So it's finally the last chapter!... of this year. finally i'm gonna add few more chaps next year. If you want you can leave some requests for the other pairings too!

Aaaa hellish heat. yesterday and eeryday since monday i had been constantly drenched in the rain and now it's the canicula. COMPLETE CANICULA.

Enjoy~ ^o^


…Yes, things had changed, Xanxus was aware of it. He had let his heart exposed only once, and once it got warmed... once it got warmed, there would be no coming back anymore for none of them. Once he got the silver haired beauty, body and soul, he knew he would tear the latter's wings off and keep him only for him, never letting go of the man.

Tongues licking each other, lips kneading each other and the bitterness of the whisky mixing with the sweetness of the wine, it didn't take long before both males got engrossed in the embrace. How many women could boast about being able to reduce Xanxus to such a level of docility? Xanxus was pretty sure that it was the first time in his life he was letting someone else in charge, that he had never let anyone else before this have any ascendancy on him. Still, if that someone was the silverette, perhaps it wasn't that bad. To a certain extent.

Xanxus pushed the smaller man against the counter, to which the latter answered with hasty fingers trying to undo the former's belt. But the raven certainly wasn't a patient man: before Squalo could get anything over, the raven harshly brought him to a cypress four-poster bed, under a blazing red silk canopy.

"Xanxus…" Squalo murmured when the raven pulled back. They were lying on the mattress, the raven on top of him. Xanxus untied his necktie then pounced on the silverette's collarbone. "Your damn jacket, take it off. Or I'll rip those stupid buttons off."

"This is a fucking Armani suit, you idiot. Rip only one fucking button and I'll break your goddamn fingers."

Squalo's reply was a low growl that truly died like a purr in the raven's ear. No matter how classy a $4,000 worth woolen bespoke suit could sound, when an erection is obviously bulging under the fabric of the pants, the effect is rather spoiled. Squalo tugged at the tail of the raven's shirt and tried to slid his hands under the taller man's trousers, but was hindered in his attempt by the latter's waistcoat. A groan of dissatisfaction went past his lips.

"What with the surplus of clothes?" The silverette panted while Xanxus was nibbling his earlobe, his hands pinning the smaller man's arms on the pillow. "A date?"

"Shut up. You're noisy today." Xanxus gave up and finally undid the jacket and waistcoat's buttons, ending the silverette's agony. Long and thin fingers were rubbing against his skin, tickling where the scars were, while Squalo's left leg was brushing softly all along his side. "And damn hot."

"Really?" Squalo smirked. "It's nice, then. So why don't we end the play and-"

"Quit your job. Work for me."

"Ah?" Squalo blinked, consciousness suddenly back in his foggy mind. Above his, ruby eyes were staring damn seriously at him. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing." With the dexterity Squalo was starting to get accustomed to, the tanned man rapidly tugged at his pants.

In a fraction of second, pants, underwear and shirts (all Squalo's) were off on the ground. Waves of pleasure, each one more intense than the previous one, went through Squalo's limbs, his cells burning, his hands desperately searching for a flesh anchor as Xanxus' tongue suddenly rammed into his hole, exploring his depths.

"Mmh-Ah!... Xan-" Squalo's voice was coming in raspy gasps, the sound of suction almost unbearable to his ears. The silverette couldn't control anymore his reactions; his body couldn't stop writhing, his ass shaking under the tanned man's ministrations, and his hands (freed he didn't know how) clinging at the sheets. "Haa… Ngh!"

"This won't do it." Without warning, the raven moved away, eliciting a flinch from the silver haired man. He reached at his necktie, then used it as a blindfold on the smaller man's eyes.

"Ah?... Voi, stop that!" Squalo snapped. He sat up, his hands reaching behind his head as he tried to undo the knot, unsuccessfully. "Voi, Xanxus!"

"Don't move." The raven demanded, and like a marionette, Squalo obeyed, somewhat stunned by the imperative tone.

