First batch of drabbles, D18 all
For some obscure reasons, most D18 prompts that I got have a lot to do with Hibari being Dino’s wife, in various senses of the word.
Title: Perfect is a World that Thrives in Silence
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, D18, wife (flying_embers)
Word Count: 514
Dino wasn’t sure since when his men had begun to call Kyouya the boss’s wife.
He had noticed, of course. The fact that he was thirty and near monogamous didn’t escape him, just as many encounters behind closed doors didn’t escape the notice of his unfailing subordinates. There had been others in times clinging to the former past, beautiful opera singers and daughters of family friends, even male business associates every now and then, but the fact remained that only one person had ever invaded his bed in the master bedroom of the Cavallone mansion - and the little details of this particular person’s gender and position escaped neither him nor them.
It was a joke as much as a warning. They accepted Kyouya, first as his unwilling protégé, and then as his sometimes lover. They laughed at Kyouya’s antics and the way they kept him on his toes - or leash, as Romario had remarked dryly after being sent away to buy certain brand of green tea. They smiled when he smiled, because whatever made the boss happy, made them happy.
It wasn’t long, however, for his closest subordinates to notice the light that dawned upon his face at the mere mentioning of Kyouya’s name. Romario started dropping hints at every corner, not to mention sneaking an eligible lady’s name between two words of mundane comment whenever the opportunity arose. Dino met each and every one with first awkward, then practiced ease that brought a grim smile to Romario’s lips. Cavallone was his life. Kyouya was the hand which shaped that life.
The boss’s wife.
He smiled at the thought. In a perfect world, Kyouya would be a woman, a girl whom he would have married as soon as he, she turned eighteen. They would have a blissful, if somewhat violent marriage life, and Kyouya would be the most beautiful, the most dangerous, the most powerful queen to his Cavallone’s throne. There wouldn’t be any cryptic inquiry about heirs and bloodline because they would have two sons and two daughters and Dino would find himself the most doting father and loving husband. Perfect, perfect world.
But Kyouya wouldn’t be Kyouya if he were less in any way than he was, so maybe it wasn’t that perfect after all.
“I’m glad you’re not a woman,” he said through the thick of oncoming sleep. Kyouya felt warm in his arms and there was no soft curve about his waist and he thought it was perfect.
“What nonsense are you sprouting now?” The rebuke was half-heartedly given, but the nails on the back of his hand were sharp enough.
“A heartfelt confession,” Dino admitted. Truth, he reflected, always had a bitter taste that left burning marks on his tongue, but this one did not. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Kyouya didn’t respond. He might have fallen asleep, but Dino liked to think that it was something else. Things unsaid were sweet, like a tragedy writ upon parchment and recounted in songs, verse by verse, adored by wide-eyed maidens who dreamt of true love.
Silence was golden.
End
-----
Title: Women of the Swords
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Kyoko + fem!Hibari, the merits of being a mafia wife (evocates)
Word Count: 974
“Unacceptable.”
“Perhaps she thinks she is above us all.”
“Blasphemous, it is what this attitude is.”
“You should speak with her, Kyoko, and remind her of her place.”
“To arrive late in a tea party hosted by the Vongola Tenth’s wife...”
The murmurs of discontent died down with the arrival of the subject in person. Kyoko hid a smile behind her cup of tea, eyes like so many others following the sweep of black silk and red obi, golden threads that embroidered wings and more subdued green that outlined willows in spring. Hibari Kyouya, now the distinguished wife of the Tenth Cavallone, knew how to make an entrance nearly as well as how to make men beg for mercy.
Kyoko had the grace to blush at that particular thought. She took a moment to regret her choice not to don a kimono herself, but quickly dismissed it as mere sentimentality. A summer dress was a sensible choice, given her company and the nature of the party. It swished lightly to follow her motion when she excused herself to greet her new guest who had seated herself at a corner table.
“I’m glad you can come, Kyouya-san.” Pleasantries came easily to her, particularly on good days. Her thought briefly touched the source of her happiness and she smiled, Tsuna’s reaction clear in her imagination.
“Of course I wouldn’t miss your party, Sawada-san,” Kyouya replied, her tone lingering in the ambiguous height which was neither compliment nor sarcasm. Kyoko allowed herself a small laugh, partly out of relief.
“I think it is no secret that you dislike such events,” she said, applying civility to remove all possibilities of insult. “Although I cannot say I blame you in the slightest. I find this sort of thing quite dull myself.”
