Chapter XII
You walk into his office, still with a tight knot in your stomach but just being here with the things that remind you of him seem to lull you a bit. Your eyes scanned his vast library of books and fell onto his desk where he had his cryptozoology magazines strewn across the surface, his reading glasses upturned and a whiskey glass sitting on the edge. You smiled at the little quirks he had, knowing your man had so many layers, all a different shade but he wasn't as hard to figure out as he thought he was.
Your thoughts were interuppted by Bianchi's silken voice.
"How long?" she asks.
"Hmm?" you ask, confused.
She stares at you with a straight face and raises a brow, her green eyes just a few shades shy of her brother's glowing green eyes. "I saw the way Spanner looked at you," she said calmly.
Afraid that Bianchi has somehow gotten the wrong idea and came to her own conclusions about a possible affair between you and Spanner, you throw your hands up defensively and let out a nervous laugh.
"It's not what you think," you say. "I love Hayato."
Bianchi's lips curl in a soft smile. "I know," she says. "He told me everything."
You furrow your brow quizzically and purse your lips, wondering why she just won't come out and say what she wants to say.
"H-how... what...?" you stammer.
"I poisoned it out of him," she says crossing her arms. She leaned in the doorway and it reminded you of the way Gokudera would lean in the doorway of your office and watch you work.
"Wait... You... poisoned Spanner?" you ask warily.
Bianchi shrugged. "I tried asking him nicely and he wouldn't tell me anything so I had no choice."
You lowered your face into the palm of your hand. "You could have just asked me," you say in an almost comical tone.
"I suppose," she says, uncrossing her arms and moving out of the doorway. "But I figured if you wanted me to know, you would have said something. But when I saw the ring... " Her eyes gaze down to Gokudera's mother's ring he had placed on your fingers hours before. "...Does he know?" she asks.
You look from the ring to Bianchi, your hand unconsciously floating to your stomach. "No," you say solemnly, and that annoying sense if dread begins to tug at you again.
There was a sudden outburst of noise and yelling and Lambo rushes into Gokudera's office almost tripping over his feet.
"They're back!" he exclaims excitedly and turns back down the hall.
You and Bianchi, along with Giannini and Lambo, race to the elevator and take it down to one of the many hidden entrances to the base.
There's a lot of commotion and your medical staff has already met you there and you see Ryohei and Hibari strut through the crowd and something strange happens that only makes the dread you've been feeling for the last several hours worsen.
Hibari walks past you and though he's never regarded you before, looks over at you and frowns, but it's not a usual menacing frown but it's almost... disheartening. You mean to ask him what happened but Ryohei slams his hands down on your shoulders with tears in his eyes and asks you how Kyoko is doing.
You smile brightly for him, assuming he's upset and the tears are for Kyoko and tell him she's doing great and getting much better. When he sees you smile, he breaks down into sobs and you assume it's because he's relieved even though his sobs don't sound like he's at ease.
You can't see much over Ryohei's large, muscular body so you try to wriggle out of his grip and that's when you see it.
You suddenly feel like you've been smacked by a wall, hard. Your blood runs cold, your stomach plummets to the steel floor below you, your limbs go numb and somehow the ground goes out from underneath you and you're falling forward, everything moving in slow motion.
Ryohei catches you and grips you into an almost bear hug to prevent you from lurching forward. Some sort of sound comes out of your mouth. It sounds like a gasp, a cry, a silent scream all mixed into one incoherent noise.
Ahead of you, directly in your line of sight stands Yamamoto, his body already looking like it's been through hell and back. He's bent over and he's carrying something - no, someone.
He's looking right at you, a look of anger and sorrow and guilt plaguing his otherwise cheerful face.
On his shoulder you can see a tuft of dull and dirty silver hair stained with streaks of blood and chunks of dirt.
You know right away, no one has to say anything, they've already said it with their eyes.
Everything seems to be standing still, there's no noise, there's no movement, you yourself aren't even breathing. You can't, because it's hitched in your throat and there's that uncomfortable, burning lump that's formed there to prevent you from screaming out at the top of your lungs.
Ryohei's grip is strong but you can't stand anyways, your legs have become jellied and you sink to the floor, unable to tear your eyes off Yamamoto who's just standing there with that same stupid look on his face and you realize it's starting to make you angry. Angry because you don't want to accept it. You can't accept it.
Tsuna walks out from behind Yamamoto and everything is still moving so slow, no one has taken Gokudera to treat him... why, why hasn't anyone helped him?
You wanted to scream it but no sound would come out.
Tsuna places a hand on Yamamoto's shoulder and nods to Ryohei, his face has almost no emotion in it and you want to scream at Tsuna too, because why, why does he look like that? That's his right hand man, why isn't he doing anything to help him?
Ryohei swoops you up and carries you bridal style and everything begins to move again. You thrash and kick and finally you've found your voice because you start screaming and it isn't coherent except for the times you let out a slew of impleasantries, most of them regarding Ryohei and his mother and the bastard Yamamoto.
Gokudera has disappeared from your line of sight but it doesn't stop you from trying to break free of Ryohei.
He enters a room you've never been in and to your surprise Shamal is waiting next to a cot and you know what's going to happen next. You scream at Shamal to get away from you, you scream and plead for them to let you see Gokudera, why can't they understand that you just want to be with him?
You feel a sharp pinch in your neck and you know Shamal has just given you a tranquilizer via mosquito. You start to feel nauseous and light headed and your body starts to feel heavy, it's not so easy to struggle against Ryohei who was now laying you down on the cot. Shamal takes your arm and searches for a vein to insert an I.V drip and though you can't feel your limbs you still have a voice. You plead with Shamal to let you go, you just want to see the man you loved, the man you refused to believe was dead. Something clicked inside your head and you remembered something important.
"Sha...Shamal..." you breathe tiredly, "what... what did you... I can't...the ba-" and you were swallowed by darkness.
Some hours later you awoke, the I.V still plugged into your vein and there was a EKG machine beeping softly in the background. Your surroundings swim into focus and you're not surprised to see Bianchi sitting in your room, next to this uncomfortable bed (because it's not the bed you share with Hayato) with a distraught look on her face. She's better at hiding her emotions than Gokudera is but you can still read her, they don't realize how similar they were to each other. You could see the anger seething in her eyes but beyond them was a lot if hurt and when she looked at you, pity. You didn't want anyone's pity. What you really wanted was Gokudera but he... he wasn't ever going to be there.
Just thinking these words seized your heart, these thorny vines of hurt and pain wrapping around your heart and oh god it felt like you were dying. It felt like your heart had been crushed by a vice, it felt like your lungs had exploded. Your whole chest weighed down with a heavy pressure that wasn't reverse going away. You felt the hot sting of tears rolling down your cheeks and your whole body just ached.
"Bia-n-chi..." you say between sobs, "Is he...?" You can't bring yourself to form the the word.
She looks down at the floor avoiding your eyes like she's avoiding the question. Finally after a long pause she nods, a single tear falls down her cheek.
You feel burning hot claws clutch your heart and it feels like its been ripped to shreds. It hurts so bad you can't breathe.
Bianchi sits in silence while you cry softly to yourself. After a while she leaves and you're alone. You don't try to move, you just lay there listening to the melodic beep of the EKG machine, wishing that the melody that floated to your ears were his fingers on ivory keys instead. You drift in and out of sleep, it isn't really sleep, it's exhaustion, it's pain and it's the effects of Shamal's mosquito.
Author's Note:
Well! I know I'm getting killed for this chapter.
Reviews would be awesome.
Almost done guys, hang in there. Keep reading!