyance - he was worried.

“I think he must have spent too much time here in this cold room, and has caught more than just a cold. Besides, when you don’t get much sleep your body is much more susceptible to illness.”

Gojyo and Hakkai turned around at the same time when they heard him coughing once again with a painful face.

“That’s not good.”

“Yes, that’s really not good.”

Gojyo began to think of the worst. If Sanzo died now he would never get the chance to apologize for his shitty behaviour. He decided to think about that later, and went to the bed to sit down there. With a tired gaze he took the blanket and covered Sanzo up to his chest. Without looking at Hakkai, Gojyo began to talk about his sorrows.

“Do you think he will forgive me, Hakkai?”

Hakkai was standing in the middle of the room, smiling, with his arms crossed in front of him, enjoying the old order again. It didn’t matter that some things were absolutely wrong; in the end he was already looking forward to watching them fighting their little fights for dominance at breakfast again. They needed each other, and alone they would die, one way or the other.

“To be honest I am not sure about this. Either he will die because he obviously has lost his will to live, or he will wake up and you will have to try. I can’t tell you about that, and I think that you know him better than I do.”

He has lost his will to continue living…Gojyo would never have thought about that while talking about Sanzo. Sanzo had such a strong will, he hadn’t survived thousands of battles just to die from some fucking cold. To hell with it. He would help him to get back on his feet. Screw his suicidal thoughts; there was still somebody who would cry rivers after him, if he hadn’t killed himself before that.

But what if Sanzo hated him for what he had done? What if he wanted to die because Gojyo had hurt him so much? What if Sanzo wouldn’t forgive him, what if he was traumatized for the rest of his life? Gojyo was trembling; it was difficult to breathe, and he gasped. What if he had shattered his soul, what if he had killed him once more…his life was one single tragedy. It was bad enough without that incident but now it was ruined. Sanzo would never forgive him now that he had choked his pride. No, he wouldn’t.

As if Hakkai knew what he was thinking of, he came closer and softly petted his cheek. Gojyo didn’t look up; he kept staring at the floor and the dancing shadows. Absent-mindedly he whispered something.

Hakkai sighed and carefully asked him what he had said.

“Kill me.”

Now Hakkai turned his head to stare at the sandals in front of the bed.

“I can’t carry two corpses at the same time. And I wouldn’t know whom to bury first.”

The room was quiet, and from time to time the heavy silence was interrupted by Sanzo’s coughs.

Gojyo crossed his arms in front of him, turning around.

“You should bury him first, and then lay my dead body on top of him…or better yet, lay his body on mine so that he won’t touch the filthy ground. I deserve it.”

“No one deserves it, including you.”

Gojyo stared at Sanzo. He was so far away from him. He was lying there, untouchable, pure and noble. No matter how much blood was dripping from his hands he never lost his pureness. It grew even bigger from that.

He jerked when he heard Hakkai talk near him.

“Only you can save him.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“He needs you.”

“He fucking hates me! He’s just lying there because of me, that’s all my fault! Hakkai, we’ve done shit with him, really big shit. I feel so dirty because of it. I hurt him so much; I’ve already killed him. His face…can you remember his eyes...”

He fell down on his knees, red strands hiding his face.

“I have never seen him so desperate and so sad. I broke him.”

Now Sanzo moaned and slackly moved.

Both looked up to fix their eyes upon him, like they believed that looking at him would prevent him from dying.

A long time passed without any movement or sound except that of the wind howling outside. When heavy drops of water began to hit the window, Gojyo turned his head.

“Even the skies are crying for him…”

Minutes after that Gojyo stood up. With a determined gaze he went towards the bed and sat down. Smiling weakly he bent down to whisper into Sanzo’s ear.

“Sanzo… if you can hear me now…honest, I won’t let you die even though you have decided to go to bed without me.”
Sanzo turned his head then, coughed through his nose and moaned. Once again Hakkai wet the cloth and carefully laid it on Sanzo’s still hot head. In moments, shorter than a fraction of a second, Sanzo had moved and now held Hakkai’s wrist in a firm grip, his eyes still closed and again coughing.

