Sinbad, first Boss of the recently founded Sindria Famiglia, has almost achieved a full Harmony: he's still missing a Storm. He's ecstatic when he finally meets the right match, but winning the prickly hitman – who happens to be a valuable asset of Al-Thamen's – over to his side will no doubt be anything but easy.

Pairing(s): eventual SinJa

Word count: 4269

Warning(s): mentions of violence (this is the mafia), very minor gore, lots and lots of UST

Back when he'd still been fifteen, high on his success as the youngest boss in mafia history and full of dreams of future grandeur, Sinbad had never once considered that he might one day attend a party that he would be genuinely bored at. Why should he? Parties were great, after all. They meant free access to food and alcohol by the barrels, and blanket permission to be as debauched as he wanted and deny any responsibility for it on the morning after!

Oh, the naivety of youth.

Fourteen years later, whenever his Family – or, more often than not, he – decided that it was time to break out the booze, fun was had by all. The Sindria Family mansion would be shaken to its foundations by the roaring laughter and ribald, horrendously off-key drinking songs that would rend the night air, interspersed by bawdy tales and baseless boasting of past bedroom exploits that would generate yet more undignified guffawing. They'd all wake up the next morning in a dogpile on the sitting room floor, mostly unclothed and heads splitting with a killer hangover, but already looking forward to the next time they'd have the chance to really let loose. That was Sinbad's definition of a party.

The annual New Year's gala thrown by the (very very illegal) business empire that was the Kou Triads, was as far from that as one could get. It was all stuffy tuxedoes and sparkling gowns, pretentious French finger foods and crystal flutes full of champagne that even tasted expensive, all in a ballroom that took a good fifteen minutes to cross at a brisk trot and was decorated so lavishly it almost hurt to look at it. Conversations were rife with hidden barbs, vicious insinuations and veiled threats, bosses and their respective bodyguards eyeing each other beadily across their gold-encrusted plates as they braced themselves for the various assassination attempts that occurred almost traditionally at such occasions.

Worst of all, high-ranking members of that Organization were always in attendance, swarming around the Kou Clan's unnaturally youthful-looking matriarch like bees to sickly-sweet honey; so on top of keeping an eye out for anyone who might try poisoning or just outright attacking him, and holding his own in the inevitable verbal battles with rival bosses, Sinbad also had to carefully keep a lid on his temper and not attack the human cockroaches whose dearest wish was the destruction of the world as he knew it.

The boss of the fairly minor, if well-established Balbadd family, whom Sinbad had engaged in a discussion in order to distract himself from his homicidal urges, was currently doing his very best to gain the upper hand over Sinbad in their banter, but the Sindria Family's own boss was unimpressed so far. He'd known Ahbmad since the kid was still in the single-digits, and said kid hadn't gotten much shrewder since then – nor, come to think of it, much taller.

The late former Balbadd boss, now he had been a man Sinbad could respect; in fact, Rashid Saluja had even been the one to help Sinbad find his footing in the dark world of the Mafia back when he'd just started gathering his comrades and building his own criminal empire. At just a glance, Sinbad could tell that the blond young man standing by Ahbmad's left shoulder – Rashid's third, most favored and illegitimate son, Sinbad believed, not that the sacred vows of marriage really counted for anything in the Underworld – had more potential as a boss in his pinky finger than Ahbmad did in his entire diminutive body.

But by the looks of it, the boy (Alibaba, wasn't it?), though he seemed plenty exasperated with his older brother and boss, didn't possess much ambition, as he had yet to try, even once, staging a coup d'état in his Family and making a play for the title of head. It was a shame: Sinbad might've even been willing to support him, had the young man been so inclined.

"Our Family has been doing particularly well for the past year," Ahbmad was bragging in a practiced "cultured" tone (which didn't have quite the desired effect, due to the lisp he'd never quite managed to train himself out of), having clearly not noticed that Sinbad was only paying attention to maybe every fifth word that came out of the man's wide, fat-lipped mouth. "Ever since I recruited Banker as a financial advisor, our profits—"

Wait. Waitwaitwait just a second there. Sinbad had always known that the twenty-seventh Balbadd boss possessed absolutely none of his father's political and economic acumen, but still – what had he just said?

"Banker? What an odd name," Sinbad interjected with practiced nonchalance even as his mind frantically worked to calculate the potential fallout of Ahbmad's latest revoltingly stupid decision in regards to the Balbadd Family. "It almost sounds like the kind of titles the Al-Thamen group likes to bestow on its agents."

