DISCLAIMER: If I were Hideaki Sorachi, I would have spelled my name right in last chapter's disclaimer.
WARNINGS: Hijikata might just end up getting a little action in this one!
SPOILERS: Still referencing that great handcuffed together arc.
A/N: Hi all! ::waves sheepishly:: It distresses me mightily that I have had this story hanging around for so freakin' long and all it needed were like four more lines and I just could not manage it. I truly believe that Sougo was running psychic interference because he did not want me to write Hijikata even getting close to getting any.
Dating Sougo pt 2
in which there is an actual date
Due to the "Pretend We're Kidnapped by a Twisted Evil Mastermind (other than Okita) And Then Freak the Hell Out of Hijikata By Seeming to Sacrifice Himself for the Greater Good, All in Order to End Up Being Able to Leave Hijikata Plummeting Into a Deadly Abyss" plan that Sougo had hatched sometime when Hijikata wasn't looking (which was admittedly somewhat impressive given how much of the time Hijikata was, grudgingly, looking thesedays), Hijikata was being officially Upset with Sougo.
By making Hijikata actually worry about him, actually believe in him, the twisted little bastard had passed the acceptable level of everyday sadism and entered a realm that required punishment. Therefore, as a mature and adult commander of an elite peacekeeping force, Hijikata was taking the high road and Not Talking To Sougo.
Unfortunately, the only difference with Hijikata being normally upset with Sougo and being officially Upset was that he refused to talk to Sougo, which made him cranky (although talking to Sougo also made him cranky), while it didn't seem to bother Sougo at all.
Or maybe it did. Lately Sougo did seem to be spending slightly more time hanging around places Hijikata might be, sucking lingeringly on popsicles, which apparently Kondou had yet to add to the banned food items list, but Hijikata honestly couldn't tell if that was an attempt to placate him or just jerk him around, because watching Sougo take care of one of those snacks was a process that involved equal parts horror and a need to take an immediate cold shower. And while Sougo had at one point offering a half slurped pop to Hijikata, which would have gone a certain way to getting him un-upset, the ever-vigilant Kondou had swooped in and snatched it away,
So, Hijikata remained Upset. And Sougo remained Sougo.
And if Hijikata was Upset in a way that lingered just a bit longer than necessary on Sougo's lips as he licked at those popsicles, and if Sougo was Sougo but with a newly developed tendency to use his tongue in a curling way that could clear a room in 30 seconds . . . well that was progress. Wasn't it?
Most days Hijikata wasn't sure he even wanted progress.
But he also wasn't one to give up, because someday it would work like it was supposed to and he would WIN.
Ah, Hijikata, the eternal optimist.
Of course dating Sougo, as Hijikata had expected, was a bizarre and stressful experience. Not just because the captain was still just as likely to try to kill him as be pleasant to him, but because Kondou Isao made one hell of a twisted father figure.
And every time they came back from yet another destroyed symbol of innocence (last time they had gone to the wave pool and ended up being almost eaten by freak sharks which Sougo swore he hadn't trained to head straight for cigarette smoke) Hijikata swore that he would never do it again.
And yet, here he was again, about to swallow his pride and do something stupid which would gain him nothing but frustration and probably flesh wounds.
Depressed, he consulted the list of acceptable 'date places' Kondou had presented him (along with a carefully drawn out and color coded intimacy timetable which meant Hijikata's chances of getting laid this year were next to nil). They had already gone to the zoo (it would be re-opening in a week or two), visited several places of historical significance (as Sougo said, "they look more authentic in ruins, don't they Hijikata-san?"), watched two movie matinees (nothing over G, and frankly Katsura's surprise bomb had been something of a relief after half an hour of trying to figure out how to surreptitiously grope Sougo while surrounded by four year olds and their mothers) and had gone to that flower show with the killer plants, which Hijikata still wasn't sure he should blame on Sougo, but was doing so anyway on the basis that even if Sougo hadn't actually planted the aliens carnivore daisies, he had certainly enjoyed them far too much while Hijikata was beating them off with his swordblade. . . .
So now the next option seemed to be –
"Oi, Sougo. Would you like to go to the . . . park . . .with me?" he asked awkwardly.
Barely looking up from his latest volume of Marmalade Boy, Sougo, as he always did, considered the offer. "No," he said, as he always did. "That sounds boring."
