More KHR
Title: Mafia Stories
Rating: PG-ish???
Author: JiriayaWhitney
Characters/Pairing/s: Tsunayoshi Sawada, Gokudera Hayato, Chrome, Mukuro, Yamamoto, Lavina, Bianchi 5927, small mentionings of K27 (what? It's a bashing), 6996,
Warning/s: Angst, (character) death, mentions of self-prostitution,
Disclaimer: KHR isn't mine. Excuse me while I cry (hey, that almost rhymed)
Summary: All Mafia stories begin and end in the same way: death....
Inspiration: (It is 6:05, and it signals the end of this story in reverse. Stories of the mafia are rarely ever told, because all of them have a distinct similarity: they begin and end with death, the death of love, and the death of hope.) ~A/N “dead men and the dying” indelible
~5927~
All Mafia stories being and end in the same way: death-literal, love, hope, anything that could die, they begin with that and end with it, too. Gokudera knew it well, by the time that he was four. He had found a small pad of paper, only half used, with his mother’s handwriting on it. It began with how her father had been killed by a rival Mafia Famiglia and how she was only saved by her piano and his father. In the end, she had died, as well.
He didn’t tell anyone about it, though; the others didn’t need to know this grim truth about the Mafia stories. No, they were used to stories that began with “once upon a time” and ended in “happily ever after” with a moral somewhere in between-these were stories that Gokudera never heard, never told, never cared for.
His story starts with the death of Lavina Gokudera. It takes a while for him to learn that he was truly the son of Lavina Gokudera and it is that moment that he kills “Hayato Gato” and instead is reborn as “Hayato Gokudera”. He waits for night to fall the week after and that is when he pushes himself out of the Gato Famiglia, away from his sister, his mother-that-never-was and his father, the liar. Behind, he leaves his one and only friend who seems to have more sisters than all of Italy can count on their hands. He knows as he leaves that he will never see him again, and he doesn’t care because he can’t stand another moment with these people that have lied to him for all his life; he was not a full-blooded Italian Mafia child, but instead a half-breed mutt that will never inherit the position of the head of the Gato Famiglia, as his dream had been as a child. He was dead, in this family, and his future was something he had to pave for himself.
He had watched, from his spot on the castle wall, as the children in town went to regular school, went to their regular families, lived their regular lives-and he wishes, as he sneaks out his window so that the guards won’t see him, that he can be one of those oblivious children who never knew what it was like to lose a parent, only to find out almost four years later-that he was one of those oblivious children who didn’t know about how wide the Mafia’s grip reached-who didn’t know that they were watched day in and day out from the castle to make sure their parents stayed in line. He wishes that he were a normal child, who never had to know, but above all, he wishes that he had been sent to live with his mother and become an orphan when she died, instead of had this part of his life given to him, right off the bat. But it didn’t matter, he also knew-because wishes got you nowhere, even though actions got you everywhere. So, as an eight-year-old child, Hayato Gokudera killed off Hayato Gato and left the others behind, instead to find his own way in life. On his collarbone, the pendant his father had given him as an infant burned heavily, but he couldn’t bring himself to through away Saint Nicholas of Myre because he knows that it will be the only thing to get him through a lot of these next few days.
For the rest of that year, Hayato Gokudera (Gokudera, Gokudera, he reminded himself, Hayato Gato never existed, not really) lives on the street. He learns that though life fucks him over repeatedly, he never truly dies, not really. He has had three people he was close to die within this first year, but he still remembers their names, their faces, the way they talk, they laugh, they cried, they got themselves up out of the alley in the morning to find food to survive only to come back and sleep away the pain of starvation, the pain of another day failed and the pain of knowing they have another day to do it all over again. Hayato Gokudera decides early on that though he doesn’t like the feeling of starvation, when he gets out of this mess-(if I ever do, I can’t be hopeful, because then my spirit will be crushed more and more until it’s broken and I die without anything)-if he ever has to go back, he will gladly do it only because it’s something that once you live with once, you can survive it again, because you survived it once and you know how to keep going and keep food rationed, especially in the winter, when he ran away.
