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FIC: gintama - seconds are always more complicated than firsts, except during dinner

oopsipuked — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:55:27 GMT

Title: seconds are always more complicated than firsts, except during dinner
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: I don't see why you would want to.
Notes: College-era AU. Painfully, horrendously awkward smut.

Cross-posted at ginzura.

They should have known, somehow, that their second time wouldn't be as easy as the first. It was the curse of beginner's luck, or an angry ghost that couldn't get any in the ether, something. Whatever it was, looking back on it -- it seemed doomed to fail.

In the first place, Gintoki goes into it a bit cocky (no pun intended), a bit too eager to please, and ends up doing anything but. When it starts going south (in all the wrong ways), he attempts to push past it like he pushes past any day-to-day stupidity, with even more bullheaded determination. Zura, made high-strung and pressured by Gintoki's aggression, can't seem to relax, in turn making Gintoki nervous about hurting him and defensive about screwing up. For a while, they shift against one another in frustration and awkwardness, bodies out of sync, grunting constant rebuttals and (mostly) hair-related insults. They switch positions to try and remedy the situation, Gintoki lying flat on the bed and Zura controlling the goings-on above him, but somehow it just gets worse.

"Haaow, ow, stop," grits Zura.

Gintoki thinks he's seen this in a doujin before, and reassures in an awkward blurt, "Just keep -- pushing. It got better last time, didn't it?"

"Well, it's not getting better now," whines the smaller man. Gintoki presses up, trying to compensate, and cringes when his efforts return only a shaky, "O-oww, aaa-aa, don't do that."

Bristling in awkward shame, Gintoki immediately freezes his hips in place, but snaps, "I-i-it's not getting better because you're not relaxing!"

"How am I supposed to relax with you yelling at me to relax?"

"I'm not yelling!"

"Yes you are!"

"Now you're yelling!"

"No I'm not!"

He has no idea how his boner has survived any of this, but it's not going away anytime soon. Zura isn't the only one hurting, here, oi. It's time to take charge again and try to fix this mess. "Look, just -- stay right there, and I'll -- "

Zura yelps at what happens next, and the sound turns the pit of his stomach into a cold, nauseous hell. "Wh-what, are you -- "

"Ithurtsithurtsithurts!" chants Zura, face screwed up in pain, and Gintoki discovers with a shock that not all things are mutually exclusive from his hard-on.

"Sorry, sorry, fuck," he sputters, and the shame and guilt makes him want to pack up his Jump and become a celibate monk, if only to never have to see that face or hear that panic-stricken tone again. As he contemplates life in a cramped but blissful monastery cell, Zura lifts himself high, his hands braced on Gintoki's shoulders like vice-grips.

"I think we're doing too much at once, and need to re-evaluate our strategy," he concludes, in that exam-studying voice of his. That Zura has now mentally categorized their second time having sex as an algebra problem isn't flattering. "I'm... going to try something else, i-if that's okay."

"F-fine! W-whatever you want to do, just don't h-hurt yourself," Gintoki snaps, trying to make it sound like anything but the plea it is. The darker-haired youth grunts a distracted assent and reaches back, guiding Gintoki back into his body slowly. He stops before he's even close to what Gintoki would like to call home plate, pushing down only enough to press the head of Gintoki's length through that tight muscle. He repeats this action (over and over) and seems to be relaxing to the intrusion (over and over) with each shallow grind (over and over), and Gintoki feels himself stiffening harder (over and over) than he maybe ever has in his whole pathetic life (over and over). Looking at Zura's face doesn't help this time -- his eyebrows are smoothed flat from their irritable draw, and his lips part in dumb hesitance to the sensation, panting quick little breaths as he moves faster, trying to take more.

Coupled with that hair-rending, teasing sensation, it's all kind of mind-bogglingly arousing, and Gintoki doesn't end up noticing that actually, he's moving pretty quickly, now. And that actually, he should probably slow down, because at that kind of pace, and with the amount of lube they'd used just to keep things moving --

"Shiiiiitttttt," squeals Gintoki, as Zura's weight crushes his slipped manhood into what feels like the shape of a paper fortune-teller.

"A-ah, sorry, sorry, shit -- !"

"Whhhhhhyyy," the perm whines, three octaves higher than usual, as Zura immediately backs off, looking traumatized. He's not really asking Zura anyway, but the cruel universe doesn't have any answers for him either. Not that he'd be able to hear them over the howling of dogs for miles around, baying to the high-pitched whistle of his soul leaving his body out his smashed dick.

"Should I call an ambulance?" Zura is saying over the truly excruciating pain. "Should I call the police?"

"They would just arrest us," whimpers Gintoki, now holding his dick and rolling back and forth on the bed, "for crimes against the institution of intercourse!"

"I don't want a pubic record!" wails Zura, and Gintoki would laugh if he weren't too busy crying.

FIC: gintama - trust in teens (is unfounded)

oopsipuked — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:03:10 GMT

Title: trust in teens (is unfounded)
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura, background Sakamoto/Mutsu
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: If you'd like.
Notes: Japanese slice-of-life AU. With great puberty comes great responsibility.

Cross-posted to ginzura.

“It’s not that we don’t trust you,” explains Zura, lying poorly.

“It’s that we think you’re a dumbass,” clarifies Gintoki, “who can’t make rational decisions based on the universal system of punishments and rewards that normal, non-dumbass human beings judge their would-be actions by.”

“Yes, that’s right,” agrees the shorter man rather pleasantly, nodding. He turns to Chiro again, tone explanatory. “This system can loosely be called a chain of ‘consequences.’ They result from these would-be actions in a sort of domino effect.”

“What kind of domino?” asks Chiro, too innocently.

“Oh,” pauses Zura, eyebrows scrunching up in thought. “European, maybe. Although I suppose they could just as easily be Chinese dominoes...”

“So it’s more of a Mah Jong effect,” responds the teenager.

“No, it doesn’t have much to do with old men who smoke and gamble excessively,” begins Zura, but Gintoki makes an aggravated noise, cutting him off.

“Oi, oi, cut the shit! It won’t be a damn domino effect, it’ll be a ‘my foot up your ass’ effect, do you hear me? That’s what consequences in the real world are!”

“Consequences,” drawls Chiro, as if tasting a new word on his tongue.

“So, so many of them will result,” growls Gintoki, “if we come back to find even a particle of dust disturbed in what was obviously some teenage party-orgy.”

Dull red eyes meet sharper ones. “So really dusty teenage party-orgies are okay?”

“No!” flusters Zura, cheeks reddening. “Especially no really dusty teenager party-orgies! Your allergies will start up again.”

“His allergies aren’t what you should be worried about,” grits Gintoki.

“But,” protests Zura, “we’re out of decongestant.”

“Damnit, so what! I hope his head gets filled to the brim with boogers! No girl wants to kiss a snot-headed brat, and come back to my house to “chill”, and throw up in my vegetable garden from drinking my beer in a failed attempt at mature adulthood!”

“Do young people still say that?” Zura asks Chiro. The boy almost smiles -- he can always count on the dark haired man to derail any argument.

“No, we say ‘kick it,’” he deadpans right back.

“‘Kick it,’” drawls Zura, as if tasting a new word on his tongue. Then, “...Kick what?”

Perhaps thinking volume could pierce through stupidity and sarcasm alike, Gintoki shouts, “His ass, if he has any damn parties!”

“Or particles,” Chiro reminds flatly. “Dusty particles.”

“I think I will quickly go to the store,” mumbles Zura, starting to turn away. “I don’t want to leave him without any decongestant. He may sneeze himself into a coma.”

“Aa? Are you in coma? It’s the only thing that could explain this low brain activity you’re displaying,” responds Gintoki, snagging a lock of black hair and stopping the other. “Oi, where do you think you’re going? We don’t have time for that! He’s fine!”

“I’m fine,” the boy seconds. “You guys should head to the train station. Soon. Now, if you really want to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

“You’re not rid of us yet,” snaps Gintoki, eyes narrowing. “And another thing, don’t you let that long-haired punk into this house, either!”

“Yamato-kun isn’t a punk,” disagrees Zura, smacking at the hand tangled in his hair. “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway? Long hair doesn’t make you a punk. I have long hair.”

“You don’t have long hair, you have a wig.” A yank, as if to demonstrate.

“Ow -- ! What did you say, you ugly-hair bastard?”

They’re never going to get out the door. “Hey, Zura. I forget. How much food do I give Eliza?”

“Two carrots a day, plus a half-scoop of her pellets,” responds the shorter man succinctly. “And as much alfalfa as she wants. You can give her dried fruit slices too. It’s good for her digestion.”

“Her digestion? Her digestion?” interrupts Gintoki. “She’s a rabbit, not an incontinent grandmother! All she does is digest, it’s practically the only skill she has!”

“Aa? Is that so? Perhaps you two can go into business together, then!”

“You shitty wig -- ”

“Speaking of business,” says Chiro, “there is the business of that train, which will be leaving in the near future.”

“Are you rushing us for a reason, brat? Is the keg about to arrive, huh? Or a carload of your delinquent pals?”

“Yamato-kun is not a delinquent!” bursts Zura defensively.

“I didn’t mention Yamato-kun,” says Gintoki dryly. “I said ‘delinquent pals,’ and because Yamato-kun is in fact a delinquent, you immediately thought of him.”

“Hnm,” grunts Zura, evasively. “...We’ll be sure to call every day, to check on you.”

“I never agreed to that. I’m only going away so I don’t have to listen to him anymore. Why are you saying that?”

“And I’m taking my mobile, so you can reach us on it at any time,” Zura continues. “You can call, or text, or picture-message...”

Luckily for Chiro, he has never had any trouble schooling his expression into one of neutrality. He doesn’t even get the facial urge to eyeroll (although his mental eyes are rolling hard enough to fall out). “It’s only four days,” he assures the smaller man. “I’ll be fine.”

“Who cares about you?” grumbles Gintoki. “I’m worried about my house.”

“I got the decongestant at Iwamura-san’s shop,” says Zura, “if you find yourself needing it. Do you remember where it is?”

“I remember.”

“And you can walk there on your own two damn feet. I’ll know if you took the scooter. I mentally marked it’s exact location, angle, and shadow cast.”

“Haa? Like I’d want to be seen around town on that dorky thing.”

“Dorky? Now it’s dorky? When you were little, you used to beg me to take you for rides on it!”

“And then you used to beg me for my forgiveness,” interjects Zura. “Which you will have to do again soon, if we miss our train, because of a stupid argument about dumb scooters.”

Chiro had been hoping punctuality would trump stupidity, this time. Unaware of the loud mental cheer from his charge, Gintoki shouts, “Oi, it’s not dumb! It’s not dorky or dumb! You’re both just jaded to the true, simplistic beauty of that fine machine! I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Unbelievable!”

Zura does not appear to have heard his other half, addressing Chiro again. “Oh, and don’t forget to stop by the Sakamotos’.”

“You’re worried about his allergies, but sending him into that pit of flu germs?” mumbles the other permed man. He appears to rethink his opinion on the matter, however, adding with a wide, shitty grin, “Yeah, be sure to give Tatsuma our thanks for the room.”

“Is that really appropriate?” wonders Zura, missing the point completely. “Poor Mutsu. I think the trip was for their anniversary.”

“How the hell do you know when their anniversary is?” barks Gintoki, affronted. “You can’t even remember our anniversary, you asshole, why would you remember a robot’s and an idiot’s?”

Zura huffs. “I looked online. It’s a very upscale hot spring. Not the kind of hot spring you would just go to on a whim. And Mutsu wouldn’t take off work for a whim, anyway.”

“Mutsu does whatever the hell she’s programmed to do. Maybe she’s programmed to take vacations on a whim. That’s what rich bastards like them do, anyway. You always look into things too much, oi.”

“I’m not looking into things, I’m just saying it was obviously a special occasion!”

“And I’m just saying it probably wasn’t!”

“You should poll people to resolve this,” supplies Chiro helpfully, “on the train. Where you should be.”

Gintoki looks about to argue for suspicious activity again, but fortunately Zura has caught sight of the clock. The train should be there in twenty minutes, and it’s a fifteen minute walk to the station. The dark haired man steps forward, hugging the teenager. “Ah, be safe. We’ll be back soon.”

“At any arbitrary time, fully prepared to catch you in the act,” threatens Gintoki, roughly messing his hair.

It makes little difference to the state of the perm, really, though Chiro swats irritably at the hand regardless. “Yeah, yeah.” He follows the two to the door, handing Zura the bag he would have forgotten. Chiro has learned a lot of timesavers over the years. “Have fun marinating in old man pee.”

Zura shakes his head, looking righteous and disgusted. “I will make sure he holds it in.” And with that and a few lazy waves, he sees his guardians off.

“How can you even act like that?” he hears Gintoki say. “You pee in the shower every day, you disgusting bastard. Own up to how filthy you are.”

“It’s completely natural to follow the water’s flow.”

“What? What does that even mean? Are you just going to stand there and piss your pants next time it rains?”

The conversation fades away, and from behind him, a set of feet come down the stairs. Yamato stretches, slumping against the side of the door. “Jeez, whatta couple’a loud old geezers. Are they gone yet?”

“Yeah, almost.” Chiro watches the two, still bickering, turn down the street. “You wanna put shaving cream in Gintoki’s scooter helmet?”

FIC: gintama - The Luckiest

oopsipuked — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:49:45 GMT

Title: The Luckiest
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: If you'd like.
Notes: AU Japanese slice-of-life. Entering AU Inception at this point. A visit to the hospital. More archival.

Cross-posted to ginzura.

It doesn’t stop at the goofy red festival shirts. Hachimaki are tied on next, by Chiro, which almost results in strangulation and an earlier trip to the hospital for Gintoki. Zura then takes swiftly over, tying the thick strips of fabric on with cool, patient hands.

“Remember what you used to think about samurai?” Gintoki murmurs lowly to the other man, catching his wrist before he can pull those hands away.

Zura blushes, recalling hot whispers and muffled gasps into yukata patterns. “Aa, I remember,” he replies.

The Otters 11 Official Otter Cub Club badges are next, clipped to belt loops. Two are found missing from the set of four, probably marooned over at Minami’s house. This crisis is diplomatically handled, and Gintoki ends up with a One Park Official Going Cloudy Captain’s Crew button, which is almost as good.

“Remember when he learned to read Jump on his own?” Zura smiles, tucking a curl of white hair behind the taller man’s ear.

Gintoki flusters, recalling a pint of chocolate ice cream and a sulking afternoon lost to laps and hair-petting. “Yeah, I remember,” he returns.

Only Zura gets the crown of twigs and grass and flowers, plucked from the plot of blue columbines out near the mailbox. Gintoki picks Chiro up to help set it on the other’s head.

“‘Member when I planted these?” demands Chiro.

There are matching frozen faces as both men recall the hours of scrubbing, and the murky swamp their bathtub had become. “...We remember,” the two reply.

There is some debate over the No-Fail Sure-Thing Exam-Acing scarf, because it is August, and yellow wool isn’t exactly season-appropriate. In the end, a compromise is reached, and Zura ties it around his waist like a belt. After a moment of lip-biting and palm-snorting, Gintoki very astutely repositions it, turning the twin trailing “trunks” into two “tails” instead.

“Remember that idiot’s Christmas party?” Gintoki mutters, pulling the knot tight.

Zura bats his hands away, recalling Santamoto-san’s booming voice, and the hot apple cider that hadn’t warmed him nearly as much as the arm around his shoulders. “Mm, I remember,” he retorts.

Petals dropping, wool swinging, badges (or buttons) glinting, they board the next train. Gintoki takes Zura’s hand, who takes Chiro’s. The smaller perm doesn’t fidget on the train, because he is a good boy. The larger perm does, because he isn’t, and Zura produces a candy from the messenger bag slung across his shoulders. It looks quite professional, yes, but it’s filled with story-books and sweets and a Yoshida action figure, to frighten the bad luck away. Zura’s been handing Gintoki sweets on the train since they were in grade school, and it should feel like a marker of how nothing changes -- but Gintoki’s fingers are rougher than they were, and the shoulder pressed against his is broader. He doesn’t hold himself like a slacker anymore; he holds himself like a man.

“Remember when you built Chiro’s treehouse?” he asks, thumb running over that widened hand.

Gintoki’s hand tightens around the other’s, as he recalls too many bumps on the head from that low ceiling and Zura’s watchful eyes from the garden. “Hn, I remember,” he responds.

They arrive at the hospital, and are shuffled into a rather too-familiar waiting room. Among the stares and silence, Zura (still trailing leaves and yellow threads) elects to sit on the floor with Chiro, playing Guess Who?, the Complimentary Medical Pamphlets Edition. Gintoki tries to ignore the other’s blatant attempts to brainwash their son into a doctor from the age of five, while Chiro correctly guesses that an itchy and aggravated rash on the No-Nos is genital herpes.

“‘Member when we got the chicken’s pox,” the boy grunts, shuffling the pamphlets intensely.

Zura leans back against Gintoki’s leg, exchanging a look with the other man; they both recall the soothing green goop that had stained them all into sci-fi monsters, and all-day movie marathon that suited such a monstrous family. “Yes, I remember that,” says Zura, while Gintoki hums an affirmative.

He doesn’t go in alone. Chiro takes Zura’s hand this time, and Gintoki’s is heavy on his shoulder, grounding him. When he changes into the hospital gown, they hold his lucky items for him; Chiro tucking his face into the yellow wool of the scarf, Gintoki’s grip accidentally crushing a few flowers, smearing blue against his palm. The hachimaki is allowed to stay on, and Zura gives them a blank v-for-victory from the hospital bed, when he’s rolled off for a CAT scan.

Time passes with more tests, more questions, more scans -- the afternoon goes by in a whirl, but one unlike those spent together under summer sun. Chiro is napping on Gintoki’s lap when there’s a commotion from down the hall, and Gintoki stands up with his load, peering out through hospital curtains. Only a moment later has Zura yanking them aside, trailing a complaining orderly pushing a wheelchair.

The kiss isn’t the best one they’ve ever had -- they both still have breakfast-breath, a groggy Chiro is mashed between them, and the too-big hospital gown is half-off from Zura’s sprint down the hallway, having to be adjusted mid-kiss. But it’s a hard and excited kiss, uninhibited by that desperation of having had their time cut too, too goddamn short.

“Remember that time you made out with me half-naked in public?” Gintoki breathes against the other’s lips, tugging the flimsy cotton enough to stop scandalizing the nurse’s station.

“Shut up,” exhales Zura, pressing a kiss to the top of Chiro’s fluffy head. “Shut up.”

When he looks up again, he smiles. It’s that smile, the one that always, always, has had Gintoki’s heart pumping love, love, love. Even among the chatter of the doctors and the beep of machines, all Gintoki can hear is that pounding.

And just over it, Zura’s voice. “Enough remembering. We can make new memories, now.”

FIC: gintama - get used to it

oopsipuked — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:39:52 GMT

Title: get used to it
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: You could save us both some embarrassment here.
Notes: CRACK ALERT. Genderbent + pregnant Zura, Kagura is awful in every way, I just can't apologise enough.

Cross-posted to ginzura.

Gintoki notices two things in rapid succession the moment he and Shinpachi step through the door. The first is that Zura’s boobs look huge, which is to say, she looks like she actually has them in the first place, and the second is that Kagura, sitting entirely parallel to Zura down to the feet propped up on the table, appears to be pregnant.

“No,” Gintoki says flatly, immediately grabbing Kagura’s ankle. He yanks the girl into the air and upside down, shaking the pillow out of her shirt. “No, no, no!”

“Gin-chan, stop it, you’ll make my baby come out stupid!” cries Kagura, who easily kicks off Gintoki’s hand, and then knees him in the throat. He drops the girl back on the couch, clutching his windpipe feebly, unable to retort with the obvious fact that it would already be stupid, considering its mother.

That he is momentarily robbed of speech is definitely the only thing that allows Kagura to keep talking. “It’s my body, you useless old man, and I wanna be pregnant!” she yells, scuttling her pillow back under her shirt.

“Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi interrupts, looking like his blood pressure’s going up just from saying it, “you don’t want to be pregnant.”

“Yes I do!” insists the girl, resuming her mimicry of Zura, who seems entirely unaffected by her surroundings, placidly eating pineapple slices out of a cup. Sadaharu sleeps on, similarly unaffected, on the floor beside the couch. “Mama Zura -- ”

“Katsura,” the first interjection.

“ -- eats like a pig! She puts it away like a sumo wrestler, yup! I want that kind of staying power!”

“Why are you treating obesity like a high score?” coughs Gintoki, outrage finally winning over pain. “You’ll never get pregnant in the first place if you keep striving to put your initials in the top slot for stomach rolls!”

“Shut up, Gin-chan! This is womens’ concerns!” She pats her pillow-baby stomach, reaching for a pudding cup. It’s then Gintoki registers that the carnage pile of food wrappers, used bowls, and dirty chopsticks, has grown exponentially larger since he left this afternoon.

“Oi, oi, oi!” he shouts. “What the hell is all this, aa? I don’t have the money to feed two black holes!”

“G-Gin-san, Katsura-san can’t really help that...”

The long-haired woman sniffs. “Can you believe that? His indecency?”

“Tch, you think you can talk about indecent, like that? I know that’s not a pillow, but what the hell are those?”

Zura blinks, looking up from the devoted feast Kagura and she are attending. After a moment, she queries, “Mango fruit cups?”

“Not those, damnit! I’m glad you’re finally accepting your role as a woman, but you need to stop playing weird games with that gorilla, oi! Get those out of there -- ”

“What are you -- don’t -- !”

Of course, by the time Gintoki has yanked the top of Zura’s yukata apart, it’s already too late to stop him. The whole room freezes.

“GIN-SAN,” screams Shinpachi, blood shooting out of his nose like a rocket. “THOSE ARE AREN’T PILLOWS!”

Zura flushes a deep crimson, hands flying up to cover the (truthfully, rather small) chest normally bound tight. Femininity has not dulled the amount of scorn she can fit into seven words. “GET OFF OF ME, YOU DISGUSTING BASTARD.”

“Mama Zura’s udders are getting big for the baby,” explains Kagura helpfully. “Being pregnant is great! Once I get knocked up, I’m gonna have boobs out to here, yup!”

“THAT’S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, YOU’D FALL FORWARD ALL THE TIME,” yells Shinpachi, who seems to have gone deaf from the pure, adolescent shock. Gintoki would round on him for being a perverted protege when he’s supposed to be pure of heart and soul and so on, but really, he’s far too busy plugging his own gushing nose.

There is, also to consider, the violence. He trips backwards as he avoids the vicious lashing kick Zura deals out. Surprisingly, what comes out of his mouth is not “Try it again, shitty wig” or “You kick like a girl playing hopskotch,” but “H-hey, you’re going to rattle him up!”

Yukata primly readjusted, Zura pauses. A dubious glance is cast at Kagura mimicking Zura’s kicks on Shinpachi, and the resulting shouting match. Sadaharu, stirred into a grumpy wakefulness from the noise, bites the first thing he sees -- Gintoki’s arm.

“He should probably get used it,” she responds, over the screaming.

FIC: gintama - embarrassing

oopsipuked — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:29:29 GMT

Title: embarrassing
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: G
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: Is yours, but I'd like to borrow it, if you'd be so kind.
Notes: Japanese slice-of-life AU, Chiro's first day of school. Here mostly for archival. For antimonial, ages ago.

Cross-posted at ginzura.

"Stop hovering," mutters Gintoki. "You're going to embarrass him."

"Shut up," responds Zura, helping him put on his rainboots. "Do you have your bento box, Chiro-kun?"

"He has his damn lunch! Why do you keep asking!" snaps Gintoki, before he can respond. He’s used to this; Gintoki and Zura talk a lot, all the time. Chiro likes listening. As he stands, the white-haired man hands him his Otters 11 rucksack. Otters 11 is his second favourite manga [One Park is his first favourite].

"Just to be sure," responds the shorter man primly, straightening and holding out his raincoat. Chiro puts his arms into it. "If he did not eat his lunch, his stomach would start making noises in front of everyone, and he would be known as Gurgles-kun for the rest of the year."

"What kind of - "

"Where's his umbrella?"

"It's not going to rain anymore today," Gintoki dismisses, and then bends to help Chiro with the last button on his raincoat. Chiro knows he could have gotten it on his own, maybe, but Gintoki likes to help.

"Go look in the kitchen, I think I saw it there..."

"Oi, can you not hear me under that wig? I said it's not going to rain anymore today!"

Zura opens the front door, tsking. "It is, look at those clouds. He needs his umbrella."

"Ana-chan wouldn't lie to me."

A disbelieving snort answers him. "As if you actually pay attention to the weather forecast."

"I've memorized every word to ever come from Ana-chan's beautiful lips, thank you."

"She's half a decade younger than you. You sound like a creepy old man. You’re going to embarrass Chiro-kun."

“You know what’s really embarrassing? Aa? A talking wig!”

“Go get the umbrella. We’ll be outside.” Zura takes his hand, leading Chiro away to the sound of Gintoki’s grumbling acquiescence. Chiro’s hand doesn’t feel as small in Zura’s as it does in Gintoki’s. It’s probably because Zura’s hand is always writing, so it gets a good work out. Gintoki doesn’t write very much, he mostly just makes big, sprawling X’s in red ink.

“Make sure to use the boy’s bathroom,” Zura is saying blankly above him. “It has a little person in pants on it. The door with the little person in a skirt is the girl’s bathroom. It is not a kilt, it is a skirt. Don’t forget.”

He nods.

