Chapter III: Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta (Vongola Offices / Namimori / Current Day)
A/N: I got to spend ten lovely days at Disneyworld in Orlando, FL but I'm home now! Sadly at the end of June I'll be away for another week on a cruise. It's the vacation time of year, right? I'll try to get as much done on this as I can during all of that!
Thanks to Ai-chan and thi_haoi for inspiration and beta-reading, as always!
Mornings weren't exactly Xanxus' favorite time of day. If asked, he'd choose late evening when the Varia estate was quiet, after all the irritating bastards who worked for him were asleep and he could wander the property quietly with a drink for as long as he wanted, completely uninterrupted. Mornings meant there would be work that needed to be done, and often the kind that he was the least interested in doing. It wasn't that Xanxus thrived on violence so much as he preferred it to paperwork, meetings, and human interaction in general. Killing was a lot easier than remembering why he should be listening to the person who was trying to talk to him at any given moment.
Still, there were some things that were better done early. On a weekday, Xanxus was well aware that Sawada Tsunayoshi should be on his way to school, which made it an excellent time to do a final raid for information on the boy's office. There were boundaries in the everyday world that most people understood and respected, but Xanxus had grown up in the mafia. Privacy for someone you considered weak was not amongst those boundaries he chose to respect. Until the boy could get through a year and not almost die during an assassination attempt, he had no right to privacy as far as Xanxus was concerned.
Finding that the office was occupied was an unexpected annoyance, and he had to move carefully to avoid being detected by the boy's babysitters as he pulled back silently. Being someone who failed to accomplish real sleep beyond a light doze on a consistent basis, it didn't surprise him that the brat might have a day every now and then when sleep failed him. What frustrated him was having it happen on the one day he was short on time and disinclined to drowse nearby while waiting for his chance.
Disinterested in whatever had forced the irritating shrimp out of bed so early in the morning, Xanxus lurked silently on the rooftop of the Vongola office in Namimori. He kept to the shadows until the ridiculous brat left for school with his protective detail before making his way into the office and disarming the alarm system. There were a few final details he wanted to clear up before returning to Venice and washing his hands of the Vongola heir once again.
"This place stinks of emotion, boss," the soft, petulant voice came from behind his left shoulder, and the air blurred as Viper appeared, floating next to him. Glancing over at the Arcobaleno, Xanxus raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry. "It's astonishing how excitable the Sawada boy really is. What's more interesting is that I sense Reborn's emotions as well. Excitement, hope, curiosity, all mixed together and all recent. It's rare for him to lose control enough to leave a trail like that."
"Any sense of what got them so worked up?" Xanxus asked, already opening Tsuna's laptop and attaching the external drive he'd brought. Letting it hack his way into it and see what the brat had been up to, he turned back to Viper. "And don't try to tell me that it's puberty again. They're fucking horny brats, all of them." Grumbling as he realized Sawada had deleted most of what he'd done, he was still pleased to find the record of the call made to the Vongola estate, and he and Viper listened intently as the conversation replayed for them.
"Well, that does explain the swirl of emotion," Viper said, floating down to come to a rest on the desk. "And here I was thinking maybe he'd fallen for you, boss." The Arcobaleno had to move quickly to dodge the lazy blow Xanxus threw at him, chasing him off the desk to float alongside it. "You never know. You showed him a very good time, after all. I thought maybe he was planning his confession. Roses, music, the whole big scene."
"I don't have time for a lovesick puppy following me around," Xanxus replied, before sending the last few documents he needed to distribute and coordinating and sending a blast of notifications to scatter his team around the globe for the next month, giving him some peace and quiet at home. "I have enough of that trouble with the damned rest of you. As much fun as fucking the boy stupid is, it'd be a pain in the ass if he got clingy and needy like the rest of you are."
"From the sound of the conversation, Reborn's already beaten you to Sawada's heart," Viper teased mercilessly as he glanced out the window, keeping watch. "So maybe you had no chance at all, boss. I guess you're just a substitute for what he really wants."
"Don't think I won't kill you just because you're small and purple," Xanxus told him, using the external drive attached to the laptop to plunder any data he felt was relevant for later review when he had more leisure time. "In fact, I'd probably enjoy it." It pissed him off that rather than irritated or angry, his voice sounded weary more than anything else.
"We didn't expect for you to have to work so hard on this trip, boss," Viper said, watching him now. "My apologies. If I'd known what would happen, I would have recommended bringing the others as well."
It was well-known amongst his team that Xanxus slept poorly in general, managing at most to cat-nap throughout the day, and that he slept not at all when traveling, unless he was sure of the team around him. It was a problem that had started after he'd been freed from the icy sleep the Ninth had forced upon him, and it had been an unrelenting issue for the Varia since. Xanxus spent very little time in any sort of deep, restful sleep and it sharpened his temper further every day.
"Are you so fragile these days, Xanxus, that your underlings have to babysit you?" Reborn asked from the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame and watching them both intently from under the brim of his hat. "Maybe it's time for you to retire to the home for old men and spend your days playing card games and whining about your ongoing loss of hearing."
"Watch your mouth, Reborn," Viper snarled at him, flashing with energy for a moment as his temper sharpened. "This is none of your business and you have no right to comment on it. Go back to your babysitting and leave us to do the real work."
