I finally wrote Waltermis, but I kept it offbeat. Maybe I have a sickness for Klarion the Witch Boy…and necromancy…
Disclaimer: I really do not own Young Justice...that's just meant for your safety.
Warnings: Wally/Artemis. Implied one-sided Wally/Dick and Klarion/Artemis. Necromancy. Implied murder of Linda (but who will object to that?). Corse language.
"She's almost ready," the witch boy hovered over his project, licking his lips, which were formed into a cocky grin. He no longer wore pilgrim attire: a fine, slightly too tight midnight black suit hugged his body that still was as boyish as when the Young Justice team had fought him five years ago.
"What else do you need?" Klarion's employer hovered in the shadows of the candlelit chamber, avoiding looking directly at his former enemy. His breath accelerated, almost heaving as he tried remaining calm.
"Ugh. Now, now, NOW! Work already!" Klarion kicked the sewn-together corpse, hoping for that extra spark to vibrate through it and bring it back to life. His client stood back, eagerly awaiting for the corpse's reanimation; it had been three long and unfulfilling predictable years without his spitfire.
Even though basic glamours had not yet been spelled over the corpse's skin, she still looked beautiful despite her rotting skin and exposed bones that jutted in places.
"How does it fell to be alive?" Klarion stood back as the body, still resting in the transfigured chair he had strapped into, blinked.
"Feels good," a crackling, haggard voice seemed to shatter through her rotting lips. The voice was a crude impression of a feminine voice, yet still maintained some similarities to what she had sounded like before she had died.
Klarion studied her mouth, touching it with his clawed fingers. "Looks good. Sounds good," he turned back towards the man behind him, "So can I get the helmet? I've been such a good little boy."
"Not until I know everything is fine." Wally stepped closer towards Artemis' body, marveling in the blinking of her eyes. She no longer had eyelashes, but had marble eyes Klarion had crafted and inlaid into her skull.
"She's so beautiful..."
"I shouldn't have been brought back," Artemis dryly stated, not allowing Wally to debate her. She sat on a stool by the kitchen's countertop, studying the pacing speedster.
"But-"
"Some things aren't meant to happen."
"You were meant for me."
"What about Linda?"
Wally didn't respond; his throat bobbled slightly as he walked away from Artemis towards the fridge.
"You never told me what happened to her. Or the rest of our team..."
"I didn't," Wally grapsed the milk cartoon, shoved behind the food he had recently bought for Artemis. He had been a fool to think she would be like the living; she no longer required food. Soon enough, the meats and cheeses would expire, perhaps the same fate as his Artemis.
"Wally. Tell me. You haven't let me out of the house in a week unless I'm sitting in the backyard. I'm getting fat, lazy, and bitchy. So you're going to tell me."
"There are always prices for deals." Wally vaguely stated, barely louder than a whisper.
"What was the price for me?"
"There was a price. It was paid. You're here and happy now."
"This isn't life, Wally."
"I needed you with me."
Artemis stared blankly at him, thinking of a response to edge information from the speedster.
"You don't go on patrols. You rarely leave this house, because you're always here watching me. Even when you leave, everything is locked up from the inside. No one has called you - I haven't even seen a phone. And I highly doubt that in the few years since my death scientists have created some technology that had replaced phones and is invisible. We're hiding, Baywatch, and I want to know why."
Wally laughed at his old nickname, hearing her magically altered voice spit it out as sassy as when she first joined the team. Her voice had gradually improved since reanimation, becoming more nostalgically alluring with each passing day.
"There wasn't enough of you left."
"For what?" The cogs in Artemis mind began rolling, manufacturing possibly criminal possibilities. In the depths of her mind, she already knew the answer; it was sewn into her, but she still didn't recognize the blatant truth. Despite the state of her body, certain features seemed way too different to be explained by magic...
"Linda couldn't compare to you."
"Where is she?"
"Away."
"You'll never tell me, will you?"
"No. Not today. Maybe never."
"This can't last forever. You're hiding from someone. Hiding me."
"It will last as long as I can let it."
Wally swooped down on Artemis, pressing her back against the counter as he kissed her glamoured form. She was vivacious enough to forget the former rotting state she had been in.
"Klarion came by today," Artemis spoke as she placed a chaste kiss on Wally's cheek, deprived of any romantic sense of love.
