"Gojyo," says Hakkai.

The girl with flowers crowning her dark hair stops running and turns around. She is beautiful. "What did you call me?"

Bombs explode, painting the night sky with a brilliant brush.

Hakkai wakes up in bed alone, staring at the ceiling. Nearby, he can hear Sanzo breathing shallowly, Goku snoring. And Gojyo...Gojyo.

Hakkai sits straight up and looks all around.

And Gojyo is smoking, sitting with his back against Goku's bed.

"Hey, go back to sleep," Gojyo says grumpily, sucking on his cigarette. "You're the one who made me take first watch tonight."

Hakkai stares at him and wonders how Gojyo would look with flowers in his hair. Gojyo flicks ash into a beer can. No, flowers aren't right; Gojyo would probably just singe them.

"Hakkai?" Gojyo asks. His voice is softer now, touched with worry.

"It's nothing." Hakkai rubs at his eye. "Just a dream."

"Look, Mummy, look at what I can do!" Hakkai shouts, running along the beach. He pulls the kite along, splashing in the water with the sand squishing between his toes, and he never, ever falls down. He keeps the kite high in the sky, the string taut, just the way his mummy showed him.

A wave comes. It's big and he can hear the water rush toward him.

"Mummy!" shouts Hakkai.

The water crashes over him. It fills up his mouth, his ears. Hakkai is far from his mother, too far. He can see her running to him, sees another wave.

"Mummy!" shouts Hakkai.

The current drags him further out. She is screaming, mouthing his name, crying, her long red hair streaming behind her.

"Gojyo!" shouts Hakkai.

He wakes up, covered in sweat. His limiters seem too tight, clamped down hard on his ear.

"Oh," Hakkai whispers to himself. He blinks into the darkness.

On the floor, Gojyo gasps and sits up. Then he looks at Hakkai strangely, like he's seeing him for the first time.

"Are you all right?" asks Hakkai, sounding more breathless than he'd intended.

Gojyo nods. "I just had the craziest fucking dream."

Hakkai is going to kill his sister.

He lights another cigarette, even though the constant stream of nicotine is making him sick to his stomach, and glares at her and her friends. Faghags, the lot of them, giggling over the dancing boys, dragging Hakkai out of his nice, comfortable home, convinced that he needed some fun.

"You have a stick up your ass," his sister says, leaning in. "Wouldn't you rather something else?" She grins and pokes him in the arm. Everyone says they have the same smile, but Hakkai doesn't see it.

"Ooh, look at them," giggles one of the vapid friends, pointing. Hakkai, against his better judgment, looks. Then he stares.

There are two of them dancing, one light, one dark, like the sun and the moon, though frankly the sun looks about as happy as Hakkai does. That doesn't stop the sun from grinding down on the moon's thigh, winding arms wrapped in elbow-length gloves around his neck. The moon grins and licks the other one's neck. Hakkai now sees that he's the real light here.

Hakkai leans forward in his seat. The moon looks up, locks eyes with Hakkai, and freezes. The sun pulls away and knees the moon in the balls.

When the pissy-looking one stomps away, Hakkai figures the free show is over, but the one with the dark hair is loping over to him, smiling. He wears a vest with nothing underneath and has a very pretty mouth. Hakkai can't help thinking about what kinds of things that mouth could do for him.

"Hi," says the moon, leaning against the table, palm flat against its surface. He has very nice hands. Big. And he leans well.

"Hi," Hakkai says. "Shouldn't you be chasing after your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend." The guy has a nice laugh, too. Hakkai takes a long drag and blows out the smoke in a perfect ring. "Those things'll kill you, you know."

Hakkai grins. "Lots of things might kill me."

"Could I give it a go?" asks tall, dark, and leaning. His sister's friends squeal out their approval, and Hakkai doesn't even want to hurt them. Instead, he walks out onto the dance floor.

Hakkai never really dances, and he supposes this doesn't exactly count either. It's more like foreplay, his hands working their way inside that vest, his mouth hot against a collarbone. And even if he is simulating sex for his sister and her horny friends, Hakkai can't bring himself to care, grinding himself hard against the guy's hip.

"You should come home with me," the moon whispers into his ear.

He lets himself be led outside, and Hakkai is laughing, laughing as he's dragged into the street. He hears screeching tires, sees a car speeding away, sees blood. It's his, he thinks.

"Gojyo," he says, pressing his fingers to that pretty mouth.

When he wakes up this time, Gojyo is in bed with him.

This is new, thinks Hakkai.

Gojyo presses his face into Hakkai's neck. "Do you ever feel like the gods are laughing at you?"

"Oh yes," Hakkai says. "I'm quite sure they are."

Gojyo's mouth is hot and slick and opens up things in Hakkai that he'd thought were long dead. The dream is already fading.

"Another successful campaign," Kenren mutters, his back pressed firmly to Tenpou's.

The forces of heaven close in all around them, and even though Tenpou can't see him, he thinks he can feel Kenren's smile. Tenpou lets his head fall back, his messy hair falling against Kenren's shoulder.

"See you on the other side," says Tenpou.

"Is that an order, Marshal?"

"Yes," Tenpou murmurs.

"Now, you two were a good experiment, though not as good as Kouryu. But he's special," Nii Jienyi says, adjusting the sutra twitching on his shoulders. It seems to be stretching at the ends, unable to reach whatever it needs. Hakkai knows how it feels. He is frozen in place and can't activate the qi, can't revive Sanzo, can't get to Goku's side, can't touch Gojyo. Nii is touching Gojyo. It's enough to drive a person crazy. "Intertwined destinies, keeping some traits, losing others. Meeting over and over, hundreds of times, thousands, but never saving each other. Very interesting."

Hakkai stares. It's been Nii doing this, Nii making them see things. Why had he never asked Goku and Sanzo if they'd been having odd dreams? Sanzo was there sometimes, too, even if Goku never was. It just never occurred to him.

Nii is touching Hakkai now. That, for some reason, makes him feel less crazy. More controlled. And he needs that, needs that control. "What makes you think this time will be any different?" Nii says, his breath hot against Hakkai's ear.

Hakkai draws in a breath, centers himself, breaks his limiters. It hurts when his nails lengthen and the vines wrap around his skin.

"He already saved me," Hakkai growls. "You're already too late." He reaches out, slices open, and after a minute Goku is at his side, then Gojyo, then Sanzo.

Goku stands with him in the aftermath, his grin wide, teeth stained with blood. "Plus, I wasn't there, right Hakkai? Not in a long while."

Hakkai refastens the cuffs, feels his power dampen. "Quite true, Goku. We've all missed you."

The sun is setting when Gojyo hops onto Jeep's roof, settling himself next to Hakkai. Jeep lets out a soft kyuu at the extra weight.

They're still both a mess from the journey and the battle, bits of blood and nature and unidentifiable stuff in all sorts of odd places, but the sunset does brilliant things to Gojyo's hair. It almost hurts to look at him.

"Do you think those weird dreams will stop now?" Gojyo asks.

"I think it's likely," Hakkai says.

"Do you think they were real?" Gojyo presses their thighs together, their feet.

Hakkai pauses. "I think that's also likely."

"Weird," Gojyo says.

Hakkai laughs and kisses Gojyo in full view of Sanzo and Goku and the world and whatever gods are planning their demise. He hears Goku choke, but figures it's not too serious. Hakkai tangles his hand in Gojyo's long hair, pulls out a blade of dead grass, and lets it flutter into the wind.

END.