Title: No respite in Dreams
Author: lyra_star
Series: KHR
Chaacters: All guardians and Tsuna
Pairings: Mukuro/Tsuna, Implied Hibari/Tsuna
Rating: PG-13 for violent thoughts
Warnings: Violent thoughts flying around through out the fic
Summary: Sleep means rest after a hard day's work. But with Tsuna, his dreams drain him.
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.
A/N: This started out as a hundred word drabble and look how it turned out. I really do suck at keeping things short. And I have this tendency of making the most peaceful characters twisted. I still haven't quite figured out why. Thank you ivy_queen for betaing this fic. You are my sun shine.

***

He dreams alone, most of the time. A vast expanse of nothing but him and nature, nothing to shield him if she were to strike him down in a fit of anger, nothing to protect him. He liked it like that. It was peaceful, nothing to hold him back, no death to save himself from. If he were to die here in this dimension he would be reborn the next day. Better, stronger, wiser, simply more than what he had been the night before. He liked that.


But sometimes he met people. Sometimes Gokudera-kun would come to him in his dreams, bringing his responsibilities and suffocating devotion along with him. Sweet as he was in real life, in his dreams Tsuna just wanted to beat him away. He didn't want his title while he dreamt. He wanted peace, quiet and to be free of responsibility. And with Gokudera-kun around he couldn't be, he couldn't be not perfect. Because in Gokudera-kun's eyes, he was perfect. Each action, each word, perfect. So sickeningly perfect that he wanted to retch. When Gokudera-kun came, Tsuna usually woke himself up.

Dreams where Yamamoto hung around with him were relaxing. Soothing like the rain. He could be just Tsuna in those dreams, but sometimes having to downplay his self became tiring. Hearing Yamamoto's fake laughter, concocted to make innocents believe that everything was alright became tiring. Seeing him smile all the time made Tsuna want to rip it off of his face. Made him wanted to claw it off, made him want to sigh, cry for Yamamoto. Because Yamamoto wouldn't do that, not unless there was rain. And Yamamoto hardly liked it to rain in Tsuna's dreams. So he smiled, the same painful smile that made Tsuna feel wretched for pulling such a carefree boy into something as painful as reality. The tears usually woke him up.

Dreams with Ryohei exhausted him. It was always something involving something that could potentially break his neck, or an arm or a leg, or virtually every single bone in his body down to the very tiniest bone. Constantly having to not try and break his bones tired him out. He had to dodge bullets during the day time. He didn't see why he had to do it during the night time too. He wanted sleep, he wanted quiet, no screams of "Tsuna! Dodge!", or the constant fear that he might have lost some one important. God, was Kyouko alright? Was Haru unhurt? Dreams with Ryohei brought these thoughts to the forefront of his brain when all he wanted was respite from these thoughts. Constantly having to worry wore him out, and that ironically, always woke him up.

Strangely, if Lambo ever visited his dreams he would bring I-Pin along with him. Sometimes Lambo would come as his twenty-four year old self, sometimes his fourteen year old self. He dreaded the times when he popped in as his four year old self. He would bring an equally young I-Pin along with him and then it was back to the start of the Big bang theory. Everything would be chaos, flurries of activity here and there. Simply watching them running circles around each other was tiring enough, the screaming and shouting gave him a migraine. Sometimes he felt like reaching over and snapping their tiny little necks, the fragile bones of their tiny selves giving way to his more superior adult ones. It wasn't a pleasant thought, made him question himself – whether he still was the kind one amongst them all. Or was his heart as hard as diamond? Were their deaths going to affect him? The fear that almost chokes him before he can swallow it down is what that wakes him up.

He would rather not sleep than dream about Hibari Kyouya, but fates were not always cruel and he hardly dreamt of his Cloud Guardian. But if he did dream, he usually dreamt of the time he had been stuck inside his box animal, recounting the feeling of suffocating on air depravation with fear eating away at his bones. But on rare occasions, if he was in a good mood, Hibari-san would free Tsuna back into his vast expanse of land, grass and sky. He could say that they were the most peaceful type of dreams he has. Cloud- gazing with his Cloud Guardian. A favourite past-time that he could never indulge in had it been reality. He still wakes up after a short while when breathing becomes difficult. He discovers that people dying of asphyxiation is a kink of his Cloud Guradian’s. One that he explores unabashedly with Tsuna, in the midst of protests that hold no real rancor. He wakes up mortified at his guardian's behaviour, more mortified at what lays heavy with unsatisfied need on his lower abdomen.

Dreaming about Mukuro is an experience that defies all else. Maybe it was because he was never quite sure if it was him dreaming about the mist, or if he was dreaming with the mist or maybe because it was the mist dreaming about him and taking him along to see what the dream was about. One dream sticks to him like glue. The dream where he is stuck in the prison instead of Mukuro. He vaguely remembers bucking and shivering on his bed, while Mukuro stayed outside the glass prison, watching him with a mystifying smile on his face. He vaguely remembers the horror and indignity that had him ordering his family to get Mukuro out of the prison the minute he woke up. Maybe that had been what Mukuro had been aiming for with the dream. Play to his softer heart to get out of the prison.

Tsuna is still surprised when Mukuro slides in next to him in bed. He thinks he could never get used to it. But then Mukuro runs his hand down Tsuna's spine in a way that has him melting into the larger frame, his back to his lover, comfortably pressed together. Two sides of the same coin, if the two sides could be more different than the two of them.


He enjoys the dreams where he is alone the most. But were Mukuro to invade his dreams, he wouldn't complain much. Of all the people, he finds it ironic that he finds the dream with his most volatile guardian the most enjoyable and the dreams with his most loyal the least. He almost chuckles.

"Dreaming of me?" The whisper doesn't take him by surprise anymore. The shiver and gasp is not from surprise. Mukuro is skilled with his hands.


"When I go to sleep, I probably will," he whispered back trying to ignore the way Mukuro's hands were chasing the scars all over his body.

"Good night then, Tsunayoshi-kun." He hates the way Mukuro whispers his name. It made him feel unclean and exposed. But he reckons if he gave it a little more time, he would come to love it as well. He sighed.

"Good night, Mukuro."

And he dreamt.

***