[fic] And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer - Yamamoto
Title: And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer (or maybe it's just you)
Fandom: Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Yamamoto
Rating/Warnings: R for violence
Word count: 2300~
Summary: Yamamoto discovers for himself what it means to be a guardian.
A/N: Written for khr_undercover. Beta'd by mychemical_lust. Any mistakes are my own damn fault. :B
Heavy influences from Dogs by Pink Floyd (also where I got the title. creativity, what is that?) Lyrics are here.
Death doesn't happen like in the movies. He should have expected as much, but reality still takes Yamamoto by surprise. Reborn, standing off to his right and observing him with guarded eyes, doesn't flinch, but Yamamoto does, first when his blade hitches on stubborn muscles and bones-but he's done that before, hacked off the arm of a man who'd dared to draw a gun on Tsuna, he just needs more practice before he's used to the feel of the sudden resistance-and again when the blood sprays across his face. It's hot and sticky dripping down his cheek, and when he opens his too dry mouth in a gasp, he can taste it on his tongue, like sucking on a penny or licking his blade. (He's seen Belphagor do that to his knives, which is kind of a crazy thing to do, but Yamamoto tried it anyway just to see what it was like.) Then-but not really then because no time has actually passed, it just seems like everything is happening in slow motion- the man's entrails spill from his split gut, tangled and bloody, and Yamamoto thinks he can almost see them pulsing with the remnants of life, but he's probably just imagining that. He wonders how it must feel to be cut open like that, to hold your own innards in your hands and watch yourself die. It makes his heart trip in double time, something he hopes is only from nervous adrenalin.
It almost comes as a surprise when the man's legs give out, but that's just silly because did Yamamoto really expect him to remain standing even in death? Well, it's all over now, except maybe the cleanup, but he's not exactly sure what he's supposed to do about that, so he just leans down and wipes his katana off on the dead man's jacket. When he turns, Reborn is at his side.
“Excellent job, for your first time. You still need some work, but it's a good starting point,” Reborn comments, nudging the man's shoulder with the toe of his black patent leather shoe before sparing a glance at Yamamoto. “What are you thinking now?”
That's a tough question. Yamamoto usually has a lot of thoughts running through his head; now is no exception. He considers for a moment how he should respond, what kind of answer Reborn is looking for.
“It's not like in Dad's samurai movies,” he decides to say. Reborn laughs.
“No, it's not.” He pulls his cellphone from his pocket.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Yamamoto asks, wondering if they're going to bury the body somewhere.
“Get a cleanup crew out here,” Reborn answers with the phone to his ear. “We have some guys who specialize in this sort of thing. You'll get to learn from the best.”
“So, are we going to bury him?”
“Far too noticeable. The river will be kind enough to cover our tracks.”
Okay, so that is like in the movies. Which one was it-oh, yeah. The Godfather. “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” He's glad Gokudera made him watch it. It was a great movie, full of all the action and intrigue he could ask for, and he couldn't help but imagine himself and the other guardians and Tsuna saying those lines and playing those parts.
When the crew arrives on the scene, they stuff the man's pockets with stones and wrap his limbs in chains and throw him in the trunk of their sedan and then off the bridge into the muddy river below, just like he'd imagined.
The official report isn't official at all, a simple clap on Tsuna's shoulder and the barely overheard murmur of Reborn's drawl explaining that the situation's been taken care of. Yamamoto wonders why they don't tell Tsuna that he was the one to take care of the situation, but Reborn informs him that he is a guardian, and that guardians do their job so that the boss has less things to worry about and leaves it at that. It's not much of an explanation, and Yamamoto is still confused because shouldn't Tsuna know what his family is doing? But he knows better than to question Reborn.
He only has one nightmare in the week afterward, but it's just a small one, nothing to get too worked up over. At three in the morning he sneaks outside in his pajamas to clear his head with a stroll and doesn't tell anyone the next day.
So he can kill a man, but that's not enough in this business, or so Reborn says, which makes sense because Yamamoto has gone with Tsuna and Gokudera and Dino to enough mafia functions to understand that the entire operation is one big game of who knows who, who knows what, and how you can change the entire playing field with something as simple as trust. He also knows the others assume he's a little crazy, and maybe he is, but not for the reasons they think. Gokudera gives him this exasperated look every time he calls it a game, and Tsuna's brow scrunches a bit in worry. Let them take him for delusional; he'd rather they have that impression of him than the truth. He knows they probably wouldn't understand if they knew what his position in the family really is, or how easily slaughter has come with a little practice, so he takes Reborn's lead and decides not to tell them until they are 'ready', whenever that distant future may come.
