There are poppies pressed between the pages of the book he's reading, along with a tiny sketch of the slope of familiar shoulders, the wild strands of white-gold hair, eyes he knows by heart (they haunt his dreams, accusing, it's your fault!).
Leo burns the flowers, but he tucks the sketch away in his breast pocket, so the pain will always remind him.
That night, he carves flowers into Vincent's skin, until his flesh is painted poppy-red. The devil between his thighs urges him on with the curve of his whispering, sinful mouth, the gleam of that crimson eye between strands of hair that are nothing like his. His hands are blood-slicked, smearing copper wings up Leo's tiny back as they move together, slender thighs spread wide across Vincent's lap, riding until the pain and pleasure of it erase anything but those blue eyes in his mind's eye.
Perhaps this was his goal all along, after all. They both seem to crave the punishment, and Leo knows how to give it to both of them.
'Elliot--!'