bakerstreet | ✘Veritaserum (Truth) Meme

[That didn't answer whyyyy. D: Huff.]

Because I li- Because I look like a woman with my hair down.

[GLARE. Now, your turn.]

Have you ever slept with anyone? And by sleep, I mean sex.

[Gotta love these rapid-fire questions. The answer to the hair one causes him to stifle a snicker, but that quickly fades when Mukuro shoots his next question.]

... [The longest silence in which he tries not to answer. That fails, of course.]

Yes. [HIS TURN.]

How do you feel about your little posse of followers?

[Ohohoho, DO TELL HIM MORE.]

They are like...family, to me.

[Moving on~ >)]

How many have you slept with and who~?

[You dick, you--]

A few. People. [Roundabout answers for the win. Right, his turn.]

Why are you asking me these things.

[Boo, party pooper.]

I'm curious. Why are you asking me these irrev-- these things?

For background knowledge. [Yes, apparently Mukuro's hairstyle is important enough that he needs to know about it.

... But anyway, it's time for serious business.]

What do you consider me to be to you.

[Because this conversation has been way too... amicable, for two men who were sworn enemies not so long ago.]

[Background knowledge. Riiiiight...

At Hibari's next question, he stares. He opens and shuts his mouth several times, either not wanting to respond or unable to find the words. Eventually, he finds a way to sidestep the question.]

How I consider you is not important.

[Not THIS Hibari, anyway.]

[He blinks, perplexed by the lack of words, before that reply comes - somehow, it just makes him more infuriated. And an angry Hibari is never a good thing.

Because before Mukuro knows it, Hibari's got him backed into a corner, and is staring up at the taller man with an intense look in his eyes, a tightly constrained fire burning just below the surface. There's tension thrumming through his body, but he won't let Mukuro escape, not now.]

Answer me, Rokudo. What do you consider me to be?

[He hasn't pulled out his tonfa yet, but he will, if he gets angry enough to.]

[The eyes don't scare him. He's received much the same treatment from Tsuna from time to time, the difference being Tsuna's stare actually feels like his soul is being exposed.]

I do not consider you- [Notice the careful emphasis on this. particular. Hibari.] -to be anything more than an opponent. Another toy or playing piece in the grander scheme of things.

[And something in him relaxes, because what would have he had done, had Rokudo answered him otherwise? If Hibari had been more than simply an opponent for the illusionist. No, that wouldn't do at all.

He lets out a breath that he didn't even realize he'd been holding, stepping back and away from the other - the fire in his eyes sinks back down to slumber restlessly, but Hibari is now calm. Or, well, as calm as someone like him can be.]

I am not a toy for you to control.

[And if Rokudo ever tried to use him as a puppet and manipulate his strings, Hibari had no intention of letting him do so without so much as a whimper. He'd fight back, alright. And maybe he'd even be able to bite the illusionist dead. That thought causes his lips to be graced with a wry smirk. How wonderful that would be.]

[And he answers softly,] No, you're not...

[Fixing a smirk to his face, his voice lightens.]

Tell me about your childhood~

Dull. [He answers that easily, because really, it had been. Compared to this life that he had now, it had been so very dull and constrictive. But there had been that interruption in the otherwise dull monotonous life--

... But Rokudo didn't need to know about that, of course.]

What is Hell like?

[This he is genuinely curious about.]

Hot.

[Because really, it was.]

What were your parents like?

[This is sort of has to pause at, thinking back to when he was young - but that relapse soon passes, and he returns to the present to give Rokudo his answer.]

Eccentric. [That described them well enough - there was no need to mention anything else. Unless, of course, the other asked. Then he'd have to tell, wouldn't he?]

Which tier did you end up on?

The lowest one.

[That's all he has to say about that; Hibari can work out the rest.]

Is that all they were: eccentric?

[This question gets an almost smile from him, a quick flash of teeth and quirked lips - not simply a display of bared teeth, but truly an instant of Hibari expressing his amusement. It's beautiful and dazzling and cold as ice, but made all the more beautiful for its rareness. But it's gone as quickly as it came, replaced by the customary hard line of his mouth.]

You would have liked her, I think. [But it's his turn to ask a question, and so he does.]

If you could not achieve your goal of bringing down the Mafia, what would you do?

