[fic] Balloons 13
Oct. 24th, 2010 11:59 am![[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 nursed his seasickness for the remainder of the voyage, through the brief storm, and through the second breather, during which they paused for another bath in the ocean. He hated every minute of it, save for the evenings, when Goku crawled over him and the slant of the cabin would force them to spend the night wrapped around one another. Sanzo waited for those moments, even if the persistent nausea meant he could do no more about it that maybe pet Goku’s hair.
Thus he was overjoyed when, close to the cost of Africa, the wind died down, flattening the ocean enough for him to venture into the cockpit and fresh air. “I fucking hate sailing,” he said, falling into a seat. The gentle wave they were riding lifted his breakfast high up his throat, but not so high he needed to part with it.
“Seriously, what gives? You fly on a regular basis.” Gojyo threw the last of some colourful rope into a bag by the entrance to the cabin and turned to Sanzo.
“I have no idea. Don’t want to know. Don’t want to find out.” Sanzo crossed his arms and stared off into space. “How come you are fine? I heard you were puking your guts out, too?”
“Yeah, puked, got up here, helped with the odd pull, puked again, lather, rinse, repeat.”
“I hate you.” Sanzo had tried, he honestly had made the effort to get out into the fresh air, once or twice. Ended up flat on his back on the bottom of the cockpit, holding onto his stomach with both hands.
“Duly noted. No more sea voyages for you.” Kanzeon, steering again, grinned at her nephew. “So, kids, how do you feel about Morocco?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t, since that’s where we’re going.”
“We need to get back home.”
“It will be another week.”
Sanzo saw black spots dance in front of his eyes. “We’re getting out now,” he said, and only the surrounding water stopped him from making good on the declaration.
“Why Morocco though?” Hakkai asked, handing Goku a bun slathered in jam. Goku, the idiotic monkey, accepted the treat with much more enthusiasm than the bun deserved.
“I want a fez.” Kanzeon flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder, shooting Jiroushin a smouldering glance. “See, there’s a Great Book of Sexy Roleplay, and…”
“Oh fuck. Kill me now! I don’t want to know!”
And so a fez was the reason why, seventeen days after they left Venezuela, Sanzo’s party called at a port in Morocco. “I will never unsee this,” Sanzo said, when Kanzeon waved them goodbye with the fez on her head.
“Dunno. I think it’s cute.” Goku scratched Dug’s ears, increasing his loyalty tenfold. Sanzo could see the little hearts light up in the mutt’s eyes.
“That’s because you won’t need bleach to get the images out of your head.”
“Once more, for the fiftieth time – Sanzo, get laid. If not, stop yelling at people who do.” Gojyo stretched. “Your aunt is awesome.”
“You can have her.”
“You think she’s up for adopting me?”
“Anything to get her off my back.”
“Please, where else are you gonna find a woman who drops everything to cart your skinny arse across the Atlantic?”
Fair point, even if Sanzo wasn’t sure if it was worth the therapy his brain would need after all the barfing and Kanzeon’s ebullient sexuality. The solid ground beneath his feet helped some, and if he was lucky, alcohol would soon obliterate the rest. “Let’s go for a drink,” he suggested.
“Right now? Don’t we have some sort of priorities?” Gojyo asked, though he perked up visibly at the mention of a drink.
“We do. Drink, then everything else.”
They were standing in front of a wall of… Sanzo was hard-pressed to describe it. They weren’t so much buildings as constructions: stalls, filled with everything under the sun and a million people per square inch, but there was more than that. All the people, all the spices and perfume reached out from the stalls to create a cloud of scent that sprawled from whatever caused it in the first place, to encompass all the available space.
“Oh dear,” Hakkai said.
“What now?”
“Look there.” Hakkai ducked his head, and over his shoulder Sanzo saw several very familiar uniforms, urgently marching through the streets.
“Oh fuck.” He wasn’t thinking straight, which was likely what prompted the dive into the market, into the mess of people and stench so thick he could surf in it. Goku grasped his arm and Dug’s well-meaning attempts to trip them both were a comfort in their own right.
Less than three minutes later he knew he’d made a mistake.
“Where now?” Gojyo hissed, when the vendor Sanzo could have sworn they’d seen three times that day tried to sell them something illegal.
“Fuck if I know.”
“I’m hungry,” Goku said mournfully. Dug sneezed.
