THIS IS NOT THE NEW CHAPTER PEOPLE! THERE IS A NEW CHAPTER 6! :D EXPLANATIONS ARE THERE, PLEASE HIT THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER BUTTON!

Aaaannnddddd here is chapter 6 as promised!

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(Disclaimer in previous chapters still applies.)


Chapter 7

'Uhhh, u-uh-uhm… Gran- uhh…' Tsuna stammered, wringing his hands because he was so nervous about the request he was about to make. He glanced from his hands and the floor to his grandfather and back, not sure what to do with himself there. They were in Timoteo's ornately decorated study. The Ninth Vongola boss was sitting on the comfortable looking black leather sofa lining the wall while his heir stood at the door, fiddling with his fingers. Timoteo looked fairly amused by his grandson's blushing and stammering, the man's intuition on both mysterious and grandfatherly level already telling him that there was nothing major going on.

'I'd love for you to keep calling me grandpa, Tsunayoshi. No matter what else I am, that will never change.'

Tsuna smiled shyly and relaxed somewhat.

'Did you want to ask me something?' Timoteo continued and patted the seat next to him. 'Come sit.'

The brunet rubbed his nose and scurried over to the sofa, still avoiding looking the grey man directly in the eye.

Once he was seated, discovering that the sofa was even more comfortable than it looked, he felt a lot more relaxed. The atmosphere became familial, the Vongola-ness falling away. Tsuna grinned shyly at his grandfather.

'Uhm. So, I... I've been wanting to ask you something, a-about... uhm, Xanxus-san.'

He wondered if his grandpa would be defensive, protective, or displeased that he was asking about his adopted son. He could tell that the old, old man really loved Xanxus, unconditionally and just like a son. But it turned out Tsuna needn't have worried.

'Oh?' If anything, he sounded amused and like he'd known it was coming. 'And what would you like to know about Xanxus?'

It was so different to hear Timoteo talk about Xanxus. The way he talked about him really sounded like a dad talking about his son. Tsuna had only ever heard Reborn, his guardians and the Varia talk about the Varia leader and it had always sounded... wary. Awed. Fearful. The Varia only slightly so, and mixed with tons of respect (and Tsuna had the sneaking suspicion that there was also love in there for them, if well hidden so as to not look sappy). Apart from the Varia though, people talked about him as though he was a bad, maybe even evil man, separate from all other beings, his very own entity. Hardly like any other human. And certainly never like... like someone you trusted. Timoteo talked about him like someone he'd be entirely comfortable with at his unprotected back, someone...

Not that he trusted Xanxus would never attack him, should he give him the chance and reason to, but that it was alright no matter what.

He loved him anyway. He trusted him anyway.

Tsuna couldn't help but think that it was much fairer. Timoteo clearly did see Xanxus as any other human with faults and virtues, influenced by the world and others to become who they were. Not like someone inherently bad at the core.

It was refreshing to talk with someone about Xanxus like that.

'Uhm, well. I was wondering...'

Mortified, Tsuna realized he was beginning to blush. He held a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

'...wondering what Xanxus-san looked like, ah, b-before he got the scars.' He glances at Timoteo, imagining that that would bring up painful memories and quickly added something.

'I-I just can't, uhm, imagine it.' He finished sheepishly.

Against his expectations, Timoteo genuinely smiled at him and resettled against the backrest.

'I imagine you are asking for a picture?'

Tsuna didn't understand why he was so amused by his request, but the old man's bright eyes were sparkling.

'Uhh... yeah?'

Timoteo didn't need any more prompting and got up, moving towards one of the heavy bookcases lining the opposite wall. They were filled to the brim with books, most of them looking ancient, bound in flaking or well-preserved leather.

Tsuna watched with curious eyes as his grandfather pulled a particularly old, very thick book off of a shelf and gently set it aside. Then he reached into the niche, felt around for a little and took out a rectangular, flat box, about the size of a small book, and brought it back to the sofa and Tsuna.

Tsuna started to feel excited (and a little exasperated that, as he'd thought, the Ninth had taken precautions to keep the photos safe), sitting on the edge of his seat impatiently. He was so focussed on the flat, evenly brown box that he completely missed the smile on Timoteo's face.

Tsuna nearly exploded from the anticipation while the grey man calmly took his time sitting back down before slooooowly taking the lid off. The brunet didn't realize he was leaning into his lap to get a look, missing the shaking of Timoteo's chest from suppressed laughter.

With the utmost care, Timoteo lifted the picture laying on top out of the box.

Tsuna sucked in a breath and held it in as he stared at an unfamiliar familiar face.

It was Xanxus, probably, definitely, but...

He was a kid. A little older... or just as old as Lambo was now. Nine-ish.

