Title: Fallen From Grace

Author: PunkWolf

Email: mori _ recalcitrant @ hotmail . com

Paring: Sanzo/Goku

Rating: NC-17 overall

Warnings: lemons, limes, language, angst, the usual.

Disclaimer: Written for fun, not profit. I own none of the rights to Minekura's Saiyuki.

Summary: A collection of Sanzo/Goku oneshots inspired by the Three Days Grace album One-X. Vary in length from 5 - 35 pages.

Note: NOT a songfic.

Never Too Late

There it was again.

Goku shot up in bed, a cold sweat drenching his body already melting in the summer heat. The dreams had returned.

He was trapped again. Stone walls surrounding him and closing in faster that he could blink, until those walls became the cuffs that bound him to the back wall of that dismal cave, forcing him to forever watch the light of the sun come and go each day, keeping the source of his warmth hidden. He was back at Mt. Gogyo.

At least in his dreams.

They had begun to return more and more since their defeat of Gyumaoh last winter. But now, he could expect at least one a night.

He ached for Sanzo's comforting embrace as he held him through the nightmares, but Goku was no longer young, and it wasn't appropriate for Sanzo to console him in such a manner. The monks would talk, not that either Sanzo or Goku cared what the monks said, but the awkwardness would still be there.

So Goku muddled through his regression alone. He hadn't even told Sanzo about their return and he didn't plan to. They didn't discuss it, but they both knew that after the journey, the monk and the monkey had begun to drift apart. Sure, Goku still resided at Chang'An, but he spent more and more nights staying over at Hakkai and Gojyo's seeking the companionship he didn't dare ask of Sanzo. After nearly nine years of living with the man, you know his boundaries.

As much as Goku hates to admit it... it's possible that the bond between him and Sanzo just isn't as prominent as he'd once thought. And it killed him to know that this just may be true. Hell, maybe a lot of people hear voices in their heads, calling to them from desolate mountain tops.

Calling for a name they've never heard, with a voice they never use.

Only once true loneliness rears it's ugly head, does an anguished wail finally break through the forgotten vocal chords.

Goku looked around in confusion. It had not been he who had screamed this time.

Cautiously clamoring out of bed, he made is way out of him room and down the hall, searching for the source of the cry. He tracked it into the general vicinity of Sanzo's chambers.

Odd..

Goku gently pushed open the door into Sanzo's sleeping quarters. "Sanzo?"

A figure slumped at the foot of the bed gaze a startled lurch. "Goku?"

It was late at night, or early in the morning, considering it was just after midnight. Sanzo cherished this time to get the sleep he desired, a break from the incessant monks who sought him out every moment of the day. The same monks who were in utter dismay when Sanzo returned with Goku still in tow.

Goku's eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light of Sanzo's room. Soon, he was able to make out Sanzo sitting slumped at the foot of the bed, still adorned in holy robes, and pistol clenched within shaking hands.

Another cry broke through Goku's jumbled thoughts, and there was no mistaking its origin this time. Yet Sanzo hadn't moved a muscle, let alone made the effort to produce such a wail.

And this time, it had called Goku by name.

"Sanzo, are you calling me?"

Sanzo looked startled by his charge's sudden question, and his eyes took on a pensive gleam for a moment before he responded. "No, I wasn't calling anyone, baka saru."

Now it was Goku's turn to recall a time all too long ago, when he had denied a claim similar to his own just down. Way back... a top Mt. Gogyo.

He had been calling Sanzo with his very soul... and Sanzo had answered. Sanzo had freed him during his time of greatest need. Then... did that mean...

"I hear you, Sanzo... you're calling me."

"Baka." Sanzo spat, but Goku could easily detect the waver in Sanzo's voice. The shakiness in his keeper's composure.

"Ne, Sanzo... what's wrong?" Goku asked as he crossed threshold into Sanzo's inner sanctum.

"Che... who said anything's wrong? Go back to bed, monkey."

"You, Sanzo. You said something was wrong. I can hear you! In my head!"