“Gojyo…,” he croaked hoarsely.

The one who was called was stunned, and his jaw dropped when Sanzo even pulled weakly on Hakkai’s arm to get closer to him. Hakkai could just smile in embarrassment, and when he tried to get away from him, Sanzo didn’t let go of him. Now Gojyo was also smiling, but because of his relief. Sanzo still loved and needed him in some dark place of his heart - in some very dark place. Encouraged by that, he sat down on the bed and pulled Sanzo, who had let go of Hakkai, closer to him.

He felt his wet skin when he embraced Sanzo, he could even feel his fast heartbeat. He adjusted the wet cloth and held him tight.
Gojyo loved to hear and feel his breath hitting his face; it was not very much but still something of Sanzo. Meanwhile, Hakkai had left the room.

The silence again forced Gojyo to think about the situation between himself and his honey, but mostly about himself. Ignoring Sanzo hadn’t been right; now he couldn’t even understand how his contorted face and weepy voice were able to amuse him as much as they had.

Actually it was his fault that Sanzo now had to suffer. Everything was his fault. There had always been the problem of whose fault it was. Sanzo thought that he was guilty of this, and Gojyo thought that it was himself who was guilty.

And this was all because they never were any good at talking things over.

If Sanzo had come to talk to him about the things that were bothering him, Gojyo would have understood. But Sanzo was much too conceited and too proud to tell him that Gojyo had hurt him. He still wanted him to believe that he was untouchable. Nevertheless, it always ended with the following situation: Sanzo had done something wrong or Gojyo had done something wrong, and the next thing for Sanzo was for him to run to his room and lock it up. Never talking about anything… this didn’t go well with an honest relationship.

Of course, Sanzo would often talk, but only about superficial things for the purpose of amusement or to make you think about something; he had never come to tell Gojyo about his pains or hopes or anything like that. Gojyo had always had to interpret Sanzo’s actions in order to guess how he was feeling. When he was sitting on the windowsill smoking, it meant he either wanted to be left alone or he wanted to be silently taken into a pair of loving arms. When he was sitting on the couch to watch films, he didn’t care what Gojyo did - he could suck him off then or just sit and drink coffee with him, Sanzo didn’t care. But when Sanzo was staring at him with blank eyes, looking lost and on the edge of mental death, Gojyo still didn’t know exactly what to do with him then.

Maybe he was too ashamed to talk about his feelings with Gojyo. Or maybe he thought that Gojyo wouldn’t be interested or that he would just laugh at him. Gojyo decided to have a talk with him as soon as Sanzo was able to think properly again. He was sick of guessing his moods. And he wanted to know more about him. Because he was interested in him.

Sanzo sighed and tried to swallow. This made Gojyo aware of the situation again, and he laid Sanzo down, where the blond weakly turned on his flank and buried his head in the pillow. Minutes passed without any movement from either of them. Then Sanzo decided to lie on his belly without batting an eye.

It was strange. Normally people moaned and panted and restlessly turned from one side to the other when they were sick with fever, but Sanzo simply didn’t. He just lay there like a piece of wood; you would really think that he were dead. He could die and you wouldn’t even notice. This was the worst situation Gojyo had ever had to stand. Not even Sanzo’s ribcage was moving - he was breathing so silently and weakly that you had to lay your ear on his mouth to know whether he was still alive or not.

As Gojyo let his gaze slide over the other man’s body, he noticed Sanzo’s red ass. He had been really mean; he couldn’t have behaved worse than that, laughing at Sanzo’s despair and showing Hakkai the parts that Sanzo didn’t want to let him see. A quick impulse told him to get Sanzo’s gun and kill himself. He had to concentrate in order to keep sitting there on the bed.

Suddenly he was caught by a wave of panic that Sanzo may have stopped breathing, because it was so silent.

“Sanzo…?” he whispered in a shaky voice.

