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leftnotright · 8 months

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A TEXTBOOK EDUCATION

"This will be a skill-building experience. You've had it too easy. You've had your Family name to back you, and your Right Hand at your every call. It's time you learn to carry yourself, to build from the ground up." Dino Cavallone, the Cavallone Don, fresh out of high school.

Reborn, the deadliest hitman of the modern era, has a special kind of torture up his sleeve for his dear struggling student. Dino will have to see how well he handles alienation, isolation, and worst of all, class participation. “Now, go on, my useless student Dino. Let’s continue your education.” (Or: Reborn sends Dino to Australia. It goes better than he could have ever hoped.)

Parings: N/A Characters: Dino (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Vic Hunt (OC - Original Character), Reborn (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Romario (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Cavallone Famiglia, Enzo (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Original Characters Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, University, Pre-Canon, Financial Issues, Fluff And Angst

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

CHAPTER 6: I'VE ALREADY HID THE BODY

Dino patted his face dry gingerly, looking every bit the drowned rat he felt like.

Hot water had all but reignited the powder the man had thrown at him, and as soon as Dino had stepped into what he had hoped to be a relaxing, warm shower, he had immediately regretted it. So, Dino had subjected himself to a speedrun of a freezing shower to get as much of the powder, old water and soil off of him.

The soil had been the hardest. It had been in every one of his sweaty nooks and crannies.

Dino had only dug a grave himself once before. He hoped he remembered all the steps.

Dino continued to pat his red, blotchy face as he slumped into some clothes and, finally, looked at the state of his dorm.

Powdery handprints, footsteps and drag marks covered the place. There was water on his papers and soaking both his textbooks and carpet, and so many things had been knocked over and pulled down in the fight. It was going to take forever to clean.

Dino sighed and looked at the clock, already 11PM. At least he didn’t have class tomorrow.

He moved to the coffee table and gently pulled at his papers. Thankfully, none of the Mafia-related ones were damp, but Dino was going to have to reprint that spreadsheet handed out at his last tutorial. He packed away the sensitive documents in their hidden cubbyhole.

Enzo plodded out from Dino’s bedroom, finally deciding to leave his sunlamp and sand bath.

“Some help you were,” Dino pouted.

Enzo peered up at him with beady eyes, then made a b-line for the water spill.

“Hey! Hey! No!” Dino shouted and scooped up the turtle who continued to wiggle his legs in his insatiable water-lust.

Then Dino froze and listened.

The crunch of boots against pavement and leaves. The rustle of fabric against skin. The jangle of metal. Laboured breaths and a sigh through clenched teeth. The knock of knuckles against a door.

Dino blinked. Knocking?

Carefully, Dino peered through the slits of his blinds and spotted the figure at his door. Their head snapped around.

“Dino! Show me the baby damn it!”

Dino sputtered. What was Vic doing here at 11PM!?

“Let me see the little babyman!” Vic whined again.

Dino didn’t know if it was his anxiety-induced people pleasing, or the fact that Dino all but had a death grip on the knowledge that Vic was his friend who liked Dino and his company, but before he could think, Dino’s mouth had happily said: “Of course!”

Then Dino choked and shouted, “No!”

But Vic had already marched through his door.

Dino looked at Vic, then at the state of his dorm, then back at the frightening still girl.

Slowly, Dino extended Enzo towards Vic and said in a small voice, “Do you want to hold the baby?”

Vic turned her head to look at Dino, and Dino saw the moment her temper snapped.

“What the fuck happened!?”

Dino’s face must have been worse than he thought, because the moment Vic laid eyes on him, she lost her head. Vic crossed the room in long, heavy strides and grabbed him by the head so she could see the chapped, red skin. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, his nose was crusty and peeling, and Dino was still damp.

Vic looked upon Dino and the state of his dorm, and it all pieced together. Vic could hear that familiar rumble in her ears, and the pressure in her throat — but as she moved Dino’s head to see if there was any more damage to him, she saw a tear track down his cheek and Vic did everything she could to stomp down that anger.

The pressure eased, but that rumble remained, a constant background noise that made it hard for her to hear, to think. Vic gritted her teeth and bore it.

Her baby boy Dino had just been robbed, and possibly attacked! He had been alone and crying, for who knew how long — and of course this had to happen on a night when there were two house parties going on, so no one was aware of the world, or too piss drunk to care.

“Are you okay?” She asked, and let go of Dino’s head, circling around Dino and nudging at his body.

Dino flinched with a sharp hiss when Vic prodded his shoulder and he quickly spun around, “I’m fine! Promise! No lies!”

“Yes lies,” Vic snapped and poked him in the shoulder again, “How the fuck did you get hurt? Did they jump you? Where are they, I’m gonna beat their ass—��

“No, no, no,” Dino rambled and grabbed Vic by her arm to redirect her deeper into the dorm, kicking his door shut behind them. “Far away, they are far away now. They will not come back, I am sure.”

They paused as something crunched under Vic’s foot, and they both looked down to see shattered glass underneath her boots. Vic looked at Dino over her shoulder with eyes sharp enough to cut, and Dino continued to push her over to the dining table.

He thinned his lips when he saw the state of the back porch door, the way the hitman had entered.

“Your fucking deck door is smashed—”

“It can be replaced—”

“Dino!” Vic shouted, sounding appalled and she spun around to grab Dino back. “Why are you so calm about this!?”

“It is over,” Dino said slowly, and let her grip him by the forearms, her nails digging in and grip so tight she was shaking. “It is over.”

Vic was not calm at the moment, but Dino could see she was trying. Trying so hard to keep it together, but she was slipping constantly. Everything she saw was something to set off the tripwire in her brain — Dino knew that feeling well.

Then Vic stared at him, her nails still biting his skin, and she uttered, “You’re used to this.”

Dino winced but nodded and gave what he hoped was a comforting smile, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m used to this. It is not the first time.”

Vic swallowed hard and squeezed Dino’s arms again. She wasn’t satisfied. But her anger had gone quiet, a rolling boil just under her skin that she could keep a careful lid on.

“Okay, fine,” she said, taking slow, deep breaths through her teeth. Her voice was low, like she was trying not to wake what was left. “Fine. We’ll— for a few hours— we’ll act like this is fine.”

“For a few hours,” Dino agreed but didn’t pull away.

Vic puffed out a sigh, “But are you okay? Like, actually. Other than your shoulder, I mean.”

“Yes, I am well,” he assured, and she gave him a short look. “I promise.”

“...Okay. Okay, that’s good,” she relented, and then looked at the state of Dino’s dormhouse. “Fuck, they made a mess.”

“Yeah, it will take a while to clean up.”

Vic let go of Dino’s arms and rubbed her face, before she clapped her hands loudly.

“Let’s get cracking, then,” she said, and set into the mess.

Dino blinked at Vic, then put Enzo down and rushed to join her. He brought over a dustpan from under the sink and swept up the spilt pot soil as Vic picked up the shattered plastic terracotta bits with her gloves.

Dino looked over at Vic and took in what she was wearing: beige, steel-capped boots, jeans and a red polo shirt. She had a bulky carabiner clipped to her belt, cluttered with an arrangement of keys, glove clips and some kind of yellow tool with small blades.

“Where were you?” Dino asked, looking her over and Vic paused dropping those shards in the dustpan.

“Work,” she answered, “I do the closing shift on Friday.”

Dino blinked slowly, “Oh. That is all work items?”

Vic looked down at her carabiner and bounced in her squat to make it give a little jangle, “Yeah. Locker key, mover key, bat knife, mini measuring tape. Other ring is car and the dorm key though.”

“You came from work then?” Dino asked as he pulled over his kitchen bin to dump everything.

Vic stared at the limp, blackened succulent on the floor and tossed it in the trash as well. She rose from the floor with a groan and punched at her lower back as she moved over to the next mess.

“Yeah. Wanted to see Enzo. And you too, I guess, you’re here.”

“Thanks,” Dino said flatly, and heard Vic snicker as she inspected the handprints on the walls and floor. “But it is so late, why did you come now?”

Vic glanced at Dino before she shifted on the spot, and carefully touched the powder with her gloved finger, trying to see if it would wipe off easily.

“Had a bit of a shit shift, is all,” she said.

Vic moved to the dustpan and beat off any remaining soil, before she moved to the walls.

“I, uh, I will do that,” Dino insisted and dashed over to take the brush from her hands. He had felt what that powder was like, and he didn’t want Vic getting any of that in her eyes or lungs. “I do not know what the powder is.”

Vic’s frown returned with a vengeance and the grinding of teeth. She turned on her heel and opened the front door and every available window, channelling her temper into fighting with the stubborn bathroom windows.

Dino smiled at Vic as she started scooping up the back porch door’s glass while muttering under her breath. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth before he started brushing that capcaissum-like dust off the walls.

By the time they were done, it was well past midnight, and Dino had a lot of laundry to do come the morning after stripping his bed and couch of their covers. Vic had managed to use trash bags and a mini stapler to wrap Dino’s porch - deck - door and keep out the bugs.

Dino came inside from putting out the bins and locked the flyscreen door to the front, still airing out that powder. He stopped when he saw Vic standing in his, thankfully untouched, kitchen.

“They stole your food too!?”

She opened one cabinet after another, nary a scrap or packet in sight. All that was there were plates and haphazardly stacked pots. Dino blinked slowly, the clock blurry in the corner of his vision.

“I suppose?” He said, “I did not have much food. Cooking is not strong.”

Vic looked at him, “How much is not much.”

Dino thinned his lips. Vic continued to stare at him.

“...I did not have any stored there.”

“Dino,” she said shortly, then she pinched her brow and looked around, “Then where do you store your stuff?”

Dino moved to the fridge and opened it. Kebabs and various pastas from the student Ubar took up the top shelf, a jug of water and a half-drunk Pepsi in the door. There was nothing else.

Vic looked at him.

“I am one man,” he reasoned in response to that flat stare.

Vic thought about it for a moment, before nodding in her head in defeat, “Okay, fair.”

Then Vic went about looking at those cabinets again, all hauntingly empty. She seemed to count them, then count the five shelves in the fridge, with only one in use. Ample storage, far too much for ‘one man’ with little to no guests. Dino watched as she sized up the space, wondering what was going on.

“Have you had dinner yet?” Vic asked, looking over her shoulder.

“No,” Dino admitted slowly, “I have not had time.”

He had been too nervous to eat before the meeting, save that cookie Vic had given him, and too busy afterwards. His usual shop in the Ubar for a hot meal would be long closed by now — besides, Dino rarely had an appetite after handling a corpse.

Dino suddenly wondered if his lightheadedness was from that powder, or over 12 hours without a proper meal. He needed to eat soon.

“Proposal!” Vic announced and Dino snapped to attention just as a cup of cool water was shoved into his hands. “You lemme store my foodstuffs in your capacious cupboards, and I’ll help you learn to cook! Life skills, My Little Pony, life skills!”

“But, you have a kitchen in your dormhouse? Do you not use it?”

Vic’s smile twitched and became the baring of teeth.

“I would, but roommates,” she said, voice strained. “They kept using my stuff without asking, and they didn’t even replace it!” Vic took a large breath and crossed her arms, “I just keep everything in eskies now.”

Dino blinked. He remembered those three coolers stacked up on top of each other in the corner of Vic’s bedroom. Vic was hoarding her food in her room to protect it.

Dino sipped at his water and glanced at his storage. More than one man, one university student, could fill. Again, Dino’s anxious need to please reared its head. The idea of Vic, his friend, having to all but resource guard in her own dormhouse only fanned those flames. Dino fought it as best he could.

“Yeah!”

Which wasn’t much. At all. But he tried!

Then Dino remembered what was shoved into his underwear drawer, and what was coiled up in his back pocket. What was stored away in a cubby hole, what was cooling deep in the dirt outside. Mafia shit.

“But, uh, please be careful of my items,” he pressed, imagining the chaos of Vic finding any of his files.

“Of course,” Vic nodded, not an inch of humour or sarcasm in her tone. “Your dorm, your stuff. I won’t touch anything unless I have the go from you.”

Dino relaxed a bit.

“Anyway, gimme a sec and I’ll grab us some dinner. Be right back!” And Vic was out the door with the vicious jangle of her keys.

Dino resisted the urge to rub his face lest he irritate his still-red skin, and instead went about fitting the sheets back onto his bed so he had somewhere to sleep all of this off.

Dino sat on the floor of his living room, not willing to use the bare couch, especially with that suspicious stain that they had exposed. He gave a glance to the washing baskets full of laundry for tomorrow and tried not to think about how his lazy day was no longer looking any sort of lazy.

Enzo took that moment to appear, rounding the side of the couch and chomped Dino’s socked toes.

“Ouch!” Dino hissed and yanked his foot away. “Damn it Enzo!”

“Is that the baby I hear!?” Dino heard from outside and looked over to see Vic hauling two eskies down Dino’s path, dressed down into her usual garb.

Dino stood and let her in, the girl hoisting the eskies up over the step and into his living room.

“I’ve got butter chicken leftovers that need to be eaten soon and naan bread for a quick and dirty dinner,” she offered, taking off her shoe next to the door where Dino’s were.

“Okay,” Dino agreed and went about getting out the few plates he had, running them under the tap just in case.

“Is there anywhere in particular you’d want me to stay out of?” Vic asked, crouched in front of Dino’s fridge.

Dino shrugged as he briefly tried to read the instructions of microwaved rice. He didn’t really use more than the top shelf by himself. Divvying up a fridge had never been a pressing matter.

Dino shrugged and put the rice in the microwave, punching in the numbers he saw on the packaging.

Vic hummed unsurely up at Dino, before she slipped a bottle of almond milk into the second bottom shelf. Dino stared at the bottle and remembered suddenly: Vic is lactose intolerant.

“Top two can be yours, and we can discuss the door shelves when you’re not ready to pass out.”

“How are you so alive?” Dino asked, still fighting the need to rub his eyes.

Or, well, as ‘alive’ as someone as lethargic as Vic could be. It hadn’t been quick, like coming down a steep slope, but Vic had returned to her lazy state as she stocked up Dino’s fridge.

“Night shift, baby,” Vic sang flat, and put her esky aside as she closed the fridge. “And I didn’t get broken into.”

Dino huffed and Vic gave a short laugh that had to all but crawl from her throat. Then she stopped, sniffed and snapped her head around, “How long did you put that in for?”

Dino looked over his shoulder and smelt melting plastic. Dino yelped and scrambled for the cancel button, the microwave door popped open and steam and white smoke came pouring out. Vic hacked and couched, and Dino slammed the door shut again.

Dino glanced at Vic. Vic looked at Dino.

Vic put the container of butter chicken into the fridge, middle shelf.

“Let’s just eat cereal tonight.”

A bowl of almost-chocolate milk sat in Dino’s lap as he and Vic watched videos of silly cats on her laptop, the girl herself munching through her share of Milo cereal. Enzo peaked up and over Vic’s thigh, happily cradled in the nest of her crossed legs.

“How’s your shoulder?” Vic asked out of the blue, and Dino glanced at her.

She looked drowsy, all but slumped against the baseboard of his couch. Her bowl tipped dangerously. Each breath she took was long and paced.

“It’s okay,” Dino said, moving his murky cereal soup around. “They did not hurt me. I did not even see them.”

Vic breathed out, long and slow. A cat fell into a bathtub. Another got scared by a piano. Vic ate a heaped spoonful.

“Do you want me to stay over tonight?”

Dino blinked, “Pardon?”

Vic watched a cat run headlong into a glass door.

“You had someone break in. People usually don’t wanna be alone after that, ya know?” she huffed, “I don’t particularly want to leave you alone, either. They might get cocky and come back.”

Dino looked at the dots of black dirt under his nails, the last remnants he couldn’t scrub out. He doubted they would be coming back.

Dino glanced at Vic. A civilian would be shaken by a break-in. Right. Already, this breach had put Vic on edge. Hypervigilance. She would be watching Dino, and everything around him. Dino had to act civilian.

“I would like that, yes,” Dino nodded gently, and Vic nodded back.

Then she tipped back the last of her almond milk and got to her feet, Enzo wheezing at the abandonment.

“I’ll go grab my nighties and shit then. Be right back.”

Dino watched Vic go, before he reached for his phone and texted Romario.

Dino Cav Vic is staying the night in my dormhouse.

Romario did not respond for at least ten minutes. Then Dino’s phone started to shake on the countertop as ‘Romario’ became ‘Romario (15)’ and ‘Zio Croix (7)’.

