Summary: Lesson 4: In which Gintoki and Hijikata return to Edo, and everything goes nearly back to normal, except that reading Shonen Jump suddenly seems to be a bit lacking. Otherwise, it's Yorozuya business as usual until Harusame pirates show up. Also, Gintoki and Hijikata redefine the word 'gay.'

The Kuroneko-Chan & the Shiroyasha Arc

Lesson 4 (the Final Lesson): In an Unlit Alley, All Cats are Black. Or White. Whatever, It's Not That Important, Just Make Sure There's a Party in the End.

They reached Earth much too soon.

The viewscreen that hung in one corner of the bedroom had first shown Earth as a lovely blue marble. The marble had steadily grown throughout the day into the calm, serene façade of home and normality that had filled the screen up to a few minutes before, when they'd gone through the space gate.

Gintoki knew that the pristine beauty was misleading, though. What looked lovely from space was just a mask that hid Edo's real face: dirt and pain and squalor. His old life, waiting for him.

"We're back. We've landing in Edo," Gintoki clarified.

"Hmph."

"People will be getting off the ship."

"Hmph."

"I wonder if Kagura and Shinpachi will be around." Gintoki tried to sound cheerful. "It's been a while."

Hijikata grunted. "Remember."

Oh well. He'd given it his best try. Damn. He really didn't want to have this conversation. "I won't say anything.'"

"What about that guy?"

"Sakamoto can't even remember his own name. Don't worry."

Hijikata grunted again.

They left their bedroom and silently joined the crowds leaving the ship, entering the huge, echoing passenger boarding bridge that would take them to the terminal proper, where, according to Sakamoto, their friends were waiting.

"Just like before," Hijikata said tersely. "We're enemies."

"Like before. I hate you," Gintoki replied woodenly.

"I hate you more."

Inside, something snapped. Gintoki didn't mind lying. He lied all the time. And besides, this wasn't a lie, was it? He really fucking hated Hijikata right now. "I hate you more more."

"I hate you more more more—"

"Fuck off!" Gintoki let loose the uppercut he'd been holding back, and Hijikata went down like a rock. Gintoki stood over him, fists clenched. "I get it! You fucking hate me! Just shut up already!"

Hijikata rubbed his jaw and glared. "Bastard!"

Gintoki curled his lip. "You're the biggest fucking asshole this side of that fucking Amanto who kidnapped us. Just stay the hell away from me!"

"That's my line!"

"Sorry. I got it first." Gintoki managed to restrain himself from kicking Hijikata in the balls. Instead, he stalked away, his insides twisting so hard he could barely breathe. The goddamned prick! Yeah, it had to end. He got that. But it didn't have to go back to the way it was before, did it? No fucking anymore, but hell, they could have sake together or go to the bathhouse or hang out at a hostess club, couldn't they?

But no, they couldn't, because the goddamned Vice-Commander of the Shisengumi wouldn't be caught dead with a loser like Gintoki. "I hope his balls shrivel up and fall off," Gintoki muttered.

"Gin-san!"

"Gin-chan!"

Before he could turn, something big and wet and hot and painful descended over his head. Beyond Shinpachi's and Kagura's urgent attempts to get the damned dog off him, he could hear Hijikata's derisive voice and the laughter of a number of men, presumably the Shinsengumi bastards. Snarling, he pried Sadaharu's jaws from around his throat.

"Fuck off!" he yelled at Hijikata, who was smoking a cigarette, surrounded by assholes in black uniforms.

"Gin-san?" Shinpachi glanced between Gintoki and Hijikata. "Is something wrong?"

"Never get kidnapped with a jerk," Gintoki said loudly.

"Okay," Kagura said brightly. "But if I do, I'll just kill him if he gets too annoying."

"Yeah. Good plan."

"Never get kidnapped with an idiot who forgets to pick up a weapon in an escape." Hijikata made sure his voice carried, and Gintoki found himself glaring at a sea of amused Shinsengumi faces.

"Never get kidnapped with a prick who doesn't know how to fly a spaceship."

"Never get kidnapped with a fool who punches the red button on a console."

"Never get kidnapped with a guy who can't fucking pole-dance!"

"Never get kidnapped with a guy who has a cat fetish!'

"You have a cat fetish, Gin-chan?" Kagura asked. "Isn't that Shinpachi's character trait?"

"Oi! I do NOT have a cat fetish!" Shinpachi shuddered and glared. "I am the most cat-fetish-free man in the world!"

"Right, neko-fetish-boy. Sic him, Sadaharu!"

"No, I fucking don't have a cat fetish!" Gintoki shouted after them as Sadaharu bounded at Shinpachi's heels, teeth bared, Kagura shouting in her annoyingly joyous bloodthirsty fashion. Not one you need to know about, anyway. He whirled to face the Shinsengumi again. "Never get kidnapped with a fucking police officer!"

"Never get kidnapped with a lazy good-for-nothing freeloader!"

"Never get kidnapped with someone with a mayonnaise fetish!"

"Never get kidnapped with a sugar-freak!"

"Never get kidnapped with a smoker!"

"Never get kidnapped with a naturally-permed dickwad!"

"I think the lesson we can take from this," Okita said, looking interested, "is never to be stupid enough to get kidnapped in the first place. Kondo-san? Do you really need a Vice-Commander who's that inept?"

"OI! DIE YOU BASTARD!"

Gintoki watched as Hijikata chased after Okita, feeling a strange mixture of relief and jealousy.

A hand clasped his shoulder. "Nothing happened, did it? To Toshi, I mean."

"Of course not. What could have happened?" Gintoki replied bitterly. "He's the fucking Demonic Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi."

"It's just that he seems more wound up than usual," Kondo said, frowning thoughtfully. "Like there's something important he's not saying."

The gorilla could be disconcertingly perceptive at times. "Ask him about it, not me," Gintoki said. "OI! SHINPACHI! KAGURA! WE'RE GOING HOME!"

"Yes, Gin-chan!" floated back to him, both kids with huge grins on their faces, though Shinpachi looked a bit bloody and spittle-soaked. Gintoki hoped that they hadn't used up all of the bandaging while he was gone, but didn't really believe that the hope was realistic, given Sadaharu's oral fixation.

oOoOoOo

It felt good to drive the scooter again. The streets were as dirty and squalid as Gintoki remembered, and the press of Shinpachi's body behind his felt like a homecoming. Sadaharu raced beside him, snapping at his front tire from time to time and looking particularly vicious in his happiness, while Kagura shouted into the wind at Gintoki, her words unintelligible, though she seemed to be pointing out all of the changes that had taken place during his absence.

They were safe. They were alive. They were happy. They were together.

And it was true. Gintoki was happy, really happy to be with the two people who stuck to him even when he was a bastard, who were both strong enough that Gintoki could rely on them not to die. But, somehow, it felt like he should be happier.

