Red Like Roses -- Rain On Your Wedding Day, Ch. 1
More of the Kanan Lives AU, now with an overarching AU name. In which we find out what happened at the previous church, Gojyo is still both the best and worst person to grift with, and Cho Hakkai's life is suffering.
(Takes place before this) -- (Notes on AU)
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Kanan looked up at the building before her, adjusting her collar. Here we go again, she thought. Another church, another plea for travel funds.
She had wished she could bring the whole group, in hopes that would make it easier to get enough funds for everyone. But unfortunately, Sanzo was both too famous and too obviously not Christian, Goku too rambunctious and unfocused, and Hakkai… He could be helpful, but he still was avoiding her as much as he could. Not very useful when this relied on sitting down and working out a consistent story first.
Gojyo, finding the whole thing hilarious and also being able to lie through his teeth without shame, was more than happy to tag along, at least. He, however, ran other risks to the plan. Like brazenly hitting on the nun out front sweeping the path. What the fuck.
Kanan rushed forward and pulled him back by the back of his jacket’s collar. “My brother in Christ, I know you are new to the Gospel, but this is a place of devotion, not a singles bar,” she scolded, putting on her best, deepest male voice.
“It’s all right, Father; I am able to handle myself,” the nun said with a smile. She held the broom with both hands and pulled, flashing a glint of steel. “See?”
Gojyo pointed to the broom and looked at Kanan. “Huh. Is this normal in the church, Father?”
“Jesus is the Prince of Peace, it’s true, but we live in dangerous times, my son,” Kanan told him, patting him on the shoulder. “Those who dedicate their lives to the Lord need to be able to protect themselves like everyone else, especially our sisters.” Which… wasn’t necessarily a lie, but him having a little fear of God in him the next time he wanted to pick up a nun wouldn’t hurt.
Unfortunately, Gojyo was not a real convert and thus no fear of God took root. “Yeah, makes sense,” he said, nodding.
Suppressing a sigh, Kanan bowed politely to the nun. “Anyway, forgive us for interrupting your task. Is the head of this church in at the moment? I would like to speak to him. Or her, if it’s your Mother Superior.”
The nun held a hand to her cheek. “I don’t think he had anywhere to go today… May I ask your name, Father?”
“Cho,” Kanan said smoothly. “Father Edmond Cho. I am a missionary on a journey to spread the Gospel.”
“Ooooooooh, a foreigner? You speak our language so well, Father!” the nun gushed. “OK, I’ll go find him. If you’d like to wait inside…?”
Kanan turned up the placid, priestly smile up to eleven and put a hand over her heart. “Thank you, sister, we would appreciate that.” She reached up and tapped Gojyo’s back. “Let’s go, Jiro.”
As they watched the nun enter ahead of them, Gojyo leaned closer to Kanan and muttered, “Your fake names suck as much as Hakkai’s.”
“Suck it up, Jiro,” she muttered back. “Let’s get going.”
---
Inside the church, off near the altar, a group of five people were standing. One was the nun they just talked to, another was clearly the priest, and next to them were a man and a woman Kanan remembered seeing on the road sometime before she caught up to Hakkai’s party, along with a middle-aged woman she didn’t know. Glad to see the pair survived the rest of their trip, she thought.
The nun noticed Kanan and Gojyo, then tapped the priest on the shoulder and pointed to the two near the entrance. The priest and the couple turned their eyes to the newcomers, then—
“Oh my goodness! Father Edmond!” the woman in the couple exclaimed. She made a beeline to the fake priest, the man following her close behind. She took both Kanan’s hands in hers and held them tight. “I’m so glad you’re doing well!”
“I am glad to see you are safe as well,” Kanan said. “I didn’t expect to cross paths with you and your fiancé again, however. What brings you to this church?”
“This is my hometown,” the young man standing next to her said. “Now that I’ve finally been able to introduce her to my mother, I was hoping Yanyun and I could get married here.”
Kanan stole a glimpse at the older woman, who was now approaching with the priest and the nun. So that’s who the mystery person was, she reckoned. She smiled, sincerely this time, at the happy couple. “I see. I’m very happy for you both.”
Gojyo slung an arm across Kanan’s shoulders and leaned in closer. “You know these people, ‘Father’?” Smiling broadly at the happy couple, he said, “Song Jiro, by the way. Met up with him on the road and thought one scrawny lil’ priest was gonna get his shit wrecked if he didn’t have someone lookin’ out for him.”
