Fairly Local (I’ve Been Around)
A gift for @i-w-p-chan. We got to discussing favorite characters, and she mentioned how there isn’t enough Ricardo content out there. So I offered to generate some. Sadly it ended up growing when I wasn’t looking, so it’s a bit longer than originally planned.
0-0-0-0-0-0
“You sealed him?!”
Daniela’s got the right tone of voice going on, her Flames flickering erratically on her forehead in her anger. Ricardo doesn’t know why she’s so upset; her son’s been pulling stupid decisions out of his ass since birth.
“It was the right choice to make,” Timoteo says, firm even in the direct line of his mother’s wrath. Foolish, given Daniela’s struck down men bigger and meaner than him even at her weakest. “If his Flame had burned brighter–”
“So what?” Daniela demands venomously. “So what if a boy with Giotto’s blood in his veins had usurped our own line? He is still Vongola, still one of us. How many times did I tell you growing up that no matter what happens, we are always one. We stand as one, we fall as one, and nobody is left behind, not even the dead. You’ve destroyed that boy over pride, and it’s not you that’s going to be dealing with the consequences, you idiot!”
She’s halfway out of her chair now, looking more than ready to leap the remaining distance and strangle her son. Timoteo continues to look stubborn and unrepentant throughout it all, which isn’t helping his case one bit. In the end, Settimo coaxes his daughter down, even as he shakes his head over Timoteo’s foolishness. Even the weakest of their lot would never seal a child.
“A child,” Ricardo says, and Timoteo stiffens. The old man has always feared him, him and his Wrath. “You truly have no boundaries.” He unfolds himself from his own chair like a great stork, and sighs as he feels every ounce of his age come back to him. “Giotto, I’m going.”
“You don’t have to–” Daniela starts.
“Yes, I do,” Ricardo interrupts. “Because your idiot boy refuses to learn, refuses to listen and refuses to fix his own fucking mistakes. So I’m going to fix them for him, starting with his seal and ending with his ignorance.” He looks over his shoulder. “By the time that boy shows up on your doorstep, you’ll wish he hadn’t.”
Timoteo’s lips gain a pinched look, but he says nothing. As always.
0-0-0-0-0-0
Namimori is a quaint little town that reminds Ricardo a lot of Portofino. It’s quiet and homely, with pockets of activity here and there, but the same steady pace no matter where he goes. Granted they don’t live alongside the ocean and have fishing as a main export, but still the basic idea stands.
He finds the boy easily enough; allowing his Flames to uncurl like a great sleeping dragon and seek out the baby Flames shrieking in agony. He finds him in a hospital (a wise choice) in a bed, burning with fever and thrashing about as he sleeps. He only looks to be six or so, and that only increases the disgust he feels over Timoteo’s actions even more. On a seat next to the bed is a young woman, sound asleep, tear tracks on her face. The mother, most likely.
He peels off one of the black gloves he wears, and lays time-scarred skin against the boy’s forehead. He can feel the Flames there below the seal, still fighting to get out. If the seal is allowed to stay, eventually the Flames will stop fighting, and whenever they come out - whether by choice or chance - they will sear him with the force of his own Flame. He can’t have that.
He wraps the boy in his own Flames like a blanket to shield him, and then jams a ‘needle’ of Flame under the seal and pushes.
The seal is strong, but Ricardo Mantione di Vongola hasn’t spent his life building an empire simply to be thwarted by a mere seal. So he digs deeper, the great redwood shifting its roots, and pushes harder.
And eventually, the seal yields.
It pops off, and immediately the boy’s Flames try to burn him. The wall Ricardo’s put between the Flames and the boy prevent that, the sensation not unlike stinging nettles to the face. He bears it, and begins to wrap a portion of his Flames around the boy’s to soothe them back down to their proper manifestation.
All told, it takes him two hours when he looks at the clock again. The woman is waking, and the sun is setting. The boy - Tsunayoshi - is quiet, his leftover fever breaking even as Ricardo stands there. Their last heir remains alive, at least for now.