It was so weird to see Xanxus-san, big and strong and terrifying people away and independent, as a little kid: looking up at a much younger Timoteo who's hand was laying on Xanxus' pitch-black hair, those crimson eyes round and more like wine than a blazing red fire. His olive skin was of a lighter shade than it was now and he was looking at his (probably sparklingly new) father with a sceptical, yet hopeful shine in his big eyes. There were no scars, anywhere. He was short, of course, only coming up to Timoteo's waist. Timoteo himself had a thick bush of shiny black hair, his startlingly handsome face void of the wrinkles he now had and showing resemblances with Iemetsu and even a bit with Tsuna himself. The little Xanxus looked in nothing like the man next to him and yet, it was a fitting picture. It felt right. Timoteo carefully set the old picture aside and picked up the next.

Here Xanxus was a little older, by a few years. His bright, intelligent but haughty eyes stared straight into the camera's lens, defiant and like he was just daring the entire world to underestimate him, to make him show his strength.

So young and already fighting the whole world. Tsuna shook his head slightly and decided just to focus on the child's appearance instead. He was maybe twelve, eyes still round but narrowed in a defiant glare. His entire demeanour was... distrustful, scared. He looked like a kid who thought he had to fight everyone around him tooth and nail to keep something that he could keep as his own.

This one was set aside quicker than the first. Tsuna's eyes widened like they were about to pop out of his face.

There was Xanxus, probably the same age as the previous photo, but- he was- he was- he was-!

The young Xanxus was looking up at whoever was taking the picture (though Tsuna had a pretty good guess as to who it was), his bright wine-coloured eyes shining, glimmers in the irises, his little nose scrunching up as he grinned boyishly up at something behind the camera. He was positively beaming, locks of his black hair falling into his eyes.

It was breathtaking. Awing.

Awe-struck, Tsuna reached out a finger and pointed it at the happy boy, captured in a rare moment, careful not to touch the old photograph and perhaps damage it. Timoteo made a soft noise of understanding and agreement.

'You should see this one, too...' he murmured, the sound of memories in his voice. He carefully flipped through the photographs, setting the ones he wasn't looking for aside. Tsuna strongly hoped that he would get to see those too, because Xanxus was in all of them. Then Timoteo unearthed a picture, it looked like it was one of the last, and showed it to him.

'He was seventeen years old here.' The Ninth told him quietly. 'It was a year before he'd find out he'd been adopted. ...I haven't seen him smile since.'

His voice was filled with pain and sorrow and regret, and nearly inaudible. Tsuna didn't know what to do for his grandfather. He looked at him, trying to see if tere was something that would tell him something he could do.

Timoteo just smiled sadly and gently patted him on the head.

'It is my burden to bear, Tsunayoshi. It is painful to remember, but pain allows healing.'

'I... Xanxus-san seems to... like you better.' Tsuna fished for words awkwardly. 'When we arrived and you welcomed us. He didn't seem... hateful. Like, uhm, like before.'

He didn't know if it was his place to talk about these painful things to his grandfather, since he knew so little about what was going on, but it seemed to him that this would be a positive thing to hear. It really had seemed like that. Xanxus had also been much more polite than Tsuna could have imagined him to be to his dad.

It had been the right thing to say:

Timoteo smiled at him, a hopeful, happy glint returning to his grey-brown eyes. 'He does seem to be less hateful, doesn't he? Seems less angry as well.'

He oozed contentedness next to Tsuna on the sofa, his eyes crinkling and wrinkles fanning out from the corners of them.

Tsuna took a look at the photograph of Xanxus when he was seventeen years old.

He was standing in what were probably the gardens around the Vongola estate- No, wait, he recognized those bushes, and was that- Holy cow.

Xanxus was standing in the Varia's gardens, hands stuffed comfortably in his pockets, shoulders pulled back and relaxed while someone who looked undeniably like Squalo and yet so different stood grinning a ways behind the black-haired Italian, a sword slung casually over his farthest shoulder.

Xanxus looked like he was at home, Tsuna realized. For the first time in these pictures. Only then did he notice the red insignia emblazoned on the sleeve and breast of his pristine white dress shirt.

'He'd just enlisted with the Varia. It was the first time he'd found a place where he truly felt accepted for who he was. Not as my son, not as my adopted son or any of the things other Mafiosi thought of him for that. He didn't need to be anybody's son there, it's not what earns one a place among the Varia. Xanxus was accepted there only for things that he is.'

Timoteo stroked the picture, where Xanxus was depicted with a sharp, proud smirk (proud of himself) in which you could vaguely see the boyish happy grin shining through. Tsuna noticed with a jolt of surprise that the Ninth was grateful. He thanked the Varia for giving Xanxus a home where he hadn't been able to. And maybe it was still the only place for him within the Vongola. Maybe because he just- maybe because there was no place in Vongola's midst where Xanxus could truly be himself. But Tsuna wondered. Because he was pretty sure that the only reason there was no such place, was because the members of the Vongola still refused to accept him as one of their own. If they had, Xanxus would always have been at home here. It was why Timoteo, on his own, couldn't give Xanxus that place among the Vongola. To be within the family, one needed that family's acceptance and love- not just that of their boss.

