[fic] Balloons 2
Oct. 7th, 2010 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keTitle: Balloons
Rating: none
Pairings: 39, past Sanzo/Koumyou
Genre: AU WAFF
Wordcount: 50k, total.
Warnings: Koumyou is dead. Also, before the pairings squick you out, for the purposes of this fic Koumyou was never Sanzo's father figure. Might contain wacky adventures.
Summary: Sanzo hates the park, Hakkai, Gojyo, people and the world. He likes his OCD and his job as a professional Internet troll. He likes his unapologetic, rampant atheism. The universe sets out to prove him wrong.
Author's Note: Very loosely based on the (awesome and amazing) movie Up! This is actually a “light” version of the bunny – the original explored the pitfalls of reincarnation and crushed your soul.
The story is finished and will be posted whole over the next three weeks, maybe a little more (there is sixteen chapters, total). Doing it like this, because a/ I need a pick-me-up right now, and b/ have internet issues, posting the whole thing in one go would be a pain, c/ I figure this will make reading easier for you. So, enjoy!
Betaed bykispexi2, who graciously stepped in to help. <3 Thank you, hun!
Sanzo liked sleeping in. Used to like sleeping in. These days his brain fought him every step of the way, and won most of the time. He rolled off the futon at seven in the morning and followed up with a string of curses.
He made himself a coffee and returned to the living room, to drink it while scoffing at the world through the curtained window. Of course scoffing at anything was impossible with thick material blocking the view, so Sanzo settled for peering through a crack between the curtains.
“What the fuck,” he said to himself when, halfway through his coffee, he spied with his little eye something golden brown, moving quickly through the park.
It was the dumb mutt, with the dog on a short leash.
Sanzo took a sip of his coffee and pulled at the curtain, to get a better view. Goku was jogging, and fuck if that didn’t make him look like a normal person. He looked more comfortable running than Sanzo ever did, and that was considering Sanzo didn’t have to worry about tripping up over an inconvenient rock.
Sanzo was a little impressed. He figured it was because of the early hour.
He finished his coffee, washed the cup and had a shower. This served to wake him up, as much as anyone can be said to be awake at seven thirty a.m. By noon he had a flamewar going on nicely, and half a post written out about it, which would surely set off another. He spent the rest of the day detailing the many reasons owners of dogs should be shot. Then, as a breather, he wrote a piece about an average Joe Slob being harassed by a mutated potato.
Halfway through the task the phone rang, a disquieting break in the routine.
“What?” Sanzo asked, wedging the receiver between his ear and shoulder.
“Good morning, Sanzo.”
Fuck the lawyers, Sanzo thought. He hated being called by lawyers. They should be disqualified from the human race. “What do you want, Ukoku?”
“I am merely calling to inquire after your health.”
“I’m alive.”
“That’s splendid. Now, there is this semi-formal party, a very private affair, twenty guests at the most…”
“Not interested. Stop harassing me, or I’ll sue,” Sanzo said and ended the call. The man wouldn’t take no for an answer, ever. Thank god he was less invested than Hakkai, or else Sanzo would have to emigrate.
He went back to his writing. Around lunch he made himself a piece toast. Three hours later he had ramen and then, when suppertime rolled around, he drank a beer.
Goku must live close by, he thought randomly, in the middle of writing an anonymous comment to clarissa992’s mindless droning. If he was in the park this often, at these hours, he must live close. The thought stopped his fingers in their movement and led him to staring at the ceiling in consideration. He was sure he had never met Goku previously, though of course that wasn’t surprising – with the exception of the outings Hakkai sponsored and enforced, he’d hardly left the house in the past two years, so it would have been perfectly possible for a Stadium to have been built around the corner, equipped with its own football team to pose naked for the press, without him knowing about it.
No, Gojyo would probably have let him know if that was the case. Knowing Gojyo, he’d have provided photographic proof.
As was often the case with Sanzo’s life, the moment he incautiously mentioned Gojyo’s name, even if it was in his thoughts only, the doorbell rang.
“Ahoy, monk-boy. How’s life in the fortress of solitude?”
“It was splendid, until a troll showed up.”
“You ready for the movie and dinner?” Gojyo loitered in the doorway, which in Sanzo’s professional opinion was all the moron was good for, anyway.
