[fic] Balloons 6
Oct. 14th, 2010 09:50 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!
“Hakkai and Goku,” Gojyo said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but our pilot just jumped ship.”
“Whaddya mean?” Goku asked. “How could he jump ship with us being onna plane? I thought we’d started. My ears popped and everything.”
“That’s why I said I don’t wanna alarm you.” Gojyo got out of his seat and squeezed into the cockpit. “The good news,” he yelled through the noise, “Is that the auto-pilot is gonna keep us going as long as no turbulence fucks us over. Then we are toast.”
“Ah,” Hakkai said. His fingers were bone white and digging into the armrest.
Sanzo shoved the seatbelts aside and went to inspect the back of the plane. “I found parachutes,” he said, when the inspection of a large container carefully labelled “do not open” yielded not only five separate factory-packed parachutes, three complete with drogues, but also suits and enough harnesses to land a tank safely on a moon-bounce.
“Awesome!” Gojyo’s spirits lifted considerably. “Do they got red?”
“Not in your size.”
“Aw, come on!”
“You’re gonna have to settle for pink,” Sanzo said.
“Okay, dude. This is not pink. This is violet.”
“Could you be any more of a queer?”
“I shagged more women than you, so I’m pretty sure that makes you more queer than me.”
“Not if you can tell pink and violet apart.”
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, hi, I wouldn’t wanna be butting in, but we are in a pilot-less plane here. Only thing missing is Gary Oldman,” Goku said. He was nervous, and Sanzo was struck by an unexpected urge to console him. Luckily, he didn’t have to, because Gojyo opened his big mouth.
“Hey, this is good news. The weather is perfect, we are high in the air and we got shiny new ‘chutes. Life couldn’t be sweeter.”
Hakkai muttered something he must have read in the Necronomicon on his weekly meetings. Sanzo dug through the container and came up with a jumpsuit that ought to be small enough for the monkey. “Put this on,” he said depositing the yellow bag in Goku’s lap. “It zips up on the front.”
“Why am I the only one who’s nervous?” Goku asked, but obediently started tearing on the plastic.
“Because you are a moron,” Sanzo said.
“Shut up, Sanzo. Goku, chill-out. Everything’s gonna be fine. Hey Hakkai, you prefer blue or green?”
“I couldn’t care less, honestly.”
“Green it is. Suit up,” Gojyo said rather unnecessarily, as Sanzo was already zipping up and Goku was just figuring out where to put his legs. “So here’s the plan – Sanzo, you grab Goku and you can go. Hakkai, you second. I’ll go last, rescuing anyone who fails at surviving.”
“What about Dug?” Goku said, panicking in earnest.
“Don’t worry ‘bout the mutt, I got him covered.”
“You’re gonna parachute jump with a dog?” Goku asked.
“Relax. I do this for a living.”
“What, jump holding dogs?”
“Smartass. No, I’m a skydiving instructor. We also do acrobatics and aerial shows.”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“If we were about to hit a mountain, yeah, absolutely. I think.” Goku cocked his head and considered. “Probably.”
“We’re not. Stop being such a suspicious little bugger.” Gojyo ruffled Goku’s hair, then he looked at the dog. “Is he gonna give me trouble?”
“Hard to say, I ain’t ever tried kicking him out of a plane.”
“Har-har.” Gojyo zipped his suit up and knelt beside Dug with a harness in his hands. “You’re make the pooch nervous.”
“He’s gonna be, anyway!” Goku shook his head and waved his fists, but held Dug in place as Gojyo wrapped the black tape around him and fastened the straps. “Good boy, Dug. You are gonna behave for Gojyo, okay?” Dug panted and licked a tongue-wide stripe across Goku’s face. “Good boy.”
“Okay. Let me know before you jump, so that I can clip him. I wouldn’t wanna have to jump after him after he jumps after you.”
“Stupid dog,” Sanzo said, solely out of the need to interject. Goku turned his attention to him, but he was silent while Sanzo helped him into the harness and tested the fastenings. “Put these on.” Goku managed to get the goggles on his face the right side up on the second try. His hands shook and Sanzo supposed that blind-jumping out of a plane with a guy he didn’t know had to overload a guy’s adrenaline glands with demands for more. “Stop shivering. You’re going to fuck with my piloting.”
