Yaoi warning- contains explicit scenes of m/m sex. All quite consensual, but as graphic as my ahem rather chaste vocabulary allows. Rated R, probably.

Note: from the series Gensou Maden Saiyuuki. There's no overt yaoi to speak of in the anime or the manga, but the luscious art by Minekura Kazuya suggests that if everyone isn't screwing everyone else, they ought to be. The Japanese djka literally do these guys by the numbers, like GW. The numbers are based loosely on the name kanji- Gojou's 'go' isn't the same as the one for five, Gokuu's 'kuu' isn't the 'ku' of nine. But we have the monk Sanzou ('three storehouses') as 3, the redhaired Gojou as 5, the mild-mannered Hakkai ('eight admonishments') as 8, and Gokuu as 9. Looks like their main enemy, the biseinen Kougaiji, doesn't get a look-in under this system, alas. The Japanese fans talk happily about 38, which is what this story is, and 83 and 58 and 39 and 53 and occasionally 18 (for the youkai Chin Izou, Hakkai's bane.) All of which makes their webpages read like positions from a sex manual, and not too far off at that.

As a Japanese fanwriter wrote on her site, "This was my first story. I'm embarrassed." This was my first story. I'm embarrassed.

Rest Stop

"My Pocky!" Gokuu screamed in outrage.

"What about it?" Gojou asked, putting another stick in his mouth.

"That's my Pocky!!" Gokuu howled, launching himself on the tall youkai and grabbing for the box.

"It's very good Pocky," Gojou assured him, holding it well out of reach.

"Give it back!" Gokuu was doing highjumps to reach the fast-emptying box. "Thief! Robber!"

"Finders keepers," Gojou said smugly, holding him down with one hand as if he was dribbling a basketball.

"Flat-head! Kappa! Bottom-feeder!"

"Otttohh- Look who's talking, monkey-boy." Gojou leaned over and twiddled the last chocolate-covered stick at Gokuu from between his teeth.

"Give that *back*!!" Gokuu's flying feet connected solidly with Gojou's midriff.

"Ungh---" Gojou gasped and fell back a step. Anger flushed his face. "Give it back? You want it back?! Fine, you can *have* it back." He stuck a finger into his throat and made horrific retching noises.

"GEHHHHEE!!!" Gokuu screeched and retreated several paces.

"You want it, here it is!!" Gojou bellowed. "Cumman getit! Beeauuu-" He backed Gokuu into the furniture, gagging tremendously.

"Don't you dare!" Gokuu yelled in real fear. "Sick on me and I'll kill you, you redhead garbage-eater!"

"Just you try it, banana-breath!"

Sanzou got abruptly to his feet and left the inn's sitting room, not looking back to see Hakkai coming with him. The two walked down the hallway to the bedroom they were sharing this stop. Sanzou closed the door behind them with an emphatic thud.

"Fucking brats," Sanzou said in the returned peace. "It's like travelling with a bloody kindergarten."

"They're really quite fond of each other," Hakkai remarked.

"They have a weird way of showing it." He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and grimaced. "Let's have our baths while they're still too busy to bother us."

"There's an idea," Hakkai agreed. In silence they gathered towels and soap and went down the outside corridor to the bathroom. Hakkai slid the latch closed behind them and began undoing the shoulder fastenings of his shirt. Sanzou took off his monkly breastplate and sutra stole and placed them in the waiting wicker basket with a reflex murmured prayer. Rather more casually he stripped off his white robe, leather bodysuit and Calvin Klein briefs and dropped them on top. Hakkai meanwhile was folding his pants to preserve the crease. He laid them beside the folded shirt in his own basket, tucked his shorts in at the side, and placed his eyeglass on top of everything where he could find it easily.

"Uhh-" he said politely to Sanzou as the other turned towards the washplace.

"Anh," Sanzou said in half-apology, and unfastened the knot of Hakkai's headband so he could take it off. "Why can't you do this yourself?" Sanzou asked, for maybe the thirtieth time.

