ETA: HALT. GO NO FURTHER. All the good you could possibly, possibly find in this fic can also be found HERE in shiny visual form, with all the fail lovingly filtered out by wondrous bababanaba. Please go take a look, and save yourself from having to read this. :|b

adsa;ahsdlakd I promised I’d have this up before August was over, SO HERE IT IS wrote it just today, cutting it close, that’s me.

Usual disclaimers apply blah blah blah don’t read this if you know what’s good for you. And if you do read it, promise you’ll still respect me in the morning.

Also, THIS. Please watch this if you haven’t before. It’s sort of a pre-req for knowing me. 8| It’s like, twenty seconds, guys, c’mon.

Oh, and have another song:
SUNSET RUBDOWN – The Empty Threats of Little Lord
76% of the reason I love this song is for the title.

Have I stalled long enough? Okay. :(


Their first meeting is just about the most ridiculous and anticlimactic moment in Dino’s life.

Ridiculous because the thing that heralds the monumental first coming of His One True Love (Though He Doesn’t Yet Know It) is a golden pineapple.

When gilded tropical fruit is on a set trajectory towards your face, just like when you are facing a drunken bicyclist head-on, you do not have much time for rational thought. Dino has only half a second to determine that the thing that is about to be embedded in his face is, in fact, a solid gold pineapple before it is actually embedded in his face.

Anticlimactic because he ends up in a heap on the floor, and then there is a foot crushing several of his vertebrae as His One True Love (Though He Won’t Know It For Perhaps A Few More Hours) steps over him and storms away.

There is a voice going, “But Kyouya, my fair lady, I had that specially made for you! As a token of my eternal adoration!” Then another foot grinds the rest of his spine into dust and disappears with the voice.

What a complete and utter disregard for humanity, he thinks ponderously, his face full of precious pineapple, and then he passes out.

-------

In the bridge of the Titanic, the captain roars, for theatrical effect, “FULL SPEED AHEAD.”

“You know,” says the first mate, soft enough so that the swell of appropriately dramatic music coming from the band just outside the door could be heard, “I think that is a great idea.”

“HOW EXCITING THIS IS, THIS RECKLESS ABANDON,” says the captain.

“Yes,” laughs the first mate. “And what do you call this game?”

-------

Dino wakes up on the deck, where someone had courteously relocated him after he had passed out. That someone, however, was not courteous enough to remove the hunk of metal stuck to his face like the world’s most expensive disfiguring tumor. So he does it himself, which is harder than he thought without the proper leverage, and quickly thrusts it into his pocket so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore. He struggles to his feet, sways with the motions of the ship, and collapses again.

“I can’t imagine where he could have gone.”

“Do not worry, I shall find and rescue our poor damsel in distress.”

“Oh, what a gentleman you are, Mr. Rokudo.”

“I suspect that is precisely why Kyouya loves me so much.”

Dino recognizes the voice with a jolt. He pulls himself up slowly, rubbing his bruised jaw.

Turns out the voice belongs to a very dapper young man, sharply dressed and sporting such a beautifully outrageous hairdo that Dino finds himself thinking that perhaps he should have sent a poet. Dino balks for a moment, but he remembers the heavy weight in his pocket and his duty as a good citizen despite having just been what normal people would consider viciously assaulted, and picks his way over.

“Excuse me,” he says, except it comes out sounding a little funny, because he had just woken up and pried a golden pineapple from his face not two minutes ago. “I think this is yours.”

“Come again?” The man, Mr. Rokudo, looks more amused than he has any right to be, but Dino concedes that he must look and sound less than his best at the moment.

“This.” Dino dangles the golden pineapple from its equally ostentatious chain. “I found it. Stuck to my face.”

“Oh!” Mr. Rokudo smiles and Dino fights down the rising, inexplicable urge to slap him silly. “Thank you, kind sir. I must return this to my beloved right away!”

Dino frowns, which hurts his face. “I’m not sure if—”

The woman accompanying the strange man puts a hand on Dino’s arm. “My Kyouya is such an absent-minded child, always misplacing things in the strangest places. Thank you so much for returning it, dear. No doubt Kyouya will be overjoyed.”

“Actually,” Dino protests, though meekly. “It was thrown with distressing velocity—”

“Where are my manners. I am Mukuro Rokudo, and this is the beautiful Mariko Hibari. A pleasure.” Mr. Rokudo extends his hand and Dino takes it hesitatingly.

“Dino,” Dino says. “Just—Dino.”

Mr. Rokudo smiles that aggravating, condescending smile. “A pleasure to meet you Dino Just Dino.”

“Cavallone,” Dino snaps without thinking, and immediately regrets it. He shuts his mouth before he can say anything else incriminating, like, “You know, of the Cosa Nostra. You might have heard of us.”

