A/N: Da DaDa Daaaaaaaaaaaa! The long awaited sequel to Eight-legged Anti-Christ is finally in motion!
Firstly, I want to say thanks for all the lovely reviews and faves and such that ELAC has gotten over the past couple of years, so I've definitely owed you guys this sequel for a bajillion centuries.
Second, obviously if you haven't read ELAC, I would suggest reading it first, because yeah.
Thirdly, YAY Vongola boys make their appearance this time around, so it's gonna be a hell of a party. By the way, this is TYL, so Tsuna is the new head of the family and yada yada yada
Warnings: Language mostly, dirty jokes, drug and alcohol use, everyone being their wonderful selves.
Disclaimer: I don't own KHR. This was written solely to entertain. Any unrecognizable characters belong to me.
Prologue:
Curbing Appetites and Destructive Habits
They had all just arrived at the restaurant not even five minutes ago and Tsuna was already exhausted. It was a really nice place, in his opinion, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said about his present company.
"Where the fuck is the bathroom in this crap-hole?"
Xanxus, along with the rest of the Varia, were as charming and well-mannered as ever, and needless to say it was a little embarrassing being seen with them on their way to the 'private, reserved' table that Reborn had booked for them which was conveniently placed smack dab in the middle of the dining floor. Where everyone in the building could see and hear them.
Tsuna thought for a second that perhaps the tiny hit-man had reserved the wrong table. But that was before realizing that Reborn would never in his infinite baby wisdom make such a dim-witted mistake, which in turn quickly led Tsuna to the conclusion that Reborn had probably done this on purpose. However, now bearing the official title of Vongola Decimo meant that, regardless of how aggravating of a fiasco this night was to inevitably become, he had to deal with it. And secretly, it was nice having the upper-hand for once. For once, the Varia had to answer to him and not the other way around.
However ever, despite being aware of the fact that, technically, he was the boss and thus was in charge-
"Alright you shits, sit down."
"Yep."
"Will do."
"You got it, boss."
-it weirdly did not feel that way.
"I want steak. Medium rare."
And frankly, it was a little insulting that even though he was sitting at the head of the table, the waiter automatically went to Xanxus and took his order first, assuming he was the boss.
He was a boss, not the boss, dammit.
"I'll have the three-cheese lasagna and a side salad, please. Thank you."
Tsuna then immediately thought that real mafia bosses probably didn't order such wussy meals and decided to put the whole 'the boss orders first' thing out of his mind.
At least they (the Varia) had the sense and courtesy to pay for the meal. They owed him that much. After all, he was the one who benevolently decided to let Xanxus and his posse stay in the guest house on the main estate until they had this mess figured out.
…And if worse came to worse, he had Gokudera and Yamamoto with him as backup in case things went sour. He honestly would've felt a smidgen better if Hibari and Mukuro had bothered to show up too, but at the present moment, their resident illusionist was busy traipsing around somewhere in Europe that definitely wasn't Italy, though he did make a roundabout promise that he'd eventually turn up.
And Hibari couldn't come because he didn't want to.
But in the grand scheme of things, the two of them being absent was probably for the best. For them and for the restaurant.
"I dunno what to get. The chicken here is decent, but I'm sort of in the mood for seafood."
"You should order the fried fellatio, Levi-san."
Tsuna scanned intently over the margarita section, wondering how many he could down without killing himself.
"Fellatio…? Fellatio…I know I've heard that before…"
"It's a rare tropical fish." Fran said over the top of his menu, "A real… delicacy. I guess."
Tsuna abruptly changed his mind and ordered a triple whiskey. Neat. It seemed like it was going to be a whiskey night.
Levi looked over his menu thoroughly for a few minutes before looking back up with a puzzled expression. "Where is that on here?"
Fran sipped at his water. "Oh it's on the specials board. It's the…the thing of the day or whatever. They serve it with white sauce or something."
A loud snort was heard from somewhere around the table. Yamamoto looked from Levi to Fran and back to Levi again in confusion, as he had never heard of that particular fish before despite working in his father's sushi shop, but ultimately shrugged and smiled anyway. Gokudera simply massaged his forehead irritably, having long resigned himself to an evening of death threats and debauchery with their "#1 Assassination Squad", better known as the Varia.
Levi, having (in good faith) decided to listen to Fran's suggestion, nodded determinedly and hailed the waiter.
