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Cypress

Summary:

To Sawada Ieyasu, the world, was dull. Greyscale dull. It was filled with men's laughter, the smell of money, the sobbing women in the alleys, the blood, sweat and bones of slaves and children. It was filled with death upon death, the rot the smell of the roads men walks upon. It was dull. It was ugly. It was so disgusting that if it were not for the promised colours tinted with blood, he would have long left this world for another.

However, to Giotto di Vongola, it was paradise. This dying world, these blood-filled lands that shackles his vessels to, was a paradise. Not to himself only, but also to the monster that lurks in him. A being that haunts and hunts in the dark once he slumbers, a creature that loves fear beyond anything else. To him, this, was where he belongs.

Notes:

To Daimashiko aka our wonderful Mori who wrote 'Meat of the Mother, Flesh of the Son'.

This is the remix for her fic, and for our rarepair server remix fest!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

To Sawada Ieyasu, the world, was dull. Greyscale dull. It was filled with men's laughter, the smell of money, the sobbing women in the alleys, the blood, sweat and bones of slaves and children. It was filled with death upon death, the rot the smell of the roads men walks upon. It was dull. It was ugly. It was so disgusting that if it were not for the promised colours tinted with blood, he would have long left this world for another.

However, to Giotto di Vongola, it was paradise. This dying world, these blood-filled lands that shackles his vessels to, was a paradise. Not to himself only, but also to the monster that lurks in him. A being that haunts and hunts in the dark once he slumbers, a creature that loves fear beyond anything else. To him, this, was where he belongs.

"My lord," G, his right hand, knelt down behind him as he looked out the window from his room, gazing through the forest.

"The children--we have settled them in the Purgatory court." G said with unhidden marvel at how the setting sun casted Giotto's shadow upon him, making the man he worships glow bright orange. His back that was once small broadened, still holding that straight stance G loved.

"That's good." Giotto, with his kind amiable smile yet cold eyes, turned back and looked down at G. He reached out and tilted his chin up, bare fingers caressing the chin gently. "My darling G, thank you so much for your hard work." He purred, pleased at the shiver of delight that ran down G's spine. "You've been working so hard for me these days, my dear. Tell me. What reward do you wish from me?"

G's eyes glowed brightly with obvious fanaticism. "Anything my lord wishes to bestow this lowly one."

Giotto tutted. "Never call yourself lowly, dearest. You are my first friend, and my first follower. My childhood sweetheart. You are anything but lowly." G whimpered.

He smiled, gripping the chin tighter. "Well then, baby. I think you and I both know what you wanted so badly." A shoe stepped on G's clothed groin, pressing down a weight of presence without pain. G buckled, couldn't stop the strangled moan from ripping out of his throat.

Giotto grinned. "Come on," He leaned down, closer and to the man's face. "Touch. me." He whispered, breath brushing against his lips.

G growled and pounced.

As the moon took its place in the sky, replacing the bright sun and casting soft glows upon earth, the Devil awakened. Sawada Ieyasu, eyes red and aware, sat by the ruined bed with only a thin robe on. Blood that splattered across the room bubbled and became one--a being.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” The devil asked as it sipped on the blood of the person lying beside Ieyasu, breathing shallowly in slumber. “Why did you stop yourself?” It hissed, knowing how Ieyasu was obsessed with him. His beloved, he would have whispered to it. His own.

Ieyasu looked at the man, just a breath away from death’s grasp. He reached over to gently pull away a stray hair. “Not yet. I still want him with me.” He placed his hands gently on the scarred chest, feeling the strong heart beating loudly within the rib cage. Ba-dump--Ba-dump--

Ah, how he and Giotto wanted so badly to have a taste of that, to forever cage G. with them.

“He will be, once you taken him for yourself.” It tried to tempt, tried to entice the young man who forged an eternal pact with it to swallow G whole. After all, it had been starved for so long by him who became its master.

Ieyasu glanced at it, eyes void of emotions. The Devil exploded into blood.

“Shut up.”

