Chapter Six – Childish Innocence
"Reborn doesn't know, does he?" Gokudera asked suddenly, two days after the incident that had defined his life. Tsuna glanced up at him, fingers tightening absently around the pen in his hand, before he looked back down to his homework.
"It's a strange system. I thought people had to…to care to see," Tsuna pursed his lips, wrapping his free arm around himself protectively as he continued, "But, Hibari-san sees. You see. And, and I'm not saying you don't care but you had only known me for less than four hours before you could see and…"
"You sacrificed your – " And Gokudera hesitated before settling on, "Safety. To ensure I was okay."
"It's okay to say 'life' Gokudera. It's not exactly something that can easily be ignored." Unable to help himself Tsuna pressed down on his stomach, feeling the solid give of his skin and everything underneath.
"I knew I'd made a mistake when judging you and…wanted to rectify that. The fact that you…and…I respected you so much Tenth, in those final moments, wished it could have been different in any other way and…"
Tsuna hummed thoughtfully, chewing on the end of his pen as he stared at the blur of letters and numbers on the papers in front of him, trying to ignore the lump in his throat.
"Maybe if the person cause the death, directly or indirectly?" Gokudera asked, voice quiet and Tsuna shook his head.
"I've been hit by a car, Gokudera-kun, and the woman forgot I existed. It's not that simple unfortunately."
"How long as m-mama known?" Gokudera fumbled over the endearment despite having been given permission from the woman herself.
"I'd rather not ask that of my mother," Tsuna immediately replied, voice harsher than he meant it to be. "I can't…Gokudera-kun, I can't."
Gokudera nodded quickly in agreement, not pushing on the matter any longer before directing Tsuna's attention to question six with a murmured, "You've used the wrong equation here, tenth."
On reflex, Tsuna flinched, head ducking down as he anticipated a smack across the skull and only lifted his head to Gokudera's soft, choked snort of laughter.
"Reborn has a very unique teaching method," Tsuna found himself explaining, eyes darting to the side as he tried not to get embarrassed.
"Oh, no, I understand. I really do." Gokudera snorted again though and Tsuna would have glared at him, if it weren't for the fact he was staring at what looked like a five year old child stuck in the tree next to his bedroom window.
"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said slowly as he stood, setting aside pens and paper. "There's a small child stuck in the tree outside."
Gokudera turned his head so fast Tsuna was afraid he'd given himself whiplash.
"T-That's!" Gokudera began, and Tsuna ambled over to the window, trying not to startle the young boy who looked like he was searching for something very intensely.
"Do you know him," Tsuna asked amicably, moving to unlatch the window in unhurried movements.
"He's a member of the Bovino family," Gokudera replied, moving to join Tsuna. "I couldn't guess as to why he's here."
"Excuse me?" Tsuna called softly, hand cupped by his mouth. "Are you lost?"
The child startled, scrambling on the branches and making Tsuna flinch forward in panic before the small boy righted himself.
"T-The great Lambo-sama doesn't need to answer questions from p-people like you!"
"Lambo-sama…" Tsuna found himself repeating before wrinkling his nose in thought, wondering what he could do to bring Lambo to safer grounds.
"Gokudera-kun?" Tsuna asked, bracing an elbow on the windowsill, head cradled in the palm of his hand. "I think my mama bought some snacks the other day, when she heard we'd be having a study session. Should we have some?"
"T-Tenth?"
"Oh, but there might be too many for just too much for just the two of us to eat, you see." Tsuna lifted his eyes briefly to make eye contact with Gokudera, gaze drifting to Lambo for a split second.
Gokudera gave him an indulgent smile as he replied, "Well, mama does like to buy in excess. If only there was a third person…I suppose the sweets will have to go to waste."
"Oh well." Tsuna sighed, stepping away from the windowsill and turning his back to Lambo as he walked towards the door.
"P-Perhaps…" Lambo said very suddenly and quietly, before his voice loudened again, "Perhaps Lambo can help!"
Tsuna was hard pressed not to smile and turned on his heel to regard the small boy, asking brightly, "Would you do that for us?"
Lambo grinned, wide and unrepentant as he declared, "Of course!"
To Tsuna's alarm he scrambled along the closest branch to the windowsill, clambering into the bedroom with all the grace of a monkey. Of course, as soon as he set foot on the inside sill, as luck would have it he slipped and careened forward.