Xanxus paused a second to look at his captive. Beneath him, the silverette was now naked, still, waiting for his move. Never once before this did he look that gorgeous, that perfect in the dying light which was grazing at the pallid and, here and there, scarred torso, enhancing the relief of the muscles and bones of the limbs and the glistening of his mane. Squalo's body, just like the Sleeping Hermaphroditus, was lying just erotically on the bed, mouth half open, narrow hips so sharp, skinny legs ready to wrap his waist, and hair always tempting Xanxus' fingers to plunge through the silky locks. The raven was fairly certain that since they started having sex together, it was the first time the silver haired beauty was fully giving itself to the hungry crimson orbs, so wanton and abandoned.

Taking advantage of the silverette's unusual stillness, Xanxus began caressing the tempting body. The burning palms started making contact with the perfect and creamy skin on the voluptuous thighs, outlined the contours of the clavicle, marveled at the soft heaving of the chest. And as he did, Squalo slightly parted his moistened lips; his breath was growing fast and his eyebrows were furrowing.

The silverette uttered a muffled cry as the raven took hold of his erected nipples. Xanxus smirked at the smaller man's impatience, at his body opening up for him, waiting so eagerly for him.

"Xanxus… I'm already…" Squalo said, breathless, as he ran his fingers on the tanned torso. And Xanxus fucking wanted them, those cold and thin fingers.

"Shut it, I said."

Once more, Squalo quieted. But with that damn blindfold on his eyes, he couldn't help but feel vulnerable in front of the raven. Each one of the taller man's touch, it's like he could feel them tenfold, even if they were only flickering sensations. He quaked when he felt them descending from his chest to rub again his belly, his hips, his thighs. They were so warm, those calloused hands that could set on fire the nerve-endings throughout his body. So warm, too, was the raven's breath on his throat. Xanxus' scent was so damn overwhelming he felt he could lose his mind by only breathing in a lungful of it. Instinctively, the silverette's reached out for the tanned man's head, only to meet the latter's hands. Xanxus pinned them back on the pillow before crushing his mouth on Squalo's mouth.

"Ha… Ngh…" Squalo panted in the kiss.

He could see nothing, all he could do was to feel the thickness of Xanxus' tongue invading his moist cavern, feel the sensation of the other's hand caressing his sensitive body, feel the warmth, the want and his own surrender to the raven. "Aan!" His spine curved in an arch when he felt something cold and slick between his thighs. "Xanxus! What the fuck…" What was that? Lube? Ice? He couldn't tell. All he knew was that it was smelled kind of good.

"Do you like it?" Xanxus said. At his tone, the silverette could practically see his smirk. "It's chocolate and vanilla… The ice cream, I mean."

Where the fuck did that bastard get fucking ice cream? "You're fucking kidding me! Mmh… Take it out- Nn-ah!"

Xanxus only pushed his fingers deeper in the tight tunnel. Squalo gasped; it was becoming more pleasant. "Ha! No way. If you could see your expression now. You slut."

All of a sudden, there were teeth digging in his thighs, too close to his groin. He didn't like it, Squalo truly didn't like it at all. He could control nothing, could predict none of the raven's move; for a man who had always been a predator, he was for once the prey.

"Hey, it's leaking. Such a fucking naughty body you have here." The coarse voice resounded again, right before the hand that had been fondling him went to torment his erection. Slippery sounds got to the silver head's ears. However, at the moment, it wasn't what was annoying him the most: Xanxus' fingers still were maddening him from the inside, his calloused hand barely skimming the engorged flesh, and that hellish darkness around him, always, always that total darkness!

"Xanxus! Aa…" Squalo whined. He circled his arms around the taller man. "Xanxus, stop this…"

"You really want me to?" A murmur echoing in his earshell. The fingers started moving faster and faster, at each digging making the long haired man cry with pleasure. "When you're already so soft there." He pushed in. "Or do you rather have it this way?..." At that moment, ice cream trickled on Squalo's chest. It was such a cold sensation! So different from the inferno in his guts.

"Mph-… Xanxus!... Mnn… Please!"

"Then do what I told you. Quit that shit you call your job. Work for me."

"I'm not fucking… quitting only for- Ngh-aa… you, dumb shit!"

