Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn is Amano Akira's
Warnings: Mafiosi's Christmas shopping, swearing and sex (not overly explicit though)
Timeline: 7 years in the future; Mammon/Viper is still alive, therefore Fran hasn't joined the Varia
Author's Note: I'd be glad to accept correction for any mistake — be it spelling, punctuation, grammatical or misinformation. This fanfic uses British English, by the way.
Cenone = a traditional Christmas Eve dinner made up of spaghetti and anchovies, an assortment of fish, fresh broccoli, tossed salad, fruits, and sweets
Pandoro = a Verona soft golden-coloured version of Panettone (a light Milanese cake filled with raisins and candied fruits)
Capitone = a roasted, baked or fried big female eel
Italian Calendar − what's going on:
December 24: Christmas Eve
December 25: Christmas Day
December 26: Festa di Santo Stefano (Feast of St. Stephen)
December 31: Festa di San Silvestro (New Year's Eve)
January 1: Il Capodanno (New Year's Day, or more literally, 'start-of-year')
January 6: La Festa dell'Epifania (The Feast of Epiphany)
In addition to Christmas gifts, on Epiphany kids get a stocking full of sweets and things to eat.
You're All I Need
It was not even five o' clock yet, but as always with the case of December, the sun had already set in Italy. As always with the case of December too, resplendent Christmas illuminations brightened the twilight sky. The street that usually was dominant with brown edifices was now bedecked with multi-coloured decorations. Along with Buon Natale signs, different sorts of nativity scene miniatures retelling the birth of Jesus in a manger were displayed on most glass window cases — presepio was, after all, the pride of Italy at such joyous season. The sweet blend of pine, dried fruit, cinnamon and roast chestnut scents filled the air. On the yonder market square, a band of zampognari bagpipers and pifferai flutists, in their traditional shepherd costumes of sheepskin vests, leather breeches, long white stockings and dark woollen cloaks, were playing the tune of Adeste Fideles.
Walking along the busy pavement past restaurants and stores, the two men ignored the yuletide gaiety around them. The older man strode in a dark mood and it was not that hard to figure out why.
No, it wasn't for the five brats who had messed around in his territory earlier that afternoon and whom he had finished off in less than two minutes; no, their burnt-to-crisp corpses were mere aftermath, rather than the cause, of Xanxus' biliousness. Neither was the Christmas Eve traffic jam on the blame. No. That was a mere additional factor to Xanxus' aggravation. The weather? No. It was not that cold that day and the snow was even absent.
The last day of Novena, or in other words, the day when everyone was supposed to be abstinent from meat, had always been one of those days Xanxus the gastronomist found intolerable.
Squalo walked quietly behind his boss. Normally, Xanxus would yap when a member of the Varia escorted him while he was taking a stroll. As much as he loved power, he loved freedom too, and his subordinate's presence limited his movements. Today, however, the Varia leader personally gave his strategic captain a wake-up call: 'Come here now!'
'VOOOI! What the he—' But Xanxus had hung up.
Grumbling and muttering, the swordsman did as his superior ordered anyway. Trashing his duvet, he rose from the bed and stomped towards Xanxus' office, still wearing a nightshirt, long john and slippers.
'We're leaving.' The raven head spoke as soon as the tip of some silver strands appeared on his doorway one minute and eleven seconds later.
'Are you fucking out of your mind? I haven't even brushed my teeth!' barked the squad captain.
'Be ready at the gate in five minutes, scum!'
###
La Vigna, the shop where Xanxus regularly bought his supply of alcohol, was located on a narrow, alley-like sloping pathway composed of a mixture of clay and gravel. Just as the two Varia came out of the Maserati, right after parking the car on a wider street, five street boys, mistaking the Varia the members as ordinary civilians, tried to rob them. A single Flame of Wrath was all it took to exterminate the street rats. The baseball bats, a piece of drainpipe, the knives and the chains lay scattered on the cobbled street around their owners' lifeless burnt-out bodies.
That was how the two Varia men ended up walking down the sloping hill of cobblestones that led to the wine shop.
The brass chime above the oak door jingled as they entered and both pristinely uniformed shop assistants inside came up to greet them as politely as they could. 'What can we do for you today, Signori?'
'Booze.' Came the imperious, terse answer.
