“I don't understand why you won't let me touch it.” A late-afternoon shadow slid over the flagstones, accompanied by the clack of worn boots.
“Your lack of understanding is exactly why I won't let you touch it.” Pulling his cigarette from between his lips, Sanzo tapped white ash out the open window and watched the flakes spin into oblivion. The sill beneath him was warmed from where he'd been sitting, perched with one bootheel cocked on the ledge. Countless knots and aches had formed from bending over his desk all afternoon, and the solid, straight window frame behind him came as a welcome support.
Ignoring Goku's presence, Sanzo inhaled another lungful of smoke and then blew it slowly out into the clear Chang'an air. Gold beams of sunlight began fading to a rusty orange as the sun descended, highlighting the fruit trees lining the temple courtyard, apricots shining like baubles in the still branches.
“Sanzo, I wanna talk about this.”
Tossing his Marlboro into the ashtray he'd perched beside him on the sill, Sanzo pressed his lips together. Tenacious as ever, Goku stepped up with his hands planted on his hips like some nagging fishwife – Sanzo could see the ridiculous pose in his periphery.
“There's nothing to talk about.”
“But we kissed! If that wasn't like the best thing ever, then it was the weirdest. And coolest. But my point is–”
“Your point is getting out of my office before I remove you.”
“– how come we kissed but you won't let me touch... y'know, it?” A hint of disappointment appeared as Goku softly added, “I thought we were different now. Like that kiss wasn't some one-time thing or a mistake.”
Mistake? No, the incident Goku was referring to hadn't been one of those, but rather an intentional manoeuvre to shut him the hell up. At the time, the answer to why the harisen or Smith and Wesson wouldn't suffice to put a sock in Goku's endless chatter had been a mystery to Sanzo. It had been impulse, instinct, to gravitate toward the monkey; Sanzo had been angry, too distracted to do much but run with what his body told him. The moment he'd felt Goku against him – all angled bone and taut flesh planes and plateaus of rippled muscle – he'd been hit freight-train force with the evidence of Goku's journey into manhood.
A progression Sanzo had been too close to over the years to notice, not to mention distracted from due to his own personal journey.
Only now did Sanzo turn on the windowsill to look at him directly, levelling a cool gaze on Goku's face. “I don't make the mistake of kissing someone at random.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Goku's hands slipped from his hips to hang at his sides and he whuffed out a sigh. “It's just, it's the kind of thing people do when they're, y'know. Together? And so is sharing other stuff.” One pace closer brought him directly in front of Sanzo, at eye-level. “I'll let you touch mine any time you want. You know it, Sanzo.”
Spoken with such ease, as if it was the same bloody thing. “There's no comparison between mine and yours. Just drop the subject.”
“I don't get it! If you'd just tell me why you don't want me touching it, maybe I could understand better, 'cause right now it doesn't make any sense.”
Irritation bubbled in Sanzo's gut like molten rock in a volcano. With deliberate slowness, he pushed himself off the windowsill, taking back the height advantage. The problem was, Goku didn't budge. A couple of years ago he would've backed down. Eventually. But Goku stood firm, chin raised and eyes staring – almost glaring – at Sanzo with frustration and question.
A gong boomed from somewhere deep in the temple, its call low and rumbling through the ancient stone passageways.
“You want to understand?” said Sanzo, drawing himself up. Goku opened his mouth but Sanzo wasn't about to give him the chance to placate. “Let me make it clear. My gun is not Nyoi-bou. I didn't break an ancient urn and get stuck with it. I don't use it to push jujube off the trees in the forest. And I sure as hell don't use it as a back scrub in the bath.”
Abruptly Goku shut his mouth with an audible snap, but he maintained his footing, to Sanzo's annoyance. Suddenly Sanzo wanted him out of the way, out of the office altogether. It didn't matter that a lot of his anger was directed internally for being goaded into this conversation.
“If you think I'll just hand it out at will,” he continued in a concentrated tenor, “whore it out to anyone who wants to play with the demon-killer, you're sorely mistaken.” The object itself lay hard and weighty against his hip, so familiar there it was like an extra appendage. It only served to heighten his indignation.
The Smith and Wesson didn't only make fast and bloody work of demented youkai. No, it served a much more important function: it stood for who Sanzo was and what he wanted. It was a warning, a saviour, a reassurance, his damnation – all these things combined, reinforced by the Nen he'd injected into it over the years through meditation. There was no way he was going to let anyone demote it to a mere toy, an object to be gawked at and thrilled over. A novelty.
