"Does this sort of thing always happen when you have 'business meetings'?"
Dino doesn't answer him for a quick second, having bent over slightly as he pours a bottle of water over his head. The past hour, give or take a few minutes, has been full of nonstop fighting right out of a den where a secret meeting was supposed to be held. But what does he get for his trouble? An attempt to double cross him so that the Cavallone could be weakened and taken over. It was kind of an embarrassing try, honestly. Some people just don't seem to understand that he was trained by the world's greatest hitman, and that training probably threatened to kill him a couple of times. They really need to do better. Putting the bottle to the side, he rights himself up quickly, flipping his hair back and helping it with a quick run through of his fingers. "I mean, it could have been worse," he say, a grin matching his tone. "If they really wanted to kill us, they should have used explosives to bring everything down on our head, but then I guess they would have had to deal with the police interest on that one. That should have been their first clue not to bother trying at all."
A light snort that is a tinge amused leaves his bodyguard, and Dino glances at him from the corner of his eye. Lancia has been working with his Family for a few months now. It had been a hell of a chase, trying to find the man. Dino can understand why, after all. Thanks to Tsuna and Reborn, he'd been able to hear a lot on what exactly Lancia has gone through. Not only a pilgrimage to visit the places he was forced to execute so many without his own consent, but also... Well.
Dino has had the good fortune to not have been targeted by Mukuro Rokudo. He could spitball a few theories on why. Maybe it's because his Family has been too close to the Vongola for many decades now, and it would have drawn further attention to the illusionist's vendetta before he was in the best position to counter it. Maybe it's just because the Cavallone Family, for all its illegality could never be denied, has never in its existence crossed the very worst of lines such as experimenting on children. Maybe they were just lower on the list of Families for him to take down.
Whatever the reasoning, Dino can say with relief that he's never had to deal with possession of either himself or any of his men. He can still imagine the damaging effect well enough. To kill everyone you cared for, the people you promised to protect... He can see why a man might not want to stay in any one place for too long, or get to know more people than he needs to. That kind of trauma can't make it easy to sleep with any confidence he won't wake up covered in blood again.
Tonight, he's not covered in blood. Rather, it's the same slick black suit that any self respecting businessman would wear. Sure, a little ruffled here and there, sort of torn in places where someone had made the ill-advised choice of trying to grab onto a man whose best skills are in close combat... But that's better than the alternative. He looks good, frankly, as the two of them take a breather in the small side street far away from where the action took place. Dino isn't too worried about any of their enemies catching up to them. Last he had checked, most of them were either unconscious or couldn't use their legs. By the time any of them recover, the two of them will be long gone.
But for now, they're here, and Dino can't help but admire the figure that Lancia cuts standing right besides him like the perfect bodyguard. Streetlights some distance away illuminate the strong shape of his jaw, dark eyes shining and alert despite the shadows underneath them. For all the fighting they've had to do- well, Dino isn't tired, of course, because Reborn has made sure that he could run a marathon and not be. However, he's one of the three people in the world who's trained under Reborn, and Lancia is definitely not. So it's really pretty impressive that he can stand there, hardly out of breath, a thin sheen of sweat stretched along the bit of throat peering out from his white collar-
Whoo, okay. Dino averts his eyes before he can get lost on the broad stretch of Lancia's shoulders (and too late for that too, damn). Nothing like a little bit of adrenaline to get the heart and other, uh, similarly throbbing parts of the body all worked up. "So how do you feel?" he asks, hoping to distract both of their minds.
Lancia glances back down at him, blinking his way out of whatever thoughts were taking up his attention. "Sweaty, unless you were thinking something more specific."
"I was actually thinking more-" Still slumped down on a bench, Dino reaches up to lightly knock against one of his temples. "-up here. I know this is the first job I've taken you along for outside of Cavallone territory." Well, away from the Cavallone headquarters, to be more specific. Dino likes to think he's not a complete asshole. Sure, he's a criminal, and sure, sometimes he messes with people for fun... But he's not such a bastard that he'd overwhelmed a man suffering from PTSD who hadn't had a home in years. It's been slow and careful going, which Dino had felt no need to rush. After all, there's always plenty to do even within the safer areas of his territory. The Cavallone are large and prosperous, which means busy as all hell in a lot of different areas. Even now, Dino isn't entirely sure if now was the right time to bring Lancia along with him on a little 'business transaction', for all that he thought it would be a good time to put the rumors to rest of him hiring a famous Family killer.
