Heaven Knows Everyone Is Miserable Now

Chapter 17: Nabari

It was the first of their nights to see daylight. Every exchange between them the following day went the long way around to point a finger at the other, to accuse each other of stealing, playing dirty and of being a nasty old fool.

Hijikata walked lighter. Behind the steering wheel, the road unfolded before him without obstacle. Solutions came promptly. No problem seemed too difficult to solve. When the car shut down out of fuel, they quickly found a way to siphon it from abandoned cars. When they lost their way in the meandering forest roads, a group of rotters led them towards a recognizable point on their map.

The landscape of abandoned crop fields bristling with wild shrubbery faded to a cluster of pine trees. Their scent pure and crisp. Familiar. One of the long arms of the mountain forest they had escaped from long ago.

"Oh shit, I think we're there," Gintoki said, tingling with excitement, "I mean, we just drove past it," he showed Hijikata the spot on the map where the road forked into a second path that wound towards the town with the clinic. Faded characters marked the town's name on the map, Nabari.

"Turn back."

Hijikata crunched into reverse gear, knuckles white over the gear stick.

"And how are we supposed to overtake them?" Hijikata asked surly, cigarette sticking from the corner of his mouth. He nudged towards the rotters clustered on the road ahead, too close together to allow the car passage.

"We don't. We leave the car here and go on foot," Gintoki said, "The town is not far. The path bends into a slope up ahead. That's why we missed it before. If push comes to shove, we shove. Use the slope to our advantage"

Hijikata could not fault Gintoki's simple logic. He hummed in agreement and stepped on the brake pedal.

"What about guys like him?"

Hand on the steering wheel, Hijikata shot a finger in the direction of a rotter lumbering towards them not ten feet away, which had separated itself from the group on the road. Its head and body swiveled towards the Subaru at different speeds, unnaturally disjointed.

"Alright, stragglers only." Gintoki replied with an eye-roll.

Hijikata switched off the engine. The sounds of the forest engulfed them. The wind whistled across the crackling branches over their heads. Fat droplets of dew sprinkled the car windshield, rinsing the blood spatter of creepers they had bumped into on the road.

While Hijikata took out his backpack from the trunk, he heard the whack of Gintoki's blade as it bit into the skull of the straggler. A swash followed. Gintoki flicked the blade clean off the rotten blood and appeared beside Hijikata with a dull look in his eye.

"What's taking so long?"

Hijikata could not say it. Recognition startled him. Everything about that moment seemed to have happened before. The two of them speaking low by the trunk of a car, unaware how their lives hung on the brink of change. How distant those recollections seemed; memories of a different life, a different Hijikata; a different Gintoki. Grief had been Hijikata's compass then. It had dictated every choice he made, every sentence he said. Now a silver shine jerked his compass needle in a new direction, towards a future he could not yet see but fathomed rife with danger.

"You in a rush?"

Time stopped as Hijikata stared into Gintoki's eyes, searched its depths for reassurance. Gintoki frowned. His half-lidded eyes narrowed to mere slits. One step bridged the space between them. That feverish sensation Gintoki unleashed in him and which Hijikata could not tame took hold of him. No walls protected them out here in the open. It was bad. Worse than ever. The breadth Hijikata allowed Gintoki to move in had grown exponentially. Every day it advanced an extra inch. The boundaries between them kept dwindling. He knew it without having to suffer Gintoki's sly smile of confirmation.

"You better put that out before I do," Gintoki's eyes zeroed in on the cigarette burning away in Hijikata's mouth, "Fire hazard."

Hijikata threw the cigarette away, stepped on it with his boot, too rattled to put the cigarette out with his fingers and save whatever was left.

"Fine," he grunted, "You owe me at least ten packs anyway, damn crook."

"Oi, cat burglar used to be an honest profession, you know? Lots of sex appeal too. There was Hitomi-chan and her two sisters, Nami-san and…"

Pine needles crushed under the foot of another straggler. Hijikata cut Gintoki's rant short.

"Up ahead, Lupin."

Hijikata's mocking tone was not wasted on Gintoki's warped sense of humor. He put his knife into the back of the straggler's head and gave Hijikata a contrived bow.

"You flatter me."

Streaks of sunlight broke through the tree branches and cast an otherworldly shimmer across Gintoki's silver curls. Hijikata let himself fall a little behind to stare at Gintoki's mane of silvery hair while they advanced. Long ends crawled down his neck and hid the contours of his ears which had burned red whilst flattened against Hijikata's cheek hours before, almost as hot as the breaths Gintoki had buried in Hijikata's neck.

Hijikata shook his head to dispel the memories and followed Gintoki's footsteps dutifully, the soles of his boots falling over the track of Gintoki's.

