#28: In a fountain
Title: Step and Follow
Author: saxondogs
Prompt: #28 In a fountain
WC: 2,075
Notes: I am nervous! This is both my first public, finished KHR fic and first smutty piece ever! It's been kind of a while since I last wrote anything, plus it's in a style I've not really done before, so please feel free to offer some constructive criticism.
By the time the smoke’s cleared and Yamamoto finds himself facing the past of nine-years-and-ten-months-ago, Gokudera’s already gone, bought himself a one-way ticket to Italy. The swordsman spends two days settling in the girls and quietly staring down Bianchi until she slips him an address silently with his strychnine-laced coffee the next morning. The address is composed of words and sounds unfamiliar to him when he whispers them out loud, but Yamamoto has always had a knack of bumping into Gokudera wherever he goes, so he’s not worried as he boards the plane, then a train. Sometime in the evening, he realizes he’s slept through his stop, and he’s somewhere else entirely. The locals look at him strangely when he shows them the address, before shrugging and pointing vaguely in the direction of the city.
On the first day, Yamamoto does not find Gokudera, and falls asleep alone in the guestroom of a farmhouse a little outside of Rome.
He gets a lift back to Rome from the farmer as well as a water-bottle of homemade white wine. It’s early in the morning, only six he estimates, when the farmer calls him from his uneasy, shaky dreams and gently shoves him in the direction of a city taxi.
By the time he reaches the address listed on the paper, he’s down eleven euros and hungry, so his thoughts are on breakfast as he climbs out the backseat and rings the door bell. He waits another half hour for the door to open, except it doesn’t, and he drops Bianchi’s address on the ground in frustration. The residential area he is in is quiet and sunny, the spring air carrying hints of flowers and rot in the air. Yamamoto finally gives up, and leaves.
Down in the center of Rome, he visits the Pantheon, has some gelato, and wonders how difficult it is to find someone with silver and gray hair amongst a sea of black and brown.
On the third day, Yamamoto wakes up early. He is seeing the Vatican today.
The line is long, and the weather is crap; April in Rome is all sun one day, thunderstorms the next. As lightning and thunder crash across the sky, Yamamoto wonders if the weather reflects his target’s mood, if he’s pissing off Gokudera somehow just by being here.
He makes it through the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica in a vaguely impressed mindset and continues on near the Piazza di Spagna in late afternoon, but despite the throngs of people everywhere, there is not one Gokudera to be found.
On his way back to his hotel, Yamamoto passes the Trevi Fountain, and suddenly, Gokudera is looking at him straight in the eye. The voice in Yamamoto’s head smugly reminds him that well yes, he does have quite a knack for running into Gokudera wherever they are.
His heart skips a beat, and it’s a reaction to seeing the familiar, lean figure that Yamamoto thought he’d long ago suppressed.
“Gokudera,” he greets because the Italian still won’t let him call him by name. Yamamoto approaches, radiating ease and geniality, fooling everyone except perhaps his target, who watches him with a stoic, immovable expression. The yellow lights shine through the surface of the water behind Gokudera, makes his features dark and obscure.
Gokudera says nothing, but Yamamoto can see the flare of panic in his sharp green eyes, and so the taller man takes his elbow gently, steers him beyond the flood of tourists. The contact doesn’t make the second-in-command flinch, but he removes himself smoothly.
“Do you like it?” Gokudera asks, and Yamamoto notes wryly that Gokudera’s slipped into his officious, guest-receiving tone. “The Fontana di Trevi was designed by Nicola Salvi. It has been in use since Roman times.”
“Mmm,” Yamamoto agrees, and stares at the white marble statues, the horses’ heads in mid-toss, the water in cascading sheets, the slowly dispersing tourists flipping coins over their shoulders. He slides a narrow look to Gokudera, who is steadfastly refusing to make eye contact. “We need to talk.”
“There is nothing I want to say to you, and nothing I want to hear,” snaps the fair-haired man. “Don’t patronize me,” he growls, when Yamamoto raises his eyebrows coolly. “Go home. Let me the hell alone; I’m done. I’ve finished.”
