Title: In Between
Rated: PG
Pairing: MukuroTsuna (6927)
Summary: Sawada Tsunayoshi’s dreams were like being lost in a child’s painting…

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“I stood / Among them, but not of them; in a shroud / Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.” –Lord Byron

—

Sawada Tsunayoshi’s dreams were like being lost in a child’s painting, or an expressionist’s if Mukuro were to be obliging.

The winding scrawl of road crept through the grass and the tree leaves imposed on the sky like the wayward strokes of a crayon. The colors varied in saturation, sometimes so vivid they pulsed in sparks of orange and yellow behind his eyelids, like the flames of Tsuna’s Dying Will.

Sometimes, it rained. The sky bled into the earth, brilliant hues distorted into muddled grays and Mukuro could slip unnoticed between monochromatic lines and observe the disarray.

***

That first stroll through Tsuna’s subconscious had been unintentional. Tsuna had been sitting at the center of an otherwise unremarkable field and Mukuro had paused at its perimeter and imagined the narrow shoulders of the Sawada Tsunayoshi he had known superimposed on the broad back of the young Vongola boss before him. He had glanced down at his empty hand and flexed his fingers as if testing the phantom weight of a memory.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Mukuro smiled because it was the easiest thing to do given the circumstances. “Have you?”

“Yes,” Tsuna said, scooting around to face him. There was a line of concern between his brows, discernable through the fall of his hair. “I needed to know if you were… okay.”

His hesitation was amusing. He moved forward; his feet whispered through the tall grass. There was the distinct absence of apprehension in Tsuna’s face. Such reckless inexperience, Mukuro thought, to feel secure in so tumultuous a place. “What makes you think I’m anything more than a product of your dreams?”

Tsuna’s lips quirked and his eyes shifted away for just a moment, just enough to convey his uncertainty. “You could be… but I don’t think you are.”

Mukuro was close enough now to reach out and touch him. So because he could, he did. Tsuna’s hair was coarse against his palm.

Tsuna smiled, having read more in the small gesture than Mukuro had intended. Mukuro moved his hand lower, fingers pressing into the skin of his neck. “Still so naïve, Sawada Tsunayoshi.”

“It is you,” he said, voice replete with certainty. “You’ve been the most difficult to pinpoint. But I can stop worrying now. Everyone is safe.”

Mukuro’s sardonic laughter tumbled across the empty field and tinted the trees red.

***

Tsuna lounged on the bank of a river, legs inelegantly splayed and back tense, awkward in her presence even within his own mind. Kyoko sat at his side with toes submerged and fingers twirling through blades of grass.

Mukuro noted with a twist of his lips that the sky was more than just hasty streaks of dusky blues. Tsuna pushed his hair behind his ear, his smile radiant and his eyes soft like the wispy threads of clouds overhead. He shifted, lying back in the grass. His profile was painted in gold.

Mukuro said nothing and waited.

Within seconds, Tsuna’s smile faltered and he frowned. Mukuro wanted to trace that line between his brows with the sharp edge of his trident and watch the world break across his skin, drowned in flame, reduced to ash. He wanted to press his thumb to that tiny discrepancy and smooth away the imperfection.

Tsuna tilted his head and blinked up at him from his position in the grass.

“Mukuro-san.”

Beside him, Kyoko faded, subtle as fog unfurling across the surface of water. Tsuna jerked upright, expression falling in distress. He sighed and angled a smile at Mukuro, resignation tugging at the corners of his mouth and a flush of embarrassment across his cheeks.

Mukuro was surprised by how easily the laughter fell from his lips, like glass beads slipping from ruptured seams. “Have I interrupted your… fantasy?”

Tsuna bristled at the insinuation even as he seemed to fold in on himself, ducking his head so that Mukuro could only see the tip of his nose.

“It wasn’t a fantasy,” he said. “I just miss her sometimes.” He looked up then, eyes narrowed, as if daring him to refute that small weakness.

Mukuro shrugged, unable and disinclined to wipe the amusement from his lips. “Tenth boss of the Vongola family, pining after such an insignificant little girl.”

Tsuna’s lips compressed into an angry line. Mukuro delighted in the fire in his eyes.

“Your Sun Guardian…order him to bring her to you. Is it not the guardians’ duty to make you happy?”

“It’s not their duty to keep me happy; it’s their duty to protect Vongola.”

Mukuro leaned over, lips dusting the shell of Tsuna’s ear, and whispered, “I don’t want to protect you.”