There was a muffled thud as the five year old impacted the carpet face first and the silence that followed was dragged out and awkward.
Tsuna once he'd shaken his stupor away, reached forward as if to help Lambo, cringing back in surprise as the small boy suddenly started wailing and –
Tsuna felt himself age several years as he watched Lambo break the laws of physics and pull a bazooka straight out of his curly afro that was nearly three times as long as Lambo was tall.
"W-Wait!" Tsuna said hurriedly, darting forward at the same time as Gokudera and the three of them crumpled into a heap. When Tsuna looked up, it was to face the barrel of the bazooka and he felt his heart stutter in his chest.
Instead of pain and fire, there was a loud bang and a puff of pink smoke, a weird tugging sensation pulling at his shoulders and stretching his body almost painfully.
Coughing pitifully, Tsuna waved his hand in front of his face to clear the smoke, eyes squinting open in trepidation at the damage that might have been done to his bedroom.
He opened his eyes to the sight of a gun in his face, attached to a hardened looking older man he didn't recognise.
Eyes darting to the side, he caught sight of what looked like an older Yamamoto, his close friend pinned stomach down on a lavishly carpeted floor, eyes dark and hard and angry, his hands locked behind his back with handcuffs and someone sticking a boot in his kidney. Yamamoto's eyes were on his face, and, when they made eye contact, his expression softened inexplicably, even as anger tightened the corners of his bloodied mouth.
"W-What – " Tsuna began, feeling terror creep up his throat, heart ratcheting wildly in his chest.
"Oh?" Was said from above him. "The younger Decimo? Well, this makes things much simpler."
Tsuna didn't have much time left to figure out the situation.
After all, it was hard to think after having been shot point blank in the face.
Tsuna woke up with a pathetic wheeze and the sensation of something warm and wet on his face. Reaching up, his fingers encountered something solid and then Gokudera was murmuring, "Sorry Tenth."
"G-Gokudera-kun," Tsuna croaked and was shushed, Gokudera's voice sounding thick and choked
"I'm still cleaning the blood off," Gokudera whispered. "Please keep your eyes shut a moment longer."
"W-What happened?" Tsuna found himself asking, the damp thing returning to his forehead. There was the roughness of fabric as what he felt was a cloth dragged across skin and Gokudera remained silent for a very long time.
"Lambo is downstairs, with mama. He cried a lot. Then he apologised. The weapon he used was the ten year bazooka, technology exclusive to the Bovino family. To put it simply, when the bazooka is used, the you from ten years in the future is swapped with the you who was hit with the bazooka. The future you was handcuffed and bloody, but very cheerful, Tenth. I'm glad you don't lose that."
Tsuna took in a few steadying breaths, fingers curling in a thick material he registered as his bed covers.
"Is that all?"
"It only lasts around five minutes. When…" Gokudera took in a steadying breath and Tsuna reached up again, feeling as his fingers curled around Gokudera's damp hand and feeling as the other teen squeezed in return.
"Gokudera-kun…"
"When you returned, there was a bullet hole in your forehead. You were…unconscious." Gokudera's voice briefly broke on the word. "For around twenty minutes. The wound bled a lot after the bullet removed itself."
"And Lambo?" Tsuna breathed.
"He hasn't seen, Tenth," Gokudera replied, voice quiet. "He doesn't know. The other you suggested sending him downstairs before you returned and, while I wanted to protest, I listened."
Tsuna felt relief as palpable and solid as Gokudera's hand in his, glad he hadn't subjected the young boy to any trauma.
"It wasn't as if he would have seen anyway, Gokudera-kun. Not in the conventional sense." Tsuna let go of Gokudera's hand and ignored the protests as he sat himself up, eyes slowly opening despite how gritty they felt.
"I'm sorry for subjecting you to that." Tsuna glanced up at Gokudera and then to the side, feeling his chest tighten upon seeing the bullet, gleaming metal and glistening with traces of blood, neatly positioned on the bedside locker.
"It's alright, Tenth. Better me than for you to suffer alone." Gokudera reached forward, thumbing over Tsuna's smooth forehead as if he could find any sort of proof, any sort of divot, to show that not ten minutes earlier Tsuna had had a hole in his head.
Tsuna was flustered then, unused to there being any sort of aftercare for what he went through, but settled on a heartfelt smile and a murmured, "Thank you Gokudera-kun."