There are finer points to this art that Reborn has left to teach him, things like dressing for obscurity, handshakes full of promises, and smiles that put others at ease. He's already an expert at all that, but Reborn helps him transfer it from the casualness of youth to the elegance of adulthood. With the assistance of Gokudera, who doesn't really understand the full implication of what he is doing, Yamamoto learns how to wear a suit well and how to choose the right kind of tie, classy and not too gaudy. His poise is perfected at parties, and when he is finally able to lure a target into a deserted alley with only pretty words and honor between men, Reborn claps him on the back and awards him with a genuine smile.
It works like that for years. Yamamoto is adept and swift, cleaning up the messes for the family before they even surface. Although Tsuna probably has some notion of what is going on, he's so busy with other affairs that he never brings it up, which makes Yamamoto feel good because that must mean that he's fulfilling his duty as a guardian: making the boss's work just a little easier.
Then he discovers another facet to his position: taking the fall so the family doesn't have to. Tsuna is shot in the calf, and both Gokudera and Yamamoto are absolutely furious. They don't get the hitman right away, but it doesn't really matter because the offender isn't trying to hide his identity. He is trying to send a message, so the Vongola have to send a message back: a public execution. Yamamoto offers himself up. Though Tsuna initially refuses, it is painfully apparent that there is no one else fit for the job. They make plans for Yamamoto to go into hiding back in Japan, in a little town in Hokkaido where Shamal has connections with a bartender he once tried (and failed) to screw. Despite his boss's blessing, Gokudera still rages behind closed doors that Yamamoto is too vital a piece to the family to just disappear like that. How can he be a guardian if he's no longer at his post? Yamamoto smiles and doesn't try to explain; he'll leave that for Tsuna and Reborn after he's gone.
He shoots the target in the forehead with an unregistered Tanfoglio T95 pistol in front of a convenience store full of witnesses. An hour and a half later, he's on route to Japan, crammed into a window seat in coach class and making small talk with the people seated next to him, a young, married Italian couple on their first flight overseas. They ask him what his name is, and he tells them 'Satou Ichirou' because it's common and easy to remember, thought not as easy as 'Yamamoto Takeshi'.
The bartender helps him settle into a dumpy apartment by the railroad tracks and gets him a job packing meat and other animal byproducts into tins to sell to poor university students. He tries not to think about the Vongola or his friends, but it's difficult at night when he's staring through the darkness at the cracked ceiling above him, alone but for the bay of the train horns and his own sparking synapses. So he gets himself a girlfriend to ward off the acute solitude, a short, plump little thing with dimples in her cheeks and a penchant for calling him pet names like 'Dumpling' and 'Sugar'. He thinks he might be happy with her, especially since she soon occupies most of his waking thoughts, and some of his unconscious ones, and he begins to wonder silly things, things like what their children might look like or how her voice might change with age. She leaves him after three years with a note asking how he could expect to support her and a family on such a meager salary. Oh, well. Domestic life probably wouldn't have satisfied him, anyway.
In the months after she leaves, Yamamoto has more dreams about death than in all his years as an assassin combined. He watches himself rip bodies apart in a clean swishflick, swishflick motion, painting walls and floors and ceilings crimson like an expressionist, following the monstrous god Phobetor deeper and deeper into his mind until all he can see is red white red white red seeping, rushing, enveloping, propagating-
He's elbow deep in the warmth of animal flesh, mumbling to himself as his co-workers look on in unease when the floor supervisor calls out to him from the safe distance of a few meters away that there is a man from the housing bureau there to see him. In a small conference room devoid of anything but a table and four chairs, a gaunt man with thinning black hair arranged into a barely-there comb over, picking at the sleeves of his threadbare suit, looks up with frenetic eyes when Yamamoto entered. Without being bade, Yamamoto takes a seat and tried to focus on the visitor through the haze of his disquiet mind.
“Yamamoto Takeshi,” the man says in a reedy voice, “It's been a while.”
Yamamoto is about to ask how he's been found out, but the man's body wavers, the atoms flickering in and out, and shifts. Left in his place is Dokuro Chrome, petite as ever, but with longer hair than when Yamamoto last recalls seeing her.
“Oh,” he replies eloquently. “Yeah. A while.” Then he remembers his manners. “How are you?”
“Boss needs his rain guardian,” Chrome states.
Oh, right. Rain guardian. That's what he was called once. That's what he's still called, he supposes, though not to his face anymore. He wonders if his being away has eased Tsuna's life any. But if he needs Yamamoto to come back, then maybe something is amiss. Or maybe things back in Italy have simply blown over.
