Disclaimer: Artemis Fowl © Eoin Colfer
A/N: Inspired by a Batman comic and fic On Becoming an Axiom (written by ff author The White Lily), whose message I liked, but I couldn't pass the opportunity for making a more twisted version, heh.
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The Mystery
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Like all geniuses, Artemis grows bored.
To stifle his boredom, he hacks into military programs to leave encrypted messages. He sets up a museum raids while sitting safe in front of the computer. He decodes messages scribbled on ancient constructions. In a few days, he's solved the hardest Rubik's Cubes variations.
Artemis stands among paper and puzzles and stolen paintings in the Fowl mansion, and sighs.
But one day, he hacks into a surveillance camera the an English harbour (to see if his staged clash between two mafia bosses produce any interesting results) and sees—
The Perfect Woman.
And she is perfect, full lips red as if smeared with wine or blood, her hair dark like deep waters and skin like chocolate. The white dress is modest, but fits her perfectly as she elegantly strides near the ocean.
Artemis Fowl falls in love with her, instantly. He had to have her. Had to.
(He makes sure the mafia bosses have other business to intend to. He doesn't want to interrupt her stroll.)
He proceeds to scan her face. Soon, he has her identity, and her address. To it, he sends roses and chocolate so expensive they cost more than her apartment. Sources claim it was the way to a woman's heart.
Artemis curls his finger together, and waits.
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She sends it all back.
'Of course,' Artemis thinks, walking around in the house now full of rotting chocolate and withering flowers. He holds one hand in the air, the other on his back. 'She's different. She's better than that!'
That very night, he travels to her town. It's very small and in the middle of France. Time has frozen it. It's very beautiful.
In the morning, dressed in his finest clothes, he stands on her porch and held a letter. She opens her door, and oh, she was even more beautiful than in the photos. Wordless, he gave her the letter. She looked at it.
"You p—paid my loan," she stammered.
"Yes," he said.
Here is how it went in his head: She throws herself into his arms, telling him she was his.
Here is how it really went:
"Do you think you can just buy me, like some whore?" Her beautiful chestnut eyes were electric with rage and rejection. "I don't even know you, you creep!" She slams the door shut so hard that god, it feels like his whole world trembles with her.
And he?
He falls even more in love with her, if such thing was possible.
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A stranger.
'Yes,' he realizes, after thinking and research of human psychology. 'That is what I am to her. And she for me, essentially—but it is meant to be.' A lesser man might've walked away. But he is not lesser. If she will not share herself with him, then he must fabricate the past to establish connection.
First, he must find her roots. Thank god for the internet. Her history of 23 years is written on various pages, and in the age of communication everything is accessible by a clever hand. He finds old pictures in emails between friends and family. He imagines her thoughts, imagines her growth, and constructs a psychological profile. First when he feels like he knows enough he goes to visit her school—and he calls up her classmates and her old teachers. He introduces himself as a boyfriend, planning the girl's wedding, and wishing for humorous stories to share. Almost all believes him. He plays with their heartstrings effortlessly.
He goes to her favourite plays. Skims through her favourite novels. Listens to her music. Learns to appreciate her jokes. Memorizes stories about her to be told on pubs with their fellow friends.
He devotes himself to her.
(That is what love is, correct? Every girl's wish. Something entirely devoted to them.)
And when all this is done, and when he has learnt almost everything there is to be learnt, he visits her parents. They serve him pomegranate juice ("Her favourite," her father says, and Artemis replies, "I know") and shows him her baby pictures, eyeing his expensive suit. He is accepted very easily.
"Part of the family," the mother claims. "You fit perfectly together!"
"I'm planning to marry her," he tells them. "But it will all be a surprise. I'm going to invite every person she has ever known and loved—and so, she'll see what I have done for her, and how much I love her."
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The big day comes.
All her friends and family and neighbours are there, congratulating him on his creativity and the lengths he is willing to go to be the best husband a girl can have. Both the men and women are jealous—but he has no eyes for them, only the love of his life.
He has her parents collect her.
Drive her out there, in the shadow of an abandoned farm which is her favourite place in the world, (a tip he got from the janitor of her middle school). She went out her to cry. But now those tears will be happy.
