Title: Pack Animals
Pairings: Hibari/Yamamoto; hints of Squalo/Yamamoto and Dino/Hibari
Summary: A predator belongs only to himself.
Notes: Adult for smut. For KHRfest, prompt II-37: TYL Yamamoto/TYL Hibari – release; "he always comes to him with the scent of blood lingering around him". Weirdly dark. 1027 words.

For all the things they've seen and done and become, none of the rest of Sawada's little pack really understands Yamamoto Takeshi very well. Kyouya supposes that this is because—barring the puzzle that is Mukuro—none of the rest of Sawada's Family were born predators, though they've each attained predatorhood or had it thrust upon them. Despite that, they were born sheep and don't understand those who were born wolves very well at all.

Kyouya supposes that that's fair. He doesn't understand those who were born sheep, himself, and has long since resigned himself to the fact that it takes a great many sheep to sustain a single predator, though he will never much like it.

But Takeshi is unquestionably a born predator, one who woke to it early enough that being raised as a sheep has only left the trappings of herbivorousness hanging about him. In all the ways it truly matters, Takeshi thinks and reacts like a predator.

That's one of the things Kyouya likes best about him.

He always comes to Kyouya with the scent of blood lingering about him. It is an unmistakable scent, old iron and copper in the nose and coating the tongue; nothing else is quite like it. Not that Takeshi is unmannerly enough to come to him fresh from the hunt—and in these days of Byakuran and Millefiore, there are many things to hunt—still sweaty and with the remains of his kills on his hands. No, Takeshi is polite. He takes the time to bathe before he slips into Kyouya's rooms, hair still damp and dripping on the collars of his shirts—or, when he is able, his yukata.

But some things leave stains which cannot be seen or rinsed away; they both know this. And Kyouya has never in his life mistaken the scent of blood for something else.

Nor has he ever objected to it.

Takeshi speaks less when he is in Kyouya's room than he does anywhere else. Kyouya approves of this in the same way he approves of Takeshi's good manners and traditional dress. Speech is overrated and cheap, and it's the sheep who need it to fill up their silences and their days. Takeshi knows how to appreciate a cup of tea or sake without feeling an everlasting need to comment on his pleasure in them. Kyouya finds this, and the way Takeshi also knows when to set the tea or sake aside and reach for him instead, commendable.

Kyouya likes the taste of Takeshi's skin against his tongue—the clean taste of it just from the bath when he runs his mouth down Takeshi's throat and the salt of the fresh sweat that breaks out when he bites Takeshi's shoulder, nipping at the muscles that shift and flex so smoothly beneath his skin. He also likes the taste of Takeshi's fingers when he sucks them into his mouth. His tongue scours them for the traces of spilled tea or sake and the smoky hint of gunpowder blended with the metallic tang of blood underneath that while Takeshi shudders and moans with each flick and stroke—he has exquisitely sensitive fingers, whether they are wrapped around the hilt of his sword or sliding between Kyouya's lips.

Takeshi doesn't speak much, but that does not mean he is silent when Kyouya pushes the yukata off his shoulders. He lays back for Kyouya with a sigh of assent and gasps when Kyouya closes a hand between his legs. He groans as Kyouya strokes him, lean frame taut against the mats and his eyes closed as Kyouya draws his fingers up and down the line of his cock and the musky smell of sex begins to hang in the air, and he makes a hoarse, wanting sound when Kyouya moves to open him up. Sometimes Kyouya uses his fingers to wring those sounds out of Takeshi's throat, twisting them against the tightness of Takeshi's body and listening to the half-vocalized gasps of his breath as his hands open and close above his head. Sometimes he uses his cock instead, fucking Takeshi open with shallow, nudging thrusts while Takeshi whines breathlessly under him, his fingers digging into Kyouya's hips as he tries to take more and Kyouya holds him in place for it, until he's buried deep inside Takeshi and they are both breathless with the heat of it.

Takeshi looks good spread out under him, his head is thrown back to show the long column of his throat and his knees are spread wide as Kyouya fucks him. Kyouya has never made the mistake of taking that for a display of submission. He's no fool, after all, though it's pleasant to bite his way down Takeshi's throat and leave a pattern of rosy marks there. A predator belongs only to himself, regardless of where he goes or whom he turns to in order to find release.

That's one of the things that the other sheep-turned-wolves don't entirely grasp. Sawada gives Kyouya worried looks whenever the shrieking swordsman with all the hair turns up and Takeshi disappears with him for a span of days. Kyouya supposes that it's because Takeshi comes home after, grinning and wearing a telltale collection of marks and bruises. He also overheard the time that Gokudera took Takeshi aside to ask Takeshi whether everything was all right after that idiot Cavallone had gone away after a visit.

He'd seemed very confused by the way Takeshi had looked at him and asked him what he was talking about.

Well, they are only sheep turned wolves. There's no way for them to really understand that there is only the present moment—that what is past is past, and that the future will have to tend to itself. If Takeshi sometimes goes to the shark's bed and Kyouya chooses to entertain Cavallone's occasional attentions, that has no bearing on the nights when Takeshi winds his legs around Kyouya's hips and gasps Kyouya's name as he comes, or the way the ripple of his body around Kyouya's carries him over the edge after Takeshi.

They are predators, after all, and they understand each other perfectly.

end