It's getting harder to concentrate on what Chrome is saying, so he lets her talk at him as he slips into splintered visions of red and white.
He barely remembers the flight back, but that may have been because of the sedative Chrome gave him after he wouldn't stop cracking his knuckles every two minutes in the airport.
And then his arms are tingling with the force with which Gokudera and Tsuna and Ryohei are shaking his hands, and he wonders when the crows feet began forming around their eyes. Tsuna tells him that he's glad he's back, and Yamamoto believes him because Tsuna is a good, honest man, and then Tsuna tells him that they have work to do, and Yamamoto thinks, oh, that's why they sent for me.
They set up a new apartment, three times times the size of the rat nest in Hokkaido, for him across the street from a bustling cathedral on the outskirts of Palermo. The first thing he notices upon his entrance is Shigure Kintoki lying harmlessly on the kitchen table. He unsheathes his blade for the first time in over five years and draws his tongue against the steel much like he did in that moment of curiosity when he was still a teenager crowned with the laurels of innocence. With a flood of sweetness, he slashes his tongue open. The muscle aches with each pulse as blood overflows and breaches the levy of his lips, trickling down his chin unimpeded. The white noise in his ears forces him to lean heavily against a wall in order to keep upright. He cradles his katana against his face, slicing his chin deeply but it doesn't matter until he finally notices that someone has been pounding on his front door. Still holding the weapon loosely in his fist, he answers it, letting a wide eyed Gokudera stumble across the threshold and drag him into the bathroom to clean him up.
He knows by now that Gokudera, too, is a murderer, and wonders if he has ever pondered on the exact meaning of 'guardian'. Do they guard Tsuna? The mafia as a whole? The gates of Hell? Gokudera has probably never thought much about it like Yamamoto has because Gokudera hasn't been trapped in a dead end town with only his own thoughts for company for the last few years like Yamamoto has.
With Gokudera's forged prescription for Valium, Yamamoto can lie in bed and count the blemishes in the paint on the ceiling until the numbers blend together and he can't focus on anything, inside or out. Maybe, he is able to think before his thoughts dissipate into a cloud of bliss, a guardian gives part of himself up so that others don't have to. And then his mind is finally quiet.
Fandom: Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Yamamoto
Rating/Warnings: R for violence
Word count: 2300~
Summary: Yamamoto discovers for himself what it means to be a guardian.
A/N: Written for khr_undercover. Beta'd by mychemical_lust. Any mistakes are my own damn fault. :B
Heavy influences from Dogs by Pink Floyd (also where I got the title. creativity, what is that?) Lyrics are here.
Death doesn't happen like in the movies. He should have expected as much, but reality still takes Yamamoto by surprise. Reborn, standing off to his right and observing him with guarded eyes, doesn't flinch, but Yamamoto does, first when his blade hitches on stubborn muscles and bones-but he's done that before, hacked off the arm of a man who'd dared to draw a gun on Tsuna, he just needs more practice before he's used to the feel of the sudden resistance-and again when the blood sprays across his face. It's hot and sticky dripping down his cheek, and when he opens his too dry mouth in a gasp, he can taste it on his tongue, like sucking on a penny or licking his blade. (He's seen Belphagor do that to his knives, which is kind of a crazy thing to do, but Yamamoto tried it anyway just to see what it was like.) Then-but not really then because no time has actually passed, it just seems like everything is happening in slow motion- the man's entrails spill from his split gut, tangled and bloody, and Yamamoto thinks he can almost see them pulsing with the remnants of life, but he's probably just imagining that. He wonders how it must feel to be cut open like that, to hold your own innards in your hands and watch yourself die. It makes his heart trip in double time, something he hopes is only from nervous adrenalin.
It almost comes as a surprise when the man's legs give out, but that's just silly because did Yamamoto really expect him to remain standing even in death? Well, it's all over now, except maybe the cleanup, but he's not exactly sure what he's supposed to do about that, so he just leans down and wipes his katana off on the dead man's jacket. When he turns, Reborn is at his side.
“Excellent job, for your first time. You still need some work, but it's a good starting point,” Reborn comments, nudging the man's shoulder with the toe of his black patent leather shoe before sparing a glance at Yamamoto. “What are you thinking now?”
That's a tough question. Yamamoto usually has a lot of thoughts running through his head; now is no exception. He considers for a moment how he should respond, what kind of answer Reborn is looking for.
