The Real Pain Inside - TriceTokushu (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“I know it’s a fairy.”

The young brunette was at a loss for words, baby-blue goggled. From when he’d walked through the front door coming home from school to now standing in front of his cousin’s sniffy smirk, he’s said nothing about fairy godparents. He’d never out the two people that loved him most. Who the heck told him his green jacket was a fairy? And if no one told him, how did he know?! Better yet, how did he even know what fairies are!?

Timmy glanced down to the center of his jacket, shamrock-green eyes equally as taken aback. If Cosmo was still here, then that must’ve meant Wanda was safe too. Guess no rules had been officially broken, yet Gary knew about his fairy without him saying a word…

Brunette brows flattened towards the tween smoothly combing his gelled black locks as if nothing was amiss. Timmy was gonna get to the bottom of this. “C’mon…”

As his parents and their grandparents went about conversation as normal, Timmy took Gary by the hand, tugging him up the staircase. Pulling him into his room where one arm shoved him inside before the door shut in a quick slam.

Gary didn’t have to look around the blue room to spot the fuchsia of a lone goldfish swimming within the fishbowl on the nightstand, warily observant to his widening grin. “Ahhhh, two fairies…interesting.”

Feeling the need to be near him, Wanda transformed into Timmy’s pink hat, only confirming Gary’s assumption as he faced his little cousin. Brows creased, Timmy studied the fellow bucktoothed boy’s nonchalant grin. Something just wasn’t adding up…what was he missing?

[Bubba, look at his belt buckle.]

Listening to his sister, Timmy zeroed in on the leather belt held by a belt buckle made of bright-yellow gold. Having seen that same buckle before, nothing seemed out-of-the-ordinary at first. However, taking a closer look, squinted eyes caught the smallest outline of a face with icy-blue eyes. Followed by the tiniest glimpse of something floating above the face. Something that looked like…a crown?

Strange, it looked a lot like Cosmo and Wanda’s crowns. But how?

Unless…

Baby-blue looked up. “So your buckle’s a fairy too?”

The expression of the black-haired tween remained as unbothered as his casual stance. Making Timmy’s brow scrunch, gaging his next move, until Gary’s short titter shrugged “Ya got me.”

Gary had a fairy?! This is wild! “But how’d you even figure out I had fairies?!”

“…you dunno the hack?”

“What hack?”

Taking a couple of steps forward, Gary noted Timmy’s instinct to step backwards. “Fairies look like oddly colored things to normal kids and adults cuz they don’t know what they’re seeing beyond that. But us godkids can spot other godkids cuz we know how our own fairies disguise themselves.”

“Wait, so…” Timmy tried to put the pieces together “…you could see Cosmo’s face? And his crown?”

“Yup.”

Being news to him, Timmy addressed his fairies “…did you guys know about this?”

“This is just as news to us as it is to you.” his pink hat admitted honestly, his green jacket nodding in concurrence. It is not uncommon for godchildren to discover other godchildren, yet in all their years, this was the first they’d had ever heard of this method as a so-called ‘hack.’

“Welp, I got plans to meet up with some pals of mine, so...” Gary then casually announced, no intent on staying or getting permission from their grandparents to dip out. Walking away towards the bedroom window. “Imma skedaddle.”

Timmy wasn’t about to let him go that easily. “The heck you think you’re going?”

Unlocking the sash lock to the window, Gary simply replied “It’s private.”

Timmy raised a brow “…what’s the big secret?”

“You’re a godkid.” Gary remarked. “You should know alla ‘bout secrets.”

“Then why can’t you tell me?”

“Because…” Gary turned towards his cousin, grin now faded into a solemn line. “I don’t wanna expose other godkids.”

Timmy inched forward at this interesting revelation. “Your friends are godkids?”

Gary looked away for only a moment, softening his tone. “They’re my only friends...”

“…and there’re other godkids in Dimmsdale?”

“More than you know.”

Thinking about it now, Timmy had seen kids with oddly colored accessories whenever he bothered to pay attention. When Vicky would come for her version of ‘babysitting,’ Tootie seemed quite attached to that bracelet she always wore. Buxaplenty never went a day without that weird watch, and whenever AJ found any excuse to talk to Chloe, that necklace did look peculiar.

“Well, if there’re no more questions,” Gary returned to the window, raising the sash to the gentle gust of late autumn’s frigid air. “I gotta get going.”

“Wait!”

One foot already planted on the sill, Gary glanced over one shoulder.

“…how come you don’t have other friends?”

Baby-blues pointed grudgingly. If there was one thing Gary despised was divulging into touchy subjects. “Other kids mock what they don’t understand. These kids get me…”

The shift in Gary’s tone intrigued Timmy further. “Because they have godparents?”

“Because they know what it’s like to be so miserable that fairies and magic make life worth living.”

It was Timmy’s turn to look away, resurfaced pain folding his arms. Chester and AJ were his boys since kindergarten, and even they were still in the dark about so much stuff. He could only imagine how they’d react to almost taking himself out with his sister’s ribbon. AJ’s analytical mind was not always privy to empathy, and Chester was…well…Chester.

Sure, they were there for him when Sophia had died, his shoulder to cry on when needed. But after a few months when most days were worse than others, he could tell they were getting weary of re-consoling his guilted grief. They didn’t want him to get stuck in that vicious cycle, that he understood. They wanted him to be happy again, to be Timmy again.

But what they failed to understand was, that while their lives went on as normal…his was never the same.

“…can I go now?”

Timmy looked up from his thoughts, meeting the soft impatience of an arch brow. If Gary was willing, Timmy had one last, burning question “…will I see you again?”

Gary stalled. When the Vladislapovs’ started taking Gary to visit the Turners’ during the holidays, the Turners would purposefully isolate him from Timmy. That was until Sophia’s untimely death when he had no other relative around his age but Timmy to interact with. Gary never understood why, and his own torments left him little time to really give it much consideration…

Now that he knew his cousin was a godchild, a part of him would like to have family to relate to. “…do you want to?”

Faint hope peered through baby-blue orbs “…if you do.”

Stepping off from the sill, Gary faced Timmy’s folded arms. Welp, guess that settles it. “Hey, Alondro?” he then acknowledged his belt buckle. “I wish cuzzo had a transporter!”

A yellow cloud of magic dust sparkled in Timmy’s closed palm before he had a chance to question what Gary was talking about. Feeling a metal object in lifting his hand, quizzical eyes saw the compact gadget in his palm. Molded as a star similar to the top of Cosmo and Wanda’s wands, a purple remote button in its center. Those same quizzical eyes met his older cousin “…what’s this?”

“A transporter.” Gary reached into his leather jacket pocket, revealing the same magical object in his own palm. “From Earth to Fairy World.”

Timmy broadened his gaze. Whoa…the home world of his godparents? The magical realm in the clouds?! “…Fairy World?”

“Yup.” Gary weakly grinned. “It’s cuz it takes a lotta magic for fairies to bring humans to Fairy World, and this transporter gives fairies extra magic so that they don’t have to use all of theirs.”

“He’s right.” the green jacket confirmed, Timmy glancing down at Cosmo. “About the ‘bringing humans to Fairy World part,’ that is.”

“Downside is… it requires magic to activate.” Gary informed. “That means your fairies either gotta be near you or on your person for it to work.”

“Do these friends of yours also have transporters?” the pink hat still harbored a hint of incredulity. Not that Wanda didn’t believe Gary, she was just slow to trust. Timmy’s asshat parents were her only experience with his blood relatives.

“They do.” Gary sensed Wanda’s distrust, yet he kept his tone civil. “They’re in Fairy World right now probably waitin’ on me, which is why I gotta go.” he held his thumb on the button as demonstration “Just press the button, and it’ll take you to a specific location. Use it when you wanna see me again. Maybe even meet my friends.”

Timmy lowered his gaze to his ticket to Fairy World in the palm of his hand. Should he tell the other godkids at his school about this? That is…the other kids he assumed were godkids?

“And when you find other godkids, you can bring them too.” It almost felt like Gary had read his mind, deciding to just use the transporter where he stood instead of escaping through the window to use it at a discreet location.

With that, Gary raised his transporter. Giving his little cousin a parting smirk. “See ya, cuzzo.”

Timmy looked on as Gary disappeared in a yellow cloud, and his godparents used the opportunity to poof out of their disguises. Shamrock-green and fuchsia faced their godchild, the wife of the pair setting a cradling palm to her midsection’s miniature bump. There had to be a perfectly good explanation as to why Cosmo and Wanda had been sitting on the fact that his own cousin had a fairy godparent!

“How come you guys never told me about other godkids?! And don’t say it’s cuz of Da Rules!”

“…okay, we won’t.” Cosmo lightly humored.

“Sweetie, we’re not supposed to tell you about other godkids.” Wanda explained. “You have to figure it out on your own.”

Timmy acknowledged her questioningly “…are there other godkids at my school?”

“Again, sport, we can’t tell you.”

“So there are other godkids at my school.”

“See? You figuring it out already!” Cosmo enthused.

“Hmmm…” Timmy rubbed his chin. “…how do I even approach them without exposing you guys?”

“Whadda ‘bout how Gary said?” Cosmo suggested. “About the disguise thing?”

Timmy eyed his godfather “…like, make them figure it out how I did?”

Wanda shrugged. “In a way.”

Not long after did Sophia enter his mind, giving him an idea that, for what it was worth, just might work.

Streetlamps passed by in distorted rings of glowing hue through the passenger window, night’s darkness still lingering into the early Tuesday morning. Rumbling of the Wrangler’s engine droned as a null hum, warm air from the jeep’s A/C blanketing her body from late-autumn’s icy chill.

Weening alertness battled drooping eyelids, mental fog warping in and out of blurred lines between what was reality and the dream state she desperately wished to return to. Her purple bow bobbed sideways, inches from the pillow called the car door’s panel.

“…Chloe?”

“What?” her head snapped alert from the backseat, only just realizing her name was being called. “I-I mean…” she tugged awkwardly at platinum blonde locks “…yes, sir?”

“I said don’t plan on going to the library tomorrow because I’ve rescheduled your therapy for after school.” Keeping attentive eyes on the road, the conservationist didn’t come across agitated by his daughter’s lack of attention. Not as agitated as his wife certainly was that morning. “…weren’t you listening?”

“Oh…” Chloe was ashamed. Falling asleep to her father talking was so rude of her “…I-I’m sorry.”

“How’re you feeling?” Clark didn’t have to look at her to note fatigue in his daughter’s voice.

Considering majority of last night was spent lying in bed counting from 1,000 and managing to make it all the way to the number 1…sleep wasn’t exactly sleeping. “I’m…okay.”

Chloe was obviously lying, though Clark understood her reasoning. “I say we give this Lexapro another week before you go back to Dr. Wahlgren. Not a huge fan of how this stuff makes you feel.”

And Chloe wasn’t a huge fan relying on Lexapro or therapy just to function like a non-anxiety cursed child. Especially when her mother had no problem expressing bitter qualms for both.

Clark slowed down with a turn signal to turn into the street of Dimmsdale Elementary. “I told your mother we should have just let you stay home. For one day, at least.” Clark groused, merging into the car-rider’s line. “It counterproductive sending you to school when you can barely stay awake.”

“…I-I’m fine, I promise.” Chloe forced a grin, albeit quite feeble. “I’d hate to fall behind.”

“…alright.” Clark wasn’t that convinced, but who was he to deny his daughter’s drive for education. The drive that he had played a negative part in instilling. “Just don’t fall asleep in class…you’ll never hear the end of it.”

More than enough motivation to sew her eyelids open. “…yes sir.”

Driving close enough to the school’s curb, Clark noted his daughter rubbing the indigo necklace that hung around her lavender parka, faint defeat in blue eyes through the rearview as she grabbed her backpack. “…Chloe?”

Chloe’s hand was on the handle, acknowledging her father’s solemn gaze when he turned in his seat towards her.

“No matter what your mother does or says, don’t give up.”

Chloe rued her father having to say those words, though not entirely out of left field for him to say. Numerous marital arguments had been centered around Chloe’s mental health, arguments that Chloe was unfortunately standing within earshot. Despite Clark pushing to either cease their bickering or move it elsewhere whenever Chloe was around, this would only sharpen her mother’s fangs further.

Connie did not shy from spewing the nastiest spite she could muster. Little regard to how much it sawed away at Chloe’s already frail spirit…

“STOP!” the fifth Buxaplenty heir tried to push Mr. Nicholas off, and Mr. Nicholas retaliated with aggressive grips around the boy’s arms. Drawing their lips to meet in swaying hips against the front of young slacks. The warm sensation of needing to pee had mixed with pain, hurting in a bad way. The young billionaire attempted to shove palms to Mr. Nicholas’s chest, pushing his lips away. But Mr. Nicholas wasn’t about to give up.

He flipped the boy around to pin him chest first to the table, scraping the legs of surrounding chairs across the tile from the impact. Mr. Nicholas pushed his pulsing front against his lover, bending him over. Flat palms managed to keep his chest above the table’s surface in resistance to firm hands restraining his head down. His blood froze at the rip of an unfastened zipper, pulsing his heart by the sinister breath into his ear that followed…

“No one loves you like I-”

“Ahijado?”

Mint-green blinked to the Spanish accent of his purple watch. Snatched from the country club’s white walls and indigo tiles back into the beige leather and white pelt along the ceiling and floor of the Buxaplenty limousine.

“¿Estas bien, Remy?" At the first sign of his blank stare, Juandissimo was worried Remy had fallen back into the night sinister intentions came to light.

Remy averted his gaze from the concern in the watch’s expression. “…I’m fine.”

Juandissimo saw right through his godchild’s puckered brow, tender in his tone. “It is okay not to be okay.”

“…I know…” A heavy sigh blew past Remy’s lips. Was it okay not to be okay? Because…Remy wasn’t okay…

No longer a groomer’s pet, another knife lodged in his spirit from the two reasons for his miserable existence. Parental disdain was hidden behind plastic smiles when broadcast to the public, upholding a certain reputation to outsiders. Disdain that bared its claws behind closed doors, speaking malice towards him strictly when it wasn’t as convenient to ignore the son birthed from ‘obligation’ who never asked to be born.

Sensing Juandissimo’s concern, Remy couldn’t hide his deep grimace. If it weren’t for technicalities, he’d wish he was never born…

A red pickup swerved in front of the bus just as it rolled away from the school’s curb. Worn brakes screeching to a halt as the redhaired teen set the transmission to park. Groaning from mild irritation stemming not just from whack-job bus drivers, pink eyes turned in the driver’s seat to the damp cheeks of a raven-haired girl. Saying not a word as she zipped up the black wool jacket, clinging to the prized possession of her notebook after slinging on her backpack.

“Hey.” her huff called to her little sister, causing a watery pair of purple glasses to peep towards her. “…everything will be okay, yeah?”

Sometime in the prior week, CPS had filed an official petition against Jim and Nicky Byrne to family court, and when their uncle Vic had returned from his nightshift at Dimmsdale Correction before the sisters left for school, he’d informed of the call from Tootie’s social worker. An official court date was set, a date in which the sisters must both testify. Vicky had to harden her heart, stubbornly refusing to give those cultists emotional power over her. But at just nine-years-old, Tootie was still delicate. The very notion of facing and speaking up against her shunners had conjured the harshest memories. Spiraling into a crying fit that nearly debilitated her.

Silent tears fell the entire drive to school, only because it’d taken Vicky and their uncle ten minutes to calm her screams to sniffs. Probably would’ve taken less time had they thought to use Tootie’s pet sooner; she’d managed to dial down the second that teal cat perched into Tootie’s arms. Might as well be a service animal at this point, cuz from being shunned by an entire extremist group to being excommunicated by her daily tormenters, it was unfortunate that they couldn’t afford some sort of therapy…

One arm clutching her notebook, Tootie acknowledged Vicky’s statement with a dejected nod. Vicky may not fear their father, yet Tootie was terrified. And while Vicky may despise their mother for enabling child abuse labeled corporal punishment, in sharing that terror, Tootie was more aware of how truly trapped their mother was. She wanted to believe her sister…she really did. But whether real or not, their father wholeheartedly believed that Jehovah’s grace was on his side.

Will religious beliefs be used against him in the court of law?

Jumping down from the backseat, a gust of wind chilled the streaks of tears that Tootie swiftly wiped upon her exit. With the morning sun barely risen from its slumber, Tootie wanted no visible sign of weakness to paint her more of a target than her religious afflictions made her. Blending into the sea of students as Vicky merged with other cars driving away from the curb, continuing her journey to Dimmsdale High.

When platinum blonde popped in her peripheral, Tootie turned to a fellow student zipped her lavender parka from late autumn’s chill, shutting the door to a blue Jeep Wrangler. As somber steps ventured towards the school, Tootie recognized her from when they’d run into each other in the hallway that one time. Hard to forget such troubled blue eyes.

A darker blonde caught her eye when a man in uniform had opened the door of the longest car she’d ever seen. Seeing his imported Moose Knuckles puffer bomber as he adjusted the strap of his Dior bag in his stroll. Tootie could see faint bags under mint-green that looked so…sad. He even sounded sad in his mumbled ‘hello’ when the platinum blonde had almost walked into him and tried to excuse it with a strained friendly greeting.

Wondering if the two blondes were acquainted somehow, Tootie held her notebook tighter in her continued silent strides.

. . . . . .

During the time of year with the coldest and shortest days of daylight, school protocol was for students to congregate in the cafeteria until the first bell. Hunching her shoulders in attempts to camouflage herself from students gathered in multiple huddles, Tootie’s wool sleeves clasped her notebook. Traversing through limited space in between tables before she found an isolated corner of the cafeteria to set her notebook down. Taking her seat while setting her backpack beside her, she was unaware of watchful baby blues eyeing her visible teal bracelet.

With AJ studying his science textbook next to Chester catching more Zzs with his head down, Timmy sat across from them at a table centered in the cafeteria. Even from afar, the atom-sized crown floating above Tootie’s bracelet seemed visible in plain sight.

An evil babysitter sister was literally the perfect basis for a fairy godparent. Too bad Vicky acted too much like a sister for him to place fault. Could it be those bible-thumping parents of theirs? Growing up forced into serving some guy in the sky? Then again, if they grew up in the same household, how the heck did Tootie and Vicky end up a wounded angel and a sad*stic demon?! Make it make sense!

“Hey, Remy!”

A few tables from him, Timmy heard a voice that was once music to his ears. Turning to popular table where the most popular girl in school eagerly waved next to her best friend’s sneer and the Griffin brothers seated across. Waving at Buxaplenty who, oddly enough, strolled past without a second glance much to Trixie’s disappointment. Still salty over her ‘worth at least six figures’ comment, Timmy didn’t blame Buxaplenty. Sophia would roll in her grave at how shallow her former best friend had become. Maybe she already Knew from how little Trixie’s wellbeing came up in conversation.

As Remy claimed a table across the cafeteria, Timmy spotted blue-violets and a goatee within the purple watch around Remy’s wrist. He had no idea when or why the richest kid in Dimmsdale had gotten a fairy, just that his watch had been around for nearly two months. And the longer that watch was around, the less care Buxaplenty had associating with the popular kids. Perhaps he realized that, aside from generational wealth, there wasn’t much to relate to…

Maybe that was part of why none of Gary’s friends were ordinary kids.

“Chloe! Over here!”

An accent shrilled in Timmy’s ear, glancing over at the table nearest to him. Observing Sanjay’s vigorous wave with Elmer beside him. He observed the doom of gloom behind blue eyes as she greeted them with a small wave, thinking she’d oblige to sit with them like she always did.

“…Chloe?” Elmer sounded disappointed when Chloe kept walking.

Indigo eyes and a tiny crown followed the necklace that hung around Chloe’s lavender parka, watching her continue towards an empty seat two tables from them. She slumped into the seat, staring into space with blank eyes to laminated plywood.

Timmy then turned to Sanjay and Elmer questioning each other about the strange behavior they’ve noticed from someone once all gung-ho for education. Even Timmy’s attention span had seen the darker shift. AJ had mentioned something about her starting some new medication or whatever. Chloe needing meds was probably why she was granted a fairy. For now, that wasn’t the most important conclusion…

“Whoa…” Timmy lifted his pink and green wristbands to prop against the table’s edge, their attentive gaze on his stare of self-reflection “…there really are other kids like me…”

“…what’re you whispering on about?”

“What?” Timmy shot blinks to AJ’s suspecting gaze, remembering that his best friends were still within earshot (though Chester remained undisturbed.) “U-Uh…nothing. Be right back.”

Timmy excused himself from the table, ignoring AJ’s puzzled stare in his brisk walk through the cafeteria towards the exit. Whispering his wish to his wristbands, it was time to enact part A of his plan…

“Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit, Chloe-bird.” Susie recommended judging by Chloe’s glazed blinks.

Chloe propped her elbows with hands to her ten-ton head, preventing fog clouding in her brain from smacking to the table. Curse this stupid Lexapro; pure panic felt less crippling “Maybe dad was right…” her murmur seemed dreary. Carmichaels don’t know failure, but these odds hindered any success making it through this day “…I wanna go home.”

The godmother frowned. Chloe willing to skip school? Poor girl’s in rougher shape than she thought. “Just say ‘I wish,’ and I can make it happen.”

No sooner than Chloe could mouth “I wish,” a pinkish-green cloud revealed the folded yellow paper sparkling before her. Her eyes woke in bemusem*nt, almost afraid to lay a finger on this magic note “…what’s this?”

“Notta clue.” The note was summoned by magic, just not Susie’s magic.

Caution took the note into her grasp, opening the folds to a message specifically catered to her. Pumping dread into her heart when the message mentioned the knowledge that her necklace was a magical disguise…

Rumbling conversations fading in and out, Remy held his face buried in folded arms. He’d rather his mind go blank, all conscious thought fade numb. Drift in an endless stream, wade in dark waters with no direction. He wanted to sink, allow water to submerge him. Drown him beneath the surface, dragging him deeper…

The poof of a magical cloud sparkled loudly in his ear, groggy eyes lifting to a yellow note that seemingly appeared from thin air. After a moment to process this new information with brows scrunched puzzledly, Remy addressed his purple watch. “…is this your doing?”

“…no?” Juandissimo was equally confused.

Remy snatched the note in a sulk, originally thinking it was Trixie’s dumb attempt to get him to notice her. Until the first sentence regarding his watch darted befuddled eyes through the cafeteria. No way is this Trixie. Who the heck wrote this?!

A black pen outlined the sketch of a heart punctured with multiple wounds. Wounded and withered within the chest of a black raven slashed in red colored pencil. Through art was her only way of running away without leaving. A means of escape, albeit not permanent. Only to be brought back when folded yellow paper suddenly sparkled in greenish-pink within her notebook’s spine.

Tootie looked to her teal bracelet, met with Rose’s shrug that confirmed her non-involvement with this mysterious note. Apprehension stared at the folded paper, lifting the note from her notebook to unfold its corners.

Words trembled in her grasp when she read what the message revealed about her bracelet, and her throat dried when her eyes widened at the sentence read next…

‘Meet me in the gym now if you don’t want your fairy xposed.’

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

A low buzz droned in the ceiling through aged fluorescents, flickering a lambent sheen along lavender wood that’d been freshly buffed. Vacant bleachers lined the brick walls coated in pastel purple, basketball hopes abandoned on opposite ends of the court until the next P.E. class.

Apprehensive palms pushed the grey double doors, purple boots slow in their squeaks along wooden flooring as the first to arrive. Fast thumps in her heart counteracted any earlier brain fog; Chloe had made certain never to utter a word of Susie to anyone, so who found out?! Was it Crocker’s fairy obsession?! She never took him serious enough to believe he could expose her!

Clinks echoed off the walls, whirling her around to the young billionaire scanning the gym from the gym door. Seeing a similar yellow note crinkled in his hand, Chloe didn’t consider another child writing the note. But if Remy also received a note…then was it right to deem him the culprit?

Only when Remy lay eyes on the startled girl did his skeptical brow crease. The note said to meet in the gym, so if she was here, then this must be her doing. Then again, he spotted the same note in her hand that was in his. What if that note was just a blank piece of paper as a guise? That, he couldn’t chance. Without the only person to ever truly love and care for him, there was nothing to live for…

Cynicism approached her in guarded steps, extending an expectant hand in his grave mutter “Show me your note.”

Her nerves struggled with eye contact, the note trembling in her grasp. Would showing him expose Susie? He left her little time to second guess, making her gasp from his quick snatch. His stern brow remained unchanged as he unfolded the paper. Hmm, the only difference between his note and hers was something about a necklace, reading just half the sentence before her own quick fingers took back what was hers.

Chloe couldn’t risk losing a special person in her heart, one that has become more and more of a mother supplement. Didn’t stop her remorse for such uncouth actions. “…I-I’m sorry.”

Remy held his firm gaze, and judging by the gloss in her eyes, that means... “…you have a fairy.”

Chloe blinked back her tears of weakness “…a-and so do you.”

Little time was given to process this revelation when the two blondes glanced towards the metal doors that clinked a third time to see raven ponytails and purple rims shuddering by the entrance. As Remy recognized her from when her religious family were invited to the country club for laughs, Chloe recognized her from when she’d foolishly collided with her in the hallway.

It wasn’t long before both recognized one corner of yellow paper peeking through a notebook clung to the little girl’s chest. Doubt this girl would be here for any other reason other than…

“Wait…” Chloe breathed, looking to the fellow godchild nearest to her. Coming to a realization that she never expected. “Do…we all have fairies?”

“You’d be correct.”

Facing the opposite end of the gym, Tootie’s doe stare was the first to see a pink hat and matching winter coat appear from behind the bleachers. Chloe and Remy turned in that same direction, recognizing the fellow 5^th grader from his brunette shag and beaver teeth.

“…Turner?” Remy squinted. When the heck did Timmy Turner show up?

Studying the pink and green wristbands beneath his coat’s sleeve, Chloe realized she’d seen an eraser and pencil in those same colors. She saw no yellow note in his hand, and after waiting for Timmy to stand just a couple feet away, she asked what she assumed everyone was thinking “…did you write these notes?”

“Yes.” Timmy openly confirmed.

Chloe should’ve figured from the misspelling of ‘exposed.’ “…you couldn’t have been less threatening?”

“It’s not that threatening.” Timmy dismissed.

“…saying you’d expose our fairies isn’t that threatening?” Remy flatly countered.

“Not the point, genius.” Timmy snarked. “Besides, if you didn’t have fairies to expose, you would’ve just ignored it as some dumb Crocker prank.”

Still inches from her only exit, Tootie observed from the sidelines. Timmy has fairies too? Why? Because of Vicky? Or…because of what happened to his sister, Sophia?

“Then you must have a fairy too for you to even know what they are!” Remy pointed an accusatory finger, and Timmy exhaled.

His twin would never purposefully lead him into peril, yet the risks were still high. Certainly, if these kids figured out that he had godparents without directly saying so, then his chosen family won’t get taken away forever…

Right?

Timmy lowered his chin to his wristbands. I hope Sophie was right about this… “Cosmo…Wanda?” he called upon his beloved fairies “…you can come out, now.”

Wristbands glittered into two magical creatures upon command, floating on either side of their godchild. One with shamrock-green eyes that matched his shag, white button-up collared in a black tie with black slacks and black button-toe shoes. The other with fuchsia eyes matching the large swirl atop her head and the curl just above her back, a small lump visible through a plain-yellow tee and black jeans with black block-heel Canyons. Golden crowns hatted them, kept afloat with fly-like wings. Gold star-like wands clutched in their hands.

Awe stared at the magical creatures, particularly one raven-haired girl in her timid steps forward. Timmy had not just one fairy, but two. What did this mean? Was he miserable enough to need more magic? Or was because the man and woman were together? It started to look more like the latter when green lovingly laced his fingers with pink.

The other kids soon remembered that the lone 4^th grader was still here from the lack of squeaks across the floor in her approach. Tightening her squeeze around her notebook, Tootie looked down to her bracelet. Biting her lip before she nodded for Rose to make an appearance.

When a teal cloud materialized, tight curls of marmalade-orange supported a golden crown, the same color as the gold star-like wand in her hand. Fly-like wings protruded from the back of her boysenberry choker halter that was worn over a pink stripped long-sleeve, paired with dark-denim jeans and navy boots.

Stubbornness gritted Remy’s fists. Why should Turner get two godparents that love him, but he doesn’t!? “…you too, Juandissimo.”

His watch glittered into a chestnut man with vibrant blue-violets, a gold crown above long, black hair pulled from his widow’s peak into a single low pony. Matching blue-violet belt looped around black skinny-jeans as tight as a second skin to his bulging glutes and calves, a fitted-white tee outlining every muscle that seemed almost impossible for a man his short stature. That same white tee proving how ripped those muscles were in an audible tear.

“Carajo…” Juandissimo cursed under his breath, quickly poofing a new shirt. Not the most appropriate first impression in front of a bunch of children…

Deciding to join the other fairies without being prompted, an indigo cloud revealed an ebony fairy with indigo eyes and an afro of kinky black curls hatting a gold crown. Fly-like wings protruded from her purple off-shoulder blouse worn over a fitted white long-sleeve. Dark denim jeans were footed in navy block-heel Canyons, a magical wand held in her grasp.

Sending Chloe in absolute panic. “Susie, what are you doing?!”

“Honey, it’s okay.” Wanda gently spoke to the anxious child. “She wouldn’t have come out if it wasn’t safe.”

“Yeah, see?” Susie floated closer to Chloe’s level, placing a motherly hand on Chloe’s tense shoulder. “I’m still here, Chlo-bird.”

Counting to ten in her head, Chloe palmed her tightening chest in attempts to level her breathing. Wasn’t Lexapro supposed to prevent this? What’s going on!?

Silence befell the godchildren and fairies, not very open to socialize outright. Even with proof of other kids like him, Remy’s guard trusted no one. Shivering fear gripped Tootie’s voice box in a chokehold, and most of Chloe’s focus went towards not hyperventilating. At the very least, her anxiousness seemed subdued. Though it could still spiral out of control…

“Hiiiiiiiiii brother-in-laaaaaaaaaaaaaw!” Cosmo’s gaily wave led Wanda to palm her shaking head. Leave it to Cosmo to not read the room.

“Shut up, Cosmo!” Juandissimo gritted his teeth which his godchild happened to catch.

“What!?” Cosmo’s innocent beam didn’t see the big secret. “You married my wife’s sister, so, by definition, that makes you my brother-in-law!”

Only but a million questions running through his mind, Timmy looked to his godmother starting with “…you have a sister?”

And Remy raised a brow to his godfather, only just realizing just how little he knew him below surface level “…and you’re married?”

Juandissimo pinched the bridge of his nose. This wasn’t how he envisioned diving into his personal life. “Long story...”

No warning upheaved glittering purple vomit in near buckets, sheeting down onto brunette’s pink hat and seeping into his hair. Wiping purple from his vision after spitting out the gunk that’d managed to slip into his mouth, a mixture of embarrassment and bafflement gawked to his godmother’s apologetic frown. Cosmo promptly brandished his wand on his wife’s behalf, cleaning his godchild back to brand new.

“Pause.” Susie spoke up first. That was no ordinary bile “…Wanda, you pregnant?!”

Wiping her mouth with a backhand, Wanda subconsciously hunched under the strong intrigue of the other fairies’ stares. Guess there’s nothing more to hide “…w-we were gonna tell you guys when we were further along. You know…just in case.”

Susie looked to Rose looking at her, lips curling from the same realization. Chloe and Tootie flinched from outburst of their godmothers’ shrill squeals, and with a puzzled brow, Juandissimo watched his sister-in-law essentially get dogpiled by the sheer excitement of her best friends. He too would be happy for Wanda if he wasn’t so confused. How did they conceive a child when the male of the pair was infertile?

“Oh my gosh, since when!?” Susie couldn’t wait to ask after she and Rose let Wanda go.

“Our little champ had made a wish for us to have a baby a few weeks ago.” Cosmo pointed to Timmy’s coy grin.

“Oh my goodness, how sweet!” Rose had never heard of a godchild wishing a baby for their godparents. Such a thoughtful gesture too endearing to overlook.

Wanda met Rose’s smile with a solemn grin. “Just…don’t tell Spike.” she then addressed Susie. “Or Thornton.”

“Why?” Susie quizzed.

“Because Schnozmo and Blonda don’t know yet.” Wanda responded, soon looking to Juandissimo. “And I’d like to tell Blonda myself.”

“My lips are sealed.” Juandissimo assured, his small grin genuine. “Congratulations to you both.”

“Oh! That reminds me.” Floating over to her former unsuspecting brother-in-law, Susie yanked Juandissimo in a pinching tug on his right ear. Remy and the other godkids didn’t know what to make of the godfather’s ear getting practically ripped off his head, and Susie showed little mercy as she yelled into that same ear.

“I was told you almost got ya’self clapped by some pedo nanny!”

Juandissimo clenched. “…por favor, can you not?!”

“Can I n-, BOY!” Susie proceeded to yank harder much to Juandissimo’s aching grunts. “Losing one Magnifico was enough heartache for many lifetimes, and I’ll be damned if I lose another!”

“…w-what?”

Her godchild’s worried whimper loosened Susie’s grip, Juandissimo seething as he clutched his pulsing ear. Susie cursed under her breath…she said entirely too much.

“Uh-uh.” she flew from Juandissimo down to Chloe. “You need to unhear alla that!”

What?! Chloe didn’t understand. “But why-”

“Chloe.” Unlike Connie’s raging fire, Susie purposefully contained her flame. “Unhear it.”

“Susie-”

“We are not doing this!”

Chloe pressed her lips in a gritted line, grudgingly taking the hint. In her respect for Susie, getting on her bad side was the last thing she wanted. “…I-I’m sorry.”

Glossing blue eyes led the godmother to slightly lower her defenses, letting out a sigh. Though still patient with Chloe, she would never want to push her inner troubles onto a child.

The other godchildren, Remy, Timmy, and Tootie, exchanged awkward glances. Not only do their fairies all know each other, they’re all long-time friends who apparently, are also related in some form or fashion…

…what are the fairly odds.

Sounding of the bell rang aloud, signaling the transition into lunch as students poured into the halls like stampedes.

While students conversed next to lockers or traveled in groups towards the cafeteria, Remy shut his locker after dumping unnecessary textbooks and binders from his Dior bag. Fastening the combination lock in a short clink. He wasn’t in a huge hurry to eat in the cafeteria since his personal chef Henri had other lunch obligations to attend to (i.e. the Buxaplentys wanted Henri for themselves.) Not too much of an inconvenience; a magic wand is a lot faster than a spatula.

“Yo, Bux!”

Standing in front of his closed locker, mint-green half rolled in his sullen groan. His back facing the Griffin brothers that he knew were behind him just from the pretentiousness.

“You know Trixie’s upset, right?”

Remy turned to Chad’s assertive question that he apparently should’ve been privy to. “…why is she upset.” he expressed sympathy with sarcasm.

“Because you won’t talk to her!” Tad pressed a blaming finger against Remy’s chest. “And now Veronica can’t get her to come out of the bathroom!”

“…and this is my problem…how?”

“Uh…because she likes you?!” Tad’s annoyance emphasized.

“You mean she likes my inheritance.” Remy flatly corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“You really think you’re better than us, don’t you?” Chad crossed his arms, his question once again asked as a statement.

“…did I say that?” Remy raised a brow. “Or is that what your fragile egos assumed?”

“You’re not above us, Bux!” Tad defended, stepping forward as emphasis.

Remy was far from intimidated. He never did care for their hauteur “…is that so?”

“It is so.” Tad challenged. “Cuz if you were, then why’d ya nanny quit?”

Only at this did Remy’s blood run cold. He was aware that the Griffin brothers knew Mr. Nicholas was no longer his nanny. Personal affairs had little privacy because the Dimmsdale 1% socialized in exclusive circles. No, that wasn’t what froze him.

What froze him was those craving brown eyes and that disgusting grin of lust that flashed across his eyes just at the mere mention.

Remy slit his brow, terse in his mutter “…he was fired.”

“Or did the Buxaplentys just say he was fired as PR?” Chad smirked snootily, delighting in striking an obvious nerve.

“Yeah, Bux.” Tad’s arrogance egged. Suspicious for a young billionaire’s ferret to attack a grown man and send said grown man packing not even a full 24 hours after. “Why’d ya nanny really leave?”

Vexation boiling in his veins. First they tease him for even having a nanny, and now they wanna tease that he somehow drove said nanny away. The fricking nerve of these two…how dare they cast judgement when they have no clue what he’s been through! No fricking clue at all!

“Walk away, ahijado.” Juandissimo was in close proximity to his godchild’s wrist, meaning he could feel the accelerating thumps in Remy’s pulse. Remy was getting agitated, meaning he was given those boys exactly what they wanted, and as his godfather, he needed to give a reminder that Remy was better than that.

Scowl locked on the Griffin brothers, he gritted his fists. Remy didn’t need to look at his watch to hear his godfather’s rede. “Piss off.” he spat. Pushing past them in his exit, stomping away from their glares following him.

“Don’t even think about sitting with us again, Buxaplenty!”

Chad’s smug caused Remy’s frustration to whirl back around. “Is that supposed to hur-” Remy bit his tongue with a sharp intake of air then released in a low growl. Why even give them the satisfaction of finishing that sentence? “…whatever…”

Remy walked away, and this time, he didn’t bother looking back.

. . . . . .

After Elmer shut his locker, the Terry Totter trio traveled towards the cafeteria. Terry Totter lunchbox in toe, Chloe dragged her feet on auto pilot. Halfway through the school day, and seconds still dragged like hours. In an ironic way, intimidating consequences for falling asleep in class worked better than caffeine. And yet, there was still the cursed afternoon slump on a full stomach.

“Elmer’s mother is taking us to see the Terry Totter and the Prison of Secrecy movie this weekend!” Sanjay’s merriment informed, traveling along Chloe’s right. “We would love for you to come with us!”

Her love for and devotion to the series might have considered about a month ago. With her body adjusting to foreign medication rewiring her broken brain, enthusiasm felt unknown “…I-I don’t know if my parents will let me go…”

“Why not?” Elmer frowned to Chloe’s left. “Do they not like Terry Totter?”

“…among other things.”

Elmer noted her gloom that’d become a common occurrence. “…are you okay?”

“Yes.” Chloe replied automatically. “Why?”

“You haven’t been yourself, lately...”

Chloe hugged herself. Was she ever herself before?

“Is it your medication?” Sanjay inquired, and when Chloe’s tired nod replied, he then asked “Then why keep taking it?”

She could ask the same question, but she could only respond with “…because my psychologist says I need it.”

“But it doesn’t seem to be helping…” Elmer remarked, and Chloe had no rebuttal.

“You should try meditation!” Sanjay imposed as the trio entered the cafeteria. “My mother and I meditate eeeeevery morning at first light, and it does wonders!”

That’s so great for you, Sanjay…Chloe held her contemptuous tongue. Yeah, it’s sooooo easy to clear a constantly clouded mind. Gee willikers, how come I never thought of that!?

“It could help with your anxiety and take you off that medication!” Sanjay continued, all happy go-lucky as he opened the cafeteria door for Chloe and Elmer.

“…maybe.” was all Chloe felt she could say, until her waning energy decided that she’d had had enough feigning patience for one day.

Passing the forming school lunch line, she broke away from the trio in a different direction.

“Wait, where’re you going?!” Sanjay’s smile saddened. “Are you not eating lunch with us?!”

“…I’ll see you guys later…” Chloe spoke over her hunched shoulder. Sanjay and Elmer were nice, but being their main means of socialization was starting to become excessively draining. She could wish to have Sanjay’s gusto, but why bother? That’d be as pretend as simulating a smile…

“You know Sanjay means well…” her indigo necklace sweetly offered. The poor boy was just trying to help. Only in the most minimizing, least productive way possible.

Squeezing the handle on her lunchbox, Chloe kept her chin lowered.

Occupying a lone table amid the cafeteria, Remy hugged himself with his head down. Incased in an invisible bubble, isolated from the rest. He’d faired pretty well forcing Mr. Nicholas from conscious thought throughout the day. But after his unwarranted interaction with Tad and Chad, that creep encroached upon his mind. Mulishly overstaying his welcome.

“Do not let them goad you…” his purple watch consoled. Why did those Griffin boys have to come and stir up unpleasantries without real cause?

Remy shifted uncomfortably, lifting his head as rigid breaths strained through flared nostrils. Sensual moans echoed between his ears, gropy older hands prickled below his beltline. Churning the pit of his stomach as his legs crossed squeamishly.

“…a-are you okay?”

Mint-green snapped to a pair of baby-blues studying him. Lunchbox plastered with images of a young magical wizard, the handle clasped in her fretting clench.

“I-I…um…” the platinum blonde looked down to the indigo necklace that’d led her here “…we…” she then looked back to the young billionaire. “…noticed you here and…” her nerves rubbed her forearm “…it seemed like something was wrong.”

Her inquiry was met with guarded uncertainty. He wasn’t used to someone randomly coming up to him with concerns for his wellbeing. Moreso from someone whose fairy was the sole reason of acquaintance. “…I-I’m fine.”

As an expert in shoving pain behind ‘I’m fine,’ Chloe diverted her stair briefly, licking her lips “…do…you mind company?”

Remy’s fixed stare held her gaze, faltering Chloe’s eyes under the pressure.

Timmy followed his two best friends in their approach towards a free table in the cafeteria.

“You think your folks are ever gonna change?” Chester questioned in continuing the randomly brought about conversation of how Timmy had overheard his parents on the phone with his maternal grandmother that morning. Overhearing his mother’s complaints over the extra mouth that they hardly feed.

“…dunno.” Timmy sighed, setting his tray in front of Chester and AJ’s trays.

“Well, albeit not on purpose, knocking your sister down the stairs resulted in their daughter’s death.” AJ commented matter-of-factly, opening his milk carton. “And not to excuse their unforgiving apathy, but it’d save you the energy by not playing into their spite.”

“Easy for you to say.” Timmy grumbled, not even lifting his fork. “Your parents don’t make it known that they rather you dead than your sister.”

“Ouch…” Chester empathized, scooping a spoonful of processed corn

“They’ve actually said that?” AJ quizzed before he sipped his chocolate milk.

“In more than just words…” Jadedness stared at the glop of gravy spread across the single turkey breast.

Why did it have to be her…why couldn’t it have been him?”

His mother’s grievance plagued his mind. Flooding his mind with what ifs without the love of his godparents preventing him from a permanent solution “…I should just take her place.”

“Wow…that’s…” Chester didn’t know what to say to something so disturbing “…dark.”

“…it’s how I feel.” In his lowered gaze, Timmy couldn’t lie and say he didn’t still have regrets of not giving his parents what they want. Even with his loving godparents, even with the possibility of having other godchildren as companions. Did he truly deserve this life when his precious sister had her whole future unfairly stripped away?

“Don’t let them break your spirit, dude.” Timmy lifted eyes to Chester’s consoling words. “If they don’t wanna forgive you, that’s their problem.”

Timmy stared at the metal-mouth blonde, nearly touched by his sentiment. Chester was Chester, but a big heart like his was hard to come by.

“Plus,” AJ scooped a spoon full of green beans. “you shouldn’t cry wolf like that.”

Timmy’s flattened brow looked to AJ’s analytical remark “…what does that mean?”

With little attention, AJ swallowed the green beans that he chewed. “Meaning if you actually did wanna die, you would’ve done something.”

Blue eyes froze, widened as his wounded heart received a cross blade in its core. His blood chilled and his stomach roiled in heartache, having not touched a single crumb of food.

“Dude!?” Chester’s voice cracked, glaring to the boy genius beside him. “That’s not cool!”

“Dude!? Suicide is serious!” AJ rebutted, seeing nothing wrong with his comment. “It’s not something you just say nilly willy-”

“I tried to choked myself with Sophie’s ribbon!”

The radiant light of the resonate bellow attracted bystander flies, catching the attention of a few students when trays trembled slightly from the impact of Timmy’s frustrated fist pounding the table’s surface. He stood on his feet, glare wide with rage. Such rage that his best friends since kindergarten had never seen before.

“I was that close! That close to being with Sophia again!” Nails dug into his palm, brimming aggravation into his eyes “…and you wanna say I’m crying wolf?!”

His best friends could do nothing else but gawk at him. Even if a joke, Timmy had said some off-handed things before. Like when they’d tell him ‘see you later’ after getting off the bus, and he would respond with ‘no you won’t…’ just to laugh it off right then and there or show up the next day as if all was normal.

But this? Hearing that he’d actually attempted to make himself not exist anymore…was next level.

AJ stared at the threatening gloss within his best friend’s blue glare, beside himself. Man, did he so wish to take back those abhorrent words “…Timmy, I-”

“SAVE it!” Timmy didn’t bother grabbing his tray, all semblance of an appetite completely obliterated. Standing to his feet, his bitter tongue grumbled “…some ‘best friend’ you are…” before he stormed off in resenting haste.

“Dude, come back!” Chester pleaded, yet his plea had fallen on deaf ears.

“…Timmy?” his pink wristband frowned at the grim in his forward glare, worried that the darkness within had been awakened.

“AJ didn’t mean it like that.” his green wristband tried, though Cosmo honestly had zero clue of AJ’s mindset for such bluntness.

Yet Timmy knew the boy genius well enough to know that he was one to speak his mind. meaning AJ meant exactly what the frick he said. Brunette brows furrowed further. Too late dulling the sharp blade already lodged deep in his freakin’ spine!

Notebook tight in her clutches, Tootie traversed through the crowded maze of the cafeteria. Hanging her head as if to shield herself in a bubble of invisibility, scanning for a table away from anyone’s reach that she could claim for herself.

“Do you know what you’d like for lunch?” her teal bracelet asked courteously, and she responded with a short nod. “What would you like?”

Settling for an abandoned table, Tootie took her seat after removing her wool jacket. She set her notebook flat against the plywood, opening to the blank page bookmarked by her pen. A portion of Vicky’s babysitting money usually paid for her school lunch, but because a lot of Uncle Vic’s paycheck was already tied in bills and paying off the truck on top of court fees, most of that babysitting money went towards gas. And that truck drank diesel like water.

Writing her wish for a turkey sandwich, pizza pringles, and apple juice box, Tootie didn’t notice the sneaking advancement of the school bully. Crouching towards her along the edge of her table before he lurched, a fast claw swiping her notebook.

Tootie’s frown met Francis’s discolored simper, shifting her black boots to balance on the bench seat. Her arm reached for the notebook that Francis held captive, raising it just outside her short range.

A taunting palm to the center of her face restricted her reach, snickering at her struggle. “Let’s see if your god’ll get your book back.”

Her grunts received little mercy. The higher she clawed, the higher he raised her notebook. His grimy hand to her face kept her at bay, putting all her efforts in vain. Riled defeat stung behind her glasses.

“Aww, wittle baby gonna cry?” Francis mocked her welling tears in his demeaning baby voice. “Cry for your god, wittle baby. Go ahead.”

“Go die inna fire, Francis!”

Recognizing the prepubescent screech, Francis tilted his thick neck to the little pipsqueak behind him. He’d thought sure the little punk had learned his lesson when he beat his ass to a damn-near pulp in Mr. Birkenbake’s office. “Aww, look at wittle Turner playing knight in shining armor!” the bully teased.

“Leave her alone!” Timmy’s feet stood firm, already sour aside from Francis’ dumb taunt. He wasn’t gonna stand for some punk picking on a fellow godchild far weaker than him. Granted, he was acting on his own stubborn volition instead of Sophia’s guidance this time, so this could very well be a fool’s move. Too bad he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The back of Tootie’s arm wiped any more tears from falling, bewildered by David facing Goliath with no weapons. Never trust a twerp who killed his own sister, her sister echoed between her ears. But Vicky had said that when Timmy had resented her. Was she to heed this same warning when Timmy played for the same godchild team?

“And what’re you gonna do about it, Turner?!” Francis goaded, menacing in his smile towards his new target.

Without much thought, Timmy lunged forward with a back heel to the bully’s kneecap. Taking little time acknowledging the audible bone crack before his gritted fist aimed for a hard jab to the gut. The black notebook dropped from his open palm as the school bully toppled over and crashed to the ground, searing pain shooting through his dislodged knee.

As the light of brash actions attracted a few onlooking bugs, Timmy paused for a moment, staring down at his own hands. Recalling the time when he’d wished to be stronger, feeling a similar surge of energy. Was this something akin to his ability to communicate with his sister in the afterlife? Wherein, if he never undid the wish, his abilities stayed intact?

If such was true…then Francis was in for another rude awakening. Irritation wanted to smash someone’s brains in, make them hurt how he hurt. What better outlet than Dimmsdale Elementary’s pain in the butt…

“Timmy…” Wanda got a bad feeling from her godson’s smirking scowl. Watching as his ominous steps inched towards Francis already writhing on the ground. “…Timmy, don’t!”

Heavy palms shoved the school bully’s back to the ground, pinning his shoulders. Timmy straddled him with knees to the sides of Francis’ torso, and in one swift motion, his left hook met the side of Francis’s skull.

Just one packed punch blew out the candle behind grey eyes, yet Timmy’s fists of fury were not finished.

Wadded fists smashed his hard skull and pulverized his lax jaw in an endless loop. Each swing let out a gritty grunt, pounding as hard his might could muster. He didn’t care if he was punished with detention again. He didn’t care if scarlet started to stain the front of his fists. His agony screamed through each biting blow…

“STOP it!”

An ear-pierced screech clutched his right hook from landing, blue eyes blinking red from his sight. He couldn’t tell if he’d blinked enough just from the battered blood oozing from grey skin broken in multiple places. Discolored teeth coated crimson, dripping in a long trail from the corner of gaped lips. Scarlet trailed from the large nose bent at the oddest angle, blackish blue swollen near the sideburns and just below his hairline.

Timmy goggled at what he’d done, shock tightening his chest. Hearing murmurs from other students when he realized he had an audience. Baby blue scanned the room, meeting the baffled stares of onlookers. Spotting mint-green and baby-blue equally taken aback by the pink-hatted boy’s seemingly unprovoked outburst.

“…T-Timmy…”

He snapped to the whimper nearly inaudible if it weren’t for the whimper being within earshot. Facing the sheer fear brimming in purple eyes, her shoulders trembling as she clutched her teal bracelet for comfort. Her voice almost sounded unrecognizable from how long it’d been since he’d heard it. And yet, he could hear her distress. Hear her fear. Fear of him.

[Make a wish, Bubba!] he could hear his sister urge. [Now!]

“…I-I wish I didn’t beat up Francis!”

Timmy didn’t know what else to wish for, and Cosmo and Wanda’s raised wands did their best to rewind time.

In one wink, Timmy found himself standing in front of a conscious Francis whose menacing smile turned towards his new target.

“And what’re you gonna do about it, Turner?!” Francis goaded.

Instead of breaking his knee, this time, Timmy simply approached the cowering raven-haired girl. Taking her by the arm with little time for her to retrieve the notebook that was still in Francis’s clutches.

He took her from the table away from the bully’s smile that turned upside-down in disappointment. “Hey! Did I say you can walk away!?” Francis demanded confrontation, something Timmy wasn’t about to give again.

Timmy kept walking. Tootie’s arm in his grasp as he led her away in no real direction. Even walking past the table where Chester called out to him once more, no intent on stopping. When he noticed that it felt like dragging weight heavier than him, he looked back to her outstretched hand reaching for her prized possession. Soon realizing what her resistance to his hold was reaching back for.

“I wish Tootie had her notebook back.” Timmy wished willfully, and Cosmo and Wanda’s wands transported Tootie’s notebook from Francis’s hand to between her fingers in a greenish-pink cloud.

Timmy didn’t stop until they were close to the cafeteria’s entrance, not really sure what he was supposed to do beyond this point. Although part of him favored the original outcome of Francis on the ground, he knew, deep down, that wasn’t him. That was anger…that was hurt. But who would understand that?

Soft whimpers disrupted his thoughts, looking to the tears glistening behind her troubled grimace. His rigid expression softened at her stare, releasing her arm for her to then squeeze her notebook close to her chest.

“…are you okay?” Timmy thought to ask. She nodded in response, though he was more convinced of the latter by the tears that she lifted her glasses to fretfully wipe away. “…he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Tootie shook her head, partially truthful to his question. Francis didn’t hit her or pull her hair or anything, but her spirit definitely felt bruised.

The teal bracelet waved her wand, poofing Tootie’s wool jacket that’d been abandoned at the table. “Thank you, Timmy.” Rose spoke on her goddaughter’s behalf.

“No problem…” Timmy solemnly acknowledged. He watched Tootie’s bottom lip tremble in a sniff. “Hey, um…” he averted her gaze for a moment. Struggling with his want to be alone and the need to not feel alone. “…you…wanna eat lunch together?”

Purple eyes widened in a hushed breath. She couldn’t remember the last time another kid wanted to be near her let alone eat lunch, and if Tootie didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought her heart stopped completely.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Dewy clouds diffused Saturday's daylight, mild showers pattering along sidewalks lit by streetlamps. Within downtown Dimmsdale stood the auburn concrete of the Greek Revival–style building, roofed in gabled white slab.Dimmsdale Public Librarycarved into the roof's front-facing stone, two steps of white concrete led up the portico where rustic double doors greeted bookworms and scholars alike.

Her ears listened to small pitters of rain along the French windows as she traveled. Immersed in the bewitching allure of towering cedar-wooden shelves, dim lighting perfect for reading, and the aroma of aging books calming her into another world. Her indigo necklace hung around the neck of her lavender parka, hands warmed in insulated pockets upon her arrival a couple minutes ago.

Both parents had committed to shifts no less than twelve hours long, and while she would've favored spending that much-needed break from yelling and arguing cooped in the solace of her room, her fairy godmother had suggested she not stay in one place. Clark's executive decision to schedule an appointment with Dr. Wahlgren to discuss switching medication and starting Chloe in therapy had sent Connie into a verbal uproar. Venting her frustrations of all these nonessentials for a ten-year-old physically healthy. Chloe had heard nothing but negative things from her mother every evening after school, and with an entire Saturday free from parental contention, Susie was worried for Chloe being left in the isolating company of self-deprecating thoughts.

Though she'd initially wanted to utilize her library time for studying, she instead listened to her godmother's advice to visit her favorite section of the library; Fantasy Fiction. She was unable to join Sanjay and Elmer in viewing the movie adaptation of the second book, yet part of her didn't care for picture adaptations when Hollywood meddling tended to leave out bits and pieces of what makes a book feel like reading a movie. Still, just the mention of her favorite series had reignited her interest. While over half-way through the fourth edition of theTerry Totterbook series, she did not own physical copies of the first three. She figured she'd wish to spend the day re-reading what she could as a refresher and possibly wish for copies of the first three books at a later time.

Making her way down the slim aisle between walls of Fantasy Fiction novels, Chloe stalled when she laid eyes upon the only other kid in the same section. Taller and possibly a little older than Remy, his bright-auburn hair was styled in a bowl shape with freckles across the cheeks of ivory skin. Purple eyes like Tootie's scanned the books through thick black rims, buckteeth squarer than Timmy's mulling in thoughtful search. A hunter-green turtleneck was worn beneath the striped tee of turquoise and white, dark-green denim jeans paired with matching white and turquoise sneakers, and in spotting the dark-teal chain dangling to one side of his pants, Chloe could make out the miniature crown and dark-teal eyes that led her curiosity to look down at her indigo necklace.

"Is he…another godchild?" she asked her fairy godmother. After Timmy had explained how he discovered other godchildren, half of her didn't expect to run into another godchild outside of school.

"I dunno,ishe?" Susie discreetly reminded that it was against Da Rules to confirm for certain.

Thinking she may have already figured it out on her own, Chloe looked up to the boy pulling out theTerry Totter and the Chalice of Firenovel that she herself already owned. Watching his eyes widen in excitement towards the novel before showing it to the dark-teal chain at his side.

"Lookit!" the boy beamed. "It's really here!"

"See?" the chain humored with a subtle grin. "Told ya they'd have it."

What's this? Was he not only another godchild, but a godchildalsointo Terry Totter? Timmy's extent of reading hardly extended past comics, Remy had never shown interest in the series, and Tootie's previous religious restraints had kept her in the dark. There was Sanjay and Elmer, but as she unfortunately learned, Terry Totter was the extent of how much she could relate to them…

When he turned gawking at the Terry Totter novel in his grasp not realizing he was now directly facing her, Chloe caught a clear glimpse of the medic alert bracelet cuffed on his right wrist. He has a medical condition? Is that why he was granted a fairy godparent?

As the first to realize they were no longer alone, a low cough in chain's throat caused the boy to look up. He saw Chloe faintly gasp under his stare, his beam fading into baffled curiosity towards her. Her shoulders shrunk with clasped fists held to her chest below the indigo necklace that he zeroed in on, raising both eyebrows at the sight of a crown and indigo eyes.

No way…his inquiring steps forward inched her lavender boots backwards, making his stop as he continued to stare. If she was another godchild, what was she so afraid of?

"My name's Dwight." he started with a friendly introduction. Maybe showing that he was sociable would make her more comfortable. "What's your name?"

Diffident eyes held his stare, lacking confidence in her voice "…C-Chloe."

"Nice to meet you, Chloe!" Dwight Charlie Schlatter offered a bright smile, managing to faintly lax her tense stance. He pointed to her necklace. "That's a fairy, isn't it!"

"Easy, Dwight." the godfather lightly chuckled to his godson's overenthusiasm. It'd been a while since they'd openly met another godchild.

Her heart thumped between her ears. He figured it out so quickly and with zero doubt. Just how long has he had a fairy? "…her name is Susie."

"Hi Susie!" Dwight waved to the necklace in his approach, and fear of the unknown mostly stood Chloe in place. "It's really nice to meet you, too!"

"Aww, you're adorkable!" Susie kvelled. She then addressed his pants chain. "How's it going, Irving?"

"It's going." Irving grinned to the fellow godparent.

"…you know him, too?" Chloe noticed Susie address the fairy godfather by his name.

"We were in the same Fairy Academy graduating class." Susie explained. "We're more like acquaintances but," she flashed him a joking smirk "he aight, I guess."

"Still got your sense of humor, I see." Irving recalled the spunk that he'd interacted with in college nearly ten millenniums ago.

Friendly interactions went silent when the thick novel dropped before Dwight's feet, falling to light-green tile in a hard thud that blinked baby-blue in a stunned gasp. She then looked up to purple eyes once vibrant now vacant in their unblinking daze. His hand crinkled the center of his shirt in twitching tugs, and his lips appeared to mouth unvocalized gibberish.

"…Dwight?" her uneasiness called out. His stare failed to acknowledge her. "…a-are you okay?"

Irving let out a small sigh "…I was afraid this would happen."

"…afraid what would happen?" Chloe worried when Dwight's twitchy hand continued to pull at his shirt, rigid stance subtly rocking unsteadily.

Irving raised his wand in turquoise sparks. Magically steadying Dwight still to keep him from absently wandering into, say, any nearby bookshelves or anything that could hurt him. "You're okay, buddy." he coached, though a little unsure if Dwight could hear him. "You're gonna be fine."

Standing helpless, Chloe clung to her indigo necklace. Looking on for the longest minute of her life before the twitching settled and absent eyes fluttered in confusion.

It felt like his brain was somersaulting in his skull as Dwight massaged the side of his temple "…did I…?" he groaned, too fuddled to finish his thought.

"'Fraid so, buddy." Irving lamented.

"…w-what happened?" Chloe asked her fairy, too distraught to question the source directly.

Susie looked up to her godchild, remaining calm despite her brewing anxiety. "Dwight just had a focal seizure."

…a seizure?! That's a serious issue! Why is no one treating this like an emergency!? "S-Should we call 9-1-1?"

"It's alright, sweetheart, this just happens sometimes." Irving wanted to put the poor girl's stress at ease. "Just give 'em a minute; he'll be just fine."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Chloe inhaled the breath that she shakily exhaled. Bending down to pick up the Terry Totter that'd been involuntarily dropped. If this was something to be expected, then that explained the medic alert bracelet…

Dwight continued to massage his temple, and sympathy sank in Chloe's heart.

Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' sang within the white walls of the Fancy Schmancy Country Club, serenading the upper-class ears of mingling members and exclusively invited attendees.

Occupying a lone round table within the dining hall, the young billionaire held his chin in one palm while the other idly brushed the purple fur of his ferret nestled placidly in his lap. Mint-green glued to the flowing rain along the window pane nearest him, staring out into the passing storm as the moonlight piano of Db Major quieted his own silent storm within.

He'd rather watch the storm from his window, cocooned in his room. Too bad the country club had recruited new members, and as he was still considered a Buxaplenty, Remy was obligated to make an appearance. Why? Because the newest blonde-haired, blue-eyed money mongrels came with kids.

So far, these 'kids' showed little interest in interacting with the fifth Buxaplenty heir. The feeling was mutual, yet that didn't prevent knowing more information than desired about them.

The eldest son, Anthony Wells, was two years Remy's senior and an eighth grader at Brightburg Enrichment Academy. Learning that Chloe was from the same city, this private school educated California's most academically gifted. Or, as Chloe had put it, California's most affluent with money to splurge on glorified public education. Their eldest daughter, Hillary Wells, was the same age as Remy but a grade level above and another student of Dimmsdale Enrichment Academy.

Both she and her older brother stuck by their parents' sides as they mingled with other members. Noses held high and dressed head to toe in Gucci just as their parents, almost as if to make some 'elitist' statement. That alone rubbed Remy the wrong way about these siblings. It was giving 'name brand' versions of the popular kids…

"Oooooooooh…" a little girl's intrigue breathed in his, sounding extremely close if he could hear it over the speakers' music.

Remy turned away from the window to a bush of black curls atop the round face of skin melanated in rich umber. There was a gap comparable to Chloe's between her fuller lips spread in a fascinated smile, and her button nose reminded him of Alvin Jr. Her white shirt worn under a pink and navy-striped sweater with teal denim jeans and purple Converse sneakers outcasted her from the elegant dresses and classy suits around them. As he raised a skeptical brow to the girl who had to be no taller and no older than Tootie, he soon realized what caught her big, brown eyes.

"May I pet him?!" she pointed eagerly, her index finger ringed in bright-red metal. Pointing to his ferret who, to Remy's surprise, didn't seem thrown by this stranger's presence.

"Um…" Remy lowered uncertain eyes to see Juandissimo inch his welcoming nose to the girl's finger. Seemingly permitting her to happily scratch behind his right ear with the same hand. She giggled with delight as Juandissimo's forehead nuzzled her palm, and when Remy noticed a gold crown hovering above the reddest eyes he'd ever seen, his own eyes widened ever so slightly.

That ring on her finger must be why his godfather acted so sociable to a girl they'd just met.

"Can…" he tried to remember how to English "…we start with 'hello, and you are?'"

"Oh! Sorry!" she removed her hand from Juandissimo, meeting Remy's stiff eye contact. "My name is Hazel Wells!"

"Wells…?" Remy recognized the surname of the newest country club members. But that can't be. Her hair wasn't blonde, and her eyes weren't blue. And not a single stitch of Gucci on her.

"You're Remy Buxaplenty, right?!"

"…I am." he replied to her innocent beam. Not only did she look unlike a single soul in this club, her odd enthusiasm was unlike anyone who'd ever stepped foot in this uptight space.

"I like you!" Hazel Olisa Wells spoke bluntly of the godchild that she'd met all of two seconds ago. She then gave the purple ferret another fond scratch beneath his chin. "And your fairy's really nice, too!"

As if her excitement just meeting him wasn't enough of a shellshock. "…you…saw his crown?"

"Uh-huh!" she nodded beamingly. "It's the first thing I noticed!"

Remy pursed his brow at her smiling gaze. Interesting, everyone else just sees Juandissimo as either an oddly-colored ferret or his watch. Guess Turner was right; no matter how a fairy is disguised, other godchildren can see through it like glass. "…I…take it your ring is a fairy as well?"

"She is!" Hazel raised her ringed hand, holding up her red ring. "Her name's Nyekundu! I call her Nee-Nee for short."

"Hmm..." Remy scooted from the table, cradling his ferret in one arm as he stood to his feet "…this is Juandissimo." he coolly introduced, petting Juandissimo's back. "Juan for short."

"Hi, Juandissimo!" Hazel waved.

Juandissimo returned a friendly grin. "Hola, Hazel."

Just hearing him speak made Hazel gush with amazement. "Oooooooooh I like your accent!"

"Settle down, Kakao." Nyekundu's Kenyan accent smiled to her little cocoa drop. For a normally reserved child, Hazel was extremely comfortable around these two. Perhaps it was just the exhilaration of meeting another godchild that melted her ice. Regardless, anything that made her godchild happy made Nyekundu happy.

Unfortunate for such happiness to be cut short when a country club member yanked the little girl away from the Buxaplenty heir by her arm. Contempt clear in the middle-aged woman's hazel-green snarl.

"How didyouget past security!?" her snarl demanded.

Nerves darted brown eyes between the glaring woman and the ground "…I-I walked in with my family?"

"Preposterous!" she spat scornfully. "There are nonegroshere!"

Remy blinked awkwardly, unsure how to react.

"It'strue!" Hazel fought back, flailing her arm in attempts to yank it free. "They're over there talking to the Buxaplentys!" she pointed to the blue-eyed blondes across the room, only deepening Mrs. Cash-A lot's distrust of this black bastard who didn't belong here.

"Don'tlieto me!" Mrs. Cash-Alot talked down to the squirming child. "I don't knowhowyou weaseled your way in here, butIsuggest you find somewhereelseto steal!"

"Unhandmy daughter!"

As the speakers switched to the fluid melody of Debussy's Reverie counteracting the intensity of the escalating tension, Remy turned to the scowling blue eyes of the woman, her tan jacquard-knit dress embedded in black Gucci embellishments. Matching ankle boots charging towards Mrs. Cash-Alot before she clawed Hazel from her imprisoning grasp.

"Yourdaughter?!" Mrs. Cash-Alot gawked.

"That's right!" Angela Wells pulled her the now whimpering little girl behind her. Abhorred by what foul atrocity that Mrs. Cash-Alot growled next.

"There's nowaythat dirty nigglet is your daughter!"

"Excuseme?!" Angela loomed towards Mrs. Cash-Alot, dangerously close to invading personal space. So much that her husband intervened and pulled her away, black wool sweater embellished in white Gucci logos paired with beige khakis and ankle Gucci boots similar to Angela's except in black and white.

"Stopthis atonce, Angela!" Marcus reprimanded his wife, and Angela yanked her shoulder from his tight grip.

Remy could see Hazel's shudder from Marcus' booming baritone. He could also see Anthony and Hillary's antagonizing storm towards Hazel as if some animal that'd escaped from its cage.

"Why do you have to stir troubleeverywhere we go!?" Anthony's pubescent voice berated.

"Fathertoldmomsy to leave you at home!" Hillary sourly agreed with her brother. "Wecan't take youanywhere!"

Big, brown eyes brimmed with shame in her snivels, and both mint-green and blue-violet furrowed morosely. Why so much derision for one, little kid?

