Notes: M. Presented as a series of (mostly) unrelated drabbles. Warnings listed with each part. Some are AU and some are not. Some of my more obvious writing ticks are made even more obvious by the sheer number of times they are repeated. Written for pectus_pectoris' one sentence 8059 meme.
one | enka music & video | 150 words | casual marijuana use, friendship
Tangy notes accompanied the voice wily slipping through the left earphone of Hayato's iPod. It was not harsh, but each deliberate pluck and wane trebled in him, to the point where he was beginning to reconsider this "experiment" (as Hayato had called it, a tempting smirk on his thin lips). Reconsider why he said yes, why he doesn't want to say no, why he's willing to sit shoulder to shoulder with Hayato on the other boy's bed, with their shoes on, in the dark... Why he doesn't leave when the spark of a lighter ignites and an orange (a shade tangier than the music the two share) circle appears at the end of what Takeshi knows is not a cigarette. He knows that this could ruin him if he's caught.
But after Hayato takes the first hit, as he said he would, and holds it out to share, Takeshi takes it, presses the end (minutely wet with Hayato's saliva soaked into the paper), and let's himself breathe.
—
two | burns | 300 words | future!verse, established, scars, sadomasochism
Puckered, circular swells of pinked flesh mark the skin above each of his vertebrae. There's also three of these scars on his inner left thigh, five on the right, one on the back of both knees, and a few along the spans of his legs, the placements of which have no rhyme or reason other than that Hayato happened to touch his cigarette there instead of somewhere else. The same is true for his arms, although he has none on his hands or wrists, nor on his feet, neck or face if that's important to know. And as for his chest, he's lost track, but that's mostly because he doesn't know if burns made on top of other burns count as one or two (or three or more, in the majority of cases).
But it doesn't really matter how many there are or where he has them, because there's only one that he concerns himself with. This scar is deeper and more sinister than the rest, partly because it's more of a collection of rings set next to each other to form a bigger shape of deadened tissue. The wrinkled skin there is twisted and tight and as wretched as any wound that has been infected (six times already). And while it doesn't occur to him that he should be appalled at the damage Hayato is doing to his body. but he does hate this scar. He hates its ugliness and he hates that Hayato knows its ugly too.
But even so, when Hayato dips his fingers into the groove, feeling for the beat of his heart just underneath it, Takeshi knows that the next time a cigarette is held to that spot (because there's always a next time as there's hundreds and hundreds of next times already dug into his skin), he will sit still as Hayato marks him and kiss him once he's done.
—
three | cause we're young and dumb | 100 words | canon!verse, established, fight
It's a hiss in the wind as his fist falls down only to snap open to grip onto Yamamoto's shoulder at the last second. Hayato's hand holds true, curling the fabric of the now-wrinkled uniform shirt between tight fingers. Yamamoto can slip out of his shirt easily, and he does make a subtle jerk to escape. Hayato's response (a punch that he aims straight at Yamamoto's chin) is delayed for a second too long, and Yamamoto grasps Hayato's wrist. He tugs Hayato sharp and ugly, laughs as he brings their mouths together, and kisses him with a silent i win. (Hayato can't help but think he cheated.)
—
four | i love the way you lie | 180 words | future!verse, established
He found Yamamoto sitting on the floor, clad in only a pair of boxers and with his arms elbow-deep in a weathered box of old clothes. There was a absentmindedness in the way Yamamoto pulled out a T-shirt only to abandon it for another article a second later that stopped Hayato from biting out criticism as he normally would. There was only one reason they dared touch that box. Only one reason they would allow themselves the comfort of clothes that felt like home and youth, rather than the constricting suits they have accepted as their uniform since... well, since forever, it would seem.
Yamamoto looked up and caught Hayato's eyes, challenging him to comment. He picked up a plain white tee and held it over his chest. "Does this make me look fat?"
Hayato wanted to ask who are you going to kill today? or say I miss the days you liked the feel of sneakers on your feet, but instead he said "Yes." Yamamoto pulled the ratty shirt on anyway, and went looking for the bottom of his disguise.
