Reborn Drabbles (9/11: Trench fever)
Title: Trench fever
Series: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Tsuna, Shouichi (OC), Vito (OC)
Rating: G
Notes: written for the 31_days challenge (9/11: Trench fever). Inspired by my own grandmother's condition right now (the next time she gets better...feels like the time she's gonna let go). Lots of OC's; that's cuz I've got this thing all planned out like the freak I am.
Tsuna x Kyoko (first wife; dies from some sort of mafia-related warfare), children are:
1. Shouichi
Tsuna x Haru (second wife; dies from some sort of mafia-related warfare), children are:
2. Fatima
3. Natsume and Barino (twins; Barino later dies from some sort of "accident")
5. Toshio
6. Kyoko
Sawada Shouichi x Tomomi Sakura (OC), children are:
1. Mario
2. Vito
3. Marco-Puccesse
Yamamoto x Gokudera (they adopt a kid):
1. Yuusuke (consigliere to Sawada Mario)
------
Will add more if I think of more people later.
I think I'm crazy for making this up.
Without further ado, the story itself:
11. Trench fever
by anza
scent of smoke and the cries of trapped people, servants and Famiglia alike, he's running through the trees blurred to dark shadows by his tears, and Gokudera's green eyes and suggestion are the last things that stand out in his mind, Go 10th, Run and don't look back.
The mansion's ablaze with enough hysterical cheer to knock down an asylum's Christmas party, all those papers and all that goddamn work flying up into ashes as he runs away alone, again a coward. He's tearing through the brush, fist wiping away tears as he runs through the names again in his head: Ryohei's in Singapore, Hibari's still in Venice, Chrome is in Japan with Ken and Chikusa, Yamamoto is in the Chiavarone hospital in Milan and everybody else is helping with the evacuation. His family - baby hands reaching up, the curve of her smile sudden and silver in the moonlight - where are they are they safe
He wakes up with sweat pouring like hot ice down his back and his fingers fisted in the sheets like they're wrapped around an enemy's neck. Without a care to the ragged state of his hair or his slack state of dress, he jumps out of bed and into the slippers neatly waiting for him. Panicked, he switches on the lights as he goes swiftly from room-to-room - where's Gokudera?, his hands itch for the house phone across the room, where's Yamamoto? - peering inside each one. The only bed that holds an occupant is the last one...but when the sleeper moans and turns over, it isn't little Kyoko.
Tsuna fumbles awkwardly for a gun that isn't there. He settles for an old trick instead: he pounces on the other, holding him down with one hand while digging the top of a water bottle into the other's back. The stranger freezes, then relaxes against the flowery sheets, all the while face planted to the Hello Kitty pillow below.
"Don't move," Tsuna is abruptly whisked away to a perfectly preserved glass memory of Reborn drilling that commanding tone into his head through hours and hours of training. By now the Italian rolls smoothly from his lips like lilting drops of sun. "I'll have you tell me who the fuck you are to think you can sleep peacefully in a house like this."
The other inhales and exhales pillow cover with every breath. Tsuna presses down harder, twisting the arm further until the other's body is a tight, rigid arc. Finally, the other pleads in short huffs, "Nonno, it's me, Vito. Shouichi's son - your grandson, nonno."
Shouichi? He thinks instantly to the young, brown-haired White Spell technical genius he'd killed and taken that thrice-damned ring from. But no, Irie Shouichi is dead, has long been dead...he remembers that scene clearly, he'd been standing in that room and Hime had been next to him, Irie in front of him and Byakuran behind him, pinned to the wall like some macabre butterfly. In the end it'd been Mukuro trapped behind that white door, smiling with his one good eye as he entered with his baby froggie handkerchief held out in front of him as if it would stop bleeding from anything larger than a papercut.