[If only he could drag his actual spouse here. Learning about this alternate Hibari is fun but the information is not as useful to him.]

Kufufu~ I would--

[Wait, wait, that's not what he wants to say!!]

I would...

[Mukuro presses his lips together, but that compulsion to answer is strong. It forces the words from him despite his unwillingness.]

I would love you...until the day I died. [This said as quietly as he can get away with while still answering the question. Then he continues quickly and more audibly, hopefully overriding what he'd just muttered.]

What about your father?

[One. Two. Three beats. And yet silence from him.

... Love? Rokudo loved him?

But no, it wasn't him that the illusionist was talking about. He knew from the way that the other had muttered that - it hadn't been meant for him. Not Hibari Kyouya of the future that never existed, in any case.

So he lets that moment disappear into nothingness, his expression unchanged even as his mind analyzes this new information. It wasn't so much as hearing that Rokudo loved another self in another parallel universe, but the fact that the illusionist was even capable of something like love in the first place.

This Hibari had never loved, so he didn't know what the sensation was like. Nor did he have any interest in learning - love was merely another chain to tie him down to someone, to make him weak and clip his wings.

He shakes himself out of the silence he'd fallen into, mouth already shaping the answer to the question though his mind scrabbles away from that perplexing matter of love to at least attempt to censor his words.

No go, of course.]

Useless for more than anything but his work and occasionally a good fight. [His mouth snaps shut after that, and he scowls at the taller man. He's not going to talk about that incident. Never.]

What kind of relationship do you have with one of my parallel selves. [He braces himself for the answer.]

[He crosses his arms, glaring at the man standing across from him. Try as he might, he can't bring himself to completely hate the other, though he knows this one has no love for him at all. If it were his Hibari who was questioning him, he'd take it all in his stride because Hibari is just that sort of person, with an unamusing sense of humour that few understand.]

We are married. We've slept together numerous times now, and have a daughter to show for it. I never intended for it to be more than a game to win your favour but the more I kissed you and teased you in play, the more they became genuine. I liked how I was one of the few you hated with a passion, even after years of working together. I liked how you sometimes went out of your way to fight me.

[He had a feeling that he could have simply stopped after saying they were married, but the rest just keeps flowing out.]

I did all I could to impress you and make you see me more favourably. I started to visit you more often. Did you know you took care of me when I was sick? But only after I'd done the same for you, even though I knew that I'd catch your illness if I remained. I didn't like seeing you helpless.

I thought what I did was slowly working. You still didn't acknowledge me, but you were more tolerant when I teased you. You even began to let me in here. [He taps his head.] Not all the way, but enough so that we could talk.

Eventually...I had to admit that not everything I did was out of some twisted lust for you. It may have been the reason at first, or it may have been what I was telling myself the more time we spent together. When I proposed to you, I expected a refusal. But when you accepted...

[He hesitates.] When he accepted, I knew what I felt was love. In some ways, nothing has changed between us. But when we're alone, I know that my love isn't one-sided. And if I have the choice, I would die before him because in my next life, I don't want...to remember him as a corpse.

[Closing his eyes, as if he can hear his spouse speaking, he adds quietly:] And I know that he would call me an idiot, that he would...hurt just as much if he had to see me die because -kufu~ -because I am his to kill, but he will forget all of that when his time comes, whereas I will have to live with his memory.

[Oh.

... Oh. Well. Even he hadn't been prepared for something like that. The thought occurs to him that this could all have been an act, a trick to lure him in, but no, there's the ring on Rokudo's finger, and an uneasy feeling in his gut is telling him that the illusionist is not lying.

There's something unfamiliar rising up in him, something that reeks of oh so human weakness, but he crushes it down mercilessly. Emotions that had no purpose other than to weaken him were to be disregarded and discarded. There's nothing but an empty hole where his heart had once moved. Wait. No, he had a heart - he could feel it beating in his chest, pumping that precious life blood through his body - it was merely as black as the night, with no space in it for anyone besides himself.

He could not show anything but a granite face to Rokudo, because if he showed even the slightest weakness, a tiny chink in his armour, then Hibari had no doubt that the illusionist would take advantage of it, just like that. Herbivorous emotions had no place in his world.

