FIC: GINTAMA - (here is the root of the root) [II]
Title: (here is the root of the root) [II]
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: G to NC-17.
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura.
Word Count: 18,461.
Disclaimer: Gintama is not mine.
Feedback: Much obliged.
Notes: Part II. Part I can be found here.
#33 - Foot
Old widows’ food tastes too much like isolation and a cold gravestone does not a warm meal make, so he allows Zura to take him out for dinner. Although it’s far from the disastrous first time they’d met after the war’s end [with Gintoki so raw and Zura so desperate], Gintoki still feels clumsy with his words, as if the wrong string of phrases will start something he can’t finish.
It’s easy to let the mild lecture wash over him as he wolfs down the noodles, because Zura’s just nagging for the sake of nagging, but it’s less easy to ignore the worried look in the other’s eyes. He knows he’s thin these days, dirty and directionless, and the other man probably has a right to be worried [but he was never able to handle Zura’s poorly-hidden concern even before the smoke had cleared].
When the other lowers his too-open eyes to his green tea, Gintoki tries not to breathe a sigh of relief, and tunes back in.
“-of yourself, it’s short-sighted to keep going as you are,” the shorter man is murmuring, pressing the teacup to his lips. Gintoki hasn’t forgotten the feel of those lips pressing against his thighs, or opening in a gasp under his mouth, or curling up into a shysly smile, and feels a sudden, frantic need to clarify what the hell they think they’re doing anymore.
He wants to say, It wasn’t just the war, it was never about the stupid war.
He wants to say, I don’t regret leaving, but I regret leaving you behind.
He wants to say, Does anyone make you laugh like I used to?
But that foot, that goddamned foot in his mouth stops anything coherent from getting out, and the most he can get around it is a garbled, “Do you want to get a room?” which isn’t what he meant to say at all and the frustration is enough to make him want to scream.
Zura looks taken aback, but it only lasts a moment before a deadpan expression settles on his face. “I want you to get a job,” he replies serenely. A surprised bark of laughter bursts out of Gintoki [and Zura lifts the teacup much, much too slowly to hide the soft smile, which answers Gintoki’s question, at least].
“Maybe I will,” he concedes as he meets the other’s pleased eyes, realizing putting them back together again will not be as hard as he thought [and he wonders how long Zura has been patiently waiting for Gintoki to piece himself together enough to understand].
#34 - Wood
Shinpachi is beside himself at the presentation of the huge package of beef. “W-wow, Katsura-san, you didn’t have to go through the trouble!”
“Ah...It was no trouble, Shinpachi-san. It’s too much for just Elizabeth and I…” Seating himself at the kotatsu, Zura nods modestly, and Gintoki almost rolls his eyes. Zura’s definitely practiced that.
“Well it looks really good, thank you-”
“Shinpachi,” interrupts Gintoki, sticking a finger in his ear and twisting it. The wax is bad this autumn. “You should never accept strange gifts. Remember the Trojan horse? Maybe this is Trojan meat. Ask him where he got it.”
“Gin-san! That’s rude!”
“Zura-”
“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura-”
“-where’d you get the meat? Aa? Aa?”
The beef is dumped into the hot pot and begins sizzling away, without any sign of anything strange [or any other sizzling sounds, like that of, oh, say, a fuse being lit].
Zura is nonplussed as he answers, “The butcher’s shop.”
Despite himself, Shinpachi looks a little relieved, bringing the teapot over and filling four cups. Kagura is expected back after taking Sadaharu out to pee. “You went to the butcher’s shop, Katsura-san? Which one? For this amount and the price of beef nowadays, you must have gotten a very good deal-”
“It was free,” says Zura dully.
Shinpachi blinks. “Uh-”
“Trojan meat!” yells Gintoki, slamming an open hand on the table. It jimmies Zura’s stupid, cool exterior off in a heartbeat.
“It’s not Trojan meat, you asshole!” the long haired man snaps. “A member of the Joui owns the butcher’s shop! He has been giving out free meat to the other members!”
Just when the normality of the statement has sunken in, Zura adds, “He needed to make room for the gelignite.”
“WHAT-”
The door bangs open in its frame, and Kagura comes in, shedding her fall coat to the floor. “Gin-chan, Sadaharu peed a long time, yup. It was a whole river, yup.”
“May we all aspire to such great feats,” responds Gintoki flatly, finger still working in his ear. “We’re about to eat, sit down and pipe d-”
Kagura has already emptied the entire hot pot into her bowl. Shinpachi hollers at Kagura, who hollers at Gintoki, who hollers at both of them, and Katsura internally hollers at himself for not just getting soba with Elizabeth.
By the time everyone has calmed down [and the meat is shared more evenly], Gintoki has formally disowned everyone at the table [and Sadaharu, who is not at the table, but poops on his futon, and doesn’t deserve to be in the Sakata family in the first place for having such reckless bowels].
#35 - Poison
It seems as if the food is enough to shut everyone up, and for half a minute the Yorozuya thinks maybe Zura isn’t so useless, and maybe Kagura isn’t so obnoxious, and maybe Shinpachi isn’t so awkward. It’s a good half of a minute, definitely one of the better he’s enjoyed, but he can hardly start truly appreciating it before the damn gorilla-girl opens her beef-stuffed mouth and sprays towards the wighead, “Oi, Zura, how do you get a boyfriend?”
Shinpachi swallows an entire piece of un-chewed beef, which lodges in his throat. Although he starts choking, nobody notices.
Zura’s expression is a mixture of horrified and bewildered. “It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Why… do you think I should know?”
“Well, I asked the grandma-hag downstairs, and she said I shouldn’t bother, that men are all liars and cheats who’ll take advantage of you, yup.”
“She’s right,” nods Gintoki, stroking his chin and closing his eyes in great wisdom. “Men are pure evil and think only with their sausages, Kagura! Stay away from them.”
“She also said that they’ll never give you a dime, ahuh, and that the ones overdue on their rent are the worst of them all.”
“Ch, I can’t be blamed for my gender’s faults.”
“Gghhhhk!”
“Shinpachi, stop waving your arms like that. We can still see you. Ah, these kids today, Zura, they need so much attention...”
“I asked the boss too, she said men are creepy and perverted and that I should kick anybody who wants to be my boyfriend in the balls until they don’t got any balls anymore, yup.”
“That...er, that seems a little… harsh,” coughs Zura, shifting [just like Gintoki is, just like convulsing Shinpachi is; even Sadaharu crosses his legs].
Kagura shrugs, taking Shinpachi’s rice. He looks like he might suffocate so he probably won’t want any more. Two bright blue eyes train back on Zura. “You have the longest hair of anybody I know, so you’re almost like a girl, yup. How do I get a boyfriend?”
Enough is enough, and Gintoki slams his open hand on the kotatsu again. “No boyfriends until you are married! Do you think I will let you become a teenage pregnancy statistic, Kagura? Do you think I will let you grow up in a trailer with eighteen babies clinging to your dirty kimono?”
“Do you have to do that?” says Zura pointedly.
Gintoki blinks, his tirade derailed. “Do what?”
“Hit the table when you’re making a point.”
“It’s pretty annoying, ahuh,” Kagura agrees, nodding as she shovels Shinpachi’s rice into her mouth. She hits Shinpachi to make her point, and a chunk of meat flies from Shinpachi’s mouth and splats on the wall behind Zura’s head.
Gintoki hits the table three more times. “I can hit anything I want to make a point! Respect the head of the household!”
“You disowned all of us,” gasps Shinpachi, voice haggard. “Nobody has to listen to you.”
“Damnit-”
“Ah, he’s right, Gintoki.”
“Ah, nobody asked you, Zura!”
“I asked him! I asked him how to get a boyfriend!”
“Kagura,” wheezes Shinpachi, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. “You’re not allowed to date. Who do you want to be your boyfriend, anyway?”
The Yato girl picks her nose with her chopsticks before shrugging. “That stupid Okita guy. He’s pretty ugly and everything but he fights good. So I need to figure out how to make him my boyfriend so he only fights with me.”
There is a heavy silence.
“Poison,” says Zura, looking intent. A small, terrifying smile is on his face. “Feed him some poison every day. He will think he is sick with love for you and confess his undying devotion.”
While Shinpachi squawks with indignation and Kagura asks where the poison-store is, Gintoki just stares down at the beef on his plate, and starts laughing nervously.
#36 - Flying
At all times, Katsura is conscious of what he represents to the Joui, and that he is a symbol first and a person second. When they touch their foreheads to the ground in front of him, he does not let his embarrassment show; he looks coolly down at them, acknowledging their respect with the barest nod of his head. He is refined, he is passionate. He is whatever they need him to be, and what Japan needs him to be.
Away from the awed eyes of the Jouishishi, he occasionally forgets not to talk with his mouth full. He rambles about how much he hates the Rainbow Road level in Mario Kart, and how the creators of such a level should be beheaded. Sometimes he chuckles at dirty jokes, and sometimes he doesn’t wear his sandals when he takes a walk by the river.
Always, when the symbol crumbles off entirely, revealing what’s actually underneath, he is with Gintoki. This has not escaped his notice. And it doesn’t feel like flying, it doesn’t feel like coming home, it isn’t like any of that nonsense.
It’s just exactly what it is [and exactly who they are].
#37 - Metal
Never once has Gintoki regretted trading in a sleek, dangerous blade for a piece of clunky wood from a tourist trap. To carry a katana with him now would be to carry the responsibility of judgment [who deserves to live, who deserves to be cut down]. While it’s true that he protects what is in front of him, a wooden sword is shorter than a katana, its reach [and verdict] dulled. He doesn’t carry a blade because he’s finished with retribution [he left the only sword he’d ever carried, Sensei’s sword, rammed into the earth of some godforsaken battlefield].
But none of that matters, none of it, when some blind fucking asshole, scenting the air like a fucking snake, presses black hair as familiar as the backs of the Yorozuya’s hands against his cheekslipsnose.
It is then the Gintoki wants nothing more and nothing less than unforgiving steel.
He wants hot blood pouring down his blade, he wants to stab and gut and hack. He wants to slice that son of a fucking bitch’s neck clean in two because the right way to kill a fucking snake is to cut off the head and watch the useless body writhe.
[The Shiroyasha woke up that night, hungry and expectant, and it is not until he is climbing out of the sea foam and watching that stupid, stupid wighead barf up saltwater that it’s eyes slit closed again.]
#38 - New
When Gintoki is caught staring a third time, Zura lets out a heavy sigh. “Stop it,” he states primly, taking another piece of beef from the hot pot on the table between them. His attention is then turned firmly back to the television drama, which is fine by Gintoki, who needs more time to stare.
It’s short, he keeps thinking inanely [unable to decide if that’s the good part or the bad part]. The feathery, uneven ends just brush the fair nape of his exposed neck, and the white-haired man feels like some kind of voyeur looking at it [so driven to distraction he half-burns his fingers on the pot].