“And pay attention in class, even if the teacher is boring. Try focusing on a distinctive spot on the teacher’s face. Ah, for example, if they have a large nose, that is a perfect target. Focus on the nose!”

Flatly, from behind them, “Are you talking about Jackie again? Zura, are you really talking about Jackie?”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura! And I’m not talking about Jackie, shut up!”

Gintoki hands him his umbrella. “Chiro-kun, don’t listen to him. You don’t have to listen to anyone who isn’t a real man, who commands your respect instantly with his masculine bearing.”

“What kind of advice is that? What if his teacher is a woman?”

“Women can be real men, too.”

“What?”

“You know, like you - ow! Asshole! Chiro-kun, remember, violence doesn’t solve anything! Don’t take after Zura and his reckless aggression!”

“Katsura! I’ll show you aggression, moron! And stop shouting, you’re going to embarrass him!”

The bus rumbles down the street. Chiro shoulders his rucksack by the otter-strap, looking up at his guardians. Side by side, Zura’s lips suddenly thin, and Gintoki crosses his arms, glaring at approaching vehicle.

Zura squats and fusses with his hood, saying quietly, “Call home if you need to, okay? We’ll be here.”

“He’s not a sissy,” mutters Gintoki gruffly. “It’s just the first day of school. Don’t embarrass him.”

In the street, the bus rumbles to a stop. Other kids peer at him from the windows, and the door opens to reveal a bus driver with a friendly smile.

Gintoki drops a hand to ruffle his hair heavily. “You’ll be fine, aa? You won’t need to call home. But you can. If you need to.”

“His hair doesn’t need to be messier,” says Zura dully. Still squatting, he gives Chiro a tight hug. When he releases him, he looks at him very seriously. “You have your bento-box, ah?”

“He has his goddamn lunch! Let him get on the bus! You’re embarrassing him!”

“Stop shouting! What kind of adult stands there shouting on the lawn! You’re embarrassing him!”

Chiro gets on the bus.

The friendly-looking driver chuckles sympathetically. “Parents can be kind of embarrassing, huh, kid?”

Looking back through the closing door, he watches Gintoki trying not to look at the bus, kicking the dirt of the path, and Zura fiercely wiping the back of his hand across his eyes.

He gives them a blank wave. They both wave back.

It’s not embarrassing to be loved, really.

“I don’t think so,” he replies to the driver, taking a seat.

FIC: gintama - BINGO CARDS

oopsipuked — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:10:04 GMT

FAN BINGO CARDS
SOURCE: fanbingo @ dreamwidth
RULES IN USE:

* YOU decide what squares the content fills. There is no Prompts Police.
* All pairings are welcome.
* Creations can be any length
* The Wild Card is a prompt from the list that you did not get or some other addition.
* Content created for other challenges can be used towards your bingo.
* Content started prior to receiving your card, but posted after, can be used towards your bingo.

BINGO CARD#1:
GENERATED: by first_quadrant
FANDOM: Gintama
NOTES: To be posted & linked separately.

BINGO CARD#2:
GENERATED: by YOU
FANDOM: Gintama
NOTES: To be posted & linked separately.

X

BINGO CARD#3:
GENERATED: by YOU
FANDOM: Gintama
NOTES: To be posted & linked separately.

X

ICONS: with technology how it is these days, anybody can be an artist, unfortunately

oopsipuked — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 11:40:25 GMT

♫ GINTAMA FANART [55]
♪ ♪ ♪ Gintoki/Katsura [55]

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

Preview:

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35

36	37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44	45

46	47	48	49	50

51	52	53	54	55

✖ ART =/= MINE
✖ If it's yours and you want credit/for it to be taken down, just let me know!
✖ Commenting if you're snagging makes me do handstands
✖ Credit goes to actuallyfoaming/oopsipuked if you're of the crediting nature

fic: gintama - creature comforts

oopsipuked — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:36:42 GMT

Title: creature comforts
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: Is yours, but I'd like to borrow it, if you'd be so kind.
Notes: Canon shenanigans. A birthday gift so belated that's it's almost a Christmas gift, what even is this? For antimonial, for being insane in only the best ways.

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

The morning begins as any other might. First, Gintoki spends close to fifteen minutes scratching his balls. He then ventures carefully outside of his bedroom, and receives a flying kick in the stomach from Kagura for not having breakfast prepared promptly enough (past experience has taught him no such time actually exists).

After falsely directing Kagura to the empty cupboards (oi, if you were looking for Dragon Balls you’d never see Shenron), to stall her until he can wake up enough to go near any kitchenware that has the potential to burn skin off, he puts away his futon and brushes his teeth. Somewhere between feeding Sadaharu (his foot) and feeding Sadaharu (his actual goddamn food), he remembers today is recycling day.

He then receives another flying kick, this time in the ass, for lying to a little girl, you should be ashamed of yourself you dirty old man, you’re the reason cellular phones KACHHHK when they take pictures now, ahuh. After screaming for fifteen minutes – that is, after calmly explaining why perverts on trains have nothing to do with breakfast, and how no one would ever KACHHHK at a stupid gorilla-girl anyway, he finishes gathering up the recycling, digging the last bottle out of his ribcage, where Kagura had left it lodged.

The trip down the steps to the trash can, as usual, is the most relaxing part of his entire day. However, the moment his foot hits the street, a horrible wail comes from inside the snack bar. It might be saying something about rent, and lousy reprobates, but that’s probably just how Eldritch gibberish sounds to poor, mortal ears.

He deposits the recycling into the proper bin, and flees back up the stairs before the screaming hag-monster can catch up with him and suck his soul out through his nose, or whatever demons from the abyss occupy their time with. In a brief interlude to the bedroom, he gets dressed, fingers clumsy on belts and pants, but quick on the kimono. Cautiously re-emerging, he manages to dodge the third kick, but gloats over it a second too long, and the uppercut in the sternum catches him hard enough to send him right into the kitchen (where he belongs, yup!). He scrounges up some breakfast for the two of them, with second-thirds, also known as fourths, to spare (thank Jump the gorilla still thinks egg over rice is the height of gourmet).

After putting the bowls in the sink, Kagura flops onto the couch to pat her stomach and complain about bloating, and how tough a lot girls have in life, ahuh. Gintoki slumps into his desk chair, turning the TV on while quietly nursing stomach, ass, and sternum bruises. He then tugs close the ‘incoming’ box of jobs on his desk, idly flipping through the long-standing ones, launching into a long-winded tirade about how the true measure of a Yorozuya was his commitment to doing all jobs that needed doing and ignores Kagura’s returning comments about the true measure of desperation. As he finishes making his point, he climbs up onto the desk, pulls down his pants, and takes a crap in the ‘incoming’ box. He then scratches his boots backwards along the wood several times, trips over his pulled-down pants, and falls off the desk.

Kagura stopped paying attention sometime during the third word of said tirade, and asks for the remote when Gin-chan is done going number 4 (which is like a number 2, only double the order).

However, it’s about this moment that Gintoki realizes something is not quite right.

-+-+-+-

“And then he went number 4 on the desk,” finishes Kagura, chewing a fresh packet of sukonbu with her mouth open.

“I see,” says Zura, completely straight-faced. “What is number 4? Is that a secret technique?”

“Huh, kind of – ”

The door of the bathroom slams open, and Gintoki emerges, toweling his hair off, dressed without his kimono.

“See, number 4’s have a splash zone,” begins the girl in explanation, and Gintoki picks up the nearest object, winging it hard at her head. She’s still looking at Zura when she bats the remote clean through the table.

“Zura Go Home,” he shouts, as if it were the other man’s full title, and it should damn well be, for all the times he’s damn well said it.

“It’s not Zura Go Home, it’s Katsura. And ah, I would,” the other samurai responds. “But I believe…” A deliberately meaningful pause, like they’re in some 2-bit manga or something, “…we are not so different, you and I.”

“I don’t care about what you shit on last week, yesterday, or today, get out of my house,” Gintoki grits, grabbing the other’s haori roughly, dragging him to his feet. For his part, Katsura hisses, loudly, and then rakes his nails across his face.

A long few moments pass in silence, as a line of cuts slowly bud on Gintoki’s cheek. Eventually, he asks, “…Does it look like Shanks’?”

“No,” Zura retorts, a bit miserably.

“That’s too bad,” the perm responds. He then feels the back of his neck, and finds every single hair standing on end. “Oh,” he hums, and then launches his entire body into Katsura, yowling.

-+-+-+-

“And then he went ‘HHYYOOOWWLLLRRRRRRRRRAAARRR’ and tackled Zura into the TV,” Kagura finishes, chewing a fresh packet of chips with her mouth open.

“It’s my day off,” says Shinpachi, completely straight-faced. “I don’t understand why you felt like you had to call me, Kagura-chan. Gin-san and Katsura-san fight all the time.”

The redhead nods, but then her face scrunches up in confusion as she asks, “That’s true, yup, but do they usually try to pee on eachother, too?”

Shinpachi looks across the room at the fully grown two men, sitting with their backs facing one another, arms crossed and scowling. Katsura’s kimono is ripped and disheveled, and his hair is sticking up in all directions. Gintoki’s nose is bleeding, and there are bite marks all along one forearm.

Shinpachi realizes it’s no longer his day off. “Close your mouth when you chew, Kagura-chan,” he sighs, rolling up his sleeves (he has to start somewhere).

-+-+-+-

They figure out the problem when Shinpachi makes lunch, and the sound of the can opener results in both men standing in the kitchen on either side of the boy, staring with such intensity that the megane gets the shakes.

“It seems the curse of the cat’s burial mound has had some lingering side-effects,” Zura pronounces. “I had suspected as much, nyaaa.”

“You weren’t doing that before we figured it out,” deadpans Gintoki. “Don’t start doing it now. Nobody’s fooled. You just sound creepy.”

Shinpachi starts, “Gin-san, I think – ”

“Did anyone say you could stop turning the handle?”

“Open it properly or I’ll open the backs of your calves.”

The boy’s shakes intensify, and Gintoki says, “Maa, sorry about that, Pattsuan. Catlike animal instincts are taking over. Cats are real bastards. Dogs are too, though. And gorillas. Don’t ever get pets, Pattsuan, not even to impress high school girls in the park. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“Aa, I also apologise, Shinpachi-dono, nyaa. Purr, purr. I’m very cute, so please don’t be angry with me.”

“K-Katsura-san, that’s creepy when you’re actually human.”

“Open the can, not your mouth.”

“What is this, oi, rocket science? Is there anyone who can do jobs properly but me?”

“Gin-chan, I figured that out when you took a big poop in the inbox!” yells Kagura from the living room. Now that they know the problem, she’s become uninterested (we did a bodyswap episode already, ahuh, these writers are such hacks).

-+-+-+-

Around 1 PM, Gintoki starts clawing the furniture in anxiety. Zura joins him, after repeatedly trying to pet Sadaharu and repeatedly getting upset at his proximity to the dog. Sadaharu remains unimpressed with the events of the day, and seems to be relieved when Kagura takes him out for a long walk, at Shinpachi’s request. The boy goes downstairs to seek the advice of an adult that hasn’t, in the last 24-hours, threatened to pee in his laundry.

“I used to be a respectable man,” moans Gintoki, scratching at the thread in the cushion. “I used to be a dignified businessman.”

“No you didn’t,” replies Zura, fully serious, even as he digs his fingers into upholstery. “We’ve overcome worse than this, Gintoki.”

“Shut up,” groans the taller samurai. He watches the other for a few moments, and then knocks his head against the couch arm. “I’m jealous that you’re better at destroying my furniture than I am. I should be destroying you in retaliation, oi.”

“I understand how you feel. I arched my back and hissed at the Shinsengumi today.”

“You don’t sound that sorry about it.”

“Aa? I’m not. Why would I be?”

“That – nevermind, it’s not worth it. Whatever. At least you’ll land on your feet when they chase you off rooftops now, I guess. ”

“What is that supposed to mean? I always land on my feet!”

“Haa? Are you sure you don’t land on your head? Because that’s what it seems like.”

“Shut up. Do you want to get bitten to death?”

“You shut up! And don’t steal lines from other manga series so blatantly, we’ll get sued! Why don’t you go lick your shit-crusted asshole!”

“Why don’t you go chase that irritating ladybug in the kitchen!”

“I tried, and for your information, it’s too fast to catch, you insufferable bastard!”

“I also found it too fast to catch, you loud-mouthed fool!”

“—Aa?”

“…Aa.”

“Oh.”

“Mm. It has been a strange day,” says Zura calmly, followed by a huge rrrrrip. Without missing a beat, he asks, “Do you want to play with this fluff I just pulled out?”

“Yes,” whines Gintoki. “God damnit, yes.”

-+-+-+-

Downstairs, Shinpachi confesses something to Otose. “We’ve never had cats,” he admits, “because my sister doesn’t get along with them. …She thinks they’re ugly and annoying, and the way they lick themselves grosses her out.”

“Racist,” spits Catherine viciously, flicking ash. “What kind of girl doesn’t like cats, anyway, hohhh? She’s really just a femme-gorilla, isn’t she?”

Shinpachi goes on haltingly. “A-anyway, Otose-san, I don’t really know what to do. They aren’t going to be like that forever, are they?”

“Probably not,” the older woman drawls. “These things usually have a habit of working themselves out. I don’t see why it should be a big fuss.”

“You don’t see why two grown men acting like cats because they were once cursed to be cats for going to the bathroom on a cat burial mound should be a big fuss,” responds Shinpachi, voice draining of inflection. “You think that’s the kind of thing that usually works itself out.”

“Otose-san, you should have that freeloader fixed while he’s like this. Maybe he’ll start being a better housecat and pay his rent on time, hu hu!”

“Nobody’s fixing anyone!” squawks the teenager. “All I want to know is what to do until they’re normal again! They’re destroying everything and they keep fighting!”

The oldest woman shrugs, saying again, “It’ll work itself out, Shinpachi. Don’t worry so much.” The youth begins to wonder at the collection of adults in life, when she adds, “Besides, the midday sun’s coming up.”

“Oh, right." A pause, and the boy blinks behind his glasses. He then goes to clarify. "I’m sorry, what?”

-+-+-+-

What Shinpachi sees when he returns to the Yorozuya makes him blush bright red, back up, and backtrack downstairs very quickly.

“See?” drawls the landlady, without looking up from her crossword. “I told you it would work itself out.”

“Haha, right,” laughs Shinpachi nervously.

-+-+-+-

Gintoki wakes up when the door slides open, lifting his head out of Zura’s armpit. “Whussit?” he mumbles. He can’t seem to think straight, as if he’s been sapped of all his energy, like that time on TV whats-his-name was exposed to whats-it-called and his powers stopped doing whatever-it-was. That guy, he feels just like him, probably.

“Shurrp,” mutters Zura, curling up into his side, tugging him back down. His hair is soft and comfy, and it feels nice to nuzzle his face against it. The sun coming in the window feels nice, too. Gintoki wants to lie here on the floor with Zura forever, or at least until someone opens another can. That would just be so nice.

The ear-piercing scream that suddenly splits the air is not nice.

“THEY’RE DEAD! THEY’RE DEEEEEEEAD! SHINPACHIIIIIII! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN! THEY WERE SO YOUNG! THEY HAD SO MUCH AHEAD OF THEM!”

Kagura falls to her knees, crying. “GIN-CHAN WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE BREAKFAST FOR ME TOMORROW! WHO’S GOING TO MAKE MY BREAKFAST TOMORROW, SHINPACHIIIII?”

In fact, it’s horrible on a lot of levels.

-+-+-+-

It’s been a long, long day, and to be honest, Gintoki is relieved when Shinpachi leaves for home, taking Kagura and Sadaharu in tow (the first exiled for trying to groom them and almost snapping Gintoki’s neck, the second for making Katsura burst into frustrated tears). He’d be ecstatic if the stupid wig next to him had also found someplace else to be, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, not even after Gintoki deploys the most subtle of coy hints.

“Oi, why are you still here, get the hell out,” he hints, coyly and subtly.

“I don’t want to,” responds Zura, sounding about as drained as Gintoki feels. His head falls back onto the couch. “My catlike obstinacy has led me to this decision. I would actually like to go home, but since I know you would like me to, I physically cannot fight the urge to disobey.”

Gintoki would argue, but he knows all too well that it’s true. He’s only telling Zura to leave because he thinks Zura wants to stay, after all (he chooses to ignore the question of whether or not this is actually a lingering cat-curse effect). He says instead, “Why would anyone ever get a cat?”

The rebel shrugs. “They’re cute. They’re soft and have small paws and noses, and when they’re hungry, they mewl, and it’s very endearing.”

“So what? It’s like having a baby because it’s cute. One day, no matter how cute it is, it’s gonna grow up into a teenager that doesn’t respect you and intentionally aims to spite you. And it’ll probably throw up on the rug, too. …Are you worried about licking yourself once you’re alone?”

“…A little.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

Silence, almost a stranger to the Yorozuya, reigns briefly. It’s not unwelcome, though, and Gintoki finds himself feeling calm for the first time since he took a dump on his inbox (abrupt sunbeam-coma notwithstanding). Even after all these years, with all that they’ve been through, they’ve been through most of it together – hell, they went through that stupid cat-curse shit together, didn’t they? It made sense that they should go through the cat-curse hangover together, too. It’s sort of comforting, in a fucked-up, stupid way that involves wigheads providing something other than headaches.

“You’re purring,” Zura tells him, suddenly.

“Shut up,” he responds gruffly. “That was my stomach. I’m just hungry.”

“Do you want to order sushi?”

Before he knows what he’s doing, or why he’s doing it, he’s rubbing his face against Zura’s cheek, hugging him tightly. Of course he wants sushi. Of course he does. He wants sushi almost as much as he wants to rub his face against his m – against this stupid asshole, who just happens to know exactly what he wants right now, probably by some freak coincidence.

“Don’t say anything,” he tries, but of course Zura isn’t listening, because the rebel says at practically the same time, “Are you marking me?”

“What? Maybe. No. I don’t know. Shut up. Would you rather I pissed on you?”

“This is – ah, it’s strange, but it’s not bad.” The smaller man hesitates, but leans his face into the pressing. “…Not as bad as being peed on. Should I do it to you too?”

“What? You can’t pee on me!”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant – you know.” He returns the rubbing, pale skin of his cheek soft against Gintoki’s jaw. His neck is soft, too, but the muscles under it are taut and strong. And the smaller man still smells good, like he’s just showered, even though the Yorozuya knows for a fact he’s spent the last few hours of his day running from the police, sleeping on dusty floors, and threatening teenagers.

The man finds himself, stupidly, flustering. “Ah. Right. Fine. Okay. As long as nobody’s going to pee on anybody.”

After a few moments, Gintoki adds, a bit smugly, “You’re purring.”

“No I’m not,” the rebel responds, flushing deeply. “I was humming. You’re the one that’s purring.”

“Purring? I’m just hungry, I said, oi. Why are you humming like an idiot instead of ordering my sushi, aa?”

“Your sushi? Does that mean you’re paying?”

“Well, since I don’t think they accept big, hacked-up hairballs as a form of payment, you probably won’t be able to cover it…”

“Don’t joke about that, you disgusting bastard!”

-+-+-+-

Outside of Snack Bar Otose, the patroness leans next to the window, smoke curling from her cigarette. She can hear bickering above her, insults being traded like the sharpening of claws. It’s funny when strays find themselves together, really – and she would know, having looked after so many by now.

Sure, there’s always a lot of fur flying and yowling noise, but in the end, that's not what it's about. Strays don’t come to trust and love easily, after all; it’s hard for them to come by families who’ll tolerate their bad manners. Of course, only another stray would understand that hissing and spitting is just what strays do. At the end of the day, after the scratches have been traded, even strays just like to settle down together in their own brand of ragtag comfort and familiarity.

In those kinds of cases, Otose has found – without a lot of fuss, things usually have a habit of working themselves out.

fic: gintama - grew into a hope

oopsipuked — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:06:10 GMT

Title: grew into a hope
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura, briefest inklings of Takasugi/Katsura.
Disclaimer: Not any more mine than the internet I'm stealing is. I am nothing but a thief, ladies and gentlemen.
Feedback: I will also steal all of your feedback, thank you very much.
Notes: Completely inspired by and title taken from "The Call" by Regina Spektor. An in-between moment of the war, where beginnings and ends can't help but nod at each other across the street.

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

The weight on his knee settles lightly, like a leaf onto crystallized snow. Gintoki looks down from the small, furred mammal he’s roasting with cold, clumsy fingers to the slightly larger, furred mammal making its dumb wig comfortable against his thigh.

It’s an imposition, of course, not to mention an insult. Did Zura think so little of him that he was reduced to inanimate object status, and treated like a futon or a pillow? What if he had to get up and fight wild animals away from the stupid coma-wig? This is the first time he’s seen Zura sleep in three days, after all; even a whole pack of howling wolves, shooting flaming arrows from their asses, wouldn’t wake him at this point.

Even more pressing, and even more inconsiderate, what if he had to get up to piss, huh? It would serve the damn presumptive bastard right if he just hauled off and pissed into that ugly hair. He glances down at it, as if to pick out a target area, and then looks quickly back up; the long strands of black have pooled down between his crossed legs, and the sight of it sends an awkward spike of heat through his spine (that has nothing to do with the crackling fire before him).

It’s not awkward at all, actually, it’s totally explainable. He’s just hungry, and these measly rabbits and pheasants aren’t enough, so of course his body would get hungry for something more readily available. He stops that train of thought right there, because if he starts thinking about how available it might be (or just how hungry he might be for it), he’s going to have to explain more to himself than he’d like.

Hormones, he thinks resolutely, and returns his thoughts to skewered rabbit. Hormones and boredom.

As if summoned by their respective vices, a familiar laugh sounds from the brush, followed by a sneering buzz. The sword pressed against the outside of Gintoki’s (other) thigh is left untouched.

“Ahahaha, I think I still have a shot,” Sakamoto is chuckling, although he sounds a bit more desperate than usual (if it’s even possible). “Maybe she finds nervous stomachs cute!”

“Even if she did,” drawls the shorter samurai, “she wouldn’t like them all over her lap.” A snicker. “Which you’re definitely not getting near now.”

“Hahaha, at least I got near a lap at all!”

“Like I care,” huffs Takasugi. “I just wanted to drink. Who has time for giggling idiots like those?” The two emerge into the firelight, conversation continuing. “Then again, giggling idiots of a feather would flock together. I have more important things to concern myself with.”

“You mean sake? I can’t pick between women and sake, ahahaha, that’s just mean!” The lanky samurai squats beside the fire, hedging with disarming, pointed cheerfulness, “Can’t I pick between women and men? Ahahaha, for instance, I want to sleep with pretty girls, but you can go fuck yourself – ”

“Oi,” interrupts Gintoki, not entirely sure why his voice sounds hushed. “Can’t you two talk about your numerous failings a bit quieter? I’m glad you’re becoming more aware of them, but some people are trying to relax, and I don’t know who could relax with those annoying voices in their ears.”

Both men glance over at him, and it’s Takasugi who grins first, glancing down at his lapful. “Looks like you’ve picked between men and women too, naa?”

“I’ve picked rabbit,” deadpans the permed man, unruffled. He pulls his hare from the fire, teeth digging into the hot gristle. “Only because you’d be too stringy to eat, Shortsuke, and who knows how many diseases that idiot’s picked up.”

Takasugi settles back a bit (although there’s still a tension there that Gintoki’s become used to ignoring). “Not many, if tonight’s any judge. But not for lack of trying,” the black-haired samurai returns.

“Hahaha, can we talk about what Kintoki caught instead? I’m hungry, ahahaha.”

“Catch your own damned dinner, you bastard!” Despite his grumbling, however, there is enough to share, and it’s quickly found among the campsite (keen eyes, hunger has granted them all).

“Zura shot these,” Takasugi notes as he turns over the skinned and plucked prizes. Competitive from the start, he is only growing more so as they age (some aspects of it maybe more concerning than others, as that eye catches his a bit too sharply again). “You couldn’t have caught anything without traps, and you can’t make traps without Sakamoto’s help...”

“Aaaa? So what? Am I getting graded? Should I return the favor? Your beer gut gets an A plus.”

“Ahahaha, congratulations, Shin-kun! Hey, that expression is really intense, is it your first one?”

A short grunt interrupts both Takasugi’s sharp retort and Gintoki’s affirmation, and all three men quiet for a moment, Sakamoto impaling the pheasant and rabbit. As he passes the fowl to Takasugi, the quiet remains (it has been three days since they saw Zura sleep, too).

It’s only after they’ve all torn into their dinners that anyone speaks up again. “Hahaha, who’s got watch tonight? Is it me? Ahaha, I’m so full, I don’t think I can stand up…”

“That’s because you ate my seconds, you piece of shit,” growls Gintoki, pitching his skewer towards the laughing asshole. It gets briefly stuck in that ridiculous afro, and he feels quite vindicated.

“I’ll take it,” shrugs Takasugi, getting to his feet. Neither Sakamoto nor he speaks up to dissuade him – they’ve found its better to give him something to do (than let his mood turn to anger from the monotony, as it has all too often recently). By the time short, quick steps have receded into the crunch and rustle of fallen leaves, Sakamoto has splayed himself before the fire like a cat before a hearth.

“Haaah, I was thinking you should have come tonight, Kintoki, but this is nice, too, huh?”

“Aa? My name is Gintoki, you stupid idiot. Shut up.” The permed man rolls his shoulders, hands feeling a bit lost without their task. He ignores the hair in his lap (which looks soft and welcoming to the touch, if he moved to find out).