When they got back to the flat, Gintoki let Shinpachi and Kagura abuse him verbally even as they made sure that he had strawberry milk and – the little idiots – every single issue of Jump that had come out since he was abducted, including the stupid esoteric ones that nobody ever read. He immediately kicked them off his favorite sofa and settled in with the stack, half-listening to their background chattering, which rapidly turned into all-out war, familiar and welcoming. Sadaharu stretched out on the other sofa and immediately fell asleep.

Gintoki opened the first Jump and began to read. But the pictures and words seemed empty, and he found that he was having a hard time concentrating on them. Not because of the background noise, though Sadaharu's snores were something he hadn't missed… well, not much. It was more that the pages seemed too clean, too virgin, too unsoiled to him. He'd fought over those same damned magazines with Hijikata, tearing a few of them up in the process, but each one had held his interest and had seemed… Gintoki wasn't sure, but they'd seemed real. Like the first Jump he remembered reading when he was young, when Sensei had merely smiled at the torn and stained and barely-used remnants of his schoolbook and had given him a copy of the magazine to read instead.

He stifled a sigh, closed his eyes and laid the magazine across them. Stupid as it was, on the long trip back to Edo, Gintoki had got used to sharing his Jump. Preferred it, even. Jump was always good, but the best ones were the ones that he'd had to fight for, or fight over, or wrestle away from the otaku-punk-cum-police officer who spilled mayonnaise over every other page, leaving large oily stains that made the paper glow against the overhead light like a lantern lit by candle-flame, so you could see the images on both sides of the page at once and feel like it was okay that the universe was just that crazy.

"Fuck."

That son of a bitch.

Gintoki could only hope that Okita had thoroughly humiliated Hijikata and taken his job over for good. Or that Hijikata fell asleep while smoking and burned himself up. Either would be just fine by him.

oOoOoOo

"Thank you for your patronage," Gintoki intoned, bored as hell as another group of assholes left Saigou's okama bar. His make-up felt heavy and hot on his face, and he hadn't had half-enough sake yet to make up for a night of dressing up like a girl.

"Thank you for your patronage." And then there was Shinpachi's attitude, which had degenerated from his usual annoying-as-hell to a much more unusual irritating-as-hell the day after Gintoki got back. Just like Kagura's had, though it was harder to tell with her, since she was such a little bitch to begin with.

"Thank you for your patronage," he said to the next person in line.

"Oi! Paako!" A rough hand clouted him over the ear.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!" Gintoki glared up at Saigou's towering form. At least the pigtails had cushioned the worst of the okama's blow. "What, you blue-chinned old hag? This is what you asked me to do, isn't it?"

"I asked you to be a hostess, dammit, not some naturally permed robot!" Saigou looked intently at Gintoki and snorted in disgust. "Oh, what's the use? Just get up on stage and dance a little. And look like you're having fun, for fuck's sake!"

Gintoki slouched his way to the stage. Shinpachi was already there, doing a few half-hearted gyrations and waving a fan around listlessly. Gintoki picked up a fan and joined him.

Shinpachi looked like his panties were busy twisting. "How much longer do we have to do this job, Paako?"

"Until closing time, Paachi."

"Why did I have to come on this job in the first place, Paako?"

"Because I'm not going to dress like a girl and dance for dirty old men alone, Paachi."

Shinpachi sighed heavily. "No wonder girls won't look at me."

"No, that's because of the glasses, Paachi."

"Oi!" Shinpachi stopped dancing to glare.

"Hey! Freak! Shake that ass!" some drunken asshole in the audience shouted.

"Shut up, jerk!" Shinpachi yelled back. "What are you doing in a place like this anyway? Go back to your lonely, pathetic flat and watch TV while you fart and scratch your balls, why don't you?"

"Paachi!" Gintoki was impressed. "You've become a man!"

"Someone had to," Shinpachi snapped back. "You left us!" He stalked off the stage, Gintoki staring after him in astonishment.

"Go after him," Saigou sighed, appearing at Gintoki's side. "The night's shot to hell, anyway. Why I keep asking you guys to fill in, I'll never understand."

"Because we're so damned gorgeous, that's why!" Gintoki retorted, lifting his tight kimono to free his legs. He ran after Shinpachi.

"It's because you're cheap!" he heard Saigou yell after him.

Shinpachi made good time; it took Gintoki viciously elbowing his way through several crowded blocks before he finally caught up to him. He grabbed Shinpachi's arm. "Oi! Shinpachi! What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong! Why would anything be wrong?" Shinpachi shook Gintoki's hand off and stood nearly eye-to-eye with him. "Just because we didn't know if you were dead or alive for five months!"

When did he grow so tall? "It wasn't my fault!" Gintoki protested. "I was kidnapped by a pervert!"

"You could have called us or something!" Shinpachi retorted. "At least have let us know that you were alive! It's not like you forgot your phone—" he stopped and looked at Gintoki suspiciously. "You didn't forget your phone number, did you?"

For a second, Gintoki contemplated taking the easy out and claiming post-traumatic phone number memory loss. Then he shook his head. "I forgot to call."

"That's what I thought. And if you ever, EVER, dare tell that to Kagura, I'll kill you!" Shinpachi clenched his hands. "She cried. Kagura cried. Every night! I could hear her sniffling in the closet after she went to bed."

"Probably allergies—"

"It wasn't fucking allergies!" Before Gintoki could react, Shinpachi had hooked his fingers deep in Gintoki's nostrils. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Owowowowow!"

"You didn't think to call us," Shinpachi said, his voice low and dangerous. "Not once."

"It's not like I had it easy, either!"

"You were alive, dammit! You knew your own fucking phone number, dammit! And don't try to tell me it was because you didn't have any money, you jerk! You think Ms. Otose wouldn't have accepted reverse charges if you'd called?"

Gintoki snorted around Shinpachi's fingers, but the kid was right. He'd been too busy fucking Hijikata. Hijikata, the guy who hated him. "I'm sorry, Shinpachi," he said, suddenly too depressed to be defensive. "I'm really, really sorry."

Shinpachi glared and then yanked his fingers out of Gintoki's nose. "Jerk! How can I stay mad at you like that? You look like a whipped puppy."

Gintoki rubbed the back of his neck.

"And now I've got your snot all over my fingers."

"Here. Wipe it off with these damned pigtails," Gintoki said, pulling one off his head. "I'll give 'em back to Saigou and let him deal with it."

Shinpachi made a big deal of wiping his fingers. "You act like everything's gone back to normal." He obviously wasn't going to let go of his grudge that easily.

"It's because I want everything to be normal again," Gintoki said. "Like it used to be."

