Title: Dear One

Pairing: Gokudera/Yamamoto

Summary: Gokudera thinks Yamamoto is dead. He doesn't take it well.

Notes: I own nothing.

Gokudera never believed that he would really think of Yamamoto as anything more than his rival for the right hand position of their family, or an annoying idiot who happened to be good with a sword, but didn't have much else to offer. He hadn't wanted the other man to stick around, and when he did, well, at least he could take care of himself. Tsuna had never needed to send Gokudera out to clean up Yamamoto's messes (except for a few times where the man had made some kind of diplomatic mistake in his usual careless manner, but how he had managed to offend the Bambola family when he had been sent to the Granchio district), so he tried to keep the other man out of his thoughts.

His younger self was really stupid sometimes.

The crumbling walls of the hallway shifted again, sending a plume of dust into the smoky air. A few bodies lay under pieces of ceiling, but none of the limbs sticking out from under debris looked familiar. Gokudera stood in shock at the sight.

Yamamoto was here. Tsuna had sent him and a few lower-level guards to check in on the Coltellos, who had been stirring up trouble. They hadn't been a big deal, but Yamamoto was free and Tsuna thought that the sight of one of their strongest members would throw them off enough that a fight could be avoided. When residents reported a loud explosion coming from the house, Gokudera was immediately sent in to figure out what happened.

Obviously, things hadn't gone as planned.

Gokudera walked carefully down the hall, equipping his rings. Aside from the shifting of stones, it was completely silent. Not even the street outside made enough noise to be heard in the mansion. He didn't like it, but he kept his footsteps as quiet as possible so as to not interrupt the stale silence.

Someone else didn't have the same idea, though, because Gokudera could hear someone limping along around the corner. He pressed his back against the wall and carefully looked down the corridor, silently praying he would see that familiar tuft of black hair.

Blonde.

It was someone from the Coltellos, obviously injured, but well enough to be interrogated. Gokudera charged his weapon before turning around to stand in full view. He fired at the man's feet, knocking him to the ground, and ran up to him before he could stand up. He grabbed the man's arm with one hand, pinned his legs down with his knees, and pointed his wrist cannon at his blonde head.

"I have questions," he hissed, pressing his cannon closer so that the man could feel the scrape of the skull's teeth against his scalp, "and you are going to answer them. What has happened here?"

The man was struggling, trying to get free, but despite his trapped position, he smirked. "You're from the Vongola, too, eh? Too bad you weren't here with that other bastard. Then you could have gone up in flames, too!"

Gokudera jabbed his cannon into the man's head, doing his best to restrain himself. "That's not an answer. I asked what happened here?"

The man refused to stop squirming, but Gokudera had a firm grip on him. "He came in here, all smiles, like we didn't know he'd come to kill us. God damn Vongola, thinking they can restrain us. The Coltello family has plenty of surprises up our sleeves! The boss they met with was a decoy, and he blew up the room! Everything collapsed! Your damn assassins are dead!"

Gokudera felt himself go cold. Everything inside of him just switched off, and there was a long silence before he spoke. "You have declared war against the Vongola." His voice was dull. He let go of the man's arm to grab a stick of dynamite, quickly clubbing the man upside his head with his cannon when he tried to use that small bit of freedom to stand up. He loaded a small stick into his weapon and fired point blank. The smaller stick ensured that the blast wasn't big enough to seriously damage Gokudera, though his hand was now charred, but the other man's head had been blown open.

He stood up, ignoring the smell of smoking flesh that now clung to him, and began loading his cannon again. He took a moment to open his other boxes, loading up the Sistema C.A.I. Uri prowled at his feet, noticing the different air and acting accordingly.

"Let's go," he told his cat, and the two of them began scouring the mansion.

More bodies piled up as they prowled the grounds. Tsuna would disapprove of the violence, but he would understand. Yamamoto would have shown up if he had survived. He would have done something if he made it through the blast. He wasn't the type to leave them hanging like this, and Gokudera couldn't help himself. He had to hurt them, kill them, for what they did to Yamamoto.

