Memento Mori (MxM)

Chapter 6

It took a long while to console Artemus when he finished speaking. Calael had pulled him in close to comfort him in an embrace, letting him bury his face in his chest as he got out the rest of his dry, wracked sobs. He couldn't imagine such pain. To have to recall your own murder, just to know that you wouldn't be forgotten. Artemus' lithe frame trembled and his skin felt like a smooth block of polished ice beneath his fingertips as he held him. Eventually, he'd asked him if he could sleep. If he wanted to.

Artemus hadn't wanted to be alone again.

They lay at opposite sides of Calael's double bed, facing each other, the two men curled in on themselves under the heavy duvet with a respectful space between them.

"This used to be my room," Artemus whispered into the heavy darkness. His voice was quiet and small now, as voices often become after crying. "You tore down my floral wallpaper?"

Heat raced over Calael's cheeks as he recalled his own hatred of it. It seemed so much prettier now at the thought of it being his. "I've just never been a fan of patterns like that."

"But you're an artist, are you not?"

"Well.. A repeated image isn't really art to me. I was never a fan of Warhol. Or anything particularly abstract. I like drawing real beautiful things. Portraits, and depictions of nature, and -" he hesitated. "I'm not sure where I was going with that."

"I did miss hearing people ramble about their passions," Artemus smiled wistfully. Calael felt him shift as the blonde wrapped his arms around the pillow, pulling the duvet up over the back of his neck. "You should rest. It might take me a while longer. I don't get tired, so if I want to sleep I have to concentrate. Sometimes if I'm lucky I'll sleep for days."

Calael gave a sympathetic look, though Artemus couldn't see it in the darkness, so he reached out and gently squeezed his shoulder instead. "Goodnight, Artemus.."

"Goodnight Calael," he whispered, his cold hand briefly running over the others before drifting back down to the pillow again.

Calael however could not sleep right away. His mind buzzed with activity, half confused by how pleasant he found it to be lying beside someone again, particularly someone as good and as kind as Artemus.. The other half was preoccupied replaying the image of what he'd been told again and again. No doubt, Victor Moon would be dead now, and he'd have died with his secret, no justice ever coming for his long deceased boy. Calael wondered however whether Bemus would have outlived them all - whether the traitorous, envious brother had had to live thinking he himself had killed his brother, having prompted an untimely suicide.

Did Bemus Moon deserve that? Perhaps. If he hadn't done what he did, sweet Artemus would have lived a long and happy life. He would surely have found love easily. He would have been adored by everyone he ever met, and spent his nights going to village dances, and pressing flowers in books like the one he'd found in the attic..

And Calael would never have met him.

It was the following morning after a restless night that Calael woke, finding Artemus still resting peacefully, so still, pale and unmoving that it was as though he was little more than a pretty corpse.

Still, a slight smile tugged at his lips uncontrollably at the sight of him. He slipped carefully, silently from the bed and wrapped himself up in his dressing gown to fight the chill of the drafty old house. Heading downstairs to the kitchen, where thankfully the cutlery and appliances were unpacked and in place, he reached over for the TV remote and switched on the appliance in the next room, flicking to a radio channel. It was definitely a perk of having a joined living room-kitchen; he assumed that must have been an extension installed by a past owner of the house.