I've been meaning to upload something for a while, and this has been waiting to be uploaded for just as long. I figured it was about time.
Before you read this I should inform you all of a theory my friends and I have about Hibari's past. Basically, we think he had a very abusive family, was an only child, and was sold or "rented" to anyone with perverse needs from before he could even comprehend what was being done to him. This led to his current distrust of everything human and his self-isolation.
This might turn into something longer, but for now it's a one shot
Gokudera written by me
Hibari written by Zermelo
Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn or any of the characters within.
Hibari wondered vaguely how this could have possibly happened. How he'd ended up being the one laying underneath the bridge by the river, broken, like so many of his victims. How he ended up the one, laying in the dirt, his hair matted with blood and dust. A small trail of the crimson liquid trickled from his mouth and bruises littered his skin, one of the most visible, the one causing his eye to swell shut.
His whole body hurt, the blood flowing from his wounds staining the riverside rocks and sand around him with brilliant hues of red, illuminated by the sinking sun.
His precious tonfa were ripped apart and set beside him.
It was only a vague thought however.
His main focus was on the little yellow, unmoving body close to his face. They'd used his bird to lure him out there. . . he needed to know it was okay. He needed to know his sacrifice hadn't been for nothing.
It was a fool's hope, the birds neck had been broken, the tiny body crushed mercilessly under a boot, belonging to the one who'd attacked him, a man he didn't recognize. Hibari refused to notice this, he kept watching, kept hoping.
High above the preoccupied prefect, atop the concrete bridge, stood a solitary silhouette. Lean body crowned by a corona of loose silver hair, the young man took his cigarette between his fingers once again and stared over the edge at the mildly rushing water. The sun had begun setting, reflecting off the water in splashes of orange and salmon that spread to the rocks of the river's edge. The array of colours should have been normal. However, he couldn't shake the thought that something was wrong with the way the salmon hues turned to deep patches of burgundy near the stones beneath his feet. Leaning against the railing, he craned his neck to study the irregular splattering of colour, too dark to be just shadows beneath the bridge.
Something was definitely off.
Placing the burning cigarette back in his lips, he made his way down the bank in search of trouble, just as a reckless Mafioso like him would always do. Little did he expect to find it in the form of the beaten body lying before him, dark hair and pale skin coated in blood that seemed far too foreign on the proud Hibari Kyouya's typically flawless form. The cigarette stayed in his lips, the trail of smoke the only movement between the two frozen Guardians as they stared blankly at each others forms, each unsure what had happened, even as Gokudera once again removed his cigarette, this time stamping it beneath his shoe. With a subtle twitch of an eyebrow, he asked, "What kind of monster managed to finally take down the beast?"
The skylark didn't respond, only looked back down to the small form of his only friend, laying dangerously close to the bad-tempered storm guardians foot.
"Don't step on her." he internally winced at how weak his voice sounded, quiet and lacking in power.
A spattering of blood followed his words, decorating the rocks with droplets of pain and humiliation.
Humiliation. A carnivore like him, being beaten so easily by a herbivore. Weak.
He tried to fight down the anguish that corrupted him as he stared at the bloodied yellow feathers, he was losing, for the second time that day. He kept staring, waiting for the tiny canary to move, he could tell the desperate hope was easily seen in his eyes, along with the anguish and pain.
"You'll kill her if you step on her." Hibari himself wasn't even sure who was speaking anymore. "Please don't kill my bird." the sentence was finished with a quiet. "She's all I have."
The silver-haired youth hid his surprise at the emotion seeping out of the violent Cloud, if only to allow the injured man his pride. Instead he lowered his gaze, jade eyes focusing on the small bird lying motionless at his feet, twisted body barely a foot from the toe of his shoe. His mind could barely grasp what he had heard: The undefeated Head of the Discipline Committee had been pleading. He had been pleading for the corpse of his pet.
Slowly, as if he was still waking from a dream, the Storm bent down and cradled the lifeless creature in his hands. The canary's body weighed less than a grain of sand, short yellow feathers brushing against the pale skin of his palms as he looked at Hibari once again. Holding the bird, beak lightly scratching the base of his thumb, he understood the prefect's pain.
Here was a songbird, never to sing again.
Silently he walked toward the other Guardian, the rocks beneath his feet the only sound as he stepped next to the bloody boy, hoping he wouldn't be left with another corpse. "Hibari. . ." he started, cutting himself off before he could utter something stupid. Letting out an almost inaudible sigh, Gokudera set the boy's pet in his slightly open palm, the bird's small form dwarfing the prefect's tiny hand in a pool of feathers.
