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Odd Jobs Crack

A Gintama thingy

by

EvilFuzzy9

A/N: I've been sorta sleepy the past few days. This may or may not have affected the quality of this chapter, but I can't tell for sure, due to aforementioned sleepiness.

Gintoki Sakata's head hurt. It was throbbing and pounding like nobody's business. The pain was intense, so much so that he could not sleep. He didn't want to get up, though. Not when he was this hungover.

Gin felt like shit, to put it bluntly. His senses were presently all too... well, sensitive, for his tastes. The faint scritch-swish of Tama sweeping downstairs was like nails-on-chalkboard to the man's ears, and he could probably count the number of threads in his clothes just going by what was touching his skin. Furthermore, his room was too damn bright, light searing his retinas even through his tightly shut eyelids.

Gin groaned. He did not want to get up, no. Honestly, all he wanted to do was lie on his futon and wait for his misery to end. But his body would not let him. It was feeling the call of nature, and feeling it bad.

The silver-haired ex-Joi sighed. While he was in no mood to get up – even to go to the bathroom – he was in even less of a mood to run his pants and futon through the wash, which he would need to do if he did not get up and go now.

'Dammit...' Gin thought blearily, rolling out of bed and getting to his feet. 'I shouldn'a drank so much last night...'

Before he could walk to the bathroom however, he was startled by a loud CRASH outside. He nearly jumped out of his skin in fright, the rusty gears of his sleepy, hungover mind screeching dreadfully as two-something decades of combat experience immediately kicked in, his body going into fight-or-flight mode.

When nothing further happened after a minute or two of anxious vigilance, Gin tentatively relaxed. As the adrenaline was filtered out of his system, the hangover and drowsiness – which had been shunted aside by the rush of panic – returned with a vengeance, and he nearly collapsed right there.

"Ugh..." he grunted, feeling like someone had just stabbed a red-hot horseshoe nail through his skull (a sensation with which he was regrettably familiar). His trousers were suspiciously warm, and he no longer felt any pressure in his bladder.

"Goddammit," Gin sighed longsufferingly. "Seriously? I'm too old to be doing this..." he grumbled. He then paused, a thoughtful expression on his face even as he turned about-face and headed to his closet. He furrowed his brow, frowning. "...or is it 'too young'...?" he wondered idly, before shaking his head. "Well, whatever..."

He then clutched his forehead as a pang went through it, grimacing at the taste of bile on the back of his tongue. "Geez..." he muttered under his breath, "...the hell was that, anyways...? Did a car crash outside, or something...?"

As he pondered the mystery of that noise, Gin gathered up a clean change of clothes before heading to the bathroom to clean off.

... ... ... ... ...

Back at the dojo, Shinpachi fell to his knees with a grimace, panting heavily. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his arms were trembling from overexertion.

"I win, aru," Kagura said smugly, the tip of her waster mere centimeters from Shinpachi's face.

"Haa... Haaa... So you did..." panted Shinpachi, smiling weakly. "But... I think... I did pretty good..."

Kagura stuck her tongue out at him. "Not good enough," she taunted childishly, pulling down the bottom of one eyelid, "I rule, and you drool, aru~"

Shinpachi grit his teeth, one of his eyes twitching. 'What a brat,' he thought irritably. 'Even if she's cute on the outside, she's still as ugly as ever on the inside...'

He got to his feet with a grimace, wincing as his sore joints protested this sudden movement. The training sword was clutched limply in his hand, which was slick with sweat.

"Well, I think that's enough sparring for today..." he said slowly, deciding not to rise to Kagura's bait.

"Oh?" came his sister's voice. "Is that so, Shin-chan? But you were doing so well."

Shinpachi and Kagura blinked in unison.

"Ane-ue!?" exclaimed the former, startled by the sudden appearance of his elder sister. "When did you get here?"

Otae, standing in the doorway, inclined her head and smiled.

"Just now," she said cheerfully. "But I think I saw enough..."

Kagura beamed, running up and glomping Tae. "I kicked his ass, Ane-go!" she bragged, despite this not being much of a feat at all for someone of her strength. "Shinpachi didn't stand a chance, aru!"

Shinpachi sweatdropped at this, but Otae smiled indulgently.

"That's nice, Kagura-chan," said the elder Shimura sibling as she affectionately ruffled the younger girl's hair. Her tone then changed ever so subtly. "However..." she said slowly, "...Do you really think sparring was such a good idea, in his condition...?"

Kagura blinked, a slight shiver running down her spine. She was not unacquainted with that tone in Otae's voice, but this was the first time she could remember it being directed at her. The older girl was usually very lenient with Kagura, who admired her considerably, but it seemed that blood, at least in this case, was indeed thicker than water, as Kagura could feel the weight of Otae's ire bearing down upon her.

Knowing how things usually went for the objects of the Shimura daughter's wrath, Kagura did what anyone would have done in her position.

"It was his idea!" the Yato girl declared, pointing the finger at Shinpachi, shamelessly selling him out in the blink of an eye. "Shinpachi made me do it, aru!"

Shinpachi throat went dry when he heard that, and his spine froze up when he felt his beloved (but terrifying) elder sister level a dangerous look in his direction.

"Ohhh? Is that so...?" Otae said in a low, dangerous voice.

Shinpachi gulped nervously as he saw his sister begin slowly, ominously, walking towards him. Faced with the legendary wrath of Tae Shimura, there was only one recourse.

Run like a coward.

And he did, Kagura quickly joining him in his desperate flight. This was no time for petty squabbling, after all. Their lives were seriously on the line – neither one held any illusions that Otae, bear-shirted as she was, would make any distinctions between them.

So they ran.

TTFN and R&R!

translation notes:

"bear-shirted" - "berserk"; not a translation, per se, but rather a turn of phrase I made up on the spot.