Title: Uncharted Territories
Characters/Pairings: Fem!Xanxus/Squalo; Federico
Summary: In which Federico prompts Xanxus and Squalo to examine some of their assumptions.
Notes: Teen Audiences. Genderswap; follows "And Body and Soul." 3388 words.

Uncharted Territories

Squalo liked to think that he had a fairly well-developed sense of self-preservation, so when Federico glanced his way at the end of the day's meeting and said, "Oh, that reminds me. You two free to come up to dinner tonight?" all his warning bells went off. He checked with the boss first, the look he shot her way quick and not as surreptitious as he'd have liked it to be, but couldn't get enough from her expression to tell what she was thinking or whether she wanted him to find a reason to get her out of eating with her family. All Xanxus was doing was staring at her brother with narrowed eyes while Federico smiled back, cheerfully oblivious to the fact that she hated those family dinners he kept dragging her into.

Then what Federico had actually said caught up with Squalo. "The two of us?" he repeated, nonplussed. The hell did Federico need him to come to dinner for? More importantly, why was he grinning like that, and why were the Ninth and his people shifting in their seats like they were bracing themselves for impact?

Squalo had heard it said that Federico Vongola had a brilliant, charming smile. He didn't know whether that was what the man thought he was giving him now, but he did know that he could practically count all Federico's teeth. "Yes, of course. The two of you." He spread his hands in a gestured that seemed to gather Squalo and the boss together. "Don't you think it's time you started coming to family dinners? All things considered, I mean."

Squalo's warning bells became a buzzing in his ears, a staticky hissing as his brain stuttered and froze. He might have been gaping at Federico, was too frozen with shock-maybe-horror to know for sure or to care, because the man had just—had just—had just insinuated that Squalo was—right to Xanxus' face. In front of her father and his right hand and his Rain and Federico's own right hand, and it was one thing for Xanxus to take him to her bed and for her to take everything that was her due from him, but it was a whole other thing to intimate that Squalo ought to be coming to family dinners because of it.

If he'd been able to draw a breath, Squalo would have cursed Federico then, cursed each and every one of them for sticking their noses into something that wasn't any of their concern when they didn't even understand Xanxus at all. But his chest felt like it'd been wrapped up in iron and he couldn't even do anything about it. All he could do was stare at Federico's smug grin and wait for the shouting and the shooting to start.

The sudden bark of Xanxus' laughter jolted him out of his paralysis; when he turned his disbelieving eyes her way, she was showing Federico her teeth. "You think so, huh?"

He shrugged. "Well, really, sis. Why not?" He glanced Squalo's way, his eyes laughing. "Ought to give the guy a chance to see what he's getting into, if only so he can have a chance to run screaming if he wants it."

So he could what? Squalo opened his mouth, but his own outrage was too severe to permit him to articulate anything intelligible. Not that it seemed to matter, because Xanxus just rolled her eyes and snorted. "Whatever."

One thing was definitely for sure; Federico had the Vongola knack of bending reality to suit his will down. "So you're free?" He clapped his hands together, beaming at them both. "Excellent. We'll see you at seven, then. And that should do it, I think?" He glanced at the Ninth, who was gazing at him with something that looked a whole lot like startled respect from where Squalo was sitting, and nodded. "Right. Fedele, let's get started on this Cetrulli mess and see what we can sort out." He bounced to his feet, his right hand rising with him, and the meeting broke up just like that.

Xanxus rose when everyone else did, her expression set in the half-scowl that usually sat on her face after a meeting at the main house, the one that signaled that everything was proceeding as normal and that she wasn't feeling any more volatile than she generally did. Autopilot propelled Squalo to his feet after her; he followed her as she stalked out into the hall, dimly conscious that he was taking at least the Ninth's considering gaze with him.

He could bring himself to think about that, though, couldn't think about much of anything when he didn't understand what had just happened or why Xanxus seemed to be okay with the huge assumptions her brother seemed to be making.

