"Tsuna-san, did you finally find Lambo-kun, I-pin-chan, and Futa-kun?" Haru's anxious voice called out from around the corner, startling Lambo, who was just about to shoot himself with the Ten Year Bazooka.
Tsuna almost cried like a baby when Lambo, in a bizarre yet somehow predictable sequence of events, panicked, lost control of his bazooka and shot Haru with it. Tsuna knew then and there that he should have listened to the little voice in his head that told him not to get out of bed this morning.
He had no one to blame but himself, really; and Reborn. (Reborn was always to blame for all things.) Tsuna should have been smart and taken the bazooka away from Lambo after that incident where he somehow, against all odds, managed to hit Hibari. Future Hibari had not mellowed with age and demonstrated that by using their bodies to destroy their surroundings in some demented game disguised as training. After the five minutes were up and their Hibari returned, he finished what was left of them for destroying public property.
Tsuna should have done something then, as he was well aware of Lambo's tendency to pull out his bazooka at the first sign of trouble, or even in anger. But he had not, which brought him to this particular predicament.
Any other day and Tsuna would've been curious about future Haru. She was no Hibari Kyoya after all; it probably would've been fun. But not this day. Not with the Varia standing right in front of them, ready and willing to tear them apart at a moment's notice.
The fight that was all but ready to break out moments before halted in its tracks when Lambo's Bazooka hit Haru. It must have been the confusion of seeing a five-year-old boy pulling a Bazooka out of his hair and then shooting a civilian girl with it that stopped the Varia from attacking. God knew it still mystified Tsuna and had Gokudera go through multiple notebooks writing about hair, supernatural cows, and their usage of sub-space pockets.
For Tsuna, it was a blessing in disguise. He hated Lambo's bazooka with a fiery passion for all the inconvenience it caused him in the past and probably the future too. But, he'd happily deal with the fallout if it meant he had a couple of minutes respite from the flames of a man who looked about ready to slaughter him six-ways from Sunday. Xanxus looked like a serial killer ready to let loose, and as his intended victim, Tsuna wanted to run the other way, screaming for his mother.
He probably would, too, if Reborn would let him.
Tsuna watched as the familiar pink smoke engulfed his friendly stalker and waited for it to clear. He ignored Gokudera's grumblings about cows and stupid women and how he would have a simpler life if only his Juudaime would allow him to blow them both up and turned to Xanxus and the rest of the Varia.
He breathed a silent sigh of relief to see they were still preoccupied with identifying the pink smoke.
"Ushishishi," the blond teenager with the weird hairstyle and tiara laughed creepily. "Interesting weapon you have there, turning something into pink smoke. The prince wants one."
Tsuna's felt a shiver crawl over his skin at the thought of the Varia in possession of the TY bazooka. He'd have to keep it as far away from them as possible. His head snapped back to the familiar pink smoke that was slowly being cleared when an agonizing scream sounded.
"Haru?" Tsuna asked hesitantly, slowly stepping forward. His jaw dropped when the pink smoke slowly dissipated.
"Haru?" he asked again, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. His TYL friend was clearly in pain, holding her big, round, and pregnant belly while trying and failing to do breathing exercises. Her polka-dotted hospital gown strained around her large belly every time she moved.
The woman he knew was a ten-year later version of the girl always following him around pestering him for dates looked up from the floor she was lying on. "Tsuna-kun?" she asked, breathlessly voice filled with pain. "Hahi, What happen-" she stopped when she looked around from him to Lambo, I-pin, and Futa, to Reborn and Gokudera, and back to him, then to Yamamoto and Onii-san, back to him, then to the Varia, only to finally settle back on Lambo.
Tsuna received another shock when the cheerful and kind girl he knew turned into a dark, angry monster with the killing intent of a demon as a dark cloud filled with promises of blood and pain formed above her head. "Bovino Lambo," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I'm going to slaughter you like the stupid little cow you are before I strangle you with your own intestines. Then I'll feed you-," her threat broke with a choked gasp that slowly morphed into a pain-filled moan.
"Oi, what's wrong with you, stupid woman?" Gokudera demanded.