He also ignores the fact that he agrees with Sakamoto, saying instead, “The last time I went drinking with your dumb asses, those supposedly peace-loving monks almost killed me because of it.”

Blue eyes close, and the other man hums, as always, in good humour. “Ahaha, oh, yeah. You still remember that?”

“I still have the scars, yeah!”

“Hahaha, I guess the saying goes, what’s a few more scars at this point?” While it’s a saying Zura or Takasugi might indulge in, it’s not one that Sakamoto usually would. Gintoki glances up briefly from it, but Sakamoto’s eyes are still closed, those weird blue skies closed and indiscernible.

He grunts, “I guess,” returning his eyes to the man in his lap as Sakamoto rolls over.

“You should get some rest too, Kintoki,” the other’s voice comes, impertinent and upbeat. “Nitamura-san told me we might be moving again tomorrow. Hahaha, if it were up to me, we’d just keep moving! Stopping to fight all the time is really hard work.” What the other means is more obvious because he doesn’t laugh, and Gintoki says nothing, again because he agrees. It is hard work – it’s hard work to watch their friends die, to stay alive themselves, but to actually live in the small, quiet, campfire-coloured spaces between battles.

It’s hard work most of all to be changed; to wake up to his duty as a samurai, to fight on in the hours of the day like a demon, and to feel the stirrings of a lover at night (roused by Zura’s exhausted sleep-sighs). He doesn’t allow himself to long for the days when he was sensei’s wild child, when his best friends were only that, and when miso soup spilled over homework presented one of their biggest problems. Change is unavoidable, coming on and on like a crushing wave of a typhoon, or the ever-growing hoard of enemies before them.

Takasugi’s restlessness is growing, too, and Sakamoto’s preoccupations, and Zura’s weariness. They probably won’t have these moments, in the gory and indefinable future, when the four of them can meet so peacefully around a fire. The imposition Zura’s slumbering head presents is nothing compared to the imposition he’d feel if it weren’t there.

With Takasugi looking for nothing but monsters and Sakamoto seeing nothing but dreams, he curls over, presses cool lips to the careless tumble of black hair. It’s a quiet promise, to never say goodbye to this despite the changes he is powerless to stop, a hope and a duty that he'll always hold. It's a promise that he alone is privy to, that won't change or be changed.

Or so he thinks, until Zura turns over, faun-hide eyes opening, and – even warmer than campfire heat – smiles.

FST: GINTAMA - calleth you, cometh i.

oopsipuked — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 10:56:12 GMT

♬DOWNLOAD IT♬

DISC 1: KATSURA
WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME - florence + the machine
between the two of us
oh, my love, don’t forsake me
take what the water gave me

lay me down, let the only sound
be the overflow
pockets full of stones

and don’t
the world’s a beast of a burden
you’ve been holding on a long time
and all this longing
and the shields are left to rust
that’s what the water gave us

THE PEOPLE WHO RAISED ME - gregory & the hawk
i've been the wild one
i've run through the streets and i've suffered
i've been the quiet one
sequestered and smothered

but i won't mind no time spent to save me
just trying to be good to the people who raised me

it's been a strong year
with a bright, bright sun
from here the past looks cold
and the future seems a promising one

SUNLIGHT IN A JAR- the lucksmiths
we've never been much chop
at all that sensual stuff
one of us always seems to stop
before the other's had enough
like a self-help manual that's been written in Braille
it seems the more that we touch
the more we learn about our failings

I'm struck speechless by the nape of your neck
but your requests and suggestions have a similar effect
a litany of prettiness and pettiness, too
I reckon every second second
we come up with something new

I tried to write an opera for us
but I didn't get that far
'cause trying to sum you up in song
is like catching sunlight in a jar

complex, completely credible love
the kind that is made, not handed to you from above
is difficult to talk about and harder to write
like the rhythm of a pulse, or the contours of firelight

LOVER OF THE LIGHT - mumford & sons
in the middle of the night, I may watch you go
there'll be no value in the strength of walls that I have grown
there'll be no comfort in the shade of the shadows thrown
but I'll be yours if you'll be mine

stretch out my life and pick the seams out
take what you like, but close my ears and eyes
watch me crumble over and over

so love the one you hold
and I’ll be your goal
to have and to hold
a lover of the light

THE WHOLE WORLD & YOU - tally hall
there’s kings in distant cities
who rule their persons and make them happy and
we won’t forget about all the servisory congratulatory
even the animals know that
something’s brewing and they’re all cooing
‘cause in the end I’d like to say
no one’s better than you

I hope you’re happy now that I’ve revealed the truth
I’ve even written this whole song about you
and not about me
(and not about me!)

please don’t just laugh and clap right now
this is serious I’m not delirious
I’ve waited very patiently just to let you know
who should run this show
‘cause we all know these are the facts
nothing to retract nothing too abstract
concluding in this song I’ll say
no one’s better than you

ALL FOR SWINGING YOU AROUND - the new pornographers

exploding international,
the wind did howl
the sky above was thick with rings of smoke,
and clouds

and hanging on the bleeding end of conscious,
who's this?
was there anything I missed,
as far as you know?

and off your feet,
all the love you found, spinning 'round
spinning round, spinning round

we're twisting incognito with no time,
can't talk, can't tell
if this is fantasy or culture shock
or remnants of a golden age that's near mint, unplayed
or a welcome overstayed beneath the lightshow

DISC 2: GINTOKI
INVINCIBLE - ok go
when they finally come to destroy the earth
they’ll have to go through you first
and I bet they wont be expecting that
when they finally come to destroy the earth
they’ll have to deal with you first
and my money says they won’t know about the
thousand-Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes

invincible, oh oh oh
invincible

MELEE - the war
on that day you'll find ambitions don't lie here anymore
the one you love has gone and settled the score
what more could you ask for now

it's so good to be alive in such a wonderful year
to be alive and see the end of your fear
with peace in your ear 'cause you're on your way home
and all this time we walk the line through pain and giving in to you
but now it's gone so we'll move on and know that this is not the end

on that simple night when we've all lost our sight
you believed in what I said
from those cursed beginnings to those blessed, blessed ends
in between we've found our way to live

REEL BIG FISH - another f.u. song
fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck......living,
fuck dying, fuck laughing, fuck crying,
fuck this song, but mostly Fuck You
fuck love, hate and friends
fuck following trends,
fuck this song, can’t wait till it ends

fuck everything, but fuck you the most
fuck everyone, but fuck you the most
with a big rusty pole or a splintery post
yeah, fuck you the most, fuck you

LUDO - whipped cream
I want it with whipped cream on it
baby, gimme, gimme, gimme your love
'cause I'm hungry, you can't keep it from me
Lord knows you got more than enough

baby I, I'm fiendin', I know you got your reasons
for keeping it to yourself
but you got plenty honey -- I don't think it's funny
gotta give it give it give it or else
I might just lose my mind!

I think I'm entitled to your body, got a
little problem with personal space, and I've been
poundin' the jaeger, my breath and behavior
have been driving the patrons away

CAKE - love you madly
I don't want to wonder
if this is a blunder
I don't want to worry whether
we're gonna stay together
'till we die

I don't want to think about it
I don't want to talk about it
when I kiss your lips
I want to sink down to the bottom
of the sea

I want to love you madly
I want to love you now, yeah

STARS - today will be better, i swear!
when you can't get up to the cold morning light
but you don't get to sleep in, still dreaming
and everybody only wants to fight
you're up against never being right
when the worries of the world hold your feet
and there's little left to believe in

today, today, is gonna be a better one
there's nothing more to take in
going wrong

old pale memories of someone you knew
keep crawling through the back of your mind (stealing time)

in the daylight you're crossing all your wires
you never knew just how to put out a fire

DISC 1/2: BONUS
CALLETH YOU, COMETH I - the ark
and I know how it was last time, and how bitterly it always ends
and I know we were both too young to know what real love would be like
and I know that our communication didn't always work out right

I know all that so well
but I also do know this:
calleth you, cometh I

and that's just how it is
and how it's always been
it's where my reason stops
and something else comes in
I know it doesn't make sense, but still
calleth you, cometh I

INVINCIBLE - muse
follow through
make your dreams come true
don't give up the fight
you will be all right
'cause there's no one like you
in the universe

don't be afraid
what your mind conceals
you should make a stand
stand up for what you believe
and tonight we can truly say
together we're invincible

do it on your own
makes no difference to me
what you leave behind
what you choose to be
and whatever they say
your soul's unbreakable

SCISSOR SISTERS - might tell you tonight
when you're quiet, but your eyes
are saying everything I need to know
I want to burrow like a sparrow
dodging alley cats and whiskers
why do we talk in whispers?
is it painful hearing voices ring
so early in the morning?

just wear your sweaters in the winter
'cause I wouldn't want you to get cold
I hope that we're together when we're old
I would have sold all my possessions
never took piano lessons
but baby you're a grand
and I will learn to play the good notes
and tune you up the best I can

and I just might say it tonight
I just might say it tonight
I just might tell you tonight
that I love you
and you should stay all my life

♫ ♪ ♫

Collaboration with antimonial, who provided most of the Disc 2 songs. Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama. Commenting if you're snagging is appreciated. 8)

fic: gintama - summer science

oopsipuked — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:34:02 GMT

Title: summer science
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Notes: A very belated fic for ferrrox, who gave me the prompt "Biology." Another modern AU GinZura, this time young and innocent (and a bit stupid, too).

Cross-posted at ginzura and gintama.

It’s too wet, and uncomfortably hot, and everything smells faintly of tubers. Katsura Kotarou is not, in fact, exploring a misty lost-world jungle, but is instead having his mouth explored by one Sakata Gintoki’s tongue.

Really, the whole thing is appalling – Gintoki is breathing hard into his mouth, and his breath smells like what he ate for breakfast (porridge with too much sugar). He keeps being blinded by his own hair, because the other boy had tried to pull out his hair tie, but had gotten it caught in summer-tangled strands, and succeeding only in mussing it further. Likewise, his bangs keep getting mashed over his eyes with the movements of Gintoki’s head, because this particular summer afternoon is unbearably hot and it makes his hair lank, heavy, and uncooperative.

Also due to the heat, but mostly due to Ginko-san’s insistence that they lug heavy vegetable crates all the way from the garden in the backyard to the truck parked out on the street, they are both sporting unattractive stains in the armpits of their t-shirts and around their collars. This is gross and not conducive to wanting to kiss in the first place, but just to make it worse, Gintoki’s pushed him down into the grass, and dirt is sticking to those rings of sweat, while small twigs and rocks bore into his back.

The permhead doesn’t seem to care about any of this, lazy eyes glazed as he licks between Katsura’s lips heavily, and every time he leans half an inch back Katsura can feel the spit strung between them. Half of his body is being crushed awkwardly beneath Gintoki’s, and he’s pretty sure his arm has fallen asleep, because it’s sending numb, unpleasant prickles down to his fingertips, which are utterly trapped between the other boy’s chest and his own shoulder.

What is more appalling than even all of this together is the fact that he’s starting to enjoy it.

After all, he’s earned this. It’s truly astounding to think about, but Katsura has willingly run the gross-and-rude gauntlet to find himself at this very spot, getting ants in his shorts.

He supposes one could compare the learning experience to swimming, or kendo, but really it’s in a class all its own. When one is building their stamina for kendo, there are set exercises to accomplish, footing to be memorized and replicated. (It’s a useless comparison, since Katsura rarely manages to find his footing.)

Swimming is maybe a little more similar (mostly in the fact that Katsura consistently feels like he is running out of air), but it’s still much more straightforward – one learns to float, and then to doggy paddle, and then to backstroke. All the steps link together quite naturally, and there is a sense of accomplishment to be found when one finally steps on the diving board for the first time (with the whole pool at one’s cannonballing mercy).

The kind of stamina he’s had to build for – for whatever he and Gintoki are doing now, for whatever he and Gintoki are now – centers mostly on a tolerance for things that he doesn’t understand, finds awkward or indecent, or irritate him. The steps don’t seem to come in any proper order, either, and Katsura wonders if he’ll ever find a method to the madness (if he’ll ever even see the diving board).

As it stands, there isn’t a lot in common between Gintoki accidentally sneezing in his hair, and the warmth Katsura finds between their pressed together palms. There isn’t a lot in common between those pathetic Hinamori doujinshi Sakamoto bought Gintoki for his last birthday, and the unfamiliar heat Katsura finds in his stomach at the most unexpected of times. There isn’t a lot in common between how Gintoki clings to his side like a ridiculous scaredy-pants little girl on Halloween night, jumping at every noise in the dark, and the way Gintoki comes up with the most insulting, most creative insults against park joggers Katsura has ever heard in his whole life. There isn’t a lot in common between the time Gintoki cried against his neck, really cried (the kind of crying they don’t show in movies, all spit-bubbles and runny noses and awful hiccups), and the time they fought, really fought (the kind of fighting they don’t show in movies, all cracking voices and gushing bloody noses and tripping on their own sneakers).

It’s only in retrospective that Katsura ever finds any collective link – it’s all bodies, he supposes. It’s all a kind of biology.

The description doesn’t explain things as neatly as Katsura might like, and it doesn’t leave him feeling prepared for running any future gross-and-rude triathlons. He’d sat in the back of the public library once, reading an extremely embarrassing book for at least two hours, just to see where all this heavy mouth-breathing and inconvenient body-smushing was headed. He’d needed another book just to understand the mechanics, and an enormous atlas of ancient Greek cities to prop in front of his face, because he just couldn’t stop blushing for another hour following.

Of one thing he is certain. If anyone had asked him, a few months prior (to the way their eyes suspiciously started meeting upon realizations that they were alone, to the stupid flips his stomach does when Gintoki bossily grabs hold of his hand), if anyone was curious as to why he’d ever of his own volition want anything to do with Gintoki’s spit, and Gintoki’s sweat, and Gintoki’s big mouth and ruder imagination, he knows he wouldn’t be able to answer with the excuse of biology.

He wouldn’t be able to answer because there isn’t any science, not at the very root of it. Nothing could be evaluated or counted to explain that even with ants crawling up his shorts, even with the line of drool down the side of Gintoki’s mouth, Katsura doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

Katsura isn’t certain of very much, but he knows for sure that it only starts with gross-and-rude bodies – it ends with hearts.

And with or without biology, this is the best day of summer (until tomorrow).

“Oi, Zura.”

fic: gintama - talk dirty to me

oopsipuked — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 01:19:39 GMT

Title: talk dirty to me
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, the filth unfortunately is.
Feedback: As long as we haven't got to meet eyes.
Notes: Modern AU GinZura, PWP like whoah, literally just ten pages of bickering and banging. Inspired, as most hideous things are, by antimonial, and written in part to Reel Big Fish's happy-go-plucky cover of Talk Dirty to Me. For ginzura, a group of people who are Into That Kind of Thing, I Guess.

Cross-posted at ginzura and gintama.

“Well, that was unproductive,” pants Zura at length, his hand pressing against his sternum, over his heart.

“What kind of sweet nothing is that, ah, you bastard?” Gintoki snaps, but it’s too breathless to have any real bite. He’s bowed over with hands flat on the kitchen counter, on either side of where Zura’s perched, his legs splayed. Staring down at those still spread legs and the sheen of stickiness on Zura’s stomach, he gives a defeated kind of groan (he can’t catch a break, every damn angle of this jackass is right out of a dirty fantasy).

He receives a snort in return. Thank god for misinterpretations. “You hit my head on the cabinet,” the other man asserts, complaint in his tone. “That’s not very sweet, either.”

Gintoki gives him a flat, dead-fish eyes look. He decides to let it go (because if Zura sounded as stupidly, stupidly sexy as he looked, he’d never get anything done). “We’ll buy you a helmet. Always thought you needed one anyway,” he says instead, which is (per usual) the wrong thing to say, as Zura gives him a hard shove in the shoulder, trying to disengage.

Not happening, Gintoki thinks dimly, both hands grabbing the smaller man’s buttocks.

“What the hell – ” yelps Zura, but he’s ignored as Gintoki yanks him off the counter, holding him up against himself (he’s already half–drunk on skin contact and he intends to get wasted). Predictably, Zura refuses to make anything easy, and the taller man nearly drops the idiot twice with his squirming. “Put me down, asshole!”

“Aa, aa, stop that screeching, your neighbours are going to hear,” Gintoki chides, walking them into the bathroom. A quickie in the kitchen followed by a languorous shower-fuck sounds more than acceptable. “On second thought, they probably already heard you, going – ”

“Shut up – ”

“No, you were saying, Don’t stop, oh, oh, Gintoki, Gintoki, you’re so big – ”

“I never said – ”

“– ohhh, give it to me hard, yeah, just like that, big boy – ”

“I’m going to kill you in your sleep,” bites the long-haired man lowly. He’s stopped struggling, hanging heavy in Gintoki’s arms with a rather murderous expression. Death threats or not, Zura remains naked, so taller man can’t seem to prioritize correctly.

When Gintoki deposits him back on his feet, Zura gives an affronted huff. “I hate it when you – ”

“Thoughtfully offer to help wash that stinky wig?”

“Asshole! Don’t patronize me!”

“Who’s being patronizing?” he hums patronizingly, pushing Zura into the shower and stepping in after him. He watches the realization of what’s about to happen travel along the goose bumps rising on Zura’s arms, climb up the tightening tendons of a kiss-bitten neck, squeeze under thirty pounds of hair, flash briefly across big deer-brown eyes, and then settle in the peanut Zura calls his brain.

“No, get out, get out, I told you I have class this afternoon and you already wasted most of my review time!”

“Wasted? That’s harsh. Don’t blame me because you’re poor at time management. You should’a reviewed last night.”

“I tried, but you – ”

Gintoki cuts off the agitated hiss with a hard, invasive kiss, feeling Zura’s body going rigid with fury. It’s a dangerous game to play, he knows, but he just can’t seem to help himself. The smaller man’s kiss has much more teeth in it than strictly called for (ow, shit, that was his lip), but it’s not a knee in the balls, so he considers this round a success. Before Zura can change his mind about any knee-related activities, he reaches behind the other’s waist, turning on the shower.

Subsequently blasting them with freezing water.

“Cold, cold, cold,” gasps the other man, trying vainly to scramble away from the spray.

This is not according to plan. Gintoki growls, blinking what feels like glacier water out of his eyes. “Fuck, for all the money you fork out for rent here, you’d think the water tank would be bigger than a damn thimble – ”

“You know it needs a m-minute to w-warm up,” Zura chatters, and Gintoki frowns down at the half-damp head of hair. He then promptly wraps his arms around the other’s shoulders, switching their positions and putting himself in the way of the water’s flow.

He feels Zura tuck his head into his shoulder (and the small quirk of lips against his collarbone makes his hold tighten).

“Oi, this is taking much longer than a minute, you liar,” he mutters into dark strands to distract himself from the chill against his back (and the stupid way the pit of his stomach feels). “Has university warped your innocence already, Zura?”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” is the dry response, “and no, that was you.”

It’s meant to be a jab, probably, but corrupting Zura is the kind of thought that keeps him grinding into his hand at night, biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t wake the old bag. He doesn’t respond immediately, waiting until he feels the water slowly warming against his back.

As it does, he ducks his own head, finding the shell of an ear to kiss and nip at. “I see,” he finally murmurs, feeling the little shiver that goes up Zura’s spine, and enjoying it. “So, how?”

The smaller man turns his face back up, confused. Wet strands of hair along his jaw direct Gintoki’s line of sight downdowndown, along that damn perfect neck. It just begs for attention, so he presses biting kisses to it, while Zura asks, “What?”

“How,” repeats Gintoki, sliding his hands from Zura’s shoulders to his lower back, “did I warp your innocence, aa? What did I do?” One hand skates lower still and gropes hard at Zura’s bottom, eliciting a startled curse (and a wonderful jerk of the other’s hips into his). “Mm. Was it something like that?”

“Don’t be such a pervert,” mutters the smaller man, sounding flustered. Gintoki nods, taking this into consideration.

“You’re right, I am. So it had to be something more perverted.” Before Zura can complain, he pushes him back against the tile of the wall, half into the heated water’s flow. Grabbing onto the other’s hipbones like the handlebars of his scooter, he grinds himself against Zura (and god damn, he’s still slick with his last orgasm, the one Gintoki gave him – and that’s enough to make the taller man rock his hips even harder). The shorter man makes a small, choked kind of noise at the contact, not quite surrendering to the rhythm. Gintoki just grins, slow and lazy, and watches the colour rise to Zura’s cheeks, the black hair growing wet and glossy, harshly painting itself down pale skin.

“This probably wasn’t it either,” the taller man hums, tapering off the long, slow-burn rolls of his hips into teasing, shallow rubbing (just enough to keep them both aroused without actually getting anything done). “Any teenager worth his acne-wash can do this.”

“Shut up, you stupid bastard,” Zura tells him (like this time it will make any difference). His fingers knot in Gintoki’s hair, giving a no-nonsense tug. “Stop messing around, I’m going to be late.”

“Ch, class can wait, Zura, we have to get to the bottom of this.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s – ” he starts, but Gintoki cuts him off with a sucking bite to the neck and a rough thrust, making the correction trail off into a quiet, sweet gasp.

A dirty-sounding pop follows, echoing against the tiles when he lifts his mouth from Zura’s abused throat. The taller man takes a moment to admire his handiwork. He drifts a finger over the skin, pressing lightly, making Zura hiss. “Maybe this is how I did it,” he comments, striving for nonchalant, but he unabashedly loves the way Zura looks with his marks bruising that fair neck (and Gintoki’s voice is huskier than he’d like it to be).

“That better be low enough to hide,” Zura breathes (it isn’t – who knows what kind of loose, desperate women attend Zura’s courses, after all; he’s just looking after Zura’s best interests).

He chooses not to answer that directly in the interest of furthering current events, mumbling distractedly, “Do you ever stop complaining?” and licking after a trail of moisture on Zura’s jaw line. It’s a short work to worm his hand between their bodies, fingers wrapping around both of their erections. Zura makes another soft, pleasing sound (not a complaint at all, thinks Gintoki smugly). Heat builds higher in his stomach as he strokes them together, slow and full (alternating between light and heavy touches, just barely nudging the heads with a country-calloused thumb, fuck it’s a goddamned self-inflicted madness). He feels Zura’s damp eyelashes tickling his cheek as they flutter closed, and nudges the other man’s head up, giving him a deep kiss, breaking it only to mutter roughly, “Well, I think I know how I did it, now.”

“Was it by b-being quiet,” tries Zura, pressing his forehead stubbornly against Gintoki’s – one of those inexplicable Zura-things, like the way he cracks his toes at night, or how his touch turns anything in lab classes into a bomb, or the dumb little buuu sound he makes when he blows on hot tea, or – or a million other stupid things Gintoki’s been studiously not-noticing since they were thirteen.

With their heads leaning together like that, Gintoki supposes he can almost hear buzzing little Zura thoughts (and suddenly, he knows he has no more patience for teasing, his hand stuttering to a stop between them).

“Hey,” he murmurs, “Open your eyes.” He can pretend to be as smooth as he wants, but in the end it always comes down to those ridiculous deer-brown eyes, the ones that look up at him now. “I want to fuck you,” the taller man blurts, earnest and rough and clumsy. “Can I warp your innocence some more?”

He expects the colour to smudge across Zura’s cheeks, and the narrowed eyebrows, and the exhaled embarrassed noise. He does not, however, expect for Zura to reply in a voice like brush-stroked desire, “It’s not really warping if I want it.”

While Gintoki gapes, the smaller man adds an emphatic, “Stupid paa,” which is probably the only thing that keeps Gintoki from calling bullshit on reality.

After a too-long moment of recovery, he pushes Zura back against the tile, covering the other’s mouth in a searing kiss. Zura kisses back with a maddening slowness and nibbling, delicate teeth (probably knowing exactly how crazy it’s driving Gintoki and being a huge asshole as usual). The slick heat of the shorter man’s tongue sliding against his decides it; the shower just isn’t going to cut it anymore. He needs a bed to fuck Zura into, needs to hear the creak of Zura’s mattress, needs to see his shitty hair spread out over the sheets.

When he abruptly shuts off the shower, the wighead startles, “Ah, wait, I need to wash – ”

“You’re gonna have to take another shower anyway,” Gintoki replies shortly, grabbing his wrist and leading him out of the bath.

Zura twists long, damp strands over his shoulder as it hits the bed, Gintoki climbing after and over him. The white-haired man immediately drops his head to kiss a lazy trail across Zura’s chest. “I’m going to fail this class,” the other man mutters above him, sullen but resigned.

“Get that idiot to tutor you,” Gintoki dismisses, fingers sliding down his abdomen, tracing around his bellybutton. Zura wiggles away from the hand with a strangled-sounding chuckle, so Gintoki’s tongue finds a nipple to lave at, and the squirming becomes that of a different nature.

“He’s a shitty tutor,” Zura protests distractedly. “What kind of tutoring can anyone expect from an idiot?”

Gintoki really, really, really doesn’t want to talk about Sakamoto right now. His eyes flicker up, deadpan. “Lessons in idiocy. Luckily, you don’t need any more of those.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ll throw you out the window.”

“Shut up.” Clearly, leaving Zura’s mouth unattended can only spell disaster, so he leans up from the other’s chest, sealing their lips together. After a long few minutes of kindling desire he eases off, reaching to the bedside table. He can’t seem to check himself before he asks incredulously, “Where are the tissues?”

“I moved them.”

“Why would you move them?”

“They looked dirty next to the bed!”

