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Seventh Beat
Day 13

Kougaiji did not so much wake up to as stay up for the sunrise.

He paced quietly in his room during the night hours until Sanzo didn't have anything left to talk about, and when the first beam of sunlight broke in his narrow windows, he took it as permission to discard pretense.

Putting clothes and hair into some sensible order, he opened his door out into the silent early-morning corridor, and then stopped, looking down.

What is it?

Doku, Kougaiji told him, with a pang of guilt. He must have stood guard here all night until he fell asleep.

{Sweet of him.
{They used to do that for me, come to think of it.

Oh yeah?

When I'd taken a bad hit, most of the time. Usually it was Gojyo they made do it... Although, mostly it was to keep me from going out, more than anything else.

Small smile.

Did you honor that?

Not usually.

Kougaiji nodded shortly, soundlessly closing his door and padding down the corridor with utmost care, so he wouldn't interrupt his bodyguard's sleep. Gods knew he sort of deserved the rest.

The castle in the morning was deathly quiet, the few servants set to early work shuffling as mutely as they could manage, and seldom seen. But there was a sort of cottony loudness to the silence that couldn't really be placed, just seeming to radiate off the stone and wood. And occasionally, the metal and wire. The scientists' laboratories were spreading out in all too many directions these days, as they required more and more room to conduct their business. Or at least store scrapped parts.

Not sure if this is an observation with any relevancy to you, but... do you feel the house getting bigger?

Not really how I'd describe it. Honestly?

Yeah?

My nearest bet is that your father's very close to waking up. That much demonic energy doesn't actually stay contained very well. It distorts things the same way black holes distort light. All that magical density around can make spatial disruption seem child's play.

This is what caused the Minus Wave you used to talk about.

And that was several years ago when he just started making his return. It's gotten far worse since then. And we'll be seeing a hell of a lot worse than even that soon enough. The physical world was not meant for a creature like him.

Or like me, Kougaiji thought grimly.

No, Sanzo said quickly. And then the puzzlement that came over the line indicated that he wondered why he'd said that. Look... the main thing influencing how all that energy is used is the mind of the person wielding it. And you're not your father.

You say it like it means something.

It does.

Kougaiji slowed, and then eventually stopped in the middle of a hallway.

What you were talking about yesterday. About me becoming king.

You'll say it won't happen.

You'd say it would?

Do you remember the last time a new king ascended the youkai throne? You wouldn't, unless you read a lot of very old history books. It doesn't happen too often. Because there's a bit more to being the King of Demons than the typical crown and scepter deal. All that magic energy surrounding your father like a cloud, it's also a shield. The youkai king could choose never to age, if he so desired, and a lot of them never did. Most sons never got to see the throne. Most of their great-grandchildren didn't. No one expected that you would.

It's foolish. Forgetting for a moment that this shield of his is precisely why he won't be dying anytime soon, no one would recognize me as king anyway.

They wouldn't have much say in the matter. Transfer of the crown is instantaneous. He dies, and his power is given to you.

I don't want it.

Lirin can't take it. Even if that energy COULD go somewhere besides the eldest male heir,  she's not strong enough for it. And it has to go somewhere.

You can't seriously be asking this of me.

It's not asking, sorry to say.

I said I don't want that!

I didn't want this either! Sanzo snapped back. I just wanted to stick around in my fucking monestary withgoku and die without incident. I don't remember asking to be sent on some suicide quest, and I certainly didn't ask to be reduced to a voice in someone else's head by the end of it all! But if there's something we can still do about it all, I'm going for it, do you understand me?

Kougaiji had been left to leaning pitifully against a wall at this, head ducked. Vaguely relieved no one was around to see him like this.

Stinging silence carried on for a long time, before Sanzo's voice turned over. It was an odd description for it, the idea being vaguely akin to the priest flipping over a blanket or a sheet of paper, the mental resignation of the act. It was their equivalent of a sigh, in simplest terms.

I know it'll be all right for you.

How can you know that?

