Gintama story: 天気：曇り (Tenki: Kumori)
Title: 天気：曇り (Tenki: Kumori)
Series: Gintama
Pairing: GinZura, TakaZura
Rating: R (for implied pr0n)
Notes: dedicated to my wonderful kouhai (krixe, rasenth, natbug, hb_anna, loveless_zero) for putting up with their sempai incessant blabbering for two entire weekends in a row. Though I really don't think all of you guys will read this XP
On the rare days that he has free time and no kids to occupy him, Gintoki goes onto the roof to relax. He stares at the clouds passing by and hums the old tunes that Sensei used to hum while he cooked for his kids. He smiles at the sounds below - kids playing in the street, Otose yelling at Catherine, the sound of the news downstairs where he left it on. Sometimes he pulls out a cigarette he conveniently borrowed from Madao, and watches the smoke rise where he blows it out slowly through his teeth.
He thinks of days that are like this, days where he was bored and had nothing immediate to do, and falls upon a day during the drought. It was so hot and the dust from the road next to the temple crunched between his teeth when he bit down into anything, but they were forbidden to even half a cup unless it was completely necessary. Most of Sensei's students lounged in the shade under the roof or in the rooms with just a crack open in the shoji doors, but Gintoki was smart back then and found a better place to be.
In the cool, somewhat moistened air of the water storage room, he sucked the breath from Katsura until he could see the bright red of the other's lips, splashed like a blotchy paintbrush. Something hotter than summer, drier than the flames surged up inside of him then, and he longed to consume all there was of Katsura until there wasn't a single strand of black hair, long-fingered hand or scrap of pale skin to be found. He wondered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his own attention, with his clumsy hands as they undid Katsura's worn blue obi, his dry lips as he traced the belly button that dipped right in the middle of that flat stomach.
Katsura had huffed with laughter then, wincing ticklishly away. Gintoki took held his hips still then, and dared to lean and just taste, until Katsura couldn't keep silent anymore. Gintoki wished he could see himself then, with one hand clenching the water barrel tight, the other fisted in his mouth. It was a matter of minutes after that, before Katsura shuddered and collapsed next to Gintoki against the wall. He surprised him again by leaning in and kissing Gintoki on the mouth hungrily, throwing one leg over Gintoki's hips with no trace of hesitation.
And then on a rainy day when everyone else was out, Katsura had sneak-pounced on him and they'd wrestled a little bit before Katsura brought his head down and they mashed lips like the amateurs they were, with no thought or experience to technique or foreplay. Again, Katsura had whispered back then as he ground down hard enough to make Gintoki bite his own lip so hard he drew blood, Again, like last time. Gintoki, Gintoki, now.
And then that one day when the man, the father in his life who'd been there before suddenly wasn't there anymore, and it was all his fault, nobody to blame but his own incompetance, his own stupidity. That night when he'd come home beyond furious, dripping water and green Amanto blood onto Sensei's once-clean floors, Katsura had taken one look at him and pulled him aside, pulled him into a sideroom nobody used anymore. There he'd let Gintoki take what he wanted and needed, push him down into the mats, gag his mouth with one bloodstained hand and just drink his fill until his hunger was glutted, his vicious thirst quenched. Only then did he look at what kind of masterpiece he'd created, the red scrapes where his fingers had dug in, the bruises that would stay on Katsura's knees and elbows for days, the bites he'd sprinkled like so much confetti over that moonlit back. It'd stopped raining by then, and he looked so detached when Takasugi threw the door open to ask what they were doing when there was a war outside of this damned place. Back then they still called each other by their first names; how Shinsuke had roared for him to Get out, Just get the fuck out! and wrapped his arms protectively Katsura, who looked so broken with his legs askew and one arm of his kimono ripped. Gintoki thought he could see the inevitable ending then, and only stopped to pick up his sword in the corridor before he slid the door shut behind him.
Shows how much I knew back then, he thinks. The clouds float so easily without a care over him; the spring breeze carries the butt of his cigarette away. He stares at the sky so hard he thinks his eyes might just be tearing up a little from the intense consideration he's giving it.
