Takasugi is muttering a litany of curses and Katsura is trying to pull long strands of wet hair from his face and Gintoki is slipping through the mud, and it's raining so hard that they can barely see.
"Who's idea was it to launch a sneak attack in this weather?" Gintoki asks, boot sinking into mud and getting stuck there; he yanks it up and it pulls away with a squelching pop. Water is running in rivulets down his arms and wind is blowing stinging needles of rain into his eyes. His hands are not bloody or blood-crusted, though, a sharp contrast from usual; he supposes that being in the natural equivalent of a car wash would have that effect.
"Yours," Katsura says, and that is an absolute lie. Gintoki would never think up something like this - he would not willingly plan to drown, he doesn't even know how to swim.
"No way in hell, you bastard, don't try to pin your crimes on me. You're the only one that could see the storm coming, and you were saying that when it hit we should attack, you were the one going over the maps-"
"-and it worked perfectly," Katsura says, as if Gintoki didn't say a thing. "The lack of visibility worked perfectly in conjunction with our surprise attack-"
"You made us run ten miles in the rain to kill pig-headed ugly-ass monsters," Takasugi snarls, pushing sodden clumps of too-long hair out of his eyes.
"Oi, Zura, how long's it been since you last slept, huh? Are you delirious? Is that why you decided that we had to catch pneumonia? What, did you think we could all settle in the sick bay together like one big happy family and die together like old men?"
"It's not Zura, it's Katsura," Katsura says, then his foot slips on a pile of rotten leaves and rain-slick mud and he falls over, arms flailing, slamming into Gintoki and Takasugi and pitching them all, screaming, down a muddy slope.
Katsura's leg is on his head and Takasugi's sheathe is digging into a gash on his back and Gintoki's face is in a puddle of mud and rain. He pushes himself upright, wincing at the pull of new wounds, and spits mud and leaves from his mouth. "Are you trying to kill us all?! Dammit, Zura, I'm gonna drown you in a puddle - there's even a perfect head-sized puddle here for you, you stupid wig-headed moron-"
"Your face made that puddle," Takasugi puts in unhelpfully, scowling as he tries to wring out his sodden sleeves. There is no point, they are just going to get more wet, they haven't slept in oh-hell-he-doesn't-even-know how many days, and Katsura is apparently going to drown them all in mud and leaves and rain unless they kill him first. Gintoki is sick of this, or maybe that's just the mud and possible slugs he swallowed when his face was being smashed into the waterlogged soil.
"Screw this," he declares, and trudges off into the trees in search of shelter. If lighting strikes the tree and sets them all on fire, well, at least they won't be so damned wet. (Or maybe they'll be wet and electrocuted and on fire, knowing their damned luck, but at least the heavens will get a good laugh.)
"It was a good plan," Katsura says, catching up. He's favouring his left leg and the rain running down his arm is pink-tinted, has been pink-tinted for hours despite the rain because he's still freaking bleeding. Gintoki is so tired of this. "No one died in this mission - the three of us took out the whole camp without any support."
He is so tired, so sick, and he blames the rain, the lack of sleep, the slugs and mud and rain and-
"Shut up," he says dully. "I know that, dammit."
Takasugi is walking beside them, hacking up bits of rotted leaves. It's a dry, rasping cough and he's had it for damned days, he shouldn't have come on this stupid water-infused mission, but he refused to be left behind.
He's an idiot, Katsura is an idiot, Gintoki is an idiot. They're all idiots and they haven't slept for at least two days - but the day before the mission Katsura was going over plans, steely-eyed and expression made of stone, Takasugi was on watch, and Gintoki was scouting in preparation for this mission, so that makes three, and before that-
-Gintoki concludes that he can't remember the last time he slept, can't remember the last time any of them slept. He drops to the ground exhaustedly, beneath a tree that at least blocks most of the rain, and decides that he will not move until they all get some thrice-damned rest. The gash on his back throbs with wet pounding pulses of pain and the skin his left forearm has been shredded by steel blades.
