The Borderlines

By: Aviantei

An Artemis Fowl One Shot

[Twelve Shots of Summer Second Raid 7/12]

The Fowl household had been reintroduced to coloring books, mainly because the youngest residents were at an age to enjoy them without eating the crayons. It was, however, the first time that such books had been taken to in such number and enthusiasm, as the first of the Fowl children had easily gotten bored with them and had moved on to creating his own pictures instead.

Myles Fowl had done much of the same thing, and preferred to cover blank papers with very rough outlines of what looked to be blueprints with heavily practiced writing. He had recently mastered cursive, and most of the alphabet was distinguishable, save for those nasty Gs. On the other hand, Beckett, his twin, was still enamored with the things, though most of the pages were filled with scribbles that had no place on anything sophisticated, let alone a coloring book.

Myles had learned a long time ago that he was the smarter brother—it was an easily distinguishable fact—but that didn't mean that Beckett's actions couldn't absolutely drive him up the wall.

"You're doing it wrong," Myles huffed once again, standing over his brother. Usually Juliet would try to stop this sort of thing, but she had gone to grab snacks from the kitchen. Beckett paused in his frenzied scribbling, looking up but not hurt. Myles crossed his tiny arms, knowing his words would probably do no good, but pressed on anyway. "How many times do I have to tell you; you're supposed to color in the lines."

Beckett looked back to the book, as if contemplating what the lines were on the paper for. And then, simply, he said, "Don't wanna."

Myles had known the answer was coming, really. Still, he couldn't just let the matter go—his brother was destroying the whole point of coloring books in the first place! "Then why don't you just use normal paper if you're going to do it wrong?"

Beckett chewed his lip for a moment, clutching onto his crayon. "It's not wrong," he finally said, "'cause I like it." And just like that, he went back to his picture, scribbling all over the line art rendered faces of Pip and Kip.

At the age of twenty-three, Myles Fowl had become every bit as successful as one would expect of a Fowl, being a prominent presence in the business and academic worlds, much like his older brother. Fowl Industries had been passed from one Artemis Fowl to the other, and Myles stood as the second-in-command, working towards further expanding the company's success.

He was used to attending a number of social events, mainly to improve company relations as well as striking up new deals. Most of them tended to be boring, but they were necessary, and Myles handled them with utter confidence.

But nothing had ever sent him into apprehension like the opening night of his brother's exhibit at the Fowl Art Gallery.

Beckett had stayed attached to the arts long through childhood to adolescence, and had claimed he could leave "all that stuffy stuff" to his "equally stuffy brothers." The art gallery had looked good in business eyes anyway, which made it easy to justify from a business perspective. But Angeline had loved the idea, and had supported Beckett with every ounce of her love.

And Myles had been there several times before. Except this time it was for his brother's sake, no one else's.

There was the usual chatter of businessmen and art critics in the background, but Myles could hardly hear any of that. Several of Beckett's early professional works were displayed across the walls, and they were all breathtaking. Abstract, yes, but amazing, absolutely captivating and full of talent for someone so young.

And the major piece was actually an entire display wall itself. Sure there was the picture frame, filled to the brim with an amazing landscape. But the frame itself has paint smeared across it, the landscape expanding outside the frame, growing into the vivid and otherworldly seeming images that Beckett was best at, an almost dark and sketchy hand holding a paint brush other the whole scene. If the walls didn't have edges, it could have gone on forever.

Myles had known Beckett was working on something big, but not this big.

"It's amazing, huh? Took my almost a year to finish it. I'm amazed I even painted it." Myles turned to see his brother. Beckett definitely looked more the artist type: vest hastily buttoned, no suit jacket, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Even though his appearance was messy, it suited him. It was completely different than Myles, who looked as if he had stepped away from the pages of a suit modeling catalog, crisp and clean. Still, Beckett smiled. "Hey, Brother."

Myles smiled back, unable to come up with the words that could describe what his brother had created. Finally, he settled. "I think," he said, "that maybe there are some benefits to going outside of the lines."

Beckett laughed, playfully nudging his brother in the side. And they laughed a bit, embracing each other in greeting.

"Thank you."

And here we have it! not even rushed to be written or anything...

This was written for the [Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid] challenge, a lovely collection of writing twelve one shots over twelve weeks. The prompt this week was "Limit Breaker," which I immediately thought of as tiny kids coloring outside the lines in coloring books, since those are sort of controlled limits on how art is supposed to work. Part of me thought about writing for Haikyuu! but then I thought of tiny Fowl twins instead and went for that.

Ah, I miss reading Artemis Fowl... And all my books are still up in Ohio from before the move (sigh). Oh well.

I've actually been meaning to write about Arty for a while (a series of fics, really), but this was a good adventure. I think there are lots of characters in AF that just don't get enough screen time to shine, so here's a peak at what the twins' possible futures could look like...

In any event, it was a lot of fun to write. I'm happy with it, too.

But if you're interested in [Twelve Shots of Summer], go check out the community or forum! There are some great reads there, plus a super encouraging community of writers. We'd love to see you there!

The next prompt is "Partners in Crime." What will I write for? Baccano!? Accel World? Gurren Lagann? Haikyuu!? I honestly have no idea, but I think I'm gonna have fun writing this one once I get an idea out...

Thanks for reading!

[POST] 071815