Dino paused rinsing the bowls and looked at his phone, wondering about the frenzy — and how Zio Croix was caught up in it. He put the bowls on the drying rack Vic had found deep in his cupboards, but before he could reach to address those texts, Vic was once again knocking on his screen door.

Dino let her in and was immediately faced with felt teeth.

Vic’s head peered from around the large, nearly life-sized, toy shark. She grinned with teeth, nearly the spitting image.

“Meet Nip,” she introduced, shaking that shark at Dino. “My cuddle shark.”

“...Hello Nip,” Dino uttered and made way as the girl shuffled into the dorm. “Why?”

“I need to hug something to fall asleep,” she said as she put down a tote bag against the side of Dino’s couch. “Hence: cuddle shark, Nip.” Vic looked around and said, “So uh, where do you want me to sleep?”

Dino paused and looked at the couch, stripped bare and with newly exposed, suspicious stains. He looked at the laundry basket, the only spare sheets in the dorm, and in danger of holding that powder residue.

“Did not think about it,” Dino said slowly.

He had towels, but he couldn’t ask Vic, his guest, to sleep on towels. All of the Cavallone would have his head!

“I will sleep in this room,” Dino offered, thinking of laying towels on the couch. “And you may have my bed.”

Vic tilted her head, “But you’re the one who needs the better sleep. I can sleep on the couch.”

“Please, my Family would kill me,” Dino nearly pleaded.

Vic let out a short bark of a laugh and hiked up her shark onto her shoulder. She looked down the hall into Dino’s bedroom and hummed before she turned to Dino and said, “Mate, you’ve got a queen size. We can share if you’re comfy?”

Dino stared at Vic, “You would like to share?”

Vic shrugged, “Up to you, I’m good for it though.”

Dino looked at his bed, then at the couch, then at Vic and her life-sized shark. Immediately, Dino was rushed with a nervous excitement. He felt his face split into a shaky smile and rocked on his heels, full of elated jitters.

“I am okay!” He agreed, “We can share, yes!”

Dino had taken a while to get used to the bed at the dormhouse. It wasn’t especially soft or hard, but it was different. He sorely missed his own pillow; this one made his neck hurt for the first few weeks.

So Dino understood as he watched Vic pull the slip off his spare pillow and replaced it with her own. She folded the slip up and laid it on the chair in the corner. Then she stood in front of Enzo’s suitcase, full of topsoil and sticks.

“They stole his fucking enclosure,” she whispered staring down at it and the way Enzo slowly rubbed himself into his sandpit.

Dino decided it was an investment in his personal safety to let her believe that.

She squatted down and gently petted Enzo’s shell with the soft utterance of ‘red-eared slider, my ass’ before she clambered up into the bed, Nip in arms. Dino fisted his sheets in his hands, sat on ‘his side’ of the bed, a clear divide down the middle.

Vic sat on her side, lamp the only light in the room.

Dino smiled at Vic, “I have never had a sleepover before.”

Dino could barely contain himself. Sure, it was under less-than-ideal circumstances, but Dino was having his first sleepover with his friend! He couldn’t wait to tell Romario.

Vic blinked, “Me neither.”

All the movies Dino had seen showed people at sleepover playing games and consuming an array of foods — none of which he had on hand. Especially with his microwave out of commission until it stopped smelling of something toxic. He remembered his classmates back in Italy discussing sleepovers, well ‘rendezvous’ or ‘meetings’, as they called it at the time. Dino didn’t think Vic would much like it if their sleepover activity was an impromptu helicopter ride like the Tomaso Family did.

Dino tugged at his blankets a bit, “What do we want to do?”

Vic flopped back into the bed and bodily wrapped herself around her shark, pulling the duvet all the way up to her chin.

“Sleep,” she decided, and God that sounded utterly sublime.

Dino didn’t hesitate to curl up like a little comfort crustacean. His head hit the pillow and all those dopamine jitters were sapped straight from his bones for melatonin mugginess.

“Good idea,” Dino grumbled and Vic turned out the lights.

☁ ☁ ☁

“Hey Romario?” Dino asked as he held the phone to his ear, watching on as Vic stubbornly piled the straps of several hefty shopping bags onto her hands and waddled into his dorm. “Would you be able to send me some, uh, cooking stuff?”

“Cooking stuff,” Romario echoed slowly.

“Yeah,” he said, as Vic organised their food in the cupboards and fridge, following some sort of system Dino had no clue about. “Stuff that I’d need for cooking. Cooking stuff.”

“Very well, Boss. I’ll ask the chef to organise a basic package.”

“Perfect! Thanks a lot, Romario,” Dino said, before wheezing as Vic shoved a bag of flatbread in his chest.

“Come on, ponyboy, we’re making wraps for lunch,” Vic announced, waving the bag of roasted chicken. “No way we can mess this up.”

Later, Dino choked on a bone. Vic now knew the correct spelling for ‘heimlich’.

☁ ☁ ☁

Sunday morning, Vic sat on the couch, still smelling fresh from the laundry, and bodily wrapped around Nip as she watched Dino haul a box into the living room. He wheezed and heaved, dragging the box as it clanged and banged with whatever was inside.

“Doing good there buddy?” Vic asked, but made no move to help.

“Good,” Dino said, before his socked feet slipped out from under him and he fell on his ass. “Still good!”

Vic snorted and leant over the edge of the couch to rummage through her bag. She pulled out a box knife from her balled-up work apron and tossed it at Dino who was haplessly picking at the taped-up box.

Dino fumbled with the knife for a bit, before he managed to open the box. Vic peered over his shoulder.

“The hell is this?” She asked as Dino pulled out one smaller box after another, carefully packaged and wrapped in scrunched-up newspaper. She snagged a page and squinted; Italian. “This from home?”

“Yeah! I asked Romario to send some tools!”

“Ah, Romario,” Vic uttered. Her rival for custody of Dino.

Dino grinned at Vic, happy she knew so many of his Family by name. He really should have thought it dangerous, negligent even, that he was letting a civilian know so many of the pieces that made the Cavallone’s top level — but really, Dino reasoned, when would it come up again? Vic was going to be a teacher in Australia, after all.

Dino huffed as Vic batted at him with Nip to get him to hurry up and show her what he had been sent.

A pasta machine, made of black cast iron and polished wood, came out first. It was heavy and Dino wheezed as he tried to raise it up to show Vic. On the bottom, Dino could read VillaWare Manufacturing Co. 1908. The head chef had always found it a bit annoying that the first pasta maker had been built in Cleveland, USA of all places.

Dino gave it a testing crank. It was old, but it turned without so much a creak.

The next item Dino pulled wasn't exactly heavy but had a heft to it that made his fingers hurt as he clutched the edge. A circular slab of stone, flat as a tack and thick with little handles on either side; a pizza stone. Accompanied by a pizza paddle that Vic used as a rather dangerous choice of fan.

The last large piece was a large pan, at least a finger in depth. Dino had seen the chefs use this kind of pan to make sauces before.

Aside from that, the box was full of miscellaneous bits and bobs, some coming in multiples in a way that made Dino think they were important — did he really need that many wooden spoons? Why were they different shapes?

At the bottom, sat a few small folded paper packages. Dino reached in and read that familiar handwriting on the backs: basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano. Seeds, sent from home.

“You got a letter,” Vic hummed from over Dino’s shoulder and he jumped to attention and saw an envelope wedged beneath the folds of the box. “What’s it say?”

Dino leant back into the couch as he read Romario’s clean and precise handwriting, always a stickler for clarity and precision, down to the penmanship.

“Instructions to look after the pasta machine,” he said, before getting to the bottom of the letter. “They are going to send more later. A, uh, ‘care package’?”

“More!?” Vic asked, looking at what was already spread across the coffee table, stacked on top of each other and nearly toppling off the edge.

“Yeah, my Family tends to over-give sometimes,” Dino chuckled, still trying to figure out why there was a random, gritty block packaged with the knives. “A lot of us live in one household under the head, so we use quite a bit.”

Vic blinked, “You all live in one big house?”

“Yes! After induction, you are to live in the house until deemed ready!”

Dino's smile froze. Vic stared at him with a particular look on her face that somehow told Dino that something he had said was not a social norm.

“What?” Vic uttered, and squinted even as her eyebrows shot up.

Dino wheezed and started waving his hands frantically, “I, uh, mean — the new members of the Family come to live in the house! It is safe there and tradition and uh— Please do not focus on it—!”

Vic lurched to sit up on the couch, Nip the shark all but flung across the living room as she gaped at Dino’s spluttering self.

He fucked up!

“Wait, are you in a cult?”

Oh, he fucked up!

“Dino? Are you? In a cult?” she pressed, both fascinated and concerned. “Like, you can tell me, I won’t judge. My uncle believes that a secret race of people called the ‘True Earthlings’ run the world.”

“No, I’m not in a cul— your uncle believes what?” Dino squinted. “How? Why does he think that?”

“Beats me,” Vic shrugged as she crossed her legs, feet pressed flat against one another. “But he talks about it at pretty much every family gathering. We usually change the topic.” Then she rocked forward on the couch and loomed over Dino. “But you. Cult?”

“No,” Dino stressed, “We are not a cult. We are a Family.”

“Sounds like a cult, not gonna lie,” Vic muttered, scratching at the piercing hole in her ear.

“Not a cult!”

“Okay, okay,” Vic laughed and backed off. “But fuck mate, that must be a big house you’ve got.”

Dino smiled, remembering those long halls and polished floors, perfecting the sliding on socks and being dragged on blankets. “Yes, enough room for everyone.”

Vic huffed and groaned as she got to her feet.

“Okay, let’s get that machine cranking! Pasta time!” She paused and looked down at Dino. “You know how to make pasta noodles right? You’re Italian.”

“Did you remember to park your koala?” Dino shot back. “And I’m Sicilian.”

Vic stuck her tongue out at Dino and flipped him off, “The stereotype is ‘kangaroo’, you Sicilian piece of shit. Now get up, we’re gonna Youtube it.”

Vic was glad they had started preparing their dinner early, as the next half an hour resulted in a rather frantic back and forth of more egg yolk, more flour, more egg, more flour, more egg, more flour, more—

“I don’t think we can eat all of this,” Dino murmured as the two looked down at the ball of rested dough the size of a small toddler.

“Speak for yourself, coward,” Vic huffed and grabbed handfuls.

True to her words, Vic ate her whole serving of five large bowls. Dino had to rub her belly as she laid on the couch in pasta-ey regret.

At least, now Dino had plenty of pasta in the fridge. He would be eating it for a while.

☁ ☁ ☁

Dino laid on his couch, a sheet of paper draped across his face. Enzo gently gnawed on his shin through his pyjama pants.

He was bored. And lonely.

Semester break had set in. Dino had meant to go home over the mid-year break, spend the semester's end on Sicilian soil. Instead, when Winter crawled into the southern hemisphere and Dino had reached for the plane tickets home—

“I’m sorry Boss, Reborn’s instructions were clear. You can’t come back this time, not yet.”

Dino had damn near broken into tears.

Instead, after much bed-rotting, Dino had thrown himself into the familiar stress of number crunching, creating pages of cramped value tables and highlighted budget summaries. On the floor sat a bin full of tear-soggy tissues.

Vic had gone upstate to New Castle for the mid-year break, but Dino hadn’t had the time to miss her company as she made sure to text her ‘poor, lonesome boy’ at least once a day. Dino’s phone was full of photos of ‘blobfish babies’ and some kind of mixed mutt that looked like it could win a bullfight called Pepper. Or, as Vic liked to call her: ‘Pepe my sweet little girl, so beautiful!’

Dino did have to admit, her baby cousin, Ant, did look a bit like a blobfish. A cute one. A cute blobfish.

He still wished she was here, though. Dino had never liked the quiet, it never brought good things. For Dino, a quiet house was a house in mourning.

Dino tried to play some old Italian music to help the homesickness. He found he couldn’t stand it without the sound of Romario snoring in his armchair, or Brutus heckling at the football.

Dino crossed his arms over his eyes, the sheet wrinkled under the weight.

“I wanna go home, Enzo,” he murmured, muffled.

Enzo made another bite at his shin.

“I wanna see Vic.”

☁ ☁ ☁

It had been months since Dino had struck a deal with the rest of the Cavallone: Bet everything on one last race. Bet everything on the Cavallone horses.

And yet, he had made minimal progress.

The search for jockeys had been difficult, he hadn’t even known where to start. But as he paged through the list of names and backgrounds Romario had sent, Dino could see his options wearing thin.

There were jockeys, young upstarts and disgraced retirees. But Dino needed a specific brand of person.

He didn’t have the money to pay them lavishly, nor buy their silence, so he needed someone low budget, low maintenance. Young, maybe. Inexperienced and unaware of their worth. Skilled enough to handle a horse of Cavallone’s breeding. Loyalty easily fostered. They couldn’t ask questions. And they couldn’t be Mafia.

One jockey per horse.

The Stable Master had given him seven horses to work with, Madam Celeste, Buttercup Pop, Today Junior, Red Riding, Bottle Top, the best of the Cavallone’s renowned Snortle line and, of course, Glory herself.

One jockey per horse. Dino needed to find at least seven jockeys. And then he had to pray that the horses accepted their riders.

Dino grimaced at the concept of trying to introduce a jockey to Glory. He made a note to have a medic on scene.

Dino sighed and dropped his head onto the dining table, articles and handwritten notes of half thoughts stacked high enough to cushion his dismay. Dino was tired.

Enzo bit his little toe through his sock. Dino screeched. He shot up with a gasp — he saw Vic pressed against the window.

“Show me the boy.”

Dino screeched. He fell off his chair into the sweet embrace of his cold, tile floor.

“Careful! You could have hurt Enzo!” Vic scolded as she banged on the window.

Dino gaped at her from the floor, offended.

“What!? No sympathy for Dino!?”

“Shut up and let me in! I’m freezing my tits off!”

Dino resisted rolling his eyes as he heaved himself up off the ground. It was only 17 degrees, barely coat weather, but Vic was whining like she was up on Etna. Dino opened his door and Vic came barreling past, honed on his couch.

Dino laughed when he saw the mass of blankets on the couch, each one brought by Vic every time she couldn’t resist the knick-knackery of Kmart. Two grumpy eyes peered out, and the tell-tale sound of Enzo’s disgruntled wheeze.

“You’re back?” Dino smiled as he came and sat by Vic’s head, those eyes glaring up at him.

“Nah, I’m astral projecting — yes I’m back!” Vic huffed and Dino grinned.

He leant over and threw his arms around the mass that was Vic bundled within her blankets, squeezing tight even when the girl gave a wheeze. One of Vic’s hands wriggled its way out of the hold and gently patted Dino’s shoulder with an obligatory “there, there.”

“You were away for so long,” Dino grumbled.

Vic huffed, “I was gone for three weeks.”

“Three weeks much too long!” He whined and Vic let out a laugh that jostled both of them.

Dino let out an indignant sound as he slumped into Vic and felt the twang in his back and the ache in his eyes. He had been looking at documents for so long, done so much close-up work, that he could barely make out the clock face on the wall.

“You look like shit,” Vic grumbled from within her blanket mount.

Dino smiled weakly and rubbed his nape. He felt like shit too. A bit sweaty. Cooped up.

But he had work to do. So many relied on this one last gamble.

Dino tried not to let the stress show. That stone in his stomach and pressure in his chest.

Vic stared at him.

“Dino?” She asked and sat up, Enzo slid down a blanket and tottered off into the distance. “Dino?”

‘What’s wrong?’ she wanted to ask, but as Vic looked at Dino, she couldn’t quite get the words out. Because she could see that whatever was festering under his skin, was far too large to unpack. It had too many layers. One lone issue didn’t make someone’s face that dark and pale.

“Do you…Do you want to call home? I can give you some space?” Vic offered gently. “Call your dad or something?”

Dino flinched. Hard.

Vic snapped her mouth shut.

Then her mind swarmed with memory, scanning every instance she had with Dino, every mention of his family, every giggle of his past. Not once had Dino mentioned his father. Or his mother.

Fuck. Vic had fucked up.

“Or—” she scrambled, nearly biting her tongue in the rush.

“He is, uh…passed,” Dino said, barely above a whisper.

Vic paused. She pulled the blankets around her tighter.

“Oh,” she uttered.

