[fic] Balloons 15
Oct. 27th, 2010 09:47 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.
Sigh. Internet trouble continue. :(
Betaed bykispexi2, who graciously stepped in to help. <3 Thank you, hun!
When they woke up the next morning the harem-slash-desert bandits were gone, and so were their valuables. These were later found in the safe in the office, but the curses remained in the morning air.
Sanzo, much as he loathed being a part of the community, helped out with the packing. He was rolling up a blanket and watching Kougaji. There was something that bugged him about the guy.
“You come from money, don’t you,” he said, when the very expensive watch Kougaji had around his wrist finally matched a pattern in his memory.
Kougaji looked down at his watch, than back again at Sanzo. “Yes.”
“Does your mother approve of your friends?”
“As a matter of fact, no.” Kougaji smiled at Sanzo grimly. “She disapproves of my choice of just about everything, women included.”
“At least you fancy women,” Sanzo pointed out sensibly, haunted with the vision of the quiet disappointment in his own mother’s eyes and the easier-to-deal-with violent and contradictory reaction of his father.
“There is that, yes. I’m certain she’s not happy I’m here, right now, with camels, instead of in the Middle East and herding slaves with drills to the oil fields.”
“Your mother is a right bitch,” Sanzo said then. Kougaji stared at him for a moment, then offered a tentative, uncomfortable laugh.
“Step-mother. Let’s make that distinction. She is.”
“Hey there, good morning, gracious host. Can we eat before we depart into the night?” Gojyo stretched and did a few squats. He had foregone his jeans in favour of the jellabiya, judging by the lack of trouser lines.
“Night? It’s morning.”
“I have yet to see the sun, so unless you’ve got it stashed in your trousers, it is night.”
“Early start means we make it to the pit stop and can hide from the midday heat at least for a while,” Kougaji said.
“Praise the hallelujah, why do we have to get up at the crack of dawn?”
Kougaji opened his mouth to answer, again, but Sanzo shook his head. “He won’t even remember this in an hour, not worth your time.”
Gojyo blinked, confirming Sanzo’s diagnosis fully -- he was still half-asleep, barely fit to tie his own shoelaces, let alone consider the problems of cross-country camelling. Hakkai, thankfully, was more of an early riser and he was there to steer his boyfriend through the magic rituals of morning hygiene.
“Hi!” Goku appeared from behind the tent at a run, with Dug five inches from his calf. “Gosh, it’s awesome here!” He was barefoot and wearing nothing but the loud shorts Kanzeon had purchased for him. His chest looked good enough to lick.
“It’s a barren desert.”
“Yeah, nothing to trip on!”
Sanzo went back to his tent. It was beneath him to discuss the merits of a desert setting with a blind dog owner. What did he care? In a giant sandbox no one was going to ask Goku to clean up after the mutt, so of course he was happy! He had very little time to ponder this, all by himself, as minutes after he stormed off, Kougaji was knocking on the pole supporting the tent, signalling it was time to go.
Abu, the camel of indeterminable sex, deigned a look at Sanzo when he approached. The camel of indeterminable sex (well, no, but Sanzo didn’t care to find out) rolled its eyes (now of this Sanzo was certain) and knelt. Goku patted his or her nose as he passed and the damned animal inclined its head in greeting, responding with a hee-haw to Dug’s bark.
Sanzo watched Goku get onto his own camel, Flounder, and easily hop onto its back. He could swear there was a grin on the smug snout when the long legs unfolded and Goku shot up into the sky.
“Come on, Sanzo, move it!” Gojyo was already on the first floor, that’s how high his mount was, Hakkai closely following.
Sanzo gave Abu a long look. “You don’t bug me; I don’t bug you,” he muttered before hoisting himself into the saddle. Abu ignored his yelp and stood up as soon as it felt Sanzo’s weight, and it was only a miracle and sheer force of will that stopped Sanzo from falling off again.
“Are you okay, Sanzo?”
“Shoulder,” he said vaguely. Hakkai had enough tact to infer from his tone there would be no answers pertaining to the matter.
Goku, of course, had all the tact and subtlety of a charging elephant. He tugged at the reins, which some moron had left in his hands, and set Flounder’s course to a head-on collision with Abu. “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously, striking Sanzo dumb with the enormity of his eyes, one more time. He really should be getting used to this.
“I’m fine.”
