Hello it's Easel T! So this is my first story and the timeline may be a bit off but it's an AU so… Anyways, I was always so interested in Gokudera's mother, don't really have a reason why, but I decided to make a story where Lavina was an assassin.
My mind is weird like that. It's best not to question it.
Chapter title was taken from Impossible Year, by Panic! At The Disco.
"There's no good times
This impossible year
Just a beachfront of bad blood
And a coast that's unclear."
-Panic! At The Disco, Impossible Year
Lavina's first time seeing death was when she watched one of the cars, black, just like the grim reaper's robes, run over a mouse. Its body lay mangled on the street. Her father wouldn't let her turn away from it.
"See that? One day, I'll train you to be just like that car. I'll teach you to be fast, merciless, and unstopping. A true force to be reckoned with."
For some reason, at that moment, she only thought one thing. I'd rather be the roadkill.
If her father was a sun, blinding with its burning fatal rays of light, then her mother was the moon, with its calming silver aura and soft glow.
She would watch her mother play on the piano, pale thin fingers dancing across the black and white keys.
"I'll teach you how to play when you're older, Lavina. I'm sure you'll be better than me if you keep on practicing!"
Lavina viewed her childhood as two halves of a whole. One half, that was razed by the sun, and the other half, blessed with the moon.
The first time she killed was when she first played the part of the replacement. She was not her father but her moves shadowed his. Her knife followed his footsteps and when she stabbed, there was no hesitation; only remorse after the deed was done.
Her father came home to a broken door and smashed windows. He watched as an unknown man's body fell down the staircase and he saw his daughter holding the murder weapon.
He merely placed a hand on her shoulder and gently took the knife from her grip. That day was the first and only day that he made coffee for her. Lavina welcomed the bitter taste.
Her father washed the dishes and before leaving to go upstairs to clean the blood, he told her something.
"The one who attacked you was a coward. He just wanted to kill me but instead took it out on you, my daughter. He should be man enough to actually kill me, like how you killed him."
But Lavina was no man. She was a woman, something that her mother recognized. After sparring with her father every day, her mother would be just as brutal in the kitchen, pounding recipes and tips into Lavina's head.
She was 12 when she actually put it to use.
Cooking for her mother felt strange. It felt weird. It was always her mother who cooked for her. Her father stood by the cabinets. He stood, never leaned.
"About your mother..."
Lavina continued to stir the pot. "She'll be fine. She won't let a little thing like arthritis get in her way. She's strong, stronger than you, if I might add."
He laughed. "Your mother is the strongest person that I know and will ever know. And you're just like her."
It was rare to get compliments but the few that she received were always held in her memories.
Just like the memory of her mother and the day her fingers began to fail her. From then on, hearing the beautiful music that came from her mother became rare. The household duties fell onto her and her father worked to earn them money.
Often times Lavina couldn't bear to stay home with her mother because it always made her feel guilty. Why her mother and not herself?
Soon, it became, why did her father die instead of her?
Lavina placed a newly washed plate on the drying rack and moved to bring dinner up to her mother, who spent most days silently in bed, as if she wasn't even there to begin with.
Days at home became dull and routine. Was it bad that Lavina wanted to pick up her father's blades? That she wanted to feel the ache of her muscles once again?
But no, she couldn't. Her job was to watch over her mother and wisely use the rest of the money that they had left before her father died.
Then one day, they ran out and Lavina picked up the knife and became an assassin, if only for one job.
It's been a year and she has not put down the blade. They call her Silver, because it was supposedly the last color her victims would see before they met their maker.
Her mother had taken on a new hobby. This time, it was not of music and beauty, but of alcohol and regret.
Lavina had already hid parts of the money under sinks and at the backs of drawers but somehow, her mother, as painful as it was to move her fingers, found every hidden euro and left to buy wine when Lavina was out of the house.
The house was no longer considered 'home' to her. She could not tell if that was bad or good.
"My name's Trident Shamal. You must be the elusive Silver, signora."
She raised a gun towards the unknown man, though he simply raised his hands in surrender.
"Let's make a deal. I heard that you need money and I have a job that can earn us a lot of that but I can't do it alone. What about fifty-fifty?"
Slowly lowering her weapon, she eyed him warily. "What kind of money are we talking about?"
He grinned, a ferocious thing. "I'm talking about taking baths in one hundred dollar bills for days."
"What a coincidence. It's always been my dream to take a bath in money. I heard it helps the skin." she told him, offhandedly.
Shamal laughed, his eyes twinkling. "Oh we'll get along very well."
