Title: A pair of tonfas, a whip, and a kiss
Author: Kanon
Genre: Romance/?Angst
Rating: PG-15
Pairing: TYL!DTYL!18, TYL!Dino x TYL!Hibari Kyoya
Disclaimer: Me owns no mafia, no rings, no money; nothing but the perversity of a fangirl.
Distribution: Fanfiction and LJ
Summary: Set in sometime in future but a bit before the TYL arc. This is Dino Cavallone's story on the mystery called Hibari Kyoya.
Spoilers: TYL!Tsuna's decision regarding the Vongola rings
Warning: Yaoi. Sexual innuendo in parts. Over-abuse of 'skylark'.

Author's Note:

Despite my enjoyment in seeing Dino being the happily smiling blonde around the delinquent, making quite a fool of himself, I came up with this.

This is written all from Dino's point of view. I was writing Hibari's side but having had a break in the middle of it, I can't quite get back into it. Should I finish it? What do you think?

A pair of tonfas, a whip, and a kiss by Kanon

Worried whispers bounced back and forth between the men in the Cavallone family who had seen their boss lately. Those close to the blonde --namely, Romario-- expressed their concerns and asked the man to rest, furrowing their eyebrows at the deep dark circles underneath the honey-coloured eyes, spoiling the once brightly smiling face; nowadays, the same smile carried pitiful remains of that shining radiance and looked strained more often than not. However there was no sign of stopping in the Bucking Horse's activity.

Because they were entering an era of chaos and it was the boss' job to take care of his family.

-x-

The eyes that once shone with the vibrant sweetness of melted caramel were now of darkness and graveness. The warmth that the upcurled lips used to grace his features with was now something of a battered piece of long-lost memory that seemed to no longer belong to him.

With a wary sigh, Dino collapsed on his bed, not caring about the expensive Armani jacket that was getting mercilessly crumpled, trapped between his tired, limp body and the soft duvet sinking under his weight. The top-quality mattress sagged following his contour and the comfort was a small piece of bliss for the fatigued body.

The harsh electrical light prickled his skin, his somewhat pale face exposed bare to the artificial radiance that showered every last corner of the boisterous room. It was almost warm; and it almost stung.

The pressing silence of the empty room rang in his ears more loudly than any noise he had heard. It was almost comforting; and it almost clawed at his eardrums raw till crimson blood was drawn.

Meetings, travelling, reports, assassination attempts, more meetings, more travelling, more reports, more assassination attempts; there was no end to it and the final curtain call was not going to come any time soon if the unusual shift of power in the mafia world was anything of a hint. Tsuna, his younger brother who had now grown into one of the finest bosses the Vongola had seen in its long history, was also watching the strange movement carefully and Dino could feel that, though hidden well behind the grown-up version of the heart-warming smile, the Vongola Decimo was troubled by this new uproar about the mafia legacy rings and the onslaughts that now frequently took place all over the world from it; thus, came his decision to destroy the Vongola rings.

It was understandably met with objections of varying degree from the Guardians, the fiercest one being the Storm Guardian, Gokudera Hayato; even Lambo and Chrome had something to say. The only two who had given up their Vongola rings without a single word or even a glance were Yamamoto and Hibari. Yamamoto had simply given his typical hearty laugh that seemed apparently immune to the bloody blings of the mafia world and handed it over the moment his middle school friend announced his decision; Hibari had unceremoniously flipped the ring through the air into Tsuna's hand --or so they heard from sheepishly-smiling Tsuna-- when the news was delivered upon his return to the HQ from god knows where and that was the end of it.

The problematic kid that was his first and last student had grown into one fine, handsome, powerful, and still problematic man. The hatred for any sort of crowding lived on along with the catch phrase that still installed great trembling fear in any men who were unfortunate enough to hear it. Even the deceivingly smooth and calm voice was thesame as when they had first met in the reception room of Nami Chuu. The apathetic charcoal eyes continued to gleam in veiled bloodthirstiness and the same midnight strands swayed even in the gentlest of breezes, tempting and daring the onlookers to weave their fingers through them; no one was just suicidal enough to fall for the sweet taunting.

But most of all, the Cloud Guardian remained as free and unbound as ever; unattainable, ever flowing abstract -- even for him.

