a.n. i need to get a life help

with elena alive, i just imagine daemon being the rich, snobby socialite version of mukuro

.

Wish Not
Want Not

.

II

.

"What are you doing here," Giotto demanded flatly, staring at the uninvited guests currently lounging on his couch. Somehow Daemon had managed to set up a full-course charcuterie board on the coffee table in the entirety of the five minutes when Giotto wasn't in the room, and was now demonstrating how to cut up a chunk of meat in the slowest and most unsettling way possible with what looked like a giant meat cleaver to the entranced mini-me and infant girl in his lap.

Wait a minute. How did he even get through the front door, anyways?

"Oh, Giotto~!" Daemon greeted when he saw Giotto, waving cheerfully, meat cleaver still in hand. It nearly hit the face of the girl as he moved, although neither child seemed fazed. "I heard from Bianchi-san that you were in need of some parenting tips, and being the kind, gracious person I am, I immediately came over to help. Confit?"

He set down the cleaver and instead stabbed the chunk of meat with a meat fork, offering it to Giotto.

Giotto heard parenting tips and stared critically at Daemon, his demon children and then back at Tsuna. No. Absolutely not. Over his dead body was he going to expose someone like Daemon or his spawn to Tsuna.

"No thanks," Giotto said, both for the meat as well as the so-called 'parenting tips'.

"That's a pity. They're awfully good, if you bother to give them a try. Anyway, I brought my children along," Daemon continued obliviously, and ate the whole chunk of meat in one large bite. "I don't know if you still remember them, it's been quite a while since we've been able to have a nice chat like this without the presence of polite company. This is Mukuro Rokudo, or just Mukuro, he's three—" he patted the head of the mini-me, who somehow managed to absolutely terrify Giotto despite being three years old, "—and this is Chrome Nagi Dokuro, but we call her Chrome for short, she's four months old. Should be around the same age as your little brother." The use of an additional Japanese name for both children and an English name for the girl surprised Giotto, although to be truthful Elena probably put her foot down during the naming of her children and demanded to get her way as well.

Still, Giotto wanted to smack Daemon for his naming sense—what kind of parent named his children corpse and skull?! Admittedly, it was fitting for what could be considered children of the devil—okay, so maybe Chrome wasn't that creepy, and maybe a little cute, too (must have gotten that from Elena)—but still. And he thought Tsu-kun was a bad name.

"So, uhh, is Elena coming over too?" Giotto tried to pry, because Elena was a saint and probably the only reason her children hadn't fully descended into evil like their father (well, Chrome, at least. The mini-me was a little too far gone for help). She'd actually been one of the top choices he considered for help in raising Tsuna, only he had a little reservation in judgement because this was the woman who also agreed to marry and birth the children of Daemon Spade.

"Oh, no," Daemon laughed, and Giotto's heart sank. "She's been awfully tired this week, you understand, since we've only attended two evening charity galas and the new nanny's already quit. So I'm giving her a vacation and taking care of the children for now. They're angels, I don't understand why the nannies always leave so abruptly like that."

He patted the mini-me's head, who giggled maniacally, and goosebumps formed all over Giotto's arms from the sudden chill. Yeah, he wasn't going to touch that subject with a ten-foot pole.

"Anyway, where's that cute little brother of yours I've heard so glowingly about?" Daemon said, glancing around the apartment. His nose wrinkled a little bit as he did, presumably out of pure judgement that Giotto didn't live in a 5-star penthouse in the wealthiest suburb in Tokyo, and okay, so maybe Giotto's carpet clashed with the general color scheme of the room a little bit—who was he kidding, it looked absolutely hideous.

"He's in the other room, sleeping," Giotto said. That was a truth, at least. He'd given Tsuna the baby formula, changed his diaper, and then the kid just fell asleep like that. Raising a kid seemed a lot easier than what Bianchi's long, detailed list implied.