“Of course they did, they’re there for a dirty reason.” Gintoki’s hand drops low, palm pressing and teasing, and Zura chokes. “Although, I do like how you look covered in my – ”

“Gintoki!”

“I was going to say kisses. However, your enthusiasm for shouting my name gets four and a half stars. Please work harder, make it a little less bloodthirsty, and we’ll really be getting somewhere.” Gintoki realizes, somewhere in the back of his brain that still has a little bit of blood to work with, that teasing Zura very rarely leads to getting laid, and that he should really stop it right now.

Should stop it, of course, but probably won’t. It just wouldn’t be as fun otherwise.

Fun is definitely something he tries to keep in mind, especially with a bed partner like Zura. The smaller man seems determined to attempt to ruin every amorous encounter they’ve ever had, flipping back and forth from hesitant, sexy-but-inconvenient embarrassment to annoying, hard-on crushing bluntness. Gintoki is very thoughtfully peppering a few sucking kisses to the curve of other man’s shoulder when Zura prompts, like he’s asking what time the train is arriving, “…Well?”

“Mm,” hums Gintoki dully, “sorry, are you complaining about my catering to your uncontained lust?”

“I don’t have time for uncontained lust. Contain it. I have Calculus in,” he turns his head, “less than fourty-five minutes.”

“Are you still going on about that? Now? Really?”

“Do you want me to lose my scholarship?”

“Not to worry.” Gintoki presses his hips forward with a leer, lifting one of the other man’s legs by the ankle. “I can give you a full ride – ”

“A-ah, knock it off! I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I can’t believe you’re still talking. Hup, here we go,” he adds cheerfully, lifting Zura’s other leg into the air. The smaller man turns an interesting shade of red, trying to wiggle into a less exposed position. Gintoki drops one of his ankles, wedging the legs open with his torso, and fumbles one-handedly with what he snagged out of the bedside table earlier.

After a few fruitless, frustrating moments, he tosses the tube onto Zura’s chest. “Oi. Assist.”

“I should shoot it in your eyes,” mumbles Zura, although he finally (finally!) starts making himself useful.

Gintoki holds his hand out smugly, and it’s only after the cool gel is on his fingers that he responds, “Now, now. I thought you wanted to skip the foreplay?” Zura huffs, obviously about to snap an insult, so Gintoki drops his hand immediately to give the other a few slick, heavy strokes. Zura chokes, arching up off the bed like a god damn triple-X hentai character, and Gintoki shifts, feeling the very few last drops of blood leave his brain.

It’s the only explanation he can give for drawling, “Last chance to go to class, Zura. What’s it gonna be?”

“Are you serious? Stop messing around!”

“What, now you want it?” He slides his hand down and back, stroking two fingers teasingly across the tight, hidden muscle. “Make up your mind already.”

“C-cut it out.”

“You want me to stop?” He presses his fingers hard against the resistance, slipping them all the way inside, only to begin to pull them out again.

“A-aa, you stupid… asshole!” Zura reaches down, grabbing his wrist and scowling. “Keep g-going.”

The white-haired man grins, obligingly rocking his fingers in slowly, pressing and stretching. “See, I’d know these things if you just told me, Zura.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s – nn – Katsura.” Gintoki slides his fingers in deeper, letting his grin spread even more as Zura’s hips jump and twitch. “Uhn.”

“I think you like this better than Calculus,” Gintoki decides. He begins thrusting his fingers rhythmically and Zura groans quietly, his legs shuddering and falling wider. When Zura’s grip around the taller man’s wrist loosens, Gintoki smirks. Picking it up, he guides the hand to the other man’s length. “Calculus doesn’t make you want to do this, aa? Touch yourself, that is.”

“D-don’t…” gasps Zura, embarrassed and trying to move his hand away. “I don’t…”

“Sure you do. I can feel how hot you’re getting – I can see it, too. Ah, but I know, you can’t get off unless it’s me gettin’ you off, right? I’ll get you started.” It takes some truly advanced motor skills, and his rhythm is odd and uneven at first. Still, he’s soon pushing Zura’s hand up and down his length, at the same time as his other hand presses his fingers deeper inside.

When he adds the third finger, Zura bites back a huff. It’s a familiar sound, and it isn’t one Gintoki particularly likes. “…Oi, does it hurt?”

“Nn…” It’s a grunt to the negative, but the stupid bastard rarely admits it. The taller man notices Zura’s hand is working on its own, now, stroking heavily. That’s one way to get past it, he supposes, and it’s one he heartily approves of. He watches every damn moment of it, matching the rhythm of his fingers to those slow, full strokes.

When he finally tears his eyes away from the movements of Zura’s hand, from his fingers disappearing in and out of the other’s body, he finds Zura’s gaze trained intensely on him, sweat at his temples and hair mussed. He almost chokes. “Ready?” he coughs, to divert attention away from the pink that’s suddenly sprung to his cheeks.

“A-ah,” Zura sighs, somewhat shakily, sitting up and shifting away. Gintoki doesn’t have time to ask just where the hell that wighead thinks he’s going before it’s made abundantly clear; the smaller man has turned over on his hands and knees.

Gintoki gawks long enough for Zura to cast an extremely red glance over his shoulder, partially obscured by thick hair. “Hurry it up,” he snaps, knees shifting in obvious self-consciousness. There are not enough tissues in the world, thinks Gintoki, as he fumbles for the stupid tube again (if he slicks himself a bit too thoroughly, he can hardly be blamed, not with Zura’s lower back twitching like that in front of him).

He grabs onto the other’s thigh as he guides himself into that tight ring of muscle, a hundred nerves sparking as he presses forward. “Oh, shit, oh fuck,” he breathes, watching Zura’s shoulders tense beneath him. Craning at an awkward angle, Gintoki peppers those pale expanses with kisses that are closer to pants, seating himself fully. “Fuck, aah, hey,” he exhales, as he feels Zura tense around him, “Shit… you’re so tight it almost hurts, r-relax…”

“Hnm, hnm,” whimpers Zura, hands fisting in the sheets. After a few shallow thrusts, however, the fists unclench, and Gintoki feels himself sink. He then feels Zura rocking back into him, pushing him deeper.

“Oh fucking shit,” he blurts dazedly, voice an octave too high. “Y-yeah, just like that. Zura...”

“Kah, Katsura,” gasps the other man, with some effort. “It’s Katsura. C-can’t you, get it… nnuh, get it right, even when we’re being… intimate?”

“Intimate? Intimate? I don’t, haa, want to be intimate with you right now. I want to fuck you until you don’t give a damn about stupid Geometry.”

“Calculus,” Zura corrects automatically. The hair hanging in front of him suddenly whips back. “Oh, damnit, Calculus – !”

Gintoki shoves the dumb wig straight down into the pillow, giving a harder thrust. The wig-pillow gives a muffled yelp in response, though a shudder runs down along Zura’s spine, and his shoulders give out entirely. Found it, thinks Gintoki happily, and repeats the motion in unforgiving succession.

Over Zura’s choked moans, he comments a bit breathlessly, “What were you… talkin’ about?”

“Whah?” responds the smaller man muzzily, a hazy eye casting up. “Nnm, haaa, Gintoki.”

With no little satisfaction, he watches the tangled, messy strands of Zura’s hair get crushed against the pillow with another thrust. “Nothin’,” he responds succinctly. “Feels good now, huh?”

“If you don’t, shut up,” starts Zura, but Gintoki knows this means yes, Gin-sama, fuck me harder in Zuraese, so of course – being the conscientious kind of guy he is – he complies. As engaging as it is teasing Zura, there’s no way to concentrate on teasing anymore, not with how fucking good that tight heat feels clenching around him, drawing him in, and not with those goddamn sounds, soft and loud, pouring from Zura’s mouth.

In a perfect world, he would do nothing but this all day every day (with this, of course, being Zura). No, correction – in a perfect world, he would do nothing but Zura, and parfaits, and sometimes Zura and parfaits all at the same time.

He leans down to lick saltysweet sweat from the other’s nape, deciding then and there to coat it with chocolate syrup, next time. Or maybe whipped cream. Shit, speaking of – “Gonna, come?”

“Mnn, hngh,” responds Zura tightly, shuddering.

“Haa…” Fuck, he’s getting close. “Naa, Zura. Why don’t you... beg for me to come inside you?”

“G-Gintoki!” The smaller man’s breath is coming in high, shallow pants, now, the reprimand barely standing. Some people like to listen to the rain on window sills, some people like to listen to jazz. Gintoki prefers listening to those gasping breaths more than anything in the whole damn world, sharp and needy and all his.

His thrusting grows in intensity, loses some of its rhythm. “C’mon, it was so cute last time,” he grits lowly, “the way you squirmed on my cock and pleaded for it.”

Zura suddenly lets out a rough groan, which has Gintoki noticing Zura’s elbow moving underneath him. Frankly, he doesn’t know whether to be pleased or clench his teeth. He ends up doing both; he’s close enough as it is, damnit, he doesn’t need to know Zura’s masturbating – quite enthusiastically – on top of it.

Of course, he doesn’t need what follows, either, but he can’t really shirk the blame on that one. “Come inside,” trembles Zura, so quietly it’s almost swallowed by the creaking of the bed.

“Wh-what?” Gintoki gasps in response, stupidly.

Thank god, as usual, for misinterpretations. Zura corrects in a whisper, face hidden in that spill of black hair, “…Please come inside. Gintoki, please.”

“Zura,” is all he manages, and he barely lasts another thirty seconds. He presses down hard on Zura as he comes, mouth latching onto that damn perfect neck to try and muffle the moan. The tight heat around him spasms as Zura follows suit a few moments after, with an overwhelmed keen and a forceful shiver all down Gintoki’s front.

It’s a long few gasping moments before he’s able to get control of his tongue again, and all Gintoki manages to say to the sweaty skin beneath him is a breathless, “Oh shit,” before letting his whole body slide forward. Zura oomphs, and then whimpers tiredly, hips writhing in oversensitivity. One red eye opens at that whine, and Gintoki levers himself up just long enough to pull out and let Zura turn back over. Then, he collapses right back on top of him.

At length, Zura mumbles, “You’re squashing me,” but soft fingers are at his hair, pushing damp curls off hot skin.

It feels damn nice, and Gintoki certainly doesn’t want to do anything that might discourage it, like moving. “S’alright,” he slurs back. “M’flattenin’ your freshman fifteen. You’re welcome.”

“Shut up. I’m not a freshman, and I never gained any weight, except for just now, when you collapsed on me like an old man having a heart attack.”

Gintoki is about to retort when he feels the other’s leg twinge, and he can’t help but smirk as he rolls off, snagging himself a pliant armful of wighead. He drops a hand low, sliding it neatly into the small of Zura’s back, fingers idly brushing his ass. “Mm, what’s this? Sore now?”

“…No.”

“Liar. Aren’t you supposed to open up after mind-blowing sex? Share all your deepest desires and thoughts and feelings?”

Zura huffs, burying a reddening face into his neck. “Aren’t you supposed to roll over and go to sleep afterwards, like a normal man?”

“Aa, but a normal man could not have done what I just did.”

A shy smile curves against his throat. “…Maybe not.”

“Maybe not? Oi, oi, have some faith in me, would you?” He knows he’s been thoroughly ruined, then (he can hear the smile in his own damn voice).

“I have faith that you won’t stop being so noisy.” Zura’s voice, on the other hand, is getting sluggish; it’s cute, how quickly Zura is to drop off after sex, like all that stern focus he normally exhibits has been drained out of him.

Gintoki ducks his head, pressing a kiss to a messy clutch of bangs. “Now, now. I think I just got finished proving who the noisy one is, here. If you need another demonstration, give me twenty minutes and a sandwich, and we’ll – ”

Zura groans, tilting his head up and catching the other’s lips. The kiss is uncoordinated, warm and spreading, like someone spooning out a hefty dollop of sweet sauce. “Shhh,” Zura urges, his hand tangling in Gintoki’s hair again, stroking and affectionate. “Shhh.”

Eyes lidding in comfort, Gintoki grunts, and finally (finally) shuts up.

“…So, how sore are we talking, here? Is round three totally out of the question, or…”

“Damnit, Gintoki – ”

For a few minutes, anyway.

ICONS: use the save point as much as possible, because you're bound to crash eventually

oopsipuked — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:04:46 GMT

♫ GINTAMA FANART [110]
♪ ♪ ♪ Gintoki/Katsura [110]

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

Preview:

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

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101	102	103	104	105

106	107	108	109	110

FST: GINTAMA - no decorum

oopsipuked — Fri, 06 May 2011 19:27:17 GMT

♬DOWNLOAD IT♬

PRAYER FOR THE WEEKEND - the ark
come it's time to pray for the weekend, babe
come it's time to jump in at the deep end, babe
it opens up its jaws it's panting like a hound
so, we'll pick the fleurs du mal and we'll bind it a crown

ooh, let's pray that the weekend will thrill us, babe
ooh, let's pray that the weekend won't kill us, babe

A MILLION WAYS - ok go
you're a million ways to be cruel.
I should, I wish I could, maybe if you were, I would,
list of standard-issue regrets
one last 80 proof, slouching in the corner booth.
baby, it's as good as it gets
oh such grace, oh such beauty
So precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious
oh darling, you're a million ways

ABSOLUTELY NO DECORUM - the ark
and I know that the times are rough
but I won't play dead while I'm alive
so hang on and we'll turn up the sound
of all the anger in our hearts

'cause right now under this fevering moon
I wanna take you for a ride
to the reasons you need,
be it hunger or greed, it's ok

tell me a joke and make me smile
play me the part, be the star for a while
absolutely no decorum whatsoever

VANITY KILLS - codeine velvet club
a case of vanity kills, they're all up for the thrills
but not the working darlin'
life's a roll of a dice, but you'll pay the price
when that curtain falls

another place, another name
another sleepless night
but still they come, they adore
how could I not oblige
there's got to be more than this to our simple serenades
I'm waiting 'til the spotlight fades

HIGH HAWK DAYS - the mountain goats
I heard the wings beat on the wind tonight
as the heat stole power from the darkening light
I saw the streets fill up with people that I knew
people who looked like you

rise if you're sleeping, stay awake
we are young supernovas and the heat's about to break

spray our dreams on any surface where the paint will stick
try to time the rhythm, listen for the click

THE LONG GRIFT - hedwig & the angry inch
look what you've done you gigolo
another hustle has been run
but now you oughta know
that this fool can no longer be swayed
by the tools of your trade
you gigolo

I'm just another John you gypped
another sucker stiffed
a walk-on role in the script
of your long, long grift

I WOULD SEND YOU ROSES - codeive velvet club
nothing could stop me from being a man
I've tried all the words that I possibly can
I should've arrived when I said that I would
I called out your name but it done me no good

I would've agreed with whatever you told me
I would've paid double the price for which you sold me

how would you feel if I told you I loved you?
I want to scream that there's no one above you
I would send you roses every single day
I would send you roses every single day

ECHO CHAMBER - the ark
no
have you heard the word no, no, no?
I thought so
'cos everybody says yes
everywhere you go

And now I actually fear
that something's gone wrong with your ears
I'm singing
Step out, step out of your echo chamber
Step out, step out of your echo chamber
Before it is too late

COLD MILK BOTTLE - the mountain goats
well despite your best efforts I feel alright
against my better judgment I feel alright
despite your random acts of violence I feel alright
despite the force of your fury I feel alright

you're mean to me
why must you be mean to me?
you shouldn't forget you see
what you mean to me

LIKE A FULL MOON - codeine velvet club
dance for me, dance for me
won't you tell please
how you came to love me in the rhythm of this never ending tease
while begging on your knees

there's nothing that I wouldn't say if you'd only choose to believe
my love for you is endless like a full moon dead on the sea
wait for me, wait for me, till the day is through
dancing round the ashes of our love was not enough for you

SWEET TALK, SWEET TALK - the new pornographers
mistakes on the part of nature
the living proof of what they're calling love
on certain sideway streets
where things that don't match meet

a mistake on the part of nature
you are a tall glass, a blast from the past
yeah, things were simpler then
you ask exactly when

MADDEST KIND OF LOVE - big bad voodoo daddies
the maddest kind of love
is a love you know is wrong
it burns a hole, right through your soul
and cuts you like a knife

the maddest kind of love
is a love you know won't last
it fills your heart with passion
makes you lie about your past
you know I speak from experience
livin' each day
its something she does
something she'll say

ALL THE WINE - the national
I'm put together beautifully
big wet bottle in my fist, big wet rose in my teeth
I'm perfect piece of ass
like every Californian
so tall I take over the street, with highbeams shining on my back
a wingspan unbelievable
I'm a festival, I'm a parade

and all the wine is all for me

I'm in a state, I'm in a state
nothing can touch us my love

SWAY - bic runga
don't stray, don't ever go away
I should be much too smart for this
you know it gets the better of me sometimes
when you and I collide
I fall into an ocean of you
pull me out in time
don't let me drown

say you'll stay, don't come and go
like you do
sway my way, yeah I need to know
all about you
and there's no cure
and no way to be sure

WINTERLONG - the pixies
if things should ever turn out wrong
and all the love we have is gone
it won't be easy
on that day

I waited for you winterlong
You seemed to be where I belong

♫ ♪ ♫

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama. Commenting if you're snagging is appreciated. 8)

fic: gintama - grime & punishment

oopsipuked — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 05:10:19 GMT

Title: grime & punishment
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: roses are red / boogers are green / this shit ain't mine / 'coz lawyers are mean
Feedback: Much obliged!
Notes: For day nine of ginzura advent. Also ~~sort of~~ aaaaall for antimonial, baby, who wanted 'happy war days.'

Cross-posted at ginzura.

The eighth day in the barn, Zura sits straight up, and says in a hollow voice, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Hrnm?” Gintoki shifts on the hay next to him, trying to find his comfy spot again. No, it’s not even close to sundown, but it’s not like there’s much else to do other than eat, sleep, or fuck Zura. So, if Zura insists on waking him up, and they’re still rationing like good soldiers –

“Why are you touching me? Don’t touch me,” comes Zura’s dead monotone again. “I can’t stand touching you. I can’t stand touching myself.”

“Oi, fine. Then Gin-san is trying to sleep. Can you have your low self-esteem crisis a bit quieter?”

“Seconded,” calls a voice from the loft.

Gintoki leans his head back, shouting up, “Who the fuck asked you, Ibaraki? Go fuck another hole in your hand.”

“We can’t live like this,” Zura is saying, ignoring the profanity now being slung down from the loft. “The snowstorm isn’t going to let up for another week, at least.”

“So what? Are you really complaining about not having to run around in the cold, waving a sword at some nine-eyed freaks? Go walk out into the snow and don’t come back.”

“It’s not that,” the smaller man says. “I just can’t stand any of you.”

“Seconded!”

“Shut the fuck up, Ibaraki!”

“I can smell all of you,” Zura continues, his voice still distressingly absent of inflection, “I can smell all of you, all the time, and it makes me want to kill all of you, all the time, just so you’ll stop farting and sweating.”

Gintoki sits up, trying to pretend the killer's intent in that voice hasn’t shaken him. “Wh-what are you, some kind of vengeful pregnant goddess, with a sensitive nose? This is what men smell like, Zura. You’d know if you were one.”

“I can’t live like this,” Zura repeats. He stands up, the extra blanket slipping from his shoulders.

Gintoki feels his blood run cold when Zura turns to stare at him with wide eyes, holding his short sword. “I won’t let any of us live like this.”

-+-+-+-

“Fuck! Shit, shit, shit! Fuck, fuck! Son of a bitch!” shouts Takasugi.

It’s like music to Gintoki’s ears. “Judging by that dirty mouth, I don’t think he’s clean enough yet, Yasuo,” he drawls happily. “Pour more on him.”

“Sakata, you asshole, I’ll fucking - aaaiiyyeee!”

“Ah… maybe we should have waited for the water to cool a little,” mumbles Zura, watching a scalded red Takasugi tackle a hysterical Yasuo to the floor. He only frowns when both men end up covered in dirt and hay. “Stop screwing around, you’re wasting firewood! I won’t be the one to go out and collect more, damnit!”

“Ahaha, all done, Zura!” A fresh-faced Sakamoto gives them both a peace sign, plunking a half-full tub of water down next to the fire.

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.” The dark haired man turns, hands on his hips. “You can’t be done, I just gave you your pot. Did you wash everywhere?”

“What are you, his mother?” Gintoki complains, digging a finger into his nostril. “Are you gonna check behind his ears, too?”

“It’s not his ears I’m worried about,” huffs Zura. “Do you bastards want to end up like Kojima?”

Nobody wants to end up like Kojima. Last month, Kojima had gotten a very particular, very painful infection.

The men assembled around the fire, almost as one, turn around, sticking their hands down their pants and scrubbing.

“I heard it actually rotted off,” mutters Yasuo.

Takasugi snorts derisively. “That little weasel barely had one to begin with.”

“Oi, what’s with this old womens’ gossip? I’m having enough problems reaching my full potential with the cold, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Wash your hands again after,” reminds Zura. “Ah, should I heat up another pot? Is everyone done?”

“I’m n-not… done…”

“Is he – ”

“Oh sick, what the hell – ”

“Tatsuma! That’s not washing!”

“Ahahaha, uh, sorry guys, I forgot what we were doing!”

-+-+-+-

Ibaraki and Zura are voted the steadiest hands, but that doesn’t make any of them feel better about having blades that close to their face. Aside from Sakamoto, of course, who doesn’t have the mental capacity to feel bad about much of anything.

“I wouldn’t believe you’ve been cutting his hair for fifteen minutes if I hadn’t been watching,” gapes Zura, watching Ibaraki try to tackle The Ferocious Fro.

“Pay attention,” Gintoki grits, leaning away from the scissors in Zura’s idle hand. “Zura. Pay attention.”

“I told you he almost took my eye out,” grumbles Takasugi, running his fingers through shorn, uneven hair. The taller man doubts his will look any more symmetrical; they’re samurai, after all, not stylists.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make Takasugi any less right. A sharp glint of metal flickers near his nose. “Pay attention!”

“I am paying attention! Look at that horrible afro, it’s as if it will never give up… in that kind of situation, a beast will always fight back to it’s last breath. It knows it’s life is being threatened.”

Gintoki swerves his neck away from the distracted blades again. “Oi oi oi, it’s my life that’s being threatened, here!”

“Stop complaining! I haven’t hurt any of you yet.”

“Yet?”

“Stop moving! I’ll hurt you if you don’t stop moving!”

“What the hell! It sounds like someone is going to get hurt regardless!”

“Ahahaha,” laughs Sakamoto. “Can I get something cool? Hey, Ibaraki-kun! Shave the kanji for ‘dangerous’ onto the back of my head! Ahaha! The girls’re gonna love it!”

“I think I know who’s going to get hurt,” says Takasugi dryly. Gintoki and Zura nod silently in agreement.

-+-+-+-

They’re wrong.

“I said I was sorry,” Zura mumbles.

Gintoki growls, “‘Sorry’ doesn’t grow that chunk of my ear back.”

-+-+-+-

They don’t have enough pots to wash all their clothes at once, so they take group turns stripping down, yanking off cloth that crackles with grime. With no little satisfaction, Gintoki tosses his once-white shirt and pants at Sakamoto’s face (the dust clouds turning the other’s laughter into hacking coughs).

He then returns to his (their) previously abandoned pile of hay and blankets, and watches Zura strip with a lazy, pleased eye. “This is all just for you, isn’t it? Hygiene boosts morale, my ass. You’re so full of shit, no wonder your eyes are brown.”

“It does boost morale,” sniffs Zura, like the stuck-up snoot he is. He turns to dump his clothes into the pot, saying over his shoulder, “I don’t see you complaining.”

The view doesn’t leave him much to complain about, honestly. But he does have an appearance to keep up. “Aa? Aa? What’d you say? I couldn’t hear you. I lost an ear today – ”

“I said I was sorry! Are you honestly still complaining about such a trifling wound, after all the battle scars we’ve earned? After Kojima?”

“Don’t joke about that, oi.” Gintoki opens the blanket-cocoon as the other man returns, and closes it tight around them both. His hands immediately skate down over Zura’s cold skin, pulling the other man close by the small of his back. “Mm. You’re shivering.”

“What an astute observation. I wonder if it is because of the blizzard.”

“It’s because you’re too damn skinny. A samurai should have a bit more meat on his bones. Luckily for you,” he moves his hips below the blankets, making Zura grunt and wiggle irritably, “I’m in the mood to share my meat.”

“That’s disgusting. I decline.”

Ignoring the other’s frosty reception, he slides his hands down over the Zura’s rear, which earns him an icy glare. It thaws when his palms rub up along his back and shoulders, stroking circulation back into the pale skin. He repeats this patient up-and-down path, feeling Zura relaxing inch by inch in his arms.

When the other seems like he’s melted into a puddle of hair – warmed up both in body temperature and to his advances – the white-haired man’s hands scoop lower, sword calluses rubbing heat into the backs of Zura’s thighs. “Hm?” he hums lowly, a prompt and a question.

“…I suppose…” Zura coughs lightly, eyes lidding and gaze averting, “…generating heat is a good idea.”

“Seconded,” says Ibaraki, appearing behind Gintoki. He tugs on the blanket. “Hey, lemme in. I’m freezing.”

“Fuck off, Ibaraki!"

-+-+-+-

By the time they sit down around the fire to eat, they’ve all been stripped, scalped and scalded. Oddly enough, Zura was right – a sentiment Gintoki can and will take to his grave. But he does feel much better; cleaner, healthier, and not as listless. Everyone else seems to be in high spirits, too, jostling each other for bowls and cracking jokes.