Now that they were in it, the crowd had closed behind them, cutting off all escape routes, save for airlift, and that was unlikely. Sanzo felt the clutches of his paranoia sink into his ribs, crushing the breath out of his lungs. There was no way out; whichever way they would go, the masses of people would throw them off course and, if they were lucky, spit them out heaven’s knew where after only a casual chew.
“Let’s just move forward. It has to end somewhere.” Hakkai said, even if he didn’t sound like he fully believed it. They pressed on, regardless.
“That has to end well,” Gojyo said when Dug had another sneezing fit in response to a collection of herbs some vendor was trying to sell them really cheap.
“Are we doomed yet?” Sanzo asked, running a hand through his sweaty, disgusting hair. He needed out. He needed out of the fucking market, away from the people, away from everything. His head was on fire.
Then, as though being lost in a strange Moroccan market wasn’t enough, something chimed and Goku got assaulted by a vision in pink gauze and bells. “Goku!” she called and then Goku was being thoroughly kissed and Sanzo felt his head explode into a fiery ball of debris.
“What are you doing here!”
“Me? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Egypt!”
“At least I’m on the right continent. You were supposed to be back home!”
Dug barked and all the pink gauze dropped to his level. “Dug! Who’s a good boy!”
“What the fuck?” Sanzo asked gripping Goku’s arm.
“Um, this is Pippi. She’s my best friend.”
“And ex-girlfriend.” Pippi stood up, gave Sanzo a bright and cheery grin he would gleefully murder her for and held out her hand for a shake. “The kissing bit, not totally out of nowhere.”
Gojyo grinned, grasping her hand in Sanzo’s stead. “You are way too hot for the little dork,” he said. “What’s with the bells?”
“I work as a harem girl.”
“That doesn’t seem entirely legit,” Hakkai said, prompting Gojyo to shoot Hakkai a long look, but Pippi laughed.
“We organise camel trips through the desert, with a visit in an oasis and belly dancing shows.” She linked her arm through Goku’s and jiggled her hips so that the bells adorning them jingled. “It’s heaps of fun for all involved.”
“Camels,” Hakkai said and Sanzo felt panic. “Do you cross the desert? Where do you go?”
“Depends, there’s a couple of set trails, but we’re flexible.” Pippi scratched the back of her head. “Hard for me to say. I’m actually only starting out. Met with Kougaji in Egypt. You remember Kou, Goku? His parents own some -- bugger if I know -- but he’s got a bunch of camels for the summer and so the business is on.”
“Are you free now?” Hakkai asked.
“Well, we’re getting ready. Our first trip ain’t for another week, or so.”
“Excellent. Can you make decisions?”
“No, I’m just a dancer.” Pippi tilted her head so far the bells she was wearing as earrings touched Goku’s shoulder. “But Kou ought to be free about now. Wanna meet him?”
“We certainly do.” Hakkai smiled and Sanzo grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m thinking it’s an excellent way to cross the desert, undetected.”
“They found us after a sea voyage.”
“Yachts are registered, so are cross-Atlantic trips. Security alone demands that we let someone know where we are on the sea, at all times. Camels aren’t subject to registration, as far as I know.”
“You want to cross a desert on a camel.”
“Hopefully more than one.”
“Is there anything I can say that will convince you it is a bad idea?”
Hakkai pondered. “No, I don’t think so. Is anyone against?”
Gojyo shook his heads. “Hell, my job is toast anyway, might as well have fun. I’m in. How about you, squirt?”
“I’ll figure it out. No big deal.” Goku turned his head enough so that Sanzo could see him smile. “Come on, Sanzo! It will be fun!”
“What do you know?” Sanzo muttered, but then Pippi was pulling Goku toward a group of kids standing by a stall, and evidently he got no voice, so he shut up.
“Hey Kou!” Pippi said. “You remember Goku?”
“Sure, yeah. Hey. Sorry about your eyes. Damn bad luck.” Kougaji was a rather solemn man, barely past his mid-twenties. His face was fairly dark, more so in a beige jellabiya. “Pippi talks about you a lot.”
“She talked about you a lot,” Goku said, shaking Kougaji’s hand. “What’s with the camels? I thought you were studying to be a doctor?”
“Final year starting in the fall. Figured I need a vacation. This is my sister, Lirin. Over there are Doku and Yaone.” Lirin and Yaone, unlike Pippi, boasted racks fit for keeping transatlantic ships afloat, though like Pippi they were dressed in gauze and bells.
“Wonderful. Pleased to meet you all.” Hakkai stepped up to the plate and Sanzo groaned internally. “Now, I hear you have a travel business and that you are free at the moment?”
