damned_institute | Day 28: Morris Park

Artemis laughed, "Right. That would make you the..." He thought a moment, "Seventh person to offer. But would you follow through?" He gave Ken a wry smile. All of them, except for Farfarello, have refused or fallen through. So which seems to be the better offer here?

"And you never know--he could be teaching me something pertinent to my size and strength capabilities. Whatever it is, I'm only spending the first hour of the night with him. An hour is better than the whole night, correct?"

He was trying to be encouraging--he really was. Ken was a nice person, but Artemis was getting tired of defending his decisions. He was an intelligent person--he knew what he was doing. It wasn't as though he'd taken the offer without fully understanding the possibilities.

"I like teaching," Ken said simply. "You can take it from there, right?"

"Okay, again, I'm biased. Have the guy pretty much cave your head in, then try and tell me otherwise." Ken had been in the hospital for weeks after that encounter.

Ken, on the other hand, was fully aware of the fact that Farfarello was not the most predictable of people. That was one of the things that made him so hard to fight.

"Oh, really?" Artemis smiled, "What do you like to teach?"

He didn't touch the comments on Farfarello--he was getting tired of the same things being said to him. He didn't know how to fight, he didn't have clue one concerning combat technique, he had no survival instinct. He heard the same thing over and over again. If he had to fight with one more person about this same subject, he was going to explode. He could feel it. His earlier emotional outburst had left him tired and his head cloudy. He wasn't thinking as sharply as he could normally. His tact was being stripped down slowly...

"Whatever I'm good at. Usually soccer. I don't often let on that I kill people for a living, so fighting usually doesn't come up. You're a bit older than the age group I usually coach, but at least...there's no young kids here." Ken would never be able to leave them alone. He'd want to protect them all the time.

"Ah, sports. I never was a sports type of person. I spent most of my time studying or reading," He smiled. "But you're probably a very good coach. It takes a certain type of person to deal with small children--I don't know if I could handle it. I have trouble dealing with most adults."

He laughed, remembering his frustration when dealing with Jon Spiro, then winced when his ribs protested. He'd been left in pretty bad shape.

"I never went to high school. I was scouted out for J-League while I was still in junior high. That's Japan's professional soccer league, or one of them at least. I went to play instead of taking high school entrance exams."

Ken flopped backwards onto the ground, for all appearances boneless and completely relaxed. "Who knows, you might be great at getting along with kids. They're very different from adults, anyway." He turned his head, noticing the wince. "...I'm not good enough with field aid to tell if anything's cracked. The nurse's would probably give you shit that fogged your head if you went to them."

He didn't need to know field aid...he wasn't exactly irreplaceable within the organization, and it had just never been taught to him.

"Technically I go to high school. But most of the professors won't teach me. Or they'll never call on me in class. So I don't go most of the time." He smirked, "My mother calls the school and excuses me." The tone Artemis used seemed to suggest that it wasn't his mother calling at all.

"I'll be fine. Nothing some pain killers won't fix. Nothing feels broken--just bruised," He smiled, "Fortunately, I'm medically trained--somewhat." He poked and prodded his torso in several places. "Mm, nothing's broken.

"And I think I may lose my patience easily with children. I expect people to figure things out on their own, so teaching has never been one of my career choices."

"Then your professors are stupid bastards," Ken pointed out bluntly. "Maybe you should go higher level. Once we get out of here." Like hell the nurses would believe that Artemis was able to take college-level courses.

"The pain killers usually have a side effect of drowsiness. Not a good thing if you're going to be learning how to fight. I've been refusing to take whatever shit they give me. I hate being drugged." Enough that he was more willing to deal with the pain than the side-effects.

"You have to balance it. Kids won't feel like they've accomplished anything unless they can figure it out on their own, and if you hold their hand all the way they'll learn shit-all anyway. Set the framework, let them figure it out, be there to be a guide if they have questions, not do it for them." Ken smiled then. "That, and it's a chance to drop the adult attitude."

Artemis was about to say something about how his mother wanted him to at least experience what it was like to be a normal high school student, but it only brought back memories of what he'd told Renji earlier. Stuffing the urge to start crying again back down, he coughed and shrugged. "I should, but I don't think even a graduate university would be able to hold my interest. I've written most of the texts used in the majority of psychology departments. It would be a waste of time to take a class centered around something I wrote myself." He smiled at Ken, "Don't you think so?"

"I suppose..." The boy said, frowning, "But why on earth would I want to act like I'm a child when I'm not?"