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Yamamoto retorts casually but, it catches Gokudera’s attention. The good-natured man rarely curses, much less insults anyone. “Gokudera- Hayato-” The named one flinches. Yamamoto lifts the other’s chin firmly. “How are you doing?”
For a long, long moment, Gokudera says nothing. Yamamoto doesn’t release his grip on his face, and finally, Gokudera sighs a little, and a faint, worried furrow creases his forehead.
“Will you get me cigarettes?” he asks, distracted and cool. Yamamoto’s loathe to let him out of his sight, but shrugs and backs away, keeping the man in the corner of his sight; Gokudera has never looked so defeated before.
The shopkeeper asks a thousand questions in a staccato language that Yamamoto can’t understand. To them all, he nods, smiles genially, and finally, leaves ten euros on the counter, takes a pack, and stalks out the tabacchi.
It’s starting to rain outside, and people are long gone, hiding from the frigid wet downpour that slicks the cobbled streets and chills the skin. Gokudera is not where he left him.
Like a drowned crow, Gokudera stands black and forlorn in the middle of the Trevi.
Yamamoto is still with surprise, and the Italian stands motionless, face tilted up, palms loose and dripping at his sides.
Under the crash and rage of the storm, there is an intense silence; Yamamoto says nothing to break it, and approaches the edge of the fountain.
“Hayato,” he says, and his words fall into the water and disperse into infinite ripples. “Gokudera,” he tries again. Finally, “Consigliere.” The heavens pour down.
In a beautiful, desperate moment, Gokudera has turned and slammed his hard fist into Yamamoto’s face. The swordsman turns; catches the blow off-center and he’s survived enough fights to learn how to keep his balance, but just as suddenly, it’s two pale-white hands fisting his black jacket, jerking him up and forward.
“Don’t,” Gokudera hisses, green eyes sharp and brilliant enough to cut diamonds. “Don’t call me that!”
“That is what you are,” pushes the man in his grasp, voice gone merciless. There is no vapid smile, no kind glint in his amber eyes to soften his words. “This is duty, Hayato.”
“Shut up,” orders the other, and his shoulders are tense and taut as a harp string; he will either sing or snap. “Shut up.”
“Calm down,” Yamamoto tries to grasp his elbows, but Gokudera shoves him off, stumbling back towards the waterfalls.
“No,” he says, low and unhappy. “I can’t.”
Yamamoto kicks off his shoes and follows him into the water.
It is freezing, but only knee high, and Gokudera stares at him with the broken expression of a man faced with an eternity of darkness. The swordsman approaches him slowly but steadily, reaching out cautiously with one hand, then the other.
Finally, he’s close enough to wrap his arms around the rigid young man, and he does so. Gokudera’s hair clings to his face as Yamamoto buries a soft kiss against the silver head, fleeting and secret.
“You didn’t fail,” he whispers, close to the studded ear. “You never failed.”
“Mio Dio,” Gokudera moans, cracked and harsh, and tries to push away, but Yamamoto’s finally found him, and he’s not about to let go.
“Everything is going to be alright,” murmurs Yamamoto. “Every one is alright. Tsuna…”
“Tenth is dead,” Gokudera almost screams, but he’s muffled tight against Yamamoto’s chest, and his hands are convulsively gripping broad shoulders.
“No, he’s not,” and Yamamoto is leaning in, hands moving up to frame the thin, pinched face. “He’s back there, fighting for us. We’re fighting for us. You can’t fall apart now,” he finishes, voice sharpening. The wild green gaze slips away from him, unreflecting, refusing to listen to him.
“I can’t do this, the Tenth… I…”
“Listen to me,” Yamamoto snaps, but Gokudera is slipping, shaking, shattering into a thousand pieces with crippling self-loathing eating acid holes inside out.
Yamamoto kisses him like Gokudera’s the only thing that matters in the world. It’s not quite how he pictured his first kiss with the Italian to be like; there are no defeated enemies lying at their feet, no rented dvd in the common room television, no candles, no professions of love. He’s kissing Gokudera to hold him together, but thin, pale lips are immovable like marble beneath his, shocked and cold and numbed.
Gokudera gasps; Yamamoto takes the opportunity and delves in.