But then, Dino asked himself, blankly staring at the intricate curls of gold strips on the ceiling, what exactly was it that they shared? Sure, there was no denying in what he felt for the Cloud that was currently gliding across the sky as it was meant to be but he and the ex-prefect had never labelled themselves as anything. Kyoya was not going to be confined even by a single name because name equalled defining and defining meant square-cut boxes that certain things had to be contained within in order to clarify them; and later, it would be the content that controls the box, not the box indicating what goes inside it.

Nevertheless, people called them lovers and Dino liked to believe it too but not because he was the only one who had the elusive Guardian's mobile number --Kyoya never picked up anyway-- or because he knew he could press his thirsty lips on the thin ones that faintly tasted of blood without worrying about the assault of the violet-fired tonfas that were at the peak of their fatality; he liked to believe that it was because he was the sole place where the murderous skylark came to rest on those rare occasions that it fluttered down from its limitless world to rest its wings.

Once out of education, the delinquent prefect had almost immediately disappeared off their radar with no forewarning whatsoever. To say that Gokudera had been furious --a Guardian ditching his duty to the tenth was unthinkable-- was an understatement while the others merely looked a little irked by Hibari's antics. Only Tsuna and Reborn seemed to truly understand that it was simply how the Cloud Guardian lived. Yamamoto just gave his usual cheerful grin with a nonchalant shrug, saying Hibari would be fine wherever he went; needless to say that the statement was met with nods from everyone, some mixed with stiff grimaces.

Dino, on the other hand, had more or less been anticipating the sudden evaporation. After all the time he had spent fighting and watching the Namimori-lover, it was nothing short of foolish absurdity to think Kyoya would bind himself to anywhere for anyone; not for the Vongola Decimo, not for the Guardians or his state as one of them, for that matter, not for his Discipline Committee men, and not even for the one that had pried the tightly pressed lips open and shared the moonlit hours together many a times. In all honesty, it was exactly that freely drifting aloofness that had made him adore the skylark never ceasing to fly over the horizon as if it owned the entire universe. And he had known what he was getting himself into; a bucking horse was free to prance around the green grass, its majestic muscles contracting and flexing with every gallop, but it would never be able to lift its four hooves off the ground long or high enough, and a skylark was no longer a skylark if it did not chase the highest height of the unreachable sky.

If truth be told, the blonde was still lost as to how he had survived the first moment of the then inappropriate physical contact. He had momentarily lost his self-control at the teasing smirk playing at the teen's lips, the wet tongue poking out at the corner of mouth to lick off the rivulets of crimson liquid. Perhaps the battle-induced adrenaline coursing through him had a part in the play but the next time his self-consciousness returned, his arms had trapped the lean body within their embrace, his tongue already past halfway through exploring the cold prefect's searing mouth. And if he could say so, it was one of the best, albeit life-threatening, mistakes he had ever made because after one bone-crunching contact of his right cheek and the steel tonfa and a monotonously uttered 'I'll bite you to death if you so much even think of me as yours', the feather-soft tresses and the milky skin were suddenly opened free for his questing fingers to explore.

He had long given up on trying figuring it out though. If there ever was logic behind what Kyoya did, only Kyoya would ever understand it.

And now, once in a while, the Cloud Guardian would abruptly turn up in his bedroom, unknown to most. There was no telling when these dream-like encounters would take place and Dino's best and only hope was his honed senses to detect the other's presence at the dead of the night; well, that was if he did not fancy a far too late --or far too early, depending on how you look at it-- wake-up call in the form of brain-smashing smack from a tonfa. A short 'hello', or sometimes, a mere clash of the two gazes, would be followed by crashing of two hot mouths, then two moist tongues, and then the rest of the night would be nothing but blurs of heated trails and blinding explosions. No words were spoken, no questions asked, and no hints for Dino to understand what on earth went on inside the head of the man whose supple body moved pliantly against his in a well-practiced rhythm. And the next morning, there would be nothing save the lingering heat in the empty space next to him in the grand bed to tell him that the last few hours had not been just his fickle imagination.

It was enough though. He knew Kyoya --and god, he loved the velvetiness of that short name rolling off his tongue-- would return to him again.

