A/N: Well, this is an old story that's been sitting on my computer for an age (since September 2012, not too long after TLG came out), and I finally felt ready to dust it off and put it up. Just something fun to give me a break from NH. :J
See you at the end!
"My princess, I bequeath upon thee this small token to demonstrate my eternal, heartfelt devotion to you. Please do me the honor of accepting this offering!"
Far from in the mood to accept anything, Holly was seriously tempted to buzz the deluded individual in front of her. It was too bad she'd had to check her baton at the door. Argon's clinic didn't allow weapons.
"Orion," said Holly, putting on her best I'm-being-nice-but-not-really-nice voice, "I have a better idea. Why don't you keep it for me? You can water it, and keep it under a lamp which generates artificial sunlight. Then I can—I guess—look at it sometimes when I stop by."
Usually Orion was only too eager to consent to any suggestion put forth by his princess, but unfortunately, today he seemed keen on changing things up. He shook his head dolefully. "Sadly I have been forbidden the wondrous tiny imitation suns here in my small prison room. But even if I held a thousand of them, surely a knight does not bestow upon his chosen lady a gift and then keep it for himself. What a villainous scoundrel I should be!"
Holly was still trying to think of a way to escape this situation, but all she could come up with was a quick jab to a nerve cluster at the base of the neck followed by a quick dash for the door. She might have given it a shot, if not for the enormous man sitting on the opposite side of the infirmary bed, sharp eyes following her every movement. Don't even think about it, said the set line of his mouth.
"I don't know, Orion," she hedged. "My apartment's about the size of a closet. I don't really have room for anything."
Orion became instantly downcast, his eyes turning round and sad like an abandoned puppy, an expression that no doubt would have made the real Artemis gag. "I see," Orion said, staring woefully down at the object in his hand. But he clearly did not see at all as he went on, "This offering is not worthy of you. It is not sufficiently magnificent. Though I burst forth from my imprisonment and faced a dragon, the dragon was indeed an insignificant pygmy of a beast, and as you are wise enough to know, my lady, where there is no peril, there can be no honor."
His face suddenly lit up and he was cheerful again. "I see! I must perform a task of even greater grandeur to demonstrate to you the extent of my glorious passion. Never fear, my lady, for this knight shall never be disheartened! For you I shall slay ten dragons and a hundred of the witch's soldiers who march from the east! I shall proclaim my love from the highest tower as I raise my sword against the great evil sorceror who tries to conquer our kingdom! I shall break free of my chains and march down to your castle and throw down my gauntlet before that knave who has the presumption to seek your hand! No, I will use the enchanted magic speaking boxes to challenge him right now!"
This last declaration, which might actually have some discernible connection to reality, was just alarming enough for Holly to reach forward and snatch the object from Orion's hand.
"No, actually, I've changed my mind. I'm really impressed by this. And happy, did I say happy? You don't have to do anything else. This is more than enough, really."
Orion stopped in the middle of his delighted ravings. His resulting smile was wide, without a hint of guile.
Holly forced herself to smile back, though it strained the muscles in her jaw. Again Holly's eyes flickered to Butler, who was sitting with his arms folded, still watching her carefully. Play along, that was what he always said. Don't do or say anything to upset him. For a long minute he remained motionless, but as Orion turned his back completely to focus all his attention on Holly, the bodyguard finally gave one tiny, almost imperceptible nod of approval.
Childish as it was, Holly was seriously tempted to stick her tongue out at him.
...
When at last Holly was finally able to get away, and she was walking back along the corridor away from Artemis's room, she looked down at the thing she held gingerly between her fingers.
Orion, demonstrating his usual proclivity for extreme clichés, had chosen to give her as a token of his affection a deep red rose. Apparently he had slipped out of his room one night and plucked it from the personal garden Dr. Argon kept around back. Argon, who tended the garden to keep his stress levels down and was quite proud of it, had not been exactly pleased with Orion's antics. In fact, Holly gathered he'd turned into something not at all undragon-like upon discovering the theft.
Holly couldn't blame him. She had the sneaking suspicion the rose she now held in her hand had been the most stunning, exquisite specimen of them all, before Orion had come along and put an early end to its short life. The stem was a lush dark green, and the head was enormous, folding out in layers upon layers of glossy crimson petals. Of course, like any rose, it had thorns too, and with Holly's usual luck upon taking it earlier she had stuck her thumb pretty good. Her magic had healed the puncture automatically, but there was still a small trail of drying blood.
