Rain Doesn't Fall
The air conditioning, laced with uneven breathing that was not his own, and muffled authoritative voices, blared in his ears and the cold light stung; it brought forth sharp tears to his eyes. He was unblinking with sand paper eyelids, there was a tight vise around his lungs, and the shaking hand – it shook and bent and shook and wiped his brow and shook and rubbed cold metal against his cheeks, his chin, it kept shaking – pulled away. His eyes flickered up and he was floating, floating, drifting away from the shaking hand and the air conditioning. And then the perfect cotton-mouthed feeling came to a stop when the hand came back, it came back to grasp his hand tight and to hold his heart in a fist, a clasp as tight as the one on his lungs. He knew who it was. Sasagawa knew. And the very real mafia paramedics knew too.
He allowed his head to fall, fall, towards the shaking boy, and he stared, with his incessantly aching head, and he stared with the stare of one who had gone through what he had. He saw the boy. He felt joy in the form of bile rise in the back of his throat, and he wanted to smile, smile, so very much he wanted to, but he couldn't. He heard the raw sobs start and the joy-bile turned to blood and the joy disappeared. Joy turned to desire, to hate, to care, to love, and it rose to his mouth and spurted past his lips in a cherry red splash that was not cherry flavored. The sobs came louder and harsher and cruel now, cruel to him, to his mind. He wanted it to stop.
He managed, just barely, to squeeze the ivory, shaking, fragile, shaking hand in his. He heard no change in the ragged and soaking breaths, no grip tightening in response. He did squeeze the hand, didn't he? He struggled, so much he fought, to make his lips turn up in a smile, just for the hand, for the boy. His mouth fell open and his desire, his hate, his care, his love, his cherry-but-not-cherry liquid spilled out. The sobbing stopped and there was a steel gaze on him and he felt it and it hurt him so much.
He watched as the shaking boy glared and calculated difficult formulas and leaned forward and the green green eyes were red red and soon the ivory, shaking, fragile, shaking boy's lips were on his cherry red ones and his breathing stopped and the shaking stopped and the hand grabbed his shirt and it all just started floating. He heard a murmur and he felt himself lift up and fall down again and he liked the way the boy was smashing his face against the smothering lips. The boy said something against him and he just kept still to keep it perfect, perfect, too perfect despite how Sasagawa and the real mafia paramedics knew. Yelling was everywhere and the lips stopped and the boy stopped and he saw the boy being pulled away with his cherry red smeared on the ivory and not-so-fragile face, the green green eyes staring at him, through him, letting go of his shirt, his hand, his heart. He wanted that hand, though. He wanted it on his heart, his hand, he wanted those lips all over his, smashing them. He wanted the feeling of the breath and the want and the need in the moments, he wanted the lifting so he could drop and find himself with the boy. He willed himself to float, to fly, to drift, and when he saw the clear and clean and pungent mask, he felt so buoyant so light so much like a bird. He hit the ceiling.
Things went so dark and there was no drop, no fall, no ivory fragile boy with green green eyes and rushing kisses, no descent to see the lips coated with his blood, he couldn't fall. He wouldn't fall.
The rain stopped that day. Heaven's tears didn't come. Not for the boy.
Author's notes: Inspired by Chapter 294 – before Tsuna gets Gokudera's call, before they get to the hospital, whatever. I always assumed that Ryohei called to let Gokudera know about Yamamoto first... for obvious reasons. If it's confusing, please let me know, I will edit it. Thank you for reading.