I've had this bubbling around in my head for a while. It's a death fic, and I tried a completely different style for this, so I hope it's satisfactory. This is my first…well…not really my first Reborn fic, but it's the first I've posted.

This single chapter is enough to make a good one-shot, but I've already started on the second chapter. Sorry if Gokudera and Yamamoto seem so useless in this. I just...don't really see what else they could do... My apologies if anyone is a bit miffed about that. I'm a bit close-minded in situations like this. -face palm-

(It starts with sap, and it's going to end with sap, so don't get hung up with the angst in this.)

Wordlessly
Chapter One

"It's fine," Tsuna says simply, turning and giving him that reassuring smile that never fails to calm him down.

But it's not fine, is it? It's not fine when there's a threat of attack. Rumors of a hunt, being reduced to destroying the Vongola rings, with the Arcobaleno babies all but dead. It's not fine, but that won't stop the Tenth from reassuring him. Nothing could stop the Tenth from reassuring everyone that everything was alright, that everything would turn out fine, even if everything going on is pointing otherwise.

"T-Tenth!" In a brief moment of childishness, he's back to shouting like that immature little punk ass kid he'd been back then. "You don't understand! We can't let you out of our sight; not now! I won't allow it! What if someone attacks you!? What if–What if the Millefiore–"

"Maybe we should give Tsuna some time to himself, Gokudera…"

The Italian turns, swallowing anger and turning to look at Yamamoto. The scar beneath his chin is a grim reminder of the state of the world right now. The scar he received in an attempt to protect his father, almost branded on his face to remind him of his regret and shame and pain. It's all he can do to stop himself from bringing that up again – Yamamoto will only go silent and the Tenth will scold him.

Tsuna sighs, running a hand through his hair with a fleeting smile. "I'm only going to be inside for a moment to pick up something for Kyoko," he says, firm and allowing no rebuttal. "You'll be outside the entire time, and I'll be safe. It will be fine."

And this time, Gokudera believes it.

He glances at Yamamoto, who merely gives him an empathetic shrug of his shoulders as if to agree he's not pleased with the way things are but he respects Tsuna's need for privacy, and turns his eyes to the ground.

"Right, Ten– no, Tsuna."

It's the first time he's ever called him anything other than "Tenth" or "Boss" in what feels like the entire time he's known the other man, but it feels right. It calms him, seals his belief that everything will be alright. He's fine. Everything's fine. We'll get through this, Gokudera, even if it kills me, and I believe in you, Tenth. Yes, I do. I really, really do. I always have and always will.

The two men beside him pause in stunned silence before Tsuna's smile is too bright for Gokudera to bear, as he smiles at him like the entire weight of their current situation has been lifted from his shoulders completely. Yamamoto makes a happy sound over to his left, and he knows he's done something that will change things between them forever. Closer than right hand man, closer than a best friend, he's become something akin to a brother, as if they were never brothers to begin with. They were before to a degree, but there had been a wall – boss and subordinate. That wall feels as if it's been lifted, and Gokudera suddenly finds himself not even caring if he's Tsuna's right hand man anymore.

He's merely a companion, and Tsuna is something attainable, something tangible and real, like he's never quite known Tsuna until this very moment.

"Thank you, Gokudera," Tsuna replies in a voice holding a type of brightness that can't be described with mere words. The honorific is lost – he's accepted the shift in positions, welcomed it with open arms. He…is his friend, his companion, his partner. Nothing more, nothing less.

A bond without a true name, something like brothers but something deeper than that.

Maybe Tsuna has always felt this way, but to Gokudera, it's new and foreign. It's a good feeling that swells in his chest as Tsuna walks across the store into the jewelry shop, intent on finding something suitable for presenting to his precious, precious Kyoko.

Gokudera stares at the store, hears Yamamoto chuckling honestly for the first time since his father was killed, and he knows he will never let Tsuna forget this moment for as long as he lives. He won't be pushy like he was as a child, but he will remind him every once in a while.

"Tsuna," he murmurs, tasting the name on his lips. It's more pleasing to his ears than Tenth, more pleasing than Boss. He glances over at Yamamoto, eyes filled with something he can't quite place, watching as Yamamoto's expression changes from cheerful back to its quiet calm.

A few cars drive by, some pull over and stop to pick something up; one pulls up across the street from the jewelry shop and stops. A man steps out and walks into the jewelry shop, stays there for four or five minutes, then comes back out holding a single velvet box in his hand – a wedding ring for a fiancée perhaps, a broach for a mother, who knows. He gets back into the car; it remains on the street.

"Gokudera," Yamamoto says quietly as it transpires, leaning against the wall near the alley with his arms crossed over his chest. "I think…that was the first time you called him by his name. In quite a while, actually. Maybe…even ever."