When he next opens his eyes it's not light anymore, and his cheek is resting on something warm, and wrapped in cloth. The clouds are wispy by this point, fluttering weakly against the light of the moon set low in the sky. He frowns at the stars for a second before he turns his head to see what the heck exactly is he resting against and why exactly his back is cold yet his own blanket is draped over him.
"Gintoki," Katsura murmurs without looking at him. He's also lying flat on the roof tiles, and it's his leg that Gintoki's resting against, scant inches away from where they first started. He takes a moment to imagine what it would mean if he started it up again, now without the cloud of youth or misery, and decides the burdensome balance he has in his life is already too far tipped against his favor.
"This is new," he says half to himself, and can feel more than see Katsura's wry smile in return. Or maybe not, he thinks when he looks up. Only Katsura's eyes betray the state of soothing calm he's floating in now, a bubble that even Gintoki's inane comments can't break.
"The kids are back, and downstairs. They were wondering when you were going to eat."
"There's something in the fridge." Gintoki ponders again, a little more coherently this time, and recalls there is only Sadaharu food and a misplaced bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise from one of Katsura's ardent pursuers in the fridge right now. "Or you could have taken it upon your generous nature and put some food on the table for them."
"They're your kids, not mine," comes the easy answer. "Your responsibility now."
He wants to say something like They can be half yours, but that might go over wrong, especially since it's been years since they last had anything to do with each other.
Katsura shifts when Gintoki says nothing, his mind still partway on the idle, hazy dreams that puffed so effervescently across the surface of his mind, never sticking, muddying only a little part of his lazy contentment. Though Katsura was just talking about going in, neither man moves for a while, satisfied with the distant mutter of the television downstairs, the growing chatter of guests entering Otose's domain. The roof isn't high enough to see all of Edo, but it's high enough to watch over Kabukicho at least, and the two of them do just that. Then Katsura shifts, just enough so that the sword at his side clinks, and the fragile, perfect moment between them shatters.
Gintoki heaves himself up, brushes himself off and tucks the blanket under his arm. He's about to jump down to the balcony when Katsura abruptly seizes his arm. His dark eyes are intense like that one time in the rain, but so much older, so much wearier. After all, his burdens had never lessened, only...changed in scope.
"What?" Gintoki grunts.
Katsura almost - almost - looks ashamed. "Do - do they really need dinner?"
"Yes," he answers bluntly. "But I'm sure there's some of Shinpachi's leftovers stacked somewhere, if Kagura hasn't eaten them yet. Just a matter of finding it."
But doggedly Katsura doesn't let him go, his hands just stay there like clamps at Gintoki's elbow. He nibbles his top lip nervously, and suddenly Gintoki has to look away, because that habit is so familiar, and he can even recall the way Katsura loves do that not only to himself, but to Gintoki too. When he was young he never thought there would be an end to the war, or that he would live to see it - he always thought he'd go out with a blaze of glory, fighting his best, slicing enemies to the bitter end. In a kind of convoluted hypocrisy, he also thought Katsura would survive and slowly smooth out the raw, bitter edges in Takasugi's tattered dreams, or find some nice bomber chick and settle down with her, maybe pop out some mini-Zuras.
Now that he is here, standing with the same man, staring at a completely different scenery, he has no idea what to say outside of that damnable phrase that rings in his head:
"I'm sorry," he says suddenly, even though he can't really put his finger on what exactly he's sorry about, only that the mood demands it. "About...," he waves his hands towards Katsura's sword, and is relieved when the other man lets go of his arm long enough to lay one hand on his hip, right at the junction of belt and sword.
"I think we've all established that," Katsura says calmly, and a little coldly. His face is a disk of impenetrability, so unlike the youth that laughed when his belly button was tickled. "I was just going to ask if you perhaps wanted to go get dinner with me."
Gintoki smiles a little then, and if Katsura feels reassured by it, he certainly doesn't show it. "Is this some new ploy to get me back into the Joui?"