Hayato Gokudera is very lucky, he knows this well; when he was nine, he got a job working on a boat that allowed him to explore the world; see Russia, see the USA, Canada, South America, Indonesia-he’s been everywhere in this entire world by the time he’s eleven, knows enough of their languages to survive (even years later, when he’s thrown from an airplane and protecting Tenth, he still knew those languages enough to save his boss and the baseball idiot). This job as a sailor is what allowed him to carry out the hits that he still has nightmares about, even now. He is very lucky, and not for a single day will he ever underestimate that, not even for the life that he had never seen in him.
His life waxed and waned between the good and bad (it decided it liked the latter better, though) until Uncle Timoteo from when he had been nothing more than a piano-loving Mafioso child found him on the street and spoke to him-convinced him, even after it all, that he is wanted and needed and sent him to Japan after what seemed like an endless week of bathing and cleaning to being friends with the newest person to be considered for the position of the Mafia Boss, all thanks to the small man-infant that saved his life once when he was docked back in Naples and had decided that he was too weak to continue and attempted suicide. That had been the day that he had finally met with Shamal again, and he had cried when he was woken from his OD-induced peacefulness, not because he had failed but because Shamal had been the one there to berate him.
It isn’t until Tsuna is eighteen that he figures out that Reborn and Vongola Nono had both been watching him from birth, though the former knew exactly who would become his guardians, even without them meeting him at the time.
Gokudera never tells anyone about the nightmares he is plagued with every beating second of sleep he manages to get-never tells them that the reason he smokes is because in order to get his sailor job he had to sell his body to the head man (who was later mysteriously found murdered in his home when a stick of dynamite exploded, though he had turned out to have had a horrid ailment with no cure in the form of a bullet between his brows) and he needed a way to stop thinking about it.
He never thinks he has to tell them of the murder of his innocence. Not that he was very innocent to begin with.
The day that he does tell the others about it-in a drunken spur-of-the-moment slur only ever heard by the too-innocent ears of his sober boss-is the day before he finds Tsuna-not Juudaime, not Tenth, not Vongola Decimo-dead and murdered and buried.
It will be three weeks that spread out to feel like years before he gets to see Tsuna’s smile again, and though it’s not his Tsuna’s it’s enough for him to talk himself out of suicide for the third time in his life (the first one when he had found that Lavina was his mother and the second he had actually talked himself into it) and it rocks him so hard that he was so close to death that while he is inside Irie’s machine, his body sobs, though no one else sees or hears it, inside the machine.
It’s only two days after Tsuna is alive and well again that he can finally say “Ti amo,” but the worst part is that he only says it in a whisper that a zephyr blows away because this time, he’s the one lying in the other man’s lap, a bullet hole through his chest and crimson liquid tie-dying his shirt. The last image he’s privy to is the view of Tsuna sobbing into his chest, his tears burning on the edges of his bullet wound as Yamamoto sobs along with the rest of the guardians, even Rokudo, who does his best to hide it, even if he’s the only one that knows the truth of Mafia stories.
Mafia stories always-always-begin and end in the same way: death. It doesn’t matter what of, either-life, happiness, innocence, love or hope, there is death.
And his is no different: his life will start with the death of his mother, continue through the death of his happiness, his hope, his innocence, his love and end with the death of himself in the arms of his undead love as he confesses what he had never said before.
But it doesn’t matter, because that it the end of his story, and there will never be anything more to himself, but he died to save his family and even as Uri licks at his facial wounds, he knows he would never regret dying to protect them, even though he never wants to die in the first place-not since Shamal made him see what he hadn’t seen as a child.
But it’s ok, he tells himself as the light in his eyes begins to dim and the tears from the others start to wet his shoulders and his face, where Uri hadn’t licked before. It’s ok, because as the light fades, he smells flowers-carnations, Lavina’s favorite-and he hears the sound of a piano that he hasn’t played since all too long ago and he knows that he never will play, except that the last thing he’ll see is his mother’s face as she comes forward and hugs his numb body. A single tear leaves him and he swears to himself that in the next life, he’ll kick Rokudo’s ass for trying to use him in one of his Real Illusions. He resigns himself to his fate as Tsuna’s hold can no longer be held by him; this is how his story ends.
Except, it doesn’t end there….
