Fic: The Barbless Hook, Jin/Mugen, NC-17

Title: The Barbless Hook
Author: lynnmonster
Fandom: Samurai Champloo
Pairing: Jin/Mugen
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 8000+
A/N: This Jin is post-series, rather aimless, and somewhat disillusioned. He's not quite the same Jin we saw during the course of the show -- but then, he's had something and now has had time to feel its lack, so I think that although he's a bit different, he's not entirely out of character here. Mugen has changed, as well; he evolves during the series, and I like to think he continues to grow up a bit even afterward. (Feel free to send any complaints my way at lynnmonster (at) gmail.com if you don't want to discuss it here.)

Anyway! Many thanks to lyra_sena and shayheyred for audiencing and suggestions. Extra thanks to Shay for the speedy beta. And happy extremely belated birthday, misspamela! (Hopefully the next time I promise you something, it won't take me more than six months to deliver!)


Jin handed his charge into her cabin, fending off her fluttering, thinly veiled invitation to "join her for a game of shoji" with a sigh. He moved to the spot opposite her door he'd claimed as his own and turned to spending his time constructively, polishing his katana with care. The repetitive motions were soothing, and his sword caught the red light of sunset in a pleasing manner.

Too bad the rest of his days were so damn boring.

***

The noblewoman who had hired him as a bodyguard had finally debarked at the last port. What on earth she thought she'd need a skilled guard for on shipboard had baffled Jin when he'd accepted the commission, not realizing that she'd wanted male company, not fighting prowess. It had taken all of his will to continually dodge her invitations without causing offense.

Jin had paid his own money -- almost half his salary -- to stay on board until the next stop, just to put further distance between them. He wondered sourly if he could buy a deck of cards or something with the rest.

***

"Sure you don't want a little sake before bed? It's not often we get someone as ... skilled ... as you on board," said the quartermaster with a leer full of gold teeth and bad breath.

Honestly, the sailors were more persistent than that woman had been. At least Jin didn't have to play nice with them, so he just said, "no" -- again -- and went back to his room. His tiny little room. Where there was nothing to do except stare out the tiny little window at the waves, which all looked the same, and polish his katana, which already gleamed more brightly and uselessly than it ever had.

***

They had fish again for dinner for the tenth night running.

Jin was beginning to hate the taste of it. Even so, he tried helping the other men out with fishing off the sides of the ship, just to ease the boredom. But he never caught one, not even once. He rarely got so much as a passing nibble. It made him the butt of many jokes, and while he didn't care about that, it was frustrating -- why could he never do this? He remembered that even Fuu had been better at fishing than he was.

Jin could catch a pouch of gold but apparently not anything living, not even an eel in a stupid container, and so one evening he returned the spare set of poles to their place in storage and didn't take them out again.

***

Jin woke up. He really didn't have any reason to get out of bed.

A kite floats
At the place in the sky
Where it floated yesterday.

He thought he remembered some Basho, too:

Spring departs.
Birds cry
Fishes' eyes are filled with tears

That one was pretty good, even if it did mention fish. Now, what was the one about the rabbit...?

Jin spent an entire day reciting as many poems to himself as he could recall. It was the most exciting time he'd had in ages.

***

The wind raged and water came leaking with alarming force through cracks in the shutter covering the tiny window as everything stilled and then lurched wildly downward. Anything that wasn't nailed down in his cabin rolled or slid in one direction, then rolled or slid back the way it had come a moment later. Ominous creaking came from all sides, and it sounded like the ship was going to shake itself apart -- that is, if they didn't simply sink to the bottom of the ocean first.

He took it all back. Boats were not boring. Boats were terrifying and boring.

Jin swallowed the sour taste in the back of his throat and wondered if this would be considered sufficient reason to commit an honorable suicide. Even though he probably wasn't going to make it out of this alive, he really had his heart set on dying by the sword. Preferably before he wound up covered in his own vomit.


***

After days of bad weather, Jin was finally walking the deck, trying to at least stretch out his muscles. It was dull and frustrating -- hardly constructive exercise -- but every time he pulled out his katana to practice, some puffed-up sailor would try to challenge him. It went against Jin's nature to throw any sort of match, and he figured the captain would frown on any actual killing of his crew, so both sparring and practicing were out.

The wooden planking suddenly juddered beneath his bare feet, and his head snapped upward to scan the sky for signs of another storm. The sky only showed the same puffy clouds and bright sun as it had when he'd come above decks, but there was an inhumanly loud boom, a billow of acrid smoke, and the ship shook again.

A spout of flame erupted from somewhere near the bow, but Jin's gaze was caught by the glint of a metal hook as it flew over the side of the boat and landed with a thunk. More grapples appeared over the side, soon followed by the heads of the most unruly-looking pirates he had ever seen.

