you won't catch me around here

2.

Gokudera falls silent, breathing heavily. Blood is pounding in his ears. Everyone is staring, silent, shocked. Everyone but Hibari, who just looks at him coldly, and says,

"Go cool off. See me in my office after your shift."

Rewind. Five minutes ago, Hibari had walked up to them as they were working, and said, "The printouts were supposed to be on my desk an hour ago."

Gokudera just rolls his eyes. "And?"

Tsuna pipes up, "We're still trying to work out some kinks in the simulation -"

"I wasn't asking you," Hibari says to him, and then looks down the end of his nose at Gokudera like he's nothing more than a particularly annoying insect.

And Gokudera explodes.

"Just because you have seniority in the lab doesn't mean you're god! I am not taking this shit from you one second longer, you arrogant fuck!"

Back to the present. Gokudera flips Hibari the bird, holds his stare for a long moment. Then storms out. He needs a smoke, now.

3.

Outside it's chilly, and Gokudera rubs his arms vigorously as he smokes. A shadow falls over him, and he looks up.

"Oh, Gokudera. Taking a smoke break?"

"Yamamoto," he says, sounding puzzled. "What're you doing here?"

Yamamoto grins. "Just happened to be in the area. Something up?"

"Same old. Hibari's being a douche."

"That's rough."

The way he smiles when he says that is so insincere, Gokudera thinks. But he just smokes his cigarette, and waves at Yamamoto as he trots off.

The lab is tense and silent, when he returns. At the end of the day, everyone leaves one by one, and nobody looks at him. Finally, it's just him and Tsuna.

"Good luck," says Tsuna ruefully, and bows out.

Alone, Gokudera shuts down the computers, one by one. He turns out the lights in the lab, and locks it.

Gokudera has never been inside Hibari's office before. Never had a reason to. He's surprised to find that it looks like any other PhD candidate's office. Not that he was expecting anything fantastic, but somehow, it's always weird to discover that Hibari is still human in some ways.

Hibari is sitting at his desk, his eyes distant, as though his thoughts are somewhere else. He looks up when Gokudera comes in.

"I'm not going to apologize, if that's what you were expecting," Gokudera immediately says.

Hibari doesn't answer, which encourages Gokudera, so he continues,

"If you think you can just push me around -"

Abruptly, Hibari stands up, startling Gokudera into momentary silence. He crosses the floor towards Gokudera, and the look on his face is a little frightening.

"What are you -"

Hibari corners him against the wall, and Gokudera is momentarily terrified, imagining all the different ways that Hibari is going to tear him to pieces. But he's even more shocked when Hibari slams their mouths together, slips his tongue into Gokudera's mouth and across his teeth -

And this is when Yamamoto decides to walk in, without so much as knocking.

"Hibari~ sorry I'm late. You ready to go home?"

He sees them, sees Hibari kissing Gokudera, and stops dead in his tracks. Gokudera finally gathers his senses together enough to shove Hibari off, a couple seconds too late. And he's opening his mouth to say something, to yell at Hibari, but he sees the way they're staring at each other, and he realizes that this, whatever it is, has absolutely nothing to do with him.

Hibari looks away first. The silence is crushing.

"... I see," says Yamamoto, at last. The hollow look on his face, in his eyes - Gokudera will never forget it. "This is..."

"No one asked for your opinion," says Hibari. He is so still, so cool, so distant. So perfectly self-contained.

"No," says Yamamoto. His voice is surprisingly calm. "I guess not."

"Yamamoto -" Gokudera begins. Both of them turn to look at him at the same time, with the same sharp head-turn, as if they'd forgotten he was there.

"Ah," Yamamoto says. He even attempts a smile, which looks more pained than anything else. "No, it's okay. I'll just go home first."

