It was true that the fourteen year old Squalo did not have any negative feelings about the train of unfortunate events that occurred around him - but rest assured, he was not cruel enough to have any positive feelings either. He was simply nonchalant, which is not something you should feel when you find yourself in the middle of an all-out-war between two mafia families - even if said families were nothing but a blip on the real mafioso's enemy-dar, when you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with your overstressed father's deathly friend, the heart-attack, on the same day that your mother got murdered in a tiny warehouse halfway across the city, or when you find yourself the only one alive from all of the thirty seven members of your so-called family, leaving you homeless and penniless.
But Squalo was just that kind of kid, so all was well.
Or all was well in the head of Squalo, the one and only Superbi left alive on the face of the Earth, who did not even feel the need to sit on a rock somewhere near the ocean and think about the loss he should be feeling or the need to at least take some of the important items that belonged to his family in his lazed departure.
Yes, all was well.
However, even if Squalo was all about his sudden situation, he did find it somewhat a 'pain in the ass' since he did have to find a way to keep on living, and so we arrive at the current scene.
It would have been a big laugh if any of Squalo's friends ever saw him like that, with his ever so scowling face tanned by the harsh sun, with his sweat dampened silver locks pushed back with a headband, and the funny sight of him trying, futilely, to sell fish on the very competitive market of Pescara.
Squalo's slim silver eyebrow was twitching when the little boy, who belonged to the lady who sold fruit across him, ate the juicy appearance of the red, red apple with a sort of show off manner.
His stomach growled, his head ached, his feet hurt, he felt like he was taking a shower in his own sweat, and this kid was, by all means, the most annoying child he has ever met.
Of course, all children were annoying to him, and he sometimes, or very often, had the urge to end their lives. That act of murder is actually a very saintly act for he was, quite literally, preventing many headaches to come.
But the brat was going to die sometime later anyway, so he decided to just ignore it and get on with his grocery-market life, and continue on being oblivious to the fact that he was, indeed, a child himself.
"Buy the fucking fish…" he muttered to an old woman who passed close enough to hear him without him having to yell or shout. He had yelled and screamed since six in the morning and after seven hours of non-stop competition that ended with him losing every single time, he couldn't be bothered to shout about some ungodly tasting fish to a deaf old woman - even though he still hoped the woman would come buy some fish so he could eat some apples or something.
Too bad, though, because the old woman only spared him a cold glance that obviously meant 'this punk looks like a rip-off, little foul thing', which snapped the very thin thread that our silver headed friend was hanging from.
Squalo stood up from his chair and flipped his stand before simply walking away feeling sort of like a badass motherfucker. He was, with no doubt, thinking of how the indignant old lady must be looking at him in a shocked and exasperated way, and how the little boy must have admiration and sparkles in his eyes, which pulled his dirty face into a toothy grin.
Apparently, no one has ever told poor Squalo that he looked kind of idiotic when he grins like that, but on with whatever story this is.
Ah, but before we move on, we must also take note that Squalo's grocery-market employer, Rabuta, was quite displeased with the actions of our not-so-thoughtful main character, and swore to 'teach' our silver boy a good 'lesson' if he ever saw him again, which is the reason why Squalo went back to the Superbi 'hide-out', grabbed his father's treasured spatha, and fled to Milano.
In Milano, he pursued what he deemed was his destiny - to learn the ways of the sword and to defeat everyone who was better than him at said style of fighting. it was, as it was always with the Superbis, an art rather than survival before the last Superbi, Squalo, decided to just slice people in half with it in a very ungraceful manner. He did, in the end, learn to be elegant and magnificent when using that old spatha he never lets go of.
Soon, Squalo was taken into the Vongola famiglia for being the last Superbi, or was it because his swordsmanship has become so powerful? Well, it didn't matter much, but this is how it happened.
He was about sixteen when he as suddenly shoved into a rather shiny looking black sedan, five minutes after he had come back from his journey to the east. He was, however, no longer the we knew of, and was the loudest motherfucker that has ever entered the mafia world.
Which was, we begrudgingly admit, somewhat impressing, but to the men who were ordered to capture Superbi Squalo, it was very unfortunate and annoying that he could raise his voice to such a deafening volume. He then, after lots of shouting, questioning, and violence, met the Vongole Boss.
Squalo was, to be quite honest, disappointed that he met the ninth boss, not the first, which he did not realize, until a while later, was something ridiculous to be disappointed about - with all the other bosses dead and 'floating in the sea'.
He was, at least, considered to be a very important person in the famiglia, and was welcomed fairly warmly by most of the members. He also noticed that many of the fearsome Vongolas were softy types - there were the loving kind, the big soft hearts, the cowardly looking ones, and the actually mafia-type bunch.
