Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Tainted Souls ❯ Part 2 ( Chapter 2 )

He is quiet as a panther, but still I wake.

I never sleep well when it rains. I don't have to hear it fall; it's as if there is some connection between the sky and my heart, and when one weeps, so does the other. Odd, how it only seems to go in one direction, the rain falling into me and not the other way around.

I wonder what he's doing. Not peeing and not smoking. Curious. He's not usually this restless. One sleek fuck and he passes right out.

He must have thought I was sleeping this time. I do wonder what he's doing, but I'm not about to let on that I'm awake. Not after he tried so hard to tire me out so I'd sleep through the storm. Dear man, but he just doesn't understand, even after all this time.

I never sleep well, when it rains.

The voices of the dead drown out the howling winds and mutter past the spattering raindrops. They shriek and plead and laugh madly and dare me to let my guard down for just a moment, so they can find the soft parts and rip them asunder. The voices of the dead are always with me, but they don't seem to like the sunshine very much.

They aren't the only ones daring me to drop my guard, to lower the drawbridge and let the gates fall aside. Gojyo dares me far more recklessly. I resent that. He doesn't know. He can't know, how hard it is for me to keep this guardant wall around my soul, a wall to keep the innocent out of the tainted quagmire that is me.

Yes, the capricious water spirit is reckless as hell. And stubborn. What he wants, he will find a way to get. Even if it kills him.

I shudder under the scratchy blanket and hope he did not notice. Tears seep like blood from my mortal eye. He would push me until I killed him, and then I would have nothing.

I know he grieves for what he cannot have, and it burns in my chest to think about it. My emotions are in such violent turmoil where he is concerned, I would almost prefer the company of my ghosts. At least I cannot harm them anymore.

The way he looks at me, when we are alone. The way he moves, so carelessly sexual, so blatantly confident. Oh, gods, help me. I can withstand the swords of a thousand demons, but I cannot withstand him.

I try to push him away, every time he might think of being intimate with me. I remind him of the town girls and how disappointed they will be if he doesn't visit. I remind him of Sanzo and Goku on the other side of a flimsy wall, and how they would hear us. I tell him I'm too tired.

Sometimes I cannot bear to push him away.

Tonight I allowed him to pull me close, to press his lean muscled body against me, to flood my soul with his desire. I allowed him to strip away the layers of my clothing as if I were a bride, too shy to do it myself. I know he likes it that way.

Tonight I allowed him to touch me with his hands and his tongue and his intentions. He is mesmerizing in his lust, and he caught me up in his passion and lifted me up in his arms and I want him, oh gods I want him!

He took me powerfully, tenderly, deliberately. It was all I could do to make no loud noises. All I wanted was to scream his name to heaven, but I didn't want the others to hear and lose sleep for it. I clung to his shoulders, my short fingernails digging crescents into his skin. I hung on for dear life, eyes squeezed shut as I started to come.

Then, as sudden as a fall, I saw the abyss looming before me, and all I had to do was let go of my self for a moment and I would spin away and fall into those mocking voices that never let me sleep when it rained, never let me rest when I was weary, never let me love again with all the honesty of my soul.

As my grateful body shuddered and spilled seed across my scarred belly, my mind snapped back to itself and slammed the gate tight shut. I opened my eyes a crack, to see if he'd noticed, but he seemed lost in his own climax. Good. I rode his passion with him, thrilling as always at the way his lean frame shuddered and gleamed with sweat that I had wrung from him.

But instead of sleeping, he had waited until he thought I slept, then had stolen from our bed in silence.

I lie there, knowing that he stands or sits near the window, counting his heartbeats between the lightning and the thunder, watching the storm outside play itself through. I know, too, that there is a storm raging within him, as it raged within myself.

My pillow is wet with my rain.

Suddenly I hope that he notices my trembling shoulders, the silent heaving breath that has nothing to do with passion. I want him to know how much it hurts, locking him out of my heart when all I need in the world is him.

But I cannot let my shadow have him.

It wants him, oh yes. I can feel it, when the voices are loudest, and it wants him. I become that which I despise, and that is the rapist who destroyed my human heart. To lose Gojyo would destroy whatever sort of thing took the place of my heart, so many rain-filled nights ago. And the shadow wants it destroyed, so it will have no challenge.

No. Even if I must break his heart, I will not allow the darkness that is me to harm him.

Tomorrow night I will share a room with Sanzo. I might talk to him about this, I might keep silent.

And Gojyo will tease and antagonize Goku to fill the empty hours as he wonders what he did wrong, why I pushed him away yet again, why I'm playing hot and cold with his feelings, as he wonders everything but what is.

I love him.

And I would rip out my own heart before allowing my shadow self to touch him.