Louder, harsher words took shape in his throat, borne from the indelible memories of his first night on Kinzan mountain all those years ago. Where he'd learned – too fast for one his age – how to fire a weapon, how to draw thick founts of blood from a man's skull, what brains sounded like as they splattered tree trunks and the hard, murky earth.
Goku may have read some of this on his face because he tensed up, squaring his shoulders. “That's not it at all! D'ya really think I'm messing around? I'm not bellittlin' your gun, Sanzo. It's not about wanting to shoot it or 'play' with it. Jeez. I'm not a kid.”
That was something Sanzo could no longer deny.
“It's not even about the gun,” Goku went on, worrying a small hole with his fingertip at the frayed hem of his orange t-shirt. “Not really, anyway. I just want to know why you don't trust me on this one, when you trusted me enough to touch you that night we kissed.” As he averted his eyes, colour rose up over his cheeks, darkest at the bones. A facial structure that was once soft and round was now striking in its angularity, something Sanzo chose not to stare at or contemplate for too long. Once getting lost in the sculptured curve of a jawbone and the shadowed hollow beneath was one time too many, as far as he was concerned.
It's not about not trusting you, he thought, increasingly aware of the gun settled against his hip. Was it heavier? No, that was stupid; just an illusion brought on by the topic at hand.
“I get it now, okay? Your gun's important to you an' I think I can guess why. It's something to do with when you were a kid.” Goku didn't give him the chance to respond. “An' I'm not asking you to tell me about that. I don't want to hear anyway.” He reached out, stopped for a second as if catching himself, unsure, then grasped Sanzo's waist right above the butt of his gun.
Was that a confrontation? A dare? Sanzo caught Goku's wrist and pried his hand away, holding it hard in his fist. The wristband Goku wore scrunched in his palm, rough and yielding. The sinew beneath that band did not yield; there was no doubt in Sanzo's mind that Goku could release himself if he chose, but he didn't.
A frown marred Goku's face. “Just as long as I can still touch you, yeah?”
Sanzo stared at him, hand still wrapped in a vice around Goku's wrist. Beneath his fingers and the fabric band he could feel Goku's pulse, a hot staccato. Fast, much like his own heartbeat had been when he had accepted the Smith and Wesson from the temple storage room. When he'd carried it down the rough-hewn steps from Kinzan, night a black, oppressive shroud bearing on his courage and resolution. The forest trees clacking like dry laughter high above, covering up the snap of twigs on the ground – the approach of footsteps. That night, Sanzo had become the gun. The gun had become him. Cold as steel and deadly.
Right now his pulse was picking up speed, the flames licking around his abdomen fanned by Goku's proximity. The earthy undertone to Goku's scent caught in Sanzo's throat and he was reminded of the taste of him, the heat and slick sensation of his tongue as he'd slipped it artlessly into Sanzo's mouth, a thick erection digging like a long, hot stone into Sanzo's groin.
Sanzo's dick gave a twitch of interest at the memory.
“If you wanna use it to keep people from touchin' you, that's okay–”
“Shut up,” Sanzo told him, but it went unheard.
“Just don't block me out, Sanzo!” Goku closed in, coming up against him, the half-hard rise at the front of his jeans connecting with Sanzo's own, like a mirror image made real. In an instant the flagstones didn't feel so sturdy under his feet and a dart of raw sensation speared him, sheer appetence pushing him back against the windowsill.
Two weeks since the kiss. Two weeks since any purposeful physical contact.
For a split second, it felt like an invisible hand had seized his innards and twisted. Goku was suddenly too intensely there, live as electricity, a solid, smouldering presence Sanzo was unprepared to deal with. His cock, however, knew exactly how to react to the connection.
Although Goku's words replayed in his mind, Sanzo found it impossible to shove him back. The monkey had hit the nail on the head, dead centre, and here he was with his open, earnest face so close – close enough to kiss. Conflict roiled inside like a beast.
Keep people from touching me. Yes, his gun had served that purpose. A necessary purpose. It was still a necessary purpose, as far as Sanzo was concerned. But here, in the present, Goku was touching him with the same unguarded pleasure he'd radiated that night they'd kissed, that night their combined arousal had burned so fierce it'd been tangible. Real enough to smell and taste, a bittersweet drug.
