unrelenting_rhapsody | Sometimes when you live oddly enough

Entry tags:

chiaki au,
rp

Sometimes when you live oddly enough

Who: Gokudera, Uri, and Yamamoto. Hibari guest star.
When: Just after the TYL arc
What: Everyone needs a little quiet time to internalize and comprehend all that happened in the future. Taking the time to do so is another thing all together though.

She sat atop the kitchen counter, staring down at the belligerent little cat that had come back with her from the future. "Look, I'm fucking sorry you're named melon alright? I froze and asked Tsuna!" SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!

Anyway. "Seriously, I'm not into sticking semi-living shit in boxes so you can stop glaring at me alright?" At least she assumed it was a glare, she wasn't exactly conversant with feline facial expressions. Who the fuck made a cat with scaled portions as a weapon? CATS DIDN'T LISTEN FOR SHIT.

Granted, she kinda liked that about the mostly-fuzzy thing. Fucked up huh?

Granted, Uri could also want some of the food sitting on the bowl on her knee. She'd only been picking at her meal, brain still churning a mile a minute from their trip. "Do you even need to eat?" Eh, what the fuck, it wasn't like she was going to finish it. She slid from the counter and set the bowl on the floor, hissing at the pull of cuts and bruises.

Proof they hadn't all been hallucinating right? Wounds didn't disappear just because they came home. Also? The future sucked and she didn't want to hear the people she cared about scream like that ever again.

Fuck. Torture. It was almost enough to make her regret being a delinquent Guardian. Almost. Fucked if she'd admit that though.

She didn't want to dream; that was probably why she hadn't slept. She hadn't slept for most the time they'd been in the future admittedly. Pushing past limits had been necessary; exhaustion also ensured a few hours of dreamless sleep. She'd learned that trick long ago.

"YOU LOOK LIKE SHIT!" Shamal yelped as he came in the door to see her spacing out in the short hallway. "Hold still!" His fingers were steady as they reached for dirt smudged bandages, it was a weird contrast to the worried expression he wore. "What did you do?!"

"Nothing much," she admitted in a slow drawl. "Just...been gone a while."

"All night," Shamal agreed. "I was checking alleys." And hospitals.

Oh, yeah. Time travel. "You know what..OUCH FUCK STOP THAT IT'S ATTACHED! Take it up with Reborn okay? He can fucking explain. Just give me the damn cream and stop poking my ribs!" They hurt like no one's business when he did that! Seriously, as long as no one was touching her injuries they could be ignored? Just...fuck. Ow. If Uri was a REAL weapon the damn cat would have been chewing on the doctor by now.

Instead the damn cat was still in the kitchen, polishing off rice and fish. Feh. Pets.

"These are burns, Chiaki," Shamal noted seriously as he peeled one of her sleeves back. "When did you get electrocuted? Take it all off, now, you need better tending than whatever you decided was 'fine'." Burns and breaks and bruises? Yeah. A lot better tending.

"You fuss too much," she growled, fingers spasming as leather peeled away from what had been salved burns. When the fuck had they dried out? Oh, right, probably some time in the week of training and advanced FUCKING WAR GAMES. "And it's GOKUDERA."

"Someone has to," Shamal pushed two fingers firmly against her collarbone and watched as she wavered on her feet, only the knowledge that leaning back against the wall would hurt worse kept her on her feet. "Don't move." He needed a better kit for this.

Don't move...like she had much choice at the moment with her jacket mostly off and her head swimming from his poking. Cruel, twisted fucker. Had he ever bullied Bianchi like this? She'd have to remember to ask some time, though based on how the pair acted around each other she was guessing he hadn't been a frequent visitor in the family home.

If Shamal was related at all. She was starting to have her suspicions. Fucked if she'd kick the old man out though, he did alright for an Uncle. Fuck, she was more tired than she thought if she was thinking that! "There's a cat in the kitchen," Shamal noted when he got back.

"Her name is Uri," Dera allowed, closing her eyes so she wouldn't wince away from the care Shamal had to do. She hated wincing. "She's mine."

"....ooookay then." that was new and unexpected from his voice.

"What?"

"It just seems..."

"I can have normal shit you know. A pet is fucking normal, even if Uri's not." She cracked an eye open to glare at him, not amused with where she assumed this was going. "She's a fucking construct. Don't try to mess with her too much it could damage her." Or something.

"Of course you can," Shamal agreed instead. "I think a pet is a good step, makes you more approachable you know?" His hands were working steadily but she had the sneaking suspicion he was grinning at her.

"Right...getting rid of the cat."

"No no no! C'mon, you can do SO MUCH BETTER than the baseball player! A kitten, learning to cuddle, maybe dress a little cuter..."

Yes, this was going EXACTLY where she thought it was. At least he was acting normal? She'd start to worry if he kept acting all worried and concerned and shit. That would mean she'd have to accept the injuries were worse than she was trying to play off. "That bullshit is a waste of time. Plus, really, do you want to be blamed if Yama ever gets jealous?" A natural born assassin? That would just be dumb.