He needed vengeance, because he cared. He cared and it hurt.

Gokudera had to find their boss. It was his damn decoy that set off the bomb. He needed to completely crush this family and ensure that they would never come back from this, that they would never think about crossing the Vongola ever again. If he were to leave any survivors, they would live with the fear of what they had done, and what could be coming from them next.

He found the boss in the epicenter of the blast, rooting through the debris to try to get something from his desk. He jumped back when Gokudera came into view, whipping out a gun to point at the silver-haired man. Gokudera activated a shield in front of himself before the boss could fire, disintegrating the bullet before it could reach him. He fired back, but the boss was able to dodge it.

"You Vongola and your damn flames," he growled, stepping closer, though his progress was slow due to the debris. Gokudera remained by the door. "Sometimes good old fashioned artillery is the way to win the war."

The boss stepped closer, and Gokudera could hear a crunch when the other man moved. His eyes drifted downwards, and he saw that the boss had just stepped on an exposed hand.

Then he saw the ring on the hands finger.

Then chill that had engulfed Gokudera since he had heard about Yamamoto's fate disappeared in the white-hot rage that now filled him. Before the boss could step any closer, Gokudera fired again, lacing his ammo with Rain flames. They hit their target, slowing down the boss as the Storm flames burned against his flesh.

He followed that up with jumping onto a disc of flames, allowing him to hover above the debris (and the bodies underneath) as he zipped forwards, slamming into the boss. He knocked him back, almost through the hole where the wall used to be, and jumped down onto the man's gut before he could get up.

His fists slammed into the other man's face before he could stop himself, but he didn't want to stop. He wanted it to be slow and painful, and he wanted to feel the man's life leaving him with his own two hands. His charred hand was too damaged to feel anything, but the metal skull around it protected Gokudera from breaking his bones, because he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop.

He didn't stop when the boss stopped moving, not until he heard Uri meowing loudly. The cat was seated next to Yamamoto's exposed hand, gently licking the fingers. Gokudera moved away from his enemy's body and stood next to Uri. Gently, he began moving the debris off of the body, shucking it either out the holes or just tossing it to the side.

After a while, Yamamoto's body was exposed. Gokudera knelt by his side, fingers brushing dust off his face. He was covered in bruises and blood, his closed eyes swollen. His suit was torn and the black colour completely disguised. Gokudera would have thought there would have been more burns on his skin, considering the explosion, but he didn't know what kind of explosive was used or where exactly they had been placed, so that could be usual.

Uri yowled beside him, headbutting Yamamoto's hand. It was heartbreaking, and Gokudera moved to restrain Uri, maybe curl the cat into his body for some comfort, when he saw Yamamoto's hand twitch.

He stopped. Uri gave a satisfied meow and curled up next to Yamamoto's hip, looking smugly at Gokudera. The man ignored her, instead pressing his fingers against Yamamoto's pulse point, finding a heartbeat. Now that he looked closer, the Rain Guardian was breathing (shallowly, dangerously, but still breathing). There was no doubt that he was heavily damaged, broken bones galore, but he was alive.

Without meaning to, Gokudera started crying. He sobbed and lowered his head, his temple gently pressed against Yamamoto's cheek. If he moved just a little, he could feel warm puffs of air coming from between the other man's lips. He kissed those lips, quickly, gently, not wanting to damage him or deprive him of any breath, but it was one of those spur of a moment things that he just had to do.

Gokudera reported back to Tsuna and uncovered the other Vongola bodies (one of them was dead, but the other managed to survive), but spent his time waiting for a recovery team beside Yamamoto. He kept one hand in Yamamoto's hair and one in Uri's fur, absent-mindedly stroking his fingers.

He thought that he'd deny it if Yamamoto ever asked, but that was a lie. He cared too much, and now he knew just how much he cared. Tsuna would find out anyway. He'd want to know why there were so many bodies.

He did it all for Yamamoto. And he knew he would do it all again if the situation repeated itself.