A Ten-Year Later Fan Fiction

A Special Type of Routine

Chapter 5: Bloodied Hands

Joliesme

Warning: I've written this with Family Fluff in mind. However, interpret it however you want to. This is spoken in Italian. The word extreme will be bold to show emphasis by the person saying it. Flashbacks are in italics.

Disclaimer: Yeah, i totally own all of them. I loved seeing how Tsuna chases the dinosaur and how Dino is trying to woo me.

He looked at his hands. They were bloody. Blood.

He stared at the people lying in the pool of red in the centre of the room.

Red.

He saw someone coming towards him and he raised his hand… stabbing through the stomach of the attacker.

Except that it was not a real attacker.

"Tenth… Why…" Hayato's face was splattered with red while dark red spread out on his red dress shirt. His silver hair turned into the colour of blood and iron.

He stared at his hands. They were bloody. Blood.

He stared at the people lying in the pool of red in the centre of the room.

He saw his guardians, lying in there, hand stretched out, crawling towards him.

Pained, betrayed, sad eyes stared back at him.

All the faces of his very own guardians. Hayato. Takeshi. Kyoya. Chrome. Mukuro. Lambo. Ryo-nii.

Why, they called as they pointed out the bald man sitting at the corner of the room. The bald man was painted red. His eyes white with no iris. His mouth moving with no sound.

And then, he moved.

And Tsuna ran. But he could hear him…

Hear him in the voice of whispering sorrows…

"I do not deserve death…"

X

Crystals of sweat rolled down Tsuna's face as Gokudera tried to wake his beloved boss up to no avail. This time, everyone in the mansion had awaken at the shrill voice of despair from the Decimo's room. They knew it was yet another nightmare, but unaware of the contents of the nightmare.

Naturally, Tsuna would have awoken up at the first shake or even, not have screamed at all.

Normally, the first to enter the room would have been Reborn or Yamamoto. Reborn, being a light sleeper, sleeps in Tsuna's room. With any discomfort the Decimo feels, much to a small cough, Reborn would be jostled awake and checks on the boss before returning back to sleep. Yamamoto, on the other hand, sleeps little and wakes up easily, just like Reborn. However, he counts on his feelings and would enter Tsuna's room when he felt like something was wrong. His intuition had hardly gone wrong.

Usually, Tsuna would be the one that calms people down from their nightmare. There was this time where Gokudera was shaken awake by a very frantic (near tears) Vongola Decimo who hugged him when his large eyes opened.

"Thank gods, you're awake."

All Gokudera could remember, was the war he had just witnessed. Gokudera embraced his boss back and he only remembered falling back asleep to Tsuna's soft humming.

On the same night, Yamamoto had a similar nightmare of the same war. He knew he was stuck in a nightmare but he could not get out. He felt a strange tugging at his abdomen which told him what to do.

"Close your eyes and let it go."

He did as told and found himself in the arms of Vongola Decimo, who was whispering the same lines over and over again. He had smiled, Yamamoto remembered, and fell back asleep, his breathing evened out and his ears filled with the melody of his beloved boss.

Chrome remembered how Nagi was killed and how Nagi lived her life. She cried, screaming and flailing about. At that time, Mukuro had yet to be released from Vendicare. All Chrome had was Boss. She was afraid that Boss will not turn up.

But he did. As always.

He hugged her, whispering words of comfort in her ears.

"You're not tainted, Chrome. Chrome is Chrome and always will be Chrome."

Mukuro's first nightmare was on the first night he was released from Vendicare. He found himself back into the same test tube. In the same murky waters.

He had thought that the Mafia kid had rescued him.

Thought that he had finally found salvation.

Perhaps, all was but a lie.

He saw himself running towards a dark room. A little kid with indigo hair had its eye forcefully taken out from its socket… Blood spilling from a man's body with three holes… A trident and a misty room… Laughter…

Horrid, terrifying laughter…

"Mukuro, you're with us now. And never, will I let you back in."

Those words pulled Mukuro back from the depths of succumbing to his own nightmare. Six guardians stood beside his bed when he awoke. A brunette on the same bed of his. His eyes full of worry and guilt.

His hair was stroked, Mukuro's, and he felt relieved that he was no longer in those murky waters of the test tube in Vendicare. He was home.

Hibari had his life full of death. It was a norm for him to kill, even though the Omnivore had hated it. Hibari refrained from the massive killings and turned towards injuring them to permanent damage instead. Even though Tsuna had shook his head and pursed his lips when Hibari had his first mission without any kills but thirty over men were permanently damaged—be it that they can never hope to see daylight again, or the fact that can never consume solid foods again, it did not matter to Hibari—because he had kept to the promise of no killings.

Tsuna had patted his shoulder and congratulated him.

But Hibari was not happy at all. During the mission, he had accidentally stepped on man whose body was on a sparrow. The sparrow chirped weakly at Hibari, who picked it up with extreme caution but the sparrow still passed away on Hibari's palms. Hibari had glared at the man, who was already in extreme agony and stepped right into the gaping hole in the stomach.

That very night, Hibari had his very first nightmare.

