i. He is [still] the boss.
The foam rises over the top of the glass, drips down the side and onto the perfectly clean counter. Xanxus gives an even look to the loud-mouthed, silver-haired Italian boy (somehow, in a way, he reminded him of Squalo) who'd slammed his hands down on the same counter, asking for 'the lazy ass boss of this god damned wreck of a bar', and then slides his eyes away.
He glanced at Bel, who'd actually clocked in on time today, standing behind the fuming boy, cackling with abandon and clutching his stomach. At least he wasn't the only one who found all this amusing. Well, the brunette who'd arrived with him looked as if he'd just been called to the gallows—it was a funny look, like the one he'd seen on the fools who tried to cause a stir while he was behind the counter.
The Italian boy growls again and makes an attempt to grab his collar, leaping up on the counter as he did. Xanxus lets him get a good hold, fisting his free hand on the boy's shoulder and leaning down to glare into his flashing green eyes.
"I asked you to call the fucking boss." There is a hint of Sicily in the boy's venomous swearing, and Xanxus smirks because, really, the boy could have been Squalo's little brother with just that.
Thus he decides to cut him some slack –educating little boys was not his forte—and pushes him over the edge of the counter instead of slamming his head down on it. The thud is followed by a worried squawk from the antsy brunette –"Gokudera-kun!", and more cackling from Bel.
Xanxus leans over the counter, baring his teeth in a feral grin at the cussing silver haired boy, and he tells him in a drawling voice, "Trash, I am the boss."
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ii. He doesn't have a known last name.
The papers are signed by his dutiful (and loud) Vice-President, and sometimes he does it with his other hand, copying the signature he'd scribbled only for practice in school books now lost in ashes.
Six letters made up a name no one could ever forget. Phantom letters for the rest, syllables of the dead for the name that nobody called him by.
They call him Boss, Sir, President—titles befitting his station and labels that have not yet driven him to the corner. Coupled with the only name he allowed to be spoken, it wasn't a mystery as to why no one dared refer to him by his last name.
Last names came from one's family.
And Xanxus had none.
(He's only a boy when they utter his last name for the last time, and it's in the midst of an inferno that smelled like the sweetest brew, the tongues of fire leaving kisses of ash and searing pain on his skin)
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iii. There are guns under the counter.
Varia, the bar is called Varia, Reborn reminds him. Vicovaro, where the smiles turned to stone and the devils drank themselves back to hell.
Tsuna swallowed dryly as he remembered, as he watched the man who introduced himself as 'the boss' pour a dark red liquid with a copper shine into two shallow glasses.
Be careful, Tsuna—they keep guns under the counter and poison in the corks. There's a mad man masquerading as a waiter and a baby who sits atop a pile of currency from every country. There's a peacock—man and animal, he'll distract you before he lays you on the counter cold and without breath. There's a shark with a metal hand. There's a liger in the backyard, waiting for food. And then, there's Xanxus, who has fire in his blood.
"So you say they sent you to ask about the Vongola throne?" Xanxus' voice startles him out of his reverie, and Tsuna nods, and even though his hands tremble his voice was steady as he said, "I was called to be the heir."
Xanxus glances at the counter over Tsuna's head, and he envisions the mad man –Belphegor, his name was a Biblical reference to the prince of darkness and he was mad- grinning and pulling out a revolver and aiming it at him, and oh, the blood.
"Take it, and I'll send you a bottle of the finest brew the Varia's ever made."
Xanxus smirks at Tsuna's pale, shocked face, and continues, "Sold your soul to the devil, kid, I won't stick my neck out for you and you can say goodbye to the rest of your life—the bullets are closer on that side of the gates."
He raised his glass, the liquid catching the light of sunset and gaining the appearance of blood, fresh and human, and he looked at Tsuna with pity and wry amusement in his eyes.
"Cheers, Tsunayoshi Sawada, and the luck of the immortals be with you."
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iv. Squalo's hair is not his fault.
He notices two years later.
Squalo's hair brushes against his elbows, and the dutiful (and loud) sometimes-secretary pushes it over his shoulder as he leans over the ledge and tells Xanxus about a baby who could con businessmen out of their own pockets.
He asks about it three months after that.
"Why don't you cut your hair, trash, if it bothers you that much?"
And Squalo, whose tolerance for the drink matched his own, blushed like virgin after her first glass. He stuttered and he denied and he ranted and he wound down and he whispered a name that Xanxus had never heard of.
'Dino'
He figures it out, that night, when Squalo gets a call and he forgets to put down the phone and he hears every word and it makes him sick to his stomach, which resides at the bottom of his shoes.
He feels, not for the first time, that he's missed something, but his glass is full and the whiskey burns his tongue, so he forgets about it easily enough.
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v. The scars will never fade.
His father's sixtieth birthday party.
A hundred guests, a grand hall out in the country.
Stuffy suit, stuffy closet.
Sixty candles, a dozen chandeliers, a hundred floating lights on the fountain.
Eight o'clock.
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His father's birthday cake.
Cackling women on either side of him, shrill cackling like harpies.
Black suits like an ocean of ink.
Ten o'clock.
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His father's gun.
Guards riddled with bullets and writhing under the veil of the flames.
Midnight.
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Burning.
Until morning.
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Six months in the hospital, third degree burns, less than ten percent survival chance.
A million scars.
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Ten years and seven months later, they still stretch over his skin like a spider web woven for forever.
It's fear.
It's death.
It's Cain's mark.
No, no, it's fire.
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The flickering flames are reflected in his eyes, and the embers shine as they return to ash.
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Fin
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Author's Notes: Written for my darling Xanxus-RP-er, Jessa. : AU wherein Xanxus is not part of the mafia.