G was angry as hell. Why? Because for the past twenty minutes, he and the other guardians had been waiting for their wayward leader at the dining table so that they could have dinner.
Needless to say, the blonde hadn't shown up yet.
"Where the hell is he!" shouted the man, banging his fist on the table.
"Yare, yare," said Asari in a good natured way as he played with Takeshi who was sitting on his lap. "Calm down, G, you might scare Takeshi. Anyways I'm sure Giotto will be here soon. He's probably doing something important."
Almost before he was done talking, Giotto had rushed into the room, looking apologetic. "Sorry I'm late," he said, plopping down in his chair with a tired sigh. "I was discussing with some of the maids and butlers about remodelling my room."
Everyone stared at the blond as if he had gone crazy.
A vein appearing on his forehead, G shouted, "YOU KEPT US WAITING FOR TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES JUST TO DISCUSS HOW YOU SHOULD REMODEL YOUR ROOM?"
Frowning, Asari covered his son's ears. "Language, G."
At the same time, Giotto put a finger to his mouth, desperately gesturing at G to keep quiet. "Please, G, keep your voice down, or you'll-"
"Or I'll what?" retorted G, lowering his voice by a margin.
Seconds later, Giotto heard the sound he had been dreading; the faint sound of a wailing infant.
Jumping up, he rushed back out of the dining room and ran in the direction of the infirmary, where Tsuna was sleeping until they could get a crib in Giotto's room.
As the guardians exchanged glances with once another, they came to the unanimous decision of running after their leader in order to find the origin of the crying.
Oblivious to his followers, Giotto sprinted to the infirmary and made straight for the small crib where Tsuna had been sleeping.
A young maid was cradling him in her arms, rocking him back and forth, trying to get him to stop crying. So far, it wasn't working.
When she saw Giotto come in, a look of relief flashed across her face and she surrendered her young master to his father.
As Giotto gently took the crying infant into his arms, all his guardians stared at him in shock. Giotto, though, didn't see any of this; his attention was focused solely on his son. Holding him against his chest, he rubbed Tsuna's back, murmuring quiet words of comfort.
After a few minutes, Tsuna hiccupped and looked up at his father with watery eyes. When Giotto smiled at him, the corners of the infant's mouth quirked up a little.
Rocking the boy back and forth, Giotto tried to put him back to sleep, but try as he might, little Tsuna's eyes remained wide open. Sighing, he wondered what he was doing wrong. After naming him, Giotto's first plan of action had been to start rocking the boy back and forth as he took out his cell and punched in a familiar number so he could order clothes, furniture, milk bottles, diapers, and all the other necessities needed in raising a child. The next time the blonde had looked down, the brunette's eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly.
Finally giving up, Giotto just sighed and turned to head back to the dining room, opting to take his son with him. As he wondered how he would explain this situation to his guardians, he noticed the six pairs of eyes that were trained on him and realized that said guardians had followed him and were now staring at him with disbelieving expressions.
"G-Giotto," said G, breaking the silence before his best friend could formulate any kind of explanation in his mind. "W-whose child is that?"
There was a lengthy silence, and when Giotto couldn't come up with anything to say, he offered in a quiet voice, ". . . Mine?" The way he said it made it sound like a question, as if he himself wasn't too sure of the answer to the question. He was afraid of how his best friend would react, but luckily for him, G was shocked into silence, just nodding once to show that he had heard.
"Where's his mother?" asked Knuckle, who seemed to be the only one that could think properly at the moment. "None of us noticed her coming in, but surely she's around, right?" His voice was doubtful, as if he knew the answer to his question already.
Shaking his head, Giotto said, "She's long gone. She left him on our doorstep about an hour ago with only a note that basically said: I never loved you, I'm getting married to another man, you can have the kid, and I don't want anything more to do with either of you,"
Alaude's eyes narrowed dangerously and his hands itched towards his handcuffs as he no doubt imagined enclosing them around Nana's wrists.
As if reading the skylark's thoughts, Giotto said, "There are no grounds for arrest, Alaude. Lay off."
The cloud guardian's eyes flashed dangerously, but he crossed his arms across his chest and looked out a window, glaring furiously at thin air.
All the other guardians' reactions were to stare at their friend with shell-shocked expressions.
After a short pause, Daemon asked uncertainly, "This is Nana we're talking about, isn't it?"
Giotto nodded, and before anybody could say anything else, G found his voice again and the explosion everyone had been expecting finally came.