They kept a safe distance from the large group of rotters as they crossed the forest parallel to the forking road. When they reached the winding turn, the road zigzagged its way down in harmony with the terrain, embellishing the view of the quaint little town from which a foul stench arose, too strong to have been washed off by the rain of the past few weeks.

Mauled rotters grumbled along the twisting path, prostrated on the ground, unable to walk for broken limbs or the lack of them. The smears and dents on the road's safety rails at the top of the hill spelled out their fate, but it was only when Hijikata and Gintoki reached the foot of the hill where the road spread out into a huddle of houses that reality began to sink in.

Here and there, bullet casings gleamed on the ground and, as they carried on through the outermost streets, a wary distance from the town center, they found more casings scattered all around, bullet holes dotting walls and cars.

Dread pooled at the bottom of Hijikata's stomach. For once, it was not the silence or the absence of the staggering number of people that would have inhabited a town of that size that horrified him. It was the very reason for their disappearance. Sweepers. With the bullet casings came other tokens of their passage. Physical reminders of the horrors wrought by the outbreak that had devastated the world. Smashed windows, fallen doors, dead bodies lying gray and withered on the street with parts missing—either plucked by the starving undead or the carrion eaters. But stragglers kept Hijikata and Gintoki too busy to dwell on the particulars of the presence of the Sweepers.

They slithered through the town's narrow streets like shadows, neutralizing the few wandering rotters that came their way, and breathing sighs of relief for every corner they turned and found a feeder waiting for them instead of a gun barrel.

Hope had shrunk to mere illusion by the time they found the clinic. Their destination loomed murky and dark, much like its symbol on their map. A two-story building, modest and gray, with patches of mold growing in the shadows of the roof where the sun didn't reach. Inside, the rooms were discernible only by the plaques on the doors and walls. Panic and plunder had crushed any attempt to summon the clinic's functional past. The furnishings had been thrown about. Tables and chairs knocked aside, papers thrown everywhere, a gurney lay overturned.

Muffled growls rose after Hijikata stepped on a large shard of glass. He saw Gintoki's head move towards the garbled sound instinctively.

"Upstairs?" he asked.

"Yeah. Trapped," Gintoki replied. He kicked the overturned gurney to stir the rotters to action, but none stumbled into view. Bumps joined the rising chorus of gnarls as the rotters threw themselves against the walls upstairs, proving Gintoki's point.

"Great. Let's take a quick look and get the fuck out," Hijikata grumbled, "This place has probably been picked clean. What a waste of time."

"We're here now," Gintoki said, "Might as well check it out."

"Whatever. Meet you back here in ten," Hijikata paused for a brief second before pointing his finger towards the ceiling, "And don't go upstairs without me."

Gintoki drew a faint smile.

"Roger that."

When they met again after checking the first floor, Hijikata was waiting for Gintoki by the stairs with a forlorn expression.

"Anything on your end?" the question carried Hijikata's own answer. He was glad Gintoki's differed.

"Just bandages and some manuals." Gintoki replied, adjusting the straps of his backpack.

Hijikata's frown deepened.

"Manuals? You mean, books?" the words left his mouth with disbelief, then he remembered Gintoki's stint out in the wasteland, decked in blood and guts, matching his walk to the rotters' and blending among them to mask the scent of his flesh. It wasn't fair to take his cleverness for common sense when both took so much from any person in the same circumstances. Taking the books was as clever as it was sensible. Something they might need in the future.

Is that what he is thinking of? The future? Hijikata's chest tightened with an ache he could not suppress. When was the last time he had thought of the future? Any future other than finding Jirocho's meds? Not so long ago he had wished for nothing more than total darkness; a desperate plea under a solitary bridge. Now here he was, teetering towards that faint light amidst the darkness.

Hijikata fought back a cough, throat dry. He itched for a cigarette. His hands fished the empty pockets of his jacket, unthinking, fidgety.

"Yeah, I'm thinking way ahead of you, nicotine fiend," Gintoki said. He flicked Hijikata's forehead with his finger, and Hijikata saw in his guarded expression another smile to be locked away.

"Shut up, moron." Hijikata swatted Gintoki's hand away to hide his embarrassment. He hated how easily Gintoki read him.

"Shall we go up?"

Hijikata grunted and raced ahead, shoving Gintoki aside with his shoulder.

The rotters they had heard earlier, clamoring their own particular brand of welcome, were stuck inside the staff's break room. Through a strip of plexiglass on the door, Hijikata saw their fingers claw at their own reflection. While he peered at them, he wondered how they had come to be trapped there, and the more he pursued that line of thought, the more repulsed he felt. A crowbar held the door of the break room in place, lodged in the space between door and jamb, and, across the hall, the sight of the repository door flung open dispelled his doubts. The staff had been locked in the break room to die and turn.

Empty boxes littered the floor of the repository. The med storage had been ransacked, much like the rest of the town.

"Shit."