Lavina is sitting by him, berating him for everything stupid he’s ever done and he can’t help but laugh, scoff and say that if he got another chance, like hell he’d ever let any of that shit happen. He can’t help but watch as the Vongola moves on from his death, finds a new Storm Guardian in the form of his sister and a new Right-Hand Man in the form of the baseball idiot.
To his side, as Tsuna sleeps with his head on the edge of the hospital bed and it’s the first time he’s opened his eyes since he was shot through one year, four months and five days before, he hears Mukuro Rokudo laugh and say “you have no idea how lucky you are that your life is not yet a Mafia story.” The first sound he makes is a bark of laughter that has Tsuna jerking awake and the door being thrown open to see Chrome and Yamamoto and Bianchi and the others as they rush in. His stomach doesn’t even hurt as the others start crying and he fixes Bianchi with a small smile as he says “my mother thinks you’ve grown to be an actual woman-don’t see how though.”
She falls to her knees, sobbing, and rips the ring from her finger. She chucks it at Gokudera and screams at the top of her lungs that if he ever dares to die again, she’ll be the one to murder him and that Lavina was dead and she can’t tell him to tell her any of that and oh God she desperately needed to hug her baby boy-who was also named Hayato-and steal him away from his father long enough for Hayato Gokudera to properly meet his nephew.
Eventually, everyone but Tsuna, Rokudo and Chrome have left him alone to get used to life again. The woman has fallen asleep against her fiancé (which is something Gokudera, who had watched over it all, still can’t understand considering Mukuro was playing with Chrome every time they went on a “date” and she was the one that proposed, not him, though he did smile, decline, buy the ring and ask properly yet he still played with her) and Tsuna was curled up at his side, under his arm with his head on his chest as he muttered “ti amo” quietly and faded between consciousness and unconsciousness. This is the time where Gokudera finally manages to smirk and correct the man that had said it before; “my story is over, though. Mafia stories begin and end with death-it started with the death of my mother and ended with the death of my death. Mafia stories don’t end with the rebirth of anything, after all.”
And they definitely don’t end with the sound of maniacal laughter as Mukuro picks up his fiancée and carries her, carefully, to their room.
Most of all, they definitely don’t end with the birth of a beautiful love from a man with a son named “Haru” from a woman that decided she didn’t truly love him and went to college, leaving behind the reminder of the Mafia and the life she left behind. Hayato Gokudera knows before he can truly get together with Tsuna, he has to pick up the pieces of the man Kyoko broke, but he’s fine with that, because he can do that as he goes through Physical Therapy.
For the first time in one year, four months and six days, Gokudera rolls his ring around his finger. He could go for a cigarette, but instead he turns his head into Tsuna’s hair and breathes in deeply. He smells suspiciously like nicotine smoke and there’s a pack of cigarettes in his pants pocket, pressed against Gokudera’s leg, but he decides not to ask. There’s a lot that’s happened in Gokudera’s mind that seems to be true with what’s happened in real life, but he can’t bring himself to believe that only a month after Gokudera died, Tsuna had been suicidal, but saw the light and instead turned to cigarettes to forget. He pushes the memory from his mind, rolls over and throws his arm over his side, happy when Tsuna gurgles contently in the back of his throat and rubs his nose into the his chest. Gokudera rests his chin on the top of Tsuna’s head and smiles gently, until Tsuna murmurs sleepily, “will you tell me one of those Mafia stories you two were talking about later?”
“You won’t like them,” he warns.
“I don’t care. I want to know.”
And so he sighs, but smiles in the end and agrees. “But I won’t be happy about it.”
“Can you tell me yours?”
“Maybe later, when I’ve refined it.”
Tsuna laughs lightly, nods and falls asleep.
Hayato Gokudera stays up all night to watch. Because Hayato Gato is dead and he doesn’t want to become him, like he had been in the last year, four months and six days. He knows he won’t, but can’t help but feel that fear of death all over again.
Yeah. Living was better (but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find the number one way to get pissed at Shamal and beat him up as soon as possible because he had to prove him wrong; he wasn’t afraid of death, but for Tsuna’s sake he still wouldn’t die, like he had since he was fourteen up until the year before).
(It doesn’t matter that Shamal knows the truth behind it, not just the reason he gives him).
