Italics – thoughts

The Start Of Something New

Chapter 3

A second bullet pierced the hitman's left shoulder blade, and the poor cow boy watched the whole incident with horror filled eyes (Well, left eye). No, he was unable to watch it anymore. Lambo shut his eyes closed as he forced his last ounce of energy and screamed the hitman's name; his entire body trembling for reasons that he didn't even know. The boy could practically feel the momentum of the bullets flying in the air.

Lambo heard the clicking sound of bullet cartridges dropping to the floor before the entire scene in front of him became pin drop silent. Slowly, he lifted his head and opened his one eye; Lambo didn't know whether he should feel happy or sad or worried or… whatever. Reborn was the last man standing, though he had his hand clasped firmly on his wounded shoulder blade.

"Reborn, your wound… You need to treat it fast," Lambo said weakly.

The hitman did not reply. Instead, he used his revolver and pointed at the lock of Lambo's cell. Amazingly, his facial expression did not change much from what Lambo noted; the hitman showed no signs of pain. BANG! The lock broke and opened up. Said hitman took out a small key from his pocket; a key from which Lambo assumed that he had taken it secretly (stealing is not a good word) without the assassins knowing. Reborn used the key and freed Lambo's wrist from the handcuffs. The younger male's wrists were already red and swollen from struggling.

"Stupid cow," Reborn kept on a poker face, "Can you walk?"

Lambo moved both his arms and wrists gently to let fresh blood circulate. "Yes, I'm sure I can still walk out of this plac-" but Reborn didn't wait for him to finish his sentence; he scooped the boy up, hanging him over his unwounded shoulder and hurried out of the place.

"W-Wait, Reborn, you're hurt!" Lambo struggled in attempt to free himself from Reborn. After all, he was the reason that Reborn got hurt. He didn't want to cause trouble to Reborn anymore. "And besides, I need to get my horns and Vongola ring back before I leave!"

You can hardly stand, idiot. You're also badly wounded, Reborn commented mentally. "I'm having your horns and ring, and I've also completed the mission successfully, except that killing them weren't exactly part of my original plan," Reborn explained coldly, his feet hurried as fast as his body could manage, "But they've gone too far, thus killing these small fries would definitely be considered self-defense. Mission accomplished."

Lambo held on tightly on Reborn, feeling his consciousness seeping away. He could hardly hear Reborn clearly. "Say, Reborn, you killed them all?"

"I'm a professional hitman."

Lambo didn't know how to answer to that, and so he tried changing the topic. "… Where are we going?"

"There's a hotel not too far away, we'll have to stay for the night."

"I see…" Lambo forced himself to start another topic. Although it's hard to talk when he was being carried by Reborn like a man carrying a sack of rock or potatoes; he needed to keep taking, or he might just lose his consciousness. "What is this mission about actually?"

"Stupid cow," Reborn rolled his eyes, although he was clearly aware that the cow couldn't see him doing it, "You didn't even ask Tsuna about that before you decided to follow me here?"

"He told me to stay out of this matter," Lambo defended himself.

"Very well," Reborn said, "And you got yourself caught, thus made it harder for me to escape. How exactly are you going to explain to Dame-Tsuna?"

"… I'm sorry, Reborn." The voice sounded too soft for a cow who used to be such an obnoxious kid.

"This group of people had some kind of information of drugs preparation that can poison someone by just inhaling it," the hitman chose to ignore the soft apology of the man we was carrying right now. It felt weird to have someone that tried to kill him at any possible occasions, now apologizing to him. Somehow he didn't like this part of Lambo. "And so Tsuna begged me to destroy the files before they can produce the drugs. Apparently they have a possibility of using this drug to threaten the family. I've checked their past records, and they seem to hold a grudge against the great Vongola. I figured that the easiest way to bring down an assassination group like this is to sneak into their nest and get hold of their information first hand."

When Lambo didn't reply him, he forced his body to hurry and reach the nearest hotel as soon as possible.

Unconscious already, huh? Stupid cow.

"Tch."

Lambo opened one of his eyes and the first thing that he saw was Reborn's naked back facing him. He must be removing the bullet from his shoulder. A tear of guilt slipped down his open eye silently. He used the back of hand to wipe the tears away before the hitman realized it.

"If you have the time to cry, you might as well clean your wounds. The effects of the injection should have worn off by now." Reborn's voice startled Lambo. He noticed, after all.

