Gift fic for tj: Hunting the Snark
Title: Hunting the Snark
Pairing: 10K implied
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack. Calculated acts of violence against small woodland creatures.
Summary: In which we discover why Tenpou hasn’t been laid recently.
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer thingee. Minekura’s and tj_dragonblade’s. The only thing that’s mine is the re-imagining!!!
A baby gift for tj_dragonblade . Congrats on the newest dragonblade family member, tj!
This bit o’ crack is based off tj’s fic Gratitude, so if you haven’t read that yet, go do it! Do it now! It's a fun read in and of itself, but if you don't, this fic won’t make much sense. For those with time constraints, the Cliff Notes version of tj's fic premise is that all Saiyuki characters not involved in active plot lines are compelled by contract to work as fic/fic bunny writers. Which means most of the Gaiden crew, of course.
Thanks also to helliongoddess for some lovely suggestions on a few bits. They were as inspiring as you, oh Merciful Bitch.
Hunting the Snark
It took quite some time- that is, three-quarters of the July issue of Monthly Shonen Ace- before Tenpou realized that Kenren had failed to return from his ‘smoke break’ (though considering the ashtray on the desk was filled to overflowing, it seemed a dubious euphemism at best for Kenren’s out-of-office wanderings). It took no time at all, however, to find out to where the general had wandered off; he was found underneath his preferred arboreal habitat in what passed as the building’s ‘picnic’ area, where he sat not-so-euphemistically cleaning his gun. An old undershirt bobbed industriously between his legs, hard at work in its current occupation as a polishing cloth. Having expended what little late-afternoon energy he had in searching for wayward generals Tenpou plopped himself down as well, taking advantage of the shade as well as the pack of Hi-Lites lying oh-so invitingly on the grass. Kenren barely looked up at him, his eyes instead intent on peering through the interior of the barrel. Inspection complete, he began to reload. Tenpou watched in that disinterested way which meant the object being viewed was the only thing moving in the near vicinity; he became nominally more interested in the goings-on when he noticed a pile of spent casings between Kenren’s legs. Tenpou cocked his head towards the pile.
“An odd place for target practice.”
Kenren shook his head as he snapped the gun shut with a bit too much of a dramatic flourish. He followed it with an equally stagy finger to his lips. “Shhhh. I’m hunting wabbits.”
Tenpou grinned. “Wabbits? Really. I had no idea we were quite that ovewwun.”
“Just wait for it.”
Kenren shifted and cocked his leg, draping an arm over his knee to better cradle the pistol. He aimed it straight at the office door. Tenpou leaned back against the tree, finding the odd scenario curiously entertaining- well, more entertaining than his desk work, at the very least. His eyes divided their time between the general and the door (though mostly the general) while he smoked and waited and generally shirked responsibility for the afternoon, though it took no more than half of a cigarette before Kenren’s eyebrow quirked in that special way that to those initiated into Kenrenspeak meant either See? I told you so, or occasionally Are you planning on untying me from the bedpost anytime soon? Tenpou’s eyes flicked back to the building in time to see the door close, though he saw no further evidence of anyone having left the building. His eyes flicked back to Kenren’s- still intent on the door. Following the man’s gaze it took Tenpou a few moments and an eyewear readjustment to locate the tiny set of ears, barely noticeable as they peeked out over a low decorative shrub near the building’s entrance. Kenren certainly had a good eye. Tenpou was rather impressed.
“Well I’ll be.”
The gun cocked, slow and deliberate. It sounded louder than it should have in an otherwise pastoral afternoon. Kenren shifted his cigarette into the corner of this mouth, using a tone too low for the bunny to hear.
“Fifth one today. Big one, too; most of ‘em’ve been a couple hundred words, tops. Fucking hard to bag those buggers. Hardly anything there to shoot.”
“Are you sure it’s for you?”
“It’s comin’ for one of us, Tenpou. You wanna be the one to ask it who?”
The plot bunny obviously sensed that danger was near, as it was doing an admirable impression of a rock that just happened to wander off into a shrub- though every once in awhile the ears twitched, and a sound suspiciously close to a giggle came from the bushes. Kenren snorted, easing up on the trigger as he tapped out his ash.
“Crack- or maybe more fluff. I don’t know which I hate more; the kind where ‘hilarity ensues’ or a ‘but wait! There’s a girl!’ They both giggle.”
