Title: Imagine That (Part 1)
Author: anza
Characters/Pairings: 8059, Tsuna, Squalo and the rest of Varia, Basil
Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyou Hitman Reborn! It's impossible for me to make money off of this anyway.
Comments and notes: Thanks to fangses for the support, and may this badfic be a toast to all the betterfics out there. I originally thought this wouldn't have pr0nish elements, but eh, I changed my mind later. Will be three parts, and very 8059 in the end, so no like, no read, yes? I apologize for any and all grammar/vocab mistakes incurred and brain cells fried, though no compensation will be forthcoming from this poor college student's pocket.
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It pools and eddies, welling up where fresh cuts have been made, sticky against his fingers where old cuts have been. Something clanks from above his head, and in one sick instant he knows what's going to happen: a bucket of water will pour over his head. A bucket of half-water, half-vinegar.
It stings like hell against his cuts - and there are many of them, what would Tsuna say if he could see him now? - stings so bad he has to bite back the hoarse gasp that belies his pain. Two thoughts are swimming along lazily in his head, hovering just over his shackled hands. His arms are sore, but of a numbing sort, the kind that after seven hours of hanging in the air from them, has ceased to be a red-hot, newly inflicted pain.
He snatches at those two thoughts, lights a match to them mentally, and lets them burn like his Vongola flame.
The first: I really want to play baseball right now.
The second: Tsuna will come for me.
The first begins to garble. It adds on little tags like after I get out of this fucking shithole and after I beat up the bastard who did this to me, but the core of it remains intact. That's because he likes baseball, likes the feel of a perfect swing and not-so-much the smell of sweat but the feeling that he'd beat his record again, even if they hadn't won. He liked when he first stepped onto the field, and looked out at all the colors of the world, at the vibrant green and brown patches on the field, at the reddish dirt of the diamond and the mound. Sometimes at the faces he knew would be sitting above, at their faces, their excited and happy faces.
He lets that collective memory - their smiles warm him, they warm him to the deepest shadow of his soul - sink into his beaten limbs. He doesn't dare lift his head; he can feel the brittleness of one shoulder and he's afraid that if he moves it it'll give that ominous, sickening crack like a groan of thunder or the snap of a whip. If he points his toes like a ballerina, he can barely brush the floor. It doesn't offer any relief from the crisscross cuts. He must look like the coupes in a stick of French bread, the flesh and muscle opening up to blood, more blood.
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He watches Gokudera's back, not because the other wants him to, or needs him to, or even because he's tired of watching Tsuna's. He watches because he's interested.
Gokudera's stocky, but not in a way that says he won't grow taller and out of that in the future. His back is strong - when does he exercise? Under his shirt there is the faintest impression of abs, of strength - and when he really looks he can see the graceful ripple of humanity in that back. He doesn't know what it is, but he gets the feeling that it shoulders a lot, that it is strong from trials in the past, something unreplicable by bluster or pride.
Gokudera is Italian. He and Tsuna are playing a game called 'Mafia', a game that involves all the friends around them and sometimes almost gets them killed. The connections made themselves at home in his head a long time ago, but when it comes up in real life, something in his still wants to deny it. Vehemently spits the facts back out after he's digested them already.
But the strength in Gokudera's back hints at something more than just pointless shooting or a child's pretend-game. It hints, too, in his eyes, in his lashing rage against Yamamoto. It says "There has been good in my life too, despite it all".
He smiles at Tsuna. Snarls at him. The hate goes deeper than he thinks, no matter how much he looks after his back. No matter...anything. The challenge is there, and the gauntlet is thrown, but he doesn't want to fight Gokudera, he wants the words to come out right. He wants to say, "I'm not after what you're after, I don't want to be Tsuna's right hand man or whatever."
But it always comes out wrong, even in his head, because it's a lie.
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When he first met Tsuna he thought he was short but interesting in a boring sort of way. That sentence contradicted itself, and he knew it, but he couldn't bring himself to find another phrase to describe that. The way it was was fine, because Tsuna was an ordinary person surrounded by extraordinary people. That was all.
Before he'd even realized it he'd counted himself into those weird people. He had eyes that could slow time down, reflexes that had served him in a pinch. And he could see sometimes, Tsuna was afraid when his eyes went sharp and flat all at once (he'd seen his father's eyes do that once, and he'd inherited the bulk of his personality from no one else), when he wanted something, and wanted it bad. Usually it didn't come out unless Tsuna was around, in danger of being hurt, though to what extent, he was still trying to block out.
It only happened when Tsuna was around. When he knocked aside obstacles for him - "my friend", he wants to say, but whenever he looks at the hesitant approval in Tsuna's eyes he wants to say "my boss" instead - something welled up in him, something that told him that with Tsuna, he could never go wrong, and that somehow, his needs would be satisfied if he just followed quietly.
He had a lot of needs as a teenage boy. He wanted to move around, he wanted action to stir and poke at the adrenaline in his system until it roared, he wanted a goal to work towards even if it was short-term, he wanted a friend that would depend on him. He wanted to be depended upon. Not so much dependent.
But he supposed, that if anything, he was dependent on being depended upon. And no one had ever depended on him more than Tsuna. When things were bad with Varia, there was that barely-desperate look that made his insides curl with cold anticipation, the smile reaching no farther than his eyes.
It was dependency that gave him the edge to his sword. And not even Gokudera could say it was a blunted, imperfect blade.