"Why won't she move?" He asked quietly, seemingly not noticing the blood dripping through his fingers, leaking out of the small broken body in his palm. His mind was fogged with pain, and he was thinking irrationally, not able to understand his friend was dead. Hibari shifted his hand, gently shaking the small corpse. "Wake up. . ." he frowned, shaking the corpse again. He was beginning to get distressed, still unable to comprehend what had happened. The rocks were now slick with crimson, spilling from the two broken bodies sprawled on the ground. A mute songbird, and a skylark with clipped wings.
"Hibari—" Gokudera bit his lip and crouched to the ground, fingertips gently stopping the young man from crushing the bird in his hand. "She's not going to wake up," he all but whispered, not unlike a cat as he trained his worried green eyes on the familiar blood-coated face.
The broken man before him defied everything he had come to know. This wasn't something that should happen – not now, not ever. A predator didn't become prey, not like this. Not to this extent, so suddenly shifting from the bloodthirsty to the beaten.
The Storm blinked, cautiously sliding his hand beneath the other teen's, steadying the shaking with a soft caress of his thumb.
"W-why not?" he asked childishly. Still stuck in the first stage of grief, blind shock and misunderstanding. He was coughing again, more blood colouring the rocks, marking the place of his defeat.
Humiliation.
The sun had almost completely fallen from its high throne in the sky, leaving a moody dusk in its wake.
A few stars glinted in the sky like the tears the baffled skylark couldn't shed, not yet. Not now. He wouldn't rather shame himself by weeping, crying from all the pain attacking his body would be something a weakling would do.
He still refused to admit he was weak. Even though he knew he was, being beaten like this wasn't a show of strength.
He looked up at Gokudera with dull grief stricken eyes, repeating his question. "Why not?"
"Because she can't," Gokudera answered after a pause, a steady pain growing in his chest as the wounded carnivore's distress escalated. Each word the man managed to speak became harder to hear, the anguish in that deep voice nearly too intense to bear. The Storm found himself pitying the man, a feeling he knew he could be slaughtered for; still he felt it.
Gokudera's free hand crept slowly towards the mangled body, unbidden by his conscious mind. Only when the tips of his fingers touched the blood-soaked clothes did he realize his hand had moved.
He blinked again, trying to break himself out of this strange, over-calm state of being. Out of the numbness.
Clearing his throat, he said, "I think it's time you stopped lying by this filthy river." Letting his sense of self-preservation fall to the back of his mind, he carefully took the broken Guardian in his arms. Gently, he placed the feather-filled hand atop the crimson-splashed chest, saving the bird from falling from gradually weakening fingers. "It's time you left the blood behind."
"She's dead. . . isn't she?." He murmured, skipping straight past stage two of grief, denial. Skipping right over it, straight into the midst of all his grief, he could no longer dance around the edges and avoid it. "He killed her, didn't he?" The lark's eyes were staring, hollow and haunted, down at the crushed corpse resting in his hand. ". . . didn't he?" he repeated quietly.
He fought the misery, this horrid feeling of suffocation. He fought to speak around the lump of hurt gathering in his throat, trying to cut off his words with strangled sobs. He fought it.
But the more everything came clear, out of the shadows of his fogged, numb mind. He found, he could no longer fight. He gave in and let the tears spill over.
He let the pain of everything he'd been he'd been holding in, ever since he could remember, escape his mask of cold indifference. The flood gates had been opened and everything fought to escape at once. His act hadn't just broken, it had shattered. The proud prefect had given up.
The sullen Mafioso stalked steadily onwards, forcing his concentration solely on the slap of his shoes against the pavement. His gaze ahead, he tried to distract himself with the passing cars, filled with people so practiced in denial they would look straight past the suspicious adolescents. If only he was so lucky. Even now, as he walked through the darkening streets, he wondered what would have happened if things had been different.
But no. He couldn't think that. If he was like them, is he had been able to pass by the bleeding boy in his hands. . . .
"Yes," he finally answered, realizing he had left the trembling boy waiting for a reply. His voice dropped barely above a whisper. "Yeah, I guess the mystery bastard did."
The prefect crumbled, a silent miserable sob escaping his bloodied lips. His empty eyes stayed focused on the sunlight coloured feathers in his limp hand. Suddenly his hand dropped from his chest, taking the bird with it and he choked, eyes widening. The mangled body hit the ground with a sickening thud, the sound only breaking Hibari further. He recoiled into his own mind, trying to escape the pain but only plunging further into it, drowning in it and unable to escape. The further it dragged him down the harder it got to get back out, without a lifeline, he was drowning, swallowed by the flow of agony sweeping through him and pooling in his heart.
