fanfiction.lol^{fun, silly, low-stakes fandom}

There was a crash, and several thumps as joints hit the ground at every odd angle, hurting and harming. It was a tall drop from nowhere, with ceilings so low.

 

Biré, Butler and Minerva stared, completely confounded by the scene they were watching unfold.

 

Beauford and Artemis laid there, a heap that was collapsed in, entangled in each other. Their clothes were torn in different places, and it looked as though they had just come back from some form of hell. Beauford was drenched in blood, sticking to him like another layer of skin. It didn’t look like his, not really, there were no obvious lacerations or cuts to his skin.

 

Biré did not move to guide Beauford’s soul to where the damned lay.

 

Artemis, aside from torn clothes and what was like to be a bruised ego, appeared in relatively good condition.

 

He woke with a start, shocked, a tremor of fear running through his body.

 

“Beauford. Where is he? Beauford?” Artemis called, searching around himself for a moment as he looked.

 

Artemis’ eyes landed on Beauford’s unmoving body. There was not even a twitch out of him. Artemis’ eyes were miscoloured, Butler noticed. One was the same blue it had always been, but the right eye was brown, a deep cacao.

 

He’d seen it many times, in many places. Most notably, on Beauford himself.

 

Artemis, hands trembling, whether it be from the stress or the gravity, or something else entirely, shook Beauford, as though he were just sleeping, and was only a moment from waking.

 

“Beauford. Beauford, you need to get up now. Wake up.”

 

He kept shaking him. Beauford’s chest did not rise, and it did not fall.

 

Biré still did not move.

 

Tears slipped down Artemis Fowl’s face. It was uncanny, and unsual. Nobody could have guessed. Nobody, exception of Butler in much younger years, had seen Artemis Fowl cry. Yet here he was. Sobbing as they fell down quicker and quicker, searching for a sign of life that wouldn’t come.

 

Two fingers desperately searched for a pulse on his neck. Instead, they found nothing.

 

Biré was a dream. Nothing about this was real. Artemis had let him go, even though on a technicality, Biré owed him a debt, and Biré had stayed. The look of death seemed to roll of them in waves.

 

Artemis wondered if it wasn’t pleasant in death. Likely not. Not for someone like him. Beauford was just like him. The name was so deeply engraved into him. It was his name. He had other names, but Artemis got to use that one.

 

“Billy. Please.” He begged, near silent. Still, a silence settled.

 

Biré slinked forward, impercievable to a human, not quite like anything they could understand, and held Beauford gently.

 

“No! Don’t take him! Save him, please! I’ll do anything!” Artemis snapped, tears stopping as quickly as they had come, fear threaded in his veins.

 

Artemis fowl did not think he could fight death. But he was willing to try.

 

If Artemis died now, would he meet Beauford on the shores of hell? Neither of them deserved heaven. Artemis was fine with that. He had never asked Beauford about it. He’d never get the chance.

 

“Save him!” Artemis screamed, chest heaving up and down. His eyelashes clumped together with thick tears, red rimmed.

 

Butler realized the brown eye that did not belong to Artemis was Beauford’s. Whatever had happened on the lost colony, it hadn’t been good.

 

No human understands how much they value something truly until they can no longer have it.

 

Minerva stood in shock, unmoving, and scared. She had watched Artemis and Beauford die once, only to come back, and supposedly watch the latter die a second time.

 

They had come to save her, and still one of them was dead. It didn’t change anything.

 

Biré held Beauford’s body aloft, and Artemis remained collapsed on the ground, devoid of any form of strength or stamina left.

 

Biré hummed a low tune. Artemis recognized it faintly from when he had been a child. Maybe his mother had sung it to him. Maybe it was Juliet, or someone visiting. It was important.

 

Artemis tried his best to follow his instinct. To hum along. His throat was swollen with tears, and his chest tight with grief. He still tried.

 

“I do not often do things like this.” Biré said. His voice was a deep, dark thing. It shattered and split into a thousand pieces that Artemis could barely catch to hear. “I hold fondness for you. This witch does not belong to me. Yet still.”

 

Artemis wanted to scream. It hurt to listen to. It felt as though all of the pieces of glass anywhere were flying out of their resting spots and into him.

 

“I will not be kind a second time. Do not let me catch you again.”

 

Biré paused his humming to splay Beauford out on the ground, palms up.

 

The humming seemed to stop and start again, like a broken record player. Beauford’s body shifted in position and limbs and age and place and clothing and anything Artemis could think of.

 

There was a gentle breeze despite there being no open windows or air access.

 

Aengus. Artemis felt his fingertips grace his shoulders as Artemis looked at his palms, trying to convince himself not to reach out and save Beauford from whatever was being done to him.

 

“I don’t often see displays like that from people.” Aengus giggled, and it reminded Artemis of fairies from the bookes. Not the LEP or Holly or anything to worry about, but mushrooms and wondering if picking one made a fairy homeless.

 

“He died for you, you know.” Aengus giggled.

 

Artemis blanched.

 

“Saving Hybras! How heroic! Going into the future… not ideal. Without aging, too? I know I’m a doll to look at and I don’t look a day over 1,023 but really, there’s no need to take inspiration. Regardless. He showed up, grabbed you and brought you home.”

 

Aengus finished. It was not kind. It was not loving. Aengus was there to bring them together, maybe. But this was something else entirely. Artemis had no word for it.

 

Neither Aengus nor Biré spoke to him as he thought. Holly had died. He had a plan. He always had a plan. Why didn’t he have a plan for this situation?