The memories unfurl quicker now - who this stranger means is Shouichi, his son, his firstborn. Tawny hair like a lion's and big brown eyes, eager hands always clutching air. When the 9th kissed Shouichi while on his deathbed, the infant had giggled and squirmed away from the touch of that bristling mustache the other wore to his coffin. But he can't be more than five, his son. He isn't even old enough to understand Fatima isn't his enemy for attention in the Famiglia, if last week's incident was any indication. It means nothing but a simple mistake on the maid's part to put one of Shouichi's old toys in Fatima's crib.
"Stop lying," he commands, and unties the belt to his robe. He binds the stranger's arms securely to the head of the bed, still face down, and gropes at his pockets for his ever-present cellphone. Seriously, where is Gokudera when he needs him? He could clear up all of this mess in an instant. He can't remember all of the Famiglia's enemies alone, that was what he depends on the others to keep track of for him.
Exasperated beyond belief he finally gives up looking for his own and pats down the other's pockets instead. Indeed it produces a phone-shaped lump...but what is wrong with his hands? Tsuna lifts them to the light and examines them with horror. They look thirty years older! All gnarled and knotted like this, the tendons and the joints sticking out like dried-up rivers. Never mind, he has something to do. Picking up the phone, he dials in the number without even having to look at the number pad.
The phone's reply is swift and utterly baffling: The number you have called is not in service...
Instantly he is suspicious. He digs the end of the water bottle into the other's tailbone again, feeling the self-proclaimed grandson stiffen in apprehension. "You, what did you do with Gokudera?" An intruder in the house, calling himself the grandson of the 10th boss of the Vongola family - what is the world coming to? Tsuna longs for the simple days when the most he needed to deal with was the crazy personalities of the Varia.
"Answer me!," he adds quickly. This is quickly degenerating into complete nonsense.
The other turns his head as far as he can to meet his eye. Lips still breathing in pillowcase, the other answers haltingly, "Nonno...Gokudera's dead. He's been dead for fifteen years now." Something squeezes in his chest like a boa constrictor right then, so suddenly that Tsuna feels tears spring to his eyes. In a miserable tone Vito continues, "He hung on as long as he could, but with all of those cigarettes he used to smoke, in the end his lungs..."
Horrified, Tsuna rewinds his memories back and forth desperately for something to counter this. The pain in his chest, he's felt it before, which is a good indication said event has happened before - yet it came from the mouth of this stranger, this self-proclaimed grandson. But yes, Tsuna does remember a coffin engraved with Gokudera's name, being placed soundlessly into the earth as shock wiped all the feeling from the world around him. They'd both been inconsolable together, him and Yamamoto, they'd locked themselves in Gokudera's room that night and drank until they puked, then curled up in Gokudera's bed together and cried themselves to sleep like abandoned babies. Tsuna remembers it now with the haze of foggy forgetfulness that gives the whole thing a sense of being fake.
Through the sleepiness his mind is finally beginning to shake itself awake. It notes the little things first - like the time (2:31 AM) and the date (November 11, 2075), and then finally registers the picture frame next to the clock. There are several figures standing in there, all familiar, but how they're related is still up in that mysterious cloud of memories that refuses to unravel like it used to. He squints at the glass; there's a tawny, tousle-headed man with a baby face and a beautiful bijin next to him. And next to the two of them are other figures, seven of them. He gets the feeling he's seen all of them before...but he just can't put a name to any of them...
...except for the women. One is Fatima, his second-oldest. Her cheeks are rosy as they were when she was a baby, and she is plump, brown-haired and heavily pregnant. Another is the bijin, Shouichi's wife Tomomi Sakura, with her long black lashes and her hand shyly held in her husband's. The last is little Kyoko, all grown, smiling hugely with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in her arms. The ribbons dangle over her white dress; the entire company is caught forever grinning from this wooden frame, untouchable by human age.
His children...all grown. Even if it was a brilliant example of Photoshop skills, he can't help but be rattled by this. It all feels so familiar, so impossible yet so true, that Tsuna isn't sure where to go in this muddle of memories. He is bewildered and suddenly a child again, looking for his mother and father in this cutthroat world. Who is this person? Who is he, and did he really do all of the things he remembers?
