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Entry tags:
- 0-500 words,
- 000501-001000 words,
- c: dino cavallone,
- c: gokudera hayato,
- c: hibari kyouya,
- c: irie shouichi,
- c: rokudou mukuro,
- c: sanada genichirou,
- c: sawada tsunayoshi,
- c: squalo,
- c: xanxus,
- c: yamamoto takeshi,
- c: yukimura seiichi,
- fandom: katekyou hitman reborn,
- fandom: prince of tennis,
- label: alternative universe,
- label: angst,
- label: cat au,
- label: character death,
- label: crossover,
- label: genderswap,
- label: smut
[drabbles & ficlet dump] KHR & PoT
Some more drabbles from Tumblr, for archival purposes.
Domesticity meme
#Sanada is rather domestic considering
Genichirou is the one who actually does most of the cleaning. It’s not that Seiichi doesn’t know how to clean up after himself or even that he won’t do it. It’s that Seiichi has very little attention to spare for things that are not tennis. On that list of things that are not tennis, the piles of dishes in the sink and the dust bunnies chasing themselves into the corners simply don’t hold a lot of priority for him.
Genichirou, on the other hand, has a much lower threshold for filth in his living conditions and therefore is the one who tidies up—or, exasperated, tell Seiichi to put the tennis magazine down and help fold laundry.
Mukuro, at play in the fields of genderfuckery
Nothing else in Tsuna’s life makes any kind of sense, which is why he doesn’t say anything when Mukuro shows up for an all-Guardians meeting with bottles of nail polish, emery boards, and several other implements that Tsuna has seen used but nevertheless does not understand. For one thing, he’s learned that it’s best not to ask Mukuro questions, because there’s a good chance that Mukuro will answer them. Tsuna finds that he sleeps better at night when he doesn’t know what, precisely, Mukuro is up to or why.
For another thing, they have a lot of meetings. It’s not unusual for people to show up with food (Lambo apparently plans to rot all the teeth in his head by the time he’s twenty and has the candy stash to prove it; Ryouhei is constantly in training for some pentathlon or another and is carefully regulating his diet; Takeshi’s taken up baking and is currently exploring the realms of frou-frou cupcakes and is using the rest of them as guinea pigs and garbage disposals) or something to work on (Hayato is the king and god of multitasking and always has paperwork; Hana knits and so does Chrome, now, and Kyouko watches their needles moving with the kind of look that suggests she’s going to be next, it’s like some kind of social disease). If Mukuro wants to bring nail polish to the mafia version of a staff meeting and give himself a manicure while they discuss the Vongola’s various ventures, Tsuna thinks, more power to him.
Honestly, if Tsuna were going to ask him anything, he’d ask why Mukuro was even attending the meeting, but then, that’s one of the things they never talk about. Officially, Tsuna has one Mist, and her name is Chrome. Unofficially, he has two Mists, and as long as no one makes the mistake of mentioning that out loud, Mukuro shows up from time to time, wreaks havoc among the Vongola’s enemies, threatens to use Tsuna as a puppet through which to drown the world in blood and pain, and then wanders off again in pursuit of his own business. It’s a surprisingly functional arrangement. That says whole volumes about Tsuna’s life, or would, if he had any time for reading.
Of course, just because Tsuna chooses not to comment does not mean the rest of his Family is so circumspect. Mukuro is drawing the first slick of color down his nail when Haru leans over and coos at the color. “That is a fantastic red, where did you get it?”
“It’s custom,” Mukuro tells her, frowning with concentration. Or ostensibly with concentration; he’s also good with multitasking. “I call it Arterial Spray.”
“Because that’s not creepy or anything,” Hayato says. “Oh, wait, this is you we’re talking about.” Then it must sink in that Mukuro’s painting his nails red or something, because he adds, “What the hell are you doing, anyway? Did you lose a bet?”
Mukuro arches his eyebrows, though he doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “I beg your pardon?” he asks, though it comes out sounding a lot like Fuck you.
“You’re doing your nails,” Lambo, ever helpful when it comes to stirring the pot, supplies. “But you’re a guy.”
Mukuro finishes one hand and holds it out in front of him, apparently checking the effect. He’s grown his nails out and filed them to smooth, tapered ovals; the red glistens on them. Creepy or not, Arterial Spray is a good name for the color.
Tsuna kind of hates that he knows that.
The problem with asking Mukuro questions is that sometimes he answers them. He blows on his nails gently while Haru nabs the bottle of polish and examines it. Tsuna is just beginning to think that he’s going to ignore them all when Mukuro says, “I didn’t lose a bet. I wanted my nails to match my lipstick.”
Silence falls across the table like an axe. Takeshi is the first one who dares break it. “But you’re not wearing lipstick,” he says.
“Yet,” Mukuro says, taking the bottle of polish back from Haru and starting in on his other hand.
Hibari/Irie
The room is quiet, very quiet, because when Hibari Kyouya walks in, everyone else stampedes out.
Nearly everyone. Not you.
Your breathing and your pulse roar in your ears, too loud by half, and you can't help the sound you make against his palm when he presses against your back.
"Shh," he says, sibilance flickering against your ear and raising the fine hairs on the nape of your neck, and he tightens the fingers that cover your mouth.
You close your eyes and nod as you take your lower lip between your teeth, determined to follow his commands no matter what they cost you. And though you bite down hard enough to taste blood when he pushes into you, you make no sound, and the growling note of satisfaction in his voice is all you need to make that worth it.
Dino, first ink
He think he's been in the chair for a solid hour or more now, at least, but he's lost track of the time. Lost track of a lot of things, actually, everything that's outside the boundary of his skin and his skull. Everything else—the droning buzz of the needle, the start-stop sting when the artist sets it against his bicep, the pauses when the man wipes the trickles of blood away—receded a long time ago. There's just him and the chair beneath him, holding the loose drape of his body, and the hazy no-self glow of the endorphins flooding his system now.
Dino's never been high like this before. If he were in any state to string together a coherent thought, he might wonder about that, or worry over it, but the beauty of it all is that right now, in this moment, he doesn't have to. He doesn't have to do anything right now.
Every good thing has to end. Eventually the droning buzz of the needle cuts off; he becomes aware that the artist is swabbing his arm, turning it this way and then that. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. "Do you want to see it?"
Dino drags his eyes open and blinks against the harsh fluorescent of the overhead. It takes a couple of attempts to form words, even something as basic as "Yeah, sure."
The artist already has a hand mirror ready, is holding it for him so that when he cranes his head to look down, he sees the mirrored crest: a twelve-pointed star and the Family C, gold and brown glowing dark against his skin. It's upside down and backwards, the only way he'll ever see it himself, but as with all things related to the Family, it's not really for him, so that doesn't matter.