If his eyes burned with unshed tears and his fingers were cold and trembling on his lap, that was his business.
Gokudera remained blissfully silent, but still reached down to gently curl his fingers around Tsuna's wrist.
When he and Gokudera got to the kitchen to see Lambo, it was to the sight of the small boy munching gleefully on the food Nana had enthusiastically set out.
Tsuna felt something close to relief at seeing how happy Lambo was, and sank down into his own chair, accepting the mug of steaming tea that his mother bustled into his hands before she returned to the stove, pots merrily bubbling.
Gokudera sat down as well, after politely declining the offer for his own cup of tea, reaching across to snatch a pastry up instead, almost out from underneath Lambo's hand. The boy, undeterred, went for the next one to continue merrily stuffing his cheeks.
Tsuna watched this with a slight smile on his face, one hand curled around his mug and the other in his pocket, where he'd stuck the bullet. As of the moment, he was rolling it between his finger and thumb.
Glancing up, he made eye contact with Gokudera who smiled pleasantly at him and, after a moment of quiet deliberation, Tsuna smiled back, feeling something in his chest loosen.
It felt like a normal day for once.
You know, aside from the incident.
"T-Tenth!" Gokudera said, panic rife in his voice as he tried to waft the smoke away. "Tenth! Tsuna!"
"Gokudera-kun," a warm, nasal voice said, sounding familiar and yet so different. "I'm fine."
As the smoke cleared, Gokudera could only stare at the man in front of him, hands bound behind his back, eye dark and swollen shut, blood trailing from his nose and the sluggishly bleeding hole of a gunshot wound in his stomach.
Lambo shrieked, tumbling away from the bedraggled man, eyes wide with horror and Tsuna's face – for who else could it be? – softened.
"Gokudera-kun. Could you take Lambo downstairs? He's a bit young for a mess as big as this."
Gokudera swallowed several times, abortively, before he scooped the wailing child up, ran downstairs, and shoved him into Nana's arms with only a garbled apology, before he was hurtling back into the bedroom.
"Thank you," Tsuna said, still smiling despite the wan complexion his face had, pasty and pale and sick looking.
"W-What?" Gokudera stammered and Tsuna creaked to his feet, stumbling over in order to perch on the edge of the bed.
The wound still steadily bled and Gokudera couldn't quite look away from it, not until Tsuna began to talk.
"I'm okay, Gokudera-kun. I just didn't want Lambo here for when the time ran out."
"I-Is this the Bovino family – " Gokudera began, unable to form the words properly without stumbling over them.
"The Ten Year Bazooka. I'll be sent home in, oh, approximately three minutes or so." Tsuna was still smiling and Gokudera wanted to tear out his hair or scream that the brunet had become so heart achingly familiar with certain death, making no move to stop the bleeding or get comfortable or anything.
"Then why did you send Lambo away?"
"I sent the other me to a precarious situation. And, if Lambo saw now…I don't think he'd forget, Gokudera-kun. And I want to keep Lambo safe for as long as I possibly can."
"W-Why – " Gokudera began, hand waving uselessly.
"Because he's young Gokudera-kun. Barely a child. He shouldn't have to suffer the loss of a close person, not for a long time yet. He knows by my time of course, but now…" Tsuna shrugged a shoulder, handcuffs merrily jingling in contrast to the grim situation. "At five years old, to see a death now could shape his future. And I don't want to break what should never be broken."
"Of course," Gokudera found himself whispering, trying to envision what death would look like to a child. But, before he could ask the next question, could begin to enquire about how Tsuna was, still smiling happily over the years, there was another poof of smoke and Gokudera found himself lurching forward to catch the body that replaced the man.
Tsuna's head lolled over to his collarbone, and Gokudera tried not to be sick as blood trickled down his skin and stuck to his shirt, arms trembling with exertion and emotion.
Quietly, he settled Tsuna on the bed, brushing blood matted bangs away from his forehead to expose the bullet hole, and was too lost in his thoughts to notice the scampering of feet hurrying away from the now open bedroom door.
Once again unbeta'd!
Chapter six for all of you waiting for it!
Hope it lived up to standards.
Looking at it now, I don't think it's really going in a concrete set of direction. It's more of a series of drabbles in chronological order? That's what it seems like to me, anyway.