Chapter Text
“It’s like you don’t even trust me.” Gintoki sighs, starts picking his nose. Toushirou is ashamed to find him attractive. “I have been a competent - no, more than competent, exemplary - police officer for four months and you want to babysit my patrol now of all times?”
“Of course not.” Babysitting Gintoki would be idiotic. “I just had the day off and this is a party district so…”
He pulls a face and Toushirou tries not to flush.
“So you came with me so I could walk you to a cabaret club and then drag your drunken ass home when my shift ends? Maybe you’re not so much of an Oogushi-kun.”
“No!”
He doesn’t want to admit that he just wanted to spend more time with Gintoki. It’s been hard enough ignoring the seeds of attraction in the midst of all the other useless teenage hormones; throwing himself into work appears to have been the only effective method of distraction.
But now Kondou thinks he’s ‘overworking’ himself and has an ‘unhealthy sleeping schedule’. Which is better than admitting too much time to moon over the perm-headed dumbass would definitely cause him to underwork. Plus, the sleeping schedule is his own fault for assigning Gintoki the room next to his and then very rarely kicking him out when he comes over past midnight to lounge on his futon reading Jump!.
Gintoki wipes his snot onto a lamppost as they pass by. It’s disgusting.
Really, his sleep schedule should be worse than Toushirou’s is because at least he knows he’s getting sleep when Gintoki is absent, whereas the other man might be up late every night. The only reason no one else has noticed is because he only takes afternoon and evening patrols and skips morning practice.
(The seppuku threat has proven ineffective and it’s starting to make the rest of the men cocky too.)
An eldery woman waves them down from in front of a closed bar - it is only 4pm. Gintoki grabs his sleeve (is that the same hand he just picked his nose with?) and drags him towards her.
“Gintoki,” what? “Why are you bringing strange men into our district?”
“Dunno, he followed me from the barracks.”
“You’re getting tailed now? Police can’t even trust other police these days…”
Toushirou hits Gintoki upside his nodding head and shoves him to the side. Leaning into his ear - “why did she call you Gintoki? Do you know this woman?”
He has the gall to look confused. “No? Everyone calls me Gintoki. That’s how I introduced myself when I started patrolling here.”
Typically, they would stagger patrol schedules so everyone got an even mix of morning, afternoon and evening patrols all across Edo. However, this district, Kabukicho, had proven difficult to handle. Officers kept returning beaten up and bleeding, keeping up with the arrests paper-work wise broke Kondou’s spirit and Toushirou had needed to step in, and even their best fighters were exhausted from keeping up with all the random scraps that would break out.
Naturally, Matsudaira stepped in and told them to put their strongest member on before the Bakufu made a bigger mess. Rumours of dejected samurai hiding out in Kabukicho were everywhere and any more problems could lead to a district-wide curfew and constant Shinsengumi supervision. It would tank their reputation with the public even further and probably cause more civil unrest.
Putting Gintoki on shift made sense. He’s a capable fighter, especially solo, and looks down-to-earth with all that stupid wavy hair. Ever since he started this patrol, crime went down and arrests plummeted.
Plus, it gave Toushirou a convenient excuse to keep him off of the joi terrorist cases, in which they are still trying to locate Takasugi and Katsura’s after they joined up with the Kaientai four months prior.
“It’s weird! You’re not supposed to be friends with the civilians,” he tries, knowing that pretty much everyone in the Shinsengumi also calls him Gintoki. And Katsura called him Gintoki. The only person who doesn’t is Sougo, who calls him Gin-chan with an impressively realistic wobble in his bottom lip.
Maybe Gintoki can tell what he’s thinking, “you’re jealous, Hijikata-kun? Do you want to call me a cute nickname after we went through all that stuff together?” He throws an arm around his shoulder and leans so they’re cheek-to-cheek.
Yes! “No.”
The old woman has started to look mildly bemused and it’s pissing him off. She could definitely hear their whole conversation, despite Toushirou’s significant attempts to keep it a private police matter by vacating two feet away.
“I get it now,” she smiles, knowing. He can feel his cheeks heat up and he shoves Gintoki away. Gintoki, for his part, seems unaware of her expression.
“What do you want, Gran?” Is he this casual with all the civilians in this district? “We should have a drink if you’re gonna distract me from my job anyway.”
Oh, maybe arrests are down and crime plummeted because Gintoki is too busy day-drinking to report any of it. He grabs his stupid curls and tugs him down, so he’s forced to bow, else have the hair torn out.
