Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama. I would not be able to write its crazy awesomeness.
Having a Fever Does Not Mean You're Not an Idiot
Gintoki forced his eyes open against the drowsiness that seemed to assault him. If it weren't for the fact that he was hungry, he wouldn't even bother getting up. As it was, he planned on going back to bed as soon as he ate. For some reason, he felt exhausted even though he just woke up.
As the silver-haired man stood up, a wave of dizziness overtook him and he swayed, almost falling down. Thankfully, Gintoki was able stumble his way over to the wall and used it to support himself for a few minutes.
Then, after the dizziness had passed, Gintoki carefully opened the sliding door of his room and made his way to the kitchen. He then proceeded to dig out some leftovers from the fridge, warm them up in the microwave, and pour some strawberry milk.
Usually around this time, Kagura would be waking up and Shinpachi would arrive. However, Kagura was at a sleepover with Soyo-hime, and Shinpachi was at his family's dojo helping his sister out with the possible new students they had visiting. It felt a little lonely without them, but at least it was peaceful and quiet. Gintoki didn't want to add a headache to his list of current ailments.
Once he was nearly finished eating, Gintoki felt a chill spread through his body. It was too cold. Thinking that there was a problem with the apartment's heating, Gintoki glanced over to the thermostat installed next to the light switch. The temperature was normal. Next, Gintoki considered the large amount of strawberry milk he had just gulped down. It was cold and would affect his body temperature, right?
Despite this reasoning, Gintoki knew he was making excuses. It was starting to become painfully obvious that he was sick. Literally. At the very least, he thought, he had disproved everyone's theory that he was an idiot. Idiots don't catch colds after all.
Still… he had a fever, not a cold. No one had actually said anything about idiots not catching fevers. However, Gintoki believed it to be implied. If not, then everyone could still say that he was an idiot, and he would have suffered for nothing.
A sudden knocking at the door derailed this train of thought. It was quite loud. Gintoki gritted his teeth in annoyance as he felt the beginnings of a headache. Not wanting to deal with the knocking any longer, Gintoki carefully stumbled to the door to shoo away the person outside.
When he opened the door, the sight of his landlady greeted him. Otose had started ranting the moment he had opened the door. She was saying something about his overdue rent again and was urging, no threatening him, to pay it.
Despite barely listening to Otose, Gintoki noticed when she stopped talking all of a sudden. When he looked up, she was studying him intensely. Before she was done, a hint of concern briefly flitted past her stoic face.
Without warning, Otose was up on her tiptoes feeling his forehead. It was hot. Otose frowned and started to gently push Gintoki in the direction of his room.
Once they were inside, Otose turned towards Gintoki and ordered him to lie down in bed. She then tucked him in and left the room for a few minutes. When she returned, she placed a wet cloth on his forehead.
As Otose left, she called out, "I'll be back to check on you tomorrow. Try not to kill yourself before then."
A few hours later, more knocking was heard. This knocking was loud and impatient, sounding very akin to the knocking the Shinsengumi always used for Gintoki's door.
The obnoxious knocking woke Gintoki up, causing him to become quite grouchy. He was sick, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He did not want to answer the door, or have company.
Even so, Gintoki soon stumbled to his feet, having decided to shoo the errant knocker away. However, before he even managed to get to his bedroom's door, the knocking stopped, and the sound of the front door being opened was heard. Curious as to what could have happened, Gintoki hastened to open his own door.
The sight that greeted him however, was not what he was expecting. He was suspecting either Shinpachi or Kagura to have returned and opened the door for their clients. He did not suspect that it was actually Saduharu who opened the door. What was even more surprising though, were the two humans sitting on his couch. One was the chief of police, Matsudaira, and the other was the Shogun.
As Gintoki closed his bedroom door, he had to wonder why exactly they had come to the Yorozuya. Had they not seen the closed sign hanging on the door that Otose had doubtless set out? Whatever their reason, their attention was now drawn towards him, as the closed door had sounded loudly in the silent room.
While he made his way to the couch opposite them, he noticed that Matsudaira had raised an eyebrow at him, and that the Shogun had a small, secretive smile on his face. Belatedly, Gintoki realized that he was still wearing his green pajamas that he had put on the other night. Despite wanting to go back and change, he didn't, as he knew it would be quite rude to leave his guests unattended. Anyways, they had already seen him.
Trying his best to ignore their amused expressions, Gintoki sat down and asked if they would like any tea. When receiving guests, he thought, it is polite to offer them refreshments. He had to remind himself of this though, because he would only try to be polite to Ketsuno Ana and the Shogun. As he expected, the Shogun graciously accepted. However, when Gintoki got up to make the tea, the Shogun motioned him to sit down, and mentioned that he would make it himself. Not daring to go against the Shogun's will, Gintoki acquiesced.
An awkward silence ensued after the Shogun left the room. Gintoki and Matsudaira had never really talked to each other, and so they had no idea of what to say. Eventually, it was Matsudaira who broke the silence.
"You know, boy," Matsudaira started, "Sho-chan was going to ask you if you wanted to do something with him." The reason for their visit revealed, the man continued, "You seem to be under the weather though, so I guess it's not going to happen. In fact," Matsudaira continued, "Sho-chan will probably want to take care of you now."
Gintoki took a moment to process this. Why would the Shogun of all people want to take care of him?! Then again, Gintoki realized, the Shogun was just that kind of man. If the Shogun found someone who needed help, he would gladly provide it if possible. He was a person many would dub as a 'goody two-shoes' kind of guy.
A minute more passed in silence, and then the Shogun returned, bearing three cups of tea all neatly gathered together on a small tray. After all the tea was passed out, and the tray set to the side, the Shogun sat back down next to Matsudaira.