"There's still some stuff left on the shelves," Gintoki said as he entered the room, "Those assholes would need a semi-truck to take everything of worth in a town like this. C'mon, give me a hand here."

"Yeah, right," Hijikata scoffed, "They still got to pick and choose."

"Then we gotta think like them. They would go for the painkillers first," Gintoki said, tapping an empty shelf, "Then shit they can profit off. Invaluable stuff, really, if you think about the state of things."

Hijikata paused for a moment, catching Gintoki's train of thought, which didn't so much follow the logic of a criminal as it did that of a detective.

"Stimulants, tranquilizers."

"Bingo," Gintoki replied in a sing-song voice, then, rapping his fingers on another shelf, "Pretty sure they would leave the wordy ones for last and- oh, here we go," he began shuffling through small bottles rattling with pills, "Antiseptics, antipyretics- Oi, oi, there's a lot of stuff for hypertension here. Gotta take care of those pensioners, right? Calisthenics only gets you so far."

Hijikata stopped behind him with arms crossed over his chest.

"Quite savvy, aren't you?"

"Oi, Hijikata-kun, isn't it a bit late for you to find out how smart I am?" Gintoki sighed. He inspected the labels on the bottles, blisters and vials before throwing them in his backpack. Random names were scribbled on some of the packages, along with instructions in shorthand. Recurring prescriptions for people who longer needed them.

"Your knowledge stinks of street smarts."

"That's enough for a guy like me to get by," Gintoki mused, "And look at how well I turned out. If you told old Catherine her poor in-between-jobs neighbor would last the apocalypse this long, I reckon she would spit in your face, V-bangs an' all."

Hijikata scoffed and crouched to check the leftover boxes on a lower shelf.

"Who's Catherine? And isn't in-between-jobs a euphemism for being unemployed?" Hijikata scratched his forehead in frustration, "You really were just a good for nothing, uh?"

"Wrong, bozo. I took the kids to school, I helped them do their homework, I ran a few deliveries when the guys at Hideo's were short on staff, same thing at the convenience store by the station, and I'm known to have fixed a few faulty faucets, if you know what I mean-"

"I don't think I want to."

"And there was that time they let me do an unpaid trial run at the pachinko parlor, but the bosses didn't agree with my views on reimbursement for the unpaid part of the 'unpaid trial' so that didn't last long. The comic book store, however, that's a story for the ages-"

"Not this age, not right now."

"That's alright, Hijikata-kun. I understand how my reputation as a jack-of-all-trades can be a bit intimidating at first."

"Intimidating my ass." Hijikata snorted.

"Yes, you're a tough nut to crack, aren't you?" Gintoki's voice sunk to a drawl.

They both straightened up and adjusted their backpacks at the same time.

"Good-for-nothing, thief, part-timer, jack of all trades, half-man half-dead, Crow-"

"Liar." Hijikata added, a hot breath of indignation escaping his mouth. He'd heard this all before. Gintoki's shield of self-deprecation, so similar to his own.

"Liar," Gintoki repeated with a smile, "Whatever I am, you don't scare easy."

"Then try harder."

"Do you know how cruel you are?"

Gintoki's fingers found the vein throbbing in Hijikata's neck, pulsing madly with wrath, spite and anticipation all at once.

Warmth spread across Hijikata's face. His eyes locked with Gintoki's, so close now that he saw only two dark pools framed by a messy mop of silver curls.

"H-hey stop-"

"Take this and wait for me downstairs. I need to clear my head."

Gintoki handed him his backpack, twice as heavy as Hijikata's because of the books he had recovered earlier. Hijikata had no reaction to the gesture except a frown and a curse.

"The fuck does that mean?"

Gintoki made for the door of the break room. He took out his knife and spoke to Hijikata with his back turned.

"Just a quick sweep."

"And why would I let you do all that by yourself?" Hijikata's voice grated with irritation. He let both his and Gintoki's backpacks fall to the floor—two loud thuds that called the attention of the snarling rotters locked inside the break room, "Don't lump me in with you, you fucking idiot."

Gintoki turned around, face blank. He reached for Hijikata's shoulder and stopped him in his tracks.

"It will be better if I do this alone," he said, "Don't take it personally."

"I'm getting kinda tired of you playin' the hero," Hijikata replied, flicking Gintoki's hand away. In his mind played a reel of all the moments when Gintoki's actions had caused him to shy away from any attempts to understand him; when Gintoki's adjustment to the violence and brutality of the world as it was overwhelmed him; when the Crow's head had rolled across the floor, defeated, dead, and Gintoki's image had surfaced victorious from under the layers of grit and blood he had masked himself in.

