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The words fill the air as the man finishes, hanging like a heavy weight. They press down on Evander’s shoulders, and his heart is beating hard in his, too hard. He can hardly breathe as his fingers curl into tight fists on the tops of his thighs, his nails digging into the skin of his palms like little teeth. He can feel a bit of blood trailing down the inside of one; dripping to the bottom of his hand and staining his dark pants.
The estate. The garden. Hazelthorn.
It all belongs to Laurie Lennox-Hall.
That fact wraps around Evander’s neck like a noose made of vines, its thorns slicing into his skin and digging in deep deeper deeper deeper. He can't breathe, and his world starts to pan sideways, spinning in circles he can't get a grasp on.
The boy that hates him- the boy who tried to kill him- owns the only place Evander has ever called home. He’s going to kick Evander out- no, he's going to keep him here and kill him the moment they're alone.
His eyes snap over to Laurie, and he can see the shock on the boy's face. But then understanding lights blue eyes, and his lips twitch until his face splits into a wicked grin. Laurie’s eyes dart back to meet Evander’s, and there's a hunger in them that Evander had never seen in them before. A hunger that's all consuming- a hunger that's suffocating.
If Evander was a rabbit, Laurie would be the feral wolf ripping into his meat so hungrily he'd be torn to pieces in mere seconds.
“Hazelthorn,” Laurie almost seems to whisper. As if he can't believe the will- as if he can't believe he'd inherited everything. His grin only widens as his eyes flicker over Evander’s face, and the look of hungered excitement has Evander sitting on edge. His muscles are tensing, his teeth grinding together as his heart beats at his rib cage like a jack rabbit pounding at his ribcage. “Is mine, is it?”
“It is how the will dictates, yes,” the man says. He stacks the papers together, and Evander thinks he's finished, but there's a grave look on his face. He glances at Evander, that grave expression only deepening. “However, there is one more thing that the will says, Mister Lennox-Hall. It is about the…. ward Evander.”
That causes Laurie to pause. He blinks, his grin loosening only a bit. It seems that for now, the utter ecstasy of owning everything in the only home Evander can remember is nearly all consuming. Evander’s own gaze returns to the man, wondering what Byron could have said about him in his will. What- had Byron left him something? A scrap? A bone? Anything?
“...What does it say?”
The man shifts in his seat, continuously glancing in Evander’s direction. Those constant looks make Evander want to melt into his seat, to disappear into the shadows. Why had Laurie said he should be here for this reading if this man clearly doesn't want to read it around him? Or is it because the man simply believes whatever the will says will send him into a spiral? An episode?
He hasn't had an episode in so long. He’ll be fine. He… should be fine.
Laurie must not appreciate the man’s hesitance, either, because he says, “Well?”
“I think that it- Evander should step outside for this part,” the man says in a voice Evander is all too familiar with. The delicate tone that Byron would take on when discussing his health with Carrington, the carefully picked out words to not send Evander into a fit or upset his fragile mind.
He hates this. He hates how fragile he is. How people have to treat him with soft hands and bubble wrapping because he's made up of weak, thorn covered branches that will break under the lightest of pressures. He bites down on his lower lip, chewing on it rough. He shouldn't. Byron wouldn't like it if he was. Chewing on his lip is rather improper, and Evander is anything but improper.
When he looks back towards Laurie, he's surprised to find vehement rage on the other boy’s face. Blue eyes have narrowed to slits, his jaw clenched tight, lips pulled down in a vicious frown. He's acting as if he didn't like what the man said.
“He stays,” Laurie says, but it's almost a snarl. Almost the snapping of a wolf’s jaws around the throat of its prey. Evander imagines what it would feel like for Laurie to bite down into his throat, to feel his skin and flesh tear beneath his teeth, to feel his hot blood gushing down the sides of his neck.
Or what it would feel like for Evander to bite into Laurie’s throat. His mouth starts to water at the thought, and he’s almost hungry. He swallows hard, eyes flicking back towards the man who suddenly appears very nervous.
“It concerns his health,” the man says sharply. He says it like Byron would when trying to keep Evander’s next surgery a secret. A knowing look passes between the man and Laurie, but Laurie doesn't back down. Evander is surprised by how stubbornly Laurie is fighting to keep him in the room for this. If he hadn't tried to kill him, Evander would almost think he liked him. “He's not supposed to be in the room when discussing it-”
“I am the new lord of Hazelthorn,” Laurie says. Oh, wow. He stepped into that new role quickly. His eyes are sharp, like thin blue knives in his face. He's pissed off at this guy now. “Which means you work for me, and which also means Evander’s health responsibilities are in my hands.” That thought terrifies Evander. Laurie, in charge of his health, after trying to bury him seven years ago? But he doesn't get to stay on that thought long, because the other boy continues, “Which means he's staying in here.”
