alterspring

alterspring @ 2008-05-04T16:36:00

2008-05-04T20:36:53Z

Title: The Etiquette of Sympathy
Characters/Pairing: Byakuran/Gokudera, with mentions of Tsuna, Glo, and Yamamoto
Rating: Gokudera's Mouth, as usual.
Summery: Both men have learned the lullaby of a safety going off. Byakuran sings it to Gokudera, right this second, in the low, lusty alto of a .45 caliber.
Notes: For infringe. *v*

Gokudera’s throat is raw, but the air continues to slip-slip-slip against it, sandpaper strokes, a heartbeat of hardhearted gasps. He’s breathing, fuck, he’s breathing, and here comes the chemical sting—

The O2 swaggers in through clenched teeth, flavoured physics that savors of grit and smoke and His saccharine sarcasms, little cracks here and there between the bone, a mute grin that’s breathing, keep breathing, you fucking--

Zip-clang-clip, and he’s being robbed. That’s the sound of his holster snapping sideways, don’t snap, don’t snap, fuck, just stay calm god damnit--, leather and sticky fingers, and both men have learned the lullaby of a safety going off. Byakuran sings it to Gokudera, right this second, in the low, lusty alto of a .45 caliber. Click.

It’s Not Safe Anymore.
Bulletin: No Shit.

His eyes widen exponentially, in fractions, by half then by three fourths, and his unfocused gaze is pure wit and side-street comedy against the expressive open-mouthed lopsided shock of his mouth, because hell, hell, that’s your own damn gun, MOVE--

“What a graceless face you’re making. Like those little Koi fish that Glo-kun keeps.”

When Byakuran chuckles, it’s bells and pollution, bitter-fucking-tea that someone tipped too many sugar cubes into, one lump, or five-hundred? The world loses its axis when Byakuran lets out the war cry of mirth, or maybe it’s been crooked since forever-and-tomorrow, or maybe Gokudera is just growing cynical, growing down, fifteen-years-old again with his cheek to the mud and his own gun to his head and his eyes going nowhere, failure looming and laughing like an old friend. Welcome Back, Hayato, We Missed You, Pretty.

Byrakuran twists things. He’s inside of Hayato, twisting every organ into slow, modern art.

“I’ve always thought guns were such a crude way of doing things, little fish~” The nickname has its frills and Hayato almost groans at how easy it works him over, works him up, You god damn—How dare you--

He continues, while Gokudera grapples for words, in any language, any lexicon that might be deliverance from bitter silences raw with his angled breathing, opened mouthed and out of water, fuckfuckfuck.

“But the Vongola have been a crude breed for a while, don’t you agree? It’s all about the mixing of your stock. If you don’t propagate bloodlines correctly, then it all becomes such an unrefined, unattractive mess.” Dawdling, gracious, let’s chat, shall we? Let’s have an affable little tête-à-tête, with my knee to the small of your back, and your nose introducing itself to the earth worms, and a gun tipped between the both of us for translation, because we’re the United Nations, and this is genocide and casucal subjugation with atomic clarity, and as always, let’s call it politics.

“But then, I’m certain the Vongola Storm Guardian knows all about the misfortunes of cross-breeding.”

Hayato’s lungs are regulating, but that winds him. Puppeteer, and his strings are the easiest to pick at in the clear, dark red threads that have been snipped from their counterpart, their orbital point, TsunaTsunaTenthGodI’mSoSorr-, and stand out stark and twirling, howling their lonely concerto notes. Now it’s time for cute nicknames and agreeable smiles and sociable kicks below the belt. Mutts-for-hire bury their bosses ten years later, didn’t you know, Hayato-chan~? Tsk, tsk, I’m sure you did your best.

“Fuck You.” Byakuran, Gokudera decides; sucks at consolation prizes.

“I’m wounded.” Gokudera, Byakuran decides; has always been rather simple.

