Reborn fic: Vongola Wedding
Title: Vongola Wedding
Fandom: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: 8059, 327 + K...kinda...
Rating: NC-17, just to be safe
Words: 8,691
Notes: thought up in the shower. What is up with me and weddings recently?? I do not claim charges for brain damage for repeating motifs. Please kindly injure your head upon some other fandom's wall.
Vongola Wedding (2011.03.10)
"What. The Hell. IS THIS?!" Gokudera screeched at the paper placed in front of him.
Across the desk from him, Yamamoto laughed cheerfully at his indignance. "Exactly what it looks like, Gokudera - I'm getting married!"
Usually Gokudera wouldn't throw a fit about things like this - he'd just grunt, sign the paper, and pass it on - but this was Yamamoto. His Yamamoto. And he was getting married to -
"You're marrying my sister." He tried, he really did, to make sense of the words on the page, but the meaning of them truly escaped him.
"Well, we thought it'd be good for the Family and such! I mean, we're both assassins, we work with each other all the time, we have all the same friends," though Gokudera thought of the guys that hovered around Bianchi as more as 'pests' than friends, "it'd be the perfect match when you think about it."
He had to clamp down on the urge to shriek "But what about meeee?!", and instead closed his eyes, breathed in and out to get his temper under control, and then opened them again. The condemning words on the page didn't fade away, but Gokudera finally felt like he could breathe without him shooting the nearest person in sight until they were a bloody mess on the floor.
"Plus, we get marriage benefits from the government!" Yamamoto added merrily.
Gokudera had to refute that one. "Yamamoto, the Family makes more in one year than most farmers in Italy make in three generations - you don't need government benefits."
"You never know, might be nice to have someday," Yamamoto shrugged carelessly. "Don't know when you need a backup plan."
"Yeah, for the government to find us." He looked over the proposal a little calmer now, and grudgingly had to admit that the idea wasn't without merit.
Yamamoto (and for that matter, Gokudera) were officially the only 'bachelors' left in the Family. Of course they weren't - or else, they wouldn't be sharing a one-bedroom apartment - but to most of the people outside of the family, they were the easiest to target on that subject. Mafia Times in particular had a love for following them around, predicting which girl they would hook up next (being they were the only free members of the Family that didn't threaten them, disappear, or was too young to consider). Gokudera had switched off on either 'no comment' or 'I'm in love with my work' when asked; Yamamoto had probably never been willingly pinned down long enough to be asked.
"Oh, Basil deals with that just fine," Yamamoto airily waved a dismissive hand. "After this the paparazzi won't be on my trail for a while and they'll probably go terrorize Dino or something."
"Wouldn't that be nice." Dino owned the land that Mafia Times rested on; unless they wanted to move, they would never say anything but the most glowing reports about Dino (including, never revealing that his marriage with Marianne was a sham and that Hibari would burn the place to the ground if anyone as so much thought he was a 'kept man'). "Give me some time to think about it, and I'll get back to you."
"Not good enough, Hayato." His sister's silky voice floated over his shoulder. He resisted the age-old habit to dash for the bathroom and puke; she was out of her regular jeans and low-cut top in favor of something more secretarial today, including glasses. He breathed a sigh of relief. "I want this done by next week."
"NEXT WEEK?!" Everyone in the workroom looked up briefly at the disturbance. "You want me to plan a fucking wedding in a week? And this isn't even including registering the two of you with the government, the fact he has a hit this weekend -" He pointed a shaking finger at his flatmate.
"Ahaha, I forgot about that!"
"You were supposed to be doing recon for three weeks on that rat bastard, and you have the gall to tell me you forgot about it?" For sure, this time he was going to dash the idiot's brains against the wall.
"No no, the recon's still being done - Fuuta's a great help, by the way. I just thought it was next week, is all - man, time does fly when you're having fun!" He was talking about the stakeout last night that had turned into a sparring match with Squalo. Gokudera had been awakened at three AM by the ringing of his phone as the police officer they bribed basically asked him where to bill the charges for the destroyed building.
Thankfully, Squalo had left this morning. Gokudera pinched the bridge of his nose and asked for the millionth time for someone up there to give him the goddamn patience to deal with this rabble. "I don't care who you use, as long as it gets done. And you know if something gets screwed up, you're paying for it, right?" Yamamoto nodded happily; both of them knew Fuuta was squeaky clean between the ears about recon, so there'd probably be not a thing out of place when Yamamoto made the hit.
His hands, of course, had already said yes and were jotting down people he needed to call and where it should be, what kind of planner he should hire this time because Cliantro's was just way too expensive. His sister, of course, noticed and said nothing, only tapped her red nails in interest.
"Hayato, this has got to be grand." And there went all his frugality plans out of the window. "Reborn's made it clear we're going to remain uncommitted, so this is probably the only wedding I'll ever have. I want it to look gorgeous." She stared down at him from her nose, and somehow, though he was taller than her, he felt like he was three again, unable to resist her when she shoved a hand-me-down dress into his hands and told him to wear it.
"I should have all of you committed," he muttered in reply, and plunked back down hard in his chair. Somewhere, somewhere in that chest of his anxiety was squeezing the life out of his heart. It really hurt.
"Gokudera," Yamamoto said, and a warm hand on his shoulder made him look up. A fatal mistake, of course - one gaze into those concerned eyes and he was melting like an ice cream cone in summer. "You don't have to if you don't have time - I'm sure Bianchi and I will get by if we did it ourselves. It's just...we knew you'd do an even better job, is all."
He harrumphed, glaring at the other Guardian. "Flattery'll get you nowhere, ball-for-brains." The old name fell from his lips easily even after all this time.
"Haha! That sure is nostalgic." The warmth of Yamamoto's hand lifted to scratch at the new scar on his chin.
"Damn right I'd do better than you lot." He'd planned everything from graduation ceremonies to formal Family dinners since they'd gotten to Italy. "You guys can't even plan a way out of a paper bag."
"Of course," his sister agreed absently. Gokudera didn't see the flicker of her eyes from him, back to Yamamoto.
--------------
First they booked the place. After all, without a place, they couldn't hold an event.
He was idly scrolling through his phone messages; he got one almost every two minutes, sometimes describing some new (and minor) crisis that the Family had hit, other ones with just one word answers telling him if they would or wouldn't be able to come. In the background Bianchi was arguing with the Family florist.
"But signorina, lilies are the flowers of the dead -"
"My mother had lilies in her bouquet, I've seen pictures. Are you saying she was praying to the dead on her wedding day?"
"O-of course not, signorina, I was merely relaying the usual superstitions..."
A weight settled next to him, along with the weight of a heavy, very familiar book. "Hayato-nii," Fuuta murmured softly. "Yama-nii has switched with me. He says he'll be ready for the hit tomorrow."
"Good," he grunted. He didn't pause where he tapped into the touchpad. "You can go home and rest now." Unlike me... As if on cue the voices behind raised, and then fell again as Bianchi and the florist reached some sort of agreement.
"I thought I'd stay and help plan for the wedding a little bit," Fuuta offered, but Gokudera only snorted.
He waved his cell phone in the direction of where Bianchi was now looking over pictures and signing certain papers that would undoutedly only be the start of a chunk of money disappearing from the Family treasury. "See that? That's the sound of the wedding planning. Of course Bianchi's detail-oriented and once I set her up with the right people, she mostly does it herself." Even if setting up those meetings was difficult, especially with that elusive famous wedding planner that was all the rage for some newfangled actress' wedding he did recently. "I just sit here and ferry people around occasionally."
"Sounds cushy." Fuuta's gaze still didn't leave his face, which meant there was something else going on.
"Spit it out."
Of course Fuuta knew Gokudera always appreciated the truth, pronto. "Yama-nii's worried that you think he's been cheating on you."
He snorted, though of course, the words struck a chord in him and everyone knew it. In terms of relationships he had an insecurity streak a mile wide, and Yamamoto knew that. Which made this whole bombastic wedding believable, actually - by the looks of things, it'd been all his sister's idea.
"Of course I think that. Wouldn't you?" He could see Fuuta didn't quite know how to respond to that, and sighed. "I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt anyway, just tell him not to come near me until this whole fiasco's finished."
Fuuta looked satisfied with that, though Gokudera had to admit it wasn't much. "Lambo learned to do something really cool with his new touchpad phone yesterday." His eyes gleamed like he had some big secret to share, so Gokudera humored him.
"What'd that cowbrat learn?"
"To text with his nose."
Bianchi looked over to see Fuuta and Gokudera smashing their faces against their phones and shook her head sadly. Boys.
-----------------
Of course, he should've known better than to think that Yamamoto would leave it just like that.
He'd barely stepped his foot in the door when Yamamoto yanked him into the living room. Then he separated Gokudera from briefcase ("Hey, don't toss that!"), shoes and tie ("Don't throw those either!") before pushing him roughly onto the couch.
Glowering at the ceiling, he pushed half-heartedly at the body holding him down. "Hey. Hey, lump, get the hell off of me."
Yamamoto didn't pause in the middle of where he was busy undoing Gokudera's shirt buttons. Gokudera grabbed his hands before it could turn out like last time, when Yamamoto had gotten impatient and ripped the whole thing off (and then Gokudera had ripped a new one in him, because that shirt had cost him somewhere around 500 Euros). "Hey, listen to me when I'm talking to you, idiot."
"I'm listening," Yamamoto crowed in triumph as the shirt came free, exposing Gokudera's undershirt. Then tanned hands were slinking along Gokudera's stomach and chest and it became significantly harder to remember what the whole point of talking was.
"If you think this is going to get you out of talking later -"
"'Later' sounds wonderful, Gokudera." And he didn't hesitate to swoop down and claim Gokudera's lips for his own.
Kissing Yamamoto was like kissing something he could never pin down. He could never understand what attracted him to this dumbass sword-for-brains, never comprehend what it was about Yamamoto's fond smile that made his heart leap to his throat when they were teenagers. It had be one of those UFO things, something unquantifiable and mysterious, just like how though he always told himself "This is the last time I'll do this" and inevitably found himself with his ankles hooked around Yamamoto's waist, hands fisted in spiky black hair, and his mouth screaming obscenities along with a name, just one name.
Yamamoto lay on him like a slab of huge, overheated blanket of ungiving muscle when they finished, and it was a good thing that Gokudera was just as winded, because he didn't particularly feel like moving either. Parts of him were telling him he'd be sore tomorrow; the rest of him was floating along the current labelled 'Post-Coital', telling him quite happily if sex on a regular basis was part of the Yamamoto Effect he could never defeat, then let it be.