"You're hallucinating, baka, just leave me alone. Now."

Their was a bite in Sanzo's voice that Goku wasn't accustomed to. It wasn't Sanzo's typical nature to be so... sincere in his caustic actions. At least not when they were directed at Goku. Sanzo really sounded cross... yet they was a thin layer of desperation underneath it all that only Goku could detect within the priest. And Goku was thrown.

What had he interrupted that would make Sanzo so desperate for him to leave?

Taking a critical eye to the scene, Goku examined the room. There was no threat, so why had Sanzo drawn the Smith and Wesson? Why was Sanzo quivering where he sat? Why was the moonlight glancing off Sanzo's face like a reflection upon water? Was Sanzo crying?

No. The shivers enveloping his body were not the violent ones that accompanied sobs. If Sanzo was crying, it was merely two rivers running down his pale face, nothing more. But it still troubled Goku. Sanzo never cried.

Suddenly, like synergy, everything clicked into place within Goku's mind, and it began to function.

Goku may be the youngest of the disbanded Ikkou at the age of 21, but he wasn't genuinely stupid. Not by far. He knew exactly what lay in front of him.

Sanzo was going to kill himself.

In a second, Goku was at Sanzo's side, hand covering the monk's own that had the gun in a white-knuckled grip.

"Sanzo... let go of the gun." Goku hissed, doing his best to at least look and sound calm, despite his racing heart and frantic mind.

"Shut up! I told you to leave!"

"Like hell I'm leaving now, with you like this!" Goku growled at his guardian and increasing his efforts to relieve Sanzo of the banishing gun.

"Why does it matter?! It was only by chance you were here to stop this anyway!"

These words froze Goku mid-struggle. What was Sanzo saying?

"What do you mean Sanzo? What are you talking-"

"You goddamn, stupid, fucking baka saru!" Sanzo hollered, and with one mighty wrench, and the fact that Goku was rather shell-shocked, Sanzo twisted the gun away from his meddling charge. "Just... go to Gojyo's or something"

"Why would I that?" Goku asked, feeling tears of his own prick at his golden eyes.

"It's what you always do! You go stay at the damn kappa's house and... fuck..." Sanzo cursed, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. "Why do you suddenly care?"

"When have I not cared Sanzo? I just wanna help you... like always. Just... tell me what's wrong..."

Sanzo turned away from Goku, but made no move to put the gun to any use. Yet.

"C'mon Sanzo... please... is it your past again? I know you still haven't told me anything yet, and I'm not asking you to... just at least try and let me help-"

"This has nothing to do with my past, baka."

"Then what does this have to do with?!" Goku pleaded, trying to find one last shred of Sanzo's sanity to cling to... to hold the monk back from falling over the edge.

"Me." Sanzo spat, disgust coating the one words like rampant mold.

"What about you?" Goku prodded gently, hoping to gain more answers.

"Me and how fucking weak I am. Me and how I've disgraced everything he taught me. Me and how I let some punk get to me enough to turn this damn gun on myself. Me and how I can't see my fucking life without you in it."

"Wha- what?" Goku stuttered.

Sanzo turned intense violet eyes back toward Goku. "What happened Goku?"

"Wha- what happened when, Sanzo?"

"What happened that made me unable to live without you near me? And what happened that makes me feel like I'm losing you?" Sanzo muttered a curse under his breath. "What happened that made me so weak..."

"S-Sanzo?" Goku stuttered again. This was all too surreal for Goku to handle. "This isn't like you at all..."

Sanzo gave a dry laugh. "Then what is like me?"

Goku couldn't help but smirk. "I've answered that question before Sanzo, and my answer is still the same." The smirk returned to the worried frown. "What's going on inside your head?"

"Just me finally owning up to all the shit I've done." Sanzo sighed as he slowly strode to the wall and leaned his forehead against the surface. "I've pushed everybody away, just like I wanted to... and now I can't fucking take it." His voice became softer. "I don't want to be alone again."

