ickaimp: (Default)
Icka! M. Chif ([personal profile] ickaimp) wrote2006-06-05 09:56 pm
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[fic] TGZ: Mid West Snippets

Um... this should be the end of the TGZ Mid-West Snippets. Still have the Chicago chapter to go and we should be caught up.

Thanks to Wren-chan for the Bus stories. ^^;;

Ysabet, please don't kill me for the end, we've had this planned for MONTHS.

+++

There were various advantages of buses over trains and trains over buses.

The buses made frequent breaks at truck stops, where you could rent a shower and catch a meal. Quite a few of the drivers seemed to love their job, telling stories and on one instance, the driver with a lovely Mississippi accent taught them trucker's lingo. Just simple things, but you never knew when the strangest things could come in handy. And the buses tended to be on time, therefore faster. Unless there was a new driver who got lost.

Trains couldn't get lost nearly as easily, but were often having to pull over to allow for the freight trains to go by so therefore did not adhere to any sort of schedule. On the up side, you could stand up and walk around on a train, or hang out in the observation lounge and talk with people. Especially the old guys who tended to be train freaks. Or occasionally catch an over priced snack in the lounge or a meal in the dining car.

The walking around was a bonus for Kaito, who didn't like enclosed places. Saguru had once commented after Kaito had managed to rope some kids into cheer-leading routines that if he was that eager to burn off calories, he should try beating his head against the wall, it burned one hundred and twenty calories per hour. Maybe more if he was really active.

Kaito wanted to know how Saguru knew that. And who thought of finding out how many calories an hour it burned. Or how they tested it and what was the size of the pain killer the test subject needed afterwards. Saguru had merely smirked back and gone back to his book.

Saguru read a lot of books. It was funny, how it seemed like all they did was sit around and eat, and yet he was always tired and hungry. Saguru said it was a factor of things, their bodies constantly adjusting their balance to moving at high speeds and their brains having to deal with a constant influx of new information.

Kaito thought Saguru was full of it and it was the sheer boredom.

On the other hand, with the bus drivers, they tended not to put up with loud riotous music. The American train conductors, for the most part, appeared not to give a flying flip about most things that went on. Such as the current musical duel between the hip hopper on one end of the train car with his bitches, hos and sexy mamas and the heavy metal guy on the other end of the car with his loud indecipherable emo wailing.

And there was a baby wailing.

Kaito didn't blame the baby. Next to him, Saguru was making little wincing noises while he rubbed his eyes. The half-briton was looking like he had an eyestrain headache. Kaito glanced around.

"One... Two... Three." He whispered quietly.

The entire train car went dim for a moment, then the dim lights went out again. Except for the thin high wail of the baby, silence descended. Wails came from the owners of instruments of musical torture. Several people stirred and someone clapped a few times.

"And the baby?" Saguru whispered back, looking amused.

He'd heard the infant's parents trying to quiet their noisy child. It wasn't hungry or needing a nappy change, which meant that it probably would quiet down now that its eardrums weren't being assaulted. "I'm a Magician, not a Miracle Worker." Kaito grumbled back, settling down to try to get some sleep.

+++

"'Guru?" Kaito mumbled as Saguru shook him awake.

"Come on." Saguru pulled their bags from the overhead bin. "Let's go."

"Huh?" Kaito glanced around him. People were already gathering bags and lining up to disembark the train. He scratched his head, stretched and joined Saguru. He'd primarily switched over to a nocturnal existence, sleeping during the day when Saguru was awake, then staying awake while Saguru slept. But it meant that it took a little while to adjust when woken up unless it was an emergency.

They trudged in line down the small stairs, then into the bright outside. Kaito grimaced and put on a pair of sunglasses. "Where are we?" He questioned. The tickets they had went to Los Angeles.

"Tucson, Arizona. I have a friend here who's invited us to crash on her futon for a few days." Saguru said, pulling out his own pair of sunglasses and putting them on. "Met her via on a Mystery internet community. I already gave her a call before the train stopped, was told to look for a short bouncing red-headed woman."

"'Kay." Kaito yawned. "What's her name?"

"Ysabet."

+++ Fin +++

-the end part is a bit of a private joke, really, how many DC fans have met through the internet now? ^___^ (is how I met Ysabet)
Is funny to think that at this time last year, I was living on Ysabet's futon... ^^;;

[identity profile] morgan-idril.livejournal.com 2006-06-06 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
Well, between the two I'll take the train rather than the bus. But then I have a different experience that Kaito and Saguru...I doubt that the bus driver flirted with them. Bah. But then on the train I had some guy make a play for me.And no I didn't want that either. So then maybe I'll take the plane unless I can travel with the fearsome twosome.

MOst amusing addition, love them going to crash with Ysa. Good answer to music wars.

[identity profile] ickaimp.livejournal.com 2006-06-07 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
... well, we COULD make the bus driver flirt with them if you wanted... ^__^

I like trains out of the two, have had a lot of good experiances with them, even with the whole '18 hours late to the station' type of thing.

[identity profile] ysabet.livejournal.com 2006-06-07 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, Morgan? Wanna take 'em out for Mexican food? We can laugh cruelly as they attempt to unwrap the burritos and figure out whether those stories they heard about guacamole and tomato hornworms are really true... **plots omake as a gift to Icka**

[identity profile] ickaimp.livejournal.com 2006-06-08 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
*stares in abject horror*

... If they start farting from the beans and stink up the house, IT'S NOT MY FAULT.