A double update; I've surprised myself. I think this means I've used up my inspiration quota and you shouldn't expect anything more for the next three months.

Disclaimer: Nope.

(That's a nope, I don't own anything, not a nope, I can't be arsed writing a disclaimer, just to clarify.)

Chapter Fourteen: 'Cause It Had To Come To This

Sparks.

Sparks, for the love of God! He'd roamed every corner of the world searching for a place to belong, where he could be accepted, and he'd seen everything. So he'd thought. Every atrocity comprehensible, every curiosity and every marvel and every wonder. Creatures of supposed faerie and myth that turned out to fakes or mere genetic freaks. Men and women so hideously distorted by the womb or the tolls life had taken on them that he had felt almost normal in comparison. The often shockingly ugly nature of the ordinary, affairs and car accidents and children snatched from life by the withered, clever fingers of fate.

And he had thought he could never be surprised again. Thought that there was nothing left in the world to stun him, to reset the world on an axis other than the one it turned on now, predictable and cold and hollow. Until he had fallen in love with a woman so far outside of his realm of comprehension he was left breathless and stumbling, dizzy from the ecstasies and miseries of being human for the first time in his life. Human and in love and foolish, joy like that first dizzy taste of morphine in the blood that fizzles away all too quickly.

That she was different, he knew. That she was small and slim and feisty and untameable, he knew. That her ears were pointed and her forehead broader than the norm, he comprehended. That she was like absolutely no one he had ever met before.

But... sparks. Blue sparks that shimmied from her fingers to skim over Butler's body, pooling at the choking bodyguard's chest and throat and easing his spasms. Sparks that had seemed to glint in her steady hazel eyes as she looked back at him over Butler's thrashing frame.

Sparks.

And he was absolutely flummoxed.

He took her home, back to the house, and then returned to the river bank to Butler. His former bodyguard sat in the mud, hands massaging his bruised throat. "You killed me," Butler said with odd calmness, rising to his usual (formidable) height with only a little less deadly grace than usual.

"Yes," Artemis said, his throat dry, voice cracking. "But - you're back now - "

"I've put up with a lot in service to you, Master Artemis," Butler said in that same emotionless voice. "More than anyone else would have. Your discharge of me has not lessened my devotion to you. But now," No, not now, Artemis didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear that he had wrenched free the last tie of loyalty the bodyguard had felt for him, "It's all over."

"Wait - Domovoi - "

Butler's massive head swung round, the deep-set eyes staring him down. "Don't," he said - was all he said - and he disappeared back into the night.

Artemis was torn, wracked with the sensation of acute loss. He was not just his old bodyguard - Butler was his friend, Artemis corrected himself, and how could he have missed the emotion he felt for the other man? Butler had been with him longer than any other, through the most mad of crises and excruciating of circumstances.

And now he was gone forever.

Artemis stood on the bank for a long time, staring into the darkness, wrapped in the night.

xx

He returned to the house, expecting Holly to either be long asleep or ready to stab him with a letter opener. He wasn't entirely sure which he would prefer. It would mean not finding out how she had managed to produce lightning healing sparks out of her fingers, but on the other hand, it would mean not having to face up to the fact she had seen him strangle a man alive. Well, whatever came, he would face it like a man, even if he so closely resembled a monster. Stepping into the kitchen, he stripped of his gloves, regardless of the sight of his bone-thin, pale fingers. He'd seen them often enough in his life, after all. He felt numb and slightly mad, the events of the night beginning to catch up to him.

"I made you a cup of tea," Holly said, her voice out of the gloom startling him. She was in the shadows, and he turned up the lights to bring her profile into relief. "Earl Grey. Just the way you like it."

He accepted the cup; it felt half like an apology and half like an offering, and he wasn't sure which to go with. "Thank you," he said; common courtesy cost nothing, after all. Holly shrugged, and he noticed a similar cup on the table beside her. The silence that dragged out between them was both companionable and awkward, strange and familiar, and he couldn't bring himself to break it. But she was the strong one, in the end, speaking first to break the quiet that gripped the house in its talons.

"Guess you want an explanation," said Holly at last, and yes, he really did. "I don't really think there's any point in keeping it from you anymore. I'm going to tell you everything. But first, I have a confession."

He leant against the counter, examining her as she perched on his kitchen table. It was a scene of domesticity, a man and the woman he loved in their house, together. He might have lost Butler, but at least he still had Holly. "Go on," he said, cupping his hands around the mug of tea, inhaling the steam.