Gokudera opens his mouth, but Yamamoto's already gone. He doesn't even slam the door behind him. And then he turns to Hibari, and he's about to demand an explanation, like what the fuck has gotten into you, but Hibari is looking down, and his hands are clenched into fists, and they're trembling ever so slightly. So he settles for leaving, too, and doesn't hesitate to slam the door behind him.

4.

The next week, Hibari comes to his desk a minute before going-home time. (Sadistic bastard probably knew he was about to leave.)

"My office. Now," Hibari tells him, and walks off.

"What is it this time?" he calls after Hibari, irritably. No answer.

So Gokudera takes his time; he tweaks some of the simulation's parameters, checks his email. And when he finally logs off and trots over to Hibari's office, Hibari is already standing in the middle of the room, waiting for him. His eyes are dead, emotionless.

"What the hell do you want n -"

Hibari answers him with a searing kiss, shutting his mouth for him. And this time he's a little more prepared, but that doesn't mean that he likes it -

But half a minute passes, then a full minute, and he hasn't pushed Hibari away. And then some small part of him says, softly, insidiously, well, you're in this deep, you might as well get into it.

The kiss turns into touching, the touching into grinding. They end up getting each other off right there on the floor of his office. And afterwards Hibari looks up at him with hooded eyes and licks the come off the palm of his hand, and Gokudera feels his softening cock jump a little, even though he just came a minute ago, and he realizes he's so, so fucked.

5.

The third and fourth and fifth times this happens, Gokudera always tells himself, alright, this is the last time. This will be the last -

But Hibari is beautiful, even if his eyes and hands are cold, and Hibari is good at what he does, with his hands, his mouth, his cock -

(He forces himself to forget, forget the fact that Yamamoto is probably the reason Hibari is good at this.)

Still, the guilt eats away at him, constantly. (Even if it also turns him on.) And on the sixth time, he speaks up.

"You... aren't you with Yamamoto?"

"... Don't ever mention that guy," Hibari says, and crushes their mouths together.

Afterwards, they're lying in bed together, and there's an arm's length of space between them. Gokudera fishes his pack of cigarettes and his lighter out of his the pocket of his trousers, and lights up.

"Don't smoke in here," Hibari says. He doesn't even bother to look at Gokudera when he talks to him. He just looks up at the ceiling, and his face is completely blank.

"But I want to,"

"I said don't."

"Fine," Gokudera grumbles, thinking you fussy son of a bitch. He puts his cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table, and even he knows better than to ask why Hibari has an ashtray in his bedroom if no one's allowed to smoke in there.

6.

It's a long while before he sees Yamamoto again. He never realized that the only reason he still saw Yamamoto so much was because Yamamoto was always hanging around the lab.

But that doesn't happen so much, any more.

"Yamamoto, I..."

"It's okay." There are dark circles under Yamamoto's eyes, even as he smiles, smiles like there's an invisible gun to his head. "Hibari does what he wants. He's always like that."

"But -"

"It's okay," says Yamamoto again. "Really." And Gokudera wants to scream no, it's not, none of this is okay but he would also have to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm weak, I'm sorry. So he says nothing. He fingers Hibari's bite mark on his neck, through his shirt, and says nothing at all.

7.

One night after he leaves Hibari's place, he realizes he's left his cigs behind. And he's torn between going back and just buying a new pack, but it's cold, and he wants a smoke now.

He gets out of the elevator, rounds the corner, and sees Yamamoto standing in the corridor, trying the doorknob pointlessly. Dodges back around the corner, heart pounding in his chest. But Yamamoto doesn't see him; he's staring at the door, his shoulders drawn together tight and miserable.

"Hibari... are you there? Open the door."

Nothing. Yamamoto tries the doorknob again, even though he knows it's locked. Then he sits down with his back to the door, drawing his knees up to his chest. Puts his face in his hands.

"Hibari, please -"

His voice is so pathetic, it's shaking. It's shaking, and he sounds like he might be crying.

(Gokudera feels a bit like crying for Yamamoto, himself. Just a bit.)

