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Falling in love came easily. That in it of itself was surprising; Leo had never been one to love . Yet again, maybe he had just never gotten the chance.
It was a slow process–or was it there all along, hiding itself as it festered and bloomed? He couldn’t tell, because it felt natural .
It felt natural, it felt right, and yet he could never let word get out about it. He shivered to think about what would happen to him–what would happen to both of them–if people found out that not only had this no-good dirty peasant wormed his way into a spot at Elliot’s side, but had gone and fallen in love with him too. Indeed, the youngest son of the noble house of Nightray was destined to be paired with some nice noble girl and settle down and start a family, nevermind that he didn’t want a family or a wife for that matter. Leo would throw a wrench in those plans. He had the moment he started getting attached to Elliot enough to accept the offer to be his valet, but making that knowledge apparent would be a death sentence.
Everything would be okay though. Leo was always good at keeping secrets.
“This song will be my present to you.”
“I see… as proof of our eternal friendship? Enough with that cheesy stuff.”
He had debated it for a long time, made lists of pros and cons that never saw the light of day once he was finished with them, pondered it when he had time to himself. He decided, in the end, that maybe somebody would know. Maybe just one person.
He would like to say he bought the flower, or grew it himself, but he stole it from the school’s flower gardens. He rolled it in his hand, staring down the delicate red petals, second guessing himself. It wasn’t his favorite flower, wasn’t anything abstract or particularly gorgeous, but it served a purpose.
“Flower language?”
“Shut up! My sister’s into it, that’s all."
When he brought their breakfast that morning, he gently placed the single red tulip next to Elliot’s plate. He sat down across the room from him, staring intently at his own meal. They ate in silence. He snuck glances between his bangs and found that Elliot had picked up the flower and was holding it delicately, examining it with a careful eye.
He placed it on his bedside table before they left for their classes, and neither of them spoke of it.
Three days later, Leo came back from a trip to the library to find a bouquet of flowers sitting on his bed. He approached it carefully, as if it could be a bomb, a trap.
It was a bundle of ambrosia flowers, displayed with precision and wrapped with care in delicate black paper, held together by a gorgeous, rich purple bow. No note was needed to display the meaning, and Leo nearly trembled with awe and pure, unfiltered joy and love as he picked up the bouquet. He held it carefully, let his fingers dance over the soft petals in his grasp. They formed a gorgeous sunset of colors, each petal a rich plum that faded into a brilliant orange in the center, stretching outwards with apparent grace, crinkled on the edges at the top. He held the flowers, and his smile hurt with how wide it was. Hot tears were bubbling in his eyes. They clouding his vision before long and smeared his glasses, running uncontrolled.
“They remind me of your eyes.”
Leo startled. He had been sure he was alone in the room. In his shock, however, he must have not noticed the door opening, because Elliot was here, standing before him, his hands casually tucked into his pockets, but in his eyes there was kindness. In his eyes there was love.
Leo opened his mouth, but he could not find the words to display how ecstatic he was, so he just smiled at him. In a moment of courage, he held his arms out in invitation. Elliot approached him slowly. He took the bouquet from the hand that still held it and placed it gently on top of the dresser, and leaned forward to engulf Leo in a hug.
Leo lurched back and, with a squawk of surprise from Elliot, sent them both crashing onto the neatly made bed, and he laughed, unbridled. The two of them flipped around until they were side by side, facing each other, laughing like young newlyweds until they were breathless. Leo reached forward and grabbed onto the back of Elliot’s jacket, pulling him close, and in turn sturdy arms wrapped around him and squeezed him tight. No words were spoken, but a million things were said.
Time slipped away from them as they laid there and held each other, losing themselves in the sensation of the other in their arms, the emotions bubbling over inside them, and the love that enveloped the room.
Elliot never liked keeping quiet about things. He wasn’t much of a secret keeper; he did what he wanted and he didn’t care who found out or what they thought. It had gotten him in too many fights with his family before.