"Too fiddly," Hakkai said. He ran fingers through his sweaty hair, feeling the usual mixture of relief and apprehension at the absence of the constraining cloth. He sat down on one of the low bath-stools, filled a basin of water from the tub and poured it over himself. That was better. The humid autumn rains made him feel grubby all the time. He poured another basin over his head, reached blindly for his herbal shampoo, and worked up a clean-smelling lather. When that was rinsed off he began to feel more human. With a contented sigh he began washing the rest of himself.

Sanzou beside him was already covered in white suds. The monk always worked methodically from head to foot and never stinted himself of soap. Right now he was rubbing a rough-textured cloth absently over his chest. His face was empty of expression, but that was nothing new. Sanzou often seemed to be meditating on some internal landscape invisible to everyone else. They'd known each other for three years now and were good companions- you might even say friends. But still Hakkai felt he'd never quite grasped the whole of the conundrum that was Genjou Sanzou. The answer seemed to lie somewhere in the monk's face, if you could only look at it the right way. Hakkai observed him for a moment, glancing sideways through his own shaggy hair so as not to be caught staring. The sullen thoughtful mouth, the waiflike sharpness of his cheekbones, the moody eyes turning down at the corners and the thick golden hair cut straight above them- all adding up to what? It was a face both sensual and fastidious, and so heart-breakingly beautiful it sometimes hurt Hakkai to look at it. But there was also, and unforgettably, the small red shakra burning in Sanzou's forehead just above his eyebrows, so much at odds with the aching physicality below it. That little red dot was the mark of the monk's advanced spiritual state, of the inner enlightenment that set him apart from humanity and allowed him to converse with divinities- that could make Sanzou's very touch dangerous to youkai, so charged was it with tantric power. Hakkai looked away, mouth tensing into a flat line. Youkai. Like himself. Like himself, now.

There was a splash and a few drops landed on Hakkai as Sanzou up-ended a bucket of water over himself to wash the soap away. Another and another, as Sanzou sluiced himself thoroughly and shook his dripping hair. More methodically and much more neatly Hakkai rinsed his own torso and legs. He put the basin down, feeling clean and refreshed and ready now for the heat of the bath itself. He bent a leg to stand up. And stopped in his crouch, aware of the sudden change in the air. Sanzou was looking at him. Without turning, Hakkai could feel the heavy weight of the monk's eyes on his body. Hakkai stared sightlessly before him at the water in the bath. There was a touch on the back of his neck. Slender fingers, terribly warm. A flame began to burn inside him, at the chakra level of his breastbone. He gulped. Heat filled his heart, filled his chest. The delicate touch appeared again in the small of his back. He bit his lower lip hard. His breathing deepened and his head began to swim. Sanzou's hand, maddeningly hot, moved to his buttock. Strength seemed to leave Hakkai as all his blood rushed to his groin.

He slipped forward off his stool to lean bonelessly against the bath. Sanzou's hands were between his legs. It was all he could manage not to cry aloud at what they were doing. He buried his face in his arms, biting at his own wet flesh. He was harder than hard, there was no more Sanzou could do to make him harder but still Sanzou's hands played with him unbearably. He drew his breath in deeply and it came out as a small mewl of want.

Sanzou stopped at once, and his hands moved apologetically away. Whatever liberties Sanzou might take with Hakkai's body, he was always chary of intruding on his spirit. Which was nice of him, of course, if it hadn't been such an ambiguous gesture. Sanzou knew the worst there was to know of Cho Hakkai. There was no shame left in him before the monk. That Sanzou still chose to be tender of Hakkai's pride was a kindness for which Hakkai was grateful. But he knew too that Sanzou's delicacy was a two-edged sword, one that he used as much to hide his own fancied nakedness from the world as to save his partner from humiliation. That was why Sanzou only allowed positions where neither could see the other's face during their most vulnerable moments. And that was why the essence of Sanzou always lay beyond Hakkai's grasp, even when their bodies were joined.

