It's late. He knows that. But Xanxus keeps odd hours. Because of his work, the job he does, his sleep schedule is all sorts of fucked. There are reasons he takes little catnaps throughout the day. It's because assassins usually operate at night. This is when he's supposed to be working. So it's out of habit that he's working now, with his lover so close by.
Even more knowing that he's been recently injured enough that he had needed Lussuria to heal him. He should be in bed, resting with Tsuna. Instead, he sits at his desk and goes through more paperwork that's piled up between missions plus the new issues in the States. He hasn't had time to even cut his hair from the little side-effect that happens from too much Sun Peacock.
The desk is an old familiar thing really. Just as the chair he is sitting on. Just as the view out the window is.
As a child he had always been obsessed with the man in the second portrait on the wall of the Iron Fortress. The one everyone whispered about in fear. Dead for centuries and a name that still put the fear of god into people. The same man whose power he possessed. A man whom there had been a time he had wanted to be just like. He had idolized the Second as a little boy. It's why he has so many of his things now.
It's Ricardo's desk he sits at. It's Ricardo's chair. It's Ricardo's castle. Even the Varia had been Ricardo's. His idea. His creation. The first Varia Ring had been his and the stones within the Upgraded ones had been shards of the Rainbow left behind by Ricardo as well. And it's Ricardo's bed that Tsuna sleeps in.
Xanxus shifts through important paperwork until he can't stand the shifting and the mumbling any more. Then he stands to go over. Lightly, he puts a hand upon Tsuna's head to smooth his hair before heading towards a window, hoping the fresh air might do him well. It leaves him standing behind his desk, silhouetted in the moonlight.
That careful touch to his hair, familiar and reassuring, is what pulls him out of his dreams and stumbling back into consciousness. Sluggishly, his eyes twitch open and for a moment he can only stare into the dim room and how starkly the moonlight cuts through its darkness. The world is a mess, his mind is a mess, and it's only as his eyes follow the light to its source do things click into place.
Just not the proper place.
It's not Tsuna's memories that the figure at the window rings against, but someone else's, and his face is almost foreign when he gives a loose smile as he pushes himself up sleepily. He's still not half there, and the old Italian which fumbles out from his mouth is all reckless fondness.
"Ricardo." Like it could be anyone else. The blankets are shoved away from his body, freeing his feet so he can press them against the floor. He knows this place. Of course he does. It's Ricardo's place, he can tell from the floor alone. "Stay up so late like this so often, and you'll get gray hairs all the earlier, I keep telling you."
He heard the man on his bed shifting. He looked behind him to see Tsuna slowly sitting up. His smile is strange. He's seen so many of Tsuna's smiles but this is so much different. His voice is strange too. It sounds like Tsuna, but the language is odd. Old. He sounds like he's talking from an Italian Renaissance drama. He'd never heard Tsuna speak like that. He heard the old name and an eyebrow raises. "Tsuna? Can't sleep?"
He frowns a little, turning from the window to look at the man. "I always stay up this late. I needed to take care of some of that business we discussed earlier." To Tsuna's mangled memories, that voice should sound just as familiar. The man he is remembering has that same voice. That same tone, though slightly deeper.
The things in the States needed looking after. Tsuna might want to do this peacefully, but Xanxus had used that time to mobilized the Varia in America. Of course he knows not to say that because he knows how Tsuna gets about him readying the killing squads.
There's a word- foreign, not Italian- and he's so lost in his own mind that he can't even realize it's his own name. It just makes him blink for a moment before the rest of what his cousin draws his attention and Tsuna sighs, weary.
"That's the problem," he groans, pushing himself up onto unsteady feet. "Always late, turn into bed early for once, Ricci!" His walk is a bit wobbly and more than a little slow, but it's late, and he's tired. At least he makes it to Ricardo's desk, which feels so familiar and reassuring under his touch. God bless his cousin's tastes, even if the rest of him is probably too sinful for even the Lord to touch. He doesn't blame him for that, however. Not with what he's asked of him and how much he's leaned on his shoulder more than once. Slumping across the surface, he runs a hand through his mess of hair.
"I bet if I was a woman, you'd be in bed," he grumbles. A moment, and he amends, "And not family." That's important. He knows it is.
His eyes narrow more. He doesn't want to be concerned but he is. He hasn't seen Tsuna like this. Wobbling like that. With that strange look on his face, that old language on his lips and that name that isn't his. Tsuna seems so unsteady and he leaves his window side to walk around the desk where Tsuna has slumped.