“Ya-Yamamoto,” mouths the right-hand man silently, and Yamamoto is pushing Gokudera, back through the water curtain up against and under the rough-hewn marble. Water, heavy and cold is sliding down Yamamoto’s back, mixing with rain and soaking through his jacket, sinking into the fine cotton shirt. The swordsman is too busy nipping along Gokudera’s pale collarbone to care. Hands move up, down, tugging; Yamamoto’s long fingers splay against the bare skin of Gokudera’s stomach, run along Gokudera’s waist and leave a trail of heat against the alabaster flesh.
Like Galatea to Yamamoto’s Pygmalion, Gokudera slowly comes to life. He breathes, shuddering and sharp; his jade eyes widen and he pushes back. Cold, damp air rushes between them in the wake of a vacuum.
“Takeshi,” Gokudera says, and he sounds so young and confused that Yamamoto leans in and presses his lips gently to the corner of Gokudera’s mouth.
“Come back, Hayato,” he whispers, “if not for me, then for la famiglia. We need you. Tsuna needs you there. I don’t care if you never speak to me again, but please come back.”
Their knees are digging against each other, and Gokudera probably has red, indented marks all along his back from the jutting marble. For one endless, impossible moment, the world lingers on an edge. Gokudera’s hand trembles as he almost wonderingly brings it on high to touch Yamamoto’s cheek. Yamamoto, pupils blown dark and intense, closes his eyes and leans in.
Gokudera cries out and surges against him; Yamamoto has a forearm braced against the marble stone. His other hand is down Gokudera’s pants finally, God the Italian has a fondness for complicated belts and under the soaking fabric, he’s finding delicious heat and friction and hardness. Against his chest, Gokudera’s thin piano-man fingers are skimming frenetically, flitting across broad pectorals, brushing against the sensitive underside of his nipples, tracing down the white lines of scarred tissue that cover his sides.
The marble surrounding them lovingly staves off the pounding rain, amplifies quickened breathing shuddering and whisper-thin. “Please,” Yamamoto begs hoarsely, and Gokudera obliges; his fingers untangle the belt and zipper faster than numb hands have any right to. One second later, and Yamamoto feels his heart skitter and stutter; the faint, near-imperceptible smirk on Gokudera’s face is as effective as the rough, welcome pressure that suddenly encases his hard on and fills his mind with blissful white noise.
It’s a quiet moment when Gokudera, head thrown back against the stone, breath shallow, pale eyelids fluttering, falls into oblivion. Yamamoto breathes harshly, presses open-mouthed kisses on Gokudera’s features lovingly, and dies a little inside.
Three a.m. at the Trevi Fountain, and the two men in black stumble over the sides, sopping wet and almost-but-not-quite touching. The rain has stopped and the air is clear. Yamamoto follows the Italian, shivering and exhausted and ruefully thinking about Anita Ekberg, but when Gokudera glances back briefly, face smooth and devoid of expression, Yamamoto smiles a grin that lights up his face.
“Tomorrow…” Yamamoto looks on at Gokudera’s back expectantly. The Italian clears his throat and tries again. “Tomorrow, I will arrange the plane tickets back to Narita.”
Yamamoto beams. “Excellent.” He comes up behind Gokudera and slings a companionable shoulder around him, takes it as a good sign that he isn’t shrugged off. “But before you do that, can I see the Colosseum?”
Gokudera rolls his eyes and elbows Yamamoto slightly. “Tourist,” he says derisively, but Yamamoto hears the smile in his voice and feels a bloom of warmth from inside.
I found you, and I love you, Yamamoto wants to say, but instead a huge sneeze overcomes him, and the grin it elicits from Gokudera is the best thing he’s seen all week.
____
AN-
tabacchi= the closest Italians have to 7-11s. I actually am not sure how much cigs cost, and I'm too lazy to run out and check.
Consigliere= advisor, confidante, second-in-command. Lifted it from wiki
Mio dio= my god.
Anita Ekberg= From whom I blatantly ripped the scene from. Except made it angstier. And uh. Sexed up.
*Please do not attempt the Trevi Fountain jump. You will be fined, fined, fined and it will be both funny and very financially depressing. Also, I kicked out the tourists from the scene, if you couldn't tell already. The Trevi is never alone...