Glooming clouds overcast the glass roof of the blue-grey building, 'Wall 2 Wall Mart' in bold red mounted along the front wall of slab. Glass walls lined the singular entrance into the discount department store, several floors of the broad space providing products from groceries to electronics as a one-stop shop for consumers.

Amid the other Dimmsdale shoppers, the redheaded teen pushed her cart through the canned goods aisle with folded elbows of her black leather jacket on the handle. Scanning the preserved vegetables and fruits for good options to purchase. Her raven-haired little sister traveled quietly by her side, hands tucked into the pockets of her black wool jacket.

Stopping before the canned vegetables, Vicky sorted through the cut green beans, sliced carrots, whole kernel corn, and sweat peas. Even considering the mixed vegetable option as she took the can from the shelf to set inside the cart. "How many you think we should get?" she wanted to at least include her sister, holding the can of mixed vegetables.

Taking time to contemplate, Tootie then raised four fingers with the hand cuffed in a teal bracelet. Going with this decision, Vicky grabbed three other cans and placed them in the same cart.

"Think I should get other vegetables, too?" Vicky asked again, seeing Tootie's nod before pointing to the other options. "Which ones?"

Walking around the front of the cart, Tootie pointed to the sliced carrots and sweat peas for Vicky to also ask how many cans of those options she should get. Tootie responded with the same four fingers, and Vicky grabbed four cans of sweat peas and four cans of sliced carrots before she continued to push the cart down to the canned fruit.

Vicky gave the purple-rimmed girl a thoughtful glance, observing Tootie's forward stare in silent strides. She was starting to forget what own sister's voice sounded like, and this poked and prodded at her worry. Tootie's Social Worker had mentioned something about kids developing this coping mechanism for heightened anxiety to complex situations that they're unable to control. Definitely a valid cause in Tootie's case; there was no doubt Tootie was troubled. The extent of her trouble, adversely, would express itself in two extremes. Muted whimpers, or damn near inconsolable wails.

A prosecution attorney, Ms. Monet, had been assigned to Tootie's trial. Tootie had been deemed fit to stand trial aside from her refusal to speak, yet her refusal to speak is what greatly concerned Ms. Monet. Without Tootie's testimony, she feared the judge may side in the favor of the Byrnes. Though, Vicky didn't think that made much sense considering this same judge had granted their Uncle Vic temporary guardianship over Tootie from the Byrnes.

To Vicky, it was clear as day that the judge did not view the Byrnes as proper parents. However, Ms. Monet had reminded that the Byrnes willingly suspended their parental rights, theorizing that the judge may have seen this as part of their practice of 'shunning' and not necessarily a guilted reaction to getting reported for abuse.

A load of f*ckin' horsesh*t, if you asked Vicky.

Like, seriously lady. Which side of the stand do you work for?!

. . . . . .

Having purchased groceries that would hopefully last a couple weeks or so, The Byrne sisters gathered their handfuls of plastic bags after pushing the cart back with the others. A rumble of thunder shook weakly through the walls, once light sprinkles now a shower of heavy rain from the darkened sky visible through the automatic glass doors of the entrance/exit.

"Wait here." Vicky advised. She didn't think to bring an umbrella from how light it'd sprinkled just an hour ago. "I'll bring the truck around."

Giving her portion of grocery bags for Tootie to make room for carrying on both arms, Vicky reached into her leather jacket for the keys. Removing the sleeves from her arms to then shield her hair with her jacket as she stepped out into the gust raining down like curtains swaying in the wind. Biting her lower lip, Tootie walked to a corner near the automatic doors away from the sensor, wishing to hug herself if it weren't for the army of plastic bags slung on both arms.

"You doing okay, sweetheart?" her teal bracelet inquired, given some breathing room from the plastic bags.

Unsure whether to nod or shake her head, Tootie settled on a small shrug.

"We're almost home." Rose thought to reassure. Without a verbal or written response, she didn't have much to go on, and it's impossible to read Tootie's mind.

"Cool bracelet."

Purple and teal raised glances towards the source of the mysterious voice. Seeing a girl possibly around Chloe or Remy's age who looked as if she's never seen the sun as black combats stepped towards them. A dark-purple beanie atop her black low pony, her low bang swooped to one side with one visible yale-blue eye lidded with heather eyeshadow. Coated in black leather similar to Vicky, the cuffs of her black long sleeves were visible beneath a grey short-sleeve with a skull stitched in the sweater's center. Raisin-denim jeans belted in black leather, and a dark-blue studded earing dangled from her right ear.

Aside from the contrast of pale skin against dark clothes, Tootie was more drawn to the studded earing. Subconsciously squinting when a pair of dark-blue eyes stared back at her. Catching a glimpse of the tiniest gold crown that looked exactly like Rose's crown.

"Yep, totally a fairy."

Perturb purple broadened towards yale-blue, lidded indifferently as if she'd been there done that. Instinctively, Tootie resisted the weight of plastic bags in her reach to clutch her bracelet. She herself had just learned that she was not the only existing godchild all of four days ago. How many godchildren has this girl discovered?

Tootie darted suspecting eyes towards the dark-blue earring once more, the same stud that the mysterious girl soon brushed with a loose thumb.

"Guess you figured it out, too." the girl assumed. No signs of fear as she lifted a casual hand to her earlobe. "Her name's Swizzle." she introduced, and the same hand left her ear to extend towards the fellow godchild. "And I'm Molly."

Studying the mysterious girl now known as Molly, Tootie's braces chewed at her bottom lip. Slow to extend her own arm (to be fair, the bags were starting to feel heavier than they were) as her heated palm locked with cool fingers.

"You don't talk much, do you." Molly Grey DeLisle arched a brow, making Tootie frown with hunched shoulders. "Eh. I get it." Molly ended the greeting handshake, retreating to stuff both hands back into her leather pockets. "I don't usually talk to strangers either, but…" she shrugged mildly "…guess you're not really a stranger."

Tootie continued to stare, though her frown softened.

"Since we're doing introductions…" the teal bracelet spoke up. She'd been discovered without getting exposed so, why not be cordial. "…I'm Rose. And this is my godchild, Tootie."

"Ah, Rose." the earring now known as Swizzle slyly acknowledged. "Shoulda known it was you."

Rose slit her brow. "Meaning?"

Swizzle simply smirked. "Sheesh, relax, will you?"

"Considering your she-devil rep," Rose did not have fond memories of her fellow Fairy Academy graduate "forgive me if I'm a little guarded."

"Molly! What thehellare you doing!?"

Both godchildren didn't have time to probe about the strained dynamic between their godmothers as matted jet-black hair and aged pale skin charged forward. Bones wasting away beneath a soaked purple tee with washed denim riddled with worn holes. White sneakers dirtied black and brown from close contact with mud and rain puddles.

"…just talking…" Molly muttered, her expression darkened. Something Tootie immediately took notice right before this woman nearly ripped Molly's low pony from her head, yanking her backwards.

"What've I told you about bothering people!?" the woman gritted her teeth, irritation wild in her dark-blue glower.

Grabbing at her pony to ease the tension, Molly grumbled "Ma, I wasn't-"

"Don't chutalkback to me!"

Standing as an involuntary witness, Tootie shuddered. Knees trembling as Molly struggled out of her mother's ire grip. A few shoppers coming and going snuck nosy glances at the scene. None of whom proved nosy enough to intervene, under the assumption of another worn down mother disciplining her unruly child.

"Justwait'til we get home!" Molly's mother threatened, roughly shoving her daughter as Molly stumbled to regain her footing. "I'll teach you not to wander off away from me!"

Tootie shot a glance at Molly's tight lips, her jaw clenched to keep from screaming. Rancor pressed behind her scowl towards the woman who, as a result, was about to give this level of disrespect a biting backhand.

This woman had a little bit of restraint, it seemed, when her raised hand froze midair. Frozen from the squealing honks of a red pickup waiting outside the front entrance.

Tootie found herself caught in a tug-of-war between wanting to help Molly and not wanting to keep Vicky waiting. And yet, her mind froze. The scowl of Molly's mother flashed images of her father's scorn across her eyes. Tears welled behind her glasses, quivering legs petrified in place.

"Tootie, let's go." Rose urged, for her godchild's sake.

Molly's glare shifted towards Tootie's shock. Why was she just standing there? Then again, looking closer, she answered her own question she saw terrified fear. Fear directed towards the woman that Molly had the misfortune of calling her mother. For Tootie to have a fairy godparent…did she deal with stuff like this, too?

Another impatient horn jerked fear from Tootie's stare, and black boots scurried past the sensors. Rushing with shuffling plastic bags through the automatic doors without a second glance.

Baby-blue grimaced at its own bathroom reflection, buckteeth clinched in his jaw. Jet-black hair gelled in a Greaser style, removing his black shades from the bridge of his nose. Blue Timberlands planted firmly on rustic linoleum flooring, washed denim fitted like skin to his legs. A white tee worn beneath the sleeves of his red leather jacket that the faint of his quivering hand rolled, revealing the redness of his wound blistered into his arm.

Gary Marsden Vladislapov continued to stare, puckering his brow. Staring into the darkness enclosed around him, the slice of his past that haunted him. His chest pinched from the strain of his coughing cries, and a warm sensation filled his pants from the diaper far past soiled. His empty stomach gnawed from the inside, snot caked beneath his red nose as he struggled through desperate wails left unheard...

Alone in the darkness. Abandoned.

A sharp pinch to his arm tugged Gary from his past, but only just. He dug fingernails into his wound once more, ripping the fabric between past and present. Stinging burns sparked through his arm, igniting enough pain to suck Gary back to the glass reflection of his present self. A low groan escaped his lips; this week-old wound had been irritated beyond its limits. That's gonna leave a nasty scar, and if Alondro ever found out…

Gary kept himself front facing towards the mirror, snapping a glance to the pathetic whines of a dog outside the bathroom door. Welp…speaking of Alondro…

Knowing he couldn't shut out his fairy godfather for long, Gary covered his secret with his jacket sleeve. Inhaling a breath before he released it, mentally chiding himself to get a grip. Tearing himself from the white laminate countertops, Gary went to open the bathroom door. Met with golden retriever fur dyed in his godfather's signature bright-yellow, icy-blue eyes laced with concern.

"What's up, Londro?" Gary leaned against the door, finding no use faking a smile.

"You said that you would return in two minutes." The yellow retriever pouted. "Eso fue hacediezminutos..."

"I had ta number two." Gary shrugged an excuse. An excuse that Alondro grimaced to.

"I did not hear a flush."

A slight roll of his eyes left back inside the bathroom. Gary pressed down on the handle, a gurgling flush swirling clear water within the como before he walked back to face his yellow retriever with a hand on his hip. "…there. Happy?"

"No." Alondro was blunt. "What were you doing in there?"

"My business." Gary stated dryly.

"Why are you hurting yourself again?" Alondro spoke gently, causing his godchild to look away.

Gary gritted his teeth. Somehow, that sixth sense his godfather's always manages to slip his mind… "What if I can't tell you?"

With Gary's 12th birthday approaching, Alondro didn't consider the whole pubescent secrecy starting this early. "It is me, peque. Youcantell me."

Gary's nails dug into his palm. He can't tell his godfather that his flashbacks were getting worse. He can't tell his grandparents, either. The last time he did, it took six excruciating months to get discharged from the pediatric ward of the Dimmsdale Psychiatric Institute. That third admission was way worse than the first two. Heck, the first admission was how he got Alondro in the first place…

No way is he going back…

The dong of the doorbell cut the conversation short. Gary and Alondro turned to the elderly man drag his feet across the pine-green stripes of the hallway between the archway of the living room and the kitchen, and Alondro followed on his paws when Gary left to trail behind his grandfather. Peering from the archway into the sun-yellow walls and olive linoleum of the kitchen as Grandpa Vlad unlocked the multiple bolts to the front door.

"Oye, Timmy!" Grandpa Vlad greeted his youngest grandson standing on the front porch.

"Hi, Grandpa." there was mild sadness in the pink-hatted boy's greeting. He was glad to see his grandfather, just not under upsetting circ*mstances…

"Voydite, voydite!" Grandpa Vlad gestured for his grandson to come inside from the rain. While aware that this boy had sent his only granddaughter to an early grave, Vlad knew that such offense was nothing to harbor so much contempt over. Especially when another family member had committed treacherous acts towards their own blood worse by far…

Gary stepped further into the kitchen as Timmy stomped the welcome mat to clean water and dirt from his boots, propping his umbrella against the nearby wall. Pink and green wristbands peeked beneath the sleeve of the pink winter coat that Timmy shook excess water from, and their grandfather turned to approach his other grandson, a gentle yet firm hand to his shoulder.

"Do not close your door all the way, Vnuk." he reminded Gary.

"Yeah, I know…" Gary murmured, glum eyes to the floor.

Timmy raised a slight brow. Doesn't sound like a lotta privacy…

Grandpa Vlad left the two boys to themselves after fatherly pats to Gary's back, groaning as he stretched the knot in his lower back. Returning to his favorite recliner in the living room to watch the rest of the Channel 7 News broadcast.

The yellow retriever was next to greet the unexpected visitor, barking with his wagging tail. "Oooooh, I see." Timmy kneeled to scratch behind the retriever's ears. Smiling to the gold crown atop yellow fur. "This must be…?"

"He is." Gary confirmed, walking up.

A friendly tongue slobbered his cheek, managing to lick away a tinge of Timmy's gloom. "What's his name, again?"

Even Gary cracked a faint smile. "Alondro."

Alondro licked Timmy's cheek again, conjuring a quiet chuckle from the boy.

"I remember you said the green one was Cosmo…" Gary recalled. "Does the pink one have a name?"

"The pink one is Wanda." Wanda couldn't quite mask all of her cynicism.

"Hey, just askin'." Gary raised his shoulders. Cosmo hadn't spoken to him yet, and that could be for a number of reasons. But he couldn't understand why Wanda seemed so iffy with him.

"Wanda, it's okay." Timmy softly addressed his pink wristband, standing to his feet. "Gary's nice."

"Excuse my wife." the green wristband sounded weary. "It's been a rough morning..."

Reminding himself to ask for more details on that later, Gary wanted to address the elephant in the room first. "Thought the next time I'd see you, you'd come see me and my friends."

"Originally. But I wished myself here because…" Timmy stalled, taking timid steps from the yellow retriever to his cousin "…I needed to talk to you."

That didn't sound comforting. "What's up?"

"Can we go to your room?"

"Sure. Just speak at room level." Gary recommended. "Gramps can hear, but not as well as he claims."

"Gotcha."

Traveling out of the kitchen and down the hall, Timmy followed Gary to the first cedar-wood door to their left. Gary twisted the knob, and it felt like Timmy had stepped into a different world.

Pearl river painted the walls, one accent wall brush-stroked with a foggy forest landscape like those computer backgrounds. The accent wall was the headboard of the cedar twin bedframe, the same foggy forest printed onto a cotton duvet. One corner of the room stood a wooden replica of a forest tree where its trunk merged into the painted branches and leaves along that corner of the ceiling. There was a built-in cedar dresser within the sculptured trunk, and the sole window of the room was curtained with fake leaves dangling from mounted tree bark.

"Whoa…" Timmy's boots took awed steps along the artificial grass of the vast rug covering majority of the cedar hardwood flooring. Admiring the fairy lights long different sections of the ceiling.

"You like?" Gary left the door ajar to appease their grandfather. "Gramps and Gran went all out. Had this room already set up before they adopted me."

Giving the room an observatory spin, Timmy goggled to his cousin. "The heck they get the money for this?!"

"Yak in the Box?" Gary grinned, reminding of their grandparents' entrepreneurial restaurant. "It's surprisingly popular."

Timmy would've never guessed judging how small the whole one-story home looked from the outside. He watched the yellow retriever jump onto the bed to lay down, a soft pout in his lips.Hisparents wouldnever…

"So whatcha wanna talk about?"

"Right…" Timmy went to take a seat near the edge of the printed duvet, making himself comfortable. Unzipping his jacket from feeling warmer than desired. "…first, I think you should know." he raised eyes to his cousin, pointing to the empty space on Gary's right. "Sophie's standing right next to you."

"Holy fu-" a sudden chill shivered goosebumps in Gary's skin, taken aback by the random drop in temperature. Mystified eyes shot back to his cousin. "What do youmeanshe's next to me!?"

"A while ago, I'd accidently wished to talk to Sophia again." Timmy kept his composure. He too was unable to see Sophia, yet he could feel her presence in the room. "Now, she follows me everywhere I go."

Sooooooo fairy magic can access spirits? That's…different. "…is…she saying anything right now?"

[Hiiiiiii, cousin!]

"Whatthesnot!?" Gary jumped again at the surround sound in his head. And here he was thinking flashbacks made him crazy…

"I'd made another wish before I came here." Timmy revealed, staying calm. "She'd told me she missed you, so I'd wished that you can talk to Sophia too. Now, we can both hear her."

"Oh, great." Gary gave a sarcastic smile. "Now I have anotherreason for people to think I'm talking to myself..." Because having a fairy godparent didn't cause enoughweird looks.

[Love you, Gary!]

Gary let out a sigh. He'd have to come to terms with this new normal thrusted upon him, but, perhaps, this could be a new normal for the better. There're just certain things he couldn't dare talk about with his grandparents…not even with his friends. Not even with Alondro. "…love you, too, Soph."

"That's not the only thing I wanted to tell you…" Timmy had only scratched the surface.

Seeing Timmy's solemn gaze made Gary rest uneasy hands to his hips. "Why do I get the feeling I got the good news before the bad…?"

Looking to Cosmo and Wanda for courage, Timmy licked his lips "…I see why you're only friends with other godkids."

Judging by his somber tone, this was really bad news "…something happen?"

"With my friend AJ, mostly…" Timmy deepened his frown. Skipping the gritty details, he summarized with "…I-I'd told them both something really personal and…what AJ said rubbed me the wrong way."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Gary empathized. "Are you still friends with them?"

"I talk to Chester on occasion…" Timmy paused darkly "…dunno about AJ."

"Must've been real bad…"

"…yeah."

"So…" Gary considered his next question. "I assume you made new friends? With other godkids?"

"…kind of." Timmy shrugged. "We're still figuring each other out."

"That's usually how it is." Gary spoke from experience. "Considering we have godparents for crappy reasons, trusting is difficult."

"…should I wait then?" Timmy's doubt probed. "To use the transporter and bring them to Fairy World?"

"I'd feel them out a little more before you make that decision." Gary advised. "You're always welcome to use it for yourself. And, um…" awkward fingers scratched behind his neck "…you're always welcome here, too."

After a couple of slow blinks, gratitude curled the corners of Timmy's lips. "Same. At my place, that is."

With a genuine smile for the first time that day, Gary accepted Timmy's mutual offer. "Deal."

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

His godmother's gagging retch into the nearby trashcan muffled in his ears, the length of his short attention fixated on the metal star in his palm. His pensive thumb brushed along the purple button in its center as he sat atop his blue duvet Indian style. Thinking of his visit with his cousin the day prior, Timmy seriously considered taking Gary's offer of using the transporter for himself. Forgetting about the crappy world around him felt quite tempting right about now…

"Whatcha thinkin' about, champ?"

Timmy's distraction glance to his godfather's inquiring gaze, Cosmo's rubbing palm massaging his wife's lower back as she wiped her mouth in a moment of reprieve. "Nothing…" besides considering Gary's offer, nothing else truly occupied his thoughts. His mind felt otherwise blank. Something he'd normally welcome if downtrodden spirits didn't accompany it.

"Are you sure?" Wanda fluttered her wings from the trashcan, sensing that she'd managed to get most of her sickness out. As of late, a somberness lingered behind her godson's eyes. Feeling alienated from those you called friends can be devastating, especially to a child.

"Well…" Timmy started, staring to his drawn fingers clasped to the transporter. "…do you guys feel like getting outta here?" he met his godparents' eyes. "I don't really wanna be stuck in my room…"

"Sure." Wanda mustered a grin. Her aching back and fatigue called for her bed, but her godson's wishes were more important. "What would you like to do?"

"I wanna use my transporter."

"As in go to Fairy World?" Cosmo questioned.

"Yeah." Timmy scooted to stand from his bed. "Sophia had told me earlier that Gary's already there, and…" he stalled to the suspecting eyes of his godmother at the mention of Gary "…I'd like to see him."

"You know,wecan just take you to Fairy World." Wanda offered. "It doesn't use as much magic with two fairies, especially when Cosmo and I are in tune with each other."

"But the transporter is supposed to take me to a specific location." Timmy recalled Gary's explanation of the magical device. "It might take me right to him, and I kinda wanna know where."

"Well, when you put it that way…" Cosmo began, trailing off when his wife begrudgingly sighed beside him.

"…are you okay?" Timmy worried.

"Morning sickness just has me a little grumpy, sport…" Wanda excused, folding her arms. A half truth was less questionable than a whole lie.

"Well, maybe going to Fairy World would be a nice getaway forallof us." Timmy surmised.

"Like a little family outing!" Cosmo enlivened, and Timmy's lips curled dimly at the sound of 'family outing.' While his own parents excluded him, Cosmo and Wanda embraced him. And with a little godbrother or sister on the way, they truly started to feel more like family. A concept that Timmy had once thought died with Sophia…

"Soooooo, you guys ready to go now?" Timmy perked, making Cosmo give his wife an inquiring glance.

Meeting the inquiring gazes of both her husband and her godchild, Wanda let out another sigh. As the one carrying another life sucking her energy, she guessed the decision of whether they venture to a different realm came down to her. With that said, the jury was still out on whether she could trust Gary. It was clear, however, that Gary had earned her godson's trust. Apart from being blood, they were both godchildren. Nonetheless, that was about the extent of Timmy's relation to Gary due to the Turners and the Vladislapov's keeping Gary's personal life confidential.

As Fairy Godparents, Wanda and her husband perhaps knew toomuchabout Gary's personal life, and this worried her greatly. While Gary may extend a kindness not always expressed towards Timmy by blood relatives, his laundry list of flaws told a different story. And if Timmy ever formed too close a bond…

"…Wanda?"

She faced the concern in her husband's stare, realizing she still hadn't given a response to the original question. "Yeah, sure." she mustered another grin. "Let's go."

"Sweet!" Holding the transporter in his palm, Timmy used his thumb to press the purple button. His veins tingled at the rainbow sparkles glistening around them. Their skin radiated in an ethereal light similar to when he'd dreamt of Sophia telling him that she'd forgiven him. Rainbow swirled around them, until the blue walls of his room were no longer visible. He felt sucked into another dimension entirely as the trio disappeared in another blink.

Poofing to the magical world among the clouds.

When Timmy opened his eyes next, pure awe crossed his vision.

Tinkles of turquoise stars blanketed purple skies as the backdrop to the towering valleys of purple mountains topped in caps of white. He took a breath fresh air crisper and cleaner than what his little lungs were used to, sensing his prior gloom exhaling through his lips. Among the turquoise stars were stars that glistened gold like fairy wands, reminding the young boy of the story his godmother had read to him as he pointed and asked "Are those the Ancient Fairy Warriors?!"

"Some of them, yes." Wanda confirmed, floating in her fairy form alongside Cosmo. Timmy lowered his hand with his wide, astounded gaze, curving her lips. She loved when his inner little boy shined.

"Timmy, look!" Cosmo tapped the boy's shoulder, and when Timmy turned in the direction of Cosmo's pointed finger, his gaze widened more.

A grand, castle-like structure was mounted within the purple stone of the mountains, near the highest peak. Gold crowns stood above the pointed roofs of amethyst spires, tapestry of crystal-teal vines climbed the buttress of orchid stone, windowed in stainless glass of assorted rainbow colors. Ogival arches lined archways of different gravel paths that led to and away from the building, those same ogival arches framing the double doors casted in medieval-like plum wood. Angel oak sprouted from the ground and mountain walls, landscaping the area surrounding the mysterious building alongside bushes bloomed in the most beautiful passion flowers he'd ever seen.

"Whoa…" Timmy breathed at the saturated colors around him. Observing every inch of what he'd assume was some magical house as he traveled up the natural stairs of the mountainous path as he looked to his godparents floating on either side of him. "Do you guys know what this place is?"

"Nope." Cosmo admitted.

"We've actually never seen this place before…" Wanda added.

"Hmm…" Interesting that fairies who've lived in this world for tens of thousands of years didn't recognize the building before them. From how far the mountains stretched, in Timmy's mind, there was much more to Fairy World than what met his eye. This house was just the crumb of an overlarge cake.

Reaching the grand entrance, Timmy traversed the stoned steps and entered through the ogival arch. A sudden rush of inferiority overcame him, feeling too peasant for such a imperial place. Taking in another deep breath, he had to remind himself that the transporter had brought him here for a reason. Thishadto be where Gary was.

He took brave steps towards the double doors, giving a few echoing knocks before he stepped back with his fairies to await a response. As seconds ticked like hours, he took a moment to realize why. He didn't hear cars on the road or planes in the air. Didn't hear kids playing outside or birds chirping, not even squirrels climbing trees. He didn't hear a thing up here. In fact, the silence was so loud that he could hear every single one of his anticipating breaths.

His anticipation quelled when double doors clinked open, and a matching pair of blue eyes greeted him.

"…yo, cuzzo." Gary feebly grinned to his cousin. "You made it."

"Yeah." Timmy noted the subtle somber behind Gary's grin, though he was mostly preoccupied with the top question on his mind. "The heckarewe?"

"Come in and find out." Gary opened the door wide enough so that Timmy and his fairies could venture inside. Unexpectant of what marveled before his eyes.

Natural light from stainless glass windows shimmered various colors within the vastness of the circular room, squashy deep-violet armchairs and couches frozen in the 17th century facing the fireplace bricked in amethyst that dominated one singular wall. Flying buttresses hung within the high-ceilinged space, massive pearl-marble staircases accessing multiple floors of the castle lined in plum-oak doors. Wall mounted sconces of burning candles assisted with more lighting, sheening a warming glow along the deep-plum grooves of marbled stone beneath his feet.

"Whatcha think?" he heard Gary ask from behind.

"This is amazing!" Timmy gushed, soaking in his new surroundings.

"We are pleased that you like it."

A sultry Spanish accent spun Timmy around to cool icy-blue eyes and honey-brown skin floating next to Gary. A gold crown hovered above silk shoulder-length hair, straightened down the middle between raven-black and bright-yellow. The fairy's physique looked like Remy's godfather, muscles protruding through the slim-fit gold button-down buttoned only near the bottom tucked into fitted blue denim looped with black leather and cuffed in black Darbies. A yellow bandana was tied around his left wrist, and he wore black mesh beneath, dark spots along his chest that Timmy presumed could be birthmarks.

"Wait, you're Alondro!" Timmy's surprise pointed out, realizing that he'd only heard Gary's godfather speak and had not seen his fairy form.

"That I am." Alondro Milagro smiled to the boy to then approach the boy's fairies. He started with the green fairy of whom he'd never met face-to-face, outstretching a hand. "Cosmo, si?"

"…yeeeeah?" Cosmo was hesitant to shake Alondro's hand. Aside from reminding him of Magoo, he couldn't pinpoint why this guy looked like someone he used to know…

Releasing Cosmo's hand, Alondro laid eyes on his beautiful wife. Not really his type, yet beautiful in her own right. "And you…" his soft fingers took her by the hand "…must be Wanda."

"Um…?" her shoulders raised awkwardly when Alondro leaned to smooch her hand, lifting one corner of his mouth in his cunning grin. A gesture that she didn't realize could flutter her heart just as it flattened her husband's brow.

"Do not mind him." they heard an accent from south Africa chuckle. "That's just how he greets most fairies with breast."

Timmy spotted the most striking, fiery-red eyes he'd ever seen as she floated towards them. Red, kinky curls styled in a fro-hawk with baby hairs gelled down to her coffee-brown complexion. Gloss glistened in her full lips, hourglass insinuated in a burgundy short-sleeved jumpsuit belted in dark-green ribbon. Black and green bracelets cuffed both wrists, and green socks were folded over black-leather Madalynns.

As Alondro let go of her hand, Wanda saw his lighthearted eye roll before acknowledging the unknown fairy. "And you are?"

"Nyekundu Uchawi." the red fairy smiled in her introduction, Timmy's fascination glued to her. Wow, there're allkindsof fairies here!

"I like your hat!"

Blinking from the girly voice that did not sound like Sophia, Timmy looked down to the human girl around Tootie's height. Arching an awkward brow to her gapped beam towards him "…thank you?"

"I'm Hazel!" she happily introduced, pointing to herself before pointing to the pink-hatted boy. "You must be Timmy!"

Timmy eyes fluttered in faster blinks "…you know about me?"

"Just that you're Gare-bear's cousin!" Hazel remarked. "He never told us youalsohad fairies!"

"…um…" being talked about to other godkids was the least of Timmy's curiosity, looking quizzically over his shoulder at his older cousin. "…'Gare-bear?'"

"A kiddie nickname." Gary shrugged. "She likes it, so I like it."

"And don't say nothing else about it, Tim-bucktooth."

When another unfamiliar voice entered the room, Timmy spotted a taller girl dressed in dark colors and contrasting skin that reminded him of the gothic aesthetic that he'd seen on the internet. "…excuse me?"

"You do or sayanything out of pocket to her.Anything at all." the gothic girl walked past Hazel to confront him, warning through gritted teeth. "And you answer tome." a small yelp let out when her clenched fingers yanked him by the collar. "Gotit?!"

"I don't evenknowyou!" Timmy stood up to her yale-blue glare. "What's with the third degree!?"

"Yo, Molly, put cha fangs away, yeah?" Gary coolly stepped in between his cousin and his friend, breaking them apart. "He's good peoples."

Molly growled through a clenched jaw, making Timmy gulp in his subconscious step backwards. As if the band aid on her bruised cheek wasn't indication enough of whonotto double cross…

"Molly, settle down." a female fairy palmed Molly's shoulder, only for Molly to swipe her hand away. Her indigo curls were tied in a low pony tucked behind elfin ears, a puffed bang resting above dark-blue eyes. A dark-green turtleneck sported short sleeves, black denim pants footed with black combats similar to what Timmy assumed was her goddaughter. "Don't you swipe your hand at me!" the fairy pressed stubbornly, and Timmy saw Molly's glare fade in the remorse that he didn't think was in her.

"Sorry, Swizzle…" Molly muttered an apology. Out of everyone she could take her anger out on, she'd never want to do so towards her own godmother…

"…hi Timmy." a nasally voice walked up beside Timmy, seeing a dorky redhead with glasses and purple eyes. "My name's Dwight."

"Hi, Dwight." Timmy acknowledged the most normal introduction he'd received from another godchild. Extending a cordial hand, he happened to notice the medical alert bracelet cuffed on Dwight's wrist as they shook hands. "Who'syourfairy?" he queried after their handshake ended.

"That'd be me, kid." The voice of a used cars salesman led Timmy to the fairy approaching them. Reddish-brown curled behind elfin ears in his receding hairline, his chin protruding like his large nose. Bushy brows sat atop dark-teal eyes, a crystal-teal cardigan matched the bow-tie of his crisps-white button-up. His button-up was tucked into his dark-teal slacks where his midsection had black leather looped around, and black Darbies footed his feet.

"This is my fairy, Irving." Dwight introduced the male fairy hovering next to him.

"Nice to meet you guys." Timmy felt inclined to extend his hand for Irving to accept with no hesitancy.

"Likewise."

"This, here, is my best bud." Gary went up to Dwight, giving brotherly pats on the shoulder. Timmy even noticed a slight positive mood shift. "I'd barely survive school without 'em."

"Same." Dwight concurred earnestly.

A warm, thick liquid suddenly plopped atop Timmy's shag, coating brunette in sparkling purple without warning. Timmy froze, pungent liquid trailing onto his shirt before it completely disappeared in pink smoke.

"Sorry, sport…" Wanda apologized after magically cleaning her own mess.

"It's fine…" Timmy's flat brow mumbled sourly. Hereallyhoped he wouldn't have to get used to that…

"Ahh, there's a bun in that oven." Swizzle observed, Wanda instinctively palming the subtle bulge in her shirt.

"Oh, wow!" Irving perked, an enthusiast for miracles of life. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks!" Cosmo appreciated.

"Anywho." Gary casually addressed his cousin. "We were all just about to decide on what to do when you showed up."

"Really?" Timmy questioned, taking in the magical environment in another look around. "What kind of stuffcanyou do here?"

"Lotsof stuff!" Hazel gleamed.

"Like…video games and movies?" Timmy guessed.

"Nope." Molly denied tersely to which Timmy shrugged towards her.

"Why not?"

"We all wished up this place as like a space to sort of…unplug." Dwight described. "Like…disconnect and stuff."

Timmy couldn't help but scoff. "What is this, summer camp?"

"Mars, actually." Molly sassed, and Timmy's brow creased just about sick of her attitude.

"How 'bout we give ya a tour, cuzzo?" Gary slung an arm around Timmy's shoulders.

"Sure." Timmy agreed. He then sought out Cosmo and Wanda among the other fairies. "C'mon guys."

"Actually," Alondro hovered forward, something else in mind "Why not letusfairies show Cosmo and Wanda around?"

To this, Timmy arched a skeptical brow. "Why can't my fairies come with me?"

"Selfishly, it'll giveusa chance to get to know your godparents." Irving revealed. "But it'll giveyoua chance to get to know the other godkids."

This didn't exactly calm Timmy's unease. Ever since Cosmo and Wanda came into his life two months ago, he hadn't gone more than a moment without them. Either one or both were by his side majority of the time. They'd become his safe haven…

"But we haven't been apart from Timmy since we became his godparents!" Wanda vocalized Timmy's thoughts almost exactly. Clearly, she had more than one godchild to suspect after Molly basically threatened her godson.

"Worry not, Wanda!" Nyekundu assured with a friendly smile. "Timmy will be fine!"

"Yeah, Timmy!" Hazel ran over to grab Timmy's hand. "Come with us!"

Anyone else would find these borderline cult vibes a little creepy. Nevertheless, the open arms of Hazel's endearing innocence reminded Timmy of his late sister. Sophia had been a master at finding the good in anyone she encountered, no matter who they were. She found light within a dark world. Being granted a godparent meant that a child's world had to be pretty dark, and staring into Hazel's beaming brown eyes, Timmy wondered to himself if she possessed that same trait…

"Shall we go, then?" Gary nudged. Timmy looked briefly to his cousin before looking to the apprehension in his godparents' stare. They didn't want to leave him either. Though…Irving had a point.

Originally, he'd come here solely for Gary. He'd just become acquainted with Remy and Chloe (and Tootie, in a sense,) but he didn't know what it was truly like to connect with other godkids. Maybe this could be his chance to find out for himself, and maybe, just maybe, this could also be a chance for Cosmo and Wanda to socialize with other fairies. He'd noticed a more sociable side of them when they'd interacted with their friends. Besides, this is supposed to be a getaway forallof them. They need time for themselves, too...

"Cosmo, Wanda? I-I'll be okay." part of him didn't want to say. "We can meet back here."

Obligated to do as suggested, Cosmo and Wanda gave somber nods to their godchild who was then whisked away by his cousin towards the leftward section of the castle. Dragged along by Hazel's cheerful hand in his as Molly and Dwight followed behind.

"If you two may come with us." Alondro motioned for the fairy couple to follow him and the other fairies towards the rightward section of the castle. Leading Cosmo to reach and squeeze Wanda's equally unnerved hand into his.

Venturing through amethyst-bricked halls of multiple-colored doors, Cosmo's hand never left Wanda's. Floating as a pair behind Swizzle and Nyekundu who, to their silent surprise, were also hand-in-hand. Leading the pack was Alondro hovering beside Irving. Acting as designated tour guides in showing the different bedrooms, as well as other amenities such as the community bathrooms, jacuzzi, and indoor pool.

More than Cosmo and Wanda had expected from a magical palace wished by children.

"How're you holding up?" Cosmo checked in with his wife, keeping his voice low enough for private conversation.

"I'm alright..." Wanda guessed. She wasn't sure if pregnancy irritations were altering her overall impressions.

"Whatcha think of this place?" Cosmo inquired, causing Wanda to give another scan of the pointed arches within the vaulted ceilings.

"Certainly a step up from our castle…"

"Yeah." Cosmo agreed, looking around himself. "It's like a giant fish tank castle but, like, not."

Returning her attention to the four fairies in front of them, Wanda's curiosity made a point to speak first. "Question."

"Answer." Swizzle was the first to acknowledge.

"How did all of your godchildren meet?"

"Mine and Swizzle's godchildren found out about each other for…obvious reasons." Nyekundu squeezed Swizzle's hand, resulting in a smooch on the cheek.

"Dwight used to go to Snerd Elementary with Molly." Irving inserted. "Then, Dwight met Gary on their first day at Dimmsdale Middle School."

"And Gary met Hazel when Dwight had introduced her and Molly." Alondro finished. "Equally as discrete as Gary was with Timmy, of course."

"So whose idea was it to use a magical transporter thingy to and from Fairy World?" Cosmo queried.

"It was all peque's idea." Alondro replied.

"Was he also the one to discover that little hack of his?" Wanda cynically inquired about Gary's way of godkids discovering other godkids.

Alondro lightly chuckled. "Si; when you are granted a fairy for as long as Gary, you are bound to find the loopholes of the loopholes."

"And, finally, the last stop." Irving announced, reaching a gold, sun-sculpted door stationed at the end of the hall. Sparking his wand to unbolt the chain locks.

Cosmo and Wanda watched as sun-like rays peered through the open door, revealing a room encased entirely in glass from the roof to the floor. From the starry purple skies above to the subtle chaos of the pink-clouded city below, the entirety of their homeland greeted them from the mountain tops. The other fairies made themselves right at home as they entered the glass room, Nyekundu and Swizzle floating together with Alondro making random conversation with Irving.

Cosmo led Wanda inside, allowing himself to soak in the majestic surrealism. The glass was simply a barrier between them and the natural beauty of their magical world. Nudging his wife with a gentle elbow, he whispered into her ear "Doesn't this remind you of our cliff?"

A smile curved her lips at her husband's correlation. The correlation to their own safe haven where they'd spend hours upon hours engaging in conversation, taking pictures, sitting in silence enjoying each other's' presence. Or…frankly, doing the do like bunnies.

"Wanna join us, Cosmo?"

The fairy couple glanced in the direction of Irving a few feet in front of them. A bag of assorted sugar-coated gummies dangling between his fingers.

"We're really doing thisnow?" Nyekundu was partially astounded by Irving's proposal. Not nearly as astounded as the green fairy's sweet tooth intrigue.

"Oooooooooooh! Can I have some?!"

"You've done edibles before?" Swizzle arched a brow, though, she half expected such a naïve reaction from Cosmo of all fairies. Wanda's skepticism was equally as expected, seeing her grab hold of Cosmo's arm before he could fly any further.

"You guys areseriouslydoingthaton the job?!" While not an active connoisseur, Wanda knew exactly what was laced in those innocent-looking gummies. You'd think the commander of all fairies would've caught wind of this…

"Do not fret." Alondro had sense her suspicion before she even asked. "Compared to the amount of CBD, there is very little THC."

"Plus, we make sure not ta indulge too much in case our godkids need us." Irving added as extra assurance.

"Wait…" Cosmo calmed to look to his wife at the realization he managed to come to on his own "…is that safe for the baby?"

"That's why I'd only asked you, Cosmo." Irving openly admitted.

"But is that fair?" Nyekundu proposed. "Cosmo and Wanda are new, and it would be rude to exclude one without the other."

"Y'know what? Don't worry about it." Cosmo insisted, returning his hand to the comfort of Wanda's fingers. "I'm a noob when it comes to that stuff, anyway…"

"Suit ya'self." Irving shrugged, opening the bag for the willing participants to pick out a flavored gummy.

As Wanda watched the other fairies ingest their edibles from the sidelines, a gentle squeeze to her hand prompted her towards Cosmo's front-facing glance. His fingers clasped hers tighter as if to remind that he will never stray from her, and her grin found great comfort in that their bond knew no barriers.

Momentarily did her grin wilt thoughtfully. She'd hoped Timmy was fairing okay without them…

After being given a tour of the common room (the first room he laid eyes upon,) the designated snack room filled with every child's kryptonite, and the nave of the castle leading out towards the gravelling paths of the scenic mountain trail (which Dwight had expressed was his favorite,) Cosmo and Wanda had not escaped Timmy's thoughts. He kept fantasizing what they were up to and how they were doing. Hopefully they'd tell him all about it when they'd go home. Whenever that was.

"And now, for the most elaborate room of them all." Gary announced, stripping Timmy from his own head. With Hazel's hand still clinging to his as Molly and Dwight strolled behind, Timmy paused when Gary stumbled upon a door shaped as a silver-crescent moon.

"What's this?" Timmy inquired as Gary unbolted the lock chains.

"It's what we call the 'escape' room." Gary hinted, unlatching the last lock before he settled a hand atop the door's handle.

"It's really pretty!" Hazel voiced, her smile facing the pink-hatted lad. "You'll like it!"

When Gary twisted the handle, Timmy's blue stare fixated upon the saturated hues of forestry mountains and evergreen pastures. Mushroom-shaped trees towered above luscious beds of grassy, turquoise meadows. Meadows that stretched to infinite acres among the brilliance of sparkling skies shimmering with rainbow auroras and many crystal moons. Multiple moons that reflected among thin ribbons of crystalline rivers.

"What the…" Timmy couldn't think beyond the sheer grandeur of the utopian world before him. How in the heck did this exist behind one singular door?!

"Hence, the 'escape' room." Gary smirked, nodding to Molly as the last child to enter. Signaling for her to shut them in from the outside world.

"Are…" Timmy attempted to English "…we still in Fairy World?"

"Sort of." Dwight approached to Timmy's left. "It's a world that exists within a room within a castle built on the mountains of Fairy World."

Short answer is no…Timmy gazed upon his colorful surroundings. His only thread to reality being Hazel's occasional squeeze of his palm.

"Where shall we go first?" Gary's question was open to anyone to answer.

Molly crossed brooding arms. "I don't care…"

"We should go to the waterfall!" Hazel asserted, her knees jumping with glee.

"Uh, yeah. Sure…" Timmy was utterly clueless. "Let's go with that."

"Why not." Gary faced the invisible path ahead. "Onwards and upwards!"

Gary led them towards the walls of trees and shrubs of flowers as Hazel's arm swung back and forth with Timmy's. Staying by Molly's side, Dwight snuck glances at the bruise covered by a band aid that he'd first noticed when she and Swizzle had transported to the castle fondly labeled Fairy Fort. An unsettling pit dropped in his stomach; Molly's mom must've guzzled all her booze splurged on with the sparse money they had…

"…are we not gonna talk about your cheek?" Dwight wanted to give Molly the floor to speak her truth.

"No." Molly shot down, narrowing her eyes.

He swallowed "…what about what's on your mind?"

"Nope."

Apprehensive silence "…you at least want a hug?"

"Don't touch me."

Timmy heard Dwight's gawky apology before their conversation died out, having wondered about the band aid himself from their needlessly hostile introduction. Sometimes, someone hurting you can make you wanna hurt others…

Gentle humming tuned his ears next, looking to the girl beside him who continued to swing his arm in contented steps. Humming a bouncy tune of a nursery rhyme that he'd not heard before "…what song is that?"

"It's called 'Lala Mtoto.'" Hazel smiled to him. "It's a lullaby that Nee-Nee sings to me when I'm sad and can't sleep."

Curiosity caught the 'sad and can't sleep' part of her sentence "…do you get sad a lot?"

For the first time in meeting her, he saw Hazel's smile wither away "Sometimes…like I was earlier…" even her tone softened solemnly. Until she lifted her spirits back with an even wider grin. "But I'm better now! Especially after meetinganothernew godkid!"

Giving a dim smile in return, Timmy sympathized with the little girl's need to wear a smile to hide the hurt. He'd seen many genuine smiles from Hazel, but that last one felt like Molly's band aid. After acquainting himself with Chloe, he never looked past the difference between real and fake.

Timmy redirected his attention to the back of black gelled hair a few feet or so in front, creating a hint of separation. Gary kept to himself throughout their journey, hands tucked in leather pockets and eyes facing forward with no words spoken. Timmy had sensed something off about Gary since he'd arrived. Should he ask if something's wrong? If he did, would Gary tell him?

[…G-Gary's not okay…]

Timmy broadened his eyes when his sister entered his mind. Speaking in a mousey voice that sounded…scared.

"I heard that." Gary spoke flatly, his back still facing Timmy's stare. Causing Timmy to remember the wish he'd made so that Gary could also talk to Sophia. Meaning Gary could alsohearSophia if she spoke to Timmy within earshot, and vice versa.

"Heard what?" Hazel asked, naïve to what'd just happened.

"…t-the waterfall." Gary excused, shortly looking over his shoulder as he scratched his sideburn. "We're um…we're getting close."

"Yay!" Hazel's excitement jumped, her hand still clamped to Timmy who kept a watchful eye on Gary as he returned to facing forward. A quiet rumble of rushing water did sound closer the further they ventured, but Timmy chalked that up to coincidence. What did Sophia mean? And why did she say it as if held at gunpoint?

He didn't have much time to consider when the appearance of rushing water goggled his view.

Cascade of frothy water thundered into the plunge pool, an aquarium-blue velour swaying in majestic waves from the rocky edge. Fronds of the forest waved gently from the ripples of white lines along cellophane waters, its bank swishing with the most vibrant aqua-blue.

Dwight and Molly joined alongside Timmy and Hazel as Gary took further steps towards the aqua-blue riverbank. Bothering not to strip himself of day clothes before plunging headfirst in a wide splash.

"Gary, what the heck!?" Timmy yelled out once his cousin reemerged from the water's depths, his gelled hair now a flat bang that he parted out of his eyes.

"What! It's refreshing!" Gary gleamed over the roaring water, wading leisurely. "You should try it, Tim-Tim!"

"Are younuts?!" Timmy retorted. "I'm not swimming with my clothes on!"

Apparently, Gary was not the only nutjob there. Timmy's once warm palm cooled the instant Hazel ran from him, showing no care in the world as she jumped from the edge and splashed near Gary into the bank.

When Hazel resurfaced for air, her kinky curls became a wet rug on her head, making her neck work harder. She didn't mind; magic can just fix it later.

"Stay where it's shallow, Haze." Gary reminded, aware that the river's bottom was not leveled with a sharp drop into endlessness.

"I know, Gare-bear!" Hazel giggled, flailing her arms beneath the water to keep afloat. She then waved to the other kids. "C'mon you guys! This is fun!"

Thinking for a moment, Molly's lack of give a f*ck shrugged, removing her beanie to toss to the ground. "Screw it…"

Timmy and Dwight looked on as Molly braced herself for a running start, charging in a cannonball. With Gary merely swimming away from Molly trajectory, Hazel held her hands to shield what she could from the giant splash, giggling in delight.

As Molly reemerged with running eyeliner and a now messy ponytail, Timmy glanced over at the remaining kid standing next to him. Waiting for Dwight to acknowledge him as Dwight darted eyes between him and the riverbank "…I-I'll pass." Dwight declined, Timmy sensing the nerves in his voice. "Don't want you to feel left out."

"Thanks…I guess?" Timmy spoke unsurely.

Both Gary and Molly sloshed more water towards Hazel, finding enjoyment in causing a giggle fit. Hazel fought back, gathering palms filled with water to throw at her offenders. Making their hands defend themselves in between their attacks.

Timmy studied his cousin, seeing the instant transition from hints of darkness to light spirits. He also saw the shift in Molly's earlier hardened shell that cracked into someone way less intimidating. He found it difficult to be sad or angry with the lulling hiss of swooshing waters and glitters of watery sprays. Part off him almost wished his godparents were here. They'd love this.

Looking over at Dwight, Timmy paused to blank eyes staring upwards, arms stiff to his sides. Soon waving a befuddled hand in Dwight's face only to receive a delayed reaction when Dwight glanced at him as if he wasn't just staring into space. "Do you like it here so far?"

"Uh…yeah." Timmy answered before he asked "How come you're not joining them?"

"Well…it's cuz I can't really-" Dwight's eyes froze upwards, arms unbending. Unaware of Timmy's pokes at his shoulder. Longer seconds ticked by before purple eyes blinked "-swim very well."

…what…the heck. "What's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You start talking and then you start staring."

"Oh…I'm sorry…" Dwight sighed, a pucker in his brow. He'd gone all morning without one seizure. Guess this was revenge "…I hate absence seizures…"

"Seizure?" Timmy didn't believe at first. "I thought those were where you, like, shake on the ground and stuff."

"Those aren't the only-" purple eyes almost rolled into his head, mouth stuck mid-sentence. Rigid in his stance for another five seconds "-types of seizures."

"I…see…" Timmy tapered, utterly thrown.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Sunless skies overcast the red roof shingled past its prime, concave holes with wooden planks as band aids. A spiderweb of cracks coated weathered, white walls overtaken by nature. Shattered windows along peeling paint with wooden siding exposed. Black van with tires deflated on aged cracks along the driveway, orange panels of the garage hung by a single hinge. A path carved in stone towards the dilapidated entry through overgrown grass on its last life, just as the unkempt shell of a house was on its last life.

Thin stairs creaked to the single side door of the room above the garage. A lone room with grime along the dark shadows of olive-green walls taped with star and crown posters and a hand-drawn map of some imaginary world, 'fairies'escribed with an upside-down wand as exclamation. Tan planks of the floor littered in papers of endless scientific research of a magical land that also filled metal and cardboard crates to the brim. Papers that draped off hunter-green sheets of the twin bed barely supported by its wooden frame, a wooden side-table housing the PC monitor operating on early 90s technology.

Beside a wood-working bench stood a bird cage. The metal home of a green parakeet and a pink galah. The two sole companions of one 5th-grade teacher of Dimmsdale Elementary.

"C'mon, Carlos…you need to eat." Mr. Crocker held his palm full of bird food to his green parakeet prince. Carlos croaked in response, his beak pecking lazily at the small crumbs that he hardly bothered to eat. Mr. Crocker sighed, continuing to hold his palm for his pink galah princess. "You too, Wilma…"

Wilma did not fare any better, pecking at a mere morsel of feed before her motivation dropped. A full day, and all they managed to eat was one fingertip's worth of food? Mr. Crocker didn't understand. Their appetite just wasn't what it used to be…

Giving up for now, Mr. Crocker put back what Carlos and Wilma didn't eat in the food jar, hoping to try again when he returned from his weekly hell. The hell of molding the young minds of society's future, because where there is a school, there are children.

And where there are children, there is complete access toFAIRY GODPARENTS!

When he'd first become a miserable schoolteacher at Dimmsdale Elementary, it was…'eventful,' to say the least. Causing $1,800 worth of damage to the car of his ex-girlfriend, the woman of whom had become his boss that day. He'd promised to find a fairy to fix the damage. Why did he promise that?

'Fairy Godparents Exist!'That was what his ten-year-old self had written down. Why did he write that? What was he trying to tell himself? Was it a warning from the past to his future?

Or was it the past method to his future madness?

Yes, Fairy Godparents exist. Theyhadto exist. How else do you explain something magically appearing every time a child wanted it? He knew, he always knew. These 'fairies' float among them, assigned to a child to grant their every wish. Four, grueling years of collegiate research based this theory. Reading all scholarly articles and folklore novels he could on everything magic, snapping photos of anything with wings and whatever looked like a gold crown. Gathering his 'proof.'

Too bad this 'proof' couldn't save him from being booed. From being mocked as the town's biggest laughingstock on the second worst day of his life…

…and what was thefirstworst day? It had to have been in childhood, which is why his 10-year-old Denzel wrote'Fairy Godparents Exist!'Had to have been traumatic enough for his mind to block out. March 15, 1972, a day that he couldn't remember anything of.

He couldn't even remember a time when he was happy…

"Love Denzel!"

His train of thought was interrupted by Wilma's squawk, turning to Carlos pecking to escape their cage while Wilma preened. Mr. Crocker opened the cage's latch, and both Carlos and Wilma fluttered from their perch to each of Mr. Crocker's shoulders, squawking in delight. "Love! Denzel!" Wilma repeated, allowing Mr. Crocker to brush the pink feathers on her head. Carlos nibbled at the ear on Mr. Crocker's neck, a non-aggressive sign of his jealousy. To not make Carlos feel left out, Mr. Crocker ruffled the lime-green feathers along the parakeet's neck with his free hand, closing Carlos's eyes in satisfaction.

Love…what is love, anyway? Love was always a stranger that never wanted to meet him. Not in Geraldine, not in any good deed for any citizen. Not even his own mother.

When his mother had told him about the loss of his two parrots at ten years old, he never could have imagined owning pets again. Until he'd discovered a green parakeet with a broken wing and a pink galah with its leg fractured in three places. Wild birds were not common around Dimmsdale, so how they'd stumbled upon his backyard was beyond him. Inner bitterness wanted to leave them for dead. His inner child, the good-natured hero, wanted to save them from such a fate.

They were just birds, nothing more, nothing less. The original plan was to set them back into the wild once nursed back to health. Over a decade later, they had yet to be released. They'd gained so much trust for him in the way they allowed him to scratch their feathers. The way their beady eyes beamed and their wings flapped when he'd come home from a stupid-tuvid day at his stupid-tuvid school. And those green and pink feathers were so...familiar. Comforting.

He couldn't find the heart to let them go.

"I'll be back." he said to them, but he didn't want to leave. He never wanted to leave. With his mother drawing social security, he had become the sole provider of the Crocker household. And to his dismay, discovering Fairy Godparents wasn't going to keep this house on life support.

Extending both index fingers, he waited for Wilma and Carlos to rest on them before directing them back into their cage, screeching on their way back in before he relatched their door. Watching their feathers ruffle, his palm pressed to the cold metal. In response, they waddled forward with their necks extended to brush their top feathers to his hands.

A disheartened sigh fell in his frown. Goodbyes were always incredibly painful. They always felt like forever.

Black smoke coughed from the exhaust pipe as the black van rumbled into the school's parking lot, flabby tires rolling in a locomotive push to park a vehicle loaded with heavy tech and magical detection equipment into the free space near other vehicles of educators. "Stupid-tuvid van, stupid-tuvid school…" he grumbled, killing the engine to slouch in the driver's seat. "Stupid-tuvid life…"

Parked in a lot facing the school buses as they unloaded students, a pink-hatted boy straightened the teacher's posture. Squinting through the windshield at the boy gripping his backpack as he ventured with other kids towards the entrance. Catching a glimpse of those fuchsia and shamrock wristbands peeking through the pink sleeves of the boy's winter coat.

Pink and green whispered his name. Lured him out of his van in an absent shut of his door. Forgetting to use his van key to secure indebt loans worth of tech and equipment inside.

He couldn't pinpoint why he was drawn to those pink and green hues ever since Turner started wearing them. Why his gut was as certain as they sky is blue that those wristbands were fairies in disguise. Nevertheless, being pink and green proved nothing…

Pink and green...that can't be the only reason.

A football punted the side of his noggin, redirecting his attention to two sh*tty 4th graders and their taunting points. They zoomed off towards the school, their cackle snarling a scowl as Mr. Crocker waggled an irritated fist. "Curseyou, stupid-tuvid gremlins!"

Following a group of students into the cafeteria buzzing with conversations, Timmy navigated through the sectioned tables. Heading towards the back where the 2nd half of Brain-A-Thon champions, the richest kid in Dimmsdale, and an ex-JW were waiting for him at a lone table.

"Hey, guys," Timmy took the seat next to Tootie who was hugging herself. Seated across from Remy and Chloe sitting beside each other. "Anything interesting happen this weekend?"

Tootie hunched in her seat while Remy kept his head down on folded arms and Chloe fiddled her fingers, making Timmy stare at their lack of response.

"…don't all speak at once."

"…I-I met another godchild at the library." Chloe was the first to disclose. "I could see the crown and everything."

"…so could I." Remy sat up, deciding on recounting his own experience. "Happened at the country club; Juandissimo's crown was the first thing she noticed."

"A girl figured outyouhad a godparent as well?" Chloe questioned to Remy.

"Well, she surely knew what to look for."

"The same thing happened to me, too." Chloe related. "Like...h-he didn't have to think about it!"

"Same." Timmy recalled how fast Gary had figured it out. Unaware of the curious hand reaching for his pocket.

"You meanyoumet another godchild as well?" Remy inquired.

"Uh, yeah. He's how I figured out you guys had godparents." Timmy had not actually explained where he'd gotten the whole 'discover other godkids' hack. He then looked to purple eyes staring from his left. "You met one, too?” he asked Tootie who nodded in response.

"What does this mean?" Chloe wondered. "First meeting each other, now meeting others like us."

"I dunno, coincidence?" Timmy figured.

Remy propped his chin with his palm. "Does ithaveto mean anything?"

The points of a metal star glimmered enough to catch Tootie's eye. Looking down to the mysterious object poking from Timmy's coat pocket. Call it the sin of temptation, but there was something tantalizing about this object. What was it, and why did Timmy have it?

Careful fingers grabbed hold of the metal object, her hand below the table. Tootie was slow to retract the arm cuffed with her teal bracelet, avoiding any unwanted attention. She gazed upon the metal star with a purple button centered within it. What…this a toy? A remote for something?

Chloe brushed her indigo necklace. "How many godchildren are out there?"

Remy looked at the purple watch on his other arm. "…how many kids are miserable?"

Tootie closed her grip around the star, and the tip of her thumb pushed delicately against the button's surface-

Rainbow glistened in her skin, tingling her veins. Sucked by a gentle force faster than her bewilderment could blink.

“What the-” Timmy spun towards the audible poof beside him, the raven-haired girl replaced by blank space.

As blue and mint-green both bulged, Chloe's shock turned to the pink-hatted boy madly patting his pockets. "Um…w-what just happened?!"

No matter how much his hands searched, they couldn't find what was missing. And when the light switch flipped in Timmy's mind, his palm smacked his face.

. . . . . .

Clean air sharply gasped in her lungs. Blinking to the peaks of purple mountains touching the magenta sky. Turquoise and gold twinkled along the sky above orchid stones and crystal-teal vines. Amethyst spires and rainbow window stained in crystalized glass patterns, landscaped in angel oak and passion flower bushes.

A painting worth more than money can ever buy…

"So, in case you were wondering…" Rose floated in her fairy form, looking down to her godchild's goggled gaze. "…I havenoclue where we are."

Rimmed glasses continued to stare.

"Idoknow we're in Fairy World…" the fairy godmother retorted, scanning their new surroundings "…just never been wherever 'here' is…"

Small fingers curled rigidly around the metal transporter. Whatever 'here' was, one cannot deny the colors ever so radiant. So ethereal, so fascinating…

Magical.

Tiny feet walked on their own, traveling the mountainous path. Lured to the plum wood medieval door framed in ogival arches.

"…Tootie?" Rose called out, reaching deaf ears before her wings flew after her. "Tootie!"

. . . . . .

"A transporter to Fairy World?" Remy inquired from Timmy's explanation of how Tootie had suddenly disappeared and where she'd disappeared to. "Where did you get that?"

"…the godkid I met." Timmy tensed, thinking he probably shouldn't have brought a powerful magical object to school of all places. "It takes a lot of magic for fairies to bring humans to fairy world, and the transporter gives fairies more magic to do it."

"If that's the case...c-can she come back?!" Chloe worried for Tootie. Even with a fairy godmother by her side, Tootie was an outsider on foreign land. "I-Is she stuck there?!"

"Not ifwego toher!" the green wristband interjected, giving Timmy an idea.

"That's agreatidea, Cosmo!" Timmy climbed his legs from the picnic seats, standing to his feet with his chest raised. "I wish we all had transporters!"

Cosmo sparked his wand, ignoring the flat brow from his wife. The other two godchildren soon received magical transporters in their grasps.

"Wait, what about school?!" Chloe worried next. "The bell is about to ring!"

Timmy wasn't as concerned, starting to think that Tootie may have indirectly done him a favor. "Dunno about you guys, but I don't wanna be here, anyway."

"I'd have to agree." Remy dully remarked. Annoying kids and whacky teachers weren't the best distractions from troublesome memories he'd rather forget.

Seconds later, piercing rings resonated just as Chloe predicted. 1st through 5th graders traveled in disorganized groups towards the cafeteria doors. On instinct, Chloe rose to her feet, readjusting her backpack. Pausing when she noticed Timmy and Remy hadn't moved an inch from where they were "…skipping school?!Seriously?!"

"No one said youhadto come with." Timmy confirmed her assumption.

"But you gave me a transporter!"

"That you don't have to use right at this very moment." Timmy shrugged casually. "Since you'd much rather listen to Crockpot drone on about stuff that evenhedoesn't care about, just to miss out on seeing a big magical castle in a magical world with other kids with magical fairies to see all sorts of magical phenomenon."

Apprehension inhaled sharply through her nostrils. Was searching for Tootie worth her parents receiving a call for being marked absent? Her dad had driven her to school. There're bound to be a million questions!

"…hmph." Remy gave a terse shrug, solely interested in seeing his godfather's homeland. "I'm sold."

And Chloe was a conflicted mess.

"C'mon, Chlo-bird; it'soneday." her indigo necklace pressed in her 'let's have fun for once' instead of the 'your education is important' approach. "Remember last week, when you felt so terrible that you wanted to leave? Evenyouknow you need a break."

"B-But my perfect attendance-"

"Is complete rubbish." Remy groused, standing from the table as well. "Harvard won't care about dragging yourself to elementary school." he saw that his purple watch disapproved his blunt tone "…well, they'renot!"

Chloe puckered her brow. Easy to say when your family can buy out any American Ivy League without so much as a dent in their bank accounts.

"Look at it this way." Timmy presented a fair point. "If youreallywanted to, you would've left for class already. Yet here you are, going back and forth with us andnotgoing to class."

To this, her gap chewed at her bottom lip, stressed fingers tugging at platinum strands. The fear of failing expectations wanted him to be so, so wrong. However, arguing with the truth was impossible. Especially when it's undeniable.

Materializing without their winter coats, three kids and their godparents appeared from prismatic clouds. Greeted by radiant skies and a mountainous skyline that one godchild had visited previously. The grandest castle appeared before them, structured similarly to the very boarding school of witchcraft and wizardry that one godchild had read in her favoriteTerry Totternovels. Observing the bright and colorful earth-like scenery with a mythical touch that one godchild had heard his godfather describe.

"So this is Fairy World?" Remy questioned, observing 360 views of the mythical world from the towering heights in which he stood.

"The transporters only bring us to this location." Timmy remarked, standing near Remy. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

Taking this into consideration, Remy turned to the vast spread of skyscrapers and buildings topped with either crowns or stars that stretched for infinite miles. This world looked simultaneously smaller and larger than he could've imagined.

"You think Rose and Tootie went inside Fairy Fort?" Cosmo inquired, joined in hand by his wife rubbing lethargy from her eye.

"Where else could they have gone?" Timmy figured, finding neither Rose nor Tootie in sight.

"Fairy Fort, eh?" Susie observed the unfamiliar territory given an unfamiliar title.

Juandissimo rubbed his goatee, studying the castle built into the mountains. "Why have I never heard of this place?"

"It didn't exist until godkids wished for it about a year ago." Timmy explained.

"So other godchildren have been here?" Chloe asked.

"Yep, and now so have we." Timmy set off on foot. "Follow me!"

Watching Timmy walk away with his fairies, Remy and Chloe then exchanged puzzled glances before they too set foot with their fairies floating behind them.

At first, Chloe's rapid pulse thought this was a bad idea. How would she explain skipping school to her parents?! However, the further she walked towards the magical castle, the further her qualms subsided from heart-thrashing pulses to lulled hums. The air around them was so calm and quiet, channeling chaotic thoughts in a cohesive, orderly train.

Reaching the plum wood doors, Timmy's palms pressed against the door in an unloose push, indicating that the door was unlocked. He led the group inside to stainless glass windows casting natural, colorful shimmers along amethyst stoned walls and stoned floors marbled in deep-plum, scanning deep-violet furniture vacant of occupants.

"Tootie!? Rose!?" Timmy called out, hearing nothing but the clink of Cosmo shutting the entrance door behind him.

When no response came, Susie thought to take out her cellphone in attempts to just call Rose. Lifting the flip-phone to see 'no service' in the top right of the screen. "Why am I not surprised…"

"What's wrong?" Chloe asked to her godmother's sigh, seeing Susie shut her phone to return to her back pocket.

"Can't get any service in here." Should've figured from the high altitude.

"That's cuz this place is somewhere to like 'disconnect' or whatever." Timmy faced Susie in his explanation, then looking way to mumble to himself "Didn't think that meantliterally…"

Chloe surveyed the flying buttresses hanging from the high ceiling, as well as the massive pearl-marble staircases with access to multiple floors and the sconces of burning candles mounted the walls. "This looks almost identical to the Griffinsnore common room…" Chloe thought aloud, though she could be incorrect.

"It does?" Susie questioned.

"Yeah." Chloe took vigilant steps towards 17th-century furniture, a soft finger brushing along deep-violet suede of the largest couch. Dwight was the only other godchild known as a fellowTerry Totterfan. Was…he one of the godchildren to wish for this castle?

A towering fireplace bricked in amethyst drew silent strides forward. Arms crossed against his clenched chest, mint-green studied the heatless flames dancing from uncharred wood. A fire that didn't burn was not the anomaly that creased Remy's gaze.

It was what the fireplace represented…

Gold auburn cackled in the glowing warm radiance within the white brick of the living room fireplace, reaching the tallest height of the wall lined in green dollar signs paneling the wallpaper. A nanny and his beloved eight-year-old boy were cuddled along the white Victorian couch facing the fire. Loving arms held him as his young cheek nestled against the grown man's chest, their lower halves covered in a wool blanket the shade of money green.

Tender fingers grazed behind blonde spikes, mint-green weighing more and more with each loving touch. The nanny's other hand rubbed massaging circles to the boy's back, fluttering his eyelids before they closed peacefully.

Lifting his head from the armrest when he heard the softest snores, a low sigh lowered his head back. Continuing to massage the boy's back until temptation slowly drifted down. Traveling beneath the blanket to the small hump underneath pajama pants, he muffled the amorous groan in his throat when his eager palm reached the pajama pants.

He too closed his eyes, and kneading fingers squeezed as another groan breathed past parted lips, louder than the last.

Snapping mint-green awake when he felt something poke-

"Are you alright?"

An audible gasp gawked in the eleven-year-old's flinch when tender fingers gripped his shoulder. Blue-violets etched in the same concerned that the other godchildren and their godparents shared, staring back at him.

Remy cleared his throat after furrowing his brow, shame softly removing his godfather's hand as he choked "…I'm fine."

Even Timmy could tell Remy was lying. He also knew that if Remy was like him in the slightest, he'd than likely want to keep those troubles locked in their cage. Why make godparents worry more than they do already?

To spare Remy further unwanted attention, Timmy reverted to the original purpose of being here. "Tootie and Rose could be anywhere in or near this castle."

"Is it really bigger than it looks?" Chloe questioned. Though Fairy Fort looked like Snogwarts, the exterior didn't seem that large to her.

"Definitely." Timmy confirmed. "Anyone can get lost if they don't know where they're going."

