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Rudeness and Sarcasm
“Another fucking tiger trap.” Sanzo had called dibs on the side of the pit that was shaded from the sun, leaving Kougaiji to squint across the space to watch him. Not that he really needed to watch him; he'd dropped his gun before the fall, much like Kougaiji had tossed his sword aside to avoid falling on it, and if Sanzo had planned on using the Maten sutra on him today, he would have done it by now. Instead, Sanzo was pacing in the meter of space he had, scowling at the scraped-down walls of the pit and smoking, grinding his previous butts into the dirt under his boots, and Kougaiji had nothing to do but to watch the light shifting on Sanzo's face. It was more pleasant than listening to him gripe, a little louder, “A tiger trap! It never works, and yet your people keep wasting their time digging them, only to catch just one or two of us, get killed by the other two or three of us, and then we have to dig ourselves out! What sort of morons is your employer hiring?!”
“I admit,” Kougaiji muttered, still following Sanzo with his gaze but avoiding direct eye contact, “My... employer is less than discerning with whom she hires.” The words came from a dark place in Kougaiji's heart, but the scoff Sanzo answered with was just as bitter.
“You're telling me, I've had to kill most of them,” Sanzo griped right back, and Kougaiji scowled at the dirt. They had been in the pit an hour now, after the two of them had stumbled into it in the midst of a fray. Whoever had dug the trap had done a good job, at the least, digging it deep and leaving no good handholds to climb out, and the slick clay of the walls was too stiff now to really make grips. The trap's designer was likely dead now, but he could at least lay the achievement of “dug a good trap” at the feet of the gods as proof of his merits. Hakkai, Goku, Gojyo, Yaone, and Dokugakuji had gone to fetch ropes to get them out, and Sanzo had spent the intervening time quietly complaining, now enumerating on his fingers, “There's that ridiculous illusionist, the moron with ax arms – did you send that bear after us? Even if you didn't, the list goes on.”
Kougaiji sucked back a sigh that escaped nonetheless. “I knew some of them as friends.”
Sanzo sneered, but that little flick of the lip made Kougaiji's heart flip in his breast. “They weren't especially friendly to me, though I note you used the past tense.”
Kougaiji crossed his arms tight and made himself look away. “The Minus Wave changed many things.” Sanzo pivoted and paced the other direction, and Kougaiji couldn't help but notice the way the light gleamed on his face, and that his stern expression made Kougaiji's guts flip-flop a little now too. That was a change Kougaiji hadn't expected, and one that Sanzo hadn't made easier.
“Hmph. You keep saying redundant things. Then again, what's new?” Sanzo lit a fresh cigarette and pivoted again, too much like the tiger that probably would have been even less happy about being in this trap. He had the same sleek physique, too, and that just made Kougaiji even more uncomfortable. Somehow, Sanzo never failed to provoke him, either with anger, or with something even hotter in his gut. He didn't seem to notice Kougaiji's discomfort, either, instead gesticulating with his cigarette hand as he blew a stream of smoke towards the sky. “You know, last time, it was Gojyo's birthday, and he broke a rib and fractured his ulna. Do you know how many weeks I had to listen to him bitch about it?”
Gods, Kougaiji couldn't take it anymore. “I understand that you're frustrated, but look at it from my point of view.”
Sanzo stopped on a dime and whipped around towards him. “And what do you mean by that?"
Kougaiji held his gaze. “You're stuck down here with me and unable to move forward, and I'm stuck here with you and I have to listen to you complain about it.”
The tension was like an overwound violin string, Sanzo's hackles raised, Kougaiji's shoulders back. It was in moments like this that Kougaiji wasn't sure whether Sanzo was about to pounce on him and sock him in the jaw or kiss him. Kougaiji wished it would be the latter, if only so both of them could get it out of their systems. After a second, Sanzo scoffed and leaned back into the wall. “You raise a valid point, for once.”
Kougaiji let himself deflate just a little with disappointment. “Just stay on your side, I'll stay on mine, and we'll wait for our compatriots to return and rescue us.”
“Hmph.” Sanzo dragged on his smoke again. “Well, aren't you just sugar and spice and everything nice.”
Kougaiji tensed again, firing right back, “Well, aren't you just rudeness and sarcasm and--” He came up short, because he had not thought this through and now found Sanzo staring down his nose at him. “Er...” He tried to seal his mouth and break eye contact with Sanzo, but Sanzo snorted.
“No, no, go on. You come up with something that rhymes with sarcasm and makes sense, and I'll stop acting like an asshole.” Sanzo actually smirked at him, and Kougaiji couldn't keep the anxiety from making his entire core wobble like he'd been filled with wild birds. Gods, why did he have to be everything Kougaiji wanted and wished for, and yet such an unimaginable ass?!
Unable to bear looking at Sanzo a second longer and unwilling to dare Sanzo to taunt him further, Kougaiji turned a glower towards the wall. “Fine, but give me a quiet minute to think.”
Sanzo 'hmph'ed again, but he acquiesced with silence, becoming more interested in his cigarette than Kougaiji. Kougaiji found himself stealing glances as he pretended to think about it, trying not to admit that when Sanzo was at peace, he had an unearthly beauty to him. The confidence he evinced bolstered that, his conviction and dedication to his path, he stood like a beacon. Kougaiji wasn't sure where he stood on wanting to be like him or just wanting to stand at his side, no matter how distant his path was from Sanzo's.
But good Gods, if he didn't wind Sanzo up! Kougaiji felt like that same overdone string whenever Sanzo taunted him, wound too tight. When he wasn't envying Sanzo, he wanted to kill him, and it just made him feel like he could burst!
“So,” Sanzo interrupted, sending a thrill down Kougaiji's spine at the tease barely disguised under his tenor, wearing that smirk again, “Anything?”
Kougaiji snapped and whipped around on Sanzo: “Rudeness and sarcasm and in need of an orgasm.”
Sanzo seemed to lock up, eyes wide, cigarette falling from between his fingers unfinished. Kougaiji's heart stopped cold, as he realized he'd said that out loud. Sanzo's shock morphed to his usual hard expression, that stern, proud look Kougaiji knew too well, and he crossed the narrow space they were trapped in with three long strides, all but pinning Kougaiji to the wall with his very presence. "Repeat that."
Kougaiji, compelled, complied: "Rudeness. Sarcasm. And you need an orgasm." He peeled his shoulders off the wall to stand tall, but Sanzo stomped his boot against the sheer clay beside Kougaiji's ribcage, pinning him there in earnest.
Kougaiji knew now what it meant to be on the knife's edge, because he could feel the prick of that happy dagger against his breast now. He wasn't sure if he wanted to fight back or just wait for Sanzo to twist the knife. For a split second, Kougaiji wished he'd fallen on his sword for a split second, because however Sanzo was about to kill him would likely be as painful as the ache in Kougaiji's breast when he tried not to think about Sanzo. Instead, Sanzo leaned in, as if the air weren't as thick as the clay around him and as if he could still breathe, and demanded, “Was that an offer?”
Kougaiji exhaled slowly, and canted his head forward. “Was that you accepting, Genjo?”
That cut the tension as sure as if they'd slashed at it or shot it straight through, and Sanzo dove forward to seal his lips over Kougaiji's.
This was a change in everything that Kougaiji would never complain about, even if it came from the bottom of a dark place.