Dark and lonely room.

A lone sparrow, with a spotlight shining on it, chirping.

It chirps sadly, as it started to sing a song.

And its beady eyes grew wide, staring right into Hibari's eyes.

And Hibari heard the sparrow chirping: It's your fault I died…

Hibari had woken up with tears stinging in his eyes. Beside him stood the Sky guardian, looking extremely worried.

"It's not your fault…" His lips pursed, "If any, it's mine for I sent you out to the mission…"

Hibari refused to answer and lied back down on his bed, waving at the other that stood over him, indicating that he was not wanted and should leave automatically.

"So don't ever blame yourself."

Ryohei remembered how he punched straight into Lambo during that mass-mission. He felt the other's bone breaking as blood coagulated and formed at the mouth. Blood spewed out from the corners of the kid and Ryohei's own eyes widened, leaving him stuck at the stance for several seconds.

Nine, in fact.

And at the tenth, an enemy stabbed into his thigh and everything went black.

He felt a warm hand when he woke up. Not just warm hands, and wet but warm droplets on his hand.

Tears…

His eyes opened as he saw the defying-gravity hair.

"You're awake! Thank god…" Ryohei got a hug, still gasping for air.

"How's-!"

"Lambo's fine," Tsuna replied, he sat back in his seat.

"But—I'm… sor-…"

"Shhh…" Tsuna held a finger at Ryohei's lips, "It ain't your fault, Ryo-nii.

"If it's anyone's fault… it's mine…"

Lambo could only remember a bloody punch. A bloody lip.

Yuck, he hated the taste. Iron, bile and anything disgusting. Lambo could feel tears running down his eyes as he lost consciousness; the last thing he heard was the frantic calls of his big brother.

Lambo flickered his eyes and opened them, greeting with Tsuna on his right hand, stemming all the blood to the fingers. He shifted himself a little, and being the light sleeper as Tsuna always was, he woke up instantly.

When Tsuna saw the bright eyes of the kid, tears welled up and he hugged the other, as tightly as he had ever done. He had whispered in the softest voices Lambo had ever heard from the other.

"Please… don't do this to ever again. Lambo, I forbid you from getting injured from now on… Call me selfish. Because, I simply cannot deal with the thought of losing my little brother…"

Naturally, Tsuna would have awoken up at the first shake or even, not have screamed at all.

Yamamoto was the next to burst into the room, following closely behind by Mukuro. Yamamoto took a worried glance from Gokudera and took over the place where Gokudera was sitting on.

Gokudera stood up, standing beside Mukuro, his own eyes tearing up as he sees Yamamoto trying to wake his dear boss up.

Tsuna was crying, tears streaming down his pal and clammy face. He screamed and thrashed but never had the signs of waking up at all.

At that moment, Lambo ran in, took a look at the scene before jumping forward, hugging onto his big brother, trying calm the other down with no avail.

Hibari ran in, followed closely by Chrome and said, "Water. Iced water."

Chrome and Mukuro both nodded, conjuring up two buckets of iced cold water illusions at the same time. Hibari nodded and took the illusion (which felt like the real thing) and poured it over the man who was thrashing on the bed.

He sat up, his eyes tearing and mouth open, gasping for air.

"Everyone…" He croaked, throat dried due to screaming.

Ryohei walked in, crying a cup of cool Lemon Balm Tea or Melissa officinalis, as Tsuna would have preferred to call it.

Tsuna took the cup with trembling hands and drank greedily, gulping down the tea within seconds. Ryohei smiled sadly and took away the cup and placed it at the bedside table.

"It's okay to cry, Herbivore."

Tsuna looked up at Hibari, "Kyoya…"

Gokudera took the seat beside Tsuna and started to caress Tsuna's no longer fluffy hair (due to perspiration) lightly, allowing his boss to lean on his shoulder and cry.

Soft sobbing sounds wrecked the small frame and everyone else in the room could feel their hearts shattering, looking at their boss who looked so weak and fragile.

After a few good minutes, Tsuna lifted his head and whispered, "I—I am fine now. Go back to sleep."

Mukuro was the first to react.

"SLEEPOVER!"

Lambo followed suit, jumping straight beside Tsuna, making the bed bounce a lot and causing Tsuna, Gokudera and Mukuro to fall onto their backs onto the bed.

Yamamoto laughed, "That's cool. I wanna join!" Then, he lay down beside Gokudera while Ryohei screamed "EXTREME" and joined in beside Mukuro.

Chrome replied shyly, "Then boss, I'll be sleeping on the sofa. Thank you."

Hibari merely grunted before settling into the crook of the room and Hi-bird was perched on his head.

Tsuna looked around him and laughed, "My bed ain't that big, you know."

Lambo shouted, "TSUNA-NII'S BED IS KING SIZED!"

Tsuna laughed again before sitting up, "Goodnight, everyone."

"Goodnight!" chorused everyone except Hibari who grunted.

He lay back down, and knew that there will be no more nightmares that night.

Fin - Bloodied Hands

So, here.

Finally.

Next Chapter: Black Limousine

(c)Joliesme