Title: What Isn't Broken
Characters/Pairings: Xanxus/Squalo
Summary: Xanxus is a few pieces short of a puzzle, but he gets more of the picture than you might expect.
Notes: Adult. For Round III of KHRfest, prompt III-36. XanxusSqualo – fight – "eyes like rain". Smut! 1021 words.

What Isn't Broken

There are a lot of things in his life that Xanxus doesn't understand, like how the Sawada brat can be so fucking weak and so strong at the same goddamn time, and why the old man persists in calling him "son" in spite of the fact that Xanxus has tried to kill him twice now. And that's just for starters. Xanxus would sooner eat one of his own Wrath bullets than admit that either of them confuse him, but there's a part of him that's sneakingly certain that they already know. That just makes him angry to think about, so he ignores the whole thing. Most things, given enough time, will clear themselves up without him picking at them, anyway.

One confusion that has yet to clear itself up, even though it's been almost ten calendar years--rather less for Xanxus, of course--is Squalo, who gives Xanxus the kind of unswerving, unflinching loyalty that Xanxus has always thought his due. It's disconcerting to actually have it, first from a scrawny scrap of a punk who ceded the Varia to him without batting an eye and then from the skinny man with a banner of hair that proclaims allegiance to a vow that only the two of them know about--the kind of hair it takes years to grow, when Xanxus knows full well that the old man never meant to release him from the ice.

Squalo baffles Xanxus because he's apparently willing to put up with the worst Xanxus can throw at him without question and without wavering. Xanxus can't figure him out. Like everything else that he doesn't get, he doesn't think about it unless he can help it. Squalo's loyalty is his due, and Squalo does manage to make himself remarkably useful with the Varia and all the petty daily bullshit that Xanxus can't be bothered to care about. He's also just about the only member of the Varia who can keep up with Xanxus in a fight. He's surely the only one who cares to, and throws himself into battle at Xanxus' side like he doesn't care about coming out the other side. Like he'd be perfectly okay with it if he died at Xanxus' hand.

Actually, Xanxus is fairly certain that Squalo is not only okay with that, but that he even expects it. It's another of those confusing things, because he's fairly certain that Squalo isn't actively suicidal in the conventional sense, but he sure doesn't seem to care about his own life very much, regardless. Xanxus doesn't let himself think about that, either.

It's far easier to focus on the simple fact of Squalo himself, whirling into battle with his teeth bared and his hair flying out behind him, laying into his opponents like the sword emperor he calls himself and dodging the blasts from Xanxus' guns like they're nothing more than a gentle breeze. Were Xanxus given to metaphorical bullshit, he might even say that Squalo practically dances with his opponents and even Xanxus' Flame.

He doesn't give a fuck about aesthetics, really, but even Xanxus can admit that there's something satisfying in watching Squalo fight.

There's a different kind of satisfaction that comes after the fight, sometimes, when Squalo turns to him, grinning that crazy smile of his and his eyes flaring hot. His eyes are as colorless as his hair, colorless like rain; after a fight, when he's nothing but bone-pale hair and black leather and the crimson splash of blood, he puts Xanxus in mind of the fairy stories that crazy bitch who'd been his mother had sometimes told him.

That's an association that Xanxus never cares to dwell on, so he acts to dispel it whenever it occurs to him.

Squalo yields to being fucked as readily as he yields to everything else that Xanxus demands from him. Sometimes Xanxus takes him right after a fight, pushing Squalo to his knees and fisting his hands in that stupid, stupid hair so he can fuck Squalo's mouth while the smell of blood hangs in the air. Sometimes that isn't an option and he has to wait till they're away from the bodies and the battlefield for his satisfaction. He had Squalo suck him off on the drive back, one time when that had been the case, mostly to see whether Squalo would do it. Squalo would, and did, by twisting up his spare frame and bending over Xanxus' lap while Xanxus planted his feet wide against the floorboard and the poor idiot whose job it had been to drive had tried to ignore what was happening.

It had been less satisfying that Xanxus had expected it to be, and so he hasn't done it again since.

He's found that it's better, if he has to wait at all, to go ahead and do the thing properly. Squalo is always ready to bend himself over the edge of Xanxus' desk and grip the far side of it; he yowls like a cat when Xanxus pushes into him, arching his back and gasping. Xanxus finds that peculiarly satisfying; he likes the way that he can make Squalo scream and lose his actual self-control (and not just the flamboyant show that he puts on) just by pounding into him until Squalo is a limp, sweaty mess underneath him.

Sometimes he thinks that Squalo would let himself be fucked, even without the excuse of a fight beforehand. It's an odd thought to have about something that's only about the need to bleed off an excess of adrenaline. At least, it's mostly about the adrenaline, and maybe also about reminding Squalo just who he belongs to; Squalo may have other ideas, but there's no telling what's going inside his head. Xanxus has thought about it a few times, but is wary of going through with it. There's a line there that he's not at all sure he wants to cross, that comes with all sorts of confusing complications if he does. And Xanxus doesn't like being confused. Better, he thinks, to keep things as they are; there's no point in fixing something that isn't broken.

end

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