One Bird to Sing (the Origami remix) [Saiyuki; Son Goku; G]

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Title: One Bird to Sing (the Origami remix)
Author: Oyce (springgreen)
Summary: Birds and bees, life and death, and the sun shining through it all.
Fandom: Saiyuki
Characters: Son Goku
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Alas, they are all Minekura Kazuya's. I just borrow them for fun.
Original story: Untitled by tad_coast, with additional inspiration taken from Between Lives
Notes: Many thanks to my very excellent betas, yhlee, untrue_accounts and minnow1212, and many thanks to tad_coast for the inspiration and the stories.

One Bird to Sing (the Origami remix)

Silence. Blessed silence, Konzen would have once termed it.

These days, the lack of Goku's cacophony indicated not peace, but rather, trouble elsewhere.

Konzen sighed and waved his just-stamped document around to dry the ink. He clung to the faint hope that Goku had only managed to get in the way of lower-level officials, as opposed to Li Touten, who was already too interested in Goku and the possibility of another taishi, or, Heaven forbid, Kanzeon, who would only make more comments about being the sun for certain monkeys.

Amazingly, Goku was planted on the floor, head hanging out of the window.

Konzen hoped that Goku hadn't fallen asleep like that. He rubbed his neck in sympathy. But no: sleeping, Goku snored terribly, tossed and turned, mumbled nonsense that just might be the words for "hunger" or "sun" in the ancient language of stones.

"Ne, Konzen?" Goku asked, head still out of the window.

"What?" he snapped, oddly irritated by the silence. He had grown used to the not-quite-music of Goku's existence: snoring and jumping and begging and wailing, grumbling stomach and pounding feet, bursts of laughter breaking his concentration.

"What are those?" Goku asked.

"The leaves?"

"No, the flappy things."

"The birds?"

"Birds!" Goku said. "Can I be a bird?"

"No," Konzen replied, "you're a stupid monkey, and you're making my neck sore."

Goku pulled his head out of the window, clambered onto Konzen's bed and bounced, all the while yelling, "Bird! Bird bird bird bird bird!"

Konzen told himself to leave well enough alone, even as he found himself relaxing infinitesimally.

* * *

Over time (and he has no shortage of time) he learns to hear the rock around him. He dreams in whispers, faint hints of the slow movement of continents and the rumbling of molten currents below. He wakes to the sound of fluttering paper and yearns for the voices of mountains.

One day (one in an unending stream of thousands) he wakes to song. "Bird?" he says, voice rusted, and he barely remembers the feeling of vibrations in his throat.

* * *

"Ten-chan!" Tenpou grinned at the now-familiar moniker as he caught the running boy in his arms.

"Goku! How are you?" he asked.

"Bird!" said Goku.

"Don't ask," said Konzen simultaneously.

"Bird!" Goku said again. "Bird bird bird!"

"Bird?" Tenpou asked, setting Goku down. Goku scampered off to race around Konzen's desk, arms outstretched.

"Bird," Konzen replied. "He wants a bird? He wants to be a bird? He wants to fly? I have no idea!"

Opportunity! Tenpou thought. His three-hour-long meeting on budgets and logistics for the Western Army was just about to start; he would send his apologies to the assorted officials in charge. Clearly he was needed here to avert an upcoming catastrophe.

"Do you have any paper?" he asked Konzen, attempting to ignore the one-monkey chorus of "Bird bird bird!" in the background.

"Take some. Take any!" Konzen said.

Tenpou grabbed whatever was closest, amused by Goku's crude stick-figure rendition of Konzen.

"Wait, no, not that one."

Tenpou put it down and moved toward what may have been tidy stack prior to an encounter with Goku.

"No, I need to reorganize those. No, not that stack. No, can't you see I just took care of that one?"

The stack was askew, papers sticking out every which way, corners bent.

"Oh, just take this!" Konzen snapped, handing him something covered in seals and graceful calligraphy.

"Ah, thank you."

He took the piece of paper and maneuvered out of the way of Goku's widening orbit. Goku was slowing down and possibly quieting down somewhat, though it was difficult to tell the difference between "loud" and "very loud." Tenpou quickly thanked the deity who hadn’t granted Goku infinite lung capacity (probably not Kanzeon).

A few deft folds later, he presented Goku with a paper crane. "Look, Goku. Bird."

Goku stopped short of running into Tenpou, eyes wide, mouth open.

"Ooooo," he said. "Can it fly?"

"Well, this one can't, but..."

Goku sped off, chanting once more. Konzen groaned.

"Goku, would you like to make a flying bird with me?" he quickly asked in an effort to stop Konzen from beating his head against a wall, or, worse, from beating Goku's head against a wall.

"Bird?" Goku asked, pausing.

"Bird. Flying bird."

Goku grinned and plopped down on the floor. Tenpou snatched another paper from a random stack as he knelt, daring Konzen to protest as Konzen's mouth opened. Konzen shut his mouth and met Tenpou's smile with a glare.

"You may as well show me too," Konzen said, gracefully sitting.