A speech like that both impressed and disgusted him - Rokudo was truly in love, wasn't he? And love was something that only herbivores felt, it had no place in the world of carnivores. No, this Rokudo Mukuro was weak. As was his own parallel self. Hibari couldn't believe, no, he refused to believe that his other self had been so weak as to submit to those emotions. But it was the truth, from what he could tell - ironic, considering Rokudo was a demon merely clothed in a human skin. Demons did not tell the truth. Yet here it was. Another paradox.

No, he couldn't be weighed down by these new revelations. He was Hibari Kyouya, the unassailable Cloud, the one that floated freely above everyone else. This was to be cast off and forgotten. He would never think about it again.

Despite that, he knew that deep down he'd carry this knowledge with him forever. It wasn't something that was so easily ignored, no matter what he might try and tell himself. Not when it involved him, or another him, who was essentially the same - it repelled and puzzled him at the same time. How could someone as distasteful as Rokudo be so magnetic?

But of course, he knew the answer to that question, too. Never had to open his mouth to ask Rokudo, because he already knew the answer. After all, wasn't he always chasing after the elusive illusionist? Chasing after that vile chuckle, that stupid, stupid tuft of hair, those glittering heterochromatic eyes that held nothing spite and malice and bored apathy for the world. He would never admit it out loud, but he knew they were more similar than he had once thought. He still hated the pineapple bastard, though.

But no, enough musing. He hadn't realized he'd dropped his gaze to the ground while he had been deep in thought - once he glances up, the taller man still has his eyes closed, as if he's concentrating on reaching someone else with his mind. No, not someone else, he corrects himself absently (with a flare of perfectly reasonable anger), me. Except not.]

Love... is an emotion that a carnivore does not need.

[Suddenly that fire in his eyes flares up again, as if he's lost enough control over that wrath that it would openly show itself. Nails bite into soft flesh as he clenches his fists hard enough to draw blood, and his next words are filled with hatred and revulsion for this man standing in front of him.]

You disgust me.

[And Rokudo was not the only one that he hated. He hated his other self, for daring to submit to this laughing mockery of a man. He hated their world, for there was order in it, where there was none in this one (though the order of their world, it seemed, was in sore need of disciplining.) He hated this child of theirs that he'd never even seen, because it (no, she - Rokudo had said a daughter) existed - it told him that he was capable of an emotion like love, capable of caring for another human being just that much, and it frightened him as much as it repulsed him. The disgust was nothing new, but the fear... Was unsettling. He had thought he was impervious to such feelings. Apparently not.]

[When his eyes flick open, there's a strange gentleness to them, and a smile that holds none of the malice, none of the mockery that it should. It is all fondness: a smile that might have once belonged to a child still young, still innocent to the ugly side of the human world; and it disarms in a way that no adult's smile should, especially not when it comes from him, the dark horse of the Vongola, the traitor lying in wait.

Maybe it is a pretence. There is nothing to stop him from deceiving with his body language since it is only his words that are twisted into truth as they leave his lips. Hibari can believe what he likes.]

There is the Kyouya I fell in love with: an untameable fire that resists every attempt to smother it.

[Mukuro may have joined them together in marriage, but he knows that he will never truly own the skylark, the cloud who does as he pleases, when he pleases. Their bond is simply a tie that will lead them back to each other no matter how far or how long they stay away. He wishes he could find a way to express every tiny facet of their relationship to this Hibari, yet how to explain? How to explain all the little things that combine to form the whole? Even his Kyouya can't articulate the abstracts of their relationship.

It reminds him of a similar love he once felt so many years ago. But the flames from that had long since been snuffed out by the cynicism born out of longevity, and perhaps his unconscious desire to forget it had ever pained him.]

I do not think he is any less a carnivore for his choices. Like Namimori, I and our child are things, or objects, which he now has to protect. I have never once expected him to love me, though I hope that he does. I am simply a herbivore he has chosen to be his mate, and as his mate, I- [Here his features return to the malice and cunning that is more appropriate for him.] -will also do my utmost to protect him.

[He'd never understood a herbivore's logic, concerning settling down with a suitable mate - this just made him all the more confused regarding that matter. A carnivore did need to reproduce and pass on its genes to its children, but why choose a herbivore? Carnivores could not have any connection to herbivores, except for perhaps that bond which linked them together, a bond of blood and death; after all, the herbivores were merely prey for the higher food chain tiers.

