[lampo] Sleepless
Title: Sleepless
ID: [lampo]
Word count: 8350 words
Rating/Warnings: R-18. Timeline leading to Future arc. NSFW scenes, harem-type antics, blood, guns, violence, frying pans, adverse side-effects, nightmares, seme-Tsuna, various random acts of temporary insanity.
Character(s) or pairing(s): tenth-generation Vongola
Theme challenge: (y/n) yes
Tsuna tossed and turned in bed, or walked around the compound in the dark, for hours. He did not sleep; he found it impossible. He just knew that the sun rose and brightened the bedroom, and he did not get any rest during the darkness before it.
"This can't go on, Judaime," he heard Gokudera's voice in a half-drone just beyond him, as he sat at breakfast. "You're looking worse every morning!"
"Huh? What? Good morning," he waved an arm that soon drooped down onto his lap. He leaned back on the chair, his eyes closed and Gokudera's husky baritone prattled on without him.
He just needed rest....just a bit more....and hopefully this was the time, if only it would get deeper and really let him sleep...
But that odd sinking dreadful unrecognizable terrible feeling returned.
Of being in a dark evening, in a darkened mansion, the one they were in at the moment. Of being suffocated by the smell of blood everywhere, of being surrounded by the fallen bodies of people he actually knew. Of the terrible, dreadful, sinking, sensation that he could have done something, but did nothing until it was too late. Of losing his life, unable to save anyone.
The right-hand man, standing beside him, toppled backward from a shot to the head.
Tsuna snapped awake and stared at Gokudera in panic, sweat beading at his forehead. "Gokudera-kun! Are you alright? Are you sure nothing's wrong?" he asked.
"Of course, Judaime! I'm fine!" Gokudera gave a sigh of relief. "I should ask that about you! You look awful!"
Tsuna smiled. "Really? That's good." He patted his right-hand man on the shoulder. "That's good...." He drifted again to a heavy doze...after all, it was almost a week that this kept happening. It was extremely hard to not sleep...
He heard a door slam from a distance. Yet that was not the problem; he slept through bazookas and gunfire and high-volume arguments before. The odd sinking dreadful unrecognizable terrible sensations resumed. Gunfire, blasting all over the house. Blasts of light followed by blasts of sound, followed by screams of death. His tall friend bleeding on the floor from too many holes.
"Yamamoto! You're alright, yes? Please say you're alright?" he desperately asked the new arrival.
Yamamoto sat down at the breakfast table. "Just hungry, Tsuna, good morning." The taller young man paused and watched him. "Something wrong?"
"Haven't you been asking all of us if we're okay every time you see us?" Gokudera added.
Tsuna was flooded by the sensations. Hack wounds, bullet holes, dismantled body parts, blood everywhere and on everything. Always, that terrible, deafening darkness. He bolted upright.
Soon after he did, the rest of the guardians took their individual places at the table, Hibari facing him at the far end.
The same sequence of questioning and assurance repeated four more times. Hibari, yawning, quietly sipped his tea. Ryohei replied that he was extremely well this extremely fine morning. Lambo laughed at how sleepy Tsuna looked. Chrome meekly said yes she was fine, and was the boss fine?
"That's good, that's good," Tsuna said.
Now that all the guardians were before him, the dreadful sensations left. Over the drone of conversation and the clatter of plates and silverware he dozed deeply at his breakfast.
Yet he distinctly heard Gokudera say again, "People. We seriously need to do something about Judaime. We need to get him to sleep. Really sleep."
"Maybe if we make a contest of it?" Yamamoto suggested, chuckling.
"Contest! I'm good at contests!" Lambo declared.
"We shall extremely do our best! For Tsuna!" Ryohei added. "I like a challenge."
Hibari and Chrome said nothing.
"The one who manages to help Tsuna sleep for a night wins!" Yamamoto said.
"Quantify," Hibari said from his end.
"Eight hours, a full eight hours," Gokudera said.
"Deal!" Yamamoto said.
"Alright!" Ryohei said.
Tsuna snapped awake. "WHAT?!"
Things were decided without him again.
Frying pans. You knew.
Everything was calm for the day...as calm as it could get in a mansion where all of Tsuna's guardians were in one place.
Tsuna insisted on the arrangement, for reasons he was not sure of himself. He allowed them to go out to conduct missions either for himself or for Reborn, but always in pairs, never alone. He knew it was because of the odd sinking threatening sensations, but he was never sure what they were about. He just knew they were for each and every guardian he had.
"I get first try!" Lambo declared immediately after dinner. He marched off to the kitchen.
Tsuna sighed. "So you guys are really going to do it."
"No harm in helping you out, right, Tsuna?" Yamamoto grinned.
Tsuna shrugged. It was harmless....probably.
Lambo returned, brandishing a large frying pan.
The young men at the table laughed. "What are you going to cook for Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked.
"What cooking?" Lambo raised the pan over his head. "I'm knocking him out! YAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Tsuna took the best course of action. He got up and ran. First around the dinner table, then through the halls of the house, the regular clang of iron pounding the floor behind him.
"I'll get you, Tsuna! I'll whack you hard!"
The tenth-generation head of a respected mafia family, and he still ran like hell from an 8-year-old boy. He leaped away from near-hits, kept his distance from the clanging. Of course he could have stopped the exercise when it started, or any of the older boys would have done it. But Lambo was bored, and it had been a while since he played a game with Lambo. Their life was hard, but it was harder on an active little boy. He would indulge him this time.
KERBLANG!
His skull met iron in a heavy blow. He identified the constellations that appeared as Orion's Belt and Ursa Minor.
CLANGBANG!
He dropped heavily onto the marble-tile floor and saw black.
He opened his eyes in Lambo's room. Now that the boy was older, old enough to sleep alone, he was given his own room. It was smaller than the others, but Lambo did not mind too much, as long as he could keep all his toy guns and cars.
The stench of gunpowder mixed with dried blood. Feathers from the pillows floated. Stuffing from the bed snowed on the room. Glass from the windows cracked under his feet.
He stared at a bed riddled with holes, soaked in blood, curly black hair scattered throughout the room, a boy's body destroyed by bullets. He bent down and picked up a revolver left on the floor of that bed, stamped with a seal of a family he could not immediately recognize.
He screamed.
“Calm down, Judaime, you're alright.” Gokudera held him at the shoulders. “Lambo just hit you on the head, you're alright.”
He was on the sofa with an ice bag over his forehead. He heard clanging inside his head and felt the pounding from it there. “Lambo!” Tsuna looked around for the boy. “Lambo!”
"Do I win? Do I win?"
Tsuna almost hugged Lambo, the frying pan at his side, peering at him from one end of the sofa. The boy was fine, alive, very alive.
"You idiot!" Gokudera knuckled the boy. "He was only out for a few minutes!"
"Awwwwwwwww." Lambo pouted.
"And don't whack Tsuna on the head again, ever!"
"But I whack him all the time!"
"Not with a frying pan!"
The argument increased in volume, as Tsuna groaned and shut his eyes again. Having them arguing loudly was still better than the heavy terrible nightmares in his head.
Never buy pirated goods.
Tsuna stared at the capsule in his palm. "Sleeping pill, Gokudera?"
Gokudera's head bobbed. "Best in the black market."
"Black market? Plenty in the pharmacy, you know."
"Not without a prescription. Shamal is out."
As he usually is, Tsuna mused. Still, the simplest option was a good practical place to start. He popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with a glass of milk. He did not use sleeping pills at all, so he did not know how long he had to wait before the capsule began to take effect. Gokudera stayed and chatted about the day's work while they waited.
The moon rose in the sky and grew smaller, and still Tsuna did not feel the least sleepy. Quite the opposite. He felt more awake than ever.
His heart pounded. He sweated. His groin felt heavy. His right-hand man looked handsomer by the moment. He wanted to come closer, to reach down, to get down. "Gokudera. Are you sure about this thing you got?" He panted and heaved as he stared at him.
"Sure, Judaime," Gokudera shrugged and closed the book he browsed.
"Gokudera-kun." The need grew uncontrollable, unstoppable. So wrong, so right. Must be done. Right here. Right now.
"Would you mind?"
"If it's you, I don't mind, Judaime."
"Are you sure." He grew hard, and harder, quickly.
"Definitely, Judaime."
"Are you really sure."
"Why do you ask?"
"Because---"
Tsuna got up, overturning the chair. He lunged at the right-hand man, locking lips with him and squeezing at Gokudera’s groin with a ferocity that surprised and shocked Tsuna.
"Ju....Judaime!" Gokudera gasped but did not wrench away.
"Shut up and let me get closer to you." He needed to, needed to, needed to get the clothes off and unleash the still-developing hardness onto something, and it was good that it was Gokudera-kun. With a speed that scared him, he pushed Gokudera onto the bed. He loosed the belt buckles, undid the clip, unzipped the pants and lowered them. He loosened his own shirt and tie, threw off the suit jacket.
He tasted and savored the cock, sucked at it, relished as it grew harder with his mouth and hands. He enjoyed the groans and noises he began to hear beyond him, gasps and pants of pleasure, tightening and relaxing of leg and groin muscles. He needed to, needed to, needed to. He knew it was the pill that did this to him, but he did not care, he did not care. He wanted Gokudera, he was having him, and he was not going to stop.
"Now, let me into you." His own cock was now hard, pulsing, ready for serious action.
Gokudera turned for him. Tsuna kept his hands around the now-hardened cock of his right-hand man, as he brought his own into the orifice. Fluids spilled as he thrust, and thrust, and thrust, and thrust, gasping and shaking in pleasure, as he enjoyed the moans and groans he heard in chorus.
"More, more," Gokudera begged.
"With pleasure." For part of the effect of that drug was to keep his cock high and hardened, and his thoughts devoted on just wanting to fuck this loyal ally and friend and guardian for all he was worth. He thrust and thrust, as he kissed Gokudera's neck and back savagely, licking the sweat he met all over.
They switched places. He groaned with lust as his cock was licked and kept high, as it was bit tenderly and savored for every inch. He felt his fluids spill onto Gokudera's face and body, and they both loved it. His legs were parted, as Gokudera came and thrust again and again, as the pleasure came in waves all over him, again and again.
They finally stopped after another hour or two, his naked body placed above Gokudera's naked body, their groins together, finally softening calmly. Tsuna caught his breath.
"Were you pleased, Judaime?"
"Yes, Gokudera-kun. Yes." He ran his hands through his right-hand's hair, now stringy like a mop from all the sweat. "But..."
"Yes, Judaime?"
"Find out what that pill you bought was really for."
"Yes, Judaime."
"And remember to save it for another time like this." He laughed and nestled in.
Tsuna stayed beside him.
He stayed beside Gokudera in one room, running from whatever launched an attack on the house. He heard the gunfights inside, in front, and behind the house. He heard the screams as his men fell to rise no more.
