a/n: i did not forget... hahaha... it's totally been more than a year, but ehh what can you do. i actually have made a plan for this, so it'll probably get finished. eventually. for those who asked, i imagined the tail as a regular old thin demon tail, except the end it on fire. i always thought it was best to describe enough but not so much that people couldn't have fun with their imagination, so you absolutely can call it a lion tail, go for it

Tsuna was just coming through the door when the dreaded finally happened.

"I'm ho-gahh!"

Water sprayed all over the front of the poor demon, who shrieked and hurriedly backed away both in shock and fear. A whoop of triumph rang out.

"Haha! I finally got you Reb- …orn?"

Brown eyes widened as Tsuna took in the other occupant of the room. He was tall, tan and blond and empathetically not Reborn.

"Eh?"

Tsuna didn't even have time to scream before the intruder jumped him.

Ehhhh?

And so lay the sequence of events that led to Tsuna, bound and restrained to one of the dining rooms chairs, being held hostage in his very own home. What's more, it was by another of those horrible, deadly, dastardly, nasty little –

"Speak! Or I'll splash you!"

Water Sprites.

Dear Lucifer, Tsuna prayed. Whatever have I done to deserve this?

"Hah, you don't want to talk?"

Tsuna bit his tongue. The stupid water sprite – though water demon would be more appropriate if that wasn't an offence to demons everywhere – hadn't believed him when he said he lived here, and Tsuna doubted he'd believe anything except what he wanted to hear.

"You tell me what you've done with Reborn or I'm gonna–"

The front door slammed open and Reborn strolled in, fish in hand, only to pause at the quite frankly, bizarre scene in front of him.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Uhm."

Reborn's expression darkened, and Tsuna had to hold back an eep of fear. He really had no clue what he'd done to deserve this.

– x –

"…So I tied him up and tried to get him to reveal where he hid your body."

What? Tsuna twitched.

"What." Reborn echoed.

The water sprite, who was actually called Colonello – and wow, Tsuna thought, water sprites really had weird names – grinned sheepishly.

"Do you actually think," Reborn started, voice going lower as he went, "that some pathetic little demon–"

"Hey!"

"–could come into my home, kill me and take my place, with none the wiser? Do I seem that weak to you?"

Colonello had the good sense to shake his head.

Tsuna on the other hand…

"Hey!" He protested. "I could absolutely take you!"

His tail flared, his eyes glinted, and one was reminded when looking at him that despite his fluffy exterior, Tsuna still seemed to be a fire demon of some level of power. It was a shame, really, that his declaration came from a position of being tied up and held hostage in his own home. Truly, that would put doubt on anyone's claims to power.

Reborn gave him A Look. He has many looks, some along the lines of I have no clue how you survived this long, or how did you even claw your way out of the hole in the ground you call home? This particular look seemed to say shut up or I'll finish the job he started, and I for one, would do it right.

Maybe one of the special secret abilities of water sprites was to convey long and complicated emotions with a single look. Maybe it was just a Reborn thing. Either way, Tsuna made a note to write it down in his super-secret journal that documented the behaviour of water sprites, even as he cowered away from Reborn and promised to shut up.

(If he ever went back home, he was sure his journal would be a rousing success. So few of his kind had interacted with the dastardly water sprite. What he had going for him was a gold mine, if he actually survived the ordeal.

Some days, like today, he wasn't so sure that he would.)

Colonello did not do Tsuna the immense favour of leaving immediately. Instead, he got an apartment on the floor above and decided to bother them on the daily about when Reborn would be going back with him.

"We need you," he greeted them with, the following morning, striding into Tsuna's flat like he owned the place. Arrogance was going to be the next note in his super-secret journal. The fire demon twitched but continued eating his breakfast of rum and steak. Maybe if he ignored him long enough, the new water sprite would go away.

Reborn, the weirdo, paused right in the middle of slurping out the innards of his fish, which Tsuna was almost certain was planned just to see his squirm. There would be many fish-related nightmares to come.

"No." Reborn said, before gulping down some water. It was one of his do-not-touch-upon-pain-of-death bottles that he had stocked up upon after the Drink Incident. He drank so much of it, Tsuna was half-convinced sprites were simply made entirely up of water.

"Reborn," Colonello whined like the child that he was. "I don't even know why you're still here. There's nothing even wrong with your hou–"

Smack. A fish to the face stopped him mid-sentence, but the damage was done.

"What do you mean there's nothing wrong with his house?" Tsuna asked lowly, his expression dark.

Reborn gave a warning look, but Colonello was a special brand of obvious. "I mean there's like, a bit of char around the windows, but the curtains look new, and it's not like that would affect anything else–"

"You said I burnt through important human things!" Tsuna turned to Reborn, waving his hands madly. "Like, like wiring and your fire alarm and you'd be kicked out if you stayed because of human laws!"

Reborn for his part, looked pretty unconcerned. "You were stupid enough to believe me."

Ohh. Tsuna was mad. All that, for nothing? The wet bed, the morning exercise, the fish?

"Hey," Colonello said weakly, "how about you all stay… calm."

Calm. Right.

Tsuna's tail flared and his eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to really rip Reborn a new one only to choke on the smell of… burning?

Reborn jumped off the table, which was on fire, and backed away from the curtains, that were on fire.

"Put it out! Tsuna!"

The microwave somehow had caught aflame, and just as the sofa looked like it'd light up too, the fire alarm went off.

Beep, beep, beep.

And… there went the sprinklers.

Immediately the fires died down, and Tsuna was far too busy trying not to die by extinguishing than worry about Reborn and his evil lies.

"Ahh, Reborn! Help, help!"

– x –

Water damage, it turned out, was just as bad as fire damage. After salvaging all that he could, Tsuna made his way dejectedly across the hall to Reborn's flat, which, like Colonello said, looked good as new.

"I can't believe this." He muttered. Barely a few months in the human world and he already managed to near burn down his flat. He absolutely did not want to have to go crawling back home, not after trying so hard to prove his independence. "Kyoya will never let me live this down."

"Who?" Reborn was suddenly right there in front of him, like he could smell juicy, new information, just waiting for him to come along and find it.

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Tsuna glanced around the flat, which, admittedly, looked slightly cooler than his own. Only slightly. "Why didn't the alarm go off in your flat?" He asked, trying to come up with a distraction.

Reborn waved an arm casually. "I disabled it when I moved in," he said, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to do. Maybe it was to Reborn, who knew what went on in his mind. "Don't think you can get away without answering me, Tsuna."

"Oh! Would you look at the time!" Tsuna said, high pitched and absolutely not stalling. "I am exhausted, time for a nap, yes siree, nothing going on here–!" He paused, panic forgotten at the entrance of Reborn's bedroom.

"Reborn?"

"Yes, Tsuna?"

"Where's the bed?"

Reborn glanced into his room, where a medium-sized inflatable pool sat, waiting for him. It was empty of water, but it took up the central space in the room, where a bed usually would be.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."