Lambo realized that they were in a hotel room as his eyes adjusted to the light. He sat up slowly and true enough, just like what Reborn had said, his body felt more energetic, though his wounded body still hurt badly from the physical attacks. Something beside Reborn caught the cow boy's attention. He looked carefully and realized that it was Reborn's lump of dress shirt, partially soaked with blood. He wasn't aware that Reborn had actually loss such an amount of blood, most probably because his black coat concealed the blood red colour. Lambo felt guilt overtaking him again.

Reborn took a few pieces of clean white cloth and bandages to wrap up his wound temporarily. Lambo watched as the hitman took care of his shoulder with ease. Reborn must be used to getting injured already, with such a skill in hand.

Seeing that Reborn ignored him and was unwilling to say anything to him, Lambo got off the bed slowly and headed to the bathroom. He hissed when hot water flowed down his body. But this is nothing compared to the pain Reborn went through… The wounds heated up once again and the water that slid down from the young Bovino's body wasn't even clear. It felt good to see dirty blood flowing down the draining hole as he washed himself thoroughly to get rid of the sweat and dirt.

When he felt clean enough, Lambo dried himself before changing into comfortable clothes. The moment he stepped out of the bathroom, he could hear Reborn reporting back to Tsuna through the phone.

"Send us transport tomorrow morning," the hitman said before cutting the line off. Without saying a word to Lambo, Reborn took a change of new clothes and headed to the bathroom. Lambo sat on a small sofa while waiting for the hitman to finish bathing. It was almost half an hour and Reborn was still inside, and Lambo had somewhat gotten worried. His eyes were getting droopy, but he felt that he should probably wait for Reborn before he went to sleep.

Just 'speak of the devil and he shall appear', the next second Reborn came out of the bathroom drying his spiky hair with a towel. Still, that man did not say a word to Lambo.

"Reborn. How should I say this?" Lambo took the initiative to start a conversation. "I'm… sorry."

Reborn continued drying his hair without answering the younger man.

"If it's not because of me, you would have escaped without injuries. I thought by sneaking in I would be able to help you, but it seems that I'm a great hindrance to you."

Reborn refused to say anything, but Lambo was used to this already. After all, since when had the hitman paid him any attention? At least Reborn did not point a gun to Lambo's face and ask him to keep quiet.

"And Reborn, sorry for taking that bullet for me. T-Thank you."

After a long silence, Reborn spoke for the first time. "So, after you apologize to me, what are you going to do?"

"I… I don't know." Lambo really didn't know what he should do at the moment. He wouldn't risk doing anything that would anger Reborn at this time.

"If you don't know what to do, then don't apologize to me. Go to sleep. I'm tired."

"I'll sleep on the sofa, you can use the bed," Lambo offered.

"That goes without saying."

That said and Reborn walked over to the bed and tumbled over. He could hear Lambo's movements on the sofa, adjusting to a comfortable position. The light went off in a blink second.

A few minutes passed, and Reborn thought he heard a faint sobbing from the sofa. That stupid cow must be crying. Reborn didn't do anything, but kept his eyes closed. Crybaby.

Moments passed, and the sobbing stopped. Reborn heard faint footsteps, and then he felt a part of the mattress of the queen sized bed sinking due to a new weight. Lambo had his face buried into Reborn's chest and his fingers hold onto Reborn's shirt lightly. The boy made sure not to touch Reborn's wounds. He was afraid that the hitman would push him away, but Reborn didn't seem to mind, surprisingly. After the incident that happened today, after all of the hardships that Lambo had to went through; he was pretty sure that Lambo had not met anything as dangerous as this because in the first place, Tsuna wouldn't assign such a task to the young boy, and so Reborn didn't really had the heart to reject the cow boy. This part of Lambo somewhat reminded him of Uni. It felt weird for the cow to apologize to him, and Reborn clearly did not like this part of Lambo.

When Lambo's breathing evened out, only he allowed his arm to rest on Lambo's waist. He wouldn't risk doing such a thing when the younger man was still awake. Reborn closed his eyes and allowed himself to sleep.

It seemed as though Reborn's personal space had opened up, even if it's only a little.

This is definitely the start of something new.

The End

A/N: I'm afraid Reborn and Lambo are a bit out of character? . For some reasons, this pairing gave me the biggest headache when I'm writing the story :/ Or maybe it's because it's been two years since I've started writing fanfictions again o.O

Well, I hope you people out there enjoyed the story! If you did not, I'm sorry that the story weren't up to your expectations. Have a nice day! (: