it will not stand still (not even for you).
I really wanted to do these in order of request but thelovemafia, Shouichi is giving me a headache. ;A; I hope you don't mind if I post the others' first. It WILL be on time, I promise you.
For Chrissie, whose prompt was '27. Stay.'
An AU prelude to the events that lead up to TYL!canon. Character death. Tsuna/Gokudera. Yamamoto.
"The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart. Indeed do many things come to pass." - The Honest Book of Truth
The door eases open, and the lean one walks in, dips his head with a polite smile. Asian with artful hair like a Calvin Klein ad, he makes for the second-hand section, disappears behind a tie rack. Carla cranes her neck in the mildewy light. The five-button sleeve and tapered sides of his suit say, I'm way out of your league sweetheart, but it's almost closing and all she's seen today are down-and-outers hiring for weddings and funerals, and if she's being paid $8.50 an hour, she reckons it's not too awful if a hot guy brings a little joy into her life.
Her bare feet are wandering under the table in search of her flats when the tall one enters in a hurry, and she gets a glimpse of set shoulders and a washboard back. Pretty useless to pretend she's not actively listening when there's nothing else to do, but the scrape of hangers scratches out their conversation, and it's just movement at the corner of her eye, the one with black hair rifling through white shirts, holding them out for inspection, and the shorter one nods finally, glances in her direction before shrugging out of his jacket.
They're very attractive, and standing very close, and she knows she shouldn't assume about well-dressed, foreign men but the one with the scar, he steps in to block the way, all human-wall and natural-ease so it isn't as though it's unjustified, if for a second before she whips her head away, she wonders.
-
Tsuna rubs a hand over his face, stiffly, tosses his balled-up shirt into the backseat. "Do you think she noticed?"
"That you were bleeding through Gokudera's Armani?" Yamamoto huffs a laugh, hits the automatic lock. "No, but you know there's no way he won't."
Yamamoto, easy-going except when he's not, and he's reversing faster than he should with just the heel of his palm on the wheel but Tsuna doesn't feel anything except safe. And a little achy, but that's because Panadol Rapid isn't as rapid as advertised and not at all because he's imagining the look on Gokudera's face.
It's small as cuts go, a neat five-centimetre incision, and it wouldn't even be an issue if it wasn't in as inconvenient a place as the underside of a Vongola don's arm.
"It's a knife wound, Tsuna." Yamamoto sounds vaguely amused, and one day Tsuna will figure out his mind-reading trick, but for the moment he's got that pinched, don't stop at go look about him that's offset sharply by the quirk of his mouth, and the window's rolled down to discourage Talking and Tsuna knows exactly what Yamamoto's trying to do.
He jabs the button without looking and the window climbs back up. "We're not doing this," he says quietly, and sure enough, the half-smile tips into a frown. Tsuna doesn't like playing the blame game; it's exhausting and fruitless, so thank goodness only two of his six insist.
He twists the ring around his finger, stares into the north-roman countryside. Gravel kicks up against the side of the car. There are times he thinks Reborn taught him too well, and he regrets that some things can't be unlearned. Rhetoric is powerful and with a firm heart you're armed to the teeth; once he's aware that words are weapons, it gets harder and harder not to use them against the ones he loves. He could say, it's not your fault, I was reckless, I wasn't fast enough, and he would have, before. But platitudes like that are wasteful and weak.
"Yamamoto," he breathes out, fires a blank, "I make decisions for myself, and for you, and you just have to trust me to make them."
-
He's aware the moment Gokudera catches sight of them because he stiffens, and no doubt the cheap cotton blend scratching at his collar is being registered with panic, like overnight graffiti on a beloved house. "Gokudera," he greets warmly, preemptively, and his guardian's mouth thins but he doesn't say anything other than the customary, "Welcome back, Tenth."
As soon as he's out of sight, Gokudera will come down on Yamamoto like a ton of bricks.
He remembers believing, when he was younger and naïve, that Gokudera's one-sided rivalry with Yamamoto was something he'd grow out of. This has yet to happen, and he's no longer buying Reborn's 'competition is healthy' mentality. When it comes to his safety and wellbeing, Gokudera can be downright malicious, and once in a while, Tsuna feels himself succumbing to another case of 'why me.'
He entrusts distractions to Ryohei, and diplomacy to I-Pin, and while these choices are met with approval, Gokudera has never forgiven him for taking just Hibari to negotiations. Tsuna can't tell him that Hibari isn't there to negotiate; that's what Tsuna is for. Hibari is there to cut negotiation time by as much as half, and to not bat an eye at Tsuna's alternately oil-washed and poisonous mouth.
-
He's inspecting the hard, scabbed edges of the wound when Gokudera's breath hitches, hand curled around the frame of the door. "Tenth! I was just," he ducks his head uncertainly, "He didn't say you were hurt." Lie. Yamamoto never knows what not to talk about unless explicitly told, and even then he scrunches his brow and agrees just to please you. Tsuna wonders if this is another one of the hang-ups that come with age, forgetting how to be honest with another human being.
"Come in."
Gokudera swallows, eyes dropping to the cut, then (and maybe he should have seen this coming), the bed. Tsuna is tired. Tired of guessing how many times he should refuse, if it's abstract want or physical want, if it's imprinting, a manifestation of childhood trauma, an infatuation he shouldn't encourage. He's tired of consequences; when he pushes, Gokudera falls, and it's been far too long since anything has gone his way.
So he's left with a Gokudera-shaped depression on his mattress and the soapy smell of his hair, and stacks of smug psychology books in his head.
-
He's forced to accept that maybe there's no line between protecting and being protected, that thinking this was the easiest way to make everyone happy was false.