"Who says you have to take that? Do something else, then. Something you enjoy doing." Ken shrugged slightly. "There's enough people stuck doing shit they don't like in the world. You have the chance to not be one of them."

"Because it's fun?" It would be a very sad day indeed when an assassin who was ten years older than Artemis knew how to have more fun than him.

But Artemis enjoyed what he did... there just weren't any classes he could take that would teach him the borderline-illegal things that he did. Oh well. "I like painting. Maybe I could produce a few of my own works, instead of forging others."

The concept of doing something that he actually wanted to do was foreign to Artemis. He'd been raised to believe that what he did for the Fowl family was both what he liked to do and what he did best. There was nothing else he could do. Was there anything that didn't involve his work that he liked to do? Maybe chess.

He frowned, obviously confused, "Why is it fun...?"

Instead of forging others. Right. Ken looked at Artemis and smiled slightly. "Yeah, it's more just...you that way. I'm not a painter, but finishing a flower arrangement that I thought of and did on my own...it's satisfying. It might not sell or anything, but it's relaxing and I feel like I accomplished something." He had just admitted to arranging flowers. And enjoying it.

"Fun is fun. Running around and screaming and just making an ass of yourself...and not caring. Not worrying about anything, not plotting anything, not having to think about everything all the time...it's just relaxing." Ken shrugged. It was like him being more pissed off that he couldn't play soccer while injured than actually being injured. "I guess it's something I can't really describe."

"Mm," Artemis nodded, "When I finished the C Cube--my own micro-computer with advanced technology--I was very satisfied with myself. Perhaps doing more things like that would be... fun. And maybe relaxing, since it's for myself instead of a client or plan."

The boy listened to Ken explain his idea of fun, and he nodded as though he understood. He didn't really get it though. "Well, in that case, I think it would be fun to just lay in the grass and stare up at the sky. And not worry..." His smile fell slowly. "About anything. Not think about anything." He paused in thought. "Do you think that's actually possible?"

"It is for me, but thinking isn't my strong point." Ken grinned. "My brain's default setting is 'off.'"

He paused to look at the sky, then pointed at one cloud. "That one looks like an airplane."

...here he was, initiating a game of cloud-gazing with a boy that was smarter than a good number of college professors, at a field trip from an asylum that turned into hell on Earth at night. Ken had known his life was fucking crazy, but this was high on the list of weird shit he'd done, once he thought about it.

Artemis nodded, "747 Boeing." Perhaps he was missing the point of the game... But he seemed perfectly happy to look up at the sky and play Ink Blots.

"The one over there," Artemis pointed, "Looks like a cell in mitosis." He frowned, "Or a kidney."

Well, at least he was playing. "That one's a stem of Artemisia." Leave it to the florist to point out one that looked like a plant. And he was maybe right if you turned your head and squinted. "...or something."

Artemis smiled. "I've never seen Artemisia. But it does look like some kind of plant. That one over there," He pointed again, "Looks like those ridiculous glasses you wore."

"...Thaaaanks." Ken snorted. "And Artemisia is the family of plants that has sagebrush and wormwood in it."

That one...Ken thought for a moment, staring at the line of wispy clouds, high in the sky. "That one...looks like fire." He couldn't help the slight trepidation in his voice saying that.

Artemis chuckled, "You're welcome!"

He looked up at the fire-shaped cloud. "It does..." His brow furrowed. "That's a very bad omen, in some circles."

"I know I'd consider it one," Ken muttered. He didn't get along well with fire, or the idea of fire. "But hell, who needs bad omens." Ken knew bad things were going to happen. He didn't need a cloud formation to tell him that much.

"Right..." Artemis murmured, trying to shake the feeling of imminent doom from his system. "Em... That one looks like a willow tree!"

He was starting to feel like he was getting the hang of this game.

"And that one's a rabbit." Ken was good at putting things out of his mind.

It really was a rather simple game.

Artemis smiled. He'd never had a childhood pet, but he'd always admired animals. Right now, he was wishing he could have some sort of furry thing in his lap to pet. Perhaps this whole mental institution thing could work as a paid vacation--during the day at least.

"That one looks like Holly," He caught himself. "I mean, a bird."

That was an odd slip to make. "Pet bird?" Ken ventured. It wasn't unheard of to speak of pets as if they were people.

Of course, Artemis could have meant a person. There was all sorts of weird shit going on here.

"A friend..." He said finally. "She's a fairy, but she doesn't always have wings like that. Just when it's necessary for her to fly."

Which was pretty much all the time, come to think of it.

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gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com - 2007-11-20 02:26 (UTC) - Expand