[fic] Balloons 9
Oct. 19th, 2010 07:49 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!
The screws gave in easily. Within minutes Sanzo was removing the grille and peering into the poorly lit vent. There were regular spots of light in every direction, close enough to imply this was a way to move through holding cells. Sanzo inspected the inside of the hole. The bolts had been drilled into the wall, but whoever had planned the move had been far from a construction genius, because they had drilled into plaster and that was easy enough for Sanzo to dig out with a coin, helping himself by breaking nails when necessary.
“Hey mate, fancy seeing you here!”
Sanzo started and almost fell off the sink. “The hell?” he hissed at Gojyo, whose head was visible twelve feet down to the right.
“What? It’s not rocket science, you know.”
“What did you unscrew it with?”
“Swiss Army Knife.”
“You have a Swiss Army Knife?”
“Hey, I go camping, and I sometimes need to screw things while on a plane. I need it.”
“I object to your wording,” Hakkai’s disembodied voice said from behind the grille between Gojyo and Sanzo.
“You know what I mean.”
“The objection stands.”
“Overruled,” Sanzo said before this could escalate. “Oi, monkey!”
Silence.
Sanzo tried again, with exactly the same results. “Fucking moron. He’s probably asleep.”
“Or, he’s not there,” Hakkai said, and Sanzo would have shot him for the careless tone, had he a gun, the skill and a clear shot. “Is there a way to get out of this place through the vents?”
“Sure, they seem wide enough.” Sanzo saw, out of the corner of his eye, Gojyo grasp the edges of the vent hole and hoist his upper half into the narrow tunnel. He got all the way in, quite a feat with his lanky limbs and not enough joints, and started hacking away at the plaster that kept Hakkai’s grille in place.
Sanzo called again, this time for Dug, but there was no answer.
“Fuck,” he hissed, jumping off the sink. Why wasn’t the moron next to them?
“Wait, Gojyo,” Hakkai said suddenly. His voice carried into Sanzo’s cell with no trouble. “I’ve been thinking. These doors are bolted, aren’t they?”
“I think so.”
“As far as I recall they weren’t locked when we came in. Perhaps we could get out through another cell, if you think you can get that far.”
Gojyo sounded like he was considering it. “Worth a shot, I guess. Crawling backwards: my favourite thing ever,” he muttered and then shuffling noises, accompanied by the occasional curse, filled the vent.
The plan was sound, however, because not ten minutes later the door to Sanzo’s cell swung open and the dynamic duo appeared, both troubled. “Goku’s not in the next cell. Nor in any on this corridor.”
“You checked them all?”
“The doors were open. All it took was a peak.”
“Thank you so much for opening mine first,” Sanzo said with a roll of his eyes and stepped into the brightly lit corridor. “What now?”
“The exit was this way.” Hakkai extended his arm in the appropriate direction and continued, as though there was ever any doubt, “But I don’t think we should leave without Goku.”
“Hell no. I’m totally keeping the kid.” Gojyo crossed his arms. “What?” he asked, seeing their incredulous – or furious, depending on the person – gazes. “He is fun. The dog is fun. I’m a dog person, and you won’t even let me have a hamster.”
“You had fish, which I remember you killed.”
“That was an accident! How was I to know it was salt water? Who the fuck keeps salty water in a bottle in the kitchen?”
“I was ill at the time, if you recall.”
Sanzo glared at the two of them. “Can we skip the home medicine talk and perhaps do something?”
“Aww, someone is missing our little monkey!”
“Someone is going to be missing his teeth in a minute, so why don’t you shut up,” Sanzo said. Worry was gnawing at his stomach. Where the hell was Goku? He couldn’t have been the reason for the kidnapping, could he?
It wasn’t that Sanzo had a swollen ego and therefore naturally assumed everything was about him, not entirely. He was the son of a prominent politician and bit of a reclusive star in his own right, so he was used to being the centre of attention, even if he hated every minute of it. The idea that, somehow, he was only a background player to a Joe Average in what looked like an international incident was inconceivable and therefore unsettling.
“Do we have a plan?” Gojyo asked.