"Aren't you the one who says that nothing in life ever stays?" Shinpachi handed back the pigtail and sighed. "I'm sorry I got so angry."

"No. I deserved it."

"Yeah, you did. But it's done now. You're back." Shinpachi moved, and Gintoki found himself squeezed so tight he could barely breathe. "You'd better be glad it's me and not Kagura who's doing this," Shinpachi muttered. "She'd break you in two."

Gintoki smiled and patted Shinpachi's head. "Yeah. She would. Uh, Shinpachi-kun?"

"Yes, Gin-san?"

"There's a lot of guys looking at us right now. I think they're thinking perverted thoughts."

"Fuck 'em. Haven't they ever seen a girl hug another girl before?"

"Probably. You can buy DVDs."

Shinpachi drew back and wiped his tear-stained face on Gintoki's kimono. "Yeah. Kagura and I found some of them when we were cleaning out your things."

"What! You went through my porn-, er, my erotic DVDs?"

"If Kagura turns into a lesbian, it's your fault."

"Is that why she's been watching 'Wet T-Shirt Babes Sumo Wrestling' late at night?" Gintoki felt dazed. "I thought it was just because she was trying to pick up some pointers on how to fight dirty."

"Kagura already fights dirty. Face reality, Gin-san. She's a Kyubei in the making."

"But Kyubei turned out that way because her father and grandfather messed with her head."

Shinpachi said nothing, just looked at Gintoki significantly.

"What?"

Shinpachi rolled his eyes. "I'm going home. See you later."

"Wait! I'll come with you."

"I think someone wants to talk to you first," Shinpachi said. "He's been watching us for a while, now. See you back at the house."

Someone… Gintoki turned and caught a glimpse of a glowing cigarette and a lanky figure in black.

Hijikata.

"Bastard!" He made his way through the crowd. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Hijikata looked at him appraisingly, his eyes cold. "I could arrest you for public indecency, you know."

"You do, and Saigou and the other okamas will tear the Shinsengumi headquarters down around your ears," Gintoki retorted. "This isn't the first time I've seen you around, either. What? Does the Shinsengumi give overtime to stalkers or something?"

"You're a known public nuisance. Someone has to keep an eye on you."

"Watch your own bellybutton, jerk. Just leave me alone. That's what we're supposed to be doing, right? Going back to the way things were?"

Hijikata frowned. "You sound like you're trying to convince yourself."

That was too low. "Just fuck yourself," Gintoki snarled. "Oh, that's right! You can't anymore! Too bad. But you can buy a blow-up doll in the next street." He stomped away, pissed as hell that his okama outfit made him look more like a flouncing girl than a rightfully enraged virile male ex-lover.

"Keep the eyeshadow!" Hijikata shouted after him. "It makes your eyes look more like a dead parakeet than a dead fish!"

Gintoki flipped him the finger, grimly making the best of his pathetic exit until a pervert pinched his ass and he had to stop to beat the shit out of the bastard.

By the time he was finished, Hijikata was gone, though the scent of his cigarette lingered, strangely fresh amidst the gasoline fumes and the stench of day-old garbage that filled the humid night air.

oOoOoOo

Gintoki felt the chill of cold steel slice into his guts.

He grabbed his sword with both hands and split open the Amanto pirate's skull, but he could already hear the others coming. Gintoki slumped to the floor clutching his stomach, and wondered if his guts would fall out all over his hand.

"Gin-san!"

"Gin-chan!"

"Watch our backs," he ordered, breathing deep and trying not to pass out. "I'm fine."

Kagura and Shinpachi gave him identical doubtful looks, but obediently took positions at point while he struggled to get past the initial shock of the Harusame space pirate's attack.

They'd been hired to do a simple property recovery; either the job had been a trap, or the stupid shopkeeper who had hired them was mixed up in some pretty bad shit and hadn't bothered to tell them. Gintoki cursed steadily under his breath and pulled the upper part of his kimono tight around his stomach as a temporary bandage.

"Gin-san, they're coming," Shinpachi whispered.

"From this way, too," Kagura confirmed.

The pirates were between them and the warehouse doors, and the damned building didn't have any windows. Gintoki knew that if he was at full strength, he could have slashed a hole in the side of the building, but with his stomach muscles as damaged as they were… "Kagura, can you blow a hole in the wall?"

She looked at him in surprise, but nodded, aimed her umbrella and released a barrage of bullets. They bounced off the nearest wall and ricocheted dangerously close.

"Don't kill us!" Shinpachi shouted, diving to the floor next to Gintoki with his arms over his head.

"Uh oh," Kagura said. "It didn't work."

"We know that!" Shinpachi yelled. "What's that wall made out of, anyway?"

"Titanium," a man's voice answered.

A massive Amanto who looked like a cross between a hyena and a gorilla stepped out of the shadows. He was cradling a nasty-looking flame-thrower.

Other Amanto appeared around him. Gintoki didn't like the grins they were wearing.

"There's a price on your head, samurai," the Amanto said. "We haven't forgotten the Amanto you slaughtered during the war."

"Don't make it sound like they were vacationers or something," Gintoki said, standing up. He was damned if he was going to die lying on the floor of a warehouse. "They tried to kill me, too."

"Titanium? The whole warehouse?" Shinpachi stood, too. "That must have cost a fortune!"

"It did," the Amanto replied. "And it's been worth every penny. All of the crates you see around you hold enough weapons and bombs to destroy Edo ten times over."

"But why would you want to destroy Edo?" Shinpachi said, his eyes wide. "You're Amanto!"

"Call it 'negotiations,'" the Amanto said.

"Call it NEVER HAPPENING!" Gintoki shouted. He leapt forward.

The Amanto evaded Gintoki easily and dropped the flamethrower to the ground. He pulled a wicked-looking double-edged sword and faced Gintoki with a smirk.

"You're too slow," he taunted.

Gintoki could hear Shinpachi yelling and the clash of wood against metal, while Kagura's umbrella was spewing bullets at a clip that let Gintoki know that there were way too many pirates for them to handle on their own. He wiped his brow with his arm, keeping his sword ready. They were screwed, especially since he'd missed the leader in his first, strongest rush. But going on the defensive meant death.

He rushed the Amanto again.

This time their swords crashed together, Gintoki just managing to hold his ground under the Amanto's heavy swing. He parried and slashed, feeling a vicious sense of accomplishment when he laid open the Amanto's cheek.

The Amanto put a hand to his face; it came away green, covered in blood. He grinned and licked the blood from his fingers. Gintoki feinted and whirled, bringing his sword up instead of slashing down. He realized his mistake even as the sword arced through empty air – he'd had to come in too close, well within the Amanto's greater reach. Even as he began to twist to meet the blade he could sense coming from below, the tip entered his gut in exactly the same place he'd already been wounded and ripped through him.