Kougaji blinked. “Yes, we organise camel trips through the desert. With a show.”
“Splendid. We need to cross the desert, to get to an airport.”
“Airport.” Kougaji considered. “Closest one would be Mogador or Marrakech -- which would be easier to get to, I think. We usually end up there.”
“Even better. Do you sell tickets?”
“How many people are we talking?”
Gojyo grinned and albowed Hakkai aside. “There’s four of us -- me, the creepy dude in the glasses, the cripple, and you know Goku – he’s the guy with the dog.” That got him a series of long looks, or, in the case of Goku, a pointed sightless gaze. “What?”
“Are you a moron, or are you a moron?” Sanzo asked, crossing his arms.
“No offence man, but you can’t argue with me here. You are totally disabled. Goku merely goes round doing stuff by touch.”
“Right,” Kougaji asked. “We need at least twice that. We’re set for ten, that adds up to about four hundred twenty dollars a person. We’d get you on a discount, but even with that…”
“Make it five thousand, for the four of us,” Sanzo said, “but I want out of here now.”
Kougaji opened his mouth and forgot to close it for a minute. He wasn’t the only one.
“You are, without a doubt, the single most boring human in existence,” Gojyo told Sanzo, once he collected his jaw from the floor.
“Yes, do share, because your opinion matters.”
“You’re throwing dough around like it’s nothing and you spend your time holed up in a bleach commercial set. That’s sick, man.”
Sanzo shrugged. The constant presence of wordless witnesses, all the masses who travelled to and fro constantly, brushing against him even by accident, they were making him ill. He would gladly pay ten thousand just to get out of the market. Hell, he’d get a mortgage to do it. “It’s just money.”
“Five grand is not just money.”
“No, it’s spinach. What the fuck else is it?”
“It’s hard work!”
“When you work for a living, probably.” Monetary issues were never more than an afterthought for Sanzo. “Making money is easy.” If his sources were reliable, working for a living was hard. Making money when you already had money, on the other hand, that was a piece of cake. Five grand may not have been peanuts, but it was far from a worrying sum. Kanzeon could merrily spend as much on a shopping spree when she went to update her wardrobe, and Sanzo didn’t fare any worse than she did.
“Okay,” Kougaji said, a little stunned by the turn of events. “If you’re sure, no problem. We can leave tonight.”
“The sooner the better. You want cash or credit?”
“Credit is fine. All right then,” he said, turning to his crew. “Vacation’s over, Yaone, you organise pit stops. Doku, see that the camels are stocked to go. We’re going to Marrakech -- that’s gonna be a hundred miles.”
“Will do, boss.”
“Wow,” Pippi said, still holding on to Goku’s arm. “You managed to hook up with some very interesting people while I was gone.”
“You have no idea.”
“How did you get here, anyway?”
“We were all kidnapped, run to the jungle, parachuted in and then were locked up in a party. We got here from Venezuela on a yacht,” Goku said, smiling brightly.
“Right…” Pippi turned to face the others. “Well, anyway, nice to meet you all! I’m Pippi. Sorry, didn’t catch your names.”
“That’s Hakkai. He’s nice but scary. Gojyo is mostly loud and Sanzo is that creep who lives by the park -- you know the one.”
“No way! You’re the famous boogie-man?” Pippi’s eyes shone as she stepped towards Sanzo. “The stories people tell about you! I thought you were old and cranky though, not… this.” Her appreciative glance travelled up and down, and Sanzo considered a sucker punch.
“I don’t want to know,” Sanzo said curtly. “Let’s go.”
Kougaji was as good as his word, and within the hour they were herded into a minibus and driven to the outskirts of town, where a pack of camels was waiting for them. “We’ve got a mini-office with a connection a little way off. We’ll stay the night there, if that’s okay with you?”
“Whatever.” Sanzo eyed his camel with apprehension. The fucking creature was enormous, and it was looking at him in a way that was anything but friendly. “You better behave, or else,” Sanzo told it when Doku got it to kneel. Even then the saddle was so high Sanzo could barely see over it. “I’m having doubts.”
“What about Dug?” Goku asked, interrupting Pippi’s lecture about riding these monsters. “He can’t run. It’s too hot.”
“I got a basket for the dog,” Doku said. He pulled a giant construction out of the minibus and presented it proudly. “We once carried a two year old in one of these so a dog’ll be just fine. Plus, we got spare camels, so he’s gonna be travelling like a king.”