"It's good," he says, tongue still thick and unwieldy in his mouth. The artist simply nods, perfectly aware that he's the best available, and sets the mirror aside so he can apply a dressing to the tattoo.
It aches, distant and throbbing deeper in the muscle than he would have thought possible for what is, essentially, a flesh wound. He contemplates that, thoughts moving syrup slow as the artist tapes gauze down and scoots his stool back. "You'll want these," he says, but it doesn't sound like he's talking to Dino.
He isn't. Romario's there when Dino looks up. May have been there the whole time, for all Dino knows. He accepts a sheet from the artist—aftercare instructions, Dino guesses—and something about that sharpens his awareness.
It's time to come back down. Dino pulls himself out of his slouch and stands. His shirt is hanging on the back of the door, along with his jacket. Putting them on is an exciting new adventure in finding out just how sharply a fresh tattoo aches when it's flexed, but Dino ignores Romario's abortive gesture to help. He's a Cavallone and there are some things, by God, that even he knows he has to do himself. "I assume we're done?" he says, splitting his gaze between Romario and the artist.
"For now." The artist smiles, faint and knowing. "Come back when you're ready for more."
"Yes," Dino says, "I will."
The one where Gokudera ends up in the Cavallone
It happened accidentally. About three months before the last of Timoteo Vongola’s sons got himself killed in a face-off against just about every Cetrulli man who could stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder, Dino Cavallone got into a minor scuffle of his own against the Cizeta with, quite fortunately for him, a far better outcome than the one that Enrico Vongola experienced. Wrangling with the Cizeta was a longstanding Family tradition, one he felt honor-bound to uphold. (He also hated Aldo Cizeta’s stupid face, so in this case maintaining the Family honor wasn’t as much of a burden as it could have been.)
The Cizeta started it by knocking off a minor politician whom Dino had been cultivating carefully as the first step in a larger scheme that was going to involve installing the man in a office better suited to facilitating Cavallone interests. Dino hadn’t much liked the guy personally, but he’d sunk a fair bit of time, money, and effort into bribing him and furthermore felt deeply offended that the Cizeta had lashed out against someone who was, after all, pretty much a civilian.
“I mean,” he told Romario, indignant, “if we just go around killing innocent bystanders, that makes us no better than criminals.”
Romario merely smoothed his mustache down in lieu of responding, which was his version of rolling his eyes. “Of course, Boss,” he said. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“I want to feed Aldo Cizeta a bullet or ten, but I’ll settle for spoking his wheel.” Romario raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry, so Dino elaborated. “How about we do something about the weapons he’s been running lately?”
This found favor in Romario’s eyes and he inclined his head in a nod of approval, so Dino expanded on his vision for blacking Aldo’s metaphorical eye (since doing so in a literal fashion had gotten them both ejected from the Russo wedding). Romario did have one small criticism for the plan. “We don’t have a demolitions expert, Boss.”
Dino shrugged at him. “So we’ll hire somebody.” He waved a hand. “What else do we make money for, if not to spend it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Romario said, smiling when Dino grinned at him.
And that was how one Gokudera “Smoking Bomb” Hayato came to be hired for what should have been a single straightforward, uncomplicated job for the Cavallone.
How he came to stay on as a part of the Cavallone was a longer, more complicated story.
Xanxus/Squalo, domesticity
“Goddammit,” Squalo complains, because that’s another set of leathers done for. He shucks them off, which is mostly a matter of yanking a few zippers down and giving himself a good hard shaking and letting the shreds hit the floor.
He ducks the tumbler on trained reflex and it shatters against the wall instead of his skull. “Use the fucking hamper,” Xanxus snarls.
“Fuck the hamper,” Squalo retorts, going to fetch the dustpan. But he does pick up the sad remains of his uniform to dump in the trash on the way.
Xanxus/Squalo, post chapter 398 fix-it drabble
The first thing anyone says to him when Squalo claws his way back to consciousness—huh, that’s a shocker, he’d been pretty sure this time was it—the first thing anyone says to him is “Goddamn idiot.”
That’s practically an endearment, coming from the boss. Squalo blinks gritty eyes and brings them into focus through sheer force of will; they’re in a room. Hospital, by the looks of it—bags of saline hanging from poles, the steady beep-beep of a cardiac monitor, the ache of having a needle in the back of his hand—not to mention all the white and institutional puke green. Squalo manages to turn his head a bit; Xanxus is in the next bed over, reclining against the raised pillow and scowling at him.
Something about that feels strange, off in a way that Squalo can’t quite put his finger on. He blinks again, but all his thoughts are syrup-slow and disjointed, wrapped up in a warm cotton haze. Son of a bitch, he thinks, he’s gonna have to deal with morphine withdrawal again. Fuck.
Xanxus is still glaring at him. Squalo passes a dry tongue over drier lips and manages to croak out, “Hey, Boss.”
“You’re a fucking moron,” Xanxus tells him.
Grinning makes Squalo’s lips crack, but it’s easy not to care about that when there’s morphine. “Love you too, Boss,” he says, and drifts back to sleep while Xanxus is still sputtering.
Hibari/Yamamoto, domesticity
Six months in, Takeshi gives up and calls it. “You’ve suborned my dog,” he tells Kyouya.
Kyouya, who is stretched out on the grass, ignores him utterly (unless Takeshi counts the slight flicker of Kyouya’s eyelashes when he cracks his eyes to look up at him; Takeshi doesn’t).
“You are a traitor,” Takeshi tells Brisket.
Brisket raises her head from where she is resting it on Kyouya’s stomach and utters a contented little whuffling sound. Then she drops her head and closes her eyes again, unashamed of her wanton infidelity.
“Betrayed on every side,” Takeshi says mournfully. “What a terrible world we live in.”
The sound of Kyouya’s snort is barely audible.
Well, Takeshi decides, if you can’t beat them you might as well join them. He strips his gardening gloves off and drops himself to the grass next to them, stretching out and sighing. It’s a good day to nap in the grass, and he closes his eyes against the brightness of the sun overhead.
After a moment, Kyouya settles his hand against Takeshi’s head and begins to rub his fingers through Takeshi’s hair.
…maybe Takeshi can’t blame Brisket for being unfaithful.
Hibari/Yamamoto, mermaids
On the land, they tell of voices sacrificed and footsteps like walking on razor edges, bodies dissolving into sea foam and the struggle to gain an immortal soul. The sea folk tell different stories, ones filled with things as incomprehensible to human understanding as the things sometimes dredged up from the deep, just as questions of immortality baffle those who live beneath the waves, for sea folk are an immensely practical people.
And yet.