“I ain’t exactly spent my weekends skydiving!”
“Which is why no one is letting you close to a parachute.”
“You jumped a lot?”
“Enough.”
“With a passenger?”
“With Gojyo, to my eternal shame,” Sanzo said, biting his tongue only after the admission left his mouth. He had sworn never to return to that memory.
“But Gojyo said he is an instructor.”
“Yes.”
“So you haven’t actually jumped with a passenger,” Goku said, and to his credit his voice only shook a little.
“It can’t be that hard, if Gojyo can do it.” Sanzo did a quick check of the equipment and fastened the parachute to his back. All that remained was praying that the equipment was in working order, and he wasn’t a praying man.
“Wait, you might want to take this,” Hakkai handed Goku a small pack.
“What’s that?”
“Rudimentary provisions. They were in the box in the back. You might need to eat before we manage to meet again.”
“Good point. Do we have compasses or some such?”
“Not really, no.” Hakkai took a deep breath and went into the cockpit to study the view. “There,” he yelled, pointing in a direction perpendicular to the apparent flight path. “Tents. Seems like some sort of festival – we’ll all head in that direction.”
Gojyo and Sanzo looked out of the side-windows. “Sounds good,” Gojyo said. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of miles.” Sanzo refrained from commenting that there was a jungle in their way, even if the projected landing site was a sandy plain.
“That’s not exactly a block away!”
“If you catch a ride, do let me know!”
Sanzo shrugged. “You ready?” he asked Goku.
“Not very.”
“We’re off then.” Sanzo fitted a pair of goggles over his eyes and snapped their harnesses together. His breath messed up the short hair on the nape of Goku’s neck, causing him to giggle. “Do not try to scream; I won’t hear you anyway. Talking is impossible during a jump. Do not wiggle or move.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Parachuting is easy. Gravity only works one way.”
“Thank you so much, I feel better.”
“When I pull the parachute you’re going to feel a sharp yank. Don’t worry about it. Then it ought to be smooth, until the landing.”
“Okay, what about the landing?”
“Obviously, it could get interesting. Just try to stay relaxed.” No way they were going to pull off a landing without tripping, not with a blind passenger, but Sanzo was going to try, anyway. Rolling in the dirt was not one of his favourite past-times.
“Looking good, kids!” Gojyo gave them a thumbs up. Sanzo gave him the finger.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay with Dug?”
“Well, I ain’t ever jumped with a dog, but yeah, I think so. If he doesn’t try to bite my face off, or anything.”
“That might actually be an improvement.” Sanzo waited for Gojyo to finish fiddling with his own parachute. He then attached the fastenings on the front of his suit to the harness on Dug, so that the dog would hang across his chest.
“Okay, we’re good. Open her up, Hakkai.”
Hakkai, noticeably paler than usual, grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Air rushed into the cabin, scrambling all the words into an utter mess. Sanzo guided Goku to the open door and, without further ado – what could he say, really? – pushed them both over the edge. To his credit, Goku only let out a wordless yelp when gravity grabbed them with both hands and pulled, hard.
They weren’t too high off the ground, a mile, maybe a little more. Sanzo made sure the drogue deployed properly before reaching out and grasping Goku’s hand. He yelled something nonsensical into his ear as their fingers entwined, even as he pulled the cord that, with any luck, would release the parachute and save them from a splattering death. Goku’s hand tightened around his and the whooshing air went through Sanzo’s jumpsuit and invaded every last nerve, filling his mind with gibberish and the sun. Fortunately, the movement was a reflex by now – with his right hand Sanzo pulled the cord and the parachute unfurled, yanking them out of freefall with a powerful snap.
The air stilled as their descent became less of a frantic rush and more of a scenic voyage. “We are not dead yet,” Sanzo yelled, and Goku laughed in joyous relief.
“Thanks! I was worried there for a moment!”
His hand was warm, clammy and fairly disgusting, Sanzo thought, but he didn’t let go as they gently floated towards the open plain.