Zura’s still watching TV when he snaps, his mouth full of noodles he would not dare to speak around were anybody else in the room, “I’m growing it back out.”
And of course he’s growing it back out, Zura’s always been obsessed with how things were in the past [but right now, it’s a clean break from what was, it’s short].
#39 - Peace
Katsura’s latest home is small, lit by pale, filtered sunlight during the day, and with candles and an old lantern at night. It is apart from the main drag, tucked away in a street too narrow for even a wide rickshaw to pass. It couldn’t be any more different than the bright colours and noise of the Yorozuya.
“It’s too gloomy and depressing, like you,” Gintoki had snorted at first, when ten minutes had gone by without someone yelling or the sound of something breaking. But the quiet, melancholic peace had grown on him. Zura is more relaxed at his home, knowing they will not be disturbed [probably a large part of why the dingy place had grown on Gintoki; getting the idiot fully naked at the Yorozuya is nothing short of an absolute miracle].
They are stealing this afternoon from the demands in their life. Things had started out heated but cooled off halfway-through undressing, when a mutual laziness had them bypass the sweaty grappling and go straight to the afterglow of lazing together. Now, Zura’s fingers are dipping strange patterns along his chest and shoulders, and it takes a few moments for Gintoki to realize the other man is tracing his scars.
“I remember this,” Zura murmurs to his ribcage, fingertip trailing to a twisting net of scar tissue on his abdomen. It’s from the war, and it has to be the combined effect of a sedate, almost-nude Zura and this damn drowsy house, but he can remember, too- without cringing and wanting to change the subject. He still isn’t quite sure what to say, though, unused to ignoring [fleeing from] those memories. It ends up not mattering, as the black pool of hair on his chest adds, “I thought you would never shut up when they stitched it,” and Gintoki snorts an incredulous laugh.
“They did a crappy job! I was in pain!”
“And everyone heard about it for two weeks. And then another two weeks, when you ripped the stitches because you ate too much seafood and had such bad diarr-”
“What is this? Humiliate Gin-chan Comedy Hour?”
Lips curve into a smile against his collarbone, then trail to a scar on his shoulder. “This one is new. Housen? Yoshiwara?”
“-Sadaharu. Bath time.”
Zura does not even attempt to hide the snicker and Gintoki considers pushing him onto the floor [but then those fingers would stop exploring the territory of his skin, turning bad land good again].
#40 - Pretty
Although the water could be hotter, and the obnoxious seaweed-and-fish plastic curtains a little less transparent, Katsura is grateful for the shower. He tries to convince himself that it was extremely lucky that he’d fallen off the roof into what he had; tumbling headfirst into a pile of rocks, or hammers, or doujinka would have been much more painful.
Still, the positive thinking doesn’t really take any effect until the llama-dung smell has begun to fade.
Hearing voices out in the main room of the Yorozuya doesn’t concern him; it is always noisy. The footsteps don’t concern him either; after all, it is a small flat, it stands to reason he would hear them so close. The crescendo of shouting that erupts as these footsteps come closer goes by completely unnoticed.
It is not until both the door and the shower curtain are opened and he has looked over his shoulder to find Captain Sougo Okita staring him in the face, that Katsura realizes that maybe he should have just rinsed instead of rinsing and repeating.
“Excuse me miss,” says the Captain dully after an inexcusably long pause, in which Sougo’s eyes are not on the samurai’s face.
There is another lengthy silence, and just when Katsura figures out the perfect trajectory to throw the razor on the sink in order to hit the bastard’s jugular, Sougo adds, “Well, I guess I’ll just pee out the kitchen window. Have a good day, miss.”
Later, Gintoki wisely does not mention the thumbs-up the Shisengumi had given him on his way out.
#41 - Snow
“I’m going to send that gorilla-girl back to the jungle,” he moans piteously. His face feels crusty with snot and hotly bloated with fever. Zura’s face, pointed down towards his book, looks pale and cool to the touch and totally, wonderfully booger-free.
Gintoki hates him.
“She did not force you to stay out in the snow with her,” replies the other samurai vaguely, turning a page.
“Yes she did! She held my arm behind my back in a chicken-wing and said it would be a shame to break a good snowball-throwing arm!”
“Ah.”
“Not ‘ah!’ That wasn’t a comment that you say ‘ah’ to! That was a comment you gasp theatrically to and bemoan my terrible, terrible fate!” Gintoki explodes. He wishes he hadn’t immediately after, as it makes his head throb.
Zura, the asshole, doesn’t even look up after all that effort, murmuring in a monotone, “Your life is very hard. No one understands you. You will die alone and unloved.”
“My life is very hard! No one does understand me! I probably will die alone and un- oi oi oiii, you shit, that one was totally uncalled for!”
“Hn.”
“Are you smirking? Is that a smirk? Are you smirking at my distress? Are you that cold, Zura? Is that or is that not a smirk?”
It is a smirk, the Katsura-Kotarou-minute-facial-spasm-version of a smirk, but a smirk nonetheless, and oh, Gintoki hates him even more. When Zura looks up, the twitching of his mouth is not quite hidden. “You are awfully energetic for someone who has claimed to be dying.”
“I’ve decided I’m no longer giving you the satisfaction, you smirking bastard. Can I touch your face?”
“No.”
#42 - Strange
They only talk about it once.
“I don’t-”
“Me either. I mean, ah, it sounds-”
“I know!”
“-uncomfortable...”
“Sakamoto sent me a video-”
“I’m not watching that idiot’s trash.”
“Well you don’t have enough-”
“You don’t have enough dignity!”
“-holes...”
“Just shut up-”
“So do you want to-”
“No!”
“I didn’t mean the video!”
“Oh.”
“...so-”
“I- I- have a revolution to-”
“Revolution, revolution, you always have a revolution!”
#43 - Taboo
They’re always speaking at cross-purposes, so it doesn’t make sense to try and talk it out again. They attempt to talk with their bodies, instead.
It starts out well enough; lying on the Yorozuya’s futon, they kiss warmly, slowly, Gintoki’s fingers slipping up along that pale neck, deep into inky black hair and saying want. Katsura’s hand presses firmly at the small of the other’s back, agreeing, urging on.
Unfortunately, Gintoki’s body then says I’m hungry, because Kagura ate both his breakfast and his lunch, and Katsura’s body replies ow, ow, I hate the Shisengumi, ow, because he sprained his wrist escaping the law earlier in the week.
They break apart with a similar, intense look. “Just do it,” murmurs Katsura.
Ten minutes later, Gintoki falls back on the futon, sated.
The black haired man is sitting up, leaning against a small stack of pillows and icing his wrist. A doujinshi is balanced between his knees. “They make it look so easy,” he mutters, flicking the page.
Gintoki finishes his dumpling, licking leftover soy from his fingers. “Right? Right?”
#44 - Old
He would have liked to have been married, probably. Katsura thinks of this in the same way one might think, ‘I would have liked to take violin lessons.’
There is an occasional dull pang of regret when he sees a couple who looks truly happy, every note corresponding to the piece. Though he tries not to think about it, there is also when he’s alone in his futon, feeling unbearably hot, and he just wishes he had someone to make- music, with. More prominent than that is a strange feeling of melancholy, not quite loneliness, when everyone seems to be a part of the orchestra but him [laced with guilt, because it feels like betrayal to the dedication he has given his cause, and it is silly to pine for that which is not necessary].
But the remorse, the idle speculation of if things had been different, it never lasts long [he’s not a musician at heart, after all].
He doubts Gintoki has these moments, no matter what the paahead says about the weather girl, so he doesn’t mention them. It all seems unimportant, and the plunky, simple theme song coming from Gintoki’s television [the white hair curling against his neck, the other’s even, dozing breath], is enough.
#45 - Spring
He snorts awake as he hears the window crack against the pane, but doesn’t bother removing this week’s issue of Jump from his face [because only one person ever enters through the damn window]. “Oi, Zura, go home, I don’t remember putting a sign outside that said ‘Terrorists Welcome Here, Free Cake’-” he starts lazily, but then lets out a muffled hoomf instead as 125 pounds of samurai land heavily on his lap.
“What the hell-” he blurts, but he’s cut off again, because a hand is smashing Naruto’s latest adventures into his face for balance while another is deftly undoing his belt. There’s some awkward struggling [a small frustrated noise], and Gintoki blindly reaches out, pushing up the fabric of a worn and familiar kimono just as his black trousers are yanked impatiently down his thighs.
The book finally falls from his face [only because the hand relocates to his shoulder], and Zura is flush with adrenaline from the chase, looking wild and determined. He barely has time to hold onto the arm of the couch before Zura straddles him and starts to move, bowing low into the contact with a full, throaty groan that goes straight to the Yorozuya’s groin.
“Sometimes I want to send the Shisengumi a fruit basket,” he mumbles dazedly.
“Shut up,” the rebel breathes. When Zura throws one long leg over the back of the couch and fumbles a spit-slicked hand to guide Gintoki between his own legs, Gintoki stops thinking about whether he should try and kick his Jump to a safer spot, or if Gori-san would prefer bananas or coconuts in his basket.
When all is said and done [twice, twice!], Katsura is already back on his feet and straightening out his kimono before Gintoki has remembered that lungs are for breathing. Looking over at the other man, finger-combing mussed hair that sticks to his forehead [and makes the Yorozuya idly wish for the energy to have a third go], Gintoki has to put great effort into making his mouth work. “Tch, I guess if you want to get some lunch, and if you’re paying-”
“Busy,” Katsura says shortly. He stoops briefly to pull up his sock, and then disappears out the door, long hair swinging. Gintoki thinks about prying himself from the mold he’s made between the springs of the couch, or maybe pulling his pants up, but decides it’s far too much effort. He tries to feel used, he really does, but he can't manage to stop grinning long enough.
Shinpachi is scarred for life when he finds him in this exact pose fifteen minutes later, but that’s certainly not Gintoki’s fault [it’s these damn terrorists today].
#46 - Stable
The fingers running through his hair are hypnotizing him, putting him into a lazy, comfortable trance. The lakeside is deserted, the patch of grass Zura had found secluded to all but the water by thick weeds and climbing flowers [the enclave reminding him of all the great hiding spots they’d shared as children, the comfort seeping deep in his bones allowing him to recall the dojo before the flames]. The birds trill quietly, signaling the sunset that will begin painting the sky any moment now.
It all seems too surreal when he thinks about it, so he just doesn’t, letting Zura’s sword-calloused fingers sift through his hair in abstract patterns. But the restlessness within him just has to ask- to order an answer, because this isn’t some silly shoujo manga, “What are you thinking about.”
Zura gives a small, rather absent smile as he looks down at his lapful of Yorozuya. In a voice as soft as early summer evenings, he replies, “Do you think fish have birthday parties?”