“But no need to worry, little fish. I’m nearly done, and then I’ll toss you back.”

Gokudera winces. Wishes he’d pull the trigger, in an optimally self-interested flash, because hell—mercy from a Millefiore gun hand is sleepless nights and threadbare resolutions tucked around dynamite and cigarettes, hands that shake too-fucking-much to play the piano with any sort of clarity. There’s ownership in owing, and Hayato isn’t up for auction, Tenth, Tenth, Decimo in blue-boxers and clambouring against gravity to untuck fuses, You’re Safe, Gokudera, Safe, you can follow me, follow him, follow someone like that, who shows clemency to failure, (Gokudera malfunctions less and less as he grows, but it’s still regulatory, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly…), Hayato clamps down and hunts down and fucks-it-right-up, and the Tenth wheedles his way inside, silk worm who builds a tower, a foundation, Gokudera’s bible, all because of a thimbleful of mercy—

Byakuran would do it, too. Perpetual jester with one-thousand faces, willing to mock every corner of nostalgia, haunt every old joint where they used to keep laughing until they fell asleep together. He’s the jester, and the Emporer, and he’s winning—how did they let it happen, Vongola, the Hanged Men?

I won’t kill you, pet. Even if you followed me with assassination on your mind, I’ll show ‘mercy’. Call it a tribute; to the fallen Decimo.

Just Like Your Vongola Did. –Would you swear yourself to me, too, Hayato-chan, for something so silly?

The Answer Was: No. But--

This is murder regurgitation, and home isn’t anywhere when you’re considered leftovers, salted and preserved and tucked away, half-bitten chewed through but still waiting, this unending waiting— If he won’t pull the trigger, won’t pay his respects by at least pretending he’s a threat, than why the hell is Gokudera staying down?

Ah, right.

Because promises don’t mean jack shit when the guy on top has flights of fancy, and a steady aim.

“Che; then you better get talking, or else I’ll begin to think the Millefiore don’t have anything better to do than play florists.”

“How witty. –Are you wondering why I bothered to pay my respects?”

“…Don’t think I’ll ever confuse what you’re playing at with ‘respect’.”

Hayato had been the first to notice; nuzzled in over Tsuna’s grave, white on white on white on yellow?

Jonquils, with their little sunny centers, tucked into a coverlet of lilies.

He'd began running. Pounded in his head, in his chest, on his feet, through his throat, until—

He’d found the perpetrator.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect to be followed. You’re tracking skills are top-notch, little fish. –Or… perhaps you simply stick around that grave a bit too often? Obsessively, one might call it. To notice such a minute detail.”

How Byakuran had found the grave site was hardly a mystery (dead, the Vongola weren't nearly such mobile insects, no tunnels and burrows and hide-aways to fly off to on bent gossamer wings); how Gokudera (a stray bullet on legs whipping its way through the forest on the fuel of agitation) had managed to find Byakuran was even less of one.

He’d meant to be found, of course. Of course.

“If you ever go near him again—“

“I won’t, little fish. Just passing on my sympathies.”

“Fuck.”

“Always so colourful with your words, Hayato.”

“Fu—“

“The little fish swims in circles, even out loud. Perhaps I should have delivered the flowers to you directly, but I’d assume you’d find them there. I was right, wasn’t I?”

And it’s Gokudera’s turn, because it’s always Gokudera’s turn, to be shocked all over again, from the roots up, for me, they were for--?

Byakuran’s weight subsides back into gravity, and the face of a gun nuzzled into his hair retreats, and the leg butting weight to the frailty of his spine lifts.

“What a nice thank-you note this has been, though. I’ve very much enjoyed our chat.”

Chat; a two-minute back-and-forth of C.A.I. and mare ring before Gokudera was grounded, scuffling, choking, succumbing gallingly, maelstrom of curses and excited energy, like having an electrical current at his fingertips, and lightening goes straight into the ground.

