:In Which I Point Out a Plot Hole or Two:
Out of Time
I had been wrong. My theory – the one that our lives depended on – had been wrong. I should have known. I had wondered how the fairies had overlooked so simple a thing as that. I should have realized that thousands of years is usually a long enough time in which to correct any flaws in the time stop that a preteen Mud Man might spot. I should have thought more about contingencies and noticed that this situation had none. I strode determinedly to the wine cellar.
It is possible to escape the time stop, I had thought. The fairies are such fools for overlooking this escape route. I had underestimated them. I had based too much of the plan on my naïve arrogance. I know everything about the fairies. I selected, at random, a bottle of champagne from my father's collection of liquors and brought it upstairs to the kitchen.
I had told the fairy commander that I could get out of the time stop. It was all part of the plan. He thought I was crazy; I thought I was a genius. I suppose he had been right. After that meeting, many people and People inside the time stop fell unconscious yet remained in this time. Butler. Captain Short. The troll. It had even come to pass that a fairy outside was hit by a tranquilizer dart, ruling out my last hope that chemically-induced sleep would still work as planned despite the failure of all other means of induced unconscious. I sighed at my own failure as I returned the three cups I had set out earlier to their cupboard and replaced them with three champagne glasses.
We hadn't had a hope at living ever since I talked that commander into bio-bombing Fowl Manor, but I hadn't seen it until too late. I finally found Juliet and Butler, suggested a celebration, and scurried back to the kitchen.
I hadn't made up my mind until the fairy outside collapsed: We can achieve our goals even if the fairies are bound to achieve theirs – it merely calls for a revising of our goals. I watched patiently as the sleeping pills I had dropped into the glasses, now containing champagne, dissolved.
They wouldn't expect it – neither of them would expect it, the fairies nor the Butlers. I had to kill us before the bio bomb hit. If we had to die we would die on my terms and by my means. I serenely called for Juliet and Butler.
When they came, I proposed a toast. They commented about the alcohol and my being underage. The alcohol was necessary, though – in conjunction with the sedatives, the concoction would be fatal to drink. I gave an excuse. In the end, their trust in me got the better of them and they drank their death.
I waited, before downing my own, to make sure they had finished their poisons; such was my desire to beat the fairies in the race to kill my friends and myself. It took perhaps a moment longer to take effect on Butler than on Juliet, despite the fact that he had drunk first. He saw her fall down never to rise, and he, too, felt the creeping sluggishness that would kill him. In that moment, I could tell from his expression that he would never trust again, not in the least because he would never breathe again.
Without remorse and without hesitation, I drained my own glass.
A/N: Huzzah, that was so fun to write! I got to include both mad!Artemis and silly!Colfer. It is so very AU, yet so very canon, as only Colfer's universe can allow.
In Which I Point Out a Plot Hole or Two: Out of Time was shortlisted for both Best AU and Best Concept/Idea in the 2001-2005 Orion Awards.
Disclaimer: Eoin owns everything. Thank goodness.