He was beside him as a laser-guided bullet sped, cracked the window, hit Gokudera at the center of his forehead. The right-hand man fell back onto the floor. Blood oozed from the single bullet hole through that well-used brain, spilling onto the eyes that glazed over as they remained wide open in shock.
“Gokudera-kun! Gokudera-kun!” He felt his head, listened to his heart. “Gokudera-kun!”
“Yeah….Judaime?”
Tsuna sat up, his forehead, neck, armpits, and chest covered in sweat, the bed soaked in it. The right hand lay near him. “Keep still! It will keep slow the bleeding! Stay with me!”
“HUH?” This time Gokudera opened his eyes. He held Tsuna at the shoulders and smiled. “It's just a dream, Judaime. Just a dream. Go back to sleep.”
But it felt so real, so true. As true as the crazy, hasty, enjoyable night he had. Yet Gokudera snored softly as his chest rose and fell. Tsuna did not know anymore what was nightmare and what was reality.
Gokudera slept until the sunrise.
Tsuna paced the floor until sunrise....wondering if he would lose his right-hand to the terror that racked his brain.
Be a man.
Ryohei placed an arm over Tsuna's shoulders and laughed heartily. "Leave it to me! I'll show you how to relax like a man!"
Tsuna raised an eyebrow. He was not sure he wanted to know how to relax extremely.
Kyoko’s big brother drove Tsuna, chatting very loudly the whole time, to a nearby hot spring. Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed he had not had a leisurely hot bath for a while.
They changed into bath towels and took the preliminary showers. Tsuna decided to keep the towel around his waist, but Ryohei, confident specimen of manhood that he was, hung his towel by the showerhead and proceeded with soaping himself, singing loudly.
It was large. Tsuna saw it. He raised an eyebrow as it was soaped and lathered.
They went to the pools. Tsuna appreciated the comfortably hot water as it surrounded his feet, then his ankles, legs, thighs, and the rest of him as he came down to sit. He sighed happily. He had been too busy, and too tired. He needed to relax at a hot spring more often, indeed.
Ryohei marched in, swinging his fine specimen of manhood, without a towel around his waist. Tsuna had a good look at it, for Ryohei took his time in getting used to the hot water, standing for a while with only his feet. To Tsuna's greater dismay, the fine specimen floated up and down near him, relaxed and happy, as its owner took his place beside Tsuna. He raised an eyebrow.
Ryohei settled down at the pool. "HAAAAAAAH," he sighed as the water filled up to his neck. "You starting to relax, Tsuna?" His voice echoed through the indoor pool and was audible to the adjacent pool.
"Yes, thanks, o-nii-san," Tsuna said truthfully....although the floating instrument still distracted him.
Ryohei spent the hour in the water making Tsuna laugh with his nonsense stories and tales of derring-do -- there was plenty of it to be had in their line of work, anyway -- that sounded so incredible no one else paid attention to them. It was wonderful to laugh, so freely and so heartily, after being worried for so long.
Yet his fears remained.
Ryohei suddenly stood up. "That's enough hot water. Let's get a massage!"
Tsuna could not object to a suggestion like that.
A capable employee kneaded and pulled and pressed everything tight and stiff in Tsuna, which was quite of lot of muscles, thanks to all the worrying and the sleepless nights. They ached from all the kneading and pulling, but they all felt looser after it, and Tsuna was grateful. Beside him Ryohei purred and aaaaaaahed his satisfaction.
Tsuna lay down on the massage table, quite content. He raised an eyebrow as Ryohei snored enough to rock the small room, his manhood bulging under the towel.
The lights went out, blackening the room, then switched on again, blinding him with their brightness.
Antiseptic and formaldehyde assaulted his nose. Silence echoed through the room. He felt the cold tile even through his shoes.
He stood by a steel table with a white sheet over it. A long mound lay under that white sheet. His heart pounded under his ribs as someone removed the sheet for him to identify the body beneath. He blanched as he saw the death pallor of Kyoko's brother on a body with several bullet holes in its chest. The chest had a tattoo on it, one it never had before: a crest of two crossed flowers with long stems.
He did not even know until after the attack and a body count was conducted. He did not know until he was called in to identify the body. He did not know. He should have known. It should not even have happened.
“Tsuna?” Someone patted him on the shoulder. “You alright?”
“I….I…know who he is…” he stammered. The name would not come out of his lips. How was he going to tell his sister that he could not save him? He could not say it.
“Tsuna! Wake up!”
He found Ryohei shaking him. He sighed with relief. “I'm okay. I'm okay.”
……………………………
Ryohei waited until the house was dark before he approached Tsuna at his bedroom again. He brought nothing with him, just himself.
"When all else fails," he declared, "there is one sure way to fall asleep."
"Besides being punched in the gut of course." Tsuna feared that was what the boxer had in mind.
"I won't do that! Not to you!" Ryohei laughed loudly.
Tsuna breathed a deep sigh of relief. He knew how hard Ryohei can punch.
"To do this," the sun guardian continued, "one must be in bed."
"Okay...." Tsuna went to his bed and lay down.
Ryohei jumped onto the bed beside him. "Next, one must remove his underwear." Tsuna raised an eyebrow as Ryohei did take off said underwear and lay down, his cock clearly visible. "Next, one must think of dirty things, while holding this."
Tsuna placed his smallish hands around that large member. "Like this."
"Yeah." The owner of the member did not pull his hand way. He placed his own over the hand. "Then you rub it, while imagining."
The smaller, more delicate hand squeezed around the large cock .
"Aaaaaah, good," its owner merely said. "Then you keep doing it."
Tsuna began to rub, in large movements, up and down the shaft, then in finer ones, where he found tingles of pleasure. The member began to rise and harden.
"You keep doing it! More! And more!"
Tsuna squeezed and rubbed with vigor.
Ryohei heaved and panted. "Just a little bit more! Almost there!"
Tsuna fingered the tip of the cock, circled around it, as his other hand surrounded the tube. The pantings increased and hastened as the hips lifted, as he quickened the circlings at the tip. The owner shook in gentle tremors of delight as he continued to squeeze and to finger.
Finally fluids gushed out like a fountain from that large member, now straight and hard. "Aaaaaaah. Aaaaaah!" the owner exclaimed as he fell back fully onto the bed, heaving, deeply satisfied.
Tsuna kept his hand around the cock, savoring its hardness. His fingers wandered through the groin, while Ryohei caught his breath. "Then, you don't move, and enjoy the feeling in your head," Ryohei took more pleased deep breaths as he spread out his arms and legs. "And.....THAT....is.....how you relax....as a ......"
He did not finish. He snored deeply, Tsuna caressing the slowly-descending bastion of manhood.
But Tsuna, remembering the strong body over an autopsy table, did not getting any sleep.
Always check the label.
Yamamoto waved a talisman in front of Tsuna. "You are getting sleepy.....you are getting sleepy....sleepy...sleepy...."
Tsuna frowned. "This is not working, my friend. It's just making me dizzy."
"Okay." Yamamoto shrugged and stopped swinging his talisman. The rain guardian then took out an mp3 player and earphones. "Try this one."
Tsuna obliged and took the music player. He heard the sounds of the seashore, seagulls singing on a rocky mound, and waves breaking over a beach. Quiet trance music wafted through the earphones. He heard a female gently tell him a more complicated and longer version of 'You are getting sleepy, your eyes are growing heavy, you are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy....'.
"Thank you, Yamamoto, but this isn't working either." The music just helped him relax, but it did not make him sleepy. "I'd like to borrow it sometime, though."
"Sure, no problem."
Tsuna sighed. They were all trying their best. He hated to disappoint them by not falling asleep, but he had to disappoint. "Sorry, my friend."
"Oh well. I guess I have to try this one now." Yamamoto presented a small pill bottle and a glass of water.
A few alarms buzzed inside poor Tsuna. "Don't say it. Sleeping pills."
"From Dr. Shamal. I asked."
"And where did HE get these?"
Yamamoto shrugged. "The drugstore?"
Oh, well. It came from Shamal. He took the bottle, took one capsule and popped it into his mouth, hoping for the best.
Soon, though, he began to feel something.
"Yamamoto?"
"Yeah, Tsuna?"
Tsuna stood. “What did Shamal tell you? It will help me sleep? Or it will help me sleep WITH someone?”
Yamamoto scratched his head. “Why?”
Tsuna reached over. His groin ached and bulged. He leered hungrily as he breathed heavily at Yamamoto’s ear. “Don't listen to him about sleeping pills ever again.” He brought Yamamoto over to the bed. “Otherwise, I'll want to do you too much.”
“Say what?”
Tsuna made the tall sinewy Yamamoto lie down with his legs dangling, almost pushed and forced him onto the bed. Then he undid the pants and removed the briefs.
“Tsuna! Calm down! What are you doing!” Yamamoto tried keeping his underwear on, but Tsuna was faster. “Wait! Slow down! Calm down!”
“I can’t!” Tsuna panted with lust as he saw the hole and gazed at the capable member just above it. He dropped his own pants and boxers. His cock, now released, stood straight and firm. “I’ll make you remember this mistake! I’ll make you remember, all right!”
He parted the legs, aimed for the hole, and penetrated.
He thrust and thrust and thrust some more, feeling relief, pleasure, and ecstasy every time. He took off his shirt, as he filled with sweat and the shirt choked him. He was fully naked before him. He danced, circled, corkscrewed as he thrust, gasping as each sequence made his hairs stand on end. He heightened the enjoyment by holding on to the other cock and rubbing it in rhythm to the thrusts. He relished the moans of delight he heard, enjoyed how he made him shake, tremble, and spill. He himself spilled on everything, the floor, the legs, the carpet, as he enjoyed the hardness and the pleasure yet also wanted to free himself of such great hardness as soon as possible.
He sweated so much, spilled so much, gyrated so much, and still his cock remained hard and ready. He wanted to do more, more, oh, so much more, wanted to please himself so much more, wanted to pleasure his friend even more. He wanted to do it all night, even up to the morning if it let him. He knew it was the drug that did it, but by god did it make him want to fuck so much. He did not want to stop. He knew that it was the drug’s effect, too, but by all that felt incredible, it did not matter how or why he felt that way, he just wanted to keep feeling that way!
But the heat and dehydration made him lightheaded. The room spun around him. The blood drained from his head, to fill the head of his cock. His body demanded a stop. He filled with cold sweat.
He withdrew, then he toppled.
BANG!
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
RATATATATATATATAT!
Tsuna ran to the hall, he did not care if he had clothes on or not.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Bodies he knew personally filled the stairs and soaked it in blood. At his feet lay his tall friend, the katana split into three pieces of steel, blood spilling from too many holes, eyes rolled up into his head.
RATATATATAT!
He filled with too many holes before he fell over the body of his loyal friend.
BANG!
His eyes flew open. He bolted upright. He caught his breath.