The rope closest to Jin swayed with the movement of its climber. He could have sliced clean through it with little effort, of course, but that would deprive him of a possible fight. Perhaps it was disloyal, but he wasn't guarding anyone on the boat, he was a paying customer, and if Jin had learned anything in the last two months, it was that at sea, you learned to take your entertainment wherever you could find it.

He tensed in anticipation as two sets of fingers curled over the top of the gunwale. Jin slid his katana noiselessly free of its sheath. A wild head of hair, riddled with beads and trinkets, crowned an evil-looking face with a truly disreputable grin that appeared as the invader finally crested the side of the ship.

The tip of Jin's sword dropped a fraction of an inch, he was so shocked.

"Mugen?"

"Jin?"

Jin mourned the loss of a decent battle even as he rushed the invading rascal and practically toppled them both overboard with his greeting. Inexplicably, he found himself clutching Mugen's upper arms, keeping him still, just breathing in his presence and the smells of sweat, salt, sea, and sun, which suddenly seemed to be much better things than they were five minutes ago.

Even more inexplicably, rather than trying to get him to fight, Mugen seemed to be clutching him back.

There was more pounding as the crew raced onto the deck, and more shouting and clanking as the pirates swarmed aboard and attacked, and more smoke and another big boom that shook their floating wooden world again. Jin took a reluctant step back.

"So, ah ... pirate?"

Mugen shrugged. "Eh. Easiest thing to do. You?"

"Bodyguard, for a while. Not any more, though." Jin glanced to the side as a pair of fighters drew near them. He probably ought to join in on the side of the crew, but he just didn't want to. An irritated breath escaped him. Mugen looked at him with a suspiciously merry glint in his eyes. "What?" he snapped, annoyed at being caught in such a selfish moment.

"Nothing," said Mugen, and Jin almost believed him. "These guys suck, though. Look at that guy--" Mugen pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "No style. These yo-yos have no idea what they're doing, your guys should all be dead or captured by now. Amateurs." Mugen scratched his chin and pouted a little.

"They're not 'my guys'," said Jin with a snort. "They're hopeless and rude and I'm not sure that they're even very good sailors."

Mugen ... well, Mugen beamed. "I have an idea."

Jin only smiled back on the inside, but Mugen could obviously tell. They whirled to either side and started to attack.

***

Jin killed pirates, exclusively. Mugen took out the crew and any of the pirates he didn't feel like leaving for Jin. There weren't any other passengers, thankfully, so Jin's conscience was serene and he felt better than he had in months as they surveyed the corpse-littered deck. A sense of rightness and purpose gripped him for the first time since ... well, for the first time in a long while. Probably for the first time since they'd all gone their separate ways. Certainly for the first time since long before he'd lowered himself to become a bodyguard-for-hire to some of the most difficult, pompous clients he'd ever ... wait, there was something in that thought, what was ... oh, pompous. Remembering something useful, he cut off his idle musings and quickly headed down to the area where the cabins were.

***

It looked like the captain would probably finish dying in a minute or two, but for the moment he was still sputtering up pink froth and generally making a mess where he was sprawled on the deck in front of his quarters, a pirate's blade still in his chest. Jin took a moment for mercy and gave him a quick, clean ending before breaking down the locked door. The clatter summoned Mugen, whose shaggy head suddenly appeared in silhouette, peering down from the bright daylight above the ladder into the dimness below.

"Captain's quarters," Jin explained shortly, and Mugen grunted and dropped down, disdaining the ladder and landing on his feet. He didn't even spare Jin a glance as he strode into the well-appointed room, heading straight for the storage cabinet and dumping out the drawers onto the floor, rooting through the contents to look for anything of value.

"Barbarian," observed Jin. At a sedate pace, he crossed to the wall above the captain's luxurious bunk, and lifted the rather unfortunate seascape hanging above it off the wall. The captain had been glad to brag of his secret cache to someone who would understand, and since by that point, Jin recalled, he had been desperate for any type of distraction at all, he'd been happy to listen. Now he was doubly glad he'd bothered to give the rather vainglorious man a clean death, since his friendly bragging had turned into a real opportunity for Jin. He pulled out the loose planking and tossed the boards onto the bedcovers and searched underneath the cot until he found the long gaff he was looking for strapped underneath the far side. He stuck the pole through the gap in the wall and moved it about slowly until the barb on the end caught on something.

"What are you doing?"

Jin ignored Mugen and pulled the pole up cautiously hand over hand, careful not to drop the prize at the end. When he finally neared the end of the pole, he was able to grab onto the handle of the case he'd fished out and toss the long hook on the mattress next to the boards.

"What's that?" Mugen asked, by that point practically pressed up against Jin, leaning over his shoulder and almost vibrating with curiosity.

He'd see soon enough, if Jin could ever get the dratted case open. After a moment of uncharacteristic fumbling, Jin freed the catches and tipped the lid back. A dull glow seemed to emanate from within as the gilding on the wooden sculpture captured what little light was in the cabin and reflected it back at them. Jin regarded the piece with satisfaction -- its true worth wasn't in the gold that decorated the figurine, but in the value that the right collector would place upon it.