“Get the monkey and get out,” Sanzo said tersely.
“I see. How are we planning on accomplishing this feat?”
“Get the monkey and get out. Did I acquire a speech impediment in the last hour?”
“I would expect that a plan that involves sneaking past a number of armed men needs a degree of sophistication that exceeds in-grab-out.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“I don’t think I have enough information to formulate a plan.”
“I guess standing here and yapping is furthering our goals, like wow.” Gojyo waved his hands in the air but stopped short of smacking his two friends over the head. A sensible move on his part, considering Sanzo would have broken his arm.
The decision was less a glorious consent by all involved as the result of inertia and Sanzo refusing to continue talking. He started in the direction that would lead them away from the exit, in the hopes that sooner or later the path would be labelled. “Monkeys this way” would be a handy tag to find in their situation.
Thankfully, they found the facility deserted. Only once did they have to hide in a handy cell, as a patrol walked on by, and then it was empty corridors again, all the way to an inconspicuous staircase and a very conspicuous lift.
“Jesus fuck.”
“Leave Jesus out of this, Sanzo.”
“This thing is huge,” Gojyo said, studying a map nailed to a pillar opposite the elevator. “Which one of you has a secret super-spy identity?”
“Did you confuse reality with movies again?”
“Do you have a better explanation? We are in the middle of the jungle, in some sort of military base, the only thing that’s missing is a hat and a whip.”
“Left those in my other trousers,” Sanzo said, revelling in the wonder and shock on Gojyo’s face.
“Holy shit!” Gojyo exclaimed, heedless, not that this was a surprise, of their surrounding. “The giant stick up your arse, someone stole it!”
“Stick your face in a blender.”
The elevator lights indicated it was in the lower levels, although precisely where was hard to tell, because the numbers were bleeding into one another. There could have been anywhere from two to seven storeys, and the elevator was anywhere between them.
They went down the stairs, pausing at every landing to listen for footsteps that weren’t echoes of their own. There were none, though once or twice they heard the whirr of a lift in motion. It breezed through the first two levels, further cementing the notion there was nothing of interest there. They looked, just to be sure, but the levels seemed much like the first – concrete and more concrete, with the occasional door. There was therefore no point in wasting time inspecting the corridors on levels minus one and two. As Hakkai pointed out reasonably, if Goku was in a holding cell, then the logic of putting him anywhere but in the next cell implied kidnapping endeavour was lacking in logic, and they had been doomed in their rescue attempts from the start.
The moment they reached level minus three, they knew they’d hit the jackpot. The décor was significantly different : instead of the grey concrete there was rich purple, instead of uniform slabs there were pillars and nooks with vases and paintings and drapery hanging whenever more than fifteen square feet of wall were available.
This corridor, unlike the upper ones, was also noisy. Music thrummed through the air, as did voices and laughter.
Then, in between other sounds, there was a bark.
“Well, we are in the right place,” Hakkai whispered, and then they rushed back up a landing, because squealing indicated someone female was coming.
A group of women passed the entrance to the staircase, giggling and waving their arms. A few of them were carrying glasses of red wine. That, however, was a minor detail. Even Sanzo, who had been homosexual ever since he was born, and for whom female fashion was of as much personal importance as global warming was to the Morlock society, was struck by the utter wrongness of the garb the women had donned.
The lady at the forefront of the group was wearing a couch with ribbons, plus a hairdo that included a small stuffed bird. Her bosom buddy, as indicated by their linked arms, wore a gown that wouldn’t be out of place in a Roman circus, while the other two had picked periods in-between.
“Something is very weird,” Gojyo said, but then another group crossed the corridor, men this time, also dressed up.
“I think,” Hakkai started saying, and Sanzo groaned in advance, because he could guess what was happening next, “that we need to change.”
“I don’t carry wigs in my luggage,” Sanzo hissed.
“We have no luggage, but I imagine there is some sort of a dressing room around. In any case, the ladies at least spoke English, and I assume that when you throw a theme party this elaborate, there are spare costumes around.”
“Time for Barbie dolls and dress-up is long past, Hakkai.”