“Last February,” he continued, his hands plucked at the edge of the blanket, pulling the loose tassels. “He got hurt. He didn’t get better.”

“Oh,” Vic whispered. That was recent. “You’re…mum?”

She looked at him carefully. Dino’s nose had started to blush, his fingers worked to untangle stylised knots in the blanket. His voice croaked.

“I was seven,” Dino whispered, and that was all Vic needed to know.

“Dino,” Vic murmured, and Dino shrugged.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

“Dino, your dad was last year,” Vic said, not at all convinced. Maybe Dino had come to peace with his mother’s passing, but his fathers? She didn’t think he was ‘okay’ as he said he was.

“I am busy. There’s much to do. The Family needs me now that I am in charge.”

Vic held her breath for a moment until she was sure she could let it out without a sound. Her Dino was in charge? Of a whole family? Her Dino, who choked on rice, who cut his lip on his toothbrush, who tripped on shoelaces. Had been put in charge of a whole family — an extensive one if ‘induction’ meant anything (not a cult, totally not a cult unless it is).

“When did you take over?” Vic asked and closed her eyes, bracing for the worst.

“...Last February,” Dino uttered.

He had taken the reigns out of cold hands. No time to mourn.

Vic felt her heart lurch in her chest, and a rumble in her ears. Anger and indignity yanked at her naval as she looked at the papers on the dining table, laptop open, fan spinning fast to cool down after days of almost non-stop use. Her Dino was doing all this. Practically alone, so far from home. And he hadn’t even had the time to properly mourn.

Vic turned her gaze onto Dino.

“Last February,” she echoed out to him. “Fifteen months.”

Dino smiled at Vic, full of teeth and wrinkled eyes. Eyes that started to swim as she stared at him. Brown eyes going blurry until one, then two, fat tears rolled down his cheeks. Dino sniffed, loud and full of snot.

Vic pulled her feet up onto the couch, leant back against the armrest and opened her arms to Dino. Dino’s face pinched, his breath shook, and slowly, Dino crawled until he laid himself on her chest.

Vic lifted her chin to breathe around his hair and felt her shirt go soggy as Dino hiccuped and rattled.

Vic liked to think she knew Dino well. At times like this, though, Vic was reminded that she knew very little.

Dino’s dad had died last year. His mother, long before that. And now he was here, alone, the rest of his family in another hemisphere. And there was that whole issue of finances that she knew she wouldn’t ever fully understand the gravity of.

Arms wriggled under her back and Vic felt Dino clutch at her like a lifeline, his watch dug into her ribs and she felt snot, spit and tears smear along her collar.

“I miss him,” Dino wheezed. “I don’t want to be the Boss yet. There’s so much I could do wrong.”

Vic gritted her teeth and pulled the blankets over Dino, the weight pressing down on his back. She looked at the list sitting on Dino’s dining table. A criterion for employment. A jockey selection.

Dino needed jockeys. At least seven.

Vic scanned the criteria, doing her damnedest to burn every detail and refinement into her memory. Cheap, talented, foolish. She felt her stomach roll with heat and discomfort.

Someone to be taken advantage of.

Dino coughed between quiet sobs. His nails dug into her shirt, just short of her skin. Vic pushed her cheek into his hair and squeezed him back, just as tight.

Dino needed jockeys.

“It’ll be okay, Dino,” Vic murmured.

Dino needed jockeys. Dino needed help.

She couldn’t do much, had no idea where to even start. But she could at least look. For her ponyboy Dino.

#fanfiction #khr #leftnotright #ao3 #dino cavallone #katekyo hitman reborn #canon divergence

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rhysdarbinizedarby · 2 years

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A speed date with Rhys Darby: Kiwi comedy legend and '60s Volvo enthusiast

We sit down with the Our Flag Means Death star to get his movie, TV and sneaker recommendations.

Have you ever come across an artist, a musician or just an all-around cool guy and wanted to pick his brain? You love what they make, but you want to know how they made it. More specifically, you want to discover the everyday interests and personal quirks that filter into their creative process - the less direct sources of inspiration that have an equal impact on their work. Okay, he likes Queen, but what’s his coffee order? What’s his comfort watch? And in an alternate universe where he doesn’t have the job he has now, what would be his career of choice?

Welcome to Speed Dates, the series where we get to know the local (and sometimes, not-so-local) talent we’re crushing on. This time, we're training our focus on Rhys Darby—the NZ actor and comedian who has cemented himself firmly alongside the likes of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement in the pantheon of the country's greatest comic talents. Known to most as Murray in Flight of the Conchords, Darby now has the lead part in his very own HBO show to call his own, hoisting sails and taking to the water (alongside Waititi, no less) Stede Bonnet in pirate caper Our Flag Means Death, which released last week to rapturous acclaim.

With Darby's own star turn now here, we caught up with the actor to unearth his tastes and what makes him tick.

GQ: Are you an extrovert or introvert?

I'm an introverted extrovert.

What is your coffee order of choice?

Flat White.

What is your favourite clothing brand?

Scotch and Soda because they're unique items and have a sense of flair. I also enjoy drinking Scotch and sodas, so it's easy for me to remember the label.

Most-worn item in your wardrobe?

Probably my Wrangler denim jacket. It's so easy and classic.

Do you have a go-to pair of sneakers?

Vans, in whatever cool design I can find.

How about a fragrance?

Obsession for Men, by Calvin Klein.

What is your favourite book?

Anything by Erich Von Daniken.

Favourite movie or TV show?

Favourite movie? This is always a difficult one. The Life Aquatic by Wes Anderson. TV show: Dad's Army.

What about your favourite album? Why?

Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin. So many bangers! It gets me through the good times and the bad times.

What do you save first if your house is on fire?

My 1968 Volvo P1800

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

Probably the fact that I've been given no real advice.

How about the worst advice you've ever been given?

"Pull your head in. You're not funny. Get a real job."

If you could have any dinner guest over, who would it be?

Bob Lazar

What is your favourite local spot in your home town?

The Matakana Village Pub

If you could pick a career different than the one you have, what would it be?

I always wanted to be a park ranger looking after animals on a giant reserve.

Our Flag Means Death is available to watch on Binge now.

Source: GQ Australia

#rhys darby #gq australia #interview #ofmd #our flag means death

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irate-pirate-bi-27 · 2 months

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Get to know me tag game!

Thank you @rooksnooks for the tag!!

Rules: answer + tag 9 people you want to get to know better and/or catch up with

Favourite Colour: At the moment it's red, but I constantly switch back and forth between red and blue. Sometimes I also dabble in purple.

Last Song: Aengus, The Prize-Winning Hog - The Toxhards :)

Currently Reading: The Undying by Mudrooroo (I'm also halfway through a reread of The Name Of The Wind, and I'm on a hiatus from a collection of short stories by HP Lovecraft). I haven't been reading much fanfic recently tho

Currently Watching: The End Of The Fucking World (with my sibling) and Just Roll With It (as well as my ever-growing Watch Later list on Youtube)

Currently Craving: The motivation to read or do anything productive

Coffee or Tea: Tea forever. If tea has one fan I am her. If tea has zero fans I am gone from this world.

Any hobby you would like to try? How can I pick just one? My first thought is learning sign language (or any new language really) but there's also painting, cycling, hiking, learning an instrument, etc etc

Any discipline you'll follow during the Olympics? I might keep up with the swimming, since it's the one Australia always does really well in. I'm looking at the categories right now and just found out that break dancing is also a category now?? so I'm definitely gonna watch that. If I get time I might check out the gymnastics or archery or martial arts categories too

Any AU/Alternate Universe you've been plotting for? I haven't written any fanfic in a while now, but my latest project has basically been bible fanfic. In a sentence, I would describe it as an angsty Jesus x Judas sci-fi/fantasy AU with an unhappy ending (for now)

I will tag: @birdo-is-here, @starsinplainsight, @neon-zoologist, @hex-is-vexxed, @iiep-wop, @shaunarcanine , @ohmygod-zu-you-suck, @bepisbee, @aussiegingerguy, and anyone else who wants to join in!

#tag game

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sleekervae · 1 year

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Past Lives [0.1]

Masterlist

A/N: Hi, and happy Sunday! I've been wanting to expand my writer-verse for a while, and I've found it's tough depending on the person I'm writing about. However, I thought this was a cute idea and Austin fit it perfectly. Just bear with me :)

Summary: As the filming for Elvis wrapped, Austin found himself flush in an identity crisis. His body ached, his head hurt, it was tough for him to get excited about anything. However, his interest was peaked when he found he was in the same city as Jade Theodore, a once good friend whom he'd been separated from thanks to time and circumstances...

Warnings: some mentions of InFiDeLiTy

Two years is a long time in hindsight. Add on sleepless nights, countless injuries, little to no contact with your loved ones, and a pandemic? It was any wonder Austin hadn't checked himself into a psyche ward when filming had wrapped. That last day, when the cameras were finally shut down and all the make up came off, he locked himself in his bedroom. He was positive he'd slept for almost three days, but it still didn't feel like enough.

By the end of that last week, Austin stared at himself in the mirror, poking and pulling with unfamiliar curiosity at his own face. His stubble was beginning to grow back, a mismatch to the black dye that would need time to fade from his usually burnt blonde hair. His eyes were opaque and his skin felt raw and plasticky, almost like a doll. He couldn't explain it then, but never had he felt so unnerved to stare into the mirror, and for once in his life, not recognize the person who was staring back at him.

This was the shell of Elvis Presley. Where did Austin go?

It was a week before Austin had gathered enough of his faculties to get his shit together and pack up. And before his eyes, he had traded the long, hot and humid country landscape of Australia for the rain-filtered stone neighbourhoods of London. His manager had afforded him a break before he would be whisked off to shoot his next project. It was a small break; three weeks to recover from two years. It seemed like a joke to most, but a break was a break. Any time he could take for himself was greatly welcome.

Austin's eyes cracked open, for once not at the behest of a blaring alarm. His brain was still wired to expect sun and native birds chirping away, though instead he woke up to rain pattering against the windows and traffic echoing from below his apartment.

He had taken to walking up and down the neighbourhood, exploring the hidden shops in small streets and wandering Trafalgar Square. Nobody paid him any mind, masked up and avoiding touching him and each other. He had to wonder, if this movie was as big as Baz had promised, how would this all change for him? Walking down the street would become a luxury he could no longer afford without becoming mobbed, if not by fans than by paps. And they would all watch this movie, all of them with the highest of high expectations...

On a bleary Wednesday morning, Austin sat by the window in an obscure little cafe. His coffee was becoming lukewarm and his breakfast sandwich only partially devoured as he scrolled through his phone. His mind was empty, colors and eye-catching headlines only holding his focus for mere moments before he'd move on to the next. However, he stopped suddenly at a particular paparazzi post of a singer.

Jade Theodore Sports Pleather Jacket with Sandals in London

He couldn't give a damn about whatever fashion fad the news outlet was focusing on, Austin stared intensely at the blurry photo. Slender, small, her usually long chestnut hair was cut short and a mask hid half of her face. But Austin was struck by an odd twang of nostalgia. He hadn't seen Jade in years, it felt like a whole other life since he had.

Jade Theodore had been conquering Billboard hits since 2014, exploding onto the alternative pop scene after ditching a go-no-where career at Disney. She was a force of musical talent to be reckoned with, speaking the most beautiful truths in her music that could vary from tasteful and classic to raw and raucous. Austin had seen her perform a couple times and he had a few of her songs on his phone. But he hadn't spoken to her in years.

And she was here in London, too...

Austin had spent the last two years in near full isolation from his friends and family. He felt like a stranger in his own skin, unaware of himself and trying to root himself back to who he was and why he did what he did. So it was a familiar comfort to him as he looked her up on instagram. Her page was full of gorgeous selfies and shots of the food she made. He remembered how much she liked to cook and she was good at it, even at a young age. And of course, she had pictures of her dog; a golden mini doodle that she took everywhere with her.

Jade's most recent photo was a window selfie with downtown London in the background. Her large green eyes twinkled in the reflection of the light, some makeup stained just beneath her lashes and pushed the grunge aesthetic she toted. She was younger than him by a couple years, she had to be twenty-six or twenty-seven by now, and yet she still held that teenage mischief in her stare.

His fingers moved before he could realize just what the hell he was doing, and he stared at the message he had ready to send in her DM.

Hey Jade, saw you're in London. How are you?

Austin stared at the message long and hard, his mind spinning with the fret of whether or not he should send it. And furthermore, would Jade bother to read or respond to it? Nevertheless, his thumb twitched once, twice, and then he pressed send.

Not two seconds later, he slammed his phone down on the table screen down. His rationality told him not to worry; she'd see he wasn't just a random user awaiting a response. Maybe she'd be happy to catch up with him? The irrational part however of his brain was screaming at him, wondering why he would message someone who was a point blank stranger to him. And he was to her, too. They hadn't spoken in nearly a decade, there was a slim to fair chance that Jade wouldn't give Austin the time of day. After all, she was probably really busy with her music and --

His phone buzzed, and Austin would admit he was a little too quick to turn the screen over and check. His heart dropped when he saw it was just a message from his agent checking in on him. He set the phone down again and his gaze shifted out the window again. He was being utterly ridiculous, but the constant thumping of his knee would easily give away his flicker of anxiety. He should just delete the message, she probably wouldn't see it anyway --

The phone buzzed again. Austin huffed, figuring for good reason it was just his agent again. However, his eyes blinked swiftly, and he stared in almost disbelief as he read Jade's response.

Hi Austin! Wow, it's been a while! I can't really complain, how are you?

He could still hear her voice in his head as he read the message over again, her honeyed Canadian accent penetrating his ears. His lips began to curl up in a small smile and he began to type back.

I know, it's been too long. Guess I can't really complain, either.

Austin considered himself an introvert, he had never been the type to throw himself at people or at social gatherings. However, he seemingly jumped at the chance when Jade offered to get a coffee together the next day. She had some off time and wanted to catch up a bit.

That Thursday afternoon Austin found himself sitting on a bench, overlooking the lush rolling hills of serene Regent's Park. Jade had texted him that morning telling him where to meet, and Austin kept looking to the same dented lamppost just to be sure he was in the right spot.

His knee continued bouncing, his long fingers tapping incessantly against the cold wooden bench planks. He didn't pay any mind to the footsteps crunching on the gravel trail before him, keeping his eyes glued just to his phone before the familiar honey voice took his attention.

"Austin?" his head snapped up, and his bright blue eyes met Jade's lush green ones. She smiled politely, one ankle locked behind the other as she stood there, and suddenly a rush of old memories flooded through him.

He stood up slowly, wiping his clammy hands on his jeans quickly as he approached her. Her eyes immediately went to his hair, needless to say she hadn't expected him to dawn a drastically different color to the burnt blonde she had come to know earlier.

"Jade, hi," he rasped out. Jade noted how his voice had changed, too; husky and thick. If smooth bourbon had a voice, Austin's voice would be it.

"Hi," she continued to smile, her cheeks tinting red despite the cool breeze whipping through the park.

Austin looked her up and down, he could see the small curls of her tattoos peeking out just below the cuff of her sweater. His smile suddenly curved into a playful smirk.

"Were you always this short?" he raised his hand to her height; the top of her head would just barely graze his chin, "Or was it my imagination?"

Jade scowled, her scorned grin still plastered to her lips as she rolled her eyes, "You know, I was gonna' hug you, but I could punch you instead if you want," she offered.

He began to laugh, taking a stride forward and pulling her in for a hug. She smelled of flowers and citrus, a reminiscing scent of seasonal turnings with the promise of spring break and refreshing decadence.

There was a quaint coffee stand at the end of a trail they stopped at, and Austin surprised himself with the fact that he could still remember Jade's typical order: black with two sugars. They took a seat on a bench shortly after. The sun was shining down so that was an added bonus, and they watched with little interest as other people lay out over their picnic blankets and played rounds of soccer football in the fields.

"So, how long have you been in London for?" he asked.

"Well over a year, now," she replied, "I had an opportunity to take up a residency for some work, and I had a friend who lives here so I've been rooming with her. Figured with all the bullshit going on back in the states, could England really be worse?"

"Wow," he simpered, "How long are you here for?"

"Two more weeks. My agent gave me the word, label wants me back in the pacific time zone," she said, "It's nice here, but it's not Australia,"

Austin smiled, "Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful over there,"

"Did you meet any koalas?" she asked with some giddy.

