My Storm, My Cloud, My Sun, My Sky
Summary: Reborn met Fon, they became Arcobaleno and went separate ways, not seeing each other for years. Kyoya was born, Fon had to leave to protect his family and they didn't see each other for years. Tsuna met Reborn, the adventure starts. Hibari met Reborn, craziness starts. Dino met Kyoya, Fon returns and secrets are revealed. Better than it sounds, I promise! D18, RF, LalCol possible others.
Reborn stared.
Fon stared, too.
To be fair, it was a stare-worthy sight.
"How the fuckin' hell is that an apple tree?" Reborn asked, perhaps more to himself but the silence of the last couple of minutes was deafening as the two of them stared up up up up at the seven story monstrosity that was supposed to be the apple tree they were meant to pick apples from. Still, Fon of course heard him and gave his own two cents.
"From a distance, I actually thought it was just the top of the trees of a forest in the distance, but this is too much ... " As soon as they had climbed the little hill at the end of the garden and looked down to where the apple trees were supposed to be, it had become clear that they had perceived it wrong. It was not a cluster of trees or even a distant forest. It was just one huge ass tree, its branches rich with perfect red apples, just the right type that always got kids into some kind of trouble for trying to climb such dangerous trees to get to them. "Just shows how much we know about the world. Do you think it was grown using Flames? Sun Flames could be behind this ... "
"I don't actually think anyone's ever tried to use Dying Will Flames for agriculture purposes and it could just as easily be Cloud as it could be Sun." He sighed, bringing a hand up to card through his hair, tipping his fedora a bit on his head. "Damn. Maybe I should have changed before we came out here. We can't very well go back empty-handed." If no one else, Colonello would be insufferable, though from what he'd seen of the others, Viper had a superiority complex and Verde will probably just smirk in that infuriating way of his that they'd discovered he was capable of. Luche will no doubt be disappointed, too, and for some reason, he'd rather not have to deal with that.
Fon looked over to him, contemplated him with a serious expression before he smiled. For the first time since he'd met the guy twenty four hours ago, it held a challenging glint. "Are you a good catch?"
Reborn stared, almost startled, but then a grin spread across his lips. "Oh, you can bet that I am the best catch," he assured, voice rumbling almost into a purr, but Fon didn't seem to register that. Instead, the Chinese martial artist nodded and stepped back, studying the tree a bit before nodding again.
"Then I will go up there and throw down the apples to you," he handed the basket Luche had lent them for this task to the Italian, smiling at him as he walked backward towards the tree. "You just have to catch everything that falls down."
"Don't you worry about that," the hitman assured, though he frowned a bit at the other's attire. "Are you sure you want to be the one to climb up there? Won't your clothes catch on branches? My suit isn't exactly ideal for climbing, but I've done crazier things and still managed to look this good." He gave a teasing smile as he gestured at his own getup. Fon rewarded him with a tinkling laugh that sounded to his ears almost like wind bells.
"Just you watch, master hitman. I'll knock that fedora right off," promised Fon before he turned back towards the tree, took one, two, three leaping steps before he jumped against the bark and used it as a stepping point to disappear up into the canopy of the huge ass apple tree. Reborn was quick to follow after him so he was standing directly underneath where the Storm had disappeared, arching an eyebrow in a rather impressed manner as he watched from below how Fon swiftly clambered up to the best apples nearer to the top. Then the first apples started falling down, but he had quick reflexes and the first three that fell together were easily caught. Again with the tinkling laugh, coming from above. "Not bad, Mr Reborn."
"You're not half bad yourself, Mr Fon. But that was hardly a challenge worthy of the world's greatest hitman," he called up to the martial artist, keeping his black eyes trained on Fon as he gracefully moved through the branches as though he'd done it a thousand times before. Or perhaps he truly was the physical manifestation of wind. Reborn was swift and graceful, but he guessed that years of martial arts training gave Fon a fluidity to his own movements that Reborn's own training regimen couldn't quite produce. If rumors were to be believed, Fon knew over one hundred and fifty martial arts and has mastered them all. Jumping from tree limb to tree limb is probably child's play for him.
As if to prove his point, Fon did a little flip, jumping over one branch and dodging another mid air so he can land in a perfect tiger crouch on a different branch, three more red apples in his hands almost blending in with the color of his robes. "Oh, the game has only just begun." Reborn matched the challenging little smirk on the shorter man's lips with a smug curl of his own and then the game was on. He wasn't even sure how long Fon would throw apples down and he would maneuver around to catch them, either in his hands or with the basket hanging from his elbow, but he had to admit it was fun and had to give it to Fon that he was pretty good and gave him a bit of a challenge.
But then, when the basket was already more than full, something changed. The pace suddenly halted and there was an ominous creak coming from above. Reborn didn't even think as he lunged forward a little, arms outstretched, grunting as his shoulders and knees protested the sudden addition of weight as he caught Fon's falling form, curled up around something. Something that was apparently precious enough to protect from both several breaking branches as well as risk breaking his own spine or neck over had Reborn been a second slower.
