(no subject)
Title: Tourist Skin
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: Gokudera/Yamamoto
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Notes: Pure, unadulterated WAFF. Which I don't believe I've ever done before. Huh. Also, I am experiencing such a deep, renewed love for this pairing right now. Yes, yes, they're overdone. Probably a little boring, too. BUT BAAWWW THEY ARE SO SWEET. ;_; (Sometimes I need a little dose of predictable, boring sweetness. Shhhhh.)
So you take him to Italy with you.
You know, mostly, that this is a bad idea, a very bad idea, that he's been bugging you about it for months now and you should know that always leads to unsavory things, but you're ultimately weak in your desire for approval, and so you give in.
He's so excited that he talks about nothing else all week. He's been there once or twice, but only on the strictest of business. He's never even seen the...well, you don't know what he wants to see. He mangles the Italian until it is unrecognizable and humorous.
He asks, "Is Italy beautiful?"
You say, "You've seen it, idiot."
He says, "Yeah, but that was different."
You don't ask why. It makes you uncomfortable, sometimes, the way he shifts your perception like a crooked picture on a wall. It's still the same thing, at its core, but everything is just a little askew and nerve-wracking. So you don't really say anything. You just let him chatter along in his glee and abandon, and you help him pack. You make the arrangements. You call the taxi.
He thanks you by losing your luggage at the baggage claim.
But, okay, whatever. You are on a strict smoking-cessation plan from the Tenth, and you're determined not to smoke more than your alotted single pack of cigarettes per day. Succumbing to idiotic stress would only make you want to light up more. And all of your important stuff was in your carry-on anyway (you've traveled enough to learn that little trick), so you shrug it off and jot down "one suit, one pair of jeans, one green shirt, and one mid-priced digital camera" on the running expense summary. "Whatever," you tell him, though he looks severely dismayed at the loss of the camera in particular. (And he keeps telling you how good you looked in that green shirt and how sad he is that it's gone, but you make him shut up.)
The two of you make the trip via taxi to the Vongola safe-house, such a dramatic misnomer in this case; you are merely here on some diplomatic business, and maybe some sightseeing if Yamamoto doesn't annoy you too much. During the ride, he chatters endlessly. Apologies at first, and later it turns into comments about the way the concrete of the airport fades into countryside so rapidly as the taxi speeds toward your destination. You take all of this for granted, you suppose, you the one with native blood, with native boredom. You, the native, and suddenly you are reminded of how nice it is to come here sometimes with a tourist in tow.
When you finally arrive at the cottage, he bends the key in the lock.
You sigh and set down your (remaining) luggage. You jimmy open a window in back. You climb inside. No big deal. You'll just have Giannini or his apprentice make you a quick new key when you get to the proper Vongola estate tomorrow. It will be a fast and easy project which they can blow up to dramatic and elaborate proportions, maybe make the damn key light up or melt ice or adopt fingerprint recognition or something. Whatever. You'll get your key. No big deal.
After that, he floods the bathroom sink. He bumps his head on the low doorway leading into the bedroom. He looks at you with that silly smile, rubbing his palm roughly over the sore spot on his head, and every insult withers on your tongue. You sink down onto the bed and do something like laugh. "Oi, idiot, you're supposed to be the coordinated one, remember?"
And he drops down beside you and he laughs too, though it's no surprise.
"Taking lessons from Cavallone," you ask when he ducks his head to nip your earlobe, but ends up bumping his nose instead.
"Just nervous," he says and shifts his weight until he's half on top of you, one knee pulled up over your hips, "don't wanna mess it up." You roll your eyes and let him kiss you.
He calls it making love. You call it... Actually, you don't know what you call it. Something about your beating heart and that naked, weightless feeling you get like you're a completely different person, wrapped in different skin with a mouth that knows how to smile. You're not like this otherwise, and it's not an addition of a self, so much as it is a subtraction of all the other people you are every day. He slides a hand along your calf, nuzzles his face into your collarbone, and when he moves his hips just so, you almost disappear.