"They have a roller coaster."
Sougo shot him a sharp look. "I don't like roller coasters."
"We can go on the ferris wheel." Hijikata felt a little more of his self-respect dying at each word.
Instead of the derision he expected, however, Sougo simply frowned a little. "You mean like the one at that amusement park back then?" he said thoughtfully. "I didn't get to go on it. That . . . might be not stupid."
Sougo, Hijikata was realizing, didn't have experience with a lot of basic things – at least when it came to the nicer side of life. Between practicing, eating, breathing and sleeping swordcraft as a child, and his sister's ill health and slim finances, he had never done many of the things that families usually did (while at the same time doing a lot of things that sane families never did). Which was why he didn't get particularly ruffled about ordinary life or death fights but might very well destroy entire towns if a plot resulted in a festival being disrupted.
He was a strange mix of ruthless sadist and innocent kid, and there was something almost – not quite endearing, but Hijikata could barely accept cute – about the way he sometimes showed cautious enthusiasm about really dumb things like ferris wheels.
It was a new development that Sougo could be cute, and it was bothering Hijikata a lot – especially at night.
"But you have to promise not to destroy any park property," he added, because as much grief as Kondou had brought upon him by forcing wholesome activities on two of the least wholesome men Edo had probably ever known, he still owed it to the commander to try.
Sougo blinked at him, as if he had said a strange and incomprehensible thing. "Why? Isn't that what we pay taxes for?"
"You can't go around destroying everything you think is boring. I keep telling you that."
(The fact that Sougo had indeed happily and consistently reduced to rubble everything he felt was personally unfulfilling for the last ten years was only marginally balanced out by the lucky fact that he considered people who broke the law to be very disappointing indeed.)
Sougo considered this. "Did you get in trouble about the zoo?"
"Kondou-san got in trouble about it."
"Oh." Sougo looked repentant. Well, it might have been repentance. "I'm not planning on destroying anything," he said, which was as close to a promise as he got. "But what if lethal force is required?"
"What reason on a ferris wheel could possibly require lethal force?"
"You mean besides what happened last time? Hijikata-san, really, you of all people should know that ferris wheels are a classic focal point for action sequences." Sougo shook his head slightly, as if marveling at Hijikata's lack of narrative acumen.
As Sougo listed off all the reasons that might require lethal force, Hijikata wondered if Sougo also remembered what he had said once before: "Ferris wheels mean kissing."
God he hoped Sougo remembered.
It was a rare day when there was no evident crime (although that might have been because Kondou had prudently sent out troops to clear out/warn the other people of the area that Hijikata and Okita were coming through on a date/rampage). They went to the park and strolled lazily through the lanes, talking about this and that and more often than not arguing casually, so that it was almost like any other time when they were out patrolling together, except that it palpably wasn't.
The odd thing was that inbetween saying dispassionate, perverse things, Sougo seemed to sneaking glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Hijikata didn't think the captain had set up any explosives, or killer pigeons, or deadly shrapnel land mines, but the looks were making him nervous.
"What?" he finally demanded.
Sougo's eyes snapped forward, his entire demeanor assuming a retarded air of nonchalance that reminded Hijikata that Okita was, after all, much younger than he was. As well as more insane.
Well . . . at least more homicidal, anyway.
. . . Okay, fine. But definitely more sadistic. Hands down.
"I was just thinking that some people might not like going to dumb places like the zoo or the park," Sougo said casually.
"Who would?" said Hijikata irritably.
"Some people might not think it was worth all the trouble, going to dumb places and having to do dumb things. I was just thinking that."
For some reason, Sougo was frustrating Hijikata more than ever right now.
"I always have to do dumb things in dumb places," Hijikata muttered. "That's practically the job description of the Shinsengumi."
Now Sougo's forehead creased in a tiny wrinkle, too. Usually people only saw that expression when they were about to turn into three or four separate body parts, but this time he showed no immediate inclination to go for his sword.
"Some people, Hijikata-san," he said instead, apparently watching a kite in the sky, "would rather do things like drink all night with Danna and not come home until mid-afternoon the next day."
. . . Wait a minute.
As often happened in the presence of Sougo, Hijikata's mind was forced to abruptly change directions.