A tolerant smile remained on the other woman’s lips, but Kyoko could see that she already lost her interest. For a moment, they watched in silence as other guests milled about the room, conversing in small circles. The wiser ones spoke of their children and multiplication tables or plays and poems. The less wise pursed their lips and turned up their nose, whispered reproach on their tongue.
“Felice.”
The word was softly murmured, but enough to stir a reaction out of her. Kyouya read the flash of alarm on her face and smiled, teeth and hints of victory. “You know about it.”
“Does Dino-san-?”
“He does not want me to involve myself in this matter.” Her admission came straightforward and unabashed, for she had no reason to play her part behind bamboo curtains and dainty fans like any other wife. Hibari Kyouya had her own army, one that wielded her name and not that of her husband, their loyalty in the spark of her eyes and the swiftness of her tonfa.
“I think it is probably wise to heed his caution, Kyouya-san,” Kyoko said cautiously. “We are yet certain what we are going up against in this case. It may be another famiglia. It may be something worse. The nature of the drug is a proof enough.”
Her lips curved, in a way that sharply reminded Kyoko that she had been her husband’s most powerful guardian before finally accepting Dino Cavallone’s twenty-sixth proposal a year ago. “I’m sure any information you will see fit to impart will prove itself useful to lessen the risk I may have to face during the course of my investigation.”
Kyoko knew her hand in the art of subtle manipulation, knew the steps enough to use it to her own advantage. This, she decided, called for neither subtlety nor manipulation.
She went with cold, hard facts. “Dino-san will never forgive Vongola if something were to happen to you.”
The other woman rewarded her efforts with a smirk. “Then it is just as well to keep it as a secret in our circle womenfolk,” she said, a finger on the rim of her cup. “For the sake of our families, and everything that lies in the line of fire.”
Kyoko folded her hands together, firm in her refusal to acknowledge defeat. The safety of women in their station took precedence over almost everything, especially with husbands such as theirs. Whether or not Dino Cavallone would hold Vongola responsible if the worst truly came to pass, she had no wish to see the man in grief - not when she thought of Tsuna, and herself, and the parallel line drawn between them.
“I shall consider it,” was the most she would promise her. But Kyouya, Hibari Kyouya was no woman to whom halves could ever make wholes.
“Consider as long as you wish, Sawada-san.” She inclined her head, her voice a soft drawl. “But my schedule remains on its course and I shall take action as soon as possible. The rate of its spread in Calabria is quite alarming.”
Kyoko found herself staring, incredulous. What kind of person, she wanted to say, use her own life as a hostage. It isn’t love, not even in its most twisted form. Ego, pride, selfishness - she could come up with hundreds of other names and they would describe it perfectly.
“Tonight,” she said instead. “I shall give you the answer tonight.”
It was not defeat that made it bitter. It was the little smile that curled the other woman’s lips as she raised her cup in agreement and said, “May it bode well for the future of our two families.”
It had never really occurred to her before, but Kyoko thought that she understood now, why she could not completely like Hibari Kyouya, a woman so free and powerful to stand at her husband’s side, an equal if there was ever one. For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish...
“May it bode well,” she repeated solemnly.
End
-----
Title: Red Butterfly
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, D18, cross-dressing (istrill)
Word Count: 764
Your hands were clammy with sweat, stiff fingers encased in leather. Seconds crawled with each glass put on the dark wood of your table, drops of vodka slinking past the unquenchable thirst in your throat. Alcohol clouded many minds but not yours, and this was one of those times when you wished for its infamous share of oblivion. It eased the passing, some said.
He sat and laughed and drank like a god, his golden hair brighter than the sun. Men dressed in black suits stood around him, their offerings in the shape of guns because to worship him was to protect him and put their life down at his feet. Yours was a heavy presence tucked under your belt, muzzle digging into your stomach, nudging like the ghost of your dead family - too big to be your child’s, too thick to be your wife’s, but if combined it could be theirs, somehow.
He wore white, the colour stark under the glimmer of chandeliers as he flirted with the pretty woman on his lap. She wore red, a finely woven kimono, but not that of a highborn lady - a mistress’s perhaps, a progeny of the streets that climbed her way up with the lascivious spread of her legs and a dash of coquettish smile on her lips. She played with flashes of white skin, the back of her neck, the curve of her shoulders, the clamp of her legs around his hips. His hand was on her knee, stroking upward, tumbling silk onto the carpet under his feet as he whispered sweet nothings in her ears. You saw her intake of breath, the way her body tightened in anticipation, the small shudder down her spine as her head fell onto his shoulder.