"Holy shit," breathed Mugen, in a rare moment of reverence. He stood in silence for a moment. "Hey, I wonder if he's got more stuff like that?" and just like that, he backed off and went back to pawing through the dead man's belongings.

Jin fought with the clasps on the case again, this time wrestling with them until they were securely closed. He wasn't particularly interested in anything else the cabin might hold.

"Hey, what's this?" demanded Mugen, holding up a complicated-looking bit of metal.

"Sextant," replied Jin.

"You wanna what, now?" Mugen asked, a rather charmingly confused expression pulling his facial features in all sorts of unusual directions.

"Never mind," Jin sighed. "Just bring it. Your captain can use it, or we can sell it to another ship for a lot of money, I'm sure. It's very well-made." Mugen added it to his impromptu bag of loot, constructed out of a cushion cover with the stuffing removed.

Mugen draped the sack over his shoulder. "Well, I'm kind of my own captain now, after ... you know," he explained, waving his free arm in the general direction of the deck above them.

So am I, thought Jin, finally.

***

Mugen led Jin to the best of the little dinghies that the pirates had used to row over, and showed him how to work the oars. "Okay, you've got two options. You can row out to that little island we were hiding behind, but there's not much there. You might live until another ship comes this way, though, especially if anyone comes looking for the one you were on before."

"What's the other option?" Jin asked.

"Come back with me and we'll show my old crew who the new boss is."

"I'll do that, then," Jin said firmly. Mugen punched him in the shoulder -- hard -- and cackled as Jin took first shift at the oars.

***

By the time they got back to the pirates' ship, it was dark. They were met by the suspicious glowers of the few men who had stayed behind, ominously lit by flickering torchlight.

"Yo! Send down a rope!" Mugen shouted up, standing tall in their little boat, which rocked rather alarmingly as Mugen shifted his weight.

"Where are the others?" asked one man.

"Dead," Mugen stated baldly. The men's expressions darkened further. "It couldn't be helped, but at least we got some loot," Mugen held up his pillowcase, which gave a satisfactory-sounding rattle, and pointed to the cashbox and weapons lying on the floor of the dinghy.

Ropes were promptly lowered down to them.

"Convincing argument," Jin commented quietly.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," Mugen whispered back. "I've got another idea."

Jin kept his silence. Having decisively thrown his lot in with Mugen, and being completely ignorant of piratical politics, he trusted Mugen to handle things and held his tongue. (He tried not to feel disloyal as he braced himself for more fighting, and tried not to think about the ramifications of how much he welcomed the opportunity.)

Once they'd climbed aboard, a fierce-looking man twice the width of either of them demanded, "Who's the stranger?"

"He's my partner," Mugen informed him, in a voice that dared anyone to disagree. "And I'm your new captain, which makes him your new captain. Er. Almost."

A low murmur of discontent followed this statement.

"Look, this outfit was always pretty bullshit, but I didn't say nothing about it because Ryosuke was an okay guy. But he had crap ideas -- why else do you think everyone got killed? -- and mine are better. Plus, I've been raiding ships since before half of you were born. We're gonna go for a couple of big prizes. Really big. But if you want the score, we do things my way."

"What big prizes? None of us have heard of anything big, and we'd know," someone said.

"You do know, you just never thought of it." Mugen turned to Jin and gave him a wild grin, looping his arm around Jin's shoulders and shaking him slightly. "Even honor-boy here won't object to this little bit of mayhem."

Jin hated to admit it, but everybody was hanging off of Mugen's every word, himself included.

"We're going after other pirates," Mugen annouced, "when they're bloated and rich and tired from raiding other ships. No officials chasing after us. Big hauls. Not a lot of work. Any objections?"

Nobody had any. Ryukyu Islanders were nothing if not practical.

Jin was just surprised Mugen had two ideas in one day.

***

It turned out that Mugen hadn't had two ideas in one day, after all. Mugen had thought up the pirate-pirating plan a long time ago, which Jin only discovered by accident.

After the confrontation on deck, Mugen had immediately installed himself in the ex-captain's room. It wasn't much different than any of the others, but Jin understood the motivation. It had a cracked mirror, of all things, attached to one wall, and a little more space, but -- most importantly -- it was acknowledged as the place where the leader stayed, so stay there Mugen would.

Jin claimed the adjacent cabin, but he had few possessions and little desire for solitude after the past few months of nothing but social minefields and isolation. When he poked his head next door, he caught Mugen posing in front of the mirror. A glass-covered lantern nearby provided illumination.

"Impressive," he said drily.

"Shut up," said Mugen without any heat.

Jin took that as the invitation it actually was and sat on the floor near Mugen. He looked around at nothing much in particular, at a loss as to why he wasn't at all uncomfortable with his strange new situation.