Tucking G in properly, he got up and walked over the twitching puddle on the carpet barefooted. With his robes loose, Ieyasu headed down to the basement connected to his study, dark and damp, not a single light source in sight. With his powers obtained from the Devil, he never really needed light. After all, the dark was his source of light.

At the bottom of the steps was a heavy metal door, locked. Here, Ieyasu could hear the voices, hushed whispers and whimpers of young humans with red blood that once flowed through his veins before they turned black. He sighed at the noise. Too loud.

He pushed the door and instantly, the room goes silent minus the initial hitched breath. He saw then, children the age he contracted the Devil, all huddled up against each other at a corner, holding onto each other tightly in the darkness their young eyes couldn’t see through.

All, except for one who stared blankly at his direction, eyes silver and grey.

How intriguing.

Ieyasu smiled.

“My liege.” Knuckle called out in the dark, eyes brown red. His hands were bandaged as they grabbed Ieyasu’s, placing a gentle kiss on the back of his palm.

“Knuckle, dear. How are the preparations?” The said man’s eyes glinted. “All ready, my liege. All there’s left is to administer, and wait.”

Ieyasu hummed. He turned back to the boy who was still staring at him blankly, emotionless despite the words they have spoken. “That boy,” Ieyasu pointed out to Knuckle. “If he survived, bring him to me.”

Knuckle looked at the boy—so small and scraggly, so malnourished—and nodded. He wasn’t about to question his God’s instruction. After all, his God must’ve seen something he hadn’t. Either that, or his God wanted a new toy. The last one had died quite some time ago.

“Of course, my liege.” Ieyasu gave the man a deep kiss for his service and loyalty. Such obedience. Oh how he love.

The boy continued to stare.

It was dull, Giotto felt. The choking sound from the woman beneath him, the warm cavern around his dick. Too dull. Too boring. He looked away from his paper works and at the woman--hair ginger and short, like how he had liked--and sighed.

“Enough.” Like a pause button, the woman stiffened and stopped her sucking. Her teary eyes looked up at him, trembling and pleading. “Leave.”

“S-sire, please--” She plead hoarsely, hands behind tight confinement. “Please, I beg of you. L-let me try again--”

He sighed again. He reached out and grasped her chin, tilting it higher. “Dear girl,” He whispered as he leaned closer in. “I’ve given you a chance long ago. It is you who did not cherish it.”

He tightened his grip, surely bruising her jaw. “Now, leave before I change my mind.”

She sobbed when he released her, curling up onto the ground with trembling frames. Giotto looked away and continued with his paperwork, ignoring the cries beneath him. It took her a while to move, sniffling quietly as she did.

And when she did, the confinement that tied her hands back snapped, a dagger swished out and aimed at Giotto’s throat. “Die, you monster!!”

Blood sputtered everywhere, staining the table and papers on it.

Giotto sighed the third time, tossing the spoiled papers into the fireplace and letting it burn. “You’ve ruined them.”

The devil, liquid form still, curled around the woman in a tight, crushing embrace. It snorted. “Your head would have been removed from your neck otherwise.” It snide, echoing the crunching sound of bone breaking. The woman died slowly--a torture that the devil loved to perform--gurgling screams ripped out of her throat.

A symphony.

Giotto looked at the beautiful display of work by the devil, leaning his chin against the hand elbowing the hand rest.

“P-plea--”

Another crunch and bloody wheeze--the lung went popped.

The devil chuckled hoarsely at that, drinking in the blood and flesh and bones from toe to up, leaving the head for last. Soon, nothing was left of the woman aside from the heart--warm but no longer breathing--cradled in its grasp. The devil sighed in delight at the feast. Any human touched by its master sure tasted heavenly. Too bad that its master rarely throws away any of his toys.

It shuffled over, liquid form solidifying into similar frame as the woman it ate. The heart was presented to Giotto.

Master.” Giotto hummed, looking at the heart with disinterest. He poked at it, staining his finger with blood, and ripped a part out. He swallowed it whole and grimaced instantly. Disgusting. “Take it.” He waved the heart away.