The long-haired man seems equally energized, digging into the rice Gintoki’s prepared with vigor. “What’s with this appetite of yours?” he asks loftily, smirking. “Taking that meat comment to heart, aa?”

“Don’t be stupid, why would I take any of the garbage you say to heart?” He shoves a big wad of rice in his mouth. “Iff bof be’hr t’eet wift keen’ads.”

“Talking with your mouth full is impolite.”

“Ahahaha! It’s always more polite to swallow, Zura!”

“It’s not Zura – ”

“Shut up, you disease-ridden moron!”

“ – it’s Katsura!” Nevertheless, Zura swallows. “I said, it’s just better to eat with clean hands.”

“Yeah, right. More like,” he digs into his own bowl, finally, “foo f’ont haffa ‘rry abow finscraw’in owwyore vig th’cher.”

“Chew before you speak. It’s very rude.”

“Yeah, ahaha, sometimes a little teeth is okay! Haha! But don’t get carried away, Kintoki!”

“My name isn’t – ”

“Are you being disgusting? Seppuku yourself already.”

“ – Kintoki, you goddamn idiot!” Gintoki throws an earthenware cup at Sakamoto’s shit-for-brains head for good measure, and returns to his conversation with Zura. “I said, more like you don’t have worry about things crawlin’ out of your wig to share.”

Zura kicks at the other’s ankle. “Shut up. Don’t spoil my meal when I can finally smell it.”

Suddenly, Yasuo and Sakamoto start laughing. Both men look up, curious, but the joke reveals itself in it’s own time, after a few important seconds.

“Ugh,” cringes Zura, slamming his bowl onto his knee. “Damnit. Who did that? People are eating. Can’t you control yourselves?”

Gintoki shakes his head. “You did your best, Zura, but there’s some smells a man simply cannot escape.”

“Hold it in, damnit! I can’t live like this!”

fic: gintama - applications & affections

oopsipuked — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:37:37 GMT

Title: applications & affections
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Paako/Zurako (Gintoki/Katsura)
Disclaimer: Still and forever not mine.
Feedback: Circle Y for Yes I Like You and N for Noose Yourself, Bastard.
Notes: SUDDENLY, AU FEMMESLASH? Sort of obliquely mentions day six of the ginzura advent prompt? I'm just as confused as you are.

Cross-posted at ginzura.

“Why are there so many baldies, oi,” mutters Paako. “Does your father think you have some kind of fetish for that kind of thing?”

“Don’t be disgusting,” huffs the smaller woman. “I don’t know. You’re not even reading them, give me those - ”

Paako makes a dismissive nose, flapping a pink-nailed hand. “They aren’t worth it, I think they’re all monks from the same temple.”

Leaning over to inspect the pile, Zura frowns. “…Uwah.”

“See?”

“…Put them in that pile.”

The white-haired woman practically throws them into the substantial reject pile, although she can’t help but add, “I knew you were too vain to marry a baldie.”

“Shut up! That’s not why.” Zura sits up, pushing that soft, inky black hair behind her ear. The taller woman watches it slide smoothly against the other’s fingers ruefully. …Not that she’s jealous of that damn wig, or anything. Natural perms would come into style eventually. “Bald men have bad temperaments. Without hair, the sun goes straight into their scalps all day, and it makes them disagreeable.”

“What? Your brain is the one that’s fried. You vain bitch.”

“I’m not vain!”

“Aa, maybe you’re right.” Paako props up onto her elbows, listlessly shifting the pile of marriage applicants. “A vain person would want a baldie, so they could spit-shine that dome and see themselves in it.”

“Ew.” The long-haired woman hums, bare lips pursing and catching Paako’s eye next. She’s not wearing any make-up today, which is frustrating, because she looks like something out of a fashion magazine anyway. Zura always looks good, fresh-faced and composed. Paako supposes that’s probably why there are so many goddamned folders to go through.

“…He isn’t bad,” the smaller woman murmurs dubiously. “He… has hair.”

“Don’t set the bar too high, now. Let me see.” She shifts on top of the other’s knee, peering at the photo, and then tsks. “Are you kidding? This guy? He looks like he’s never smiled in his life.”

“He’s a doctor.”

“Who would trust a doctor that looks so glum? Have any of his patients ever survived? That frog-face of his seems to say no.”

“Stop basing everything off looks!” Zura’s voice suddenly raises. “You have to read them, too! I need to finish going through these! If you’re not reading them, you’re not even helping, and if you’re not helping, why should I even bother - ”

Paako holds up her hands, taken aback by the outburst. “Oi, oi, calm down.”

The other woman gives another tight frown, putting Dr. Frog into the reject pile. After a few moments of strained silence, she mutters stiffly. “…It’s not because of what you said. He’s allergic to pets.”

“Aa.” She doesn’t push it; she knows why the other is so tense, after all. Zura’s stress levels seem to be directly proportionate to the number of times she goes back to her father with a thick stack of refusals in hand. “…Got any ice cream left?”

“Just green tea.”

“What the hell kind of girl are you? You don’t have any chocolate?”

“You finished it yesterday. You’re going to get - ”

“Fat? You sayin’ I’m fat? I can’t help it if I’m goddamn curvy. Who are you to say anything, you shitty twig? Come back to me when you finally grow some boobs.”

“I was going to say diabetes.”

Paako ignores her, propping herself up on the bed and rolling off. Zura’s apartment is extremely small, but cozy and well furnished. She supposes it makes sense her friend would choose such a place to live, considering how large and lonely the Katsura family estate is. A comfortable den with plenty of hot water is all Zura needs out of a living space to be happy.

Not that any of those bastards in those stupid folders would know that. They didn’t know anything about her happiness, and yet they would be the ones who Zura would end up with –

She calls out, sudden and gruff, mostly to distract herself from the tightness in her chest, “Oi, Zura, are you havin’ any?”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Zurako.”

“Well?”

“Fine.”

Zura eating ice cream in the afternoon? This is bad, Paako thinks, yanking open the freezer. Why does God hate her so much? First she’s cursed with a perm and wide-load hips, and now she has to emotionally support the person she likes while said person tries to pick a husband? Whatever the hell wrongs she did in her past life better have been worth it, because this hopeless affection definitely isn’t going to be.

When she walks back into the bedroom toting two bowls, Zura is lying face down among the sheets of paper and shiny photographs.

“I should just give up,” the puddle of hair intones dully. “They’re all old and bald and they never smile.”

Shit. “It’s not so bad?” Paako responds unconvincingly.

It’s ineffective. Zura sounds like she’s going to the gallows. “I am going to become Mrs. Frowning Baldie Grandma.”

Paako puts the bowls down on the floor, plunking back on the bed. After a moment, she reaches out, fingers sifting through dark hair. “…Just tell your father you’ll get married later. After grad school.”

“He says it’s better if I start young.”

“What, so you’re eligible for the old perverts?”

“I don’t know.”

The taller woman sighs, idly segmenting the other’s hair to either side of her nape. It’s a beautiful neck – smooth and flawless, pale like a damn powdered-up geisha girl. Her fingers trace down the sensitive skin, just to feel the other shudder. Zura doesn’t disappoint, shivering to the teasing touch and mumbling, “Kn-knock it off.”

“Mm.” Paako isn’t listening. “…What’s your folder say, anyway? ‘Twiggy wig seeks enormously well-endowed - ’”

“Paako.”

“Fine, fine. ‘Seeks nice, sensitive guy, who enjoys historical dramas, small fuzzy animals, and shitty bland food. …Dick optional.’”

“It doesn’t say that.”

She wishes it did. “What’s it say, then?”

“What does it matter? It’s in this mess somewhere. I think it’s stapled to the green folder.”

The white haired woman roots around in the papers and folders, picking up her ice cream while she’s at it, thank you very much. When she finds it, she opens it on her lap, dark red eyes scanning. “Foo carefth abow diff fit?”

“Take the spoon out.”

Pop. “Who cares about this shit? University classes, career goals, flower arranging skills? This reads like a report card.”

“My father said this is what men would be interested in.”

“Yeah, right. If that’s how these things worked, they’d be centerfolds. Oi, and this is a bold-faced lie, you can’t cook worth a damn.”

Zura lifts her head, glancing back over her shoulder. She’s flush. “Shut up. I have to make myself seem worthy of consideration.”

The taller woman growls at that. “Are you kidding? It’s these worthless bastards who aren’t – ” She stops short. If she insists these losers aren’t worthy, she’ll have to get into who is, and if she gets into who is, she won’t be able to stop herself. She may not have the right parts for the paperwork, but she knows she’d be a better option than any of these suckers. “Your folder is stupid. You’re just getting all the wrong kinds of guys because it doesn’t actually say anything about you.”

“Aa?” The dark haired woman rolls onto her back to peer up, and Paako resists the urge to lean over her, just to see what kind of view it’d be. Zura picks up her folder, lips curving down as she rereads the neat lines of photocopied handwriting. “You think I need to re-write it? To say what?”

“How you could burn water, first of all,” she responds immediately. With a grin, she then catches the other’s thin wrist as Zura goes to punch her. “Ah, how ‘bout that one? ‘Temperamental, and quick to lash out.’ Like gran’s housecat.”

“Kuonjouchi-no-hime-san is old and you’re mean to her, so you deserve every scratch you get.” Zura struggles to pull her wrist from the other’s grip, and when that fails, she attempts a punch with her other hand. “Just like you deserve this – ”

“Ah, shit.” Paako scrambles both protect her side and snag the other wrist. Both are bent back onto the bed and pinned. The pouting, flustered look Zura is giving her is too much – she softens a bit, mumbling, “You could put your best Mario Kart time.”

“Be serious,” Zura huffs back, but that somber look is starting to fade from the corners of her mouth, replaced with a fierce pride. “…Although I agree that 1:39 on Rainbow Road, with the CPUs on Hard, is a significant and noteworthy achievement.”

“Yeah, sure, but whatever you do, don’t put your cup size,” Paako continues flatly. She can’t help herself – she releases a hand to skate her palm up the other’s ribcage, and Zura hiccups a ticklish, startled noise, twisting out of the way. The white haired woman veers off-course, grabbing a lock of hair. “Or – watch it, you little – or how long you take in the bath. Although, maybe you should put that out there, so they can financially prepare for their water bill to be tripled.”

“Ow, don’t pull my – get off, you ridiculous ass…!” A snort of laughter interrupts what had promised to be a string of pointed insults, and Paako feels her chest constricting again, in an entirely different way than earlier. She may worry about losing Zura to some gloomy doctor or hotshot lawyer, but that folder doesn’t say how to make her happy, not like this. Maybe she has more of a chance; maybe this useless affection isn’t so useless.

No, Zura doesn’t want to dishonor her family, or disappoint her father. But Paako knows the other could never marry someone she doesn’t love – not with how hard she cries at daytime dramas, not with how dreamy and devoted her personality is, not with how many Shojo Friend magazines line her bookcases.

All Paako needs to do is keep making her happy. It won’t be hard to outsmart, outwit, and outlove her rivals. The Shonen Jump magazines lining her bookcases can attest to that.

“You could say you have a hot best friend,” she says. “With a mean right hook.”

fic: gintama - a haiku for you

oopsipuked — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 20:57:10 GMT

Title: a haiku for you
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: G
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: If you'd like!
Notes: A drabble for the day five ginzura advent prompt.

Cross-posted at ginzura.

“Let me see yours,” says Zura, leaning across the short desk. Gintoki jumps enough to send the sword in his armpit clattering to the side.

“No,” he snaps, covering his ink-stained paper. “It’s not finished yet.”

“You’re taking a long time,” the taller boy says blankly, with his usual bluntness. “Everyone else is almost done.”

“I don’t care! Shut up!”

Takasugi turns around at the outburst. “Tch, he barely knows how to write. How do you expect him to write poetry?”

The permed boy flushes with indignation. “I can write,” he mutters fiercely, and it’s mostly true. Sensei has been patient, teaching him kanji after kanji from weekly Shounen Jump. Takasugi’s just an asshole. He’s like Vegeta. Nobody likes Vegeta.

“I did three,” Vegetakasugi boasts, waving his sheet in Zura’s direction. Gintoki scowls as the other boy inches closer to Takasugi’s desk, grip on his own fude tightening. Takasugi’s haiku probably suck. Zura’s an idiot, but he’s smarter than that piece of shit. He won’t be fooled by some crappy -

“Wow,” says Zura. “These are really good.”

“Poetry’s for stupid girls anyway,” growls Gintoki, before Takasugi can stop grinning smugly and respond. He’s so angry, and he doesn’t know why, because he doesn’t care about poetry, or stupid asshole Takasugi, or this useless school. “That’s why you like them. Because you’re a stupid girl.”

Zura’s cheeks puff up. “No I’m not!”

“Why do you even bother with him?” Takasugi mumbles disparagingly, turning back around. “He can barely write.”

“You can barely wipe, you ass-faced bastard!” shouts Gintoki, throwing his fude at the back of Takasugi’s head. Sensei’s fan embeds itself into Gintoki’s face from clear across the room.

-+-+-+-

“You ‘wake?” Gintoki murmurs, leaning over Zura and pulling his eyelids up.

“Hnnzzfx,” snorts Zura, flinching away and slapping at Gintoki’s hands. He rubs his eye, huffing sleepily. “Nm. Now I am. What?”

Gintoki frowns, suddenly unsure of what he’s spent all night doing. In the silence, Zura prompts, “What? Did you have a nightmare?”

“I don’t get nightmares,” he bites back. They both know it’s a lie, and Zura has an annoying penchant for the truth, so he powers on quickly. “I finished somethin’.”

There’s a crinkle of paper, and he shoves the parchment right in Zura’s face. “Shut up,” he says, even though Zura hasn't said anything. It's just, he feels like his throat wants to close up, and not let any more words come out, so this has to happen quickly.

“I can’t read it, it’s too dark.”

Gintoki gives a deadpan look at the candle he lit in the corner, and then back at Zura. After a moment, he reaches out, raking Zura’s long bangs back and holding them there. “Moron,” he snaps, while the taller boy blinks owlishly in the revealed light of the room.

“Oh.”

“Would you just read it already?”

“Alright. Kinto -”

“Not out loud!”

“Why not?”

This was a bad idea. His stomach’s in knots. Gintoki reaches out, trying to grab the paper back. “Forget it, oi, nevermind - ”

“Oh,” says Zura, eyes on the paper. The permed boy can see the other smiling in the dim light, and his stomach lurches in an entirely different direction. “I’m in it.”

With how long it took, the dumb poem is practically branded into Gintoki’s brain. He hears it in his head as Zura’s eyes flicker across the page a second time;

Kinto-un only
lets the best fly through the clouds
like me and Zura.

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” corrects the boy. “But it wouldn’t have fit then.”

The correction, as always, is ignored. “S’better than Takasugi’s trash, huh?”

“His were all about flowers and trees, like Sensei’s examples.” Zura shrugs. “They fit well, but they were kind of girly.”

Gintoki snorts, feeling a rush of pride. Zura likes his better. He knew Zura would like his better. “Tch, that asshole can’t write worth a crap.”

The dark haired boy doesn’t seem to be listening, and suddenly looks up with an expression of remembrance. “Oh. I forgot to show you. You’re in mine, too.”

“I am?” The strangeness in Gintoki’s belly comes back with a vengeance. It feels like maybe he’s hungry. He should sneak into the pantry and get some cookies. After this, anyway. “Lemme see it.”

“Ah, hold on...” The taller boy gets to his feet, padding carefully across the small room of sleeping would-be samurai to their personal shelves. He returns with his green workbook, opening it carefully on his lap. When he turns it around for Gintoki to see, he smiles, and Gintoki grins crookedly back. “Here.”

This is my haiku.
I think I counted right, yes.
Perms are really weird.

fic: gintama - yet someone told me

oopsipuked — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:41:56 GMT

Title: yet someone told me
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura, but the main characters are Sakamoto and Katsura.
Disclaimer: Gintama is as much mine as a well-adjusted sleep schedule. Morning!
Feedback: A high five, a slap in the face, hit me with it.
Notes: Inspired by and written to "Quelqu'un Ma Dit" - Carla Bruni. Translated lyrics here.

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

They’re going to drink too much, and speak of things he doesn’t want to, and his sandals are going to get vomited on. He knows all of this in vivid detail the moment the damn afro is let in. Katsura’s followers are traitors, every single one of them, to deliver him into the hands of such an idiot drunk.

“Zura, Zura, you need to loosen up!” is the declaration of the evening, and the rebel tries not to notice the way his men smile gratefully at Sakamoto, and shake his hand a little too warmly. Refusing the invitation on those grounds alone is impossible.

It’s really just unforgivable.

They’ve had too much to drink. It’s fortunate when the waitress, no longer deeming Sakamoto’s ample wallet worth the aggravation, strides off after a resounding slap.

“Can’t you behave yourself?” murmurs Katsura, sinking into his cup of sake. “She is likely someone’s wife.”

The younger man laughs, rubbing his cheek. “I know that’s your thing, Zura – ”

“Katsura.”

“ – but I’m not into that! Married, unmarried, who cares, huh? A man can’t help being in love. He just knows!”

“Aa?” drawls the rebel dryly. “So, ‘are you still serving dumplings, no, can I see yours then?’ is what one says to their beloved?”

Sakamoto grins, waving a hand. “Ahaha! It’s an ice-breaker, an ice-breaker! You gotta save the good stuff for later on.”

Katsura gives a dismissive snort, reaching for the bottle. The merchant’s grin wattage reduces to a smile, and he ruffles Katsura’s hair too roughly. Sake spills onto the smooth wood of the bar. “You shouldn’t frown so much. You could get wrinkles. And women only tolerate wrinkles on their husband’s – ”

“Tatsuma.”

“ – I was going to say their husband’s father! Ahaha, you don’t have much faith in me.”

“Why should I, hn?”

“Because I’m buying the next round! Ahaha!”

“I just think,” mumbles Zura, aware that he is far, far too drunk now, “I just think you could do it better. I wish you could stay and help me do it better – ”

“I can’t stay,” smiles the other man, and those ridiculous sunglasses are off now, lying in the splashes of sake on the bar top. Tatsuma was always the most youthful in age and spirit, the prized youngest child of a long-disbanded family of brothers. Now, Katsura can see, deep blue eyes have matured far beyond that adolescent station. “You know my cause is up there now.”

“I know. …I’m sorry. I’ve had too much.”

“Even if there’s too much, you’re not on your own down here, aa?”

“He doesn’t want to help. He doesn’t want anything to do with – ” an awkward, too-obvious pause, “ – the cause.”

“I didn’t say anything about help.” Sakamoto picks up his glasses, tucks them in his scarf. The hand falls back onto the rebel’s shoulder. “I just said you weren’t alone.”

Katsura can’t quite manage a smile, but fills his comrade’s cup (as Sakamoto overflows those of everyone around him).

“He still loves you, you know,” the taller man slurs into his ear, alcohol-heavy and warm in the October chill.

Katsura’s heart is suddenly in his throat, so he can’t seem to swallow the thick, clumsy word. “Why?”

“Aaah,” sighs Sakamoto, “Zura, Zura, a man can’t help being in love. He just knows.”

He then throws up onto Katsura’s sandals.

It’s really just unforgivable.

Sleeping beside Sakamoto is surprisingly calming. He doesn’t snore, doesn’t elbow or kick, and he doesn’t curl up behind Katsura like a second skin, breathing sugar-sweet breath into the crook of his neck.

He just sleeps.

Even so, Katsura doesn’t.

The morning is bright and brittle. Sakamoto jostles him awake, and Katsura startles like an animal, reaching automatically for the sheath beside his pillow. The action feels too telling and he’s, for just a moment, deeply ashamed, but the other man only laughs more. “Ahaha, whoah whoah, I didn’t do anything weird! I remembered in time, Zura, relax.”

“Katsura,” he grunts groggily. “Wait, what?”

He ends up using the sword anyway.

Katsura knows Sakamoto saw his new scars. As far as the rebel could tell, Sakamoto doesn’t have any new ones.

He’d like to think that means space is far less dangerous than he’s heard about.

He knows it’s because Sakamoto is far more dangerous than space has heard about.

“Ahaha, wow, it’s so lively!” the merchant chirps, trekking down the crowded main street alongside him. His strides are longer than Katsura’s, but slower, too. Sakamoto always enjoys the journey, and this one is no exception. “It’s just like how I remembered it! – Except for you, hahaha, I would have remembered you, marry me? No? How about just a honeymoon, then?”

Katsura tunes out the other’s rejection, casting a critical eye up from beneath his hat. He feels his jaw tighten, the hilt of his katana boring into his palm. “How can this be how you remembered Edo?” he spits, sharp enough to send the uninterested girl on her way.

Everything Katsura sees is tainted with foreign influence. He crosses streets with Amanto who may have killed tens of his comrades with their own hands, hundreds of his countrymen with their hands on advanced tech.

The same breed of tech they are now selling to widows and fatherless children, as if to fill that void left behind. His voice is laced with regret. “This isn’t Edo as it was.”

Sunglasses and smile impassive, the taller man informs him, “Really? It smells like it,” and guides them to a food stall. “Hey, no matter how much ginger you put on gyoza, it’s still gyoza, right?”

“I don’t like ginger,” he responds flatly. Sakamoto snorts, clapping a wide palm onto the top of Katsura’s head.

“Sure, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the smell of fresh gyoza, huh? Ahaha, good afternoon! Four please!”

They go past the snack shop Gintoki’s been staying at without breaking stride. Katsura doesn’t look at Sakamoto or the shop front. He watches his feet, taking even steps, one in front of the other.

One, two.

One, two.

One, two.

It looks so easy.

When they rest in the park, the taller man unfurls like a bloom in the sun. His skin’s gotten paler, up on the ship – he used to be tannest of them all. Sakamoto was brown as a nut all summer and winter, like he’d absorbed the beams themselves and held onto them.

His own skin has always been pale. In the war, bruises showed up on it every day, like carefree splotches of water paint. They were haphazard and colourful, sometimes even playful, especially when left from smirking teeth or sucking lips, and stroked with a tongue as deft as a paintbrush.

Things have changed, even their bodies say. Sakamoto’s skin looks light as a newborn star, and Katsura’s is starving to death for colour.

Sakamoto goes out again once they return, rambling about a ship engine mechanic he hasn’t seen in awhile and stealing Katsura’s gloves. The rebel elects to stay in and do laundry. Although he receives an inscrutable look, he isn’t argued with, and soon the creaky front door slides shut behind his old comrade.

Katsura brings the basket of damp clothes outside, steps up on a rock that has been worn down by someone else’s sandals to reach the wash line. With methodical, fluid movements, the contents of the basket are transferred; an old, soggy yukata, a kimono with dark sauce still vaguely staining the collar, a white towel with eyes and a yellow beak.

Wind ripples along the row once he’s finished his task, and he watches the muted colours sway heavily. It’ll be a long while before they’re dried in the weakness of this light – all there is to do is wait.

Vaguely, he knows it’s a dream. Even though everything is the same – the clothes line, the worn stone, the faded light of the autumn sky – he knows it’s a dream. He knows he finished this chore and sat down on the porch, so he shouldn’t still be attending to it, putting up kimono after kimono. The basket doesn’t seem to end for a long time, and when it finally does, his hand plunges into water.

“ – Ah?”

As he leans over to peer in the basket, drops splash onto the smooth surface of the deep puddle inside. Stupidly, he looks up for rain, but there isn’t any – the drops came from his hair. It dawns on him then that he’s become completely soaked.

With a logic that seems undeniable, Katsura steps back onto the stone. He then reaches up to the top of the wooden post, and hauls himself up onto the laundry line.

“You won’t get dry like that, stupid,” comes a low, indolent drawl. “Oi, come down. Your wig’ll fly away.”

“Shut up,” says Katsura. His hands tighten on his washing line perch. “I have to wait.”

“No you don’t.” The man beneath him slides a hand beneath his kimono, up his shin. Katsura wobbles dangerously, disturbing all the clothes on the cord, but he can’t move away. He can fall backwards or forwards, and that tone is becoming more inviting.

Although he sees the other below him, the words somehow come hot and rich against his ear. “Come on, Zura. Come down here. I’ll warm you up – ”

“Shit,” Katsura blurts, as his head skids off the wooden support beam of the porch. “Shit,” he adds eloquently, his neck letting him know of the awkward position he’d dozed off in. He feels sick. He feels like he has vertigo.

“ – Ahaha, there you are!” He almost winces. Sakamoto seems so loud after the simple stillness of that late afternoon (after the low murmurs in the back of his mind). The sun’s petered out almost completely by now, dusk rolling in like a cool stranger. “I got you a doggy bag from Wataru!”

“Ah… thank you. Where is it?”

“At Wataru! Ahaha, sorry. The imported beer got the best of me, Zura.”

“Katsura.” He doesn’t feel alert enough to speak with Sakamoto yet, worries the perceptive eyes of the younger man will see traces of a white kimono, hanging in the air beside the laundry. He looks away from the spot in question, kneading his sore neck. “How was…” He’s forgotten his name. “…Your friend?”

A cloud of alcohol hits him as Sakamoto sits down. His foggy mind supplies the imagery of a distillery inside that enormous, ridiculous afro. “Aaah, just great! He’s getting married, though, so he wasn’t much for girl hunting. Don’t you think it should be the opposite way?”

“What?”

“You know – a lot of girls to give him the proper ‘send off,’ ahaha!”

“No. That’s not how it works at all, you idiot.” Katsura pushes his hair back, almost expecting his fingers to come away damp. “If he has one… he should be with his one and only.”