He waits for almost an hour, waits for Yamamoto to leave, to give up and go home. But Yamamoto stays there, seated in the corridor, slumped over, probably freezing to death. He's still waiting when Gokudera finally goes home, and on the way he thinks to himself - so that's what love looks like.

8.

"Look, I can't - I won't do this anymore."

"Why? You like it."

"You're just using me to get back at Yamamoto. For what, I don't know. I won't be a part of it."

"He's just a herbivore," says Hibari, dismissively, reaching out, touching Gokudera's face. And god, his touch feels good, but -

Something in Gokudera snaps. He punches Hibari, right in his cold elegant face, raises a welt on the side of his jaw like a swollen kiss-mark. Hibari punches him back, almost an instinctive reaction, like he's always wanted to do it. They stand there, a few feet apart, each rubbing their bruised jaws. Gokudera breaks the silence first.

"He cares about you! What the fuck is wrong with you, why are you doing this to him? You know he hasn't slept in like a week?"

"Like I care."

"But you do care, you still care or you wouldn't be doing this to him! What the fuck did he do to you, anyway?"

Knocking on the door. It's Yamamoto again, Yamamoto who has the worst timing in the world. He calls out. He sounds like shit, like death warmed over.

"Hibari -"

Hibari glances at the door, and then looks back at Gokudera. His eyes are dangerous.

"Don't -" Gokudera hisses.

Knock knock knock.

"Hibari?"

"- he'll hear us, stop it, stop -"

They hit the floor with an audible thump, and this time he can't resist. It's fucked up beyond belief. He's getting off on this, on the way Hibari is just using him, on the way they're both hurting Yamamoto -

Yamamoto stops knocking. And Gokudera tries to keep his voice down, he tries, he tries, but Hibari bites down on the back of his neck while he's doing it, all hate and anger, and he comes with a cry, he comes right there in the middle of the floor with Yamamoto probably listening outside, then collapses against the floor, a boneless, sated heap. Hibari finishes soon after with a grunt, and his teeth worry at Gokudera's skin.

A few long minutes later he startles awake, remembering where he is. Remembering what just happened. And Gokudera struggles back into his clothes, stumbling to the door. To apologize, to say something, to let Yamamoto hit him, anything -

There's no one outside.

"... He's gone," says Gokudera, wonderingly, and he's not even sure who he's saying it to.

He looks back, catches a glimpse of Hibari's face, in the light shining through the crack of the open door. And it's probably just his imagination, it has to be. But for the briefest moment, Hibari looks as though he's about to cry.

1.

Takeshi hangs up the phone.

Kyouya pads up behind him, softly, walking on cat's paws. Stops by Takeshi, just looking at him quietly. Takeshi knows (loves) him well enough to hear the unspoken question.

"My dad," he says, with a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just wondering how I'm doing."

He wraps arms around Kyouya, kisses him. Kyouya kisses back, as expected, and asks him, as expected,

"... What are you doing?"

"Haha. Kissing my girlfriend. Ow!"

He leans down, rubs his shin where Kyouya kicked him. Kyouya pads off into the kitchen.

"He wants to meet you, you know. Though he thinks you're a girl."

"..."

"Hey, don't be angry. I had to tell him something - he keeps saying if I don't get married soon he's going to start setting up marriage interviews. Can you imagine?"

Kyouya turns on the tap. Sticks his pale hands in the kitchen sink, under the stream of water.

"... Why don't you do that? Then I won't have to see you hanging around here all the time."

"C'mon, don't be like that. I'm sorry." And Takeshi smiles wide and bright; kisses the back of Kyouya's neck, on his way into the bedroom. "You're the only one for me, okay?"

The tap is still running. Kyouya looks down at his hands, then closes his eyes, and he doesn't say anything at all.

What'd you say?
That you only meant well?
Well, of course you did.

What'd you say?
That it's all for the best?
Of course it is.

What'd you say?
That it's just what we need?
You decided this.