This time, though, he understood the importance of secretism. If anyone became suspicious of their relationship, if word got out… the results wouldn’t be something Elliot could bull-head his way through. At best, Elliot would be disowned and they would be free to run off together or Leo would be forced to leave and Elliot would run away to follow him. At worst, Leo would be executed, although publicly he would be in a “tragic accident” or contract a “mysterious illness” that would take his life, and Elliot would be rushed into an arranged marriage before he could do anything to retaliate and “sour the Nightray name”. It was very likely both would happen.
They tried not to think about it. Publicly, they were best friends, scandalously enough, and notoriously inseparable. Nothing more, nothing less. They shared nothing more than lingering touches and meaningful looks.
When they got back to their room, however, they were allowed to just be them , and it was swiftly becoming Leo’s favorite part of the day.
They kept their more suspicious interactions to their dorms, for a while, when the doors were locked and the curtains were drawn. Quiet embraces, interrupted only by murmurings about their day and thoughts, stolen kisses in the dim lighting cast by the crack in the curtain, not big enough for anyone looking in to see them. They were hidden away from the world, and it made it all the more special, but it was a bittersweet feeling.
They got the courage to be bolder, eventually. They’d sneak away into the woods beyond the school’s lengthy yards and read curled around each other under one of the thick trees, or walk through the flower gardens with their hands intertwined when nobody was around. They were usually alone in the music room, and they’d press featherlight kisses to each other’s cheeks, or behind their ears. Being so bold about it was terrifying, but it was also exhilarating .
Flowers turned into a trademark between them. What they couldn’t find in the school gardens, they bought from a florist when they went to town. A collection of gorgeous blue morning glories and bright red chrysanthemums was ever-growing in a vase in their room; the flowers being replaced just as quickly as they wilted. They were well cared for, cut and trimmed nicely, the water replaced and sugar replenished often, the dying petals picked off carefully so the flower could remain until it truly died and was replaced by one just like it.
Leo found gardenias slipped into his hand sometimes as they walked through the halls; he had no clue where Elliot was getting them, although he suspected that he bought them in town and hid them away to give one at a time.
He got anxious, sometimes, thinking about what would happen if someone saw them, worrying himself sick over the thought of students catching them or becoming suspicious, but then Elliot was there, wiping the tears from his face, embracing him with such care, such love that Leo was tearing up all over again. He would hold him, whispering soft assurances until his anxieties were washed away. They would be okay. They were careful, they never let their guard down. They would be fine.
Despite Elliot’s nobility, the two of them considered their life quite simple. Peaceful. They had their music, their library, their garden, and each other, and that’s all they could ever ask for.
Leo felt guilty, sometimes, that Elliot never knew what he did to keep him safe, to keep him alive , back in Sablier, but he would never take it back. If this is what that decision had given him, the opportunity to continue living beside Elliot, to continue loving him, he would never wish to take it back. Not for anything.
If he could have anything, all he would want would be for these moments, this love, to last forever.
Elliot was set to marry a young noble girl, once he came of age.
They had always known this would be his fate, but knowing it would one day happen and watching as plans were made were entirely different things.
They had gone to meet her today. She was nice, and seemed to like Elliot well enough. She wasn’t head over heels for him like some of the girls at Lutwidge, thank god, but she was kind and sweet.
She’d be good for him, Leo thought bitterly.
They had all been dismissed to the gardens as their parents discussed the arrangement. She had made polite conversation with the both of them, but had ultimately left, trailed after by her own servants, to spend her time elsewhere.
They walked through the garden in silence. Leo kept his hands clasped behind his back; he was afraid that if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from blowing their cover. He had to keep his distance. He couldn’t make this any harder than it already was for them.
If he could make a deal with someone who could stop this from happening, he would do it in a heartbeat. If he could freeze their lives as they were, if someone had that power, he would give anything for it. Because as much as he loathed to think about it, as much as Elliot assured him otherwise, he was losing him. He would always be by his side, he would always be his valet, but there was no way their relationship could continue as it was once he was married, living in his own house with his own wife. No matter how much he tried to fight off getting married, no matter how much he insisted that he had four legitimate older siblings, there was no reason for him to be forced to take a wife, it was useless. It was inevitable.