There’s a small moment of silence, and then Sakamoto’s arm fwumps onto his shoulders, yanking him into a one-armed hug. “Haha, is that how it is?” The other man’s voice is fond, reassuring, and Katsura feels his stomach unclench, just a little. “You’d never expect a guy with a face like yours to be such a softie, ahahaha.”

“It’s not softie, it’s Katsura.” The taller man only chuckles more, and they watch the last of the sun filter down below the cheap garden fence quietly. When the rebel shifts to warm his hands within his sleeves, Sakamoto tilts his head.

“Hmmm? Are you cold? Looks like we should warm you up.”

Katsura’s eyes widen and then close, mouth drawing tight as he nods. “…Aa.”

“Oh, uh, well, it appears that your gloves are at Wataru too… ahaha, sorry?”

The relieved exhale wavers painfully, but there’s just enough laughter in it to keep him from attempting to climb up alongside a soggy yukuta. “Let’s just go inside.”

Sakamoto lies on the futon belly-down, fiddling with a strange little device. “What is it?” Katsura asks haltingly, snuffing out the room’s candles.

“This? It’s – sort of multi-purpose.” He turns the matte metallic object around, showing Katsura a screen. It’s lit up, and colourful. “See, I can get in contact with my assistant if I press this, and check the progress of my clients’ orders if I press this, and find out where the best hostess bars in the galaxy are if I enable this, and then go here!” He beams. “Oh, and right now I’m setting the alarm clock! Mutsu’ll have my balls if I’m late, ahah… ha…”

“You’re leaving already?” asks the rebel, and he immediately wishes he could retract the statement, say something more neutral, less obvious.

Of course, the taller man just grins. “Ahaha, gonna miss me, Zura?”

“Katsura. Tch, who would? Do this world a favour and fall out of an airlock.”

“Ahaha! So cold, so cold! It’s a good thing I know you don’t mean that, or my feelings would be hurt!”

“A talking afro doesn’t have feelings,” mumbles Katsura, suddenly feeling exhausted. He flops down onto the futon beside Sakamoto rather gracelessly, hair settling around his face like a mourning shroud.

Impertinent as always, the blue-eyed man lifts a forelock, peering at him with a too-knowing smile. “What’s with this gloomy atmosphere of yours, huh? You’ll make me feel guilty.”

Katsura squints his eye shut to the other’s scrutiny. He knows he’s being stupid. He doesn’t care. “A talking afro doesn’t have feelings,” he repeats gruffly.

“You could come with me,” comes the other’s smooth voice, stark and sincere.

“No, I couldn’t,” he responds thickly. His shoulders hunch tighter, as if he’s re-positioning himself under the weight of that burden he took up all too quickly. He knows he won’t be rid of it. He may lose everything else, everyone else, but he won’t ever be able to put that duty aside. “You know I couldn’t.”

Sakamoto shifts, suddenly pulling him to his chest. A wide, square hand strokes down the rebel’s spine, slow and firm. It’s shameful, completely lacking in dignity, but Katsura thaws to it, and presses his face to the other man’s throat. “I know you couldn’t,” affirms Sakamoto quietly, almost wryly.

Katsura isn’t prepared for it when he adds, “Ahah, he’d never forgive me.”

He wakes jarringly to the other’s alarm and finds himself tangled up with Sakamoto like a littermate (like dogs of war at rest). Despite the acute prickling of his own awkward skin, he doesn’t pull away. It’s warm and …peaceful, like this. It reminds him of the war in a way that doesn’t make loss and weariness ache in his gut. It reminds him of having a family.

Aside from the stupid, noisy alarm.

“Tatsuma,” he whispers, once he’s had enough of it. Out of practice, his hand shifts tentatively up, ruffles the other’s ridiculous hair. “Tatsuma, you’re going to be late.” When he receives no response, the gentle fingers turn rough, yanking at the brown tufts unforgivingly. “Wake up, asshole.”

“M’up, m’up,” hums Sakamoto. He slaps around over their heads for his device, shutting off the trilling alarm. He then picks it up and surveys the screen, pressing various buttons as he scratches a very private area below the sheets. Katsura resolves to do laundry again as soon as possible.

“Hahaha, oops,” the businessman says.

“ – Oops?” repeats Katsura uncertainly.

“Oops, haha!” The taller man disengages with a lanky stretch, and Katsura is pleasantly surprised to find his limbs still feel warm and relaxed. “Looks like I forgot a delivery.”

“Oh.” Katsura blinks, not even trying to feign surprise. “Is that a problem?”

“Nah, nah, I’m sure everything will work out for the best, ahaha!”

“Ah, well, your assistant – ”

“ – Just sent me a picture of her new steel-toed boots! Wow, how stylish! Those spikes look really long – ahahaha… ahaha… ha… hey, Zura, could you do me a favour?”

After seeing the other man off at the Terminal, and giving an impromptu blessing to a crowd of devotees whom recognized his monks’ robes, he peers down at the scribbled address. On the scrap of paper, Sakamoto’s handwriting is boxy and energetic, like the hands that wrote the words themselves.

As he walks, he turns the nameless envelope over in his other hand, wondering if it’s money to hush up some sort of sexual harassment lawsuit. But when he goes by six different cabaret girls clubs without seeing the address, his fears of an angry floral kimono-clad mob subside.

He then wonders if it’s a check to that mechanic friend of his, if maybe that meeting had been just as much business as pleasure. Sakamoto hasn’t been shy as an investor of new businesses, especially not those who could scratch his back in return later on. But he goes through the merchant’s district, too, without finding his match, and sets that theory aside as well.

Fleetingly, he wonders if it’s a love letter. He then chides himself – Sakamoto didn’t think with his heart, he thought with his pants, and what was in his pants had no business writing letters.

When he finally finds his way to the marked address, his stomach drops into his sandals. It’s not as much as a figure of speech as he might have thought it’d be – it literally feels as if every step he takes towards the door is squashing his innards together.

But he has a – duty. Sakamoto has given him a duty, and if he doesn’t have his duty, he has (is) nothing. He has to move forward. He has to follow this through.

One, two.

One, two.

One, two.

He knocks with a hand that fights trembling, and the door slides open.

“Zura?” Gintoki startles, clear surprise written across his face.

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. – Ah. Could I come in?”

Kintoki –

I found this wig! I think it belongs to you?

It’s seen better days, so please take good care of it! Hahaha!
– Sakamoto
P.S. Oh, he still loves you too, by the way.

ICONS: no, the layers of a cake are completely different from these!

oopsipuked — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:48:17 GMT

♫ GINTAMA FANART [100]
♪ ♪ ♪ Gintoki/Katsura [100]

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

Preview:

1	2	3	4	5	6

7	8	9	10	11	12

13	14	15	16	17	18

19	20	21	22	23	24

25	26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35	36

37	38	39	40	41	42

43	44	45	46	47	48

49	50	51	52	53	54

55	56	57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64	65	66

67	68	69	70	71	72

73	74	75	76	77	78

79	80	81	82	83	84

85	86	87	88	89	90

91	92	93	94	95	96

97	98	99	100

FST: GINTAMA - keepsake

oopsipuked — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 20:17:23 GMT

♬DOWNLOAD IT♬

CARVE YOUR NAME - the grates
lemon in your tea, cherry in your sweet,
spices on your meat, you'd be jelly without me

tap tap on my windowsill and I won't let you in, no
cheep cheep from a sparrow says you ain't gonna win, no

carve your name into my heart, better than a tattoo or a photograph
put your face on a contact lens, only I have been to all the places we've seen

UNDER THE ROTUNDA - the lucksmiths
I didn’t mean to yell
it’s just that I’m a little jealous
‘cause you can do the rubik’s cube and I can’t

I know we’ve done all this before
but once more won’t hurt
so let’s do it once more
bereft of ideas
we live here but we’re sightseers

CHALLENGERS - the new pornographers
"be safe" you say
whatever the mess you are you're mine, okay

until I see you around
until we clear the accounts
leave it there, leave it to us

we are the challengers of
the unknown

THE IDEA OF GROWING OLD - the features
we can talk all night, we can talk all day
we can play charades when there is nothing to say
you turn me on to the idea of growing old

we can lay around and count the number of times
I've acted foolish and you've rolled your eyes
you turn me on to the idea of growing old

SELF-PRESERVATION - the lucksmiths
breakfast, sat on a Japanese mattress
getting this happy takes practice
the world would be duller without us

and, yeah, we're a mess,
but let me just stress
that we're both at our best in a tight spot
and whatever comes next, if we leave the nest
don't settle for less than what we've got

GET BETTER - mates of state
forget all your politics for a while
let the color schemes arrive

everything's gonna get lighter
even if it never gets better

THE OLD COLLEGE TRY - the mountain goats
from the entrance to the exit
is longer than it looks from where we stand
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet
things will shortly get completely out of hand

I will walk down to the end with you
if you will come all the way down with me

SAMSON - regina spektor
oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
and history books forgot about us
and the bible didn't mention us, not even once

you are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

ALL MY DAYS - alexi murdoch
for I look around me and my eyes confound me
and it’s just too bright as the days keep turning into night

now I see clearly, it’s you I’m looking for
all of my days soon I’ll smile
I know I’ll feel this loneliness no more

START A WAR - the national
we expected something
something better than before
we expected something more
do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting
lock it up and leave

we were always weird
but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now
walk away now and you’re gonna start a war

HOLD ONTO WHAT YOU BELIEVE - mumford & sons
I ran away
I could not take the burden of both me and you
it was too fast
casting love on me as if it were a spell I could not break
when it was a promise I could not make
but what if I was wrong

hold on to what you believe in the light
when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight

and now this land
means less and less to me without you
breathing through its trees

KEEPSAKE - state radio
one gonna heal my body another gonna heal my pain
one gonna settle me down then bring me back up again

I'm gonna put my family back together again

one gonna hold my memory another gonna close the door
one gonna leave me restless another wanting more

you're gonna keep my soul it was yours to have long ago

I AM YOURS - tracy chapman
when all my hopes and dreams
have been betrayed
I stand before you
my hands are empty

I am yours, if you are mine

ALL THOSE DAYS ARE GONE - jump, little children
as far as the stars are away from the midday sun
memories so bright
in a spinning twilight
but all those days are gone

she said everybody wants to be here
here where there's no one else around

I'll trade the moon for the sun
but this feeling for no one

NATURE & THE WRECK - mates of state
lying down, I notice what you see
below us, your arms are like the trees

how I will protect,
and how each day matters to me

I know we haven't said enough
but I know I've never loved this much

BUSINESS TIME - flight of the conchords
making love
making love for
making love for two
making love for two minutes
when it's with me you only need two minutes
because I'm so intense
two minutes in heaven is better than
...one minute in heaven

you turn to me and say something sexy like, "Is that it?"
I know what you’re trying to say, girl
you're trying to say, "Aww yeah, that's it"
and then you tell me you want some more
well, uh... I'm not surprised
but I'm quite sleepy

WAR - poets of the fall
do you remember standing on a broken field
white crippled wings beating the sky
the harbingers of war with their nature revealed
and our chances flowing by

if I can let the memory heal
I will remember you with me on that field

when I thought that I fought this war alone
you were there by my side on the frontline
when I thought that I fought without a cause
you gave me a reason to try

so will you please show me your real face
draw the line in the horizon
cos I only need your name to call the reasons why I fought

I FOUND A REASON - cat power (velvet underground cover)
oh I do believe
in all the things you say
what comes is better
than what came before

and you'd better come come, come come to me
better run, run run, run run to me

THINK ABOUT ME - the decemberists (fleetwood mac cover)
but I knew we would be together
and I couldn't wait for more
what can I say
it's not against the law

I don't hold you down
and maybe that's why you're around
but if I'm the one you love
think about me

I could believe that you really want me
but it's not easy just to give in
so let yourself go and let love begin

HARBOR - vienna teng
sail your sea
meet your storm
all I want is to be your harbor
the light in me
will guide you home
all I want is to be your harbor

you've got a journey to make
there's your horizon to chase
so go far beyond where we stand
no matter the distance
I'm holding your hand
♫ ♪ ♫

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama. Commenting if you're snagging is appreciated. 8)

FIC: GINTAMA - Fight on a Monday...

oopsipuked — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:27:49 GMT

Title: Fight on a Monday, Cry on a Tuesday, Throw Up on a Wednesday, but Always Laugh on Saturday & Sunday
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: R
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura.
Disclaimer: Sally Saw a Silver Souled Samurai by the Sea Shore, and didn't own anything but a speech impediment.
Feedback: A high five, a slap in the face, hit me with it.
Notes: For antimonial. Title from the Radwimps.

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

The morning after, Gintoki realizes he has made a huge mistake. It’s not that he’s worried about the Shisengumi – he’s not, they couldn’t find their own assholes if given explicit instructions, a bloodhound, and a GPS – it’s the principle of it. He’s not running a goddamned hostel, here. And he’s certainly not running a hideout for idiot terrorists with stupid wig hair. How the hell had Zura talked him into this?

Beside him, Zura shifts, the blanket sliding down his bare waist to reveal the slope of his lower back. Gintoki’s eyes drop to it, spacing out.

Ah, right. He’d been talked into it with body language.

He brushes the blanket lower still, taking a few moments to appreciate the view. Then, he braces his foot against that maddening little curve, and shoves, sending Zura tumbling onto the floor.

“Oi oi, wake up. Gin-san wants breakfast.”

-+-+-+-

After enough wheedling, guilting, and cajoling, the other samurai makes those inexplicable pancakes. There’s absolutely no sense to be found in why Zura can make them better than even the Intergalactic House of Pancakes, but there’s never any sense in anything Zura does, so the Yorozuya doesn’t think too much about it. Zura puts his hair back, Gintoki opens this week’s Jump, and things are somewhat peaceful.

When a sleep-ruffled, yawning Kagura slams open her closet door, said peace is resolutely broken. Sitting on the wooden edge, she stares at Zura for a full minute, then bounds out of the compartment, tackling Gintoki’s torso.

“Gin-chan! You finally got me a mommy!”

The white-haired man slams her in the forehead with an open palm, trying to pry her off before she breaks his ribcage. “What’s that supposed to mean, aa!? I’m not your goddamned daddy! You moron! That’s Zura!”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” comes from the kitchen.

“Huh. So the ex-yellow curry ninja’s gonna be the mommy?”

“It’s not ex-yellow curry ninja, it’s Katsura.”

“No! Little gorilla brats don’t get mommies, they get put in zoos and laughed at!”

The Yato releases him with a disgusted noise, and Gintoki holds his stomach, gasping for breath. Kagura strides over to Zura [who ceases flipping pancakes and places his spatula to the side, so as not to lose any fingers]. The girl puts her hands on her hips. Zura puts his in his kimono sleeves.

They stare at each other.

“We got a way of life here, ahuh,” says the girl. She’s chewing on non-existent gum to emphasize her tough-girl in-the-know status.

The rebel nods. “I see you are a tough-girl in-the-know.”

“That’s right! And times are hard!”

“Ah.”

“You think you can handle it?” demands Kagura, pointing.

“I am making pancakes,” replies Zura.

The redhead is already holding a plate. She gives Gintoki a thumbs-up. “Mommy approved, yup.”

Gintoki punches her in the head in response. To retaliate, she kicks him in the chest. It escalates into a brawl quickly.

“It’s not mommy, it’s Katsura,” says Zura, but no one is listening.

-+-+-+-

The rebel is skittish the first few days, spending most of his time in Gintoki’s bedroom rather than the front room. He thinks he’s being cautious; Gintoki thinks he’s being a paranoid, anti-social asshole. Not that he cares what Zura does - it’s just annoying.

“What are you, a blossoming hikikomori?” complains the Yorozuya, picking his nose. “That’s stupid. I mean, sure, your hair is greasy enough to pull it off, but still.”

Zura doesn’t look up from the newspaper, spread out on the extra futon in front of him. “You’re stupid and your hair looks like a dirty cotton swab.”

“That’s disgusting, what is with that disgusting imagination of yours, aa? Anyway, you have to get out of here sometime.”

A crinkle of pages precedes the response, “Those sentences are unrelated. Just saying ‘anyway’ isn’t enough of a transition.”

“How about this; if you don’t get out of this room today, I’m going to kick your ass, but I might kick it anyway.”

“You were supposed to use a different transition, not just use ‘anyway’ in a different – wah!” he cuts off as Gintoki kicks his newspaper across the room in a flurry of ink and paper.

Gintoki continues picking his nose. “Oh, hey, sorry, were you reading that?”

The smaller man narrows hazel eyes, glaring up at him. “If this is about trying to hide your smut, I’ve already seen it.”

“ – Why were you in my closet?”

“You should be ashamed.”

“Oi, oi, you should be ashamed! What kind of nosy guest are you, asshole? I bet you go through medicine cabinets at parties.”

“Shut up, what the hell kind of pervert has those kinds of doujin –”

“Healthy young man! Interests!” bursts Gintoki, vaguely pink in the cheeks. “Hinamori-chan brings out the darkest desires in even the most reserved of men.” This is not going anywhere he intended it to. He needs to take control of the situation. “– You shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“You – augh, you shut up! There’s a rerun of your stupid show on.”

“What?”

“‘The Universe’s Most Useless Pets.’”

“It’s ‘The Universe’s Most Endearing Pets,’” sighs the black haired man, getting up to retrieve the scattered mess of his paper, “and they only play reruns on Wednesday.”

Gintoki taps an impatient foot. “It’s a special. For diligent brain-dead viewers only.”

“There’s no special.”

“There could be. How would you know, hikikomori?”

Sitting down on the futon and smoothing out the reclaimed newspaper, Zura goes back to ignoring him. Gintoki searches his brain for an idea. An overturned soba truck in the streets flooded the front room with stupid buckwheat noodles? The birthday gift he’s been begging off on for three years is on the couch? Kondou Isao is helpless and hog-tied on the living room floor?

Aa, would that be gorilla-tied?

This is starting to smack of something that requires effort, so Gintoki gives up. With a fwump, he plops down on the futon behind Zura. Why should he care if the shithead won’t leave his bedroom? Half of the time he can’t even get the idiot into the bedroom –

Gintoki’s eyebrows arch.

“So…” he drawls lowly, leaning over Zura’s back, one hand settling lightly on the rebel’s waist, “you wanna take another look at those doujin? Y’know, together?”

Zura leaves the bedroom.

-+-+-+-

When he returns from a job with Kagura to see Shinpachi lying on one of the couches, flipping through what looks like an Otsuu-chan photobook, he assumes the worst.

“Pattsuan, are your legs broken?” Gintoki gasps.

The boy looks up. “What?”

“Shinpachiiii! Your legs, your legs!” wails Kagura, following Gintoki’s lead. “Now you’ll never be one of Otsuu-chan’s handsome back-up dancers!”

“I told you that in private, Kagura-chan,” replies Shinpachi in a monotone, face dull.

The Yato waves a hand. “A girl shouldn’t concern herself with boys’ privates, yup.”

“What!? In private means you don’t tell anyone!”

“Huh, why would I be telling anyone about your privates in the first place? You sure are full of yourself, Shinpachi-kun, ahuh.”

“Nobody’s talking about privates!”

Gintoki leaves them to it, glancing into his bedroom. There is no gloomy terrorist to be found, but the futons are rolled up, and the floor looks swept and neat. He has to take a leak, and does so, noticing a certain clean shine to the toilet and sink [even the copper rings around the drains – which he’d convinced Kagura were rings of merit for Gin-san’s excellent hygiene – are gone].

“Who ever heard of a pair of glasses being a back-up dancer anyway, huh,” Kagura is grunting, flicking a booger off her fingers.

Shinpachi begins to squawk, but Gintoki interrupts him. “Shinpachi, you have done well,” he commends loftily. “Did you clean the gutters, too? They could use it.”

“I didn’t clean – ”

“The old hag has the ladder, if you want to finish the job. No, you need to. It’s like going to the bathroom.”

Kagura pipes up, “Wipe from front to back, not side to side?”

“No. Well, yes, but no. I meant that you can’t just stop mid-stream!”

“What kind of demented analogy is that!?” snaps Shinpachi. “And I didn’t clean the Yorozuya! I just got here fifteen minutes ago!” He closes the photo book and tucks it into the waistband of his hakama for safe-keeping. “Katsura-san probably did it, if it wasn’t one of you.” A pause, a sigh. “What am I saying…of course it wasn’t one of you.”

Gintoki slings himself lazily onto the couch opposite, ignoring the aside. “Aa? And where is Zura? Did he finally leave and take his stinky wig with him?”

“I don’t think he’d leave without – ”

The door slides open, interrupting Shinpachi, and the three look up. Zura’s wearing that ridiculous wide brimmed hat and what looks like a kimono liberated from that Amanto crook downstairs. In his hands, he’s toting three bags of groceries.

He immediately takes off the hat, folds to his knees, and gives a low, demure bow. “Welcome home from bread-winning,” he bids them. “I will have dinner prepared shortly.”

Kagura steps forward, crossing her arms, stance wide. “I want shrimp tempura over udon, yup.”

Zura bows more, his eyes averted coyly. “Anything Leader-shujin wishes.”

The Yato gives him an imperial nod of approval, patting the top of the rebel’s head. In response, Zura blushes delicately.

Gintoki immediately jumps off the couch to ram his foot through Zura’s thick skull. “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

-+-+-+-

When Zura comes back from the bath, wet hair piled high and ridiculous on his head, Gintoki keeps reading Gintaman. At the sound of the towel dropping to the floor, Gintoki keeps reading, but his teeth grit. During the extended shuffling of fabric in his closet, he begins to sweat.

No, no. He is stronger than this. This fine manga’s plot is incredibly interesting. Zura’s manipulative bullshit is ineffective; he’s not a cave man.

The floor creaks quietly as Zura shifts his weight, bending forward into the closet.

Shit.

He isn’t stronger than this. Screw shitty, shitty Gintaman. Naked Zura good, him like naked Zura.

“Fine, you can stay, god damnit,” he snaps. He looks up quickly, only to find Zura’s apparently made up his mind about which kimono to wear to bed, and is already cinching the belt tightly around himself.

“You’re ruining that,” the rebel says, pointing to the manga being crushed in Gintoki’s fist.

-+-+-+-

The cleaning, subservient streak only lasts two days.

Gintoki misses them.

“You bastard!” he shouts, stomping out of the kitchen, a frying pan clenched in his hand. “Get off your freeloading ass and make dinner!”

“Nn,” grunts Zura absently, curled up on the couch, eyes never straying from the television. His fingers move efficiently on the Bentendo controller [the tap-tap-tap having been the background noise at the Yorozuya all day].

“I mean it!” fumes Gintoki, pointing the pan like a weapon. “I’ll throw you out into the goddamned street, you worthless terrorist!”

“Nn.”

“I work all day and night, slave my youth away to bring wages into this godforsaken house –”

“Nn.”

“– and you, you ungrateful asshole, don’t even have the decency to cook dinner with the bounty of food my blood, sweat, and tears produced? Are you that shameless? Are you that rude? Are you that much of a leech on society?”

Zura gasps. He’s seen the error of his ways and is rightly appalled at himself. Gin-san is the victor.

“Where did that Goomba come from?”

Gintoki sees red.

The frying pan misses Zura’s head only because the taller man trips on the damn kimono Zura filched. It’s far too big on him, even though he’s wearing it as it’s never been worn [ie; correctly]. As the Yorozuya picks himself up off the floor, he glowers at the mocking, light-blue swirls. It figures the moron can’t even wear it hanging loose and seductive, with slivers of pale, lickable inner thigh showing, like in any doujin worth the judging eyes of a middle-aged check-out woman.

There is no teasing inner thigh, no coy bare shoulder. Zura just looks like a potato sack. A potato sack that possibly belongs to Gintoki.

He frowns, suddenly feeling flustered.

“Potato sack bastard,” he mutters, too loudly. After a moment, he grumbles, “Go to two player mode.”

“Nn,” hums Zura, pushing the second controller towards him with his foot.

-+-+-+-

“Gin-san,” intones Shinpachi, sounding deceptively calm. “I know you wouldn’t call me and make me come all the way over from my house, without there being a real emergency.”

“Do you hear my stomach growling? It could become feral. This is an emergency.”

“Red turtle shells do not constitute an emergency!”

The Yorozuya snaps, “Oi oi, Shinpachi, what the hell do you mean red turtle shells aren’t an emergency? They’re heat-seeking! They won’t rest until your car is overturned and your character is frustrated!”

“Cook your own damn - ”

“They have the ability to knock you from first to eighth!”

“Why eighth!?Are you making a rank joke? Are you saying I got hit by a red turtle shell, and knocked into eighth place?!”

“Aa, who put that banana there? Zura, don’t litter so thoughtlessly.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.”

“Don’t ignore me, you assholes!” Shinpachi takes a deep breath. He counts to ten, and then says in a monotone, “I’m not making dinner for two perfectly capable adults playing Bentendo Mario Cars.”

“I’m not capable,” says Gintoki, frantically pressing A. “I’m too busy helping Princess Peach redefine gender roles. Do you hate women, Pattsuan?”

“I am not capable either,” adds Zura flatly. “I have to keep an eye on Luigi-san. The pressures of being second fiddle have become too much. He is on suicide-watch.”

Shinpachi makes dinner.

-+-+-+-

“Stop being a stubborn asshole,” he mumbles against the other’s ear, hands grasping [and alright, groping, so sue him]. It’s difficult, trying to pull Zura [who fights him, every inch of the goddamned way] onto his futon. “Would you just – she’s asleep, you idiot.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when she’s awake, she’s breaking things, and I don’t hear anything breaking. So she’s asleep.”