The bitter taste of inadequacy poisoned Hijikata, shackled to the increasingly familiar lack of control he exhibited in Gintoki's presence. He felt led, out of options, consigned to Gintoki's decision-making. But he saw now—he began to understand—why that was so. The weight of Gintoki's hand on his shoulder lingered as much as the press of his palm against Hijikata's chest when they had been jumped by that rotter in the car and Gintoki had had his mouth on his cock. Those protective touches lingered on Hijikata's mind and body like the traces of a ghost. They told of the times when imminent danger had reverted Gintoki to the man who had wandered the wasteland alone. Beyond reach.

"Are you above accepting the help of others?" Hijikata's eyes flashed with anger. He tried to curb the feeling out of respect for his own suffering. He wasn't such a hypocrite he could resent Gintoki's heroics out of fear of losing people when he had acted the same way before; not even able to leave a dying man behind and dooming himself and Gintoki to torment at the hands of the Sweepers.

Hijikata cleared his throat and threw a sidelong glance at Gintoki, unnerved by the lack of response.

"Besides, your arm isn't fully healed yet. And the meds we're taking are not for you."

He saw Gintoki's hand clench around his knife. His eyes did not leave Hijikata's. Gintoki stared at him in that deadpan way of his, inscrutable, withholding all the secrets of the universe. Hijikata wanted to punch him.

"What?!"

"Nothing," Gintoki replied, but he backtracked as Hijikata unsheathed his knife,"I was just thinking how I would be kissing you right now if these guys weren't watching," he nodded towards the rotters banging on the locked door and, before Hijikata could put a word in—too stunned and struggling with the three shades of red burning him from the neck up—Gintoki kicked the crowbar holding the door of the break room in place.

The door budged and a pair of arms broke through the gap that slid open between the door and its frame.

"I think there are about seven of them," Gintoki said, "You clear them while I hold the door."

"That's a dumb fucking plan!"

"You should see your face."

"Shut the fuck up!"

Hijikata dug his knife through the skull of the rotter slipping past the door gap. Its crumbling skin and dusty clothes tore as it squeezed against the door jamb.

Hijikata dispatched them, one after another, while Gintoki kept a steadfast hold on the door and watched the bodies pile up.

Two growling rotters remained inside the break room when the pile got too big for Hijikata to move. Sweat pooled at his temples. He dragged a couple of bodies down the hall to free some space, yet when he returned to the breach Gintoki had left his spot by the door, taken the lodged crowbar for a weapon and stormed the break room to whack at the grabby hands of the last pair of rotters lunging at him. Hijikata managed to return just in time to kick the gnawing jaws of the one crawling on the floor, too close to Gintoki's calf for the latter to notice.

"Are you fucking deaf?" Hijikata snapped.

Droplets of dark blood dripped from one end of the crowbar as the last rotter stopped moving.

"I thought we were on a schedule?"

Hijikata brushed off Gintoki's wisecrack with a loud cough, breathing in the foul smell of the room. Much like the rest of the clinic, the break room was in a sorry state. The floor could not be seen for the amount of junk scattered everywhere: magazines, slippers, garments, chairs and shelves knocked over. No signs of prolonged living remained, no corner where survivors might have huddled for sleep. The staff had been locked inside the room already infected, whether knowingly or not, whether in the early days of the outbreaks or later when the willingness to help had all but cheated them of a kinder end, only they would have been able to tell.

Out the corner of his eye, Hijikata saw Gintoki go unusually quiet. He faced a wall where a few pictures hung crooked, lingering on a particular group photo which, at first glance, Hijikata didn't think relevant. Then, recognition struck him. His breath hitched as the familiar background registered. The old stone walls. The wide gate. Close beside him, Gintoki's remark was guarded.

"This is the overrun town," he said, "The one with the horde I saw back then."

Back then. Hijikata repeated the words to himself, as if by sheer invocation he could have transported himself back to that time. Back to the time before they lost Kagura and wound up in the shrine. Before the mountain. Before the bridge. Before Gintoki had warned him about the ring. Take it off, it's gonna get in the way, he'd said.

"Even then…" Hijikata didn't notice he had spoken aloud. He was startled by his own voice, and the subsequent abrupt silence brought Gintoki's gaze towards him, expectation clinging to his heavy lids.

Gintoki waited for Hijikata to finish his sentence, hoping Hijikata would reveal some hidden truth he might have missed about their near-miss of Nabari, but Hijikata added nothing. His eyes caught the dark circles under Gintoki's eyes, then trailed lower to the contour of his lips, which soon set into a grimace.

"I'm trying to keep my head clear, remember?" Gintoki said, voice strained.

"You can thank this dump," Hijikata said dismissively, turning his eyes away, desperate for a change of subject. He could already feel the prickling of desire tug at him again.

"Guess this explains the bullet shower. Fuckers brought that horde to the shrine from here."

Gintoki nodded.

"Yeah, it means we're close too."

Hijikata sent him a puzzled look.

"You mean the shrine? We're not going back there."