Oh, God. Maybe she just hadn't—but no, Federico had been pretty explicit—but that had been in normal-person terms, whereas Xanxus didn't always communicate effectively in normal-person terms, so—

As Squalo's thoughts chased each other around and around, snarling together in knotty tangles, they hit the corridor and Xanxus glanced his way. She stopped in her tracks and said his name; Squalo's gut twisted as he looked at her, waiting for the axe to fall. Xanxus stared right back at him, expression gone still and unreadable, then seized his arm and dragged him down the hall after her, pulling him into a corridor that branched off it, then through a door that opened into a small room that was bright with mid-morning sunshine. The place looked like a sitting room of some kind—it had two couches facing each other over a low table—but the air was still and smelled dusty and old like it hadn't been disturbed in a while. Xanxus shut the door behind them; Squalo heard the lock slide into place and thought, distantly approving, that it was good that she'd found them some privacy for this. It wouldn't be right for the world to end in public where just anyone could see it.

Xanxus said his name again, her voice urgent, and Squalo felt his gut turn hollow and cold at the way her eyes were blazing. "Boss..." He trailed off, hardly knowing what else he could say, not really sure there was anything that could placate her if she'd decided that this was it. Wasn't like he could kill the Ninth's chosen heir for making a damn stupid assumption, was it?

Xanxus came away from the door and caught his face between her hands, holding it so that he couldn't look away from her. Not that he would have; he didn't mind staring his death in the face, long as it was her face he was looking at. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Squalo floundered as he stared at the line drawn between her eyebrows and the grim set of her mouth. "I—Boss—I'm sorry."

Her frown knitted her eyebrows together, making her incomprehension clear. "Why?"

He hadn't ever given her anything but the truth, but this one came hard, the words emerging in fits and starts, pressed out of him by the weight of her eyes searching his. "Federico," he said. "The dinner."

Xanxus blinked. "Fuck. If you don't want to go, just say so. He's not the boss yet."

One of them was missing something, though he didn't know which one of them it was. "No, it's... Boss..." Squalo passed his tongue over his lips, vaguely aware that his voice wanted to shake and that he wasn't going to let it. "He... thinks I should be there."

If anything, Xanxus seemed more confused by that than she'd been before he'd started. "Well, shouldn't you?"

She thought he belonged to the family dinners they kept dragging her into? That Federico had been right? Squalo gaped at her. "I... you... think so?" That didn't even make sense, didn't fit into any of the things he'd though he'd understood about what she wanted from him. "Really?"

It came pitched high with disbelief, and Xanxus, who threw herself into fights against overwhelming odds without turning a hair—Xanxus nearly flinched. She stared at him, a look in her eyes that Squalo didn't know how to read and an expression that he'd never seen on her face before. She let go of his face, her hands falling away to hang at her sides. "You don't want that." Her tone was perfectly flat. "Do you."

He knew that tone, though. In all the time he'd known her, it had always presaged some truly ferocious explosion of her temper. Squalo shoved his own utter confusion away and did the only thing he knew how to do in the face of imminent danger. He dropped to his knees, taking one of her dangling hands and pressing his forehead against the back of it. "No, Boss, no. Whatever you want is just fine by me. I swear it is. If you say I belong at dinner with your family, I—I—" His voice nearly failed him. "I'd be honored. So honored. I never imagined that you'd—I didn't think. Truly."

He didn't know whether it had worked. Her hand stayed loose in his grasp and she stood over him without moving or saying anything. Squalo stayed right where he was, kneeling at her feet and waiting for her to decide whether she was going to shoot him for the insult or not.

When she finally did speak up, it was slowly. "I don't understand. Did you mean it or not?"

Squalo, feeling all the recklessness that came of flirting with his own mortality, lifted his head and saw that she was staring down at him, looking confused. Maybe even uncertain. "Mean what, Boss?"

Xanxus drew her hand out of his and gestured, the movement restless. "When you said you belonged to me." He saw her draw a breath before she added, "You said... you said heart and body and soul."