Rating: PG-ish???
Author: JiriayaWhitney
Characters/Pairing/s: Tsunayoshi Sawada, Gokudera Hayato, Chrome, Mukuro, Yamamoto, Lavina, Bianchi 5927, small mentionings of K27 (what? It's a bashing), 6996,
Warning/s: Angst, (character) death, mentions of self-prostitution,
Disclaimer: KHR isn't mine. Excuse me while I cry (hey, that almost rhymed)
Summary: All Mafia stories begin and end in the same way: death....
Inspiration: (It is 6:05, and it signals the end of this story in reverse. Stories of the mafia are rarely ever told, because all of them have a distinct similarity: they begin and end with death, the death of love, and the death of hope.) ~A/N “dead men and the dying” indelible
~5927~
All Mafia stories being and end in the same way: death-literal, love, hope, anything that could die, they begin with that and end with it, too. Gokudera knew it well, by the time that he was four. He had found a small pad of paper, only half used, with his mother’s handwriting on it. It began with how her father had been killed by a rival Mafia Famiglia and how she was only saved by her piano and his father. In the end, she had died, as well.
He didn’t tell anyone about it, though; the others didn’t need to know this grim truth about the Mafia stories. No, they were used to stories that began with “once upon a time” and ended in “happily ever after” with a moral somewhere in between-these were stories that Gokudera never heard, never told, never cared for.
His story starts with the death of Lavina Gokudera. It takes a while for him to learn that he was truly the son of Lavina Gokudera and it is that moment that he kills “Hayato Gato” and instead is reborn as “Hayato Gokudera”. He waits for night to fall the week after and that is when he pushes himself out of the Gato Famiglia, away from his sister, his mother-that-never-was and his father, the liar. Behind, he leaves his one and only friend who seems to have more sisters than all of Italy can count on their hands. He knows as he leaves that he will never see him again, and he doesn’t care because he can’t stand another moment with these people that have lied to him for all his life; he was not a full-blooded Italian Mafia child, but instead a half-breed mutt that will never inherit the position of the head of the Gato Famiglia, as his dream had been as a child. He was dead, in this family, and his future was something he had to pave for himself.
He had watched, from his spot on the castle wall, as the children in town went to regular school, went to their regular families, lived their regular lives-and he wishes, as he sneaks out his window so that the guards won’t see him, that he can be one of those oblivious children who never knew what it was like to lose a parent, only to find out almost four years later-that he was one of those oblivious children who didn’t know about how wide the Mafia’s grip reached-who didn’t know that they were watched day in and day out from the castle to make sure their parents stayed in line. He wishes that he were a normal child, who never had to know, but above all, he wishes that he had been sent to live with his mother and become an orphan when she died, instead of had this part of his life given to him, right off the bat. But it didn’t matter, he also knew-because wishes got you nowhere, even though actions got you everywhere. So, as an eight-year-old child, Hayato Gokudera killed off Hayato Gato and left the others behind, instead to find his own way in life. On his collarbone, the pendant his father had given him as an infant burned heavily, but he couldn’t bring himself to through away Saint Nicholas of Myre because he knows that it will be the only thing to get him through a lot of these next few days.
For the rest of that year, Hayato Gokudera (Gokudera, Gokudera, he reminded himself, Hayato Gato never existed, not really) lives on the street. He learns that though life fucks him over repeatedly, he never truly dies, not really. He has had three people he was close to die within this first year, but he still remembers their names, their faces, the way they talk, they laugh, they cried, they got themselves up out of the alley in the morning to find food to survive only to come back and sleep away the pain of starvation, the pain of another day failed and the pain of knowing they have another day to do it all over again. Hayato Gokudera decides early on that though he doesn’t like the feeling of starvation, when he gets out of this mess-(if I ever do, I can’t be hopeful, because then my spirit will be crushed more and more until it’s broken and I die without anything)-if he ever has to go back, he will gladly do it only because it’s something that once you live with once, you can survive it again, because you survived it once and you know how to keep going and keep food rationed, especially in the winter, when he ran away.