Both content that this is real and resisting the urge to find a piece of driftwood to beat himself over the head with, Gintoki goes back to not thinking about it.
#47 - Summer
“Let’s go over this one more time,” says Gintoki, who feels like punching several people in the face, cheery festival air around him be damned.
“Alright,” nods Zura blankly.
“I said, ‘Kagura wants to go to the stupid festival.’”
“That is correct.”
“And you said, ‘You should accompany her.’”
“She could get stolen. She is only a little girl.”
“No. No. She’s a wrecking crew that only looks like a little girl. But that’s beside the point, shut up.”
“Ah.”
“I said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’”
“Right.”
“And then you said, ‘I will see you there.’”
“...Yes. I did say that. And?”
Gintoki now feels like pulling his own hair out, but has a feeling it would only grow back thicker and more vicious. “I thought you meant-” he makes a vague, helpless gesture in the air between them, and rambles on a bit frantically, “-you know, like that filler summer episode in every anime where the boy and the girl bump into each other at the festival and eat colourful dango and the boy wins the girl a goldfish.”
“Am I the goldfish?”
“What? No, you’re- why would you think you’re the goldfish? No, nevermind, just- shut up. You’re the girl. You’re the girl because you have stupid hair, and you suck at the goldfish game anyway.”
“I don’t want a goldfish,” says Zura, expression becoming more and more confused. “You cannot pet them, they die in a week, and I hate their stringy poo.”
“I’m not going to win you a goddamn goldfish!”
Zura still looks lost, but nods. “Good. Thank you.”
Trying not to bite off his own tongue with frustration [or maybe Zura’s tongue, just so he would never have to hear the other’s moronic comments ever again], the taller samurai counts to ten. He gets to two before bursting, “Why wouldn’t you mention you’d be dressed like a narwhale?”
“Noriaki-chaaan!” cheers the third small child in as many minutes, running up to them. Zura puts up a peace sign, intoning dully, “Noriaki-chan’s Narwhale Nummy-Nums; they’re num-num breakfast fun.’” The child’s mother takes a photo. Gintoki takes a moment to picture sweet, sweet Hinamori-chan, who would pout cutely when Gintoki didn’t feel like winning her a goldfish, and who would never dress up like a goddamned narwhale.
“I do not know what you’re making such a fuss about,” says Zura, dusting off his flippers.
“You mislead me! You blatantly mislead me! You said ‘I will see you there!’”
“And I meant I would see you here. Which I am.”
“Noriaki-chaaaan!”
Gintoki takes a tray of colourful dango and slams it down over Noriaki-chan’s horn.
#48 - Ugly
“Stop humping my leg,” says Katsura groggily, without turning over or even opening his eyes.
“I’m not humping anything,” replies Gintoki, sounding rather affronted. His breath is tickling Katsura’s ear. “I’m establishing physical contact with you as a means of showing my affection.”
“You’re establishing your thing into my thigh.”
“You’re vulgar in the mornings,” mumbles the Yorozuya, nibbling contentedly on the side of Katsura’s neck. “I like it.”
“I don’t care, shut up.”
“Grumpy, too,” adds Gintoki, without sounding very apologetic [and without shutting up, either, Katsura notes sadly]. A hand strokes across Katsura’s bare hip, right where his sword would be resting. “Though it’s quite the insult that you are so grumpy, you know. Some people would give their grandsons to wake up next to yours truly.”
“Some people eat dirt,” retorts the rebel, but a soft, surprised “uh” on the end takes the bite out of the statement. Gintoki’s fingers have wrapped around him beneath the blankets, fondling him lazily. He squirms into the touch, waking up just enough to keep himself from groaning. The white-haired man leans over, throwing his leg on top of Katsura’s and initiating a slow, meandering kiss, fingers never stilling. When they part, Katsura realizes he’s been shifted beneath the other man, effectively trapped from escape.
Tricky bastard.
“Gintoki...”
“Yes?”
“Your mouth tastes like garbage. Go brush your teeth.”
“Deal with it. Do I complain when you come here stinking like gun powder? Aa? Do I?”
Katsura can’t think with that whole hand rubbing at him, now. “Y-yes.”
“Well, that’s a burden you must bear.”
“I thought that was just you in general.” The fingers stop their torturous caresses, and Katsura has to bite the inside of his lip not to whine. His eyes slit open to see a looming, un-amused looking Gintoki, so he lifts a sleep-clumsy hand to pat the other’s cheek. “I have accepted it. Don’t look so put-out.”
“Maybe if you put out,” grumbles the white-haired man, nipping sharply at Katsura’s jaw. Before he has a chance to respond, two hands yank Katsura’s knees apart [and the small shout he gives has more laughter in it than Katsura would like to admit].
He blushes at the blankets sliding down Gintoki’s back as the other man leans up, and flails out a clawing hand to yank them back above waist-line. Gintoki rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s watching.”
“You’re watching,” accuses Katsura, embarrassed.
“What the hell am I supposed to watch!”
“Just pull them back up!”
Gintoki grumbles, but the need to satisfy his libido wins out over the will to fight Katsura over any of the rebel’s peculiarities [it usually does]. After yanking up the blanket, he wets two fingers in his mouth, and then drops the hand down between Katsura’s thighs, slipping back and finding his mark.
Katsura shifts against the intrusion, trying to relax. “No more, ah...?”
“You can say ‘foreplay,’ you’re more than old enough,” murmurs Gintoki. “And no. If you wanted foreplay, you should have woken up earlier. You missed it.”
“I see.”
“It was really good, too, in case you were wondering.”
The fingers pressing into him gain entrance against the resistance, sliding deeper and establishing a rhythm. But Gintoki is impatient, already trying to add a third, and the pull on his muscles burns. “Slow down,” breathes Katsura, rocking his hips tentatively against the digits. “It’s been a few days...”
“I’m aware,” Gintoki says dryly, and the chuckle escapes Katsura before he can stop it. “Oh, you think it’s funny? When Gin-chan’s little sword rots and falls off from disuse, will you laugh then, too?”
“Probably.”
“Bastard,” mutters Gintoki, fingers giving a particularly vicious thrust. Katsura yelps, long legs involuntarily spreading and kicking up. The blanket gets wrenched from Gintoki’s waist to Katsura’s shins, and this time he does whine.
“P-pull them up...”
“No,” hums the other man, fingers twisting deeper. Katsura writhes, his fingers twisting into the sheets in turn, and Gintoki’s voice is smug when he asks, “Ready yet?”
“No,” Katsura grits back, even though he is. Gintoki sighs, keeping up an unyielding pace that’s slowly turning the base of Katsura’s spine into butter.
The Yorozuya doesn’t catch on to Katsura’s game until the second badly aborted groan. “You selfish little-” he growls, removing his hand from between them.
“Foreplay,” responds Katsura, cheeks colouring deeply at the word even as he gives a small smirk.
“Never again,” huffs Gintoki haughtily. “You used up your quota for the whole year now. I hope you’re happy.” He fumbles beside the futon, digging around in his discarded kimono from last night.
“That’s tacky,” murmurs Katsura as the tube is produced. He purposefully lets his eyelids droop like a character from a dirty doujin, looks up at Gintoki from beneath his bangs. “Do you want me to-”
“No, you’re going to be an asshole, you have your ‘I’m going to be an asshole’ face on.”
“We must look like twins.”
“Don’t bring that kind of talk in here, that’s not my kink. Uhm, hnn.” Despite the other’s protestations, Katsura drops his hand at the noise, covering Gintoki’s as he slicks himself. “Shit,” swears Gintoki, grinding into the attention, and the rebel casts a critical eye down.
“Oh. That’s why you’re in such a rush. Well, I guess I did need to be going soon.”
Gintoki flushes, quickly moving the rebel’s hand away. “I’m gonna kill you, shut up.”
“Pull up the blankets.”
“Ughhh,” groans Gintoki [not in pleasure]. He does so, then positions himself between the other’s legs, spreading them wider than they need to go. The other samurai buries his face in Katsura’s neck as he makes that first push, and [despite his previous grumbling and impatience], he does it slowly.
When he’s all the way in and pauses, Katsura exhales sharply and finds himself arching almost uncomfortably, clutching at that stupid perm. He doesn’t release it, trying to force down the mad, fluttering panic feeling in his chest, focus on anything but the painful stretch.
“Yeah?” Gintoki pants to his collarbone.
“Mm,” he sighs, petting the wild tufts of white hair. They feel soft against his palm, and he knots his fingers into them as the other man raises his head and presses a hard, insistent kiss to his lips. It’s dizzying, and Katsura kisses back with no reservations [Gintoki’s breath is bad, but his kisses are skilled enough to make up for it].
Gintoki pulls back, thrusts again [and again, and again], and the smaller man wraps long legs tighter around the other’s waist as the stinging pain recedes into a mounting pleasure. When another thrust doesn’t follow, he hisses “Gintoki-” and raises his hips up a few times.
The only answer he gets at first is a distinctly wicked chuckle. “Now who’s-” oh god, and there is the answering push, driving into him deep, “-humping, Zura?”
“Katsura,” corrects the rebel breathlessly, even as his fingers dig into Gintoki’s shoulder blades.
“No,” the other man smirks, hips now moving at a growing pace, “You should be saying, ‘Gintoki.”
“Shut up,” bites Katsura. “Ah, nn-”
“‘Gin-samaaa’ is... also acceptable.”
Nails scoring down Gintoki’s back, Katsura’s eyes shutter as he breathes, “Stop t-talking...paahead,” and surprisingly, Gintoki does, focusing all his energy on driving Katsura insane with his dumb body instead of his dumb mouth. Katsura hates and loves this part of sex; with each roll of Gintoki’s toned hips, he’s losing the control he prides himself on, awash in the pleasure. It feels like too many things, none of which correspond; disgustingamazing-uglybeautiful-vulnerablesafe-wrongright.
Mostly, it’s giving in but not defeat, and as Gintoki cups his face and the pace gets faster, faster, Katsura can’t help it anymore. He lets his head fall to the side as he moans [loud and throaty and there’s just no room for embarrassment or giving a damn about the stupid blankets with how good this feels, how good Gintoki feels].
“Gintoki, Gintoki,” he shouts hoarsely, vacillating between meeting Gintoki counter-thrust for thrust and just letting himself be pounded into. He can tell the other man is getting close as his movements become more uneven, and Katsura lifts his legs up higher, wider, refusing to be left behind. His voice is a faltering, unsteady thing when he begs, “Harder, Gintoki, please...”
The other man groans at the choked plea and tucks his arms under Katsura for better leverage as he complies. Each push becomes a circuitry overload as Gintoki repeatedly hits that spot, and it’s too much. Katsura lets out a strangled gasp and barely has his hand wrapped around himself before he’s coming undone, shuddering powerfully as his orgasm overtakes him. Still thrusting, Gintoki swears with feeling, says something that might be his name but could be gibberish for all the rebel can tell [still stranded in a sea of breathless oh my god]. The Yorozuya bites bruising and hard at Katsura’s neck as he comes [and although it’s definitely above the line of a high kimono collar, Katsura could care less].