"I'm ready." He said, and as the waiter came over, a thought passed through Gokudera's mind that he should do the right thing and tell Levi that fellatio was not a fish, and had nothing to do with seafood or any kind of food for that matter, before deciding that he didn't care that much about moral obligations when anyone sitting at this table (minus Tsuna, obviously) was involved.
Besides, it would probably be a meaningless intervention anyway. By the teeny tiny smirk on Fran's face, it seemed like this was a thing that happened often. So, comfortable with his new-found status as a huge asshole, Gokudera settled back and watched it happen without an iota of remorse.
The waiter, a shrimpy, oily-faced teenager who had just started that very job the previous day, smiled encouragingly and nodded, "Sure, what'll you be having tonight?"
"The Fried Fellatio sounds good, please."
Duncan, as the waiter was named, stopped writing and looked down at Levi strangely. "The what?"
"Fried. Fellatio." Levi repeated slowly, as if talking to a child, "It's on your specials board."
Duncan shook his head, looking baffled and also moderately disgusted. "Um…I'm pretty sure that it isn't, sir."
"He told me it is!" Levi said, pointing at Fran, who was still hiding behind his menu, weighing his food options.
"Fran, tell him what it says on the board!"
"Last time I checked, the special of the night was the Sauteed Chicken with the Butternut Squash soup, you dirty old man. Don't you know how to read? Besides, Fried fellatio sounds a little painful, don't you think?" He quipped stoically without looking up from his menu.
"How does one accomplish such a feat, anyway? Do you pat your ding-dong with flour and bread crumbs and slap it on a greasy pan? Or do you just ram your junk right into a tempura fryer or what? And where does the second party come in?"
Levi, unsurprisingly, looked lost. "I'm lost." He said, reiterating what everyone was already aware of.
"VooooiiiI! You just ordered a fried blowjob, you ass!" Squalo shouted across the table, which incidentally caught the entire restaurant's attention. "What the hell goes on in that fucking empty ass head of yours?"
Tsuna took that opportunity to hail the bartender and order the rest of that whiskey bottle. This was going to be a long night, he could already see. When he noticed Gokudera, who was seated immediately to his right of course, eyeing the bottle up, he offered him a glass too.
"Fran, I…WHY?" Levi snapped.
Fran looked at him over the menu. "It's not my fault you're so obtuse. If you had been the slightest bit aware of your surroundings, this probably wouldn't have happened."
Levi, now angry and humiliated, quietly ordered something else. Thankfully, everyone else ordered without incident, for which Tsuna was grateful. It seemed like he could finally bring up the topic that had led to this outing in the first place.
"Wait, if you're Italian, why's your name Duncan?"
Or not.
Duncan frowned, offended. "I'm a foreign exchange student! I'm from North Dakota!"
Lussuria, who had been quietly picking at his garden salad, suddenly snapped his fingers. "Hey aren't you that boy who works at the supermarket?"
Duncan, who immediately recognized Lussuria by his crazy Mohawk, became nervous. "What? N-no?"
"Yeah, yeah!~" Lussuria continued anyway, flapping his hand excitedly, "It is you! You're the one who always runs from us when we come to your aisle, right Fran?"
Fran set his menu down at the mention of his name. "Hmm?" He intoned before gradually turning to their now incredulous-looking waiter.
"Y-you!" The waiter sputtered. Fran sniffed in disinterest before looking back down at his menu. "Huh, small world. I miss seeing you around the supermarket. Now that you're gone, there's no one to impede my mass pudding purchases."
"You're the reason I quit!"
"Bummer. How's your foot, by the way?"
Duncan stiffened. "F-fine. Doctor said all the bones'll be fully healed in another few weeks or so."
"Mmm-hmm. Good for you, Duncan." Fran responded halfheartedly, still blithely scanning his menu. "By the way, if you spit in my food I'll kill you in your sleep. I know where you live."
Tsuna spit out his drink. "Wh-what? No, no!" He quickly shouted, waving his hands, "Fran's kidding! Just kidding! Such a kidder! Ha ha ha…ha…"
"-I'm not joking-"
"-Fran has such a crazy sense of humor," Tsuna said, pointedly glaring at the illusionist, "but he doesn't mean it, you know?"
Fran stared at Tsuna silently.
"Right?" Tsuna pressed.