There is a tale that the sea folk tell sometimes, a tale of their fiercest prince and the human boy who saw him and loved him enough to leave the prince as he was. The sea folk dance the story slowly, twisting their bodies through the waves to describe the wearing away of the years like waves on a shore, the small house on the strand and the boy who grew to manhood there, watching the sea prince. The story dance begins in large loops that describe how he watched from a distance at first, but the loops become smaller as they describe how his presence roused the prince's curiosity so that he swam closer, and finally twine tight and intimate to show how they learn to talk to one another, the prince in a tidal pool and the boy-turned-man perched on a rock nearby.
It is true that both stories end in death—the mermaid princess surrenders her life, the human does not live even a quarter as long as the sea prince might expect to. But they both end in transformation as well, sea foam to daughter of the air, immortal soul to scales and gills. (The magic of the sea folk is strange and subtle and above all, sympathetic.)
Now tell me, child. Which version of the tale do you prefer?
Hibari/Yamamoto, double genderswap
Yamamoto can see the future sometimes. Not like the future future, or like Uni and the Giglio Nero said they could see the future, but she can see how things could play out, depending. She looks at herself and the sword in her hands, the knobs of her wrists and the callouses on her palms, and she sees herself standing at Tsuna’s shoulder down through the years, and yeah. That’s good. Gokudera will stand at Tsuna’s right hand, counterweight and counterpart, and together they’ll back Tsuna up while he changes the world.
Sometimes she catches Gokudera looking at her, mostly when he thinks she’s not paying attention. He looks at her like she’s a puzzle, something that he doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to figure out. He doesn’t like what he doesn’t understand, and he obsesses over it: Gokudera in a nutshell. Yamamoto suspects she keeps Gokudera up nights, thinking about her for one reason or another.
She can see how that might go, too: irritation, frustration, contemplation, fornication. Dislike and like, hate and love, they flip from one to the other in the blink of the eye. There’s a future there, her and Gokudera, right hand and left—storybook romance, right? If she wants it that way.
Could go with another storybook romance, maybe. There’s Tsuna and there’s Hibari, picture-perfect in her school uniform even when she’s beating someone’s face in. Yamamoto doesn’t know how she does it, really: she’s never learned the particular piece of girl magic that lets Hibari stroll through the world with each button in place and her nails and hair perfect as the pink bow of her mouth. Maybe Hibari’s neat perfection is just another of nature’s warning signs: this beauty is lethal.
They’d make a formidable pair, Tsuna and Hibari. Sky and Cloud, her viciousness to back up his gentle ruthlessness. Yamamoto can see it in her mind’s eye, the swathe they could cut through the world together, Tsuna and Hibari, her and Gokudera, a pair of pairs to build a house on, the sensible thing to do.
But then, she’s never been much good at sensible.
Yamamoto’s hands fit the curve of Hibari’s hips just so, and this is one of the craziest things she’s ever done, one that is maybe going to get her punched or bitten to death or worse. Hibari’s mouth is soft, softer than Yamamoto’s, probably because she doesn’t have the same habit of chewing on her lips till they dry out. And Hibari’s eyes are wide and surprised, fringed with thick lashes that do not flutter as Yamamoto kisses her. Why should they? This isn’t a storybook, and she wouldn’t want it to be anyway.
Hibari huffs a breath against Yamamoto’s lips and wraps an arm around her shoulders as she parts her lips, and Yamamoto can see a whole new line of possibility opening up ahead of them now. She grins and pulls Hibari in closer, ready to dive right in.
Hibari/Yamamoto, microfic meme
1. Angst
The last anyone ever sees of Hibari Kyouya, he is standing in the middle of the Cetrulli, or what remains of them—meat and blood, mostly—and he is smiling in a way that gives meaning to the word fey. Then he turns and walks away, leaving a trail of red footprints behind him. Even those dwindle away to rust-brown traces and disappear, and after that, no one can say what happened to the Vongola's Cloud after he took vengeance for its Rain.
It's funny, but not, Tsuna thinks—no one even knew that Hibari cared that much, maybe not even Yamamoto.
2. AU [Bloodverse]
There are a variety of ways to spend the daylight hours, but Takeshi has come to decide that this is the way that is best. He twines himself around Hibari, or perhaps Hibari is the one who has insinuated himself against Takeshi's skin. It is good (so good) to lean his head back and groan when Hibari's fangs pierce his throat, and better still to rake his nails down his sire's back and inhale the heady scent of Hibari's blood hanging in the air before he grooms them clean.
3. Crack
"Go away," the man behind the counter tells Takeshi.
Takeshi pulls up short at that, just a bit, because—"Your sign says you're open?" he says, uncertainly.
The guy gives him a hostile look from behind the thick plastic frames of his glasses, one that suggests he has absolutely no idea why Takeshi feels that this is a relevant point. "Go away."
"I just want a coffee," Takeshi says, maybe a little annoyed by this. "You do sell coffee, don't you?"
"Not to your kind," the guy says, flat. "Go. Away."
Takeshi looks down at himself, trying to figure out what's so objectionable about his kind. Everything—suit, tie, briefcase—seems to be in order, so, bewildered and annoyed, he tries one last time. "Please?" he says, since other people being rude is no call to descend to their level. "I was told this was the best place in town to get coffee."
"It is," the guy tells him. "Now go away."
Takeshi does, baffled by this peculiar behavior, and makes do with a crappy latte from Starbucks. But, he thinks later, this is stupid—he's not going to give up that easily, is he? Of course not—he's built a reputation on never giving up, an entire career in fact.
So he detours into the Skylark Cafe again the next morning, and the one after that, and the one after that, too, and keeps it up out of the same dogged persistence that has made him the best trial lawyer in the city, and eventually—yes, he decides, Kyouya does make pretty damn good coffee.
But maybe the fact that he's naked in Takeshi's kitchen making it has something to do with that assessment.
4. Crossover [Gundam Wing]
Takeshi doesn't know whose bright idea it was to let Hibari Kyouya get his hands on a Gundam, but when he figures it out, he is going to have stern words with them. Very stern words.
Until then, he does the best he can to keep up (and tries to pretend that he doesn't enjoy wreaking mayhem on the Ozzies as much as he does).
5. First time
The first time, Takeshi's got a black eye coming in and a loose tooth; Hibari's got bruises blooming across his ribs and a split lip. Every time their mouths collide it tastes like blood, and Takeshi honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
6. Fluff
Kyouya prefers quiet and solitude, a quiet garden and a veranda from which to sit and watch the moonlight make stark patterns of silver and black with the landscape. And yet. Despite this preference, he does not object to Takeshi's presence next to him, stretched out against smooth boards and not entirely still (Takeshi is never entirely still unless there is a sword in his hands).