They collapse together, heavy breaths mixing. After a long while, Gintoki shifts off the smaller man, hitting the futon beside him like a dead weight. “Your legs are shaking,” he murmurs, pushing Katsura’s long hair out of his face.
Katsura tries to respond, but he’s still too overwhelmed to do much but nod. Luckily, the other samurai must be too worn out to gloat over his bedroom prowess, as he just gives a tired [if intensely satisfied] grin. His hand drifts down to rest on Katsura’s thigh, firm and neutral, until it stops quaking.
It’s of course completely absurd, but the action makes the rebel blush the hardest yet, and he cranes his neck at an awkward angle to give the other a strange kiss [one that says everything he can’t about what it’s like to truly trust someone, and what it’s like to feel that you are exactly where you are meant to be].
When they separate, Katsura’s blush has finally receded. He’s also managed to get control of his tongue. “Go brush your teeth now, garbage-mouth,” he slurs.
#49 - Fire
Sometimes he burns toohardtoobright, and Gintoki can tell when he’s reaching his limit before the other even opens his mouth [all that frustration rolling off him like waves of forest-fire heat, knocking everything back]. The Yorozuya tries his best to deter the impending explosion, derail the conversation from we didn’t get through to them they didn’t even hear us and the another two got arrested today and three just quit and left, but there’s no room for his asides and jokes with Zura’s passion eating up all the oxygen around them.
It doesn’t happen often that Zura loses his focus like this, but the burden he slung across his shoulders years ago has only grown in weight and size [and something, every once in a while, has to give]. Today is somehow worse than the small handful of other times he has seen the rebel crumble under the pressure; he hasn’t even touched the tea that Gintoki, being the thoughtful person he is, actually bothered brewing for the other man.
Gintoki is trying to formulate a snide remark about his tea not being good enough for snooty wigheads, but can’t seem to make the comment make sense in his head, when the black haired samurai breaches the tense quiet. “I’m failing them,” he says tightly, and his gaze drops to his hands, which he twists in his lap in jerky, distraught motions that would seem bizarrely out of character to most. Gintoki is not most, because he remembers Zura from before the revolution, before the war [before he hardened and taught himself to hide his weaknesses, when he was a ten year old with anxious fingers who had trouble meeting peoples’ eyes].
“It’s- I’m not enough,” says Zura, sounding like a child trying not to just cry no fair at a fixed game. The ends of his hair seem like they should be sizzling like bomb fuses with the struggle for self-control. Gintoki almost wants to laugh at the irony, but knows it wouldn’t be the kind of laughter that would make either of them feel any better.
He has a hard time trying to find the appropriate words, the words Zura needs to hear to remember why he’s sacrificed any chance he had at a normal life for this stupid, stupid cause. But, as with most situations, Gintoki says what he really thinks, instead. “If it’s too hard, give it up.”
“I can’t,” breathes the other man. “Giving up is not the right thing to do.”
“The world isn’t that black and white, Zura. Tch, how can someone who sorts everything into right and wrong enjoy anything?”
“I don’t need to enjoy anything. I just need to see this through.”
“What about what you want to do?”
“I want this,” says Zura, but the assertion isn’t as sturdy as it usually is, it’s foundations charred with uncertainty.
Gintoki doesn’t comment on it, only saying, “It’s what you chose,” but he could slap himself when the shorter man flinches like he’s been hit. Zura’s hands twist so violently he becomes aware of their movement, then immediately ashamed of them [and he slides the hands deep into the sleeves of his haori to quell them, just like Sensei taught him to].
“I,” he stammers. “I’m sorry for…this. Thank you for the tea. I will see myself...”
As he tries to make his escape, Gintoki catches his kimono. He pulls him unceremoniously back onto the couch, back into him. Damnit, Zura looks young because he is young, and the slope of what should be youthful shoulders feels too weathered and narrow against Gintoki’s chest [too bowed from the responsibility].
It is a long time before Zura speaks again, and the smouldering frustration is gone, replaced with a genuine sense of loss. “...What am I supposed to do?”
“What you can.”
“Until what? Until we win? Until we lose? Or until I just can’t-” the rebel breaks off, his face flushing deeply in shame at himself [everything is suspected treason to Zura, his own thoughts and actions under the hardest scrutiny of all].
Heaving a sigh to rival the several that the other has exhaled, Gintoki cards a hand back through his perm. “Still too goddamned black and white,” he mumbles. He hesitates, but adds, “...You’re just human.” His fingers slip up the grey sleeve of the other man’s haori, seeking the other’s wrist. With a clumsy tug, Gintoki pulls that nervous [human] hand out and smoothes down the clenching fingers. “Don’t forget that.”
There’s another extended silence as Zura seems to roll that around under all that hair. When the rebel turns his head, there’s a small light back in his eyes, a candle of rekindling conviction. He gives a short nod, threading his fingers with Gintoki’s.
[And sure, the world is drenched in shades of grey, but Zura will always be as white as the scorching centre of a blazing flame].
#50 - Welcome
“Otose-san, Otose-san!” hails Catherine from behind the bar as soon as Otose walks through the door. The amanto is wreathed in cigarette smoke already, even though it’s not even eight in the morning [the older woman tries not to wonder if the cigarette hanging from Catherin’s lips was out of her own stash]. “Otose-san, that woman was here again. She just left.”
“Aa, I can’t believe it. Did you get a good look at her this time?” asks the owner, placing her shopping bag on the counter. “Get me a basket from the lower shelf,” she adds, and when Catherine does, Otose pulls her fresh fruits out of the bag and arranges them in the wicker. She doesn’t really care for dragon fruits or papayas, but they’ll make her bar look nice [that is, until that black hole of a little girl comes downstairs to say good morning].
Catherine puts her chin in her hand, shaking her head. “Not really. It’s hard to believe that permed loser could get any woman, tch. Do you think she’s a hooker?”
“If he’s blowing my rent on hookers, I’ll have his balls.” As the older woman settles herself onto her stool, she looks up at the clock. Five after eight. It’s completely within her bounds to have a cigarette. Just to start the day right. “Give me a light, would you?”
“Her kimono looked pretty expensive for a hooker...” the amanto replies absently, flicking the catch on her lighter as Otose leans forward. And yes, her eyes are old, but they haven’t lost any of their spark [the spark that tells Catherine to stop pricing people if she knows what’s good for her]. Click, click, flame. The first inhale is as blissful as ever [good morning, Edo].
The two women smoke in amiable silence for a few moments [the sun spreading across the floor, slow syrup]. Eventually, Catherine dismisses herself without prompting. “Aaah, he’s too damn cheap to buy a woman, anyway. He’d be the type to ask for change.”
Otose gives a raspy laugh. She thinks about her upstairs lodger often- she supposes she’s at the age in which one dwells [although what age that is will, rightly so, remain a mystery]. The lack of women over the time she’s boarded Gintoki has not gone unnoticed. At first, it was understandable- he was a man broken by war, putting himself back together, like so many other lost samurai. Then, it became a pleasant surprise- after all, she didn’t have to put up with any improper behavior, or sleazy characters hanging around her snack bar.
Until a few weeks ago, the absence had been slowly edging into something that legitimately bothered her when she dwelled [as customary of this age]. After all, she knows [sees with old, sparklight eyes] beyond the perm, beyond the nose-picking and the complaining, to the strong, reliable man Sakata Gintoki is. Surely the women of Edo aren’t so blind, so focused on appearances and shallow things-
“A real expensive kimono,” says a glassy-eyed Catherine. Otose calmly pulls one of the younger woman’s ears outwards [ignoring the explosion of noise with practiced ease]. Alright, perhaps most women of fast-paced Edo were preoccupied with shallow things, but perhaps this mystery woman wasn’t.
Although the two women had watched Ketsuno Ana’s weather report, the girl did not predict the day’s high chance of coincidence. After weeks of near-misses and unexplained absences, the elusive woman returns. Two sets of feet descend the wooden stair winding around Otose’s building, Catherine’s ears perking in appropriately catlike curiosity at the noise [one light and purposeful, one clunky and lazy].
“-to think I give a crap,” the useless, rent-withholding bastard is saying. “What kind of fool are you, aa? I should have guessed you would be the type to be easily taken in by flashy neon signs and stupid furries with flyers. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? That fuzzy idiot in the cat suit.”
“That the mascot of Fukubari’s Discount Grocer’s is an adorable kitty-nyao-chan has nothing to do with this.” Otose’s thin eyebrows arch. That voice seems rather deep, to her [and why does she find herself thinking of Saigou?].
“You’re lying through your teeth. You’re lying through your soba-filled teeth.”
“My teeth are perfectly brushed, asshole!”
“This is such a pain. I don’t see why Elizabeth can’t drive you.”
“Her license is temporarily suspended. She got a DUI.”
“Why should I have to suffer because Elizabeth has a drinking problem?”
“Elizabeth doesn’t have a drinking problem!”
“All that arguing,” mutters Catherine pessimistically, tapping the filter of her cigarette. “Huh, she won’t be around long.” Otose doesn’t reply, listening quietly [it only counts as eavesdropping if those being eavesdropped on aren’t shouting, after all]. The arguing pair becomes suddenly framed in the window; Gintoki is holding onto the handlebars of his scooter and glaring down at a woman with long, well-cared for black hair, and dark purple lipstick that subtly compliments the colours of her floral kimono. “She’s too pretty for him,” the younger woman beside her adds critically, and Otose shushes her [there’s so much more than exteriors, and she hopes one day, Catherine will learn that].
“And do you really have to wear that ridiculous get-up?” the Yorozuya asks. “How am I supposed to get any work if people see me hanging around with somebody dressed like that?”
“It is necessary to avoid detection.” The woman puts her hands in her kimono sleeves, tipping her chin up proudly, stance widening. It’s an oddly masculine gesture, reflects Otose. “You’d rather have me decapitated? Is that it? You’d rather see me lose my head?”
“I didn’t say- don’t put words in my mouth, you bastard!”
Bastard? thinks Otose, the insult sticking in her mind. Slowly, her eyes widen [she is old, and she has seen much, but now she has seen everything]. She misses some of the bickering with the revelation, and when she begins paying attention again, the two men are getting onto Gintoki’s scooter.
After a long moment, the Yorozuya turns around abruptly, shoving the scooter’s helmet into the black haired man’s hands. “To protect your stupid brainless head,” he grumbles.
The other man says nothing, putting the helmet on. Only when Gintoki twists roughly back around, he smiles [a barely noticeable lifting of his lips, all the more warm for it’s understatement].
Otose nods to herself in something like approval.
“I still think she’s a whore,” says Catherine.