***

He sat hunched beneath the dark, hulking mass of what Mukuro suspected was meant to be a tree. Hair, stained black in the downpour, matted to Tsuna’s skin in streaming clumps. He turned his head, the sharp glimmer of his eyes latching onto Mukuro’s even through the blinding rain. Tsuna had always been able to detect his presence and Mukuro found it difficult to ascribe that ability to something as simple as his Vongola blood.

Despite the heavy rainfall, he moved unhampered through the mire. The beat of precipitation felt distant against his shoulders. The sodden cling of fabric to skin was an obscure hindrance. Tsuna watched him approach with little concern, eyes flat and reminiscent of the calm puissance he donned in combat. Mukuro smiled, exhilaration perched on fingertips that pressed into his wet palms. Here was the man who’d defeated him those years ago.

“It’s been a while since you’ve come around,” Tsuna said. He wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled them in, the vulnerable position belied by the muted strength in his eyes.

Mukuro glanced around their bleak backdrop; amorphous shapes just visible through the deluge. “Is all this for my benefit?”

Tsuna’s blank expression finally gave way to a scowl. “Gokudera-kun and Yamamoto haven’t returned from Russia yet. They’re several days overdue.”

Mukuro had already taken note of their absence, the network of his knowledge being far-reaching, and so the news held little interest. Although the likelihood of enemies hindering them was entirely possible, Mukuro doubted the two resilient young men would be delayed for much longer. It was unfortunate—the fewer guardians to interfere with his objectives, the better.

He paused at Tsuna’s side, the back of his hand brushing Tsuna’s shoulder.

“Where are you, Mukuro-san?”

The question amused him. “Right here, Sawada Tsunayoshi.”

Tsuna shook his head and his hand cut the air in an impatient gesture. “No, where are you? The Vongola need you.”

“Do you need me?”

He sank to his knees beside the young Vongola boss and wondered why such an inconsequential answer should matter to him. For an instant, all those meticulously devised plans for a future bowed beneath the torrent. There was nothing beyond that moment except Tsuna hunched in the gray matter of his mind, eyes luminous and vaguely stricken, and the pale curve of his cheek beneath Mukuro’s fingertips.

Tsuna’s jaw tightened, every emotion evident in the shifting of his face. Mukuro smiled and it felt weightless.

“You’re the Vongola Guardian of the Ring of Mist. Of course I need you.”

“You continue to believe this despite that you’re aware of my intentions,” Mukuro said. His knees slid forward through the damp mulch. Slender fingers cupped Tsuna’s jaw.

“You’ve helped us before when you didn’t have to. I have to believe there’s more to you than just…” Tsuna swallowed, his lips parted on whatever else he’d meant to say.

“You’ve yet to shed those sentimental notions. They are flaws.”

Brown eyes widened as he shrank away, his arm drawing back reflexively, just as Mukuro leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Tsuna’s.

Tsuna went rigid before he began scrambling backward. Mukuro’s hand fisted in his hair, holding him in place long enough to kiss him more firmly. When he pulled back, Tsuna’s cheeks were visibly flushed even in the meager light.

“M-Mukuro-san.” Tsuna pressed a hand to his lips, fingers trembling, although in surprise or outrage Mukuro couldn’t be certain. “Why did you do that?”

“Because…” The answer eluded him. Mukuro smiled, simultaneously amused and irritated by the revelation. Because, one way or another, you’ll be mine. He leaned forward, mouth just short of touching. The warmth of Tsuna’s breath shuddered across his lips.

“This… this is just a dream,” Tsuna whispered.

Mukuro cocked his head, straining his ears and hearing nothing but the uneven tempo of Tsuna’s breathing. Dreams were merely another plane of existence, deception or truth, a mockery of reality or reality’s zenith.

“These dreams are as real as my illusions,” he said.

The rain had stopped.

***

When Tsuna had used the influence of Vongola and its allies to release Mukuro from his prison shortly after becoming boss, the mafia world had nearly risen as one to depose him. Mukuro had thanked him for placing himself that much closer to possession. Tsuna’s storm guardian had tossed him a few sticks of lit dynamite in response.

The Vongola boss and his antics aside, Mukuro could remember with painful clarity the way the sunlight had burned his eyes and the sag of relief in Chikusa’s and Ken’s shoulders as they’d helped him retreat, ignoring his demands to leave him be until his illusions could support his atrophied limbs.

***

“Mukuro-san… where are you?”