Come to think of it, neither of them had been attacked by a mutant plot bunny for quite some time now; in fact, as of late the only fics Tenpou had worked in had been a few prompts that he and Kenren had written for each other. If he had stopped to think about it he would have put it down to a lull in interest since his literary demise, or perhaps to sheer dumb luck; but if this was plot bunny five for the day, evidently neither was the case. Was Kenren’s new hobby of Bag-a-Bunny the reason why neither of them had been getting laid recently? One would have assumed that on principle Kenren would spare the smuttier stories from an early demise- at least the 10Ks, and the 10KGous- which suggested there had to be an obvious way of distinguishing porn from fluff. Likely sound-related, as Kenren had taken the giggling as a genre clue of some sort. Tenpou’s imagination was running wild as to what sort of sound a PWP might make when his thoughts were sidetracked by another fit of giggles, louder and more maniacal than the first. The bunny seemed a bit too pleased with its own cleverness; a very bad sign. Kenren leveled the gun at the bush again.
“I’m sure I’m stating the obvious, Kenren- but isn’t this a breach of contract?”
“Yeah, well- they have to find the body first. Fluff explodes on impact; nothin’ to clean up but a few bits of cotton candy fuzz stuck to the grass. A few beers and a good whiz and all that’s left are the bragging rights. As for anything with meat on it- well, I sure loves wabbit stew.”
Tenpou snickered, immensely entertained by the thought. He had to admit that simply shooting unwanted plot bunnies had never even crossed his mind; he was rather put out that Kenren had thought of it first. But then, Kenren had always had a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach to things. Tenpou had barely begun his newest internal tangent on plot bunny cuisine when the bush shuddered and the ears disappeared. Kenren grinned.
“Come to papa, baby girl-”
The jarring crack of a .41 caliber shot actually made him jump; had it really been that long since his last battle? A hundred yards away the plot bunny fell to the ground, caught dead in mid-leap. Kenren was right; it had been coming straight towards the tree, so obviously meant for one if not both of them. The Great White Bunny Hunter stood up and had himself a good long stretch. Tenpou was too comfortable to follow with anything but his eyes as Kenren brushed off his butt, then slung the gun over his shoulder like a B-grade movie star and sauntered off to inspect his latest kill. Once at the scene of the crime he paused over the top of the little lump for a moment before prodding the thing with his toe. Despite the boot's valiant efforts in revival, the bunny remained fully and completely deceased. Kenren finally looked up and cupped his hand to his mouth, though the sound would have carried fine without the added gesture. The boy seemed intent on being a drama queen for the day.
“Mpreg! You can guess which one of us that was for!”
Tenpou shuddered involuntarily, knowing exactly who it was for- and was suddenly rather grateful that fate had brought him out to the picnic area with Dead-Eyed Dick that afternoon instead of off to his plan B of wrestling a pot out of the cranky coffee maker in the break room, as odds were he’d be with child by now. Kenren picked up the itty bitty corpse and tossed it into the bushes before wiping his hand on his pants. He shook his head in disgust while he slowly moseyed his way back up to the base of operations. Leaning against the tree, he resumed his vigil with the office door.
“Its fur was pink, Tenpou. Pink. Gave me the heebie-jeebies just looking at it.”
Kenren snorted and shuddered, as if to reinforce the heebie-jeebieness of what they’d both just so narrowly avoided. Tenpou found himself craning his head to look up at him; he wondered what sort of compulsion Kenren had to give him a neck ache every time they went outside. Still, he much preferred a Kenren under the tree rather than up it.
“It would have probably been abandoned somewhere near chapter 15, with you in labor and me in an apron and covered in baby food or something. Why anyone’d think that’s entertainment...” Kenren paused, shaking his head. “You’d make a lousy mother.”
Tenpou had nothing to say to that as the point was rather moot- at least he hoped it was. Thank the Merciful Bitch that no one had thought to disarm them; their old heaven-issued firearms were proving to be quite handy in the current office place setting. He was about to make a rather biting and well-worded comment on just what circle of hell one might find an abandoned mpreg fic when the door swung open again, so that by the time he identified the exiting worker as Jiroshin, Tenpou had entirely forgotten what it was he was going to say- which was a pity as it had been quite clever. Instead he watched while the poor man wobbled his way towards the parking lot, juggling an empty lunch box under his armpit as he typed something into his Blackberry. Tenpou waved, but got no reply. They hadn’t even been noticed.