Hands twitched along his ribs, palming the hipbones in the exact place they usually gripped, and unconsciously Gokudera's hand came down to tangle with it. Now that they were done he didn't feel much like talking, really.
Yamamoto's voice was like a rumble of ominous thunder in his chest. He was reminded vaguely of the first time they'd done it, it'd been a hellish thunderstorm during Japan's rainy season, and he'd told himself he'd just duck into Takesushi for a little bit - wait, something was being said?
"Gokudera?" Yamamoto raised up his head to look at him, confused as to why he wasn't responding.
"Mmrph," Gokudera grunted, and shifted so they were side-to-side.
"You know...you're the one I love, right?" It was only here, in the safety of their apartment that such things were ever uttered at all. Here, safely underground and away from the prying eyes of enemies, did they dare to indulge in the closeness that they'd carefully cultivated over the years.
He closed his eyes. It was somehow the words he wanted to hear the most, yet the words that he also feared the most. "I know that," he whispered back. He let himself be pulled back into Yamamoto's embrace, melting against the force of that fierce affection.
"The hit will go fine tomorrow."
"I don't want to talk about work." A pause. "The wedding plans are going great."
"I don't want to talk about the wedding," Yamamoto echoed.
In about two minutes his phone would go off again with another message as someone thought Lambo was missing on his way home from school, or Spanner's creations had made a hole in his laboratory wall again, or Bianchi had broken a nail. Until then he nestled under the warmth of his lover - muscles that rippled, a sword that shone silver in the starlight - and thought yearningly of blissful nothing when emotional complications didn't exist.
-------------
"Ugh." His eyes were so tired, and for once it wasn't because he'd been staring at the computer screen for too long. "Flippin' rinestones..."
His sister, of course, had asked for that pair of shoes, the same pair that actress had worn for the planner's last wedding. The planner, once Gokudera had convinced him of their seriousness to hire him (mainly, with a gun), had managed to procure them a discount from the actress who was (of all places) selling her shoes on Ebay. They were kind of chunky from a fashionable point of view - but he knew his sister, she'd probably look great in a black garbage bag tied with a length of seaweed.
And since the dress had to match the shoes and the ring and the everything else, Gokudera had spent the last five hours starnig at different sizes and qualities of stones that couldn't compare with the diamonds embedded on the shoes, but at least could match them for color.
He didn't bother to ask Who the hell would care about this?, because the answer was only a few steps away, arguing with the jeweler. With a sigh he picked up a strand of crystal beads, idly rolling them through his hand. They could just as well use plastic, no one would really give a damn...
"Hayato." His sister's voice was like the summon of an angry god. "What do you think about this for a lottery present?" A thin chain of emeralds dangled from her gloved hand.
"We're doing a lottery for the banquet?" He resisted the urge to clunk his head against one of the glass displays.
"I decided last night. Didn't you get my text about it?"
Yes, he did recall reading something like that right before Yamamoto plucked the phone out of his hand and tossed it onto the table in favor of round two. There had been something about a daily slice of cake from one of Milan's finest bakeries, some form of jewelry, and even a free double-hit from bride and groom. It showed what kind of industry Gokudera was in when the first thing he thought about it was that the third and last one was really the only one he had use for.
"Yeah, I did, cake and hits were the other two, working on it now." He had Bianchi's favorite patissier on speed dial by now, it'd taken him about ten tries before he could speak to the manager and book a cake for their 'Yearly Most Valued Customer'. It was really a miracle she stayed thin as she was.
He'd just picked up the phone when it vibrated. "Yamabaka", the caption read.
>>> Dinner?
<<< Shouldn't you be sharing meals with your sweet betrothed?
>>> Plenty of time to do that during the banquet.
<<< Did you ever establish a working rapport with my sister while you two were on assignment, or should I make preparations for a coffin during your honeymoon?
>>> We get a honeymoon?
Mentally Gokudera cursed. Hibari was in Venice, again with his tousled-haired ex-mentor-turned-boyfriend, Mukuro was somewhere in south France doing something, and Lambo was too young to do anything except for stand there and get shot at. That left Ryohei and lil' ol' him to protect the Tenth.
>>> Can I book something expensive like - Gokudera shut off his phone. The conversation could continue later, if Yamamoto really wanted to meet for dinner. Bianchi, seemingly tired that she was the one doing all the talking, was bullying the jeweler into showing her all the good stuff while she demonstrated her temper by melting what must've once looked like a wrench.
Two hours later, they emerged out of the dark confines of the jeweler's, Gokudera rubbing his eyes. "Are you alright, Hayato?" she asked, and he must've grunted in reply because she had her talons hooked on his arm in the next moment and was dragging him to the display of another wedding store.
He sneezed. Either someone was talking about him, or he was slowly becoming allergic to everything related to weddings. Probably the latter.
His phone rang. "Gokudera, dinner," Yamamoto pressed into his ear. It was almost a whine and Gokudera didn't need to hear it.
"Ask the Tenth to be your escort, he's the affianced one that doesn't get out enough."
"That's because Xanxus has him locked in the coat closet again." The mutter was low, but not low enough to escape Gokudera's ears.
He claimed sick, called the chauffeur and was speeding off to headquarters within two minutes. He swept all the cloakrooms and coat closets on the first floor, then the second. When he got to the floor he was a little desperate, so he asked Kyoko (who was nearby and dusting something though really, wasn't that what the base's servants were for? And why weren't they stopping the Tenth's fiancee?) if she'd seen her beloved stuffed in a closet somewhere.
"Oh," she looked as if she was about to burst into tears at the sound of his name. "I - I don't know. I haven't heard from him in a while." And then she covered her eyes, dropped the feather duster, and sobbed all the way down the hall.
He picked up the feather duster, staring nonplussed at her retreating back. Ugh, he sighed, Girls.
By the time he'd checked in the most obvious place (the coat closet in the Tenth's office) it was close to six and Yamamoto had called four times. Even more ominous than that, Bianchi had called and left a message that if he wasn't in his bed and coughing blood by the time she got back from the dressmaker's, she would make him look at more sparkly things tomorrow.
Xanxus was unabashedly sitting at the Tenth's desk, only a couple of paces away from his imprisoned boss when Gokudera burst into the room and yanked the closet door hard enough to break the handle. As predicted, the Tenth was sitting quite calmly at the bottom of the closet. "Oh, Gokudera-kun," he greeted, shaking the kinks out of his legs and back from sitting down for so long.
"Tenth! Why didn't you call us when you were stuck?"
Wordlessly Xanxus held up where the Tenth's phone blinked with fifty-four new messages.
Gokudera seized his boss' hands in his. "He's so eager to do your work for you, just this once I'll allow it and tell you to please go have dinner with Yamamoto! Here's the place, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you brought the Sasagawas with you!"
"Isn't Sasagawa with Squalo and the others?" Xanxus muttered aloud.
Indeed he was, but that would soon change with a vengeance if Gokudera had anything to do with it. "I'm sure he'll be back here at headquarters on time," he gritted out from behind his teeth, and took a moment to gleefully shove Xanxus out of the Tenth's seat. The ex-Varia retreated gracefully to his own desk, looking bored as hell with a significant lack of papers in front of him.
"Xanxus-san..." Tsuna turned his pleading eyes towards his advisor. Even with Xanxus' forced help, there were still mountains of documents to be looked over.
Gokudera sighed. "Don't you see, Tenth - this is why he does it in the first place?"
"I clean my desk for a better reason than that," Xanxus licked his lips, looking predatory. Suddenly the Tenth seemed much smaller, though the fire in his eyes was no less alight.
Feeling as if he'd suddenly misstepped into another dimension, Gokudera beat a hasty retreat. Isn't the Tenth affianced to someone else?
He recalled Kyoko-san's tears from earlier. Oh, dammit, came the mental groan of understanding.
---------------
"Well of course, they've been doing it for years now. Since we came to Italy, really." Ryohei horked down another hamburger and Gokudera resisted the urge to wince and find another corner to sit in. The other Guardian ate like this all the time for every meal - testament to his active lifestyle and high-speed metabolism.
"And why wasn't I informed of this?"
"Nrrphl gurcurz yur -"
"Chew, please!"
Ryohei chewed and swallowed. "Maybe because you're dense as a sinker when it comes to these things, Gokudera."
He knew that. He really did. But he didn't need to hear it from someone like Ryohei. Reaching his hand out he punched the other Guardian lightly in the shoulder. "Shut the hell up, you -"
"Wanna fight?" Of course glove-for-brains zeroed in on the punching action rather than the words being said.
"- NO, I don't want a fight, I just need to be surrounded by something other than idiots all day!" He felt like clutching his head in his hands - and really, it wasn't anything Ryohei hadn't seen him do, so he did it.
The other Guardian patted his shoulder consolingly, and then paused as a brilliant idea came to mind. "You could go on Yamamoto's honeymoon with him! I heard he booked it for somewhere in the Bahamas on a cruise ship." Gokudera didn't need to look up to see Ryohei scratching his chin in puzzlement. "I've never understood the appeal of those things - all you can do all is lay out in the sun, jump in a pool with a hundred other people, or eat yourself until you're fat and lazy. What's the point of that?"
Indeed, what was the point? By the end of this wedding mess, there'd probably be no money left in the Vongola treasury. "I don't know," Gokudera moaned pitifully. Ryohei got the idea that he wasn't answering the question, just letting the rest of the world know his current state of mind.
He tried to shift back to their original, lighter topic (except really, it wasn't). "So you're concerned that my sister's fiancee is trashing on her by going out with his advisor? Who probably rides him into the ground, by the way." He thought to Squalo's old affair with his boss and how he'd admitted to feeling it in his ass for days last time they got drunk together.
Gokudera actually banged his head on the window. "God, I totally didn't need to hear that!" Now he had visions of his beloved Tenth being all naked and slutty...it was like a return to his teenage days when he actually dreamed about that stuff.
"I wouldn't be worried." Ryohei started on his orange juice and his fries. "She knows what's going on - she worked something out. Sawada's not the type to leave her hanging like this, we all know that."
"I saw her crying the other day, though."
Ryohei shrugged. He did love his sister, but she threatened to never cook for him again if he butted his head into her relationship with Sawada. Not to mention, Sawada would sniffle and every mafia member in the current and distant vicinity would suddenly be obligated to help. It would be pretty darn scary sight, Ryohei thought to himself.
If she was half the future mafia wife she was supposed to be, she would get over this.
Gokudera groaned again at his nonchalance. "You are the worst example of an elder sibling I've ever seen," he shook his head sadly.