“Tsuna! You okay?” Yamamoto was beside him; he had briefs on now, but had no other clothes on.
“You're fine.” Tsuna felt his friend's shoulders, chest, torso. “You're fine.”
“Sure, I am. You, though, you had me worried! Fainting on me like that! Out for an hour!” Yamamoto chuckled in the cheerless laugh. “I guess I should have been happy that you were sleeping, but you looked so awful and I did not know what to do!”
Tsuna looked around. His friend had placed him on the floor, a sheet under him and a blanket above him. He looked down, found that his cock finally rested. “Sorry.”
“Oh, no problem,” Yamamoto now smiled honestly. “You were awesome. I'll need to sleep this off, though, you left me so tired, and I couldn't sleep until I knew you were okay…you were very awesome…”
Before Tsuna could greet good night, his friend lay beside him, arm thrown onto his torso, and proceeded to snore
gently.
Tsuna stared at the ceiling. He was exhausted, but he could not sleep. Yamamoto slept on for hours....without him.
Float on a cloud.
Hibari came in wearing his black pajamas with the white piping, keeping the cold away with a bathrobe. In one hand he carried a bottle of sake, on the other were two square glasses. Tucked under an arm was the business section of the day's newspaper. He silently placed bottle, glasses, and newspaper onto the small table near the bed, and sat himself at a chair beside it. He came rather late. The mansion was already dark and generally quiet for the evening.
"Did you need anything, Hibari-san?" Tsuna asked. He did not expect him to be part of this challenge among the guardians.
The young man harrumphed and opened the newspaper.
Tsuna shrugged and pulled back the other chair at the table. "Can't sleep, too, huh."
Hibari sighed from within the business news.
Tsuna scratched his head. He was not sure what the cloud guardian was up to. Yet he did not want to anger him with insistent chatter or questions. "How are things?"
Hibari cleared his throat.
" 'Stocks advanced on Wednesday, with benchmark indexes ending a three-day decline, as commodity shares rallied on expectations for higher raw material prices.' " Hibari read, in his deep gloomy monotone. " 'Occidental Petroleum and Halliburton gained at least 1.6 percent as oil climbed after a report showing that distillate fuel supplies in the United States fell to a two-year low. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold advanced 2.4 percent as copper rose after Deutsche Bank said prices were likely to rebound. Fifth Third Bancorp and BB&T increased more than 1 percent after Fitch Ratings said it probably would not downgrade German banks because of their holdings of Greek debt.' "
Hibari droned on, reading the report. "The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 4.19 points, or 0.32 percent, to 1,320.47. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 38.45 points, or 0.31 percent, to 12,394.66. The Nasdaq rose 15.22 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,761.38."
Tsuna understood what Hibari was trying to do. He wanted to bore him to death....at least to sleep.
" 'Barometers of energy and raw material shares rose at least 1.3 percent on Wednesday, the two biggest gains of 10 industry groups in the S.& P. 500. The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials rallied 1.6 percent. Oil rose above $101 a barrel in New York. Copper gained the most in a week as Deutsche Bank said that prices were likely to rebound, after similar comments from the Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase.' "
But Hibari droning on with Bloomberg's summary of the market report merely bored Tsuna to annoyance, not to sleep. Furthermore, the longer Hibari read through the report aloud, the frown on his face grew deeper and more menacing.
Tsuna tapped his guardian's knee. "Hibari-san, you don't have to go on with this."
"Hmph." But Hibari closed the business news and folded it down, with relief.
"Anything else you need to do?" Tsuna asked, kindly.
Hibari silently opened the bottle of sake he brought along, and filled one glass with the contents. He poured sake into the other glass. Then he glared at Tsuna.
"OH. For me?" Tsuna stared at the full glass.
Hibari nodded once.
"Thank you." He bowed. This was rare, out of Hibari. And when he did indulge in alcohol, he chose good sake. Tsuna placed the glass to his lips and drank it down.
It was very good, sweet, and warmed the throat without burning it. It did not leave him dizzy, as most kinds of alcohol did. He proffered the glass for another fill. Hibari drank down his own glassful and poured one more for Tsuna. He had another, then a last one.
Only then did he start to feel its effects on him. But when they did, they hit him hard.
Hibari blurred from in front of him, and his head began to spin. "I know this is what you had in mind," Tsuna dizzily said, "But I need to lie down now. I hope you don’t mind?"
With uneven legs, Tsuna stumbled and felt his way to the nearby bed, falling heavily onto his back. The sake left him feeling afloat on a cloud, wanting to keep still. He pulled off his tie and unbuttoned the first button of his shirt. Afterward he felt too tired to do anything more. He began to drift, floating on a cloud.
A pleasant sensation wafted over him. A warmth pressed against his groin. A large warm hand wrapped around it, and pressed it again. "Mmmm." It was delicious. With the way his head felt flighty at the moment, that was all he could say.
More pressing and squeezing, more waves of gentle pleasure filled him. He grew aware of heavy, musky perfume mixed with aromatic sake close to him. A hand held his head and stroked his hair. "Hibari-san." His surprise was muffled by the next filling of pleasure as his groin was held again.
"You object?" his guardian asked, whispering near his ear, the perfume and sake surrounding him.
"No....no.....go on....hmmmmm....hmmmmmm...."
Hibari gently placed his arms beside him, as he undid the pants and lowered them himself.
Tsuna’s head clouded with the alcohol and the gentle stroking of the cloud guardian. He moaned in rhythm to the bliss, raised his hips in time to the ecstasy, panted and breathed heavily as the motions increased and as he hardened slowly. He hmmmmed as lips met his member and savored it. He grew harder as his guardian bit more and more, swallowing it all sometimes. He heaved and breathed deeply as the sensation heightened and increased. He finally released his fluids as it all reached a climax, and the biggest wave of heady, wonderful, beautiful pleasantness drowned him completely.
He did not want to come up for air. He wanted to die still drowning in that pleasure. He relaxed totally, as Hibari stroked his hair again and held his cheek.
"Sorry....so sorry....can't...." He could not return the favor.
"Sleep." Hibari released his groin, and gently caressed his cheek. "Sleep."
Tsuna obeyed, letting go of what remained of his awareness.
He floated through the sky on feathery clouds, until he drifted back to the ground.
Dazed, he rose, and walked, out of the room, out of the house, out into the woods beyond. He walked in the cool evening, deeper into a forest, hurrying, but unable to run. He followed the scent that remained of heavy heady musky perfume that he knew anywhere.
He reached a clearing.
The stench of blood attacked him. He ran, followed the trail of so much blood to where it ended.
But it was greatest where he found unrecognizable pieces of human, fragments of an expensive stiff Italian suit, spent shells of gunpowder, and discarded dull blades, mixing with the musky perfume he could still distinguish, just barely.
Scattered among the pieces was a small piece of paper. A crest of two long-stemmed flowers. Millefleurs.
He found one steel tonfa glistening in the moonlight, meters to the northwest of the clearing. He found the other in the southeast.
He screamed into the sky, screamed in despair. No one deserved to die for his sake, but too many were now dead. He wailed until the stars could hear.
He woke up. It was still dark.
He found Hibari fast asleep at the window.
He draped a blanket over him. "It was good, don't get me wrong," he said to the sleeping young man. "Thanks for trying."
He walked through the halls of the mansion again, hating his nightmares for ruining good rest.
Keep yourself boxed in.
Tsuna pillowed his head with the end of the bed, wondering with dread which one of his closest people would come in the door. The intentions were good; his heart, soul, and brain felt it all somehow. Yet none of them worked. The odd sinking dreadful terrifying overwhelming sensation grew worse, not less.
The bedroom door opened just slightly with a gentle creak. A thin, wispy shadow appeared from it. "Boss?"
"Chrome. It's your turn tonight, huh." This was getting ridiculous.
"Yes, boss."
She emerged into the moonlight, wearing a thin shift. He paled when he saw that the shift hid nothing of the young lady's body. Her body was thin but nearly perfect. Yet Chrome shivered, not just because of the cool night.
Tsuna scratched his head and sat up properly on the bed. "Chrome, dear. Who put you up to this?"
She looked away. She continued to quiver.
"Just you? Not anyone else? Not Mukuro?"
"Yes, boss. No one made me do it." She still shivered and shook, her eyes averted.
The girl missed the point of the challenge. Despite what the boys before her had done, it was not necessary. Tsuna took up her hands. "I'm not mad. But you don't have to go on with what you think you should do, if you don't want to."
"Really?" She sideglanced at her wispy shift, then at Tsuna.
"Yes, Chrome."
Only then did she look at him, then wrapped her arms around his neck. Her warmth felt better than her cold fright a few moments earlier. A guardian and a friend, hugged him, telling him silently that all will be alright.
But she would not be all right.
She was taken. Taken alive, gagged and bound, raped by several men, all much larger than her, all savage. When Mukuro interfered, she was shot and left to be pecked by the ravens. He saw it all in his head.
“You won't be taken. You won't die, you won't, you won't,” he told himself, over and over, hoping against hope that his nightmares would never ever come true.
Chrome kept her arms around him, as he rocked back and forth on the bed. She kept holding him. He held her against him, assuring himself that she would always be safe.
"Boss?” she whispered into his ear, without letting go.
“Yes?”
“He wants a word with you." She loosened herself slowly.
"Mukuro?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he chuckled. "Put him on the line."
Instead of Chrome shifting into another form, though, Tsuna sank into a state of being neither awake or asleep, more like a trance. He found himself in a dark room. Square all around, a dark box of a chamber. He lay on the floor of that box. Oddly, he was not afraid. The dark box had no malevolent intentions with it, no threat of danger.
"Tenth Vongola." The voice echoed through the walls and the air in the box.
"Call me Tsuna, for crying out loud. Chrome said you wanted to talk to me?"
"I can penetrate your psyche this easily and this well. Chrome is right. Something is wrong with you. She is concerned. As am I."
"Thanks, I guess." At least Mukuro was not turning against him and using this perceived weakness to his advantage.
"Will you let me read through you for a moment?"
"If you think it will help, no problem." But his deepest self also tried to fight.
“I-I want to keep my self, Mukuro, do you understand? I trust you. But I want to keep my self..
“Understood.”
Dark strands filled Tsuna’s ears, his eyes, his mouth, and searched through the various parts of his brain. Some of that darkness coursed through his limbs and torso as well. The dark strands filling him made Tsuna alternately relaxed and hyper-aware.
"You are concerned," the voice finally spoke after a long moment. "No. You are perturbed, anxious, frightened."
"Yes." Tsuna tried to catch his breath, but his mouth and nostrils remained stuffed with something.
"About....me?"
"Yes. Even you."
"And Chrome. And the others."
"Yes."
"There is a threat. Your hyper-intuition shows it to you."
"If you say so." It made sense.
"It is real, it will happen. It will happen to all who wear your rings."
"Yes."
"A threat that is not isolated to one, or to the Vongola. But directly targeted at your guardians."