"Truth be told, I didn't have a chance," he replied, "Everything was shut down for about six months, so I mostly spent my days on the beach during that time. And when filming opened up again, I didn't really have much time for tourism,"

"Really?"

"Yeah,"

"Damn," Jade shook her head, "How hard did they work you over there?"

"Oh, we had eighteen hour days. And I maybe got three or four hours of sleep a night. I can't complain, though," he admitted, "Everyone on set was great, and the experience was just once in a lifetime, you know?"

"I suppose," she shrugged, "Not just anyone could pull off the King of Graceland,"

He huffed, "Yeah. It was a lot. I feel like I've been cramming for an exam the past two years and my body is finally coming out of it,"

"I'm glad you said so, because I didn't want to sound heartless," she said.

"Why would you sound heartless?" he popped a brow.

Jade smiled sheepishly, "Because -- you look like shit,"

"Oh, thank you. I looked in the mirror this morning," he smirked back.

Jade began to laugh, "I'm sorry. Okay -- but aside from physically, are you okay? I heard how intense these biopics can get. I mean, at least with Rocketman, Elton could give his notes if needed,"

He understood where she was coming from, "I got advice from the right people when I needed it. I'm just starting to come out of the fog, though. I need to either put my focus on something else or just not think about Elvis for a little while. At least until the press tours start,"

"I get it," she nodded, her lips pursing, "Is that why you messaged me out of the blue?"

He simpered shyly, "Well, no, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I just heard you were in town and thought it might be nice to catch up,"

"Well, of course! It's only been... what? Nine years we last spoke?" she suggested, watching him carefully.

"Five," he noted, "I watched you perform at Coachella in 2017,"

Jade popped an eyebrow, "Oh? Why didn't you come say hi?"

That one, Austin didn't have a good answer for. His circumstances at the time were different, he was distracted to put it lightly. His social circle looked much different and his priorities were aligned elsewhere. It wasn't a very valid excuse, though.

"I don't know," he replied truthfully, "That's a shitty excuse, but the truth is I don't know why I didn't. I should've. I don't even know why I messaged you in the first place,"

Jade cocked her head, her gaze averting to the fields. The echoes of football games and chatting passerbys intermingled with the distant drawls of traffic in downtown. Regent's Park however was quieter. Jade turned to Austin again.

"I think I do," she suggested, "And correct me if I'm wrong: but from everything you've told me, coupled with some... unsavoury things that've come out in the past year, I think you're lost. Not just with yourself but in your reality as a whole. You've spent over two years pretending to be somebody else, and it's not exactly a children's game of dress up and make believe. So, when you saw that this familiar stranger," she stopped and pointed to herself, "you haven't spoken to in a while is suddenly within arms reach of you, you jumped for it like a seal doing circus tricks. You have to rebuild yourself, and how fortuitous you happened to stumble upon me,"

Austin sighed, nodding slowly as her words sunk in, "Does that make me a selfish prick?" he asked.

"Not at all," she shook her head, "It does make you a little whiny, I'm not gonna lie," that got a chuckle out of him, "I'm not exactly innocent, either. But still, I'm honoured you picked me,"

"I'm honoured that you even came out to meet me in the first place," he grinned, "Does it make me whiny to admit that it's really good to see you again?"

"Then we're both pretty whiny," she bumped his arm, "It's good to see you again, too,"

Time wasn't a thing as Austin and Jade continued to talk. It was as though years hadn't passed and it felt just like it used to when they were sit on set together. He told her about some of the upcoming projects he had in the works, including a possible call-back for the sequel for Dune. Jade had been a fan of the books as well as the newest movie, and regardless to say she was excited to hear about that prospective venture.

Jade meanwhile had a show coming up, her first in nearly two years at the Brixton Academy. After so much time lallygagging around she admitted she was a little flustered putting a set list and rehearsals together. Though the tickets were close to being sold out, Jade's nerves had a way of getting the better of her as the show loomed closer and closer.

The early morning soon turned into late afternoon and then the evening. Jade was surprised when she checked her watch and saw the time was bordering on five o'clock. Austin noted the time too, and he looked both ways up and down the park as he realized the crowd had thinned down considerably.

"It's getting dark," he said.

"Time always flies, I guess," she replied.

"Yeah," he collected the discarded cups, his mouth moving before his brain could register, "You wanna' get something to eat?" he suddenly asked.

Jade shrugged, "I mean -- if you have no where to be..."

"I have no where to be for another week and half," he told her.

"Alright," she stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder, fluffing up her hair, "There's a little pub down the road that make the best truffle fries. And I'm not even exaggerating," she chuckled, "They're deadly,"

Austin laughed as well, "Can't say no truffle fries now, can I?"

They ventured out of the park together, jacket sleeves occasionally brushing up together and the conversation kept flowing between them. He regaled her with a story from filming, some on-set shenanigans between him and his cast mates that helped lift the pressure. Jade watched him curiously, picking out the mischievous glint in his eye, the way his fingers fiddled with his coat pocket, how his smile was still the same as when he was seventeen. It felt so strange, content that she knew him and he seemed just the same, and yet he looked and was so different.

The gastropub was relatively empty at the time, a dark interiored venue that smelled of hops and fresh leather. Austin and Jade were given a booth in the back, a single candle accompanying the low dimmed sconces across the walls. Two pints of beer sat on the table, in between them a plate of steaming truffle fries.

"So... would you chew me out if I asked?" she asked meekly.

Austin had an unsettling feeling in his gut, but he nodded nonetheless, "Ask me what?" he asked.

Jade huffed, giggling nervously to herself, "About you... and a very long term relationship that didn't go the distance?" she was trying not to squirm in her seat.

Austin tried to put on a smile, but his fingers tapped slowly against the hardwood table, his eyes averting just the same. The side of his face was lit eerily by the candle, he was hauntingly mesmerizing.

"You know what? Forget it," she said quickly, "I shouldn't of -- I mean it's none of the my business --"

"No, it's okay," Austin assured, though his fingers continued to tap on the table, "Truth be told, I fell out of love," he scoffed, "Not as Lifetime as it sounds, I guess,"

Jade wasn't sure what she was expecting when he answered; probably something scandalous like one of them cheated, or there was a major fight. But what wasn't heard very often was the very thing he described, and seemed to still feel guilty over.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I get it, though,"

"You're one of very few people," he admitted, "Even my dad thought I was crazy when I told how I felt,"

Jade picked at another fry, "Ten years with somebody is a long time, Austin. But it's not a lifetime, either. And at the end of the day, you have to make a choice for yourself," she said, "Do you regret it?"

It was a question he had been asked often, and every time that relationship flashed through his head like a movie reel. He reminisced the good, the bad, and all the beautiful moments in between. However, his answer was always the same.

"No," he shook his head.

Jade shrugged, "Then, you can lift that burden off your shoulders," she said, "You know what's best for you, public opinion be damned,"

"I never thought of it that way before," he said, "As a burden, I mean,"

"I've found responsibility and naivety can be confused in situation-ships; whether that's for us or our significant others depends," she explained.

Austin sipped from his beer, "You sound like you've had some experience," he spoke before drinking.

Jade simpered, somewhat bitterly, "Suppose this the part where we discuss my failed relationships?" she asked.

"You asked me first," he smirked.

"Fair," she sighed, sitting back in the booth seat, "My partner and I are currently on a 'break'," she made air quotes with her fingers. Austin simpered with intrigue.

"Okay, Rachel. What happened?" he asked.

Jade shook her head, "Well, the shorter version is he caught covid really badly. So badly to the point where he had to be ventilated. His mother is a super sweet lady, but she's also super religious. She was concerned about his sins or whatever, so she told me -- while he was under ventilation -- that he had cheated on me,"

Austin popped an eyebrow, "Fuck..."

"Yep,"

"Hold on, lemme' get this straight," he said up, "He cheated on you, didn't tell you, told his mom, and now that he's in a coma his mom told you?"

"Oh, he's out of the coma now. He's fine," she replied.

"Holy --" Austin was at a loss for what to say. Not even the most twisted Hallmark movies could come up with such drama, "I can't imagine -- Jade, I can't even imagine what that must've been like,"

"So, you are blessed," she grinned.

"I assume though, that you did tell him?" he asked, "That you knew?"

"When he was well enough, I confronted him. And then he gave me the classic excuse 'she meant nothing!' and all that. Nothing concrete enough to forfeit him another chance, anyway. And don't even get me started on his mom," she squirmed in her seat.

Needless to say, she couldn't have dreamed up a more stressful situation. Jade had been so torn up, so angry with her boyfriend, and then guilty for being angry because he was so sick. But she also wanted him to pull through, partly because she needed the opportunity to confront him. And when she had, it still wasn't enough to satisfy her. Never before had she felt so violated, not just by her boyfriend but also by his family.

Though, she wondered in the back of her mind if she perhaps deserved it?

Austin was baffled, nonetheless, "When did all this happen?" he asked.

Jade's smile was bitter, regretful even, "About a year ago," she replied sadly.

He nodded, "So, when you had the opportunity to move to London amid a mass pandemic..."

"Like a seal in a circus," she admitted, "I'm nervous to go back because he's going to be waiting for me and promising over and over that he's changed and realized he can't live without me and all that bullshit,"

"So, break up with him!" he said.

"I have. Twice. He won't accept it," she stared off into space, teeth chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip, "He's telling all our friends and family that we're just on a break..."

Her hand rested over the table, her index finger tapping impatiently. Austin couldn't help himself, he slid his own hand across the table and folded it over hers. Jade met his eyes again.

"I'm really sorry, Jade," he said, "If there's anything I can do..."

"Don't worry. I'll have him off my back soon enough," she shrugged, then her lips upturned into a gleeful smirk, "And hey, I'm a B-list celebrity! I could have a restraining order on him with a snap of my fingers if need be!"

He began to laugh, "Fame and its perks knows no bounds,"

The night dwelled on, the conversation moving on to more pleasant things. However, neither were privy to the fact that one hand always seemed to be in close contact with the other for the rest of their meal.

The restaurant filled up with people, endured its dinner rush, and then settled down again for closing. Austin and Jade were still in their booth, lost in their own bubble. That bubbles was popped however as a server came by and dropped off their bill. Austin felt a little guilty as he looked around, realizing they were the only table left in the place.

"Guess we became those people," he joked as he pulled out his wallet.

"Means we had the best time," she popped a brow, "What're you doing?"

"I'm paying the bill," he answered simply.

"Not by yourself," she countered, "At least let me get half!"

"Nope," he couldn't help the smug leer on his face as he pulled out some pound notes, "I invited you out, it's only fair,"

Jade opened her mouth to argue, but he had already closed the money into the booklet and gave it to the server. She relented nevertheless, following as he slid out of the booth and they made their exit.

The evening was chilly, but the sky remained clear, its pale visage looming down over central London. The streets were clear for the most part, though a good amount of cars were still driving up and down the roads. Austin and Jade walked side by side in the general vicinity of his apartment.

"This has been really nice. I almost hate to leave," she told him, chuckling bashfully, "But Cam is gonna bop me in the head if I'm late to another soundcheck,"

Austin simpered, "I understand. How long does your soundcheck run?"

"About two hours," she smiled politely, they both stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, "What are you doing next Wednesday?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Nothing, I guess," he replied.

"Why don't you come to the show? I can get you a ticket," she offered.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "I mean, I'm good for the ticket,"

"And you just bought me dinner, so you'll take it. I mean, the vibe's not exactly Mean Woman Blue, but..."

"Jade, I would love to come," he nodded.

She started rocking back and forth on her heels, "Cool, I'll send you the information," and she put her arms out for a hug. Austin obliged her happily. Her head fit snugly under his chin and his sharp cologne tickled pleasantly at her nose, "Thanks again -- for reaching out,"

"Hey, thank you for coming," he grinned, "And I'm sorry it took me ten years,"

Jade shrugged nonchalantly, "Hey, until the next ten years," she started walking backwards, "Bye Austin,"

A renewed excitement flooded over Austin, a shy smile on his lips as he began to turn, "Bye, Jade,"

#austin butler #austin x reader #elvis presley #austin butler elvis #elvis movie 2022 #original character #original content #original series #film blog #jade theodore #imagine blog #Austin butler fanfic #Austin butler imagine

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mads-is-tired · 11 months

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for the ask game!!! 4, 9, 20, and 31?? :3 (i think i remembered the numbers right lmao)

4. which cryptyd being do you believe in?

hmm i don’t think i believe in any? i looked up a list and why are tasmanian tigers on the list???? they existed??? they’re extinct now unfortunately, maybe they’re listed as cryptids as there’s now people wondering if there’s still some out there. i hope so :(

9. which do you prefer, hot coffee or cold coffee?

i think i answered this one before! short answer is neither, i like hot and iced chocolates. to pick between the two i’d probably say iced chocolates?

20. do you say soda or pop?

i say neither! it’s “soft drink” in australia :) we called them that originally to distinguish between them and hard drinks, spirits and stuff, and it just stuck lmao

31. what type of music keeps you grounded?

good question!! pretty much all of the music i listen to comes under indie alternative rock i think, i don’t know if i’ve got a type of music that grounds me though? i used to use like brown noise to study but that stopped working, i moved to nintendo music which worked for a while as well.

thank you for the asks!!!! these ones are really fun :D

#ask game :)#mads makes a post #mads answers a post

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hughungrybear · 4 months

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Tagged by @telomeke in this post. Thanks for the tag 🥰

coffee or tea – COFFEE.

As much as my GP is on my ass due to excessive caffeine intake, I just can't help it. I stopped counting how many cups of coffee I drink daily since I usually just get a fresh cup as soon as I emptied the one I'm holding😅

early bird or night owl – NEITHER. I'M A PERMANENTLY EXHAUSTED PIGEON.

I am used to working until late at night (around 11pm) and waking up around 2am to work again. I have the same sleep pattern even on my off days 😭

chocolate or vanilla – VANILLA.

Only because I don't like chocolate. But if there is caramel or strawberry, then I would be down for those.

spring or fall – SPRING.

Me and slightly cool weather don't mix. 😅Plus, it's really pretty to see all the wild flowers blossom during spring.

silver or gold – GOLD.

Only because I'm allergic to silver - and no, I'm not a vampire. 😅

pop or alternative – ALTERNATIVE.

Alternative punk, to be exact. Not a big fan of teen bops. 😅

freckles or dimples – DIMPLES.

Ah well, because I have one LOL.

snakes or sharks – SNAKES.

I can't swim, plus snakes are kinda nice.

mountains or fields – MOUNTAINS.

I like elevated places better.

thunder or lightning – THUNDER.

Because thunder is safer lol. It's a loud sound vs thousands bolts of electricity, so ⚖️

egyptian mythology or greek mythology – BOTH.

I like mythology and folklore, in general.

ivory or scarlet – IVORY.

I do like reds but the texture of ivory is really something else.

flute or lyre – FLUTE.

Only because I know how to play it 😅

opal or diamond – OPAL.

Diamonds are overrated. (Plus, I'm in Australia so support our own lol)

butterflies or honeybees – BUTTERFLIES.

Never had a good experience with bees lol

macarons or éclairs – MACARONS.

Because I don't like the texture of éclairs.

typewritten or handwritten – DEPENDS.

If it comes from me, then typewritten - apparently, nobody can read my handwriting lol.

secret garden or secret library – SECRET LIBRARY.

Gimme all the books (and time to read them, please 🥲🥲🥲)

rooftop or balcony – ROOFTOP.

No, not because all good BL scenes happen on the rooftop 😅 I like hanging out on rooftops even when I was a kid. It's more private and nobody really comes looking for you on rooftops. It's like being away from the world without really leaving it.

spicy or mild – SPICY.

I'm Asian. Enough said 😂😂😂

opera or ballet – OPERA.

I actually prefer musicals, but if the choice is just between these two, then I would choose the singing/wailing over interpretative dancing. Tbf, I did try attending ballets, but it bored me to death.

london or paris – LONDON

Because it's another Australia - but wetter lol

vincent van gogh or claude monet – VAN GOGH.

Read his bio when I was still a teen and it broke me. Also, his Starry Night and Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory are my all-time favourite paintings.

denim or leather – DENIM.

I hate, HATE how leather is so hot and inconvenient to wear on regular days.

potions or spells – POTIONS.

Because it's just chemistry in heels lol

ocean or desert – OCEAN.

I may not know how to swim but I would rather drown than die of heat stroke lol

mermaids or sirens – NEITHER.

