Thanks to: The Littlest Mouse, Readergirl99, Jolinnn, Shadow914, 6000j, shiningpearls, and Steinbock for the reviews!

Well done to most of you who noticed the 'two fields, a bog and a stile' reference ;)

WARNINGS: Swearing, descriptions of injuries and concussion, 'teenage spirit'...

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Reconciliation

Fowl Manor, Dublin

Dom woke the next morning in the room he felt safest sleeping in in all the world.

It wasn't nearly as early as he would normally rise, but then he had been up having his various injuries dealt with until the wee hours of the morning – and been given strict instructions to sleep for eight hours at the very least.

His grandfather had - considering the risks of concussion - insisted on sleeping sat on the chair in his bedroom and waking him once or twice. But Dom had not found it hard to get back to sleep, listening to the giant's quiet breathing sounding in time with the steady rise and fall of his arms that he had folded across his giant chest. Chin tucked down, legs out straight, ankles crossed in front of him; Xandr Butler was an experienced 'chair napper'.

Dom had stirred slightly when Butler had left the room to begin his daily duties in the manor - on half the sleep and double the work, whilst his son was away of course. But the boy slipped gratefully back into slumber, until the sun moved far enough across the horizon that it fell mutely through the curtains, warming his skin.

He blinked slowly, rubbing his right eye with the heel of one palm and touching the lid of his left, gently. His eyelashes were crispy and stuck together and he winced slightly as he spat on his thumb and rubbed saliva on them to separate them.

Lying here for another few hours didn't seem like such a bad idea, but his room was warming up and he knew he would be uncomfortably hot before too long if he didn't get up to at least open the window. And once he was up, he knew he wouldn't feel like getting back into bed; as comfortable as it was.

He flung the duvet back, swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and stretched gingerly. Yawning hurt his jaw and his mouth was dry and coppery. His bleary eyes landed on a glass of water on his bedside table waiting for him.

Good old Pa.

He knocked back a few gulps and eased himself onto his feet.

To be fair, he felt a lot better than he had any right to feel after such a beating.

And thanks Granny, he thought, running a thumb over his cheekbones experimentally.

He threw the curtains back and opened the window, letting the fresh air of the gloriously sunny day flood in.

Ireland looked good in the sun.

It was good to be home.

The sky was blue and cloudless and the manor grounds stretched out in a carpet of green all the way to the walls. The flowerbeds zigzagged vibrantly through the garden in such an array of colours that it didn't seem possible they'd occurred naturally. But then, nature was a mystery sometimes. The combination of the hues and species hadn't aligned themselves by chance, of course; that was down to a dedicated team of staff who tended the plants year round. One of the gardeners was working on the nearest, clean-cut patch of grass with a push-along lawn-mower now, pausing to wipe his brow on the sleeve of his chequed shirt. Having been recruited to undertake the chore in the past as a favour, Dom didn't envy him in the slightest.

Shower then swim.

Those had been the orders.

The shower being necessary before the swim due to the layer of medicinal oil coating his skin which the elder Butler did not want clogging up the pool filter.

Besides that, only the boy's grandmother knew what was in those bottles and he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't react with the chlorine in the pool water and turn the kid's skin green or something of the like.

Dom opened his door quietly and slipped into the corridor. There was a bathroom he was permitted to use on this floor and he made his way to it, pausing only to grab a towel from the airing cupboard – which doubled as a gun stash, if anyone knew where to push the false wall at the back, which most people did not.

The manor showers were much preferable to the weak, fizzling pressure of the one at the flat. That and the water was scalding hot or freezing cold on demand – not that he could bear much of a temperature at the moment. He rubbed experimentally at the bruises on his ribs through his shirt. He didn't bruise easily; he wasn't bred to. They would fade quickly, too. Or at least he hoped. The ones in places he could easily cover with clothing didn't both him too much, but when he wiped the mirror to look at his face, it was still worse than he had hoped. He opened his mouth to check the blood blisters on the inside of his cheek and poke at the dark cavity where his final baby tooth had sat. It was probably best it had come out; he'd have only needed it wrenched at some point and his Academy buddies really were getting far too creative with their own removal ideas. He was half getting nervous he would wake up after a drugged evening meal one morning with the tooth tied to some belligerent cow or the likes.

