Spoilers for chapter 57 & up.

Elliot/Leo told in Glen's POV. Also major Glen/Lacie.

Glen is probably out of character, sorry for that.

I want you to burn like I've burned.

I see it in your eyes. The quirk of your smile. Your teeth are sharp and bright and they sparkle too much when he's with you. Lips split in a wicked grin, I see them all shining. You laugh too loudly. It's like barking. Your heartbeat. I hear it. Thumping thumping thumping against your weak chest, shaking your ribs and sending those chills racing down your spine. When you hold him, and he holds you, his breath is on your neck and I feel it. Soft and sweet, it's just like her. Just like she was.

(They have the same eyes. I know I've never told you this, but I never wanted to. It's just so much effort to split my lips and say her name.)

Lacie had so much life in her, and I saw that in the Nightray boy.

He cracked a smile and offered you his hand, and you rejected it because you had to. I knew that you would, because we're lonely creatures, you and I. Always happier in someplace quiet and dark where we can't hear other people saying stupid things. But he shined too brightly, that boy, and refused to let you go. Dark hair long and messy and you're a mysterious little thing, my vessel. The boy saw you as sad and sought to fix that. Wanted to be your equal, he did. Your friend.

What a foolish mistake he made.

So I cut him up. I knew he wouldn't hurt you, my precious vessel, he loved you too much. Even back then I knew. That first day in the library, his eyes were brilliant, and they were that color. That icy blue that used to give me chills.

Humpty Dumpty may be yours now, but it'll always be mine, and it's not always instinct that it acts on. Those gaping blackhole eyes and that slippery tongue and I just have to press the word kill to its head and it goes for the throat.

I almost didn't stop it that day. I could've ended him. The Nightray boy. I could've made the monster push that much deeper, and I could've pierced his heart. You'd be sad, yes you would've been sad, but that's all. A little heartbreak, because your first real friend would have left you just as everyone else had left you (and left me as well). Grief. Sorrow. Maybe even the slightest tint of despair,

but no.

Why stop the bleeding when you can make the wound deeper?

I wanted to fool you, and I did. You can save him, I whisper to you like a witch. Have him drink. And you're desperate, I see it shining from behind those ridiculous glasses of yours, they shimmer and shine and I know. I remember. I'm all cold and rotted on the inside, but I remember what it feels like to need.

(Because yes, dear, this is all your fault.)


Humpty Dumpty, his lips split and they're shimmering with the liquid, and I laughed.

I was careful to warn you too, little child. I'm vile, yes, but I'm not cruel. Not quite.

You didn't save him, and I think you were aware of this before I even told you such. His wounds weren't gone, just covered up. Messy and haphazard we pulled up a curtain to hide his death and destruction from everything, and you thought we did a decent job.

Selfish little boy, you are!

Though I suppose you take that from me.

When his brothers spoke your name, malicious intent on their tongues and spite in their voices, I couldn't be happier. They speak of your death like it's a condescending honor or a ceremony, to be killed as a Nightray (when you should be a Baskerville, always a Baskerville) and I feel his heart skip.

Even without myChain in his ear whispering evil things to him, I wouldn't be surprised if he killed them.

They bleed over the carpet all Nightray smiles and wickedness. The whole place goes up in flames and burning, burning, burning but it's not enough. You both need to hurt.

I need you to hurt.

But you hold him close and make him forget. Wiping the ashes from his face you allow yourself to cry a bit and tell him shh, elliot, i'm sorry but the headhunter…and he nods, because he loves you and believes you while he wipes his tears into your jacket.

He doesn't remember a thing, but his head aches because his skull is stuffed with lies. He sees them, in his dreams, because not even you could look after him that well. Orange flames lick at the back of his eyelids when he sleeps, and the screams litter his nightmares. He sees their faces, his dear brothers, and you have to watch him moan and groan as he twists in his sheets. Cringing, you know you did this, but you know you had too, and that makes it worse.

(I remember dooming my little love to such an existence. She forgave me for it, of course she did, but she also broke my heart.)

And, of course, it ends so wonderfully.

I knew he would fall apart like this, only to pull himself back together. The ends fray and tear and he's about to slip loose into a sea of nothingness before he realizes what he does and Vessalius helps hold him back. He wants to reach into your little Nightray, and tear him up until he's cut down to raw goodness. The Vessaliuses, they're fucking cursed. Doomed forever to bring out the best in people, and that tiny boy flashed his green eyes into those icy blues and a smile was all Nightray needed before he cracked himself open and let Humpty Dumpty eat him alive.

(And I could almost kill myself over the irony, if I weren't already dead. If this Oz, and yes you must say it like the name is made out of vile things, reaches his fingers out to you and smooths over your long dark hair and if he ever fucking tells you everything is going to be okay, you cut off both his hands. You need this pain. The Vessalius cannot help you, he'll never help you, he will only laugh that awful laugh and those haunting emerald eyes will shine so brightly they've almost turned blue, and he will make you smile and give you something light and happy and he will hold you close and just when you feel it—something warm and soft and forgiving—he will take his hand from its spot tangled in your hair and use it to stab you in the back.)

Noble, noble, noble. It's shameful, it really is.

He dies in a way that would've made her proud, and that consoles me more than anything else. They were both so bright and valiant yet went so far to hide it.

The sky is black and the walls are red and you can't breathe and today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen.

And I've never told anyone this, my heir, but she sacrificed herself for me. She cut her heart right out of her chest and offered it up to the Abyss. She looked into Hell itself with her baby blue eyes, and she never looked back.

That Nightray boy, with his eyes popped open and his chest spitting out blood and his blonde hairs curling around his skull like a disease, he looks so much like Lacie it sends chills down my spine.

And now you've broken. I feel your pain and your hurt and your emptiness, and that will never ever go away. So cut your hair and take my hand, little Leo, because we have to burn this world down.

Just like we've burned.