#woohooo we made it!!!! ty to everyone for such a fun month and especially to dreamy dear for being an excellent organizer 🥹

[lu-sn]

In the foyer of the minor family mansion, looming large and ominous against dark paneled wood, is a floor-to-ceiling portrait of Gun.

This is Pete’s first time seeing it. He must have walked by it earlier without realizing; he wouldn’t have noticed it on their way out either if Macau hadn’t come to a screeching halt in front of it.

In the portrait, Gun sits tall in an ornate chair, smoldering cigar hanging from his fingertips, expression brimming with arrogance. The narcissism of it — the centering of this house’s power on its patriarch, with his sons nowhere to be seen — is not unusual for a mafia mogul like Gun. Pete loathes him for it anyway.

Pete glances at Macau, whose gaze is fixed on his father’s face, and then down at where Macau is thumbing restlessly at the lighter in his palm. The gesture is familiar; the lighter is Vegas’s. It was the only item the doctors found tucked away in the tatters of Vegas’s clothing, and Macau has not relinquished it since. Pete has numbed himself to the sight and sound of it flicking open and shut, matching time with the beeping of Vegas’s heart monitor as he and Macau keep vigil on opposite sides of Vegas’s hospital bed.

The click of the lighter echoes in the cavernous foyer, now, sharp and eerie.

“Macau,” Pete blurts out. He hefts the box cradled in his arms. “I’ll go put your things in the car.” And when that earns him no response, he mumbles, “I’ll be back.”

He staggers out of the foyer and down the front steps to the car, leaving Macau to his thoughts.

Pete’s own mind, fractured and worn from weeks of poor sleep, swirls with thoughts of dead fathers. They leave themselves behind in empty houses and littered beer bottles, in stacks of yellowed photos and stacks of debt, in bruises, old and new. Their specters are impossible to shake, even without massive portraits to contend with.

Pete hopes Vegas won’t keep the portrait if he… when he wakes up. The love sons have for their bastard fathers is a curse, but Vegas will not see it that way, not for a long time. Vegas will want to keep the shadow of his father close. He will not be able to help himself after a lifetime of chasing Gun’s approval.

Better the shadow of his father than the real thing, Pete thinks darkly.

He slams the trunk of the car shut, turns back towards the mansion and then, even through his daze, the scent of it is thick enough to choke — smoke.

Fire.

“Macau?” Pete yells, sprinting up the steps and rushing back into the foyer. Alarms blare in his head: Macau is in danger. He has to keep Macau safe for Vegas. “Something’s wrong, we have to get out—”

He skids to a stop.

Macau looks over his shoulder at Pete, face inscrutable, silhouetted as he is by the burning, blazing portrait behind him. The lighter glints as he flips it round and round between his fingers.

The flames crawl up the portrait, eating away at its domineering presence, incinerating Gun into worthless ashes at his son’s feet.

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#kpanniversary2024 episode 14 + prompt 14: legacy