Chapter Eight - Confrontation

Tsuna woke up with a muted gasp, the noise muffled in his pillow. His eyes were sore and sticky and wet and, for a long delirious moment, he wondered if it was blood.

It took him several more moments to realise there were tiny fingers combing through his hair and he blearily reached out for the bedside lamp.

The room was thrown into brightness and Tsuna winced at the throbbing ache in his temples, squinting away from the source of light and up into Reborn's dark, thoughtful eyes.

"I think," the tiny hitman said, hand removing itself from Tsuna's unruly hair. "I think we need to have a talk."

Tsuna slowly sat up, resting his back against the headboard and drawing his gaze away from Reborn to the weight his side, feeling the corner of his mouth curve in a soft smile at seeing a slumbering Lambo tucked up against his side.

"Is this because I told Yamamoto and Hibari?" Tsuna asked, voice rough before he quietly cleared his throat and glanced back towards the bedside table, his alarm clock throwing the numbers 'three-forty two' in stark relief, red and blinking. "Does it have to be now? Besides, I thought you'd be glad I'm 'adding to the Family'."

His eyes were puffy and his cheek hurt, as if he'd been biting himself in his sleep.

Tsuna felt a little grim as he wondered when he'd subconsciously gained a silence keeping tactic.

"Since I first arrived here, you've been keeping something quiet; something that Yamamoto, Gokudera, Hibari and your mother seem privy too." Reborn's contemplative eyes crossed over to the sleeping Lambo. "Even Lambo, from how things have gone. I want to know why you're keeping it from me."

Tsuna was very suddenly wide awake, feeling his mind run over the possibilities of how this could turn out and he dragged a palm over his face. Reborn's fingers abruptly pinched his wrist and he dropped his hand with a wince of pain.

"Don't," Reborn said, suddenly soft. "You don't get to act so old."

"I can't die," Tsuna replied, voice void and blunt as he threw it out there, staring down at Reborn and trying not to be unnerved by the deadpan stare he was given in return.

"I expect a serious answer, Tsuna."

"I gave you one," Tsuna said insistently, almost raising his voice. Both of them fell silent when Lambo grumbled and shuffled before rolling closer to the wall, body curled up tight and vulnerable. Tsuna watched him wistfully before his attention was drawn back to Reborn.

"That's an impossibility," Reborn retorted, giving nothing away to show what he could be thinking even as his eyes glittered thoughtfully. His hand twitched in an abortive movement, a reach for the chain dangling around his neck.

"The day in the gym, Reborn. What happened? When I fought Mochida-senpai, what happened?"

Reborn's jaw ticked, a muscle jumping erratically as his gaze drifted to the side and Tsuna watched as his brow furrowed in deep contemplation.

"You asked me that before."

"I did."

"And what was my answer then?"

"The light fell. Everyone dispersed. You disciplined me for absconding in the face of challenge." Tsuna waited patiently, eyes keen and knowing, knowing that at any minute now Reborn would start to drift away, would have his memories of the event muddled and snatched away.

The silence dragged for a very long moment and Tsuna sighed in acceptance, hand reaching towards the bedside lamp.

Reborn's tiny hand shot out, snatching at Tsuna, his little fingers wrapping around only two of Tsuna's own.

"No," The hitman hissed, unable to quite keep the horror out of his voice, eyes flickering back and forth as if he was seeing something Tsuna couldn't.

"No, no, no," Reborn reiterated. "No. No, you didn't run. Neither did Yamamoto."

"Reborn?" Tsuna asked, voice high and reedy when he couldn't decide whether or not he should be worried, concerned, or hopeful.

"You didn't run." The faint alarm was still there in Reborn's tone, his eyes lifting to Tsuna's face, eyes bright with something Tsuna couldn't quite understand.

"Reborn," Tsuna repeated, feeling a tremble shiver down his spine. "Reborn, have you seen?"

"How could I have thought you had ran? You were right there – you moved him out of the way!"

"He would have died," Tsuna replied, keeping his voice measured even as the nerves prickled at his skin.

"And instead it was you." Reborn's tone was blunt, final. His grip had tightened on Tsuna's hand, cutting the circulation off to the tips of Tsuna's index and middle finger.

In the quiet that followed, Lambo snuffled into the pillows and declared that all of the grape candy in the world was now his, nobody else's, 'keep your hands off my candy Gokudera.'

"I can't die, Reborn," Tsuna finally said into the heavy silence and, this time, Reborn didn't stop him as he scraped a palm over his head and down his face.

"The others?"

"Yamamoto learned the day of the gym incident. Mother has always known." Tsuna swallowed the bitterness he felt at knowing he'd let his mother suffer for years with the knowledge of his unfortunate experiences.

