(no subject)
Title: Sleight of Hand
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: Dino/Squalo
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Word Count: 2500
"If you want something, fucking take it." That's what he said, and he paused, this kinetic, bated-breath thing, waiting for Dino to grab onto the momentum and tumble head-first.
***
Dino goes to see him after the Rings battle. He expects security to be tight at the Varia mansion, but the assassins hardly notice he's there. He practically walks right in without knocking.
The Varia are in varying stages of disrepair: strapped to hospital beds, bandaged and broken, talking gibberish and strung out on pain meds. Belphegor seems fine, though, buzzing around the place, cackling occasionally and poking at his barely healed wounds. When blood leaks out onto his fingers, he laughs harder. Dino has to ask three times to see Squalo, but when he finally gets Belphegor's attention, the prince waves his hand at some heavy double doors and leaves Dino to find him on his own.
The mansion is huge and sprawling, a labyrinth of halls and stairways, conjoined rooms and balconies. Dino's only been there once before and it was years earlier. Still, his feet find Squalo's quarters by instinct, by memory that his body still holds, though his mind's forgotten. He only trips once going up the wide, curving staircase.
Romario and his other men are in Japan looking after the Vongola boys, their skilled hands nursing deep wounds and bruised egos. It was with much effort that Dino persuaded his charges to stay behind. But they are loyal and Dino would prefer to avoid explaining that he doesn't know why he wants to go to Squalo. He just does.
Dino pauses outside the room he knows to be Squalo's and listens. The room is unnaturally quiet. Even as a boy in school, Squalo's mouth had always matched his ego. Dino wonders if the injuries are even worse than they'd originally seemed. He presses one hand against the door, leaning forward to hear better, his heart pounding a steady rhythm against his rib cage. He tries to be as silent, as kinetic as the air around him, then the door pushes open under his weight. He topples inside head first. And, from his tangled heap on the floor, he looks up and sees Squalo.
The man is hunched in his wheelchair, his hand and stump resting on the arms. His face, his arms, probably parts of his body that Dino can't see--it's all wound in pristine white bandages. Squalo is a chewed and tattered mess. But when he sees Dino, a mean grin spreads across his face and he barks laughter.
"Fucking klutz," he says with mirth and mock warmth.
***
Dino leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed, as he looked into Squalo's dorm room. The other boy was packing a suitcase fiercely: black clothes, thick-soled boots, a few stray possessions. Nothing sentimental like photographs.
"Gonna miss me?" He asked it without looking up and Dino could hear the smirk. Squalo still had both hands then.
***
Even in this state so near to death, Squalo looks so invincible and fierce. Not even self-mutilation, Xanxus, and sharks can take him out. It impresses the hell out of Dino; it scares him a little bit, too. Dino has looked less alive after a night of moderate to heavy drinking with Iemitsu.
"Ciao," he says softly, unable to hide the concern in his voice, not much caring either.
Squalo laughs at the greeting, a bitter and abrupt thing cut short by the grimace of pain that claims his face. It's all a show and Dino knows it, but he lets it slide, lets Squalo keep pretending that he isn't fucked up bad at all. After all, despite whatever grace of God keeps Squalo alive despite the trauma and the bloodloss, he did almost die. Dino doesn't mind giving him a little bit of space for pride.
That pride has always amused him and pissed him off. Ever since they were kids and Squalo would trip him in the halls--this flirty little slide of foot when Dino was walking by, then cruel laughter when Dino was tangled around himself on the floor. But that pride kept him coming back, intrigued and curious. He'd gone to the battle as much for Squalo as for Yamamoto. He'd been terrified for the kid; amazed when he'd won. But that wasn't the only reason he was there.
"What do you want," Squalo asks, his voice rough and slow with pain medication. Dino can tell that he's embarrassed to be seen this way, and he hurts a little for him. Dino doesn't really know what it's like to be embarrassed; if he felt shame so easily, he would have withered into a ball and died a million accidents ago. But he can imagine. He sees it in the Vongola boys: Tsuna's face when Kyoko comes around; Gokudera as he lay bleeding after his battle with Belphegor; Hibari when Dino mentioned Mukuro's name. And he sees it now in Squalo, hidden beneath long hair and bandages and sharp teeth.