What did he remember? Bits and snatches, elusive wisps of voices and situations before they're snatched away again. He frowns; this swirling white and gray mixture of now and then is dizzying and confusing as hell. The questions hammer insistently at his mind without answer, until they too mist away into the smooth blankness of an unwritten slate.
He is at wits end.
But there is one sure way to find out.
Leaving the stranger tied to the bed - Nonno? Hey wait, nonno! - he makes his way back through the lit rooms, heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. Frames upon frames cluster the mantelpiece; he passes them and jerks open the front door to the suite, then hurries towards his old office at the end of the hall. He opens the double doors like he has so many times before - a flash of the fire, of this room destroyed, of the documents in that backpack of his that followed him for three months after as he hid like a thief, contacting his Guardians one by one - startling the people within.
He looks from one face to the other. They all look back with varying degrees of confusion and wary amusement. Finally his eyes settle on the one behind the desk, who gazes at him with Kyoko's big brown eyes. Shouichi, his son. "Shouichi," he begins hastily...but can't find the words to continue.
The look in his son's eyes is sympathetic. "Papà, it's late. You shouldn't be up." He crosses the room in two steps, and gently ushers him out. The rest of the people in the room either turn to talk amongst themselves or read over the documents that they've been given; all of them look away, giving the father and son room to straighten things out. After closing the door behind him, Shouichi turns to his father and asks concernedly, "Papà? What's wrong?"
It sounds absurd and embarrassing even in his head, but he manages to say it: "There's a man in Kyoko's room who claims to be your son." Now it's all coming to him, how late the hour is and how ridiculous he must look, coming into his study in his pajamas, interrupting what is clearly an important meeting between Shouichi and his Guardians. He heaves a resigned sigh, "I-I'm sorry, it's stupid, I'll take care of it myself, I'll just call up Yamamoto and -"
"Papà." Shouichi grips him by the shoulders and looks into his eyes seriously. "Papà, that was Vito. Your grandson, the up-and-coming 13th." When Tsuna just stares openmouthed with amazement at him in reply, he continues patiently, "Did you look on the nightstand before you came here?"
Nightstand? "No," Tsuna replies, just a tad defensively.
"Papà...," the son pauses as if the words are extremely difficult to say, "there's a picture on the nightstand, I put it there so you'd be able to keep it on hand all the time...it's a recent picture of all of us. Our family. Do you...remember it at all?"
Picture? "No...," Tsuna repeats, feeling more than a little lost at the significance.
With the air of someone who has explained this more than once to the same person, Shouichi continues, "There are a couple of people in that picture, Papà. There's our family and some of the other Famiglia members, like my Guardians and such." At the blank stare he gets in return, he sighs, thinks about it, then adds bluntly, "Yamamoto-san isn't in it. Neither is Gokudera-san. They're both gone, Papà...just like Maman and Barino and Basil-san. You just forgot that they've been gone for a while."
Struck dumb and speechless, Tsuna can only look hard at his son, eyes wide and watery as he searches for the lie that must be there, at the joke that must be present, body shaking ever so slightly under the shoulders of his open robe. The lights in the mansion seem to dim with every new pronunciation Shouichi makes. The old 10th head of the Vongola family feels more lost and empty than ever.
"Here, Papà," Shouichi offers, eyes welling with reluctant tears, "look here..." A mirror hangs conveniently in a side hallway, and Tsuna peers nearsightedly into it. In one moment he sees nothing out of the ordinary - and then shock fills his face as he drinks in what had to be his own face and body, standing so frail and brittle next to the straight build of his son.
He is old, older than he can ever remember being, so old he has to reach up and touch his chin and face to reassure himself he really is that ancient skeleton in the mirror. His cheeks have sunk a little, exposing his high cheekbones; his bedheaded hair flops flat on one side; the tendons in his neck stand out like strains of stretched meat. The striped pajamas hang loosely off of his frame; he's lost so much weight he isn't sure if there is any flesh left on his bones.