Afterward, you both get dressed again to meet the Ninth, put on the skins of Vongola, and he knocks your PDA off the counter. The back pops off and you swear you're going to have a heart attack. He laughs nervously and apologizes. He fumbles with the shiny plastic pieces until they fit back together, and he turns it on to show you that it still works. ("See? It's fine!") You pinch the bridge of your nose and nod tersely. "It's fine," you echo.
You make a quick lunch. You unpack and repack the things you need for the meeting. You stick your ledger, your knicked PDA, your legal pad--all of it--into a briefcase. You cinch up your tie. You straighten Yamamoto's collar and the two of you load into the car parked under a tree outside. You insist on driving. He doesn't argue.
At the estate, the current Storm Guardian opens the door for you, all sharp-eyed and fierce, despite the grey hair and the knobby fingers. He shakes your hand and you can see the hollow around his finger where the cold, heavy Ring of Storm used to sit. He glances at it on your hand now, and smiles. "Good to see you boys," he says, in clipped precise tones and welcomes you inside.
You meet the Ninth in a long, window-lined conference room. He sits at the head of a mahogany table. You and Yamamoto flank him. Under the table, Yamamoto's foot occasionally brushes yours and you swear it's not an accident and if this wasn't the time for business you would probably hurt him. So instead, you satisfy yourself with a deep frown. It stops him for a while.
The Ninth greets you both graciously. He tells stories of associates whom neither of you have met, sometimes speaking at length about details which don't matter to the story, sometimes struggling to remember the name of an off-stage character only to wave it away to age and forgetfulness. But when talk turns to business, his mind is sharper than either yours or Yamamoto's, and you struggle to keep up.
There's a brief discussion of wine production in the north, a side source of income for the Vongola, and after that he is dicussing the impending construction of the Vongola headquarters in Japan. The Tenth had assigned you the task of working side-by-side with the architects. You'd been researching for weeks.
When the Ninth turns to you and asks for the coordinates, you check it on your PDA, but the thing flickers and refuses to connect. You frown and tap its side a little bit. This doesn't work, so you give him an estimate from what you remember. He smiles kindly and Yamamoto looks embarrassed.
When the Ninth asks for the building proposal, the damn thing refuses to work at all. The screen stubbornly insists on displaying that humiliating picture of you from the cherry blossom festival last year, and nothing else. You shouldn't have let Yamamoto play with your PDA at all. If you'd been smart, in fact, you wouldn't have let him within a ten-meter radius of it.
"I'm sorry, sir," you apologize, "it seems I'm having some technical difficulties and if you would allow me--"
The Ninth waves away the apologies. "Send it to me when you return home. It is a simple pleasure of its own to receive such lively company," he says with a gentle wink. You finish your coffee, and the Thunder Guardian is the one to assist you out.
Yamamoto apologizes by not saying anything at all and letting your anger dissipate on its own.
Dinner goes largely without incident. Except that he burns the amatriciana a bit. He watches as you fix it up quickly and he sets out plates and silverware and glasses. You eat without saying much and he doesn't dispute it. You're getting ready to settle in for a chance to relax after the long flight and the lost luggage and the fucking PDA, but he's looking at you with that insistent stare that begs you to ask.
"What?"
He shrugs and looks sheepish. You like the way he looks when he makes that face, and he knows you like it, and you swear to God that he practices it in the bathroom mirror every morning. "I have some plans. Want to come?"
The very idea of Yamamoto having plans in Italy, a place he'd never really been before, is enough to send you into a minor panic. It means he's made plans for the two of you, probably something he deems to be romantic, and that can't be good. You glance at the pack of cigarettes on the table in front of you. Only three left. You do some quick calculations. (Three cigarettes divided by the average level of annoyance, to the power of the likelihood that Yamamoto will get lost or destroy something valuable...)
"All right," you say, "what's up?"