The older woman sighs, serenely reaching again for the amanto’s ear.
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: G to NC-17.
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura.
Word Count: 18,461.
Disclaimer: Gintama is not mine.
Feedback: Much obliged.
Notes: Part II. Part I can be found here.
#33 - Foot
Old widows’ food tastes too much like isolation and a cold gravestone does not a warm meal make, so he allows Zura to take him out for dinner. Although it’s far from the disastrous first time they’d met after the war’s end [with Gintoki so raw and Zura so desperate], Gintoki still feels clumsy with his words, as if the wrong string of phrases will start something he can’t finish.
It’s easy to let the mild lecture wash over him as he wolfs down the noodles, because Zura’s just nagging for the sake of nagging, but it’s less easy to ignore the worried look in the other’s eyes. He knows he’s thin these days, dirty and directionless, and the other man probably has a right to be worried [but he was never able to handle Zura’s poorly-hidden concern even before the smoke had cleared].
When the other lowers his too-open eyes to his green tea, Gintoki tries not to breathe a sigh of relief, and tunes back in.
“-of yourself, it’s short-sighted to keep going as you are,” the shorter man is murmuring, pressing the teacup to his lips. Gintoki hasn’t forgotten the feel of those lips pressing against his thighs, or opening in a gasp under his mouth, or curling up into a shysly smile, and feels a sudden, frantic need to clarify what the hell they think they’re doing anymore.
He wants to say, It wasn’t just the war, it was never about the stupid war.
He wants to say, I don’t regret leaving, but I regret leaving you behind.
He wants to say, Does anyone make you laugh like I used to?
But that foot, that goddamned foot in his mouth stops anything coherent from getting out, and the most he can get around it is a garbled, “Do you want to get a room?” which isn’t what he meant to say at all and the frustration is enough to make him want to scream.
Zura looks taken aback, but it only lasts a moment before a deadpan expression settles on his face. “I want you to get a job,” he replies serenely. A surprised bark of laughter bursts out of Gintoki [and Zura lifts the teacup much, much too slowly to hide the soft smile, which answers Gintoki’s question, at least].
“Maybe I will,” he concedes as he meets the other’s pleased eyes, realizing putting them back together again will not be as hard as he thought [and he wonders how long Zura has been patiently waiting for Gintoki to piece himself together enough to understand].
#34 - Wood
Shinpachi is beside himself at the presentation of the huge package of beef. “W-wow, Katsura-san, you didn’t have to go through the trouble!”
“Ah...It was no trouble, Shinpachi-san. It’s too much for just Elizabeth and I…” Seating himself at the kotatsu, Zura nods modestly, and Gintoki almost rolls his eyes. Zura’s definitely practiced that.
“Well it looks really good, thank you-”
“Shinpachi,” interrupts Gintoki, sticking a finger in his ear and twisting it. The wax is bad this autumn. “You should never accept strange gifts. Remember the Trojan horse? Maybe this is Trojan meat. Ask him where he got it.”
“Gin-san! That’s rude!”
“Zura-”
“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura-”
“-where’d you get the meat? Aa? Aa?”
The beef is dumped into the hot pot and begins sizzling away, without any sign of anything strange [or any other sizzling sounds, like that of, oh, say, a fuse being lit].
Zura is nonplussed as he answers, “The butcher’s shop.”
Despite himself, Shinpachi looks a little relieved, bringing the teapot over and filling four cups. Kagura is expected back after taking Sadaharu out to pee. “You went to the butcher’s shop, Katsura-san? Which one? For this amount and the price of beef nowadays, you must have gotten a very good deal-”
“It was free,” says Zura dully.
Shinpachi blinks. “Uh-”
“Trojan meat!” yells Gintoki, slamming an open hand on the table. It jimmies Zura’s stupid, cool exterior off in a heartbeat.
“It’s not Trojan meat, you asshole!” the long haired man snaps. “A member of the Joui owns the butcher’s shop! He has been giving out free meat to the other members!”
Just when the normality of the statement has sunken in, Zura adds, “He needed to make room for the gelignite.”
“WHAT-”
The door bangs open in its frame, and Kagura comes in, shedding her fall coat to the floor. “Gin-chan, Sadaharu peed a long time, yup. It was a whole river, yup.”
“May we all aspire to such great feats,” responds Gintoki flatly, finger still working in his ear. “We’re about to eat, sit down and pipe d-”
Kagura has already emptied the entire hot pot into her bowl. Shinpachi hollers at Kagura, who hollers at Gintoki, who hollers at both of them, and Katsura internally hollers at himself for not just getting soba with Elizabeth.
By the time everyone has calmed down [and the meat is shared more evenly], Gintoki has formally disowned everyone at the table [and Sadaharu, who is not at the table, but poops on his futon, and doesn’t deserve to be in the Sakata family in the first place for having such reckless bowels].
#35 - Poison
It seems as if the food is enough to shut everyone up, and for half a minute the Yorozuya thinks maybe Zura isn’t so useless, and maybe Kagura isn’t so obnoxious, and maybe Shinpachi isn’t so awkward. It’s a good half of a minute, definitely one of the better he’s enjoyed, but he can hardly start truly appreciating it before the damn gorilla-girl opens her beef-stuffed mouth and sprays towards the wighead, “Oi, Zura, how do you get a boyfriend?”
Shinpachi swallows an entire piece of un-chewed beef, which lodges in his throat. Although he starts choking, nobody notices.
Zura’s expression is a mixture of horrified and bewildered. “It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Why… do you think I should know?”
“Well, I asked the grandma-hag downstairs, and she said I shouldn’t bother, that men are all liars and cheats who’ll take advantage of you, yup.”
“She’s right,” nods Gintoki, stroking his chin and closing his eyes in great wisdom. “Men are pure evil and think only with their sausages, Kagura! Stay away from them.”
“She also said that they’ll never give you a dime, ahuh, and that the ones overdue on their rent are the worst of them all.”
“Ch, I can’t be blamed for my gender’s faults.”
“Gghhhhk!”
“Shinpachi, stop waving your arms like that. We can still see you. Ah, these kids today, Zura, they need so much attention...”
“I asked the boss too, she said men are creepy and perverted and that I should kick anybody who wants to be my boyfriend in the balls until they don’t got any balls anymore, yup.”
“That...er, that seems a little… harsh,” coughs Zura, shifting [just like Gintoki is, just like convulsing Shinpachi is; even Sadaharu crosses his legs].
Kagura shrugs, taking Shinpachi’s rice. He looks like he might suffocate so he probably won’t want any more. Two bright blue eyes train back on Zura. “You have the longest hair of anybody I know, so you’re almost like a girl, yup. How do I get a boyfriend?”
Enough is enough, and Gintoki slams his open hand on the kotatsu again. “No boyfriends until you are married! Do you think I will let you become a teenage pregnancy statistic, Kagura? Do you think I will let you grow up in a trailer with eighteen babies clinging to your dirty kimono?”
“Do you have to do that?” says Zura pointedly.
Gintoki blinks, his tirade derailed. “Do what?”
“Hit the table when you’re making a point.”
“It’s pretty annoying, ahuh,” Kagura agrees, nodding as she shovels Shinpachi’s rice into her mouth. She hits Shinpachi to make her point, and a chunk of meat flies from Shinpachi’s mouth and splats on the wall behind Zura’s head.
Gintoki hits the table three more times. “I can hit anything I want to make a point! Respect the head of the household!”
“You disowned all of us,” gasps Shinpachi, voice haggard. “Nobody has to listen to you.”
“Damnit-”
“Ah, he’s right, Gintoki.”
“Ah, nobody asked you, Zura!”
“I asked him! I asked him how to get a boyfriend!”
“Kagura,” wheezes Shinpachi, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. “You’re not allowed to date. Who do you want to be your boyfriend, anyway?”
The Yato girl picks her nose with her chopsticks before shrugging. “That stupid Okita guy. He’s pretty ugly and everything but he fights good. So I need to figure out how to make him my boyfriend so he only fights with me.”
There is a heavy silence.
“Poison,” says Zura, looking intent. A small, terrifying smile is on his face. “Feed him some poison every day. He will think he is sick with love for you and confess his undying devotion.”
While Shinpachi squawks with indignation and Kagura asks where the poison-store is, Gintoki just stares down at the beef on his plate, and starts laughing nervously.
#36 - Flying
At all times, Katsura is conscious of what he represents to the Joui, and that he is a symbol first and a person second. When they touch their foreheads to the ground in front of him, he does not let his embarrassment show; he looks coolly down at them, acknowledging their respect with the barest nod of his head. He is refined, he is passionate. He is whatever they need him to be, and what Japan needs him to be.
Away from the awed eyes of the Jouishishi, he occasionally forgets not to talk with his mouth full. He rambles about how much he hates the Rainbow Road level in Mario Kart, and how the creators of such a level should be beheaded. Sometimes he chuckles at dirty jokes, and sometimes he doesn’t wear his sandals when he takes a walk by the river.
Always, when the symbol crumbles off entirely, revealing what’s actually underneath, he is with Gintoki. This has not escaped his notice. And it doesn’t feel like flying, it doesn’t feel like coming home, it isn’t like any of that nonsense.
It’s just exactly what it is [and exactly who they are].
#37 - Metal
Never once has Gintoki regretted trading in a sleek, dangerous blade for a piece of clunky wood from a tourist trap. To carry a katana with him now would be to carry the responsibility of judgment [who deserves to live, who deserves to be cut down]. While it’s true that he protects what is in front of him, a wooden sword is shorter than a katana, its reach [and verdict] dulled. He doesn’t carry a blade because he’s finished with retribution [he left the only sword he’d ever carried, Sensei’s sword, rammed into the earth of some godforsaken battlefield].
But none of that matters, none of it, when some blind fucking asshole, scenting the air like a fucking snake, presses black hair as familiar as the backs of the Yorozuya’s hands against his cheekslipsnose.
It is then the Gintoki wants nothing more and nothing less than unforgiving steel.
He wants hot blood pouring down his blade, he wants to stab and gut and hack. He wants to slice that son of a fucking bitch’s neck clean in two because the right way to kill a fucking snake is to cut off the head and watch the useless body writhe.
[The Shiroyasha woke up that night, hungry and expectant, and it is not until he is climbing out of the sea foam and watching that stupid, stupid wighead barf up saltwater that it’s eyes slit closed again.]
#38 - New
When Gintoki is caught staring a third time, Zura lets out a heavy sigh. “Stop it,” he states primly, taking another piece of beef from the hot pot on the table between them. His attention is then turned firmly back to the television drama, which is fine by Gintoki, who needs more time to stare.
It’s short, he keeps thinking inanely [unable to decide if that’s the good part or the bad part]. The feathery, uneven ends just brush the fair nape of his exposed neck, and the white-haired man feels like some kind of voyeur looking at it [so driven to distraction he half-burns his fingers on the pot].