"Shouichi?," he mutters wonderingly, and the other steadies his arm around him consolingly. "Shouichi, I...the fire..." He was so sure when he woke up that the flames were licking up the walls, that his family was in danger, that it was all going to come crashing down like a tilted stack of books. That he was going to have to run again like a coward as Gokudera snuck around the compound, cleaning up the mess, taking the brunt of the blow while he laid low and connected again with his network.
"Papà, it's alright. The fire's over. We rebuilt this mansion right after, remember? We built it even better than it was before, it had Maman's new kitchen and everything." When Tsuna remains horrifically unconvinced, Shouichi adds desperately, "Don't you remember your own children, Papà? Me and Fatima, Natsume and Barino, and then Toshio and Kyoko. Six of us, and two Mamans. First Maman died after me, remember? And then Haru became our Maman, and Fatima and all the rest...Papà, don't you remember something, anything like this?"
Tsuna shakes his head mutely, face troubled, eyes in denial. All of these changes, when did they happen? Was this a dream too, some sort of warped nightmare of the future? He doesn't recall any of this, that's what was messing all of this up, he knows that somehow his fault again and he's bringing shame on the Famiglia by his incompetence...
"Papà...," his son murmurs, finally resigned. His voice echoes hollowly over the running screenplay of Reborn's continual abuse throughout Tsuna's childhood. "You should go to sleep, Papà." The two of them begin winding their way back down the hall to the family suite. Shutting off lights along the way, Shouichi tucks his father into bed gently, righting the picture frame with the names taped to all the right people. His heart twists at the sight of his father still sleeping only on the right hand side, never on the left, as if that side is still waiting for its rightful inhabitant to return.
"Goodnight, Papà," he murmurs, heart in his throat. Is he going to be like this to Mario and Vito and Marco-Puccesse when he got to be this old, he wonders. If he survived long enough to be this old, that is.
Tsuna hears the other leave once he thinks he's asleep, and creeps slowly back into his slippers. Shouichi makes his way to the lighted room at the end without hurry and without looking back, leaving the door behind him open a crack. Soundlessly Tsuna shuffles up to the room, listening in:
"Vito, are you ok?" There comes a creak as one more person sinks onto the mattress. "Nonno came to me talking about you..."
"Fine, Papà. I freed myself after he left - for an old man, he still has a lot of strength in his hands." Unbidden a little surge of pride spins through Tsuna like an electric shock. He remembers Reborn's scant moments of praise...followed by the memory of the other's broken body on the steps of the opera house, Bianchi's face white as she sank down next to him, touching his face lightly with gloved fingers. In the next few days he worked fast; the opposing family was destroyed in time for Reborn's funeral three days after...
But they're talking again: "...forgot I'm the 12th now, I think."
"Don't worry about it, Papà. Memory comes and goes at his age...it's natural, if sad to see."
There comes a long minute of silence, finally broken by a sniffle. Shouichi begins to hum Haru's old lullaby, the one about the flowers falling through the seasons, the one Gokudera made into a solo piece on a whim after a mission and played for banquets sometimes. "He - he didn't recognize me. I thought he might recognize me, I'm family after all, I never...it's never happened before..."
"These things happen, you're too young to know what it feels like when memories slip away from you unwillingly, there's still much to learn..." Tsuna backs up into his - their - bedroom, closing the door behind him. His mind twirls crazily as he looks at the faces in the frame on the nightstand, seeing younger faces that aren't his but should be his, whose names are clearly written there and which he remembers now that he's looked...but otherwise wisp away from his mental grasp when he puts the frame down.
Mind still whirling with his son and grandson, he drifts off to sleep, the coming sunrise once again wiping away the present.
Ha. Hahaha. I'm still writing though I'm still stuck here for another 2 weeks.