He's trying to work out why Tsuna kept calling him the wrong name. He had touched the ring once. Worn it one time. He had seen what was inside. He had only touched it briefly before the Ring and 7 of the 8 within declared him unworthy and it rejected him. He had perhaps dodged a bullet.
"Tsuna?" He slides next to the man and his fingertips lightly stroke against the back of Tsuna's neck. It's more than just a simple fond touch. It's the caress of a concerned lover. Then because he's unsure and he has seen the inside of the Sky Ring, he whispers, "Giotto? If you want me in bed with you, I'll go. But you know that there's business I can only do in the dead of the night." He's worried though. He's worried he's wrong. But even more concerned that he's right.
'Tsuna'. That word again. Maybe he's more tired than he thought, and is misunderstanding something. In the depths of his mind, a part of Tsuna stirs and disrupts the layer of intermingled dreams and foreign memories swathed over his mind.
Yet it slips under again when those rough fingers glad along his neck, and he shivers slightly. The feelings he has confessed of his cousin. The urges. If only he didn't touch him like he did sometimes, it would be so much easier to ignore them. This is a trial, he thinks sometimes. Something sent from up on high to see if he's deserving of the success he's made out of a tiny band of those who had enough of the injustice levied out by others.
And there's his name. His proper name, not the nickname Ricardo murmurs so fondly at times and yells at the top of his lungs at others. He must really be bothering him.
"I know," he answers back softly, reaching to take that large hand in his. "It scares me sometimes, you know. The work you do when it's so late, sometimes with not even the moon to watch you. It feels like I'll lose you to the night." Just one reason out of many to hate when they argue.
He's right. He's right and Xanxus almost wants to shake Tsuna. To shake him and demand his Tsuna back. He doesn't know what that would do to him. More than that, he doesn't know how to handle this. This man who thinks he's someone else. This man who has been dead for nearly 200 years.
His jaw clenches and he looks down to the hand that takes his. His eyes land on the ring. If he tried to take it, he wondered what would happen. But at the same time, he is worried that if he does take it, Tsuna might get stuck like this.
He tries to remember those journals he had poured over as a young boy. He had been so obsessed with the Second. Tries to think about how to handle the man that had looked at him inside that ring and refused him. Xanxus shifts his hold on the man's hand, lightly making little circles against the fragile insides of his wrist with a thumb.
He has to remember that this is still Tsuna. No matter who is there right now. He looks down at the man and that long tail falls over his shoulder.
He swallows a little and murmurs. "It's a little too late to worry about that, don't you think? I've made already my peace with it." That, at least, is very true. He'll let Tsuna be the noon day sky. He is fine ruling the night and making it so that Tsuna's sky keeps shining.
The words are still in that old Italian, that hasn't changed, but at their core... They're true regardless if it's the regrets of a dead man or the fears of one alive. Giotto Vongola and Sawada Tsunayoshi are two entirely different people, familial connections and too-good-to-be-coincidences aside. In some areas, however, they are alike.
Their fears for their loved ones is such an area.
His eyes drift shut as his wrist is stroked, and sleep is such a temptation again. "Life is too short for us to argue so much. Not when I care for you so much."
He keeps that small motion going. It reminds him that this is still Tsuna. No matter who it is talking through him, Tsuna is still in there somewhere. More than that, there's a soft hurt, a memory of those days he spent as a child pouring through Secondo's journals. Reading about the man's life. About the man he had somehow inherited power from.
He doesn't think he can be that man either. He doesn't even know if trying would be fair to Tsuna. Still, he wonders if there was a way to bring the man back. To so that, he'll try to remember all those things he read. "You know I don't enjoy it either. I hate fighting with you. But he's right." There's huge sections of those journals about Spade, about all those things Spade convinced the Second to believe. Things Xanxus understands aren't really that wrong, because it was what made them what they are today. "We'll never have enough power to do what you want if you're afraid to make sacrifices. It's because I love you so much that I'm willing to do what you won't."
That makes Tsuna stir again instead of drifting in the strange place on the edge of sleep. Brow furrowing, he tries to tug his wrist away. Still tired, still not truly there, it's a half-effort. With Xanxus' strength, there's no reason to let him carry through.
Still, he tries. Tries because there's a hazily miserable but dark look on his face now.
