Title: The Disastrous Date
Summary: Trouble Kelp was supposed to be having a good day. But then he remembers he lost a bet, and his brother won't give him a moment of peace, and he still has to be on time for his date.
Commander Trouble Kelp didn't think his day could get any worse.
In fact, he expected it to end well, with a nice dinner.
Because despite his little brother's teasing, Trouble Kelp had a date.
His day wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for Grub.
He came into work with a stack of paperwork on his desk, that he was fairly certain shouldn't be there.
He was about to go find out who had put them there when he saw Corporal G. Kelp written on the top page. He knew what it was immediately.
Three days before, Trouble had made a bet with Major Vein that he could get Grub to go a week without filing a complaint.
He'd lost the bet, and Vein had gotten bragging rights, but more importantly Trouble had agreed to do all the paperwork his brother caused for two weeks.
It was a good thing he didn't see Grub that morning, because if he had seen his brother, he was fairly sure he would've strangled him.
Every fairy in the LEP knew better than to bother Trouble Kelp when he was angry, and every one of them also knew he hated to lose a bet.
One specific fairy, however, ignored his better impulses. Or perhaps he was just stupid.
"How was the paperwork, Commander?" Foaly asked him as he walked into Ops.
"Another comment, pony, and I might be tempted to slash your budget."
The centaur frowned. He hated any mention of cutting his budget. But he smirked slightly. "You really do sound like Beetroot when you're angry."
Trouble couldn't actually argue with that. It was probably right.
"What did you want?"
"It's probably nothing serious-" He started.
"But?" Trouble asked.
"Artemis has a new project. I don't know what it is exactly, he long since cut me out of his computers, but-"
"So you brought me here to tell me that the billionaire mud boy is doing something."
Foaly nodded. "Basically."
"If you have anything actually useful for me, centaur, you know where my desk is."
Foaly turned to him once more as he started towards the door. "Have fun on your date, Commander." He smirked.
Trouble was sure he had turned bright red. He probably looked even more like Commander Root.
"How-?" He asked.
"Holly was talking to Caballine about it." Foaly grinned. "If you take her to the movies, don't take her to an action movie. She'll get overexcited and might accidentally hit you."
He was about to nod, but he realized Foaly might take that to mean he would listen to his advice. He turned and left, his face redder than ever.
His day couldn't possibly get any worse.
The very second he thought this, an alarm sounded.
There were four types of alarms in Police Plaza, yellow, blue, red, and black. Yellow was a minor alarm, blue a major one, red was a human alert of some kind, and black was an Artemis Fowl alert.
Black was a new invention, but one he had heard all too often.
Luckily, that day it was only a yellow alarm.
"Commander!" Chix Verbil ran to him. "They told me to tell you, it's your brother."
Trouble would've groaned if it hadn't been so serious. "What did he do?"
"He was out on patrol and he's not answering his communicator."
"Why is that a yellow alert?"
"Because there were reports of guns being fired in the area."
"D'arvit." Trouble muttered. "I'm going."
"Are you sure, Comman-?"
He was halfway down the hall before the sprite gave up on his sentence.
When he arrived on the scene, the officers who sent out the alert were waiting near Grub's abandoned vehicle.
"Who was his partner?" He asked.
The officers both shifted guiltily on their feet.
He raised an eyebrow.
"He was alone." One of them said. "No one was willing to pair up with him."
Trouble scowled. "Where was gunfire heard?"
Gun fire sounded loudly from a tunnel off of the service tunnel Grub was supposed to have been patrolling.
Trouble drew his weapon and the two officers followed suit, following him slowly to the tunnel.
He spun the corner.
"AH!" Grub yelled, seeing the gun. Then he looked up. "Oh, hey Trubs."
Trouble took a minute to assess the situation. Grub was fine. In his hands was a-
"Is that a video game?" He asked.
"You want to play?" Grub asked, sounding guilty.
The game made a loud gun sound that echoed through the tunnel.
"Why didn't you answer your communicator?"
Grub frowned and pulled it out of his pocket. "I turned the sound off. It gives me headaches. I was going to a file a complaint later to-"
It took both of the other officers to restrain Trouble and keep him from smacking Grub across the face.
As soon as he got back to Police Plaza, Major Vein swaggered up to his desk and dropped a stack of paperwork on it.
"Commander," He smirked "Here's-"
He saw Trouble's expression and backed slowly away.
By the time he had filed all the paperwork for Grub's latest screw up, it was six in the evening. Which wouldn't be a problem, except he had a date in half an hour and he was still in his uniform.
He showed up at Holly's half an hour late, but in his defense, he had flowers.
"Sorry I'm late." He tried not to blush. "I got caught late at work."
"That's okay." Holly smiled and stepped outside. "Is Grub alright? I heard the yellow alarm was about him."
Trouble just groaned.
She laughed. "Should I even ask?"
"He'll be alright, unless I snap and decide to kill him."
"What'd he do?"
So on the walk to the restaurant, Trouble told her.
The disaster that was his date technically couldn't be blamed on Grub, but he decided it was worth a try anyway.
It turned out that Holly was allergic to the flowers he had brought her, which led to a huge sneeze that was so loud Trouble jumped and knocked over the candle on the table, catching the tablecloth on fire.
Then, in an attempt to put out the fire, he poured his water on the table, but ninety percent of it splashed on her.
When the fire was finally out, he turned pink. "Sorry."
She looked down at herself and chuckled. "I think I'm going to go home and dry off."
"I'll walk you back." He said.
They walked in silence.
"See you tomorrow, Trouble." She walked up her steps.
"That was a little fun." He said as she stepped inside. "Maybe we could-"
She shut the door, probably not realizing he had been talking.
At least, he hoped so.