Toushirou bows as well, apologetically. “I am sorry to have left your district in the care of this idiot. I will have him commit seppuku immediately.”
“Fine, stop pulling my hair and I’ll gut myself, ow ow, come on, Hijikata-kun~ I don’t wanna go bald before the open casket -”
He lets up, mostly because the old woman looks even more amused than before. Perhaps he is also being unprofessional, but Gintoki is so irritating it just sets off something in him.
“He’s doing a much better job than those pansies you had before. They swung their swords around so much I thought they might kill some poor drunken madao for trying to cross the street, just because he bumped into them on the way.” She looks very deliberately at Gintoki, who is still whining about his hair. “ This pansy at least knows the difference between a fool and a threat.”
“Probably because he’s a fool in the head and a threat to my peace of mind.” She laughs and Toushirou feels a tug at his lips too. Maybe Gintoki is decent at taking the edge off in tense situations.
“Anyway, listen up,” the old woman snaps her fingers in front of Gintoki’s nose and he finally starts paying attention. “I need to make a police report.”
Now he actually stands up straight, like this is serious. Toushirou follows his lead, even though he’s supposed to be the superior officer here.
“One of the dojos around here, Shimura’s, is being threatened by the Kada Casino chain. Some new amanto in town thinks she can take over the place, and while we’re dealing with it ourselves -” she bites her lip, eyes darting toward her bar and then over to Gintoki “- the Yakuza can only do so much to protect us.”
Of course this place uses the Yakuza for crime fighting. That has not come up in any of the reports Gintoki has been leaving in unhelpfully obscure places around the headquarters, like he wants to watch Toushirou struggle.
“You want me to go beat the enforcers up?” The word is ‘arrest’. They are police officers and they are not supposed to act like two-bit thugs with decent moral codes.
‘I’m acting like a samurai!’ he would say, if Toushirou brought that up. He has no idea what kind of bushido Gintoki was taught in his secret tragic backstory, but he gets the feeling he wasn’t ever taught a proper sense of responsibility.
Unless the stakes are supremely high, maybe. He still doesn’t know what Takasugi and Katsura wanted from him.
The old woman looks affronted. “I would never send a teenager to fight what the yakuza can handle fine on their own. You should stick to your little patrol route and wave at the cabaret girls; act your age consistently, goddamnit.”
“I’ll have you know 18 is perfectly adult and I am more than capable of beating the snot out of some loser enforcers with too much time on their hands.” As if to demonstrate his snot point, Gintoki sticks his finger up his nose again.
Toushirou sighs. “What he means to say, ma’am, is that this is our job. If you’re worried about the Shimura dojo we can stake out and arrest anyone who comes to threaten them.”
He’s had a soft spot for dojos ever since Kondou took him into his. That’s probably why the new criminal ring is targeting them, actually - so they don’t have to deal with wannabe samurai bugging them later on. That implies that this amanto plans to stick around for a while, which could prove problematic for the district.
“It’s not about your capability; I can’t believe the government ever let kids run around in uniforms just asking for old war vets to take their anger out on them.”
“You could join the war as young as twelve,” Gintoki cuts in, thoughtfully. He doesn’t elaborate and Toushirou wonders why he brought it up. The idea of there being joi out there younger than they are is uncomfortable, though.
The woman looks a bit sad and he wants to know why, but she keeps her eyes on Gintoki. “I just want you to go see the kids, nothing dramatic. Their father is quite sickly and the yakuza aren’t all that comforting a presence. Let them play with your sword and look at your police badge and I’m sure it’ll brighten them up.”
It’s not really a job for the Shinsengumi. They could take the kids into protective custody or arrest the problem until it stops showing up to harass their father, but going over just to give them a pep talk? Seems a bit pointless if the yakuza are still going to pummel the enforcers.
But Gintoki agrees and Toushirou is technically off duty right now, so they might as well go.
~~~
He’s always been very bad with kids. It might be a symptom of being the younger sibling or having dealt with Sougo’s ever intensifying murder attempts, but they make him uncomfortable.
He’d assumed Gintoki would be in the same boat.
“Hi. I’m Gin-chan, this is Hijikata-kun. We’re samurai here to teach you how to fight the men who’ve been threatening your father.” He walks in before either of the kids have a chance to react, both of them hiding behind the front door and clearing an easy path in.
“They’re children!” Toushirou hisses, not quietly. “You shouldn’t encourage them to fight people.”