Nothing happened, as expected, and Gojyo moved closer to lay a hand on his chest to feel for movement. He felt his damp skin, slippery with sweat, and again he felt bad for causing Sanzo to do such stupid things like lying around in a freezing cold room and catching a lethal cold. Sanzo’s chest slightly moved and relief made him smile. But his smile faded as Sanzo held his eyes tightly shut, turned his head to the side and moaned hoarsely. Now panting, Sanzo tried to bring his hand up to his chest and weakly pushed Gojyo’s away. He barked until Gojyo thought that he would die, and then moved to lie on his flank.

“I’d better not touch him now, because as you can see he can’t distinguish between you and someone else.”

Gojyo turned his head to see Hakkai holding a cup of coffee and crossing the room.

“It’s horrible. He could die right in front of your eyes and you wouldn’t know.”

Tears started to fill his eyes.

“Hakkai, can’t you do anything for him?”

“I’m sorry, but as you know I can only heal wounds, I can’t do anything against a cold.”

Gojyo sighed and sipped his coffee. He cast his eyes down again to watch Sanzo. Silent tears decorated the blond’s cheeks, slowly trickling down and making him look like a crying statue. Despite the fact that his temperature was far above the limit he was as pale as the sheets.

“Oh, no…”

“What did you expect? That he’s dreaming about meadows with beautiful trees and a bright sun?”

Gojyo looked up at Hakkai. Wrinkles destroyed the softness of his features. His eyes, half closed and like black calderas, peered at the brunet man.

“Ahm…I didn’t want to…to cause you any more worry…”

Gojyo ignored him and wept away the cold tears.

“I think I’d better leave now.”

Hakkai turned around and left the room.

The rest of the day passed without any incident. Sanzo just fell victim to fits of coughing, and Gojyo was just frightened to death that he would die any second. At nightfall Sanzo’s physical condition got worse; the fever got more intense and he was trembling. First he pulled the blankets closer and the next moment he kicked them away. And Gojyo couldn’t do anything against it.

At nine o’clock Hakkai came once more to take a look at Sanzo, and when he saw him shaking from the chills he couldn’t suppress a sigh. Gojyo expectantly stared at him until Hakkai opened his mouth.

“Well…I could try to put some lard on his chest …”

“What?? Lard? What the hell would that be for?”

“You know…it’s some sort of an old household medicine. It is said to be quite effective when you are suffering from fever.”

“If you say so…whatever will help him. Let’s give it a try.”

Hakkai left the room, and it took him some minutes to come back with a compote jar filled with that gross substance. Gojyo hated it. It made him shiver when he thought about how they gained it from the pigs. Somehow it got so bad that he would have gagged if Hakkai hadn’t told him to get a glass of water for Sanzo. When he came back from the kitchen Hakkai had already smeared the fat over Sanzo’s chest, and the blond was now panting and groaning. Maybe he was just as disgusted as Gojyo was.

“Please Hakkai, if I ever get sick, please don’t do that to me.”

Hakkai just smiled, and then advised him to force Sanzo to drink the water. And Gojyo knew that this was going to be a lot of work, because Sanzo couldn’t even swallow.

“Oh Hakkai, can’t you try to make him drink it ? He won’t-”

Hakkai had already turned around and hurried out of the room.

“I’m sure you will manage!”

“Shit, Hakkai come back!!!”

While he was staring at the door, Sanzo writhed beneath him and attempted to wipe the lard away, but Gojyo quickly caught his hand and put it down. That scene seemed familiar to him, and suddenly it reminded him of the time when he had shared his house with Hakkai. Just once he had caught a cold just like Sanzo now, but it wasn’t that bad and he had been healthy again in a few days. Hakkai had done the same thing as he had done now with Sanzo: he had covered him in awful, loathsome lard. By now he was wondering how Sanzo was able to stand the scent so calmly. On the other hand, Sanzo had already tried to get rid of it, and he could understand that very well.

