Disclaimer TO THE EXTREME: If I owned it, there would be no female characters (EVER, because I'm jealous like that), no Shimon Family (filthy traitors and dirty liars, not to mention the ridiculous and completely transparent boob job on Suzuki Adelheid makes me want to throw up every time I see her), and I would never, ever have even dreamed of putting poor Yamamoto in that kind of situation...so, long story short, Akira Amano obviously owns much more of it than I do.

Enjoy, kiddies!

It was very quiet, and it was very lonely, and both of those things contributed to the overwhelming sense of abject terror that clawed at the mind of the Vongola Tenth with talons that were strong and sharp and unyielding. The dark of the dark of the night had seeped through the cracks under the doors and windowpanes and settled, swallowing familiarity and security and leaving nothing behind but the eyes of the photographs that gleamed ominously even without moonlight.

No moonlight.

No light at all.

Only dark.

The darkness weighed oppressively on his chest, on his ears, on his eyes, and he breathed shallowly and he heard the ringing silence of no one and nothing and he kept his eyes open because he knew if he closed them he would succumb to the pull of sleep and somewhere in his strained and exhausted and fraying mind he was certain, now, of one thing and one thing only, and that was that if sleep managed to ensnare him once again he would surely be driven out of his mind.

As he was already teetering rather precariously (on one foot, all alone) on the brink of insanity, he knew it would not take much of a push to send him over the edge.

Tonight, after all, it had been particularly personal.

A sound, piercingly loud in the stifling darkness, made him freeze mid-breath, made the adrenaline shoot searing through his veins, made his mind reel and his eyes bug, made the gleaming eyes of the photographs flash. He lay perfectly still, exhaustion-driven imagination surging into overdrive (something is moving, coming out of the darkness, slithering through the night, and none shall be saved) as he was wracked with wave upon wave of ice-cold panic that was far too close to hysteria because it was the dead of night and he was alone and exposed and vulnerable and blind and it took a very long time for the waves to subside until, listening, hyper-intuition told him there was nothing in his room except himself and his exhaustion-driven imagination, and he relaxed (but he didn't, not really).

But he could still feel the panic-that-was-too-close-to-hysteria lapping persistently at the edge of his mind, eating away at what was left of his sanity, eroding the shores of his mental stability bit by bit…

And if there were any more of the nightmares, there would be nothing left.

It had started with indiscriminate terrorism.

Buildings in the middle of urban settings, bombed. Flying shards of glass and debris spearing screaming, running, frantic pedestrians like harpoons as shock wave after shock wave swept through the city streets, shattering car windows and killing the young and the weak, while the building caved in on itself and anything or anyone in a three-kilometer radius was buried or buried alive.

Twenty-five city buses in twenty-five major cities all across the globe, all full of innocent people, detonated simultaneously. Thousands killed, shoppers and travelers strewn across the streets like confetti, mutations and injuries and far too much blood flowing far too fast as children, screaming and crying and lost and confused and frightened, yelled for their mothers or fathers or sisters, or worse, as mothers or fathers or sisters screamed and sobbed for their babies and held the marred little faces close to their chests and wished it had been them.

And the Vongola Tenth knew.

Mafia was responsible.

But he was helpless, motionless, unable to move or prevent or comfort or avenge, and so he stood and watched and cried. And he awoke, sobbing, and did not dare drift off to sleep again.

And then the dreams changed, ever-so-slightly, and suddenly he would find the body of the girl from the coffee shop under one of the larger piles of broken concrete or the face of the boy from 3-A on the severed head that was several feet away from the broken body or the old woman who used to live down the street impaled by a metal rod and burned beyond instant recognition, and his gut would give a sickening twist and his head would be subject to a resounding pang and he would wake and not even make it to the toilet before emptying his stomach of anything he'd eaten the previous day (which, as of late, was never very much).

And he would be as helpless as ever, and the tears would stream down his face, and his eyes would not close, could not be closed, when he was dreaming, and he made up his mind that if he could not close his eyes when he dreamt, he would not close his eyes when awake.

But he would fall asleep without realizing it, at the beginning of the night, and the nightmares would slither out of their nests and wind around his body and neck and constrict him more and more with every breath that he inhaled and steal his mental health in exchange for the gruesome and the terrifying and the macabre.

His subconscious had been remarkably cruel tonight, almost unusually so (but then, when was it unusual for it to be cruel?), in that he hadn't known it was a dream. He had awoken, glad to have finally gotten some sleep, and stretched. He had showered, dressed, brushed his teeth. He had noted optimistically that a decent night's sleep had made the ever-growing bags under his eyes that much less-defined. He had decided that today might actually be a good one.

He had walked out into the hallway, turned the corner, idly wondered what breakfast would be, stepped into the dining room.

He had looked up.

There, directly above him, hanging from the chandelier, was Gokudera.

The rope around his neck was crude and frayed and tight and his lips were blue and his eyes were open and glassy and empty and his feet didn't quite touch the table below him and there was writing on his hand and it was clear as day even though the words were small because the bluish-blackish ink contrasted brilliantly with the bloodless fingers THE END –

And he had stared up at the broken Storm Guardian and felt nothing.

And then he had woken up, drenched in sweat, tangled in bed sheets, gasping for air and not getting nearly enough of it, and he had known that it was even worse when he felt nothing at all.

And so this would be the thirteenth consecutive night in which Sawada Tsunayoshi would remain awake and terrified, but only the second in which he would remain stoic and solemn and would not cry, because he had run out of tears three and a half nights ago.

A/N: WHOAMAJORANGSTINGWHAT? Yes, I know, I don't usually end up writing things as angsty as this, but...I'm in a particularly angsty mood at the moment, I suppose. I'm so angsty, my own mother confused me with Harry Potter.
WHUT. :D

No, but for some reason, I never seem to be able to work any dialogue into my oneshots. It sort of bothers me.
Also, as much as I really, REALLY want to, I can never seem to write Gokudera or Yamamoto. It's really disappointing, but I can never write my favorites.

I'd been watching Gundam 00 for about a week and a half straight when my nightmares began. Gundam 00 is a very serious, very violent show, and it's not nearly as forgiving as Reborn! in that people really do die. There's mental illness and mass murder and bombing and indiscriminate terrorism, and my poor little mind couldn't take it and began funneling the violence into my subconscious, which interpreted it into my dreams.
Tsuna here = Iwaveatyou87 for a good two weeks.
Thank you, plot bunnies. They pretty much bit me right on the nose.

Anyway, I do know that I totally cheated by tagging Gokudera in this story and so all of you 2759 shippers are probably like, "WTF, WE GOT LIKE TOTALLY GYPPED," but I did mention him and he was something of a catalyst in this story sort of and you can tell that Tsuna really is concerned for his well-being and I'M SO SORRY.

REVIEW IF YOU HATE ME.

EDIT: I'm sorry, apparently there's been some misunderstanding: I want you to review even if you DON'T hate me. Anyone who reads this, I would like them to review. PLEASE. Thank you.