“But your shoulder! You ought have someone look at it if it’s hurting, it was dislocated!”
“Hold up a bit, Sanzo. Your shoulder got dislocated? How the fuck did we not know?”
Sanzo gritted his teeth and swore to murder the monkey the first chance he got. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.”
“Says the man who just fell off the camel.”
“I’m on it, aren’t I? Your argument lacks merit.”
“Yeah, but you are a little pale.”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
“Sanzo, if you are injured, now would be the time to mention it.” Hakkai had the power to manipulate lesser minds; it was therefore no surprise that the creature he rode obeyed his every whim. He levelled his pace with Sanzo’s, because his evil was most effective at short range, Sanzo supposed. “What is wrong with your shoulder?”
“Nothing. It was dislocated. It popped back in.”
“Does it hurt?”
Sanzo bit his lip. “Only if I put weight on it.”
Hakkai pursed his lips and Sanzo dug his heels into Abu’s sides, hoping the infernal creature would take a hint and ride off, away from the Supreme Interfering Master of All That Was Evil. No such luck. Abu turned its head, giving him a look and a superior smirk, then made sure its dinnerplates of hooves were moving exactly in synch with those of Hakkai’s camel.
“I hate camels.”
“Why?” Gojyo turned in the saddle, squinted against the glare of the newly risen sun, but grinned. “Awesome creatures, really.”
“Figures you’d like them. Affinity for humps must make the two of you soul-sibs.”
The camels giggled under their breaths and continued on into the rapidly brightening day. Soon Sanzo let himself fall into the half-doze that the camel’s lazy rocking encouraged. He woke when it was finally time to rest and sleep away high noon.
******
“We remind you that smoking is prohibited in all areas,” said a female voice. Sanzo muttered a vague curse in her direction, turned his head to his other shoulder and continued to doze.
“Sanzo?”
There was a hand on his shoulder. Sanzo lashed out before he had the chance to think about it, skimming the perpetrator’s cheek in the attempt to part them from their teeth.
“Are you fucking crazy!” Gojyo yelled jumping away. “A little care!”
“Why, did I hit something important? Couldn’t have been your head.”
“You are going to scare the poor kid away, sooner or later.”
Sanzo rolled his eyes. The airports were painfully boring, as boring as they were uncomfortable. The plastic ridges between the seats were digging into his neck, ribs and hips, ensuring that whatever sleep he managed to catch would be wasted. “I hate airports.”
“I’ve got one word for you: ocean.”
“I hate them a little less.” Sanzo rubbed his forehead. “Where’s your overlord?”
“Over in the food court, feeding your monkey and his dog.”
“Still?” Hakkai had whisked the two mutts away well before Sanzo tried for a nap.
“Kid is going to bankrupt you with his stomach one day.”
“I dread the day I start caring for his stomach.”
The departure screen fluttered, revealing that someone in flight control had just woken and decided to flip some switches, at long last. Their flight was up, highlighted in all the merry ways a flight gets highlighted when it is late and tries to make the passengers feel guilty about not being on board yet.
They had no luggage to speak of, so the boarding process was fairly painless. The first spot of trouble turned up at the very end, when a pair of stewards were collecting boarding passes.
“Sir, you cannot take a dog…” a stewardess at the gate started, looking at Dug and walking into a wall of pure evil.
“I’m sorry, are you trying to bereave my disabled friend of his guide dog?” Hakkai smiled sweetly, placing a friendly arm on the unfortunate woman’s shoulder.
“No, of course not,” she started stammering, and Sanzo almost felt bad for the poor cow -- he would have dismissed her with a glare that would merely reduce her to the size of a worm for an hour or two. Now that Hakkai had taken charge, she would be quivering in fear for years to come.
“Because I would hate to bear witness to an awful, awful scene,” Hakkai continued, giving Sanzo the mother of all inferiority complexes. He could belittle a man on par with the best: he was handsome, well-connected and rich, but Hakkai could make a man fear for his soul just by looking into his eyes. Such a level of mastery required that a child be nurtured by the many tits of Beelzebub from infancy on, and so Sanzo’s prime time for learning was long past.
Not that he knew much about Hakkai’s parents. From what he’d heard his mother was a perfectly lovely woman, which made Hakkai’s existence all the more puzzling.
They ended up being seated at the back of the plane, thanks to a kind family who had graciously consented to exchanging their seats, just so they were out of the zone the unfortunate woman was responsible for. Gojyo had insisted. He had a soft spot for most of Hakkai’s victims.
