Chapter Text
Believe it or not, Sougo isn’t a complete sociopath, no matter what the Shinsengumi say about him.
He’s got feelings. He loves- loved his sister, he respects Kondo, he gets along well enough with his coworkers.
Even Hijikata. Sougo messes with him because he can take it, because he’s strong and he won’t back down even if Sougo beats him down to the ground a hundred, thousand times. It’s part of the game, the endless back and forth he likes so much.
So it stands to reason that the same rules would apply when they’re fucking. Why wouldn’t it? It’s not like they’re having some disgusting forbidden love affair, two enemies coming to understand each other. The only difference is that they bicker at the office morning to night, and sometimes Sougo will sneak into Hijikata’s quarters and wake him with a bite on his neck or a hand in his boxers.
Hijikata is incapable of enjoying anything without a fight first, so Sougo gives it to him. Twisting his arm behind his back usually does the trick, teeth flashing and dick hardening under Sougo’s hips. And Hijikata has the nerve to say he doesn’t like pain that way.
It’s worse because the sex is always good. There’s something about Hijikata’s drowsy, flushed face that gets him going. Sue him! The demon vice commander of the Shinsengumi is hot when he looks like he’s being taken advantage of.
It does things to Sougo’s stomach. Or more accurately, his groin, which is a problem because now he’s just popping a boner every time he one-ups Hijikata during one of his pranks. Yes, he’s a capital S sadist, what about it? He wants to hurt everybody he fucks and there is nobody he wants to hurt more than the fool occupying the vice-commander position that should be his.
Those two things just happen to coincide. And even if Hijikata keeps insisting that he doesn’t enjoy it, Sougo’s fucked enough girls to know that he’s good at it. Good enough for his superior officer to endure the continuous humiliation of having his head shoved into a pillow and taking it, apparently.
It’s almost enough to tempt Sougo into bringing a handheld camera the next time he sneaks into Hijikata’s bed. By the time they get into the thick of it, Hijikata’s barely even awake or suffocating on his own pillow. It would be way too easy to just start recording, gain the worst blackmail he could ever imagine.
Sougo wouldn’t actually do it, though. He wants to force Hijikata out of the position by making him realize the futility of staying- not by ruining his reputation by broadcasting to the entire world how much of a slut he can be with some encouragement.
Besides, it wouldn’t be fun anymore if everybody saw it. Then Hijikata would definitely never sleep with him ever again- at least not willingly, and Sougo’s not interested in taking this particularly pleasure by force no matter how much it turns him on to watch Hijikata tear up involuntarily.
If he wanted to force himself on somebody, he would have tried the first time he had a wet dream about Hijikata at fifteen after forcing a draw during their spar. That would erase all the painstaking effort Sougo’s put into keeping their current arrangement, harmless pestering and cozying up after a particularly cruel attempt on Hijikata’s life.
He even stays for a bit after the sex. When they’re both coming down from the high and Hijikata is quiet for once in his life, Sougo will lie in bed despite the sweat cooling on his skin, rubbing at whatever marks he left. Hijikata will lean into the touch, and maybe Sougo will press a kiss to the thick scar he left on Hijikata’s shoulder when he stabbed his sword clean through into the dirt to keep Hijikata there while he tried to decide if he really wanted the man dead or not.
Hijikata used to tense when Sougo touched it, until he started to mouth at the scar while they were fucking. It’s so easy to condition Hijikata into these sorts of these things, it’s almost laughable. The casual touches are barely even noticed, a head hooked over Hijikata’s good shoulder while they’re doing investigations or standing a little closer than what is usually appropriate.
Hijikata is so easy. So easy that he’ll tuck in closer to Sougo when they’re just in bed, not having sex or fighting even though Sougo is usually a little horny at that point. And he doesn’t want to fuck Hijikata at all those times, half hard and too drowsy to think about the fact that Hijikata’s nose is pressed into his hair, breaths deep and even.
Easy to keep bickering during the day, keep doing whatever it is they do during the night. Whatever happens, it’s not Sougo’s responsibility; he’s barely twenty-three this year and Hijikata is thirty-one. If anything goes awry he can always claim he’s been taken advantage of or blackmailed into it.
That would ruin Hijikata for sure. Sougo’s just not sure if he wants to go that route quite yet. He wants the demon vice-commander of the Shinsengumi standing strong and tall for as long as possible, especially after the one time they were captured by Amanto for the last fucking time and Hijikata was convinced it was another one of Sougo’s pranks even though he doesn’t repeat pranks and Hijikata knows that.
They already knew Hijikata was the superior officer. They kept taking him away, and it made Sougo angry beyond belief that they were snatching away his toys like it was a kindergarten playground and they were the older, stronger bullies. They played with his toys too rough, bending joints until they broke. Discarded.
Hijikata was crying by the time they were done with him. He was barely wheezing, neck already discoloured and blooming in a pretty purple. Tears slid out of his eyes as he gasped, seeing things that weren’t there. They drugged him, and Sougo had to watch as Hijikata begged for Mitsuba, Kondo, other names he didn’t recognize for hours.