The tanned man suddenly pulled at the smaller man's arms, forcing him to sit up, then tore the necktie off. Squalo opened his eyes with bewilderment as he saw the multiple hickeys on his right thigh, his lower abdomen covered with a mix of precum and ice cream, and Xanxus – Xanxus who was glaring at him so seriously the silverette got the impression he had just said some stupid thing.

"Voi… What's wrong?"

"Give me your hand."

Squalo raised an eyebrow, still extended his hand. The left one (after all, he's left-handed). "Why… Ah?" Xanxus yanked at his hand and put a ring at his third finger. For few seconds, Squalo stared questioningly at the silvery ring, a shiny ring set with only one refined diamond. But then, realization came unto his mind. He brusquely gripped at the piece of jewelry and was about to take it off of his fingers, and he would have succeeded if it hadn't been for the raven holding him back. "Voi, take that off! I'm not fucking wearing this!"

"Yes, you are!" Xanxus strove to shout in spite of the fact he still was struggling with the silverette like a madman. "You're fucking wearing this shit and you fucking resign!"

"Voooi! I'm not!"

"You're fucking kidding me, are you? All you're doing of your days is fucking playing with scumbag brats."

"So what?" The silverette sneered. "I'm not sure your wife is going to appreciate a bigamous lifestyle."

Xanxus grimaced. "You still angry about that? I'm not marrying that woman anymore."

To this, Squalo answered by almost sticking the left hand under the raven's nose. Or almost punching said nose with the ring. "At any rate, I don't want this! I'm not a damn woman. And I'm not gonna grow boobs for you or shit like this. ("Aa. You're ruining the mood, trash.") You're not seriously thinking about actually getting married with me, are you? Or having me wait for you at home like a fucking housewife? Did you ever think about having kids later?"

"Who's talking about goddamn kids? You stupid cum, I just told you to work for me. It's fucking called headhunting."

Squalo was looking intently at the taller man. Yeah, the mood was dead, indeed. What Xanxus was asking from him, that was completely rash and insane! Literally, the raven wanted him to quit not only his job but his whole life for him. A real mountain of selfishness, really.

"Che. Even if I wanted to, I'm not sure I can help you with anything at all." The silver haired man shrugged.

"Let that scum (Ieyasu) decide about that."

"How did you get the wedding canceled? That old geezer back then (Gokudera Jouji) seemed to be pretty serious about it."

"He's not the one I was engaged to. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it now."

"And…" Squalo looked away from the tanned man. "If it's only for work, why did you have to buy a ring for that? That's totally stupid."

"Don't you fucking take it off. I mean it." Xanxus leant forward and pressed their foreheads together. His crimson orbs dove into the grey of Squalo's irises. "If you run away again, I'll kill you."

They kissed again. And soon the mood was back again. Throughout that night, creaking and panting and moaning and shouting could be heard in the suite, and they didn't stop until early in the morning. Anyway, for the first time since weeks, the silverette didn't have to fear being left alone in the bed anymore when he woke up.

Squalo never had to take the ring off. A romantic would have said that it was because the fact the ring was the symbol of their love, of their commitment to each other; that taking it off would have meant betraying themselves and the other (Xanxus was also wearing one but without the gem). And Squalo would have said that that was all bullshit. In reality, the raven didn't lie when he said he was recruiting him, but he omitted to tell in what exactly his job would consist: an enormous, never-going-to-decrease amount of work, with the result that the silverette totally forgot about the ring.

It was nonetheless an interesting yet pathetic fact to see how a single word from Xanxus could influence him. He had always loved his former job (if truth be told, what he truly couldn't stand was only the students), and in spite of this, with only a snap of the tanned man's fingers, Squalo left everything behind.

Almost frightening.

It wasn't as if he was that obedient and faithful (or rather yes, he was), but that morning, when he woke up in the bed with the raven next to him, a thought popped in his mind: that this kind of situation, no matter how nice and sweet it could be, was in no way granted. One day or another, Xanxus would leave again, he would get married, forget about him, then the same disappointment and despite would be back again. Perhaps was it childish and shameful for a grown up man to feel such way, but Squalo didn't want to go through that again. He didn't want to suffer again the loss of someone he got attached to. The same firmness that helped Squalo to resist to love indeed also helped to make it more violent and lasting – a maxim that actually suited both of them.