“Planes smell funny,” Goku said, a little dreamily. His head was lolling on his shoulder. He hadn’t slept, far as Sanzo knew, during the noon break, choosing instead to chat up that annoying female. Served the little moron right, being sleepy and uncomfortable now. Sanzo had stopped paying attention to the camel posse as soon as they reached civilisation, and to the female even sooner.
“Try not to breathe then,” Sanzo said.
“My head would hurt,” Goku said and before he could finish speaking his temple was resting on Sanzo’s shoulder. Sanzo exchanged a long look with Dug.
“Your master is a bit of a moron,” he mumbled through gritted teeth. Dug whined and rested his head on Sanzo’s knee. His cold nose prodded Sanzo’s hand, demanding scratches. “You are a bit of a moron, too.”
Sanzo didn’t need to look at Goku to know the monkey was smiling. When he was sure neither Gojyo nor Hakkai were looking, he dropped a small kiss onto his hair, getting a mouthful of sand for his trouble.
******
The flight was smooth and uneventful, far as Sanzo was aware, which was to say there might well have been a terrorist attempt, quiet enough to sleep through. He only awoke when the flight attendants started droning about the trays and upright positions, and then they were landing. Goku blinked his way into awareness not long after that, yawning at regular intervals. “Are we home yet?” he asked when they were herded out of the plane and onto the tarmac.
“No.” Sanzo looked around. There was something suspicious about the surroundings, more specifically about the short messages displayed all around. “This is not Heathrow. Why is this not Heathrow?”
“Ah, yes, I meant to discuss this. The soonest direct flight to Heathrow was tomorrow morning.”
“Go on,” Sanzo said, feeling a wave of calmness wash over him. “Where are we?”
“Paris, I believe.”
“Paris.”
“Yes. We are booked for the Eurostar in--” Hakkai checked his watch, “--seven hours.”
“You are telling me that there is no plane departing from Paris to London in seven hours? Did the third world war break out while we were gone?”
“Apparently Nepal has overthrown monarchy, but that’s it.”
“Why, pray tell, are we stuck in Paris then?”
Hakkai had the gall to look amused. “I had been reliably informed that there was a good chance of our plane being late, so I planned accordingly.”
Sanzo threw his hands in the air. “Find me a hotel.”
“It’s customary to buy them dinner first, Sanzo,” Gojyo said. Sanze presumed the only reason he wasn’t guffawing with laughter yet was that the conversation was taking place over the unassuming yellow line that separated the queue from the grim young man behind bulletproof glass, who was glaring at the passports of those arriving.
“What?”
“Treat the kid to a nice dinner and you’ll find he’d be more eager to drop his pants for you then.”
“How is that I haven’t murdered you yet?” Sanzo asked, rolling his eyes.
“There are long, lonely nights when I wonder that too.” Gojyo sighed theatrically and paused. A broad grin blossomed on his face and Sanzo knew -- oh how he knew -- that he ought to run, and run fast.
They were standing underneath a giant photo of the soul-sucking rodent from the Disney Corporation. “No,” Sanzo said, but clearly his credit card got the vote when he didn’t, as an hour later, the very same creature was very definitely trying to cop a feel of his arse.
“Ohmigosh,” Goku enthused, like he really was ten. He was patting the enormous head with a delight unbecoming of his age. “Mickey Mouse!”
“I feel a villain song coming on,” Sanzo said, taking Goku’s hand all the same. “A villain song and then a violent crime.” His head, the traitorous blond, refused to ache, thus leaving him without an excuse to wait out the so-called fun on a bench outside.
“You sing?”
“Given appropriate setting, alcohol and more alcohol, I could be persuaded.”
Goku’s eyes shone like something of a movie about a pink-toting princess with plans for an equally pink future. “I’d love to hear you sing!”
“I’d love to have enough alcohol to sing, that’s for damn sure.”
A scandalised middle-aged woman pulled her pink-infested young daughter to her and hissed at Sanzo. “Garder sa langue!”
“Mind your brain, lady,” Sanzo muttered.
It was a lovely, sunny day, not too hot, with a gentle breeze wafting from the hot-dog stands in their direction. Hakkai and Gojyo had vamoosed to some secluded corner, hopefully to get thrown out for lewd behaviour, and Sanzo was left with Goku on his arm and Dug by their side, in the middle of something closely resembling a date.