“So long as we stop by the gun store and pick up extra ammo so I can blow my brains out.”
“Sorry, they’re fresh out. Plus, Hakkai insists I frisk you before we leave.”
“Touch me and I break all of your limbs.”
“Hakkai said you’d say that.”
“Does it ever occur to you that you are his bitch?”
“Dude, harsh. Most people start with ‘whipped’.”
“You passed whipped going five hundred miles an hour and playing the fucking pipes years ago. You are his bitch.”
Gojyo considered. “Yeah, but I’m getting sex out of it. Lots and lots of sex. You get bossed around for no reason at all.”
Sanzo wasn’t about to concede the point, though the insult stung. “Suppose I called the police?”
“Suppose you shut up and get in the car? I mean, I’m just saying, this would be a surprise, for once.”
Because Sanzo felt like it, he shut up and got into the car. Gojyo, once he collected his jaw from the floor, followed.
******
“Sanzo, such a nice surprise.”
“You being able to say that with a straight face, that’s a surprise.”
“We are in agreement then. It is nice to see you, all the same. You look well.”
Sanzo rolled his eyes.
“No, I mean it. You seem better.”
“I’ve been shooting up heroin. I have since met the pope in his pointy hat and a number of aliens,” Sanzo said, never breaking eye contact.
“That is wonderful news. Do you have preference for which movie we see?”
“Whatever.” Sanzo made a beeline for the liquor cabinet, studiously pretending to ignore the conversation taking place behind his back.
“What, you ain’t gonna check his arms?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Needle-marks, perhaps?”
“Sanzo wouldn’t actually abuse illegal substances, Gojyo. He is not stupid.”
“No, but he is not above shooting up so that he could tell you he’s shooting up and have you not believe him in the slightest.”
Sanzo could practically hear Hakkai consider, he could feel the penetrative glance being sent his way. With utmost difficulty he stopped himself from rolling up his sleeves in demonstration.
“That is true,” Hakkai said.
“I’m not doing drugs,” Sanzo said out loud, pouring himself another whiskey and lighting up. “I’m not a moron.”
“I disagree, with all due respect, but I am glad you have abstained from terminal stupidity. I do wish you didn’t smoke.”
“What, am I not going to get the health speech?” Sanzo asked when Hakkai offered no further comment and, although much of his sneering had been in jest or at least jittering on the thin edge between jest and serious intent to offend, this time his voice had gained a truly dark undertone, one which dared Hakkai, his one and only friend -- discounting Gojyo, though he probably shouldn’t count -- to risk a comment.
“I think you are well aware of the risks of smoking, Sanzo,” Hakkai replied icily. “What you do to your own body I have no control over. I will, however, have to insist that you don’t subject me to second-hand smoke.”
“Like you don’t get enough by sleeping too close to him.”
“The campaign is under way,” Hakkai just said, and Gojyo whipped around so fast his hair caught fire.
“What? What campaign?”
“You’ll find out in due time.” Hakkai had a smirk on his face that was likely aimed at unnerving but missed the intended effect by a million miles and dove straight into creepy instead. Sanzo imagined that something much like the expression was what the victims of a shark took to their watery grave. “Now, what are we watching?”
******
Sanzo, despite appearances, wasn’t entirely deprived of common sense. He knew he was being irrational. He knew he was blowing things way out of proportion and he knew -- oh god, he knew -- that were he a bystander he would have rolled his eyes and told the pathetic loser grieving for years after his lover’s demise to man up and deal. It wasn’t the end of the world, after all. He had no debts, no obligations, no on-going drama in his life, a steady income, a comfortable flat and two infuriating but loyal people, who’d stuck by him through two years of self-enforced misery.
Sanzo didn’t hate Hakkai for micromanaging his life and he didn’t hate him for getting him to leave the house now and then. Maybe, if he were better adjusted, he would have been thankful. Maybe he still would utter thanks, in a future so far he’d have to take a hoverbus to let Hakkai know anything.
The thing was -- and Sanzo liked to think this was his secret, despite all the sneaking suspicions he had of Hakkai having his number and how -- the thing was that he was quite possibly the winner of the worst adjusted human being in existence.
