Artemy awoke with a gasp, his mind racing though all he could understand was that he should not have lived to feel the morning sun shine on him again. He sat up in a bed - his own bed, he realized - unsure of why he was spared.
“You’re okay.”
Cassius’s voice was breathless, and though Artemy was still petrified in fear, his voice alone was like a cold wind on a hot day. He looked to his bedroom door, spotting Cassius standing on the threshold, looking at him in awe.
Cassius dropped his coat on the floor, rushing for him and grasping him in a tight hug, letting out a long, shaky breath. For a moment, just a moment, Artemy sat there, feeling the warmth of a touch he had never thought he would live to feel again. He returned the embrace just as tightly, and there the two sat.
“I got the news this morning,” Cassius explained, his face still in his shoulder. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Artemy made a groan of protest. “You shouldn’t have missed class for me. The world would have kept turning if you had chosen to wait.”
“It would have,” Cassius agreed. “But I would have been thinking too much to join it. Is it true, then? That the watchmen found you in a puddle of blood?”
Artemy winced at the memory, releasing Cassius to stretch his aching bones. “It is, but it was not my blood. I also wasn’t alone.”
Cassius seemed to understand the moment Artemy spoke, his eyes widening with realization - and horror. “You saw him, then. The killer.”
Artemy only nodded, afraid to say any more, to utter the truth aloud and make the terror of the situation all the more real. He knew he should have been safe - at home with Cassius, of all places - but even his bedroom felt unfamiliar and alien, every dark crevice of the room feeling as dark as those unlit streets.
“There’s more you’re not telling me,” Cassius said. “Something else happened last night, something that still has you shaken.”
Leave it to him to always corner Artemy, forcing the truth from him. Damned lawyers. Artemy nodded hesitantly, slowly, the words in his mouth feeling forbidden to even think.
“He eats them,” he said after a long moment of gathering his nerves. He didn’t need to look at Cassius to know that his jaw was on the floor. “He was holding one of their hearts.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cassius said. He leaned back on against the wooden bed frame, clearly troubled. He fidgeted with his hair absentmindedly, his brows furrowed. Artemy didn’t expect him to speak when he said, “How?”
“Pardon?”
“I heard that there two men on duty, and enough blood for the two of them. How could he have killed two men and eaten them in the time that you were out?” Cassius was staring at him intensely, the cogs in his brain turning, scheming. Artemy didn’t like the look of intensity he often had when he was ready to meddle - and he certainly had it now.
Artemy shook his head hopelessly. “It was all incredibly fast, I suppose. He did it when my back was turned, but when I saw him, he was on the opposite street of me.”
“Likely fleeing - until you caught him,” he remarked. “But how could one man be so fast? Perhaps there’s - there’s a gang? Multiple killers, even?”
Artemy couldn’t help but snort. “A gang of cannibal murderers in London? God help us.”
His companion sighed dramatically, looking out the window with such a falsely wistful stare that Artemy couldn’t help but laugh. “First the homosexuals come into town and take our husbands, and now the cannibals come and take our lamplighters. I blame Parliament.”
“Hopefully they don’t take either of us,” Artemy said, shaking his head gravely. “We’ve already had two close calls.”
“Not to mention our run-ins with the cannibals.” Cassius wiggled his eyebrows, making the two erupt into such laughter that anyone would have thought they were mad for laughing in such grim times. However, to the two of them, there was only Artemy and Cassius in the world, and nothing could separate them.
Artemy must have drifted off without realizing it, because he was jolted to his senses by a heavy knocking at his front door. Cassius sat up, his eyes glossy and his hair a mess, looking more disoriented than ever. “Did I sleep?”
“No,” Artemy remarked, standing and stretching his legs. “It’s just several hours later and you look a mess. Quite a riddle, isn’t it?”
“Ass.”
Cassius followed him out of the room, straightening his vest and fixing his hair using every reflective surface he could find. He left Artemy by the door, muttering something about being hungry “and not for flesh”.
Artemy opened the door with all the confidence of a man who hadn’t nearly died the night before, though he grew confused when no one was on the other side. He stepped out carefully, looking down the street for perhaps a child playing a prank, but no such suspect could be found. A horrid thought, ever so briefly, made him fear that the killer had lured him out, though he knew that, for some reason, he was safe.
