Disclaimer: Let's see… nope, the rights to KHR still haven't miraculously transferred to me since the last time I wrote fanfic in this sandbox. Damnit. Don't own. Also don't own the Alice Cooper song Skeletons in the Closet, which was the inspiration for the title.
Rating: T/PG-13, though some situations in-fic verge on PG-15, due to sheer number of rotting corpses.
Timeline: Post-canon, Tsuna and the 10th Gen. are roughly in their late teens to early twenties. But since this is pretty much all crack, even if it's crack treated seriously, the timeline doesn't really have much of an impact on the plot or characterization.
Dedicated to InsaneScriptist, since gifting doesn't work directly on this site, unlike over on AO3, where this fic is crossposted. Thanks for all the Varia-related inspiration, especially the baby rookies and Luss' everything – not sure if you'll ever read this, but here's that morbid gift!fic, as promised.
TRIGGER WARNING ALONG WITH THE END NOTES, since they're spoiler-y for the piece.
Say Boys Don't You See Them Bones
The Varia had skeletons in its closets.
…and Tsuna means that quite literally. His arm jerks, and he slams the door shut almost reflexively. The other rookie who's been taken in at around the same time as him blinks at him from where she's seated on top of her bed.
"Everything okay?" she asks, voicing the words slowly.
It makes Tsuna want to tell her, rather hysterically, that after learning Italian while being shot at, it's very difficult for him to not understand what she's saying, and that the slowing down is wasted effort. No matter how 'Asian' he looks.
"Excuse me a moment. Don't open this door." He says instead.
She waves a hand at him and looks back down at the magazine she's brushing through. Dressed in a pair of short shorts and a tank, Tsuna could have mistaken her for any other girl he's acquainted with, chilling out at home, but the fact that the magazine was filled with pictures of different kinds of artillery…actually, she was pretty much exactly like the other girls he's closely acquainted with. Arresting and terrifying at the same time.
"Excuse me," he repeats, redundantly, and does the vertical equivalent of a crab walk to the door, arms flailing slightly as he got the door open, and flung himself out through it. He didn't bother shutting it, since most of the other doors in the wing he'd been sent to were open as well, looking more like a co-ed dorm on a university campus than anything else.
If it weren't for the way the corridor he was walking through was flooded with killing intent, and the posturing teens were posturing with real live weapons.
He carefully navigated his way through the mess, thanking the ridiculous obstacle courses Reborn had set on him and his friends for the fact that he didn't trip over something or get hit by a swinging blade of some sort. He was also thankful there weren't any bullets flying through the air – then again, from the stories Yamamoto had brought back that one summer he'd stayed at the Varia Compound, the only reason the other teens weren't letting loose with their guns was because the Upper tier and older Varia agents had outlawed the use of guns within the Compound.
Which was just Xanxus and his guardians' way of saying 'get creative, you shits'. Obviously.
Tsuna sighed, already feeling exhausted, and wondered again why exactly he'd agreed to this. Ah, right. Because jii-chan had said he needed more 'hands-on' experience with how this world worked. And getting indoctrinated along with the Varia's lower level agents was apparently the best way of doing that.
"You can't tell me you're already giving up, brat." Squalo said snidely, hunched over the keyboard of his computer and not looking away from his screen even when Tsuna slammed the door of the older man's office shut behind him. There were a pair of reading glasses, of all things, slipping low on his nose. Tsuna shook his surprise away, and spoke up.
"There are skeletons in your closets."
"Well, obviously. What'd you expect, that the Compound's all sunshine and rainbows?"
Tsuna twitched, because Squalo had actually sounded marginally amused.
"No, I mean… there are skeletons in your closets, Squalo-san."
Squalo twitched, and turned a frown on him.
"Metaphorically?" he asked, bland.
Tsuna scowled back.
"Would I bother coming to tell you if it was metaphoric?"
"Ah."
Thankfully, that at least had him quickly shutting his system down and getting to his feet, removing his reading glasses and dropping them to the desk while absently snatching up his blade from the container by his desk prepared specially for it. And other blades. There were lots of different kinds of swords, in the room.
"Do you actually know how to use all of those?" he asked blankly, while they were walking back to his room.
Squalo blinked, then peered down at him curiously.
"You in shock, brat?"
Tsuna turned that over in his head, carefully, then sighed, more than a little rueful.
"I might be," he agreed.
"You're being rather calm about this." Squalo said, and he sounded distinctly amused this time.
"About what, the skeletons? Yeah. I just… I think I'd have felt better if it were just bones, y'know. Or even just plain dead bodies. Ones that weren't half rotted through."
"Oh?"
"Yeah Pretty sure I've seen bones at some point before, what with the amount of time I've spent around Reborn and Hibari-san. Hibari-san more than Reborn. And I've definitely seen bodies."