“This is not a date,” he said when Goku was halfway through his first hot-dog of the day.
There was much blinking and confusion. “What is it then?”
Sanzo found this was a question nigh-impossible to answer, save for the answer he had provided already; the answer that had preceded the question. “Does it matter?” he said eventually, gratified in that at least Goku shrugged off the dilemma with ease.
“I dunno. I’m no good at naming stuff.”
Sanzo didn’t reply. He was positive that this would not, ever, be called a date, however he was just as certain that were someone else to invite Goku to hold hands and walk down a lunapark for snacks and rides, he would not only be cross, he would be pissed. For reasons unknown, of course. He put little stock in total awareness. He preferred the slightly less logical, but nonetheless entertaining, brand of flailing madly until life arranged itself to his liking.
It was confusing, often, to get so wrapped up in a version of reality he knew to be false, then to be broken out of it, even to results he pretended he wasn’t craving, and find himself stricken. Sanzo had considered investing in a therapist, once. He had gone to one session, on his parents’ insistence, had given the poor woman palpitations and never returned.
“OoooooOooh,” Goku said, and Sanzo stopped. Such a long, modulated o could never be good.
“What?”
“Can we go? Please, please, please?”
“No.”
“But it’s a giant frigging rollercoaster!” Dug barked and in the corner of Sanzo’s eye an utter nerd with a pencil and a notebook stared at them, open-mouthed.
“How can you tell, by the queue?”
“No, screaming. Rollercoasters also smell like wind.”
Sanzo awarded the comment a high nine on a scale of absolute ridiculousness. “They smell like puke.”
“Not true.”
“That’s because your nose is full of dog.”
“Hey, that’s not true!”
The argument continued well into the impossibly long line of people, also eager to part with their breakfasts and lunches on the monstrosity of a ride. Sanzo felt a stab of apprehension. “I’m gonna wait here.”
“Oh,” Goku said, a short little syllable thoroughly drenched in disappointment. Sanzo rolled his eyes and tried to snort, found the snort tried to be a sigh, failed on both accounts, and then, somehow, it was their turn.
They got front row seats, an treat wasted on the blind and the grumpy.
Sanzo’s brain decided to take extended vacation for the duration of the ride, returning when it was time to stagger out of the cart and onto solid ground.
“That was fun!” Goku bounced up and down as he unhooked Dug’s leash from the post. “Sorry Dug, they don’t let dogs on the ride.”
Sanzo said nothing. He said nothing when Goku laced their fingers together, said nothing at the feather-light touch in his hair, or the fact that Dug developed a palm-licking habit. A little later Sanzo would be making a mental note to the effect of “don’t eat salty food with your hands,” but that was still an outburst away.
Hakkai and Gojyo staggered out of an attraction, chased by the angry stares of the mother of pre-teen girls, and made their way along the boulevard. A scantily clad fairy scampered out of the way, leaving behind a trail of fairy dust, but the dynamic duo paid her no mind. Hakkai had acquired a disposable camera along the way, though there was precious little to take pictures of, apparently until Sanzo crossed their path.
There was a squeak, a blinding flash and then a guffaw of laughter.
“And just like that, the greatest sight since the pie incident has been immortalised.” Gojyo lifted his hands into the air and turned, expecting applause. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
“What’s your cockroach on about?” Sanzo asked, rubbing the aftershocks of the flash out of his eyes.
“Ah. I see you have been avoiding reflective surfaces lately.”
“What?”
“You might want to take a look for yourself,” Hakkai said, linking arms with Goku and pulling him away. Sanzo turned to the nearest polished surface and stared.
And stared.
And stared some more.
“What the mother…” he started, but Gojyo’s well-placed hand and another scandalised father’s face stopped the string of expletives from taking flight. There were two black satellite dishes on his head, at present tuned in to Radio Gonna Kill You All. “I’m gonna burn the motherfucker alive.”
“… and once again the day is saved by our impeccable timing, Hakkai. We need a medal, or something.” Gojyo, mindless of the danger to his limb, reached out a hand to pluck the ears off Sanzo’s hair. “We have to roll, or we’re looking at a whole night in Paris.”
Sanzo considered the merits of (just) revenge, and considered Goku, and the quiet, unassuming silence of his bedroom. He nodded. “Let’s go.”
