So Much More

Disclaimer: Artemis Fowl is the sole property of Eoin Colfer

Info to Know: A girl named Kris came to St. Bartleby's. Artemis pretended to date her and used her to catch a fairy. Kris found out and dumped him. After, Artemis falls into a depression.

Memo: I've been toying around with this couple for awhile now. They fit well together, in a complete opposites kind of way. Besides, gay couples just do things better and I've always liked Finn the best.

I woke up to find a very warm, very male body pressed against my own. There was a scrawny arm draped over my bare chest and someone's warm breath kept hitting the back of my neck in soft patter. For a moment I did nothing. I lay there in the boys' arms, trying to make sense of this situation. The infamous Artemis Fowl was in bed with a boy and he didn't want to move. Oh, there were several things wrong with this situation.

Despite the fact that I was very warm, incredibly comfortable and completely at ease for the first time since Kris had left me, I froze. 'This is wrong,' a voice whispered in the back of my head. What had I done? Straight men did not behave like this. Teenage geniuses capable of holding the entire world in sway did not behave like this. What had happened last night? It shouldn't be such a strain to remember. These days, everything was a strain. Everything was a blur and my head fecking hurt. Ah, there was the root of the problem.

I was hung over, and in bed with a boy.

The fact hit me like a lightening bolt and something made me move even though I didn't want to, jerking me out of bed and stumbling across the room. In seconds, I was fumbling through the clothes strewn haphazardly across the floor looking for something that was mine. For something to put on before he…

"Arrmiss?" My name sounded different coming from his slurred tongue. It felt right. Right, but incredibly wrong. "Wassup?"

He was groggy, the boy I'd taken to bed last night, I could hear him sifting on the mattress.

How to explain to the boy I'd just slept with that I was strictly a tits kind of boy, that last night… just thinking about it hurt! That last night had been wonderful. Vigorously, I shook my head as if that action alone could somehow make me see sense again and get out of this weird slump. That last night was one large, drunken mistake.

"I don't do this." He had to understand that much, surely. My voice was shaking and feck did my head hurt! "I don't do this Finnegan."

There, I'd said his name. As if that would help. As if that would somehow make things better. After all, I'd slept with a gay boy last night. A gay boy who'd only stopped asking me out last year. A gay boy who'd help me win over my very straight ex-girlfriend. Holding back a groan, I sank to the floor. This was fucked up. I was fucked up!

Finn was blinking at me through the dark, confused.

It wasn't fair for a boy to be this good-looking. But boys weren't good-looking girls were good-looking. KRIS was good-looking! What the hell was wrong with me today? Perhaps I'd been drinking too much. Things like this surely must happen to alcoholics all the time. And lately, alcoholic would be one sure-fire way to describe me. Surely this was just…just a phase or something. It had to be a phase due to years of stubbornly repressed hormones finally breaking free. That sounded about right. What happened with Finn, what was happening with Finn was just a phase. Right. A phase that would flare up faster than a rocket the moment I looked at his bare chest, his messy hair, the rumbled sheets. Yeah, a phase.

My chest tightened uncomfortably. I couldn't lie to myself. Just because I was a drunk didn't mean I could fool myself any easier. And this, this confusion was almost as bad as losing Kris again. I couldn't lose him too. What was left of my newly discovered and still mangled heart tensed in preparation.

I would make myself lose him. He couldn't get hurt if I lost him. The image of Kris's pain flashed through my brain like a comet, lingering, scarring. Imagining Finn in her place made me want to throw myself off a cliff. Why? The confusion doubled, tripled, and I was lost. The one thing I was sure of was that I could take the pain. I could lose him and walk away. Not whole, I wouldn't walk away whole, but that wouldn't matter. After all, Guinness knew how to numb a boy's pain.

Finn was getting tense in my brooding silence. Why couldn't I make myself look at him and more? I'd looked at him plenty last night. Done more than looking, that's for sure.

"What don't you do Artemis?" Yes, he was fully awake now, fully awake just in time to watch me to throw his heart in front of a truck.

"I don't sleep with boys." My voice had stopped shaking. If I hurt him now, he couldn't hurt worse later. And I would hurt him worse, if he staid. 'Continue the sentence, Artemis.' I chided myself. 'Force the words out.' There was a pause, my voice didn't seem to want to work correctly then, "I'm not a faggot." There, I had said it. Was the pain in my voice as bad as the pain in my heart?

A sharp intake of breath from the bed told me the poison had worked. I had hurt him. Oh yes, I had hurt him. Badly.

