un regalo per jenniferplague
Dreaming a Little Extra
by ? // for jenniferplague
characters/pairings: TYL!Lambo
rating: G
warnings: None.
wordcount: 1689
summary: One day, Lambo wants to be the celebrated hero.
notes: Hope my recipient enjoys this! Also, big thanks for my inspiration and beta!
Sometimes, Lambo wonders how it all works - if what his past self does in the past alters his present reality at all. Are there alternate universes where Lambo isn’t both Bovino and Vongola? Splitting his allegiances is a pain, after all, and he’d much rather be one or the other - maybe the next Bovino boss, or maybe he could usurp Gokudera’s position as Vongola X’s right hand man. A guy can dream! Lambo just tends to dream extra.
He’s caught in a daydream where he’s been whisked off to ten years before, defeats some bad guy completely and utterly, protecting young Vongola and impressing him so much that he kicks Gokudera from the Famiglia and vows to keep Lambo by his side forever as his trusted right hand man. Lambo accepts the position humbly in the daydream but soon after he is back in his own present - except it’s not quite his own.
It’s much better. This present includes a private office just across from the boss’s, furnished with a mahogany desk plated in gold and a deliriously comfortable chair made of the softest Italian leather. He’s found an alternate universe - a much cooler universe than the one he’s currently in.
Because he’s currently wearing a cow-print apron and hand-mixing muffin batter. Not that this isn’t acceptable - he’s going to get muffins out of this whole deal, after all, and chances are he’ll get to eat them too. It just so happens that nothing he does in his current life is… how to put it, extravagant enough? There’s only so much extravagance you can put into baking muffins. There’s only so much suave sexiness involved before it just becomes silly.
This is exactly why certain people force things like this on him.
“Make sure the blueberries are ripe,” Gokudera tells him as he passes through the kitchen, casting a doubt-filled gaze at the plastic basket of fresh blueberries beside the mixing bowl. “Tenth deserves nothing less than ripe blueberries.”
Lambo pauses his stirring for a moment and takes one of the blueberries into his mouth. He chews and thinks about how he really has no idea how to tell if a blueberry is ripe or not, but says, “They’re ripe, all right.”
Gokudera looks like he doesn’t believe him but accepts Lambo’s statement anyway with a sharp nod. “Good. Great,” he says, turning around out of the kitchen almost awkwardly.
Lambo rolls his eyes, but before he can pick up his stirring spoon, all he can see is colorful smoke and he’s not baking muffins anymore.
He hates it when he returns to the past while wearing an apron. It totally lowers his cool factor.
“What did my younger self do this time?” he mutters, looking around through lingering smoke with an alert eye, just in case there’s actually some kind of real danger involved this time.
It looks like there might be. He’s in a dark alley in what looks like the Namimori of the past - yes, there’s the middle school Tsuna and the others attended, he can see it down the street and past the corner if he sticks his head out of the alley. He does this stealthily, putting his assassin’s skills to the test, not knowing what it was that had terrified his younger self enough to use the Ten Year Bazooka, or even why the kid was apparently out this late alone to begin with.
At least part of that question is answered for him by an echoing yell just down the street in the direction of Namimori Middle School. Lambo hesitates for a moment, looking behind him and both ways along the street, straining his ears for signs of anyone else in his immediate vicinity, before taking off down the street in the direction of the yell.
He runs along the sidewalk, his feet slapping against the concrete and through a few old rain puddles. He’s only got a few more minutes but whatever this is, maybe if he’s able to help it’ll change his future for the better. He’s afraid, though, and his hands are shaking as he digs his horns from his pockets and fixes them against his head.
He hears yet another yell - Lambo can’t tell if it’s an angry yell or a yell of pain, and he can’t tell whose voice it is, except that it’s male. He follows it, though, through the gates of Namimori Middle School and just beyond the north wing of the school. His shoeless feet are sore and wet from the puddles left from a recent rain, and his heartbeat is pounding strongly in his ears.
It takes a while for Lambo’s eyes to adjust to the lights still coming from the windows of the school, but he can make out a small child and a large man. The man is on the ground, apparently already nursing some wounds. He groans loudly, no longer yelling.
The smaller figure stands still. “My, my,” Lambo says cautiously. “Is everything okay here?”