Holly never could know what to expect when she came for one of these visits. Sometimes Artemis would be his usual self and they would just sit talking like normal. Other times he would act as paranoid as a drug lord at a police convention, or she'd find out he'd been awake for the last forty-eight hours straight working on THE PROJECT. Or, like today, he was under Orion's control. Orion was annoying to be in the same room with at the best of times, but when he got on the subject of his princess, he was almost intolerable. Already Mulch and Foaly had taken to dropping snide comments here and there, and she didn't know how much more she could take. How much longer before Artemis would be completely and permanently in his right mind again?
Holly arrived at the main lobby. She glanced down once at the flower, then immediately made a beeline for the nearest recycler. If Foaly, Trouble, or, heaven forbid, Mulch caught her with this, she would never have another moment's peace.
Using her foot to punch the lever to hoist up the lid, Holly held the rose over the receptacle's mouth. However, she hesitated as a voice called out behind her.
"Ah, Captain Short. Just returned from seeing the patient, I take it?"
Holly turned to see Dr. Argon emerging from another side corridor. No matter how many times Holly saw the psychiatrist, he never made it off the list of Holly's least favorite fairies. He knew how to put on the grim, professional face all right, but she knew that the chance to pick apart Artemis's unfathomable brain secretly thrilled him. The doctor and his clinic had gotten a lot of media attention recently thanks to its strange guest, and the doctor was loving every minute of it.
Today, however, Holly was almost glad to see the doctor. She eagerly extended the blindingly scarlet flower to him to take. It had originally been his after all, so he should be delighted to get it back.
However, Argon gave an irritated sniff. "I obviously don't want it now," he said. "The object of having a flower garden is to have the pleasure of enjoying them in the garden. Having decomposing organic materials inside my home and calling it decoration—I'm not a human, you know."
Holly tried not to look too peevish. "Okay." The recycler it is then, she thought, and raised her hand over the mouth again.
"Hmm," said Argon conversationally. "But I did wonder what he meant to do with that rose. So Artemis Fowl gave it to you, did he?" There was a spark of interest in his eye, like a scientist getting back a result from a lab experiment.
"No," said Holly icily. "Artemis didn't give me anything."
Argon nodded sympathetically. "Orion Fowl, not Artemis Fowl. If you prefer to think of it that way, then that's your choice, Captain. I've always observed that it's easier for friends and family to view stage-2-Atlantis victims as two separate individuals, rather than two linked sides of one disturbed mind. That's understandable."
The chance to be condescending seemed to have put the doctor in a better mood. He was oblivious to the fingers of Holly's free hand curling into a fist as he went on affably, "However, Captain, I doubt that you have failed to realize, at least on some level, the way things really stand in terms of the Atlantis Complex, as opposed to how you persist in pretending to see them. That is, you know that an alter isn't just an individual made up from nothing, but is based in some way on the original personality. Generally what attachments, interests, and beliefs an alter demonstrates stem from thoughts the real personality had all along. Often they are aspects that the patient has felt compelled to suppress, or attempted to reject. That's what makes this Orion's unusual interest in you so fascinating. This alternate personality may appear to be the opposite of Fowl, but in reality he most likely comes from a hidden part of the human's psyche. So that would mean..."
Holly would have responded, but apparently the gnome had been more interested in delivering a lecture than carrying on a conversation. By the time she opened her mouth, indignant, he had already moved on, disappearing down another hallway. He moved with surprising swiftness, given he limped a little with every step.
Holly scowled. She hoped his hip was really killing him.
Holly held the rose high above the recycler, and for a few seconds her hand hovered there. Then, sighing heavily, she withdrew and let the lid fall back down with a clatter.
Curse Argon and his mind games. He probably caused more psychological problems than he ever solved. Orion was just some silly phantom born out of hallucinations brought on by a disease of the mind, and there was no use in addressing his declarations seriously. Yet somehow the doctor had made throwing the rose away at the first opportunity feel...not right.
Holly looked down at the rose again and groaned. The head was so obnoxiously large, it would be obvious from three blocks away. Holly shot a quick glance around the main lobby. The receptionist fortunately wasn't at her desk, probably off on one of her usual paid extra-long lunches, and the hall was empty, so no one was there to eye Holly strangely as she, jumpy as someone committing a crime, clumsily unzipped her jumpsuit and stuffed the rose unceremoniously inside.
"There," she muttered under her breath as she zipped her jumpsuit back up. "I'm keeping the thing. Happy now?"
Shooting another anxious, guilty look around the antechamber, Holly turned and hurried through the exit.
...
With almost every step Holly had to fight the need to wince painfully as the thorns of the rose dug into her side, poking holes in her one-piece. Going all the way back to her apartment was not going to be a pleasant business.
Normally Holly would have walked all the way back from Argon's clinic to avoid the crowds, but this time she turned and headed for the Stick. She would have an easier time not getting stabbed if all she was doing was standing on a conveyor belt.