The perfect smile Kanan tried to keep up slipped. “Thank you, Jiro; that is the worst way anyone could ever phrase that.”
Yanyun laughed. “I must admit, I was also worried about you, Father, when we parted ways. You may have saved me with that rifle and knife of yours, but even you are only one person, and it’s so dangerous out there these days…” She looked up at Gojyo, then did a slight bow. “Thank you, Mr. Song, for looking after Father Edmond.”
Gojyo was totally doing it. He was absolutely flashing a grin that immediately preceded a pick-up line right next to her, Kanan could feel it in her bones. She quickly raised a hand in front of Gojyo’s face, blocking the young woman before them from his sight. “He has been a lovely traveling companion, if one that’s easily distracted by a pretty face. I cannot say the trip has been boring since linking up with him.”
Frowning and pushing Kanan’s hand aside, Gojyo complained, “You’re really good at making compliments sound like insults, Father.”
“I am only speaking the truth, my son.” She slipped out from under his arm and placed her hands on the shoulders of the happy couple. “In any case, although I may not still be in town at the time of the nuptials, I sincerely hope your union is long and blessed with happiness.”
The young couple looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to Kanan. “About that, Father Edmond; we…” the young man began timidly.
Yanyuan grabbed both of Kanan’s hands again and practically shouted, “Please do our wedding!”
Kanan let out a sound not unlike that of a squashed duck. “Weh?!”
“I’ve heard much about the young priest who came to my son’s aid and saved the life of my future daughter-in-law,” the older woman interrupted, finally joining the conversation. “It would be an honor if you would preside over the ceremony.”
Panic rose in Kanan’s chest. “Well, I—“
“You need money for your mission trip, right?! We’ll even pay you!” the bride cried out.
“Um—“
A reassuring hand rested on Kanan’s back. “What the good priest here is trying to say is, we do have a schedule to keep,” Gojyo told the bride-to-be. Red eyes quickly met with green, too fast for the young couple to take notice. “That said, when’s the wedding date? Maybe he could squeeze it in.”
“Jiro…” Kanan said, hopefully with a warning tone, but most likely with a “oh God oh no” tone instead. Yes, they needed travel funds. Yes, judging by the quality fabrics used in the older woman’s clothes, the groom’s side of the family came from money. Yes, she had read enough romance novels that she could probably bluff her way through this. But there was a difference between telling a church you were a missionary and leaving ASAP and sticking around long enough to handle someone’s wedding ceremony when you are deeply, deeply unqualified to do so!
“It’s two days from now,” the groom told them, oblivious to Kanan’s inner turmoil. “There’ll be food and wine at the reception as well that you and your companion would be welcome to.”
Gojyo’s eyes lit up. The young man had just said the magic words, and now there was absolutely no escaping from this. Gojyo’s arm was back around Kanan’s shoulders, pulling her closer to him. “Soooooooo, Father, you think we can swing that?”
Oh God, she was definitely going to Hell for this, she just knew it.
“… please tell me the details and I’ll see if I can make it work.”
---
“… I beg your pardon?”
Cho Hakkai was, at this point, quite used to the sort of trouble his red-haired companion could get into. And, assuming this woman really was Kanan and not a very elaborate fake or a trap waiting to to be sprung, knew the playful antics she was capable of.
What he wasn’t used to, unfortunately, was the powder keg of chaos that their powers combined created. For what was the umpteenth time since this “Cho Kanan” had joined their journey, he found himself rubbing his temples out of sheer stress. “Please repeat what you just said; I do not believe I heard you correctly.”
“Our good wandering priest here,”—Gojyo jerked his thumb in the direction of “Kanan”—“has a wedding to do a couple days from now, so we gotta stay here a little while longer.”
“I. See.” Hakkai was never a religious man himself, but even he thought this was in poor taste. So had “Kanan”, apparently, who he caught out of the corner of his eye. She was camped out in the corner, holding a rosary and reciting her third “Hail Mary”. He may not have trusted her, but some part of him couldn’t help but feel a little bad for her. Whoever—or whatever—she actually was, she seemed to be genuinely devout despite running a missionary scam. “Are you certain this is a good idea?”