"How about you?" He slurped the last of his orange juice. "I heard I-Pin's learned the cellphone thing now, they're going to be doing it in tandem at the wedding at this rate."
Gokudera, who had been checking his cellphone at that very moment, resisted the urge to bring it forcibly to his forehead. "Are you going to be there, by the way?"
"Wouldn't miss it. I heard something about killer shoes, is that true?"
"If you mean it killed our treasury, yeah. Bianchi wanted them for whatever reason - diamond-studded clunkers to walk down the aisle with."
There was a beat of silence as Ryohei bundled up the finished meal and shoved the bag somewhere under the seat. "So, how long did it take?"
Gokudera heaved a sigh. "Does it matter how long it takes? You hork down the same meal every single day at the same pace at the same time, don't you?"
"Just read out the time, Gokudera," Ryohei's voice was abominably cheery.
"Four minutes twenty-three seconds."
"Hey, you're right - same speed on the next day too!"
What did I do to deserve this?, Gokudera resisted the urge to injure his head anymore than he had today.
----------------
>>> Lol, I never thought I'd be doing this
<<< Will you shut up? It's already embarrassing as it is!
>>> So where are you?
<<< Does it matter? Just fucking get on with it!
>>> Can't, gotta visualize where you are
A pause in the messaging while Gokudera yelled for everyone to get out of Archives (and lo and behold...there was nobody), and locked the door behind him.
<<< Still in headquarters
>>> Jerking off in Archives or something?
"Shut the hell up," Gokudera muttered. Yes, so he usually had more control over himself than this, but Yamamoto was preparing for the hit and couldn't call unless he wanted to be traced, and for whatever reason he couldn't understand Gokudera's body was yelling that it was horny.
>>> You don't even have your pants down all the way, do you?
<<< Shut up
>>> I know you like it when I lick the tip and then go all the way down
"Fuck!" he muttered. He could almost feel it - the heat of Yamamoto's gaze, the wickedness of his grin. He slid his hands up and down and imagined it was that thrice-damned baseball idiot with his long fingers and the way he hummed as he tongued the vein on the underside.
>>> Bet you like it when I squeeze you there too And he was arching, panting, handkerchief turning soggy in his hand.
It took so fucking little for Yamamoto get him off, it was irritating. Gokudera hated people other than the Tenth having power over him - and yet there were plenty of those kinds of people now, a whole goddamn Family of them.
The phone vibrated with one last message: >>>I'm going in, Gokudera, I love you
Then it went black and silent as Gokudera cleaned up, and tried not to think about it being the last time.
---------------
"I'm sure he's fine," Bianchi inspected her nails. She looked supremely calm despite the fact that she was hounded by two different hairdressers that were currently bickering over what kind of hairdo she should have for her wedding. Pictures of the dress, the shoes and the trial shots of the venue were scattered around her chair.
"How would you know -"
"Hey!" she barked softly, but with no less deadliness. "If you guys are going to chat, you can do it on your free time. I want to see what kind of styles are possible with my length."
The two hairdressers glared at each other and at last with one last vicious look he flipped his pink locks and left. The remaining one nervously explained, "With your length, signorina, we could do pretty much anything..."
"Then show me what would look good."
Helplessly, the hairdresser began to pile it up, half down, braid it in places - soon his sister was surrounded by equipment Gokudera didn't know, and had even less interest in knowing. "Bianchi, you can't know if he's alive or not."
She smiled humorlessly at him. "And why should I? He's my betrothed, after all." For once in her life she sat perfectly still, letting the hairdresser tug her hair this way and that. As Gokudera watched, like magic a sort-of shape began to form, leaving room for her veil and showing off flashy earrings.
He sighed. "It doesn't matter -"
"Hayato, are you alright?"
No, he wasn't alright. The wedding was in four days and Yamamoto was missing. Usually he'd have two days to get back to headquarters from his pickup place, but the hit had been close and from what Gokudera had heard he hadn't even picked up a ring yet (then again, before he left Bianchi hadn't given him a price range yet). Maybe he'd only wait one day before sending out the scouts to flush out wherever that baseball idiot had wandered to.
Not to mention, he still had the florist's balcony arrangement to oversee (and critique), the rest of the crystals to order (Bianchi had been adamant), the banquet film to make (why they were having a banquet when the couple didn't even love each other was beyond him), and mass invitations to send out by e-mail. No time for paper, unless he wanted to overnight them - well, he might make an exception for Yamamoto-san.
He'd had a massive headache from the time Yamamoto went radio silent, which had been yesterday. What he really wanted to do was just skiv off work and curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and possibly fall asleep halfway through some boring game show. And then he wanted to hear the lock jiggle in the door and Yamamoto's arms folding around him.
"Miss me?" he'd ask, like always.
"Not on your life," Gokudera grumbled. Bianchi's expression didn't change, though her tone of voice did.
Reaching out her fist she suddenly punched him. He staggered back in the chair, surprised as it hurt like hell. Blood ran from his nose as he shouted, "What the hell was that for?!"
"You're bleeding all over the floor. This isn't a shop we have influence over, you know." Of course he knew; that'd been one of Bianchi's requirements, since most hairdressers with the Family were always fighting over who got to do her hair next. "Go over there and lie down for a bit."
The moment he did, he was out.
--------------
In his dreams he saw a large red balloon in the shape of a heart, wavering between him and Yamamoto. They stood on opposite sides of a round stadium that was shaped and colored like a watermelon. And from the middle of this rose the balloon like one of those windy cylindrical people he sometimes saw in cars' sales lots.
He didn't say anything, just watching the balloon flap in the wind. Suddenly he realized the sky was getting larger and larger above him - no, it was the balloon that was getting smaller and smaller, until it shrank all the way into nothing in Yamamoto's hand.
"It's not nothing," Yamamoto protested. "It's a peanut." And he ate it.
What the hell? It felt like he'd been saying that since the whole wedding mess began. He kind of wanted something to chomp on himself. As if in retaliation for his sulking the dream spilled peanuts over him, whole tsunamis worth of them, rising over the beaches and the houses and the stadium.
When it all ended, he was standing there still. The stadium had faded to blood around him; he could hear it echoing on the walls. A peanut was in his hand.
"That's all that's left!" Yamamoto said cheerily. He plucked the peanut out of Gokudera's hand and ate it.
And I don't get any at all, Gokudera wanted to cry. There's nothing left for me...
-------------------
Of course he was supervising things until the very last minute.
Somehow the girls had rallied together and created a plan to make something edible that didn't include Poison Cooking (for which the entire group of banquet attendees heaved a great sigh of relief). He didn't see Kyoko-san over the course of that time, but he assumed she was with Haru and Kurokawa and probably also Ryohei, who'd taken a leaf out of Gokudera's book and was, for all intents and purposes, stalking his sister.
So the food was taken care of but the billing wasn't, so he went through all the trouble of billing thirteen different food suppliers who yes, they usually did buy food from for the whole headquarters but no, never bought so many weird and out-of-the-ordinary things, such as maraschino cherries, foie gras, and prosciutto.
Bianchi, of course, dropped the bomb at the last minute: what was Gokudera thinking, booking the event in Japan? Of course she didn't want it here! He didn't bother to ask her why she hadn't said something when he told her he was booking it, or why she'd changed her mind at the last minute.
Gokudera was almost used to the constant state of crisis by now. He opened his laptop, Googled "famous Italian churches", and whittled them down until he had one about the same floor space as the place he'd booked in Japan. It cost them twice as much and Xanxus looked like he was going to fight Gokudera for it, but all Gokudera had to do was point in the direction of where his sister was browbeating their florist into giving up all the floral plans for a pittance so they could pass it onto whoever would be doing the new arrangements in Italy.
Xanxus conceded with a snarl that had Squalo grinning (and of course, Yamamoto had invited Squalo, who had in turn dragged the whole Varia in to crash the party) and saying, "He's scared of a little girl." The whole rehearsal was pretty on the spot with the hysterics, pandemonium, and hilarity that Gokudera wondered what would go wrong during the actual thing, if the practice was already this bad?
Squalo, after screaming that his face had been burned off by a fucking purple cake spent the rest of rehearsal time trying to get his face to return to the right shade. Gokudera was pretty sure he'd still look a little greenish around the edges when they did the real thing tomorrow.
And of course Yamamoto wasn't here. He was never here when Gokudera needed him outside of a fight - then he was as bad as Ryohei. But this wasn't a fight, and Yamamoto wasn't here, just like he was never here when Gokudera was feeling at his lowest and could use some distraction to keep his mind off of work.
His headache hadn't gone away. His sister suggested medicine that he refused when he looked at the contents. The girls in the kitchen plied him with sweets, saying the sugar would help, but after eating half a dish of tiramisu he didn't feel any better. He felt like a pig.
Of course, he found Kyoko-san on the patio. She was staring down at her engagement ring, twisting it back and forth on her finger. There was one stone on it, not huge, just a normal ring.
"Where'd he'd get that?" And they spent the rest of the day ordering Bianchi's ring in lieu of Yamamoto.
When they'd finally narrowed down the choices he frowned at the screen. "Are you sure she'd like that?" It was in the range she had given Yamamoto, but - well, even if he was a girl he was fairly sure he would never go for anything that gaudy.
Kyoko-san shrugged. "It's within the price range - everything else is pretty ugly." They smiled in unison and he knew both of them also felt a little better.
"Is everything alright with you?" he asked as gently as he could. Usually she complained about his cigarette smoke but this was one of the times when she only pushed the tray a little closer to him and he blew the smoke off to the side, away from her. From somewhere in the headquarters below, he knew her brother was monitoring this video.
She sighed, oblivious to his thoughts. "Yes, I'm...just a little disappointed, is all. Here Bianchi-san and Yamamoto-kun are having this shotgun wedding after they've been in love for so long," what? his brain supplied, "and I guess I'm a little anxious for it to happen to me too."
"Uh...yeah," he replied woodenly. Brokenly. Then he came to. "I'm sure he's just trying to find the perfect moment." He couldn't think about other people's weddings when he couldn't even think about the one he was planning right now.
She looked up at him and in that moment he abruptly understood what it was to be the odd one out, the other woman. Yamamoto'll owe me when he gets back, was the cool, rational right-hand-man's voice speaking.
The other part of him seemed permanently stuck in a state of "I'm gonna kill him".
He smiled wryly. "If it doesn't work out, I'll go out with you."
From sister to brother, from friend to friend, she laughingly kissed his cheek.
-------------
"So are you guys all going to bang our foreheads on our phones together when we come out or what?"
Gokudera suppressed a groan. "Why has everyone and their mother heard about that?"