As she went, Holly scowled ferociously, causing a couple of pixies to scamper out of her way.
When I get back, she thought as she felt another thorn jab her between the ribs, this thing is going in the incinerator. What sort of idiot decided that giving someone one of these was romantic anyway? They bloom for about five minutes, and then all that's left are ugly little stickers that make you bleed. That's supposed to be a symbol of love? That's just sick.
Holly continued to stew as she stepped onto the belt, automatically taking hold of the bulbous handhold. Holly's eyes wandered the familiar walls as they passed through a tunnel, the intricate designs relating fairy history drifting past.
Holly heard someone giggle a couple of spots up ahead and she lifted her eyes automatically to look.
A couple of elves were standing side-by-side on the belt, a female hanging on the arm of a male with broad shoulders. The female elf whispered something into his ear and Holly thought he smiled in return, though they were hard to make out in the dim light.
Now, thought Holly, a little uncharitably, there's probably a love that's like a rose. I wonder how long the spell will last before they start getting into fights about who's paying for dinner at that five-star restaurant, or about that other blond super-model babe he was ogling.
Yes, the female, from what Holly could tell in this light, was very pretty, with long platinum blond hair. The elf reminded Holly a little of Lily Frond.
Holly blinked. As they emerged from the tight tunnel and into the bright artificial sunlight of Haven and the blond elf turned again so Holly could see the side of her face, Holly realized it was Frond.
Holly stood there, stunned. She looked at the other elf, the male, but relaxed when she recognized Trouble.
Frond and Trouble had been sort of seeing each other for the past couple weeks, going on evening dates and talking a little more than was usual around the office, especially considering Holly suspected they hadn't a thing in common. They weren't officially in a relationship, but Holly thought it still would have hurt Trouble's feelings to find the bimbo behaving so with someone else.
Not too long ago Trouble had tried asking Holly out a few times, and they had both given the whole dating thing a whirl. However, it hadn't worked out so well. Even though she and Trouble, both soldiers on the same wavelength, had always gotten along over the years, they had managed to get into fights on every single one. Part of it she blamed on his being a commander now. Much of the friendly cheerfulness of his old self seemed to have disappeared, and now he always had to act tough and macho, maintain his authority relative to everyone else.
Holly probably could have gotten used to it, if not for Trouble's recent bad habit. Whenever the subject of Artemis Fowl came up in the conversation, Trouble could never resist dropping a harsh, scornful comment about Artemis's mental illness, and when Holly would politely tell him to shut up about it, he'd come back with, "Well, you're the one who said he was crazier than a troll with ringworm."
Holly felt bad enough about that without having it constantly brought up, and it always gave her the urge to punch him in the face. In fact, on their last date, she had punched him, and they had gotten into such a heated argument that they were practically shouting before the authorities had arrived on the scene to drag them both out of the crunchball stadium. They had made up the next day, but Trouble hadn't asked her out again, which was probably just as well.
Still though, Holly would not have expected Trouble to go for someone like Lily Frond. When she had first heard of it secondhand from Foaly, the idea of it had made her recoil. Corporal Frond was an airhead; it was hard to imagine her in one steady relationship and taking it seriously. The last thing Holly wanted to see was Trouble finding himself out in the cold because he got too emotionally attached to a frivolous nitwit. Foaly, naturally, was convinced she was jealous, but she had learned to ignore his smart little barbs, and keep her opinions of Frond to herself.
The couple stepped off the conveyor belt. Trouble got off first and took Frond's hand to help her, though she still managed to stumble a little and Trouble had to put out a hand to steady her. Frond smiled up at him. Frond usually looked cool and glamorous as she acted as the face for the LEP, and probably could have been the next anchorfairy for PPTV news, but at the moment she appeared oddly shy. Holly had to admit, even though she was still dubious of Frond's reliability when it came to relationships, the two seemed to get along well like this, much better than Holly and Trouble had ever done.
Just then, Trouble caught sight of Holly watching them as the belt carried her on by and he looked startled.
Holly smiled and waved.
Frond turned around to see what Trouble was looking at and, upon seeing Holly, gave a small wave with a manicured hand.
Holly had to fight the urge to wince. Not because Trouble was still looking like he didn't know quite how to react, or because Frond was giving her an honest smile without the least bit of triumph or malice, but because Holly had completely forgotten about the rose, and when she lifted her hand it poked her hard in the side again, as though trying to get her attention.
Holly turned back to face the front as the belt moved on. She jabbed at the flower's head, feeling it beneath the fabric of her uniform, and had to fight an intense irrational desire to punish it by breaking the head clean off.