“Do me a favour, Sanzo, and remain silent. I’ve wanted to dress you up ever since we met.”
“Excuse me?”
“For someone who grew up in the house of a politician, you have no respect for the power of the wardrobe. Or the appropriate colours for a man of your complexion.”
“That’s because I’m not a queer.”
“I would outline the problems inherent in speaking a dialect of English that’s not understandable to any other man, but I think it would be an exercise in futility.”
“My father loves you, you know that? Last I heard, you topped his list of adoptees to exchange me for.”
Hakkai gave the statement a thought. “I might take him up on it, if I ever decide politics is my calling.”
“Like there isn’t an empire of evil with your name on it, somewhere in the world.”
“If you’re referring to the Madagascar incident, that was hardly my fault.”
“Much as I love hearing about my future as king consort, can we maybe continue after we get the monkey?” Gojyo held up his hands in surrender, when the both of them turned to give him a look. “I’m just saying.”
Five minutes later Sanzo’s nightmares were coming true. They found the dressing room, which had already been half-emptied, but still boasted a wide selection of masculine and feminine costumes, most of them for men. The best costumes for women had been picked out already, leaving behind only the couches and the settees.
“No,” Sanzo said every time Hakkai opened his mouth, browsing the racks for something not too embarrassing. Gojyo had no qualms and within moments he was checking out the cowboy hats to go with his leather trousers and a whip.
Finally Sanzo found something that didn’t offend his delicate sensibilities and could pass for real clothes. It included trousers with a little more room to them than he was used to, but the boots he had to grudgingly approve of and the leather jacket he was stealing, regardless of propriety. He’d never been a fan of buckles and leather, but this jacket deserved attention.
A leather cap and goggles completed the outfit and Sanzo allowed himself a look in the mirror. With his hair hidden by the cap and the goggles low on his forehead, he would be hard to recognise at a casual glance, which was the whole point to the charade. Gojyo, on the other hand, didn’t give a thought to disguise. He looked like he’d just walked out off the set of a Clint Fuckwood movie.
Hakkai took a more sensible approach to disguise, but Sanzo didn’t dare to look at him much. It was scary how well the uniform fit him.
“If we’re done with dress-up, perhaps it’s time to have a look around?” Sanzo said. He was about to march out of the dressing room, when a large plastic box, not unlike a portable cooler, caught his attention. “What the fuck?”
It turned out to be full of fake teeth in sterile plastic wrappings.
“Am I the only one getting the feeling someone is unhinged?” Gojyo leaned over the box and picked up a set Klaus Kinski would have been proud to wear.
“It looks like a splendid party.” Hakkai considered and when he made his selection, Sanzo found it prudent to grab the first pair of fangs that hit his hand and exit, because Hakkai with fangs inspired the purchase of titanium neckguards and a speedy retreat.
The party was being held in a grand hall, the likes of which went out of fashion along with monarchy. Roman empire wouldn’t have be ashamed of this shindig, Sanzo thought, blinking in what could only be termed astonished disbelief. There were dozens of -- hell, over a hundred -- people in attendance, each on in costume, and about a half of them were making out.
“Why don’t you ever take me to these kind of parties?” Gojyo whispered into Sanzo’s ear. “You’re a horrible, horrible boyfriend.”
“Hakkai is over there.” Sanzo pointed, because his brain was giving up and relegating the sarcasm to his liver.
“I know. I’m scared to look at him right now.”
“There’s Goku,” Hakkai said suddenly. Sanzo started and followed his gaze. There was Goku indeed, sitting on a low settee by a table laden with food. Both the table and the settee were atop a dais at the far end of the hall. Little moron must have been in hog heaven.
“I’m going to kill him,” Sanzo said, when the movement of the party revealed that it was the only such table and that Goku was therefore clearly the guest of honour.
“Wait,” Hakkai said, grasping his arm. “We don’t know if he’s here by choice.”
“Why the fuck else would he be here?”
“There’s this revolutionary idea called kidnapping. Look it up someday.”