Gokudera tried to avert his attention from the pitiful sobbing, continuing to study the buildings around him as he wandered towards the apartments on the corner. The boy in his arms had no need for an emergency room. The young Mafioso had seen and bandaged enough wounds to know the difference between what was fatal and what was not. Beneath the coating of blood would be no worse than a series of complicated bruises, laced through with cuts in just the right places to bleed.
Nothing fatal, he assured himself, hardly ignoring the sniffling at his chest. With practiced ease, he made his way through doors and flights of stairs, balancing the pale body in his arms. Breathing deep and leaning back, shifting the boy's weight to balance on his chest, he turned the key in his lock and walked into the darkness. Nothing fatal.
"You left her behind. You left my bird behind. . ." He kept repeating dully, voice filled with disbelief. "Why'd you leave her behind? . . ." He said it again and again, ever since the cold tiny body had dropped from his hand onto the rough pavement of the sidewalk. The storm guardian seemed to not hear. Again and again. "Why?" he raised his voice, barely able too, having wasted his energy trying to escape the darkness. His vision was getting blurry and he continued to repeat himself, again and again, blood soaking into the carpet of Gokudera's apartment. The distress rose that much more every time he said it.
The Vongola Storm swallowed an anxious breath, mind stuck on the words repeating in the broken Cloud. There was the bird. . . His bird. . . . He shut his eyes, hiding worried green eyes from sigh in a moment of guilt. This was what guilt was, raw and ravenous, tearing his chest apart from within with every passing second. He shouldn't have left the bird—Hibird—lying where she had fallen on the road. He'd known the moment he took a step past, yet couldn't bring himself to stop, to lean down and fold her carefully back into the pale prefect's weak hands. Some part of him had been more worried about the slowly descending Guardian in his arms, blood trickling through fabric to slide across Gokudera's skin. Opening his eyes, he let Hibari's body rest against the side of the bath, bandages already unrolling in his fingers.
"I'm sorry," he said, whispering at first. Soon his hands were moving across the older boy's chest, stripping him of his many layers until there was a pile of blood-stained cloth inhabiting the porcelain. His voice slightly louder as he dabbed the crimson trails from Hibari's sickly pale skin, he repeated once again, jade eyes fixed upon those of stormy winter skies. "I'm sorry I left her behind."
Hibari stared at the other, barely able to see him through the blurry haze of tears. "Why? Why'd you leave my bird. . . She'll die if we leave her out in the cold. . ." The grief had destroyed him; he just kept repeating himself, like a broken record. Again and again. Where is she, why'd you leave her, don't leave her out there to die. Again and again. He kept begging for his bird as the wounds were bandaged, some deeper than Gokudera had originally anticipated, and it was growing disturbing how Hibari appeared to have forgotten the death of his precious pet, he had skipped back to the second stage of grief, Denial. It had broken him, his defeat and the loss of his one true friend.
"P-Pleeaaase! Don't leave her!" He wailed, curling into a tight ball, a complete mess and nothing like his former self. He began humming the Namimori school anthem, rocking ever so slightly as he let out a quiet chuckle and continued, singing aloud. "Midori tanabiku~ Namimori no~"
"Hibari. . ." The younger man let out a quiet sigh, taping the edge of the bandage down with an anxious twitch of his fingertips, bottom lip finding its way between his teeth. He let the boy's name fade, knowing there was nothing he could say. It was too late, and he'd done it. He'd broken the lark. Knowing the grieving Cloud could hardly hear him, if at all, he leaned closer, eyes catching flickers of recognition hidden deep within the confusion of Hibari's head. "Don't go anywhere while I'm gone," he said, thinking better of himself and adding a quiet plea. "Please. . . I'll be back soon," he managed to say, resisting the urge to blink and forget about the bird waiting on the concrete outside. Yet he couldn't, finding himself sprinting back through the doors he had come, eyes catching the yellow feathers in the last glow of the sun.
Footsteps loud on the emptying street, the silver-haired youth bent down to grasp the small creature, fingers cradling the limp body within a gentle nest. Blood stained its feathers in sporadic drops, patches of scarlet rough beside the soft feathers in his palm as he hurried once again to his door. He had been an idiot, that and beyond, leaving the panicked prefect alone in his apartment, already violent mind plagued by death. All he could hope for was the presence of a moody Cloud inside the walls, beyond the door as he turned the knob.