"No," Gintoki said, the ghost of a smile on his lips. He walked to the spot where Hijikata had dropped their backpacks and returned with his crumpled map. He stretched it over the nearest flat surface and pinned his index finger over the blue dot of the shrine before moving it towards a green expanse on the other side of the mountain.

Hijikata's face lit up with realization.

"The farms."

Gintoki's expression mirrored his. There was a smile on his face.

"Let's go. They are waiting for us."

They left Nabari as quietly as they could, choosing not to delve further into town and chance meeting residual clusters of rotters too large for them to take care of. They had what they had come for, plus an additional spark of hope neither had expected. To say it was too good to be true was to invite chaos—to dare. They picked up their pace and ran.

Hungry lurkers awaited them by the car. After an ugly struggle that took longer than necessary on account of their dull blades and the arduous trek up the zigzagging path they'd stalked down that afternoon, they managed to clear the area and relieve themselves of the weight on their backs.

Hijikata slumped on the passenger seat with relief, heaving out a long breath. He quenched his thirst with a few sips of water. Hunger had also started to gnaw at him, to put a damper on his mood despite the success of their search, yet Gintoki's cursing sunk it completely, heralding a turn of luck.

"Shit."

"What." the word left Hijikata's mouth without the proper intonation. He knew what was wrong, but was too tired to accept their predicament.

"It's not starting." Gintoki said. He turned the car key and pressed the clutch. The motor strained and sputtered as usual, but the car didn't move. It remained in place, refusing to lurch forward.

Hijikata's patience ran thin. He shoved Gintoki's shoulder to get him out of the driver's seat.

"Scoot over, let me try."

Gintoki pushed back a little, unwilling to be manhandled, but eventually submitted and exited the car. He leaned over the open door and watched as Hijikata did the exact same things he had done before: twisted the key back and forth, nudged the steering wheel, pressed the brake pedal and then the accelerator, moved the gear stick around until he felt for the perfect neutral position before stepping on the clutch again; tried every trick in the book to no avail.

"No, I'm telling you, this time it's gone for good." Gintoki said, earning himself a snarl from Hijikata.

"Shut up! We haven't come this far to be fucked in the ass by this rust bucket."

Hijikata's frustration was infectious. Gintoki looked up at the darkening sky and then down at the bloody corpses rotting on the forest floor, envisioning their future. They were in for a miserable night.

"Spot me while I check under the hood." Hijikata said.

He walked to the front of the car and pulled open the hood to check the motor and the battery. Gintoki stood back with a hand near the handle of his blade. When a long time passed without the sound of dragging footsteps or Hijikata's complaints, he drew near Hijikata, brushing shoulders.

"So, how is it?"

"Fine," Hijikata breathed out exasperated, "Looks the same to me."

"Let me check."

Hijikata scoffed at Gintoki's suggestion.

"You didn't even know how to hotwire a car before I met you, what do you think you're gonna do here?"

"You didn't know how to have sex with a guy before you met me, but you still gave it your all, didn't you?"

Hijikata's ears reddened. He gripped the edge of the front bumper, wishing he could trade its smooth surface for Gintoki's neck and squeeze the life out of him along with the smug smile on his face.

"S-Shut up! Those are two totally different things!" Hijikata exclaimed.

"If you say so." Gintoki shrugged. He shut the hood of the car and dusted his hands ceremoniously, "Seeing as we're running out of daylight and there's no decent place to spend the night, I guess we're sleeping in tonight."

Hijikata's expression darkened. His brows furrowed. They had spent nights in the car before. Too cramped and cold to warrant the effort, in his humble opinion. If not for the hungry, mindless wanderers, Hijikata would have preferred to sleep in a bedroll over the rugged forest floor.

"Oi, there's a whole town right there!" he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the path that led back to Nabari.

"You really wanna risk it?" Gintoki asked him, "Besides, according to you, I can't score in a dump."

Hijikata's hands balled into fists.

"You can't score in this piece of junk either!" he exclaimed, cheeks flushed.

"Almost did once."

"Forget it."

Hijikata turned his back and began searching his pockets for a cigarette.

"Oi, we have reasons to celebrate. We got the old man his meds." Gintoki said.

"No way!"

The prospect was too bleak. And Hijikata felt too exposed. The last time they'd slept inside the car had been before the thunderstorm—before they had done anything to acknowledge the gravity pull between them. But the freezing night hours were persuasive enough to change Hijikata's mind.

After sharing their meager rations and pushing the car a few yards away from the rotting corpses and their stench, Gintoki and Hijikata both nestled into their designated seats, which they managed to decided on after two dozen rounds of rock-paper-scissors. Gintoki got the coveted backseat and Hijikata the front passenger's. He pulled the seat lever and leaned back as far as he could, hoping to tread on Gintoki's feet, but the Subaru seemed to work against him, much like the night's chilly temperatures.