This was a touch Sanzo could allow. A touch that strummed something unnameable in him that didn't repel him or make him want to flip out. Or reach for his gun.
The weight of stimulation increased with every heartbeat and eclipsed the weight of the Smith and Wesson, which felt smaller somehow, lighter. That was impossible, but all of a sudden Sanzo was sure the metal in his jeans wasn't the same as it had been before. Was that a good thing? It was difficult to tell with Goku tilting his face up, letting out quick moist breaths against his chin.
Before those damnable lips could touch him Sanzo reached up and, pinching Goku's chin between his fingers, held him still. “If this was your way of distracting me from my work, you went about it wrong.”
Though curse him, either way it'd worked.
“That wasn't why I brought it up, I swear,” said Goku with no room for faux innocence. “I only wanted to understand, is all. I can drop it, if it's to do with your past. I-I really can.”
Sanzo narrowed his eyes, detecting a certain lilt, seeing a little tightness to Goku's bronzed features. There was disappointment. Bearable, but there. “Now say that and mean it.”
“Uh.”
“Ch.” Damn Goku, worming his way into every nook and cranny with an ease that bordered on frightening. Sanzo didn't like to think he gave in easily, though looking back at the sprawling mental map of their history, Goku always seemed to win out in the end, whether it was more food or whatever else he could wheedle out of Sanzo. How he'd managed that and how Sanzo had let it happen was no longer a mystery, but still just as annoying.
Fingering the butt of his gun, Sanzo decided it was time to put this fucking tedious subject to death. Goku had better be damn well ready for it. With no ceremony Sanzo took Goku's wrist, but this time instead of holding him steady he yanked Goku in the direction of the desk.
“Whoa, hey!” There was a little resistance, then it snapped and Goku came stumbling after him, barely keeping up with Sanzo's precipitant strides. “Sanzo, watch it – I almost went down on my ass!”
With one quick movement, Sanzo swept his stack of parchment off the wide oak surface. Papers went eddying to land in scattered drifts on the stones, swishing like silk as they slid. Later he would get Goku to pick them up; for now, Sanzo paid them no further mind.
“Uh, Sanzo?” Goku ventured, staring up at him with wide, unblinking eyes.
Sanzo leaned in. “You got a problem?” An interminable pause followed, during which Goku merely looked uncertain. As if he had any right to act unsure, what with the hard ridge still straining the front of his jeans. “Take off your clothes.”
“Right here?”
“Right here.” Sanzo tugged at his sash to remove his robes. “Right now. Don't make me repeat myself.”
“Shit,” spluttered Goku, hands coming up to attack his worn t-shirt. A deep redness had bolted over his cheeks and was now spreading down his neck, either because of the heat between them or arousal or both. “Okay.”
The room went silent but for the tousle of fabric over skin and a faint crackle of static; farther in the temple voices could be heard chanting, a steady monotone note as the monks went about their evening rituals. There was something thrilling about doing it in his rooms, at the heart of China's most revered temple. If any of the monks were aware of the shift in Sanzo and Goku's relationship, none dared voice it or give up hint of it on their shorn faces. They obviously had decent senses of self-preservation.
By the time Goku was down to his tight white shorts, Sanzo had barely shrugged out of his robes.
“Should I wait for you to catch up?” Goku asked with a twinkle of amusement.
Sanzo merely growled at him as he tossed the cream-white linen to the floor, then drew his leather top up over his head.
The smile that had started peeling back Goku's mouth abruptly vanished and his gaze dropped to Sanzo's torso, then slowly roved down the flat plane of his stomach. A new light ignited his eyes and a slither of pink tongue darted out to wet his lower lip. It was a similar reaction he usually got at the dinner table when food was served. Heat began crawling over Sanzo's skin and he tried not to feel like an exhibition of entrées.
“Lose the shorts,” he instructed, dropping his top at his feet. As he drew first his left sleeve down his arm, followed by the right, he watched Goku's expression transform from hunger back to his earlier uncertainty.
Deeply tanned fingertips worried the hem of the shorts, contrasted starkly against the white material. The roped muscles and veins in Goku's arms flexed and pulled as he pushed his underwear down his thighs, his cock springing up dark red and rigid.
It was the first time Sanzo had seen him hard while naked and the sight turned screws of arousal in him he didn't even know he possessed, his chest constricting, groin a tormenting ache. His own dick swelled in his jeans, though he made no move to unbutton his fly. The time would eventually come, and so would he, but it wasn't yet.