The silverette then had to swap his cozy flat in a small and tranquil town for Xanxus' gigantic mansion lost somewhere in the middle of Sicilia. Ieyasu said it was a good occasion to get accustomed to his new life as the tanned man's steady partner. At first, Squalo thought it would be a total failure: seriously speaking, who in those more or less uncivilized parts of the so-very- conservative Italy could accept their… arrangement? However, the silverette was quite of a lucky man. Xanxus was an only child and it seemed each one of his adoptive father's relatives was whether dead or too old to give a damn about the raven's life. Of course, there were remote cousins, nephews and so on, but this time, it was Xanxus' turn not to give a damn about them.

That issue, at least, was arranged.

But when he announced his resignation in Namimori U, Squalo really hadn't expected the waves of protests, both from the students and his co-workers (most of them the silverette didn't have the slightest idea who the hell they were) and the tears and the 'whyyy?'s. The doyen had been crying in his office for days, wailing about how he could find someone as competent (and beautiful) as the silverette; Squalo truly could have done without watching it.

But more annoying stuffs were waiting for him. First of them was certainly to have a talk with the katana brat. The older swordsman felt a little embarrassed for what he was going to do. At first, he was the one who didn't want the brat to leave and continue training with him… and in the end, he was the one who was leaving. Yamamoto Takeshi reacted exactly the same way as the other; that is, with the protests, the 'whyyy's, but fortunately without tears. His tutor would kill him on the spot if he saw him cry. Therefore they parted in the manliest way swordsmen could part – in Squalo's mind, with another fight, a fight Squalo easily won as always.

"So you're really leaving." Yamamoto said after their last session as they were sitting right on the floor of the usual gymnasium. There was a partially hidden sadness in the youth's words, but Squalo only brushed it away. "When?"

"After two days or three. I think it'll be enough for getting over with administrative things."

"Ah…"

"Voi, stop making that shitty face!" Squalo roared at him. "It's not as if I'm dying or whatever!"

"You're going to Italy! That's practically the other side of the world!"

The silverette kicked the younger man's leg then got up. "It's not! And don't you fucking forget training. Next time I see you, you'd better show me something that won't disappoint me."

"Yeah…" Takeshi answered while getting on his feet.

'Yeaaah.' What was that dejected reply? Squalo pondered angrily as he looked at the still depressed dark haired youth. Was that truly a man he raised like his fucking pupil? He would have beaten the boy very badly if it could remove that ugly expression from his face. How ironical. How many times did he tell Yamamoto to stop grinning like a plain idiot, but now he wasn't, it wasn't better…

"Voi…" Nonchalantly, the silverette's hand went to pat the youth's hair. "Act like a fucking man, damnit."

It was obvious how hard Takeshi was trying not to hug the silver head without the latter's consent – it seemed those many months of Pavlovian training of hitting and beating finally kicked in. So Squalo got out before the old reflexes were back.

Once outside, he took a deep breath. So that was a farewell, he thought. If someone that looked somehow baanced reacted that way, so what about some overdramatizing and melodramatic blond of his acquaintances…

No, one way or another, it would be a bad idea to tell him goodbye.

As he said, two days later, Squalo was off, at that time still totally unaware of what was waiting for him once the jet would land. And maybe he should have worried about it a little more instead of laughing at half of the discography of Charlie Chaplin throughout the flight from Tokyo to Palermo.

As a matter of fact, during the two first months he spent in the island at Xaxnxus' service, he had to learn by heart every case VR Co. was involved in, the parties concerned, the contexts, issues and decisions to be applied and so on… He was getting to know the raven's 'friends', his 'family' and all. To make it short, the silverette was succeeding to Ieyasu as Xanxus' Consigliere. Ieyasu indeed had been Timoteo's Consigliere for nearly twenty years, and after the first boss passed away, he became Xanxus'. Consequently, it lasted for more or less thirty years. Needless to say his family life suffered greatly from this situation; plus, in the end, it wasn't as though the old man could manage the raven at all.

