Chapter 27: Purple Violet and Ambrosia, "You Occupy My Thoughts," Love Requited
"Squalo! Squalo, no, don't!"
"Relax, Miyu. It won't hurt it."
Miyu shook her head at him a little awkwardly, laughing.
"You're terrible."
The white-haired man's grin spread into something predatory.
"I know."
They both watched with a silence that had become uncharacteristic between them as the duck gobbled up the entire king-sized chocolate bar that Squalo had with carefree abandon tossed into the river beneath them as they stood on the bridge, ignoring the goings on of the people about them. Miyu cleared her throat.
"It's beautiful here."
Squalo grunted in response and then tugged her away by the sleeve of the white-dress shirt that had, since her departure from Vongola, become a norm in her wardrobe. While adjusting his shades, he scanned the area around them and muttered something under his breath before likewise clearing his throat and catching Miyu's hand in his own, leading her away. She accepted this without batting an eye and likewise leaned into his shoulder.
As they passed a little bench on their way over the bridge, an old woman tittered. A dog barked. And a man walked by. Playing the couple with Squalo had become a common occurrence in Miyu's life. In fact, there were times that she felt as if she were another person in another life, at least until night fell and they were safely ensconced in their hotel room.
"We'll have to leave soon. Tomorrow night at latest." Squalo muttered, eyes sharp.
A serene smile graced Miyu's features as she nodded just once in reply.
"I know."
They kept walking, chatting as if they were two other people in an altogether different world, holding hands, arms swinging rather cheerfully as they bantered, both of them smiling.
"Squalo, before we go back, do you want to get some coffee or something?"
He nodded an affirmative and they walked until they came upon a charming four-story inn from which delicious smells were coming and Squalo, taking up Miyu's hand and kissing it, ridiculously charmingly asked her if she wanted to take something back to the hotel to eat instead. Smiling, she nodded, pecking him on the cheek.
They ordered a tasty looking meat dish and vlaamse frites, something similar to French fries only infinitely better that both of them had taken a sudden, overwhelming liking to. For dessert, which was essential, as both of them had an insufferably insatiable sweet tooth, they were seduced by the smells wafting over to them from the kitchen and ended up buying two and a half dozen stroopwafels.
"Don't forget to bring the mayonnaise for the patat, Squalo."
"I've got it, woman."
Holding up a little jar of farm-made mayonnaise to reinforce this point, Squalo accepted the bag of take out and handed her two fifty Euro bills. It disgruntled him that he had gone to all the trouble of getting smaller bills and had left them behind. Those were his last two fifties, too, and he knew that some places didn't even accept 100 Euro bills, even less the 500 Euro bills he had in his pocket. The local supermarket hadn't, dammit.
When they got back to the hotel, the sun had had set. And, when the door closed and was locked and barred behind them, so had their act.
"Did he recognize us?"
There was no prelude to Miyu's words, but any such thing was unnecessary, as Squalo knew exactly that she was speaking of the man they had met on the bridge and later outside of the inn. Her silver-haired companion snorted.
"That trash wouldn't recognize your sore-thumb brat of a nephew if he walked right in front of him with his fucking X-gloves on. No, he didn't, but that proves Vincere's looking for us."
Miyu set plates on the little table and started serving the food.
"Where will we go next?"
Squalo grunted in appreciation as the smell of their dinner hit him and sat down.
"North. I'll book the tickets after we eat. I'm fucking starving."
Miyu nodded and they sat down quite civilly to their food.
They had been on the move since they left Italy a little over two months ago. It was now the height of summer, and since early May they had been in Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, France, England and the Netherlands.
They had immediately left for Bern, stayed there for only two nights, and continued to Vienna, where they spent a little over a week before being spotted. They left for Prague that same evening and managed to keep below the radar for two weeks.
They ran into some trouble in Hamburg that resulted in the death of the Vincere grunt that had attempted to apprehend them and, deeming it unwise to risk Berlin as it was so close to the country in which there was a manhunt for the pair of them, traveled south to Munich, likewise deeming it unsafe to leave the country so soon after Squalo slaughtered the man who once was Ricardo Luppi.
After that, they had headed to Brussels. They stayed there until Squalo felt uneasy and decided to head south again to Paris. From there, London. Then, Amsterdam.
The war with the Vincere had escalated in the time since Miyu had left. Since Xanxus' death. The Vincere weren't looking for her, of course, no, that's not why they were being hunted. Rather, it was for the man who was protecting her. Superbi Squalo. The man who, as she had understood, should have been the head of the Varia, the most dangerous man (at the moment) on the planet.
It had terrified her to hear those words sputtered in betwixt a horrible gurgling noise from the Vincere grunt's mouth as he bled to death before her eyes. In fact, it was almost funny, how desensitized she seemed to be becoming to violence, because she hadn't felt a thing when she saw his broken body on the floor for him. No, it was because of what he said.
Superbi Squalo? The heir apparent to the Varia throne, the only manner of unifying that deadly group of assassins that had been legend under Xanxus?
He was the most dangerous man in the world?