Gojyo grabbed the back of Hakkai’s chair and bent down to his level. “Four words: Free. Food. And. Booze,” he told Hakkai, raising one finger after another in time to his words.
That perked Goku right up. “Food?!”
Hakkai shook his head. “Perhaps for you and our newest companion, but the rest of us can hardly crash the wedding.”
“You won’t be crashing,” “Kanan” finally spoke up, delicate fingers twisting a bead on her rosary. “I tried getting out of it again by saying I had met a group of travelers who had lost their funds and it would be cruel to make merry at the reception while they went hungry.” She rested her head back against the wall with a groan. “The mother of the groom said it was fine, we could bring our friends too. Anything for the man who helped her son and future daughter-in-law, she said.”
“You totally gotta tell me that story sometime, by the way,” Gojyo said, winking at her. “Sounds like you’ve had a pretty wild trip yourself~”
She flapped her hand dismissively at him, the beads of the rosary partly wrapped around her hand clattering against each other. “It really wasn’t that exciting; the young man was looking for help getting his fiancée back from some kidnappers and… well… That wasn’t something I could just ignore, you know?” The clacking of beads intensified. “I couldn’t… If I could keep something from happening to another young, vulnerable woman…” She grabbed her own trembling hand to stop the noise, then flashed Gojyo the absolute fakest smile Hakkai had ever seen in his life. “Really, it was nothing worth revisiting.”
She suddenly stood up and clapped her hands together. Looking in Sanzo’s direction, then back in Gojyo’s again, she said. “So! Anyway! I don’t suppose either of you gentlemen would let me have a cigarette? I could use something to steady my nerves after today. Please?”
As Gojyo (and surprisingly, Sanzo) fished out their respective packs to see what they had left, Hakkai lost himself in thought. Unless she had been very good at sneaking cigarettes under his nose, the Kanan he knew didn’t smoke. But, on the other hand, it didn’t necessarily mean she hadn’t picked it up in the time they were separated. Assuming, of course, this “Kanan” was the real Kanan.
Sanzo scowled as he removed the last cigarette he had in the pack and crushed the packaging in his hand. “Damn, I’m tapped out here. We got money to get more?”
“Oh! Right!” “Kanan” turned her back to the group, reached up under her shirt, and pulled a cute coinpurse adorned with tiny ducklings out of her bra. “The mother of the groom gave us an advance, so that should cover those and a few odds and ends,” she said, tossing it to Sanzo.
Sanzo nodded, which was about as close to a “thank you” as she was going to get out of him, then checked how much was in there. He tucked the last cigarette behind his ear, stood up, and headed for the door. “I’m going out.”
Goku popped up and started after him like he was one of the ducklings on the coinpurse. “I’ll come with you! Hey, hey, can we stop by the meat skewer stand I saw?“
Gojyo watched them go and shook his head with a faint smile, then passed “Kanan” one of his cigarettes. “Funny, ‘Father’, I thought you put the advance in a different pocket,” he said as he offered her a light.
“I did,” she admitted, then took a drag off the lit cigarette. Seeming a little more steady after exhaling, she continued. “That was my hidden stash. I didn’t want them to come back after using all of the money we just got with nothing but cigarettes, beer, and street food.”
“Ha, it seems like she has our group pegged already,” Hakkai said, an air of passive-aggressive suspicion tinging his voice.
Gojyo shrugged, catching what he was throwing. “I mean, if she’d been followin’ our trail for this long, she’s probably heard stories.” Which… did make a certain amount of sense. Their group did tend to cause scenes wherever they went. Still…
“Anyway…” “Kanan” put the cigarette between her lips to free her hands, then pulled out a wad of bills from her pants pocket. She quickly counted out some of those, turned away to tuck those ones in her bra, then walked over to offer Hakkai the remaining amount. “Here,” she said, smiling. “I know I can trust you to be responsible with this.”
“Rude,” Gojyo complained behind her.
Hakkai busied himself making sure all the bills were oriented the same way. “Perhaps, but who was it again who kept using our funds for the same things, plus gambling?”
Gojyo grit his teeth and looked away, reaching up to straighten some imaginary flyaway hairs. “Hey, I usually won something with it, at least. Man, does being talented at murderin’ people in broad daylight with words run in your family or somethin’?”
“Perhaps,” Hakkai said with a pleased smile.