Wally was only slightly surprised that the witch boy had returned. The Justice League was close to finding them; perhaps Klarion could temporarily keep Artemis.
"And? What did he say?"
"Nothing. He kissed me. Quite passionately and spoke truthfully to me."
"Don't lie to me," Wally's voice lowered as he screamed at his lover.
"I would never lie to you, Wally." Artemis perked her cheeks into a smile, made grotesque in how insincere and mocking it was. Her smile revealed her unnaturally white teeth, sending Wally's mind into another memory of her corpse.
"Do you know what I did for you?"
Artemis laughed for several minutes, but her voice died down into a hoarse chuckle. Her reaction had been so unnatural, but filled with a heated sense of emotion that was uncommon among the two lately. Artemis had lost interest in him; she avoided him and snuck into separate rooms when he looked for her. Where she had formerly given him the silent treatment, she now burst into a fit of laughter.
"You won't tell me. For someone who did so much to bring me back, you certainly didn't try to keep me."
Artemis, growing tired and anxious of Wally's hovering, briefly ran away. She only lasted three days away before she returned to the house.
"Don't say anything. I came back by my own choice. I wasn't forced here."
Wally sat back on a wooden lawn chair, which was rough and unvarnished. Clouds hid the sun, blanketing the backyard in an emotionless gray as Artemis walked back and forth across the grass.
"Why did you return?"
"For this," Artemis cupped her belly, feeling the kick of her unborn child. "It shouldn't be possible."
"Maybe it was meant to be."
"Maybe...but I don't love you."
The redhead twitched, but his face flared with less anger than usual. His spirit wasn't really involved in caring for Artemis' reaction. "I love you."
"And I love the monster in me. I really love it."
"It's not a monster!" Wally snarled.
"It is and it's terrifyingly brilliant. Right here," once again she grasped her belly, "is the next generation of criminal. It's a dynasty of criminals. My father was a higher up in the League of Shadows. My mother was also a criminal that later quit after her legs were broken in by my father. I am a killer: a cold-blooded killer trained by the Shadows. That part of me could never be cured by the Young Justice team. You, the father, are a criminal. Even if you won't confess to breaking any laws, you have gone against nature itself by brining me back."
"I haven't done anything wrong."
"Tell that to Linda's dead body. I'm presuming parts of her were used to revive me," she studied the speedster, noticing him flinch at the accusation. "Hmmm...I finally know. That doesn't explain what happened to the team though..."
"Nothing is wrong with the team."
"Careful, Baywatch. Quickly ignoring the insinuation of Linda' murder only proves your guilt. Anyway, what happened to the team?"
"Nothing happened. Robin is fine. Aqualad is fine. End of story."
"You didn't even mention the others..." Artemis whsipered as she sharply turned away from Wally and strolled over to the other corner of the backyard to sit under an maple tree. They spent several hours outside in silence, not daring to look back at each other.
"Robin came here today," Artemis stated, sitting on the opposite end of the couch to avoid contact with Wally.
"When?"
"You were out on one of your 'mysterious absences' for an hour or so."
"And?"
"He wanted to warn us 'out of respect for your former friendship'."
"Dick and I are still friends so tell me what he said."
"He's Nightwing now and none too keen about me coming back."
"Just tell me what he said!" Wally cried out childishly, earning a glare from Artemis.
"You have to tell me something first. Did you ever really love me? I don't love you, so it doesn't matter."
"Of course I love you! I went to Klarion for you!"
"Sure...was it me you loved or the idea of me? Was poor little ginger-trainwreck so deluded by other's opinions that he was blind to what he really wanted?"
"What does that even mean?" Wally bellowed, slamming is fists into the side of the couch.
"You love Robin, Dick, Nightwing, or whatever that kid calls himself."
"He's my friend."
"No, he was your friend. You only liked me because on a subconscious level, I was the most similar person on the team to him. Linda wasn't like either one of us, but your obvious lack of interest in her only further proves what I said."
"I love you."
"Then why do you say it like you need to prove it to yourself?"
"I do love you..."
"Wally, I'm saying this as a friend. You were so obsessed with bringing me back that you killed your wife and gave the Helmet of Fate to a Lord of Chaos. And you didn't love me...not really. I was the closest version of Robin you could get. Maybe it helped that I was a woman and could give you a child. I was the acceptable choice...well that is before I became a reanimated corpse..."