“You are trying to tell me we were all kidnapped so that Goku could be invited to a creepy-fuck party,” Sanzo said, glowering from his corner at the damn blind guy, who sat there like he was king of the world. Strangely though, the longer he looked, the less sense the picture made. Goku wasn’t comfortable. He was sitting straight as a string, as though he’d vibrate if you touched him, and Dug was the picture of a dog at attention. There was a plate filled with food on Goku’s lap, but it wasn’t getting nearly as much attention as Sanzo had seen him give food on past occasions. “On second thought, you might be right.”
“I usually am.”
Just then someone broke out of the crowd and sauntered up the stairs that separated Goku’s dais from the dance floor. It was a dark-haired man, Sanzo saw, and he wasn’t even dressed up. His only concession to the occasion was a billowing robe the colour of the sky at sunset: lilac and red. The man settled at the monkey’s side, picking up a glass of wine as he sat. Dug growled, at least Sanzo assumed so from his expression, but the man wouldn’t be dissuaded.
Though from his angle Sanzo couldn’t see how close together they were sitting, he triangulated the approximate distance to be Not Big, and smaller still when the mysterious man leaned towards Goku playfully.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Sanzo hissed viciously, hiding in the shadows the pillar cast. “Dismember his corpse and burn it.”
“Yeah, let no one say you ain’t a possessive bitch.”
“Shut up.”
“You’ve been saying that so much it’s lost all meaning.”
“No, it’s lost all meaning, because you don’t understand English.”
“I understand English fine. It’s Sanzoesque that I have trouble with.”
“I do wonder, from time to time, how the two of you survived skydiving together, when you seem to lose all track of time when arguing.” Hakkai smiled and Sanzo was this close to throwing his arms around Gojyo in fright. This close. Hakkai should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention long ago. The man was a deadly weapon!
“I’m going to get him,” Sanzo said, but Hakkai appeared in his way yet again.
“Reconsider. Goku is here, and he is safe. What we need is a garage of some sort and means of transport.”
“You think there is a car with our name on it, parked conveniently outside?”
“No. Which is precisely my point. What on earth do you plan to do when you interrupt the man’s party,” Hakkai paused to allow two lady vampires to pass. Gojyo looked after them appreciatively, though Sanzo never got the appeal tits were supposed to have. “Steal his guest and then what? Hide in the shadows and wait?”
Fucker had a good point. “Fine, whatever.”
“Splendid. Gojyo, you stay and keep an eye on Goku.”
Sanzo’s protest was silenced by an iron grip on his arm. “Why him?” he hissed as they walked casually away from the hall, in the direction the discreet exit signs pointed.
“Because Gojyo knows his parties. He will dance and drink and hopefully draw little attention to himself in a crowd of dancing, drinking people -- something that I think is far beyond your or my capabilities.”
“And letting the idiot get blind drunk will help us how?”
“One: separating the two of you will prevent loud arguments along the way. That in itself is a worthy path to take. Two: Goku seems safe, but a friendly eye in the crowd never hurts. Three: this is more your scene than mine, so I assume you’d be more likely to find a potential hiding place for a car.”
“The last one makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Unless I’m much mistaken, this is less of a sinister temple and more of a rich man’s abode. Ergo, your territory.”
“Have you been to my flat lately,” Sanzo said, taking a left turn. “Garage is that way.”
It was. The lavish decorations grew scarce as they wandered through the labyrinth of concrete passages, gradually giving way to a more utilitarian, militaristic approach to architecture. So far there’d been no soldiers to evade, and in no time at all they made it to heavy door labelled EXIT in large, luminescent, block capitals. Beyond the door they found several trucks, three Jeeps and an astonishing Aston Martin.
“We are not taking that car,” Sanzo said when Hakka paused with his hand on the shiny silver hood. “It’ll be rubbish in the jungle.”
“It is a beautiful car.”
“Wait for your birthday. Do you know how to hotwire a Jeep?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Hakkai looked around and jogged to a cabinet not far from the door. A loud crack echoed through the garage, but Hakkai returned seconds later with a set of keys. “That should do it.”
“Great. Let’s get the two idiots and vamoose.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Hakkai said and smiled.