"No," the answer comes immediately. "I just wanted to see what kind of man you are now, that's all." When Gintoki turns away, chuckling to himself a little, Katsura presses on, "I want to see if you are any better a person, now that the war is over and you've left everything behind you to rot."
"If you feel that way, maybe that's a reason to not have dinner," Gintoki suggests grimly.
Katsura just fixes him with his best utterly-serious look, that narrow-eyed squint that Gintoki used to give way to, because Katsura never pulled it out unless he really wanted Gintoki to do something other than fight for a while. Gintoki can't help but grin because once upon a time before Sensei passed away and war was just like some really high-stakes game that he played with his life, he would take Katsura up on his offer every time.
He doesn't know where Takasugi is, but even so he knows what he should say. "Some other time, Zura."
"It's Katsura," the other man replies automatically. Gintoki can't think of any other way to ease the resigned hurt Katsura covers up so badly than to reach out and take a strand of hair between his fingers, twisting it this way and that. He used to be the one that tied Katsura's hair up in the summer when they were little, he recalls dimly.
His hand drops and though he longs to ask if any other old ghosts will be popping out from thin air anytime soon, he leaps down to the balcony and regards the other wordlessly. Katsura stares back, not placated in the least. Gintoki knows he will come again; Katsura was always horrible at letting go.
And just to prove his point, Zura calls out to him before he ducks in, "Goodnight," in that soft, wistful tone that speaks volumes of I wish you'd listen to me. It compels him so strongly to turn around and clamber back onto the roof, blankets and all be damned, as long as he had Katsura's teeth on his upper lip.
Gintoki blinks then, and imagines the clouds once more. There'd been a dream once, very faint and honeyed, the taste of which still lingered in his mind - but he lets it go, he lets it pass high overhead. It isn't as hard as he thought it would be, and that thought saddens him more than anything else he's recalled today.
Still, he waits until he hears the patient slap of sandals away from his roof to the neighboring one before he leaves the window to track down those leftovers.
------
Great, it's like Soul Eater all over again - first story for a fandom and it starts out with pr0n. OH I have no control over myself. *sigh*
BTW, krixe if you're reading this, did I leave my novels at your house???
Series: Gintama
Pairing: GinZura, TakaZura
Rating: R (for implied pr0n)
Notes: dedicated to my wonderful kouhai (krixe, rasenth, natbug, hb_anna, loveless_zero) for putting up with their sempai incessant blabbering for two entire weekends in a row. Though I really don't think all of you guys will read this XP
On the rare days that he has free time and no kids to occupy him, Gintoki goes onto the roof to relax. He stares at the clouds passing by and hums the old tunes that Sensei used to hum while he cooked for his kids. He smiles at the sounds below - kids playing in the street, Otose yelling at Catherine, the sound of the news downstairs where he left it on. Sometimes he pulls out a cigarette he conveniently borrowed from Madao, and watches the smoke rise where he blows it out slowly through his teeth.
He thinks of days that are like this, days where he was bored and had nothing immediate to do, and falls upon a day during the drought. It was so hot and the dust from the road next to the temple crunched between his teeth when he bit down into anything, but they were forbidden to even half a cup unless it was completely necessary. Most of Sensei's students lounged in the shade under the roof or in the rooms with just a crack open in the shoji doors, but Gintoki was smart back then and found a better place to be.
In the cool, somewhat moistened air of the water storage room, he sucked the breath from Katsura until he could see the bright red of the other's lips, splashed like a blotchy paintbrush. Something hotter than summer, drier than the flames surged up inside of him then, and he longed to consume all there was of Katsura until there wasn't a single strand of black hair, long-fingered hand or scrap of pale skin to be found. He wondered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his own attention, with his clumsy hands as they undid Katsura's worn blue obi, his dry lips as he traced the belly button that dipped right in the middle of that flat stomach.
Katsura had huffed with laughter then, wincing ticklishly away. Gintoki took held his hips still then, and dared to lean and just taste, until Katsura couldn't keep silent anymore. Gintoki wished he could see himself then, with one hand clenching the water barrel tight, the other fisted in his mouth. It was a matter of minutes after that, before Katsura shuddered and collapsed next to Gintoki against the wall. He surprised him again by leaning in and kissing Gintoki on the mouth hungrily, throwing one leg over Gintoki's hips with no trace of hesitation.