Zura’s still watching TV when he snaps, his mouth full of noodles he would not dare to speak around were anybody else in the room, “I’m growing it back out.”
And of course he’s growing it back out, Zura’s always been obsessed with how things were in the past [but right now, it’s a clean break from what was, it’s short].
#39 - Peace
Katsura’s latest home is small, lit by pale, filtered sunlight during the day, and with candles and an old lantern at night. It is apart from the main drag, tucked away in a street too narrow for even a wide rickshaw to pass. It couldn’t be any more different than the bright colours and noise of the Yorozuya.
“It’s too gloomy and depressing, like you,” Gintoki had snorted at first, when ten minutes had gone by without someone yelling or the sound of something breaking. But the quiet, melancholic peace had grown on him. Zura is more relaxed at his home, knowing they will not be disturbed [probably a large part of why the dingy place had grown on Gintoki; getting the idiot fully naked at the Yorozuya is nothing short of an absolute miracle].
They are stealing this afternoon from the demands in their life. Things had started out heated but cooled off halfway-through undressing, when a mutual laziness had them bypass the sweaty grappling and go straight to the afterglow of lazing together. Now, Zura’s fingers are dipping strange patterns along his chest and shoulders, and it takes a few moments for Gintoki to realize the other man is tracing his scars.
“I remember this,” Zura murmurs to his ribcage, fingertip trailing to a twisting net of scar tissue on his abdomen. It’s from the war, and it has to be the combined effect of a sedate, almost-nude Zura and this damn drowsy house, but he can remember, too- without cringing and wanting to change the subject. He still isn’t quite sure what to say, though, unused to ignoring [fleeing from] those memories. It ends up not mattering, as the black pool of hair on his chest adds, “I thought you would never shut up when they stitched it,” and Gintoki snorts an incredulous laugh.
“They did a crappy job! I was in pain!”
“And everyone heard about it for two weeks. And then another two weeks, when you ripped the stitches because you ate too much seafood and had such bad diarr-”
“What is this? Humiliate Gin-chan Comedy Hour?”
Lips curve into a smile against his collarbone, then trail to a scar on his shoulder. “This one is new. Housen? Yoshiwara?”
“-Sadaharu. Bath time.”
Zura does not even attempt to hide the snicker and Gintoki considers pushing him onto the floor [but then those fingers would stop exploring the territory of his skin, turning bad land good again].
#40 - Pretty
Although the water could be hotter, and the obnoxious seaweed-and-fish plastic curtains a little less transparent, Katsura is grateful for the shower. He tries to convince himself that it was extremely lucky that he’d fallen off the roof into what he had; tumbling headfirst into a pile of rocks, or hammers, or doujinka would have been much more painful.
Still, the positive thinking doesn’t really take any effect until the llama-dung smell has begun to fade.
Hearing voices out in the main room of the Yorozuya doesn’t concern him; it is always noisy. The footsteps don’t concern him either; after all, it is a small flat, it stands to reason he would hear them so close. The crescendo of shouting that erupts as these footsteps come closer goes by completely unnoticed.
It is not until both the door and the shower curtain are opened and he has looked over his shoulder to find Captain Sougo Okita staring him in the face, that Katsura realizes that maybe he should have just rinsed instead of rinsing and repeating.
“Excuse me miss,” says the Captain dully after an inexcusably long pause, in which Sougo’s eyes are not on the samurai’s face.
There is another lengthy silence, and just when Katsura figures out the perfect trajectory to throw the razor on the sink in order to hit the bastard’s jugular, Sougo adds, “Well, I guess I’ll just pee out the kitchen window. Have a good day, miss.”
Later, Gintoki wisely does not mention the thumbs-up the Shisengumi had given him on his way out.
#41 - Snow
“I’m going to send that gorilla-girl back to the jungle,” he moans piteously. His face feels crusty with snot and hotly bloated with fever. Zura’s face, pointed down towards his book, looks pale and cool to the touch and totally, wonderfully booger-free.
Gintoki hates him.
“She did not force you to stay out in the snow with her,” replies the other samurai vaguely, turning a page.
“Yes she did! She held my arm behind my back in a chicken-wing and said it would be a shame to break a good snowball-throwing arm!”
“Ah.”
“Not ‘ah!’ That wasn’t a comment that you say ‘ah’ to! That was a comment you gasp theatrically to and bemoan my terrible, terrible fate!” Gintoki explodes. He wishes he hadn’t immediately after, as it makes his head throb.
Zura, the asshole, doesn’t even look up after all that effort, murmuring in a monotone, “Your life is very hard. No one understands you. You will die alone and unloved.”
“My life is very hard! No one does understand me! I probably will die alone and un- oi oi oiii, you shit, that one was totally uncalled for!”
“Hn.”
“Are you smirking? Is that a smirk? Are you smirking at my distress? Are you that cold, Zura? Is that or is that not a smirk?”
It is a smirk, the Katsura-Kotarou-minute-facial-spasm-version of a smirk, but a smirk nonetheless, and oh, Gintoki hates him even more. When Zura looks up, the twitching of his mouth is not quite hidden. “You are awfully energetic for someone who has claimed to be dying.”
“I’ve decided I’m no longer giving you the satisfaction, you smirking bastard. Can I touch your face?”
“No.”
#42 - Strange
They only talk about it once.
“I don’t-”
“Me either. I mean, ah, it sounds-”
“I know!”
“-uncomfortable...”
“Sakamoto sent me a video-”
“I’m not watching that idiot’s trash.”
“Well you don’t have enough-”
“You don’t have enough dignity!”
“-holes...”
“Just shut up-”
“So do you want to-”
“No!”
“I didn’t mean the video!”
“Oh.”
“...so-”
“I- I- have a revolution to-”
“Revolution, revolution, you always have a revolution!”
#43 - Taboo
They’re always speaking at cross-purposes, so it doesn’t make sense to try and talk it out again. They attempt to talk with their bodies, instead.
It starts out well enough; lying on the Yorozuya’s futon, they kiss warmly, slowly, Gintoki’s fingers slipping up along that pale neck, deep into inky black hair and saying want. Katsura’s hand presses firmly at the small of the other’s back, agreeing, urging on.
Unfortunately, Gintoki’s body then says I’m hungry, because Kagura ate both his breakfast and his lunch, and Katsura’s body replies ow, ow, I hate the Shisengumi, ow, because he sprained his wrist escaping the law earlier in the week.
They break apart with a similar, intense look. “Just do it,” murmurs Katsura.
Ten minutes later, Gintoki falls back on the futon, sated.
The black haired man is sitting up, leaning against a small stack of pillows and icing his wrist. A doujinshi is balanced between his knees. “They make it look so easy,” he mutters, flicking the page.
Gintoki finishes his dumpling, licking leftover soy from his fingers. “Right? Right?”
#44 - Old
He would have liked to have been married, probably. Katsura thinks of this in the same way one might think, ‘I would have liked to take violin lessons.’
There is an occasional dull pang of regret when he sees a couple who looks truly happy, every note corresponding to the piece. Though he tries not to think about it, there is also when he’s alone in his futon, feeling unbearably hot, and he just wishes he had someone to make- music, with. More prominent than that is a strange feeling of melancholy, not quite loneliness, when everyone seems to be a part of the orchestra but him [laced with guilt, because it feels like betrayal to the dedication he has given his cause, and it is silly to pine for that which is not necessary].
But the remorse, the idle speculation of if things had been different, it never lasts long [he’s not a musician at heart, after all].
He doubts Gintoki has these moments, no matter what the paahead says about the weather girl, so he doesn’t mention them. It all seems unimportant, and the plunky, simple theme song coming from Gintoki’s television [the white hair curling against his neck, the other’s even, dozing breath], is enough.
#45 - Spring
He snorts awake as he hears the window crack against the pane, but doesn’t bother removing this week’s issue of Jump from his face [because only one person ever enters through the damn window]. “Oi, Zura, go home, I don’t remember putting a sign outside that said ‘Terrorists Welcome Here, Free Cake’-” he starts lazily, but then lets out a muffled hoomf instead as 125 pounds of samurai land heavily on his lap.
“What the hell-” he blurts, but he’s cut off again, because a hand is smashing Naruto’s latest adventures into his face for balance while another is deftly undoing his belt. There’s some awkward struggling [a small frustrated noise], and Gintoki blindly reaches out, pushing up the fabric of a worn and familiar kimono just as his black trousers are yanked impatiently down his thighs.
The book finally falls from his face [only because the hand relocates to his shoulder], and Zura is flush with adrenaline from the chase, looking wild and determined. He barely has time to hold onto the arm of the couch before Zura straddles him and starts to move, bowing low into the contact with a full, throaty groan that goes straight to the Yorozuya’s groin.
“Sometimes I want to send the Shisengumi a fruit basket,” he mumbles dazedly.
“Shut up,” the rebel breathes. When Zura throws one long leg over the back of the couch and fumbles a spit-slicked hand to guide Gintoki between his own legs, Gintoki stops thinking about whether he should try and kick his Jump to a safer spot, or if Gori-san would prefer bananas or coconuts in his basket.
When all is said and done [twice, twice!], Katsura is already back on his feet and straightening out his kimono before Gintoki has remembered that lungs are for breathing. Looking over at the other man, finger-combing mussed hair that sticks to his forehead [and makes the Yorozuya idly wish for the energy to have a third go], Gintoki has to put great effort into making his mouth work. “Tch, I guess if you want to get some lunch, and if you’re paying-”
“Busy,” Katsura says shortly. He stoops briefly to pull up his sock, and then disappears out the door, long hair swinging. Gintoki thinks about prying himself from the mold he’s made between the springs of the couch, or maybe pulling his pants up, but decides it’s far too much effort. He tries to feel used, he really does, but he can't manage to stop grinning long enough.
Shinpachi is scarred for life when he finds him in this exact pose fifteen minutes later, but that’s certainly not Gintoki’s fault [it’s these damn terrorists today].
#46 - Stable
The fingers running through his hair are hypnotizing him, putting him into a lazy, comfortable trance. The lakeside is deserted, the patch of grass Zura had found secluded to all but the water by thick weeds and climbing flowers [the enclave reminding him of all the great hiding spots they’d shared as children, the comfort seeping deep in his bones allowing him to recall the dojo before the flames]. The birds trill quietly, signaling the sunset that will begin painting the sky any moment now.
It all seems too surreal when he thinks about it, so he just doesn’t, letting Zura’s sword-calloused fingers sift through his hair in abstract patterns. But the restlessness within him just has to ask- to order an answer, because this isn’t some silly shoujo manga, “What are you thinking about.”
Zura gives a small, rather absent smile as he looks down at his lapful of Yorozuya. In a voice as soft as early summer evenings, he replies, “Do you think fish have birthday parties?”
Both content that this is real and resisting the urge to find a piece of driftwood to beat himself over the head with, Gintoki goes back to not thinking about it.