And then there was Xanxus.
Squalo met Xanxus when he was strolling through the Nineth's mansion while hugging his spatha in a sort of serious-but-funny way. It was a very important day to Squalo, even though he believes that to Xanxus, it was simply another Tuesday.
He, after suddenly bumping into someone while rounding a particularity suspicious looking dark corner, getting a glass containing orange juice shatter on top of his head, and getting a good kick to the stomach, did he yell out his trademark 'voi' and look up to the ever so wrathful eighteen year old Xanxus.
Of course, being who he is, Squalo attacked Xanxus without hesitate and pretty much kicked ass until, somehow, he found himself burning up, which didn't stop him from using his still incomplete sword attacks and ignoring the flames. They went all out like that until someone put out the fire and were stopped by the Ninth, who explained to Squalo how Xanxus was his 'son', personally.
Squalo being a sort of weird bro, decided that how Xanxus became the 'son' of the Vongola Ninth was a sort of cool act, and that is how his undying loyalty to the brunet started.
About a few weeks later, as Squalo was, by usual, polishing his sword and admiring that particular glint in the top left of the special metal when Xanxus came sauntering into the room of the silver head with the usual smoldering look and offered to kill the swordsman in a politer-than-normal way with about five mentions of the word 'trash' and seven mentions of the word 'fuck' and it's variables. Squalo replied in a similarly polite fashion, telling Xanxus to kindly bugger off.
Squalo, even to this day, when he is a fifty-one year old man, does not understand how or why he declined such offer. Surely, Squalo wouldn't have died, but surely, it would and could have been fun. This thought proves that even when he became a wise gramps, his mind still worked in that weird fashion of the Superbi famiglia.
Anyway, him declining the offer ended in a weird sort of friendship being born since Xanxus was somewhat impressed with the uncowardly act of denying himself and his wants, and Squalo being somewhat impressed with how Xanxus acted and thought.
Then as sudden as their first meeting, Squalo just departed without a word to polish his swordsman skills when he turned seventeen. He still had his moments, and it's not like Xanxus really cared anyway.
So, he shrugged and went off to kill a bunch of sword wielding men, who he is kind of thankful for his current power and skills, though the amount of pain inflicted by these men was smoldering. This 'smoldering', from time to time, reminded him of his friend-of-sorts, Xanxus.
After about three years, Squalo is back and the whole of Italy is buzzing about how the Shark defeated the Sword King. The Ninth was impressed, even though he felt remorse for the head of Varia, and decided that Squalo should be the head since he 'earned it'.
However, to everyone's surprise - our main character had somehow managed to master the element of spontaneousness, decided he did not have enough 'smolder' to be the head of the assassins and declared that he will only join Varia and stay in the famiglia if Xanxus was made boss of the elite group. The Ninth, no matter how puzzled by the request, complied as it was quite useful for him to have the so-called adopted son out of shaggy grey hair.
Xanxus, as annoyed as he was by the turn of events, found this to be a sort of step towards being the tenth Vongola boss and stayed tamed, sort of - as Xanxus was untamable.
Also, Squalo declared that he would grow out his silver locks and chop it off only when Xanxus was the boss of Vongola.
All this made their friendship bloom to a very unhealthy level.
But wait, the actual and seriously unhealthy level started when Squalo was at the age of twenty-one and when Xanxus was twenty-three. It was truly a very blossoming age for them - or anyone - which was irrelevant to how these two started the whole thing.
Xanxus, being the alcoholic he was, got overly drunk and decided that a very noticeable boner was what needed to spring up when Squalo was reporting about some random head of whichever family he just assassinated.
Squalo, who had a minute of illogic, decided that laughing loud enough to shake the whole mansion after noticing his so-called boss's boner and drunkenness was a good idea.
This is how Squalo ended up being on the receiving end of Xanxus's dick, and to be honest, we don't know how that is anything funny, but it was.
After that incident, Squalo disappeared for another year, which was, as it always have been and will be, a thing with everyone.
However, when he returned, everything wasn't very shrug-y. Xanxus jumped him, and there was lots of dick and heat and bad words involved.
Of course, Xanxus and Squalo was, and will always be, friends. Nothing more and nothing less, which was what was so special about their strange relationship that no one in the whole famiglia ever questioned. It was that sort of relationship where one, Squalo, would do anything for the other, and one, Xanxus, wouldn't be able to live on without the other. If you understood that.
So, if you didn't know, during all the fighting going on in the mafia world with the new addition of Sawada Tsunayoshi team, Xanxus and Squalo also had lots of Battles of the Mighty Cocks, and all was well.
Well, not really, but as we said, Squalo's head worked in a funny fashion.
A/N: inspired by Aubyun and Channel (lj).