It may have been psychological, but he could swear the tangy-tasting, jelly-bubble textured gap felt smaller already to his investigating tongue; his adult teeth sliding in to take its place.

He made a halfhearted effort to keep the glue holding his scalp together dry, then shrugged and dipped his head under the water. He was about to go swimming, after all. And it was super glue; nothing short of neat acetone should bother it unduly.

Superficially dried and dressed in clothes he could have sworn had reached all the way to the ends of his limbs when he had last worn them, he bundled his others into a ball and threw them back through his door onto his bed as he passed his room on the way to the stairs. He would put them in the kit-room washing machine with his other bloodied items later. The Butlers themselves did the washing from there and he didn't want the laundry maids asking questions.

He should probably try to contact Pash to take the wet stuff out of his bag before it stunk her room out... And to let her know he got to the manor safe too, of course.

He thought he heard a door further down the corridor open and flicked his latest clean hoodie up over his head. He hated hoods. They removed all but about 90 degrees of your vision. Why anyone would want to wear them out of choice, he didn't know. Well, except if they wanted to hide their face – as he did now. He should probably dig out a baseball cap to wear for a while. It wouldn't hide everything, but it wouldn't remove his peripheral vision, either. His uncle definitely had one for surveillance jobs. Maybe he could borrow that. His head was probably big enough these days to share with a bit of adjustment. Unlike the man's shirts. Although Pa and Uncle had shared the same size since the younger bodyguard's mid-twenties, there was no chance of mixing up Dom's with theirs yet. He found, to his frustration, theirs still drowned him. And on the occasion The Major had pulled one of his on for a laugh, he could barely get his forearms through the sleeves let alone his biceps. And once he had, there had been what looked like a foot of space between the buttons across the chest. Dom had been a little miffed at that, but his uncle had merely laughed like a bear and scrubbed his scalp with one rough palm.

You'll grow, he'd said. And it'll fucking hurt whilst you do.

He had been warned of that before; growing pains. He was already suffering them in his shins from time to time and if history repeated itself, it would only get worse this coming year. Butlers, like all giant beasts, were slow maturing. He could expect to top out at some point in his mid-twenties, rather than his late teens, hopefully around the heady heights of the upper end of six foot like his relatives.

He had once got quite upset as a five year old that the was too short to really be a Butler and maybe he was something else instead. His uncle had taken him straight to one of the gym's floor-to-ceiling wall mirrors and crouched next to him.

See those eyes? he'd said. They're the same. Yours and mine. We're blood. And besides that, it doesn't matter if you're a little short when you grow up. Some of the best bodyguards I know are under six foot! But you won't be. You'll be big and strong one day, you'll see.

He was right, of course. Dom had cleared six foot at the start of this year, with plenty of scope for growing left.

What his uncle didn't tell him, was that he had also had Dom DNA tested as a baby, using a sample of his own DNA for a match and an old Academy mate with the right equipment and know-how. Theresa had been mightily insulted, of course. They hadn't gotten on so well back then and it had been a quite a blow to their fledgling friendship; the accusation that the child was not Beckett's. It had to be done, Myles had argued. For all he knew, she was infiltrating their family through one of the very few weak spots they have.

"Junior!"

Dom paused automatically at the cry of his 'work' name.

To be honest, he was surprised his future employer was talking to him at all after the other day. He thought the self-imposed vow of silence would have lasted longer than this. Fowls were good at sulking and holding grudges, after all.

He turned to face him, but kept his head low.

"Your grandfather said you arrived last night; we weren't expecting you, were we?"

"No," he said, guardedly. "There was a... change of plans."

"Oh, I see," said Artemis. "Well that's worked out rather fortunately for me, actually. Are you going down to the gym?"

