Now is the Time for Hell
D18
Synopsis: Dino knows that the deaths of his business rivals are essential for his cause. However, hypocrite or not, he can't stand seeing Hibari kill for him anymore. AU
The idea came to me while I was reading Macbeth in English. I hate that play so much but I loved the plot…killing, for the sake of advancing in personal status. Which is basically what this fic is. Fortunately, Dino is not Macbeth, and Hibari is not Lady Macbeth, but you can say that they're influenced by Shakespeare's characters. Much better than using Romeo and Juliet as the backstory…I mean, a seventeen year old guy falls in love with a thirteen year old girl for pretty much four days and they die for "love". Some bastard killing so he could be king is so much more boss.
Slight warning (?) I tend to get graphic. But generally I'll keep my descriptions to a minimum :')
Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Any similarities in events or characters living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Enjoy!
Now is the Time for Hell
The room was dark, wide, and very exquisite. It was a penthouse on one of the highest skyscrapers in the city with giant, ceiling-to-floor windows, plush drapes, soft white carpet, famous art paintings hanging on the walls, and latest technology scattered all over the room. A giant, king sized bed with dozens of pillows quashed onto the mattress sat in the middle of the vast bedroom, complete with a splendid view over the entire city in all of its nighttime glory. On it, a fat, balding man and a skinny prostitute stared up at a tall, dark haired man with a cold expression standing at the end of the bed. The room was filled with the pleading and screaming of the sweating couple.
It irritated Hibari to no end.
"Wait! What are you doing with that!" the man yelled, scrambling backwards on the bed, his bald spot reflecting the dim light of the table lamp lying on its side on the nightstand. The woman whimpered, sheets drawn up to her chin, shaking from head to toe. Hibari kept his gun level with the man's head, rummaging through his pocket for a piece of folded paper. He didn't need it to know his target, but it was fun to mess around with these types of herbivores.
Shaking the paper straight with one hand, the raven faked a look at the image of the man and held it out before the two on the bed. "Is this you?" he asked calmly, a chilled smile tugging at his lips. The man looked, paled, and shook his head wildly.
"That can't be me! Who are you! Put down your gun!"
"Hn, that's funny," Hibari said lightly, dropping the paper and stepping over it as he advanced on the pair. "The resemblance is stunning."
The man shuddered and whispered, "Who sent you? I know they sent you. You're the one who's been killing my business partners too!"
"Right in one," Hibari shrugged. "Never trust those closest to you. They're the ones most likely to want to exterminate filth like you."
"How much did they pay you?" the fat man shrieked. "I'll pay you double! I'll pay you triple! Just let me live! I'll even hire you to kill your employer! I'll get you whatever you want!"
"Now you're just being unreasonable," Hibari sneered. "I am not being employed. I'm doing this because I feel like it. And there's nothing you have that I could possibly want. Besides, I don't feel like working for you at all. There's only one reason why I'm doing this anyway."
The gun cocked, and it was pressed against the front of the rounded, shiny head. Dark eyes narrowed in amusement as the man shivered and shook. There was a deafening bang, and the prostitute screamed as the businessman slumped over, a clean hole through his head and red splattered across the bedspread behind him.
"Wait!" she shrieked, holding her arms out imploringly at Hibari. "Wait, spare me, I've got nothing to do with this, I swear I won't tell, I—"
Bang.
"Too noisy," Hibari mumbled, tucking his weapon back into his jacket as he surveyed the mess before him. Presently, he wondered about his target's words. Why did he bother staying with him? Hibari was not one to be tied down at all, even if there was a decent amount of pay involved.
Pursing his lips, the raven turned on his heel and walked smartly out of the bedroom of the giant penthouse, casually picking up a glass of untouched wine on his way out and draining it in one gulp. Passing by the open window of the apartment, he dropped it outside, not stopping to hear the high-pitched tinkle of glass breaking on sidewalk, and slipped out of the building as mysteriously as a shadow and soundlessly as a breath of wind.
Time to head back and collect his pay for a fourth time.