Daemon dropped his fork. Luckily, it landed on his lap, but the action was so uncharacteristic of the man that Giotto immediately wondered if he was ill. Another reason to add on his ever-growing list as to why this man should never be allowed to be within a five-yard vicinity of Tsuna. "You shouldn't leave children unsupervised, Giotto," he said admonishingly, and his face was so smug that Giotto had to resist the urge to punch him in the face.

The mini-me—God, Giotto should stop calling him that, he had a name even if it was one of the worst ones he'd heard in his life—Mukuro stuck his tongue out as if to back up his father's words, giving Giotto a flat stare that seemed to convey a look of utter disdain.

You are twenty-one years old, Giotto thought to himself. You are twenty-one years old, and you are not going to fight with a three year old.

"I'll bring him out, then," Giotto said, and tried not to look at Mukuro as much as possible. Yeah, the kid really was turning out to be the same kind of person as his father.

"No need, I'll see him for myself," Daemon said dramatically, placing the fork back onto platter and securing Chrome in a hold as he stood up. Dutifully, Mukuro followed, the three of them disappearing into his bedroom before Giotto could even get a single odd word out.

Tell him, why was he even friends with Daemon, again?

Surprisingly, Tsuna was already awake by the time Giotto saw him next, lying in his makeshift crib (which was really just a mattress with cardboard taped around it so he wouldn't fall out—he'd ordered a real crib two days ago with the help of Bianchi, but his delivery had been delayed until tomorrow), and was now seemingly entertaining himself by staring blankly at the ceiling.

"I thought you said he was asleep," Daemon said, staring at Tsuna like he was an interesting specimen of some sort. Tsuna looked back at him with large golden irises, his eyes a little droopy from sleep, but didn't make any motion to move other than loll his head to the side. "Hmm, he looks just like you, Giotto. Both of you take after your mother, I should think?"

"Well, he was asleep before you came, but you might have woken him up. He doesn't really make any sound when he wakes up, but Bianchi said it was normal, so I don't really think much of it," Giotto explained, picking Tsuna up and placing him over his shoulder, and Daemon seemed to consider that information while nodding and making occasional hmm and mmm-hmm sounds. "And yeah, none of us really resemble our father, but I think that Tsuna's m—"

"Cuter," Mukuro interrupted, speaking for the first time. God, Giotto hated his voice already. He smiled angelically at Giotto, although Giotto could swear that inside those eyes there was nothing but the pits of Hell reflected within. "The baby's cuter. Uncle Giotto's ugly."

Why you little—, Giotto thought. Calm down. Calm down. He's three years old.

"Mukuro, that's rude," Daemon chastised, although somehow when he said it it sounded more like he was praising Mukuro instead. "You should know that your Uncle Giotto is very self-conscious about these kinds of things."

Giotto choked.

"Ara, ara, I'm teasing you," Daemon laughed, patting him on the back in a friendly manner, although Giotto kept an eye out in case the other man tried to stab him in the back (wouldn't be the first time). "Well, your brother is very cute, kufufufu. Not as cute as our Chrome, of course, but passable." He stared dotingly at the infant in his arms, and the entire sight was so unsettlingly weird Giotto had to turn away or else risk brain aneurysm. "Anyway, what do you call him?"

"Tsunayoshi," Giotto said, peeking through his fingers to make sure the coast was clear, "but that's too much of a mouthful, so I call him Tsuna."

"That's a girl's name," Mukuro interrupted yet again in protest. (This kid really was his father's son through and through, wasn't he. They both had the effect of making people want to punch them. Where did Elena's genes go?) He tugged at Giotto's pants, looking almost shy, although Giotto knew better. "And he looks like one too. Are you sure he's not a girl?"

Giotto ignored him, in the face of his ever-diminishing sanity.

.

"Is that really the first time I met Mukuro-nii?" Tsuna asks, five years later, mouth agape. "He called me a girl?"

Giotto nods, nursing the headache he gets whenever he remembers that meeting.

"But he's the one that looks like a girl," Tsuna says.

Giotto bursts out laughing, while Tsuna watches on, utterly confused.

,

notes

The name tsuna is frequently used a girl's name, although the kanji for the tsuna (綱) in Tsunayoshi seems to be more frequently used in last names.