Comments, crits, please!
Author: saxondogs
Prompt: #28 In a fountain
WC: 2,075
Notes: I am nervous! This is both my first public, finished KHR fic and first smutty piece ever! It's been kind of a while since I last wrote anything, plus it's in a style I've not really done before, so please feel free to offer some constructive criticism.
By the time the smoke’s cleared and Yamamoto finds himself facing the past of nine-years-and-ten-months-ago, Gokudera’s already gone, bought himself a one-way ticket to Italy. The swordsman spends two days settling in the girls and quietly staring down Bianchi until she slips him an address silently with his strychnine-laced coffee the next morning. The address is composed of words and sounds unfamiliar to him when he whispers them out loud, but Yamamoto has always had a knack of bumping into Gokudera wherever he goes, so he’s not worried as he boards the plane, then a train. Sometime in the evening, he realizes he’s slept through his stop, and he’s somewhere else entirely. The locals look at him strangely when he shows them the address, before shrugging and pointing vaguely in the direction of the city.
On the first day, Yamamoto does not find Gokudera, and falls asleep alone in the guestroom of a farmhouse a little outside of Rome.
He gets a lift back to Rome from the farmer as well as a water-bottle of homemade white wine. It’s early in the morning, only six he estimates, when the farmer calls him from his uneasy, shaky dreams and gently shoves him in the direction of a city taxi.
By the time he reaches the address listed on the paper, he’s down eleven euros and hungry, so his thoughts are on breakfast as he climbs out the backseat and rings the door bell. He waits another half hour for the door to open, except it doesn’t, and he drops Bianchi’s address on the ground in frustration. The residential area he is in is quiet and sunny, the spring air carrying hints of flowers and rot in the air. Yamamoto finally gives up, and leaves.
Down in the center of Rome, he visits the Pantheon, has some gelato, and wonders how difficult it is to find someone with silver and gray hair amongst a sea of black and brown.
On the third day, Yamamoto wakes up early. He is seeing the Vatican today.
The line is long, and the weather is crap; April in Rome is all sun one day, thunderstorms the next. As lightning and thunder crash across the sky, Yamamoto wonders if the weather reflects his target’s mood, if he’s pissing off Gokudera somehow just by being here.
He makes it through the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica in a vaguely impressed mindset and continues on near the Piazza di Spagna in late afternoon, but despite the throngs of people everywhere, there is not one Gokudera to be found.
On his way back to his hotel, Yamamoto passes the Trevi Fountain, and suddenly, Gokudera is looking at him straight in the eye. The voice in Yamamoto’s head smugly reminds him that well yes, he does have quite a knack for running into Gokudera wherever they are.
His heart skips a beat, and it’s a reaction to seeing the familiar, lean figure that Yamamoto thought he’d long ago suppressed.
“Gokudera,” he greets because the Italian still won’t let him call him by name. Yamamoto approaches, radiating ease and geniality, fooling everyone except perhaps his target, who watches him with a stoic, immovable expression. The yellow lights shine through the surface of the water behind Gokudera, makes his features dark and obscure.
Gokudera says nothing, but Yamamoto can see the flare of panic in his sharp green eyes, and so the taller man takes his elbow gently, steers him beyond the flood of tourists. The contact doesn’t make the second-in-command flinch, but he removes himself smoothly.
“Do you like it?” Gokudera asks, and Yamamoto notes wryly that Gokudera’s slipped into his officious, guest-receiving tone. “The Fontana di Trevi was designed by Nicola Salvi. It has been in use since Roman times.”
“Mmm,” Yamamoto agrees, and stares at the white marble statues, the horses’ heads in mid-toss, the water in cascading sheets, the slowly dispersing tourists flipping coins over their shoulders. He slides a narrow look to Gokudera, who is steadfastly refusing to make eye contact. “We need to talk.”
“There is nothing I want to say to you, and nothing I want to hear,” snaps the fair-haired man. “Don’t patronize me,” he growls, when Yamamoto raises his eyebrows coolly. “Go home. Let me the hell alone; I’m done. I’ve finished.”