Because you're a good person.

Hnh. Who are you and where'd you take Genjo?

You want honesty? There it is. Take it or leave it.

You'll say this is why you don't tend to give it.

And you'll say that's a trap I built for myself.

And I'd be right.

Maybe. Don't get cocky. I'm just saying that I trust you.

In speech, with a filter between thoughts and voice, that statement would have translated itself into something far coarser and enigmatic, like "I don't have to worry about you" or "you're not gonna let me down, are you?" But Sanzo had little choice but to lay it down for Kougaiji simply as it was. And it was quite a thing to have said.

Hey. What's with all this damn happy fluffy bunny stuff coming over the line?

Nothing...

They He was near the Hall of Rasetsunyo, so, as he frequently would in earlier days when his movement was not so restricted, Kougaiji decided to pay a visit.

It wasn't so much of a surprise to see that the doors had been blocked off, in a way that suggested very clearly no harm had come to his mother, at least not yet. What was vaguely amusing was finding the sign pasted up over the planks, in a script clearly very used to being tidy that is trying to pull off a messy guylike scrawl.

Off-limits. By order of Gyokumen Koushu.

Bit of a risk, isn't it?

It will be if someone asks about it. But she's busy these days. Last guy who came in and bugged her over something trivial was put up by the north gate.

That doesn't sound so bad...

In several pieces.

Oh.

~*~

The room of the blackbox project was closed as well. But this one had a pair of guards in front of it.

Kougaiji didn't even bother to approach, knowing fairly well the situation if he did. These weren't small green recruits from the villages, either, but sargeants at the very least, junked up with too much muscle and probably just enough brain cells to know small skinny princes equalled something for which a zero tolerance policy applied.

I don't like it, though.

Why not?

I don't know.

Kougaiji, if they were going to flush me, they'd've done it by now. Unless I die from something else ahead of time, I'm fine until the revival.

And when that happens?

Well. We discussed that earlier.

Long and short of it being, either we work very fast or we're both dead. Or you're dead and I'll wish I was.

Basically.

You'll notice you just assumed I'd be on your side for this.

I thought I was on your side.

Whose side is that, though?

I have no idea.

And, they both realized, it wasn't really important.

Kougaiji jerked a little, feeling a hand gently touch his shoulder. He looked around.

Ah. Just a moment. Maid person.

"I'm sorry. My prince?" the small girl whispered, eyes not meeting his gaze. "May I please be granted a moment of your time?"

Unbelievable. There were still people in this castle that regarded him with some form of respect? Maybe they'd pulled this girl out of a dungeon somewhere.

This might take a bit, he told Sanzo. She looks like she's gonna cry. You'll be all right for a while?

Yeah.

~*~

In the blackbox room, Sanzo shifted his gaze over and down.

Nii looked up at him, beaming very appropriately like a boy impressed by the tricks performed by his new pet canary.

With the extra hint of malevolence that suggested an even better trick would be seeing what it looked like dead.

...Just dandy, Sanzo added.

~*~

Kougaiji followed the maid into a corner hallway of her choosing. She stared at the wall for a few moments, collecting herself while he waited patiently, and then said,

"My lord, please don't bring any trouble to Miss Yaone."

Pause.

"Eh?" he managed.

The servant girl still wasn't looking at him. She seemed to be taking an interest in her shoes.

"These past few weeks, Miss Yaone has been visiting my unit more and more. And she has become a very dear older sister to me. She speaks very highly of you, so, I trust her and don't believe what the guards are saying. But I don't want to see her hurt."

"I'm not pushing her into anything. What she does is her choice."

"I know that, my lord. I mean... that is... Please don't endanger yourself either."

"It's not my intent to."

"Yes. I know, my lord. We know you're sick."

Blink. "What?"

But she didn't seem to hear that part, going into wringing her hands fervently now. "We've all seen and heard how bad it is. If there's any possible way, we should get you out of this castle, to a real doctor, far from here, to make you well again. Miss Yaone, all of us are so very worried..."

