Author's Note: I really wanted this to end differently. For one thing, I wanted it to be longer, but I think I've reached the extent of how long this will go on. I also wanted Narcissus to prove himself as more than simply a vain fool, but sometimes, you can't overcome the basic instinct. This is incredibly different from anything else I've ever written, but I'm satisfied. There might be a revision or a prequel/sequel in the making, but that depends on Narcissus, Lio, and the boy child who has no name. Thank you for reading. If you would be so kind, would you leave a nice, detailed review telling me what you liked, disliked, and what I could improve upon, so that the revisions will make the readers happier? Thanks.

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The sun had shone soft and bright over the garden that day, giving gold lights to the red of Narcissus' hair, and playing in a soft golden-silver over his pale skin. He knelt by Lio, colored like the sun and the day sky, both of them on the soft green grass. It was idyllic. It was too perfect. It had been too perfect for too long.

Somehow, they had created something like love between them, something dysfunctional that worked because they had both fought too much and left too many scars to do anything else any more.

It was too perfect.

Fingers shredded the flowers between his fingers, tore the petals off and dropped them in morbid tear drops, red like blood, onto the floor of the library. The rose petals created a path for the boy that he walked across. The obsessive love he had for Narcissus had become too much for a simple child to handle and he had found the way to fix it.

The gun. He had found it in one of the many rooms of the huge house. He carried it with him at all times as he waited for the perfect time and the perfect place, wanting Narcissus to know why he did it.

That day, that perfect spring day, he made his decision.

Padding softly across the carpet of grass, walking towards the pair that laughed softly, arguing over the board between them.

It was dreamy, idyllic, too perfect until the crack of a gunshot broke the laughter and a slow drip of blood trailed from Lio's pale forehead.

A scream, sharp and breaking, like a shattering mirror and the tormented face of Narcissus rose. His breath hitched as he looked back at Lio, almost unsure of whether it had really happened.

The boy's heart broke as he watched Narcissus leave Lio hunched over the checkers board. He seemed like a wraith, a pale ghost. "You," he whispered as he found the boy, "You have taken my only chance at immortal beauty."

They looked away from each other as Narcissus sank into the garden.

The boy sank into a chair in the library that night, staring out over the garden and the place that he had killed Lio.

"He's dead, you know," Lio's ghost said from behind him. "You killed him as surely as you did me."

"I know," the boy continued to stare at the place under the tree where it had picked up a new mass on the limb, with red hair and pale skin, tied with a simple rope.

He didn't hear Lio leave. He didn't hear Narcissus pause at the door on his way to the next step of his creation. He simply closed his eyes and took on his new responsibility.

Epilogue

Oftentimes, he would see the reincarnation of Narcissus or Lio. They would have the same laugh, the same curve of the smile. The same vanity, surrounded by admirers, or the same kindness as they knelt in front of a child. Sometimes, he entertained the thought of approaching them with the same deal he had been approached with. For a price, I can give you the truest love that you ever wished for. The most honest beauty. He wondered, at times, what Lio's request had been, whether he had made the same mistake.

It didn't matter anymore, because he would sometimes catch the eye of this recreated soul and something akin to primal terror would wash over them, only for a brief second because he would leave then.

C'est fini.