A/N: Hello dear readers! I am so excited to write my first multi-chapter fanfic. I will try to update as often as I can - but my motivation, not to mention my schedule, can be quite fickle, so please bear with me!
Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl. As a general rule, I do not own most things. What a shame.
Enjoy! Constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Chapter One: Hopeless
3:26am.
Artemis Fowl II heard the beginning of a long sequence of high-pitched tones, his sleep-clouded eyes opening almost instantly. The 24-year-old (or was it 27-year-old? Oh, never mind...) reached over to his bedside table and slapped the alarm clock's snooze button with incredible accuracy, silencing the alarm at once.
This very un-Artemis-like moment of coordination was only executed correctly because it had, of course, been meticulously orchestrated by Artemis himself. The previous afternoon, he had moved the clock into reaching distance from his bed, and he had diligently studied the position of the clock in relation to the exact spot in which he typically slept.
Yes, perhaps this was a lot of effort only to keep the ringing of his alarm clock to the minimum amount. But it was vitally important to his plan that no one should hear his alarm blaring at 3:26am. Especially not the auburn-haired elf sleeping next to him.
Important to the plan, thought Artemis, checking to make sure that Holly Short was still asleep. Luckily, her only reaction was to let out a long snore at that moment, shifting from her side onto her stomach.
And still you sleep, Captain? Honestly, I would've expected a soldier to have better reflexes. A small smile nonetheless turned up the corners of his thin lips.
Artemis carefully pulled away the various blankets on the bed, sliding his legs out centimeter by centimeter, so as to not disturb Holly's slumber. He tip-toed as noiselessly as he could across the room. He didn't let out the breath he was holding until he had closed the door behind him, wincing with every squeak of the hinges.
He walked hurriedly down the manor hallway towards his study. He knew the "path" well, having traveled it most days of his life, so he had not felt the need to practice this leg of his journey so intensely beforehand. A short moment of relaxation.
To Artemis's satisfaction, the route had remained the same as it always was. The only complication was Beckett's 3DS gaming device laying in the middle of the hallway, a few steps in front of Artemis's study. Needless to say, Artemis had not expected this tiny but treacherous roadblock.
At least his slight frame allowed him to tumble to the floor in a somewhat quiet fashion.
He sighed, closing the remaining distance between himself and the study through a mixture of crawling and hopping on one foot.
Once inside his study, Artemis groped blindly but quickly towards his desk on the far side of the room - he did not flip on the lights; an unnecessary precaution, perhaps, but he wasn't about to take any chances.
He could now get down to business, as that historically-deviant Disney film said. Reaching into the top drawer under his desk, he grabbed a sharpened pencil and notebook with "A Most Fowl Proposal For Captain Holly Short" written on it (Artemis had reasoned that since no one would ever see the notebook, he would allow himself to make a mediocre pun just this once). He then sat down in front of his vast array of computer screens, keyboards, and voice recognition software.
Most of his gadgets fought among themselves for a portion of his limited desk space; however, there was a spot that had obviously been carefully cleared so that the picture could be viewed without any visual interference.
Artemis paused briefly to look at this framed photograph of him and Holly. It had been taken during their first date, about three years ago. They'd had a picnic, under the shade of a particular ancient oak tree that stood near the bend in the river - the same spot where they'd first met, where he had kidnapped her all those years ago.
Holly had appreciated the irony.
Another small smile.
He started up his computer system, making sure that activity would be limited to the screen of his personal laptop only. The last thing he needed was a noisy advertisement popping up on every open screen in his study; in that case, he might as well have just ran down the hallway while shouting into a megaphone. Either method would have sufficiently awoken everyone in the manor.
Upon hearing his computer hum to life, Artemis went directly to his search engine. He began to type his topic of research into the text box - yes, Artemis Fowl was typing using an old-fashioned keyboard. For this particular project, using voice commands was not nearly, eh, discreet enough for Artemis's taste.
How does one propose to one's significant other?
Just before he tapped the "enter" button, Artemis paused, observing that his heart rate had increased slightly.