Series: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Tsuna, Shouichi (OC), Vito (OC)
Rating: G
Notes: written for the 31_days challenge (9/11: Trench fever). Inspired by my own grandmother's condition right now (the next time she gets better...feels like the time she's gonna let go). Lots of OC's; that's cuz I've got this thing all planned out like the freak I am.
Tsuna x Kyoko (first wife; dies from some sort of mafia-related warfare), children are:
1. Shouichi
Tsuna x Haru (second wife; dies from some sort of mafia-related warfare), children are:
2. Fatima
3. Natsume and Barino (twins; Barino later dies from some sort of "accident")
5. Toshio
6. Kyoko
Sawada Shouichi x Tomomi Sakura (OC), children are:
1. Mario
2. Vito
3. Marco-Puccesse
Yamamoto x Gokudera (they adopt a kid):
1. Yuusuke (consigliere to Sawada Mario)
------
Will add more if I think of more people later.
I think I'm crazy for making this up.
Without further ado, the story itself:
11. Trench fever
by anza
scent of smoke and the cries of trapped people, servants and Famiglia alike, he's running through the trees blurred to dark shadows by his tears, and Gokudera's green eyes and suggestion are the last things that stand out in his mind, Go 10th, Run and don't look back.
The mansion's ablaze with enough hysterical cheer to knock down an asylum's Christmas party, all those papers and all that goddamn work flying up into ashes as he runs away alone, again a coward. He's tearing through the brush, fist wiping away tears as he runs through the names again in his head: Ryohei's in Singapore, Hibari's still in Venice, Chrome is in Japan with Ken and Chikusa, Yamamoto is in the Chiavarone hospital in Milan and everybody else is helping with the evacuation. His family - baby hands reaching up, the curve of her smile sudden and silver in the moonlight - where are they are they safe
He wakes up with sweat pouring like hot ice down his back and his fingers fisted in the sheets like they're wrapped around an enemy's neck. Without a care to the ragged state of his hair or his slack state of dress, he jumps out of bed and into the slippers neatly waiting for him. Panicked, he switches on the lights as he goes swiftly from room-to-room - where's Gokudera?, his hands itch for the house phone across the room, where's Yamamoto? - peering inside each one. The only bed that holds an occupant is the last one...but when the sleeper moans and turns over, it isn't little Kyoko.
Tsuna fumbles awkwardly for a gun that isn't there. He settles for an old trick instead: he pounces on the other, holding him down with one hand while digging the top of a water bottle into the other's back. The stranger freezes, then relaxes against the flowery sheets, all the while face planted to the Hello Kitty pillow below.
"Don't move," Tsuna is abruptly whisked away to a perfectly preserved glass memory of Reborn drilling that commanding tone into his head through hours and hours of training. By now the Italian rolls smoothly from his lips like lilting drops of sun. "I'll have you tell me who the fuck you are to think you can sleep peacefully in a house like this."
The other inhales and exhales pillow cover with every breath. Tsuna presses down harder, twisting the arm further until the other's body is a tight, rigid arc. Finally, the other pleads in short huffs, "Nonno, it's me, Vito. Shouichi's son - your grandson, nonno."
Shouichi? He thinks instantly to the young, brown-haired White Spell technical genius he'd killed and taken that thrice-damned ring from. But no, Irie Shouichi is dead, has long been dead...he remembers that scene clearly, he'd been standing in that room and Hime had been next to him, Irie in front of him and Byakuran behind him, pinned to the wall like some macabre butterfly. In the end it'd been Mukuro trapped behind that white door, smiling with his one good eye as he entered with his baby froggie handkerchief held out in front of him as if it would stop bleeding from anything larger than a papercut.