Aren't they the same thing though (human head, fish tail)? 🤔

masquerade ball or cocktail party – NEITHER.

I don't like parties in general. I would rather stay at home lol

Onward tagging: @lost-my-sanity1, @dribs-and-drabbles, @waitmyturtles, @happypotato48, and anyone who also wants to play this game.

#tag game #get to know me tag

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thingummies-and-whatsits · 1 year

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Lewis Fic Recs: International Travel, Pt. 1

Stories about international travel (separate from their canon trips to New Zealand, Spain, Kosovo, etc). As usual, feel free to add more fics to the list!

Devotional by Evenlodes_Friend

2,519 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply The Florentine piazza is bathed in golden light and Lewis sips his coffee and thinks of James. This gorgeously poetic fic captures an incredible depth of feeling in a few words, and shows the degree to which Robbie understands what goes unsaid between the two of them.

Dépaysement by owlbsurfinbird

7,491 Words, James/Robbie, Robbie/Val, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply James secretly follows Robbie on his holiday to Paris, against the background energy of the World Cup. Gorgeously dreamlike and romantic, this fic is as much a love letter to Paris as it is a slow-burn romance. It also does a great job connecting Robbie's past and relationship with Val to the present.

Coraje: A way of performing that shows impetuosity or daring (lit. "courage") by ComplicatedLight

8,405 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply Casefic. James and Robbie follow a murderer to Seville, Spain, where the summer heat and scorching flamenco raises tension between them. The dance and music scenes are incredibly powerful and evocative, and Luisa and Julie are so wonderfully competent as detectives.

Desire Lines by Jackie Thomas

7,949 Words, James/Robbie, Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply Casefic. A murder brings James and Robbie to Malta, and James deals with his existential flu in the wake of Down Among the Fearful. Beautifully atmospheric, with the hot summer sun beating down, this fic brings such richness to the city and its inhabitants.

Walking Wounded by wendymr

30,098 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply A car accident in Prague leaves James seriously injured and, with no next of kin, Robbie is determined to bring him home. An epic hurt/comfort fic, with plenty of devotion and care to balance out the grumpiness and painful realities of James' injuries.

Half a World Away by divingforstones

28,418 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply James leaves the force to become an English teacher in Thailand. When he catches a serious case of malaria, Robbie discovers he's James emergency contact and flies down to be with him. Another epic hurt/comfort fic, with plenty of each on both sides of the relationship, this does a great job of letting James learn to live with his feelings—and with Robbie's—on his own terms.

Postcard from Spain by paperscribe

12,981 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply James sends that postcard from Spain and returns home to England, and then one day, Robbie reaches for James' hand. While much of this fic is set in Oxford, an unwelcome face from the past sends them on a sudden holiday to a small town in the US.

Even now we are by smallestbird

1,675 Words, James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply Established relationship. A gorgeously lyrical fic about enjoying the freedom of the warm, sea air. Set post-retirement, Robbie brings James down to Australia to meet family, and James grows philosophical in his contentment.

Policeman's Holiday by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden

7,533 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply AU Alternate Meeting. While trying to decide whether he should stay on the force, Hathaway goes on vacation to the BVI and gets drawn into a murder investigation with DI Lewis. Despite the alternate setting, that bond between James and Robbie clicks right into place, just the same.

#inspector lewis #itv lewis #robbie lewis #james hathaway #lewis/hathaway #LewisFicRecs #I'm so sorry this took so long to do T_T #there was final review week and now I'm doing a one month drawing class in Rome that is REALLY intense #hence this week's theme #and also the internet sucks #but hopefully I'll be back on schedule a bit better now #also there are a TON of other travel fics that will be on future lists #I'm trying to group them all into themes so there'll be at least 2 more international travel lists and several others for more local travel

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dhr-ao3 · 5 months

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Coffee Nights & Ferries

Coffee, Nights & Ferries https://ift.tt/Z8qu54Q by DoctorPepperCherry “I own this hospital, Granger”, Malfoy gently proclaimed. “You what!?” He did NOT just say that, I must not have heard him correctly? “You heard me, and that means, I own you” Get f*cked. Hermione’s brain did not know what to do with this new found information, but her body sure did. She ran. Words: 1775, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Grey's Anatomy Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: Multi Characters: Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger's Mother, Hermione Granger's Father, Crookshanks (Harry Potter) Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Crookshanks & Hermione Granger Additional Tags: Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Old Friends, Alternate Universe - Australia, Drama & Romance via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/bJL6R2Q April 26, 2024 at 04:50PM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

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sillyroundkatie · 2 years

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Who the hell is this grumpy butch??

(OC info under the cut!)

(Retro) Clayton | She/Her | Butch Lesbian | Human | ~30? | 187 cm / 6'2" | Australian Before Clayton turned herself into a cyborg - she was just a simple post-doctoral researcher with an urge to study... how one might turn themselves into a cyborg. Being younger doesn't mean she's any kinder, as she's still her usual grumpy self. If anything, she's at her most violent and impulsive, because she's much more vulnerable, lacking her later modifications. For now, a bad attitude and a loaded gun will have to suffice. Common activities/hobbies: Clayton is often busy performing her experiments, and she doesn't really understand the concept of 'hobbies', but she does enjoy running long distance to keep her cardio refined. She has a hyper-fixation on spiders, especially Huntmans, and will stop what she's doing to watch one. She has a problem where she wants to study internal organs in greater detail, but they're - you know - internal and she can't study her own - so she has to find unwilling participants. She's often doing maintenance on her Land Rover, which faces the wear and tear of being constantly driven out into The Outback so that she can dispose of the evidence of her studies. ...And her cousin Disturbia is often roped into helping her, though she'll make her fur coats in return. Setting: Set in the 70s, when Clayton is a younger woman. She is a post-doctoral researcher at an Australian university. Clothing style: She is a butch woman, and dresses almost entirely in suits. If she's getting her hands dirty, she will take off the blazer and roll the sleeves up past her elbows. She only wears non-black suits, for some reason. You can draw them with:

Sera (But a 70s AU version) (student) - Clayton is forced to contribute equally to the department by finally supervising a master's student, lest she be fired. She demands that she'll only take a good one, and (un)fortunately, Sera is quite the budding genius. Clayton is pleased that she's actually useful, and she alters Sera's project to research an early battery prototype, one that could perhaps, power something like a cyborg one day. The two clash frequently, with Sera on the receiving end of a lot of snarky put-downs. Sera learns over time about how many crimes Clayton has been committing, and has no choice but to go along with it.

Disturbia (cousin) - A weird lanky freak with two puffs of hair at the front and an otherwise shaved head is a good description of Clayton's cousin Disturbia. However at this point in time, Dissy has not yet made it as a fashion designer, and instead spends most of her time smoking weed and otherwise bothering/mooching off of Clayton. She'll pay her back. One day.

Additional stuff to keep in mind: This is an alternate universe version of Clayton, because I love her too much and there is too much fun to have with her in her younger days (Also I just really like the 70s aesthetic, and 70s Australia is an extra good setting). Some random trivia:

She inherited her Dad's gun and now uses it frequently (you are NOT allowed to touch it.)

She is an excellent shot.

Despite being a stuffy researcher who spends most of her time at a desk, Clayton is very physically fit at this stage of her life. She is a long distance runner and has insane cardio abilities.

She drinks her coffee black. Further information and images of her main AU version can be found at her Toyhouse page at the link below!: Clayton's ToyHouse!

#sillyroundart #sillyroundkatieOC #Retro Clayton #lesbian #butch #butch lesbian #suit lesbian #dyke #original character #digital art #OC art #70s #category 5 grumpy autism incident #5 dead 12 injured #everyday i go to work i become more like Her

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themculibrary · 1 year

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Gilgamesh/Thena Masterlist

25 Days of Thena and Gilgamesh (ao3) - Bright_Boisterous_Bananas M, 5k

Summary: A collection of Drabbles for Thena and Gilgamesh!

Countdown to Christmas with 25 little snippets of pure love, pure fluff, pure pining and more!

academy babylon (ao3) - wiigs N/R, 42k

Summary: welcome to academy babylon where everything is very alternate universe, but essentially ajak is headmaster, all the eternals are professors/teachers, and thena has ptsd but gilgamesh is there for her.

A Quiet Language, All Their Own (ao3) - Bright_Boisterous_Bananas T, 1k

Summary: Silence isn’t silent at all, not for Thena and Gilgamesh. They fill it with a special language, all their own; the language of flowers.

even when it all becomes too much (ao3) - funnefatale G, 7k

Summary: "Are you a Valkyrie?" the child – Thor, she recalls someone saying – asks. He doesn't wait for her response before he proudly informs her, "When I grow up I'm going to be a Valkyrie."

alternatively: Thena and Gilgamesh accidentally pseudo-adopt a little god child.

Five Times Everyone Assumed Thena and Gilgamesh Were a Couple (ao3) - INMH T, 2k

Summary: And one time they definitely were.

Home Is a Person (ao3) - Highclasstrash G, 1k

Summary: Australia, 1520 - 2023.

How to Build a House (ao3) - iamjustabird T, 19k

Summary: How Thena and Gil ended up in the outback and how their cozy little home for two came to be. It started with just the two of them under the stars after a long journey, and now they have to figure out who they are without the other Eternals, or Arishem, or their mission. Who do they get to be with just each other?

i remember . . . (ao3) - d0mesticbliss E, 4k

Summary: After the events of the Eternals, Thena spends some time to herself, taking in the consequences of their actions.

An unexpected visitor startles her.

Lay Your Hand Within My Hand (ao3) - Bright_Boisterous_Bananas E, 1k

Summary:

“Thena. I need to talk with you.” She stiffens, feeling the meaning of his words. “Not now Gil.” “Yes now.” He corrects, firm but so soft. “I don’t have my memories, and I need to know.”

When the other Eternals arrive with the news of the Emergence, it spurs something in Gilgamesh to have a long awaited heart-to-heart with his best friend, the one he loves above all others.

Life in the Margins (ao3) - Jupiter77 druig/makkari, gilgamesh/thena, ikaris/sersi T, 98k

Summary: In one of the reviews of Eternals, the film critic commented that Makkari and Druig had a romance in the margins of the movie. This story explores the margins.

Not a burden (ao3) - TheShipper47 G, 1k

Summary: What happens after Thena hurts Gilgamesh during an episode of Mahd wy'ry?

on a wednesday, in a cafe (ao3) - TaraLy T, 111k

Summary: Thenamesh Coffee Shop AU. No angst, no plot, only love (and food).

peace and quiet (ao3) - agentromanoff06 G, 1k

Summary: In the kitchen, Thena reflects on her time spent with Gilgamesh. She is safe, she is loved.

reasons are for people you're meant to lose (ao3) - funnefatale G, 8k

Summary: or the one in which Thena tries to move on but can't.

shattered (ao3) - dramaticfangirl1881 G, 2k

Summary: “I’m sorry,” she whispers, the words thick in her throat.

“I hurt you.”

~in which thena and gilgamesh both feel guilty for hurting each other and they just have a lot of feelings about it

Teach Me To Love (ao3) - iamjustabird G, 49k

Summary: Thena has just moved next door to her old friend Phastos with her young son Druig in tow. She's worried about how he's going to adjust to the move and to his new school, but Phastos assures her that his friend and neighbour Gilgamesh is the best teacher a kid could ask for. She'll see about that.

the blues and then purple pink skies (ao3) - TaraLy G, 4k

Summary: It’s been a month since their first conversation on the bus, how are Thena and Gilgamesh doing?

the secret ingredient is love (ao3) - funnefatale T, 1k

Summary: "I have never been less attracted to you than when you wear that," she says, taking a seat at the kitchen table as he puts on his apron.

He laughs, loud and deep, and something inside of her warms. "My dear, considering the mess we made last night, that might not be such a bad thing."

#themculibrary #mcu #marvel #eternals #gilgamesh #thena #eternals masterlist #masterlists #f/m

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leftnotright · 10 months

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A TEXTBOOK EDUCATION

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

CHAPTER 5: EVEN IF WE GOTTA RISK IT ALL

Dino’s coffee table was covered in papers, every page of debt he had available on display with their numbers highlighted and circled. Open on his computer was an internet window with several tabs all squashed together along the top. Dino reached over and moved his cursor across the words: ‘MELBOURNE CUP 2022 WINNINGS FIRST PLACE: $4,400,000’.

“A bonus of $500,000 for the owner, if their horse won the group one Irish St. Leger run the previous September,” Dino uttered slowly, reading the details of the Melbourne Cup with slow, careful eyes. He penned it down.

The Melbourne Cup didn’t have the largest purse in horse racing, just a bit of skimming had told Dino that. On a notepad, Dino had written down: ‘ DUBAI WORLD CUP $7.2MIL, KENTUCKY DERBY $1.8MIL, THE EVEREST $6.2MIL (IN SYDNEY!)’

But out of all the horse races, especially in the catchment of Australia, the Melbourne Cup had, by far, the greatest reputation. ‘The race that stops the nation’. What a title.

If Dino were to try and get more bang for his buck, he’d have been wiser to go for the Everest or Dubai. However, Dino wasn’t trying to be a one-hit wonder. With the Melbourne Cup came fame, a name backing his horses and the Cavallone brand. If Dino won the Melbourne Cup, it would only make enrolling in richer races all the more simple.

A meagre four million wasn’t going to put much of a dent in the Cavallone’s debts. No, winning one race wasn’t going to pull them out of the red. Dino was going to be in this for the long haul, participating in one race after another.

He needed numbers. As many hooves on the track as possible to increase his chances of winning high positions if not first place. The more horses Dino had in the races, the more prize money he could rake in - and hopefully, break even.

Racing costs money.

Training, for both jockey and horse. Transportation, feeding, accommodation, equipment and uniforms. All of that came after the original enrollment payments, and for the Melbourne Cup, there were rounds of it. Three to be exact.

And that was just the Melbourne Cup.

Dino grimaced and sipped a cup of water, blessedly cold after Dino had found the ice rack in the freezer. He put the glass against his temple and sighed.

There wasn’t much more he could do by himself. Before Dino ran off with this idea, with all his hopeful ‘what if’s and ‘we could’s, Dino would have to present his case to the Family. And since this was going to involve the horses and a whopping portion of the Cavallone funds, he was going to have to talk to the Stable Master and the Vault Keeper.

That was a full-blown Family Meeting, Dino had never called one of those before! The last time Dino had even seen the Vault Keeper was-

Dino took a slow breath and concentrated on the feeling of cold perspiration dripping down the side of his face.

The last time Dino had seen the Vault Keeper was the day of his succession and within the hour of his father’s death.

The Stable Master, at least, Dino knew quite well.

“Okay,” Dino murmured to Enzo who peeked out from under the coffee table. “For a formal Family Meeting, who do I need to call? Right Hand, Stable Master, Vault Keeper, probably the Head of Housekeeping to keep them in the loop and-” Dino winced, “Available Guardians.”

The Cavallone Don groaned as he flopped back on the couch, still holding that glass to his forehead to try and ward off that headache he felt creeping up on him.

It wasn’t working.

☁ ☁ ☁

The first thing Vic noticed when Dino stumbled into class was that he was all but dead on his feet. The poor guy was slumped over in his seat, resting heavily on the desk in front of him.

Vic came and found her seat next to Dino at their group’s table. She unpacked her laptop and produced a folder, full of the handouts and the straws and blu-tack for their activity.

“How’re you doing?” Vic asked, and gave Dino a gentle nudge.

Dino’s arm slipped out from under his jaw and his head hit the desk with a ‘ bang! ’. Vic cursed as heads snapped around and quickly moved to scoop up Dino’s head, hissing at the red mark on the boy’s forehead.

“Fuck,” she wheezed and Dino blinked widely, very much awake now. “You’re in a fucking state! When did you go to bed?”

“Uuuh,” Dino squinted as he rubbed his head, “The, uh-”

Vic had the sudden and horrible feeling that this boy hadn’t actually gone to sleep that night. She looked to her folder, then to the lesson’s tutor who was setting up the projector for the day’s rostered presentation: Social Class.

Oh fuck.

Where the hell was Jess? Vic looked at her phone and saw a text in the group chat.

Jessica Cheng

Hi guys, really sorry the trains are being replaced by buses, I’m gonna be like 10 minutes late.

Jessica Cheng

Can we just move the activity after Vic and I’ll come in last?