How curious, he thought. Artemis Fowl becomes a hopeless romantic when confronted with a serious relationship.
This statement was not entirely accurate, as anyone who had just witnessed the first stage of Artemis's plan could attest to. Given all of the complex maneuvering he had already executed that night, one could not say that the man was hopeless.
... However, two could perhaps say that he was hopeless. And they walked into Artemis's study at that exact moment.
"Doing a little midnight scheming, are we, brother?"
In a frenzy, Artemis weakly smacked at the various buttons and keys that sat before him. Normally, the man would not have found exiting his Internet browser to be so difficult, but these circumstances were already leaving him quite addled and - he realized with dismay - unexpectedly incompetent.
Perhaps I am not a hopeless romantic. Only hopeless. Ha.
Artemis finally located that evasive red "X" button in the corner of his screen, clicking it and getting rid of all traces of his in-progress plan. He took a brief moment to collect himself; he tried his best to stop his hands from shaking, and hoped to return his facial complexion to normal by willing all color to drain from it. He then turned around as nonchalantly as possible in his office chair, coming face to face with Myles and Beckett.
"Eh... not particularly," said Artemis. He could tangibly feel his excuse not convincing the twins. "I was having a bout of insomnia, when I suddenly felt inspired to get up and conduct a little research on... seasonal sleeping patterns." While he was quite skilled at employing the speech patterns of someone who was telling the truth, Artemis internally winced at this lame conclusion. It was the best he could do on such short notice; he would never admit it (although Holly most certainly would), but one of his most glaring personality flaws was that he never constructed a Plan B. While his Plan A could be - and arguably had been, in this case - completely ingenious, if something unanticipated happened, he didn't really have a second course of action prepared.
"How intriguing." Myles smirked, waving around a flashlight so he could examine the various objects in the room. "I wonder how Captain Short's sleeping patterns are being affected? For one thing, it would seem that the coming of spring has caused her to only want to sleep in the guest room for a little while every night. But your room, Artemis, she seems to be quite alright with sleeping there."
The 12-year-old let out a trail of smug giggles, appealing to Beckett to share in the laughter; Beckett tried his best, but was obviously too tired to even catch the joke. It was clear that Myles had dragged Beckett along against his will.
Artemis felt his face heat up involuntarily, but he kept his voice even. "Really, Myles, that's the best you could do?" he said, unperturbed. "Such a primary school joke. Even when I was your age, that immature humor was beneath me."
Nevertheless, he was suddenly grateful that the back-lighting of his computer screen would not show the reddening of his cheeks.
"Nothing is ever quite as funny as a good poop joke," said Beckett, who seemed half-asleep, but probably would've said the same thing when fully awake.
"Honestly, can't we drop this 'insomnia' pretense?" Myles narrowed his eyes; he knew that he had hit a nerve with his teasing, which meant that his suspicions weren't that far off-the-mark. "It's clear that this late-night adventure of yours was premeditated."
"And how is that so, little man?" Although his brothers were almost teenagers, Artemis still had a full decade over them. If Myles felt he was being patronized, he would hopefully leave the study in a huff, dragging an almost-sleeping Beckett with him. Then Artemis could get back to his... research.
But Myles could not be coerced into leaving that easily. "This morning we could hear you testing your clock's alarm over and over again, locked up in your room all day. I figured that you were planning something top-secret for tonight, because why else would you be practicing shutting off your alarm without waking anyone? All I had to do to confirm my suspicions was inspect the clock myself, which was set for 3:26am. 'S not something that just happens, brother."
"I see," said Artemis, examining his nails.
"Then, it was only a matter of distracting Beckett with an obstacle course, so he would abandon his 3DS in front of your study. There was a strong probability that you would trip over it while coming down the hallway, which you inevitably did-" and in spite of his business-like telling of events, Myles could not suppress a wicked grin at this, "-and so I was able to pinpoint your location."
Hmm, thought Artemis. It appears that my brother has become quite the evil analyst.
A chip off the old block.