He doesn’t push himself up, but through the sympathies and the mercies and the conquest, he finds the will to glower, smoldering like the butt of a cigarette, flaking away hot and unfiltered.

And Byakuran, bells and bells and bells again, at the high noon of his voice, chuckles, and kneels while he does not bend, and tucks the gun under Gokudera’s hand, another little treat, another wee thoughtful present, the Tooth Fairy leaving a nickel, here, little fish, little pet~, have your weapon back, if it makes you feel more of a man and less of an endangered species.

“We’ll speak again soon, I’m sure, Hayato-chan.” Of them all, Gokudera carries the most inflammatory reactions in his heart, wavers between stark, hard maturity and boyhood vices of temper tantrums and manias, and Byakuran’s interest in him is purely blaise, of the moment, culturing himself on the ins-and-outs of Gokudera Hayato before the primary source material is buried beside it’s Tenth. When that day comes, Byakuran supposes he’ll leave flowers for Yamamoto Takeshi, and begin again—he’s been meaning to pick up that old case, leftover notes, ever since they gutted his father.

Oh, well. In time. He was nothing, if not a patient man.

Gokudera spits at him.

And Byakuran lifts his hand, devoid of its pretty storm ring, and kisses the plain ring, on his pointer finger. A loaded gesture, and so he did pull the trigger, after all.

In the Mafia, to kiss the ring of the Boss is to declare loyalty.

Isn’t it a sad burden, when the only things left to press your lips to are your own jewelry? How sad, how sad, Hayato. The best Soap Opera he's ever seen, it wins his heart, serial, sinks in; he'd like doses of such gritted, unfriendly kisses every week.

Such a Sad Little Boy, now. How cute.

“Until then, little fish.”

Hayato has been burned.

And he pulls the trigger himself, aiming uselessly for Byakuran’s back.

And realizes there aren’t any bullets in the damn gun.

What a Fucking Joke.

Neneno's Fics;

2008-04-24T21:01:05Z

Title: The Physical Matter of Liking Someone
Characters/Pairing: 8059, brief mention of Tsuna
Rating: Gokudera's Mouth
Summery: Takeshi, jerk who knew too much and nothing at all, anticipated the pitch.; Venice. 7YL.
Notes: For neneno. &hearts

It’s the quirks that he latches onto. It’s the quirks he can feel relaxed calling home, revisits in times of drunken distress, band-aids and antiseptic, a varnish that keeps his smile fresh. He captures the dandelion dust of fine details (has always had a flare for catching the most tangled pitches), but has no mind for fancy, sloping words that play turns of phrase built to charm— he’d prefer to read in between the lines, collect footnotes on the rest. Classics are simply old, and old men are the real treat; a thousand untold tales in each sinew of a crow’s foot, wrinkled eyes and smoother vision.

He misses the big picture, the main event, the grand finale, all that flare, all that noise, all of those shades of red; haha, no thanks. It’s deliberate, his oblivious stupor, shock all of the critics into long-standing silences, mouth agape with the brittle taste of high-grade caviar on their aghast tongues as he slips past a Picasso with its melted faces (brimstone and more dynamite; he’s seen enough of that in his time, hemorrhaging smiles aren’t anything expressive anymore),finds a simple canvass with a house painted in acrylics, and his grin tastes like corner-store tea leaves and last night’s leftovers.

Simple.

It’s the quirk to things, the slant to them, that has always grabbed something in Yamamoto, caught him up. It’s in the manner in which the fatty tuna only sticks to his father’s carving knife when there’s something troubling on his mind, playing into his fingers like a hint that spoke too loudly. It was in the third sink down in the boy’s bathroom in Namimori middle school, where the water only ran hot in the summer, and not at all in the winter. It was in the way Tsuna looked faint and wasted every time Yamamoto joked that they ought to play catch, a tick that twitched the sides of his lips and made his fingers wiggle, ‘No, no, I’ll pass, really’. It was in everything he’d ever become endeared to.

