A.N: I stole got this prompt from summermusings(at)lj: "how many times can the same person break your heart?" and just ran with it. Title very obviously ripped from Snow Patrol's Signal Fire.

Concrit is more than welcome this time around. I...haven't written a fic this long in quite a while and I'm a little worried that I might have lost the thread halfway through, so don't hold back if you have something constructive to say about my writing. Other than that...enjoy!

Disclaimer: They're not mine. :(

–


You Are My Signal Fire.

–

Gokudera doesn't even know why he tries. Every time he watches Yamamoto go down in a haze of fire, that sword useless against bullets coming at him at a speed much faster than anyone with his experience could expect, his heart shuts down inside himself and no reaction seems fast enough to prevent the inevitable.

And when Yamamoto bleeds in his arms afterwards, bullet and enemies long gone, he knows this won't be the last time.

–

Gokudera doesn't seem to get lunch times to himself anymore. He'll grab something quickly from the cafeteria, sit down on a bench and watch Yamamoto swing his bat for practice every day, without fail. Now that sword comes first and bat second, Yamamoto has to spend all of his extra hours honing his baseball skills and lunch is always spent at the field. Yamamoto doesn't know it, but Gokudera spends the same time honing his very own observational skills. Most days he just pretends not to watch Yamamoto, pretends his own lunch is more interesting than the baseball idiot ever could be, but his eyes are always (always) on the strong form of the Rain Guardian's shoulders. His eyes never leave those muscles as they flex, release, bend and move in ways Gokudera can only imagine his own doing. He watches, silently appraising, judging; both as a Vongola and as a boy.

This day, however, is different. There is no quiet watching. If Yamamoto even so much as glanced Gokudera's way, he'd see the steely gaze directed at him and the girl who has chosen to approach him in the middle of his last set of batting routines. He'd most definitely notice the way Gokudera fingers are clamping down on his midday cigarette in annoyance over the girl and her obvious femininity. And he'd see the heated blush rising to Gokudera's cheeks when the girl lays her perfect little finger nails on his forearm and blinks at him from behind heavy, made-up lashes.

But Yamamoto doesn't look. There isn't a glance; not even the breath of one. Yamamoto's focus is clearly on the girl and nothing else; his good manners and proper upbringing won't allow him to disregard her and her petite features. (won't allow him to not take her seriously) And it makes Gokudera's heart quench with something close to jealousy ('She's never watched you go down in a rain of fire, baseball idiot, she'd run away crying if she ever fucking did!') and it makes him feel disgusted with himself. But, he just can't stop watching. His eyes keep riveting to that boy (that is more of a man than he ever could be). His eyes are fastened to Yamamoto and all his honesty, just like the eyes of that girl. And like the eyes of all her friends watching her. Like the eyes of all the boys watching the girls.

And like all the eyes of the boys watching the boy.

Gokudera allows himself only a moment of insecurity, glancing down at his nervous hands, dynamite falling from them like match sticks, quivering in this moment and this moment only. He allows himself to think that it's alright to worry like this, that it doesn't make him queer, that it doesn't make him stupid and that it doesn't make him lovestruck. But a moment is all he can afford, because he is supposed to be made of fire, not (brittle, brittle) ice.

So, he looks up again, watches that idiot pull his hand behind his head, watches him scratch his hair, giving the girl that goofy smile and that recklessly clear body language that speaks more than his words ever could. Gokudera just watches. He can't seem tear his eyes away from those awkward lips and angles of the batter's body.

And then Gokudera does the only thing he can think to do (the only thing he wants). He stands up, crumbles his sandwhich wrap in tense hands and throws it to the ground, trying to forget why he's even here in the first place. He only allows himself one last glance at Yamamoto and his girl spectacle before stalking off, hands deep in his pockets and the guilt of his feelings deep in his heart.

But, if only he'd turn around, (if only he'd allow his heart to think maybe some things aren't meant to break) he'd see what his own feelings will not allow him to. He'd see his boy, watching him. Yamamoto, watching him, like he does every lunch time, more discreetly and viciously than Gokudera himself ever could.

–

Then there are busy days and there are empty days. There are times of fighting and times of eerie solitude, never enough to calm, but always enough to worry.

And there are moments where Gokudera decides to stop with this nonsense; this watching. To calm his heart through ice rather than fire. To ignore Yamamoto's heated questions when Gokudera raises his voice for no reason. To ignore Yamamoto entirely.

