nine.
Title: Towards the Ends of the Earth
Author: sei_kou_ki
Rating: Mature
Series/Fandom: Hitman Reborn!
Characters/Pairings: Gokudera and Ryohei
Warnings: language, violence, death
Summary: Wheels go round and round, like a bad omen set in motion; sitting in a car, they have nowhere to go but forward.
Dedications: dosage
The summer of his twenty seventh year, the sun Sasagawa Ryohei will turn into rain, thick and pulpous, blanketing a baking long stretch of gray cement road like a bottle of sparkling desert wine smashed against the side of a navy ship. His death will be fantastically theatrical with a soundtrack boisterous enough to bust the ear drums of those who will murder him; and all remains of his once sturdy young body will suffocate the beautiful, isolated Italian country scenery set on both sides of his supernova homicide, red hues overlaying a field of white and yellow.
Authorities will list him Missing, and he will spend the after life pushing up daisies so that they might catch the warmth of the sun, and perchance a glimpse of the sky.
(He will not go down. He will blow up.)
But five years prior, Sasagawa Ryohei's driving down the same road in the passenger seat of a car, staring out at the flowers that he'll someday fertilize. He manages to maintain an all-in-one-piece status quo despite the mangled, broken mess of an arm that he keeps suspended in a feeble, stained cast, and leans back in the chair as one unit when he restlessly huffs at the driver:
"Your car smells like extreme cancer, octopus head."
There's no real malice intended past the harsh quality of his voice, sand paper dry. Insults are greetings, and curses are terms of endearment, hellos and goodbyes and hey how have you beens. There are unspoken, unofficial traditions to their relationship, a long set of rules and regulations that keep them both afloat, tie them both together.
"Deal with it," says Gokudera automatically, and focuses on the road, blowing out more clouds of haze and disease in to the small shell of the automobile, window half way open. "Or just get the hell out. Don't expect anyone else to pick your torn up ass up when you blend so well with the grass there, lawn head. No one in all of Italy is willing to let a chunk of turf settle in the front seat of their car."
"HEY." Ryohei balls a fist and struggles with aches and pains to sit fully erect, face reddening from the excess strain, from the reason why he's in the favor of Gokudera in the first place. Cuts and bruises, cracked bones and torn tissue, all collected in one sack of flesh. "Shut the hell uhhhahhOWWW FUCK."
The wounds on his chest have started seeping, collecting in blotches on the surface of bandage rolls hidden underneath his suit. He sags back, shoulders drooping and respiration quickening. Around his neck, the sun ring hanging from a chain emits a momentary bright, vibrant yellow flame before whisking away into a tired nothingness.
"Shit."
"You idiot."
A cold, spared glance and Gokudera slows the speed of the car on the lonely country road, pulls up to the shoulder and shifts to park, engine sputtering a perpetual moan. A drawn out, lung clenching drag of the cigarette caught between his lips, and the younger man reaches to palpate Ryohei’s forehead with the back of his hand.
“. . . what?”
Pale green eyes widen by margins, and through a lethargic puff of smoke, he declares,
“Right. You feel just about as stupid as ever. ”
“I’LL BREAK YOUR NECK -- ”
“Calm down, dumbass.” And those long, calloused piano fingers retreat back into his suit pocket, emerging with a clear, glass bottle that is thrown on Ryohei’s lap with little ceremony. It jingles with pills, red and white. “Force two or eight of those down your throat and pass out already, will you?”
A year following Tsuna’s public execution, a large colony of heavy lead bullets will be found snuggled in the fragile confines of Gokudera Hayato’s corpse, resting in peace from their one-use, one-time, bang-crash existence. Like the form in the catacomb they will settle beside, the bullets will lay rest in a beautiful, hollow tomb with cushy red lining and a smooth black exterior, save for the holes caused from their initial entrance. One, two, fifty five.
(He will die on his knees, neck extended and head tilted upwards. He will shield his boss for one last time, and together, they will grind into dust.)
The lid of the decaying monument will be covered with leaves, dead and arid, from the trees that will shade it above. What used to be a face will become inscrutable past layers of insects and nature; will fade to white, brittle and old, like the pain killers that Ryohei now pops in his mouth.
“Tch.”
“You’re not going to bleed all over my leather seats.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The car starts again, and they go.
