Never go back.
That's one of the rules. Never go back for anything other than unfinished business. And the business with Taylor? It's finished. She conquered, earned her womanhood and the right to be free of him, even if Leslie still can't be free of her.
He goes back.
Doug is in an insane asylum outside of New York so Taylor moves to be closer to him, to pursue a full time career in Journalism and now law. She works as a junior press liaison for the NYPD and holds seminars on 'The Modern Boogeyman' at universities and police departments across the country. Leslie sits in on one and watches her from the back left where her eyes rarely drift. He listens to her talk about places to avoid, the warped mindset of the killer who believes he is providing balance while marking a path of destruction to fuel his own megalomania, fantasizing of selfish grandeur. Someone raises their hand and asks if they should not seek these people out to provide them help, to try and understand them. Taylor's jaw clenches,
"Reach out a hand and they will use it to pull you down, smile and they will use their blade to make it permanent, show compassion? And he will slaughter each and every one of your friends. These killers are closer to machines than they are to being human."
He doesn't stick around to hear the student's response.
He also stays away for a while after that. Has dinner with Eugene and picks off teenagers from Glen Echo. Small town kids are good like that; no matter the stories and grisly aftermath, they still come crawling back to that abandoned house when the night is young and there's nothing better to do but get drunk and get brave.
One night Jamie scoops large portions of mashed potatoes and corn onto his plate and tells him he'll find another survivor girl soon, to keep hanging out around the college and hone his skills while he waits.
"'Can only find someone if you're really looking." Eugene grunts Leslie looks up from his plate, gripping his knife and fork in each hand
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, I think you know what it means."
"Now boys," Jamie cuts in, smoothing a napkin onto her lap, "I'll have none of that at my table. There's a time for business and a time for eatin', but you can't do both."
Eugene looks away from the younger man, patting his wife's hand, "It's alright sweetheart."
"We're heading up to Augustus in a few days," she says to Leslie after taking a bite of pot roast, "why don't you take a break, come with us?"
Leslie shakes his head, digging into his meal, "Nah, you two can go on ahead. I'll be fine here, look after the place for you."
Eugene glares as Jamie extends the offer once more than begins to tell him about the herbs she just planted out back and the pick ax she's throwing out that he can polish up and try out for size.
He does a flyby. He doesn't plan on doing it (which is dangerous in and of itself). Taylor's superior wasn't able to catch a flight in time and asked her to speak on his behalf. It's an outdoor assembly in late September and, with the harvest moon coming around, he won't have time to make these last minute trips up. Eugene and Jamie are gone for their trip and he ignores the reasons why it's a bad idea.
He wears a heavy brown jacket, nondescript jeans, and a beige knit cap with a small tuft of hair sticking out from the top. Taylor fidgets a little because she isn't familiar with the case she's speaking on, and standing off to the side like usual doesn't give him a good enough view of her constantly swaying face. So he brushes past people and finds a place in the center, staring at the pavement and waiting for a signifier phrase.
"-vows to never forget what happened that day."
He looks up and their eyes lock. Her hand shakes, her lips part, her eyes widen.
Leslie grins.
"No." she whispers
Then he's gone and she's running. Photographers snap photos like crazy as she yells indiscernibly into the wind. His name, the name of an officer, her legs pumping, shedding her business jacket and looking frantically from side to side, searching for him with a wild hunger in her eyes. He watches her, perched in the second highest branch of the tree she just passed under, his arms crossed. He hasn't seen her move like this since that night. His heart trills in his chest and he swallows hard, a grin still splitting his face.
"Taylor," a winded cop pants, pulling her beneath the tree opposite of the one Leslie is under, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I saw something, okay? I saw him."
"Him? Who the hell is-" the cop stops, groans, hands atop his head, "Oh god not this again."
"He's alive, Bryan."
"Look the coroner said-"
"Yeah well the coroner was a junkie okay? Which is why Leslie didn't bother to kill him because he knew he'd lie and say that the body was cremated and nobody would question him because they don't want to believe it."
"This is going to your head. It's been three years," she opened her mouth to protest, "three years. There hasn't been a peep from Glen Echo since then."
"What about all the missing person reports?"
"It's a small town, I'd go missing too if I lived in the middle of nowhere." He sighed, "Come on, you've got a very p. senior press liaison on the phone and I've got to handle a chief that's ten times worse."
He wrapped an arm around her and Taylor leaned into him, murmuring about how maybe he was right. Leslie made a noticeable rustle as he jumped to the next tree, imagined her jerking her head around, hesitating and turning away slowly.