"Swimming," he said, answering as shortly as possible.

"Even better – I might join you then. If you were off to beat up some poor unsuspecting punchbags I was going to ask if you would meet with me later."

Dom didn't answer. There wasn't a question there and he didn't feel like chatting with the older teen.

"Anyway," Artemis said, seemingly as oblivious as ever to the fact his attention was unwanted. "I'll meet you down there, alright?"

Dom turned away and raised his hand over his shoulder in silent acknowledgement as he tried to calculate what he'd rather do less; put up with the Fowl's company, or change his plans and go for an outdoor swim in the lake. He had only said 'swimming' after all. He hadn't specified where.

He decided Pa would probably dish him out a 'Glare of Disapproval TM' if he saw him swimming in the lake without a spotter when he was not of full fitness, so he made his way downstairs. Though the sunshine which had heated the narrow, glass corridor that led to the pool, was warm and inviting, the water outdoors would be cold and he had no desire to put his body through the trauma of any degree of shock whilst it recovered from its latest battle.

The hurried and undignified slapping of soles he was fairly sure had never felt the surface of the ground outside hitting the tiled floor was not a welcome sound to travel to the young Butler's ears. He had hoped the Fowl would be longer. He usually took an infuriating amount of time to do just about anything. He obviously wanted something, Dom deduced.

The young Butler lengthened his stride surreptitiously, but he was not surprised to hear a slightly out of breath;

"Junior – wait a moment!"

He slowed to a stop, preparing to start reciting a complicated third-person protection kata in his head, in order to refrain from attempting to practice a clusterpunch on his uncle's charge before he could launch into a doubtlessly prepared speech on whatever it was he needed Butler-brawn for next. A Butler who would not report what he was up to to his father, that was.

"Ah, thank-you," said the Fowl heir, drawing to a halt beside his future employee and for perhaps the first time, realising he was no longer taller than any of the Butlers in the manor. "Goodness, I realise you are in the grips of another growth spurt, Junior – but seriously, I would swear it was only weeks ago we used to be of a height."

Dom shrugged. "Gotta be big and tall if I'm going to guard your future kid – right?"

"Well, I suppose. Although – " the Fowl gave a sharp gasp suddenly.

Dom had thought Artemis was about to point out something about his fellow Academy mates being of average height or below and still being perfectly capable students, when he remembered Artemis had never met any of his classmates and was, in fact, unlikely ever to. Besides, the Fowl's expression of surprise did not seem to warrant a throwaway comment about physique and ability.

"Good gracious – what happened to your face?"

"Fell off a bike," Dom lied easily.

"Take your hood down, man. What's happened to you?"

Dom figured it didn't make much difference. He wasn't planning to swim in the jumper, after all. He flipped it down and opened his hands wide.

"Ta da," he said, emotionlessly.

Artemis took a step back and gazed at the back of the young Butler's head with some horror.

"You fell off a bicycle?! How fast were you going?"

"Too fast, clearly," said the young Butler. "I should've been wearing a helmet."

"That's a nasty laceration! Looks like you should have worn a motorcycle helmet at that! Were you knocked unconscious?"

"Maybe," he shrugged.

"How can you not know whether or not you lost consciousness?"

"Alright; I did. But now I am conscious. And I'm going for a swim."

"Were you stabbed?" he persisted.

"What? No," Dom sighed in exasperation. "I... just split my head open - easy done. Blunt force trauma."

"With what?"

"A blunt object," Dom said, dryly. "Can we walk and talk?"

"I have to say, it's been a while since I took advantage of our pool," Artemis admitted, following him. "Quite the novelty really. One forgets what a privilege it is, unfortunately. And the privilege of having people like yourself and your family employed too, of cour..."

Junior stopped mid-step.

"OK, what is it?"

"What do you mean?" Artemis said lightly.

Dom raised an eyebrow; "'privilege to have people like yourself...' - are you serious?"

"I'm afraid I don't catch your meaning..."

Come on, Artemis. Don't make it too obvious you need me to do something for you, will you?