But there was no question of leaving them as they were now. Sanzou was merely waiting for permission to continue. Hakkai half-turned his head, managing a small smile and a murmured "Douzo..." Sanzou's hands came back to Hakkai's body then, and he sighed in relief. Wet slippery fingers slid inside him, teasing him open. Hakkai relaxed, preparing for Sanzou's entry. And suddenly the hardness of Sanzou himself was there, moving relentlessly into him. Hakkai panted silently. There was room inside him for Sanzou, there was always room enough, there was room for-- this impossible thing, this large maddening hurting thing that turned the corners of his vision red. A small panic thrummed at Hakkai, the one that always accompanied and heightened the pleasure of sex. Pain and delight filled his mind like writhing snakes, sliding back and forth into each other. He watched their wavering forms moving in time to the thing that moved in and out of himself, that sawed at him so wonderfully. At each stroke his sight grew redder and the thin shriek of panic grew shriller. The three clips in his left ear burned his skin, biting at the youkai power clawing to get out of him. He knew he was tempting horror back by playing with it like this- was walking along a knife's edge with a sea of blood on each side of him. Monstrousness was only a thin membrane of tissue away. He had to trust, as always, that Sanzou would keep that membrane from ripping as it had three years ago and setting chaos free.

Sanzou's fingers dug into the sensitive flesh of Hakkai's thighs as Sanzou rammed with increasing violence into Hakkai's body. Deeper he came and deeper, as if trying to pierce him through. The drumbeat of violence in Hakkai's ears and the redness filming his vision grew unbearable. It was louder this time, stronger and harder than it had ever been before. The pulse of blood before his eyes, the pulse of blood through his body, boomed like the sea. It was mounting out of control. *He* was coming back. Panic clawed at Hakkai's heart. He knew he had to stop- had to make Sanzou stop-- But mixed with the fear there was something new, a silver line of arching happiness that terrified him in its turn. This time it would be too strong for them both. This time he'd fall over the edge into himself again-- become the one whose presence inside him he'd never even suspected until the day it came forth, easily and with no struggle at all, to slaughter half his village. He knew that red-handed killer, Cho Gonou, must never appear again. No more lives must be laid to its- to his- account. But now that he felt the murderer's shadow falling on his back, he knew how much he wanted to have it with him: his twin, his ferocious self, the only true companion of his days now that all else was gone--

And knew that in the end he wouldn't say the word to Sanzou that would stop it from returning. For Sanzou who could stop it was Sanzou who had woken it in the first place, somehow all part of the same thing. It was Sanzou's presence inside Hakkai that called Gonou forth, like a thief breaking into a tomb who sets free the guardian demon. Each time Sanzou pierced him, each time Sanzou laid Hakkai open body and soul, he created a path for that other self to emerge into the outside world. And now his brother was only a step from the gate, only one step, and the world was all red in Hakkai's sight-- Then movement stopped, and he heard Sanzou's stifled gasps, felt in back of himself the rigid tension of the monk's body as orgasm twisted it and departed.

Joy and panic vanished in a moment and the blood-tinged world turned dark before Hakkai's human eyes. He was alone, with nothing but pain throbbing behind him and a ferocious need throbbing in front. He put a hand on himself, not nearly consolation enough for what he'd lost. He was alone in an empty aching place, bruise-coloured purple and red. He would always be alone. Desolation choked his lungs. He'd lost Kanan his love, he'd lost Gonou who was himself, he'd lost the very little he'd ever had that was his. And now he was here alone, in pain-- He hid his face in his arms, seeking to hide in the darkness of their shelter.