"I'll be fine," he said coldly.

To that, she noticed the tone, raising her head sharply and studying his expression before remembering herself to avert her gaze. He didn't have the heart to tell her that wasn't really necessary.

Footsteps behind them. "Ah, there you are, Shusha--" Awkward silence for a moment, as Kougaiji looked over his shoulder at the new maid. "Ah. I'm sorry if I was interrupting anythi--"

"No no!" the small girl said frantically, already going red. "We were just talking!"

Kougaiji sighed inwardly. It's like they did it to flatter themselves.

"And just finishing," he added on the younger maid's behalf. She squeaked.

"Er. Yes, my lord," the older servant said, shifting uncomfortably at this scene. "I was just coming to collect Shusha for breakfast, actually, so... Ah, lord, have you eaten yet this morning?"

There was a subtle implication that "this morning" could be replaced with another suitable time reference, like "this week" or "this month," Kougaiji noticed with just a hint of guilt. He knew he looked like it. Admittedly, his eating habits had grown more and more infrequent lately, but he just hadn't felt like eating...

...Well, his stomach was loudly giving other indication at the moment, much to the maids' embarrassed astonishment.

And he might as well eat now. Because he wouldn't be eating at dinner, of course.

~*~

Somehow, time spent in the presence of people went faster than usual. After an awkward few minutes in the kitchen with a gaggle of mostly laundry girls, things just seemed to fall into a comfortable step, and it had seemed natural after breakfast to help with clean-up despite the women's protests. When he insisted that he was accustomed to housework after so many years pulling equal weight with his comrades on the road, they flatly refused to believe him.

But as the day progressed and the maids found more jobs for him --small fix-it jobs, things they were scared were too trivial to call down a repairman for, like unstable laundry racks and pipes that leaked-- the general opinion shifted into something more favorable. The leader of the unit, the woman who had invited him to breakfast in the first place, remarked that it was wonderful to have a man around for this type of work.

It seemed they'd been having problems with the guard as well. Of a slightly different variety.

Which suddenly disgusted him in ways it wasn't even appropriate to put words to. He might not have really ever understood women, much less get along with them well enough to want to sleep with one, but there was just something instinctual in wanting to protect them. Or at least keep greasy peasant boys' hands off them. Yaone had gotten enough shit from uncouth humans while they were on the road...

...Well, so had Genjo, actually. But that was different. Kind of. Well. He did always have his gun to ward them off, usually. Not now, granted. But at least no one could touch him where he was now.

He'd like to. In ways he didn't really understand or want to have to explain. It couldn't be like that. There was Dokugakuji to consider. But it would be nice to someday... oh... who knew... hold on to a wrist not to catch him up in battle, but just to feel the pulse under his fingers...

"Lord Kougaiji?"

The prince realized he had stopped halfway in folding up a sheet, at some point taken up with staring at his hand.

"Nh?"

"Do you need a break, sir?"

They all still thought he was sick.

~*~

At five he excused himself to go change for dinner with Gyokumen Koushu. Royal dinners started early and didn't tend to really be about food, or at least this was how Gyokumen usually regarded them. She had understandings of royal etiquette seemingly pulled mostly from books.

Sanzo was still silent. Kougaiji guessed that he had gone to sleep, since he couldn't remember the last time he'd done that. It was just as well, because another fight for conversation when he had an audience and any last claims to mental stability would be well out the window.

Dokugakuji was gone from outside his door. It would have strange for him to still be there, granted, but a check of his room yielded no note of where he might have gone or whether he'd like to see him later. After the other night, Kougaiji could expect him to be a bit more casual with the finer points of their relationship... but there was nothing. It almost seemed a cold departure, if Kougaiji wasn't aware that his own leave-taking this morning wasn't high up there on the scale.

The old clock on his wall indicated time was running short, so he set to locking himself in and undressing. A search of his wardrobe reminded him just how useless most of his clothes were, but he settled on another set of robes. Pants too, underneath, but still robes. And probably underdressed, all considering.