Gintoki stumbled. The Amanto's sword bit deep into his lower back this time, and Gintoki could feel himself falling, his legs numb and unresponsive.

His elbow hit the ground first, knocking his sword from his grip and sending mind-numbing pain through his body, already overwhelmed by the fire in his gut. He felt the cold concrete of the warehouse floor under his cheek and frantically tried to make his body respond to his commands. With grim detachment, he felt the Amanto leader grab his hair and pull his head from the floor. "This will be a pretty prize," the Amanto gloated. "The head of the great Shiroyasha!" The pirate raised a curved knife over his head and brought it down—

–And the knife clattered to the warehouse floor as the Amanto fell in two neatly equal halves, split down the middle from his head to his feet. One half fell on Gintoki, pouring blood and gore and smelling of bowel contents. Even half of the Amanto's weight was still crushing, and Gintoki cursed as the corpse threatened to smother him.

"Don't you dare die here, you bastard," a low voice said angrily.

"You're a hundred years too early to see me die," Gintoki tried to say, but nothing really came out other than a groan. He felt the Amanto's body rock, then the weight was off of him and he could pull air into his lungs in great gulping breaths while Hijikata held his head out of the pool of blood and guts he'd been lying in.

"Fuck," Hijikata said. He began to pull at Gintoki's kimono.

Gintoki was having a hard time focusing on him; it was as if Hijikata was fading in and out. "Are you a ghost?" he asked. "I really hate ghosts."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Oh, no, I get it." Gintoki grinned as Hijikata stripped him. "Can't get enough of me, hey?"

"I said shut the fuck up!" Hijikata pressed his hand hard into Gintoki's stomach.

"Oh, shit," Gintoki gasped. "Ohthathurts—"

"KONDO!" Hijikata bellowed. "CALL FOR AN AMBULANCE!"

No matter how hard he tried, Gintoki couldn't seem to catch his breath through the pain. "Hey," he wheezed. He needed to tell Hijikata something, but whatever it was danced at the edges of his mind, just out of reach.

"If you die, I'm going to kill you, you son of a bitch!" Hijikata hissed. He seemed to be pressing harder, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had at first.

Now he remembered. "You kiss good, you know," Gintoki whispered. "I like kissing you."

A huge form loomed in the fading light. "An ambulance is coming, Toshi! Oh hell. Is that the Yorozuya?"

"He can't wait much longer. Hold his insides in while I carry him out of the line of fire," Hijikata said.

Gintoki felt hands slide under him, strong arms cradle him. "Neko-chan," he whispered, smiling. Then the arms heaved and the pain skyrocketed and everything went very, very dark.

oOoOoOo

The first couple of days of his hospital stay were pretty hazy.

Shinpachi and Kagura had given him strange looks and told him how Hijikata had refused to leave Gintoki's side as they'd loaded him into the ambulance, and how he'd bullied the hospital staff to take Gintoki into the operating room when the doctors had said it was no use, and later got the nurses to allow Shinpachi and Kagura to sit with Gintoki when he'd eventually been sent to Recovery to be hooked up to massive machines that ate and breathed and pissed for him.

As far as Gintoki was concerned, it was all hearsay. Hijikata hadn't turned up at the hospital once after he'd awoken from surgery.

Luckily, the job hadn't been a complete waste. The shopkeeper who had hired them actually paid them, and Kagura had intimidated him into giving them 'danger' money to compensate for Gintoki's injuries.

Gintoki approved, even though Shinpachi had pointed out that they hadn't actually finished the job they'd been given. But then Kagura had pointed out that they'd been eating rice with raw egg and soy sauce for nearly a month, and Shinpachi had shut up pretty quickly. And then Gintoki pointed out that they wouldn't have received the money at all except for his heroism, so rightfully the money was his. And then Shinpachi and Kagura had both pointed out that he wasn't a hero, he was just really, really stupid, so they deserved the money as compensation for working with an idiot. The ensuing fight went a long way towards making Gintoki feel healthier. Life just wasn't quite as fun without people to fight with.

Hasegawa dropped by the hospital quite a bit while Gintoki was recovering, which was nice, since Gintoki always ended up feeling like he'd got a better deal in life than Hasegawa had, which was cheering, though Shinpachi told him it was actually pretty twisted.

On the philosophy that a windfall wasn't really a windfall until it was being spent, as soon as Gintoki had been out of the hospital for a couple of weeks and was semi-mobile, he and Hasegawa hit Edo. They started at a hostess club until they were kicked out for lewd and drunken behavior, then moved on to pachinko until Hasegawa caught Gintoki feeding coins into a vending machine and shouting at it to give him more balls. After that, things got a little hazy. Gintoki vaguely remembered paying somebody something for Hasegawa, who disappeared with (Gintoki suspected) a prostitute, though by that time they were both so drunk that Gintoki doubted that Hasegawa had got his money's worth.

oOoOoOo

Two days later, Gintoki was mostly recovered and busy blowing the rest of the money on an ice cream parfait binge in the rebuilt restaurant where the whole kidnapping mess had started.

The venue for his binge had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn't seen Hijikata in weeks, or the off chance that he might show up there. Because if Hijikata did show up, it would be one of those cosmic coincidence things, or a returning to the scene of the crime thing.

It wouldn't have anything to do with Gintoki at all.

He waved at the waitress. "Another parfait!" he shouted.

"You're binging," Kagura said, slurping up noodles.

The waitress gave Gintoki his parfait and hurried away. "You've been watching 'Tell Ba-Chan Your Problems' again, haven't you?" Gintoki asked as he slid his empty parfait glass to the side and pulled the new one into the field of battle. "Besides, I've only had two parfaits."

"This one's your third."

"You've had seven bowls of noodles."

"I'm a growing child." Kagura slurped more noodles.

"You're a bottomless pit."

Kagura said, "If you binge, it means you're sexually frustrated."

He nearly sprayed ice cream all over the table. "Where did you hear that? Who told you that? What do you mean by that?"

"Ba-Chan says so. It means that your dick is always limp, so your tongue has sex instead."

"That's not true! My dick is never limp! It's always hard and manly and ready to go!"

Gintoki suddenly realized that the restaurant had gone silent. "What?" he demanded, looking around at the sea of staring faces. "You don't believe me? I'll do any willing woman, right here, right now, to prove it!"

No women leapt to take advantage of his generous offer. Instead, the waitress brought another parfait and set it in front of him.

Gintoki blinked at it.

"On the house," she said, and walked away.

The floorshow finished, the other people in the restaurant calmly returned to their lunches and the buzz of conversation picked up where it had left off.

Gintoki stared at the new parfait.

"You really need to get laid, you disgusting pervert." Kagura slurped more noodles. "These are really good. Can I have more?"