Sanzo stepped up, backing Goku against the desk. The desk legs groaned and so did Goku, a clear bead of precome seeping out the head of his cock.
“On top,” was all Sanzo said, no room for question or argument. Holding his leather sleeves in one hand, he pushed at the centre of Goku's chest with the other. A chest that was pulsing with energy and excitement, maybe a little nervousness too.
Sanzo refused to analyse the bubble of anxiety in his stomach, instead following Goku up onto the desk without time to over-think what he was doing. Immediately, Goku reached for him, probably to pull him down into an embrace. Cuddling was furthest from Sanzo's mind, however; he batted Goku's hands away.
“Lift your arms.”
“Huh?”
“You heard. Lift them, spread them on the desk above your head.”
Warily, Goku eyed the sleeves, then Sanzo's face. Then it dawned and a strangled moan escaped the open curve of his lips.
“O-okay.”
Lift his arms he did, settling back against the desk so he was lying flush across the length of the wood. Who was the entrée now, thought Sanzo, then discarded the idiotic notion. The coarse swirls of brown hair at Goku's armpits glistened with sweat, drops caught in the light like diamonds. As Sanzo leaned over him to secure the leather sleeves around his wrists, Goku arched his back and wriggled his hips. The velvety hood of his cock brushed up against Sanzo's stomach and both of them went still for a heartbeat – Goku to moan again, Sanzo to gather his bearings.
“I think I'm gonna come,” Goku murmured. “Oh Gods, Sanzo. I think I'm gonna shoot any minute.”
“Don't you dare,” Sanzo said, doubling the knot in the sleeves. He gave the leather an experimental pull to make sure it was tight. There was no give; Goku's wrists were bound vice-like within the material. “And don't you dare lower your arms either.” Sanzo swiftly drew his gun and held it with the tip to Goku's chin. “Do you understand?”
“Ohhfuck.”
“Are we speaking the same language, monkey?”
“Huh – yeah. Yeah, I get you,” Goku said, breath hitching. His lashes dipped as he looked down at the snub gunbarrel, the steel gleaming in the early evening light.
“Is it cold?” Sanzo asked him, already knowing the answer.
“No.” Goku swallowed. “'S warm from where it was touchin' you.”
Slowly, Sanzo drew the tip of the Smith and Wesson down over the curve of Goku's chin. “Just because it's warm, doesn't mean it won't tear your heart out in a flash.” Down the line of Goku's throat, only once slipping as Sanzo trailed it over his bobbing Adam's apple.
“You wouldn't do that.” There it was. Assured. Matter-of-fact. Sanzo stared at him, the gun poised at the dip in Goku's breastbone, sunk into the hollow where sweat was building. From below, arousal wafted up with an intoxicating redolence.
Sanzo dragged the gun tip down again, picking up its course, as if Goku's words had never been spoken. “This is what you wanted.” Not really a question.
“Yeah... Sanzo, yeah.”
Where Goku's left nipple rose to a hard point, Sanzo halted the gun. Grazing the edge over the nubbed flesh, Sanzo watched as the skin around it grew dark and even more taut.
“I just wanted all of you.” It came on an out-breath, like a whisper only quieter still so that Sanzo almost missed it. Pressing down on Goku's nipple with the tip of his Smith and Wesson, Sanzo ripped a juddering, unformed sound from him. The flesh beneath him quivered, radiating up endless waves of heat that slid over his own naked stomach and chest.
All of him. Years ago Sanzo had made the decision to never give anyone more than was absolutely necessary. At the time, there had been too much to do, with barely time to spare for his quest to find his master's sutra, let alone the random and completely inane detours that struck them on every twist in the road to India. He had never thought about just how much he was giving Goku, never considered how much he wanted to give him.
Not until two weeks ago, and that kiss. Goku had disarmed him to a degree, but not entirely. There were one or two pieces of armour Sanzo had been unable to relinquish, even to the monkey. Habit, perhaps, as much as the frailty irked him.
As he eased up the pressure on Goku's darkened nipple, he realised something.
All these years holding to the notion that with the Smith and Wesson brandished in front of him he was untouchable, when all the while Goku had been free to touch him any time he pleased. All these years – not just in recent times – and he hadn't minded Goku's touch at all. The only difference now was that he'd grown to desire it, allow it to excite him, lead him. Do some of the thinking for him.