“Hear that, Dug? You’re gonna get pampered.” Goku waited at the camel’s side as Doku fitted the basket with blankets and propped the cover so that the air could get out. Sanzo didn’t get to watch him get in, because it was time to saddle up and his camel was giving him the stink-eye again.
“Here, put this on.” Kougaji handed him a very long shirt, a scarf and a headband. “The sun is murder out in the desert.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Sanzo struggled with the headgear, feeling so pathetic that eventually he had to let Kougaji do the job.
“Don’t worry about it. Have you ever ridden a camel?”
“Do I look like I’ve ever ridden a camel?”
“Guess not. Alright, it’s not that hard. Camels tend to rock when they walk, so you need to go with it. Just let Abu move you, and you’re set.”
Sanzo didn’t think it was going to be that hard, not when he was still standing far enough that he could imagine camels were horses with humps. When he was sitting on one, when it got up, he found himself a mile off the ground, sitting on a glorified armrest. “I,” he said to Hakkai, who was just working out the rocking problem, “am going to kill you.”
“Yes, Sanzo, I’ll make a note. How’s next Thursday for you?”
Of course it turned out the blind guy was rocking out the camel ride. Naturally. Sanzo’s life was just that horribly, horribly bad, so poorly planned and managed that even legal cripples managed to handle themselves with more ease around the stumbling blocks the universe saw fit to chuck Sanzo’s way.
He felt marginally better when they moved outside civilisation’s reach. The sands were quiet then, save for the grunting of the animals, and the desert was magnificent. Sanzo breathed freely, away from the suffocating presence of human masses. The presence of camels, while equally potent, wasn’t quite as bad.
Sanzo found something of a rhythm in Abu’s lazy attempts to throw him off its back, enough to bring back the memory of the sea voyage and with it the nausea. This time his stomach decided to be strong, and so he managed the long ride to camp in relative peace, holding on to his belly with both hands.
“We’re very close!” Kougaji called from the front of the caravan just as the sun touched the horizon. “Only a mile left to go.”
Sanzo started and very nearly fell off his camel in surprise.
The setting sun illuminated an oasis, which looked like it was imported straight from the set of the Lion King. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Nope,” Lirin called from behind Sanzo. “It’s really here.”
Within the circle of palm trees there was a circle of tents, in the middle a fire and further on, which they only got to see after getting off the camels, almost completely covered by sand, an office with two computers and a fully functional kitchen.
“Toilets are behind the office. A little rough, but it’s all part of the experience. You can have your pick of the tents; most are unoccupied,” Doku said. “There’s two beds per tent, so you can stay together or spread out. Anything is cool.”
“Most are unoccupied?”
“Me and Kou share one, the girls another, and there’s a bunch of guys that camp here all the time. They’re out fetching fuel for the fire and additional stuff. No idea if they’ll be back tonight.”
“You left all that in the middle of the desert?” Gojyo asked, opening the flap to a random tent, confirming its emptiness and chucking his bag onto one of the beds. “What if someone comes?”
“It’s the desert. We lock up the office and cover it up, but the odds of someone random dropping in are remote, at best.” Doku grinned. “You better grab some zees now. We gonna get a fire going, get some grub done, and the nights are pretty damn spectacular.”
Gojyo raised a hand. “Do we got beer?”
“Gojyo!”
“What? A legitimate question!”
“I don’t drink, but we’ve got plenty of alcohol, so no problem.” Doku grinned. “We are set up for tourists, after all.”
“I love tourism,” Gojyo said, grinning widely. Sanzo rolled his eyes. You just couldn’t take the moron anywhere without landing face first in a huge faux pas.
Thankfully, the monkey was faring better. Dug managed to survive the trip okay, and was now making use of the space, running around like a dog possessed, leaping over anything that presented an obstacle with glee. Sanzo supposed being cooped up on a boat for weeks on end and then being shoved into a basket couldn’t have been much of be a vacation for a dog who worked out every morning.
Dug seemed to sense he was being thought about, because all of sudden he appeared before Sanzo and leapt up, so that they could have a face-to-face. “What?” Sanzo asked. “I hope you are not asking me to walk you, because I can see you’ve already got that covered.”
Dug woofed and licked his face, then resumed his health run.
“Wow, he must really like you,” Pippi said, tearing herself momentarily from Goku’s side and coming over. “He’s never this friendly.”
Sanzo gritted his teeth, but before he could seriously hurt her in reply, a host of curved swords rose up from the desert and pointed in their direction.