Sharrkan and Masrur, standing behind him on his left and right respectively, instinctively bristled at the mere mention of the Organization, but were thankfully self-contained enough to withhold the barrage of disparaging comments that Sinbad's white-haired Rain guardian, at least, no doubt wanted to hurl at the smug-looking enemy boss.

"Of course! Banker is a new recruit from that very group, after all!" Ahbmad replied proudly as he puffed out a short chest that was at least three-quarters beer-belly, apparently oblivious to the darkening of Sinbad's expression. "Ever since we became a subsidiary of the Kou Triads on his advice, our Family has been doing better than ever! Some of our lower-ranking members have been complaining about reduced pay, of course, but you know how it is with grunts. They're disposable: if they don't like it, they can leave or they can take a bullet, it isn't my problem."

Judging by the thunderous look on the face of one of Alibaba Saluja's three bodyguards – the youngest-looking one, the one with the admittedly impressive dreadlocks – Ahbmad was going to be the one taking a bullet one of these days if the fool didn't get his act together. Even the man's own guards, whose stoic expressions couldn't quite hide the scorn in their gazes, would probably be more than willing to help.

Still, any interest Sinbad might've felt for the Balbadd Family's turbulent inner politics was currently being supplanted by his determination to find and murder this so-called Banker before the man could turn Balbadd into yet another weapon of the Kou Triads'. "I confess I've never heard of this 'Banker' before. Could you perhaps point him out to me, or is he not in attendance?"

"H-h-he's by the b-buffet table right n-n-n-now, Uncle S-Sinbad," Sahbmad informed him, sounding much like a mouse about to be trodden on even as he signaled Sinbad with his eyes that if the Sindria boss decided to get rid of the Banker, Sahbmad would be behind him, like, one hundred percent. No, really. Two hundred percent, even.

Sinbad knew there was a reason he'd always liked Rashid's second son best.

Standing by the chocolate fountain that sat near the end of one of the long, narrow aged-oak tables covered in scrumptious-looking dishes no-one had been suicidal enough to partake in yet, was a tall, buff man clad in a white suit, the small crown of thorns embroidered in black thread around his jacket's breast pocket giving away his affiliation.

He was good-looking in a rugged sort of way, though his cruel eyes and, if Sinbad had to nitpick, unfashionable goatee rather detracted from said good looks. He was leisurely sipping on a glass of red wine and appeared completely relaxed, not seeming to be even slightly on edge at a Mafia ball, so his bodyguard had to be really good.

The younger man standing at attention by the Banker's right side certainly didn't look it though. Whip-thin and rather short compared to most of the other men in attendance, the man was clad in an ensemble of dove-gray suit, cream-colored shirt and silver tie that fit him like a glove; not a single telltale bulge indicating the presence of a gun or blade was visible on his person, which meant he had to be a user of hidden weapons, because with a frame like that, there was no way he was a master of hand-to-hand.

Whatever his slight body lacked in intimidation factor, however, his face certainly made up for it. Not that the young man was ugly – far from it, actually, with those soft, undeniably pretty features and those adorable freckles – but his eyes…narrow and knife-sharp and steel-colored, bisected by vertical pupils that really didn't belong on a human being. They were only made to look more frightening by the bangs of his slightly overlong, messy mop of white hair, which slightly obscured them.

The young man – assassin, Sinbad's instincts practically screamed at him – seemed to sense Sinbad's scrutiny and shifted on his feet with a measure of unease. For a brief moment, those serpentine eyes left the vulnerable back of their owner's charge, and roamed over the crowded ballroom before locking with unerring accuracy onto Sinbad's own—

And the world just—

Stopped.

In the depths of Sinbad's mind, at the core of his being, a burst of crimson flames suddenly roared to life between the yellow and light blue ones that had already been steadily, peacefully crackling away there for years. And Sinbad could only think, Oh, fuck.

Of course he would suddenly find his Storm after more than a decade of feeling their absence like a missing limb. Of course said Storm would turn out to be affiliated with that Organization in some way. And of course, Sinbad would end up irrevocably in debt to the Kou Triads for having hosted the gala at which he had finally achieved Full Harmony.

Not that Sinbad was about to let any of these minor inconveniences stop him from finally claiming his Storm regardless of who and/or what tried to get in his way, but still. Just Sinbad's luck.

It was no secret amongst Sinbad's subordinates that, though it was nothing compared to that of Luce of the Giglio Nero and her daughter Aria, Sinbad had been born with some degree of precognitive ability: therefore, they weren't surprised when the man suddenly disappeared without explanation, just a scant few weeks after he had announced that he had finally found their missing piece. They were certainly irritated, but not surprised.