The memories unfurl quicker now - who this stranger means is Shouichi, his son, his firstborn. Tawny hair like a lion's and big brown eyes, eager hands always clutching air. When the 9th kissed Shouichi while on his deathbed, the infant had giggled and squirmed away from the touch of that bristling mustache the other wore to his coffin. But he can't be more than five, his son. He isn't even old enough to understand Fatima isn't his enemy for attention in the Famiglia, if last week's incident was any indication. It means nothing but a simple mistake on the maid's part to put one of Shouichi's old toys in Fatima's crib.
"Stop lying," he commands, and unties the belt to his robe. He binds the stranger's arms securely to the head of the bed, still face down, and gropes at his pockets for his ever-present cellphone. Seriously, where is Gokudera when he needs him? He could clear up all of this mess in an instant. He can't remember all of the Famiglia's enemies alone, that was what he depends on the others to keep track of for him.
Exasperated beyond belief he finally gives up looking for his own and pats down the other's pockets instead. Indeed it produces a phone-shaped lump...but what is wrong with his hands? Tsuna lifts them to the light and examines them with horror. They look thirty years older! All gnarled and knotted like this, the tendons and the joints sticking out like dried-up rivers. Never mind, he has something to do. Picking up the phone, he dials in the number without even having to look at the number pad.
The phone's reply is swift and utterly baffling: The number you have called is not in service...
Instantly he is suspicious. He digs the end of the water bottle into the other's tailbone again, feeling the self-proclaimed grandson stiffen in apprehension. "You, what did you do with Gokudera?" An intruder in the house, calling himself the grandson of the 10th boss of the Vongola family - what is the world coming to? Tsuna longs for the simple days when the most he needed to deal with was the crazy personalities of the Varia.
"Answer me!," he adds quickly. This is quickly degenerating into complete nonsense.
The other turns his head as far as he can to meet his eye. Lips still breathing in pillowcase, the other answers haltingly, "Nonno...Gokudera's dead. He's been dead for fifteen years now." Something squeezes in his chest like a boa constrictor right then, so suddenly that Tsuna feels tears spring to his eyes. In a miserable tone Vito continues, "He hung on as long as he could, but with all of those cigarettes he used to smoke, in the end his lungs..."
Horrified, Tsuna rewinds his memories back and forth desperately for something to counter this. The pain in his chest, he's felt it before, which is a good indication said event has happened before - yet it came from the mouth of this stranger, this self-proclaimed grandson. But yes, Tsuna does remember a coffin engraved with Gokudera's name, being placed soundlessly into the earth as shock wiped all the feeling from the world around him. They'd both been inconsolable together, him and Yamamoto, they'd locked themselves in Gokudera's room that night and drank until they puked, then curled up in Gokudera's bed together and cried themselves to sleep like abandoned babies. Tsuna remembers it now with the haze of foggy forgetfulness that gives the whole thing a sense of being fake.
Through the sleepiness his mind is finally beginning to shake itself awake. It notes the little things first - like the time (2:31 AM) and the date (November 11, 2075), and then finally registers the picture frame next to the clock. There are several figures standing in there, all familiar, but how they're related is still up in that mysterious cloud of memories that refuses to unravel like it used to. He squints at the glass; there's a tawny, tousle-headed man with a baby face and a beautiful bijin next to him. And next to the two of them are other figures, seven of them. He gets the feeling he's seen all of them before...but he just can't put a name to any of them...
...except for the women. One is Fatima, his second-oldest. Her cheeks are rosy as they were when she was a baby, and she is plump, brown-haired and heavily pregnant. Another is the bijin, Shouichi's wife Tomomi Sakura, with her long black lashes and her hand shyly held in her husband's. The last is little Kyoko, all grown, smiling hugely with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in her arms. The ribbons dangle over her white dress; the entire company is caught forever grinning from this wooden frame, untouchable by human age.
His children...all grown. Even if it was a brilliant example of Photoshop skills, he can't help but be rattled by this. It all feels so familiar, so impossible yet so true, that Tsuna isn't sure where to go in this muddle of memories. He is bewildered and suddenly a child again, looking for his mother and father in this cutthroat world. Who is this person? Who is he, and did he really do all of the things he remembers?
