Reborn Drabbles (9/3: Gravity kills)
Title: Gravity kills
Series: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Barino (OC), random bad guys, Tsuna (mentioned)
Rating: PG-13 (for implied death)
Notes: written for the 31_days challenge (9/3: Gravity kills). OCs explained here. I guess this is what I meant by Barino's little "accident". Dedicated to my cousins...though their black sheep-ed-ness isn't quite so extreme.
3. Gravity kills
He's stuffing the money in fistfuls into the duffel, face puffing like the chimney of a train, neck red with exertion. The bag, now full, joins its companions on the hotel bed, covers messily spread over a gratuitous lump in the middle. As he clears all the hangars in the walk-in closet he reflects bitterly about the night before - damned bitch, selling me out! - and shoves the rest of his fine clothes into the remaining suitcase with movements rougher than necessary. With a snap the last suitcase is closed, and he piles it all onto the luggage cart waiting near the door, pausing only once to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
Barino! His father's voice rings like sudden church bells in his head. Where are you going? Stop where you are, now!
Angrily he clenches the silk material of his slacks. His figure in the mirror is that of the classic fat Italian, all pudge and a good-humored face, topped off with small and skilled hands. The only thing he inherits from his father the 10th was his shock of unruly spikes and a sixth sense for who to trust and who to avoid.
Heaving himself up again he casts one last look at the body under the sheets and begins to push the cart out. He just can't wait any longer for the taxi to contact him, it's just too stressful to sit here and do nothing. A sudden stab of regrets stings his heart as he closes the door behind him; his brother will know by now, his innocent twin who was probably still in Mexico chasing the false trail he'd put out for his enemies last week. It's a pity, but it really is time for him to leave it all behind.
There's a black sheep in every family, Gokudera-san had said, and briefly clouded the brilliant sunset with his cigarette smoke as he listened. You're that one, Barino, and it's up to you to decide what to do with yourself. Of course your father would love for you to stay, but you can do just as well on an honest route these days.
Papà doesn't want me around. He'd been sure of it, just as he was sure of it now. I've done so many crooked things that go against the Commandments that I'm sure Papà would rather see me dead.
Gokudera-san had looked at him evenly and said, I do hope you're joking.
He'd thrown his champagne cup into the garden below as his answer.
Now he's here, crooked and twisted in his own mess once again, this time without the Famiglia backing him like they usually did, with no sign of faltering in their blind loyalty. He's run too far and too fast this time, not that his father would save him after he's learned what he'd done - the only one he can possibly trust is Natsume, and he's a world away. He knows, because those cufflinks he gave him five years ago were more than just pretty, they connected remotely from the satellite to his phone. Natsume never suspected; if he did, he never said or did anything about it. He never stopped wearing them, after all, just as he never gave cufflinks in return.
What he gives instead are phone numbers, addresses to safe houses, access to databanks. Natsume had always been the more technologically savvy of the two of them, and now it was paying off. They'd always caused mischief together as kids, but now that one of them straightened out and the other one hadn't, they'd started to walk different paths in life. He's grateful of course, but it really does seem like the end of the line this time. He can't outrun all of the people who want things from him, after all.
It's like a drug, really. He knows things and people want to know them too, want to know them. Compared to the slim, carbon-10th copy Shouichi and the sweet-talker Natsume, Barino had always taken the backseat. Now it's time for him to shine - if he can get away this time, he can get away next time too. There'll be a tomorrow when he can see Natsume again, say he's doing well if a little stressed, maybe work his way into a legitimate business and rise up again in his father's eyes -
- the elevator doors ding open, and a bunch of men stand there. One has a scar over his eye, Barino recognizes him. They're all huge. All Moschimo thugs.
"Hello, Birdie," the man grins, and stalks forward. He knocks the luggage trolley over with one hand. "Though maybe 'Birdie's inappropriate. More like rabbit-boy, they're the ones that really squeal when they die."
He backs up into the suite, eyes steady. Guess not Natsume he thinks of the eyes that are exactly like his own, set in that much thinner face, reflecting the many lines on the computer. Somewhere in Mexico, where I can't see him. Abruptly he thinks of his father, brown hair streaked with gray, left leg limping slightly from that wound he got on his twenty-third birthday.
Sorry, Papà, he thinks suddenly, it wasn't your fault I turned out this way. I was just born crooked and goitered like that Colonello's old apple tree, there wasn't anything you could do about it.
"Sheila's dead," a thug announces after lifting the covers off of the bed.
"Good thing I got to plug her before she died," the scarred man continues, mouth contorted into a wide crescent moon. "How does it feel, to have fucked a woman I've fucked before? She any wider than you'd thought she'd be?"