"Well deducing is your area, is it not?" he said aloud.

"Perhaps, but..."

"So deduce."

"I'm drawing a blank, honestly. Your family's facial features are naturally hard to read anyway and with your..." he waved a hand around his own face loosely. "Injuries, I have to say it's even more of a task. I cannot fathom why you would expect that I wanted something from you, simply from my statement about our fortunate swimming facilities..."

"So you do want something from me, then," said Dom, wryly.

"No. What makes you think that?"

"One," Dom started; you did not hang around with a Fowl your whole life and not pick up some deduction skills of your own, after all. And that was even before he began to tap into his actual training. "You basically just said so. Two, you don't swim."

"I can swim," Artemis protested. "But whilst I am not prepared to engage in jogging or boxing or the likes, I will deign to entertain the idea of a leisurely length or two of the pool in order to spend some time with a friend."

"Your Duckling Award at St Bartleby's doesn't count, Artemis," Dom drawled. "And my swimming and your swimming are not compatible. You're comparing a tug boat to a pedalo. And besides that, I didn't think you still wanted me to be your friend. Not after all that shit went down at the Devlins'."

"Of... of course you're still my friend, Junior," Artemis said, seeming almost embarrassed. "I... apologise for overreacting. Your intentions were honourable and I... I shouldn't have acted like I did. It was... childish. I apologise."

Dom swallowed. That was a very rare occurrence. Artemis must really need him for something.

"Forget about it," he shrugged.

Artemis held out his hand and Dom shook it.

"Friends?"

"Friends," Dom nodded.

Artemis smiled. "Well that's a relief. I'm afraid I don't have nearly enough acquaintances to start pissing any off."

Dom snorted. "Are you supposed to be using language like that?"

"Father is away. What he doesn't hear won't hurt him," said the Fowl. "I may as well ask if you are supposed to be getting into 'cycling accidents'?"

"Well, Uncle's away, eh?" Dom shrugged. Glad that Artemis – despite clearly seeing through his obvious lie – didn't press the matter.

The Fowl frowned suddenly.

"Do you really think the gap between our swimming abilities is large enough to compare me to a pedalo? A yacht, perhaps?"

"Yachts are faster than tug boats!"

"Alright then, a rowing boat at least, surely?" protested the Fowl.

"Let's find out, shall we?" Dom grinned.

Together they pushed through the double-doors into the humid room, their footsteps echoing across the tiles. The glass roof meant there was no need for lights at this time of day, though the room was equipped with both ceiling and underwater pool lights for evening dips. Dom threw his towel down on the nearest poolside deckchair and pulled off his trainers. Artemis folded his much more neatly and began to unlace his shoes, looking over at his companion in mild interest. He had paused after tugging off his jogging bottoms and seemed almost... embarrassed to remove his hoodie.

"What?" the younger boy grunted, feeling eyes on him.

"Come along now, Junior," he chuckled. "If either of us here need to be self-conscious about their body, it is not yourself."

He laughed, unbuttoning his shirt off to reveal pasty-white skin, stretched taught over his ribs.

"I'm not self-conscious," Dom muttered. "I just would have worn a rash guard if I knew I was going to have company."

"Whatever for?" Artemis chuckled. "Honestly Junior, I am aware of how well your physique will put mine to shame. Despite the fact you are several years younger than me, you likely already have more testosterone in your system than I and more muscle mass than I can ever hope to have. And besides that, I have vague memories of The Major throwing us both in the same bathtub as children, which makes us closer brethren than most of the genuine siblings at St Bart's, I can assure you."

Dom remembered that too. One of Artemis's schemes had got them covered head to toe in old engine oil. The Major had placed them both in the massive, porcelain sink in the old stables and hosed them down first to remove as much of the black gunk as possible, then transferred them in towelled bundles to a bath designed for the purpose of washing human beings, rather than boots, feed buckets and the occasional dog.

"I'm not embarrassed," Dom muttered again and pulled his hoodie over his head. "It's just... don't freak out or anything, alright? I'm fine."

