::There's A Girl At St. Bartleby's!:: Chapter Thirteen
Memo: This story now has 100+ reviews! Thanks to all who've ever given their time to reviewing, it really just brightens my day. Apart from that, I'm terribly sorry for my lateness. School eat my soul, I swear. I just finished my midterms though, so that will hopefully free up some time. Very exciting, I know. On the bright side, it's an update! Hooray! Thanks to ..need..badly. and QuoteNinja4 for editing/beta-reading. This takes place in 2005, or for those who think in Artemis Years, after Book 4 but before Book 5. It's about November now. Isn't it funny how fast time flies…? Flashbacks aren't done in the usual style because Fanfiction won't let me. D:
Ape: fool
Disclaimer: Eoin Colfer's lawyers are big, scary men, I don't own Artemis Fowl, there's no need to come after me.
Artemis's question had driven all other thoughts completely out of my mind. It took me the entire walk back to the dorm room to remember that Deidre was visiting today. Despite this, despite the fact that I was going to be chewed out the moment I walked through the door, there was a warm, pleasant feeling in my gut that just wouldn't go away. Artemis liked me! Who cared how much trouble I was about to have to dig myself out of. Artemis liked me. Something had been slightly off about the whole event though, an underlying determination that scared me, but I could make myself overlook it. All I had to was to picture him there in front of me, so nervous and sweet. Artemis liked me. Artemis Fowl liked me. It was like a mantra, repeating itself over and over in my head, fueling the pleasant feeling in my gut. I didn't even notice I'd walked into my own room until Raleigh started talking to me.
"Oh Kris! You're back." His voice was tense and tired, he looked harried and worn out.
According to Raleigh, I had woken him up during my nightmare. He had then comforted me until I fell back asleep. Such a kind gesture wasn't something I expected from Raleigh given our very…peaceful relationship up to this point. Of course, I don't remember much from last night besides screaming and a soft voice singing to me, but the gesture was touching nonetheless.
Needless to say, Deidre had not been touched by the gesture.
FLASHBACK
Deidre had showed up in our dorm room at the ripe hour of 8:30 in the morning. Now Raleigh and I, both very much afternoon people, were still slumbering away happily oblivious. Half of Raleigh's body was actually on my bed and his legs were swinging off the side. His fingers were still tangled up in my untamable hair and his other arm was wrapped firmly around my waist. I was passed out on his chest; my head resting above his heart and my hands were still clinging to his comforter as if life itself deepened on it. Apparently Raleigh needs to think through his actions better because this really did not look good. It even almost merited Deidre's reaction.
We woke up to Deidre's furious shriek. "Raleigh fecking James O'Connor! Who the hell is she?!"
Not at all used to this particular brand of morning greeting, Raleigh jolted awake in surprise. Trying to gain his bearing, the boy accidently rolled off the side of the bed with a loud thump. The thick comforter he'd had wrapped around him so tight it might as well have been Under Armor fell off with me. Which caused me, still clinging on to the blanket as if nothing else mattered, to fall off as well. In no time at all the pair of us were a jumbled heap of tangled limbs and blankets. Still confused and sleep-weary, Raleigh was swearing non-stop under his breath as I attempted to achieve a little more dignified position. This wasn't exactly the circumstance in which I'd pictured meeting the girlfriend. After all, her boyfriend was sort of sitting on me. And I was sort of tangled up in his blanket.
"Ow Raleigh," I complained as we both tried moving at the same time. "You're elbowing my spleen!"
Deidre was not to be forgotten. Her threatening, so much less than happy voice drifted across the room. "Oh I'll do much worse than that you cheating, sleazy little American WHO-"
"Deidre!" Raleigh took a swear-break to look up at his girlfriend in surprise. If he was about to tell her off for language, I was going to have to laugh. "I didn't know you were visiting today! It's not even the weekend!"
"Well that much is obvious." Deidre said as she shot me a glance filled with so much hate it could've offed a small mammal. "Now explain yourself! I'm not an bloody ape, I know when I've been played." She demanded, placing both hands on her hips.
Biting my tongue, I resisted the urge to tell Deidre she looked like a mother scolding her five-year-old; I began to quietly disentangle myself from Raleigh. Hell was about to break loose in this dorm room and it wasn't exactly something I was terribly interested in sticking around for. Let Raleigh sort this whole ordeal up. I knew exactly how mad Deidre was, not so long ago I had been in her place, and really I wasn't too keen on seeing it from the other side of the lens. Especially since this time, I was the ominous 'other woman' and not the furious girlfriend. I'd seen both Brandon and Tasha, my platinum blonde neighbor (Brandon's 'other woman'), after that day in September and neither had looked too happy. Granted, this could've been due to the fact I was usually throwing something at them, but that's a different story.