The man doesn’t answer, just clutches at his leg with one arm and moans. The child walks over to Lambo, and even though the kid doesn’t look threatening, Lambo’s met plenty of Arcobaleno in his time, so he’s learned to back the hell away from young children who can apparently beat up full grown men with no problem.
So… he backs away. And maybe he raises his hands up, too. And maybe he smiles, just to assure this kid that he’s not a threat, not at all, no way.
“Lambo?”
Lambo opens his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed. He takes his first good look at the kid who’d beaten up this guy - it’s Ipin. Kid Ipin. Kid Ipin that didn’t know a lick of Japanese yet.
Great.
“Ahh…” he says, kneeling down to look her in the eye. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry I wasn’t here earlier to help with… that.” He points over to the guy on the ground. “What happened, exactly?”
Ipin purses her lips and lets out a long string of angry Chinese with a few words he recognizes thrown in - well, okay, with only one word he recognizes: his own name.
He scratches his head awkwardly, wondering again why the hell they’re here and wondering again (like he often does) if he’ll ever find out.
There’s hope again, though, as they hear the young Vongola’s voice calling out, “Ipin! Lambo!” It’s faint but hopefully not too faint. “Over here!” Lambo calls back. He hopes that asshole Reborn isn’t with the young Vongola, but either way his time is beginning to run short.
He gives the young Ipin an awkward pat on the head before rising up. Ipin looks up at him almost thoughtfully, and he manages to give her a bit of a smile.
“Ipin?!” The young Vongola is here, apparently having run all the way since he appears out of breath. He’s wearing pajamas and yes, unfortunately Reborn is right by his side. He pauses and takes in the scene before him - a seriously injured man, an adult Lambo wearing a cow-print apron, and Ipin, who is now…
Clinging to Lambo’s pant leg. What on earth?
“A-adult Lambo? Did you take out the kidnapper?!” The young Vongola sounds surprised, but looks from Lambo to Ipin, trying to piece together the puzzle in front of him.
“The… kidnapper?” So that’s what that guy was. Lambo turns his head to the side and gives the injured bastard a dirty look. How dare he. “Uh…”
Ipin lets go of Lambo with one hand and points an accusatory finger at the injured man, explaining in what may as well have been gibberish and somehow even managing to produce a few tears. Impressive, Lambo thinks. But why?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tsuna. There’s no way that idiot could have-”
Ipin explodes with a litany of Chinese, but the message is clear (even if it’s obvious only to Lambo and Ipin that it’s a lie).
Reborn shuts up. This is when Lambo likes him best.
The young Vongola sighs deeply, smiling. “Wow. Thanks a lot, adult Lambo. I didn’t know you even had it in you…”
Lambo’s eyes widen slightly. He looks at Ipin, who is still clutching his pant leg but had raised a hand to the bottom of his apron and pulled at it to get his attention. Once she has it, she winks one impossibly narrow eye at him and whispers one of the only Japanese phrases she’d managed to pick up: “Thank you.”
For what, though, Lambo wonders. For coming after her? He hardly needed thanks for that. And it certainly wasn’t for “saving her” - she’d done that herself. Regardless, Lambo forces a small smile and turns back to Tsuna.
“Anytime, young Vongola,” Lambo says, giving him a cool kind of salute that is unfortunately lost due to the smoke that soon envelops him.
He’s back in the Vongola hideout’s kitchen. He looks around, but no - nothing’s changed. He was the hero this time (even if it was only due to a bit of stretched truth on behalf of Ipin), but there’s no difference in his life that he can see yet. The blueberries are still waiting to be put in the muffin batter, the oven is still pre-heated to 325 degrees, the muffin pan still needs greasing, and he’s still wearing an apron. At least, he thinks, he’s not worse off, but that would make no sense - when is the hero who saves the day ever worse off?
“My, my…” He begins to measure out the blueberries, not caring that he’s talking to himself. “I think my daydreams need some work.”
Instead of dreaming that he’ll one day go back in time and be the hero, he should probably try dreaming that he’s the real, honest to god, legitimate hero and not the subject of young Ipin’s benevolence and little white lies.
Yes. If he has this dream, it’s bound to come true at some point. It might take another decade or so, though. Who knows?
