Mostly I Write Reader Inserts

Originally posted by i-vongola

Summary: They say the older you get, the more you regret those things you never did.

Fic Trade Prompt: "Who am I to stand in your way?“

Rating/Warnings/Tag: T (Implied Physical Abuse; Implied Abusive Marriage; Original TYL! Canon; Mild Language; Smoking!Gokudera; Sun Flame!Reader; Abusive!Xanxus; TYL!Xanxus/Reader; Tsuna/Kyoko; Lussuria & Reader; Tsuna & Gokudera; Childhood!Gokudera/Reader)

Tangled Strings

Hayato Gokudera never had been good with people. He didn’t like most people. Try as he might, that friendly, doting, foppish aspect of the business didn’t fit him. Now that he was well into his twenties, he seemed unlikely to ever change. Meetings were punishments, parties torture, and weddings? Weddings were the worst of all. All those people wheedling and gallivanting for hours on end typically had him itching to leave, but tonight he felt as though he were burning from the inside out.

It was in such a state that Hayato’s companions—the two that had joined him there—found him in one of the Vongola Mansion’s halls. He stood alone, fidgeting, mussing his hair, muttering to himself. His presence had not been required, and he knew it. Tsuna had even halfheartedly ordered him to stay in Japan. But even in one of the rare cases that his right hand man disobeyed him, Tsuna did not choose to remind Hayato that he had told him so. No, instead pity welled his warm brown eyes—pity that Hayato did not want to see.

“I think it would be all right for us to leave now.” Tsuna’s voice echoed in the emptiness. 

So did Hayato’s reply of, “Huh.”

“I should be getting back to Kyoko. Did you want to…?”

Being treated gently, as though he were a child, only stoked the flames inside Hayato’s stomach. He turned toward the nearest painting and resisted the urge to hold himself as he’d used to whenever he’d seen his sister’s face. Bianchi had tried to keep Hayato away as well when she’d heard his plans. Probably had mentioned her concerns to Tsuna, too. God, how pathetic Hayato must have looked to his boss in that moment.

“Go on, Tenth,” he said. “I’m not ready to leave just yet.”

“Gokudera…”

Hayato spun back to him with a grin. “It’s a party, right? Haven’t had a good excuse for one of those in a while. Don’t make Kyoko worry. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Despite the force of Hayato’s smile, Tsuna did not appear convinced. He opened his mouth as though to argue his point, but just as he did, Ryohei got off the phone with his wife and blundered with typical delicacy into someone else’s conversation. Without so much as an observation that he might be interrupting, he clapped a meaty hand to Hayato’s shoulder before leaning in. His breath reeked of the wine the reception had provided that day.

“What an EXTREMELY great ceremony, right?” he said much too loudly. “Good to see [Name] again, though. She looks happy to the EXTREME!”

At once, Hayato’s forced smile vanished as he stepped out of Ryohei’s grip. “Don’t talk to me when you’re drunk, Turf Top,” he snapped. 

Ryohei’s genial manner vanished, too. “Hey! Who you calling Turf Top, Octopus Head?”

“Ryohei.” 

The name came out of Tsuna’s mouth sternly enough to shut Ryohei up. He stepped away from Hayato, though not without a dirty look in his direction. While this went on, Tsuna took Ryohei by the elbow and led him toward the entrance hall. Tsuna’s eyes met Hayato’s a second time with less pity than before. 

“I’ll send the car to pick you up in an hour, okay?” he said.

It was not a suggestion. His message was clear: Hayato needed to get his affairs in order sooner rather than later. He had decided to be here; he had decided to stay. Tsuna had offered him every out available. Now Hayato was on his own and representing the burgeoning Japanese Vongola branch by himself. 

Wordlessly, Hayato gave him a single nod, then watched until the other two stumbled out of sight around a distant corner. Only after they vanished did he shift his attention back to the ballroom down the hall.

A square of bright light fell across the dimmer hallway that he strode through. All the sound in the building issued from that open door. Laughter, the clanking of forks against plates, and music all clattered painfully against his tired ears. The toes of his dress shoes had barely touched the carpet outside this chamber when more noises joined those: a stream of curses; several shattering glasses; screams; and a single high, girlish protest.

He froze where he stood. Going back inside was an option…

…But on second thought, he needed a cigarette.

Under cover of the brawl now underway in what had once been a wedding reception, Hayato went back the way he’d come from. If he remembered this house right—and he ought to; he had spent more than enough time here in his youth—there was a backdoor to the gardens in one of the studies. 

Before the fight had time to really get going, he was outside in the fresh air. He filled his lungs with the heady smell of flowers, dug his box of cigarettes and his lighter out of his pocket, and lit up. His head cleared as soon as the stick touched his lips.

God, what was he doing here?

