(no subject)
*resurfaces briefly, blurbles once, sinks again*
Everyone surviving out there? :)
I'm...trying a chaptered fic. I make no promises on any sort of release schedule, or even that this will be finished at any time..
Title: Three-Hour Tour
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Yamamoto, Squalo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2200
Notes: So. Guys. I was about 3000 words into this--a little farther than what you're seeing here--when I realized that, hey, this sort of reminds me of a movie I saw. The resemblance was not intentional and I didn't have the heart to axe the idea that far into writing it. So...let's just pretend that I didn't just commit plagiarism? Just for a little bit? I'll keep this one f-locked, so it can be just between us. Also I have no excuse for this.
By the age of twenty-three, Yamamoto had done many things.
He'd gathered a tight group of hilarious friends. He'd led his high school team to the national finals two times. He'd befriended (and beaten) the world's reigning sword emperor (repeatedly). He'd also helped to save the world at least once. Maybe twice.
But he'd never washed up face-first on a remote island before. His suit was soaked and stuck to his skin. His hair was matted to his head. He coughed once on the sand in his mouth before spitting it out. When he finally managed to push himself up and off of the long, winding shoreline, a tiny, red crab wandered down his dripping tie, clutching onto it with little claws more bent on survival now than on destruction.
Okay, so maybe the flyover/rope-ladder method wasn't the best landing idea ever invented. But he and Ryohei had talked about it for the entire flight and it had seemed an extremely sound plan at thirty thousand feet. They were really pumped about it. Fly close, lower the ladder, jump to safety! He just...missed his mark by twenty meters of ocean, is all.
Yamamoto used his sleeve to wipe away the dripping water on his face, and gently plucked the crab off of his shirtfront, where it waved its claws furiously. He set it down on a mound of sand. "Good luck, little friend," he said, and watched as it crawled away over the wet, glistening beach.
In front of him, the sand stretched out and, beyond that, a thicket of palm trees. He'd never been to a tropical island before! Mafia Land didn't really count.
This would be almost like a vacation. The mission was sure to be an easy one, and then he could kick back and enjoy the water and the sun. So long as he could find his target. He remembered that, before he'd boarded Ryohei's plane, Tsuna had given him a map of the island. He found it in his back pocket, thankfully made from some special waterproof paper that Giannini and Gokudera had seemed oddly excited about. A quick scan of its surface revealed his location.
The trek around the island was a lot harder than he'd expected it to be. His clothes were heavy and the sand was soft and unstable. But he could smell coconuts in the air, and the sun was hot on his hair. Which was really nice after being soaked through to the bone.
It was at the precise moment that he heard a rustle in the bushes, when the hair on the back of Yamamoto's neck stood up. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword hanging at his hip. And he focused his eyes on the source of the movement. A faint shadow was cast on the ground. The squat, waxy bushes rustled. And, beneath that, Yamamoto could hear the low, rough noise of an animal.
When Tsuna had handed him this mission the evening before, he had assured Yamamoto that the level of danger was exceptionally low and the whole thing shouldn't take more than a few days. Tsuna probably hadn't had this in mind, but Yamamoto hardly minded the detour. With the sun beginning to set behind him and a warm breeze picking up, he drew his blade and waited.
Within moments, the bushes gave a violent shake and a bristly beast charged out. The wild boar was short and stout, close to the ground, but very strong. It snorted as it crossed the clearing. Yamamoto squared his shoulders in its direction and flipped his blade, blunt side out.
The boar bucked its tusks at him and Yamamoto leapt out of the way. His suit jacket made a wet, sticky noise as it swung out behind him. When he looked up, the boar had slid to a sideways stop fifty feet away, and was gearing up to charge again. It made a throaty noise and lowered its head. Yamamoto lowered his blade. The sound of hooves on the ground filled the air. But all it took was one quick swing of Yamamoto's arm, and the boar squealed out and fell to the ground.
Yamamoto let out a breath. He knelt in the dirt and rested a hand on its neck, feeling for its slowed pulse. "That should knock you out for a little while," he muttered.
He didn't notice the crude arrows pointed at him--fourteen, on a quick count--until he stood back up.
