31_days | [August 4][Katekyo Hitman Reborn] pirate and princess day

Title: pirate and princess day
Day / Theme: August 4 / doubt is useful for a while
Series: Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Characters / Pairings: Gokudera Hayato x Miura Haru, 15 yr later-ish
Rating: PG for language
Warning: no spoilers, but @-@ blundering characterization?

The showdown happened during the epic fight scene of the 4:15 pm Recapturing Hearts show in front of Cinderella's castle. As Princess Rapunzel brandished her frying pan, her 70 foot-long hair was impossibly aerodynamic, leveling the Queen of Hearts' royal guards like an afterthought. The "cards" fluttered to the floor in a domino effect, belying the presence of the people inside the costumes, who were probably all sweating like pigs in a blanket. Haru clapped her hands in delight and twirled to see if the pigtailed little girl, her cheering partner, enjoyed the stunt as much as she did. The kid was a good three feet away, coddled by her mother, who had a tight-lipped expression on her face. In fact, Haru noticed, whereas earlier she had to fight for elbow room, there was a good wide space around her that had no people. Well, a man remained, but he barely counted as one in her book.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered through a lit cigarette.

That really should be her line. He was usually smoking, figuratively and because of the cancer sticks that might as well be growing from his lips like barnacles, but today the red and green mess of his Hawaiian shirt made him look like a bomb that detonated on a buffet table. Add the Raybans and the surfer shorts and he looked like the quintessential yakuza on vacation.

Haru laughed in spite of herself.

"This is your fault," said Mr. Obvious.

"I did invite you, yes," Haru said. "If I had known you would come up with that attire, I wouldn't have insisted on the mouse ears."

"I'm not making fun of you." Gokudera seemed to have taken the hint from the surrounding death glares and put out his cigarette. "Who are you wearing, anyway?"

"Tiana." It's a pale green affair of tulle and satin, shaped to recall a lily pad. "It's the bayou wedding dress."

"Look, I'm not here to propose to you."

Of course, he wasn't. He was there because he was feeling guilty about blowing her off after she poured her heart out to him one night, after her tongue was loosened by several shots of some exotic mixer Chrome of all people introduced. He was there to negotiate a truce because he couldn't accept that a 15 year sort-of friendship needed to be severed because they didn't see eye to eye on certain matters. He was there because he had somehow deduced she was CEDEF’s mole (they did that once in a while for some reason or another) but that she had requested reassignment because she wasn't necessary anymore. He was there because, bless his soul, he was raised in a Catholic household in his vulnerable formative years, and huzzah, it's exactly as Chrome/Mukuro told her about guilt and how far it moved people. He was there because she kissed him, and he thought he somehow misrepresented something to her that made her do it.

Silly man.

"Hear me out first," he said just as she opened her mouth. And did she have a choice? His pallor was doing its best match the shade of his hair. His skin was paper, dry despite the sun and what must have been long walks he had to take to get there---deplaning to baggage, baggage to rental car, parking to ferry pier, ferry pier to park entrance, park entrance to castle. If the Vongola right-hand man just keeled over from some inability to sweat due to nervousness, Haru wasn't sure how she could face Tsuna-san again. "This place has the worst airport in the entire North American--"

"Go to hell, Hayato."

"You can't expect me to just believe you when you tell me you've had a change of heart!"

"It's not sudden."

"Then when? Why? What made you decide to choose that day?"

Why, indeed? Haru has never gotten along with the man for most of the years they've known each other. Ever since middle school, their respective idiosyncrasies drove the other party crazy. But maybe it's the nature of being sidekicks. Maybe it was having to work together to preserve a sacred space for the people they love, for Tsuna-kun and Kyoko-chan, even in the mad sort of world they live in. Maybe it was this quest that bound them together, and heck, how would she know why? All she suggested was maybe they should make it official. Work on something theirs.

"You see this?" he demanded, pointing at his eyes. Haru had to give that to him--his lower lids looked like damp sushi wrapper. "I've spent 73 hours analyzing why, what made you, why that day? I don't get it. Why me?"

She laughed.

"Woman, you--!"

"Oh, pipe down; you're scaring the children." She held out her hand to him. "Let's talk in a quiet place."

"We can talk here."

That the man had trust issues was an understatement. "I'm not running away. I've already paid for this trip."

"If I were dying or something, that'd make more sense. Or if I had a new haircut. Something. I just came from a trade negotiation that day. I haven't even showered yet. We just happened to have a night cap together. Coincidence."

"Am I that shallow to you?"

"No." He exhaled. "I might have thought so once. I thought I understood you now, but I guess not. What's your onus, Miura?"

"Hayato, it's a Disney vacation." It was a 3 week vacation in between assignments. It wasn't exactly what you'd call exciting, braving two hour lines with crying toddlers or tanning beside over-chlorinated pools, but it's the mundane and normal one she might have been having if she had never met the Vongola famiglia. "Why are you freaking out this much?"

"Because you asked me to come have a happily ever after with you, stupid woman, and you had this sparkly, god-I'm-happy look in your eyes, so I thought--"

She beamed at him. "You thought what?"

"...Fuck this shit."

Haru took looped her arm about his and leaned her face against his burning one. "Keep it PG, please, and we'll analyze it together."

"Hn."

"Poolside. With cocktails."

"Isn't that what got you into this mess in the first place?"

She was pretty sure he was also wearing the god-I'm-so-happy look that evening before he realized the sequelae of what she was asking, so it might not have been just her. "So let's say we were both drunk on happiness that day, after the kiss, is it wrong for me to want to see if it can be a repeatable experience?"

"You mean like now?"

Impossibly, he turned whiter, but before she could ask him if he was okay he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her.

On stage, the Disney princesses finally regained the last of the captive Hearts. The stage erupted in dance and song, the crescendo exploding in fireworks and strobe lights against dry ice. The crowd erupted in a cheer. Good has triumphed over evil once more. Love saved the world. Bibidibobidiboo.

"Did you feel anything?" Hayato demanded.

"Maybe." Haru was clinical, touching her mouth, her arms, where he was. It felt like he was still there, in each of those places. Like a Disney movie finale's feel-good that lingered in ones 10 year-old bones and lasted lifetimes. "You think there should there be alcohol involved?"

"Hmmm.." Hayato frowned as he mulled this over. "We should have a control study first."

"So would that mean making out drunk or sober?"

Hayato looked like he was starting to regret mixing scientific inquiry with hormones. Haru just grinned at him, content that he was engaged enough to discover where this might lead with her.

"Hayato?"

"Hm?"

"Can we stay for the Princess and Pirates Parade before we go? We'll fit right in."

Of course, she would have to reconsider that transfer now. She wondered when she'd get to call CEDEF HQ about it...

"And did I mention the second leg of the vacation package is a Caribbean cruise on a ghost ship? I'm so stoked! Now, I can dress up as a lighthouse and you can be the crags. We'll have so much fun!"

"I'll be seasick," Hayato promised.

As long as he was there, she didn't mind that it wasn't happily ever after.

For now, of course.

1905 08/04/12