“Cavallone, then.” Mr. Rokudo throws an arm around Dino’s shoulders companionably, and Dino thinks perhaps this relationship was moving way too fast for him to be entirely comfortable. “I was going to go with a large sapphire at first. But I thought that was rather passé.”

“Oh. A sapphire would have hurt less. It’s less spiky.”

The man ignores him. “I call this Heart of the Pineapple,” he says, sounding supremely pleased with himself.

“It is offensive to my senses,” Dino says, quite honestly.

“Isn’t it?” Mr. Rokudo sighs wistfully, holding up the offending article and watching the moonlight reflect off the spiny exterior of the golden monstrosity. “I worked very hard on it.”

It was terrifyingly hypnotizing, and Dino would never have been able to tear his eyes away had Mariko Hibari not suddenly called out, “Kyouya!”

The next few seconds would happen in slow motion.

This Kyouya, who had just stepped out on deck, would turn towards them, and Dino would see his look of hate and terror (but mostly hate), how his eyes would widen at the sight of the pineapple pendant spinning slowly slowly slowly on its chain, how he would stalk towards them with an expression of unadulterated fury on his pale face, and Dino would realize in those few glorious seconds, that a) he had never been more afraid for his life, and b) he didn’t care because he was in love.

“Why did you bring it back,” His One True Love demands through clenched teeth.

“I. That is. It’s. Hi.”

“Kyouya,” says Mariko, “you will thank this nice young man, and you will accept Mr. Rokudo’s gift graciously.”

“Mother, I—” Kyouya stops, takes a breath, and Dino is mesmerized. “Thank you,” he grinds out as he snatches the pendant from Mr. Rokudo’s hand. “I am going back to my room now. I hope you all die.”

“What was that, Kyouya?” Mariko smiles another kind of smile, tucking Kyouya’s hair back behind his ears in a tender, menacing, you-better-watch-it-punk gesture, and Dino feels his blood turn to ice, his skin crawl.

To his credit, Kyouya did not recoil nor did he start to cry like a little girl, which, admittedly, Dino might have done. “GoodnightMotherIloveyouverymuch,” Kyouya says quickly, a slightest hint of panic, his response conditioned to that tone in her voice. He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek before whirling around and all but fleeing back inside.

Dino starts to breathe again, quick, shallow breaths like hyperventilating, and Mr. Rokudo puts an understanding hand on his shoulder. “My fiancée seems to have that effect on people.”

“Your—your what now?”

“My fiancée. Is there a problem, Dino Cavallone?” That smile is back, and Dino is finding it harder to resist physically harming him this time.

“But he’s a—he. And you are also a—he. And is that even legal.”

“Mr. Cavallone.”

Dino turns to Mariko with exaggerated slowness. “Y-Yes?”

Mariko regards him for a long, agonizing moment, and then she smiles, and Dino’s heart goes haywire, and Dino can see where Kyouya gets it from. “Young love,” she sighs blissfully. “Do what you must, Mr. Cavallone.”

“I—what?”

“What?” echoes Mr. Rokudo.

“Mr. Rokudo, do you think you will lose?”

There is a stunned silence, and then Mr. Rokudo grins. “Of course not, my lady.” He turns to Dino, the picture of poise. “Dino Cavallone. Let the wooing commence.”

“What a ridiculous thing to say,” Dino mutters.

Mariko puts her hands to her cheeks. “Ahhh, I’m so jealous.”

-------

Elsewhere in the middle of the ocean, too far away from the Titanic to even be dreamt of as a threat, there is a rowboat.

In this rowboat are three very unfortunate beings, who are unfortunate for a number of reasons. Firstly, they have no fresh water. Secondly, they are lost. Thirdly, they are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Fourthly, they all had Cockney accents. Imagine it, if you please.

“Uoooooooooi, Boss! We’re not going to catch up to a fucking ocean liner in a fucking rowboat!”

“Then row faster. Or I’ll feed you to the sharks. I should do it anyway, for the irony.”

“Boss, that’s—you’re not kidding. Uoooi, you, help me row, damnit!”

“One, two, ushishi, one, two, ushishi, one, two—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP OR EAT OAR.”

-------

“You do realize that this is a kidnapping,” Kyouya states, very nonchalantly.

“It’s not,” Dino insists, his hand around Kyouya’s elbow. “Not if you come along willingly.”

Kyouya glances over his shoulder, into the banquet hall where the devil incarnate is sitting, chatting amiably with his mother, probably about wedding dresses and how many tiers the wedding cake should be. He suppresses a shudder. “Willingly enough. Let’s go.”

Dino feels as if he could cry with joy, but he clings onto his masculinity and does not.