Was Sougo, Sougo who caused him misery and sexual frustration on a daily basis, Sougo who had pretended to sacrifice himself in front of him and then, laughing maniacally, let him fall to his potential demise . . . upset with him?
For bingeing with Sakata?!
How long had that been going on? Had Sougo been being upset with him all this time? He hadn't even realized, being too busy being upset with Sougo.
"Of course I went out drinking," Hijikata snapped. You dropped me down a pit after I thought you were dying! I was having honest emotions and you still tried to kill me!"
"I don't know why you're still surprised by that when it happens," Sougo said after a minute, looking repentant. Maybe.
"You're right," Hijikata said dourly. "I don't know why I bother. You're so predictable."
"But I was happy to see you again when you didn't die," Sougo reminded him, again looking . . . no, who was he kidding. Sougo didn't do repentance.
"No, you weren't," Hijikata corrected him.
"Don't you remember?"
"NO."
"Maybe you weren't paying attention."
"Sougo, I was very focused on you at that time. And 'Che, what a waste of a good plan' is not acting happy to see someone."
Sougo looked honestly mystified. "I thought I was. I wonder who I'm thinking of? Maybe it was Danna."
(The fallback of everyone being Gintoki.)
"How could you mistake him for me?" Hijikata demanded, now affronted on a whole new level.
Sougo shrugged. "My joy must have blinded me."
That was it. Very short patience breaking, Hijikata's hand shot out, grabbing the younger man's shoulder and causing Sougo to wheel around to face him. "Are you trying to drive me away?" he snarled. "Cause like HELL that's gonna happen! I mean--" he stuttered to a halt as his ears caught up with his words. "Not because I like you or anything. Obviously."
"I've been trying to make it more interesting," Sougo said after a while, not in a conciliatory tone, because Sougo didn't do conciliatory anymore than he did repentance, but in a helpful, informative tone as if every problem to date was just Hijikata misunderstanding him, instead of understanding him all too well.
"By creating destruction wherever you go?" he asked sourly.
Sougo shrugged. "Mostly that just happens." Tone not changing an ounce, he added, "I don't only destroy things I find boring."
"Oh?"
"I don't find Hijikata-san boring. "
Hijikata sighed, rolled his eyes, fished out a cigarette and lit it. "I'm flattered." Trouble was, he actually was. Kind of.
"If I wanted to break up with you, I'd do it cause you're a psychopath," he said eventually, in case Sougo actually cared. " Not cause I'm bored."
This seemed to cheer up Sougo, because Sougo was insane. And because Sougo was cheered up, Hijikata was pleased, because Hijikata was a poor sick bastard born under a cruel and twisted star.
"By the way," Sougo said as they passed a stand selling brightly colored balloons, seeming somehow happier, although Hijikata didn't dare think why. "Have I showed you the new thing I learned to do with a balloon?"
Somewhere in another reality, that would have had some kinky connotation. Hijikata wasn't exactly sure what kind, but he knew it would, and he knew he wanted to be in that alternate reality very much.
In this reality, however, he knew (having learned the hard way years ago never to voluntarily buy Sougo anything he asked for) exactly what question to ask first.
"Does it involve strangulation?"
" . . . maybe."
"I'll buy you a hot dog instead."
It turned out that Sougo could do things with a hot dog, too, although he might not be aware of it. Hijikata had to turn away halfway through and sip hard at his soda.
By late afternoon, Sougo had yet to try to kill him (the sideswipe didn't count) and when they reached the ferris wheel Hijikata was feeling optimistic enough to buy enough tickets to keep them in the air a long time. There had been some almost emotional talking there, after all, and they had quite possibly resolved something or other. That, Hijikata felt, deserved a reward.
Still, he made a point to carefully note all of the handholds on the machine, just in case Sougo decided to try to push him out a window.
Sougo, however, seemed refreshingly homicidal inclinations free. A refreshing Sougo was almost as bad a cute Sougo. There seemed a hint of sparkles around him and a feeling that should the moment arise, a light breeze would blow fetchingly through his hair, even though they were in a small compartment with the windows hermetically sealed.
Hijikata was feeling increasingly strongly that he would like to make an atmospheric breeze moment occur.
"You know, you could have jumped me while we were chained together that time," Sougo remarked casually as they lifted into the air.
"Commanders don't jump their subordinates just to save their own lives," Hijikata said absently, because saying "I was waiting for you to try to attack me before I attacked you" didn't sound nearly as cool.