Hands were on his hips, warm, tentative, suggesting. Frozen with misery, Hakkai shied from their touch. But the hands knew what they were about. There was no resisting them. He let them turn him around. Still shielding his face, Hakkai slid backwards, half leaning against the wall of the bath. It hurt his shoulders. He wriggled away from it and found himself lying on his back with the warm wet tiles beneath him. Warm wetness, a different kind, enveloped his groin. Warm and moving and welcoming, bringing a little promise of happiness into his cold world like sunshine in late winter. His free hand found the thickness of Sanzou's hair and sank into it, following its small movements as Sanzou's mouth worked at him. The goldenness of it seemed almost tangible, a soft weighty mass between his fingers. It felt good, comforting somehow, as Sanzou's tongue felt good on his flesh. Good, yes, good... Small waves of pleasure lapped at him as he lay in the shallows, like a tide rising higher. Little ticklings here, little lappings there, small electric shocks as Sanzou's tongue touched all the sensitive nubs and tiny pleasure points along the length. Sanzou's tongue folded about him. The feel of being within flesh was too much. Hakkai's pelvis began to rock in time to the movements of Sanzou's mouth. He bit his arm harder. Something was growing inside him, called forth by Sanzou's tongue- a smiling happy presence quite different from the one before. Pleasure ballooned inside his frame until it filled him up. Harder and harder Sanzou sucked at him. Hakkai's bones felt they would crack and his skin split open as the swelling thing inside him tried to break forth like a cicada from its shell. A cicada sound came from his throat, a high-pitched shrilling 'Nnnnn Nnnnnn Nnnnn'. He was going to split open. He wanted to split open. He wanted to release the relentless and unruly pleasure within. All that was keeping it inside were the three clips in his ear, burning silver-molten as they held him in his human form-- the form that was too small, too limited, for that giant ecstasy. It was intolerable. He couldn't stand it any longer- wouldn't--

He let go of Sanzou's hair and reached for his left ear. Sanzou caught his arm and held it motionless. Hakkai twisted wildly, trying to get at the clips with his other hand, but Sanzou's flailing hand caught that arm and held it too. Hakkai cried his anger, his frustration, his pleasure, soundlessly to the steamy air and the ceiling far above him. He was held down and pent up. There was only one small exit for the hugeness inside him. Balked by those three tiny silver pieces, the tidal wave of orgasm rushed towards his groin and out of him. His mouth opened in a soundless shriek at the white-hot sensation. He was melting and twisting like wax in a flame. Melting, twisting, as he had melted and twisted in the tide of demon blood that had taken his human form from him and rendered him youkai.

He could hear the panting sobs in his chest, stifled as always, well before his vision cleared completely. He was looking again at the misty ceiling, spiderwebbed with a light filigree of mould. His arms were free, lying leadenly on the wet tiles, but Sanzou's weight still pinioned his legs. Himself again, Hakkai thought of what he'd tried to do and felt his insides lurch with shock and fear. At that miniscule movement, Sanzou shifted off him and straightened up. Hakkai sat up in his turn, face averted.

"Sanzou..." he said. "Could you..." He gestured vaguely behind him.

He sensed the monk getting up, heard the brief rustle of clothes. Sanzou knelt behind him and fastened the green headband around Hakkai's temples again. Hakkai's shoulders relaxed in relief.

"That doesn't make any difference," Sanzou told him, an inch from his ear.

"It does to me," he said to the edge of the bath.

"Next time tie it yourself. It's got nothing to do with me."

"Yes. I know."

Sanzou went back to his place. Water splashed as he cleaned the traces of sex from himself. In silence Hakkai did likewise, then got up and stepped into the bath. Hot water rose soothingly to his chest. Sanzou got in beside him. They lay looking up at the ceiling.

"Try that again and I'll kill you," Sanzou said, as he said often enough to Gokuu and Gojou but never before to himself. Anger sounded in his voice like the winter wind through empty tree branches.

"I'm sorry."

"Then what'd you do it for?"

Hakkai shook his head. "I don't know."

"Never do it again. Ever. Gojou wouldn't even notice what you were up to."

"I wouldn't do it when I was with Gojou."

Sanzou was silent.

"Gojou is... the opposite of me," Hakkai explained. "All his youkai self is on the outside. His hair, his eyes. Inside he's all human. When I'm with him, he calls the human in me too."

"And I?"

Hakkai didn't answer.

"Fuck you," Sanzou said.

Hakkai trailed a single finger in the water. "You aren't wholly of this world, Sanzou. 'Sanzou'- the men who bear that name are said to be near to gods."

"Crap," Sanzou said. "The gods are no different from us. Worse, if anything. And I never asked to have this name." His face was stiff with anger, overlying an old misery.

Hakkai sighed. "I suppose we won't be doing this again?"

