Desire
His gun is never more than an arm's length away from him when he sleeps. Sometimes under his pillow, sometimes beside him on the table by the bed, sometimes tucked into his sleeve or slid into the sash at his waist. They know that. He knows they know that. They know he knows they know that.
Gojyo thinks it's ridiculous. Gojyo has every reason to fear his own weakness, and none to fear his own strength. Gojyo doesn't understand. So much for Gojyo.
Hakkai watches him and doesn't say anything. Hakkai's very good at not saying anything. Hakkai can speak whole volumes without saying anything, and it goes right under the skin. But Hakkai understands what there is to be afraid of.
Goku doesn't think twice about it. A Sanzou sleeps next to his gun because that's how a Sanzou sleeps because that's how Genjou Sanzou sleeps, and that's all there is to it for Goku.
None of them sleep in the same bed as him. They may fuck in the same bed, tangled in the sheets together, the wayside inn's dirty cotton pillow sliding up against the head of the bedstead, but when it's done one of them gets out and the other stays and they sleep apart, because sleeping together is something that lovers do, and he doesn't love any of them.
Scratch this itch for me. No more than that. The body is all about itches, little physical things; the need for beer, for a cigarette, to piss, to stretch, to heal, to move, to rest. It's just one more itch that needs to be dealt with. Refusing the inclination would be to give it undue weight. He knows better than that.
So sometimes he walks across to Hakkai's bed, and Hakkai is already awake by then, because Hakkai is also a wary, careful man who has also been betrayed. Hakkai never relaxes and sleeps fully when he's in the same room as Sanzou, any more than Sanzou does when he's sharing the room with Hakkai. And Hakkai looks up at him from under his lashes, eyes dark and soft in the shadows of the room at night, and blinks, and then he pushes the covers back, and then he rolls over, because he knows by now that Sanzou isn't interested in foreplay or touch or anything other than tearing the flame out of his own flesh by the quickest and most expedient method. And they fuck. And Hakkai moves and squirms under him, obedient, no longer in control, no longer calm and smiling and certain of himself, of course he isn't he's just pretending they're all pretending watch their eyes when they think you aren't looking, a dark spirit of old wells that Sanzou falls into to lose himself. Then they finish, and clean themselves, and Sanzou goes back to his own bed, and he doesn't think about the physical spasm, but sometimes when it's raining he thinks about the moment when the world goes away and he isn't thinking of anything at all, and that's the seduction. But if you desire no-mind, it goes all the further away from you. And there isn't any answer to that.
And sometimes he looks at Gojyo, heavy-lidded, robe shrugged back so that he can feel the air on his shoulders, and Gojyo looks back at him, and Gojyo is very convenient, a good useful tool, because he doesn't have to do anything after that. It's Gojyo's bed and Gojyo's hands on his body, and Gojyo fucking his ass, and the room and sheets smell of Gojyo, and Gojyo panting in his ear, and Gojyo's hair falling over his face, and Sanzou's body knows what to take and how to take it, and he's still in control, because he's the one doing this to Gojyo, and Gojyo's just the tool, and then it's finished and Sanzou gathers up his robes and walks away, the momentary silence gone, all the voices of mind and spirit and conscience returned to haunt him.
It's an itch. He scratches it. The body has itches. The spirit is a more private thing and he doesn't let anyone in there. And if they walk in uninvited, that's their own error, and they can damn well suffer for it.
He knows them very well. They've all got their own monsters, hiding under the human skin, demons of blood or soul or mind, and he was right to object to their being sent with him. Who knows what might happen when the Wave touches them? They're youkai just as much as they are human. They kill people. That's what youkai do.
And there is such a thing as being known too well, and right now he is running away from it with every coldness, every calculated act of anger, and every moment of disdain. Alien in their flesh, untrustworthy in their souls, not human, no, stronger than that, inhuman creatures sitting beside him by day, closer at night, and how dare they claim any sort of acquaintance with his soul?
You do not know me, he would say, but it would make it too painfully clear what he was thinking, and give them another opening to use against him.
He sees them. They see him. Everyone sees illusion.
No-mind would fuck where necessary, shoot where necessary, sleep where necessary, and it would not -- would never -- care about one man's death. It would be pure, clear, unclouded as the sky on a perfect day. Impulse would sail through it, untouched, because there would be no mind to hinder it with clouds of desire.
No-mind would have that gentle smile which Genjou Sanzou remembers every night. He remembers it very deliberately. He turns it over and over in his mind until his spirit aches with what he lost, and what he shouldn't have wanted in the first place, because that was desire, and no-mind taught him that desire was error and that non-attachment was truth.
But then why did he step in front of you? Was his desire to save you?
Illusion says that he's travelling west with three people, and that it doesn't matter if they're human or youkai. Genjou Sanzou knows better than that.
And what if one of them does betray him?
Well, there is that gun.
It's never out of his reach.
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