AN: I debated to myself and my cereal whether I should occasionally switch to Gokudera's pov. Received no confirmation or refusal from the cocoa puffs. Was annoyed. Challenged it that I would and if I did, I would eat the whole damn bowl of it.
"If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you," recited Gokudera from an old fairytale.
He waited for the reply that would surely come, like the sun that came after the moon, like the explosion after the fuse, inevitability.
Hundred percent probability.
Tsuna's face did not change, exhaustion level: seventy three percent. Chances of waking up: only twelve percent.
Then Tsuna opened his mouth, "Neither now nor ever will I leave you," his eyes still shut, asleep, the spindle spinning its slumberous spell.
Chances of that happening: 0.0001 percent. Gokudera had long lost any pretense to childhood when he'd joined the Vongola Famiglia. Daydreams were useless and unnecessary.
Gokudera raised the cigarette, between index and middle finger, to his mouth and dragged a smoky breathe from it and exhaled away from the angel's face lying on his lap, asleep.
Fifty seconds till the medical officials would reach the top roof, where they were situated, maybe three minutes till they realized the lock was melted and charred, useless, courtesy of his tiny specialized A43-cherry bombs, and probably two minutes and thirty-three seconds before Reborn came.
Gokudera curled and uncurled and curled a lock of Tsuna hair around his unoccupied hand's index finger.
Forty-five seconds. He curled and uncurled.
Tsuna caught his hand, interlaced his tiny fingers with Gokudera's pianist' ones, and opened his pink, rose pink mouth, in a faint dulcet voice,"I devote myself…to you…forever and ever."
Tsuna still wasn't awake.
Twenty-three seconds.
And then whirring of helicopter blades came in just in time as the officials began body-slamming the door. Reborn slid the rope ladder down, and Gokudera climbed it, Tsuna's body limp on his shoulder.
Reborn did not say anything even as he heard Gokudera muttering, "…devote myself to you…devote…", several times, staring at the angel he clutched in his arms.
Reborn said nothing. He opened the first aid travel kit and fussed over them both.
By the time they'd arrived at a safe-house, it was already dark, the moon round and smooth as a marble. Then they were shuffled off to the clinic, and Gokudera sat near Tsuna's bed, and Reborn coughed, reminding him.
Not taking his eyes off Tsuna, Gokudera began to renumerate the mission details, still curling and uncurling a Tsuna lock of hair.
He'd not reached for a seventh cigarette this day, Reborn noted, pleased.
And the mission was completed, as well as Gokudera could have done it, under the circumstances, and here, Reborn shot a look of curiosity and annoyance at the angel. And then it was over and Reborn had left.
Gokudera and Tsuna.
Alone.
It was wonderful.
Then he hooked himself to an available laptop in the clinic and began doing a thorough search on one, Sawada Tsuna.
Tsuna was sleeping.
Tsuna was sleeping.
Peacefully.
"...neither now...nor ever..." murmured the angel in sleep.
His soft breathing filled the room.
Gokudera wished he would stop daydreaming.