The soft brown eyes, darkened with weariness, fluttered shut and a tattooed arm came up to rest over them. His ears instantly strained to catch any signs of unwanted trespassing in the temporary loss of his vision but nothing intruded his black world; no assassins, no subordinates, no servants -- no Kyoya.

The exhaustion and the looming prospect of the bedlam with its promise of nightmarish bloodshed, coupled with the burning desire to simply forget about the crushing responsibility on his shoulders just for one single minute, Dino could not stop the old, impossible wish rearing its head again; the wish that Kyoya remained within his reach like the old times when there was only one place he had to look to find the detached prefect.

Because while he was the boss for all men in the Cavallone family, an older brother to Tsuna, a trustable, reliable comrade for the Vongola, and a threatening enemy to many, to Kyoya, he was nothing but a man called Dino Cavallone and for that short, wonderful moment, he was free of the burden that at times grew weighty yet could not be --nor would he ever-- delegated to anyone. Self-defence in the form of pitiless strangling by the long, deadly whip was now of a regular routine and not a day went by without at least one ominous body bag getting carted off to somewhere, away from the Cavallone estate. Leadership was asked for and advices, required, in the face of the foreboding storm.

And for a mafia boss, there was not a moment of weakness that could be spared; the hundreds and thousands of men followed any and every order from who was effectively their god and in return, the god was to look after its lambs. On his single decision lied the incomprehensible weight of countless lives and that frightening decision was, at the end of the day, always his alone to make. Sometimes, the eyes of the tenth bosses of the Vongola and the Cavallone would meet and they would meekly and wordlessly smile at each other, recognising that look. Then Tsuna would return to his Guardians who shared years of innocent friendship, all quite unknowingly lifting the pressure on their boss with their enthusiasm, extremeness, laughter and quiet support, and while all that liveliness was not quite what suited him in the state that he was in, Dino would find himself wishing that he could return to the one person who did not matter if he let his constrained smile slip a little because all that the silent Cloud Guardian ever did in response was gaze at him in that expressionless stoicism of his, letting the ex-tutor hold him to his heart's content.

Defiant in a rather childish way, Dino refused to open his eyes and in the fake darkness, fumbled around his jacket for a while before pulling out his mobile. The harsh, blinding screen sprang to life at the touch of his fingertipsbut no eyes bore the witness to it, the periphery continuing to move on its own blindingly but with certainty. And when the gadget was pressed against the long golden locks spilt over the ear, the mechanical ringing sound was already well on its way.

The blonde waited and waited, slipping in and out of aweary sleep as he listened to the acrid melody. It went on and on and on; until the hand holding the phone finally fell limp on the bed, the callused thumb just barely managing to press the red receiver-signed button. And almost instantly, only the barely audible echoes of the regular breathing gently ruffled the thick, stagnant air of the huge and pathetically empty bedroom.

That night, Dino dreamt of a lone horse treading across a scorching desert with its sands hotter than magma, searching for one thing that it could not find; an oasis.

-x-

His eyes snapped open, cold and sharp in a way that only the enemies of the Bucking Horse would have ever witnessed. Even before he had taken the first conscious breathing, his hand was already on the handle of his whip, the rest of his body remaining utterly still but the muscles all ready to stomp the enemy at the first sign of attack. However, in less than a fraction of a second, the familiar laid-back smile, so nostalgic because even Romario had not seen it for weeks, broke out on the drowsy face, the fingers that had tightly curled around the weapon loosened to side.

The edge of the mattress sagged and Dino embraced the lithe frame that fell into his arms in perfection against his like a jigsaw puzzle, his tongue already tasting the coppery tang that he had even come to enjoy.

Jackets were shed, ties pulled and the shirts ripped. And when the first rays of the dawn valiantly filtered through the thick velvet curtains and the fog of sleep returned with new vengeance from the exertion, Dino pressed his lips against Kyoya's slightly damp temple and whispered breathily, swallowing the first half along with a hitched breathing; the yet-to-be-dressed body of the Cloud Guardian had just oh so sweetly pressed against his in a languid reaction to the chaste kiss. It did not matter. There was only one greeting needed anyway; of parting.

Welcome back. And-

"Safe flight, skylark."

-come back to me again when your wings get too tired.