"Please don't hate me," she begged, and he wanted to reach out to her, calm her down. She seized one of his hands, chafed it between her own, and then returned it to him almost too quickly for him to comprehend it. She was distracted and he found it charming, her distress, that she could be riled up into such a state because of him alone. Although he believed there was no reason for her fear. There was little she could do he would not forgive her for. "You have to promise me."

"I do, Holly," he said. "I promise." And he meant it, with all of his heart, whatever his heart was. The obsession of a lunatic or the affection of the devoted. That, like so much else, was entirely up to her.

"I can't lie to you anymore," she said, and something in him hummed awake, a sick anticipation, a dreamy kind of fear. He wanted to run away before he had to hear this, but he didn't want to, as well.

"Lie, Holly?" She turned to face him and yes, those were tears, on her lovely cheeks. But her eyes were stone.

"All this time... I've been pretending I care for you," she said all in a rush, as though it was easier to say at high speed. He felt a dull sinking somewhere in the region of his chest. "I've been lying, because I thought if you believed me, you might let me go. I've been pretending that I understand you, that it might be possible for me to love you..." She trailed off, but even if she had continued further, he would not have heard. A roaring seemed to overtake his ears and the world seemed to tilt to the side, overwhelming him. All along... she had lied. Of course she had. Because it was ridiculous, downright obscene, for someone like her to love him, wretched, ugly him.

He had been wrong. He could not forgive her this.

He turned away, fell into a kitchen chair like it was the only anchor he could imagine in the storm swirling inside of his head. The cup in his hands shattered and bit into his flesh, but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything but the echo of her words inside his mind.

She. Had. Lied.

About everything. Not just one tiny little aspect of their odd, fractured relationship, but about it all. She had given him false hope, made him believe that his love could be reciprocated. Oh, he had hoped that all along, but her kindness, her sweetness had melted away decades of despair that now crashed over him once more, all the more obliterating for the suddenness and unexpectedness of their return.

He didn't weep. This was a pain past tears, an agony that reached past the heart to resonate deep in the soul.

Yet another lie, another rejection... all because of the damnable face.

"Why... did you decide to... tell me now?" The words were dragged out of him, a guttural rasp, a shattered growl. And then, delight of delights, horror of horrors, she touched him, her hands on his shoulders, one rising to cradle the cheek of the mask.

"Because, Artemis, everything's different now," she said, talking fast, as though trying to fit as many words as possible into the time before he explodes. "I realised something when I tried to run away. I couldn't. I didn't want to. I don't want to leave you. Artemis - " She stopped, and the expression on her face melted away, into one of... terror? Well, he assumed it was terror. He had misjudged her so completely, been so totally hoodwinked, that perhaps he didn't know her at all. He wondered how it was possible to be so attuned to her, and so numb to the reactions of his own body and mind. Maybe it was her sheer presence, superseding his consciousness, erasing his sense of self until all he cared for was her.

And what on earth was that noise...?

It was him. Terrible, creaking laughter, the cackle of a madman. He didn't know he could make a sound like that, and it would have frightened him a little had he been capable of any emotion other than this devastating betrayal and... and...

Amusement.

After all, it was a little funny.

A lot!

She was still touching him. He brought his hands up to touch hers, dragged his fingers down to her forearms. She was unmoving in his arms, as though not entirely sure he was sane. Well, that was fair enough. He wasn't sure either.

"Artemis," she said, voice quivering, and it held no power over him. He was free from it, emancipated from his dreadful dependence on her. "You do believe me, don't you? You believe me that I love - "

He lifted her, far off the ground, the curves of her body pressed to him. "Oh, my darling Holly," he interrupted, sighed it out in the Voice, twisted and distorted into a monster's seductive purr, "how can you expect me to trust you now?"

He couldn't control his hands, pressing tighter and tighter, and even her gasp of pain, the well of crimson underneath his nails, didn't recall him to himself. His own, all over his hands, oozing out amongst the shards of porcelain still stuck in his skin.

Their blood, together.

How fitting.

She did not resist when he scooped her up, took her to her bedroom, threw her onto the bed and locked the door behind him. He heard her beat her fists on the wood but he did not care. The Artemis who cared about her feelings was gone, buried deep, and he swept their shared paraphernalia from the past few weeks from the kitchen table, sending it all crashing to the floor. It was the detritus of a false life, the accumulated trapping of a lie. It meant nothing.

And he started to plan.