There would be no more early weekends waking up in each others’ arms. No more soft good-morning and good-night kisses. No more days spent wrapped around each other. No more hesitant, laugh ridden make-outs. No more trips through the flower gardens alone, squeezing each others’ hands and smiling as if they were pulling off the world’s greatest heist. Perhaps they would have a vase of morning glories and red chrysanthemums, but they would be meant for his sweet wife-to-be, because they wouldn’t be able to get away with having flowers from each other. Perhaps he would still slip gardenias into Leo’s hands and pockets, a fleeting reminder of what they were, what they had, but that would be it. Over time, would he get over it? Would he forget all that they had? Would he stop appreciating it, stop wishing for it? Would he learn to love his new wife, even if only as a close friend? They had only had each other for so long, Leo didn’t know if he could handle seeing Elliot smile at her, laugh with her. He didn’t know if he could handle watching the two of them without becoming sick. He shouldn’t be jealous, he shouldn’t, she was such a nice girl, deserving of a husband who loved her, who would cherish her truly. He shouldn’t wish he could be in her place, arranged in a marriage with a man who did not love her, but he did, more than anything.
He wasn’t sure when he had started crying. He wasn’t sure when his hands had dropped from their spot behind his back. They were in Elliot’s own hands now, and something soft and cool was being placed in them with gentle care.
It was a bundle of heliotrope, snapped off at the thicker stem that brought the clusters together. Leo clutched the flowers shakily between his fingers. Elliot’s hands wrapped around his closed fist, thumbs brushing gently over his skin.
“Leo,” he called softly. He waited for Leo to look up at him before he continued quietly, in the tone he only had when they were alone. “This won’t change. We won’t change. I don’t care what I have to do to make sure of it, but I am not letting anything change us. We can take trips, just the two of us, or I can convince her to travel, as often as I can. I’ll find time away from her; the home will be big enough to slip away, I’m sure. I’ll build you a garden. I don’t care who it belongs to or who it seems to be for on the outside, because it will be your garden. It will be meant for you, for us. I won’t let anything come between us, and I don’t care who I have to fight or what I have to do to make sure of it.” He brought his hands up to cradle Leo’s face.
“Be careful,” Leo whispered, sharper than intended. “What if someone sees us?”
Elliot paused and looked around carefully, and then tugged them down to sit with their legs folded under them on the grassy pathway, well below the top of the thick bushes. His hands returned to Leo’s face, and his thumbs continued rubbing slowly over his cheeks.
“I love you,” he continued with a quiet passion. “I always will, and nothing in this whole world can change that. My parents can try to get me to settle down and be the model son, but I have never let them before, and I’m sure as hell not going to start now. We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
Leo turned the heliotrope cluster over in his hand again. Eternal love, devotion .
He held up the flowers and smiled. “So, is this some weird way of asking to marry me?”
Elliot stopped, stock-still, and glanced slowly between the flowers and Leo’s grin.
He shoved him to the side, making him tumble over onto the grass.
“I’m trying to be sweet, you dumbass!”
Leo laughed as he rolled to face Elliot, carefully holding his hand out of the way to keep the flowers from getting crushed or damaged.
“That wasn’t a no, though,” he teased. Elliot flushed bright red and huffed, but didn’t say anything, looking anywhere but at Leo.
He laughed again, bright and carefree, and when Elliot glanced over at him, carefully, as if he thought he wouldn’t notice, there was still love in his eyes.
They moved their morning glories and chrysanthemums to a planter. They got new ones properly, root and all, and put them in a little pot beside their window.
They grew something new, something stronger. Something permanent.
Isla Yura’s gardens were… interesting. There were flowers of all sorts, in a shocking array of vibrant colors and patterns, a true match to their extravagant owner.
Leo picked a rhododendron off it’s stem and rolled it between his fingers. He picked the petals off a begonia. He mulled over his thoughts about the party.
He hoped tonight would turn out fine. Elliot had been so worried lately, so bothered by his increasingly incessant nightmares. Between his poor sleep and their increasingly severe arguments at his apparent memory loss, things had been tense. He deserved a break. He deserved one good night.
