Look, I'm still alive! Aren't you happy? I've gathered most of my scattered thoughts, but it's hitting the busy time of year - and I'm getting ready to move - so I'm going to be somewhat shy on time. Please be patient with me! Also, looks like brother-in-law will be fine, so long as he doesn't bash his head again.

Aftermath

When Tsuna first woke up, his first thought was less a thought than a general sense of confusion: he didn't remember having gone to bed, much less to sleep. His second was a simultaneous realization of the hospital-type setting and an overlapping jolt of Reborn/Hibari/Xanxus that was more general alarm than anything else. He had no idea what had happened, only that something had been wrong, they'd been in danger they couldn't fight - !

His third was that Skull and Takeshi were trying to calm him down, both radiating a weird mix of relief and worry. He felt other familiar Flames spike with the same nearby, all of them drawing closer while flaring restlessly. He managed to pick out Xanxus, Reborn, and Fon easily enough, as those three were somewhat separate from everyone else (and each other), but the overlap of his younger Guardians made it difficult for him to tell where Hibari was. It didn't help that the Cloud had Flames that were generally quiet and even, though they sharpened along the edges whenever he was annoyed (which was admittedly a lot) and flared a little when he got interested (which wasn't often).

Unable to determine for himself, he turned his eyes on his smaller Cloud and Rain. "Hibari—is Hibari all right?"

Takeshi pulled his familiar sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his head, but Skull gave an actual answer. "He's fine. He got a concussion and still has a headache, but some Rain and Sun Flames got the swelling down and he should be completely well in another day or so."

Tsuna couldn't help but wince. Hibari was irritable on a good day. He didn't want to know what Hibari with a headache was like. So long as he was okay, though, Tsuna was fine with soothing the inevitable wounds to both bodies and prides, because he couldn't imagine that absolutely everyone in the Varia had managed to dodge a headache-ridden Hibari.

(Incidentally, he was right—Hibari had put a relatively mild beatdown on a too-noisy group in the dining hall. The fact that the worst anyone had gotten from him was bruised ribs meant that the headache had to have been pretty bad at that point. General consensus was that the instigators had deserved it for aggravating an already aggravated Cloud. Tsuna didn't want to know what that said about most Clouds and was profoundly grateful that Skull wasn't violent.)

Tsuna flopped back into the (remarkably comfortable) infirmary bed, assured that everyone was okay. He could feel that the others were, and if Hibari was sleeping—well, no wonder Tsuna couldn't get a clean read on him. He then took the moment to take stock of himself—he felt fine. Tired, maybe, and achy—but the sort of achy one got from staying still too long, nothing worse.

Then it occurred to him that even with Flame treatment, a concussion wouldn't likely be gone in less than a day. It was hardly the first time one of his own had gotten knocked in the head, after all, and the minimum recovery time had been two days, three to lose the headache.

He turned his attention back to Skull, since Takeshi tended to try to make things seem less severe than they actually were, "What happened and how long have I been out?"

Skull shuffled closer to cuddle into his side, which made it rather difficult to see his expression, although the gesture in itself spoke volumes. "Reborn said you used too much Flame. You've been here for almost three days, now. It was really bad at first—I couldn't feel you at all until they got you back to base."

"Yeah," Takeshi agreed, smile gone as his eyes went a bit distant, "That—that really scared everyone. I mean, I was with you, but after that flare there was a second where you just—it felt like you'd just disappeared. Reborn said he had Xanxus feeding you his Flames while he kind of—filtered them, I guess? Anyway, they got you stable and we brought you home, but Reborn was worried that you wouldn't wake up. He didn't say it, but…"

"You cut things too close, Tsuna," Reborn informed from the doorway before making his way across the room to hop up and join Skull in unashamed cuddling. Well, Reborn climbed onto his chest and sat down to scowl rather than actually cuddling, but the sentiment was obvious.

"I still don't know what actually happened, though," Tsuna complained. "The last thing I remember is Hibari getting smacked into a tree!"

Reborn's scowl shifted to a frown, "You don't remember?"

Tsuna shook his head, feeling somewhat bewildered. "I remember Hibari falling and then everything just turns into an orange haze."

"That's no good," Reborn's frown deepened. "That means it was a purely instinctive reaction. Telling you to be careful is pointless in that case, and if it was triggered by a Guardian being seriously injured in an immediately life-threatening situation, we can't train it, either, not with your Intuition."

Somehow Tsuna was less than surprised when Xanxus was the next to appear, this time with most of the rest of them following behind. "Fuck that," the Wrath decided. "If we can't train the Brat, we'll train the Brat's brats. Avoid the situation repeating that way."

Reborn wasn't the only one to nod, and Gokudera was the first to break the brief silence, "We'll train until we're the best, Juudaime!"

For once, Takeshi was silent, but his nod was determined, and Mukuro murmured something that sounded agreeing while Chrome added a firm "Hai!" and Ryohei's "Extremely!" was a lot more serious than usual.

Tsuna was caught between being touched (they all worked so hard for him) and being resigned to being a bit of a burden on them. He didn't like making everyone worry—he didn't do it on purpose, of course, but he felt bad all the same.

Reborn leaned over and swatted his forehead reprovingly, giving a scolding look that required no words. Tsuna reached up and hugged him, earning a disgruntled glower, and he heard Fon—who had been further away than everyone else, and add that to frankly tiny legs it made sense that he'd been the last of the non-Hibari Elements to arrive—make an unhappy sort of sound as he had to go over rather than around the crowd in the doorway. Xanxus seemed to be blockading on purpose, keeping the lot of them (himself included) from piling into the small room.

He let Fon use his shoulder as a launch-pad to the bed, though, so he might just be being thoughtful about space. Tsuna snagged Fon against his free side (the Arcobaleno were a great size to cuddle in groups) and waved the whole lot of them in.