Sanzo was still trying to get some distance between his nose and the lard. He whined and finally gave it up. Gojyo couldn’t help him; if Hakkai had said that this would be good for him then Gojyo wouldn’t wipe it off. He took some of the golden strands, which had turned into a dark gold from the sweat, and pushed them away from his face. Sanzo looked so helpless and pitiful… then he had another fit of coughing.

As long as he’s coughing like that he isn’t dead yet.

Sanzo even sat up to continue his coughing, and when he had become too weak to keep himself up any longer he sunk back into the pillow and didn’t move anymore. The skinny body, speckled with scars and beads of sweat, had come to rest again, to lie there for another hour without any movement. Staring at him made Gojyo mad. Panting, he violently gripped Sanzo’s shoulder and shook him, shouting at him.

“WAKE UP! YOU FREAK THE HELL OUT OF ME, FUCKING WAKE UP NOW!!!”

Sanzo’s head lifelessly bobbed back and forth, spilling saliva over the bed and Gojyo. With a groan he finally let go of him and sat back down. He was covered in sweat just like Sanzo, whom he fixed again with his eyes.

Suddenly he was terrified about Sanzo’s figure; it seemed like he hadn’t eaten anything for days and he looked so slender, even scrawny. No wonder he had collapsed. Maybe Sanzo had already gotten sick from anorexia; he was not aware of his body, and maybe he hadn’t even noticed, but he probably had fallen ill. Gojyo blamed himself for not looking after him.


----------------------------


That string of thoughts reminded me of the water that Sanzo should drink. Sanzo should be forced to drink. I pulled him up into a sitting posture and took the glass with the cold water. His head was hanging from his shoulders, and I had to hold it up with one hand.
With the other I pushed the glass against his lips, but he didn’t show the slightest inclination to drink.

I pressed the glass against his lips again, and now poured some of the water into his mouth. I hoped that he would swallow it by reflex. But he didn’t. The water flowed from his half open mouth down his neck and chest where it mingled with the lard. I cursed the mess I had caused and got up to fetch some toilet-paper to clean him up.

When I came back from the loo, Sanzo was coughing like he was choking on something, and I cursed myself again for leaving him there with some water still in his mouth. I would make a really bad nurse. I wiped away the water and fat, and started a new try. Again I filled his mouth with water, closed it by pushing his jaw up, and then I gently kissed his throat. With the softest voice I could manage, I tried to convince him.

“Please, Sanzo…just try to swallow, you should drink more than usual…”

And I kissed his throat again. I was even able to draw a moan from him, and he tried to swallow. He wasn’t successful at all, but he had managed to get the water down his throat. Therefore, I petted his head and repeated the action until the glass was empty.

Carefully I shoved him down, and after another brief glance at him I turned off the light of the lamp beside me.

I couldn’t tell whether Sanzo was sleeping or had just closed his eyes in his delirium. He hadn’t moved for the whole night, and I had been awake the whole night to watch him, happy about every little move he made, though he hadn’t even dared to turn his head.

When the sun set I was so tired, and my eyes were stinging terribly so that I had to get up and get myself some coffee. It must have been about 6 o’clock. I went to the kitchen and prepared the things for making coffee, but after opening the bag for the coffee powder I heard a faint noise from my room. In a quick move I turned around and trampled into the room to Sanzo. Short, startled cries escaped his tortured throat, and in his feverish dreams he was kicking and hitting the sheets.

I had no better idea than to get to the bed and take him into my arms, but he violently shoved me away.

“Sanzo, it’s me!”

But he didn’t hear me. I caught him by his wrists, despite his efforts to free himself from my grip, and I embraced him and whispered into his ear to calm him down.

“Sanzo…honey…everything’s okay, you’re safe here.”

He didn’t thrash anymore, but he kept whining.

“Honey…I love you…” I kissed him on his cheek, “Wake up for god’s sake, I don’t want to lose you in my arms…Sanzo...”