Jessica Cheng

I’ll sprint it, I promise

Vic twitched and looked at the clock. They were only required to speak for three minutes each. Dino looked like he could speak for less.

She groaned and rubbed her head before sending a text back.

Vic Hunt

Sure, we’ll buy you time.

Jessica Cheng

Kk see you soon

Jessica went abruptly offline then and Vic only hoped she was able to get across campus fast enough.

“I will be okay,” Dino grumbled from inside his pillow of arms. “May speak, uh, slowly. But it will be done.”

Vic looked to Dino and then slumped in her chair. She took a breath through her nose and out her mouth, her feet pressed hard into the carpeted floor.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, we’ll be fine.”

“Dino, Jessica and Vic,” the tutor called and Vic grimaced.

By the end of their tutorial, Jess had scampered off to catch her bus home and Dino and Vic had chosen a sunny patch of grass by the Macquarie University's lake to wallow on. Vic was laid out on her back, her limbs still throbbing with nerves after public speaking adlib with Jess coming not ten, but fifteen minutes late to class.

Vic was sure she had covered the same point twice with multiple stutters and ‘uh’s.

“That sucked,” Vic whined loudly.

Dino appeared in her peripheral, sat at her side, and gave a weak smile of agreement. Vic had no idea what he was talking about. Despite his loose hold on English - that was only getting better, she kept reminding him - he had spoken with some kind of damning confidence in his voice that made Vic want to kick him in the shins for making her think he was going to all but faint on her. He spoke like he was used to presenting to groups of people! The bastard!

Vic frowned at him severely, before rolling over in the grass and burying her face in her backpack.

“I believe we- we did very well!” Dino assured and Vic huffed when he gave her a pat on the back. Then under his breath she heard him whisper, “How are you not sweaty?”

“Not everyone had pores like a waterfall,” Vic answered before turning her head and asked, “And what the fuck Dino? You were acting like you were going to die when we got up to speak but as soon as we got that slide up you might have well have been Steve fucking Jobs releasing the new iPhone!”

Dino blinked, and then he curled in on himself. His ears flushed red and Vic had the sudden and intense urge to ask if he had put sunscreen on them today.

“I, uh, hesitated a lot.”

“No more than I fucking did,” Vic pointed out, “And dude your projection. The teacher had to ask Jess to speak up -- and asked me to slow down. Your pacing was spot on!”

Once again, Dino ducked his head and Vic was reminded of Enzo recoiling back after bumping into her thermos during a study session.

“You know what? Fuck it, you’re helping me with my public speaking skills from now on. You could sell water to a drowning man.” Vic demanded, before reaching out and poking at Dino’s cargo shorts’ pocket. “Now, release the baby.”

Dino laughed and unpacked Enzo from his pocket, the little turtle stubbornly hiding in his shell even when he was placed on the grass between them, safely in Dino’s shadow. Vic grinned and rolled over to her side, cooing happily as the presence of Enzo soothed her academically injured soul.

“Hello! Oh hello,” Vic chirped, a complete one-eighty flip from the grumpy, huffy mood she had been in before. “He’s not coming out.”

“Too much sun,” Dino offered, gesturing to the heat that bathed the whole lake despite the students that spotted the valley.

Vic hummed, it didn’t feel too hot to her. But then again, Enzo had spent most of his life in Italy with Dino. Then she poked Enzo’s shell and saw an eye peeking out at her in great disgruntlement.

“Wait,” Vic sat up and stared at the lake. “Wait, he's a turtle, he can go in the lake! A nice swimmy!”

Dino’s head snapped around.

“After being in your stuffy-ass pocket, a good swim must be exactly what he needs!” Vic insisted, grinning with teeth again.

Dino snatched Enzo up off the ground before Vic could grab him, a nervous smile on his face and a whole new sheet of sweat going down his neck.

“No! No, uh, Enzo is a- a saltwater turtle! I do not know if the lake water will agree with him.”

Vic paused. Fuck he was right. She winced and scratched the back of her head, feeling bits of grass and leaves come out.

“Right, sorry, didn’t think about that.”

God that was a dick move. What was she going to do, grab someone’s emotional support turtle and dump it wherever? Think it through Vic!

“It is okay,” Dino assured, and Vic nearly jumped when he touched her arm -- wow, his hand was moist. “It wouldn’t have hurt him. Enzo is a strong boy.”

Then he reached across and gently placed Enzo in her lap, still once again in his shadow.

“I don’t think he is liking how warm I am,” Dino laughed.

Vic looked down at Enzo in her lap, then to Dino’s open face. She tucked her chin into her chest and bit down on her smile.

Vic spun and flopped back onto her back with a huff, relaxing all over as she lay in the sun. On her stomach, she felt Enzo shuffle around until he settled on the soft, pillowy space of her stomach.

Dino reached into his pocket and fed the still-hiding Enzo a pellet at a time.

“So, what were you even doing for the whole night?” Vic asked.

Dino shrugged, “Uh, I’ve been investigating. Learning about horse racing, and dealing with some Family issues.”

Vic hummed lowly, “You’re really keen on that racing idea.”

Dino smiled, and leant back on his hands, voice quiet as he said, “If we can race again…It may save my Family.”

Vic blinked, then tilted her head as she observed him. Vic had only known Dino for little over just a month now, but she felt like she had a loose, if not a reasonable, grasp on one of Dino’s core values: Family.

To Dino, family always comes first. In fact, most of their conversations had at some point turned to family. Dino, at this point, could list off all of Vic’s cousins, aunts and uncles, and Vic was sure she would have to fight Romario for adoption rights.

The ‘Dino Adoption’ debate had become a rather hot topic in the Hunt Houses, a split between factions: To-Adopt, and Not-To-Adopt. Not-To-Adopt was dwindling in numbers, however, with every Dino or University-centric rant Vic sent home. Robbie’s crown was slipping, and Vic’s mum had started a guest bedroom Pinterest inspo-board.

Vic, her mum and her grandma had been steadfastly ignoring Robbie’s screaming voice messages that ‘we don’t even have a spare room!’

Her dad had always liked carpentry, Vic was sure he’d come up with something. He was always rather smart with his hands — something Vic’s mum liked to sing praises of until someone begged her to shut up over a sea of gagging children. Maybe he’d build a barnyard style granny-flat. Speaking of barns—

“So, like, you’ve been breeding horses for years. You got any cute ones? Like, ones that are fluffy?”

Vic felt like she had at least a loose grip on Dino, and nothing got ‘horse girl’ Dino talking like his horses. Only ask for photos if you’ve got the next few hours free. Dino’s Econ tutorial had been cancelled, they had the whole day.

The things Vic did to keep her soon-to-be-adopted Dino happy.

Dino was already fumbling for his phone by the time Vic had uttered the words ‘fluffy’.

“We have this Przewalski Mongolian! Ah! Beautiful coat! So good to brush, and when she’s freshly bathed!?”

Dino turned his phone and Vic wheezed at the horse, covered in thick packed fuzz and fur.

“Oh God, hugging that? Fuckin’ bliss,” Vic all but swooned. “I wanna be squished between two.”

Then she paused, sat up and squinted at the corner of Dino’s screen.

“Gimme that.” Vic took Dino’s phone despite the squawk of alarm and zoomed out to see what Dino had tried to hide.

In the background of the photo was an early highschool-aged Dino, sporting braces on his teeth and several bandaids all over, and being dragged by the waist of his pants by some huge stallion. The panic and flurry of multiple stablehands and Romario himself attempting to save Dino, a direct contrast to the peaceful grazing of the Mongolian in the foreground.

Vic snorted before wheezing out her whole lung capacity. Enzo gave a disgruntled click and slipped off Vic’s jumping stomach as she continued to laugh, only fuelled by Dino’s betrayed and indignant babbling.

Dino lept to take his phone back, but their squabble of hands shifted and zoomed until baby-Dino’s face, crumpled and folded in unflattering fear, took up the screen. Vic doubled over again, cackling with belly and teeth.

Dino huffed as he stole back his phone and moved the picture on screen safely back into his camera roll. He crossed his arms and waited for Vic to be done.

She took a huge breath, glanced at Dino's face, and then promptly let out another belt of laughter.

“It was not that funny!” Dino scolded, helping Enzo up into his lap.

“It was!” Vic gasped, and Dino gave her a smack on the arm.

“Ah! Abuse! In front of the child!”

“Enzo has seen worse.”

“No, my baby,” Vic cried quietly, and rolled over to mourn the sweet turtle’s lost innocence.

Dino huffed and shifted on the spot, phone in his hands.

“...We also have a new Haflinger foal,” he said and, this time with an iron grip on his phone, showed Vic the knobbly-kneed foal beside its mother.

Vic snorted and settled down in the sunbathed grass to be once again regaled of the Cavallone’s prized herd. As always, Dino spoke rapidly. Stumbling over words, ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’, repetition and mistakes not slowing him down in the least as he raved about the last Spring’s yield of four new foals. What Vic couldn’t understand through a thick accent or patchy English-Italian half-words, Vic could fill in with the side gestures Dino made. Vic had heard that Italians spoke with their hands, and Dino was only supporting that stereotype as he drew the shape of a massive mare.

“Nearly two me’s!” Dino exclaimed.

Vic imagined a horse that stood well over her own height and immediately felt the need to climb on one. She’d never ridden a horse before, but surely you just, like, clamber up and hold on for dear life.

Dino’s great tale was interrupted, however, when a shrill, aghast voice cut through the afternoon.

“ What the fuck is that!? ”

Dino’s head snapped around and Vic sat up as she saw a girl break off from her group and come storming over. The rest of her group were calling out to her, one of them tried to grab her by her bag.

Vic blinked slowly as the girl came to a stop at Dino’s side, her hackles raised with some kind of righteous anger in her eyes.

Vic glanced to Dino and asked, “Ah, this your ex or something?”

Dino looked to Vic with wild confusion, “I do not know, I-”

“This is illegal!” The girl snapped and Dino let out a yelp as her hand lashed out and scooped up the still-tucked Enzo.

In an instant, that warm calm that had utterly steeped Vic’s body flushed out.

“Oi!” Vic bellowed and sprung to her feet, fists clenched. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

A hot anger boiled in Vic’s blood, Dino’s horror-struck expression only fueling it as he tried to organise himself and ask for Enzo back.

“This!” The girl shouted again, shoving Enzo in Vic’s face, and then Dino’s. “Is an incredibly invasive species! It is illegal to have a Red Eared Slider turtle in Australia!”

“He’s not a Red Slider, you fuck!” Vic seethed, “Enzo’s a Sponge turtle!”

“Look at this shell-”

“Look at his fucking face! ”

“It's invasive!”

“He’s the wrong fucking species! ” Vic shouted and went to grab Enzo back.

The girl backed out of reach and held Enzo to her chest, loud, angry clicking coming from inside his shell.

“Red Eared Sliders are aggressive and utterly destroy Australia’s natural freshwater habitats! It needs to be handed over to RSPCA so they can ship it out or put it down!”

Dino gave a sharp gasp of alarm and Vic saw red.

The hold she had on her temper snapped like a thread pulled taut and with heat in her skin, she lunged forward. Vic went at the girl with nails and elbows. She swiped and poor Enzo went flying in a direction she blindly hoped was Dino’s, a soft ‘aaaaaaaaaaa’ emitting from the shell as it disappeared from her tunnel vision.

The girl screamed as Vic got her hands on her, and threw her whole body weight to send the girl head over heels. She hit the water with an almighty splash, and a flock of ducks noisily took flight.

Vic breathed ragged through her teeth, fists clenched. Her temper, white-hot and utterly boiling her blood, was only slightly settled by the sight of the shell-shocked girl sitting, drenched in the lake.

“Who’s the fucking ‘invasive species’ now, bitch!?” Vic bellowed.

"Got to go, got to go!" Dino chanted near hysterically as he grabbed Vic by her arm and started running.

Vic with gritted teeth and tense shoulders, let Dino drag her across the field and towards the Village. She huffed when she nearly crashed into Dino’s back as he came to a sudden, slow walk. Dino, casually, innocently, walked with Vic passed Campus Security as they sailed passed in their little golf carts.

Vic snorted through her nose and gave Dino’s back a scrutinising look but couldn’t be bothered to see past her own heat haze.

The gates of the Village came into view and Vic stormed forward, taking heavy, stomped footsteps all the way through to her shitty five-bedroom dormhouse, with her shitty roommates, who didn’t respect her fucking personal space-!

Vic hit her bed facedown. Calm down, calm down, calm fucking down!

Faintly, in the far back of her awareness, Vic heard Dino sit in her creaking desk chair and the thump of him dropping their bags. Dino was such a good boy - what was he doing when Enzo was taken she didn’t look - he was so nice and warm - he walked passed the security didn’t even flinch knew what to do-

Vic rolled onto her back and took a breath in through her nose and out her mouth. In and out, in and out. That girl had said to put Enzo down. Dino’s support animal, someone he took everywhere with him no matter what - Dino needed Enzo and that girl said ‘put down’.

Vic took another breath in. She clenched her fists. A breath out and clenched her forearms- Why wasn’t it working-

There was a roar in her ears, a thundering thump in her chest.

Then a weight dropped on her stomach, just substantial enough that Vic started out of her rambling spiral. Vic lifted her head and craned her neck, Enzo’s big, beady eyes stared back up at her.

Enzo looked around slowly, before his feet popped out from his shell and, slowly, he plodded up to find a comfortable place on Vic’s chest.

Just behind Enzo, Vic could see Dino, his hands still outstretched from where he had dropped Enzo on her.

Dino smiled a bit, an awkward, lopsided thing, and said, “Enzo, he, uh, helps me be calm.”

Vic blinked, before she let out a puff of breath. She dropped her head back and used Enzo’s weight to try and sink that rising heat. She felt that familiar rumble in her chest swell and grow, and she let it out in a long, gaping yawn.

Vic hated getting angry, she was always tired afterwards.

Vic sniffed and scratched her cheek, her body heavy right down to the core like her bones were waterlogged.

“You wanna eat somethin’?” Vic asked.

Dino paused, startled, before he lowered himself to sit on the edge of Vic’s bed and said, “Yeah, what would you like?”

“Chicken nuggets. So many chicken nuggets.”

☁ ☁ ☁

Greasy wrappers and stray grains of salt littered the foot of Vic’s bed as the two of them sat up against the wall, Vic’s phone playing music in the background. Dino heaved as he slumped against the wall. He had eaten an obscene amount of nuggets and sweet and sour sauce.

Vic, somehow, was still going. 40 chicken nuggets, and so far 17 of them were sitting in the seemingly bottomless chasm of Vic’s belly.

Dino slurped on his cola as Vic, unflinchingly, ate her 18th and reached for another.

“How’s Enzo?” Vic asked through half a mouthful of nugget.

Dino looked to the turtle that, more or less, had put them into hiding for the foreseeable future — or at least until the blurry video of ‘bodily yeeting entitled Karen into lake’ stopped popping up on Dino’s feed every time he refreshed it. It had become a meme template. The speed of the internet was terrifying.

Vic, hearing the grainy sound of her own voice hollering “Who’s the fucking ‘invasive species’ now, bitch!?” shoved her 20th nugget into her mouth.

Dino winced and closed his phone.

“Enzo is fine. I told you, he is hardy.”

Vic grumbled and reached to pet Enzo, who paused his munching on a bag of mixed leaves Vic had pulled from a cooler - an ‘esky’ - in the corner of her room. There were three, all stacked on each other and full of chilled foodstuffs.

Dino glanced at Vic and saw the 24th nugget disappear. He had already seen a fridge in the shared kitchen on the way up to the room. Now, maybe, wasn’t the best time to ask.

Nonetheless, Dino stored it in his memory, another conversation starter!

Vic’s phone suddenly stopped playing music, and the screen flipped to an incoming call. Vic sighed and shoved her last nugget in her mouth before answering the call from ‘Robbie’.

“What?” She asked, muffled around her chicken nugget.

Dino took another sip of his drink as Vic leant her head on his shoulder.

Casual touch. Dino hadn't experienced that in… Weeks. It had only just dawned on him how much he had missed it after leaving home.

Dino shifted a bit to make sure he was comfortable - both for him and Vic. He almost felt like someone priming their lap with blankets, hoping the family cat would choose them for the foreseeable hours.

Dino's rather cosy trail of thought was interrupted by the caller on Vic's phone.