'Whatever drinks which go well with Capitone, Wagyu 9+ Carpaccio and Pandoro for tonight's cenone,' the other man interpreted his boss' order for the sommeliers.
For the briefest of seconds, the younger shop assistant's brow rose at the mention of 'Wagyu'; a conventional Italian Christmas Eve dinner was supposed to be meat-free. But then, he remembered what sort of customers they were, and kept his advice for himself. He listened dutifully to Squalo's description of dozens of dishes for the Christmas party as well as Festa di Santo Stefano or The Feast of Saint Stephen.
If such words had come from most other customers' mouths, it would have meant one bottle of wine which complemented all the dishes per dinner, concluding with a total purchase of three bottles at best. Bearing in mind that these words came from these customers, it could only men at least one bottle for every type of food. These were Xanxus and Squalo, the regular customers with feral temper who laughed like a maniac upon seeing other's misfortune. Whatever they wanted, they wanted the products came quick, classy and specific.
'Perhaps you would like to taste some sample?' offered the senior shop attendant, for who else bought such a large quantity of wine, whiskey and other liquors on weekly basis? Taking Xanxus' silence as an approval, the sommelier reached for four bottles of Spumante champagne from the wooden racks behind the counter.
Watching the sparkling liquid dropped elegantly on the gleaming glass, Squalo let his mind wander.
Over the years, by some unspoken decree, Xanxus had had the Lussuria take care of his toiletries; Bel, his clothing; Levi, his electronics; Mammon, his food; and Squalo, his drinks. But why couldn't his boss be more considerate about holidays? It was Christmas Eve, for goodness sake! Shouldn't he be allowed to stay in bed a little longer? It had only been half past three pm when the Varia leader rang him. Okay, to some others, it might have already been half past three pm, but whose fault it was that he had become sleep-deprived the night before … and that he had to wobble to his own room in the morning with sore rear? Worse still, the culprit had also dragged him for wine shopping the previous Christmas Eve and the years before that. Life wasn't damn fair; why couldn't that bloody boss do his shopping for any of these needs on Christmas Eve and do the wine shopping some other day instead?
###
On the way back to the car some half an hour later, after arranging their seven hundred and eighty bottles of purchase to be delivered to the Varia headquarters, they noticed a little boy nagging his father about a robot with a laser bazooka on a window display. 'No!' replied the father firmly, 'Your school grades have been abysmal lately.'
The two Mafiosi kept walking. They were passing the same rows of shops as earlier, but this time, the musicians on yonder were playing O Tannenbaum, and Squalo started to pay more attention to the shop displays. La Festa dell'Epifania, the time for gift exchanges, was still two weeks away. He had already considered a box of twenty-two carat gold pens as Xanxus' Epiphany gift, but it wouldn't hurt to ask what his moody boss wanted, would it? Especially since the raven-haired man didn't like the previous year's gift of the crystal decanter and goblets set.
'Voi Xanxus,' Squalo addressed the man in front of him, the edges of his overcoat billowing as the pair of steadfast legs strode, 'What kind of present do you want?'
There was a brief pause in which even the wind did not dare to disturb. Then, without swerving, the older man mumbled, 'You.'
The silver-haired swordsman thought that he must have not heard Xanxus' next words, for the electric train from the hardware store on their right was puffing and whistling loudly.
'What was that again?'
'I want you.' This time, the sentence was spoken in the same overbearing tone as what Xanxus usually used. The speaker, nonetheless, refused to show the listener anything other than this back.
Squalo stopped dead on his track, listening for every possibility of scornful joke that Xanxus might utter next. One second, two seconds, three, four, five, six seconds gone… No 'Is that what you want to hear, scum?' or something similar came out from his boss' mouth.
The swordsman held his breath. If Xanxus were serious, that would explain why the older man always made him spent those holidays together with him all those years: Christmas, after all, was best celebrated with the loved ones.
Loved ones?
No way.
No frigging way.
Surely others could fit the position. Look at the number of women Xanxus had dated; any of them would be available at his disposal! It just happened that Xanxus never went out with any woman more than once — every date was with a different girl, if not two or more. As for the men, well, in all honesty, he had never seen Xanxus try to shag, or even as much as court, any male apart from … himself. But he could just be at the wrong place at the wrong time! Perhaps Xanxus was too horny to wait for a girl to come. After all, what happened between them was sex, not the so-called 'lovemaking'.
