Oh, no! Another Cliched Love Story!
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"Because darling, stars cannot shine without darkness."
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5. An Expert In All Things Pink
Students were boarding into the bus for a school trip.
"You know, I'm so used to your company that it feels weird when I'm not around you. Is this what people call love?" Cassie asked and she made a crease on the square-shaped golden paper.
Artemis Fowl the Second looked up from his smartphone and looked at her straight in the eye. "I hope not."
"You'd get all awkward if I confessed to you, no?"
"I would reject you without batting an eye," Fowl said and Cassie giggled. Fowl gave her a small almost-smile in her direction.
What the hell was that?
Detective prodigy Isabella Kossel did not like the way her gullible dorm-mate and her twisted, worst nemesis were interacting these days. They were up eachother throats just a few months ago (she had been so proud of Cassie) and now, their relationship had been promoted to that of a dog and its master.
How dare that foul Fowl mess with the stupid Mess?
Wait.
Did she just make a pun?
Well, first things first.
Click.
She had always liked the sound of hand-cuffs.
"What is this, Izzy?!" Cassie was the first one to react, pointing at the hand-cuff linking her right hand with Fowl's left hand.
"Precaution," Isabella said. "I can't make it to the school trip because some guy got killed in Buckingham Palace. However, my Fowl-senses are tingling and I'm pretty sure I know who anonymously donated to the school for this school trip to the museum."
Fowl shot her dirty look and Isabella liked it very much.
Go ahead. Feel hopeless, Fowl.
"So?" Cassie asked.
"Well, let's just say, I'm tying him up to some deadweight so that he can't do certain things that he wants to do."
"Izzy, this is sick. Take it off," Cassie said. She looked like a pouting squirrel when she was annoyed, which was not a compliment.
Fowl, on the other hand, was quiet.
What was that sneaky bastard planning?
Isabella flipped her hair back. "I'll open it when you're back from the trip tomorrow." She was about to leave until... "And oh yeah, Cassie? Don't flirt with him. He's bad news."
Isabella could hear a 'I'm not!' shout from Cassie while she walked away.
The bus ride was long and bumpy.
"You know what I'm gonna do when we're gonna be back? I'm gonna call her 'Bella' for a month. She hates it, especially after the Twilight thing, you know? She says it pushed feminism back to the 19th century," Cassie said.
"Yes. That will anger her quite a bit. Maybe that nickname may end up popular and other people might end up using it," Artemis ran a hand through his hair, "but do not do anything you might end up regretting."
"What does that suposed to mean?" Cassie knitted her eyebrows, trying to figure out the underlying insult or.. was it a threat? It was either of those two, when it came to him.
"You have a tendency to do things that hurt people who hurt you but then you end up regretting it and moping about it in a corner," Artemis said, looking out of the window and then, he took out a book.
"No, I don't-" Artemis gave her a look, "ok, yes, I do and you're right," she twiddled with her thumbs, "I should think carefully before I do anything stupid or revenge-y."
Artemis nodded and flipped his book to the next page with his free hand.
"Now that I think about it, calling Isabella 'Bella' and cracking Twilight jokes is not that much of a good idea. I mean, it might damage that carefully crafted reputation of hers and I know it's important to her that people perceive her as strong and invincible. I don't want to hurt her feelings."
'But she hurt yours.' Artemis had half a mind to tell Cassie that. He had noticed the way her eyes lost their sparkle for a moment when Isabella Kossel called her a 'deadweight'. However, he figured that talking about her emotions with Cassie would seem borderline creepy.
Not that he was particularly observant when it came to Cassie but he knew that she was having a rough week. More than once he had caught their English teacher, the one chaperoning their little field trip, calling her 'useless' and 'dumb'.
He had never disliked the English teacher before. She was known for playing favorites and Artemis was her star-pupil. But her annoying... yapping and the negative effect it was having on Cassie was getting on his nerves.
For the past two months, Cassie would come to his dorm and spend a few hours each day folding papercranes for him whilst babbling about something or the other('..I so can't believe that she's secretly dating her bestfriend's boyfriend..', 'so he was like 'no way' but then I was like 'hell yeah' and then he was like', 'no, I don't use too many likes'..). Her nonsensical gossiping was almost like a permanent background music whenever he sat down to, well, scheme and plot on his laptop.
However, the last week she had been quietly doing her origami work, excluding the occassional chatter.
She must have been really down.