There are even moments when he decides to watch only the man who's life he's always been responsible for and no one else. To never let his gaze stray.

But it always strays.

So a year goes by, then two, five and finally ten. They are stuck in some sort of uneasy balance, Yamamoto and him. There is never any giving, there are no more smiles, and no more laughter. All Yamamoto ever does to Gokudera is to pick apart his carefully constructed heart until Gokudera is sure there is nothing left to hurt.

And to Gokudera everything he has with Yamamoto (every shared glance, every accidental touch) seems more like a farce to him than the rest of his life ever could.

–

And now there is no time for baseball. Any spare moments that could be used for fooling around are long gone and even breathing is harder now than it was ten years ago. Gokudera finds himself thinking of Yamamoto only when he sees the man and it's a relief. When before the sword-yielding idiot was the center of Gokudera's fourteen-year old world, it is now part of something Gokudera has put behind him. Has tried his hardest to put behind him. But it's so easy for Gokudera to fool himself, because as he watches the Vongola family fall in and out of love (and in and out of bed) together, he wonders if maybe he missed something. If maybe there was something called 'getting over it', which he just didn't get. If maybe obsessions aren't meant to last forever, and that glances aren't the only way to observe.

But for Gokudera there was never anybody else other than Yamamoto. He loves the Tenth and always will; loves him more than he probably ever could that baseball idiot. But his love for the Tenth is a different kind of love; a love based on duty, respect and devotion. Not one sparked from fingertips grazing each other, from the gentle comfort of the other's presence. The love he has for Yamamoto is dangerous and volatile, while his love for the Tenth is calm and soothing. Time loving the Tenth is time well-spent, while time loving Yamamoto has never been anything but a burden.

And so every time Gokudera sees Yamamoto in his well-worn suit and wild spikes, he grinds his teeth in frustration and tries to forget about all those times he's imagined his own fingers in that hair. He forgets about the lonely nights spent with only himself and his thoughts for company. And he forgets about the shame he feels when he sees Yamamoto after one of those nights, the man knowing nothing about how he riles Gokudera into getting himself off.

Gokudera just wants to remember how much he hates Yamamoto for what he's done to him.

And even though Yamamoto always saves a seat for Gokudera each and every lunch they share, even though he watches Gokudera with a tense devotion (worried that they might not get their moment after all), even though Yamamoto finds nothing more intense than Gokudera's eyes in a battle and imagines them on him whenever he's alone, Gokudera will never know. He will never understand.

He only knows what broken love feels like.

–

So the realization comes like lightning from a clear, clear sky.

"Don't you know that he watches you too?"

Gokudera had never expected that the instinctive desire the Tenth has to make everything right in his immediate world would ever extend to Gokudera. Not that he doesn't think the Tenth doesn't care about his right-hand man (he cares about everybody); he just figured there are other things that weigh more heavily on on the Tenth's mind. Tsuna, however, knows better than anyone that Gokudera would never allow himself to realize how much the people around him actually care, how fierce the Tenth, Yamamoto and even his own sister are in their protectiveness of him.

"You should tell him."

And Gokudera never realizes that there is a solution to this problem called heartbreak. That people don't just exist to be broken. That love can heal as well as hurt. And that some things work out.

That some things were always meant to work out. Even if it takes another hundred years for life to make it so.

–

"Haha, how's that hand of yours Gokudera?

Wow, you're ice-cold!"

(Come here, I'll warm you up.)

–

Gokudera thinks that maybe he understands that baseball idiots who were always idiots can actually undo themselves and become something more than brave; something less than naive. That they can find their feelings inside themselves and escape the burdens of society and reality and accept that the heart beats as it does. That idiots like Yamamoto can accept that they will always love this boy called Gokudera, even when he's broken and bleeding. Even when girls attempt to pick him up. And even when he's not crying, although he should be.

And although time itself seems to be against it and every moment seems like it might just be the last, there will always be another chance. As long as both the baseball idiot and the pyromaniac are still breathing, there will be time for long glances, there will be time for kisses and there will be time for love. And as Gokudera grows old, and Yamamoto grows old with him, their love will grow into something almost perfect.

And it's with hands and a heart that Yamamoto will fix the Gokudera that's always been broken.

–

fin.

–

A.N: so you might be like 'why didn't just Yamamoto approach Gokudera?' and I seriously don't have an answer to that, haha, but you're welcome to imagine one yourself. :)