###
Xanxus's thrusts were never merciful. Pushing the silver head against the mattress with one hand and pulled Squalo's waist onto him, he buried himself into the sticking upwards bums. Hard. Full. No warning. The Varia swordsman's body jerked in accordance to his gasp. 'XANXUS!'
Leaning closer, the raven head descended upon the younger man's body, creating frictions between his diaphragm and the other man's back. Seeing the quiver that the younger man made, the Varia leader smirked. He yanked the silver lock from one shoulder and breathed a jeer onto his partner's nape, 'I knew my name without you telling me.'
'YOU BASTARD!' panted the long-haired man, gripping the bedpost with his sword-free hand.
Unable to penetrate any deeper, Xanxus simply bucked his hips; his subordinate's body had accommodated him as far as he could go. The moans and groans underneath him became the music to his rhythm. Thanks to the soundproof walls of his room, Squalo's voice was exclusively his. So were Squalo's smooth skin, silky hair and well-built body, but most of all, his priceless expression. The older man tilted his partner's chin none too softly. The mixture of Squalo's angry, embarrassed, pained and sultry expression had always brought him a distinct pleasure.
Squalo gritted his teeth; the other man's flesh inside him was not giving him any rest. It kept demanding for any weak points … for any possible deeper access … for continual squeezing … for more!
The scarred man bit the crook between the swordsman's neck and shoulder as he came.
The younger man swore.
Xanxus sneered. In this room, everything that belonged to Squalo — even the whimpered swear word — was his. Why would he let go of what could be his, before morning came?
###
The swordsman often wondered what made Xanxus decide to fuck him anyway. The Varia leader just called him to his office out of the blue seven year before, months after the Vongola Ring Battle ended. Notwithstanding, instead of giving him documents to peruse, Xanxus shoved his pants out of the way. Answering Squalo's protests with his fists, and let violence speak for itself, just like it had always been between them, the older man jostled his way in.
The pain from the unprepared entry affected him to the point of clinging to Xanxus' shirt by surprise. What surprised him more, however, was that Xanxus did not say, 'Remove your filthy hand from me!' There was no encouragement either. The only the sounds present in that room were their own racing breaths and heartbeats.
At the same time, Squalo would not relent without struggle. When he had offered his loyalty to Xanxus years ago, before the Cradle Incident, he had not meant it to include this kind of service. It was a public secret that the Varia leader's temper worsened whenever his strategic captain was away, for nobody in the headquarters had the capacity to stop Xanxus. Even so, Squalo's admiration towards the Flame of Wrath wielder headed for a different direction. He had never, in all his life, had sex with a man. And with the loss he pocketed that day, he did not know whether to admire the stronger man even more or grow a new hatred for him. The penetrations were excruciating, but as Vongola IX's adoptive son pulled him into a silent embrace even after their copulation had been completed, Squalo suspected that this was Xanxus' way of saying, 'I'm glad the katana brat didn't kill you.'
Still, judging from the bruises on their bodies due to each other's punches on their first, the sword emperor had no clue what induced the second sexual congress, and the third, and all the rest that followed for seven whole years. Lust might not be a perfect excuse for both Xanxus' reason and his own submission, but even an imperfect excuse was better than none. Torturous as they were, it would only be fair to call Xanxus' thrusts addictive, as well. Over the years, the scene of a naked Xanxus the first thing in the morning became a regular view to Squalo.
###
The current, twenty-nine-year-old Squalo blinked. Turning at the tinsels and lights on the fir Christmas tree at a shop's window display, he asked, 'When you said you wanted me, what did you exactly want from me?'
His superior still walked in front of him. 'All of you.'
'Why?'
'Because I deserve it. Now move your lazy arse from there, scum!' Xanxus' response was brusque as always, as though explaining that one plus one was equal to two to a slow-witted person.
The next second, Superbia Squalo's shoes were back on treading the cobblestone pavement again. He knew it: while getting involved in a relationship someone like Xanxus, 'Love' had been, and would always be, an alien to them both. Nevertheless, as he took out the car key out of his pocket, the Varia swordsman heard the older man's voice again, though it was barely more than a whisper.
'You're all I need.'
FINE