"Then let's split up." Chloe suggested, walking towards Remy and Juandissimo. Taking an initiative not hindered by self-doubt. "We could cover more ground that way."

"Good idea." Timmy agreed, approaching Cosmo still holding Wanda's hand. "Cosmo, Wanda, and I will search the leftwing. You, Susie, Remy, and Juandissimo search the right."

"How would we alert the others if one of our groups finds them?" Chloe asked, making Timmy tap his chin.

"How about we all just meet back here whether we find them or not." Susie proposed. "Let's say, an hour?"

"Does it take an hour to cover this entire castle?" Juandissimo quizzed.

"I dunno." Timmy wasn't certain, yet he kept his optimism. "Guess we'll find out!"

Chloe and Susie covered the left side of the bricked hallway while Remy and Juandissimo traveled along the right. Venturing down hollow corridors of brick, a subtle chill in the air that felt oddly cozy at the same time. Having searched half the hall so far, they discovered bedrooms decorated as described inTerry Totter, nearly to a tee.If Chloe had forgotten that she was in Fairy World, she might as well be walking down the same corridors as Snogwarts. Living another life far different from her own.

Approaching another room, Remy opened the door to another bedroom. Cautious steps entered a bedroom with a chandelier mounted to the tall ceiling above the queen-sized bed. Reflective light from the hallway glimmered sparkles into its crystal icicles. Just like the crystal leaves dangling from the ceiling of Mr. Nicholas' old bedroom, his personal prison. Where Mr. Nicholas would coerce his way, doing things down there with his mouth-

"What do you dream about?"

"What?" Remy blinked, turning to the attentive stare that tightened his throat.

When Remy was staring at the fireplace, from Juandissimo saw, Remy was not in awe at the fire that didn't burn. He was troubled. And knowing from his own experience, this could indicate repressed trauma. "You have been mumbling in your sleep lately." he voiced his concern, hovering in the doorway. "Tossing and turning, murmuring the word 'no.'"

Remy opened his mouth only to then clamp it shut, averting his eyes. Since his former nanny's termination, he didn't want to talk about what haunted him. The pain was always easier to deal with buried beneath a suppressive grave in the hopes of it never climbing back above ground…

"Hey, guys! Come check this out!" Chloe grabbed their attention, a beam in the rare curl in her lips that led godfather and godson to share quizzical glances.

Susie held open the wooden door to the ceiling painted in underwater gradients above the circular pool built into the stoned floor. A wall of stainless glass shimmered in the flat waves of aqua chlorine, a sheer waterfall cascading from the wall of the deepest end. Within the corner of the room was an unoccupied jacuzzi bricked into the ground, the wall of the jacuzzi lined in lights wading rainbow hues in the otherwise clear water.

Juandissimo hovered behind Remy scanning the surroundings as Chloe ran over to the pool without a second thought. Kneeling to the edge, scooping lukewarm water with her fingertips. She watched the walls of sheer water pouring into flowing waves before she took off, running along the pool's edge.

"Be careful, Chloe!" the fairy godmother called out to her goddaughter's carefree jog to the waterfall at the other end of the room. Her heart thumping as Chloe balancing on her knees once she reached the pool's edge, stretching her arm so that her fingers could catch a couple cascading droplets.

Delight widened in Chloe's smile as water splashed in tiny bounces off outstretched fingers, and Susie's heart began to settle in a small grin. Susie was surprise; the Chloe she knew would never carelessly run so close to the edge of a pool. The Chloe she knew had never been so worry-free with not a care in the world. It was nearly as refreshing as that pool water was assumed to be.

She didn't know it was possible for this Chloe could exist, though it was what Susie had always hoped for her.

Having traveled to the back end of Fairy Fort, Timmy walked through the castle nave leading out to the back mountains. Taking a few steps before scuffed imprints of babydolls within the rocky dirt trail caught his eye. "She must've gone this way." Timmy pointed down the pathway threading through the mountain. "Let's go."

Starting down the trail of a steady incline, Timmy looked to his right, admiring the scenic views of other rocky hills and valleys stretching for miles. When he looked up, he imagined reaching a hand to touch the stars. A chilly breeze swayed his hair, flapping his pink shirt. Even with the breeze, he could still hear his own breaths. He stayed close to the mountain wall on his left; no safety rails equaled more chances of a misstep going catastrophically wrong.

Still hand in hand with his wife, the green fairy glanced over to at her pink wilted stare. She held her bulging stomach with her free hand, and while her body was there with them, her mind seemed elsewhere. Her silence kept gnawing at the notion that something was wrong, and he couldn't mask his downward smile. "Are you okay?"

"Nausea kept me up all night…" she mumbled her first words since getting up that morning. Her free hand rubbed her dry eye once more. Only a few weeks in, and her body felt like an extra roommate was living rent free and sucking all her resources.

"You should've stayed home." Timmy overheard the conversation behind him. He'd noticed his godmother's withdrawal, but in judging her less than stellar mood, he'd chosen not to somehow make things worse.

"Part of me wanted to." Wanda's was wearily honest before she exhaled deeply. "But I couldn't…"

Cosmo tilted his head, softly squeezing her hand. "Why?"

Wanda gently squeezed his hand in return, keeping her eyes lowered. Admission of downfall made her pride feel weaker than her body felt. "They'll come a point in my pregnancy that slows me down, and…" she paused, preferring to skip the whiney details. Meeting her husband's stare focused on her "…I just want to spend as much time with my two boys as possible."

Keeping his eyes on where he was going, warmth swirled in Timmy's heart. 'My two boys.' Man, he loved the sound of that.

The trio continued along, traveling lengths that felt like over a mile. Following the scuff marks until they stumbled upon a large chasm within the mountains connected by a viaduct bridge. The small glimpse of a star-shaped transporter clutched in the hand of a raven-haired girl, peering over the stone railing as teal eyes and marmalade curls hovered beside her.

"Tootie!" Timmy's call echoed through the mountains, running onto the viaduct. Though Tootie didn't stray from the slow stream of turquoise creek below, Rose snapped to the boy and his fairies approaching them, sighing in relief.

"Sosorry for disappearing like that!" Rose apologized on her godchild's behalf. "I didn't even see her grab that little remote thing."

"The transporter." Wanda mustered a grin. "And it's not anyone's fault."

Seeing that Tootie had yet to acknowledge the newcomers, Timmy took cautious steps to the stone rail, standing to her right. Widening his eyes when he looked down at how high they towered above the creek. He swallowed the lump in his throat. Heights had never been a fear of his, but the slight vertigo couldn't differentiate this from standing on the roof of the Empire State building with no harness.

He looked at her frozen stare. "…aren't you scared being this high up?" when he saw her shake her head in denial, he had to ask "How?"

She made the conscious effort to meet his inquiring gaze, locking eyes. Baby-blue briefly looked away from the weight of her purple stare, something that normally happened the other way around.

And then, he heard the faintest whisper.

"…I'm safe."

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

"…what?" Rose hovered to her godchild, her voice shaky yet soft. "What did you say?"

With a timid tremble in her lips and her clutch around the star-shaped transporter, Tootie faltered under her godmother's stare, under everyone's stare for that matter. She held arms to her chest, mustering the courage to whisper again "…I-I'm safe."

Relief laughed in Rose's shaky breath, and tears of joy pricked the corners of her eyes. Just when she worried Tootie may never speak again, the accidental discovery of this magical place seemingly reignited hope. Though it was a whisper, it was progress. The flicker of a candle's light in the darkness.

The married couple looked on as loving arms pulled the little girl close, holding her tight. Happy for their friend as Rose smiled into Tootie's shoulder, bashful arms returning her embrace. Whether a steppingstone or the root cause, there was nothing more heartwarming, more gratifying in a godparents' career, than a breakthrough with their godchild. A short step in the long road ahead towards the right direction.

Rose pulled away slightly, cupping Tootie's cheeks with tender palms. "Yes, honey…" she reassured. "You're safe."

The other godchild couldn't help but wonder what had silenced the raven-haired girl to begin with. Could have had something to do with cult. But she got out against all odds, and if he were in her shoes, he would've been shouting from the rooftops or something.

Coy fingers latched onto her godmother's hands in a mousey whisper "…please don't leave…"

"I'm right here." Though Rose's grin was comforting, Tootie jutted her trembling lip.

"…please don't ever leave…"

The godmother's grin wavered, crestfallen. Even if the child does not expose their godparents or cause any other major violation of Da Rules, eventually, said child matures into an adult, and weeks, months, even years of memories are erased in a second. Some godchildren are considered lucky to never learn of the inevitable. That their safety net won't and can't be here forever, and in that same token, they'll forget ever having a safety net.

Closeknit bonds never guaranteed an extended stay. The burden of an unwritten rule that every godparent carried on their shoulders. And as teal orbs met peering purple, Rose couldn't break Tootie's spirit. Just when it looked like it was starting to mend itself back together.

Instead, Rose brushed loving thumbs to Tootie's cheekbones. Settling for a variation of the truth "…I won't leave. For as long as you need me."

This seemed to fair well enough when Tootie flung arms around her godmother's neck. Closing her eyes to gladdened tears threatening to break. A satisfied chuckle escaped as Rose squeezed her back. Once treated as a threat, she was now revered as Tootie's savior. To think of how far they've come…

Inspired by the heartfelt scene, Timmy turned to his beloved godparents. "Just like you guys won't leave me, right?" his innocence wondered.

"Of course not, sweetie." Wanda smiled, albeit feebly. "For as long as you need us."

"But I'll always need you." Timmy remarked, earnest with his words. "Because you're my family."

Starting to feel spiritually weak, Wanda looked to her husband for strength. Cosmo met her wavered gaze before he held her by the waist. Sharing the same penitence that he could read in her face, a penitence that caused baby-blue to frown.

"…did I say something bad?"

"Oh, no, you didn't, buddy." Cosmo feigned a smile to his godson's diffident features. "Just…" he glanced at his wife's folded lips, thinking of what she would say in this situation as he looked back to Timmy "…no matter what, you'll always be like family to us."

While this statement was just a band aid waiting to be ripped off, this too seemed to fair well enough when Timmy gave a small smile.

Two sets of footsteps echoed subtly off the amethyst brick of the expansive corridor. Chloe led the pack towards a gold, sun-sculpted door, assuming they've reached a dead end. "There's been no sign of Tootie or Rose anywhere." Chloe pointed out, facing the two fairies and the fellow godchild. "You guys think Timmy and his godparents found her?"

"Y'all don't wanna try this room?" Susie gestured to the door, soon noting the special locks that made her wonder if the room was somehow exclusive.

"Another door to another empty room?" Remy assumed, sullen arms folded.

Seeing Remy's point, Susie shortly shrugged. "Well…has it been an hour?"

"…I was not keeping track." Juandissimo admitted, scratching his sideburn with a finger.

"Don't think any of us were…" Remy murmured.

"…I'm down to just call it if y'all are." Susie proposed, honestly tired of searching with no results. Juandissimo shrugged as Remy remained stoic.

Chloe tapped her chin. "Maybe that's for the best."

"…so how do we go back to where we were?" Juandissimo asked what everyone was thinking. Everyone except Chloe.

"I know a short cut!"

"But you've never been here before." Remy raised a skeptical brow to Chloe's newfound confidence.

"If this is anything like Snogwarts, then I know where to start!" Chloe smirked before she began scanning the brick walls for an oddly, specifically-placed painting the size of a door. Luckily (or, obviously,) a big ol' painting was not hard to find.

The four approached the brushstrokes of four turquoise, pink, purple, and blue robed figures standing tall on grey rock, nearly as tall as the towering Greek columns and roof carved from pastel-pink stone. Yellow slits in the place of eyes glowed against the endless black of their drawn hoods. To Chloe, they looked almost like if the Snogwarts headmaster and Lord Molydwart had quadruplets. "Who're they?"

"The Fairy Council." Juandissimo explained, floating to Chloe's left. "Elder fairies who are the first fairies to exist."

"And basically the bosses of our boss." Susie chortled on Chloe's right.

"Wooooow." Blue eyes gawked at the portrait in their marveled fascination. "They must be very powerful!"

Remy huffed, standing in the background. "What does some painting have to do with a short cut?"

"Because, if I were to make an educated guess, I would say the password is…" Chloe bit down on her bottom lip, theorizing in her mind. What would otherwise take endless circles of second guessing took little time for her to reach absolute certainty as she squealed "…Da Rules!"

Sensors activated by the spoken password, the mechanical drive of the belt and pully clinked and clanked multiple gears behind the golden-bronze frame of the portrait. Pulling until a tunnel of darkness was revealed before the portrait door halted in a latching, resonant ching.

Genuinely proud of herself for doing something right for once, Chloe bounced with excitement. Susie tilted towards her godchild, honestly impressed. "How'd you figure that out?"

"As Timmy had said, godchildren wished for this castle." Chloe justified. "And since the Fairy Council is the boss of your boss, I used context clues, like…Da Rules."

"That's dumb." Remy scoffed to then notice the disapproving brow of his godfather "…well, itis."

"Remy, are you okay?" Susie felt inclined to ask.

"Yeah," Chloe inch towards Remy's brooding stance "seems like you've been in a really bad mood ever since we all split up."

"I just want to get out of here..." Remy muttered. And, in taking the initiative, Remy walked past Chloe's caring glance as the first to enter the dark, secret passage. He didn't know where this passage led, nor did he care. He'd rather not go into details as to why his sanity desperately needed to leave.

Chloe followed soon after, and Juandissimo's somber sigh led Susie to offer an empathetic hand to his shoulder.

As it turned out, thepassage was not just a tunnel of black. The further they traveled into the endless darkness, the further they discovered elusive glow of deep blues and indigos sprouting and swiveling around them. Floating behind their respective godchildren, Juandissimo and Susie saw tiny speckles of violet and magenta stars that glimmered among the deep blues and indigos, casting shimmers of light along the layers of meteorite that they soon realize was their trail.

Faint swirls of aqua and pink that a collection of stars whirled within. Gradually gathering in a galactic spiral glowing below the narrow layers of meteorite. Chloe kept walking despite the twinge of dread pooling in her gut. Aside from the possibility of falling to an impending death if not careful, there was nothing ominously dangerous about this passage as far as her eyes could see.

And yet, an unsettling cold surged through her veins. Hunching her shoulders with each forward step, flooded with the shame of skipping school. Her parents will receive a phone call if they haven't already, and avoiding going home would only dig a deeper grave…

"Are you cold?" Susie noted the small shiver in Chloe's arms.

"I…" her thoughts began to fuddle together, puckering her brow. Thumping her heart faster as she drew her arms close in attempts to combat the coldness chilling her skin "…I-I don't know."

Curiosity caused Remy to lean over the meteorite's edge, staring down at the interstellar space of an infinite nebula. Is this still Fairy World, or did they just cross into space? And if this was space, how were he and Chloe still able to breathe?

His thoughts began to fade as if extracted from his mind into the center of the nebula below. Mint-green were memorized by the otherworldly swirls of pinks, blues, and purples. Within the center was an aqua light brighter than most stars. Yet his eyes did not sting as any pain had dissolved into nothing more than a word he can spell.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from the vivid colors impossible to ignore, and his nerves began to tingle in a soothing warmth. A warmth that consumed him, comforted him. That did not need empty words to assure that everything would be okay. A warmth that gravitated him towards the light, luring him in-

A forceful hand tugged him backwards from his blazer, stumbling backwards from the edge. Puzzlement blinked in his eyes before his stare met his godfather's glare. A glare not of contempt, but of grave concern.

"What were youthinking, Remy!?"

Remy had no clue why Juandissimo was so riled "…what do you mean?"

"If I had not stopped you, you would have walked off!"

"But I wasn't…" Remy blinked again, trailing off. Less and less confident of his own conscious actions "…moving…"

"It looked like you were moving to us!" When he heard the distress in Chloe's voice, he saw that the previous gleam in her eye was now wide with unease. "Did you not hear uscallingyou?!"

Remy froze, befuddled. They called to him? Why didn't he hear anything…?

Traveling with their fairies in the steady decline of the mountainous pathway, Timmy walked along Tootie's left, making sure they were both far from the edge to avoid any missteps. With hands in his pockets, he snuck occasional glances at Tootie with arms around herself.

"How did you find my transporter, anyway?" Timmy made conversation, pointing to the transporter still in Tootie's grip.

Remembering that she'd sort of stollen what didn't belong to her, Tootie stretched her hand to give the transporter back.

"You keep it." Timmy gently pushed her hand away, digging in his pocket to reveal a new transporter. "I have my own."

Squeezing the transporter, Tootie retreated her hand back to her chest. "…I-I saw it in your pocket." her mousey voice replied. "…I was curious."

Returning his hand to his pocket, Timmy filled the seconds of silence by kicking a random pebble out of his way, watching as it rolled away "…you like it here?"

Tootie nodded, looking everywhere but Timmy's direction. "…it's pretty."

"Yeah." Timmy agreed, overlooking the rocky hills to his left. "Didn't get to come all the way out here the last time I came."

A pinkish red blushed in Tootie's cheeks, looking to the pink-hatted boy "…y-you've been here?"

Timmy turned to the purple gaze behind her glasses. He never noticed before how her eyes were kinda…cute? He wasn't sure from the cringy flutter in his stomach. "Yeah, it's…why I had the transporter."

At first, he assumed that he'd made things awkward when her gaze scrunched, appearing to look past him. But then, she stopped in her tracks with a rise in her eyebrows and a goggle in her eyes as if astounded. He stopped as well, confused as her keen finger pointed upwards, just beyond his left ear. And when he and the fairies followed the direction of her finger, his own eyes bulged in a breathless exhale.

Rivers of pure rainbow light swiveled across the magenta sky. Twirling in a surreal rhythm of colorful arches from warm reds and yellows to cool greens and blues. A massive aurora, impossible to miss. Couldn't have been there a second ago…where did it come from?

"This is new to you guys too, right?" Rose's question was directed to her fellow godparents, except Timmy was the first to respond.

"Is this not normal?!"

"It's…quite rare, actually." Wanda was equally as astonished, staring into the dancing rays of light. "Once every decamillennium."

"…decamillennium?" Tootie squeaked, looking at Rose.

"Once every ten thousand years." Rose clarified. A rare spectacle even for her age group who were under a hundred years shy of a myriad.

Knowing well what this meant for him, Tootie, and pretty much any human alive right now, Timmy's childish wonder spun around to the others. "That makes this once-in-a-lifetime! We gotta find the others!"

"Others?" Rose asked.

"Everybody came when you guys poofed here." Cosmo clarified. "We'd split up to look for you."

"And they're probably still looking!" Timmy pointed out.

"Can we just summon them here?" Rose quizzed.

Taking the chances, Cosmo and Wanda sparked their wands. Their wands drooped dull as a tongue blowing air through a vibrating mouth sputtered.

Timmy and Tootie had no idea magical wands could make that noise let alone bend at an odd angle "…the heck wasthat?" Timmy voiced what Tootie's mind questioned.

"Apparently, this castle has a magical barrier." Wanda looked down at the wand she held in both hands. "Any outside magic is dispelled and can't pass through it."

"So they can't come to us?" Cosmo wondered.

"We'd know if we could use phones." Wanda replied.

"And Susie couldn't get a signal inside the fort." Timmy recalled. "That probably means outside calls are a no go."

"What the heck!?" Rose groaned. The dots of Fairy Fort's mechanics weren't quite connecting. "This place is a giant puzzle…"

"Join the club…" Cosmo spoke acidly as the king of being clueless half the time.

"Hmmm…" Timmy was using his brain more than he'd normally like that day "…what if, we went back to Fairy Fort, crossed inside the barrier,thensummoned them?"

Swallowing back a churn of nausea, Wanda had no ideas of her own. "Don't see why not."

"Alright then." Little hesitation stretched Timmy's hand towards Tootie's, warm fingers intertwining with her cool. "Let's go."

Ivory flushed pink in a hushed, frozen breath, unable to feel her heartbeat.

The ice in her blood melted the moment her sandals touched marbled grounds after escaping the secret passage. Some of the wooden doors looked familiar to Chloe. However, the odd shapes and structure of other doors appeared foreign. Particularly a door the form and shade of a silver-crescent moon with the same multifaceted locks as the golden sun door from before. They must've crossed what could've been a mile of meteorite straight across to the other side of the castle.

With her fairy godmother by Chloe's side, Remy and his fairy godfather were not far behind. Well…Juandissimo was not far behind. Internal disarray had held Remy a few feet back in a slower pace than Chloe's swift desire to stop shivering in dreaded fear.

The warmth he'd felt staring into that nebula was…different. Different than the invasive warmth of a man's hand on his privates. Different than the lovesome warmth of being in his godfather's arms. Describing the warmth was more difficult than denying how mind numbing it was. A numbness that Remy would've welcomed if he wasn't questioning its effects.

The Hispanic fairy floated with folded arms. Bringing a human to fairy world did come with risks. Magic is everywhere, magic that fairies never notice due to their own magic inside. It can greatly affect the human body, depending on its power and strength. Every child is different, so every child is affected differently. Juandissimo was beginning to wonder if bringing Remy to Fairy World did more harm than good…

"…I-I dream of him."

A small voice stopped Juandissimo's flight, looking over his shoulder. Turning around fully when he saw the lowered gaze with threatening tears.

"…you'd asked what I dream about…" Remy's arms latched around the gnawing roil in his chest. Just to keep himself together from the flash of those brown eyes and that disgusting, sensual smirk. "…i-it's him."

"What're you talking about?" Chloe too turned around when her ears caught fragments of Remy's words. Inching forward with her godmother following suit.

"…a man who is no longer my nanny…" Remy kept his gaze lowered, murmuring his version of 'he who shall not be named.' "…h-he's in my dreams…in my head…" raising his chin, his eyes fluttered before he could meet the blue-violets fixed on him "…and I saw him here too."

Chloe's concern glanced at Juandissimo's tight jaw. Whoever this nanny was must've been pretty awful.

"…u-until the secret passage…" Remy's eyes averted briefly, blinking pooling gloss "…I didn't see him in there…"

Interesting to hear a point of view unlike her own; first coming into the castle and even now, her heart paced at a relatively normal rate, her chest expanded with ease, and her mind wasn't the Daytona 500 of thoughts. Entering and crossing through the secret passage had chilled her veins and swarmed her mind with the inevitable trepidation of facing her parents' disappointment the moment her transporter poofed her back to the real world…

Nevertheless, Chloe didn't want to make this about herself. Because underneath that hard shell was anguish so delicate that she was unsure if Remy could withstand any longer.

"But…" she stalled, taking apprehensive steps towards the boy's weakening guard "…is that why you almost walked over the edge?"

"…I don't know." his honesty hoarsely admitted, squeezing himself tighter "…I don't know what I was doing…"

That could be possible from the blank trance she'd seen in his eye. Recollection turned to face the fairies behind her. "Susie had said something about you getting hurt by this nanny…" Chloe softly addressed Juandissimo, believing she'd get more out of Remy's fairy than Remy in his current state "…how badwashe?"

Susie noted the tension in Juandissimo's diverted glare. Thinking her friend could really use a diversion, Susie hovered to her godchild, feigning the nicest grin. "I…think we should change the subject, Chlo-bird."

Chloe scrunched her brow, until vexed blue-violets and haunted mint-green revealed the gravity of her prying "…oh." she squeaked with plummeted spirits, hanging her head. "I-I'm sorry..."

"Oh, you don't have to apologize, hun, it's just…" Susie licked her lips, hoping to explain in a way that didn't make Chloe feel intrusive "…this isreallysensitive."

As awkward as the air became, it was equally awkward when both fairies and children abruptly vanished in pink, green, and teal clouds.

Susie, Juandissimo, Chloe, and Remy found themselves at the back end of Fairy Fort, standing and hovering over dark-teal beds of weeping grass that landscaped the castle's nave. A hard line split the grass from the rocky dirt trail that led through the soaring mountains, finding three fairies and two fellow godchildren before them.

"Wow, thatactuallyworked!" Timmy cheered. With her hand back in her possession, Tootie stared at Timmy who seemed usually proud of himself. Cosmo and Wanda floated next to Rose, being the first to noticed Juandissimo and Remy's grim expressions.

"Oh, you found them." Chloe tried to sound gratified, and Susie painted a smile to match. "That's great…"

Timmy could hear the failed attempt at forced enthusiasm "…what's going on?"

"Nothing." Chloe swallowed tersely.

"…oh…okay?" Timmy co*cked a brow, only for a second before his enthusiasm moved his mouth a mile a minute. "Well, there's thisreallycool light thingy happening in the sky and it only happens once every ten thousand years! Soooooooooo, we gotta go!"

Remy managed to drag himself out his muddled headspace to mumble "…go where?"

"Up the mountain!" Timmy eagerly gestured towards the mountainous path. "The view up there iswaybetter!"

"Settle down, sport." Wanda lowered a motherly hand to Timmy's shoulder, coaxing him to read the room. To this, Timmy shut his mouth, pinching at his arm as the glimmer in his eyes softening into a leveled expression. His intentions were not to be insensitive. He was just so excited, the most he'd been in ages.

Fidgeting with her fingers, Tootie stared toward the young billionaire. No stranger to the broken pain behind those darkened eyes. A tug in her heart wanted to help him, braces chewing her lip on what she could do. Anything she could do to let him know that he was not invisible.

Baby dolls scooted in baby steps, stopping when she stood in couple feet away. Waiting for dark eyes to sulkily raise to her when the smallest voice spoke "…a-are you okay?"

"…OMG, she's talking!" Susie's reaction verbalized what widened Chloe's eyes.

"Thanks to whatever this place is." Rose voiced, surprised that Tootie had even approached Remy without being prompted.

Dark eyes stared back at her, his heavy heart seeing no point in lying "…no."

Her braces chewed her lip again, pricking a bit of skin. "…would you like a hug?"

His stare widened ever so subtly, taken aback. Watching her fingers fidget and the faint buckle in her knees. Hugs were either deprived from him, used against him, or something he had to ask for out of 'respecting' his boundaries. Sometimes, he'd chose to go without, because no one ever outright asked to hug him. He couldn't deny how much his heart was starving for one, and rejecting a little girl would be rude.

When she saw Remy lower his gaze with a weak nod, Tootie carefully inched forward. Arms already around himself, her trepid arms closed around him, delicately resting her temple to his chest. From how motionless he was, she had little to go off on whether this was working. At the very least, he didn't push her away, so…it wasn't…notworking.

As she continued to hold Remy staring at the ground, Juandissimo softened his features "…that is very kind of you, Tootie."

Tootie peered up to the Hispanic fairy's kind words. Being punished and scolded for doing something bad had been more common than receiving praise for something good. While that was the opposite case in her new household, hearing that she'd done a good thing still felt foreign.

After a moment, she gently pulled away, and with arms still around himself, Remy's staring gaze slowly met hers before they looked away once more. Tootie turned away back to her fairy godmother, receiving her own hug as Rose gave her praise for such a thoughtful gesture. She knew her hug wasn't a cure, yet all she hoped was that he knew he was safe.

. . . . . .

Near a high peek of the mountain, godparents and godchildren observed the softly blowing curtains of reds, yellows, greens, and blues shimmer along the magenta sky. Woven roads of rainbow dancing in a rare, mystical song.

Excitedly tugging at her godmother's jeans, Chloe pointed to the swirling lights which Susie gave a fond smile in return. Bringing Chloe here revealed a different side that Susie wondered if Chloe knew was inside all along, seeing the brightest beam with every interaction or recognition of every possible Snogwarts or Terry Totter reference. However, when she saw that anxiety bubble to the surface in that secret passage, Susie knew then that there was deeper work to do.

The perfectionist restraints of parental pressure left little chance for a child to be carefree. While one parent had started to slack off on the pressure, the other parent compensated by piling on more. It was like a root canal just to tear Chloe away from school, to convince her to take a break. To just have fun and be a kid. Will it bite her in the butt later? No doubt. She'll make sure that it'sher burden, not Chloe's. That cute little gleam that she rarely gets to see will not be for naught…

Juandissimo took a moment to look away from the aurora, seeing Remy's folded arms and fixed gaze on the swirling rainbow rays. A gaze with lingering doom and gloom, furrowing remorse in the godfather's brow. When he'd promised to bring Remy to Fairy World, he believed the change of scenery would be beneficial for him. Given the aid of a magical transporter made it easier to fulfil that promise, not only to search for Tootie and Rose, but to also show Remy what else Fairy World had to offer.

Godparenting exposed fairies in a spectrum of cases varying from 'grant their wishes to put a smile on their face' to 'wishes aren't enough.' He and other godparents have dealt with children that need far more help than what granting wishes can give them. Unfortunately, those children are behind bars or six feet under. Their lives taken from another source or tragically taking their own life. What if Remy was one of those children…?

Hovering behind her godchild, Rose saw Tootie's reach for her arms, bringing them down to rest over her shoulders. In return, Rose nestled her chin atop Tootie's raven hair, recalling memories of when they'd first met. Tootie had been so scared of her. She'd rebuked her magic in the name of Jehovah. It took Rose being on the verge of exploding for Tootie to make wishes. Under the manipulative control of cultist religion, Tootie was never to blame. Still, part of her wanted to curse Jorgen for throwing her into an uphill battle.

When she least expected, that uphill battle was a blessing in disguise. Potentially, had it not been for Rose's interference, Tootie would still be under her parents' roof, would still be in that cult. Would still be beaten day in and day out, and in a worst-case scenario, beaten to the grave. And, just maybe, it was destiny for Tootie to accidently poof them to Fairy World. Because she could see for herself that magic, fairy magic at least, was not evil or anything to fear.

Timmy positioned himself in the middle of his godparents, reaching his hands to Cosmo's left and Wanda's right. Grabbing onto their fingers as they looked down to his satisfied grin. They offered their own smiles in return, but when Timmy's grin returned to the swirling rainbows, their smiles fell. They've grown too attached as godparents, though they already knew that. In fact, it was probably safe to say thatallof them have grown too attached to their godchildren. But hearing Timmy's sweet little voice refer to them as his family just…sliced at their hearts.

He had blessed them with a biological child, all the while becoming like a real son to them. In turn, he loved them as he would his biological parents if they weren't neglectful douchebags. The sentiment of him holding their hands solidified that they were reaching a dangerous point. One day, they will have to tell him that they will no longer be a family. And this will certainly shatter his heart, more than his parents' resentment ever could.

They will have to tell him, just not now. Not when he looks so happy to have them by his side.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Grey walls were black in the windowless room with no way of knowing whether the sun had risen. From the shivering chill that curled the eleven-year-old girl in a ball sheeted by a black-wool blanket that she’d wished for the night prior, either the heat was off or the sun was not high enough for natural heat. Black heavy-duty nylon was her mattress on a single military cot squeezed between the thrifted washer and dryer set, resting her head on a single couch cushion. Her raven with unusual dark-blue feathers slept caged in black wrought-iron on the small ebonized white oak counter to the left of the dryer, the top of its feathers hatted with a gold crown.

She stirred lightly from the heavy pull of the wooden sliding door, using her wool blanket to shield her closed eyes from the sudden seep of light behind a boy with skin nearly as pale grey as the walls. Already dressed for the day in a black jean jacket with a blue bolt printed in the center of his grey tee and silver chains dangling from his dark denim, his black chucks snuck towards the lump beneath the black wool.

Dark-blue eyes of the raven blinked to the twelve-year-old as he forcefully yanked the blanket away in a swoosh, revealing the curled girl wearing just a large black shirt riddled with holes, the hairs of her black pony sprouted in messy spikes. Ivory arms and legs riddled with bluish-red bruises.

“Wake up, loser!” Francis teased, showing crooked teeth in his taunting sneer.

In a grumpy growl, Molly sprung up in her cot, the small bags beneath yale-blue eyes wide in wrath glaring straight through Francis’s smug smirk. “f*ck you, dipsh*t!”

Not fond of the sass, Francis snatched Molly into a headlock. Restraining her with a firm arm around her neck as her short nails clawed to be released. “You gotta foul mouth for a little girl!”

“Not as foul as that breath, butter teeth!” Molly gritted through her weakening airway.

“FRANCIS, where the f*ck is my beer!”

Rolling his eyes at the baritone yelling from the kitchen, Francis shoves Molly backwards onto her cot. She coughed from regained airflow as Francis ignored the dark-blue raven’s peeved stare on his way out the bedroom converted out of a laundry room. When the sliding door was pulled back in a slammed shut, the dark-blue raven transformed into her natural form of indigo curls with elfin ears and a green short-sleeved turtleneck with black pants. Swizzle used her wand to turn on the rustic floor lamp on the other side of the wall next to the vintage sink to give the room some light, and Molly coughed again, scooting herself off the single cot.

“…I wished I was dressed.”

With a wave of her magical wand, Swizzle changed Molly out of her black tee to her black long sleeve beneath a grey sweater with a stitched skull and raisin denim jeans. After a mumbled ‘thanks,’ Molly didn’t bother grabbing her backpack (with no plan on attending the sh*thole known as school.) Instead, she went to her backpack to retrieve her star-shaped transporter to shove in her back pocket, waiting for Swizzle to become her dark-blue earring before she exited her room, sliding the wooden door open.

Spilled bourbon and other grime littered the ones pure-white wood of the kitchen counters. Dishes and utensils caked in food attracted gnats and flies in the sink. Francis opened the rusting fridge filled with packs of Corona, Budweiser, Jack Daniels, and Seagrams, picking out a fresh can of Budweiser. Bringing the can over to the man with black spikey hair similar to his son’s. Slouched casually in his chair at the kitchen table where bits of ash missed the tray in front of him, smoke blew past the lips of a five o’clock shadow. Skull and crossbones tattooed his left bicep as bulked as his pecks, amply toned aside from the beer belly hanging from his white wife-beater tucked inside denim jeans where a silver chain hung from its loops.

Popping the lid of the Budweiser can, Francis then held it in front of his father who snatched it from his fingers, his other hand tapping excess ash from the cigarette before bringing it to his mouth for another drag. After exhaling the smoke, Frank then pressed the cold can to his lips, ingesting the flavorless malt of fermented yeast and carbonated water in thirsty gulps that made his son cringe in distaste.

Setting the can on the table, Frank met the muted glare of his girlfriend’s daughter as she stood from the sliding door to the makeshift bedroom, giving a gradual curl in inebriated lips still reeling from last night’s overindulgence. The way those feldgrau eyes preyed upon her crawled uneasy ants under the eleven-year-old’s skin, but her stoic expression and firm stance would never dare give him that satisfaction.

“Go wake Marissa up.” Frank slurred in his low baritone, crinkling the can in his palm. “I’m hungry.”

Molly’s response? A snarky scoff. “You got hands and feet that work just fine. Fix ya own food.”

Those bold words gritted Francis’s jaw, eyeing Molly cagily. Though their parents had been dating for months, Molly and her mom had just moved into their apartment all of a couple weeks ago. She must not have gotten the memo that no one mouths off to Frank Abrahams and walks away with their life.

Then again, what memo was there for her to get if Frank never seemed enraged by her backtalk? Only Molly’s backtalk made him chuckle ominously from his throat, crawling more gnawing ants under her skin as her fists balled to stay grounded.

“Or maybe I should jus’ make you fix it.” Frank scoffed back, pausing to take another puff of his cigarette now half disintegrated. “After all…” He inhaled its smoke before he blew it through his arrogant tone “…bitches should know their way around a stove.”

Molly shook her head, crossing agitated arms across her chest “…what does ma see in you…”

In response to Molly’s mutter, Frank scooted in his chair for the pleasantly unpleasant view of his free hand grabbing the front of his jeans, his grin just as crude as his gesture “What had her screamin’ my name last night.”

It was Molly’s turn to cringe, sneering a growl as she stomped out of the kitchen past that annoyingly creepy chuckle of his. When he settled down, he looked over to his son’s scrunched nose, Frank’s grin fading into a disgusted glare. “…the f*ck you lookin’ at.”

Without a word, Francis turned to walk away, not wanting any smoke this early right before school.

Sprawled on her stomach atop an aged king mattress beneath jumbled sheets, her jet-black hair combed over sunken eyes in a tangled swoop. Her pink bra and the sheet covering her giving the slightest decency to her nudity. Snores sawed in the drool strung from slack lips, a lanky arm dangling off the mattress edge where the tips of lifeless fingers hung above the empty Seagrams bottle that’d fallen to the scuffed carpet in her drunken slumber.

Before Molly could open the door Frank’s bedroom, the door accidently clanked against an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle, pushing the door further to see multiple bottles and cans that littered the carpet. “I wish all the bottles and cans were gone…” she muttered another wish for her Swizzle earring to grant, sighing as bottles and cans disappeared in dark-blue clouds. She can always say she cleaned up their mess since they never bother to do it.

Freely walking along the carpet to Marissa’s side of the bed, Molly shook her mother’s shoulder of the dangling arm. Marissa jerked a loud snort before the vodka and bourbon laced in her breaths went rhythmically soft, and Molly rolled her eyes as she shook Marissa more aggressively. “Frank wants breakfast.”

“Staaaahp…” her mother gave a groggy grunt, a lackadaisical hand shooing her daughter away. “…givin’ me a migraine…”

“Well, you wouldn’t have one if you didn’t drink your liver to death all the time.”

“Stahp yellin’!” Marissa swatted at Molly who, of course, was speaking with her inside voice. She rolled over to face away from Molly’s aggravated groan and continued to swat Molly away as Molly shook her with more force.

“MARISSA!” came Frank’s bellow from down the hall in the kitchen. Having not moved an inch from his precious morning beer and cigarette. “Get up and fix me sum’ ta eat! I’m starvin’!”

“UGH!” was Marissa’s groan, chucking the sheets off as she pushed through the jackhammer in her skull. Sitting up to then stumble on her feet, bumping into the nightstand. Instincts led Molly to try and assist, only for her efforts to be rejected in a harsh shove staggering her backwards.

Yale-blue deepened their scowl as her mom’s unsteady feet drag herself out of the bedroom.

Purple eyes fluttered to a haze of white, and the back of his auburn hair rubbed against something plasticky supporting his head. Awakening to parts unknown.

“Welcome back, Dwight.” a soft, feminine voice faded in and out of the swooshing between his ears, his brain wading aimlessly beneath a mental stream. “How’re you feeling?”

When a pair of black rims broke through the blur, the white haze solidified into clear outlines of fiberglass tile shadowed by dimmed fluorescents. His adjusting eyes noticed ginger waves hanging gently over the shoulder of her turquoise scrubs, ‘Judith Blakeslee, RN’ written on a name tag across the right of her upper chest. Her hazel eyes smiled down to him, so gentle and warm. Her feathered fingers felt like numbed prickles brushing against his arm.

“Can you tell me what day it is?” the nurse informally known by students as Nurse Judy tested the 6^th grader’s level of awareness, continuing her gentle strokes along his arm.

“…mmm…” Palming his head in his stupor, Dwight sorted through his daze just to remember how to mouth words “…Thursday…”

“What’s today’s date?”

“…the 12^th.”

“Very good.” her praise sounded clearer, drawing him closer to the surface. “Do you know where you are?”

Tilting his head to the right in subsiding wooziness, a wall of painted beige greeted him, ‘School Nurse’ adorned in bold Arial Black across. That was when his fog realized that he must be laying on one of the medical beds of the nurse’s office. “…your office…”

“That’s right. Do you remember why?”

After a pause, confusion shook in his head. Of course, deductive reasoning would conclude why.

“You had a seizure on your way to class, and you missed first through third, unfortunately.” Her words felt like a ribbon of soft silk. “But your teachers are aware, and you’re gonna be just fine.”

Dwight closed his eyes, heavy in his sigh. He could remember walking off the bus with Gary and entering the school. Then, there was this motion-blur on his way to his locker, and as worry sunk in his heart, he just knew it was gonna be another big one. Big enough to take him out almost half the day.

When he attempted to sit up on his own, Nurse Judy assisted him straightaway. “I called your dads while you were sleeping, and they told me that if you were conscious enough, you could let me know if I need to call them back for one of them to come get you or if you’re confident that you can ride the rest of the day out.”

It didn’t take long for Dwight to weigh his options, willing the shaky index finger and thumb on his left hand to extend. Giving his dark-teal chain on his pants the signal for the automatic wish of returning him to a normal state of mind. Irving waived his wand out of Nurse Judy’s sight, and in a magical flash, his mind was clear and thoughts coherent.

Granted more energy than he’d awaken with, Dwight gave a small smile to the nurse. “I think I’ll stay.”

“Are you sure? Your seizure was pretty intense…” Nurse Judy cautioned with a faltering smile. Fortunately, his seizure did not reach the intensity of needing rescue with Ativan, but she was still a bit shocked to see Dwight in better spirits so quickly. His speedy recovery had fascinated her since his first seizure on the first day of the semester, because in her years of middle school nursing, no student who’d suffered a tonic-clonic ever sprung back like a spring chicken.

“I’m sure.” he assured, his grin growing more forced. If his seizure was as intense as Nurse Judy says, then that meant everyone in the entire school was watching. Big seizures always garnered unwanted mass attention…

Nurse and student heard the ring of the school bell through the closed office door, signaling the end of third period and the transition into fourth. Sitting up further to plant his feet to the ground, Dwight scanned the office for the backpack that Nurse Judy stood to retrieve from beside her desk. She kneeled to him with his backpack in hand, hinting her serious behind kind hazel orbs. “If you start to feel bad again outside of another seizure, don’t hesitate to come back.”

“I won’t.” Dwight took his backpack, offering a grin of gratitude. He stood from the medical bed, and with the hand cuffed with his medical alert bracelet, he reciprocated Nurse Judy’s friendly wave on his way out into the hustle and bustle of students either lollygagging or rushing to their next class within the allotted five-minute span.

His attempts to blend into the crowd were not entirely successful. Groups of students stuck out their tongues and jerked their heads and arms before erupting in snickers as the past. Other students teased his ‘exorcism,’ taunting that he’d been possessed by the devil again. One student purposefully knocked him with all his force into a nearby locker with the sick intent of rattling his brain enough to trigger another seizure, and the student’s friends joined him in the laughter that deflated any semblance of self-worth.

“Don’t let ‘em get to you, Wighty.” his Irving chain coaxed as Dwight held his head, shaking off the vertigo. “They mock what they don’t understand.”

Wrapping arms around himself, Dwight folded his lips. While he always tried not to let these regular occurrences weigh him down, his spirits still plummeted. To Dwight, seizures at school easily compared to being awake in a horrible nightmare.

Eventually reaching his destination of fourth period English, Dwight entered the classroom with other students gradually filling the seats. Spotting the top of black hair gelled in its signature Greaser style resting over folded forearms on a desk near the back of the classroom. Dwight made his way to the empty desk beside the fellow 6^th grader, tapping his shoulder for the student to lift his head as solemn blue acknowledged him.

“Hey, you…” Gary sounded as dreary as his faint smile “…feelin’ better?”

In his feeble nod, Dwight sat in the empty seat, setting his backpack beside the desk. “…how bad was it?”

“Well, let’s see...” Gary straightened himself, using his palm to rub his eye. “…drool, gargling, muscles hard as rocks, thrashing limbs. Lack of answer when I called your name…”

In a somber groan, Dwight co*cked his head back in his chair “…so, pretty awful...”

“Eh. Not the worst.” Gary assured his friend. “Only lasted about a minute. Nurse Judy helped me take you to her office afterwards.”

Dwight turned to face Gary, his frown drifting “…I’m sorry.”

“Stop.” Gary’s stare grew solid. “It’s never your fault.”

“I know, but…”

“Hey.” An earnest hand reached for Dwight’s knee. “Never apologize. Okay?”

Dwight tried to hold Gary’s gaze, but bruised spirits made it difficult. Still, he knew he shouldn’t have to apologize for what he can’t control. Maybe, one day, he’ll believe himself when he meekly murmurs “…okay.”

“We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees, backwards towards the end of the widow’s garden. Stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our heads.” One 4^th grader named Mitzie Mulligan theatrically read aloud as the rest of her class followed along in Chapter two of their aged novels. Ginger hair tied in high pigtails and dark-blue eyes interpreting the dialect of 1884. “When we was passing by the kitchen, I fell over a root and made a noise. We crouched down and laid still-”

“Excellent.” The 4^th grade teacher, Ms. Becky praised Mitzie. Following along in her own novel in a leisure patrol around the classroom. An instructor in her early 30s, the length of her blond hair was tied in a sleek bun, crystal-blue eyes rimmed in purple specs that matched the purple button up tucked into the slender of her grey pencil skirt.

She adjusted her glasses, scanning students dressed in black ties tied around the white collar of cotton button downs under gold sweater vests or cardigans with either black-pleated skirts or black slacks, Ms. Becky spotted the cocoa puff in a sea of white milk. Taking a couple of steps towards the little girl’s desk to then pause as she set a hand to the girl’s hunched shoulder. “Hazel, continue where Mitzie left off. And speak loudly so everyone can hear.”

A pang gnawed in Hazel’s stomach. Her veins iced when coy brown eyes saw some of her classmate’s anticipating glances. Clearing the lump in her throat, Hazel willed the voice to speak “…Miss Watson’s big…” she stalled, the pang in her stomach gnawing the most painful knot “…b-big nigg*r…named Jim-”

“Thanks, Hazel.” Ms. Becky drably interrupted, her tone perking up when she acknowledged the original reader. “Mitzie, continue where Hazel stopped.”

“Jim was setting in the kitchen door.” Mitzie continued as normal. “We could see him pretty clearly, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute. Listening. Then he says…” Mitzie purposely paused, leaning over her desk towards Hazel sitting beside her as she spoke in a fake urban accent “…‘Who dah!?’”

Hazel felt herself shrink under the giggles and snickers that followed, shrinking in her seat as she held onto her red ring in her need of comfort. At nine years old, Hazel had never seen another student that looked like her. In their one hundred years of educating Kindergarten through twelfth grade, Brightburg Enrichment Academy never had students of color enrolled.

Not only had Brightburg always been a predominately Caucasian town, but the costly tuition often deterred the small percentage of POC families that could primarily afford the free education of public schooling for their children.

That, and the assessment just to get accepted singled out ‘the brightest of the bright.’

Adversely, it was a fight for Hazel to get accepted. Eventually proven false, administrators constantly accused Hazel’s parents of paying for higher test scores…cuz, for some reason, it was impossible to simply believe that Hazel’s intelligence was by her own merit.

Her family lived in Dimmsdale Acres, the affluent outskirts of Dimmsdale, but Marcus Wells believed that his children deserved the best education schooling can offer. Then again, that sentiment extended mostly to his biological children. His wife, Angela, insisted Hazel be enrolled for her academic benefit as well. He eventually agreed, just to avoid a detour in their commute.

“Settle down.” Ms. Becky regained control of her class. She then returned to patrolling around the class, turning the page in her novel. “Now, how about we skip to page six down to the next to last paragraph.” Scanning the class, she pointed to the other redhead of the class with similar dark-blue eyes to Mitzie in front of him. “Marty, begin.”

As Marty began his reading, Hazel continued to brush the red ring on her finger. Students often read above grade level, an esteemed standard of an Enrichment Academy. However, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was not a novel in the normal elementary curriculum. Hazel knew this for a fact because Ms. Becky had been both Anthony and Hillary’s previous 4^th grade teacher, and neither one of them had ever read a Mark Twain novel in their life.

Just thinking about it made it hard to know which was worse; the racial slurs up and down the pages, or the fact that this specific teacher chose this specific year to introduce this specific book into the curriculum.

“Jim was monstrous proud about it.” Marty read with less enthusiasm than his sister. “And he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice-”

“Hazel?” Ms. Becky called, making Hazel clench her troubled jaw. Having read ahead, Hazel dreaded speaking the cutting words that came next.

“…the other nigg*rs…”

When Hazel didn’t continue, Ms. Becky’s stoic expression looked up from her novel “…I didn’t say ‘stop,’ Hazel.”

Hazel flinched, biting down on her lip to stop it from trembling. Unable to mask the tremble in her little voice “…n-nigg*rs…would come miles-”

“Stop.” Ms. Becky closed her book, returning to her desk. “Alright, I think that’s enough Huckleberry Finn for today.”

Yeah, ya got cha point across…

“Class, please take out your composition notebooks for the writing assignment written on the board.” Taking her seat, Ms. Becky aimed stern eyes to the little girl holding herself together by the seams. “Hazel, I need to speak with you in private.”

Hazel winched tentatively, ‘ooohs’ simmering from the class. She couldn’t think of anything that she’d done wrong, but when did Ms. Becky ever need a reason to call on her? Especially when said chat was hardly ‘private’ because Ms. Becky doesn’t bother to either take Hazel out the classroom or wait for the other students to leave.

Leaving the safety of her desk, Hazel fiddled her fingers in the steps towards Ms. Becky’s unfaltering gaze. Hearing low snickers from Mitzie giggling with her brother, numbing her legs into jello. An accelerated pace thumped between her ears, clamming her palms. Reaching the front of the desk where Ms. Becky started with the unexpected gleam in her curled lips.

“I must say, your reading is excellent for your age.” came her backhanded compliment. “I would’ve never thought that you read as well as you do.”

Nyekundu half rolled her red eyes.

“With that said,” Ms. Becky’s politeness left as quick as it came, drawing back a draw in her desk. Taking out two graded tests and holding them in front of Hazel. “We need to discuss your recent reading comprehension test.”

Hazel moved her hands to wad the hem of her pleated skirt.

“Do you know why you have the exact same answers that resulted in the exact same grade as Mitzie Mulligan?”

Hazel squeezed anxious wrinkles into her skirt. She and Nyekundu studied hard for that test, and her eyes were on her own test the whole time. The only explanation Hazel could give to her teacher was “…I-I didn’t cheat.”

“I never said you did.” Ms. Becky spoke sharply. “But, since you brought it up, cheating will not get you a passing grade in my class.”

The only reason Ms. Becky had never had a reason to accuse Hazel of cheating before was because her tests were normally freehand responses. This time, the test was multiple choice… “M-Ms. Becky, I didn’t-”

“Cheat off another student, and I’ll have no choice but to give you detention.” Ms. Becky didn’t feel the need to hear whatever excuse Hazel had stored, her crystal eyes as cold as her warning. “Understand?”

More ‘ooohs’ simmered, and when her gap bit her lip again, a drop of iron pricked through the skin “…yes ma’am…”

“Excellent.” Ms. Becky discarded the tests back with the stack of others, waving Hazel off. “Go work on your assignment.”

Willing her black boots to move, Hazel let go of her skirt to brush her Nyekundu ring in shamed steps. Seeing the haughty stares of Mitzie and Marty fixed on her as she returned to the desk next to them. Purposefully looking at Hazel at the same time, Mitzie whispered something in Marty’s ear. Something that made him give Hazel a cunning smirk as Mitzie couldn’t contain her crafty giggle.

Puncturing another sharp stab to Hazel’s spirit.

She could feel her bottom limp start to tremble, glossing her eyes the longer she stared. Burying brimmed pain into crossed arms over the composition notebook that was not opened for the remainder of class.

Two peas traveled in their own pod through the crowd of students gathering towards the single destination of the cafeteria. Two separate lines formed for either the meal with pizza slightly above edible or the popular juicy chicken tender sandwich meal.

Gary slowed in his steps when they were about to pass the boy’s bathroom door to their left, Dwight soon doing the same. “I gotta hit the john.” he aloofly gestured to the door.

“I can go in with you.” Dwight offered. He wasn’t in the mood to make himself a walking target again.

“Nah, I’ll be quick.” Gary waved off, already weaving through other students across the hall. “Save me a seat, will ya?”

Watching Gary leave, Dwight sensed something off with his sole school friend. When they rode the bus that morning, darkness dulled his blue orbs. But, as he often did, Gary had denied that anything was wrong.

[Cousin, do you listen?!] Sophia’s distress echoed loud and clear. [I said don’t go in the bathroom!]

“Precisely why I suddenly gotta pee.” Gary chose to dismiss his late cousin’s warning. School was a battlefield, threats around every corner. His daily 8^th grade tormentors seemed unusually tame, which could only mean one thing.

They’re equipping the weapon of ambush, and Gary had prepared himself to charge into war.

Pushing the door open, another boy sped out of Gary’s way. Meeting the brown glare of the tormenting ringleader. Black and kinky curls shaved on the sides, a gold chain hung around the neck of his oversized purple tee under his Dimmsdale Ballhogs jersey that could’ve been mistaken for a dress from its length. White and purple Air Jordans poked from baggy jeans in a subtle sag, standing with his chest puffed.

“You really be testin’ me, fa*ggot.” he spat, his homies Bradley and Frankie backing him up. Bradley’s cornrows were parted in swirly designs, laid with a red headband that matched his large tee over the loose-fitted legs of his black jeans. Frankie’s skin was lighter than the other boys due to the half of Caucasian DNA in his blood with his curly fro hatted with a backwards Dimmsdale Pirates baseball cap, wearing a large gold polo and baggy khakis.

“You really be unoriginal, LeRoi.” Gary retorted with a light taunt of LeRoi’s improper grammar.

Snarling, LeRoi took a few steps forward, cueing Frankie and Bradley into their positions.

As Bradley moved to block the nearest stall to them, Gary creased his brow as Frankie fixed a resentful glare on him, moving to monitor the bathroom door for unwelcomed trespassers. LeRoi stopped a foot away from the boy two grades under him, lips folded as his nostrils flared in angered breaths.

“You ratted me out to Lewis!”

“What if I did?” Gary challenged. Glancing briefly at the crack of knuckles from Bradley leaned against the stall.

Suffering a whole semester of harassment, Gary’s grandparents (along with his godfather Alondro) had suggested that he report LeRoi and his minions to Principal Lewis. Like most other schools, Dimmsdale Middle School had a horrible bullying epidemic. And, like most other schools, administration did the bare minimum to stop it, even when harassment bordered assault. Because of this, Gary saw no point in reporting anything. Nevertheless, his grandparents had the impression that, if Gary added on to the numerous complaints they were certain the school had stacked, administration would stop twiddling their thumbs and start doing something about it.

Yesterday before the start of school, he’d taken himself straight to the Principal’s office. Missing twenty minutes of first period to speak directly to Lewis. In between Principal Lewis chomping on his morning donut and slurping his coffee, Gary couldn’t tell if he was taken seriously. At least the ball was no longer in his court. Besides, reporting was just half the battle.

Or so they say.

“You think you so tough…” LeRoi inched forward once more with defensive fists dropped, scowling straight through Gary’s cool and collected facade “…when you ain’t nothin’ butta lil’ bitch.” The emphasis of that last word sprayed in between Gary’s eyes, making Gary flutter as he reached a forearm to swipe it away without breaking firm eye contact.

“Only weak punks like you snitch.”

“They also pick on kids that’re smaller than them to make themselves feel tough.” Gary countered.

“Si. Antagonize him.” he heard his yellow belt buckle mutter sarcastically. “Because that is how one deescalates...”

The door was about to open for a boy with a legitimately full bladder, only for Frankie to deny him entry by shoving the door in his face, telling him to go find another bathroom.

“We gotta week of ISS cuzza you!” LeRoi growled in his face.

“Oh, is that all?” Gary’s expectations didn’t expect any punishment at all, let alone anything more severe than in-school suspension. “Well, sorry not sorry-”

A swift claw yanked the smaller boy and slammed the side of his head onto the edge of the nearest sink. Stars blurred Gary’s vision, collapsing in a heap on the cold tile. Unable to gather his bearings before he found that he couldn’t move. Pinning knees straddled his hips, a string of unforgiving fists raining down as he raised hands in helpless defense.

“You think it’s funny!?” LeRoi barked, striking with vengeful might. “fa*ggot ass bitch!”

Bradley joined in on the wailing punches, aiming for Gary’s chest while LeRoi targeted his head. As Gary did his best to buffer their hits, brown eyes flickered between flashes of such wrath in his elm scowl. Ebony fists flickered between ivory in repeated adult punches. Short, kinky curls flickered between long strands of wild brunette that whipped with each brutal force of his attacks. Pubescent growls flickered between the ire roadring deep from his throat at the toddler’s anguished screech for his tiny little life.

“That cord around your neck should’ve been tighter!”

THWACK!

“My wife shoulda never lost her life just to bring the likes of you into this world!”

THWACK!

“She should be alive. Not you!”

THWACK!

A switch in his brain flipped.

And all control was lost.

Piercing grunts roared through Gary’s clenched teeth, aimless arms swinging and frantic legs kicking.

“Now you wanna fight back, FREAK!” LeRoi egged the irate boy, he and Bradley defending themselves with thrashing swings of their own.

Furious rage clamped his eyes and thrashed flailing limbs to where the back of his head slammed repeatedly into tile. The only thing that managed to stop his merciless attackers from striking another punch. Bradley and LeRoi exchanged baffled brows as Gary’s growl began to gargle into an anguished screech. Pounding the back of his head in such ferocity that they thought the lil’ weirdo was gonna knock himself out.

“Guys!” Frankie yelled from the door, struggling to defend Principal Lewis from entering the bathroom “5-0!”

“sh*t!” LeRoi dragged Bradley by his shirt away from the thrashing boy, tripping over their feet. Scurrying in a dash towards the door where Frankie gave up his fight before bursting through the door with his friends just as Principal Lewis commanded them to get back here.

Gary could not hear Sophia’s crying pleas. He could not hear Alondro consoling him to come back.

The only thing Gary could hear was the rancorous ringing of disgrace instilled by his father.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

With her transporter in her lap, Molly's feet dangled coolly over the mountain edge as she observed the rainbow swirls swaying through the magenta sky. A rarity that, according to her godmother, would be present for about another week. Until its next occurrence in a myriad of years, long after her mortal life would end.

Molly didn't see how immortals do it; life was such a drag that even the average span of eighty years seemed like the marathon of living. Waking up just to go through the same stupid sh*t day in and day out for tens of thousands of years, knowing that unless killed by some external circ*mstance, it was impossible to find peace in death. Sounds like Hell without the infinite scorch fire.

Floating beside her godchild, Swizzle looked away from the aurora to Molly who had not spoken for hours since their arrival. "How much longer do you plan on staying?" Swizzle asked.

Molly shrugged in response. Her mom could either be passed out snuggled next to a bottle or irate that said bottle was empty, and her enabling boyfriend will more than likely be drunk as a skunk ready to stick himself in anything with a hole. Who'd ever be in a hurry to go back tothat?

"…and how long to you plan on wishing you were marked present at school?"

Again, Molly shrugged.

"…Oviously, you haven't been to school in three days."

"Not like I'm missing much." Molly muttered, drab eyes locked on the swaying colors. "Christmas Break is around the corner; teachers don't care, so why should I?"

To this, it was Swizzle's turn to shrug. "Guess you're okay with repeating the fourth grade. Again."

"Tff…don't class me with Francis." Molly scoffed. She wasn't dumb, school's just boring.

"Nee-Nee's bringing Hazel here after they get home from private school." Swizzle returned to admiring the rainbow aurora above, one hand on her hip. "Hazel had a really rough day…"

"When does Hazelnothave a rough day at that condescending sh*thole…" Molly murmured, and Swizzle shot her a disapproving glance.

"Y'know Francis has a point about that mouth of yours."

To which Molly shot her own annoyed glare. "Since when did you start listening to that punk?"

Choosing not to start an unnecessary argument, Swizzle folded her arms with shut lips. Briefly glancing through her lower peripheral to the sudden appearance of a child and fairy on the lower level of the mountains. Swizzle then tapped Molly on her shoulder for her attention, and Molly followed the direction of Swizzle's pointed finger towards the dark-teal clouds that dissipated before the stone path towards the castle's entrance.

"Guess Dwight and Irving showed up." Molly coolly recognized, though part of her wondered why Gary and Alondro weren't with them. "I wish we were back at the castle."

With a spark of her wand, Swizzle poofed them from one of the higher peaks of the mountain to the grand entrance of the castle just as Dwight and Irving approached the ogival arch.

Hunched in posture, Irving didn't even attempt to smile. "I assume the two of you have been here all day."

Irving came off uncannily flat in his greeting, and as his oldest friend from Fairy World High School, Swizzle took this as a sign that something went down. "Where're Gary and Alondro?"

Holding his wand with both hands, Irving downcast his gaze. Molly also noted the fallen features in Dwight, stepping forward towards his diverted eyes as his grip around his backpack straps tightened.

She'd seen that pensive look on his dorky face before. Not just from a sh*tty day of seizures, but especially whenever Gary was involved. "How bad was it?"

Aware of what Molly referred to, there was almost a visible shadow beneath Dwight's eyes when he lifted them to her "…very bad…"

Janitors rolled out their mops and caddy bags from the closet, coming out to begin their shifts. They dispersed individually through the desolate halls of Dimmsdale Elementary, and one gave a polite greeting to one 5th grade instructor who grumbled a greeting in passing.

Reaching classroom #44, the slender man entered to three of his students seated at their desks. Mr. 'Too Rich for Dimmsdale' with his head down looking out the window, little Miss 'Wannabe Mary Sue' biting her nails over a textbook, and Mr. 'Leave It to Beaver Boy' sulking in his chair. Forced to trudge through an hour of after-school detention throughout the week, Mr. Crocker had spent days mulling over something that ruled over his thoughts. How was it possible for three students to randomly 'disappear' without a trace to just 'magically' return to school right as the bell rang at the end of the day?

An uncommon occurrence indeed, particularly for Chloe Carmichael. As it was unlikely for his number-two student to miss a day of class, it was unlikely for these kids to associate under any other circ*mstances. As of late, the three of them did spend a suspicious amount of time with that one fourth grader that he had to babysit that one day, and as far as Mr. Crocker cared to know, their social circles were not entirely one in the same.

That is, unless something connected them.

Just like Turner's wristbands, these kids wore similar colorful accessories that no other kids in this school had anything close to. They looked like nothing one can find in a local store or the mall. Even his unsuccessful web searches deemed these accessories virtually nonexistent. Buxaplentycouldget a pass with his wealth purchasing something that customized, but what did that say about Turner and Carmichael?

The 5th grade teacher curved a mischievous grin. There can be only one explanation…

The shutting of the door caught all three of their attention as Mr. Crocker strolled with hands behind his back, his devious eye scanning the variety of their equally vigilant stares. Buxaplenty couldn't trust him as far as he could throw him, Carmichael faltered under his educational supremacy…

And then there was Turner.

Stalling purposefully in front of Timmy's desk, Mr. Crocker looked down from the corner of his eye to the crossed arms and blue glare fixed on him. It was no secret that Turner didn't like him. Turner never liked him since the day he'd become his student. The feelings were very much mutual in the pleasure of failing him constantly. Coupled with the conjecturing thoughts about those pink and green wristbands, Turner had good reason for his dislike.

"I have a writing assignment for today's detention!" Mr. Crocker cunningly announced to all the students, though his eye contact remained in Timmy's direction. "On composition paper, I want you all to write one hundred lines. And those one hundred lines must read 'I have-" his body started to spasm "-FAIRY GODPARENTS!'"

As the spasms subsided, Remy silently glared, and Chloe blanched in shallow breaths. Timmy, on the other hand, maintained his defiant face "…yeah, we're not doing that."

"Oh?" Mr. Crocker found this response quite curious, leaning to Timmy subconsciously pressing his back further into his chair. "And why not?"

"Cuz I don't see what that has to do with detention!"

"…T-Timmy's right." Chloe stammered, gripping fists to stop from biting another nail. "I mean…i-it'd be more efficient of our time to work on homework or study. L-Like we have been."

"You mean likeyouhave been…" Remy drably corrected, causing Chloe to turn sharply to dark eyes three desks behind her.

"Henceallof you will complete this writing assignment." Mr. Crocker decided to walk away from Timmy's desk to his own. "Andallof you will turn it in by the end of the hour!"

Timmy refused to grab a piece of paper or anything to write with. No way was he falling for such an obvious trap! "Why would we write about having godparents if it's not true?!"

Mr. Crocker curled the side of his lip in response to Timmy's argument, leaning back in his chair with fingertips pressed together. "If it indeed wasnottrue, then there'd be no reason to be so defensive."

Cosmo and Wanda saw Timmy grit his teeth as his fists clenched. Crocker 'assuming' they had fairies couldn'tpossiblybe a violation of the rules! Crocker had no proof, and none of them had said outright that they had fairies. Still, Crocker was disturbingly perceptive. Maybe the fairies should stop using the same disguises.

Without a knock, the door swung open to a heavyset woman standing in the doorway with a tan and ginger curls styled in a bun. Dressed in her signature navy-blue blazer and knee-length skirt. "Mr. Crocker, Timmy Turner's parents are here to pick him up." her Irish-accent announced, and Timmy sighed with untensed shoulders, somewhat relieved.

Once feeling in control, Mr. Crocker felt that control slip away, stomping his foot as he stood from his chair. "What?! What about detention!?"

"The Turners said it was a family emergency." Principal Waxelplax relayed, unfazed by Mr. Crocker's dissatisfaction. "Only Timmy has to leave."

Timmy had been poofing home after detention because his parents couldn't be bothered to come get him, so the fact that they were here for him now must mean that this truly was a family emergency.

He glanced towards Remy whose glare looked away before he then met Chloe's forced smile through her puckered brow. Hearing her whisper "It's okay…" bit his bucktooth hard on his bottom limp. He'd appreciate the rescue from detention if under less troubling circ*mstances, and he'd be less troubled if he didn't have to leave Remy and Chloe trapped with their fairy-obsessed teacher.

Halfheartedly, Timmy scooted from his chair, grabbing his winter coat to carefully poke his arms through his sleeves. Retrieving the backpack slumped against the leg of his desk before slinging it over his shoulder. His gaze momentarily locked with Mr. Crocker's calculating brow. Dark-blue orbs' conniving intent searing holes through the hopes that Remy and Chloe would survive the rest of the hour unscathed.

When he felt the unsettling shiver in his nerves, Timmy tore himself away to follow Principal Waxelplax out of class. Making his way through the hall towards the school's exit as Principal Waxelplax watched him to ensure that he didn't somehow venture somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

He fretted over what this family emergency could be. Did Pappy Turner finally kick the bucket? Did someone rob Grandpa and Grandma Vladislapov's yak shop?

[…i-it's Gary…]

Hearing the troubled tremble of Sophia's voice in his mind, that same unsettling tingle shivered more through his nerves.

"Now…" Mr. Crocker swung his door closed, shutting him inside with his two remaining prisoners. "Youtwo will still complete the assignment!"

His maniacal cackle roiled dry bile threatening to upheave as Chloe swallowed it down. Gripping onto her indigo necklace with gritted lips trying not to tremor. Writing 'I have fairy godparents' was a death sentence! Being grounded for a month was punishment enough! If she lost Susie too…

"…what if we refuse?"

Chloe turned in her seat to Remy sitting up to fold his arms across his chest before she whirled back to Mr. Crocker's glued gaze on him, lips curling craftily. A grown snake eyeing him like some piece of young meat, his lanky legs slithering closer. Remy tensed his brow, willing himself not to show the fluttering unease in his stomach. Forcing confidence in his tense eye contact when Mr. Crocker stood a foot away from his personal bubble.

"Would refusing not just prove that you have fairies?"