How strange, Kyouya thinks, and takes another sip of his sake.
7. Humor [context]
When he finally gets done laughing, he goes and finds Hibari. "You know that's not actually what that phrase means, right?" he asks, because Takeshi doesn't actually know how to leave well enough alone.
"If he didn't want me to bite him, he should not have told me to do it," Hibari says, perfectly calm, and really, Takeshi can't exactly argue with that.
8. Hurt/Comfort
Kyouya doesn't say anything at all—not one word—for which Takeshi is eternally, devoutly grateful, because really, what is there that anyone can say? At least with Kyouya, he doesn't have to pretend to be grateful for another iteration of I'm so sorry for your loss instead of screaming what he really wants to say, which is My father is dead, you assholes, I don't care how sorry you are.
Instead Kyouya lets him sit in silence, drinks tea with him in silence, spars with him in silence, and, late at night, sets his hand on Takeshi's nape and says nothing at all when Takeshi finally permits himself to cry.
9. Smut
Takeshi knows he's not supposed to—at the very start, Kyouya pressed his hands down and told him not to move—but he can't help it, not when Kyouya is moving over him, knees spread wide across Takeshi's hips as he rocks himself up and down. Takeshi reaches for him anyway, slides his fingers up the insides of Kyouya's slim thighs, and it's worth whatever retribution this will earn him, entirely worth it, for the sound Kyouya makes when Takeshi gets his hand around his cock.
10. UST
Takeshi knows that he might actually be crazy, like really crazy and not just baseball-crazy the way Gokudera accuses him of being, but if he is, well. Being crazy isn't so bad, not yet.
He can't help it, anyway. There's something about Hibari, the fine, delicate structure of his bones and the way he smiles when he fights, that Takeshi can't get out of his head. And he's tried. Sort of. He thought about it real hard, anyway.
Well, there's only one thing to do about that, isn't there? Or so Takeshi decides, and starts putting himself in Hibari's way, and waits to see what will happen next.
Tsuna/Xanxus, microfic meme
1. Angst
“I’m sorry,” Tsuna said, and did not look away until the ice had taken Xanxus. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, letting the Zero Point fade as he lowered his hands, but there was no one there to hear him anymore.
Maybe there never had been to begin with.
2. AU [Betrothal-verse]
“Oh, you must be joking,” Tsunako says, impolitic but to the point, when she finally grasps what it is that Marco Barassi is insinuating about Xanxus.
Barassi takes it the wrong way, though that’s not news; pretty much everyone in the mafia takes Xanxus the wrong way, as far as Tsunako can tell. “I realize this must come as a great personal shock to you, my dear, but I really felt that you should know—”
“Of course I know he’s sleeping with his right hand,” Tsunako says impatiently. “Who do you think told him to do it?”
She sails off while Barassi is still opening and closing his mouth like a stunned fish, indignant. Honestly. As if she didn’t know how to manage her own husband!
3. Crack [look, I have a problem, okay?]
Tsuna made a face at Xanxus. “I don’t know why you keep doing this,” he complained.
Xanxus just blinked at him and waited, expectantly.
“Is this an attention thing?” Tsuna continued. “It’s an attention thing, isn’t it. You do this because you because you want my attention.” He fished around with the broom handle some more. “Is it because I work all day? Am I not home enough? Or—ah-hah!” He succeeded in dragging the bedraggled shark toy from where it had lodged beneath the stove, along with three bottlecaps, a quantity of dustbunnies, and one plastic ring from a milk jug. “Here you go,” he said, tossing it to Xanxus.
Xanxus immediately batted it back under the stove and meowed imperiously.
“I take it back,” Tsuna said. “It’s because you’re an asshole.” But he bent to retrieve it again anyway.
4. Crossover [KnB, and I’m not even sorry, y’all]
Tsuna gazed up—and up some more—at the team’s power forward, and felt very small and breakable indeed. This impression was only reinforced when Xanxus scowled down at him and demanded, “What’s a shrimp like you doing playing basketball?”
Tsuna tried not to eep, but it was a near thing. “Um, I don’t really know?” he tried, which was true even now—he still didn’t know why Reborn-kantoku had demanded that he sign up for basketball.
Reborn just smiled at them both, small and serene. “Wait and see,” he murmured, and eventually—they did.
5. First time
Xanxus’ hands were unsteady and the line of his mouth was not—entirely—certain, so Tsuna wrapped his arms around Xanxus’ shoulders and did not tell him that he needn’t go quite that slowly.
6. Fluff
Hours later, Xanxus continued to fume, though at least he had progressed from the shouting and breaking things stage to the quieter, less destructive brooding stage. Tsuna was too experienced to believe that this stage was any less dangerous than the one that had preceded it, and so was not terribly surprised when Xanxus said, abrupt, “I could kill them all. Give me three days, it’ll be easy.”
Tsuna continued to stroke his hair. “You’re a complete psychopath,” he said, but not unkindly. “You can’t kill the Spanish national team because they beat Italy.”
“I could if you’d let me,” Xanxus sulked, and nudged his head against Tsuna’s fingers like an overgrown housecat.
7. Humor [I feel like I’ve filled this one already somehow…]
Xanxus’ sense of humor, what there is of it, is so diametrically opposed to Tsuna’s that the day Tsuna finally, finally gets Xanxus to smile over something that does not involve death, dying, or the causes thereof, he actually wants to cry a little over the achievement.
Instead he smoothes the skirt of his maid costume down and continues to expound upon the miseries of mandatory school festivals and Kyouko-san’s evil sense of humor for as long as Xanxus has the patience to listen (as it turns out, not long, but since the maid costume seems to be a hit, Tsuna elects not to complain).
8. Hurt/Comfort
Xanxus does not go to the funeral, and Tsuna is not surprised by this. He goes, for his own sake and for Xanxus’, and comes back to find Xanxus still sitting in the same slumped sprawl that he’d been in before. The only difference is that there is much less whiskey in the bottle at Xanxus’ elbow now.
Tsuna does not say anything about this. He doesn’t say anything at all, in fact: he nudges Xanxus’ hand out of the way and sits on the arm of the chair, leaning against Xanxus’ shoulder, and holds his tongue when Xanxus eventually turns and burrows against his chest.
Xanxus never speaks of the Ninth again, after that.
9. Smut [definitely Win-verse]
Xanxus is stretched out full-length in Tsuna’s bed, taking up acres of the sheets like this, and his arms make tight-bowed lines as he grips the headboard, holding onto it precisely as instructed.
Tsuna threads his fingers through the heavy silk of Xanxus’ hair and slides his cock between Xanxus’ lips. “Take it,” he tells Xanxus, and Xanxus does.
