Work Text:
Tsuna’s dreams are filled with heat.
With whispers.
He wakes slowly, calmly for once, the next morning an entire hour before his alarm goes off.
But even with his eye now swollen completely shut and his body aching in a way he hadn’t been able to register the night before, Tsuna feels … better.
Not good really, not with all of the bruises he has, just … more.
He feels rested for once, feels clearer and more present than he’d felt even the night before.
The cold, cotton-syrup-stuffed feeling that’s haunted him for years now, that damning state he’s been stuck in for so long, had burned up in his flames the day before and hasn’t returned.
Tsuna lays there on his bed, eyes trained unseeingly on his bedroom ceiling, and just basks.
Basks in the warmth that’s twined around his heart, his bones, around his very soul.
Basks in how vibrant everything seems and feels, from the soft scratch of his bedsheets to the tickle of the gentle breeze that flows in through his open window.
Basks in how, for the first time that he can remember since he was young and trusting and had a part of himself ripped away, sealed away, Tsuna actually feels happy to be alive.
~~~
Tsuna skips school.
It’s not something he does often, normally only when he’s been beaten up badly enough that the thought of going back to school turns him into a quivering mess in the corner of his room.
Or on those off days when getting out of bed feels like too much unless it promises to be the last time he ever has to do it.
But today …
Today Tsuna’s body aches but his mind is clear.
And, Tsuna can’t help but think as he flexes his hands against his sheets, his rage is …
Hungry.
If he has to go to class today, if he has to sit at his desk and be humiliated period after period by teacher after teacher?
If he has to deal with getting hit or chased or sneered at …
If he has to hear even one person call him Dame-Tsuna today …
Well.
If Tsuna has to deal with any of that today he might just burn it all down.
~~~
Besides, it’s not like anyone will really care if he doesn’t show up for class.
Tsuna has no friends after all.
The teachers are all just waiting for him to be old enough to drop out entirely and his classmates are hoping to drive him to that point ahead of schedule.
Tsuna knows because he’d overheard Mochida and a few others taking bets on whether or not they could get him out of the school system entirely before high school exams in a few years.
As for Nana …
If Tsuna stays in his room and doesn’t directly draw her attention to him then it’s just one more thing she’ll undoubtedly overlook.
~~~
So that’s what Tsuna does.
With the lights off and his door still closed and locked, Tsuna stays in his bed, tucked underneath his covers.
Eventually he hears Nana leave her own room, hears her head down the stairs and into the kitchen.
He reaches over to shut off his alarm clock even as he wonders absently what she’ll think when he doesn’t come down to breakfast. Or when she sees his shoes still in the genkan.
She probably won’t even notice at all.
~~~
She doesn’t.
Or, again, if she does notice she simply doesn’t care.
Tsuna hears the front door close behind Nana as she heads out on her daily walk.
It’s not the first time Tsuna has asked himself why he bothers to care about what she might think or feel about him anymore.
But it is the first time the thought has managed to stay.
To linger and dig roots into the freshly fertile soil of his mind instead of being swept away in the syrupy mess that’s been drowning him for so long.
~~~
Tsuna lays in his bed long after the house has gone quiet.
Lays there with his eyes closed and just … breathes.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In his hands and in his soul, Tsuna’s flames breathe with him.
~~~
He stays home again the next day.
Stays tucked into his bed.
The door stays closed.
The lights off.
Nana doesn’t even pause whenever she walks past his room.
~~~
Tsuna learns a lot that first day.
He learns even more the second.
About himself and his flames.
About the whisper that sits crouched now in the back of Tsuna’s mind like a living thing, using his eyes and ears and everything in and around him to whisper secrets into his very soul.
Tsuna thinks he loves them both already.
His flames and his whisper.
These two familiar strangers that should frighten him but do not.
They are his.
His in a way that goes soul deep.
They are something precious that was stolen from him so long ago, ripped away and forced down beneath ice and chains and the blank nothingness that had become his life for so long.
Tsuna had to burn, had to ignite and be reborn, in order to be whole again.
He would rather die than ever give this up again.
~~~
The flames tucked away in the palms of Tsuna’s hands darken just a bit around the edges.
~~~
Three days after Tsuna’s entire world changed, he wakes up before his alarm and decides that he’s had enough.
Enough of laying in his bed.
Enough of being still.
Just … enough.
If he’s going to kill his father, if he’s going to repay Iemitsu for everything he has ever done to him, then Tsuna has to get up.
Tsuna has work to do and his whisper says that every moment he can find, steal, or scrape together will count.
So that’s exactly what Tsuna does.
~~~
Bag packed and homework almost half-done for once, change slowly the whisper had told him, Tsuna locks his bedroom door behind him and then leaves the house.