~*~
He kills with purpose under the night of the full moon. A bunch of college kids hold a party in the orchard. He pre-gamed by filling the irrigation system with red dye and filled holes with corn syrup before patting over them with loose dry dirt.
When a frantic brunette rushes back to the party rambling about finding "Susan and Dean" dead against the fences, Leslie flicks the switch. The red water runs into the holes and becomes thick, mixing with the corn syrup and turning the field into blood drenched mud. The teenagers scream and the hunt begins.
Even Eugene grins and taps the neck of his beer against Leslie's, telling him he put the fear of God into those kids. The coroner is under investigation and police are crawling all over the place searching for answers. The sole survivor (a previously shy and skittish boy named Issac) assures them he dumped Leslie's body in the river and saw his neck break on the way down. His scythe was found on the rocks covered in blood and before they can do an in-depth investigation Leslie takes care of Issac. The cops deem it suicide and the town falls into a period of mourning for their lost youth.
"Thought you'd be wanting this."
"Ah, Jamie, you didn't have to!"
"Just a little congratulations."
Leslie takes a few practice swings with the scythe, finding the perfect grip on the sanded down wood. She shows him the little hook she crafted into it so he could instill a bit of near invisible string in case it ever got away from him.
She kisses the top of his forehead, "You're gonna be a legend hon, right up there with the greats."
He grins, shoving a hand into his pocket and waving the scythe as a goodbye. On his way to the truck he jumps up, kicking his feet together mid air and hearing the couple's laughter rise into the night air.
Taylor shows up the day after Halloween. He's working on his parkour, climbing up the side of the old house to reach the golden apples at the top of the tree when he sees a small blue Hybrid pull up.
"Confront your demons." she mutters and rolls her suitcase inside.
He knows he should go straight to 'Gene's. Let her have her catharsis and wait it out. It's too early for a repeat performance and not to mention you never go back.
But Leslie's already broken that rule.
She walks into the living room one night and he's there. He holds up his hands,
"No weapons, I just want to talk." She swings at him with a crowbar, "Jesus christ Taylor!" He yells, halting it between his hands and tossing it aside.
She glares and pulls a knife from her back pocket "What did you expect!" She yells back, gripping the handle of the knife and circling him, "You killed Todd, you murdered all those kids!"
"Well for the sake of accuracy Doug is still alive." She growls and strikes out at him. He dodges it easily with a roll of his eyes, "Are we really doing this?" He laughs, "I mean really?"
"I killed you once."
"Second time's the charm?"
She chucks the blade at his head and he catches it by the tip, twisting it between his fingers and into his palm as she backs up against the wall. He wraps a hand around her throat, laying the knife flat on the wall beside her head.
"Just like old times, huh?"
She wriggles in his grasp, eyes looking everywhere but his face, "I hate your filthy guts."
"We both know you don't mean that." She brings her knee up between his groin and is met with the hard plastic of the cup he'd put on. Tsking and shaking his head at her efforts he continues, " After all I was your first."
"Doug was my first!" she spits and Leslie rolls his eyes again
"Oh yeah him. Seeking the solace of another's flesh in the back of Doc Hollaron's SUV. How romantic."
"Were you watching?"
He snorts, "I didn't have to, that's how it goes. Not that it matters. He got your body and I got everything else."
"What?" her movements slow, but Leslie doesn't ease up an inch on the hold he has on her neck, leaning in close with his mouth inches from her ear
"Doug may have taken your virginity, but I made you a woman."
The kiss is like murder. Painful, quick and yet seeming to last forever. He lets her dig her nails into the back of his neck until it bleeds, slips inside without permission and steals the air from her lungs. She struggles and yet embraces the inevitable, her heart racing against his chest, her eyes open, looking for an out in his rapt gaze.
Exactly like murder.
"I love you." he whispers
She swallows, looking away, tears streaming over her cheeks, "I have a gun, strapped to my ankle."
"I know."
"I want to kill you."
"Understandable."
"Let go of me."
He takes a few steps back, watches her bend down and unholster the weapon, flick the safety off. The nozzle presses just beneath his chin, cold and gritty where the bullet proof vest can't help him. He doesn't move an inch. He waits. She grinds it tighter into his skin so he closes his eyes.
"I am so proud of you Tay," he whispers
The gunshot is loud, Taylor can still hear it ringing in her ears as she walks to the car.