Gokudera had his quirks, too. A myriad of them, so that sometimes, he seemed like a thousand loose threads that had been clipped from the final quilts of other personalities, stragglers, tossed together like a Mad Lib, twisted rather than stitched, begging to hold together, and sometimes fraying, just a little. A quirk, right there; Gokudera played with dynamite, fireworks, fuses, and he was just as much a thin thing with a fuse attached, filled up with smoke, threatening to detonate.

So, Yamamoto liked him, too.

Yamamoto liked a lot of things, really. The list of what he didn’t care for would be a short one; he wasn’t so fond of, ah… milk candies. They didn’t taste like the real thing, and if you breathed in too quickly, all of that powder got stuck in your throat, made you cough—

“-moto? Yamamoto. If you could concentrate for just one second here, I’d really appreciate that. I know your attention span is short, but try.” Gokudera’s voice is laced in sarcasm, as showy as going to a business-casual luncheon dressed as Marie Antoinette. Funny to think about, but his voice is usually like that French Queen; nose turned up, pinched foreign, and just a little bit, always a little bit, vulnerable. ‘Pay attention to me.’

Haha. Gokudera would have hit him, if thoughts were just as obvious as tone.

“Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“Oh, really? Well, I know it’s a landmark occasion when that happens, so would you care to share with the class what you were thinking about?”

Maybe, Gokudera bids; maybe it would have to do with the mission at hand. Maybe it would be useful, even. Maybe Yamamoto would surprise him, as he sometimes did, sneaky little monger with his simplicity, advertised as predictable and packaged too tight to ever get to the damn product.

Whatever. It better be good.

“Quirks.”

--Gokudera turns seven shades of surprised, all right.

“Quarks? We’re in the middle of a fucking intervention, and you’re thinking about the physical matter of particles? Yamamoto, I-“

Speechless. There’s a quiet that passes between them, and it’s as fond it is familiar, old shoes that still fit, space heaters and sukiyaki broth in winter, Gokudera’s awry lines of expression, caught on that edge between impressed and implosion while Takeshi digests information with dawdling, rhythmic blinks, bemused and enamored and gathering up every harsh word to call his best friend. Stalemate, showdown, stand still, stand still, but there’s motion in the silence (ticking, ticking), because Gokudera can’t ever not-move, not-run, not jetset his way in on impulse; and Takeshi can’t turn down a race. Their hush simpers into confusion, whispers its way into the lead, and is very much alive at their flanks.

Gokudera is talking physics, and Yamamoto was thinking more along the lines of dimples.

“Ah… no. ‘Quirks’, Gokudera. Quirks.” He uses Japanese now, fluid and choppy, nasal lexis that resonates against his throat, fiddles its way onto the air, filters in through Gokudera’s ears, which go red right along with his cheeks.

He’s decided on his colour; favourite-fashion, pink, fleshy, raw, aggravated. Always handsome on the troughs of his temper tantrums, the way he heats up, and the fire power is up to taste.

Still startled, he puts the setting on low burn.

“Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

A pause, and something is missing, both faces threaten to contort with it—

“Moron.” Gokudera adds. And everything is right again.

Takeshi’s own little quirk might be appealing, in some circles, Gokudera supposes; if he could speak any actual god damn English.

Thank You was always ‘sank kyuu’, and Good Job was ‘gud jyobu’, and to have a Quirk was to be back in college, multiple choice and graphite and time ticking down; ‘kuwaruku’, Quark.

“Haha—but I thought that was what I said, Gokudera?”

“It wasn’t.”

“It was English. Kuwa-”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“I thought you could speak English?”

“I can. You, on the other hand, can’t. Stop thinking—it obviously isn’t working for you.”

“Hahaha. Did I really screw it up that badly? Let me try again. --How do you say it?”

“Shut the hell up already.”

“Right, right.”