Disgusting bastard, his inner Sawada Shouichi spits back viciously. Thieving coward, get away from my brother!
I'm sorry, Barino answers lamely in his head to his imaginary family, sorry I could never pay you back for all you've done for me. He can't help but stare straight back at his enemy, wordless and utterly baffled as to why he thought to trade information with this man in the first place. He's so utterly disgusting - but then again, Barino reflects, he is even more so. He steals from people and doesn't give back their fair due. That's his problem in the family - they all give back, somehow. But for the talentless him, there is nothing he could give back, and nowhere he could possibly give back to that hasn't already been occupied by somebody else.
He is the un-genius, uncreative, unmotivated Barino.
A crash of broken glass snaps him out of his reverie. He has three seconds before he's bodily heaved to the newly open window. White curtains billow outward; he chances a look down to the dizzying drop below. His heart is screaming with fear, but his mind can only calmly think of his family, going through their faces one by one. How are Ryohei and the Varia? How is his father doing? How old is little Kyoko now?
And then he's turning blue, because he just can't seem to breathe through the grip on his collar anymore. It's a miracle the shirt even stays around his neck; he could very well just slip right out of it. But it does stay, and he remains dangling over the edge, eyes bulging as he tries at last to think of a way out, and can't.
"Any last words, Birdie? I've decided on Birdie after all, you're a canary that can sure sing after all." The man leans in close, his golden molar flashing in the sunlight. Below, Barino can see people gathering and pointing, cars beginning to stop next to the hotel out of curiosity. They're just tiny multicolored ants at this height. "So, what'll it be, Birdie?"
He knows what to do. What he does is pull out his cellphone and press SEND.
The man snarls like a wolf, reaching for the cellphone. Barino chucks it as far as he can, trusting his satellite connection to take it safely to Natsume's phone in time. Suddenly the man grins, and holds him out over the edge again. His feet are slipping; one shoe falls off. It is the end, and both of them know it; he is scared, calmly so.
"Let's see if you can fly, Birdie," the man says, and drops him over the edge.
Church bells. Barino! He remembers their voices, ringing out to him, hopelessly honest and naive in all of their lawbreaking.
And smiles.
BLARGH sappy ending. In the end I just had to make him into a bad guy. I don't really like scarface either.
Series: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Barino (OC), random bad guys, Tsuna (mentioned)
Rating: PG-13 (for implied death)
Notes: written for the 31_days challenge (9/3: Gravity kills). OCs explained here. I guess this is what I meant by Barino's little "accident". Dedicated to my cousins...though their black sheep-ed-ness isn't quite so extreme.
3. Gravity kills
He's stuffing the money in fistfuls into the duffel, face puffing like the chimney of a train, neck red with exertion. The bag, now full, joins its companions on the hotel bed, covers messily spread over a gratuitous lump in the middle. As he clears all the hangars in the walk-in closet he reflects bitterly about the night before - damned bitch, selling me out! - and shoves the rest of his fine clothes into the remaining suitcase with movements rougher than necessary. With a snap the last suitcase is closed, and he piles it all onto the luggage cart waiting near the door, pausing only once to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
Barino! His father's voice rings like sudden church bells in his head. Where are you going? Stop where you are, now!
Angrily he clenches the silk material of his slacks. His figure in the mirror is that of the classic fat Italian, all pudge and a good-humored face, topped off with small and skilled hands. The only thing he inherits from his father the 10th was his shock of unruly spikes and a sixth sense for who to trust and who to avoid.
Heaving himself up again he casts one last look at the body under the sheets and begins to push the cart out. He just can't wait any longer for the taxi to contact him, it's just too stressful to sit here and do nothing. A sudden stab of regrets stings his heart as he closes the door behind him; his brother will know by now, his innocent twin who was probably still in Mexico chasing the false trail he'd put out for his enemies last week. It's a pity, but it really is time for him to leave it all behind.
There's a black sheep in every family, Gokudera-san had said, and briefly clouded the brilliant sunset with his cigarette smoke as he listened. You're that one, Barino, and it's up to you to decide what to do with yourself. Of course your father would love for you to stay, but you can do just as well on an honest route these days.
Papà doesn't want me around. He'd been sure of it, just as he was sure of it now. I've done so many crooked things that go against the Commandments that I'm sure Papà would rather see me dead.
Gokudera-san had looked at him evenly and said, I do hope you're joking.
He'd thrown his champagne cup into the garden below as his answer.