He should have listened to Tsuna. That was his job, after all. Tsuna had known what all of this would do to him. The Vongola’s right hand man refusing to make an appearance at such a high profile event surely would have set them back years in terms of alliances, and yet Tsuna had been willing to make that sacrifice for Hayato’s sake. Leave it to Hayato to throw that all back in his best friend’s face. 

As he released a long stream of smoke from his mouth and stepped onto the garden path, he remembered his own assurances that he’d be fine: “No, Tenth! I’ll go. This is important to you, so it’s important to me. We can’t afford to pass this up.” 

Bullshit. Tsuna would have come; Ryohei would have come; no one wanted Hayato here. Now he was stuck there until the driver returned—not that lingering around his failures was out of the ordinary for him. The trick was to avoid them for the rest of the night.

As soon as Hayato thought it, he should have known that doing so would be impossible. A figure stood at the edge of the garden pond, just outside the glow of the lanterns that lit the path. He didn’t need less ambiance to recognize you—and you him. Just as he was about to turn tail, you looked in his direction, then looked swiftly away. 

Hayato looked behind him to see nothing between himself and the door back inside. It would be easier on both of you if he just walked away.

He grit his teeth. No. Why had he insisted on letting Tsuna and Ryohei leave without him if he wasn’t going to do anything? Hayato had been called many things by the family here in Italy, not all of them unfounded, but a coward? No one ever dared to call him that.

“Hey,” he said as he stepped into the space next to you. 

You could have walked away then. That would have been acceptable. Expected, even. Instead, you answered him. “Hello.”

Neither of you looked at the other. Each stared across the still surface of the water out into the inky night of the mansion’s grounds. Only crickets made themselves known out here. No sign of the raucous gathering inside came through. It was just Hayato, you, and the hundreds of things he never said. Things such as, “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you earlier.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t think you would.”

“Didn’t think I would come either.”

“No.”

“You still sent an invitation.”

“We sent Tsuna an invitation,” you said. “It was the polite thing to do.”

Hayato snorted as he tossed his cigarette onto the pond shore and ground the embers out with his heel. “Something tells me your husband doesn’t really believe in those sorts of formalities.”

You didn’t argue. For the second time, you looked at him and looked away again, as though filling your eyes with his visage physically pained you. Seeing you didn’t really make him feel better either. 

“I suppose I should thank you for bothering to come,” you said stiffly.

“The Tenth had to come, so I had to come.”

“I should have figured that was the only way I’d ever get to see you again.”

Twenty years from then, a hundred, a thousand, Hayato would never be able to explain what came over him in that moment. He had every intention of leaving you there in the garden, but he happened to look at you, really look at you, and happened to catch a whiff of the same perfume you’d worn since your youth, and he just couldn’t walk away. 

His hand reached out without his telling it to and brushed against your upper arm. Your muscles there were still those of an experienced fighter, whether or not they were hidden underneath the frilliest wedding getup that Hayato had ever laid eyes on, including Haru’s.

“That’s not the only way,” he said quietly.

You leveled a glare at him and forcefully removed yourself from his grip. It was the first time that he had seen you from the front all day. His first thought, ridiculously, was that he had never imagined you could look so beautiful in a dress like that. Not that he’d imagined you in a wedding dress all that often. Maybe once or twice. He’d imagined you without a dress on at all a lot more often than that. Now there you stood before him, tall and proud, the wife of a powerful man that was not him, and wearing…

…wearing the unmistakable purple marks of a hand across the side of your neck. They had been carefully slathered with makeup, but the long day had seen much of that rubbed off along the collar of your grown. From a distance, no doubt the job was convincing enough. Hayato, however, had sharp eyes, far too sharp to be blind to the bruises when they were so close.

“What are you looking at?” you asked, your tone defiant. 

His eyes locked onto your face in an effort to keep himself grounded. “Who did it?” 

“Who did what?”

“You know exactly what.”

You lifted your chin. It only threw the shadows into higher relief. Already they were fading yellow at the edges, but to be so dark now meant the wounds were fresh. Must have only been made that morning.

“Why do you care?” you said. 

So angry was he that all he could do was answer with an indistinguishable choking noise. 

“They’ll be gone in the morning,” you went on. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Only by holding himself very, very still did Hayato resist grabbing you by the shoulders. You were a grown woman; he was a grown man. Both of you were long past the ages where you could rough each other up—and now you didn’t need further roughing. 

“Is that why he settled for you?” Settled’ was the wrong word. He knew it as soon as it was out of his mouth. But on he pressed, feeling himself tremble subtly from head to foot. If he did not keep going, worse would come out, worse that Tsuna’s family could not afford. “You’ve got sun flames, so you’ll fix yourself right up eventually? So he’s finally found himself a toy that won’t stay broken?”