Covert. They’re supposed to be covert, it’s a violent word, it’s shifty, it’s two renegades in a back alley, Film Noir, you can almost hear the black-and-white keys tapering into a monologue, smoke, smoke, it makes a gradient as it curls, here comes that trumpet now, lines of sex-and-scandal, backhanded dealings, danger like a raging scarlet, and this is them. They’re Covert Mafia Footmen, crouching, squinting, waiting idle and ready to snap, owning the Venetian streets because they’re so-slick, pointed shoes and guns that have a bullet each; it’s all they’ll need, it’s all they’ll need. One-shot boys, leave the rest to providence and flashy reflexes. Hitmen, that look a whole lot more like college dropouts.

That’s what should be going on here, Gokudera’s pretty sure, as he wets the filter with the tip of his tongue, and forgets to notice it’s spongy anymore. However, his is a lost cause time and time again, broken record of his god damn life as the Left-Hand Man’s unwitting partner…

They are never. Ever. Fucking Covert.

Yamamoto Takeshi does not have a Covert bone in his body.

If he did, it spoke in English, and he couldn’t translate.

It pissed Gokudera off; in other words, he didn’t mind it much.

“…Why were you thinking about Quirks?”

“Ah, Venice.”

Ah~ Venice. It’s as if he sighed out an answer to a completely opposite question, and Takeshi’s disconnect makes Gokudera’s eyebrow beg to twitch.

“Venice?” But it doesn’t—his eyebrow is admonished, has its orders. At Ease. He’s surprisingly calm, leaning just-so, against a wall, against the odds, against this conversation, but carrying it on anyway, wiry shoulders that slung on burdens like time-bombs, and kept them cool. Cool, cool, not always, but getting there, altering him in ways that the horoscopes hadn’t predicted, Gokudera Hayato, twenty-two and cooling off, wising up even as he became less of a wise-ass, more of an imp.

Takeshi would never get over it; how bizarre adulthood looked on someone who wasn’t supposed to grow up, on someone who knew too much for any identifiable childhood. Exposure, radiation poisoning, but in a game where Gokudera had drawn a line between survivors and victims, he’d finally crossed over; slap on some gauze, and learn to stay cool.

Not Covert, but certainly cool. Takeshi with his hand hooked into a suit pocket, pinstripes and cufflinks, glitter rounds in a capsule devoid of lamplight; they’re cool as all hell.

…Maa, maa.

“Venice, yeah. It has quirks too. I mean; haha, this little street we’re standing on. Isn’t it kind of odd? It’s barely big enough to fit us. I wonder why it was built like this?”

“If it’s big enough to fit both of us, why does it matter?”

“Mn, I guess; but—“

“But nothing.” Another pause. It’s pregnant, and expecting. “…Venice wasn’t built up all at once. A lot of rich old geezers a long time ago started vying for space in the main square, and not like there’s a lot of space to begin with when your only option for expansion is sinking. They just built anywhere, no one thought it out. –So the streets are all messed up. If you have to give it a point, or some shit, then I guess you could say it’s useful as back roads for scooters.”

“It’s quirky. I like it.”

“Newsflash: What the hell DON’T you like?”

“Milk Candies.”

Gokudera blinks, like it’s a full gesture. He slides his gaze back and back, and brows are now at attention, and his teeth are visible in their lilt between his lips and fastened against the safe-end of his cigarette. He finds the too-tall outline of Yamamoto’s face, hovering like a crappy Japanese imitation of the Bridge of Sighs, right there, close enough to question—

And instead, Yamamoto quirks a grin, and Gokudera is infected; gauze doesn’t keep out everything.

He laughs. Snorts, more like, and it curls into a laugh, because this fucker is as ridiculous as usual, has a dumb answer for everything and it always makes too much sense. Yamamoto laughs too, because laughing is a natural occurrence, it’s as easy as opening his voice box (lost the key and can’t weld it shut, might as well keep it in shape, practice-practice it out), and Gokudera isn’t one for sharing what he can keep to himself. Yamamoto takes advantage, in fact; and he always has the upper-hand, well kept secret that maybe Gokudera catches onto, turns away from, ignores, because it would incite a revolt, you bastard-you bastard, how is it that you’re always the god damn winner when I’ve always been saying it’s not a fucking Game?