He caught his image in a mirror before exiting, and cringed. Uhgh. His hair. He hadn't bothered to brush after washing it yesterday so it had really curled up on him. One day he swore he was just going to cut it all off...

Ten minutes later, brushed and cleanly clothed and sufficiently fed from breakfast to not want to eat, Kougaiji stepped out once more into the castle corridors and made his way down to the dining hall.

It was one of the few areas mostly untouched by the spread of machinery, and Kougaiji thought he could safely attribute this to some manner of vanity on Gyokumen Koushu's part, who he was sure had some conviction royalty were defined by the elaborate dinners they ate. Similarly the dinner table was one of those ridiculously long and narrow pieces where the occupants at different ends would probably belong to different time zones, and yet the lady-youkai always managed to scrape together enough local nobility and visiting dignitaries to fill it up.

The waste was absolutely ridiculous, and probably made Gyokumen more of a bona fide royal than he was in all ways except where it counted. Up until recently there had been a very serious war going on, they were still losing people, and the expenditure on the revival experiment was reaching astronomical proportions, and she still had time to sit around in the evening and entertain guests with quail eggs or something...

"ONIICHAN!"

There is a custom in the east that if an attacker, say, comes upon his enemy in his sleep, he will kick the pillow out from under him to wake him, before making his strike. Similarly it had always felt proper to give one's adversary a little advance warning --battle cries were favorable-- before going in for the kill, just for honor's sake.

In which case, the time between this particular attacker's battle cry and her attack was nearly too small to fairly count, as Kougaiji pitched forward, all but choking at the arms wrapped around his throat and the sudden weight on his back, pudgy legs scrabbling to get the proper purchase for a piggy-back ride.

He involuntarily accomodated this, stumbling forward for his balance and flaring arms back to catch legs, before both of them were sent tumbling. He twisted his head around painfully, hair trapped in place and one of his earrings tangled up in the mess somewhere.

"Ow-- Lirin!" he all but shouted at her beaming face. "What have I told you about--"

"But Lirin hasn't seen Oniichan in weeks," the child protested, pouting almost convincingly. "Oniichan's gotten all lazy an' sleeps all the time an' never comes around to see me an'--"

"Okay okay, but get off!"

She hopped down with a little reluctance, taking some of his hair with her, to a repressed wince of pain. "And you're inna dress."

"We've been over this. It's a robe. And you know it."

"Myahhh..."

He looked her over, something off about the little girl's appearance in a way he couldn't quite place. It might have just been the clothes-- she as well looked comfortable out of her mismatched pants as he did is regular garments, but he'd seen her in that dress before and didn't remember it being quite so large on her. Come to it, a lot of her baby fat seemed to have wittled away lately, and not in a healthy way...

"Mmmmmno we haven't," she said eventually, after coming to a conclusion on whatever mental debate she'd been engaged in.

"Heh?"

"'Cause you never useta wear 'em, not for a lonnng long time, and Lirin would remember if Oniichan said--"

"Whatever," Kougaiji interrupted, suddenly thinking guiltily of just who would have had that argument with his sister.

An old gray-haired butler detached himself from the wall where he'd been doing a masterly statue imitation and bowed-- not to Kougaiji, but to Lirin. "Ah, mistress, it would be best for you not to delay yourself..."

"Nn!" she squeaked at him, with an abrupt nod. "C'mon, Oniichan! You'll sit by me, okay?"

He began to argue, royal dinner seating arrangements one of those things he did still remember from 500-year-old etiquette training, but lost the will to fight as Lirin grasped him by the wrist and unconscientiously started dragging him through the dining hall, over flagstones and past mingling dinner guests he didn't recognize that were taking their time in getting seated.

Lirin did not take him to the front of the table, near Gyokumen's high-backed chair, but rather halfway to the middle, forcing her brother into a seat before plunking down beside him and happily kicking her feet. As he watched the other guests gravitate toward their chairs, it seemed to him that the first six or so seats before the head of the table might as well have been cordoned off as strictly off-limits. There was almost a discernable aura indicating that no one present should sit there.