Heaving out a sigh, Lancia leans back against the wall and raises up a hand as if to rake it through his hair except his fingers stay buried right in there instead of moving on. "I'm going to sound like an asshole if I say it."
"I mean, I regularly interact with Squalo whether he likes it or not, so if you can out-asshole him, I'll frankly be very impressed instead of anything else."
That actually manages to earn a brief and almost surprised laugh out of the other man, enough for a smile to stay on his face just long enough to not be a hallucination. It's not the first time Lancia has smiled while under Dino's employ, but it's an incredibly uncommon sight still. Like every time before, there's something strangely fragile about the expression, not too unlike seeing a shattered sword or shield. Inside his chest, he can feel something a little more tender shimmer in his attraction. "I guess the Varia do make it a high bar, huh?"
"It's Varia Quality, or so I've heard."
"Varia Quality bullshit?"
This time, Dino is the one who almost bursts out laughing, and he has to hastily press his hand against his mouth so that he's not so loud that he gives away their position. "I mean, I never asked for clarification, so maybe!"
Lancia shakes his head, smile a little sturdier for a brief moment before it gets lost to something quieter. A little more contemplative, maybe. "Anyway... I guess... I think I'm relieved." Hand swinging back down to his side, Lancia leans his head back against the wall until it hits brick. "I wasn't entirely sure I would be, fighting that close again. With a weapon, there's always that degree of separation. That make any sense?"
Attached to his belt, his whip digs lightly into the side of his leg. "Yeah, it makes sense."
"Up close and personal this way.... It felt real." Lancia tilts his head down, the light not able to catch his eyes exactly right this way as he stares down at one fist. "Probably one of the few times where it felt that way, not counting when I was working alongside the Vongola." When he turns his head to look at Dino, it's a little easier this time to make eye contact. "I think you helped with that."
Count that as one of the things he wasn't expecting to happen tonight. Dino raises his eyebrows. "Yeah?"
"If I wanted to just pick a fight, I could probably do that with any idiot in Italy," Lancia says, which is a solid point. There are frankly no shortage of hotshot idiots, in the mafia and out of it, who would be down for a fight that they would almost immediately lose. "But it's... different. To fight for someone."
"Now I'm feeling like I didn't pull my weight!"
"Please." Lancia shakes his head. "You know you held your own as much as I did in there, which I'm amazed to say considering that your weapon isn't built for those sort of close quarters." He tilts his head towards Dino. "Probably another reason why they thought they could possibly get the drop on you. Everyone knows about the Bucking Horse's whip."
"Trust me, I know all about what they say about me and my whip," Dino says dryly. There is an alarming amount of speculation on his sex life.
Lancia carries on. "But even if you can handle yourself even in difficult situations like that... You still hired me as your bodyguard. Protecting you, thinking about where you were and what you were doing so that I could still keep you safe while not getting in your way... I can't explain it. I suppose I'm just glad I can remember doing something, and being able to protect someone instead of..."
Yeah. Dino understands that. Pushing himself up onto his feet, Dino turns around to face Lancia with his hands rising to rest along his shoulders. There's no need for him to say anything else. It's fine. "As long as you're with the Cavallone," he says, quiet and earnest as he looks into those dark eyes, "then you'll always have a place to feel like that. I know you can't get rid of your past so easily, and that's fine. As long as you're alive, as long as you can still feel alive, then it's fine. Right? So stay with us. Protect us. I'll do the same for you."
Another fragile smile. "Do I look as though I need protecting too?"
"Everyone needs protecting some times."
"Even Varia Quality?"
"Varia Quality jumped straight into a giant great white shark's mouth, so I think he can shut his own on this sort of thing." Lancia lets out another huff of a laugh, and Dino smiles slightly. Good. Anything to help lift that weight off the other man's shoulders. The only things that should be weighing him down are things like this, where his own hands rest firmly down to keep him tethered to the important things, to living. He's not really thinking too hard on how close they are, at least not until he sees movement from the corner of his eye. It's Lancia's hand, moving past Dino's own shoulder and pressing tenderly into the wet length of his hair.