Takeshi drapes himself against Gokudera; arms over shoulders, and it’s as
friendly as Monday mornings staring into coffee cups and making the brave-march to class, drumdrumdrum. Together, together, and they fit, because Gokudera was over-the-top flashy, wore too many knuckle rings and had gotten his ears pierced far too many times to be covert, either. Match set, game.

Somewhere along the line, he had stopped minding, realized that it was an inevitable tick Yamamoto had, to infuriate in the most genteel of ways, perfect fucking gentleman with personal space issues they didn’t make solitary-confinement therapy for.

Gokudera finds his frown again, but it’s mild, and it’s obligatory, and he’s ruining Yamamoto’s quirk of the lips (glorified, sociable leer) by shoving a cigarette into it.

“At least don’t embarrass me.”

“Mmn? You want me to smoke this?”

“Wow—you look like a dumbass. Don’t EAT the thing. No- Just leave it there.”

Gokudera is wanton, dreamy for a splintered second; as if it would be the loveliest consolation prize in this whole little world of crappy-likable side-streets, if Takeshi knew how to smoke it. Unfortunately, he isn’t covert; places danger on the lips of a friend (not title such, shut up, shut up, you might know it, but keep it to yourself before he’s forced to bend it to a tilt, bitter and fifteen all over again), but can’t light it up.

Doesn’t matter. Yamamoto senses challenge in the air like a shark to blood; so he learned from Squalo, after all, go figure, go figure.

“Light it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Light it for me. I’ll smoke it.”

…And then they’ll both be smoking. And it’s so cool of them.

Gokudera lights it.

Unfortunately, when the time comes, it’s anything but. Two rival families, both alike in dignity; also known as trashy, loud-mouthed pride; meet on the wider streets that Yamamoto is less fond of. They’re outreach programs of the Vongola, lesser-men that have a treaty with Gokudera’s Decimo, but no such rite of amnesty among each other.

Intervention: Gokudera and Yamamoto step out in slow motion, guns at the ready, one bullet each, one cigarette each, and they’re here to have words, they’re here to stop the violence with just a little token bloodshed, they’re here, and it’s time, and—

…And when the two opposing famiglias go out for a friendly drink later, they hoot in fresh camaraderie about the tall, foreign-looking boy who earlier chocked on his own cigarette smoke, and the snippety, temperamental Sicilian who’d berated him with enough dirty words to shock a whore. The way that the one had chuckled, HAHAHA, and the other had tossed a lighter square at his forehead, SHUT UP-SHUT UP, SO UNCOOL, ASSHOLE.

In the end, the Bosses of each opposing side had been obliged to hold the Vongola back from maiming each other, a backwards intervention that forced a truce between them; keep the big wigs from duking out their opposing senses of humor. No one wanted Vongola blood on their calling card, so treaties had been made on the spot.

In the end, Gokudera and Yamamoto got the job done.

Takeshi, jerk who knew too much and nothing at all, anticipated the pitch.

It hadn’t gone as expected.

No.

It had been just a little Quirky, really.

Title: Toast over Ice Cream
Characters/Pairing: Mild, somewhat one-sided Young!Dino/Young!Squalo. Schooldays. :D
Rating: GGGGGG
Summery: “The future Sword Emperor versus the future Mob Boss. Engard.”; Graduation. Time to move out; but not before an epic paper battle.
Notes: Prompt Graduation by neneno.