He was only lucid for an hour before they came back. He couldn’t remember Sougo soaking his headband in what little water they were given to keep his fever down before he boiled alive, the ungrateful ingrate. He didn’t remember wrapping his arms around Sougo’s neck like they’d done a thousand times before, stroking his hair and promising Mitsuba that she’d be safe forever.
Sougo likes his victims perfectly lucid. It pissed him off beyond belief that the Amanto would do something like this to a person that belongs to him and him only. That they were taking up the attention of someone as annoying as Hijikata when it should only be Sougo that Hijikata sees, even if it’s to yell at him for another terrible report. Hijikata must know by now that Sougo only fucks those up when he knows Hijikata is the one to review them instead of Kondo. He wants Hijikata to barge into the captain’s quarters with the paper half-crushed in his fist, demanding a re-do.
There wasn’t any bickering. No arguments past that first day. Hijikata kept returning soaked, shivering, twitching. They weren’t so crude as to resort to outright beating, but they had a fixation on choking him, Sougo guessed.
He doesn’t wrap his hands around Hijikata’s throat anymore when they fuck. He didn’t even try it. He liked the idea of replacing the violence with something a little bit more pleasant, overtaking those stupid Amanto in an invisible claim, but Hijikata was groaning low as his spine arched and Sougo found that he wasn’t in the mood to try something that would make Hijikata pale and start twisting to escape in earnest.
That would ruin the whole game. Sougo’s a proud sadist. He won’t take credit for wounds that he didn’t cause with his own two hands- that would just leave a bad taste in his mouth. He’ll just keep crawling into Hijikata’s bed like an ill-behaved pet, hands wandering the bumpy, scarred expanse of Hijikata’s back down to his stomach and hips.
He’ll nip bites on Hijikata’s neck, too high up to cover with the Shinsengumi collar, but he keeps his hands safely around the nape or face and not the throat. He’ll sit on Hijikata’s ass and massage out his tense muscles, mocking him all the while. Hijikata-san, you’re really a nasty officer. Taking advantage of your hot young subordinate, making him give you a massage. Dirty old man. Are you gonna end up like Matsudaira in a few years?
Hijikata can only take a little bit of that kind of talk before he loses his temper, bucking up to dislodge Sougo no matter how good the massage is. When he really gets angry, Sougo will placate him again, rubbing soothing circles up and down his sides. When he broke his ribs in a particularly bad spat when they were younger, Mitsuba spread medicinal paste on the injured spots to help healing, and Sougo watched from around the corner, consumed with jealousy.
Jealousy for who, he still doesn’t know. Hijikata, who was receiving his beloved older sister’s care, or Mitsuba, who got to touch the high-strung, infuriating new apprentice of the dojo? He can’t tell, and he doesn’t care to find out, either.
What really matters is that he won in the end. Mitsuba- he doesn’t think about her. But she loved him, and he was there for her last moments. Hijikata still hates him but in the really rare nights, when work has worn them both down to the bone, he’ll relax into Sougo’s touch the same way he did to Mitsuba’s. If you really squint at it, Sougo’s the one who won it all, and not his sister or Hijikata or even Kondo.
The youngest child always gets the best treatment. The youngest always gets spoiled, and Sougo supposes that he isn’t any different. Even if he had to work for his treats, he still got them in the end, and that’s more than he can say about most of everybody else.
Take that- he won. Fuck China, even if she was the one to start this whole thing anyways, eyes dragging down to his crotch with more derision contained in her gaze than he thought was possible as she asked if he was impotent or still panting after his government assigned leash. She’ll never be able to brag about fucking a man ten years her senior, making him bend to the knees both in battle and in bed.
Or maybe she will; nobody really knows with her. Maybe she has a secret dick that only Yato women possess, and she’s lusting after the Yorozuya boss. God knows that if she was strong enough to bend metal in half with barely a flex of her hands at fifteen, she can force the Yorozuya boss into some truly compromising situations.
None of that is really Sougo’s business. His business is here, in the Shinsengumi where he can snap Hijikata’s bad wrist with a clever kick to the office door on Hijikata’s arm, and press his lips to the bruising that same night, promising with a not-insignificant amount of glee to kill whoever it is that hurt Hijikata.
Sougo’s got everything. He’s been winning since he was born, and he plans to continue to win. Even though it feels a little bit like losing when Hijikata cups his face as he pants through the aftermath, gentle in a way that he never was with Mitsuba, in a way Sougo never thought the man was possible of.
It’s okay if winning with Hijikata feels a little bit like losing. Sougo’s used to do that too. Life’s no fun without a few ups and downs, right? You need some variety in your life, a bit of spice and salt and sugar and- ugh- mayonnaise. No need to mention the fact that Sougo’s recently started to carry fruit-flavored breath mints around so he can force Hijikata to eat one before he tries anything.
Despite everything, Sougo still can’t stand the taste of mayonnaise, and he prefers the sour, iron tang of blood on Hijikata’s lips instead. Some things never change.