Squalo made an interested noise at that.
"And here I thought the Don was sending you here to get desensitized." Squalo said, and Tsuna gave a tired laugh.
"I don't even know, Squalo-san. Just… do something about it?"
"Well, seeing as I'm the one who'd have to deal with the headache of the paperwork, whoever the fuck actually dealt with cleaning the fucking closet- Was it a closet? A wardrobe? Is there anything salvageable in there?"
Tsuna hummed thoughtfully.
"Might be. I wasn't exactly paying attention to anything except for the decomposing body leaning against the back of the closet."
Squalo gave an easy laugh at that, which was the point at which Tsuna actually realised that he was casually chatting with Squalo about dead bodies and literal skeletons in closets.
The hand that patted him on the back while he set his hands to a wall, ducking his head and trying not to hyperventilate, was surprisingly comforting even if it was rough. Though not particularly sympathetic, judging from the way Squalo was sniggering at him and not even trying to hide it.
"Squalo-san-" he said faintly.
"Yep."
"Skeletons, Squalo-san."
"Yep. VOI, it's not like this is the first time it's happened."
"But why." Tsuna asked incredulously.
"Because they wanted to test different rates of decomposition? Because they brought their assignment home with them? Because they killed the wrong person by mistake and didn't want the Boss to find out? Hell, maybe because someone was bored. There are lots of shitty reasons like that, those are only the ones off the top of my head."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Come on, brat. I'm not made of time and this isn't shit I do out of the goodness of my ever-loving heart. Time's a wastin'."
"…did you just quote-"
Squalo laughed at him, and Tsuna quickly shut up. Because clearly either Yamamoto had found some way to leave an impact on Squalo, or the reason he'd been so much more vindictively amused about things and the insanity that was their daily lives during their final year at Namikōkō was because Squalo was somehow worse than he was.
The killing intent in the newcomers' wing fizzled out like a lit match in a downpour. Tsuna tried to make himself seem inconspicuous, but it was impossible when the attention of all the rookies ducking their heads and saluting Squalo was focused straight at him and the older man. It was pretty difficult to miss him when they were making such a spectacle of themselves.
"This one?" Squalo asked, somehow stopping right in front of the correct room.
"Hai," Tsuna said, trying to ignore the sharp looks that were being directed at his back.
Squalo rolled his eyes and strolled into the room without another word, Tsuna heard his roommate squeak, rushing to straighten herself out, and then outright screeching in shock when Squalo wrenched the closet door open and the partially mummified corpse fell right out.
"…Did you have to open the door that forcefully?" Tsuna asked weakly, staring at the ground by the closet. And at Squalo's boots, because the corpse had splattered rotting flesh all over his shoes and the wooden flooring.
Well, not completely splattered, the mummification had ensured that the corpse wasn't moist enough to actually splatter. But it visibly left stains.
"Probably not." Squalo said, bending down to eye the corpse carefully, and brushing his hair behind his ears impatiently when it got to close to the remains resting partially on top of his boots.
"Squalo-san," Tsuna groaned, because there was apparent calm and steadiness, and then there was this.
Squalo snorted with laughter, and lightly kicked the corpse away, stepping back at the same time.
"Lussuria might know this one," he said cheerfully, much to the collective horror of the recruits who had crowded in behind Tsuna.
Tsuna, for his part, blinked owlishly at the swiftly approaching swordsman while the teens behind him recoiled in terror.
"…because he knows who killed the man?" Tsuna asked leadingly.
"Maybe. He might have killed him and dumped him here, too. How should I know." Squalo threw back, shrugging languidly.
Tsuna rolled his eyes at him. There was no way Lussuria was the one to kill this corpse dead, anyway, because Squalo wouldn't have brushed it off so easily if that were the case. Though he might have a good idea about who'd been the cause – the kickboxer had a terrifyingly good sense for figuring out what was going on in the Compound at any given time, Tsuna had learnt in the last few days. And he didn't even charge for answers, unlike Viper.
"Mind finding him and bringing him back here?" Squalo asked him sweetly.
Tsuna made a face, and turned around to do exactly that. Because Squalo would just kick his ass in training if he didn't. And that would just make Xanxus laugh. Thankfully, by the time he returned, all the other newcomers had retired to their rooms and had shut their doors.
For that matter, Tsuna realised after a moment's pause, his roommate was missing too.
"Everything okay, love?" Lussuria asked him, simultaneously crouching down beside the corpse to prod at its cheek with gloved fingers. Tsuna made a face, watching the skin give slightly.
"Yeah, everything's fine."
"Just sit down, he'll take a while," Squalo said comfortably, already stretched out on Tsuna's bed. Tsuna slowly sat down beside him with a sigh.