“You fucking threw someone into a lake!?” Robbie screeched from the other side of the phone.

Vic made a lazy, noncommittal noise as she slowly chewed, completely unhurried by the state her brother was apparently in.

“Vicky, I thought you were over this!”

Vic proceeded to mutter something vaguely mocking through her chewing. Dino snorted a bit despite how he tried to send her a scolding look. Vic ignored him.

“Jesus Christ, Vicky- Why’d you even do it!?”

Vic took a sip of her frozen coke and simply said, “Bitch tried to take Dino’s turtle.”

There was a faint bang, and then a distinctly loud bang. Then came the scream of Robbie being tackled and the fight for the phone.

“Bitch did what to Enzo!?”

Dino glanced to Vic. He had been wondering where she had sent all those turtle pictures — evidently, a good bulk had gone to Bec, her cousin.

“Crazy cunt fucking stole Enzo out of Dino’s lap like he was a Woolies apple and started going on about ‘invasive species’ and ‘putting him down’ and like fuck was I gonna let her talk shit like that!” Vic ranted, waving her cup at the far window like her cousin was standing before them.

There was a pause, before there was a chorus of approval in the background. At least four voices all chipped in with their opinions and Dino was hit with the sudden realisation that there was a roomful of Hunts on the other end of that line.

“You should have thrown her deeper, Vicky!”

“Strengthen those little chicken wings! You’ve gotta start going to the gym!”

“Don’t support this!” Robbie yelled over the cheering and was met with a round of ‘boo’s.

“Oi, we always back family! Even if they’re doing something kinda stupid — we always back our family!”

Dino stared down at the bubbles patterning the sides of his waxed paper cup. Family always backs each other.

“Dino and Enzo are my babies, I’m not letting some half-cocked bitch make ‘em sad,” Vic scoffed and wrapped an arm around him — tipping a bit of ice down the back of his shirt as she did. Not entirely by accident, if Vic’s snicker meant anything as he frantically tried to get it out.

As Dino finally got the last of the ice out from the waist of his pants, Dino saw Vic grin up at him with the usual amount of teeth. He huffed and couldn’t resist smiling back at her.

Romario was going to be so proud of him. Everyone was going to be proud of him!

Family backs each other, even in their riskiest of endeavours.

“If you wanna adopt the bastard, you’ve gotta stop being violent in public!”

There were jeers and the bellowing of a crowd of people and Vic slipped off Dino’s shoulder and back onto her bed, phone pressed to her ear.

Dino looked down at Vic as she listened to her family through the phone. She looked the most relaxed he had seen her in — probably ever. Distinctly, it wasn't that strange, almost sedated calm that followed Vic around usually. This calm was the most human he had seen, the most natural.

Dino looked down at Vic, who laid with her eyes closed and her family screaming in her ear, and found himself wondering what kind of Flame she had hidden dormant.

Then, there was a loud crash from Vic's phone and the line went dead, someone had obviously slapped the end button with their elbow or face in the scuffle. Vic scoffed as the music on her phone resumed and she let it drop to the side of the pillow, already pawing around for her frozen coke.

Dino watched her fingertips graze the edge, collecting droplets of perspiration. He nudged it slightly further out of reach.

"Cunt," Vic hissed and Dino laughed as she uncoordinatedly smacked the side of her calf against his head.

Vic gave a heave of great effort and distress as she rolled onto her belly, finally grasping her slushy drink in hand. She took a long slurp before she craned her neck to look at Enzo, only his little tail visible as he dug deeper into the pile of leafy greens.

"I will not be able to bring Enzo out of my pocket for a time," Dino sighed and saw Vic blow disgruntled bubbles into her slushy.

"Yeah," she bit out, keeping whatever loaded rant she had shoved deep away.

Dino smiled weakly and took another drink of his cola, a loud, empty slurp that rattled the straw. Then Dino looked around at Vic's room, the cramped desk, the stacked eskys.

"If you want," Dino started and leant back on a hand, trying to be nonchalant-

Vic's body pillow didn't take his weight and Dino gave a gurgled yelp as his arm gave way and he fell. His head connected painfully with Vic's bony knees, Vic gave a gasp of pain and Dino clutched his head.

Soon, the two of them sat on the bed, two young adults curled up in groaning pain.

"What the fuck, Dino?" Vic wheezed, holding her knees as they throbbed.

"Sorry," Dino whined as the beginnings of a headache settled deep in his right temple. "I wanted to ask you if you would like to meet at my house. Enzo cannot meet you outside for a while."

Vic massaged her knees before she kicked Dino in the side.

“Fucking oath I am! Thought that was a fucking given!”

Dino winced as Vic kicked him in the side again, before, tentatively, Dino lightly thumped his foot against the back of Vic’s thigh. There was a distinct, fleshy ‘thwap’.

A pause hung in the air, and Dino had the familiar sensation of social-faux-pas-dread settle in the bottom of his stomach—

Dino heard something akin to an elated warcry from the other end of the bed, and all seventy kilos of Vic’s weight came crashing down on him, twenty-four nuggets and all. Dino wheezed and the two became a brawling wrangle of slapping hands and kicking feet, all up until Vic rolled and kicked Dino off the side of the bed.

Dino shrieked and clawed at the sheets until he went tumbling, shoulders-first to the floor. He gasped, splayed out on his back on the dorm’s musty carpet and stared up at Vic’s ceiling, dotted with weird marks.

Vic’s face appeared from over the edge, a smug, vindictive curl to her grin.

“Cunt,” she said.

Dino grabbed his cup, sloshing with half-melted ice cubes, and grabbed Vic by her beloved oversized band-tee and dumped it.

Vic shrieked and Dino couldn’t help the belly-deep cackling that burst out as he watched Vic frantically scoop at her bra under her shirt.

☁ ☁ ☁

It had taken a bit over ten days and several nervous breakdowns, cushioned by either Enzo or Vic, but Dino felt like he was ready to call for a Family Meeting of the Cavallone. Or, well, he wasn’t seconds away from cardiac arrest at the thought of it, now.

Dino wheezed a bit. Now, he just needed to get in contact with Romario and set it up.

Dino reached for his phone. He hadn’t tried to contact home in a while. Between university, Vic, races, and his bi-weekly laying-on-the-floor-in-crisis time, Dino hadn’t had the chance to call home in…nearly six weeks now! Going on seven! They were fresh into April, nearly mid-semester break, and Dino hadn’t called since February.

This was probably, no, definitely, the longest Dino hadn’t gone without contact with the Cavallone.

Seeing Vic listening to her family, had reminded Dino of just how much he missed them. Dino just wondered if anyone would pick up, or if Reborn’s contact-ban was still in place.

Dino withered and dialled Romario’s quick-dial, and uttered a short prayer. It rang once, twice—

“Boss!”

Dino suddenly understood why Vic had just laid down and listened. He could hear so much through the phone. Familiar songbirds, the chatter of Cavallone stablehands and the bray of horses. Suddenly, Dino was hit with the smell of the stables in early Spring; the fresh sand and straw they laid on the muddy ground, the lavender and wild rosemary that grew outside, the sweat and manure.

Dino wanted to be like Vic and just curl up on his side and listen.

“Boss! How have you been!?” Romario asked and Dino heard the clammer and cacophony of news in the background: the Boss had finally called home.

God, Dino had missed the sound of Italian; a good Sicilian accent.

“I’m fine, Romario. I’ve still got all my fingers and toes,” Dino assured with a laugh. “I’ve got some killer tanlines, though.”

“Good! After your exams you were far too pasty looking!”

Dino rolled his eyes, this wasn’t the first time Romario had feared a potential vitamin-D deficiency.

“So, tell me, what have you been up to?” Romario urged, and Din could just imagine him leant up against the gates of the stables in his singlet and jeans.

Dino relaxed into the couch, Enzo snoozed in his luggage-enclosure.

“Class is hard,” Dino admitted, “I’ve gotta use Google translate and listen to lectures twice as long. If I didn’t have Vic to help me, I would have absolutely bombed on the vocabulary mini-test!”

At some point, the update had turned into Dino’s whinging time - but could you really blame him? For months, Dino had been left to flail alone in this strange country, and he didn’t even have the English skills to vent properly to his one friend—

“I’ve-!” Dino started loudly, a rush of pride returning when he remembered his shining achievement. “I’ve made a friend!”

There was a beat of silence, before someone far away gasped, “ What?”

“I’ve made a friend!” Dino repeated, “Her name’s Vic!”

“A woman!?”

“She’s really nice! She loves Enzo! She threw someone in the lake for us! And she bought us chicken nuggets!”

Dino grinned as he regaled Romario and their menagerie of eavesdroppers about the many adventures he had been on with Vic around the university and to the nearby shopping centres.

Dino decided to omit the part where he got lost in the Kmart homewares section, and had to go to the front desk so they could call for Vic over the announcement system. ‘Attention customers, could 'Vic Hunt' please come to the front of the store to collect your…child?’ was still engraved in Dino’s head, along with the stares from the staff. Vic had all but run through the store to get him. By then, Dino had been offered a snake-shaped lolly, half of which Vic stole, and held his hand the rest of the shop so neither got lost in that department store maze.

Instead, Dino moved onto how he and Vic met almost daily to study and chat, and how she liked to listen about the horses — Dino nearly flung himself off the couch when he snapped up, suddenly reminded of what this phone call was about.

“Romario,” Dino said and heard the excited chatter fall silent at his tone. “I want to call a Family Meeting.”

Romario’s shift was immediate.

“What for, Boss?”

Dino could hear him move away from the stable and the working hands.

“I’ve been thinking about the state of the Family and the few resources we have. Being so far from home has, well, it’s given me a new perspective.” Dino said slowly, knowing he was about to broach a sensitive subject. “The Cavallone need to use our horses again. The Cavallone need to race again.”

Romario took a sharp, hissed breath in through his teeth. Racing was taboo.

“Boss,” he began shakily, like some part of him expected the ghost of the Eight Boss to enact vengeance upon them. “The Cavallone have been banned for nearly one hundred years!”

“In Italy,” Dino pointed out, looking down at the list of races all around the world. “And only in Mafia circles.”

“You want to race civilians?” Romario asked, the disbelief clear in his voice. “Our Cavallone horses, against civilians? ”

“Yes,” Dino responded, “Our horses. Our… untrained horses.” Dino suddenly felt that cardiac arrest creeping up again. “We need money. Racing is lucrative.”

He gripped his trousers until his knuckles were white. “Please, Romario.” Dino’s voice was quiet in the empty, dark living room. “I believe this will work. I believe this, our horses, can save our Family.”

Romario was silent.

Dino let him work through his thoughts. He knew he was asking for a lot, and for Romario to stick his neck out for Dino. Romario was the one who would have to act as proxy and call everyone to the Meeting, and in doing so, show complete faith in Dino’s plan.

Romario’s voice came through the speaker. “Very well, Boss. I’ll organise the Meeting. Will tomorrow suit you?”

A relieved smile broke out on Dino's face. “Whenever. We’ll have to work with timezones, anyway.”

“Ten hours, right? I will see what I can do.”

Dino let out a long sigh, feeling nearly lightheaded. “Thank you, Romario.”

“Of course, Boss,” Romario hummed, “Get some rest, it must be late.”

Dino looked at his clock, 2AM. He needed to go to sleep, he had class at 10AM.

“Boss, you should send us photos now that we can talk again. Is Australia really all just desert and city?”

“What? No, there’s plenty of greenery and water here!” Dino laughed, “But it’s hot. A different hot to home. Vic has been busy making sure I don’t get heat stroke.”

“Sounds nice, it’s still cold here. But by the time you’re home, it’ll be warm. You come at the end of your semester, right? June?”

“Yeah, June to August, Winter break. Vic will be miserable, she loves warmth. Like a lizard.”

Romario laughed and Dino let himself flop across his couch. They had just said Dino should have gone to bed, but he couldn’t find it in himself to hang up. Not after so long without his Family.

“So your friend, Vic, is she a local?”

“Yeah, Vic’s from Australia,” Dino hummed, and grabbed a pillow to cuddle, sleep beginning to press against the back of his eyes. “She says she was born around here, actually. But her family has moved to, uh, Castle-something. Has a new baby cousin she wants to see.”

“And you said she’s been keeping you alive,” Romario chuckled and Dino gave some kind of senseless whine of indignation.

“Only- Kinda, yeah, but like, leave me alone maybe?” Dino grumbled, before rolling over on the couch, “How’s everyone at home doing?”

Dino cuddled into the throw pillow and listened as Romario recited the usual reports on the comings and goings of the Cavallone estate. It was the usual chaos, with a bit of a curve ball thrown in with the Boss away. But Romario, as usual, managed to wrangle everything under control, especially with the Stable Master acting as the Cavallone regent.

They were still receiving their local import of barley and hay at a steady pace, and the farmers had offered a ‘loyalty perk’ after generations of working together. Dino nearly teared up as he heard how they had reduced their prices by 10%. He made sure to make Romario write down the family name of every farmer, the Cavallone would always be loyal to them.

The Ninth’s Guardians were still responding to messages, but only enough to assure that they weren’t dead. Even then, only Croix was handling correspondence. Really, the only evidence that the rest of the Guardians were still around was Croix’s word and the Cavallone delivery boys that dropped off supplies to them. Getting them out to the Family Meeting was probably going to be the hardest, they hardly left the Ranch anymore.

Dino frowned and clutched his pillow. He had been worried about his uncles. Losing a Sky was never easy, and Guardians could only outlive their Harmony with so much grace.

One of the younger Cavallone wards had finally been able to manifest a Flame expression. Though, it was scratching some heads with its Frequency. It was probably just a weird expression, maybe some kind of strong Secondary coming through. They hoped the kid settled down soon, it was causing their carers concern.

Well that was concerning, Dino hummed and sleepily instructed that the child would be put under watch.

Brutus got bit on the ass by a mule that morning. It was his own fault, he should have known better than to be off-guard in the presence of one of the biters. The Stablehands had a good laugh out of it and everyone had a good look at the pattern on his boxers.

Dino snorted and relaxed, listening as the accounts became less and less important, Romario’s reports devolving into mindless updates on the little things Dino missed around the place in the time he was gone. He closed his eyes and opened his ears to the sound of Romario and that far off island of Sicily he so missed.

The next morning, Dino received the notification for the Family Meeting’s appointed time: 8PM. 10AM on the Italian’s side.

He spent the time between classes preparing, making notes, practising his delivery. Anything to get rid of the shake in his knees and the quiver in his voice. Vic had noticed and had offered Dino a sympathetic hiss when she had heard the abridged summary.

“Hey,” she said, giving Dino a gentle shove with her elbow. “If you want, I’ll drop by after the call? We can hang out, get some food?”

Then she had bought him something sweet from the student cafe to perk him up before they parted ways. Dino was always grateful that he managed to make a friend all the way out here.

Dino nibbled on the frankly monstrously-sized cookie as he went about setting up his computer and space, trying to hold his treat in a way that wouldn’t melt the choc chips. He moved a bag of takeaway wrappers out from behind his couch and finally made the trip to the bin, taking a few wrappers and packages of assorted socks.

He fluffed the couch’s throw pillows and quickly brought that random, dying succulent to the back porch. He was in the middle of gently encouraging the fake Monstera plant to sit right when the chime for the meeting rang out.

Dino gasped and vaulted for the couch, completely overshooting it and slamming face-first into the narrow space between the couch and coffee table.

“Good to see the boy hasn’t changed.”

Dino’s face went red and he began his squirming crawl to try and get his feet out of the air and back under him.

“I thought you gave up trying to do handstands when you were little Dino!” Came that teasing, smoker-rough voice and Dino finally flipped himself right-side up.

“I wasn’t trying to do a handstand, Uncle Croix!”

The Rain Guardian to the late Ninth Cavallone and Dino’s Uncle in every sense but blood grinned at him through the screen. He was a jovial man that was going well grey, with a short-boxed beard lining framing his jaw and crows feet pinching the corners of his eyes.

“Young Romario tells me you’ve been good and roasted down there in Australia! Remember to keep away from the sun, or you’ll end up looking like Anvil, all patchy and leather skinned!” Croix powered on and Dino resisted the urge to sink into his chair, knowing that once Croix was rolling, nothing short of an all out gunfight could stop him.

“Let the boy talk, Croy,” the Stablemaster groused, and Dino looked to the second panel where the rest of the Meeting’s attendants sat.