He turned to step back inside, though a moment’s hesitation led him to notice a long, deep cut etched into the wood of his door. It was a curious thing, especially that the scratch was in the center of the door, as if it were deliberate.
Artemy went inside, closing the door and walking into the kitchen where Cassius was already eating. He had even made a plate for him. Artemy sat down across from him, smiling fondly and for a moment forgetting his troubles. “You didn’t have to do this bit kindness.”
“Don’t I?” Cassius said, arching a delicate eyebrow. “You’re right. Too much kindness and not enough banter will have you thinking I like having you around.”
“You’re the one who keeps finding their way into my house,” Artemy said, taking a long drink of his tea. “It seems you rather enjoy having me around.”
Cassius only clicked his tongue, ready to settle back into a comfortable silence until his eyes widened, pointing to a wax-sealed letter on the edge of the table. “I found this in your post this morning. It looked important.”
Artemy grabbed it curiously, knowing that it was too soon for another letter from his father, which was why he was thoroughly surprised when he opened the letter to reveal his mother’s handwriting. “It’s from my mother,” he said, not yet reading its contents. “How odd. She never writes to me. Says it hurts her hand.”
Cassius only looked at the back of the parchment letter with troubled eyes, though Artemy didn’t understand why. He placed the letter into his pocket, determined to read it another time. He opened his mouth to question him when Cassius spoke first, his voice as chipper as usual. “Who was at the door, by the way? I don’t believe I heard any cannibal commotion outside.”
“No one,” Artemy said, thinking back to the strange events of the door and momentarily thinking that it wasn’t worth mentioning. “There was no one nearby, either. Someone left an outright nasty scratch on my door, though! Right down the middle of the damned thing.”
“Bastards,” Cassius cursed, shaking his head as though a terrible crime were committed. Artemy assumed such a thing was likely a crime to the Beckett nobility. “How strange.”
“Indeed,” Artemy said, reaching for his tea yet again. “I do believe some rather weird things are occurring as of-“
A shadow moved across his kitchen window - the very window facing the woods. He froze, looking past Cassius at it. Cassius cocked his head curiously, turning to look just as cold, grey eyes peered into the window.
Both shot up in surprise and fear, spilling the tea as Cassius reached for the first kitchen knife he saw, though he was screaming the entire time. They both recognized those uncanny eyes, the man standing before them, which was why Artemy didn’t dare move. Perhaps he was frozen to the spot, or perhaps he could tell that there was something the man was trying to tell him - something he still couldn’t understand.
“Artemy - Artemy! We need to alert someone!” Cassius’s voice was so shrill that he was certain that the authorities were well on their way, but that didn’t stop him from rushing ahead, pushing Cassius behind him in an act that was little more than mere instinct.
The man looked at the two, analyzing them, and then he was leaving just as the guards were entering the house. Cassius gave his report in a babbling mess of terrors and truth, while Artemy scoured the outside of the house, wondering where the killer went - and why he was so close to the woods in the first place.
Very rarely did Artemy find himself near the woods - in fact, he hadn’t trekked through the forest since he was a boy. It was a shame, then, that he was finding himself in search of a killer instead of pursuing an old childhood nostalgia.
Really, he wanted nothing more than to lock up the house and hide in a closet, but he knew he was raised to have more dignity than such behavior, which was why, when he saw a footprint leading towards the moss-covered earth, heavy foliage blocking out all sunlight, he entered.
It was as though walking though another world entirely, and even the temperature dropped upon crossing the threshold of temperate city and wilderness. Artemy immediately felt both that he was making a grave mistake and that he didn’t belong.
“Where are you?” He called out, trying - and failing - to sound fearless. “The guards are looking for you as we speak.”
He didn’t entirely expect an answer - not really. He especially didn’t expect the killer’s voice to call out to him, unseen entirely. “Are they?”
Artemy flinched, fighting the urge to run and gather a much more qualified guard for the confrontation of a murderer-slash-cannibal. “Well - yes! It’s one thing to threaten me alone. It’s another thing entirely to threaten my friend. And, if I may, I do suspect that it was you who cut up my door.”
“It was.”
Artemy thought that the voice was coming from behind a rather large tree in front of him, but he wasn’t going to test his theory. He didn’t know if he was prepared to see the face of a monster. “You knew where I lived. You’re someone I know, then.”
