Xanxus' Adventures in Parenthood Piracy by InsaneScriptist

Beta'd by the immaculate Umei no Mai

Summary: Xanxus could only blame the damn scientists for stranding him in an alternate dimension. However Xanxus could only blame himself for allowing that woman to foist her child onto him. Drabble fic.


Lucidity

As per usual, his dreams were uncommonly lucid. The amount of detail in them might have contributed to the reason he rarely remembered his dreams or it could be that he was rarely disturbed enough by them to actually have them be memorable. Sex, blood and death had always been constants in his life in some form or another.

It was little wonder that his dreams tended to reflect those constants in new and unwanted ways. His dreams had only gotten more detailed and disturbing as he aged. This one was disturbing for all that he couldn't remember details; he had impressions of it and that was bad enough.

Xanxus came to with Rouge under him on the bed as she tried to remove the arm and the hand that was strangling her. He removed his hand instantly and turned away, sitting up on the edge of the bed. Rouge coughed, her whole body trembling as she tried to recover.

"My apologies." Xanxus muttered, loud enough to be overheard as Rouge regained her ability to breathe. "Waking an assassin who is having a nightmare is not a wise thing to do. You would not be the first person I've ever killed in my sleep."

Admittedly that Rouge wasn't dead was because Xanxus, knowing he was going to have a nightmare, had removed all the knives, the wire, his ring and every possible improvised weapon he had access to except his clothing and the bedding from easy reach; even his feathery hair decorations were well out of reach because he had used them as improvised knives before. While Xanxus had always been easily able to call on his flames with or without a ring, it wasn't possible to use Flames while asleep unless you were a Mist. Mists liked to make their own rules irrespective of the reality that held for every other Flame User.

The mental resolve to summon Flames was something that took at least a semi-aware and conscious mind; that didn't mean that it couldn't still be dreaming in those dangerous seconds before actual consciousness. Dreams were one thing but nightmares didn't lose their grip as fast when it came to emotional impact. Xanxus had killed a maid using his Sky Flames when she tried to wake him from a nightmare back when he was eleven; she had been dead before he had even realized what had happened. While he had undergone a number of assassination attempts by the time he was fifteen, a few of the older members of the Vongola remembered a time when he was fourteen and woke to find three dead assassins in his room; Xanxus had killed them while half asleep and then gone back to sleep, their deaths slipping from his mind in seconds.

Then there were the various dead 'professionals' who thought that neither he or Squalo were fit to lead the Varia; they might have been mere grunts but they were still Varia Quality grunts. His hair ornaments weren't just decorations. They were once living tissue which easily channeled flames and treated so that wouldn't burn when covered in flames; Lightning Flames made them feather knives, while a touch of Cloud Flames could turn the feather knives into a feather storm of electrifying edges and wires. Xanxus had gone back to sleep that time too, despite the smell.

Waking assassins was a bad idea but he had thought that Rouge had more sense than to try. Next time he knew he was going to have nightmares he'd lock himself in Sansetto's quarters or just sleep outside, using Bester as a pillow.

Bruise

Bester. He had forgotten about Bester.

Fuck. He really needed to get his head on straight. Make amends for nearly killing his personage. Spend some time with Bester.

He examined Rouge's throat silently. It didn't seem likely to bruise and he hadn't crushed her windpipe or done any serious damage. Just held her down instead of snapping her neck or ripping her throat out. A sign that he'd actually been aware on some level that she wasn't actually a threat to him.

Necks were sometimes counter-intuitive in terms of bruising. The neck itself didn't have many blood vessels to break to form a bruise. Knocking people out or whiplash never left marks for example. Any bruising on the neck occurred on the skin level which took time and pressure. Hickeys and love-marks made bruises from where the actions of making them broke the blood vessels in the skin. Strangulation could be done without leaving marks but it was tricky and difficult to do. Xanxus knew with the excess of Sun Flames Rouge had thanks to her technique she probably wouldn't even bruise. Even so, Xanxus wove a minor illusion over it so in case Rouge did bruise, it could not be seen.

"I'll be back in three days. Be careful, Rouge." He then left before she could try and stop him.

Boxes

Box weapons or animals were curious relics from a future that did not come to pass, yet had arrived in this time thanks to the Tri-ni-Sette. More accurately, it came from the Vongola's part in the Tri-ni-Sette since that allowed the movement forward and backward in the time streams or something like that. Yuni, the Sky Acrobaleno of the time had done something to make it work like that since the Vongola had one of the least useful abilities out of the Tri-ni-Sette.

The Vongola rings allowed for the 'time' of the wearer to be engraved upon it. In essence it was a way to pass on techniques and give advise which could be useful except that they could only pass on what they knew and they only knew what they were told. It made it useful enough for personal issues or learning techniques but people were people; prejudice happened as a fact of life. While the Vongola Bosses often had unusual people as their Guardians, that didn't mean that they had to like the other Guardians; their contemporaries or their successors. Vongola history had Vongola Quarto with the most violently opposed and openly prejudiced guardians. Admittedly they were all chefs from different countries which might have had something to do with it. Rumor had it that they had created the technique of 'poison cooking' as they tried to off each other.

