Red Like Roses -- Church Grifting and Cigarette Smoke
A bit from a Kanan Lives AU in which a church is scammed, Gojyo remains an unrepentant flirt, and dreams waft away like smoke from a lit cigarette.
(Notes on AU here)
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Another day, another grift for travel expenses. Kanan understood supplies for four grown men and now one additional grown woman racked up a good-size bill, especially for how much sweet little Goku ate, but she hadn’t expected how much heavy lifting she’d still have to do after catching up to Gonou’s—Hakkai’s, she corrected herself—party. She’d heard the rumors on the road, of course, but nothing could’ve prepared her for how much of an actual disaster this group of men was.
Fortunately, on this stop in the journey, she had noticed another Christian church that seemed well-enough off to help a poor, wandering Father continue his vital missionary work. And this time, she wasn’t alone in convincing them to give her a handout—er, contribution to help sway the hearts and souls of the people of this land into becoming faithful followers of the one true God. Having a second person around might sway the congregation to add a little more than usual to the travel funds.
Unfortunately, the man helping her grift this time was Sha Gojyo.
“My son,” Kanan said, voice pitched down to what she hoped still sounded passably like a young man, “What have I told you about flirting with nuns?”
The man in question, who had been caught red-handed leaning casually against the wall and lightly lifting the chin up of a blushing young nun to face him, sighed and turned his eyes to Kanan. “They’ve taken a vow of chastity for the Lord and are off-limits, you perverted kappa’?” he quoted as if he had heard this a million times already.
(Which he had. She had told him several times before accompanying her to behave. Hakkai told him about it too. Even Goku and Sanzo had told him, effectively, “don’t fuck this up.” It didn’t stick.)
“I don’t believe I was the one who added ‘perverted kappa’ to the warning, but yes,” Kanan said, doing her best to keep an even, fatherly tone. She turned to the nun and bowed deeply. “My apologies, sister; he has the spirit, but he is still a new convert and is having difficulties turning away from the temptations of the flesh.”
“Oh, no, no, no, it’s perfectly all right!” the nun said, waving her hands wildly in front of her. “I’ve had far ruder and far less handsome fellows come on to me before!”
Gojyo raised an eyebrow, his voice growing husky. “So you think I’m handsome, hm?” This earned him a quick chop to the head. “Ow, hey!”
“My brother in Christ,” Kanan began, pulling back her hand. “We are on a legitimate soul-winning excursion for the Lord. Please do not do things that would draw criticism in God’s house and potentially burn bridges.” God, this was tiring, Kanon thought. Still, she was thankful the lessons from the nuns in the orphanage had stuck long enough to bluff her way through all this.
“I-I think I should go; I have to tend the gardens anyway…” the nun said, backing away a couple steps and looking for the nearest exist.
Kanan bowed again. “Of course, sister. My apologies again for the disturbance.”
The two of them watched the nun skitter away as fast as her legs could take her. “Too bad for the penguin suit she’s wearing; from what I could tell from the front, she had a great figure—ow!”
Kanan withdrew her hand, having bopped him again. She dragged him down to her level by the jacket and whispered harshly in his ear. “Are you fucking STUPID? I told you to stop flirting for ten fucking minutes while I talked to the head of the congregation and then you go trying to seduce a nun again when my back is turned!”
“Aw, c’mon, did you see her? She was a real cutie!” Gojyo complained, tangling two fingers in the rosary he was currently wearing like a necklace—a prize he picked up from a female worshipper from the last church they were in, Kanon noted with dismay.
“Yes, she was cute, but she is still a nun!” Kanon hissed, voice pitching up.
Gojyo smirked as he freed himself from her grasp. He adjusted his jacket, then clasped his hands in prayer. “Well then, sorry, Daddy, I’ve been naughty~”
“It is ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!’” she growled. Argh, this man was going to make her pull her hair out at this rate.
“Sorry for the wait, Father Edmond,” a male voice said behind them.
At that, Kanon straighted immediately, plastering her best serene man of the cloth smile she could muster under the circumstances before turning to the newcomer. “It is no problem; I had to counsel my travel companion about learning to resist temptation anyway,” she said, dropping her voice once more. “As I was just telling one of the sisters, he has the spirit, but the flesh is still weak.”
“Of course. Even under the Lord, it takes man time to change for the better,” the man, an actual priest, said with a sage nod. He offered her a pouch heavy with money. “It isn’t much, the times what they are, but hopefully it will be enough for you and your bodyguard to get by.”
“Anything you can spare is a blessing,” Kanan replied, bowing and gratefully accepting the money. “This will go to valuable supplies for our mission and to aid those in need where we can. To allow man to die in despair, hungry and with no hope, would be the greatest sin of all in these trying times.”
“Indeed,” the priest agreed. He bowed to Kanan. “God be with you, Father Edmond.”
Kanon bowed in turn. “And with you as well.”