"I'll fight alongside all of you, of course," he eventually said. "I was wondering what you would expect me to do here, since I'm no pirate, but ... I can certainly kill the kind of men who attack innocents."

"Yeah, I know. Why else do you think I suggested you come back with me?" Mugen was inspecting the contents of his nostrils in the mirror now, and was pretty distracted by whatever he'd found. "Can't believe I finally found you after I'd figured that one out," he chuckled, obviously not realizing how much he was giving away.

So, Mugen hadn't forgotten about him. Jin hadn't forgotten about Mugen, either. Sometimes the memories of Fuu and Mugen and all the trouble the three of them had gotten into together were all that kept him from going stir-crazy, so those memories had been taken out and run over again and again, until they were polished and smooth and gleaming, like stones shaped by water. He knew the weight and shape of each, and the ones involving Mugen shone the brightest of all.

He hadn't done anything to change his life, though, empty as it had been in comparison. Not until Mugen reappeared.

Jin snorted, somewhat disgusted with himself for having drifted along directionlessly for so long, and Mugen turned to look at him questioningly. Standing there in the orange glow of the lantern, Mugen looked more than just simply disreputable. He resembled nothing so much as some demon out of myth, it was true, but from the bones and trinkets in his hair to the tattoos around his ankles, Jin didn't think he'd ever encountered anyone so incredibly vivid.

"It's nothing," Jin said, determined not to be so aimless ever again. "Now show me how to do that to my hair."

***

"No, no, no!" Mugen said. "You cross the other end over -- in front, yeah -- and then pull the other one -- the other other one -- jeez, you're hopeless." He knelt behind Jin and took the hank of divided hair out of Jin's hand. "Now watch," he said, pointing his chin at the reflection of the two of them in the mirror.

Jin did watch, as Mugen's quick fingers took the disorganized tangle and turned it into an even row of woven ridges. Jin got the concept, now, but he didn't interrupt Mugen's concentration to tell him to stop. Mugen's brow was wrinkled, and his lower lip jutted out slightly, gleaming damply in the warm lamplight. After an extended but comfortable period of industrious silence, intruded upon only by the creaking noises of a ship at night, Mugen's expression finally relaxed. He produced something from his pocket with a flourish, swiftly tying it to the end of Jin's new braid.

"Now it's perfect."

Jin pulled his gaze away from their reflections to pick up the end of the braid and inspect the bauble hanging from his hair. It was a tiny oval shell, smoky blue in color, with a hole drilled through the top. Exactly the type of thing he would have chosen, ideally, although he probably never would have thought of such a thing. Something lurched pleasantly in Jin's gut.

"What do you think?" asked Mugen, in a gust of hot, damp breath against Jin's ear. It was animal and warm and Jin was close to shaking with how much he suddenly had to say.

Instead of saying anything aloud, though, he twisted around and reached for Mugen, gripping his upper arm lightly as he brushed his lips across Mugen's mouth. Mugen responded without hesitation, digging his fingers into Jin's hair and holding on as he kissed him back, hard and hungry.

Jin rose to his knees without letting go of the smooth wet heat of Mugen's mouth and turned to face him fully. Mugen's lips and tongue were so slippery against his own, and felt so alive against him that Jin slid his hand up to the back of Mugen's neck and held it firmly, holding him still. Jin leaned forward deliberately, pressing their bodies together from knees to chest.

Mugen made a sound low in his throat. He pulled at Jin's shoulders urgently and bent him backwards, carrying them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. After a moment of truly inspirational groping, they were both breathing heavily and moving erratically and the aim of their kisses was beginning to get sloppy. Jin smoothly reversed their positions and sank down against Mugen, letting the heavy press of his erection rest against the crook of Mugen's pelvis.

Mugen pulled his head back, face flushed and eyes glittering. "I knew it!" he crowed. "You really were after my ass this whole time!"

Not entirely true, actually, but Mugen seemed so happy about it... "It's a very nice ass," Jin offered, punctuating the statement with a slight rock of his hips.

Mugen's eyes widened. Jin rocked his hips again, this time intentionally rubbing in a long, slow slide against the rise of Mugen's cock, and Mugen's eyelids reluctantly lowered to half-mast. He bit his lip and Jin did it again. "Mmmm, okay," Mugen mumbled, not sounding nearly as reluctant as he'd probably intended. "...this time."

Not long at all after that, Mugen was on his knees with Jin's fingers knuckle-deep inside of him, the way eased by a generous slathering of fatty lamp oil. Mugen was clawing the floorboards like a wild thing, and the way the lamplight highlighted the sweat-sheened muscles of his back made Jin want to bite. He settled for digging his nails into Mugen's side as he pushed into him, and was rewarded with a yowl and a thump on the leg.