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He's become lost in memories of baseball and Tsuna and Gokudera, of the kids running around and the ball smacking into the glove of his hand back-and-forth, anything to dull the edges of pain that sprinkle around his vision. Little white spots of static all around. When his toes touch the ground, they smear. The older blood has already dried, he can see it, his head is still craned down. If he became more lost in memories about Tsuna and the others, he might find a way to think his way out of the situation, it lends him a kind of thoughtfulness. But there haven't been situations quite like this before.
The vinegar stings under his fingernails. Seeing his blood bubble on his chest was a sight he finds fascinating even when he's hurt so badly. If he licks below his lips he can feel a cut on his chin. That one is still bleeding, and it won't stop. He wonders what they'll say, what Gokudera will say, when he tells them he got it by not being careful.
He's retained so many injuries from Tsuna - 10th, he reminds himself, and the voice in his head sounds like Gokudera's - not from the man himself but from the enemies they've faced together, that he wonders why he doesn't quit now and have a good life. He knows that's not possible, though, not after Tsuna looks like him at that, and Gokudera...
...though he'd be killed on the spot if he said it to him, Gokudera still didn't have enough ability to protect the 10th all the time. It was easier as it was, bodyguarding split between two people. But he couldn't trust Gokudera to protect him; Gokudera still failed, sometimes. Would bounce back stronger, perhaps, after learning from his mistakes. He would never say it, but he stuck around because Gokudera couldn't take the position he so coveted. And Yamamoto couldn't say if he wouldn't want it for himself when the time came. Tsuna...
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Tsuna just broke it to him so easily. "Be careful," he said one day, "they're real dynamite, you know. Fireworks make less bang and more sparks."
He laughed so easily at that, could laugh it off like he always did, but then Tsuna looked at him so seriously he faltered, and he wondered if that was so, how many times had he been in danger? Every day? With a walking bomb with a twitchy, faulty switch trudging next to him?
Tsuna continued, the serious look in his eyes. He found himself counting the normal things that he could depend on even when Tsuna wasn't around. "I'm not just Sawada Tsunayoshi, Yamamoto-kun." The same lamppost. "I'm actually the 10th head of the Vongola Family, a mafia family from Sicily." The same lazy cat sitting on the fence. "And you're one of my Guardians, the Guardian of Rain, kinda like a bodyguard or a counselor, you know." The same housewife sweeping her front porch. All normal. All the same. Only Tsuna was different today, only Tsuna was...something more than he looked today.
Oh, but he looked so normal. Just a little more serious, his eyes a little rounder. His hands still clenched, twisting nervously in front of him, just like he usually did when he was nervous. His uniform still sagged where his shoulders weren't wide enough to fill the seams, his pants too floppy to accommodate his skinny legs. This normal-looking boy, this timid thing that he'd been protecting for lack of another goal, for the sake of his adrenaline needs, for the sake of friendship - was this all a joke?
His mind pounded against him, denied it howling for three frightening heartbeats - and then it all sank in, slow like ice in the snow, the sinking weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
He wanted to ask, What do you want me to do?, like a good little peon would. And then he wanted to ask, How could you do this to me?
"I'll see you tomorrow at school," he said, and turned around to walk in the opposite direction.
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The rest of the story he knew. He knew that Gokudera came up to him and yelled a lot of things at him that were supposed to be read as 'meaning well', but instead came out with spitting spiteful things like You TRAITOR, until finally he couldn't stand it anymore. It'd been lit like one of the fuses on Gokudera's sticks of dynamite, and it'd been lit and put out until it was just a short little thing. So he knew, and he knew Gokudera knew, it wasn't a surprise when Gokudera screaming things at him turned into a fight. A real fight, with fists and dynamite was falling everywhere, along with the clatter of a lighter Yamamoto kicked away with unerring accuracy, because he was so angry, he could feel it bubbling inside of him. More than a drive for success, for victory, for triumph.
Bloodlust.
He slammed his fist into Gokudera's head and it made a smack! that was sick and twistedly satisfying. It whispered, This is it, this is what you'll be hearing and seeing for the rest of your life. He'd forgotten it was Gokudera, the same one he slung his arm over those stiff shoulders, poked and prodded and watched watch Tsuna, the same one that had the strong back that could hold up the sky if he tried. All there was was the crack as he gripped that silver hair - stupid mafia, he hated it, he hated it for taking away his life, he hated that he couldn't say no, and never would, not as long as Tsuna was still alive - and took that head and brought it down and down again, until Gokudera wasn't fighting anymore. His fists were tight with Yamamoto's shirt, and his face was bloody from his nosebleed. He registered it numbly before he smashed his fist again into that face - he hated, he hated -
"Please, please," Gokudera sobbed, and he'd never seen another boy cry like this before, not even when they lost the game and walked home in defeat, "please don't tell the 10th, don't tell him I lost."
He said a lot of other things too, like He needs you, When he needs someone he reaches out for you, never for me, I'd be his right hand man if I wasn't so weak, I hate you, How could you take so easily what I've wanted for my entire life?
Even without him here, Tsuna was a ghost of guilt standing behind him. He had more questions that he wanted to ask, How did you decide? and Is pride all you can think about?, but instead of saying anything he just stared at the boy with his bloody nose, someone who was so like him, someone who had pledged his life, someone whose life had been changed past recognition by the mafia, someone whose dreams had been taken away from him. He'd taken it without thinking, without looking, because he was just one of Tsuna's friends, and he'd been trying so hard to tell himself it didn't matter who was whose best friend, who needed who. Gokudera was just a teenage boy like him after all, Italian or mafia or whatever, who wanted someone to depend on him. Alike. Similar.
Akin, like family.
He took his shirt sleeve and roughly wiped at Gokudera's face, and wished he knew how to say sorry without pissing the other off. "I won't tell Tsuna," he said instead.