Ricardo draws his hand back, and sits in the second chair across from the bed. He feels tired; it’s been a long while since he’s had to go up against something that requires so much effort. And being a dead man doesn’t prevent him feeling tired, not when he’s outside the Ring.
He expects this will be the end of the troubles for a time, and prepares to dissipate back into the Ring.
Except.
Except the woman on the other side of the bed can apparently see him, and feel the weight of Flames, or at least what he’s done to Tsunayoshi. She’s staring at him, wide-eyed in wonderment. “What did you do to my son?”
“You can see me?” he demands.
“He doesn’t feel– sick anymore, he doesn’t– what did you–”
That’s as far as she gets, unfortunately, because Ricardo whips himself back into the Ring in the next moment, leaving her with her son.
“It’s done,” he says as he takes his seat again. Jabs a finger at Timoteo. “Don’t ever fucking do that again, or you won’t have to worry about old age because you won’t live to see your next birthday.”
Timoteo flinches from that, but nobody contradicts him. Ricardo settles back for a long nap, content that he’s done his part for now.
0-0-0-0-0-0
Of course, even with the seal off, there are still chances of complications. Complications like the baby Sky launching into an early puberty as a result, and his Flames starting to call for Guardians long before his body is actually ready for such a thing. Ricardo groans when he hears about it from Giotto, and ressolves next time to just keep his damn help to himself.
“Fuck,” he swears as he stares down at a similar sight. Tsunayoshi in his own bed, writhing and sweating like mad, but this time his Flames are calling out, trying to coax viable Flame candidates closer. Ricardo bats them aside when they turn their attention towards him, and tugs his glove off again.
Unfortunately, there is no ‘quick fix’ for this kind of behavior. Timoteo’s choice to seal Tsunayoshi’s Flames, even temporarily, has left a lot of damage and fucked up a lot of shit that should have been on a set timer. If that seal hadn’t made contact, the baby Sky wouldn’t have started looking for Guardians until he hit fifteen or sixteen, and even then he would have only been expressing interest. The actual courting measures wouldn’t have started until he got up a little in age where consent was no longer an issue, and if he chose to shore up a bond through use of copious amounts of sex, nobody would bat an eye.
But now that timer has been demolished, and if the baby Sky doesn’t at least have a single Guardian attach soon, it’ll likely kill him, or at least leave him tired, achy and on a single-minded search for something he doesn’t actually know exists yet. He won’t know what he needs, just that he needs it. It’ll drive him crazy, and he likely won’t find it until much later, by which point his Flames could start tearing themselves apart.
Fucking Timoteo and his goddamned pride.
He rips the other glove off, and calls up his Wrath. Immediately the baby Sky Flames start reaching for him, but he bats them aside again, and then pins them for good measure. He doesn’t need the brat’s help here. He pulls threats of Storm from the Sky, just enough to create a Guardian bond with. If there comes a better candidate down the line, he’ll gladly step aside, but for now he needs to be here at least to hold the kid down and prevent him going mad.
He weaves it loose, making sure to pour as many parental feelings into it as possible. It isn’t hard to think of Tsunayoshi like his youngest; and Tsunayoshi’s father seems more content to spend his time overseas than with his actual family. So they’ll both be getting something out of this, even if the start of it certainly isn’t either of their ideas of fun.
Slowly, the Sky Flames settle, content with the new bond. For a second, it’s like being back home and realizing he’d just arrived in time to hold the newest son his wife had given him. That moment when the little baby’s Flames had reached out to his, and Ricardo had realized just how small and fragile they were, how easily he could be harmed.
He sighs, and smooths a hand through Tsuna’s sweaty locks. “You and me, kid,” he murmurs. “I’ll show you how we survive.”
And if Tsuna’s Flames burrow a little bit closer to his as he speaks, it’s probably just his nostalgia talking.
(He’s going to be in so much trouble with Giotto after this, he just knows it.)
BLESS HRAAP