"Cocksucker! You fuckin' ... you fucker ... you ... oh, shit, yeah, right there," Mugen groaned, hanging his head and pushing back to meet Jin's thrusts. Jin drove into Mugen faster and the slapping noises of their sweaty coupling echoed against the wooden rafters. Jin took a moment to wonder at the hammering of his heart from such ultimately minimal physical exertions even as he reached forward and pulled at Mugen until they both came.

***

Being on boats was not nearly so unpleasant with Mugen around, Jin discovered. The pirate crew gave him a wide berth, for the most part, and he could at least practice his katas in peace. He found his swordplay drew some admiring looks, too, which Mugen commented upon later.

"You looked like pretty hot shit out there this morning," Mugen said over sake in his quarters one night.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, some of the guys were pretty impressed. Looks like they're starting to take you seriously." Mugen dug something out of his ear and contemplated it in the lamplight. "Too bad you still need to practice," he said, musingly.

Jin knew Mugen was just trying to aggravate him. His eyebrow twitched anyway. It seemed like maybe it was working.

He held his silence for a moment. Mugen started cutting his toenails with a really big knife.

"If anybody needs practice around here, it's you," he finally said, quickly and not a little self-righteously.

"Feel better?" Mugen asked, not hiding his laughter.

"Much," Jin said, suddenly biting back a grin of his own, and drank the last of the sake from Mugen's cup.

***

When they attacked their first pirate ship, Jin cut down more men than anyone except Mugen, not that they were counting, but apparently the rest of the crew had laid bets. There'd been a disagreement as to who had actually killed more, at the final count, so the bets stood for the next raid ... and this time Mugen knew about it. Jin mentally braced himself for a challenge, the next time they went out.

For his portion of the booty, Jin chose items that looked most personal; perhaps he would be able to return them to their rightful owners one day, if they stayed in his possession that long. He still felt a little conflicted, killing wantonly for loot and the entertainment of rough men, but erased his qualms with the thought that those other pirates would never prey on unsuspecting passengers again. Just because he shared in the pirates' takings didn't mean he shared their motivations.

Later that night, as "celebration," Mugen let Jin take him up against one of the giant masts, when no one but the drunken night watch was still awake. In the heavens, the stars were like backlit pinholes in black cloth, soft and sharp and close in the night air. A rather inebriated Mugen alternated between clutching at the wooden pillar behind him for nonexistent purchase and grabbing at Jin's shoulders, his head, his neck -- surging back and forth, sweatily slipping around in Jin's grasp like an eel, and only being prevented from falling by the pressure with which Jin was pressing him against the mast and the deathgrip of his thighs around Jin's hips. In spite of the strength of their grappling, it seemed to Jin like a perfect, endless moment of perpetual ebb and flow, like the pounding of surf quickened by a far-off storm. Thrust, clutch, catch, slide; thrust, shift, clutch, taste; thrust, glance, grip, shift again. But then Mugen was gasping, huffing and making desperate panting noises, dropping one hand to stroke himself, and the bubble of timelessness was well and truly burst. Suddenly it was now, now, now, has to be now, so Jin stilled Mugen's hips with an unyielding grasp and drove into him deep and fast and hard, until there was nothing but a frantic blur of sweet sensation.

Jin was pretty sure that Mugen's howls woke half the crew.

***

Somewhat more rational in the light of day, Jin made sure to pay close attention to the men and their possible reactions, but as far as he could tell, nobody looked at them any differently or said anything out of line. Certainly nothing like the mutinous mutterings he'd half-expected.

Jin lingered in doorways until he was noticed, and had to enter. He listened to conversations he normally would have ignored. He exchanged greetings with men whose names he hadn't bothered to learn until now. And Mugen kept tracking him out of the corner of his eye.

Jin knew that he was being obvious in his paranoia, if Mugen could tell he was concerned. "It's nothing," he assured him.

"Okay," Mugen said, and went back to whatever he was doing. Jin kept watching, over the next few days, but came to the conclusion that these sea dogs did anything and anyone they could -- whores and boys and one other -- and finally figured out that it wasn't even an issue for most of them, whether their captain liked taking it up the ass occasionally or not.

In light of his recent interest in their conversations, though, it was inevitable that he eventually started to get to know some of the crew. Mugen introduced him to a couple of the more capable men, sailors who knew a thousand times more than he did about what the smooth running of a ship entailed. He also became familiar with Kenta, the ship's cook, a fat man who actually knew something about food -- apparently this was not a requirement for cooks on all ships, judging by the cuisine on the few others he'd been on -- and Jin spoke with him fairly regularly about the kind of dishes he preferred, and was given many a lecture on how best to prepare them.

Occasionally, he tried his hand out as a kitchen helper, but only when he was exceedingly bored or when Kenta seemed in an especially tolerant mood. He did not make a very good assistant, but at least he learned a few things about drying seaweed properly and how to cook a passable batch of rice.

Some of the other pirates took to fishing in the early mornings, but Jin was still no good at catching fish. Perhaps he never would be.


