A/N Arrgh... I've liked this pairing for so long and I've never written a story about them. Its my first slash...

It starts, like all the other times, with the beating the crap out of each other.

Yamamato is an athlete. He knows all about endurance and strategy and letting the other guy tire out first. Let them run up the score and then kick it in gear for the win. Winning a losing battle means waiting it out and taking a few blows to the stomach before you make your first move.

Gokudera is a fighter, and a scrappy one at that. He learned to fight from far away. To taunt and wear down and then throw a couple bombs so it ended nice and neat. Well, as neat as you could get when it came to exploding someone. If you have to get close, finish up fast. Losing a winning battle means you fucked up good and you damn well better lose a limb or something if you want to go home with even the slightest bit of pride.

Tsuna has put the freeze on Gokudera's bombs when they aren't fighting, so when he launches himself at Yamamato for some offense or another, its fists first.

To his credit, Yamamato puts on a pretty good show of pretending to pretend to be hurt. Gokudera may be small, but he's wiry and strong and his punches sting like hell as they jab anywhere the shorter boy can reach. With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Gokudera punches at Yamamato's arms and stomach and chest. He has a fierce look on that doesn't seem to fit on his face and it makes Yamamato laugh, which just stokes Gokudera's rage.

Eventually his energy burns out with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, burned down to the filter and shedding paper thin bits of gray ash. Heaving and sweating, he takes an unsteady step backwards.

"My turn." Yamamato locks his bruised arms around the shorter boy and pulls him close.

"Let go of me, asshole."

He hadn't expected to get so winded. For a brief moment he wonders whether or not he should cut back on his smoking. But then Yamamato is snatching the cigarette out of his mouth and replacing it with his tongue in burst of energy Gokudera can't even think about summoning up to stop the damn baseball freak from pushing him up against the metal fence.

Later, they'll have to explain to Tsuna how they had found their way to his house together and why Gokudera is out of breath and why there are bruises all over Yamamato's arms if baseball isn't a contact sport.

But if you didn't look too far ahead, it was pretty much worth it.