His chattering teeth nearly drove Gintoki insane. And, after almost an hour of empty threats which failed to stop his shivering, Gintoki finally acted on more charitable instincts.

"You either join me back here or I'm gonna start jerking off until it gets very uncomfortable for you." he said deadpan.

"Fuck off."

There was no rebuke to be had. Gintoki grabbed Hijikata by the collar and pulled him back until he had a secure hold under Hijikata's arms. Hijikata fussed and kicked to free himself, then one of his elbows bumped into Gintoki's sore shoulder wound and Gintoki's ensuing gasp of pain subdued Hijikata at once. He turned around inside the small space, writhing his long limps like a contortionist, until he was half sat on top of Gintoki.

"This is not the position I had in mind." Gintoki said, hands sliding down Hijikata's back, eliciting a different kind of shiver.

"I told you, you're a bad fucking liar." Hijikata replied, seizing Gintoki's wrists to stop him from reaching lower.

"You're no fun. Hijikata-kun."

"Let me see your shoulder."

"Mother hen."

Gintoki let Hijikata brush his collar aside to check the wound below his shoulder. He didn't react to Hijikata's freezing fingers on his skin. He had his head buried in Hijikata's chest, inhaling the scent of him, too content with the turn of events to care.

"We have enough supplies to bandage it properly again." Hijikata said.

"I don't want to. Just stay like this a little longer."

"Are you five?"

"I'll let you fix it tomorrow." Gintoki grumbled against Hijikata's chest.

Hijikata buried his nose in Gintoki's hair. The tension seeped from his muscles. He let his weight sink into the warm body underneath his. Pressed together, under cover of darkness, Hijikata's eyelids closed of their own accord.

He woke up the next day sorer than expected, but not cold. Gintoki's breaths grazed the exposed skin of his forehead. Hijikata could not untangle from him; in the early daze of sleep, he couldn't tell where his legs ended and Gintoki's started. Only when he shifted and tried to move away from a piece of protruding upholstery did he finally ascertain which limbs were his. The pain enlightened him, as did a second bulge that poked him in the stomach.

"You don't need to ask," Gintoki said in a raspy voice, still foggy from sleep, "I am happy to see you."

Hijikata put a hand over his mouth, silencing him.

"Shut up and get off me."

But Gintoki's eyes were alive and bright in the morning sun. Hijikata saw his own infatuation in them. He froze when Gintoki's hand sneaked past the hem of his shirt. His fingers soft as they brushed against his flushed skin, seeking contact. Then an evil smirk corrupted Gintoki's smoldering look. Hijikata yelped as Gintoki pinched him. The two struggled inside the narrow space of the backseat as Gintoki launched a tickling offensive against Hijikata, and Hijikata fought back, batting Gintoki's fingers away.

They ended up in the same position Hijikata remembered falling asleep in the previous night, though now Gintoki's bulge met his, and they were kissing before Hijikata could process anything further.

Gintoki pulled Hijikata's shirt over his head to trail his lips over the smooth expanse of his chest and nibble at the hollow of his collarbones. The feeling of Gintoki's wet tongue sent shivers down Hijikata's spine. He bucked his hips in response, holding back a moan. Gintoki's running commentary had him gritting his teeth and his cock growing hard.

Hiikata knew it was too late to back down. The faint sunlight illuminated all the places he needed to see. It showed him glimpses of Gintoki's dilated pupils as Gintoki marked the crook of his neck. The sight had Hijikata's heart racing, his chest expanding with feeling. But, when Gintoki's mouth found the necklace dangling from his chest and he grazed the old wedding ring with his tongue, Hijikata was seized by a stab of pleasure so strong he felt his cock twitch.

"B-bastard!"

Gintoki looked up at him with an unreadable expression, ring secure between his teeth. Hijikata undid his own zipper and yanked down his pants, freeing his throbbing cock. Gintoki grabbed it at once, thumb squeezing the tip, dabbing at the leaking pre-cum. And Hijikata rolled his hips, rocking into Gintoki's grasp, seeking the pressure of his fingers—the shots of ecstasy they wrung from him. But Gintoki held him in place. He gave Hijikata's cock a few pumps before letting go.

Hijikata fisted his hair in retaliation.

"The fuck you think you're doing…?" He could barely mouth the words.

Gintoki threw his head back to follow the motion of Hijikata's fist, but he didn't respond. He was busy fiddling with something stored in one of the side pouches of his backpack. Hijikata only realized what it was when he felt cool fingers caress his entrance. His breath hitched. He arched his spine as one slick finger prodded into him. Soon another followed. Gintoki pried him open with his fingers until Hijikata's knees were chafing against the car seat—unable to stop his hips and thighs from moving along the pace of Gintoki's fingers.