This was what he had been missing; he pressed his head against my chest and I felt his hot forehead. When you get sick it always gets worse in the morning and at dusk, so I wasn’t worried enough to feel anxious about him. I took him in my arms with the blanket to get him out of his room. On the way to our room I met Hakkai, sleep-drunken and with narrow eyes. He yawned and shot my Sanzo a glance.

“How’s he?”

I couldn’t tell him that he had gotten better. Or worse. It was always bad.

“I dunno.”

I continued on my way, and when I had reached my bed I carefully dropped him down, bundling him up in the sheets so that he wouldn’t feel cold when I opened the window to let in some refreshing and salubrious air. The cold air felt really good, and I became hopeful again. Sanzo wouldn’t die just because of a fucking cold. I would bring him back to life, no matter what Sanzo had decided.

I went back to the bed, dragged him up by his hair to make him aware that I was going to talk to him, and with a firm voice I let him know that nobody was going to die here.

“You idiotic priest, as soon as you’ve woken up I will royally kick your ass for making me this desperate. I don’t think you even know how much you’re frightening me with this damn cold!”

I knew that he had heard me, somehow I just knew. I licked the sweat from his face, and covered his eyelids, cheeks and mouth with my cold tongue. Compared to his body temperature my tongue was cool. Now that he was at least half awake and was able to understand my words I wanted to apologize for my bad behaviour. I wanted to get this straight as soon as possible; I couldn’t bear it any longer.

I sat down on the bed and moved him against my chest so that it was comfortable for him. I started stroking his chest, down to his belly, but I didn’t go lower than that.

“I hope you can hear me now, Sanzo, otherwise you’ll miss all this, and I won’t repeat myself. Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to repeat myself. I want to talk to you about that scene in Hakkai’s room…”

He moaned. I didn’t know whether this meant that he didn’t want to hear my words, or that he was going to listen to me, or that feverish dreams had caught him again. A bit irritated, I continued my apology.

“I don’t know what that moan is about, but I have to tell you about this, or I’ll get just as sick as you did for swallowing down your anger and worries. By the way, I think we should try to talk a bit more about ourselves. You never come to me when you have a problem, you never ask me to listen to you when you have something on your mind. I already told you twice to come to me in those situations, and I would appreciate it if you found the courage and came to me. Whether weeping or with a forced smile, it doesn’t matter. As long as you trust me, everything will be fine.

I won’t laugh at you if you thought your problems were too ridiculous to tell me, and I will always try to understand you, no matter how unbelievable your stories might be. I know that it must be very hard for you to trust me enough to tell me about your most secret feelings and thoughts, and all I can offer you is some help to bear them. If you keep on refusing to talk to me we will never get closer than having good sex. And I don’t want it to remain like that. I hope… I hope you understood what I wanted to say…”

Every time I forced myself to make such sentimental speeches, I wasn’t sure whether everybody knew what I was trying to say. And I got so carried away with it that I talked on and on. Now it became more difficult.

“Now… to talk about what I did to you…”

He had to listen to me; he didn’t have a choice because he couldn’t stand up and leave the room like he always did when unpleasant things were on their way to crush him beneath them.

“I thought about it, and I feel so dirty about that… so bad and so embarrassed, but embarrassed in the sense of ‘how could I treat him like that’. By now you must have gotten sick of my apologies, and you must think that whenever I’m too lazy to think things through and therefore hurt you, and then apologize for that, that my apologies are just half-hearted. But they aren’t, and it is just as hard for me to apologize as it is for you.”

I pressed his face against mine to whisper to him.

“I thought you would enjoy it, so I didn’t need to ask you whether you wanted to try it. Why I was so amused by your…despair and agony… I don’t know now. Maybe I’m just a shitty half-breed, as you call me, who lost control over his feelings and overstepped the limits of human dignity. I knew that you hate to be exposed like that when Hakkai is around. And I’m sorry for the pain I caused you and what I have done.”

I tried to think like Sanzo, to choose the right words to console him with. It was easy, because I knew him very well although we never talked about things.