Turning away from him, I stared stubbornly at the wall. If I so much as looked at him, I would break of that much I was sure. I would beg. I would get down on my knees, naked as the day I was born, and beg to a boy with whom I'd just had sex. Wonderful sex at that. No, that was bad. Bad thinking. Horrible sex. That was better. What was wrong with me? I would beg.

The springs of the mattress, my mattress I thought belatedly, creaked. My mattress, not Finn's. so I'd taken him to my room. Surely that meant something. What did it mean? My head throbbed.

Finn was searching for his pants, I could tell. Perhaps he'd leave his shirt that way I'd have something to cling to when I slept. Somehow, I doubted it. Pathetic! What the feck was wrong with me? I was completely hung up on him, on a boy, and acting like some sort of teenage girl. Everything was so new, everything was beyond confusing, everything was entirely different. Did I want different? Did I even know what I wanted anymore? Oh I knew what I used to want. Trivial things: a family; copious amounts of gold to pad my family's retirement; to get out of this godforsaken school. But now…

"Well," the anger in Finn's voice cut like a knife and I winced. "Next time you need a faggot," Such a nasty word… God was I a bastard! "Remember who kissed whom first, and who drug whom to their bed, and who-" His voice broke. It didn't matter, his point was made.

And he wouldn't be coming back.

Why did that hurt to know? Why was I incapable of being close to someone without hurting them? Did I have some sort of disease, some sort of genetic imbalance that made it impossible for me to a have a decent, healthy relationship? I glanced over my shoulder, still slumped on the ground, trying to get a glimpse of him. My eyes were downcast, my head tilted but the image of him perfect in his rage, his hurt, branded itself into my brain like hot coals searing me with the knowledge that for one short night he'd been mine. He wasn't mine anymore.

The door slammed.

I flinched before crumpling all the way to the cold, unforgiving ground. There was too much to think about, too much that needed explaining. My poor alcohol ridden brain couldn't cope with this. Finally letting out the pent-up groan, I groped around for the first article of clothing I could find and crawled blindly towards the bed. Not our bed (did one night make it ours?) but the one next to it. The one with the pristine, untouched, memory free sheets. If only Holly or Butler could see me now. What would they say? Surely, I must be utterly pathetic by now. The great undefeatable Artemis Fowl done in by heartbreak and a hangover, acting like a regular American frat boy. Father would be so ashamed, Mother as well.

A wave of self-pity hit me. Once I was sober again, I needed to think. About myself. About Finnegan. About what the hell I might do next. And then, perhaps, I'd have a drink. Exhaustion hit me harder than a steamroller and I fell asleep cold, depressed, and very much alone.

By the time I woke up the hangover was gone…along with my Saturday afternoon. But that didn't matter. I needed to think, and it was always easier to think at night when everyone else was asleep. More importantly, I needed time to catalog all that just happened.

Going to that bar had been my first bad idea. Ordering copious amounts of alcohol went right alone with it. Letting Finn close to me the second. Enjoying the way his breath hit me and the way his hands felt, soft but so sure on my own, went hand-in-hand with it. Allowing him to buy me a drink, like I had needed any more alcohol, that had been the third. After that, everything had gone from merely a 'bad idea' to a verifiable cardinal sin. Kissing Finn for instance (oh the alcohol had tasted so much better on his lips than it did in the bottle) had been pretty damning. Dragging him back to my dorm by his tie and the sex that obviously followed, that hadn't been particularly holy either. But letting him leave had been the worst sin of all.

How long had I been gay-- bi-- whatever the fecking hell I was-- and simply not known it, pushed the feelings aside as a lapse of reason?

I knew every nerve in the human body, every section of the brain and exactly what it controlled in minuet detail, every pheromone, hormone and chemical the body produced. I'd ghost written more books on the human psyche than your average psychology professor could shake a finger at. There wasn't one thing that the human body could do that I didn't understand, completely and scientifically. I of all people knew that homosexuality wasn't something that just appeared, nor was it something that would just go away. I had always been special, exceptional even! Why not add gay to that list? Surely a tough guy like me could handle it. After all, I'd seen worse. I could pull through unscathed. In theory, at least.

But I was broken now, I was sharp around the edges. Losing love is hard. Losing your first love to your own selfish plans is harder.

Finn had found me broken. He had found me trying to forget Kris. Trying to let the bottle help me forget what she meant to me, forget that it was entirely my fault; forget that I had been willing to die for her.

But she had been broken, too. I hadn't been expecting that. Two wrongs don't make a right, they never had. Two shattered people can't make each other whole. So she had pushed me away, and I had shattered further. The strings that help me together no longer existed, Kris had cut them all. None of my reasoning could fix that. Nowhere in my vast genius, in my lofty and arrogant scientific knowledge was there anything about mending broken hearts. For once, I was entirely out of my league. How thrilled it would've made Aster to know she'd won in the long run. I was broken, thoroughly and utterly broken.

