There really was no such thing as silence in the home of the Sawada family - Even in the dead of night, when everyone was sound asleep, there was the snoring of Lambo and the mumbling of Fuuta sleepily. It wasn't loud, not by a long shot, or they might've just gotton used to it, so used to it that they couldn't recognize it as being a bother anymore. The point was, they had all grown to accept the constant droning as something normal, the signal that all was well in the place they called home.

Tsuna, however, had other reasons to be grateful for the noises and stirrings in the middle of the night.

He couldn't remember when this had begun, when he first found himself awake in the middle of the night, skin slick with cool persperation and his heart threatening to burst from his chest with it's beating - What Tsuna did know was that it was forever the same, each and every time it happened, always the same face mocking him mercilessly from the back of his mind and always the same name stuck in his throat.

Xanxus.

It felt forbidden even thinking his name in that way. Tsuna wished he could stop, wished that he could somehow stop the burning in his bloodstream whenever he thought of the sharp lines of his jaws (always drawn into that smirk or scowl) or bitter ice in his eyes (oh Jesus his eyes) or the rough echo of his voice (just the way his name was said enough to make him quake)...

"Ungh!" Tsuna shifted awkwardly against his bed, hoping the smooth coolness of his sheets on his bare back would help lull him back to sleep.

It didn't work.

His hands found the hem of his pajama pants, clutching at the too-worn elastic that he knew full well would give if he decided to apply any amount of force (they all spent their money on more important things...pajamas were allowed to be thread bare.) The heat in his blood seemed to settle like a bubbling pit of magma in the pit of his gut.

I can't...I shouldn't be doing this...not him, not him...anyone but him, please God.

The last hold of his self-preservation, his common sense was fighting heatedly in his brain, but the voice of intelligence was getting harder and harder to hear over the fast rhythm of his pulse in his ears.

He's an enemy...he'd kill you, you can't feel this way...

Pampered fingers coiled around his aching erection, freeing himself from it's flimsy restraints.

this is wrong this is wr...ong... w...ron... oh god dammit...

It wasn't long before his restraints had been thrown away and he began to work himself vigorusly. His hips bucked away from his mattress as he brought his free hand up to his mouth to cover it, furiously chewing on his tounge in the vital hope that it would help quiet his moaning.

Somehow, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth only served to add more flame to Tsuna's fire.

Xanxus would never be careful with him - and so, Tsuna thought, why should he be careful with his body?

There was no revulsion in his thoughts, no troubling question of right or wrong. He was to far gone for that. His hand sped up, and his eyes shut tight. He wasn't going to last any longer...

Nothing. Brighter than the ruby of Xanxus's eyes, darker than his every word.

Tsuna's chest shook in time with the creak of the loose step, as his muscles went loose and his mind found ease in the fact that nobody heard whose name came from his lips.