Dino shrugs. And it's the truth. What he wants is years gone, crazier and more broken than he remembers. What he wants is to be a kid again; gentleness where none has ever existed; two strong hands to grip his shoulders, to shake him back to sense, to take the place of one-hand-and-a-void. What he wants is impossible.
"Thought I'd see if you were okay," he says. Close enough.
And Squalo leans back in the wheelchair, spreads his arms wide. He looks wounded and dangerous, the worst kind of animal. "Fantastic," he says.
***
"What's to miss," Dino asked, all cocky like he meant it. His voice shook.
Squalo didn't stop shoving his fists into the compressed contents of his suitcase. But he grinned a little, the expression slicking up his face.
Dino didn't ask him if he knew what he'd have to do with the Varia. Squalo knew. And Dino knew that Squalo wouldn't take any position that didn't let him slice people up.
***
Squalo doesn't look fantastic. He looks barely able to move. His mouth works fine, though.
"Scared the shit out of the katana brat," he says. That pride again.
Dino smirks, sticks his hands in his pockets, and lowers himself slowly to the edge of Squalo's bed, praying that he doesn't fall, praying that he doesn't take away another reason for Squalo to take him seriously. He doesn't.
"That brat still beat you, though," he says. Pride of his own.
A weaker man would have felt stung at the reminder, but it seems to fill Squalo like food to a starving dog. "Smoke and mirrors," he says and the lie and the shame are so obvious that Dino doesn't bother to point them out.
He smiles again, the same cautious smile he gives Hibari Kyoya after coming so, so close to beating him. It's the friendship he wants to offer, but he's smart enough to know not to. Because men like Squalo, men like the man Hibari will become one day, they don't need friends. They need momentum and motivation to become invincible. They almost are, even without the motivation. So he sits quietly, his hands hanging between his knees, motionless so that he can't ruin anything.
It's like a magic act, sitting with Squalo, tiptoeing around this thing like intimacy and companionship, this bizarre thing that feels like biting your own tongue. It's like staring straight down into the black abyss of the magician's hat and almost, almost seeing the white flash of rabbit tail, but then it disappears. And Dino knows that there's a trick to this; he just can't figure out what it is. Like some sort of spell word that he should utter, but "Abracadabra" would be ridiculous. For years, he's been trying to satisfy himself with the mystery alone.
***
"Keep staring," he said, "and I'll take all that eye contact as a challenge."
Dino didn't know what to say. He glanced around, trying to find someplace else to rest his eyes. But Squalo crossed the room quickly, grabbed his chin, and leaned in to kiss him, his lips twisted in mockery.
"If you want something, fucking take it."
Dino panicked. His eyes went wide and his voice caught in his throat, but he still jerked his chin forward, wanting the kiss, wanting the contact, wanting, wanting. And, quick and sure as magnets, their foreheads collided in a sharp smack.
"Fucking klutz," Squalo growled, holding his head, and he grabbed Dino by the shirt and tossed him on the bed next to his half-packed suitcase.
***
"Bet the rugrats are licking their wounds right now."
Dino doesn't mention how Belphegor is the only member of the Varia able to move around. "They are receiving good care," he says instead, "since you sound so concerned."
Squalo scoffs, and he rolls his wheelchair to the middle of the room where a heap of belongings occupies the floor. His stump looks so awkward pushing the wheel, but it's strong enough and he's across the room in two strokes.
"Let me show you something, Cavallone."
Dino cringes at the sound of his last name; it's so cold, and though none of Squalo's nicknames for him have ever been warm, they were at least familiar. Only his enemies call him by his family name. And whatever Squalo is to him, he'd never have called him an enemy. But he says nothing. He just waits as Squalo rummages through a bag at his feet. The contents spill out as he digs, and Dino thinks it must be the bag he brought home from the hospital: He sees tattered clothes, bandages, and antiseptic.