“Everybody had left you, you have always been alone and you must have thought that it was just the same with me because I had been so silly to ask you whether you still loved me. I doubted your love for me because of my bad behaviour and I’m not so optimistic as to believe that you would forget about it that easily. You see… we just solve a problem and we are forced to bear the next one…life is one single hell of feelings and opinions…

I don’t blame you for feeling like that; your bad experiences have caused you to feel like that. And I was so stupid as to let you believe in my rejection…when you had come to the kitchen to look for some food…you know, I was just standing there in front of you, staring at you dumbfounded and not able to open my mouth. I’m sorry. I didn’t really know what to tell you, and I didn’t want to take you into my arms because you might have thought that I was joking, or you would have pushed me away. What you actually did.”

He was coughing again; he hadn’t gotten any better at all.

“Forgive me. I beg - I beseech you - to forgive me once more. I promise that I will do whatever you want me to do. As soon as you wake up… I will kick your ass, as I said, and then I will hug you and never let you go again. If you die before you open your eyes again, I will kill myself. I swear to you that I will shoot myself with your gun, straight through my head, sitting next to you and holding your hand. Or I would aim at my heart so that I would still have a few seconds to embrace you in death. I don’t want to be forced to continue living without you. Sanzo…please wake up…”

I was crying, and so was he. Silent tears wetted my chest, and I even held him tighter. This was my world, the world I had dared to risk to lose; my soul, my air and my blood that I needed for living. With a cracking voice I whispered into his ear…

“Don’t leave me…do you hear me…don’t leave me…”

I hadn’t thought about the things I had said...they simply urged me to give voice to them. And I think that was better because they were honest and heartfelt.

“I hope you have given up your death wish, Sanzo…otherwise I wouldn’t know what I should do.”

I think he had understood. And I felt much better now that I had forced him to listen to my words and think about them. Or just that I had forced him to listen to me. I would have been ready to tell him everything about me; I would have told him about my most embarrassing secrets, and I even would have told him anything about my mother if he had wanted to know about her. I was ready to hurt myself to make him feel better.

I tilted my head back and let it lie on the headboard while I was stroking his shoulder.

Where do we go from here?

What will tomorrow look like…

Who knows. No matter what, together we will fight against it until our deaths.

---------------------------------------------------------

I woke up in the late afternoon. It was still a bit cold in there, but Hakkai had come to shut the window. Sanzo was lying on me, just like when I had fallen asleep, but with the slight difference that he was now holding some strands of my hair. I remembered him saying that he liked it so much, and now I thought again about wearing it long. I decided not to let Hakkai cut it again the next time. Sprites had to wear their hair long anyway. They seemed more interesting then.

Smiling, I carefully pulled the hair out of his grip, and prepared to lay him down on the bed because I had to get up. I had already grabbed his shoulders to lift him up when he opened his eyes a little.

A weight was off my mind, and I couldn’t do anything except stare at his face, waiting for my heart to catch up and make me cry. I was so glad that he had decided to stay with me. I took him back into my arms and cuddled him until I had calmed down a bit. He lifted his head to look at me with tears in his eyes, and I smiled at him.

“How are you?”

He looked away.

“Dunno,” he croaked.

He seemed like he wanted to say more, but didn’t know how to express it…I sighed from crying and stroke his head, but he pushed my hand away.

“Do you need something? Please, tell me, how are you…”

I couldn’t hide the relief from my voice. Sanzo now had to cough, and it sounded really awful. When he looked up at me again my eyes went wide… there was some blood on his lips.

“Sanzo… what’s wrong? Are you alright?!”

He closed his eyes again.

“My lungs…burning like hell, it hurts…to breathe.”

He seemed different from normal; there was a hint of annoyance in his voice. He glared at me with narrow slits, like he wanted me to remember that I wasn’t allowed to breathe the same air as he did. I was stumped and kept looking at him. He tried to swallow, but wasn’t successful.

