midnightdiddle

When push comes to shove, he can hit fucking hard, and he has a better shot than anyone else in Italy. And when push comes to shove, he knows how to fight dirty, even without the rings, even without the flames. Even without a Family.

Xanxus and the old man who's not his father, because lies are screaming down the sun. Xanxus-centric, post Varia-arc.

In the Land of Lilliput

He's not really aware of the first few months. There's a steady beeping above his head, and sometimes, when he's a little more aware than other times, he thinks it's his heartbeat, because when he hears a beat, he feels pain in chest, radiating outwards. And other times, when he's not quite so sure of anything, he thinks it's his father, talking over his head.

But his father's not his father anymore. Hasn't been for years, since he overheard someone say pity he doesn't have a son, pity his boy--

But father or no, the beeping is steady, like the pain, and when he can finally open his eyes and see the ceiling above him, instead of a haze of sound and taste and touch, mixed into concrete sight, it's months later. And his father's not by his bedside, because he doesn't have a father. Not really.

The nurses are scared of him, set into their places by rumors and threats, and he doesn't mind, just like he doesn't mind the way people shadow the doorway, murmur, pity he wasn't a good son, pity things turned out this way-- Pity, pity, and he can't do much anymore, isn't a threat to anyone. Pity.

And maybe he isn't a threat, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that he never had a father that was his, that he never really had the blood that mattered. Because when push comes to shove, he can hit fucking hard, and he has a better shot than anyone else in Italy. And when push comes to shove, he knows how to fight dirty, even without the rings, even without the flames. Even without a Family. Even when it hurts to breathe, let alone stand.

He checks himself out of the hospital as soon as he can stand without his eyes going over with black, and if there's still an edge of gray around his eyes, that creeps in with a buzz in his ear, and a tingle in his fingers, that doesn't matter. Because he's not going to stay when an old man comes by, who'll say Father, call me Father like there isn't bad blood between them. Or no blood, like everyone whispers in the hallways. Pity.

He doesn't have anything, just a set of clothes he found in another patient's room, trousers two sizes too big, shirt two sizes too small, and the money he scares out of a tourist half a block from the hospital. It's not much, but it's enough to get a room in a hotel that stinks of piss. He's there all of two days, lying on his side in a bed too short, a mattress too lumpy, when they find him.

"Your father," the first man says, and Xanxus punches him, feels bone against his knuckles. There's a crack, jaw or knuckles or both breaking, and the man's falling, clutching his face, and Xanxus is shaking his hand, hissing. His scars are opening up, blood welling beneath white-tight skin, and when he shakes his hand, the blood splatters, speck-little, on the wall.

"Fuck," he says, but he's not sure who to, them or himself or everyone in this shit-stinking world, with dingy women giving up their kids in the street. "Fuck," he says again, fiercer.

The second man's hesitating, half-stooped over his companion, and when he looks at Xanxus, Xanxus sneers, says "what" as sharply as he can. The man shakes his head, grabbing his companion, and then they're leaving, footsteps through the door, down the wet hallway.

They leave an envelope. It's lying on the floor, just inside the doorway, and Xanxus turns away, lies on the bed with his feet hanging off, too tall to ever fit in. He doesn't move when the sun finally sets, and the room goes dark. And when people stumble by, drunk and angry, arguing in the hallway, he stares at the shape of the wall, huge and looming over him in the dark. And when morning comes, room growing light in shades, the envelope is still there.

I never meant for this, it says, spindly writing that he knows better than anyone else. You were, the words angle, a joy, and there's a blot at the end of the sentence, like the pen was pressed against the paper for too long. I'm sorry, it says, and a thousand other lies, like the lies he can hear screamed everywhere. I'm sorry, I love you, come back. I forgive you.

The room is paid for, probably until the day he drops the key on the receptionist's desk. Blood-money, and he lies on the bed, stares at a wall that grows blacker, looms closer. It's hard to sleep at night, when he can hear people whisper outside, telling lies, and it's harder to sleep in the day, when the sun's screaming in his eyes. His body hurts, a pulse of pain with each heartbeat, and when he's lying on his back, his arm over his eyes, he's sure he can hear a beeping above his head, like an old man's voice, high and reed-thin, pity and guilt and love turned sour.