Gintoki is unconcerned and kneels down in front of the kids. There is a girl and a boy, both about Sougo’s age though the boy looks younger. His eyes are watery behind his glasses but he’s staring up at Gintoki, mesmerised nonetheless.
“You’re a samurai?” The girl asks, coming out in front of her brother. “Daddy said we’re not allowed to be samurai anymore.”
“Eh, samurai is more of a gut feeling than a profession you can be fired from.” Gintoki explains casually. “Like when you drink too much you feel drunk, right? But you’re still a no-good alcoholic when you’re throwing it all up the next morning, even though you don’t feel drunk anymore.”
“That doesn’t make sense, idiot, what are you teaching them?” Inadvertently, this brings the kids’ attention to him. “Uh, hi. We’re also police officers”
“Don’t say that, no kids want to be police officers these days. They’re all power-hungry, lazy, self-absorbed -”
“ We’re police officers! Stop insulting me and yourself, please.” He hits him upside the head and the girl clenches her fists as if to punch him.
Gintoki points - “see, you’re the one teaching them bad things. She just watched you hit me so now she is going to hit you. It’s karma.”
It’s hard to argue when, yes, that is the sequence of events that just occurred. It’s annoying so he hits him again (the damage to the young, impressionable minds is already done).
“Gin-chan?” The boy says, tugging on the bottom of Gintoki’s jacket. Toushirou is surprised he’s wearing it for once, instead of tying it around his waist. “Is that a real sword?”
Against obvious better judgement, Gintoki passes the very real and exceedingly sharp sword over to the small child. He leaves it in the sheathe, which is immediately taken off after it’s passed over. The kids smile for the first time since they showed up, and being from a dojo they at least seem to have the brains not to put it in their mouths or lick it or whatever .
“They’re definitely past the putting things in their mouth stage,” Gintoki whispers, actually quietly this time, “they’ll re-enter it when they’re sixteen or so though, buying lewd magazines and telling their parents ‘it’s just an anime, you just walked in at the wrong moment!’ when they’re with -”
“Shut up,” then he considers, “are you saying you had a putting-things-in-your-mouth stage? What did you..?”
He smirks and leans further into Toushirou’s space, “curious, Hijikata-kun?”
Unfortunately, there are children in the room.
“Your police badge.” The girl demands, holding out her hand. She’s authoritative enough that he hands it over.
She squints. “Vice-chief?” She looks at Gintoki, “are you the chief then?”
“I’m vice-vice-chief. His chief is a Gorilla but he’s my chief because I’m vice-vice, see? It’s all very simple.” It’s obviously not but the children are quickly distracted by the sword again, so whatever.
They leave them after another ten minutes. He assumes this is what the old woman wanted - to get their minds off the threats to their dojo and remind them that there are nice people with swords protecting them as well as criminals.
Gintoki grabs his wrist as they go into the street and starts pulling him toward a cafe. For ice cream, because his shift just ended even though Toushirou witnessed very little patrolling. But the owner greets him warmly and the waitress addresses him by name, and maybe this place doesn’t want regular police around.
~~~
Even though he’s been told explicitly to let the yakuza deal with the amanto criminals, Toushirou still feels the need to investigate Kada.
He doesn’t tell Gintoki because he seems perfectly happy hanging out in Kabukicho and not worrying about organised crime or drug dealing and he would quite like to keep it that way.
The Kada gambling ring is actually owned by Kujaku Hime Kada, of the Shinra Tribe. She’s a captain of the Harusame Space Pirates by all accounts, though that is not a crime on Earth so there’s nothing to be done about it. Everything about her casinos is by-the-book and she has all the work permits for all of her lackeys up to date - no one has even filed a complaint about how they conduct their business.
“Yamazaki,” he calls, because he knows the other man has been hiding outside his office for the last five minutes. His report is late. “Go tail Kada in Kabukicho. Get some dirt on her so I can open an investigation.”
“Isn’t that a bit…” Dishonourable? Scummy? It’s not illegal, and if Gintoki is going to play nice thug samurai then he’ll be the ruthless demon cop.
“Do you have a problem?”
Yamazaki yelps and raises his hands - “no, no, of course not, vice-chief. I’ll start tomorrow.”
“Tonight.” He corrects.