As Gintoki opened his mouth to yell at her, a flash of movement caught his gaze. He watched through the window as a man dressed in black, a sword hanging at his side, leaned against a building across the street and stared back at him, surrounded by a wreath of cigarette smoke.

Finally. Maybe things could get back to normal, now. It was easier to hate someone when you could see them, after all.

Gintoki shut his mouth and viciously attacked his new parfait.

oOoOoOo

It was pouring.

No. It was not simply pouring. It was bucketing. It was deluging. Gintoki thought that all the gods in the heavens were probably crying so hard that they'd run out of tissues.

He grimly clutched his umbrella and hoped the plastic bag would keep his new Jump and the chocolate sticks he'd just bought dry enough that the two didn't mix with catastrophic results. Preoccupied with getting home as quickly as possible, he was totally unprepared for a hand to reach out from an alleyway and pull him directly under a downspout.

"What the fuck?" he sputtered. The umbrella collapsed under the river of water pouring off the roof above him.

The unknown assailant slammed him into the wall. On the bright side of things, at least he wasn't under the waterfall anymore. On the not-so-bright side of things, he didn't have a fucking clue as to what was going on. He tensed in preparation to attack.

"It's payback time, Yorozuya."

"Hijikata?" Gintoki feigned surprise. "Oh, so you're still alive?"

A mouth crashed into his and a hard thigh shoved between his legs, and suddenly Gintoki couldn't care less about the rain or the broken umbrella or the bag with the Jump in it that splashed into a puddle as he dropped everything to yank Hijikata close enough that he could comfortably rape his mouth. A low groan escaped Hijikata, and Gintoki could feel the hard press of Hijikata's arousal grinding into his hip.

"There are three things I hate: mayonnaise, smokers and a guy who humps me," Gintoki muttered into the kiss.

Hijikata responded by biting his mouth and spinning him around before pinning him to the alley wall again.

"Your ass is mine," he snarled into Gintoki's ear. "How many times have you fucked me? It's my turn now."

"What? All at once? That's got to be what, maybe two hundred times or so? I think you're bluffing."

"Does this feel like a bluff?"

Actually, Gintoki was pretty sure it felt like Little Hijikata, who he knew fairly intimately, though not from that particular perspective. "You planning to have sex with my clothes?"

"Pull 'em down. I want to see you, bare assed with legs spread."

Little Gintoki throbbed. He obviously got off on Hijikata's dirty talk. He loosened his belt, slid his trousers down around his knees and pulled his sodden kimono to the side.

Hijikata shoved him into the side of the building. "Against the wall."

"Public sex is generally hotter if there's public around," Gintoki pointed out helpfully. "Urg!" He tried to decide whether to kill Hijikata or cast Little Hijikata in gold and worship him. Worship won, and he spread his legs further. "Get going, would you?"

Of course, his order was a bit beside the point, since Hijikata was already going damned hard, but it never hurt to act like you were in control of the situation, even if you weren't because sweet heaven and earth Hijikata could move his hips like a guy who had never had girl-bits between his legs. Gintoki braced himself to keep Hijikata from giving him wall rash on his face and reached between his own legs to take things in hand.

The contrast between the cold rain and Hijikata's heat sent shivers down Gintoki's body. Hijikata's thrusts reached deep inside and found some happy place that made Gintoki groan and stand on his tiptoes, hoping that Hijikata would keep visiting if he opened the door as wide as he could to invite him in.

"You bastard," Hijikata panted into his ear, his breath floating clammy on the water-sodden air. "How come I can't hate you right?"

The world stopped and started again, and suddenly Gintoki could see things clearly, as if they'd been part of a negative before, but now the picture had developed. "You asshole," he said. "There's no right way to hate a person. Hate's wrong all the way through."

"Damn. I was afraid it was something like that. I'm going to come pretty soon. You ready?"

"Yeah."

Hijikata's hands felt like brands where they gripped his hips. Gintoki concentrated on the heat between them, the slap of their bodies coming together, the press of Hijikata's body against his, and then he was coming, and Hijikata was coming and then their legs gave out and they landed in the grimy water of an Edo alley puddle.

"Ouch."

"Fuck."

"My ass is going to freeze off," Gintoki observed.

"My little guy is the size of a pencil right now."

"We need dry clothes and hot sake."

"And a cigarette."

Gintoki squirmed into his soaked trousers and grimaced. "We're not far from my place, and Shinpachi and Kagura went out with Otae today to do some girly thing."

"Shinpachi, too?"

"He can't say not to Otae. He's got a sister-worship thing."

"His sister is scary."

"You're telling me. C'mon, Neko-chan." Gintoki hauled Hijikata to his feet and watched with interest as Hijikata tried to do up his complicated uniform, wishing it weren't raining quite so hard so he could see a little more detail. "If you want to walk there with your ass hanging out of your pants, it's fine with me."

Hijikata shot him a dirty look, finally managing to get all of his buttons done up.

"Come on," Gintoki said. "I know a short cut."

Within five minutes they were at the Yorozuya office, stripping out of their wet clothes and leaving them in puddling heaps on the entrance mat. Gintoki went into the bath and grabbed a couple of towels, sniffing them and deciding that they would do.

"Here," he said, coming out and tossing one to Hijikata, who caught it and wrinkled his nose. "My bedroom's over here."

"This towel is crunchy."

"It's just your imagination." Gintoki pulled the futon out of the closet and flopped it on the floor, then grabbed the blanket. "Here. Start getting it warm for us."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Roll up in it. Or set it on fire," Gintoki said, shivering. "It's fucking cold in here." He dug through the closet and found both pillows, though one looked suspiciously like Sadaharu had been using it as a chew toy. Still, it was soft and reasonably intact, and the slobber would be dry by now. "Here's a pillow. Oh, and here's my lube stash," he added, prying up the floorboard he hid his porn under.

The only tube left was half-empty. "Damn that Shinpachi," he muttered. "He's going to have to deal with it at some point in his life."

"You share lube?"

"Well, he's too embarrassed to buy it himself," Gintoki explained. "What? It's not creepy! It's not creepy, is it? Oh, fuck, it's creepy. I knew that if anyone ever found out it'd be creepy."

"It's creepy," Hijikata confirmed, "but I don't give a fuck. Give it here. I want to fuck you again."

"Use plenty," Gintoki said, already stroking himself in anticipation. "That spit-fuck chafed."

Hijikata grunted. "Bend over."

"That's about as sexy as it gets," Gintoki replied in disgust. "Look, you topped already. This time I'll sit on it."

"Works for me." Hijikata held Gintoki's hips steady as Gintoki straddled him. "Yes," he hissed as Gintoki gingerly lowered himself and encased him.