10. UST
Tsuna catches himself watching Xanxus in meetings, he desperately hopes covertly, but he can’t stop himself. There’s something about Xanxus, the restless chained energy of the man, the breadth and height of him, the feral light of his eyes, the plush, sensual line of his mouth—Tsuna can’t make himself look away.
He is in so much trouble, Tsuna realizes, and just prays that Xanxus never realizes what a hold he has over his boss.
Domesticity meme
#Sanada is rather domestic considering
Genichirou is the one who actually does most of the cleaning. It’s not that Seiichi doesn’t know how to clean up after himself or even that he won’t do it. It’s that Seiichi has very little attention to spare for things that are not tennis. On that list of things that are not tennis, the piles of dishes in the sink and the dust bunnies chasing themselves into the corners simply don’t hold a lot of priority for him.
Genichirou, on the other hand, has a much lower threshold for filth in his living conditions and therefore is the one who tidies up—or, exasperated, tell Seiichi to put the tennis magazine down and help fold laundry.
Mukuro, at play in the fields of genderfuckery
Nothing else in Tsuna’s life makes any kind of sense, which is why he doesn’t say anything when Mukuro shows up for an all-Guardians meeting with bottles of nail polish, emery boards, and several other implements that Tsuna has seen used but nevertheless does not understand. For one thing, he’s learned that it’s best not to ask Mukuro questions, because there’s a good chance that Mukuro will answer them. Tsuna finds that he sleeps better at night when he doesn’t know what, precisely, Mukuro is up to or why.
For another thing, they have a lot of meetings. It’s not unusual for people to show up with food (Lambo apparently plans to rot all the teeth in his head by the time he’s twenty and has the candy stash to prove it; Ryouhei is constantly in training for some pentathlon or another and is carefully regulating his diet; Takeshi’s taken up baking and is currently exploring the realms of frou-frou cupcakes and is using the rest of them as guinea pigs and garbage disposals) or something to work on (Hayato is the king and god of multitasking and always has paperwork; Hana knits and so does Chrome, now, and Kyouko watches their needles moving with the kind of look that suggests she’s going to be next, it’s like some kind of social disease). If Mukuro wants to bring nail polish to the mafia version of a staff meeting and give himself a manicure while they discuss the Vongola’s various ventures, Tsuna thinks, more power to him.
Honestly, if Tsuna were going to ask him anything, he’d ask why Mukuro was even attending the meeting, but then, that’s one of the things they never talk about. Officially, Tsuna has one Mist, and her name is Chrome. Unofficially, he has two Mists, and as long as no one makes the mistake of mentioning that out loud, Mukuro shows up from time to time, wreaks havoc among the Vongola’s enemies, threatens to use Tsuna as a puppet through which to drown the world in blood and pain, and then wanders off again in pursuit of his own business. It’s a surprisingly functional arrangement. That says whole volumes about Tsuna’s life, or would, if he had any time for reading.
Of course, just because Tsuna chooses not to comment does not mean the rest of his Family is so circumspect. Mukuro is drawing the first slick of color down his nail when Haru leans over and coos at the color. “That is a fantastic red, where did you get it?”
“It’s custom,” Mukuro tells her, frowning with concentration. Or ostensibly with concentration; he’s also good with multitasking. “I call it Arterial Spray.”
“Because that’s not creepy or anything,” Hayato says. “Oh, wait, this is you we’re talking about.” Then it must sink in that Mukuro’s painting his nails red or something, because he adds, “What the hell are you doing, anyway? Did you lose a bet?”
Mukuro arches his eyebrows, though he doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “I beg your pardon?” he asks, though it comes out sounding a lot like Fuck you.
“You’re doing your nails,” Lambo, ever helpful when it comes to stirring the pot, supplies. “But you’re a guy.”
Mukuro finishes one hand and holds it out in front of him, apparently checking the effect. He’s grown his nails out and filed them to smooth, tapered ovals; the red glistens on them. Creepy or not, Arterial Spray is a good name for the color.
Tsuna kind of hates that he knows that.
The problem with asking Mukuro questions is that sometimes he answers them. He blows on his nails gently while Haru nabs the bottle of polish and examines it. Tsuna is just beginning to think that he’s going to ignore them all when Mukuro says, “I didn’t lose a bet. I wanted my nails to match my lipstick.”
Silence falls across the table like an axe. Takeshi is the first one who dares break it. “But you’re not wearing lipstick,” he says.
“Yet,” Mukuro says, taking the bottle of polish back from Haru and starting in on his other hand.
Hibari/Irie
The room is quiet, very quiet, because when Hibari Kyouya walks in, everyone else stampedes out.
Nearly everyone. Not you.
Your breathing and your pulse roar in your ears, too loud by half, and you can't help the sound you make against his palm when he presses against your back.
"Shh," he says, sibilance flickering against your ear and raising the fine hairs on the nape of your neck, and he tightens the fingers that cover your mouth.
You close your eyes and nod as you take your lower lip between your teeth, determined to follow his commands no matter what they cost you. And though you bite down hard enough to taste blood when he pushes into you, you make no sound, and the growling note of satisfaction in his voice is all you need to make that worth it.
Dino, first ink
He think he's been in the chair for a solid hour or more now, at least, but he's lost track of the time. Lost track of a lot of things, actually, everything that's outside the boundary of his skin and his skull. Everything else—the droning buzz of the needle, the start-stop sting when the artist sets it against his bicep, the pauses when the man wipes the trickles of blood away—receded a long time ago. There's just him and the chair beneath him, holding the loose drape of his body, and the hazy no-self glow of the endorphins flooding his system now.
Dino's never been high like this before. If he were in any state to string together a coherent thought, he might wonder about that, or worry over it, but the beauty of it all is that right now, in this moment, he doesn't have to. He doesn't have to do anything right now.
Every good thing has to end. Eventually the droning buzz of the needle cuts off; he becomes aware that the artist is swabbing his arm, turning it this way and then that. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. "Do you want to see it?"
Dino drags his eyes open and blinks against the harsh fluorescent of the overhead. It takes a couple of attempts to form words, even something as basic as "Yeah, sure."
The artist already has a hand mirror ready, is holding it for him so that when he cranes his head to look down, he sees the mirrored crest: a twelve-pointed star and the Family C, gold and brown glowing dark against his skin. It's upside down and backwards, the only way he'll ever see it himself, but as with all things related to the Family, it's not really for him, so that doesn't matter.
"It's good," he says, tongue still thick and unwieldy in his mouth. The artist simply nods, perfectly aware that he's the best available, and sets the mirror aside so he can apply a dressing to the tattoo.