Anxiety is something Dino sort of left behind a long time ago, back when he was a teenager going through, well, a lot. Not wanting to inherit his father's criminal legacy, dealing with an emergency in their territory only he could manage, the death of his only immediate family... It had been a lot. Perhaps because it had been so much, combined with Reborn's ever demanding training, that anxiety had burned out its ability to stay in his body. Now he's glad to say that, for the past few years, Dino has been able to keep his cool in all sorts of situations. Right now?
Right now he can feel his stomach doing some very interesting maneuvers he didn't realize it could physically do, and he's suddenly extremely aware that it would only take a very slight movement to have his hands go from Lancia's shoulders to his very well developed chest. As he does his absolute best to keep his visible cool (internal is a lost cause), Lancia speaks up. "You've done a lot for me. More than I feel I can owe back, sometimes. If I had been left to wander throughout Italy, I have no idea what I would have ended up doing to myself. That you ended up hunting me down and giving me this chance means a lot. I want you to know that."
It's platonic. It's platonic. Dino tries to remember that, even as he smiles back at Lancia. "I'm not going to be the idiot who doesn't hire the strongest man in Northern Italy, even barehanded against Box Animals."
"I'm grateful for both the praise and that you aren't an idiot." Then there's a pause, where Lancia is just a little too close, a little too in reach, and Dino wonders for a second if the whole moment is reading like he hopes it's reading-
Off to the side on the main street proper, there's the low light of a car flashing on and off a couple of times, and their hands drop down from one another. "There's our ride," Dino says, wondering if he should be thankful for the interruption or not. "I guess we should get out of here before they manage to organize in any effective way." As he begins to walk over to the car, Lancia striding ahead to open the door for him, Dino figures he'll just be grateful. More time to plan and figure out if he's just being overly optimistic or not.
Lost in his own head about romantic problems as much as business ones, he misses the way Lancia watches his fingers rake back through his wet hair with water dripping back down along his neck.
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sun : first kiss
no subject
Dino doesn't answer him for a quick second, having bent over slightly as he pours a bottle of water over his head. The past hour, give or take a few minutes, has been full of nonstop fighting right out of a den where a secret meeting was supposed to be held. But what does he get for his trouble? An attempt to double cross him so that the Cavallone could be weakened and taken over. It was kind of an embarrassing try, honestly. Some people just don't seem to understand that he was trained by the world's greatest hitman, and that training probably threatened to kill him a couple of times. They really need to do better. Putting the bottle to the side, he rights himself up quickly, flipping his hair back and helping it with a quick run through of his fingers. "I mean, it could have been worse," he say, a grin matching his tone. "If they really wanted to kill us, they should have used explosives to bring everything down on our head, but then I guess they would have had to deal with the police interest on that one. That should have been their first clue not to bother trying at all."
A light snort that is a tinge amused leaves his bodyguard, and Dino glances at him from the corner of his eye. Lancia has been working with his Family for a few months now. It had been a hell of a chase, trying to find the man. Dino can understand why, after all. Thanks to Tsuna and Reborn, he'd been able to hear a lot on what exactly Lancia has gone through. Not only a pilgrimage to visit the places he was forced to execute so many without his own consent, but also... Well.
Dino has had the good fortune to not have been targeted by Mukuro Rokudo. He could spitball a few theories on why. Maybe it's because his Family has been too close to the Vongola for many decades now, and it would have drawn further attention to the illusionist's vendetta before he was in the best position to counter it. Maybe it's just because the Cavallone Family, for all its illegality could never be denied, has never in its existence crossed the very worst of lines such as experimenting on children. Maybe they were just lower on the list of Families for him to take down.
Whatever the reasoning, Dino can say with relief that he's never had to deal with possession of either himself or any of his men. He can still imagine the damaging effect well enough. To kill everyone you cared for, the people you promised to protect... He can see why a man might not want to stay in any one place for too long, or get to know more people than he needs to. That kind of trauma can't make it easy to sleep with any confidence he won't wake up covered in blood again.