What did he remember? Bits and snatches, elusive wisps of voices and situations before they're snatched away again. He frowns; this swirling white and gray mixture of now and then is dizzying and confusing as hell. The questions hammer insistently at his mind without answer, until they too mist away into the smooth blankness of an unwritten slate.
He is at wits end.
But there is one sure way to find out.
Leaving the stranger tied to the bed - Nonno? Hey wait, nonno! - he makes his way back through the lit rooms, heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. Frames upon frames cluster the mantelpiece; he passes them and jerks open the front door to the suite, then hurries towards his old office at the end of the hall. He opens the double doors like he has so many times before - a flash of the fire, of this room destroyed, of the documents in that backpack of his that followed him for three months after as he hid like a thief, contacting his Guardians one by one - startling the people within.
He looks from one face to the other. They all look back with varying degrees of confusion and wary amusement. Finally his eyes settle on the one behind the desk, who gazes at him with Kyoko's big brown eyes. Shouichi, his son. "Shouichi," he begins hastily...but can't find the words to continue.
The look in his son's eyes is sympathetic. "Papà, it's late. You shouldn't be up." He crosses the room in two steps, and gently ushers him out. The rest of the people in the room either turn to talk amongst themselves or read over the documents that they've been given; all of them look away, giving the father and son room to straighten things out. After closing the door behind him, Shouichi turns to his father and asks concernedly, "Papà? What's wrong?"
It sounds absurd and embarrassing even in his head, but he manages to say it: "There's a man in Kyoko's room who claims to be your son." Now it's all coming to him, how late the hour is and how ridiculous he must look, coming into his study in his pajamas, interrupting what is clearly an important meeting between Shouichi and his Guardians. He heaves a resigned sigh, "I-I'm sorry, it's stupid, I'll take care of it myself, I'll just call up Yamamoto and -"
"Papà." Shouichi grips him by the shoulders and looks into his eyes seriously. "Papà, that was Vito. Your grandson, the up-and-coming 13th." When Tsuna just stares openmouthed with amazement at him in reply, he continues patiently, "Did you look on the nightstand before you came here?"
Nightstand? "No," Tsuna replies, just a tad defensively.
"Papà...," the son pauses as if the words are extremely difficult to say, "there's a picture on the nightstand, I put it there so you'd be able to keep it on hand all the time...it's a recent picture of all of us. Our family. Do you...remember it at all?"
Picture? "No...," Tsuna repeats, feeling more than a little lost at the significance.
With the air of someone who has explained this more than once to the same person, Shouichi continues, "There are a couple of people in that picture, Papà. There's our family and some of the other Famiglia members, like my Guardians and such." At the blank stare he gets in return, he sighs, thinks about it, then adds bluntly, "Yamamoto-san isn't in it. Neither is Gokudera-san. They're both gone, Papà...just like Maman and Barino and Basil-san. You just forgot that they've been gone for a while."
Struck dumb and speechless, Tsuna can only look hard at his son, eyes wide and watery as he searches for the lie that must be there, at the joke that must be present, body shaking ever so slightly under the shoulders of his open robe. The lights in the mansion seem to dim with every new pronunciation Shouichi makes. The old 10th head of the Vongola family feels more lost and empty than ever.
"Here, Papà," Shouichi offers, eyes welling with reluctant tears, "look here..." A mirror hangs conveniently in a side hallway, and Tsuna peers nearsightedly into it. In one moment he sees nothing out of the ordinary - and then shock fills his face as he drinks in what had to be his own face and body, standing so frail and brittle next to the straight build of his son.
He is old, older than he can ever remember being, so old he has to reach up and touch his chin and face to reassure himself he really is that ancient skeleton in the mirror. His cheeks have sunk a little, exposing his high cheekbones; his bedheaded hair flops flat on one side; the tendons in his neck stand out like strains of stretched meat. The striped pajamas hang loosely off of his frame; he's lost so much weight he isn't sure if there is any flesh left on his bones.