"Do you know what the threat is?"
Mukuro did not reply. He shut off Tsuna's awareness instead.
More of the dark threads filled his head. The darkness that filled the box squeezed around him. He swallowed the darkness. His brain was squeezed into a pulp then blended into a protein shake. The pressing and squeezing went on for what seemed like hours. None of it was restful. He might have screamed, but the darkness stuffed his mouth and killed all sound.
Tsuna’s thought returned. He felt like several trucks plus Lambo and I-pin rammed into him.
“Are you dying?” Mukuro's voice filled the box.
“I'm totally worn out,” Tsuna replied to the dark space. “But I don't think I'll die just yet.”
“Good. What do you know about a crest with millefleurs?”
“Nothing. I've never seen that one before.”
“All your visions of the guardians have it.”
“A new rival family?”
“I'll investigate.”
Mukuro loosed the darkness filling Tsuna. Tsuna took several deep calming breaths. He felt like several trucks ran over him. Yet he managed to speak. "You've been very helpful, thank you. What do you suggest we do?"
"Tell Chrome to go to the Arcobaleno. He will probably know."
Reborn? Mukuro was right, the tutor hitman might know what to do about a vague threat. He should have gone to him with his odd feelings earlier, but because they were so odd and vague he always thought it was just him going through nightmares, which he need not bother Reborn about.
"Wait. I'll tell Chrome myself. You need rest."
Tsuna sighed. "You've seen that I couldn't."
"I can make your mind go blank for a few hours, so your body can rest."
"Your offer is kind, Mukuro-san, I can tell. Thank you. But I must decline. I shall sleep when I am assured that all of you are safe."
"Suit yourself, Vongola. I will tell the Arcobaleno."
"Thank you."
Despite what Mukuro said, Tsuna went fully blank for an unrecalled amount of time.
It was morning when his thoughts returned to him, safely on the bed, with Chrome's arms around his torso and her body warming his back.
"So," he drowsily asked, "did your Mukuro-sama win the bet?"
"No, Boss," her breath whispered at his upper back. "Only two hours. He got tired. The rest was me."
"Thank you. Both of you." He reached out and patted her head.
Dreams come true.
Tsuna rumpled his hair and addressed his guardians over breakfast. His face belied his fright. So early, and already he felt something would be terribly wrong about the day. For once, he did not sleep over his breakfast. The presence of all his guardians in one place heightened his terror for them all.
“Thank you for staying. Thank you, all of you, for trying to help me. Your intentions have all been good. It was…satisfying. Pleasing.” He chuckled as he looked at his guardians with some longing, with much kindness. “If I still couldn't sleep after all you have done, it is not your fault, it is mine. I'm sorry for disappointing you all.”
A chorus of dissent replied.
“Did I win? Did I win?” Lambo asked.
“Idiot.” Gokudera replied. “Nobody did.”
“So I don't get any candy?”
“All you think about is candy, you annoying little--“
Tsuna raised another hand, and reclaimed silence. “I don't know what to do about this anymore, but it will be better for us if you leave me alone to handle it. Rival families and even allies should not be made aware of this problem. Continue to be my alert eyes, ears, and firearms. Cover for me. That will be a great help to me. We'll be fine. I'll be fine. I think.”
Various words of assurance came back to him, that they would do their best to help. He smiled and nodded. Just right now, it was what he needed most.
“One more thing. Don't leave the premises today, until tomorrow.”
“How come?” Yamamoto asked for them.
“I….don't know really. Just don't leave the house for any reason. Please check fortifications, ammunition, and weapons that we have here. Check food stocks, medical supplies. Check that there are no blind spots.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto and Gokudera said.
“That will be all.”
Tsuna found his way to the living room sofa and slumped heavily onto it. He would catch what sleep he could snatch before helping in preparing for an attack he only had the vaguest of notions about. But he only tossed and turned there for an hour. Even with all the guardians remaining in the premises, he could not shake off a terrible sensation of an attack. He gave up and walked around the mansion.
………………………….
The terror in his head intensified. Despite the exertion of the whole day, he could not sleep at all, even for snatches of time. Something must be done, immediately, now. Of course they had guards awake at all hours, but one or two people would be hopelessly few for what he feared was coming. He hastily dressed and hid the pistol Reborn gave him in its holster.
He was not sure why, or how, he knew, but he knew that if he did nothing, they would all be dead by sunrise.
He shook Gokudera awake first.
"Judaime?" Gokudera said this sleepily.
"Wake everybody. Servants, guards, cooks. Everyone. Get ready."
Gokudera snapped to attention. "Get ready for what, Judaime?"
"Wake up everyone, but keep the house dark. Make sure all the beds are made to look like someone's sleeping in them. Keep away from the windows. Go, do it now."
"Who's coming?"
"Tell them it's my orders, and they have to follow without question." He glared at Gokudera. "You included."
He must have looked wild enough to be convincing. Gokudera got up without a word, dressed and armed.
"When you've warned the househelp, stay with Lambo."
"But....Judaime..."
"You stay with Lambo."
Tsuna left warning and protecting Chrome to Yamamoto, and waking Hibari. The terrible sensations slammed themselves all over his head, but he had to keep going. He could only hope that Reborn was safe, wherever he was.
He rushed to the kitchen. He met Gokudera and the drowsy men of the household there.
"I will allow cold coffee." He spoke with an authority he could not believe he could command. "But hot coffee will waft through the house. They should think the house is asleep when they attack. They will attack."
Several of the servants and secondary force of the family asked who or what family. "Are you alright, sir?" one even dared to ask.
"Please, take my word for it right now, do as I say, ask no questions. Gokudera, off to Lambo, now. The rest of you, get weapons and spread yourselves throughout the house. The guardians will spread among you. Protect the ladies and youngest servants. Keep the lights off, you know the house well enough. Do not fire indiscriminately. Fire only for self-defense, but fire without waiting for orders. Is everything clear?"
The servants and guards, all members of the family in some capacity, nodded.
"I promise to explain all this once I understand it myself. I am trying my best to keep everyone safe and alive. Now spread out."
With his head pounding, filling with more dread than he ever felt, he rushed through the house, keeping low and avoiding windows, checking again if all his guardians except Lambo were awake, if the women and children were safe, if there was sufficient ammunition, if all areas of the house were protected.
Tsuna took up his post in Lambo's room, knowing full well that Gokudera would go crazy if he did see his boss. Gokudera had stashed Lambo, still sleeping, under the bed with a sheet and a pillow, covering the boy by extending the blanket to the floor.
"Now can you tell me what's going on, Judaime?"
Tsuna shushed him as he held his head. He took out the pistol and loaded. "Not scared, not scared, not scared," he chanted to himself. "They will kill me first before they lay a hand on my people. Not scared, not scared, not scared."
They heard footfall on the roof, made to sound like a cat's, but heavier. Some footfall dropped to the verandas and ledges. A shadow darkened the window of Lambo's room.
Gokudera loaded. "How did you---"
"Fire when ready," Tsuna said, keeping a worried eye under the bed.
The shadow brought out a gun. Gokudera aimed his. Before the assassin could shoot, the right-hand man broke glass and shot straight and sure.
A volley of blasts and gunfire rang throughout the house.
From the yells of the shadowy figures he perceived that Hibari had taken his tonfa to the back of the house. From the extremely loud battle cries that drove the owls and nightbirds away, he could tell that Ryohei took the front. Several yelps from inside the house told him Yamamoto dealt with whoever managed to penetrate. The swordsman even passed through the room.
"Where's Chrome?"
"With the girls and kids, keeping an illusion barrier for them." Yamamoto ran off again.
"Good." Tsuna resumed shooting from the window.
A second wave of gunfire sounded. Machine guns, long-barrels, louder revolvers. Blasts answered that wave, but the heavier artillery overpowered it quickly. Death groans and death splatters sang through the house. A final wave of the heavy artillery completed the job.
Silence resumed in the night.
"All clear, you stupid numbskull of a tenth boss!" a chirpy irate voice rang through the house. Reborn was back.
Tsuna breathed deeply. The pounding terror in his head was now gone.
....................................
Tsuna found the household and his guardians gathered in the living room, where most of them tried to explain to Reborn what happened. He smiled and rubbed the back of his head as he made his way to the sofa.
"You idiot, you simpleton, you imbecile!" Reborn whacked him solidly in the face. "Why did you not tell me about those premonitions!"
"I thought they weren't your problem!" Tsuna protested.
"Not my problem!" The diminutive hitman whacked him again. "Premonitions from those with hyper-intuition are always, always, taken seriously!" Another whack. "If it weren't for Chrome calling me I wouldn't be here and you'd all be left to yourselves!"
"Chrome called you?"
"Your mist guardians warned me on your behalf, because you were too stupid to do it yourself!" Reborn sighed and calmed down. "Your premonitions gave Mukuro sufficient data to work with. The network confirmed your hunch. If you had told me or your mist guardians earlier, they wouldn't have gotten near enough to attack the house."
Tsuna sunk his head. "Sorry. I really am."
Reborn whacked him. “That's enough self-pity from you.”
Tsuna blinked.
Then he chuckled.
Then he laughed.
Now was not the time for self-pity. It was time for information, then for action. He locked eyes with his mentor as he clenched his fist. “Who is our enemy, Reborn?”
“It's a new family. Without a history, but brutal, and with money. Gesso.”
"They'll be back to retaliate."
"But we'll be alive to fight them," Gokudera punched a fist into his palm and grinned. "Thanks to you, Judaime."
Reborn grinned. "You still saved this house and all your guardians."
"I did?"
Reborn gestured to the assembly behind him. All present, all alive, all scathed but uninjured.
Gokudera placed a fist over his heart and bowed to the tenth Vongola boss. Yamamoto followed this gesture, then Ryohei, then Chrome. Hibari harrumphed but nodded. The rest of the servants and guards bowed to him. Reborn, too, tipped his hat.
Tsuna acknowledged their allegiance with a bow and a smile.
He would do his best always to protect them, to make himself worthy of their trust. He was not the smartest or most talented leader, but he would try his best, for such dedicated people.
He swore as much to himself, as his eyes shut, and he began to dream. Of life when everything was simple. Of a time when all will be at peace.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“This can't go on! He's been asleep for two whole days!”
“That's because you gave him wet dreams…”
“I DID NOT…”
“I saw you.”
“I saw you too, baseball-brain. Last night.”
“Guilty. But seriously, he'll be fine, Gokudera….”
“We have to do someth--LAMBO! Don't draw on Judaime's face!”
“Look! He's drooling!”
“Anyway, Gokudera, what do you suggest?”
“Kiss the sleeping beauty!”
“LAMBO!”
“Shall we make a challenge of it?”
“You and your challenges, baseball-brain!”
“A contest! A contest!”