"Why would I... oh Christ..." Artemis gasped.

"Yeah that's why. I should stop cycling and take up chess or something – right?"

Dom's bruises – though they had not developed as much as they might have done, thanks to his grandmother's salve – mottled his ribcage.

"Those are not bruises from cycling, are they?"Artemis asked, rhetorically. "Did you break anything?"

"Like the other guy's face?" Dom mused. "I don't think so, unfortunately."

"Jesus, Junior..." he said quietly. "Who...?"

"Doesn't matter. That, I am embarrassed about. Not a great advert of my fighting ability to my future employer, right?"

"Your family's credentials will never be threatened by a teenage bust-up, Junior," Artemis smiled sadly. "I'm concerned for you – as a friend."

"Well don't be. I'm ok," Dom said, faux-brightly. "First to 32?"

"Junior, if I manage a half-mile in the pool..." the Fowl boy calculated swiftly.

The Butler boy leapt from the side, piercing the water with much less of a splash than one would predict. He had already completed his first length by the time the Fowl had entered the pool much more gingerly, by way of the steps.

"Aren't you supposed to keep wounds like that dry for..."

Dom executed a swift tumble turn under the water, kicking off the side with his powerful legs. Artemis could have sworn the boy flipped him the bird as he did so with one streamlined hand... but surely even the youngest Butler in the manor would be too professional for that...

Around half an hour later, the Butler boy had completed a steady – by his standards – 64 lengths freestyle and the Fowl had completed a stately 30 in breaststroke.

"OK, I'm done," Dom said, pulling himself vertically out of the water and straight onto his feet, making the single movement look effortless.

The water sheared off him and the Fowl for once lamented the fact he could never manage such a feat. Secretly he sometimes wished he could do something that... cool. Admittedly, however, not quite enough for him to undergo the amount of physical exercise it would take to achieve the ability. Nevertheless, he was eternally grateful he was not ever likely to be in competition with the other teenager; be that on a sports field or in the rather different field of personal relationships.

"Ah – two lengths short," he said a little breathlessly, grasping the side with both hands.

"Two lengths short of what?" the Butler grinned. "Ten? Mr 'Rowing Boat at Least'?"

"One day you will not dare to be so impudent..." Artemis grouched. "The half-mile, if you must know."

"Let's do them then," Dom shrugged, sliding back into the pool. "I should warm down anyway or Pa will be getting on at me."

"Will he not 'get on at you' for getting that head wound wet?" Artemis asked again. "It's not even stitched – what is that?"

"Super-glue."

"Super..."

"Super-glue," the trainee bodyguard repeated, simply.

"At a breaststroke then," Tim dictated, brushing over the interesting medical choices. "Or else it won't be much of a 'warm down' for me!"

"You mean to say you've even warmed up," Dom smirked, but kept his head above the water and obediently struck out with his long arms.

Artemis pulled after him with a little more effort.

"Slow down! I realise I could be easily overtaken by a determined duckling, but you needn't rub it in!"

"Ducklings are actually pretty fast," Dom said, knowledgeably.

"Yachts are fast, blasted ducks are fast, anything else quicker than myself in water that you'd like educate me about?"

"Hey," he chuckled. "I'm just saying; being slower than a duckling isn't too much of an insult."

"Not really the point I was making!" Artemis puffed.

"So what did you want then?" Dom asked, slowing his pace to match the other teen. "Besides to do more exercise than I've seen you do since Uncle decided to try to improve your fitness that one time."

"Oh don't remind me of that," Artemis spluttered. "I'm still suffering post traumatic stress about the whole ordeal."

Dom laughed. They'd had their fair share of PTSD-inducing experiences – even including being kidnapped together on one occasion – although he didn't judge The Major's ill-fated effort at convincing the young Fowl to attempt a press-up as being up there with the worst things that had ever happened to either of them.

"Don't avoid the question," he chided.

"Fine. You recall... well of course you do... but Angeline's brother, Romeo – and his ridiculous vehicle?"