That is, until the doors at the end of the hall swung open, and the scientists came in.

Nii was not among them. This was a slight cause of relief. However, all the rest of the higher-ups he recognized as being among them, and these strutted casually across the flagstones as well as though they owned the place, which in some manners of thought they did, and took the forbidden seats as readily as Sir Galahad sat himself down on the Siege Perilous.

This in itself was a signal for the rest of the still-standing guests to rush quickly to their seats, and the murmurs of conversation began to quiet. Kougaiji found himself seated opposite a young, timid girl he didn't know with dark hair and foreign looks, shooting glances at him occasionally like she was hoping he might leave without incident.

He wondered if maybe he should have brushed his hair a bit more.

Awkward under this embarrassed attention, Kougaiji's eyes went adrift among the table, and when they got bored of too much overelaborate jewelry he scanned the adjacent walls instead. Stopped at one guard a little taller and less rigid than the rest, who winked through his helmet at Kougaiji before indicating it wouldn't be a good idea to show recognition.

That explained the lack of a note...

Lirin had to nudge him in the side for him to break out of thought again, to realize everyone was standing up again, but not soon enough before everyone was seating themselves again, and Gyokumen Koushu among them. Smiling pointedly at Kougaiji for his --albeit unintentional-- display.

Somewhere, a polite muffled cough.

But then no more, as Gyokumen turned her eyes off him just as easily as dismissing his existence from her personal universe, to greet the rest of her dinner guests.

Food arrived in a clearly well-orchestrated fashion, serving girls brought forth with overladen silver trays and all the rest of the standard dinner fare. Kougaiji's brain was already shutting off to it all, when the hand setting down his covered plate struck him as familiar and he looked up into the eyes of Yaone, discouraging him from making any sort of reaction just as Dokugakuji had.

He didn't know if he should be resentful for all of this, the way the two of them seemed to be conspiring to keep watch over him at all times now. But given the way he was drawing stares from Gyokumen's little stable of scientists at the end of the table, he resolved to feel grateful for the moment.

Dinner was some horrible thing that made Kougaiji's remaining appetite scream and hide in a corner with a feeble plea for simple white rice, which was just as well. He picked unconvincingly at whatever the hell kind of meat it was while polite conversation went on all around them. Gyokumen's voice was like the sharp tinny bell heard above a marketplace din in the prince's mind, try as he might to shut out the words. He was here, present and accounted for, just as asked. He wasn't going to make some special effort for participation.

"Stop that," he muttered to Lirin, without looking up.

"But 'niichan, your hair looks pretty braided up..."

"Some other time." He stabbed at something that he guessed was at one point a vegetable and eventually added, "How's your leg?"

"Nyyy, Mommy's humans fixed it up soon as all the screaming stopped," Lirin said, radiating pride for her parent. "S'all funny to walk on now, though."

"You were fine tackling me earlier."

"But I haven't seen Oniichan in weeks an'--"

"All right, all right. I promise I'll stop by sometime--"

"Oh," Lirin said, with a slight timbre in her voice he couldn't help feel didn't belong there, "Mommy says I can't go out anymore."

He pulled his eyes off his plate for the first time and looked at her. To find that it was her turn to fake interest in her food.

"Because of the raid?"

"Nn-hnn."

"But it was an accident."

Tik. Scrape.

"Mommy's really mad," his sister mumbled enigmatically. Clear enough. Nothing more needing to be said.

He knew it. It was his fault, or Sanzo's fault. Someone's fault. Still his guilt.

But, watching her, something caught his eye that compelled him to look closer.

Slowly, not even realizing what he was doing, reaching up a hand and shifting aside hair that was much thinner than it should have been, cut and shaved oddly. One spot totally bare, with two circular holes, like wire jacks, bored in just above the ear, blood still drying around the edges--

"Kougaiji."

He snapped his head around, suddenly conscious of all the eyes that were on him. Including Lirin's.

