It's Friday night, and Squalo sits stark naked on his bed.

He knows XANXUS will come; after all, it's become quite the routine: kick, shove, punch, fuck.

And, sure enough, the door swings open, and XANXUS strides in, an angry scowl painted on his handsome face. It has not been a good day – between the Decimo's upcoming visit and the annual report on the Varia's progress (not that anyone ever finishes that in time for the deadline), there is paperwork to be done and, of course, as always, assassinations to be accomplished.

It's going to be a rough fuck tonight, but Squalo doesn't care.

Anything to feel your body against mine, moving to the same pulsing beat.

He's right. He knows XANXUS all too well.

XANXUS tosses him off the bed before he can complain (but he only ever does that for show – he's already given his heart and soul to him), and then XANXUS's dick is in his mouth, shoving and choking and hurting.

XANXUS jeers at him from his vantage point above Squalo's bobbing head.

"You whore. You want this, don't you? Sick fuck."

Squalo doesn't say anything, and continues trying to make XANXUS moan.

It's the wrong thing to do. XANXUS rips a handful of silver hair from Squalo's head, forcing him to look up from XANXUS dick.

He scowls (but as always, it's a mask. Everyone knows that now.)

"What the fuck? Fuck off, you arsehole. I was just doing what you fucking forced me to do, shoving your cock in my –" He's silenced by a bloody kiss, full of clicking teeth and probing tongue.

He moans into XANXUS' mouth, forgetting himself in the euphoric ecstasy. He's such a masochistic bitch; he knows that, but he can't help it. He can't stop it any more than he can stop the sun on the sky (though for XANXUS, he would do even that.)

XANXUS pulls away, and Squalo almost whines. He stops himself, and sits meekly under XANXUS' scrutinizing glare.

After a long while, XANXUS laughs jeeringly at him, before diving in for another lips-on-teeth kiss.

Squalo feels the phrase whispered over ravaged lips, and it makes him die a little inside.

"I abhor you, trash."

Before he can protest, he's thrown face forward onto the bed, ass sticking up into the air.

It's a humiliating position, and Squalo makes this known.

"VOOOOII! What the fuck are you doing?"

XANXUS does not speak, instead leaving Squalo and striding over to the windows. He closes the curtains and turns off the lights.

All the better to not see you with; all the better to imagine chestnut hair and honey-gold eyes in place of silver hair and broken hearts.

He has been doing that since the first time Squalo came to his bed, when they were both young and naïve and totally, utterly, in love.

But not with each other, oh no.

XANXUS enters Squalo, roughly and full of hatred. Squalo cries out. He knows XANXUS likes that, likes how much power he has over him, and he likes it to.

It reminds him that he can only ever belong to XANXUS, because no one else will treat him so. And because XANXUS would kill anyone who got near him, ally or enemy.

Squalo does not make the mistake of thinking this is because XANXUS cares for him; oh no, it is just that XANXUS doesn't like to share. He is like a child in so many ways, a selfish, spoilt, child, and Squalo knows he does nothing to help.

He knows he should stand up to himself, make XANXUS work for something for once in his self-centred life, rather than giving him everything and anything he has ever wanted.

But it is so hard to do that, so easy to just spread his legs and let XANXUS take what he wants. It hurts, though, and sometimes long-forgotten tears are squeezed out of his bloodshot eyes.

He is the rain, after all, and he must cry the Sky's tears.

XANXUS thrusts, and Squalo rocks, and the bed creaks throughout the castle. The other members of the Varia must be awake – how could they sleep through this noise? – and Squalo wishes they weren't.

He wishes for many things. For Lussuria to stop being so fucking gay (ironic, considering his position), for his Famiglia to stop arguing for just five damn minutes, for XANXUS to become head of the Vongola.

For him to wake up just for one morning and to find XANXUS, handsome, wild, XANXUS, still there beside him.

Squalo throws his head back and shrieks as he comes, an irrational sob threatening to break through the translucent pretense of the scream.

Then XANXUS empties himself within Squalo's body with a grunt, and quickly extracts himself, as if he is disgusted.

It has always been like this – Squalo coming first, all control long gone, and then XANXUS, quietly and with no sign of any pleasure at having done so.

It's another straw on the camel's breaking back, but Squalo has promised himself to XANXUS.

He has long promised himself to XANXUS, so he does not complain. He allows him to do what he wishes, for him and his all belong to XANXUS, for XANXUS to treat as he will.

Normally XANXUS will dive in for another round, but tonight he can keep himself awake no longer.

He drifts quietly off, naked and cum-stained, into the land of hazy dreams and half-forgotten wishes.

He is watched by the claret-veiled moon and those beautiful blood-red eyes.

(And it is those crimson eyes that he dreams of, walking before him, always before him, on the blood-washed road that leads to Hell.)

The morning dawns, all bright light and hard edges.

Squalo wakes, and forgets himself for a moment.

"XANXUS?"

The veil of sleep is truly a wondrous thing. It protects the delicate human mind from the unthinking callousness of the Fates, tugging it back into the land of dreams for a few glorious moments.

Then Squalo remembers and sits straight upright. He has felt the icy coldness he has been curled up against all night, and knows that XANXUS must have made his exit a long time ago.

The room smells of XANXUS and sex, and it makes Squalo want to lie down and return to his bittersweet dreams.

But the morning light is unforgiving, illuminating Squalo's sick obsession and mocking his twisted mind. He feels tears bubbling under his eyelids, and lets them fall.

He hates himself, really. Hates himself for crying like a fucking girl, hates himself for allowing XANXUS to reach out and seize what he wants, hates himself for feeling this terrible, terrible emptiness, every single fucking morning after XANXUS has taken what he wants from him.

He feels weak, and he fucking hates it.

Squalo doesn't get it. What is it about XANXUS that forces him to be like this? Forces him to go running after him, tugging at his coat tails?

Of course he knows what this feeling is – he is not as slow as many seem to think – but what made him feel this way? This stupid, fucking, irrational way?

What made him love XANXUS?

Squalo isn't a romantic; the thought did not strike him as an epiphany in the blood-stained sunset. It slapped him in the face the first morning after, and he absolutely abhors it.

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all was an imbecilic arsehole. Squalo would much rather die with the shard of his heart that XANXUS reached in and ripped out of his chest the first day they met.

The sheets will stain, he knows it; so he sits in bed a little while longer, silver hair pooling around him.

He doesn't want to go down to meet reality halfway up the stairs; doesn't want to sit at the dining table ignoring his Famiglia's hot stares of pity. He wants to shake them and tell them to snap fucking out of it, tell them that he doesn't fucking care for pity and certainly not theirs, tell them that a part of him isn't dying a living death every time XANXUS fixes his fiery, blazing glare on him.

He knows that they won't listen, though.

The Varia may be a squad of demons, personifications of i sette peccati capitali, but, after all, the devil will look after his own, and they know how he's hurting.

It's in his lust-soaked screams at night, hid bloodshot eyes in the morning, his gore-splattered sword in the bloodstained afternoon.

They know he's breaking – he knows he's breaking – but they can only stand at the sidelines and watch the pieces fall.