“But it’s past 11 and I’m -”
“Criminals commit crimes at night, Yamazaki. No one is getting up early to break the law when they could stay in bed and avoid the cops.” Gintoki said that to him when he first complained about him skipping morning shifts. He doesn’t agree but Yamazaki is annoying so he’ll make his life harder.
Two hours later it proves pointless.
His phone rings as he’s just about done with Kondou’s and Gintoki’s missed paperwork. He’d been hoping tonight would be one of Gintoki’s visits, so at least he could have company (albeit annoying company) while he struggles through the bureaucracy of policing. It takes so long and he still feels so new to this, but at least his rigour means there aren’t too many mistakes.
He answers the phone, not really sure who to expect. Yamazaki is breathless on the other side of the line.
“Vice-chief! The casino - a battle -” it’s hard to understand him, he’s talking so fast and Toushirou’s brain was in quiet, paperwork mode up until a second ago. “Ambulances should be - Gintoki-san is -”
“Gintoki?” He focuses because that name should not be coming out of Yamazaki’s mouth right now.
“He’s, uh, arrested. Sir.”
~~~
Because Gintoki is his assistant (vice-vice-chief) and he’s the one who ordered Yamazaki to look into Kada, he chooses to get Gintoki unarrested as soon as he sees him handcuffed at the hospital.
He’s covered in blood and at least one cut on his forehead appears to be dripping his own blood, but he’s not in Shinsengumi attire. It’s actually one of Toushirou’s yukatas on his back, from when he leant him clothes after he escaped however many months of torture. It’s dark so the red is harder to see, but it’s definitely there and there will be more once he’s done with the idiot.
At the very least, Gintoki looks apologetic. When he sees Toushirou marching toward him he hangs his head and lets him have the first word.
“Are you hurt?” Is that unfortunate first word, because as much as he wants to kill the idiot for whatever mess he’s caused that has the local police force in such a twist, he must be in a hospital instead of a jail cell for a reason.
“Minorly stabbed,” he reveals, lifting his top enough for Toushirou to see a wad of white gauze with a lot of blood coming through from the other side. Which is where Gintoki’s organs are. “The spleen? Doc’s gonna stitch me up in a minute but the ‘victims’ take priority.”
He doesn’t appear to be dying. “What did you do?! All I got from Yamazaki was a fight at Kada’s and you were arrested; did you storm the place alone, off-duty and without permission? You wouldn’t, you’re not that dumb.”
Gintoki smiles thinly and it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“That’s a crime you just committed. They haven’t done anything provably illegal so you can’t charge in and murder them. Do you want to go to prison?”
He flinches but then composes himself. Toushirou doesn’t ask. “I didn’t murder them - I didn’t even unsheathe my sword. At worst I’m looking at a few dozen counts of assault and some property damage.”
It’s pointless to ask how he caused this much damage with a sheathed sword. He’s seen Gintoki fight in training (has fought him, in fact) and he’s good, better than all of them, but he’s never really gone all out. Sougo keeps asking him to, probably as another murder attempt on him. Gintoki always says that there’s no point if there’s not a real fight, nothing to protect.
“You wanted to help those kids?” He asks.
“I’m not going to apologise. You can do that for me, if you must.”
The doctor shows up and, since Toushirou has uncuffed Gintoki, looks slightly worried. She still agrees to provide medical attention, though.
He has to make several calls, meanwhile. First he orders a complete search of the casino, since it’s a crime scene now and he outranks all the other police officers. Next, tells Yamazaki to figure out if Kada herself is one of the injured parties or if she is elsewhere, and to set up an interview with her no matter what. Then he leaves Matsudaira a voicemail, because trying to get through to him at this time of night would definitely get him shot.
Miraculously, four hours later with Toushirou still pacing in the waiting room (not because he’s worried, because he has to escort his criminal assistant back to the barracks since he got him released) they get good news. There were drugs in Kada’s basement and she has left the planet, making her a fugitive.
It won’t be hard to write off Gintoki’s attack as warranted action against a known space pirate invading an Edo district and selling drugs. No one is dead, excessive force against amanto is understandable, because who knows how sturdy they are? It’s not like Gintoki is unscathed either.
Toushirou tries not to sound too obviously relieved on the phone to Yamazaki. Tells him to write up his report and that he’ll write up his own, and have Gintoki give a statement.
He’s also not letting the idiot out of his sight anytime soon. This could’ve gotten him fired and Gintoki imprisoned - vice-vice-chief his ass he can be an actual assistant and play desk duty until there’s not even a whisper of a scar on his abdomen.