Yellow

Fourty One

Carter couldn't think of anything worse than going to work the next morning. Alexis had finally gotten to sleep, barely two hours before his alarm went off. He sighed. Pulling his phone off his bedside table and glancing at Artemis, who was sleeping peacefully. He called his office, explaining that he had an emergency at home and wouldn't be in.

Hanging up, he chucked his phone to the side and kissed Alexis' head. "I'm here, Alex. I'm not going to let anything hurt you."

Artemis' alarm went off a while later, causing him to groan. "Fucks sake."

He had barely stood up when Carter caught his wrist. He felt bad asking, but he needed his support. "Artie stay home."

"What's wrong?" Artemis was fully awake instantly.

"Alex hurt himself in his sleep." Carter couldn't lie. "I need you."

Artemis nodded and sat back down on Carter's bed, wrapping his arms around the older man. "You're lucky I don't have any patients today."

"Would you have cancelled anyway?" Carter asked, knowing full well Artemis would do nearly anything for him.

"You two would have had to come to my office for the day." He replied, kissing Carter's forehead. "How's he doing?"

"Only got him to sleep a few hours ago, he had a dream about his parents and what they did."

"Okay." Artemis went worryingly quiet for a few moments.

"Artie?"

"Healing isn't a linear task, we knew this might happen, all we can do is help him through it, let him know it'll be okay." In that moment Carter fell in love with him all over again. Artemis was so steady, so strong and without him he didn't know how he would gather the strength to carry on. "Do you need me to do anything?"

"Check on the others, maybe let them know what's going on."

Artemis nodded, he looked at Alexis, so small in Carter's arms and gently caressed his cheek with the back of his hand. "I wish he knew how perfect he is."

^^^
Although early, only half seven in the morning, a lot of the boys were early risers and taking on Carter's daily pilgrimage around the house felt almost wrong to Artemis, but he did so anyway.

He went to Noah's room first, the boy already awake stood at the window collecting up his crystals that had been charging in the nights moon light. "Hey."

"Hi." Noah always seemed so glad to see him. "Not working today?"

"No, Carter asked me to stay home." Artemis sat down on end of Noahs bed.

"What's going on?"

"Alex had a nightmare last night, he hurt himself in his sleep." Artemis replied. Saying it outloud made him feel so dejected. Noah nodded, putting a crystal in a small capsule on a necklace chain and took a small box from his desk. He sat down on the bed making Artemis turn to look at him.

"He'll be okay." Noah replied, taking a tarot deck from the box and shuffling them. Artemis nodded.

"I know." He didn't really believe in the powers of tarot, but he knew Noah did, and if he wanted to do a reading on how Alexis was faring then he wasn't about to stop him.

Noah took out three cards and studied the pictures carefully. "He'll be okay, but I'm worried they might come back."

"What will?"

"His parents." Noah replied.

"What makes you say that?" Noah was perceptive, more than a lot of people realised.