—
five | classic mafia | 300 words | future!verse, established
The family has a hand in every sector of commerce, with alliances with everything from the small ma-and-pa stand to a miscellaneous clothing outlet to a hundred or so companies, including three Fortune Global 500s. And, without fail, a business associated will the Vongola name will be profitable. Without fail, it will destroy the competition, and protection from any danger to its profit is guaranteed.
No one knows how a business is picked, nor why, nor for how long (it always seems like their guardian is one moment from abandoning them); all they got was a phone call that started with "Hello" and ended with "You're in good hands." (There's something in the middle about portions donated to Vongola for their service, and a promise to ignore this-or-that-that-may-or-may-not-happen-in-two-weeks, and a million other winding details that alone would be frightening and together are downright petrifying for the weak of heart.)
No one ever really says yes, but no one wants to say no, either. And no one understands (except Takeshi, who watches as Hayato falls deeper into the endless numbers and calculations and records he keeps for the Tenth, his glasses and exhaustion constant fixtures on the man who Takeshi now must hold tight every night with the whisper "It'll be okay; You made the right call; You didn't forget to carry the 2" because he can see Hayato wasting away and Takeshi can only offer Hayato his useless words because he has nothing else to give even though Hayato is crumblingas these businesses soar and Hayato will leave Takeshi if he dares says something to the Tenth... and Takeshi is as selfish a man as anyone...) but it never really seems to matter in the end. Money is money is money, after all, and it's always, always, always worth the price.
—
six | uxorious | 35 words | canon!verse, domesticity
After hearing from Bianchi that Gokudera considers gnocchi bliss in little dough bricks, Yamamoto spends an entire weekend (and over twenty-nine failed batches of the legume variety) before he finally makes something Gokudera will like.
—
seven | locker rooms | 300 words | au, established, genderbend, f/f, bullying
She's so fucking masculine it's disgusting. Every time Hayako has to see her changing (every Tuesday and Thursday before and after PE), she becomes irreversibly repulsed and makes sure Yamamoto knows it, too. That she's too tall and flat-chested, that her cropped hair is an abomination against their sex, and that her gauntly, tight muscles flex whenever she moves, which decidedly makes Hayaka gag around her cigarette. The other girls and all the boys and teachers agree with her, Hayako will point out cruelly, and why are you so fucking smug and different, Hayako will ask one day, when they were both kept back to talk to the teacher. (Apparently, Hayako has to stop smoking in the locker room, and Yamamoto needs to come to an emergency pre-season softball practice with the team this weekend.)
Yamamoto usually ignored the crueler undertones of Hayako's outright bullying, responding to Hayako jokingly—playfully—before turning to one of her friends (of which Yamamoto had many) and striking up a conversation. But today, with no one to talk to save Hayako, Yamamoto just laughs. She stretches and rubs the back of her neck like she isn't dressed in only a bra, men's boxer-briefs, and running shorts. She ambles over to Hayako and just laughs and laughs as she settles into Hayako's short, soft lap, disrupting the wisp of smoke trailing from her cigarette. "Oh, Hayako, you're so funny," she giggles as presses her lips against Hayako's forehead. "You wouldn't love me if I was any different, now would you?"
Yamamoto's voice is so fucking masculine as she is, and Hayako should call her out on that, but... her neck is so perfect, and Hayako becomes distracted. Fuck Yamamoto, she'll want to say as she licks Yamamoto's goddamn skin.
—
eight | party like a rock star geriatric | 200 words | really-future!verse, established, sexytiems, illness
Hayato cannot breathe well anymore, hasn't been able to do so in a very, very long time; and if he didn't have decades of practice ignoring the sickening way Hayato wheezes as he moans, Takeshi would have stopped his languid fumblings about fifteen minutes ago when Hayato's breath first caught for the night. But as it stands, he can justtaste the tobacco on his partner's tongue from one of the cigarettes Hayato "hides" in a pocket of an old coat, even though the doctors have hacked up his lung, mouth and throat too many times for Takeshi to remember. They are gray and wrinkled and sour old men now, reminiscing and dying (one from cancer, the other from constant worry and early grieving) and, occasionally (with the right mood and the right time and the right position of the stars) fucking with slow, careful, intimate movements so as not to spasm Hayato's breathing. There's so much Takeshi has to worry about when he's with Hayato, and even now he wonders why he ever even bothered.