The line of Xanxus' shoulders eased a little as he strode into the room and the others crowded in after him, and Tsuna found himself relaxing under their combined presence, soothed despite himself by having so many of his near. It would be better with Hibari, too, but Hibari didn't like crowding and still had a headache, so it was probably a good thing he was off napping.

Still. The better part of three days spent sleeping meant he had work to catch up on, so Tsuna sighed and sat up, scooping the three Arcobaleno into his lap as he did so.

Reborn glowered but didn't actually protest and Fon smiled serenely. Skull hugged Tsuna's arm. Tsuna hid a cooing grin at the cuteness and skipped straight to business. "All right, what still needs to be done before my official introduction?"

x

Damn the official introduction, Xanxus wanted to say. Less than two days until the temporary instating of the Decimo was terrifying, because after that Tsuna would be out of his sight more than in it, and even in it things that ended in infirmaries happened!

Granted, both those things had involved creatures that had no right to actually exist—thinking of, they had to do something with that damned ugly statue that was all the Brat's Flames had left of a vicious man-eating monster (the Brat's brat Storm had looked it up, and said it was the Persian ancestor of a Manticore, and how the hell something like that even had ancestors was beyond Xanxus)—but the fact remained that if he and the Arcobaleno had trouble keeping the Brat in one piece, how were the Brat's brats supposed to catch up? They had less than two fucking days!

Instead of the protest he wanted to make, he just shook his head and got to business. Brat didn't waste time when it came to taking care of things, and Xanxus respected that. "Vongola Mansion's security is shit," he informed. "We're bringing our own. Got a few of mine who'll be visible, but your Triads' caretaker wants to come along with some shadows and your Sora claims to have several capable of blending with Italian crowds to keep an eye on the mood. I want you to bring the bird and I don't even know what the fuck the Vindice want, because the tall one keeps dropping by to see if you're awake with a baby on his shoulder."

Tsuna blinked, "Bermuda's been coming with Jager?"

Bermuda—the one he'd said was the leader. Well, shit. Learn something new every day—because there was no way that not-young baby wasn't Arcobaleno. The clear Pacifier around his neck was proof enough, and unnervingly similar to Lal Mirch's—though hers had a few grey strands tangled inside it. That—was something to think about another time, because figuring out where the Vindice came from wasn't gonna get the Brat any safer for his inauguration. (Though with what Tsuna had said about Vindice being undead added to the not-baby with a clear Pacifier… well, fuck, there was an undead Arcobaleno—that was terrifying.)

"If Bermuda's the mini," was as much acknowledgement as he was going to give his own thoughts for the moment. "Let the Suns check you over, and if you're well enough we can lift the lockdown and get some first-hand info on the old man's security plans. The teleporting bird and the Vindice's portals are the only ways we've been letting anyone in or out since you petrified that thing."

"Petrified?" the Brat asked, tilting his head.

"It's a statue," the Rain brat informed cheerily.

"A damn ugly one," the Storm brat agreed. He'd been getting slightly more talkative the past few days, but the stress had been getting to him. It was a good thing the Storm baby had taken him aside, because Xanxus had been considering giving him a good smack just to lessen the prickling edge to Flames that were only mostly Storm.

"Huh," Tsuna considered that for a moment, then shrugged and dismissed it. "Is there anything else I should know before it gets sprung on me? How are things with the Sora and Shī's 'newly conquered'?"

"Your minions are fine," Xanxus told him, "You want details, ask 'em yourself. Lal Mirch's been trying to see you, but we stonewalled with the lockdown. You want us to let her in or keep blocking?"

The Brat's perked up, "Lal-san? Um…" he glanced to his armful of surprisingly silent Arcobaleno, "… maybe not until tomorrow. Her Flames are really broken and I am still a little tired."

That implied things Xanxus was not going to think about.

Reborn tilted his head back to eye the Brat for a moment, then nodded. "Go back to sleep, then, dame-Tsuna. We can manage without you until tomorrow."

(The doubtful look sent the mini-Sun's way would have been more insulting if the damn unicorn hadn't chosen that moment to wander in, hooves chiming cheerily as she whickered a greeting. If another damn mythological monster showed, Xanxus wasn't putting money on them being able to handle it without the Brat.)

xxxx

Convinced of everyone else's relative health and safety, Tsuna eventually relinquished his grip on Reborn and his fellow Arcobaleno, quite agreeably settling back down after a number of assurances and Xanxus being amusingly sarcastic. (Reborn hadn't expected to enjoy the Varia boss' company, but he'd found something of a kindred spirit against the sheer insanity that was Tsuna's life. That and he enjoyed watching chaos of the more normal Mafia variety almost as much as Reborn liked causing it, and Reborn did like an appreciative audience.)

It probably helped that Fon and Skull showed no inclination to leave, and Reborn himself only rearranged to a better position to use his Flames to check Tsuna's health. (Tsuna was well on his way to full recovery, and another day's rest would have him no worse off than an all-nighter would have left him. Reborn was glad, and seeing it for himself was far more reassuring than medical equipment or the Varia Suns. Ryohei had no idea how to check, yet, so he was no help at all, fellow Sun of the same Sky or not.

Now, if only they could get through a month or three with no mythological interruptions. Also, that last one? Proof that Reborn's wariness of the newcomers was completely warranted.)

Tsuna reached out and tugged him into something that was part hug and part cuddle. It should have been demeaning. It also wasn't the first time, and Tsuna was so warm that Reborn only huffed and let him, joining the Arcobaleno pile on the infirmary bed and taking inordinate comfort in the gentle, humming warmth of Sky curling around him.

(Tsuna was making him soft.)

(… worth it.)

xxxx