Revenge would have to wait.
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.
Sigh. Internet trouble continue. :(
Betaed by
kispexi2, who graciously stepped in to help. <3 Thank you, hun!When they woke up the next morning the harem-slash-desert bandits were gone, and so were their valuables. These were later found in the safe in the office, but the curses remained in the morning air.
Sanzo, much as he loathed being a part of the community, helped out with the packing. He was rolling up a blanket and watching Kougaji. There was something that bugged him about the guy.
“You come from money, don’t you,” he said, when the very expensive watch Kougaji had around his wrist finally matched a pattern in his memory.
Kougaji looked down at his watch, than back again at Sanzo. “Yes.”
“Does your mother approve of your friends?”
“As a matter of fact, no.” Kougaji smiled at Sanzo grimly. “She disapproves of my choice of just about everything, women included.”
“At least you fancy women,” Sanzo pointed out sensibly, haunted with the vision of the quiet disappointment in his own mother’s eyes and the easier-to-deal-with violent and contradictory reaction of his father.
“There is that, yes. I’m certain she’s not happy I’m here, right now, with camels, instead of in the Middle East and herding slaves with drills to the oil fields.”
“Your mother is a right bitch,” Sanzo said then. Kougaji stared at him for a moment, then offered a tentative, uncomfortable laugh.
“Step-mother. Let’s make that distinction. She is.”
“Hey there, good morning, gracious host. Can we eat before we depart into the night?” Gojyo stretched and did a few squats. He had foregone his jeans in favour of the jellabiya, judging by the lack of trouser lines.
“Night? It’s morning.”
“I have yet to see the sun, so unless you’ve got it stashed in your trousers, it is night.”
“Early start means we make it to the pit stop and can hide from the midday heat at least for a while,” Kougaji said.
“Praise the hallelujah, why do we have to get up at the crack of dawn?”
Kougaji opened his mouth to answer, again, but Sanzo shook his head. “He won’t even remember this in an hour, not worth your time.”
Gojyo blinked, confirming Sanzo’s diagnosis fully -- he was still half-asleep, barely fit to tie his own shoelaces, let alone consider the problems of cross-country camelling. Hakkai, thankfully, was more of an early riser and he was there to steer his boyfriend through the magic rituals of morning hygiene.
“Hi!” Goku appeared from behind the tent at a run, with Dug five inches from his calf. “Gosh, it’s awesome here!” He was barefoot and wearing nothing but the loud shorts Kanzeon had purchased for him. His chest looked good enough to lick.
“It’s a barren desert.”
“Yeah, nothing to trip on!”
Sanzo went back to his tent. It was beneath him to discuss the merits of a desert setting with a blind dog owner. What did he care? In a giant sandbox no one was going to ask Goku to clean up after the mutt, so of course he was happy! He had very little time to ponder this, all by himself, as minutes after he stormed off, Kougaji was knocking on the pole supporting the tent, signalling it was time to go.
Abu, the camel of indeterminable sex, deigned a look at Sanzo when he approached. The camel of indeterminable sex (well, no, but Sanzo didn’t care to find out) rolled its eyes (now of this Sanzo was certain) and knelt. Goku patted his or her nose as he passed and the damned animal inclined its head in greeting, responding with a hee-haw to Dug’s bark.
Sanzo watched Goku get onto his own camel, Flounder, and easily hop onto its back. He could swear there was a grin on the smug snout when the long legs unfolded and Goku shot up into the sky.
“Come on, Sanzo, move it!” Gojyo was already on the first floor, that’s how high his mount was, Hakkai closely following.
Sanzo gave Abu a long look. “You don’t bug me; I don’t bug you,” he muttered before hoisting himself into the saddle. Abu ignored his yelp and stood up as soon as it felt Sanzo’s weight, and it was only a miracle and sheer force of will that stopped Sanzo from falling off again.
“Are you okay, Sanzo?”
“Shoulder,” he said vaguely. Hakkai had enough tact to infer from his tone there would be no answers pertaining to the matter.
Goku, of course, had all the tact and subtlety of a charging elephant. He tugged at the reins, which some moron had left in his hands, and set Flounder’s course to a head-on collision with Abu. “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously, striking Sanzo dumb with the enormity of his eyes, one more time. He really should be getting used to this.
“I’m fine.”
“But your shoulder! You ought have someone look at it if it’s hurting, it was dislocated!”