Men began to come forward into the clearing, tendons tight in their arms, bowstrings straining against the arrows. They shouted at him in a language he didn't understand. Yamamoto raised his sword again, ready to defend himself...against arrows, apparently. If it worked, that would be an awesome story to tell Ryohei on the flight back.
Sudden whoops broke out of the deeper forest as he bent into a defensive stance. The sound wound its way toward the circle of warriors surrounding him, and they cried out too. It was almost a musical noise. The bushes and low leaves began to rustle loudly again, as if an entire herd of wild boars were charging at him. Yamamoto made a mental note to discuss with Tsuna the exact definition of "easy" when and if he made it back home.
Before him, the trees parted and the men around him dropped to one knee. Six men approached him, carrying on wooden posts a large and elaborate throne seating what was presumably their leader. Broad palm fronds shielded him from the strange invader.
The men came to a halt a few feet away from Yamamoto, and the leader let loose an achingly familiar cry. The palm fronds dropped.
"Vooooiiii! Katana brat?!"
Yamamoto gaped at the sight in front of him. "Squalo?"
***
Yamamoto should have figured that if he were ever to rescue one of his friends from delusions of grandeur, it would be Squalo.
"You're a what?" Yamamoto knew he was repeating himself for the third time, but he still wasn't sure he'd heard the answer correctly.
"A god," Squalo answered again, annoyance creeping into the edges of his mildly drunken voice, "or something like that."His Varia uniform was gone, or most of it anyway; he still sported the boots. A ragged grass skirt covered him from hips to knees, and a heavy shark tooth hung from a length of leather cordage around his neck. He swept his hand in a wide arc around him, where a hundred islanders knelt at his feet. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered in a loud, raspy fashion. "They think sharks are gods. And I tamed the biggest shark of all!"
Behind them, Squalo's box-weapon shark splashed around in the ocean, its fin turning happy figure-eights and spirals.
"Poor bastard's been boxed up for weeks because my lazy asshole boss isn't giving us anyone to kill." Squalo frowned at the water, and then began gesturing to the native closest to his feet. The islander stood and dragged the unconscious wild boar into the water. As soon as the heavy body splashed, sending out rings and rings of disturbance, the islander turned and ran, panic spread over his face. And for good reason: almost instantly, the shark's head reared up out of the water and its rows of dagger-like teeth clamped down on the animal. Blood swelled in the water, and a small cluster of bubbles formed as the boar was dragged downward.
"Poor bastard," Squalo repeated, shaking his head. Yamamoto tried not to grimace at the blood plume. But Squalo perked up. "Vooooiiii! Let me show you my hut!"
Squalo hopped off his throne and headed for the trees. Yamamoto was eager to follow along. He could tell the islanders were still watching him suspiciously and, really, he couldn't blame them. He'd shown up, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared to steal their main source of food, and was now wandering away, armed, with their freshly crowned king. He was kind of a suspicious guy! Yamamoto slung his arm over Squalo's shoulders to show that they were friends. But Squalo looked at him with a mixture of horror and personal offense, and Yamamoto let his arm hang limp at his side once again.
They pushed through the outer row of trees, Yamamoto following Squalo's path, and soon were surrounded by the damp green of the forest. The scent of fruit was even stronger inside the tangle of trees and Yamamoto's skin felt almost sticky with the sweetness. He couldn't wait for Squalo to come to his senses, and then they could lounge around for a day or so before heading back.
"Bet it'll be hard for you to leave, huh," Yamamoto asked as Squalo pushed back the grass door of his hut and stepped inside.
Squalo looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in annoyance. "Who said anything about leaving?"
Yamamoto blinked, and then followed him inside. The inside was furnished with a wide, soft-looking bed, a hammock, a thick wooden table piled high with slowly fermenting fruit. It was pretty clear that Squalo never ate any of it. "Come on, you're not really going to stay here, are you?"
Squalo crossed the room, his heavy boots sounding against the wooden floorboards, and he swung his long body into the hammock. His arms hung down from the sides, and he grabbed an oddly shaped fruit from the table at his side. He rolled it around in his hands. He didn't eat it.
"Really?" Yamamoto lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. "You'd want to live so far away from your friends?"
