[Ficlet] How Jeep Stays Sane
Mar. 26th, 2007 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tj_dragonbladeHere - have a Jeep ficlet that suddenly up and wrote itself after percolating as a forgotten seed on the back burner for more than a year. I rather like how it turned out. ^_^
Title: How Jeep Stays Sane
Author: TJ Dragonblade
Fandom: Saiyuki
Rated: 11+
Genre: Gen-fic
Characters: Jeep and the rest of the Sanzo-ikkou
Warnings: None
Summary: The patience of a dragon does have its limits, but Jeep's not quite there. Yet.
Many thanks to Sorcha for the beta-read. ^_^
Jeep didn't really mind being a jeep, per se. It was satisfying, in its own way--he was an invaluable part of this journey west, he could carry his passengers almost anywhere, and even the half-frozen mud of the narrow mountain road over which he currently trundled was no more than an invigorating challenge. Conquering the unfriendliest of terrain gave him much cause for pride, and the exhilaration of skimming over open ground at higher speeds was not entirely unlike the joy of soaring on the winds in his natural form.
Still, there were occasional moments when he entertained thoughts of not being the jeep.
He had no real complaints; he took care of his passengers and Hakkai in turn took care of him. His senses of duty and purpose and balance were quite fulfilled. At times, however, there were certain circumstances--
One of the two currently arguing in his back seat shoved the other, shifting his center of balance unexpectedly. His rear tires slid sideways, suddenly without purchase in the icy mud, skidding dangerously near the lip of the road and the steep slope below. He gave an alarmed and rather undignified squawk, scrabbling at the unaccomodating ground and struggling to re-engage his four-wheel drive. Hakkai's hands tightened on his wheel, his driver murmuring tense encouragement; his tires caught rougher ground at last and he regained his footing. Sanzo barked a mostly-unheeded order at Gojyo and Goku to sit down and shut the hell up before they got everyone killed with their stupidity, and the journey resumed as usual.
It was precisely such moments that occasionally grew tiresome, and he had found that speculating on other possible forms distracted him nicely from his passengers' antics. Otherwise he might find himself sorely tempted to swerve sharply round some convenient corner or tree and toss the three of them out, speeding on his way as though neither he nor Hakkai had noticed.
Hakkai was admonishing the others in a tightly cheerful voice to please be more considerate of how their scuffles affected Jeep's ability to keep them all safely on the road, unless of course they had a particularly insistent desire to go tumbling down the side of the mountain in a heap of broken bones and bruises, ahaha. Of course, Hakkai would unfortunately be too weary to heal such injuries properly, in all likelihood, as there were three of them and only one of him, and he had spent the past two days driving treacherous roads while they had traded off napping and fighting with one another...
Jeep purred unobtrusively, a quiet sort of rumbling beneath his hood, smugly pleased somehow that Hakkai was not above guilting the others with innocent threats on his behalf.
There was peace for the space of three and a half minutes, approximately, before the back-and-forth sniping started up again sotto voce.
Jeep gave a mental sigh, amused and exasperated in equal measure, and resumed his musings as the argument quickly escalated.
In his next life, he decided, he might like to be something designed with an eye toward speed, rather than cargo or passenger capacity. A motorcycle, he thought, or perhaps something with four wheels again. Something low and fast, built for parting the winds before it; something sleek, powerful--
Sanzo bellowed again at the other two, a brief, invective diatribe on the imminence of their deaths generously laced with insults to their mental capacities, and fired off a round that nearly grazed Jeep's spare tire.
--something, Jeep thought wistfully and with just a touch of pique, with room enough for only his driver.
A motorcycle, perhaps, after all.
===
Drafted: 3/16/07
Posted: 3/26/07
Title: How Jeep Stays Sane
Author: TJ Dragonblade
Fandom: Saiyuki
Rated: 11+
Genre: Gen-fic
Characters: Jeep and the rest of the Sanzo-ikkou
Warnings: None
Summary: The patience of a dragon does have its limits, but Jeep's not quite there. Yet.
Many thanks to Sorcha for the beta-read. ^_^
Jeep didn't really mind being a jeep, per se. It was satisfying, in its own way--he was an invaluable part of this journey west, he could carry his passengers almost anywhere, and even the half-frozen mud of the narrow mountain road over which he currently trundled was no more than an invigorating challenge. Conquering the unfriendliest of terrain gave him much cause for pride, and the exhilaration of skimming over open ground at higher speeds was not entirely unlike the joy of soaring on the winds in his natural form.
Still, there were occasional moments when he entertained thoughts of not being the jeep.
He had no real complaints; he took care of his passengers and Hakkai in turn took care of him. His senses of duty and purpose and balance were quite fulfilled. At times, however, there were certain circumstances--
One of the two currently arguing in his back seat shoved the other, shifting his center of balance unexpectedly. His rear tires slid sideways, suddenly without purchase in the icy mud, skidding dangerously near the lip of the road and the steep slope below. He gave an alarmed and rather undignified squawk, scrabbling at the unaccomodating ground and struggling to re-engage his four-wheel drive. Hakkai's hands tightened on his wheel, his driver murmuring tense encouragement; his tires caught rougher ground at last and he regained his footing. Sanzo barked a mostly-unheeded order at Gojyo and Goku to sit down and shut the hell up before they got everyone killed with their stupidity, and the journey resumed as usual.
It was precisely such moments that occasionally grew tiresome, and he had found that speculating on other possible forms distracted him nicely from his passengers' antics. Otherwise he might find himself sorely tempted to swerve sharply round some convenient corner or tree and toss the three of them out, speeding on his way as though neither he nor Hakkai had noticed.
Hakkai was admonishing the others in a tightly cheerful voice to please be more considerate of how their scuffles affected Jeep's ability to keep them all safely on the road, unless of course they had a particularly insistent desire to go tumbling down the side of the mountain in a heap of broken bones and bruises, ahaha. Of course, Hakkai would unfortunately be too weary to heal such injuries properly, in all likelihood, as there were three of them and only one of him, and he had spent the past two days driving treacherous roads while they had traded off napping and fighting with one another...
Jeep purred unobtrusively, a quiet sort of rumbling beneath his hood, smugly pleased somehow that Hakkai was not above guilting the others with innocent threats on his behalf.
There was peace for the space of three and a half minutes, approximately, before the back-and-forth sniping started up again sotto voce.
Jeep gave a mental sigh, amused and exasperated in equal measure, and resumed his musings as the argument quickly escalated.
In his next life, he decided, he might like to be something designed with an eye toward speed, rather than cargo or passenger capacity. A motorcycle, he thought, or perhaps something with four wheels again. Something low and fast, built for parting the winds before it; something sleek, powerful--
Sanzo bellowed again at the other two, a brief, invective diatribe on the imminence of their deaths generously laced with insults to their mental capacities, and fired off a round that nearly grazed Jeep's spare tire.
--something, Jeep thought wistfully and with just a touch of pique, with room enough for only his driver.
A motorcycle, perhaps, after all.
===
Drafted: 3/16/07
Posted: 3/26/07