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Yamamoto retorts casually but, it catches Gokudera’s attention. The good-natured man rarely curses, much less insults anyone. “Gokudera- Hayato-” The named one flinches. Yamamoto lifts the other’s chin firmly. “How are you doing?”
For a long, long moment, Gokudera says nothing. Yamamoto doesn’t release his grip on his face, and finally, Gokudera sighs a little, and a faint, worried furrow creases his forehead.
“Will you get me cigarettes?” he asks, distracted and cool. Yamamoto’s loathe to let him out of his sight, but shrugs and backs away, keeping the man in the corner of his sight; Gokudera has never looked so defeated before.
The shopkeeper asks a thousand questions in a staccato language that Yamamoto can’t understand. To them all, he nods, smiles genially, and finally, leaves ten euros on the counter, takes a pack, and stalks out the tabacchi.
It’s starting to rain outside, and people are long gone, hiding from the frigid wet downpour that slicks the cobbled streets and chills the skin. Gokudera is not where he left him.
Like a drowned crow, Gokudera stands black and forlorn in the middle of the Trevi.
Yamamoto is still with surprise, and the Italian stands motionless, face tilted up, palms loose and dripping at his sides.
Under the crash and rage of the storm, there is an intense silence; Yamamoto says nothing to break it, and approaches the edge of the fountain.
“Hayato,” he says, and his words fall into the water and disperse into infinite ripples. “Gokudera,” he tries again. Finally, “Consigliere.” The heavens pour down.
In a beautiful, desperate moment, Gokudera has turned and slammed his hard fist into Yamamoto’s face. The swordsman turns; catches the blow off-center and he’s survived enough fights to learn how to keep his balance, but just as suddenly, it’s two pale-white hands fisting his black jacket, jerking him up and forward.
“Don’t,” Gokudera hisses, green eyes sharp and brilliant enough to cut diamonds. “Don’t call me that!”
“That is what you are,” pushes the man in his grasp, voice gone merciless. There is no vapid smile, no kind glint in his amber eyes to soften his words. “This is duty, Hayato.”
“Shut up,” orders the other, and his shoulders are tense and taut as a harp string; he will either sing or snap. “Shut up.”
“Calm down,” Yamamoto tries to grasp his elbows, but Gokudera shoves him off, stumbling back towards the waterfalls.
“No,” he says, low and unhappy. “I can’t.”
Yamamoto kicks off his shoes and follows him into the water.
It is freezing, but only knee high, and Gokudera stares at him with the broken expression of a man faced with an eternity of darkness. The swordsman approaches him slowly but steadily, reaching out cautiously with one hand, then the other.
Finally, he’s close enough to wrap his arms around the rigid young man, and he does so. Gokudera’s hair clings to his face as Yamamoto buries a soft kiss against the silver head, fleeting and secret.
“You didn’t fail,” he whispers, close to the studded ear. “You never failed.”
“Mio Dio,” Gokudera moans, cracked and harsh, and tries to push away, but Yamamoto’s finally found him, and he’s not about to let go.
“Everything is going to be alright,” murmurs Yamamoto. “Every one is alright. Tsuna…”
“Tenth is dead,” Gokudera almost screams, but he’s muffled tight against Yamamoto’s chest, and his hands are convulsively gripping broad shoulders.
“No, he’s not,” and Yamamoto is leaning in, hands moving up to frame the thin, pinched face. “He’s back there, fighting for us. We’re fighting for us. You can’t fall apart now,” he finishes, voice sharpening. The wild green gaze slips away from him, unreflecting, refusing to listen to him.
“I can’t do this, the Tenth… I…”
“Listen to me,” Yamamoto snaps, but Gokudera is slipping, shaking, shattering into a thousand pieces with crippling self-loathing eating acid holes inside out.
Yamamoto kisses him like Gokudera’s the only thing that matters in the world. It’s not quite how he pictured his first kiss with the Italian to be like; there are no defeated enemies lying at their feet, no rented dvd in the common room television, no candles, no professions of love. He’s kissing Gokudera to hold him together, but thin, pale lips are immovable like marble beneath his, shocked and cold and numbed.
Gokudera gasps; Yamamoto takes the opportunity and delves in.
