~Steele~ It’s time.

This is what it comes down to. This organization, this way of life. All of it comes down to us, Spence. Two of the originals. Pity Lori can’t be with us for this, it’d be a regular blast from the past.

She’s in a better place now, away from His and Your influence.

Now it’s just you and me.

And you know how long this has been in the making.

Spencer;
I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment you died. Was it Writer that did this? Maybe you were always like this, back when you put us in danger’s way with the Morningstar experiment. Maybe you’ve been this way since the days where you were poncing around the world slaying Proxies with your girlfriend, grinning at the loss of life. Maybe since you stole this House from August’s dad you’ve been slipping. I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t there.

Maybe when you caught me in your house after a deal gone wrong, bleeding like a motherfucker. Back then, when it was just you and Lori. You were ready to kill me, you called me a proxy, quite prepared to choose your life over mine…

No, now they’re your brothers, not us. You’ve said it…I hold out hope for this to be just a passing madness, for it to be like the last times, then we can function again. Perhaps that’s what we’ve all had far too much of lately. Hope. We hoped you wouldn’t get here, we hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

But you died a long time ago. We can’t keep ignoring that fact. Hope has been gone for a while.

Spencer Fitzgerald,

this is me coming to save you. Or let you rest easy, finally. Whatever you decide.

But I will not do you the disservice of not letting you know this was coming, as you have practically invited me in. I truly believe there’s still good in you. You wouldn't have asked for this otherwise.

I’ll try my best to do what is right. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, but…life is so chaotic, I couldn’t live with myself if I were to live any other way. Survival is one thing, but survival for survival’s sake is the act of a weakling, living in the past, doing what he needs to do rather than what he should do.

I lived that way for Stephan, to try and make my life worthy of his death. I weighed my life up against his in that split second, as the mask straps cut into the sides of my face, the red diamonds around my eyes glinting in the ambient hotel room light. His own eyes were the centre of a dark sun glinting on porcelain.

I had a choice that He gave me. One of us had to kill the other, or both of us would suffer far worse. And I know we both knew it. We looked at each other when it happened, when He spoke in our minds and our mouths opened and his eyes widened with the subtle haunted glaze of one with absolutely no hope left. I had to weigh my own life against his. I had to choose, his vibrant green eyes, or my blue-grey? Which would haunt the other for the rest of their life?

”Live for me.” he said. “It’s okay. Live for me,” as the blood seeped from his chest.

I always thought he meant ‘live long for me’, as if life were just specks in an hourglass.

But ‘live well for me’ lets me sleep better at night. Only by leading the life he would’ve wanted me to live, can I repay him.

For hesitating.

For ever since, I've always been in control. He has never been in my mind, He never controlled me…He just observed. My curse has never been Him being in control.

It’s been me in control ever since, having to deal with the consequences of that last night.

Never again. Two men enter, one man leaves. Because one has to die, once again. I can’t leave you and Writer out there, and you know it.

But we decide this honourably, so my conscience is clear.

I’m coming back to the House. I think we have something to discuss.