Reborn drabbles: (12/6: --fool me thrice, shame on me)
Title: --Fool me thrice, shame on me
Author: anza
Fandom: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Pairings: Squalo/Yamamoto. Does Squalo have a number?
Notes: written and belatedly posted for the 31_days challenge. OOC on Squalo's part, IMHO.
6. --Fool me thrice, shame on me
He hated feeling sorry for people, because in the end it was technically their fault they got into the messes that they did. Him included, of course, he was just a little more loudmouthed about it. And a little more physical - after all, what was the point of strapping a sword to your arm if you never use it?
He could go on to say, of course, that sometimes he uses it a little too much. He knew the boss didn't approve - the big one, the one that defeated Xanxus in all his gawky teenage glory - but it was his only weapon against the world that was definitely out to get him, to tame him and hold him perfectly still. He wanted to do exactly what he wanted to do, which was why he entered each fight knowing, not hoping, he would win. It wasn't ego, and it wasn't loyalty to the Vongola name. If anything, it was desperation for stability and a place to belong, a fear for the world that might prove to be too complicated for him, that it was possible to saw off his fins and bereft him of the freedom he had. At least, he thought he had. Sometimes it was all he could cling to.
So he had to make an effort, right? To keep in the Vongola's good graces, especially that of the new boss (he still couldn't wrap his mind around it - this tiny scrap of wide-eyed forgiveness had beaten Xanxus in all his scars and endless bitterness), and there wasn't really a better way to do that than to apologize to the one he'd done it to. Which would be the katana brat, that grinning one with the unholy eyes that weren't like a kid's at all. Now that the fight was over he could be apprehensive about how this one might tap into the potential he hadn't quite discovered yet, and how Squalo himself might have a nice hand in that. It was relieving, that at last he knew he could still feel anticipation from something other than killing, though he refused to recognize why he might find that so.
The shop was small, out of the way - Bel had hinted he might take care to be a little less loud, along with a sickly-sweet “loser” tagged on at the end - tucked away so neatly he almost missed it. But the name spelled on the stiff blue curtains out front was unmistakable, so he went in. Fortunately the brat (sword-brat, born hitman, looks so ordinary but he hides such a keen blade) was right out front. He didn’t say anything, just looking around, watching the other’s face jump with surprise and then with a grin, then in that irritating way that the rest of the (new) boss’ crew has, carols, “We have a customer!” as if they were, and always has been friends.
He’s not used to admiring anything, but the smile that stays bright on the kid’s face, along with the annoying humming and the knifework that folds the sashimi into flowers and layers it onto the rice in a cute little box with a cute little Japanese name, it deserves credit. It doesn’t waver at all while he digs into the chirashi, eating the first half fast, the second half slower when Yamamoto takes a seat beside him and blathers about how the baby cow woke up yesterday. The kid’s expression is relaxed, open, yet his eyes don’t waver as they look at him squarely, unafraid.
At first he forces himself to feel irritated, but then he remembers there’s no way to take back a defeat. In the end it’s unsettling, but he decides it’s not in a bad way. There’s no way to move forward if he was always caught on this.
The eyepatch is stark white even in the shop; he doesn’t remember how he slashed it, just that he did. The entire battle is a haze - I lost - of blood blossoming in water and the blunt side of the blade, the keen balance that this kid was determined to keep until the very end. So different from me, but it makes him strong. But when he asks about it, Yamamoto says that it’ll heal, that it’s fine, and his smile is so natural Squalo can’t help but forget everything about being nervous and hand the kid another fight challenge for when they meet again.
-------
Yamamoto comes to Italy; they fight again, something fiery with his bloodlust in every swing, mirrored in hardwood floors under their feet. By this time Yamamoto’s eye has long since healed. When it’s over Squalo still leans forward, invading the kid’s private space as he hasn’t done to anyone else, brushing his black fingers against his eye. He can’t help but frowns; there doesn’t seem to be any damage; just to make sure he gives a little wave - unsure is a good way to put it, hesitant as to why he cared, why it would matter when he was going to win and forget this brat someday - and Yamamoto catches his hand and laughs.
“I told you, it’s fine! It healed nicely, it was my eyebrow that was scratched.” He points to the perfectly vertical line that cuts down the middle of his eyebrow. Squalo’s eyes follow it, down to where one eye looks up at him. He finally to how close they are.
It wouldn’t be so bad, the thought rises again before he can stop it. It wouldn’t be so bad. He’s even legal now.