“Ya-Yamamoto,” mouths the right-hand man silently, and Yamamoto is pushing Gokudera, back through the water curtain up against and under the rough-hewn marble. Water, heavy and cold is sliding down Yamamoto’s back, mixing with rain and soaking through his jacket, sinking into the fine cotton shirt. The swordsman is too busy nipping along Gokudera’s pale collarbone to care. Hands move up, down, tugging; Yamamoto’s long fingers splay against the bare skin of Gokudera’s stomach, run along Gokudera’s waist and leave a trail of heat against the alabaster flesh.
Like Galatea to Yamamoto’s Pygmalion, Gokudera slowly comes to life. He breathes, shuddering and sharp; his jade eyes widen and he pushes back. Cold, damp air rushes between them in the wake of a vacuum.
“Takeshi,” Gokudera says, and he sounds so young and confused that Yamamoto leans in and presses his lips gently to the corner of Gokudera’s mouth.
“Come back, Hayato,” he whispers, “if not for me, then for la famiglia. We need you. Tsuna needs you there. I don’t care if you never speak to me again, but please come back.”
Their knees are digging against each other, and Gokudera probably has red, indented marks all along his back from the jutting marble. For one endless, impossible moment, the world lingers on an edge. Gokudera’s hand trembles as he almost wonderingly brings it on high to touch Yamamoto’s cheek. Yamamoto, pupils blown dark and intense, closes his eyes and leans in.
Gokudera cries out and surges against him; Yamamoto has a forearm braced against the marble stone. His other hand is down Gokudera’s pants finally, God the Italian has a fondness for complicated belts and under the soaking fabric, he’s finding delicious heat and friction and hardness. Against his chest, Gokudera’s thin piano-man fingers are skimming frenetically, flitting across broad pectorals, brushing against the sensitive underside of his nipples, tracing down the white lines of scarred tissue that cover his sides.
The marble surrounding them lovingly staves off the pounding rain, amplifies quickened breathing shuddering and whisper-thin. “Please,” Yamamoto begs hoarsely, and Gokudera obliges; his fingers untangle the belt and zipper faster than numb hands have any right to. One second later, and Yamamoto feels his heart skitter and stutter; the faint, near-imperceptible smirk on Gokudera’s face is as effective as the rough, welcome pressure that suddenly encases his hard on and fills his mind with blissful white noise.
It’s a quiet moment when Gokudera, head thrown back against the stone, breath shallow, pale eyelids fluttering, falls into oblivion. Yamamoto breathes harshly, presses open-mouthed kisses on Gokudera’s features lovingly, and dies a little inside.
Three a.m. at the Trevi Fountain, and the two men in black stumble over the sides, sopping wet and almost-but-not-quite touching. The rain has stopped and the air is clear. Yamamoto follows the Italian, shivering and exhausted and ruefully thinking about Anita Ekberg, but when Gokudera glances back briefly, face smooth and devoid of expression, Yamamoto smiles a grin that lights up his face.
“Tomorrow…” Yamamoto looks on at Gokudera’s back expectantly. The Italian clears his throat and tries again. “Tomorrow, I will arrange the plane tickets back to Narita.”
Yamamoto beams. “Excellent.” He comes up behind Gokudera and slings a companionable shoulder around him, takes it as a good sign that he isn’t shrugged off. “But before you do that, can I see the Colosseum?”
Gokudera rolls his eyes and elbows Yamamoto slightly. “Tourist,” he says derisively, but Yamamoto hears the smile in his voice and feels a bloom of warmth from inside.
I found you, and I love you, Yamamoto wants to say, but instead a huge sneeze overcomes him, and the grin it elicits from Gokudera is the best thing he’s seen all week.
____
AN-
tabacchi= the closest Italians have to 7-11s. I actually am not sure how much cigs cost, and I'm too lazy to run out and check.
Consigliere= advisor, confidante, second-in-command. Lifted it from wiki
Mio dio= my god.
Anita Ekberg= From whom I blatantly ripped the scene from. Except made it angstier. And uh. Sexed up.
*Please do not attempt the Trevi Fountain jump. You will be fined, fined, fined and it will be both funny and very financially depressing. Also, I kicked out the tourists from the scene, if you couldn't tell already. The Trevi is never alone...
Comments, crits, please!