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 nursed his seasickness for the remainder of the voyage, through the brief storm, and through the second breather, during which they paused for another bath in the ocean. He hated every minute of it, save for the evenings, when Goku crawled over him and the slant of the cabin would force them to spend the night wrapped around one another. Sanzo waited for those moments, even if the persistent nausea meant he could do no more about it that maybe pet Goku’s hair.
Thus he was overjoyed when, close to the cost of Africa, the wind died down, flattening the ocean enough for him to venture into the cockpit and fresh air. “I fucking hate sailing,” he said, falling into a seat. The gentle wave they were riding lifted his breakfast high up his throat, but not so high he needed to part with it.
“Seriously, what gives? You fly on a regular basis.” Gojyo threw the last of some colourful rope into a bag by the entrance to the cabin and turned to Sanzo.
“I have no idea. Don’t want to know. Don’t want to find out.” Sanzo crossed his arms and stared off into space. “How come you are fine? I heard you were puking your guts out, too?”
“Yeah, puked, got up here, helped with the odd pull, puked again, lather, rinse, repeat.”
“I hate you.” Sanzo had tried, he honestly had made the effort to get out into the fresh air, once or twice. Ended up flat on his back on the bottom of the cockpit, holding onto his stomach with both hands.
“Duly noted. No more sea voyages for you.” Kanzeon, steering again, grinned at her nephew. “So, kids, how do you feel about Morocco?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t, since that’s where we’re going.”
“We need to get back home.”
“It will be another week.”
Sanzo saw black spots dance in front of his eyes. “We’re getting out now,” he said, and only the surrounding water stopped him from making good on the declaration.
“Why Morocco though?” Hakkai asked, handing Goku a bun slathered in jam. Goku, the idiotic monkey, accepted the treat with much more enthusiasm than the bun deserved.
“I want a fez.” Kanzeon flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder, shooting Jiroushin a smouldering glance. “See, there’s a Great Book of Sexy Roleplay, and…”
“Oh fuck. Kill me now! I don’t want to know!”
And so a fez was the reason why, seventeen days after they left Venezuela, Sanzo’s party called at a port in Morocco. “I will never unsee this,” Sanzo said, when Kanzeon waved them goodbye with the fez on her head.
“Dunno. I think it’s cute.” Goku scratched Dug’s ears, increasing his loyalty tenfold. Sanzo could see the little hearts light up in the mutt’s eyes.
“That’s because you won’t need bleach to get the images out of your head.”
“Once more, for the fiftieth time – Sanzo, get laid. If not, stop yelling at people who do.” Gojyo stretched. “Your aunt is awesome.”
“You can have her.”
“You think she’s up for adopting me?”
“Anything to get her off my back.”
“Please, where else are you gonna find a woman who drops everything to cart your skinny arse across the Atlantic?”
Fair point, even if Sanzo wasn’t sure if it was worth the therapy his brain would need after all the barfing and Kanzeon’s ebullient sexuality. The solid ground beneath his feet helped some, and if he was lucky, alcohol would soon obliterate the rest. “Let’s go for a drink,” he suggested.
“Right now? Don’t we have some sort of priorities?” Gojyo asked, though he perked up visibly at the mention of a drink.
“We do. Drink, then everything else.”
They were standing in front of a wall of… Sanzo was hard-pressed to describe it. They weren’t so much buildings as constructions: stalls, filled with everything under the sun and a million people per square inch, but there was more than that. All the people, all the spices and perfume reached out from the stalls to create a cloud of scent that sprawled from whatever caused it in the first place, to encompass all the available space.
“Oh dear,” Hakkai said.
“What now?”
“Look there.” Hakkai ducked his head, and over his shoulder Sanzo saw several very familiar uniforms, urgently marching through the streets.
“Oh fuck.” He wasn’t thinking straight, which was likely what prompted the dive into the market, into the mess of people and stench so thick he could surf in it. Goku grasped his arm and Dug’s well-meaning attempts to trip them both were a comfort in their own right.
Less than three minutes later he knew he’d made a mistake.
“Where now?” Gojyo hissed, when the vendor Sanzo could have sworn they’d seen three times that day tried to sell them something illegal.
“Fuck if I know.”
“I’m hungry,” Goku said mournfully. Dug sneezed.
Now that they were in it, the crowd had closed behind them, cutting off all escape routes, save for airlift, and that was unlikely. Sanzo felt the clutches of his paranoia sink into his ribs, crushing the breath out of his lungs. There was no way out; whichever way they would go, the masses of people would throw them off course and, if they were lucky, spit them out heaven’s knew where after only a casual chew.