Shamal snorted and taped a new bandage along an arm, amused at the thought, "It'd do him good, set him in his place if he suddenly he had to work for things."

"You're an idiot."

"And you should sleep. Want a pill?"

Shit, he was back to serious. "No. I'll figure it out." The only thing worse than sleeping and dreaming right now? Would be sleeping, dreaming, and not being able to wake up. "I know some tricks."

"Be careful, I only have one niece and no one wants to see the things I'd do if she died on me."

"It'd do you good," she snorted, pushing past him carefully so she could drop her jacket in the sink. It needed to soak and then get re-oiled...later. When she was back. She knew some tricks for bad nights, sure.

Her mom had shown her.

Fucked if she'd build a pillow fort here for him to laugh at though. It wasn't an uncle thing...it was a her thing. And her mother's thing. She had a couple of blankets in her closet that she didn't pull out often. One was a dark blue with holes neatly punched in it. Drape that over a lamp and suddenly there were stars...her mom's idea again. Another few were small, soft things left over.

Making a bundle of them was easy. Remembering not to toss it over a shoulder? That was hard. And she failed at it of course, "URI C'MON WE'RE LEAVING." she shouted instead of screaming. Ouch. For once the new cat listened, bounding out of the kitchen and hopping up to sink claws into the top of the blanket pack. Lazy little bitch.

Right.

She didn't look at Shamal as she headed out the door, she didn't want to see the look on his face or the calculation. She knew one of his bag of tricks was a sleeping sickness. She'd kill him if he sent a bug chasing her. Yes, anyway, where to?

The only place that made sense these days. The school was closed, naturally, but it was never hard to get over the fence and inside when someone really wanted to...and she wanted to. The Drama Club always had spare props she could dig through, and it only took a few trips to drag the cushions up to the roof.

There, a damn fort. The star blanket looked just as good with sun shining through it from above as with lamplight, and the softer pieces were nice on her stomach where she wasn't bandaged. The only problem was going to be getting a crick in her neck because damned if she'd lay on her back. Uri sprawled out in a patch of sunlight past the blankets and cushions, acting for all the world like a real cat.

Well then.

Sure, it wasn't sleeping? But it was relaxing wasn't it? It was closer than most would expect from her.

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Relaxing until the first thwok of a bat hitting a baseball rang out over the empty campus.

Or maybe the tenth.

It definitely wasn't relaxing anymore after the first twenty minutes of solid batting practice. The only break came when the pitching machine ran out of balls and needed to get reloaded.

She did not wince at the first sound. She should have expected it after all. HE SHOULDN'T BE WORKING HIS SHOULDERS LIKE THAT but fuck, to each their own right?

By about the tenth hit she and her cat were wearing the same expression.

By an hour in she'd had enough. Where 'enough' meant 'she was going to burn new holes in her blanket sky here BY STARING'. Seriously, she wasn't sure she Wasn't going to pitch a stick of dynamite down at him until she actually got to the fence and realized she had a pillow in her hand instead of a weapon.

Well fuck. IT COULD STILL GET THE POINT ACROSS RIGHT?! "AREN'T YOU FUCKING NUMB YET BASEBALL IDIOT?!" Watch for flying pillows, yes. This one looked like it came from some kind of Arabian set, all velvet and tassels from the Drama Club.

Pillows just really didn't have the same sort of aerodynamic advantage that dynamite did, though, so it more... plummeted than flew. It certainly didn't come anywhere near hitting him, but as it thudded to the dirt, it was probably the thought that counted, anyway.

Yamamoto laughed, shielding his eyes to look up at the roof of the school, bat resting against his other shoulder. If he was hurting or sore (hint: or both), he was hiding it pretty well. "Hey, Gokudera! I didn't know you were here, too!"

No, no it didn't Next time she'd make sure she grabbed the proper weapon for the circumstances! "Like I'd fucking put up with Shamal's fussing at home..." she growled, leaning her chin on the fence rail above. "Guess there's annoyance anywhere I fucking go though." LIKE HERE WHERE IT SHOULD BE QUIET!

"You done yet?"

It was a school. It was never quiet.

He shrugged, tossing the bat back toward the dugout and trotting over to grab the pillow. "I dunno. Guess I could be." Besides, all the yelling was starting to get annoying, and Gokudera was unlikely to come down, so he'd just have to go up.

It was school on a Sunday! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!

And, well, it appeared she could meet him halfway down the inner stairs? Seemed like a dick move not to let him know she'd gotten the upper doorways unlocked at least?

She...didn't have her coat pockets to stuff her hands in when she spotted him she grumbled darkly and took the pillow, intent on beating the baseball diamond dirt out of the prop piece. "How long you been here?" Did she just not hear him as she was building her fort upstairs?

"How long?" He blinked at the dust from the pillow like it held the meaning to the question somehow. "I dunno. However long I was practicing for. Little bit longer, I guess, cause I had to set it all up. Why?"