END
-----------------------
Author's Notes: Source of Hibari’s newspaper reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/business/26markets.html?_r=1&ref=economy
ID: [lampo]
Word count: 8350 words
Rating/Warnings: R-18. Timeline leading to Future arc. NSFW scenes, harem-type antics, blood, guns, violence, frying pans, adverse side-effects, nightmares, seme-Tsuna, various random acts of temporary insanity.
Character(s) or pairing(s): tenth-generation Vongola
Theme challenge: (y/n) yes
Tsuna tossed and turned in bed, or walked around the compound in the dark, for hours. He did not sleep; he found it impossible. He just knew that the sun rose and brightened the bedroom, and he did not get any rest during the darkness before it.
"This can't go on, Judaime," he heard Gokudera's voice in a half-drone just beyond him, as he sat at breakfast. "You're looking worse every morning!"
"Huh? What? Good morning," he waved an arm that soon drooped down onto his lap. He leaned back on the chair, his eyes closed and Gokudera's husky baritone prattled on without him.
He just needed rest....just a bit more....and hopefully this was the time, if only it would get deeper and really let him sleep...
But that odd sinking dreadful unrecognizable terrible feeling returned.
Of being in a dark evening, in a darkened mansion, the one they were in at the moment. Of being suffocated by the smell of blood everywhere, of being surrounded by the fallen bodies of people he actually knew. Of the terrible, dreadful, sinking, sensation that he could have done something, but did nothing until it was too late. Of losing his life, unable to save anyone.
The right-hand man, standing beside him, toppled backward from a shot to the head.
Tsuna snapped awake and stared at Gokudera in panic, sweat beading at his forehead. "Gokudera-kun! Are you alright? Are you sure nothing's wrong?" he asked.
"Of course, Judaime! I'm fine!" Gokudera gave a sigh of relief. "I should ask that about you! You look awful!"
Tsuna smiled. "Really? That's good." He patted his right-hand man on the shoulder. "That's good...." He drifted again to a heavy doze...after all, it was almost a week that this kept happening. It was extremely hard to not sleep...
He heard a door slam from a distance. Yet that was not the problem; he slept through bazookas and gunfire and high-volume arguments before. The odd sinking dreadful unrecognizable terrible sensations resumed. Gunfire, blasting all over the house. Blasts of light followed by blasts of sound, followed by screams of death. His tall friend bleeding on the floor from too many holes.
"Yamamoto! You're alright, yes? Please say you're alright?" he desperately asked the new arrival.
Yamamoto sat down at the breakfast table. "Just hungry, Tsuna, good morning." The taller young man paused and watched him. "Something wrong?"
"Haven't you been asking all of us if we're okay every time you see us?" Gokudera added.
Tsuna was flooded by the sensations. Hack wounds, bullet holes, dismantled body parts, blood everywhere and on everything. Always, that terrible, deafening darkness. He bolted upright.
Soon after he did, the rest of the guardians took their individual places at the table, Hibari facing him at the far end.
The same sequence of questioning and assurance repeated four more times. Hibari, yawning, quietly sipped his tea. Ryohei replied that he was extremely well this extremely fine morning. Lambo laughed at how sleepy Tsuna looked. Chrome meekly said yes she was fine, and was the boss fine?
"That's good, that's good," Tsuna said.
Now that all the guardians were before him, the dreadful sensations left. Over the drone of conversation and the clatter of plates and silverware he dozed deeply at his breakfast.
Yet he distinctly heard Gokudera say again, "People. We seriously need to do something about Judaime. We need to get him to sleep. Really sleep."
"Maybe if we make a contest of it?" Yamamoto suggested, chuckling.
"Contest! I'm good at contests!" Lambo declared.
"We shall extremely do our best! For Tsuna!" Ryohei added. "I like a challenge."
Hibari and Chrome said nothing.
"The one who manages to help Tsuna sleep for a night wins!" Yamamoto said.
"Quantify," Hibari said from his end.
"Eight hours, a full eight hours," Gokudera said.
"Deal!" Yamamoto said.
"Alright!" Ryohei said.
Tsuna snapped awake. "WHAT?!"
Things were decided without him again.
Frying pans. You knew.
Everything was calm for the day...as calm as it could get in a mansion where all of Tsuna's guardians were in one place.
Tsuna insisted on the arrangement, for reasons he was not sure of himself. He allowed them to go out to conduct missions either for himself or for Reborn, but always in pairs, never alone. He knew it was because of the odd sinking threatening sensations, but he was never sure what they were about. He just knew they were for each and every guardian he had.
"I get first try!" Lambo declared immediately after dinner. He marched off to the kitchen.
Tsuna sighed. "So you guys are really going to do it."
"No harm in helping you out, right, Tsuna?" Yamamoto grinned.
Tsuna shrugged. It was harmless....probably.
Lambo returned, brandishing a large frying pan.
The young men at the table laughed. "What are you going to cook for Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked.
"What cooking?" Lambo raised the pan over his head. "I'm knocking him out! YAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Tsuna took the best course of action. He got up and ran. First around the dinner table, then through the halls of the house, the regular clang of iron pounding the floor behind him.
"I'll get you, Tsuna! I'll whack you hard!"
The tenth-generation head of a respected mafia family, and he still ran like hell from an 8-year-old boy. He leaped away from near-hits, kept his distance from the clanging. Of course he could have stopped the exercise when it started, or any of the older boys would have done it. But Lambo was bored, and it had been a while since he played a game with Lambo. Their life was hard, but it was harder on an active little boy. He would indulge him this time.
KERBLANG!
His skull met iron in a heavy blow. He identified the constellations that appeared as Orion's Belt and Ursa Minor.
CLANGBANG!
He dropped heavily onto the marble-tile floor and saw black.
He opened his eyes in Lambo's room. Now that the boy was older, old enough to sleep alone, he was given his own room. It was smaller than the others, but Lambo did not mind too much, as long as he could keep all his toy guns and cars.
The stench of gunpowder mixed with dried blood. Feathers from the pillows floated. Stuffing from the bed snowed on the room. Glass from the windows cracked under his feet.
He stared at a bed riddled with holes, soaked in blood, curly black hair scattered throughout the room, a boy's body destroyed by bullets. He bent down and picked up a revolver left on the floor of that bed, stamped with a seal of a family he could not immediately recognize.
He screamed.
“Calm down, Judaime, you're alright.” Gokudera held him at the shoulders. “Lambo just hit you on the head, you're alright.”
He was on the sofa with an ice bag over his forehead. He heard clanging inside his head and felt the pounding from it there. “Lambo!” Tsuna looked around for the boy. “Lambo!”
"Do I win? Do I win?"
Tsuna almost hugged Lambo, the frying pan at his side, peering at him from one end of the sofa. The boy was fine, alive, very alive.
"You idiot!" Gokudera knuckled the boy. "He was only out for a few minutes!"
"Awwwwwwwww." Lambo pouted.
"And don't whack Tsuna on the head again, ever!"
"But I whack him all the time!"
"Not with a frying pan!"
The argument increased in volume, as Tsuna groaned and shut his eyes again. Having them arguing loudly was still better than the heavy terrible nightmares in his head.
Never buy pirated goods.
Tsuna stared at the capsule in his palm. "Sleeping pill, Gokudera?"
Gokudera's head bobbed. "Best in the black market."
"Black market? Plenty in the pharmacy, you know."
"Not without a prescription. Shamal is out."
As he usually is, Tsuna mused. Still, the simplest option was a good practical place to start. He popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with a glass of milk. He did not use sleeping pills at all, so he did not know how long he had to wait before the capsule began to take effect. Gokudera stayed and chatted about the day's work while they waited.
The moon rose in the sky and grew smaller, and still Tsuna did not feel the least sleepy. Quite the opposite. He felt more awake than ever.
His heart pounded. He sweated. His groin felt heavy. His right-hand man looked handsomer by the moment. He wanted to come closer, to reach down, to get down. "Gokudera. Are you sure about this thing you got?" He panted and heaved as he stared at him.
"Sure, Judaime," Gokudera shrugged and closed the book he browsed.
"Gokudera-kun." The need grew uncontrollable, unstoppable. So wrong, so right. Must be done. Right here. Right now.
"Would you mind?"
"If it's you, I don't mind, Judaime."
"Are you sure." He grew hard, and harder, quickly.
"Definitely, Judaime."
"Are you really sure."
"Why do you ask?"
"Because---"
Tsuna got up, overturning the chair. He lunged at the right-hand man, locking lips with him and squeezing at Gokudera’s groin with a ferocity that surprised and shocked Tsuna.
"Ju....Judaime!" Gokudera gasped but did not wrench away.
"Shut up and let me get closer to you." He needed to, needed to, needed to get the clothes off and unleash the still-developing hardness onto something, and it was good that it was Gokudera-kun. With a speed that scared him, he pushed Gokudera onto the bed. He loosed the belt buckles, undid the clip, unzipped the pants and lowered them. He loosened his own shirt and tie, threw off the suit jacket.
He tasted and savored the cock, sucked at it, relished as it grew harder with his mouth and hands. He enjoyed the groans and noises he began to hear beyond him, gasps and pants of pleasure, tightening and relaxing of leg and groin muscles. He needed to, needed to, needed to. He knew it was the pill that did this to him, but he did not care, he did not care. He wanted Gokudera, he was having him, and he was not going to stop.
"Now, let me into you." His own cock was now hard, pulsing, ready for serious action.
Gokudera turned for him. Tsuna kept his hands around the now-hardened cock of his right-hand man, as he brought his own into the orifice. Fluids spilled as he thrust, and thrust, and thrust, and thrust, gasping and shaking in pleasure, as he enjoyed the moans and groans he heard in chorus.
"More, more," Gokudera begged.
"With pleasure." For part of the effect of that drug was to keep his cock high and hardened, and his thoughts devoted on just wanting to fuck this loyal ally and friend and guardian for all he was worth. He thrust and thrust, as he kissed Gokudera's neck and back savagely, licking the sweat he met all over.
They switched places. He groaned with lust as his cock was licked and kept high, as it was bit tenderly and savored for every inch. He felt his fluids spill onto Gokudera's face and body, and they both loved it. His legs were parted, as Gokudera came and thrust again and again, as the pleasure came in waves all over him, again and again.
They finally stopped after another hour or two, his naked body placed above Gokudera's naked body, their groins together, finally softening calmly. Tsuna caught his breath.
"Were you pleased, Judaime?"
"Yes, Gokudera-kun. Yes." He ran his hands through his right-hand's hair, now stringy like a mop from all the sweat. "But..."
"Yes, Judaime?"
"Find out what that pill you bought was really for."
"Yes, Judaime."
"And remember to save it for another time like this." He laughed and nestled in.
Tsuna stayed beside him.
He stayed beside Gokudera in one room, running from whatever launched an attack on the house. He heard the gunfights inside, in front, and behind the house. He heard the screams as his men fell to rise no more.
