My apologies for the delay...my computer conspired with everything else to keep me from posting the end, but I prevailed!
For Sanzo, the return to awareness yet again was an exercise in sheer willpower. He heard Goku yelp his name--it was extremely irritating how his subconscious invariably responded to that trigger--and Gojyo say something else, and then he felt her touch, like an icy draft running through his hair. It took everything he had not to gasp as her fingers brushed his earlobe.
Cautiously he cracked open his eyes a fraction. She was standing over him, but looking at Gojyo. The redhead smirked back at her cockily, leaning at a jaunty angle with his arms crossed, his garish charm dialed to maximum. "Okay," he said. "Let's deal."
Scarlet eyes dropped down to Sanzo, but if Gojyo noticed he was awake he gave no sign. His mouth twisted a little as he went on, "But not him. Here's the bargain. You let the three of them go--the monkey, the monk, and the other guy. You let them get out of here, and I stay with you. I'll guarantee, I'll be more fun than the ugly monk here. He'd bite his tongue and bleed to death before he let you enjoy yourself. Me...I know how to satisfy a woman."
Sanzo couldn't speak; it was difficult even to breathe. He could only watch as the demoness glided from his side to Gojyo. Slender fingers reached up to stroke the halfbreed's cheek, caressing the double scar, then knotted in his hair and yanked him to his knees.
"Like flame," she murmured, musingly, twirling the scarlet strands between her fingers. "Fire as my pet...there was one of us once who owned a phoenix, so the legends say. You're hardly so powerful." She traced his neck with crystal-sharp nails, and Sanzo could see Gojyo tremble, though he did not resist. "But...almost as beautiful."
"It's a deal, then?" Gojyo's voice was too strained to have the flirtatious note he was trying for.
She considered for a moment, then nodded. "A deal." Inclining her head toward Goku without releasing her grip on the crimson hair, she said, "You may leave with your human and the other."
Sanzo knew what the ape's answer to that would be. No way!
"Okay," said Goku.
The hell?!
As Sanzo stared in disbelief, Goku went to Hakkai, picked him up and carried him out of the cave. Then he returned, passing Gojyo and the snow-haired youkai without even glancing at the midnight eyes studying him with such cold amusement. He bent to put his arms around Sanzo, asked quietly, "Can you walk?"
"What are you--" Getting pulled to his feet shot agony through his leg, so severe that he nearly blacked out again. By the time the blinding stars receded from his vision, Goku had dragged him to the mouth of the cave.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sanzo cuffed him hard, jerked away to go back inside, but the movement jarred his broken bone. He would have stumbled, but Goku caught him.
"No, Sanzo, stay out here." He prodded the monk another couple steps forward, then carefully lowered him to the snow, beside where Hakkai lay, Hakuryuu keeping vigil. "It's cold but it's safer."
"Safer? Stupid ape--don't you understand? Even if she doesn't betray us, she'll kill him--"
"Sanzo," Goku whispered in his ear, "just stay calm. It'll be okay."
If he twisted his head, he could see into the cave, the moonlight shining on snow-white hair hanging over blood-red. Her head came up, met Sanzo's eyes across the darkness, and she smiled, pure, vicious triumph. Then she bent over Gojyo again, and his scream rent the night.
"No," Sanzo gasped, struggling to rise, and then he realized Goku was no longer at his side. That Goku was crouching low in the snow, bracing himself with his fists thrust out before him.
"Nyoibou," he shouted, "extend!"
The staff glowed into being in his hands, lengthened and kept growing, past the possible limits of a normal weapon, the end shooting out like a bolt of lightning. Into the cave, and Goku had aimed perfectly. It slammed into her ribcage and smashed her into the far wall, white hair a whirling cloud around her.
Before it could settle, Gojyo strode forward, planted his boot against her neck. Sanzo saw the gleam of metal in his hand, recognized it in a flash--he must have grabbed it from the ground when he had tackled Hakkai--
She saw it, too, and her red mouth opened in a scream, but before it sounded, Gojyo had pulled the trigger.
The percussion of the gunshot shook snow from the rocks above down onto him. A wind howled over the mountainside, a rising, terrible shriek, like a wail of anguish, blowing so hard that it deafened and blinded him. He threw himself over Hakkai to protect him from its rage, as it tore at his robes and slashed at his face with ice.
Then it had passed. The first thing he heard was Goku's worried, "Sanzo?"
Sanzo opened his eyes, looked down and saw emerald peering up at him curiously. "Sanzo?" Hakkai inquired, a little dazedly, and then he blinked. "Sanzo!" He looked over Sanzo's shoulder and his face broke into a smile wide even by his standards. "Gojyo!"
"That's the name, don't wear it out." Gojyo took another step out of the cave mouth, then sat in the snow abruptly, as if going any further was more effort than he could be bothered with. "You okay?"
"Hakkai, you're all right?" Goku asked, bounding over the drifts more like a rabbit than a monkey.
Sitting up, Hakkai looked around at them. "Apparently we all are?"
"Yup. And there's one less youkai to worry about in these parts. Here, monk," and Gojyo tossed over the revolver. "I'll pay you back for the bullet at the next town."
Sanzo caught the gun, barely, fumbling with his frozen fingers, then did drop it as the motion jolted his leg again. Hissing with frustration as much as pain, he snatched it off the snow and stowed it away in his sleeve.
"Sanzo, you're hurt?" Hakkai asked, all too attentive. "Let me see."
"Care for yourself first," Sanzo snapped, "you're the one who's been out for an hour."
"I'm all right."
"Except you got a bump on your noggin the size of an egg," Gojyo said, picking himself up off the ground to make it the rest of the way over to them.