She nods towards Shamal, who didn't bother to wipe the blood off his clothes, so it left brown stains splattered across his white lab coat. Her silver hair was matted down with sweat and she gingerly touched the black and blue bruise sprouting across her left cheek.
"It was a lucky shot. I'm fine." she told him, even though he never asked.
"I know."
They had been partners for over seven months. For some reason, they worked good together, making up for what the other lacked. They were effective and the people who hired them didn't really care who tagged along for the job.
In the first month, Lavina found herself taking care of Shamal for two days, when he caught a disease that made his heart beat too slowly. Then the next day, he caught another disease that made his heart beat too fast. He claimed that they negated each other and that it was normal.
There was honestly nothing normal of Shamal, who tamed mosquitoes to carry diseases to give to his targets.
Lavina learned that Shamal wanted to become a doctor so that he could take care of himself. In turn, she told him that she had once wanted to be a pianist. He laughed, claiming that her hands were not meant to play beautiful pieces as his were not meant to save lives.
Perhaps it was true, perhaps it was not.
But who was Lavina to say which was true?
The woman was strange, perhaps even stranger than Shamal. She stood there, hands clutching stolen jewelry, as Shamal and Lavina finished the job. All that remained were corpses and blood but the woman still stayed there, still held on to valuables that weren't so valuable after death.
"My name is Olethea. I'll give you some of this if you let me go free."
Lavina exchanged a look with Shamal. "You're not the target so you are not my concern. Finish what you came here for and leave."
She expected to never see the woman ever again but fate was a fickle thing.
"You are the woman I saw last night, yes?"
Lavina's hand stilled over the herbs that she was about to purchase. She looked up to see Olethea once again. "Yes."
She did not know what to do. Kill or don't kill. She was never good at decisions.
"You have blood in your hair."
The out of place remark make Lavina instantly reach up to grab a lock of her hair. Of course, why did she not check if there was blood left over from last night that the shower did not get out?
"I'll get some water."
As Olethea carefully matted away the dried blood from Lavina's silver strands of hair, Lavina asked what Olethea did with the jewelry she stole.
Olethea smiled. "I bought a new dress for myself. And I kept a few pieces for myself. They're just too pretty to part with."
Lavina gave her a questioning look. "Do you not need it for food?"
She shook her head. "I have enough money to support myself but you could say that I just love the thrill of it. It's a habit, a bad one mind you, but a habit nonetheless. I'm practically the reincarnation of greed itself."
"Then I am envy, for those whose lives are better than mine."
And soon, Lavina found herself pouring her heart out to Olethea, telling her of her father's death, her mother's addictions, and her path to becoming a murderer. She has never told anyone this, not even Shamal.
In return, Olethea told Lavina of how she ran away from home, stealing nearly all of her parents' money in the process. It was the start of her decent into crime.
They become the unlikeliest of friends. Shamal warns her that Olethea was bad news but she seemed rather tame compared to Lavina.
"If you don't value the opinion of your partner then I might as well not even be considered your equal."
Heated words are exchanged; things that should never have been said were yelled to each other. Regret begins to appear the next day but by then it's too late.
Lavina does not see Shamal again for the rest of the year and neither of them is too keen on overlooking their prides just to apologize.
Olethea cradles a bottle of whiskey with a persuasive grin and sugar coated words. Shamal's warning six year ago is the furthest thing from Lavina's mind as she tips back cup after cup. Before, she had sworn off alcohol due to her mother, but Olethea is too convincing.
Again and again, her eyesight becomes hazy but she ignores it and is too intoxicated to realize that Olethea has switched to colored water instead of the alcohol that Lavina was drinking.
"Where do you put all that money that you earn on jobs? Where do you make the space for it?"
Lavina does not consider the dangerousness of the question and answers wholeheartedly. The next day, she wakes up, passed out on a table with no recollection of the night before except for that question.
She rushes to her house, finding the door ajar. Her head throbs painfully but she stumbles through the hallways. Her father, if he was still alive, would have mistaken her for her mother.
She checks every nook and cranny where she had hid her bundles of cash but each spot turns up empty. Her mother is passed out in the living room, clutching a large bottle.
Lavina, in her built of anger rooted from betrayal, smashes the bottle against the floor, watching as the glass shards fly into the air and scatter across the floor.
Blinded by her rage, she calls one of her previous hirers. He gives her a well-paying job, one that would reap enough money to replace what was stolen. She did not care if it was out of her league.
She was going to kill Timoteo, the Ninth Boss of the Vongola Famiglia.