Remy's stone face refused to give him the satisfaction of manipulation to have his way. "…then what if I wish Mr. Crocker forgets everassumingwe had fairies?"

Since this did count as a wish, the purple watch ensured his sparkling wand was out of the teacher’s sight.

"Ha! That prov-deeeeh…" bluish sparkles twinkled around his glasses, his brain swished in a pool of confusion. His stance swayed slightly, stumbling to combat unsteady footing "…wait…wha-what was I doing?"

Remy maintained his poker face. "You were about to let us go because you weren't feeling well."

"Oh…yeah, I…" the teacher swayed again, blinking dizziness from blackening his vision "…I don't feel so good…"

Watching from her desk, Chloe couldn't believe it. By wishing to wipe Mr. Crocker's memories, Remy essentially saved themandtheir godparents!

…why didshethink of that?

"Alright…get outta here…" Mr. Crocker dragged himself away, cradling the puzzling pressure in his head. Too befuddled to notice Chloe watching him pass her desk as began to falter, catching himself with hands against his desk "I gotta go home and lay down…see you tomorrow in class."

Chloe gave one more glance towards Remy, mouthing a thank you that was genuine. Digging nails into his arms, Remy averted rigid eyes. Struggling to keep it together.

With clouds overcast in the darkest grey, blumine were fixed firmly on the road ahead as Daran used his turn signal to merge onto the street of his in-law's house. Elm stared somberly out of the passenger window as Susanne held clasped hands to her chest, her mind replaying the despair from her parents' worrisome phone call. Baby-blue barely blinked with Timmy's attention entrapped in his late sister's recount of events, silent in the backseat.

Judging Timmy's stern stare, his godparents assumed that Sophia was speaking to him. He hadn't said a word since he'd entered the car, though the only words the Turners had spoken throughout was to inform that the Vladislapovs needed them at their house. Timmy could be getting the backstory from Sophia, but Cosmo and Wanda were left totally in the dark.

"What's wrong, Timmy?" the green wristband spoke up, shifting Timmy's stare towards him.

After looking to confirm that his parents paid zero attention to him through the rearview mirror, Timmy held his wrists closer to his lips so that he wouldn't have to speak no more than just above a whisper. "…Sophia told me that Gary was cornered by these bullies at school and then…" uneasiness paused "…then he just snapped."

"What does Sophia mean by 'snapped?'" Cosmo whispered back as the pink wristband scrunched her brow in worry. Cosmo was not always as thoughtful and probably wasn't thinking about the context of Gary's case. Wanda, however, was well aware of what 'snapped' meant.

"I dunno." Timmy shrugged, keeping his voice down. "…it was hard for her to say." That in itself chilled him with more worry.

Slowing the car, Daran drove the station wagon behind the gold 1990 Ford Explorer parked on the short driveway of the one-story home. Sided in yellow-painted panels and roofed in brown shingles with a white trim, dark wood trimmed the windows and arched the front door where stone scattered throughout the porch and the foundation adorned with green shrubbery.

Killing the engine, the Turners all exited the car with Timmy leaving his backpack in the backseat, seeing no point in bringing inside. He walked a fair distance behind his parents who traveled the rocky trail towards the front porch paved in stone, and before Susanne could ring the doorbell, the elderly copy of her daughter's paste answered the door.

"Beloved daughter and son-in-law we tolerate!" Gladys drew Susanne in for a hug solely for her daughter. Susanne returned the greeting with tight arms around her mother, and Timmy stood behind his parents as Daran cleared his throat to ease his own awkwardness.

Gladys released her daughter, holding the door for the guests to enter inside. Susanne and Daran stepped into the kitchen as Timmy followed, looking up to see the same scrunched lips that always came from his grandmother whenever he was around her.

"Thank you for coming…" Vlad approached, coming from down the hall. Timmy noted the stress weighing eyes already bagged from old age, unsettled nerves tingling all over again.

"What's going on?" Susanne questioned her parents.

"Timmy." Gladys's rigid tone addressed the boy that was unfortunately her other grandson. "Go to Gary's room."

Puzzled, Timmy turned to face his grandmother "…is Gary there?"

"Yes." Gladys remained terse. "He talk to you."

"Me?" Timmy pointed to himself in slight disbelief. "Why?"

"He won't talk to us." Vlad admitted sadly. "He only want to talk to you."

Considering this, Timmy turned to the stiff lips and creased brows of his parents. If it were not for the fact that they wanted him to do something, then they would've likely left him in detention. So much for family emergency; he was just a means to an end.

Releasing a sigh, Timmy left to venture down the corridor that darkened the further he walked. Approaching the shadows behind the bedroom door left ajar.

"…hey, sport?"

"Yeah?" he looked to pink eyes wrought with worry.

"…don't take what Gary might do or say to heart."

What was Wanda talking about? "…what does that mean?"

Wanda couldn't find the right words to explain "…just don't, okay?"

"Fine…" he reluctantly complied, plagued with more questions than answers.

When he reached the door, he raised a fist to knock and stalled. Deafening silence behind the door shivered his nerves into an unsettling rattle. Intuitive dread hung in his stomach, raising even more questions. What was he so nervous about? Gary just wanted to talk, that's all.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ignoring his doubts, Timmy gave three knocks to the door before he gave the knob a gentle push, creaking the hinges as he entered the woodsy-themed room. Spotting the clenched ball of his cousin on the floor against the replica of a forest tree in one corner of the room.

"…Gary?" Timmy called out to the ball who did not respond. Stepping further into the room, the hinges creaked as he closed the door to where a slither of hall light seeped through. "…you okay?"

Fingernails clawed at jet-black hair, face buried behind tucked knees. Coiled like a stationary rock on the ground.

Timmy spotted the yellow retriever sitting on his hind legs near the foot of the twin bed, searching for answers within icy-blue eyes.

"…peque?" Alondro spoke softly, turning apprehensively from Timmy to his godson. "Timmy está aquí."

Gary still didn't move a finger, and Timmy started to wonder if Gary was sleeping or something. Kinda strange to sleep on the ground like that. "…you…wanted to talk to me, right?" he tried again, inching closer. "Well, I'm here. Let's talk."

Beats of his heart thumped between his ears, rattling through his veins. He blinked his eyes, confused whether he was crazy or if the glowing black around Gary's form was just a really dark shadow. Seconds dragged like minutes before the motionless rock moved, weighed to the floor as he gradually lifted his head from his knees. Met with unblinking blue darkened by ghostly shade.

"…G-Gary?" Timmy's stomach sank further in its troubled pit, unsure of what to think or what else to say. Those eyes looked so…lifeless.

Lifeless as the hoarse in his murmur. "…you killed Sophia…"

Timmy froze, stiff eyes widened.

"…you killed her…like I killed my mom…"

Rattled nerves shook in Timmy's voice. "…w-what're you talking about?"

Eerie eyes held their ghostly stare "…mom's dead…because of me…" his words sounded distant "…Sophia's dead…because of you…"

[That's not true, Gary!]Sophia inserted for her brother's sake.[Not true at all!]

"...it's true..." his eyes drifted emptily "…it's our fault they're dead…"

"Peque…" Alondro called cautiously, standing on all fours in tentative steps. "…do not speak like that."

Cosmo and Wanda quivered thinly with Timmy's arms, seeing the tension tightening his jaw. "No…" Timmy squeaked, shaking his head at the spiritual wounds tearing inside. "…Gary…"

"…they're dead…because of us…"

Timmy's head continued to shake, crushed beneath the weight of guilted shame "…stop it…"

"…they should be alive…not-"

"STOPit!" Timmy charged towards Gary, snatching him off the ground with both hands gripped to his collar. Shame glared in blue eyes, a glare that flipped the switch from distant to distraught in Gary's stare.

[Bubba, watchout!]

Screams rang out as Gary flailed his arms, and Timmy lost his grip when a swift fist smacked him square in the nose. He staggered back, the smell of iron trickling from his nostrils. Gary fell backwards to the ground, scooting away with sheer terror in his scowl.

"Gary,no!" Alondro ran to Gary's side, stopping as Gary began to claw at his hair.

Finding his footing, Timmy touched shaky finger to the warm liquid above his upper lip, seeing red on his fingertips. Heavy breaths flashed glaring eyes to the cousin that he never expected to hurt him. "What the heck iswrongwith you-"

"STOOOOOOOOOOP!" Gary screeched, eyes clamped shut. "PLEASE!"

"DUDE-!"

"Timmy, Gary's not in his right mind." He heard Wanda advise, flashing her a glare as well.

"Yeah, thanks for the warningafterthe fact!"

Feeling more accountable, Cosmo used his wand to heal Timmy’s nose. His lack of foresight bearing the brunt of the blame. “Don’t be too hard on her, Timmy…”

"…h-he's gonna punish me…"

Timmy and his fairies redirected towards the distress rocking Gary back and forth as he lowered his face into his forearms, squeezing his head as if shielding himself from an ominous threat.

"…d-don't punish me…" his whimpers muffled against his sleeves "…p-please…"

"Gary…" Alondro brought the softest paw to his godson's shoes turned inward. "He is not here."

"H-he is…" Gary didn't dare lift his head "…I…I-I made him mad again…"

"That is nothim, peque." Alondro stressed with a gentle tone. "He is too young to be him."

Timmy lowered a hand from his healed now, even less answers to even more questions "…who is 'him?'"

"Peque, look at me…" Alondro tried. Weak whines shook the fear in Gary's head. "…Timmy is not who you believe him to be."

"When issomebodygonna explain what's goingon!?" Timmy's frustration yelled out, and then footsteps pattered from down the hall. Followed by knocks on the door before an elderly man creaked the door hinges.

With their daughter and son-in-law behind them, Vlad and Gladys saw their eldest grandson curled into himself in the corner, shaking like a leaf with his yellow retriever sitting next to him.

"Gary?!" Gladys nearly bumped into Timmy as she hurried to her grandson, kneeling to him. "V chem delo!?"

Gary's terrified whimpers continued, fingers growing pale as they gritted strands of disheveled hair. Disturbed by her grandson in such distress, Gladys slit her brow over her shoulder towards Timmy.

"Whatdid youdo!?"

"Ididn't doanything!" Timmy defended, keeping Gary's sucker punch to himself since the physical evidence had been erased. "I was trying to talk to him and-"

"Timmy, we didnotpull you out of detention to make things worse!" Susanne groused, stepping towards the brunette boy curving his fingers to keep from ripping his own hair out.

"Are youlistening?! he shrieked. "He wasbasicallyalready like this when I wastoldtocomein here!"

"Well, youbasicallydidn't make things better,didyou!?" Daran retorted, huffing his chest beside his wife. Degradation growled in Timmy's throat.Theydelt him these crappy cards! The heck were they expecting him todo!?

Turning her attention away, Gladys's glare disappeared the moment she saw her precious grandson still trembling. "…Gary?" she tried again, resentment absent in her maternal tone. Hopeful that she was reaching him when his trembles faintly subsided "…posmotri na menya."

Gradually and dreadfully, her motherly voice drew glass eyes from their hiding place.

"…you know who I am?"

He continued to lift his head, frozen in a petrified stare as his voice could barely speak "…b-babushka?"

"Da, vnuk." Gladys gave a praising smile, carefully not to make sudden movements. Reaching to cup her gentle palm to Gary's cheek. Ghostly blue prickled with tears, and the pang in her heart waned her smile. She dreaded that look in his eyes…her grandson was fading into the past, tricking him into relieving sheer torture.

"…vnuk…" she sighed, fret in her brow "…we must take you to the hospital."

Just hearing the word caught a shaky breath in his throat, one tear dampening his grandmother's palm. 'Hospital' was code word for 'psych ward.' "…n-no…"

"We can't help you when you are like this, vnuk…" there was remorse in Gladys' words "…hospital can help-"

"NO!" Gary shouted, eyes swelled in furious terror. She yelped aghast, retracting her palm.

Timmy and his parents looked on as Gladys attempted to collect herself "…Gary, you must-"

"DON'T LOCK ME AWAY!PLEASE!"

"We don't lock you away!" Gladys affirmed, stress tightening her voice. "This is for your own good!"

"Clearly can't be that good if he doesn't wanna go…"

Gladys shot a glower to the bucktooth boy. "I did not ask for your lip!"

"Getmad all youwant!" Timmy barked with his whole chest "But you're dumb if you think sending Gary away to be someone else's problem is gonna help him!"

Embarrassed by his acting out, Susanna gripped two fingers to Timmy's right ear, making him grunt from the force of her yank. "You don't speak to your elders like that!"

"Whatever!" Timmy swatted her hand away. His level of irritated could care less about respect.

"…p-please…"

Everyone returned to the whispered plea, despair flowing freely from glassy eyes. Tight arms squeezed knees to his chest, visibly shaking. "…d-don't lock me away…I-I'll be a good boy…" his chin dropped, shutting his eyes "…please…d-don't punish me…"

Guilt gripped her heart, and Gladys turned to her husband dragging a stress palm down the defeated in his face.

"…we cannot take him like this…" Vlad sighed, his spirits heavy.

"Well what are we supposed to do!?" Gladys probed, seeing no other options.

"You can start bynotshipping him off!" Timmy inserted, prompting his father to flick punishment into the back of Timmy's head.

Reaching her boiling point with him, Gladys faced away from her shivering grandson. Igniting the fire in her creased brow as she stood to her feet. "…you…" her low growl did not seem to intimidate him, his own feet planted firmly in his stance "…how fitting that you have his face, because you arejustas disrespectful ashim!"

She stormed past, purposefully bumping him as her husband stared at Timmy debating in his mind if her insult was supposed to be some kind of personal attack. Silent for a moment, Timmy glanced over at the yellow retriever positioned himself to kneel against Gary's tremoring legs, doing his best to provide comfort. He'd have more empathy if he wasn't so ticked off, and he'd probably be less ticked off if someone would just please answer his freaking question!

"…can someone bother to tell me whohimis?"

He faced his mother who hugged herself, frowning her features. Her hardened shell cracked in a rare vulnerability that was hardly shown to her own son. As her husband, Daran rubbed the small of her back, and when Susanne met Timmy's stern expression, her tone harbored the same darkness in her elm eyes.

"Marsden Vladislapov…my twin brother."

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

White sheets blanketed suburban yards, glittering beneath the rays of light peeking through wintertime cloud. School buses safely drove through cleared black roads with remanence of white ice, dropping off students closer to their respective homes while other students trekked through mounds of snow plowed with just enough room to travel along the sidewalks.

The roof of a one-story home once shingled in Arabian green was now coated in glimmering white snow. With the garage on the right of the house, the burgundy chimney bricked the left side of the concrete painted in a feathery opal, beige curtains visible through the windows panes framed on either side of the white sunburst front door.

Returning from freshening up in the bathroom, the young boy entered the room of beige carpet and cream walls plastered withTerry Totterposters, a large Gryffinsnore banner taped over the twin bed of gold pillows and a scarlet duvet. A roaring lion centered the Gryffinsnore crest, displayed proudly as a poster on the burgundy accent wall. A cedarwood drawer stood next to the similar wooden study desk, bottles of Clobazam, Carbamazepine, and Valproate organized along one side with a scarlet and gold checkered desk lamp on the other.

Backpack left on his bed, Dwight zipped it open and took out his emergency Ativan before he tucked into the coat pocket of his sherpa lined trucker. The last day of school was done, and two weeks of Christmas Break had officially begun. As usual, both fathers would be working late again, and Dwight had already received permission to spend carved out quality time with the other half of his existence.

"Ready to go?" Dwight met the dark-teal eyes of his owl with a crown over his head, perched in his gold metal bird cage resting atop the cedarwood nightstand.

"You sure you don't wanna take a little nap first?" the dark-teal owl worried, considering they'd just gotten off the school bus twenty minutes ago. "It's been a pretty long day."

"But I haven't seen the Bakers in ages!" Dwight had looked forward to seeing the family he didn't often get to see. "They're expecting me!"

"I think they can wait, bud." Irving politely pointed out. "Besides, you know what happens when you don't let yourself rest."

Dwight pouted. "But I don't wanna be by myself…"

Irving sighed sympathetically. His fathers worked long shifts, Molly and Hazel were busied with their personal troubles, and Gary's grandparents made him start Christmas Break early for his mental health. The school week consisted of facing bullies and walking the school halls alone, coming home to an empty home only seeing his fathers' when they wished him goodnight.

Understanding Dwight's plight, Irving's lips then curved reassuringly to his godchild. "But cha still got me! You always got me."

"…I know…" Dwight returned his own grin "…but I'm not tired! I feel fine!"

Irving studied this grin "…you're absolutely certain."

"Uh-huh!"

Dwight had a terrible poker face, so Irving knew the kid was telling the truth. "Alright, buddy. We can go."

"Sweet!" Dwight whooped. "I wish we were at the Bakers'!"

Waving his wand, Irving transported them from Dwight's bedroom to the front porch of a two-story home, the first floor sided with red brick and the second in white fiber-cement. Just as other houses, snow coated the grey-shingled roof, the front porch protected by the half-gabled roof connected to the side garage.

Approaching the welcome mat, Dwight knocked on the dark-wood door adorned with a red berry and frosted pine wreath, bringing arms around himself when his body shivered subtly from the sudden drop in temperature. He luckily only had to wait a few seconds before he heard the bolt unlock and the knob twist. Besides the blast of indoor heating, the first thing to greet him behind the opened door was a red boil blemished on the heavy-set boy's right cheek.

Standing two inches shorter, his alfalfa hair was a shade of ginger not far from Dwight's auburn, and the same freckles spotted along his cheeks. Poor vision sported thick black rims, and his black bowtie dressed up the olive-brown sweater vest over his white shirt and navy slacks.

"Hey, big brother." Elmer nasally greeted, wiping his nose with his forearm.

When Elmer stepped aside, Dwight entered into the warm color palette of beige walls, auburn furniture with orangey accents, and dark woods flooring and end tables. Lights draped around the decorated Christmas tree glowed softly as the centerpiece of the living room. "How's it going?"

"Glad it's finally Christmas Break." Elmer shrugged, closing the door so no more heat escaped. He soon noticed the lack of snowflakes on Dwight's person. "…did you walk here?"

Dwight paused. Of course, even if he had tried to make the ten-mile journey on foot, one would think his coat and the soles of his shoes would have traces of a snowy venture. "…or jogged lightly."

"Dwight?" a feminine voice called from inside the kitchen. "Is that you?!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Dwight walked further towards the kitchen with Elmer following behind, seeing a woman with rounded lavender frames around olive eyes inserting two trays of molded cookie dough into the pre-heated oven. Her ivory skin bore freckles along her cheeks with one cheek blemished with a boil like her son, though her straight and silky bob was the same shade of auburn as Dwight's. Her hour-glass figure sported a yellow turtleneck sweater and lavender jeans, and white sneakers footed her feet.

Shutting the oven door and starting the timer, Dee Baker turned towards the boys, red lipstick curled in a merry smile. She approached Dwight and welcomed him with the tightest hug. "How are you, honey?"

"Good." Dwight grinned, hugging the woman who brought him into the world eleven years ago.

Dee Baker and Chisholm Schlatter, his father, had a cousinly bond that always felt more like brother and sister. When Chisholm and his husband DeWitt decided that they were ready for a child, their first choice was surrogacy because of their desire for a biological connection. At the time, Dee and her newlywedded husband had been in the process of planning their own family, but when she'd been asked of her dear cousin for this life-altering favor, she was honored to be the carrier of DeWitt's child.

Dee gave birth to Dwight five weeks before his due date, and regardless of the monetary gain, giving her cousin and his husband the gift of their first child was the biggest payoff. In return, DeWitt and Chisholm wanted Dwight to always know where he came from. They'd asked if she would like to be a part of Dwight's life, and of course, she was on board. However, she did not wish for Dwight to address her as his mother. DeWitt and Chisholm were his parents. Besides, she and her husband would become parents with Elmer over a year later.

Dee gave Dwight some loving pats before letting him go. "I just put the cookies in the oven, but would you like anything right now?"

"No, thank you." Dwight courteously declined.

"We're gonna hang out in my room." Elmer announced to his mother.

"Alright, dear." Dee went over to give her son a light smooch on his non-boiled cheek. "I'll call for you when the cookies are ready."

"Okay."

Exiting the kitchen, Dwight followed behind Elmer to the staircase in the hallway. "Your dad home yet?"

"Still at work." Elmer replied over his shoulder, stepping onto the landing. "He'll be home later."

Taking off his coat, Dwight stood by the first door to the left as Elmer twisted the knob, revealing umber wooden flooring and yellow painted walls with black curtains. Black cotton quilted yellow sheets and pillowcases, and a tapestry of a badger within the yellow and black Hufflesnuff crest hung above the headboard.

"Sanjay coming over?"

"He was going to," Elmer went to the black beanbag chair propped against the bedframe with Dwight doing the same. "but he'd called earlier because his stepdad forced him into more military drills."

"In the snow? Wow..." Dwight set his coat on the floor near his beanbag, ensuring the Ativan didn't accidently slip out. "Does his stepdad know Sanjay's not a solider like Safan?"

Elmer shrugged again. "He's compared a lot to his stepbrother, so I doubt it."

Leaning his head back, Dwight closed his eyes. Exhaling a breath that expelled more energy than expected. The coziness of heat blanketing the room settled the sudden onset of weariness deep into his bones. Either he was really comfortable, or he was more worn than he thought.

"I'd also call and ask if Chloe wanted to come over, but she's still grounded."

Hearing Chloe's name, Dwight blinked his eyes open, tilting his head towards Elmer next to him. "…Chloe?"

"Yeah, a girl who goes to my school." Elmer explained, reaching up for the tv remote that was already atop his duvet. "Sanjay and I became friends with her when we found out she was also into Terry Totter."

…was this the same Chloe he'd met at the library that one time? He never forgot her, yet he hadn't seen her since. "Why is she grounded?"

"She skipped school."

As Elmer used the remote to sort through whatever late afternoon cabled television had to offer, Dwight drifted into thought. From what he remembered, nothing about her screamed 'troublemaker.'

"She's…sort of been acting different, hanging around the kids she skipped school with." Elmer wasn't as quick to somberly reveal. "She barely talks to me or Sanjay much ever since she started that medication…"

"Medication? For what?"

"For her anxiety."

Intrigued by this newfound information, Dwight shot down a glance to the dark-teal chain dangling from his jeans. Trying to gage Irving's cool expression on whether he was already privy to this.

Pausing on the network airing theCrash Nebulacartoon, Elmer shot his half-brother a suspecting brow. "Hey, do you know her or something?"

Dwight stared back "…why?"

"You ask a lotta questions."

"…I can't ask questions?"

"People don't usually ask about people they don't know."

…that logic may or may not be true, but touché.

Sitting up in his beanbag, Dwight straightened his glasses. "I um…met her in the library a while back. Shedidseem a bit antsy at first, but I assumed she was just a little shy…"

The diffidence in those orbs of ocean blue appeared in his mind, his lids falling in remorse.

"…we were talking and then…I-I felt a seizure come on so fast that I didn't have time to move. And when she suddenly had to leave and ran away, I…was worried that I freaked her out."

"Seizures aren't the greatest first impressions." Elmer's attempt at a lighthearted joke only hunched Dwight's shoulder more.

Since the seizures started four years ago, he had no way of knowing if Chloe was truly frightened by what was considered normal to him. Regardless, he saw insecurity downcast in Dwight's eyes. He'd honestly be insecure too if strangers stared at you like an alien over something he had almost no control over.

Wigh a soft sigh, Elmer turned to Crash Nebula flying through the galaxy on the screen before contemplative eyes looked back at Dwight. "…I-I think I know how to get to her house…you…wanna go try ta say hi?"

Purple eyes perked up "…you'd really do that for me?"

Elmer shrugged once more. "Worth a shot. But we should go after mom finishes the cookies. She wouldn't like us leaving without having at least one."

"Right." Dwight found his energy regenerating at the possibility of seeing Chloe again. Then he realized that Mrs. Baker never mentioned what type of cookies she was baking "…what flavors?"

"White macadamia for me, and chocolate chip for you."

"Really? She didn't have to go out of her way just for me."

"It's not just for you." Elmer relaxed in his beanbag, facing the tv. Assuming Dwight had no preference, he opted for this channel since nothing else piqued his interest. "You're both allergic to macadamia."

Polished in a pearly white, A Rolls Royce limousine rolled towards the iron gate and walls of aqua stone, 'Welcome to Dimmsdale Acres' carved in the same aqua stone on a small hill of lushes green. The limousine stalled, awaiting permitted entry from the community security before the gates parted, and the limousine continued along, passing the community tennis court, the Swimmadome Swimming pool, and the eighteen holes of the community golf course.

Continuing down the maze of road, it was a surprise that the limousine knew which streets to turn on. Red gabled roofs covered in evening snow topped every concrete exterior coated with the same rosy lavender polish, all lilac-stained windows of the first and second floors had white panel shutters, and all the houses were landscaped in snowy evergreen hedges and lawns trimmed to perfection.

Within one of the copy-paste houses was a family of five, freshening up for the annual Christmas dinner hosted at the Fancy Schmancy Country Club. Short blonde hair neatly combed over to one side to match the classic chic of his black Versace tux and black leather Pradas, the head of the household tapped his impatient foot. He stared at his ticking watch close to the white door of the grand foyer. Why was he the only Wells dressed and ready to go!?

Entering into the foyer from a side hallway, a man's protruding nose and receding gray hairline approached. Sporting his signature black tux and Dean Oxfords with black bowtie. Ivory skin wrinkled in middle age with brown eyes spotted his newest employer, seeing the groan through flared nostrils.

"Is everything alright, sir?" the house nanny inquired formally, keeping his distance from the agitated man.

"Tell Angela that the limo will be here any second." Marcus Wells' stern blue eyes instructed. "We don't have all day."

"Certainly."

The nanny calmly turned as Marcus continued to tap his foot. He walked up the cream-marble steps, reaching the landing where he made a sharp left towards the hallway bath.

Black hair flat-ironed in the opposite texture of her natural coil, Hazel scrunched with each pat of Angela's cosmetic sponge caked in foundation. Restraining herself from sneezing out the powdery particles dusting into her nose. An old white towel protected the black ribbed knit fabric of her long-sleeve sweater paired with a burgundy and grey plaid pleated skirt over black stockings and burgundy ankle-high boots, bright-red metal ringed on her index finger.

Dipping the sponge into the foundation three shades lighter than the darker complexion of her youngest daughter, Angela continued to dab the sponge across Hazel's cheeks and along her forehead for another coat. Wearing her Balenciaga turtleneck maxi godet of knitted burgundy polyester imported directly from Italy, paired with Balenciaga booties and clipped earrings of the Balenciaga logo visible from her blonde hair styled in a sleek bun.

Despite the tension of the previous incident involving another club member, the Buxaplentys had deemed it a complete misunderstanding. They were gracious enough to give the Wells a second chance, and Marcus will be damned if Hazel screwed things up for them again. So, Angela went through great lengths to ensure that Hazel would appear more 'appealing' to the other club members...

…her definition of appealing being very much skewed.

Angela was almost satisfied with the eraser of darkened skin beneath pounds of lighter foundation, pausing to mentally critique if she'd done enough. Gentle knocks came from the doorframe of the bathroom, causing Hazel and her to turn in the direction the nanny leaning casually against the door.

"Let me guess; Marcus wants me to hurry up." Angela huffed, returning the cosmetic sponge to its container. Sorting rushed hands through her makeup supplies lined along the silver granite countertops. "…am I right, Fenwick?"

Fenwick Nicholas smirked with one corner of his mouth, hands in his pockets. "That is correct."

"Mom!?" a pubescent voice squeaked from down the hall before the eldest Wells appeared in the doorway beside the nanny. Dressed in a matching black Versace tux and black Pradas like his father, Anthony combed the spikes in his blonde hair. "Have you seen my Rolex?"

Anthony didn't pay any mind, but Hazel noticed their new nanny's observant eyes on him.

"I have not…" Taking the second to glance at her son, Angela shook her head in disgruntled huff. "Your hair is so unruly…"

"…it looks cool though." Anthony shrugged, seeing nothing wrong with his hair. Neither did Fenwick.

"It's immodest and low class." Angela retorted, clipping the black barrette carefully as to not frizzle any of Hazel's straightened hair. "Go fix it."

Instead of doing as told, Anthony shifted to the tight lips of his baby sister with a taunting smirk.

"You know packing makeup on her face doesn't change how black she is, right?"

Another blow to her esteem puckered Hazel's brow, wearing patience pointing Angela's firm index towards the wall in assertion of her authority. "Fix your hairnow, Anthony!"

Rolling his eyes in compliance, Anthony let out a grunt as he left, Fenwick continuing to observe him storm down the hall to his room. Getting a good idea of what a certain, young Buxaplenty could potentially look like in two years. Ignorant to Hazel's suspecting stare.

"Such a sweet boy." Fenwick remarked sarcastically, making Angela snort as she rushed to reorganize her supplies in their makeup bag.

"He certainly was at Hazel's age, even Hillary's age." her makeup bag zipped in one swift swipe. "But then he turned thirteen, and it all went downhill."

As Fenwick shortly chuckled, Angela faced her obedient daughter as Hazel quickly looked away from Fenwick. Angela smiled in satisfaction of her work when she removed the dirtied towel off of Hazel's sweater. "All finished!"

Hazel turned to the reflection in the mirror, tucking the itchy patch of compressed hair away from her neck. Brow puckered at the tawny shade of powered skin masquerading the true complexion of her face and hands.

Those glum, brown eyes led Angela to touch Hazel's shoulder, gently facing Hazel towards her. Curling pearly whites with hands over her knees. "Honey, this is the only way your father would let you come with us." she spoke with such soft conviction, her smile diminishing the crafty intent seeping through. "Unless you'd much rather stay home with Fenwick."

Hazel forced her bottom lip from jutting in front of her mother. She wanted to see Remy again, but at what cost?

"I would join you if I was allowed within a ten-mile radius of the property." Fenwick half joked, Hazel watching him shift away from the doorframe.

"Why is that Fenwick?" Angela probed. From his application and the conducted interview, it was hard to believe that the Buxaplentys would go to such extremes over such a reliable, respectable man.

"Because of the disagreement between us that went awry, I'm legally banned." he vaguely summarized, masking inner aversion with a cheeky grin.

He had elaborated further during his job interview on his falling out with the Buxaplentys, only because his chances of getting the job diminished if he'd lied about termination from previous employment. In Fenwick fashion, certain details were left out…

Like grooming an innocent child since birth…

…nah, they don't need ta know that. Especially if no 'documented proof' was publicized.

"I do understand that their reputation is extremely important to them." Angela commented. "They like to keep disagreements or negative exchanges out of the public eye. Or so I've heard."

"That I understand as well." Fenwick would have to agree. To an extent.

Wearing black wool sleeves beneath her burgundy Balenciaga midi dress with ruffled collar and a bowknot tulle, Hillary's burgundy Balenciaga boots reached the knees of her black stockings as she traveled down the hall. Her chin held high as she tucked a strand of her wispy blonde bun behind her ear sparkling with princess cut diamonds. When she noticed her mother and little sister's fast pace leaving past the nanny out of the hallway bath, Hillary took faster steps to catchup to her mother. Walking on the opposite side of Hazel.

"If her hair is flat ironed, why is it still so thick?"

Another gunshot penetrating her self-esteem.

Subconsciously, Hazel combed insecure fingers through her straightened ends. Hillary's hair was straight, silky, shiny, and flattering; she'd never understand what manipulating curly, coarse, dull hair into an unnatural texture felt like.

"Hillary, just go grab your coat." Angela diffused, no patience for uncalled for jabs.

Giggling, Hillary ran down the remaining steps to the Cashmere coat draped over Anthony's arm. Spikey hair brushed into grown out layers past his cheeks, Anthony handed Hillary her coat next to Marcus still standing by the front door.

"Took you long enough!" Marcus groused as Fenwick took Angela and Hazel's coats from the standing coatrack, watching as he handed them to the two members without winter coats. "The limo's been waiting for the last five minutes!"

"Onlyfive minutes?" Angela remained leveled, assisting Hazel with her jacket before putting on her own. "You act like we're running late."

"Don't you know by now, mom?" Anthony inserted his sarcasm, tightening the strap of his Rolex. "You're on time if you're early. You're late if you're on time."

"Don't you start." Marcus warned his eldest. Sensing his father's irritation, Anthony lowered his head as Hillary hid her entertained snicker behind a hand.

Pearl white glittered like the snow with the Rolls Royce limousine parked in front of the Well's front yard. Stationed beneath the streetlamp automatically lit due to the dimming natural light of the setting sun. The limo driver stepped out of the driver's seat, walking across the front bumper towards the very back where he would hold the door for his passengers.

Marcus walked in front with Anthony and Hillary starting their infamous poking war behind him, keeping their juvenile antics to a minimum to not further agitate their father. Holding Angela's hand, Hazel looked back to Fenwick standing in the front door, waving them goodbye. His eyes seemed trustful, and his grin looked friendly…

Why did her gut simmer with the imminent dread?

Hazel and her mother were the last to enter the limo before the driver shut the door and returned to the steering wheel. Hillary and Anthony continued their poking war, sneaking pokes as they sat between their mother and father.

Closer to the passenger door, Hazel retreated into herself. One hand scrunched the itchy barrette that she would never wear, tugging at hair that didn't feel like her own. Furrowing her side-eye at fingers that didn't look like hers. This was nothing like her, but it had to be if she didn't want to be excluded…

"…Kakao."

The tenderness of a motherly voice whispered to her from the finger closest to her ear, lowering her hand to the ring of bright-red metal. Somber brown met the generosity so genuine in the bright-red orbs and the curl of plumper lips. Rounder nose and plumper lips that resembled hers more than her mother's slender and thin ever could.

"…wewe ni mrembo." she saw love in Nyekundu's grin. "Hata iweje…"

You are beautiful, no matter what.This had been Nyekundu's affirmation to Hazel since the first day of becoming her fairy godmother. She would speak life into those words in Hazel's time of need, when she could sense her goddaughter's spirit at its lowest.

Hazel wanted to believe those words. For now, all she could do was offer the smallest grin in return.

Streetlamps reflected gold into the black of snow-lit eve, few cars still crawling home on icy roads. Clark ran thwarted hands through his blond locks, taking off his ranger hat in a groused sigh. Propping elbows on bent knees as he sat on the couch, a floor lamp the lone lighting source. Connie should be home any minute, and he was not looking forward to budding heads with her again. Anticipating her grave disappointment at the four As and three Bs that Chloe had brought home on her final report card for the fall semester.

Not to mention Connie's aggravation lingering like a dark cloud over Chloe's head. The daughter that ruinedherbody for nine months? The daughtersheraised? Skipping school doing God knows what?! Has she gonemental?! And what the heck was he thinking grounding her for onemonth!? Chloe deserved half ayearfor her egregious crime!

Rebelling against the rules should not go without consequence; that, Clark agreed with his wife. However, in working through his own personal change of heart, he'd managed to negotiate Connie down to one month of going nowhere but school and back. She was not allowed to interact with friends outside of school, and she must spend her time either studying and completing homework in her room or cleaning the house top to bottom.

…Connie did not take this lying down.

The month of grounding ran into two weeks off from school. A two-week vacation wasnotpunishment! Connie argued that another month be tacked on, but Clark remained persistent. Two weeks of no television or reading outside of your face buried in a textbook, piled with the burden of keeping theentirehouse neat and tidy, stored away in her room of self-isolation?

Not to compare being grounded to prison, but it sounded pretty close.

Still, Connie's dissatisfaction was going to reach all new levels once she sees this report card. He just knew it.

Bells chimed through the walls, jerking Clark out from the rabbit hole of his mind. Not expecting any visitors, Clark heaved himself off the couch and dragged his feet across the wooden floor. Flipping the light switch to the ceiling light before he peered through the peep hole to two gingers with glasses standing on the front porch. His brow scrunched in curiosity as he unfastened the bolt and knob locks, twisting the handle to the boys doing their best to restrain their tremors from temperatures below freezing despite wearing heavy coats.

"…I've seenyoubefore." Clark gestured to the shorter boy with the boil that he should consider getting checked out, before he then pointed to the taller boy beside him. "…but who areyou?"

"…I-I'm Dwight, Elmer's brother." Dwight stammered awkwardly, protecting his hand from the cold in his pockets.

"…a-and I'm Elmer." Elmer formally introduced himself since he technically hadn't before now "…w-we were wondering if…we could s-say hi to Chloe?"

"Hmm…" Clark folded his arms firmly, glancing briefly past the boys for any sight of car lights in the distance. "Sorry, but Chloe's not allowed to see or speak with friends outside of school at this time."

Dwight felt the blowing crush of his hopes, tightening his chest in an invisible hug. Chloe must be in serious trouble "…e-even to just say hello?"

"Yes."

"…oh…t-that's too bad." Elmer sunk. Sucks that they came all the way out here just to get rejected. "Well…s-sorry for disturbing you."

"It's alright." Clark excused, exhaling his remorse. "I can at least let her know that you stopped by…"

Déjà vu crashed like a dizzying wave. Dwight stumbled back, swaying on his feet.

"…hey, are you alright?" Clark reached out, steadying Dwight's stance. Bricks filled his head, pricking feathered tingles from the soles of his feet through the tips of his fingers.

…this was not good.

Elmer pressed a palm behind his half-brother's back, watching as Dwight struggled to keep his eyes focused. Motion blurred across Dwight's field of view, feeling time quicken while simultaneously slow down.

"…I need ta sit down…" his words slurred past lips numbed not just from the cold.

"What's going on?!" Clark's alarm asked Elmer, and Elmer used both hands to support Dwight from falling down in the snow.

"…he's having a seizure."

Now worried for this boy, Clark instructed Elmer to bring Dwight inside to the couch. It was like dragging a zombie's lack of motor function as Elmer coached Dwight to keep moving his feet, careful in laying him down on the cushion as Dwight switched between closing his eyes and staring at the ceiling. Elmer removed Dwight's glasses and maneuvered his body onto his side for his own safety. The dark-teal pants chain grunted a winded breath when his face smushed against the cushion.

"…how can I help?" Clark had never witnessed a seizure, yet his inner fire for rescue burned. "I mean, should I call 9-1-1?!"

"No, this happens a lot." Elmer rolled up both of Dwight's sleeves, revealing the medical alert bracelet on his wrist. Dwight grew frozen in a blank stare. "I-I'm hoping it passes quickly…"

Doesn't exactly silence the alarm. "…should I time it?" Clark offered, hoping to make himself useful.

"…please?" Elmer accepted the help, and Clark watched the hands of his wristwatch, mentally counting the seconds as the left corner of Dwight's mouth started to twitch.

"You're gonna be okay..." Elmer consoled, seeing Dwight's left eye squint in fast breaths. The muscles pulled in his face, and his entire left side stiffened like a trembling board.

Having heard other voices enter the house that wasn't her mothers, Chloe poked out from her bedroom door. Staring down the hall and down the steps leading to the lower level, a clear view of Elmer comforting someone struggling to breath in their spasmic jerks. At first, she wondered why Elmer was at her house. Then she recognized the boy on the couch…and her heart twitched against her chest.

Her feet moved on their own, trudging anxiously to the stair landing. Eyes widened as the stiffness crawled across to the right of Dwight's body. His left arm straightened flat as his right bent towards his chest. Both legs hardened, twisting his feet at odd angles. Blinking rapidly in salivary froths of breath that gurgled in his throat. His entire body jerked in electric jolts, and no matter how many times Elmer called Dwight's name, he failed to respond.

"Going on three minutes…" Clark furrowed. This seizure did not appear to ebb, and his insides started to panic.

At some point, Dwight had ceased all breathing. Turning the skin in his face a worrying red, rolling eyes into his head as his shakes grew more aggressive.

"Dwight!" Elmer was starting to panic as well. "Dwight, come back!"

Dwight wasn't coming around. Growing desperate to stop his suffering, Elmer struggled to keep Dwight on his side while pickpocketing for the emergency Ativan that had to be on him somewhere. Clark noticed this and ran over to assist, preventing Dwight from choking on the gurgling saliva as Elmer eventually found the Ativan in the coat pocket. Twisting the tube to break the seal of the prefilled Carpuject, shaky fingers tried to twist the automizer securely on the vial.

Clark frowned as strained lungs could barely catch a grunting breath, flashing eyes contorting into pain across his reddened face. All Clark could do was give the gurgling saliva an exit point through a slacked jaw, doing what he could to keep Dwight on his side as Elmer took a few panicked tries to aim for Dwight's nose. Finally getting a good grip, Elmer pushed his thumb on the plunger and injected the mist.

Spasms ebbed into mild jerks in just seconds, slowly laxing stiff limbs before they fell limp. Rapid blinks ceased into a blank stare, burbled breaths returning his skin to its normal tone as froth bubbled in dripping strings from his mouth.

Elmer huffed in heavy breaths, securing automizer to the Ativan trembling wildly in his hands. Clark's legs dropped him to sit on the floor, and his heart ached for this young lad…

Sharp, high-pitched breaths caught Clark's ear, and when he shot a glance towards the staircase, those same high-pitched breaths quickened. Chloe's quivering legs struggled to support her weight, crumpling to her knees. Tears brimmed her eyes, clutching the knot in her chest, and sure enough, she began to hyperventilate.

More and more, Clark started to see the damage of Connie's 'tough love.' The Lexapro should've reduced the effects of anxiety, yet his daughter was suffering her first major panic attack in weeks.

Entering the country club, Hazel and her family are welcomed by Orville and Diana Buxaplenty. Thanking them for coming with bright smiles given to all their members that evening. Marcus and Angela played along, showing their appreciation with flattering compliments of the winter decorations lighting the entire building in the Christmas spirit, including the grand foyer.

Still holding Angela's hand, Hazel noticed Anthony and Hillary break away from their parents. Approaching the kids in non-name brand clothes huddled in their own group by the central staircase. An Asian American girl with pretty eyes, two blue-eyed blondes with looking like the little sister of the other dressed like a pink and white Barbie. And two boys wearing the same outfit, one with straight blonde hair, and the other…with an afro-textured high top.

She saw no other black kid like her the last time she was here…had he ever been treated differently? Seeing the way those kids laughed and spoke cordially to him said otherwise. He wasn't as dark as her natural skin tone, but she knew he wouldn't pass the paper bag test, either. What did he do to be accepted by his peers, if he had to do anything at all?

"Kakao." her bright-red ring called to her. "Look under the stairs."

Hazel darted eyes towards that general direction, seeing nothing in the archway beneath the stairs until the tip of a purple tail swayed into view. She looked at her mother still conversing with the Buxaplentys before she tugged her arm.

"Yes?" Angela acknowledged her child, ignoring Marcus' disapproving sneer.

"May I go look for Remy?"

"That boy's around here somewhere…" Diana grumbled.

"Sure, honey." Angela permitted, before Marcus shot her a warning glance.

"Don't cause any more trouble, you hear?"

Hazel furrowed, drooping her chin under the strict authority of her father's grimace "…yes, sir." she squeaked, scurrying away when Angela released her hand.

Throwing her courteous mask back on, Diana smiled to Angela as she encouraged her to come with her, Orville doing the same to Marcus. Bringing them towards the other affluent adults mingling in the dining hall. Anthony and Hillary introduced themselves to the popular kids of Dimmsdale, more than flattered by the shower of compliments for their outfits.

"How long do you plan on hiding here?" the purple ferret questioned, his front paws resting across his godchild's lap.

"Until I no longer have an obligation to be here…" the young billionaire grumbled, arms crossed against the chest of his blazer. Seated on a bench of the finest leather built into the wall beneath the stairs, calmed by the dimmed light surrounding him.

"…Remy?"

Mint-green turned sharply to the peer of bashful brown behind the archway, watching her then scoot further into view. Fingers fidgeted with the bright-red metal around her index, etching a smile towards him. "…Hi."

Remy wasn't trying to stare, but his puzzlement couldn't help it. Her voicesoundedlike her, but the lighter skin and straighter hair…didn't look like her. "…why do you look like that?"

Hazel wilted the smile that was already difficult to give. She had to tell herself that Remy was just curious, not casting judgement. "…i-it was the only way my dad would let me come back…"

"Hmph…"

Remy lowered a finger, softly scratching under the ferret's chin. Noting the watchful concern of his godfather on the girl who stood in one spot, hands clutched to her chest. Remy soon too studied the reserve in her gaze downcast. No gleaming grin? No giggles of glee?

"…are you alright?"

"Huh?" Hazel must've zoned out a bit, not expecting Remy's question. "Oh, um…" eyes blinking back and forth soon faltered, convincing herself of a false truth "…yes."

Remy continued to study her "…you don't look alright."

"…and neither do you." Hazel was hesitant to point out how Remy was isolated from the only other kids here. "I-I mean…why're you under the stairs?"

"Hmph…" he his brow flattened much like his tone "…I'd rather not be here at all. But we're supposed to take this stupid picture later."

"…Picture?"

"Yes. For a Christmas article in the Dimmsdale Newspaper." Remy elaborated. "They do this every year around the holidays, and since you and your family are the newest additions to the most affluent families in town, guess you'll be in the picture as well."

Insecurity frowned, wrinkling subtle creases into her foundation. Was this picture another reason her mother coerced her into this altered appearance?

Hazel shook her head. She shouldn't think about that right now. It took mustered will just to keep her spirits above water. "…may I ask you something?"

"Sure." Remy dully replied. No anticipation of what Hazel would ask next…

"…why did Fenwick have a disagreement with your parents?"

Both mint-green and blue-violets froze, ice numbing their blood.

"…I'm sorry?" Remy croaked. Did he hear her right?!

"Fenwick started as our nanny today, and he had said that he wasn't allowed here because of a disagreement with your parents. I didn't know if that was true, so I figured I'd ask you."

Juandissimo glanced towards Remy's pressed lips as his fingers curled rigidly. Sensing his struggle to shove down his chilled nerves.

"…it is true." Remy's throat tightened. "…but may I ask you something?"

His narrowed eyes made her cower, suspecting that the simmering dread in her gut held some truth "…yes?"

"…has…he acted weird around you?"

"…weird how?"

His jaw gritted, tensing his shoulders "…does he touch you?"

"…no?" Considering today was Fenwick's first official day, Hazel didn't have much to go on "…he stares at Anthony a lot…" she thought to mention. "…Anthony doesn't seem to notice much but…that's all I've seen so far."

Remy hitched a breath. That creep regrets nothing…

"…why?"

Slitting his brow, Remy forced himself to meet her eye contact "…just…keep your guard up around him. Okay?"

Hazel still didn't understand. Observing Remy's demeanor…her gut told her she didn't need to. That, and she trusted a fellow godchild's judgement enough to heed his advice "…okay."

Nausea roiled in his stomach, and he swallowed back bile. Remy sped away past Hazel out into the foyer in the opposite direction of the popular kids, and Hazel grew concerned when she saw the purple ferret jump off the leather bench to chase after him.

Remy got some distance before Juandissimo caught up, standing in his path.

"I know it is difficult, but do you not think that Hazel should know the truth?"

"Whatfor? My ownparentsdidn't care enough to end that creep's career!" Remy griped, ice gradually melting into fire through his veins. "Now it'smyword againsthis!"

"That does not change the fact that Fenwick is a dangerous man-"

"Fenwick fancies little boys! Trust me,Iwould know! As long as he stays away from Hazel like he's apparently been doing, I could care less what he does to her brother because, frankly,that'snot myproblem."

Juandissimo narrowed his eyes "…ahijado, this is not you-"

"How can you evensaythat when I didn't even know you'remarrieduntil someoneelsepointed it out!?"

Surprise flashed across Juandissimo's face.

"Allthe other kids know things about their godparents, like how long Cosmo and Wanda have been married and how they met! But outside of your name and where you come from, you're like this closed book that difficult toreadsometimes!"

Studying Remy's aggravation, Juandissimo then squinted subtly. He recognized where this outburst truly stemmed from, keeping his tone calm "…you are deflecting."

"And what if I am!?"

"…Remy, it is okay not to be okay-"

"You keepsayingthat, but it just feels like I'mdyinginside!"

Blue-violets gawked, voice caught in his throat. Stunned by the dark revelation he always feared would come to light.

Remy grimaced, sensing how much his words hurt his godfather. Burying these feelings for quite some time, they'd stopped hurting for him long ago. Perhaps that was what hurt his godfather most. Doing everything in his power to save him…not realizing that his soul was already dying. Starting from the moment his parents proved their disdain by letting his life-long predator off scotch free.

"…maybe… a part of me deep down…didwant to walk off the edge when in that secret passage…"

Though Remy's voice softened, the pain in his words did not.

"…and part of me almost wishes…that you hadn't stopped me."

The ferret's pained stare gradually began to gloss, and anguish tore the young billionaire away in aimless steps down the hall.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Clouds cloaked the night sky in a wintery moss. A layer of white covered the front hood of the red pickup parked in the driveway. The owners of the two-story home were off galivanting in whatever the Dimmsdale nightlife had to offer, having left the responsibility of their remaining offspring to that of the teenage babysitter and her baby sister.

Less than amused, the redhaired teen used the remote to flip through the channels of cabled television. Slouched on the Turners’ couch with feet propped lazily on the coffee table. Beside her was her raven-haired sister sketching away in her notebook, drawing hand cuffed with her teal bracelet. The black ink of her pen outlined a heart shape around the two cartooned figures, a boy with a baseball cap and buckteeth holding the hand of a geeky girl with pigtails and glasses. With her notebook propped across the lap of bent knees, she hoped the sketch would remain hidden from her older sister, fearing that she would disapprove.

In joining Vicky whenever she was called to babysit, Tootie came to realize Vicky’s sour distaste for Timmy. Even for less-reoccurring requests, Vicky was not nearly as ruthlessly calculated to those kids as she was with him. Tootie didn’t understand why yet never dared question it. The adverse effect of an overtly religious upbringing had taught her that questioning someone of authority was unheard of unless you dare suffer the consequences.

Unlike her sister, Tootie did not see how Timmy deserved maltreatment. Sure, he was mean at times, but he wasn’t always that way when his sister was alive. Tootie understood his past behavior towards her; she had falsely promised that Sophia’s soul would be spared from the grip of death, and his guilt grieved her loss. But that wasn’t Timmy…not the real Timmy.

Timmy had started on a new foot with her, and so far, he’d kept his word. Even when she could tell that he was in a bad mood, he was nice to her. He’d compliment her artwork (the less ‘graphic’ pictures that she was willing to display,) and if they weren’t with Remy and Chloe, he always sought to sit with her at lunch so that she wouldn’t be alone. Whether he’d attempt to make conversation or simply sit and quietly watch her draw, he was there for her.

Connecting the end points of the heart around the two cartoon figures holding hands, she had to hide the blush of pink across the bridge of her nose out of Vicky’s sight. She’d always been fond of Timmy even when he was not so fond of her. Now that they were closer, the idea of always having him lived inside her mind rent free. At the very least, it was her sanity’s saving grace from the inevitable fact of seeing her parents in court. Imagining him being with her helped her feel less scared.

“Twerp!” her sister bellowed over the drone of the tv, jerking her slightly. “Get cha lazy butt down here!”

She then directed her gaze to the stair's rails, and a moment passed before the pink-hatted boy emerged from the sanctuary of his bedroom for the third time that evening. He trudged towards the landing with narrowed eyes. “…what do you want now?”

“I’m thirsty!” Vicky sneered. “Be a good boy and fetch me a drink!”

Tootie wasn’t a fan Vicky treating him like some dog, but what troubled her more was Timmy’s sullen compliance. The Timmy she knew would have some sort of snarky comeback. Instead, he dragged his feet down each step without rebuttal, hunched as he entered the kitchen to prepare whatever was in the refrigerator.

She also noted the lack of his pink and green wristbands, knowing that, for whatever reason, he had a tendency to leave his fairies in his room whenever Vicky was to babysit. Vicky had told her about a vivid nightmare that she had babysitting Timmy one time, about sitting in a bathtub covered in whipped cream and gelatin before she was transformed into a snake getting choked by Timmy. That sounded like an oddly specific nightmare, and when Tootie had questioned Timmy about it, he was hesitant to admit that it was real events framed as a nightmare to avoid suspicion that something ‘mystical’ was happening.

Vicky suppressed a chuckle, warmed with cruel satisfaction. No matter what she commanded him to do, the twerp did it without complaint. If he did complain, he wised up and kept it to himself, even when she’d coerced him into clean the guest bathroom toilet right after she’d defecated it on purpose. Man, it was so satisfying to see him suffer! Without much of a fight, at that! Whatever the Turners said or did to make him fall in line and learn his place, it made watching the brat an easy bag all the more.

When Timmy returned with a glass of apple juice, he hadn’t made it past the archway before Vicky held out a rejecting palm. “You forgot ice, dingus!”

With a low grumble, Timmy turned back into the kitchen, scooping what little ice was in the ice maker. He came back with apple juice with ice, only to get rejected again when Vicky held up her hand.

“What about my sister?” Vicky pointed to Tootie beside her with her other hand. “Does she not get a drink?”

You literally said fetch you a drink…Timmy wanted to say. Releasing his frustration through a heavy sigh, he turned around to slog into the kitchen.

Tootie could see the deviant smile curl in Vicky’s lips, wondering why she seemed so happy to see Timmy so blatantly miserable. She then watched as Timmy came back with two iced glasses of apple juice, opting to offer one to her first. Blushing butterflies fluttered again as Tootie accepted her cup, pink spreading across the bridge of her nose as bashful eyes briefly looked away.

This made Timmy stall, having noticed this reaction whenever he was anywhere close to her person. He didn’t have much time to dwell when Vicky seized the opportunity to snatch her cup from his hand, stand from the couch, and promptly pour juice over his head before he could defend himself.

The teen cackled in wicked glee, pointing a mocking finger to the boy’s hair now a tacky weight on his head. An ice-cold stream cascaded down his forehead and off his disgruntled chin. He gritted his fists as his bucktooth bit down, taking a belittling beating from her squawk. His fists tremored faintly, and Tootie brought a palm to her chest with a saddened pout.

She could see the hours of downright bullying begin to take its toll, yet he said nothing. He did nothing but just stand there as a steady pool of juice formed around his feet. He was always there for her, yet in his time of need, she didn’t know how to be there for him. Not without potentially upsetting Vicky, her beloved sister, and sealing her fate on Vicky’s bad side.

Vicky ceased her laughter with the most patronizing grin. “Clean this up, or else I’ll tell your folks about you talking back and refusing to do as I say! Unless you wanna get grounded again!”

“Tsk…” Timmy was nowhere near as defiant as he could and should have been, and he knew Vicky knew this as well. However, what had been engrained by his parents was that he was no less insolent, no less a menace, than his cousin’s psychopathic father. It’d always been his word against Vickys. Compared to him, Vicky was considered a saint who could do no wrong.

You can’t win a battle that you’ve already lost.

Squeezing her cold apple juice, Tootie watched as Timmy turned in sticky steps towards the supply closet for cleaning supplies, small footsteps of apple juice tracking his trail. She then aimed a side-eye at the absolute pleasure cheesing Vicky’s grin as Vicky sat back down as Vicky reclaimed the remote, opting to find another channel since her main source of entertainment had left.

. . . . . .

Only the animated wallpaper of his idle computer shined light in late evening that darkened olive-green walls. He’d propped the metal cage of his feathery companions atop his lap, reaching his slender fingers inside with gentle brushes to his green parakeet prince and pink galah princess. The birds found comfort in his affectionate gesture, and he found comfort in their reciprocation of love.

Carlos and Wilma sat still with eyes closed blissfully as his fingers continued to brush the tops of their heads along their feathers. The fifth-grade teacher quietly observed them through a sulking lens. Carlos and Wilma had seemed extremely tired, having spent majority of their day settled near the floor of their cage instead of on their perch. Their birdfeeder remained as full as he’d filled it that morning before he’d left them to essentially babysit other people’s brats, and their feathers appeared dirty. He had tried to give them a bath earlier, pouring lukewarm water into his palm while he waited for them to come to him. Normally, they wouldn’t waste a second to bathe in his hand. This time, the flapped idly before they eventually took flight towards him.

On top of his worry for them, he’d been plagued with this mental fog. Like there was something that he should remember, yet his brain simply couldn’t. Of course, he’d felt this way majority of his life, specifically when he struggled to recall a whole age. As if he was nine one day, then he blinked and it was the day before his eleventh birthday.

This felt much different, though; he’d spent that entire week before the start of break playing educational videos on the projector or giving his class easy busy work that even Turner would complete with ease. It was the last week before break anyway, so it hardly mattered. He just couldn’t be bothered to concentrate on anything other than the brick wall in his mind that was impossible to climb.

The sketches of winged creatures and the very specific phrase ‘Fairies!’ written on his wall had chipped away at the brick, but only a bit. Then there was Turner and those other kids that he spent more and more time with, kids that weren’t Chester or AJ. Aside from being his students, there was something familiar about them. But every time he laid eyes upon them and whatever random colorful item they’d show up with, that brick wall grew higher.

In the evenings, he would come home to the piles of papers and digital files on his computer. All filled with years of research of magical creatures that he believed lived among them, hidden in plain sight. He still believed that fairies existed, that he could remember. But what was it all for? What did it all mean?

“Denzel? Denzel Crocker?!”

Carlos and Wilma fluttered, though they didn’t dare leave Mr. Crocker’s touch. Mr. Crocker shot a glare towards the door, annoyed by the deep, feminine voice of the last person he wanted to see.

“I’m both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your mother by coming in anywaaaaaay!”

His door nearly flew off the henges from the sheer force of the battering ram, his mother’s eerily favorite tool used solely for invading his room, the only space in the entire house that he could claim for himself. The wielder of the battering ram stood short and stocky, sharing the genetically poor vision and ears on her neck. Curly hair and bushy brows silver with old age, a youthful bow matched the long sleeves and white collar of her blue-gray dress reaching past the knees of her skin tone pantyhose.

His eyes squinted, adjusting to the hallway light piercing into his darkened bedroom as black heels trotted inside. Pitter-pattering their way towards her only son’s bed with creased brows. “Denzel, why is it so dark in here!?”

“I like it dark.” was his response to his mother’s grouse. And, per usual, she quickly dismissed this with a cheerful gleam.

“Denzel, you’ll never guess what happened to me at the supermarket today!” Dolores-Day Crocker beamed, setting the battering ram down. “I met this lovely woman, and she has the body of a runway model! She’s also very intelligent, just like my little boy!”

Mr. Crocker sighed, aware of what came next “…and?”

“You should call her!” she pulled back her collar, stuffing a hand inside the bra that supported her sizable chest like it had yet to sag. Ignoring her son’s cringe as she dug for the piece of paper with handwritten digits. “Here’s her number!”

Still cringing, Mr. Crocker removed his fingers from the bird cage, causing Carlos and Wilma’s eyes to fly open at the sudden interruption of affection. He lifted the cage from his lap, setting it aside on his bed. Geraldine left him at his lowest, and woman after [if any] hadn’t bothered giving him a chance. Why would this woman that his mother ran into at the supermarket of all places be any different?

“…I’ll pass.” He grumbled, making her pout.

“Oh, but she’s very sweet!”

“…your point?”

“Mommy’s not getting any younger, you know!” she flattened hands to her wide hips. “When am I finally gonna have my grandchildren!?”

“When are you gonna finally croak…”

Dolores huffed, deeply offended. “That’s not very nice, Denzel!”

“Then stop playing matchmaker with ever woman you see just for them to toss me like trash!” he shot from his bed, towering over the mother who used to tower over him. “All every woman has ever done was ridicule my ‘crazy conspiracies’ telling me to grow up!”

“Well, Denzel, you do need to grow up!” Dolores would honestly have to agree. “You’re a forty-year-old virgin still living with your mother!”

Hit below the belt, why don’t you. “How about I just move out of the house that you can’t afford alone on social security!”

“You might as well at this point! It always feels like you’d rather spend more time with birds than your own mother!”

Mr. Crocker slit his brow, balling his fists. Anger suppressed in its holding cell banging against the bars to be freed. “That’s so rich coming from you…” he spoke lowly, pushing through the tightness in his throat “…you made such little time for me growing up, yet you expect me to make time for you!?”

“Oh, not this again…” Dolores groaned, shoulders slouched in annoyance at this reoccurring debate.

Mr. Crocker gritted his teeth. “Yes, this again…since you feel so flippin’ entitled!”

Puffing her chest, Dolores edged forward, ready to make the same argument that was her truth. “You know darn well that I did what I had to do when your father-”

“DON’T…” his low growl warned, anger pounding the bars of its suppressive cell in rapid succession “…bring him into this.”

“It’s true and you know it!” Dolores argued anyway. “He chose to leave us for a whole other life, and I was the only one to keep a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, and clothes on our backs!”

“Yeah, the bare minimum!” irritation raised his voice. “You never helped me with my homework, you never kissed me goodnight, and you barely hugged me!”

“For goodness sakes, Denzel, I love you! I’ve always told you that-”

“Actions speak louder, mother!” his voice began to crack, just like the metal bars in his soul. “When did you ever show that you loved me?!”

Dolores pinched the bridge of her nose. Her ex-husband walked out on his life with her a toddler! All because he felt ‘disconnected.’ All because he ‘fell in love with someone else who finally loved him back.’ Baloney! He no longer wanted a family, and he no longer wanted her! He bailed and left an entire household to keep up and running! Denzel knew this, so why on earth does he keep insisting that she didn’t love him!? She kept him alive!

Why is that never enough!?

“That’s crazy talk, Denzel! I made sure you never went without! And this is how you act when it’s your turn?!”

The bars began to bend at the cracks, losing to anger’s ramming charges. “My turn?! What in the heck is that supposed to mean!?”

“Any other mother would’ve sent you packing the moment you turned eighteen! I let you stay, because I thought my little boy would take care of Mommy for a change!”

Bars bent further the stronger anger became.

“Turns out, I was wrong! Because it was too much to assume that you would show some gratitude!”

At full strength, one final push cracked the bars…and like a wild animal, anger escaped.

“GET OUUUUUUT!” he screeched. Veins bulged in Mr. Crocker’s neck, his face turning a dangerous shade of scarlet. “GET OUT NOOOOOOOOW!”

Her lips clamped shut, furrowing her brow at the pinch in her heart. She never liked seeing her son so upset. He became impossible to reason with whenever he reached such a point. But none of this would happen if he would just stop holding everything against her.

Dolores retrieved her battering ram, black heels pitter-pattering in troubled trots out of the room. The door barely slammed shut before Mr. Crocker dropped to his bed, faceplanting his pillow. Fists squeezing the pillow that muffled roaring anger, releasing decades of pain that had nowhere else to go but out…

Eventually, his roars stopped, heaving breathes against his pillow as quivers wrecked his arms. Enclosed within the evening shadows in his room. He hated this, he hated this so much. She never listens to him. She never hears him! Nobody hears him!

Nobody hears the real pain inside!

No…he’s just crazy. The crazy ‘fairy obsessed’ teacher. The lunatic. The psychotic nutjob. Why would anyone ever listen to a nutjob…

“…love! Denzel!”

Bird croaks caused Mr. Crocker to lift his head. Blue light from his idle computer showed the green parakeet and the pink galah still in their cage. Struggling to flap their wings, using all of what strength they had. He used flat hands against the duvet to lift himself from the pillow, seeing them successfully flutter off the bottom of the cage. They flew towards him to land on his tensed shoulders, continuing to croak that they loved him as they brushed the top of their heads to his cheeks.

The anger that’d escaped soon melted into sorrow, just at the sight of their efforts to comfort him. He lifted fingers for Carlos to flutter onto his right with Wilma fluttering onto his left, and they faced his brooding gaze, perching on his fingers. “Love, Denzel!” they repeated, and he exhaled a hoarse mumble…

“…you’re the only ones who do.”

It was 11:11pm when Vicky shut the front door of the Turner residence, keeping her sister’s notebook secure beneath her armpit with her free arm. The turners had finally returned about a couple minutes ago from their night out of feeling twenty-something again, and they seemed surprised when Vicky had nothing bad to report. The twerp hadn’t left his room after cleaning up the mess, presuming that he’d gone to bed around nine o’clock as usual. Tootie had succumbed to sleep on the couch not long after, so the last two hours were smooth sailing. She had free cable as company and free access to cabinets, raiding for whatever snack she could find. No wonder their son’s so freakin’ skinny; those cabinets are a desert!

Once closed, she carried Tootie towards the pickup, her sister’s cheek pressed softly against Vicky’s shoulder in her sleep. Approaching the passenger side, Vicky reached in her pocket for the key, pressing the fob to unlock the door. She was careful laying Tootie into the backseat, supporting her head as she lowered her inside. This caused Tootie to stir, though her eyes remained closed. Curling in a ball as Vicky pulled the seatbelt to secure it into its buckle.

Setting the notebook beside Tootie’s hand, Vicky carefully shut the door to the backseat. Making her way around the front to the driver’s side before she entered, carefully shutting the door and inserted the key into the ignition before a short glimpse of curtains caught her eye. She glanced at the neighbor’s home to the left of the Turners, seeing curtains sway as if they’d just been drawn.

Ah, the Dinklebergs. Probably spying just to go back to pretending she and her sister didn’t exist. As far as she knew, they were still tied to that brainwashed cult. She remembered Mr. Turner saying something about the Dinklebergs and what they had the gall to say to him and his wife’s faces. Telling them that their dead daughter no longer had a soul, and that this gave their souls a better chance of being saved by Jehovah if they receive Christ as their lord and savior.

A pretty sh*tty thing to tell someone right after said daughter died…no wonder Mr. Turner despised the Dinklebergs as much as he did.

“…V-Vicky?”

The meek squeak turned Vicky to purple eyes blinking away sleep in the back seat, wondering if she’d disturbed her sister by accident. “…yeah?”

Sitting herself up, Tootie raised her glasses to rub her eyes “…w-why…are you mean to Timmy?”

Vicky stared at her sister. Tootie didn’t say much and spoke just above a murmur, and while glad to hear her voice, Vicky was still curious to what led Tootie to miraculously start speaking again.

Vicky scoffed, knowing her sister didn’t now the half of what she still had yet to inflict on that twerp “…cuz he deserves it.”

Tootie readjusted her glasses, squeaking “…how?”

“He killed his own sister.”

“…b-but that was an accident.”

Vicky continued to stare, raising a brow. “…why’re you vouching for that twerp all of the sudden?”

Tootie bit her lip, swallowing her dry throat “…y-you don’t know him like I do.”

Vicky’s unwavering stare rattled Tootie’s bones. “...is that so?”

Tootie sunk into the backseat, her brow furrowed diffidently.

“Do you think anyone who hurts their own kin like our parents did don’t deserve karma?”

Talk about a trick question.

Did Tootie believe that bad things come to those who do bad things? Yes, but is that truly how Karma works? Good people can do bad things, but it doesn’t automatically make them bad people. Their parents meant to hurt them. Timmy never meant to hurt Sophia.

“I will never…be nice to the likes of him.” Vicky spoke sternly yet softly, her pointed gaze fixed. “Not now, not ever.”