"The hell are you doing?" Takasugi snarls. "Get the hell up, we've got to go back to camp."
"Shut up and sit down, Bakasugi, I'm tired."
"We're all tired, you bastard, get up-"
Gintoki pitches a rock at his head and watches him topple over. The idiot was really tired after all. "I'm not moving until the rain stops. Get some sleep, we'll take turns keeping watch."
Takasugi grumbles, but sits, and Gintoki doesn't miss the quick look he casts at Katsura - he's worried about them, too, even if the idiot won't admit it. "I'll take first watch," Takasugi says.
"No way, I claimed first watch. Oi, Zura, sit the hell down before we make you."
"It's not Zura, it's Katsura, and you should get up. We must get back as fast as possible, we need to organise the next-"
Gintoki sighs and stands, and when Katsura nods approvingly and turns to go, he and Takasugi tackle Katsura to the ground.
They lie there for a moment, Gintoki and Takasugi sprawled over Katsura and Katsura flat on the floor.
"Get off me," Katsura yelps. "We need to go back!"
"Do you want to drown in a puddle, Zura?" Gintoki asks. "I'm not moving until it stops raining, so you might as well get some sleep."
"Fine," Katsura says, and Gintoki is vaguely surprised by how quickly he changed his mind, until he realises that Katsura must be worried and tired, too. "Get off me, I can't sleep buried beneath you idiots."
Gintoki drags himself upright and trudges back to the tree; Katsura sighs and staggers over, leaning his back against the trunk and sliding down exhaustedly.
Gintoki sits and Takasugi drops to the ground by Katsura's other side, leaning his back against Katsura's arm and slouching over like he's about to fall asleep.
"I got some sleep the other day, you know," Katsura says. "I can take watch."
Gintoki's eyes are already drifting shut and he forces them open - he will not be the reason they all get killed, dammit.
"Liar," he says, and his voice comes out dull and slurred. "You were planning, then-"
"I fell asleep on the map," Katsura says, and Gintoki remembers that, remembers gleefully timing Katsura getting at least four hours of sleep, and-
-oh.
Gintoki remembers, now. Katsura had been stupidly tired, bags under his eyes and face drawn and pale, and he'd been obsessing over plans for days, saying that there should be a storm coming and when and if it hit they could attack the enemy base, but if it didn't work they'd have to have a counter plan; and then he'd fallen asleep in the middle of planning, and Gintoki had left him to sleep and Takasugi had dismissed the soldiers, and they had stolen a map from who knew where and poured over tactics together all night (and they'd never plan as brilliantly as Katsura, they'd never be prodigies or geniuses, but Takasugi had his years of high-end education and Gintoki had years of fighting behind him, and together they'd done alright).
"Oh," he says, eyes heavy, drifting shut. "You shouldn't have let us plan, look what happened-"
"I told you," Katsura says, "the plan worked perfectly."
Gintoki readjusts himself; lies on the mud by Katsura's side, resting his head on Katsura's outstretched leg and drawing a hand up to his hair, cradling his sword in the curve of his arm. "Oh," he says, already drifting asleep, safe and warm (and there has to be some irony in the fact that he feels safer, more relaxed out in the open than in a tent in a guarded camp, but in the camp there are grown men who look at fifteen-year-old boys and see the demon, the commander, the general, who have never actually seen the children, the idiots, the friends. Here he is among friends, and no one expects anything from him but friendship in return.
And friendship, he can give.)
He hears Takasugi shift on Katsura's other side and feels Katsura adjust his weight, then everything goes still and calm.
And it's still raining, but the patter of raindrops is a lullaby rather than an irritation, and Gintoki feels warm.
A/N: Done for the ask 'joui 3 friendship' on tumblr. ^.^ Thanks for reading guys, please lemme know what you think! It means a lot to me. :)
Prompts and requests are still welcome! Have a great day and God bless!