"Could I shift to another room? If I stay I this one, I'll keep expecting another skeleton to appear in there."
"Well, living with that kind of fear builds character." Squalo told him, smirking when Tsuna shot him a dirty look.
"Oh no, Squ-chan, he can't keep using this wardrobe! His clothes would get dirty! We can't have that, right, Tsu-chan?" Completely ignoring the fact that the grunts handling the clean-up would also get rid of the left over fluids and the flesh and hair that had fallen off the corpse at the same time.
Tsuna laughed nervously, and nodded. Because, hey, if it meant he could get rid of the wardrobe….
"Oh, fine. If you're so insistent, just get some of the kids in your main squad to come down here and change the wardrobe." Squalo replied finally, making a face.
And that was that, thankfully.
X
It would've helped if the one partially rotted, mummified body had been the worst of it, but no, it didn't end at that. Tsuna somehow managed to stumble across no less than three more bodies within the first week of his stay at the compound, on the whole. One female, two male, all at different ages and at different stages of decomposition. Two of them were almost completely dried out, clearly older than the first body he'd come across in the old closet that had been in his room before he'd convinced Squalo and Lussuria to have it replaced. Much to the relief of his roommate, Carina, who was relatively hardened since they'd first moved in, but the memories of their first night in the compound tended to make her face twist in distaste whenever anyone brought it up.
Which they did. Especially after Tsuna had stumbled across the second corpse, this one in a supply closet in one of the training rooms. While he'd been with a squad of young storms, all of whom had a variety of explosive reactions, ranging from loud disbelief to raucous laughter. Tsuna had been able to do nothing but bear the hilarity at his expense with a pained look, because if this particular tendency of his was going the way of the rest of the random insanity that tended to plague his life…
From the wide grin Bel shot at him, after eying the body that had rolled down from on top of a stack of mattresses when Tsuna had been trying pull one down, the Storm Guardian was expecting no less.
The Varia as a whole were very well acquainted with how ridiculous Tsuna's life could get, after all. They all found it terribly amusing. He'd actually seen Xanxus laughing at the sheer absurdity of some of the things that had happened, in the time that they'd first met during the Ring Battles. The Italian had absolutely no love lost for him - Tsuna would be hard-pressed to find someone who detested his existence more than Xanxus did, he was sure, even if his presence at the Compound was being met with an uncomfortable amount of begrudging sufferance – but nothing stopped him from being tickled by the insane shit Tsuna's friends could get up to.
"It's because the Main House soldiers aren't as batshit crazy as our squads and rookies, here," Squalo had explained easily, one night, after Tsuna had spent the wee hours of the night defending himself against Squalo's blade.
Tsuna had wheezed out something appreciative, though even he couldn't quite tell if he'd made the sound for the explanation or for the bottle of water the swordsman had mercifully set down beside his head.
"Your life seems to be about as crazy as ours. No way in hell is Boss going to follow you, brat, and we aren't either. But you're more bearable that the filth polluting the corridors of the Estate, if only because you get up to as much ridiculousness as we do." He'd continued.
Tsuna was actually willing to believe that, now, staring down at the relatively fresh corpse with Bel, who was chortling under his breath.
"Another one? Another one?" Carina was muttering, somewhere in the group of young men and women standing behind them.
"Looks like it, yeah?" Bel replied easily, still grinning, arms akimbo.
"Do I need to go find Squalo again?" Tsuna asked, pained.
"Shishishishishi, no, leave this one to the Prince. I'll go track down Lussuria-nee, Squalo's been in a bad mood for the last couple days."
"…because of Xanxus?" Tsuna asked warily, and more than one of the kids behind him damn near squeaked in an uncomfortably familiar way.
He really needed to stop thinking of them as kids. At least a few of them were older than him, damn it.
Bel shrugged a shoulder at him, crouching down to see if he could actually recognise the face of the dead man.
"No. I think a few of his rookies flooded one of the underground training rooms. The shark was pretty pissed."
Tsuna made a horrified sound. Because, that? That sounded like the kind of thing that would have Squalo stuck behind his desk filling out request forms and filing and then arranging for the complete refurbishment of that particular floor, if necessary.
"Shishishi! Oh, Squalo was not happy. Listen and learn, children, if any of you do that, the prince'll just rip you to shreds instead of needing to deal with the paperwork to have you punished. Or the shark's grumbling. Are we clear?" Bel called out cheerily, and Tsuna cringed sympathetically, while all the rookies behind him whimpered in agreement.
"We can leave this here for now. It's been here a day or so already, a few more hours won't make any difference. Gear up, you're all going up against the brat."
"Sir!" they said smartly, and it was Tsuna's turn to whimper to himself, pulling out his mittens and tugging them on.