By all means, a union transcending that should not exist, yet here it was. Rokudo Mukuro was full of paradoxes - a mystery, yet not; a herbivore - no, even lower - yet interesting enough to catch and hold the attention of a carnivore. Stranger still, that the carnivore did not feel any impulse to tear the herbivore's neck out with his teeth.

This matter puzzled him, the logic escaped him - he knew that he should not care about such base things, but it was intriguing and infuriating that he didn't understand, he could at least give it that. So he tilted his head slightly to the side, so very birdlike, the fury in his eyes slowly dying away as he observes that change from the innocent childlike facade - wrong wrong wrong, his mind whispered; Rokudo was a snake, a demon that hid under the guise of an angel - to the familiar cynicism and malice. The pain from his hands was negligible, but it was still unwise to injure himself further, so he slowly relaxed his hands, feeling the slow run of blood trickle down his fingers.

There was a reason he'd vowed to only protect Namimori and what was his. You couldn't control everything - Hibari had known that from when he'd seen that smoke coiling up into the grey sky, blending with the dull clouds - and so he'd vowed to protect what was most precious. So he could control it, and protect it. Not his family - no, they were not of any concern - but Namimori, the town that had watched him from birth to adulthood. Only one thing, so he didn't have to choose.

And yet it seemed that his other self, in this other parallel world, thought differently. A child and a mate to protect, and Namimori. If (when) the time came, would he be able to choose? Or perhaps his other self had thought this out more deeply than he had. A mate would be able to protect the youngling and help it (her, he reminds himself) grow while his other self protected Namimori.

But it would be useless if the mate didn't have any methods of defense, and so this was where that paradox that was Rokudo Mukuro came in... Different thoughts, yet they came to the same conclusion. To be expected.

This Hibari Kyouya, however, never would have any intention of having more than the necessary number of bonds with any other human being - flying higher and higher on his wings of wax, until the sun burned away at his feathers and he plummeted to the ground. That was not going to happen anytime soon, though. Not while he could still fight against the heat pressuring him and soar ever higher.]

He- [What he really means is we, but he's sure Rokudo is clever enough to work that out] -does not need your protection, Rokudo.

Oh, I know. I do not intend to be as interfering as Tsunayoshi is. I am...a watcher, you could say.

[Without prompting, he steps forward and reaches out to take the other's hands, clinically inspecting the bloody wounds left by the skylark's nails. He has an insane urge to lick the crimson liquid away, but this one would probably object strongly to that.]

Snakes are carnivores too, you know.

[He doesn't protest at the contact, though he is trying his very hardest to not just wrench himself away from the bloody illusionist and beat the other unconscious with his own stupid pineappley hair. Hibari was sure he could find a way to do so - he was very versatile with weapons, after all. (He'd once beaten that toothy lackey of Rokudo's unconscious with a safety brochure on the plane, so who's to say he couldn't work with hair? Needless to say, everyone kept far far away from him after that incident. Wasn't his fault, really - they were crowding, he was napping, they woke him up. Cause and effect. You'd think that they'd have learned by now.)

Hibari also doesn't rise to the bait left by Rokudo - he stays quiet as the other inspects the wounds with a critical eye. It's not worth caring about, he's definitely had worse, but the pineapple bastard seems to be fascinated with the slow trickle of blood down his palms.]

[His nose almost touches Hibari's palm as he inhales the scent. Blood is blood, no matter who it comes from, yet he wonders if this one's blood is as bitter as his Kyouya's was. The smell unhinges something within him, and with a complete disregard for the consequences his tongue flicks out along the other's skin, lapping at the trickle. If Hibari looks into his eyes right now, he would see there's a strange fervour to them.]

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Going with Dante's version, since I constructed his past without the Samsara in mind... orz

o\

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tl;dr

uhuuu what do I do with these feels ;_; Obviously more tl;dr. NOW WITH CORRECT SPELLING.

Because we all love correct spelling. ;3;

It makes the world go 'round -3- also more teal deer

Lovely teal deer >3< and then suddenly from me: SHORT PASSAGE

I think I'm all out of teal deer for the day, sad to say

Think we've pretty much covered everything 8|a