She had been a bit upbeat in the morning but now she was back to moping and self-pity.
Their English teacher walked to them and crossed her hands when she saw the hand-cuffs. The woman glared at Cassie, he could feel that Cassie stopped breathing, and looked like she was 3 seconds away from breathing fire.
"Useless. Useless!" The English teacher hissed and Cassie pressed her back against his shoulder. "You think everything is a joke, Miss Mess," he did not like her tone and instinctively, protectively bent towards Cassie, "You think it'll be funny to roam around in Ireland's most prestigious museum whilst being handcuff to a fellow student? You all are representing the school and your shameless manner reflects poorly on our school. Disgusting-"
"Isabella Kossel handcuffed us together. Cassie is not at fault and neither am I. You should call Miss Kossel to talk about the situation."
The English teacher did not say another word, as she could probably see that Artemis was just a needle's drop away from humiliating her with a scathing backlash. And no teacher liked a scathing backlash from Artemis Fowl the Second, so she quickly left.
Cassie grasped his forearm and he could feel her tremble. She looked him in the eye for a second and he could see that a watery dam was about to break on her face.
He was about to un-cuff them both (yes, he could uncuff them, he was Artemis Fowl) so that she could go to the bathroom and save her from the humiliation of crying in public but she blinked back her tears.
She looked ahead and did not say a word.
She let go off her grasp on him and the warmth he felt from her palm was gone, leaving a tingling feeling behind.
They were walking around the museum. Cassie was like a moody dog, tagging behind her master Artemis as he studied every detail of the museum carefully.
"Thank you," Cassie finally said. Artemis looked over his museum pamphlet and studied her quizically. "For telling Mrs. Morrison off. That means a lot. Another word, and the bus would've drowned from the flood of my tears."
For the first time, during her stay in her boarding school, she felt that somebody had really got her back (she always felt that Izzy got her back, though she did stab it a lot too).
The whole thing was not a big deal but it was the first time someone other than her family came to her defence.
She didn't feel that she was conveying her gratefulness well enough so she grabbed the end of Artemis' blazer and tugged it a bit to get his proper attention.
"Thank you," she tried to pour all her feelings of gratitude into those two words as she said them while staring intently at his icy blue eyes.
His cheeks warmed a bit and he sudddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. He coughed and looked away.
"Are you feeling alright?" She grabbed him by the collar to get a better look at his face.
"I'm feeling uncomfortable to be seen in public with someone who has such poor taste in clothes. You dress up like a doll from the 70's. It's a good thing that the fashion police do not exist or you would've been given the capital punishment," Fowl's hadn't been this harsh in the last two months. He looked really angry.
He let go off his collar.
"Well, at least I don't walk like I have a stick up my butt and there are people in this world who actually like me!" Cassie snapped.
"Who? Mrs. Morrison, the English teacher who is right about your stupidity or that Isabella, who doesn't think about your welfare even once?" Artemis said, his tone dipped in his poison.
Cassie stopped in her tracks. She wanted to say something hurtful and mean but a part of her heart just chipped and broke off and she just lost all her energy to fight.
For a few minutes, she had trusted him.
The very thought of it made her want to curl up in a corner and cry.
Cassie wanted to say or do something mean but she had accepted that revenge was not her thing so why bother?
She took the pamphlet from him and she watched him stare at her uneasily, expecting her to retaliate.
She laughed, and it sounded hollow even to her own ears. "Chill, I'm not gonna hit you with it. I just wanna check up the main attractions list of the museum. Wouldn't wanna miss any of them for the world," she looked up from the pamphlet, "unless there's something else you wanna check out first, hmm?"
"Cassie-" she could sense the pitying tone in his voice and she was in no mood for pity.
"Oh, look, super-old skeleton of a dog," she said and dragged them towarda it with fake enthusiasm.
Cassie roamed around the museum, with Artemis in tow, babbling and commenting about everything she saw('oh, em, gee. The color of the pink scarf in that painting is too cute', 'doesn't it look like that vase has boobs' and 'Izzy would burn that 'cuz it is so sexist') and Artemis wondered how long would it take her to drop her fake-happy charade.
The moment she had said 'thank you' with that look in her eyes, something within him stirred.
He felt like he was actually a nice person, for once, and it felt... good. Not being the villain, for once, felt good and he wanted to touch her arm or something and then...
.. his eyes fell on the Chinese painting he had come to steal.
And not for the first time, he felt Cassie stole something that she should never have even known about.
