persistence and pestilence.
"Gods do not limit men. Men limit men." - Tom Robbins
Summaries for Reborn fics always look a bit like code.
6918, with a touch of 96. AU of 169 onwards in which liberties are taken with backstories and religious references, and Mukuro tries his hand at unravelling an assortment of knots.
Life begins and ends in hospitals like this one, in a private room with a pink lamp and a window overlooking white lawn chairs and a wandering shade. Light streams in from the little square built to dispel complaints of gloomy atmosphere. The floors are linoleum and dubiously coloured; easy to wheel over, difficult to stain. In the next ward, people forget that you do not love the robust frame of someone, the gathering ice in their fingers, but the writhing light of them that doesn't jump through hooked-up electrodes, itching sometimes to leave and sometimes to stay, because people will be contrary until their last, collective breath.
In this particular room sits a man with hands steepled around his nose. He stares at the framed flowers hanging above a vacant bed, waiting silently, dry-eyed. His suit is as creased as his forehead; he has the look of a rower who has dropped his oars.
Across the corridor, Hibari Kyouya sleeps. He weighs in at 2.4 kilos, with tiny feet that must trudge through numerous years. The fact of the matter is, even the happiest marriage will end in death, and the myriad of deaths beyond that.
-
Mukuro shadows the boy with bloodied sleeves and a wayward fringe, fists curled in want of a weapon. He's drawn to children who've never dreamed to know the moon, going home to empty houses and fathers with capsized smiles. It makes for a busy schedule; some time during the last couple of centuries, troubled became part of the human condition.
Sons grown with a dead parent smiling out of photographs, innocent, at ease; there's no set path to say they'll make a fortune on that book they wrote called The Long, Sad Story, or stand on the hoods of cars racing down highways, or live like a salesman or a Mormon or the nice banker upstairs, so he makes it a point to check in every so often, out of obligation, out of habit, but mostly out of morbid curiosity.
There's cause, then, to be pleasantly startled when those lovely eyes meet his in the middle of the mess with the little fledgling don of Vongola. Deep ocean anomaly, the cut on a celebrity chef's thumb. Even Chikusa proves not unflappable, sullen with intricate thoughts of revenge, and Ken is never immune, loping after Chikusa like a Pomeranian after a Chihuahua.
-
The ones who believe they have been left destitute, plunged into an adult world with no job, no stocks or prospects, are not really. There is always a real inheritance that doesn't rely on witnessed, double-signed documents, as simple as an almond-shaped face; along with, maybe, a penchant to dream, to drink, to let your kids roam like free-range chickens and not understand when they don't come back to you.
Then there are the things humans will try to pass on - frugality, work ethics, good sense - and these stick on occasion but by and large attempts remain futile. Of interest is the legacy of love; of plants, of whittling, of God. The gardener's son becomes a model and the carpenter's daughter takes up cardiology; Mukuro looks around at flu-ridden tax accountants who have difficulty entrusting bills to their wives, and thinks it's a miracle souls can learn to love anything at all.
Hibari Kyouya is affirmation. So many recipients to choose from; he picks a building and a yellow bird.
Still, perhaps it's easier to place faith in clockwork things. People prefer the certainty of train timetables over the occasional answered prayer for rain, and the sporadic letters of relatives stranded in war zones. Better to know you'll be disappointed than to hope and fall apart.
-
She is the same colour as the bed railings and pristine in her patient's gown like the sea rolling into night. Multiple organ failure and the only viable liver too distant even by helicopter; realistically speaking, there's a space reserved for her in the morgue. Still, this girl is not ready to go anywhere, eyelids rippling with the ferocity of a honeybee.
Two routes for the stumbling, and these are loss and gain. Maybe the amputee ballerina, seeing visitations in fluttering curtains. Maybe the single father of two, dying and they don't know why, who doesn't want a priest. Or the sons, whose only angel is lying stretched out, ashen and afraid.
The girl in the bed is thirteen and too young for ultimatums, ringing bells and making wishes without knowing the proper reason. She is pretty, with space for an eye, and in the hustle of doctors stringing her life in stitches and borrowed blood, Mukuro finds himself in the mood for a call.
Later, lounging weakly in the sheets, she thinks she's been saved. He can tell. What he's given her is more like the shell of a walnut against a hammer.
In retrospect, he wonders if by filling her up, he didn't accidentally rip something. She is unjudging and devout, temperate as the day he found her, and it's all he can do to smile reassuringly whenever he wants to look away.
Ken and Chikusa do not take to her. Ken pines, which makes Chikusa snappish; they brood and work around her like an unfortunate piece of furniture. Hibari is equally infuriated, lashing out with a tongue most commonly found in the paralysed and a possessiveness that's almost flattering.