Even before death he must mock the world for granting him power. You felt anger swell deep in the mud of your bowels, but above all, you regretted the fact that it was red. Blood was an ugly colour on red. It would look exquisite on his white, seeping like droplets of wine, watercolour on canvas.
You rose to your feet and there was purpose in your steps. You saw each moment in perfect clarity, the way you always imagined it every waking minute of your life. The stumble was perfect, you had it practiced on the streets until everyone but the most ignorant in the vicinity rushed forward to help. His guards were more careful, but their voice was sympathetic enough when you mumbled every drunken man’s miserable story that teemed bars and poured whiskey down their throat.
And then it came, the perfect chance. Your shaky smile smoothed their concern and one of them was offering his shoulders to help steady your feet. You bumped into him, reached for your small automatic weapon, and lunged toward the sofa. There was surprise in his wide eyes and it filled you with the brutal warmth of a moment’s victory, too much for you to notice the flash of stiletto.
You fell on your knees but your eyes were on the gleaming blade, dripping with what was once yours, a part of your life trickling down the length of white arm. Blood was choking you, cramming your windpipe and spilling onto lush carpet. Cavallone never looked at you once - even now, he still wouldn’t look at you. His eyes were cold, empty, until the woman’s long fingers gripped his chin, smearing red on his lips.
His blood is mine, she spoke. Not a woman. Vongola’s Cloud, you dredged recognition from the murky depth of your fraying consciousness as he forced him into a deep kiss and licked the blood away. He had a pair of grey eyes, dark enough to pass as black. You recognised the devil in him, a soul with no remorse, even less pity, and he would have killed you again if your ghost so much came within thirteen steps of the man he had claimed as his.
You made sounds that only burned your lungs, your fingers long since losing their power. Only your sight remained to showcase how he closed his eyes, arched his back when Cavallone kissed his neck, tongue sweeping across painted lips and naked skin.
Kyouya, the whisper was soft, vulnerable, or maybe you were just dying. Kyouya.
His grip in the mass of golden hair was firm - a man’s grip, a lover’s grip - and blood found the edge of his sleeves, dark, dull, ugly. He was smiling, silk loose over his shoulders, like a butterfly, red and beautiful and deadly.
The world faded.
-----
Title: Perfect is a World that Thrives in Silence
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, D18, wife (flying_embers)
Word Count: 514
Dino wasn’t sure since when his men had begun to call Kyouya the boss’s wife.
He had noticed, of course. The fact that he was thirty and near monogamous didn’t escape him, just as many encounters behind closed doors didn’t escape the notice of his unfailing subordinates. There had been others in times clinging to the former past, beautiful opera singers and daughters of family friends, even male business associates every now and then, but the fact remained that only one person had ever invaded his bed in the master bedroom of the Cavallone mansion - and the little details of this particular person’s gender and position escaped neither him nor them.
It was a joke as much as a warning. They accepted Kyouya, first as his unwilling protégé, and then as his sometimes lover. They laughed at Kyouya’s antics and the way they kept him on his toes - or leash, as Romario had remarked dryly after being sent away to buy certain brand of green tea. They smiled when he smiled, because whatever made the boss happy, made them happy.
It wasn’t long, however, for his closest subordinates to notice the light that dawned upon his face at the mere mentioning of Kyouya’s name. Romario started dropping hints at every corner, not to mention sneaking an eligible lady’s name between two words of mundane comment whenever the opportunity arose. Dino met each and every one with first awkward, then practiced ease that brought a grim smile to Romario’s lips. Cavallone was his life. Kyouya was the hand which shaped that life.
The boss’s wife.
He smiled at the thought. In a perfect world, Kyouya would be a woman, a girl whom he would have married as soon as he, she turned eighteen. They would have a blissful, if somewhat violent marriage life, and Kyouya would be the most beautiful, the most dangerous, the most powerful queen to his Cavallone’s throne. There wouldn’t be any cryptic inquiry about heirs and bloodline because they would have two sons and two daughters and Dino would find himself the most doting father and loving husband. Perfect, perfect world.
But Kyouya wouldn’t be Kyouya if he were less in any way than he was, so maybe it wasn’t that perfect after all.
“I’m glad you’re not a woman,” he said through the thick of oncoming sleep. Kyouya felt warm in his arms and there was no soft curve about his waist and he thought it was perfect.