Hayato Gokudera is very lucky, he knows this well; when he was nine, he got a job working on a boat that allowed him to explore the world; see Russia, see the USA, Canada, South America, Indonesia-he’s been everywhere in this entire world by the time he’s eleven, knows enough of their languages to survive (even years later, when he’s thrown from an airplane and protecting Tenth, he still knew those languages enough to save his boss and the baseball idiot). This job as a sailor is what allowed him to carry out the hits that he still has nightmares about, even now. He is very lucky, and not for a single day will he ever underestimate that, not even for the life that he had never seen in him.
His life waxed and waned between the good and bad (it decided it liked the latter better, though) until Uncle Timoteo from when he had been nothing more than a piano-loving Mafioso child found him on the street and spoke to him-convinced him, even after it all, that he is wanted and needed and sent him to Japan after what seemed like an endless week of bathing and cleaning to being friends with the newest person to be considered for the position of the Mafia Boss, all thanks to the small man-infant that saved his life once when he was docked back in Naples and had decided that he was too weak to continue and attempted suicide. That had been the day that he had finally met with Shamal again, and he had cried when he was woken from his OD-induced peacefulness, not because he had failed but because Shamal had been the one there to berate him.
It isn’t until Tsuna is eighteen that he figures out that Reborn and Vongola Nono had both been watching him from birth, though the former knew exactly who would become his guardians, even without them meeting him at the time.
Gokudera never tells anyone about the nightmares he is plagued with every beating second of sleep he manages to get-never tells them that the reason he smokes is because in order to get his sailor job he had to sell his body to the head man (who was later mysteriously found murdered in his home when a stick of dynamite exploded, though he had turned out to have had a horrid ailment with no cure in the form of a bullet between his brows) and he needed a way to stop thinking about it.
He never thinks he has to tell them of the murder of his innocence. Not that he was very innocent to begin with.
The day that he does tell the others about it-in a drunken spur-of-the-moment slur only ever heard by the too-innocent ears of his sober boss-is the day before he finds Tsuna-not Juudaime, not Tenth, not Vongola Decimo-dead and murdered and buried.
It will be three weeks that spread out to feel like years before he gets to see Tsuna’s smile again, and though it’s not his Tsuna’s it’s enough for him to talk himself out of suicide for the third time in his life (the first one when he had found that Lavina was his mother and the second he had actually talked himself into it) and it rocks him so hard that he was so close to death that while he is inside Irie’s machine, his body sobs, though no one else sees or hears it, inside the machine.
It’s only two days after Tsuna is alive and well again that he can finally say “Ti amo,” but the worst part is that he only says it in a whisper that a zephyr blows away because this time, he’s the one lying in the other man’s lap, a bullet hole through his chest and crimson liquid tie-dying his shirt. The last image he’s privy to is the view of Tsuna sobbing into his chest, his tears burning on the edges of his bullet wound as Yamamoto sobs along with the rest of the guardians, even Rokudo, who does his best to hide it, even if he’s the only one that knows the truth of Mafia stories.
Mafia stories always-always-begin and end in the same way: death. It doesn’t matter what of, either-life, happiness, innocence, love or hope, there is death.
And his is no different: his life will start with the death of his mother, continue through the death of his happiness, his hope, his innocence, his love and end with the death of himself in the arms of his undead love as he confesses what he had never said before.
But it doesn’t matter, because that it the end of his story, and there will never be anything more to himself, but he died to save his family and even as Uri licks at his facial wounds, he knows he would never regret dying to protect them, even though he never wants to die in the first place-not since Shamal made him see what he hadn’t seen as a child.
But it’s ok, he tells himself as the light in his eyes begins to dim and the tears from the others start to wet his shoulders and his face, where Uri hadn’t licked before. It’s ok, because as the light fades, he smells flowers-carnations, Lavina’s favorite-and he hears the sound of a piano that he hasn’t played since all too long ago and he knows that he never will play, except that the last thing he’ll see is his mother’s face as she comes forward and hugs his numb body. A single tear leaves him and he swears to himself that in the next life, he’ll kick Rokudo’s ass for trying to use him in one of his Real Illusions. He resigns himself to his fate as Tsuna’s hold can no longer be held by him; this is how his story ends.
Except, it doesn’t end there….