"Aaahhh," Squalo sighs happily, theatrically as he pulls a small tin from the depths of the bag. It rattles loudly with heavy metallic tinks. And he tosses it through the air toward Dino. He reaches for it, but it hits his wrist and bounces off. The tin clatters to the floor, popping open when it hits, and a handful of small, white bits scatter across the carpet.
Squalo mutters an epithet at Dino, something about his lack of coordination, but he says it with amusement like he would convey a fond memory. Dino leans over to gather them up, but his hand pauses, hovering just above one of Squalo's souvenirs: a pink-tinged shark tooth.
"That one," Squalo says as Dino finally picks it up, "they pulled it out of my face. Under my eye here." He points at the mass of bandage covering the left side of his face. Dino tries not to stare. He collects them all in the palm of his hand. They are cold and hard and serrated. The edges are stained with blood. He counts twelve. And, as he's contemplating Squalo's blood in his hand, the other man rolls up close to him. Dino can feel Squalo's breath on his cheek, the hair tickling his bare arm. It takes all of his concentration not to drop the teeth again.
Squalo starts pointing at each one. "This one's from between my third and fourth ribs," he says, slurring slightly with the morphine. Or, "The palm of my hand." Or, "Back of my skull." Each wound is more horrific and frightening than the last. ("My tongue," he says.)
But all Dino can think of is how this all feels like misdirection. He swears that an elephant must be vanishing from the other side of the room.
***
"Just fucking...would you fucking hold still?" And Squalo grabbed Dino's wrists in one hand and pinned them above his head.
He crawled up over Dino while he squirmed. And it was only moments before they were wrestling on the bed, teeth and swinging fists. They were lucky no one lost an eye. Only a few moments more before Squalo started removing their clothes.
Then, naked, they stared at each other, unsure of how to proceed because they were just young boys. But, because they were young boys, creative by nature, they figured it out.
***
"And this one," he says and holds up the tooth he wears as a pendant on a leather cord around his neck, "this one came out of my chest. Doctor said it almost got my heart." Squalo's grin is wide and proud, sharp-toothed and terrible.
Dino stares at it, his own heart stuttering for a moment at the thought. It's the biggest tooth in the collection, ragged and pink and fierce, and it dangles from this place of honor on the leather cord. Dino has to reach out his hand to touch it. But Squalo yanks it out of his reach.
"You can take one, but not this one." He says it with the serious eyes of a predator, like challenge. Then he tucks the tooth back under his shirt. He clears his throat and reclaims his expression of cruel delight. "Took this one out of my leg," he tells Dino.
And Dino laughs. It's so preposterous, this tiny, awkward, sick gesture of generosity, this gesture of pride and boasting, of bravado made possible by the pain meds. But he plucks one tooth from the collection in his palm and holds the terrible thing up where the light can reflect off its sharp edges. "Where was this one," he asks, "your ass cheek?"
And Squalo barks laughter. "Nah," he says, "that's this one. Here. Put it on a cord." And he deposits it in Dino's hand.
Dino evaluates it like a man does a glass of fine wine, appraising and prissy. Squalo watches him, amused with his eyes glazed by drugs. And Dino watches him back, Squalo, this bloody and bandaged vestige, this crazy and talented boy who used to tease him mercilessly back in school. He watches him and he thinks of the Vongola boys--defeated and victorious, damaged but stronger for the wear. But Squalo. Squalo is a fading pyrotechnic display, an aging magician fumbling through the one act he's been repeating for indeterminate ages.
Dino used to fear Squalo, had a few nightmares at the thought of him. But, at the sight of him in the wheelchair, insane and made kinder, softer by pain meds, all Dino can feel is sadness. And it is the most natural act in the world to turn his head to the side, to close his eyes, to tilt his mouth toward Squalo's.
But Squalo's laughter cuts through his head, and then he tips over onto the floor, another fuck up, another clumsy heap of limbs and apologies. Good thing he never gets embarrassed. And Squalo beams down at him, pleased and cold.
"That's why you have to take it when you want it," he says, his voice a ghost and twice as thin. "Take too long and you get figured out."