So what did that make the gun?
“It doesn't matter,” he muttered, unsure why that hadn't struck him sooner, feeling stupid that it hadn't.
“What doesn't?” Goku asked, staring up with flushed cheeks and a damp mouth, a living portrait of open want.
Sanzo shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.” Steel kissed a pathway over Goku's ribs, one after the other after the other. The gun grip was starting to get slippery in Sanzo's hand, but he maintained his hold, drawing it over the taut plateau of Goku's stomach. Then the barrel sshhed softly through the patch of dark brown curls.
“Ohh, holy hell Sanzo, you're not gonna – I'll come!”
“I thought I told you not to.”
“Y-yeah, guh. But I can't help it!”
“Learn some control.” Heeding his own words, Sanzo took care to slide the gun tip to the purpled cock that was leaking with anticipation. Veins stood out clear against the skin and Sanzo traced the thickest that ran all the way up the underside of Goku's shaft.
Sudden ropes of come shot out of Goku's cock, dashing his stomach and chest and leaving thin, shining streams on his skin. Back arching, Goku cried out with hoarse desperation and went perfectly still, as if suspended in time. The only thing to move was his dick, sputtering a few more smaller strands of pearly white before eventually fading to dry twitches.
Then Goku went lax, sinking back down onto the desk, his skin squeaking on polished wood, breath coming in ragged pants.
“Oh, oh Gods. Oh, Gods.”
Setting down the Smith and Wesson on the desk beside Goku's wet radiator of a body, Sanzo loosened the sleeves binding Goku's wrists, then pushed himself up and discarded his jeans. Hazy brown eyes rolled down to watch him from where they had been hiding behind Goku's partially drawn lids. As Sanzo returned to his previous position, on his knees between Goku's open thighs, Goku brought one newly freed hand down, then stopped with it hovering at Sanzo's groin.
“Can I, Sanzo?” he asked.
Sanzo could only nod, then had to hold back a hoarse swear as Goku reached for him, moistening his reddened shaft with a drop of precome that'd oozed out the tip.
“Oh wow,” Goku moaned as Sanzo's hips bucked, entirely on their own.
“Fuck. Go easy,” Sanzo warned, only able to endure two tentative strokes of Goku's unsophisticated fingers before he had to tug them away. With the side of his hand, Sanzo scraped up some of the moisture slicking Goku's stomach in obscene rivulets, rubbing it experimentally between his fingers, transferring it to his prominent cock. Within his own fist, his length ached and throbbed, leaked with need, an urge he once ignored but not now.
Taking what he wanted was so easy it almost surprised him. Somehow easier than the kiss, not that Sanzo imagined Goku would resist any kind of physical contact. The monkey had made it perfectly clear this was what he wanted. But the way he knew, instinctively, to raise his legs, to wrap powerful calves around Sanzo's hips, to clench his jaw at the first brush of Sanzo's fingertip – it was astounding to watch, even better to feel.
They were in synch the same as during battle, although frittering shouts of aggression were now replaced with grunts and growls of surprise, pleasurepain, and tension. In an instant the earlier confrontation was forgotten. All that remained was Goku wrapped like a trembling glove around his fingers, his ass spread, hole now slick with his own warm seed.
“Hell,” muttered Sanzo and gave up with the tedious preparation. Goku was as ready as he'd ever be, his muscles fluttering tight, eager. Any more of that grasping clench around Sanzo's fingers, promising a hundred-fold sensation around his dick, and Sanzo knew he'd spill his load before he even got inside.
“Ngh, Sanzo,” Goku whispered, sweeping his tongue out to wet his lips. “Don't stop. Don't pause like that!”
Sanzo let his body roll forward, sank his cock into Goku's welcoming heat. The moment he leaned over, hands came up and grabbed his hair, tearing at the roots.
“Fuck, watch it,” he said between clenched teeth, and Goku eased up his death grip just a little. Screw it – Sanzo was in no position to bat Goku's hands away this time. Palms planted against the desk at either side of Goku's body, Sanzo nudged forward, seeking out the tightness and grip of Goku's ass. As Goku slowly, achingly unfolded around his cock, Sanzo couldn't hold back a fusillade of obscenities that blended into one long, low groan.