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!The screws gave in easily. Within minutes Sanzo was removing the grille and peering into the poorly lit vent. There were regular spots of light in every direction, close enough to imply this was a way to move through holding cells. Sanzo inspected the inside of the hole. The bolts had been drilled into the wall, but whoever had planned the move had been far from a construction genius, because they had drilled into plaster and that was easy enough for Sanzo to dig out with a coin, helping himself by breaking nails when necessary.
“Hey mate, fancy seeing you here!”
Sanzo started and almost fell off the sink. “The hell?” he hissed at Gojyo, whose head was visible twelve feet down to the right.
“What? It’s not rocket science, you know.”
“What did you unscrew it with?”
“Swiss Army Knife.”
“You have a Swiss Army Knife?”
“Hey, I go camping, and I sometimes need to screw things while on a plane. I need it.”
“I object to your wording,” Hakkai’s disembodied voice said from behind the grille between Gojyo and Sanzo.
“You know what I mean.”
“The objection stands.”
“Overruled,” Sanzo said before this could escalate. “Oi, monkey!”
Silence.
Sanzo tried again, with exactly the same results. “Fucking moron. He’s probably asleep.”
“Or, he’s not there,” Hakkai said, and Sanzo would have shot him for the careless tone, had he a gun, the skill and a clear shot. “Is there a way to get out of this place through the vents?”
“Sure, they seem wide enough.” Sanzo saw, out of the corner of his eye, Gojyo grasp the edges of the vent hole and hoist his upper half into the narrow tunnel. He got all the way in, quite a feat with his lanky limbs and not enough joints, and started hacking away at the plaster that kept Hakkai’s grille in place.
Sanzo called again, this time for Dug, but there was no answer.
“Fuck,” he hissed, jumping off the sink. Why wasn’t the moron next to them?
“Wait, Gojyo,” Hakkai said suddenly. His voice carried into Sanzo’s cell with no trouble. “I’ve been thinking. These doors are bolted, aren’t they?”
“I think so.”
“As far as I recall they weren’t locked when we came in. Perhaps we could get out through another cell, if you think you can get that far.”
Gojyo sounded like he was considering it. “Worth a shot, I guess. Crawling backwards: my favourite thing ever,” he muttered and then shuffling noises, accompanied by the occasional curse, filled the vent.
The plan was sound, however, because not ten minutes later the door to Sanzo’s cell swung open and the dynamic duo appeared, both troubled. “Goku’s not in the next cell. Nor in any on this corridor.”
“You checked them all?”
“The doors were open. All it took was a peak.”
“Thank you so much for opening mine first,” Sanzo said with a roll of his eyes and stepped into the brightly lit corridor. “What now?”
“The exit was this way.” Hakkai extended his arm in the appropriate direction and continued, as though there was ever any doubt, “But I don’t think we should leave without Goku.”
“Hell no. I’m totally keeping the kid.” Gojyo crossed his arms. “What?” he asked, seeing their incredulous – or furious, depending on the person – gazes. “He is fun. The dog is fun. I’m a dog person, and you won’t even let me have a hamster.”
“You had fish, which I remember you killed.”
“That was an accident! How was I to know it was salt water? Who the fuck keeps salty water in a bottle in the kitchen?”
“I was ill at the time, if you recall.”
Sanzo glared at the two of them. “Can we skip the home medicine talk and perhaps do something?”
“Aww, someone is missing our little monkey!”
“Someone is going to be missing his teeth in a minute, so why don’t you shut up,” Sanzo said. Worry was gnawing at his stomach. Where the hell was Goku? He couldn’t have been the reason for the kidnapping, could he?
It wasn’t that Sanzo had a swollen ego and therefore naturally assumed everything was about him, not entirely. He was the son of a prominent politician and bit of a reclusive star in his own right, so he was used to being the centre of attention, even if he hated every minute of it. The idea that, somehow, he was only a background player to a Joe Average in what looked like an international incident was inconceivable and therefore unsettling.
“Do we have a plan?” Gojyo asked.
“Get the monkey and get out,” Sanzo said tersely.