The devil ate it with relish, moaning at how delicious it was. It was clear that its master had a far pickier palate than it does. Sighing at finishing its meal--not enough, never enough--it knelt at the same spot the woman once did, bloodied and cold hands touching Giotto’s inner thigh.

It leaned in and nuzzled against the half-hard member, blowing gently against it. “Master.”

More.

Giotto hummed, eyes glinting red, and nodded. A permission.

Its mouth stretched out wide into a Chesire-like smile. Long and dexterous tongue started licking the member with relish, curling against it as it pawed the balls. In one go, it swallowed the dick whole, deep throating with hollowed cheeks. Its moans sent vibration of pleasure, that Giotto let out a breath.

Giotto relaxed against the backrest and rested a hand on the devil’s head, fingers carding through the ginger hair, letting it bob up and down as it wished.

Slow, languid.

Calm.

Feeling closer to release, Giotto tightened his grip, fingers digging into the scalp and started fucking the head like a good cock sleeve it was. One. Two. And he pushed it all the way down, head of his member hitting the back of the throat, and came into the devil.

He sighed as it swallowed his seeds, not letting go even a single drop.

“Good boy.” He praised with a lazy smile, and the Devil preened.

Ah, the boy survived, Ieyasu noted as Knuckle brought him into his office--cleaned and properly dressed. His eyes were still grey and blank, but there was a hint of red in them. A sign that he had assimilated with the power they had bestow him--that Ieyasu had bestowed him.

Only, it seemed like it was tamed by the sheer rage that boiled in him, calm but definitely burning.

What a cute child.

“What is your name, child?”

The boy—no longer blind but wished he was so that he didn’t have to look at the damning monster in front of him. The monster who plagued their town, who made his mother crazy in her beliefs and worships towards him. He hated him for making her forget about him, to leave him starving for days and hurting in the dark alone with minimal attention. He hated him for taking his mother’s love for him away, but the longer he stared at him, the longer he couldn’t stop himself from feeling a sort of awe towards the man glowing in sunset light.

The same awe that his mother had probably felt before her unfortunate demise in the slum.

“…”

Ieyasu chuckled at the feelings he felt from the boy--he could, to an extent, feel the emotions and thoughts of those possessing his blood in their veins. A measure of loyalty, perhaps. Oh how amusing.

He had countless of humans hating him and the child was definitely not the last. Though, it was fresh to see a youngling who had taken his blood and power so well, to slowly develop the same worship his servants hold towards him. Ieyasu wondered how the child would fare, knowing that he would soon become the same person as his mother was--a devoted worshipper.

Ieyasu decided to keep this child as his protégé--his son.

“You shall be called Ricardo, then. And you shall be my son from today onwards.” Ieyasu’s eyes squinted as his cheeks pulled up.

He caressed the rosy sunken cheeks gently, in a manner a father wouldn’t towards their child.

“Let’s start your first lesson today, my dear son.”

Knuckle closed the door behind him as the thud of knees hitting the carpet echoed from the room. He whispered a prayer to his God, for a smooth lesson.

Two years later, the boy who was once fifteen--lanky and short--shoot up with wide and sharp shoulders, standing tall not unlike a beanstalk. (He was taller than G. now, Giotto noted.)

Ricardo’s suit was drenched. Not with water, nor with sweat, but rather blood. It was a bad habit of his--to dirty his clothes during missions--but no one in their household told him off about it. Despite the silent rule to keep themselves prim and proper as a symbol of the Vongola clan, of the tamers of the Devil and as the Sinners, none ever reprimanded the young man of his messiness.

For one, it was a part of his charm. For another, he never let anyone else who had saw him messy live anyways.

The assassin under his feet was screaming at how the heel of his shoes dug into his chest, breaking his ribs. Ricardo scowled at how noisy he was and with the sharp metal rod he pulled out from the fence, he slit the throat. At the same time, he leaned and pressed his weight down further, completely crushing the chest and lungs, just as a bullet flew pass the back of his head and embedding itself into a tree.