The two folded in silence as Tenpou showed them how to make paper airplanes. Tenpou folded his sloppily, not bothering to perfect the familiar pattern, while Konzen measured degrees between knife-sharp creases, brow furrowed in concentration. Goku — well, Goku's didn't look like much.

In the first test flight, Konzen's slim plane nosedived to the accompaniment of curses and loud monkey laughter.

"Oi, Tenpou, you here?" Kenren interrupted, stepping into the room. "The logistics guys are looking for you."

Tenpou's plane flew a straight line, only to crash land, moored in the spikes of Kenren's hair.

Kenren plucked it out. "Paper airplanes?"

"Birds," Tenpou and Konzen chorused in unison.

Kenren opened his mouth, presumably confused.

Tenpou shrugged.

Kenren closed his mouth. "All right," he said. "Birds."

"Ken-nii-chan, I made a bird!" Goku said, hands opening to reveal crumpled paper. "But mine won't fly like Ten-chan's."

"Are you sure about that?" Kenren asked. He grabbed the ball of crumpled paper and threw it at Tenpou. "It's flying now."

Tenpou batted it out of the way and into Konzen's face.

Goku told Tenpou: "I like the birds outside better. These aren't as interesting."

* * *

His own voice frightens him. He has been too long alone, and he takes the streams of the mountain for his blood, the sharp wind for his voice, the cold stone for flesh and bone.

But it returns (bird, he says again, mouth shaping the syllable carefully), and he slowly remembers the twitch of muscle and the dart of eye, remembers language and name and word.

It flies off once more, and this time, he reaches for paper and folds and folds.

* * *

Kenren shook off the familiar mix of homesickness and homecoming that always accompanied a trip back from the lower world — homesickness for the world he just left, homecoming for the people he was returning to. He bore gifts for them: sesame chicken instant ramen for Tenpou's growing collection of flavors, metallic gel pens and white-out for Konzen, and an egg for Goku.

Goku stared as Kenren placed it in his hands.

"Ne, Goku, do you know where birds come from?" Kenren asked.

Goku shook his head.

"... so then, one bird will build a nest and lay eggs — this is an egg — there. She'll sit on them until they hatch into baby birds ..."

Did eggs even hatch into baby birds in Heaven? Next time, he would have to accompany Goku on a tree-climbing expedition to find out. For now, he enjoyed Goku's rapt attention, ruffling Goku's hair as Goku exclaimed, "Wooooow, Ken-nii-chan knows everything!"

A few light footsteps announced Konzen's entrance, though Kenren continued talking to try and keep Goku engrossed.

But he should have known better; Goku's face was admiring before, but it lit up as Goku turned his eyes from Kenren to Konzen. Heh. You'd think his sour face was the sun itself.

"What are you telling him?" Konzen asked suspiciously.

"Not much,” Kenren replied. "Bird and bees."

Before Konzen could spit out whatever was twisting his mouth, Goku ran, and Goku tripped, and Goku slammed the egg into Konzen's midsection.

"Is it still going to be a bird?" Goku asked, yolk and albumen and shell on his hands. He absent-mindedly wiped them on Konzen's tunic, which earned him a cuff to the ear.

"Well," Kenren said. "I actually got it at a supermarket, so this particular one never would have been a bird anyway."

"Can I have another one?"

Kenren looked at Konzen, who shrugged. "As long as I don't have to get it. Or clean it up."

Kenren eyed Konzen's stained clothing and snickered. He would have to relay the story to Tenpou, hopefully over sake and under sakura, the full moon illuminating them both. He would, of course, be laughing his ass off, but more, he wanted to see Tenpou smiling the wide smile that meant he was laughing his ass off on the inside.

But then he remembered why, despite the homecoming that Tenpou and Goku and even Konzen were, why he was forever homesick for a world he had only visited.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea here," Kenren said.

"How about down there?" Goku asked.

* * *

He reaches, arms through the bars, thorns of stone pressing into his cheeks and chest. But his fingers stop short; it's not enough, it's never enough, he will be here in the cold and the dark, no hand in his hair, no call of his name.

(Always, he thinks, and he remembers what a terrible thing language is.)

The bird lies on its side, unmoving.

He lies down as well, cradled among piles of folded paper, hand outstretched for warmth or sun or living being.

* * *

It was strange outside of the mountain. He skipped and jumped, gloried in the living grass beneath his feet and the chirp of birds and the buzz of bugs and the flutter of leaves all around.

"My name's Goku!" he told the man, or tried to. The man didn't seem too interested in learning Goku's name or letting Goku know his. "Hey, can ya tell me your name?" he asked.

There were too many sounds to remember, so Goku shortened it for his own convenience.

"Sanzo!" he said, trying it out. "Sanzoooooooo, Sanzooooooooo, Sanzooooooooooo!"

He was delighted by the sound of his voice in the air, and he could care less if this Sanzo person glared at him and yelled at him. He was alive and there was a person who saw him and talked to him and fed him, and even though the man had long, flappy sleeves, he couldn't fly off and leave.

"Sanzo sanzo sanzo sanzo!" he said, letting the name turn to syllables and the syllables turn to sound.