As long as he’s a hero eventually, he can make muffins just for now.
by ? // for jenniferplague
characters/pairings: TYL!Lambo
rating: G
warnings: None.
wordcount: 1689
summary: One day, Lambo wants to be the celebrated hero.
notes: Hope my recipient enjoys this! Also, big thanks for my inspiration and beta!
Sometimes, Lambo wonders how it all works - if what his past self does in the past alters his present reality at all. Are there alternate universes where Lambo isn’t both Bovino and Vongola? Splitting his allegiances is a pain, after all, and he’d much rather be one or the other - maybe the next Bovino boss, or maybe he could usurp Gokudera’s position as Vongola X’s right hand man. A guy can dream! Lambo just tends to dream extra.
He’s caught in a daydream where he’s been whisked off to ten years before, defeats some bad guy completely and utterly, protecting young Vongola and impressing him so much that he kicks Gokudera from the Famiglia and vows to keep Lambo by his side forever as his trusted right hand man. Lambo accepts the position humbly in the daydream but soon after he is back in his own present - except it’s not quite his own.
It’s much better. This present includes a private office just across from the boss’s, furnished with a mahogany desk plated in gold and a deliriously comfortable chair made of the softest Italian leather. He’s found an alternate universe - a much cooler universe than the one he’s currently in.
Because he’s currently wearing a cow-print apron and hand-mixing muffin batter. Not that this isn’t acceptable - he’s going to get muffins out of this whole deal, after all, and chances are he’ll get to eat them too. It just so happens that nothing he does in his current life is… how to put it, extravagant enough? There’s only so much extravagance you can put into baking muffins. There’s only so much suave sexiness involved before it just becomes silly.
This is exactly why certain people force things like this on him.
“Make sure the blueberries are ripe,” Gokudera tells him as he passes through the kitchen, casting a doubt-filled gaze at the plastic basket of fresh blueberries beside the mixing bowl. “Tenth deserves nothing less than ripe blueberries.”
Lambo pauses his stirring for a moment and takes one of the blueberries into his mouth. He chews and thinks about how he really has no idea how to tell if a blueberry is ripe or not, but says, “They’re ripe, all right.”
Gokudera looks like he doesn’t believe him but accepts Lambo’s statement anyway with a sharp nod. “Good. Great,” he says, turning around out of the kitchen almost awkwardly.
Lambo rolls his eyes, but before he can pick up his stirring spoon, all he can see is colorful smoke and he’s not baking muffins anymore.
He hates it when he returns to the past while wearing an apron. It totally lowers his cool factor.
“What did my younger self do this time?” he mutters, looking around through lingering smoke with an alert eye, just in case there’s actually some kind of real danger involved this time.
It looks like there might be. He’s in a dark alley in what looks like the Namimori of the past - yes, there’s the middle school Tsuna and the others attended, he can see it down the street and past the corner if he sticks his head out of the alley. He does this stealthily, putting his assassin’s skills to the test, not knowing what it was that had terrified his younger self enough to use the Ten Year Bazooka, or even why the kid was apparently out this late alone to begin with.
At least part of that question is answered for him by an echoing yell just down the street in the direction of Namimori Middle School. Lambo hesitates for a moment, looking behind him and both ways along the street, straining his ears for signs of anyone else in his immediate vicinity, before taking off down the street in the direction of the yell.
He runs along the sidewalk, his feet slapping against the concrete and through a few old rain puddles. He’s only got a few more minutes but whatever this is, maybe if he’s able to help it’ll change his future for the better. He’s afraid, though, and his hands are shaking as he digs his horns from his pockets and fixes them against his head.
He hears yet another yell - Lambo can’t tell if it’s an angry yell or a yell of pain, and he can’t tell whose voice it is, except that it’s male. He follows it, though, through the gates of Namimori Middle School and just beyond the north wing of the school. His shoeless feet are sore and wet from the puddles left from a recent rain, and his heartbeat is pounding strongly in his ears.
It takes a while for Lambo’s eyes to adjust to the lights still coming from the windows of the school, but he can make out a small child and a large man. The man is on the ground, apparently already nursing some wounds. He groans loudly, no longer yelling.
The smaller figure stands still. “My, my,” Lambo says cautiously. “Is everything okay here?”
