Felony is a gift to men who have everything to lose.
Written for the word prompt "knights" over at the KHR Fic Meme – kinda really spoilerific, especially for the TYL Arc and Chapters 210 onwards. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for March 20, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~
I.
The ring is heavy on his finger, and it bites into the flesh of his skin every time he so much as holds his cue stick a little tighter than usual or grips at the handle of a gun. Her name is on it, even if it's the crest of the Giglionero that is carved on the inside. It is for that reason that he welcomes the weight and the memories they carry. It reminds him of what needs to be done, if he's ever going to see that brilliant smile or feel those small arms wrap around his neck again.
II.
He knows, now, what it is like to kneel before a god and feel, too keenly, one's own mortality, to know that powers greater than yourself hold your life within their hands. He respects power precisely because he has only so much of it, even after carving a name for himself on the bodies of his previous enemies. Byakuran is power, and power makes the laws that the world dances to. So he will bow his head and kill his heart and follow him, up to heaven, straight to hell.
III.
He smokes a whole pack of cigarettes at the Tenth's grave, apologizing to the deaf ears of the body in that coffin every time he lights one up. I'm sorry, Tenth, the smell must bother you. I'm sorry, Tenth, I know I told you I'd cut down. He is weak and his hands are made of splinters; he knows this now, because he failed to hold on to the one thing – the one person – that mattered to him the most. When the wish stick burns out, his will to move burns out with it. It's only later, much later, that he drags himself to his feet and stumbles home, back to his plans and his possibilities, back to plotting out vengeance for the young man that he decided he'd give all that he was to, one hot Japanese day.
IV.
He watches the Storm Guardian of the Vongola from the shadows of the trees because it is better than staring at that coffin and knowing just who is lying in there, amidst the white and sweetness of graveyard lilies. He knows something that the Storm Guardian and the Rain Guardian and all the rest of them do not, and the weight of the knowledge presses down on his shoulders, distinct and suffocating against his chest. He hates being tied down, hates the fact that even after death, that one person can still tell him exactly what it is that he must do and rest easy in knowing that he will do it, no matter how much he says that he won't. He leaves as Gokudera smokes through the last cigarette in his pack. He has work to do.