"It's my business when you're spying on Tsuna," Reborn retorted, moving into the office now and hopping up on the desk. "I should kill you both for it."
"Just you try it, you rude, irritating bastard!" Viper moved forward to intercept him, only to have his collar snagged by his boss.
Tugging Viper back and setting him by the window again while growling with irritation, Xanxus turned back to Reborn. "You have your orders, annoying midget, and I have mine. Your pet isn't my boss and he may have talked me into doing some of his dirty work, but it's only because I want to get these lazy fuckers out of my way for a while. Don't assume I ever have his best interests at heart."
"The Ninth ordered you to spy on Tsuna?" Reborn frowned at Xanxus and it was clear he wasn't sure he believed it. "Tsuna's been communicating with him regularly."
"The old man ordered me to do what I could to make sure the kid doesn't die before he finishes puberty. It's irritating, but I'll take that over another decade on ice," Xanxus replied. "Of course, if he'd known young Tsunayoshi would be begging me to fuck him so cutely, he might have rethought the ice issue." He smirked then, amused by the sheer irritation and small wave of what was obviously jealousy and possessiveness that flashed across the Arcobaleno's face. "What makes it even funnier is that the brat probably thinks he's sexually abused me. He'll probably apologize, then thank me and then apologize again."
The silent snarl that moved through the air as Reborn glared at Xanxus simply confirmed the truth of what he'd said. Chuckling, Xanxus detached his external drive and tucked it into a pocket before shutting the laptop down again. This assignment might be annoying and enough to drive him to drink, but at least he got to enjoy torturing his father's pet Arcobaleno in the process. That almost made the flight to Japan and home again worthwhile.
"Boss, we have other tasks to handle before we leave this afternoon," Viper reminded him, leaving the window to float towards the door. "I'm sure Reborn can handle resetting the alarm after we leave." He paused in the doorway to wait.
"Yeah," Xanxus pulled himself upright, giving Reborn a last, smug look. "Let's get it all done so we can return the task of tutoring the brat to his keeper. It's unfortunate there are some things he's not man enough to handle right now, but I'm sure if he and the brat hope hard enough, he'll find a few more feet of height under the Christmas tree some year."
"You irritating little bastard," Reborn snarled, and Xanxus shifted slightly to the left to avoid the shot Reborn took at him, chuckling at the new hole in the wall.
"Tutors should be less temperamental," Xanxus informed him as he ducked out the doorway and left the office, still chuckling.
"You should have let me handle him for you, boss," Viper grumbled, floating near his shoulder, invisible to the average eye as they walked away from the building. "He's such an arrogant, self-assured, annoying bastard."
"Got under your skin, did he?" Xanxus asked, amused now. "I thought you'd be happy to finally see him suffer a bit. After all, the impact of your curse is finally hitting him where it really hurts."
He allowed it when the Arcobaleno settled onto his shoulder, finding himself in an unnaturally good mood, having collected what he needed and having had another chance to rub salt in Reborn's emotional wounds. "Look at it this way. He has to spend all day looking at what he really wants right there in front of him, and the most he can do is ask to be carried like an infant. Meanwhile, Tsunayoshi's Guardians are going to be all over him like dogs in heat."
"Boss," Viper's voice went plaintive and soft for once, his own frustration and pain flaring for a long moment. While he enjoyed tormenting Reborn, some of the realities of Reborn's situation hit close to home.
"I swear by all that's holy, puffball, that if you confess to me, I'll bring you home stuffed and mounted to sit on the mantle," Xanxus informed him, glancing over at him out of the corner of his eye. "It's bad enough with the fucking rest of them mooning over me all the damned time."
"Don't worry, boss," Viper replied, amused. "I'm fond of you for unknown and probably unhealthy reasons, but I'm not in love with you." He did, however, settle in more comfortably, taking advantage of the ride. "That doesn't mean I don't understand Reborn's pain in all of this. As much as I like seeing him suffer, I'd rather it be over something else, something less personal, I suppose. Something his own fault, maybe. We may have volunteered for this, but I don't think any of us would have, if we'd known it would turn out to be this sort of hellish half-life."
Xanxus looked at him thoughtfully as he climbed into the waiting limo, nodding at the underling to drive before putting up the privacy partition between the front and back of the vehicle. "I thought you'd gotten over that crush of yours. Something about not wanting to deal with loud, ignorant imbeciles? Don't tell me it's getting worse?"
Viper blushed, the color barely visible under the large hat he used to cover most of his face. "I'd rather not speak about that, boss. It's private, and it's nothing that will ever become reality anyway. Everyone has secret desires. Mine is just less attainable than most."
"That's not necessarily true," Xanxus commented, yawning widely and lounging back against the seat. "You heard that conversation as clearly as I did. You have reason to be hopeful." He paused, frowning. "Although the thought of being any younger than I am pisses me off. There's a certain amount of dignity in being older than those fucking brats."
"You don't really care what they think, do you boss?" Viper looked at him curiously as he floated down to the seat next to Xanxus.
"Not in the least," Xanxus replied, eyes drifting shut slowly. "They're just a bunch of noisy, useless trash right now."
"Go ahead and sleep, boss," Viper murmured, settling in to keep watch over him. "I'll wake you when we get there."
"Good." Xanxus let himself drift into a half-sleep, aware of the world around him but disinterested in participating in it any further at the moment.
*Title translates to "He who excuses himself, accuses himself".