And indeed, as they had correctly deduced, Sinbad had managed to find his wayward assassin's trail and, overcome by excitement at the thought of roping his rightful Storm into the fold of his Family, he had hared off after the man without a second thought.

This, in hindsight, turned out to be a definite mistake.

Trying to ambush a trained assassin was risky. Trying to ambush a trained assassin at night, in said assassin's own territory, was foolish. Trying to ambush a trained assassin at night, in said assassin's own territory, when said assassin was still shaking with residual adrenaline after returning from a hit was basically suicide.

Therefore, when Sinbad, who had chosen to sit in a large, cushy armchair just far enough from the small apartment's windows to remain in the shadows of the moonlit living room – all for the sake of maximum dramatic impact – suddenly announced his presence with a cheerful, "Yo!", just as the assassin shut the front door behind him and discarded his jacket…well, Sinbad really shouldn't have been taken aback when the assassin's first response was to annihilate the intruder in his home. But Sinbad definitely was.

Sky Flame users were pretty much royalty in the dark world of the Mafia. They were rare and precious for their stabilizing effects on hardened killers' minds, not to mention their often superior Flame output when compared to other types; moreover, they simply tended to have the kind of friendly, warm personality that had even the aforementioned hardened killers reluctant to take the lives of such kind and brilliant individuals. Oh, and there was also he fact that murdering a Sky was generally a bad idea because said Sky's guardians would then find you and murder you in the most excruciating way possible in revenge for their broken Harmony.

And it was even more unheard of for one of said Sky's guardians themselves, however freshly Harmonized, to be willing to take their own Sky's life without batting an eye. It was, in fact, supposed to be impossible.

Well, I do so love to flip the boundaries of the 'possible' the bird as I merrily stroll past them, Sinbad mused somewhat hysterically as he stared down at the rope dart that would have impaled his throat if he hadn't twitched his head to the right at the last second, and was now instead embedded hilt-deep into the stone wall behind him. It only makes sense that my destined right-hand would defy all expectations as well.

"Who the fuck are you and what do you want," the assassin said, demanded. He was just as lovely as he had been when Sinbad had last seen him, despite having ditched the suit in favor of a nondescript shirt-and-jeans combo. If the assassin had been going for discretion, however, Sinbad could safely say that the man had failed, as most civilians didn't tend to consider it normal for people to walk around covered in quite so much blood.

With slow, nonthreatening movements, Sinbad reached over to turn on the small lamp sitting on the chest of drawers by his armchair's side. The assassin let him, though his tense posture belied his increasing impatience as he watched Sinbad with a gimlet eye, his hand hovering over a – Sinbad assumed – hidden sheath at his hip in mute warning.

Gentle golden light flooded the room, and Sinbad took a moment to appreciate the way it made the assassin's hair glimmer like threads of platinum before he broke the heavy silence between them, addressing the assassin with his best smile. "I'm Sinbad of the Sindria Family, but you already know that, of course. I'm sure your superiors have told you all about me." The freckled man remained silent, neither confirming nor infirming Sinbad's assumptions. "And you are no doubt aware of my reason for being here, as well."

For several long moments, the assassin said nothing, simply allowing his reptilian eyes to roam over every inch of Sinbad's body. Even though the boss of Sindria knew for a fact that the man was simply scanning him for concealed weapons and/or malicious intent, and not checking him out, he couldn't help the frisson of heat that licked up his spine: he certainly wouldn't have minded if the pretty assassin had wanted a closer look at him for less than platonic reasons, too.

Finally, the assassin seemed to deem him safe to approach for the time being, though the man's desire to simply kick Sinbad out of his apartment without hearing him out was obvious in the way the man clicked his tongue disgruntledly as he tugged at the taut red thread digging into Sinbad's cheek to retract his blade. Only now did Sinbad notice the similar red thread that was spooled around both of the man's moon-pale, muscular arms, long enough that it reached all the way up to his toned biceps, where it disappeared into the sleeves of his plain black t-shirt. Christ. Clearly this man had been put on Earth just to torture Sinbad's notorious libido.

"Talk," the assassin said shortly as he strode into the living room and deposited himself lightly onto the armchair directly opposite Sinbad's, the motion so void of unnecessary movement as to look downright sinuous. His footsteps hadn't made a single sound.

