Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama. :(
This was sitting on my computer for years, so I guess it's time for it to go out into the world. I hope you enjoy it.
Warnings: sexual implications, character death
Shinsuke hid it well at first, as well as he had tucked away his past from the eyes of the Kiheitai. He knew it well enough though. He knew from the moment he saw the red splatter painted across his palm, a piece done by his own lungs. It mattered not, he had tried to convince himself in secret. It was a common disease, and he still had things to do in this world before he made his journey into hell. There were still many places that needed to burn, many men that needed to fall, before his sensei was avenged, before he could let anything as insignificant as a mere illness of the lungs take him.
He still had so much to do.
What annoyed Bansai the most about Takasugi's hidden illness was not that he hid it, but that he hid it so well that the first to find out was none other than the Silver Demon. Things were going so smoothly back then too.
.
"Takasugi." The voice, laced with a sternness he had only heard once in his lifetime way back during the war, prompted him to pause. The charges were set. All he had to do was pull the switch, and the entire place would go up in flames as it should.
The corners of his lips turned upward. "Gintoki."
"There are hundreds of innocent people in this district. If you set fire to the weapon's storage..."
"Then everything will burn," Takasugi concluded for his old comrade. "Just as it should."
"Takasugi," Gintoki warned again, but he would not listen to any more of the other's reasoning. Sensei's death was reason enough to torch everything to the ground. They deserved to feel his pain, his loss.
The anger that seeped through his entire being suddenly became a fire in his throat. Before he could contain it, Takasugi let out a loud hacking cough and buried his mouth in his kimono sleeve as the now all-too familiar wave of pain washed over him.
He wanted to bathe the world in flames, to see it burn to ash and scatter into the wind. That fire that had raged through him since sensei's death, that raged through him even now as he stared upon Edo before him, was nothing compared to the burning that ravaged his chest. The blood in his hands, the sticky nectar of life that had come from his lungs, cemented the final blow.
Gintoki took the chance to tackle the leader of the Kiheitai to the ground, flinging the two of them away from the explosives. "Stop this already!" the silver-haired swordsman yelled before he realized that the other was not resisting.
'Shit.' The wave of coughs seemed endless to him, and he could feel the dampness growing in his sleeve. 'How much longer...' He glanced at the trigger, now far away from him.
"You..." He found himself looking up at wide eyes before his own lost focus as he shuddered, gasping for air. The arms that had been holding him back were now supporting him, and Gintoki loomed over him worriedly.
"S-stop that," he managed. They were no longer comrades. He wanted no pity from the other.
Gintoki contemplated the other for a moment before he spoke, his voice soft. "You're dying, aren't you?" The words struck him deeper than any katana. He pushed the other away weakly.
"So what if I am?" he spat, glaring at the silver-haired man.
"Shinsuke!" he heard Bansai yell before he was whisked away from Gintoki onto a roof.
He shrugged the other off, a little annoyed. "You didn't have to carry me."
"Where are you hurt?" Bansai asked, ignoring him. The musician was surveying the blood on Takasugi's sleeve.
"It's not mine," he replied briskly before turning his attention back to Gintoki below. Those wide eyes were still the same. The other knew. Takasugi gritted his teeth. 'Stop looking at me like that.'
"I'll hold him off while you set off the bombs," Bansai offered.
Takasugi shook his head. "No, we retreat for today. The police are already coming." His prediction rang true as Hijikata suddenly rounded the corner, katana drawn.
"As you wish." The two took off over the roof before the Shinsengumi could react. Takasugi threw a final glance to Gintoki, who did not move from his spot when the two fled.
'Stop looking at me like that. I don't want your pity.'
Bansai never understood the meaning behind the look Gintoki gave his leader that day until weeks later. He had wondered of course, but he figured there were some things Shinsuke would never tell his men, especially if it involved anyone from his former life. He had passed off the occurrence with the usual suppressed jealousy, not understanding for a moment why Gintoki had such a sad look in his eyes until that night.
.
The shamisen's music echoed through the tranquil starlit sky, its only dancing partner the moonlight that seemed to flicker in the waves along to the notes that flowed from Bansai's fingers. Takasugi laid down his pipe and put out the fire before lying down on his futon. He felt unusually tired tonight, even more than usual. Bansai's music usually prompted him to relax with his pipe, but today all he could think of was warm sheets over his thinning body. He felt the weight loss over the past few weeks, knowing that sooner or later one of his men would notice, although they would never dare comment on it.
An overwhelming urge overcame him without warning, and he let out a cough, unable to muffle it before a single note of it escaped into the tune that came from outside. To his displeasure, Bansai stopped playing, and a shadow over the tatami told him the other was looking inside his room.
"Shinsuke?"
Takasugi closed his hand over the blood that covered it. "What is it?"