"Believe it," tersely.

"Well, it's probably for the best." In his head there moved the shadows of that other place, his other self. His one own thing in a world where everyone wore strangers' flesh. Where even those nearest to you were separated by a million alien thoughts and experiences that made them ultimately unknowable as stars. The smiling killer was all he truly had for his own. Flesh of his flesh, soul of his soul, however monstrous: inextricably part of him like the blood in his veins, even if now it was also as distant from him as the land of the rising sun and evidently going to remain so.

There was a thud at the door. "Sanzou? Sanzou, you in there?" Gokuu's voice came from outside. "Let us in. We want our baths."

"Hey, beauty-boy, open the door," Gojou yelled beside him. "If I have to smell his monkey-stink another minute I'll puke again."

Sanzou snarled silently. "Get lost, you pair of arrested adolescents!" he yelled at the locked door. "I'm having my bath in peace!"

"I'm not an adolescent, he is," Gojou protested at once. "With the zits still on his bum. Keep *him* out if you like, but--"

"I'm not arrested," Gokuu said at the same time in outrage. "Just 'cause I was in prison for 500 years, Sanzou, you-- hey, whaddayamean, zits? Cockroach head!"

"Flatface! Ook-ook monkey boy! Hey Sanzou, I don't care if you wanna go on screwing Hakkai, you can just pretend I'm not there--"

"I'll kill you!!" Sanzou howled, then, "Hakkai, what the hell are you--"

Hakkai had gotten out of the bath. "The other guests," he explained with a resigned smile. "We'll disturb them." He unlatched the door even as Sanzou said "Don't you dare--." Gokuu and Gojou tumbled in, trading punches. "Ero-kappa!" "Dumb ape!"

Sanzou stood up in the bath. He grabbed his bucket, swirled it through the water and dumped its contents on the two half-youkai. They gasped and yelled and broke up their fight, and two more buckets caught them full in the face. "Shut up and wash," Sanzou ordered them tightly. "First one to make a sound is dead."

Gojou and Gokuu traded quick glances, stripped off their wet clothes in silence and sat down in the washplace. Sanzou got out of the bath and towelled off. Luckily he didn't see Gojou dropping a limp forefinger at Gokuu to suggest what he considered the probable cause of Sanzou's ill-temper. Hakkai, heading towards his clothes basket, gave Gojou's head a surreptitious thump in passing. He frowned warningly at the surprised sideways glance of Gojou's red eyes. Gojou grimaced but went on washing without saying anything more.

Sanzou paced the hallway back to their room, Hakkai silent behind him. In the bedroom Sanzou ripped the tab off a beer can and flung himself into the one armchair with an invisible Do Not Disturb sign above his head. Hakkai shifted Hakuryuu's basket onto the floor, getting a little puff from the sleeping dragon, and settled onto his bed with the maps of the area to plan tomorrow's course. There was what looked like a major town about three hours' drive from this one, but it sat nestled against an outcrop of the local mountain range. The pass they wanted seemed to be a good twenty ri to the south...

"That headband of yours," Sanzou said.

Hakkai jumped a little. "Ahh- yes?"

"Did you alter it somehow?"

"Ahh- umm." He met Sanzou's suspicious expression with a disarming smile. "A second line of defence, you know. Just in case. You can never be too caref--"

"How?"

Hakkai gave in. "Five of your hairs, sewn into the lining."

"My hair?!"

"Genjou Sanzou Houshi, the master of the Law. The bane of youkai." Sanzou stared at him, outraged. "That's why you're the only one that can take it off," Hakkai explained.

"Hmmphh." Sanzou's down-turning eyes brooded at him as he digested the information. Hakkai concentrated on looking meek so as not to provoke a further tempest. There was a charged silence. After a moment Sanzou withdrew his glance

"How often do you wash your hair?" he asked.

"Every third day, usually."

"Mnh. Two out of three," Sanzou mused, reaching for another beer.

"I can live with that. Gokuu will do for the off day." He ripped the tab and took a swig. Contentedly, Hakkai went back to studying his maps.

MJJ Aug-Sept, 2000