He was beside him as a laser-guided bullet sped, cracked the window, hit Gokudera at the center of his forehead. The right-hand man fell back onto the floor. Blood oozed from the single bullet hole through that well-used brain, spilling onto the eyes that glazed over as they remained wide open in shock.
“Gokudera-kun! Gokudera-kun!” He felt his head, listened to his heart. “Gokudera-kun!”
“Yeah….Judaime?”
Tsuna sat up, his forehead, neck, armpits, and chest covered in sweat, the bed soaked in it. The right hand lay near him. “Keep still! It will keep slow the bleeding! Stay with me!”
“HUH?” This time Gokudera opened his eyes. He held Tsuna at the shoulders and smiled. “It's just a dream, Judaime. Just a dream. Go back to sleep.”
But it felt so real, so true. As true as the crazy, hasty, enjoyable night he had. Yet Gokudera snored softly as his chest rose and fell. Tsuna did not know anymore what was nightmare and what was reality.
Gokudera slept until the sunrise.
Tsuna paced the floor until sunrise....wondering if he would lose his right-hand to the terror that racked his brain.
Be a man.
Ryohei placed an arm over Tsuna's shoulders and laughed heartily. "Leave it to me! I'll show you how to relax like a man!"
Tsuna raised an eyebrow. He was not sure he wanted to know how to relax extremely.
Kyoko’s big brother drove Tsuna, chatting very loudly the whole time, to a nearby hot spring. Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed he had not had a leisurely hot bath for a while.
They changed into bath towels and took the preliminary showers. Tsuna decided to keep the towel around his waist, but Ryohei, confident specimen of manhood that he was, hung his towel by the showerhead and proceeded with soaping himself, singing loudly.
It was large. Tsuna saw it. He raised an eyebrow as it was soaped and lathered.
They went to the pools. Tsuna appreciated the comfortably hot water as it surrounded his feet, then his ankles, legs, thighs, and the rest of him as he came down to sit. He sighed happily. He had been too busy, and too tired. He needed to relax at a hot spring more often, indeed.
Ryohei marched in, swinging his fine specimen of manhood, without a towel around his waist. Tsuna had a good look at it, for Ryohei took his time in getting used to the hot water, standing for a while with only his feet. To Tsuna's greater dismay, the fine specimen floated up and down near him, relaxed and happy, as its owner took his place beside Tsuna. He raised an eyebrow.
Ryohei settled down at the pool. "HAAAAAAAH," he sighed as the water filled up to his neck. "You starting to relax, Tsuna?" His voice echoed through the indoor pool and was audible to the adjacent pool.
"Yes, thanks, o-nii-san," Tsuna said truthfully....although the floating instrument still distracted him.
Ryohei spent the hour in the water making Tsuna laugh with his nonsense stories and tales of derring-do -- there was plenty of it to be had in their line of work, anyway -- that sounded so incredible no one else paid attention to them. It was wonderful to laugh, so freely and so heartily, after being worried for so long.
Yet his fears remained.
Ryohei suddenly stood up. "That's enough hot water. Let's get a massage!"
Tsuna could not object to a suggestion like that.
A capable employee kneaded and pulled and pressed everything tight and stiff in Tsuna, which was quite of lot of muscles, thanks to all the worrying and the sleepless nights. They ached from all the kneading and pulling, but they all felt looser after it, and Tsuna was grateful. Beside him Ryohei purred and aaaaaaahed his satisfaction.
Tsuna lay down on the massage table, quite content. He raised an eyebrow as Ryohei snored enough to rock the small room, his manhood bulging under the towel.
The lights went out, blackening the room, then switched on again, blinding him with their brightness.
Antiseptic and formaldehyde assaulted his nose. Silence echoed through the room. He felt the cold tile even through his shoes.
He stood by a steel table with a white sheet over it. A long mound lay under that white sheet. His heart pounded under his ribs as someone removed the sheet for him to identify the body beneath. He blanched as he saw the death pallor of Kyoko's brother on a body with several bullet holes in its chest. The chest had a tattoo on it, one it never had before: a crest of two crossed flowers with long stems.
He did not even know until after the attack and a body count was conducted. He did not know until he was called in to identify the body. He did not know. He should have known. It should not even have happened.
“Tsuna?” Someone patted him on the shoulder. “You alright?”
“I….I…know who he is…” he stammered. The name would not come out of his lips. How was he going to tell his sister that he could not save him? He could not say it.
“Tsuna! Wake up!”
He found Ryohei shaking him. He sighed with relief. “I'm okay. I'm okay.”
……………………………
Ryohei waited until the house was dark before he approached Tsuna at his bedroom again. He brought nothing with him, just himself.
"When all else fails," he declared, "there is one sure way to fall asleep."
"Besides being punched in the gut of course." Tsuna feared that was what the boxer had in mind.
"I won't do that! Not to you!" Ryohei laughed loudly.
Tsuna breathed a deep sigh of relief. He knew how hard Ryohei can punch.
"To do this," the sun guardian continued, "one must be in bed."
"Okay...." Tsuna went to his bed and lay down.
Ryohei jumped onto the bed beside him. "Next, one must remove his underwear." Tsuna raised an eyebrow as Ryohei did take off said underwear and lay down, his cock clearly visible. "Next, one must think of dirty things, while holding this."
Tsuna placed his smallish hands around that large member. "Like this."
"Yeah." The owner of the member did not pull his hand way. He placed his own over the hand. "Then you rub it, while imagining."
The smaller, more delicate hand squeezed around the large cock .
"Aaaaaah, good," its owner merely said. "Then you keep doing it."
Tsuna began to rub, in large movements, up and down the shaft, then in finer ones, where he found tingles of pleasure. The member began to rise and harden.
"You keep doing it! More! And more!"
Tsuna squeezed and rubbed with vigor.
Ryohei heaved and panted. "Just a little bit more! Almost there!"
Tsuna fingered the tip of the cock, circled around it, as his other hand surrounded the tube. The pantings increased and hastened as the hips lifted, as he quickened the circlings at the tip. The owner shook in gentle tremors of delight as he continued to squeeze and to finger.
Finally fluids gushed out like a fountain from that large member, now straight and hard. "Aaaaaaah. Aaaaaah!" the owner exclaimed as he fell back fully onto the bed, heaving, deeply satisfied.
Tsuna kept his hand around the cock, savoring its hardness. His fingers wandered through the groin, while Ryohei caught his breath. "Then, you don't move, and enjoy the feeling in your head," Ryohei took more pleased deep breaths as he spread out his arms and legs. "And.....THAT....is.....how you relax....as a ......"
He did not finish. He snored deeply, Tsuna caressing the slowly-descending bastion of manhood.
But Tsuna, remembering the strong body over an autopsy table, did not getting any sleep.
Always check the label.
Yamamoto waved a talisman in front of Tsuna. "You are getting sleepy.....you are getting sleepy....sleepy...sleepy...."
Tsuna frowned. "This is not working, my friend. It's just making me dizzy."
"Okay." Yamamoto shrugged and stopped swinging his talisman. The rain guardian then took out an mp3 player and earphones. "Try this one."
Tsuna obliged and took the music player. He heard the sounds of the seashore, seagulls singing on a rocky mound, and waves breaking over a beach. Quiet trance music wafted through the earphones. He heard a female gently tell him a more complicated and longer version of 'You are getting sleepy, your eyes are growing heavy, you are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy....'.
"Thank you, Yamamoto, but this isn't working either." The music just helped him relax, but it did not make him sleepy. "I'd like to borrow it sometime, though."
"Sure, no problem."
Tsuna sighed. They were all trying their best. He hated to disappoint them by not falling asleep, but he had to disappoint. "Sorry, my friend."
"Oh well. I guess I have to try this one now." Yamamoto presented a small pill bottle and a glass of water.
A few alarms buzzed inside poor Tsuna. "Don't say it. Sleeping pills."
"From Dr. Shamal. I asked."
"And where did HE get these?"
Yamamoto shrugged. "The drugstore?"
Oh, well. It came from Shamal. He took the bottle, took one capsule and popped it into his mouth, hoping for the best.
Soon, though, he began to feel something.
"Yamamoto?"
"Yeah, Tsuna?"
Tsuna stood. “What did Shamal tell you? It will help me sleep? Or it will help me sleep WITH someone?”
Yamamoto scratched his head. “Why?”
Tsuna reached over. His groin ached and bulged. He leered hungrily as he breathed heavily at Yamamoto’s ear. “Don't listen to him about sleeping pills ever again.” He brought Yamamoto over to the bed. “Otherwise, I'll want to do you too much.”
“Say what?”
Tsuna made the tall sinewy Yamamoto lie down with his legs dangling, almost pushed and forced him onto the bed. Then he undid the pants and removed the briefs.
“Tsuna! Calm down! What are you doing!” Yamamoto tried keeping his underwear on, but Tsuna was faster. “Wait! Slow down! Calm down!”
“I can’t!” Tsuna panted with lust as he saw the hole and gazed at the capable member just above it. He dropped his own pants and boxers. His cock, now released, stood straight and firm. “I’ll make you remember this mistake! I’ll make you remember, all right!”
He parted the legs, aimed for the hole, and penetrated.
He thrust and thrust and thrust some more, feeling relief, pleasure, and ecstasy every time. He took off his shirt, as he filled with sweat and the shirt choked him. He was fully naked before him. He danced, circled, corkscrewed as he thrust, gasping as each sequence made his hairs stand on end. He heightened the enjoyment by holding on to the other cock and rubbing it in rhythm to the thrusts. He relished the moans of delight he heard, enjoyed how he made him shake, tremble, and spill. He himself spilled on everything, the floor, the legs, the carpet, as he enjoyed the hardness and the pleasure yet also wanted to free himself of such great hardness as soon as possible.
He sweated so much, spilled so much, gyrated so much, and still his cock remained hard and ready. He wanted to do more, more, oh, so much more, wanted to please himself so much more, wanted to pleasure his friend even more. He wanted to do it all night, even up to the morning if it let him. He knew it was the drug that did it, but by god did it make him want to fuck so much. He did not want to stop. He knew that it was the drug’s effect, too, but by all that felt incredible, it did not matter how or why he felt that way, he just wanted to keep feeling that way!
But the heat and dehydration made him lightheaded. The room spun around him. The blood drained from his head, to fill the head of his cock. His body demanded a stop. He filled with cold sweat.
He withdrew, then he toppled.
BANG!
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
RATATATATATATATAT!
Tsuna ran to the hall, he did not care if he had clothes on or not.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Bodies he knew personally filled the stairs and soaked it in blood. At his feet lay his tall friend, the katana split into three pieces of steel, blood spilling from too many holes, eyes rolled up into his head.
RATATATATAT!
He filled with too many holes before he fell over the body of his loyal friend.
BANG!
His eyes flew open. He bolted upright. He caught his breath.
“Tsuna! You okay?” Yamamoto was beside him; he had briefs on now, but had no other clothes on.