Gyokumen smiled hollowly at the end of the table. "Have you met Princess Grisha, dear?"

He followed her gaze to the young girl seated across from him, who now blushed and tried to hide within the folds of her dress.

"No, I haven't had the pleasure yet," he answered back by rote, those old etiquette classes seeping back in through cracks in memory. He followed up with a cordial nod.

The princess's blush deepened and she mumbled back something he didn't catch, and probably wasn't Tamil anyway.

"Princess Grisha," Gyokumen went on, "is the eldest daughter of your distant cousin Prince Vladimir, our neighbor to the north. It would be so nice if you and Lady Grisha got along."

If his appetite hadn't been gone before, it was now. It was probably going to be away for a very long time.

He chanced a glance at Gyokumen Koushu, just for a moment, and saw in that emphatic look everything he'd suspected anyway.

If he wanted to stick around, he was going to have to be some use to someone.

That was the deal, huh?

It was all Kougaiji could do to keep the hand with his fork steady. He forced a brittle smile.

"Yes," he managed. "It would."

At least he wasn't the only one looking sick. Grisha looked like she'd have given anything to know enough of the local language to excuse herself. And probably find a handy cliff somewhere. He couldn't really blame her. She couldn't have been older than 14, and he was first cousins with her great-grandfather to the twelfth degree. Or maybe awkward family relationships took a back seat to the fact that he was, well... Who knew what she was finding off about him at the moment. Might be any number of things.

He watched her for a time, while conversation around them flowed off in other directions. Hoping he could meet her eye and somehow convey silently that he sympathized, but not getting the opportunity. So, he turned back to mutilating his dinner.

And then,

You there?

He all but dropped the fork.

SHIT. Don't sneak up on people like that!

Sneak up on you? The hell? Just how do you propose I do THAT? Where the hell are you and why does it feel like you're about to commit ritual suicide to salvage your dignity?

Long story. What is it?

"'Niichan?" Lirin quavered beside him. Indicating he was twitching again. He tried to steady himself.

No time for that. I need to see you, now.

See me? Your room's--

NO, in a dreamscape. Look, this is important.

I'm in the middle of dinner with the bitch and about fifty other people. How exactly do you suggest I pull myself out of this?

I don't know, do something. Just get the hell out of there and go to sleep.... Dammit, SWOON or something.

Swoon? You want me to swoon?

Well yes, if that's what it takes!

It was a stupid point, but Kougaiji had already gotten his hair braided and been ridiculed on his choice of clothes tonight. So,

Guys don't swoon, he told Sanzo coldly. Only girls swoon. Guys just faint.

You are in NO position to be defending your masculinity, Sanzo growled, menace coming over the line so hard Kougaiji could only stab at his cooling dinner with extra vigor, just to expel it safely. I'm not fucking around. Do you need a sleep sutra or something?

I've got a spell, thanks.

Then use it!

Fine... This better be fucking important, you have no idea what you're screwing up right now.

You think I'd be bothering you if it wasn't?

Before he'd even gotten through the first verse, his head was already feeling too heavy to keep up. Pressure on his forearm told him Lirin was shaking him gently, and if he concentrated he could hear the words, but it was coming through cottony in his ears.

By the second verse, his vision was doubling. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and saw her only as a worried, wailing blur.

By the third verse, he fell over.

"ONIICHAN!"

~*~

It was gray and fuzzy, a very poor-quality dreamscape. He could tell without being very familiar with them. Sanzo, though, appeared in full living color with robes and sutra, clean and healthy and alive, an astral projection of his retained mental self-image.

He was already pacing when Kougaiji entered, stumbling and failing to find proper footing at first on the insubstantial ground.

"They're on to us," Sanzo said, coming to a halt.

For a moment, Kougaiji could only freeze. His heart, though it didn't exist here, seemed to slow on a final dead beat.

"How do you know?" he asked.

The priest shook his head, gold hair flying. "That one man. Dr. Nii. He's put it together. If he hasn't, he's very close to it. That means we've got much less time than I'd thought."