"…I know," Gokudera replies complacently. Not irritated or jealous or begrudgingly, just complacently. "It's…nice. Not looking at him as the Boss. I'd forgotten somewhere along the line that he was…well…for lack of a better way of saying it…human." He's practically spilling his guts to Yamamoto, the baseball nut, the idiot that laughs at everything, the man who just now has seemed to lose that annoying naivety from merely nine years ago, but he doesn't even care. "Somewhere along the line…he reached a level I could merely look on and admire… He was…unattainable…tch…if that makes any sense." His cheeks tinge pink in his admittance of something he can't quite describe himself.

"Somewhere along the line…" Yamamoto starts, his face suddenly turning serious–

But then he's interrupted by the sounds of gunfire, blaring and loud. Screams erupt from bystanders and pedestrians, and both men turn. The world starts to spin, everything seems to move in slow motion. In typical Godfather-style, the windows of the car have been rolled down, and out have popped two – maybe three, maybe four, it's so hard to comprehend what's happening right now – sub-automatics and thousands of tinkling shells are raining onto the ground beneath the car. The front of the jewelry store is starting to chip and crack as all of bullets tear it up, glass shattering, black grooves notching into every surface, including the sidewalk…and there, in the middle of it all–

Gokudera's heart stops cold in his chest, his entire body goes cold and he's sure his face is sheet white, but even though he wants to shout and scream and jump in and do something, he knows it's too late for that and there's nothing in this world he can do to save Tsuna. Yamamoto, on the other hand, jerks forward, hand clamping down on the Italian's shoulder, fingers digging tighter and tighter, not frozen from moving but desperately trying to find a way to act.

Both are going deaf, but they can't even bring themselves to wince from the noise. It's all over before they know it and all they can do as the car starts to pull away is maybe, just maybe, destroy it and leave no survivors to report this back to whoever is responsible… Or maybe they can track it, Gokudera thinks as he stumbles numbly, jerkily, forcing legs to step forward in crippling shock, and maybe Yamamoto is tending to that, maybe. Hopefully.

The smell of gunpowder and smoke is heavy in the air, but it's a different kind of raw that's overtaking his lungs. Not even his dynamite from childhood can compare to this smell. He falls to his knees beside Tsuna, blood pooling at his knees and beginning to spread out into the street. He coughs back tears and anger and shakily puts a hand to his friend's neck.

The coppery stench of warm, wet blood fills his nostrils, thick and heavy, turning his stomach sour in a way his sister's cooking never could.

The entire world goes silent, as if it's just him and Tsuna's body there on the street, in a sound-proof bubble. The stench of blood is heady and hazy, or maybe that's just him about to pass out from shock. Every bullet hole on Tsuna's body, every tear from the bullets every groove and impact wound, is losing blood. His white dress shirt soaks it all in, turning blood red the longer he stares, and it's then that something breaks. Something inside him snaps.

His mouth opens, he inhales sharply, and the silence is shattered by his scream. It's a loud, broken wail, heavy with anger, heavy with regret, heavy with anguish and pain, like a part of him had also been gunned down in that moment, like a part of him is also lying there on the ground, pooling blood and soaked in red.

Yamamoto's beside him in an instant, grabbing at him, and Gokudera's not sure why, but the taller man keeps shouting over and over that there's nothing they can do, there's no way he could have survived, he's bleeding too badly, his heart's already stopped beating, stop shaking him, Gokudera, put him down, there's nothing we can do. Let him go, Gokudera.

You're hurting him.

That breaks through the shock. He freezes and releases his death grip on Tsuna's arms, takes a deep breath in a desperate attempt to regain his composure. He couldn't be hurting him for Tsuna's chest isn't even rising weakly and Yamamoto's pressed two fingers to his neck…but he's… He's hurting Tsuna, all the same. He has to get it together; he has to find himself in this. It isn't like him, and he takes another breath. He tries vainly to gain some sense of control. But he doesn't stand; he doesn't move from the body. Sitting there on his knees, trembling and shaking all over, unable to believe it, unable to fathom it–

The Tenth…he's dead.

Their Boss, dead.

…Tsuna.

Tsuna is gone.

What are they supposed to do now? What do they do? Who do they call? Where do they go? They can't just stay on this street at the scene of a mob hit, even if it's Tsuna lying there on the street. Even knowing they can't afford to be here on the crime scene and they have to leave Tsuna's body behind, they can't move.

It's the police sirens that finally snap the two men from what is going on. It's Gokudera standing, snarling out a feral, completely reflexive, "Where did they go, Yamamoto?" that awakens their brains and gets them thinking. It's when Yamamoto stands up, hand clenching into a fist and the blue flame emanating around his ring growing sharper and cleaner, that they finally know what they are going to do.

Yamamoto had released the swallow on reflex, after all.

"Follow me," Yamamoto murmurs darkly, his voice dangerously over the edge.

Their eyes meet, both linked in a common goal – the Storm Guardian, and the Rain Guardian, readying the tempest – and something clicks within them. A switch turns on and everything's fine. Wordlessly, they speak with their eyes. We'll get through this, Gokudera, even if we have to bust a few heads, and I'm in it with you, Yamamoto. Yes, I am. Everything will be fine.

We'll make everything right, even if it kills us.