And he smiles. He pulls a map out of his suitcase. (His luggage was miraculously not lost.) And he drags you out to the car. "It's a surprise," he says, and you slip into the passenger seat when he opens the door for you, silently cursing yourself for not claiming to be too tired to go on his little adventure.
In his defense, he only gets lost three times on the way to the destination.
And he only gets you pulled over once by the police. You smoke two cigarettes on the way.
It's not a long drive, but it winds through the city and the mountainside and mile after mile you feel a bit more of your daily facade slipping away. First--and this surprises you--the anger. Next, the unending planning and strategy that run through your head. Last, any preoccupation with anything beside the way the nation of your birth unfolds in front of you and you wonder how much you have simply forgotten since your last visit and how much is a new sight because you were always so distracted before. Beside you, Yamamoto drives, only occasionally glancing at his map, confident smile stitched across his face.
He gets you there eventually, pulling up and stopping. He glances at his map and at the sight in front of the car. Back at the map. Back at the attraction.
"Torre di...Tor--"
"Torre di Ligny," you help him out. You don't say, I've been here before. You don't say, Everybody's been here. You just lean back in your seat and watch the waves crash up the sides of the short, squat building. You watch the sun slipping down to kiss the horizon. "It's nice," you say.
And he smiles like he just figured out your favorite meal and cooked it for you to perfection. "It is, huh," he adds and reaches across the car to rest a broad palm on top of your head. "I did good?"
It bothers you when he asks things like this unexpectedly because he ususally doesn't. You don't like being anyone's assessor. You don't like the responsibility of it, and you know how unreasonable picky you are sometimes. And you kind of like who you are not, when you are around him. You kind of like how he makes you a sight-seer in your own life.
In the car, you crack the window and slip the last cigarette out of your pocket. You watch the sun slipping down into the water. Other tourists pull into the turnaround, spare a glance at the sunset and the tower and the sea splayed out into the indefinite distance. Then they pull away, back to their busy lives, back to structures of necessity and not frivolity. You place the barrel between your lips and light up.
"Yeah," you say.
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: Gokudera/Yamamoto
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Notes: Pure, unadulterated WAFF. Which I don't believe I've ever done before. Huh. Also, I am experiencing such a deep, renewed love for this pairing right now. Yes, yes, they're overdone. Probably a little boring, too. BUT BAAWWW THEY ARE SO SWEET. ;_; (Sometimes I need a little dose of predictable, boring sweetness. Shhhhh.)
So you take him to Italy with you.
You know, mostly, that this is a bad idea, a very bad idea, that he's been bugging you about it for months now and you should know that always leads to unsavory things, but you're ultimately weak in your desire for approval, and so you give in.
He's so excited that he talks about nothing else all week. He's been there once or twice, but only on the strictest of business. He's never even seen the...well, you don't know what he wants to see. He mangles the Italian until it is unrecognizable and humorous.
He asks, "Is Italy beautiful?"
You say, "You've seen it, idiot."
He says, "Yeah, but that was different."
You don't ask why. It makes you uncomfortable, sometimes, the way he shifts your perception like a crooked picture on a wall. It's still the same thing, at its core, but everything is just a little askew and nerve-wracking. So you don't really say anything. You just let him chatter along in his glee and abandon, and you help him pack. You make the arrangements. You call the taxi.
He thanks you by losing your luggage at the baggage claim.
But, okay, whatever. You are on a strict smoking-cessation plan from the Tenth, and you're determined not to smoke more than your alotted single pack of cigarettes per day. Succumbing to idiotic stress would only make you want to light up more. And all of your important stuff was in your carry-on anyway (you've traveled enough to learn that little trick), so you shrug it off and jot down "one suit, one pair of jeans, one green shirt, and one mid-priced digital camera" on the running expense summary. "Whatever," you tell him, though he looks severely dismayed at the loss of the camera in particular. (And he keeps telling you how good you looked in that green shirt and how sad he is that it's gone, but you make him shut up.)