Sunlight filters in through panes of glass, highlights the dust that the air is rife with. They sure never cleaned up enough, around here; had maybe once purchased a spray bottle with something that was scented vaguely antiseptic, and that had been way back just a dawdle of time ago, in Freshman year. Dino is too inexpert to play at maid-service, has two left feet for hands, and would end up breaking a pot, a window, himself with the intent to tidy up. Conversely, the only thing Squalo had ever been attentive enough to polish during their years of imprisoned companionship was his handsome collection of blades, in those nerve-wracking moments where Dino was content to fidget on his cot, quarantined;

”Uooi! If you’re going to be a klutz, sit there while I do this. I don’t need you tripping onto one of these.”

Dino is fourteen, and sports a cowardly grin, and is relatively sure he agrees with Superbi—who will only permit himself being termed ‘Squalo’, a good old fashioned friendly last-name basis between new roommates. He’s already made three trips to the nurse’s office, and it’s barely past move-in day.

Dino crosses his legs, gives a chuckle that’s trying-too-hard, and when Squalo catches his eye, he’s relatively sure that he’d misinterpreted ‘I don’t need you bleeding all over my rapier’ as ‘I don’t need you getting hurt’.

Suddenly, he feels his face grow hot with the knowledge that it’s going to be a long, long first semester…

Not long enough, perhaps, as a semester multiplied into eight, and there stood Squalo now, framed against the door, scowling in the filaments of light. His suitcase is in the hall already, obstructing traffic, and Dino is the slow-mover, still packing too many knick-knacks into too-little space. He’s a true-to-form bag lady, sentimentalist, can’t bring himself to throw out the scrap papers they’d written notes on, the cast that Squalo had eventually (grumble, grumble, guilty pen strokes—sorry for tripping you down the damn stairs, who knew you’d fall down three flights of them, IDIOT?) signed, the first bottle they’d managed to find inebriation inside of—Dino a little more quickly and retchingly than Squalo.

Squalo has always been one step ahead, one foot out the door, and it’s just a bit too literal for Dino’s taste at the moment. Graduation is fine, and all. You can’t play the part of a schoolboy forever. It was just as unfortunate as it was perfectly reasonable.

“Well, Squalo; what now?”

He means; what do you intend to do? He knows it, but he’d like to hear it again. One last time, so he can remember that far-too-cocky look when he gets lonely for arrogance he’s still getting the hang of.

“Heeey. How many times do I have to tell you?” It doesn’t matter how many times; of this story, this assertion, it never gets old in Squalo’s mind or on his lips. He’d grown up scrappy, no-named, and berated for having less than a thimbleful of mafia blood; but it was all mafia-brawn and sword styles, impressive enough in his own concentration and precision to make up for the moments in which he chose to be brash and a braggart instead. He’d made a name for himself, in a school of Big Names, and he wasn’t done yet.

“I’m going to become the SWORD EMPEROR. They say that guy’s the best; HAH. He better be, or I’ll be disappointed.”

Dino snorts, affectionately, raises a shoulder to his chin and follows it up with a sigh. Jeez, how haughty. But Squalo says it with spark, and no matter how many times the boy writes off daydreams and flights of fancy as stupidity coupled to inaction, he’s fallen a little victim to it, himself. That’s okay; Dino doesn’t mind that thimbleful of hypocrisy. It’s healthy. It means they’re still young.

But not young enough to have any need to stay here, not anymore, and that’s the clause Dino almost can’t forgive.

Squalo, however, continues undettered. He’s smirking, self-satisfied, as he points a long, gaudy finger at Dino. (Who knew it was the last he’d see of that hand?)

“UOI. And you; You’re gonna be a MOB BOSS, if you can stop trippiiiiiiing over yourself long enough for your family to establish you!”

Dino flashes a grin, all teeth. “Are you rooting for me, or something?”

“Haaaaah!” Squalo’s way of saying no; and his way of saying yes, too.

And now, it’s time. He’s going to turn, and that’s going to be it. So, sudden desperation; Dino grabs his rolled up diploma, and brandishes it in Squalo’s direction. It’s paper playing a sword.

