Title: Someone Must Get Hurt
Author: bandanability

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: III56. Yamamoto/Gokudera - "I did it to keep your lily white Italian ass clean, so don't you fucking dare give me fucking attitude!"
Word count: 549

Summary: Gokudera decides he likes his Yamamoto better.

The cloud of pink smoke dissipates, and a seventeen-year-old Hayato Gokudera is left standing in an alley, the wall behind him shaking with the bass to some obnoxious electronica song he's never heard before. It's dark and reeks of smoke and sweat, and he can barely see from the light seeping out from under the metal door to his right. He surveys the area, but he can't quite figure out what his older self was doing here and decides to just wait and see what happens.

A moment later, a somewhat-familiar figure comes out of the door, accompanied by a significant increase in the volume of that terrible song. It turns to face him as the door swings shut, and he recognizes it as an older Yamamoto, who quickly grabs his hand and drags him behind him with a muttered "come on, Hayato, they're coming." Before Gokudera can ask who "they" are, the door flies open again behind them, and four men come out. Hayato only catches a glimpse before they are running, but it doesn't look like they can get away.

Older-Yamamoto seems to notice this in the same moment and whirls around, planting his feet firmly on the ground before reaching a hand into his jacket. "Hate to do this," he calls, and before Gokudera can make sense of what's happening, all four men have been shot down, and Yamamoto is holding a gun. "We've got to get out of here, Hayato," he says as he tucks the gun neatly into his jacket again and moves to take Gokudera's hand.

"You just…" Gokudera knows that there's death, that it's part of what he should expect from the mafia, that it's something he has to face, and something he'll have to bring, at some point (though he still hasn't accepted that fact, as much as he insists he has), but seeing Takeshi Yamamoto shoot four men blows his mind.

Yamamoto turns to face him properly, and shock crosses his face for a moment. "Oh, fuck, did Lambo hit you with the bazooka?" Gokudera doesn't know when Yamamoto started swearing, but the profanity seems off coming from his lips, too harsh for the voice that usually carried a laugh, just like the gun was too harsh for the hands that were more suited to a baseball bat. "Shit, sorry about that. Tying up some loose ends. Come on, we have to get out, Tsuna's waiting." Gokudera can't protest as his hand is taken and he is dragged along down an unfamiliar street. He's too shocked at this Yamamoto, this dark and different and wrong Yamamoto. The boy he knows could never be a killer.

Gokudera finally regains his voice. "Did you have to kill them?"

"Didn't have much choice."

"But did you have to? Couldn't you have found some way to let them live? Did you have to fucking murder them?"

"It wasn't murder, it was self-defense. I did it to keep your lily-white Italian ass clean, so don't you fucking dare give me shit for it."

"But they're dead."

"And we're not. Come on, Tsuna's waiting."

As Gokudera feels his connection to the future fading and he finds himself back on the couch with his Yamamoto, he decides he likes the baseball idiot far more than the older, harsher version.

thoughts?