“I see. How are we planning on accomplishing this feat?”
“Get the monkey and get out. Did I acquire a speech impediment in the last hour?”
“I would expect that a plan that involves sneaking past a number of armed men needs a degree of sophistication that exceeds in-grab-out.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“I don’t think I have enough information to formulate a plan.”
“I guess standing here and yapping is furthering our goals, like wow.” Gojyo waved his hands in the air but stopped short of smacking his two friends over the head. A sensible move on his part, considering Sanzo would have broken his arm.
The decision was less a glorious consent by all involved as the result of inertia and Sanzo refusing to continue talking. He started in the direction that would lead them away from the exit, in the hopes that sooner or later the path would be labelled. “Monkeys this way” would be a handy tag to find in their situation.
Thankfully, they found the facility deserted. Only once did they have to hide in a handy cell, as a patrol walked on by, and then it was empty corridors again, all the way to an inconspicuous staircase and a very conspicuous lift.
“Jesus fuck.”
“Leave Jesus out of this, Sanzo.”
“This thing is huge,” Gojyo said, studying a map nailed to a pillar opposite the elevator. “Which one of you has a secret super-spy identity?”
“Did you confuse reality with movies again?”
“Do you have a better explanation? We are in the middle of the jungle, in some sort of military base, the only thing that’s missing is a hat and a whip.”
“Left those in my other trousers,” Sanzo said, revelling in the wonder and shock on Gojyo’s face.
“Holy shit!” Gojyo exclaimed, heedless, not that this was a surprise, of their surrounding. “The giant stick up your arse, someone stole it!”
“Stick your face in a blender.”
The elevator lights indicated it was in the lower levels, although precisely where was hard to tell, because the numbers were bleeding into one another. There could have been anywhere from two to seven storeys, and the elevator was anywhere between them.
They went down the stairs, pausing at every landing to listen for footsteps that weren’t echoes of their own. There were none, though once or twice they heard the whirr of a lift in motion. It breezed through the first two levels, further cementing the notion there was nothing of interest there. They looked, just to be sure, but the levels seemed much like the first – concrete and more concrete, with the occasional door. There was therefore no point in wasting time inspecting the corridors on levels minus one and two. As Hakkai pointed out reasonably, if Goku was in a holding cell, then the logic of putting him anywhere but in the next cell implied kidnapping endeavour was lacking in logic, and they had been doomed in their rescue attempts from the start.
The moment they reached level minus three, they knew they’d hit the jackpot. The décor was significantly different : instead of the grey concrete there was rich purple, instead of uniform slabs there were pillars and nooks with vases and paintings and drapery hanging whenever more than fifteen square feet of wall were available.
This corridor, unlike the upper ones, was also noisy. Music thrummed through the air, as did voices and laughter.
Then, in between other sounds, there was a bark.
“Well, we are in the right place,” Hakkai whispered, and then they rushed back up a landing, because squealing indicated someone female was coming.
A group of women passed the entrance to the staircase, giggling and waving their arms. A few of them were carrying glasses of red wine. That, however, was a minor detail. Even Sanzo, who had been homosexual ever since he was born, and for whom female fashion was of as much personal importance as global warming was to the Morlock society, was struck by the utter wrongness of the garb the women had donned.
The lady at the forefront of the group was wearing a couch with ribbons, plus a hairdo that included a small stuffed bird. Her bosom buddy, as indicated by their linked arms, wore a gown that wouldn’t be out of place in a Roman circus, while the other two had picked periods in-between.
“Something is very weird,” Gojyo said, but then another group crossed the corridor, men this time, also dressed up.
“I think,” Hakkai started saying, and Sanzo groaned in advance, because he could guess what was happening next, “that we need to change.”
“I don’t carry wigs in my luggage,” Sanzo hissed.
“We have no luggage, but I imagine there is some sort of a dressing room around. In any case, the ladies at least spoke English, and I assume that when you throw a theme party this elaborate, there are spare costumes around.”
“Time for Barbie dolls and dress-up is long past, Hakkai.”