And then on a rainy day when everyone else was out, Katsura had sneak-pounced on him and they'd wrestled a little bit before Katsura brought his head down and they mashed lips like the amateurs they were, with no thought or experience to technique or foreplay. Again, Katsura had whispered back then as he ground down hard enough to make Gintoki bite his own lip so hard he drew blood, Again, like last time. Gintoki, Gintoki, now.
And then that one day when the man, the father in his life who'd been there before suddenly wasn't there anymore, and it was all his fault, nobody to blame but his own incompetance, his own stupidity. That night when he'd come home beyond furious, dripping water and green Amanto blood onto Sensei's once-clean floors, Katsura had taken one look at him and pulled him aside, pulled him into a sideroom nobody used anymore. There he'd let Gintoki take what he wanted and needed, push him down into the mats, gag his mouth with one bloodstained hand and just drink his fill until his hunger was glutted, his vicious thirst quenched. Only then did he look at what kind of masterpiece he'd created, the red scrapes where his fingers had dug in, the bruises that would stay on Katsura's knees and elbows for days, the bites he'd sprinkled like so much confetti over that moonlit back. It'd stopped raining by then, and he looked so detached when Takasugi threw the door open to ask what they were doing when there was a war outside of this damned place. Back then they still called each other by their first names; how Shinsuke had roared for him to Get out, Just get the fuck out! and wrapped his arms protectively Katsura, who looked so broken with his legs askew and one arm of his kimono ripped. Gintoki thought he could see the inevitable ending then, and only stopped to pick up his sword in the corridor before he slid the door shut behind him.
Shows how much I knew back then, he thinks. The clouds float so easily without a care over him; the spring breeze carries the butt of his cigarette away. He stares at the sky so hard he thinks his eyes might just be tearing up a little from the intense consideration he's giving it.
When he next opens his eyes it's not light anymore, and his cheek is resting on something warm, and wrapped in cloth. The clouds are wispy by this point, fluttering weakly against the light of the moon set low in the sky. He frowns at the stars for a second before he turns his head to see what the heck exactly is he resting against and why exactly his back is cold yet his own blanket is draped over him.
"Gintoki," Katsura murmurs without looking at him. He's also lying flat on the roof tiles, and it's his leg that Gintoki's resting against, scant inches away from where they first started. He takes a moment to imagine what it would mean if he started it up again, now without the cloud of youth or misery, and decides the burdensome balance he has in his life is already too far tipped against his favor.
"This is new," he says half to himself, and can feel more than see Katsura's wry smile in return. Or maybe not, he thinks when he looks up. Only Katsura's eyes betray the state of soothing calm he's floating in now, a bubble that even Gintoki's inane comments can't break.
"The kids are back, and downstairs. They were wondering when you were going to eat."
"There's something in the fridge." Gintoki ponders again, a little more coherently this time, and recalls there is only Sadaharu food and a misplaced bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise from one of Katsura's ardent pursuers in the fridge right now. "Or you could have taken it upon your generous nature and put some food on the table for them."
"They're your kids, not mine," comes the easy answer. "Your responsibility now."
He wants to say something like They can be half yours, but that might go over wrong, especially since it's been years since they last had anything to do with each other.
Katsura shifts when Gintoki says nothing, his mind still partway on the idle, hazy dreams that puffed so effervescently across the surface of his mind, never sticking, muddying only a little part of his lazy contentment. Though Katsura was just talking about going in, neither man moves for a while, satisfied with the distant mutter of the television downstairs, the growing chatter of guests entering Otose's domain. The roof isn't high enough to see all of Edo, but it's high enough to watch over Kabukicho at least, and the two of them do just that. Then Katsura shifts, just enough so that the sword at his side clinks, and the fragile, perfect moment between them shatters.