But then Hayato will keel "idiot" into his neck just like he used to, and Takeshi just feels young again.
—
nine | come on over and be so caught up / it is not about compromising | 425 words | canon!verse, unestablished, discussion of canon suicide attempt
One month ago he had stood at the apex of the world and screamed into its convulsing, hungry mouth, hoping that the bellow would be enough to choke him as he fell. He had stood there and believed with all his heart that that was it. That that was the end and the end of ends. He was going to die that day, and he was never going to have to swing another bat knowing he'll never be good enough—or hack through the glistening scales of yet another fish with a butcher knife—or remember for the nth time the initial weeks after his mother's disappearance, when he had prayed she had run abandoned him because he couldn't bear the alternative: her dead somewhere, her lost or kidnapped or whatever it is that evil men do to pretty young moms with sons who cried too much (they found her rotting in a factory basement, and now he smiles). No. None of that. He was going to die that day and it felt fucking wonderful to know that there was something there for him. He wouldn't have to try so hard for once in his life, because falling was so much easier than standing when your head feels like it's about to explode.
But then... But then he didn't die.
So, yes. He had decided to let go, to finally just be truly content for once, but now he's holding on to the echoes of friendship he feels in two strangers (and a baby). They shouldn't have this much of an effect on him, but it's getting hard to comprehend the ups and the downs and the whys. He was going to die, he was dead in all intents and purposes, but he's still breathing and everyone has forgotten that he stood on the roof and tried to jump. His arm will eventually heal and he won't even have the evidence of this period readily available. And he has a boy who wants to look after him and save him from himself, and another boy who... who hates him cold and hard and dismissively. A boy who stares at him like he understands that even though Takeshi lives, he can never really leave that precipice from which he had so determinately stood a howcanitonlybeamonth-itfeelslikeafuckinglifetime month ago.
Takeshi stares right back but with a bellied laugh, because he sees the same intent in Gokudera's harshness (and because—somewhere deep inside his gut—he imagines that falling into Gokudera's eyes would not betoo different than stepping off his abandoned ledge).
—
ten | first breath after a coma & song | 300 words | spoilers, unestablished, unrequited, coma
It's dark. He cannot breathe and it's dark. He is alone—he knows he's alone, fucking alone in a harrowing unblinking darkness and for the first time he's scared. It's not a game any more and he's so fucking scared and he just wants it to end. He wants to be with his friends. He wants to pretend that there aren't men with guns who want to kill or maim him... for just awhile longer. Just a little bit more... so he can do baseball and fall in love and give up his dreams of being a professional athlete when his father can't work so hard and he needs to put in time in the shop. He had a plan. He had a plan, but it's all forgotten now because it's dark. Endless and haunting and oh god, he wants to stop feeling so scared. Because now there is no one to see him smile, no one to make that smile true, and no one to make him believe that maybe, just maybe, he has a chance at happiness. There's no one—he's not sure he even exists anymore—and maybe that's for the best. Maybe he needs this. Maybe hedeserves this. He's done so little, and he's let so many chances go thinking that he would just try again later. Before, he could ignore the danger, and he could pretend that Tsuna wasn't so scared of his future, and he could pretend that... that Gokudera didn't look at him. Didn't want him. He could pretend that he didn't want Gokudera back. But now it's dark. He cannot breathe and it's dark. He is alone—he knows he's alone, fucking alone in a harrowing unblinking darkness...
—
eleven | tickle | 500 words | canon!verse, established, fluff, failed!sexytiems
The first time they try, it's a complete failure, and Hayato guesses they are doomed and should just break up now and save themselves the energy (as he had been telling Yamamoto since day one). Literally everything that could go wrong did, from Yamamoto forgetting the lube at home (he is visibly shaken by the thought of his father finding it and prays that he didn't leave it on the kitchen counter like he thinks he did); to Tsuna dropping by to hang out only to leave immediately after realizing what he had interrupted; to Hayato not being able to get an equation from his extracurricular calculus reading out of his head.