“You're fine.” Tsuna felt his friend's shoulders, chest, torso. “You're fine.”
“Sure, I am. You, though, you had me worried! Fainting on me like that! Out for an hour!” Yamamoto chuckled in the cheerless laugh. “I guess I should have been happy that you were sleeping, but you looked so awful and I did not know what to do!”
Tsuna looked around. His friend had placed him on the floor, a sheet under him and a blanket above him. He looked down, found that his cock finally rested. “Sorry.”
“Oh, no problem,” Yamamoto now smiled honestly. “You were awesome. I'll need to sleep this off, though, you left me so tired, and I couldn't sleep until I knew you were okay…you were very awesome…”
Before Tsuna could greet good night, his friend lay beside him, arm thrown onto his torso, and proceeded to snore
gently.
Tsuna stared at the ceiling. He was exhausted, but he could not sleep. Yamamoto slept on for hours....without him.
Float on a cloud.
Hibari came in wearing his black pajamas with the white piping, keeping the cold away with a bathrobe. In one hand he carried a bottle of sake, on the other were two square glasses. Tucked under an arm was the business section of the day's newspaper. He silently placed bottle, glasses, and newspaper onto the small table near the bed, and sat himself at a chair beside it. He came rather late. The mansion was already dark and generally quiet for the evening.
"Did you need anything, Hibari-san?" Tsuna asked. He did not expect him to be part of this challenge among the guardians.
The young man harrumphed and opened the newspaper.
Tsuna shrugged and pulled back the other chair at the table. "Can't sleep, too, huh."
Hibari sighed from within the business news.
Tsuna scratched his head. He was not sure what the cloud guardian was up to. Yet he did not want to anger him with insistent chatter or questions. "How are things?"
Hibari cleared his throat.
" 'Stocks advanced on Wednesday, with benchmark indexes ending a three-day decline, as commodity shares rallied on expectations for higher raw material prices.' " Hibari read, in his deep gloomy monotone. " 'Occidental Petroleum and Halliburton gained at least 1.6 percent as oil climbed after a report showing that distillate fuel supplies in the United States fell to a two-year low. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold advanced 2.4 percent as copper rose after Deutsche Bank said prices were likely to rebound. Fifth Third Bancorp and BB&T increased more than 1 percent after Fitch Ratings said it probably would not downgrade German banks because of their holdings of Greek debt.' "
Hibari droned on, reading the report. "The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 4.19 points, or 0.32 percent, to 1,320.47. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 38.45 points, or 0.31 percent, to 12,394.66. The Nasdaq rose 15.22 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,761.38."
Tsuna understood what Hibari was trying to do. He wanted to bore him to death....at least to sleep.
" 'Barometers of energy and raw material shares rose at least 1.3 percent on Wednesday, the two biggest gains of 10 industry groups in the S.& P. 500. The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials rallied 1.6 percent. Oil rose above $101 a barrel in New York. Copper gained the most in a week as Deutsche Bank said that prices were likely to rebound, after similar comments from the Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase.' "
But Hibari droning on with Bloomberg's summary of the market report merely bored Tsuna to annoyance, not to sleep. Furthermore, the longer Hibari read through the report aloud, the frown on his face grew deeper and more menacing.
Tsuna tapped his guardian's knee. "Hibari-san, you don't have to go on with this."
"Hmph." But Hibari closed the business news and folded it down, with relief.
"Anything else you need to do?" Tsuna asked, kindly.
Hibari silently opened the bottle of sake he brought along, and filled one glass with the contents. He poured sake into the other glass. Then he glared at Tsuna.
"OH. For me?" Tsuna stared at the full glass.
Hibari nodded once.
"Thank you." He bowed. This was rare, out of Hibari. And when he did indulge in alcohol, he chose good sake. Tsuna placed the glass to his lips and drank it down.
It was very good, sweet, and warmed the throat without burning it. It did not leave him dizzy, as most kinds of alcohol did. He proffered the glass for another fill. Hibari drank down his own glassful and poured one more for Tsuna. He had another, then a last one.
Only then did he start to feel its effects on him. But when they did, they hit him hard.
Hibari blurred from in front of him, and his head began to spin. "I know this is what you had in mind," Tsuna dizzily said, "But I need to lie down now. I hope you don’t mind?"
With uneven legs, Tsuna stumbled and felt his way to the nearby bed, falling heavily onto his back. The sake left him feeling afloat on a cloud, wanting to keep still. He pulled off his tie and unbuttoned the first button of his shirt. Afterward he felt too tired to do anything more. He began to drift, floating on a cloud.
A pleasant sensation wafted over him. A warmth pressed against his groin. A large warm hand wrapped around it, and pressed it again. "Mmmm." It was delicious. With the way his head felt flighty at the moment, that was all he could say.
More pressing and squeezing, more waves of gentle pleasure filled him. He grew aware of heavy, musky perfume mixed with aromatic sake close to him. A hand held his head and stroked his hair. "Hibari-san." His surprise was muffled by the next filling of pleasure as his groin was held again.
"You object?" his guardian asked, whispering near his ear, the perfume and sake surrounding him.
"No....no.....go on....hmmmmm....hmmmmmm...."
Hibari gently placed his arms beside him, as he undid the pants and lowered them himself.
Tsuna’s head clouded with the alcohol and the gentle stroking of the cloud guardian. He moaned in rhythm to the bliss, raised his hips in time to the ecstasy, panted and breathed heavily as the motions increased and as he hardened slowly. He hmmmmed as lips met his member and savored it. He grew harder as his guardian bit more and more, swallowing it all sometimes. He heaved and breathed deeply as the sensation heightened and increased. He finally released his fluids as it all reached a climax, and the biggest wave of heady, wonderful, beautiful pleasantness drowned him completely.
He did not want to come up for air. He wanted to die still drowning in that pleasure. He relaxed totally, as Hibari stroked his hair again and held his cheek.
"Sorry....so sorry....can't...." He could not return the favor.
"Sleep." Hibari released his groin, and gently caressed his cheek. "Sleep."
Tsuna obeyed, letting go of what remained of his awareness.
He floated through the sky on feathery clouds, until he drifted back to the ground.
Dazed, he rose, and walked, out of the room, out of the house, out into the woods beyond. He walked in the cool evening, deeper into a forest, hurrying, but unable to run. He followed the scent that remained of heavy heady musky perfume that he knew anywhere.
He reached a clearing.
The stench of blood attacked him. He ran, followed the trail of so much blood to where it ended.
But it was greatest where he found unrecognizable pieces of human, fragments of an expensive stiff Italian suit, spent shells of gunpowder, and discarded dull blades, mixing with the musky perfume he could still distinguish, just barely.
Scattered among the pieces was a small piece of paper. A crest of two long-stemmed flowers. Millefleurs.
He found one steel tonfa glistening in the moonlight, meters to the northwest of the clearing. He found the other in the southeast.
He screamed into the sky, screamed in despair. No one deserved to die for his sake, but too many were now dead. He wailed until the stars could hear.
He woke up. It was still dark.
He found Hibari fast asleep at the window.
He draped a blanket over him. "It was good, don't get me wrong," he said to the sleeping young man. "Thanks for trying."
He walked through the halls of the mansion again, hating his nightmares for ruining good rest.
Keep yourself boxed in.
Tsuna pillowed his head with the end of the bed, wondering with dread which one of his closest people would come in the door. The intentions were good; his heart, soul, and brain felt it all somehow. Yet none of them worked. The odd sinking dreadful terrifying overwhelming sensation grew worse, not less.
The bedroom door opened just slightly with a gentle creak. A thin, wispy shadow appeared from it. "Boss?"
"Chrome. It's your turn tonight, huh." This was getting ridiculous.
"Yes, boss."
She emerged into the moonlight, wearing a thin shift. He paled when he saw that the shift hid nothing of the young lady's body. Her body was thin but nearly perfect. Yet Chrome shivered, not just because of the cool night.
Tsuna scratched his head and sat up properly on the bed. "Chrome, dear. Who put you up to this?"
She looked away. She continued to quiver.
"Just you? Not anyone else? Not Mukuro?"
"Yes, boss. No one made me do it." She still shivered and shook, her eyes averted.
The girl missed the point of the challenge. Despite what the boys before her had done, it was not necessary. Tsuna took up her hands. "I'm not mad. But you don't have to go on with what you think you should do, if you don't want to."
"Really?" She sideglanced at her wispy shift, then at Tsuna.
"Yes, Chrome."
Only then did she look at him, then wrapped her arms around his neck. Her warmth felt better than her cold fright a few moments earlier. A guardian and a friend, hugged him, telling him silently that all will be alright.
But she would not be all right.
She was taken. Taken alive, gagged and bound, raped by several men, all much larger than her, all savage. When Mukuro interfered, she was shot and left to be pecked by the ravens. He saw it all in his head.
“You won't be taken. You won't die, you won't, you won't,” he told himself, over and over, hoping against hope that his nightmares would never ever come true.
Chrome kept her arms around him, as he rocked back and forth on the bed. She kept holding him. He held her against him, assuring himself that she would always be safe.
"Boss?” she whispered into his ear, without letting go.
“Yes?”
“He wants a word with you." She loosened herself slowly.
"Mukuro?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he chuckled. "Put him on the line."
Instead of Chrome shifting into another form, though, Tsuna sank into a state of being neither awake or asleep, more like a trance. He found himself in a dark room. Square all around, a dark box of a chamber. He lay on the floor of that box. Oddly, he was not afraid. The dark box had no malevolent intentions with it, no threat of danger.
"Tenth Vongola." The voice echoed through the walls and the air in the box.
"Call me Tsuna, for crying out loud. Chrome said you wanted to talk to me?"
"I can penetrate your psyche this easily and this well. Chrome is right. Something is wrong with you. She is concerned. As am I."
"Thanks, I guess." At least Mukuro was not turning against him and using this perceived weakness to his advantage.
"Will you let me read through you for a moment?"
"If you think it will help, no problem." But his deepest self also tried to fight.
“I-I want to keep my self, Mukuro, do you understand? I trust you. But I want to keep my self..
“Understood.”
Dark strands filled Tsuna’s ears, his eyes, his mouth, and searched through the various parts of his brain. Some of that darkness coursed through his limbs and torso as well. The dark strands filling him made Tsuna alternately relaxed and hyper-aware.
"You are concerned," the voice finally spoke after a long moment. "No. You are perturbed, anxious, frightened."
"Yes." Tsuna tried to catch his breath, but his mouth and nostrils remained stuffed with something.
"About....me?"
"Yes. Even you."
"And Chrome. And the others."
"Yes."
"There is a threat. Your hyper-intuition shows it to you."
"If you say so." It made sense.
"It is real, it will happen. It will happen to all who wear your rings."
"Yes."
"A threat that is not isolated to one, or to the Vongola. But directly targeted at your guardians."
