A/N: I realize that I kind of fell off the face of the planet lately, particularly in this fandom, and I finally found the initiative to dig through the piles of paper gathered around the house until I found something to type and upload. So this is it.
Artemis Fowl prided himself on being an extremely direct man. Time was money, particularly when he possessed an intellect capable of extraordinary things in short periods. Unfortunately, as such, his day's hours nearly never sufficed.
It was this pressing matter which caused him to be as forward as possible. However, in his twenty-five years of existence, he had learned that some things should never be said, true as they might be.
Phrases like, "This is not alright."
"What on earth are you thinking?"
"How could you do this to me?"
And it was for this reason that he found himself incapable of saying the three words that could change everything. Instead, he grinned and bore it, lied through his teeth that he was happy for her when in all honesty, the only thing he wanted to do was cry, suffered through the fact that she did not pick up these emotions that he knew she would notice if she were not with him, and quietly loathed himself with a hatred of frightening intensity for not being able to tell her what mattered most: that he loved her, more than he initially thought possible, and it was killing him, killing him, to pretend that it mattered not to him. But she was smiling, the way he thought only he could make her, and she was not looking at him; she was looking at the other. So he smiled as well, and he excused himself, and he sobbed in a completely uncharacteristic manner in the men's room, wishing that not speaking were a lesson he had never learned.
A/N: This has been an installment of "What R. Does in Class Instead of Paying Attention," according to the date on it. The other man was not represented by anyone in particular while I was writing it. The woman Artemis is referring to was supposed to be Holly, but I left the name out intentionally to make it ambiguous. This way, it applies to whomever the reader feels it should.