"No, I meant jumped me," Sougo said. "We were possibly going to die. It would have been a good time for sex."
Why does every conversation I have turn into something about sex? Hijikata silently anguished, until he realized that actually, this was a person he wanted to talk about sex with. Kind of.
"Sougo . . . . " he reminded the captain, "A) Your creepy friend was watching us on the television screen. And B) –" well B) was that after the escapade with getting stuck his zipper, he hadn't been in any condition to jump anyone, but he wasn't about to say that. "- and B)," he quickly improvised, "I thought you were going to try to kill me."
"I always try to kill you. That doesn't mean we couldn't have had sex."
"Wait." Hijikata amped up his usual Sougo-glare. "Are you telling me that whole messed up test was an attempt to seduce me, not eliminate me?"
Sougo shrugged. "I was okay with either one."
Hijikata honestly didn't know what to be more outraged about, the fact that Sougo seemed to take the same pleasure out of the prospect of fooling around with him and killing him, or the fact that Hijikata had completely missed that whole opportunity for fooling around but had fallen (literally) right into the being killed part.
But if Sougo was going to start being offended that Hijikata wasn't jumping him in life and death situations (that he orchestrated) then things are going to get even more complicated.
Hijikata thought about that and decided he liked a good challenge. Because he might take loads of physical punishment in the process, but he always, always won in the end.
"I'll remember that," he said slowly.
"The rules might have changed by the next time," Sougo seemed to feel compelled to warn him.
"Maybe I'll change them back," Hijikata smirked, and certainly noted that Sougo chose not to argue the point.
With Sougo peering out the window and interestedly trying to find all of the places where they had arrested people or known criminals were thought to be lodged, they climbed higher and higher into the sky.
"The air is really clear today. I bet even if you were down on the ground I could pick you out and hit you," he said cheerfully.
Sougo liked the view – he was actually smiling and the faint twilight stars reflected on his face and it came over Hijikata that there is no way he was going to stay on his side of the seat, not when Sougo was happy and not noticeably homicidal, and they were hundreds of feet in the air and alone.
And since he reasonably sure Kondou hasn't outfitted Sougo with a mini camera or any automatic stun equipment, Hijikata moved to kiss him and kept kissing him and felt mildly vindicated when Sougo seemed as relieved as he was about the contact. And the use of tongue.
Eventually, the ferris wheel ground to a halt.
"Last call, everyone out," the operator said in a bored tone.
"Keep going," a voice growled from inside the foggy windows.
"Uh, but –"
"This is – Sougo, stop touching that – This is police business, okay?"
"Um, right . . . ."
They went one more turn of the wheel and then once more slid to a gentle, swinging standstill.
"I told you—" began the growling voice, now edging a little more toward husky and definitely distracted.
"Uh, but sir . . . the situation has, er, changed . . . ." The operator was speaking carefully, partly because he had once gone to the zoo and seen the fabled deadly Corinthian slimebeast and it had snarled at the crowds and the tone was incredibly similar to the voice coming from the compartment . . . and partly because a group of five thieves had a sword to his throat.
"Hey! We're holding this guys hostage and won't let him go until you give us all your valuables and spare tickets to the park rides," declared one of the thieves in a dangerous voice, although obviously not as dangerous as Hijikata's thwarted-make out session voice, which the thieves would have done well to notice.
"Hmm, is lethal force necessary?" asked a voice inside. A keen observer might have been worried about the amount of hope in the tone.
"No," said the other voice before anyone outside could answer. "Ignore them, they'll go away." This voice was still a bit preoccupied, but with a growing hint of intensely frustrated rage.
"No we won't!" said one of the petty criminals, because they were very very stupid criminals. Criminals like that probably lowered the IQ of the criminal populace by quite a few points, so it's just as well that they probably aren't going to last more than a few more minutes at this rate.
"Come out or we kill the conductor!" threatened the second thief.
"Can you wait a few more minutes before that happens?" the oddly cheerful voice called out. "Probably just five would be enough."
"Oi, what do you mean five?" asked the angry voice sharply.
"Well, remember Kimiko–san from the Red Lily? She said –"
"No! We can't wait! We've got a schedule to keep, here!" said one of the stupid criminals.
