Disclaimer: Not mine.
everything is all right.
i'm getting better at
fighting the future
- everything is all right © motion city soundtrack
It's easier to imagine that he's back at home where everyone's still alive and kicking – annoyingly noisy but living – when he closes his eyes.
The night here is quieter than it's ever been back in his own time. He isn't used to it, at all. The silence is deafening, and it reminds him of his mother's death – shut the goddamned piano, you stupid, useless boy – it reminds him of the time when everyone else was just too strong, too strong.
Ironically, the emotion that he's succeeded in suppressing all these years – the one that causes bile to rise in the back of his throat – by becoming stronger, stronger, is coming back with a vengeance. These are people with capabilities tougher than Hibari-san. These are true villains with the motive of killing – they are possibly more bloodthirsty than that damned Kokuyo pineapple-head had ever been.
He slams a fist into the wall and seeks solace from the resounding impact that shatters the silence and rings for two seconds, three. But it fades away almost as quickly as it came, and he misses the sound immediately.
So weak.
Jyuu-daime is trying harder than anyone else in the team; that he knows. The cheery boy is in a deep sleep, caused by extreme exhaustion from training. Himself? He runs away from his older sister's efforts.
He's aware that it's selfish of him to think of returning to the time when things were still normal – well, as normal a life as a mafia family can be. When the entire world isn't out to rip their limbs off, one by one. Jyuu-daime is dead in this place, this place where the silence is making his ears bleed and the pressure from everyone is suffocating and he can't breathe and he needs a smoke –
"Difficulties sleeping?" comes a familiar voice, interrupting his thoughts.
He glares upwards and meets the gaze of the baseball player towering over him. The height difference is worse because he's curled up in a tangle of leg and arm on the ground while the lanky boy is standing up straight, looking down.
"It's none of your business," he replies gruffly, looking away. The smile on the other boy's face is much too blinding. He really wonders how the optimism is kept up, but it's probably because the idiot still thinks that everything is a game.
There's that deafening silence again, but somehow this time, it's a little bit more tolerable.
"It's okay," says the taller boy suddenly, to no one in particular.
"Everything is going to be all right."
And he holds a hand out – a hand that has rough skin from his years of batting and his relentless practice with his katana – holds this hand out towards his comrade with a brilliant grin on his face that makes it seem that everything is really going to be all right even though nobody really knows what's going to happen next and Jyuu-daime might still die despite their efforts.
Gokudera is still scowling, but he takes the hand with a firm grip and lets Yamamoto haul him up to his feet.
For tonight, (just for tonight,) everything is all right.
fin.
Author's Notes: Probably a lot of inaccuracies in this one, but I needed to get it off my chest. Reviews much appreciated – first Reborn! fic after all.