“Hey,” he says, ignoring the giddiness. “What’d you do with that pendant?”

Kyouya grimaces and reaches into his pocket. “This thing shouldn’t exist. It must go against some law of humanity.”

They are at the bow of the ship now, and Kyouya hefts the pendant in his hand, climbs up on the railing, and lets it drop from his hand. Dino watches it fall, gold glinting in the lights from the ship, and he finds the plop infinitely satisfying.

“You have just rid the world of a great evil,” he quips, leaning far over the side to watch the black water. “And also, that means you’ve chosen me.”

Kyouya jumps down and scowls at him. “I haven’t chosen anyone. And won’t. Leave me alone or I’ll bite you to death.”

“How endearing,” he says cheerily. “But you see, I—oh my god.”

Kyouya frowns, and turns back to the bow of the ship. “What?”

“Enzio, Enzio, no, please, don’t—”

“Enzio?” And then Kyouya sees it, a tiny turtle with stars on its shell, standing precariously close to the edge.

“Enzio, come back here, please please please, don’t do it.”

The turtle turns its head slowly, almost mournfully to glare balefully back at them.

“Enzio, I promise, I know you miss home, but when we get to New York, I’ll feed you whatever you want, cannoli or pasta or anything, anything, just don’t jump. It’s cold down there in the water, you don’t like the cold, right, it’s not—YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR.”

The turtle raises one flipper as if waving goodbye, and then takes that last step forward—

“NOOOOO.” Dino launches himself forward, knocks Kyouya down to the deck.

“What are you doing,” Kyouya hisses, and then the ocean quite literally explodes.

-------

“Captain, I think we just hit a giant turtle.”

“HOW EXTREME. ALERT THE CREW, READY THE LIFEBOATS.”

“Ahaha, all right.”

-------

Everything devolves into chaos pretty quickly.

The chain-smoking pianist and his crew of violinists and the conductor are the only ones not clawing their ways onto the deck.

“Guys,” the conductor says. “It’s totally cool if you want to, you know, abandon ship.”

“And leave you behind, Conductor?!” The pianist tosses his cigarette into the ankle deep puddle at his feet. “Never! We shall play until the bitter end!”

“Oh.” The conductor’s face falls. “Okay, then.”

And they do, dramatically, at least until the captain manhandles them onto a lifeboat, along with their violins and the grand piano.

“YOU GUYS ARE PRETTY EXTREME FOR A BUNCH OF MUSICIANS,” the captain says as he splashes on to manhandle some more passengers. For their safety.

-------

“Well, Leon, do you think he’s suffered enough?”

Yellow eyes blink at him, and he smiles.

“Until the ship splits in half, then.” And he sits back to wait.

-------

The rowboat bobs up and down on the waves, and its three passengers are treated to the grand, creaking spectacle of the Titanic breaking into two.

“Aw, fuck.”

“All this fucking way for nothing. I can’t move my arms anymore, I—”

There is the splash signifying that someone has just been fed, ironically, to the sharks.

“Ushishishi, that’ll teach you to tell a prince to eat oar.”

-------

Kyouya is perched upon a floating door, arms crossed, looking mightily unimpressed. “Is the water cold?”

Dino, clinging onto the wood, looks at him in disbelief, lips turning blue. “It’s, um.”

Kyouya pushes him into the water.

A few seconds later, Dino comes up sputtering, flailing, wet hair plastered all over his face.

“What,” he gasps, “are you doing.”

“I’m following the script.”

“What script.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Why are you speaking only in italics.”

“I—”

“Why is there a huge green ship with glowing eyes coming our way.”

Dino gapes at him, turns around, and sputters some more when he sees it.

“Reborn,” he groans, wishing that he hadn’t come back up.

-------

In the end, everyone is saved, though the captain refuses to get on the green ship, choosing instead to swim to the nearest shore himself. “EXTREMELY COLD,” he yells, as he starts swimming the butterfly into the night.

As for Enzio, turns out salt water dehydrates after a while, and before long, it is sleeping soundly in Dino’s pocket again.

Dino is brought back to Italy and Kyouya to Japan, though Dino visits every so often after his father decides that he is no longer grounded.

Mariko bake cookies whenever Dino visits, and takes to asking when their wedding will be. Dino never knows how to answer her.

Mr. Rokudo finds a new young mind to corrupt, starting first with styling Chrome Dokuro’s hair like his own. He brings her with him as he travels the world for infuriating trinkets to send back to Kyouya, and while he is at it, comes up with creative ways to put himself on the most wanted list of every country.

Everyone lives happily ever after.

THE END



Don't judge me, okay.

School is kicking my ass already, what. I know I owe people things, and I PROMISE YOU WILL GET THEM ASAP.

Hope everyone else is faring better. <3!