"Hibari was next," Tsuna continued, and it felt a little cathartic to explain to someone after all this time. "I don't know when he started to see, but it was after an accident in school. Then it was Gokudera, when – "

"The bench." Reborn's flat interruption made Tsuna flinch and he tried to pull his hand free of the bone creaking grip Reborn had on his hand.

"The bench," Tsuna whispered in return, reaching his free hand to rest over Reborn's carefully. "Reborn, you're hurting me."

"And Lambo?" Reborn's voice remained sharp as his fingers eased slightly. His eyes were downcast, narrowed as if in thought. For all Tsuna could see, it might as well have been anger.

"There was an incident with the…the bazooka he has. I came back with a bullet wound. I offered him food." Tsuna felt himself loosen a little, a soft sensation in his chest. "It endeared him rather easily to me I suppose." His eyes slipped to the side so he could gaze fondly at Lambo. "He doesn't fully understand though. I don't want to do that to him."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Do you think I didn't try?" Tsuna tried to keep the nastiness out of his reply but at the way Reborn very subtly jerked, dark eyes lifting briefly to make eye contact, he realised he'd been harsher than he intended.

"You did," Reborn agreed almost mildly and said no more.

"T-There's a system," he had to clear his throat to swallow the lump that had formed, but Tsuna continued regardless. "There's a system. I – we – don't understand it completely, but, if you care just the slightest amount for me, it lets you see."

"Are you suggesting I didn't care about you from the start?"

"When you introduced yourself you addressed me as a mission you'd take on 'whole heartedly'."

Reborn's mouth shut with a sharp click and his free hand curled into a loose fist.

"And then something changed," he murmured, voice low. Almost unbidden, his hand lifted to cradle the pacifier, thoughts churning angrily in his mind like a storm.

"Just now," Tsuna agreed, and scrubbed a hand against his eye.

"You cry a lot, in your sleep," Reborn mused quietly. "At first I wondered what could have disturbed a child enough for that to happen. Bullies at school? A word here and there didn't seem enough for the bone deep weariness you seemed to carry. Not enough for the weight you carried on your shoulders."

Tsuna stayed quiet, so as to not disturb Reborn who was deeply contemplating something.

"The day of Gokudera, you came back with the weight of the world on your back and a look on your face that looked as if you were told to take on a burden too large. You cried that night, the following night, the night after that. I couldn't understand what was wrong – you went to school, you made friends. You're to be a mafia boss yes, but not now, not when you're fourteen and I couldn't understand why your eyes looked as if you were already ten years older."

Tsuna stared down at their hands, Reborn still tightly holding on.

"I looked at all of the logical routes. What could have gone wrong, what was going wrong, the bigger picture, the smaller picture. Every conceivable angle. Tonight, it reached a peak. I couldn't find anything. I wanted you to stop looking so haggard, stop looking as if you were ready to be sent to the gallows for a crime you didn't commit and had accepted your fate all the same and, instead…it was this."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I looked at you like a target and not as a person," Reborn barked in return and fell quiet when Lambo rolled around again, tiny hands reaching to grab onto the hem of Tsuna's shirt, his small face buried into Tsuna's hip.

"It wasn't your fault, Reborn. This," Tsuna gestured down towards himself with his free hand before dropping that hand briefly into Lambo's curly hair, needing the comfort, "has gone on for longer than I've known you. It wasn't your fault the issue began, it wasn't your fault the other times I might have stepped into the road at the wrong time or slipped and injured myself past the point of no return. It wasn't your fault you couldn't see, because you didn't know what it would entail."

Reborn's mouth pursed tightly, lips white as they pressed into a grim line, but Tsuna mentally awarded himself a point as he realised he had won this argument.

"Have any been caused by me?" Reborn finally asked, fingers loosening from Tsuna's so he could fold his hands on his lap.

Tsuna caught a glimpse at the clock again, 'four-twelve' blinking merrily, and looked towards his own knees.

"Directly? No. Indirectly…that test devised between Gokudera and myself. The bench." Unable to help himself, even after the short elapsed time since the incident, Tsuna's hand darted to press against his stomach.

Reborn's eyes followed the movement keenly.

"You should sleep," the hitman said shortly, easing himself off of the bed and onto the floor, staring up at Tsuna even from his reduced height now they weren't nearly eye to eye. "It's late – or early, depending on your perspective – and you have school in the morning."

"Did you not want to talk more?" Tsuna asked, feeling wary that no more questions had been asked than already had.

"I know what I need to for now, Tsuna. And I know what I need to do as well. Go to sleep."