Did he not mean that? His own disbelief struck a moment's giddiness through him, though it wasn't really funny at all. "I've never meant anything more, Boss." He gazed up at her, these words, this bedrock truth, coming easily. "I belong to you. I'm your man, every part of me, however you want me, till the day I die. I swear it. I've been yours from the moment I first saw you and I'll be yours until the day you finally shoot me."

She exhaled and the line of her shoulders eased. She settled her hand in his hair, stroking her fingers through the short strands of it to rest against the corner of his jaw. "Mine." Her voice was quiet, practically relieved.

God knew he was relieved, too. "Yours." He leaned against the pressure of her fingers, tempted to sag against them.

The moment stretched out, and out, till Xanxus said, irritated, "So what the fuck was that just now? You came out of there looking like the world was ending."

Squalo blinked up at her. "I thought it was."

The frown that got him looked more puzzled than anything else. "It's just dinner. It'll suck, but only because my family is stupid. It's not really the end of the world." Her mouth quirked. "Hell, might be better than usual. You'll give them another target." Her voice trailed off and she looked down at him, studying him like he was a puzzle laid out at her feet that she had to fit together somehow. "But you didn't think you ought to be a part of it."

A statement, not quite a question, unless a person knew how Xanxus never liked to show when she was venturing a guess about something. Squalo wet his lips and shook his head. "Never thought you'd want that from me, Boss. Wouldn't have presumed to."

"No." Her tone was falling into measured, even tones. "You wouldn't, would you. You never presume. You... never have. Sometimes you offer, but you never... you always leave it up to me."

Squalo took a breath as she picked her way through that, through things he'd always thought were obvious. Maybe too obvious, if they'd both been taking them for granted. "You're the boss," he said when she'd fallen silent again. "I'll do whatever you ask, no matter what."

"What I ask. Only what I ask." Xanxus touched his cheek, her fingers light as she followed the line of his cheekbone. "Never more than that. You're always careful about that. Respectful. Always respectful."

He was starting to wonder where she was going with this, but hell, if it made her happy to confirm things... "I know my place, Boss." He was her right hand, after all.

She absorbed that, still stroking his cheek. "You said when I finally shoot you."

Another not-statement. At least this one was straightforward enough, though it wouldn't do to be careless. Squalo cleared his throat. "You can do whatever you want with me... and sometimes, well, sometimes you get kind of caught up in the moment, Boss." He shrugged. "I figure one of these days I'll do something that pisses you off and that'll be that." He considered this moment of candor and added, "Guess there's no other way I'd rather go, anyway."

Xanxus' fingers went still against his cheek. "You really think I'm going to shoot you sooner or later."

He couldn't help snorting. "You said I'm not supposed to let anyone else do it. To be honest, I kind of thought today was going to be the day." Wasn't too late for it, either, but he kind of thought she'd passed out of that mood, had settled somewhat, and since she hadn't objected to what Federico had implied, well, the odds of getting through the morning were looking pretty good after all.

Her expression had gone as still as her fingers. When she spoke, there was a strange, strained edge to her tone. "Why today?" Then she shook her head and answered her own question. "Because of dinner." When he nodded, she sucked in a breath through her teeth like she'd just taken an unexpected blow. "You..."

"Boss?" Squalo ventured when she didn't say anything else and just stood there over him, staring down at him with that frozen expression on her face. "You okay?"

That shook her out of whatever she was thinking. She cupped his cheek, holding it, and Squalo leaned into that touch despite the fact that maybe that wasn't the brightest idea he'd ever had. Xanxus drew another breath and rubbed her thumb along his cheek, letting it come to rest against the corner of his mouth, and said, her voice low and strange, "I'm not going to shoot you. Not ever, do you understand me? I'm not—it's not going to happen."

Squalo opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say that wouldn't betray his skepticism. But it didn't matter, his expression must have given him away or something, because she said, suddenly fierce, "I won't, you idiot. You're mine. You're mine and you're not allowed to go away, you're not—"

Her voice cracked and she stopped, shoulders heaving like she was breathing hard. Squalo stared up at her for a single stunned second before he reached up to cover her hand with his own. "I'm not going anywhere, Boss, I promise. Not ever, not unless you send me, I swear."