Finn had been the first person, the only person, to come along and try to fix me. It had been him who'd come along with duct tape and glue to put things back together, not Kris. He had found me in that bar last night, had tried to talk some sense into me. I couldn't figure the boy out. One moment, he's punching me in the face, furious, and the next he's trying to pick up all my broken pieces and make them whole. There was a box of chocolates on my counter, from him surely, and I could vaguely remember muttered words about the benefits of chocolate coming from his lips. The words were vague, the image of his lips moving certainly was not.

He had asked me out plenty of times, hadn't he? Why hadn't I said yes? We could've been doing this for ages by now. Well, not this exactly. Not me sitting here like a drunken sop, looking back at all the mistakes I'd made in the past 24 hours, the part that came before that. The sex, the sweet things whispered back and forth, the feeling of knowing exactly where you belonged. Who knew I had even been capable of whispering sweet things! Who knew I had any doubts of where I belonged!

I had to get him back. I needed him back. It didn't matter how low I had to stoop to make him mine again. Sacrificing myself on the altar of dignity was the least of my worries. How ironic, it would've troubled me greatly just a month ago but not anymore. Ah, what the combination of heartache and Guinness could do for a boy!

Absently I crossed over to the kitchen grabbing a beer out of the fridge. Finn's chocolates were sitting unopened on my counter. Impulsively, I ripped the box open and popped one into my mouth. Well, Finn was right. Chocolate did make you feel better. Outside my window, the flowers were beginning to bud and it gave me an idea.

Picking out flowers was hard when you were tipsy. Sneaking off school grounds to find a flower shop hadn't been hard at all, I'd memorized all the possible escape routes the moment I had arrived at this godforsaken hellhole four years ago. Finding the flower shop, that been problematic as well. Now the shopkeeper was giving me the most peculiar look. If I weren't such a well behaved drunk (factoring out the dragging Finn by his tie debacle) he probably would've thrown me out by now. As it was, I was having troubles getting flowers that matched. Different flowers meant different things, right? Everything was a little hazy at the moment.

I was staring the flower arrangements with such intensity that someone next to me actually moved. This was pointless! I had no idea what to get him. Surely there had to be some flower that meant: 'I'm sorry, I'm gay too, come back to me', or at least 'I'm sorry'. What sort of genius didn't know these sorts of things? Not like flowers had ever been a pressing part of my life until now… maybe I should get him his favorite flower. Did Finn have a favorite flower? This was stupid. Grumbling, I picked out a dozen red and brown (were flowers even supposed to be brown?) tulips and thrust the money at the cashier, requesting a vase.

Putting a vase of half-dead tulips in your ex-fling's balcony window wasn't exactly classy. Scribbling a sloppy note on a 3''x5'' note card detailing how much you missed them was probably about as drunk ass white trash as it got.

I shouldn't have been so surprised when he threw the vase at my window.

With my first stab at a make-up foiled, I had to turn to other measures. I was going to get him back; it was just a matter of how. It was that tiny little matter of how that seemed to keep getting in my way. At least I'd proven to myself that I was in fact a poof. My dedication to getting Kris back paled in the light of my dedication to coaxing Finnegan back to me. With Kris, I said I'd do whatever it took. With Finn I didn't have to say it, I always already doing so.

I was halfway through the Finn's chocolates when the idea hit me. Hastily, and with horrible hand-eye coordination, I moved around out of the kitchen grabbing something that looked like a term paper on my way. Oh well, I didn't need that copy: it had red marks all over it. With shaking hands I wrapped the box back up. He had given them to me, hadn't he? That must mean that Finn liked chocolate as well. What better way to win a boy back than through his stomach! It was genius.

Grabbing a pen I scribbled a hasty, but completely legible, note on to the top of my makeshift wrapping paper. 'Finn, I'm sorry. Please for the love of God come back.' That was good I even came off sounding sober. It was almost midnight, but I left them at his door anyway.

Giving your ex-fling a box of half-eaten chocolates is only a step above sending him dead flowers.

It shouldn't have hurt to watch Jacob Holtecombe walk around campus on Monday, stuffing his face with chocolates that came from a box wrapped in what looked curiously like a term paper.

