Title- Scared (Because I am original...)

Pairing- Gin/Shin

Rating- T-ish?

Warnings- Slash, Angst, probably poor punctuation, spelling, and a bit of topic jumping because it is 2:49, and a large number of liberties that I took for the sake of writing this...(looks around shiftily)

Summary- Gintoki and Shinpachi's fears are the roadblocks they have to get over to be happy, based on the prompt "scared"

Notes- I'm sorry to say it has been a long time since I have last read Gintama, so my characterization is probably so far off it will be shaking hands with little green men on Mars. I got a prompt from and it is "Scared" and I have been rather busy lately and hesitant, so I decided since I have had a full day of absolutely nothing to do, I would write some fanfiction. SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LOOOONG T3T Btw. This story is very angsty, so yeah....

There were many things that scared Gintoki. He had a list of them, not that he would tell anyone. Things that ranged from inane, little fears that he could ignore out of necessity to ones that he couldn't ever share. They followed him, they taunted him from the dark corners just beyond where he could see out of the corners of his eyes.

Gin was afraid of being alone. It was all because of his past. When Gintoki was alone, he was free to remember all the horrible things he had seen and done with nothing to take his focus away from it. In the name of his beliefs he had killed so many and some he had practically tortured the way he cut them and left them to die. The screams he sometimes heard when he was lost in his head were terrifying, and easily drown out by inane conversation.

Gintoki was afraid of getting too close to anyone. He'd been so close to so many people who died that he'd ended up pushing everyone away, including Katsura whom he'd known since he was a child. He just wasn't sure whether Katsura finding him again and being totally resistant to Gin's every attempt to get rid of him completely was a good thing or a bad thing. He would probably say it was not very good, but Gintoki was almost notorious for not picking the right answer, or he thought he should be, if he wasn't.

He was afraid of love. Of giving himself away, of opening up. He was never good at it, and whenever he did try it ended poorly. He was fighting the good fight now, to avoid this one fear. He couldn't be constantly avoiding being alone, and he couldn't completely isolate himself with all the people who had forced their way in. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that his fears were absolutely contrary and that he was relieved there were people around him, but Gin absolutely would not back down on his resolve to not fall in love, not romantically. He could love people like siblings and he did. Kagura was like a bizzarre mix of daughter and sister and he (probably) wouldn't trade her for the world (unless he was particularly hungry, or in an especially bad mood.) Loving someone romantically was a completely different ball game. You had to give yourself away and share things. You couldn't hide things like you could from siblings. Lovers were more...intuitive. Usually.

This last fear was a constant worry now. Shinpachi and he had gotten too close. Gin knew the others' favorite color, favorite word, he knew how Shinpachi felt under him and how he felt to hold his hand. They'd progressed to something Gin refused to acknowledge as anything other than as 'friends-with-benefits' and he knew it was killing Shinpachi. That killed Gin, but he wasn't hurt by it because he was in love. If he was, then he couldn't be with Shinpachi anymore. Even if Gin needed Shinpachi like air, he would give him up. Loving Gin would be the death of Shinpachi, even if being somewhere in the grey hurt, as long as he was alive and Gin could be with him and hold him, breathe him in...

They would be better off.

Shinpachi was afraid of a lot of things.

He was afraid of being alone in the dark at three in the morning. Any other time of night was fine, but three in the morning was when he heard bumps in the night when nothing was bumping.

The stupid things Kagura and Gintoki dragged him into scared him witless, but they were fond memories after something worse happened, so he was willing to wade his way through disaster. To be with Gintoki, Shinpachi would brave almost anything. Shinpachi loved him. So much.

Shinpachi was afraid of being rejected by Gin. He'd never felt this way for anyone, so he didn't know how to cope. He knew by the way Gin pushed him away when he got too close, the way Gin looked at him in the dark that Gin wasn't going to say anything about feelings and that Shinpachi shouldn't either. Shinpachi was too scared to try.

