Strangers on a Train

Author’s note: this is the first time I have ever posted a fic before I actually have the whole thing finished, as I have never been certain I wouldn’t write myself into a corner, or get myself into a situation I couldn’t fix, and my fear of publicly humiliating myself has always overwhelmed my drive to post those first shiny new chapters! However, RL’s persistent crapitude this year has kept me away from all but this last week of the bad_friends fest on LiveJournal, celebrating Gojyo and Sanzo's November birthdays, and I hated to not contribute anything at all. So I am going to post this chapter today, and another before the end of the fest Nov. 29th(at least if this one seems to pique any interest at all, that is!) and hope that I can keep the “train” on track all the way to the tale’s natural end. hg

Chapter One

It had been too soon after they had been reunited. They had wanted – needed - to get back into the old familiar rhythm of their battles, of watching each other’s backs, of knowing just where to be at what moment to catch the youkai before they could strike, and thereby save each other from the often irrational moves of the demons under the effect of the Minus Wave, but this time it was too soon. Sanzo was still uneasy about the dark presence he had sensed following him since Goku had been shot, and was troubled by the suspicions he had about that, and Goku was unusually distracted, with his mind dwelling on the young girl that had given him his first kiss and then been blown up before his eyes. Even best friends Hakkai and Gojyo were feeling clumsy and out of sync, far from their usual automatic mode of beautifully-synchronized movements in battle, where, like in most other aspects of their lives, each knew what the other was going to do well before they did it.

The unfortunate result was that though they had clearly won the battle when the unusually huge gang of heavily-armed youkai had set upon them in the mountain pass shortly after they had reunited and set off on the road again, it had not been without suffering some major damages. Goku’s leg had been broken quite badly when he had jumped in-between Sanzo and several substantial youkai brandishing heavy, sharp pikestaffs in the direction of the monk’s back, and Hakuryuu had been injured when he had reverted quickly to jeep form to intervene in a melee where both Gojyo and Hakkai were under attack, outnumbered, and appeared to be losing ground quickly.

Later when it was over and they finally got to an inn, the little dragon was able to transform back to his small winged form, but the combined exertions of the day caused him to collapse, and the degree of injury he had sustained saving his friends quickly became apparent to Hakkai. Forgoing dinner, he hastily grabbed one of the room keys from Sanzo and carried Hakuryuu up to begin tending to his friend’s injuries. Goku assured them that he absolutely wanted to eat first, begging that Gojyo could carry him up afterwards, and Hakkai could work on his leg then, and finish the healing work he had begun at the battle site.

It was only when they were all sitting at dinner that Sanzo remembered the envelope he had been handed by the desk clerk when he checked them in. It was not unusual for him to occasionally receive missives from the temple back in Chang’an: they had a rough idea what their route would be, and would occasionally send messages to him in care of inns they considered likely stops for the Ikkou along the way. They were usually inconsequential trivia that he would give a cursory read and immediately disregard: announcements that some old monk he could care less about had died, or annoying nudges to keep expenses down, stay on-task, and get West in a more timely manner, or some such nonsense. As if he cared. Consequently he hadn’t been at all concerned about this one he had just received, but he noticed as he pulled it out that it looked different from the routine dispatches that usually dogged his path westward. As he opened it he realized that this was a telegram, it was marked “in care of the Chang’an Temple”, and for his eyes only, and it had clearly originated from the Sanbutsushin, bearing their holy seal.

“TO: Priest Genjyo Sanzo 31st, URGENT
Sanbutsushin have decreed it necessary you return Chang’an immediately for important information regarding your Mission. They say you must put your trust in them, whether you truly believe or not. Info can only be relayed in person, must be ASAP.
Signed, Xuan Zang, Head Abbot, Chang’An Temple, his seal.”

“Fucking bloody blue hell.” He lit a cigarette and stared out the window listlessly. “We’ve been on the road for-fucking-ever, we just get back on the road after the diversion from hell, our ‘transportation’ is upstairs sick as a dog, and now they want me to come all the way back?!”

Goku and Gojyo stared at him, their eyes wide, chopsticks-full of food halfway to the mouths that were hanging open in shock.

“Fucking bloody fucking hell,” he muttered again bitterly, stabbing his cigarette, not even fully-smoked, out in the ashtray. He swilled down the beer he had and signaled irritably to the waitress for another one before lighting another cigarette.

Gojyo couldn’t stand it any longer. “Oi! Monk! Care to share with us what has your knickers in such a big knot?”

Sanzo slowly emerged from his furor enough to realize there were actually other people at the table, not that he particularly cared.

