Work Text:
one
It rains that first whole week after they arrive in Edo.
Water drops down Hijikata's neck. It's actually pissing him off.
The accommodations offered to them turn out to be a run-down mini-palace, an old family house expropriated from its owners when these sided with the nationalist cause. They are all dead now and the house has been left to rot for over a decade. That jerk Matsudaira implied the place was haunted (Hijikata shivers just thinking about it). It's shabby and uncomfortable and though Hijikata knows this is the Shogunate's way of mocking them, singling them out as upstarts, necessary but despised, he is not about to damper Kondou's spirit with his bitterness. He suspects Kondou too knows he is being mocked but he doesn't see it the same way: he simply sees a place of their own.
They've been cleaning and fixing small stuff for days now. Kondou, and him, and Sougo, mostly. The rest of their comrades staying behind in temporary quarters. This place, after all, is not yet fit for living. And perhaps there's another reason. Under Kondou's usual jolliness Hijikata can detect a hint of doubt. He can see their commander is a bit overwhelmed, the realization of his new responsibilities finally taking its toll. He's been a bit more silent than usual, that itself an alarming sign. Hijikata has caught Sougo's eye once or twice and has understood: the boy notices as well. Kondou, himself, might be oblivious as to what is causing his discomfort – Hijikata knows he is not one for self-reflection, bless the moron, but even if the introspection is not there the strange mood remains nonetheless. At least alone with Sougo, and himself, Kondou can relax marginally, or marginally more than if he had to take into account the mood of twenty more men.
The job, though, and this creepy house, and the damned rain, is putting them all on edge. Sougo disappears for twenty minutes without warning and it turns out he was collecting rotten wood; there's a hole on the floor right before the entrance to the kitchen and there is a vague plan on Sougo's part to make Hijikata fall into the the crawling space.
“It's not even dangerous!” Hijikata complains, as if the lack of deadliness of Sougo's design is the main problem here.
“I know. It would have been just funny,” the boy replies.
Kondou doesn't seem interested in breaking up the fight. He just drags them back to the biggest room in the house, the one that needs the most repairs, and gives them a couple of hammers. Hijikata thinks, okay, let's get this over with.
It has been raining all week and all morning and just when Hijikata is beginning to find his own irritability unbearable the sky opens like a miracle and everything is sunlight and the wonderfully sharp-edged shadows that such open sunlight brings with it. The sky is shy tendrils of white over inexplicable blue and even the Amanto ships seems reticent to perturb it with their ugly flights.
The weather is so good, and unexpectedly good, that any will to keep on working goes out the three of them like snuffed candlelight. Tools dropped on the spot. Sougo succumbing hardest to the sluggishness of the climate, by falling asleep immediately on the spot, the perfect napping place, twelve o'clock under the sun. Watching him Hijikata takes more offence than he actually feels, because secretly he wants the privilege for himself.
"Hey, you, lazy-ass. We are in the middle of work here!"
He gives Sougo's sleeping body two, three hard shakes before deciding it's no use. If the boy is that deep asleep Hijikata is risking his life trying to wake him, he shudders to think the kind of retribution that would come his way.
"Mitsuba once said he could sleep through the end of the world," Kondou remarks.
Hijikata knows better than to react to the name under Kondou's watchful gaze, so he doesn't. He focuses on Sougo instead. He doesn't look like anything else, like this, just a kid, snoring softly and unwittingly chasing the midday sun in his sleep as it dances away on the wooden floor. No one would suspect the kind of wild beast he really is. Oh well, he is not that bad, he decides in an instant, an instant of golden light lapping at the boy's jaw and he is a beautiful kid. Maybe Hijikata was being uncharitable before; something about the weather and this work and the sense of isolation –the sense of just being him and Kondou and Sougo against the world– softens his regard of the boy.
The house creaks under the sun and the hollow noise unnerves Hijikata. He doesn't truly relax until he feels Kondou's hand resting on the back of his neck, giving him a friendly come back shake.
"This is a good place, Toshi. Good, solid wood. Yes, this is where we'll train the men. A good room to start."
“If you say so, Commander,” he replies with fake gloominess.
And if he says so, then it is.
Hijikata knows that there's no logical explanation, but he believes it, and his bad mood is lifted, completely lost. There is only this moment in the clear light, this safe moment, this room in progress and the three of them, the sweet noise of Sougo's satisfied breathing, and Kondou's warm hand placed between Hijikata's shoulder-blades. A small, perfect world.