"Good, aren't I?" Gintoki felt pretty smug. "I've been shitting for years to build those muscles."

"Shut the fuck up if you're going to say things like that," Hijikata said, his hips echoing Gintoki's rhythm. "That's disgusting."

"Nothing's disgusting when you love someone." Gintoki grunted. "Yeah, that's the spot."

"I don't love you, moron."

"It feels to me like you love my asshole."

"It's passable," Hijikata grudgingly admitted. "It's the rest of you I hate."

"Didn't you tell me once that hate is just another kind of love?"

"I was whizzing at the time."

"Ah." Gintoki couldn't help but grin as Hijikata's frown grew fiercer. "I see."

"You see what?"

"When a man's little guy is hanging out, you can't believe a word he says."

"That's right."

Gintoki rooted in his ear innocently, rolling smoothly with Hijikata's movements. "Like that time when your little guy was hanging out in front of all of those Amanto and you told them that you were going to kill them."

"Death threats don't count. They're always true, little guy hanging out or not."

"Or when you squealed like a girl when Sakamoto burst in on us." He blew a bit of imaginary earwax off his finger and rotated his hips, making Hijikata gasp.

"I've never squealed in my life," Hijikata said, his voice strained. "Do that again."

"Or just tonight, when you said you wanted my ass."

"Revenge doesn't count, either."

Gintoki decided to go for the kill.

"Urk!"

"Mmm." Gintoki flexed his inner muscles again. "So I suppose that if I stood up and you fell out and I asked you if you wanted to keep fucking me and you said 'yes.' you'd be lying?"

"Bastard!" Hijikata pulled him down. "Shit, that feels good…"

"Me, too. Fuck. I'm almost there—"

"Gintoki! Gintoki! Are you home?"

Kagura burst into the room.

"What the fuck?" Hijikata screamed. He pushed Gintoki, who fell to the side.

"Uh, ha ha, hi, Kagura," Gintoki said, frozen in shock and very, very aware that Little Gintoki was currently pretty hard and red and visible. "Why don't you go outside for a little while and let Gin-chan get dressed, okay, sweetie?" Without waiting for a reply, he yanked the blanket from Hijikata and dove back into the bed.

"Are you having gay sex?" Kagura demanded. "Because it looks a lot like your pervert movies in here."

"Hahaha. This isn't gay sex, honey," Gintoki said, trying to sound like he wasn't shaking like a leaf. "Hijikata-san is just a stalker, like Kondo-san."

"I'm not a fucking stalker," Hijikata said furiously. "Sakata was doing perverted things, and I came here to arrest him."

"If this isn't gay sex, Ba-Chan needs a new dictionary," Kagura replied. "Hey! Shinpachi! C'mere!"

Shinpachi poked his head in the room. "What is it, Kagura? Has something happened to Gin-san?"

Kagura pointed. "Oi! Does this look like gay sex to you?"

Shinpachi screamed.

Otae stormed in. "Did somebody say Gintoki has a stalker? What? Are the producers trying to write me out of the script or something? Aren't I the only one with a stalker on this anime?"

Gintoki cowered. "No! No! I was just joking!"

"Hijikata-san is in your bed and he's naked," Otae pointed out. "Kondo does that at least once a week. If you're trying to get me sacked—"

"No! Never! Get out, shoo, go away!" Gintoki frantically flapped his hands at Hijikata. "He's not a stalker! He's just a TV repair guy!"

"You mean he's gay?"

"I'm not fucking gay!"

"Hostesses are experts. We know who's gay and who isn't," Otae said. "You're gay."

"Who's gay?" Okita asked from the doorway.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Hijikata demanded, going absolutely white.

"We gave 'em a ride home since it was raining," Okita said. "I would have let them walk, but Kondo-san insisted." He stared at them dispassionately. "Say, Hijikata. I hear you get kicked out of the Shinsengumi if you're gay."

"I'm not gay!"

"Huh. Looks like I need a new dictionary."

"Sougo? Sougo!"

"In here, Kondo-san."

"You little bastard!" Hijikata hissed. He tried to pull the blankets over his head.

Kondo peered around the corner. "Sougo, what are you doing in the Yorozuya's bedroom?" His eyes suddenly bulged. "Toshi!"

Hijikata groaned. "Too late." He pulled the blanket over his head anyway.

Gintoki gave Kondo a sickly grin. "You see, it was raining and we got wet—"

"Toshi, what are you doing in the Yorozuya's bed?"

"He's hiding. But he was fucking the Boss when I walked in," Okita supplied helpfully.

"We were NOT fucking when you walked in!" the blanket shouted.

"No, they were fucking when I walked in," Kagura said. "Stop lying, jerk."

Kondo seemed to be having a hard time understanding. "But you're – he's – you're both—you're gay?"

"I'm not gay!" the blanket shouted.

"I need a new dictionary," Kondo said, sounding dazed. He fainted.

Otae kicked him. "Oops." She smiled cheerfully.

"Hey, Gintoki," Hasegawa suddenly popped his head in the door. "It's raining like hell out there and my box is soggy. Can I sleep here…" He looked around. "Uh. Is this an orgy?"

"Gintoki and Hijikata-san are having sex," Shinpachi explained.

Kagura made gagging noises that were disgustingly realistic. "Haven't I told you not to do that unless you want to clean up everybody's puke?" Gintoki yelled.

"Wait. Gintoki… You're gay?" Hasegawa looked panicked. "Are you after my ass?"

"Holy fuck no!" Gintoki yelled, aghast.

"What? Isn't it good enough for you? Or do I have a loser ass, too?"

"No, your ass isn't a loser," Gintoki backpedaled. "Er, it's just not my—"

"That's the story of my fucking life," Hasegawa said. "I'm just not anybody's."

"Loser," Kagura said.

"Kagura, that's not nice, even if it's true," Shinpachi said.

"I AM NOT GAY!" Gintoki shouted.

"Then I need a new dictionary," Hasegawa replied.

"Loser," Kagura said again.

"What's all the noise in here! It's in the middle of the day, for cripe's sake!" Otose stormed into the room, closely followed by Catherine and Tama.

"Oh, look, Otose," Catherine said, pointing. "The pervert is doing disgusting things. Throw him out and give me his apartment."

"I'm not doing disgusting things," Gintoki protested. "Right, Hijikata?"

The blanket groaned.

"See?" Gintoki said. "He agrees."

"May I watch?" Tama said. "I would like to gather data about homosexual male mating habits."

"I keep telling you, I'm not gay! Why doesn't anybody believe me?"

"It might have something to do with having sex with Hijikata-san, Gin-san," Shinpachi pointed out.

"Is Otae here?" someone called from the living room. "She wasn't at the dojo when I stopped by."

"Come in, Kyubei!" Otae said cheerfully.