“Tch. Goddamn Talking Heads. Maybe I’ll just go back and stay back,” he mused bitterly. “Fucking serve ‘em right…”

“Something we’ve all considered now and then,” Gojyo agreed glumly. “Care to let us in on why it’s on your mind right at this moment?”

Sanzo gritted his teeth and fumed, his blasphemies regarding the Three Aspects being the least of his concerns at the moment. “Fucking morons want me to come all the fucking way back to fucking Chang’an so they can tell me some little fucking detail… Apparently they can send me a telegram,” he waved the guilty document squashed in his clenched fist, “to tell me to come back, but not to tell me what the fucking hell they need to actually tell me.”

“Well, that doesn’t make much sense,” Goku innocently volunteered.

“Gee, do YA THINK?” Sanzo glared, his finger twitching on the gun in the pocket of his robe, just wishing someone would give him a reason to shoot.

“Err… sorry,” Goku gulped. He went back to eating his food, and filching Gojyo’s last bits now that the kappa’s attention was diverted.

“Look, your highness, it’s your show, as you love to tell us at every opportunity, but how can you be so sure it’s from them? Could be a trick, y’know?” Gojyo took a long swig of his beer and tried to sneak a look at the crumpled paper in Sanzo’s hands.

“Tch. Don’t you think that was the first thing that crossed my mind, moron?” Sanzo said crossly as he paused and drained his beer. “Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky. They used some terminology in the telegram that was something only I would recognize. Sort of like a password, I suppose.”

“Look, Sanzo…” Gojyo tried to sound sensible, wiping the sweat from his palms off on the legs of his jeans, “they must have a damn good reason, to call us all the way back when we’ve come this far…gone through all this…”

“Who said anything about US, cockroach?” Sanzo spat, “it says ‘I’ am to come back. It doesn’t say a damn thing about you and the rest of this three-ring madhouse on wheels. Besides, how the hell is the whole band of merry men supposed to get there even if they did? Aren’t you forgetting something? They want me NOW and we have a sick dragon upstairs.”

The hard frost in Sanzo’s violet eyes warned Gojyo not to argue with him, unless he wanted to end up with some freshly ventilated body parts.

“And a monkey with a fucking broken leg…” he added coldly, casting a jaded eye on the saru, “which apparently has not affected his appetite in the least.”

“Yeah, tell me,” Gojyo said, stabbing Goku’s hand with his chopstick as the teen attempted to steal his last scraps of food. “So what’re ya gonna do, Sanzo-sama? Just send ‘em a note saying ‘fuck off’, and head on to India when the flying rat is better? Makes sense to me.”

“Great idea, but what if they are calling me back to tell me to call off the fucking mission for some reason? Don’t think I wouldn’t love an excuse to just stop this sorry-ass wild goose chase, if that’s what they’re going to give me.” Sanzo downed the rest of his beer again, and looked at the empty bottle in disgust, peeling the label bit by bit off of its sweating brown glass.

“Wouldn’t they just send you a telegram saying that, if that’s what it was?” Gojyo signaled to the waitress for one more round of drinks, and pushed his chair back and leaned back on two legs, his arms crossed across his chest.

Sanzo sighed heavily, trying in his mind, now that he was over the initial furor the telegram had invoked in him, to sort out the possible implications and ramifications of it all.

“Not necessarily,” he said slowly. “Just depends on what was behind it, how they wanted me to handle it, who the fuck knows? I’ve never understood why they do anything they do… They’re fucking floating heads, for goddssake.” He looked up from the innocent paper napkin he was now dismembering into hundreds of tiny bits as he spoke, and raised one eyebrow dryly.
“Like when they told me I had to take you assholes with me on this bullshit expedition. I’ll never understand that one.”

Goku piped up, his tongue apparently loosened by the herbal pain preparation Hakkai had given him to manage the pain in his leg.

“Aw jeez, Sanzo, you know you like us, and you’d miss us if you didn’t…”

A blinding flash of white and a loud and instantaneous “THWACK!!” ended Goku’s spontaneous sentiment as the harisen whipped out of the priest’s robe and hit the side of the saru’s head with lightening speed.

“Owww!!” Goku yowled, “how d’ you do that so damn fast! Besides, you don’t even know what I was gonna say…”

“You’ve said more than enough,” Sanzo grumbled threateningly. “You’re already gimped up in one leg, don’t make me shoot you in the other, and then have to hear Hakkai whining about having to fix it.”

“So, priesty-locks, what’s your master plan?” Gojyo interrupted, attempting to save his young friend from further pain. “Looks to me like you’re damned if you go and damned if you don’t,” he mused, enjoying Sanzo’s difficult situation entirely too much as he smugly blew several smoke rings up into the muddled ether of the Café air while leaning back dangerously in his chair.