Tootie pressed her lips together, suppressing a small whimper. Not because she was intimidated, but because she worried that, by defending Timmy, Vicky wouldn’t love her anymore. She lowered crestfallen eyes to her teal bracelet staring back at her. Rose could see Tootie’s internal conflict, wishing she knew a proper remedy.

Believing that her point had gotten across, Vicky turned in her seat and twisted the fob, and the engine awoke in a rumble. Setting the transmission in reverse, she used the rearview and side mirrors as guides backing out of the driveway onto the main road.

Once clear, the red pickup’s transmission was set into drive. Roaring away just as a black 1989 BMW signaled before it rolled onto the driveway of the yellow house directly across the street from the Turner residence. The BMW parked behind the red Volvo that had returned home a few hours prior, shutting off the headlights before the engine died.

Exiting the car was an assembler at Dimmsdale Make-Up Factory and a cashier/stocker at Big $tuff. Two men of whom had courted each other since their early twenty yet had only just legally tied the knot a year ago in a different state. They had to fight for the same respect of matrimonial union as their straight counterparts, and they had to fight for the legal custody of their son. The son that they learned had suffered one of his biggest seizures yet, and the son that they immediately rushed to after long, strenuous shifts.

DeWitt wore black-rimmed glasses around the purple eyes that he shared with his son, auburn hair sleek down past his shoulders. His physique was more toned than his husband’s, a tan sherpa protecting his stocker uniform of navy polo and khakis. Chisholm ran fingers through his short brunette spikes, an inch or so shorter and much slimmer than his husband. Dark-teal eyes and ivory skin riddled with freckles, he wore a grey, long-sleeved factory assembler jumpsuit under a black woven parka.

Sharing one car, one usually clocked off work in time to pick up the other, and they’d arrived home to a dark house, assuming that their son Dwight was still at the Bakers. That was until they checked the messages on their voicemail machine, having received a call from a number that was not the Bakers. Elmer’s shaken voice played back, explaining where he and Dwight were and the distressing events that had taken place. They called the number back and spoke to a man named Clark, verifying Elmer’s story and giving them the address of where they’d find the boys before they bolted back into freezing temperatures.

Before he could begin the second grade, Dwight had been administered a series of mandatory vaccines. The Schalatters were warned of the extremely high fevers as an adverse side effect, as well as the seizures that were an adverse side effect of the high fevers. But when the fever went away and the seizures did not, DeWitt and Chisholm could not have been less prepared for the rough road ahead.

Dwight practically lived in the hospital for the first two years, bouncing from Neurologist to Neurologist trying to determine the root cause which would determine best treatment plan of these seizures. Just when one medication stopped seizures on one side of the brain, they’d start up again from another part of the brain and throw their progress back at square one.

Multiple medical stays and appointments came at a big medical price. Income just above minimum wage barely floated above the surface of financial debt, but while their time and resources were getting thinner, Dwight’s seizures seemed to get worse.

The seizure at the Carmichael residence was Dwight’s first grand mal in years. Time was not on their side, and neither was financial stability.

DeWitt had reached the front door first. He knocked before the bolt unlocked and a man with hunter-green eyes and blonde hair appeared.

“Hi, you must be the fathers of Dwight.” Clark greeted, visible bags beneath his eyes. Still dressed in his wildlife uniform.

“Yessir.” Chisholm confirmed, rubbing his cold hands together.

Their gaze filled with worry were more than the proof Clark needed. “Come in.” he stepped aside for the two men to enter.

DeWitt and Chisholm saw two boys on opposite ends of the couch, tucked beneath a wide blanket in their winter coats. One snoozed soundly, snoring softly through lax lips with a small trail of drool. The other whimpered in his sleep, curled in a ball with tight fists. Seizures greater than a focal easily drained Dwight, more often leaving him down for the count. And Elmer was inexperienced with the intensity of grand mals. Both he and the Bakers had been prepped on what to do in emergency situations, but he’d never experienced the real deal until tonight.

DeWitt walked over and kneeled to his son, giving gentle strokes to his auburn locks, while Chisholm went to his cousin’s son, shaking him softly until the boy shuddered out of disturbed sleep.

“Hey, bud…” Chisholm mustered a grin, grabbing the glasses that rested on the armrest near Elmer’s head. He took the time to put them on, giving Elmer his vision back. “…you alright?”

Elmer sniffed, holding fretful fists to his chest.

“You did a good job today.” Chisholm made sure to praise, hoping that would lift Elmer out of his shell. Seizures can be scary, and with how skittish Elmer could be, he was proud of Elmer for stepping up and taking the reins.

If only Elmer could accept the commendation “…t-thanks.”

Having come home from her own fourteen-hour shift some time prior, the middle-aged woman was dressed in her veterinarian uniform, her ginger hair in a neat swoop below her shoulders beneath a bush hat. Blue eyes remained stern, arms crossed against her chest. Standing off to the side next to her daughter who had yet to retire to bed.

With her indigo booby bird standing on its feet beside her, Chloe’s fingers crinkled the ends of platinum blonde strands. Tugging at her hair in attempts to keep the deep breaths through her nose under control. Fatigue reddened the whites of her eyes bogged by the same bags of her father. Yet her mind was wide awake, replaying those erratic, horrific convulsions on a compulsive loop.

Compared to her worst panic attack that had literally stopped her heart, Chloe felt more terrible for Dwight. Why did anyone, let alone a kind soul like him, have to deal with such a debilitating condition? It just wasn’t fair; why do bad things happen to good people?!

“…you okay, Chlo-bird?” Susie whispered worriedly.

Chloe looked to her godmother in disguise, leaning for her low voice to be heard “…can’t I just wish that Dwight no longer had epilepsy?”

Susie’s jaw clenched. Honestly, she’d expected that type of question well before now. Still, Chloe was not going to like the answer “…I’d grant it if I could.”

Chloe noted Susie’s morose response “…why can’t you?”

Susie exhaled. “Against Da Rules to wish away diseases and disorders…‘specially if it’s the main reason fairies are needed. If a kid could simply wish their life was better, then the there’d be no purpose for godparents...”

Her gap chomped on her lip, turning it red with scraping fingers close to de-scalping strands from their roots. What kind of logic is that?! “Does the Fairy Council want miserable kids to be happy, or do they just use magic as a band aid?”

…well, when you put it that way. “I wish I knew, hun…”

“Is Dwight on any medication?” Clark thought to ask, taking a couple steps towards the two men. “I mean, if he’s had this disorder for a while, then I would assume it’d properly controlled by now.”

“It was properly controlled…” DeWitt sighed, shifting on the floor to address Clark while his hand continued to stroke Dwight’s hair “…until our insurance suddenly decided they didn’t want to pay for his medication.”

“You’re appealing this, right?” Clark inquired, genuinely curious.

“We’ve been trying, but…” DeWitt paused, held back by his own shame. Chastened eyes glanced to his husband for her support “…we’ve been spreading them out. Trying to make them last until something gives.”

Of course…Connie exhaled an irritated breath. She comes home after a stressful day to a boy passed out on her couch, another boy freaking out, and her daughter having another of those ‘attacks,’ because of their incompetence?! Proof that same-sex couples are not fit to be parents.

“…spread them out?” Clark was trying to understand.

Seeing his husband’s need for backup, Chisholm soon shifted to address Clark as well “…we’ve had him alternate between one a day instead of taking them as prescribed.” he clarified, not proud of his words. “We know it’s not the best, but his medications run well into the thousands per bottle out of pocket…”

“That’s why his seizure was as bad as it was!” Connie had to interject, confronting the neglectful parents. “A big mistake could’ve cost his life!”

“We’re aware, ma’am.” Chisholm didn’t appreciate her confrontational tone. “And with all due respect, you don’t know our whole situation.”

“Actually, I do!” Connie countered, ignoring Clark’s glare of disapproval. “Saving money is more important than your own child’s health.”

“We’re working our butts off to save money for our child!” Chisholm raised his voice, not out of disrespect, but in defense for his family, while DeWitt frowned briefly towards their son, at least glad that Dwight remained undisturbed. “Huge medical bills don’t care about small incomes!”

Connie’s pomposity scoffed. “Sounds like you should’ve gone to college-”

“Connie, shut up!”

Clark spoke sternly over her, receiving a catty scowl in return. Chloe stopped pulling her hair to wrap arms around herself, resulting in her indigo booby bird to waddle closer as her feathers pressed against Chloe’s leg in an offer of comfort.

Fuming frustration creased Chisholm’s brow, and though equally as offended, DeWitt took his hand from Dwight to reach for Chisholm’s fingers. Chisholm backed down the instant he felt DeWitt’s touch, meeting his firm gaze and subtle headshake. The wife may be rude, but her husband was kind enough to help their son, and at the end of the day, they were guests in their home.

“Thank you, Clark, for everything you’ve done…” DeWitt used the couch’s armrest to raise himself from the floor “…but I think it’s ‘bout time we take the boys home…”

Clark combed his palm over his eyes, the weight of weariness reminding how late it was getting “…yeah, I agree.”

Gently removing the blanket, DeWitt scooped deadweight into his arms, one hand holding his drooping head in support. He grabbed Dwight’s glasses as he cradled him to his chest, and Chisholm rose to his feet, patting Elmer on his arm. “Let’s get you home, Elmer…”

Nodding weakly, Elmer sniffed as he sat up, removing the blanket and slowly pulling his legs to plant his feet to the ground.

“…E-Elmer?”

In a pause, he turned towards the mousey voice and timid blue stare. Squeezing herself tighter, her chin lowered, blinking back the tears pressed behind her eyes. The fact that he was related to Dwight was news to her, making her realize just how little she knew of him. He was one of the first at Dimmsdale to extend a friendly hand. Yet lately…she hadn’t been a great friend to him.

Thinking back, it was mostly Sanjay’s insensitive comments about her anxiety that pushed her away. She didn’t place much fault on Elmer. In fact, it always felt like Elmer asked her questions to understand, not to respond.

Guilt licked her lips; he and Dwight had come all this way to see her, all because she’d gotten herself grounded for doing something she knew she wasn’t supposed to. Was she even worth the trouble it caused? If they hadn’t traveled through the cold in the some-odd miles it must have taken to get here just for her…then maybe Dwight would not have lapsed into a horrible seizure.

This was all her fault, and she wished she had something better to say other than “…I-I’m sorry…”

Elmer stared at her, not expecting an apology because he wasn’t certain what she was apologizing for. Could be for spending more time with other kids…why apologize for that? Being a backup wasn’t that foreign to him “…i-it’s okay.”

Chloe bit down hard enough to taste iron, watching as Elmer attempted to grin but failed. Chisholm then patted his shoulder for him to come along, and Elmer gave Chloe a final disheartened glance before he followed the Schlatters to the front door.

Clark was courteous enough to shut the door behind their guests, but once the bolt was relocked, every fiber of frustration glared towards his wife.

“…is there a problem?” Connie snootily acknowledged his gratuitous glares, separating her legs in a defensive stance. Connie’s slit brow sent chills down Chloe’s spine, freezing her in an anxious cower.

“…why do you have to be so cruel.” he started mildly, mostly for their daughter’s sake. “Your comments were uncalled for.”

“I was just stating the honest truth.”

“Alright, you know what?” Clark grumbled, waving a dismissive hand. Far too tired for another draining debate. He past his wife and daughter, heading straight for the stairs.

“If you have an issue, then be a man and address it.”

Chloe saw her father’s footsteps stall at the staircase base, feeling his glare gradually crease into a snarl just by staring at the back of his head. She didn’t have to raise her voice to come across so unbearably belittling. He’d tried to be patient with her. He’d tried to just walk away before things reach a point of no return.

Even the humblest have their limits…

She found them.

When he whipped around, ire flashed in his glare. “There’s nothing to address when you’re so hellbent on only listening to yourself!”

Chloe staggered backwards from her father’s outburst, Susie wrapping her wing around Chloe’s leg. Connie gawked before her scowl charged towards her husband. “Don’t curse in front of our child!”

Clark couldn’t help but bark a laugh. “Don’t castigate our child’s panic attacks!”

“…so I should lie to our child?!”

“You should validate our child in that her struggles are real!”

Connie rolled her eyes, barking her own laugh.

“You weren’t here when Dwight had that seizure and Chloe started hyperventilating!” Clark edged towards her, glaring deep into the gaze that refused to take him seriously. “It took forever to bring her down; she was utterly terrified!”

“Yes, Clark, big seizures like that can be terrifying!” Connie conceitedly remarked. “That doesn’t mean Chloe struggles with this so-called ‘anxiety!’”

Susie looked up to Chloe’s breathing becoming strained.

“That boy has a real, neurological disorder! Yet our child is popping pills that clearly aren’t doing their job! Why? Because she doesn’t need them, and never did!”

Chloe’s breath quickened at a rapid pace, clawing at her rigid lungs struggling to intake air. Her blood froze cold, draining color from her face. Wide eyes brimmed with tears, and her heart shuddered in her chest.

What do you think Mrs. Connie Carmichael did in her daughter’s time of need?

If you guessed ‘nothing’…well. You’re not entirely wrong, but not entirely right, either.

She did do something…

She mimicked her daughter’s anxious gasps for breath in a mocking fashion. Taunting the struggle to breathe as she loomed forward, standing inches from Chloe’s fear-crossed face. “GET A GRIP!” her roar held no mercy. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you!”

“STOP, Connie!” Clark warned. The dam had been broken, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

“You saw for yourself what a real mental disorder looks like!” Connie continued anyway, no sympathy for bratty behavior. “That boy’s poor brain literally malfunctions at a moment’s glance!” her firm finger struck Chloe’s chest, stumbling her backwards. “You make yourself hyperventilate! You make a big fuss over stuff that’s just all in your head!”

An electric jolt ceased all thought, her mind blank. Blood frozen in her veins before anxiety boiled into rage. Rage that bubbled deep in her pit, setting her ribs ablaze. Sweltering through her throat, blue tears burning red-hot. Giving her mother ample fuel to relentlessly taunt her once more with faked gasp for air.

“Stop being a whiney brat and GROW UP-”

Glass-shattering shrieks pierced her parents’ ears.

Wide-eyed and baffled, Connie doubled back, the words stripped from her tongue. The booby bird staggered as well, taken aback by the boom of hysterical screams casting Chloe’s entire face in a raging red. Contorted fingertips gripped the sides of her scrunched hair, knees buckling under the force of wailing screeches. Dropping to her knees with eyes wide shut, ruptured vocal cords trickling droplets through her uncontrollable screams.

Clark snuck a glance at his speechless wife. The woman was too stunned to speak.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Purple skies twinkled turquoise and gold above towering valleys of purple mountain tops capped in white. Purple stone structured the grand castle built within the mountains near the highest peak, surrounded by Angel oak and passion flowers. Four children currently occupied the circular common room bricked in amethyst, sectioned along the deep-plum furniture.

A gothic girl whose right eye was ringed in purplish blue sat with arm’s crossed in one of the armchairs, a little girl with a curly fro and dark-chocolate complexion seated quietly across her lap. A ginger with glasses sat next to the bucktoothed boy with greased black hair along the couch, facing the fireplace with unburned wood engulfed in a heatless blaze.

“So you don’t know why your grandparents won’t let you see your cousin?” Dwight asked his best friend. Due to the recent intensity of his seizures, majority of his Christmas Break had been spent at Fairy Fort. With a wished clone to take his place on Earth, coming to Fairy Fort seemed to make his seizures less frequent and more manageable. At least, for now, it was the best plausible solution all while his fathers’ insurance took their sweet time on whether to uphold or overturn their decision to deny paying for his medication.

Gary slouched in his seat with chin propped with glum palms. “I mean, they told me why, but…”

“But what, Gare-bear?” Hazel’s jutted lip squeaked. Scrunching her striped sweater in her dislike seeing her friend so sad. Aside from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, her parents had taken little time off from managing their booming marketing firm. The new nanny had been in charge, and from her observation, he favored her brother more than her and her sister. He’d spend a lot of time in Anthony’s room…which was weird, because Anthony usually hated other people invading his private sanctuary. Not when it came to Fenwick, for some reason.

With downcast eyes, Gary puckered his brow “…I-I hate it.”

Molly pressed her lips with the slightest frown, swiping her swooped bang from the dull throb in her right eye. Throughout the break, her mom and poor choice of a partner had been fighting more than getting along. While her mom’s excessive drinking wavered her respect for her, the one thing Molly did not stand for is a man putting his hands on a woman. Francis was too puss* to stand up to his own father, and Molly would rather suffer a black eye than let her mom get sucker punched.

“The fact that you freaked out on Tim-bucktooth, or that your grandparents don’t want you around him?” she guessed coolly.

Shaking his head, Gary sighed “…the fact that I just can’t remember…”

His grandparents did explain the events that took place after LeRoi and his goons jumped him in the boy’s bathroom. How his mental instability mistook his cousin for the man that caused him great torture in his formative years, thus, his grandparents thought it best that Gary keep his distance from Timmy. Gary remembered LeRoi and Bradley pounding on him around lunch, then in a blink, he woke up later that evening, tucked in his bed after what felt like a dreamless sleep.

To his horror, Gary had no recollection of anything in between the boy’s bathroom and waking up in bed. His past experiences had taught him that lost memories of a traumatic episode was borderline psych ward admission. To his surprise, his grandparents had opted out of another admission. Instead, they took him back to Ustinkistan for the duration of Christmas Break. Visiting the homeland of his grandparents was their last resort before resorting to psychiatric means.

Gary did remember what prompted the last visit, sometime around Thanksgiving. Coincidentally, the culprits were LeRoi and crew. His 8^th grade bullies had randomly cornered him behind the school building after school. When Frankie pinned him by the throat against the wall, a flash of Marsden snarling with a forceful grip around his tiny neck against the wall of a dark closet had sent Gary into another panicked frenzy.

He remembered screaming and flailing his arms, catching snapshots of Dwight attempting to assist. Of course, Bradley had to be a giant jerk and bang Dwight’s head against the brick wall, triggering a frightening tonic-clonic. When they heard sneakers flee, both Alondro and Irving had to magically transport their godchildren to a safe location, somewhere underneath the football bleachers. Irving used his wand to administer Ativan when Dwight’s seizure lasted longer than five minutes, and Alondro did what he could to bring Gary back to present reality.

When Gary had come home that day, he’d reported what he could to his grandparents, and his grandparents dipped into their travel funds for an impromptu trip to Ustinkistan. Sure, it sucked that Alondro could only grant turnip-related wishes while in said country, but something about the gray and colorless lands of the desolate country always helped Gary ‘reset.’ Nearly as well as coming to Fairy Fort.

When they’d returned from their trip, the Turners had given them a ride from the airport, and that was the very day that changed everything. The day Gary saw from his cousin’s green jacket that he too was a godchild.

“Does that mean Timmy can’t come here anymore?” Hazel pouted.

“…I’m not sure.” Gary answered truthfully. He didn’t think that far ahead. “I can try to find out.”

“How?” Dwight arched a brow. “You’re not allowed to see him.”

“…doesn’t mean Alondro can’t see Cosmo and Wanda.” Gary excused. Yet to disclose the spiritual link that he still had to his cousin.

Dwight readjusted his glasses. “Your birthday’s coming up, right?”

“…yeah?”

“You’d mentioned something about a sleepover here at the fort.”

“Ooooooooh!” Hazel perked. “You could invite Timmy!”

That’s if he even agrees to come…Gary sulked to himself. He’d also been told that the Turners were fully on board with separating Timmy from Gary. Knowing them, they probably drilled it in Timmy’s head that Gary blamed him for causing so much distress, or that Gary hated him. Something ridiculously far from the truth. It could explain why every time he’d asked Sophia if she can relay a message, Sophia would come back saying Timmy wasn’t trying to hear him.

“I’ll go ask Londro…” Gary rose from the couch, walking over Dwight’s feet.

“Hopefully he says ‘yes!’” Dwight offered encouragement as Gary made his way towards the rightwing of the castle where the godparents would be.

Once he turned the corner into the hollow corridor, Gary ventured as far as he assumed was safe before he stopped to lean against the nearest wall, opting for a ‘quicker method’ to reach his cousin. “…Soph?”

[I can try, but no guarantees...] Sophia already knew what Gary needed her for.

And Gary was appreciative just for the effort. “That’s all I can ask for.”

. . . . . .

The bucktooth brunette drearily stirred the leftover stir-fried chicken over fried rice it its Styrofoam container, stirring with one hand while the other dully propped his chin on the kitchen table. His mother threw away her emptied Styrofoam container in the trash, and her husband (as the first to finish his leftovers) lounged on the couch as the broadcast of the evening news lit the television screen.

Closing the bin’s lid, Susanne looked straight ahead, walking across the kitchen behind Timmy’s chair. Giving no effort to interact with the morose child as she entered into the living room to join her husband’s. Eyes fixed on the screen, Daran welcomed his wife with a slung arm over her shoulders as she settled beside him, kicking up her white Parigi pumps on the coffee table next to Daran’s black button-toes. She reached for the hand of the arm slung over her, rubbing his fingers with her own. He reciprocated by temporarily distracting himself from the tv, smooching her cheek.

The Turners had taken the time mending their bond once damaged by the death of their beloved daughter. They realized that their broken hearts needed to reconnect, to lean on each other, starting the day Susanne’s mother had accused their son of being equally disrespectful as her twin brother. Daran could visibly see the memories flooding Susanne’s mind, sinking her heart in a darkness all too familiar.

Memories of the brother that was cut from her life twenty-four years ago.

Marsden entered the world a minute after Susanne, named after Vlad’s own twin sister Mardie Vladislapov who had tragically passed at the young age of eight from untreated malaria. Originally, they were ecstatic for their twins; however, Vlad and Gladys strongly believed that Susanne was a reincarnation of the sister that Vlad deeply cherished, so they practically worshiped the ground Susanne walked on. She received more gifts for special occasions and was treated like a saint. Her brother was punished more for doing less, isolated in a single room for hours as ‘timeout.’ As he’d gotten older, corporal punishment became a breath of fresh air. It was the only time his parents gave him the most attention he’d ever get otherwise.

When the Vladislapov twins reached school age, Marsden was deemed academically inept. Often compared to Susanne’s Honor Roll performance with her successes praised as much as his failures were criticized. Friends always flocked to Susanne’s sociable personality, magnetized to her infectiously bright smile. Leaving Marsden outcasted in a dark corner because everyone wanted to be Susanne’s friend, never his.

Susanne was clearly the favorite twin. All the kids at school, all of their teachers, and everyone in their community adored her. Marsden may not have performed well in school, but he wasn’t dumb. He knew their parents loved her more. Not like they were shy about it.

Susanne only knew love and affection. Marsden only knew hate and aversion. And this spiraled Marsden into a path of darkness…

Age seven was when Marsden started to harass Susanne, finding every excuse to insult her or say mean things, finding every excuse to smack or punch her and laugh at her pain. It’d reached the point wherein Marsden was banished from his own bed, forced to sleep on the couch. Giving Susanne the entire room that they once shared, the same room that would become Gary’s future bedroom. This did little to cease Marsden’s reign of retaliation, going out of his way to pick senseless arguments with his twin. Arguments that would get physically violent, from throwing sucker punches to pinning her face first on the floor.

In spite of this, Susanne did not veer from the light; she continued to be the angelic ball of sunshine that everyone loved, because she vowed to never be like her devilish brother.

One day, Susanne had seen a particular car advertised in a commercial and had gushed over it ever since. She did her best week after week to save every penny working part-time at her parents up and coming Yak shop. Marsden was not allowed to work at the Yak shop in efforts to keep him separate from Susanne, so his part-time job was cleaning behind barbers at the local barber shop, working longer hours for less pay.

In twin telepathy fashion, Marsden sought after this exact same car. And like Susanne, he devoted each paycheck to save for it because their parents wouldn’t dare buy it for him. This was the one thing he didn’t mind; working for this car would give his worthless life value. He had no one to be proud of him, so he had to be proud of himself…somehow.

What Susanne nor Marsden knew was that their parents knew about Susanne’s pressing desire for this car. Not hard to figure out since it was the top subject of conversation to all of her friends. Could they have just let her save her own money and buy the car herself? Probably. But her hard work and commitment to elevating the family business proved that she was more than deserving of this special gift. From loving parents to their beloved daughter.

So, with the little extra funds in their account, they’d purchased her dream car just in time for her sweet sixteen. A white 1978 Ford Landau, fresh off the lot.

It was the only present the Vladislapovs could afford that year, but they already knew that. It was worth the brightest, most infectious smile on their daughter’s face as she squealed at the Ford Landau sitting in the driveway with a big red bow. Would she have liked to afford the car on her own? Absolutely. With the agreement that she would pay her parents back majority of the car note, she could set independence aside for the best gift ever.

A gift that wouldn’t last.

Seething, Marsden marched back through the front door, fingers fuming for something to grab. Marsden didn’t expect any different, yet rage popped veins in his neck. He was working his ass off for a car that their parents willingly risked debt for just for his stupid sister. Why? Cuz she was the favorite! She was the better twin! She was the only child they ever loved!

Marsden swiped one of the wooden chairs from the kitchen table. Storming back through the front door and past his parents and his sister before he lifted the chair and swung. Furious grunts rang out as the windshield shattered from glassy spiderwebs. White metal was repeatedly tarnished with large, angered dents. Sidemirrors hung by an electric wire, and the concaved hood triggered the car alarm that echo loudly throughout the relatively quiet neighborhood.

Susanne’s smile disappeared as Marsden continued to bash the car, snapping two of the chair’s legs with the sheer force of his attacks. There goes her brother, running everything again! He just can’t stand to see her happy! Yelling at Marsden to stop, she stomped towards his direction. Her screams were the last vivid memory of her sixteenth birthday before the sudden, irate swing of a chair whirled in the direction of her head…

A deafening thud hit the pavement, and red blinked from his vision. Fingers clawed through his brunette bro flow, matching elm eyes horrified by the strings of scarlet oozing from brunette bangs, trailing across her face into a pool around her right cheek. Shock dropped the broken chair before her, her lifeless body crumpled in a ragdoll heap. Wide eyes stared, rigid breaths freezing his mouth in a hushed gasp. For the first time, the target of his rage was not his sister. And for the first time…he feared he might have ended her life.

Vlad and Gladys had never shouted at him so harshly in his entire sixteen years. He pleaded to them that he didn’t mean to hurt Susanne, that he blacked out until he realized that she’d hit the ground. They weren’t hearing his excuses. Completely done dealing with his hellish terror, the Vladislapovs threw their sixteen-year-old son out on the streets with nowhere to go, threatening to lock him away if he ever stepped foot on their property ever again…

Timmy had given up, dropping the fork into the fried rice. His empty stomach just couldn’t work up an appetite. The same day that Gary lost his crap on him, his mother had explained her strained relationship with her twin brother Marsden. Their life growing up sounded uncannily similar to his and Sophia’s, except Marsden and Susanne were oil and water. His mom’s account of her sixteenth birthday was more or less her parents’ account of what had happened after she’d hit the ground, and they’re all convinced that Marsden was lying. They all believed Marsden had struck her on purpose, just like they were all convinced that Timmy purposefully pushed Sophia down those steps…

If it wasn’t an accident, then why didn’t Marsden finish the job? Guess he’ll never know, considering he’d never met the guy that everyone compares him to…

[Bubba-]

“I don’t wanna hear it…” Timmy grumpily scooted away from the table, already annoyed.

[Can you just let me-]

“Whatever Gary wants, I don’t wanna hear it…”

He stormed from the table, carrying his full container to sit as leftovers for another night. His appetite was already shot. Now he was too irritated to even think about eating. He had nothing to say to Gary! Why can’t he leave him alone!?

[…Timmy…]

“I know, Sophia, I’m sorry…” he could hear his sister’s saddened sigh, only softening his hardened shell by a feather. He could never be angry at her, but he could not abate his agitation towards the situation as a whole. “…just…don’t, okay?” sadness seeped in his tone, pouting his brow. “I can’t…”

Floating freely within the blue walls of their godson’s room, the green fairy massaged tender circles with his palm along the six-week bump of his beautifully pink wife. Paying closer attention to her stomach’s size, he scrunched a curious brow, believing it to be that of grapefruit than an orange. Somehow, that didn’t seem normal “…is your belly supposed to be this big?”

Feeling slighted, Wanda folded fists onto widened hips. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Wait…I-I’m not calling you fat or anything!” Cosmo backed away, waving frantic hands in his defense. Sometimes, it was easy to forget how overly sensitive Wanda had gotten. “I-I’d never do that!”

“You just called my belly big!” Wanda frowned, cradling her protruding stomach. She couldn’t help it; there’s literal life growing inside of her!

“I-I just meant that Susie’s belly wasn’t this big when she was this far along, that’s all!” he faltered, not fully trusting his own memory “…a-at least, I don’t think it was.”

“Actually…” Wanda observed her stomach, seeing what Cosmo was talking about. “…you have a point.”

Stunned that he wasn’t wrong, Cosmo blinked “…I do?”

“Yes.” Wanda’s thoughtful fingers stroked her stomach. She clearly remembered how little Susie had shown at six weeks when she’d been pregnant. While she did start showing symptoms very early after Timmy had made the wish, this was her and Cosmo’s first child. Was their baby growing faster than expected?

Hearing the bedroom door open, the fairy couple redirected their attention to the morose child shutting the door behind him. He seemed to avoid their eye contact as he dragged himself to sit somberly atop his duvet, arms folded over his lap in a frowning slouch.

“…how was dinner, sport?” Wanda tried making conversation.

“Same as usual…” Timmy grumbled, referring to his parents going out of their way to ignore him. And they made certain that he knew it, too.

When a low gurgle rumbled, Cosmo and Wanda shared worried looks. That growl certainly didn’t come from one of their stomachs, even if one of them was technically ‘eating for two.’

“…still hungry?” Cosmo questioned.

Timmy fixed his gaze to the wooden floor below “…didn’t eat.”

“You haven’t eaten all day…” Wanda frowned.

The boy remained silent with nothing to refute.

Doing so out of their own volition, the fairy godparents sparked their wands. Timmy continued to stare until he felt something press down on his lap near his knees, spotting a single apple and similarly flavored juice box.

“It’s not much, but you need to eat something.” Wanda gently remarked.

“With some juice to wash it down.” Cosmo added.

Blue looked up, seeing green and pink filled with the concern for a child that elm and blumine severely lacked. When a fist of melancholy punched his chest, it took much of his will to bite back a sob. The more his godparents loved him, the more he hated himself. How did someone so worthless deserve souls so loving?

Reluctantly, Timmy detached the plastic straw from the juice box and tore the wrapper with his teeth. Tossing the wrapper aside on his bed as he then punctured the straw into its designated hole. He then took the apple in his other hand, giving it a dejected stare before his teeth bit down. Forcing himself to consume his small meal as he did so without a word.

Steady patters of soft showers melted into lingering snow along lawns and sides of sidewalks, the rising sun delayed by thick, smoky clouds asserting their presence. The green umbrella shivered from the chilling breeze sending cold rain in his direction, held in place by his godson’s grip. Standing with his other hand tucked into the warmth of his winter coat pocket where his pink wristband would be protected from the elements as much as possible.

Beneath the nearest streetlamp, Timmy stood at the edge of his parents’ driveway. His parents had already left in their station wagon for their respective work shifts, and he’d normally keep himself warm by beginning his stroll towards the bus stop if he wasn’t waiting on a certain platinum blonde across the street.

Retrieving her Terry Totterlunchbox off the kitchen counter packed with her post-Christmas Break lunch, Chloe traveled towards the front door as the last Carmichael to leave for the day. Both parents had left shortly after starting their day (their morning jog was canceled due to the rainy weather,) but even with her godmother as her sole company, Chloe kept her apathetic mask.

Emotions are illogical. An impractical weakness. They only get in the way of reason and handling business. Letting them control you does no good. Headache hurting you? Stop crying and deal with it. Sick to your stomach? Suck it up. Tired and can’t sleep? Too bad. Stop being a whiney brat. No one cares. Never show weakness. That’s just ammunition to use against you.

“This oughta be a nice change of pace, huh, Chloe?” her indigo necklace spoke cheerfully to lighten the dull mood. Granting Chloe more independence was the least her mother could do.

“Sure.” Chloe murmured, blue eyes stoic as she took her winter coat from the rack.

Disgruntled by this terse response, Susie jutted her lower lip. “Chloeeeee!”

Shoving arms through the sleeves, Chloe arched a brow “…yes?”

“Talk to meeee!”

“About?”

“What’s wrong!”

“I already told you, Susie.” Chloe adjusted her coat, aligning the zipper. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

Such robotic speech flattened Susie’s frown. Two weeks came and went, yet Chloe’s piercing screams rang in Susie’s ears like it was just last night. Those wretched cries of distress were the last Susie saw of any life in Chloe. When her vocal cords had officially strained beyond their limits, her lips clamped, her tears dried. Empty pools of blue did not blink, unresponsive to her name called…

Chloe cried herself numb.

In the days that followed, cold eyes showed nothing behind them. Most of her energy was put into completing chores. She’d replaced her Terry Totter novel with whatever academic textbook she put her hands on, feeding her brain instead of her spirit. She would assist her mother with dinner, ensuring every intricate detail was fulfilled with little criticism. ‘Yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am,’ ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir.’ Outside of that, she didn’t dare speak out of term. Presenting as the perfect little robot that she was born to be.

Worst of all, she’d willingly flushed her Lexapro down the toilet…under her mother’s direction.

Clark was floored, of course, but this only proved Connie right all along. From what Connie observed, their daughter seemed to fair fine without those godforsaken pills, and if there were side effects, there were no complaints. Who knows. Maybe that loud outburst of hers let her get it all out so she can finally think with a level head.

Obviously, Susie would have to disagree with that she-devil; Chloe didn’t smile, didn’t laugh. Didn’t frown, didn’t cry. Apathy had carved her face in stoic stone, troubling Susie’s heart. Children are meant to be free spirits, not lifeless statues.

Slinging her backpack over the shoulders of her coat, Chloe looked down to realize her indigo necklace had given her a discontented look. “I really wish you’d stop worrying…”

“Too bad I can’t grant that.”

In a brief fold of her lips, Chloe killed the conversation by unlocking the bolt and turning the knob to the front door, closing it on her way out.

After reinforcing the bolt lock and covering her hair with her lavender hood, the first thing Chloe saw was the pink-hatted boy holding a green umbrella, waiting across the street for her. Because of her ‘good behavior’ all break, her mother had agreed with her father to start taking the bus to school. She’d be more excited to have a designated bus partner if she were in the mood for company…but, Timmy had wanted to walk her to the bus stop, at least to show her where to go on her first day. It’d be rude to reject the friendly offer.

Looking both ways, Chloe waited for an oncoming car to pass with emergency flashers along the salted road before she crossed.

“Hey Timmy.” her flatness greeted, stepping onto the sidewalk.

“Hey...” he returned. His eyelids seemed weighed down by whatever disheartened his tone. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

And so, the duo set off on foot. Using the streetlamps as their light with the sun hidden behind rain-gorged clouds. Wanting to be a gentleman, Timmy held his Cosmo umbrella to where he and Chloe were underneath, making Chloe quietly thank him for the gesture.

“Is Wanda with you?” Chloe wanted to be thoughtful of others present besides Timmy and Cosmo.

“She’s right here.” Timmy shortly raised his right elbow, though his hand remained in his pocket so his sleeping wristband would stay warm. “I’d told her I’d let her come along only if she lets herself rest.”

“Aww, another rough night?” the indigo necklace assumed.

“Half the night was back pain.” the green umbrella sighed, still reeling from the draining effects of said rough night. “The other half had her face in a trashcan…”

“Yikes.” Susie empathized from her own experience. “Sounds like she goin’ through it...”

“Why didn’t she just stay home?” Chloe loosely inquired. It made no sense for Wanda to exhort herself like this, but it’d be rude to voice that opinion.

“She didn’t want to. Not yet anyway.” The truth was, his signs of major depression shot Wanda’s worry for him off the charts, and it’s calm her already stressed nerves being near him. But Chloe didn’t need to worry about that. It’d might freak her out if she heard the thoughts in his head…

Awkward silence fell upon them. Timmy glanced at Chloe’s cold eyes towards every step her boots took. “…how…was your break?” he spoke up.

“Good.” Chloe ignored the critical look her necklace had given her. What happened was over and done with. There’s nothing to complain about. Nothing’s wrong. “What about you?”

“Eh…” Timmy shrugged “…could’ve been better.”

Conversation ceased with the godchildren found themselves consumed in their own heads.

A blond with braces and his bald African-American best friend huddled next to each other on the street corner near the train tracks, drawing on each other’s body heat as Alvin Jr’s Crash Nebula umbrella shielded them from rainfall. Chester’s father could not afford a heavyweight jacket, and a blue-fleece beanie could only keep AJ’s hairless head but so warm.

“And we couldn’t wait for the bus in your mom’s car because…?” Chester groaned, arms linked around himself.

“They have lives, y’know.” AJ grumbled in return. Alvin Everett Sr was a scientist for the city, and Michonne Everett was head of Human Resources for Dimmsdale Tech. Brain-A-Thons and academic competitions showcasing their son’s intelligence were more important than their tight schedules. Wasting time and gas waiting for a school bus as slow as malaises? Absolutely not.

Blowing hot air into his mittens, Chester rubbed them together as he looked around, scanning for any sign of anything yellow on wheels. Only to pause when a green umbrella appeared in his peripheral, turning to the familiar pink-hatted brunette approaching from down the sidewalk with a platinum blonde sidekick.

“Dude, look!”

AJ turned in the direction of Chester’s point as Timmy and Chloe slowed their steps. Normally, Timmy would look straight ahead without acknowledging the two boys. But what was the point? There’s been enough distance between them to settle rocky waters.

“Hey, guys.” he addressed them cordially.

“Hey, dude.” Chester gave an apprehensive wave. Timmy speaking first? If at all? That was a first in what seemed like forever.

“Hey…” AJ was wary to reciprocate, considering he and Timmy had yet to patch things up. Putting the awkwardness away in his mind for a bit, he looked to Chloe, noting the dulled bulb in blue orbs once as bright as the blue sky “…h-hi Chloe.”

“Hi.” came her impassive greeting.

“Since when did you start riding the bus?” Chester had to ask since he’d never seen Chloe at the bus stop before.

Flat eyes blinked once. “Today.”

“Ah.” Chester’s chin nodded in a gawky manner “…cool.”

AJ looked to Timmy, blue orbs matching each other’s grave stare. An annoying needle pricked the back of AJ’s mind throughout the break; whatever tension this was between them, it needed to stop. It was a new year, and they’ve known each other for far too long. Whether AJ felt that he was in the wrong or if Timmy overreacted. That shouldn’t matter anymore. They can’t start the new semester on bad terms, and despite his difficulty expression certain emotions…AJ missed his best friend.

Taking the initiative, AJ took a few steps forward, causing Chester to follow him to stay protected by AJ’s umbrella. Stopping face to face with Timmy, mustering the nerve to ask “…are you still mad at me?”

From his serious glare, AJ half expected Timmy to say ‘yes.’ Instead, Timmy shook his head.

Good sign so far. “…so…does that mean we’re cool again?”

Chester tilted a co*cked brow towards AJ, surprised that AJ was the initiator of mending the fences. Some of the smartest people tended to be the most stubborn. Simultaneously, Chloe glanced sideways at Timmy who made no sudden movements, or any movements for that matter. He simply held AJ’s gaze, and the only sounds in the air were low rumbles of rain and the softness of winter breeze whispering through the kids with visible hair.

Time might as well have stopped from the drawn-out length of this staring battle. Alas, Timmy glanced at Chloe, holding out his green umbrella as a gesture for her to hold it for him. He’d use his other hand, but he didn’t want to risk disturbing his pregnant godmother.

Taking this signal, Chloe grabbed Cosmo by his handle, ruffling some ticklish giggles that Chloe flashed a quizzical brow to. Inhaling a bated breath, Timmy steadily extended his hand. AJ looked at Timmy’s hand, then to Timmy. And with his fixed gaze, AJ extended his own. Joining both of their hands to shake for a non-verbal truce.

“…I’m sorry…” AJ needed to admit. After all, he played a huge part in Timmy excluding himself from their friend group.

“…I’m sorry, too…” Timmy reciprocated an apology. Could he have handled things better? Sure. Nevertheless, just as with Tootie and his qualms over Sophia’s death, it took entirely too much energy to be angry at AJ over misguided words.

There were more pertinent things to be angry about…

When reunited best friends released their shake, Chester’s glee jumped to sling arms around each of their shoulders. “Yes!” his prepubescent voice cracked in his cheer. Squeezing their cheeks to his chest as AJ’s umbrella nearly blew with the wind. “We can all finally be boys again!”

AJ and Timmy gasped for air once Chester’s monster grip relieved them to breathe. All the while, the lone girl stood silently to the side. Her grasp subconsciously tightening around the green umbrella’s handle. Firm in her glare towards the 1^st chair Brain-A-Thon contender.

At some point in her building friendship with Timmy, she felt inclined to question his separation from Chester and AJ. Two boys that she’d normally hardly see him without. She could tell that it was difficult to talk about, and at first, she’d dropped the subject. Then, one day after after-school detention, he’d asked if she was walking or poofing home. Since her parents had been working and she needed to clear her head, she opted to walk. On that walk was when he’d revealed his reasoning in confidence.

He’d skipped over certain details to spare her, but he had given her all the relevant bullet points. Remy and Tootie, more than likely, were still out of the loop, but Chloe had wrangled herself in. Part of her regretted this, because her lens of AJ had darkened, casting a negative light. Yeah, at first, she’d viewed AJ as arrogant. co*cky, even. Then, when she’d reached rock bottom…a gentler, caring side of him had come out. He’d transformed her emotional weakness into a strength, and he had humbled himself to share in the school’s victory.

He’d made considerable efforts to show her kindness, and though she’d not fully cracked her shell…she’d opened up to him. She’d opened up to him about parental pressures, about her anxiety, about certain thoughts that not even her godmother knew of…

…he was considered a confidant.

…now he couldn’t be anything.

As the one who knew him longer, Timmy had every right to forgive but not forget. Unfortunately, Chloe couldn’t find the heart to do the same. Even if she wasn’t the target. Telling someone that they would have succeeded in ending their misery if they were serious about it? When they’re already in so much pain? That’s nearly equivalent to comparing panic attacks to seizures…

…actually…maybe it’s not the same. Dwight has a legit medical condition, and there’s nothing wrong with her. It was all in her head all along. And yet…there was a sting in her chest that felt the same. Felt just as debilitating, just as degrading. Just as soul crushing…

Either way, she can no longer afford to be weak around anyone. Especially AJ. He’d spoken his truth, and now, she must watch her tongue.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Straight and silvery rain came down like a punishment of steel rods, clattering onto unvaulted roof of the Romanesque structure towering three stories high. Large pillars supported the front wall, “truth, justice, and liberty” etched in stone. Green lines neat and tidy in their trim covered the courtyard where the country’s proud flag of red, white, and blue flew high on a pole, soaring above the white stone building conquered with growing ivy on one side.

Seated in the lobby walled and floored in Carrara white marble, a cleanshaven man occupied the dark wooden bench with his two nieces. Red hair combed to the shoulders of his rented navy blazer with a white-collared shirt and black slacks. His pink eyes scowled, doing his best to conceal the brewing resentment towards the man he once called his little brother.

His little brother stood alongside his raven-haired wife, being verbally prepped for the upcoming trial by their defense attorney. Silver hair slicked to one side with a little scuff in his beard, Mr. Carlos Alazraqui was dressed in his best tailored blazer and pants combo stitched in light-grey wool, sporting a black tie secured neatly beneath his drycleaned white button-up. His clients, Jim and Nicky Byrne, wore their Sunday best in coordinating white dress shirts and either navy pants or a navy skirt reaching below the knees with Nicky wearing white earrings and a white pearl necklace.

Wearing her black long-sleeve dress with a white doll collar, the nine-year-old sunk in her seat next to her sixteen-year-old sister’s green cap-sleeve dress. Both wore black baby-dolls on their feet, legs stockinged with white satin. Tootie watched her parents speaking with their attorney, knotting dread in her stomach as she brushed her teal bracelet with fidgeting fingers. This is the first time that she’s seen her parents since being disfellowshipped. Considering the circ*mstances, she had expected a twinge of unease.

Just looking at them made her want to crawl under a rock and stay there until this whole trial was over.

“Ignore them.” she heard Vicky coach, looking to pink eyes as firm as her tone. “Just like they’re ignoring us.”

Tootie’s shoulders hunched in feeble attempts to tear her eyes away from her tormented past not-so-distant.

A young brunette with long hair pulled into a neat bun approached, wedge-heels clinking with each self-assured step that echoed in the marble acoustics. Her black button blouse was worn beneath her dark-grey lapel blazer and tucked into her matching bodycon skirt that stopped just above her calves, Aerosoles almond toed in black leather.

The prosecution attorney, Ms. Daniella Monet, greeted her clients with the friendliest smile. “You all ready for today?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be…” Vic muttered for all three of them, his shaved chin in his palm.

“Just remember, girls,” Ms. Monet addressed the two young ladies specifically since their testimonies would likely be first. “no matter what, speak your truth.”

“I intend to.” Vicky sounded assured. Tootie felt her voice lodge in her throat.

“You remember everything we’ve talked about, right?” Ms. Monet remained polite, sensing Tootie’s heightened nerves as she leaned towards Tootie who assented timidly.

“Hope we get some justice today…” Vic heavily exhaled in his comment.

“Agreed.” Ms. Monet grinned to Vic. “Speaking of,” she held her briefcase with both hands instead of just one “have you had a chance to talk with the girls about what else might happen today?”

Vic stalled, pink eyes widened “…that’s gon’ happen today?!”

“Potentially.” Ms. Monet advised. “If the case sways in our favor, then the Byrne’s suspension of parental rights would become permanent termination of their rights for both the girls effective immediately. And, as their legal guardian and next of kin, you would automatically inherit those rights.”

“Wait…” Vicky tried to follow the legal jargon just to fail miserably “…what’re you talking about?”

“Basically,” Vic turned to his nieces, explaining in his own words what he was able to gather “if we win this case…you wouldn’t have ta call me ‘Uncle’ anymore.”

Vicky shared a glance with her sister before turning back to her uncle “…so you’d be like…our dad?”

Vic gave a small smile. “Legally speakin’.”

Taking in this news, Vicky looked back to the little girl fidgeting with her fingers. Not too far off from eighteen, she felt that this news seemed more beneficial for Tootie than it did for her “…would you like that?”

Tootie found herself staring back at her biological father, the man who still made no eye contact. Turquoise eyes calm and collected…cold. They were cold, yet vivid memories flashed turquoise eyes hot with rage.

An icy shudder shot through her spine. She knew this day would come, but now that it was here…was she ready for this?

“Ms. Victoria,” Mr. Alazraqui continued his cross-examination of the redhaired teen seated behind the witness stand. “what made you leave the Jehovah’s Witness religion?”

“It’s full of baloney.” Vicky slit her brow, arms crossed over her chest. “Plus, I was tired of getting beat just for being a kid.”

Mr. Alazraqui smirked to her teenage angst, chin held high in his poised demeanor. “Clarify what you mean by ‘getting beat.’”

“Sometimes, it was a switch that I’d have to pick from the backyard. Sometimes, it was the belt off his pants…” Vicky’s glare followed the attorney’s casual pace back and forth. “Sometimes, it was his own hand.”

Jim and Nicky Byrne stared with apathetic eyes forward, refusing to go against their beliefs to acknowledge the apostate known once as their first born.

Hands behind his back, Mr. Alazraqui gestured to the raven-haired woman on the defendant’s side. “Would your mother harm you in any way?”

“Not really.” Vicky shot a glare towards her womb bearer. “She’d just let Jim do all the dirty work.”

“What is ‘dirty work?’”

Her glare shot back to the defense attorney, irritated by his stupid smug grin. “Him beating me until he got tired or until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Sitting between her uncle and the prosecution attorney, Tootie’s nerves bit down on short nails. Vicky was getting agitated, and Mr. Alazraqui reveled in it.

“When your father would beat you, how would you respond?”

Vicky snarled. Alazraqui already knew what her answer would be; it was documented as admissible evidence in her interview with the police. Hence why he even asked the question, because unlike her sister, Vicky did not have much backdown to her “…eventually, I fought back.”

“So how were you abused if you retaliated?”

“Objection for Unfair Prejudice.” Ms. Monet spoke up, privy to Alazraqui’s ploy of using Vicky’s means of self-defense to paint a bad picture of her to the judge and the jury.

“Sustained.” The elderly woman cloaked in black allowed the objection, her silver curls reaching just above her broad shoulders.

“Ms. Victoria, was fighting back the only solution?” Mr. Alazraqui rephrased his question, keeping his cool behind an arrogant grin. How can you claim to be abused if you’re also committing assault?

“Of course, it was! I’d get beat for anything and everything!” Vicky defended her actions. When she was around twelve, she’d finally found the strength to strike back. Jim would still overtake her, but she wasn’t gonna keep taking a beating without a fight for her dignity. A fight for her life.

“How often would you get beaten?”

“Every day! Even over small stuff like forgetting to say my prayers or falling asleep during those boring meetings!”

“And your resolve was to retaliate against punishment for your wrongdoings?”

“Objection!” Ms. Monet spoke out again against Alazraqui’s victim blaming. “Argumentative and Leading.”

“Sustained.” The judge allowed, and Mr. Alazraqui retained his composure. Looks like he was getting under some skin. Too bad he was just scratching the surface.

“…Victoria,” Mr. Alazraqui stepped forward towards the witness stand, meeting Vicky’s glaring eye contact with a leveled brow “where was your sister when you left the religion?”

Vicky’s glare softened subtly when she snuck a glance towards Tootie’s expression riddled with worry. Again, details of being disfellowshipped was documented in her interview. She knew the defense would use ‘anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law’ to their advantage. Dirty bastard.

Sitting up in her seat, Vicky returned her gaze to the defense attorney, wrinkling her glowering brow “…she stayed with my parents.”

Mr. Alazraqui brushed his short beard with two fingers, faintly co*cking his head. “And why did you not take your sister with you?”

“Because…” Vicky gritted her fists, flaring her nostrils as regret boiled through her veins “…because I couldn’t.”

“Why is that?”

“Tootie wasn’t gonna go willingly…cuz at the time…” her lips folded, looking away “…she was afraid.”

“What did Dorothy have to be afraid of?”

Vicky returned her glare towards him “…she was scared of disobeying our parents…because that meant disobeying Jehovah.”

Tootie flinched in her chair.

“She wasn’t disfellowshipped yet like I was…she was still a witness and…I didn’t want to risk anything worse happening to her.”

Curious of this wording, Mr. Alazraqui then probed “What would have happened to her?”

A flash of furious fists striking her tightened Vicky’s jaw.

“…he’d purposefully beat me in front of Tootie…to ‘teach her a lesson’ on what happens when you disobey your parents and…when you disobey Jehovah. I didn’t want them to teach Tootie that same lesson…” her nose crinkled ruefully “…turns out they did anyway after I left…”

Vic wadded his hands beneath the table. He could remember that fateful night and the state his brother had left young Tootie in. The swollen lip, the bruised nose. Her white shirt stained with her own blood…

“Victoria, you had mentioned earlier that you would receive punishment whenever you would disobey your parents every day.” Mr. Alazraqui resorted back to the point made previously, prepping for another blow. “Is that correct?”

“…yes.” Vicky muttered darkly before Mr. Alazraqui inched towards her. Leaning closer, brown eyes smug with a co*cky grin.

“Why not try being less rebellious and more obedient?”

Pink eyes snapped wide as the corners of her mouth clenched from the sweltering scorch of contempt.

Honestly annoyed with the patronizing, Ms. sMonet stood once more. “Objection, your honor-”

“No!” Vicky stopped the objection, tension flattening her hands on either side of the microphone. Determined in her scornful scowl towards Alazraqui’s smirk “…I wanna answer that.”

Seeing Vicky’s resolve clear in her face, the judge decided to permit the witnesses’ response “…alright then. Go on, Victoria.”

Vicky sat back in her chair, raising her shoulders as she inhaled a tense breath before it was gruffly released. Carlos Alazraqui was not the first to condemn her attitude and smart mouth as disrespectfully insolent. She’d been deemed a menacing rebel. Defiant, nothing but trouble. Troublemakers deserve punishment. Nevertheless, Vicky was not always destined for causing trouble…

And like Ms. Monet said, she needed to speak her truth.

“…I’m not perfect.” she began, speaking through stern lips “…my grades aren’t that great, and I don’t always like authority…” her own scorn stalled her “…but when you get beaten every day…you start to think...” resentment slit in her grimace “…that you don’t deserve love, and never will…”

When Tootie could see gloss in her sister’s eyes, a sympathetic pang tug at her heart. Vicky hardly cried. Not in public, anyway.

“I did try to follow the rules…I did try to say my prayers…” she did her best to mask the tremor in her throat that shook her voice “…I did knock on random people’s doors, preaching about words I couldn’t believe in to who did nothing but slam a door in my face…”

Ms. Monet looked over at Vic, exchanging somber glances.

“…but eventually…I stopped trying…” “…cuz no matter what I did…I still got hit. I still got spanked. I still got smacked with a stick until my skin broke…” Vicky blinked away the watery blur, brushing a feathered fingers along faded scars. Scars carved along the warm-ivory skin of her arms, barely visible to the naked eye “…cuz to them…I was just evil…”

Tootie hung her head, hearing their parents’ voices chastising Vicky for her sins. Rebuking ‘Satan’ in the name of Jehovah…

“…I was evil for watching Twinklebell cartoons…I was evil for not shoving a Watchtower magazine in some kids face…” pink eyes swelled with more tears “…I was evil for ‘caving into sin’ when I ate a stupid cupcake at school…because I was tired of being an outcast and wanted to feel normal again…even for a second…”

Resentment swiped her tears before they had a chance to fall, fueling her wounded glare. Glaring at the two people who sat silently in their seats, still refusing to acknowledge her. Refusing to acknowledge her pain, acknowledge her as a person. As their freaking daughter.

“…you ruined me…” her limbs faintly trembled, brimming more gloss into her glare. Speaking straight to the direct cause of her life-long strife “…you snapped my soul in half…and you have the nerve to sit on your high horse and claim to punish your kids because it’s spart of God’s love!”

Jim stared like hard stone as Vicky’s battered heart roiled with rage.

“…why would God allow you to beat the kids you love!? And how can you love your kids by doing nothing to stop it!?”

Out of the pair, Nicky’s stoic expression cracked, but only slightly. Her eyes didn’t dare look in Vicky’s direction. Oblivious to hot tears escaping their cage.

“I don’t know what love is supposed to feel like! I don’t know how to love because of how much I hate you!” tremors became shivers as Vicky’s cheeks dampened, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs. “I hate you! I f*cking hate you!” her eyes shut when flowing tears began to burn them. “You’re the real evil ones!” quivering fingers scratched at the wood of the witness stand “Not me!”

Yep, this was a good place to call it. “…no further questions, your honor.” Mr. Alazraqui formally addressed the judge before he left to return to his seat on the defendant’s side, confident in his work.

Tootie felt her lower lip tremble as Vicky fell back in the chair, sobbing woeful wails into palms that tried to shield her tears from onlookers. Jim and Nicky Byrne said not a word nor apology as the judge called for a short recess with a bang of her gavel.

Ms. Monet stood near the Byrne family in the courthouse lobby, standing near Vic who kept a consoling hand to his older niece’s knee. Vicky sniffed, silent tears trailing off her trembling chin. Her little sister watched with somber eyes, sitting beside her on the bench.

“I am so, so proud of you, Vicky…” Vic’s earnest spoke softly. “…I’m proud that you got that off your chest…and it don’t matter if they don’t wanna hear it…”

Vicky’s forearm rubbed restlessly at her eyes, wishing she could turn the faucet in them. She was so f*cking weak to let those bastards stoop her to this level. They literally sat there and did nothing, and here she was, bawling her f*cking eyes out…how pathetic.

“Your testimony and allowing yourself to feel those emotions will really help this case, Vicky…” Ms. Monet offered her own words of encouragement as Vicky continued to hiccup sobs. “Don’t think for a second that it was all in vain…”

Wanting to help somehow, Tootie scooted closer to her older sister. Waiting for Vicky to tilt her chin towards her before Tootie reached with loving arms, enclosing them around Vicky’s waist as she nestled her cheek to Vicky’s chest. Realizing how much her inner suffering needed the caring gesture, Vicky didn’t dare push her away. Holding her little sister close with one arm while the other continued to rub away those pesky tears.

“Now I’m worried about Tootie’s cross-examination…” Vic sighed, thinking out loud. Causing Tootie to shudder against Vicky’s chest.

“Alazraqui can be calculating, but I doubt he’d purposefully make a little girl cry.” Ms. Monet opinioned. Even defense attorneys have morals to an extent.

“You saw ‘em! He was ruthless!” Vic expressed his true opinion. “I mean, yeah, Vicky’s older but…look what he’s done!”

“If Alazraqui tries anything, I’ll object. Just like with Vicky.”

“That don’t mean Tootie ain’t safe from his games.”

Both Tootie and Vicky looked to their uncle, seeing his shoulders fall in defeat.

“…maybe Tootie shouldn’t testify…”

“Does she even have a choice at this point?” Vicky sniffed. She wanted to protect her sister from what she had to go through, but she worried it was too late. Stripping Tootie from the stand could weaken their argument, could give the defense the upper hand.

“Tootie?” Ms. Monet walked over to kneel down before the youngest witness, careful to keep her skirt modest. “Do you still feel that you can testify?”

Briefly, Tootie’s eyes wandered to the redhaired man and his raven wife, letting out a small gasp as turquoise eyes happened to look in her direction. Their eyes met, just for a second. Then, stern eyes looked back to Mr. Alazraqui.

Fear crawled under her skin, biting down on her lower lip. There’s no way she can do this…until purple eyes looked up at the tears that still shed, watching Vicky’s palm rub her nose after another crestfallen snivel. No…she can’t let her sister down.

Turning to their prosecution attorney’s expectant gaze, Tootie swallowed what she could of her nerves “…I-I at least have to try…”

Despite Tootie’s attempt at a brave front, Vicky could see the quiver in her sister’s legs and hear dread in her sister’s squeak.

“Remember, I’ll directly examine you first.” Ms. Monet gave a friendly reminder. “So you’ll just answer the questions just like how we prepped.”

Tootie acknowledged this with a weak nod, resulting in a smile from her uncle.

“I’m proud of you too, Tootie.” Vic praised her. “For bein’ so brave in all this.”

Tootie felt far from brave on the inside…

Standing down from her bench, the judge waited for Tootie to travel the short steps into the witness stand. A bible rested in her hand, instructing Tootie to place her left hand on its cover. Tootie willed her shaking fingers to raise, setting it on top of the bible. Sensing the child’s nerves, the judge curved her corners in a friendly smile. Hoping to ease the tension as she began to swear Tootie in as a witness.

“Do you, Dorothy Byrne, swear that the evidence that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God?”

Blinking water from her eyes, Tootie gulped before she squeaked “…y-yes, I do.”

“Thank you.” The judge assented, light in her tone as she took the bible to be put away. “Please be seated.”

As the rest of the court took their seats, Tootie stepped down to the single chair behind the thin microphone, looking out into the audience to the encouraging grin of her uncle Vic and the subtle frown of her sister who couldn’t find the heart to smile. Her peripheral caught glimpses of Jim and Nicky Byrne, stoic in their stairs straight ahead.

“Remember what Ms. Monet told you.” she heard her fairy godmother’s tender voice remind, glancing to the teal beads cuffed around her right wrist. “Speak your truth.”

Easier said than done…

When her bottom met the cold surface of the wooden chair, Tootie scooted closer to the mic. Heart pounding against her ribs, she watched as Daniella Monet approached with calm shoulders and equanimity in her tone.

“Will you please state your full name for the court?” Ms. Monet began with basic protocol, hoping it would also help Tootie feel more comfortable speaking.

“…Dorothy Elizabeth Byrne…” Tootie peeped, rubbing sweaty palms.

“Do you have a nickname?”

“…yes…”

“What is that nickname?”

“…Tootie…”

“And how old are you, Tootie?”

Brushing the beads of her teal bracelet, Tootie murmured “…nine…”

“Dorothy?” the judge leaned towards the little girl whose purple eyes peered nervously. “Just remember to speak up in the mic, okay? So the jury can hear you.”

Her throat gulped another lump, nodding in acknowledgement. Sheesh, this was harder than she thought…

“Tootie, what school do you go to?” Ms. Monet continued with basic questioning, still trying to ease Tootie into being on the stand.

“…Dimmsdale Elementary…” Tootie squeaked into the mic.

“And what grade are you in?”

“…fourth grade…”

“Do you like fourth grade?”

“…yes.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Um…” Tootie licked her lips. She could feel steam beneath her doll collar, sweat coating her palms “…I-I like Art.”

“Art is your favorite subject?” Ms. Monet repeated for Tootie to confirm with a shy nod. “Wow, that’s wonderful!”

Vicky caught a glance of Mr. Alazraqui whispering something into Jim’s ear, furrowing her brow when she then saw him chuckle co*ckily to himself.

“Tootie, all of those answers were the truth, is that right?”

“…yes.”

“Can you tell me what it means to tell the truth?”

Tapping fidgeting fingers on the stand’s surface, Tootie blinked the blur from her vision, fighting back anxious tears “…t-to say what really happened or…what can be proven true.”

“Very good.” Believing they were ready to begin with the true examination, Ms. Monet slowly approached the stand, her tone remaining calm. “So, in your own words, what was it like when you lived with your parents?”

Seeing moving lips out of her peripheral, Tootie watched as Mr. Alazraqui whispered something else to his clients. Jim’s stern stare continued to be willfully blind to her presence, while Nicky held her gaze to the floor.

“…i-it was…” Tootie tore her eyes away, forcing herself to focus on her attorney “…it was bad.”

“How was it bad?”

Tootie swallowed once more before her soft utter “…I-I didn’t feel safe…”

“And why didn’t you feel safe?”

Her fingers grew more restless, glancing cold eyes staring through her like glass. Her voice lodged itself into her throat, causing her fingers to claw at her neck.

“Objection!” Mr. Alazraqui was quick to give his first objection. “Non-responsive answer!”

Already irritated, Ms. Monet spun around to her opponent. “My witness was just given the question!”

“Overruled.” The judge rejected the superfluous objection, turning to Tootie with hazel eyes civil. “Dorothy, please give a response to the question.”

Vic’s brow squinted, gritting his teeth towards that snake of an attorney. This guy was definitely imploring shady tactics, even on a little girl.

“Why did you not feel safe living with your parents, Tootie?” Ms. Monet chose to repeat the question.

“…i-it wasn’t safe because…” Tootie’s breathes grew shallow, struggling to breathe. Her eyes shut temporarily in attempts to mentally calm herself down “…b-because I was scared of getting in trouble…”

Seeing Tootie’s chest intake fast breaths, Ms. Monet started to lose confidence that they would get through this examination smoothly. “Tootie, what was often the result of doing something that your parents disapproved of?”

Shallow breaths continued to wreck her shoulders as Tootie darted eyes over at the man who would not meet her gaze. His striking fist and angered glare flashed across her eyes, causing her to shudder. Her skin pinched in phantom punches, feeling his fury with each pounding strike. She had to force out her tiny whimper “…h-he’d hit me…”

“Remember to speak up in the mic, please.” The judge asked respectfully, making Tootie claw at her fingers.

“Who would hit you, Tootie?”

She swallowed “…m-my father…”

Ms. Monet questioned further. “And what would he hit you with?”

Another flash of Jim’s fists shivered in her spine, failing to keep her eyes open in tremoring whimpers. Failing to remain in the present.

"Jehovah isnotpleased!" he shouted over her screeching cries, reaching for his pants. Loosening the buckle holding them up before he ripped it from their loops. "That cannot go unpunished!"

“Tootie?” Ms. Monet inched forward, brow furrowed with worry. “What would your father hit you with?”

The leather belt struck down, slashing behind her thighs. Burning her skin red as piercing cries echoed. Leather whipped down again and again, each strike resonating in a biting slap. She writhed and wiggled with each strike, shrieks scratching in her throat. Insufferable pain drowned her mind. Jim was merciless, for Jehovah disciplines the ones He loves…

Ms. Monet observed Tootie’s shuddering shoulders, seeing her eyes clamped shut as torturous memories pursed tiny whimpers through her tight lips. Crap…she feared this would happen. Left with very little options, Ms. Monet took a deep breath and addressed the judge.

“…your honor, I’d like to use Dorothy Byrne’s pre-recorded statement that was recorded via camcorder.”

The judge rubbed her chin in consideration. “Is the interviewer of this pre-recorded statement present in court?”

“Yes, your honor.” Ms. Monet verified. “I’ve confirmed that Detective Tom Arnold is present and is competent to stand trial.”

“Objection, your honor!” Aggravation stood Mr. Alazraqui from his chair. Taking all the will power in the world for Ms. Monet to maintain professionalism by not visibly rolling her eyes. “Would that not be hearsay?!”

“Children under the age of twelve are protected under the Child Hearsay Exception.” Ms. Monet argued civically, facing the judge. “At the time of recording, Tootie was able to properly communicate her personal knowledge of the topic and give clear answers of the questions asked.”

Scrunching at her raven ponytails, Tootie’s shallow breaths continued, eyes wide shut.

Ms. Monet gestured to Tootie withdrawing into herself on the stand. “Being in the same room as her alleged abusers is clearly causing some distress and lack of ability to respond.”

“If that’s the case, then why was she sworn in under oath to testify?” Mr. Alazraqui’s argument led Ms. Monet to directly address him.

“Will all due respect, Mr. Alazraqui, you don’t truly know how you’ll react in the moment until you’re actually in the moment.” Ms. Monet countered. “And considering that Dorothy is just nine-years-old speaking about such a traumatic experience, I would ask that you show some grace.”

‘Grace’ was nowhere in Mr. Alazraqui’s vocabulary. “You want me to show grace to a kid who can’t take a spanking?!”

Vicky subtly jumped as Vic shot from his chair, forgetting that he was in a courtroom. “Now you wait a goddamn minute-”

“Order in the court!”

Pounding bangs of the gavel swiftly ceased all quarrels. The atmosphere thickened in a tense silence, causing glossy purple eyes to shoot up towards the judge.

“Based on the witnesses’ clear emotional distress, I approve the pre-recorded statement.” The judge announced. “And I call a small intermission to set up the equipment to be played for the court.”

Another bang of the gavel initiated intermission. Chest straining for air, Tootie shot a final glance at Mr. Alazraqui whispering into Jim’s ear. Stoic eyes did not waver. Mr. Alazraqui then turned to her direction. Curling his lips in arrogance, swelling tears in her grimace...

Overwhelmed with defeat, Tootie dashed from the stand. Running down the single aisle between the benches seating the public audience. Vicky and Vic raced after her, making it as far as the lobby before Vicky managed to catch up to Tootie’s fast pace.