She had nearly fainted from sheer terror when she heard him say it, however barely intelligible it might have been. What about Hibari Kyoya, she wanted to scream, what about Kyo? She knew all about the man's reputation. For him to be considered less than Squalo…well, it could only mean one thing.
Watching from her place behind the curtain, listening as the night terrors that gripped her in the dead of night, when her charade had gone to rest with the sun, came to some sort of fruition, she had held her tongue and silently, bitterly cried.
When it was done-Squalo had a certain, devastating talent when it came to injuring a person so as that they would survive long enough for him to get what he wanted from them-the long-haired swordsman disposed of the body there in Hamburg and quite calmly told Miyu to pack what things they had. They left within the hour with both of their minds reeling.
They hadn't, after all, had any sort of contact with Vongola since they'd left.
"VOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I, WAKE UP, DAMMIT!"
With a gasp, Miyu bolted upright in bed, her chest heaving as she desperately tried to remember how to breathe. In and out, in and out. Slowly. Calm. With the softest groan, she slipped her legs out of the sheets they were tangled in and gingerly placed her feet on the floor. In and out. Slowly.
"I'm sorry for waking you. I'm fine. Please-just go back to sleep."
That Squalo lay back down on his side of the bed was testimony to the regard he held Miyu in, because it was solely his respect for her that drove him to feign slumber as she collected herself. No one, no one could sleep again after hearing that.
It was a nightly affair. Squalo, somewhere in his mind, supposed that it was because she was a civilian, exposed to a world of violence and deceit that she never should have known. He heard her soft footsteps cross the room, to the armchair she had taken to sitting on in moments such as those, and closed his eyes a little tighter.
In sleeping next to her for two months, he had learned more about Miyu Sakamoto as a person than he might have ever known of her otherwise.
It was the night after they had fled Hamburg, after he had killed Ricardo Luppi. They were in Munich, staying in some little motel in a less savory part of town. Not that they, of all people, were in any danger even in the most crooked of alleys.
Squalo half tore off his boots, seething.
The Vongola fallen? Bullshit. How he wanted to correct that fucking piece of trash, to tell him that no, Xanxus wasn't fucking dead and no, Vongola wasn't on its last leg. Oh, how his pride howled at the thought of seemingly submitting, but he grudgingly had to admit that the old man had been right.
Things had not been what they seemed with the Vincere, and it was more apparent now than ever. But he was tired, damn it! He was sick of scurrying around like a rat, hiding.
And he was done with the thoughts that plagued him into the night, his wounded pride, his barely suppressible resentment. He wanted to fight. He wanted to make it rain Vincere blood like it was the Forty Days of Flooding his nonnina said Dio brought down upon sinners when she taught him her faith.
But he couldn't.
He was pulled abruptly from his train of thought by a muffled scream.
"Voi, Miyu."
No response. Blinking, he sat up to see what was going on.
She was asleep.
"Tch."
Well, he didn't know what to do. Hadn't someone said, once, that you should never waken someone having a nightmare? No, wait, that was for sleepwalkers. It surprised him, though, that she had such a…darkness, plaguing her. It seemed wrong, for someone so of the day, of naivety and gentleness.
Without a word, he turned away from her. Not out of indifference, but out of respect. She didn't need to know, ever, that he'd had such a glimpse into her mind through her murmured pleading. No. Never. It was easier for her to think, if she ever knew she dreamed like this, that she mumbled unintelligible words and that he knew nothing of her mind at all.
For all that he was loud and savage, bloodthirsty and foul-mouthed, Squalo was nothing if not worthy of living up to his title of Strategy Captain. He knew Xanxus, better than the man would ever admit, and now he knew Miyu perhaps more than he ever had ten years into the future. He knew her habits, her mannerisms; he knew the way she moved and the floral, wild smell of her perfume; he knew her voice as though it were the one of his conscience, and he knew her mind, now, as well as he knew the sword.
And he knew, now, that he had to bide his time and wait if he wanted things to turn out as he wished them to. He was a shark in the water, not in a frenzy after catching the scent of blood but stalking what looked to be rewarding prey.
It had surprised him, Miyu's reaction to Xanxus' name. In the future she had married that Cloud brat, and when he had seen her he hadn't gotten the impression that she felt for Xanxus in any way other than as a friend. A close friend, surely, but a friend.
But he knew how his boss felt, always. But there wasn't anything to be done, and all the more fool Squalo thought him for being so enamored with what he considered an impossible dream. But Miyu's reaction to the news that he was dead…that was promising.
Yes, for all his impulsive nature, Squalo was cunning. He was a strategist, and the enemy, regardless of who it was at the time, had always underestimated him. Without Xanxus, the Varia was done. That's what they said. And it was true, of course, that Squalo would have found it hard to rally the Varia under his name, but that didn't make it impossible.
He technically could have told Miyu, at any time, that Xanxus was alive. Sure, he had been sworn to silence. But that was to protect the hidden ace, so to speak, that was meant to later hit the Vincere with all the wrath of the Vongola. And she was Miyu. Of all people, she deserved to know, and it wasn't like Xanxus would be angry.
Well, relatively.
But Squalo held his tongue, because there were times at which one needed to play for results, and this was one of those times. He didn't tell Miyu, because he knew precisely what would happen when she saw him again.