It aches, distant and throbbing deeper in the muscle than he would have thought possible for what is, essentially, a flesh wound. He contemplates that, thoughts moving syrup slow as the artist tapes gauze down and scoots his stool back. "You'll want these," he says, but it doesn't sound like he's talking to Dino.
He isn't. Romario's there when Dino looks up. May have been there the whole time, for all Dino knows. He accepts a sheet from the artist—aftercare instructions, Dino guesses—and something about that sharpens his awareness.
It's time to come back down. Dino pulls himself out of his slouch and stands. His shirt is hanging on the back of the door, along with his jacket. Putting them on is an exciting new adventure in finding out just how sharply a fresh tattoo aches when it's flexed, but Dino ignores Romario's abortive gesture to help. He's a Cavallone and there are some things, by God, that even he knows he has to do himself. "I assume we're done?" he says, splitting his gaze between Romario and the artist.
"For now." The artist smiles, faint and knowing. "Come back when you're ready for more."
"Yes," Dino says, "I will."
The one where Gokudera ends up in the Cavallone
It happened accidentally. About three months before the last of Timoteo Vongola’s sons got himself killed in a face-off against just about every Cetrulli man who could stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder, Dino Cavallone got into a minor scuffle of his own against the Cizeta with, quite fortunately for him, a far better outcome than the one that Enrico Vongola experienced. Wrangling with the Cizeta was a longstanding Family tradition, one he felt honor-bound to uphold. (He also hated Aldo Cizeta’s stupid face, so in this case maintaining the Family honor wasn’t as much of a burden as it could have been.)
The Cizeta started it by knocking off a minor politician whom Dino had been cultivating carefully as the first step in a larger scheme that was going to involve installing the man in a office better suited to facilitating Cavallone interests. Dino hadn’t much liked the guy personally, but he’d sunk a fair bit of time, money, and effort into bribing him and furthermore felt deeply offended that the Cizeta had lashed out against someone who was, after all, pretty much a civilian.
“I mean,” he told Romario, indignant, “if we just go around killing innocent bystanders, that makes us no better than criminals.”
Romario merely smoothed his mustache down in lieu of responding, which was his version of rolling his eyes. “Of course, Boss,” he said. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“I want to feed Aldo Cizeta a bullet or ten, but I’ll settle for spoking his wheel.” Romario raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry, so Dino elaborated. “How about we do something about the weapons he’s been running lately?”
This found favor in Romario’s eyes and he inclined his head in a nod of approval, so Dino expanded on his vision for blacking Aldo’s metaphorical eye (since doing so in a literal fashion had gotten them both ejected from the Russo wedding). Romario did have one small criticism for the plan. “We don’t have a demolitions expert, Boss.”
Dino shrugged at him. “So we’ll hire somebody.” He waved a hand. “What else do we make money for, if not to spend it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Romario said, smiling when Dino grinned at him.
And that was how one Gokudera “Smoking Bomb” Hayato came to be hired for what should have been a single straightforward, uncomplicated job for the Cavallone.
How he came to stay on as a part of the Cavallone was a longer, more complicated story.
Xanxus/Squalo, domesticity
“Goddammit,” Squalo complains, because that’s another set of leathers done for. He shucks them off, which is mostly a matter of yanking a few zippers down and giving himself a good hard shaking and letting the shreds hit the floor.
He ducks the tumbler on trained reflex and it shatters against the wall instead of his skull. “Use the fucking hamper,” Xanxus snarls.
“Fuck the hamper,” Squalo retorts, going to fetch the dustpan. But he does pick up the sad remains of his uniform to dump in the trash on the way.
Xanxus/Squalo, post chapter 398 fix-it drabble
The first thing anyone says to him when Squalo claws his way back to consciousness—huh, that’s a shocker, he’d been pretty sure this time was it—the first thing anyone says to him is “Goddamn idiot.”
That’s practically an endearment, coming from the boss. Squalo blinks gritty eyes and brings them into focus through sheer force of will; they’re in a room. Hospital, by the looks of it—bags of saline hanging from poles, the steady beep-beep of a cardiac monitor, the ache of having a needle in the back of his hand—not to mention all the white and institutional puke green. Squalo manages to turn his head a bit; Xanxus is in the next bed over, reclining against the raised pillow and scowling at him.
Something about that feels strange, off in a way that Squalo can’t quite put his finger on. He blinks again, but all his thoughts are syrup-slow and disjointed, wrapped up in a warm cotton haze. Son of a bitch, he thinks, he’s gonna have to deal with morphine withdrawal again. Fuck.
Xanxus is still glaring at him. Squalo passes a dry tongue over drier lips and manages to croak out, “Hey, Boss.”
“You’re a fucking moron,” Xanxus tells him.
Grinning makes Squalo’s lips crack, but it’s easy not to care about that when there’s morphine. “Love you too, Boss,” he says, and drifts back to sleep while Xanxus is still sputtering.
Hibari/Yamamoto, domesticity
Six months in, Takeshi gives up and calls it. “You’ve suborned my dog,” he tells Kyouya.
Kyouya, who is stretched out on the grass, ignores him utterly (unless Takeshi counts the slight flicker of Kyouya’s eyelashes when he cracks his eyes to look up at him; Takeshi doesn’t).
“You are a traitor,” Takeshi tells Brisket.
Brisket raises her head from where she is resting it on Kyouya’s stomach and utters a contented little whuffling sound. Then she drops her head and closes her eyes again, unashamed of her wanton infidelity.
“Betrayed on every side,” Takeshi says mournfully. “What a terrible world we live in.”
The sound of Kyouya’s snort is barely audible.
Well, Takeshi decides, if you can’t beat them you might as well join them. He strips his gardening gloves off and drops himself to the grass next to them, stretching out and sighing. It’s a good day to nap in the grass, and he closes his eyes against the brightness of the sun overhead.
After a moment, Kyouya settles his hand against Takeshi’s head and begins to rub his fingers through Takeshi’s hair.
…maybe Takeshi can’t blame Brisket for being unfaithful.
Hibari/Yamamoto, mermaids
On the land, they tell of voices sacrificed and footsteps like walking on razor edges, bodies dissolving into sea foam and the struggle to gain an immortal soul. The sea folk tell different stories, ones filled with things as incomprehensible to human understanding as the things sometimes dredged up from the deep, just as questions of immortality baffle those who live beneath the waves, for sea folk are an immensely practical people.
And yet.
There is a tale that the sea folk tell sometimes, a tale of their fiercest prince and the human boy who saw him and loved him enough to leave the prince as he was. The sea folk dance the story slowly, twisting their bodies through the waves to describe the wearing away of the years like waves on a shore, the small house on the strand and the boy who grew to manhood there, watching the sea prince. The story dance begins in large loops that describe how he watched from a distance at first, but the loops become smaller as they describe how his presence roused the prince's curiosity so that he swam closer, and finally twine tight and intimate to show how they learn to talk to one another, the prince in a tidal pool and the boy-turned-man perched on a rock nearby.