It wasn't his real voice. The lips moved in time and it was all perfectly convincing, but no vocal cords were vibrating and projecting sound waves through the air. It was, as always, just the voice Kougaiji heard in his head.

"That's it, then. We're shot down," the prince summarized, spreading his hands. "At the very least it'd require extra precaution, but we don't have the time to waste on that. You said the revival would complete any day now."

"We're going to do something," Sanzo stressed.

"How?"

"We just have to step up the pace--"

"Dammit, how?" Kougaiji shouted, the simulated air rattling so that Sanzo actually gave a slight jerk, turning up his head. "We're out of options. We were relying on all of their machines to do everything for us, wait for when we can draw Father's energy out of hiding. If they're shutting us down--"

"Then we speed up the revival!" the human snapped back.

"You can't be serious!"

"There's one sure way to do it. It's what we've been avoiding all the time, but now it works for us. It's not risky; it's so far past risk that there's not even a good word for it, not even suicide. But you tell me what else we can do."

"Even if we could get the last sutra here..."

"NOT the last sutra by itself. We need my three," Sanzo told him, pausing only briefly at the awkwardness of the term. "They have the maten, I'm pretty sure, but we need it and them on our side. And your people too."

Kougaiji shook his head. "How do you suggest getting your three involved? If we even can find them."

"We can," he was assured. "I can track them down, with a bit of help. I think I have enough power for it now. Then it's just a matter of contacting them."

"I can't. There's no way I could ever get outside castle limits, are you kidding?"

"Then send Doku."

"I can't. No."

"You have to."

"I don't want to involve him like that!" the prince protested, unable to meet Sanzo's gaze now. Not used to seeing those eyes flare with urgency after so long not even seeing his face. "I've already endangered both of them far too much."

"Tell me who else there is."

"It means telling him. About us."

Sanzo actually paused at this, weighing the implication of the words. Then, he said decidedly, "So be it."

"You're all right with it?" Kougaiji said in surprise, looking back at him sharply.

"But you aren't."

He squirmed under that gaze. Far too much scrutiny, careful study. He'd underestimated what body language could do for a conversation.

"I'll say again," he managed. "I don't want to involve him like this."

"I don't think he'd mind if you did."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is? Look--" he said flatly, raising a hand, "just ask him and see what happens. What else can you do?"

"But he--"

Kougaiji stumbled forward, the dreamscape taking a sudden violent shake. Static erupted over the line.

Sanzo was there to hold him steady, not even seeming to realize he was willingly assisting someone, whether it was physical or not.

"You're waking up," he told the prince, even as the edges of his features started to melt together and blur, fuzz in and out of focus. "We'll cover the rest on the other side."

Kougaiji watched the hand grasping his arm.

Reached out to touch it.

And then everything blacked out.

~*~

And then, soft red light. And a familiar ceiling. And a smell of too-heavy aftershave that would have seemed repellant if it wasn't so endearing somehow.

"You all right?" Dokugakuji whispered above him. He pressed the back of his hand to his prince's forehead, tsked slightly under his breath. Felt his cheeks. Kougaiji figured he could start protesting in a second, but not quite yet...

"Did you carry me back?" Kougaiji asked, wishing his voice didn't sound so thin. He'd rather not look pathetic all over again.

"Bitch's orders," his bodyguard said, with a hint of amusement. "You freaked a lot of people out. All figured it was the food."

Kougaiji managed a small laugh. That sounded rather dead against his bedroom walls.

He sat up, so abruptly it must have shocked Dokugakuji, clearly anticipating the prince would be badly hit with something.

"You really okay, Kou?"

"I'm fine. You don't have to baby me." He winced, realizing it came out a bit harsh, but that there was no fixing that now.

Dokugakuji likewise recoiled. But he said firmly, "I think I'm gonna keep on doing this until you're better, thanks. You're not doing well on your own."

"I'm not a kid."

"And I'm not convinced."