“What nonsense are you sprouting now?” The rebuke was half-heartedly given, but the nails on the back of his hand were sharp enough.
“A heartfelt confession,” Dino admitted. Truth, he reflected, always had a bitter taste that left burning marks on his tongue, but this one did not. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Kyouya didn’t respond. He might have fallen asleep, but Dino liked to think that it was something else. Things unsaid were sweet, like a tragedy writ upon parchment and recounted in songs, verse by verse, adored by wide-eyed maidens who dreamt of true love.
Silence was golden.
End
-----
Title: Women of the Swords
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Kyoko + fem!Hibari, the merits of being a mafia wife (evocates)
Word Count: 974
“Unacceptable.”
“Perhaps she thinks she is above us all.”
“Blasphemous, it is what this attitude is.”
“You should speak with her, Kyoko, and remind her of her place.”
“To arrive late in a tea party hosted by the Vongola Tenth’s wife...”
The murmurs of discontent died down with the arrival of the subject in person. Kyoko hid a smile behind her cup of tea, eyes like so many others following the sweep of black silk and red obi, golden threads that embroidered wings and more subdued green that outlined willows in spring. Hibari Kyouya, now the distinguished wife of the Tenth Cavallone, knew how to make an entrance nearly as well as how to make men beg for mercy.
Kyoko had the grace to blush at that particular thought. She took a moment to regret her choice not to don a kimono herself, but quickly dismissed it as mere sentimentality. A summer dress was a sensible choice, given her company and the nature of the party. It swished lightly to follow her motion when she excused herself to greet her new guest who had seated herself at a corner table.
“I’m glad you can come, Kyouya-san.” Pleasantries came easily to her, particularly on good days. Her thought briefly touched the source of her happiness and she smiled, Tsuna’s reaction clear in her imagination.
“Of course I wouldn’t miss your party, Sawada-san,” Kyouya replied, her tone lingering in the ambiguous height which was neither compliment nor sarcasm. Kyoko allowed herself a small laugh, partly out of relief.
“I think it is no secret that you dislike such events,” she said, applying civility to remove all possibilities of insult. “Although I cannot say I blame you in the slightest. I find this sort of thing quite dull myself.”
A tolerant smile remained on the other woman’s lips, but Kyoko could see that she already lost her interest. For a moment, they watched in silence as other guests milled about the room, conversing in small circles. The wiser ones spoke of their children and multiplication tables or plays and poems. The less wise pursed their lips and turned up their nose, whispered reproach on their tongue.
“Felice.”
The word was softly murmured, but enough to stir a reaction out of her. Kyouya read the flash of alarm on her face and smiled, teeth and hints of victory. “You know about it.”
“Does Dino-san-?”
“He does not want me to involve myself in this matter.” Her admission came straightforward and unabashed, for she had no reason to play her part behind bamboo curtains and dainty fans like any other wife. Hibari Kyouya had her own army, one that wielded her name and not that of her husband, their loyalty in the spark of her eyes and the swiftness of her tonfa.
“I think it is probably wise to heed his caution, Kyouya-san,” Kyoko said cautiously. “We are yet certain what we are going up against in this case. It may be another famiglia. It may be something worse. The nature of the drug is a proof enough.”
Her lips curved, in a way that sharply reminded Kyoko that she had been her husband’s most powerful guardian before finally accepting Dino Cavallone’s twenty-sixth proposal a year ago. “I’m sure any information you will see fit to impart will prove itself useful to lessen the risk I may have to face during the course of my investigation.”
Kyoko knew her hand in the art of subtle manipulation, knew the steps enough to use it to her own advantage. This, she decided, called for neither subtlety nor manipulation.
She went with cold, hard facts. “Dino-san will never forgive Vongola if something were to happen to you.”
The other woman rewarded her efforts with a smirk. “Then it is just as well to keep it as a secret in our circle womenfolk,” she said, a finger on the rim of her cup. “For the sake of our families, and everything that lies in the line of fire.”
Kyoko folded her hands together, firm in her refusal to acknowledge defeat. The safety of women in their station took precedence over almost everything, especially with husbands such as theirs. Whether or not Dino Cavallone would hold Vongola responsible if the worst truly came to pass, she had no wish to see the man in grief - not when she thought of Tsuna, and herself, and the parallel line drawn between them.
“I shall consider it,” was the most she would promise her. But Kyouya, Hibari Kyouya was no woman to whom halves could ever make wholes.