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Pairing: Dino/Squalo
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Word Count: 2500
"If you want something, fucking take it." That's what he said, and he paused, this kinetic, bated-breath thing, waiting for Dino to grab onto the momentum and tumble head-first.
***
Dino goes to see him after the Rings battle. He expects security to be tight at the Varia mansion, but the assassins hardly notice he's there. He practically walks right in without knocking.
The Varia are in varying stages of disrepair: strapped to hospital beds, bandaged and broken, talking gibberish and strung out on pain meds. Belphegor seems fine, though, buzzing around the place, cackling occasionally and poking at his barely healed wounds. When blood leaks out onto his fingers, he laughs harder. Dino has to ask three times to see Squalo, but when he finally gets Belphegor's attention, the prince waves his hand at some heavy double doors and leaves Dino to find him on his own.
The mansion is huge and sprawling, a labyrinth of halls and stairways, conjoined rooms and balconies. Dino's only been there once before and it was years earlier. Still, his feet find Squalo's quarters by instinct, by memory that his body still holds, though his mind's forgotten. He only trips once going up the wide, curving staircase.
Romario and his other men are in Japan looking after the Vongola boys, their skilled hands nursing deep wounds and bruised egos. It was with much effort that Dino persuaded his charges to stay behind. But they are loyal and Dino would prefer to avoid explaining that he doesn't know why he wants to go to Squalo. He just does.
Dino pauses outside the room he knows to be Squalo's and listens. The room is unnaturally quiet. Even as a boy in school, Squalo's mouth had always matched his ego. Dino wonders if the injuries are even worse than they'd originally seemed. He presses one hand against the door, leaning forward to hear better, his heart pounding a steady rhythm against his rib cage. He tries to be as silent, as kinetic as the air around him, then the door pushes open under his weight. He topples inside head first. And, from his tangled heap on the floor, he looks up and sees Squalo.
The man is hunched in his wheelchair, his hand and stump resting on the arms. His face, his arms, probably parts of his body that Dino can't see--it's all wound in pristine white bandages. Squalo is a chewed and tattered mess. But when he sees Dino, a mean grin spreads across his face and he barks laughter.
"Fucking klutz," he says with mirth and mock warmth.
***
Dino leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed, as he looked into Squalo's dorm room. The other boy was packing a suitcase fiercely: black clothes, thick-soled boots, a few stray possessions. Nothing sentimental like photographs.
"Gonna miss me?" He asked it without looking up and Dino could hear the smirk. Squalo still had both hands then.
***
Even in this state so near to death, Squalo looks so invincible and fierce. Not even self-mutilation, Xanxus, and sharks can take him out. It impresses the hell out of Dino; it scares him a little bit, too. Dino has looked less alive after a night of moderate to heavy drinking with Iemitsu.
"Ciao," he says softly, unable to hide the concern in his voice, not much caring either.
Squalo laughs at the greeting, a bitter and abrupt thing cut short by the grimace of pain that claims his face. It's all a show and Dino knows it, but he lets it slide, lets Squalo keep pretending that he isn't fucked up bad at all. After all, despite whatever grace of God keeps Squalo alive despite the trauma and the bloodloss, he did almost die. Dino doesn't mind giving him a little bit of space for pride.
That pride has always amused him and pissed him off. Ever since they were kids and Squalo would trip him in the halls--this flirty little slide of foot when Dino was walking by, then cruel laughter when Dino was tangled around himself on the floor. But that pride kept him coming back, intrigued and curious. He'd gone to the battle as much for Squalo as for Yamamoto. He'd been terrified for the kid; amazed when he'd won. But that wasn't the only reason he was there.
"What do you want," Squalo asks, his voice rough and slow with pain medication. Dino can tell that he's embarrassed to be seen this way, and he hurts a little for him. Dino doesn't really know what it's like to be embarrassed; if he felt shame so easily, he would have withered into a ball and died a million accidents ago. But he can imagine. He sees it in the Vongola boys: Tsuna's face when Kyoko comes around; Gokudera as he lay bleeding after his battle with Belphegor; Hibari when Dino mentioned Mukuro's name. And he sees it now in Squalo, hidden beneath long hair and bandages and sharp teeth.