Tsuna looked back at the picture.

He had barely recognized Squalo, 'cause...

His face looked much younger, and shorter too. His hair was almost white and short, peeking up at the back. His grin was just as sharp as present-day Squalo, but- still rounder. It felt rounder, his demeanour much more open and easygoing, intimidating and challenging. Threatening in the way that he invited your challenge. Bring it on.

The Squalo Tsuna was familiar with had a much more dangerous aura, telling people to piss off or he'd kick them aside (though he still hunted and welcomed challenging opponents with a passionate glee). He was angry now, while in the picture, he just looked enthusiastic with a fanatical gleam in his bared grinning teeth and eyes.

They looked so much happier.

Hell, scratch that, they look happy.

It was... a wake-up call, sort of. Tsuna had always known and thought that the Varia were human more than the people around him did, but he'd never thought of them as this human before. So young and inexperienced still.

'Wao.' He whispered, staring at the paradise-like scene.

It was so normal.

And if he looked at this now, he thought that, perhaps, Squalo's change had happened because of Xanxus's. They looked like really close friends in this picture – the distance between them didn't mean there was no bond.

They looked like brothers, Tsuna realized, shocked at the discovery. He shared is with his grandfather.

'Indeed,' he said softly, 'they were very much like brothers. It was the happiest time of the both of them that I've witnessed. Squalo had never forgiven me for locking Xanxus up in that ice and the years I took away from them both. I'm not going to ask him to either.'

Tsuna had never realized that Squalo cared about his friend turned boss this deeply, that they went this far back. He'd never thought that Squalo's devotion was more than that of a subordinate, that it was that of a friend, a brother. It did fit. He wondered how bad it felt for Xanxus, since he could imagine the swordsman's feelings fairly easily. To have turned so angry and distant, to have shut himself off and changed the closeness of their bond. Like losing a brother, a good friend who understand you and has got your back. (But Tsuna knew nothing of what had happened between them, so he couldn't know how things really were between them now.) Tsuna himself also still couldn't understand how you could be someone's boss and close friend at the same time. Give your friends orders. How weird was that? Wouldn't it change the relationship completely? He guessed that's what people meant when they said it's lonely at the top.

'Grandpa...' he started hesitantly, turning away from the happy picture to the grey man, 'what's it like... how do you... be someone's friend and boss at the same time? Doesn't that screw up the rela- uh, I mean, doesn't that mess up the relationship?'

Come to think of it, he would be giving Xanxus orders too every now and then, once he was the boss of the Vongola. Xanxus was free to decline up to a certain point, but Tsuna would definitely stand above him on the hierarchy ladder.

That would be even weirder in a romantic relationship (not that he was expecting really get one of those with Xanxus, as much as he wished he would).

Timoteo settled his hands in his lap, in front of the picture box, and pulled a thoughtful face.

'Hmm. By giving them orders while still respecting them and who they are, dear boy. And by them respecting you both as their boss and as who you are beside that. It depends on the people concerned whether you can be both. Not everyone can do that. But there are plenty who can.'

Tsuna sagged a little, relaxing and relieved. That sounded doable enough. He didn't want to lose his friends over being a boss.

'Also, it is a learning curve, as with all things. Some may learn to accept it and others may learn that it is not something they want or can do. You figure it out as you go, as with many things. Their own acceptance and lack thereof is entirely up to them.'

That... sounded logical, in any case. Yah, he would remember that.

'Thanks, grandpa.' They smiled at each other. 'That really helps.'

Only then did he realize that he'd been looking at a scar-free Xanxus, one not so oung that he couldn't really recognize him, without even taking in the difference.

He looked kind of cool. Then, he did so now as well, but differently. His overall skin tone was the same as his present-day self, darker than when he was a kid.

Tsuna kept getting distracted by short-haired Squalo. He looked mischievous, boyish, up for anything he deemed fun. He wondered if there was anything left of that boy inside Squalo. Every now and then, Tsuna saw something in him that made him think there was.

Xanxus' hair had been a little shosrter, but not much different. It had always been shaggy. There were no feathers, no raccoon tail (presumably from a raccoon). It seemed like he'd only just dressed himself in the Varia uniform, that the picture had been taken for that occasion. Squalo had red insignias on his dress shirt too, Tsuna saw. He was too far away to be able to see the white "VARIA" on those insignias, unlike Xanxus. They were both wearing black pants too. Leather, by the looks of it. No ties. The sword Squalo was holding was a double-edged one, just like the one he used now.

It was so cool to see them like this. They were so cool, together, like a shrewd, powerful, unstoppable duo. Tsuna was awestruck again.

