all roads lead to.
I massacred my Method final today. /gleeee Makes up for the shoddy finance one I did last week, and seeing theprerogative and akaru_hana was delightful. Aquarium post coming soon! For now, have some more KHR fic. :)
AU. Death-of-Tsuna Gokudera gen. Because people will talk about 'getting on' as if you're getting on a bike and riding away.
Sometimes, when day makes itself known to the dark in a smudge of apricot, and he can sit at the corner table of a mouthwatering, sepia café, it feels like there's nothing out of place. The end of his cigarette poised over a flame, canisters of sugar and salt lined up near the menu from tallest to shortest; it takes a while to realise he's ordered for two, and he pauses in his contemplation of the bread basket to check the hour. The customary time of arrival has come and gone. He will not be joined.
He leaves the second cup untouched, out of reverence, and leans back into his hardwood chair. Posture aggressively relaxed, he smokes down to the filter without particular haste, as though sitting there alone is not stirring his grief. By now he knows that departing will be useless. As memory is not restricted to places, it's hardly something so easily ignored.
Finished, he releases the stub, looks beyond the sidewalk and into the street, gaze lingering on sun-flecked bricks, window boxes trimmed with cornflowers. Italy, he thinks, is not quite real. Too vibrant, like the opening sequence of a movie, filled with scenes a photographer relishes. It's also a prime location to be robbed. He knows from experience; in a country built like a dream, he could never have predicted that he would bury his happy ending with his own two hands.
For weeks, his greatest fear has been forgetting. He's familiar with the process, waking one morning to the imperfect shape of his mother's chin, until all that remains is the smell of her, the idea of her, then by and by, a pale imitation of pain. He wants to hold it close; warmth, eyelashes, teeth, the shape of words that outweigh the praise of the world. He is sure that if he loses this, he may well lose himself.
The house is trying to prop itself up; Hibari, Cavallone, Fuuta; half a dozen people emerging from the woodwork to fill in that one empty space, but dinner is a sorry affair, a bedraggled congregation of mourners. There is Kyoko to think of, mute with defeat; no effort needed to at once recall the funeral and Haru's drenched veil, heels sinking into the sand, chasing cinders as if she herself were being spread asunder, and Yamamoto an unforgiving barricade against the ocean, too worn out to make a sympathetic face.
Remember the wind, glowering bones of lightning, the remains of a soul siphoning from sleet-numb fingers. You cannot explain this feeling, just as you cannot explain a person, explain love. Remember afterwards, the drill-like expectancy of bleeding hearts awaiting a breakdown, the sloppy allocation of blame. The uncertainty of no grave or plaque to speak to. The looking behind. The truth is, when you dissect a bird, you find nothing of the song.
He's never made the assumption that being right hand would be simple, but if he were any more out of his depth, he'd be halfway out to sea.
Given a wide berth, strangely there is comfort to be found in Bianchi. Any redness of her eyes is camouflaged; she doesn't lecture. Consoling, she was never good at. With a track record that includes the likes of Reborn and Romeo, she has nothing to say about futility or getting on. They sit in the kitchen and she pours him Irish coffee and doesn't try to offer wisdom.
It used to be, in the quiet moments, he'd pray. Even though the fear of God imbued by his Sunday school pastor never took, in the absence of all else, somehow the notion of Providence seemed less ridiculous. He doesn't pray anymore, doesn't see the point in appeasing someone who won't look his way.
After, Yamamoto comes to pick at the scab of his wound, drops into a chair so nonchalantly that Gokudera's certain he and Bianchi are taking shifts. He would call it suicide watch, but Yamamoto allows himself to be shaken off too easily. In his more insightful moods, Gokudera thinks that maybe they're all just looking for something to guard.
Pain is like an itch that crawls in the cavity between his chest and his throat. Distraction helps sometimes. Sometimes, it backfires. Two lists he compiles without much cerebral input: what's changed, what's unchanged. Some articles are harder to classify - Spanner doesn't smile less; Spanner's smiles are grim.
Fighting with only rock and scissors isn't untravelled territory. The only difference is the battlefield; now you're playing while all the gutter trash are out scrabbling to grab what they can in the brief turbulence of revolution.
Heads come up when you enter the living room; Lambo looks thoughtful and I-Pin scoots over on the couch. You pretend not to notice the dawning expressions of hope; when you sit, Mukuro's grin is all teeth.