Now he's here, crooked and twisted in his own mess once again, this time without the Famiglia backing him like they usually did, with no sign of faltering in their blind loyalty. He's run too far and too fast this time, not that his father would save him after he's learned what he'd done - the only one he can possibly trust is Natsume, and he's a world away. He knows, because those cufflinks he gave him five years ago were more than just pretty, they connected remotely from the satellite to his phone. Natsume never suspected; if he did, he never said or did anything about it. He never stopped wearing them, after all, just as he never gave cufflinks in return.
What he gives instead are phone numbers, addresses to safe houses, access to databanks. Natsume had always been the more technologically savvy of the two of them, and now it was paying off. They'd always caused mischief together as kids, but now that one of them straightened out and the other one hadn't, they'd started to walk different paths in life. He's grateful of course, but it really does seem like the end of the line this time. He can't outrun all of the people who want things from him, after all.
It's like a drug, really. He knows things and people want to know them too, want to know them. Compared to the slim, carbon-10th copy Shouichi and the sweet-talker Natsume, Barino had always taken the backseat. Now it's time for him to shine - if he can get away this time, he can get away next time too. There'll be a tomorrow when he can see Natsume again, say he's doing well if a little stressed, maybe work his way into a legitimate business and rise up again in his father's eyes -
- the elevator doors ding open, and a bunch of men stand there. One has a scar over his eye, Barino recognizes him. They're all huge. All Moschimo thugs.
"Hello, Birdie," the man grins, and stalks forward. He knocks the luggage trolley over with one hand. "Though maybe 'Birdie's inappropriate. More like rabbit-boy, they're the ones that really squeal when they die."
He backs up into the suite, eyes steady. Guess not Natsume he thinks of the eyes that are exactly like his own, set in that much thinner face, reflecting the many lines on the computer. Somewhere in Mexico, where I can't see him. Abruptly he thinks of his father, brown hair streaked with gray, left leg limping slightly from that wound he got on his twenty-third birthday.
Sorry, Papà, he thinks suddenly, it wasn't your fault I turned out this way. I was just born crooked and goitered like that Colonello's old apple tree, there wasn't anything you could do about it.
"Sheila's dead," a thug announces after lifting the covers off of the bed.
"Good thing I got to plug her before she died," the scarred man continues, mouth contorted into a wide crescent moon. "How does it feel, to have fucked a woman I've fucked before? She any wider than you'd thought she'd be?"
Disgusting bastard, his inner Sawada Shouichi spits back viciously. Thieving coward, get away from my brother!
I'm sorry, Barino answers lamely in his head to his imaginary family, sorry I could never pay you back for all you've done for me. He can't help but stare straight back at his enemy, wordless and utterly baffled as to why he thought to trade information with this man in the first place. He's so utterly disgusting - but then again, Barino reflects, he is even more so. He steals from people and doesn't give back their fair due. That's his problem in the family - they all give back, somehow. But for the talentless him, there is nothing he could give back, and nowhere he could possibly give back to that hasn't already been occupied by somebody else.
He is the un-genius, uncreative, unmotivated Barino.
A crash of broken glass snaps him out of his reverie. He has three seconds before he's bodily heaved to the newly open window. White curtains billow outward; he chances a look down to the dizzying drop below. His heart is screaming with fear, but his mind can only calmly think of his family, going through their faces one by one. How are Ryohei and the Varia? How is his father doing? How old is little Kyoko now?
And then he's turning blue, because he just can't seem to breathe through the grip on his collar anymore. It's a miracle the shirt even stays around his neck; he could very well just slip right out of it. But it does stay, and he remains dangling over the edge, eyes bulging as he tries at last to think of a way out, and can't.
"Any last words, Birdie? I've decided on Birdie after all, you're a canary that can sure sing after all." The man leans in close, his golden molar flashing in the sunlight. Below, Barino can see people gathering and pointing, cars beginning to stop next to the hotel out of curiosity. They're just tiny multicolored ants at this height. "So, what'll it be, Birdie?"
He knows what to do. What he does is pull out his cellphone and press SEND.
The man snarls like a wolf, reaching for the cellphone. Barino chucks it as far as he can, trusting his satellite connection to take it safely to Natsume's phone in time. Suddenly the man grins, and holds him out over the edge again. His feet are slipping; one shoe falls off. It is the end, and both of them know it; he is scared, calmly so.
"Let's see if you can fly, Birdie," the man says, and drops him over the edge.
Church bells. Barino! He remembers their voices, ringing out to him, hopelessly honest and naive in all of their lawbreaking.
And smiles.
BLARGH sappy ending. In the end I just had to make him into a bad guy. I don't really like scarface either.