Cassie was stealing him from himself and making him feel that he was something he'd never be- good, just and upstanding.
Because he was freaking Artemis Fowl and he didn't do good and he was here to steal a painting worth millions and he could not afford to have another guilt-trip at the moment because today he was gonna steal and... he was using to many 'ands'.
And he lashed out at her, viciously criticizing her clothes -that just looked fine on her, by the way- and stabbing her freshest wound of insecurities.
'Who? Mrs. Morrison, the English teacher who is right about your stupidity or that Isabella, who doesn't think about your welfare even once?'
He regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth and then, Cassie looked so hurt.
He had wanted her to scream at him, slap him, anything. He didn't want her to go about acting like the whole thing did not happen.
He remembered the stormy night he had send Cassie out to find papers he threw out of the window and his blood ran cold.
Cassie, despite her endless flaws, did not deserve any harsh treatment from anyone.
He wanted to set the record straight with her but then he recieved Butler's message.
'It's time.'
"I wanted to checkout the library. How about we get something to drink and then head there?" He asked.
Cassie just nodded and said, "Sure thing. We're done sight-seeing. That sounds a nice way to end the school trip. I saw this nice cafe down that hallway."
Artemis had slipped a natural sleep-inducing berry in her cup of hot chocolate and waited for it to kick into Cassie's system.
And they headed for the library.
As per his request, they were sitting in a secluded part of the library, where no one would find them (Cassie did not know that).
"I'm pretty sure that the knowledge in this library is inferior to your brain, huh?" Cassie said grogily and rubbed her eyes.
"Not really. This library has an entire section dedicated to medieval agricultural techniques and I'm not really familiar with the topic," Artemis said.
Cassie giggled. "You know, it's funny when you brag."
"I'm not bragging, I'm pointing out a fact."
"Uh huh," Cassie said, nodding off to sleep and then slowly she started babbling. "I wish I could decide whether you're bad or good. Because you are such an asshole and you take some kind of sick pleasure from watching me get hurt but then you... you save me and then you make me cry all over again and the whole vicious cycle starts again. I don't want you to be my hero or my villain. Since the moment I met you, all I ever wanted to be was your friend and all you've made me feel is that I'm not good enough to be your friend."
And she fell asleep.
At that moment, Artemis wanted to wake her up and tell her what he thought but he had something to steal.
He unclipped the handcuff and was about to leave when he took off his blazer and placed it around her. The air-conditioning in the library was particularly rough and he did not want her to catch a cold.
Cassie woke up to find her face sticking to a carpeted floor. She looked up and saw Artemis reading a book intently.
He looked down at her and said,"You drool in your sleep."
Her head throbbed.
Was he quoting Annabeth from Percy Jackson?
"Am I in Hell?"
"For now, in a library. You fell asleep and I got lost in this book so I did not bother to wake you up."
"What is the time?" Was it already time to leave?
Artemis checked his watch and raised his eyebrows. "It's 9 pm."
Cassie was wide awake now. "What?! If they haven't noticed our, then absence buses have probably left hours ago. Oh my gosh!"
"Stop hyperventilating." Artemis was way too calm, almost like he had prepared for it. "We'll call up a teacher and then one of them will pick us up tomorrow. We could stay the night in a hotel nearby. It is owned by a friend of my dad's."
"Oh, okay." There was something about Artemis' ease with the situation that calmed her down.
She and Artemis confirmed if the buses indeed left them and then, Artemis started making some calls.
They were standing near the Chinese painting they had passed by before and Cassie noticed something odd about it and finally everything- Izzy's words, her sudden sleep, Fowl offering to buy her a drink, etc., etc. -clicked
"Let us head for the hotel and then we will call up a teacher once we check in," Artemis said.
"Yeah, we better leave before they realise that painting is a fake," Cassie said with a nonchalant tone and she felt Artemis freeze. "Move your booty, Fowl."
They were quiet all the way to the hotel room. Cassie was busy gaping at the 5-star luxurious hotel while Artemis was being broody.
Cassie came from a richer-than-average family but she didn't visit fancy hotels that often as she was either in her boarding school or her parents' estate in the country-side. Her life was no where near as facny-pancy as Artemis'.
"How?" Artemis asked, after he closed the hotel room.
She could hear police sirens and figured that they found out.
"Can we first call up a teacher? I want to head to school the first thing tomorrow." He grumbled but obliged.
