Don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Gokudera was not sure when sex with Yamamoto mutated from the brutal, mind numbing fucks that left him gasping and panting and helped him to forget, into something tender and slow, something more akin to making love. He had no idea when he had turned that corner in his life that possessed him to kiss the idiot instead of bite him. It was almost as if one day he had just woken up and things were different and he wasn't as angry as he used to be and somehow, he was certain, it was the idiot's fault.

It wasn't as if the other guardians hadn't seen it coming. Not the relationship, but the partnership. They worked well together and despite Gokudera's constant stream of curses usually directed in Yamamoto's direction, they never needed to communicate in the midst of a battle. It was as if they just knew. An intuition that rivaled Tsuna's but only worked on each other.

Gokudera did know when the partnership had escalated, when fighting alongside Yamamoto had mutated into lying underneath Yamamoto, gasping and squirming and calling out his name. It would be impossible to forget the adrenaline coursing through his body as he hit his knees and nearly cut through the idiot's belt in his haste to do something, anything, that wasn't murder.

He thought he'd be better at it. The mafia was his entire life. But he couldn't deny the sick taste of bile in the back of his throat as he took the idiot into his mouth, licking and sucking and taking him as deep as he possibly could, whatever he could to get rid of that taste. When Yamamoto came, he swallowed, gulping almost greedily until the idiot's knees were shaking and he was soft and there was nothing left. And the idiot had done nothing to stop him or push him away and Gokudera thought that maybe the idiot could taste it too and needed this just as much as he did.

It was never supposed to be anything more than raw, unbridled feeling; biting and moaning and rough thrusts without enough lube. Something to remind them that they were still on Earth, still alive, still able to feel something more than pain.

He supposed it could have been the first time he had allowed the idiot to kiss him that the paradigm had shifted. There was something so intimate about that tangling of tongues and the caress of their lips that couldn't be found in their heavy sweating and Gokudera's howled curses in Italian.

It wasn't just about not feeling numb anymore after that.

It could have been the first time Gokudera allowed the idiot to bandage his wounds in the confined space of his apartment's bathroom, back against cold porcelain, calloused fingers softer and more beautiful than they should have been against his skin.

It probably was the first time that Gokudera allowed Yamamoto to stay in his bed even after they were done grinding against each other, and let him sleep naked and heavy and warm against him and didn't try to convince himself that there was a more platonic reason behind it other than the fact that it felt nice. Felt right. Made him feel right instead of always wrong.

Whenever the metamorphosis had come, it had set them on a path that had led them here and there was no way to turn around.

Gokudera thrust his hips up against Yamamoto's pelvis and arched his back and cried out in a rasping voice made hoarse by lust and smoke and did not think twice when his lips formed the idiot's name against his will. It was not a new sensation but it made Yamamoto tremble with delight every time. He slid his hands along the bomber's sweat slicked sides and folded them in his soft, silver hair and pressed his lips against an exposed adam's apple and whispered against his skin.

I love you, Hayato

Gokudera snapped his head up to fix the idiot with his most impressive glare, digging his nails into soft, soft skin with too many scars and demanded that he not say stupid things even as he crossed his ankles behind a strong, baseball and battle sculpted back and pulled them even closer together, pulling the idiot in even deeper, very nearly howling at the feeling.

He could feel the friction of Yamamoto's stomach against him, moving with a rhythm that would only work on him, with him, in him. They could never work as well with anyone else and Gokudera knew that even if he didn't know anything else. He did not say the words back. Did not whisper his own declaration against the hot skin of Yamamoto's shoulder as he kissed it to muffle his moans.

Gokudera did not tell the idiot that he loved him as he shuddered with climax and tears leaked from his eyes and he clenched around the idiot in reflex as he rode out the waves of pleasure that he had long since learned he did not need violence to achieve. He did not say it even as the idiot followed him in ecstasy and slumped against him and whispered it again even though Gokudera had distinctly told him not to.

But he did say it when Yamamoto smiled at him, glowing in the aftermath of this thing that was so much more than just sex. He mumbled it against the idiot's collarbone as he curled up against his side and draped himself over the bigger boy and fit better and more comfortably than his own clothes.

I love you too, Baka.

He wasn't sure if the idiot heard him but it didn't matter because he knew that the idiot knew whether he said it aloud or not. He said it because at some point they had turned a page in their lives and it had become the truth.