Squalo comes one day, finds him by an address written on a scrap of paper in the same spindly handwriting that follows Xanxus doggedly, year after year. Squalo looks at him, then sits on the foot of the bed, and Xanxus can't find the energy to kick him off, or the reason.

"There's a house," Squalo says, folding the paper, tucking it into a pocket. He leans back, and his hair, still so god-damned long, tickles Xanxus's feet. "It's east of here, by the ocean."

"I don't want it," Xanxus says, and Squalo moves from the bed, sits on the floor with his back near Xanxus's shoulder.

The sun's going down, faint red in the room, when Squalo moves, the sound of shoes over wood. Xanxus presses his arm against his eyes, feels the beep of his heart, and when Squalo asks, "are we going?" he kicks, listens to Squalo's pained gasp.

"Fuck," Squalo whispers, and Xanxus says, "shut up," and the wall looms over them both.

The house in a schedule, dull and tight, riding on his shoulders from the moment he wankes up to the time he falls asleep. Coffee and lunch and standing in the window, watching a near-empty street, and it's all in a time, with servants shadowing his breath. He flings his cups at them, porcelain marking the walls and the floors, and the few times he hits them, blood traces the floorboards, the grain of the wood's years. The servants change with regularity, new faces every week, and Xanxus aims with care, curses with plaster and blood on the floor.

The old man's letters are regular, too, every two days an envelope on the desk Xanxus never sits at. And every two days, Xanxus shoves an envelope into the desk drawer, and stands at the window, watches the empty street. The weather's changing, two days at at time, and the fall is sinking into winter, the air colder, brisker. At night, if he opens the window, he thinks he can hear the cold, sneaking into like the snowflakes of the mountains he used to visit as a child. A round silence, like something's waiting, and he lies in his bed with the windows open, and in the mornings, when a servant is closing the window, his body is stiff with cold and pain, and his scars twist, begin to tear.

Coffee at eleven is bitter, and he spins the sugar bowl, tastes picked up when he was little and his coffee was used for sweet biscuits. There are biscotti on a plate, set near the center of the table, and the days he eats them are the days he walks through the city, limping more than the day before, and the day before, and the day before. The streets are always growing a little bigger, a little emptier, as the last few tourists leave. He walks down the narrow alleys, where his shoulders nearly brush each wall, and each turn spirals downward, closer to the cliffsides and the ocean. The sound of the waves is a slow rumble, like a voice in his chest, and when he stands on the rocks above the waves, a jump of twenty feet or more, there is a tingle in his fingers, like the buzz in his ears.

When they stand side-by-side, the corners of his sight is white, and the ocean waves are dull in his ears.

"I'm sorry," the old man says, and Xanxus wants to hit him, kick him, caress him. Xanxus wants to touch him. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Xanxus steps forward, a foot-crunch on rock and dirt and sand, and all the guns are trained on him, the old man's guards behind sunglasses and three-piece suits. The old man doesn't raise a hand, doesn't say a word, and blood doesn't go very far, and no blood goes even less.

"Son," the old man says, like it's true, like lies aren't screaming down the sun into the ocean, and Xanxus says, "shut up," feels the world buzz in his ears, burn in his scars. His blood feels heavy.

"I'm sorry," the old man says, and Xanxus says, "shut up, shut the fuck up," the thump of his heart burning pain in his body.

"I didn't mean--"

"I hate you," Xanxus screams, because something's roaring in his ears, like the monsters that sounded like gunfire when he was little, dipping sweet biscuits in bitter coffee.

"I know," the old man says, and there's no one for Xanxus to lean against, no chest to rumble like the ocean, a heartbeat above his head, blood that doesn't matter except to say love you, love you, not a pity to love you. But everyone's lying, has been lying since Xanxus heard words through the keyholes, voices down the hall and around the corner, all pity and guilt and a Family that was never really his.

"I hate you," he screams, blood and spit in his mouth, and words bigger than him, more truths and lies than he knows what to do with, and the old man says, "I know."