A/N: I own nothing but this story. Katekyo Hitman Reborn and its characters are property of Amano Akira. Danny Boy is property of its respective owner.
SHOT FOUR: DANNY BOY {MAMMON/VIPER}
And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my grave will warm and sweeter be
For you will bend and tell me that you love me
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.
A leaf fell off a tree and floated down past him. The time when the trees had been ablaze with oranges and reds and yellows was past and now all the leaves were a sickly brown, decaying and dropping from the branches like drops of blood running from a shallow wound. How fitting an image too, he thought, of blood and of the trees dying. It fit with his somber mood and the whole cloying atmosphere. His footsteps crunched over fallen leaves and brittle twigs as he wound the all-too-familiar path into the wood.
Very few people knew about this place. There had been him…and her. But she no longer knew anything, did she? It was isolated, in the middle of the thick wood but there was a spot, miraculous and amazing, where you could see the whole of the valley from the top of a cliff. He'd never really appreciated it, not being the romantic kind of sap that would think about things like beauty and views. But you had loved it, he remembered as he wound his way up the steep incline to the cliff. You'd ooh-ed and ahh-ed over it when he'd taken you up there. He also remembered that was the night you first kissed him.
It had been your meeting place for years after that. Whenever he was in town, he'd send a letter ahead and you would meet him there for a couple hours, sitting on the edge of the cliff and talking for hours, sweet caresses and hot kisses passing between the two of you. It was where you had told him you loved him and he remembered how he hadn't been able to say the words back though he knew he had felt them and felt them still. It was where you had offered yourself to him and he'd become the one and only lover you'd ever had.
But that was all in the past. He'd always had to leave you, sometimes for months at a time. He was Viper back then and he was in great demand. He crested the top of the hill, finally arriving at your place. But its scenery was marred now by the tiny grave centered a few feet from the cliff's edge. It was to this that he now visited. Because he had always come back to you, hadn't he?
And he stood by the grave for a while, the minutes slipping by as he lost himself in all the memories this place held. Maybe that was why he'd chosen to bury you here instead of in a cemetery like your family had planned to do. It had been difficult stealing your body but he couldn't stand the thought of you not being here, where you'd always be for him. And he looked at the grave before turning back; kneeling slightly to whisper those words you'd waited so long for. "I loved you. As Viper. And as Mammon." And it sounded weird, coming out, for you wouldn't know who Mammon was, would you? At least that was one thing he thanked the universe for. At least you hadn't had to see him like this.
Turning away, he started his walk back, his last words trailing back through the frosty November air. "But you cost me a lot of money coming here. You'll have to pay it all back someday. I'm keeping a tab."
