Fanfic // Gintama // GintokixSakamoto
Title: Returning The Favor
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Sakata Gintoki/Sakamoto Tatsuma
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, set during Joui period.
Status: One-shot for jamiefawkes



He didn't know how much longer he could do this.

Tatsuma truly, honestly didn't. He could protect himself in a general sense-- he'd even been told multiple times that he was more than decent with a sword. But oh, he would never be excellent at it. He was happy that he would never be excellent at it, because that would suggest some kind of willingness to stab at another alien. Being. Man. It's not like they were fighting salmon or something. The Amanto soldiers still had feelings; even if they were set to take the land away from all those living in Japan, they still had feelings. Tatsuma raised a gangly hand in front of his face as he leaned heavily against the pine-wood doorframe of a house the Japanese soldiers had recently 'cleaned' of invaders. His palms were dry, blood and soil rubbed into the lines of them. He still didn't think that this was the place for him, still in his teens, never having actually dreamed of going into a real fight for his country. It wasn't as if he was some hatamoto samurai or something. He was just a nice country boy, like most of them.

The grimy hand made its way to his neck, rubbing at an itch that lingered over a shallow slice on his throat that was tingling as the nerves healed. The shallow ones, they always hurt the worst. That had been a close one, his death only prevented by some act of luck as he stumbled backward into a ditch away from the blade of an ax. A heavy pat on the shoulder, metal of his gauntlets scraping off of more metal, startled Tatsuma into jumping and turning to see who or what it was.

He didn't reach for his sword out of habit or nerves, though. He was no hatamoto samurai.

Gintoki's broad smirk greeted Tatsuma and he relaxed, the hand on his shoulder rubbing in small, soothing circles. Gintoki moved away, tossing a bedroll into the corner of the empty room of what must have, a year ago, been an expensive house. Probably a politician's. Somebody with a big, long name.

"I think everything around here is dead that hasn’t gotten the hell out," Gintoki said plainly. "So we should be fine to sleep together tonight."

"What--"

"Without a sentry, I mean. I think the other group has one, so we won't need one of our own to stay up and lose any more goddamn sleep."

Gintoki’s heavy arm threaded around Tatsuma’s shoulders, guiding him away from the wall and toward a pile of over-used, under-washed bedding, away from the outer walls. Even when they were being loose, Tatsuma sighed. Even when they were being loose about safety, Gintoki still worried. He supposed he was pretty lucky for ending up with the guy, even if he was, well. Kind of a nutcase sometimes. Tatsuma dragged his heavy iron helmet off, tossed it away and worked at the chest-guard next, blue eyes trailing to make sure that Gintoki followed his lead. The younger man’s armor came off, followed by socks. Both of them continued in silence until they were left in their stained uniforms. They found their way into their bedrolls and as started to rain; the nasty sort of rain that didn’t come in drops but drooled down from the sky in a depressing mist, making everything uncomfortably damp within hours.

The rainy season would be coming soon.

Tatsuma woke hours later, in the dark, chest heaving and oily hair even heavier against his forehead with sweat and the humidity. His hand fluttered to his chest, sliding beneath the folds of his yukata and pressing over his heart. It beat harshly against the skin there. Another nightmare. He had them on occasion, especially nights when he managed not to sleep suddenly and deeply—there was little opportunity for dreams during wartime—when his subconscious was still active. Images of the charred remains of his friends from his home village, destroyed without a hope by the ultimately superior weaponry of the Amanto.

They should have made him angry, but no. Tatsuma was seldom angry about the situation he was being forced into, all this death and dying, only disconnectedly sad.

He heard Gintoki clear his throat somewhere from behind him and turned to stare over his shoulder, smoothing back thick, curly hair. The other man had eyes that weren’t drowsy like his own but fully, worryingly alert. He stood slowly and lifted himself onto his knees, shuffling across the tatami to take a closer look at Tatsuma. Gintoki’s eyes were strangely bright.

“You were shouting in your sleep.”

“I’m fine, Gintoki,” he cut off, “Just go back to bed and leave it alone.”