The closer they got, the less comfortable the landing looked. The plain was treeless, but riddled with rocks and small, camouflaged bushes that, if they were lucky, hid only thorns and not scorpions.
“The landing might get bumpy!” Sanzo warned. “Try to fly.”
Goku opened his mouth in indignation but uttered no sound. Sanzo was grateful. A sudden gust of wind sent them whirling from his carefully chosen landing strip, leaving him with little time to prepare a landing procedure. “On three, get ready to run!”
Goku nodded and seconds before they hit the ground Sanzo yelled “lift your legs!” They missed a jagged rock by inches, hit the dirt at all the wrong angles and rolled to a complete stop twenty yards later, hopelessly tangled in the parachute and one another.
Sanzo – 39, gravity – 0.
Sanzo opened his eyes and rolled them both a yard to the left, away from a slithering reptile, which had been resting in the shadow of a rock. “Ouch, motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plains.”
Goku burst out into laughter. “Thank you, Samuel.”
“Shut up. This was a hopeless landing.”
“No, it was an awesome landing. We are both in one piece and on solid ground.” Goku started feeling around for the clasps that held the harness together, and Sanzo hurried to assist, because fuck if he was going to be attached to the moron any longer than necessary. The harness, of course, was the least of their problems: far more pressing was the web of cords binding them like a Christmas ham. Thankfully, and Sanzo couldn’t have more grudging respect for the person who planned this, the jumpsuit was equipped with a sharp knife. Within moments he was scrambling to his feet and scanning the sky for the rest of their little posse.
Far in the distance the plane was wobbling, possibly because of a sudden draft, but there were no parachutes in the sky.
“Can you see them?” Goku asked, unzipping his suit.
“No.”
Goku bit his lip. “You suppose they are okay?”
“What? How stupid do you think Gojyo is, really?”
“Excuse me for finding extreme sports dangerous!”
“Why do I have to get stuck with idiots?” Sanzo asked the empty sky. “They are fine. It’s not rocket science. Even you could do it.” A moment’s thought had him revising the statement. “You could have done it. Being able to see is a requirement, far as I know.”
“Gee, thanks. You really think they are okay?”
“Gojyo does this for a living. I assume if he couldn’t make a jump in perfect conditions with brand-new equipment, he would have been long since out of a job.”
“What about Hakkai?”
“What about him?” It had long been a belief on which Sanzo erected his worldview that Hakkai could glare the air into breaking his fall and depositing him gently wherever he pleased.
“You said he’s scared of heights.”
“So?”
“So we left him alone to jump outta a plane?”
“He had Gojyo to give him a push.”
“You know what I mean!”
“He’s done at least three solo jumps that I know of. He is fine.”
Goku nodded and started struggling out of the jumpsuit. Sanzo followed his example, because the sun was unbearable, especially with three pounds of glorified plastic bag on his skin.
“So what’s the plan?”
“We trek through the jungle to the circus.”
“What circus?”
“There’s a bunch of round tents in that direction,” Sanzo extended his arm and only after Goku didn’t turn his head to look did he realise the futility of visual demonstration. “It’s west from where we are,” he said. The sun was orange and enormous, shining straight into his eyes. It was May and he couldn’t be sure about time, precisely, but – oh fuck. “We need to camp out.”
“What, now?”
“It’s late,” Sanzo said and cursed himself for not realising it sooner. “We are not hiking through the jungle at night.”
“Yeah, that would be bad. Okay then.”
“Okay then?”
“Whatcha gonna do?”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Why not? It’s not that bad. We got some food and a little water, we got the ‘chute to make a tent, you smoke, so we got fire – it could be worse.”
“It must be really nice, living without a brain.”
“It must be horrible, living with one,” Goku retorted and grinned. Sanzo had the urge to punch that smart mouth. It was either that, or kissing it, and that wasn’t happening without some serious toothbrush action first. “Do we know which way to go?”
“The plane was heading straight north, so we go west.”
“Awesome.” Goku stood up, rolling up the jumpsuit as he went. He tied it around the pack Hakkai had given him and sat back down, waiting for Sanzo to realise the parachute wasn’t going to be used to its intended purpose without the cords being changed first, so there was no point in folding it properly.