It's only some minutes later that they both fall asleep on the floor too, wood hand-warm after hours of sunlight and so pleasant to the touch. They arrange themselves with the already-asleep Sougo in the middle; Kondou on his back, shirt rolled up and hairy belly exposed to the soft and humid afternoon air, so close to Sougo than when the boy rolls sideways in his sleep his forehead presses to Kondou's shoulder. The three of them form a curious diagonal, the tools of the abandoned job scattered around them.
Hijikata lies on his stomach, his sword to his left, always close by, and closer by, to his right, Sougo's hand, open-palmed in his sleep, fingertips unconsciously brushing against Hijikata's hair, in search of warmth and softness, even the kind that, if awake, Sougo would find most unwelcome.
two
Once while they were travelling –they had left Okita's hometown behind a long time ago, but leisurely, making a name for themselves, counting on their growing reputation with the sword to sway the government in the favour– Kondo got seriously ill.
It was pneumonia, though they didn't know it at that time.
They thought it was nothing, nothing really. It had to be nothing.
At first they teased him about it, about his lack of personal hygiene being the cause of it, other more adult jokes whispered out of Okita's earshot. But as the days went and Kondou didn't get better the mood of the whole group dampened, until they had no other choice by to take rooms in a roadside inn and let their commander rest properly. Hijikata was the one who, with his usual aloofness, decided they should call a local doctor.
At this point Okita considered the whole thing funny for the most part: Kondou bedridden and bored, the rest of them bringing him grapes and oranges and telling him of their exploits in town, mostly exaggerations but Kondou welcomed them all the same. Okita was just happy that he turned out to be a needy and melodramatic invalid and allowed Okita (even though it was becoming clear he was no longer a little kid) to sleep in his room.
But then the doctor came and spent a lot of time examining Kondou and then spent a lot of time speaking with Hijikata.
Hijikata sent everybody back to their rented quarters, saying not to worry, saying he'll take care of things, and Kondou would up in a couple of days.
Okita could always tell when Hijikata was lying.
Okita only realized the gravity of Kondou's situation because he had never seen Hijikata look so pale.
“What is going on?”
“You should leave,” Hijikata said, flat but impatient. Yeah. Like that was going to happen.
Okita didn't quite understand; he had lived with the shadow of sickness his whole life, and so it was nothing new to him that humans should be fragile, but not Kondou. Kondou was not a normal person, he was an idiot and idiots didn't get sick, right? Kondou was the one who could never be allowed to leave, Okita thought, he was the one thing Okita should be allowed to keep.
“What is wrong with him?” he asked again, blocking the way to the room. His voice made Hijikata cower and that was the scariest thing of all.
“The doctor said he needs to break the fever tonight or...”
“Or?” Okita grabbed the lapels of his kimono but Hijikata refused (and was unable) to meet his eye, turning away until Okita couldn't see his expression.
That was just as well – the last thing Okita wanted to be looking at was Hijikata's face unless he could just punch it. A part of him, thought, was secretly grateful to be spared of the actual words. He loosened the grip, until his fingers were just a ghost touch running down Hijikata's clothes.
“You really should go,” Hijikata insisted. His tone was different now. “It might be contagious.”
Like you care, Okita thought. Like you care if I catch the plague and drop dead in the middle of the journey.
“Shut up.”
“Sougo...”
When had he stopped calling him Okita-senpai? Not that he liked it. It pissed him off, he knew he was mocking him. But when had he stopped? Okita couldn't remember.
“You are staying. Aren't you?”
Hijikata made an irritated noise in reply, but he let Okita into the room after him.
Neither of them left Kondou's side that night, taking turns to press a damp piece cloth to his forehead or wash the sweat pooling down his neck, making him drink and swallow his medicine, Okita following Hijikata's instructions (the doctor's instructions) with a compliance he himself found surprising.
Kondou moved about in his fever, messing the bed sheets, and talked, broken words, nothing that made sense. He called their both names, eventually, apologizing senselessly over and over. When they had done everything they could and there was only waiting for the dawn and the fever to break, they got in bed with Kondou and for a moment Okita thought about protesting –the western-style bed too narrow for the three of them and of course Okita should have priority, always– but at the last moment he held his tongue, not sure why and not liking the feeling either. Under the cover they both listened watchfully to the weak murmur of Kondou's breathing.