Squalo barked that mad-dog laugh of his and flopped around in the hammock until he was on his side, facing Yamamoto. "Friends? I hate my friends."
"You don't hate me." Yamamoto tried to grin the grin that got him things, but it didn't seem to be working. Squalo snickered.
"Kid. Let me explain things to you because you're a little slow. We're mafia. We're only as strong as our bosses. I've been sitting on my ass for weeks because Xanxus is having a goddamn tantrum or existential crisis or some bullshit. I got antsy. I took off to find something to fucking do, and you know what happened? I washed up here. And these idiots think I'm a god! They worship me! I get to kill things to eat. They rub me in oil every morning. My shark can swim around in the water. They feed him wild boar and birds all the damn time. Why would I go back?" For punctuation, he tossed the fruit at Yamamoto.
Tsuna had said that Squalo would probably be a little resistant to coming back, but that he would eventually get bored. CEDEF had scoped out the situation and found that the island ranked as number four on Fuuta's list of "Top Ten Places Squalo Is Least Likely to Maintain Stable Mental Health." Mostly, Yamamoto was just there to make sure that he didn't cause too much trouble that the Vongola would have to clean up later.
But that's not what Yamamoto wanted. He would do it, but he wanted Squalo to come back. It's not like Squalo didn't live far away anyway, but it was nice to know where your friends were. And the thought of not meeting up with Squalo on missions to Italy made Yamamoto sad.
"Maybe Xanxus just needs a break? More power naps or something?"
Squalo laughed like a madman again. "What he needs is to get fucking angry again. He's sitting there, getting all melancholy and shit, and it's annoying."
Okay, fine. Yamamoto didn't have to be back home for a week. He had time to deal with this. "So what do you do here?"
"Live as a king, mostly. Sometimes I kill a whale for fun."
"You what?"
"Nothing."
Yamamoto tried to process that for a moment, but quickly gave up. It didn't really matter. He might as well enjoy his time on the island, no telling when he'd have another chance for a vacation like this. "Oh. Okay. So what does a king live like?"
Squalo grinned. "I think they're going to sacrifice a goat later on. Want barbecue?"
Yamamoto tried to regulate the expression of vague horror on his face.
Everyone surviving out there? :)
I'm...trying a chaptered fic. I make no promises on any sort of release schedule, or even that this will be finished at any time..
Title: Three-Hour Tour
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Yamamoto, Squalo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2200
Notes: So. Guys. I was about 3000 words into this--a little farther than what you're seeing here--when I realized that, hey, this sort of reminds me of a movie I saw. The resemblance was not intentional and I didn't have the heart to axe the idea that far into writing it. So...let's just pretend that I didn't just commit plagiarism? Just for a little bit? I'll keep this one f-locked, so it can be just between us. Also I have no excuse for this.
By the age of twenty-three, Yamamoto had done many things.
He'd gathered a tight group of hilarious friends. He'd led his high school team to the national finals two times. He'd befriended (and beaten) the world's reigning sword emperor (repeatedly). He'd also helped to save the world at least once. Maybe twice.
But he'd never washed up face-first on a remote island before. His suit was soaked and stuck to his skin. His hair was matted to his head. He coughed once on the sand in his mouth before spitting it out. When he finally managed to push himself up and off of the long, winding shoreline, a tiny, red crab wandered down his dripping tie, clutching onto it with little claws more bent on survival now than on destruction.
Okay, so maybe the flyover/rope-ladder method wasn't the best landing idea ever invented. But he and Ryohei had talked about it for the entire flight and it had seemed an extremely sound plan at thirty thousand feet. They were really pumped about it. Fly close, lower the ladder, jump to safety! He just...missed his mark by twenty meters of ocean, is all.
Yamamoto used his sleeve to wipe away the dripping water on his face, and gently plucked the crab off of his shirtfront, where it waved its claws furiously. He set it down on a mound of sand. "Good luck, little friend," he said, and watched as it crawled away over the wet, glistening beach.
In front of him, the sand stretched out and, beyond that, a thicket of palm trees. He'd never been to a tropical island before! Mafia Land didn't really count.