“What possesses that man to continue to wear his body armor over a business suit? It can’t be comfortable- and it was never functional to begin with.”
Kenren ignored the question. “Well, it wasn’t him, that’s for sure. Mpreg would squick the Mustache even more than it does us.”
Ah, yes. Point well taken; the end of a shift would double perfectly as a police line-up. Barring overtime (which was virtually unheard of), whoever wrote today’s plot bunnies would have to come right through that door sometime in the next few minutes.
“True, true- Jiroshin does mostly hurt/comfort, doesn’t he… and Kanzeon is pure smut...”
Tenpou ticked through his mental list, trying to recall who it was he had seen around the office that afternoon; in the end he needn’t have bothered as he felt Kenren tense above him, silently telegraphing the alert. An all-too familiar figure had stopped dead a few feet from the door, hunched over his briefcase and staring unhappily in their direction.
“Well well, it seems a certain somebody is back from vacation.”
Tenpou frowned back, meeting Litouten’s eyes briefly before the man resumed walking- well, it was actually closer to stalking now- towards the parking lot. Kenren grunted as they both simultaneously came to the same conclusion.
“Hm. I’d always taken him for a shouta man. But I guess that answers that question.”
Tenpou nodded as he flicked out his butt and asked for a hand up. He brushed the grass off the back of his lab coat in an off-handed manner that belied the nature of the scenarios that were currently under development in his mind; or, as Kenren might have much more succinctly put it, the gears were in full swing.
“Well my dear General, as we’ve squandered away a good deal of our working hours in hunting wascally wabbits, I think we owe the company a bit of overtime, wouldn’t you say? All at once, I feel rather inspired to write. Shall we make our way back to our desks?”
Unlike Tenpou’s internal cacophony, Kenren had but one thought happily skipping rope in his mind; payback was going to be one helluva bitch. A shit-eating grin was already plastered across Kenren’s face as he pushed himself off the tree and flicked his butt out in the opposite direction. Slinging the gun back over his shoulder, he offered Tenpou his free elbow.
“We shall, Marshal. We shall.”
Pairing: 10K implied
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack. Calculated acts of violence against small woodland creatures.
Summary: In which we discover why Tenpou hasn’t been laid recently.
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer thingee. Minekura’s and tj_dragonblade’s. The only thing that’s mine is the re-imagining!!!
A baby gift for tj_dragonblade . Congrats on the newest dragonblade family member, tj!
This bit o’ crack is based off tj’s fic Gratitude, so if you haven’t read that yet, go do it! Do it now! It's a fun read in and of itself, but if you don't, this fic won’t make much sense. For those with time constraints, the Cliff Notes version of tj's fic premise is that all Saiyuki characters not involved in active plot lines are compelled by contract to work as fic/fic bunny writers. Which means most of the Gaiden crew, of course.
Thanks also to helliongoddess for some lovely suggestions on a few bits. They were as inspiring as you, oh Merciful Bitch.
Hunting the Snark
It took quite some time- that is, three-quarters of the July issue of Monthly Shonen Ace- before Tenpou realized that Kenren had failed to return from his ‘smoke break’ (though considering the ashtray on the desk was filled to overflowing, it seemed a dubious euphemism at best for Kenren’s out-of-office wanderings). It took no time at all, however, to find out to where the general had wandered off; he was found underneath his preferred arboreal habitat in what passed as the building’s ‘picnic’ area, where he sat not-so-euphemistically cleaning his gun. An old undershirt bobbed industriously between his legs, hard at work in its current occupation as a polishing cloth. Having expended what little late-afternoon energy he had in searching for wayward generals Tenpou plopped himself down as well, taking advantage of the shade as well as the pack of Hi-Lites lying oh-so invitingly on the grass. Kenren barely looked up at him, his eyes instead intent on peering through the interior of the barrel. Inspection complete, he began to reload. Tenpou watched in that disinterested way which meant the object being viewed was the only thing moving in the near vicinity; he became nominally more interested in the goings-on when he noticed a pile of spent casings between Kenren’s legs. Tenpou cocked his head towards the pile.
“An odd place for target practice.”
