Reborn wakes up to someone shaking him. He opens his eyes to find himself lying on the dirt. His arm aches and his jacket is half shredded. Its dark out, stars shining where they peek out around the heavy foliage of the trees. He can feel the weight of Leon curled up in his chest pocket, covering his heart.
Verde is crouched beside him. "What happened? Do you know where Skull is?"
Reborn jerks upright and scrambles to his feet. The car looks dented, still mostly covered in an extra layer of metal from the Cloud flames. The trunk is torn through, ripped open, the inside looking like a mess from Reborn rifling around inside it.
Lal is half inside the hole through the backseats to check the inside of the car. Fon and Colonnello are wandering further out, calling for Skull. Viper is floating above, looking out over the trees.
Everyone appears to be trying very hard to not look at Reborn, to give him some time to pull himself back together.
Reborn shivers. "I think he touched me."
"Skull did?" Colonnello asks. "So you punted him off a cliff of something?"
"There was a third arm," Reborn begins. "And like seven fingers, and his eyes were doing that insect thing again, and I think he had like two mouths."
Verde is writing all of this down. "He must have been rather damaged to change that much."
"He was dead," Reborn says.
Colonnello walks back over, a carefully blank look on his face as he strips off his jacket and tries to put it on Reborn.
"I'm not in shock," Reborn snaps but does rip off the shreds that make up his jacket, tossing it aside. There's no damage underneath, as if something with claws carefully tried to drag him somewhere. "He was dead. Like actually. For hours. His head was cracked in half."
Colonnello forces his jacket onto Reborn anyway. "Cloud flames do some weird things, especially with Skull's strength, especially with his lack for control."
"It doesn't revive a dead body," Viper murmurs, floating back down through the tree leaves. "Not after hours."
"Reborn hit his head as well," Verde points out. "It might be the concussion."
Lal crawls back out of the car. "Skull was definitely propagating blood faster than he might have lost it. It's gotten everywhere in there."
"He was dead," Reborn says again. "It didn't look like he recognised me."
Fon glances over and smiles, upbeat and forced. "Don't worry, I'm an especially good tracker, I'll find him soon."
Luce is waiting outside when the car pulls up to the driveway. They already called her but she finally relaxes when she sees Reborn step out.
"Oh, there you are," Luce says lightly, hands white from how hard she has them clasped together. "Almost missed breakfast."
Reborn is moved inside with Colonnello on his left and Verde on his right, Viper following up behind. Lal and Fon are still at the crash site trying to find Skull.
"How was the hit?" Luce asks as she moves around, heating things up.
"I got paid to fuck a Mafia Donna and her husband," Reborn says.
Colonnello fumbles a glass and it falls into the sink. Colonnello braces himself against the counter and takes a deep breath before letting it out. "Reborn."
"Skull was dead."
"Go sit down," Viper finally snaps out. "Just…sit down. I'll bring you coffee."
Reborn sits down on the couch and Viper brings him coffee and blankets and pillows and breakfast and Shamal and-
Reborn drifts off at some point.
Fon and Lal come back a few hours later with Skull, who looks vaguely back to normal, some Storm flame damage in places. One of his eyes is gouged out and he's his left arm from the elbow down.
"Sorry," Skull murmurs to everyone, shoulders hunched like he's expecting screaming.
"Why were you groping me?" Reborn complains, only half awake, pushing himself up from Shamal's shoulder.
"I don't know, I don't remember," Skull admits. "Maybe I wanted a hug?"
Verde looks away and then back again. "Reborn said you were…"
"Dead?" Skull finishes. "Yeah, for a bit I think. It messed with my head. I'm immortal though, so it's cool."
"Like fuck you're immortal," Reborn snaps. "If I tried, you'd be dead."
"Okay," Skull says soothingly. "Okay, Reborn, you'd kill me."
Lal purses her lips. "We'll need to talk about this. Later."
"Let's talk about it now," Reborn demands. "Let's talk about why Skull didn't just sit us down and explain that genuinely he doesn't die instead of those dumb throw-away comments."
Skull starts to say something but Lal puts hand on his shoulder to stop him. She looks at Reborn. "I meant talk about what happened in the car."
"I figured out Skull was dead and then took a nap," Reborn deadpans.
They're locked in a staring contest for a moment.
"Skull, go eat something first," Fon interrupts. "Reborn, come with me, we'll get the blood off you."
And, later, they do try.
But Reborn locks himself down. When they push the topic, he disappears for a few days. When they try again, he vanishes for weeks.
Reborn goes back to them after, and they're too scared of what he'd do next to try again.
