the one where goemon shows up

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

Lavender. It assaults his nose, boots up his brain, and the sparks begin a trial run along the wrinkles of his hazy mind. Lavender and soft lines and poison laced tongue. Soft lines and lavender and a perfume as sweet as honey eyes.

Soft lines. His eyes flutter open and the first thing he’s witness to is a face full of wonderful, vaguely familiar [if you can call him the expert of distinguishing pairs; you can’t] breasts. The sound of his sputter drowns out the sweet melody on her lips, the fingers he just noticed [shameful, shameful reflexes] pause mid-stroke of his hair over his [automatically frowning] forehead.

“Ah, look who decided to join us,” comes the melodious sound of an angel’s observation. It takes three series of blinks for the fog to clear his vision and notice that he’s surrounded by white.
He’s never been one for angels, and he doesn’t expect virgins in his haven, that, too, would be shameful to his disciplined soul—But this, oh, this.

“Well?

A waterfall of brown hair tumbles into his eyes as she peers at him, Maria—no, Fujiko Mine.

“I know it isn’t cat that’s got your tongue. Perhaps you could use a little more resuscitation?”

She leans down, lavender cloys in his nostrils once more, and he can practically feel all the hairs on his body stand on end as plush lips brush against his own.

Thanks to the shock and nothing else, Goemon recovers when a perfectly manicured hand trails down to his waist. His synapses lights up with pleasure he knows he’ll only dream of when the drugs wear off, but for now he’s content. Red to the tips of his ears, but content. Licking his lips, he manages,

“How long?” Ah, his throat feels as though fire has coursed through it. Fujiko kindly remedies that with a gentle hand supporting his neck and a cold glass of water.

“About a day and a half. Jigen was beginning to worry, though we both know he won’t admit it.”

Always calm, his girlfriend. His arm hardly feels like his own when he lifts it to trace the worrylines around her mouth, his gaze simultaneously tracing the new bags under her eyes the makeup can’t cover.

His heart stutters on the monitor the moment her hand catches his. She presses kisses to his knuckles, the tips of his fingers, and Gods he wishes he wasn’t so sluggish, that his body could catch up because—

Jigen Daisuke chooses that moment to walk through the door. Immediately he looks as though he wants nothing more than to walk right back out again, and also, to throw Goemon out the window.

“Really,” is all he says, disgust palpable under that hat. Goemon flushes in shame but refuses to say more, not even when Fujiko very much doesn’t drop his hand.

Lupin the Third sweeps into the room like the whirlwind that he is, wild eyes flickering about the room, taking everything in within seconds.

“So did you get it?”

Funny how it takes but five words for the entire moment to shatter like a windowpane.

“Are you fucking kidding me? He nearly died and all you and your stupid pride care about is the loot?” Jigen’s rage quivers in his limbs, burns him to ash the second those words fall from his mouth.

“He isn’t a child. He was paid to do a job, like a professional, or have you forgotten what that’s like for all the days I’ve let you ride my coattails?” Lupin’s a hard case, a body and heart of stone with the facts, always those facts. And it pisses Jigen the fuck off, and he knows it and revels in it. Revels in reminding him just how high the barnyard dog’ll jump these days.

Fists are thrown, knuckles bloodied and mouths cut up with words more than deeds, and the only reason the nurses aren’t called is because Goemon opens his mouth.

“Mother and Father are fighting again.”

As if cold water was poured over them, Jigen and Lupin pull themselves apart. The gunman shuffles a cigarette into his mouth.

“He’s more fucked than we thought.”

Goemon can’t even be embarrassed about it, because what results a moment later is the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. Fujiko giggles, brown eyes twinkling. His heart monitor skips a beat again.

For a moment everything is blessedly sane, even for them. The second best moment is when Lupin and Jigen depart again—still refusing to look at one another – but they’re gone nonetheless. Which leaves the weary warrior to discover just how worried the woman spy-thief-journalist-whoever-this-week was about him.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but does recall her sweet voice in his ear, fingers carding through his hair. Goemon would like to have less of an audience in the future, all this socializing while he’s half unconscious doing wonders for his pride. He’s going to have to train by defeating a shark at this point to get back in shape.

If they had the same idea of going back to the scene of the incident, Lupin and Jigen don’t show it. Only the bullet holes in their clothes and the singed threads of time speak volumes. That and the cat-that-got-the-canary grin that worms its way across Lupin’s mouth.

“You had it all the time,” he decides. Goemon’s pleasantly surprised to find pride directed towards him, not anger, nothing sullen.

“I had it all the time,” The samurai confirms, pawing at the mattress for their prize, only to fall short.

“Oh.”

Jigen and Lupin hang on his every word.

“Oh?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Goemon turns bright red and in that moment all is clear.

Jigen throws his hands up in the air, looks fit to eat his own hat.

“That goddamn woman--! Who even let her in here? I bet it was you, master thief!”

Mouth downturned in a pout, all Lupin has to say is: “She didn’t even give me a kiss goodbye.”
Goemon turns redder still, and a sigh escapes the thief’s mouth.

“So much for avenging you.”

The samurai sits up, wincing as he does so, but the surprise he feels blossom (along with the embarrassment he tries to squash) does wonders. “Avenge…? Did you two return there just for—“

“No one ever said that—aside from this moron! We don’t have to explain ourselves, the job’s done, you just—keep your ass in that bed. Whatever.”

Jigen’s all but thrown himself out of the room, with a chuckling master thief not too far behind.

“You did good. Maybe next time we can work on your disguises, though.”

Goemon isn’t a kid, but that….is good to hear. Of course, when he happens to take a glance out into the hall, he feels a lot more like a kid who’s watching their parents be mushy.

Master thief and master gunman lean into one another, the brim of Jigen’s hat nearly touching Lupin’s forehead. Shoulders slanted toward eachother, like completing the edges of a puzzle first. Jigen, finally fed up with whatever bullshit Lupin’s spouting, grasps the thief by his ears to pull him down for a dizzying headbutt.

The samurai, satisfied in a job well done, settles down for a well earned nap.

“Honestly, it’s enough to make a child worry, all this arguing.”

Ah, he’d just referred to himself as a child again. Dammit.