Board Thread:Fan Fictions/@comment-29206018-20170115154712

Doodle wrote the dialog and I (HJ) added in the extra fluffy bits. This takes place while Lewis and everyone are putting Joseph on the boat. Elias and Artemis are Doodle's characters.

Elias scowls at Jasper's refusal to listen to him, though Arty's less disappointed. He clears his throat, facing Elias. "Perfect! Now, you have a lot of explaining to do..."

“ Wait, hold on just a minute!” Elias is taken aback by the sudden change in Arty’s tone. One minute he was finally relaxing having now just been freed from a month of torture and the next he’s being scolded for something that wasn’t his fault, “What's gotten into you?”

Arty pales, his brown eyes boring into Elias, “What's gotten into me?”

Wrong response! Elias quickly tried to backpedal and avoid the oncoming hurricane that was his brother, “Wait-“

“You were gone for two months without a trace. You abandoned me when our mother passed away, leaving me without a note, o- or trace, or anything!” There was no avoiding hurricane Artemis.

But Elias did try, “Just hold on-“

“I'm not holding on for anything!” and fail as the determination, worry, and anger in Artemis’s eyes crushing any of his hopes that he would get out of this situation without an explanation, “Elias, I have tried so hard to ignore your past, because you're my brother, and I love you. But this?”  Artemis gestured to the workhouse, his own partially-gone hand, and  Elias' bloody apparel. “Richard is gravely injured. Four people, yourself included, have lost a hand! Lewis was shot in the foot. This is you, failing to own up to your actions. I want answers.”

“W-...wh.. well- “ Elias stuttered and stammered. He really didn’t want to explain himself, that was one of the last things he wanted to do right now and it was up there with letting Joseph go back to torturing him. For Answering Artemis’s questions, finally telling the truth, and owning up his past was a kind of torture that Joseph would never be able to mimic. Elias just wanted to go back to the Society, take a nice hot bath, and then sleep for a month.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Artemis crossed his arms and made it very clear this wasn’t an option. His clothes were a bloody mess; he was missing a hand, his hair was a wild tangled mess, matted with sticks and leaves, hair band lost long ago; and he held bruises and cuts that mocked Elias’s own. Elias did owe Arty an explanation, especially considering all that he put him through.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“What is it you want to know?” Elias sighed looking at the ground in defeat.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Artemis relaxed seeing that Elias was finally going to open up and answer his questions. He felt a bit down at having to be so aggressive with him but Artemis had had enough of his brothers riddle dances and wanted some straight answers for once, “Tell me who that man was” he paused pondering before continuing, “and who 'Oliver' is.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Elias tensed up at the mention of Oliver, which was one question he was dreading in answering. Swallowing his medicine he addressed the first topic in hopes of derailing the conversation away from what happened to him in Joseph’s care. Elias did not look up from the ground stained with blood, “Joseph's...an old adversary.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“...and?” Artemis huffed, unimpressed by the response.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“And what?” Please don’t make me continue. Elias begged in his head.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Don't you dare try to skim around the details.“  Artemis had had enough of Elias’s  four word responses. He accepted them in the past when he found out about the writing carved and burned into Elias’s back and look where that got them! Standing, bloodied and hurt, outside a workhouse that Elias was held hostage in for a month. No, Artemis was done with Elias’s games.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“We...” Elias swallowed pleading that Artemis would just drop the topic, “we just used to work together, is all.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Theodosios Elias, I swear—“

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Look, he-“ Panic filled Elias’s eyes still cast downwards and sighed, he was going to have to tell Artemis everything, wasn’t he? “... We worked closely together with another man, named James. We were, well..” his voice dropped down to an even quieter volume, one Arty could just barely hear over the ship horns and crashing waves, “.. a family.”  It hurt Elias to continue and he never wanted Arty to know any of this, but….but he owed it to his brother to tell him, “But James - James wanted me to do horrible things. I -- I mean, at first, they weren't so bad. The people deserved it, but--“ A gunshot echoed from the past and it rang in Elias’s ears.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“People?” Arty asked in a strangled tone, all blood left in his face now gone, “Did you kill people? Why would you listen to a man like that?”  Why did he even need to ask Elias questions like this? What happened to the sweet, shy older brother he once knew?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“ I didn't..” Elias let out looking into Artemis’s eyes—No. No more lies. “I mean,” He looked at the ground once more and clarified the truth, “I - I did, but only for a while. The costs got too high, a-a-and innocent people got involved...”  A red dress stained dark with blood. Salty tears staining the ground. The children. Why them? Why James?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“What, did they die too?” Artemis didn’t want to ask this question, he didn’t want to know the answer, he didn’t want to know. But then why did he ask? Maybe Elias would say no. Maybe….