Wrecking sobs shook Tootie’s shoulders, gasping cries already out of breath from running. Vicky grabbed Tootie’s arm before she could run further, bringing her to restrain her wailing arms as Vicky peered into Tootie’s eyes clamped shut with gushing tears.

“Tootie, it’s okay!” Vicky attempted to talk her sister down. “Hey! Look at me!”

Hitched sobs that escalated into hyperventilative pants as Ms. Monet’s heels clinked through the lobby, catching up to the trio. Vicky tried to pull Tootie into a comforting hug, yet Tootie shoved herself away. Why was Vicky coddling her when she had one job! She had one job, to tell the truth! And she failed!

Tearing herself away, Tootie ran off down the hall. Deaf to her sister’s call for her to come back.

“It’s alright.” Vic palmed Vicky’s shoulder, watching Tootie disappear into the first bathroom she could see through heart-wrenching cries “…let her go.”

“I deeply apologize.” Ms. Monet blamed herself, facing Vic and Vicky with a palm over her chest. “I knew in my gut that we should have just opted to use the pre-recorded statement from the beginning. Tootie shouldn’t have gone through this…”

“It’s okay…” Vic sadly muttered, taking more of the blame. He too could have made that call at any point...

Bursting into the bathroom, Tootie staggered into the nearest empty stall. She fell to the ground, palms muffling wailing sobs over her face. Poofing out of her disguise, Rose magically locked the stall, just to ensure that Tootie wouldn’t try to run away from her.

“Tootie, it’s okay…” she coaxed, reaching out towards her sobbing godchild. “It’s gonna be okay-”

“NO!” Tootie swatted Rose’s hand away, fresh tears flashed in her glare.

“Tootie, don’t…”

“NOOOOO!”

Rose again reached for the child in distress, only for Tootie to swing madly at her. Weeping grunts followed each swing, defended either by Rose’s arms or her wand. “…Tootie, stop-”

“I’m USELESS!” her pained cry rang out, shame slowing her swings. “I FAILED!”

“Tootie…”

Tootie sobbed, growing red in the face. Blubbering that she was useless, that she’d failed. Fighting Tootie’s resistance, Rose eventually managed to draw Tootie in. Cradling her close as motherly arms wrapped around shaking shoulders. She began to lightly rock her like a baby, these light rocks taking quite a while to soften howling cries into quiet sobs. Tootie clung to her, burying her tears into Rose’s chest. Rose continued to rock her, repeating in an oh so gentle voice “…it’s gonna be okay…”

It was the only thing Rose could be certain of…

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Silver showers had come to an end with puffy pillows darkening the sky in a gloomy-grey. Yellow school busses rumbled idly in a semi-organized line along the curb, onboarding Dimmsdale Elementary students for their journey back to the haven of home. Various cars merged in a cohesive line separate from the busses for a parent or guardian to retrieve their offspring. Other students braved the chilly weather either alone or with friends, living close enough to make their respective journeys on foot.

Coated in black fleece with briefcase clutched in his tight grasp, the 5th-grade teacher snarled as he grumbled gibberish to himself. Kicking his feet towards the refuge of his black van from the bane of another stupid-tuvid day of stupid-tuvid school. It was days like this that Mr. Crocker questioned his own principles. Where there are children, there are fairies…fairies that he had yet to prove were even in this school. Was there ever a hunch that fairies were within his reach, right under his nose?

Mr. Crocker grunted a breath.Whycan he not remember?!

With temperatures straddling the line of freezing, thin sheets of white icicles layered over puddles of earlier rain in patches throughout the parking lot's black pavement. So wrapped in his sulking that his momentum stepped off the edge of the pathway at an unbalanced angle. The heel of his shoe hit the slippery surface, and he yelped in surprise as the ground gave way beneath his feet.

A sharp pain cracked the back of his skull, and black split across his vision…

"Mother! Please!" the freckled ten-year-old with a full head of smokey-black hair and black specs tugged pleadingly at the back thighs of his mother's sky-blue bell-bottoms. Standing on the front porch of their 1970s home wearing a white tee with red stripes and his own funky denim bell-bottoms. "I want you to stay!"

Sporting a matching blue blazer over a white turtleneck with white sneakers, the forty-year-old single mother tore her only son's clingy grip off of her freshly ironed pants. Adjusting the strap of her white purse as her groused lip faced him. "Stop it, Denzel! You're making me late for my second job at the A-Track Tape Company!"

"But you're never home!" the boy continued to complain. "I never get to see you!"

"Well,somebody's gotta keep this expensive roof over our heads!"

The sour in his mother's words bent the corners of Denzel's mouth downwards, and groaning in annoyance, Dolores-Day Crocker co*cked her hip with a newly manicured hand.

"Don't you wanna spend time with Victor?"

"No!" Denzel whined, cracking his voice. The name itself sparked fight or flight in his nerves. "He always does bad things to me!"

Dolores huffed. Why did her son insist on crying wolf and wasting the time she doesn't have?! "Oh,don'tmake up stuff, Denzel!"

"I'mnot!" Denzel stressed, arms outstretched for emphasis. "You wouldknowthat if you were here, but instead, you dump me with Vic!"

"Ugh!" Agitation groaned in Dolores's throat, grabbing at her black shoulder-length bob. "You're starting to sound likehimnow…"

Her words stabbed another hole in his bleeding heart, hanging his head dejectedly. Why did his mother insist on comparing him to the bastard who left them?! He'dneverleave them likehim, but, apparently, she has no problems leavinghim…

Coming from the sidewalk, a redhaired teen had arrived at the Crocker household. Silver spikes poked through the black leather cuffed around his wrists and the collar of his olive-green T-shirt, untucked over black denim ripped at the knees paired with red chucks.

"What's crackin', Mrs. C?!" the sixteen-year-old greeted with a plastered smile, scruffs of hair over his top lip. A pep in his step as he approached the middle-aged woman's thrusted chin.

"That'sMissesC toyou,Victor!" Dolores acidly corrected as her greeting. Wasting no more of her precious time, she rushed past her hired babysitter to the driver's side of her red sports car. "I'll be home late, so make sure Denzel doesn't stay up past his bedtime!"

"Yessum, Misses C." Victor, who preferred to go by 'Vic,' grinned craftily. "I got italllllllunder control!"

Denzel cowered with clenched fists to his chest, backing away through the front door. Anticipating all the horrible things awaiting him once the tires of his mother's car were no longer visible.

Vic waved to Dolores as she started her car, waving until she reversed out of the driveway out onto main roads. His friendly smile remained until squealing tires disappeared down the street, curling in his ominous turn towards the child's limbs faintly trembling.

Fear frowned behind his black specs as he backed further into the main entryway in failed attempts to keep the distance between Vic's portentous steps forward. The edges of Vic's menacing lips curved further as he shut his prey into the home turned torture chamber.

"Guess what time it is."

"Um…" Denzel gulped before he made sheepish strides towards the staircase "…I-I think it's time I go to my room-"

The tall teen lunged at the small child, clawing black hair by its roots. Denzel's legs dangled before his face was forcibly smashed into the wooden floor, cracking the glass of his specs. Black rims hung loosely from one of his ears as dizziness swooshed across his brain, no autonomy to his own head as his babysitter lifted him off the ground. Brute strength slammed the boy's body into a nearby wall with no remorse, knocking glasses feet away from the brutal scene.

Before Denzel could catch a breath, Vic trapped Denzel against his torso with a snaked arm around Denzel's neck. Squeezing like a snake constricting its food for consumption. Denzel choked a cough, his legs kicked wildly as Denzel's tried with what might he had to claw at Vic's hold. Grasping at the straws of his life as nails dug into his capture's skin in hopes of freeing his obstructed airways.

His efforts proved futile as Vic merely tightened his arm, bulging his bicep. Snickering as his restrictive squeeze choked the color from Denzel already pale skin. Rigid gasps replaced his breath as eyes strained at the ceiling, lungs convulsing for breath. Black slowly circled around the white ceiling, pressure ballooning in his skull…

Fuchsia and shamrock-green appeared out of the blue, their feathers fluttering in a panic. A ringing in his ears drowned out their frantic squawks. He tried to call out but couldn't, finding his voice stripped from him as a drowsing pressure continued to drag him down…

The gold crowns atop their heads glimmered among the darkness that blurred his vision into black…

"…Denzel?!Denzel!"

An Irish woman's muffled cry blinked eyelids in their groggy haze. Darkness blurred out of his vision to chubby cheeks and ginger curls of her beehive bun.

"…Denzel, are you alright!?"

It was hard to tell if it was because his glasses were missing or if motion-blurred versions of her were from his slack head bobbling. His restored breath felt a firm hand planted on his chest in attempts to pull him back out of the drowsing pressure, rousing him into consciousness.

"Can you hear me!?Saysomething!"

Her familiar voice came more clearly, her dirty pillows jiggling in her viola-blue mink coat as she shook him. When her frantic teal orbs corrected in his view, he felt the pressure fading from his mind as he croaked "…G-Geraldine...?"

Acting quickly, Geraldine Waxelplax pulled Denzel by his arm, supporting his back. Making him weakly groan as she sat him up on the curb of the path that led into the parking lot. "The school nurse is still here..." she fretted, observing her ex's disoriented blinks as he returned the glasses that'd fallen to his face. "You should get checked out."

"No…" he uttered hoarsely, head spinning too much to swat her hand away. "I'm fine…"

She kneeled beside him, watching him bend over with elbows on his knees as he clutched fingers to his head. "You hit your head really hard on that ice! What if you have a concussion?"

Despite the whooshing throb between his ears, he raised his sullen gaze towards her. "…don't pretend to care now…"

Boggled eyes stared at first before they scowled out of spite. "Mr. Crocker, don't forget thatIam yourboss!" Principal Waxelplax voiced her stringency.

Mr. Crocker rasped a low scoff. "Don't patronize me…"

"Mr. Crocker, can you just put your pride aside and get help for once?!"

"I don't need anyone's help…"

"UGH!" Principal Waxelplax stomped to her feet, hands grated at her sides. "You are always so flippin'stubborn!"

"…oh, isthatwhy you dumped me?"

His rancorous reminder weakened the defenses in his boss's glare, stealing a second of breath. "…Denzel, I-"

"Save it."

Bitter pride willed for wobbly arms to push him to his feet. His legs nearly gave from the blood rushing to his head. Vision swayed through his glasses, stumbling in his footing. Darkness threatened to submerge him again…

…until a solicitous grip caught him.

"Seriously, Denzel…" Geraldine stood in front of him, the top of her beehive eyelevel with his forehead. Keeping him steady with both hands on his arms, her tone softened with genuine concern behind teal eyes. "…I'll take you myself."

As his dark-blue stare fought through vertigo, Mr. Crocker couldn't understand why she seemed so pressed on making sure his noggin wasn't broken.Shewas the one to break up withhimbecauseshecalledhimcoo-coo for believing in the existence of fairies!

The existence of fairies…

…that dream…felt so real…

He had to have been around ten years old…he knew that because he was ten when his mother had picked up another job at the A-Track Tape Company…making her home less as he feared for his life more whenever Vic 'babysat' him…

...and those parrots…green and pink…like Carlos and Wilma…except…parrots don't wear crowns on their heads…only…

FAIRY GODPARENTS!

He felt a twitch in his limbs, giving Principal Waxelplax more cause for concern of a TBI because his twitch seemed erratic. At the moment, this didn't matter so much as the notion that he, Denzel Crocker, was a fairy godchild.

And he, Denzel Crocker, had…FAIRY GODPARENTS!

His body twitched again, leading Principal Waxelplax to listen to her intuition and assist Mr. Crocker back towards the school. As his awkward feet tripped over the other despite Principal Waxelplax steadying him, there was still one burning question…

If he truly didhave fairy godparents…where did they go?

Cosmo’s comforting palm massaged circles below Wanda’s wings as she heaved projectiles of sparkling purple vile into the trashcan of their godson’s room. Given little chances to breathe between vomit shooting from her esophagus, Wanda was soon granted reprieve as she inhaled in deep huffs, wiping purple from her lips.

“I want this stupid nausea to go away…” she groaned gruffly over the trashcan.

"I know, baby…" Cosmo sighed disheartened, utterly helpless to his wife's misery.

"Can't I just wish the nausea away?" Timmy asked, seated on his bed with a sullen chin in his palm. Tired of seeing his godmother suffer…

Cosmo surly scoffed. "I wish you could…"

"This is part of the fairy birthing process…" Wanda grumbled, scooting from the trashcan when she felt nothing more to upheave. "Nothing can disrupt it. Not even magic…"

"Ohcomeonnnnnnnnn!" Timmy slouched his shoulders, growling his irritation. "I'm sick and tired off*ckingrules!"

"Heylanguage!" Wanda firmly scolded, appalled. "Youdon't use that word!"

"Okay…" Timmy huffed tartly "…sick and tired ofsh*ttyrules…"

"Don't use that one either!" Wanda scolded again. Did Vicky influence this foul mouth of his?! "Matter of fact, don't useanybad words, you hear me?!"

Timmy subtly bounced with another grunt as he flopped backwards onto his duvet, glum in his glare. "Whatever…"

In observation of his godson's behavior, the fairy godfather redirected his gaze from Timmy to his wife's stern expression. Timmy seemed more cross than usual, which, was not outside his realm, but concerning, nevertheless. The last time their godson smiled, the last time his eyes beamed with life…felt like forever ago.

"Timmy, what's the matter with you!?" Wanda probed.

"Nothing…" the ten-year-old held a cold gaze to the ceiling. He wished he could be wherever Sophia was…and he knew he'd be smart to keep that particular wish under lock and key.

Aggrieved, the fairy godmother deepened her frown. "Don't you lie to me-"

She doubled over in a clenched grunt, clutching the sharp pinches stabbing her stomach.

Husband mode immediately kicked in, holding her against him to keep her steady. "What's wrong?!" his worry flashed in his eyes.

Timmy raised his head, brow furrowed at his godmother's teeth gritted in slashing pain. Only when what seemed like ten agonizing seconds past did the pain subside and was Wanda flinched in bated breath.

"It just came out of nowhere…"

Lingering pain in her voice made Cosmo grimace. "Maybe you should get checked out…"

"Cosmo's right."

Cosmo blinked to his godson, once again boggled that he wasn't wrong "…Iam?"

Sitting up in his bed, the darkness shrouding Timmy's mind shot straight to worst case scenario. "What if…something's wrong with the baby?"

Wanda had to take this into consideration. That pain was unlike anything she'd experienced before, and it was so sudden. First time or not, no way was that a normal aspect of pregnancy.

"You're both right…" she sighed, opting to put aside her earlier qualms with her godson. Wincing as she straightened her back, leaning on her husband's intent assistance to help her into the air. "I'll try to get an appointment…"

Dejection kept their gaze on his godparents, pinching at the skin on his left arm. He remembered his promise to Cosmo and Wanda, that he'd tell them if he was having dark thoughts again. Truth be told, darkness had plagued his mind for weeks now. However, he didn't know how to tell them…or even if he could.

And now, with this mysterious pain in Wanda's stomach, he couldn't bear the thought of burdening them more than his godparents needed right now…

Dark clouds secreted the black tranquility of the sky as the bark of an alert greyhound broke the still silence throughout Happy Trails Trailer Park. Most of the mobile homes had their lights out, retiring for the late evening. All except for one Flagstaff camper.

Light from the muted TV flickered as Victor Byrne sat at the table booth, changed into his night attire of a fitted KISS band tee and blue-and-white plaid pajama pants. Rubbing the red ring around eyes still adjusting to a regular day schedule from his former night shift. At the beginning of the year, he'd changed his schedule to be available for his nieces and so he could be mentally present for the trial. Of course, that meant sleeping on the short bench seat so the girls could have the single queen bed, but that was a sacrifice that he was willing to make.

Ruffling fingers through red shoulder-length strands, Vic released a weary sigh, mind wrapped around the trial that would still be ongoing. Between multiple recesses and intermission and Mr. Asshat Alazraqui bringing in other so-called 'witnesses' to testify, the jury had more to deliberate on. Just like with using Tootie's pre-recorded statement, Ms. Monet was already steps ahead; she'd persuaded the Turners to agree to be on standby to take the stand since Tootie had escaped to their house the night that Jim nearly beat her to death…

Pink orbs glanced up at the sound of navy curtains drawn back, seeing his oldest niece in her black oversized tee with a skull and crossbones in the center. Her own pink eyes still red from crying as she made her way to sit across from her uncle. "Tootie's finally asleep…"

"That's good…" Vic sighed in relief, propping his forehead in his palms. Poor girl cried for hours after they'd come home from a long, emotionally draining day at the courthouse. At least, according to Ms. Monet, Tootie would not have to be present for the remainder of this drawn-out trial.

Leaning back against the booth, Vicky sat with arms crossed. Vic observed her downcast gaze. "…how ya feelin'?"

Vicky shrugged faintly. She'd sleep for an eternity if she could…

"Wanna talk about anything?" Vic offered. "I'm here ta listen."

In a pause, Vicky met her uncle's earnest stare. Her emotions had been all over the place that day, and she felt too drained to reignite the angry fires of sadness that had nowhere else to go for the longest time. "Not tonight…"

"Fair…" Vic sighed in acceptance. He was a teenager once. "…but…" he straightened in his seat, his tone seeming uncertain "…can I talk to you 'bout somethin'?"

"Duh, Unc." Vicky slyly lifted the corner of her mouth. "I listen too, y'know."

Vic chortled quietly, feeling more comfortable despite indirectly treating his teenage niece like a therapist. That was one thing that he was glad remained even while Vicky was trapped under Jim and Nicky's roof. In spite of Jim's demand to cut off contact, Vicky had managed to keep in touch with him, and they would always confide in one another "…you remember Grandma Vicky?"

"Haven't seen her in like six years." Vicky considered the elderly woman that she was named after for the striking resemblance. "And Tootie was so young when Jim stopped associating with grandma. I doubt she remembers her…"

Vic let out another somber exhale, figuring out where to begin. "Well…when your grandpa died when me and Jim were kids, your grandma leaned on Christianity to cope…"

That revelation made Vicky stiffen. She did remember a bunch of crosses and pictures of Jesus on the cross all over her grandma’s house. Being surrounded by all those religious memorabilia felt kinda…weird.

"She wasn't entirely like Jim," Vic made sure to clarify "but she picked and chose what parts of the bible to follow…" he stalled, a wrinkle in his brow. About to admit what he'd tucked in a safe for decades "…including believing that marriage should only be between a man and a woman."

"Wait…" Vicky put two and two together, blinking in disbelief. They've talked about a lot of things, but sexuality was never a topic "…Uncle Vic, you'regay?"

For something that few preach to be proud of, lingering shame looked away with slumped shoulders "…don't like ta show it."

Noticing this, Vicky lightly frowned "…why?"

Vic pursed hesitant lips. "I'd always known…since I was just a boy…" he spoke, gaze directed at the table instead of Vicky's attentive eyes on him. His voice softened by unpleasant memories "…but when I was thirteen, mama was cleanin' my room and…she'd found this letter I'd gotten from a boy I liked."

Yep, Vicky didnotlike where this was going…

"…and she jus' started yellin'…" his nostrils started to flare, tensing his jutted jaw "…'You a sinner goin' straight ta Hell'…'The bible don't accept that gay sh*t'…'This gotta be some phase; no son of mine takes it up the ass'…"

"Whoa…" Vicky raised her brows. She had no idea that Vic dealt with such spite from his own mom. "…that's messed up."

"What's more messed up…is that she forced me into this conversion camp…" he lowered clenched fists to the table "…the only thing it changed was how I thought of myself."

Vicky crinkled her nose, shaking her head. Over three decades later, her uncle still listened to those negative voices. Battling and concealing the shame of his true self, all because his mother chose religion over accepting her son for what he couldn't change.

"…I shoved myself back in the closet… had girlfriends and all that…all the keep her happy…" for the first time, he lifted narrowed eyes to his niece "…but on the inside…I was angry…and I took that anger out on this kid I used to look after…"

For some reason, Vicky found that oddly familiar…

"I did all kinds of terrible sh*t to that kid…and I got away with it cuz his mom couldn't give less of a sh*t. Then he grew up and had made this big announcement at the university…raving on and on about this crazy nonsense of fairies 'floatin' among them'…" self-reflection shook his head "…then I realized…man…I musta really f*cked this kid up…"

Gaping her eyes, Vicky knew of only one fairy-obsessed man that had once been her 5th-grade teacher "…you mean Mr. Crocker!?"

"Yup." Vic exhaled "…hard to believe, huh?"

"Uh,duh?! That doesn't even sound like you…"

"I know…" Vic frowned in regret. "But I'm tellin' you all this cuz…this whole case with Jim and Nicky and all the sh*t they did to you and Tootie…" he licked his dry lips "…it made me think about how hurt people hurt people."

"Yeah?" Vicky arched a bitter brow. "…then what's Jim's excuse?"

"Mama and Jim used to be close until he became a witness…" Vic elaborated "…when he cut us both out of his life, they had this huge falling out. Shereallylaid into him, sayin' he was makin' a big mistake, calling him all kinds of names…like…it was nasty. I dunno if that had anything to do with his anger, but…it's no excuse. Just like I had no excuse…"

Vicky sighed in a downcast gaze, starting to consider her own actions.

"…Crocker's dad wasn't in his life and his mom wasn't around a lot…and that ain't stop me from treating him like dirt because I despised who I was…" sadness lowered his eyes "…and when I saw what he'd become…that's when I saw the error of my ways…" he then raised them back to his niece "…but I wonder if he could've ended up differently…had I not hurt him because I was hurtin' inside…"

Meeting Vic's gaze, Vicky thought of a response "…if Mr. Crocker's life was already messed up, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference…"

Bearing this in mind, Vic lowered his chin, staring down at his softened fists "…maybe you're right…"

Deep thought lapsed silence between them as Vicky considered how she treats the twerp. Vicky had seen the Turner's antipathy towards him firsthand. Whether they were aware of her actions towards their son or not, it didn't seem like they cared as much as other parents do. She'd said that she would never be nice to someone who kills his own sister, but what if that was contributing to the same terrible cycle?

"…do you see me differently?"

Vicky looked up to her uncle's somber features. Thinking back to everything he'd said, it must have taken a great deal of courage for him to open up. It takes that same courage to admit that you were wrong, to acknowledge that your actions have consequences. She'd be a hypocrite to fault him completely…

Her answer was simple.

"…no, I don't." she spoke solemnly. "You were man enough to change your ways. Jim and Nicky will never change…"

He stared, not expecting that type of response. With everything she'd been through, he'd expected her to demonize him as someone who willingly abused a kid. The fact that she still found respect for him, in spite of his past demons…tugged at his heart "…that means a lot to me…honestly."

Vicky glanced back towards the closed curtain before she faced her uncle "…are…you gonna tell Tootie?"

"…I will." Vic nodded in assurance, feeling more prepared. "When she's old enough to understand. And when this trial ain't so fresh in her mind..."

Hmm, that makes sense. "Good point…"

Disguised as a teal tabby, Rose could only make out bits and pieces of the conversation behind the drawn curtain. Aside from the occasional raised inflection in Vicky's voice, they were speaking quietly. From what she could make out, she thought it best for Tootie's uncle to explain in his own words. Tootie might not take it well if it came from someone other than the horse's mouth.

Rose's right ear flicked when quiet whimpers stirred, turning to the raven-haired girl crying weakly through closed eyes. In response, Rose stood on her paws and inched closer to her godchild, settling her fur against the curled body tucked beneath the black-and-white plaid of the duvet. She brushed the whiskers on her cheek to Tootie's flinching fingers, a reassuring gesture that Tootie wasn't alone. The little girl's fingers laxed in response, ceasing their flinching. Calmed into ebbs and flows of rhythmic breaths.

Assured that her godchild had resettled with sleep, the fairy godmother lowered her chin to one paw folded over the other, events of the trial replaying in her mind. Vividly seeing Tootie's fear, experiencing the worst of her abuse as if it was happening all over again. To hear Tootie call herself useless, call herself a failure, ripped at Rose's spirit. Considering her own abuse from an ex in her far distant past, she herself had been in similar shoes as Tootie. Testifying in court, reliving those awful memories in front of an audience. And yet, she couldn't relieve Tootie of those memories. She couldn't change her negative self-view. All she could do to comfort her godchild was rock her.

Not to mention that heart-wrenching speech from the troubled teen. The outpouring distress in those tears of a child who would rather cry in solitude. Seeing Vicky on the stand had sparked a memory of when Jorgen Von Strangle had first given her Tootie's case file. He'd shared a classified fact that, at the time, Rose couldn't believe. Looking back now, it made so much sense…

Vicky Byrne was a former godchild.

Jorgen did not disclose the name of the godparent, but he'd revealed that Vicky was assigned a godparent when she was just shy of eleven; unlike Tootie, Vicky didn't buy into many of the religious beliefs that were shoved down her throat. She didn't believe that magic was evil, so she was more receptive to her godmother than Tootie had been with hers.

Vicky had wanted to share her godmother with her little sister, but her godmother had warned her never to expose her to anyone or else she would go away forever. Vicky heeded this warning, wearing her mint-beaded bracelet everywhere she went. Whether it was church meetings, field service, family worship, or at school. Despite her circ*mstances and the abuse she suffered, her fairy had made life more bearable. She could retreat in her room in the comfort of her godmother's arms. She could wish away the pain, and she no longer had to suffer in the pain alone...

…she could be happy.

Throughout that month, Vicky's life seemed to get worse. She would come in her room crying in her closet, that is, if Jim wasn't chasing her with a belt or a switch. Her godmother would hold her and offer comfort in the form of hope. She would whisper in her ear that one day, she would find a way out. It didn't feel like it now, but one day, she will leave and not look back. She will be free. Vicky had clung onto that hope, holding on with the thinnest thread…

Then one day…her world flipped upside down.

Nicky had found a Twinklebell plush beneath Vicky's pillow one day when she was cleaning her room while Vicky was at school. It was a plush that Vicky had wished for, and she would sleep with it at night and tuck it away where it couldn't be found. Vicky was running late and had forgotten to tuck her plush away, a mistake that had sealed her fate.

A fist to the face had greeted her when she'd opened the front door. Jim had then yanked her into the house and demanded she tell him where she'd gotten the satanic possession from. Out of anger and spite, Vicky had revealed that she wished for that plush. To prove a petty point to her parents that magic was not of Satan…Vicky had exposed her godparent.

Without warning, Jorgen Von Strangle thundered down from a giant copy of Da Rules, and he had stripped her mint bracelet from her. No matter how hard Vicky had cried and pleaded, Jorgen showed no grace. You violate the ultimate rule, you suffer the consequences. Thus, all wishes had been unwished, all memories had been erased with the memory wiper, and her godmother was sent back to Fairy World. Never to be seen by Vicky again.

According to Jorgen, due to the extreme beliefs of her religious household, the Council had felt it a huge risk assigning Vicky to a godparent. It was an even larger risk assigning Rose to Tootie; however, Rose had a feeling that Tootie actively went against her prior beliefs and had kept Rose a secret because of her parents' hostile reaction to anything and everything magic.

Though…Rose had to wonder. Had the Council listened to their doubts and not assign Rose to Tootie, would Tootie have escaped from her parents' leash? Conversely, would Vicky have turned out differently had she not lost her godparent?

With a disheartened sigh, Rose finally allowed her eyes to close. Letting her mind drift with one final thought…

As it stands, Vicky was labeled irredeemable. No matter her misery, Vicky was never granted a godparent again.

Leaden clouds hung low in grey blankets, wintry wind blowing early morning air in artistic swirls. Three teen predators hovered near a street sign of a suburban neighborhood, awaiting the anticipated arrival of their preys.

"Y'all sure y'all wanna do this?" Frankie questioned his friends, the caramel complexion of his nose reddened slightly from the cold air. Hands tucked in the pockets of his baggy khakis. "I mean, at this point, we neck deep..."

Cornrows protected from the weather by a red beanie, Bradley cracked his knuckles. Facing down the sidewalk, hostile brows creased. "We neck deep cuz of that bucktooth fa*g snitchin' on us in the first place."

With a gold chain dangling from the neck of the Dimmsdale Ballhogs jersey beneath his black parka, LeRoi fumed with crossed arms. Facing the same direction as Bradley with nostrils flaring in vengeance. "And we not gonna let him and his ginger spaz get away with f*ckin' up our lives…"

The day prior, LeRoi, Bradley, and Frankie had returned to school from Christmas Break and were immediately called into Principal Lewis' office. Everything that had transpired with Gary Vladislapov had been a huge threat to his life, and when the district caught wind of this, they'd threatened the middle school with huge fines from the city. Principal Lewis needed to take more drastic action, make an example out of those troublesome 8th graders. As a result of their continuous harassment and assault, the district had no other choice but to expel the bullies from Dimmsdale Middle School, and their parents would be receiving official letters in the mail.

As you would expect, LeRoi and crew were pissed. Their parents were scrambling to find another middle school that would take them so that they wouldn't lose their year. Their reputation was tarnished among their peers. Their families were disappointed in them, some relatives going as far as to deem them failures of society at just thirteen.

They had nothing going for them; their lives had blown up in smoke, all cuz that Gary fa*g started the fire…

Now,hewas gonna be the one to get burned.

"There they go!" Bradley pointed when gelled black hair and a ginger bowl cut appeared in their line of sight from down the sidewalk.

Wearing their yellow belt-buckle and dark-teal chain, the two 6th graders slowed their steps upon the sight of their tormentors. Gary snarled, gritting his teeth. The heck were those guys doing here!?

"L-Let's find another way to school…" Dwight cautioned, intuition flaring.

"Yo,fa*ggot!" LeRoi yelled out, aggressive in his stomps towards them with his friends not far behind. "Immabeatcho' ass for gettin' us expelled!"

Feeling his teeth chatter as he swallowed past a lump, Dwight reached for his best friend's arm. Instead of retreating to safety, Gary firmed his fighting stance and yelled back.

"Getting expelled wasyourfault!"

"Shut thef*ckup!" LeRoi shoved savage palms to Gary's chest, causing Gary to choke an audible gasp as he stumbled back.

"Y-You're not supposed to touch us!" Dwight stood beside Gary while he regained his bearing, blood chilled to the bone.

"Lewis said we can't touch you at school." Bradley taunted, inching ominously towards Dwight. Highly amused by the faint tremble in the ginger's legs. "This ain't school."

Frankie stood close to his friends whilst keeping his distance from the scene, still uncertain if they should go through with their plan of revenge. They were surrounded by houses, which meant surrounded by potential witnesses. LeRoi and Bradley ain't think this all the way through; they could face juvie for this if they got caught.

"C-C'mon guys, w-we don't want any trouble!" Dwight figured that, maybe if he implored them, they'd leave them alone.

Clutching the weighted pain in his ribs, Gary glared into LeRoi's scowl. If he showed fear, they win. He can't give them that satisfaction. "Go find something better to do! Oh, wait." he coughed a snort. "That's right-"

LeRoi suckered a punch that smashed into Gary's chin. His ears grated from ire knuckles colliding with jawbone as he plummeted head first to the sidewalk. Muting his world into darkness.

"GARY!"

Before Dwight could lunge for his fallen friend, Bradley tackled him from behind. Pinning knees dug into Dwight's shoulder blades before Bradley clawed a wad of ginger hair. With a forceful yank, Bradley sharply co*cked Dwight's head, sending a thousand needles of a burning sensation down the back of Dwight's neck.

Croaking through the pain, Dwight clenched his eyes. "Irving! I-I wish-"

Dwight's face crashed into concrete.

Every smash of skull to the white sidewalk morphed drops of crimson into one small puddle. Even when his glasses snapped in half and skin broke along the forehead oozing trails of Dwight's blood, Bradley's fury did not relent.

Shallow breaths stiffened in Frankie's chest. The situation was getting dire, and he had to step in. "Bradley!" he pushed his friend before Dwight's head hit the concrete again. "Lookwhat youdid!"

When Bradley followed Frankie's pointed finger, his anger was swiped with terror.

Violent spasms erupted through Dwight’s arms and legs, the whites of his eyes visible through flickering eyelids. Electric jolts overtook Dwight’s slim body at a rapid rate, grunts gurgling through the white foam that’d begun to bubble from his throat.

LeRoi’s eyes bulged in a panic. “RUUUUUN!”

The three boys sped away like the wind, abandoning the scene of violent seizures and a lifeless kid bleeding from his slack jaw.

"Gary!" Alondro called to his godchild sprawled along the ground, growing more distraught the longer Gary remained unresponsive. "GARY!"

"Dammit!" Irving growled, horrified when his godchild's face reddened in aggressive tremors. Healing magic was too slow; these kids need medical attention and fast. "We gotta get them to a hospital. Now!"

Sparking urgent wands, the two godfathers poofed their godchildren straight to Dimmsdale Hospital.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Standing next to his bedazzled telescope, mint-green observed the blackened clouds void of sunrise through the glass pane of his bedroom window, cozy in his white tee and light-green pajama pants. Hugging his body shivering for warmth despite the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. Throbs jabbed left and right hooks between his ears, pulsing behind his eyes. Jumbling coherent strings of thought into muddled puddles.

If Juandissimo had not been around, the young billionaire would have spent Christmas and New Years in complete solitude; the Buxaplentys had been MIA since mid-December, venturing off on yet another celebratory getaway to one of Diana's seaside luxury resorts on a desert island after yet another successful fiscal year. The three weeks that they've been gone felt no different from when they were home. Their 'daily two minutes' had come to a halt not long after the bombshell that they never wanted him anyway. What was the point in forcing it anymore…

Lately, Remyreallywasn't okay.

Dark thoughts disturbed his dreams and haunted every waking moment. Thoughts that he was worthless, thoughts that he shouldn't exist. Thoughts that urged to wish he were never born. He didn't dare make such a wish, because the godfather that loved and cared for him would never dare grant it. So, he'd elected to keep these thoughts to himself, suffering in silence.

When Juandissimo would question him on his wellbeing, he could use his fatigue as an excuse. It didn't stray too far from the truth, and it was a viable distraction from the root issue. He would have wished for a dreamless sleep if those types of wishes were within the realm of Juandissimo's discretion. Then again, that might have given away the extent of his suffering…

"Weneverwanted you in thefirstplace!"

Those very words echoed on repeat, shrouding his mind in the blackest of darkness. Burning within his chest, clenching his gut in the most agonizing churns. He'd felt the kind of sick that his stomach could not eject. He'd felt broken, eroding from the inside out. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely certain if ceasing to exist was the answer. And yet…he longed to stop the hurting.

He'd longed to quiet his mind completely, and two days ago, he was close to doing just that…

That night, he'd waited until he knew Juandissimo was undoubtedly asleep before he snuck out of bed. Dressed in nothing but his pajamas as he traveled out of the mansion towards the country club. He'd traversed through freezing temperatures on his journey to the lazy river, focused on one goal.

Desperation had given himself no time to hesitate, quaking in his bones as ice water stung his toes. Silk pajamas stuck to the goosebumps in his skin as water traveled up his torso until the top of blonde hair had been fully submerged. His lungs begged for air, fighting against his will to keep his arms and legs still. Projecting memories of the otherworldly swirls of pinks, blues, and purples that he'd seen within Fairy Fort's secret passage. Remembering the warmth that those hues emitted…

Weighted darkness had pressed against his brain, numbing his limbs. Visualizing the whitest light beyond closed eyes before a strong hoist had ripped at his back collar. He'd felt himself ejected from the water, his lungs gasping. Blinking through the swirling pressure at the pierce of blue-violets strained with both solicitude and alarming despair.

"¿¡Qué demonios,Remy!?"his godfather shook him."¿¡Estas loco!?¡Podrías haber muerto!"

Remy knew he'd gone too far when Juandissimo blurted out Spanish that Remy's dizzy haze couldn't understand. That, and he didn't know when or how Juandissimo had gotten there. Remy had made absolutely certain that Juandissimo was in a state of slumber that he would not wake from so easily. Regardless, had it not been for Juandissimo's interference…he would've certainly drowned.

Instead of drowning in ice-cold water, his body betrayed him by contracting an unnamed illness, marking him absent on the first day of school back from break. From how crummy he felt on this cloudy morning, it appeared that he would be absent today as well.

A tap on his left shoulder pulled him from whatever pensive stupor he'd fallen under, turning around to the subtle bags beneath blue-violets. "Time to check your temperature." his godfather wearily exhaled, poofing a thermometer into existence.

Continuing to hug himself, Remy reached out for the thermometer to position under his tongue.

"Blink once if your head still hurts."

Being truthful, Remy's eyelids flicked once. Nodding would have irritated his migraine from Hell.

Noting the feeble droop in Remy's eyelids, Juandissimo pressed a palm to the wetness in Remy's forehead. Heat radiated against his palm, furrowing his brow in worry. "You are burning up…"

Considering his hot sweatiness in his chilly shivers, Remy assumed that his fever had yet to break. Did he want it to break?

Thirty seconds past before the thermometer beeped, and when Juandissimo removed it from Remy's mouth, another weary sigh escaped as he read the predicted temperature. "102.1…" Yeah, Remy wasdefinitelystaying home. "You should be in bed."

Despite the foggy throb in his head, the edge of Remy's mouth lifted ever so faintly. "Or I should jump out the window. That would certainly break my fever…"

Juandissimo crinkled his nose at his godchild. "Remy, do not make jokes like that."

Resisting against droopy eyes, Remy slurred "…who's joking."

Juandissimo stared, sensing eeriness behind Remy's lack of emotion. It could be the delirium, or it could be a dark truth swimming to the surface. "Alright." his firm finger pointed to the bed like a father giving a command. "Back to bed. Now."

Giving a whiney groan in objection, Remy faced away and dragged his feet. Arms around his torso until he reached the bed to tuck himself in. He pulled the cotton duvet to his chest as Juandissimo took a seat by his bedside, magically conjuring a glass of orange juice.

It was Remy's turn to crinkle his nose "…why do I have to keep drinking this?"

"Fluids will help flush this sickness out." Juandissimo reminded, holding the glass for Remy to take.

Reluctantly, Remy accepted the glass. Squinting as he managed to swallow at least half a cup. An orange's tartness was never his favorite, but Juandissimo would argue that he needed the Vitamin C. Only for his godfather will he tolerate this repulsive liquid.

"Bueno." At least glad that his godson drank half of it, Juandissimo used his wand to set the cup on the nightstand beside the ferret cage, putting it aside for later. "Now…" he turned to his godson, releasing a sigh. "Try to get some rest…you look exhausted."

Leaning back against the pillow, Remy kept his comment about the small bags under Juandissimo's eyes to himself, opting instead to ask "…why do you insist on taking care of me?"

"I do not see anyone else doing so." Juandissimo pointed out.

Remy couldn't discredit Juandissimo's observation; if not personally instructed to check in, butlers and maids went on about their regular duties as if a child did not live among them. It'd been this way for as long as Remy could remember, and as he exhaled a heavy sigh, he murmured "…because it used to fall on him to care for me…"

Juandissimo felt his features fall. Disheartened that 'him' meant that pedófilo…

Even with the fuzzy haze pounding in his brain, Remy noted the dejection in Juandissimo's expression. "…it's a good thing…" he insisted, resting the back of his head to his pillow with heavy eyes to the gold canopy "…it was the rare time that he wasn't a creep…"

Juandissimo observed his godson assiduously, seeing Remy's struggle to keep his eyes open.

"…sometimes…I used to like getting sick…" Remy mumbled, battling his eyelids fighting to fall into slumber "…he would care for me…and he would just…lay and hold me…" drowsiness closed his eyes, head tilting in a losing battle "…hold me…until…I fell asleep…"

Mumbles lapsed into quiet snores past parted lips, sinking into sound slumber. The fairy godfather felt compelled to brush a tender finger to his ahijado's cheek before his brow furrowed in thought.

Fenwick was still on Remy's mind, evident from recollections of being cared for by his nanny whenever ill. Juandissimo also couldn't shake Remy's earlier comment about jumping out of the window, hauntedly reminded of dragging Remy out of the lazy river before he could have drowned. Disturbing comments, life-threatening actions…Juandissimo could feel his intuition scream that something was seriously wrong. But whenever he'd tried to talk to Remy, he would just blame it on being tired…

Watching Remy sleep, Juandissimo folded his lip. Knowing from experience, this was much more than just being tired. Was it possible to save Remy from himself…before it was too late?

. . . . . .

Crystal raindrops of the rectangular chandelier stretched along the length of the island topped in macaubas quartzite, the island where the Wells sisters occupied the rose-gold velvet of the swivel barstools. Wearing their Brightsburg Academy uniform of gold sweater vests and black-pleated skirt, the eleven-year-old leisurely flipped through a tween magazine. Finishing her bowl of cereal on the opposite end of the island from Hazel drinking the remanence of sugary milk with her bright-red ring cuffed on her hand.

Silence lengthened the distance between them, which wasn't uncommon. Whenever questioned by strangers never to be seen again, Hillary would use the stark contrast in their skin tone as a means to deny their relation. In the same regard, Hazel didn't too much care to ever view Hillary as a sister. Because to Hillary, Hazel was nothing more than somethingelsethat started with an S. Something related to her ancestor's discriminatory history…

"Hey, you." Hillary set her clinking spoon in her near empty glass bowl, holding it expectantly in Hazel's direction. "Wash my dishes."

Hazel frowned, setting her own bowl back down on the counter. Hillarywouldonly address her just to bark another command. Typical. "…why don'tyoudo it?"

"Because I toldyouto do it." Hillary snarked back, still holding out her bowl.

"But it'syourmess." Hazel grumbled back.

As Hillary swiveled out of her barstool, she snickered in her approach before she clinked her bowl next to Hazel's as if to make a point. Looking down upon the little black girl with a forward lean and a domineering smirk.

"Ithought you weresmartenough to learn yourplaceby now." Hillary spat. "Talking back would've gotten you a whip back in the day. Or sold away like the pathetic property you are."

Petulance deepened Hazel's grimace, puffing her cheeks.

"Why do you think my parents haven't hired help besides a nanny? Because youarethe help." she edged closer, nearly spitting in Hazel's face. "Sodowhat I told you, anddon'tmake me repeat myself."

A scream threatened to break from Hazel's throat. Giving in to Hillary meant amping Hillary's crusade of degrading her as if subhuman, as if she was lesser than. Even so, standing up for herself always resulted in Hillary snitching to their parents for her 'rude attitude.' Let Hillary dehumanize her once again, or receive a chastising two-hour earful from their parents. Lose-lose.

Groaning, Hazel jumped down from her barstool, restraining herself from snatching the dishes. Instead picking them up and taking them over to the Boelon sink, ignoring Hillary's sly grin. Proud of herself, Hillary lightly skipped back to her bar stool, returning to scanning the pages of her magazine.

Seeing Hillary reoccupied, Hazel turned her back to face the sink as she switched the faucet for warm water. Two years ago, she would have physically washed the dishes by hand. Turning on the water and putting the dishes in the sink was just to divert suspicion. "Hey, Nee-Nee?" she whispered to her red ring. "I wish these were clean…"

When Nyekundu raised her sparkling wand, soggy crumbs and leftover milk instantly disappeared, returning the stainless-steel spoons and glass bowls in a sparkling sheen. Shutting off the faucet, Hazel whispered a thank you and lowered the glass bowls and spoons into the sink's draining basket.

Hearing dishes set aside led Hillary to glance from her magazine. "Done already?" she then snickered in delight. "Good girl."

Masking her slit brow, Hazel's quick pace marched out of the kitchen, refusing to acknowledge Hillary's snicker as she passed her. With her other hand, Hazel pressed her ringed hand against her chest, fingers wadding at gold fibers in her sweater vest. Gulping down another scream as her red ring snarled.

"I wood blast dat uchafu kidogo right in hah nasty mouth if I cood…" Nyekundu uttered under a scowling breath. Screw Da Rules for saving little sh*ts from a justified ass-whooping…

Hazel knew her godmother was angry when her Kenyan accent thickened. She'd be a hypocrite to blame her; she herself would've allowed herself to be more furious if she didn't believe in the justice of karma. "It'll be okay, Nee-Nee…" At least…that's what she needed to tell herself…

Reaching the top landing off the stairs, Hazel was about to enter her room to retrieve her backpack when her ears picked up strange noises. She paused and turned to the white door beside hers, noting it slightly ajar. Hearing a grown man murmuring unintelligible words over heavy gasps coming from Anthony's room.

"What is it, Kakao?" Nyekundu noticed Hazel's pause.

Hazel didn't respond, feathered steps sneaking her curiosity towards the door. In attempts not to disrupt whatever was going on, she carefully tilted for a peek through the visible slither into the room, brown eyes bulging in a sharp gasp.

Standing in front of his bed facing the bedroom door, the young teen's gold cardigan hung loosely around the arms that supported his weight against the burgundy duvet, white-collared shirt unbuttoned just enough for a nipple to poke through. Pink flushed across the bridge of his nose and in his ivory cheeks. Black slacks flattened down around his ankles, his lips parted with whimpering pants that Hazel couldn't decipher whether he was in pain or not. Blue eyes could only focus on the nanny kneeled before him, down on both knees on beige carpet. The nanny was fully clothed in his black tuxedo suit, aside from his black slacks sagging around visible white boxers.

Seductive suction quickened the teen’s pants as his eyelids fell, thrusting Anthony’s hips reactively towards release. Feeling his new toy edging inside his mouth, the nanny replaced sucking lips with stroking fingers. “Ahh…that’s right, Tony…” Fenwick cooed sensually. Raising amorous eyes to view the oncoming reward of his work as his hand stroking faster “…let go…”

Hazel tore herself away from the door, jumping out of sight. Palm clasped to her mouth in attempts to keep her presence concealed. Staggered steps continued to back away, hands muffling her shriek as tears pricked the corners of squeezed eyes.

"Hazel, what's wrong!?" Nyekundu worried. Hazel's hand had been pressed against the wall when she peered into the room, so Nyekundu couldn't see for herself. Judging her goddaughter's distressing reaction, it must've been very, very bad.

She pressed her back to the wall between Anthony's bedroom and hers, a low drone ringing her ears. Her chest hitched labored breaths that strained in her nostrils, blinking back tears as her mind scrambled on what she saw or even if it was real. Her fingernails pinched the top of her ringed hand, and the stinging prickles beneath her skin proved the unfortunate truth that she was not dreaming.

W-What was happening in there!? What's going on!? What was Fenwick doing to Anthony!? Should she tell her parents?! Would they even believe her?! What was she going to do!? Whatcanshe do!?

Her shoulders flinched when Anthony's door creaked wider, chomping down on her lip. A faint tremor in her knees as Anthony exited his room first. His shirt was buttoned beneath his cardigan and his pants were no longer around his ankles, secured with a black belt around his waist. Sheepish fingers combed through the grown-out layers of blonde locks, chin lowered in his walk.

Wide, brown eyes caught a sense of shame behind Anthony's blue, a tightness in his folded lips. He crossed his arms with hunched shoulders, making himself seem smaller. Hazel then spotted Fenwick brushing the knees of his slacks, a faint smile in his features as he closed Anthony's door. He approached Anthony with a squeezing hand on his shoulder for Anthony to face him, making Anthony cringe with his eyes still downcast.

"Remember that our bond must stay between us." Fenwick gave a gentle reminder. "Everyone will think it's wrong to help each other feel better." Lifting a tender hand, he cupped Anthony's cheek that flushed again upon his touch. Anthony's brow furrowed, looking away as his nanny's thumb brushed small strokes along the cheekbone.

Hazel couldn't tear her brown eyes away, feet glued in place. Trying to make sense of it all as Fenwick's own brown eyes glanced through his peripheral without turning his head. His eye-contact shocked shudders down Hazel's spine, chilling her blood when friendly lips smirked ominously in her direction. Through the chaos in her mind, she could hear a fellow godchild's advice to keep up her guard around Fenwick. Adhering to that advice, her brows scrunched to mask her unease.

He retained his smirk, eyes focused on her. Watching her will herself to retreat inside her room, scurrying to twist the doorknob before she disappeared behind her door. Anthony lifted his stare when he heard the door slam, and Fenwick merely curved his lips further. Knowing exactly how he'll handle the youngest Wells…

Transforming out of her disguise, Nyekundu studied her godchild, observing her press her back to the door as she slid down to the carpet with drawn knees. She was about to inquire on what had caused Hazel so much distress when she felt repeated vibration inside her jumpsuit pocket. Reaching inside to take out her phone, Nyekundu flipped the screen to see multiple texts come in at once. Previews of Alondro and Irving's names popped up, leading her to sort through the numerous messages.

Hazel managed to raise her chin, seeing Nyekundu contort her facials into dismay. Shoving her own qualms aside in concern of her godmother aside as she squeaked "…w-what's is it?"

"…Gary and Dwight…" Nyekundu uttered, slowly lifting her frown from the messages "…something terrible happened."

A tacky clamminess clung his T-shirt to his chest as mint eyes fluttered groggily, slowly correcting the gold blob into the clear view of his telescope stationed near the bedroom window. The once blackened clouds now a whiter silver, he blinked the haze clouding his mind. His limbs felt glued to the mattress in a heavy stupor, recalling talking about something to his godfather before everything went black.

What was it that he was talking about…and where was his godfather?

Tilting his head to face the side facing his nightstand, Remy found his godfather not in his ferret disguise. His wand rested near the right cheek pressed into the pillow, arms folded placidly with a faint rise and fall in his shoulders.

A comforting warmth brewed within as Remy rolled over beneath the duvet, his weary gaze observing his godfather sound in slumber. Juandissimo certainly needed the rest. The last two days had been spent caring for Remy around the clock; checking his temperature, ensuring he drank enough fluids, icing his migraines, and even poofing fresh clothes when he'd sweat out old ones. Whether during the day or throughout the night, Juandissimo was there when no one else was.

Remy frowned remorsefully. How did an unwanted kid deserve such a caring godfather…

The smallest compulsion came over him, shuddering his shoulders. Reaching with the coyest finger with the most delicate brush to the left side of Juandissimo's face. Though Juandissimo winced, he didn't wake. Laxing his feature after Remy swiftly retreated his finger. Wow, he never realized how soft a fairy's skin was.

Opting to keep his hands to himself, Remy continued to watch as Juandissimo slept undisturbed. Even when Juandissimo’s actions showed how much he cared for Remy, Remy had always sensed a sturdy wall between them. Rarely did he catch Juandissimo with his guard completely down like this. Could it be…because a part of Remy’s own guard was still up?

Letting someone in, even when they prove how much they care, is the most difficult thing in the world. When you're used to everyone not giving a crap about you, it's hard to accept when someone truly does. Remy knew that Juandissimo cared, but while his mind realized this, his heart didn't want to.

His parents never wanted him, and the one person to show him affection, the one person he thought loved him since before he could walk, never truly loved him at all. His heart had been shattered, torn to shreds. If he let his guard down, all the way down…who's to say that it won't be obliterated completely?

Remy shook his head, ignoring his trepidation to nestle closer towards Juandissimo. A fairy who had not known him longer than mere months did not hesitate to risk his life, saving him from the man who had known him since birth. How could he ever think that Juandissimo would ever hurt him like Mr. Nicholas has?

Mint-green slowly began to droop once more, the sweet relief of sleep calling to him. Pulling the duvet over his shoulder, Remy held his drowsy gaze to his godfather. Would Juandissimo be devastated if he ceased to exist? Duh…Juandissimo would be destroyed. Remy couldn't bare the thought of doing that to him…though…at least Juandissimo wouldn't have him to worry about so much. In fact, Juandissimo would never have had to worry about him, never would have had to risk his life. Never would have become his godparent…if Remy was never born.

Closing his eyes, he questioned whether Juandissimo was enough to keep living before he soon drifted back into soft snores.

Silver blankets of clouds spread over the crumbling flat roof of Dimmsdale Sunrise Apartments. Moss and grime weathered along red brick walls. Black paint peeled off the rails of stairs to apartments on higher floors, and fire escapes clung to walls by a thread.

"Why are you skipping school? Again?" the dark-blue raven asked, stored within her bird cage resting on a nearby counter. Eyeing her godchild's stare to the ground that was almost unreadable to those not inside the child's mind.

"Cuz it sucks…" the gothic girl muttered, right eye still ringed in a faded purplish-blue. Brooding with knees drawn on the military cot within the bedroom-converted laundry room.

"You don't wanna grow up dumb, do you?" Swizzle tested. While she knew her word choice was poor, it was practically the only way to communicate to a child who'd never been coddled.

"I'm not dumb!" Molly groused, glaring at the dark-blue raven in her cage.

"I never said you were." Swizzle sighed heavily. "I just don't want you to throw your life away."

With a low grunt through clenched teeth, the eleven-year-old turned her grimace away. "Who says I'm throwing it away? I just don't like school!"

"Well, what is it that you wanna do with your life?" Swizzle challenged. "Because whatever it is, I guarantee it'll require the basic education that you insist on skipping out on."

Molly crinkled her nose, forcing herself to face Swizzle. "Life's sh*t anyway; whocareswhat I wanna do with it…"

Swizzle furrowed her brow "…then what are you living for?"

This question weakened Molly's glare, bemused with no response. Her mom's a lousy drunk, Frank's a deadbeat douche, Francis has dumbbells for brains, and the only people who give any sh*t about her are Swizzle and other godkids. Life's a bitch, then you die.

…so whatdidshe live for?

When a shrill cry rattled the walls, a pummeling thud followed as a baritone growl warned the bitch not to swing at him like that. Molly's fight or flight didn't think twice before she sprung from her cot. "Swizzle, stay here!"

"No, Molly!" Swizzle objected. "I'm not just gonna sit back and watch you get hurt again!"

"I wish you'd stay here!"

Swizzle's feathers ruffled, cursing under her breath. Whenever Molly inserted herself into Marissa and Frank's domestic disputes, circ*mstances risked escalating to dire levels. Somehow, Molly believed that keeping Swizzle out of the crossfire was for her protection. Good intentions were admirable, but Swizzle never understood why Molly felt the need to protect a magical being with immeasurable power in the tip of her wand. She was the godparent, after all.

For someone who denies stupidity, Molly sure made stupid decisions. Alas, Molly wasn't too stupid to restrict Swizzle's involvement in the form of a wish. She looked on defenselessly as her godchild ran towards the sliding door and used the force of her fingers to slide it open. Pinching the claws on her feet to stopping Molly from charging into a battle without a shield as her feathers shivered with dread when the sliding door was shut.

Molly rushed through the dirtied kitchen where Francis was already standing in the archway, wide eyes and pale skin white as a ghost.

"Frank, I'msorry!" Marissa cried, cradling the surging pain through her left cheek. Her right hand outstretched in desperate defense, curled in a ball on the stains crusting the beige carpet in a sickly brown.

Her boyfriend loomed over her, ire in his eyes as he dug into his back pocket. "Sorry, my ass!" Frank growled, yanking a sharp object from his pocket. Erecting the blade of his pocket knife within his menacing grip.

"Don'tf*ckingtouch her!"

Marissa squirmed, lifting herself from the carpet. Terror behind her glower towards her daughter. "Molly, stay thef*ckout of this!"

"Yeah, ya little bitch!" Frank shot at Molly, his pocket knife still aimed at his girlfriend. "Mind ya f*ckin' business!"

Molly was not intimidated. "f*ckyou!"

Francis flashed Molly a mystified grimace. His dad was angrier than usual, and here she was dropping F-bombs like she couldn't get hurt! When was she gonna learn;noone mouths off to Frank Abrahams and walks away with their life!

"Cut itout!" Francis warned, attempting to pull Molly back by her arm.

Molly snarled and snatched her arm from him. "Youmay be scared of that asshole, butI'mnot!"

An unforgiving scowl crossed Frank's gruff features. Marissa, breathing shakily on the ground with a palm to her burning cheek, watched Frank's eyes grow colder and colder. Soon, his pocket watch switched its target, and he stomped towards his new opposition as he pointed the blade directly to Molly's stubborn glare.

"Don't make me f*ckingcutyou!" he darkly threatened.

Stern in her stance, all of the resentment and rage that she'd ever harbored towards that man burned within yale-blue. Her fist swung, aiming for his ugly mouth. His fingers were faster, grabbing her punch before it could land. She growled profanity and snatched her fist from his grip. To her surprise, he didn't resist and released her easily. Saving the bulk of his effort for his next attack…

His knife flashed in a ferocious strike, and without her alcoholic anesthesia, Marissa's maternal side sparked alarming flares.

"Frank,NO!"

Shockwaves pulsed in her throat as liquid burbled into her airways, triggering the explosive urge to cough. She choked an exhale as the taste of iron spat from her mouth, grey sweater splattered in the crimson crying rivets from the blade lodged to the side of her neck.

Heart thumping in his chest, Francis felt his breath caught from the terror across his goggled eyes. Feeling helpless to the gradual drain of color in Molly's pale skin. Her glare had been weakened into an expression of shock, lips uttering inaudible words as her gurgling throat upheaved more crimson onto her shirt. Frank dislodged his knife, washing her shock in a deathly glaze before her legs gave way and she slumped to the ground.

"Frank, what thef*ck!?" Marissa cried out, scrambling to her feet.

"This woulda never happened if you'd raised that kid to stay inna kid's place!" Frank hurled a retort.

Dismay quivered through his arms in shuttered breaths as the twelve-year-old gawked at the blood gushing from the fallen girl's neck. Yale-blue eyes half-lidded with a ghostly stare that saw straight through him. He tore his eyes away, clamping them shut from the tears that threatened to shed. This…this can't be happening…

"I'llkillyou!" Marissa pounced, fired with adrenaline. Said fire doused when Frank pointed his bloody knife at her, stopping her in her tracks.

"Bitch, I'llcutyoutoo!" Frank barked his first empty threat. He went too far, and now he had too much blood on his hands to risk spilling anymore. This wouldn't just be another felony on his criminal record. He could land himself in death row…

With Frank yielding a threatening knife, Marissa frozen in fear, and Francis shaking back tears, no one noticed when Molly's body disappeared in a dark-blue cloud.

Reappearing within the darkened laundry/bedroom, Swizzle's fairy form swallowed back distress. If Swizzle had not disobeyed, Molly was one minute away from bleeding out.Dammit, Molly…Swizzle gritted her teeth as she rushed for her waved wand to stopped the profuse bleeding from Molly's neck.Why did you make that wish…

Swizzle then lowered an ear to Molly's bloody lips to check for signs of breath, bulging dark-blue orbs when no breath was detected. She used more magic to clear Molly's airways as best as she could, unable to completely heal the open stab wound. That would require steadier magic and more time than she currently had.

Once finished, Swizzle shifted her ear to the left of Molly's motionless chest. Shuddering a breath of relief when she could hear a faint rhythmic pulse. And yet, though there was a pulse, there was still no breath.

Using her knuckles, she pushed circles into the center of Molly's sternum. Growing more worried the longer her efforts garnered no rouse. "C'mon, Molly…"

Just when Swizzle began to dread the worst, Molly's chest expanded with a loud snore. As Molly's lungs strained for rattling breaths in her comatose state, Swizzle's alertness snapped to the sudden boom. Walls tremoring from the violent banging coming from the front door.

"POLICE!OPENUP!"

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Though her Terry Totterlunchbox sat before her waiting to be opened, her lunchbox remained closed, and though every fiber of her skreiched in loud, self-deprecating agony, her jaw remained quietly shut.

Timmy was spending his lunch hour with Chester and AJ, not entirely on his own accord. While Chloe did not want to burden him with her current inability to paint on a smile, she felt as though she barely had the patience to be burdened by excessive questioning of her wellbeing. She had encouraged him to be with his friends, just like before they had become acquainted under a magical commonality. He had insisted that she join him; however, knowing her reservations towards Alvin Jr., she couldn’t risk the slip of a rude tongue.

She caused enough damage in her life…

After straightening her already neat and tidy room, Chloe gathered her backpack as Susie became her necklace. She left her room and was about to walk downstairs only to stop at the landing when she heard the voices of her parents. Traveling down more steps, ice pinched inside Chloe’s chest at the sight of a manilla envelope and stacks of papers quivering ever so slightly between her mother’s rigid fingers. For the first time in her ten years of life, Chloe could see brimming gloss in her mother’s eyes, whilst her father gave the coldest eyes she’d ever seen.

“…is this some sort of sick joke?!” Connie scrunched fretful lines into her forehead, aghast at her husband. Facing off in the middle of the living room, oblivious to their daughter’s presence by the stairs.

Clark held his stern scowl, arms folded across his puffed chest. “Who’s laughing?”

He’d purposefully stay at work well into the PM, and when he had pulled into the driveway nearing the midnight hour, he’d arrived to a house darker than usual. He did expect the dim light shone behind his daughter’s closed door; Chloe’s aversion to proper sleep had unfortunately become her norm. Yet when he’d approached the darkened door to the bedroom he’d once shared with his wife, he couldn’t twist the knob, and the lock could only be released inside the room.

The county sheriff had been due to arrive around the time that Connie was expected to return from the Dimmsdale Zoo. Thus, in that moment of being locked out of their room last night, Clark knew that the deed had been done, and the papers had been served.

“Why would you ruin our family like this!?” Connie cried, tensing her arms in futile attempts keep from visibly shaking.

Clark refused to falter, unsympathetic to Connie’s crocodile tears. “I didn’t ruin our family. You did.”

“Me?!” Veins swelled in her neck. “That’s absolutely absurd! How on earth can you say that!?”

“Because of your cold and frankly callous actions. Towards other people, towards me, and more importantly,” the bridge of his nose scrunched “towards our only daughter.”

Staying as quiet as possible, Chloe braced herself with clasped fingers around the nearest railing, paling her knuckles as Connie growled through the urge to tear these blasphemous papers in her hands.

“I can’t believe this…”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before we got married.” Only for a second did Clark’s glower wane. “But now…I see it clear as day.”

Connie stomped her foot, growing more flustered. “What did I do!?”

Clark didn’t budge. “You have demeaned and degraded our daughter into a shell of herself.”

“Oh, so it’s a bad thing that Chloe doesn’t have those stupid ‘attacks’ anymore?!”

“That right there is exactly my point!” A struck nerve edged Clark forward, uncrossing his arms into gritted fists. “You can’t see farther than your own delusion to see the error of your ways, and I’m sick and tired of it! We’re arguing every day! In front of our daughter! And arguing with you is like arguing with a brick wall!”

The envelope and legal papers crinkled under Connie’s grip. Her head shook, refusing to spill tears. The most subtle quake in her quieted voice as she asked “…what happened to us?”

Hunter-green glared grimly, a low mutter in his tone. “You happened to us…”

He tore away when he felt himself tiptoeing on the edge of pure rage. His daughter jutted her chin as he stormed towards the front door, but before he climbed out of the volcano on the verge of eruption, her barking dragged him back into hot lava.

“We are husband and wife, Clark!” Connie shouted at him. “We need to work whatever this is out like adults!”

“What do you not get!?” Clark whirled around, fire in his glare. “This is working it out like adults!”

“Almost thirteen years, Clark!” heat reddened her face, stomping her foot once more. “Thirteen! You can’t just toss that down the drain like this!”

Folding tight lips, strained breaths flared his nostrils. They had shared vows, for better or worse. For richer or poorer, through sickness and in health. They had vowed to love and cherish each other until parted by death.

Even so, the real death would be living in an unhappy marriage. Doing that would reiterate to their daughter that you must suffer for the sake of appearances.

His sanity just couldn’t teach that fallacy anymore “…something’s got to give, Connie...”

Clark nearly twisted the knob off the front door, slamming it shut in a thunderous boom rippling through the walls. Creating more crinkles in the legal documents between her fingers, blue eyes glowered lasers through the door as one tear finally broke the dam of many.

The plummet of her heart into crestfallen depths made Chloe want to run into her room and lock herself inside her closet, never to emerge again. She couldn’t do that, or else she’d miss the bus. As this was her last week of being grounded, she couldn’t afford to skip school and tack on another month or longer onto her sentence.

Biting her lower lip, Chloe took cautious steps down the remaining stairs. Also cautious in her sneak past her mother frozen in place, hanging her head with fingers squeezing her backpack straps like tiny boa constrictors. Despite her back facing her mother in her trudge towards the front door, her shivering spine could still feel the most bitter, vile glare as her ears heard a low growl in the deepest voice…

“…this…is your fault.”

Four words pierced the largest knives into Chloe’s heart. Sending the sharpest breath through her nose when the flutter of paper followed the smash of a stomping boot into the wooden floor. “My marriage is ruined!” came her mother’s crackling shriek in between stiff sobs. “And it is ALL! YOUR! FAULT!”

Facing the door, her backpack straps tremored under her fingers. Guilt and shame moistened in her eyes, yet she dared not shed a tear. Her parents were unhappy because of her. She didn’t deserve to cry…

“…hey, Chloe?”

Inhaling the sharpest breath through her nose, Chloe flinched when a shrill, Indian accent yanked her back into reality. She stared at the tanned boy with black hair styled in a side-part cut, only just realizing that he’d been standing awkwardly with his tray moments before he’d called out to her.

“…are you alright?”

“Yes.” was Chloe’s automatic response, prompting a squinched brow from her indigo necklace.

Sanjay wasn’t too convinced from the spook in Chloe’s eyes as if she’d seen another bhoota “…are you sure?”

She cleared her throat, mentally chiding herself to get it together. “Yes.” Blinking twice, she realized that something, or someone, was missing. “…where’s Elmer?”

“His mom had checked him out right after the lunch bell.” Sanjay jutted his lip, lowering his eyes in a muted gloom that seemed unusual for the boy of optimism.

Chloe narrowed her eyes. Elmer did sneeze more than usual on the bus on the way to school, but it was pretty cold that morning. He couldn’t have been too sick not to stick it out the rest of the day. “…why did his mom check him out?”

“It’s his half-brother…” Sanjay grimaced “…he and his friend were very badly beaten…”

Worry widened Chloe’s eyes, stiffening her chin. The name didn’t need to be said for her to know exactly who Sanjay referred to “…is…Dwight okay?” she tried to speak calmly.

Sanjay glumly shook his head. “He is currently in the ICU…”

Her tight throat swallowed.

. . . . . .

The young patient’s stable heart beeped steadily through the monitor as the main audible source within emerald walls and cyan tiles. Saline hydration and pain medication dripped through thin tubes injected into the tiny veins of his right hand, both arms resting placidly atop the French-blue cotton. Thinner tubes breathed oxygen into his nose, taped to his cheek and tucked behind his ears. Connected into on single tube dangling over his lavender hospital gown. His chest rose and fell with the silent breaths through parted lips, dark rings bagging eyes peaceful in their deep slumber.

To the boy’s right was his father DeWitt, caressing a delicate thumb along his son’s limp fingers. Black frames around purple orbs fixed a morose gaze at the gauze bandaging the once gaping headwound centered on his son’s forehead.

Upon their arrival to the hospital, doctors had informed that the intensity of the seizures were finally controlled after thirty grueling minutes, all before they could even begin to treat the bleeding gash in his head. It had taken the highest possible dosages of multiple emergency medications for their son’s age and weight, so while not technically in a medically-induced coma, doctors had advised not to expect their son to open his eyes anytime soon.

