Title: Speaking Silences
Characters: Yamamoto, Hibari, Gokudera
Summary: Yamamoto talks a lot to everybody but Hibari.
Notes: 1134 words. Implications of smut. For KHRfest, prompt "Yamamoto/Hibari: understanding - 'There's never lack of words for they don't really need them'."

Speaking Silences

He didn't think anything about it at the time, because it came so naturally. Kyouya came into the training hall where they all put in their time with the boxes as Takeshi was finishing up a run through Shigure Souen's forms. He stood and watched Takeshi, until Takeshi turned to him, muscles warm and loose, and cocked his head at him. Kyouya's eyes gleamed at the invitation, and he prowled forward, tonfas out and Flames gathering in his hands.

It was a good fight. Kyouya was in a playful mood, which didn't really affect how hard he hit so much as how they moved against each other, practically dancing together in the give-and-take of sword against tonfa, strike and dodge. It was an infectious sort of mood; Takeshi knew it by the way he couldn't quite stop grinning, even when Kyouya caught him a good crack across the ribs, and by the way he laughed when they finally closed with each other, stalemated by the edge of sword against throat and the pressure of tonfa against temple. They held to the edge for a heartbeat, and then another, before Kyouya's teeth showed, there and gone again, in a brief smile. Then he stepped back, chin dipping by just a fraction, before stalking back out.

Takeshi grinned, satisfied, and was startled when Gokudera--whom he'd nearly forgotten was in the room--said, "I hope you know that the two of you are freaks."

"Huh?" Takeshi glanced at him, confused. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for Gokudera to tell him something like that, but usually Takeshi could connect it to something he'd actually done. This time he was coming up short.

"The two of you." Gokudera gestured with the tiny screwdriver he was holding. "With the carnivorous telepathy you have going on. Normal people talk to each other. Especially when they're--you know."

"Sleeping together?" Takeshi offered, just for the way it made Gokudera wince out of embarrassment.

"That, yes." Gokudera waved the idea away as fast as he could. "I swear you and he don't say five words to each other in a day."

"Huh." Takeshi thought about that as he inspected Shigure Kintoki and his boxes before stowing them away. "What is there to say?" he asked, finally.

"I don't know! What do I look like, a relationship counselor?" Gokudera shrugged. "But most people have arguments out loud rather than beating the shit out of each other."

Takeshi blinked as it dawned on him that Gokudera was, in his own special, socially-maladjusted way, trying to help fix a relationship problem. "Ah," he said. "That wasn't an argument." Gokudera merely looked skeptical. "No, really. He was in a good mood!"

Gokudera rolled his eyes. "How could you tell? By the fact that he didn't break any bones?"

"It was just--obvious, really." Takeshi rubbed the back of his neck, thinking about it. "You couldn't tell? Really?"

Gokudera gave him a long look. "You two are freaks," he said, again, and turned back to the work he was doing on his Sistema C.A.I., apparently washing his hands of the matter.

Takeshi shrugged and went on his way after a moment, off to seek a shower before it was time to meet with Tsuna.

The conversation, such as it had been, stayed with him for the rest of the day, and left him acutely aware of all the talking he did--a conference with Tsuna about the Orsini business, joking with Lambo and teasing Chrome just a little, the lecture he gave a handful of underbosses for not taking their training seriously enough, and a thousand small moments of greeting-in-passing and small talk as he moved through the day. He did talk a lot to other people, he supposed, reckoning up the number of things he'd said all day long. Perhaps it was odd that he and Kyouya didn't say that much to each other.

He was still mulling it over when he intercepted the girl bringing Kyouya's evening tea to his room and relieved her of the tray. Kyouya looked up when he brought it in, brows lifting just a bit at him. Takeshi shrugged at him, one-shouldered and careful of the tea, and set the tray down. And then he wondered a little at himself, and Kyouya, that that was all the greeting they'd needed.

Kyouya poured for both of them as Takeshi watched, and handed him the cup. Their fingers brushed against each other's as he did; Kyouya's fingers lingered on his, just briefly, before they drew away. Takeshi felt his mouth quirk a bit in reply as he met Kyouya's eyes. Kyouya veiled his own eyes, satisfied, and took up his own cup of tea.

Now, how had they done that? Takeshi pondered the question as he sipped his tea and savored the texture and flavor of it on his tongue and the sight of Kyouya's impeccably proper kimono and seiza. They hadn't said a word to each other all day, and yet he still knew that it had been a good day, that Kyouya was still in a good mood and pleased to see him, and that, in the fullness of time, they were going to take each other to bed.

The faintly interrogative sound that Kyouya made interrupted his thoughts, and he realized that Kyouya was regarding him with the faintest of frown lines drawn between his eyebrows. Takeshi shrugged at him, but Kyouya didn't look convinced, and continued to stare at him, waiting for an explanation. Eventually Takeshi gave in. "Is it weird that we don't talk to each other?"

Kyouya's snort was eloquent enough in its own right, but--and Takeshi suspected him of being sarcastic--he asked, "Why? Do we need to?"

Takeshi gave that due and careful consideration. "Yeah, not really," he decided, and swallowed the last of his cooling tea, satisfied.

Kyouya snorted, again, and drained the last of his own tea. He returned the cup to the tray, aligning it precisely with the teapot, and then lifted his eyebrows at Takeshi as he rose in one smooth movement.

Takeshi grinned, back on solid ground again, and stood to follow Kyouya into his bedroom. They didn't need any words, especially not for the stroke of hands over bare skin or the slide of one body against another, and words would have only gotten in the way of the taste of Kyouya's skin on his tongue and the way Kyouya arched sleek and taut against him. Satisfaction didn't need words, and neither did the lazy drowsing next to Kyouya afterwards, when Kyouya lounged against him, unwound and satiated and willing to tolerate the fingers Takeshi had fanned against his back.

And yeah, Takeshi decided, before putting the matter away entirely, he was okay with that.

end

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