This was not an exaggeration: he’d been a withdrawn, sneering, insufferable child, he knew as much. Then he’d grown into a withdrawn, sneering, insufferable teenager, doomed to end his life in a boring job that he hated, stuck in an empty apartment, living on beer and snacks. Then he’d met Koumyou, who’d been zen: mellow, unfazed – even amused – by his attitude, and therefore intensely fascinating. Koumyou was the first person, first anything, Sanzo had ever found himself wanting, and that was such a new and foreign sensation he had to pause to mull it over. He’d never wanted things before. He had things, sure. He got things before he could want them; he had sycophants by the bucket-load, but not many friends, and so when Koumyou entered his life he’d been smitten.
Neither had been the poster boy for romance, and that was without the student/teacher thing standing in their way, so what had happened between them had been slow like the mating of snails. Sanzo had been happy. Koumyou -- well, if Koumyou had ever been unhappy, with anything at all, he never let it show.
It was possible he’d have been smiling like a loon whilst he was being murdered. He certainly looked like a loon when the cancer decided that eating his lungs wasn’t enough and it was going after the stomach and the brain for shits and giggles. By the end he was still smiling and his smile kept haunting Sanzo long after the burial, like Koumyou had been Lewis Carrol’s Cheshire Cat. All the rest had faded, and yet the smile had remained, hovering behind every piece of furniture in Sanzo’s flat and on every glassy surface.
That was why Sanzo got rid of everything, as everything reminded him of Koumyou; every piece of polished mahogany, every Chinese scroll Koumyou was so fond of. He couldn’t bear to leave the flat, for pretty much the exact same reasons, but all the furniture went to Goodwill, along with the old fridge. The new one was the single luxury Sanzo allowed himself after Koumyou passed – his desk was cheap, the futon was cheap, the chair gave him backache, but the fridge was a huge, shiny monstrosity that took up space and consumed electricity like a Las Vegas casino.
It did keep his beer cool, though, and that was important.
******
The week that followed the single most exciting thing to happen to Sanzo in over a year was slow. Sanzo greeted Thursday with trepidation and a dollop of excitement, which he did his best to squash. Hakkai’s customary call went as usual and so at three to four Sanzo found himself in the park, under the same tree he’d sat under previously.
Half an hour later he was still sitting there, unbothered. He would have liked to say he was relieved, but the truth of the matter was becoming more and more apparent. Much as it pained him – he was rather looking forward to seeing Goku. His life was so empty and bereft of human contact that even the half an hour spent on feeling emotionally inferior to a guy who needed a dog to cross a street was a highlight.
Sanzo realised that of the past two years he’d very little, if any memories, and most of them involved Gojyo and Hakkai. One particularly memorable was of Gojyo pushing him off a platform suspended two hundred feet above a lawn and the massive row that followed.
The following month Sanzo had been pushed out of an aeroplane.
“Hi Sanzo!”
“Christ, you were supposed to be blind!”
Goku had the gall to look confused. “I don’t get it.”
“How the fuck did you know it was me?”
“Your cologne smells really nice, plus Dug barked all happy-like. He likes you.”
“I have no idea why.” Sanzo leaned his head against the tree trunk and watched Goku’s round face light up with a smile.
“Dug is real friendly, but he doesn’t like like a lot of people. So when he likes you, I know you’re okay.”
“Clearly factoring in the fact that he is a dog and would slobber on anybody who offered him food, are you?” But this just reinforced Goku’s argument, rather than disprove it, as Sanzo had nothing on him that a dog would enjoy. Not even smell, as his breakfast that morning had been a beer and some crackers.
“Dug wouldn’t!”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”
“I will and I’ll be right every time,” Goku said, once more demonstrating a complete lack of awareness for common human conversation milestones. Sanzo’s comment would have offended anyone, through the magic of sardonic delivery, except apparently Goku.
Sanzo shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.
“Absolutely. Are you hungry? I’m starving. Wanna get something to eat?”
And so Sanzo ended up following the blind guy to a kebab place, because everyone knows that eating leaking food out of a paper cone is a brilliant plan when you can’t see it drip. Of course, Sanzo’s luck was such that he was the one to dump the concoction on his own trousers, while Goku finished off by wiping a stray droplet of sauce from his nose with a napkin.
No, Sanzo didn’t believe it either. He also found it hard to believe he’d voluntarily spent time with someone outside, when Hakkai devoted hours of his time to getting him to sit under a tree for an hour each week.
