instant karma

pairing: yamagoku

Gokudera didn't believe in karma. Shit happened, then you died- sure, there was that murky space in between the shit happening and the dying parts, but that was the general gist. Why would he go out of his way to avoid shit happening to other people (besides the tenth) when he had his own ass to cover? Dumb asses should learn to take care of themselves, that's was he thought. Karma, generally, was a useless notion.

Until one day, for some stupid, unknown reason, his reflexes had developed a tic- he had caught Yamamoto's ice cream cone, right side up, seconds before it had hit the pavement. He stared at the ice cream in horror, then at Yamamoto's laughing, stupid face with a mix of horror and anger.

"This doesn't mean anything, you goddamn freak," He growled, shoving the melting cone into the taller boy's awaiting palm, fingers grazing.

The next day Yamamoto brought him a plastic-wrapped sundae, fresh from the corner grocery, and he took it without a word. He didn't drop it, though.

on the radio

pairing: yamagoku

It was on the radio that Gokudera heard news of a baseball player with a perfect record, an impeccable winning streak. He stopped to listen, his hands unconsciously setting down the stack of papers he had been sorting through, feet crossing and uncrossing beneath the thick desk.

The player, barely a man, had broken into the major league circuit with an unbreakable grin and a good way about him. He was the star of Japan's sports teams. He had endless potential, talent, charm. He was engaged to a beautiful young-

Fucking traitor, that's what he was.

There was no unbroken piece of furniture in Gokudera's office five minutes after the broadcast.

gravity kills

pairing: yamagoku

It was a pretty shitty week, in Gokudera's opinion. He was nursing a horrible, leaking cold that made his back ache and his lungs wheeze, as well as a horrible haircut from an explosives test gone wrong (five fucking inches of burnt hair had to be shorn off after that incident, leaving Gokudera to grasp and twist at the remaining mess with palmfuls of gel in attempts to salvage it into something that didn't make him look like a total douche). Even his cigarettes had abandoned him- the store wouldn't be getting that brand in stock in a week. He felt like a wreck, looked like a wreck, probably was a wreck, but he would get over it.

"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said one morning as they walked to school, eyes studying his friend cautiously. "You should take a day off, or... maybe two, you know?"

"I'll be okay, Tenth!" Gokudera assured Tsuna after a few wracking sneezes, nose leaking all over his face and chin. He whimpered and wiped at himself with his hand without thinking, then proceeded to hack up a lung.

"G-gokudera!" Tsuna shouted, horrified at his friend's abysmal, leaky state. "You really need to go home-"

"It's just the weather, Tenth, I swear!" Gokudera exclaimed, both hands covering his face.

"Haha, I agree with Tsuna. You look pretty sad," A new voice said, adding to the swirl of events. Gokudera growled through his snotty hands, metaphorical hackles raising on instinct at Yamamoto's easy laughter.

"I never asked your opinion, you ass," Gokudera snarled, standing up straight and trying his best to not look like a wet kitten. He turned to Tsuna, who was looking at him like he was something contagious. He probably was. Gokudera frowned and swiped at his raw nose, looking incredibly pathetic to any and all onlookers.

"Fine, I'll go home. But only for you, Tenth." Gokudera was quick to interject, shooting a glare at Yamamoto. He turned heel and shoved his hands in his pockets, trudging back towards his apartment. Then he must have tripped or something (though the sidewalk was perfectly even), because the next moment he was up in the air, pulled against gravity towards a warm, firm chest.

"You look like you need someone to walk you home," Yamamoto supplied cheerily, somehow dodging a direst punch to the face. "Haha, don't worry. Tsuna will be fine walking to school alone!"

Gokudera opened his mouth to argue this (or scream for help), but all that came from his mouth was a cough, a sneeze, and a sad sound.

"I hate you," he muttered finally, a fact.

"I make amazing chicken soup," Yamamoto reassured, climbing the stairs to Gokudera's apartment.

stop whispering, start shouting

pairing: yamagoku

Gokudera never told Yamamoto that he was sexy in a suit. That he looked long and lean and eatable when he wore nothing but a towel and he looked classy in a button-up. These thoughts, he had assumed, were the kind you just didn't say out loud, especially to over-excitable idiots. Yamamoto might get the wrong idea (which would actually be the right idea).