Of course, there was that peculiar state Squalo and Xanxus were in, but Xanxus didn't take offence. He could have the silverette's brain and ass whenever and wherever he wanted, mostly when he was so drunk he couldn't tell anymore the difference between his office and a brothel – even if in truth, they were both so overloaded with work (in particular Squalo) that they could barely find any time to be alone together. Finally, there was nothing such as a real winner in their game. Anyway, (this is something the former Consigliere never told Xanxus) Ieyasu was way contented using the silver haired man's gifts for influencing his boss for them instead of having anyone else using it against them.

At any rate, it wasn't as though he was on neither holiday nor honeymoon. With his new job, Squalo barely could find any time to sleep at night. Everyone around him was always: read this report, deal with that son of a bitch magnate, validate those numbers from the company's auditor… The amount of work was enough to render a normal person mad. But then again, bizarrely, Squalo easily got used to it. That was another one of what Ieyasu called his particular gifts.

"Haa… So fucking tired…" Squalo heaved a sigh and stretched his spine on his new couch, in his new study, in his new house – or to be more precise, the Vongola's mansion – with a laptop on his stomach, the screen still encumbered with confidential information about the company. The last open window was showing the final cross-checking of a deal with someone from the Gokudera clan.

The silver haired man closed the computer.

What a shame, though. Two months in Sicilia and he nearly did nothing apart working. The only time he saw the Mediterranean sea was when he was on his plane, and the little landscape he caught sight of had been principally the main town and the vicinity of the mansion. As his identity card could testify, Squalo too was a native Italian, but as far as he could recall, he didn't precisely have a single memory of the soft warmth of the sun there, of the scent of the ocean or a favorite taste in his mouth. Nothing…

Nothing except for that dirty and chaotic house in the suburbs the silverette had been living in with Sarah, decades ago.

"Aa. Stupid images again." Squalo mumbled as he tried to drive the ugly scenery out of his mind. But it was no use, they were already waiting for him.

How long hadn't he thought about them? About his childhood with his mother – a girl too young to be called a mother or even to be called a woman. Squalo rested his head on a soft cushion, hooked his legs on the couch's back, then closed his eyes. One second later, when he opened them, what he saw wasn't the moulding of the ceiling and the copper chandelier high above his head; it wasn't the spacious and luminous drawing-room with the fire-place, the elegant paintings hanged on the wall altogether with the wall lamps, or the Persian carpets whose vivid colors were blending remarkably with the curtains masking the huge windows, the night-lights, cushions on the couch and armchairs and other soft furnishings in the lounge.

None of them.

What he saw was a small room of which one couldn't tell anymore if it was truly a living-room or a ditch. Mud and dirty dishes and empty bottles and loads of bags filled with garbage of all sort had piled up in the closed place, and so they were giving off an awful stench similar to the smell of a dead rat, but not quite like it. In the midst of that dirt, a skinny boy with hair almost white was crouching right on the floor, arms folded on his knees and greyish eyes too heavy for his age locked on the immobile form of a woman before him.

She was lying on the floor, but she wasn't breathing. Eyes that must have been of a beautiful grey were lost in the void, and long and slightly curled hair was scattered on the ground. She was wearing a torn dress and on her limbs were blossoming apparent dark ecchymosis.

It had been four of five days the boy had stayed in that room with the cadaver of his mother. Now and then, people had knocked on the door, but he didn't open. He just stayed there, looking at her. Somehow, deep in his mind, he knew that by some means he had to get out of that grave; he simply couldn't resign himself. It was as if that day he saw his mother (still alive) coming home in that horrible state, falling on the ground and not rising up again, he had lost all will to move on.

And yet, it wasn't the first time this kind of thing was happening. Sarah was always coming home late at night. She was an unmarried mother and was piling up small jobs to pay the bills, leaving the 'fort' to her boy. And the boy would always do everything to keep the house clean and leave her dinner in the kitchen for when she was back. Sometimes, strange people would knock violently at the door, shouting and calling for her. They would break the window panes, write obscenities on the door (it wasn't something they liked a lot in the surroundings, unmarried mothers), throw their trashes inside. Those weren't the best days of his life, but it still was better than when she was jobless; then she would stay at home and do nothing apart from drinking and crying in the bed.