Okita vowed he was not going to fall asleep, and in any case he was not going to fall first.
They slept well past dawn.
When they wake up they are met with a curious gleeful Kondou –curious because he had been on death's gates and now he is grinning like the idiot he is– sitting up in bed. Okita can tell Hijikata is a bit slow on the uptake and he is not really understanding what it all means, the healthy colour rushing back into Kondou's face, the smell of past illness in the room, the clear sunlight falling from the window, Kondou's moronic grin. Hijikata has to look at Okita to confirm, and Okita guesses he is making a pretty obvious face at the moment because Hijikata's relaxes immediately, the terror in his eyes gone and Okita just knows. This is the last moment of Okita's childhood, the last moment of complete selfishness, when he realizes maybe he is not the only person on the planet who needs Kondou like this, like him; he'd rather not think about that, at all, and it's easy to push the thought away with Kondou's arms around the both of them, pulling the both of them into an embrace, gently but tightly, like a really, really annoying granny.
three
He knows better than to try to comfort Sougo.
By the time everybody has left the hospital and all the usual preparations are under way it's almost three in the morning and Sougo is too exhausted for anything other than drag himself to Kondou's room. He doesn't say anything about it, just drops like a dead weight on Kondou's cot. That's how he avoids a real conversation. Idiot, Kondou thinks, because it's not like he was going to reject the boy. With difficulty he rearranges Sougo's limbs under the covers. It's a cold night.
Awake Sougo would never let himself be comforted but while asleep Kondou is able to run his fingers through soft, light hair, hoping it makes a difference somehow. He rests his hand on Sougo's forehead like a worried mother, and watches his sleep until the boy's pretty face becomes suddenly unbearable. Like this, in repose, and tonight, Kondou is painfully reminded of how much Sougo looks like his big sister.
In a way he feels the bitterness of being left out; he doesn't think he has the right to mourn Mitsuba as he would like. He was awfully fond of the girl, loved dearly, but not like Toshi and Sougo. He has to lock the sadness away for them. Normally a cry-baby (he has no trouble admitting it) he knows he will not shed any tears tonight.
He doesn't know how long he stays like this, not looking at Sougo's face but as his tousled hair, watching his own fingers stroking it as if they belonged to someone else. Everything is unreal about this moment, he feels. The idea that Mitsuba is no longer is this world, the idea of such a hole in Sougo's heart.
He is not sure what he is waiting for; he leaves the door open to the backyard. It might look like a quiet, beautiful night, if one didn't know any better.
He doesn't know how long he stays like this, only that when he looks up Toshi is standing there, in the garden, his shadow moving slowly like in a bad dream.
“Toshi...”
“I went to Sougo's room, he wasn't–´ the rest of the explanation slips away, as well as his alarm, when he notices the young man sleeping in Kondou's bed, resting under Kondou's hands.
“Toshi, where have you been?” he asks; he sent Yamazaki after him again but he also knew that if Toshi didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be found. He doesn't get an answer, just a light shake of the head.
Toshi takes a couple of steps inside the room. Kondou can see he looks the worst of them; not just beaten by the fight, but incredibly worn. There's something weird about him, and Kondou realizes he expected him to be smoking, his usual stoic façade doesn't look complete without the cigarette in his hand.
“Have you been crying?” Kondou asks; any person with tact would avoid mentioning Toshi's red eyes but Kondou never had any tact, he is not going to start tonight.
“Nah. It's just that I ate some really spicy food.”
“Ah.”
Kondou feels so very old all of the sudden.
"How is he?" Toshi asks, but his gaze does not acknowledge the small sleeping form curled against Kondou's chest.
Such straightforward, genuine concern, and Kondou wishes Sougo was awake to hear it.
"It will get better," Kondou says, thinking of Toshi as much as of Sougo.
He doesn't know how long they stand like this, not talking. Then Kondou hears him let go of a breath. Toshi steps back towards the door, just as awkwardly as he walked in.
"Do you want to stay?"
Toshi shakes his head and Kondou wishes he could read his face more clearly, but the darkness, you see.
"No. I couldn't. I don't have the–" Toshi's voice sounds horribly small. It makes Kondou burn with an unusual anger – he is not prone to it, not in his nature to be this bitter, but life should be softer, kinder, at least to boys like these two. And it isn't. It has never been. And he might not be the most insightful person around but he can tell that Toshi wants nothing more than to stay here tonight, and perhaps it has nothing to do with Kondou but the sleeping teenager in his arms, and maybe that's why Toshi is so decided to refuse himself the mercy.