“Hold up a bit, Sanzo. Your shoulder got dislocated? How the fuck did we not know?”
Sanzo gritted his teeth and swore to murder the monkey the first chance he got. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.”
“Says the man who just fell off the camel.”
“I’m on it, aren’t I? Your argument lacks merit.”
“Yeah, but you are a little pale.”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
“Sanzo, if you are injured, now would be the time to mention it.” Hakkai had the power to manipulate lesser minds; it was therefore no surprise that the creature he rode obeyed his every whim. He levelled his pace with Sanzo’s, because his evil was most effective at short range, Sanzo supposed. “What is wrong with your shoulder?”
“Nothing. It was dislocated. It popped back in.”
“Does it hurt?”
Sanzo bit his lip. “Only if I put weight on it.”
Hakkai pursed his lips and Sanzo dug his heels into Abu’s sides, hoping the infernal creature would take a hint and ride off, away from the Supreme Interfering Master of All That Was Evil. No such luck. Abu turned its head, giving him a look and a superior smirk, then made sure its dinnerplates of hooves were moving exactly in synch with those of Hakkai’s camel.
“I hate camels.”
“Why?” Gojyo turned in the saddle, squinted against the glare of the newly risen sun, but grinned. “Awesome creatures, really.”
“Figures you’d like them. Affinity for humps must make the two of you soul-sibs.”
The camels giggled under their breaths and continued on into the rapidly brightening day. Soon Sanzo let himself fall into the half-doze that the camel’s lazy rocking encouraged. He woke when it was finally time to rest and sleep away high noon.
******
“We remind you that smoking is prohibited in all areas,” said a female voice. Sanzo muttered a vague curse in her direction, turned his head to his other shoulder and continued to doze.
“Sanzo?”
There was a hand on his shoulder. Sanzo lashed out before he had the chance to think about it, skimming the perpetrator’s cheek in the attempt to part them from their teeth.
“Are you fucking crazy!” Gojyo yelled jumping away. “A little care!”
“Why, did I hit something important? Couldn’t have been your head.”
“You are going to scare the poor kid away, sooner or later.”
Sanzo rolled his eyes. The airports were painfully boring, as boring as they were uncomfortable. The plastic ridges between the seats were digging into his neck, ribs and hips, ensuring that whatever sleep he managed to catch would be wasted. “I hate airports.”
“I’ve got one word for you: ocean.”
“I hate them a little less.” Sanzo rubbed his forehead. “Where’s your overlord?”
“Over in the food court, feeding your monkey and his dog.”
“Still?” Hakkai had whisked the two mutts away well before Sanzo tried for a nap.
“Kid is going to bankrupt you with his stomach one day.”
“I dread the day I start caring for his stomach.”
The departure screen fluttered, revealing that someone in flight control had just woken and decided to flip some switches, at long last. Their flight was up, highlighted in all the merry ways a flight gets highlighted when it is late and tries to make the passengers feel guilty about not being on board yet.
They had no luggage to speak of, so the boarding process was fairly painless. The first spot of trouble turned up at the very end, when a pair of stewards were collecting boarding passes.
“Sir, you cannot take a dog…” a stewardess at the gate started, looking at Dug and walking into a wall of pure evil.
“I’m sorry, are you trying to bereave my disabled friend of his guide dog?” Hakkai smiled sweetly, placing a friendly arm on the unfortunate woman’s shoulder.
“No, of course not,” she started stammering, and Sanzo almost felt bad for the poor cow -- he would have dismissed her with a glare that would merely reduce her to the size of a worm for an hour or two. Now that Hakkai had taken charge, she would be quivering in fear for years to come.
“Because I would hate to bear witness to an awful, awful scene,” Hakkai continued, giving Sanzo the mother of all inferiority complexes. He could belittle a man on par with the best: he was handsome, well-connected and rich, but Hakkai could make a man fear for his soul just by looking into his eyes. Such a level of mastery required that a child be nurtured by the many tits of Beelzebub from infancy on, and so Sanzo’s prime time for learning was long past.
Not that he knew much about Hakkai’s parents. From what he’d heard his mother was a perfectly lovely woman, which made Hakkai’s existence all the more puzzling.
They ended up being seated at the back of the plane, thanks to a kind family who had graciously consented to exchanging their seats, just so they were out of the zone the unfortunate woman was responsible for. Gojyo had insisted. He had a soft spot for most of Hakkai’s victims.