“I’m damned to hell if I’m going to be stuck here with you morons, that’s for sure,” Sanzo muttered grimly. “If there’s any chance they might be planning to somehow release me from this slow train to hell they have me on, I want to find out as soon as possible. I guess I have to fucking get back to Chang’an to talk to them, and now.”

“Nice thought, but I haven’t exactly seen any major airports either here or in Chang’an, so that’s out, and jippu is on the disabled list,” Gojyo grinned, “what’s left, camel? Wagon train? Magic carpet?”

“If I’m not mistaken I saw a rail line running by the road off and on as we headed into town. I’m going to ask that desk clerk if there’s a train station here. If there is, you assholes can wait here while I take the train to Chang’an and see what’s up. It’s no big deal, I’ll just get on the train and see what they want, and come right back. If it changes anything significantly, I can send you a telegram here and tell you what to do – by then the jeep and the monkey both should be totally mended.”

Gojyo sat his chair back down on all four legs, his face suddenly serious. Goku had stopped eating and was looking up with concern clearly written in his eyes well.

Gojyo spoke for both of them. “Sanzo, that route would take you right back through all the areas of the worst youkai shit we have been going through the whole way here, and so far as we know, the Minus Wave has only gotten worse. Who’s to say they won’t be robbing the train, or worse, especially if they get somehow get wind of you being on it? I don’t like that idea. I don’t like it at all…”

“Fuck off, cockroach. I traveled all over the world for a long time before I met up with you idiots and I got along just fine.” He was amazed how well he said the blatant lie… if he could just convince himself maybe at least some of the nightmares would stop. “Besides, I won’t be alone. Mister Smith and Mister Wesson will be with me at all times.” Yeah, that made it all better, didn’t it? He managed to maintain the inscrutable sneer as he faced the worried faces of his companions.

Goku and Gojyo exchanged wary looks. They could hear from the stubborn tone in Sanzo’s voice that they were not going to get anywhere with him on their own. They knew their best chance in dealing with him came from the one person in the party he seemed to listen to the most, who was upstairs tending to the wounded dragon at the moment. Goku took the cue.

“Uhm, Gojyo, my leg is kinda starting to hurt again… I think I need Hakkai to take a look at it now. Can you help me upstairs?”

“Sure, monkey. Sanzo, we’ll see you up there?”

“Tch. Yeah, whatever.” Sanzo was lost in thought, and rose to pay the bill without any further conversation. As Gojyo helped Goku hobble past him (the youth absolutely refused to let his friend carry him once the time came) through the lobby of the inn, they overheard the priest speaking with the clerk about the location of the train station and the schedule.

They found Hakkai sitting and reading at a small table in his room, the small dragon resting quietly in a pile of pillows in a dark corner of the room. Gojyo carefully laid Goku down on top of the covers of the bed and took the bag of food Goku had been clutching from his hands.

“Here ya go, ‘Kai, better eat up before the kid gets hungry again an’ snarfs it. How’s the rat?”

Hakkai sat up straight in his chair and pushed his monacle up on his nose with two fingers, giving his friends a tired smile.

“Thank you, Gojyo. I’ll eat after I’ve had a look at that leg of Goku’s. Hakuryuu is resting quietly now. I gave him something for his pain and to help him sleep, but I must confess I am more than a little concerned.”

He shook his head as he rose, glancing fretfully at the pale, still form of the little dragon he had come to consider such a close friend.

“All I can really tell is that his injuries are quite serious, because his vital signs are obviously somewhat weakened, but his anatomy is so foreign to me, I have very little idea how to actually help the poor little fellow. I can apply healing chi where I sense damage, and carefully give him palliatives for the pain, and that’s really all I can do. I just hope that’s enough. Other than that, we just have to let him rest, I suppose.”

His eyes lingered on Hakuryuu for a moment longer, and he forced himself to turn to his other patient, and smile far more brightly than he actually felt. “Now, Goku, let’s have a look at that leg, shall we?”

Goku saw how worried the healer was about the smallest member of the Ikkou and felt guilty about requiring attention for his injury. “It’s not that bad, ‘Kai, I can wait. Go take care of Hakuryuu, and eat your dinner. I’m ok, really.”

“Hmm,” Hakkai pursed his lips and raised a critical eyebrow at the teen, “let’s let me be the judge of that, shall we?”