*********

"God, what on earth are you wearing, anyway?" Mugen asked, mulishly.

"I'm wearing my clothing," Jin said. It was true, although the fabric was more than a little worse for the wear caused by his current lifestyle.

"Yeah, and you don't look like a pirate at all," Mugen complained.

"I'm not a pirate," Jin said flatly. Mugen didn't look convinced. "Besides, don't you think it might be useful to have someone around who doesn't look like a criminal?"

Mugen looked thoughtful, and the objections stopped after that.

They debarked without any further arguments, Mugen going off to get provisions -- actually paying for them, with money, as he had grudgingly agreed to do -- while Jin arranged for their rooms at the small inn. Jin didn't want any trouble on their first stop in an actual town.

Mugen insisted on topping that night, obviously ready for a tussle, but Jin's competitive side refused to come out and play. He sank gratefully into the fast, violent burn of it, despite the lack of preparation. Mugen was blunt and hot and demanding inside of him, so physically overwhelming that Jin's skin broke out in stinging prickles and his stomach lurched as if the bed were sliding down the face of a large ocean swell. Jin thought he might black out, and belatedly remembered to breathe. He forced himself to swallow down the lurching feeling. Ignoring the ache, he arched his back and met Mugen's thrusts with equal force, spearing himself on Mugen's cock as much as Mugen was riding him. And when Mugen pulled on his braids, forcing Jin's back to arch even further, and growled "Take it, bitch" low and tense in his ear, slamming into him deep and rough all the while, Jin's hips pumped helplessly into the air and he came all over the futon.

Jin crashed to his elbows, panting between his arms and propping himself on all fours. Mugen shoved into him a few more times, then stilled and grunted. With a release of breath that Jin hesitated to name a sigh, Mugen slid out and off and flopped onto his back. Jin settled onto the futon, glad he was already face-down without having to make a production of keeping pressure off his ass, and felt his muscles dissolve into syrup with the flood of exhaustion that suddenly overcame him.

"Hey, Jin, I was just thinking..." but Jin never found out what Mugen was thinking about, not that it mattered, because he was already sinking into the welcoming blankness of sleep.

***

His katana flashed in the bright moonlight as Jin cut down another half-dressed pirate. At least the man had had a machete in his hand; Jin wasn't about to start killing unarmed or sleeping men, which meant that Mugen's supporters were probably going to be collecting their winnings from the men who had placed bets on Jin after this midnight raid was over. Jin wondered whether that little detail had factored into Mugen's planning.

Jin scanned the deck for another acceptable opponent. He caught sight of Mugen slipping around the masts and between human obstacles like a mackerel darting between the pilings of a pier. Mugen leapt, and it was as if the very element of air supported him as he dove and attacked in an eyeblink. The glare from his swordstroke gleamed too brilliantly, and Jin turned away.

A contingent of slightly-more-dressed, and -- more importantly -- heavily armed men poured abovedecks. Jin dispatched them with perhaps a touch more enthusiasm than necessary. One of his more ardent supporters whooped and pounded another man on the shoulder, gesturing at the bodies littered around Jin's feet.

"Next time I'll beat you for sure," Mugen declared as they clambered back onto their own ship, in a show of bravado made more for the men's entertainment than in real challenge. Jin found that Mugen's easy assumption that this state of affairs was going to continue indefinitely disturbed him, and he retired to his cabin in silence.

***

Jin woke in the early hours of the morning, reaching out for Mugen, but he was in his own quarters and Mugen wasn't there. He sat up and started to toss the covers aside, then paused and slowly settled back into bed, alone.

***
Jin didn't speak to Mugen at all the next day.

He asked Saburo to lend him some fishing equipment, and spent long hours copying the other men's techniques. He still didn't catch anything, but he was filling his time in a way that Mugen teased him about but couldn't really object to.

He helped Kenta as much as he was allowed.

He practiced his katas twice a day.

He sat in his own room in the evenings, and painted all the poems he remembered onto the walls.

He tried to picture what he was going to do after he left.

Mugen mocked his fishing attempts, and said the rice tasted good on the day that Kenta had finally allowed Jin to prepare it by himself. He watched Jin's kata practice and sometimes offered himself up as a sparring partner, which always invigorated Jin and left him oddly depressed afterwards. He inspected the marks on Jin's walls, and made him read the poetry out loud. That little experiment left Jin gasping out random lines of verse as Mugen swallowed him whole and then came into his own hand, mouthing obscenely wet trails along Jin's thigh.

After dinner, Mugen took to publicly inviting Jin back to his rooms, to share a bottle of sake, or play a game of shoji, or something else that wouldn't make any sense for Jin to decline. Jin's efforts at creating space between them always seemed successful at the time, but Mugen generally seemed to come up with a way to counter each move Jin made without actually appearing to do so.

His shoji game was getting much better, too.