“Let’s move,” Sanzo said and they earnestly tried, but it turned out that blindness was a serious handicap when navigating a jagged surface of rocks and bushes and at least fifteen hundred lizards. After the third fall, Sanzo took Goku by the elbow and proceeded with a running commentary, liberally interspaced with profanities.
They made it to the edge of the jungle when the sky in the west started turning fiery. Sanzo cut some pieces of the rope and – with surprising amount of help from Goku – erected a truly astonishing construction of fabric and tree branches.
“Are you sure you’re blind?” he asked when Goku deftly tied off the final corner of their tent.
“I sometimes doubt it, but then I look around and check the time. If it ain’t midnight and I see nothing, I probably am blind.”
Sanzo probably shouldn’t be this impressed by the smart-ass reply. He really shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it if Goku’s broad grin brought a genuine smile to his mouth, so he didn’t even try.
“What do we have to eat?” Goku asked, rummaging in their meagre pack of provisions. “Feels like candybars.”
“There’s chocolate and protein bars.”
“I’m hungry.”
“We’re not going far. You can eat then.”
“I don’t like being hungry.”
“I imagine that’s true of anyone who doesn’t spend their lives on catwalks, doing the job of coat hangers. Shut up and eat the damn bar.”
Though the supper was less than satisfactory, because Sanzo was craving beer and Goku a three-course meal, the view was nothing if not spectacular. Sanzo watched the sunset as he chewed, counting down the minutes until the darkness would be total and they would be alone with the spiders and mosquitoes and dinosaurs and possibly King Kong. Sanzo was a city boy, born and bred. He distrusted forests in the climate zone he hailed from, but here, at the gates of hell that the intertropical zone was, his hair was standing up straight and thrumming.
Parachuting he was okay with, any time, any place, any height. Trees he wanted to give a wide berth, especially at night. There was no telling what would come out of those trees at night.
Goku yawned and Sanzo started out of his grim musings. “Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Wake me in a couple of hours then,” Goku said bravely, though his eyes were practically glued together.
“Fat load of good you’ll be, if someone walks up to us really slowly.”
“Will not!”
“Go to sleep.”
“I’m kinda thinking, why do we need to keep watch? It’s not like there’s anyone around.”
“I’m not taking chances.”
“And what are you gonna do? Growl at them?”
“Shut up and fall asleep.”
Goku rolled his eyes -- a fact only visible in the quickly fading light because the whites of his eyes caught the very last stray sunbeam -- and crawled into the architectonical wonder of wood and fabric. Within minutes Sanzo heard snoring and fuck if that didn’t spark envy. He tossed and turned most nights, trying to find a comfortable spot on a futon -- hell, he’d tossed and turned until Koumyou had rolled over and flattened him under his weight -- and sleep would ellude him for hours. The monkey had only to lay his head on the pillow for his frigging brain to switch off.
It probably helped that he had just a tiny brain to begin with, Sanzo mused.
He congratulated himself on collecting the cigarettes Gojyo had been incautious enough to leave in the shower. It wasn’t his preferred brand, but lung poison was lung poison, and he was glad to have it. He lit one and contemplated the blackness of the jungle before him.
It took him thirty seconds to realise he had maybe five minutes before his rational brain gave way to the lizard one, and when that happened he would start running in circles on the rocky plain, screaming for someone, anyone to come save him. He looked into the jungle and the jungle looked back, with a million tiny eyes, staring into him and through him.
Though he wasn’t a fan of camping, he built a fire in under two minutes, surrounded it with a ring of rocks and crawled into the tent. The flickering flames cast just enough light to penetrate the folds of the parachute and allow him to see Goku stretched out on a matress of rock and jumpsuits, just as comfortable as he would have been in his own bed. How Sanzo envied him his peace and calm.
Strange, how much comfort the flimsy fabric offered. Sanzo sat there for an hour, watching the flames’ flickering shadow on the folds. Finally, when his eyes would no longer work, he poked his head out, added fuel to the fire, and -- cursing all the while -- wrapped his arms around Goku’s sleeping body.
Comforted by the serenity emanating from Goku’s peaceful sleep, Sanzo gave in to exhaustion and allowed himself to fall asleep as well.