Without looking back or lifting his leg stuck in the corpse, he threw the rod back like a javelin and it stabbed itself through another assassin’s head.

The next assassin tried to jump him from the side--he reached out to grab her by her neck and dangled her an armlength away.

He squinted at her, at her choked sound, and crushed her throat.

He tossed the corpse away like it was a trash.

Finally pulling his legs away from the mess of blood and flesh and bones, he sighed to the sky.

“Had fun?” Giotto, who was leaning against a tombstone, smiled. Ricardo looked at him, all clean and untouched, and felt the restless stir to mess him up, push him onto the muddy and bloody ground, and fuck him into a mindless man. An intrusive thought that Giotto would no doubt welcome, he was sure. But he would rather die than to admit now.

“No.” He said, instead, and walked over to the man he had to call father despite knowing the growing hatred and rage he had towards him. Towards the founder of Sinners, the tamer of the Devil.

“How unfortunate.” The man smudged the blood stain on his cheek with gentle hands, the same hands he remembered snapping a poor child’s rib and ripping her heart out. The same hand that he remembered G. worshiped so much.

Ricardo narrowed his eyes and did nothing to avoid its touch. Cold. Disgust.

“I’m going to kill you one day.” He added.

And Giotto snapped his head up into an uncontrolled, delighted laughter. One that believed that the child would do so. And one that welcomed him to try.

Giotto gripped him by his chin and pulled him close, whispering onto his lips, “Sure, my dear son.”

A toothy grin.

“I will be waiting.”

The Devil awakened again, in the midst of night where Ieyasu leaned against the window stilt with a glass of white wine. It slithered to his side, nudging the unsmiling man who stared out into the dark, absentminded.

What is wrong?” It hissed, akin to a snake.

Ieyasu patted it on its head, humming nonchalantly. He was simply thinking back to the time where he was still a young child--so young and so small--in his mother’s embrace. Oh, his mother, a frame smaller than his now that he was at her age, so kind yet so strong. With her short orange-brown hair, kind eyes and gentle touches, she would cradle him to sleep. She would hush his whimpers at the loud sneers of lords, shield him from their touches, and pat him when they angered him with their disgusting words towards his mother.

She would protect him even when she couldn’t protect herself.

Many times, he would wonder, when would she break. When would she finally stop, and let Ieyasu’s darkness take over--to swallow those men whole, to break them, to turn the slum from black-white-grey into red-red-red. When, will she finally let her hold loose and unchain the Devil from his within?

And that day did come. That day where she finally closed her eyes forever, cuddling him and whispering how she loved him, how she wished for him to grow strong and bright, to save those weaker than them, to bring light into their lives like how they wished for someone to bring to theirs. That day, Ieyasu held onto her, burying his face into her neck, and never let go until the sun set and moon rose. He held on, until her warmth all seeped away and the smell of tulips dissipated, leaving a cold, stiff corpse.

Oh his mom, she left. She left him, and she left him without the keys to the darkness in him.

Ieyasu buried her under a cypress tree.

And he went mining--his only way to earn his and his mother’s worth of food. He mined and mined and mined--nonstop until his hands bleed, until he starved, and until he mined out a tiny blue gem admits of gold and silver. In his quiet corner, he paused, pretended to take a break, and swallowed the gem.

When he had the privacy, away from those disgusting lords who would only scream and whip, away from prying eyes. He removed the gem from his body and stared. It wasn’t a normal gem, he could tell. The darkness in him could tell.

Washing it crystal clear with the little amount of water he had, Ieyasu, at the age of 10, smiled.

Ah, poor mother. Looks like even your last wish wouldn’t come true even after your death.

That night, the Devil awakened, and Ieyasu became Giotto.

Patting the Devil again, Ieyasu sighed and leaned back, finishing the rest of the wine in one breath. It let the Devil slitter up his body, pushing the robes aside for the bare skin. On any other day, Ieyasu would have punished it for its insolence. However, today, on the day his Mama had died, Ieyasu let the Devil put its weigh on him.