Lavina is sitting by him, berating him for everything stupid he’s ever done and he can’t help but laugh, scoff and say that if he got another chance, like hell he’d ever let any of that shit happen. He can’t help but watch as the Vongola moves on from his death, finds a new Storm Guardian in the form of his sister and a new Right-Hand Man in the form of the baseball idiot.
To his side, as Tsuna sleeps with his head on the edge of the hospital bed and it’s the first time he’s opened his eyes since he was shot through one year, four months and five days before, he hears Mukuro Rokudo laugh and say “you have no idea how lucky you are that your life is not yet a Mafia story.” The first sound he makes is a bark of laughter that has Tsuna jerking awake and the door being thrown open to see Chrome and Yamamoto and Bianchi and the others as they rush in. His stomach doesn’t even hurt as the others start crying and he fixes Bianchi with a small smile as he says “my mother thinks you’ve grown to be an actual woman-don’t see how though.”
She falls to her knees, sobbing, and rips the ring from her finger. She chucks it at Gokudera and screams at the top of her lungs that if he ever dares to die again, she’ll be the one to murder him and that Lavina was dead and she can’t tell him to tell her any of that and oh God she desperately needed to hug her baby boy-who was also named Hayato-and steal him away from his father long enough for Hayato Gokudera to properly meet his nephew.
Eventually, everyone but Tsuna, Rokudo and Chrome have left him alone to get used to life again. The woman has fallen asleep against her fiancé (which is something Gokudera, who had watched over it all, still can’t understand considering Mukuro was playing with Chrome every time they went on a “date” and she was the one that proposed, not him, though he did smile, decline, buy the ring and ask properly yet he still played with her) and Tsuna was curled up at his side, under his arm with his head on his chest as he muttered “ti amo” quietly and faded between consciousness and unconsciousness. This is the time where Gokudera finally manages to smirk and correct the man that had said it before; “my story is over, though. Mafia stories begin and end with death-it started with the death of my mother and ended with the death of my death. Mafia stories don’t end with the rebirth of anything, after all.”
And they definitely don’t end with the sound of maniacal laughter as Mukuro picks up his fiancée and carries her, carefully, to their room.
Most of all, they definitely don’t end with the birth of a beautiful love from a man with a son named “Haru” from a woman that decided she didn’t truly love him and went to college, leaving behind the reminder of the Mafia and the life she left behind. Hayato Gokudera knows before he can truly get together with Tsuna, he has to pick up the pieces of the man Kyoko broke, but he’s fine with that, because he can do that as he goes through Physical Therapy.
For the first time in one year, four months and six days, Gokudera rolls his ring around his finger. He could go for a cigarette, but instead he turns his head into Tsuna’s hair and breathes in deeply. He smells suspiciously like nicotine smoke and there’s a pack of cigarettes in his pants pocket, pressed against Gokudera’s leg, but he decides not to ask. There’s a lot that’s happened in Gokudera’s mind that seems to be true with what’s happened in real life, but he can’t bring himself to believe that only a month after Gokudera died, Tsuna had been suicidal, but saw the light and instead turned to cigarettes to forget. He pushes the memory from his mind, rolls over and throws his arm over his side, happy when Tsuna gurgles contently in the back of his throat and rubs his nose into the his chest. Gokudera rests his chin on the top of Tsuna’s head and smiles gently, until Tsuna murmurs sleepily, “will you tell me one of those Mafia stories you two were talking about later?”
“You won’t like them,” he warns.
“I don’t care. I want to know.”
And so he sighs, but smiles in the end and agrees. “But I won’t be happy about it.”
“Can you tell me yours?”
“Maybe later, when I’ve refined it.”
Tsuna laughs lightly, nods and falls asleep.
Hayato Gokudera stays up all night to watch. Because Hayato Gato is dead and he doesn’t want to become him, like he had been in the last year, four months and six days. He knows he won’t, but can’t help but feel that fear of death all over again.
Yeah. Living was better (but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find the number one way to get pissed at Shamal and beat him up as soon as possible because he had to prove him wrong; he wasn’t afraid of death, but for Tsuna’s sake he still wouldn’t die, like he had since he was fourteen up until the year before).
(It doesn’t matter that Shamal knows the truth behind it, not just the reason he gives him).