Interlude – Ten Years Later: Tsuna, Yamamoto, Reborn

It was hard to find the good in a situation where you were bleeding out onto an expensive rug and your face was pressed into the equally as expensive carpet, but Tsuna still found it in himself to smile, expression hidden from the other occupants of the opulent room.

The edges of his vision were flickering black and white, and even breathing in hurt. But he'd gotten what he wanted, the man above him still theatrically waving hands and gun alike, expounding about his great plans.

From his right hand side, Tsuna heard Yamamoto snort derisively, and then give a grunt of pain when a solid sound of impact echoed over the spoken words.

Tsuna took in another deep breath and his stomach burned.

Fingers curled in his hair, deceptively gentle, before they tightened, harshened, and his head was dragged from the floor so he could make eye contact with the impudent brat above him.

True, he himself was still in his early twenties, the man opposite him older, but Tsuna was aged beyond his years, wise beyond the experience he had, and the hopeful idiot in him still had far to go before he understood the intricacies of a world in the mafia.

But, because he could, and because Reborn wasn't around to scold him for it, Tsuna gathered a mouthful of spit and blood and left a red streaked glob of phlegm on his captor's face.

Being pistol whipped in the face lost its lustre after at least the seventeenth time, Tsuna's mouth filling with blood again that he dribbled to the floor. There was a trail of it at the corner of his mouth but with his hands handcuffed behind his back, he couldn't do anything about it.

Yamamoto had gone very carefully quiet on his side of the room and Tsuna heard the man holding the Rain guardian down mutter nervously in Italian to his comrade, the one who had kicked Yamamoto. After all, a quiet Yamamoto could be a very scary Yamamoto.

Despite experience, despite knowing death intimately and crawling into her embrace unwillingly time after time (and a few times willingly, injuries too great for him to comprehend, when he sobbed in pain and suffered and couldn't help but want for it to end, or as a scapegoat for his closest companions), his friends, guardians, loved ones – they never enjoyed watching him get hurt.

Mukuro had once said, voice full of wonderment, that it was a beautiful sight to watch as Tsuna clawed himself back from the cold fingers and hands of a death that refused to cling on to him.

Gokudera, in rebuttal, had said how painful it was to watch as a man who should stand tall and proud and unafraid was knocked down again and again and had to suffer for it.

Mukuro had fallen silent, still looking contemplative and a little recalcitrant but he had not complained or argued. It was easy to tell that Gokudera's words had hit home, however – how could Mukuro see, after all, if he hadn't have cared?

But that was neither here nor there, and Tsuna felt his head get dragged up again, neck bending at an unnatural angle. Unbidden, his hands fisted, nails biting into his palms as he tried to ignore the indignity he felt at being treated like livestock.

The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into his temple, biting into his skin and eerily familiar.

Tsuna would not give this man the luxury of closing his eyes and accepting his fate. He met the sneer head on, eyes narrow and defiant to the end because it wasn't the end.

The tug on his very being, pulling his skin taut, his wounds wide, was unwelcome, unneeded, and the first stirrings of horror stretched out in his stomach and rooted itself.

Less than a heartbeat later he was dropped into a familiar bedroom and the high pitched screaming of a child began.

By the time he left, he didn't have the chance to warn Gokudera that the door was opening, that someone was going to see.

When he came back he landed on his knees again, sinking into the plush carpet and staring at the stains of fresh blood on the carpet, the memory of waking up from a gunshot wound at the tender age of fourteen creeping its way into his mind.

The wound in his stomach ached, sluggishly bleeding still, and it took Tsuna a few moments to look up from the scarlet in front of him, to the body opposite him.

Yamamoto, sat cross legged no more than a few feet away, was painstakingly cleaning the blood from his sword, red splattered across his cheek and his suit only a little rumpled from his time spent on the floor.

There was a click from behind Tsuna, black falling into his vision accompanied by the acrid scent of smoke, and his suddenly sore, tired eyes drifted over to Reborn, who had just undone his handcuffs, lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Easing himself back slowly, Tsuna rubbed at his wrists and moved to sit with his back against the closest piece of furniture, a dark wood desk.

When as comfortable as he was going to be, Tsuna drifted a hand down his front to delicately press against the hole in his abdomen and wondered how long it would be until he died.

