Story: Transform PG-13, Hakkai/er, Jeep
Title: Transform
Author: Sunspot
Rating: PG 13
Note: This was an Advent Challenge story and a gift for Laurose. A fairy tale. Written before I learned (thanks to Laurose) of the Jeep-Goujun connection.
Transform
“Transform Jeep!”
Sometimes it is urgent, like that. Usually it is Hakkai who says it, but it can just as easily be Gojyo, or Sanzo, or even Goku, who shouts the words that mean escape, or Jeep’s own safety from a blow that would wound flesh but not steel plate.
Most times it is Hakkai, and mildly: “Now might be a good time to transform,” or even, “if you would, Jeep.”
And often, most often, it is Jeep himself, who sees what is needed and does it, for what ever exigency of flight or fight or ordinary travel, or even just to spare himself a dunking and never mind the passengers or gear.
And then. And then.
There are the times such as these.
They are alone in a forest, just out of earshot of the others at the hastily made camp. Winter chill in the air and the crisp feel of thin snow underfoot. Jeep launches from Hakkai’s shoulder, but not to fly far. He can do that, stay close, nearly hovering in air.
“Transform?” Hakkai will ask.
And Jeep gives almost a nod, head dipping as the white wings give a final beat.
And then there is not a tiny dragon, nor a vehicle that will carry four men and all their gear, but a slender young man, barely more than a boy, with a cascade of bushy white hair down his back and eyes not the blood-red of Gojyo’s, but a translucent crimson that is nearly pink.
This Jeep speaks in fluting tones that are nearly song, and the meaning of the words, for all that half their time together is spent in Jeep pointing to things around them and singing their names, never sticks in Hakkai’s mind.
They will walk together, side by side, and Jeep will flute and trill, and the birds about them will echo back his speech, and they will come to a farther, stiller place, and perhaps Jeep will take a twig from a fallen branch and draw diagrams in the snow. Are they maps, or equations, or horoscopes? Hakkai’s mind will never hold them by the time Jeep is on his shoulder again.
And in these quiet places, far from the others with their noise and their needs, Jeep (for it is always Jeep who reaches out) will draw him near, and whisper his songs as they lie down, whisper at Hakkai’s ear and into his mouth, and for a time the words are clear as the bells they echo.
And when they rise again, and dust off the snow, and laugh at their wet clothes and disheveled state, Jeep will stand before him, and look Hakkai in the eyes, direct and serious. And he will see the question there, to which they both know the answer:
Must you?
You know I must.
Transform.
In the times between Hakkai can never recall if Jeep has said he is a dragon who is sometimes a boy or a boy who is sometimes a dragon, or, strangest of all, a diesel powered military vehicle who is somehow, sometimes, one or the other.
And eventually it fades to a kind of half remembered dream.
Until the next time they find themselves alone in the crisp and white and quiet, and Hakkai remembers (or forgets himself) enough to whisper
“Transform?”