There was a long pause, as if someone were weighing the options. Then a very frustrated sword-wielding maniac burst out of the compartment.
Yes, Hijikata's fun was over and even the very stupid thieves were smart enough to quail at the sight of the rabid vice-commander, jacket askew, pants somewhat precarious, and naked . . . blade . . . in his hand.
"Damn it! Why did you bastards have to pick tonight!" Hijikata snarled, nearly alight with internal wrath that was about to become external in a very personal way.
"Uh, sorry?" one of the thieves offered nervously. Behind him, one of his stupider colleagues frowned.
"Hey . . . " he said. "Aren't you that Shinsengumi vice-commander who isn't getting any?"
"Actually," Sougo corrected him, sticking a rather tousled head out of the compartment, "he's the Shinsengumi vice-commander who was really close to getting some until you guys came around. But that's a secret, so I'd ask you to keep it quiet, except it doesn't really matter, cause in a few seconds you won't be in any condition to say anything to anyone."
This was true, because at this point, Hijikata Toshirou did unto the group of tactless criminals what Sougo had done unto the Corinthian Slime Beast (and various assorted innocent or not-so-innocent bystanders throughout the years).
In short, a certain amount of sword-wielding maniacism happened.
A short time later, Sougo finished rebuttoning his jacket, righting the skewed buttons as he walked over to his panting vice-commander and at the same time deftly avoiding the twisted remains of the ferris wheel as it lay steaming and cracked on the lawn of the still somewhat intact park greens.
"You're going to be in trouble when Kondou-san finds out," he said smugly.
"You were the one who felt it necessary to cut the ferris wheel in two."
"It was stupid for that fourth guy to try and climb it. But I meant about what happened before that."
"Before that you smeared the second guy and I used perfectly justifiable force on the other three idiots."
"Hijikata-san . . . you know what I mean."
"Oh, that," Hijikata agreed laconically, lighting up a post-destruction cigarette. "Yeah, could be."
At the moment, however, he couldn't quite care.
In other organizations, the next morning, the compound probably would have been shaken by Kondou Isao's roar of "TOSHI! Why is half of Edo's most famous park in SHREDS?"
This being the Shinsengumi, however, the next morning, the compound was actually shaken by Kondou's roar of "TOSHI! Why does Sougo have a HICKIE?"
Hijikata looked up from breakfast as Kondou dragged Sougo in and yanked down his collar to display said mark. Sougo looked away and scratched his nose as Kondou gestured in speechless shock at the proof that someone had not read his timetable carefully enough.
Hijikata felt a bit of territorial pride at the mark, then, catching a glimpse of Kondou's face belatedly tried to look innocent, which was kind of impossible.
"Toshi," Kondou said sternly, pulling out the timetable. "According to the schedule you're still months away from hickies. You're barely at holdings hands!"
"Hijikata-san didn't hold my hand last night," Sougo said a bit petulantly.
"Shit, I forgot yesterday was the nineteenth."
Sougo studied the calendar. "Kondou-san," he said thoughtfully, "according to this we're not supposed to have sex until next year. But does it count if Hijikata-san BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP and then BLEEP with his BLEEP BLEEP?"
"Sougo," Hijikata growled, "I thought we agreed not to tell him that."
"Oh right, sorry. But Kondou-san, I asked him about that last part, so it wasn't really his fault that he BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP."
Hijikata's forehead slapped into his palm as Kondou steadily paled.
"I-I'm very disappointed in you, Toshi," Kondou said stiffly, voice full of hurt. "And Sougo, you are grounded until further notice."
"I'm sorry, Kondou-san," Sougo said.
And dammit, for Kondou he looked repentant.
"We'll deal with this further after patrol," Kondou advised them stiffly, hurt dripping from each syllable. "Sougo, what do you want for breakfast?"
Sougo tapped his mouth lightly, thinking. "I think I'll have a banana sundae," he decided. "With extra chocolate syrup."
Actually, Hijikata decided, maybe life wasn't so bad after all.
Later that night Yamazaki dropped by to bring Hijikata a message that Sougo couldn't sneak out because Kondou was sitting on his doorstep with his rocket launcher. He also handed over Kondou's revised timetable.
Hijikata studied the schedule, flipped over the first page, and then the second, and the third, and then went to take a very, very cold bath.
Oh well, there was always the ballet next week.