Goku got up from his seat on Sanzo's bed. "But you're not alone. I've been with you the past nine years!"

"I stopped hearing you. And that's when I knew I'd lost everything. How was I to know that's not really what I wanted?" Another hollow laugh. "I'm finally bound by nothing, and not only do I feel no closer to enlightenment, I feel like fucking shit."

Goku didn't know what to say to that.

So Sanzo continued. "I keep seeing things... people in my nightmares. Gojyo, Hakkai, Shuuei... Koumyou, you. Only to wake up and discover that nothing's really there. I can't even tell what's real anymore."

"Sanzo..." Goku whimpered. Sanzo was taken aback by just how lost his charge sounded. "What can I do, to make it go away? I'll do anything, just don't do this to me..." Sanzo felt Goku standing beside him now. "I don't want to be alone either..."

"Che. Gojyo, Hakkai..."

"Without you, none of them matter. Not really."

Sanzo turned to fully face Goku. "You want to help me? Please... just show me you're real..."

Goku reacted faster than Sanzo would have predicted. The words had barely left his mouth when Goku captured his lips in a sloppy yet searing kiss. For a few heartbeats nothing registered within Sanzo's mind but the warm feeling of Goku pressed against him, and he felt himself dying to give into the pressure of Goku's lips upon his own. But Goku pulled away before Sanzo's inner warring could conclude.

"I am real, Sanzo. I'll bleed all over you if I have to, to make you believe me. All of me right here, right now. Is real. And I'm not leaving you anytime soon. Not as long as you'll have me." Goku sighed. "And to be honest, I was afraid I was losing you, too."

"Then how do we know we're not?"

"Because I was wrong. I can't believe I ever doubted anything. How many people do you know that can hear each other in their heads? Hmm?"

"Doesn't count. I can't hear you anymore."

"Just shut up and listen, Sanzo." And he did.

Sanzo focused every ounce of his attention inward, searching all the places in his mind where he'd felt Goku resonate before. He sighed.

"You're not there."

"Don't listen to your mind, stupid. Listen with you're heart. That's where I heard you."

Impatience welled up from with the brooding priest, but he ignored it and turned his senses inward once again.

And there it was.

As Sanzo focused on the familiar thrum of Goku's thoughts mixed with his own, he felt his arms extend to wrap around Goku's toned waist. All the muscles in his body that had been coiled for so long deemed this the right time to relax once again. He allowed Goku's inner voice to wash over him like a cleansing bath. It wasn't gone. Goku wasn't gone.

"If you ever leave me, I'll kill you." Sanzo whispered, absolutely no bite to his threat whatsoever.

"I wouldn't expect anything less." Goku purred as Sanzo pulled Goku to him for another kiss. This one warmer and needier than the last. Sanzo pawed at Goku's sleeping tunic, desperate to get closer to that comforting warmth that he so lacked.

Both considered, for a moment, deepening the somber liplock, but it was still late (or very early) and both were to exhausted to even imagine taking this any further. Sanzo, however, seemed to be content wit remaining against the, locked in a lazy kiss, while Goku (who had been so rudely awakened by said priest) was drawn to the bed like the earth to the sun, inadvertently dragging Sanzo with him. Goku calves collided with the mattress and they both felt themselves toppled backwards onto the welcoming surface, only slightly discontented by the kiss being broken for Goku to squawk in alarm. Instinctually, both crawled up to the head of the bed and scurried under the frigid cover, praying their collective body heat warmed them soon.

The last thing Goku registered before succumbing to oblivion, was Sanzo pulling him against a firm, robe clad chest.

Goku didn't visit Hakkai and Gojyo so much after that. At least not with out an irritable Sanzo in tow.

And Sanzo got a wall mount for the banishing gun. It's not like he'd be needing it anytime soon.

Both of them relished in the ever presence of the other inside their very beings. It was a warmth that never left, even though neither could forget what it had felt like to feel like you had nothing but a cold emptiness to call your own.

Sanzo never had to kill Goku.

_____________
Go to || part 3 || part 5 || Home