"Jeez, are you alright? What happened?" He asked even as he straightened out, adjusting his new burden and his own center of gravity accordingly.
Fon uncurled from his protective cocoon and Reborn nearly whacked him over the head when he saw that there was a nest with three bird eggs in his arms. Fon sighed in relief when it was relieved that the eggs had remained unharmed, smiling up at the hitman in thanks. "I didn't see them on the branch I landed on and it shook them right out of their perch. I guess I didn't think and just dived after them. I'm glad none of them cracked."
"You should be damn glad that your own skull didn't crack!" Snapped the Italian, a bit peeved by how careless the other seemed of his own wellbeing. "It's just a bunch of unhatched birds! There's millions of them."
"Yes, well, these are skylarks," replied Fon as if that explained it all, his smile dimming a little in the face of Reborn's ire. He didn't back down, though, instead getting a rather stubborn glint in his own eyes. "I'd be laughed out of my family if I were to let our signature birds get injured or killed if I can help it. Oh, look! There's their mother." completely forgetting that Reborn was trying to scold him, Fon locked onto the mama skylark which was circling over them, having spotted her nest and eggs. "I should probably find them a safer tree," the assassin muttered to himself and Reborn just shook his head.
He wiped around a second later with a gun pointed at Colonello's face for the second time in as many days, Fon still held securely in his arms and not a single apple toppling out of the basket despite the sudden movement. The blond Rain immediately raised his hands up in a peaceful gesture, only to have his head whacked violently by Lal Mirch so she would come into view, glaring scoldingly down at her student. When she looked up, she blinked in confusion before her face went blank when she saw the position Reborn and Fon were in.
"Luche told me to come fetch you, since you guys were taking too long or something." The look she was giving Reborn made him frown but at least he clicked back on the safety on his gun.
"We're fine, just lost track of time in a friendly competition."
"How did a friendly competition turn into a bridal carry, kora-Argh!" Colonello's teasing question was met with a booth to the head from Lal, burying his face into the soft grass and not so soft earth. The safety was removed again, but that was the moment Fon squirmed in his hold and Reborn's attention was brought back to the martial artist as Fon climbed down out of his arms, still securely holding the skylark nest.
He gave him a smile and a little polite bow. "Xiexie. I'll be right back. I just need to put this to a safer place." And then he was off, indeed fast like the wind, disappearing into the canopy of a much smaller tree some meters away near a cliff. The mama skylark followed after him, as though knowing her eggs were safe with him but wanting to see what will happen to them regardless.
"So," Lal began and Reborn shot her a warning glance.
"Not a word."
"You've actually got a crush," the CEDEF operative said with a teasing grin slowly spreading across her lips. "Can't fault your taste, but don't you usually hate getting involved with people in our business, even if it's only for a one-night stand? Though I actually doubt you could manage to seduce someone like him into your bed. He seems like the 'my body is a sacred temple of harmony' type of guy. I don't think he'd let you desecrate it."
"I didn't even know you swung that way, kora," Colonello commented as he rolled away from where Lal had faceplanted him, literally. He didn't seem perturbed in the least.
Lal shrugged. "Reborn doesn't really care about the gender of his partner, as long as they're good fun in the sack."
"You make it sound so crude, the both of you," the hitman sniffed, disgusted. "And besides, whoever said I'm interested in him? Or that I have a 'crush'?" He went as far as to make the air quotes with his fingers, rolling his eyes.
"I'm saying it. I know we're not exactly drinking buddies, Reborn, but I know the type most likely to make you break your 'rules' about dating people in our business and he's it. I'm pretty sure no one's ever caught one of your bullets mid air before."
"Do you think he'd top or bottom, kora?"
"That depends on Reborn, doesn't it? I've heard rumors, you know," Lal said with a teasing grin as the two continued, knowing they were annoying their friend. Well, acquaintance and ally was more like it, really, but neither Colonello nor Lal really cared. Reborn, though, was ready to shoot them both in between the eyes when Fon reappeared, looking quite satisfied.
Reborn nearly did shoot Colonello when the blond turned to the shortest male present with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Hey Fon, what do you like in bed, kora?"
The man stopped smiling, gave him a once over and assumed a completely deadpan expression. "Breakfast and not you." Then he simply nodded to Reborn and walked off. The Italian hitman nearly roared with laughter as he followed after the Asian assassin, cherishing Colonello's stunned and flushed expression and the way Lal seemed to be on the verge of being in stitches at her student's expression.