"I will kill you." It has the ring of a confession, and Mukuro has always admired single-mindedness, finding charm in the dogged way titans held up the sky, then pillars held up the earth, then God and gravity and physics no one can agree upon. Cynics will mock an endless ability to believe; Mukuro doesn't have it and therefore thinks it wondrous; even the fourth chances dispensed to lingering lovers, the sixth trip to a holy spring.
-
And if only they understood that death is something to be practised, not avoided, they would perhaps spend more time living and less time longing and prolonging. This is why he enjoys Hibari, who does not believe the soul is eternal and hurtles into tasks as though about to stop ticking. He's thought about it - tasting that mouth for himself, making it slow against his.
The trick is keeping a hold of Chrome so it doesn't become a crowd. He suspects it would dull the experience somewhat, like reminding yourself to bite back the wrong name. Since there's no hurry, for the moment he refrains, content to let the idea stew.
Dealing in visions as he does, he is ill prepared for the reality of it, Hibari's teeth clinking hard and fast and awkward, and Guido Greco's body hanging on his conscience like a sack. Too exhausted to reciprocate, let alone summon the illusion of his face, and Hibari wrenches the corpse from Byakuran's cell, clenching forcefully, "Go."
He doesn't think to question when the barrier falls, passes out in the most literal sense, and Chrome shudders as he sinks into her, as if grown used to his absence.
-
He wakes in their stopgap infirmary feeling almost squashed. Chrome is a constant presence beside, inside, around him, unrelenting as a cicada cry. It's hard to say which of them requires more recovery but Chrome makes the decision for him in a maneuver that's newly slippery, retreating down the alleys of consciousness, leaving him the mantle of verisimilitude.
Dampness clings to his back. He shifts and feels the soft tickle of Uri in a purring bundle at his feet. A fearless creature, he's eerily canny, sticking to Mukuro as if sensing one of his kind. In a way, he's not wrong.
It's hot, a byproduct of lacking ventilation, and if he concentrates he can imagine the greedy gust of a desert. He opens his eyes. They have company. Hibari sits stiffly in a chair pilfered from the kitchen, arms folded. Blood blooms over his abdomen. No doubt the Sun guardian lost this particular battle. Mukuro climbs gingerly off the bed. Upon closer inspection, no wonder. The wound is jagged but shallow; wouldn't kill a lesser man, let alone a stubborn mule.
He stretches out an inquisitive hand, awkwardly bandaged, and Hibari pulls him roughly into his lap with a fistful of fabric. Sharp teeth close around his bottom lip, off-kilter, and Mukuro smiles wryly into the kiss.
It's been a long time since he's felt displeasure at the thought of death.
Summaries for Reborn fics always look a bit like code.
6918, with a touch of 96. AU of 169 onwards in which liberties are taken with backstories and religious references, and Mukuro tries his hand at unravelling an assortment of knots.
Life begins and ends in hospitals like this one, in a private room with a pink lamp and a window overlooking white lawn chairs and a wandering shade. Light streams in from the little square built to dispel complaints of gloomy atmosphere. The floors are linoleum and dubiously coloured; easy to wheel over, difficult to stain. In the next ward, people forget that you do not love the robust frame of someone, the gathering ice in their fingers, but the writhing light of them that doesn't jump through hooked-up electrodes, itching sometimes to leave and sometimes to stay, because people will be contrary until their last, collective breath.
In this particular room sits a man with hands steepled around his nose. He stares at the framed flowers hanging above a vacant bed, waiting silently, dry-eyed. His suit is as creased as his forehead; he has the look of a rower who has dropped his oars.
Across the corridor, Hibari Kyouya sleeps. He weighs in at 2.4 kilos, with tiny feet that must trudge through numerous years. The fact of the matter is, even the happiest marriage will end in death, and the myriad of deaths beyond that.
-
Mukuro shadows the boy with bloodied sleeves and a wayward fringe, fists curled in want of a weapon. He's drawn to children who've never dreamed to know the moon, going home to empty houses and fathers with capsized smiles. It makes for a busy schedule; some time during the last couple of centuries, troubled became part of the human condition.
Sons grown with a dead parent smiling out of photographs, innocent, at ease; there's no set path to say they'll make a fortune on that book they wrote called The Long, Sad Story, or stand on the hoods of cars racing down highways, or live like a salesman or a Mormon or the nice banker upstairs, so he makes it a point to check in every so often, out of obligation, out of habit, but mostly out of morbid curiosity.
There's cause, then, to be pleasantly startled when those lovely eyes meet his in the middle of the mess with the little fledgling don of Vongola. Deep ocean anomaly, the cut on a celebrity chef's thumb. Even Chikusa proves not unflappable, sullen with intricate thoughts of revenge, and Ken is never immune, loping after Chikusa like a Pomeranian after a Chihuahua.
-
The ones who believe they have been left destitute, plunged into an adult world with no job, no stocks or prospects, are not really. There is always a real inheritance that doesn't rely on witnessed, double-signed documents, as simple as an almond-shaped face; along with, maybe, a penchant to dream, to drink, to let your kids roam like free-range chickens and not understand when they don't come back to you.