The man doesn’t answer, just clutches at his leg with one arm and moans. The child walks over to Lambo, and even though the kid doesn’t look threatening, Lambo’s met plenty of Arcobaleno in his time, so he’s learned to back the hell away from young children who can apparently beat up full grown men with no problem.
So… he backs away. And maybe he raises his hands up, too. And maybe he smiles, just to assure this kid that he’s not a threat, not at all, no way.
“Lambo?”
Lambo opens his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed. He takes his first good look at the kid who’d beaten up this guy - it’s Ipin. Kid Ipin. Kid Ipin that didn’t know a lick of Japanese yet.
Great.
“Ahh…” he says, kneeling down to look her in the eye. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry I wasn’t here earlier to help with… that.” He points over to the guy on the ground. “What happened, exactly?”
Ipin purses her lips and lets out a long string of angry Chinese with a few words he recognizes thrown in - well, okay, with only one word he recognizes: his own name.
He scratches his head awkwardly, wondering again why the hell they’re here and wondering again (like he often does) if he’ll ever find out.
There’s hope again, though, as they hear the young Vongola’s voice calling out, “Ipin! Lambo!” It’s faint but hopefully not too faint. “Over here!” Lambo calls back. He hopes that asshole Reborn isn’t with the young Vongola, but either way his time is beginning to run short.
He gives the young Ipin an awkward pat on the head before rising up. Ipin looks up at him almost thoughtfully, and he manages to give her a bit of a smile.
“Ipin?!” The young Vongola is here, apparently having run all the way since he appears out of breath. He’s wearing pajamas and yes, unfortunately Reborn is right by his side. He pauses and takes in the scene before him - a seriously injured man, an adult Lambo wearing a cow-print apron, and Ipin, who is now…
Clinging to Lambo’s pant leg. What on earth?
“A-adult Lambo? Did you take out the kidnapper?!” The young Vongola sounds surprised, but looks from Lambo to Ipin, trying to piece together the puzzle in front of him.
“The… kidnapper?” So that’s what that guy was. Lambo turns his head to the side and gives the injured bastard a dirty look. How dare he. “Uh…”
Ipin lets go of Lambo with one hand and points an accusatory finger at the injured man, explaining in what may as well have been gibberish and somehow even managing to produce a few tears. Impressive, Lambo thinks. But why?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tsuna. There’s no way that idiot could have-”
Ipin explodes with a litany of Chinese, but the message is clear (even if it’s obvious only to Lambo and Ipin that it’s a lie).
Reborn shuts up. This is when Lambo likes him best.
The young Vongola sighs deeply, smiling. “Wow. Thanks a lot, adult Lambo. I didn’t know you even had it in you…”
Lambo’s eyes widen slightly. He looks at Ipin, who is still clutching his pant leg but had raised a hand to the bottom of his apron and pulled at it to get his attention. Once she has it, she winks one impossibly narrow eye at him and whispers one of the only Japanese phrases she’d managed to pick up: “Thank you.”
For what, though, Lambo wonders. For coming after her? He hardly needed thanks for that. And it certainly wasn’t for “saving her” - she’d done that herself. Regardless, Lambo forces a small smile and turns back to Tsuna.
“Anytime, young Vongola,” Lambo says, giving him a cool kind of salute that is unfortunately lost due to the smoke that soon envelops him.
He’s back in the Vongola hideout’s kitchen. He looks around, but no - nothing’s changed. He was the hero this time (even if it was only due to a bit of stretched truth on behalf of Ipin), but there’s no difference in his life that he can see yet. The blueberries are still waiting to be put in the muffin batter, the oven is still pre-heated to 325 degrees, the muffin pan still needs greasing, and he’s still wearing an apron. At least, he thinks, he’s not worse off, but that would make no sense - when is the hero who saves the day ever worse off?
“My, my…” He begins to measure out the blueberries, not caring that he’s talking to himself. “I think my daydreams need some work.”
Instead of dreaming that he’ll one day go back in time and be the hero, he should probably try dreaming that he’s the real, honest to god, legitimate hero and not the subject of young Ipin’s benevolence and little white lies.
Yes. If he has this dream, it’s bound to come true at some point. It might take another decade or so, though. Who knows?
As long as he’s a hero eventually, he can make muffins just for now.