This was bad, I was beginning to run out of ideas. If flowers and chocolates couldn't win him back, what on Earth could? Once, he had told me that the three things girls love most when received from a boy were flowers, chocolates, jewelry, and songs. Jewelry was 100% out of the question no matter how good some of Mother's emeralds would look on him. So that left songs. What type of music did Finn like? I knew absolutely nothing about him, really. Except for the fact that he'd tried to fix me when no one had, that he made me feel whole again, and that he was good in bed. Was there a song for that? Probably not. But there were plenty of love songs in the world. In fact, there were so fecking many it was almost disgusting.

Which one would I use? Mother had sung me to sleep before Father vanished, back when I was very little. A quick run through Google, and I had the lyrics in front of me. The song took all of 5 seconds to download from iTunes. It was a sweet song with a vaguely possessive edge. It fit, in a word, perfectly.

Bribing whatever administrator happened to be in charge of the P.A. system was easy. Watching Finn bury his head into his arms during Gaelic as Jason Wade's 'You Belong to Me' wafts out of the speakers after a very adamant dedication was adorable. Seeing all my classmates exchange almost knowing looks and elbow Finn slyly had been annoying.

I shouldn't have been so taken aback when he slammed the classroom door in my face.

It was official I was desperate. Two days of sitting in my room and four 6 packs of Guinness Extra Stout had proven that much to me. Strewn amongst the beer bottles that littered my floor were crumpled up letters to Finn, all pleading for the exact same thing: for him to just come and see me again. There wasn't much else I could do. At least when I finally recycled all these bottles I might be able to save a small rainforest. But in terms of Finnegan, I was stumped. The only option left was to beg.

Don't get me wrong; I had no problem begging to Finnegan. But since he was currently avoiding me like I had the plague, begging to Finn wasn't an option. If I went out pleading my case, I would have to plead it to his friends. The friends that had never really been well…friendly towards me in any way, shape, or form. Wincing, I managed to make myself stand up. Well, if it was for Finn, maybe I could bare O'Connor's hostile glares. Judging by the way my vision was wavering and my head was pounding, I might not even be able to notice them. Excellent. I should talk to people while completely hammered more often.

"Raleigh!" I called as he exited his dorm room.

The boy in question turned, obviously startled to see me. His face changed, the surprise turning to suspicion. …Or at least, I think it did. There were currently four of him, and it was sort of hard to tell.

"Fowl?" there was caution in Raleigh's voice.

Ah, so he was suspicious. Good. Bad? It didn't matter.

"You have to make Finn talk to me." I slurred, grabbing at his shirt.

Raleigh backed away, and I almost lost my balance. "Fowl are you drunk?"

Why on Earth did he sound so surprised? Of course I was drunk! Obviously he hadn't been hanging around me lately.

"Immaterial." I said brusquely, waving my hand and hoping I didn't hit him in the head. "Make Finn talk to me. Please. You're all I have left." At least I still had my speech when hammered. My ability to stay upright and any semblance of hand-eye coordination were not so lucky.

With that, I fled.

Having to totter back to your dorm room was the behavior of a drunken hobo, not a child genius. Begging to your worst enemy probably wasn't the best way to plead your case.

It shouldn't have hurt me so much when Finn didn't come that night.

The next morning found me curled up in bed, hung over and depressed. Our bed, I couldn't think of it as just mine anymore, was still unmade next to me. I hadn't touched it since he left, and I couldn't look at it now. Finn hadn't come. What did that mean? The only way I had been able to cope with being gay thus far was the reassurance that at least I'd have someone who understood, someone who'd been through this before. I knew everything, everything except how to deal with the teenage social and emotional scenes. Nothing in my brain told me how to deal with being gay and not having anyone to share it with. Small wonder most gays never came out of the closet. Pretending was easier. Pretending was safer.

I was out of beer, a first, and too hung over to want more. All I wanted right now was for things to make sense again. At least when Kris had broken up with me, I had understood why. It had hurt like hell, but it made sense. It didn't make sense for me to want Finnegan this badly. My emotions were completely irrational and unexplainable, and they hurt.

Nothing had made sense since the moment Finn had found me in that bar. How had he known I was there? Maybe he hadn't, maybe he'd just showed up for a drink and found me. But he had come over, hadn't he? My memory wasn't that bad that I'd forgotten he had approached me. Finn was confusing. I had been so sure he'd hated me. Back when I was pretending, back before he'd forced me out of the closet, I hadn't cared. Repressing emotions was one thing I was good at and I'd obviously held my feelings for Finn back well enough. Did I have feelings for him?