He never, ever gave straight answers did he? She snorted and kicked the door to the roof open, letting sunshine flood back into the stairwell, "I just didn't hear then." That bugged her. Just because they were home didn't mean it was okay not to be observant!

"Thought you'd be home, like Tenth."

He tried not to. Even he wasn't entirely sure why, at least not all the time. Maybe that was him giving himself answers that weren't very straight, either.

He stretched when they were back out in the sun, hiding his wince in a yawn. "This is sorta home, you know? Besides, if I just sat around all day, Dad would start to worry."

He just liked thinking in big, long loops apparently. Even in his private thoughts!

When they hit the roof she tossed the pillow back toward her makeshift fort then touched the small of his back lightly, "So you pull off the 'I'm fine' thing in front of him better than i did with Shamal? He about drugged me to get me to stay home," she snorted.

The touch made him freeze for just a second before he smiled at her, just a little and not entirely happy. "I think I've been doing it longer, you know?"

Well, she'd wanted a straight answer for something. That was almost close to one.

"Fuck," she noted at the brief hitch. "I've got a kit here." She always had small kits somewhere nearby in case of fighting! "Let's see your back." Because one thing pulling off 'I'm okay' meant was that his dad hadn't helped with the burns.

"And yeah, guess you fucking have. Weird ass skill set you have."

He automatically backed away a little, hands raised. "Hey, now, it's fine." It really wasn't, but he didn't want Gokudera seeing it, anyway. Partly because he already knew Gokudera felt guilty about the whole thing, and partly because... well... it wasn't pretty, okay? Definitely not attractive, and that kind of mattered to him when it came to her.

Her face slipped from concerned to cold as he stepped away, hands balling into fists at her sides. Admittedly her first instinct was to fucking punch his back so he wouldn't be able to pretend it was 'fine'.

It might still come to that.

"Bullshit. I'm hurt, you're hurt, and if it's not fucking taken care of at least a little you could lose your mobility." SO DROP THE FUCKING ACT. "You don't want your dad to know, fine, you don't want me to fucking see the same thing on your skin as on mine? Fine. But it gets taken care of today even if I have to drag you to Shamal." AND SHE WOULD.

That would definitely be one way to get him to admit it, but he'd really rather it not come to that. Her expression made him take another step back, though, just in case.

Unfortunately, she did have a point, and he looked away, hands still raised defensively and smile turning awkward. "I thought you wanted me alive?"

"Damn straight I do, but the worst Shamal will do is give me shit about you for the rest of eternity," she pointed out grimly. "You yelled at me about being selfish and doing shit on my own? Yeah, well, back the fuck at you boy."

"...That was different?" But he dropped his hands, not even convincing himself with that half-hearted last attempt.

How could one single person make her so damn angry and so damn sad all at once?! IT DIDN'T MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE!

She didn't move when he dropped his hands, she didn't even speak for a solid minute as she got a handle on herself, "looks about the fucking same to me, Takeshi. So which is it? Kit or do we go back down the damn stairs so I can hover in the hallway of my apartment building while Shamal patches you?"

It was a talent? Or something.

Between the silence and the fact that he knew she was right, he couldn't even look at her when she finally did talk. He just pulled his shirt over his head, pausing before doing the same with the undershirt. "He wouldn't really make you wait outside, would he?"

"I'd do it fucking voluntarily so I didn't kill one or the other of you," she admitted, doing him the honor of not wincing when the shirts came off.

Yeah, that was about what she'd seen in the mirror when she checked her own back. Fuck. "At this rate we'll have matching scars, won't that be all cutesy and shit?" she snorted and went to snag her first aid kit from one of the roof units.

Plus the couple Squalo had left him with as training souvenirs. That guy didn't joke around.

He laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "You wouldn't kill us. You'd just yell a lot." He didn't have anything to say on the subject of matching scars except that he really wished she didn't have to have them in the first place. He definitely wouldn't be saying that, though, because he liked not getting yelled at sometimes.

"The two of you in a room might get me to kill you," she admitted. In the past couple years since meeting Tsuna and Reborn she had learned to kill so there was no telling some days!

"This'll hurt, want to sit?" That wasn't a challenge oddly enough, just a calm, almost apologetic statement of fact. Cleaning burns hurt like a son of a bitch most days. She'd had anger and adrenaline to get through Shamal's treatment, he...didn't have her short fuse to help.

"...Yeah, probably better." Especially since he rather obviously hadn't been taking the best care of them since he got back, and maybe sitting down would make her not hit him quite so much when she noticed.

"Don't bleed all over and you can sit in my fort," she touched a spot just above his hip once she was sure he wasn't hurt right there so he note which direction her fort was in. "Don't fucking laugh," in case he was so inclined.

Sue her, it was the best comfort she could offer at the moment?

To his credit, he didn't laugh, even if he kind of wanted to. Not because it was weird, but laughing was just what he did. He did smile a bit stupidly. "You've got a fort? Is that allowed on school grounds?"

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