Yamamoto didn't pause when he was trying in vain to pin Gokudera's boutonniere on with his big fingers. Gokudera yanked the thing out of his hands and did it about two seconds. They arranged each other's pocket squares, and then Yamamoto did a quick turn-around to make sure the tux fit alright, and then they stood at the side doors waiting for the signal.
Yamamoto's hair was flattened on one side and Gokudera was ninety-percent sure he was still injured somewhere or else he wouldn't smell blood, but he was feeling distant enough so that he didn't feel up to fixing either of those things.
Squalo, waiting on Yamamoto's other side, had no such qualms. "You know you look like you just got mauled by an attack zombie blender, don't you?" What the hell? was the only thought Gokudera had in answer to the colorful simile.
Apparently it was some sort of inside joke, because Yamamoto laughed. Of course, laughing made his swelled face hurt, and his split lip start dribbling again, but (fortunately) Gokudera didn't see him falling apart before this whole fiasco was over and Gokudera got his chance to thwack him a good one to send him on his happy honeymoon.
Yamamoto dabbed gingerly at the cut with a spare pocket square as Squalo finally ruffled his hair in the right direction. There was butterfly tape all over his face that had then been make-up'd over with the impressive arsenal that Kurokawa had carried with her. He looked finally like Yamamoto, not the beat-up man Gokudera found licking his wounds at the back door when he got here this morning.
He wanted to say something encouraging - and he could see Yamamoto wanted it too - but then the music started and they filed out. Like a fast-forward blur his sister stepped out too in her vintage-turned-modern wedding dress, showing off her shoes and her matching earrings. Gokudera vaguely noted he'd never known her to be this materialistic before; he guessed all those stories about girls wanting perfect wedding days wasn't a lie after all.
The priest began to speak. "We gather here today -" THUMP! from the back balcony.
Yamamoto looked up, as did a hundred and sixty-three other pairs of eyes. After a moment Mizuno straightened. In one hand he shook the collar of a unconscious mman he'd obviously just knocked out like it was a puppet.
Yamamoto shook his head briefly. Gokudera wondered what idiot had put Yamamoto on a hit in Shimon territory right before his wedding - oh right, it was yours truly. He resisted the urge to swear as a man came up behind Mizuno but the Shimon Guardian only raised a hamfist and knocked the second one out too.
Yamamoto shook his head again at the face.
Then a gunshot rang out. And another. People panicked and dived for the pews, or started racing for the doors. From the corner of his eye he could see Kyoko-san following them, the Tenth following her, and then Ryohei following him. It was like a long line of stalkers that Gokudera lost interest in, pushing the priest behind the altar and telling him to Stay put unless you want to die.
The priest seemed shaken, but still game. Gokudera was glad priests in Italy had been trained for such things.
When he reached the choir loft it'd turned into a brawl. Only Nozato and Mizuno had come, so it was the two of them, plus Yamamoto, and more recently plus Bianchi that was fighting off the unknown attackers. His sister was carefully taking off her shoes so they could swing off of one lace-gloved hand and leave one free. Yamamoto was defending her.
"Who're these people!" He shouted, because he was hellishly sick of not being in the loop about these goddamn things.
"Probably followed me home!" Yamamoto yelled back. Bianchi kicked a guy in the nuts and the attackers were a little more wary of her when she brandished a purplish, oozing candlestick.
"It doesn't matter, Hayato. They ruined my wedding." She threw the candlestick at one man and leaned into the attack space of another. In another moment his clothes were melting on him and he was screaming... Gokudera turned his own attention to the assailants with a grimace.
Obviously it was more fearful than he thought it was, because most of them turned tail and ran. Bianchi couldn't follow - she was in a really expensive rental dress that she was in the process of ripping so she could give chase a little easier.
"Do you think this will look alright afterward?" she asked him as she continued to rip.
"Er." He was the bride's brother, not a fashion connaisseur. Still, he tilted his head to the side and looked at the jagged triangles that made up the bottom of the dress now. It looked kind of...witchly, which suited his sister to a T. "I think it'll look alright."
"Follow Yamamoto," were her parting words as she crashed out of the second-story window and landed below. He could see her earrings flashing as she dashed down the street in her stockings and then - yup, the screams of the melting horde, right out of a horror movie.
Yamamoto, it seemed, had gone in the complete opposite direction. He followed the trail of destruction - upset baby carriages, enraged mothers, tourists taking pictures of him running through the pigeons - before he stopped dead outside of a little park where clearly, he saw the Tenth and Kyoko-san having what looked like a serious heart-to-heart.
A hand clamped around his mouth and pulled him into the bushes. "Where's Bianchi?" Yamamoto whispered in his ear.
"Chasing down your remaining enemies. I'm pretty sure she won't be leaving you any," he added dryly.
Yamamoto gave a disappointed, resigned kind of noise. "I was prepared for that when I decided to marry her," he said finally.
Gokudera scooted out of those arms. He wanted to say I'm glad to see you back because he didn't say it before, but somehow he couldn't get the words out. So instead the two of them sat there, staring at their boss and his fiancee finally hashing some stuff out.
Just as he was going to say, "I wonder what they're talking about," Tsuna got up off the bench and hastened towards the entrance of the park, cell phone in hand.
The two of them caught him right outside. "What're you guys doing here?" he asked, totally bewildered.
"Following you." "Coincidence." came two answers at once.
"What does she want?" Gokudera persisted. That was really what was worrying him.
To his surprise the Tenth grinned almost happily. "You were getting weirded out too because she was so depressed, huh? Seems she was just sad someone was getting married in the Family before her...she saw all the preparations and said she wanted something similar, is all."
Yamamoto and Gokudera looked at each other. It was one of those moments where, as left- and right-hand men, they had the exact same idea. "Here," Gokudera said first. He pulled out the box with the ring he was supposed to give to his lover so he could go marry someone else.
"Hey, I've got one too." Yamamoto pulled out a similar box with a plainer ring.
They handed both over for inspection. "We could do it today," Gokudera suggested.
"We could do it now," Yamamoto agreed.
"The guests aren't fully gone - the ones that remained are the ones that matter anyway." Gokudera was thinking of the Shimon members, the Varia, the closer Family relationships that they had.
"We'll have leftovers for everyone to take home this way," Yamamoto nodded enthusiastically. "Ryohei will be happy about that, if anything else."
Tsuna still looked unconvinced. Gokudera supposed marrying his girlfriend of six years on a whim was still a little difficult to swallow all at once. "But..."
"Here, use this too." From somewhere on him Yamamoto pulled out the reservations for that cruise abomination that he'd booked and that Gokudera had most certainly not agreed to use the Family funds on. Yamamoto had enough in his own account, he was sure of it. "All you have to do is change the names - it's not like rooms or number of people have changed, so I'm sure it'll go through."
Gokudera peered over Tsuna's shoulder to read. Attendees:, read the paper, two adults (Takeshi Yamamoto | Hayato Gokudera).
"Like hell you were going to get me on a cruise ship," Gokudera winced, disgusted. "It's the biggest waste of time that mankind ever created."
"I think that would be 'feeling sorry for yourself'," Kyoko-san said from behind them. The three men shuffled a little to accomodate her into their little circle. "Tsu-kun...you don't have to if you don't want to." Gokudera could see that their love could at least overcome that.
The Tenth chuckled. "Xanxus is always telling me that I don't do things as spontaneously as I used to." And Gokudera still had no idea how that threesome worked - in fact, it was starting to hurt his brain just thinking about it. "We shouldn't put it off any longer."
"Alright then, Tsu-kun." They kissed, just a peck, and then sauntered off back to the church, hand-in-hand, equally blissful looks on their faces.
Yamamoto and Gokudera followed at a more sedate pace. "Just watch until they have kids - it all goes downhill from there," Gokudera muttered darkly.
"Good thing we'll never have that kind of problem," Yamamoto replied, grinning.
Gokudera only gave him a put-off look. Yamamoto's smile faded at the sight of it.
"Ah," he murmured softly, "so that's the way it is."
They walked together in silence, past the cafes streaming with sightseers, past the housewives hawking with the vendors, past the strutting pigeons. When they were within eyesight of the church Gokudera had had enough of Yamamoto's mopey look and shoved the assassin lightly. "Stop pouting like a woman, or it'll be you next on that altar with the bouquet in your hand."
Yamamoto snuck a glance at him, at Gokudera's placid expression. Something in him relaxed, loosened. "Who would I marry other than you?" He batted his eyelids and Gokudera snorted.
"Hell if I know - I don't know anyone who'd want you for a wife."
"Nobody?" That voice was teasing - that owner was just waiting to be smacked upside the head.
"Nobody," Gokudera answered firmly. Yamamoto's face showed nothing but content happiness; he looked about a second away from seizing Gokudera's hand and singing the rest of the way.
Then his voice turned lustful. "We should go to Archives after this." He leaned in close to Gokudera's ear. "Make your fantasies come true one by one."
"Shit," Gokudera shoved him away, but he was smiling too. "You goddamn bastard, you ought to be locked away in that place alone for a year."
They mounted the steps, feet in unison with each other. Once they reached the still-open doors they surveyed the scene: bodies being carried out with great efficiency by Family staff, Bianchi terrorizing the police who'd arrived at the site of the church, Tsuna and Kyoko talking things over with the priest. Gokudera went up the aisle to join them and left Yamamoto loosening the bow-tie around his neck.
Of course, there were also three kids in the corner practicing their new trick. Gokudera didn't pay but the barest of attention to them, until three became four. Then he really did whap Yamamoto upside the head.
"Ow! Haha Gokudera doesn't know his own strength..." Yamamoto wiped a fake tear from his eye.
"I think we're ready now!" the Tenth called from the altar. Kyoko appeared at the front door, hastily dressed in a wedding dress that, while made for someone taller and thinner than her, still looked spectacular on her willowy figure. Bianchi, on the other hand, had donned her usual shirt-and-jeans and was lounging with the rest of the bridesmaids on the altar already.
"Who needs kids when I have you," Gokudera hissed under his breath. "Get your butts up there before I kick it up there!" he roared to the kids, who took their places behind Kyoko-san's train. As if he'd cracked a whip the remaining half of the people who'd stayed arranged themselves accordingly in the pews.
"Where should I stand?" Yamamoto asked him softly as the music played. They were still in the back of the church; Gokudera had handed the ring off to Kurokawa earlier, as Yamamoto did to Ryohei.
He glanced over at his lover, partner-in-crime, brother and friend. "Stand next to me, right where you are," he commanded lowly.
"I think I can do that." And they watched the wedding, side-by-side.
-------------
Tomorrow's also my school's grad ceremony...so I thought it'd be appropriate.