X
The next few weeks were odd, since he had the entirety of the Varia's pack of kids constantly staring at him whenever he trained with them. The staring only increased when they slowly began to realise, over time, that Tsuna was being forced to train twice as hard as the rest of them, was being set double the amount of written work and actually had to face different members of the Upper Tier for daily spars. In addition to the times when entire mini-squads of the rookies were ordered to square off against him. Without him using his Flame.
"So, like, is the Boss not-so-secretly training you up to be the next Boss?" his roommate asked him in a conspiratorial whisper, once.
Because, even if the others hadn't figured it out yet, Carina at least had begun to suspect he had a Sky alignment.
It was an unfortunate question, yes, but what made it more unfortunate was the fact that she'd chosen to ask it during their break for lunch in the dining hall. What made it worse than unfortunate, though, was the fact that Xanxus had chosen to make an appearance that day. And the man had terrifying senses when he decided to exercise them.
Obviously he heard what Tsuna's roommate had said.
"TRASH!" he roared, and Tsuna got to his feet with a yelp.
He met the X-Gun being levelled at his face without flinching, no matter how much he wanted to, distantly registering the shocked sounds and squeaks coming from the other rookies around him. Because he just knew that, if he ducked, Xanxus would be convinced to let loose. And then Tsuna would have to defend himself. And the roof would come down on their heads, and the walls would collapse, and Squalo-san would be so. Angry.
"Think about Squalo-san!" he said reflexively.
It was unexpected enough that Xanxus paused to blink at him.
Tsuna nervously licked his lips, and kept going.
"Squalo-san's been screaming about the budgeting all this week – think of what he'd say if-"
"Fuck, you're right." Xanxus cut him off, looking peeved.
Tsuna sagged in relief of having dodged that bullet, but Xanxus shot him a hard look right after.
"The main training room in the North Wing. Be there by six."
And he got up and walked out, as easy as you please. Leaving Tsuna to fend off the awed and jealous mumblings of the people seated on his either side. Which, why? Why would anyone be jealous of being ordered to join Xanxus for a sparring session that would be closer to Xanxus aiming to kill while Tsuna screamed and ran and tried to make sure his head wasn't blasted right off his neck?
He'd never needed any more reasons to believe that the Varia as a whole were mad as hatters, but this? Cinched it.
X
"Seen any more skeletons lately, Sawada?" asked one of the Rains, when roughly a month had passed them by.
All the rookies had managed to find out why Tsuna was being given so much attention, in that much time. Hearing his family name while Leviathan yelled it out loud, shooting lighting at him in one of their outdoor training grounds, had definitely helped.
Tsuna looked over at him blearily, head pillowed on Carina's stomach. He'd been dragged into spending a free night drinking by her and a few of the friends she'd made over the last month – they weren't anything more than passing acquaintances for him, honestly, he spent more time with the Varia's upper tier than them. Sadly enough, because he suspected the rookies would be less stressful company.
"No," he answered after a moment, "but I did manage to stumble across a mass grave in the grounds to the back."
There was horrified silence for all of a moment, before everyone tried to speak at once. Including Carina, who flailed a bit beneath him, trying to get herself upright again.
"Dio mio," bit out one of the Suns, Flavio, while yet another Rain crossed himself, looking a little sick.
"Pretty sure it was on blessed ground. I saw a grave marker, anyway," Tsuna offered awkwardly, since they were looking so unnerved. I think, he thought to himself. Not that he was going to voice that particular doubt, not when so many of the kids around him still looked sick to the gut.
"…did you tell any of our bosses about that?" Carina asked, staring down at his face. He'd slid down to lie in her lap when she finally managed to lever herself up, but he couldn't really find it in himself to feel uncomfortable about it, not when she spent most of her time treating him like a stand-in for one of her younger brothers.
"I might have mentioned it to Xanxus? Not like I remember much of that night, pretty sure I got completely wasted with him after a training session, and anyway, there's no way he didn't already know about it," Tsuna replied ruefully. Because even thinking about that particular training session hurt.
Tsuna had wildly demanded to know what business the Varia had having something like a mass grave in their backyard, once Xanxus had been satisfied with the results of their relatively one-sided sparring session. Xanxus had rolled his eyes at him and basically poured a bottle of scotch down his throat to shut him up. Waking up with a pounding headache and feeling like something had died in his mouth the next morning, curled up beneath the coffee table in Xanxus' office, had not been fun. Especially not when he'd woken to Squalo staring down at him, arms crossed and brows raised.
"Your life, Tsuna. Why is it so… colourful?" Carina asked, exasperated.
Tsuna laughed right in her face.