“You asshole, you goddamn whore. You relentless bitch.”

I cast down my eyes to look at the white sheets. They were speckled with red stains, and if they had been black or just darker, I bet you’d have also seen some white stains. Maybe a hell of a lot of white stains. He rejected me, and it was okay. I had expected him to ignore me, to turn the cold shoulder on me as he always did when I had done something wrong. But the fact that he stared straight at me, and let me see and look into his rotten soul, really hurt.

Your eyes are the mirrors of your soul… and his eyes were currently dead. It was like the violet colour had peeled off and had been painted over with the colour of death. What colour did death have, anyway…

The silence was pretty uncomfortable, but he forced me to think about things that way. He didn’t let me go that easily, and he wanted me to be crushed by the weight of my guilt. He couldn’t see it but I was already crushed. I was able to bear his gaze just because my vision had become blurred - a blue fog was dancing with a black one. This must have come from the lack of sleep and my general condition, which was beneath contempt because of reproaching and worrying about Sanzo. I opened my mouth to break the silence, but I wasn’t able to form words, I just opened and shut it without any sound. Sanzo didn’t help me either. A sudden idea or thought struck me and I got up. I headed for the drawer in which Sanzo usually kept his gun. There it was, polished and shimmering like it had just been waiting for somebody to take it out. I carefully took it; I had great respect for that gun because it was Sanzo’s sainthood, and I didn’t want to break it or make it dirty with my ordinary hands.

Sanzo’s gaze hadn’t changed; now he was eyeing me warily. I hid my face by allowing the hair to fall down, and continued my way to the bed, where I sat down. After another moment of just sitting there and just feeling the pain I got up, climbed onto the bed and knelt down in front of Sanzo. He was beautiful even when he was killing me with his negative waves of hate.

I smiled indulgently, tilted my head and brought the gun up to my head so that it pointed at my temple.

“Tell me to do it, and I will do so.”

Silence again. Crushing silence and uncertainty. He didn’t hesitate. Sanzo never hesitated because he knew exactly what he wanted.
I couldn’t hold back the tears, and they were falling down on the sheets to form new, tiny wet stains. I fucking didn’t care about what he would say sooner or later, what he would tell me to do, I would just carry out his order.

My lip started to shake and my teeth clattered. I was sweating and trembling, and I was waiting for him to show some mercy and finally tell me what to do. I was ready to shoot myself; I had the courage to do it if Sanzo told me to commit suicide. But I would never have thought about ending my life on my own; I was too much of a coward for that. And it was senseless, useless to kill myself because everything was meaningless. But the senselessness would have stopped the moment Sanzo told me to shoot myself, because then someone would have decided for me and given my life a new meaning.

I didn’t want to die of a lethal disease or by falling down the stairs and breaking my spine. If I was damned to die then I would have begged Sanzo to kill me. He could have torn me apart with the scripture or shot me through my head with his Smith & Wesson, or he could have drowned me. Everything appeared welcome to me.

I was preparing to die, and I already thought about the many good times we experienced, but also the bad ones we overcame.
I didn’t regret anything - except for hurting him so much in the end. Not regretting one single kiss or minute of lying around for the whole day in drowsiness, doing nothing except for enjoying the feeling of warmth he radiated.

The rain became so loud. It drowned out everything - if there had been something to be drowned out. I was anxious not to hear or understand his words in that roaring chaos, and I tried to concentrate hard. And suddenly it stopped. From one second to the next the rain had calmed, softly hitting the window. It was soothing now, and made me think of Sanzo and his moods when the rain had come to wash away his old tears and worries and cause new ones.

Sanzo.

“Do it.”

I clenched my teeth and searched for the little hammer with my thumb.

I looked up at him with a face wet with tears, and found him still staring at me with that gaze. So cold.

I smiled as much as was possible.

“Sanzo… I love you…”

I had to pause and swallow hard.

“I have always loved you, and I’m so sorry for that…I love you”

I pulled the trigger and felt my ears burst from the noise of the shot.