Under the cut. Thanks to mendax for the beta. Minor spoilers for something in...I think volume 8 of Reload.



Gat unsettles Sanzo. He's too quiet, too calm, too steady. Sanzo's accustomed to noise, chaos, demands. Gat just...is.

Gat calmly snapped his life in two for the sake of principle, which strikes Sanzo as both clearly right and unimaginably dumbheaded.

There are only a few people Sanzo knows who would do something so stupid, and he's trying very hard not to think about them.

He rubs his temples. It's been a long day. He is tired of dealing with Gat, and still more of his infuriating master.

He can hear Gat coming into the room, and that's unsettling too; he's so used to feeling presence, life, that Gat's lack of it disquiets him on an almost constant basis.

Sanzo feels very tired.

Gat sits next to him. He may be dead, but he's warm. "Are you hungry?"

Sanzo shrugs his shoulders.

"Hazel's worried," he said.

"I'm not warming up the way he'd hoped?"

Gat chuckles, low in his throat. "You're a wanted man, you know."

Sanzo's smile is wry. "I have been for years."

Sanzo is used to people looking at him; he is used to others' desire, so thick and close it threatens to choke him. Gat's gaze is dark and steady. Perhaps it is easy to live lightly when your life has already ended.

He takes a deep, slow breath. "Did Hazel put you up to this?"

A ghost of a smile flickers across Gat's face. "Do you really think he would?"

Sanzo shakes his head and leans up. Gat's lips are dry and his breath tastes like dust, but it doesn't seem to matter.