Gintoki didn’t go back to bed and most certainly didn’t leave it alone. He was in front of Tatsuma before he could object, cool, dry palm spread across the span of his forehead as if checking for a fever. When Tatsuma stared up at him, Gintoki’s eyes were still sharp and dark and alert, but the hand was strangely comforting. He could feel his heartbeat settling beneath his own hand.

“I’m fine. Leave it alone.”

A heavy weight settled across his shoulders, pushing his back against the thin bedroll and tatami again. Gintoki’s fingers, the nails needing a cutting or a biting or whatever would do, dug lightly into the flesh of his shoulders beneath his yukata. He tried to press back up against the hands and the weight of the other man’s legs spread across his thighs, but Gintoki always had been the stronger of the two in the few years they’d known one another.

He gave one last tug before giving up and laughing nervously.

“Tatsuma,” Gintoki said seriously, and Tatsuma’s laughing grew louder.

“Gintoki, haha, w-what are you doing? I really don’t need forced to go to bed, you know, it’s not like I’m five or something. I’ll be alright on my own.”

He might have continued his protests, but the dry hand was clasped firmly over his mouth, salty where it brushed against his tongue.

“Settle down, you big whiny baby,” Gintoki’s smooth voice whispered, the one hand still on Tatsuma’s shoulder moving to brush lower, press the fabric of his yukata open to match the sagging material of Gintoki’s own white one. The rough fingernails, with their need of a cut, brushed against the exposed flesh of his chest and his back arched as much as it could, pinned by the weight of a young samurai. The hand fell away, pressing uncomfortably against Tatsuma’s too-thin hip. Since when had either of them had a decent meal?

“You’ll sleep better if you’re relaxed. Just let me--”

“G-Gintoki.” Tatsuma couldn’t seriously believe that his friend was—well, he could seriously believe it under other circumstances, but Gintoki? He’d always seemed, when they were fighting, so…above worrying about little things like sexual frustration, sleep… nutrition. Sometimes Tatsuma could see the truth in that name the other samurai soldiers always called him; Shiroyasha. And Gintoki certainly did have some of the prettiest hair Tatsuma had ever seen, but a demon, well. That was something he personally found debatable.

“Haha-ah. You’re not seriously thinking about, you know, are you?”

“Ah, Tatsuma. At your age, you really should be able to talk about sex without referring to it like a fourteen-year-old-girl.”

He sobered up then, staring with narrowed, confused but ultimately complacent eyes at the other man, who was slowly working Tatsuma’s robes open, rubbing over slightly-defined muscles which should have been a bit more respectable, had Tatsuma ever been the type to take something he didn’t want to do seriously. Gintoki’s lips pulled into a smirk as he understood that his suggestion, practically a demand, was being acquiesced to. Tatsuma laid still and silent until he felt one of Gintoki’s knuckles brush against the waist of his grey pants. He jerked.

“Gintoki…are you sure about this?”

The white-haired man shook his head, making a disgusted clucking noise in the back of his throat before leaning down, low, face inches away from Tatsuma’s, strange violet-colored eyes flicking from Tatsuma’s own down the plane of his bared chest.

“I seriously don’t think that’s a question you should be asking me.”

Tatsuma barked out a single, unsure laugh and bit his lower lip. Gintoki dragged his pants down with a single stroke of his hand, smirk growing wider when he realized that Tatsuma was, conspicuously, fully prepared to cooperate with him despite whatever he may have said. He fell forward again, crushing his lips against the other man’s even while he had his lower lip trapped below a canine tooth. Gintoki took the semi-erect cock and stroked a calloused thumb over the tip before dragging the foreskin up and down once. Tatsuma tried to keep his face from growing hot; it grew steadily hotter the more embarrassed he was about his own embarrassment. He couldn’t even bring himself to chuckle at the situation as Gintoki drew away from the kiss and stared curiously down at him in the chilly early morning air.

The rain grew heavy, beating down on the clay tiles of the wooden country house.