“This is not a date,” he said, seconds after the horrible thought occurred to him, however his scandalised tone only got a raised brow from Goku.
“Well, duh,” Goku said. “I barely know you.”
“So long as that’s clear.”
Sanzo would think on his way back home that he should have added a vehement demand that this never be a date. Hell, he should have demanded that he never be bothered again, for as long as he lived, and that Goku move to the other side of the country, finally get a clue and start living like a normal blind person. Not like a happy freak, who went around bouncing and smiling and pretending everything was okay. Nothing was ever fucking okay and sooner or later the world would fuck the moron over and then he’d see how despicable it really was.
That reflection would come later. For now Sanzo was eager enough to grunt and murmur through a conversation Goku seemed to be having with the dog.
It was something of a shock to realize the monkey -- he was a monkey, not matter what ha had to say about it -- was speaking to him, when he used a tone Sanzo’s would have called condescending, if it wasn’t for the fact this kid looked to be as capable of being condescending as he was of flying.
“Are you under the impression I’m ten?” Sanzo asked, just to make sure.
“No, most ten-year-olds I know don’t have such filthy mouths.”
“Clearly, you live in the better part of town.”
“Like you don’t?”
“I’m also not a dog. Try to speak like an adult.”
“Sorry. I don’t get to speak to people much,” Goku said, blushing. “Even I’m not deluded enough to expect dogs to talk back, though.”
“Even you?”
“Everyone always says I’m too happy and optimistic, and that it can’t end well, but I dunno, so far it’s worked out great for me.”
“Except for being blind,” Sanzo said, not really caring how loathsome it must have sounded. “You can’t tell me that’s a picnic.”
Goku was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah. I mean no, it isn’t. ‘S why I’m so happy I’ve got Dug now, he’s awesome.”
“He’s a dog.”
“That’s why it’s awesome. He doesn’t have to think about staying, cuz he’s my dog, and he loves me, so he stays no matter what.”
“He’s a dog,” Sanzo repeated. “He doesn’t think.”
“Now, that’s bullshit! Dogs think, and they have feelings, too. Just because he doesn’t write emo poetry doesn’t mean he’s never sad.”
This was a sentiment Sanzo had encountered from many dog owners. Hard to believe when the bundles of stinky fur seemed to have two faces, one panting and one growling, to show the world. “Dogs look the same to me.”
“That’s because you never had one.” Goku grinned his distracting grin and produced a doggy treat out of thin air. “Look at his eyes.”
Sanzo looked and yeah, the mutt was following the treat with his eyes, which crinkled at the corners. His grin got even wider, but still the dog made no move towards the cookie, or whatever it was. He just looked and – Sanzo was willing to bet – chanted “gimmegimmegimme” inside. When the treat was offered on an open palm Dug took it with one long swipe of the tongue. His grin was so wide, it transcended his muzzle.
“See? He liked this treat! You can’t tell me you didn’t see it.”
“And you know this how? He didn’t even bark.”
“Same way I know you don’t really mind sitting here, with me,” Goku said looking at Sanzo seriously. “I got a feeling.”
“That’s idiotic. Of course I mind,” Sanzo started to say, but was interrupted by a high-pitched whine from Dug. Goku started and turned his whole attention to the mutt, muttering questions he wasn’t going to get an answer to, and growing more and more agitated when the dog started swaying where he sat.
There was a dart sticking out from his side. Goku’s fingers encountered it seconds before Dug collapsed into his master’s arms. “Dug!” he cried, hugging the animal to his chest.
Before the scene could degenerate into sidewalk melodrama, there was a whooshing sound, no louder than the buzz of a mosquito, and a second dart appeared, this one in the side of Goku’s neck. Sanzo saw Goku turn in his direction with eyes widened enough to transmit more question marks than should be possible, before something bit his neck as well.
“Oh fuck,” he said before everything disappeared.
TBC
Rating: none
Pairings: 39, past Sanzo/Koumyou
Genre: AU WAFF
Wordcount: 50k, total.
Warnings: Koumyou is dead. Also, before the pairings squick you out, for the purposes of this fic Koumyou was never Sanzo's father figure. Might contain wacky adventures.