X
The mass grave and random skeletons and half rotten corpses should have been the worst of it, right? Right. Especially since Tsuna still managed to stumble across bodies every once in a while, in various rooms, closets and wardrobes at the compound. But, no, he somehow managed to stumble across something a whole lot worse during his second month there. It was bad enough that he'd slammed the door shut and turned around to walk away very, very fast. Even Carina and Chiara's grumbled questions weren't enough to make him slow down until he was back in their wing.
Carina finally managed to get a look at his face, and she blanched.
"We don't want to know, do we."
Tsuna blinked at her slowly. He wasn't quite sure what his face looked like, but the expression must have been nasty enough that even Chiara backed off, not asking anything. Since the Mist didn't even like him all that much, that was an achievement.
"Excuse me," he said weakly, and strode away without another word, not stopping for breath until he'd reached Squalo's office.
Which was… empty?
How could it be empty?!
He somehow managed to control the urge to flail and throw a tantrum right there, the thought of how Reborn would have reacted if Tsuna had done anything of the sort, back in Namimori, doing wonders for his self-control. And once he was mostly calm again, he spun on his heel and made his way up to Xanxus' office because, if Squalo wasn't sequestered away in his own rooms, that was most likely where he was going to be.
The stares he got when he slammed the door open barely made him pause. He stepped in, slammed the door shut behind himself, and walked straight up to where Squalo was standing beside Xanxus' armchair, both of them looking like he'd interrupted them mid-argument.
"…brat?" Squalo asked carefully, staring down at him.
Tsuna… gibbered. Incoherently.
Squalo blinked, slowly. Xanxus, on the other hand, rose from his seat, eyes narrowed dangerously.
"What the fuck, trash?" he demanded.
Tsuna gave a mildly hysterical laugh.
"That- Squalo-san. Xanxus. Just… how often does Lussuria clean out his rooms?"
Both of them stared at him, and Xanxus abruptly dropped into his armchair again, looked disgusted.
Squalo snarled, his left arm slashing out in clear irritation.
"Goddamnit, I've told him to get rid of his shit before they start piling up!" he snapped.
Tsuna reached out to catch the corner of Xanxus' desk, because he really did need that little bit of added support.
"Pretty sure whatever I stumbled across was him getting rid of some bodies before they piled up in his private rooms," he offered miserably, "they looked too old to be even remotely attractive anymore."
Xanxus gave a rude snort, eying him with a strangely curious light glinting in his eyes.
"What makes you think they're his?" he asked.
Tsuna stared at him incredulously.
"Well, unless you've got more than once person in the compound dressing up dead bodies in lacy lingerie and fetish gear," he bit out, and both men choked. Just a bit. Before Xanxus ducked down, shoulders shaking in uncharacteristically silent laughter.
"Oh, laugh it up, Boss, I'm the one who'll have to fucking tell him to actually clean up after himself." Squalo snarled, but he was smirking slightly, amused in spite of himself.
"You can both laugh it up, I was the one who actually had to get two rookies away from the fucking room before they noticed what was inside!" Tsuna snapped, which was the point at when Xanxus actually burst into peals of laughter loud enough to make the glass in the windows shake.
Which was exaggerating it, probably, but fuck it, Tsuna deserved his hyperboles just then.
He sagged into the desk, peering at both the men beside him, feeling far too exhausted for comfort.
"I think I need a drink," he said, and Xanxus was nice enough to wave him towards the cabinet on the other side of his room without another word, still laughing.
"Fucking leave some for me when I get back, Lussuria's going to be a pain to deal with," Squalo barked, slapping a rough hand to Tsuna's shoulder, hard enough to make him nearly buckle to the ground.
He called back a vaguely positive response as the swordsman walked out the door, though, and somehow found the energy to drag himself over to the cabinet, getting out different bottles till he found one that Xanxus actually looked satisfied with.
X
"Do I even want to know why you're drunk in the middle of the day? Even if we're free today?" Carina asked him later, when he managed to crawl back to their room, weaving dizzily on his feet.
"Xanxus, Squalo, Lussuria, rotting bodies in leather thongs and sexy lingerie," he said, and collapsed into his bed.
"…fuck." She whispered, still standing by the door she'd gotten open for him, sounding caught between reverence and revulsion.
"Yeah." Tsuna replied, and dragged a pillow closer so he could scream into it.
X
"…Stumbled across any more creepy shit lately, Sawa-"
"Dai, Chiara!"
X
Once three months were up, each and every one of the novices had accepted that if there was anything weird worth finding in the Varia Compound, Tsuna was likely to have stumbled across it. Or was likely to stumble across it in the near future.
His notoriety had grown to the point that, when they were all moved out of the wing they'd been thrown into when they'd first started their training to rooms in a wing with higher level soldiers, the kids nearly dragged him along to make sure there wasn't anything strange in their rooms.