Author: sei_kou_ki
Rating: Mature
Series/Fandom: Hitman Reborn!
Characters/Pairings: Gokudera and Ryohei
Warnings: language, violence, death
Summary: Wheels go round and round, like a bad omen set in motion; sitting in a car, they have nowhere to go but forward.
Dedications: dosage
The summer of his twenty seventh year, the sun Sasagawa Ryohei will turn into rain, thick and pulpous, blanketing a baking long stretch of gray cement road like a bottle of sparkling desert wine smashed against the side of a navy ship. His death will be fantastically theatrical with a soundtrack boisterous enough to bust the ear drums of those who will murder him; and all remains of his once sturdy young body will suffocate the beautiful, isolated Italian country scenery set on both sides of his supernova homicide, red hues overlaying a field of white and yellow.
Authorities will list him Missing, and he will spend the after life pushing up daisies so that they might catch the warmth of the sun, and perchance a glimpse of the sky.
(He will not go down. He will blow up.)
But five years prior, Sasagawa Ryohei's driving down the same road in the passenger seat of a car, staring out at the flowers that he'll someday fertilize. He manages to maintain an all-in-one-piece status quo despite the mangled, broken mess of an arm that he keeps suspended in a feeble, stained cast, and leans back in the chair as one unit when he restlessly huffs at the driver:
"Your car smells like extreme cancer, octopus head."
There's no real malice intended past the harsh quality of his voice, sand paper dry. Insults are greetings, and curses are terms of endearment, hellos and goodbyes and hey how have you beens. There are unspoken, unofficial traditions to their relationship, a long set of rules and regulations that keep them both afloat, tie them both together.
"Deal with it," says Gokudera automatically, and focuses on the road, blowing out more clouds of haze and disease in to the small shell of the automobile, window half way open. "Or just get the hell out. Don't expect anyone else to pick your torn up ass up when you blend so well with the grass there, lawn head. No one in all of Italy is willing to let a chunk of turf settle in the front seat of their car."
"HEY." Ryohei balls a fist and struggles with aches and pains to sit fully erect, face reddening from the excess strain, from the reason why he's in the favor of Gokudera in the first place. Cuts and bruises, cracked bones and torn tissue, all collected in one sack of flesh. "Shut the hell uhhhahhOWWW FUCK."
The wounds on his chest have started seeping, collecting in blotches on the surface of bandage rolls hidden underneath his suit. He sags back, shoulders drooping and respiration quickening. Around his neck, the sun ring hanging from a chain emits a momentary bright, vibrant yellow flame before whisking away into a tired nothingness.
"Shit."
"You idiot."
A cold, spared glance and Gokudera slows the speed of the car on the lonely country road, pulls up to the shoulder and shifts to park, engine sputtering a perpetual moan. A drawn out, lung clenching drag of the cigarette caught between his lips, and the younger man reaches to palpate Ryohei’s forehead with the back of his hand.
“. . . what?”
Pale green eyes widen by margins, and through a lethargic puff of smoke, he declares,
“Right. You feel just about as stupid as ever. ”
“I’LL BREAK YOUR NECK -- ”
“Calm down, dumbass.” And those long, calloused piano fingers retreat back into his suit pocket, emerging with a clear, glass bottle that is thrown on Ryohei’s lap with little ceremony. It jingles with pills, red and white. “Force two or eight of those down your throat and pass out already, will you?”
A year following Tsuna’s public execution, a large colony of heavy lead bullets will be found snuggled in the fragile confines of Gokudera Hayato’s corpse, resting in peace from their one-use, one-time, bang-crash existence. Like the form in the catacomb they will settle beside, the bullets will lay rest in a beautiful, hollow tomb with cushy red lining and a smooth black exterior, save for the holes caused from their initial entrance. One, two, fifty five.
(He will die on his knees, neck extended and head tilted upwards. He will shield his boss for one last time, and together, they will grind into dust.)
The lid of the decaying monument will be covered with leaves, dead and arid, from the trees that will shade it above. What used to be a face will become inscrutable past layers of insects and nature; will fade to white, brittle and old, like the pain killers that Ryohei now pops in his mouth.
“Tch.”
“You’re not going to bleed all over my leather seats.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The car starts again, and they go.