Dino shrugs. And it's the truth. What he wants is years gone, crazier and more broken than he remembers. What he wants is to be a kid again; gentleness where none has ever existed; two strong hands to grip his shoulders, to shake him back to sense, to take the place of one-hand-and-a-void. What he wants is impossible.
"Thought I'd see if you were okay," he says. Close enough.
And Squalo leans back in the wheelchair, spreads his arms wide. He looks wounded and dangerous, the worst kind of animal. "Fantastic," he says.
***
"What's to miss," Dino asked, all cocky like he meant it. His voice shook.
Squalo didn't stop shoving his fists into the compressed contents of his suitcase. But he grinned a little, the expression slicking up his face.
Dino didn't ask him if he knew what he'd have to do with the Varia. Squalo knew. And Dino knew that Squalo wouldn't take any position that didn't let him slice people up.
***
Squalo doesn't look fantastic. He looks barely able to move. His mouth works fine, though.
"Scared the shit out of the katana brat," he says. That pride again.
Dino smirks, sticks his hands in his pockets, and lowers himself slowly to the edge of Squalo's bed, praying that he doesn't fall, praying that he doesn't take away another reason for Squalo to take him seriously. He doesn't.
"That brat still beat you, though," he says. Pride of his own.
A weaker man would have felt stung at the reminder, but it seems to fill Squalo like food to a starving dog. "Smoke and mirrors," he says and the lie and the shame are so obvious that Dino doesn't bother to point them out.
He smiles again, the same cautious smile he gives Hibari Kyoya after coming so, so close to beating him. It's the friendship he wants to offer, but he's smart enough to know not to. Because men like Squalo, men like the man Hibari will become one day, they don't need friends. They need momentum and motivation to become invincible. They almost are, even without the motivation. So he sits quietly, his hands hanging between his knees, motionless so that he can't ruin anything.
It's like a magic act, sitting with Squalo, tiptoeing around this thing like intimacy and companionship, this bizarre thing that feels like biting your own tongue. It's like staring straight down into the black abyss of the magician's hat and almost, almost seeing the white flash of rabbit tail, but then it disappears. And Dino knows that there's a trick to this; he just can't figure out what it is. Like some sort of spell word that he should utter, but "Abracadabra" would be ridiculous. For years, he's been trying to satisfy himself with the mystery alone.
***
"Keep staring," he said, "and I'll take all that eye contact as a challenge."
Dino didn't know what to say. He glanced around, trying to find someplace else to rest his eyes. But Squalo crossed the room quickly, grabbed his chin, and leaned in to kiss him, his lips twisted in mockery.
"If you want something, fucking take it."
Dino panicked. His eyes went wide and his voice caught in his throat, but he still jerked his chin forward, wanting the kiss, wanting the contact, wanting, wanting. And, quick and sure as magnets, their foreheads collided in a sharp smack.
"Fucking klutz," Squalo growled, holding his head, and he grabbed Dino by the shirt and tossed him on the bed next to his half-packed suitcase.
***
"Bet the rugrats are licking their wounds right now."
Dino doesn't mention how Belphegor is the only member of the Varia able to move around. "They are receiving good care," he says instead, "since you sound so concerned."
Squalo scoffs, and he rolls his wheelchair to the middle of the room where a heap of belongings occupies the floor. His stump looks so awkward pushing the wheel, but it's strong enough and he's across the room in two strokes.
"Let me show you something, Cavallone."
Dino cringes at the sound of his last name; it's so cold, and though none of Squalo's nicknames for him have ever been warm, they were at least familiar. Only his enemies call him by his family name. And whatever Squalo is to him, he'd never have called him an enemy. But he says nothing. He just waits as Squalo rummages through a bag at his feet. The contents spill out as he digs, and Dino thinks it must be the bag he brought home from the hospital: He sees tattered clothes, bandages, and antiseptic.