The two of you make the trip via taxi to the Vongola safe-house, such a dramatic misnomer in this case; you are merely here on some diplomatic business, and maybe some sightseeing if Yamamoto doesn't annoy you too much. During the ride, he chatters endlessly. Apologies at first, and later it turns into comments about the way the concrete of the airport fades into countryside so rapidly as the taxi speeds toward your destination. You take all of this for granted, you suppose, you the one with native blood, with native boredom. You, the native, and suddenly you are reminded of how nice it is to come here sometimes with a tourist in tow.
When you finally arrive at the cottage, he bends the key in the lock.
You sigh and set down your (remaining) luggage. You jimmy open a window in back. You climb inside. No big deal. You'll just have Giannini or his apprentice make you a quick new key when you get to the proper Vongola estate tomorrow. It will be a fast and easy project which they can blow up to dramatic and elaborate proportions, maybe make the damn key light up or melt ice or adopt fingerprint recognition or something. Whatever. You'll get your key. No big deal.
After that, he floods the bathroom sink. He bumps his head on the low doorway leading into the bedroom. He looks at you with that silly smile, rubbing his palm roughly over the sore spot on his head, and every insult withers on your tongue. You sink down onto the bed and do something like laugh. "Oi, idiot, you're supposed to be the coordinated one, remember?"
And he drops down beside you and he laughs too, though it's no surprise.
"Taking lessons from Cavallone," you ask when he ducks his head to nip your earlobe, but ends up bumping his nose instead.
"Just nervous," he says and shifts his weight until he's half on top of you, one knee pulled up over your hips, "don't wanna mess it up." You roll your eyes and let him kiss you.
He calls it making love. You call it... Actually, you don't know what you call it. Something about your beating heart and that naked, weightless feeling you get like you're a completely different person, wrapped in different skin with a mouth that knows how to smile. You're not like this otherwise, and it's not an addition of a self, so much as it is a subtraction of all the other people you are every day. He slides a hand along your calf, nuzzles his face into your collarbone, and when he moves his hips just so, you almost disappear.
Afterward, you both get dressed again to meet the Ninth, put on the skins of Vongola, and he knocks your PDA off the counter. The back pops off and you swear you're going to have a heart attack. He laughs nervously and apologizes. He fumbles with the shiny plastic pieces until they fit back together, and he turns it on to show you that it still works. ("See? It's fine!") You pinch the bridge of your nose and nod tersely. "It's fine," you echo.
You make a quick lunch. You unpack and repack the things you need for the meeting. You stick your ledger, your knicked PDA, your legal pad--all of it--into a briefcase. You cinch up your tie. You straighten Yamamoto's collar and the two of you load into the car parked under a tree outside. You insist on driving. He doesn't argue.
At the estate, the current Storm Guardian opens the door for you, all sharp-eyed and fierce, despite the grey hair and the knobby fingers. He shakes your hand and you can see the hollow around his finger where the cold, heavy Ring of Storm used to sit. He glances at it on your hand now, and smiles. "Good to see you boys," he says, in clipped precise tones and welcomes you inside.
You meet the Ninth in a long, window-lined conference room. He sits at the head of a mahogany table. You and Yamamoto flank him. Under the table, Yamamoto's foot occasionally brushes yours and you swear it's not an accident and if this wasn't the time for business you would probably hurt him. So instead, you satisfy yourself with a deep frown. It stops him for a while.
The Ninth greets you both graciously. He tells stories of associates whom neither of you have met, sometimes speaking at length about details which don't matter to the story, sometimes struggling to remember the name of an off-stage character only to wave it away to age and forgetfulness. But when talk turns to business, his mind is sharper than either yours or Yamamoto's, and you struggle to keep up.
There's a brief discussion of wine production in the north, a side source of income for the Vongola, and after that he is dicussing the impending construction of the Vongola headquarters in Japan. The Tenth had assigned you the task of working side-by-side with the architects. You'd been researching for weeks.