"I do," Dom frowned, not liking where this was going already.

"Well I may have engaged in a... wager of sorts."

"A what?"

"A wager – a bet, in layman's terms."

"I know what a bloody wager is, Tim," Dom sighed. "What have you bet him? And how does it involve me? Because if I'm supposed to be fighting anyone for you, I'm gonna need a week at least to prep..."

"Fight? Oh, not it's nothing like that," Artemis said, placatingly. "But he bet..."

The Fowl looked shifty.

"What?" Dom asked, guardedly.

"Well he supposed I wouldn't take part in a rally event he organises every summer..."

"And you said of course you wouldn't, didn't you?" Dom drawled. "Because that would be entirely stupid and besides that Uncle might actually just finally give up on keeping you alive and shoot first you and then himself to save the trouble for the fire brigade of cutting you out of a car-wreck."

"Well, actually..."

"Tim, why?"

"A moment of testosterone-fuelled idiocy? You yourself must understand that, surely? Or else you wouldn't get into so many cycling accidents..."

Dom splashed his friend mid-stroke and Artemis coughed and spluttered his way to the end of the length.

"Oi! This is about your stupid life decisions – don't try and make it about mine!"

"Junior! What would your uncle say if he caught wind of you trying to assassinate me?" he coughed.

"If he knew you were entering a rally race, he would tell me to hold your head under the water now to make it a cleaner job!" Dom laughed. "Can you even drive?!"

"I have a license," Artemis sniffed.

"Yeah I know that, but can you drive?" Dom repeated – for how could he forget rolling around in painful degrees of laughter at the Fowl's initial attempts at controlling a vehicle? The Major had come close to outright banning his charge from ever perching his backside behind a steering wheel again after the first lesson he had given him and Dom was still fairly certain Eugene Fowl had paid off the examiner to ensure Artemis passed. "Like, properly?"

"Well I was hoping that would be really rather where you came in, old chap."

Dom stopped laughing quite abruptly.

He really should have seen that one coming.

Basement Games Room, Fowl Manor

As it turned out, Artemis did not actually have a car.

What he did have, was a brand new driving racing game; even better in spec than the new one at the Penny Switch arcade.

"Cool," the young Butler said, almost involuntarily as Artemis whipped off the sheet with a flourish. He was thinking about how jealous Pash would be if she found out he had access to it.

"Cool?" Artemis scorned. "Don't be so boorish. This is state of the art."

"I know," Dom shrugged. "Which is what makes it cool. You don't get much more high tech than this in terms of video games."

"Yes, yes; I'm sure they teach you all about the latest video game technology at the Academy," Artemis said sarcastically, as he fired up the machine.

"Hey, I do have a life outside of 'Cad that isn't just trailing after you and your harebrained ideas, you know?" Dom said, half-amused, half-offended.

Artemis didn't respond to that, instead settling into the bucket seat and adjusting it so that he could reach the pedals.

"Right," he said with confidence. "This shouldn't be so hard..."

Some Time Later...

As it turned out, Artemis found the game rather hard indeed.

"No it's brake into the turn, accelerate out! Jesus Christ, Tim!" Dom said exasperatedly as the car spun off the road for the umpteenth time. "You'd have killed us like eight times by now if this was real."

"Yes," Artemis sighed. "That is rather my point."

"If you're driving this badly just to get me to agree to help you..." Dom muttered, gesturing him to get up so he could take his place in the chair.

"Then it's working?" said the older boy with a smirk as he gave up his seat. "You are genetically predisposed to protecting me, are you not?"

"And you seem to be genetically predisposed to getting me into shit," Dom grumbled, already doing better than his future employer before he had even got a full idea of the controls. "And giving Butlers cardiac problems before the age of twenty five."

"I suppose it's a good job your family keep yourselves fit," Tim chuckled.

"Yeah," Dom agreed. "Can you imagine if you added high cholesterol to the mix? My uncle would be one cheeseburger away from a heart attack on a daily basis!"