“Planes smell funny,” Goku said, a little dreamily. His head was lolling on his shoulder. He hadn’t slept, far as Sanzo knew, during the noon break, choosing instead to chat up that annoying female. Served the little moron right, being sleepy and uncomfortable now. Sanzo had stopped paying attention to the camel posse as soon as they reached civilisation, and to the female even sooner.
“Try not to breathe then,” Sanzo said.
“My head would hurt,” Goku said and before he could finish speaking his temple was resting on Sanzo’s shoulder. Sanzo exchanged a long look with Dug.
“Your master is a bit of a moron,” he mumbled through gritted teeth. Dug whined and rested his head on Sanzo’s knee. His cold nose prodded Sanzo’s hand, demanding scratches. “You are a bit of a moron, too.”
Sanzo didn’t need to look at Goku to know the monkey was smiling. When he was sure neither Gojyo nor Hakkai were looking, he dropped a small kiss onto his hair, getting a mouthful of sand for his trouble.
******
The flight was smooth and uneventful, far as Sanzo was aware, which was to say there might well have been a terrorist attempt, quiet enough to sleep through. He only awoke when the flight attendants started droning about the trays and upright positions, and then they were landing. Goku blinked his way into awareness not long after that, yawning at regular intervals. “Are we home yet?” he asked when they were herded out of the plane and onto the tarmac.
“No.” Sanzo looked around. There was something suspicious about the surroundings, more specifically about the short messages displayed all around. “This is not Heathrow. Why is this not Heathrow?”
“Ah, yes, I meant to discuss this. The soonest direct flight to Heathrow was tomorrow morning.”
“Go on,” Sanzo said, feeling a wave of calmness wash over him. “Where are we?”
“Paris, I believe.”
“Paris.”
“Yes. We are booked for the Eurostar in--” Hakkai checked his watch, “--seven hours.”
“You are telling me that there is no plane departing from Paris to London in seven hours? Did the third world war break out while we were gone?”
“Apparently Nepal has overthrown monarchy, but that’s it.”
“Why, pray tell, are we stuck in Paris then?”
Hakkai had the gall to look amused. “I had been reliably informed that there was a good chance of our plane being late, so I planned accordingly.”
Sanzo threw his hands in the air. “Find me a hotel.”
“It’s customary to buy them dinner first, Sanzo,” Gojyo said. Sanze presumed the only reason he wasn’t guffawing with laughter yet was that the conversation was taking place over the unassuming yellow line that separated the queue from the grim young man behind bulletproof glass, who was glaring at the passports of those arriving.
“What?”
“Treat the kid to a nice dinner and you’ll find he’d be more eager to drop his pants for you then.”
“How is that I haven’t murdered you yet?” Sanzo asked, rolling his eyes.
“There are long, lonely nights when I wonder that too.” Gojyo sighed theatrically and paused. A broad grin blossomed on his face and Sanzo knew -- oh how he knew -- that he ought to run, and run fast.
They were standing underneath a giant photo of the soul-sucking rodent from the Disney Corporation. “No,” Sanzo said, but clearly his credit card got the vote when he didn’t, as an hour later, the very same creature was very definitely trying to cop a feel of his arse.
“Ohmigosh,” Goku enthused, like he really was ten. He was patting the enormous head with a delight unbecoming of his age. “Mickey Mouse!”
“I feel a villain song coming on,” Sanzo said, taking Goku’s hand all the same. “A villain song and then a violent crime.” His head, the traitorous blond, refused to ache, thus leaving him without an excuse to wait out the so-called fun on a bench outside.
“You sing?”
“Given appropriate setting, alcohol and more alcohol, I could be persuaded.”
Goku’s eyes shone like something of a movie about a pink-toting princess with plans for an equally pink future. “I’d love to hear you sing!”
“I’d love to have enough alcohol to sing, that’s for damn sure.”
A scandalised middle-aged woman pulled her pink-infested young daughter to her and hissed at Sanzo. “Garder sa langue!”
“Mind your brain, lady,” Sanzo muttered.
It was a lovely, sunny day, not too hot, with a gentle breeze wafting from the hot-dog stands in their direction. Hakkai and Gojyo had vamoosed to some secluded corner, hopefully to get thrown out for lewd behaviour, and Sanzo was left with Goku on his arm and Dug by their side, in the middle of something closely resembling a date.