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Once back at the group’s room at the inn, after the rest of the group (save her and Gojyo) went off to take care of business with the money she brought back, Kanan flopped face first onto the bed and made a sound that, to more modern ears, might sound not unlike a very strangled dial-up modem noise into the pillow.
Gojyo sat on the floor next to her, lighting up a cigarette. “Gotta say, you’re one hell of a scammer. Your acting never fails to impress me.”
“Thanks, I think,” Kanon said, voice still muffled by the pillow. She waved the hand closest to him by his head. “Gimme.”
The man laughed, put a cigarette between her fingers, and lit it for her. “Not even a ‘please’ this time?”
Kanon rolled over, careful not to drop the cigarette, and sat up, resting her back against the wall. “Not after your antics with the nun,” she said before taking a drag. “Seriously, of all the parishioners you could chase, you go after a nun.”
“She was the hottest lady there and you know it,” Gojyo replied unrepentantly before taking a drag himself. Exhaling smoke, he turned and glanced at her over his shoulder. “Aside from maybe the good wandering priest herself~”
She nudged him in the shoulder with her foot. “I didn’t know you were into drag kings, Gojyo~”
Gojyo shrugged, chuckling. “A hot chick’s a hot chick, no matter what she’s wearing. The religion kink angle’s also pretty spicy~”
“Funny, I would’ve thought you’d be more a ‘naughty nuns with rulers’ kind of guy than this,” Kanan said, faintly smiling. It really was too hard to stay mad at him, once the pressure to pretend to be an upstanding man of the cloth was off her shoulders.
“I mean, if you’re offering—oof!”
OK, so that was more than a little nudge with her foot that time. Oops. She leaned over the edge of the bed and gently tapped ash off the end of her cigarette in the ashtray next to Gojyo. “It’s bad enough already I’m wearing the collar; stealing a nun’s habit on top of that’s a little too sacrilegious for me. Unless you want to be the naughty nun?”
“I don’t think I’d look that great in a dress, thanks,” he said, following her lead only to notice the kick caused the ash that would’ve been there to land on the floor. Shit, hope that didn’t leave a burn mark they had to pay for; money was tight enough as was.
“Mm, maybe not if it’s a nun’s attire, but I think you have the legs for a cute little skirt,” she teased. Her hand slid through his hair, gathering it back to mimic a ponytail. “I could even fix your hair up all nice. You’d look darling with an updo, maybe add a cute hair stick in the mix…”
Gojyo sighed. “This is getting a little too detailed for teasing, y’know.”
Kanon let go of his hair, letting it fall back into place. “I can’t help it, you have really pretty hair. Red like roses in bloom~”
He turned his head away from her, taking a drag off his cigarette to avoid having to say anything. Was that a hint of a blush on his ear? Cute~ “You’re the first person to compare it to roses,” he finally said, his voice strangely neutral, like there was something he wasn’t saying.
“It is, tho’,” she insisted. “Red like the kind of roses a man would bring his lover after he’d been on a long trip.” She fell silent and gazed at the cigarette in her hand, smoke trailing up from the tip towards the ceiling. How long had it been since she’d been given roses…?
It was Gojyo that broke the silence that hung in the room. “… he’s still being weird about all this.”
“He is still being weird about all this,” she repeated, nodding. She leaned over and put out the cigarette. “I can’t blame him, not really. Doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt, tho’.”
Gojyo leaned back, inhaling, then exhaling smoke. “Yeah, your whole situation sucks on both ends. Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna smack him upside the head. Who leaves a pretty lady hangin’ like that?”
“Someone who was pretty badly hurt himself,” Kanan said. No longer with the fear of ash or ember falling on the bedsheets, she made herself comfortable on the bed, lying on her back. “I don’t know what I expected, really. Was it all just a selfish wish to hope things could be OK again?”
Gojyo finally put out his cigarette. “Yeah, probably, but what’s wrong with that? You’d be left wondering forever if you didn’t take the chance.” He shifted in place, resting his elbow on the mattress. “Look, you reached out; it’s up to him to pull himself out of his own damn head and reach back. And if he doesn’t? Fuck ‘im, it’s his loss.”
That got a laugh out of her. She rolled over on her side, smiling, then reached out to rest her hand on his arm. “Fuck him indeed. Thank you, Gojyo; you’re a good friend.”
Gojyo’s eyes widened, faint color reaching his cheeks. He quickly turned away and waved a hand side to side. “Yeah, yeah, ‘good friend’, whatever. I’m just sayin’ what I’m thinkin’, that’s all.”
“Getting all tsun-tsun on me now, Gojyo-chan~? Sanzo’s a bad influence on you~” Kanan teased.
He flipped her off, making her laugh even more. This man was a disaster—all four of them were—but linking up with them made her smile more than she had in a long time. And didn’t that make all the effort to catch up worth it, in the end?