With Deidre's fury directed elsewhere, poor Raleigh, I was able to slip on some more appropriate clothes without too much commotion. Hopefully, no one would care if I looked like a college student before midterms, because sweatpants and sweatshirts were the only things on the top of my clean clothes pile. Pretty soon I really needed a laundry run… As I was reaching the door, Raleigh tried in vain to redeem himself.
"Deidre, I swear it wasn't like that." He pleaded. "I didn't sleep with her. We just sort of," Here Raleigh floundered, looking desperately for the right words to make things better. Poor fool, there's never a way to dig yourself out of this kind of hole. "Slept together." Was his lame finish.
Before the door closed, I could hear Deidre screaming as something crashed against the wall. That better not've been my panda bear alarm clock.
END FLASHBACK
Luckily, Deidre had calmed down. Apparently, throwing other people's alarm clocks against walls is very therapeutic. Sadly, I gave my ruined clock one last glance. Oh Raleigh better pay me back for that, it'd been Andrew's going away gift.
"Yup," I said unnecessarily, popping my lips slightly at the end. "I'm back."
Looking directly at me with a steely flint in her eyes Deidre calmly said, "You'd be Kris then, the roommate. The one who slept with my boyfriend."
Behind me, Raleigh gave a frustrated sigh. Looks like he hadn't been too successful with his cause. Smiling, I took the comment in stride. She was not going to get to me. I'd had experience with people like her before. There was no way I was going to show her that she was getting to me, I wasn't going to give her that satisfaction. No, I must remain perfectly and completely calm and unfazed.
"Well as long as you haven't been sleeping with my boyfriend!" I said with a happy shrug. So what if Artemis wasn't exactly my boyfriend yet. As if they needed to know that.
Automatically, the atmosphere in the room did a complete 180. Deidre relaxed and gave me a look of haughty disbelief. Raleigh on the other hand, knew a far bit more about this situation that his girlfriend. He stiffened and was staring at me with suspicious eyes.
After a slight pause, Deidre let out a loud laugh.
Laughing, Deidre came alive. Yes, it was me she was laughing at, but it was nice to see her in a mood other than furious. It was nice to know she had a mood other than furious, really. Now her green eyes were sparkling, not dark with hatred and betrayal. It was as if her red hair was fire itself the way it caught the light. It made her truly beautiful and I could finally see why Raleigh was attracted to her. Maybe if we'd met under different, more peacefully, circumstances, the pair of us might've been friends.
"Right," she said, still chuckling. "Because everyone would want to date you."
…Or maybe not. Maybe I should just stick to trying not to hit her. That sounded like a good idea.
"Artemis Fowl seems to think I'm datable." I said offensively, crossing my arms. Who cares if I was pouting?
"Like feck you're not!" Raleigh's indignant voice was barely heard over Deidre's laughing comment of, "Surely you must be dreaming."
I stared at them both, affronted. Was it really that unbelievable? After all, Artemis was just a boy. Albeit a socially awkward boy, but a boy nonetheless. The chances of him asking some one out were just as high as any others. No one can run from hormones forever. Even geniuses couldn't change nature, no matter how much they tried.
"Like feck I am!" I said defiantly. "And if you even try messing this up for me, Raleigh James, you'll find out that I've got much worse things up my sleeves than a Neon Pink Sharpie."
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The only person around here who seemed to be honestly happy with my current relational status was Finnegan. Unlike Jacob, who hadn't stopped sulking since I told him, Finnegan had thrown himself to the idea with an almost scary amount of enthusiasm. When I had told him about, Finn had practically glowed with pride. It was the first time I had ever seen him respond to Artemis's name with anything other than caution. I thought I heard him mutter something suspiciously along the lines of: "so he did take my advice, good job Genius Boy", but when I confronted him about he gave me his innocent look and asked me if I felt okay. Besides, no else seemed to notice it. Now every time I mentioned Artemis, he practically glowed. Sometimes I wondered who was more excited for this: Finnegan or me.
"Where is taking you?" Finn asked as we were all hanging out in his dorm room a few days later. "Hopefully nothing meant for tourists." He grimaced.
Oh how I wish I knew. Artemis had been very careful not to tell me. No matter how much I pestered him in class, all the infuriatingly handsome boy would do was give me a mysterious smile and tell me to meet him on the grounds on Friday night. Frowning, I took my anger out on a nearby pillow. "I don't know," I whined as I chucked the pillow at a glowering Jacob. "He refuses to tell me anything except to meet him outside on Friday."
Finn frowned and quickly intercepted the pillow Jake had promptly tossed right back at me. "Kris, you do know what day it is right?"
Blinking, I replied, "Well, it's Friday." Realization hit me like a ton of lead-lined bricks. "Shit! I'm late!"
As I rushed out of the room, I could hear Raleigh mutter, "Well, at least we'll have a quiet planning session for once. Won't that be a change."