Sinbad gave a discreet gulp and jerked his eyes up from the man's crossed legs and the snug dark wash jeans that encased them. Damn it, but the Harmonization was still so fresh and new, and his Storm so infuriatingly beautiful, that it left the infamously silver-tongued boss of Sindria almost completely off his game, which was definitely not a good thing given how invested Sinbad was in having this first official meeting between them go well enough for him to secure his Storm's loyalty.

Most bosses would have, perhaps, found themselves offended by the Storm's unwillingness to treat them with the respect and devotion a Sky was due, and would have cut their losses and decided to look for another, more deferent Element to join their Harmony's fold. Sinbad, for his part, was certainly a little hurt by his Storm's obvious dismissal of him, but he was mostly intrigued, and determined to prove himself worthy of the man's eventual allegiance. Life was just no fun if one was never met with any challenges.

"I want you to leave your masters and become mine instead," Sinbad said boldly as he lowered his thick eyelashes and adopted an intense stare that had been described by many besotted women as 'smoldering'. "And I want you to do it now. After all, you rightfully belong to me."

Unlike Clouds and Mists, who preferred a degree of freedom that most other Flame users weren't quite as insistent on preserving, Storms liked to feel owned, liked to be certain that their Skies valued them enough to fight for the right to possess them. Though he had, obviously, never Harmonized with any Storms prior to this, Sinbad had bedded enough of them to know what they liked to hear.

Any other Storm, if they had been in the assassin's place, would have softened to some degree, perhaps even melted on the spot at the sound of Sinbad's husky words and the sight of his panty-dropping gaze.

Instead, the assassin bristled like Sinbad had just propositioned him in the filthiest way possible – to be perfectly fair, Sinbad may have had less than pure intentions when he made his proposal – and before Sinbad could even blink, he found himself flat on his back, the assassin crouched over him (but regrettably not straddling him) and holding a knife at his throat, glaring down at the stunned boss with those eyes the likes of which Sinbad had never seen on a human before.

Well. Clearly, treating the assassin like all the other Storms Sinbad had seduced in the past wasn't going to win him points any more than breaking into the man's apartment had. Sinbad was really messing this up, which was a rather distressing realization because goddammit, this was the first Storm he had ever managed to Harmonize with, and the man was gorgeous and intimidatingly sexy and quite clearly a formidable fighter, and even now that the man held Sinbad's life in his hands, Sinbad could feel his Sky Flames tugging relentlessly at the assassin's own tightly restrained ones.

"What's your name?" Sinbad whispered – very quietly, in an effort to avoid his throat expanding enough to meet with the blade poised above it – because he could be a persistent bastard at the best of times, and this was certainly one of the worst.

The assassin blinked and his pupils expanded somewhat, like he had attacked Sinbad more out of reflex in reaction to the boss's possessive words than anything else, and he was only now realizing what he had done; then he frowned, looking confused by the fact that Sinbad was bothering to ask such a mundane question instead of begging him to spare his life.

"Ja'far, Chief of Sham Lash," he said at length. Had Sinbad mentioned that the assassin's – Ja'far's – voice wasn't very deep, but was soft and throaty and somewhat hoarse, like the rasp of scales over rough stone? Because it was, and Sinbad really hoped that Ja'far didn't plan on sitting down properly onto Sinbad's hips anytime soon, because he didn't think the assassin would appreciate what he would find there if he did.

"You mean of Al-Thamen."

Ja'far blinked lazily down at him, apparently not having thought that this needed to be spelled out. "We're a branch of the Organization, yeah. How do you not fucking know this already?"

Well. His Storm certainly had a mouth on him. Given that Storms were primarily employed as the Family's diplomats, that would have to change in the future; Sinbad was sure that Rurumu would be up for the job of reforming Ja'far into a member of what passed, in the Underworld, for polite society, as she had done for Sinbad himself all those years ago.

"That won't do," Sinbad said bluntly, because clearly this was a man who didn't respond well to attempts at deception and flattery. "Al-Thamen is Sindria's enemy. Once you become mine, you'll be their enemy as well."

Ja'far's whole body gave a single spasm of suppressed aggression, and his eyes darkened once more, even as the blade inched even closer to Sinbad's throat. They both knew that Sinbad could've simply pushed him off several minutes ago and had only remained prone and apparently powerless to soothe the assassin's frayed nerves after Sinbad's intrusion and presumption; but now the assassin meant business, if the killing intent he was emitting in waves was any anything to go by. It was even more potent than Drakon's, which was saying something, because his childhood frenemy was one of the scariest people Sinbad knew whenever something managed to truly piss him off.