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! “Hakkai and Goku,” Gojyo said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but our pilot just jumped ship.”
“Whaddya mean?” Goku asked. “How could he jump ship with us being onna plane? I thought we’d started. My ears popped and everything.”
“That’s why I said I don’t wanna alarm you.” Gojyo got out of his seat and squeezed into the cockpit. “The good news,” he yelled through the noise, “Is that the auto-pilot is gonna keep us going as long as no turbulence fucks us over. Then we are toast.”
“Ah,” Hakkai said. His fingers were bone white and digging into the armrest.
Sanzo shoved the seatbelts aside and went to inspect the back of the plane. “I found parachutes,” he said, when the inspection of a large container carefully labelled “do not open” yielded not only five separate factory-packed parachutes, three complete with drogues, but also suits and enough harnesses to land a tank safely on a moon-bounce.
“Awesome!” Gojyo’s spirits lifted considerably. “Do they got red?”
“Not in your size.”
“Aw, come on!”
“You’re gonna have to settle for pink,” Sanzo said.
“Okay, dude. This is not pink. This is violet.”
“Could you be any more of a queer?”
“I shagged more women than you, so I’m pretty sure that makes you more queer than me.”
“Not if you can tell pink and violet apart.”
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, hi, I wouldn’t wanna be butting in, but we are in a pilot-less plane here. Only thing missing is Gary Oldman,” Goku said. He was nervous, and Sanzo was struck by an unexpected urge to console him. Luckily, he didn’t have to, because Gojyo opened his big mouth.
“Hey, this is good news. The weather is perfect, we are high in the air and we got shiny new ‘chutes. Life couldn’t be sweeter.”
Hakkai muttered something he must have read in the Necronomicon on his weekly meetings. Sanzo dug through the container and came up with a jumpsuit that ought to be small enough for the monkey. “Put this on,” he said depositing the yellow bag in Goku’s lap. “It zips up on the front.”
“Why am I the only one who’s nervous?” Goku asked, but obediently started tearing on the plastic.
“Because you are a moron,” Sanzo said.
“Shut up, Sanzo. Goku, chill-out. Everything’s gonna be fine. Hey Hakkai, you prefer blue or green?”
“I couldn’t care less, honestly.”
“Green it is. Suit up,” Gojyo said rather unnecessarily, as Sanzo was already zipping up and Goku was just figuring out where to put his legs. “So here’s the plan – Sanzo, you grab Goku and you can go. Hakkai, you second. I’ll go last, rescuing anyone who fails at surviving.”
“What about Dug?” Goku said, panicking in earnest.
“Don’t worry ‘bout the mutt, I got him covered.”
“You’re gonna parachute jump with a dog?” Goku asked.
“Relax. I do this for a living.”
“What, jump holding dogs?”
“Smartass. No, I’m a skydiving instructor. We also do acrobatics and aerial shows.”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“If we were about to hit a mountain, yeah, absolutely. I think.” Goku cocked his head and considered. “Probably.”
“We’re not. Stop being such a suspicious little bugger.” Gojyo ruffled Goku’s hair, then he looked at the dog. “Is he gonna give me trouble?”
“Hard to say, I ain’t ever tried kicking him out of a plane.”
“Har-har.” Gojyo zipped his suit up and knelt beside Dug with a harness in his hands. “You’re make the pooch nervous.”
“He’s gonna be, anyway!” Goku shook his head and waved his fists, but held Dug in place as Gojyo wrapped the black tape around him and fastened the straps. “Good boy, Dug. You are gonna behave for Gojyo, okay?” Dug panted and licked a tongue-wide stripe across Goku’s face. “Good boy.”
“Okay. Let me know before you jump, so that I can clip him. I wouldn’t wanna have to jump after him after he jumps after you.”
“Stupid dog,” Sanzo said, solely out of the need to interject. Goku turned his attention to him, but he was silent while Sanzo helped him into the harness and tested the fastenings. “Put these on.” Goku managed to get the goggles on his face the right side up on the second try. His hands shook and Sanzo supposed that blind-jumping out of a plane with a guy he didn’t know had to overload a guy’s adrenaline glands with demands for more. “Stop shivering. You’re going to fuck with my piloting.”