“Do me a favour, Sanzo, and remain silent. I’ve wanted to dress you up ever since we met.”
“Excuse me?”
“For someone who grew up in the house of a politician, you have no respect for the power of the wardrobe. Or the appropriate colours for a man of your complexion.”
“That’s because I’m not a queer.”
“I would outline the problems inherent in speaking a dialect of English that’s not understandable to any other man, but I think it would be an exercise in futility.”
“My father loves you, you know that? Last I heard, you topped his list of adoptees to exchange me for.”
Hakkai gave the statement a thought. “I might take him up on it, if I ever decide politics is my calling.”
“Like there isn’t an empire of evil with your name on it, somewhere in the world.”
“If you’re referring to the Madagascar incident, that was hardly my fault.”
“Much as I love hearing about my future as king consort, can we maybe continue after we get the monkey?” Gojyo held up his hands in surrender, when the both of them turned to give him a look. “I’m just saying.”
Five minutes later Sanzo’s nightmares were coming true. They found the dressing room, which had already been half-emptied, but still boasted a wide selection of masculine and feminine costumes, most of them for men. The best costumes for women had been picked out already, leaving behind only the couches and the settees.
“No,” Sanzo said every time Hakkai opened his mouth, browsing the racks for something not too embarrassing. Gojyo had no qualms and within moments he was checking out the cowboy hats to go with his leather trousers and a whip.
Finally Sanzo found something that didn’t offend his delicate sensibilities and could pass for real clothes. It included trousers with a little more room to them than he was used to, but the boots he had to grudgingly approve of and the leather jacket he was stealing, regardless of propriety. He’d never been a fan of buckles and leather, but this jacket deserved attention.
A leather cap and goggles completed the outfit and Sanzo allowed himself a look in the mirror. With his hair hidden by the cap and the goggles low on his forehead, he would be hard to recognise at a casual glance, which was the whole point to the charade. Gojyo, on the other hand, didn’t give a thought to disguise. He looked like he’d just walked out off the set of a Clint Fuckwood movie.
Hakkai took a more sensible approach to disguise, but Sanzo didn’t dare to look at him much. It was scary how well the uniform fit him.
“If we’re done with dress-up, perhaps it’s time to have a look around?” Sanzo said. He was about to march out of the dressing room, when a large plastic box, not unlike a portable cooler, caught his attention. “What the fuck?”
It turned out to be full of fake teeth in sterile plastic wrappings.
“Am I the only one getting the feeling someone is unhinged?” Gojyo leaned over the box and picked up a set Klaus Kinski would have been proud to wear.
“It looks like a splendid party.” Hakkai considered and when he made his selection, Sanzo found it prudent to grab the first pair of fangs that hit his hand and exit, because Hakkai with fangs inspired the purchase of titanium neckguards and a speedy retreat.
The party was being held in a grand hall, the likes of which went out of fashion along with monarchy. Roman empire wouldn’t have be ashamed of this shindig, Sanzo thought, blinking in what could only be termed astonished disbelief. There were dozens of -- hell, over a hundred -- people in attendance, each on in costume, and about a half of them were making out.
“Why don’t you ever take me to these kind of parties?” Gojyo whispered into Sanzo’s ear. “You’re a horrible, horrible boyfriend.”
“Hakkai is over there.” Sanzo pointed, because his brain was giving up and relegating the sarcasm to his liver.
“I know. I’m scared to look at him right now.”
“There’s Goku,” Hakkai said suddenly. Sanzo started and followed his gaze. There was Goku indeed, sitting on a low settee by a table laden with food. Both the table and the settee were atop a dais at the far end of the hall. Little moron must have been in hog heaven.
“I’m going to kill him,” Sanzo said, when the movement of the party revealed that it was the only such table and that Goku was therefore clearly the guest of honour.
“Wait,” Hakkai said, grasping his arm. “We don’t know if he’s here by choice.”
“Why the fuck else would he be here?”
“There’s this revolutionary idea called kidnapping. Look it up someday.”