His thumb brushes over the eye just one more time, leather against the eyelid he can feel fluttering under his finger. “It’s fine, I told you it’s fine,” Yamamoto repeats with a hint more uncertainty. Squalo revels in that for a second, but this defeat’s not bloody, it stirs up something else in him that he’d also thought he’d castrated when he took on the name Varia. Again he’s relieved that he’s still human, under the layers of black leather and bravado he bundles himself in.
He’s finally stopped smiling, and Squalo’s eyes follow the hesitancy in those eyes, the hint of girlish blush on those lips, the jut of his chin that he takes in hand and tilts up, taking in, drinking victory at last.
------
He looks back on it now and knows he’s been fooled. What was that handy turn of phrase he always forgets when he wants to remember it? “-Fool me thrice, shame on me”?
That morning he’d come down for coffee as usual, and just before Yamamoto left he’d traced his fingers over the eye that had brought them together, that looked out at him with something that couldn’t be put into words because it was infinitely more precious, infinitely less definable. They said their goodbyes, Yamamoto said he’d be home in a couple of days, and then Squalo took the plane with Bel to Singapore to oversee their assets there.
He came back to the light on in the kitchen, and he even remembered he’d been grinning, anticipating Yamamoto at the stove with the tea kettle whistling merrily in time for a late night cup of tea before the two of them knocked a couple of shins up the stairs to reach the bedroom. But instead it was the boss that was there, now twenty-five and with haunted eyes that said it all.
It’s over, he thought with something like empty relief, after being chained for a decade I’m free to roam again. It couldn’t have come at a better time, just when I was thinking of breaking free and going wild, I finally can.
But the part of him that didn’t think with his sword remembered the lies from before as he looked into the coffin. When everyone else was gone, he held that hand as he never had in life, traced the sword calluses in his lover’s palm before setting it down and tracing the dry mouth of the wound where the bullet had sunk, bull’s eye, into Yamamoto’s brain from his blind side.
The scent of blood soured like radiation-flowers, wilting to ashes in his mouth. He was relieved yet again that he was still human, that he could still be tricked that he was somehow above that when really, he was just an idiot like the rest. This was the kind of defeat he’d never wanted, for Yamamoto to go before him with his faded but steady smile and his eyes that had never lost their edge or their watchfulness. But, he supposed, he was just a loser and a fool to the end.
This is somewhat more well-cut off than the rest. Why is my Squalo so fucking sentimental? I just can't write people without feelings, can I...
Author: anza
Fandom: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Pairings: Squalo/Yamamoto. Does Squalo have a number?
Notes: written and belatedly posted for the 31_days challenge. OOC on Squalo's part, IMHO.
6. --Fool me thrice, shame on me
He hated feeling sorry for people, because in the end it was technically their fault they got into the messes that they did. Him included, of course, he was just a little more loudmouthed about it. And a little more physical - after all, what was the point of strapping a sword to your arm if you never use it?
He could go on to say, of course, that sometimes he uses it a little too much. He knew the boss didn't approve - the big one, the one that defeated Xanxus in all his gawky teenage glory - but it was his only weapon against the world that was definitely out to get him, to tame him and hold him perfectly still. He wanted to do exactly what he wanted to do, which was why he entered each fight knowing, not hoping, he would win. It wasn't ego, and it wasn't loyalty to the Vongola name. If anything, it was desperation for stability and a place to belong, a fear for the world that might prove to be too complicated for him, that it was possible to saw off his fins and bereft him of the freedom he had. At least, he thought he had. Sometimes it was all he could cling to.
So he had to make an effort, right? To keep in the Vongola's good graces, especially that of the new boss (he still couldn't wrap his mind around it - this tiny scrap of wide-eyed forgiveness had beaten Xanxus in all his scars and endless bitterness), and there wasn't really a better way to do that than to apologize to the one he'd done it to. Which would be the katana brat, that grinning one with the unholy eyes that weren't like a kid's at all. Now that the fight was over he could be apprehensive about how this one might tap into the potential he hadn't quite discovered yet, and how Squalo himself might have a nice hand in that. It was relieving, that at last he knew he could still feel anticipation from something other than killing, though he refused to recognize why he might find that so.
The shop was small, out of the way - Bel had hinted he might take care to be a little less loud, along with a sickly-sweet “loser” tagged on at the end - tucked away so neatly he almost missed it. But the name spelled on the stiff blue curtains out front was unmistakable, so he went in. Fortunately the brat (sword-brat, born hitman, looks so ordinary but he hides such a keen blade) was right out front. He didn’t say anything, just looking around, watching the other’s face jump with surprise and then with a grin, then in that irritating way that the rest of the (new) boss’ crew has, carols, “We have a customer!” as if they were, and always has been friends.