So Gokudera never told Yamamoto black was his color (as was dark red, blue, purple), or that those Gucci sunglasses (the aviators, with the gold rims) he wore on sunny days drove him crazy. He didn't need to know.

Well, until

Until Squalo, loud and slinking and whythefuckwashehere, flat out told Yamamoto that 'those leather pants suited him, really, braaaaat'. It was just one sentence out of a day of family business (financial and departmental issues to be sorted through, needing consent from all corners of the family- even the Varia), yet it clung to Gokudera's mind, making him glower and hiss and smoke like a chimney.

At the end of the day it was just himself and Yamamoto, standing in Tsuna's office while their boss took a break to get some aspirin (it had been a long, long day)

"Those pants," Gokudera said, "They are horrible."

"Ahaha," Yamamoto replied, shifting from one hip to the other. "You think."

"I like your suits better." Gokuder said quietly. "Or those jeans, with the holes. Button ups." He was mumbling.

"What?" Yamamoto asked, genuinely confused. "I didn't-"

"You look good in a towel, too," Gokudera said to the window pane, face crimson.

Yamamoto blinked, then laughed. Gokudera never saw those pants again after that night. The towel was another story.

5

It was three days after the incident that Yamamoto scraped up the balls to breach the subject with Gokudera, who had retained a look of amazingly unhappy shell-shock for the entire duration.

"I'm sure Tsuna know what he's doing," Yamamoto said blatantly, gently. Even he knew that a wrong word could earn him a grenade to the kidney. This was... delicate ground.

Gokudera looked at him, eyes wide and lips trembling. The cigarette in his hand slipped through his fingers and hit the carpet with a sizzle, followed shortly by Yamamoto's shoe grinding the flame out. Ah, shit. Gokudera was giving him that scarred look again, the same look he had been getting since... well.

"I mean, he's been acting happy, right? Haha, I trust him to make good d..." Yamamoto frowned. Gokudera had dropped to the floor and was well on his way to the fetal position.

Yamamoto sighed and kneeled, patting Gokudera on the head, trying to see his friend's eyes under his balled up hands.

"If anything, think of how safe he is! I mean, Hibari and Mukuro are really strong, right?"

Gokudera began to rock back and forth, his mantra of 'tenthtenthtenth' barely discernable.

"... I'll...." Yamamoto was at a loss. "You think... they'll be up to a fivesome, then?"

Gokudera surprised him. There was no grenade to the kidney. There was, however, a designer, black snake-skin shoe to the face.

the last question

pairing: yamagoku

"Now the last question," Yamamoto said seriously, eyes meeting Gokudera's above the flaps of a shaking cardboard box. "Is what we name it."

"How about lunch?" Gokudera said sullenly, sitting back and crossing his arms. "Uri's going to tear that thing apart the second we bring it into base, you retard."

Yamamoto shrugged, a silent 'no way'. "I think he can hold his own, haha," He replied in a non-aggresive tone. "Let's name him Fluffy."

Gokuder sat up, eyes glinting. "No way in hell! What a pansy name! We're naming it Killer or something cool, not fucking Fluffy!"

Yamamot frowned. "Killer sounds too mean. I mean, look at it, it's so..."

Gokudera looked into the box, trying his hardest to frown mightily upon the little mop of fluff that was curled in the corner, sleeping. "I looks like a dirty mop, to be honest," he said gruffly. It was so damn cute.

"Mop?" Yamamoto asked, perking up. "Mop's a good name, haha!"

"What the fuck are you on?!" Gokudera grabbed the box, pulling it towards himself as if to protect the little life inside it from the horrible name taking shape. "Mop is the worst name ever!"

Yamamoto stood up and peered into the box, it's contents awake and yipping from the movement. "Hi there, Mop!"

A series of small barks erupted from the box, making Yamamoto's face light up like a damn christmas tree. "See? It loves it!"