Fandom: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: 8059, 327 + K...kinda...
Rating: NC-17, just to be safe
Words: 8,691
Notes: thought up in the shower. What is up with me and weddings recently?? I do not claim charges for brain damage for repeating motifs. Please kindly injure your head upon some other fandom's wall.
Vongola Wedding (2011.03.10)
"What. The Hell. IS THIS?!" Gokudera screeched at the paper placed in front of him.
Across the desk from him, Yamamoto laughed cheerfully at his indignance. "Exactly what it looks like, Gokudera - I'm getting married!"
Usually Gokudera wouldn't throw a fit about things like this - he'd just grunt, sign the paper, and pass it on - but this was Yamamoto. His Yamamoto. And he was getting married to -
"You're marrying my sister." He tried, he really did, to make sense of the words on the page, but the meaning of them truly escaped him.
"Well, we thought it'd be good for the Family and such! I mean, we're both assassins, we work with each other all the time, we have all the same friends," though Gokudera thought of the guys that hovered around Bianchi as more as 'pests' than friends, "it'd be the perfect match when you think about it."
He had to clamp down on the urge to shriek "But what about meeee?!", and instead closed his eyes, breathed in and out to get his temper under control, and then opened them again. The condemning words on the page didn't fade away, but Gokudera finally felt like he could breathe without him shooting the nearest person in sight until they were a bloody mess on the floor.
"Plus, we get marriage benefits from the government!" Yamamoto added merrily.
Gokudera had to refute that one. "Yamamoto, the Family makes more in one year than most farmers in Italy make in three generations - you don't need government benefits."
"You never know, might be nice to have someday," Yamamoto shrugged carelessly. "Don't know when you need a backup plan."
"Yeah, for the government to find us." He looked over the proposal a little calmer now, and grudgingly had to admit that the idea wasn't without merit.
Yamamoto (and for that matter, Gokudera) were officially the only 'bachelors' left in the Family. Of course they weren't - or else, they wouldn't be sharing a one-bedroom apartment - but to most of the people outside of the family, they were the easiest to target on that subject. Mafia Times in particular had a love for following them around, predicting which girl they would hook up next (being they were the only free members of the Family that didn't threaten them, disappear, or was too young to consider). Gokudera had switched off on either 'no comment' or 'I'm in love with my work' when asked; Yamamoto had probably never been willingly pinned down long enough to be asked.
"Oh, Basil deals with that just fine," Yamamoto airily waved a dismissive hand. "After this the paparazzi won't be on my trail for a while and they'll probably go terrorize Dino or something."
"Wouldn't that be nice." Dino owned the land that Mafia Times rested on; unless they wanted to move, they would never say anything but the most glowing reports about Dino (including, never revealing that his marriage with Marianne was a sham and that Hibari would burn the place to the ground if anyone as so much thought he was a 'kept man'). "Give me some time to think about it, and I'll get back to you."
"Not good enough, Hayato." His sister's silky voice floated over his shoulder. He resisted the age-old habit to dash for the bathroom and puke; she was out of her regular jeans and low-cut top in favor of something more secretarial today, including glasses. He breathed a sigh of relief. "I want this done by next week."
"NEXT WEEK?!" Everyone in the workroom looked up briefly at the disturbance. "You want me to plan a fucking wedding in a week? And this isn't even including registering the two of you with the government, the fact he has a hit this weekend -" He pointed a shaking finger at his flatmate.
"Ahaha, I forgot about that!"
"You were supposed to be doing recon for three weeks on that rat bastard, and you have the gall to tell me you forgot about it?" For sure, this time he was going to dash the idiot's brains against the wall.
"No no, the recon's still being done - Fuuta's a great help, by the way. I just thought it was next week, is all - man, time does fly when you're having fun!" He was talking about the stakeout last night that had turned into a sparring match with Squalo. Gokudera had been awakened at three AM by the ringing of his phone as the police officer they bribed basically asked him where to bill the charges for the destroyed building.
Thankfully, Squalo had left this morning. Gokudera pinched the bridge of his nose and asked for the millionth time for someone up there to give him the goddamn patience to deal with this rabble. "I don't care who you use, as long as it gets done. And you know if something gets screwed up, you're paying for it, right?" Yamamoto nodded happily; both of them knew Fuuta was squeaky clean between the ears about recon, so there'd probably be not a thing out of place when Yamamoto made the hit.
His hands, of course, had already said yes and were jotting down people he needed to call and where it should be, what kind of planner he should hire this time because Cliantro's was just way too expensive. His sister, of course, noticed and said nothing, only tapped her red nails in interest.
"Hayato, this has got to be grand." And there went all his frugality plans out of the window. "Reborn's made it clear we're going to remain uncommitted, so this is probably the only wedding I'll ever have. I want it to look gorgeous." She stared down at him from her nose, and somehow, though he was taller than her, he felt like he was three again, unable to resist her when she shoved a hand-me-down dress into his hands and told him to wear it.
"I should have all of you committed," he muttered in reply, and plunked back down hard in his chair. Somewhere, somewhere in that chest of his anxiety was squeezing the life out of his heart. It really hurt.
"Gokudera," Yamamoto said, and a warm hand on his shoulder made him look up. A fatal mistake, of course - one gaze into those concerned eyes and he was melting like an ice cream cone in summer. "You don't have to if you don't have time - I'm sure Bianchi and I will get by if we did it ourselves. It's just...we knew you'd do an even better job, is all."
He harrumphed, glaring at the other Guardian. "Flattery'll get you nowhere, ball-for-brains." The old name fell from his lips easily even after all this time.
"Haha! That sure is nostalgic." The warmth of Yamamoto's hand lifted to scratch at the new scar on his chin.
"Damn right I'd do better than you lot." He'd planned everything from graduation ceremonies to formal Family dinners since they'd gotten to Italy. "You guys can't even plan a way out of a paper bag."
"Of course," his sister agreed absently. Gokudera didn't see the flicker of her eyes from him, back to Yamamoto.
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First they booked the place. After all, without a place, they couldn't hold an event.
He was idly scrolling through his phone messages; he got one almost every two minutes, sometimes describing some new (and minor) crisis that the Family had hit, other ones with just one word answers telling him if they would or wouldn't be able to come. In the background Bianchi was arguing with the Family florist.
"But signorina, lilies are the flowers of the dead -"
"My mother had lilies in her bouquet, I've seen pictures. Are you saying she was praying to the dead on her wedding day?"
"O-of course not, signorina, I was merely relaying the usual superstitions..."
A weight settled next to him, along with the weight of a heavy, very familiar book. "Hayato-nii," Fuuta murmured softly. "Yama-nii has switched with me. He says he'll be ready for the hit tomorrow."
"Good," he grunted. He didn't pause where he tapped into the touchpad. "You can go home and rest now." Unlike me... As if on cue the voices behind raised, and then fell again as Bianchi and the florist reached some sort of agreement.
"I thought I'd stay and help plan for the wedding a little bit," Fuuta offered, but Gokudera only snorted.
He waved his cell phone in the direction of where Bianchi was now looking over pictures and signing certain papers that would undoutedly only be the start of a chunk of money disappearing from the Family treasury. "See that? That's the sound of the wedding planning. Of course Bianchi's detail-oriented and once I set her up with the right people, she mostly does it herself." Even if setting up those meetings was difficult, especially with that elusive famous wedding planner that was all the rage for some newfangled actress' wedding he did recently. "I just sit here and ferry people around occasionally."
"Sounds cushy." Fuuta's gaze still didn't leave his face, which meant there was something else going on.
"Spit it out."
Of course Fuuta knew Gokudera always appreciated the truth, pronto. "Yama-nii's worried that you think he's been cheating on you."
He snorted, though of course, the words struck a chord in him and everyone knew it. In terms of relationships he had an insecurity streak a mile wide, and Yamamoto knew that. Which made this whole bombastic wedding believable, actually - by the looks of things, it'd been all his sister's idea.
"Of course I think that. Wouldn't you?" He could see Fuuta didn't quite know how to respond to that, and sighed. "I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt anyway, just tell him not to come near me until this whole fiasco's finished."
Fuuta looked satisfied with that, though Gokudera had to admit it wasn't much. "Lambo learned to do something really cool with his new touchpad phone yesterday." His eyes gleamed like he had some big secret to share, so Gokudera humored him.
"What'd that cowbrat learn?"
"To text with his nose."
Bianchi looked over to see Fuuta and Gokudera smashing their faces against their phones and shook her head sadly. Boys.
-----------------
Of course, he should've known better than to think that Yamamoto would leave it just like that.
He'd barely stepped his foot in the door when Yamamoto yanked him into the living room. Then he separated Gokudera from briefcase ("Hey, don't toss that!"), shoes and tie ("Don't throw those either!") before pushing him roughly onto the couch.
Glowering at the ceiling, he pushed half-heartedly at the body holding him down. "Hey. Hey, lump, get the hell off of me."
Yamamoto didn't pause in the middle of where he was busy undoing Gokudera's shirt buttons. Gokudera grabbed his hands before it could turn out like last time, when Yamamoto had gotten impatient and ripped the whole thing off (and then Gokudera had ripped a new one in him, because that shirt had cost him somewhere around 500 Euros). "Hey, listen to me when I'm talking to you, idiot."
"I'm listening," Yamamoto crowed in triumph as the shirt came free, exposing Gokudera's undershirt. Then tanned hands were slinking along Gokudera's stomach and chest and it became significantly harder to remember what the whole point of talking was.
"If you think this is going to get you out of talking later -"
"'Later' sounds wonderful, Gokudera." And he didn't hesitate to swoop down and claim Gokudera's lips for his own.
Kissing Yamamoto was like kissing something he could never pin down. He could never understand what attracted him to this dumbass sword-for-brains, never comprehend what it was about Yamamoto's fond smile that made his heart leap to his throat when they were teenagers. It had be one of those UFO things, something unquantifiable and mysterious, just like how though he always told himself "This is the last time I'll do this" and inevitably found himself with his ankles hooked around Yamamoto's waist, hands fisted in spiky black hair, and his mouth screaming obscenities along with a name, just one name.
Yamamoto lay on him like a slab of huge, overheated blanket of ungiving muscle when they finished, and it was a good thing that Gokudera was just as winded, because he didn't particularly feel like moving either. Parts of him were telling him he'd be sore tomorrow; the rest of him was floating along the current labelled 'Post-Coital', telling him quite happily if sex on a regular basis was part of the Yamamoto Effect he could never defeat, then let it be.
