PAIRING: Sawada Tsunayoshi & Vongola Tenth Generation Guardians
TAGS: Post-Canon, POV Third Person Limited
Friendship, Bonding, Fluff, Team Dynamics, Slice of Life, Platonic Intimacy, Affection, Team as Family
Everyone Loves Sawada Tsunayoshi
WARNING: Not Beta Read
Tsuna has always known what love is. What being loved is. He's seen it from his mother to his father all his life, and from his father to his mother too the rare times he's at home, for all it looks at first glance like he doesn't put nearly the same efforts in it.
He's seen it from his mother to him too, though he doesn't always add it to the list. He tries not to hold it against her too often or too harshly. For all she has her flaws, for all she failed him and keeps failing him at times, Tsuna isn't a perfect son himself, he knows. Everyone does. His mother tries, always did, is well-meaning and loving even when she fails and it hurts and scars him, but before Reborn came in his life and everyone after him, it was more than he could say about anyone else in his life.
So Tsuna's seen all his life what love is. The blinding, unconditional kind of love too. The loyal and devoted kind. He's seen what being loved with that kind of love looks like.
Tsuna never dreamed of being on the receiving end of that kind of love. He's desperately begged for it for as long as he can remember, but just to be loved at all, by someone else who wouldn't owe it to him like his parents do. Nothing ever came close to even hint he was allowed to hope or ask for anything more.
They sit in his living room, whatever mafia-related purpose Reborn gathered them to talk about long forgotten for the usual loud chaos, more or less friendly. Gokudera's shouting, Ryohei bickering while Yamamoto's teasing. Hibari's losing his patience by the second, his words much sharper and meaner than the rest of them, only making the conversation escalates, and Mukuro is of course happy to help on that matter. Lambo tries to be the loudest in the room, trying to talk to and answer to everyone at the same time, while Chrome distracts him here and there the time for him to breathe, keeping an eye on the boys, and ready to put distance between them and Lambo should they become too rowdy.
They look at home like that, spread and lounging in his living room, unapologetic of the ruckus they're making and the one they're sure to leave behind them once they leave. They look and make themselves at home for no other reason than they're in Tsuna's home, for no other reason than Tsuna's presence there with them, for all they seem to have forgotten all about him.
It's strange how Tsuna's so certain of their love for him. They'd lay their lives down for him in a heartbeat, he knows it deep in his bones. Maybe they'd even lay their lives down for him for no other reason than Tsuna asking them to, even if it wasn't needed of them.
They feel at home because Tsuna make wherever they are with him home.
It feels... powerful. Makes him feel powerful. He doesn't know if it should feel like that, but he isn't surprised by it.
Love, both its presence and absence, is a weapon. Can be a weapon, at the very least.
Maybe not all of them are aware of it, but Tsuna would know.
"Guys," he says when their words turn too unfriendly, "don't fight."
They don't spare him so much as a glance, and he might as well not have said anything at all.
At times like this Tsuna can't help but wonder just who it is they think they're so willing and ready to lay their lives down for. Because surely it can't be him when they never seem to have any trouble dismissing him so easily? It's not the first time they dismiss him either, him or his words, or his wants and wishes. His needs.
"Hayato." He feels a bit bad singling him out of all of them, putting the blame on him in turn. Gokudera is the one who starts it the most often, but the others are all always but too willing and happy to rile him up further until it gets out of hands.
The room goes dead silent, all attention turning on him. It stays dead silent, all of them still and unblinking, waiting for his next move, his next words. Gokudera might not be breathing anymore either, his eyes wide, his mouth parted open.
At times like this Tsuna feels guilty for ever doubting they know exactly what they're doing loving him, and know exactly who it is they're loving.
He doesn't think his voice sounded any different from before though. Maybe a little louder, steadier. Maybe more assured than before, confident in the love they have for him.
Maybe it's what happens when he lets that confidence slip in his voice.
How puzzling it is whenever he realizes it's a fact acknowledged by all of them. That they're content to let it be, to let it happen. To prove and reassert over and over again whenever they can it is a fact and the truth.
When did Tsuna ever earn it from them?
It should be an obvious answer, if not necessarily a simple one.
Gokudera and Yamamoto are the easiest. Tsuna saved their lives, and he could have hardly done anything more for them.