Remind me to whoop him for that later. He's just pissed because I messed things up with his girlfriend, the little jerk.
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"Hey Artemis," I gasped, completely out of breath by the time I reached the grounds. After I'd left Finn's dorm room I'd promptly booked it down the hallway to my dorm. There I had proceeded to tear through my room in search of something more date appropriate to wear. After leaving my room (poor Raleigh was going to come home to a veritable war zone) I had sprinted down to the grounds at top speeds, getting weird looks from passersby as I went.
Artemis quirked one expressive eyebrow and nodded. He was dressed "casually" again, or at least dressed as casually as I'd ever seen him. There was a large fluffy blanket draped over his arm that looked suspiciously like he'd stolen it off the unused bed in his dorm room.
"Where are we going?" I asked, still slightly out of breath, as I gave the blanket a confused glance.
"You'll see." Artemis replied with a smile. Then he turned on his heel and began to walk towards the gates.
If the boy didn't explain himself soon, he was not going to get a second date. Surprises and I didn't…mesh very well. No one ever believed me when I told them this. They figured that anyone as random and cheerfully naïve as I ought to love a good surprise. Right, because that always worked out so well in the past. Apparently, they hadn't heard the story of the first time Brendan asked me to the Winter Formal. He'd thought it wood be a good idea to show up at my house at six in the morning and bake me pancakes, my favorite breakfast food ever, and then spell out Winter Formal with whipped cream on the top. Which really was adorable and thoughtful, but I sort of thought he was a robber and had thrown a skillet at him before he could yell "Surprise!". God bless the boy for still wanting to date me. The bruise even went away before the dance.
"Artemis, seriously. Where are we going? I don't do well with surprises." I warned. At least there weren't any large metal cooking devices present this time.
"It's not a surprise," he retorted as he lead me to the small grassy knoll behind the swimming pool. "I call it more of a…mystery."
Scowling, I grumbled anyway. "A mystery's just a small step away from a surprise."
The left corner of Artemis's moth twitched upwards. By now, I realized this was as close to a laugh as this boy was going to get. Someday, I would see him really laugh, I promised myself.
As we drew nearer, I could see Artemis had prepared for this. There seemed to be a little bed of blankets and pillows laid out on the grass. Oh no, not another bed. You had to be kidding me. Surely he couldn't know that so far this week different beds had gotten me absolutely nowhere. Well, at least this one didn't come with a psychopath girlfriend.
"What are we doing Artemis?" I asked curiously as he lay down on the blanket pile. Sitting down next to him, I turned around to look at the boy in question.
"Stargazing. The planetarium's closed today and there's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight."
I laughed. Only Artemis Fowl would think of stargazing as a way to spend your first date. Guess this was just his nerdy side shining through at last. Then I looked up at the night sky, and I had to agree with him. Far away the city lights and buildings, we had an unblocked view of the skies. Stares seemed to shine more brightly out here, as if someone had given them all mega-watt batteries. The moon looked super-imposed on the sky. It was beautiful.
"It's peaceful out here," Artemis said as he stared at the sky. "Looking up at the skies seems to make your own troubles so small and insignificant."
Right then I had the insane urge to hug him. I had never seen him so laid back and at peace. Even during our friend lessons he had been tense, as if every question was going to force him to reveal some long kept secret or family heirloom. Nothing was holding him back now. I didn't even have the aptly named Artemis Spritzer with me.
Artemis had stared rambling about the stars. As he pointed them out to me, he made sure to inform me what type of star they were, if they had any planets orbiting around them, how many light years away they were, and their scientific and nonscientific names. It was really quite cute, actually. I'd never seen anyone ramble on with such intensity.
"Artemis," I said, cutting him off just as he was beginning to get into black holes. "Can I ask you something?"
Now it was his turn to wary and curious. He seemed to like questions just as much as I liked surprises.
"I suppose you could, yes." He said after a moment's hesitation.
And so I asked him the question that had been on my mind all week. "Why did you ask me out?"
The moment the question came out of my mouth I wanted to take it back. It sounded so rude, and I really was having a good time with him. But it's not like he had ever shown me anything but barely concealed annoyance in our times together. During our lessons, he acted as if I was subjecting him to torture, even going as far as to take the Artemis Spritzer and lock in the safe, yes I said safe, he had in his bathroom. Ever since he had asked me out I had wondering if there wasn't some ulterior motive behind this. It's not like I hadn't seen anyone get played before. But was Artemis really capable of that? So far the evening really had been wonderful. I was going to come across as ungrateful.
Something of my guilty thoughts must have shown on my face because Artemis was looking at me with concern.
After a few more moments of antagonizing silence in which Artemis continued to stare at me intently. My question hung in the air like a dead weight.
"Well, because I like you, Kris." He said at last. "Frankly, I like you a lot."
And then he kissed me.
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