“I ain’t exactly spent my weekends skydiving!”
“Which is why no one is letting you close to a parachute.”
“You jumped a lot?”
“Enough.”
“With a passenger?”
“With Gojyo, to my eternal shame,” Sanzo said, biting his tongue only after the admission left his mouth. He had sworn never to return to that memory.
“But Gojyo said he is an instructor.”
“Yes.”
“So you haven’t actually jumped with a passenger,” Goku said, and to his credit his voice only shook a little.
“It can’t be that hard, if Gojyo can do it.” Sanzo did a quick check of the equipment and fastened the parachute to his back. All that remained was praying that the equipment was in working order, and he wasn’t a praying man.
“Wait, you might want to take this,” Hakkai handed Goku a small pack.
“What’s that?”
“Rudimentary provisions. They were in the box in the back. You might need to eat before we manage to meet again.”
“Good point. Do we have compasses or some such?”
“Not really, no.” Hakkai took a deep breath and went into the cockpit to study the view. “There,” he yelled, pointing in a direction perpendicular to the apparent flight path. “Tents. Seems like some sort of festival – we’ll all head in that direction.”
Gojyo and Sanzo looked out of the side-windows. “Sounds good,” Gojyo said. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of miles.” Sanzo refrained from commenting that there was a jungle in their way, even if the projected landing site was a sandy plain.
“That’s not exactly a block away!”
“If you catch a ride, do let me know!”
Sanzo shrugged. “You ready?” he asked Goku.
“Not very.”
“We’re off then.” Sanzo fitted a pair of goggles over his eyes and snapped their harnesses together. His breath messed up the short hair on the nape of Goku’s neck, causing him to giggle. “Do not try to scream; I won’t hear you anyway. Talking is impossible during a jump. Do not wiggle or move.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Parachuting is easy. Gravity only works one way.”
“Thank you so much, I feel better.”
“When I pull the parachute you’re going to feel a sharp yank. Don’t worry about it. Then it ought to be smooth, until the landing.”
“Okay, what about the landing?”
“Obviously, it could get interesting. Just try to stay relaxed.” No way they were going to pull off a landing without tripping, not with a blind passenger, but Sanzo was going to try, anyway. Rolling in the dirt was not one of his favourite past-times.
“Looking good, kids!” Gojyo gave them a thumbs up. Sanzo gave him the finger.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay with Dug?”
“Well, I ain’t ever jumped with a dog, but yeah, I think so. If he doesn’t try to bite my face off, or anything.”
“That might actually be an improvement.” Sanzo waited for Gojyo to finish fiddling with his own parachute. He then attached the fastenings on the front of his suit to the harness on Dug, so that the dog would hang across his chest.
“Okay, we’re good. Open her up, Hakkai.”
Hakkai, noticeably paler than usual, grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Air rushed into the cabin, scrambling all the words into an utter mess. Sanzo guided Goku to the open door and, without further ado – what could he say, really? – pushed them both over the edge. To his credit, Goku only let out a wordless yelp when gravity grabbed them with both hands and pulled, hard.
They weren’t too high off the ground, a mile, maybe a little more. Sanzo made sure the drogue deployed properly before reaching out and grasping Goku’s hand. He yelled something nonsensical into his ear as their fingers entwined, even as he pulled the cord that, with any luck, would release the parachute and save them from a splattering death. Goku’s hand tightened around his and the whooshing air went through Sanzo’s jumpsuit and invaded every last nerve, filling his mind with gibberish and the sun. Fortunately, the movement was a reflex by now – with his right hand Sanzo pulled the cord and the parachute unfurled, yanking them out of freefall with a powerful snap.
The air stilled as their descent became less of a frantic rush and more of a scenic voyage. “We are not dead yet,” Sanzo yelled, and Goku laughed in joyous relief.
“Thanks! I was worried there for a moment!”
His hand was warm, clammy and fairly disgusting, Sanzo thought, but he didn’t let go as they gently floated towards the open plain.
The closer they got, the less comfortable the landing looked. The plain was treeless, but riddled with rocks and small, camouflaged bushes that, if they were lucky, hid only thorns and not scorpions.