His fourth target.
Hibari smirked. For a clumsy, self-righteous and gentleman, his employer's dark side was one to behold.
Dino was not feeling well. Presently, he'd managed to come down with a terrible stomach bug that had left him stranded at home for about three days already, and he was either clutching his stomach in bed or emptying it out into the toilet bowl. He'd been to the doctor, yes, but even medicine wasn't helping much. It was day four already, and things were turning around, but he still wasn't up for walking around his apartment, so the blonde was currently lying on his sofa with his feet propped up and a cold compress on his forehead, staring aimlessly at the ceiling.
He wished he could stand up and pace and vent out his feelings, but it made him nauseous, so that was plan scraped. Now, he was reduced to pile of boneless goo drumming his fingers impatiently on his stomach. Dino hated waiting, and he hated not knowing. Being kept in the dark was not something he liked. That was probably because his parents' divorce had been hidden from him at a young age, and then his mother's death had also been kept a secret from him. His first girlfriend had cheated, his second girlfriend had moved very far away without telling him, and his previous secretary had been a mole from a rivaling company. Generally speaking, Dino did not find the unknown very appealing.
So the fact that Hibari was nearly two hours late was giving him more than a few grey hairs.
Damn that raven; did he enjoy tormenting Dino like this? Making him wait for hours on end without even a simple phone call? Was this spite or karma?
No; karma would be Hibari coming around to kill him. Dino exhaled noisily.
He really was a despicable character.
The sound of the front door opening shook the blonde out of his thoughts, and Dino leapt to his feet at once, hand automatically reaching out to the gun lying casually on his coffee table, but he relaxed slightly when Hibari walked in, shedding his coat and loosening his tie with a bored look on his face.
"Kyoya! Where have you been?" Dino cried, hurrying forwards despite his stomach's protests. "Why didn't you call? You scared me! What were you doing? Did you finish the job? What happened? How—"
"Shut up," Hibari sneered, slapping his palm right over Dino's mouth with a deadly glare. "You're so fucking noisy."
"Mwwrf," Dino muttered, prying Hibari's hand off him. "Where have you been?" he asked again, watching the raven toss his things over the sofa and wander into the kitchen to help himself to a drink.
"Out and about," was Hibari's sarcastic reply. Dino rolled his eyes.
"Yes, I've concluded," the blonde replied, cringing with every step as he walked over as well. "How did it go?"
"I want my payment," Hibari shot back. "I have to do my tax returns and the stupid bank froze my account yesterday."
"What? Why?" Dino asked, startled.
"None of your business," Hibari shrugged. "Cash. Now."
Dino made a noise in his throat as he wobbled back into the living room, and then into his bedroom. Hibari followed noiselessly, leaning by the doorway as Dino pushed some discarded laundry out of the way as he approached his safe. The blonde spun the dial, retracted a large sum of money, dropped it into a shopping bag and tossed it over to Hibari with a slight grunt. The raven caught it, but didn't look into the content. He simply dropped the bag onto the floor and walked over to where Dino sat on the bed, running a hand through his hair tiredly.
"Only herbivores get sick," Hibari said calmly, dropping the bag by the floor as he stood over Dino, a hint of a smirk on his face. Dino grumbled a little. "Don't make fun of me."
"You should be sleeping if you can't even stand on two feet," Hibari sneered, poking Dino's leg with his foot.
"Oww," the blonde complained. "You're so mean, Kyoya!"
"Don't call me Kyoya," Hibari snapped, smacking Dino on the head.
"Stop that," Dino muttered, reaching up to circle his arms around Hibari's waist. He pulled the raven down so that the two were sprawled on the bed, and the raven was hovering over the blonde. Dark eyes narrowed as they met wide blue ones, and Hibari scoffed.
"Herbivore. Let me go."
"You worried me," Dino said quietly, hugging Hibari even tighter. "You're two hours overdue, and I thought something had happened."
"You're a fool," Hibari growled. "As if I'd be defeated by those weaklings."