The dark haired teen had dragged himself into Gokudera's bedroom, and could now be found curled up in the darkest area of the small sleeping space, the closet. He was sitting in the far corner, his arms wrapped around his legs as he rested his chin on his knees. He stared straight ahead, still murmuring to himself as he shuddered. Blood trickling out from between his lips, the beads of scarlet leaving trails over the chalky pale skin of the shattered being known as Hibari, mixing with the tears steadily sliding down his cheeks to leave stains on his skin. He heard the front door click open but it only barely registered, his eyes flicking over only momentarily before snapping back to stare at the opposite wall. He fell silent, recoiling back into his mind, hiding.
"Hibari. . ?" Gokudera called once he stepped from the bathroom door, leaving behind the empty, blood-splattered floor that had greeted him. He didn't expect an answer, he never had, and yet he felt his heart sink when he was left without a reply. Bare feet padding lightly over the carpet, he looked down, eyes catching the stray crimson drops leading through the small apartment. Following in quick strides he found himself standing before a familiar door, the entrance to the closet slightly ajar. Peering cautiously through the gap in the door he watched the shadow within the darkness, lips set in a tense line as he dropped to the floor, yellow bird waiting in his hands. "Hibari. . . I brought something for you," he said, voice sounding strained even to himself as he swallowed around the words lodging themselves in his throat. "I brought . . . Hibird."
Sad, red-rimmed eyes lifted to meet his, they seemed clearer now, more sane. He looked almost afraid as he studied Gokudera, he looked young, like a child woken by nightmares, too scared to call for anyone and just left there with nothing to do but to cry until sleep finally crept back, but that was the thing with Hibari, nobody was really, truely sure exactly how old he was. Looking into those broken, scared eyes, Gokudera could almost see back into the prefect's past, a past tainted with abuse and pain, where the raven-haired youth spent days on end afraid. It was like he was silently begging for help, for someone to make the nightmares go away when he could no longer scream. He held out shaking hands and took the bird, he stared at the small cold corpse a while, the tears starting anew. "I'm sorry. . ." He whispered hoarsely to the small bundle of feathers. "Please forgive me, dearest." A kiss was placed atop the feathers, his whole body tensing and relaxing as he fought back sobs.
Gokudera looked away with a held breath, gaze fixing itself on the stains littering his carpet for a few moments, letting the boy believe he paid little attention to the bitter greeting. Still, he felt the guilt gnawing at his chest, wondering if he could have done more. If he could have saved the bird in the first place. But no. He couldn't have. He hadn't known of their presence until after the fact, when their bodies lay beneath bridge, deep burgundy spreading across the damp rocks of the river bank. Now all he could do was try and repair the damage. . . Or keep it from spreading.
Beside him the typically stoic Cloud sat hunched, body curled in on the tiny creature in his hands, feathers peeking from between pale fingers. He forced his eyes away once again, studying his hands instead, blood dried across his skin and caked beneath his fingernails. Trails trickled from his fingers to his palms, rivulets running over veins clear through the translucent skin of his wrists in attempts to vanish up his sleeves. Inhaling a breath, he allowed his face to turn back toward the prefect. With silent concern, he watched the young Mafioso, a careful stare adorning his face. There before him sat a secret he knew he would keep, uninterested superiority marred by silent tears and red-rimmed eyes, face hidden behind a mask of raised tracks and clinging hair.
Hibari's eyes lifted to meet Gokudera's, glistening with tears. "She's gone." His voice came as a quiet, broken whisper; he looked back down at the bird his eyes following it as he set it carefully on the floor. His eyes snapped shut the second the cold corpse left his touch, his other hand flying up to cover his mouth as he lurched forwards, trembling. He kept his eyes tightly shut as he doubled over, his body heaving. He sat like that for a short while, gently rocking back and forth, his eyes barely opened, tears streaming down his face. They clamped shut again as he shakily got to his feet and stumbled from the closet, heading in the direction of the bathroom. He collapsed, dropping to his knees hard, all possible pride that might have been left gone out the window as he all but dragged himself the rest of the way.
The Storm watched silently from the hall as the broken Cloud entered the bathroom, green eyes squeezing shut to keep from offering help as he struggled. The proud prefect wouldn't want help, and if he offered, opened his mouth, he would only be shot down. The words were unnecessary. A waste of breath. So instead he stood there, pale arms crossed as he leaned rigidly against the wall, lips pressed in a slight frown as he waited for the end. For Hibari to return, his head to clear, and his usual violence to return. Gokudera let out a quiet sigh escaping his mouth, glancing through the door with barely concealed worry at the fragile Guardian. Yes, he would wait for the Hibari he knew to return, even if it meant a head smashed in with the end of a tonfa. He would expect no less as a thank you.