A/N: Experimenting, be kind. Religious symbolry isn't my thing considering I'm technically a heathen, but the idea stuck to me and it won't go away. So. I'm hoping it doesn't offend anyone D: (I didn't mean it, if it did).
Disclaimer: Anything with an asterisk next to it is stolen from the "Corpus Hermeticum" (hence the title, hah, hah), also not mine.
Japan in winter, frost on the windowsills like lace curtains, two three layers around his neck and still his throat aches in the evening his mouth red and raw his teeth slick and alien and cold, holding a cup of coffee in his hands too afraid to drink it, more pain than comfort the way the nerves in his fingers spring back to life achingly slow. The streets quiet, sleepy, alive underneath the frost biding its time. Walking to school in the morning, the smooth curl of Kyoko's hair spread against her scratchy wool scarf, her coat brushing her thighs with each step the vulnerable curve of the back of her knees the rosy pink of the very tips of her fingers, a tiny hole in her stockings where the bone of her ankle presses outwards, snow on her lashes as she leans toward him smiling like he's all she needs.
Tsuna wakes. His head is aching, he is ensconced in an unknown room. The great, heavy drapes are drawn tightly together and sealed with hemp, strange symbols scrawled over the edges of the arched window and along the borders of the walls. The room is sparse but the furniture ornate, the walls vaulted with columns and he can feel silk brushing against his fingers and he slowly unclenches them.
Chrome, perched on a chair by his bedside, thumbs gently through a book, its pages so old they appear burnt, murmurs, "'what is the so great fault the ignorant commit, that they should be deprived of deathlessness?'*"
He opens his mouth to speak, but is hit by a coughing fit so hard his stomach clenches, and he doubles over, his spine taut, as he hacks. He vaguely registers Chrome rising from her chair, the powdery cool of her fingers pressed into the nape of his neck soothing as his eyes water and warmth rises in the back of his throat.
Her single eye is mournful, her mouth a crooked frown as if disappointed. She hands him a glass of cloudy liquid, which he downs with shaking fingers, spilling some dribbling cold down his chin. "You weren't listening. I told you to think," she chastises, gently.
The liquid is too sweet to be water, thick and faintly nauseous, an undertone of bitterness like bile. His eyes heavy, he drops back against the pillows. Chrome leans over and plucks up the sheets, her long dark hair spilling over one shoulder, brings it up to his chin and tucks down the covers a mother comforting a child, he can see under his lashes how she rearranges herself on the chair the book spread across her lap, her voice a soft constant murmur, the sound of the pages turning crisp and crunching like boots across virgin snow.
One moment Chrome stops her reading. Her eyes shoot up, gaze receding; the form of Mukuro rises from her shadow, embraces her gently, the eyes appearing last glowing like lit embers in a pale face.
"What a sad little sheep," his mouth crooks in that same quiet grimace, little hints of Chrome bleed through the mask. The way he crosses his legs keeping his thighs tucked together as if to accommodate a tight skirt, the almost-girlish arch of his spine shoulders tipped back sloped like a bird's, his nails still painted a deep purple unchipped, how he rests his elbow in his hands while he gestures, that sacrosanct smile.
Tsuna struggles up on his elbows over the heavy sheets, mind still sluggish and heavy. "I never took you to be a sheep-herder, Mukuro."
Mukuro tips his head back languishly, bonelessly, the long line of his throat under that dark cloak, he is arrogant and princely spread carelessly against the dark wood, one ankle rotating in lazy circles, arms spread outward thumb idly smoothing over the symbols carved on the chairtops, gentle reverantly a renmant of Chrome.
"'How many bodies we have to pass through, how many bands of demons, through how many series of repetitions and cycles of the stars...'*" he addresses Tsuna out of the corner of his left eye, the blue one, fathomless deep as the sea, "tell me, Tsunayoshi, will you triumph? Or will you fade into the Dark like your predecessors?" Before Tsuna can answer, Mukuro breaks, unbidden, into peals of laughter, rich and deep, the sound echoing outwards reverberating through the room coming back hollow and faint as his form dissipates and Chrome reemerges, hands tucked neatly across her lap, liquid eyes unfazed, leaning back down to pick the book up from the floor as if she had never left.
Two (or perhaps three? four?) weeks in, Mukuro and Chrome tacitly agree to set up visitations. The marble is cold on his feet damp and wet as Chrome slowly guides him down the halls, one gentle hand pressed under his armpits, he lets his cheek press into her hair, his head spinning.
The throne room is decked in red carmine deep and dark, the chair they prop him up on is cold against his back, the drapings heavy. All in a ring about the room the other bosses stand, watching him. The eyes of his father, the chin of his grandfather, each part dissected and rearranged in front of him, like a puzzle with no answer. The tilt of sharp chins, the high dark arch of their hairlines, the clean white expanse of their foreheads smooth and unsullied, their mouths tight and thin as if sewn shut. Eyes dark like clotted blood, the same color as the gleaming furniture, the same refractory light gleaming in the darkened room. Empires are ruled by gods, and the Vongola are no exception.
Chrome lets Gokudera in first, and his eyes land upon Tsuna with horror. "Tenth?" His voice quavering, two fingers wrapped in the blankets as he kneels, "what happened to you?" Tsuna can see himself, barely, reflected in green eyes, pallid and boneless, and he has to struggle to raise his hands, wrap his fingers gently around Gokudera's wrist.
"What the fuck did you do to Tenth?" Gokudera turns on Chrome, suddenly furious, though she only stares back placidly.
"Nothing that isn't necessary. Only..."
"Only what has to happen. Gokudera." Tsuna manages through a leaden tongue, and watches with regret the line of Gokudera's mouth as it trembles, his eyebrows drawn together tightly, beautiful green eyes bright with heartbreak. Tsuna's entire childhood lined up in those eyes, green like the milk tea his mother packed his bento with in summer, the space under his tongue tangy and sweet without any underlying acridity, the unearthly feel of running his fingers along the school gates as he walks, everything blue and alive in the wake of the sun- but this, too, is just another offering, penance which Tsuna must pay and, wordlessly, he lifts his hands. Gokudera grasps his palms gently, presses his lips to Tsuna's knuckles, and it is a tribute to him that his voice as he talks is steady and low, though Tsuna can feel his shoulders quaking against his knees.