Tsuna just went along with it because, hey, at least he could get this wing out of the way. Knowing his luck, there really would be more dead bodies to uncover where everyone least expected it.
More than one of them was vindicated when Tsuna actually did find yet another corpse. Well, almost corpse. Since this one was lying half drowned in someone's bathtub.
"VOI! When I find out which incompetent left this one here, you're going to be sorry you ever reached this wing in one piece!" Squalo roared when Tsuna directed him to the room.
And promptly proceeded to skewer the poor bastard on the sword that was still attached to his arm, since he'd been in the middle of a spar with Yamamoto when Tsuna had interrupted him. Squalo's blade easily slid between the unidentified almost-corpse's ribs in a move that presumably went through her heart, since she stopped gagging weakly for breath a few seconds later.
"This happen often, then?" Yamamoto asked him blandly, shoulder braced against the doorjamb, Shigure Kintoki unsheathed at his side in its katana-form and attracting plenty of wide-eyed looks from the kids Tsuna had been training with for the past few months.
Tsuna sighed, and rubbed at his eyes.
"I'd say yes, but this is the first time I found one that was still alive. Did you have to kill her, Squalo-san?" he asked plaintively, ignoring the way Yamamoto jerked behind him, nearly losing his balance.
"Well, seeing as this was one of the targets Squad B had been sent out to deal with last week-" Squalo shot back snidely, snapping his blade to the side in a practised motion and getting most of the blood off in one go.
"Oh. I think I remember where you filed the report for that one, I'd been in your office when the squad leader came in," he offered.
Squalo glanced back at him, frowning, and then nodded.
"Go and get it out, then, and get the fucking thing to Lussuria, I'll have Levi deal with this in the meantime," he said, and Tsuna nodded agreeably, waving at the rookies still hanging about and getting them to start leaving.
"Wasn't this supposed to be the room Flavio and Luciano were supposed to share?" Carina muttered, sidling up to him while he kept an eye on the stragglers still filing out of the room.
"I think so. Keep an eye on things here, and tell them to find another room for themselves in this wing when they get back?" he asked her, and she nodded back wordlessly.
Yamamoto followed him when he walked away, heading for Squalo's office as directed.
"I was joking, but… this really does happen often, doesn't it," he said, voice caught between amusement and discomfort.
Tsuna gave him a tired smile.
"I… might have been downplaying how weird things have been here, the last time I spoke to you and Gokudera-kun." He said sheepishly.
Yamamoto snickered slightly, Shigure Kintoki abruptly switching back into the shape of a shinai in his hands before he swung it onto his back.
"Haha, might have been for the best. If he finds out you're perfectly okay with watching Squalo kill people now…" he said, letting his words trail away. And they sounded cheerful. Marginally, at any rate, but Tsuna could hear the questioning undertone, and he sighed, pulling to a stop.
"No, I'm not perfectly okay with watching Squalo kill people now," he said, pained, "but I've managed to find enough corpses in the compound and on the compound's grounds that I'm not really surprised anymore. That woman was just another corpse waiting to be found. If we'd shifted to this wing a day later, she'd definitely have been dead. Her being alive just means whoever brought her back from their mission's going to be in trouble once Squalo-san has the time to figure out who's responsible."
Yamamoto whistled.
"Wow. That sounds a lot worse than what I had to do while I was staying here."
Tsuna blinked at him, confused, but he started walking again all the same. He really needed to track down that report.
"'What you had to do'?" he parroted, and Yamamoto laughed beside him, leisurely crossing his arms behind his head.
"Well, it sounds like you've been tracking down all of the Varia's missing corpses the entire time you've been here. That's messed up." he said.
Tsuna somehow managed to trip over his own feet, and crashed face-first into the ground.
X
"…have I really been tracking down all of the Varia's missing corpses?" he asked Xanxus later, after Yamamoto had left.
His friend and rain guardian hadn't actually planned on sticking around, after all. Yamamoto had dropped by because he'd been on break from college and Reborn had decided to take him on an impromptu training trip. Since he was apparently bored, what with Tsuna being tied up with training at the compound.
Tsuna had nearly laughed when Yamamoto had told him that. Yamamoto had looked similarly amused, because the day Reborn got bored and decided to take someone on a training trip pro bono was the day the Mafia as a whole decided to clean themselves up and submitted themselves to the DIA for questioning. Heck, the situation was as unbelievable as the yakuza suddenly deciding that organized crime was beyond them.
"You've certainly been making it easier than usual for Squalo to keep the compound clean," Xanxus replied, looking up from the stack of papers he'd been going through.
Tsuna sighed, and collapsed into the couch.
"You mean, before I came here, no one found all these bodies?"
"…They managed to get unearthed eventually, trash."