It is true that both stories end in death—the mermaid princess surrenders her life, the human does not live even a quarter as long as the sea prince might expect to. But they both end in transformation as well, sea foam to daughter of the air, immortal soul to scales and gills. (The magic of the sea folk is strange and subtle and above all, sympathetic.)
Now tell me, child. Which version of the tale do you prefer?
Hibari/Yamamoto, double genderswap
Yamamoto can see the future sometimes. Not like the future future, or like Uni and the Giglio Nero said they could see the future, but she can see how things could play out, depending. She looks at herself and the sword in her hands, the knobs of her wrists and the callouses on her palms, and she sees herself standing at Tsuna’s shoulder down through the years, and yeah. That’s good. Gokudera will stand at Tsuna’s right hand, counterweight and counterpart, and together they’ll back Tsuna up while he changes the world.
Sometimes she catches Gokudera looking at her, mostly when he thinks she’s not paying attention. He looks at her like she’s a puzzle, something that he doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to figure out. He doesn’t like what he doesn’t understand, and he obsesses over it: Gokudera in a nutshell. Yamamoto suspects she keeps Gokudera up nights, thinking about her for one reason or another.
She can see how that might go, too: irritation, frustration, contemplation, fornication. Dislike and like, hate and love, they flip from one to the other in the blink of the eye. There’s a future there, her and Gokudera, right hand and left—storybook romance, right? If she wants it that way.
Could go with another storybook romance, maybe. There’s Tsuna and there’s Hibari, picture-perfect in her school uniform even when she’s beating someone’s face in. Yamamoto doesn’t know how she does it, really: she’s never learned the particular piece of girl magic that lets Hibari stroll through the world with each button in place and her nails and hair perfect as the pink bow of her mouth. Maybe Hibari’s neat perfection is just another of nature’s warning signs: this beauty is lethal.
They’d make a formidable pair, Tsuna and Hibari. Sky and Cloud, her viciousness to back up his gentle ruthlessness. Yamamoto can see it in her mind’s eye, the swathe they could cut through the world together, Tsuna and Hibari, her and Gokudera, a pair of pairs to build a house on, the sensible thing to do.
But then, she’s never been much good at sensible.
Yamamoto’s hands fit the curve of Hibari’s hips just so, and this is one of the craziest things she’s ever done, one that is maybe going to get her punched or bitten to death or worse. Hibari’s mouth is soft, softer than Yamamoto’s, probably because she doesn’t have the same habit of chewing on her lips till they dry out. And Hibari’s eyes are wide and surprised, fringed with thick lashes that do not flutter as Yamamoto kisses her. Why should they? This isn’t a storybook, and she wouldn’t want it to be anyway.
Hibari huffs a breath against Yamamoto’s lips and wraps an arm around her shoulders as she parts her lips, and Yamamoto can see a whole new line of possibility opening up ahead of them now. She grins and pulls Hibari in closer, ready to dive right in.
Hibari/Yamamoto, microfic meme
1. Angst
The last anyone ever sees of Hibari Kyouya, he is standing in the middle of the Cetrulli, or what remains of them—meat and blood, mostly—and he is smiling in a way that gives meaning to the word fey. Then he turns and walks away, leaving a trail of red footprints behind him. Even those dwindle away to rust-brown traces and disappear, and after that, no one can say what happened to the Vongola's Cloud after he took vengeance for its Rain.
It's funny, but not, Tsuna thinks—no one even knew that Hibari cared that much, maybe not even Yamamoto.
2. AU [Bloodverse]
There are a variety of ways to spend the daylight hours, but Takeshi has come to decide that this is the way that is best. He twines himself around Hibari, or perhaps Hibari is the one who has insinuated himself against Takeshi's skin. It is good (so good) to lean his head back and groan when Hibari's fangs pierce his throat, and better still to rake his nails down his sire's back and inhale the heady scent of Hibari's blood hanging in the air before he grooms them clean.
3. Crack
"Go away," the man behind the counter tells Takeshi.
Takeshi pulls up short at that, just a bit, because—"Your sign says you're open?" he says, uncertainly.
The guy gives him a hostile look from behind the thick plastic frames of his glasses, one that suggests he has absolutely no idea why Takeshi feels that this is a relevant point. "Go away."
"I just want a coffee," Takeshi says, maybe a little annoyed by this. "You do sell coffee, don't you?"
"Not to your kind," the guy says, flat. "Go. Away."
Takeshi looks down at himself, trying to figure out what's so objectionable about his kind. Everything—suit, tie, briefcase—seems to be in order, so, bewildered and annoyed, he tries one last time. "Please?" he says, since other people being rude is no call to descend to their level. "I was told this was the best place in town to get coffee."
"It is," the guy tells him. "Now go away."
Takeshi does, baffled by this peculiar behavior, and makes do with a crappy latte from Starbucks. But, he thinks later, this is stupid—he's not going to give up that easily, is he? Of course not—he's built a reputation on never giving up, an entire career in fact.
So he detours into the Skylark Cafe again the next morning, and the one after that, and the one after that, too, and keeps it up out of the same dogged persistence that has made him the best trial lawyer in the city, and eventually—yes, he decides, Kyouya does make pretty damn good coffee.
But maybe the fact that he's naked in Takeshi's kitchen making it has something to do with that assessment.
4. Crossover [Gundam Wing]
Takeshi doesn't know whose bright idea it was to let Hibari Kyouya get his hands on a Gundam, but when he figures it out, he is going to have stern words with them. Very stern words.
Until then, he does the best he can to keep up (and tries to pretend that he doesn't enjoy wreaking mayhem on the Ozzies as much as he does).
5. First time
The first time, Takeshi's got a black eye coming in and a loose tooth; Hibari's got bruises blooming across his ribs and a split lip. Every time their mouths collide it tastes like blood, and Takeshi honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
6. Fluff
Kyouya prefers quiet and solitude, a quiet garden and a veranda from which to sit and watch the moonlight make stark patterns of silver and black with the landscape. And yet. Despite this preference, he does not object to Takeshi's presence next to him, stretched out against smooth boards and not entirely still (Takeshi is never entirely still unless there is a sword in his hands).
How strange, Kyouya thinks, and takes another sip of his sake.
7. Humor [context]
When he finally gets done laughing, he goes and finds Hibari. "You know that's not actually what that phrase means, right?" he asks, because Takeshi doesn't actually know how to leave well enough alone.
"If he didn't want me to bite him, he should not have told me to do it," Hibari says, perfectly calm, and really, Takeshi can't exactly argue with that.