Hakkai put his hand behind his head with an embarrassed chuckle. "Well, a little, but that wasn't really it. When the avalanche hit me, I...it's been something I've been trying lately, to see if I can heal myself faster, if I put all my energy on that. A form of meditation, actually. When I was buried, I...panicked a little, and I guess I withdrew too much...some animals do it, to conserve themselves when it's too cold..."
"You were hibernating?" Gojyo poked his shoulder. "What are you, a grizzly bear?"
"Better than a cockroach," Goku mumbled.
"Or a monkey!"
"Let me see that leg, Sanzo," Hakkai said cheerily, pushing up the monk's robes. "Hmm, looks like a clean break, but it still shouldn't be moved. I suppose there wasn't much choice...that's a good splint, Gojyo."
"Thanks. How'd you know--"
"I must figure out how to further accelerate bone knitting, there must be a better way..."
"Don't push yourself too hard. We've still got a walk ahead of us."
"You really shouldn't be walking on this."
"Then I'll crawl," growled Sanzo. "We're getting off this damn mountain."
And none of them had anything to say against that.
* * *
In the end, they made it over the pass right as the gray sky began to show the first pallid pink of dawn. Hakkai served as Sanzo's crutch, and their pace was better than might be expected; the monk wasn't one to let a little thing like a fractured fibula slow him down. Gojyo and Goku forged a way through the snow for them, though Goku in front did the most work. Gojyo was glad enough not to be going any faster. He still felt a bit light-headed, not even minding when Goku drifted back or Hakkai reached forward to give him a little nudge back on track.
At last they reached the end of the slope, and stood there on the dip between the two ridges, looking down into the silent, white valley spreading below. The wind had died, and without its racket one could just hear the faint, steady rhythm of dripping water. "It's warming up," Hakkai said.
"The blizzards are over," Sanzo said, sounding exhausted and out of breath and out of sorts enough that there couldn't be anything seriously wrong with him. "It's supposed to be spring here."
"But the snow's so pretty," Goku remarked.
"Like she was," said Gojyo, and shivered. Still a little cold. He was already forgetting the freezing burn of her fingers against his cheek.
Goku cocked his head thoughtfully, then shook it. "Nah. I mean, she was. But not like this."
The dark of trees weighted down by snow showed through the white, dotted across an otherwise smooth landscape, jagged ranges softened into endless serene curves. And everything was shaded in dawn pastels, neither cool nor warm, but gentle. "I guess it is," Gojyo conceded, and they started down.
By the time the first rays of the sun hit the valley, they had reached a track wide enough that Hakkai thought Hakuryuu could handle it even with the snow. The dragon agreed, and as the sun broke free of the mountains to ascend alone into the sky, they piled into their usual positions in the jeep. Arranging Sanzo so his leg could be comfortable took a couple minutes, as neither Goku nor Gojyo were eager to sacrifice their own precious legroom to his seat being pushed all the way back, but they finally reached a compromise.
Once they were on their way, Goku fell asleep almost immediately, his head rocked back on the seat and snoring. Gojyo moved to jostle him awake and end the racket, but was stopped by the unmistakable click of a cocking revolver.
"Wake the saru and die," Sanzo said.
"He had a long night," Hakkai agreed.
"Ch'. I just want some quiet until he gets fed," Sanzo returned, closing his eyes.
"Of course," said Hakkai.
Gojyo rolled his eyes, settled back comfortably against the seat and let the wind blow through his hair. It felt good on his face, not too cold. After a few minutes he noticed something was lacking, reached into his pockets. Swore when he realized his pack was still gone. "Oi, monk."
Sanzo cracked a violet eye and glanced back.
A lot of the irritation usually in his expression was overwritten by pain. The bumping of the jeep over the rough road was probably killing his leg. Hakkai was right. It had been a damn long night. Gojyo ducked his head, shrugged. "Nothing. Never mind."
He leaned back again, looked out over the mountainside. In a few days the snow would be gone, but this morning it shone like diamonds in the sun.
"Idiot," Sanzo muttered suddenly, apropos to nothing, and then Gojyo had a cigarette shoved into his hand.
"Thanks," he said automatically.
Sanzo snorted. "You got your lighter?"
"That, yeah." Gojyo pulled out the Zippo, flicked the flame to life, and Sanzo reached back to extend another cigarette toward him.
"Where's yours?"
"Out of fuel."
Gojyo lit the monk's, grinning. "Sanzo-sama needs me after all!"
"Don't push your luck." Sanzo took a long drag, settled back into his seat.
"Perhaps you should have claimed the lighter when you had the chance," Hakkai remarked.
"Perhaps."
"Hakkai! Whose side are you on?"
But Hakkai only smiled and stepped on the gas, as they continued to speed away from the rising sun.
owari
Because a couple folks seemed curious - the youkai is of a race of my own creation, from a fantasy novel yet to be completed. I needed a villain, and wanted to play with them more. Anone - smarm? Are you a Western fandom fan, by any chance? I don't know if I've ever encountered that term in otakudom...but I was a smarm fan long before I saw any anime ^^ K.Firefly, the summary is indeed a parody of the old cliche 'into every life a little rain must fall'...I'm not sure if that line originated in the song you mentioned; I wasn't aware of it, at any rate. Big thanks to all my fabulous reviewers - you guys rock! Been a while since I've gotten so many great, thoughtful comments - felt like y'all were really reading & enjoying it, and that's the biggest reward an author can get.
This is the point I was supposed to say, thanks for coming, and cheerily exit stage left. Just one h/c fic for my sister, and I retire...but Saiyuki has its claws in me deeper than I suspected, and I'm afraid that in the near future I might be back to inflict more pain on the boys. Poor things. But they're so cute when they're in trouble...