The Stablemaster, the Vault Keeper, the Head of Housekeeping, and Romario all sat around the one board table they had left, and were turned in their seats to face him. The Vault Keeper sat there, nearly unmoving. If it weren’t for the rest of the room, Dino would have thought the camera was frozen.

Dino started to sweat. The last time he had seen all these faces at once, his father had been a cooling body in the next room.

“Whenever you’re ready, Boss, we can begin,” Romario urged, and Dino snapped to attention.

“Right,” he said, and looked at his notes just to the side of the computer, written on a little notepad.

Vic at some point had drawn a small dick on the corner of the first hundred or so pages. Up until literally just now, Dino had thought it was a lop-sided heart.

Dino let out a short snort. He took a breath, and with Vic’s supportive presence in the form of a collection of penned dicks, he began.

“I believe it is safe to say that we are all aware of the state of the Cavallone,” there was a grumble of consensus. “We are sinking, with the last of our furniture reaching their final bid, we have no way of keeping up with the debt.”

Romario winced, and the Stablemater frowned. Croix didn’t utter a sound, and watched through the screen with a solemn expression.

“At the rate we are going, our Cavallone will succumb to debt and be bankrupt within five years.” Five years. Dino would barely be twenty-three. “We need a way to stop this, our Family, from falling apart.”

Dino glanced at each face on his screen, “We need to race again.”

The Head of Housekeeping went pale. Croix shifted back in his chair, and the Stablemaster’s expression became utterly stormy.

Romario looked at Dino through the camera and nodded, as if to say, “go on.”

Dino pushed on, referring to his notes, and those little dicks, whenever he felt his resolve waver. He recalled the great success Cavallone horses flaunted during their golden age, referenced the sheer profits the Family had turned from racing, and how the Cavallone could enjoy the same today. Dino highlighted articles, winning and race purses, and the prestige that came with it. He pointed out budgeting, and plans, and week's worth of fervent research and study.

Dino pushed that all of this was within grasp. Outside of the thin borders of Italy. Outside of the influence of the Mafia. That the Cavallone’s retribution was there for the taking if they just reached for it.

Faces were grim.

The Vaultkeeper had turned her head away.

The Head of Housekeeping smiled like he was in pain. He probably was. He had been young, but he had been there during the reign of the Eighth. He had been there to watch him break.

“You want us to race?” The Stablemaster asked, gravel in his tone. “You want us to gamble away the last of the money keeping us afloat?”

Dino took a breath, “That money is time we bought ourselves by selling our history. Do you know what the other Families call us? A Family selling off their pride.”

“Pride will not pay out our debts-”

“In a starving house, pride is all we have left,” Dino rebutted, “Pride, and spite, and a vindictive Will to live. Is this not all we have left to heat our halls and till our fields, and feed our horses — who sit stagnant in their stables, because of men who were too weak to beat us!”

Dino sat straight, his shoulders squared and seethed.

“Since I was born, I have only heard smuggled whispers of the glory of the Cavallone horses. Our trophies sit in dusty, moulding boxes! Instead of taking us on fairly with dignity, they hide behind one another and slash at our ankles! Our right to race was just the tipping point, our trade with merchants and businesses have been undercut by the same hands! How long do we intend to cower at the echoes of the Eighth’s tantrums, and the descendants of tiny men!?”

The Stablemaster, everyone, had sat up at Dino’s tone, the furrow of his brow, the square of his shoulders. The Vault Keeper turned to Dino slowly.

Dino unclenched his jaw and breathed, long and slow, out through his nose.

“I know I’ve only been Don for not even a full year, and I know I am asking for more trust than I may deserve. But I believe that our horses are our key to survival. I am willing to bet on it.”

The Stablemaster narrowed his eyes, “What are you betting?”

Dino smiled.

“What is the Cavallone if not my life and head?”

Croix sat up sharply, “Dino!”

“If the Cavallone fail to pay off their debts, our ‘benefactors’ will expect to be paid in blood,” Dino frowned, “At least this way, you all can renounce the Cavallone name.”

“Like absolute hell would we let you take the fall!” Croix boomed, peeking his laptop’s microphone and leaving a static buzz.

Romario stood from his chair, “I cannot agree to those terms! Even if the Cavallone falls, I will not leave you, Boss.”

“Unless you have some secret Cavallone blood in your veins, you won’t be much of a prize,” Dino huffed, “But thank you.”

“Okay, I’m in,” the Stablemaster said, and Romario’s head snapped around.

“You can’t be serious! On those terms!?”

“No, dumbass, those terms are utter horseshit, but he’s proved his conviction. So I’ll bite,” the Stablemaster, the man who called all the final shots on the horses of the Cavallone and the only one who could undermine the Don, turned to look at Dino. “The Cavallone will go down kicking.”

The Vault Keeper turned her hooded head to Dino and said in a voice all raspy and old as ash, “Little Dino, we will never leave you to pay for the mistakes we did not help avoid. Do not say as much again.”

It was cold and scolding, like the distant aunt the Cavallone Vault Keeper was. The Keeper of the Cavallone’s treasures and secrets. She would have never left her station.

“Right,” Dino smiled, feeling warm to the core. “I meant no insult. But my argument still stands.”

The Vault Keeper looked to the Stablemaster, Head of Housekeeping and Romario. Croix sat silent in his chair.

“I’ve already said my stance,” the Stablemaster shrugged, “I’m in. The boy Boss knows what he wants, and he wants to race. So long as the horses are safe, I’m happy to let them out of their stables.”

Romario huffed as he dropped back into his chair, fixing his suit jacket, “I support the Boss’ plan to race.”

“It’s a risk,” the Head of Housekeeping said softly, “Keeping up the salaries of the house’s staff will be difficult.”

“Of course, we’ll cut back where we can to keep them paid,” Dino assured, and the man nodded. Dino had always made sure their staff was paid, it was one of the highest priorities. “I’m sure there are some functions on the estate that can be put on hold. Please, make a list of what you think can be done without, and we’ll work through cutting it.”

“...Very well,” he said, slightly ashen.

Dino gazed upon the man who had taught him to button his shirts, and cleaned up after him every time clumsy little Dino made a mess.

“When you get the chance, please, get those trophies out from the attic. They shouldn’t be hidden, let them be on display again, as they should be.”

The Head of Housekeeping blinked at Dino, before he smiled, his grey, wrinkled face softening.

“As you wish, Boss.”

The Vault Keeper sat still again, utterly unmoving. Then she sighed, nearly slumped over as she bowed under the weight of her decision.

“Little Dino, I hope you know what you’re getting us into. I never wanted you to become a gambler.”

“Just this once, I promise,” Dino smiled, “And a few more times after we win.”

‘After’. When, not if.

The Vault Keeper scoffed at Dino.

Then everyone turned their attention to the last man yet to speak: Croix, the Ninth Rain Guardian and representative of all the Cavallone Guardians. He sat there, seemingly staring through the screen and far away.

Dino clenched his fists on his knees out of frame of the camera. He hated seeing his zio like this. Guardians could only outlive their Harmony with so much grace.

“Uncle Croix?” Dino urged gently.

Croix’s clouded eyes lit up with awareness as he came back to himself. He glanced around the screen, taking in those faces that were looking at him expectantly. Dino smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring.

“Whatever you want to do, Dino, your uncles will support you,” Croix said, “I’ve never seen a Cavallone horse race, either. We are long overdue — just, don’t make betting your life a habit.”

Dino grinned sheepishly, and his heart felt bright.

“That said,” the Stablemaster interjected, and something in his tone made Dino’s stomach tighten. “If we’re going to do this, we do it properly, Boss.”

Dino nodded, “Of course, I don’t plan to do this half-cocked. As you allow, I’d like to use our best-performing horses.”

The best of the Cavallone’s prized herd. Their fastest, their most enduring.

The Stablemaster crossed his arms, lined with hair and thin scars.

“Then you’ll be asking for Glory.”

Dino’s smile went thin. He nodded.

“Yes, Glory is at the top of the list. She is our best horse.”

Romario glanced at Dino.

Croix lowered his eyes to his lap, his face carefully blank. Every breath he took was slow and measured.

“Understand me, Dino Cavallone, if you allow anything to happen, or treat her anyway less than she deserves, I will withdraw my support immediately,” the Stablemaster promised, his voice laced with warning.

Dino swallowed thickly. If the Stablemaster pulled out, everything Dino had worked for would come undone within hours. As soon as the Stablemaster called for it, every Cavallone horse would come home.

All for Glory.

For a moment, Dino remembered the thundering of hooves, the frantic screams, a sick bed, the stinging scent of antiseptic.

An empty bed, the sheets clean and pressed flat. The room utterly still.

Dino let out a long breath, and pushed aside those thoughts and the burn in the back of his throat.

“Of course, Stablemaster,” Dino said solemnly, purposefully. “I assure you, Glory will be safe and treated with the best care we can afford our horses moving forward.”

The Stablemaster stared at Dino, scrutinising him down to the bone. Then he nodded, one stiff, sure nod.

“On your head, Boss,” he said.

“On my head,” Dino agreed softly.

No one in the room spoke, the silence stretching and strangeling everyone on the call. Dino shook his head and sat up to address the Head of Housekeeping.

“Please organise that list on the estate budget cuts, and send it to me as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Boss,” the elderly man said.

“Vault Keeper, please keep an eye on our finances throughout. Alert us immediately if you notice something awry. We can’t allow for mistakes.”

“Very well,” she responded.

“Stablemaster, please compile a list of our best horses, and everything you believe they will need during and after transport.”

“It’ll be extensive, they're picky bastards.”

“I’m sure we can handle it,” Dino assured, “Romario, you will be my proxy, as always. Please help where you can and keep things running smoothly. We cannot let the other Families get wind of this.”

“Of course, Boss,” Romario nodded, and Dino nearly wheezed in relief.

Where would he be without Romario?

Then Dino looked to Croix, who sat watching the flurry with a look of… Nostalgia. Pride. Pain.

“Uncle Croix,” Dino said, and the man sat to attention like all those times the Ninth had called upon him. “Please watch out for yourself and my other uncles. I want you all in good health when we hold a Cavallone-style celebration.”

Croix blinked. Then he let out a booming laugh that Dino had heard throughout his childhood.

“Right! Right! Gotta get these beer bellies fitting back in their suits! Give us some time, won’t you, Dino? Don’t go winning too fast?”

“Bah, you’ll need to cut more than the beer to get back into your suits! Dino, you should budget their cheese, too!” The Stablemaster heckled, and Croix gasped hard enough to choke.

“My cheese is lite!”

“Light in colour maybe! I’ve seen you scarf that down!”

Dino laughed as Croix vehemently defended his ‘sampling’ of the local delicacies.

“It puts money back into the local economy!”

“But Croix,” the Head of Housekeeping uttered, a concerned and amused pinch to his brow that spoke of the years he had spent herding Croix and his fellow Set when they were just young men. “Didn’t you develop an intolerance to lactose recently? The doctor said as much.”

Croix thinned his lips and refused to respond.

The Meeting wound to a close, and everyone had their orders.

The Cavallone horses would race again, under the crest of their Tenth Generation.

Dino closed his laptop with a weary and utterly stressed sigh. He slumped back into his couch and scratched his nails through his hair.

He had done it. The first Family Meeting as Don, and he had actually done it! He had convinced the Family to go along with this stupid, ride-or-die plan! Jesus Christ, Dino needed a drink. He was craving Pepsi, the kind he had drunk with Vic.

A steady thump, thump, thump sounded through the walls, the bass beat made the floors vibrate. Dino glanced to his windows — one of his neighbours had a party going.

The clock on Dino’s phone glared that it was nearly 10PM. Dino yawned and stood from his divot in the couch, scanning the floor for where Enzo had crawled off to. Then he heard it.

A soft ‘clink, chunk’ and repeat.

Dino listened to the jangle and crunch, and let out a soft groan of, “Enzo, why me? I wanna go to sleep so badly!”

Enzo peered from around the bedroom doorway with a soft wheeze. Dino picked his phone from the table and typed up a text to Romario, taking a drink from his cup as he did. Someone was trying to break into Dino’s dormhouse.

Dino put aside his glass and scooped Enzo up off the floor as he made his way back to his bedroom, turning off the lights as he did. He closed his bedroom door and felt the faintest clunk as the latch fell into place and a jimmy-rigged security system swung into activity.

Dino had been tutored by Reborn, after all. He had to learn something from the PTSD.

Dino followed his bedtime routine. He changed into some light pyjamas, washed his slightly sweaty face, brushed his teeth and crawled into bed, Enzo cuddled up against his chest. Right over the heart.

Dino closed his eyes, let out a long breath and listened. The crunch of dried gum leaves out near the back porch. The metallic groan as someone mounted the porch railing. The soft, muffled crack of glass.

Dino continued to breathe, slow and unhurried. He needed his would-be hitman deeper in his house. Dino clutched the handle of his whip, coiled under the blankets with him.

Footsteps over the tile, and disappeared on the rug. Breath outside the bedroom door.

All Dino’s interior doors opened inwards. Dino had to wait.

The door unlatched. The person peered in through a crack. The tip of Dino’s whip caught them in the eye.

Dino untangled himself from his sheets, watching the man stumble back, clutching his face. Dino almost sympathised with the guy, he had been whipped in the eye more times than he — or Romario — could count.

The would-be assailant stumbled blindly, before giving a sharp gasp as he felt a tug at his clothes. Dino had learnt much from Reborn, and from personal experience, nothing threw someone off like having the threat of indecent exposure during an otherwise serious situation.

The man fumbled with his shredding pants, hooks and wires ripping and peeling at his suit, eyes red and watering.

Dino stood — and promptly planted his face into the hard weave of the floor rug. Dino groaned. He should have known this was going too well. He heaved himself to his feet, cradling his carpet-burnt nose.

The man pulled himself free from the last of the hooks, cameo-print briefs on display and belt clinging to the last scraps of a waistband.

Dino reeled his whip back and lashed it across the man’s bared thigh. It didn’t wrap around like Dino had hoped, but it made the man buckle to the floor with a muted gasp again.

He was being quiet. Being careful not to alert Dino’s neighbours. But the beat and thump of music from a few doors down told Dino that the majority of his neighbours were either too busy partying away the last hours of a Friday night, or trying to drown it out, to notice.

Better for him, honestly. The crack of a whip wasn’t exactly covert.

The man hissed between his teeth and pulled his weapon of choice from his pocket. Wire glinted and strained in his leather-gloved hands. He lunged, wire tight and Rino pulled his whip across his face.

He could hear the wire pluck at the leather of his whip, but it never bit through. Something birthed from Leon would never buckle that easily.

Dino gritted his teeth and kicked at the man’s knees. He went down with a sickening crack and his knees bowing like a bird’s.

The hitman threw something at Dino from the floor, and Dino swallowed a cry as some kind of powder, hot and irritating, coated his face. Dino pressed his lips and eyes shut, and didn’t dare to breathe, wiping his face with his shirt. Dino fumbled and kicked as he felt hands and wire reach for his ankles.

His face burnt, and Dino tasted something acrid and bitter on the tip of his tongue. Every one of his senses begged Dino to get it off, wash it off, do something.

Dino scrubbed at his lips and around his nose, desperate to breathe again. He charged forward, palming at the walls and feeling the way to the bathroom. Something pulled at Dino’s ankles, the sound of wire pulled taut and a small, sharp pain was his only warning before Dino went toppling into the living room.

His shoulder crashed into the coffee table and the cup Dino had left to ‘future him’ tipped over and splashed directly into his face. Dino sputtered and spat, before finally taking a sweet, lungful of air. He could still taste the remnants of that powder, but he could breathe. Dino palmed at the tabletop and wiped his face with the pooled water.

He peered an eye open, and immediately felt the tear-inducing burn. He gritted his teeth and bore it as the blurry figure of his hitman crawled its way towards Dino.

Dino scrambled to his feet and grabbed his whip.

The man lunged, sprung from his one good leg. He caught Dino around the middle and the two crashed into the wall console, the dying pot plant dropped and shattered on the carpet.

Dino struggled as the man tried to press his wire against Dino’s throat. Dino kicked his knee again and felt the bone move under his toes. The man reeled back, mouth agape in a silent scream.

Dino wrapped his whip around the man’s throat and yanked tight.

#fanfiction #khr #leftnotright #ao3 #katekyo hitman reborn #dino cavallone #oc #canon divergence #alternate universe

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