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The silence was deafening. Elias’s guilty expression answered all.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The screams of children, the blood, the gunshot, the blond hair drifting to the ground pulled down by the empty head it was attached to.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“ ... Elias, you didn't..” Arty voice softens seeing the tears welling up in Elias’s eyes. Tears of regret. Tears of fear. Tears of realization. The blood on the ground, so similar, always the same color.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“You're right, I didn't. James did.” Elias’s eyes hardened as he was yanked from the past, he still couldn’t look at Arty. Sweet, innocent Arty.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“And what then?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“A .. close friend of mine- a mentor of sorts- told me what James was doing. And I, uh –“ Please, please just stop asking questions! You don’t want to know these answers! Please. please.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“You...what?”  Artemis did not stop asking, he needed to know, even if it destroyed him.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“I--” Elias closed his eyes as even the ground had eyes, “I… I killed him. I killed James. Joseph got away from me, but I never thought he'd...”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Artemis was silent.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Arty?” He was too silent. Elias’s looked up at Arty. He was crying, Elias made his brother cry.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“I...didn't think that so many people had-..” Artemis never knew. Why hadn’t Elias’s told him before? Why didn’t he see it sooner? Why didn’t he ask sooner? Why had it taken all this time, in these circumstances to finally learn about the brother he loved—loves?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“I'm sorry. About all of it.” Elias’s voice was barely above a whisper, the emotions the words captured was a mere fraction of what Elias truly felt. The guilt of hurting his brother weighed far heavier on his conscience than killing James.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“ ..and James, was he the reason you...” Artemis’s voice trails off letting Elias fill in the blank.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“ ...yeah.” That was always the answer. James was the reason he left Artemis in the first place, the reason he killed, the reason he destroyed so much, the reason he came back into Arty’s life, and the reason why everything happened today. Even dead the bastard still plagued his life.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The silence ticked by. Even in the harbor with the steam ships’ horns, the waves, the shouting of men, the two brothers heard nothing but the beating of their own hearts. Their world was completely silent.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Finally Artemis spoke again, “ ...well, what about 'Oliver'?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“W-what about him?” Elias tensed up. Shit! He hoped Artemis had forgotten when Elias, himself had.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Who's he?” Artemis had not forgotten.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“...he's” Oh god! How to explain this without sounding insane, “ .. a part of me, I guess?” Elias winced at his own words, real smooth.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“What?” He blinks.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Elias sighed continuing feeling the full awkwardness and ridiculousness of his explanation like a ton of bricks dropped on his head, “Joseph drugged me with this .. serum, I think. It's supposed to manifest the 'evil' parts of you, give it physical form.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Even if what Elias was saying was true, and that was questionable given the fact that he had been held captive, tortured, woozy from lack of blood, etc. “ ...why?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Elias swallowed hard as his words stumbled out of his mouth, tripping over one another, “Well, he, uh.. wanted it to..”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“...to?” Arty pressed.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“...kill you guys.”  Elias pressed his thumb into the palm of his other hand and twisted it.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Us?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Yeah. W-well, mostly you, but..”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Reassuring.” Artemis swallowed his eyes widened and his stomach dropped, “And what, does it just poof and 'Oliver's' there in your place?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Not...quite.” Elias had gone back to silently begging Arty to stop asking questions.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“..what are you not telling me?” Now that Artemis had seen Elias actually tell the truth, he knew

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">when his brother was holding back.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“W-well, y'know..”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“...yes?” No, Artemis did not know.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“He's...” Oh god! He sounded like a lunatic! “there's a...physical change.” Elias winced at his own words.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“And?” The pain train was moving full speed ahead and there was no stopping it.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“It's ... painful.” Elias’s throat was closing up.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Painful?” Out with it Elias!

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Very. Look, uh-“ Elias’s eyes searched for an excuse to end this conversation. That excuse came in the form of Lewis, “Lewis is coming back, so we should...talk about this later, maybe?”  He really hoped they would never talk about this again.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Oh, I'll hold you to it.” Artemis glared. Elias had weaseled his way out of it this time but Arty was determined that this conversation was far from over.

<ac_metadata title="Arty and Elias Talk (in The End of an Era)"> </ac_metadata>