G watched as Giotto dealt with the lesser lords of the northern region by the sideline, quiet. He was reminded of when Giotto was Ieyasu--years and years and years back. G was 10 when he first met him--the him who stood with orange-blue eyes at a corner, staring dully at the Lords who owned the mines. G’s father was a noble--not without dirty hands that disgusted G to the end of his life, of course--who wanted to buy slaves, preferably kids.

Disgusting.

His father was looking at the young children, all almost his age, and handpicked a few timid ones. All whom G could not remember. Because throughout the whole trip, other than the constant nausea and urge to pick up the pickaxe by the side and stab it through the one who sired him, he was staring at the boy with orange-blue eyes.

Too thin.

Too numb to the world.

G felt an attraction so strong that he almost told his father to take him back if not for the reminder that these children, if bought, will be slaves of another kind. And G didn’t want that to befell on the boy who took his heart away.

So G kept quiet, and he left.

A month after, a month since the slaves were brought home was tortured on and on and on--G wanted to help them, so he ended their lives with poison that they agreed upon, painless, quiet--G’s father wanted more slaves. This time, though, his father ordered him to go in his stead. Something about wanting him to pick up his habits, to learn from him. Something about he couldn’t leave because his maternal grandmother was keeping an eye on him after a rumor.

A month, and yet again G was standing at the same spot as last time. This time, the mine Lord was chattering to him about something he didn’t bother understanding. He didn’t want to understand, so he let the assistant that followed him--bless this young man’s soul, he was the one who helped G purchase those poisons--listen. (G quietly snickered at the crackling of knuckles behind his back even if the assistant was smiling so amiably.)

This time though, the orange-blue eyed kid was not there.

This time, it was a kid with orange-red eyes, blue gone.

G was enamored still, by how those eyes filled with pure rage and thirst for blood. He was still awestruck by how the boy who was so quiet in the background, shone in his own way now. There was something different about him, but G still wanted him nonetheless.

And the boy knew--Oh, G knew he knew. After all, how could he not when G was staring so dumbly at him? The boy smiled, eyes squinting, and mouthed at him.

‘Wait for me at the largest cypress tree in the evening.’

So G drove the assistant with their newly selected slaves back home and stayed. Saying something along the line wanting to explore. Something about wanting to create mines yadda yadda. The assistant was loyal to him--so he did not question and left. A quiet reminder that he had left the carriage for him.

G stayed, and found the large cypress tree--ground seemingly dug out recently and refilled. He stood beside it, away from the freshly dug ground, and look afar. The tree was on a hill, overlooking the slum and the nobles’ houses further away. He could barely make out the tiny castle.

He loved the view.

G didn’t know how long he had waited that day for the boy who would become his lord--his god--but the sun had started to set then when the boy arrived, clean despite a day’s work in the mines. Too clean. Like Giotto had deliberately cleaned himself prior to going there.

“You… What is your name?” G asked after a couple of minutes staring at him.

A smile. Amiable. Kind. Knowing.

“Ieyasu. Sawada Ieyasu.” The boy paused, pondering for a minute before changing his statement, and declared. “I’m now Giotto Di Vongola.”

Eyes glinting red, he raised his right hand towards G, palms up and opened. “Pleased to meet you, G.”

From then, G developed an obsession for his voice, gentle and warm, but sinister and indifferent. And when he touched him, it was all what G wanted to feel. It was so strange. For an atheist, G had never experienced the feeling of worship and devotion. And yet, he knew from then on, he had held Giotto as his god.

His one and only love.

G regretted nothing. Not even after killing his own father with his two bare hands and offering his heart to his god.

“My beloved,” G snapped out of his memories at the coos and a bloodied hand touching his cheek, smudging red and cold on his skin. G shuddered--a positive feeling. Giotto smiled at his dilated pupils, focus coming back onto him. “Are you tired?” He asked quietly, as though they were home, in their room, instead of a soiled ground of corpses.