“Let’s just move forward. It has to end somewhere.” Hakkai said, even if he didn’t sound like he fully believed it. They pressed on, regardless.
“That has to end well,” Gojyo said when Dug had another sneezing fit in response to a collection of herbs some vendor was trying to sell them really cheap.
“Are we doomed yet?” Sanzo asked, running a hand through his sweaty, disgusting hair. He needed out. He needed out of the fucking market, away from the people, away from everything. His head was on fire.
Then, as though being lost in a strange Moroccan market wasn’t enough, something chimed and Goku got assaulted by a vision in pink gauze and bells. “Goku!” she called and then Goku was being thoroughly kissed and Sanzo felt his head explode into a fiery ball of debris.
“What are you doing here!”
“Me? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Egypt!”
“At least I’m on the right continent. You were supposed to be back home!”
Dug barked and all the pink gauze dropped to his level. “Dug! Who’s a good boy!”
“What the fuck?” Sanzo asked gripping Goku’s arm.
“Um, this is Pippi. She’s my best friend.”
“And ex-girlfriend.” Pippi stood up, gave Sanzo a bright and cheery grin he would gleefully murder her for and held out her hand for a shake. “The kissing bit, not totally out of nowhere.”
Gojyo grinned, grasping her hand in Sanzo’s stead. “You are way too hot for the little dork,” he said. “What’s with the bells?”
“I work as a harem girl.”
“That doesn’t seem entirely legit,” Hakkai said, prompting Gojyo to shoot Hakkai a long look, but Pippi laughed.
“We organise camel trips through the desert, with a visit in an oasis and belly dancing shows.” She linked her arm through Goku’s and jiggled her hips so that the bells adorning them jingled. “It’s heaps of fun for all involved.”
“Camels,” Hakkai said and Sanzo felt panic. “Do you cross the desert? Where do you go?”
“Depends, there’s a couple of set trails, but we’re flexible.” Pippi scratched the back of her head. “Hard for me to say. I’m actually only starting out. Met with Kougaji in Egypt. You remember Kou, Goku? His parents own some -- bugger if I know -- but he’s got a bunch of camels for the summer and so the business is on.”
“Are you free now?” Hakkai asked.
“Well, we’re getting ready. Our first trip ain’t for another week, or so.”
“Excellent. Can you make decisions?”
“No, I’m just a dancer.” Pippi tilted her head so far the bells she was wearing as earrings touched Goku’s shoulder. “But Kou ought to be free about now. Wanna meet him?”
“We certainly do.” Hakkai smiled and Sanzo grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m thinking it’s an excellent way to cross the desert, undetected.”
“They found us after a sea voyage.”
“Yachts are registered, so are cross-Atlantic trips. Security alone demands that we let someone know where we are on the sea, at all times. Camels aren’t subject to registration, as far as I know.”
“You want to cross a desert on a camel.”
“Hopefully more than one.”
“Is there anything I can say that will convince you it is a bad idea?”
Hakkai pondered. “No, I don’t think so. Is anyone against?”
Gojyo shook his heads. “Hell, my job is toast anyway, might as well have fun. I’m in. How about you, squirt?”
“I’ll figure it out. No big deal.” Goku turned his head enough so that Sanzo could see him smile. “Come on, Sanzo! It will be fun!”
“What do you know?” Sanzo muttered, but then Pippi was pulling Goku toward a group of kids standing by a stall, and evidently he got no voice, so he shut up.
“Hey Kou!” Pippi said. “You remember Goku?”
“Sure, yeah. Hey. Sorry about your eyes. Damn bad luck.” Kougaji was a rather solemn man, barely past his mid-twenties. His face was fairly dark, more so in a beige jellabiya. “Pippi talks about you a lot.”
“She talked about you a lot,” Goku said, shaking Kougaji’s hand. “What’s with the camels? I thought you were studying to be a doctor?”
“Final year starting in the fall. Figured I need a vacation. This is my sister, Lirin. Over there are Doku and Yaone.” Lirin and Yaone, unlike Pippi, boasted racks fit for keeping transatlantic ships afloat, though like Pippi they were dressed in gauze and bells.
“Wonderful. Pleased to meet you all.” Hakkai stepped up to the plate and Sanzo groaned internally. “Now, I hear you have a travel business and that you are free at the moment?”
Kougaji blinked. “Yes, we organise camel trips through the desert. With a show.”