"We're doing it again," he murmurs, a shimmer of anger becoming apparent now as well. "We're- you know why he's pushing for that kind of thing, it's because..." Pushing himself up to his feet, he has to pause because the world swims, just like his memories. An enormous ballroom, a ruined and abandoned theater- both seem to mix for a second. "Trapped... in the past. He's trapped in the past and thinks all this bloodshed will fix things..."
He keeps his grip strong and he notes the way the other sways just a little. He knows they're rehashing dead men's arguments but he can't help it. Maybe it's because Ricardo had been his hero. Or maybe because there's a whisper of that man within him somewhere. Something that had awoken when he had worn that ring for those mere minutes. He knows but he also knows that it's because of the things Ricardo did that the Vongola were as strong as they were today. But he also knows that Tsuna had vowed to fix that. To fix the terrible violence, the killing, the darkness.
He sighs. "We are doing it again. When you are far too tired to really put up a good fight." He doesn't know if this is something he did, but Xanxus is bold enough to do it anyway. Just sweep the smaller man off his feet and up into a carry. "So what we're going to do is we're going to put a pin in this for the morning and you are going to go back to bed."
For all his words, a very much Tsuna-like squeak erupts from him as he's hauled up. "Ricci!" is, unfortunately, still on the heels of it.
"Don't... Don't." He flops his hand against Xanxus' shoulder. "You always do this to throw me out..." And they're not even close to that level of an argument yet, the foggy memories say. No one is yelling, and nothing has been thrown. Although somehow that seems odd. Does he really yell or throw things like that? Tsuna goes quiet, the dissonance a little stronger now as he stays curled up against Xanxus.
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badliifechoiice22016-01-03 08:14 pm
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Even more knowing that he's been recently injured enough that he had needed Lussuria to heal him. He should be in bed, resting with Tsuna. Instead, he sits at his desk and goes through more paperwork that's piled up between missions plus the new issues in the States. He hasn't had time to even cut his hair from the little side-effect that happens from too much Sun Peacock.
The desk is an old familiar thing really. Just as the chair he is sitting on. Just as the view out the window is.
As a child he had always been obsessed with the man in the second portrait on the wall of the Iron Fortress. The one everyone whispered about in fear. Dead for centuries and a name that still put the fear of god into people. The same man whose power he possessed. A man whom there had been a time he had wanted to be just like. He had idolized the Second as a little boy. It's why he has so many of his things now.
It's Ricardo's desk he sits at. It's Ricardo's chair. It's Ricardo's castle. Even the Varia had been Ricardo's. His idea. His creation. The first Varia Ring had been his and the stones within the Upgraded ones had been shards of the Rainbow left behind by Ricardo as well. And it's Ricardo's bed that Tsuna sleeps in.
Xanxus shifts through important paperwork until he can't stand the shifting and the mumbling any more. Then he stands to go over. Lightly, he puts a hand upon Tsuna's head to smooth his hair before heading towards a window, hoping the fresh air might do him well. It leaves him standing behind his desk, silhouetted in the moonlight.
no subject
Just not the proper place.
It's not Tsuna's memories that the figure at the window rings against, but someone else's, and his face is almost foreign when he gives a loose smile as he pushes himself up sleepily. He's still not half there, and the old Italian which fumbles out from his mouth is all reckless fondness.
"Ricardo." Like it could be anyone else. The blankets are shoved away from his body, freeing his feet so he can press them against the floor. He knows this place. Of course he does. It's Ricardo's place, he can tell from the floor alone. "Stay up so late like this so often, and you'll get gray hairs all the earlier, I keep telling you."
no subject
He frowns a little, turning from the window to look at the man. "I always stay up this late. I needed to take care of some of that business we discussed earlier." To Tsuna's mangled memories, that voice should sound just as familiar. The man he is remembering has that same voice. That same tone, though slightly deeper.
The things in the States needed looking after. Tsuna might want to do this peacefully, but Xanxus had used that time to mobilized the Varia in America. Of course he knows not to say that because he knows how Tsuna gets about him readying the killing squads.
no subject
"That's the problem," he groans, pushing himself up onto unsteady feet. "Always late, turn into bed early for once, Ricci!" His walk is a bit wobbly and more than a little slow, but it's late, and he's tired. At least he makes it to Ricardo's desk, which feels so familiar and reassuring under his touch. God bless his cousin's tastes, even if the rest of him is probably too sinful for even the Lord to touch. He doesn't blame him for that, however. Not with what he's asked of him and how much he's leaned on his shoulder more than once. Slumping across the surface, he runs a hand through his mess of hair.