G shook his head, leaning into the palm instinctively and nuzzled even if that made the blood messier. Others’ blood on him are disgusting, but if it was what Giotto bestowed him, he would take it in a heartbeat. “No. I’m just… Nostalgic.”

“Ah… The time you killed your relatives?”

G nodded this time.

“I hope you had fun then,” Giotto leaned in and pecked him on the lips before biting down and pulling him close for a deep kiss. “I missed how you looked then, the red on your skin and in your eyes, so unrestrained, so… Arousing.” He whispered onto his lips, eyes squinting in delight at the shiver G had, clearly remembered their rounds and rounds after that, not even cleaned.

“I’m glad it was, my lord.” G sighed, leaning and melting into the kiss and embrace.

That night, it was a rare moment that G was still awake, and Giotto sleeping. G looked at Giotto, holding him in his arms, resting his head on his bare chest and over his heart. He lulled himself to sleep with his heartbeat, beating rhythmically, steadily, alive.

He wondered when would Giotto finally take him whole.

When will he finally become one permanently with his god.

G wanted to help him, to open up his own ribcage and to pull his heart out for his god. He wanted to offer it to him. He knew that Giotto needed fresh heart every now and then to retain his mortal form, and to replenish his powers. He needed it to tame the Devil as well. And G wanted to ease Giotto’s trouble with his own--as a worshipper and half Sinner after drinking Giotto’s blood, his heart would provide longer effects, so long that Giotto may not need to eat any for 10 years.

And with him in Giotto, he would finally be with him forever.

Cuddling closer, skin sticking to skin, G buried his face into the hair that smelled of oak and burning woods.

Giotto nuzzled. As though as reply saying--soon.

And soon was 30 years later, when they were in their 50s but looking 20s still. The found that G was dying, mortal vessels unable to retain his soul despite him making a contract with the Devil. G was coughing out blood, and Giotto drank them.

When it was time, at G’s last minutes of awareness, he kissed him. He caressed his hair, smiling gently into his dulling eyes, and break open G’s ribcage. He pulled the beating heart out, slowly stopping and cooling in his grasp, and he opened his own ribcage and place it beside his own beating one.

As one, their hearts were together.

As his skin and bones mend together, Giotto sighed and lied beside G, nuzzling against the crook of his neck and holding him close.

“I love you, my beloved.” He whispered into his skin.

He buried G’s body under a cypress tree--the one beside where his mother was buried.

---

A year later, Ricardo who had been silently gathering forces and power, overthrown Giotto. He fought him, losing a limb and an eye in the process, and finally decapitated the man who founded the Vongola--the Sinners. The Father finally died, and Ricardo inherited most of his power.

The Devil disappeared along with Giotto.

Ricardo buried Giotto under the same cypress tree G was buried under.

Soon, it became a tradition, a necessity, for the heirs to learn how to kill at an early age, and learn how to kill their leader. It became a need for the descendants of the sinners to kill their predecessors to inherit the power.

But none inherited the power to tame the Devil.

None, until Sawada Tsunayoshi--a carbon copy of Sawada Ieyasu--was born.

Tsuna (Ieyasu) kissed Nana, moaning into her mouth as she rode his cock up and down, tight and hot. So, so blissful.

Quietly, he wondered, if his mother’s first body had been like this.

He bit into her shoulder as he climaxed inside her, loving her symphonic cries, loving the taste of blood on his tongue.

--When is my turn?

He heard the impatient question from Giotto, and Tsuna snarled internally.

--Mine!

Giotto—The one who became the Devil—snorted.

--She is mine too.

--Wait for your turn next time. You had your turn with Gokudera-kun. It’s only fair.

Giotto grumbled. Tsuna ignored him and continued moving his hip again when they both calmed down for a little, moaning at the over-sensitized tug of his cock against the vaginal wall.

Giotto relented and quieted down, but never left.

He never had—not even after Ricardo made his first mortal vessel unusable.

He is eternal.

Notes:

If you guys didn't notice, cypress tree represents everlasting life and is used in rituals with the dead, but symbolizes the eternal life that comes after death.