Summary: Sanzo hates the park, Hakkai, Gojyo, people and the world. He likes his OCD and his job as a professional Internet troll. He likes his unapologetic, rampant atheism. The universe sets out to prove him wrong.
Author's Note: Very loosely based on the (awesome and amazing) movie Up! This is actually a “light” version of the bunny – the original explored the pitfalls of reincarnation and crushed your soul.
The story is finished and will be posted whole over the next three weeks, maybe a little more (there is sixteen chapters, total). Doing it like this, because a/ I need a pick-me-up right now, and b/ have internet issues, posting the whole thing in one go would be a pain, c/ I figure this will make reading easier for you. So, enjoy!
Betaed by
kispexi2, who graciously stepped in to help. <3 Thank you, hun!Sanzo liked sleeping in. Used to like sleeping in. These days his brain fought him every step of the way, and won most of the time. He rolled off the futon at seven in the morning and followed up with a string of curses.
He made himself a coffee and returned to the living room, to drink it while scoffing at the world through the curtained window. Of course scoffing at anything was impossible with thick material blocking the view, so Sanzo settled for peering through a crack between the curtains.
“What the fuck,” he said to himself when, halfway through his coffee, he spied with his little eye something golden brown, moving quickly through the park.
It was the dumb mutt, with the dog on a short leash.
Sanzo took a sip of his coffee and pulled at the curtain, to get a better view. Goku was jogging, and fuck if that didn’t make him look like a normal person. He looked more comfortable running than Sanzo ever did, and that was considering Sanzo didn’t have to worry about tripping up over an inconvenient rock.
Sanzo was a little impressed. He figured it was because of the early hour.
He finished his coffee, washed the cup and had a shower. This served to wake him up, as much as anyone can be said to be awake at seven thirty a.m. By noon he had a flamewar going on nicely, and half a post written out about it, which would surely set off another. He spent the rest of the day detailing the many reasons owners of dogs should be shot. Then, as a breather, he wrote a piece about an average Joe Slob being harassed by a mutated potato.
Halfway through the task the phone rang, a disquieting break in the routine.
“What?” Sanzo asked, wedging the receiver between his ear and shoulder.
“Good morning, Sanzo.”
Fuck the lawyers, Sanzo thought. He hated being called by lawyers. They should be disqualified from the human race. “What do you want, Ukoku?”
“I am merely calling to inquire after your health.”
“I’m alive.”
“That’s splendid. Now, there is this semi-formal party, a very private affair, twenty guests at the most…”
“Not interested. Stop harassing me, or I’ll sue,” Sanzo said and ended the call. The man wouldn’t take no for an answer, ever. Thank god he was less invested than Hakkai, or else Sanzo would have to emigrate.
He went back to his writing. Around lunch he made himself a piece toast. Three hours later he had ramen and then, when suppertime rolled around, he drank a beer.
Goku must live close by, he thought randomly, in the middle of writing an anonymous comment to clarissa992’s mindless droning. If he was in the park this often, at these hours, he must live close. The thought stopped his fingers in their movement and led him to staring at the ceiling in consideration. He was sure he had never met Goku previously, though of course that wasn’t surprising – with the exception of the outings Hakkai sponsored and enforced, he’d hardly left the house in the past two years, so it would have been perfectly possible for a Stadium to have been built around the corner, equipped with its own football team to pose naked for the press, without him knowing about it.
No, Gojyo would probably have let him know if that was the case. Knowing Gojyo, he’d have provided photographic proof.
As was often the case with Sanzo’s life, the moment he incautiously mentioned Gojyo’s name, even if it was in his thoughts only, the doorbell rang.
“Ahoy, monk-boy. How’s life in the fortress of solitude?”
“It was splendid, until a troll showed up.”
“You ready for the movie and dinner?” Gojyo loitered in the doorway, which in Sanzo’s professional opinion was all the moron was good for, anyway.
“So long as we stop by the gun store and pick up extra ammo so I can blow my brains out.”
“Sorry, they’re fresh out. Plus, Hakkai insists I frisk you before we leave.”
“Touch me and I break all of your limbs.”
“Hakkai said you’d say that.”
“Does it ever occur to you that you are his bitch?”
“Dude, harsh. Most people start with ‘whipped’.”
