Title: The Slaughterhouse Rock
Series: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Characters/Pairings: Suberbi Squalo, Dino; implied Dino/Hibari
Rating: R
Warnings: Squalo (who is a sufficient warning himself), allusions to death and violence
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Squalo receives a phone call he should have been expecting.
The Slaughterhouse Rock
Squalo was sitting in his room, staring disinterestedly at the silhouettes of the trees outside his window, swaying in the midsummer breeze, when his cellphone started to bellow out some obnoxious Japanese pop song. He contemplated not answering for a moment, but decided that since he was already bored as fuck, he might as well see who the hell was calling him at two in the fucking morning.
When he flipped the phone open and answered it with a deafening “VOOOIII!”, the other side of the line was quiet for a moment, before a familiar voice said,
“Evening, Squalo.”
“Bucking Horse,” Squalo acknowledged before sinking back to the couch he’d been sitting on. Normally, he’d be fucking annoyed at the Cavallone boss for calling him, since he tended to do so for absolutely no good reason at all (and no, Squalo did not consider but I wanted to check how my old friend is doing! a good reason by any stretch of imagination), but tonight he didn’t really mind the distraction.
Dino, however, was determined to contradict Squalo’s expectations and wasted no time on pleasantries, instead asking, voice tight,
“How did the mission go?”
The obvious tension in the words made Squalo freeze and then curse loudly. He should have been expecting this, really, and not have underestimated the Cavallone family’s intelligence network. There was no way the Bucking Horse was calling about the mission he’d hear all about later from the Vongola Tenth, unless…
“You know.” It wasn’t a question.
“So he was there.” Dino’s voice was clipped, a dire contrast to his usual cheerful disposition.
Squalo knew he wasn’t exactly supposed to say anything, direct orders from the top (from Reborn, Squalo suspected, because the current Vongola boss was too much of a wimp to ever demand anything from them, much less order them around), but he decided there was no reason to keep up the shitty charade, not anymore. He’d find out all about it sooner or later, anyway.
“Yes.”
Silence. Then, a minute later, he heard Dino sigh and mutter something that sounded suspiciously like of course he was, before continuing more loudly,
“How was it?”
“It was a fucking slaughterhouse.”
Squalo heard Dino draw in a sharp breath and took vicious pleasure in the sound, because shit if they hadn’t all reacted the same way when they arrived, only to see over three hundred bodies littering the ground (the whole Family, no one was left alive, those were the orders).
“…how was he?” He almost missed the question, it was asked so quietly.
“Fucking peachy.”
“Squalo. Be serious, please.”
“Well, he didn’t exactly stick around for wound inspection, you shithead, what did you expect?” Not that Lussuria wasn’t willing to heal all his wounds, Squalo thought, he’d been practically begging the guy for it, but the only answer he got was a glare and the steely glint of already bloody tonfas. “My best fucking guess is that you’ll be receiving a guest soon, since I know for sure the fucker didn’t go back to his shitty country.”
Dino was quiet for a long time, and Squalo was starting to suspect he’d hung up on him (the fucker, he was the one who hang up on others, not the other way around), when the Cavallone boss finally spoke, but the words weren’t exactly what Squalo was expecting to hear.
“Thank you, Squalo.”
Squalo, bristling, fixed his iciest glare at the phone, as if it could somehow magically transfer his anger and displeasure through the phone lines.
“You trash, what the hell do you have to thank me for?”
Dino chuckled (a sound Squalo had always hated with vehemence) and said,
“For looking out for Kyouya.”
“VOOOII, ARE YOU FUCKING DELUSIONAL? As if-“
Before he managed to get to full ranting mode, the dial tone interrupted him. Cursing loudly, Squalo massaged his temples and tried to resist the urge to chuck his phone to the nearest wall. The Bucking Horse was insane, there was no other explanation, to think that he’d ever care what happened to the fucking Vongola’s fucking Cloud Guardian.
And besides, even if he did, the man himself wouldn’t. Squalo could still clearly see the blood matting the mop of black hair, steely eyes glinting and flashing in something he could only describe as death and destruction.
Yes, the Bucking Horse was clearly insane, Squalo thought humorlessly. Hibari Kyouya didn’t need anyone looking out for him - he did it all by himself.
FIN