Title: P. leo x P. tigris
Characters: Squalo, Xanxus
Summary: In which Squalo ponders the nature of the box animals.
Notes: 528 words. For khrfest, to the prompt Xanxus - liger; "Oh, I just can't wait to be king"
P. leo x P. tigris
Squalo was of two minds about the box weapons, and not just because they got in the way of his sword. It was the box animals, to be honest. They ran too close to the cuddly animal mascot thing, for his tastes--he'd seen that shitty excuse for a Rain bastard's mutt, which was just pathetic, and he called himself a swordsman? Squalo had kicked Yamamoto's ass on principle, after that--and also, who picked the animals, anyway?
No one had ever been able to answer that question to his satisfaction.
It wasn't so much that he objected to his own box shark; far from it. He could respect a shark. Anyone could, and did, if they knew what was good for them, and besides, a shark was infinitely better than Bel's fucking weasels or whatever the hell they were, or Lussuria's damn peacock. How the fuck Lussuria could hold his head up after that one, Squalo did not know. He'd have cut his own throat if his box animal had turned out to be a goddamned bird, but Lussuria just cooed over the damn thing and spoiled it mercilessly.
But the thing was, a peacock and Lussuria--that wasn't a bad matchup. Hell, if someone had asked Squalo to pick out an animal for Lussuria, he couldn't have done a better job of it... and there always had been something of the weasel about Bel. And, hell, as long as he was thinking about it, it wasn't like anyone wouldn't have seen his own shark coming.
And that was the problem. Who got to choose the fucking things? And just what did that say about the person the box belonged to? And what if a person didn't want to advertise that to the world? They were assassin's, for fuck's sake. Some things--hell, most things--weren't supposed to be on fucking display.
The inspiration of his musings kicked him in the ribs and interrupted his thoughts. "You gonna lie there all day, or what?" Xanxus demanded, while Bester lurked behind him, pacing.
But then, Xanxus didn't seem to care. Actually, if Squalo wasn't mistaken, the fucking lion--no, not lion, he corrected himself, as he hauled himself to his feet, even though the stripes were fading again, liger--was purring. "Fuck, Boss," he said, praise for the surprise of it and complaint, all in one efficient package.
"Try to keep up," Xanxus told him, but if Squalo wasn't mistaken--and the rumble of the liger's purring said he was not--he was pleased.
"Right," Squalo said, ramming Flame into his ring and calling out the damn shark so that he could meet the weight of Xanxus' attack head-on this time.
Sky and Storm and Wrath, and a liger, biggest of the big cats, a hybrid and damn proud of it, to showcase it all. Maybe he should have seen that one coming. Maybe it didn't matter. If Xanxus didn't mind all the things that having a liger for a box animal suggested, then Squalo didn't care either. It suited his boss and his boss's ambition, that was for sure.
And, hell. It definitely beat the fucking weasels.
end
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