The walk to school goes by faster than he remembers.
Then again it might just be because he doesn’t trip once on the walk there.
~~~
Namimori Elementary hasn’t changed in the two days since Tsuna last saw it.
A part of him wishes it had burned to the ground in the meantime.
Another part reminds Tsuna of just how easily those men in the warehouse had been reduced to nothing more than ash and cinder.
His whisper sings of blind spots and storage closets, of stairwells and boiler rooms, places where a flame could spark and not be seen until it was too late to stop the spread.
Tsuna tucks the thoughts down and away, tightens his grip on his school bag, and keeps moving forward through the gate.
~~~
The other students haven’t changed either.
Despite his entire world having rearranged itself in the space of a handful of minutes, Tsuna wasn’t really expecting them to have changed too.
Especially not so quickly and for no reason but …
Well.
Tsuna cleans the trash out of his shoe locker with hands that shake and fingers that long to spark.
The shoe locker is supposed to be his.
It has his name on it. It’s where he puts his shoes.
And they’ve dirtied it.
Filled it with trash and tacks and wads of chewed up gum.
Things meant to hurt and disgust him.
Things meant to remind Tsuna just what they think of him.
Things meant to remind Tsuna that he is disposable, is used up and no good.
To remind him yet again that he is not welcome here.
~~~
Tsuna goes to class.
Ignores the disbelief on his teacher’s face when he turns in homework that’s actually been half-completed.
He sits at the desk that is his in name only.
He breathes.
Pressed against the desktop his hands shake.
But they do not spark.
As far as Tsuna is concerned that’s the real victory.
~~~
Tsuna’s bedroom door is open when he gets home from school.
Rage rips through him fast and hard as flames finally spark to life in the palms of his hands.
“Silly Tsu-kun,” Nana says as she makes her way up the stairs behind him, a laundry basket on her hip. “You locked your bedroom door when you left today. You know better than that.”
Nana steps past Tsuna and into his bedroom, setting the basket down on the floor before pulling a fresh set of sheets out of it.
“Mama can’t clean your messy room if you do that,” Nana tells him, not even bothering to turn and look in his direction.
Tsuna forces himself to breathe, to curl his hands around his flames to keep them contained.
“I-I,” Tsuna swallows harshly around the screaming rage that’s bubbled up inside of him, “it’s my room. I can clean it.”
“My lazy, silly Tsu-kun clean?” Nana laughs as she leans forward to smooth the sheet over the mattress and tuck away the corners. “Better let Mama do it instead so it’ll be done right.”
Tsuna turns on his heel and walks away.
Back down the stairs.
Out of the house.
Away from Nana and her laughter and open doors that should have been locked.
~~~
Tsuna comes back to himself at the park, tucked away beneath the slide where he used to hide sometimes when the older kids would chase him.
He’s so angry.
Is rageful in a way so different to the mythic sort of fury that burns inside of him whenever he thinks about Iemitsu.
This feels different somehow.
More … possessive.
Tsuna doesn’t understand.
So in the back of his mind, Tsuna’s whisper begins to sing.
~~~
His bedroom.
His shoe locker.
The desk in the classroom.
All things that should be his but are not.
At least not in ways that matter.
Not in ways that Tsuna can protect.
Everything Tsuna has others can destroy or take.
Everything Tsuna has others can touch and change.
~~~
The bitter, rage inducing truth is that Tsuna has nothing and no one to truly call his own.
Nana is here and she loves him but Tsuna knows that it is in an absent-minded sort of way, like one does a pet of some sort.
She feeds him and clothes him and buys him the occasional treat but otherwise if Tsuna’s not directly under foot Nana doesn’t really think of him.
Her heart has always belonged to Iemitsu first and foremost.
Iemitsu in turn has never belonged to either of them.
Tsuna had known that even before his flames had cleared his mind.
Still, it might all be more bearable if Tsuna had anything or anyone else, but he doesn’t.
Tsuna has no other family that he knows of and has never actually had friends.
So …
The bedroom is not his so it is not safe.
The school is not his so it is not safe.
This town is not his so it is not safe.
And Tsuna …
Tsuna is alone.
Empty.
Adrift.
~~~
Tsuna has no territory.
~~~
E x c e p t …
~~~
There is something Tsuna has now.
Something that he’d rather die than give up again.
Something that fills him with warmth.
Something that is going to help him achieve his goal.
Tsuna has himself now.
Himself, his flames, and the whisper that lives inside of his mind.
So if there’s nothing and no one else around for him, then Tsuna will simply have to turn that yearning ache, that rageful sort of possessiveness that’s blossomed to life inside of him, inwards.
If he cannot have family or friends or a locked bedroom door, cannot have people or places or things that fill him up and keep him safely anchored, then he will have to learn to find those things within himself.