To the boy’s left was his other father Chisholm, masking quivering lips behind a trembling hand that tried and failed to silence hiccupped sobs. They had lost well over half a day’s work that they could not makeup, and their son had yet to wake. Tears pricked corners of squeezed eyes, freckled nose red from constant sniffling. Why Dwight? Why did this happen? Why are mere children so incredibly cruel?

A gentle voice called his name, lifting his head and blinking away the watery blur of his husband’s empathetic gaze and tender fingers reaching for him from across the hospital bed. Another sob hiccupped as Chisholm accepted DeWitt’s extend of comfort, giving his hand to be eld. DeWitt’s right thumb softly caressed the small shivers in Chisholm’s left fingers. How grateful he was to have such a loving husband for the strength to keep going at his weakest.

“…it already felt like we were drowning…” Chisholm whimpered, shaking his head “…a-and now this…”

Taking another dejected glance at Dwight’s closed eyes, DeWitt turned back to Chisholm, continuing to caress his husband’s hand. “Wighty will be okay…” he tried softly. “We will be okay…”

“…w-will we?” Chisholm met DeWitt with a watery gaze. “The denial was upheld…”

“Then we steer off the medication route.” DeWitt suggested. “See if he qualifies for surgery.”

Chisholm deepened his frown. “…that’s recovery and post-op care on top of the surgery itself…you think insurance will pay for all that when they won’t even pay for pills?”

DeWitt sighed, turning brain wheels for other ideas. “Then…we get other coverage. Find a plan that will.”

“You can’t cancel your coverage until open enrollment…” Chisholm gravely reminded after his free hand wiped a defeated sniff. “…we’d be paying for two policies…”

Chisholm’s job did offer medical plans, but those plans either covered epilepsy expenses at out-of-network rates or simply didn’t offer epilepsy coverage. After discussing it with his husband, they’d opted for DeWitt to enroll him and Dwight as his dependents and have that premium deducted from Big $tuff paychecks. The cards seemed to align at first, but then changes to the insurance’s summary plan description essentially sh*tted all over the deck.

DeWitt propped his downhearted chin with his free hand, his spirits battling the tug-of-war between expectation and reality “…we’ll figure it out…” he tried his damndest to find hope between a rock and a hard place “…gotta at least get control of these seizures again…”

“We’re just lucky it’s free to press charges against the bastards who did this…” Chisholm groaned as DeWitt continued to caress his hand, teal eyes furrowed in resentment until he found himself tearing up again.

“…I don’t know what we’d do if we’d lost our baby…”

“Hey…” DeWitt squeezed his husband’s hand as quiet whimpers lowered Chisholm’s chin “…we have to believe that it’ll be okay…”

Lost in crestfallen grief and disheartened attempts to comfort, the two husbands missed the gradual lift of purple eyes through their medicated haze. Staring in a daze towards the illuminous light shining from the ceiling, lying ever so still. He had heard his fathers voices for the first time right as his father had suggested to take him off medication. While half of his fog struggled to make sense of where he was, half of him listened to the struggles of medical finances spoken in low voices.

Blinking through dizziness, purple eyes scanned their fuzzy surroundings. They could make out a dark-teal blur that stood out against the emerald background.

Irving, disguised as a picture frame, sighed with great relief to see his godson’s open eyes. Doctors were making their rounds, but Irving had secretly sparked his wand to see the extent of the damage for himself. Dwight’s brain was a single thread from permanent damage, and Irving couldn’t just do nothing. So, during the Schlatters’ conversation, Irving had used what healing magic he could, taking time to mend the most of Dwight’s TBI so that he would at least regain consciousness.

Irving watched the subtle twitch of Dwight’s left fingers, pacing his heart in concern that another seizure was coming on. Instead, he saw Dwight’s struggle to extend his left index and thumb. Sorrow jutted his chin; even while doped on medication after resurfacing the most comatose sleep, Dwight still remembered the signal for the automatic wish to return to a normal state of mind. Obligated to grant this wish, Irving raised his wand solely to clear mental clarity into Dwight’s mind.

Regrettably, Dwight would need to remain physically weak. If he had been healed completely, suspicions of health professionals might rise. Then again, his fathers looked like they could use a medical miracle right about now…

Jumbled thoughts now more coherent strings, Dwight faintly tilted his head to his right. “…d-dad?” he croaked, making DeWitt snap his head to him before he tilted his head to left “…p-pa?”

“Oh my goodness!” Caught off guard, Chisholm quickly wiped his eyes, grabbing for Dwight’s left hand. “Yes, baby! We’re here…”

“Oh, Wighty…” DeWitt combed fingers through his son’s hair, brimming tears of both surprise and sweet relief. “Do you know where you are?”

Squinting eyes blinked groggily “…I-I can’t see…”

“Oh, right!” Reaching inside the pockets of his assembler jumpsuit, Chisholm retrieved an extra pair of black frames to replace what had been snapped in half. Careful to adjust them onto his son’s face to restore clear vision. “How are you feeling?”

“…tired…” Dwight murmured hoarsely, half-lidded eyes tilting to DeWitt who leaned with a loving smooch along the bridge of Dwight’s nose.

“Don’t you worry about a thing.” DeWitt continued to comb Dwight’s hair, peering into his eyes with Chisholm planting a tearful kiss on their son’s hand. “Everything’s gonna be okay…”

Even under a drug-induced haze, Dwight had his doubts. His fathers were under so much stress, and it was all his fault…

Dark lids of yale-blue parted to bright lights blinding throbs behind her eyes, hearing the steady drone of a beeping monitor. Looking around at emerald walls blank aside from the wall clock showing 3:33pm. A hazy cloud circled the inside of her skull, and she felt a soft suction covering around his nose and mouth breathing oxygen for her. A shivering simmer in her veins tilted her head to the side where a dark-blue stand supported the IVs dripping cold liquid into her forearm.

“Thank the gods…” Swizzle exhaled a trapped breath as her goddaughter reached feeble fingers to the oxygen mask, fogging the mask from a muted groan before she lowered it down to her chin.

Silk black locks laying gracefully over lavender shoulders, Molly swallowed the prickle behind her parched throat, scanning her new surroundings with a drowsy gaze. “…w-whe…where…?”

“The hospital.” Swizzle knew what Molly would ask. “The neighbors must have called 9-1-1 when they heard all the noise.”

When wobbling arms attempted to sit up, a weighted fog dropped her back against her pillow.

“Don’t sit up, okay?” Swizzle advised. “I don’t think the painkillers completely wore off yet.”

The whooshing sways in her muddled mind would have to agree “…w-wha happen?” Molly slurred to her godmother’s furrowed brow.

“Do you remember anything?”

Furious feldgrau flashed in her head, followed by the flicker of a sharp weapon in his grasp, aiming straight for her neck. Prompting the subconscious reach towards the right side, feeling fibers of a medical gauze beneath her fingertips.

Swizzle turned to the light-aqua door, revealing a registered nurse holding a medical chart in her arm. Blonde curls reached the shoulder of her baby-blue scrubs, and her hazel eyes saw that her patient seemed alert. “Oh, you’re awake!” the nurse smiled, making Molly tilt her head as the nurse then noticed Molly’s fingers grazing the gauze on her neck “Feeling any pain, my dear?”

Molly denied with a faint headshake, and the nurse approached her hospital bed, standing next to the dark-blue infusion stand.

“Well, I know you just came to, but we have police and CPS waiting to ask you a few questions.”

...wait, what? “C…CPS…?”

“I’m afraid so, dear.” the nurse pouted sympathetically. “Looks like your parents were both arrested without bail.”

It could have been a side effect of the IV, but a nauseating churn punched the pit of Molly’s stomach.

Conversations and carefree laughter rumbled over the mild roar of the school bus continuing along its designated route, droning in the background of the lone platinum blonde occupying the seat closest to the double doors. Sanjay had been dropped off a couple of stops ago, leaving her ever-troubled mind to fret in silence.

“…you’ve been real quiet today, Chlo-bird.” her indigo necklace voiced her concern. “Anything you wanna talk about?”

Drab eyes stared out at the suburban shrubs and silver clouds above rooftops passing by. “…anything you want to talk about?”

“I’m more concerned about you.” Susie redirected.

Chloe sighed. “I see you still won’t tell me about the Magnifico that you’d said you lost...”

“Because we’re not talking about me right now.” Susie disputed gently, aware that Chloe was trying to distract. “We’re talking about you.”

“For what?” Chloe challenged. “I didn’t get my head bashed into concrete. I’m not fighting for my life in intensive care. My life wasn’t already at risk from seizure attacks outside of my control.”

“Can you actually not do that?”

Chloe lowered her gaze to her necklace “…do what?”

“Belittle yourself.” Susie frowned. “Your problems matter.”

“My problems are my fault.” Chloe countered, tightness gripping at her throat. “Almost thirteen years of marriage…ruined. All because of me.”

“Your mom was deflecting blame, Chloe.” Susie insisted, just seeing Connie’s crocodile tears souring the taste in her mouth. “The issues between your parents are nowhere near your fault.”

“Who is the main topic of every single one of their arguments?”

“That doesn’t mean you are to blame.”

Agitated, Chloe huffed as her arms crossed. Completely over the conversation that she never asked to have as her dour stare returned towards the window “…let’s agree to disagree.”

“Chloe-”

“We are not doing this.”

Susie pressed her lips in a gritted line, crinkling her nose. Of course, Chloe would throw her very words back in her face…

The bus slowed to a gradual stop along the corner of the street nearest the dividing train tracks. Chloe blew a tense breath, dragging palms down over her eyes before she gathered her belongings as double doors slid apart. She allowed the pink-hatted boy and the brace-face blond to pass down the aisle before exiting her seat, scrunching her brow when their bald boy genius followed behind them.

“As crazy and unhinged as he is, I do hope Mr. Crocker’s okay.” AJ stepped off the bus into the wintry breeze blowing through his beanie, continuing their prior discussion about the concussion that resulted in a sub for remainder of the week. “We’ve just started the semester, and we’ll already behind the curriculum.”

“Ha, since when did Crocker care about the curriculum?” Chester scoffed, keeping his hands warm inside olive-green pockets as the bus departed towards its next stop. “Besides, I wouldn’t mind Crocker being out another week. Or two.”

“I second that.” Timmy stood with his friends at the intersection of the street corner, catching a glimpse of platinum blonde out of his peripheral. Looking over as his neighbor began her journey home without so much as a word.

Noticing this as well, AJ waited for Chloe to be at a far enough distance to ask “…do you know what’s going on with Chloe?”

“Honestly? No clue.” Considering every time Timmy would question her, she was adamant that nothing was wrong.

“…but she doesn’t talk to me anymore.” AJ sulked.

“Lately, she barely talks to anybody.” Chester shrugged loosely. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“Yeah.” Timmy gestured a thumb to Chester. “What he said.”

“Well…” AJ didn’t want to chance it. A friendship on the verge of disrepair was horrible enough the first time “…could you try talking to her for me? I’d like to know if I did or said something to upset her.”

“…uh…” Timmy blinked, feeling trapped “…yeah. Sure.”

“Cool.” AJ stepped forward, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Thanks, Timmy.”

“…yup.”

With parting waves, the three boys split off into their separate ways. As AJ walked along the sidewalk towards sophisticated lands and Chester crossed the tracks onto unkempt gravel, Timmy hurried his steps down the street to catch up to Chloe’s light-jog. She clutched the straps of her backpack, glum eyes downcast. Showing no reaction to Timmy’s attentive gaze.

“…are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Timmy noticed her indigo necklace’s wary glance at the flat response that they’ve all heard many times. “…I know you’re lying.”

“And what about you?” Chloe paused to face him, brows narrowed like her firm tone. “Are you okay?”

Timmy stiffened, faltering for a second before pursed lips countered “I asked you first.”

“And I shouldn’t have to answer a question that you won’t answer yourself.”

Blue seared holes into blue, seconds dragging like minutes. All before she tore away and regained her swift pace as his grimace observed her creating distance between them.

Walls coated in rose-pink surrounded the brown-skin girl, seated atop her cerise duvet embroidered in white lace. Large sleeves of her pink and navy-striped sweater hide arms wrapped tightly around the drawn knees of teal-denim jeans, facing the white bedroom door. Her pearl-white bedframe was propped against the accent wall of cerise flowers over a white backdrop that sported her name painted in bold, magenta stencil. Staring off with a distracted gaze to the plush magenta rug covering white French oak.

On top of the assault on Gary and Dwight, Swizzle had finally gotten in touch with Nyekundu. When Nyekundu had eventually informed Hazel of Molly’s status, Hazel’s lip jutted, and her brown eyes glossed. Poor Molly…Hazel knew the extent of Molly’s terrible homelife, yet she never thought things would escalate the way they had. Now with every single one of her friends hurt…she felt utterly helpless to help them. Just like she felt helpless about what she would say to her parents about Anthony.

At the end of the day, it was her word against Anthony’s. Even her word against Fenwick’s, because he could easily deny everything. It was nearing 7:00pm, and her parents would be home soon. She’d been secluded in her room since returning from Brightsburg Enrichment Academy, and all had been fairly quiet. She hadn’t heard any noises from Anthony’s room. Then again, when she’d escaped temporarily to relieve herself in the bathroom, neither Anthony nor Fenwick were in his room. With the shock of that morning still whirling in her mind, she didn’t dare try to verify their whereabouts.

Sheer curtains cast a pastel-pink glow throughout the room, a treasure toy chest painted pink within one corner with her all-white vanity in another next to the French-oak nightstand that housed the mouse cage behind her vintage alarm clock. Disguised as a bright-red mouse sitting next to Hazel on the bed, Nyekundu observed her goddaughter’s contemplative stare. “…are you ready to talk about what happened this morning?” Nyekundu tried, concerned for her goddaughter’s hours of total silence.

Hazel winced, having purposefully avoided the subject all day. She hated just thinking about it let alone talking about it. “…I-I don’t know…”

“Can you at least tell me what you saw?” Nyekundu softly probed. She couldn’t help her goddaughter if she didn’t know the root of the problem.

Before she could phantom giving a reply, a small knock on her door shuddered through her nerves in a small gasp. Her door opened shortly after, revealing the young teen cloaked with a Versace hoodie of Barocco print and hands tucked into the pockets of plain-black sweatpants. Spiked blond hair and blue eyes that broadened Hazel’s baffled stare.

“…hey…” her brother darted diffident eyes between her and her floor. “…um…can I come in?”

Anthony was not one to seek out Hazel on his own free will let alone ask for permission to invade her space. She could feel in his shifty gaze that he wanted something from her, and while within her right to deny him, doing so would just delay the inevitable.

Hazel swallowed, furrowing her brow as she squeaked “…s-sure.”

Taking his cue, the thirteen-year-old entered the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Staring at the magenta carpet as Hazel did the same, unable to look at him. Awkward silence befell them, thickening the air in astringent tension. Eventually, Anthony broke the ice when apprehensive eyes looked up.

“…what did you see this morning...”

Squeezing tense arms around her knees, brown eyes lifted in a shamed frown. “…w-what did I see?”

“Yes.”

She gulped a large lump down, glancing at her red mouse’s subtle pout. The time had come for this dreadful conversation, whether she wanted to or not. “…F-Fenwick, he…” she lowered her gaze to her clenched toes “…h-he was…” she struggled for the words to describe what burned permanent memories into her brain “…doing something bad to you.”

“Wrong.” Anthony stiffly corrected, stern in his stare as her puzzled brow snapped to him. “You didn’t see anything.”

“…b-but I did-”

“You saw nothing.” Anthony took guarded steps forward, keeping both hands in his pockets. “It was all your imagination.”

Hazel unwrapped anxious arms, straightened her knees. “…I-I know what I saw-”

“You don’t know anything!” Anthony took more defensive steps forward. “You’re just a stupid little kid!”

Nyekundu sneered at the teen. Why was he gaslighting?

Tears cracked Hazel’s tiny voice in her attempt to exude feigned confidence. “I’m telling mom and dad!”

“Save your breath.” Anthony sneered, edging ominously to where his glare was feet away from cold tears trickling from his baby sister’s pout. “Not like they’ll believe you, anyway.”

“Stop denying it!” Hazel cried, cascading rivets down her cheeks. Even if she didn’t understand what she’d seen, her gut knew it was wrong. “Fenwick touched you! He hurt you!”

Anthony took a step back, taken aback. “No…I…” internal conflict softened his tone, duking it out behind troubled-blue orbs “…I-I wanted it…”

Hazel studied him, sniffing as tears dripped from her chin “…did you?”

“I…m-maybe I didn’t…” he licked chapped lips, flashing back to a couple weeks ago when Fenwick had first pinned him to the wall of his room. He’d grabbed at his crotch without warning, stroking it with the most gleaming grin. Anthony remembered the painful throb between his legs. A throb that, after a while, throbbed in a different way. A warm, euphoric way “…I-I…I don’t know…”

“You do know.” Hazel reiterated. “You just said you didn’t want it.”

“…b-but I liked it…” he told himself, glancing back and forth between the magenta rug and French-oak flooring. “A-And if I liked it then…that means I wanted it…”

“That’s not true…”

He forced eye contact, clenching his jaw “…stop it, Hazel.”

Her eyes fluttered, not just from tears. “Stop what?”

“Confusing me.”

Hazel furrowed, bothering not to dry her frown “…Anthony-”

“You ever notice how dad never smiles at us?” he practically blurted out, once again hanging his head. “And he like…never hugs us? Like…ever?”

Hazel hugged herself, knowing all too well what every offspring of Marcus Wells experienced, biological or no.

“Mom hugged us…but dad never did…” he continued, gritting fists inside his pockets. “I can’t even remember the last time he said he loved me…and Fenwick, he…”

Having heard enough, Hazel shook her head at him. “You can’t trust Fenwick-”

“You don’t know him like I do.” Anthony defended, shutting his eyes with grated teeth. “He loves me.”

“I don’t think so…”

Perturbed denial subtly shook in his head, gloss pricking the clasped corners of his scowl. Anthony inhaled sharp breaths, growing sharper before his hands emerged from their hiding place, revealing one of its dark secrets.

A small syringe, filled with a clear liquid, pounced like a swift snake hunting its mousy meal. The needle pierced into Nyekundu’s red fur before she could even think to protect herself with her wand.

“NO!” Hazel shrieked with horror, jumping from her bed as Anthony pressed down on the plunger. “What are you doing!?”

Wide red eyes soon glazed over, and the tiny mouse slumped to one side atop the cerise duvet. Anthony yanked out the needle, tossing the syringe to the ground as Hazel attacked him with wild fists. Defending himself with his free arm, Anthony bit down on his lip, and iron trickled on his tongue. Regret tugged at his heart, yet it was too late not to follow through.

His free hand smacked a stinging burn into her cheek, sending her headfirst to the floor. Hazel drew her knees into a small ball, cupping her cheek in squealing sobs as Anthony pulled out his other hand from its pocket. While she was defenseless, he straddled her and used one hand to pin both arms over her head. Holding a white handkerchief in the other which he then forcibly stuffed right as another sob escaped.

Pained cries now muffled, fear flashed in her eyes as Anthony yanked her zipper down, shuffling her pants to reveal her white panties with a pink hem. Icy rivets broke, trailing down the corners of her eyes. Powerless when he shoved his sweatpants down to his knees with one hand. She thrashed below him, unable to free her arms from his cuffed grip. His boxers went down next, and her tears redirected towards the ceiling fan above her.

The four blades were carved in pink, wooden flower pedals. Crystal raindrops dangling from the center light. She felt a shift in her underwear, quivering her chin in suppressed sobs. There was a sudden breeze between her legs before the most agonizing pressure stabbed her with the sharpest knife.

Eyes stung with fresh tears, blurring the image of him on top of her. Moving up and down in a rhythmic form, he dared not look down at her. His motions held no mercy to her muted cries. Aggravated grunts became one panted moan, pumping her with one final push. Every inch of her shuddered under his heavy breaths, shivering when the sharp pressure removed itself as quick as it forced its way in.

She felt something a hot wetness stick to her thighs amid the worst pulsing pain she’d ever experienced, and silent tears shook in her shoulders. He finally released her bounded arms, standing as he pulled up his sweatpants. Bending down to jerk the handkerchief from her trembling lips, casting the most ominous glare as a warning that she dare not disregard.

“You even think about opening your mouth…and it’ll happen again.”

Betrayal shut her eyes, brimming more sniveling tears. Rolling over onto her side in spite of the surging pain, clasping fists to her whimpering chest. He then took a glance at the red mouse lifeless on his sister’s bed, fearing that he might have used too much of whatever was in that syringe. He didn’t have time to think about that, storming shamefully out of the room. Leaving Hazel in a growing pool staining magenta fibers in a dark red.

A grown man leaned against the wall outside the bedroom, checking his nails when he heard a door slam. He looked up to his new toy coming towards him, blue eyes aggrieved in a creased grimace. The nanny curved his lips with a sense of pride, leaning from the wall to cup soft palms on Anthony’s stiff shoulders. “See? I knew you could do it.”

Anthony forced his grimace to meet the man’s satisfied smile, just now noticing the faded scars from tiny claw carved in random spots along the nanny’s face.

“Such a sweet boy…”

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

Her mind floated in weightless suspension. Submerged beneath black waters, swirling abyss around her. Shrouded in darkness, dragging her down. No…she needed to wake up. Her goddaughter was in danger. Shehadto wake up.

Waned consciousness thrashed with all its might, pushing arms and legs to their limits. Battling against the strongest waves fighting to keep her under. She kept pushing forward, didn't give up. Hazel needed her. She had to wake up!

Wake up…wakeup!

The little red mouse jolted upright, lungs inhaling air as if for the first time. Awakening to the muted hue along the white lace of a cerise duvet, the moon's soft glow peering through pink sheer curtains. A sharp pinch in neck reminded where the needle had struck, tingling down through her paws and tail. In spite of her skull spinning, she scanned the room for her goddaughter. What she found roiled bile in her queasy stomach.

Jeans discarded nearby, dried blood stained the magenta carpet, trailing a large streak between umber thighs down to her calves. Limp fists clutched to the chest of her striped sweater. Umber skin appeared nearly drained of its melanin as the faintest quiver mouthed her lips inaudibly, brown orbs glossed in a lifeless stare.

"Hazel!" Nyekundu poofed out of her disguise in a dash to her goddaughter. She may as well have been transparent to such distant brown eyes staring through her. Dread shivered in her bones as Nyekundu kneeled to her, cupping cheeks damp in cold tears. The fairy godmother had only been able to rouse the mousiest whimper out of the child clinging to reality…

"…Nee-Nee…"

"Oh, Hazel…" Nyekundu raised her wand, glittering red sparkles along Hazel's legs. Masking the gasping sob with a palm over her mouth as her magic gradually healed the venereal tear between Hazel's thighs, confirming the absolute worst…

Wrenching remorse brimmed within red orbs, removing her palm from trembling lips. Shuddered breaths shook in her voice "…I am so, so sorry…"

A silent tear trailed down the returning melanin in Hazel's cheeks.

The sparkle in Nyekundu's wand faded once she was done at least mending the physical wounds. She then poofed a gold metal star with the purple button in the center, holding it in her hand with her wand. Her other hand delicately scratched the side of Hazel's curls.

"We have to go Kakao…" Nyekundu sobbed softly, peering into Hazel's unfocused gaze. "It is not safe for you here..."

Brown eyes began to glaze over, slumber's peace calling to her.

"I've got you…" Nyekundu whispered to her goddaughter's drooping lids. Blinking tears as her fingers moved to palm Hazel's tearstained cheek "…rest, now..."

Lacking the fight to resist, Hazel accepted deep slumber's welcoming hand. Shaky breaths escaped as Nyekundu magically cleaned the dried blood, changing her into a fresh pair of underwear and pants before scooping the sleeping child into her arms.

Transporter in hand, Nyekundu pressed the button, and rainbow swirls freed them from this nightmare.

Ceiling fluorescents were shut off for the night, leaving a single LED strip to cast the softest white shadows along emerald walls and across cyan tiles. The elderly Vladislapov couple were settled in sleep, embraced in each other's tranquil comfort on the sleeper sofa beneath the same French-blue cotton as their restive grandson.

A blue icepack secured the tiny fracture in his jaw, wrapping his face with an icy compression to help soothe the buzzing pain. Brooding blue fixed their stare across the hospital room, watching each sweep of the thinnest red hand tick down the seconds. The longer, thinner hand then aligned in a vertical line with the short, thicker hand, and the clock hands struck twelve on January 8th.

Gary sourly crinkled his nose. Stuck in the hospital for observation…on his 12th birthday.Totallynot cool…

The now twelve-year-old lowered his disgruntled gaze to the French-blue cotton, wrinkling the fibers beneath scrunching fingers. He restrained himself from gritting his teeth, trying to avoid worsening the pain that he already endured from the top of his head down through his swollen chin. So far, two nurses had come to make their rounds and replace the jell pad with a fresh icy one. Though pain med's respite had worn off long ago, he'd lied to both nurses about his discomfort level. He should have asked to numb the pain, send him back under. That would be more relief than he thought he deserved…

He then turned to the yellow blood pressure monitor mounted above his bed on the wall, seeing the small line of drivel from the quiet breaths through parted lips. When Gary was of coherent mind to comprehend, Alondro had told him that LeRoi's sucker punch had literally snapped his jaw in half. Had it not been for Alondro's healing magic, doctors would've resorted to wiring the jaw shut after surgery. Instead, they secured the jaw from overexertion with a facial wrap. Despite some difficulty of annunciation, he was lucky to still have speech.

His grandparents had succumbed to sleep hours prior, and though Alondro had tried his best to fight it so he could be there for his godson, he had lost his battle not long after. Muted melancholy observed his godfather before he looked back to his grandparents on the sleeper sofa; regardless of the pain, Gary didn't want to disturb them. At the same time, he could really use the comfort. He knew he didn't have much time left…

Gary was furiously heartbroken after finding out what Bradley had done to Dwight. That bastard almost killed his best friend, an innocent kid who never deserves such a fate. If anything, LeRoi and his dumb and dumber goons should have left Dwight out of this. The brunt of their brutality should have gone towards him and him alone. Because if anyone were to take their last breath in the most vicious way possible, it should be him. Not Dwight.

Besides, losing his life wouldn't have mattered. For instance, Aunt Susanne and Uncle Daran. They smiled to his face, but Gary could tell that they mostly tolerated him for cordiality's sake. For the once a year he and his grandparents would visit, the Turners had isolated him from Timmy up until Sophia died. Even then, they seemed a little wary to let him and Timmy interact, and at first, Gary couldn't understand why. Stuck in a hospital with infinite amounts of time to think, he now understood perfectly.

He was the son of Marsden, a black sheep who will forever burn Susanne's heart in loathing flames. His younger cousin was also a near replica of said black sheep, and if Gary happened to be struggling mentally that day…

Somehow, this didn't make much sense as to why Sophia had been allowed around him but Timmy wasn't. Especially when looking at Sophia was seeing Timmy with longer hair and a pink bow instead of a pink hat. Was it seriously as simple as boy versus girl? Guess it didn't matter now. His cousin was now not only forbidden from interacting with him, but his cousin wanted nothing to do with him.

Timmy hated him, and Gary understood why. He was the one relative, the one person he shared blood with, who had looked passed a tragic death to see the accident that it truly was. Yet he stabbed him in the back by casting blame, just like everyone else in their family. Yes, Gary was not of sound mind when he'd said those awful words. The knife didn't cut any less deep to Timmy's bruised spirit…

To the Turners, it wouldn't have mattered if Gary had lost his life. Then again…there was Grandpa Vlad and Grandma Gladys.

Gary could see it now; the despair, the tears streaming down their cheeks, the heartfelt wails over his casket. He was the offspring of the son they hated, the son they tossed to the wolves. Yet they loved their grandson with their whole hearts, as if he'd come straight from them. They took him in when he had nowhere else to go as an emaciated four-year-old clinging to the policeman. Coated in his father's blood.

Monitored beeps increased in pace as his fingers crinkled more wrinkles into the blanket. His racing heart reenacted the utter dread chilling goosebumps in his skin, the same sheer terror that had flashed in his four-year-old eyes. Blue eyes blinked as the fabrics of reality blurred between French-blue cotton and the bottom of the barrel aimed right between his eyes. The handheld gun trembled in his father's grasp, his elm eyes wild in tearful ire…

"You made me do this…" Marsden clenched his jaw as the boy curled trepid knees to his chest. Too weak to lift himself off the hardwood floor. Too weak to run.

"Youf*ckedup my life…you f*cked upeverything…" his threatening finger pressed against the trigger "…if I'm gonna rot in Hell…so the f*ck are you…"

Tiny bones quaked, chilling Gary in shivering terror. H-He didn't understand…d-did he make Mars mad again? (When Gary was of the age to call Marsden 'dada,' Marsden had ruthlessly beaten 'dada' out of him and demanded that he only address him as 'Mars.')

…was…this punishment? Was…w-was he not a good boy?!

"Youdid this…youmademeDOTHIS!"

Whimpering weakly, Gary squeezed his eyes shut. All he could do…was accept his punishment…

A booming blast splashed liquid onto his skin, and a thud crashed in front of him.

Perplexed in shallow breaths, Gary forced his eyes to blink open, instantly regretting not keeping them closed. Wide eyes froze upon the gun sprawled amongst pieces of brain matter. A rapid pool of crimson gushed from the side of Marsden's head. Elm eyes forever frozen in a ghostly stare.

A shockwave of pain brought him back, quietly groaning from the pinch in his jaw and the dull throb in his gums. He must have gritted his teeth on accident, and his icepack was losing its cooling sensation. Great. At his point, he's gonna need to buzz a nurse. He was growing tired of thinking anyway. He wanted to just fade away…

"…feliz cumpleaños, peque..."

"…Alondro?" Gary turned to the tired voice coming from the yellow blood pressure monitor, grunting in a pained wince when he did so.

"…does it hurt?" Alondro assumed when his godson reached for the icepack losing its soothing strength.

Unable to hide and left with no choice, Gary reluctantly nodded, squinting in the process. Without being asked, Alondro raised his wand, and yellow sparkles glittered around Gary's jaw. Pulsing pain slowly subsided into a numb null, slowing the monitor's rhythmic pulse as relief relaxed Gary's shoulders. He murmured a thanks to his godfather, shifting in his bed to face him.

"…did I wake you?"

"No." Alondro stifled a yawn. "I was half asleep."

"Liar." Gary poked fun, or attempted to, at least. "You were totally drooling."

Alondro used his back hand to wipe the wetness off his mouth, flattening his brow in denial despite being caught in 4K. "…was not."

"Was too." Gary would've chuckled if he had the spirit to.

"Anyway…" Alondro changed the subject "…it was the heart monitor that woke me."

"Oh…" Gary tilted his head, diverting shamed eyes "…sorry."

"Do not apologize." Alondro faintly grinned. "Was it a bad dream?"

"…um…" Gary wrinkled his forehead hesitantly "…I was awake."

"Oh?"

"Yeah..." Gary couldn't admit to another flashback of his dad. He needed to switch gears "…Londro?"

"Si?"

When timid baby-blue met attentive icy-blue, his fingers gripped onto blue-cotton once more. Hoping that this sentiment would come across more heartfelt than alarming "…te quiero."

Alondro was both endeared and concerned by this sentiment. Gary did normally tell him that he loved him, but saying it in Spanish was almost always before landing himself in the hospital for an entirely different reason.

"…tú también…siempre." He frowned to his godchild, worried that ideations have made a huge comeback "…Gary, what is the matter?"

Crap…Gary hunched his shoulders. Yep, totally gave himself away like an idiot. Ugh, he was going to wait until the sun came up to do this. However, if he was honest…he didn't wanna be in this hospital anymore. He didn't wanna behereanymore…

"…I wish I can go see Dwight."

"Right now?" Alondro raised a brow. "But it is after midnight."

"¿…por favor?"

Alondro sighed heavily. Guess he couldn't deny the wish, since he couldn't stop his own godchild from getting socked in the face…

Sparking his wand, Alondro and Gary disappeared in yellow clouds.

. . . . . .

Chisholm lay nestled in DeWitt's lax arms, tucked in French-blue on a sleeper sofa beside their son's hospital bed. The eleven-year-old fixed purple eyes to the ceiling through black rims, unable to reconcile with sleep in spite of his exhaustion. Spread across his chest was French-blue replaced by dark-teal, blanketed by his godfather as steady snores filled the silence in his ears.

His bladder had been screaming for the last hour, but 1) he was still attached to a bunch of IVs and monitors, 2) he was too tired to lift a finger, and 3) he didn't want to wake Irving. He could buzz for someone on nightshift to assist, though that might wake his dads, and that was the last thing he wanted after everything he's put them through…

The audible ping of magical clouds tilted heavy eyes to his right, making out a figure with black hair and buckteeth wearing a yellow hospital bracelet as he quietly approached the bed.

"…can't sleep, either?" Gary whispered, noticing Dwight's eyes barely open.

"No…" Dwight mumbled through a yawn, lifting his glasses as he rubbed his eyes.

"I hear ya…" Gary paused briefly "…wanna get outta here?"

Dwight readjusted his glasses, slightly puzzled "…where?"

In response, Gary addressed his yellow hospital bracelet, keeping his voice low. "I wish Dwight and I had our transporters."

"…what are you up to, peque?" Alondro probed from rising suspicions.

"Just wanna go to Fairy Fort." Gary confessed, instead of confessing his true intentions for leaving Earth entirely. "Might beeya 'lot better than stayin' here."

Considering Gary's point, Alondro used his wand to poof two gold stars with a purple button in the center. Dwight held his transporter, sighing in partial regret. The escape of Fairy Fort screamed louder than his bladder, but Irving was sleeping so soundly. Unfortunately, Irving had to be awake for the transporter to activate.

With his other hand, Dwight willed himself to sit up, giving gentle pats to the dark-teal blanket. Whispering for his godfather to wake up as Irving snorted out of heavy sleep, fluttering his eyes.

"Are you coming back before someone realizes you are gone?" Alondro asked his godson.

Creasing his brow, Gary curled fingers tighter around his metal transporter. Apprehension held him back from disclosing that they were never coming back…

Her own transporter gripped in one hand, the eleven-year-old held a glued glare to the fire that didn't burn within the fireplace bricked in amethyst, a fresh white gauze taped to the side of her neck. Seated on deep-violet cushion with textured curls placid against her lap, resting a palm on the little girl's shoulder as she slept.

A phantom stab caused her to wince, reaching fingers to the gauze. Quickly soothed by the blue sparkles of numbing magic by her godmother hovering beside the couch as she multitasked between tending to Molly and tending to her girlfriend sobbing into dark-green sweater.

"I-I couldn't protect her…" Nyekundu whimpered on repeat. "I-I…f-failed her…"

"No, no no no…" Swizzle shushed, consoling fingers playing with the back of Nyekundu's red fro-hawk. Her other arm belted Nyekundu's waist against her as guilt-stricken sobs damped her shoulder. "…stop blaming yourself, babe…." If only she could listen to her own advice.

With just Nyekundu's account of events, Molly definitely didn't blame Hazel's godmother. Hillary was just a bitch in the making, but Anthony had always given Molly sus vibes from the stories she'd heard. Then that psycho knocks out a mouse so he could violate a little f*cking girl. That f*cking dickhe*d. Molly almost wished she'd been there just to snap that f*cker's pencil dick off with her bare hands…

Quiet whimpers caused Molly to look down at Hazel rocking her head back and forth, crinkling her troubled brow with closed eyes. Poor kid, she was having a nightmare. Molly rubbed her hand along the length of Hazel's arm, hoping it would send the subconscious message that Hazel wasn't alone. This seemed to be a quick fix when Hazel soon settled back into stillness, though a single tear still escaped.

Molly frowned. Such a sweet little girl like Hazel had her entire innocence stripped from her, chewed into mush, then spat back in her face. Molly wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy…

Okay, she totally would. But like…theworstof the worst. Like Frank. Or Marissa, lowkey. For a mother to donothingto stop a man from stabbing her own daughter?! Trash.

When the grand entrance opened, Molly and the two fairy godmothers saw two other godchildren arriving with their fairy godfathers. One sported a swollen jaw with no icepack, the other a bandaged forehead with no nasal cannula for oxygen.

Alondro and Irving flew over to their fellow godparents, seeing Nyekundu's tears as the perfect reflection of how heavy their hearts were.

"…this is bad…" Irving sighed, Alondro pressing folded lips.

"Agreed…" Swizzle massaged consoling circles below Nyekundu's wings.

Stepping further into the castle, Gary and Dwight made their way to the couch. Gary carefully settled on the empty spot beside Hazel's feet. Watching the ebb and flow of her chest as Dwight walked over to Molly.

Dwight frowned at the gauze taped to her neck. "…what happened there?"

"Frank's knife is what happened…" Molly muttered, subconsciously reaching for the gauze. A cold scoff followed "…if he was really tough sh*t, he would've dug deeper…"

"Molly, stop." Swizzle wearily scolded, making Molly groan gruffly.

"What about you?" Molly switched the subject. "You look like sh-crap." She corrected herself.

Cringing from the sore pinch of his headwound, Dwight reached for the gauze wrapped around his forehead beneath his bowl cut "…details are a little fuzzy…"

"Long story short," Gary's grumble interjected. "LeRoi and his goons jumped us…"

Molly turned to her left, getting a closer look at the swell in Gary's jaw "…they did a number on you guys…"

A short gasp winced before groggy brown blinked, drawing bent knees into the tightest ball possible. Burying her face into Molly's lap with the faintest shivers throughout her body "…Nee-Nee…"

Nyekundu wiped her tears, pulling away from her girlfriend to see Gary offer a reassuring palm to Hazel's fretting whimpers.

"It's okay, Haze..." he spoke calmly. "You're at Fairy Fort. You're safe…"

Watering eyes mustered the courage to lift from Molly's lap, parting enough to put a familiar face to the familiar voice "…G-Gare bear…"

"Hey, kid..." Gary's swollen jaw attempted a weak smile, only to wince from stiff soreness. It was a flop, but at least Hazel started to shiver less. "And look…" his pointed finger directed glossy eyes to the gothic girl and dorky ginger. "Molly and Dwight are here, too."

Her eyes widened tearfully, quivering a jutted lip. Her friends were all badly hurt, but she was glad that they were all alive. She attempted to sit up when weighted pressure punched between her legs, flashing flickers of Anthony on top of her. She tasted the handkerchief on her tongue, triggering a gag. Covering soft sobs with both hands.

"…Haze?" Gary gently reached for her shoulder, scrunching his brow to Hazel scooting herself further into the couch. "What's wrong?"

Fear shook wildly in her head, eyes clasped shut. Spilling tears onto Molly's jeans and Gary's leather jacket before she clutched arms against her chest. Drawing knees to hide her face, coiling as small as she could make herself.

"Whatever it was must've been really bad…" Dwight's sympathy remarked, saddened by the trembling whines muted by Hazel's jeans.

Molly bitterly snarled. "You have no idea…"

As Hazel's whines increased to sobs, Gary lowered glum eyes to folded arms over his lap. He should have died, Dwight and Molly looked death in the eyes, and whatever happened to Hazel…killed her inside.

His fists squeezed, hearing his dad echo"you made me do this"in his head. That day did not go as destined. He remembered being unable to move as Marsden yelled at him. Blamed him once again for killing his wife, the only person to ever love him. He saw Marsden load two bullets…yet only one was fired. The older Gary had gotten, the more he realized the truth.

Marsden was supposed to take him first before he took himself. Somehow, at the last minute, Marsden changed his mind. Why? Because he felt deep in his vicious heart that Gary didn't deserve death's reprieve. He deserved life's punishment.

Gary raised his gaze to their godparents. Nyekundu rubbed vexed palms in attempts to stop her endless tears, and Swizzle held her by the waist with a sulking chin on Nyekundu's shoulder. Alondro crossed his arms as Irving hung his head, pinching his nose. Gary could see their defeat, sense the disgust harbored towards themselves. He didn't have the heart to place blame on the fairies; the powers and jurisdiction of the fairies could only do but so much.

The sole purpose of fairy godparents was to bring happiness to miserable children…what if true happiness was unattainable? What if the fate of endless misery and suffering was outside of magic's control?

He looked to Hazel's softening sobs, watching Molly rub consoling fingers along Hazel's arms as Dwight kneeled to sit on the ground, resting a hand of solace on Hazel's knee. Gary had always dreaded the day that all of them had discussed when the fairies weren't around. The day everything took a nosedive towards rock bottom. The day the blessing of receiving godparents became more burdensome for the fairies themselves. The day that the four of them were left with no other choice…

If life ever got this bad…they had to stop it from getting worse.

When Gary cleared his throat, Molly and Dwight met his gaze as Hazel sniffed, pushing past her urge to hide as she lifted her head in Gary's direction. The three of them watched as Gary pointed his right index finger, swiping it down across the palm of his left hand before he gestured his right thumb to all of them, including himself.

Recognizing that specific sign, Dwight to bite his lip, confliction scrunched in his brow. Since his epilepsy diagnosis, his fathers struggled to keep their heads above debt's waters. The more they worked, the less he quality time he had with them. They had to make a lot of sacrifices…but they never stopped loving him. He was their entire worlds, and Dwight knew that.

Still, if he'd never had epilepsy, he wasn't so sure if his life would've been any better.

This biggest reason for Irvingwashis epilepsy. Without Irving, he would have never met Chloe, nor would he have ever met the friends made through magic. And without them…he'd be alone as an outcast. He still had Elmer and his parents and technically be alone…but that wouldn't ward off bullies teasing him like some worthless loser.

He hated that he can't make the troubles that epilepsy came with disappear, with or without magic. He hated that he'd made Elmer so scared for him that night. He hated causing his fathers so much stress. He hated being such a troublesome onus to Irving. He hated being the source of strife for everyone around him. He didn't want to be a burden anymore…

Folded lips fought back pushing tears. He can't be a burden anymore.

Surly thoughts lowered Molly's glare down to the deep-plum grooves of marbled stone. Her mother was a useless drunk, Frank was a deadbeat douche, and Francis was a just a dumbf*ck blockhead. The dude with a weak pullout game could be dead or alive for all she knew, and all other family had cut ties with Marissa. All she had to do was put the f*ckin' bottle down, but she refused. She couldn't give enough of a sh*t for her own life, let alone for the kid that never asked to be born.

If Molly hadn't transported out of the hospital when nurses weren't around, she would have been discharged to CPS as a ward of the state. Francis was likely a ward of the state too, and that certainly sucked for him. She didn't have to know the horror stories to know how crap the foster care system can be, especially for kids her age. Too old for adoptive parents wanting a fresh family with zero baggage, yet too young to thrive in society on her own.

Kids with nowhere else to go, destined for failure.

She would be at the ill mercy of a system that just shoves kids from home to home, homes that only care enough to make a buck off of them. She'd just bounce from stranger to stranger, folks who don't know her, folks who don't give a sh*t about her, and folks who never f*cking will. Passing through the chain until she aged out, abandoned and tossed to survive in a war with no weapons.

Regret clawed at Molly's heart. She didn't always show it, but Swizzle truly was the best thing to ever happen to her. And clearly, Swizzle cared about her enough to save her freakin' life. Swizzle was all she had left…but Swizzle didn't deserve to keep putting effort into a kid with no purpose…

Molly squeezed the transporter that was still between her fingers. Swizzle didn't deserve a kid with nothing to live for.

Fresh tears glossed as Hazel's chin quivered. She flung herself to Gary, gripping his chest as he squeezed her tight, grief closing his eyes. His cheek lowered to the top of her curls as she sobbed into his shirt, thinking of how Nyekundu had said her that it was no longer safe for her at home. No way would she ever bear to look Anthony nor Fenwick in the eye. Not after what they've done. Hillary regarded her as nothing more than the one thing that can never change, with or without makeup. For all she knew, Hillary would kill to be the youngest girl again.

Then there were her parents...

Hazel sniffed as another flash of memories flickered, recalling the night when she was five and had a bad dream. She'd ran out of bed and down the hall to her parents' room, to tell her everything would be okay. However, when she could hear them arguing through the door, she thought her nightmare was far from over.

"Bringingsome blackie home doesnotautomatically make you a good person!"

Even when she didn't know what her dad meant at the time, she knew it wasn't nice. She knew it was meanspirited. What her mom said in response didn't make matters any better…

"You think anyoneelsewanted her?! She was at that same orphanage for five years! Only whenIcame along did they practicallypushher into my arms because alltheysaw were dollar signs!"

Anthony was right; their dad never hugged them, and their mom made up for what he lacked. But what Anthony didn't consider was that when their mom hugged him and Hillary, their biological bond was evident. When she hugged Hazel, it was just her maternal duty to do so. Hazel didn't always see the difference, yet she always felt it. She also felt her mom's obligation to defend her against flat-out racists. Not because she was the white mother of a black child. Because she felt a responsibility to be the voice of the oppressed.

Hazel would have remained blind to these underlines had Nyekundu never entered her life. Nyekundu had opened her eyes to things that she'd otherwise view as normal. Hazel was glad to have her, because Nyekundu was someone she could see herself in. Adversely, she was overtly aware of how othered she was. The little black tar-baby blemishing their precious white sea. Every blatant statement, every undertone, ripped her soul apart. She was already wearing thin, and Anthony tore the last shred when he tore into her...

How could she ever stitch herself back together?

"...you don't have to do this, Haze..."

Brown tears looked up to the narrowed baby-blue contrasting his gentle voice.

"You can change your mind."

Fixed in her stare, her tears darkened. Jutting her lip with a made-up mind "…no. I'm doing it, too."

Distracted from their thoughts, Dwight and Molly glanced with wide eyes to the little girl's resolve. Gary stared at Hazel, equally as aghast. No…she was too young. "Haze…"

"I had agreed, just like Molly and Dwight." her staunch tone sounded much older than her age "…I want this."

Dwight looked away to keep his sadness at bay, looking close to tears as Molly's creased brow quivered, biting back the gloss in her eyes. Such a little girl shouldn't have to make such a big decision. Why the hell did they ever talk her into this?

"…what are you all talking about?"

Hearing the cynicism, Gary looked up to the narrowed icy-blue of his godfather. "…the 'escape' room. We wanna go see the waterfall." Gary excused, unsure if that would at least lessen Alondro's suspicions.

"Then we will come with you-"

"No." Letting Hazel go, Gary stood from the couch. Swallowing a lump as he faced his godfather's skeptical gaze "…we wanna go alone."

"W-We also think you guys should get some rest…" Dwight spoke as he too stood to his feet, sensing his best friend's confidence weaken. "Things have been just as tough on you guys."

Irving studied his godson, slightly unsettled "…you…sure that's all you're doin'? Watchin' the waterfall?"

"Yep." Molly confirmed tersely, she too standing from the couch to see her godmother's cross her arms, her gaze seeping with doubt.

"…we're not so sure if you guys should be alone right now." Swizzle remarked.

"We can always put it in wish form." Molly stated, steadfast in eye contact. "But we'd rather not do that."

Nyekundu could see the silent tears still dripping off her goddaughter's chin as she left the couch, flying over to her. "…are you sure this is what you want?"

"Yes…" Hazel sniffed just before her unwavering brow began to wilt "…but…" shattered spirits trembled in her lip once more "…c-can I have a hug, first?"

Nyekundu took Hazel into her arms with no hesitation. As they squeezed each other in the tightest embrace, Nyekundu held Hazel's head against her chest as she scratched the back of Hazel's textured curls.

Hazel could hear the audible cocoon of her godmother's heart, finding her slowly soothed by its steady pace. "…Nee-Nee?"

"…yes?"

Hazel stalled, wondering if her favorite lullaby could calm her unraveled spirits "…m-may I hear 'Lala Mtoto?'"

Nyekundu grimaced, scratching Hazel's curls. Her heart felt too heavy for such a light and bouncy nursery rhyme. But she knew she had no choice. Hazel needed her.

So, after what deep breath she could muster, Nyekundu started to sing.

Heavy eyes continued to cry, feeling her godmother's voice vibrate in the top of her chest. Shaky yet silky, so soft. A warm blanket for her heart to wrap itself in from the cold, harsh world. Hazel allowed her lids to fall, chin trembling as trickles of tears broke free. Nyekundu's love felt so pure. She had to soak it all in…for the last time.

As Nyekundu continued her lullaby, Molly took apprehensive steps towards Swizzle. Slumped shoulders folded tight arms across her chest with trepid eyes to her combats. Swizzle observed her goddaughter, having never seen such timidity in her. When she hovered closer to see what Molly wanted, Molly raised yale-blue orbs to dark-blue. Knowing there won't be another opportunity to say what she should have said a long time ago.

"…I love you, Swizzle."

That was certainly not what Swizzle expected to hear. She didn't even know 'love' was in Molly's vocabulary. Even so, the sentiment was quite touching. Touching enough to crack in her quiet voice "…I love you too, Molls…"

Dwight walked over to his godfather, unable to mask the furrow in his brow "…thank you, Irving." he mustered the audible voice to say "…for everything."

Irving's features saddened. Something troubled Dwight, something he wasn't telling him. It was written clear as day all over his non-existent poker face. "You don't gotta thank me, buddy."

"No, I do…" Dwight bent his head, lifting his glasses to wipe away swelling tears "…a-and I'm sorry…for always c-causing you s-so much trouble..."

"Hey…" Irving hovered to his godson, reaching gentle palms to Dwight's quivering shoulders. Torn from the clenched sobs that escaped "…where's this comin' from?"

Dwight couldn't speak, overcome with dysphoric regret.

Gary watched with dejected eyes as Irving drew Dwight close, embracing him as Dwight buried his face into Irving's chest. Dwight was too good of a soul to leave this life, but Gary knew Dwight would never live with himself as the sole survivor of their group.

"…Gary?"

Gary turned around to Alondro's firm gaze on him.

"¿Crees que soy estúpido?"

"…why would I think you're stupid?" Gary softly challenged, screaming to flee on the inside.

Balling his fists, Alondro creased his glare. "You think I do not know that the four of you have formed a pact!"

Nyekundu's lullaby paused at Alondro's eruption as Hazel lifted her head from her chest, looking in Alondro's direction. Swizzle glanced at Molly's guilty gaze before she looked over at Irving who held onto Dwight's hitched sobs.

The air thickened as Gary bit down on his lip, feeling backed into a corner. Guilt lowered his chin, squeezing his eyes. Bracing himself for slighted anger at just how much he f*cked everything up...

His eyes flashed when strong arms suddenly enfolded him, gripping him with no desire to ever let go again. The side of his neck became damp, feeling the heartbreak of stifled sobs.

"…p-por favor, peque…" Alondro pleaded weakly, squeezing him tighter "…te q-quiero mucho…"

The heartache from his godfather's plea shook hot tears in Gary's eyes. He never wanted to hurt Alondro. None of them ever wanted to hurt their godparents. But there was nothing any of them could say to make them understand. In the end, this was for the best. The had to stop their pain from causing more pain…

Sparks of periwinkle-blue blinded Alondro, covering his eyes as he pulled away from the swirling aura cast around Gary. Irving did the same when Dwight's body sparkled in a turquoise light. Swizzle stood puzzled by the lavender-purple glow in Molly's skin, and Nyekundu saw Hazel back away, goggling at the taffy-pink light emitted from the curls in her fro to the soles of her feet.

As Gary gawked at the blue sparks tingling in his skin, he looked to Alondro for answers, only to see Alondro's baffled stare have just as many questions. He tried to call out to his godfather, but his voice was stolen. Then vertigo crashed down, and his vision blurred into black.

"Gary!"

Alondro dashed to catch Gary before his body hit the floor. Irving braced when Dwight's legs went weak, growing limp in his arms. Swizzle saw Molly's eyes glaze as she hurried to stop her flaccid fall, and Nyekundu flew behind Hazel as she fell backwards, dropping like a sack into her arms.

Before any of the fairies had time to process, walls of amethyst brick quivered upon the boom of a large mushroom cloud. When the smoke cleared, a humanoid figure of brute muscle stood before them. Tanned in a caramel complexion with a gold crown hatting his silver flattop, his green tank tucked into camouflage pants looped in black leather.

The fairies froze as The Commander of Fairies stepped towards them in his steeled-toe combats, the grand staff of a magic wand clasped in his imposingly clenched fist. Glaring down with an incomprehensible level of fury flashed in his steel-blue lour.

"Allof you must come with me!" Jorgen Von Strangle roared to his subordinates. "Now!"

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Patches of morning blue peeped through puffy blankets of grey through the 5^th grade teacher’s bedroom window. Mr. Crocker was hard at work making tweaks to his homemade fairy detector made out of scrap metal, parts from a Trans-Pac GPS tracker purchased off the internet, and other junk lying around the house. Despite Geraldine’s advice to use his sick days in recovery from his confirmed concussion, Mr. Crocker had spent the rest of the week couped in his room, ignoring bedrest for his soul’s purpose.

He winced from the dull throb in his head, using his screwdriver to tighten a bolt to the internal antenna. Pink and green had invaded his dreams ever since his fall. Crowned pink and green parrots, to be exact. Admittedly, common sense sprinkled a bit of doubt in his conspiracy. Aside from gold crowns, he had nothing else to prove that his reoccurring dream was indeed of fairies. He’d never seen their magic wands nor their fly-like wings, or anything outside of a parrots’ guise. He had also never seen them wield magic, and every dream ended the same. They would fly to his ten-year-old rescue, and then his world would go black, sending him back to his forty-year-old reality.

Still, the fact that they were the same shade of pink and green as Timmy Turner’s pink and green wristbands clung hope to the remaining faith that fairies did exist. He’d not personally seen any unexplainable phenomenon around Turner when wearing those wristbands, though Turner could just be good at hiding. Then again, he had seen those pink and green shades take on different shapes around Turner. A green pencil and pink eraser, green and pink squirrels. And while in those different shapes, the wristbands did not exist.

There’s only one logical explanation…

Even without concrete evidence and his brain’s vivid imagination as his primary proof, the green and pink that Turner possessed just had to be fairies. His fairies. Why else would he feel so drawn to them? He needed to find out for himself, and with just his base-level knowledge of how trackers should (and might) work, perfecting this detector was his sole drive to keep going.

Glancing over at his green parakeet and a pink galah perched at the bottom of their cage, he took his unfinished fairy detector with him, gleaming to show them his progress. “Carlos, Wilma, look!”

Carlos and Wilma responded with flaccid blinks.

“Still needs a bit of work, obviously, as it’s still in its prototype stage. But I have faith that it will help me capture my long lost-” his muscles spasmed impromptu “-FAIRY GODPARENTS!”

His spasm irritated another throb to the side of his skull, rubbing it agitatedly before he looked back to Carlos and Wilma’s immobile feathers. They stared with watering eyes, clicking their beaks as if parched. Furrowing his brow at their behavior, Mr. Crocker set his fairy detector on the work bench before he approached the water dispenser on their cage. Observation showed that both food and water dispensers appeared the same as they did when he refilled them the day before.

Jutting his lip in a sigh, he walked to a nearby drawer for a syringe. Retrieving it to then open the dispenser and fill the barrel with untouched water before he opened the door to their birdcage. Staring with Wilma, his careful hand aimed the tip of the syringe in her beak, stirring her from the sudden object nearby. Pushing the plunger to inject the water into her mouth, her tongue splashed with each spurt, some droplets dripping down her beak while others managed to make it down her throat.

With half a syringe left, he moved on to Carlos who, for some reason, tilted his head away. “C’mon Carlos…” Mr. Crocker coaxed, continuing to aim the syringe for a stubborn beak. “You need to drink something…”

Getting the right angle, Mr. Crocker managed to get the syringe close enough to spurt water into Carlos’s beak, though most of it splashed on his chest feathers. Mr. Crocker’s brows furrowed once more; why was he refusing water? And, more importantly, why were they not eating or drinking on their own? Carlos and Wilma were roughly between twelve and fourteen, barely on the cusp of elderly birds.

Carlos continued to tilt his head as far he could away from the syringe, and Mr. Crocker begrudgingly gave up. The cold front was beginning to lift (the cold rarely lasted long in Dimmsdale winters.) And yet, they seemed to be steadily deteriorating due to unknown origins.

With heedful fingers, Mr. Crocker brushed the green feathers on Carlos’s head, causing Carlos to stretch his neck just to press his forehead against his caregiver’s palm. Wilma attempted the same, extending her neck with great effort as Mr. Crocker’s fingers brushed her pink feathers.

“Den…Denzel…” Carlos strained to squawk

“Love…Denzel…” Wilma croaked as well.

He appreciated their affectionate sentiment, yet the corners of his mouth bent downwards. How long had they been growing weaker, and how long had he not noticed? “…love you, too…” Denzel murmured somberly. He’ll need to make an appointment with the vet soon.

He can’t lose anyone again…

The biggest bang in the universe shocked his heart as a battering ram knocked the bedroom door off its henges, ruffling Carlos and Wilma’s feathers in startled surprise. “Denzel!” Dolores exclaimed, trotting as she invited herself inside her son’s personal space. “Have you seen the news?!”

“Good morning to you, too, mother…” Mr. Crocker mumbled sarcastically. Was ‘rude awakening’ even the right words for that unnecessary mini heart attack? He shushed Carlos and Wilma’s squawks while shutting them inside their cage. “And why would I watch the news?”

“Those poor Dimmsdale children are still missing!”

Mr. Crocker paused, turning to face his mother. He’d been so out of the loop from the outside world, and now children in Dimmsdale are just randomly missing? “What Dimmsdale children?”

“Dimmsdale authorities are still on the search for the four Dimmsdale children who had seemingly disappeared without a trace early Wednesday morning.” Chet Ubetcha began his next morning news segment, showing each child’s school picture on the screen. “Those four children have been previously reported as twelve-year-old Gary Vladislapov, eleven-year-old Dwight Schlatter, eleven-year-old Molly DeLisle, and nine-year-old Hazel Wells.”

A drawn-out yawn escaped the redhaired teen, reclined on the Turners’ couch with her green socks propped up on the coffee table. So far, the Turners had been out for two hours, doing what they could to help Mrs. Turner’s parents in their continued search for her nephew Gary. To ensure that the twerp wasn’t home alone, Vicky was expected to be present right at 7:30. Waking up early on a Saturday was a total pain, but there was easy money to be made.

“Reports state that Gary Vladislapov and Dwight Schlatter had both been assaulted on the morning of Tuesday, January 7^th.” Chet continued with backstory. “The perpetrators are three minor suspects whom shall not be named due to their age, but Gary and Dwight were admitted at Dimmsdale Hospital where they were then found missing the next morning. As the investigation continues, medical staff and the hospital board of directors have yet to find answers to the boys’ strange disappearance.”

“Weird…” Vicky mumbled through another yawn. How the heck did four kids all go missing? All at the same time? That’s some Houdini type sh*t.

As Chet blabbed on about kids disappearing like magic, her baggy eyes glanced upwards towards the stairs. She hadn’t heard a peep from the twerp since she’d got there. He wasn’t still asleep, was he? Eh, she wouldn’t blame ‘em. She’d still be catchin’ some much needed Zs if it weren’t for this monetary obligation.

She thought back to her conversation with Vic, about how hurt people hurt people. She also thought about Tootie wanting her to be nicer to the twerp. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, but choosing violence didn’t seem appealing. It’d been such a trying week as it was; a chill day with no drama was so long overdue.

Subdued within the room void of artificial light, Timmy lay sprawled backwards atop his blue duvet. Somber eyes fixed on the ceiling with zero motivation to lift a finger, not even to hold a controller for video games.

Cosmo and Wanda had left an hour ago for their doctor’s appointment in Fairy World, hoping to get some answers for Wanda’s stomach pains (and other pains in general.) They’d offered for him to come with, and if he’d used his transporter, they could have poofed to the hospital from Fairy Fort. However, Timmy didn’t want to inconvenience them. They could use a break from godparenting, even if small. As he expected, they weren’t hearing him at first. That was, until he forced them to oblige in the form of a wish.

He would have liked to go with them, he just didn’t want to bring them down with him. Dark thoughts had overtaken his mind since last night. So much so, that in the middle of the night, he’d snuck into his parents’ room and into their on-suite for the sleeping pills that his mother kept in the medicine cabinet. Nights have been restless for him, and all he’d wanted was to sleep…for a very long time.

Had it not been for Sophia talking sense into him, he would have gone through with his impulsive plan. She knew how many pills he would have taken before even he was consciously aware, and she did not want him to be where she was. Not yet. Though…that begged the question poking the back of his mind with a pondering needle.

Did he truly want to die?

He’d always felt, and still felt, that he deserved to be dead instead of Sophia, but his ability to speak with Sophia in the afterlife made him doubt that he even understood the concept of death. Sure, when you die, in some sense, you’re no longer physical. No one can physically touch you, or hit you. Or hug you. However, your spirit, or whatever you call it, either dies with your body or goes somewhere that is still a mystery to him.

Chester believed that your soul goes to either Heaven or Hell. Depending on how you live your life on Earth, whether you’re good or evil. Tootie had once believed in some sort of paradise, an eternal place to live, but still on Earth. Before she abandoned all things religious, she didn’t believe that people possess souls or spirits.

AJ had the belief that there is nothing after you die. That once your body dies, that’s it. Game over. However, Sophia had simply described it as being in an alternate dimension; her body had died, but her soul continued to live in this other reality. It sounded okay but…he didn’t know what to make of that. He didn’t know if he deserved to keep living in some other reality or just…cease to exist.

[Stop thinking about dying, Timmy.]

Slow blinks broke his rabbit hole of thoughts, mono in his tone “…how do you know that’s what I’m thinking about?”

[I’m basically a part of you, now.] Sophia pointed out. [You may be able to hide your thoughts from everyone else, but not from me.]

“…okay?” Timmy mumbled, glum eyes still towards the ceiling. “What if I can’t help it?”

[…you’re ten.]

“And you died at eight.”

[Timmy…]

“I know, I’m sorry…” Timmy apologized to his sister’s grouse; she hated when he’d resort to her untimely death as justification to ideate about it. Dragging a hand over one tired eye, he then chose to change the subject to what she was probably reaching out for “…still can’t find Gary?”

[I’ve tried everything I can think of.] Sophia sounded defeated. [I can’t sense him…]

Timmy sighed. Guess that confirms he’s not on Earth. Inversely, if he was in Fairy World, Sophia wouldn’t have this much trouble…

“…you don’t think he…?”

[No, cuz I would still sense him...]

Good to know that Gary was still alive…in some sense of the word.

Inhaling a tense breath, Timmy exhaled his nerves. If he was honest, Timmy had become concerned for his cousin. First, Gary and Dwight get beaten into a hospital. Now Gary and his godkid friends disappear without a trace. All not even twenty-four hours after basically telling Gary to go screw him after his multiple attempts to reach out through Sophia.

Gary…guilty conscience pursed his lips…what happened to you…?

Timmy didn’t have to look in the bedroom door’s direction to hear it creek open, and he didn’t have to look to know who had invaded his personal space. “…what do you want…” he muttered, half expecting a snarky response in return. Only when none came did he tilt his head to see Vicky leaned against the doorway with loosely-folded arms.

“…you hungry?”

“Um…” he paused quizzically. Her oddly normal, non-evil attitude nearly made him forget the original question “…n-no. Not right now.”

“Kay.” she shrugged coolly. If only Tootie was here; she’d be happy to see her show restraint from savagery. “Let me know when you are, then.”

He watched her turn away, shutting the door behind her exit. Staring as he questioned what in the Twilight Zone was going on.

. . . . . .

“Also on Tuesday, January 7^th, Molly DeLisle was admitted to Dimmsdale Hospital after it was reported that she’d been stabbed by her mother’s boyfriend, Frank Abrahms.” Chet continued as Tootie watched from the table booth of the camper, sitting across from Vic. Both dressed in their pajamas as Vic sipped his second cup of coffee. “Both Molly’s mother, Marissa DeLisle, and Frank Abrahms are set for a court hearing within the week, and they are looking at between 15-30 years of prison if they plead guilty to all of their charges which include 1^st degree child abuse, 1^st degree domestic violence, and 2^nd degree attempted murder.”

Tootie wrung the wrist of her teal bracelet. She recognized Molly’s picture from Wall 2 Wall Mart, remembering seeing such writhing rage in the mom’s eyes. A rage that was all too familiar, felt all too real.

“What a crock of bull…”

Vic’s grumble made Tootie glance in his direction.

“Those guys deserve to rot in those cells, but…” he lifted his mug for another sip “…the justice system in this town ain’t never made no sense.”

After totaling over two days of court, the judge had found Nicky Byrne guilty of misdemeanor child abuse (due to her part in enabling Jim’s behavior and doing little to protect her daughters.) Nicky had sentenced her to a year in county jail with three years of probation to follow. Jim Byrne, the main committer of the crime, had been found guilty of felony child abuse. Jim received the maximum sentence…six years in county jail.

The prosecution was not exactly pleased with this verdict, nor did they like that Dimmsdale’s max for lifetime trauma guaranteed was abysmally low. Vic was at least glad that the jury had always been on their side, with or without the defendants’ testimony.

At the court hearing following the child abuse trial, because Vicky was knocking on seventeen, she was perfectly fine with Vic having permanent guardianship until she was of legal age. As for Tootie, her new birth certificate with Vic as her legal father should come within the month.

Jim and Nicky had officially been stripped of their parental rights, And, if they so choose, Vicky and Tootie would never have to see the likes of those bastards ever again.

Tootie turned back to Frank’s and Marissa’s sullen mug shots on the screen, Chet’s words drowning behind buzzing thoughts. Why didn’t Molly’s godmother intervene and stop Frank from stabbing Molly if Rose could intervene and stop her dad from beating her to death?

Without warning, a turquoise glower flashed across her eyes, freezing her mouth in a chilling gasp. Flickering images of fists striking like hail iced deep in her bones.

Hearing her shuddered breath, Vic lowered his mug atop the table with grave concern facing Tootie’s direction “…Tootie?”

Another flash whipped a biting switch close to her cheek. Stiff arms flinched reflexively from the stinging swats that were invisible to everyone but her. Her godmother’s call and Vic’s calls of her name came muddled in her mind, her purple eyes growing blank with terror. Color drained from her cheeks, and faint tremors shook in her pupils.

“He’s not here, Tootie…” Vic stood from his seat to kneel before her, placing soft hands onto knees quaking lightly. “You’re not there…” he tried to reach her “…you’re in the camper, and you’re safe.”

Blank eyes continued to stare through him, and he kept calling to her softly, coaxing her to come back. Fearing where she’d gone so many times ever since the trial. Vic had already gotten multiple calls from her teacher, Ms. Modell, out of concern for these episodes. One minute, Tootie was attentive in class, and the next, she would start shaking with distant eyes at her desk.

Vic continued to bushed gentle strokes along Tootie’s knee, reassuring that what she was feeling wasn’t happening in real life. Patient persistence waited until fluttering eyes finally met his tender gaze, giving a small grin to her sniveling lip. “There you are…”

Dismay stared back at him as turned around to Chet continuing with details of another child’s abuse. Thinking the news might have been a trigger, he then reached for the remote near her, shutting off the TV before he turned back to her sniffing whimpers.