Haru squinted her eyes, took a deep breath through her nose, and loudly exhaled through her mouth as she glared at Gokudera. "What does it look like, idiot?" she moaned, clutching her midsection. "I'm in labor!"
Tsuna choked in shock and almost had a heart attack when her words penetrated through the daze that seemed to cloud his mind ever since his TYL friend showed up pregnant.
He wasn't alone in his shock as Gokudera seemed to have lost all ability to form coherent sentences and just gaped at Haru like a fish.
"Really? Hahaha, congratulations, Haru," Yamamoto grinned widely.
"I extremely don't understand, but congratulations to the extreme!"
Tsuna ignored Yamamoto and Onii-san with practiced ease while his eyes stayed glued on Haru. "Labor?" Tsuna squeaked. "Hiiiiieeee, You're having a baby?" he quickly swallowed back the 'It's not mine, is it?' part that was running through his mind.
"Yes," she growled. "When is this? I don't remember this?" She looked around confusedly, sweat dripping from her forehead and face flushed as her eyes landed on Reborn. "You're still Arcobaleno," she said, confusing Tsuna and making Reborn, and strangely enough, the floating baby freeze.
"Still?" Reborn bit out, sounding an odd mix of demanding, incredulous, and hopeful.
"Yeah," future Haru grunted. "We get that taken care of in the future."
The tall guy standing next to Xanxus with a weird mustache and piercing scratched his head confusedly before interrupting Reborn and future Haru's weird staring contest. "So wait, let me get this straight, that cow kid has a bazooka that impregnates people?" he asked, looking at Lambo like he was a dangerous animal about to pounce. "And I have to fight him?"
"Ushishishi, good luck, octopus-head."
Haru's breathing sped up, and she groaned in pain as she glared at the strange mustache man. "Haru always knew you were an idiot, Levi-san, but this just raised you to a whole other level of stupidity." The weird mustache dude, dubbed Levi by Haru, spluttered in indignation. Tsuna wondered how well Haru knew him in the future to make a statement like that. An accurate one, too, if his comments on Lambo's bazooka were anything to go by.
"Voooooiiiiiiiiiiiii what the fuck is going on?" the white-haired guy screamed, interrupting Tsuna's thoughts and making everyone around him wince at the volume. "Where the fuck did this pregnant scum come from?"
"The Ten Year Bazooka is a weapon invented by the Bovino famiglia. When the bazooka hits you, it exchanges you with your future self from ten years later for a set amount of time," Reborn's squeaky voice sounded. Tsuna heaved a relieved sigh, glad that Reborn had shaken off whatever had surprised him. He'd have to ask him what an arcobaleno was later. "And to answer your question, Haru, we were about to enter a conflict about the Lightning Ring," he explained.
"Hahi," Haru groaned and clutched her big round belly. "This cannot be happening." Tsuna could do nothing but watch helplessly as his friend endured the pain of childbirth, hoping with every fiber of his being, the five minutes would run out before she delivered her baby right in front of them.
"So the Varia is still our enemy at this point in time?" she gritted out through clenched teeth. "You are so dead. You'll be lucky if Haru's husband finds you and sets you on fire before Haru gets her hands on you because Haru will do much worse," she spat at the now cowering Lambo.
"Wait, still our enemy? Is there a time when they're not?" Gokudera asked, surprised. "Hey, answer me, you stupid woman," he growled, irritated when she didn't give him a second glance.
"I can't do this," she muttered, voice laced with pain and misery. "It hurts too much. I'm not supposed to be doing this alone."
Tsuna walked forward and kneeled next to her. "You're not alone," he said hesitantly, not knowing what to say but not liking the desperation on his usually cheery friend's face. "I'm right here, and so is everyone else."
"Thanks, Tsuna-kun, really, but I-" she gritted her teeth and screamed when another contraction hit. This one seemed even more potent than the last. "Xanxus," she whimpered, making Tsuna freeze. He looked around to see if he only imagined things but widened his eyes when he was clearly not the only one to hear it. Xanxus was looking at Haru with a cold expression.