00000
Dinner was a considerably more tense affair than the day so far suggested. Skull kept pouting at Colonello - the one who had stuck his head through the door to his new room when the stuntman had tried to fight him on the room the blond had preferred - and Reborn, who kept calling him lackey and treating him as one. Viper kept trying to get people to give them money - usually in exchange for information, so at least that was something and they were at least the best at what they did - and Verde kept watching them all with calculating eyes as though trying to figure out which experiments he should run on whom. Colonello tried starting a fight - a bicker fest or a contest, depending on what the subject was and who you asked - with Reborn, who was content to be all suspicious and wary like Lal Mirch was being even as they ate their food. Fon and Luche remained tranquil throughout dinner, seemingly not bothered by the tension all around them.
Then, of course, came deserts and hot drinks. While they had all agreed to eat dinner - because they were damned hungry and the food had smelled really delicious, though they have all done their own tests to make sure it was not laced with drugs or poison - no one wanted to drink anything or eat the cookies Luche had made. Well, actually, Fon took a cookie when Luche offered, with that same serene smile as always and she returned it even as she turned to ask Reborn if he'd prefer an espresso over tea.
"How are you not worried about being poisoned by that?" Viper surprised them all by asking, staring at Fon from under their hood as the red dressed martial artist munched on his sweet.
Fon just smiled. "I am a Storm."
"By that, do you mean that you use your Flames to disintegrate any possible poisonous substances that might enter your organism?" Verde asked after a short moment of silence and Fon nodded. "But how do you know when you should disintegrate something with your Storm Flames? If you do it all the time, then you wouldn't be getting the sustenance necessary for survival."
"Long years of hard practice."
"You mean to say you willingly ingested poison, repeatedly, until your body and Flames learned to recognize substances that are bad for you?" Lal asked with an impressed, if slightly disturbed, arch of he brow.
The Storm just shrugged. "I had no choice. The Triads are not the kind of place to let your guard down even for a second. I'm sure most of you here know how to sleep with your eyes open and stay always on alert, no matter how deeply you may sleep. I'm not sure how you do it in the west, but in the Triads, when someone gains a reputation like mine, we begin to hold the dangerous potential of overthrowing the current leadership simply because we are stronger than it and people tend to follow strength, because strength intimidates and assures better or easier business. I am already the third to hold the lofty title of the Triad's best assassin under the current leadership and I've lived through countless assassination attempts so that I could not be a leader candidate. It's become a bit tiresome."
"Good grief, how barbaric," the Mist shook their head.
"I hear trading in information the way you do is no better, kora," Colonello countered, even though he seemed to be keeping an eye on both Reborn, who had accepted the offer of an espresso when Luche had offered to test it before him so he wouldn't be so mistrustful, and Fon, who had also accepted tea to go with his cookie. Reborn didn't like it that the soldier was just apparently waiting for him to drop so he can snatch Lal Mirch up and be the dashing hero for her.
"Don't get me started on how many idiots thought they can get the information they want without paying me the money they owe," Viper said with a disgusted sniff. "You not keeling over from any poison yet? Not feeling faint or weird or anything?"
"It's not exactly as if how a poison were to affect them is the proper way to judge if the food and drink are safe," Verde argued, pushing his glasses up. "Storm Flames disintegrate and Sun Flames heal if the user is skilled enough and since only the best Flame users of each type have been invited here - save the blond no-brain annoyance-"
"What did you just say, kora!?"
"-it is obvious that they are more than skilled enough to counter whatever might try to ail them. That, however, does not mean that we'd be safe to consume anything."
"You ate dinner and you're still alive, though I question the wisdom behind leaving you so," Lal countered and the table became tense again even as Luche watched from between Reborn and Fon worriedly, wondering if she should interfere. But then Skull jumped out of his seat and brazenly took the cookie out of Fon's unresisting fingers.
"I, the amazing and brave Skull-sama, will test this food for you!" And then he showed what was left of the sweet right into his mouth and started chewing obnoxiously. Fon grimaced and leaned as far away from the stuntman as he could, but Skull had crawled over the table until he was practically in the Chinese's face, not bothering to back up. Luche had yelped and stumbled back in startlement, especially when the cookie went down the wrong pipe and Skull started choking, spraying cookie bits and spittle left and right.
A gun clicked and a very pissed off Reborn, whose precious espresso caught some of the cookie bits, growled in Skull's face. "What the hell do you think you're doing, lackey?"
"Reborn-senpai! I was just trying to be helpful-"
"You're the man who's hated by the Reaper himself. How the hell do you expect any of them to feel reassured that they'd survive eating the cookies or drinking the beverages if someone who can' die doesn't? You just ruined a perfectly good cookie and the best espresso I have tried in my life. And I am going to make you pay."
"Reborn-senpai! Please have mercy! I-argh!"
Bang bang bang bang! came the merciless sound and Skull gave several pitiful dying sounds, died, came back to life only for Reborn to repeat the treatment. Viper, Verde, Lal and Colonello all winced in sympathy.
Luche sighed and gave Fon a new cookie, which he gratefully accepted.
This was going to be harder than she had thought.