Tonight, he's not covered in blood. Rather, it's the same slick black suit that any self respecting businessman would wear. Sure, a little ruffled here and there, sort of torn in places where someone had made the ill-advised choice of trying to grab onto a man whose best skills are in close combat... But that's better than the alternative. He looks good, frankly, as the two of them take a breather in the small side street far away from where the action took place. Dino isn't too worried about any of their enemies catching up to them. Last he had checked, most of them were either unconscious or couldn't use their legs. By the time any of them recover, the two of them will be long gone.
But for now, they're here, and Dino can't help but admire the figure that Lancia cuts standing right besides him like the perfect bodyguard. Streetlights some distance away illuminate the strong shape of his jaw, dark eyes shining and alert despite the shadows underneath them. For all the fighting they've had to do- well, Dino isn't tired, of course, because Reborn has made sure that he could run a marathon and not be. However, he's one of the three people in the world who's trained under Reborn, and Lancia is definitely not. So it's really pretty impressive that he can stand there, hardly out of breath, a thin sheen of sweat stretched along the bit of throat peering out from his white collar-
Whoo, okay. Dino averts his eyes before he can get lost on the broad stretch of Lancia's shoulders (and too late for that too, damn). Nothing like a little bit of adrenaline to get the heart and other, uh, similarly throbbing parts of the body all worked up. "So how do you feel?" he asks, hoping to distract both of their minds.
Lancia glances back down at him, blinking his way out of whatever thoughts were taking up his attention. "Sweaty, unless you were thinking something more specific."
"I was actually thinking more-" Still slumped down on a bench, Dino reaches up to lightly knock against one of his temples. "-up here. I know this is the first job I've taken you along for outside of Cavallone territory." Well, away from the Cavallone headquarters, to be more specific. Dino likes to think he's not a complete asshole. Sure, he's a criminal, and sure, sometimes he messes with people for fun... But he's not such a bastard that he'd overwhelmed a man suffering from PTSD who hadn't had a home in years. It's been slow and careful going, which Dino had felt no need to rush. After all, there's always plenty to do even within the safer areas of his territory. The Cavallone are large and prosperous, which means busy as all hell in a lot of different areas. Even now, Dino isn't entirely sure if now was the right time to bring Lancia along with him on a little 'business transaction', for all that he thought it would be a good time to put the rumors to rest of him hiring a famous Family killer.
Heaving out a sigh, Lancia leans back against the wall and raises up a hand as if to rake it through his hair except his fingers stay buried right in there instead of moving on. "I'm going to sound like an asshole if I say it."
"I mean, I regularly interact with Squalo whether he likes it or not, so if you can out-asshole him, I'll frankly be very impressed instead of anything else."
That actually manages to earn a brief and almost surprised laugh out of the other man, enough for a smile to stay on his face just long enough to not be a hallucination. It's not the first time Lancia has smiled while under Dino's employ, but it's an incredibly uncommon sight still. Like every time before, there's something strangely fragile about the expression, not too unlike seeing a shattered sword or shield. Inside his chest, he can feel something a little more tender shimmer in his attraction. "I guess the Varia do make it a high bar, huh?"
"It's Varia Quality, or so I've heard."
"Varia Quality bullshit?"
This time, Dino is the one who almost bursts out laughing, and he has to hastily press his hand against his mouth so that he's not so loud that he gives away their position. "I mean, I never asked for clarification, so maybe!"
Lancia shakes his head, smile a little sturdier for a brief moment before it gets lost to something quieter. A little more contemplative, maybe. "Anyway... I guess... I think I'm relieved." Hand swinging back down to his side, Lancia leans his head back against the wall until it hits brick. "I wasn't entirely sure I would be, fighting that close again. With a weapon, there's always that degree of separation. That make any sense?"
Attached to his belt, his whip digs lightly into the side of his leg. "Yeah, it makes sense."
"Up close and personal this way.... It felt real." Lancia tilts his head down, the light not able to catch his eyes exactly right this way as he stares down at one fist. "Probably one of the few times where it felt that way, not counting when I was working alongside the Vongola." When he turns his head to look at Dino, it's a little easier this time to make eye contact. "I think you helped with that."