“You passed whipped going five hundred miles an hour and playing the fucking pipes years ago. You are his bitch.”
Gojyo considered. “Yeah, but I’m getting sex out of it. Lots and lots of sex. You get bossed around for no reason at all.”
Sanzo wasn’t about to concede the point, though the insult stung. “Suppose I called the police?”
“Suppose you shut up and get in the car? I mean, I’m just saying, this would be a surprise, for once.”
Because Sanzo felt like it, he shut up and got into the car. Gojyo, once he collected his jaw from the floor, followed.
******
“Sanzo, such a nice surprise.”
“You being able to say that with a straight face, that’s a surprise.”
“We are in agreement then. It is nice to see you, all the same. You look well.”
Sanzo rolled his eyes.
“No, I mean it. You seem better.”
“I’ve been shooting up heroin. I have since met the pope in his pointy hat and a number of aliens,” Sanzo said, never breaking eye contact.
“That is wonderful news. Do you have preference for which movie we see?”
“Whatever.” Sanzo made a beeline for the liquor cabinet, studiously pretending to ignore the conversation taking place behind his back.
“What, you ain’t gonna check his arms?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Needle-marks, perhaps?”
“Sanzo wouldn’t actually abuse illegal substances, Gojyo. He is not stupid.”
“No, but he is not above shooting up so that he could tell you he’s shooting up and have you not believe him in the slightest.”
Sanzo could practically hear Hakkai consider, he could feel the penetrative glance being sent his way. With utmost difficulty he stopped himself from rolling up his sleeves in demonstration.
“That is true,” Hakkai said.
“I’m not doing drugs,” Sanzo said out loud, pouring himself another whiskey and lighting up. “I’m not a moron.”
“I disagree, with all due respect, but I am glad you have abstained from terminal stupidity. I do wish you didn’t smoke.”
“What, am I not going to get the health speech?” Sanzo asked when Hakkai offered no further comment and, although much of his sneering had been in jest or at least jittering on the thin edge between jest and serious intent to offend, this time his voice had gained a truly dark undertone, one which dared Hakkai, his one and only friend -- discounting Gojyo, though he probably shouldn’t count -- to risk a comment.
“I think you are well aware of the risks of smoking, Sanzo,” Hakkai replied icily. “What you do to your own body I have no control over. I will, however, have to insist that you don’t subject me to second-hand smoke.”
“Like you don’t get enough by sleeping too close to him.”
“The campaign is under way,” Hakkai just said, and Gojyo whipped around so fast his hair caught fire.
“What? What campaign?”
“You’ll find out in due time.” Hakkai had a smirk on his face that was likely aimed at unnerving but missed the intended effect by a million miles and dove straight into creepy instead. Sanzo imagined that something much like the expression was what the victims of a shark took to their watery grave. “Now, what are we watching?”
******
Sanzo, despite appearances, wasn’t entirely deprived of common sense. He knew he was being irrational. He knew he was blowing things way out of proportion and he knew -- oh god, he knew -- that were he a bystander he would have rolled his eyes and told the pathetic loser grieving for years after his lover’s demise to man up and deal. It wasn’t the end of the world, after all. He had no debts, no obligations, no on-going drama in his life, a steady income, a comfortable flat and two infuriating but loyal people, who’d stuck by him through two years of self-enforced misery.
Sanzo didn’t hate Hakkai for micromanaging his life and he didn’t hate him for getting him to leave the house now and then. Maybe, if he were better adjusted, he would have been thankful. Maybe he still would utter thanks, in a future so far he’d have to take a hoverbus to let Hakkai know anything.
The thing was -- and Sanzo liked to think this was his secret, despite all the sneaking suspicions he had of Hakkai having his number and how -- the thing was that he was quite possibly the winner of the worst adjusted human being in existence.
This was not an exaggeration: he’d been a withdrawn, sneering, insufferable child, he knew as much. Then he’d grown into a withdrawn, sneering, insufferable teenager, doomed to end his life in a boring job that he hated, stuck in an empty apartment, living on beer and snacks. Then he’d met Koumyou, who’d been zen: mellow, unfazed – even amused – by his attitude, and therefore intensely fascinating. Koumyou was the first person, first anything, Sanzo had ever found himself wanting, and that was such a new and foreign sensation he had to pause to mull it over. He’d never wanted things before. He had things, sure. He got things before he could want them; he had sycophants by the bucket-load, but not many friends, and so when Koumyou entered his life he’d been smitten.
