CLOSED LOG // Really, what are friends for if not for free medical treatment?

[cakefesta]

Who: cakefesta AND itsnotzura
What: Gintoki has brain damage.
When: Following this cheerful day at the supermarket.
Where: 4-2, Zura's condo.
Warnings: These are grown men we swear.

Comments

[itsnotzura]

[Zura either doesn't hear or ignores the door-abuse, caught up in writing (yet another) letter to the S.S. Thor management]

[he's yet to receive any response at all, which is frustrating, but if anyone knows how to pester someone through scores of sternly-worded letters, it's Zura]

[when the banging finally seems to register in his consciousness, he still doesn't even look up]

[in the listless tones of a high schooler lying on the couch and yelling for his mother to stop making dinner and attend to the doorbell;]

Elizabeeeeeth. Are you going to get the dooooor.

[there's no response from the bedroom]

... Elizabeeeeeeeeeth?

[still no response; little does he know, Elizabeth is blacked out from a night of whisky and gin and easy space-ladies]

[sighing, he places his fude down, getting to his socked feet and drawing his haori up onto his shoulders more properly]

[itsnotzura]

[he doesn't expect what he finds on his doorstep, and the haori slips from the grasp of his fingers]

Gintoki -- ?

[the other man has blood dribbling from beneath his hair and an hazy-eyed expression that's not so much lazy as it is dizzy and irritable, and it only takes him a few seconds to register Shinpachi as not taking a doze mid-impromptu piggy back ride, but unconscious]

[it's all in the line of drool, really]

[he immediately moves out of the way, allowing the other man and his megane load entrance]

What happened?

[once they're in, he gives a paranoid glance down each side of the hall, shutting the door again quickly]

[cakefesta]

[He doesn't respond at first, doing a quick scan of the living quarters -- it's set up similar to the stowaway cabins, but just a bit more spacious. He automatically ducks into what he assumes in Zura's room and knows he made the right guess as he steps over the white oversized space duck crumpled near the doorway with a bra hanging out of the hem of its 'body'. He lowers Shinpachi onto the mattress as gently as he can (which really isn't very gently at all) before standing up again, stumbling past Zura (gripping very briefly at the doorframe for security) into the bathroom.]

Dunno.

[He turns on the faucet, cupping his hands and bowing his head. After a few moments, he raises his head and spits a stream of red-tinged water into the sink.]

I hit my head. Some-- ...Shinpachi hit his head too.

[itsnotzura]

[quietly bewildered, Zura lingers at the doorframe to his bedroom before going in, coming up to the bed. he squats a bit, taking off Shinpachi's sandals and depositing them neatly at the head of the bed]

[after a brief hesitation, he kneels and takes off the boy's glasses as well, folding them carefully and placing them on the bedside table for safe-keeping]

[bangs are pushed perfunctorily back; there's no blood on the boy, but Gintoki might not have had time to check for wounds if he were busy getting them out of danger, or had the clarity of mind to do so if he'd been injured first]

[the distance to bathroom isn't much, and he doesn't have to raise his voice for Gintoki to hear him]

How?

[it's hard to imagine Gintoki being careless enough to let one of his wards seriously hurt themselves, and the bump he finds under his fingers is no small thing

[cakefesta]

[he presses his forehead against the cool, smooth surface of the mirror, willing the ground underneath his feet to stop spinning]

[it's harder to answer the question than he thought it'd be -- he hadn't paid enough attention before, hadn't really thought much about the other people on this ship.]

[but now other people (he won't let himself say Shinpachi, that brings it too close to dwelling and guilt) got hurt because of his carelessness.]

Red hair. That murder on the ship awhile ago.

[a beat]

I really want some aspirin.