Mukuro is easy enough too, for all he wouldn't know how to begin to put it in words, let alone in an understandable manner. But they're so similar he and him whenever he lets them be, or when he has no other choice but to let them be, lying unconscious on the floor while Joshima tells him about a boy seen and treated as a tool, and broken down to be build again into a monster.
Chrome and Hibari would be the hardest to tell, and yet all of them have yet to say anything, have yet to move a muscle or shift their attention from him all the same.
Reborn clicks his tongue. "A boss shouldn't have to intervene in every single petty squabble of his Guardians."
Tsuna has long mastered the art of ignoring such remarks from him. They're always his friends before they're ever his Guardians, and he always does his best to make them treat him as a simple friend in turn instead of as their Boss. This time though, he purses his lips, tensing, and hunching his shoulders over himself.
The atmosphere in the room shifts again, almost imperceptibly. The others shift cold eyes on Reborn, warning eyes, inclining their bodies ever so slightly to face Reborn but show him his back. Protective of him. Defensive of him.
Taking his side.
Tsuna's head spins. It seems he doesn't even have to say anything at all.
Do they know? Do they really realize just how much power over them they're willingly putting in his hands?
Reborn and him keep looking at each other a beat too long before he looks away, guilt-free. Maybe because Reborn will praise him for it if he chooses to bring it up at all, or maybe because whatever he feels about it doesn't matter.
They're on his side after all, aren't they?
"Come here, Hayato."
Gokudera usually never leaves his side unless Tsuna asks him to or the situation requires for it, but when it's all of them together like this, he willingly strays away from him, though never too far.
Do the others realize it's him acknowledging them, showing his trust in them? That it's him relaxing because he knows he can with all of them there to keep watch too? To watch over him too?
Gokudera is only bad at showing he cares when you expect him to show it like everyone else does.
Gokudera comes easily, standing without a word, entirely uncaring of the heated fight he was in he leaves behind. He stands in front of him, and waits.
It's something they all do to some extent, waiting on him, waiting for him. Picking up on his cues, voiced and unspoken, purposeful and subconscious; reading his body language and the expressions on his face, listening to the intonations of his voice; and only then acting accordingly. It's something Tsuna always absentmindedly realized they did, but never took the time to sit with just what it meant it's something they do.
For all they know how to dismiss him all too easily at times, at the same time no one else but them make it their first priority to be so hyper aware and tuned to his every word, his every want, wish and need.
Tsuna doesn't think he realizes yet just how much weight they put in his every word, want, wish and need. Maybe that's why he says what he says next, to test the water, to be a little more aware of it, "Sit."
Of course, it's an unnecessary thing to say. What else is there for Gokudera to do now he's here but to sit next to him? Kneel?
He would if Tsuna were to ask him to.
He'd remain standing too if Tsuna were to change his mind.
Gokudera widens his eyes again, seemingly sucking in a breath, though Tsuna doesn't hear it. It doesn't look like he takes offense all the same, and it's a relief. Tsuna isn't trying to assert a hierarchy between them or anything of the sort at all. He'd never do that to any of them. Would never betray their trust like that.
He smiles, patting the place next to him on the couch. Gokudera sits just as easily as he came to him, as easily as they all quieted down when he spoke, and Tsuna's heart flutters. On a whim, and for no other reason, he swears, he brushes his hair away from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear, then cups his cheek. "Thank you."
Gokudera blushes bright red, but cannot fight against the pleased smile pulling at his lips, glowing under his attention. He leans in his touch, maybe or maybe not purposefully, and Tsuna brushes his thumb against his cheek. "Of course, Tenth."
When Tsuna chances a glance at the others, he's met with the fierce jealousy on Yamamoto's face, burning in his eyes. His heart skips a beat, blood rushing through his veins.
Oh.
They love him.
How heady.
No wonder Vongola's so sure it can only inevitably catch him in its spider's web.
A/N: I don't know what this is lol. But likely it's because of my last one-shot (which is probably also why Gokudera has the spotlight here, not that he doesn't deserve it :heart emoji:). I was just thinking about Tsuna, and him not only being loved but being adored and revered, and how he'd indulge and revel in it because it'd be the first time in his life it'd happen, you know? Anyway.
I think this deserves a "power dynamics" tag too, but I wasn't quite sure so let me know what you think about it.
I hope you enjoyed the story. Any and all reviews are appreciated.
Thank you for reading!
- Hope