And he had that all planned out.
It frustrated him, though, that he was idle as the rest of the mafia world was at war. He was an assassin. He shouldn't have had to have been skulking about, fleeing from country to country with a woman in tow, although he begrudged it less to this particular woman than he would have to any other.
However, for all his planning (there was little else to occupy his time, these days), he hadn't expected things to turn out as they did.
As in, he hadn't expected the Vincere grunt he was planning on skewering upon opening the door to be Xanxus, drenched in blood with a body over his shoulder, much longer bangs hanging over his atrociously scarred face, X-gun in hand.
He was still staring stupidly at the sight before him when the man greeted him (if you could call it that, by any stretch) with a low, guttural, "Trash."
And then his boss half threw the body at him, murmuring an order for him to search it and dispose of it (which, quite frankly, nearly scared Squalo, because Xanxus doesn't murmur) and asked, equally quietly, if she was still asleep.
He nodded, and then suddenly cracked a grin. So maybe Xanxus wasn't as, well, crisp as he had been in Squalo's plans, nor Miyu as, well, sentient, but he was confident that it would be quite the reunion. And maybe then his shitty boss would take the stick out of his ass and quit bitching at him all the time.
And they were both, to their inestimable chagrin, caught by surprise by the glass shattering on the floor.
"Xanxus?"
Squalo left. Not really out of any sense of tact, because he possessed very little of that and could be bothered to use it even more rarely. No, he left because, well, he was expecting a lot of sappiness and the like. Although…he found it hard to picture Xanxus being sappy. But then, it was equally hard to imagine Miyu in an almost violent, physical form of reunion.
He turned the thought from his mind as he got down the stairs and found the hotel besieged. He drew his sword with a black-hearted grin. This, of all days, was making out to be a most fortuitous one indeed.
"Quick! He went up stairs!"
A Vincere grunt ran by him, and Squalo's savage grin melted to a look of raw fury.
"VOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING, SHITTY VINCERE TRASH?"
Before the man could even turn in terror, his head had been gracefully removed from his body. All of the Vincere forces in the lobby turned to stare at Squalo in abject terror.
"It's-it's him! Superbi Squalo!"
"No one gives a shit about him now that the real Varia boss is back, Leo. Shoot him."
Squalo might have sung, so ecstatic was he at returning to the field. He had two months of entirely nonviolent life under his belt and a lot of stress to take out on these little shits. So he wasn't important, was he? Wasn't scary, not at all?
They were all going to die.
And as Squalo lunged, a manic grin that might have unsettled even Prince the Ripper in its intensity spread wide across his face and blood splattered across the wall. His sword whistled through the air and made a sickening thud of noise every time it hit a body, a revolting squelching noise when it was pulled out. Superbi Squalo, the Strategy Captain of the elite group of assassins known as the Varia, was in his element.
He was home.
"This can't be. This-"
"Miyu…"
She blanched, drawing back from the bloodstained man that approached her, his hand moving closer as if to touch her.
"Stop it. Don't touch me. Please-"
She jerked back. He was dead. He was dead. Dear gods, he was dead, and now he stood before her. It was impossible. He had been killed two months ago in an explosion. He was dead. He was parted from her forever. So how was it, then, that he stood before her again.
"I'm dreaming. Kami-I'm dreaming."
What the hell was wrong with her? Whatever it was, Xanxus didn't like it. And that was putting it in the most mild of euphemisms possible. He fucking hated it. Why the fuck was she backing away from him? It was only a little blood. (By his standards).
"Miyu, quit this shit. What's wrong with you?"
She was acting so strange, and it was killing him to keep her at arm's length when all he wanted to do was sweep her up into his arms and fucking kiss her, like he should have done all those years ago, like he did in that flower shop of hers in Japan.
"What's wrong with me? I'm dreaming. You're dead. I-"
She was close to tears, now. No, she couldn't cry, not even in her dreams. She couldn't. She had to be strong, for him and for Kyoya. She still didn't know what had happened to Kyoya. She had lost Xanxus. She couldn't bear to lose him too. It would…destroy her.
"Do I fucking look dead to you? That was just a story some dumb shit made up that the old man decided to roll with. I'm alive, Miyu. I'm fucking alive."
She stared at him for a moment, and he noticed that her face was rather wan, not sickly, but as if she had been pulled out of some terrible abyss and was only just recovering.
"Don't do this to me, Xanxus. Don't-don't play with me."
Oh, fuck it. Xanxus strode right up to her, putting his all too real hands on her shoulders, looking her right in the eye with something akin to contempt.
"Pull it together, woman, or I'll leave."
It was the most bald-faced lie he had ever told, and he didn't mean it in the least, because he wasn't going to fucking leave her unless she tossed him on his ass on the curb, and even then he'd just kill the Cloud brat (who he would presume had usurped his place) and come back, but it had the desired effect.
"Don't-"
Her arms were around his neck before even he had time to process what had happened and she was crying and begging him not to leave her again; she was sorry and she missed him, and lastly, (it put a once-in-a-lifetime smile on his face), she loved him, very much.
"I know."
Purple Violet and Ambrosia/End.