Tsuna watched him before he reached out for the bedside lamp again, flicking it off to a resounding 'click' and settling back down into the bed again, head on the pillow and mind racing.

Lambo yawned pathetically from next to him and drooled onto his nightshirt.

Tsuna closed his eyes and, for the first time in a long time, dreamt of better things.

"I want a list," Reborn said first thing when Tsuna opened his eyes to a heavy weight on his chest.

"W-What?" Tsuna croaked, hearing as Lambo cackled gleefully from somewhere downstairs, his mother's voice carrying softly up the stairs, an amused lilt to her words.

"I want a list of how you've died and how old."

Tsuna worried at his bottom lip with his teeth, sitting up as Reborn moved away.

"W-Written?"

"Dictated. Now. If you would," Reborn tacked on at the end, as if he was forcing himself to be polite. Tsuna felt a little glad that he hadn't changed an overt amount after the revelation.

"Do I have time?"

"We have half an hour."

Tsuna rubbed at his eyes and gave a broken yawn, the noise catching in his throat.

"From since you've been here?"

"From the beginning."

Tsuna took a few minutes to gather his bearings, hands clasped loosely together on his lap when he swung his legs out of the bed, resting the balls of his feet on the floor, his heels lifted from the ground.

"The earliest I can remember was at eleven," Tsuna began. "Car accident. Bounced off the fender. Instant, from what I can recall. All I really can remember of it is waking up."

Reborn remained silent, sat beside him and an attentive listener. When all he did was nod encouragingly, face blank but eyes understanding, Tsuna felt the dam break at realising he could tell someone – someone who might understand better than a bunch of teenagers ever could.

You could never tell them anyway, for hurting them more than you already have, the nasty voice in his head said. Tsuna ignored it, shoulders tightening as he began to list the rest of his experiences.

"Twelve years old, fell out the window. Broken neck. Twelve years old, hit by a lorry. Twelve years old, impact with the road headfirst, there were nails. Twelve years old, fell out of a tree, broken spine." His voice caught, his breathing shuddering as the emotion welled but he couldn't stop the flow of words. "Thirteen, fell, fractured skull I guess was what got me? Drowned once, and washed out onto the river bank."

"Drowned?" Reborn's voice was soft, so, so patient that the sob ripped its way out of Tsuna's chest and he hunched over.

"T-There was a d-dog in the water. Little girl, little dog. I-I couldn't bear t-to see her cry."

"You're doing well, Tsuna," Reborn praised in return, his little hand settling on Tsuna's back so comfortingly that the tears fell heavier.

"Fourteen," Tsuna whispered, voice ragged. "Fourteen, gym light. Stairs, broken neck. That godforsaken bench. And, t-then, two days ago, b-bullet wound."

"In less than four years of life, you've gone through this phenomenon around eleven times," Reborn mused, and Tsuna wondered if it was his imagination that the hand on his back felt heavier now.

"How much of these do the others know?"

"Hibari knows the lorry accident, the road accident, the spine incident," Tsuna rushed the words, feeling another hiccup threatening to escape his throat. "The fall at school, the gym light, the stairs and broken neck, the bench and the bullet wound. Eight. Yamamoto knows about the school fall, gym light, broken neck, bench, bullet wound." Tsuna had to pause here, to take in a heavy breath, the sharp inhale causing him to hitch a breath and for Reborn to make a low noise Tsuna hysterically registered as soothing.

"Gokudera knows about the bench and the bullet wound and Lambo only knows the slightest bit about the bullet wound."

"And you don't know why it happens?"

Tsuna mutely shook his head.

"And eleven is the earliest. So, something happened before that for this to come about." Reborn's hand gently pat his back and then fell against him for a second time, firm enough for Tsuna to stumble forwards onto his feet and off of the bed.

"Go to school." Reborn ran a critical eye over him and Tsuna realised he was gently trembling and amended, "If you feel up to it, don't push yourself. Try to not overwork yourself about what happened. I'll have a look into this myself. And Tsuna?"

Tsuna lifted watery eyes from where he'd been staring at his bare toes, flexing them against the carpet.

"For so long as I can help it, you are not going to suffer through something like this again."

Tsuna felt a little quirk at the corner of his mouth, and was rewarded by Reborn inclining his head in response. Then, with a quick glance at the clock, Tsuna decided he had time for a shower before his friends arrived so he could wash the grief from his face and shoulders.

Knowing that Reborn knew now was like a lifted weight, and he could carry himself a little taller.

What's this? Another update?

Well, Reborn knows now! Hope the revelation was as good as what people were expecting!

Let me know what you think! And also let me know if I've made any glaring errors (this is still unbeta'd!)