mildewe

Funnily enough, they don’t seem to be playing out any regrets. Funnily enough, every moment that isn’t theirs to know feels sweet. Tender. Silly even.

It’s uncomfortable, being confronted like this. With humanity.

***

One of the most surprising things for Tsuna was the communal bath. Apparently the first Rain held a lot of sway with Primo.

Or he was exceedingly eccentric. Tsuna’s starting to lean towards the latter contributing to the first.

Especially with what he’s seeing.

He just wanted to check it out. Instead he feels like a voyeur, watching six grown men lounge around in phantom water. Even Daemon Spade is there, sulking up to his neck.

“It’s surprising isn't it?"

“Huh?” Spade snaps out of his pouting fest (which is already weird enough, given their history) to direct his attention to Asari.

"Giotto being normal about this.” Knuckle this time, and when he flicks his hand out, casual, it splashes a few droplets Spade’s way, who shies back. Of them all, he seems to be the most… uncomfortable with the arrangement. Alaude is, of course, far away from them all, a towel dropped over his face and head sprawled back against the tiles. Tsuna’s not sure if he’s sleeping.

Spade nods, slowly, and opens his mouth to answer. It slams shut with a click when they catch the conversation Primo is having with G.

“I like being able to see your bodies are okay. Puts me at ease. There’s no hiding when you’re naked~”

“Man… I get what youre saying but don’t. Don’t put it like that.”

The apparition of Primo laughs and splashes warm water at his Storm, who dunks him in return and leaves him to come up sputtering.

“Uncalled for??”

“Don’t play in the bath. What are you, five?”

Giotto sticks his tongue out at him and settles back into the water “Hardly. A five year old wouldn’t have a dick this—“

Spade practically shrieks, standing up to scold the very first Vongola Don. “Giotto!!!”

Primo laughs, loud and free, and Tsuna nearly face plants in his haste to run before he hears any other adult jokes.

It’s so vulgar.

So… Normal.

***

Not even Reborn’s bedroom is safe. It’s attached to Tsuna’s, of course. Tsuna’s much too old to be sharing a room outright with him.

Neither of them want to think about what it means, to draw such comfort from being within easy reach of each other, or the intended use of a bedroom which holds the same basic set up of the one Tsuna’s two mists share. Granted, considering it’s a high occupancy room which often holds four people, it’s easy to ignore.

What’s not easy to ignore is this fever he’s got, the fuss it’s causing, or the apparition at his side.

Tsuna had just been in there earlier, having a carefully measured conversation with Ryohei that totally wasn’t verging on an argument over his health (He’s such a worrywart) so when he feels a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature, he doesn’t really react. Merely continues to pretend to sleep.

It’s only when a voice murmurs “Poor thing…” in an unfamiliar cadence with a very familiar tone that his eyes snap open to find Vongola Primo’s ghost hovering over him. “You must be absolutely miserable.” That phantom hand, already scarred and broken, moves to stroke his hair. “Get better soon… Once you do, we’ll go down to the beach. Make a whole day of it. Even get Elena and stuffy old Spade out there with us~ Or maybe you’d like to go some place else? Whatever you want, Ricardo… Just as long as you get well.” There’s so much pleading in that last sentence. Reborn’s chest is tight. He already knows these things can’t hear them, can’t respond, and yet he finds himself wanting to offer words of comfort to this great man who sees Secondo where Reborn now lays.

Which is new information to him. He didn’t realize they’d been so close…

"Uncle..." Especially not that close. “It’s hot. Get off the bed.”

Primo looks distressed, and it makes Reborn struggle to sit up. He shouldn’t be seeing this. “S-sorry—“ It’s when he’s about to leave that a small hand tugs at his sleeve.

"m'not telling you to leave..." a child’s voice mumbles. Secondo’s voice as a child. Secondo, who was Primo’s nephew…? Apparently? Not direct descendant? But then how. Vongola’s Hyper Intuition. It was hereditary.

Primo blinks down at him, at whoever he’s really seeing, then smiles, and it feels like having the air punched out of him. It’s a completely different feeling from Tsuna. Somehow it’s violent. “Is it alright if I go long enough to get you a fresh towel? Help you cool off.”

"M’kay."

"Be right back.” Primo leans down to kiss his nephew's forehead. It lands on Reborn's instead. “I love you.”

“Love you too, uncle.”

The next day, his fever is worse than ever.

***

Julie really doesn’t like visiting, mostly because out of every spirit he could possibly see… It’s always the one he detests the most.

It feels like a punishment.

The things he sees are cruel because they’re not.

He sees Spade praying over a heavily wounded Giotto as he lies unconscious in bed, head bowed and hands clasped, his lips moving silently.

He sees Spade wine drunk and laughing, arm around his leader for support and Giotto leaning into him with the same alcohol induced glee, two men who want to change the world giggling without a care in it.

Sleeping and then insisting he wasn’t, shouting at Alaude and needing to be separated, bending to absurd requests and putting his foot down about others…

Exchanging gifts during winter.

The center of attention on his birthday.

Gazing fondly at the Vongola ring that marks him as Giotto’s, and the wedding band that claims him as Elena’s

“This just might work.”

It makes Julie sick. This isn’t the evil creature who toyed with them all, took his frustrations and turned them into barbed words, made him betray his family, took Enma’s from him.

This is a normal man.

He finds a bush.

***

Gokudera feels the bed dip, the cool touch of the air outside the warm cocoon of his blankets, and grunts, swatting at what he assumes to be Lambo in his half dream state.

And then he remembers Lambo both isn’t here, and has long been too old to seek such comfort from him.

This is someone else, and he’s more awake than he’s ever been in his life. When he turns his head, half sitting up, it’s just in time to see a head of wispy blond hair settle against his pillows, and his boss’s face settle into an angelic smile. It’s the eyes that are the most wrong, though, smoldering orange in the dark. “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck in…”

A hand that isn’t his settles onto that cheek and the not-tsuna’s eyes fall shut, exhaling softly and the last tension leaving him “thanks, G… You always make me feel better.”

The hand he’s certain belongs to the first storm ghosts knuckles over the apple of not-tsuna’s cheeks, brushes bangs away from not-tsuna’s forehead, and settles in not-tsuna’s gently curled palm which rests in the space between two bodies.

Gokudera doesn’t hear words, but he doesn’t need them to know what his predecessor must have been thinking.

There’s no mistaking that love.

Primo must have been the most important person in the world to the first Storm.

“What makes you so different from me…?”

What kind of person does he need to be, for Tsuna to come to him like this?