Kondou is about to protest –the idiot– but Toshi has already turned his back, ready to walk away.
“Kondou... don't leave him alone. It's no good when he is alone.”
Perhaps Sougo is not the only one who needs a good thrashing tonight.
“You don't have to tell me that. You two are the ones always running places without telling me.” Kondou grits his teeth. “You trust me that little?”
Toshi lets out a humourless, hollow laughter.
“You are our commander. It's not that we don't trust you, it's just that... it's our duty to protect you from these things.”
Kondou buries his face in his hands, chuckling.
“You are heartless boys.” he says.
He doesn't know how long he stays like this, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time, doing neither.
He hears Toshi walk back towards him, footsteps making the floor wood creak. He feels two fingers against his chin, gently pushing him to look up. Toshi is kneeling by his side, wearing an odd smirk. His hand is cold.
“I'm sorry, boss. You are stuck with two terrible guys.”
“Yes,” Kondou says. “But it's too late now. I asked in the store. They don't accept returns.”
That raises a sceptic snort from Toshi – Kondou knows he was expecting something more straightforward from his commander; and then, immediately, Toshi presses his face into Kondou's shoulder. Kondou feels a bizarre pang of deja-vu, here with Sougo resting on his lap and Toshi buried against his chest.
Perhaps that's the best he can hope for, an existence as a bridge, so these two won't get too far from each other. He doesn't know if Toshi is crying now, but if he is he is doing it quietly and this time Kondou has the tact not to ask.
“Do you want to stay?” he nudges gently.
Toshi says nothing, he just nods and gives up a broken mumble of assent, brushing his nose against Kondou's collarbone.
Toshi is gone before Sougo wakes up in the morning.
four
Okita refuses to go to the hospital, of course.
Normally he would follow any of Kondou's orders but tonight the Shinsengumi chief knows better than to push it. His guys are a lot of stubborn insubordinates, hopeless, really, but they are his guys, and it's not like his own behaviour has been exemplary these past few days – Kondou feels the sharp pierce of shame when he thinks of some the things... But that is not helping anyone.
The first thing is to get themselves cleaned up. Hijikata in particular is a hellish vision: covered in blood from head to toe, his blood, Itou's, the dirt from the road.
They are in the main bathroom.
It reminds Kondou of when Okita was a little boy and he used to bathe with Kondou. With Hijikata too, who had been a sullen teenager himself at the time, for all Okita's protests.
Afterwards Hijikata helps Okita get into some clean clothes and sits him down so he can administrate some first aid. He is good with small, practical details; sensible ideas like the necessity to have medical supplies lying around in the Shinsengumi headquarters, because apparently no one else had thought about that.
Okita frowns when Hijikata checks the state of his left arm, cradling his elbow with infuriating care. He winces, masquerading the pain as disgust for Hijikata's ministrations.
"But if you tend to my wounds, Hijikata, I will only get worse."
"Sougo," Kondou admonishes. Okita stops at once – Kondou normally lets whatever abuse the boy lashes out at his vice-commander just run its course, not paying much attention, as it were just white noise. But sometimes he lets Okita know he should just leave it. Tending to his wounds is atonement enough for whatever Hijikata thinks has done wrong this time. Kondou cannot keep the tabs on the two of them, how alternatively they believe they owe something to the other and are owed in return. Sometimes he thinks it will never be fixed, whatever is broken between them, whatever was broken from the beginning, sometimes even Isao Kondou despairs.
But sometimes small mercies. Like Hijikata's fingers carefully curled around Okita's wrist to steady him as he applies the disinfectant to the cut above the boy's eyebrow. Okita is very badly battered, much worse than Hijikata, which is not normally the case. Hijikata has trouble thinking about Okita as something vulnerable, because he himself is always in a weaker position than the boy. It's bizarre and unnatural and he'd much rather Okita stood up and punched him in the face than the way he grudgingly complies to his attention because he must need it so badly. He is also very much aware of Okita fixing his gaze somewhere else, the opposite corner of the room, avoiding Hijikata. And Hijikata is grateful for that.
When Hijikata is finished Okita is still a mess, bruises forming everywhere, but at least he won't bleed to death all over headquarters.