Teeth gritted and visible behind drawn-back lips, Goku arched up and took him in, aiding the penetration with the barest jolt of his hips. Something fell from his mouth that barely passed for Chinese, but Sanzo didn't need a translation.
Once firmly rooted in Goku's body, Sanzo set still, breathing in silent marvel at the swell and ripple of inner muscles, the softness of the fleshy walls pulling, seeming to suck at his cock. Sliding his sweaty hand up the desk a little way, he blindly seized his gun, the metal once again cool and a shocking contrast to the radiant heat of everything else.
One small thrust and Goku's eyes rolled, his mouth falling open to bark out something unintelligible. A feverish quake of hot sensation rocked and roiled in Sanzo's groin and spread, like a tidal wave, throughout him. As he took more pleasure from the next thrust, he extended his hand, then drew it back, leaving his gun settled in Goku's nearest open palm.
The reaction was a sharp intake of breath, Goku's eyes going wide, though whether from the fuck or the offering Sanzo couldn't tell.
“From now on you can put that goddamn gun out of your head," Sanzo told him more breathlessly than he'd have liked, winning himself a nod. Good.
Thrust.
He wouldn't last much longer. Not that it mattered. This wasn't about stamina – first times and new things rarely were.
Thrust. Sanzo let his head drop so that his chin rested on his chest, suddenly too heavy for his neck to support. His body had no problem setting its own careening pace, no finesse – no finesse needed. Below him, Goku's dick had began refilling from the overstimulation and jutted half-hard, still wet from his release. In his hand Goku clutched the gun, the metal knock-knocking on the oak with each upsway, tap-tapping with every withdraw.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh,” Goku babbled. “Sanzo, Sanzo– ah! Ah!”
Whatever Sanzo was doing, he was obviously doing it right and just hard enough. The chatter didn't diminish but grew in volume and tempo, accompanied by the wet smack of skin, the thump of solid, lean bodies like muted gunfire in the still stone room.
“Uh – gonna – die – oh!” A short burst of clear fluid pumped out of Goku's cock and dribbled down his length. “Nnnnn!”
When Sanzo went to tell him to tone it down he realised his vocal chords had deserted him; nothing came out but a garbled grunt.
Whatever – it was too late; he was on the precipice, tipping, spilling, shooting, the surge crashing, burning through him in white flashes and flickers. Vision faded in and out, then settled with a strange kind of cloudiness at the edges. Hips rode to a steady buck, cock pulsing in Goku's clenching body until it felt like he'd been sucked dry of not only come but vital organs too. Then finally he grew still.
Sanzo huffed out a satisfied “Fuck!”, shaken and amazed, blond fringe hanging damp over his face and partially stuck to his cheek.
Goku lay limp and lost somewhere far back behind eyes, his irises devoid of the light that'd brought fierce gold flecks to the fore. Now they were simply a soft, unfocused brown. Sanzo waited until Goku returned to himself, ripples from the incandescent crash of his own orgasm still curling serpentine beneath his skin, moving him like earthquake aftershocks. No doubt Goku could feel those shivers, so welded by sweat and hot seed that they were.
Easing back, Sanzo lifted himself off the desk. Their bodies made a weird wet, sucking sound as he moved and Goku let out a dopey laugh, his voice croaking from overuse.
“Cool.”
“Oh be quiet,” Sanzo muttered, shaking his head. Retrieving his jeans, he made fast work of redressing, tugging one leg on followed by the other. Instead of rebuttoning them, he left the material open, the wide V allowing blessed air to his tingling flesh. “Get off my desk now,” he said to the lethargic lump of young man watching him. “And pick up my papers.”
“Aw, no way. You shoved 'em off.”
“That was entirely your fault.”
“Hm.” Not a disagreement. Sanzo heard him get down, heard a sharp in-breath, imagined the wince as abused body parts were tested. Bare feet slapped on the stone. “Shit, floor's seriously cold!” Yet Goku sounded happy.
With his leathers back in place, Sanzo returned to the window and the pack of cigarettes he'd left on the sill. There was work to do, but was there any point trying? Concentration seemed like a distant memory, something he'd mastered in another life.
Something smooth and hard was slipped into his hand, tearing him back from his pondering. He glanced at Goku, who had stepped up and was standing beside him, a soft look on his face. Then Sanzo lifted the gun, hitched it into the waist of his jeans. An old friend with brand new connections.
Some armour was easy to take off. You just had to learn how.
~Fin~
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