Tsuna curled up in on himself dejectedly.
"But I sped it up, didn't I," he said, and Xanxus rolled his eyes, shifting his attention back to his paperwork.
"If you've got the time to feel fucking sorry for yourself, you've got the damned time to fit in another spar against Mammon. Or Bel. Get the fuck out of my office."
"Do I have to?" Tsuna asked.
He backed away quickly when he got an X-Gun levelled in his direction, ducking and running out the door. Xanxus hadn't even bothered to look up at him again.
X
By the time his six month stint at the Varia Compound was done, Tsuna had found enough skeletons, decomposing bodies and all manner of other filth to fuel his nightmares for a lifetime. On the plus side, his involuntary efforts at cleaning house ensured that Squalo was a very happy Commander the entire time he was at the compound, even if he complained loudly every time Tsuna or any of the other once-rookies reported another corpse. On the minus side, it kept Bel, Levi and Mammon thoroughly entertained. On the downright-abysmal-no-good-really-rotten side, it kept Xanxus thoroughly entertained. Even if he reacted with violence whenever he found Tsuna tearily re-evaluating the course his life had taken. Which happened every time he found a particularly grizzly corpse.
No, really. There was this one time he found the blood-soaked bones of a skeleton still strapped to a chair in one of the basement cells-
Not thinking about that. Nope.
"I'm going to miss you," his roommate of half an year told him fervently, with avid nods from the rest of the kids he'd spent the last few months in training with.
Tsuna cracked a shy smile, feeling oddly like he was graduating all over again. Which was idiotic, when jii-chan was bound to send him over again at some point. Not for anywhere near as long, since Xanxus had had that particular conversation with Tsuna in his office, warning the Don to keep Tsuna well away from his compound for long periods of time since Tsuna's training was as complete as it was going to be without actual field experience.
Yeah, like the 'actual field experience' thing wasn't going to bite them all in the ass. Squalo, who'd been perched on the arm of the couch beside Tsuna, had looked like he'd bitten into a lemon when he heard that particular set of words.
"Are you going to miss me? Or the insanity following me?" Tsuna asked her, and the rest of them, voice perfectly mild.
They all offered him innocent, toothy grins, while Carina giggled coquettishly, twirling a lock of her hair around a finger.
"Can't it be both?"
Tsuna snorted rudely.
"No. You're just scared you're going to be bored."
"There is that," agreed Flavio easily, throwing an arm around his shoulders, while Chiara smiled up at him meanly from Carina's side.
Tsuna sighed.
"I," he said later, ensconced in Squalo's room and wriggling in time to whatever classical piece he had playing in the background, "am going to be so relieved to be out of here."
"Are we that bad?" Squalo said snidely, curled up in an armchair with a book and a glass of wine and looking like he wouldn't be happy until he could boot Tsuna out and relax in peace. Though his tone marked just how much he was laughing at Tsuna's bad luck.
Tsuna pushed himself up on his elbows, since he'd thrown himself onto the luxuriously heavy throw rug in front of the fireplace the moment he'd stepped in, and offered the older man a scowl.
"You're all fine. I could do with less rotting bodies in my life, though." He threw back, making Squalo snicker into the pages of his book in a way that sounded terrifyingly similar to Yamamoto.
"If that's the case, you're clearly in the wrong line of work."
Tsuna made a face, and let himself collapse backwards again.
"I thought I was involved in organized crime. However involuntarily. Not forensic crime analysis. Or mortuary science. Or grave robbery, for that matter. And those should be the only lines of work that deal with so many decomposing dead bodies. Or skeletons."
"Oh? How about… VOI! How about archaeology? Or palaeontology?" Squalo offered brightly, smirking down at him.
Tsuna shot him a dirty look.
"Just because both those fields see lots and lots of bones…" he muttered.
He just wanted to say, to any higher power out there, or any lower power for that matter. No. More. Skeletons. He was done.
He curled up into himself despondently, facing the fire, and ignored the way Squalo was laughing mockingly behind him.
X
"HIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"
"Juudaime! Are yo- Cristo santo-!"
"Tsuna? Hayato? What's- Oh man. That's nasty."
"You think?" Tsuna asked tightly, crab walking away from the body that had just fallen out of his closet.
The damned thing had been leaning against the door on the other side. Fuck whoever had arranged that, because the moment Tsuna had gotten it open to shove in some of the clothes he'd brought back with him from Sicily, the body had flopped out, crashing into him and then slipping down to fall to the ground with a splat.
He had slime, bits of rotten flesh and even wet strands of hair all down his front now. It looked, and smelt, absolutely disgusting. There better not have been maggots in that body, because if there were-
"I think I'm going to be sick," Gokudera said weakly, reaching out to catch the doorjamb for support.