Stupid question, fecking stupid question. Yes, I had feelings for Finn. I couldn't get him out of my head! Even when I was drunk he haunted me. His face seemed to pop up in my head whatever I did, those chocolate eyes and wavy brown hair stalking my every move. Take back what I said about not wanting any more alcohol. Right about now, it sounded perfect. As did a hang over potion, and possibly Finn, maybe Finn administering a hang over potion…

That's it; I was slipping off the deep end. All the years Mother had stuck me into therapy obviously hadn't helped. I was losing hold of myself, losing hold on everything I'd ever known. What the feck was wrong with me? I hadn't uttered a sarcastic comment in over a month. All my work on quantum physics was buried under piles of beer bottles, letters, and receipts for the beer bottles. Holly had tried contacting me twice and I'd ignored her. Nothing had seemed interesting anymore. All I'd wanted to do was find a way to cope with the giant hole a girl had punched in my heart. And how had I done that? By letting a boy take what was left and feed it to a rabid tiger before handing me the sorry remains.

I was acting like an idiot that much was certain. Normal teenagers didn't solve their romance problems by getting dangerously drunk and making even more romantic problems for themselves. Then again, I wasn't a normal teenager. I was Artemis Fowl. And Artemis Fowl, apparently, was incapable of solving problems the way normal teenagers would.

Someone yanked open my door and stormed in, kicking beer bottles as they went.

I didn't bother to check who it was. He hadn't come last night, and my head still hurt. Why did my head always seem to hurt when Finn was involved?

They were yelling at me, I could hear them. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die. He can't come, my head hurt, and I was experiencing more mood swings than a PMS-ing teenage girl. Why couldn't the world just leave me the feck alone? Couldn't they see all I wanted to do was wallow in self-pity? Let the suicidal gay genius die in peace already.

Apparently, whoever was yelling at me didn't exactly agree with my thoughts since they took that choice moment to lob a book at the back of my head.

Wham!

That would've hurt even without the pounding headache.

Ow…

"Listen to me when I'm talking to you goddammit!" Finn's voice shook with fury.

Finn? Finn was here? That was enough to cause me to twist around in my bed sheets with wide and staring eyes, more than eager to see him. Oh yes, he was here.

"Finnegan!" My voice was thick with disuse.

"What the feck is wrong with you Artemis?" Finn continued as if I had never spoken, but his brown eyes were sad. "You sleep with me, break my heart, make half assed attempts to win me back, and beg to my friends while you're drunk out of your mind."

Frankly, I was wondering the same thing myself. I'd get back to him once I had the answer.

A silence stretched out between us. Finnegan stared at me I stared at Finn. Finally Finn slumped down on the unmade bed, maybe it was his bed not ours and began to speak, his voice soft now.

"My favorite flowers are orchids, not tulips and I prefer them alive." The bluntness of his statement took me by surprise. There was a smile tugging on his lips as he continued.

"I'm allergic to chocolate, you jackass. Try sending me cupcakes next time."

Next time, there was going to be a next time?

"If you ever embarrass me like that in front of the entire school again, I'll castrate you." Then, as an afterthought, "The song was unbearably sweet. Perhaps I'll make you sing it for me sometime."

He did not want to hear me sing, but Finn barreled on before I could so much as open my mouth.

"You beg to me and no one else."

There was a possessive edge to Finn's voice that I'd never heard before. The way he was looking at me like he was a lion that had just found its prey, sent thrills scurrying up and down my spine. He had never been anything if not soft-spoken in public. I liked this side of him…

You beg to me. That wasn't a no, he hadn't exactly pushed me away just yet. Was it possible that he'd forgiven me, despite the fact I was a giant jackass with no manners or any semblance of tact?

Finn took a shaky breath, looking around my floor. "You know Artemis, if you keep drinking like this you're going to die of liver disease. I'm not saying you need to start going to AA meetings yet or anything, but…" he trailed off.

But what?

"But what, Finnegan?" I spoke up for the second time since he'd entered, blue eyes trained on his face.

Finn's steady gaze met my own. "But if you really want me back, I'm warning you right now: I don't date drunk people."

My heart soared. This was going so much better than I'd hoped. Not like I'd hoped for much, which made everything so much sweeter. "Orchids, cupcakes, no public embarrassment, no drinking." I ticked them off on my fingers, sitting up to face him. "Got it. Is there anything else I should remember?"

"Yeah," Finn said. "You belong to me now, genius." Oh yes, I was definitely going to enjoy this new, possessive side of him. "So shut up, get your drunk ass over here, and kiss me."

It didn't take me long to comply, and soon everything felt right again. Good thing I'd given up on schoolwork months ago, because I had a feeling I wouldn't be doing very much of it anymore. Not if the way Finn was currently kissing me had anything to do with it.

Somehow, I think I could manage belonging to Finnegan.

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