The mafia is tolerant of many things. You of all people know that weakness has never been one of them.
AU. Death-of-Tsuna Gokudera gen. Because people will talk about 'getting on' as if you're getting on a bike and riding away.
Sometimes, when day makes itself known to the dark in a smudge of apricot, and he can sit at the corner table of a mouthwatering, sepia café, it feels like there's nothing out of place. The end of his cigarette poised over a flame, canisters of sugar and salt lined up near the menu from tallest to shortest; it takes a while to realise he's ordered for two, and he pauses in his contemplation of the bread basket to check the hour. The customary time of arrival has come and gone. He will not be joined.
He leaves the second cup untouched, out of reverence, and leans back into his hardwood chair. Posture aggressively relaxed, he smokes down to the filter without particular haste, as though sitting there alone is not stirring his grief. By now he knows that departing will be useless. As memory is not restricted to places, it's hardly something so easily ignored.
Finished, he releases the stub, looks beyond the sidewalk and into the street, gaze lingering on sun-flecked bricks, window boxes trimmed with cornflowers. Italy, he thinks, is not quite real. Too vibrant, like the opening sequence of a movie, filled with scenes a photographer relishes. It's also a prime location to be robbed. He knows from experience; in a country built like a dream, he could never have predicted that he would bury his happy ending with his own two hands.
For weeks, his greatest fear has been forgetting. He's familiar with the process, waking one morning to the imperfect shape of his mother's chin, until all that remains is the smell of her, the idea of her, then by and by, a pale imitation of pain. He wants to hold it close; warmth, eyelashes, teeth, the shape of words that outweigh the praise of the world. He is sure that if he loses this, he may well lose himself.
The house is trying to prop itself up; Hibari, Cavallone, Fuuta; half a dozen people emerging from the woodwork to fill in that one empty space, but dinner is a sorry affair, a bedraggled congregation of mourners. There is Kyoko to think of, mute with defeat; no effort needed to at once recall the funeral and Haru's drenched veil, heels sinking into the sand, chasing cinders as if she herself were being spread asunder, and Yamamoto an unforgiving barricade against the ocean, too worn out to make a sympathetic face.
Remember the wind, glowering bones of lightning, the remains of a soul siphoning from sleet-numb fingers. You cannot explain this feeling, just as you cannot explain a person, explain love. Remember afterwards, the drill-like expectancy of bleeding hearts awaiting a breakdown, the sloppy allocation of blame. The uncertainty of no grave or plaque to speak to. The looking behind. The truth is, when you dissect a bird, you find nothing of the song.
He's never made the assumption that being right hand would be simple, but if he were any more out of his depth, he'd be halfway out to sea.
Given a wide berth, strangely there is comfort to be found in Bianchi. Any redness of her eyes is camouflaged; she doesn't lecture. Consoling, she was never good at. With a track record that includes the likes of Reborn and Romeo, she has nothing to say about futility or getting on. They sit in the kitchen and she pours him Irish coffee and doesn't try to offer wisdom.
It used to be, in the quiet moments, he'd pray. Even though the fear of God imbued by his Sunday school pastor never took, in the absence of all else, somehow the notion of Providence seemed less ridiculous. He doesn't pray anymore, doesn't see the point in appeasing someone who won't look his way.
After, Yamamoto comes to pick at the scab of his wound, drops into a chair so nonchalantly that Gokudera's certain he and Bianchi are taking shifts. He would call it suicide watch, but Yamamoto allows himself to be shaken off too easily. In his more insightful moods, Gokudera thinks that maybe they're all just looking for something to guard.
Pain is like an itch that crawls in the cavity between his chest and his throat. Distraction helps sometimes. Sometimes, it backfires. Two lists he compiles without much cerebral input: what's changed, what's unchanged. Some articles are harder to classify - Spanner doesn't smile less; Spanner's smiles are grim.
Fighting with only rock and scissors isn't untravelled territory. The only difference is the battlefield; now you're playing while all the gutter trash are out scrabbling to grab what they can in the brief turbulence of revolution.
Heads come up when you enter the living room; Lambo looks thoughtful and I-Pin scoots over on the couch. You pretend not to notice the dawning expressions of hope; when you sit, Mukuro's grin is all teeth.
The mafia is tolerant of many things. You of all people know that weakness has never been one of them.