She exits the car, wondrous over seeing all her old friends there.
Artemis is standing there, a bouquet in his hands. It's her favourite flowers. Everything is arranged, her favourite colours, her favourite music, her favourite people...
Wonder turns to horror.
"You!" she whispers.
"Me," he says smilingly, and wraps his arms around her. The flower petals fall around them. The crowd applauds.
But tradition takes its course.
She rips herself away from him.
"You're sick," she chokes.
"Get away from me," she cries.
"I hate you!" she screams.
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No. No. No, no, no—
Artemis' hands are buried in his hair. The hotel bed is torn to shreds by his fanatic frustration, feathers everywhere. He has done everything in his power to please her.
Everything.
Yet she rejects it all! He hates her then, just a little bit. But it's all because he loves her so dearly. He realizes some girls know their best. Some girls don't want nice things.
The cold chill of his brain wheels churning start again, and he plots, silently, teeth so grounded they might break.
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The next time they meet there's no gentleness on Artemis' part.
She's straying at a friend's. But the six Russian mobsters Artemis hired don't sway because of that. They push the friend aside, knocking him out. When she tries to protest they press a gun against her forehead and threatens to have her brains strain the wallpaper.
There are snot and tears on her face. "I will never love you," she sobs, "I can't, I can't, I'm sorry, I—"
Artemis isn't interested. He circles her.
"When you were eight, you were jealous that your best friend Zoé got a dog. Caesar, a mongrel, ten months old. Zoé's family were building a new stairwell. It was late, and Zoé and her father was taking a break, napping in the yard. But not Caesar and you. So you took a few treats and threw it into the half-finished stairwell. Then you built it shut. Thick, thick bricks. I wonder, did you ever lay your ear against it, hoping you'd hear a bark?"
"No," she whispers.
"When you were fifteen, your grandma showed you her biggest secret—the key to her jewelry box. She said, you're going to inherit all this, because you're a nice girl. She was so happy for you. But you were fifteen, and wanted to do drugs. You traded her dead husband's wedding ring for a bag of cocaine mixed with baking powder. Do you remember her scurrying around the house, repeating "no" again and again? How the disease somehow got worse after that?"
"No," she whispers, a hysterical note to it.
"When you were seventeen, you drank so much you thought you could drive. There was a bump in the road. The next day, when you woke up in a stranger's house covered in your own shit and puke, the news on the television reported the death of a small child. Five years old. You've tried not to think about it."
She is beyond words now,.
Artemis stands directly in front of her. He presses a gun up to her forehead.
"I know your life. Every disgusting detail. With that I will destroy you unless you love me."
"Stop!" she chokes, falling to her knees, tears glittering. "Pl—Please, just... just stop. I—" a sharp inhale, "I love you, Artemis. Please."
He welcomes her with open arms, wrapping her arms around her. Ah, bliss! He has solved the mystery! He has solved her!
And he's happy.
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For a heartbeat.
With her pressed up against him like that, giving himself to him completely, there is nothing more to solve. For now on, he has to live with the answer.
Repulsed, Artemis shoves her away; a broken snivelling mess of a woman. The smell of vanilla (who was he kidding? He hates vanilla) is suffocating and her dirt coloured orbs are wet with tears. He drags out a hand chief from his suit and washes his hands.
Because he realizeds
He'd fallen in love with the mystery—not the actual person.
Click!
The silencer made a whisper of the gunshot.
He looks at her dead body for a minute, and then walks out.
"What about the town?" the hired goon asks. They were paid too much to do nothing.
Artemis shrugs his shoulders. It's not interesting to him anymore. "Burn it," he tells them.
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Artemis sits on his computer when she enters, immersed in some grand scheme. He doesn't turn when Holly enters.
"We need your assistance concerning a—"
"Of course," Artemis replies smoothly. "I'll take the case immediately."
They do not speak much in the next few minutes, but Holly has to comment. "Do you even have a life, Fowl? Outside puzzles and plots?"
Artemis shrugs, finding the question pointless and not related with the current issue.
"Have you ever fallen in love, then?" Holly continues.
He smiles. "Once."
The shock is evident on her face. "What happened?"
"I solved it."