“That’s the stupidest – ah.” The smaller man stops struggling for a moment, distracted by the hard kisses down along his neck. Well-aware of the miniscule window of opportunity he has, Gintoki tugs the idiot flush against his front, pressing more sucking bites to the sensitive skin of the rebel’s nape. But just as his hand slips inside the collar of the kimono [pulling it wide under the guise of kissing], Zura remembers that he’s incurably annoying and starts trying to clamber away again. “Let me go –”

Resisting the urge to punch the jackass is hard. “No. Shut up.” He gives the exposed [success!] shoulder a sharp nip, directing attention away from his wandering hands. “You have to prove your worth in this household if you want to stay. It’s this or cleaning the gutters.”

“Ah? I’ll go get the ladder.”

“I have something else for you to climb.”

“What did you just –”

“Nothing. What did you do, triple knot this belt?”

“A samurai should make every effort to look presentable.”

“My ass, this thing would just fall off your womanly figure if you didn’t – ”

“Do you want to die? I’ll kill you.”

“This is my dying wish, then.” He finally manages some leverage, rolling the smaller man effectively underneath him, and shuts the annoying prattle up with a firm kiss. He waits for it, waits for it- and there it is, that moment when whatever inane thoughts are rattling around inside Zura’s head quiet, when he relaxes in Gintoki’s arms and soft lips open under his own. It’s heady, the knowledge that only he can silence the unending stream of nonsense and politics that pour out from the other samurai.

The quiet shifting of the knot’s fabric falling apart is even headier, and his hands immediately seek out warm skin. Call him a pervert, but he also thoroughly enjoys the fact that even after all this stupid, stupid time, the expanses of skin usually hidden under thick layers of kimono have only been touched by he and he alone. Getting Zura into bed is a very, very exclusive club, and Gintoki intends to exercise his VIP perks tonight.

“Gin-chan?”

Or not.

Zura promptly goes stiff underneath him [in the way Gintoki doesn’t want] and shoves him off rather roughly just as the door slides open.“Gin-chan,” yawns a sleepy Kagura, rubbing her eyes, “I had a nightmare.”

“I don’t care,” mumbles Gintoki, pulling his blanket up protectively and picturing Saigou in a thong. “You deserved a nightmare for eating half of my breakfast this morning. You have learned a valuable lesson, Kagura; stealing a man’s bacon leads only to your own suffering.”

“Gintoki,” mutters Zura disapprovingly.

“Ugh, fine, shut up.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me about your bacon-stealing-induced nightmare.”

Kagura sits on the floor beside them and begins detailing a nightmare involving Sadaharu getting cannibalized by mole people. Zura nods and gasps in all the right places not because he is good with children, but because he’s gotten caught up in the tragic tale; Gintoki falls into a doze.

At the end of it all, Kagura says, “I’m worried I might be a prophetess, yup. This old lady has seen too much not to consider it! Ne, Gin-chan?” Zura kicks him beneath the sheets to get his attention. “What do you think?”

Gintoki continues laying there with his eyes closed. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s only a reflection of your damaged psyche, gone beyond repair.”

“What’s a –”

“Let’s just get you a glass of water,” sighs Zura, getting out of the futon.

-+-+-+-

Reality comes unpleasantly knocking the very next evening.

He’s flipped the ‘closed’ sign on the door, and Kagura and Shinpachi are out to dinner with Shinpachi’s gorilla sister [at least bananas are supposed to be a good source of potassium]. Gintoki finds Zura on the couch, sitting primly with his hands in his lap, bathed in the off-blue glow of the television.

On the screen, there is a riot.

“Eighteen injured today in the altercation between what appears to be an up-and-coming Amanto street gang and the resident human…”

“Oi,” says Gintoki. Zura doesn’t hear him, eyes fixed on the news coverage. Thin fingers knot themselves as the camera pans over a young Japanese youth with bandages wrapped all around his head. “Oi,” Gintoki says again. When Zura still doesn’t respond, he flops on the couch next to the other man.

The riot is revealed to be unrelated to the Jouishishi, but Zura’s concern [etched across his brow plain and bold] doesn’t fade. If anything, he may be even more upset at the fact – there had been innocent civilians injured, both Amanto and human in species. Although Zura has never known their names until seeing the scrolling bar of kanji across the bottom of the screen, his heart is on his sleeve [and it’s trailing blood from fresh wounds]. There is nothing he could have done, even if he had been there, and he knows it. Practicality and hopelessness war on his face.

The Yorozuya feels a sick, clenching feeling in his stomach. In one swift movement, he swings his legs up, lying down on the couch with his head in the smaller man’s lap. They watch TV in silence until the report is long over and One Park is well underway.

“Your head is heavy,” Zura complains softly. “My legs are falling asleep.”

“Stop whining,” Gintoki returns flatly, although he’s thinking whatever it takes to keep you here.

-+-+-+-

Stir-craziness seems to set in shortly after. Gintoki almost feels like saying something about the patience of the samurai or whatever Zura usually can’t stop flapping his mouth about, but the way the smaller man paces back and forth to the window [the drawn tightness to his mouth] derails the comment every time.

“I think tomorrow,” he says to Gintoki one morning, in that wistful, soft tone the Yorozuya hates.

“You don’t think any day, why should tomorrow be any different?” he grumbles in return, sticking his face back into an old copy of Jump. Kanda Yuu’s a right bastard with stupid hair, sure, but he probably never sounds like that, enduring and fragile all at once. Naruto probably never sounds like that, either. Why can’t Zura be more like Naruto? Why couldn’t the wigged idiot be obsessed with becoming Hokage instead of obsessed with committing enough treason to be execu –

– Whatever. Ramen is better than soba, in any case.

He hears him talking on the phone that night. “I’m just checking my horoscope,” the rebel had informed he and Kagura loudly (although nobody had asked).

“Don’t use my phone for that useless shit,” he’d returned. “Do you know how much it costs? I don’t have yen coming out of my ears, oi, or anywhere else for that matter.”

“My horoscope said I’m going to get new clothes soon, yup.”

“Aa?! You’re calling that crook hotline too?! And what kind of horoscope is that? That’s just a blatant eventuality!”

“Blue is this month’s power colour, ahuh. Mommy, I want to go school shopping, and get a blue pencil case. It’s my destiny to become more powerful.”

“It’s not Mommy, it’s – ”

“You don’t go to school, schools don’t allow apes in the classroom. Everyone shut up, it’s back on.”

Gintoki wanted to listen to the TV, but Zura’s wig-stink waves must have been disrupting the sound waves in the room. There could be no other explanation as to why he found himself concentrating very, very hard on the hushed conversation.

“I see” and “Aa” had dominated Zura’s end of the dialogue, although the “No, I understand it’s not a good time,” with that goddamn bullshit tone, brands itself into Gintoki’s head. He knows it probably means he’ll have to continue putting up with that asshole using more than his fair share of the hot water in the morning, but truthfully that’s not what agitates him. It sounds like their mutual horoscope – it’s not a good time for Zura and he to be whatever Zura and he are, might never be a good time at this rate, the way the reckless moron was going. At the rate Zura was going, he’d be ki – …he’d never become Hokage.

Gintoki’s annoyed because it’d just be simpler if Zura was more like Naruto. That’s all.

A few minutes later, the Yorozuya listens to another call of Zura’s, and can hear the automated voice on the other line.

“I said don’t use my phone for that useless shit! What the hell is a power colour anyway?!”

-+-+-+-

Zura’s still there that night. Lying on the adjacent futon, Gintoki wants to kiss him or punch him, but compromises with himself and does neither. Instead, he runs a rough, heavy hand down the side of Zura’s face. Silent, the other man turns into it as if it were a tender kiss [or a well-deserved punch].

It’s not a matter of waiting for the right time, he knows. That’s a stupid way to think about it. Hell, even if there never is a right time, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about the Joui, or about saving Japan, or about how Zura might never get his head out of his stupid ass and stop living in the past.

He knows what he does care about. And he’s not going to let a single moment of it slip through his fingers doing something as useless as waiting.

When his palm rubs too rough along the side of Zura’s neck [still flawless, still free of any executioner’s nicks], the rebel responds with tired murmurs. Gintoki leans down to taste them, right now.

-+-+-+-

Settling back in is somewhat tentative, but it happens. Zura may be a gloomy, brainless, overdramatic moron with hair like a woman, but he’s also frustratingly solid, when it truly comes down to it. Zura makes plans, Zura waits for the opportune moment, Zura is annoyingly practical, for all his bomb-lobbing and extended inappropriate daydreams. If it’s not a good time, it’s simply not a good time.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a good time for other things. Such as indigestion.

“Shinpachiiii,” moans Kagura piteously to the balmy night sky. “My insides hurt. I need another kebob. I’m eating for two, yup.”

“Where did you hear that phrase!? That’s not something you should be saying, Kagura-chan! And if your stomach hurts, you need to stop eating, not eat more!”

“Catherine, Shinpachi’s trying to starve my baby.”

The older woman tsks, turning vegetables over on the grill. “That’s typical, haahn. Men are greedy, worthless bastards, they’ll take you for everything you’re worth.”

Gintoki ventures from his lawn chair, without opening his eyes, “Which, in your case, is about 300 yen.”

“What did you say, you shithead?! I’ll grill your ugly face up next!”

“Ugly face? Ugly face? At least my face has never been captured in a mug shot, you two-bit thief – ”

“Children,” drawls Otose in warning, a spark from her lighter flaring in the dim next to him. The streets are less lively than before, the festival day finally winding down. It’s nicer like this, without all the little brats running around, screaming about wishes and cowpies or whatever this stupid-ass holiday is about anymore. The buzz of the cicadas and the drowsy heat add to the atmosphere a lot more than the frantic consumer bustle of Edo’s populace.

It’s too bad the trees still look just as stupid as they had during the day, though. Like there’s little pieces of toilet paper fluttering off of them, in supplication of some god on high that blesses toilet paper rolls, so one doesn’t run out in an hour most dire.

“Sakata,” murmurs the old bag, the syllables rounded by her cigarette. “You should take some of those kebobs upstairs.”

His eyes still don’t open, which is more telling than if they’d blinked wide and darted suspiciously, like a Detective Conan villain. “The last time Sadaharu got a hold of a plate of kebabs, we were pulling sticks out of that goddamn monster’s ass like he was a Jenga tower. Nobody won that game, oi.”

The older woman ignores the deflection, dark nails tapping against a paper filter, a counter-rhythm to the cicada’s hum. “There’s an extra plate inside. Bring it up before it gets cold.”

“Nag, nag, nag. No wonder your husband checked out early, the silent grave was probably a welcome relief.” But he gets to his feet, palm rubbing the back of his head. The plate is retrieved, and he spends the next ten minutes arguing with Catherine over her cheap skewering [“Is that why you’re such a pain in the ass? Do you even know what real skewering is? When was the last time someone felt bad enough for you to show you a good skewering? No, no, I don’t want to hear it! Go drug an alley cat and have your way with the dumb beast!”]. Just as he rounds the stairs to the Yorozuya, the old woman’s raspy voice stops him again.

“Oh, and Sakata?”

He swivels. “Aa?”

“If my building gets blown up, I’ll show you real domestic terrorism, and strap dynamite to your worthless balls.”

-+-+-+-

“Fireworks?” questions the most immediate liability to Gintoki’s balls. He doesn’t look like such a grievously dangerous character at the moment; his eyes are still glazed from dozing in the bedroom, his hair cow licked, and a kebab half-falling apart in his hands [it’s really the worst skewering he’s ever seen, someone should set that useless burglar right with a spray bottle].

“Yeah.” He watches the other man struggle with a floppy zucchini slice. “…No one’ll see you on the roof,” he adds begrudgingly.

Zura gives him a strange look, and soon the three of them [Gintoki, Zura, and the Worst Kebab in Edo] have climbed up to the flat shingles of the Yorozuya. The rebel peers over the edge, watching Kagura chase an increasingly panicked Shinpachi with a sparkler. Nodding in something like approval, he then sits beside the already prone Gintoki, kimono and haori pooling across the dusty tiles.

Just as Zura opens his mouth, the taller samurai holds up his hand. “I don’t want to talk about wishes, or the folly of youth, or cowpies,” Gintoki stipulates.

“It’s not cowpies, it’s cowherds,” corrects Zura, bemused.

“I don’t care, they’re both off-limits. I didn’t bring you up here to be a gloomy, poetic bastard, you hear me?”

The long-haired man’s mouth quirks just barely enough for the trained eye to notice. “Is that so?”

“That’s what I said, lift that ugly shag rug up off your ears already.”

“What did you bring me up here for, then, Gintoki?”

The Yorozuya’s mouth contorts, and he turns his head to give his nose a thorough pick. Maybe he should give it a good blow on one of those toilet-paper trees later. “That’s the problem with you,” he informs the other man. “You go around challenging everything. Take a good look at where that’s gotten you, Zura.”

“Adjacent to a triple-threat of crusty bird defecation, listening to you ramble.”

“That’s right, h – what? No! No! It got you holed up in a room on a festival night.”

“But I’m not anymore. I am adjacent to a triple-threat of – ”

“Shut up, shut up, that’s not the point. You need to just accept things once in a while. Why did I bring you up to the roof? Because, don’t ask questions, just enjoy your goddamned kebab.”

The rebel says nothing, shifting his knees under his arms. The two sit quietly together, until a very soggy plop interrupts the cicadas’ song. “Gintoki,” murmurs Zura.

Gintoki shakes his head, heaving a sigh. “I know. That was your kebab, wasn’t it.”

“Aa.”

“Damnit.” He shifts a bit closer, his arm lightly wrapping around the other’s waist. Zura stays stiff for a moment, but then eases back, curving into his shoulder. “It just shows that you can’t depend on a soggy zucchini, I guess.”

“You’ve already shown me that,” responds Zura, in a low, rich tone that makes Gintoki blush.

“O-oi, what’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say my zucchini is anything but a robust pinnacle of a firm and dependable meal? It’s supposed to be a night of wishing, not lying. Get that smirk off your face.”

“Shhh,” breathes Zura. “It’s starting.” Gintoki can feel the rebel’s breath against his neck, and his arm tightens around that slim waist, hidden under layers of fabric. The bursts of colour light the sky, and he very seriously tries not to wonder how long it’s been since Zura’s gotten to watch fireworks, real ones, not ones peppered with chunks of official government buildings. That’s not the kind of thing he wants to think about, when there’s so many better things at hand [or increasingly heavy against his shoulder, warm and content and – chuckling?].

“Ah, don’t you wish, as I wish, that the folly of our youths was not wasting Tanabata thinking it was about cowpies…”

Gintoki smirks. “Shut up,” he mutters, cutting off the other’s amusement with an insistent kiss.

-+-+-+-

Somehow, it hasn’t happened once yet, not since the first night Zura stayed over. It seems ridiculous that they should actually [as Zura puts it, with the capitals blaring even verbally] “Do It” less when together under the same roof. Not for lack of wanting to; having the rebel around all the time would definitely be a trial too severe for Gintoki’s libido if it weren’t for Zura’s persistent bad habit of actually speaking. Gintoki can tell he himself is reaching a point that could only be called “critical” when he listens to Zura’s brain-dead musings on life, politics, and Ham-Hams in general, and still wants to stick his head under the other man’s kimono.

Even worse, he can tell Zura is nearing the end of that unfathomable patience with his Perfectly Natural Urges. It’s a lot less pronounced than Gintoki burning everyone’s breakfast because he’s trying to sneak a peak of the other man changing, sure. But it’s there, in the quick flicker of a lowered glance to Gintoki when Shinpachi and Kagura go to the grocer’s, or the way his body very quietly brims to the Yorozuya’s covert casual touches. They both want it, but it’s not happening.

Why?

Well, Gintoki won’t play the blame game, but it’s almost entirely without a shadow of a doubt all that goddamned shitty gorilla girl’s goddamned shitty gorilla fault.

In the darkened living room, with a movie faithfully ignored on the TV, he’ll drop a hand to Zura’s inner thigh, feel the other’s legs spread subtly as he pushes folds of fabric away and – there’s Kagura, bouncing over the back of the couch, asking if there’s popcorn or bon bons or salmon rolls, which they don’t even serve at movie theaters.

Before the sun’s quite risen, and Zura’s not awake enough yet to realise he’s making soft, fucking cute sounds as Gintoki sucks on the nape of his neck, grinding into him from behind – there’s Kagura, ripping the covers off the futon and informing Mama that radio exercises are just about to start, they need to get a move on if they’re gonna win the gold, yup.

Even in the shower, while Gintoki’s peering through the curtains at real-life Zura making funny, unattractive faces at himself in the mirror as he flosses, but thinking about what a man needs to think about during a dry-spell like this; and just as fantasy-life Zura bends over to show him just how authentic his school-girl disguise is, yes, yes, even down to the panties, which he begs so very sweetly for Gintoki to pull off with his mouth – there is Kagura, kicking in the door and strangling Gintoki with the shower curtain, because she’s been conscious for more than fifteen minutes and hasn’t eaten yet.

It’s no surprise that when Kagura asks for a sleepover at Shinpachi’s, Gintoki falls to his knees in front of the boy and hugs him hard enough for the boy’s spine to let out a protesting crack.

“I mean, it’s just that neither of us has had a sleepover before, and I’m pretty sure Ane-ue can’t physically poison her,” Shinpachi wheezes, once he’s been released.

“She did eat that bomb once,” interjects Zura calmly.

“I sure did!” chirps Kagura proudly. “I could eat another one right now, ahuh!”

“What are you doing,” Shinpachi demands flatly as Zura rifles obligingly through the sleeves of his kimono. “Stop it. You’ll have to help clean up the burnt vomit this time if you do. What is wrong with you?”

Gintoki, who isn’t listening, can’t stop smiling. “I don’t even care, feed her all the bombs you want, when are you leaving?”

Otae collects the two after she gets off work, and following a series of energetic door slams and lazy waving from the balcony, the little demonchild rides off on Sadaharu, Shinpachi and his sister trailing.

As soon as the door slides shut on the splinters it’s left in, Gintoki starts to move, but Zura holds up a hand.

“No,” he asserts. “Hold on a few more minutes.”

They wait the allotted comedic timing in silence. There are no cries of I forgot my toothbrush! or Sadaharu left his bowl, yup!, no pitter-patter of returning monster girl feet come to trample Gintoki’s dreams of getting some. There is nothing but utter quiet until Zura lowers his hand again.

“Thank god,” the rebel mutters. Gintoki lunges.

-+-+-+-

“Oh god,” the rebel chokes, fingernails gouging the sides of the Yorozuya’s desk. Gintoki works his fingers deeper, his other hand pressing on Zura’s sweat-slicked thigh, pinning the other man’s leg too high.

“How badly do you want it, aa? Aa?” Gintoki murmurs, leaning down to kiss the inside of his knee. “Zura?”

“Sh-shut up,” grits the other samurai. Something falls off the desk, clattering to the floor. “A-aah. Nnh.”

“Che, you’re still too tight. Stop being such a tightass, Zura.”

“Katsura.”

“Ah? What an ego you have.” He twists the fingers.

“Oh, ahn, Gintoki – ”

“Better.” He leans up for a biting kiss, the press causing Zura to slip along the desk and make a high noise in his throat. “I’m listening.”

The smaller man glowers up at him as best he can, although it’s hard to see much beyond the mussed hair and blushing face. The muscles in Zura’s leg twitch, and he produces very slowly, with utmost severity, “…I want it.”

“Mm?” Gintoki slips his fingers from inside the other, trailing the rough pads up along the innermost curve of the man’s body. Zura shivers hard, skin grating along the wood of the desk as he slides farther. “Want what?”

“You damn bastard, why do you always – I want it, do it already, you shitty perm – ”

Gintoki smirks down at the flushed, agitated [some might even say hot and bothered, oho] man beneath him, and swings a leg up onto the desk, clambering up. “I love it when you beg,” he mutters, somewhat to be an ass, but mostly because it’s true. After some mildly awkward shifting, and positioning his knee inside a half-open drawer, he adds, “Don’t you love it when I listen to you?”

Before Zura can snap a retort, Gintoki snaps his hips, and all Zura lets out is a loud, hoarse groan.

For all his talk, Gintoki has to try very hard not to lose it right then and there on the first few deep thrusts. Shit, he feels so fucking tight and good and the way he’s shuddering is – no, fuck, pull it together. He focuses instead on saying, “Nnh, come on Zura, keep it down, you’re lying low, remember?”

“Shut, up,” moans Zura. “Damnit, ah-aah. Aah! Harder – ”

If Zura doesn’t already love Gintoki listening, he probably changes his mind somewhere between then, and when they fall off the desk entirely.

-+-+-+-

At approaching three weeks of the rebel ‘s stay, there is definitely something of a comfortable routine established. Waking up next to Zura isn’t always a picnic [terrorists have highly-strung reflexes, and his fucking delightful good morning kisses are sometimes met with punches to the throat and a mumbled, remorseless apology], but it’s not so bad, either. Everyone seems to be getting along enough, anyway.

“You worthless, low-income bastard! Get out, get out of this house! If I see your miserable face again, I will put it through a meat grinder.”

Gintoki stops in his tracks on the threshold to the living room. He wiggles a pinky in his ear. “Excuse me, what did you just say, Zura? Kick you out into the cold night like the useless, bomb-happy bum you are? Rub your face in the steaming pile Sadaharu left in the gutter, while I’m at it?”

“Gin-chan, shut up,” responds Kagura distractedly. The Yorozuya leans over the back of the couch, surveying the scene; Shinpachi lies on the far couch, reading a fan magazine. The Yato and Zura are on the floor, each holding one of the girl’s Tea Time Twosome doll set. There are several alarming things to attend to, and Gintoki figures he should start quickly, as he might not have time to cover all points.

“Oi oi oi, why is Himiko-chan’s shirt off?! What the hell kind of game are you playing?!”

“Himiko-chan’s being the husband, yup,” Kagura explains. “So we took her shirt off.”

“What?! That’s not how it works – ”

“Gin-san, I already tried,” Shinpachi says flatly from behind his magazine. “It’s no use. Just ignore them.”

It seems like good advice [amazing advice, really, if only he’d known it the very first time he met either of the brain-dead idiots], and his blood sugar’s feeling a little low, so Gintoki aborts the tirade.

As he heads to the kitchen, the drama of the living room continues, with Kagura’s voice booming.

“I own this house, you damn horseface! I own this house and everything in it, ahuh! You think I don’t know you only married me for my money?”

“Aa? What money? You insist on losing all our money gambling and drinking!”

“It’s my money to begin with! I’ll wipe my ass with it if I want, yup!”

“This is sick,” mutters Gintoki. “This is really sick. What kind of child plays like this? Zura, stop encouraging her.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Mrs. Mr. Himiko-chan.”

Gintoki slams his glass down onto the counter. “You morons didn’t even change her name? It’s still Himiko-chan? Do either of you even know the difference between boys and girls, aa?”

“Ch, of course I do. Boys have big, hairy – ”

“Kagura-chaaan!”

“ – stupid nostrils, that go hoonf hoonf.” She lifts up Mr. Himiko-chan. “Hoonf, hoonf. And why isn’t my dinner ready, you lazy cow?”

“It would already be done if you hadn’t felt the need to berate me the moment you walked in the door, you drunken fool.”

Mr. Himiko-chan is lifted, and begins battering Mrs. Mr. Himiko-chan over the head with her torso. “I don’t want your lousy excuses, woman! Get me my dinner, now, ahuh, or I’ll do to you what I did to our dog!”

“Itaai, itaaaai!” As one doll hits the other, Gintoki’s palm hits his face. “Your dinner is right here, it’s right here!”

Then, Kagura makes horrible, nightmare-spawning mouth gnashing noises, which Gintoki considers the normal eating sound effects for the common Yato. A few moments later, the girl lets out a blood curdling yowl. Shinpachi fumbles his magazine, Sadaharu hits his head on the bottom of the kotatsu, and the Yorozuya feels the hair on the back of his neck raise. “Oi!”

“It’s poison sukonbu! You poisoned me, you bitch!”

“Fu fu fu,” Zura’s doll responds. “And now what’s left of your money is all mine. This is for Wags-kun.”

“I’ll… I’ll see you both… in hell…!” The girl smashes Mr. Himiko-chan into the floor, and then sits back, looking at Zura. “Now Mrs. Mr. Himiko-chan has to chop up the body and get rid of it in the river, yup.”

“I’m not letting you watch any more late night TV,” says Gintoki dully. He sees now, why brave, noble Shinpachi had had no choice but to strive for ignorance. “You can put Himiko-chan’s corpse back in her box. It’s time to eat, wash the blood off your hands.”

The girl gets to her feet, collects the murdering wife from Zura, and tosses both dolls into her cupboard. Shinpachi chastises her, getting up from the couch to put the dolls away properly and lecture her on caring for her things [like he always does] while Kagura ignores him and walks away [like she always does].

Gintoki harrumphs as Zura joins him in the kitchen, to wash his own hands. “Do you need any help?”

“No thanks, I’m not sick of not having explosive diarrhea yet. I know you only ask because I won’t ever say yes, you jackass.” The rice cooker’s light blinks off, and Gintoki reaches around Zura for the rice scoop. “You know what you could do to help? Start paying me back for all of my food you keep shoving in your mouth.”

“Ah, put it on my tab.”

“Tab? You can’t have a tab. A tab would mean you’re a regular, and I don’t plan on letting you drag me into your terrorist shit again, so you can’t have a tab.”