Kenren shook his head as he snapped the gun shut with a bit too much of a dramatic flourish. He followed it with an equally stagy finger to his lips. “Shhhh. I’m hunting wabbits.”
Tenpou grinned. “Wabbits? Really. I had no idea we were quite that ovewwun.”
“Just wait for it.”
Kenren shifted and cocked his leg, draping an arm over his knee to better cradle the pistol. He aimed it straight at the office door. Tenpou leaned back against the tree, finding the odd scenario curiously entertaining- well, more entertaining than his desk work, at the very least. His eyes divided their time between the general and the door (though mostly the general) while he smoked and waited and generally shirked responsibility for the afternoon, though it took no more than half of a cigarette before Kenren’s eyebrow quirked in that special way that to those initiated into Kenrenspeak meant either See? I told you so, or occasionally Are you planning on untying me from the bedpost anytime soon? Tenpou’s eyes flicked back to the building in time to see the door close, though he saw no further evidence of anyone having left the building. His eyes flicked back to Kenren’s- still intent on the door. Following the man’s gaze it took Tenpou a few moments and an eyewear readjustment to locate the tiny set of ears, barely noticeable as they peeked out over a low decorative shrub near the building’s entrance. Kenren certainly had a good eye. Tenpou was rather impressed.
“Well I’ll be.”
The gun cocked, slow and deliberate. It sounded louder than it should have in an otherwise pastoral afternoon. Kenren shifted his cigarette into the corner of this mouth, using a tone too low for the bunny to hear.
“Fifth one today. Big one, too; most of ‘em’ve been a couple hundred words, tops. Fucking hard to bag those buggers. Hardly anything there to shoot.”
“Are you sure it’s for you?”
“It’s comin’ for one of us, Tenpou. You wanna be the one to ask it who?”
The plot bunny obviously sensed that danger was near, as it was doing an admirable impression of a rock that just happened to wander off into a shrub- though every once in awhile the ears twitched, and a sound suspiciously close to a giggle came from the bushes. Kenren snorted, easing up on the trigger as he tapped out his ash.
“Crack- or maybe more fluff. I don’t know which I hate more; the kind where ‘hilarity ensues’ or a ‘but wait! There’s a girl!’ They both giggle.”
Come to think of it, neither of them had been attacked by a mutant plot bunny for quite some time now; in fact, as of late the only fics Tenpou had worked in had been a few prompts that he and Kenren had written for each other. If he had stopped to think about it he would have put it down to a lull in interest since his literary demise, or perhaps to sheer dumb luck; but if this was plot bunny five for the day, evidently neither was the case. Was Kenren’s new hobby of Bag-a-Bunny the reason why neither of them had been getting laid recently? One would have assumed that on principle Kenren would spare the smuttier stories from an early demise- at least the 10Ks, and the 10KGous- which suggested there had to be an obvious way of distinguishing porn from fluff. Likely sound-related, as Kenren had taken the giggling as a genre clue of some sort. Tenpou’s imagination was running wild as to what sort of sound a PWP might make when his thoughts were sidetracked by another fit of giggles, louder and more maniacal than the first. The bunny seemed a bit too pleased with its own cleverness; a very bad sign. Kenren leveled the gun at the bush again.
“I’m sure I’m stating the obvious, Kenren- but isn’t this a breach of contract?”
“Yeah, well- they have to find the body first. Fluff explodes on impact; nothin’ to clean up but a few bits of cotton candy fuzz stuck to the grass. A few beers and a good whiz and all that’s left are the bragging rights. As for anything with meat on it- well, I sure loves wabbit stew.”
Tenpou snickered, immensely entertained by the thought. He had to admit that simply shooting unwanted plot bunnies had never even crossed his mind; he was rather put out that Kenren had thought of it first. But then, Kenren had always had a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach to things. Tenpou had barely begun his newest internal tangent on plot bunny cuisine when the bush shuddered and the ears disappeared. Kenren grinned.
“Come to papa, baby girl-”
The jarring crack of a .41 caliber shot actually made him jump; had it really been that long since his last battle? A hundred yards away the plot bunny fell to the ground, caught dead in mid-leap. Kenren was right; it had been coming straight towards the tree, so obviously meant for one if not both of them. The Great White Bunny Hunter stood up and had himself a good long stretch. Tenpou was too comfortable to follow with anything but his eyes as Kenren brushed off his butt, then slung the gun over his shoulder like a B-grade movie star and sauntered off to inspect his latest kill. Once at the scene of the crime he paused over the top of the little lump for a moment before prodding the thing with his toe. Despite the boot's valiant efforts in revival, the bunny remained fully and completely deceased. Kenren finally looked up and cupped his hand to his mouth, though the sound would have carried fine without the added gesture. The boy seemed intent on being a drama queen for the day.
