…But don’t let the sun catch you crying. [Gintama]
GINTAMA and all characters/ideas/concepts/places therein are not mine, although the writing certainly is.
Title: …But don’t let the sun catch you crying.
Characters/Pairing(s): Gintoki, Takasugi, Katsura
Rating: R
Summary: Waking up in sunlight.
Warnings? ...You'll see.
Notes: For Pris. The title is taken from a line from the song “Deadweight”, by Beck.
…But don’t let the sun catch you crying.
“We really shouldn’t be in here, you know!”
“Quiet, Zura. It’ll be fine.”
“We’re going to get in trouble, Shinsuke! Sensei will be angry!”
“Not if he never finds out. Like THAT’S going to happen at this rate, though, you’re so noisy.”
“I’m telling. I’m really telling!”
It’s that conversation that Gintoki catches a snippet of, in the odd, strange bouts of wakefulness he has in between feeling like he’s going to die and feeling like he’s just terribly sick. He cracks an eye open. He’s alone in the room, but there are voices in the garden.
“There we go. Get down here already, Zura!”
“No. I’m going to tell on you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Things are quiet for a while. Gintoki rolls over, wondering if he’s just hearing things. The door slides open, however, right as he’s about to drift off again. He wakes with a start.
“Gintoki?”
Shinsuke’s peeking in from just behind the safety of the edge of the door, all disheveled hair and two wide green eyes. Gintoki stares a moment, then wriggles out a bit from under the covers.
“Yeah…?”
“Oh, good! You’re not dead.” Shinsuke turns away for a moment, and hollers towards the edge of the garden. “Hey, Zura! Gintoki’s not dead!”
There’s a pregnant pause before the response comes, from the other side of the fence.
“I’m telling on you!”
Shinsuke only scoffs and steps into the room, kneeling beside Gintoki’s bedside.
“You’re sick with something pretty bad, huh? We haven’t seen you at school for a week.”
“Sensei says I’ll be okay.”
“Does it feel like you’ll be okay, though?”
Yes, Gintoki wants to say, because real samurai were supposed to be able to handle everything. No, he decides later, because real samurai were also supposed to tell the truth all the time. Shinsuke, in the meantime, has already lost interest in the question.
“Anyway, Zura and I were supposed to bring oranges for you, but now Zura doesn’t want to come here. Hold on, I can go back and get it from him…”
And it looks like Shinsuke’s just about ready to do just that when he and Gintoki both here a yelp and something crashing through tree branches in the garden. As one, they look up just in time to see Kotaro land solidly on his butt. The basket of oranges follows suit, landing on his lap.
“Owwww…”
“Took you long enough. Come over here already, will you? You haven’t broken anything, right?”
“I’m still telling on you.”
“That means telling on yourself too, idiot.”
Kotaro sniffs and mumbles something odd as he moves to join them. Gintoki lies back down. He’s suddenly dizzy again.
“You should come back to school soon, Gintoki,” Kotaro says. Shinsuke is reaching into the basket for one of the oranges. “You’ve missed a lot of lessons.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Of course you will be,” Shinsuke cuts in, before Kotaro can say anything. “We didn’t think you were dead or anything.” Kotaro frowns.
“You so did think he was dead.” The statement, of course, causes Shinsuke to splutter.
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
A bit more of that, and Katsura has forgotten all about being prim and proper, and Shinsuke’s forgotten all about peeling his orange. It isn’t too long before they’re a mess of limbs and pulled faces beside Gintoki’s bed. Gintoki doesn’t realize he laughed until Shinsuke calls him on it.
“Hey! What’s so funny?”
He doesn’t answer, of course. He only sinks lower under the covers, hiding his smile beneath the sheets.
The gunfire and the screams wake Sakata Gintoki up. He jolts, is of half the mind to reach for his sword. It is that point that he realizes that he can’t see. There’s something covering his eyes.
“Don’t remove it. The doctors say that your eyes aren’t ready for any form of light just yet.”
Katsura Kotaro’s voice, amidst the shriek of Amanto ships overhead and distant explosions, is a calm and steady thing he grab a hold of, as if it were a physical object. Gintoki lets his arm drop and tries to lie still. It’s around that time that he realizes just how much pain he’s actually in.
“What happened…?”
“Your team was ambushed. They nearly got every one of you.” A beat. “Shinsuke arrived just in time to pull you out.”
“What about the rest?”
He shouldn’t ask. He knows this. He knows what the answer is, in Katsura’s silence.
Gintoki wants to scream. He asks another question instead.
“Where’s Sakamoto?”
“Handling things.”
“And Shinsuke?”
“Stepped out with a team of his. He’s pretty worked up about what happened.”
He can’t recognize his own voice; it’s hoarse and weak, like his throat hasn’t known water for weeks. Having a bomb pretty much explode in your face can do that to a man, it seems. He wants to remove whatever’s covering his eyes. He wants to get up, do something. Cry, perhaps. Find Shinsuke, track him down, tell the idiot not to blame himself because he must be: there’s no other reason why he’d still be out there and not right here, where he’s safe. Kill every last one of those alien bastards.
He must have moved again, because now there’s a hand pressing him down unto the cot, and another hand slipping over his.
Katsura’s voice is closer now, quiet, and not as steady as before.
“It’s okay, Gintoki.” A beat. “It’s okay.” Another, followed by a shaky breath. “You did what you could.” Another. “We all did.”
The hand covering his is shaking. Gintoki grips it tight, and focuses, instead, on the distant sound of the battlefield rather than the fact that the young man sitting beside him is quietly breaking down.