This would be almost like a vacation. The mission was sure to be an easy one, and then he could kick back and enjoy the water and the sun. So long as he could find his target. He remembered that, before he'd boarded Ryohei's plane, Tsuna had given him a map of the island. He found it in his back pocket, thankfully made from some special waterproof paper that Giannini and Gokudera had seemed oddly excited about. A quick scan of its surface revealed his location.
The trek around the island was a lot harder than he'd expected it to be. His clothes were heavy and the sand was soft and unstable. But he could smell coconuts in the air, and the sun was hot on his hair. Which was really nice after being soaked through to the bone.
It was at the precise moment that he heard a rustle in the bushes, when the hair on the back of Yamamoto's neck stood up. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword hanging at his hip. And he focused his eyes on the source of the movement. A faint shadow was cast on the ground. The squat, waxy bushes rustled. And, beneath that, Yamamoto could hear the low, rough noise of an animal.
When Tsuna had handed him this mission the evening before, he had assured Yamamoto that the level of danger was exceptionally low and the whole thing shouldn't take more than a few days. Tsuna probably hadn't had this in mind, but Yamamoto hardly minded the detour. With the sun beginning to set behind him and a warm breeze picking up, he drew his blade and waited.
Within moments, the bushes gave a violent shake and a bristly beast charged out. The wild boar was short and stout, close to the ground, but very strong. It snorted as it crossed the clearing. Yamamoto squared his shoulders in its direction and flipped his blade, blunt side out.
The boar bucked its tusks at him and Yamamoto leapt out of the way. His suit jacket made a wet, sticky noise as it swung out behind him. When he looked up, the boar had slid to a sideways stop fifty feet away, and was gearing up to charge again. It made a throaty noise and lowered its head. Yamamoto lowered his blade. The sound of hooves on the ground filled the air. But all it took was one quick swing of Yamamoto's arm, and the boar squealed out and fell to the ground.
Yamamoto let out a breath. He knelt in the dirt and rested a hand on its neck, feeling for its slowed pulse. "That should knock you out for a little while," he muttered.
He didn't notice the crude arrows pointed at him--fourteen, on a quick count--until he stood back up.
Men began to come forward into the clearing, tendons tight in their arms, bowstrings straining against the arrows. They shouted at him in a language he didn't understand. Yamamoto raised his sword again, ready to defend himself...against arrows, apparently. If it worked, that would be an awesome story to tell Ryohei on the flight back.
Sudden whoops broke out of the deeper forest as he bent into a defensive stance. The sound wound its way toward the circle of warriors surrounding him, and they cried out too. It was almost a musical noise. The bushes and low leaves began to rustle loudly again, as if an entire herd of wild boars were charging at him. Yamamoto made a mental note to discuss with Tsuna the exact definition of "easy" when and if he made it back home.
Before him, the trees parted and the men around him dropped to one knee. Six men approached him, carrying on wooden posts a large and elaborate throne seating what was presumably their leader. Broad palm fronds shielded him from the strange invader.
The men came to a halt a few feet away from Yamamoto, and the leader let loose an achingly familiar cry. The palm fronds dropped.
"Vooooiiii! Katana brat?!"
Yamamoto gaped at the sight in front of him. "Squalo?"
***
Yamamoto should have figured that if he were ever to rescue one of his friends from delusions of grandeur, it would be Squalo.
"You're a what?" Yamamoto knew he was repeating himself for the third time, but he still wasn't sure he'd heard the answer correctly.
"A god," Squalo answered again, annoyance creeping into the edges of his mildly drunken voice, "or something like that."His Varia uniform was gone, or most of it anyway; he still sported the boots. A ragged grass skirt covered him from hips to knees, and a heavy shark tooth hung from a length of leather cordage around his neck. He swept his hand in a wide arc around him, where a hundred islanders knelt at his feet. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered in a loud, raspy fashion. "They think sharks are gods. And I tamed the biggest shark of all!"
Behind them, Squalo's box-weapon shark splashed around in the ocean, its fin turning happy figure-eights and spirals.
"Poor bastard's been boxed up for weeks because my lazy asshole boss isn't giving us anyone to kill." Squalo frowned at the water, and then began gesturing to the native closest to his feet. The islander stood and dragged the unconscious wild boar into the water. As soon as the heavy body splashed, sending out rings and rings of disturbance, the islander turned and ran, panic spread over his face. And for good reason: almost instantly, the shark's head reared up out of the water and its rows of dagger-like teeth clamped down on the animal. Blood swelled in the water, and a small cluster of bubbles formed as the boar was dragged downward.