Hands twitched along his ribs, palming the hipbones in the exact place they usually gripped, and unconsciously Gokudera's hand came down to tangle with it. Now that they were done he didn't feel much like talking, really.
Yamamoto's voice was like a rumble of ominous thunder in his chest. He was reminded vaguely of the first time they'd done it, it'd been a hellish thunderstorm during Japan's rainy season, and he'd told himself he'd just duck into Takesushi for a little bit - wait, something was being said?
"Gokudera?" Yamamoto raised up his head to look at him, confused as to why he wasn't responding.
"Mmrph," Gokudera grunted, and shifted so they were side-to-side.
"You know...you're the one I love, right?" It was only here, in the safety of their apartment that such things were ever uttered at all. Here, safely underground and away from the prying eyes of enemies, did they dare to indulge in the closeness that they'd carefully cultivated over the years.
He closed his eyes. It was somehow the words he wanted to hear the most, yet the words that he also feared the most. "I know that," he whispered back. He let himself be pulled back into Yamamoto's embrace, melting against the force of that fierce affection.
"The hit will go fine tomorrow."
"I don't want to talk about work." A pause. "The wedding plans are going great."
"I don't want to talk about the wedding," Yamamoto echoed.
In about two minutes his phone would go off again with another message as someone thought Lambo was missing on his way home from school, or Spanner's creations had made a hole in his laboratory wall again, or Bianchi had broken a nail. Until then he nestled under the warmth of his lover - muscles that rippled, a sword that shone silver in the starlight - and thought yearningly of blissful nothing when emotional complications didn't exist.
-------------
"Ugh." His eyes were so tired, and for once it wasn't because he'd been staring at the computer screen for too long. "Flippin' rinestones..."
His sister, of course, had asked for that pair of shoes, the same pair that actress had worn for the planner's last wedding. The planner, once Gokudera had convinced him of their seriousness to hire him (mainly, with a gun), had managed to procure them a discount from the actress who was (of all places) selling her shoes on Ebay. They were kind of chunky from a fashionable point of view - but he knew his sister, she'd probably look great in a black garbage bag tied with a length of seaweed.
And since the dress had to match the shoes and the ring and the everything else, Gokudera had spent the last five hours starnig at different sizes and qualities of stones that couldn't compare with the diamonds embedded on the shoes, but at least could match them for color.
He didn't bother to ask Who the hell would care about this?, because the answer was only a few steps away, arguing with the jeweler. With a sigh he picked up a strand of crystal beads, idly rolling them through his hand. They could just as well use plastic, no one would really give a damn...
"Hayato." His sister's voice was like the summon of an angry god. "What do you think about this for a lottery present?" A thin chain of emeralds dangled from her gloved hand.
"We're doing a lottery for the banquet?" He resisted the urge to clunk his head against one of the glass displays.
"I decided last night. Didn't you get my text about it?"
Yes, he did recall reading something like that right before Yamamoto plucked the phone out of his hand and tossed it onto the table in favor of round two. There had been something about a daily slice of cake from one of Milan's finest bakeries, some form of jewelry, and even a free double-hit from bride and groom. It showed what kind of industry Gokudera was in when the first thing he thought about it was that the third and last one was really the only one he had use for.
"Yeah, I did, cake and hits were the other two, working on it now." He had Bianchi's favorite patissier on speed dial by now, it'd taken him about ten tries before he could speak to the manager and book a cake for their 'Yearly Most Valued Customer'. It was really a miracle she stayed thin as she was.
He'd just picked up the phone when it vibrated. "Yamabaka", the caption read.
>>> Dinner?
<<< Shouldn't you be sharing meals with your sweet betrothed?
>>> Plenty of time to do that during the banquet.
<<< Did you ever establish a working rapport with my sister while you two were on assignment, or should I make preparations for a coffin during your honeymoon?
>>> We get a honeymoon?
Mentally Gokudera cursed. Hibari was in Venice, again with his tousled-haired ex-mentor-turned-boyfriend, Mukuro was somewhere in south France doing something, and Lambo was too young to do anything except for stand there and get shot at. That left Ryohei and lil' ol' him to protect the Tenth.
>>> Can I book something expensive like - Gokudera shut off his phone. The conversation could continue later, if Yamamoto really wanted to meet for dinner. Bianchi, seemingly tired that she was the one doing all the talking, was bullying the jeweler into showing her all the good stuff while she demonstrated her temper by melting what must've once looked like a wrench.
Two hours later, they emerged out of the dark confines of the jeweler's, Gokudera rubbing his eyes. "Are you alright, Hayato?" she asked, and he must've grunted in reply because she had her talons hooked on his arm in the next moment and was dragging him to the display of another wedding store.
He sneezed. Either someone was talking about him, or he was slowly becoming allergic to everything related to weddings. Probably the latter.
His phone rang. "Gokudera, dinner," Yamamoto pressed into his ear. It was almost a whine and Gokudera didn't need to hear it.
"Ask the Tenth to be your escort, he's the affianced one that doesn't get out enough."
"That's because Xanxus has him locked in the coat closet again." The mutter was low, but not low enough to escape Gokudera's ears.
He claimed sick, called the chauffeur and was speeding off to headquarters within two minutes. He swept all the cloakrooms and coat closets on the first floor, then the second. When he got to the floor he was a little desperate, so he asked Kyoko (who was nearby and dusting something though really, wasn't that what the base's servants were for? And why weren't they stopping the Tenth's fiancee?) if she'd seen her beloved stuffed in a closet somewhere.
"Oh," she looked as if she was about to burst into tears at the sound of his name. "I - I don't know. I haven't heard from him in a while." And then she covered her eyes, dropped the feather duster, and sobbed all the way down the hall.
He picked up the feather duster, staring nonplussed at her retreating back. Ugh, he sighed, Girls.
By the time he'd checked in the most obvious place (the coat closet in the Tenth's office) it was close to six and Yamamoto had called four times. Even more ominous than that, Bianchi had called and left a message that if he wasn't in his bed and coughing blood by the time she got back from the dressmaker's, she would make him look at more sparkly things tomorrow.
Xanxus was unabashedly sitting at the Tenth's desk, only a couple of paces away from his imprisoned boss when Gokudera burst into the room and yanked the closet door hard enough to break the handle. As predicted, the Tenth was sitting quite calmly at the bottom of the closet. "Oh, Gokudera-kun," he greeted, shaking the kinks out of his legs and back from sitting down for so long.
"Tenth! Why didn't you call us when you were stuck?"
Wordlessly Xanxus held up where the Tenth's phone blinked with fifty-four new messages.
Gokudera seized his boss' hands in his. "He's so eager to do your work for you, just this once I'll allow it and tell you to please go have dinner with Yamamoto! Here's the place, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you brought the Sasagawas with you!"
"Isn't Sasagawa with Squalo and the others?" Xanxus muttered aloud.
Indeed he was, but that would soon change with a vengeance if Gokudera had anything to do with it. "I'm sure he'll be back here at headquarters on time," he gritted out from behind his teeth, and took a moment to gleefully shove Xanxus out of the Tenth's seat. The ex-Varia retreated gracefully to his own desk, looking bored as hell with a significant lack of papers in front of him.
"Xanxus-san..." Tsuna turned his pleading eyes towards his advisor. Even with Xanxus' forced help, there were still mountains of documents to be looked over.
Gokudera sighed. "Don't you see, Tenth - this is why he does it in the first place?"
"I clean my desk for a better reason than that," Xanxus licked his lips, looking predatory. Suddenly the Tenth seemed much smaller, though the fire in his eyes was no less alight.
Feeling as if he'd suddenly misstepped into another dimension, Gokudera beat a hasty retreat. Isn't the Tenth affianced to someone else?
He recalled Kyoko-san's tears from earlier. Oh, dammit, came the mental groan of understanding.
---------------
"Well of course, they've been doing it for years now. Since we came to Italy, really." Ryohei horked down another hamburger and Gokudera resisted the urge to wince and find another corner to sit in. The other Guardian ate like this all the time for every meal - testament to his active lifestyle and high-speed metabolism.
"And why wasn't I informed of this?"
"Nrrphl gurcurz yur -"
"Chew, please!"
Ryohei chewed and swallowed. "Maybe because you're dense as a sinker when it comes to these things, Gokudera."
He knew that. He really did. But he didn't need to hear it from someone like Ryohei. Reaching his hand out he punched the other Guardian lightly in the shoulder. "Shut the hell up, you -"
"Wanna fight?" Of course glove-for-brains zeroed in on the punching action rather than the words being said.
"- NO, I don't want a fight, I just need to be surrounded by something other than idiots all day!" He felt like clutching his head in his hands - and really, it wasn't anything Ryohei hadn't seen him do, so he did it.
The other Guardian patted his shoulder consolingly, and then paused as a brilliant idea came to mind. "You could go on Yamamoto's honeymoon with him! I heard he booked it for somewhere in the Bahamas on a cruise ship." Gokudera didn't need to look up to see Ryohei scratching his chin in puzzlement. "I've never understood the appeal of those things - all you can do all is lay out in the sun, jump in a pool with a hundred other people, or eat yourself until you're fat and lazy. What's the point of that?"
Indeed, what was the point? By the end of this wedding mess, there'd probably be no money left in the Vongola treasury. "I don't know," Gokudera moaned pitifully. Ryohei got the idea that he wasn't answering the question, just letting the rest of the world know his current state of mind.
He tried to shift back to their original, lighter topic (except really, it wasn't). "So you're concerned that my sister's fiancee is trashing on her by going out with his advisor? Who probably rides him into the ground, by the way." He thought to Squalo's old affair with his boss and how he'd admitted to feeling it in his ass for days last time they got drunk together.
Gokudera actually banged his head on the window. "God, I totally didn't need to hear that!" Now he had visions of his beloved Tenth being all naked and slutty...it was like a return to his teenage days when he actually dreamed about that stuff.
"I wouldn't be worried." Ryohei started on his orange juice and his fries. "She knows what's going on - she worked something out. Sawada's not the type to leave her hanging like this, we all know that."
"I saw her crying the other day, though."
Ryohei shrugged. He did love his sister, but she threatened to never cook for him again if he butted his head into her relationship with Sawada. Not to mention, Sawada would sniffle and every mafia member in the current and distant vicinity would suddenly be obligated to help. It would be pretty darn scary sight, Ryohei thought to himself.
If she was half the future mafia wife she was supposed to be, she would get over this.
Gokudera groaned again at his nonchalance. "You are the worst example of an elder sibling I've ever seen," he shook his head sadly.
"How about you?" He slurped the last of his orange juice. "I heard I-Pin's learned the cellphone thing now, they're going to be doing it in tandem at the wedding at this rate."