He’s not used to admiring anything, but the smile that stays bright on the kid’s face, along with the annoying humming and the knifework that folds the sashimi into flowers and layers it onto the rice in a cute little box with a cute little Japanese name, it deserves credit. It doesn’t waver at all while he digs into the chirashi, eating the first half fast, the second half slower when Yamamoto takes a seat beside him and blathers about how the baby cow woke up yesterday. The kid’s expression is relaxed, open, yet his eyes don’t waver as they look at him squarely, unafraid.
At first he forces himself to feel irritated, but then he remembers there’s no way to take back a defeat. In the end it’s unsettling, but he decides it’s not in a bad way. There’s no way to move forward if he was always caught on this.
The eyepatch is stark white even in the shop; he doesn’t remember how he slashed it, just that he did. The entire battle is a haze - I lost - of blood blossoming in water and the blunt side of the blade, the keen balance that this kid was determined to keep until the very end. So different from me, but it makes him strong. But when he asks about it, Yamamoto says that it’ll heal, that it’s fine, and his smile is so natural Squalo can’t help but forget everything about being nervous and hand the kid another fight challenge for when they meet again.
-------
Yamamoto comes to Italy; they fight again, something fiery with his bloodlust in every swing, mirrored in hardwood floors under their feet. By this time Yamamoto’s eye has long since healed. When it’s over Squalo still leans forward, invading the kid’s private space as he hasn’t done to anyone else, brushing his black fingers against his eye. He can’t help but frowns; there doesn’t seem to be any damage; just to make sure he gives a little wave - unsure is a good way to put it, hesitant as to why he cared, why it would matter when he was going to win and forget this brat someday - and Yamamoto catches his hand and laughs.
“I told you, it’s fine! It healed nicely, it was my eyebrow that was scratched.” He points to the perfectly vertical line that cuts down the middle of his eyebrow. Squalo’s eyes follow it, down to where one eye looks up at him. He finally to how close they are.
It wouldn’t be so bad, the thought rises again before he can stop it. It wouldn’t be so bad. He’s even legal now.
His thumb brushes over the eye just one more time, leather against the eyelid he can feel fluttering under his finger. “It’s fine, I told you it’s fine,” Yamamoto repeats with a hint more uncertainty. Squalo revels in that for a second, but this defeat’s not bloody, it stirs up something else in him that he’d also thought he’d castrated when he took on the name Varia. Again he’s relieved that he’s still human, under the layers of black leather and bravado he bundles himself in.
He’s finally stopped smiling, and Squalo’s eyes follow the hesitancy in those eyes, the hint of girlish blush on those lips, the jut of his chin that he takes in hand and tilts up, taking in, drinking victory at last.
------
He looks back on it now and knows he’s been fooled. What was that handy turn of phrase he always forgets when he wants to remember it? “-Fool me thrice, shame on me”?
That morning he’d come down for coffee as usual, and just before Yamamoto left he’d traced his fingers over the eye that had brought them together, that looked out at him with something that couldn’t be put into words because it was infinitely more precious, infinitely less definable. They said their goodbyes, Yamamoto said he’d be home in a couple of days, and then Squalo took the plane with Bel to Singapore to oversee their assets there.
He came back to the light on in the kitchen, and he even remembered he’d been grinning, anticipating Yamamoto at the stove with the tea kettle whistling merrily in time for a late night cup of tea before the two of them knocked a couple of shins up the stairs to reach the bedroom. But instead it was the boss that was there, now twenty-five and with haunted eyes that said it all.
It’s over, he thought with something like empty relief, after being chained for a decade I’m free to roam again. It couldn’t have come at a better time, just when I was thinking of breaking free and going wild, I finally can.
But the part of him that didn’t think with his sword remembered the lies from before as he looked into the coffin. When everyone else was gone, he held that hand as he never had in life, traced the sword calluses in his lover’s palm before setting it down and tracing the dry mouth of the wound where the bullet had sunk, bull’s eye, into Yamamoto’s brain from his blind side.
The scent of blood soured like radiation-flowers, wilting to ashes in his mouth. He was relieved yet again that he was still human, that he could still be tricked that he was somehow above that when really, he was just an idiot like the rest. This was the kind of defeat he’d never wanted, for Yamamoto to go before him with his faded but steady smile and his eyes that had never lost their edge or their watchfulness. But, he supposed, he was just a loser and a fool to the end.
This is somewhat more well-cut off than the rest. Why is my Squalo so fucking sentimental? I just can't write people without feelings, can I...