A/N: This was written for a friend on Plurk a while ago, but I forgot I have a FFN account, hence the massive delay in posting it here.
The prompt for this was "Xanxus - pride" and this is the result.
It's been over two years (seven hundred and eighty one days - he keeps count). Mukuro asks him how much longer is he planning to stay (how much longer until he goes insane) and Xanxus ignores him, just like he ignores Squalo and his inane requests to come back. The Vindice is his home now, this two-by-four prison cell his palace, and Mukuro is his royal jester.
He sometimes thinks about all the things he had and lost and aches for a sip of whiskey, but his thoughts always come back to Tsunayoshi Sawada, the boy who now has everything that should have been his and the anger flares up again, white-hot and all-consuming and Xanxus grits his teeth and starts pacing in his cell. A lion caught in a bear trap and too afraid of a little pain to chew his limb off and be free again, Mukuro's voice whispers in the back of his head, and Xanxus grabs the iron bars, knuckles going white with the strain, and growls at him to shut up shut up shut the fuck up.
A year later, Sawada himself (Vongola Decimo, now) comes to see him and tells him that he's officially free - the charges were dropped and he'll be reinstated as leader of the Varia if he so wishes. Xanxus laughs and tells him to go fuck himself. He stops laughing when Tsuna adds that Timoteo is on his deathbed and wants to see him; he stops laughing, but only long enough to tell the brat to deliver a message to the old man for him if he'd be so kind, because he's not moving a fucking inch from his cell. He watches the color drain from the young man's face when he tells him the message and laughs until Tsuna is long gone.
He wrecks his cell that night - burns the plaster off the wall and breaks the bed and finally falls asleep at dawn, curled up in a corner.
Sawada comes back a few months later with his Guardians and the Varia squad leaders in tow. "I need your help" is all he says and Xanxus scowls, but doesn't protest when the Vindicare open his cell and usher him out.