Something's Going to Come
Things break, Gokudera finds through his achingly long life. They rust over, they rot and you hold the pieces close, you glue them and pray them together again. He looks at himself in the mirror, decaying, slowly. This is what he does with the opportunity of life; he spits on it, insults it and everyone he loves interpretations and attempts at it. He downs cigarettes, blames anxiety, and as expected, it - everything - catches up.
He coughs quietly, draws no attention. He washes his hands straight after; red clings to the crevices of his palms. He lives reluctantly in the base; where all his loved ones are either lecturing him or looking close to tears. It wasn't easy to stay put. "Please," Yamamoto had said, and he'd looked a little ill, too, "Don't fight me on this one." And Gokudera hadn't. He stayed without argument in the confinement of Namimori. He hated Yamamoto, trying constantly to comfort him. He hated how he couldn't stop asking that damnable question, that Yamamoto was running out of new ways to say no.
"Not yet," he'd said last time, and he'd told the other to get some rest. There was nothing else Gokudera could do. He lived in his bed, bored, waiting.
Tsuna had been horribly frightened at the sight. "Nothing's certain," Gokudera muttered hoarsely to him, but the pain in his lungs, his bones, his skin; it did nothing but dissuade him. Tsuna had smiled, sat with him. He'd felt tentative fingers in his hair, trembling and still - nothing scared him further.
He'd tried not to ask the Tenth, too, which proved too hard, proved what kind of selfish right-hand man he was. "I'm sorry," was all Tsuna could manage after a long pause, swallowing and gripping Gokudera's hands tighter.
X
"It's possible," Shamal informs him and Bianchi one day over x-rays and coffee. He's taken to avoiding Gokudera's gaze. He's taken to visiting him often, too, neither of which Gokudera can figure out. When he was first told, the doctor had gripped him, apologized, said, you were always such a stupid kid.
Bianchi grins, takes her brothers hand. It's obviously enough for her.
X
"Maybe it's just from stress," Yamamoto blurts out one day with Gokudera and Ryohei. Gokudera gives him an unimpressed look, ignoring how worn he feels, ignoring how pale his hands are in contrast to the others, both tan, healthy. He's not been outside the base in a while now. "I don't know, maybe you need a vacation or something." Yamamoto's been pushing holidays onto him for as long as he can remember now; when he sits bundled in paperwork in his office at night, when he deceptively slips it into conversations over the phone, or lately, just them together, Yamamoto quietly pestering, pleading, and Gokudera growing a little wearier.
Ryohei says through a mouth of food, "He's got a point." Which he does. But Gokudera doesn't do vacations. The idea of lying on a beach and having the bejesus annoyed out of him by both these idiots appeals so little to him he almost tastes bile.
"By the way," Ryohei mutters to him when Yamamoto is busy elsewhere, "He called." Late; Gokudera tries his best not to look interested.
X
One day, Gokudera is asleep. He's almost given up, by then, written out some imaginary will, asks every day, hates that he might be getting better, of all things, when he's so sure it's just trying to confuse him before it takes him, one surprise murder, once inevitable. A weight presses down on his mattress – he rolls towards it.
A cold hand rests on his forehead. He's expecting his sister, perhaps the Tenth, if he's lucky.
He's not.
"You idiot," he hears. He blinks awake, and Hibari is sitting above him, sunlight by his back from the glare of the windowpanes like he's some message from the heavens. The slightest furrow of concern mars his brow, for once, breaking his apathy. Gokudera can't help but think, however cliché it is, that the bastard is late. He's too tired to be angry, silently allows himself one luxury with someone he hateloves. Someone he's missed, someone he's never wanted to see again - not after keeping him in suspense so long, not like this.
Of all things – Hibari smiles, soft. "It would have been so easy to call, too."
To this, Gokudera puts on his most throaty, painful voice, says: "Would it?" And he hates that he feels awake and alive, he wants to see how Hibari would react to his death, wants to see what he means, and there's no other way to understand it, he's sure, not when the other is sending him nothing but mixed signals. For example; a kiss for the first time in three months. Feather light, Gokudera leaning for more, for something he can understand again.
X
Shamal sends him the results, this time. He's taken vacation in Spain, he's resting from all the stress Gokudera has caused him. It feels immensely better, dawdling around the town as much as he pleases, using excuses, hating escorts. He loves how much better he feels, loves that Ryohei and Yamamoto have snatched all his cigarettes, and now he feels like maybe he can try a thousand newer, better things – even though he probably won't.
"I'd think you'd have better things to do," he tells Hibari one day, while they're out. He'd been disregarding how the other guardian shields him from the crowds, how he tries to ignore it too. Hibari's been treating him like glasswork ever since and he wants nothing more than to be good at pretending he hates it.
He's a little taken aback when Hibari's hand gingerly slips into his own. He's even more surprised when he makes out his voice muttering, "no, not really," to something in the opposite direction.
Disclaimer: Not mines. Ripped of Adem song for title, too.
Notes: I posted this on a whim. I should more appropriately have hidden it back inside it's folder and out of your internet, and I, back into my secluded corner of fandom, where Hibari and Gokudera are roommates and watch Chuck all day long. (That is one fic never ever getting posted.) Alternative name for it was 'Hiba and Goku go to the Beach', but I thought maybe that would lead to zero hits forever, and decided against it. I forget why. D:
Also, I have no idea what illness Gokudera has in this. It's serious in a medium way, and bullshit in a realistic way. QUICK FIC WAS RECKLESSLY QUICK.
This proves that I won't stop writing gay bromantic fic for a while, I think. It's a lot of homo, homo fun. If only it wasn't really, really shit when I get around to writing it. OH WELL.
Thanks for reading. Apologies again for the AN.