"No praise for my smarts, now that I got us that bottle of lube?" Gintoki whispered.

Hijikata had no comment. By the time he'd thought of a clever answer, Gintoki's cock was halfway inside him, stretching him wide. The car jostled as he thrust up without warning. Hijikata buried a groan in his neck. He was still for a few seconds, sat with Gintoki's full length hot inside him. Then he adjusted his straddling position, angling himself; ashamed by how much he wanted it.

"Loose fucking hands." he groaned.

Gintoki stroked Hijikata's lower back with a steady hand, urging him on, yet, gauging by the frown on his face, he was doing all he could not to lose it.

"Tight fucking hole." he replied, brows knitted in concentration.

The car stank with the smell of their sweat. Steam blurred the windows. Hijikata saw Gintoki's parted lips waiting for him. He captured them before he started to move and bit them as the tip of Gintoki's cock hit the sweet spot Hijikata no longer had any control over and wished only to disappear into. His hips moved of their own accord, matching Gintoki's thrusts. Faster and faster. The slippery, wet sensation drove him crazy. It was too easy. He came into Gintoki's steel grip on his cock, sputtered the front of his shirt with his release, and filed away the fact he had been so turned on he had not even allowed Gintoki the time to take off a single piece of his clothes.

Hijikata shut his eyes as the orgasm rocked him over. He slumped against Gintoki with his arms thrown around him and felt his body jerk, inert and spent, while Gintoki pounded into him as he chased his own climax.

"Hurry up and come already," Hijikata moaned by his ear, "Or do you like me so much you don't wanna… let me go? Aah… fuck!"

Gintoki came inside him. Warm, giddy. Hijikata felt the erratic bursts burrow inside him. He shivered, hips bucking.

"Shut up, asshole," Gintoki grunted, slobbering all over Hijikata's shoulder, "What you are to me is my own damn business."

Hijikata dug his fingers into his hair.

"You just take and take."

"Only what you let me."

Gintoki pressed his mouth over Hijikata's shoulder; a trail of kisses that ended at Hijikata's lips.

The sun was pinned to a blue morning sky. After dressing and washing as best they could, they returned to the woes of the real world.

The car would not start. The notion that they would have to return without the Subaru had started to sink the night before. Both Hijikata and Gintoki knew that was a worse alternative than returning the car spoiled, stinking of sweat and sex, and with a few spots on the backseat they had not been able to wash out—probably never would. Still, finished with their bout of passion, the urgency of the situation demanded a solution. In another series of futile attempts, they tried to get the car into motion, until at last they gave up and decided to leave the car by the side of the road where they had pushed the car into the previous night.

However, with Subaru's decommission, a new problem arose. They had too much cargo to carry on foot. It was imperative to find a new ride. They were too far from Jirocho's place to simply pack the meds, all their travel essentials, plus the rest of their rations, and make it. Whatever means of transport available, they needed it. So, for that reason, returning to Nabari became an option again. This time not for shelter, not for staying the night, but to scavenge for a car able to make the journey back.

"Even if we find one with the deposit half full, we can still drive it up here and siphon the rest of ours." Gintoki said as they made their way back down the zigzagging road.

They spent most of their day slithering in and out the outskirts of town, testing whatever cars came their way, evading groups of rotters and checking the pockets of every corpse for car keys. Occasionally Hijikata tried to hotwire a car, but most had their tanks shot empty, or a sophisticate system too compromised to start.

When they finally found a working car, the sun was on its descent. They drove the functioning '02 Toyota back to the Subaru, loaded their haul from the clinic along with extras from the trip into the Toyota's trunk, and after a quick prayer in Jirocho and Pirako's honor, they bade the old Subaru goodbye.

It didn't take long for a new hindrance to come up. The road they had taken to Nabari from the south was cut by a large group of rotters. Often it happened that the car sounds travelled with the wind and beckoned the undead to the places they had passed by. Such was the case now. Roamers had gathered in a big cluster near the last house they had spent the night in. The narrow country road that ran beside was impossible to cross, carved into the hill and flanked by steep retaining walls built decades before to prevent landslides.

Hijikata and Gintoki were forced to turn back and take the northern road closest to the mountain, where the number of stragglers was higher. Rotters stumbled onto the road from the packed mountain forest, remnants of the big horde the Sweepers had summoned to the shrine.

As they drove by a familiar stretch of road, Hijikata didn't need to look at Gintoki to know he had recognized it too. They passed by the car Sarutobi had sabotaged the day she had found them and captured Kagura for a desperate ransom—an attempt to soothe Zenzou's pain and cure the rotting wound in his leg.

"Want to check it out?"

Hijikata's voice was quiet in the silence of the car. Gintoki shook his head. His silver curls masked the expression on his face. The tires of their old car had been slashed. The windows smashed. Calling the horde into the mountain had not been the Sweepers only offense that day. They had also been on the hunt. Following Sarutobi and Zenzou's scent like pack hounds, destroying everything in their path.