"How the hell do you know my name, Trash?" he growled, slowly stepping towards her. Tsuna tensed and noticed his friends getting ready to react if Xanxus made an aggressive move. It eased his heart only a little because he knew that they were no match for him except Reborn.
"Xanxus, please, I..." a tear slipped from the corner of her eye. "I don't care about the rules of time travel. And I don't give a fuck if you know too much about the future. I need you. This is not supposed to be happening. We were supposed to-" she choked and put a hand on her protruding belly, trying to breathe through the pain, but failing when an agonized moan escaped from her mouth.
"Xanxus, you bastard, if you let me bring our first-born child into this world on my own, I'll never forgive you," she suddenly growled to the shock of everyone around her. "I mean it, asshole, hold my fucking hand while I deliver your baby!"
Tsuna didn't know what to say; really, he didn't. It wasn't every day that he found out his greatest enemy would impregnate his friend. He had a strange feeling like reality just shifted and made a place for flying pigs, frozen hells, and other impossible things like that.
Judging by the expression of every person around him, they were experiencing very much the same. He could actually hear Gokudera muttering something about UMA possession.
"Ushishishi, this is starting to get amusing," the tiara-wearing teenager giggled to the baby floating next to him.
"I wonder if I can make everyone pay an admission fee," the baby retorted thoughtfully.
Xanxus ignored his subordinates and glared at Haru. "What the fuck do you mean by that, trash?" Xanxus, who upgraded from looking like a serial killer to someone who frequently participated in committing genocide, glared at Haru like the homicidal manic that he was.
"Hahi! I don't care if you don't remember fathering this child. You will take responsibility for your actions, asshole, even if you technically haven't done anything yet. I mean it, Xanxus, hold my fucking hand while I'm having your baby!" her last word turned into a painful screech when another contraction hit.
"Vooooiiiiii, you mean that it's the boss's kid in there? How the fuck did that happen?" the loud white-haired man looked like he'd just been told the sky was red when he'd thought it had been blue all his life.
"I'm too busy to explain the birds and bees, Squalo. But I'm pretty sure Lussuria-nee is more than happy to give you an in-depth explanation," Haru puffed.
The man with green-colored hair who Tsuna assumed to be Lussuria-nee did look delighted to do just that if his suggestions to the white-haired man, Squalo, Haru had called him, were anything to go by.
Squalo ignored his vivid and disturbing suggestions like it was something he did daily and eyed Haru. "No, seriously, how'd you get our shitty boss to knock you up? I thought the bastard was asexual."
"Shut the fuck up, Trash!" Xanxus growled.
Haru gasped loudly when the contraction stopped. Her hair was drenched in sweat. "The contractions are not very far apart. I'm going to have to start pushing soon," she hissed breathlessly. "Xanxus, please," she pleaded. "I know that you don't care about anything but becoming decimo right now, but I'm your wife, and I'm in labor. I need my husband, but since he's ten years away, probably destroying the hospital room in a fit of rage at my disappearance, you're going to have to stand in for him."
"The fuck, you say?" Xanxus asked incredulously. "I haven't seen any proof that you are my wife, and even if you are, that kid ain't mine."
Xanxus and Haru, completely caught up in their argument, seemed to forget about everyone around them. Haru's face turned utterly red in anger. "Hahi! Are you accusing me of cheating on you?" she asked incredulously. "You fucking bastard. When I get back home, I'll make you pay for that," Haru hissed. "No sex until you grovel at my feet. I mean it, Xanxus. Especially no kinky sex in strange places. That's how you knocked me up in the first place!"
The utter silence that followed this deceleration clearly reminded Haru that she wasn't alone with her future husband. Her already red face turned even redder. "You see what you did? You made me talk about our sex life in front of our famiglia. Ugh, I hate you so much right now!"
Tsuna could see that Haru was clearly at the end of her rope. He turned to Reborn desperate to find a way to help his friend. He scowled when he saw the demon baby was too engrossed with the spectacle before him to tell him what to do.
Yamamoto stepped forward and crouched next to Haru, ignoring Xanxus's warning glare like the oblivious idiot. "Maa, maa, Haru, I'm sure he didn't mean it that way. You shouldn't get yourself so worked up, hahaha. You're in labor, remember, it can't be good for the baby."