Eventually, Tatsuma shifted beneath him, reaching one hand up to yank down Gintoki’s white yukata, revealing well-made shoulders and the respectable biceps of a man built to hold a sword. Gintoki frowned and shuffled in confusion, grip sliding from Tatsuma’s cock as the other man sat up straighter on his elbows, laughing loudly at him.

“T-Tatsuma…”

“If you’re going to do this, you bastard, you’d better do it the whole way and do it right, or god help you I hope you get yours struck by an arrow tomo—“

He was surprised when Gintoki cut him off, covering his mouth with his own, crushing thin lips against Tatsuma’s and grinding his hips across the thighs below them, making it obvious that Gintoki was more than prepared to do it and do it right, god help him. Tatsuma bit into Gintoki’s soft bottom lip and reached an arm around, grabbing for his own growing erection as his friend moved above him, fabric shuffling and hands grabbing at what they could find, kneading muscles that were sore and tight from the weather and the stress and the lack of sleep. One of Gintoki’s hands found its way to Tatsuma’s bigger one, swatting it away. He ripped his mouth away, panting for breath in the humidity. Tatsuma’s fingers twitched. As uncomfortable as the thought had initially been, he really wanted Gintoki wrapped around him again.

“Ah—“

“Not complaining now, are you? You big sissy. You worried about doing it with another guy?”

Gintoki brought a hand to his mouth, wetting his palm with his mouth before sliding it along the bottom of Tatsuma’s hard-on and stroking hard, once, twice, three times before his frowning face broke out into its smirk again. Tatsuma sighed beneath Gintoki, trying to form incoherent noises into a response, because there was no way he was going to let someone who acted so purposefully ignorant as Gintoki did most of the time get away with calling him a sissy.

“I’m not a—a sissy.”

Fingers threaded through Gintoki’s hair as Tatsuma gasped and arched, distracted from his train of thought for the few seconds that the hot, rough contact slid up and down his erection. How long had it been, after all, since Tatsuma had been able to do this even to himself? It was too embarrassing in large groups, had even been too embarrassing when it was just him and Gintoki and sometimes Zura, sitting in a corner and quietly pulling one off. He knew Gintoki did it, as embarrassing as it was to acknowledge. He’d had no shame in doing anything of that sort in front of others, but, well.

The fingers were playing him much more easily, with much more skill than he would have expected from some messy, probably never to be spoken of again sexual encounter between brothers in arms in the little chance they were afforded by a quiet night. Maybe it would be regrettable in a few days time, a few weeks time, but it felt nice for right now. He might even be willing to return the favor.

Gintoki leaned forward and wrapped his lips around the dirty, greasy skin of Tatsuma’s neck, digging in with sharp little teeth and scraping a bruise above the cut that was already there. The salt from the other man’s sweat stung where it fell onto the wound and he bit his lips, holding back a whine. He was worried what might happen if he made too loud a noise. Would it discourage Gintoki?

Would it encourage him?

“So we’re just doing this…,” he finally pushed out, “We’re just doing this because it’d have to get done eventually, right? This isn’t, well, haha, it doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

The hand tugged harder this time and Tatsuma threw his head back, thick hair catching in the tatami. That might have been the wrong thing to ask, then, and when he was able to look up, Gintoki’s face was serious.

They awoke hours later, roused by the movement of other members of their company in the distance, Gintoki first and Tatsuma to follow perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes later, long enough for the other man to be dressed and ready, leaning against the frame of the sliding door and regarding Tatsuma with his heavy-lidded eyes. Tatsuma stretched slowly and stood, sliding his pants back up, frowning at the realization that they were even more in need of being laundered than the night before. The bruises that littered his chest joined the scrapes and scratches from crawling through mountain-side pine brush and taking shots and jabs from enemies. He could feel one on his chin from last night, when Gintoki had gotten rough. Tatsuma dragged his robe shut and stood, stumbling, to look for his armor.

What the helmet wouldn’t hide he could just blame on the war, though.

“Morning,” Gintoki called nonchalantly from the doorframe.

Tatsuma laughed and wavered as he tied the grieves onto his legs.