hibariskylark | Keep the Clouds from Falling

Honestly, Kyoya hates this entire fucking thing.

He hates that the mission involves a rather grating amount of dinners and parties and talking that he's not supposed to solve with threats. He hates how long he's supposed to be here for. He hates that he doesn't get to do this on his own, and he hates the people he's supposed to be working with. Well, one of them, at least. He's here with two of the other Guardians, and one of them is Mukuro and the amount of hate that creates is so intense that it almost seems to overwhelm anything else. It almost makes him forget half the time that Yamamoto is interesting and fascinating and someone he will never admit that he respects.

On the surface, they're here to investigate and work out a rough proposal, in terms of territory and trade and possible compensation, for a potential alliance between the Vongola and the Callistani. The later were an old family; not as old as the Vongola, but their origins were murky. No one really knew how long they'd been around or where they started, except perhaps Mukuro, who never admitted to everything he knew regardless. Kyoya is half-certain that Mukuro is only here in the first place because of the opportunity to harass him in places where he's not actually allowed to lash out and retaliate.

Which is admittedly at least half of the reason that Yamamoto is here. Because as much as Mukuro and Hibari both have skills needed to be able to pull this off, if they had been sent alone the Vongola would probably already be in the middle of an all-out war with the Callistani, which would probably suit the both of them just fine. Yamamoto is really the only person that can calm Kyoya from his moods, keep him from taking his anger out on Mukuro immediately, at least. But he's also a cool head in negotiations, and someone who can look for the peaceful solution first, when neither of the other two will.

Because Tsuna wants an alliance, in theory. But there are troubling rumors about the dark depths of the Callistani's operations. Nothing that can be substantiated or tied to their name, but there are rumors about human trafficking, sex slavery, arms deals that turn children into soldiers or corpses, drugs marketed to schools, torture using Dying Will Flames, and pretty every single thing that turns Tsuna's blood icy has been rumored about the family. So their mission is conditional: find out the truth, and either put together enough information for Tsuna to be able to put together an alliance, or cut them down if they can't be trusted to restructure their operations.

There are several reasons why it's the three of them.

Tonight is the first party of many slated for their stay, and Kyoya is there in a tailored suit that's more stiff and uncomfortable than the one he usually wears, and Mukuro has already settled into teasing the smaller man. The Cloud's fingers are starting to twitch as they verbally spar, flaring temper that ranges from flirtation to threatening, depending on the moment or the mood. But either way, it might be a good idea to stop them before there's an incident on the dancefloor.

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Sometimes he really had to wonder why it had to be him. Except he already knew the answer to that. The answer as to why he was always the one to be picked for this type of assignments. It had nothing to do with his ability with the sword and everything to do with his temperament. Someone had to go that could keep a cool head regardless of the situation. Someone had to be nice enough, kind enough, that negotiations could actually happen the way Tsuna hoped they might. Someone had to make sure that Hibari remained calm and Mukuro didn't pull anything.

That someone just always had to be him. It was nice to be wanted but he wished sometimes it could be someone else. As much as he was getting good at these parties, at talking about nothing and laughing at jokes that weren't even all that funny, this wasn't really his scene. He always felt out of place in those nice clothing, rubbing elbows with heads of states and members of the mafia.

He keeps his attention on Hibari though, mostly because he can read that man much better than he could ever read Mukuro. He watches and he can always tell when he's heading to that all too familiar line in the sand where he just can't handle the bullshit anymore. When he's about three seconds away from introducing Mukuro and the entire room to his brand of discipline.

"Excuse me, please." He leaves his pointless conversation about things he knows nothing about and cares even less for as politely as possible in order to douce Hibari's fire before it gets started. He snags a glass of something. He makes sure it's non-alcoholic and makes his way over, strategically placing himself between Mukuro and Hibari.

"This is some party, isn't it? You should really try this." He hands over the glass and looks over his shoulder at Mukuro. It's folly to keep his back to the man but he's got little choice at the moment. He mouths the words "not now". Mostly because he knows telling him to cut it out would be like talking to a wall.

If anything concrete could be said about all of this, it was that Mukuro was having a blast. Not that he'd have openly admitted to it, of course. Sure, he hated doing all this stuff the mafia way, and would much rather have drowned these people in their own blood by now, but the opportunities to heckle and annoy the Vongola's Cloud Guardian had more than made up for it.

He'd been in fine form a few moments ago, if anyone would have asked his opinion (which would have been the only one that mattered), but when Yamamoto suddenly inserts himself into the conversation, he's forced to admit that things were probably getting a little close to out of hand. Then again, if the worst case about these possible allies was true, then out of hand was where it was going to go eventually anyways, and Mukuro looked forward to the moment when his pessimistic views about Callistani were proven true.

He gives a slightly exaggerated roll of his eyes to the Rain Guardian, but bites back any commentary in the moment, his expression like someone who has become suddenly bored and resents it. He casts his gaze quickly around the nearby party-goers, trying to catch a tally of anyone paying them special attention, but quickly looses interest in that as well.

"Yes, let's not do anything hasty," The illusionist's tone is only a little put out, though his voice is low and quiet, clearly for their ears only, "We wouldn't want to offend their delicate sensibilities."

Kyoya finds himself taking the glass and his eyes narrow, that offense and roiling agitation still obvious on his face as he looks over at the Rain Guardian. There's a tension on his hands, in how his knuckles are almost white on the glass, and there's that clear temptation to just throw the thing into Mukuro's face in a fit of irritation and anger.

But he doesn't. Yamamoto's presence soothes him just a little, just enough so that he doesn't lash out, and instead he takes a sip at the drink. It's something fizzy, floral and fruity, nothing he's particularly enamored of, but at the same time, it's cold on his tongue and it gives him something to focus on that isn't trying to beat in Mukuro's face. "It's not terrible," he murmurs with a soft frown, but his grip isn't quite so tense.

His gaze snaps to Mukuro, sharp and seething, a little flushed just along the delicate lines of his cheekbones. "If you don't want me doing anything hasty, you should watch your mouth," he snarls, but it's low and quiet, more of a feral sort of murmur. There's something about having the both of them here. The two people that he doesn't really understand his feelings about. A cocktail of agitation and attraction and need that he does his best to ignore.

Someone else might have had the awareness to know that being involved with both of them without talking about that was a trainwreck in the making, but Kyoya just didn't think about things like that. He didn't understand how these things worked, he just knew that he liked how they made him feel.

Yamamoto probably should think about his life choices, for being the one fool in the room willing to put himself between Hibari and Mukuro. But this time, it seems to have been the best choice. Especially since his attempt to calm Hibari is dancing forever on the edge of certain violence. He wants to tell Mukuro that he's not helping, but that's a recipe for disaster.

"Now now. We're guests here. This isn't the time and place for that." Except that turmoil in the ranks might cause those they were watching to act. As much as he would rather not have the two of them fighting, he understands it can be of use. But he still doesn't want it, mostly because he doesn't like seeing Hibari agitated because of something Mukuro did (which is something that happened a lot, since Hibari often came over after Mukuro annoyed him enough.)

Keep the Clouds from Falling

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