more terrible 8018 fic with terrible amounts of subtext
written because this month's prompts at
31_days are exceptionally lovely and i wished i'd noticed earlier ♥
Title: photogenics
Day/Theme: December 14 | "men without names and men without faces"
Series: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Character/Pairing: Yamamoto, Hibari
Rating: pg-13
Summary: Stop moving around so much.
>>
There is a photograph tucked away inside the thicker folds of his thoughts, grainy and grim in all the right places and complacent and clear in all the wrong ones. The shutter clicked on a moment when Hibari was least prepared for the flashbulb; at the time he's holding a stick with a limp marshmallow on its tip and a grimace between his lips, and probably a dozen different methods of committing unintentional manslaughter are flickering between his eyes. Yamamoto is laughing off to the side, into the sun and at a boy whose face Hibari couldn't see and whose name he didn't recognize. There is a track medal swinging from Yamamoto's neck, and it is glinting a perfect gold against the balance of the blue sky. He is wearing a green t-shirt with the name of his school printed on the chest in obnoxious block letters.
Nobody is laughing with him.
There is another photograph tucked away inside the thicker folds of Gokudera's Vongola album, the one where he keeps sentimental shit like a ticket stub from The Notebook and the first love letter he wrote to Tsuna but didn't have the balls to send. The photograph places them at a gala event held deep inside a lair of no return and no accounts of mystical wrongdoing, where the funny people with the money held cocktail parties to please the funny people without the money. Hibari is wearing a suit, suitably worn and a little tight around the shoulders. He is very dashing like the movies and his empty champagne flute emphasizes his inexperience. Yamamoto is in a tuxedo vest and he doesn't look half as dashing, but he's at his full power and he's laughing off to the side, into the chandeliers and at a man whose face Hibari couldn't see and whose name he doesn't remember. There is a silver necktie wound around Yamamoto's neck and it makes him look just a little bit like a Korean pop star. There are no block letters this time.
(He looks good, anyway.)
Hibari notices these things because he's kind of maybe just a little ok totally paranoid. He dislikes television for this reason, and he also dislikes hearing people talk really loudly in front of him. He becomes irrationally scared when he hears about people he knows getting into car accidents and leaving completely unscathed. He talks about birds in his sleep sometimes, and then he has lucid dreams about flying. He tells Yamamoto about these sometimes but Yamamoto just laughs to somebody else who isn't within the boundaries of the camera frame, somebody whose face Hibari couldn't see and whose name he doesn't recognize.
"Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist," Yamamoto tells him.
"Fuck off," says Hibari.
"I will," Yamamoto just shrugs. "But right after I do this--"
He slings an around around Hibari's waist, wedges his chin into Hibari's shoulder like a brick, whips out an impossibly random digital camera and starts grinning like an idiot. He clicks the shutter before Hibari can even blink, and his hands wobble a little so it's probably going to be blurry. The flash is too bright and too long and they both duck their heads in the same direction. Foreheads collide. And then Yamamoto is laughing.
"HEY!"
"Fuck, hahaha."
"Hahaha yourself."
"Ow, jeez. What the hell was that?"
"What the hell was that, Yamamoto?"
"I dunno. It was totally on impulse! I swear."
"Ugh, just go away."
"Okay, okay. Stop scowling at me."
"Then stop laughing at me."
"I'm not laughing at you! I'm laughing at myself. I'm always laughing at myself. Don't you know? The picture looks cooler that way."
(So this is one more photograph, blurry and hair cropped out in all the wrong places and negatively spaced in all the right ones. Hibari looks slightly alarmed in this pose, just as unprepared for the flashbulb as he ever is on camera. His eyes are almost closed and he's maybe just a little ok totally paranoid about his hair. Yamamoto is wearing his school jacket and carrying his magical glasses and stroking his chin like a circus rabbit, and there is nothing wound around his neck this time. His arm is around Hibari's waist and he looks a bit drunk, to be honest. He is laughing, and this time it's at a face that Hibari remembers, and a name that he'd be too dumb to forget.)
"How does this one look?"
"It's alright."
"It's alright?! It is an absolute work of art. Just look at your face."
"I am aware of my face."
"Look at it."
"I am looking at it."
"No you're not."
"Fuck off, Yamamoto."
*
- post backlogged like always
- uhh it's b/c these are really dumb that's why i'm not posting them at my fic comm so like here's the actual
fic-list- ♥♥ thanks for sampling!!