After a moment, Fran's blank stare shifted to a now trembling Duncan. "Sure. I was joking." Fran said flatly, "Just kidding. I was totally kidding. Because I always kid about killing people."
A tense, uncomfortable silence hung in the air before finally, "I'll, um, I'll get you all a different waiter…" Duncan stammered before hurriedly running back towards the kitchen area.
Gokudera peered down the table. "What was that all about? And what the hell did you do to that kid's foot?"
Fran shrugged. "Oh, I ran it over," He said nonchalantly, as if he were talking about something significantly less horrifying, "He was being a giant wad so I sped over his foot. Like a big, pimply speed bump."
His statement was met with silent, frightened looks.
"What?" Fran asked after a moment. "He deserved it."
"Well, as long as he deserved it." Gokudera responded caustically.
"Stand down bomb-boy, this isn't your fight. Me and that walking turd have history."
Tsuna sighed loudly.
"Okay, guys, you really can't go around threatening people like that for such petty reasons! And Fran," Tsuna turned to the green-haired boy, exasperated, "You can't solve all your problems by 'casually' running them over and/or setting them on fire! That's why we're here in the first place!"
"Yeah I can."
"Yeah he can."
Tsuna looked down the table at the new voice. "Xanxus?!"
"We do what's necessary." Xanxus said, folding his arms across his chest.
"So you're okay with this?" Tsuna asked, still shocked, even though none of this should've been surprising at all, "Fran burned down your house, that you lived in, to the ground, because of a," Tsuna paused to read the incident report that had been sitting innocently on the table under a basket of bread until now, "…a spider."
Fran frowned. "Well it sounds bad when you say it like that, yeah."
"What good way is there to say that, you bonehead? You burned your house down because you're a fucking lunatic."Gokudera snapped.
"Rude." Fran muttered. Tsuna sighed. "Look, ignoring the whole 'running over a guy's foot' thing, we're going to get to the bottom of this now, starting with the obvious question: What happened?"
Levi slowly raised his hand. Tsuna looked at him oddly but nodded anyway. "Yeah?"
"Me, Fran, and Bel were sitting in the living room watching TV. Squalo came in a little later and we were arguing about something when this giant spider just pops out of nowhere. Squalo tried to kill it first and failed. And then we all just kinda jumped into action."
"And then what?"
"It wouldn't die by conventional methods, so I took steps."
"No, you took a lighter and a thing of gasoline and torched your freaking house."
Fran nodded. "Yes, like I said, steps. Step one: Get the thing of gasoline from the shed. Step two: Dump it on the floor. Step three: Set it ablaze. Step four: Achieve total victory over-"
"-A goddamned spider."
Fran looked at Gokudera sharply. "That spider was the Anti-Christ! It was him or me!" He said, his dull voice several octaves higher than normal.
"Don't you mean you or him and your house?"
"You gotta break a few eggs if you wanna make an omelet."
"That saying does not apply to this situation. At all."
"Yes it does."
Opting to ignore the argument taking place to his right, Tsuna shook his head and flipped through the report. "And it says here that Squalo needed stitches on his…his.." Tsuna looked up hesitantly. "On your…ass?"
Tsuna set the report down and looked down the table at the now very peeved-looking swordsman. "But what happened to your… you know?"
Squalo pointedly glared to his left at Belphegor, who had been surprisingly silent since they arrived at the restaurant. "I don't know Sawada, why don't you ask the toothless freak here to tell you."
Of course, everyone immediately looked at Belphegor. The prince, who had been meekly sipping at his soup, looked up when he suddenly felt eyes on him. "What?" He murmured through tightly pursed lips.
"Bel…" Tsuna snorted loudly, half-smiling, half-mortified, "You're the one who got two of your teeth knocked out?"
Gokudera choked on his whiskey. Yamamoto made an 'O' with his mouth.
"You should answer his question," Squalo said, smirking wolfishly, "That way they can all hear that stupid ass lisp that you have now."
Yamamoto, smiled widely, trying his hardest not to laugh. "Y-you have a lisp? Well now…"
"The grinning psycho got his teeth knocked out. Does anyone else feel a sense of irony in that? Or is it just me?" Gokudera snarked, to which Belphegor responded with a rude hand gesture.
"The little shit was chucking those damn knives of his and somehow managed to hit me in the ass with them. Twice. So, I punched his fucking lights out. Twice."