***

One hot, lazy day, Jin finally caught a fish. Then he caught three more. He was somewhat bemused as he put the last one into his creel.

"That's the trick," an old sailor told him approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder. Jin glanced up, and while the man was only vaguely familiar to him, he looked wise and grizzled and scarred. "You have to make them want to take the bait. Or, if you're really, really good, you can make them want to be caught." The old man gave him a wink and wandered off.

Jin watched Mugen dozing in the sun and wondered somewhat hopelessly how on earth he was supposed to get really, really good.

***

"You and cap'n have a really great gig going," Saburo said, counting his portion of the take from their latest haul.

Jin suppressed an irritated twitch. Attacking pirate ships was not a problem, it never would be, but Jin wasn't sure he could do this for five minutes longer, much less indefinitely. His skin was starting to itch all the time and his clothing was starting to fray; the fabric had absorbed so much salty seawater that it never truly felt dry except on the rare occasions that it had gotten rinsed clean by rain, first.

The number of plaits in Jin's hair had multiplied until it was all braids, now, and he suspected his old master would be appalled at the amount of alcohol he'd become accustomed to drinking on a regular basis.

Jin found himself in a near-constant state of impatience. He was not nearly as aimless as he'd been before meeting up with Mugen again, and he definitely didn't want to go back to that -- never again, he reminded himself -- but there was more to life, his life, than being a pirate king's second-in-command.

Back at Mugen's quarters -- which he'd practically moved into after abandoning his campaign of separation -- Jin tried to say something a hundred times, but the words wouldn't come. Then Mugen would look at him and it was too late, like always, and they were moving against each other and once again Jin remained silent and selfishly took the night for himself.

***

The best thing about port towns, Jin mused, was the cheap liquor. The sea-air smell was nice, too, as long as it wasn't enhanced by the near ubiquitous fishmarket stench of most such places.

Once again, Jin's cultured demeanor and relatively respectable appearance got them a better room than they would have gotten otherwise, although his clothes were hardly presentable these days and his gathered hair was full of braids and beads. His somewhat more savage looks probably hadn't hurt their cause, though, judging by the way the innkeeper's daughter had blushed and giggled when he'd asked her for a room.

Mugen didn't seem to want to leave his side, so they went provisioning together. The raucous calls of the fishmongers, the smell of the marketplace, and the noise and press of the crowd were much less jarring to Jin than they used to be. This wasn't a bad little town at all. He found he was almost enjoying himself as they ran their errands, arranging for deliveries to be made to their berth the next morning and then ducking gratefully into a darkened tavern.

Jin had a fortunate thought, and proposed a drinking contest. Of course, Mugen was quick to accept. "You're going down," Mugen said, his eyes alight with evil glee.

By the time they were thrown out of the establishment, they'd drunk far too many bottles of shochu, wrecked two tables and set a few chairs on fire, and utterly lost track of who was winning. Mugen liberated a bottle of plum wine as they fled the premises, and they stumbled into the wrong inn, and then into the right inn, and then, presumably, into their own room, where they awoke in a jumbled heap just inside the doorway as the sun began to set.

Mugen crawled over to the futon and sprawled flat on his back. Jin plucked up the wine bottle by the neck and wove his way across the room.

He sank down somewhat unsteadily, and considered his companion. In the confines of the ship, he knew he had Mugen virtually all to himself, but when they were on land he was somewhat surprised Mugen still chose to be here, with Jin. He reminded himself not to count on it; the Mugen he knew was as unpredictable as the currents in an unknown sea.

Unpredictable -- except in times like these, of course. Mugen's eyes opened lazily and he stretched out a languid arm, reaching up and cupping the back of Jin's neck. Jin allowed himself to be tugged down into a lingering kiss. Mugen untied the strip of leather holding Jin's hair one-handed, then dropped his hand to Jin's shoulder to urge him nearer.

Jin couldn't get enough of Mugen's mouth, and Mugen apparently felt the same way, seemingly content to just savor the slide of lips and tongues. Jin's world narrowed to the small space defined by the rattling curtain of his hair, the roughness of Mugen's jaw against his palm, the taste of Mugen in his mouth, the smooth wetness of Mugen's lips against his, the hot breath shared between them, the brush of his own lashes against his cheek.

Eventually, Mugen hummed into Jin's mouth and fell back, gaining enough room to pull his shirt over his head and wriggling out of his pants. Jin stripped bare as well, and picked up the slow kiss where they'd left off. He lowered his body until they were pressed flesh to flesh, and wrapped his arms around Mugen, levering Mugen's body along with his own as he rolled back a bit, onto his side. Jin kept Mugen locked close in the circle of his arms, the contact of their torsos and tangle of their legs increasing the slow burn of his desire.