Title: …But don’t let the sun catch you crying.
Characters/Pairing(s): Gintoki, Takasugi, Katsura
Rating: R
Summary: Waking up in sunlight.
Warnings? ...You'll see.
Notes: For Pris. The title is taken from a line from the song “Deadweight”, by Beck.
…But don’t let the sun catch you crying.
“We really shouldn’t be in here, you know!”
“Quiet, Zura. It’ll be fine.”
“We’re going to get in trouble, Shinsuke! Sensei will be angry!”
“Not if he never finds out. Like THAT’S going to happen at this rate, though, you’re so noisy.”
“I’m telling. I’m really telling!”
It’s that conversation that Gintoki catches a snippet of, in the odd, strange bouts of wakefulness he has in between feeling like he’s going to die and feeling like he’s just terribly sick. He cracks an eye open. He’s alone in the room, but there are voices in the garden.
“There we go. Get down here already, Zura!”
“No. I’m going to tell on you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Things are quiet for a while. Gintoki rolls over, wondering if he’s just hearing things. The door slides open, however, right as he’s about to drift off again. He wakes with a start.
“Gintoki?”
Shinsuke’s peeking in from just behind the safety of the edge of the door, all disheveled hair and two wide green eyes. Gintoki stares a moment, then wriggles out a bit from under the covers.
“Yeah…?”
“Oh, good! You’re not dead.” Shinsuke turns away for a moment, and hollers towards the edge of the garden. “Hey, Zura! Gintoki’s not dead!”
There’s a pregnant pause before the response comes, from the other side of the fence.
“I’m telling on you!”
Shinsuke only scoffs and steps into the room, kneeling beside Gintoki’s bedside.
“You’re sick with something pretty bad, huh? We haven’t seen you at school for a week.”
“Sensei says I’ll be okay.”
“Does it feel like you’ll be okay, though?”
Yes, Gintoki wants to say, because real samurai were supposed to be able to handle everything. No, he decides later, because real samurai were also supposed to tell the truth all the time. Shinsuke, in the meantime, has already lost interest in the question.
“Anyway, Zura and I were supposed to bring oranges for you, but now Zura doesn’t want to come here. Hold on, I can go back and get it from him…”
And it looks like Shinsuke’s just about ready to do just that when he and Gintoki both here a yelp and something crashing through tree branches in the garden. As one, they look up just in time to see Kotaro land solidly on his butt. The basket of oranges follows suit, landing on his lap.
“Owwww…”
“Took you long enough. Come over here already, will you? You haven’t broken anything, right?”
“I’m still telling on you.”
“That means telling on yourself too, idiot.”
Kotaro sniffs and mumbles something odd as he moves to join them. Gintoki lies back down. He’s suddenly dizzy again.
“You should come back to school soon, Gintoki,” Kotaro says. Shinsuke is reaching into the basket for one of the oranges. “You’ve missed a lot of lessons.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Of course you will be,” Shinsuke cuts in, before Kotaro can say anything. “We didn’t think you were dead or anything.” Kotaro frowns.
“You so did think he was dead.” The statement, of course, causes Shinsuke to splutter.
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
A bit more of that, and Katsura has forgotten all about being prim and proper, and Shinsuke’s forgotten all about peeling his orange. It isn’t too long before they’re a mess of limbs and pulled faces beside Gintoki’s bed. Gintoki doesn’t realize he laughed until Shinsuke calls him on it.
“Hey! What’s so funny?”
He doesn’t answer, of course. He only sinks lower under the covers, hiding his smile beneath the sheets.
The gunfire and the screams wake Sakata Gintoki up. He jolts, is of half the mind to reach for his sword. It is that point that he realizes that he can’t see. There’s something covering his eyes.
“Don’t remove it. The doctors say that your eyes aren’t ready for any form of light just yet.”
Katsura Kotaro’s voice, amidst the shriek of Amanto ships overhead and distant explosions, is a calm and steady thing he grab a hold of, as if it were a physical object. Gintoki lets his arm drop and tries to lie still. It’s around that time that he realizes just how much pain he’s actually in.
“What happened…?”
“Your team was ambushed. They nearly got every one of you.” A beat. “Shinsuke arrived just in time to pull you out.”
“What about the rest?”
He shouldn’t ask. He knows this. He knows what the answer is, in Katsura’s silence.
Gintoki wants to scream. He asks another question instead.
“Where’s Sakamoto?”
“Handling things.”
“And Shinsuke?”
“Stepped out with a team of his. He’s pretty worked up about what happened.”
He can’t recognize his own voice; it’s hoarse and weak, like his throat hasn’t known water for weeks. Having a bomb pretty much explode in your face can do that to a man, it seems. He wants to remove whatever’s covering his eyes. He wants to get up, do something. Cry, perhaps. Find Shinsuke, track him down, tell the idiot not to blame himself because he must be: there’s no other reason why he’d still be out there and not right here, where he’s safe. Kill every last one of those alien bastards.
He must have moved again, because now there’s a hand pressing him down unto the cot, and another hand slipping over his.
Katsura’s voice is closer now, quiet, and not as steady as before.
“It’s okay, Gintoki.” A beat. “It’s okay.” Another, followed by a shaky breath. “You did what you could.” Another. “We all did.”
The hand covering his is shaking. Gintoki grips it tight, and focuses, instead, on the distant sound of the battlefield rather than the fact that the young man sitting beside him is quietly breaking down.