The man’s jaw clenches, and he engages in a stare down with Laurie. Neither of them seem ready to back down. “His health falls into the hands of Oleander Hazelthorn, as does yours-”
“She will not be coming near him,” Laurie snaps, shutting down that point of topic down in a split second. He does so mercilessly, once more resembling a rabid wolf. He looks about ready to launch over the desk and strangle the man if he continues to say stupid things that Laurie doesn't like. “Nor will she be allowed to set foot on this property.”
“That's not your decision to make-”
“I own Hazelthorn, don't I?” Laurie cuts him off again, fired up. He started standing at one point, and Evander watches him through wide eyes. He hasn't seen Laurie this animated in a long, long time. To be fair, he's only seen Laurie through a messy window only a handful of times, but it was enough to know that he's never seen Laurie be this angry. Sassy, yes. But not angry. Not livid. Laurie glances at Evander, as if to see if he's still there, and then fixes another glare on the lawyer. When the man doesn't say anything for a moment, Laurie speaks again, “Don't I?”
There's a moment of silence, in which the man sifts through the papers. Finally, he lets out a heavy sigh. “The late Lord Byron left in the will that if Evander were still alive, he wanted you to kill him.”
Once more, silence falls over the room.
And Evander can’t breathe.
He's suddenly a little boy again, half buried in the dirt, the looming figure of an adult man towering over him. He's a little boy again, half buried in the dirt, and that man plunged a shovel through his middle as a little boy screamed, over and over and over and over and over-
His eyes dart around the room, land on Laurie, and he doesn’t see shock, repulsion or surprise on his face. Instead, he finds quiet acceptance.
Byron had once stopped Laurie from killing him, only to now tell Laurie to kill him? Except, had it really been Laurie that tried to kill him?
His head is spinning, and both the man and Laurie aren't looking at him. He feels himself moving before he registers it, and he falls off the side of his chair. He hits the ground on his side, causing a loud thump to ring out in the otherwise silent room, and he scrambles to his hands and knees. He crawls fast across the ground, and he thinks he hears the man say something, followed by Laurie shouting, but he doesn't know and he needs out of there now.
At some point, he gets to his feet, and he runs. He can hardly manage to run, hardly manage to think or breathe. He hasn't run in years, not since before the accident. Not since before he'd been locked in his room and kept confined like a prized bird.
Or a forgotten plant left to rot.
Byron wanted Evander dead.
He wanted Evander dead.
He’s suddenly outside. The fresh air hits his face like a wall, and the plants that curl around the rocky path reach for him. The branches and vines brush against his skin, gentle and wanting. He ignores them, ignores the way stray thorns and sharp rocks dig into the pads of his bare feet. He hardly feels the way sharp branches cut into his skin as he stumbles through the garden, unseeing of where he's going.
The plants around him seem to be moving, shifting, swaying. They seem to be trying to guide him- as if plants could do that. Whispers fill his ears, and a strange thumping pulses in his chest.
His feet are bleeding by the time he finds an old greenhouse. He yanks the door open on its rusty hinges, wincing at its squeaky scream. He steps into the enclosed space made of glass and filled with dead and dying plants. The smell of rot and decay assaults his nose, but he breathes it in deeply, trying to forget what the man had said.
“He wanted you to kill him.”
A small, choked noise escapes him. The sound of it should mortify him, should send him spiraling for a completely different reason than this revelation, because he sounds ridiculous. He's a gentleman. Byron had always raised him to be a gentleman-
To be slaughtered.
Another choked cry.
He drops to his knees near the back of the greenhouse, surrounded by dying plants and pots of soil. He closes his eyes tightly, wrapping his arms around his legs as he pulls his knees close.
His heart thunders in his chest along with that strange pulsing that shouldn't belong, yet feels so right for it to exist within his sternum. Forehead pressed to his knees, Evander feels like a pathetic thing as he curls in on himself. But then again, he always has been a pathetic thing.
A pathetic thing that was never meant to live.
Because Byron wanted him dead.
All those years, all those games of chess, all of those books and lessons. He wasn't preparing Evander to live out in the real world. He wasn't preparing him for college.
He was planning to kill him.
But why? He'd saved Evander from Laurie, hadn't he?
Or was that a lie told by Byron to keep Evander caged?
Laurie hadn't tried to kill him, had he? Why can't he remember?
His lips tremble as he stays there, tucked away in a far back corner of the greenhouse. Vines touch him, caress him. They stroke his skin and shoulders, and if he strained his ears, he'd be able to hear whispering. But whispering from what? He doesn't know. He doesn't care. He’s not supposed to be living right now.
“Evander.”