Kougaiji growled something animal and tore his gaze away, staring fiercely at some blank point of wall instead.

The taller man tried to touch a shoulder and only found it jerking away from the touch. "We're only looking out for you like we're supposed to."

There comes a point.

"Tell me what's been going on. This is getting way too heavy for me, man."

What if I don't want to risk you any more than I already have?

What if I'm just afraid you'll think I'm insane.

Get out of my thoughts and get your own, priest.

You're doing this to yourself.

"Goddammit, Kou," Dokugakuji said strongly, throwing caution to the wind and gripping both shoulders, forcing their eyes to connect. "I'm not saying it again. Tell me."

Those eyes. Hell. Nothing sentient should have eyes that honest and open. And they sure as hell shouldn't be looking my way.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Exhale.

Okay.

"If I tell you," Kougaiji said steadily, "you have to promise to believe every word I say."

Nothing, not even the slightest pause. Just "Of course." No doubt, anywhere. How can a person live without hesitation?

He told him. And kept their gazes locked the entire time, fearing every time he had to blink that when he opened his eyes whatever spell would be broken and Dokugakuji would already be out the door. But it didn't break, he didn't go. He stayed and listened and nothing flickered across that face, even after Kougaiji finished and the silence flooded into his wake.

"Okay."

A million and one things he'd have feared for a response and not a single one of them included that.

"...You believe me?" he croaked eventually.

Dokugakuji shrugged. "Why would you be lying?"

"What about insane?"

"If you went insane, you'd come up with a better split personality than someone like Sanzo," Dokugakuji said, knowing the joke was weak and not very funny. Kougaiji smiled a little anyway. "Actually, at least I know who to blame for the cigarette thing now."

"Sorry..."

"Is that from you or from him?"

"Me. He can't hear us." Pause. "You're really okay with going--"

"Gods, you're dense sometimes," Dokugakuji told him with a kind of gentle rudeness he couldn't often get away with. But could right now. "Yes. Anything. Ever. Can we consider the matter closed now?"

Somehow, for reasons he couldn't understand, a warm, happy shudder ran down Kougaiji's spine then. Except even that didn't seem to do the sensation justice. It was like he'd somehow just... melted. At least his brain had.

"Okay."

"All right, then," Dokugakuji said with a smile almost lost in the near-darkness, as he coaxed Kougaiji back down onto the bed.

It was the most peace Kougaiji had felt in a long time, better than meditation had given, better than any reassurance the other man had provided before. He wished he knew why.

You love him.

Kougaiji hid a frown.

What place are you in to say that?

What place are you in to deny it?

You don't know anything.

Should we go to an expert? Be sure to check his credentials. For the gods' sake, Kougaiji. It's kind of obvious if even a monk can spot it.

"Kou?"

"Shh..." he murmured into an ear. "Don't go."

Turned on to his side, so that they lay next to each other and he could watch his eyes in the darkness.

It's because he's the only one you let see you without defenses.

Stared unblinking into those dark and calm eyes until he could understand, in a way that made sense to him and unlocked everything.

I can fall apart around him, and he doesn't mind.

And I don't mind that he doesn't.

And that was all, was it? Just that?

Yes. Nothing more was needed than that, right then.

Love like they talked about in books was bullshit and it didn't exist. Love that soppy teenage hearts pined for was just as false. And maybe to someone somewhere else, this was false too. But it didn't matter.

Didn't matter in the slightest, as Kougaiji edged forward and kissed the man as he'd wanted to for a very long time.

He retracted, though, then things progressed past a certain limit, with Dokugakuji's hand above sensitive areas.

"I'm going to sound like a complete girl, but... not tonight?"

Sorry, Sanzo apologized. We can't really risk it. You know that.

It's fine...

Dokugakuji only shrugged again, and moved the hand up to the prince's hip instead. If he was bothered by this sudden change of direction, he didn't show it.

"Want me to go?"

"No. Stay. Please."

"All right."

He stayed.

-----

Eighth Beat

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