"Shouichi?," he mutters wonderingly, and the other steadies his arm around him consolingly. "Shouichi, I...the fire..." He was so sure when he woke up that the flames were licking up the walls, that his family was in danger, that it was all going to come crashing down like a tilted stack of books. That he was going to have to run again like a coward as Gokudera snuck around the compound, cleaning up the mess, taking the brunt of the blow while he laid low and connected again with his network.
"Papà, it's alright. The fire's over. We rebuilt this mansion right after, remember? We built it even better than it was before, it had Maman's new kitchen and everything." When Tsuna remains horrifically unconvinced, Shouichi adds desperately, "Don't you remember your own children, Papà? Me and Fatima, Natsume and Barino, and then Toshio and Kyoko. Six of us, and two Mamans. First Maman died after me, remember? And then Haru became our Maman, and Fatima and all the rest...Papà, don't you remember something, anything like this?"
Tsuna shakes his head mutely, face troubled, eyes in denial. All of these changes, when did they happen? Was this a dream too, some sort of warped nightmare of the future? He doesn't recall any of this, that's what was messing all of this up, he knows that somehow his fault again and he's bringing shame on the Famiglia by his incompetence...
"Papà...," his son murmurs, finally resigned. His voice echoes hollowly over the running screenplay of Reborn's continual abuse throughout Tsuna's childhood. "You should go to sleep, Papà." The two of them begin winding their way back down the hall to the family suite. Shutting off lights along the way, Shouichi tucks his father into bed gently, righting the picture frame with the names taped to all the right people. His heart twists at the sight of his father still sleeping only on the right hand side, never on the left, as if that side is still waiting for its rightful inhabitant to return.
"Goodnight, Papà," he murmurs, heart in his throat. Is he going to be like this to Mario and Vito and Marco-Puccesse when he got to be this old, he wonders. If he survived long enough to be this old, that is.
Tsuna hears the other leave once he thinks he's asleep, and creeps slowly back into his slippers. Shouichi makes his way to the lighted room at the end without hurry and without looking back, leaving the door behind him open a crack. Soundlessly Tsuna shuffles up to the room, listening in:
"Vito, are you ok?" There comes a creak as one more person sinks onto the mattress. "Nonno came to me talking about you..."
"Fine, Papà. I freed myself after he left - for an old man, he still has a lot of strength in his hands." Unbidden a little surge of pride spins through Tsuna like an electric shock. He remembers Reborn's scant moments of praise...followed by the memory of the other's broken body on the steps of the opera house, Bianchi's face white as she sank down next to him, touching his face lightly with gloved fingers. In the next few days he worked fast; the opposing family was destroyed in time for Reborn's funeral three days after...
But they're talking again: "...forgot I'm the 12th now, I think."
"Don't worry about it, Papà. Memory comes and goes at his age...it's natural, if sad to see."
There comes a long minute of silence, finally broken by a sniffle. Shouichi begins to hum Haru's old lullaby, the one about the flowers falling through the seasons, the one Gokudera made into a solo piece on a whim after a mission and played for banquets sometimes. "He - he didn't recognize me. I thought he might recognize me, I'm family after all, I never...it's never happened before..."
"These things happen, you're too young to know what it feels like when memories slip away from you unwillingly, there's still much to learn..." Tsuna backs up into his - their - bedroom, closing the door behind him. His mind twirls crazily as he looks at the faces in the frame on the nightstand, seeing younger faces that aren't his but should be his, whose names are clearly written there and which he remembers now that he's looked...but otherwise wisp away from his mental grasp when he puts the frame down.
Mind still whirling with his son and grandson, he drifts off to sleep, the coming sunrise once again wiping away the present.
Ha. Hahaha. I'm still writing though I'm still stuck here for another 2 weeks.