“What about you?” Okita says, pointing at Hijikata's scratched face.
“I'm okay,” he replies gloomily. Compared to Okita he has left pretty much unscathed, given the circumstances; and to be honest most of the damage was done by Sakata and that China girl in their abuse, and not the subsequent battle with Itou's faction.
Undeterred, Okita grabs a handful of band-aids and applies them sloppily to Hijikata's face. Happy with the result he tops it off with a generous splash of rubbing alcohol to his eyes.
“Much better now,” he declares while Hijikata writhes in pain.
“What do you mean much better?! You've blinded me! I'm blind!”
“Honestly, Hijikata, you just can't accept when people try to do something nice for you. With an attitude like that you are never going to–“
Hijikata really, really does not want to find out how the sentence ends so he opts for some form of light strangulation. He is careful not to make Okita's wounds worse, though. He is just going to open new ones.
“Fine, fine,” Kondou decides it's time for him to play mother hen and extricate Hijikata from Okita's deadlock (even battered Okita has turned the tables pretty quickly, Kondou can't help but be proud of him, even when he is choking his vice-commander; in Hijikata's defence, well, he is blind at the moment) and help him wash his face until he recovers from Okita's tender care.
“Let's just go to bed,” he tells them.
Without any previous agreement they follow Kondou into his quarters, pushing their futons together. They lie down, Okita taking the centre; Hijikata is not really comfortable with that (he doesn't like to sleep in the edge of the formation, so to speak) but he figures Okita has deserved it. It's a clear night, with a lot of light coming from outside. Not so much that they won't be able to sleep, but enough so they can see each other's faces.
Okita falls asleep first, while Hijikata and Kondou talk on for a while, despite the weariness. Hijikata won't accept any apology, of course, but he his happy to chat with his chief as he hasn't done for days – they have missed each other. Kondou reaches his hand to ruffle Okita's hair from time to time, distractedly, but when he does Okita lets out a disturbingly content noise; Hijikata doesn't like to think about Okita as a kid much, so he doesn't, if he can help it, but then Okita would say or do something incredibly boyish and Hijikata remembers.
“Look at that,” Kondo says, and Hijikata follows his gaze. Even though they have been careful to leave some room between them, Okita has one hand twisted into a fist in Hijikata's kimono, grabbing it tightly. Hijikata feels the pull of it, dragging him closer. It makes him think of a hunter holding on to his prey in a terror that it might fly.
“Look at what? Now I'm afraid he might beat me up in his sleep.”
Kondou lets out a fond but irritated chuckle.
“We almost lost you tonight,” he says quietly. Hijikata is happy in the knowledge that, were Okita awake, he too would roll his eyes at Kondou's insistence on the we, the weight of his voice there. Hopeless man.
“It wasn't me targeted for assassination,” Hijikata points out.
“It was worse than that. We almost lost you because I...”
“Kondou, you are an idiot,” comes the matter-of-factly voice from the seemingly sleeping Okita.
Kondou lowers his head, refuses to give in to the urge to cry. Who wants a crybaby as their commander? They deserve better, his brave Sougo, his sensible Toshi.
“I'm sorry,” he says, tearing up.
“Don't worry, boss” Okita tells him, real sleep finally showing in his voice. “I'm not angry. I'll have more chances to get Hijikata killed, many, many more chances...”
His mumbling turns into a low, rhythmic snoring, this time for real.
Hijikata lies down, hands behind his head. He is tired all right, but the main problem is that his eyes still sting like hell. He thinks, seeing how close his head is to Okita's, well this is really dangerous.
“He might really beat me up while we sleep.”
Kondou's laughter is genuine this time. “He might.”
Hijikata yawns, slipping further in his bed, turning on his side so that Okita's hand is no longer pulling him but gently holding him in place.
“That's fine, I guess,” he mutters before succumbing to exhaustion as well.
Kondou knows he is not himself far behind on that path, now that the adrenaline has completely washed away from his body. He would like to watch over Okita's and Hijikata's sleep for a while, guard their dreams. Maybe he really is a mother hen. Well, he wants what he wants. But in his line of work one rarely gets what one wants, one mostly does what one can. And what Kondou can do right now is this: he lies down, pressing his chest against Okita's back, and he throws his arm over both him and Hijikata. He stops fighting and lets himself fall asleep. All he can do is trust that between the three of them they will be able to guard each other's dreams.