"NO! DON'T COME IN!"

"Hello, Otae." Kyubei fixed her disapproving gaze on Gintoki. "I know that you're a layabout, but isn't it a bit much to lie around naked and make others come to your bedroom instead of dressing and entertaining your guests in the living room like a civilized person?"

"He was having sex with Toshi," Kondo explained.

"Augh!" the blanket said.

"I always thought you were gay," Kyubei said.

"Take that back!" Gintoki demanded.

"I heard that Gintoki was poorly," another all-too-familiar voice said.

Gintoki panicked. "What? Did someone say there were SHINSENGUMI IN THE ROOM?"

Zura walked in, followed by Elizabeth. "I didn't say any such thing. But I brought grapes."

Gintoki prayed. At least Zura had had the sense to wear his pirate outfit.

"He nearly got killed, but that was a while ago," Shinpachi said. "At least six episodes."

"I see. In that case, I'll take the grapes home with me. Come, Elizabeth." Zura turned to leave.

Kondo stared at Zura. It was obvious that a thought was forming in his head. "Zura!" Gintoki stage-whispered, shooing frantically. "Get the hell out of here!"

"My name's not Zura. It's Space Captain Katsura."

"Wait!" Kondo cried. "Aren't you the wanted Joui rebel, Katsura Kotaro?"

"No relation."

Elizabeth held up a sign. The resemblance is misleading.

"I see," Kondo said, nodding. "Sorry. My mistake."

Elizabeth's sign flipped. Are they gay?

"It would appear so, Elizabeth," Katsura said gravely.

"I'm not gay!" Gintoki yelled.

"I beg your pardon," Zura said. He turned to Elizabeth. "The socially acceptable term is 'homosexual', Elizabeth."

Homosexual: of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex.

"That's correct."

"That's not correct! That's not correct! Stop saying that's correct!"

I need a new dictionary.

"We'll purchase one on the way back home," Zura said reassuringly. "I understand that there's a rainbow bookstore three blocks from here. I'm sure that they'll have the most up-to-date references regarding men having sex with other men."

"We're not men having sex with other men!" Gintoki shouted. "We're just men having sex! No other men are involved!"

"He's right," Otose said, blowing smoke. "Two men in an anime or manga having sex with each other is simply fan service."

Gintoki heaved a sigh of relief, echoed by the blanket.

"It's only gay if one of them was a virgin with cat ears that he subsequently lost," she continued.

The blanket screamed.

"Getoutgetoutgetout!" Gintoki tried to pull the blanket around his waist and leap to his feet to push them out of the room, but the blanket rebelled, and he found himself naked in front of ten people, a robot and a thing, whatever the hell Elizabeth was.

Catherine curled her lip. "Disgusting."

"Bacteria are swarming all over his testicles," Tama observed.

"No wonder I never hear any women up here," Otase said.

"That's not all the bigger it gets, is it? Is it? Gin-san, men get bigger as they get older, don't they? Don't they?"

Shinpachi's panic threatened to develop into hysteria. Gintoki needed to shut him up, but the only way he could think to do it was to demonstrate that yes, men got bigger when they got older, and he didn't think that was the smartest move at the moment, especially with Otae in the room.

"I don't see why that's so important," Kyubei said, shaking her head. "It's hardly impressive."

"It isn't," Otae reassured her. "They simply like to think it is."

"Mine's important!" Hasegawa protested. "More important than that, anyway."

"Oi," Gintoki said, annoyed. "That's the last time I'm paying for sex for you." Looking around at the shocked faces, he realized he probably shouldn't have said that. "What I mean is—"

"Shut the fuck up!" the blanket said. "And get them the hell out of here!"

"You heard the lump!" Gintoki stood in all his not-as-manly-as-usual pride. "Shut up and get out! It's like herding cats," he muttered under his breath as the last person left the room and he shut the door.

"Oi. Enough with the cat jokes." Hijikata poked his head out from under the blanket. "Are they gone?"

"Yeah." Gintoki climbed back into the futon and claimed his share of the blanket. "Now, where were we?"

"What the fuck?" Hijikata sputtered. "Are you crazy? They'll hear us!"

"No, it'll be fine, I promise—"

Shinpachi wandered back into the room, carrying something and frowning at it. "You'd better look at this, Gin-san. I don't know why this was in the bathroom, but we're going to get a lot of letters if it's for Kagura-chan."

"Can't it wait?"

"No. I really don't think it can."

Gintoki pulled the covers up higher. "But we're right in the middle of having—"

"This is prime time. You can't be doing that now, anyway," Shinpachi said dismissively. "You really, really need to look at this, Gin-san."

Hijikata grunted and started putting on a kimono.

"No! Wait! Stop!" Gintoki grabbed the kimono and tried to pull it away from Hijikata's hands. "I'm not done yet."

"I'm not letting you [bleep] me with a horny teenager in the room and a house full of people wandering in and out during prime broadcasting time." Hijikata calmly punched Gintoki in the face and finished dressing while Gintoki rolled on the futon holding his nose and moaning. "I need a smoke."

"Gin-san…" Shinpachi insisted.

"Right. I'll look at the damned thing, then," Gintoki said, still holding his nose. "You, stay. You can smoke in bed."

Hijikata rolled his eyes. "You're such a horny dog."

Gintoki ignored him and grabbed the item from Shinpachi. "Oi! This is a pregnancy testing kit!"

"My contract's good, so it's not mine," Hijikata said, sitting back down on the futon and lighting a cigarette. He took a deep drag. "Looks like a little sex education is in store for the China brat."

"I'm not a China brat, I'm a Yato brat. Why is that creep smoking in your bed? Didn't you tell me that I can't have fires in bed?" Kagura asked, wandering in, followed by Sadaharu. "Hey! What's that?"

"Something you should never see," Gintoki said sternly, hiding the kit behind his back.

"It's a kit for testing whether or not you're pregnant," Shinpachi explained. "Girls use them after they have unprotected sex."

"Oi! Oi! Oi!" Gintoki sprang up and clamped his hand over Shinpachi's mouth. "He's lying, Kagura. This is a kit for testing for acid rain. The producers want to go on an environmental awareness kick, that's all. Ah ha ha ha. Acid rain. You know. Testing."

"Lame," Hijikata said, blowing out a stream of smoke.

Shinpachi yanked Gintoki's hand away from his mouth and glared. "I'm not lying! She's going to have to learn about it someday, isn't she?"

"But not during prime time! Not when I want to get laid!"

"Oi, you two stop arguing," Kagura said. "You're disgusting. Besides," she said, plopping down at the end of the futon and sticking her finger up her nose, "I know all about that stuff. I made sure that my contract says that I can have lots of sex without getting pregnant once I'm sixteen. There'll still be plenty of lolichan left in me then, so we can draw in the hentai crowd."

