Pairings: potential R27 (both adults), parental!R27. Slight 692796, X27, who knows what others.
Warnings: implied character deaths. maybe stuff in the future but nothing right now.
A/N: for khr bingo spot, 'gardener au', of a sort. more or less. i have a Thing for immortals / quasi-immortals / lived too long.

editing this in: chapters are not in chronological order. the chapter title will have the 'day after arrival' for the current chapter and each one doesn't usually span more than a day or two. or three. i'm trying really hard to write short chapters lmao.
Summary:
Later, over a robust dinner of steak and stir-fried vegetables, Reborn posits:

"True or false. You're going to destroy Vongola."

And Sawada Tsunayoshi, he laughs.

(reborn is caught in some odd Groundhog Day situation, except it's more like Groundhog Life. this time around, sawada tsunayoshi indulges his bizarre behavior.)

/ / / / / / / / /

pluck the thorns from your skin

/ / / / / / / / /

Reborn blinks himself awake. A rush of memories and thoughts come at him all at once and he forces himself to compartmentalize them. Sort them into little folders inside little file cabinets, label them neatly and concisely and clearly. It's an odd sort of thing to do, but after God only knows how many time it's happened, he stopped questioning it and just started doing.

First thing is to identify his surroundings.

He is in a living room. There is a fresh, steaming mug of coffee on the table in front of him, a newspaper folded in his lap, and a pair of fuzzy blue slippers at his feet. On his feet. Over? Encasing. It looks like a cloud, now that he thinks about it. The slippers, not his feet.

The couch is neither plush nor threadbare, but it does have a cover made of what has to be woven hemp fibers and it's starting to get extremely itchy against his calves. He's not wearing pants.

Actually, Reborn isn't wearing a shirt either. All he's got on is a bathrobe. It's silk. And colorful.

This must be- ah, no, wait, he hasn't got the Rolex. So, not the one where they're rich and dead. Probably.

Which only leaves—

"Reborn?"

His eyes flicker upwards, away from the Italian headline slashed across the newspaper.

"Are you okay? You've been staring at the paper for a while..."

Sawada Tsunayoshi. Of course. There isn't anyone else who Reborn's life revolves around. At least, not as much as it revolves around this one. At this point he's stopped keeping count.

(He can still recall exactly how many, though. If pressed.)

"Oh. Are you a different one?" The boy— man. Man. Young man. Tsunayoshi drifts over, forehead ablaze, and sinks into the couch next to Reborn. "What's the last thing you remember, Reborn?"

"You asked me what I'd like for lunch," Reborn drawls, snapping the newspaper open with a click of his tongue. Damn. The Palermo football team lost their most recent match. "I said anything but watercress."

"That was last week."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was."

Reborn's face pinches. "..Anything but radishes?"

"Last month."

"Shit. I'm getting old. Anything but— whatever it is that you're hauling in this week. I can't be bothered to keep track."

"Even though you live in my house, use my facilities, and eat my food?" Tsunayoshi's smile slants with his head, tipped sideways with no animosity.

Okay, maybe a little animosity, but only barely. Somehow he manages to look as though he's known Reborn for 3 centuries instead of 3 months.

Sometimes Reborn forgets that, too. That he's only known this Sawada Tsunayoshi for 3 months.

"I'll help clean up later." He won't. He'll forget. He always forgets. "Anyway, I already told you I'm not going to be switched out or anything. I'm here until my task is completed or is unable to be completed. Namely, until either of us dies."

"That's quite specific." Tsunayoshi leans over and grabs the mug of coffee. Reborn narrows his eyes. "Personal experience?"

"I refused the job, once. Actually, I refused it many times, but one of them in particular was rather..." He grimaces. "..Twisted."

"How so?"

"As in, refuse me and die."

Tsunayoshi chuckles. It's infuriating. "That sounds like typical mafia to me."

"Typical mafia wouldn't have killed me on the spot," Reborn grunts. "Typical mafia would've let me live. Typical mafia would have broken off my contract with Vongola and set me loose, set dogs on me, banished me from the Underworld. Typical mafia would have died trying to ostracize my wonderful self."

"Would they?"

Reborn looks up. Tsunayoshi's head is tipped again, smiling at something he can't see, cradling the mug of coffee like it's his own. Maybe it is.

His hand comes up and Tsunayoshi turns to meet it, letting his fingers trace the gaudy eye-patch over the right side of his face, easy and calm as though it wasn't the first time it happened. It probably isn't.

"That's my doing," Tsunayoshi says. "I told you that already. Remember?"

"Mm." He hooks a finger under the strap and tugs, just gently. Tsunayoshi's hand on his wrist stops him from pulling it down. "Remind me again?"

"My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi," the man says, in the same voice and tone and intent as he did the first time Reborn asked. The first time he heard about the other ones, the boys in Reborn's memories, the dead and the not forgotten. Reborn wonders if Tsunayoshi ever considers them his past lives. "I am 29 years old. I was home-schooled by my mother, Nana. I don't know where she is or what her name is now. My father is dead, probably. The mafia killed him. A blood clot took my left eye. A friend received my right. We are in Namimori, Japan. I was born here and have lived here my entire life. My hobbies are gardening and taking walks around town. I am allergic to seafood, which is fine, because I never liked shellfish anyway. I do wish I could eat sushi, though."