Neither had been the poster boy for romance, and that was without the student/teacher thing standing in their way, so what had happened between them had been slow like the mating of snails. Sanzo had been happy. Koumyou -- well, if Koumyou had ever been unhappy, with anything at all, he never let it show.
It was possible he’d have been smiling like a loon whilst he was being murdered. He certainly looked like a loon when the cancer decided that eating his lungs wasn’t enough and it was going after the stomach and the brain for shits and giggles. By the end he was still smiling and his smile kept haunting Sanzo long after the burial, like Koumyou had been Lewis Carrol’s Cheshire Cat. All the rest had faded, and yet the smile had remained, hovering behind every piece of furniture in Sanzo’s flat and on every glassy surface.
That was why Sanzo got rid of everything, as everything reminded him of Koumyou; every piece of polished mahogany, every Chinese scroll Koumyou was so fond of. He couldn’t bear to leave the flat, for pretty much the exact same reasons, but all the furniture went to Goodwill, along with the old fridge. The new one was the single luxury Sanzo allowed himself after Koumyou passed – his desk was cheap, the futon was cheap, the chair gave him backache, but the fridge was a huge, shiny monstrosity that took up space and consumed electricity like a Las Vegas casino.
It did keep his beer cool, though, and that was important.
******
The week that followed the single most exciting thing to happen to Sanzo in over a year was slow. Sanzo greeted Thursday with trepidation and a dollop of excitement, which he did his best to squash. Hakkai’s customary call went as usual and so at three to four Sanzo found himself in the park, under the same tree he’d sat under previously.
Half an hour later he was still sitting there, unbothered. He would have liked to say he was relieved, but the truth of the matter was becoming more and more apparent. Much as it pained him – he was rather looking forward to seeing Goku. His life was so empty and bereft of human contact that even the half an hour spent on feeling emotionally inferior to a guy who needed a dog to cross a street was a highlight.
Sanzo realised that of the past two years he’d very little, if any memories, and most of them involved Gojyo and Hakkai. One particularly memorable was of Gojyo pushing him off a platform suspended two hundred feet above a lawn and the massive row that followed.
The following month Sanzo had been pushed out of an aeroplane.
“Hi Sanzo!”
“Christ, you were supposed to be blind!”
Goku had the gall to look confused. “I don’t get it.”
“How the fuck did you know it was me?”
“Your cologne smells really nice, plus Dug barked all happy-like. He likes you.”
“I have no idea why.” Sanzo leaned his head against the tree trunk and watched Goku’s round face light up with a smile.
“Dug is real friendly, but he doesn’t like like a lot of people. So when he likes you, I know you’re okay.”
“Clearly factoring in the fact that he is a dog and would slobber on anybody who offered him food, are you?” But this just reinforced Goku’s argument, rather than disprove it, as Sanzo had nothing on him that a dog would enjoy. Not even smell, as his breakfast that morning had been a beer and some crackers.
“Dug wouldn’t!”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”
“I will and I’ll be right every time,” Goku said, once more demonstrating a complete lack of awareness for common human conversation milestones. Sanzo’s comment would have offended anyone, through the magic of sardonic delivery, except apparently Goku.
Sanzo shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.
“Absolutely. Are you hungry? I’m starving. Wanna get something to eat?”
And so Sanzo ended up following the blind guy to a kebab place, because everyone knows that eating leaking food out of a paper cone is a brilliant plan when you can’t see it drip. Of course, Sanzo’s luck was such that he was the one to dump the concoction on his own trousers, while Goku finished off by wiping a stray droplet of sauce from his nose with a napkin.
No, Sanzo didn’t believe it either. He also found it hard to believe he’d voluntarily spent time with someone outside, when Hakkai devoted hours of his time to getting him to sit under a tree for an hour each week.
“This is not a date,” he said, seconds after the horrible thought occurred to him, however his scandalised tone only got a raised brow from Goku.
“Well, duh,” Goku said. “I barely know you.”
“So long as that’s clear.”