Compared to the Mare Rings which could transport people across dimensions so knowledge could be gained and perfected as Byakuran shamelessly took advantage of... that at least was something that was useful and practical for hiding or all sorts of other uses. Then there was Yuni. Being the 'boss' of the Acrobaleno, she could command all of the Tri-ni-Sette. In terms of fighting ability she was pathetic but in terms of mystical power, she was pretty much a goddess so long as she was willing to die.

Anyway as Yuni re-wrote time for countless dimensions when she gave up her life, she also passed on the future knowledge of what happened; this included the knowledge of the boxes to the creators of them. They then remade the weapons for everyone other than the Sawada-Brat and his Guardians who brought theirs back with them in ring form, because scientists and researchers were generally short on funds. It wasn't like the Varia minded paying for their weapons and partners again. Then the Varia -or specifically Mammon- paid Talbot to turn the box weapons and box animals into rings that they could channel flames through for ease of use and transport. When provided enough flames and a thought, the rings would transform into weapons or creatures powered by flames.

The weapons and creatures could be anything, but generally if someone had one of the animals, they took care of it like a pet to the extent of naming it. Sometimes they suited the person remarkably well like Squalo's shark or Lussuria's peacock or even Bel's over-privileged fluffy rat that insisted on being referred to as a mink. Others just saw them as tools like Levi's sting ray.

The creatures weren't actual animals and so weren't bound by physical limits so Squalo's shark could fly and breathe air without issue. They did have a disturbing amount of sentience at times, and were created with such.

So as much as Xanxus wanted to call on Bester at the moment, doing so would be unwise.

Animal

Knowing he had to work out his temper somehow, Xanxus went hunting. For all that some famous authors had people as 'the most dangerous prey' that just meant that they weren't respecting how dangerous animals actually could be. Killing people could be stupidly easy especially when they weren't expecting to be killed. Animals were generally a bit more aware of their surroundings.

Xanxus knew exactly how dangerous wild animals could be. While it had mostly gone out of fashion in Italy and in a number of other countries, there were still those who kept exotic animals in their home as 'pets.' Often it didn't take much more than a touch of Rain Flames to keep them from attacking or Mist Flames to prevent them from noticing you but that didn't make them less dangerous. Lions, tigers and even bears were straight-up predators no matter how 'playful' or 'tame' they were. Then there was the occasion when Levi let loose those rhinos in Africa which had started a stampede.

So hunting on an uninhabited island was exactly the right kind of something that would make things simple in his head again. It was pretty straight forward, and he wasn't even going to bother with using flames; just pure and simple strength and skill for the kill, with brute force as his only weapon.

Hunt

The hunt had cleared out his head. Emotional complications and worries about things he couldn't do anything about had been silenced. He felt like himself again. If Bester worked fine then his partner was fine. If Bester had any complications, there were ways to power through them; generally with Mist Flames. Mist Flames were the weakest in terms of combat capability but their sheer utility outside of combat more than made up for it.

He dragged the beast to the beach and field dressed his kill before he set out to cook it. Then he summoned Bester. Bester scanned for enemies before looking at his master and then at the guts spilled on the sand, fresh from the horned-bear beast. Then Bester sauntered over to the organs Xanxus didn't care for and chowed down. Heart, lungs, liver and more were spilled out over there.

Box animals might be dependent on Flames but they were still scientifically altered animals at their core. They could eat and digest more than simple energy.

Xanxus skinned the bear-shaped beast with ram horns using just a feather knife. He wasn't sure if the fur was worth anything but he didn't want to ruin it should it be worth something. Even if it wasn't worth selling it would still make a decent blanket or rug. He tossed the parts he didn't want to deal with towards Bester; the front feet were paws but the back feet were actually hooves of all things. Freaky beast scum. Either way, Bester was eating them going by the crunching noises.

Xanxus then proceeded to cook the rest of the beast in a fashion that was best known as 'Hawaiian' for all that it was popular all over the various Pacific Islands.

Lunch was both of the creature's arms and a lot of the chest meat, while he gave the ribs over to Bester; Bester liked eating bones. It tasted very gamey. It was then followed by a long nap for the both of them while the haunches and shoulders cooked slowly over low temps.

Dinner, like lunch, proved that Xanxus wasn't a chef in any sense of the word. It was edible but the taste hadn't improved much since he didn't season it; didn't know what was growing wild on this island to season it with. Xanxus polished off an entire haunch by himself while Bester had the last haunch and a shoulder. Then Bester was quite happy to sleep his meal off. Xanxus joined his lion in sleep.