They give up even before they've started, and now they are both lying down, cramped and clad only in their boxers (boxer-briefs for Yamamoto), on Hayato's narrow bed. It's warm and stuffy in his room, made worse by their proximity, and Hayato isn't in the mood to be touched (he hates being touched—why the fuck is he even in a not-really-a-relationship?). And yet, when Yamamoto slings his arm around Hayato's middle and drags him closer, he doesn't rebel, only biting a small kiss into Yamamoto's neck. He sucks and pulls on the skin there as Yamamoto's fingers trail along Hayato's spine, tips tapping against each vertebrae he comes across. Then his hand search for something else: around his neck, under his arms, across sides it slides.
This should be foreplay, but it's not. They are lazy and too comfortable and nothing's going to get done. There is no hope for them, but when Hayato tries to tell Yamamoto this, he only laughs, quietly. Why?
Because every time we try I know were are going to fail and there's no fucking chance for us fuck fuck I don't want to do this anymore, Hayato whispers, hushed and incoherent. Yamamoto pulls one of Hayato's legs on top of him, and he runs his tracks over its every each.
Really? Yes, really I am probably going to break up with you in a month or two so what's the point of waiting until then we should just get it over
Hayato pulses as Yamamoto hooks his fingers underneath his knees, touching and feeling and groping the crevice with playful conspiracy writ in the movements. Hayato's world is suddenly focused on the sensation, and despite everything, he stutters out a laugh. It rips out of his mouth and he can feel it vibrate throughout every muscle in his body. He feels light, and he tries to kick Yamamoto or flail against him, but he cannot stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs, and at one point it's an ugly, twisted hysteria, but Yamamoto rides it through until it's back to a coarse, shrill and honest sound. It takes him several tries, but Hayato manages a halting F—F—ha—Fuck you between breaths.
His fingers still fiddling, Yamamoto presses his mouth against Hayato's brow and doesn't move away. Love you too.
—
twelve | holding hands | 100 words | established, sexytiems
Takeshi thrusts in a unthoughtout movement that pitches Hayato forward and into the floor. His momentum is an unforgiving as the floor is hard, and he loses his balance on his knees, collapsing even further into Hayato as the latter's face hits the floor. Takeshi thinks he should apologize, knows he should react to the pain he inflicted because of his own enthusiastic clumsiness, but it feels great. Instead of doing the polite thing, he moans and moves forward again. (Takeshi's understands he's done the right thing when Hayato, while repositioning himself to accommodate the new angle, moves his hand next to Takeshi's and slings his pinkie and ring finger around Takeshi's thumb.)
—
thirteen | lost in translation | 400 words | future!verse, established, what can be construed as a domestic physical abuse
Sometimes Hayato hits Yamamoto. Hits him because he feels angry, or because Yamamoto is impossible—distant—happy-when-he-shouldn't-be—happy-when-he-doesn't-have-to-be—reclusive—dull—alone-when-Hayato-is-right-fucking-there, or because he just wants to. There are no safe words for these moments, because Hayato won't stop even if Yamamoto asks, which he will never do anyway. It isn't about sex. It isn't about love. It isn't about anything warm or good. It's just Hayato's fist exploding against the hitman's jaw: just the lick of sweat on his knuckles: the lack of remorse he feels when Yamamoto glances back at him, dazed but accepting.
And sometimes he leaves bruises. And sometimes that's a lie—Hayato almost always leaves a bruise. He and Yamamoto have learned to avoid the face, but every once in a while there's a welt beside Yamamoto's sharp eyes or a sea of broken capillaries on temple that churns into an ugly snotgreen after the sixth day.
And people always worry. They worry about Yamamoto and the reason he stays. Is Gokudera forcing you? Is it because you're scared to leave? Or that you feel guilty—because you shouldn't; he shouldn't be treating you like this, Takeshi. Don't you see that? Don't you care about yourself? Don't you see we care about you? He's... And Hayato worries about everything now; wonders why he won't just give it all up and make things right; tries to make reason out of the horrible screaming of his anger.