Within all that lives inside of him.
Tsuna will have to learn to be enough for himself.
~~~
Deep inside of Tsuna, in that place he can feel and sense but cannot yet touch, in the place that his whisper sings of but he cannot yet see, the edges of his gold-orange flames flicker.
Darken.
Turn just the slightest bit inwards.
And then …
They begin to grow.
Flame feeding flame in an endless sort of loop.
~~~
Time passes.
Tsuna’s bruises heal in the blink of an eye, still dark and aching one day and simply gone the next.
He doesn’t bother to lock his bedroom door again.
He stops using his shoe locker entirely.
He remains alone, still sneered at, still a bottom-of-the-food-chain type of nobody.
But Tsuna doesn’t actually care anymore.
Tsuna’s mind feels clear and sharp and present. His grades are already on a slow but steady rise, each assignment guided by his whisper which tells him just what he can and cannot do before accusations of cheating start being hurled around.
Above all else, Tsuna is done being the perfect target.
His whisper keeps him safe, helps him know when to run and when to hide, what routes to take to and from school and when he should hop over a classmate’s foot or duck beneath their elbow.
He avoids confrontation and keeps his head down as much as possible.
As a result, Tsuna is bruise and cut free for the first time in years now.
It’s good.
He’s as close to happy as he can be, as close to the warm, carefree joy of years ago as he’s ever been.
Honestly, now that he has this?
Tsuna doesn’t even really want friends anymore.
Not now.
Not even with the way something inside of him seems to reach towards some of the people around him sometimes.
Like invisible tendrils tasting something about them that Tsuna doesn’t have a name for.
He doesn’t allow himself to linger over those people though, pulling whatever it is that reaches towards them back as quickly as he can.
Because Tsuna doesn’t want friends.
Not if his only options are the people in Namimori.
Not if having friends might mean having to let any of these people close.
These people who have either hurt and humiliated or ignored and avoided Tsuna for his entire life.
Even if Tsuna was able to forgive them for what they have and have not done to or for him, he’d never be able to forget it.
Would never be able to truly trust them with all of himself.
Besides, Tsuna has something better now.
He has his flames.
~~~
With his school work coming easier and easier with every day that goes by, Tsuna finds himself with even more free time on his hands than usual.
Except the various anime, manga, and video games he used to stumble and struggle his way through to ignore how lonely he was, no longer hold much appeal to Tsuna.
They are easy now in a way he can barely handle.
Easy in a way that makes his breathing come quick and jagged.
Easy in a way that makes his hands shake and his vision turn dark around the edges.
Easy in a way that makes him want to rage.
So it’s only natural that he turns his ever-growing ability to focus toward his flames.
~~~
Mornings before school, lunch breaks hidden in the janitor’s closet, afternoons in the park, and late nights in his silent room.
Any and every place and time Tsuna gets the chance he’s practicing with his flames.
Calling on them, keeping them out, making them bigger or smaller.
Anything and everything he can think of and a few things he may or may not have pulled the ideas for from other sources.
Tsuna tries it all.
Every failure pushes him forward.
Every success feels like one step closer to his ultimate goal.
~~~
The whisper directs him as well.
Sends him on morning and evening runs, has him doing things like stealing Nana’s wrist and ankle weights to wear throughout the day and learning a stretching routine.
Tsuna pushes himself to his limits with his flames and with his body and then he grits his teeth and pushes himself more.
~~~
Stronger, the whisper tells Tsuna when he calls his dark-edged flames up in his palms, focusing on making them hotter, denser.
Better, it urges him when he figures out how to wrap his flames around his fists, figures out how to throw them across his room, figures out how to feed them back into themselves on purpose, figures out how to do a dozen little tricks and then thinks up a dozen more.
Faster, it presses when Tsuna is out on his evening run, weights on his wrists and ankles and rocks in his backpack.
If you want to kill him, it practically coos late at night when Tsuna is panting with exhaustion, you will have to be more.
Tsuna grits his teeth and pushes forward.
~~~
Things get noticeably easier day by day.
Tsuna’s aches and pains heal faster and faster as he goes.
He’s able to do more for longer, is able to push himself faster and further every single time.
It feels good.
Feels right.
~~~
One day, Tsuna knows, he’s going to get his moment, his opportunity, to strike.
One day, maybe not soon, Tsuna is going to be standing in front of that man again.
And this time …
This time Tsuna is going to be strong enough to make sure it’s the last time.
If he has to push himself to the breaking point and then beyond to get there?
If he has to kill the parts of him that were made dame with his own two hands?
So be it.
~~~
This is what Tsuna has.
This is all that he needs.
His flames, that purring little voice in the back of his head, and his rage.