Goku started to open his mouth about Sanzo while Hakkai was working on his leg, but Gojyo caught his eye and shook his head, motioning to him silently to wait. Only when Hakkai was satisfied that the leg was properly set, and had begun eating his dinner did Gojyo begin to spill the story about the telegram from the Sanbutsushin, and Sanzo’s intentions to take the train to Chang’an by himself.

“My goodness, that is quite a quandary,” Hakkai said thoughtfully. “I really don’t think it’s wise for him to travel unaccompanied. It simply isn’t safe. I know he thinks he is invulnerable, but really…”

Sanzo entered the room at that moment, and all three members of the Ikkou looked up at him with startled expressions.

“Tch. What’s up with you morons?” he asked irritably. “You look like you just got caught with your hands in the boss’s wife’s cookie jar.”

“Ahaha, nothing, Sanzo,” Hakkai said casually, rising to dispose of the remains of his dinner, “I understand you are contemplating a train trip.”

“Yeah. I found out I can leave tomorrow morning, and take the first train to Lanzhou. It takes four days to get there, going over the mountains. Apparently it’s an antique locomotive built out of sticks and rocks.” He lit a smoke and flopped down in the window seat. “You change trains there after an overnight layover, and it takes another five days to get to Chang’an. Tch. I could fucking walk there faster.”

Hakkai smiled his patient, patronizing smile that they all knew all too well as he stood up from where he had been kneeling and checking on the sleeping dragon, trying his best not to disturb him.

“Now, Sanzo I think that’s hardly accurate. But without our little friend here, I don’t see that you have much choice, other than just ignoring the Sanbutsushin’s telegram altogether. Are you a hundred percent sure it’s from them, authentic?”

Sanzo shook his head, pursing his lips bitterly as he looked up at the healer, raising an eyebrow.

“That was the first thing I thought of, Hakkai.” He pulled the telegram out of his robe and looked at it again, scanning it word-by-word, one more time. “If it’s a fake, it’s a damn good one,” he sighed. “There’s this phrase in here: ‘you must put your trust in them, whether you truly believe or not.’ That’s a direct quote of something the Talking Heads said to me in one of the conversations when they gave me this goddamned mission.”

“Jeez, Sanzo, you didn’t even trust the goddamn Floating Heads, and you a Sanzo Priest?” Gojyo was incredulous. “Man, you really take the cake in the cynic department. And people call me jaded.”

“Mind your own fucking business, cockroach,” Sanzo spat out angrily. In no way did he want to have to go into detail with any of them about the conversation’s true content, about how the Three Aspects had encouraged him to trust his three traveling companions, to observe them with the eyes of his heart and judge them accordingly. If he was honest, he knew they had already proven hundreds of times over they could be trusted for reasons far more important than just their resistance to the Minus Wave, but he was certainly in no mood to go into that with them at that moment, if ever.

“O.K., so I wasn’t immediately bowled over about going on the road to nowhere with you three morons, for this wild goose chase from hell. Shame on me,” he snarled. “As I recall, you weren’t exactly wild about it, when I first proposed the idea to you, either.”

Gojyo chuckled as he recalled himself practically spitting in the monk’s face when Sanzo had approached him about joining him and Goku on their little field trip.

“Yeah, I do remember something along those lines,” he snickered as he lit a smoke and settled opposite Sanzo on the window ledge. “Who’d have thought it, and look at us now: now you just can’t live without me, eh, sugar britches?” He nudged Sanzo’s leg with the toe of the socked foot he had propped up on the window ledge.

The only reason Sanzo didn’t whack him soundly with the fan was because he was too cramped into the window frame with him to be able to get it out and get a really decent swing at him. Goku giggled loudly and Hakkai stifled a small laugh with a polite cough.

As it was Sanzo settled for a firm shove back against the offending limb as he quickly rose from the window to escape the flirtatious kappa.

“Gods, don’t think I’m not going to enjoy giving it a try. Living without YOU is one of the things I am looking forward to the most about this little train trip. Finally, a little goddamn peace.”

Gojyo snickered to himself at the prime comment that immediately came to the tip of his tongue concerning a “little goddamn piece” for Sanzo, but he let it drop, deciding that he had tormented the priest enough for the moment. Sanzo thought Gojyo gave him such a hard time, but if he only knew how many unspoken salacious comments he barely escaped every day due to Gojyo’s tender mercy…

Sanzo moodily slumped against the footboard of the chipped iron bedstead, inadvertently jarring the saru’s painful leg. Goku started to cry out, but caught himself, and simply cut his golden eyes at his cranky sun and bit his lip warily. After a moment of silence he ventured a comment, his voice quiet and measured.

“Sanzo, I really don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to travel by yourself all that way.”

Sanzo opened his mouth to protest, but Hakkai cut him off before he could say anything.