"You don't even make sense."
"I've never been clearer."
"I'm leaving this place after my baby is born. You can come with or stay hidden in this prison."
"You're staying here."
Artemis shoved her body closer to Wally's, pushing her face forward to stare aggressively into his. "You couldn't stop me from running away. You can't keep me."
The archer swiftly punched Wally in the nose, quickly turning and getting off the couch before he could retaliate. Wally sat back with his nose slightly bleeding, wondering where everything had gone wrong. Some deals weren't worth making...
"This baby came from nothing."
"Again with the vague phrases..."
Artemis held her son affectionately, despite the pain ripping through her body. Her bones and muscles had started degrading after she had given birth; the magic embedded in her failed in random spurts throughout the week.
"I'm going to Klarion."
"Really, blondie? Go to the man who told me to kill Linda?"
"Yes," Artemis' eyebrow rose as she turned to look him in the eyes, "He can keep me alive. Even if he just wants to use Leo...especially if he wants to use Leo." Artemis cooed at her child, laughing as the baby giggled.
Artemis had purposely chosen the name Leonard after the Flash's enemy Captain Cold. The name had irritated Wally enough to not speak to Artemis for five days, much to the joy of the archer.
"Robin said the League would be coming tomorrow."
"He came how long ago? A few weeks? And you just thought it okay to tell me now?"
"I don't really care that much what happens to you. I'm innocent of all crimes, but unholy. That's not enough of a reason to be locked up or even killed."
"So what happens now?" Wally shifted his feet awkwardly as he looked back at the house he had lived in for the past year.
"Whatever Klarion damn well pleases. Seriously, just accept it."
"I still don't think we should go to him."
"Really? Look at my face!" Artemis' words rung with a venom uncharacteristc of the usual apathy or coolness she had displayed.
"Science could do something-"
"NO! My face is rotting off! I'm going to Klarion."
"Well, I thought you wanted to die!"
"Are you an idiot! My body is rotting, but it won't die! I can't be a rotting corpse for the rest of my life and raise Leo."
"But-"
"We're going. And whatever money you have, you're going to give to us. This child is more important than you hiding from whatever you did to the Justice League!"
"Okay."
"Okay?" Artemis looked at the redhead curiously, fully expecting another bout of his famous temper.
"Yes, let's go."
Artemis stood silent, licking her lips as she thought of how to respond. She had not expected Wally to accept anything she had planned. "You know...you are a good friend even if you're a horrible husband."
"Let's just go."
"No. I don't care that you killed your wife. I'm alive and I love it. Even if we could never have been a happy little halmark family, I'm glad that I came back. It just took a while for me to regain the will to live."
"Just shut up," Wally said mockingly.
"Make me, West."
Wally grabbed onto Artemis, forcefully and imperfectly, as she still held Leo between them. She yielded too him, at long last accepting his twisted form of obsessive love. Their mouths met, not hungrily or passionately, but full of a purging of emotions. Their former hatred, apathy, friendship, and complex relationship shaped the kiss. From far away, they appeared to be man and woman kissing tenderly as husband and wife despite Artemis' decaying skin and their lack of love.
"Something was always meant to happen between us," Wally whispered heatedly against her face.
"Maybe. It's like we were forced or written into liking each other."
"Then I'm glad I was forced into liking you."
"But not loving."
"Yes...not loving."
Artemis' face cheered up, breaking out into a faint smile. "You've finally admitted it."
Wally wrapped his arm around her, looking at his son cradled in her arms. "We are a family."
"A perfectly imperfect family. Even if I have a fling with the witch-boy."
"Even if I'll always love Dick...I mean Robin...er...Nightwing."
The two grasped hands, walking away slowly towards the stolen car by their house. After sitting in the passenger's seat, Artemis looked away at the house she had lived in. It looked unremarkable: a manufactured product just like any other house in the neighborhood. Unlike the other houses and her past life, here she had learned to love Wally West...in a way.
Artemis Crock never had a right to emerge from the afterlife, but she still forged a path onwards with Wally. As long as Leo still lived, her life still had value even as her corpse struggled to continue moving.
AN: This story is essentially plotless. Lol. After writing this, I've realized that this could be turned into a two or three shot (but I probably won't). Should I? I'm still taking a break from my fic "Yes, I'm a Witch" (Artemis/Klarion).