"Butler seems a tad more relaxed these days," the Fowl heir mused.

"I suppose that comes with age. When you've been shot in the head a couple of times and walked it off, you probably stop giving as much of a shit about the day-to-day, non-lethal bullshit."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?" Dom grunted, spinning the virtual car around a hairpin bin with barely a tap of the brake.

"You don't seem quite so concerned about some things - not as much as your uncle anyway."

"That's also age related, apparently," Dom snorted. "I'm fifteen, remember? Ideal age to bow to peer pressure and take part in stupid ideas..."

The Fowl laughed. He couldn't imagine the young Butler submitting to any such thing. He was much more likely to go against the grain than run with the crowd.

"So you'll help?" he asked, hopefully.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Well of course you have a..."

"I mean, are you going to do this with or without my help?"

"Well..." Artemis said awkwardly. "Yes, I suppose."

"Then I don't have much of a choice, do I?" he sighed. "Do we have a car yet?"

Artemis grinned. The 'we' he liked the sound of. The Butler boy was coming around to the idea – he had known he would, with some careful nudging in the right direction. The Major he wouldn't have even attempted to convince, so it really had worked out rather in his favour; the man being dragged away to supervise his father on his skiing holiday.

"Well, there is a slight issue there."

"There's many slight issues with this plan, Tim."

"I thought the idea was to have the best car - like Romeo's, you see?" he told him. "But after a little research, I had to cancel my order of a new model rally car. The ones they use in this race are supposed to be modified by ourselves, you see? From... what's the word?"

"Bangers?"

"Yes!"

"You've entered us into a banger race," Dom said, falsely bright. "Of course you have."

"Well, it's not a banger race exactly..."

"You do know we're going to die, right?" Dom continued, in the same cheery tone. "Either when we get smashed to shit in an arena or when my uncle finds out and strings us both up over the main entrance."

"Not exactly a banger race," Artemis continued. "It's over terrain, not in an arena."

Dom glanced over; clearly the Fowl had done some research at least on the different kinds of car competition.

"OK, so do we have a banger yet?"

"No..."

"Do we have a source for the banger?"

"Not exactly, no... I was hoping we could call up some scrap yards."

"When is this race?"

"Two days away."

"Two days?!"

"Yes."

"We can't get a written off vehicle ready to drive again in 48 hours – not when it's not even sat in the garage yet!"

"Why the defeatist attitude, Junior?" Artemis said, jovially slapping him on the shoulder. "Are you not your uncle's nephew?"

"My uncle has several decades more experience of fixing cars under his belt – not to mention more than just a list of scrap yards at his disposal!"

"Well I don't see you offering any assistance on the sourcing front," Artemis said, a little haughtily.

"I've only known we needed a source about two minutes!" Dom protested.

"Well you must know somewhere. Or someone, perhaps."

"I don't exactly have a lot of friends, you know?" he grumbled. "I can't just be like 'hey, know anybody wanting rid of an old...'"

"What?" Artemis frowned, as his friend petered off.

Dom clamped his mouth shut. This was such a bad idea. But he'd already said too much. The Fowl boy was onto him.

"You know someone, don't you?" he said, excitedly. "You can get us a car! Ha - I knew you wouldn't let me down!"

"Stop bloody slapping me," the junior bodyguard grumbled, shrugging the aristocrat's hand away from his abused shoulderblades. "What the hell's got into you?"

"Teenage spirit!" Artemis grinned. "Tell me about this vehicle you have in mind."

"It's not going to be easy," he said, a plan beginning to form in his head. "We're going to have to pick it up and if you want to be involved, you've got to keep up."

"Of course I will!"

For a moment, it was Artemis's turn to act like the younger sibling, begging to be taken along with his older brother on something he deemed to be an adventure.

Domovoi didn't even bother trying to argue with the Fowl that he wasn't coming too.

Clocked what Dom's thinking of? I mean, of course you have. You've been reading my fics for too long haha

Wolfy
ooo
O

03-06-2020