"OI!" Shinpachi shouted. "WHY DOESN'T MY CONTRACT SAY THAT? Not the pregnancy part, of course," he added hastily. "I got the standard no mpreg clause put in for that. But I'm sixteen already! I WANT A CLAUSE THAT LETS ME HAVE LOTS OF SEX!"

"Maybe it's your sister's kit? It can't be the crone's, and the thought of Catherine having sex is just—" Gintoki shivered.

"The only one who can make Otae pregnant is me," Kondo protested, sticking his head in the room. It immediately began spouting blood, and he fell to the floor with a dazed look and crosses for eyes.

"I have the standard 'no pregnancy' clause, too," Otae said, walking into the room and smiling cheerfully while wiping the blood from the hammer she held.

"Besides, Otae is mine," Kyubei added, following Otae and glaring.

"I want to watch that," Gintoki said. "If you want to show me how you two do it together, you can both stay. The rest of you, get out."

"In fact," Otae went on, ignoring Gintoki, "I happen to know that everyone got the standard 'no pregnancy/no male pregnancy' clause. The studio made the director do it because they didn't trust him. It was part of the conditions that were set for being allowed to come back from the fringe time slot they'd given us two years ago."

"His contract doesn't," Hijikata said, jerking his head at Gintoki.

All eyes in the room focused on Gintoki.

"A loophole?" Shinpachi looked stunned. "They left a loophole?"

"What?" Gintoki demanded. "So I didn't get the damned clause put in! I'm the main character! The main character never gets pregnant. It makes him less attractive and the viewers stop watching!"

"A huge loophole," Otae agreed. Kyubei nodded gravely.

"GarGANtuan loophole," Kagura said, looking at her finger before wiping it on Gintoki's sheets.

"ENORmous loophole," Kondo said weakly from the floor.

"No! No! They wouldn't do that! That's just too—too—"

"They could pull in the middle-aged married women demographic with that," Otose observed from the doorway.

"Yeah. And a lot of the single straight women, too. Male preg slash is hot," Catherine said. "And it's fun to laugh at pregnant men. They're idiots."

"That's just disgusting!" Gintoki sputtered. Hijikata started to laugh. "What are you laughing at, neko-boy!"

"We just did it," Hijikata chuckled. "Twice."

The closet door opened and Okita stepped out, dropping his bazooka from the firing position. "Did I just hear Hijikata-san say he knocked up the Boss?"

"Oi!" Hijikata protested. "What the hell were you doing in the closet?"

"Target practice," Okita said vaguely. "Do you think that the brat will have black hair or white hair?"

"THERE IS NO BRAT!" Gintoki bellowed. "NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!"

"I've always wanted to learn how to knit," Otae said cheerfully.

"Can I be the godfather?" Shinpachi asked eagerly. Then his face fell. "Wait. Then I'd be a father and still wouldn't have ever had sex."

"I'll be the godfather," Kagura volunteered. "I'll have plenty of sex, so it'll be okay."

"But you're a girl!"

"So what? So's Kyubei!"

"Kyubei has nothing to do with being a godfather!"

"Arf! Arf!" Sadaharu argued.

"You're right, Sadaharu. We can both be the godfather," Kagura said, patting him. Sadaharu's tongue lolled happily.

"GET THE HELL OUT!"

The crowd drifted from the room, debating whether the kid would be a lazy bum or psychotic, Okita already laying odds while money passed from hand to hand. Otose paused, her hand on the door.

"If you put a nursery in, I'm charging extra rent."

She slid the door shut.

Gintoki grabbed the hammer that Otae had left behind. "You get out, too!" He threw the hammer at the ceiling.

Sarutobi tumbled down.

"Gintoki, darling, is it the penis? I can get a penis!" Sarutobi wailed. "I can get two penises! You can make me wear tight cock rings on them both!"

"He likes cat ears along with them," Hijikata told her. "And a tail."

"I can get all that!"

Gintoki grabbed her, slid the door open, threw her out and then slammed the door closed again in one practiced motion. He whirled and pointed a finger at Hijikata. "It's not funny! Stop with the joke already!"

"What joke?" Hijikata looked entirely too pleased as he lit another cigarette.

"When did you pick it up?"

"I'm telling you, I didn't have anything to do with the pregnancy kit. You'd be better off talking to your agent." He nodded his head at the box. "Want a little privacy?"

"I'm not pregnant!" Gintoki protested.

"I hope they make you heaviest during the really hot part of summer." Hijikata let his cigarette smolder in his fingers as a smirk played across his lips. "You sweat like a pig."

"Oh, shit." Gintoki slumped down on the futon. "Why didn't anybody tell me about the 'no male pregnancy' clause?"

"Because you're old enough to have thought of it yourself, maybe?" Gintoki buried his face in his hands, and after a couple of moments, Hijikata sighed. "Look. You're not in this alone, okay?"

"You're not the one who's going to be pregnant," Gintoki retorted.

"No, I'm the one who knocked you up." Hijikata frowned. "Unless…?"

"No!" Gintoki said, horrified. "Only you! Who else do you think I'd let near my ass? Well, what other guy, I mean," he clarified.

"That's what I thought." Hijikata sounded unbearably smug. "I make enough to help pay the extra rent for the brat. Don't worry."

"Hey, Gintoki! Get your ass out here!" Hasegawa's voice came through the doorway. "You can't have booze anymore, but I got you some sparkling plum cider to celebrate!"

Gintoki could hear the television playing and drunken voices singing Kato Ken Samba. It sounded like everyone was having fun. "But I wanted more sex," he protested weakly.

"We'll have more later." Hijikata stood, pulled Gintoki to his feet and handed him a robe. "Don't worry, I'll drink enough for two."

"Better make that three," Gintoki said, absently donning the robe. No sake for— "Hey. Do male anime pregnancies have to last a whole nine months? Do you think we could talk them into making it a two or three episode arc instead? That wouldn't be so bad."

"We'll find out," Hijikata said. He slid the door open to pandemonium and cheers. "Come on, princess. There's a party waiting for us."

Gintoki brightened. A party, then sex. Lots of sex. "I want to have enough sex to make up for not being able to see my toes," he said, putting a possessive hand on Hijikata's ass.

"Yeah, yeah. If you can keep it up, loser."

"I'm always up. I'm like a legend that way," Gintoki said. He steered Hijikata out of the bedroom amid jeers and wolf whistles.

"We'll see if you can put Little Gintoki where your mouth is," Hijikata murmured as the others clapped and danced around them. "Later, jerk!"

Gintoki just smiled and dragged Hijikata into the dance line. It was too bad that Hijikata didn't have the tail any longer.

He'd have looked hot doing the samba with it.

fin