"Poor bastard," Squalo repeated, shaking his head. Yamamoto tried not to grimace at the blood plume. But Squalo perked up. "Vooooiiii! Let me show you my hut!"
Squalo hopped off his throne and headed for the trees. Yamamoto was eager to follow along. He could tell the islanders were still watching him suspiciously and, really, he couldn't blame them. He'd shown up, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared to steal their main source of food, and was now wandering away, armed, with their freshly crowned king. He was kind of a suspicious guy! Yamamoto slung his arm over Squalo's shoulders to show that they were friends. But Squalo looked at him with a mixture of horror and personal offense, and Yamamoto let his arm hang limp at his side once again.
They pushed through the outer row of trees, Yamamoto following Squalo's path, and soon were surrounded by the damp green of the forest. The scent of fruit was even stronger inside the tangle of trees and Yamamoto's skin felt almost sticky with the sweetness. He couldn't wait for Squalo to come to his senses, and then they could lounge around for a day or so before heading back.
"Bet it'll be hard for you to leave, huh," Yamamoto asked as Squalo pushed back the grass door of his hut and stepped inside.
Squalo looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in annoyance. "Who said anything about leaving?"
Yamamoto blinked, and then followed him inside. The inside was furnished with a wide, soft-looking bed, a hammock, a thick wooden table piled high with slowly fermenting fruit. It was pretty clear that Squalo never ate any of it. "Come on, you're not really going to stay here, are you?"
Squalo crossed the room, his heavy boots sounding against the wooden floorboards, and he swung his long body into the hammock. His arms hung down from the sides, and he grabbed an oddly shaped fruit from the table at his side. He rolled it around in his hands. He didn't eat it.
"Really?" Yamamoto lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. "You'd want to live so far away from your friends?"
Squalo barked that mad-dog laugh of his and flopped around in the hammock until he was on his side, facing Yamamoto. "Friends? I hate my friends."
"You don't hate me." Yamamoto tried to grin the grin that got him things, but it didn't seem to be working. Squalo snickered.
"Kid. Let me explain things to you because you're a little slow. We're mafia. We're only as strong as our bosses. I've been sitting on my ass for weeks because Xanxus is having a goddamn tantrum or existential crisis or some bullshit. I got antsy. I took off to find something to fucking do, and you know what happened? I washed up here. And these idiots think I'm a god! They worship me! I get to kill things to eat. They rub me in oil every morning. My shark can swim around in the water. They feed him wild boar and birds all the damn time. Why would I go back?" For punctuation, he tossed the fruit at Yamamoto.
Tsuna had said that Squalo would probably be a little resistant to coming back, but that he would eventually get bored. CEDEF had scoped out the situation and found that the island ranked as number four on Fuuta's list of "Top Ten Places Squalo Is Least Likely to Maintain Stable Mental Health." Mostly, Yamamoto was just there to make sure that he didn't cause too much trouble that the Vongola would have to clean up later.
But that's not what Yamamoto wanted. He would do it, but he wanted Squalo to come back. It's not like Squalo didn't live far away anyway, but it was nice to know where your friends were. And the thought of not meeting up with Squalo on missions to Italy made Yamamoto sad.
"Maybe Xanxus just needs a break? More power naps or something?"
Squalo laughed like a madman again. "What he needs is to get fucking angry again. He's sitting there, getting all melancholy and shit, and it's annoying."
Okay, fine. Yamamoto didn't have to be back home for a week. He had time to deal with this. "So what do you do here?"
"Live as a king, mostly. Sometimes I kill a whale for fun."
"You what?"
"Nothing."
Yamamoto tried to process that for a moment, but quickly gave up. It didn't really matter. He might as well enjoy his time on the island, no telling when he'd have another chance for a vacation like this. "Oh. Okay. So what does a king live like?"
Squalo grinned. "I think they're going to sacrifice a goat later on. Want barbecue?"
Yamamoto tried to regulate the expression of vague horror on his face.