8. Hurt/Comfort
Kyouya doesn't say anything at all—not one word—for which Takeshi is eternally, devoutly grateful, because really, what is there that anyone can say? At least with Kyouya, he doesn't have to pretend to be grateful for another iteration of I'm so sorry for your loss instead of screaming what he really wants to say, which is My father is dead, you assholes, I don't care how sorry you are.
Instead Kyouya lets him sit in silence, drinks tea with him in silence, spars with him in silence, and, late at night, sets his hand on Takeshi's nape and says nothing at all when Takeshi finally permits himself to cry.
9. Smut
Takeshi knows he's not supposed to—at the very start, Kyouya pressed his hands down and told him not to move—but he can't help it, not when Kyouya is moving over him, knees spread wide across Takeshi's hips as he rocks himself up and down. Takeshi reaches for him anyway, slides his fingers up the insides of Kyouya's slim thighs, and it's worth whatever retribution this will earn him, entirely worth it, for the sound Kyouya makes when Takeshi gets his hand around his cock.
10. UST
Takeshi knows that he might actually be crazy, like really crazy and not just baseball-crazy the way Gokudera accuses him of being, but if he is, well. Being crazy isn't so bad, not yet.
He can't help it, anyway. There's something about Hibari, the fine, delicate structure of his bones and the way he smiles when he fights, that Takeshi can't get out of his head. And he's tried. Sort of. He thought about it real hard, anyway.
Well, there's only one thing to do about that, isn't there? Or so Takeshi decides, and starts putting himself in Hibari's way, and waits to see what will happen next.
Tsuna/Xanxus, microfic meme
1. Angst
“I’m sorry,” Tsuna said, and did not look away until the ice had taken Xanxus. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, letting the Zero Point fade as he lowered his hands, but there was no one there to hear him anymore.
Maybe there never had been to begin with.
2. AU [Betrothal-verse]
“Oh, you must be joking,” Tsunako says, impolitic but to the point, when she finally grasps what it is that Marco Barassi is insinuating about Xanxus.
Barassi takes it the wrong way, though that’s not news; pretty much everyone in the mafia takes Xanxus the wrong way, as far as Tsunako can tell. “I realize this must come as a great personal shock to you, my dear, but I really felt that you should know—”
“Of course I know he’s sleeping with his right hand,” Tsunako says impatiently. “Who do you think told him to do it?”
She sails off while Barassi is still opening and closing his mouth like a stunned fish, indignant. Honestly. As if she didn’t know how to manage her own husband!
3. Crack [look, I have a problem, okay?]
Tsuna made a face at Xanxus. “I don’t know why you keep doing this,” he complained.
Xanxus just blinked at him and waited, expectantly.
“Is this an attention thing?” Tsuna continued. “It’s an attention thing, isn’t it. You do this because you because you want my attention.” He fished around with the broom handle some more. “Is it because I work all day? Am I not home enough? Or—ah-hah!” He succeeded in dragging the bedraggled shark toy from where it had lodged beneath the stove, along with three bottlecaps, a quantity of dustbunnies, and one plastic ring from a milk jug. “Here you go,” he said, tossing it to Xanxus.
Xanxus immediately batted it back under the stove and meowed imperiously.
“I take it back,” Tsuna said. “It’s because you’re an asshole.” But he bent to retrieve it again anyway.
4. Crossover [KnB, and I’m not even sorry, y’all]
Tsuna gazed up—and up some more—at the team’s power forward, and felt very small and breakable indeed. This impression was only reinforced when Xanxus scowled down at him and demanded, “What’s a shrimp like you doing playing basketball?”
Tsuna tried not to eep, but it was a near thing. “Um, I don’t really know?” he tried, which was true even now—he still didn’t know why Reborn-kantoku had demanded that he sign up for basketball.
Reborn just smiled at them both, small and serene. “Wait and see,” he murmured, and eventually—they did.
5. First time
Xanxus’ hands were unsteady and the line of his mouth was not—entirely—certain, so Tsuna wrapped his arms around Xanxus’ shoulders and did not tell him that he needn’t go quite that slowly.
6. Fluff
Hours later, Xanxus continued to fume, though at least he had progressed from the shouting and breaking things stage to the quieter, less destructive brooding stage. Tsuna was too experienced to believe that this stage was any less dangerous than the one that had preceded it, and so was not terribly surprised when Xanxus said, abrupt, “I could kill them all. Give me three days, it’ll be easy.”
Tsuna continued to stroke his hair. “You’re a complete psychopath,” he said, but not unkindly. “You can’t kill the Spanish national team because they beat Italy.”
“I could if you’d let me,” Xanxus sulked, and nudged his head against Tsuna’s fingers like an overgrown housecat.
7. Humor [I feel like I’ve filled this one already somehow…]
Xanxus’ sense of humor, what there is of it, is so diametrically opposed to Tsuna’s that the day Tsuna finally, finally gets Xanxus to smile over something that does not involve death, dying, or the causes thereof, he actually wants to cry a little over the achievement.
Instead he smoothes the skirt of his maid costume down and continues to expound upon the miseries of mandatory school festivals and Kyouko-san’s evil sense of humor for as long as Xanxus has the patience to listen (as it turns out, not long, but since the maid costume seems to be a hit, Tsuna elects not to complain).
8. Hurt/Comfort
Xanxus does not go to the funeral, and Tsuna is not surprised by this. He goes, for his own sake and for Xanxus’, and comes back to find Xanxus still sitting in the same slumped sprawl that he’d been in before. The only difference is that there is much less whiskey in the bottle at Xanxus’ elbow now.
Tsuna does not say anything about this. He doesn’t say anything at all, in fact: he nudges Xanxus’ hand out of the way and sits on the arm of the chair, leaning against Xanxus’ shoulder, and holds his tongue when Xanxus eventually turns and burrows against his chest.
Xanxus never speaks of the Ninth again, after that.
9. Smut [definitely Win-verse]
Xanxus is stretched out full-length in Tsuna’s bed, taking up acres of the sheets like this, and his arms make tight-bowed lines as he grips the headboard, holding onto it precisely as instructed.
Tsuna threads his fingers through the heavy silk of Xanxus’ hair and slides his cock between Xanxus’ lips. “Take it,” he tells Xanxus, and Xanxus does.
10. UST
Tsuna catches himself watching Xanxus in meetings, he desperately hopes covertly, but he can’t stop himself. There’s something about Xanxus, the restless chained energy of the man, the breadth and height of him, the feral light of his eyes, the plush, sensual line of his mouth—Tsuna can’t make himself look away.
He is in so much trouble, Tsuna realizes, and just prays that Xanxus never realizes what a hold he has over his boss.