The tea was warm, and surprisingly good, Gintoki noticed as he greedily gulped it down as inconspicuously as possible. He didn't want to look like a glutton and the tea helped warm him up.
It wasn't long before the tea was finished, and Gintoki once again felt the chill seep into his pores. He shivered, and shoved his hands into his armpits to help regain some semblance of warmth. It helped, but barely.
The Shogun seemed to notice Gintoki's actions, and was soon rummaging through the closet to find a blanket. A few seconds later, the Shogun emerged victorious with a red comforter in hand.
It was Kagura's, Gintoki realized as the Shogun draped it over him, but he didn't really care. The comforter had a great perk, it warmed him up.
The warmth soon made Gintoki sleepy, however, and he did his best to hold back a yawn. It wouldn't do him any good to yawn if front of the Shogun. Yawning could be taken as a sign of boredom after all, and could be construed as rude. Regardless, the yawn soon escaped.
A few more minutes passed, and Gintoki was fighting to keep his eyes open. The soft chatter of Matsudaira and the Shogun did nothing to keep him awake. Instead, it was helping to lull him to sleep.
A couple more minutes went by in this fashion, and Gintoki gave up. Instead, he snuggled even farther into the blanket. At this point, he really didn't care if he fell asleep in front of the Shogun.
After Gintoki fell asleep, Sho-chan watched Matsudaira get up and leave. His father figure had duties to attend to after all, and he had not taken the day off like Sho-chan did.
His conversation partner gone, Sho-chan glanced around for something to do. By chance, his eyes lit upon what seemed to be a stack of books. Upon closer inspection, they were revealed to be numerous issues of Jump.
Now, Sho-chan had never read Jump before, but in years past he had heard about it from his friend Zenzou. Unfortunately, the two weren't in speaking terms at the moment, but Sho-chan still remembered how ecstatic Zenzou had been while talking about it. Since then, Sho-chan has been curious about Jump, but had never been able to get his hands on a copy because of his strict tutors. Now, he finally had a chance.
Hesitantly, Sho-chan located the oldest issue of Jump. It took a while for him to find it because the volumes weren't ordered by number at all. They were just stacked up randomly.
Jump in hand, Sho-chan made his way back to the couch opposite Gintoki and lay down. He figured that he might as well be comfortable while he read. All in all, he was quite a sight. The normally formal shogun was lying down, holding the Jump up to read, and flipping pages, all the while with a smile on his face. He was the picture of relaxation.
Unfortunately, the relaxing atmosphere didn't last for nearly as long as he would have liked. Right when Sho-chan was getting to the good part of One Park, Gintoki began to stir. Noticing this, Sho-chan glanced over to where his host was resting, expecting him to be awake at any moment.
As Sho-chan took in the state of his host though, the relaxed smile slipped of his face, soon to be replaced by a worried frown; for although Gintoki seemed to be stirring, it was for all the wrong reasons. The silver-haired man was exhibiting the signs of a nightmare.
Sho-chan could probably even guess why. The fever was one reason, but the other? Sho-chan knew of Gintoki's dark past as the Shiroyasha, having heard a bit of it from Katsura-san while he was still under cover, and, if he had to guess, he'd say it was scenes from that bloody past that haunted Gintoki currently.
Wanting to remedy the problem, Sho-chan approached the sleeping samurai silently. He dared not to make any noise, as Gintoki might interpret it as an enemy's approach in his dreams, and lash out, hitting Sho-chan. After all, Sho-chan didn't want him to have to be executed after someone found out that he hit the Shogun. If Gintoki was killed, he would lose one of his only friends. Not to mention his sister Soyo would be upset as well, if only because Kagura-chan would be devastated.
Once he was by Gintoki's side, he carefully started threading his fingers through the samurai's silver hair. He was determined to try to calm the man down. After a few minutes, it seemed to be working. Gintoki was no longer stirring nearly as much, and Sho-chan began to thank the book he had read that had taught how to deal with such situations. Just in case, Sho-chan didn't let up on his careful ministrations.
Soon enough, Sho-chan's repetitive actions made him sleepy and he fell asleep.
In the morning, Gintoki felt a lot better, although he did have to wonder why his chest felt so heavy. The weight atop him shifted a little, and prompted Gintoki to open his eyes a crack. His eyes met the Shogun's and Gintoki mentally started freaking out. He had slept with the freaking Shogun! As he began questioning himself as to how they had ended up this way, the Shogun carefully got up and apologized, "Ah, sorry for falling asleep."
Just when Gintoki was about to interrogate the Shogun as to what exactly happened – as Gintoki's memory was really foggy for some reason – Matsudaira showed up, and took the Shogun with him.
As the Shogun left, Gintoki wondered about all kinds of dreadful questions. What if! – But no, they still had their clothes on. That was a relief. Gintoki was pretty sure he didn't swing that way, but he had to know, as his future love life with Ketsuno Ana depended on it!
The door to the Yorozuya opened for a second, and Otose quickly peeked inside. Gintoki was pacing around, and messing up his hair by rubbing his hands in it. Otose closed the door and determined that the idiot had recovered. He was being very energetic today, and his hair was even worse than usual. Entering her snack bar, Otose decided to yell at him for the rent again tomorrow. Even fools needed a bit of a reprieve she reasoned.
A/N This fic took me quite a while to finish. Probably because I wrote it in a notebook before typing it up. It took 8½ pages for me to write this in the notebook. I started in June, and finished today. I hope everyone has enjoyed it :) We need more fics with Sho-chan, especially since he's in the current arc right now of the manga. Thoughts everyone? ( = reviews please)