“It's not like in Dad's samurai movies,” he decides to say. Reborn laughs.
“No, it's not.” He pulls his cellphone from his pocket.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Yamamoto asks, wondering if they're going to bury the body somewhere.
“Get a cleanup crew out here,” Reborn answers with the phone to his ear. “We have some guys who specialize in this sort of thing. You'll get to learn from the best.”
“So, are we going to bury him?”
“Far too noticeable. The river will be kind enough to cover our tracks.”
Okay, so that is like in the movies. Which one was it-oh, yeah. The Godfather. “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” He's glad Gokudera made him watch it. It was a great movie, full of all the action and intrigue he could ask for, and he couldn't help but imagine himself and the other guardians and Tsuna saying those lines and playing those parts.
When the crew arrives on the scene, they stuff the man's pockets with stones and wrap his limbs in chains and throw him in the trunk of their sedan and then off the bridge into the muddy river below, just like he'd imagined.
The official report isn't official at all, a simple clap on Tsuna's shoulder and the barely overheard murmur of Reborn's drawl explaining that the situation's been taken care of. Yamamoto wonders why they don't tell Tsuna that he was the one to take care of the situation, but Reborn informs him that he is a guardian, and that guardians do their job so that the boss has less things to worry about and leaves it at that. It's not much of an explanation, and Yamamoto is still confused because shouldn't Tsuna know what his family is doing? But he knows better than to question Reborn.
He only has one nightmare in the week afterward, but it's just a small one, nothing to get too worked up over. At three in the morning he sneaks outside in his pajamas to clear his head with a stroll and doesn't tell anyone the next day.
So he can kill a man, but that's not enough in this business, or so Reborn says, which makes sense because Yamamoto has gone with Tsuna and Gokudera and Dino to enough mafia functions to understand that the entire operation is one big game of who knows who, who knows what, and how you can change the entire playing field with something as simple as trust. He also knows the others assume he's a little crazy, and maybe he is, but not for the reasons they think. Gokudera gives him this exasperated look every time he calls it a game, and Tsuna's brow scrunches a bit in worry. Let them take him for delusional; he'd rather they have that impression of him than the truth. He knows they probably wouldn't understand if they knew what his position in the family really is, or how easily slaughter has come with a little practice, so he takes Reborn's lead and decides not to tell them until they are 'ready', whenever that distant future may come.
There are finer points to this art that Reborn has left to teach him, things like dressing for obscurity, handshakes full of promises, and smiles that put others at ease. He's already an expert at all that, but Reborn helps him transfer it from the casualness of youth to the elegance of adulthood. With the assistance of Gokudera, who doesn't really understand the full implication of what he is doing, Yamamoto learns how to wear a suit well and how to choose the right kind of tie, classy and not too gaudy. His poise is perfected at parties, and when he is finally able to lure a target into a deserted alley with only pretty words and honor between men, Reborn claps him on the back and awards him with a genuine smile.
It works like that for years. Yamamoto is adept and swift, cleaning up the messes for the family before they even surface. Although Tsuna probably has some notion of what is going on, he's so busy with other affairs that he never brings it up, which makes Yamamoto feel good because that must mean that he's fulfilling his duty as a guardian: making the boss's work just a little easier.
Then he discovers another facet to his position: taking the fall so the family doesn't have to. Tsuna is shot in the calf, and both Gokudera and Yamamoto are absolutely furious. They don't get the hitman right away, but it doesn't really matter because the offender isn't trying to hide his identity. He is trying to send a message, so the Vongola have to send a message back: a public execution. Yamamoto offers himself up. Though Tsuna initially refuses, it is painfully apparent that there is no one else fit for the job. They make plans for Yamamoto to go into hiding back in Japan, in a little town in Hokkaido where Shamal has connections with a bartender he once tried (and failed) to screw. Despite his boss's blessing, Gokudera still rages behind closed doors that Yamamoto is too vital a piece to the family to just disappear like that. How can he be a guardian if he's no longer at his post? Yamamoto smiles and doesn't try to explain; he'll leave that for Tsuna and Reborn after he's gone.
He shoots the target in the forehead with an unregistered Tanfoglio T95 pistol in front of a convenience store full of witnesses. An hour and a half later, he's on route to Japan, crammed into a window seat in coach class and making small talk with the people seated next to him, a young, married Italian couple on their first flight overseas. They ask him what his name is, and he tells them 'Satou Ichirou' because it's common and easy to remember, thought not as easy as 'Yamamoto Takeshi'.