"You should go make sure the girls and the kids don't come up," Yamamoto offered sympathetically.
Gokudera shot him a disgruntled look, but the effect was weakened by how green he looked.
"I'll… go do that. And throw up. And fucking come back to help – what the hell. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, now we've got fucking decomposed bodies appearing out of nowhere? Basta con questa merda-" He bit out, shakily tugging out a cigarette and shoving it between his lips.
He didn't even wait to light it, instead ducking his head in Tsuna's direction and awkwardly backing out.
Tsuna didn't bother to glance up when Yamamoto shut the door behind him and stepped up to his side.
"So," he said.
"Yeah," Tsuna replied, alternating between grimacing at his shirt and glaring at the body on the ground.
They'd have to get the carpet washed. Or outright replaced, he didn't want to keep staring at the carpet in front of his closet wondering if any corpse slime had managed to linger in spite of a wash.
"This really is kind of regular for you now, isn't it." Yamamoto said, voice filled with morbid amusement.
"It fucking shouldn't be. I just know the Varia's to blame for this. Or Squalo. Or Bel. He gets a laugh whenever he sees me squeak." Tsuna grumbled, gingerly pulling the collar of his tee away from his throat and tugging it up and off, successfully avoiding getting any of the stinking muck on his face.
"…they'd send someone to stuff a rotting corpse into your closet just to see you squeak?" Yamamoto asked him bemusedly.
Tsuna shot him a wry look, balling up his shirt and tossing it to the ground, to be disposed of along with the body.
"If we check out my room, I'd bet anything there are going to be cameras in here. And microphones."
Yamamoto stared at him.
"And… you're okay with that?" he asked, beginning to look a little concerned. Just a little. There was too much laughter in his eyes for the concern to actually win out, though.
Tsuna shrugged.
"It's not like we can't get rid of them, now that they've gotten to hear me scream. I'm more worried about checking out the rest of the house, to make sure they didn't overzealously stuff more rotting bodies in wherever they could. Here, you look under my bed, I'm checking under the kotatsu. Though how they managed to disguise the smell if they got one under there… kaa-chan just had to set it up early this year, didn't she…" he muttered to himself.
Yamamoto finally seemed to find it in himself to let out a low, mostly incredulous, snicker.
"Here's hoping we find all of them before Hayato stumbles across any," he offered gamely, laughing when Tsuna winced.
The shriek that drifted up from the ground floor a moment later confirmed that their efforts were too little, too late.
X
Laughter. Loud, uninhibited, mostly helpless with glee. There was someone on the floor, banging a fist against the ground and wheezing for breath.
"Well, Boss? Do we do this again sometime?"
Multiple coughs, a giggle, and one smothered smirk.
"I don't see why the fuck not. The trash needs to be kept on his toes. And it's a good training mission for the babies."
More snickers, and one lazy salute.
"Got it, Boss. I'll put it in the books."
They turned as one back to the screens, where a half-naked, surprisingly toned and fuzzy haired Sawada Tsunayoshi was patting his jury-rigged hazmat suit clad storm guardian comfortingly on the shoulder with a long-suffering expression on his face, while the bomber threw up messily into the sink in the ground floor bathroom. His swordsman had collapsed on the stairs, hands covering his mouth to muffle his laughter.
Xanxus gave a single, vicious grin, and leaned back into his armchair indolently. The old man was too much of a wet blanket, and his guardians and other subordinates were either too used to him or too fucking scared to actually react if he drove them up the wall.
He hadn't had this much fun poking at someone in years.
TRIGGER WARNING: Ok, then. Corpses, and a whole lot of them. Rotting corpses, appearing often, to the point that Tsuna gets desensitized due to sheer overexposure. Allusion to violent death. Allusion to necrophilia, courtesy of Lussuria. Murder and dead bodies treated very irreverently. Then again, this is the Varia, so it probably goes without saying? Either way, noting these as trigger warnings to be on the safe side.
There's plenty of gratuitous Italian peppering this oneshot, mostly in the form of swearing - if any of you understand Italian, or are residents of Italy, feel free to let me know if my google-fu's led me wrong in my translations, and I'll either change it to something more appropriate or just edit it out. In order of appearance (and, again, rather dubious in terms of correct translation):
Dio mio - My God/Oh my God
Dai! - Stop it! (And also means other things, depending on the context.)
Cristo santo - A stronger invective than 'Oh my God' or 'Holy Christ'
Basta con questa merda - Enough of this shit
This is probably the most ridiculous piece I've ever decided to post, no matter how much of my hard disk is filled with weird fic. But it was so much fun to write. *laughs* Hope you enjoy this crack-y, wacky oneshot, and possibly consider leaving a review on your way out. I'd love to hear what you have to say, even if it's only a word or so!