When Holly finally made it back to her apartment, she strode in and slammed the door shut behind her. Unzipping her jumpsuit she drew out the rose. She paused by the square hole in her wall that led to the trash recycler, which took all the garbage in the building through a chute to the decomposing unit downstairs, thinking.
It was just a silly rose. Perhaps Orion was an expression of things buried deep in Artemis's psyche, and Artemis did still harbor some faint attraction to her left over from their misadventure back in time, but it wasn't like he would consider the plant an expression of that feeling. He spoke of Orion and his outrageous behavior with more disdain than anyone else, and were he allowed to voice an opinion on the matter, would probably encourage her to be rid of the object as soon as physically possible.
Nodding to herself, Holly drew back her hand and was an instant away from releasing the stem and letting it tumble into the void when she suddenly froze as the strangest thought struck her.
Holly pulled the rose back from the hole and looked at it, her eyebrows drawn together. And as she gazed at the scarlet flower in her hand, she wondered something she had, odd as it was, never contemplated before now.
How would it be, she thought, twirling the rose idly between her fingers, if what's happening to Artemis now had happened to me instead?
If, during that crisis with the probe, Holly had been the one developing Atlantis Complex, counting things all the time and paranoid, and shehad been the one to wake up with a mental disease that had suddenly progressed to stage two, what would she have said?
What was it Artemis had said back then?
"Hello. And who might you be?"
"It's me, Holly."
"Of course, yes. Artemis thinks about you all the time."
"Uh...Artemis thinks about me. But you don't?"
"Oh yes, I do constantly, and may I say you look even more bewitching in the flesh."
Holly cringed slightly at the memory. But then her imagination altered it slightly. She saw Artemis hovering over her in concern, and her own eyes opening, staring up at him. But not herself. Another personality inhabiting her body. What sort of personality would she have? What would be her opposite?
Holly thought of Lily Frond back at the Stick. Right. A bimbo airhead. Her other personality would introduce herself as Lily. And she'd be a chatterbox who talked a mile a minute.
"Hi. And who are you again? Oh right, Artemis Fowl. Like, duh. Holly only thinks about you every other minute."
Holly actually shuddered, but though she was starting to regret entering this line of thought, her brain continued to play out the scene against her will.
"Hmm. Holly thinks about me? And what does that mean?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I think about you, too. All the time, actually. I think you're, like, totally hot."
Holly was spinning the rose so fast now it was putting holes in her fingers, but she barely noticed.
I would seriously die, she thought, feeling slightly panicked. If that ever happened, my heart would give out and I would just kill over.
And to take the horror one step further.
"By the way, Arty, while we're following this probe thing. Remember Rathdown Park, and what Holly said at Tara? I know Holly cut that short with her usual drama, but I want to let you know. I am just as into you as she is, but I'm not a stubborn, macho idiot. Just think about it. 'Kay, Arty?"
Holly's hand closed in a tight fist around the stem of the rose, and she didn't notice the thorns sinking deep into her palm.
And then to take the whole thing to yet another level. Say that—theoretically of course—the things this Lily claimed about how Holly felt were not just the babblings of a lunatic, but actually an outward expression of something personal she, Holly, actually felt. How must it feel, to have secret feelings and wants and insecurities laid bare for the world to see, in the most humiliating and obnoxious way possible?
Holly was silent for a long while, gazing down at the flower in her hand. She hadn't said anything intentionally mean or hurtful. But she had gotten impatient with Orion's endless romantic nonsense, maybe had spoken a little sharply, even contemptuously. Certainly, Artemis's attitude toward Orion seemed to be the same—and yet...
"Tell me, Foaly. Is she serious? I do think I'm going to be ill."
The room was quiet for a long time, but for the hum of appliances and the dull murmur of her apartment neighbors across the hall. At last Holly uncurled her fingers from around the stem and winced as for the first time she consciously registered the pricks of pain from the spines.
Holly looked at the red holes dotting her palm and fingers and watched as her magic was finally allowed to seal them up. The stem was slightly bent now.
With a deep sigh, Holly turned away from the recycler. Instead, she went over to the kitchen area and tossed the bright, ostentatious flower of love on the counter.
Holly didn't care much for flowers. And she found a deep red rose was particularly embarrassing and irksome to have sitting around her apartment. But she would keep it, at least for a little while.
Some respect, she thought. That's a token of affection, too.
A/N: Yay for role reversal. (;
Short stories aren't my forte, but I enjoyed writing it, and tried to give it my all. (Like I said, it's nice to have something lighter to work on once in a while to balance out NH.) Thanks for reading, and if you like, review and let me know what you thought! :j
Posted 3/4/15