Reborn settled down next to him in a crouch, a critical eye running over the body of the dead man that had killed a Tsuna who was only fourteen years old and asked, voice low, "Yamamoto?"

Yamamoto glanced up from the gleaming metal of his favoured metal, eyes hard and cold and unforgiving.

"I wasn't kind," he said mildly, tone of voice at odds with the look on his face. "After all, he wasn't kind to Tsuna, neither here or then."

Reborn grunted, seemingly satisfied, and blew out a cloud of smoke.

"How long?" he then asked, eyes flittering over to Tsuna.

"You should know, Reborn, that gut wounds bleed the slowest, take the longest, and hurt the most. It will be a short while yet; it was just a bullet after all."

Although Reborn didn't flinch, the twitch of a muscle in his jaw was more than enough. When the memory had been given to him, when he'd earned his place, the first he'd seen was the test he'd devised killing a fourteen year old boy painfully.

The reminder, while unwarranted, wasn't unwelcome. It helped him strive to do better, after all.

"Is it worth getting it cleaned and patched up instead of letting it run its course?" Reborn queried then, and when Tsuna reached out for his cigarette, it only took a moment of deliberation before he handed it over.

"It would be better," Tsuna said slowly, blowing out a wobbly ring of smoke before he passed the cigarette back. "It would be better if one of you ended it now."

Reborn gave a sharp intake of breath, nearly crushing the cigarette between his fingers, Yamamoto flinching more noticeably with a screech and clang of metal.

"Tsuna – "

"If you don't, I will." Tsuna kept his voice sharp, harsh, like a punishing whip and gestured wildly towards the discarded pistol of a dead man. "Better to go now than to suffer. Besides," he added, voice going softer as he lifted a wrist to rub at his mouth. "It is better to know I'll wake to someone there than to no one at all."

"I sometimes forget you're no longer an innocent fourteen year old," Reborn muttered, hand lowering to finger at the harness that held his own gun.

"I was never a child, Reborn. I wasn't given the chance. One more on the tally won't change anything."

"It doesn't mean we want to kill you."

"Is it death if I don't stay dead?"

"It's death all the same!" Reborn snapped, uncharacteristically angry, before he sighed, stubbed out his cigarette on the carpet and scraped a hand through his hair.

"It may be hard for you, Tsuna," Yamamoto interrupted, sword returned to its resting place as he focused on picking blood out from his fingernails, face carefully averted so Tsuna couldn't get a read on his emotions. "But that doesn't mean it's easy to us."

"Ten years of the same, and still no one thinks to change their opinion." Tsuna sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and feeling his composure waver, his vision swimming.

Graciously, Reborn didn't shove him off when he sagged into the hitman's shoulder.

"I either suffer now, suffer through hospital, with no guarantee I'll even survive, or to end it now and have it done with," Tsuna said pragmatically. "And the sooner I'm awake, the sooner we can deal with the problem that led to this in the first place."

"Just because it's a good idea, it doesn't mean we have to like it when you're right," Reborn muttered childishly, hand closing around the pistol. "But if that's the case, then if you'd give me the honours..."

Reborn pulled the gun free and made a show of checking the chamber and safety, clicking the latch free with a flick of his thumb. His free hand reached down to curl around Tsuna's, bigger now than before when it was small and unknowing.

Tsuna looked at him with a calm acceptance that set Reborn's teeth on edge, no matter how often he'd seen this, made him want to scream despite the countless times before.

He lifted the pistol, watched as Tsuna closed his eyes with an expression Reborn couldn't read, and squeezed Tsuna's hand the same time as he squeezed the trigger.

It was never easy to see or to witness, to be a part of him. But, in the end, it was highly gratifying to watch as delicate lashes fluttered open, to watch as wounds closed and left no mark aside from blood and dirt and it always settled the hurt in Reborn's chest to murmur, "Welcome back," when Tsuna was cognizant enough to smile and reply,

"Thank you."

I wrote this literally just now, in about forty minutes of unbridled inspiration.

So please excuse any mistakes, grammar, spelling or otherwise, and I hope you enjoy this interlude!

I was thinking of the content this has, that maybe I should give a trigger warning? I mean there's alludes to (impermanent) suicide…