Bansai looked hesitant. It wasn't like him to be hesitant. Takasugi knew that the other saw.
"Your hand," he finally inquired. The moonlight that reflected off Bansai's glasses cast a silver veil over his expression, but Takasugi knew unwillingly what the other felt.
"Tch, it's nothing." Takasugi looked away. To his displeasure, Bansai climbed in through the window and set the shamisen off to the side. The musician took a seat next to the futon, the lamp light flickering through his lens.
"How long has it been?"
Takasugi hesitated, his resolve wavering when his saw those fiery eyes under the musician's sunglasses. He had not seen such flames in a long while, not since he fought alongside Gintoki and the others back during the invasion. He shuddered, the old memories washing over him like a huge wave over a cracking seawall.
.
Takasugi knew of his subordinate's attraction towards him, and when Bansai found out about his leader's affliction he wasted no time in acting upon it. The leader of the Kiheitai could have resisted; he even told himself to run, but he supposed it was his impending death that gave him the extra push. It had been a long time since he felt such warmth. Bansai had left him to his thoughts last night after the confrontation, but now they found themselves alone at the edge of the ship, the sky around them quiet as they floated through the clouds.
"Shinsuke..." Their noses nearly touched, and Bansai instinctively leaned in to close the gap before the other pushed him away.
"You'll catch it."
The musician pulled him into a kiss before he could continue to protest, and it was all Takasugi could to do to pull away this second time.
Bansai smiled. "You know I intend to follow you to hell."
The offer tempted him, yet he had no intention on taking it. "You will do no such thing," he managed, but another wave of coughs engulfed him. Bansai caught him before he crumpled completely to the ground.
"You're not going to stop me," he whispered to Takasugi when the hacking finally subsided. Takasugi weakly attempted to escape one last time, but the warmth overcame him, and he allowed Bansai to support him back to his room.
.
He could hear his uneven pants throughout the paper walls as another wave of ecstasy washed over him. Bansai groaned in protest when his fingernails dug through the other's back like a cat.
"Does it hurt?" the musician whispered.
"Don't stop," he gasped. He had to escape from this, from all the pain in his chest. Another thrust sent him over the edge, and he felt Bansai collapse above him, also overtaken with pleasure.
He could feel himself suffocating, yet he no longer knew whether it was from his illness or from the growing tightness in his heart.
They lay there for a while, too tired to move, their sweaty bodies entangled on top of the sheets.
Takasugi thought of the inevitable end that was to come much too soon. He would be departing to hell alone, his sensei unavenged. He had everything to live for, but his tuberculosis did not care to give him the time to partake in it. And Bansai... He would leave him behind.
Bansai paused for a second when he felt the arms tighten around him. "Shinsuke..." he breathed the other's name.
The leader of the Kiheitai remained silent, burying his face in the crook of the other's neck as he tried to stifle all the new thoughts that plagued his mind. He had doomed the man next to him to a slow and painful death, and he could think of absolutely nothing to redeem himself.
"It's okay," he heard Bansai say. The musician ran his fingers through Takasugi's hair softly. "I chose this path myself. You do not have to worry about me."
Takasugi finally let go and gave his subordinate a halfhearted nudge on the face. "I didn't say I was worried."
.
They were in the middle of the countryside, far away from Edo.
"Were you ever able to hear my tune?" Takasugi asked. He felt his vision waver back and forth, and the stars above danced like petals on a flowing stream in spring. He knew it would be soon. The warm summer nights had finally come, and for once the weather did nothing to ease his pain.
Bansai brushed the other's hair off the other's un-bandaged eye lightly, letting more of the moonlight reflect off of the dying man's pale skin. He traced his fingers lightly over the scar that ran across the closed eyelid. "Shall I hum it to you?"
Takasugi snorted with whatever strength he had left. "So only now do you hear it."
Bansai smiled and moved to get another wet towel for his lover's rising fever, but a slight touch on his arm stopped him. He looked at Takasugi hesitantly. "I'm going to get a towel."
"No." Takasugi let out a long breath as he closed his eyes. "Stay here a little longer."
Neither said a word for a while as Takasugi's labored breathing mixed in with the summer cicada's buzz, the only the sound that disturbed them.
"We're you ever able to find peace?" Bansai finally whispered.
The corner's of the other's lips turned up slightly.
.
You were the fire that lit my path
A blaze that burned endlessly through the darkness
Regret, rage, restlessness
Yet just like that, the flame ceased
As if it were never there
Only once did I hear your tune
"The fleetingness of life," I named it
The last and only song I wrote for you
"Mono no aware" is a term used for for the awareness of the impermanence of things in life and is used in many of the old Japanese texts. It's kind of like how cherry blossoms bloom only for a short period of time. They are beautiful to look at of course, but their fleetingness, only blooming for about a week a year, makes them even more beautiful. Something like that... Anyways~
Thank you for reading!