“Yes, Sanzo, I completely concur with Goku. I think this is quite foolhardy. The very same kinds of roving bands of youkai that have been molesting us as we have traveled are quite likely to be causing problems for the trains. Especially, gods forbid, if they get any drift of a Sanzo priest being on board, even more so if they find out it’s you.”

Sanzo shook his head determinedly. “I talked to the stationmaster about it. They haven’t had any problems along the route I will be traveling.”

“Not yet, that is,” Gojyo dryly observed. “You’re not exactly good at keeping a low profile, Sanzo-sama.”

Sanzo ignored him and continued undeterred. “Most of the trip between here and Lanzhou is through such mountainous terrain, no one could get through it anyway.”

“But, Sanzo, really. Travelling by yourself… It just seems like unnecessarily tempting fate. I can stay here and take care of Goku and Hakuryuu…”

“No! And leave me to spend nine or ten days there and a then back again alone on a train with the two-legged swinging dick over there? No thanks – I’d rather take my chances with the roving bands of youkai.”

Gojyo was starting to get pissed. “You’re not exactly my idea of a great date, either, cherry-chan. Your ass has been so tight so long I think it’s fused shut. Let him go Hakkai. He thinks he has it all under control, just let him fucking go. He doesn’t need me – he doesn’t need any of us.” Gojyo’s voice was losing its last traces of humor and becoming all bitterness and snark.

Goku was really worried now. “Hakkai, just fix my leg some more and I’ll go. I’ll be ok. Sanzo wouldn’t mind if I went, would you, Sanzo?”

“Ahaha, Goku, I’m afraid it isn’t that easy. You broke the biggest bone in your leg, and it’s fractured across the widest part. There is only but so much I can do with my chi powers for an injury like that, and after that you simply must stay take it easy for a few days to give it some time to knit on its own, and get stronger, before it can really take any stress. It could break again, and I wouldn’t be there to fix it. I’m very sorry, Goku.”

Sanzo was nonplussed. “It doesn’t matter, saru – I am going alone regardless. Without Gojyo, or you, or anyone. End of conversation.” He turned to the healer, ”I’ll leave the AnEx card with you, Hakkai, since my ticket and meals are already paid for all the way to Chang’an and back. If I find out once I get there that anything is going to hold me up from coming right back within a day or two, I’ll send a telegram here and let you all know what the deal is.”

“The train leaves at 7:35 a.m., I’m tired, I’m going to bed. They only had three rooms: Hakkai, will you share with Goku tonight? You’d probably be in here checking on him and the dragon all night anyway. You can have my room tomorrow night.”

Hakkai sighed. He knew how impossible it was to reason with Sanzo when his mind was made up about something.

“Yes, that would be fine, Sanzo. I believe your things are already in the room to the right of this one. Sleep well. We’ll see you for breakfast before you leave.”

“Yeah, ‘night Sanzo,” Goku added, concern still tingeing his voice.

Sanzo made a small concession of a wave over his shoulder as he left the room. Gojyo was silent, deep in a sulk from all appearances.

After Sanzo had been gone a minute, Hakkai fell back into one of the small chairs at the table, his face a study in concern and worry. He looked up at his longtime friend.

“I’m sorry, my friends, I know you had hoped I would be able to talk him out of it. I’m afraid I didn’t fare too well, either.”

“It’s ok, ‘Kai, we all know how he is,” Goku said consolingly. “He can be so damn hardheaded… He doesn’t understand how we worry about him.” His voice was clotted with emotion and his large gold eyes shimmered with worry for the man that was the center of his universe.

Gojyo looked back and forth between these two friends and comrades that had come to mean so much to him, one injured, and the other worried sick about his badly-injured …pet? friend?... whatever… and he was ready to strangle the bastard monk for his inconsiderate actions.

He knew what it was like to think that no one cared whether you lived or died, but he also knew that it should be painfully obvious to Sanzo by now that they… well, that Goku and Hakkai did give a rat’s ass about his pale priesty butt, whether he liked it or not. It had been hard for Gojyo to accept at first, too, and some days it still twisted his mind in knots, but for the most part he liked it, and he sure as hell bent over backwards not to cause the ones that cared about him any unintentional harm. Sanzo, on the other hand, seemed sometimes to do things to hurt people on purpose: the more they cared about him, the harder he pushed them away. Gojyo understood it, because before Hakkai had entered his life, he had done pretty much the same thing himself, but he sure as hell didn’t like it, especially times like now when he saw his friends being wounded by the monk’s callous disregard. He looked at the worry showing so clear on their tired faces and he knew he had to do something.

TBC