Then there are the things humans will try to pass on - frugality, work ethics, good sense - and these stick on occasion but by and large attempts remain futile. Of interest is the legacy of love; of plants, of whittling, of God. The gardener's son becomes a model and the carpenter's daughter takes up cardiology; Mukuro looks around at flu-ridden tax accountants who have difficulty entrusting bills to their wives, and thinks it's a miracle souls can learn to love anything at all.
Hibari Kyouya is affirmation. So many recipients to choose from; he picks a building and a yellow bird.
Still, perhaps it's easier to place faith in clockwork things. People prefer the certainty of train timetables over the occasional answered prayer for rain, and the sporadic letters of relatives stranded in war zones. Better to know you'll be disappointed than to hope and fall apart.
-
She is the same colour as the bed railings and pristine in her patient's gown like the sea rolling into night. Multiple organ failure and the only viable liver too distant even by helicopter; realistically speaking, there's a space reserved for her in the morgue. Still, this girl is not ready to go anywhere, eyelids rippling with the ferocity of a honeybee.
Two routes for the stumbling, and these are loss and gain. Maybe the amputee ballerina, seeing visitations in fluttering curtains. Maybe the single father of two, dying and they don't know why, who doesn't want a priest. Or the sons, whose only angel is lying stretched out, ashen and afraid.
The girl in the bed is thirteen and too young for ultimatums, ringing bells and making wishes without knowing the proper reason. She is pretty, with space for an eye, and in the hustle of doctors stringing her life in stitches and borrowed blood, Mukuro finds himself in the mood for a call.
Later, lounging weakly in the sheets, she thinks she's been saved. He can tell. What he's given her is more like the shell of a walnut against a hammer.
In retrospect, he wonders if by filling her up, he didn't accidentally rip something. She is unjudging and devout, temperate as the day he found her, and it's all he can do to smile reassuringly whenever he wants to look away.
Ken and Chikusa do not take to her. Ken pines, which makes Chikusa snappish; they brood and work around her like an unfortunate piece of furniture. Hibari is equally infuriated, lashing out with a tongue most commonly found in the paralysed and a possessiveness that's almost flattering.
"I will kill you." It has the ring of a confession, and Mukuro has always admired single-mindedness, finding charm in the dogged way titans held up the sky, then pillars held up the earth, then God and gravity and physics no one can agree upon. Cynics will mock an endless ability to believe; Mukuro doesn't have it and therefore thinks it wondrous; even the fourth chances dispensed to lingering lovers, the sixth trip to a holy spring.
-
And if only they understood that death is something to be practised, not avoided, they would perhaps spend more time living and less time longing and prolonging. This is why he enjoys Hibari, who does not believe the soul is eternal and hurtles into tasks as though about to stop ticking. He's thought about it - tasting that mouth for himself, making it slow against his.
The trick is keeping a hold of Chrome so it doesn't become a crowd. He suspects it would dull the experience somewhat, like reminding yourself to bite back the wrong name. Since there's no hurry, for the moment he refrains, content to let the idea stew.
Dealing in visions as he does, he is ill prepared for the reality of it, Hibari's teeth clinking hard and fast and awkward, and Guido Greco's body hanging on his conscience like a sack. Too exhausted to reciprocate, let alone summon the illusion of his face, and Hibari wrenches the corpse from Byakuran's cell, clenching forcefully, "Go."
He doesn't think to question when the barrier falls, passes out in the most literal sense, and Chrome shudders as he sinks into her, as if grown used to his absence.
-
He wakes in their stopgap infirmary feeling almost squashed. Chrome is a constant presence beside, inside, around him, unrelenting as a cicada cry. It's hard to say which of them requires more recovery but Chrome makes the decision for him in a maneuver that's newly slippery, retreating down the alleys of consciousness, leaving him the mantle of verisimilitude.
Dampness clings to his back. He shifts and feels the soft tickle of Uri in a purring bundle at his feet. A fearless creature, he's eerily canny, sticking to Mukuro as if sensing one of his kind. In a way, he's not wrong.
It's hot, a byproduct of lacking ventilation, and if he concentrates he can imagine the greedy gust of a desert. He opens his eyes. They have company. Hibari sits stiffly in a chair pilfered from the kitchen, arms folded. Blood blooms over his abdomen. No doubt the Sun guardian lost this particular battle. Mukuro climbs gingerly off the bed. Upon closer inspection, no wonder. The wound is jagged but shallow; wouldn't kill a lesser man, let alone a stubborn mule.
He stretches out an inquisitive hand, awkwardly bandaged, and Hibari pulls him roughly into his lap with a fistful of fabric. Sharp teeth close around his bottom lip, off-kilter, and Mukuro smiles wryly into the kiss.
It's been a long time since he's felt displeasure at the thought of death.