Even the picture showed their strength. Tsuna was hardly ever intimidating and the pictures of him... Nana really knew the best (worst) moments to pop up with a camera.

Anyway.

Tsuna wished he had a picture of Xanxus for himself. Not one of him when he was younger, but one of him now. Keeping it under his pillow or something. He blushed slightly in embarrassment at the thought of it being discovered there and how horrible the repercussions might be if such an event were to occur.

He cleared his throat lightly, conscious of the Ninth sitting next to him.

'Hum, they look really cool together.' He said before thinking that maybe this wasn't the best thing to say to his grandfather, who was also Xanxus' father and in general just not his own mind.

Timoteo chuckled gently. 'That they do. They were quickly rising in the ranks, pretty much neck and neck. We were surprised when Squalo handed over the title of boss to Xanxus after defeating Tyr. That such a strong willed and independent man would choose and want to follow my son...'

Tsuna could tell that he was proud of Xanxus for having earned himself such respect. He got a feeling that he was proud of Squalo too. Naturally, if he was such a close friend of Xanxus, Timoteo would have kept an eye on him too. Both to watch, protect, and to enjoy seeing them like this, Tsuna suspected.

'Now then,' the Ninth said, picking up the stack of pictures he'd set aside earlier and setting them on his lap, 'would you like to see the rest of them as well?'

Tsuna grinned boyishly at him and that was answer enough for the old man, who smiled indulgently and settled back comfortably on the sofa.

They spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the pictures, reminiscing and sharing memories. Tsuna had never expected to get to know so much about Xanxus in one go (or at all, really).


Tsuna was just about to enter the Varia headquarters – it was late in the evening, dark outside after he'd returned from his visit to the Ninth – when he was intercepted.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a tall, slim figure stepped out of the black shadow cast by one of the four roman pillars that were lined up in front of the entrance. With his heart in his throat and his voice pinched by sudden fierce terror, he still recognized the long, straight hair that flowed behind the man, silvery-white in the moonlight. The rest of Squalo was obscured by the darkness of the night, his black uniform making it almost impossible to discern him from the shadows around him.

The man's piercing eyes looked into his sharply.

'Heeeeey. What were you doing with the Ninth?'

Tsuna swallowed at the threatening seriousness of the sword emperor. He leant back, away from him unconsciously.

'I-I-Uh?'

Squalo took a single, striding step towards the young heir, making the moonlight glint on his black uniform, gleaming with small, sharp glimmers of white. That Tsuna could make out a little better now (still only a little bit) only made him look scarier.

'Don't make me repeat myself, Sawada. Tell me.'

Squalo was seriously freaking him out. Why was this so important?

'I-I... uh-uh... why...?'

Even in the dark, he could see the way his eyes flashed.

'Hiiii! I-I mean... m-man...'

He hadn't exactly intended to tell any of them what he'd gone to the main Vongola base for. But his didn't leave him any other- well, not any other pleasant options.

'I, well...' His cheeks grew hot, but thankfully Squalo wouldn't be able to see that (couldn't sharks smell blood extraordinarily well?). '...I asked him for- if I could see pictures of Xanxus-san.'

After a brief, very silent silence, he hastily added, 'From before- uh, you see, without the scars... I-I couldn't imagine it... y-you see?' His voice getting smaller and smaller.

The silence was very eloquent.

'I...' Tsuna tried to make an attempt at making himself look less... whatever he now looked like to the other, but didn't know how.

'...Right. You're fucking weird, brat.'

'Guh– am not.'

He could tell Squalo was grinning in the darkness.

'Sure, brat. And? He show you anything good? You were gone half the day.'

Tsuna flailed and attempted a dash at the double doors, banging into the swordsman's arm long before he could get there.

'Heeeeeey! No running away! Fucking tell me, brat, or I'll never let you go!' Then, on what appeared to be a second thought, 'Or I'll get Bel after you!'

Tsuna squeaked at the thought and gathered his courage. With only a bit of a stumble, he turned and stepped into Squalo, pressing his much shorter (and overall smaller...) form into the man's broad chest. The commander made a slight noise of surprise, but before he took any action, Tsuna leant up on his tippy-toes and breathed, 'Are you sure, commander?'

From this uncomfortably small distance, he could see Squalo's sharp eyes widen in astonishment. The next moment Tsuna's messy tuft of brown hair disappeared through the heavy doors.

As he ran away at the highest speed he could muster, Squalo's rough laughter barked and echoed in the hall behind him. The tactician clearly understood what he'd just done.

Tsuna ducked his head, grinning and blushing, heart thumping wildly because of his reckless move. Who'd have thought that his mother's tips would've ended up being helpful quite like this?

(He just wasn't sure if Squalo wouldn't still continue this conversation some other time.)


To be Continued~

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Dirkje