Chapter Text
001. Begin
He figures out - after he's thoroughly embarrassed himself, and all of the Cavallone men assigned to him have declared him hopeless for lusting after Xanxus - that he's going about courting the Wrath Sky all wrong.
Which should have been flamingly obvious, but he'd blindly assumed that Reborn was teaching him how to seduce anyone, not just the bored matrons of the Flame Mafia. (He didn't want to think about what Reborn was using those skills for that he'd kept them strong. That was just squicky.) Once he'd figured that out, though …
… he gets Xanxus's attention by buying up all of a specific resource. He doesn't need it himself, but it causes an artificial shortage for one of the Wrath's legitimate investments, and he needs all of his Reborn won skill to survive when Xanxus realises just what he's done, but he has the Wrath's attention now.
Now all he has to do is keep it. (And preferably get Xanxus into bed. He's seen the Wrath in leather pants. Yes please.)
002. Thwarted
His last move in his and Xanxus’s little game hadn’t been half as effective as he’d expected it to be, and he narrowed his eyes and glared at the map on his wall, and then facepalmed as he realised the mistake he’d made. Obviously the older Sky had a Cloud who was willing to play, so this time he had to pick his target a little more accurately - and make sure to protect the resources he couldn’t do without (fortunately the horses were at pasture now, because he won’t forgive the Wrath if he threatened their wellbeing; hopefully Squalo would warn Xanxus before he went there. The Rain knew they were precious to him, and they were one of his rare hot buttons.)
003. Hot
"I did warn you that his Horses were one of his hot-buttons, Boss." He's thoroughly amused by what he's just walked in on. He'd warned Xanxus to keep his and Dino's game away from the other Sky's precious horses, but his new Sky - and he was still adjusting to that - hadn't listened, and Dino had stomped into school this morning followed by a comet-tail of Cavallone and had goaded Xanxus into one of the training rooms.
"Not helping, Shark-trash. Isn’t the Horse-trash supposed to be clumsy?"
"Not when he's with his men and riding his Flames, shitty-Boss. If it helps, he was still aroused when he stomped out of the training room, so you haven't wrecked your chances at his ass."
"Fuck off, trash." He snorts at his Sky's response. Especially since Xanxus's Flames had flared in interest the moment he mentioned that Dino had still been aroused.
"Fucking off, shitty-Boss." He left Xanxus on the floor of the training room, and followed the trail of shed Sky-Flames in the direction of Dino who was being all sorts of interesting right now. If his friend had showed that sort of Rage to him before he'd found Xanxus, he might have considered being his Rain. He finds Dino brooding on one of the roof terraces, all of the men from earlier other than Romario having skedaddled, and sighs. He was his Sky's Right Hand, and if that meant making sure his Sky got laid, then he could do that. Especially if it kept them both from bitching at him. "Oi, Bucking Horse. What's with the sulky face?"
"We were having fun and I ruined it."
"Tsch. Xanxus is on the floor of the training room you two were having your spat in pouting, too. And Bucking Horse? If anything, he's more interested in you than he was before." He snorted. "Though don't expect to put him on the floor again. He's thrashing Varia members on a regular basis, and you just surprised him." That cheered Dino up far more than it should have done and he shook his head and exchanged a look with Romario. This was going to be an absolute car crash of a relationship, though at least Dino could sort of keep up with the shitty-Boss.
004. Alcohol
Oh, for fuck sake. He ground the heel of his flesh-and-blood hand into his right eye as if he could erase what he'd just seen. He'd known, intellectually, that the shitty-Boss and Dino were doing that stuff with each other, but that didn't mean he needed to walk in on them and learn that much about their dynamics. The fact that the shitty-Boss was letting the Horse lead, was playing the woman - fuck, he needed a drink.