Gokudera looked between the puppy and Yamamoto, ready to launch some nasty retort when- oh, jesus, not the dog, too-

Crushed under the weight of two puppy-eyed stares, Gokudera relented, sitting back into the firm leather of the limo seat. "Fucking Mop," he conceded gruffly, lighting a smoke.

collateral damage

pairing: yamagoku

"That vase was a very expensive heirloom," Tsuna told them with a sigh, "As was the was the wardrobe, the mirror, the bedframe, the..." He leaned into this hand with a long breath, massaging the bridge of hise nose.

Yamamoto and Gokudera looked decidedly guilting, shifting before his desk like two kids in a principal's office.

"I apologize from the bottom of my heart, Tenth," Gokudera began earnestly, words rushing from his mouth like a dam bursting open. "I-"

Tsuna held his hand up, eyes not yet open. He looked tired. "Don't apologize to me. Apologize to the Larosa family, who is asking us over a million for damages."

Gokudera looked away, miserable.

"I just. I just don't." Tsuna leaned back into his chair, spinning half to the left, then to the right, then center again. "How did you.... You said it was an accident, Yamamoto-kun, But this is the third time you and Gokudera-kun have had something like this happen. Can't you two... be..." He went scarlet. "Gentler?" This was said in a tiny voice and seasoned with a wince.

Gokudera looked like he wanted to jump out a window.

"I heard Hibari and Mukuro have done some pretty interesting things to hotel rooms," Yamamoto pointed out, looking a little chagrined despite the easygoing grin.

"Do you want to ask them to pay for it?" Tsuna asked gravely, looking at Yamamoto like he should know better than to even bring something like that up. "Because I don't."

""I'm so sorry, Tenth," Gokudera said pathetically, eyes glued to the floor. "I'm so embarrassed."

Tsuna sighed. He couldn't stay mad at anyone in his family, these two especially. "Just don't do this again. Well, by this I mean... Just.... Maybe." He looked helpless. "Cage the tiger, if you know what I mean?"

Yamamoto yelped as Gokudera made a nose-dive towards the window, almost effectively ending his misery.

supply and demand

pairing: yamagoku

"You don't kiss me enough," Gokudera wanted to say, but didn't. Yamamoto kissed him sometimes when they were alone- after a movie, or between bites at a meal. Behind the school, in front of his apartment, in Tsuna's bedroom. He gave him looks all the time that made Gokudera's insides boil, shooting signals to his brain to unleash the hormones and sex drive and whatnot, but rarely was there follow-up.

it was after school one day, high school, and they were lying next to each other in the park, looking at the sky and holding hands loosely.

"You don't kiss me enough," Gokudera said finally, sirring up.

Yamamoto frowned, opened his mouth, looked concerned, but was hushed by a hand slapping over his mouth. A ring clinked against his tooth.

"You always look at me like you're going to," Gokudera complained, not making eye contact. "Should have known you're too much of an idiot to follow up on something like that."

"Gokudera," Yamamoto said around steel-laden fingers, tongue tasting the narrow slit between two fingers. He withdrew his tongue, spoke again, noting the color rising to Gokudera's cheeks. "I didn't think you wanted them. Kisses, I meant."

Gokudera lifted his hand and wiped it on Yamamoto's shirt. "It's not that at all, you freak. Just don't look at me like that, like-"

Yamamoto pulled Gokudera down suddenly, onto his awaiting arm, curling it in towards him and rolling a squawking Gokudera to his chest. He smiled up at the angry boy.

"Like that, you idiot." Gokudera huffed, blushing. He opened his mouth, closed it. Breathing lightly, breath sweet (peppermint) on Yamamoto's face, he leaned down, his body a half-sprawl all over the taller boy's.

"Want one?" Yamamoto inquired, voice light and eyes hot.

There was no verbal response.

straight on till morning

pairing: yamagoku

"We made love until morning," some couples would say, proud and warm and fuzzy and oh-so-perfect. "It was magical."

"We made love until a grenade I had lodged in my back pants pocket went off and blew me and my partner two stories down from where we started," Gokudera would have said, if he had to make such a statement. "It was painful."

At least they would have interesting stories to tell one day. (Though Gokudera would have killed Yamamoto if he told anyone.)