"Why didn't you call?" Dino shot back. "You could've at least told me you were done."
"I wasn't aware I needed to tell you my every move."
"Kyoya," Dino groaned in frustration, "I'm worried about you. I hate not knowing where you are!"
"You make it sound like we're a couple," Hibari sneered.
Dino's eyes hardened slightly. "I don't care what you want to call it; if I don't know what's happening to you, I'll be worried. End of story."
"Then that makes you a herbivore too. You're the one who hired me to wipe out all of your business partners. You wouldn't have chosen me if you thought I was incompetent. Why act like a sissy now?" Hibari challenged fiercely.
Perhaps that was what sparked Dino's nerve, because a second later, the blonde grabbed Hibari by the back of the head and dragged the raven down for a bruising kiss. It was sloppy and full of teeth, but the way Hibari actively fought back in the liplock proved that he was more than eager to battle the blonde.
"Wao," Hibari smirked when the parted, lips swollen and breathing hard. "I think I like the dark side of you more."
"Shut up," Dino muttered, cheeks darkening as he flipped them over, pinning Hibari down to the bed. The raven headbutted him in the chest, making Dino grunt.
"You're the one who's horny, you bastard."
"Shut up," Dino grumbled, voice half-melting into a groan as Hibari jerked his hips upwards, intent on being provocative.
This was their daily life even if they meant nothing to each other before Hibari took up Dino's request. Predictably, neither had ever thought it would end up being like this either, because generally speaking, Hibari was a reclusive, cold-hearted killer while Dino was a respected businessman running one of the world's most successful companies.
One man's greed became the other man's source of life.
If there was one thing Dino and Hibari had in common, it was that they could not fail. It was not an option. The game they were playing was a dangerous one, even more so now that there was a certain level of romantic interest involved. Hibari, of course, would deny everything related to love, but Dino was a bit of a sap, and liked to refer to it when the raven wasn't in the mood to smack him back for it.
It was nearly two hours later, when both men were lying sated under the covers, did Hibari huff and roll over to reach into Dino's drawer for a cigarette and begin the post-hit discussion as he lit the cancer stick up.
"So, how many left?"
Dino stared up at the ceiling, searching through his groggy brain for a reply. "…seven, I think. Seven left."
Hibari snorted. "You're actually going to wipe out all of your business partners? I'm not sure if you're ambitious or just plain stupid. Even I know how to value the use of an asset when I see one. How exactly do you expect to operate your company without them?"
"They're not assets," Dino said in a low voice. "They're a hindrance. Their greed will eventually ruin everything. They expand when they have no resources. They waste their money away. They'll destroy the economy as we know it."
"And you see yourself as god on a mission to wipe out those incompetent fucks?" Hibari asked, exhaling a puff of smoke over Dino's face purposefully. The blonde coughed and glared.
"Yes. Don't do that, Kyoya."
"I do what I want," was the obvious reply.
Dino sighed. "Seven more hits. That's all I need you to do. Please, Hibari."
There was no reply. A second later, the raven reached over to put his cigarette out in the ashtray and rolled over, yanking all the blankets with him.
"I'm going to bed. Text me when you want the next herbivore dead."
Dino stared at the bare back turned towards him, his heart skipping with—what, relief, or fear? Was he happy that Hibari would keep working for him, or was he beating himself up for making the raven kill? Was it even right for him to ask someone to dirty their hands for his own crippled sense of justice?
Dino pressed a hand over his wary eyes, suppressing a sigh. Then he, too, rolled over and wrapped his arms around Hibari's skinny body, and pressed a kiss to the small tattoo of a skylark on the hitman's shoulder blade.
A second later, all bad thoughts passed out of Dino's mind as he drifted off into sleep as well.
So- was this okay? :') It's another short chapter…recently I've taking a liking to writing smaller segments. It helps me sort out my thoughts more.
I expect this to be one of my shorter stories as well…well, hopefully I won't take too long on chapter 2 :'D
Thank you for taking the time to read!
-BlackStar