“Consider as long as you wish, Sawada-san.” She inclined her head, her voice a soft drawl. “But my schedule remains on its course and I shall take action as soon as possible. The rate of its spread in Calabria is quite alarming.”
Kyoko found herself staring, incredulous. What kind of person, she wanted to say, use her own life as a hostage. It isn’t love, not even in its most twisted form. Ego, pride, selfishness - she could come up with hundreds of other names and they would describe it perfectly.
“Tonight,” she said instead. “I shall give you the answer tonight.”
It was not defeat that made it bitter. It was the little smile that curled the other woman’s lips as she raised her cup in agreement and said, “May it bode well for the future of our two families.”
It had never really occurred to her before, but Kyoko thought that she understood now, why she could not completely like Hibari Kyouya, a woman so free and powerful to stand at her husband’s side, an equal if there was ever one. For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish...
“May it bode well,” she repeated solemnly.
End
-----
Title: Red Butterfly
Request: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, D18, cross-dressing (istrill)
Word Count: 764
Your hands were clammy with sweat, stiff fingers encased in leather. Seconds crawled with each glass put on the dark wood of your table, drops of vodka slinking past the unquenchable thirst in your throat. Alcohol clouded many minds but not yours, and this was one of those times when you wished for its infamous share of oblivion. It eased the passing, some said.
He sat and laughed and drank like a god, his golden hair brighter than the sun. Men dressed in black suits stood around him, their offerings in the shape of guns because to worship him was to protect him and put their life down at his feet. Yours was a heavy presence tucked under your belt, muzzle digging into your stomach, nudging like the ghost of your dead family - too big to be your child’s, too thick to be your wife’s, but if combined it could be theirs, somehow.
He wore white, the colour stark under the glimmer of chandeliers as he flirted with the pretty woman on his lap. She wore red, a finely woven kimono, but not that of a highborn lady - a mistress’s perhaps, a progeny of the streets that climbed her way up with the lascivious spread of her legs and a dash of coquettish smile on her lips. She played with flashes of white skin, the back of her neck, the curve of her shoulders, the clamp of her legs around his hips. His hand was on her knee, stroking upward, tumbling silk onto the carpet under his feet as he whispered sweet nothings in her ears. You saw her intake of breath, the way her body tightened in anticipation, the small shudder down her spine as her head fell onto his shoulder.
Even before death he must mock the world for granting him power. You felt anger swell deep in the mud of your bowels, but above all, you regretted the fact that it was red. Blood was an ugly colour on red. It would look exquisite on his white, seeping like droplets of wine, watercolour on canvas.
You rose to your feet and there was purpose in your steps. You saw each moment in perfect clarity, the way you always imagined it every waking minute of your life. The stumble was perfect, you had it practiced on the streets until everyone but the most ignorant in the vicinity rushed forward to help. His guards were more careful, but their voice was sympathetic enough when you mumbled every drunken man’s miserable story that teemed bars and poured whiskey down their throat.
And then it came, the perfect chance. Your shaky smile smoothed their concern and one of them was offering his shoulders to help steady your feet. You bumped into him, reached for your small automatic weapon, and lunged toward the sofa. There was surprise in his wide eyes and it filled you with the brutal warmth of a moment’s victory, too much for you to notice the flash of stiletto.
You fell on your knees but your eyes were on the gleaming blade, dripping with what was once yours, a part of your life trickling down the length of white arm. Blood was choking you, cramming your windpipe and spilling onto lush carpet. Cavallone never looked at you once - even now, he still wouldn’t look at you. His eyes were cold, empty, until the woman’s long fingers gripped his chin, smearing red on his lips.
His blood is mine, she spoke. Not a woman. Vongola’s Cloud, you dredged recognition from the murky depth of your fraying consciousness as he forced him into a deep kiss and licked the blood away. He had a pair of grey eyes, dark enough to pass as black. You recognised the devil in him, a soul with no remorse, even less pity, and he would have killed you again if your ghost so much came within thirteen steps of the man he had claimed as his.
You made sounds that only burned your lungs, your fingers long since losing their power. Only your sight remained to showcase how he closed his eyes, arched his back when Cavallone kissed his neck, tongue sweeping across painted lips and naked skin.
Kyouya, the whisper was soft, vulnerable, or maybe you were just dying. Kyouya.
His grip in the mass of golden hair was firm - a man’s grip, a lover’s grip - and blood found the edge of his sleeves, dark, dull, ugly. He was smiling, silk loose over his shoulders, like a butterfly, red and beautiful and deadly.
The world faded.
-----