#47 - Summer
“Let’s go over this one more time,” says Gintoki, who feels like punching several people in the face, cheery festival air around him be damned.
“Alright,” nods Zura blankly.
“I said, ‘Kagura wants to go to the stupid festival.’”
“That is correct.”
“And you said, ‘You should accompany her.’”
“She could get stolen. She is only a little girl.”
“No. No. She’s a wrecking crew that only looks like a little girl. But that’s beside the point, shut up.”
“Ah.”
“I said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’”
“Right.”
“And then you said, ‘I will see you there.’”
“...Yes. I did say that. And?”
Gintoki now feels like pulling his own hair out, but has a feeling it would only grow back thicker and more vicious. “I thought you meant-” he makes a vague, helpless gesture in the air between them, and rambles on a bit frantically, “-you know, like that filler summer episode in every anime where the boy and the girl bump into each other at the festival and eat colourful dango and the boy wins the girl a goldfish.”
“Am I the goldfish?”
“What? No, you’re- why would you think you’re the goldfish? No, nevermind, just- shut up. You’re the girl. You’re the girl because you have stupid hair, and you suck at the goldfish game anyway.”
“I don’t want a goldfish,” says Zura, expression becoming more and more confused. “You cannot pet them, they die in a week, and I hate their stringy poo.”
“I’m not going to win you a goddamn goldfish!”
Zura still looks lost, but nods. “Good. Thank you.”
Trying not to bite off his own tongue with frustration [or maybe Zura’s tongue, just so he would never have to hear the other’s moronic comments ever again], the taller samurai counts to ten. He gets to two before bursting, “Why wouldn’t you mention you’d be dressed like a narwhale?”
“Noriaki-chaaan!” cheers the third small child in as many minutes, running up to them. Zura puts up a peace sign, intoning dully, “Noriaki-chan’s Narwhale Nummy-Nums; they’re num-num breakfast fun.’” The child’s mother takes a photo. Gintoki takes a moment to picture sweet, sweet Hinamori-chan, who would pout cutely when Gintoki didn’t feel like winning her a goldfish, and who would never dress up like a goddamned narwhale.
“I do not know what you’re making such a fuss about,” says Zura, dusting off his flippers.
“You mislead me! You blatantly mislead me! You said ‘I will see you there!’”
“And I meant I would see you here. Which I am.”
“Noriaki-chaaaan!”
Gintoki takes a tray of colourful dango and slams it down over Noriaki-chan’s horn.
#48 - Ugly
“Stop humping my leg,” says Katsura groggily, without turning over or even opening his eyes.
“I’m not humping anything,” replies Gintoki, sounding rather affronted. His breath is tickling Katsura’s ear. “I’m establishing physical contact with you as a means of showing my affection.”
“You’re establishing your thing into my thigh.”
“You’re vulgar in the mornings,” mumbles the Yorozuya, nibbling contentedly on the side of Katsura’s neck. “I like it.”
“I don’t care, shut up.”
“Grumpy, too,” adds Gintoki, without sounding very apologetic [and without shutting up, either, Katsura notes sadly]. A hand strokes across Katsura’s bare hip, right where his sword would be resting. “Though it’s quite the insult that you are so grumpy, you know. Some people would give their grandsons to wake up next to yours truly.”
“Some people eat dirt,” retorts the rebel, but a soft, surprised “uh” on the end takes the bite out of the statement. Gintoki’s fingers have wrapped around him beneath the blankets, fondling him lazily. He squirms into the touch, waking up just enough to keep himself from groaning. The white-haired man leans over, throwing his leg on top of Katsura’s and initiating a slow, meandering kiss, fingers never stilling. When they part, Katsura realizes he’s been shifted beneath the other man, effectively trapped from escape.
Tricky bastard.
“Gintoki...”
“Yes?”
“Your mouth tastes like garbage. Go brush your teeth.”
“Deal with it. Do I complain when you come here stinking like gun powder? Aa? Do I?”
Katsura can’t think with that whole hand rubbing at him, now. “Y-yes.”
“Well, that’s a burden you must bear.”
“I thought that was just you in general.” The fingers stop their torturous caresses, and Katsura has to bite the inside of his lip not to whine. His eyes slit open to see a looming, un-amused looking Gintoki, so he lifts a sleep-clumsy hand to pat the other’s cheek. “I have accepted it. Don’t look so put-out.”
“Maybe if you put out,” grumbles the white-haired man, nipping sharply at Katsura’s jaw. Before he has a chance to respond, two hands yank Katsura’s knees apart [and the small shout he gives has more laughter in it than Katsura would like to admit].
He blushes at the blankets sliding down Gintoki’s back as the other man leans up, and flails out a clawing hand to yank them back above waist-line. Gintoki rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s watching.”
“You’re watching,” accuses Katsura, embarrassed.
“What the hell am I supposed to watch!”
“Just pull them back up!”
Gintoki grumbles, but the need to satisfy his libido wins out over the will to fight Katsura over any of the rebel’s peculiarities [it usually does]. After yanking up the blanket, he wets two fingers in his mouth, and then drops the hand down between Katsura’s thighs, slipping back and finding his mark.
Katsura shifts against the intrusion, trying to relax. “No more, ah...?”
“You can say ‘foreplay,’ you’re more than old enough,” murmurs Gintoki. “And no. If you wanted foreplay, you should have woken up earlier. You missed it.”
“I see.”
“It was really good, too, in case you were wondering.”
The fingers pressing into him gain entrance against the resistance, sliding deeper and establishing a rhythm. But Gintoki is impatient, already trying to add a third, and the pull on his muscles burns. “Slow down,” breathes Katsura, rocking his hips tentatively against the digits. “It’s been a few days...”
“I’m aware,” Gintoki says dryly, and the chuckle escapes Katsura before he can stop it. “Oh, you think it’s funny? When Gin-chan’s little sword rots and falls off from disuse, will you laugh then, too?”
“Probably.”
“Bastard,” mutters Gintoki, fingers giving a particularly vicious thrust. Katsura yelps, long legs involuntarily spreading and kicking up. The blanket gets wrenched from Gintoki’s waist to Katsura’s shins, and this time he does whine.
“P-pull them up...”
“No,” hums the other man, fingers twisting deeper. Katsura writhes, his fingers twisting into the sheets in turn, and Gintoki’s voice is smug when he asks, “Ready yet?”
“No,” Katsura grits back, even though he is. Gintoki sighs, keeping up an unyielding pace that’s slowly turning the base of Katsura’s spine into butter.
The Yorozuya doesn’t catch on to Katsura’s game until the second badly aborted groan. “You selfish little-” he growls, removing his hand from between them.
“Foreplay,” responds Katsura, cheeks colouring deeply at the word even as he gives a small smirk.
“Never again,” huffs Gintoki haughtily. “You used up your quota for the whole year now. I hope you’re happy.” He fumbles beside the futon, digging around in his discarded kimono from last night.
“That’s tacky,” murmurs Katsura as the tube is produced. He purposefully lets his eyelids droop like a character from a dirty doujin, looks up at Gintoki from beneath his bangs. “Do you want me to-”
“No, you’re going to be an asshole, you have your ‘I’m going to be an asshole’ face on.”
“We must look like twins.”
“Don’t bring that kind of talk in here, that’s not my kink. Uhm, hnn.” Despite the other’s protestations, Katsura drops his hand at the noise, covering Gintoki’s as he slicks himself. “Shit,” swears Gintoki, grinding into the attention, and the rebel casts a critical eye down.
“Oh. That’s why you’re in such a rush. Well, I guess I did need to be going soon.”
Gintoki flushes, quickly moving the rebel’s hand away. “I’m gonna kill you, shut up.”
“Pull up the blankets.”
“Ughhh,” groans Gintoki [not in pleasure]. He does so, then positions himself between the other’s legs, spreading them wider than they need to go. The other samurai buries his face in Katsura’s neck as he makes that first push, and [despite his previous grumbling and impatience], he does it slowly.
When he’s all the way in and pauses, Katsura exhales sharply and finds himself arching almost uncomfortably, clutching at that stupid perm. He doesn’t release it, trying to force down the mad, fluttering panic feeling in his chest, focus on anything but the painful stretch.
“Yeah?” Gintoki pants to his collarbone.
“Mm,” he sighs, petting the wild tufts of white hair. They feel soft against his palm, and he knots his fingers into them as the other man raises his head and presses a hard, insistent kiss to his lips. It’s dizzying, and Katsura kisses back with no reservations [Gintoki’s breath is bad, but his kisses are skilled enough to make up for it].
Gintoki pulls back, thrusts again [and again, and again], and the smaller man wraps long legs tighter around the other’s waist as the stinging pain recedes into a mounting pleasure. When another thrust doesn’t follow, he hisses “Gintoki-” and raises his hips up a few times.
The only answer he gets at first is a distinctly wicked chuckle. “Now who’s-” oh god, and there is the answering push, driving into him deep, “-humping, Zura?”
“Katsura,” corrects the rebel breathlessly, even as his fingers dig into Gintoki’s shoulder blades.
“No,” the other man smirks, hips now moving at a growing pace, “You should be saying, ‘Gintoki.”
“Shut up,” bites Katsura. “Ah, nn-”
“‘Gin-samaaa’ is... also acceptable.”
Nails scoring down Gintoki’s back, Katsura’s eyes shutter as he breathes, “Stop t-talking...paahead,” and surprisingly, Gintoki does, focusing all his energy on driving Katsura insane with his dumb body instead of his dumb mouth. Katsura hates and loves this part of sex; with each roll of Gintoki’s toned hips, he’s losing the control he prides himself on, awash in the pleasure. It feels like too many things, none of which correspond; disgustingamazing-uglybeautiful-vulnerablesafe-wrongright.
Mostly, it’s giving in but not defeat, and as Gintoki cups his face and the pace gets faster, faster, Katsura can’t help it anymore. He lets his head fall to the side as he moans [loud and throaty and there’s just no room for embarrassment or giving a damn about the stupid blankets with how good this feels, how good Gintoki feels].
“Gintoki, Gintoki,” he shouts hoarsely, vacillating between meeting Gintoki counter-thrust for thrust and just letting himself be pounded into. He can tell the other man is getting close as his movements become more uneven, and Katsura lifts his legs up higher, wider, refusing to be left behind. His voice is a faltering, unsteady thing when he begs, “Harder, Gintoki, please...”
The other man groans at the choked plea and tucks his arms under Katsura for better leverage as he complies. Each push becomes a circuitry overload as Gintoki repeatedly hits that spot, and it’s too much. Katsura lets out a strangled gasp and barely has his hand wrapped around himself before he’s coming undone, shuddering powerfully as his orgasm overtakes him. Still thrusting, Gintoki swears with feeling, says something that might be his name but could be gibberish for all the rebel can tell [still stranded in a sea of breathless oh my god]. The Yorozuya bites bruising and hard at Katsura’s neck as he comes [and although it’s definitely above the line of a high kimono collar, Katsura could care less].