A low chuckle - a short sound, really - filled the air before he spoke. “Your scent crawls on you. On your belongings. On your house.” He paused, inhaling deeply. “On him.”
Artemy couldn’t help but feel his face redden, unsure of just what the man was saying. “You’re insane. Are you following me because I witnessed your atrocities?”
“No.”
Though his answer should have comforted him, it only made him more nervous, which was why he felt as though his prayers were answered when he heard the guards calling after him, searching for the killer.
He opened his mouth to speak. A crunch of leaves from the woods distracted him, but he still couldn’t see the man hiding in plain sight. “If you scream, you’ll be choosing between yourself and him.”
Artemy decided he could live with dying if it meant the killer would be caught - especially if it meant Cassius’s safety. He scoffed, and then he began screaming for the guards. He expected the killer to rush after him the moment he spoke, but he didn’t even hear him breathe. Nothing attacked him, not even when the guards found him in the woods.
“Sir! We thought you’d surely be killed, running after him like that!” The guard said, checking Artemy for injuries as the others patrolled the area.
Artemy looked towards the woods as a guard reported that they were alone, feeling as though he had made a terrible mistake. “I thought so, too.”
“You’re sure he was here?” One guard asked him, following him back to the house. He spoke slowly, as if Artemy was a child who had imagined a monster under the bed.
Artemy stopped at the front door, pointing to the cut agitatedly. “Are you sure this isn’t an imaginary door? I spoke to him!”
The guards looked to each other a little uncertainly. “I find it… unlikely that a serial murderer would let you walk out of the woods - alone - unscathed. Of course, sir, I’m not accusing you of lying.”
Artemy gave him a long look, ready to be rid of the guards at once, having proven that they would be of little help in the matter. “Oh, certainly. It’s a lucky thing, then, that I’m an utter git who just conjures up apparitions of entire men. Otherwise, I’d surely be in danger. Good day, boys.”
He shut the door with none of Cassius’s grace, only pausing to see the stunned looks on the guards faces before it shut. Artemy crossed the hall, though he stopped when he saw Cassius in the guest bedroom, apparently making himself at home.
“And what are you doing?” Artemy asked, though not at all unkindly. In fact, seeing Cassius at his home felt, in all ways, natural to him.
Cassius looked up at him, trying to smile though it was clear that he was still shaken up from the event. “Making myself a proper living space, is what. You ought to regret giving me free access to your home, my dear Artemy.”
Though Artemy was delighted to find that he wouldn’t have to spend the night alone, he still worried, knowing that the killer knew Cassius. The killer seemed to even know things that Artemy dare not say - and the thought shook him to the core.
“Do you think it’s safe, Cassius?” He asked, his voice soft with worry. “He knows where I live. It’s not safe here.”
“Well, I have a good feeling about it all!” Cassius admitted, unpacking his bag to reveal one of his many notebooks. “Two is better than one - especially when one is crossed with a cannibal murderer.”
Artemy chuckled, though he was a little in disbelief that, despite everything, Cassius was excited about it all. “And what are you going to do if he comes? Scream like a girl and piss yourself again? Load of help you were earlier!”
“What did happen earlier, by the way? I saw you leave after we saw - well, you know.”
Cassius was staring up at Artemy, and all Artemy could focus on was how his eyes, warm and blue, were not at all like the killer’s. How could he tell Cassius that he had forfeited his life for him, that he wouldn’t even know when his death would come?
The answer, Artemy realized, was that he couldn’t, because it would break Cassius’s heart.
“I didn’t find him,” Artemy lied, for the first time to Cassius. “I don’t know what I was thinking, to be completely honest.”
Cassius shrugged, standing from his spot on the bed. “I reckon you weren’t thinking. Nonetheless, I’m glad you returned in one piece. It would be… awkward, I believe, to have a sleepover with a corpse. Or part of one, at least.”
Artemy grimaced as Cassius laughed. “Must you make a joke of even the worst details?”
“Oh, I must.” Though he was smiling, Cassius still shivered slightly, his smile briefly wavering as he closed the shutters to the bedroom window, locking it tight. There would be little rest tonight, that much was apparent. He stared at the locked window a moment longer, then turned to Artemy with glossy eyes. “Let’s give up this crime solving business, shall we?”
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