The bartender helps him settle into a dumpy apartment by the railroad tracks and gets him a job packing meat and other animal byproducts into tins to sell to poor university students. He tries not to think about the Vongola or his friends, but it's difficult at night when he's staring through the darkness at the cracked ceiling above him, alone but for the bay of the train horns and his own sparking synapses. So he gets himself a girlfriend to ward off the acute solitude, a short, plump little thing with dimples in her cheeks and a penchant for calling him pet names like 'Dumpling' and 'Sugar'. He thinks he might be happy with her, especially since she soon occupies most of his waking thoughts, and some of his unconscious ones, and he begins to wonder silly things, things like what their children might look like or how her voice might change with age. She leaves him after three years with a note asking how he could expect to support her and a family on such a meager salary. Oh, well. Domestic life probably wouldn't have satisfied him, anyway.
In the months after she leaves, Yamamoto has more dreams about death than in all his years as an assassin combined. He watches himself rip bodies apart in a clean swishflick, swishflick motion, painting walls and floors and ceilings crimson like an expressionist, following the monstrous god Phobetor deeper and deeper into his mind until all he can see is red white red white red seeping, rushing, enveloping, propagating-
He's elbow deep in the warmth of animal flesh, mumbling to himself as his co-workers look on in unease when the floor supervisor calls out to him from the safe distance of a few meters away that there is a man from the housing bureau there to see him. In a small conference room devoid of anything but a table and four chairs, a gaunt man with thinning black hair arranged into a barely-there comb over, picking at the sleeves of his threadbare suit, looks up with frenetic eyes when Yamamoto entered. Without being bade, Yamamoto takes a seat and tried to focus on the visitor through the haze of his disquiet mind.
“Yamamoto Takeshi,” the man says in a reedy voice, “It's been a while.”
Yamamoto is about to ask how he's been found out, but the man's body wavers, the atoms flickering in and out, and shifts. Left in his place is Dokuro Chrome, petite as ever, but with longer hair than when Yamamoto last recalls seeing her.
“Oh,” he replies eloquently. “Yeah. A while.” Then he remembers his manners. “How are you?”
“Boss needs his rain guardian,” Chrome states.
Oh, right. Rain guardian. That's what he was called once. That's what he's still called, he supposes, though not to his face anymore. He wonders if his being away has eased Tsuna's life any. But if he needs Yamamoto to come back, then maybe something is amiss. Or maybe things back in Italy have simply blown over.
It's getting harder to concentrate on what Chrome is saying, so he lets her talk at him as he slips into splintered visions of red and white.
He barely remembers the flight back, but that may have been because of the sedative Chrome gave him after he wouldn't stop cracking his knuckles every two minutes in the airport.
And then his arms are tingling with the force with which Gokudera and Tsuna and Ryohei are shaking his hands, and he wonders when the crows feet began forming around their eyes. Tsuna tells him that he's glad he's back, and Yamamoto believes him because Tsuna is a good, honest man, and then Tsuna tells him that they have work to do, and Yamamoto thinks, oh, that's why they sent for me.
They set up a new apartment, three times times the size of the rat nest in Hokkaido, for him across the street from a bustling cathedral on the outskirts of Palermo. The first thing he notices upon his entrance is Shigure Kintoki lying harmlessly on the kitchen table. He unsheathes his blade for the first time in over five years and draws his tongue against the steel much like he did in that moment of curiosity when he was still a teenager crowned with the laurels of innocence. With a flood of sweetness, he slashes his tongue open. The muscle aches with each pulse as blood overflows and breaches the levy of his lips, trickling down his chin unimpeded. The white noise in his ears forces him to lean heavily against a wall in order to keep upright. He cradles his katana against his face, slicing his chin deeply but it doesn't matter until he finally notices that someone has been pounding on his front door. Still holding the weapon loosely in his fist, he answers it, letting a wide eyed Gokudera stumble across the threshold and drag him into the bathroom to clean him up.
He knows by now that Gokudera, too, is a murderer, and wonders if he has ever pondered on the exact meaning of 'guardian'. Do they guard Tsuna? The mafia as a whole? The gates of Hell? Gokudera has probably never thought much about it like Yamamoto has because Gokudera hasn't been trapped in a dead end town with only his own thoughts for company for the last few years like Yamamoto has.
With Gokudera's forged prescription for Valium, Yamamoto can lie in bed and count the blemishes in the paint on the ceiling until the numbers blend together and he can't focus on anything, inside or out. Maybe, he is able to think before his thoughts dissipate into a cloud of bliss, a guardian gives part of himself up so that others don't have to. And then his mind is finally quiet.