Gokudera, who had been checking his cellphone at that very moment, resisted the urge to bring it forcibly to his forehead. "Are you going to be there, by the way?"
"Wouldn't miss it. I heard something about killer shoes, is that true?"
"If you mean it killed our treasury, yeah. Bianchi wanted them for whatever reason - diamond-studded clunkers to walk down the aisle with."
There was a beat of silence as Ryohei bundled up the finished meal and shoved the bag somewhere under the seat. "So, how long did it take?"
Gokudera heaved a sigh. "Does it matter how long it takes? You hork down the same meal every single day at the same pace at the same time, don't you?"
"Just read out the time, Gokudera," Ryohei's voice was abominably cheery.
"Four minutes twenty-three seconds."
"Hey, you're right - same speed on the next day too!"
What did I do to deserve this?, Gokudera resisted the urge to injure his head anymore than he had today.
----------------
>>> Lol, I never thought I'd be doing this
<<< Will you shut up? It's already embarrassing as it is!
>>> So where are you?
<<< Does it matter? Just fucking get on with it!
>>> Can't, gotta visualize where you are
A pause in the messaging while Gokudera yelled for everyone to get out of Archives (and lo and behold...there was nobody), and locked the door behind him.
<<< Still in headquarters
>>> Jerking off in Archives or something?
"Shut the hell up," Gokudera muttered. Yes, so he usually had more control over himself than this, but Yamamoto was preparing for the hit and couldn't call unless he wanted to be traced, and for whatever reason he couldn't understand Gokudera's body was yelling that it was horny.
>>> You don't even have your pants down all the way, do you?
<<< Shut up
>>> I know you like it when I lick the tip and then go all the way down
"Fuck!" he muttered. He could almost feel it - the heat of Yamamoto's gaze, the wickedness of his grin. He slid his hands up and down and imagined it was that thrice-damned baseball idiot with his long fingers and the way he hummed as he tongued the vein on the underside.
>>> Bet you like it when I squeeze you there too And he was arching, panting, handkerchief turning soggy in his hand.
It took so fucking little for Yamamoto get him off, it was irritating. Gokudera hated people other than the Tenth having power over him - and yet there were plenty of those kinds of people now, a whole goddamn Family of them.
The phone vibrated with one last message: >>>I'm going in, Gokudera, I love you
Then it went black and silent as Gokudera cleaned up, and tried not to think about it being the last time.
---------------
"I'm sure he's fine," Bianchi inspected her nails. She looked supremely calm despite the fact that she was hounded by two different hairdressers that were currently bickering over what kind of hairdo she should have for her wedding. Pictures of the dress, the shoes and the trial shots of the venue were scattered around her chair.
"How would you know -"
"Hey!" she barked softly, but with no less deadliness. "If you guys are going to chat, you can do it on your free time. I want to see what kind of styles are possible with my length."
The two hairdressers glared at each other and at last with one last vicious look he flipped his pink locks and left. The remaining one nervously explained, "With your length, signorina, we could do pretty much anything..."
"Then show me what would look good."
Helplessly, the hairdresser began to pile it up, half down, braid it in places - soon his sister was surrounded by equipment Gokudera didn't know, and had even less interest in knowing. "Bianchi, you can't know if he's alive or not."
She smiled humorlessly at him. "And why should I? He's my betrothed, after all." For once in her life she sat perfectly still, letting the hairdresser tug her hair this way and that. As Gokudera watched, like magic a sort-of shape began to form, leaving room for her veil and showing off flashy earrings.
He sighed. "It doesn't matter -"
"Hayato, are you alright?"
No, he wasn't alright. The wedding was in four days and Yamamoto was missing. Usually he'd have two days to get back to headquarters from his pickup place, but the hit had been close and from what Gokudera had heard he hadn't even picked up a ring yet (then again, before he left Bianchi hadn't given him a price range yet). Maybe he'd only wait one day before sending out the scouts to flush out wherever that baseball idiot had wandered to.
Not to mention, he still had the florist's balcony arrangement to oversee (and critique), the rest of the crystals to order (Bianchi had been adamant), the banquet film to make (why they were having a banquet when the couple didn't even love each other was beyond him), and mass invitations to send out by e-mail. No time for paper, unless he wanted to overnight them - well, he might make an exception for Yamamoto-san.
He'd had a massive headache from the time Yamamoto went radio silent, which had been yesterday. What he really wanted to do was just skiv off work and curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and possibly fall asleep halfway through some boring game show. And then he wanted to hear the lock jiggle in the door and Yamamoto's arms folding around him.
"Miss me?" he'd ask, like always.
"Not on your life," Gokudera grumbled. Bianchi's expression didn't change, though her tone of voice did.
Reaching out her fist she suddenly punched him. He staggered back in the chair, surprised as it hurt like hell. Blood ran from his nose as he shouted, "What the hell was that for?!"
"You're bleeding all over the floor. This isn't a shop we have influence over, you know." Of course he knew; that'd been one of Bianchi's requirements, since most hairdressers with the Family were always fighting over who got to do her hair next. "Go over there and lie down for a bit."
The moment he did, he was out.
--------------
In his dreams he saw a large red balloon in the shape of a heart, wavering between him and Yamamoto. They stood on opposite sides of a round stadium that was shaped and colored like a watermelon. And from the middle of this rose the balloon like one of those windy cylindrical people he sometimes saw in cars' sales lots.
He didn't say anything, just watching the balloon flap in the wind. Suddenly he realized the sky was getting larger and larger above him - no, it was the balloon that was getting smaller and smaller, until it shrank all the way into nothing in Yamamoto's hand.
"It's not nothing," Yamamoto protested. "It's a peanut." And he ate it.
What the hell? It felt like he'd been saying that since the whole wedding mess began. He kind of wanted something to chomp on himself. As if in retaliation for his sulking the dream spilled peanuts over him, whole tsunamis worth of them, rising over the beaches and the houses and the stadium.
When it all ended, he was standing there still. The stadium had faded to blood around him; he could hear it echoing on the walls. A peanut was in his hand.
"That's all that's left!" Yamamoto said cheerily. He plucked the peanut out of Gokudera's hand and ate it.
And I don't get any at all, Gokudera wanted to cry. There's nothing left for me...
-------------------
Of course he was supervising things until the very last minute.
Somehow the girls had rallied together and created a plan to make something edible that didn't include Poison Cooking (for which the entire group of banquet attendees heaved a great sigh of relief). He didn't see Kyoko-san over the course of that time, but he assumed she was with Haru and Kurokawa and probably also Ryohei, who'd taken a leaf out of Gokudera's book and was, for all intents and purposes, stalking his sister.
So the food was taken care of but the billing wasn't, so he went through all the trouble of billing thirteen different food suppliers who yes, they usually did buy food from for the whole headquarters but no, never bought so many weird and out-of-the-ordinary things, such as maraschino cherries, foie gras, and prosciutto.
Bianchi, of course, dropped the bomb at the last minute: what was Gokudera thinking, booking the event in Japan? Of course she didn't want it here! He didn't bother to ask her why she hadn't said something when he told her he was booking it, or why she'd changed her mind at the last minute.
Gokudera was almost used to the constant state of crisis by now. He opened his laptop, Googled "famous Italian churches", and whittled them down until he had one about the same floor space as the place he'd booked in Japan. It cost them twice as much and Xanxus looked like he was going to fight Gokudera for it, but all Gokudera had to do was point in the direction of where his sister was browbeating their florist into giving up all the floral plans for a pittance so they could pass it onto whoever would be doing the new arrangements in Italy.
Xanxus conceded with a snarl that had Squalo grinning (and of course, Yamamoto had invited Squalo, who had in turn dragged the whole Varia in to crash the party) and saying, "He's scared of a little girl." The whole rehearsal was pretty on the spot with the hysterics, pandemonium, and hilarity that Gokudera wondered what would go wrong during the actual thing, if the practice was already this bad?
Squalo, after screaming that his face had been burned off by a fucking purple cake spent the rest of rehearsal time trying to get his face to return to the right shade. Gokudera was pretty sure he'd still look a little greenish around the edges when they did the real thing tomorrow.
And of course Yamamoto wasn't here. He was never here when Gokudera needed him outside of a fight - then he was as bad as Ryohei. But this wasn't a fight, and Yamamoto wasn't here, just like he was never here when Gokudera was feeling at his lowest and could use some distraction to keep his mind off of work.
His headache hadn't gone away. His sister suggested medicine that he refused when he looked at the contents. The girls in the kitchen plied him with sweets, saying the sugar would help, but after eating half a dish of tiramisu he didn't feel any better. He felt like a pig.
Of course, he found Kyoko-san on the patio. She was staring down at her engagement ring, twisting it back and forth on her finger. There was one stone on it, not huge, just a normal ring.
"Where'd he'd get that?" And they spent the rest of the day ordering Bianchi's ring in lieu of Yamamoto.
When they'd finally narrowed down the choices he frowned at the screen. "Are you sure she'd like that?" It was in the range she had given Yamamoto, but - well, even if he was a girl he was fairly sure he would never go for anything that gaudy.
Kyoko-san shrugged. "It's within the price range - everything else is pretty ugly." They smiled in unison and he knew both of them also felt a little better.
"Is everything alright with you?" he asked as gently as he could. Usually she complained about his cigarette smoke but this was one of the times when she only pushed the tray a little closer to him and he blew the smoke off to the side, away from her. From somewhere in the headquarters below, he knew her brother was monitoring this video.
She sighed, oblivious to his thoughts. "Yes, I'm...just a little disappointed, is all. Here Bianchi-san and Yamamoto-kun are having this shotgun wedding after they've been in love for so long," what? his brain supplied, "and I guess I'm a little anxious for it to happen to me too."
"Uh...yeah," he replied woodenly. Brokenly. Then he came to. "I'm sure he's just trying to find the perfect moment." He couldn't think about other people's weddings when he couldn't even think about the one he was planning right now.
She looked up at him and in that moment he abruptly understood what it was to be the odd one out, the other woman. Yamamoto'll owe me when he gets back, was the cool, rational right-hand-man's voice speaking.
The other part of him seemed permanently stuck in a state of "I'm gonna kill him".
He smiled wryly. "If it doesn't work out, I'll go out with you."
From sister to brother, from friend to friend, she laughingly kissed his cheek.
-------------
"So are you guys all going to bang our foreheads on our phones together when we come out or what?"
Gokudera suppressed a groan. "Why has everyone and their mother heard about that?"