When the Ninth turns to you and asks for the coordinates, you check it on your PDA, but the thing flickers and refuses to connect. You frown and tap its side a little bit. This doesn't work, so you give him an estimate from what you remember. He smiles kindly and Yamamoto looks embarrassed.
When the Ninth asks for the building proposal, the damn thing refuses to work at all. The screen stubbornly insists on displaying that humiliating picture of you from the cherry blossom festival last year, and nothing else. You shouldn't have let Yamamoto play with your PDA at all. If you'd been smart, in fact, you wouldn't have let him within a ten-meter radius of it.
"I'm sorry, sir," you apologize, "it seems I'm having some technical difficulties and if you would allow me--"
The Ninth waves away the apologies. "Send it to me when you return home. It is a simple pleasure of its own to receive such lively company," he says with a gentle wink. You finish your coffee, and the Thunder Guardian is the one to assist you out.
Yamamoto apologizes by not saying anything at all and letting your anger dissipate on its own.
Dinner goes largely without incident. Except that he burns the amatriciana a bit. He watches as you fix it up quickly and he sets out plates and silverware and glasses. You eat without saying much and he doesn't dispute it. You're getting ready to settle in for a chance to relax after the long flight and the lost luggage and the fucking PDA, but he's looking at you with that insistent stare that begs you to ask.
"What?"
He shrugs and looks sheepish. You like the way he looks when he makes that face, and he knows you like it, and you swear to God that he practices it in the bathroom mirror every morning. "I have some plans. Want to come?"
The very idea of Yamamoto having plans in Italy, a place he'd never really been before, is enough to send you into a minor panic. It means he's made plans for the two of you, probably something he deems to be romantic, and that can't be good. You glance at the pack of cigarettes on the table in front of you. Only three left. You do some quick calculations. (Three cigarettes divided by the average level of annoyance, to the power of the likelihood that Yamamoto will get lost or destroy something valuable...)
"All right," you say, "what's up?"
And he smiles. He pulls a map out of his suitcase. (His luggage was miraculously not lost.) And he drags you out to the car. "It's a surprise," he says, and you slip into the passenger seat when he opens the door for you, silently cursing yourself for not claiming to be too tired to go on his little adventure.
In his defense, he only gets lost three times on the way to the destination.
And he only gets you pulled over once by the police. You smoke two cigarettes on the way.
It's not a long drive, but it winds through the city and the mountainside and mile after mile you feel a bit more of your daily facade slipping away. First--and this surprises you--the anger. Next, the unending planning and strategy that run through your head. Last, any preoccupation with anything beside the way the nation of your birth unfolds in front of you and you wonder how much you have simply forgotten since your last visit and how much is a new sight because you were always so distracted before. Beside you, Yamamoto drives, only occasionally glancing at his map, confident smile stitched across his face.
He gets you there eventually, pulling up and stopping. He glances at his map and at the sight in front of the car. Back at the map. Back at the attraction.
"Torre di...Tor--"
"Torre di Ligny," you help him out. You don't say, I've been here before. You don't say, Everybody's been here. You just lean back in your seat and watch the waves crash up the sides of the short, squat building. You watch the sun slipping down to kiss the horizon. "It's nice," you say.
And he smiles like he just figured out your favorite meal and cooked it for you to perfection. "It is, huh," he adds and reaches across the car to rest a broad palm on top of your head. "I did good?"
It bothers you when he asks things like this unexpectedly because he ususally doesn't. You don't like being anyone's assessor. You don't like the responsibility of it, and you know how unreasonable picky you are sometimes. And you kind of like who you are not, when you are around him. You kind of like how he makes you a sight-seer in your own life.
In the car, you crack the window and slip the last cigarette out of your pocket. You watch the sun slipping down into the water. Other tourists pull into the turnaround, spare a glance at the sunset and the tower and the sea splayed out into the indefinite distance. Then they pull away, back to their busy lives, back to structures of necessity and not frivolity. You place the barrel between your lips and light up.
"Yeah," you say.