Breath catching, Evander presses further back into his corner. He wants to disappear, to be swallowed up by the ground. Maybe Laurie had had the right idea all those years ago to bury Evander. Maybe Evander truly did belong in the dirt. Maybe it's where he deserved to be- choking on dirt and suffocating slowly within the embrace of the ground.
“Evander…”
It's Laurie’s voice. It’s nearby. Too close. Is he coming to kill Evander now? To fulfill Byron’s final wish?
Oh, god.
Evander screws his eyes shut tight, biting down on his lip with too-sharp teeth. Blood pools on top of his tongue, and he swallows it down hard. The coppery taste of blood is so welcome right now.
He almost wants to taste Laurie’s blood. The thought of it makes his mouth water all over again. Maybe he should kill Laurie before Laurie can kill him.
But then where would he be? All alone in the massive Hazelthorn estate, slowly rotting and withering away with no other soul. He's always been alone in his room, sure, but he always knew that Carrington or Byron would appear. Without either of them, and without Laurie, what would he do? He doesn't know how to take care of himself…
Yet Laurie is here to kill him, so maybe he has no choice.
His head throbs. He doesn't know what to do.
“I'm not here to kill you, you know,” Laurie says. His voice is so much closer now. He's standing in the doorway, Evander can tell. His voice fills the enclosed air as if it belongs there, and Evander longs to see Laurie’s face. He longs to stare into those blue eyes and get lost in them. He longs for Laurie to wrap his fingers around Evander’s throat and squeeze-
Evander doesn't say anything. He just bites down harder on his lip. More blood gushes into his mouth, and he swallows all of it. He wants Laurie’s blood instead so badly.
“I'm not like my grandfather,” Laurie continues. His shoe scrapes against the concrete ground of the greenhouse. He's invading the space Evander had made into his own for just a few minutes. Evander feels his skin covered in goosebumps, and he wants to bite Laurie’s skin. He can't stop thinking of it as hunger fills him completely. “And I'm not like Carrington. I'm not going to kill you.”
“You- you tried to before.” Evander is surprised to hear his own voice, and he's even more surprised to hear it come out so steadily. He'd be proud of himself if he wasn't ready to claw himself into tiny shreds. “Why wouldn't you try again?”
Laurie falls silent. He stops walking further into Evander’s space. Evander peeks his eyes open, lifts his forehead from his knees. He spots the other boy from his hiding spot, and he looks like an angel. The light makes his golden hair shine like a halo, his eyes as bright as the sky. He stands tall amongst the rotting plants, looking around them for the sight of Evander. Evander pushes further backwards.
“I never meant to kill you,” Laurie says. He suddenly sounds far too soft to be Laurie. His voice dropped to something intimate. Something meant for a lover- not for the boy he tried to kill, and certainly not for the boy he hates. It doesn't sound like Laurie; he sounds like someone else completely. Where did his irritating sass go? “I just wanted to play.”
“So you tried to bury me alive?” Evander says, choking on the second half of that sentence. His eyes sting, still able to remember the taste of dirt on his tongue, the crunch of sediment between his teeth; the feel of a shovel plunging through his stomach. But at this point, he doesn't think the shovel came from Laurie.
“Let's not focus on the semantics,” Laurie says, and there's a bit of that familiar heat in his voice. He chuckles softly, and Evander wants to shove his fingertips into those pretty blue eyes. “You don't remember what was happening.”
“I remember enough to know you tried to kill me!” Evander near shouts in return. He hears Laurie sigh, as if this discussion of his attempted murder is boring him.
“There's a lot you don't understand,” Laurie says. He's standing directly in front of Evander’s hiding spot now, but he's not looking at it. Instead, he's touching the only living plant in the greenhouse: a tomato plant. There are small tomatoes hanging from its branches, and he touches one now, dragging a finger down its smooth, red side. “And I know it's driving you crazy.”
There's a pause, as if Laurie is choosing his next words carefully.
“I'm not like my grandfather,” Laurie says, his voice quiet once more. “I'll…” as Evander watches him, he can see how hard the other boy swallows; his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. His face has paled just a little, but he clears his throat again, “I'll tell you everything. I'll help you remember everything. So please.” Now, at this point, he looks at where Evander is curled up. Evander flinches, but can't look away from the pretty boy. The pretty boy doesn't look away from him, either. “Come out. I know you want to know everything.”
And Evander does. He wants to remember everything so badly it has eaten at him every night since the accident. All of his memories from before it are hazy, jumbled messes, if he can remember any at all. He can't even remember the faces of his parents, or running around the halls of Hazelthorn with Laurie. He knows he did, he just can't remember it.
And it's driving him insane.
So, despite his better judgement, despite everything telling him not to move, Evander does move.
And he steps out towards his attempted killer, reaching for answers.