But Sarah said she loved him. She had always loved him, in her own way. That was how the boy learnt that love doesn't necessarily have to look like what Disney is showing to children, with the princesses, the fairies and the birds singing in the sky at the wedding ceremony.

On that fateful night, the boy thought she would wake up after few hours but she didn't. He waited, the knocks and yelling came back, but she didn't wake up.

They found the boy ten days later, still crouched next to the putrefied corpse. Neighbors had complained about some infect smell from their house, that it was stirring up all the stray dogs in the town. They tried to talk to the boy, to ask him what had happened. He just said that Sarah was dead and he didn't know what to do with her body. Very calmly. Too calmly. They suspected some kind of trauma, but doctors said he was completely alright.

He was placed in a host family. The first on a long list. The boy hated those people. Specially that fat ass in his, what, third, fourth family? The fat ass caressed his butt, rubbed his thing against him and forced the boy's mouth open to put his tongue inside. The boy cut that ugly tongue with a knife he found on the table next to him. Police concluded it was self-defense and just closed the case.

Luckily from him, with all of this, the social worker finally deemed the boy could live alone. By that time, he had mostly forgotten the dark and smelly flat, the mocking and haughty looks in the people he met in the streets, and the false pity he sensed in his teachers and classmates' voice when they were talking to him. Nevertheless, what the boy couldn't forget was the feeling of control and contentment he felt with the knife in his hand.

It happened a little before the boy entered high school. Then, he found some kind of blond and clumsy moron, constantly gravitating around him. For four years, the blond hadn't let go of him. Strange thing, though, since everyone else but him was trying to avoid the boy. The boy didn't know how, but through years, he won the reputation of a bully. It wasn't truly fair, though: since long, other kids had been trying to pick up fights with him, and so he would only give them his respects.

There were also the times the blond and he were talking about miscellaneous stuff, about what they wanted to do 'later', what they wanted to become. The boy didn't have an idea of what he wanted to do and didn't truly care about it. The blond moron said he was doing pretty well with a sword (by that time, he had bought an old spatha at an antique-dealer and was practicing with it everyday), so why didn't he try to turn professional? The boy laughed at that joke.

And then, after graduation, he turned towards what seemed to be the most logical choice for him, that is, learning to cut living beings in the most efficient way. He chose biology – the boy… no, the youth had too little interest in saving people from death to become a surgeon, or to save them from starving to death by becoming a butcher. Still, the same dilemma came back by the end of his studies. That was by that time another boy (in whose family he was an au pair) told him something like he, the guy who had cut a man's tongue, wasn't bad at teaching. The biggest evidence was what he had done with the boy and his twin brother.

At that moment, Squalo's phone rang, awakening him from his reminiscences. He groped around him to find the device.

"Mm-yeallo." He gabbled.

"You damned trash, fucking pick up when I'm fucking calling!" Xanxus roared at the end of the line. "You're fucking paid for that, aren't ya?"

Squalo grunted and instinctively ruffled his hair. He opened the computer again, turned it on and tapped randomly on the keyboard. "What do you want? If it's about yesterday's contract, it's already done. They agreed on every term. No reclamation of any sort. And also, Floriano called. He said he had to meet with you once you're in Italy. It sounded urgent. I'll check on that after I finish handling the Casares case and-"

"Now shut up and listen, you dumb shit." The raven suddenly burst. "I'm back in Sicilia tonight. You'd better have your schedule cleared by then."

"Aa? Why? I tell you there's still that damn problem with your damn Arabian prince. If his man comes here, no matter at any time, I have to-"

"Can't you fucking shut up?" Xanxus hissed. "I'll send a fucking car. Don't forget your passport."

He should have felt angry, yet Squalo couldn't suppress a smile. He knew how hard it was for the raven to ask that from him. How many things had changed in his life, how many things would never go back the same again… And on the other hand, how many things had he changed in that pigheaded bastard, his lover, Xanxus' life?

"Roger… Voi, Xanxus." The silverette turned the PC off and sat up, perfectly composed and voice steady.

"What? I'm in a hurry."

"I love you."

Beep.