"How dare she do this to Giotto? I swear, when I get my hands on that son of a-"
"G, language," said Giotto before the tattooed man could finish his threat, unconsciously repeating what Asari had said earlier. Then, with a forced smile, he continued, "Anyways, now that we know how she really is, it's a good thing she left. Tsuna is better off without a mother like her."
The guardians stared at their boss in awe, marvelling at how strong he was, but deep inside, they all knew he was devastated.
Asari switched his gaze to the child in Giotto's arms, trying not to let the rage he was feeling show on his face. Being a father, he was absolutely appalled at Nana's behaviour.
Tsuna looked barely old enough to be out of the hospital, let alone away from his mother's side, and she had just left him on the doorstep? Did she realize it was October? At least Gisella (his ex) had kept the child until he was two months old, and had properly explained the situation to him.
Forcing a smile onto his face, he approached Giotto with a very curious Takeshi cradled on his arms.
Bending forward a little, he smiled as he got a good look at the child's face for the first time and saw how much the boy looked like his father. "His name is Tsuna?" he asked.
"Tsunayoshi," corrected Giotto, and Asari couldn't help but smile.
"That means 'lucky rope' doesn't it? It's a wonderful name."
Giotto smiled at his friend's approval. "Well, he is half-Japanese, and since he'll be growing up in an Italian household, I think it's pretty fair, isn't it?"
While the two adults had been talking, Takeshi had been getting to know the new baby in the family.
Reaching out a chubby little hand, he smiled at the brunette, gurgling happily.
Tsuna seemed delighted at his newfound friend let out a small giggle.
Daemon, who had been staring at the two of them until now, turned his face away a little so that no one else could see the expression in his eyes.
He, too, was a(n overprotective) father, and he was feeling emotions similar to Asari. When he imagined his twins (who were currently with their mother in Verona, visiting their grandparents) in young Tsunyoshi's place, he couldn't help the killing intent that arose in him. Anyone who would treat a child, let alone a 3 week old baby, so barbarously was worse than a serial murderer in his books (lord knew what he would do to a child molester)
Shaking his head to get rid of the destructive thoughts, his lips pulled into his usual smirk and he said, "Well, if you're all quite done, I'd like to get back to my dinner."
And with that, the group returned to the dining room for dinner, with Asari giving Giotto tips on what to do when Tsuna cries, or how to know when to feed him or change his diaper.
"You must be happy," said Giotto to his long time friend. "Takeshi has a playmate now."
Asari frowned a little at this. "I have mixed feelings," said the rain guardian. "Yes, I'm happy that Takeshi has a playmate, but I'm so very upset at the way his mother has treated him."
Giotto nodded once. "I'm quite disappointed in her. But I'm grateful at least that she brought him here instead of immediately putting him up for adoption. Now that would have been a terrible thing, something I wouldn't put past her now."
Asari nodded gravely in agreement.
By now they had almost arrived back at the dining room, and Giotto smiled. "But she's out of our life now, so we'll just forget her, and make sure we raise our kids to the best of our abilities, hm?"
Asari smiled back, and nodded in agreement as they all took their seats again.
As Giotto requested a warm bottle of milk for his son, Daemon plucked the child out of his father's arms, smiled sweetly at him and said, "Say hi to uncle Daemon, Tsunayoshi."
Tsuna, who was already showing signs of being an exact clone of his father, immediately trusted the illusionist and made a little gurgling noise in the back of his throat, his mouth pulling up into the innocent smile of one unknowing of the cruelty of the world.
Daemon, who had been deprived of any kind of fatherly doting in the two weeks his children had been away, found this utterly adorable and cooed happily at the child, as Giotto tried desperately to get his son back.
Watching the scene from his spot at the other end of the table was Lampo, who had been quiet throughout the whole ordeal due to his aversion to the snivelling little brats that the rest of humankind called children.
The corners of his mouth stretched into an amused smirk as a thought suddenly crossed his mind. "Lampo bets ten bucks that within the next month, G will be a daddy too."
Everyone's eyes shot towards the lightning guardian, and G's face became almost as bright as his hair. "What the hell are you saying, you brat?" he exploded.
The teen merely shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, you're always going on about how you and Giotto do everything together. Not to mention the fact that you broke up with Asako around the same time Giotto and Nana broke up. It's not too farfetched to believe it could be for the same reason."
G thumped him on the head once, and Asari laughed nervously, saying, "No way, that would be way too coincidental!"
With that, they went back to their dinner and the topic of G having a son didn't come up again until the next week, when there was a ring of the doorbell, and the Vongola welcomed yet another baby into their family.
SkyGem: Haha, looks like Lampo is now ten bucks richer XD . . . not that he needs it. Anyways, please do leave a review and tell me what you thought, ne?