All characters © Amano Akira

Summary: even someone as mentally and morally twisted as Belphegor isn't without insecurities. After TYL Arc.

Regal Transparency

When Levi and Belphegor returned to the Varia Headquarters that afternoon, Levi discreetly double-bolted the lock on the main entrance.

Unfortunately his actions did not go unnoticed, sparse as the estate was. Lussuria, who was in the parlor with a particularly enticing book, frowned as they walked in. "Why did you do that?" he inquired from behind his smoked glasses.

Squalo, who had been breezing down the corridor froze and backtracked, hearing Lussuria's inquiry.

"Vooiiii, what did you faggots do now?"

"Apparently," Levi intoned, looking weary, "some of us are unable of going into a tailor shop without the authorities chasing us home." He shot a caustic glare at Belphegor, whose features suggested more amusement than compunction.

One could almost hear the steam venting from Squalo's ears as his blood pressure climbed dangerously high. "You idiots. I'm not paying five hundred fucking euros each for those Zanieris if you two are going to screw things over like a whore on a Saturday night," he spat.

"Technically it's the Ninth's money, Squalo."

"Shut it, Lussuria. If wonder boy and lightning freak here mess things up, we'll be lucky to go to that brat's Inheritance Ceremony in tutus."

"Hey, hey," Levi said, raising his eyebrows. The rings on them wiggled. "I didn't do anything. Your Royal Highness here was the one who decided it would be fun to kill a random civilian on the way."

Lussuria set down his book and began to play with the end strands of his mohawk, looking at Bel. "You killed someone? It's not like you to murder unprecedented unless you're especially inebriated," he remarked. Bel shrugged and grinned loonily, his eyes forever hidden behind a straw-like fringe of hair.

"Ushi! The Prince just had an urge," was his reply, punctuated by a little giggle. "I'm going to shower now; there's blood under my nails."

"Heaven forbid," Levi muttered, rolling his eyes as Bel slinked off.

"I liked the Zanieris," Lussuria pouted once he had left. "You don't have to dry-clean them as often."

Squalo ignored the prospect of fashion and opted for the more logical train of conversation. "Did he kill the tailor?"

"No," Levi replied, "but he killed the customer that came in after us. Followed him out of the shop and cornered him in an alleyway. Poor guy couldn't have been more than seventeen at the most."

"Great. He was a minor." Squalo sighed roughly and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Can we at least find out the name and attempt to pay compensation? The Ninth is going to flay my ass. Xanxus is going to flay my ass."

"I suppose we could get the name," Levi shrugged, unbuttoning his coat and busying himself with hanging it on the correct hanger for a few moments.

"In all my years I've never seen him kill like that, you know?" he remarked after a heavy silence, back turned.

Squalo was almost afraid to ask; thankfully Lussuria did it for him. "What do you mean?"

Levi turned once more toward them. "His Highness doesn't like getting blood on him, even if it's someone else's, so you know how he uses those god-awful wires to go around and-"

"So?" Squalo interrupted looking impatient, to say the least. His eyes blazed with ireful pinpricks of light.

Levi glowered at him darkly for truncating his potentially lengthy explanation, but decided to get to the point. "It was...surprisingly brutal, even for Bel," he said. "I'd never seen him go at someone like that before. Not even on that one don who tried to steal his tiara for auction money. He only used two knives this time."

"Two?"

"And he did the rest with his hands."

Squalo whistled lowly to conceal his confusion...and admitted disturbance. After a moment Lussuria commented, "he didn't have much blood on him when you guys came back."

"He changed shirts."

"The deceased's appearance," a voice spoke suddenly from behind Lussuria's chair, "what did he look like, Levi?" Mammon materialized in a smoky plume, apparently having eavesdropped on the entire conversation prior. No one was surprised in the least.

Levi thought for a moment. "I dunno; it was all pretty quick." He stroked his goatee. "But now that you mention it, the kid was blonde. That's all I remember."

Squalo groaned almost instantly. "He didn't."

Lussuria caught on a moment later and gave a sad little smile. "Mou, who would've thought he'd take the future that harshly?"

"Hey, apparently I got my fucking arm chopped off by a guy who called me 'idjit' every five seconds like it would make him stronger."

Levi still looked a bit miffed. "You mean...?"

"Rasiel," Mammon said quietly. "I'm surprised that he reacted so violently when spotting a resemblance."

Squalo snorted. The sound was overly exaggerated, and sounded more akin to a horse sneezing than a scoff. "What, does he want us to give him a hug and say it'll be all right? Voooiii, damn trash needs to grow up."

"He's still a kid," Lussuria remarked, his tone somewhat thoughtful-as if he had never really stopped to consider the notion. "And none of us have really had sugar-and-spice childhoods, now that you think about it. Maybe he doesn't know how to deal with it."

Squalo, for all of his blustering and quotidian commotion, wasn't as insensitive as he acted most of the time. He knew that Lussuria had a good point. Lussuria, who only wore prescription glasses because the eyes behind them were filmy and scratched. The injury, he knew, was maternal abuse, and was the reason why Lussuria could never love a woman.

Levi seemed to lose some of his annoyance at this remark as well. He remembered only a shadow of his berating father who would constantly remind him that he was not good enough to live, that he would never be able to accomplish anything in life.

And Squalo himself, who had endured countless taunts regarding his albinism as a teenager, felt the burn of the sun, and could still recall the draining pain of cutting off his own hand at thirteen.

"Well we're not going to pat him on the back with reassurance," he said, but in a less gravelly tone. "A man should deal with his own problems on his own. I mean, what the hell can we do? If it makes the poor fuck feel better to kill some random guy who looks like his dead brother, then why the hell not?"

"I'm not sure that's the best way to deal with things, Squalo," Levi replied, "but I agree; there's not much we can do."

"Well excuse me, Mister fucking-Freud."

Mammon floated up over the chair so that he was facing them. "In all honesty I think Bel will be fine if we leave him alone."

Lussuria chose to ignore the fact that Mammon was hardly an honest person, and he nodded. "He will."

"Voooiii. And now we can stop being doting pansies and start worrying about those tuxes."

In the end, the Zanieris were fine. The tailor had not witnessed the murder only a few blocks from his shop, and merely regarded his customer's sudden absence as a product of his own work than that of someone else's. Xanxus was not informed of the potential disaster (much to Squalo's relief); Bel seemed to quiet down after that seeing as there were no more future outbursts. The Varia pretended not to notice anything, and Levi carefully omitted the inhumane murder from his memory. It was easier to do when you killed for a living.

After the Vongola Inheritance Ceremony was over Bel returned to Italy, to a spot of unmarked earth that had grown weedy and rich over the years, and breathed a sigh that no one could hear as the sun went down.

And somewhere, in a different world and a different time, Rasiel visited the grave of his brother in the light of the moon, smiling.