"We'll reach those farms first, the way we're going." Gintoki said, examining the map spread over his lap.

"If we're lucky enough not to run out of gas until then."

"Positive thinking, Hijikata-kun. Positive thinking."

When the car died shortly afterward, Hijikata had no qualms. He'd almost expected it. He would have been angrier about it if he hadn't run out of smokes too.

"This has got to be some sort of fucking joke." he grumbled, searching the pockets of his and Gintoki's backpack, "First I got smokes but no antiseptic, now I got the meds but no smokes. Fuck this."

"Funny how the universe balances everything out." Gintoki chuckled.

They were stopped in the middle of the road. Miles and miles of silence stood between them and any semblance of civilization, except the occasional abandoned vehicle on the road.

"If you talked less and helped more, maybe I wouldn't have to reverse-balance shit!" Hijikata replied, stooping over the side of the car.

"Alright, I'll go check that fella over there. You stay here and mope."

Hijikata watched Gintoki walk away towards a car left abandoned a few yards ahead. The road sloped a bit in that direction, but the silvery shine of Gintoki's hair remained in Hijikata's line of sight. A straggler crossed Gintoki's path as he approached the other car but was quickly dispatched.

"Show off." Hijikata muttered.

Quick footsteps snatched the smile off his face. In a flash, everything changed. His gut churned. His heartbeat picked up.

Hijikata turned around, looking for the source of the sound, but the prowler was too fast, too human. The echoes and mute pockets of sound swallowed by the murmuring trees disoriented him.

The road was level with the forest ground where he stood. In the middle of the open road, Hijikata was easy prey. Fearing shots, he ducked behind the car, but the footsteps didn't stop. Hijikata glanced in Gintoki's direction. The silvery shine had disappeared.

Hijikata adjusted his sweaty palms on the handle of his blade. He missed his gun. The security that came when he held it, knowing he'd be able to strike his target from afar. What tools and weapons people scavenged and fashioned for themselves nowadays were made to stave off walking corpses. Not man's age-old enemy. Himself.

Hijikata took a deep breath. There was no other option but to find cover in the trees. Despite being out of gas, he couldn't risk their new car. Whatever or whoever threatened them, if Hijikata and Gintoki managed to contain them—kill them if necessary—they would still need the car. Hijikata couldn't let anything happen to it. Besides, from where he stood, he was as much a target as the car was.

He ran to the side of the road opposite to the source of the footsteps and crouched behind the widest tree trunk he found. Blade unsheathed, he stood still, listening. His eyes darted back and forth across the road, searching for Gintoki and any trace of the threatening presence he'd heard.

The sound of crumbling leaves was soft and practiced. Almost silent. Hijikata was too late detecting it.

The thin edge of a blade accompanied the hard press of a gun muzzle to his side.

"I can hardly believe it," a voice whispered beside his ear, so familiar that Hijikata couldn't pinpoint it. He felt out of kilter, in between realities.

"I won't ever get this lucky again, will I, Hiikata-san?"

Faraway screams startled both Hijikata and his assailant. The blade kissing his neck inched close enough to draw blood. The gun at his side dug deeper.

"There's a horde nesting in this mountain, you should be more careful." Hijikata said.

"Yes, I've been told. We actually came to check it out. See how bad the situation was. Didn't think I'd find you here, though. I thought you were dead."

Hijikata didn't speak. He didn't move.

"Oh, no wait, you are dead," the voice said with relish, "But don't worry, I'll make sure Kondo-san knows."

Hijikata closed his eyes, resigned. No future for him after all. The grim reaper had come. A reminder of his sins—of the things he couldn't have. His last thought was of Gintoki with the damn ring on his tongue, looking up at Hijikata like he hung the moon. He didn't regret it. He couldn't. Going off track hadn't been so bad. For a while he had lived. He had loved again.

Blood spattered Hijikata's cheek. He heard the burst of a gunshot. Then a choking gasp. He saw the blown head of a rotter lay by his feet. Yet, Hijikata was still up. Still standing. He turned around and behind him, Sougo's neck was locked in Gintoki's arms, about to break; his face turned pink, red, then purple as his lungs emptied of air and sought helplessly to supply themselves with more of it.

Sougo's bloodshot eyes locked onto Hijikata with hate, pain and fear. Hijikata regained his voice in time to avert the worst.

"Stop! Don't—!" the despair in his voice stilled Gintoki. The somber look in his eyes cleared. Dark, rotten blood dripped down the blade he held with one hand, while the other remained clutched over Sougo's trembling grip on the gun. The blade Sougo had dug into Gintoki's forearm didn't seem to register.

When Hijikata spoke again, his words cut through the air with unfathomable emotion.

"That's her brother."