"You're allergic to cats," Reborn says. "True or false?"

"False. I have one, actually. Well, she belonged to someone else, but they're not here to care for her anymore, so she's mine."

"You like dogs."

"True. Have one of those, too. Again, used to be someone else's. His father comes by sometimes."

"The mafia has a vested interest in you."

"True. More or less."

"You are the next heir to Vongola."

"Once upon a time." Reborn finally drops his hand and Tsunayoshi lets go of his wrist to snatch the newspaper instead. "My father got in their way. Now, they just want to keep me from doing the same thing. Which is what you're here for, Reborn."

"I was still reading that." He makes no move to take it back, though, because the coffee is now free and he'll take coffee over news from Italy any day. "You're too old to change the way they'd want you to change."

"Then that just leaves the other option, doesn't it?" Tsunayoshi smiles, like he knows what the other option is and he doesn't care. Reborn wouldn't be surprised if he did. Know. And didn't care. "Technically it comes in my name, so it's my paper. Ah, what a shame. Giudice Calogero de Rege [1]was ousted for corruption. That's the 4th one this week... Have you heard of him?"

"A righteous fuck if I ever knew one. Glad he's gone. Not dead though? He should be dead soon." Christ, he hates Italy. Not that Sicily has ever been any better with the non-corrupt politicians, but at least Sicily has always been neck deep in the shit and comfortable with it. At least they were part of it. Not Italy. Italy just gets bought out and bribed. Frankly, it's disgusting. "I think I have more than just those two options."

"Mukuro's coming by." Tsunayoshi turns the paper around and taps to a small, tiny article about a prison break from the Real Cittadella of Messina.[2] "I think he'll be bringing friends. You haven't met him yet, have you? It's been a while since he or Chrome were last here."

"Not this one. Probably." Reborn takes this chance to make a grab for it, flipping back to the sports section. "I thought you couldn't read? You're.. blind."

"Haven't we gone over this already?" Tsunayoshi trades the newspaper for the coffee and drains what remains of it. The Flame on his head still burns bright, and his one remaining eye shimmers a pale, milky orange. A blood moon behind clouds. "I can do anything with my Dying Will, Reborn."

"Then so I can I." His eyes follow when Tsunayoshi stands, mug in hand, shuffling for the hallway in his own silk robe and fuzzy slippers. Red and yellow. Gold. "Changing you or killing you aren't my only choices. Didn't I say that already, too?"

"Three days after you arrived. I'm getting some more coffee for you. Did you want anything else? A snack?"

"All you have are kale chips and carrot sticks."

"You don't like those?"

"Carrots never did sit right with me." Reborn gives pause for a moment. "...I don't know if it's physical or psychological, though."

"I get that way with bananas. Kale chips?"

He starts to nod. Then stops and looks up again, taking his eyes off of the obituaries, trying to find any names he might recognize. And then he stands.

"..I can get the coffee myself, Tsunayoshi."

His knuckles brush against Tsunayoshi's when he takes the mug. Their fingers hook together as it changes hands, lingering, but not demanding.

"What's this, then?" Tsunayoshi asks, softly, head turned just slightly in Reborn's direction.

He doesn't meet Reborn's eyes, and Reborn has gotten used to the way Tsunayoshi seems to stare off into the distance, looking at nothing, because that is probably what he sees. Nothing.

Everything.

"A third option," Reborn answers. "You, dear one." [3]

He does look up, then. In every world, in every instance, Reborn will always be taller. Except in those where his body is still trapped as an infant, he will always tower over Sawada Tsunayoshi, and Sawada Tsunayoshi will always have to crane his neck to look at Reborn directly.

Tsunayoshi's untangles their fingers and brings his hand up. He already knows how they feel against his skin. Sometimes he gets fevers and sometimes Tsunayoshi checks his temperature. Sometimes Reborn lets his guard down.

He gets a pat on the cheek instead, and a cheeky smile.

"You're far too old for me, Reborn." Tsunayoshi brushes by him with a hum, dancing down the hall and up the stairs. "Help yourself to the kitchen. I've already had lunch, so I'm going to do some yardwork until dinner."

"Mm," Reborn says, and brings the mug up to his lips while he reads the lines and curves of the other man's form. Young, slight. So much potential. Always so much potential.

He blinks, and then looks down. Ah. Right. He was going to get more coffee.

/ / / / / / / / /

Later, over a robust dinner of steak and stir-fried vegetables, Reborn posits:

"True or false. You're going to destroy Vongola."

And Sawada Tsunayoshi, he laughs. Laughs like he's with his friends and has just heard the best joke in the world. Laughs like he does when Nana calls, as she does, once every few months, or so he says. Laughs like the world is about to end and he's always known this was coming, this question, this answer.

He laughs.

"Haven't I, already?"

And Reborn, despite himself,

he smiles.

/ / / / / / / / /

Maybe in one world, they will be equals.

[1] giudice: judge
[2] Real Cittadella: technically turned into a military base after the 1869s, and then into a warehouse after the 1908 earthquake. not in this world.
[3] he uses 'anata', which literally means 'you' but is also used by couples in the sense of 'honey' or 'dear'.