Chapter 3: Holly's situation
Disclaimer: The characters and settings portrayed in this fic are property of Eoin Colfer. That's pronounced Owen, in case you were wondering. I always thought it was pronounced like Ian, but I digress.
A/N: Hey guys, sorry this is a day or two late, but I managed to get my thumb caught in a fence I was jumping over on Friday(#freerun2014), and the pain stopped me from writing. Saturday, I had a whole day volunteering commitment(#carnival), so I couldn't write this then either. If this comes out on Sunday, that means my woes ended. If this comes out on Monday(which it did,) I probably had more problems on Sunday which I haven't bothered to include(#GGbaylife). Sincerely sorry for my tardiness. At any rate, this chapter has arrived! I'm sure my one follower is going to be so happy! :D
A/N P.S.: This short is based off the interview from the Artemis Fowl Files with Holly. In it, she stated her most embarrassing moment was being bit by a swear toad on her behind. This is my interpretation(read: headcanon) of how the event went down and how Artemis would find out about it.
Artemis was looking at Holly in a funny way.
There wasn't anything wrong, inherently, with his gaze, but they hadn't become the best of friends without noticing the minor nervous tics the other would exhibit. She'd even had this little thought with herself, and Artemis had still yet to move, yet more reason to think the mud man had something on his mind. There was no sense rushing him though; when he needed to deliberate, he did so, often with complete disregard for the time it took.
"Holly? Remember when we were caught in the time stream?" Seeming to have finished his deliberation or musing or whatever Artemis Fowl II does, he broke the silence.
"Which one, Arty?" Holly was slightly confused. They had gone on more than one time travelling adventure, after all.
"I should be more clear, I mean the Hybras stream. The one where we switched eyes, if you remember." Really, he shouldn't have taken this long to ask, but had been a slight bit embarrassed for Holly. He could no longer contain his curiosity, however.
"Of course I remember, how could I not? You don't think I look in the mirror every morning?" Holly still had no idea what he was trying to get at. All in time though. Judging by the way Artemis had brought this up suddenly, it must've been a memory she'd never told him. Even one she didn't want him knowing. Now how many of her memories fit that bill?
"You see, in that place, I saw some of your memories, as you did mine. There is, however, one in particular that I've been meaning to ask you about." All of a sudden, Holly had a sinking suspicion she knew what he was talking about. She only hoped it wasn't that. Please, Frond. Anything but that.
"Spit it out, mud man!" For all his verbal eloquence, Artemis had an annoying habit of beating around the bush. Usually Holly didn't mind overmuch, except when he was about to make a startling revelation or reveal a master plan. This was probably going to be a grade A example of the former. Her thoughts weren't assauged when she noticed how very still he was, another of his tics, albeit one rarely exhibited. If it was this bad, Holly knew what it was about.
"Alright! In that time stream, I found your memory of an interview in which you stated your most, shall we say inconvenient, moment." This was it, no hiding, no hoping, no 'say it ain't so'. He'd come right out and said it, and Holly knew she'd have to reveal.
Now, at this revelation, humans would go pale, or flush. However, fairies have a different response to emotional stimuli. In low level cases, they'd flush like a human. In feelings of high emotion though, they would lose control of their magic and vibrate in a manner akin to shielding. This also explained the lack of advertisements for vibrating self-stimulation aides compared to the volume of such for human websites.
Artemis was about to note this down in his mind when he thought of what he'd just observed. He took one look at his female fairy best friend (or her heat shimmer) and promptly filed that thought someone in the depths of hell. That was no way to think of her. Back to the task at hand. FOCUS.
"Would you mind unshielding? I know you can top up later, but I'd really appreciate if you didn't run out of magic and collapse in the Manor. Too many red flags, I'm sure you understand, captain." He was trying to get her(and himself)back in control. He'd adopted a soothing tone and used it to full effect.
It seemed to do the trick as Holly became visible once again, although she still had a bit of a flush. She knew she'd have to come clean right this instant. Would Artemis look at her without laughing ever again though? There was nothing for it if that happened. Here went nothing.
"It was a short while after you'd captured and subsequently set me free. I had been assigned back to LEPTraffic, but Root assured me the post was temporary." She had adopted a gaze at the Fowl coat of arms. 'Aurum est Potestas', it read. She glanced at Artemis once to check if he was listening; this would be the last time. She had no intention of looking at the mud man until she was done the entire thing. What she saw was a soft gaze, willing her to continue. His look contained no hostility. How much he had changed. She returned her eyes to the shield all the same.
"Anyways, we were pursuing a rogue troll through a series of tunnels. Our squad had split up to cover more area. I managed to stumble onto the troll with my trademark rotten luck. It had apparently been sheltered near a cluster of cooled lava rocks, so our scopes didn't detect it.
I radio'd the troops and told them to help me with the big guy. Of course, as my luck would have it, they were all at least 5 minutes out, in which time I would've either been pulverized or captured a troll singlehandedly. The troll got up a mite close, so I blasted it with my Neutrino on high. Unfortunately, though the troll was thrown backwards, I was as well. Usually, this wouldn't be so bad, especially as the troll had been knocked out and I hadn't, but I managed to land in a cluster of swear toads. I hadn't even noticed the buggers when I'd entered the tunnel.
I got up quickly, but no quickly enough. One toad managed to latch on to my, er, derriere causing me to parrot its sailor mouth. By the time the squad had come. The 'contact area' had swelled. When I noticed, I immediately got myself whisked off to the medics. In that few minutes though, I had a bigger rear end than a dwarf. That's the story."
The two of them sat in a pregnant silence for a second until Artemis decided to break it. Probably his cheekbones would break as well, but the opportunity to wisecrack was simply too good to pass up.
"That can't be so bad. Many males envision the ultimate rear end on a female as being a bubble butt. You should be so proud you had that..."
Mind you, he didn't trail off, That's not why he didn't finish his sentence. He'd simply been punched unconscious by a fuming LEPRecon captain. She was slightly glad he took this opportunity to joke. If he'd made an advance or something, Frond help him, he'd probably be dead or in a coma.
The supposedly insensate Artemis couldn't resist the second one liner in as many sentences. He didn't want to get actually hurt, but he was on a roll.
"It seems the butt-venom has slowly spread to your fist, captain. It felt like being hit by a balloon!"
He wasn't faking the next time around.
A/N 2: Should I bump the rating up to T? Kids won't get the one reference to 'self-stimulation', but should I raise the rating just to be safe?
A/N2 P.S.: If anybody wants, I can write my headcanon of the swear toad incident in a legitimate, full story form for ASSoASSaAaP. Just review or pm me.
A/N2 P.S.2: The original chapter 2 may never get done. I have no idea now where the heck I was going to go with it.
Wow, were there a bunch of errors in the first post. I don't know what happened. All I can say is that they've been fixed.