Gintoki heaves himself up, brushes himself off and tucks the blanket under his arm. He's about to jump down to the balcony when Katsura abruptly seizes his arm. His dark eyes are intense like that one time in the rain, but so much older, so much wearier. After all, his burdens had never lessened, only...changed in scope.
"What?" Gintoki grunts.
Katsura almost - almost - looks ashamed. "Do - do they really need dinner?"
"Yes," he answers bluntly. "But I'm sure there's some of Shinpachi's leftovers stacked somewhere, if Kagura hasn't eaten them yet. Just a matter of finding it."
But doggedly Katsura doesn't let him go, his hands just stay there like clamps at Gintoki's elbow. He nibbles his top lip nervously, and suddenly Gintoki has to look away, because that habit is so familiar, and he can even recall the way Katsura loves do that not only to himself, but to Gintoki too. When he was young he never thought there would be an end to the war, or that he would live to see it - he always thought he'd go out with a blaze of glory, fighting his best, slicing enemies to the bitter end. In a kind of convoluted hypocrisy, he also thought Katsura would survive and slowly smooth out the raw, bitter edges in Takasugi's tattered dreams, or find some nice bomber chick and settle down with her, maybe pop out some mini-Zuras.
Now that he is here, standing with the same man, staring at a completely different scenery, he has no idea what to say outside of that damnable phrase that rings in his head:
"I'm sorry," he says suddenly, even though he can't really put his finger on what exactly he's sorry about, only that the mood demands it. "About...," he waves his hands towards Katsura's sword, and is relieved when the other man lets go of his arm long enough to lay one hand on his hip, right at the junction of belt and sword.
"I think we've all established that," Katsura says calmly, and a little coldly. His face is a disk of impenetrability, so unlike the youth that laughed when his belly button was tickled. "I was just going to ask if you perhaps wanted to go get dinner with me."
Gintoki smiles a little then, and if Katsura feels reassured by it, he certainly doesn't show it. "Is this some new ploy to get me back into the Joui?"
"No," the answer comes immediately. "I just wanted to see what kind of man you are now, that's all." When Gintoki turns away, chuckling to himself a little, Katsura presses on, "I want to see if you are any better a person, now that the war is over and you've left everything behind you to rot."
"If you feel that way, maybe that's a reason to not have dinner," Gintoki suggests grimly.
Katsura just fixes him with his best utterly-serious look, that narrow-eyed squint that Gintoki used to give way to, because Katsura never pulled it out unless he really wanted Gintoki to do something other than fight for a while. Gintoki can't help but grin because once upon a time before Sensei passed away and war was just like some really high-stakes game that he played with his life, he would take Katsura up on his offer every time.
He doesn't know where Takasugi is, but even so he knows what he should say. "Some other time, Zura."
"It's Katsura," the other man replies automatically. Gintoki can't think of any other way to ease the resigned hurt Katsura covers up so badly than to reach out and take a strand of hair between his fingers, twisting it this way and that. He used to be the one that tied Katsura's hair up in the summer when they were little, he recalls dimly.
His hand drops and though he longs to ask if any other old ghosts will be popping out from thin air anytime soon, he leaps down to the balcony and regards the other wordlessly. Katsura stares back, not placated in the least. Gintoki knows he will come again; Katsura was always horrible at letting go.
And just to prove his point, Zura calls out to him before he ducks in, "Goodnight," in that soft, wistful tone that speaks volumes of I wish you'd listen to me. It compels him so strongly to turn around and clamber back onto the roof, blankets and all be damned, as long as he had Katsura's teeth on his upper lip.
Gintoki blinks then, and imagines the clouds once more. There'd been a dream once, very faint and honeyed, the taste of which still lingered in his mind - but he lets it go, he lets it pass high overhead. It isn't as hard as he thought it would be, and that thought saddens him more than anything else he's recalled today.
Still, he waits until he hears the patient slap of sandals away from his roof to the neighboring one before he leaves the window to track down those leftovers.
------
Great, it's like Soul Eater all over again - first story for a fandom and it starts out with pr0n. OH I have no control over myself. *sigh*
BTW, krixe if you're reading this, did I leave my novels at your house???