Shinpachi was afraid of Gintoki. At night when he spent the night at his house, sometimes Shin would wake up and find Gin sitting next to him, straight backed and tight lipped, his eyes far away and his nails digging into his skin, ripping chunks of flesh out. Shinpachi would never ask why, and he had a niggling feeling that Gin would never tell him. He was afraid to refer to him as anything other than "Gin." Calling him his boyfriend, his friend, his lover. Any of these could be a landmine. If he was just a friend, then maybe Gin would think Shinpachi didn't want him in the way that he does. If he is a boyfriend would the emotional ties be too close for him? Would it be too juvenile? Shinpachi was sure the "L" word was out of the question, whatever form it may take. He had no concrete proof, but he wasn't sure how to find out without possibly ruining what he had. 'Chalk it up to "feminine-intuition" and don't ask questions' was his motto on this front.

He was afraid of life without Gintoki. Sometimes he hurt, it was unavoidable, but what hurt him the most was when he hurt for Gin, when he was hurting for his dark places and the secrets he couldn't make anyone privy to. Shinpachi couldn't imagine how awful those things must have been, and how much worse it would have had to be to keep them to himself, to bear the burden alone. He was afraid to find out. Shinpachi hated that he couldn't help. He hated that he was so selfish that he wouldn't risk his happiness to at least try to help the one he loved. Gintoki was the sun to his earth, the beacon that he couldn't help but circle, and what he had to remain similarly distant to, emotionally, for fear of being annihalated, because he didn't know if he could be so close to Gintoki and not walk away unscathed. If he got too far away he would freeze and probably just rot away as well.

He couldn't live with or without him, so he appreciated what he had. He was afraid of anything less, and anything more- even as he longed for it desperately.- Gin held his hand, and held him at night, he held eye contact with him whenever their gazes locked, and Gin held Shin's heart in his hand.

Shinpachi was happy enough where he was, teetering on the edge of sanity with the one he loved.

Years had gone by, and their lives had settled down. Shinpachi's sister had married and Shinpachi had moved in with Gintoki, permanantly. Kagura was with her father and had taken Sado with her so it was just the two of them, except when someone (like Katsura and Elizabeth) visited (infrequently.)

It was three in the morning and Gintoki was pretending to be asleep while Shinpachi quietly watched TV in the other room. Gintoki could just see the other man with his back pressed into a corner and his eyes focused on everything but what the TV illuminated, trying desperately to focus on something other than what he was afraid of.

Gin rose from the bedding and quietly padded to the door and opened it. His mental image had been almost perfect, except that Shinpachi had fallen asleep in the corner he'd huddled into. His glasses had slipped so far down his nose that they had almost slid all the way off, balanced precariously on the very tip of his nose. His mouth was open just slightly until he inhaled loudly, sniffed and shuffled, smacked his lips and started to snore. The same reality that had been tickling the edge of his concious thought hit Gintoki like a wrecking ball and he flinched has if he had been hit.

It was with weak knees that he strode over to the TV and shut it off, holding his muscles so tense that the veins pulsed out angrily. Tensed enough that they only shook a little. He hesitated before he then made his way to Shinpachi and picked him up bridal style.

"I love you, Shinpachi," he whispered.

"Love you too, Gin," The slight, almost fragile man in his arms murmured back, blearily.

Gintoki was in too far. He couldn't avoid it anymore. He loved Shinpachi. He loved him. Loved. He clutched his...love...to him tightly, the other man's head pressed against the crook of his neck, the glasses digging in uncomfortably. Then, Gin slowly started to cry as he made his way back to the bed, working up to a silent point just before sobbing. He laid the two of them down and took off Shinpachi's glasses, running his hands all over Shin's face and pressing soggy, dripping, desperate kisses all over his face. It was too late. Gintoki couldn't live without Shinpachi anymore. Gin would be willing to die or find a way to live without air, if he felt he needed to give it up for whatever reason, so he could never again compare Shin to as something so trivial as air. The other was so much more, and life without him would be far more torturous, more agonizing than living without air. He would admit it now even though it was one of the most painful realizations he had ever had to come to.

"I'm so sorry, Shin," He said with his mouth pressed against the darker man's jaw. "I can't save you no matter what. I won't give you up."

When Shinpachi woke up, it was to the harsh light of day and Gintoki pressing kisses against his shoulder.

"I love you."

Those were possibly the most terrifying words either of them had ever heard.

This sort of situation seems to be the one I fall back on (laughter) Sorry! I hope it was what you'd hoped for...Maybe next time I will try for something a little more light-hearted...once again, I am REALLY sorry for the wait!