He slid one leg up between Mugen's thighs and pressed gently, giving Mugen something to rub against. He chewed on Mugen's neck as Mugen slowly humped his leg, and scraped his teeth up along the ridge of Mugen's jaw until he found the node of his earlobe to suck on. Mugen clung to Jin and scooted up a bit, so he could rub the wet head of his cock against Jin's hipbone. Jin was happy to push back, nudging Mugen's legs wider open and thrusting slowly against the underside of Mugen's balls.

Mugen groaned and reached backwards, fishing around blindly in the pile of his clothes and extracting a small container of unguent. He handed it to Jin and lay back down, hiking his knee above Jin's hip and pulling him into another endless kiss.

The lid of the container was probably lost forever, once Jin got it open, but he managed to maintain lip contact while he slicked up his fingers and worked them into Mugen's body. Mugen moaned into his mouth and grabbed his wrist, holding it still as he fucked himself on the invading digits. Jin kept his hand in place, as Mugen obviously desired, but he wiggled and stroked the fingers inside him, earning himself another wordless vocalization. Mugen's neck went lax, and he pressed himself wantonly against Jin, who wasn't about to ignore such a blatant invitation.

It was new, this easy and unhurried pace, but the expected desperation never took hold, so Jin painted his erection with the ointment Mugen brought and slid into him in achingly gradual increments. He relished the clasp of every inch of progress, drawing out the invasion with tantalizing slowness. He cast a quick glance at Mugen's face, mouth open and eyes shuttered in bliss, and found himself unable to look away as he sank home.

He rocked out of and back into Mugen, who was making satisfied sounds and rolling his head back and forth. Jin luxuriated in the sticky catch of skin on skin, driving into his utterly debauched partner with deliberate indolence and making lewdly wet sounds with their bodies. He kissed Mugen again, knowing this was different than their usual way, but not able to deny himself the pleasure of Mugen in such a responsive, openly sensual mood. He sank into Mugen's tight heat again and again, kissing him all the while, and if he hadn't learned to really swim over these last few months, Jin was sure he'd be drowning, he was finding it so very hard to breathe.

He shuddered, and the force of his orgasm shook him as he emptied himself deep inside the vital, incomprehensible creature moving against him. Mugen's breath hitched and he bore down on Jin as he softened, coming against Jin's belly with a final seesawing motion and a full-body exhale.

Jin rolled Mugen onto his back and slid out of him one last time. He settled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand, drinking in the sight of the man laid out before him.

"Jin," Mugen said quietly, with his eyes closed and a smile hovering around the corner of his mouth. Moments later, he was asleep.

Jin watched him for a long time after that.

***

Mugen started in his sleep, and Jin accidentally kicked the unopened bottle of plum wine, which rolled across the tatami mat until it clunked up against one of the walls. He knew it was time to go, knew for a fact that although Mugen slept like the dead after heavy drinking, he would wake up eventually, even so.

Jin dressed as quickly as he could in darkness and silence, never looking away from the figure on the bed for long. His sight blurred and he tasted salt water, a surprising reminder of their time on the sea.
He shut the door quietly as he left. He left payment for the room with the innkeeper's sleepy wife, and headed out into the pre-dawn light.

***

Jin greatly surprised and disappointed himself by making it back to the ship before they set sail. They set off in a splash of sea-spray and a scurry of activity by the crew, and soon the rigging sang with the wind. He silently conceded that he would probably miss the sound once he actually managed to leave.

***

Before dinner that first night back on the water, Mugen announced that he had an announcement to announce.

"Okay, you degenerates -- we're going to make one last run. Raidon's gang should be weathering out the last of that storm right about here" he pointed to a spot on the map of blobby shapes and concentric circles that was supposed to represent the intricacies of the ocean, "And then I'm out. No," he said, holding up his hands to still the vocal protests. "No arguments. You can keep following the plan if you want, heck, you can all keep the ship for all I care, but this is my last run."

The protests didn't remain stilled for long, and Jin was somewhat stunned by both the loyal clamoring of the crew -- Saburo and Kenta some of the loudest amongst them -- and Mugen's unwavering responses. He caught Mugen's sleeve as he passed by on his way down to the captain's cabin.

"Why? I mean I thought, didn't you--" he started to ask.

Mugen brushed his questions aside with a vague hand motion. "Nah, too much responsibility for me, really," he said, without a trace of doubt in his voice. Jin nodded, as if that made sense, as if it hadn't wrapped up all of his conflicting wants and doubts leaving only one clear, definitive course of action for him to follow. Next time they set ashore, he would have no reason to come back on board.

"Besides," Mugen said, looking away from Jin, "it's about time I tried something new. That whole deal was getting boring." He turned, aiming a bright flash of teeth in Jin's direction and jamming his hands into his waistband. "So whaddya wanna do next?"

The tight ache in Jin's chest bloomed into a warm, spreading glow as he realized this was it, he knew what he wanted, and, against all expectation, he actually had it.

That old man would be proud, Jin thought, almost nonsensically. He'd truly become a fisherman at last.