"Very well, I know when I've been found out," said Artemis, backtracking. Perhaps he could still dig his way out of this. "I wanted to refrain from appearing too obsessive... which is why I tried to pull off this as an elaborate ruse. The truth is, I was... very interested in researching seasonal sleeping patterns. So yes... I did have a plan after all."
Artemis stood up from his chair, then walked towards Myles to personally usher him out. "Congratulations, little man, you've caught me. So why don't you two retire to your bedrooms now?"
"Oh, but my work isn't done yet." Myles side-stepped Artemis's feeble corralling attempts.
"What do you want, Myles?" said Artemis, exasperated. He glanced at the clock on his desk, and was dismayed to see that it already said 3:53am. He was behind schedule now. At this rate, he'd never be well-rested for tomorrow.
"Obviously you are in the process of carrying out a top-secret, but thrilling, money-making scheme," said Myles confidently, "and Beckett and I want to be added on as your business partners."
"Hmm, I wonder if Holly will be a business partner as well."
Myles and Artemis both turned to look at Beckett. While his brothers had been arguing, Beckett had wandered over to Artemis's desk, and was now looking curiously at one of Artemis's notebooks.
"What do you have there, Beck?" said Myles, sliding past Artemis and inspecting this new evidence for himself. He read the title on the otherwise nondescript notebook, an expression of outrage forming on his youthful face. "'A Most Fowl Proposal for Captain Holly Short'? This is unfathomable! I can't believe I didn't see what was going on sooner..."
If one could slip on a banana peel and promptly fall off the edge of a cliff to their doom, then that was exactly what Artemis was doing by then. But in an emotional sense.
Damn. Who could've guessed that one mediocre pun would be the cause of my downfall.
I honestly should've expected this.
Myles's eyes narrowed as he left the notebook with Beckett and turned to confront Artemis.
"I can't believe you were planning on making a business deal with Captain Short without consulting your own brothers!" said Myles disdainfully. "You were blinded by the economic power that there is in a magic-possessing partner, and you failed to consider how valuable Beckett and I could be to the proceedings!"
Beckett, in his sleepiness, was surprisingly perceptive. He was, perhaps, even more perceptive than either of his genius brothers would ever be.
"Don't worry, Myles, I don't think we would've wanted to be partners in this business deal of Arty's anyway," he said earnestly. "I mean, I want no part of all that kissing..."
Myles paled. "... what do you mean, Beck?" He could think of no business transactions where kissing of all things would be appropriate - bless his innocent soul.
"Well, isn't it obvious?" said Beckett, and behind the dazed expression of someone who was barely staying awake as he spoke, Artemis could've sworn that he saw just a hint of smugness dancing across his little brother's face. "This is no business proposal, it's a marriage proposal! Arty wants to marry the Captain, but he has to keep it a secret."
"That would explain the sneaking around at three in the morning." Myles crinkled his nose, dumbfounded by how his accusations had been, ah, slightly off-the-mark after all.
Artemis was not used to people figuring out his dastardly - or marital, for that matter - plans. And he was definitely not used to Beckett of all people doing the figuring. But now that the clock read 4:04am, he no longer had time to avoid his brothers' prying.
"Okay, boys, you've succeeded in discovering my true intentions," said Artemis, trying again to usher the boys through the door, "and with that discovery, I hope you see why it is imperative that you both go back to bed now. We don't have much longer before someone inevitably hears us all talking, and then my cover will be 'blown', as Butler would say."
"Nonsense, we can't abandon you now!" Myles held his ground against Artemis's ushering... which was not actually that difficult, given Artemis's lack of physical prowess. "Artemis, now that you've asked Beckett and I for help-"
"I don't recall asking you two for help with anything, much less proposing to my girlfriend."
"-we must stay and be of aid to you, even if your scheming takes all night."
"And knowing about Arty and his challenges with girls, this probably will take all night," said Beckett.
Artemis sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he now had two more "business partners" for this project. But, if he was being completely honest, his most Fowl proposal for Captain Holly Short did need as much help as it could get... or else, the proposal could end up being both Fowl and foul.
And Artemis had no intention of letting that pun gain any validity. That simply would not do.