He stopped.

"Sanzo? I think I'm hungry again," Goku said.

He stared at the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun as he chewed and swallowed. They were just as amazing as the greens and browns at his feet. And then he forgot to notice color as he was overwhelmed by taste.

Goku thought he should do something for Sanzo, who had already shown him more in a few minutes than he had ever seen before. As Sanzo napped under the tree (tree! with leaves! and squirrels and birds!), he dug around.

He found crinkled paper in Sanzo's bag by the food, and he tried to make Sanzo something. In the end, he couldn't quite figure out what it was, but he had gotten black smudges all over his hands and dirtied Sanzo's robe in an attempt to wipe them clean. And his paper thing could fly.

Sort of.

If he threw it really hard.

He poked Sanzo. Sanzo woke up with a start and a grumble, gun in hand.

"Look! For you!" Goku said, undeterred by the weapon.

The gun disappeared into Sanzo's sleeve, and Sanzo snatched the paper thing away. Before Goku could even anticipate a smile, he had been whacked on the head by the thing he had made.

"Shitty ape!" Sanzo yelled. "What did you do to my newspaper?"

* * *

Crooked lines of insects march toward the bird's body; an inky moving layer of flies later turns to writhing white. The constant wind drives away the smell, but he finds he prefers rancidity to cold ozone.

Time passes. Feathers reveal flesh reveals bone. He waits for another bird to visit, or even a worm (in vain).

One day (one of thousands of millions stretching to infinity) a voice breaks the silence. Nothing so sweet as song, but rough words are music enough. Sleeves like wings reach out, his hand rises, and the shackles fall.

In that moment, he is no longer a monkey born of rock and chained to stone, and his heart wings its way to the harsh golden light.

* * *

It was just another pit stop on their interminable journey. This inn was no different from all the others: giant round tables in the dining area with plates of slightly greasy food, rooms furnished with thin and lumpy mattresses on top of bare metal bed stands. The bedside tables had so many scratches and water rings that no one would notice if Gojyo put his cigarette out on the table instead of in his beer can.

Sanzo and Gojyo smoked so much that Goku could actually see which way the air currents in the room were moving. Hakkai opened the windows and let the wind gust in; it ushered in a smattering of rain. Stupid cave-like room, Goku grumbled to himself.

Goku whined, "Hakkai, it's freezing!"

Hakkai laughed. "Now, Goku, what's a little cold compared to the possibility of lung cancer?"

He could have protested and said his youkai lungs probably wouldn't mind. But that would have reminded Hakkai of his gut wound and Gojyo of his red hair, and then Goku remembered that Sanzo's lungs weren't as hardy as his. He shrugged and saved his energy for more important things.

"Are there any leftovers?" he asked.

"You ate them all, you bottomless pit of a monkey!" Gojyo yelled.

"Nuh-uh! You were shovin' stuff down pretty fast too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Shut up! Shut up or you'll both wish I had thrown you out of the window the last time we stopped!" Sanzo waved his Smith & Wesson in their general direction.

"Now, now."

As usual, Hakkai's placating voice didn't come fast enough, and Gojyo and Goku cowered as they attempted to dodge bullets.

"Die. Now."

"Fuck! What was that for?" Goku heard as he grabbed some paper and scurried out of the room in an attempt to save his own hide. He would give it about an hour — judging from the number of bullets and the level of yelling, that was probably how long it'd take for Sanzo to calm down.

Well, as much as Sanzo ever did.

Despite the healthy breeze — Hakkai's term, Goku thought it was more of an icy wind — the smoke still curlicued through the air when Goku returned.

"Look," Goku said, "I made us birds!"

Hakkai and Gojyo were nowhere to be found, and Sanzo didn't even bother turning around before aiming a few bullets in his general direction.

"Hey!"

"Give me back my newspaper, asshole."

Sanzo turned, and Goku smiled to himself because the glasses were on. Sanzo's shirt was off; Goku counted Sanzo's ribs, briefly recalling a feather-light skeleton outside an echoing cave.

Sanzo really needed to eat more.

Goku pulled his arm back, sent the paper bird floating into Sanzo's hair.

"I didn't mean to give it back like that," Sanzo grumped. Goku sheepishly grinned in an attempt to hide his surprise: no whack on the head?

"Where did you learn how to make paper airplanes anyway?" Sanzo asked, voice uncharacteristically soft.

"Paper airplanes? Huh? 's a bird!" he protested, somewhat unsettled by an ungrumpy Sanzo.

"Stupid monkey."

Sanzo slowly uncreased each fold, smoothed the paper down, then just as carefully folded it back into a crane.

"But it won't fly."

"No," Sanzo said. "Not everything can."

Goku snatched the crane out of Sanzo's hands, hasty fingers crumpling the wings.

"Sure they can!" he said, tossing the crane at Sanzo.

He aimed the other airplanes — birds — at Sanzo's head. One plummeted to the dingy carpet, one soared briefly before lazily spiraling down, and one hit Sanzo in the nose.

"See?" Goku grinned. "I like mine better."