Sanzo would think on his way back home that he should have added a vehement demand that this never be a date. Hell, he should have demanded that he never be bothered again, for as long as he lived, and that Goku move to the other side of the country, finally get a clue and start living like a normal blind person. Not like a happy freak, who went around bouncing and smiling and pretending everything was okay. Nothing was ever fucking okay and sooner or later the world would fuck the moron over and then he’d see how despicable it really was.
That reflection would come later. For now Sanzo was eager enough to grunt and murmur through a conversation Goku seemed to be having with the dog.
It was something of a shock to realize the monkey -- he was a monkey, not matter what ha had to say about it -- was speaking to him, when he used a tone Sanzo’s would have called condescending, if it wasn’t for the fact this kid looked to be as capable of being condescending as he was of flying.
“Are you under the impression I’m ten?” Sanzo asked, just to make sure.
“No, most ten-year-olds I know don’t have such filthy mouths.”
“Clearly, you live in the better part of town.”
“Like you don’t?”
“I’m also not a dog. Try to speak like an adult.”
“Sorry. I don’t get to speak to people much,” Goku said, blushing. “Even I’m not deluded enough to expect dogs to talk back, though.”
“Even you?”
“Everyone always says I’m too happy and optimistic, and that it can’t end well, but I dunno, so far it’s worked out great for me.”
“Except for being blind,” Sanzo said, not really caring how loathsome it must have sounded. “You can’t tell me that’s a picnic.”
Goku was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah. I mean no, it isn’t. ‘S why I’m so happy I’ve got Dug now, he’s awesome.”
“He’s a dog.”
“That’s why it’s awesome. He doesn’t have to think about staying, cuz he’s my dog, and he loves me, so he stays no matter what.”
“He’s a dog,” Sanzo repeated. “He doesn’t think.”
“Now, that’s bullshit! Dogs think, and they have feelings, too. Just because he doesn’t write emo poetry doesn’t mean he’s never sad.”
This was a sentiment Sanzo had encountered from many dog owners. Hard to believe when the bundles of stinky fur seemed to have two faces, one panting and one growling, to show the world. “Dogs look the same to me.”
“That’s because you never had one.” Goku grinned his distracting grin and produced a doggy treat out of thin air. “Look at his eyes.”
Sanzo looked and yeah, the mutt was following the treat with his eyes, which crinkled at the corners. His grin got even wider, but still the dog made no move towards the cookie, or whatever it was. He just looked and – Sanzo was willing to bet – chanted “gimmegimmegimme” inside. When the treat was offered on an open palm Dug took it with one long swipe of the tongue. His grin was so wide, it transcended his muzzle.
“See? He liked this treat! You can’t tell me you didn’t see it.”
“And you know this how? He didn’t even bark.”
“Same way I know you don’t really mind sitting here, with me,” Goku said looking at Sanzo seriously. “I got a feeling.”
“That’s idiotic. Of course I mind,” Sanzo started to say, but was interrupted by a high-pitched whine from Dug. Goku started and turned his whole attention to the mutt, muttering questions he wasn’t going to get an answer to, and growing more and more agitated when the dog started swaying where he sat.
There was a dart sticking out from his side. Goku’s fingers encountered it seconds before Dug collapsed into his master’s arms. “Dug!” he cried, hugging the animal to his chest.
Before the scene could degenerate into sidewalk melodrama, there was a whooshing sound, no louder than the buzz of a mosquito, and a second dart appeared, this one in the side of Goku’s neck. Sanzo saw Goku turn in his direction with eyes widened enough to transmit more question marks than should be possible, before something bit his neck as well.
“Oh fuck,” he said before everything disappeared.
TBC
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Date: 2010-10-08 02:06 pm (UTC)Love the way you inferred Sanzo's relationship with Koumyou. And it made me realize that both Koumyou and Goku are unconditionally optimistic and happy people, and that must draw Sanzo to them.
Oh, and ZOMG I loved Up. Cried like a baby several times... I just ♥ that movie.
*waits patiently for moar*
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Date: 2010-10-30 10:48 am (UTC)I love Up, I do. <3
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Date: 2010-11-15 02:35 am (UTC)Surprise twist cliff-hanger ending! This was why I waited until you finished writing this before I started reading, or I would've been breathing down your neck until you finished.
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Date: 2010-11-15 02:36 am (UTC)