“Splendid. We need to cross the desert, to get to an airport.”
“Airport.” Kougaji considered. “Closest one would be Mogador or Marrakech -- which would be easier to get to, I think. We usually end up there.”
“Even better. Do you sell tickets?”
“How many people are we talking?”
Gojyo grinned and albowed Hakkai aside. “There’s four of us -- me, the creepy dude in the glasses, the cripple, and you know Goku – he’s the guy with the dog.” That got him a series of long looks, or, in the case of Goku, a pointed sightless gaze. “What?”
“Are you a moron, or are you a moron?” Sanzo asked, crossing his arms.
“No offence man, but you can’t argue with me here. You are totally disabled. Goku merely goes round doing stuff by touch.”
“Right,” Kougaji asked. “We need at least twice that. We’re set for ten, that adds up to about four hundred twenty dollars a person. We’d get you on a discount, but even with that…”
“Make it five thousand, for the four of us,” Sanzo said, “but I want out of here now.”
Kougaji opened his mouth and forgot to close it for a minute. He wasn’t the only one.
“You are, without a doubt, the single most boring human in existence,” Gojyo told Sanzo, once he collected his jaw from the floor.
“Yes, do share, because your opinion matters.”
“You’re throwing dough around like it’s nothing and you spend your time holed up in a bleach commercial set. That’s sick, man.”
Sanzo shrugged. The constant presence of wordless witnesses, all the masses who travelled to and fro constantly, brushing against him even by accident, they were making him ill. He would gladly pay ten thousand just to get out of the market. Hell, he’d get a mortgage to do it. “It’s just money.”
“Five grand is not just money.”
“No, it’s spinach. What the fuck else is it?”
“It’s hard work!”
“When you work for a living, probably.” Monetary issues were never more than an afterthought for Sanzo. “Making money is easy.” If his sources were reliable, working for a living was hard. Making money when you already had money, on the other hand, that was a piece of cake. Five grand may not have been peanuts, but it was far from a worrying sum. Kanzeon could merrily spend as much on a shopping spree when she went to update her wardrobe, and Sanzo didn’t fare any worse than she did.
“Okay,” Kougaji said, a little stunned by the turn of events. “If you’re sure, no problem. We can leave tonight.”
“The sooner the better. You want cash or credit?”
“Credit is fine. All right then,” he said, turning to his crew. “Vacation’s over, Yaone, you organise pit stops. Doku, see that the camels are stocked to go. We’re going to Marrakech -- that’s gonna be a hundred miles.”
“Will do, boss.”
“Wow,” Pippi said, still holding on to Goku’s arm. “You managed to hook up with some very interesting people while I was gone.”
“You have no idea.”
“How did you get here, anyway?”
“We were all kidnapped, run to the jungle, parachuted in and then were locked up in a party. We got here from Venezuela on a yacht,” Goku said, smiling brightly.
“Right…” Pippi turned to face the others. “Well, anyway, nice to meet you all! I’m Pippi. Sorry, didn’t catch your names.”
“That’s Hakkai. He’s nice but scary. Gojyo is mostly loud and Sanzo is that creep who lives by the park -- you know the one.”
“No way! You’re the famous boogie-man?” Pippi’s eyes shone as she stepped towards Sanzo. “The stories people tell about you! I thought you were old and cranky though, not… this.” Her appreciative glance travelled up and down, and Sanzo considered a sucker punch.
“I don’t want to know,” Sanzo said curtly. “Let’s go.”
Kougaji was as good as his word, and within the hour they were herded into a minibus and driven to the outskirts of town, where a pack of camels was waiting for them. “We’ve got a mini-office with a connection a little way off. We’ll stay the night there, if that’s okay with you?”
“Whatever.” Sanzo eyed his camel with apprehension. The fucking creature was enormous, and it was looking at him in a way that was anything but friendly. “You better behave, or else,” Sanzo told it when Doku got it to kneel. Even then the saddle was so high Sanzo could barely see over it. “I’m having doubts.”
“What about Dug?” Goku asked, interrupting Pippi’s lecture about riding these monsters. “He can’t run. It’s too hot.”
“I got a basket for the dog,” Doku said. He pulled a giant construction out of the minibus and presented it proudly. “We once carried a two year old in one of these so a dog’ll be just fine. Plus, we got spare camels, so he’s gonna be travelling like a king.”