And he's tried to leave but he never really will, because it is Yamamoto who tempers the world around Hayato. He controls it all with that smile of his. He'll never cover up a bruise, and he'll gladly perform his hits even as his fingers swell from how hard Hayato twisted them. He will walk into the Tenth's room the night he gives an ultimatum (Takeshi or the Family was all he had said to Hayato on the phone; Hayato hadn't felt so... calm in years after the Tenth hung up), and he'll twist language to somehow translate why—why Hayato can't stop, why he won't ever leave—and make the Tenth revoke his decision.
And then he'll kiss Hayato's swollen knuckles before swallowing his fist when it's late and the world is just them two, a bed, the dark and an apologyandthanks writ on both their lips.
—
fourteen | cramps | 100 words | au, established, genderbend, f/f, sexytiems, BDSM
Takemi's legs are spasming. She's in pain—so much, so much, why won't it stop—and languid beads of saltysweetthick sweat itches as they inch down her bare skin; she wants to lay her feet down, wants to stop standing on her toes; she's been standing on them for... she doesn't even remember how long. But she holds her stance, and will continuing holding it, because Hayako said to undress and to stand like this and to wait for her. To wait and to stand and to listen, and Takemi will wait for her (as she always has done, as she always will do) because Hayako's word is law.
—
fifteen | serendipity | 700 words | canon!verse, unestablished, discussion of canon events (suicide attempt and fights), alternative writing style, repetition like omg
He smokes and he drinks and he blows shit up. He stares and he hungers and he waits. He hates and he dislikes and he ignores. He laughs and he smirks and he finds a god in a man his age. He smokes and he reforms and he blows shit up.
He meets and he greets and he knows your name. He runs and you run and you stand on the edge. He is there to watch you fall and there to see to you stand and there to remind you that you once gave up. He makes you sick and he bumps into you constantly and he becomes your friend along the way. He grows bolder and he fights and you raise your voice. He yells at you and he smokes and he grabs your shirt. He never hides and never cries and never wants to care enough to despise someone (as much as he does you). You don't back down and he doesn't let go and you're both interrupted.
You move on and he can't forget the taste of your breath (and you cannot forget the taste of his). He grows emotionally distant and you grow emotionally reclusive and you pretend that people don't want to kill you. People want to kill you and people want to hurt you and people are hurting your friends—whendidyoumakesomanyfriends? Guys who fight and girls who fight and babies who fight. You fight, too. You fight and you fight and you fight. He fights and he fights and he loses more that you but you never really call him out on it.
He blows shit up and you pretend and he smokes.
People trash your face and you still pretend and he doesn't matter to you anymore until he does matter. You are in a time you don't understand and you wonder how people still think you don't know and he is too bitter to think straight. He becomes ugly in front of you and he doesn't understand and you try your best because it's him. He is your friend and he is part of your life and you don't really want to be a right-hand man but you pretend that you do. He wants someone to fight against and you are that person and he grows stronger beside you. You die beside him and are reborn beside him and you breathe beside him (you try not to inhale his cigarette smoke).
You grow stronger beside him and you grow stronger beside Tsuna and you understand his reverence in Tsuna. Tsuna is strong and Tsuna is kind and he is nothing like Tsuna. He is everything like Tsuna and he never will know because he's too wrapped up in being selfless and he forgets to care for himself.
He smokes and he drinks and he blows shit up. He is calm and is angry and is questioning around you. He can't seem to keep to one emotion and he just gets upset and one day you clasp his hand which holds the lighter he was about to ignite. You can't pretend anymore and you are getting tiredof smiling and you need an answer. You don't know the question and you don't ask a question but you need an answer. He wants to light his cigarette and he wants to smoke but he tells you a story you—not you, a future you, a you that doesn't and shouldn't and won't exist—told him. You will try to stand on a ledge once again but that ledge isn't a ledge and you aren't standing on anything but it feels just as endless as that moment. You will die and be revived and breathe, and you'll do so as you always have with him at your side. He is there when you want him and there when you don't and he wants you. He smokes and he wants you and he hates you for making him care enough to feel anything other than apathy toward you.
You blink twice and he turns to leave and you still have his hand in yours so he can't get away. Your lips touch his and you die and are revived and you breathe the taste of his mouth once again.