Only Edward Weiss could take a punch to the face as a compliment. It hurts, obviously; there’s no getting around that fact, his jaw immediately protesting against the impact. He catches himself before he can fully stumble backwards, forced to readjust his footing, feeling momentarily off-balance - but, despite all of that, his knee-jerk reaction is to laugh. He's never claimed to be sane and this is, by far, the most alive he’s felt in months; he almost wants to ask to be punched again, to see if enough of them can drag him back to the land of the living from where he’s been feeling half-dead. He hadn’t been expecting it, which is part of what makes it so deliciously fun. He’d fully written Spencer off as too obedient, too frightened. What happened to being called sir?
He knows publicly sparring with Vitellis is a bad look, particularly with one who spends most of his life trying to distance himself from the family name, but they're still largely swallowed by the festivities around them. Besides, if anyone notices, Edward knows he can make them forget - and he's already made enough reckless decisions tonight that it almost seems rude to stop now.
“Was there a lot of blood? I bet there was.” A very efficient way to earn a second punch, perhaps, but he can't help himself. The devilry comes naturally; being nice, apart from the rare few people he tolerates, has always required so much effort. Smiling for the cameras, shaking hands, feeding reporters the same trite fucking lines about being a working-class kid who still can’t quite believe where he's ended up. If he’s honest, he’d rather be doing this than public engagements or holed up in his office any day; fighting, causing chaos, dragging people right to the brink of what they can tolerate - and then nudging them just a little further.
Technically, he does know what it's like to see a parent dead on the ground. Slightly different, admittedly, when you're the one responsible for putting them there, but it’s just semantics, really, isn't it? His gaze flickers briefly to the spit by his shoe, observing it with detached amusement. "I spat in your brother's face earlier.” It’s offered in an almost conversational tone, figuring it's relevant. "If you’re going to spit at me, Spencer, do it properly."
He'd intended to keep this particular card close to his chest, but watching Spencer spiral has made it infinitely too tempting. "I know who did it." The sing-song quality creeping into his voice makes it sound less like a confession and more like a playground taunt. "I know who killed them. Maybe it was me."
It wasn't, but why waste an opportunity to twist the knife?
"I mean, they're so forgettable, it's difficult to keep track sometimes - but I seem to know an awful lot about what happened for someone who wasn't there, don’t I?” A beat, cruel as ever. "So maybe I was. Maybe I'm the last face they ever saw. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”