Yamamoto didn't pause when he was trying in vain to pin Gokudera's boutonniere on with his big fingers. Gokudera yanked the thing out of his hands and did it about two seconds. They arranged each other's pocket squares, and then Yamamoto did a quick turn-around to make sure the tux fit alright, and then they stood at the side doors waiting for the signal.
Yamamoto's hair was flattened on one side and Gokudera was ninety-percent sure he was still injured somewhere or else he wouldn't smell blood, but he was feeling distant enough so that he didn't feel up to fixing either of those things.
Squalo, waiting on Yamamoto's other side, had no such qualms. "You know you look like you just got mauled by an attack zombie blender, don't you?" What the hell? was the only thought Gokudera had in answer to the colorful simile.
Apparently it was some sort of inside joke, because Yamamoto laughed. Of course, laughing made his swelled face hurt, and his split lip start dribbling again, but (fortunately) Gokudera didn't see him falling apart before this whole fiasco was over and Gokudera got his chance to thwack him a good one to send him on his happy honeymoon.
Yamamoto dabbed gingerly at the cut with a spare pocket square as Squalo finally ruffled his hair in the right direction. There was butterfly tape all over his face that had then been make-up'd over with the impressive arsenal that Kurokawa had carried with her. He looked finally like Yamamoto, not the beat-up man Gokudera found licking his wounds at the back door when he got here this morning.
He wanted to say something encouraging - and he could see Yamamoto wanted it too - but then the music started and they filed out. Like a fast-forward blur his sister stepped out too in her vintage-turned-modern wedding dress, showing off her shoes and her matching earrings. Gokudera vaguely noted he'd never known her to be this materialistic before; he guessed all those stories about girls wanting perfect wedding days wasn't a lie after all.
The priest began to speak. "We gather here today -" THUMP! from the back balcony.
Yamamoto looked up, as did a hundred and sixty-three other pairs of eyes. After a moment Mizuno straightened. In one hand he shook the collar of a unconscious mman he'd obviously just knocked out like it was a puppet.
Yamamoto shook his head briefly. Gokudera wondered what idiot had put Yamamoto on a hit in Shimon territory right before his wedding - oh right, it was yours truly. He resisted the urge to swear as a man came up behind Mizuno but the Shimon Guardian only raised a hamfist and knocked the second one out too.
Yamamoto shook his head again at the face.
Then a gunshot rang out. And another. People panicked and dived for the pews, or started racing for the doors. From the corner of his eye he could see Kyoko-san following them, the Tenth following her, and then Ryohei following him. It was like a long line of stalkers that Gokudera lost interest in, pushing the priest behind the altar and telling him to Stay put unless you want to die.
The priest seemed shaken, but still game. Gokudera was glad priests in Italy had been trained for such things.
When he reached the choir loft it'd turned into a brawl. Only Nozato and Mizuno had come, so it was the two of them, plus Yamamoto, and more recently plus Bianchi that was fighting off the unknown attackers. His sister was carefully taking off her shoes so they could swing off of one lace-gloved hand and leave one free. Yamamoto was defending her.
"Who're these people!" He shouted, because he was hellishly sick of not being in the loop about these goddamn things.
"Probably followed me home!" Yamamoto yelled back. Bianchi kicked a guy in the nuts and the attackers were a little more wary of her when she brandished a purplish, oozing candlestick.
"It doesn't matter, Hayato. They ruined my wedding." She threw the candlestick at one man and leaned into the attack space of another. In another moment his clothes were melting on him and he was screaming... Gokudera turned his own attention to the assailants with a grimace.
Obviously it was more fearful than he thought it was, because most of them turned tail and ran. Bianchi couldn't follow - she was in a really expensive rental dress that she was in the process of ripping so she could give chase a little easier.
"Do you think this will look alright afterward?" she asked him as she continued to rip.
"Er." He was the bride's brother, not a fashion connaisseur. Still, he tilted his head to the side and looked at the jagged triangles that made up the bottom of the dress now. It looked kind of...witchly, which suited his sister to a T. "I think it'll look alright."
"Follow Yamamoto," were her parting words as she crashed out of the second-story window and landed below. He could see her earrings flashing as she dashed down the street in her stockings and then - yup, the screams of the melting horde, right out of a horror movie.
Yamamoto, it seemed, had gone in the complete opposite direction. He followed the trail of destruction - upset baby carriages, enraged mothers, tourists taking pictures of him running through the pigeons - before he stopped dead outside of a little park where clearly, he saw the Tenth and Kyoko-san having what looked like a serious heart-to-heart.
A hand clamped around his mouth and pulled him into the bushes. "Where's Bianchi?" Yamamoto whispered in his ear.
"Chasing down your remaining enemies. I'm pretty sure she won't be leaving you any," he added dryly.
Yamamoto gave a disappointed, resigned kind of noise. "I was prepared for that when I decided to marry her," he said finally.
Gokudera scooted out of those arms. He wanted to say I'm glad to see you back because he didn't say it before, but somehow he couldn't get the words out. So instead the two of them sat there, staring at their boss and his fiancee finally hashing some stuff out.
Just as he was going to say, "I wonder what they're talking about," Tsuna got up off the bench and hastened towards the entrance of the park, cell phone in hand.
The two of them caught him right outside. "What're you guys doing here?" he asked, totally bewildered.
"Following you." "Coincidence." came two answers at once.
"What does she want?" Gokudera persisted. That was really what was worrying him.
To his surprise the Tenth grinned almost happily. "You were getting weirded out too because she was so depressed, huh? Seems she was just sad someone was getting married in the Family before her...she saw all the preparations and said she wanted something similar, is all."
Yamamoto and Gokudera looked at each other. It was one of those moments where, as left- and right-hand men, they had the exact same idea. "Here," Gokudera said first. He pulled out the box with the ring he was supposed to give to his lover so he could go marry someone else.
"Hey, I've got one too." Yamamoto pulled out a similar box with a plainer ring.
They handed both over for inspection. "We could do it today," Gokudera suggested.
"We could do it now," Yamamoto agreed.
"The guests aren't fully gone - the ones that remained are the ones that matter anyway." Gokudera was thinking of the Shimon members, the Varia, the closer Family relationships that they had.
"We'll have leftovers for everyone to take home this way," Yamamoto nodded enthusiastically. "Ryohei will be happy about that, if anything else."
Tsuna still looked unconvinced. Gokudera supposed marrying his girlfriend of six years on a whim was still a little difficult to swallow all at once. "But..."
"Here, use this too." From somewhere on him Yamamoto pulled out the reservations for that cruise abomination that he'd booked and that Gokudera had most certainly not agreed to use the Family funds on. Yamamoto had enough in his own account, he was sure of it. "All you have to do is change the names - it's not like rooms or number of people have changed, so I'm sure it'll go through."
Gokudera peered over Tsuna's shoulder to read. Attendees:, read the paper, two adults (Takeshi Yamamoto | Hayato Gokudera).
"Like hell you were going to get me on a cruise ship," Gokudera winced, disgusted. "It's the biggest waste of time that mankind ever created."
"I think that would be 'feeling sorry for yourself'," Kyoko-san said from behind them. The three men shuffled a little to accomodate her into their little circle. "Tsu-kun...you don't have to if you don't want to." Gokudera could see that their love could at least overcome that.
The Tenth chuckled. "Xanxus is always telling me that I don't do things as spontaneously as I used to." And Gokudera still had no idea how that threesome worked - in fact, it was starting to hurt his brain just thinking about it. "We shouldn't put it off any longer."
"Alright then, Tsu-kun." They kissed, just a peck, and then sauntered off back to the church, hand-in-hand, equally blissful looks on their faces.
Yamamoto and Gokudera followed at a more sedate pace. "Just watch until they have kids - it all goes downhill from there," Gokudera muttered darkly.
"Good thing we'll never have that kind of problem," Yamamoto replied, grinning.
Gokudera only gave him a put-off look. Yamamoto's smile faded at the sight of it.
"Ah," he murmured softly, "so that's the way it is."
They walked together in silence, past the cafes streaming with sightseers, past the housewives hawking with the vendors, past the strutting pigeons. When they were within eyesight of the church Gokudera had had enough of Yamamoto's mopey look and shoved the assassin lightly. "Stop pouting like a woman, or it'll be you next on that altar with the bouquet in your hand."
Yamamoto snuck a glance at him, at Gokudera's placid expression. Something in him relaxed, loosened. "Who would I marry other than you?" He batted his eyelids and Gokudera snorted.
"Hell if I know - I don't know anyone who'd want you for a wife."
"Nobody?" That voice was teasing - that owner was just waiting to be smacked upside the head.
"Nobody," Gokudera answered firmly. Yamamoto's face showed nothing but content happiness; he looked about a second away from seizing Gokudera's hand and singing the rest of the way.
Then his voice turned lustful. "We should go to Archives after this." He leaned in close to Gokudera's ear. "Make your fantasies come true one by one."
"Shit," Gokudera shoved him away, but he was smiling too. "You goddamn bastard, you ought to be locked away in that place alone for a year."
They mounted the steps, feet in unison with each other. Once they reached the still-open doors they surveyed the scene: bodies being carried out with great efficiency by Family staff, Bianchi terrorizing the police who'd arrived at the site of the church, Tsuna and Kyoko talking things over with the priest. Gokudera went up the aisle to join them and left Yamamoto loosening the bow-tie around his neck.
Of course, there were also three kids in the corner practicing their new trick. Gokudera didn't pay but the barest of attention to them, until three became four. Then he really did whap Yamamoto upside the head.
"Ow! Haha Gokudera doesn't know his own strength..." Yamamoto wiped a fake tear from his eye.
"I think we're ready now!" the Tenth called from the altar. Kyoko appeared at the front door, hastily dressed in a wedding dress that, while made for someone taller and thinner than her, still looked spectacular on her willowy figure. Bianchi, on the other hand, had donned her usual shirt-and-jeans and was lounging with the rest of the bridesmaids on the altar already.
"Who needs kids when I have you," Gokudera hissed under his breath. "Get your butts up there before I kick it up there!" he roared to the kids, who took their places behind Kyoko-san's train. As if he'd cracked a whip the remaining half of the people who'd stayed arranged themselves accordingly in the pews.
"Where should I stand?" Yamamoto asked him softly as the music played. They were still in the back of the church; Gokudera had handed the ring off to Kurokawa earlier, as Yamamoto did to Ryohei.
He glanced over at his lover, partner-in-crime, brother and friend. "Stand next to me, right where you are," he commanded lowly.
"I think I can do that." And they watched the wedding, side-by-side.
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Tomorrow's also my school's grad ceremony...so I thought it'd be appropriate.
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