“Hear that, Dug? You’re gonna get pampered.” Goku waited at the camel’s side as Doku fitted the basket with blankets and propped the cover so that the air could get out. Sanzo didn’t get to watch him get in, because it was time to saddle up and his camel was giving him the stink-eye again.
“Here, put this on.” Kougaji handed him a very long shirt, a scarf and a headband. “The sun is murder out in the desert.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Sanzo struggled with the headgear, feeling so pathetic that eventually he had to let Kougaji do the job.
“Don’t worry about it. Have you ever ridden a camel?”
“Do I look like I’ve ever ridden a camel?”
“Guess not. Alright, it’s not that hard. Camels tend to rock when they walk, so you need to go with it. Just let Abu move you, and you’re set.”
Sanzo didn’t think it was going to be that hard, not when he was still standing far enough that he could imagine camels were horses with humps. When he was sitting on one, when it got up, he found himself a mile off the ground, sitting on a glorified armrest. “I,” he said to Hakkai, who was just working out the rocking problem, “am going to kill you.”
“Yes, Sanzo, I’ll make a note. How’s next Thursday for you?”
Of course it turned out the blind guy was rocking out the camel ride. Naturally. Sanzo’s life was just that horribly, horribly bad, so poorly planned and managed that even legal cripples managed to handle themselves with more ease around the stumbling blocks the universe saw fit to chuck Sanzo’s way.
He felt marginally better when they moved outside civilisation’s reach. The sands were quiet then, save for the grunting of the animals, and the desert was magnificent. Sanzo breathed freely, away from the suffocating presence of human masses. The presence of camels, while equally potent, wasn’t quite as bad.
Sanzo found something of a rhythm in Abu’s lazy attempts to throw him off its back, enough to bring back the memory of the sea voyage and with it the nausea. This time his stomach decided to be strong, and so he managed the long ride to camp in relative peace, holding on to his belly with both hands.
“We’re very close!” Kougaji called from the front of the caravan just as the sun touched the horizon. “Only a mile left to go.”
Sanzo started and very nearly fell off his camel in surprise.
The setting sun illuminated an oasis, which looked like it was imported straight from the set of the Lion King. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Nope,” Lirin called from behind Sanzo. “It’s really here.”
Within the circle of palm trees there was a circle of tents, in the middle a fire and further on, which they only got to see after getting off the camels, almost completely covered by sand, an office with two computers and a fully functional kitchen.
“Toilets are behind the office. A little rough, but it’s all part of the experience. You can have your pick of the tents; most are unoccupied,” Doku said. “There’s two beds per tent, so you can stay together or spread out. Anything is cool.”
“Most are unoccupied?”
“Me and Kou share one, the girls another, and there’s a bunch of guys that camp here all the time. They’re out fetching fuel for the fire and additional stuff. No idea if they’ll be back tonight.”
“You left all that in the middle of the desert?” Gojyo asked, opening the flap to a random tent, confirming its emptiness and chucking his bag onto one of the beds. “What if someone comes?”
“It’s the desert. We lock up the office and cover it up, but the odds of someone random dropping in are remote, at best.” Doku grinned. “You better grab some zees now. We gonna get a fire going, get some grub done, and the nights are pretty damn spectacular.”
Gojyo raised a hand. “Do we got beer?”
“Gojyo!”
“What? A legitimate question!”
“I don’t drink, but we’ve got plenty of alcohol, so no problem.” Doku grinned. “We are set up for tourists, after all.”
“I love tourism,” Gojyo said, grinning widely. Sanzo rolled his eyes. You just couldn’t take the moron anywhere without landing face first in a huge faux pas.
Thankfully, the monkey was faring better. Dug managed to survive the trip okay, and was now making use of the space, running around like a dog possessed, leaping over anything that presented an obstacle with glee. Sanzo supposed being cooped up on a boat for weeks on end and then being shoved into a basket couldn’t have been much of be a vacation for a dog who worked out every morning.
Dug seemed to sense he was being thought about, because all of sudden he appeared before Sanzo and leapt up, so that they could have a face-to-face. “What?” Sanzo asked. “I hope you are not asking me to walk you, because I can see you’ve already got that covered.”
Dug woofed and licked his face, then resumed his health run.
“Wow, he must really like you,” Pippi said, tearing herself momentarily from Goku’s side and coming over. “He’s never this friendly.”
Sanzo gritted his teeth, but before he could seriously hurt her in reply, a host of curved swords rose up from the desert and pointed in their direction.
TBC
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Date: 2010-10-24 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 03:00 am (UTC)Very fun.