“The future Sword Emperor versus the future Mob Boss. Engard.”

Squalo seems to think he’s an idiot. Well, okay. That’s not unusual. He isn’t amused in the least, and his reply comes slow; but after a suspension of seconds, there it is.

Suberbi has taken out his own diploma, a tight shaft of paper lashed in red ribbon. Touché, and it’s fast over.

Dino lunges forward, and Squalo simply ducks, tests gravity and digs his boot heel into the floor board, springs forward, under Dino’s arm and past, pivots, one-footed, arcs askew like a dancer and finishes the tango with an execution.

Paper traces Dino’s neck from behind, and Squalo is the decided victor; it was decided from the start, after all.

Dino is impressed with it nonetheless, just as always. And they’re not good at all, at goodbyes.

“…You’re fucking inept.” Squalo decides on, finally.

“Is that so?” The reply.

And the dust is uproarious again, and it paints Squalo’s shadow on a tilt of air, fading back, but still just murky enough for Dino to watch his own filter into it. He slips his hand into Squalo’s, and everything tightens, but that motion is loose.

And off with his head…

“Do you want to go for a drink?”

“It’s a little early for alcohol, heeey.”

He chuckles. Good natured, but who’s more of a dork, here?

“How about a milkshake, then?” It’s what he meant all along, of course. Of course.

“You’ll get FAT.” Squalo rebukes, always one to keep his body in peak physical condition, weary of a prerequisite for the nimble in his field of fantasists. He’s a swordsman, through and through. If it made him sound like a girl, then Fuck You, has always been his theory.

“We could always share one, then.”

Squalo’s pinched glare tells him what he already knows; that his companion harbours the gentle wish that his diploma was sharp enough to really lop him off at the neck. It’s a slightly disturbing mental theater, but Dino has adjusted to the unsettling things that colour his roommate.

Former.

And hey, maybe one day, they might bump into each other again.

For now, they’d stop holding hands.

Later, they share a milkshake, and forget to say goodbye.

Dino suspects it’s on purpose.

PREVIEW: Butterflies: Squalo&Xanxus Drabble, Very Bel inclusive....

They’ve had Belphagor for nearly a year now; six-year-old hellion who indulged in his childish fancies and frenetic obsessions of the moment, strawberry shortcake, hanging up cats by wires, staring at the television’s daytime soap operas, and most recently, the span and kaleidoscope allure of butterflies. He imagines himself quite the well-groomed gallant, lording about in oversized shirts with an arsenal of butter knives and a spit-polished crown. And Long Hair is by far his favourite subject. (None of them have names, yet, in the nooks and fissures of his first-grade lunacy; titles to go by, only. Princes and Long Hairs and King Scowly-Face).

It’s in those especially-impressive noises he is capable of that making that Long Hair has earned rites as his favourite (and Bel claps his hands in split-mouth approval, grin-giddy), loudest in All the Land, when he sticks Lussuria’s sewing needles under Squalo’s bedding. A generous tottering monarch, he makes his appreciation known by leaving especially sweet thank-you gifts.

Belphagor uses kitchen utensils to sharpshoot butterflies, pin them to walls, and watch them writhe into stillness before they can be delivered. Shishi~ how charitable, this potty-trained Prince.

He leaves the offerings scattered in Squalo’s bathroom~ Sur~prise~

Squalo, understandably, has had enough. He knows the little loon is confused by his own brand of entertainment, isn’t so much gifting as discarding what is no longer humorous—he always did saunter away from the cats to demand grilled cheese and milk when their clatters ceased.

Squalo isn’t fond of having dead-things sprinkled in the recess of his living space. As far as he is concerned, they’re return-gifts, and Belphagor can get a good, hard look at the pages of his scrapbook, of the unmoving things, and grow both bored and insipid with it; cut out the habit from its root.

Squalo slaps another butterfly onto another page. It is the only time in the entirety of his life that he has failed to notice Xanxus’ expert looming.