And the birds.
Xxxxxxx
Apparently their little group (Tsuna's ark, someone in some backwater town had called them) attracted all kinds of misfits and migrants.
Somehow or another, after Ryohei had gained Kanga all the other animals had tumbled into their tent, and their hearts rather quickly, one after the other. Mukuro may have been the last to find his little ferret, but it had only been two years after Ryohei had found Kanga.
But it wasn't the end.
Tsuna's camp became a sanctuary for all animals and strays passing by. As they meandered the states and Canada, visiting old and new places, people (strangers or otherwise) always seemed to find themselves sitting around Tsuna's campfire with their own assortment of stories.
There was that man from California who was travelling from Minnesota with his horse. He had been a goofball, Mukuro bet he wouldn't last another two months travelling alone; Kyouya bet four weeks less than that.
There was a little group of friends who were just spending the weekend at a campground in Maine, they said they were a family, even though –between red hair on one boy, to blue hair on another, never mind their height and structural differences –they looked nothing alike, aside from, perhaps, some seriously interesting red-compass eyes they all shared. It was nice to see others their age who appreciated getting away in nature.
But more than that were the little additions to their family that swooped in an out periodically.
Tsuna wasn't sure whether it was Kyouya or Takeshi's fault. But somehow or another, between the time that their group had pitched camp for the night and had torn it down for moving out, they'd always gathered flock of birds.
Never the same species (though sometimes bonded pairs would turn up), they would all group and sing on branches or the tent-poles. They were gentle with the dogs and cats and other animals –sometimes grooming them, sometimes running around together –and they never took too much of the bird seed the group carried around.
While most of the birds would leave as soon as the tent was taken down, two stayed.
Mostly they stayed with Takeshi –a little sparrow he called Kojirou –or with Kyouya –a little canary who was a little too smart, called Hibird. However, sometimes they'd nest in Tsuna's hair, or Natsu's coat.
It made for some interesting whispers when they entered camp. Especially since Hibird carried notes around on his leg, and Kojirou was learning that particular skillset incredibly quickly.
Tsuna had to laugh as he looked over their camp site. Between the pack of dogs too varied to even comment on –whose alpha was a Newfie Lab that reached even a tall-man's waist, and whose beta was a leash-trained cat –to the hedgehog and ferrets who rode around in special pockets, Tsuna's group was a special one. They had birds and backpacks. They had animals and people living in miraculous unison.
Fondness flooded Tsuna as he laughed, because whether it was boys who didn't need a home or cats who thought that they were dogs, it didn't matter. Tsuna picked up a lot of strays on his trip, and it figured that it was only in doing that, that he figured out he had never been a stray at all.