She heard him relay the information to Mrs. Morrison but his eyebrows knitted at the end of their conversation. "She wants to talk to you."
Cassie gulped and took his phone. "You useless, stupid girl! You are dragging Master Fowl along with you! What were you doing, huh? Falling asleep whenever you see fit. Useless. Rotten apple! First that handcuff and now this. You sick little mutt-" and Mrs. Morrison the English teacher went on until Artemis took the phone and cancelled the call.
She looked at him quizically and Artemis sighed. "You're crying."
Her phone began to ring.
"Hi, Izzy," Cassie tried to sound cheerful and tried to not look at Artemis.
"I asked one thing from you, Cassie! One goddamn thing! All I needed you to do was cling to the bastard's side until the end of the trip but I'm hearing you fell asleep. What the hell, Cassie! Can't you do one thing right? Because of you a painting worth millions got stolen, you idiot!"
He took the phone from her.
"If she is so unreliable, you should've babysitted me yourself!" Artemis snapped and then switched off her phone.
St. Bartelby's was a place for the cream of the elite. The smartest of the smartest and the richest of the richest went there. Cassie had gotten in because her dad was the best friend of one of the board of directors.
Compared to everyone else in the school, she was kind of at the bottom of the pyramid- the unimportant nobody.
And when you were an unimportant nobody, people never noticed that they even walked over you.
The only thing going for Cassie was that she was dormmates with the richest girl in school (Erica Heartphilia) and the smartest girl in school (Isabella Kossel). And, oh, she was the girl who had kissed Artemis Fowl.
Cassie buried herself in the pillows in the bed so that Artemis could not see her cry.
She could hear Artemis sigh and then, all of a sudden, he started patting her back in a comforting manner.
"You are not useless. You are nice and... bubbly. It is nice to be around someone who does not think that everything is a competition, for a change." She could feel the uncertainty and discomfort in his tone. He clearly was not used to comforting people.
Cassie got up. "You don't need ta (hic) be nice to me just (hic) because I (hic) know that. I wasn't gonna tell (hic) your secret to anyone, anyway." Cassie talked between hiccups.
"Everyone knows that the Fowls are criminals, Cassie. No one knows how to prove it," Artemis said. "Although, how did you-"
"-The girl in the Chinese painting was wearing a baby pink shawl/scarf thingy. But when I saw the painting again, the shade of pink of the shawl was darker, nearly rose pink. That is a huge difference. I just knew that the painting was a forgery. And then I thought about my sudden sleep in the library and how we were in a secluded part of the library. You drugged me to sleep and then unlinked us then, well, stole the thing. Then when I woke up, you pretended that you were there the whole time."
"You figured all this out due to a different shade of pink." Artemis said, slowly.
"I'm a girl, Artemis. I'm an expert in all things pink."
"So, what happens from here?"
"Three things. One, I don't care that you are criminal. If I wasn't a crying mess right now, I'd be gushing about how cool that is and ask you if you were like Robin Hood but my head hurts so I can't care less right now. And no, I'm not telling Izzy anything. Two, call the room services and get me tubs of ice-creams, pizzas and burgers. I need comfort food and you're paying. Three, unlink us because I need to go to the bathroom and then jump on this fluffy bed."
And then something weird happened.
He gave her a small tender smile and gently rubbed her cheek with his thumb. His blue eyes weren't icy for a change. "I'm starting to get fond of you.."
Cassie's cheeks warmed and she wondered if she was developing a crush on him. Well, he was good-looking and smart and caring (sometimes).
"...so this is what it feels like to have a puppy," Artemis said and the mood just broke.
"What are you saying?" Cassie snapped. "I'm way cuter than a puppy."
"You act like one though."
Cassie growled a bit.
"My point, exactly." Artemis laughed and Cassie relaxed. She had never heard him laugh before.
"Cassie?"
"Hmm?"
"Bamboo trees do not grow at all during the first few years. But when they start growing, they grow tall at an expotential speed."
"Ok? Thanks for the tidbit of trivia-"
"Think of yourself as a bamboo tree. You are not useless. You just are waiting for the right moment to reach your fullest potential."
"That's, that's kind of the sweetest thing anyone ever told me."
"Just go to sleep and don't snore."
"Buzzkill, Fowl."
A/N: Thank you for the reviews. They cheered me up so so much. Thank you. Tell me what you think. I'll reply to reviews as soon as I can. It's just I have a lot in my plate right now.