Laughter sounded around the table.
"Th'not funny…" Bel muttered, pouting. "I thaid I wath thorry."
"Sorry?" Squalo nearly roared, incensed, "You know what's sorry? That I had to sit in the goddamn emergency room – which was packed as all hell, by the way- for three hours with my naked ass exposed for everyone to see because the lady next to me couldn't control her piece of shit kid and he kept pulling the curtain back! And after my long fucking miserable ass wait, I had to fucking sit there while three hungover medical students tried to stitch my bloody, filleted ass-cheeks back together!"
Understandably, Tsuna and company, as well as basically everyone in the restaurant, now looked moderately horrified.
"...Did they succeed?"
"And they didn't even ask you what happened?" Yamamoto questioned, wide-eyed.
Squalo shrugged. "I told them I fell on a moving lawnmower. Whatever, they bought it."
Ignoring numerous comically appalled stares, Squalo continued. "And you! Ya little piss-ant!" He shouted loudly and pointed at Belphegor, nearly taking one of Bel's covered eyes out in the process, "I should knock out one of your shitty teeth for every stitch those bastards put in."
Belphegor growled and pulled a knife out of his sleeve. "Thry it, you thithead."
A well-aimed shot glass suddenly bounced off Squalo's head, knocking him off his feet and back into his chair.
"Squalo, shut the fuck up about your disgusting ass-stitches. No one gives a shit." Xanxus said brusquely. Squalo flopped back against his seat, arms petulantly folded across his chest like a five-year old that had just been put in time-out.
Satisfied that his mouthy second in command would remain silent for the rest of the meal, Xanxus turned to Tsuna."Okay, what's done is done. What do we do now?"
Tsuna fidgeted under everyone's sudden intent stares, and took a long, deliberate sip from his glass before continuing. "Well, that's simple. We'll start by rebuilding the house and gradually replacing everything that was lost in the fire."
"Even my booze?"
"Er, well-"
Lussuria quickly raised his hand. "Excuse me hon, but what about my priceless China? Which Fran so expertly chucked at all of us, by the way. You have a good arm, dear. Why don't you play sports?" Lussuria quipped, staring and probably glaring at Fran from behind dark designer shades.
Fran shrugged."Maybe I should. I could make a sport out of breaking the rest of your stupid plates over your stupid, rainbow-colored head. And a plate counts as a 'thing', moron, so obviously they're going to get replaced. However, I wonder if it's possible to replace the hot air in that bubble you call a head."
"Enough!" Tsuna shouted in annoyance before sighing. "Yes, we'll replace the plates of course, and," Tsuna gave Xanxus a weary look, "And I guess the liquor too."
Xanxus looked relieved. So relieved in fact that if he were anyone but himself, he might've shouted "Oh, thank God!"
But he wasn't, so he didn't.
Tsuna turned back to Squalo and Belphegor, who were still silently glaring at each other. "Naturally, your medical bills have been covered too."
"You should let the fucking idiot pay his own dentist bills. It's his own fault that happened anyway." Squalo muttered.
Belphegor frowned, looking around the table for someone, anyone, to back him up. "You know, I did break my noth too, you guyths. No one theemth to remember that that happenthed."
"Because no one cares, that's why."
Belphegor growled before shoving a giant spoonful of soup into his mouth, angrily turning away from everyone. After that the table fell into an awkward silence. A silence that was quickly broken by Xanxus.
"By the way, if that shitty waiter spits on my steak I'm gonna rip his jaw right out of his fuckin' head and gut him with it."
Tsuna managed to polish off two entire bottles of whiskey before the leaving that restaurant. All in all, it was definitely one of their better meetings, though it did make him wonder how overseeing the construction of the Varia's new pad/headquarters was going to go.
One thing was for certain, there would definitely be a lot of whiskey involved.
After all of these years, Tsuna finally understood Xanxus' attachment to hard liquor. Drinking one's self into a coma was an incredibly effective way of dealing with their crazy family.
And he was going to be stuck with them in his guest house until that house was built.
Chapter two aka the actual fic is already in the works, so expect it relatively soon. If you're enjoying it so far, please be so kind as to leave me a nice comment or a fave/follow would be super too.
Side note: You guys remember Duncan right? I felt like he needed to make an appearance again for old time's sake lol
Until next time!