“Hn. That smells good.”

“Don’t change the subject.” The rice is plopped unceremoniously into four bowls. He hasn’t made a mistake in portioning since the first week, although he should, the greedy, thankless asshole.

Zura moves away, clearing the kotatsu of debris, one of the very few dinner-related tasks he is allotted. “Which subject? I am best at Japanese and History.”

“Your brain is what’s history, oi.” The second, better pork omelet finishes [the first one is definitely going to Zura, who doesn’t deserve a soft, creamy omelet, and Kagura, who barely lets food touch her tongue before it plummets down her gullet anyway]. He sections them into the bowls, and Zura promptly picks up two, carrying them to the table, Gintoki following with the second two. “Shinpachi! Kagura! – Oh.”

Returned from the bathroom, the boy scowls from beneath sopping bangs, wiping his glasses on his hakama. Zura seats himself at the table, Kagura joining him, and comments, “Ah, puberty. I will add ‘antiperspirant’ to the grocery list.”

“It’s not sweat! Why would you think it’s sweat?! She tried to drown me!”

“I saw something in the drain, Gin-chan! Shinpachi was too cowardly to look, too. I had to force him into manhood, ahuh.”

“Ah, puberty,” nods Gintoki.

“Knock it off! Didn’t you guys hear me calling for help?!”

“No. We were having a very important grown-up discussion.”

“That,” intones Kagura, cheeks already full with rice, “means they were having an argument, Shinpachi-kun. It’s a shame nobody can put the work in to make it work, like in the old days.”

“What do you know about the old days, you brat? Eat your damn rice.”

Shinpachi reaches for the soy sauce, muttering bitterly, “So a dumb argument’s more important than me drowning. What was it this time, Gin-san? Did Katsura-san make another bad gum gum fruit pun? Did he insult your hair? Did he insult your – ”

“It was about money,” Zura interjects, unruffled, bold as brass and equally as unintelligent. Kagura’s eyes go wide.

“Arguing about money before dinner…?” She stares down at what’s left of her rice bowl, and then lets out another blood curdling wail, dropping her chopsticks. “Poison! It’s poison! Gin-chan, how could you?!”

“It’s not rice, it’s poison?!” Zura shouts back, and then clutches his stomach. “A-ah, only now, far too late, do I see…! Eliminating the witnesses and the culprit in one fell swoop! The inhumanity of such an evil mastermind…!”

“Oi, I’ll show you inhumanity if you both don’t shut up already and eat!” Gintoki rails, but it’s too late. Kagura has decided the rice is poison, and Zura’s feeble mind has been convinced. They sink to the floor, wailing and making last wishes.

“Kagura-chan, a pork omelet with rice is what you’d be having right now if you weren’t goofing off, it’s not a good dying request. It’s not a good dying request to begin with,” Shinpachi deadpans. “Is this how it is? Everyone gets riled over a fake poisoning, but a real drowning gets nothing? Is this how it really is?”

Gintoki shakes his head over his bowl, attempting to belatedly take Shinpachi’s well-given advice, but it’s no use. Try as he might, to ignore their bleating is not an option. All three of them are obnoxious and loud, and he’s probably going to get a stomachache from their idiocy, because his intestines were distracted off their game. Then, in her flailing, Kagura ends up knocking over her bowl and snorting rice up her nose, and Shinpachi laughs, and Zura smiles, helping his fallen comrade up and producing a hanky.

He’ll probably get a stomachache, but… it’s really not so bad.

-+-+-+-

A day later, when the three come back from a client’s house, Zura’s not there anymore.

The extra futon is nowhere in sight, and the video games have all been put away. Sadaharu looks like he’s seen some kind of affectionate war, with his fur sticking up in all directions from excessive petting.

The house isn’t any less quiet, any less lively. They do as they always do – Gintoki says he’s watching TV but only dozes, Kagura says she’s cleaning but only breaks things, Shinpachi says he’s balancing the check book but only has several minor coronary seizures. It’s exactly how it was before Zura climbed in his window and made unreasonable terrorist demands, so it shouldn’t feel any different now.

He’s glad to be rid of the other man, really. He was getting tired of pulling long, black hair out of the drain, and of fighting over the remote control, and of listening to the idiot’s ridiculous out-of-touch prattle, and of –

“Gin-san,” says Shinpachi, breaking the line of thought. “That’s not right.”

Gintoki looks down, where he’d been portioning dinner into four plates, and frowns.

-+-+-+-

The bedroom feels bigger that night, which is stupid. It’s just because the futon is squarely in the middle of the room again, and he’s not so close to the wall, so the room itself looks larger. It has nothing to do with anything else, certainly not anything that matters.

It definitely has nothing to do with anyone he’d shared a musty childhood bedroom with, and later a cramped and crumpling tent, and later still the noisy upper floor of a Yorozuya, if only for just under a month.

Thunk.

“Ow, shit,” comes a voice that has nothing to do with the sudden, warming spike in his pulse.

“Get out,” he says to the ceiling immediately. “Haven’t we seen enough of eachother? Are the police outside?”

“No,” says Zura [to which question, Gintoki isn’t sure]. His hands are chill from the night air, and the white-haired man turns his cheek into their touch. Zura’s obi brushes against his forearm as the other shifts down onto the futon, and it’s all Gintoki needs to loop that arm around the smaller samurai, pulling him in.

“So,” murmurs Gintoki, once he’s got Zura twined around him like a particularly attractive vine.

“So,” agrees Zura calmly, those cool fingers curling against Gintoki’s chest, spreading just under Gintoki’s jaw.

“…Ready to start working off that tab?”

There’s punches, but there’s laughter too, and it’s got everything to do with what matters.

FIC: GINTAMA - before you can walk

oopsipuked — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:25:40 GMT

Title: before you can walk
Fandom: Gintama
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura.
Disclaimer: I don't have the face of an otter or a soul of silver.
Feedback: If you'd like!
Notes: For antimonial. Based off of a hideously long AU storyline we drummed up together. "Chiro" refers to Kanshichiro, who in this story has come from a member of Gintoki's family who passed away. Raising Harry style, suckas. TL;DR, Japanese slice of life.
More Goddamned Notes: Written to "The Gambler" - fun.
THE NOTES DON'T END: ferrrox drew an adorable companion piece to this story, which you can find HERE. Holy shit!

Cross-posted at ginzura.

Neither of them have any idea when Chiro actually started walking. Gintoki remembers sitting on the couch beside Zura, watching that year's boring-ass taiga (at the smaller man's behest), with Chiro playing on the floor before them. While political garbage spewed from some punk kid actor's upstart mouth (really, couldn't they have casted someone who had plucked a single nose hair in their whole life?), Gintoki's attention had waned. His eyes slid boredly from the screen to Zura, who was completely immersed, being a boring, gullible idiot. They then slid down to Chiro, who was similarly immersed in navigating his Otter 11 toys back and forth across the carpet.

After a few moments, the boy seemed to realise something was missing, and looked around blankly. Gintoki hoped he hadn't just pooped his pants, because he was really quite comfortable, and successfully tearing Zura away from his drama to change a poop-filled diaper seemed like a longshot.

Clutching Otter 11 (the man with the face of an otter), Chiro had wobbled into a standing position. This was nothing new. But then he'd stomped unsteadily to where he'd left Hamada-kun (the otter with the face of a man), and plopped down again matter-of-factly. To Chiro, the actions had seemed old hat. To Gintoki, they were utterly unheard of -- the lazy kid was always raising his arms for a pick up to get anywhere.

Gintoki had responded immediately, as a level-headed adult, with manly but contained pride. He grabbed Zura's shoulder and shook it violently, practically shrieking. "Zura, Zura! Holy shit, did you see that?"

"Stop shaking me -- shut up, I'm not falling for that again! There's no booger hanging out of the General's nose."

"Aa? Who's talking about boogers? Don't talk about boogers at a time like this!"

"You're the one who isn't letting me wait until the proper commercial break! Stop shouting, you'll upset Chiro."

"Idiot, nothing can upset him now! He's a man of the world! He's ready for travel!"

"What are you talking about?"

The explanation had left Zura dubious at best, Gintoki could tell. What kind of situation was he living in, he mused as they all headed upstairs for bed, a sleepy Chiro conked out on Zura's shoulder, fists tangled in black hair. Damnit, he was the head of the household. That meant a certain level of respect, didn't it? Chiro should have informed him of his new skill to begin with, and Zura should believe any goddamn thing out of his mouth, even if he's actually full of bullshit.

-+-+-+-

It's been a week since that night, and Zura now believes Gintoki is overflowing with bullshit. This is mostly because his lower back is a mess.

"I'd say this is the first sign of old age, but you've been exhibiting those since middle school," the white-haired man drawls, watching Zura squirm uncomfortably out of his t-shirt. It's stained with cranberry juice. Oh how the mighty have fallen (into parenthood).

The other man ignores the jibe, a hand pressing into that abused spine and arching. "-- Uhhnn. What are you feeding him? Are you sneaking him treats when I'm not looking?"

"No. I could sneak you a treat right now, if you want."

"My back hurts."

"Fine, I can look for Gran's old cane. You can hold onto it for support."

"I can look for it too, to beat you back with."

Zura bends to pick up his discarded khakis, and Gintoki watches happily from the bed until the smaller man makes a noise like a punted hamster. "...That bad, huh?"

"No, I can handle it," Zura returns brusquely, which assures Gintoki that the moron must be in some real sort of pain. Once Zura pulls on worn looking pajamas and collapses onto the bed beside him, Gintoki reaches out, grabbing a hip. Before the black-haired man can protest, he rolls him over and scoots down the bed, yanking up the back of the other's t-shirt. "What are you doing -- "

"Shut up, stupid." He thinks about how Zura touches his neck and shoulders after a long day, and imitates the movements. When he presses his thumbs to pale skin and rolls them up against tight muscles, Zura hisses. "Bad?"

"I... no. I'm not sure. Do it again."

Gintoki does, and although Zura's breathing gets a bit shallow, he doesn't protest. After a long couple of minutes, a sigh escapes the other man, and Gintoki snorts. "If you stopped babying him, it wouldn't be this bad."

"You just want me to baby you."

"That's not true." It's true. Chiro has severely cut into his Zura-babying time, that little brat. It's better to just get off that topic, really. "What happened to all those dumb baby books you read, aa? They couldn't shut up enough about fostering independence, whatever the hell that means."

"They also explained about late developers. He doesn't walk or talk yet, but he will when he is ready. You need to be more patient -- ow!" A face rises from the black puddle of hair on the pillows, scowling back at him.

"Hm?"

"That was on purpose, you asshole! This overcompensation you have going on is getting really annoying! He wouldn't want up so much if he could move around himself, it doesn't make any sense."

"Sense? What sense? He's 20 months old!"

"Exactly. What am I supposed to do, say no when he wants up?"

Gintoki huffs. "You say no to me all the time. Especially during the evening, usually with some lame-ass excuse like your back hurting -- "

He doesn't get out of the way in time.

Better luck tomorrow night, maybe (with some things more than others).

-+-+-+-

Zura's job isn't like Gintoki's. Gintoki's has set hours, set work. At 3 o'clock (or 5 o'clock, if he's been roped into some extracurricular crap), Gintoki grabs his briefcase, hops on his scooter, and is gone before a single student has the audacity to attempt to ask him questions after school hours (optimally -- it rarely works out that way).

The historic and archeologic research job Zura has landed is much more flexible; sometimes he works from home, sometimes he works at the institute at night, sometimes he works on weekends instead of weekdays, sometimes he goes on site visits. Back when Chiro had first come into their lives, it had made things exceptionally easier to adjust to. Most routinely, Zura watches Chiro during the day while Gintoki goes to teach, and if he isn't able to work from home, the kid is dropped off at Sakamoto's until the evening.

Tonight, Gintoki is irrationally angry at the fact that Zura's job is so stupid and abnormal. If Zura were an average salaryman, he wouldn't be gone all evening to sit in some stupid University lab and flick dirt off what Gintoki has always thought of as greater dirt-clumps (but has been repeatedly informed are in actuality "artifacts"). If Zura had a normal nine to five job, he wouldn't have missed all the action.

The moment the other man finally steps in the door, Gintoki demands, "Damnit, did you get my text? Aa? The picture? You can apologise now."

Zura unravels his scarf, blinking dully. After a moment, he pulls out his mobile, flicking it open towards the other man. "You mean this?" It's a picture of their living room carpet. It's stained with cranberry juice (that shit just gets everywhere). "Yes. Thank you. I was really worried about those fibers."

He must have been holding the stupid phone upside down. Damnit! "I was trying to take a picture of Chiro walking. You know, like he's perfectly capable of doing."

"This again?" Zura sighs. "You really need to give it a rest. Where is he?"

"We just got out of the tub. He's on the bed. He walked down the hall to it, thanks."

This isn't even granted a response, and soon they're all sitting on the floor, Zura running his fingers through Chiro's hair as he blowdries it.

"You're going to turn it into an afro," Gintoki grouses, watching the kid's hair get fluffier and fluffier and bigger and bigger. "Then what'll we do, aa? We'll have to say we still love him with straight faces. Do you know how hard that's going to be?"

"It's cute like this," Zura defends, petting the soft, increasingly large perm with a dumb, blushing expression on his face.

"He's not a pomeranian. You need help. You know what else you need help with?"

"Getting that stain out of the carpet. Do that tomorrow, I'm working in the afternoon."

"You need help with your cynicism. You have trust issues, Zura. For example, you don't believe me when I tell you this lazy kid can walk."

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura. And I don't believe you not because I have trust issues, but because it's untrue." The blowdryer is turned off just as Gintoki thinks Chiro's hair might actually start getting too heavy for his head and topple him to the side. "I'll believe it when I see it." With that, the other man stands, picking up the damp towel to return it to the bathroom.

When Zura walks out the door, Chiro gets to his feet and teeter-totters after him.

"ZURAAAAAAAAAAA!" Gintoki screams. "ZUUUUUUUUURRRRAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The smaller man arrives just a moment too late, looking panicked and slamming the door wide. Chiro, in the meantime, has plopped onto his butt just before the threshold. As Zura pants for breath, the kid raises his hands in the universal symbol of "pick me up" or, as Gintoki currently believes it means, "F*ck you, Gintoki."

Funnily enough, Zura is giving him a look that translates to the exact same thing.

-+-+-+-

It keeps happening, these infuriating near-misses, and eventually Gintoki stops feeling bitter enough about it to properly think about it. Still, the only reasons he comes up with are "God hates me" and "Chiro is possessed by Gran, who also hates me, and thinks this is really funny, but it's not funny, you crazy old bat, go back to hell." Chiro never manages to walk to Zura, always puts his hands in the air for 'up.' Zura never manages to believe Gintoki's insistance, and continuously points out the other man has no room to call anyone lazy.

Finally, almost three weeks later, he understands why it keeps happening purely by accident, in the very same location all the trouble started. This time, however, Chiro is curled up on his and Zura's laps, lulled to sleep by the quiet noise from the TV and the thin, careful fingers stroking through his hair. Gintoki watches the digits card gently through the white tufts with an odd, pleased feeling -- he knows how nice it feels to have Zura's soft touch in his hair, and he's happy that he can share such a warm, content feeling with Chiro.

Hell, he's never more relaxed than in moments like these, with his head on Zura's shoulder, Chiro a dozing, heated lump putting their legs resolutely to sleep. Gintoki doubts he'll even be able to stand up and walk to the bedroom after this, but in truth he'd rather stay curled up against Zura than expound the energy --

-- and he gets it.

And now, really... he can't blame him.

ICONS: summer is the lens flare's natural habitat, you know

oopsipuked — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:34:14 GMT

♫ GINTAMA FANART [50]
♪ ♪ ♪ Gintoki/Katsura [50]

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

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✖No art belongs to me
✖If it's yours and you want credit or for it to be taken down, just let me know!
✖Commenting if you're snagging makes me do handstands
✖Credit goes to actuallyfoaming/oopsipuked if you're of the crediting nature

ICONS: every square is a rectangle but every rectangle isn't a square

oopsipuked — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:03:46 GMT

♫ GINTAMA FANART [76]
♪ ♪ ♪ Gintoki/Katsura [76]

Art copyright somebody else. If it's yours and you don't want it here, leave a comment and let me know.

Cross-posted at ginzura & gintama.

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Commenting if you're snagging is brilliant, credit to actuallyfoaming/oopsipuked super neat but not necessary!

FIC: DOGS/DEADMAN WONDERLAND - if we stay on our feet (we'll make it)

oopsipuked — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:31:40 GMT

Title: if we stay on our feet (we'll make it)
Fandom: DOGS/Deadman Wonderland
Rating: R.
Pairing: Genkaku/Badou.
Disclaimer: NNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOO
Feedback: NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOO
Notes: For reneges, from gargleblasted RP. ~~THIS IS FOR BREAKING MY HEART, YOU BITCH.~~

Ⅰ
Badou’s come a long way. After all, Genkaku hasn’t forgotten the first time his lips touched that sun-starved skin, the resulting pistol-whip that’d left behind burst capillaries and a heart screaming school girl love. It’d been the wonderful start of a high-stakes game of keep-away, of watching the Undergrounder thrashing back and forth between animal instinct and the pull of the moon.

Mathematics became very suddenly important; for every finger traced down a strong jawline, there were three broken digits. For every loving kiss there were ripped apart lips and a tongue practically bitten out of his head. Increasing the intensity, decreasing the space between punch and touch [it’s only three letters difference, you know!] all done so meticulouslypatiently because the worth is far greater than the sum.

[Finally dividing the legs and multiplying the pressure, Badou scoring a tally on his back with cutting nicotine-stained nails and oh this is what he was counting on, yeah?]

Add it all up; graveyards full of fractured bones and liters upon liters of blood just for this very moment - his fox curled up comfortably within the relaxed arches of his legs [like the den he’s always wanted]. Badou’s spine-notched back bumps lightly into his chest as the Undergrounder shifts the Flying V’s heavysteel weight in his lap, struggling to play a single solid line of Paranoia.

They fit perfectly, just as Genkaku had known they would [by numerology, not mathematics].

“Damnit,” mutters Badou absently over stumblestutter notes. The taller man covers the Undergrounder’s forearms with his own, palm pressing on top of that jagged sliver-shaped scar, fingers wrappingtwining [always such a serpent]. He pulls him back more, arching over his shoulder, moving their hands together to play the notes.

“D, C, G, G, D,” he strumshums, pressing the side of his nose into tinderbox hair. “An’ the chorus starts on another D. Got it?”

“--Think so.”

“Just take it slower, yeah?”

Badou nods, gives the V that attentive look that says nothing but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Genkaku shifts, feeling a corresponding twitch in his pants – fuck , so cute [and so close]. As the other man butchers a few more chords, Genkaku drops his mouth to the bare neck, sweetly kissing the whitewhite stripes between bright orange strands. It’s too hard to keep the brush of lips light after so long waiting for these corpse-lily expanses to be all his to linger over [while Badou was always his, it was that contradiction he craved, not just spring-loaded attack but touch-me-fuck-me laxness, too].

As a believer of many things including [and especially] embracing The Impulses, he bears down on the other more insistently, teeth sinking down and clamping [mineminemine], tongue wetting the reddened welt, hand working it’s way around Badou’s skinny concave waist and down between his legs, grasping proprietarily at an inner thigh, slithering up-

The guitar in Badou’s lap goes twang-ang. “Would you fuckin’ cut it out?” he snaps, all warning growl – but it’s just this side of breathy.

Genkaku just smiles. Yeah, he’s come a long way [and he’ll come again and again and go fartherhigher if a humble Super Monk has anything to say about it].

Ⅱ
Genkaku’s come a long way. When Badou recalls bruises on his own throat the same mauveblack of the shadows beneath the monk’s eyes, he’s sure of it.

The sleeplessness had bothered him even before he’d let the monk get close enough to really see the tiredness in the corners of his mouth [especially before he let Genkaku take him anywhere near a bed]. From the very start it’d been a lump, bitterly ironic in the back of his throat; if a remorseless killer couldn’t find respite in sleep, where the fuck was he to find it? That just wasn’t fair to the point where even bad humour couldn’t resurrect a punchline out of it.

[No fucking laugh track, just thin red veins in the whites of Genkaku’s eyes, like his irises were bleeding.]

Badou had understood how to fix it before he’d known it. Once he’d known it, he’d been slow to try it; his own barriers felt insurmountable [junkyard garbage walls piled high up, too tall to climb over].

But he’d done it, somehow. It hadn’t been a quick or easy ascent [like Genkaku lifting him up by his collar to their latest vantage point, one handed, for fuck’s sake]. He’d jammed his boots into the scrap and baggage, done his best to avoid hypodermic needle-sharp defenses and climbed like hell, because even a Super Monk needed deliverance sometimes.

Long, boring movies turned out to be a stepping stone to sleep. Little fifteen minute windows of nodding off became a half-hour of rest, Genkaku slumping towards him every time [he’s too goddamn heavy, but Badou’s thinsharp shoulder as a place to rest is inappropriate as any]. He’d… touched him, then, seen the way Genkaku bowed into his hands, sought relaxation in the bars of his forearms [tch, always such a damn jailbird].

They’d never said anything about it when he woke, however many too-short minutes later [though only parted after the credits finished rolling].

It’s gotten both worse and better since they’d started fucking. Contact becomes something he doesn’t need to fend off – they’re not-so-surprisingly good at doing nothing together, sprawling together like littermates. When Genkaku dozes then, it’s for longer, and yeah sometimes Badou really has to go to the godfucking bathroom when the asshole is anchoring him with his fat fucking head, but – he guesses he can hold it.

The rougher nights are dealt with roughly. When he sees lover-demons in Genkaku’s eyes, he takes the monk to bed and tries to exorcise them with touch and fuck and everything in-between. Now, his hips insist, thrusting down hard and demanding, here, me, now. With his legs bracing for earthquake aftershocks on either side of the other man’s lap, he makes Genkaku come enough to shed tension from every muscle in his body, to make his mind go blank and peaceful. Then, the monk sleeps because he’s too fucked-out exhausted not to [and clawed or fanged, all animals need their rest].

It doesn’t always work; no matter how many stains they leave on the sheets or how many aches Badou earns, there’s no guarantee. Waking up to hands around his throat chokingstrangling was the first indicator of this [kind of a strong one, actually]. The fingers had pressed and crushed and Badou had made a panicked, guttural noise, immediately raking his nails into tear ducts. Genkaku’s glazed eyes snapped to focus as blood and paintears fell, his hands loosening as he croaked out flatly, “I dreamt that I was killing you.”

Badou had felt relieved at the revelation, which was probably inappropriate.

[Inappropriate or not, with steady hands, he’d lit a cigarette and then pulled the monk down, let him press that stupid turned-up nose to the purpling marks and make the fresh bruises sting.]

This afternoon is the kind Badou seeks; they are sprawled in Genkaku’s bed, sheets tangled up around their legs [legs tangled up in each other]. Last night’s pizza box hadn’t yielded any lunch [“No, shut up, I could’a sworn-” “What a waste of energy.”], but they aren’t hungry enough yet to rock-paper-scissor for the trip to the kitchen. Moving is out of the question for the Undergrounder; lying on his back, the monk is twined around his trunk [knowledge and temptation complete with morning breath].

And while Badou smokes, Genkaku sleeps.

It’s been weeks since the other man fell to insomnia, and months since he turned demon in the night – but Badou isn’t counting [doesn’t lie in wait for bad days anymore].

With the monk’s breath calm against his collar bone, Badou knows he’s come a long way.

Ⅲ
Things are not always good, not always clumsy chords and warm, rumpled beds. They never will be, but those small windows – they’re enough, more than a thousand slivers could have promised.

They have a long way to go [but they’ll walk every mile hand in unloveable hand].

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25	26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35	36

37	38	39	40	41	42

43	44	45	46	47	48

49	50	51	52	53	54

55	56	57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64	65	66

67	68	69	70	71	72

73	74	75	76	77	78

79	80	81	82	83	84

85	86	87	88	89	90

91	92	93	94	95	96

97	98	99	100

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35

36	37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44	45

46	47	48	49	50

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24

25	26	27	28

29	30	31	32

33	34	35	36

37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44

45	46	47	48

49	50	51	52

53	54	55	56

57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64

65	66	67	68

69	70	71	72

73	74	75	76

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35

36	37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44	45

46	47	48	49	50

51	52	53	54	55

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35

36	37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44	45

46	47	48	49	50

51	52	53	54	55

56	57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64	65

66	67	68	69	70

71	72	73	74	75

76	77	78	79	80

81	82	83	84	85

86	87	88	89	90

91	92	93	94	95

96	97	98	99	100

101	102	103	104	105

106	107	108	109	110

1	2	3	4	5	6

7	8	9	10	11	12

13	14	15	16	17	18

19	20	21	22	23	24

25	26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35	36

37	38	39	40	41	42

43	44	45	46	47	48

49	50	51	52	53	54

55	56	57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64	65	66

67	68	69	70	71	72

73	74	75	76	77	78

79	80	81	82	83	84

85	86	87	88	89	90

91	92	93	94	95	96

97	98	99	100

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24	25

26	27	28	29	30

31	32	33	34	35

36	37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44	45

46	47	48	49	50

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24

25	26	27	28

29	30	31	32

33	34	35	36

37	38	39	40

41	42	43	44

45	46	47	48

49	50	51	52

53	54	55	56

57	58	59	60

61	62	63	64

65	66	67	68

69	70	71	72

73	74	75	76