She exhaled, the sound ragged. "That's not—that won't happen, either." She ran her other hand over her face, looking—lost. Uncertain, maybe, though Squalo couldn't quite believe it of her. "Doesn't make any sense," she said, half to herself. "Why would—how—why—?"

If she really didn't ever plan on getting rid of him (please, God, please let her mean that), perhaps it was safe to venture a question. "Why what, Boss?"

Xanxus ran her hand over her face again and grimaced. "What the hell are you doing? What are we doing?"

Squalo mulled the question over, though he'd have thought the answer was clear enough. "I'm your right hand, Boss. I serve you however you want me to." Whether that was helping keep the Varia in order or fending off family dinner invitations or sparring with her or letting her take him to her bed. It was all for her, however he looked at it.

Xanxus grimaced again and Squalo tried to steady his nerves—had that been the wrong thing to say? It was just the truth, which she usually appreciated. "But what do you want?"

Squalo didn't know what his face, turned up to hers, must have looked like, but it probably showed how flabbergasted he was by that question. "What...?"

She flicked her hand through the air, impatient. "What do you want? From—me. From this. Us."

A part of him was starting to wonder whether he'd fallen asleep during the meeting and was dreaming this whole peculiar conversation. "I... as long as you let me stay close to you, I have everything I want, Boss." He leaned into her palm, cradling it against his cheek. "That's so much—how could I ask for more when I'm already the luckiest man alive?"

Xanxus opened her mouth and seemed to discover that she didn't know what she wanted to say. "You..."

If he hadn't known any better, he'd have thought that the reason she sank to her knees then was because they weren't going to keep holding her up. Squalo blinked as Xanxus steadied herself with a hand against his shoulder, her knees touching his and her face paler than usual. He peered at her, puzzled by this latest development, and waited for her to make things clear—wasn't like they were in the territory he knew anymore.

At length she drew an unsteady breath. "Really, that's all you want? To be close to me, however I want you to be?"

He nodded against the weight of her hand against his jaw. "Yeah, Boss." And she'd just said—"Really, you don't think you're going to get tired of me?" God knew he did his best to keep her satisfied, but—it was Xanxus. A man couldn't be sure.

She took another of those stuttering breaths. "I told you that you were mine, didn't I?" Which, yeah, she had, though he was starting to wonder if that meant the same thing to her that it did to him.

Squalo nodded anyway. "Yeah, you did. I'm yours. All of me."

He wasn't sure Xanxus had actually heard him. She raised her other hand from his shoulder and cupped his face between her palms again. "You're—mine." The words were halting, like they tasted strange to her. "You belong to me. You're my—my right hand and—and—my partner and you—you can have whatever you want. Because it's you and you're mine. Which is why he told you to come to dinner. Because you're mine and you have the right to. If you want it."

Squalo stared at her, mind wiped blank by shock for the second time that morning. "Boss..." he began, barely more than a whisper in the face of all the implications crashing down from that. "I—you—Boss—"

It was a good thing he was already on his knees. He'd have gone to them, otherwise.

"Mine," she said again, sounding as unsteady as he felt. "You're mine."

He had to be hallucinating this, there was no way it was real, but her hands were warm against his cheeks. When he raised shaking hands and set them against her wrists, her skin was warm under his fingers. "You... really? Me?"

Xanxus' voice was low. Rough. "Only man I'd have."

"Boss..." Squalo could barely breathe, not when there was too much inside him, more than his skin could possibly hold, enough to split him wide open. "Boss."

He only realized he was shaking, tremors wracking him from head to toe, when Xanxus dropped her hands from his face to pull him against her. She set a heavy hand against his nape, holding his head against her shoulder, and let him shake against her as she whispered mine mine mine against his ear.

It took him a long time to still again, and longer still for either of them to move from that place.

end

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