"I bet if I was a woman, you'd be in bed," he grumbles. A moment, and he amends, "And not family." That's important. He knows it is.
no subject
He's trying to work out why Tsuna kept calling him the wrong name. He had touched the ring once. Worn it one time. He had seen what was inside. He had only touched it briefly before the Ring and 7 of the 8 within declared him unworthy and it rejected him. He had perhaps dodged a bullet.
"Tsuna?" He slides next to the man and his fingertips lightly stroke against the back of Tsuna's neck. It's more than just a simple fond touch. It's the caress of a concerned lover. Then because he's unsure and he has seen the inside of the Sky Ring, he whispers, "Giotto? If you want me in bed with you, I'll go. But you know that there's business I can only do in the dead of the night." He's worried though. He's worried he's wrong. But even more concerned that he's right.
no subject
Yet it slips under again when those rough fingers glad along his neck, and he shivers slightly. The feelings he has confessed of his cousin. The urges. If only he didn't touch him like he did sometimes, it would be so much easier to ignore them. This is a trial, he thinks sometimes. Something sent from up on high to see if he's deserving of the success he's made out of a tiny band of those who had enough of the injustice levied out by others.
And there's his name. His proper name, not the nickname Ricardo murmurs so fondly at times and yells at the top of his lungs at others. He must really be bothering him.
"I know," he answers back softly, reaching to take that large hand in his. "It scares me sometimes, you know. The work you do when it's so late, sometimes with not even the moon to watch you. It feels like I'll lose you to the night." Just one reason out of many to hate when they argue.
no subject
His jaw clenches and he looks down to the hand that takes his. His eyes land on the ring. If he tried to take it, he wondered what would happen. But at the same time, he is worried that if he does take it, Tsuna might get stuck like this.
He tries to remember those journals he had poured over as a young boy. He had been so obsessed with the Second. Tries to think about how to handle the man that had looked at him inside that ring and refused him. Xanxus shifts his hold on the man's hand, lightly making little circles against the fragile insides of his wrist with a thumb.
He has to remember that this is still Tsuna. No matter who is there right now. He looks down at the man and that long tail falls over his shoulder.
He swallows a little and murmurs. "It's a little too late to worry about that, don't you think? I've made already my peace with it." That, at least, is very true. He'll let Tsuna be the noon day sky. He is fine ruling the night and making it so that Tsuna's sky keeps shining.
no subject
The words are still in that old Italian, that hasn't changed, but at their core... They're true regardless if it's the regrets of a dead man or the fears of one alive. Giotto Vongola and Sawada Tsunayoshi are two entirely different people, familial connections and too-good-to-be-coincidences aside. In some areas, however, they are alike.
Their fears for their loved ones is such an area.
His eyes drift shut as his wrist is stroked, and sleep is such a temptation again. "Life is too short for us to argue so much. Not when I care for you so much."
no subject
He doesn't think he can be that man either. He doesn't even know if trying would be fair to Tsuna. Still, he wonders if there was a way to bring the man back. To so that, he'll try to remember all those things he read. "You know I don't enjoy it either. I hate fighting with you. But he's right." There's huge sections of those journals about Spade, about all those things Spade convinced the Second to believe. Things Xanxus understands aren't really that wrong, because it was what made them what they are today. "We'll never have enough power to do what you want if you're afraid to make sacrifices. It's because I love you so much that I'm willing to do what you won't."
no subject
Still, he tries. Tries because there's a hazily miserable but dark look on his face now.
"We're doing it again," he murmurs, a shimmer of anger becoming apparent now as well. "We're- you know why he's pushing for that kind of thing, it's because..." Pushing himself up to his feet, he has to pause because the world swims, just like his memories. An enormous ballroom, a ruined and abandoned theater- both seem to mix for a second. "Trapped... in the past. He's trapped in the past and thinks all this bloodshed will fix things..."
no subject
He sighs. "We are doing it again. When you are far too tired to really put up a good fight." He doesn't know if this is something he did, but Xanxus is bold enough to do it anyway. Just sweep the smaller man off his feet and up into a carry. "So what we're going to do is we're going to put a pin in this for the morning and you are going to go back to bed."
no subject
"Don't... Don't." He flops his hand against Xanxus' shoulder. "You always do this to throw me out..." And they're not even close to that level of an argument yet, the foggy memories say. No one is yelling, and nothing has been thrown. Although somehow that seems odd. Does he really yell or throw things like that? Tsuna goes quiet, the dissonance a little stronger now as he stays curled up against Xanxus.
"...You aren't going, are you?"