"Aaahhh," Squalo sighs happily, theatrically as he pulls a small tin from the depths of the bag. It rattles loudly with heavy metallic tinks. And he tosses it through the air toward Dino. He reaches for it, but it hits his wrist and bounces off. The tin clatters to the floor, popping open when it hits, and a handful of small, white bits scatter across the carpet.
Squalo mutters an epithet at Dino, something about his lack of coordination, but he says it with amusement like he would convey a fond memory. Dino leans over to gather them up, but his hand pauses, hovering just above one of Squalo's souvenirs: a pink-tinged shark tooth.
"That one," Squalo says as Dino finally picks it up, "they pulled it out of my face. Under my eye here." He points at the mass of bandage covering the left side of his face. Dino tries not to stare. He collects them all in the palm of his hand. They are cold and hard and serrated. The edges are stained with blood. He counts twelve. And, as he's contemplating Squalo's blood in his hand, the other man rolls up close to him. Dino can feel Squalo's breath on his cheek, the hair tickling his bare arm. It takes all of his concentration not to drop the teeth again.
Squalo starts pointing at each one. "This one's from between my third and fourth ribs," he says, slurring slightly with the morphine. Or, "The palm of my hand." Or, "Back of my skull." Each wound is more horrific and frightening than the last. ("My tongue," he says.)
But all Dino can think of is how this all feels like misdirection. He swears that an elephant must be vanishing from the other side of the room.
***
"Just fucking...would you fucking hold still?" And Squalo grabbed Dino's wrists in one hand and pinned them above his head.
He crawled up over Dino while he squirmed. And it was only moments before they were wrestling on the bed, teeth and swinging fists. They were lucky no one lost an eye. Only a few moments more before Squalo started removing their clothes.
Then, naked, they stared at each other, unsure of how to proceed because they were just young boys. But, because they were young boys, creative by nature, they figured it out.
***
"And this one," he says and holds up the tooth he wears as a pendant on a leather cord around his neck, "this one came out of my chest. Doctor said it almost got my heart." Squalo's grin is wide and proud, sharp-toothed and terrible.
Dino stares at it, his own heart stuttering for a moment at the thought. It's the biggest tooth in the collection, ragged and pink and fierce, and it dangles from this place of honor on the leather cord. Dino has to reach out his hand to touch it. But Squalo yanks it out of his reach.
"You can take one, but not this one." He says it with the serious eyes of a predator, like challenge. Then he tucks the tooth back under his shirt. He clears his throat and reclaims his expression of cruel delight. "Took this one out of my leg," he tells Dino.
And Dino laughs. It's so preposterous, this tiny, awkward, sick gesture of generosity, this gesture of pride and boasting, of bravado made possible by the pain meds. But he plucks one tooth from the collection in his palm and holds the terrible thing up where the light can reflect off its sharp edges. "Where was this one," he asks, "your ass cheek?"
And Squalo barks laughter. "Nah," he says, "that's this one. Here. Put it on a cord." And he deposits it in Dino's hand.
Dino evaluates it like a man does a glass of fine wine, appraising and prissy. Squalo watches him, amused with his eyes glazed by drugs. And Dino watches him back, Squalo, this bloody and bandaged vestige, this crazy and talented boy who used to tease him mercilessly back in school. He watches him and he thinks of the Vongola boys--defeated and victorious, damaged but stronger for the wear. But Squalo. Squalo is a fading pyrotechnic display, an aging magician fumbling through the one act he's been repeating for indeterminate ages.
Dino used to fear Squalo, had a few nightmares at the thought of him. But, at the sight of him in the wheelchair, insane and made kinder, softer by pain meds, all Dino can feel is sadness. And it is the most natural act in the world to turn his head to the side, to close his eyes, to tilt his mouth toward Squalo's.
But Squalo's laughter cuts through his head, and then he tips over onto the floor, another fuck up, another clumsy heap of limbs and apologies. Good thing he never gets embarrassed. And Squalo beams down at him, pleased and cold.
"That's why you have to take it when you want it," he says, his voice a ghost and twice as thin. "Take too long and you get figured out."