 

What a simple truth. A sad, but still simple truth. Beauford Harkness, Billy Kaplan or Maximoff or William or whateveer he wanted to be called- He would never know Artemis Fowl the Second loved him. He would never know Artemis Fowl loved him for all the right reasons.

 

For saving him. Because he didn’t care, because he didn’t judge Artemis, because he was smart. Because he was beautiful. Because he was cunning and sometimes particularily mean.

 

Now, he was dead.

 

Butler bent down from where he stood to hug Artemis, unsure of what else to do, if he could even do anything.

 

“There will come a time to pay a debt like this, Fowl.” Aengus said. He kissed Artemis on the forehead. Artemis looked up, just barely.

 

“Let us never meet again.” Biré said.

 

Artemis let his eyes flicker down to the body of Beauford.

 

Artemis Fowl, for the first time in his life, crawls on his knees. He is weak and hurting, and he wishes to be near Beauford who is so far away, and so he makes his way there.

 

He gets as close as he thinks he can without being weird or too close.

 

“Morning?” A breathy voice asked. “Pretty sure I’m supposed to be dead.”

 

Artemis knew that voice better than he knew himself. It spun in his head in hours long after dark, and he imagined it behind every person he met. He saw the owner in his dreams and in his wake and everyday repeated itself but it was always a blessing to be able to hear it.

 

Not ever more than now.

 

Artemis could not reply to him.

 

He lunged forward, jolting the muscles in his back, constantly sore from disuse and harsh movements like that, wrapping his arms around Beauford. His arms clawed their way around his torso, and Artemis sobbed into his shoulder.

 

“Hey- Artemis-” Beauford started, and Artemis just clutched him harder. “Are you okay?” He spoke, voice small.

 

“You were dead.” Artemis choked out. “I couldn’t save you.”

 

There was a long silence. Artemis did not remove his face from where it was hidden in the folds of Beauford’s clothes.

 

“Does it matter?” Beauford eventually said.

 

Artemis looked up, and scowled at him. He had been dead. Of course it mattered.

 

“What?” Artemis asked.

 

“I’m alive now. We’re grateful. It’s ok. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

 

Beauford smiled. It was warm, and he smiled a lot, of course he did. Artemis had the lines on his face memorized, but inexplicably this was different. It was so different.

 

Beauford wrapped an arm back around Artemis, who had yet to let him go.

 

“I’m okay now. It’s alright.”

 

“Why would you do that?” Butler moved back, and ushered Minerva outside, accompanying her. Whatever was happening next was something that Butler could tell was more deeply personal than he cared to witness.

 

“Do what?” Beauford asked.

 

“You died for me. Don’t lie to me. Why. Why would you do that?”

 

Beauford winced. Artemis glared at him.

 

“To see you alive is worth a thousand deaths of mine.” Beauford finally said. Artemis shoved him away, weakly.

 

“Liar. There is no point in my life if you were going to die with me. For me. It is selfish- you cannot tell me that you did that for me.”

 

Beauford averted his eyes.

 

“I did it for me.” There was a long pause. “I’ve lost enough. I’d rather not live at all than bear the thought of living without you. Even if you hated me, or thought I was selfish or unkind, it would be a million times easier than going through each day without your stupid presence.”

 

The last bit was grumbled, but there was no pressure or upset to it.

 

Artemis’ breathing was quiet, but rapid.

 

His cheeks were stained a deep red, his designer suit still tattered and worn. If you had seen him, he would have looked nothing like the boy that you saw on the front of magazines. He looked more like Artemis, the 15 year old boy who just watched the one thing keeping him tethered through everything die and come back to life.

 

“I’m sorry.” Beauford said.

 

Artemis did not accept the apology. He simply hugged him again. Anything to keep him close.

 

The blood that stained Beauford’s clothes and body surely would transfer onto Artemis. It would stain. There would be no getting it off. Artemis found distantly he didn’t mind.

 

Artemis seemed to notice something. He looked at Beauford.

 

“Your eyes are mismatched.” His voice shook with anguish, barely covered with a layer of faint amusement.

 

Beauford grinned.

 

“Like yours aren’t.”

 

Artemis frowned, having not stopped to think about it.

 

“Really?” He asked, a deep tone with something that sounded like disguist to an outsider. Beauford knew Artemis.

 

“You don’t have to sound so pleased about it. We match now. You’re practically inside of me.”

 

Artemis gave him a deep glare.

 

“Never say that again.”

 

Beauford laughed.

 

“What, you not a fan of my jokes?” He asked, and Artemis kept eye contact and a straight face despite a few twitches on his lips giving him away.

 

Beauford resisted the urge to tuck a piece of Artemis’ black hair behind his ears, where it normally rested, tucked away and gelled back.

 

“I-” Artemis started, before breaking off. “Beauford.” Beauford looked at him. “No. Billy.” Beauford’s eyes widened with the use of his real name. “I apologize for this. I think I may be in love with you.”

 

Beauford flinched, causing Artemis to shy away. He didn’t notice the flush over Beauford’s cheeks.

 

“I am well aware of how you don’t feel the same, and I apologize yet again for burdening you with this knowledge right after your revival and Hybras, but-”

 

Beauford cut him off.

 

“Oh my god your head is as thick as a rock.” He said, and Artemis’ head jerked up.

 

“What?”

 

Beauford grabbed the front of his stained shirt and kissed him.

 

He tasted like magic, as much nonsense as that was. Beauford tasted like sweat and blood and magic, Apple cologne and vanilla soda. Artemis tasted like Versace and the woods and cold Dublin Air.

 

It was everything.