tampered | closed; unfinished

When; Morning of the 14th.
Rating; PG-13.
Characters;

umathematic
Summary; Spoilers: even given time and a curse, Yuri never stops being a douche.

He was burning out cigarettes long before Yuri Lowell arrived.

Waves tore at the shore a few steps away. Gokudera watched their rolling curves with narrowed eyes. Location and time had been his choices. He'd picked out an isolated place in daylight as a show of good faith and a preemptive measure both. What he hadn't done was bank on a curse--but then, Gokudera had been stumbling through the whole mess like a drunk from the start. Forgetting that weekends increased chances of the City's particular brand of insanity was just the crown on a series of sovereign mistakes.

The space between his shoulder blades itched--conspiracist's paranoia, a familiar phantom ache. An old habit, layered on over years. Gokudera ignored it. It struck him, too late and without real conviction, that if Lowell showed up, it'd mean that they could have taken him out a long time ago. If conditions were different.

Then again, under different conditions, it never would have come to this: underhanded negotiations with an idiot who, despite age and experience, still planned like a five-year-old with a crayon.

The taste of smoke sank through his throat. Gokudera exhaled it again in a sharp gust. He dropped the cigarette, crushed it beneath a heel. Sand scraped under his shoes, dry enough to smother any spark. Regret after regret--he was starting to think like an old man. That thought irritated him too. He hooked a hand on his belt and straightened, idly considering the number of mini-bombs strung under his fingers and whether to mine the sand before somebody arrived to catch him.

Waiting was, as always, an idiot's game.