“Kanan”, on the other hand, froze, heat rising to her face. “Wait…” Her head whipped back and forth between the two men, pointing at them with each pass. “You—he knows?!” she sputtered.
Well. Another point in favor of this being the real Kanan, Hakkai supposed. “He does.”
“Yeah, Mister ‘I Hate Myself An’ Want To Die’ over there told me ages ago in some dumbass attempt to scare me offa helping him,” Gojyo elaborated. “Joke’s on him, I’m used to weird family shit.”
“Kanan” covered her face with her hands, the lit cigarette still between her fingers making it appear like smoke was coming off of her from the sheer intensity of her mortification. “Oh, God, he would absolutely do that, wouldn’t he?” she whined miserably. “For the life of me, I have never figured out how someone that smart can be such a dumbass sometimes.”
“I am right here, you know.”
“Good! You should hear it!” “Kanan” exclaimed, snapping up and turning to him, bringing her hands down hard enough to make ash fall off the end of her cigarette. “You are very smart and very patient and very skilled, but you! Can be! A total dumbass!”
Gojyo gingerly plucked the cigarette out of her hand before she accidentally sent it flying in frustration. “Yeah, but that’s the gap moe, ain’t it?” he said jokingly, trying to defuse the ticking timebomb that was this conversation.
“Ugh, it is,” “Kanan” reluctantly agreed. She tried bringing the cigarette up to her lips, only to find it had disappeared on her. “Where did—?”
She turned her head just in time to see Gojyo exhaling smoke. “Hey, you were letting it go to waste so you could yell at Hakkai, so I took it.” He held the hand with the cigarette out to her. “Want it back~?”
A glint of mischief, one so familiar it stung, flashed in her eyes. “If you’re offering~” She then advanced on him, took hold of his wrist, and brought his hand up so she could take a puff. She exhaled, then shot him the brightest, smuggest grin as a hint of red tinged his cheeks in surprise.
A surge of jealousy, searing and consuming, shot through Hakkai’s body. A memory bubbled to the surface, one of joking about letting Kanan, the real one, have the last strawberry candy that was in his mouth already, and her taking him up on it, stealing it from him with a kiss, then flashing him a similar grin.
He doubted his reaction at the time was half as charming as Gojyo’s, though, but he was never what anyone would consider “cute” anyway.
“… another point to her, I suppose,” Hakkai muttered to himself, unconsciously crumpling the bills he neglected to put away in his hand.
“Y’say something?” Gojyo asked.
Hakkai shook his head, straightening out the money and tucking it away. “Nothing; just thinking out loud about my shopping list. Even if the plan is to stay here until the wedding, we should still prepare to depart as soon as possible in the event the worst happens and we have to leave in a hurry.”
“Does that happen often?” “Kanan” asked. Both men just gave her a look. “So a lot, then,” she said with a sigh of resignation.
“Still willing to continue on with us?” Hakkai asked, watching her intently with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “You’re apparently thought well of by a wealthy benefactor in town; you could probably live well if you stayed here.”
“Kanan” mirrored his expression, putting a hand to her cheek. “Oh, my, you really think I would give up so easily after wandering across half of creation to find you? I thought you were smarter than that.” Another sigh as she dropped the act. “Also, you were in the driver’s seat when Goku regaled me with all the stories of questionable desperation meals. I’d feel bad if I left a sweet young man like that to starve.”
“Seriously, man, don’t scare off our new sugar mama,” Gojyo complained. “I like bein’ able to afford a roof over our heads when we hit a new town.”
Instead of being offended, “Kanan” giggled at the commentary. “Thank you, Gojyo; you’re my new favorite sugar baby.”
Gojyo waggled his eyebrows at her. “Does this mean I can get more allowance, then?”
“Maybe if you’re good and leave the nuns alone next time, sweetie.”
“Not sure I can swing that, but I’ll do my best, promise~”
Well, that certainly was a fresh rush of jealousy Hakkai was feeling now. Was this going to be the rest of the journey now? Those two constantly bouncing off of each other like this? Maybe he really did die that time and ended up in Hell, and Gojyo just happened to be the most beautiful demon in the nine circles lying in wait to guide him to his new eternal home.
He felt a headache coming on. And a stomachache. And he was beginning to hope Sanzo would return with some alcohol very, very soon.
