I wrote this about an year ago. Enjoy.
Sailing Past Carthage
Venice.
He's there, only by request and in short: he really doesn't know why he comes, but he does, just to smoke and watch fucking sunsets with idiots.
Today was no exception. Dino laughs when Gokudera scrunches his nose, and leans forward, putting his weight onto the ledge and stares up, his back against the sunset. It feels a little like summer, though it's already well into November.
"This is perfect."
Spare me.
A chuckle. "No really, it's true." And with arms and back to support him, lowers himself down, down, down, leaning over the side, coffee can dangling dangerously in his hands. "It'd be nice to stay here forever."
They didn't speak, with Gokudera staring sea-wards and the other sky-ward, until Dino opens his mouth and sounds it out, proper and well: "if you ever want to find me, I'll be here."
Gokudera's taken aback, but regains his composure, refusing to become flustered.
What makes you think I'd want to find you.
"Same way that I thought I'd never want to find you."
It's been getting to be an inconvenient routine.
He'd text something abysmally short, yet dotted with exclamations and semicolons with closed parentheses (Gokudera could never decipher what that meant) and in two hours, they'd both would be in some café, one with crossed arms and a surly expression and the other with the ever present small smile on his face.
They talk, or at least one of them does. Literally about nothing. It's contrived, it's banal, and Gokudera feels as if he should simply leave, leave and stop coming to see this idiot of a man. But whenever he checks his watch and Cavallone squints at him and asks if there's something important; he leans back, shrugs and tells him he could always stay for another five minutes.
Getting off topic, they speak about truth.
It's a touchy subject for Gokudera, so he keeps his hands on his lap and stares into his own cup as Cavallone quotes Aristotle and Plato interspersed with laughter and anecdotes. "It's where all beauty comes from, because nature within itself is truth." His expressions are small and quick-- a sly grin on the side, fluttering hands to dismiss something, and sparkling, light eyes. Gokudera relaxes, picking through the man's words, looking for what wasn't spoken. Isn't this wonderful, Gokudera-kun, being alive? Being here?
"Yes," he says out loud.
"Pardon?"
The first smile he's had in a while. "Just thinking to myself."
And one day, he finally gave in and bought himself an apartment right by the Grand Canal. He comes back every so often that he stocks his shelves with fresh fruits and vegetables and posts grocery lists on the refrigerator, just so he won't forget when he comes back a day later.
Dino laughs when Gokudera tells him of all this and teases on whether he needs decorating done., followed by an impromptu scuffle breaking out, though it's filled with softened blows and hysterical laughter.
And with bright eyes, Dino asks if he could stay with him. One more day, just one more day?
And they both know he couldn't refuse.
He never shows up.
It was slightly disconcerting, and Gokudera checks his watch every so often as his coffee turns cold and he sits in the pavilion for hours on end. He fidgets, plays with his buttons, and asks for refill after refill after refill. The waitress smoothes his hair, after everyone has left and the lights inside the café has dimmed, and tells him quietly, maybe he won't come, dear.
Two am and he was still there, sitting in St. Mark's Square next to the fountain, fishing out coins from the bottom and hurling them back in. Gokudera flips open his phone and types a "hi?" Before erasing it guiltily, unsent, and dips his hands into the cool water again. He guesses he could afford to wait a few more hours.
He waits for another month, everyday waiting with a cellphone in hand, lighter in the other, expecting anything: a flustered apology, a joking excuse, a full-out dismissal.
All he has is silence.
It's another week before he gets a call.
It's Tsuna.
It's only Tsuna so Gokudera let's the answering machine receive it and tries to focus on the advice pouring out, "eat well, don't get sick, remember to bring your coat" instead of listening to the worry laced within the words: Where are you? Are you okay? Call me back, please tell me you're all right.
And it's only hours later, after Tsuna has finished with his confused banter and awkward silences that Gokudera picks up the receiver, hears the dial tone and breathes out (as if he's not quite sure himself) "I'm fine, everything's alright."
He pulls.
Tucks his head in, hunches over, inwards. He shifts slightly, rolls over on his side, away from the sun, covers thrown over his head to block the light. His breathing is slow, and doesn't match the irregular beating, ringing in his ears. All things considered: he doesn't mind dying this way.
Shamal drums his fingers on the cabinet. Slow. A vibration sets the tempo of Gokudera's breathing, he guesses. Gokudera has no idea how he got in or why he's even here, but he could care less. "Quit looking like a piece of shit for once."
A shuffle. Then nothing. Shamal stuffs his hands in his coat and strides out without another word. And as Gokudera lays there, feeling the stitches open, his jaw breaking, as the door slams: he decides to leave.
Two am. He doesn't care, doesn't care, doesn't care. It's becoming his new mantra as he walks the streets of Copenhagen and London and Munich, Armani looking worse for wear. He rounds the corner and watches a rain of ripped yellow letters flutter down from seven floors up. He takes a shortcut and winds up intruding on an eloping ceremony. And when he walks along the river, he won't know why he's wet or why his throat is clogged up with sewage.
"...how have you been?" Yamamoto asks delicately, cradling his glass of water as he watches Gokudera down his own shot of liquor and surface for more.
They didn't plan on meeting, not at all. Just that Yamamoto had the uncanny way of finding him whenever he was in Japan. Not that he really minded, it meant free alcohol, either way.
They spend the next few hours like that, not much talk going on between the two of them, before Yamamoto claps him on the back, and tightens his hold on Gokudera's shoulder.
"It's not fair, you know."
He nods.
"Tsuna's worried, you know."
Another nod.
"You understand right?" A slight shake. "Come home soon. It's not like you've forgotten where it is, right?"
He finally found him in Melbourne, entirely on accident.
He shies away at first, simply because he looks genuinely happy for once, and if anything, it's all that Gokudera needs to reconfirm his suspicions, but he can't help doubting himself once more. Instead, he waits by the harbor, where he last saw him, staring out into the waters. He hopes it'll finish soon.
He keeps smiling.
And it makes him want to leave, let someone, anyone finish this. All he wants is to go back to Venice and wait and wait and wait but he can?t keep doing it forever. Hurts one way, hurts more the other.
How are you, Aeneas (1)?
"Brilliant." And Gokudera can't help but think it's a ridiculous thing describe oneself, but licks his lips and breathes out:
Carthage.
"Huh?"
Were you ever thinking of going back? Dino looks at him sympathetically, shaking his head.
"It's gone, Gokudera-san. It's lost."
And with that, he's gone.
He shouldn't be here.
He knows it, everyone goddamn knows it, and yet he rips his way into his own apartment, breaking the window and crashes onto the couch, too exhausted to move.
All he can hear is water, and the tide coming in to lap against the walls of the city. It's all he can hear; not people, not the sounds and vibrations around him. But the movement of the moon and the waters.
And when he wakes up, he'll wait by the mouth of the river, fixing up a small fire, and simply watching it because it was a promise that they both made, and he waits and waits and waits until he falls asleep in the sand waiting and wakes up the next day to do the same goddamn thing because they both know he's got to come back, the both of them, but of course stupid Cavallones aren't well-mannered enough to know it wasn't proper etiquette to keep people waiting. It's okay though. Because there was a way out of this.
They'll just have to fix it together when he gets here.
End
(1) Aeneas, the protagonist in Virgil's epic of the same name sailed to Carthage immediately after fleeing Troy. Dido, the Queen of Carthage had welcomed him with open arms into her city, enraptured by his story, but was left heartbroken after he had left to fulfill his destiny, to the point where she committed suicide by jumping into a pyre.