“The landing might get bumpy!” Sanzo warned. “Try to fly.”
Goku opened his mouth in indignation but uttered no sound. Sanzo was grateful. A sudden gust of wind sent them whirling from his carefully chosen landing strip, leaving him with little time to prepare a landing procedure. “On three, get ready to run!”
Goku nodded and seconds before they hit the ground Sanzo yelled “lift your legs!” They missed a jagged rock by inches, hit the dirt at all the wrong angles and rolled to a complete stop twenty yards later, hopelessly tangled in the parachute and one another.
Sanzo – 39, gravity – 0.
Sanzo opened his eyes and rolled them both a yard to the left, away from a slithering reptile, which had been resting in the shadow of a rock. “Ouch, motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plains.”
Goku burst out into laughter. “Thank you, Samuel.”
“Shut up. This was a hopeless landing.”
“No, it was an awesome landing. We are both in one piece and on solid ground.” Goku started feeling around for the clasps that held the harness together, and Sanzo hurried to assist, because fuck if he was going to be attached to the moron any longer than necessary. The harness, of course, was the least of their problems: far more pressing was the web of cords binding them like a Christmas ham. Thankfully, and Sanzo couldn’t have more grudging respect for the person who planned this, the jumpsuit was equipped with a sharp knife. Within moments he was scrambling to his feet and scanning the sky for the rest of their little posse.
Far in the distance the plane was wobbling, possibly because of a sudden draft, but there were no parachutes in the sky.
“Can you see them?” Goku asked, unzipping his suit.
“No.”
Goku bit his lip. “You suppose they are okay?”
“What? How stupid do you think Gojyo is, really?”
“Excuse me for finding extreme sports dangerous!”
“Why do I have to get stuck with idiots?” Sanzo asked the empty sky. “They are fine. It’s not rocket science. Even you could do it.” A moment’s thought had him revising the statement. “You could have done it. Being able to see is a requirement, far as I know.”
“Gee, thanks. You really think they are okay?”
“Gojyo does this for a living. I assume if he couldn’t make a jump in perfect conditions with brand-new equipment, he would have been long since out of a job.”
“What about Hakkai?”
“What about him?” It had long been a belief on which Sanzo erected his worldview that Hakkai could glare the air into breaking his fall and depositing him gently wherever he pleased.
“You said he’s scared of heights.”
“So?”
“So we left him alone to jump outta a plane?”
“He had Gojyo to give him a push.”
“You know what I mean!”
“He’s done at least three solo jumps that I know of. He is fine.”
Goku nodded and started struggling out of the jumpsuit. Sanzo followed his example, because the sun was unbearable, especially with three pounds of glorified plastic bag on his skin.
“So what’s the plan?”
“We trek through the jungle to the circus.”
“What circus?”
“There’s a bunch of round tents in that direction,” Sanzo extended his arm and only after Goku didn’t turn his head to look did he realise the futility of visual demonstration. “It’s west from where we are,” he said. The sun was orange and enormous, shining straight into his eyes. It was May and he couldn’t be sure about time, precisely, but – oh fuck. “We need to camp out.”
“What, now?”
“It’s late,” Sanzo said and cursed himself for not realising it sooner. “We are not hiking through the jungle at night.”
“Yeah, that would be bad. Okay then.”
“Okay then?”
“Whatcha gonna do?”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Why not? It’s not that bad. We got some food and a little water, we got the ‘chute to make a tent, you smoke, so we got fire – it could be worse.”
“It must be really nice, living without a brain.”
“It must be horrible, living with one,” Goku retorted and grinned. Sanzo had the urge to punch that smart mouth. It was either that, or kissing it, and that wasn’t happening without some serious toothbrush action first. “Do we know which way to go?”
“The plane was heading straight north, so we go west.”
“Awesome.” Goku stood up, rolling up the jumpsuit as he went. He tied it around the pack Hakkai had given him and sat back down, waiting for Sanzo to realise the parachute wasn’t going to be used to its intended purpose without the cords being changed first, so there was no point in folding it properly.