Leo’s return to Lutwidge felt like it had taken a century. His feet walked through the ghost of his former life. As he strolled through the halls and gardens, he swore he felt whisps of people dance around him. The faint laughter of two carefree lovers ambling through the gardens, giddy over each other, curled up under one of the trees, yelling at each other with good-natured taunts on their way through the halls. Their music drifted through the music room. Leo was the only one who heard it.
He approached their dorm last. He asked Vincent to stay behind. He didn’t want anybody to see him like this.
Crossing the threshold into their room felt like it would tear him apart. All of the wounds he suffered couldn’t hold a candle to the pain he was in as he laid eyes upon their room for the first time since they left for the party. All of his hurt was brought back to the surface, fresh as it was when he curled up on that cold stone floor, warmed over by fresh, slick, wine-red blood. All of his pain was renewed. He was suffocated by waves of anguish, regret, and yearning as he looked into a snapshot of his former life.
Nobody told him nostalgia could hurt so much.
He didn’t want to touch anything. He didn’t want to move anything. This room should stay like this forever, frozen in time to the last time things were alright.
It couldn’t be, though. It never could. He was to gather his belongings–their belongings, because nobody was left to collect Elliot’s. Anything left behind would be disposed of. They would be cleaning the room out to prepare for new students. Two spots were open at Lutwidge now, and they would fill up fast.
He eyed the windowsill. Their flowers were still there, in their pristine little clay pot. He approached slowly, as if any misstep would destroy the room, destroy the memory.
Their flowers were wilted.
Their flowers were dead.
The gorgeous blues had faded to deep purples, curled up and near-crumbling. The vibrant reds had dulled to sickly browns, the same shade as dried blood.
Dried blood, on his skin, in his hair, on the stone, no doubt. His coat sleeves were stiff with it, his bangs dried in clumps, and when he finally showered it washed down over his face, over his eyes, over his mouth, clogging his nose with that thick metallic scent. He scrubbed to get it off his skin, his face and his hands. He scrubbed and scrubbed as his skin turned red and he kept scrubbing even after the flakes of sickening red-brown were gone, and he cried and sobbed and screamed. He shouldn’t cry, he didn’t have time, he had a job to do now, he was a leader -
He was sixteen. They were sixteen.
He reached out and picked up the pot of flowers, their flowers, the flowers they had potted and watered and watched with the thoughts of a future where they had a huge, sprawling garden, where they could plant every flower they so pleased. The flowers they poured their love into, the flowers they used to symbolize them , now wilted and dried, husks of their former glory.
They were all husks of their former glory, now.
He held that pot like a dying man, and he let himself sink to his knees and sob into those flowers, as if crying onto them would nourish them, would bring them back to life.
He wasn’t sure how long he was there. He lost himself, screaming and crying and falling apart at the seams in the room that held some of the most precious memories of his life. He curled up over the pot, on that cold wood floor, and he let himself disappear into his grief.
He was not interrupted, not as his voice grew hoarse, not as he retched and dry-heaved from his wailing, not as he shook with the weight of his anguish.
It slowed to a stop, eventually. He wasn’t any less weighted, didn’t yearn any less for the past he wanted to live in for eternity; he simply could not cry any more. His voice would not produce a scream or a sob, his eyes could not shed any more tears.
He sat there, numbly staring at the bedsheets that hung down, neatly made, just like they were when the two of them left. He looked around the room, slowly, and took in every detail. The books piling on his never-used bed, the sheet music and textbooks strewn over the desk, the dried and pressed ambrosia hung in a simple black frame on the wall.
Vincent was waiting for him by the door when he emerged. He didn’t bring much with him. A bag of books, both his favorites and Elliot’s. The pressed ambrosia, in it’s frame. The sheet music, placed neatly in its proper folders. Knick-knacks he couldn’t stand leaving behind.
One pathetic little pot of dead flowers held firmly (desperately) in his grip, he walked down the hall and didn’t look back. He couldn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to leave.