They collapse together, heavy breaths mixing. After a long while, Gintoki shifts off the smaller man, hitting the futon beside him like a dead weight. “Your legs are shaking,” he murmurs, pushing Katsura’s long hair out of his face.
Katsura tries to respond, but he’s still too overwhelmed to do much but nod. Luckily, the other samurai must be too worn out to gloat over his bedroom prowess, as he just gives a tired [if intensely satisfied] grin. His hand drifts down to rest on Katsura’s thigh, firm and neutral, until it stops quaking.
It’s of course completely absurd, but the action makes the rebel blush the hardest yet, and he cranes his neck at an awkward angle to give the other a strange kiss [one that says everything he can’t about what it’s like to truly trust someone, and what it’s like to feel that you are exactly where you are meant to be].
When they separate, Katsura’s blush has finally receded. He’s also managed to get control of his tongue. “Go brush your teeth now, garbage-mouth,” he slurs.
#49 - Fire
Sometimes he burns toohardtoobright, and Gintoki can tell when he’s reaching his limit before the other even opens his mouth [all that frustration rolling off him like waves of forest-fire heat, knocking everything back]. The Yorozuya tries his best to deter the impending explosion, derail the conversation from we didn’t get through to them they didn’t even hear us and the another two got arrested today and three just quit and left, but there’s no room for his asides and jokes with Zura’s passion eating up all the oxygen around them.
It doesn’t happen often that Zura loses his focus like this, but the burden he slung across his shoulders years ago has only grown in weight and size [and something, every once in a while, has to give]. Today is somehow worse than the small handful of other times he has seen the rebel crumble under the pressure; he hasn’t even touched the tea that Gintoki, being the thoughtful person he is, actually bothered brewing for the other man.
Gintoki is trying to formulate a snide remark about his tea not being good enough for snooty wigheads, but can’t seem to make the comment make sense in his head, when the black haired samurai breaches the tense quiet. “I’m failing them,” he says tightly, and his gaze drops to his hands, which he twists in his lap in jerky, distraught motions that would seem bizarrely out of character to most. Gintoki is not most, because he remembers Zura from before the revolution, before the war [before he hardened and taught himself to hide his weaknesses, when he was a ten year old with anxious fingers who had trouble meeting peoples’ eyes].
“It’s- I’m not enough,” says Zura, sounding like a child trying not to just cry no fair at a fixed game. The ends of his hair seem like they should be sizzling like bomb fuses with the struggle for self-control. Gintoki almost wants to laugh at the irony, but knows it wouldn’t be the kind of laughter that would make either of them feel any better.
He has a hard time trying to find the appropriate words, the words Zura needs to hear to remember why he’s sacrificed any chance he had at a normal life for this stupid, stupid cause. But, as with most situations, Gintoki says what he really thinks, instead. “If it’s too hard, give it up.”
“I can’t,” breathes the other man. “Giving up is not the right thing to do.”
“The world isn’t that black and white, Zura. Tch, how can someone who sorts everything into right and wrong enjoy anything?”
“I don’t need to enjoy anything. I just need to see this through.”
“What about what you want to do?”
“I want this,” says Zura, but the assertion isn’t as sturdy as it usually is, it’s foundations charred with uncertainty.
Gintoki doesn’t comment on it, only saying, “It’s what you chose,” but he could slap himself when the shorter man flinches like he’s been hit. Zura’s hands twist so violently he becomes aware of their movement, then immediately ashamed of them [and he slides the hands deep into the sleeves of his haori to quell them, just like Sensei taught him to].
“I,” he stammers. “I’m sorry for…this. Thank you for the tea. I will see myself...”
As he tries to make his escape, Gintoki catches his kimono. He pulls him unceremoniously back onto the couch, back into him. Damnit, Zura looks young because he is young, and the slope of what should be youthful shoulders feels too weathered and narrow against Gintoki’s chest [too bowed from the responsibility].
It is a long time before Zura speaks again, and the smouldering frustration is gone, replaced with a genuine sense of loss. “...What am I supposed to do?”
“What you can.”
“Until what? Until we win? Until we lose? Or until I just can’t-” the rebel breaks off, his face flushing deeply in shame at himself [everything is suspected treason to Zura, his own thoughts and actions under the hardest scrutiny of all].
Heaving a sigh to rival the several that the other has exhaled, Gintoki cards a hand back through his perm. “Still too goddamned black and white,” he mumbles. He hesitates, but adds, “...You’re just human.” His fingers slip up the grey sleeve of the other man’s haori, seeking the other’s wrist. With a clumsy tug, Gintoki pulls that nervous [human] hand out and smoothes down the clenching fingers. “Don’t forget that.”
There’s another extended silence as Zura seems to roll that around under all that hair. When the rebel turns his head, there’s a small light back in his eyes, a candle of rekindling conviction. He gives a short nod, threading his fingers with Gintoki’s.
[And sure, the world is drenched in shades of grey, but Zura will always be as white as the scorching centre of a blazing flame].
#50 - Welcome
“Otose-san, Otose-san!” hails Catherine from behind the bar as soon as Otose walks through the door. The amanto is wreathed in cigarette smoke already, even though it’s not even eight in the morning [the older woman tries not to wonder if the cigarette hanging from Catherin’s lips was out of her own stash]. “Otose-san, that woman was here again. She just left.”
“Aa, I can’t believe it. Did you get a good look at her this time?” asks the owner, placing her shopping bag on the counter. “Get me a basket from the lower shelf,” she adds, and when Catherine does, Otose pulls her fresh fruits out of the bag and arranges them in the wicker. She doesn’t really care for dragon fruits or papayas, but they’ll make her bar look nice [that is, until that black hole of a little girl comes downstairs to say good morning].
Catherine puts her chin in her hand, shaking her head. “Not really. It’s hard to believe that permed loser could get any woman, tch. Do you think she’s a hooker?”
“If he’s blowing my rent on hookers, I’ll have his balls.” As the older woman settles herself onto her stool, she looks up at the clock. Five after eight. It’s completely within her bounds to have a cigarette. Just to start the day right. “Give me a light, would you?”
“Her kimono looked pretty expensive for a hooker...” the amanto replies absently, flicking the catch on her lighter as Otose leans forward. And yes, her eyes are old, but they haven’t lost any of their spark [the spark that tells Catherine to stop pricing people if she knows what’s good for her]. Click, click, flame. The first inhale is as blissful as ever [good morning, Edo].
The two women smoke in amiable silence for a few moments [the sun spreading across the floor, slow syrup]. Eventually, Catherine dismisses herself without prompting. “Aaah, he’s too damn cheap to buy a woman, anyway. He’d be the type to ask for change.”
Otose gives a raspy laugh. She thinks about her upstairs lodger often- she supposes she’s at the age in which one dwells [although what age that is will, rightly so, remain a mystery]. The lack of women over the time she’s boarded Gintoki has not gone unnoticed. At first, it was understandable- he was a man broken by war, putting himself back together, like so many other lost samurai. Then, it became a pleasant surprise- after all, she didn’t have to put up with any improper behavior, or sleazy characters hanging around her snack bar.
Until a few weeks ago, the absence had been slowly edging into something that legitimately bothered her when she dwelled [as customary of this age]. After all, she knows [sees with old, sparklight eyes] beyond the perm, beyond the nose-picking and the complaining, to the strong, reliable man Sakata Gintoki is. Surely the women of Edo aren’t so blind, so focused on appearances and shallow things-
“A real expensive kimono,” says a glassy-eyed Catherine. Otose calmly pulls one of the younger woman’s ears outwards [ignoring the explosion of noise with practiced ease]. Alright, perhaps most women of fast-paced Edo were preoccupied with shallow things, but perhaps this mystery woman wasn’t.
Although the two women had watched Ketsuno Ana’s weather report, the girl did not predict the day’s high chance of coincidence. After weeks of near-misses and unexplained absences, the elusive woman returns. Two sets of feet descend the wooden stair winding around Otose’s building, Catherine’s ears perking in appropriately catlike curiosity at the noise [one light and purposeful, one clunky and lazy].
“-to think I give a crap,” the useless, rent-withholding bastard is saying. “What kind of fool are you, aa? I should have guessed you would be the type to be easily taken in by flashy neon signs and stupid furries with flyers. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? That fuzzy idiot in the cat suit.”
“That the mascot of Fukubari’s Discount Grocer’s is an adorable kitty-nyao-chan has nothing to do with this.” Otose’s thin eyebrows arch. That voice seems rather deep, to her [and why does she find herself thinking of Saigou?].
“You’re lying through your teeth. You’re lying through your soba-filled teeth.”
“My teeth are perfectly brushed, asshole!”
“This is such a pain. I don’t see why Elizabeth can’t drive you.”
“Her license is temporarily suspended. She got a DUI.”
“Why should I have to suffer because Elizabeth has a drinking problem?”
“Elizabeth doesn’t have a drinking problem!”
“All that arguing,” mutters Catherine pessimistically, tapping the filter of her cigarette. “Huh, she won’t be around long.” Otose doesn’t reply, listening quietly [it only counts as eavesdropping if those being eavesdropped on aren’t shouting, after all]. The arguing pair becomes suddenly framed in the window; Gintoki is holding onto the handlebars of his scooter and glaring down at a woman with long, well-cared for black hair, and dark purple lipstick that subtly compliments the colours of her floral kimono. “She’s too pretty for him,” the younger woman beside her adds critically, and Otose shushes her [there’s so much more than exteriors, and she hopes one day, Catherine will learn that].
“And do you really have to wear that ridiculous get-up?” the Yorozuya asks. “How am I supposed to get any work if people see me hanging around with somebody dressed like that?”
“It is necessary to avoid detection.” The woman puts her hands in her kimono sleeves, tipping her chin up proudly, stance widening. It’s an oddly masculine gesture, reflects Otose. “You’d rather have me decapitated? Is that it? You’d rather see me lose my head?”
“I didn’t say- don’t put words in my mouth, you bastard!”
Bastard? thinks Otose, the insult sticking in her mind. Slowly, her eyes widen [she is old, and she has seen much, but now she has seen everything]. She misses some of the bickering with the revelation, and when she begins paying attention again, the two men are getting onto Gintoki’s scooter.
After a long moment, the Yorozuya turns around abruptly, shoving the scooter’s helmet into the black haired man’s hands. “To protect your stupid brainless head,” he grumbles.
The other man says nothing, putting the helmet on. Only when Gintoki twists roughly back around, he smiles [a barely noticeable lifting of his lips, all the more warm for it’s understatement].
Otose nods to herself in something like approval.
“I still think she’s a whore,” says Catherine.
The older woman sighs, serenely reaching again for the amanto’s ear.