“You are trying to tell me we were all kidnapped so that Goku could be invited to a creepy-fuck party,” Sanzo said, glowering from his corner at the damn blind guy, who sat there like he was king of the world. Strangely though, the longer he looked, the less sense the picture made. Goku wasn’t comfortable. He was sitting straight as a string, as though he’d vibrate if you touched him, and Dug was the picture of a dog at attention. There was a plate filled with food on Goku’s lap, but it wasn’t getting nearly as much attention as Sanzo had seen him give food on past occasions. “On second thought, you might be right.”
“I usually am.”
Just then someone broke out of the crowd and sauntered up the stairs that separated Goku’s dais from the dance floor. It was a dark-haired man, Sanzo saw, and he wasn’t even dressed up. His only concession to the occasion was a billowing robe the colour of the sky at sunset: lilac and red. The man settled at the monkey’s side, picking up a glass of wine as he sat. Dug growled, at least Sanzo assumed so from his expression, but the man wouldn’t be dissuaded.
Though from his angle Sanzo couldn’t see how close together they were sitting, he triangulated the approximate distance to be Not Big, and smaller still when the mysterious man leaned towards Goku playfully.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Sanzo hissed viciously, hiding in the shadows the pillar cast. “Dismember his corpse and burn it.”
“Yeah, let no one say you ain’t a possessive bitch.”
“Shut up.”
“You’ve been saying that so much it’s lost all meaning.”
“No, it’s lost all meaning, because you don’t understand English.”
“I understand English fine. It’s Sanzoesque that I have trouble with.”
“I do wonder, from time to time, how the two of you survived skydiving together, when you seem to lose all track of time when arguing.” Hakkai smiled and Sanzo was this close to throwing his arms around Gojyo in fright. This close. Hakkai should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention long ago. The man was a deadly weapon!
“I’m going to get him,” Sanzo said, but Hakkai appeared in his way yet again.
“Reconsider. Goku is here, and he is safe. What we need is a garage of some sort and means of transport.”
“You think there is a car with our name on it, parked conveniently outside?”
“No. Which is precisely my point. What on earth do you plan to do when you interrupt the man’s party,” Hakkai paused to allow two lady vampires to pass. Gojyo looked after them appreciatively, though Sanzo never got the appeal tits were supposed to have. “Steal his guest and then what? Hide in the shadows and wait?”
Fucker had a good point. “Fine, whatever.”
“Splendid. Gojyo, you stay and keep an eye on Goku.”
Sanzo’s protest was silenced by an iron grip on his arm. “Why him?” he hissed as they walked casually away from the hall, in the direction the discreet exit signs pointed.
“Because Gojyo knows his parties. He will dance and drink and hopefully draw little attention to himself in a crowd of dancing, drinking people -- something that I think is far beyond your or my capabilities.”
“And letting the idiot get blind drunk will help us how?”
“One: separating the two of you will prevent loud arguments along the way. That in itself is a worthy path to take. Two: Goku seems safe, but a friendly eye in the crowd never hurts. Three: this is more your scene than mine, so I assume you’d be more likely to find a potential hiding place for a car.”
“The last one makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Unless I’m much mistaken, this is less of a sinister temple and more of a rich man’s abode. Ergo, your territory.”
“Have you been to my flat lately,” Sanzo said, taking a left turn. “Garage is that way.”
It was. The lavish decorations grew scarce as they wandered through the labyrinth of concrete passages, gradually giving way to a more utilitarian, militaristic approach to architecture. So far there’d been no soldiers to evade, and in no time at all they made it to heavy door labelled EXIT in large, luminescent, block capitals. Beyond the door they found several trucks, three Jeeps and an astonishing Aston Martin.
“We are not taking that car,” Sanzo said when Hakka paused with his hand on the shiny silver hood. “It’ll be rubbish in the jungle.”
“It is a beautiful car.”
“Wait for your birthday. Do you know how to hotwire a Jeep?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Hakkai looked around and jogged to a cabinet not far from the door. A loud crack echoed through the garage, but Hakkai returned seconds later with a set of keys. “That should do it.”
“Great. Let’s get the two idiots and vamoose.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Hakkai said and smiled.
TBC