Count that as one of the things he wasn't expecting to happen tonight. Dino raises his eyebrows. "Yeah?"
"If I wanted to just pick a fight, I could probably do that with any idiot in Italy," Lancia says, which is a solid point. There are frankly no shortage of hotshot idiots, in the mafia and out of it, who would be down for a fight that they would almost immediately lose. "But it's... different. To fight for someone."
"Now I'm feeling like I didn't pull my weight!"
"Please." Lancia shakes his head. "You know you held your own as much as I did in there, which I'm amazed to say considering that your weapon isn't built for those sort of close quarters." He tilts his head towards Dino. "Probably another reason why they thought they could possibly get the drop on you. Everyone knows about the Bucking Horse's whip."
"Trust me, I know all about what they say about me and my whip," Dino says dryly. There is an alarming amount of speculation on his sex life.
Lancia carries on. "But even if you can handle yourself even in difficult situations like that... You still hired me as your bodyguard. Protecting you, thinking about where you were and what you were doing so that I could still keep you safe while not getting in your way... I can't explain it. I suppose I'm just glad I can remember doing something, and being able to protect someone instead of..."
Yeah. Dino understands that. Pushing himself up onto his feet, Dino turns around to face Lancia with his hands rising to rest along his shoulders. There's no need for him to say anything else. It's fine. "As long as you're with the Cavallone," he says, quiet and earnest as he looks into those dark eyes, "then you'll always have a place to feel like that. I know you can't get rid of your past so easily, and that's fine. As long as you're alive, as long as you can still feel alive, then it's fine. Right? So stay with us. Protect us. I'll do the same for you."
Another fragile smile. "Do I look as though I need protecting too?"
"Everyone needs protecting some times."
"Even Varia Quality?"
"Varia Quality jumped straight into a giant great white shark's mouth, so I think he can shut his own on this sort of thing." Lancia lets out another huff of a laugh, and Dino smiles slightly. Good. Anything to help lift that weight off the other man's shoulders. The only things that should be weighing him down are things like this, where his own hands rest firmly down to keep him tethered to the important things, to living. He's not really thinking too hard on how close they are, at least not until he sees movement from the corner of his eye. It's Lancia's hand, moving past Dino's own shoulder and pressing tenderly into the wet length of his hair.
Anxiety is something Dino sort of left behind a long time ago, back when he was a teenager going through, well, a lot. Not wanting to inherit his father's criminal legacy, dealing with an emergency in their territory only he could manage, the death of his only immediate family... It had been a lot. Perhaps because it had been so much, combined with Reborn's ever demanding training, that anxiety had burned out its ability to stay in his body. Now he's glad to say that, for the past few years, Dino has been able to keep his cool in all sorts of situations. Right now?
Right now he can feel his stomach doing some very interesting maneuvers he didn't realize it could physically do, and he's suddenly extremely aware that it would only take a very slight movement to have his hands go from Lancia's shoulders to his very well developed chest. As he does his absolute best to keep his visible cool (internal is a lost cause), Lancia speaks up. "You've done a lot for me. More than I feel I can owe back, sometimes. If I had been left to wander throughout Italy, I have no idea what I would have ended up doing to myself. That you ended up hunting me down and giving me this chance means a lot. I want you to know that."
It's platonic. It's platonic. Dino tries to remember that, even as he smiles back at Lancia. "I'm not going to be the idiot who doesn't hire the strongest man in Northern Italy, even barehanded against Box Animals."
"I'm grateful for both the praise and that you aren't an idiot." Then there's a pause, where Lancia is just a little too close, a little too in reach, and Dino wonders for a second if the whole moment is reading like he hopes it's reading-
Off to the side on the main street proper, there's the low light of a car flashing on and off a couple of times, and their hands drop down from one another. "There's our ride," Dino says, wondering if he should be thankful for the interruption or not. "I guess we should get out of here before they manage to organize in any effective way." As he begins to walk over to the car, Lancia striding ahead to open the door for him, Dino figures he'll just be grateful. More time to plan and figure out if he's just being overly optimistic or not.
Lost in his own head about romantic problems as much as business ones, he misses the way Lancia watches his fingers rake back through his wet hair with water dripping back down along his neck.