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[liaarskiss]

Beginnings.

A basic drabble. Pairing. Implied Artemis/Amelia Summary. Fleshes out how Artemis behaves in relationships, and could possibly predict how Artemis & Amelia will eventually end. Depending on what happens, I'm sure things will change, but this is merely a drabble to flesh him out more as a character.

"Have you ever been in love?" she had asked him with a breaking voice, a scornful sorrow. Her heart was as warm as fire, her love and loyalty undying and faithful; kind and generous, she was the type of woman that'd make any man's "I love you" sincere and genuine.

But such humanity bore cracks in happiness, and she was susceptible to pain like oil to fire.

Artemis kept his attention on the mirror in front of him, careful hands working on the buttons of his shirt. "Of course I have," he replied, a voice so cold and distant in a situation demanding of so much more.

He hadn't flinched when she came up to him, her tears turned rage as she collapsed in a fit of needless threats. She yelled, she cried, she hit him as much as she could, but her hands shook with an unexplainable tremor, her power weak and drained from her body.

"But not with me?" she asked after her yelling ceased, her voice hoarse with strain. "Why? You said you did, and you did so much-"

There was no compassion to be felt, but if Artemis could have experienced such a human emotion, it would have been then. It would have been when he turned to face her, when he turned to see her face colored with the softest of pinks and her eyes drowned with pitiful self torture. She had always been so lovely, so wonderful and sweet. His heart almost murmured with the whispers of regret knowing how torn she now looked, how the smiles and the laughs have drowned into a spiraling mess of tears.

Raising his hands, she stood still as stone as Artemis gently caressed her face, thumb brushing against soft skin. "No, I do love you," he admitted with a strange honesty. "And that's why you have to leave me."

Confused, she gazed up at a him, a faint "what?" falling from her lips.

"Because you're so wonderful, I sometimes wonder how you could be alive, and to have been mine nonetheless. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You were a certain kind of perfection I've never seen, but, my dear-" he smiled, a smile void of tenderness "-it's been ruined. Now you're just crying, like something pathetic. But you're still beautiful, even if you're not smiling anymore." Artemis pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead, hand sweeping back the hair out of her face. "Much more beautiful this way. It was worth everything we've been through to see you like this."

With a shove, she escaped from his grasp as quickly as she could. Her thoughts have numbed her mind, her heart having had pounded its way into her throat. "You're a freak," she scorned with a strong bitterness, disparity and confusion mixed like something fatal.

Artemis remained where he stood, an eerie calm stretching the silence before he said, with unbearable disinterest, "and now you're useless."

It was over, affection having ended so painfully after months of fantasy. Love wasn't love, and his kisses now left only fire. Beautiful words were threads of deceit; it had been woven into something dangerous under a veil of sweet innocence.

How foolish she had been to believe he was the one, this devil of the heart, this piper of torment. "I can't believe you," she said weakly before her fingers worked on the gift he had given her now hanging loosely from her wrist, her movements quick with the urgency to leave. "People like you.”

A faint laugh, one amused, one elicited from sick entertainment.

Shaking her head, she uttered a strained swear, his presence insult to injury after all he had done. Throwing the bracelet at him, she didn’t dare say goodbye not when everything she did, everything she said, only served to glorify his twisted sense of victory and excitement.

The door slammed shut as Artemis bent down to retrieve the bracelet, diamonds bright under the light wash of the morning sun.

Mhm... How would this look on Amelia?

Something so elegant around light skin, against small, careful hands.

He wondered how she would react if he ever gave this to her. Perhaps she would have done what all the women before her had: smile and blush, have their golden hearts pound with the fake sense of adoration.

“Thank you,” she might say with the most adorable humility, hands treating the gift as if it were something delicate. “It’s beautiful.”

And looking back up to him, she would offer him a beautiful smile, a smile that would capture his heart without the attempt to even do so. “Much like yourself tonight,” he’d reply with a grin in return, a gesture that would merely prompt a shy, charming laugh.

Perfection... How depressing it was that it was only meant to die.