Haru wiped away her tears and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "You're right, Takeshi-kun," she said softly. "I need to think about the baby first, not about his bastard of a father who accused me of cheating and forcing the child of another man on him," she said pointedly, giving Xanxas a steely look.
"That's not what I meant," Xanxus said gruffly to his crying future wife. "I was saying that the kid ain't mine yet. I never wanted a kid, and I don't think I want to know what you did to make me agree to get one either-"
"I didn't," she hiccuped softly. "This was all your idea. I wanted to wait a little while longer, but you... well, it doesn't really matter anym-" she suddenly stopped talking and started taking deep breaths.
"Are you okay?" Tsuna asked, worriedly at the panic evident on her face.
"Oh God, I can't do this. I have to push. I think- the baby, it's coming." She was in full-blown panic, hyperventilating and pressing her legs together as if she could force the baby to stay inside of her by the sheer power of will.
"Haru!" Yamamoto called. "Haru, stop it, calm down." Tsuna panicked when she wouldn't listen and tried to call for her too. Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to have something to say, from Lambo asking her for candy to Gokudera yelling about keeping her legs closed lest she traumatized the Juudaime. He couldn't make out what Onii-san was saying, but it was loud. The Varia members seemed to have something to add too. The tiara guy just giggled like a creep while the floating baby offered to deliver Haru's baby for a fee. The spiky-haired mustache weirdo accused her of seducing his boss and using drugs to do it. Squalo unleashed an endless barrage of voooiiii at the top of his lungs, clearly trying to out-yell Onii-san. Lussuria was chatting away about all the fun things they'd do in the future, just two girls together.
Things were going wrong very fast, and Tsuna didn't really know how to help.
"Shut the hell up, you fucking scum!" Xanxus shouted, making everyone stop. Everything was silent except for Haru's hyperventilating.
"Hey, woman, listen to me," he said sharply, placing a hand at the back of her neck. "I don't know how you got me to marry you, but I know I wouldn't have married someone weak. So woman the fuck up and show me the reason I chose you as my wife and mother of my child."
The woman looked up at him with startled eyes. "Xanxus," she whimpered in a way that sounded very wrong to his ears.
Sure there had been people whimpering his name before, while he was torturing them, on the verge of killing them, or sometimes even while fucking them, but not like this. The way she said his name was as if he was the answer to all her troubles, no, as if he was the answer to everything, period. He could see how that could be addicting if that's how she snared his future self. Or maybe his future self really was some kind of superhero saving damsels left and right, loving her with all his heart. Yeah, not fucking likely.
"Xanxus, it hurts. I need to push."
'Oh, fuck me.' What the hell was he supposed to tell his 'wife' to stop her from popping the damn brat out in the middle of the fucking street? Did he really choose this woman as his wife? What the fuck was his future-self thinking? He probably wasn't. Or the most likely option was that he was letting his dick lead him around, which admittedly didn't sound like him at all but was the more likely option if his reaction to her earlier words about kinky sex in strange places was any indication.
"You're having my kid, if what you say is true and I went through all the trouble of convincing you to have a child and knocking you up, I know the other me is gonna get pissed if something went wrong. Stop panicking." he turned to Reborn. "How long 'till she goes back?"
"Not long, maybe another minute," Reborn said, looking inappropriately regretful at having to see her go and losing his entertainment.
Someone really needed to kill that fucking baby.
"You've got one minute left before you go back. You can hold it together for one more minute."
"I can't," she sobbed.
"You can do this because I'm telling you that you can. One minute, that's all, then you'll be back with your husband. You want to see him, right?" Ah, fuck, he was never going to live this shit down. His men would taunt him with this until their dying day, which would come up very quickly if that scum didn't cut it the fuck out.
"Yes. I want my Xanxus, he's still a bastard sometimes, but he loves our son and me."
Xanxus grimaced at her words but ignored them in favor of making sure his future wife didn't deliver their baby in the past. Because yeah, so not ready to be someone's father. Ever. He didn't know what the fuck his older self had been smoking when he came up with this shit, but whatever it was, he's staying the hell away from it. Being someone's husband was bad enough. He didn't need to bring a brat into an already fucked up situation. "A son, huh?" he asked thoughtfully. At least it was a boy. He wouldn't know what the fuck to do with a girl.