"Do you know what the threat is?"
Mukuro did not reply. He shut off Tsuna's awareness instead.
More of the dark threads filled his head. The darkness that filled the box squeezed around him. He swallowed the darkness. His brain was squeezed into a pulp then blended into a protein shake. The pressing and squeezing went on for what seemed like hours. None of it was restful. He might have screamed, but the darkness stuffed his mouth and killed all sound.
Tsuna’s thought returned. He felt like several trucks plus Lambo and I-pin rammed into him.
“Are you dying?” Mukuro's voice filled the box.
“I'm totally worn out,” Tsuna replied to the dark space. “But I don't think I'll die just yet.”
“Good. What do you know about a crest with millefleurs?”
“Nothing. I've never seen that one before.”
“All your visions of the guardians have it.”
“A new rival family?”
“I'll investigate.”
Mukuro loosed the darkness filling Tsuna. Tsuna took several deep calming breaths. He felt like several trucks ran over him. Yet he managed to speak. "You've been very helpful, thank you. What do you suggest we do?"
"Tell Chrome to go to the Arcobaleno. He will probably know."
Reborn? Mukuro was right, the tutor hitman might know what to do about a vague threat. He should have gone to him with his odd feelings earlier, but because they were so odd and vague he always thought it was just him going through nightmares, which he need not bother Reborn about.
"Wait. I'll tell Chrome myself. You need rest."
Tsuna sighed. "You've seen that I couldn't."
"I can make your mind go blank for a few hours, so your body can rest."
"Your offer is kind, Mukuro-san, I can tell. Thank you. But I must decline. I shall sleep when I am assured that all of you are safe."
"Suit yourself, Vongola. I will tell the Arcobaleno."
"Thank you."
Despite what Mukuro said, Tsuna went fully blank for an unrecalled amount of time.
It was morning when his thoughts returned to him, safely on the bed, with Chrome's arms around his torso and her body warming his back.
"So," he drowsily asked, "did your Mukuro-sama win the bet?"
"No, Boss," her breath whispered at his upper back. "Only two hours. He got tired. The rest was me."
"Thank you. Both of you." He reached out and patted her head.
Dreams come true.
Tsuna rumpled his hair and addressed his guardians over breakfast. His face belied his fright. So early, and already he felt something would be terribly wrong about the day. For once, he did not sleep over his breakfast. The presence of all his guardians in one place heightened his terror for them all.
“Thank you for staying. Thank you, all of you, for trying to help me. Your intentions have all been good. It was…satisfying. Pleasing.” He chuckled as he looked at his guardians with some longing, with much kindness. “If I still couldn't sleep after all you have done, it is not your fault, it is mine. I'm sorry for disappointing you all.”
A chorus of dissent replied.
“Did I win? Did I win?” Lambo asked.
“Idiot.” Gokudera replied. “Nobody did.”
“So I don't get any candy?”
“All you think about is candy, you annoying little--“
Tsuna raised another hand, and reclaimed silence. “I don't know what to do about this anymore, but it will be better for us if you leave me alone to handle it. Rival families and even allies should not be made aware of this problem. Continue to be my alert eyes, ears, and firearms. Cover for me. That will be a great help to me. We'll be fine. I'll be fine. I think.”
Various words of assurance came back to him, that they would do their best to help. He smiled and nodded. Just right now, it was what he needed most.
“One more thing. Don't leave the premises today, until tomorrow.”
“How come?” Yamamoto asked for them.
“I….don't know really. Just don't leave the house for any reason. Please check fortifications, ammunition, and weapons that we have here. Check food stocks, medical supplies. Check that there are no blind spots.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto and Gokudera said.
“That will be all.”
Tsuna found his way to the living room sofa and slumped heavily onto it. He would catch what sleep he could snatch before helping in preparing for an attack he only had the vaguest of notions about. But he only tossed and turned there for an hour. Even with all the guardians remaining in the premises, he could not shake off a terrible sensation of an attack. He gave up and walked around the mansion.
………………………….
The terror in his head intensified. Despite the exertion of the whole day, he could not sleep at all, even for snatches of time. Something must be done, immediately, now. Of course they had guards awake at all hours, but one or two people would be hopelessly few for what he feared was coming. He hastily dressed and hid the pistol Reborn gave him in its holster.
He was not sure why, or how, he knew, but he knew that if he did nothing, they would all be dead by sunrise.
He shook Gokudera awake first.
"Judaime?" Gokudera said this sleepily.
"Wake everybody. Servants, guards, cooks. Everyone. Get ready."
Gokudera snapped to attention. "Get ready for what, Judaime?"
"Wake up everyone, but keep the house dark. Make sure all the beds are made to look like someone's sleeping in them. Keep away from the windows. Go, do it now."
"Who's coming?"
"Tell them it's my orders, and they have to follow without question." He glared at Gokudera. "You included."
He must have looked wild enough to be convincing. Gokudera got up without a word, dressed and armed.
"When you've warned the househelp, stay with Lambo."
"But....Judaime..."
"You stay with Lambo."
Tsuna left warning and protecting Chrome to Yamamoto, and waking Hibari. The terrible sensations slammed themselves all over his head, but he had to keep going. He could only hope that Reborn was safe, wherever he was.
He rushed to the kitchen. He met Gokudera and the drowsy men of the household there.
"I will allow cold coffee." He spoke with an authority he could not believe he could command. "But hot coffee will waft through the house. They should think the house is asleep when they attack. They will attack."
Several of the servants and secondary force of the family asked who or what family. "Are you alright, sir?" one even dared to ask.
"Please, take my word for it right now, do as I say, ask no questions. Gokudera, off to Lambo, now. The rest of you, get weapons and spread yourselves throughout the house. The guardians will spread among you. Protect the ladies and youngest servants. Keep the lights off, you know the house well enough. Do not fire indiscriminately. Fire only for self-defense, but fire without waiting for orders. Is everything clear?"
The servants and guards, all members of the family in some capacity, nodded.
"I promise to explain all this once I understand it myself. I am trying my best to keep everyone safe and alive. Now spread out."
With his head pounding, filling with more dread than he ever felt, he rushed through the house, keeping low and avoiding windows, checking again if all his guardians except Lambo were awake, if the women and children were safe, if there was sufficient ammunition, if all areas of the house were protected.
Tsuna took up his post in Lambo's room, knowing full well that Gokudera would go crazy if he did see his boss. Gokudera had stashed Lambo, still sleeping, under the bed with a sheet and a pillow, covering the boy by extending the blanket to the floor.
"Now can you tell me what's going on, Judaime?"
Tsuna shushed him as he held his head. He took out the pistol and loaded. "Not scared, not scared, not scared," he chanted to himself. "They will kill me first before they lay a hand on my people. Not scared, not scared, not scared."
They heard footfall on the roof, made to sound like a cat's, but heavier. Some footfall dropped to the verandas and ledges. A shadow darkened the window of Lambo's room.
Gokudera loaded. "How did you---"
"Fire when ready," Tsuna said, keeping a worried eye under the bed.
The shadow brought out a gun. Gokudera aimed his. Before the assassin could shoot, the right-hand man broke glass and shot straight and sure.
A volley of blasts and gunfire rang throughout the house.
From the yells of the shadowy figures he perceived that Hibari had taken his tonfa to the back of the house. From the extremely loud battle cries that drove the owls and nightbirds away, he could tell that Ryohei took the front. Several yelps from inside the house told him Yamamoto dealt with whoever managed to penetrate. The swordsman even passed through the room.
"Where's Chrome?"
"With the girls and kids, keeping an illusion barrier for them." Yamamoto ran off again.
"Good." Tsuna resumed shooting from the window.
A second wave of gunfire sounded. Machine guns, long-barrels, louder revolvers. Blasts answered that wave, but the heavier artillery overpowered it quickly. Death groans and death splatters sang through the house. A final wave of the heavy artillery completed the job.
Silence resumed in the night.
"All clear, you stupid numbskull of a tenth boss!" a chirpy irate voice rang through the house. Reborn was back.
Tsuna breathed deeply. The pounding terror in his head was now gone.
....................................
Tsuna found the household and his guardians gathered in the living room, where most of them tried to explain to Reborn what happened. He smiled and rubbed the back of his head as he made his way to the sofa.
"You idiot, you simpleton, you imbecile!" Reborn whacked him solidly in the face. "Why did you not tell me about those premonitions!"
"I thought they weren't your problem!" Tsuna protested.
"Not my problem!" The diminutive hitman whacked him again. "Premonitions from those with hyper-intuition are always, always, taken seriously!" Another whack. "If it weren't for Chrome calling me I wouldn't be here and you'd all be left to yourselves!"
"Chrome called you?"
"Your mist guardians warned me on your behalf, because you were too stupid to do it yourself!" Reborn sighed and calmed down. "Your premonitions gave Mukuro sufficient data to work with. The network confirmed your hunch. If you had told me or your mist guardians earlier, they wouldn't have gotten near enough to attack the house."
Tsuna sunk his head. "Sorry. I really am."
Reborn whacked him. “That's enough self-pity from you.”
Tsuna blinked.
Then he chuckled.
Then he laughed.
Now was not the time for self-pity. It was time for information, then for action. He locked eyes with his mentor as he clenched his fist. “Who is our enemy, Reborn?”
“It's a new family. Without a history, but brutal, and with money. Gesso.”
"They'll be back to retaliate."
"But we'll be alive to fight them," Gokudera punched a fist into his palm and grinned. "Thanks to you, Judaime."
Reborn grinned. "You still saved this house and all your guardians."
"I did?"
Reborn gestured to the assembly behind him. All present, all alive, all scathed but uninjured.
Gokudera placed a fist over his heart and bowed to the tenth Vongola boss. Yamamoto followed this gesture, then Ryohei, then Chrome. Hibari harrumphed but nodded. The rest of the servants and guards bowed to him. Reborn, too, tipped his hat.
Tsuna acknowledged their allegiance with a bow and a smile.
He would do his best always to protect them, to make himself worthy of their trust. He was not the smartest or most talented leader, but he would try his best, for such dedicated people.
He swore as much to himself, as his eyes shut, and he began to dream. Of life when everything was simple. Of a time when all will be at peace.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“This can't go on! He's been asleep for two whole days!”
“That's because you gave him wet dreams…”
“I DID NOT…”
“I saw you.”
“I saw you too, baseball-brain. Last night.”
“Guilty. But seriously, he'll be fine, Gokudera….”
“We have to do someth--LAMBO! Don't draw on Judaime's face!”
“Look! He's drooling!”
“Anyway, Gokudera, what do you suggest?”
“Kiss the sleeping beauty!”
“LAMBO!”
“Shall we make a challenge of it?”
“You and your challenges, baseball-brain!”
“A contest! A contest!”
END
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Author's Notes: Source of Hibari’s newspaper reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/business/26markets.html?_r=1&ref=economy