“This is not a date,” he said when Goku was halfway through his first hot-dog of the day.
There was much blinking and confusion. “What is it then?”
Sanzo found this was a question nigh-impossible to answer, save for the answer he had provided already; the answer that had preceded the question. “Does it matter?” he said eventually, gratified in that at least Goku shrugged off the dilemma with ease.
“I dunno. I’m no good at naming stuff.”
Sanzo didn’t reply. He was positive that this would not, ever, be called a date, however he was just as certain that were someone else to invite Goku to hold hands and walk down a lunapark for snacks and rides, he would not only be cross, he would be pissed. For reasons unknown, of course. He put little stock in total awareness. He preferred the slightly less logical, but nonetheless entertaining, brand of flailing madly until life arranged itself to his liking.
It was confusing, often, to get so wrapped up in a version of reality he knew to be false, then to be broken out of it, even to results he pretended he wasn’t craving, and find himself stricken. Sanzo had considered investing in a therapist, once. He had gone to one session, on his parents’ insistence, had given the poor woman palpitations and never returned.
“OoooooOooh,” Goku said, and Sanzo stopped. Such a long, modulated o could never be good.
“What?”
“Can we go? Please, please, please?”
“No.”
“But it’s a giant frigging rollercoaster!” Dug barked and in the corner of Sanzo’s eye an utter nerd with a pencil and a notebook stared at them, open-mouthed.
“How can you tell, by the queue?”
“No, screaming. Rollercoasters also smell like wind.”
Sanzo awarded the comment a high nine on a scale of absolute ridiculousness. “They smell like puke.”
“Not true.”
“That’s because your nose is full of dog.”
“Hey, that’s not true!”
The argument continued well into the impossibly long line of people, also eager to part with their breakfasts and lunches on the monstrosity of a ride. Sanzo felt a stab of apprehension. “I’m gonna wait here.”
“Oh,” Goku said, a short little syllable thoroughly drenched in disappointment. Sanzo rolled his eyes and tried to snort, found the snort tried to be a sigh, failed on both accounts, and then, somehow, it was their turn.
They got front row seats, an treat wasted on the blind and the grumpy.
Sanzo’s brain decided to take extended vacation for the duration of the ride, returning when it was time to stagger out of the cart and onto solid ground.
“That was fun!” Goku bounced up and down as he unhooked Dug’s leash from the post. “Sorry Dug, they don’t let dogs on the ride.”
Sanzo said nothing. He said nothing when Goku laced their fingers together, said nothing at the feather-light touch in his hair, or the fact that Dug developed a palm-licking habit. A little later Sanzo would be making a mental note to the effect of “don’t eat salty food with your hands,” but that was still an outburst away.
Hakkai and Gojyo staggered out of an attraction, chased by the angry stares of the mother of pre-teen girls, and made their way along the boulevard. A scantily clad fairy scampered out of the way, leaving behind a trail of fairy dust, but the dynamic duo paid her no mind. Hakkai had acquired a disposable camera along the way, though there was precious little to take pictures of, apparently until Sanzo crossed their path.
There was a squeak, a blinding flash and then a guffaw of laughter.
“And just like that, the greatest sight since the pie incident has been immortalised.” Gojyo lifted his hands into the air and turned, expecting applause. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
“What’s your cockroach on about?” Sanzo asked, rubbing the aftershocks of the flash out of his eyes.
“Ah. I see you have been avoiding reflective surfaces lately.”
“What?”
“You might want to take a look for yourself,” Hakkai said, linking arms with Goku and pulling him away. Sanzo turned to the nearest polished surface and stared.
And stared.
And stared some more.
“What the mother…” he started, but Gojyo’s well-placed hand and another scandalised father’s face stopped the string of expletives from taking flight. There were two black satellite dishes on his head, at present tuned in to Radio Gonna Kill You All. “I’m gonna burn the motherfucker alive.”
“… and once again the day is saved by our impeccable timing, Hakkai. We need a medal, or something.” Gojyo, mindless of the danger to his limb, reached out a hand to pluck the ears off Sanzo’s hair. “We have to roll, or we’re looking at a whole night in Paris.”
Sanzo considered the merits of (just) revenge, and considered Goku, and the quiet, unassuming silence of his bedroom. He nodded. “Let’s go.”
Revenge would have to wait.
TBC