Bianchi would have stuffed a whole mound of poisonous food in his mouth had she been there to hear him. She need not have worried, though. You could handle yourself.

“Unlike some people, he picked me. Unlike some people, he cares—”

“Don’t you dare say that I don’t care. I’ve never—I’d never—”

“No word for two years. I’m supposed to believe you give a damn now?” Your voice was hard and sharp-edged. As you turned your face back toward the water, he caught the unmistakable sight of tears sparkling in your eyes. “I told Tsuna not to bring you along. I told him that I didn’t want to see your face.”

Whatever appetizers Hayato had managed to swallow during the reception curdled inside him. He stared at you as though he were seeing you for the first time. Maybe he was. The [Name] he’d known growing up—before Japan, before Tsuna, before the Ring Wars, before it all—would not have sat back and let a man like Xanxus put his hand on her. 

“What happened to you?” he murmured.

Another mistake. You looked at him again and the tears were gone. “You happened, Hayato.”

“What? This isn’t my fault.”

“You left. It was me, or it was Tsuna, and you picked Tsuna, just like I always knew you would.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. The fight was as familiar as the color flooding your cheeks. Why have it again? Again and again, night after night, he thought about the night he’d left you in Italy. There was a time you’d tried to make it work, but there were loyalties neither of you could give up. If he could choose again, would he have chosen differently? Who could say? All the same:

“You didn’t have to marry an asshole like Xanxus.”

You straightened your back as tall as it would go. “I’m Varia, Hayato. I’ve always been. His father wanted it. My family is gone. I didn’t have any other options.”

“You had me.”

“Did I?” you asked. 

Hayato stopped playing with his hair. “You’ve always had me. I loved you.”

The past tense was brushed off as easily as the tree leaf rustling against your shoulder. “You didn’t exactly make that clear, did you?”

“It wasn’t exactly a mystery! Jesus, figure it out!" 

Had all that kissing and fooling around, all those semi-secret meetings in foreign countries, really meant so little? Maybe he’d never said all this, but he’d alluded to it a hell of a lot. Apparently that was not enough, because you took all this with a completely passive expression.

“So now you’re saying all of this is my fault,” you said.

“It sure as hell isn’t mine! [Name], anybody would be better than that guy. If Tsuna knew what he was doing to you—”

“He doesn’t,” you interrupted, “and he isn’t going to find out.”

“You think I’m not going to tell him about this?”

You considered Hayato for a long time. Too long. His anger turned cold in the time it took you to speak again. 

“You owe me,” you said in a shaking voice. “I’m not your responsibility. You wanted Tsuna. Who was I to stand in your way?”

Distantly, he heard the door back inside click open behind him. 

“[Name]?” sang a familiar voice. Hayato closed his eyes. Lussuria was coming. “[Name], are you out here? Your honey bun is looking for you!”

“I have to go,” you said.

“Wait,” said Hayato.

“I can’t.”

Before you could run, before you could shout, before you could tell him off some more, he closed the gap between you and held you in his arms. He kept his grip loose in case you did walk away, but instead you melted. You rested your head against his shoulder where you had always fit right in. He felt the wetness of tears seep into his jacket.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he whispered urgently. Already he could hear Lussuria searching for you deeper in the grounds. “Come with me. Tsuna has the plane. We could be in Japan before he even realized you were gone.”

“Don’t be stupid, Hayato,” you said with a watery sniff. “He’ll kill me if I do something like that.”

“Tsuna can protect you.”

“And I can’t protect myself? No, I can’t ask Tsuna for that. He’s worked too hard to get the Varia on his side.”

“He wouldn’t want his allies to do something like this.”

You shuddered against him, sniffled once more, then pushed away from his chest. “Tsuna needs this alliance. With the Millefiore, he needs everyone he can get. You need everyone you can get.”

Balling his hands into fists did not entirely distract Hayato from wanting to pull you back against him. The coldness inside him seemed to seep outward, numbing his skin and draining the flowers of color. “I don’t need to get people like this.”

“Silly. When are you going to learn the mafia isn’t the place to have moral qualms?” 

Before he could retort, you had pressed a single kiss to his cheek. That he did not get to respond to either, because your next act was to shove him in the nearest bush. 

Just in time. Lussuria spotted the movement and appeared in a flash. 

“There you are,” he said as you finished wiping your face. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“No, sorry. I was thinking. Did you need me?”

“Honey, I think it’s you that needs me! Xanxus wants to call it a night, but you need a makeup refresh before you go anywhere near him. Ready to go back inside?”

“Sure, Luss. Let’s go.”

The sound of voices—Lussuria’s joyful and yours subdued—faded back up the path until at last they disappeared into the waiting house. It was a long time before the car Tsuna promised arrived. Hayato was alone until then and for a long time after. 

He’d never been good with people, and all he could think was you were one person that he never could be good with ever again.