Title: Without Regrets
Rating: pg-13
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. And, it's getting more serious from here. Also a friend of mine said she saw me posting a lot on the comm lately, which I think is a sign to stop spamming people, so I'll wait till I finish the 4th part then post there.
Summary: Things get better, and things get worse.

Xanxus walked along rattling out alternate rules and admonitions with machine-gun speed, dragging Tsuna by the ear, his other hand rifling through and dismissing the contents of Tsuna's academic bag.

"How do you get marks like this? How does anybody get marks like this? I don't care if you never get a second of fucking sleep again, just raise these damn marks, I can't be paired with an idiot, it's bad enough being paired with a weakling."

"Ow," said Tsuna, and ran to keep up with Xanxus's militant stride.

"You're dead weight, but you don't have to fucking act like it. Get to a level of reasonable ability- enough so that you don't drag me down in the rankings- OR-" and here Xanxus stopped and steered Tsuna through a door he'd never seen before, still ear first.

They were at the private training rooms, booked only at the discretion of seniors- and even then only the most powerful or popular of seniors, who could afford to steamroller everyone else to get one without threat of painful retribution.

Some third-year pairs were gathered in the central area, chatting lightly after their morning's workout before they had to break for classes.

Tsuna sobbed with relief at the sight of Dino's friendly face.

"Tsuna!" said the blond, and frowned at Xanxus, who had dropped him and was crossing out someone else's name on the sign-in sheet to fill in that of Remorseless. "Xanxus, he's only a first-year. Don't push him like this."

"Oooiii!" said Squalo. "Xanxus, gonna teach the runt a lesson? Can I watch? Damn, I might actually win the bet even earlier than I expected-"

"What bet?" said Dino, turning onto his fighter like a sacrifice scorned.

"In," said Xanxus, ignoring the play of inter-pair relations/married couple spat, kicking open a door and going through it without looking back.

He settled into a chair, leaning it back against the wall with practiced ease. If Tsuna had tried that, he would have first fallen flat on his ass, then his head, and finally made to pay damages for breaking the chair. Xanxus made it look easy, the way he made everything look easy. That was how life seemed to be when it came to everybody but Tsuna- easy, effortless, and much, much better.

Xanxus, looking Tsuna over like livestock being prepped for slaughter, saw this: an under grown boy with ears and tail too large for him, like a child's, nervous and twitchy, a complete loser, and yet somehow better than him, better, just because of a tiny quirk of fate that had made him fighter.

Controlling the completely redundant urge to smash something, preferably the runt's head, but aware that, among other things, killing the fighter now would make Squalo win the bet, a concession he was not prepared to grant, Xanxus said, "Spell battle. Show me what pitiful little you have."

It was a total disaster.

"I-" said Tsuna, when the chains dissolved and Xanxus had still not gotten up from his chair, face working itself between completely expressionless and extremely expressionless, and Tsuna could see the disgust on the edge of his eyes like shadow, "I don't like. To fight."

To Xanxus this was like saying he didn't like to breathe, and a concept utterly alien to him, which he dismissed out of hand into the category, weakling, do not waste extremely large brain capacity on.

"Training," said Xanxus abruptly, and stood to leave in a sleek sinuous movement of black legs and black jacket and black tail. "You'll train until you damn well bleed."

.0.

"You can't keep bleeding," explained Shamal patiently. "The body only has a limited amount of blood it can replace each day. If you lose too much, you die."

"Then," snarled Gokudera, "Treat him, you damn quack."

"I don't treat men," said Shamal, and turned away from them to blow smoke out the open window.

"I don't think this is working out," said Yamamoto, eyeing Tsuna carefully in way that he only eyed people when he saw that fighters, back when they were unmatched, were neglecting their sacrifices, and he was about to lay a smack down of epic proportions.

Tsuna took prompt steps to avoid the imminent demise of Tireless's fighter at the hands of Remorseless's sacrifice.

"No, no, no," he said. "It's working. It's- it's getting better. I'm getting better- even Xanxus said so-" and he loved the little warm glow of that memory, when he had managed- just with one desperate word- to knock Levi on his ass, hard enough to sting- and Xanxus had glowed a bit with an intense focus and said, "Do that again." (He hadn't, of course, because Levi had come back up with a spell that made Xanxus hiss out his breath in a warning snarl and landed Tsuna in the doc's, but- but.)

"I-" he said, firmly. "I don't want any of you to interfere. This is my problem- our problem. Xanxus is helping me."

"What, to an early grave?" muttered Gokudera, but his eyes were dark with worry, and then they all jumped when the door flew open and banged on much-abused hinges.

Xanxus chucked Levi in, having apparently dragged the other boy up two flights of stairs with brute strength and strategic blows to the head. He wasn't even breathing hard and his jacket was immaculate, his hair perfectly disheveled, and Tsuna noted this all and wished he didn't look so utterly pathetic covered in inadequate band-aids and pale from blood loss.

"This idiot," said Xanxus, "has used an untested spell on him. He will not stop bleeding. If he does not stop bleeding within the next five minutes, I'll rip your fucking head off and transfuse your worthless blood into him because I do not have to say things twice and I've already said you keep your goddamn worthless hands off my fucking property."

Levi looked like he would like nothing more than to die right then and there, but he stumbled over to Tsuna, and began to mutter.

Xanxus looked at Tsuna, saw the pale arch of cheeks hollowed by long nights and longer beatings on the battleground, set eyes and calm mouth, and thought, good.

(There was a curious sort of beauty in this, to him- he too had spent many hours exalting in the pain of battles won, when they said that no sacrifice, though able to cast spells, would be able to fight- but fight he had, and won. Tsuna would be able to win, too, and everything was going his way for once, his plans were all working out. Remorseless stood out dark and cold against the pale pink and white flesh drained of blood, it was a name, his name- and, if everything continued going well, their name. Nothing had to change.)

Tsuna looked up at him and smiled wanly. "Thank you, Xanxus," he said, and felt that this was working, it was.

The older boy reached out to run a hand through Tsuna's hair on impulse, big hand sliding over soft hair and softer fur, and watched with cool satisfaction Tsuna light up with joy. It was a good thing that he had been paired, if Tsuna could stay obedient and he could make the loser into a winner while staying at the top of his game, because this nervous, fragile little boy was his. "Brush your damn hair," he suggested, without heat or the roaring anger he'd felt when Levi had made his stammering confession.

Everyone else in the room would have looked away, if they could- fighter and sacrifice together, sharing a moment of their unique intimacy- so right, and yet somehow so horribly wrong.

-tbc-