The day he agrees to meet Byakuran, Gokudera can't look at him, Yamamoto trusts him, and all the bridges are burnt.
For Chrissie, whose prompt was '27. Stay.'
An AU prelude to the events that lead up to TYL!canon. Character death. Tsuna/Gokudera. Yamamoto.
"The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart. Indeed do many things come to pass." - The Honest Book of Truth
The door eases open, and the lean one walks in, dips his head with a polite smile. Asian with artful hair like a Calvin Klein ad, he makes for the second-hand section, disappears behind a tie rack. Carla cranes her neck in the mildewy light. The five-button sleeve and tapered sides of his suit say, I'm way out of your league sweetheart, but it's almost closing and all she's seen today are down-and-outers hiring for weddings and funerals, and if she's being paid $8.50 an hour, she reckons it's not too awful if a hot guy brings a little joy into her life.
Her bare feet are wandering under the table in search of her flats when the tall one enters in a hurry, and she gets a glimpse of set shoulders and a washboard back. Pretty useless to pretend she's not actively listening when there's nothing else to do, but the scrape of hangers scratches out their conversation, and it's just movement at the corner of her eye, the one with black hair rifling through white shirts, holding them out for inspection, and the shorter one nods finally, glances in her direction before shrugging out of his jacket.
They're very attractive, and standing very close, and she knows she shouldn't assume about well-dressed, foreign men but the one with the scar, he steps in to block the way, all human-wall and natural-ease so it isn't as though it's unjustified, if for a second before she whips her head away, she wonders.
-
Tsuna rubs a hand over his face, stiffly, tosses his balled-up shirt into the backseat. "Do you think she noticed?"
"That you were bleeding through Gokudera's Armani?" Yamamoto huffs a laugh, hits the automatic lock. "No, but you know there's no way he won't."
Yamamoto, easy-going except when he's not, and he's reversing faster than he should with just the heel of his palm on the wheel but Tsuna doesn't feel anything except safe. And a little achy, but that's because Panadol Rapid isn't as rapid as advertised and not at all because he's imagining the look on Gokudera's face.
It's small as cuts go, a neat five-centimetre incision, and it wouldn't even be an issue if it wasn't in as inconvenient a place as the underside of a Vongola don's arm.
"It's a knife wound, Tsuna." Yamamoto sounds vaguely amused, and one day Tsuna will figure out his mind-reading trick, but for the moment he's got that pinched, don't stop at go look about him that's offset sharply by the quirk of his mouth, and the window's rolled down to discourage Talking and Tsuna knows exactly what Yamamoto's trying to do.
He jabs the button without looking and the window climbs back up. "We're not doing this," he says quietly, and sure enough, the half-smile tips into a frown. Tsuna doesn't like playing the blame game; it's exhausting and fruitless, so thank goodness only two of his six insist.
He twists the ring around his finger, stares into the north-roman countryside. Gravel kicks up against the side of the car. There are times he thinks Reborn taught him too well, and he regrets that some things can't be unlearned. Rhetoric is powerful and with a firm heart you're armed to the teeth; once he's aware that words are weapons, it gets harder and harder not to use them against the ones he loves. He could say, it's not your fault, I was reckless, I wasn't fast enough, and he would have, before. But platitudes like that are wasteful and weak.
"Yamamoto," he breathes out, fires a blank, "I make decisions for myself, and for you, and you just have to trust me to make them."
-
He's aware the moment Gokudera catches sight of them because he stiffens, and no doubt the cheap cotton blend scratching at his collar is being registered with panic, like overnight graffiti on a beloved house. "Gokudera," he greets warmly, preemptively, and his guardian's mouth thins but he doesn't say anything other than the customary, "Welcome back, Tenth."
As soon as he's out of sight, Gokudera will come down on Yamamoto like a ton of bricks.
He remembers believing, when he was younger and naïve, that Gokudera's one-sided rivalry with Yamamoto was something he'd grow out of. This has yet to happen, and he's no longer buying Reborn's 'competition is healthy' mentality. When it comes to his safety and wellbeing, Gokudera can be downright malicious, and once in a while, Tsuna feels himself succumbing to another case of 'why me.'
He entrusts distractions to Ryohei, and diplomacy to I-Pin, and while these choices are met with approval, Gokudera has never forgiven him for taking just Hibari to negotiations. Tsuna can't tell him that Hibari isn't there to negotiate; that's what Tsuna is for. Hibari is there to cut negotiation time by as much as half, and to not bat an eye at Tsuna's alternately oil-washed and poisonous mouth.
-
He's inspecting the hard, scabbed edges of the wound when Gokudera's breath hitches, hand curled around the frame of the door. "Tenth! I was just," he ducks his head uncertainly, "He didn't say you were hurt." Lie. Yamamoto never knows what not to talk about unless explicitly told, and even then he scrunches his brow and agrees just to please you. Tsuna wonders if this is another one of the hang-ups that come with age, forgetting how to be honest with another human being.
"Come in."
Gokudera swallows, eyes dropping to the cut, then (and maybe he should have seen this coming), the bed. Tsuna is tired. Tired of guessing how many times he should refuse, if it's abstract want or physical want, if it's imprinting, a manifestation of childhood trauma, an infatuation he shouldn't encourage. He's tired of consequences; when he pushes, Gokudera falls, and it's been far too long since anything has gone his way.
So he's left with a Gokudera-shaped depression on his mattress and the soapy smell of his hair, and stacks of smug psychology books in his head.
-
He's forced to accept that maybe there's no line between protecting and being protected, that thinking this was the easiest way to make everyone happy was false.
The day he agrees to meet Byakuran, Gokudera can't look at him, Yamamoto trusts him, and all the bridges are burnt.