The assassin really did not want to be collared, in any way. Spartos was the same, though the Cloud Flame user expressed it in a much more subdued manner, so this wasn't a situation Sinbad was unused to being confronted with, but all the same…Ja'far truly was like no Storm Sinbad had ever encountered; rare, and free, and fascinating. Sinbad's desire for him was fated to keep increasing exponentially with each new facet of the assassin's personality that was revealed, it seemed.

"I may be a member of Al-Thamen," Ja'far murmured, very clearly and very quietly and very threateningly, "but I have my own will. If I ever join your merry band of fuckwits, it'll be because I wished to, and not because you sweet-talked me into it with that disgusting fake smile on your stupid face. There are other Skies in the world who could be more suitable for me than you are. You got that?"

Sinbad did not appreciate the insult to his Family, or the insinuation that Ja'far would not mind breaking his bond to Sinbad in favor of someone else, in the least, but given that Ja'far appeared to be at least considering becoming a part of the aforementioned Family, he held his tongue. Ja'far seemed to notice the shift in his mood, however, and to appreciate it, because he actually smiled down at Sinbad, the expression was sharp and menacing and ridiculously arousing.

"I'm not particularly attached to the Organization, and even less so to the psychotic bitch that leads it. But I won't be going anywhere—" Ja'far grinned at Sinbad, his sharp little teeth flashing in the dim light, and loosened his grip on his Flames just enough that they flared out to brush against Sinbad's. "—until you convince me that you're the fucking better option."

Dazed by the vibrantly warm feel of the Storm his Flames had chosen for him, Sinbad could only nod dumbly, and he barely held in a whine of protest when Ja'far smoothly rose from his crouch and stepped away from Sinbad, sheathing his dagger as he went. The assassin looked around at his apartment with a mildly irritated countenance, his brows furrowing when his eyes landed on the hole one of his darts had left in the wall, but he contented himself with a brief, annoyed sigh as he stalked over to the couch a few paces away.

There, he removed one of the sofa's cushions to reveal a hidden compartment in its wooden frame, from which he extracted a pair of duffle bags—

And the fog started to clear from Sinbad's mind as he realized what the assassin was up to. But Ja'far had played his cards well, timing his very delayed reciprocation to Sinbad's Flames' tugging in such a way as to leave Sinbad incapacitated for a little while yet; and Ja'far knew it, too, if the mischievous smirk he threw at Sinbad as he prowled towards the living room's sole window was any indication.

"Ja'far…" was the only protest Sinbad could make, slurring and sounding pretty much drunk out of his mind, when the assassin opened said window with precise, efficient motions and hefted himself up onto the windowsill.

Obligingly, Ja'far turned to look at Sinbad over his shoulder, and Sinbad was mesmerized by the sight of him – of his snow-pale skin that looked nearly blue under the moonlight that caressed his cheek and swanlike neck like a lover, of his hair that shimmered the same color as the moon above, of his dark eyes that glinted like a predator's. He was still liberally splattered with dried blood.

"Catch me if you can, Sinbad."

Several minutes later, when Sinbad finally regained enough coherency and freedom of movement to sit up, putting most of his weight onto his elbows as the room spun dizzily around him, he was still staring at the ledge his Storm had gracefully leapt down from while Sinbad was powerless to stop him. And the boss of Sindria was trembling all over, his breaths deep and shaky, as he tried desperately to control his helpless arousal.

Oh, Sinbad was going to catch Ja'far, alright. That cheeky minx of an assassin wouldn't know what hit him.

- THE END -

Such a cliché ending. But oh well! I had a sort of Batman-and-Catwoman feel in mind when I wrote this, with a lot of sexual tension; though, actually, for this Ja'far, I was aiming for more of a mix of his bandaged-up canon childhood self, and the Natasha Romanoff from that awful Avengers movie. (I hated it, sorry. Don't fight me on this.)

(Also, if you were wondering, Hinahoho is Sinbad's Lightning, Masrur is his Sun, Pisti is his Mist, Sharrkan is his Rain and Spartos is his Cloud. Yamuraiha is part of the Family but not one of his Guardians (AKA Household haha I'm not funny am I), and Drakon is the Outside Advisor.)

Many of the concepts regarding Skies and Harmonization and such come from Araceil and reighost's fics, because pretty much every KHR crossover writer seems to have accepted them as canon by now. I am one of them. So yeah, all that stuff ain't mine.

Hope y'all liked this.

Saggezza out!