“Mpreg! You can guess which one of us that was for!”
Tenpou shuddered involuntarily, knowing exactly who it was for- and was suddenly rather grateful that fate had brought him out to the picnic area with Dead-Eyed Dick that afternoon instead of off to his plan B of wrestling a pot out of the cranky coffee maker in the break room, as odds were he’d be with child by now. Kenren picked up the itty bitty corpse and tossed it into the bushes before wiping his hand on his pants. He shook his head in disgust while he slowly moseyed his way back up to the base of operations. Leaning against the tree, he resumed his vigil with the office door.
“Its fur was pink, Tenpou. Pink. Gave me the heebie-jeebies just looking at it.”
Kenren snorted and shuddered, as if to reinforce the heebie-jeebieness of what they’d both just so narrowly avoided. Tenpou found himself craning his head to look up at him; he wondered what sort of compulsion Kenren had to give him a neck ache every time they went outside. Still, he much preferred a Kenren under the tree rather than up it.
“It would have probably been abandoned somewhere near chapter 15, with you in labor and me in an apron and covered in baby food or something. Why anyone’d think that’s entertainment...” Kenren paused, shaking his head. “You’d make a lousy mother.”
Tenpou had nothing to say to that as the point was rather moot- at least he hoped it was. Thank the Merciful Bitch that no one had thought to disarm them; their old heaven-issued firearms were proving to be quite handy in the current office place setting. He was about to make a rather biting and well-worded comment on just what circle of hell one might find an abandoned mpreg fic when the door swung open again, so that by the time he identified the exiting worker as Jiroshin, Tenpou had entirely forgotten what it was he was going to say- which was a pity as it had been quite clever. Instead he watched while the poor man wobbled his way towards the parking lot, juggling an empty lunch box under his armpit as he typed something into his Blackberry. Tenpou waved, but got no reply. They hadn’t even been noticed.
“What possesses that man to continue to wear his body armor over a business suit? It can’t be comfortable- and it was never functional to begin with.”
Kenren ignored the question. “Well, it wasn’t him, that’s for sure. Mpreg would squick the Mustache even more than it does us.”
Ah, yes. Point well taken; the end of a shift would double perfectly as a police line-up. Barring overtime (which was virtually unheard of), whoever wrote today’s plot bunnies would have to come right through that door sometime in the next few minutes.
“True, true- Jiroshin does mostly hurt/comfort, doesn’t he… and Kanzeon is pure smut...”
Tenpou ticked through his mental list, trying to recall who it was he had seen around the office that afternoon; in the end he needn’t have bothered as he felt Kenren tense above him, silently telegraphing the alert. An all-too familiar figure had stopped dead a few feet from the door, hunched over his briefcase and staring unhappily in their direction.
“Well well, it seems a certain somebody is back from vacation.”
Tenpou frowned back, meeting Litouten’s eyes briefly before the man resumed walking- well, it was actually closer to stalking now- towards the parking lot. Kenren grunted as they both simultaneously came to the same conclusion.
“Hm. I’d always taken him for a shouta man. But I guess that answers that question.”
Tenpou nodded as he flicked out his butt and asked for a hand up. He brushed the grass off the back of his lab coat in an off-handed manner that belied the nature of the scenarios that were currently under development in his mind; or, as Kenren might have much more succinctly put it, the gears were in full swing.
“Well my dear General, as we’ve squandered away a good deal of our working hours in hunting wascally wabbits, I think we owe the company a bit of overtime, wouldn’t you say? All at once, I feel rather inspired to write. Shall we make our way back to our desks?”
Unlike Tenpou’s internal cacophony, Kenren had but one thought happily skipping rope in his mind; payback was going to be one helluva bitch. A shit-eating grin was already plastered across Kenren’s face as he pushed himself off the tree and flicked his butt out in the opposite direction. Slinging the gun back over his shoulder, he offered Tenpou his free elbow.
“We shall, Marshal. We shall.”