Reborn takes another bite of the juicy mango and chews slowly, savouring it.
Beside the doctor, Kyouya stirs again but doesn't fully awaken. It makes sense, considering how many times Reborn slammed the mermaid's head against the rocks.
The view is wonderful, water clear enough to see the vivid corals and small darting fish. Further out, where the water breaks into white foam against gently curved rocks that encircle the island, the water is a deep blue. Past that is nothing, just the very curvature of the earth.
The sand is white, still clinging to Reborn's half dry clothes. It's in his hair, on his hands, and he loves it because it means he's not floating in the ocean on nothing but a piece of wood, always cold, always wet, always absolutely exhausted.
The large rock he's leaning on is warm from the bright sun. He's shed his clothes until only his pants are left, everything else stretched over the rock to dry faster. Reborn shifts and pulls in his legs to cross them lightly, still taking care to not upset his injured foot.
Kyouya slowly sits up next to Reborn.
The doctor offers the mango and the mermaid takes it. Reborn then picks up an opened coconut that was set to the side and sips.
Kyouya stares at the orange thing in confusion and hesitantly licks it.
They both sit there, the only noise being the ocean's waves crashing against the glittering white sand.
"When that fish fucker gets back here, I'm going to rip off his fucking tail," Lal snarls in rage, whetstone scraping against the blade of her sword.
Not even Fon protests this. He just stays tense, still staring into the horizon where Reborn disappeared. All of them are scattered about the rafts, armed and very pissed off.
It's been more than an hour after Reborn was dragged away, and only now does it start sinking in that maybe the doctor won't be found alive. Reborn is strong, but in the water with a severe injury against a creature who's in their home territory…
It doesn't help that Colonnello disappeared as well. The soldier had grabbed onto the end of the door when Reborn was first taken and got dragged along quite a distance. He must have fallen off sometime after because he flung up one of the emergency flares he and Lal both had, barely seen in the distance.
Lal immediately took off, ordering everyone else to stay together, and swam out to the point. Either Colonnello was still moving when he shot up the flare or he sent the signal to inform them of the direction and then kept following after their doctor.
Regardless, he was gone when she got there. Lal made it back to find the rest in an argument about swimming after the two missing men or staying here and waiting for Kyouya to come back to fight.
The fact is, they don't know where the two have gone. If they rush after them and tire themselves out, it'd be even easier for the mermaid to… eat them or whatever. Not to mention the threat the actual ocean possesses.
All they can do is wait.
Reborn tries to once again communicate that Kyouya should get the others and bring them to the island.
"No," Reborn sighs. "No, I don't want to fight. I'm a doctor, I've taken the Hippocratic Oath." He's just going to ignore the earlier... altercation.
Kyouya tightens his grip on Reborn's good ankle and starts dragging him towards the water, slowly, like Reborn won't notice if Kyouya does it smoothly enough.
"Stop," Reborn says sternly, reaching out to grab the rock behind him. "Kyouya, no."
Kyouya pauses, blinking innocently. Then keeps pulling him along the sand.
A particularly loud splash attracts their attention to the water, where Colonnello staggers up onto the sand, gasping for breath.
Reborn shakes Kyouya off and rolls to his feet, quickly limping across the beach where he barely manages to grab the soldier before Colonnello's legs give out. They still topple over since Reborn is unbalanced on his feet and end up tangled together on the sand.
Reborn smothers a smile into Colonnello's shoulder. "Did you swim the entire way here, you moron?"
"We didn't finish our conversation," Colonnello gasps out. "Don't try and run, asshole."
"I really don't think you can stop me," Reborn says, patting the blond on the head.
"I have you pinned."
"You're half passed out on top of me."
"Fuck yo- is that a fruit salad in a coconut?" Colonnello blurts out, just noticing the little set up Reborn has going. "Were you just doing this the entire time?"
"I was hungry," Reborn says defensively. "What, did you want me to swim around trying to find you?"
The soldier rolls off the doctor because he's too upset to cuddle right now. "I expected a little concern, not you setting up a freaking resort. There's a damn palm tree leaf as a beach umbrella."
"Do you not know me?" Reborn scoffs, sitting up. "I wasn't going to curl up into a ball and worry the entire time."
"Just give me a fucking mango, Reborn."
Kyouya paws at Reborn's leg but the man brushes him off again in favour of the blond human, who glares at Kyouya and pulls Reborn a bit further away from the mermaid.
Kyouya huffs in annoyance.
The good news is that Reborn does actually look better now that he's been transferred out of the water. The great news is that this human can fight like the monsters of the Deep; all teeth and speed and cunning.
He should check on his identical human, Kyouya decides. If Reborn can fight, then can the others as well? Kyouya would love to find out.
.
A/N: Did any of you actually think Kyouya could take down Reborn? I know this is an AU, but some things are just universal.