His wife groaned as another contraction hit. "You guessed it was a boy, and I thought it was a girl. You won, obviously." Just as the words left her mouth, she was enveloped in pink smoke.
"Hahi! Where is this pink smoke coming from? Haru is going to get an asthma attack if this keeps up."
He heard the Sawada trash cry in relief when the smoke cleared, and his pregnant wife disappeared to make room for her younger version. Heh, crisis averted, let his future-self deal with the woman and her bullshit. He was the fucking idiot that decided to knock her up. After all, it was only fair.
"Haru!" the Sawada trash yelled, sounding an awful lot like a girl.
"Hahi! Tsuna-san, what's going on?" she looked around and was startled when she found him kneeling beside her, hand still placed on her neck. "You look familiar," she said thoughtfully.
Yeah, no shit, he was standing right there five minutes ago, hell-bent on killing her friends. Maybe his future self drunk-married her in Vegas, and she turned out to be such a good fuck that he didn't bother getting divorced. He obviously didn't marry her for her intelligence.
"Hey, Haru remembers you. You're that angry man from the hospital. You were throwing all those doctors around because your pregnant wife suddenly disappeared while she was in labor. Hahi, did you find her? Haru wishes Tsuna-san cared about her like that."
Of course, his future wife was in love with the girly Sawada trash. It was that kind of day.
She studied him carefully. "Your hair is different, though, and that other you didn't look so mean, he was very kind to Haru, even if he was very rudely throwing all those things at the loud white-haired man. Are you his evil twin? Did you kidnap his pregnant wife to use her in your sinister plot for world domination? Haru saw something like that in a Korean drama last week."
It sounded like him, but also not. What the hell kind of reality did she live in, anyway? Evil twin brothers, kidnapping pregnant women, plotting world domination? Alright, maybe the world domination part wasn't too far off, but he sure as fuck wasn't going around capturing pregnant women. What the hell was wrong with her?
Again the question he wanted to ask his idiot older self; 'really?'
"If you are some evil fiend who kidnaps pregnant women, Haru's telling Tsuna-san, and he will defeat you," she said imperiously.
"Hiiiiiieeee! Don't volunteer me for such things, Haru," the Sawada scum yelled. "Do you want to see me dead?"
Xanxus ignored the girly boy's squeaks and gave his wife — and he really should stop calling her that — an incredulous look before standing up and walking away. He wasn't staying there a second longer than necessary lest their stupidity infected him.
"Let's go, trash," he growled at his subordinates. "I need a fucking drink." He was going to need more than that if he planned on succeeding to erase these past five minutes out of his mind.
"Vooooooiiiiiii, shitty boss, what about the damn rings?"
"And what about your lovely wife?" Lussuria squealed happily.
"We'll come back later," preferably when she's far, far away from them, in case that stupid brat shoots her with that fucking bazooka again. "And don't call her my wife," he bit out angrily. "Let's go, scum."
He resolved himself to stay the hell away from the girl because although she seemed like a fucking waste of space, he could almost understand why his future self would be interested in the older, more tolerable version. For Xanxus, it was the first time in his life that someone had looked at him like that— as if he was the answer to the only question that mattered. As if she depended on him and loved him without condition or hesitation.
She looked at him as if he was her whole world.
He shuddered at the memory. Xanxas wasn't ready for that, and he doubted he ever would be.
"Get me some booze, shark-trash," Xanxas commanded his rain.
"We got booze, shitty boss!" Squalo yelled,
"Get me more." Xanxus decided that he needed to get mind-numbingly drunk. He didn't think it would be enough to forget the glimpse he just had of his future, but he could sure as hell try.
Notes:
I rewrote it, so let me know what you think.
I can't get anywhere with EotH, so I wrote some other stuff to get back in the writing headspace. It became a thing. I don't know if I'll finish it, but I figured I'd publish it all the same.
KHR/ Percy Jackson crossover Thalia's Grace.