He wore a crimson rose, pinned to his heart. It was confusing, at first, but Gilbert found an old book of flower language placed in the library when the Baskerville estate was restored and returned to them.
The Baskervilles watched him. They watched him plant morning glories and red chrysanthemums in the garden himself, beside the workers. They watched him stare longingly after the grand piano in the study, but never play it, brush over the keys, but never sit down at the bench, even though he had plenty of sheet music stored away in one of the shelves. They watched him run his hand over the Nightray sword, which he kept with him even after its purpose was defeated. They watched him put a hand over his chest and rub the rose between his fingers, gently, carefully, as so not to tear the fragile petals.
They pretended not to watch him cry, sometimes, when he thought he was alone.
Elliot had two graves.
Publicly, his grave was on the Nightray plot alongside his family.
He had another, however, hidden away from public eye. Hidden away from everyone. It was a simple stone headstone, so different from the extravagant marble and silver piece at his family plot. At a glance, it was a simple grave in a well cared for clearing hidden away in the forest surrounding the restored Baskerville estate. It was carved and inked by hand with his name, date of birth, and date of death.
Someone else had placed it there, while Leo was attending to his duties as the new Glen. He suspected it was Vincent, but he had no definitive proof. He was told of its existence and location, but he hadn’t gotten the chance to go see it.
Part of him didn’t want to. He wouldn’t know what to do, what to say. He didn’t want to be faced with the results of his actions yet again.
And yet here he was, in this little tucked away clearing, accompanied only by the cold headstone. He was expecting it to be bare, but it was overgrown with short, stocky, weedy flowers from the surrounding forest. He dropped to his knees before the headstone and plucked one of the flowers, examining the bright orange petals and thick, furry leaves and stem.
Butterfly weed. Let me go .
His breath grew short as he clutched the flower tightly between his hands. He crushed the stem, but he didn’t care. He watched the sea of fiery orange that surrounded the grave, watched as it warped and contorted with the hot tears brewing in his eyes.
He ripped up every one of the weeds, down to the root so they wouldn’t grow back, and threw them aside, back into the forest. Shakily, with bitter fervor, he reached over to the basket he brought with him and took out a tiny shovel. He worked on autopilot, seemingly, not thinking as he planted the flowers he brought. He was once again overcome with the burning, suffocating grief that had come to be familiar to him. His hands shook, his tears clouded his vision, and his breath was escaping him, short and sharp, making him dizzy and panicky, but he didn’t stop, didn’t care. He planted flowers around the grave until the basket was empty and he was trembling to his core.
He sat, soil soaked among the new flowerbed, and examined his work, trying to catch his breath. It was a pleasant blend of pinks and purples. It made the cold gray of the headstone less harsh, he thought.
The carnations had been placed first, in a desperate attempt to ward off the weeds. I’ll never forget you .
The hyacinths offset the delicate pink nicely with their rich, royal purple. He’d always been fascinated by the story of the hyacinth. The sun god killed his love by accident, overcome by his need to be with him in a fit of jealousy. He struck him because he was reckless, not thinking of the consequences of his desperate attempt to keep his love with him.
Please forgive me. Purple Hyacinth.
Surrounding the sea of petals was one last flower, showered around the edges and along the top, under the death date. It could easily be confused for poorly-growing hyacinth, the same rich purple, but more stem than flower.
Statice. I miss you .
With a final shaking breath, he placed down the cut flowers he brought to lay at the grave. One bright red chrysanthemum. One brilliant blue morning glory. I love you.
His grief and panic induced adrenaline rush flooded out of him as he placed the cut flowers. His energy left with it, and he was left quivering in front of the headstone numbly. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He never needed to. No words were spoken, but a million things were said.
I miss you. I love you. Please forgive me.
I’m sorry, too.
He stumbled back to the Baskerville estate well after the sun had set, covered in dust and soil, face void of expression.
Gilbert and Lottie pretended not to see him. They should help, but they knew it was for the better if he was left alone tonight. They stared out the window at the moonlit gardens, the dozens of types of flowers that made up the beautiful arrangements, all some form of love or loss.
Together, silently, they mourned the love and life that could have been.