“Let’s move,” Sanzo said and they earnestly tried, but it turned out that blindness was a serious handicap when navigating a jagged surface of rocks and bushes and at least fifteen hundred lizards. After the third fall, Sanzo took Goku by the elbow and proceeded with a running commentary, liberally interspaced with profanities.
They made it to the edge of the jungle when the sky in the west started turning fiery. Sanzo cut some pieces of the rope and – with surprising amount of help from Goku – erected a truly astonishing construction of fabric and tree branches.
“Are you sure you’re blind?” he asked when Goku deftly tied off the final corner of their tent.
“I sometimes doubt it, but then I look around and check the time. If it ain’t midnight and I see nothing, I probably am blind.”
Sanzo probably shouldn’t be this impressed by the smart-ass reply. He really shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it if Goku’s broad grin brought a genuine smile to his mouth, so he didn’t even try.
“What do we have to eat?” Goku asked, rummaging in their meagre pack of provisions. “Feels like candybars.”
“There’s chocolate and protein bars.”
“I’m hungry.”
“We’re not going far. You can eat then.”
“I don’t like being hungry.”
“I imagine that’s true of anyone who doesn’t spend their lives on catwalks, doing the job of coat hangers. Shut up and eat the damn bar.”
Though the supper was less than satisfactory, because Sanzo was craving beer and Goku a three-course meal, the view was nothing if not spectacular. Sanzo watched the sunset as he chewed, counting down the minutes until the darkness would be total and they would be alone with the spiders and mosquitoes and dinosaurs and possibly King Kong. Sanzo was a city boy, born and bred. He distrusted forests in the climate zone he hailed from, but here, at the gates of hell that the intertropical zone was, his hair was standing up straight and thrumming.
Parachuting he was okay with, any time, any place, any height. Trees he wanted to give a wide berth, especially at night. There was no telling what would come out of those trees at night.
Goku yawned and Sanzo started out of his grim musings. “Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Wake me in a couple of hours then,” Goku said bravely, though his eyes were practically glued together.
“Fat load of good you’ll be, if someone walks up to us really slowly.”
“Will not!”
“Go to sleep.”
“I’m kinda thinking, why do we need to keep watch? It’s not like there’s anyone around.”
“I’m not taking chances.”
“And what are you gonna do? Growl at them?”
“Shut up and fall asleep.”
Goku rolled his eyes -- a fact only visible in the quickly fading light because the whites of his eyes caught the very last stray sunbeam -- and crawled into the architectonical wonder of wood and fabric. Within minutes Sanzo heard snoring and fuck if that didn’t spark envy. He tossed and turned most nights, trying to find a comfortable spot on a futon -- hell, he’d tossed and turned until Koumyou had rolled over and flattened him under his weight -- and sleep would ellude him for hours. The monkey had only to lay his head on the pillow for his frigging brain to switch off.
It probably helped that he had just a tiny brain to begin with, Sanzo mused.
He congratulated himself on collecting the cigarettes Gojyo had been incautious enough to leave in the shower. It wasn’t his preferred brand, but lung poison was lung poison, and he was glad to have it. He lit one and contemplated the blackness of the jungle before him.
It took him thirty seconds to realise he had maybe five minutes before his rational brain gave way to the lizard one, and when that happened he would start running in circles on the rocky plain, screaming for someone, anyone to come save him. He looked into the jungle and the jungle looked back, with a million tiny eyes, staring into him and through him.
Though he wasn’t a fan of camping, he built a fire in under two minutes, surrounded it with a ring of rocks and crawled into the tent. The flickering flames cast just enough light to penetrate the folds of the parachute and allow him to see Goku stretched out on a matress of rock and jumpsuits, just as comfortable as he would have been in his own bed. How Sanzo envied him his peace and calm.
Strange, how much comfort the flimsy fabric offered. Sanzo sat there for an hour, watching the flames’ flickering shadow on the folds. Finally, when his eyes would no longer work, he poked his head out, added fuel to the fire, and -- cursing all the while -- wrapped his arms around Goku’s sleeping body.
Comforted by the serenity emanating from Goku’s peaceful sleep, Sanzo gave in to exhaustion and allowed himself to fall asleep as well.
TBC