Vic cupped her shivering cheeks with tender palms, her troubled eyes watering. While Tootie would never have to see Jim again, unfortunately, that didn’t save her from seeing him in haunting memories. The trial must have flipped a switch in her mind, sparking an onslaught of vivid flashbacks. He and Vicky can only do but so much. If he could make more money, he could get her the help she desperately needed...

“You’re alright, Tootie…” he drew his adopted daughter into a fatherly hug, and the shivers from head to toe immediately coiled into his chest. “You’re safe…”

Off to the side of the country club’s grand central staircase, Remy sourly leaned against the stair’s stinger with his purple watch cuffed around his right wrist. He’d fully recovered from his illness, just to be subjected to more asinine money puns and superfluous mingling from Dimmsdale’s upper-middle class and the one percent.

His sole reason for making an appearance was in anticipation of seeing Hazel for the first time since the Christmas dinner. He’d been itching for insight on how things were fairing with Fenwick, perhaps out of false hope that the Wells would wise up and do what the Buxaplentys failed to; report a predator.

On the contrary, because he’d assumed that Fenwick had no interest in little girls, he hadn’t given Hazel much to go on. He hadn’t told Hazel just how dangerous Fenwick was. Now she’d gone missing without a trace, and regret tugged at his heart…

Maybe he should have listened to Juandissimo when he’d suggested to tell Hazel the truth. What if Fenwick did do something to her? Could he have prevented it somehow?

“W-We just don’t understand how this could happen!” Angela cried to the Buxaplentys. Her husband had gone off with other club members, in no mood to deal with his wife’s dramatics. “Hazel had such a wonderful life! Where could she have gone!?”

Remy shook his head at her delusion. Based solely off the little information he’d gathered about Hazel, her life was not as ‘wonderful’ as her mother claimed. Plus, the Wells actively chose to bring their remaining children in attendance to club gathering while their daughter was missing. What does that say about them?

“We’re so sorry for what you’re going through right now.” Diana strained concern in her features, holding Angela’s hand.

“We have faith that you will find her.” Orville offered, though Remy could hear the forced sympathy in his father’s words.

“I wouldn’t bat an eye if she stayed gone.” Remy then turned the group of affluent girls some feet away, overhearing Hillary’s snarky opinion to Trixie and Veronica. “The only reason father hired all these investigators is because mumsy practically begged him to. Father knows that it’s all a giant waste, and everyone but mumsy can see that.”

While Veronica didn’t seem bothered, Remy was somewhat surprised to see Trixie’s frown at Hillary’s blatant disregard towards her own sister.

“…are you not upset that your little sister’s been missing for four days?”

“She’s not my sister.” Hillary scoffed to Trixie. “And even if she was, little sisters are so annoying.”

“Totally.” Veronica looked briefly through the crowd of club members at her little sister Valarie. A brat who’d just turned five, still attached to their mother’s hip like the big baby she is. “They’re just a total waste of space.”

“Agreed.” Hillary shortly giggled, hand on the co*cked hip of her Christian Dior plaid skirt.

Trixie deepened her frown, disgusted at their behavior. “I can’t believe you two...”

“Of course, you wouldn’t understand.” Hillary haughtily remarked. “You’re an only child.”

Trixie huffed, diverting her puckered brow away from the rude reminder. Of course, they wouldn’t understand. They didn’t have to lose themselves in magazines and fashion to distract from overthinking, or strive for popularity to counteract coming home to an empty house…

Standing near the staircase, the Griffin stepbrothers observed Anthony’s reserve. Occupying the bottom step with a sullen downward stare, arms linked across his chest.

“Dude, you good?” Chad probed to the boy who hadn’t said a word since he’d arrived. “You seem tense.”

“Just a bad mood…” Anthony’s tight throat grumbled an excuse, avoiding their observant gaze.

Tad inched closer to the fellow blonde. He knew teenagers can be moody, but this seemed like there was more to it “…is it about your sister?”

Snarling his nose, Anthony flashed a glare. “How about it’s none of your f*cking business!”

Remy took a gander in the direction of Anthony’s eruption.

“Whoa, we’re jus’ askin’!” Chad raised hands in defense.

“Yeah!” Tad too did not take kindly to getting cursed at unprovoked. “The heck got into you!?”

Lucky that no adults were within earshot, all surrounding eyes looked in Anthony’s direction. Seeing his sister perturbed in her gaze as the popular girls’ quiet stares questioned what his deal was. Agitated with himself, Anthony muttered a curse under his breath, shooting from the stairs in the opposite direction of the foyer. Oblivious to Remy’s vigilant stare as he zoomed passed in his trek down the hall.

Barging into the nearest men’s restroom, Anthony flared his nostrils with each constricted breath. His breathing difficulty increased as shaky fingers ran through his blonde spike, pacing near the door. “Calm down…” he muttered to himself, tugging the collar of his Christian Dior sweater to release radiance of nervous heat. “Just calm the f*ck down…”

“What do you call something that quacks like a duck?”

Unsteady footing led him to the Swiss Madison sink, supporting himself with hands gripped to the onyx countertop. Glaring into the reflection of draining color in troubled features as the nanny’s words echoed in his head.

“If you look guilty and act guilty…guess what that makes you.”

But what if the police find Hazel and they do a medical evaluation? What if the evaluation finds proof that someone took advantage of her? If they take DNA sample…sh*t. He’ll go down, for sure.

Haunted eyes jerked to the opening of the bathroom door, spotting the mint-green stare fixed on him as he entered. Creasing his brow before he faced away back at his reflection. Blue eyes caught a sideways glimpse of the young billionaire turning the faucet to the Swiss Madison sink beside his, pumping hand soap into unsoiled palms.

Facing his side of the wall-mounted glass mirror, Remy snuck a side glance at the faintest tremble in Anthony’s fingers along the counter. Rubbing his hands below running water before he switched off the faucet. As he shook his hands dry, his attentive stare acknowledged Anthony’s tense brow through the mirror.

Remy knew that look all too well. A look of surmounting shame concealed within a vault of secrets. Looks like Anthony was Fenwick’s puppet now. Quite unfortunate, but that was not his biggest concern.

“…do you know what happened to Hazel?”

Anthony crinkled his brow at Remy studying him intensively. He had notice how Hazel would gravitate towards the Buxaplenty heir, so that explained his enquiry on her absence. Still…what about him gave the impression that he knew where Hazel disappeared to? He had nothing to do with that…

“Nope.” Anthony mumbled stiffly, backing from the sink. “No clue.”

Remy’s stare remained stoic to Anthony’s purposeful bump against his shoulder before Anthony paced out of the bathroom under Remy’s watchful eye.

Winter’s wind swayed platinum blonde hair poking through the hood of her lavender parka. Accompanied by her indigo necklace as she stepped onto the front porch of the two-story home.

In her first Saturday of ungrounded freedom, her father had given Chloe permission to spend time at Elmer’s house. Elmer had invited her over, and she wanted to make an effort in being a better friend to him, especially in his time of need. Of course, the only reason she’d been given permission was because her mother was currently in Brightsburg staying with Chloe’s maternal grandmother. Wounds of the being served divorce papers were still fresh, and Connie couldn’t stand to stay where she no longer felt welcomed.

On top of the impending divorce, Clark was fighting for full custody. And, you guessed it, Connie did not take this lying down. The Carmichaels didn’t have to be in the same house for arguments to ensue. Bitter back and forths had become Chloe’s every day; dysfunctional chaos roiled her life on the brink of insanity. However, she was not one to disclose that to anyone outside of those directly affected. Years of love soiled into hatred for the other…all because of her. What reason did she have to complain? Being a whiney brat never solved anything.

Stepping onto the welcome mat, Chloe rang the doorbell to the dark-wood door. Waiting with wrapped arms protecting her shoulders from the chilling breeze before the door opened to rounded lavender frames around olive eyes, one cheek blemished with a boil like her son.

“Hi, Chloe…” Dee wiped tears under her glasses.

“Hello, Mrs. Baker.” Chloe mustered a cordial greeting. “Are you okay?”

“It’s been tough the last few days…” Dee admitted after a sniff. “My husband is currently out with Dwight’s fathers doing what they can to search for him.”

“I can imagine…I’m so sorry…” Chloe offered her condolences for what little that could do.

“Thank you, sweetheart…” Dee appreciated the sentiment, stepping aside to permit entry into the home. “Here. Come in.”

Cleaning her boots on the welcome mat, Chloe stepped inside as Dee closed the front door. Dee offered her to discard her parka to hang on the rack of other winter coats which Chloe accepted, and after she’d been given instructions on how to navigate to Elmer’s room, Chloe kindly thanked her before she ventured up the stairs towards the first door to the left.

Even from just standing outside of the room, Chloe caught snippets of sniffles from distress. Was she ready to handle this? Her hesitation stalled her from raising her knuckles to knock on the door, announcing her anticipated arrival.

“Come in!” she heard Sanjay’s shrill voice from behind the door. She then twisted the knob and opened the door to a splash of yellow and black.

Compassion struck her heart at the sight of Elmer’s buried face hidden in grieving palms as Sanjay massaged comforting circles in his lower back. Elmer’s shoulders shook in sobs. She knew that Dwight’s disappearance would have some affect, but not to this degree…

“Do not worry, Elmer…” Sanjay attempted to offer his optimism, the optimism that even he felt lacking. “They will find Dwight…”

“It’s been four days, Sanjay!” Elmer lifted his tear-stained face to Sanjay. “Four days with no leads or any trace of him!”

A groan escaped, clawing at the sides of his head. Chloe and Sanjay frowned in sympathy.

“…i-it’s like my brother just vanished off the face of the Earth…”

That last phrase sparked a theory in narrowed eyes. Though she hadn’t been back in a while, Chloe remembered Timmy saying something about how other godkids had wished for Fairy Fort. There’d been so many Terry Totter references in that castle, references that only another Terry Totter fanatic would catch. Consequently, when you consider how Dwight is godchild who is also a Terry Totter fan, perhaps that explained where he was.

From what had seen reported on the news throughout the week, Chet Ubetcha did mention three other kids that disappeared at the same time as Dwight. Did Dwight have friends outside of other godchildren? Chloe didn’t think so. In that case, these other kids who’d gone missing had be godchildren as well. Perhaps even the godchildren to wish Fairy Fort into existence.

If so, then they had the means of transporting to and from Fairy World. Why had they not come back? Could it be that…they didn’t want to be found? Why would they not want to be found?

“…Chloe?”

Her eyes fluttered from Sanjay’s call to her. “…y-yes?”

“…you were being a space cadet again.”

“…oh….” Humiliation hung Chloe’s head. Sanjay was right; Elmer needed his friends. This was not the time for senseless daydreaming. “I’m sorry.”

She took the empty space on the bed beside Elmer, feeling useless to his sniffling cries. Elmer’s brother disappeared with no explanation. She wished she knew what to say in this situation, yet words escaped her.

A diffident hand touched Elmer’s shoulder in an attempt to give condolence. She herself could still see those horrific convulsions, the choking gargles, the lack of oxygen reddening his face. If she could reach for any positive to this situation, maybe Dwight still had Irving. In the very least, he wasn’t alone and had someone to aid with his seizures.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do to ease Elmer’s pain. The only thing within her power was to hope that wherever Dwight was, he was okay. Not just for Elmer’s sake, but for her own.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Inside a ten-year-old's room, Wanda sat on the bed, cradling her stomach as her husband rubbed soothing circles in the pain pinching her lower back. Her magic labs and blood tests had revealed that the wish's magic and the magic developing within the baby was both accelerating its growth and amplifying her nausea and body aches. With this as the first wish-born pregnancy in the history of ever, Dr. Studwell's educated guess was primarily based off test results. Fortunately, Dr. Studwell had cleared her for active godparenting duty, and he'd prescribed medicine that should start to alleviate the worst of her symptoms. Unfortunately, he'd suggested that Cosmo take on more of the wish granting burden so that Wanda could conserve what magic she could for the baby.

She wasn't terribly concerned about Cosmo's competence since it wasn't like he'd be completely on his own. She knew there'd come a point where her pregnancy would slow her down…just didn't expect it so soon.

The fairy couple watched the dark cloud hanging over their godson's head at the other edge of his bed, distancing himself from them with crossed arms. He'd told them that everything was fine when they'd returned from their appointment, but his rutty brow said otherwise.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cosmo asked, seeing Timmy avert his gaze.

"Is it the baby?" Wanda assumed. She watched Timmy shake his head with blue eyes downcast. "Then talk to us, sport." she tried, speaking tenderly. "You know you can talk to us about anything."

His lips tightened when he felt them start to tremble. Wanda and the baby should be enough for them to about. He didn't deserve for them to care so much.

[Tell them, Bubba…]he heard Sophia's soft encouragement.[Take guilt out, let love in…remember?]

He retched in his throat, forcing sown a sob. Wrapping arms around himself to keep the threads from falling apart. He shifted slightly when Cosmo appeared to his left and Wanda on his right. He felt the blurry outline of her hand resting on the knee of his jeans before a fretting palm wiped away glossing shame.

"We love you..." his godmother gave his knee a motherly squeeze.

His godfather reached a fatherly palm to his shoulder. "We'll always love you…"

He tried to blink away brimming tears, but the glass wall between him and his fairies was cracking fast. "…I-I…" his squeak cracked slightly "…I love you too…"

"Can you tell us what's wrong?" Cosmo gave gentle strokes to Timmy's stiff shoulder with his thumb.

Timmy went back and forth before opening his mouth and closing it, uncertain if he could tell them the truth. He honestly didn't want to, but he knew he had to. They would just keep asking, and his defenses were weakening.

"…I've been lying to you guys…"

In the back of their minds, Cosmo and Wanda knew Timmy had been keeping something from him. They were just waiting for him to say it.

His arm wiped whatever tears managed to fall, unable to meet their attentive gaze just yet "…and I-I did something stupid last night…"

"…what did you do?"

His godmother's question sounded like the softest blanket warming the icy chill in his heart. It was still kind of freaky how she could do that. "…I um…" his lips folded inward, as if instinctively stopping himself from revealing what he'd done. They could love him and still be greatly disappointed in him. He didn't want to disappoint them, nor did he want them to blame themselves for his actions.

"It's okay." Wanda probed gently. "You can tell us."

His nails began to pinch at his arm, just like the inner guilt pinching at his nerves "…I almost took…some of my mom's pills…"

"…what were you gonna do with them?" From his own experience that felt eerily similar, Cosmo already known the answer.

Timmy tightly swallowed "…take them…"

"Why?"

"…I-I wanted to sleep…I haven't been…" his nail pinched a stinging redness into his skin, a faint tremor in his hand "…and if Sophia hadn't stopped me…"

"Oh, Timmy…" Wanda let out a saddened breath. She should have known his mental state had gotten this bad…

"…I'm sorry…" his whimpers couldn't hold swelling tears back any longer, shutting his eyes as he laced tighter arms around himself "…I-I'm sorry…"

"Shhh…" Wanda joined her husband in a loving embrace around their godson "…we're here, sweetie."

Sniffling tears dampened Timmy's cheeks, allowing the love of his godparents to soothe the gaping hole in his heart.

Orangey hues painted the dimmest glow through the cracks of puffy clouds, casting the dullest light into the bedroom where a desk lamp shined bright through the creeping darkness. Providing visibility as the fairy-obsessed teacher tweaked away at his fairy detector from his workbench littered with tools. Finishing his fairy detector had stolen majority of his time and attention, working tirelessly throughout the day. If children had suddenly vanished without a trace, then this was clearly the work of mystical forces.

He was going to prove the existence of fairies, and this detector was going to help him prove it. How, you ask? It shall all start with one pink-hatted kid. If his detector can detect even a trace of magic from those pink and green wristbands of his, then Turner will be unable to deny the existence ofFAIRY GODPARENTS!

Mr. Crocker sneered from the twinging crack in the back of his neck. Man, he hasgotto stop twitching like that.

The rattle of metal and frantic squawking snapped his sore neck towards the bird cage, hammering his heart. Goggling his eyes at the feathers of green wings flapping violently, its whole body overcome in aggressive seizes.

"…Carlos?!" Mr. Crocker abandoned his detector and dashed to the rattling cage, fumbling to get the door open. Then, his green parakeet fell flaccidly almost as quickly as he began to seize. Beak agape in the blankest stare with the pink galah next to him. She gave no reaction, seemingly unaware of her surroundings. Shivering feathers wheezing for breath.

Fingers shaking, Mr. Crocker reached inside the cage, scooping the green parakeet in his palms. Chilling his nerves when Carlos had no support in his head, nor did his chest show any signs of breathing.

"…wake up, Carlos…" Mr. Crocker uttered, using a finger to push circles into Carlos's chest. Hearing his heart thump in his ears when Carlos failed to stir.

"…D..Den..zel…"

Through the thump in his ears, Mr. Crocker shot wide eyes to the pink galah's struggle to squawk to him. Feeling the tethers tear in his heart from the single tear trailing from Wilma's eye.

"…W-Wilma?" his throat was starting to constrict. He lowered Carlos delicately on the nearby bed, as if trying not to break him. Staring with the most crestfallen eyes, Denzel then return to the cage to scoop his beloved pink galah into shaky palms.

Black eyes fixed on her caregiver, a corpse-like stiffness started in her toes, working its way through her legs. Crawling up the pink feathers in her chest, freezing her greyish wings to her sides. It'd choked its way to her throat, but not before she strained her final croak "…L…Lov-"

Jolting spasms overtook her, flapping her wings in rapid succession. All he could do was quiver his chin as he was forced to watch her body buzz frantically in his palms for the cruelest, most agonizing ten seconds of his life.

When her wings went still with a motionless glaze in her eyes glazed, he knew her suffering had ended…

Wilma shook limply in the growing shiver through his palms, grief swelling behind his glasses. He did his best to lower her next to Carlos who had since been long gone. Careful in resting her head when he lowered her, his breaths started to hitch in his throat as color drained from his already pale skin. His feet slowly stumbled him backwards from the bed, the creaking of floorboards piercing the deadly silence in the air.

A pitchy ring droned in his head, growing louder by the second. Numbing the tips of his toes and the tips of his quivering fingers. Carlos and Wilma…t-they were still alive just this morning. He…he didn't know they were that sick he…he didn't know! Should…s-should he have acted sooner? W-Would that have made a difference?!

Buckling knees dropped to the ground, the ringing in his ears amping a fuzzy pressure in his skull. Blurring his vision as his hands clawed at his temples, his ribs rattled with the pacing pulse of his heart. No…t-they can't be gone. They can't be. They can't leave him. Not again. No, no, no, no, NO! This wasn't happening! This was not HAPPENing!

The loudest boom shook Mr. Crocker in his core, fluttering through brewing tears as a tall, muscular figure appeared through the dissipating mushroom cloud. His green fitted tank was tucked into camouflage pants, yielding the largest staff the shape of a giant…wand?

Never mind how this strange man suddenly appeared in his room like magic. Though he saw no wings, this man had a gold crown on his head! A crown! Just like…just like…

"…y-you…you…" a trembling finger pointed, aimed towards the golden sheen of a crown as the strange man retrieved a yellow, pen-like object from his pocket "…y-you're a fai-"

Fuchsia flashes of Forget-a-cin flickered pink swirls into the glass of Mr. Crocker's black rims, fogging all train of thought into a confused haze. Numbness tingled in his lips, slacking his jaw. The room swayed, spinning in his vision before lack of bodily control fell backwards.

Tucking the memory wiper back in his pocket, Jorgen Von Strangle creased his brow at the subtle twitch in the teacher's limbs. Watching the human mumble incoherent gibberish to himself in a distant stare towards the ceiling. It was bittersweet having to see the likes of Denzel Crocker.

He didn't think he'd ever see him again. Not since that fated day of March 15th, 1972…

A ten-year-old boy and his beloved parrots magically appeared from a greenish pink cloud to the ocean blue sky and white sand of Dimmsdale Beach. With his green parrot perched on Denzel's right shoulder while the pink parrot perched on his left, he stood along the private wooden walkway leading up the path from the beach towards the section of two-story homes overlooking the jewel toned water and glittering gulf.

Making his way up the treated-pine planks aged in sand and algae, the boy felt his heart putter in his chest. Clutching the straps of his backpack as he goggled at the grey metal roof and concrete siding painted in a summery pastel blue. White columns gave a crisp finish to the house's edges and supported the glassed-in balconies facing the growing tides of the Pacific Ocean, white vinyl framing the glass doors and multiple floor-to-ceiling windows optimizing the beachy scenic view whether inside or outside the home.

Denzel Crocker couldn't concentrate at school that day because all he could think about was starting anew. Sick and tired of Vic's sad*stic torture, sick and tired of his mother's inattentive neglect. The night before, he'd only packed the essentials; he could have any superfluities from the wave of a wand. His mother hadn't noticed the extra stretch of his backpack that morning, and he hadn't bothered to leave any note of his departure. She probably wouldn't notice his absence, or if she did, she wouldn't be in a hurry to contact authorities.

Once the last bell dismissed him and fellow students of Dimmsdale Elementary, Denzel had wished to come to the house of his father. The father of whom he'd not seen in eight years, the father that was absent in both his life and what little family pictures lined the walls of his mother's house. The father of whom he'd not a clue of what he even looked like, though he assumed he'd bear some resemblance. Coming to his father's house unannounced was not ideal, and his godmother had even tried to talk him out of it. He didn't care; he needed to get away, be anywhere else but that hellhole of a home.

"Are you sure about this, Denzel?" the pink parrot continued to worry, just as she had been throughout the day. "You don't know this man."

"Doesn't mean I can't get to know him." Denzel reasoned as he stepped onto the wooden front deck, scuffing off sand onto the fuzzy welcome mat before the Huntington door coated in the purest white.

"But what if he's no better than your mom?" the green parrot shared in his wife's concern.

Pressing the doorbell, Denzel could hear the chiming echo through the home. No turning back from here. "I'd rather take my chances…"

The boy and his parrots soon heard the deadbolt's clank followed by the doorknob's chink, seeing the door open to reveal the beach-tanned skin and wavy golden locks of a woman he'd never met. Her figure was slime with an alluring curve, legs that stretched for miles peeking through the mid-thigh hem of her purple dress printed with pink and red paisley designs throughout flared sleeves. The vintage V-neck gave emphasis to the white diamond accessorizing her modelesque collar bone, also giving shape to the dirty pillows that seemed much plumper than his mother's. Those same white diamonds hung from her ears and adorned her wrists, and white boots reached just below her knees.

"Hello, ma'am." Denzel was polite in his introduction. "My name is Denzel Crocker. Is Devin Crocker here?"

When she realized who this boy was once he'd spoken his name, hazel eyes scrunched to a scowl at the unexpected sight of the slender lad and oddly-colored parrots. "No." spat her venomous tongue. "Go away."

Denzel received a door slam to the face before he had a chance to process.

"She's a sweetheart…" his pink parrot groaned, dripping with sarcasm.

Puzzled by the woman's hostile reaction towards him, Denzel pressed the doorbell again. He waited to for no one to return to the front door before he pressed the bell three more times, and when he was met with more snub silence, rejection fell in his features.

"…what now?" his green parrot questioned.

"…I don't know." He turned him away from the door, wrought with humiliation. "I didn't expect this…"

His ears perked at the twist of a doorknob behind him. Turning back around, Denzel and his magical parrots saw the Huntington door swing open, revealing the smokey-black mullet permed into jerry curls. The lapel of his white and brown plaid button-up did little to cover bulging pecs and washboard abs, loosely tucked into denim bell-bottoms looped in the grooviest brown-leather belt with clunky black heels glimmering in metallic leather. Circular black rims framed his dark-blue glare, and his bushy mustache could not hide much of his disgruntled frown.

Technically, Denzel was meeting his father for the first time. He didn't expect this, either.

"Hi, um…" flustered nerves made him a bit shy, rubbing his arm "…do you know who I am?"

"Duh, you have her face." The sternness in his tone snarked, visibly less than thrilled in dealing with the splitting image of his ex-wife. "What do you want."

"Um…" an awkward nail scratched the side of Denzel's neck "…I ran away from home."

"And you came all the way out here, why?"

Denzel frowned, fiddling with his backpack straps "…b-because mother doesn't care about me."

Devin Crocker scoffed, setting a hand on his co*cked hip. "That salty bitch never cared about anyone but herself."

Denzel cringed alongside his parrots. Never had he'd heard anyone call his mother out her name, even if she deserved it to an extent.

As footsteps of black-leather Mary Janes tottered from behind Devin's pants leg, Denzel spotted a little girl whose smokey-black hair was tied in a high pony with the biggest pink bow. Sporting a white turtleneck beneath her overall dress in matching-pink denim with white stockings, Denzel presumed her shorter height and round cheeks to be a few years younger than him. She also had the same hazel eyes as that woman from earlier, except hers were big and bold when she noticed the older boy standing on the welcome mat.

"Daddy, who's that!?" the little girl squeaked, pointing a curious finger.

"Katherine, go back inside with your mother." Denzel noticed Devin intimidating guard soften when addressing the little girl now identified as his daughter.

Disappointed, Denzel's half-sister pouted. "But, daddy!"

"Go on, honey." The first time Denzel saw Devin crack a gentle grin was towards Katherine. "I'll be there in a sec, okay?"

"Awww, okay…"

Obeying her father, Katherine hung her head as she dragged her feet out of sight. Devin's softened guard hardened once his daughter was gone, facing the tartest scowl towards the uninvited boy on his property. "Leave my house, and never show your face here again. Do you copy?"

"B-But…" Tethers of Denzel's heart began to tear in rips of rejection "…b-but, father-!"

"Nevercall me that!" Devin's bellow boomed, startling Denzel slightly. He'd long since severed all ties to his old life, and that included the son with the same ugly face as the woman who loved working and making money more than she ever loved him. "I haveonedaughter, and that's it! Got it?!"

Devin whirled back inside his home. Daring not to look back at the shattered spirits welling in the boy's eyes as he forced the door shut in a whamming crash.

"…I'm so sorry, Denzel." the pink parrot sympathized. Every child deserved a parent, but not every parent deserved a child.

Denzel scrunched his brow, lifting his glasses as an agitated arm swiped away tears before they could fall. It was stupid of him to even hope that, maybe, just maybe, his father would welcome him with open arms.

Seeing the tremor in his godson's gritted chin, the green parrot hoped to take Denzel's mind off such a horrific ordeal "…wanna take a walk on the beach? Y'know…since we're, like, here and all."

Denzel tore himself away. Daring not to look back as he stomped away along the treated-pine path towards the open sand of Dimmsdale Beach.

. . . . . .

Artistic strokes of cool blues blended into breathless warm oranges, the fiery sun gradually drifting behind the horizon of saline waters. Gentle rumbles of sea-foam arches brushed against the sandy shore, feathery and grainy beneath the broad, wooden peer. Timber columns withstood every rhythmic slap of sea, and the mounted planks provided shade for the lone boy's stroll. Carrying his socks and shoes with two fingers as he stayed well outside the dangerous potential of the tide pulling him under.

His fairy godparents remained in their parrot disguise, keeping Denzel company on both shoulders. Denzel's other hand dragged his backpack along the sand, creating a trail of his directionless journey. Restless thoughts had lost track of time as to how long he'd been at the beach. Growing shadows cooled the temperature beneath the pier, the number of visitors dwindled bit by bit, and that bastard's home now looked the size of a miniature dollhouse. Guess that gave some indication that hours had passed. He'd been too busy internally chiding himself, cursing himself for thinking that the man who'd abandoned him would want a life with him.

Friends at school were few and far between, his babysitter was the epitome of evil, his mother gave more attention and effort to what put money in her purse, and now, he'd learned the hard way that his father likely never wanted him in the first place. He should have listened to his godmother, but instead, he let his foolish child nativity ignore factual logic. Devin Crocker will never accept him into this supposedly better life that had no space for him.

"…do you wanna talk now, Denzel?" his pink parrot croaked, breaking the long silence.

"What's to talk about?" Denzel huffed, cursing his eyes for glossing all over again "…I'm unlovable…"

"Sweetie,welove you." His pink parrot stressed.

In the same vein, his green parrot brushed the top feathers of his head to Denzel's cheek. "We'll always love you."

His disheartened strides came to a stop, unable to fight back the real pain inside pressing behind his eyes. He lifted his glasses with one rubbing palm, threatening tears quivering his voice. "…I-I love you too…"

The pink parrot ached for her godson, seeing his heart break right before her eyes. "Oh, Denzel…"

"…m-my life…is so miserable…" his arm hid flowing tears, soft sobs shaking his shoulders "…I-I don't know how I'd be able to bear it…if…i-if it weren't for your two…"

Scanning the area to find no one around to expose them, the two parrots transformed within a teal cloud of magic, reappearing in their true forms. One tied shamrock-green locks in a low pony, the other parted fuchsia strands down the middle, stopping just above her shoulders. One wore a black vest, the other a yellow crop top. Both wore yellow shades that rested on the bridge of their noses, and their foreheads were tied with blue headbands. Blue beads hung like chokers around their necks, and blue bell-bottoms bore bare feet. Both wore gold crowns, floated with fly-like wings, and yielded star-shaped wands in their hands.

And both hovered before the crying boy, watching Denzel attempt to see past crestfallen tears in short blinks as he sniveled to them…

"…Cosmo and Wanda…"

Cosmo and Wanda sandwiched him within their loving embrace, and Denzel clung to them, never wanting to let them go. He still remembered May 13th, the 10th birthday that felt as vivid as yesterday. His mom chose to work instead of celebrating his day of birth, sticking him with a sad*stic teen hellbent on causing as much pain as possible. That was, until two strange, mystical creatures had suddenly appeared in his room and had introduced themselves as his fairy godparents. He never expected fairy godparents to become like the nurturing mother and supportive father that he never had in his life.

The life he had before them felt like an entirely different dimension, a dimension of darkness and despair. Their magic saved him from darkness and despair,theysaved him. Never can he ever imagine a life without them.

When sobs eventually calmed, Cosmo looked down at his godson's quiet tears "…wanna go back home?"

"Don't see any other choice…" Denzel sighed heavily. Likely, his mother wasn't home, which meant that, likely, Vic would be waiting to 'have his fun' with him. Might as well pour alcohol on his wounds while they were still fresh…the slashes in his heart hurt worse than whatever slam against the wall or punch in the face Vic could throw. Then again, maybe he can get some reprieve if he's able to avoid Vic by locking himself away in his room.

Still cradled within his godparents' embrace, Denzel frowned as he mumbled "…I wish I was back in my room."

With a wave of their wands, the fairy family disappeared just as another wave rumbled onto shore.

. . . . . .

The fairy family reappeared within the beige walls and fluffy brown carpet of his room. Posters of cars and peace signs were taped above the brown frame and pink plaid duvet of his bed next to the lone window lined with burgundy curtains. Denzel removed his backpack, tossing it to slump against the leg of his bed as his fairies hovered behind him. "Cosmo, Wanda…" he turned to face them, wanting nothing else but to sleep the rest of this forsaken day away. "I wish-"

The pink door to his bedroom crashed against the wall from the force of the redhaired teen's boot kicking it open. Cosmo and Wanda shifted back into parrots, thankfully before their existence was exposed.

" What's crackin' , loser." Vic's scruffy grin dripped with malicious intent.

"Vic, please…" Denzel couldn't muster any desperate plea in his voice, only deflated suppliance. "I'm not in the mood today…"

"You think I give a sh*t 'bout your mood?" Vic scoffed, looming towards his prey "I wanna have fun!"

Green and pink parrots flapped their wings in front of the boy, creating a defensive barrier between him and his predator. Screeching at the teen with threatening squawks as Vic stalled in his charge, unsure of what to make of this. Though confound to restrictions of Da Rules, Cosmo and Wanda were not gonna let Vic lay another hand on their godson.

Vic's annoyance slit his brow. Clearly, those stupid birds didn't like him. The feeling was mutual. Those bastards always got on his damn nerves. They always found some rhyme or reason to ruin his fun, but not anymore. He got somethin' for those beak snappers.

He stormed towards the protective parrots, showing no fear in their screech. He snatched at their necks midair, his gritting grip depriving them of oxygen.

"No!" Denzel tried to pry his parrots away, jumping and clawing at Vic's fingers "Leave them alone!"

The toe of red chuck taylors rammed into the boy's gut, kicking the very breath from his lung. Weakness dropped Denzel to his knees before Vic took his two new playthings to a nearby wall, giving little sh*t to their feathers thrashing for freedom. His lack of mercy slammed their bodies one after one against drywall, tingling his senses with euphoria when the snap of bones audibly accentuated each smack.

"…n-nooo…" Denzel seethed with one hand clamped on his churning stomach, clawing at the carpet with the other "…stop it!"

Far from stopping, Vic then tossed his victims onto the carpet, curling his smirk with delight as pink and green wings twitched. Searing pain shouted in their veins, stealing the strength to screech or make any audible noises. Unable to move an inch as the teen kneeled to them, digging into his back pocket for the next phase of his fun…

Extending his pocket knife, Vic struck down with a blade to green feathers.

Cosmo cried out in pain, green feathers tainted red with each strike of Vic's knife. Vic repeated his torment to Cosmo's other wing, piercing directly into bone. Helpless tears coated Wanda's feathers, feeling powerless to save her husband as the blade pinned his bleeding wing to the carpet. Vic twisted the blade deeper, streaming rivets of red tears.

Cosmo's agonizing cries pained her more than the throbbing cracks in her bones. Then, menacing pink eyes gleamed at her, and in that moment, she knew she could not escape her turn.

Moving from her husband, Vic grabbed both bird legs with both hands. Terrorized fear flashed in fuchsia orbs, dreading what was to come next…

Bones crunched when her legs crumpled unnaturally, gurgling earsplitting wails in her throat.

"STOOOOOP!"

Denzel sobbed beggingly, pleadingly. Distraught as his godmother's wails weakened, eyes rolling into her head. She'd been subjected to such unbearable pain, and Vic reveled in it. Her husband screeched and cried for her, forgotten his own pain when her body could no longer withstand hers.

"Nah, you can't fall asleep…" his sinister smirk extracted the blade from the green parrot writhing in pain, aiming it to where it struck down on the pink parrot's shoulder. Her eyes flashed, jolting sharper sparks through the burning throbs throughout her body.

"No…" Denzel conjured what strength he could, reaching to his knees as agony dripped from clamped eyes to the carpet below. He choked back a sob that felt like vomit, distress quaking through his arms. Cosmo and Wanda didn't deserve this. But…what can he do to save them? Vic was stronger. He was weak.

Gut-wrenching sobs overtook him. Therewassomething he could do, but it would cost the ultimate price. Their magic saved him from darkness and despair, and now, he had to save them from pain and suffering. Never could he ever imagine a life without the two people to ever love him. But as they say…

Sometimes, if you love someone…you have to let them go for their own good.

He gathered the strength to lift his head, squinting from the sting of tears ever flowing. Vic's maniacal laugh haunted the ragged slits to his spirit, sniffing back the building mucus draining from flaring nostrils. Biting down on his lip as he pushed himself to unsteady feet. Quivering fingers coiled, making fists to keep himself grounded. His sore throat swallowed, mustering the whimper to utter the very words that would change his life forever.

"…I-I'm happy…and I don't need…my godparents anymore…"

As expected, the fury of magenta magic swirled in a twisting cloud. Engulfing the room in a darkened hue.

"…the f*ck's goin' on?" Sheer shock dropped Vic's knife, darting eyes at the weird phenomenon thickening the air.

"DENZEL CROCKERRRRRRR!" a thunderous voice rang out, sending down a giant copy of Da Rules. "YOU HAVE GIVEN UP YOUR FAIRIES!"

A man of brute muscle descended from the magical twister, purple afro hatted with a gold crown. Steel-blue eyes stern, his protruding jaw clenched through his large chin. He wore a turquoise button-up beneath his all-white blazer and slacks, white platforms adding to his already towering height. Clasped in his authoritative hand was a golden peace sign attached to a grand staff.

Jorgen Von Strangle, Commander of Fairies, approached the puny godchild. Digging in his pocket for his memory wiper. "You will now lose your fairy godparents! And, from this day forward, you shall forget you ever had them!"

"Aye, who the fuc-" Vic didn't have the chance to confront the mysterious man before a flash of fuchsia flickered, stunning pink swirls into dazed eyes as his mind blanked.

Remembering that his backpack was still there, Denzel snatched it and rushed to zip it open. Pushing through forceful winds of twisting magic as he scrounged for his composition notebook and a pencil. No matter what he knew would happen next, he can'teverforget his godparents. They meant too much to him.

Opening the cover of his composition notebook, Denzel flipped to the first blank page he found. Writing in all caps with the boldest letters "…Fairy…Godparents…Exist!"

Just as Denzel etched the last 't' into notebook paper, Jorgen grabbed him, turning him by his shoulder to face the memory wiper. Fuchsia flashes chipped away at his memories. Wait…what even a fairy? Two more flashes disintegrating holes into his brain. Are there even fairies?!

Another dose of forget-a-cin caused his once straight back to hunch. His once white teeth cracked yellow, and his once full head of smokey-black hair seared into a short, jagged crop.

With that part of his job done, Jorgen made his way to the two parrots, one whimpering in suffering with the other clinging to the consciousness. First, he used his memory wiper on them, erasing their horrific torture from their minds. Once their eyes daze, he sparked his staff to coat their broken bodies in healing magic. They were in critical need of medical attention, but he at least needed them stable for magical teleportation.

Healing them enough to scoop them into his hands without hurting them further, Jorgen took Cosmo and Wanda and ascended back into the twisting cloud of magic. Returning himself and the godparents to Fairy World…

Jorgen grimaced, looking on as Denzel continue to twitch on the wooden floor until his scrawny body grew still with the blanket stare. His mind knew that he was sent to do a job, the crevice of his heart hated that he had to do it. Denzel was obviously not happy and still needed his godparents. However, had Denzel not sacrificed his fairies that day, Cosmo and Wanda may not have lived to be Timmy Turner's godparents.

He turned his contemplative gaze to the green parakeet and pink galah…frowning at their lifeless bodies on the bed. Even to this day, Jorgen believed that Denzel should not have been punished for selflessness. What kid forgoes his own happiness for the lives of his fairies? Yet, as Commander of Fairies and Keeper of the Rules, he had a job to do. Just as he was once again ordered to wipe what little recollection Denzel had regained of ever having fairy godparents.

Inner conflict groaned under a begruntled breath. First, he had to gather those four godkids and their fairies, and now this. All the while, the Council were tightlipped on their intentions. What the heck was he running around doing all of this for? What did the Council have up their sleeves, and why were they so secretive about it?

No matter. This was not the time nor place to dwell.

With a tap of his staff, The Fairy Commander vanished in another mushroom cloud. Leaving the catatonic man on the floor, a silent tear trickling from the corner of his blank stare.

Grey clouds weighted with the darkness enveloped early morning skies, casting the rooftop of Dimmsdale Elementary in a nightly shadow. Clusters of students entered into classroom #44, taking their respective seats with some friend groups still engaged in casual conversation.

"You think Crocker's gonna come back today?" Chester asked, taking his seat behind the desk of his pink-hatted best friend.

"No idea." Timmy shrugged, sporting his green and pink wristbands as he removed his pink winter coat to hang behind his chair. Whether Crockpot came back this week or the next, his somber mood didn't care either way.

Making his way to his desk, AJ observed the platinum blonde beside him. Preoccupied with her nose buried in a science textbook, her indigo necklace dangling from her neck. He just couldn't understand what he did to make her angry with him, and if Timmy had trouble getting her to talk, what luck didhehave?

"…whatcha studying?" he still made an attempt for cordiality. Maybe if he eased his way in, she might be receptive.

Chloe’s concentration never strayed from the words of her textbook, giving no indication that she heard him. She did hear him, yet she chose not to acknowledge him. Between Dwight’s disappearance and her parents’ tarnished marriage due to her incompetencies, she had enough grinding at her nerves without Alvin Jr’s pestering.

"…Chloe?" he tried again, though she held the coldest shoulder to him.

With his chin resting on folded arms, the young billionaire tuned out side-conversations. Noting the brewing storm through the classroom window, he then glanced down at the purple watch who'd barely spoken a word all morning.

There'd been times that Remy had noticed small moments of Juandissimo entrapped in his own thoughts. sinking the suspicion that his godfather was keeping something from him. At the same time, he knew he wouldn't get a straight answer if he'd asked, because he still couldn't give a straight answer whenever Juandissimo would question his wellbeing.

The school bell resonated through the halls and the walls of the classroom, quieting conversations when Dimmsdale Elementary's academic overseer opened the door. Worry lines wrinkled her forehead, entering with shoulders slouched dishearteningly.

Students watched her shut the door, morose in her strides until she stopped in front of Mr. Crocker's desk. Facing the classroom with a furrowed brow and downturned corners of her pink lipstick. After scanning the room for any other volunteers, Sanjay chose to raise an awkward hand "…is something the matter, Principal?"

Principal Waxelplax inhaled a shaky breath, releasing it as her hands clasped together over her stomach. Straightening her posture as hints of despondency still trickled into her announcement "…I'm afraid that Mr. Crocker will be out once again."

Following the same suit as the friend to his left, Elmer too raised a gawky hand "…will he be back next week?"

Pressing her lips, Principal Waxelplax cleared the urge to lament in her throat "…Mr. Crocker will not be returning for the rest of the school year."

Low chatter of guesses and assumptions erupted. A bunch of random kids go missing, and now their teacher's MIA?

Unsure of what to make of this, Remy shot puzzled eyes to the front row of the class, seeing Chloe's equally baffled gaze over her shoulder. Chloe then turned to the pink-hatted boy a desk or so to her right, seeing his mystified stare towards her. Utterly confused, Timmy glanced down at his wrists, seeing the pink and green perplexed expressions of his fairy godparents.

What the heck was happening?

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Even with the high ceiling, the young billionaire could still hear sheets of drizzling patter dance along the rooftop to the rhythmic drum of Wednesday’s shower. The rain offered distant company as he finished his breakfast; since Mr. Nicholas’ departure, he’d spend majority of mornings and evening meals like this, a lone soul in a room full of lifeless chairs. Even with the warmth of the mansion’s quality A/C combating the wintery chill of the outside world…he felt cold inside.

Part of him knew that, as a fairy godchild, he no longer had to feel this way. Yet part of him still felt strange veering from the norm of his entire life before obtaining a magical companion. Strangely, being alone had become akin to a comfort zone. A long-lost friend.

He had instructed his godfather to wait in the bedroom for his return, believing that his absent appetite would not take long to eat. Mostly an excuse to sort through these nagging thoughts. As bad as it might sound, having his godfather around him would have been extremely distracting. He would have been too focused on pretending that he did not still grapple with the tug-of-war between the will to keep going and the urge to just end it all.

Half of his broiled shrimp and butternut squash grits taunted his small stomach as he lowered his spoon into the bowl served on a silver platter. Unable to stomach another bite, he pressed the stainless-steel call bell beside his bowl, signaling for one of the butlers to enter from the gourmet kitchen to gather his dirty dish.

“Not that hungry?” the butler noted the unfinished meal, taking the silver platter from in front of the sole diner.

“Not really.” Remy murmured, dully scooting himself from the table.

Bothering not to press further, the butler left with the dishes as Remy made to the grand hall from the family dining room, stepping onto checkered white and grey tile of the foyer. Entering the foyer of walls adorned in green dollar signs with the originator of the Orville Remy Buxaplenty name, his orange eyes frozen in time peering down from the golden archway beneath the top of the stairs.

Remy had started walking up the stairs when he noticed the ant line of butlers lugging sleek-white and money-green suitcases from the top step down the staircase out the front door to the stretch limo waiting in the rain. It didn’t take a guess to know what was happening. Whether for business or pleasure, it mattered little. All that stood out was that they were leaving him. Again.

Hearing mundane chatter from the top step, Remy had to restrain from rolling his eyes at the Buxaplentys’ eagerness to leave. Internally retching at the gleam in their eyes as their pep traversed down the steps. Of course, the gleam didn’t last the moment they took the second out of their day to notice him. Smiles fading as they met their son’s flat expression.

Smug nose held high, Diana clinked the thin heel of her white Louboutins past her son. Paying him no mind as her husband Orville’s black Oxfords followed suit. Though his strides were in less of a hurry than his wife’s, for when he past his son, his found his feet stalling before he could take another step. Orville couldn’t put his tongue on it; something tugged at him, compelling him to do what he hadn’t done in weeks.

When Orville turned to his younger version, two sets of green locked eyes. The darker shade of dither to a minter shade of impassiveness. "Hey, ummmm…" his brow pursed when his mind drew a blank. What was this child’s name, again?

“Remy.”

“Right…”

The way Remy groaned how to address him made Orville feel somewhat peeved. Even if it was just the middle name that they both shared, it’d be much easier to remember if the boy had not been so insistent on differentiating himself from those before him.

He watched as the boy cross his arms at him. Even still, the only semblance of a bond, the only connection to him…was nothing more than a name. And from the glint of scorn masked behind a stoic stare, Orville knew that this boy felt the same.

co*cking her agitated hip, Diana tapped her pointed toe impatiently on the checkered tile. “Ugh, will you come on?!” she groused to her husband. “We’ll be late for our jet!”

Something whispered to Orville’s conscience, obliged him to say something the son that he didn’t even want. His only son.

“…don’t spend all of our money while we’re gone.”

Remy snarled at such abhorrent gumption. If that was all he had to say, then he certainly had some choice words as he turned away. “f*ck you…”

“Beg pardon?!” Eyes flashed in slighted frustration, Orville charged forward in confronting footsteps, only for his indignation to be held back solely by the grab of his arm.

“Don’t waste your time, dear.” Diana huffed, slitting her brow towards the back of the boy’s blonde hair in his march up the stairs. “It’s not worth it.”

Growling beneath abated breath, Orville listened to his wife to forgo the extraneous confrontation. Letting her take his hand as she led them to the butler waiting by the front door with an umbrella at the ready for their protective escort from the rain to their limo. And Remy marched down the hall until he reached his room, yanking the door open to then slam it shut.

The Buxaplentys parted without a goodbye…unaware that they will not meet again.

Frustration faded from his vision at the sudden jolt in his chest that caught his breath in his throat. Wide eyes froze towards the purple ferret lying disturbingly still across the lap of teal denim jeans, seemingly undisturbed as the back of his purple fur received the gentle and diffident strokes of umber fingertips. A black bush of curls framing her round features, she slouched on the edge of the cotton duvet before she lifted brown eyes downhearted as soft somberness squeaked “…hi…”

“…H-Hazel…” was all Remy’s breath could formulate his lips to stutter. He stumbled a bit when he’d briefly lost his footing. Where had she come from?! When did she get here?! How in the Sam Hell did she get in his room?!

Taking a deep breath before doing so, Hazel scooped the ferret like a lifeless doll into her arms, supporting his with a cradling palm as the purple tail loosely dangled. Juandissimo, a fairy who would stir even from a light form of stimulus, failed to open his eyes when Hazel carefully lowered him onto the bed beside her. For someone who was wide awake twenty minutes ago, the lax in his limbs gave little signs of life.

Remy blanched as his spine chilled “…w-what happened to my fairy?”

Hazel stood to her feet, heavy sorrow in her hoarse voice. “Juan’ll be okay…”

This didn’t nothing to assuage his unsettled qualms as a million questions buzzed between his ears. His subconscious stepped back in her muted strides towards him, and when his goggled stare got a better look, he just noticed that something, or someone, missing “…w-where’s Nyekundu?”

Hazel didn’t have that answer, raising the hand absent of a bright-red ring towards him “…may I hold your hand?”

Restless puzzlement studied her. “You’re avoiding my questions.”

Hazel’s brows pulled up together, creasing vertical wrinkles between them. Remy was visibly perturbed, something she’d been advised would happen. “…I-I will…just…” her head angled downward, wringing her other hand to the chest of her sweater “…I would like to hold your hand first...”

“That’s not an answer.”

She knew his intent was not meanspirited, yet his firm tone left a harsh sting in her already rattled nerves. Shining moisture began to pool within the brown eyes struggling to meet his gaze “…p-please?”

In that moment, his sternness softened into sympathy. He heard so much in just one word. A heart bogged in the dolefulness that whispered in her plea to him, a heart riddled with the deepest cracks in every crevice. A heart desperate for comfort, screaming in such unrelenting agony. Broken. Just like his heart.

He heard her heart’s yearn for the soothe of affection, a vehement pain that he knew all too well. For weeks he had tried to ignore that pain, and here it was, staring him in the face. For weeks he had tried to deny himself of the comfort that felt none deserved, and here she was, seeking it from him. But why from him? Where was her fairy?

“Hazel…”

“…I-I’ll tell you everything…” inner turmoil pricked the corners of her fragile pout, beginning to quiver in her fingers. She forced herself to look at him “…I just…I-I need to hold your hand…please…”

Remy frowned. It seemed as if her very essence would crumple at the brush of the most delicate finger. He would feel bad to deny such a friable spirit of such a simple request, so he relucted with the timid raise of his left hand, reaching for the small tremor in her fingers. Her other sleeve swiped away tears as she accepted Remy’s offer, taking his hand into hers.

His fingers felt like ice thawing in her meek grasp, something she wasn’t sure she should have expected. However, she did know to expect what was to come next. For her sanity’s sake, she really, really hoped that Remy wouldn’t hate her…

As Remy furrowed his brow at her wistful expression, taffy-pink shimmers emitted from her hand. Glistening around her fingers as it began to envelop his, tingling up his arm. Taken aback, he tried to free himself, squirming his hand in her fingers that simply coiled tighter. He soon saw pink sparkles of light radiate all around him, crawling up his neck through his face and down his legs to his shoes.

A swirling pressure filled his skull with emptiness, weakening his struggle as numb tingles crept up his legs. The numbness buckled in his knees as he staggered backwards against the wall, guided down gently with the support of Hazel’s other hand to his shoulder.

“…you’ll be okay…” her quiet reassurance muffled in his ears just as the sight of her puckered brow faded in and out of darkness “…rest, now...”

The threat of dreamless sleep bobbled in his chin, until his neck slacked and drooped his chin to his chest. When his fingers loosened within hers, she released his hand to wilt as she kneeled steadily, keeping his head from drooping as she guided him to lay on his side.

Her sleeve tried to swipe more tears from falling as she her other hand brushed a feathered finger to his cheek. Trying to convince herself that everything will be okay as taffy-pink smoke of mythical royalty appeared behind her. Sensing a new presence, she turned her head to the cloaked figure, a gold crown atop the pink hood, towering above her despite bottom of the robe levitating just inches off the ground.

Though her lower lip trembled at black shadows masking their true identity, her staring eyes did not see a stranger.

As he stirred coffee into his cream and sugar, the security guard of Dimmsdale Correctional Facility leaned back in his seat at the table booth. Dressed in his blue polo and black slacks belted with the gun holster that was currently empty. He lifted his mug to consume the energy he would need to keep criminals and convicted felons in check which, as of some days ago, included his estranged younger brother.

It was difficult for Vic to pretend Jim didn’t exist, and vice versa. Still, Vic had done his best to avoid personal interactions, only engaging when it was within his job to do so. Doing as much as keeping his eyes forward when patrolling Jim’s cellblock, passing his cell with just the briefest glance to ensure that he stayed in line. Standing off to the side as Jim and other inmates ate their meals in the cafeteria or watching from afar during yard time.

To think that the son their mother had once deemed the ‘saint’ was now the one behind bars being patrolled by the ‘sinner.’ Irony can be pretty damn funny, sometimes.

Setting his mug on the table’s surface, he noted the redhaired teen with her head down, face hidden within folded arms. He reached across the table with soft taps to her arm, rousing her as she drowsily lifted hooded eyes to him. They appeared bloodshot, rimmed with dark circles. The telltale imprints of fatigue.

“You feelin’ alright?” he asked earnestly. “Noticed ya haven’t been sleepin’ much.”

“…I’m fine…” Vicky groaned, lethargic in stretching out the tightness in her arm muscles. She once thought that sleep would embrace her when no longer plagued by the tribulations of trial, but repressed pain and old emotions fighting to resurface certainly proved her wrong.

“You’re not lyin’, are you?”

Duh, of course, she was. But she was in no mood to dive into the root of sleepless nights. “…I’m fine, Unc. You worry too much…”

“Kinda feels like I need to…” he sighed as raven-haired pigtails exited the single bathroom, dressed in her white tee beneath a black sweater vest and grey-plaid skirt. With her teal tabby walking loyally at her side, she traveled the few steps it took to reach the fridge from the bathroom, retrieving a handheld boxed container full of apple juice.

“Hey, Tootie.” Vic greeted the girl who acknowledged him with a shy wave. Even with her purple specs, he noticed that she too bore dark circles beneath her eyes. “How ya doin’?”

Tootie awkwardly shifted in place without a word, poking a hole with her plastic straw in its designated hole.

Vic took another sip of coffee while it was still hot. Observing Tootie’s lowered gaze as she huddled into her comfort zone, putting most of her attention into drinking apple juice through her straw. “That don’t look like much of a breakfast.” he pointed out “…you want some cereal?”

Tootie shook her head, pensive in her brow.

“It’s okay to use your voice, Tootie.”

Though Vicky’s reminder came as more wearily earnest than domineering, the teal tabby lifted a solemn frown to the discomfort contorted in her goddaughter’s face. Very seldom did Tootie speak since the trial, causing great concern. Her returning silence meant that she was regressing. Regressing into a darkness so deep that magic might not save her.

When a sudden thought lit the bulb in Vic’s mind, he held his mug between his hands as his eyes shifted in addressing both girls equally “…what do you suppose we all take a personal day?”

While Tootie’s juice seemed unable to wet her parched throat in dry swallows, a gradual grin managed to turn the corners in Vicky’s tired lips “…for real?”

“Yup.” Vic pulled his shoulders back after another coffee sip. “I can call in from work, and I can call y’alls schools and tell ‘em y’all not coming.”

Despite beaming on the inside, Vicky still narrowed skeptical eyes. “Wait, you’re actually serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious!” Vic chuckled. “Why would I say it jus’ ta not do it?”

For the first time in a while, the troubled teen’s face lit up like Christmas. Unlike her sister who, deciding that her dry throat could not be quenched, discarded of her juice box in the nearest bin and traveled past the table booth to the bench seat where her black wool coat waited for her.

Vic turned in his seat, seeing her teal tabby stayed close to her side as Tootie shoved arms into her coat’s sleeves. “Goin’ to check the mail for me?”

Adjusting her coat, Tootie quietly affirmed. Going out to the mailbox before school or in the early morning had become somewhat habitual routine. Perhaps it was to establish some normalcy in this new life, knowing that she need not ever return to a life restricted to religious subjugations.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Vic appreciated as he watched Tootie’s faithful teal tabby accompany her towards the door, shutting the door on her way out. One way for a sheltered girl to gain the independence she’d been deprived of was allowing her to go fetch the mail unsupervised. Besides, she’d only be out of his sight for less than thirty seconds.

Or, at least, that was usually how long it took…were it not for an unexpected visitor.

Godmother and godchild stood unblinking, trying to process the sight of a girl whose skin avoided the sun. A scarlet reminder of her brush with death barely visible through the grey of her turtleneck sweater, stitched with a centered skull. Hands warmed in the pockets of raisin-denim with arms sleeved in black, leaned nonchalantly against the driver’s door of the red pickup parked in front of the Flagstaff camper.

“…Molly?!” Rose exclaimed, brows arched in astonishment.

“…so this is where you live...” Molly didn’t appear to act as if she’d been missing without a trace for the last week, scanning the dead grass and dirty gravel of the rural area. Looking out at piles of worthless tires and overflowing trash near mobile homes that’d seen better days. The potent stench of droppings left out from a greyhound’s morning walk wrinkled her nose “…what a pigsty…”

“…why is Swizzle not with you?” was the first question Rose’s whirling thoughts could muster. Something that Tootie’s confliction between reality and shock hadn’t fathomed to notice the dark-blue stud missing from Molly’s ear.

Through the swoop in her black bang beneath a dark-purple beanie, yale-blue eyes narrowed sideways, pinching sullen corners in her grumble “…don’t worry about her.”

That non-answer actually answered a lot; not only would Molly have interpreted Rose’s words as a cat meowing at her, but Molly would’ve had zero clue who Rose was talking about if she had lost her fairy godparent.

Trembling fingers clutched at Tootie’s chest as if trying to keep her thundering heart from leaping out, quaking in her knees as Molly approached. Hiding hands in her pockets with one foot before the other in slow, almost foreboding strides.

Instinctively, the teal tabby leapt before Tootie as her barrier before Molly could get too close. “So what’re doing here?”

With her path obstructed, Molly staggered back, stiffening her muscles with hands still in her pockets. Between Rose’s slanted brow and Tootie’s eyes practically bulging from their sockets, she could sense a severe lack of trust “…I wasn’t gonna hurt her…”

“I never said that.” Rose emphasized. She didn’t consider Molly a violent kid, but the sense of darkness brooding behind her eyes left a guttural churn in Rose’s stomach.

A booming gust of lavender smoke interrupted the exchange, and a hooded figure emerged. Adorned in a veil of royal purple with the sheen of gold glimmering atop the shrouded hood. If it were not for the crown and the overwhelming aura of regality, Rose would not have backed down as she stammered backwards like a daunted kitten.

Without a word, the levitating figure raised a hand aglow with sparkling lavender rays, and with no time to react, a burst of lavender magic struck the tabby, fading her world black.

Blood draining her skin in a ghostly white, a strangled cry escaped as horror-stricken eyes watched her godmother drop in a crumpled heap before her. Frozen in her stance, her twitching gape couldn’t conjure the voice to scream, forgetting how to breathe. W-Who was that!? A-And why did they hurt Rose!?

She shuddered from a gentle yet firm hand pressed against her stomach. Darting eyes between the troubled clench in Molly’s jaw and the same lavender rays sparkling from her palm. Lavender rays that spread through her arms into her trembling fingertips, down her legs into her toes tingling numb, creeping up her constricted neck into her head, tunneling her vision in a dark blur.

Slumber’s wave engulfed her.

Finished with straightening her room with her father already gone for work, the platinum blonde gathered her backpack for school, waiting for her fairy godmother to take on her indigo necklace disguise before she dragged her feet across the floor towards the door. Her sour mood didn’t look forward to another day in Mrs. Oteri’s class, especially if Alvin Jr. was there.

Due to Mr. Crocker’s impromptu leave of absence, Principal Waxelplax had dispersed his class to other 5^th grade classes for the rest of the school year. This separated Alvin Jr. from his best friends, but luckily, she still had Elmer and Sanjay to keep her company and to distract her from Alvin’s many, many attempts to make amends which was honestly becoming quite the aggravation.

Closing the door to her room, Chloe paused mid-step. Eyes like gaping circles at the grim glare of the woman she did not expect to see “…m-mom?”

Just hearing that pitiful stutter pinched a snarl in Connie’s thin lips like a repulsive taste on her tongue. “Fix your face.” she mutely growled.

Trick, fix yours… the indigo necklace spat bitterly in her mind. Not even two seconds, and this bitter bitch already on some mess.

Contorting her features to be deceptively calm, Chloe composed what she could of herself. Spotting the duffle bag gripped between Connie’s tight fingers. “…did you forget something?”

“What’s it look like.” Connie kept her tartly terse. She was here to retrieve the last of her things, not for idle chitchat. She didn’t expect anyone to still be home but…just her luck for life to conspire against her.

Connie thundered down the hall without so much as a second glance, marching towards the steps as Chloe swallowed down the racing thumps in her ribcage. Mentally chiding herself not to get worked up over nothing as she choked through constricting lungs “…m-mom?”

Pausing at the landing, Connie made no effort to face her only daughter. “What is it.”

Her rising pulse throbbed in her ears, a relentless drum of nerves that portrayed her fear of irritating her mother further. Her illogical dramatics were the cause of her parents’ tumultuous quarrels. For what little it may be worth, she wanted to show her mother that she was taking accountability and that she has been making the necessary changes to avoid these infelicitous situations in the future.

“…I-I…” Chloe cleared the quiver in her throat before she continued. Jiminy Christmas, can she not be so pathetic for once? “…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to her.” Her indigo necklace stressed, a notion that Chloe purposefully ignored with arms at her sides in a grave stance.

“I’ll do better. I promise.”

Connie’s jaw tightened with every suppressed urge to lash out. Squeezing the strap of her duffle bag until her knuckles blanched. She grappled enough restraint to spew through gritted teeth “Don’t bother. You’ll always be nothing short of deplorable.”

Yet another rancorous tear into a gravely tattered spirit.

Connie hauled her duffle bag in irritated stomps down each step. Not once did she face pained eyes brimming with shame as she charged her way to the front door, yanking it open just to shake the walls in her slamming shut.

Just like that, her mother was gone…never to return the same.

Silence. Deafening silence buzzed through the air, closing in on her. Converging as if to swallow her sanity whole as crushing guilt pressed against her chest. The quaver in her lips failed to push back her breaths growing raggedly thin, finding it difficult to draw steady breath.

“Try to breathe, Chlo-”

“Stop CODDLING ME!”

Trembling uncontrollably, breaths came in jagged, uneven gasps. Her lungs struggling to draw air amidst the suffocating grip of guilt. Get it together! There’s nothing wrong with you!

Yet Chloe was falling apart at the seams.

Not until crazed eyes glanced at furrowed indigo orbs did Chloe realize that she’d shouted at her godmother. “…I-I…” she flushed crimson, unable to control the quiver growing through her limbs. Susie must hate her now “…I-I’m…s-sorry…”

“Don’t be, Chloe…” Susie didn’t have the heart to hold a grudge. Not against an invisible illness that Chloe couldn’t help, unlike the poor girl’s ruthless mother. She transformed out of her guise, reaching out with consoling palms to her godchild’s shoulders losing color by the second. “Just try to breathe...”

“…i-it’s my fault…” her lip twitched in a suffocated whisper. Her heart began to stumble over its own palpitations as racing thoughts spiraled in a dizzying whirlwind, numbing ice into the tips of her fingers “…i-i-it’s…m-my…f-fault…”

“Chloe, look at me…” Susie cupped Chloe’s chilling cheeks, remaining calm in contrast to surmounting panic. Trying what she could to ground her spiraling godchild back to reality. “You have to breathe.”

When light and airy cloud of cyan caught the fairy godmother’s eye, she diverted her split attention from her goddaughter to the figure levitating at the stair’s landing near the end of the hallway, cloaked in the flowy silk of turquoise. Chloe’s blurring vision could only make out the prominent hue of greenish blue. Susie’s blinking eyes recognized the noble presence straight away, clenching her stomach in knots.

If they showed up and not Jorgen, a whole lot of somethin’ hit the fan, and it not just sh*t.

Shaking the distortion from her eyes through wheezing breaths, Chloe’s eyes fluttered to the crown coated in the finest gold hovering above the veiling hood that cast a deep-set shadow across the figure’s face. Her brain was so scrambled, i-it was impossible to think straight. Still she…s-she could’ve sworn she’d seen this entity before. With…w-with three others just like them.

Another cloud of cyan materialized beside the levitating being, dissipating to reveal the black rims of the boy with buckteeth squarer than Timmy’s. Striped in turquoise and white with matching sneakers footing dark-green denim, a reddish indented in his forehead peeking through the ginger bangs of his bowl cut.

“…D-Dwight!?” Chloe managed to stutter, her throat raw from choking back strained breaths.

Susie did a double take, her mind spinning with a million questions “…wha-”

A rapid beam of turquoise shot from just the palm of the hooded figure’s hand. Blasting enough magic to punch the fairy godmother in the gut, creeping nausea from her stomach as the world when black in her head. Susie crashed against the nearest wall before her body thudded to the floor, right in front of Chloe’s haunted eyes burgeoning with tears as a strangled cry rang.

“SUSIE!”

Struck with mounting panic, Chloe pressed trembling hands against her temples, trying to still the frantic thoughts pacing in her mind, accelerating her heart. Dwight stood beside the powerful being, wringing clammy hands. Stiffly glancing to the pointed finger which gave the silent signal for what he’d been prepped for.

Looking back at Chloe, he bit down on his lip until a metallic taste touched his wry tongue. It didn’t help that she already so utterly frazzled before watching her fairy fall like that. How in the world was this going to work?!

“…C-Chloe?” he started with a pensive step forward, only for Chloe to wobble away.

“S-STOP!” Her raised hand of defense feigned tough, her voice quavering with dread.

“…it’s okay…” he couldn’t be certain who he was trying to convince; Chloe or himself “…Susie’s g-gonna be fine-”

“FINE!? S-SHE WAS SHOT!” her blue eyes flashed, panic chilling her bones into a fear-provoked ire boiling in her flustered nerves. “A-And do you not know how long you’ve been missing!? How can you just…j-just show up like some ghost!?”

“…I-I know, just…” his apprehension tried to make another advancement towards her “…j-just calm dow-”

“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!”

Yep, this was going swell.

As Chloe hitched her breaths, her arms froze rigid, and her legs turned to lead. Trapping in her own body as she could no longer control the puppet strings to her wrists and ankles glittering in turquoise. Dwight darted eyes back to the all-powerful being, catching the glimpse of turquoise sparkles emitted from the tips of their fingers hidden in their bell sleeves.

Would’ve been much more helpful if they’d just finished it for him. At least this’ll be significantly easier than it would’ve been without the magical aid.

Tensing his arms and fists before he relaxed them in a long exhale, Dwight took normal strides towards Chloe’s grinding teeth, left with enough voice in her throat to whimper in constringed shrills. Her panic rose once more, pricking tears in the squinching corners of bulging eyes. Throbbing aches into her jaw from the unforgiving clench in her teeth as Dwight stopped mere inches away from her.

In contrast to her terror-stricken face, his fixed gaze ogled her softly. Studying every detail he could memorize. The pools of blue, the subtle curve rounding her nose. The rosiness in her cheeks, the gap that gave her smile character. A smile that he hadn’t seen that he someday hoped to see…

He hadn’t the faintest clue what to expect when he’d randomly come across another godchild in the library that fateful day. He knew Chloe would be special to him. All of his friends are, because they came so few and far. But whenever Chloe would come to mind, he felt…different. A type of different he could not explain.

When the turquoise shimmers dulled in their effect, he knew it was time. He reached out, wrapping his arms around her. Giving her no chance to evade his embrace as he held onto her. Gentle enough to leave breathing room, firm enough to brace for what he knew was coming. Shivering was the most she could move, and her heart hammered so frantically that it almost felt like it was inside his own chest. His chin settled on her shoulder, and he hoped that through the alarm bells sounding off in her mind, she could hear his whisper of assurance…

“…it’s okay…”

Turquoise shimmers glistened in his fingers, swirling from his palm as they glittered through Chloe’s arms. Her eyes darted as those shimmers radiated through her legs, twinkling through her platinum locks in a greenish blue.

She wanted to scream, shout at him to let her go, but the tension in her jaw began to slack as her whimpers weakened. A listless warmth weighed her mind in a fuzzy haze. Eyes once dreadfully wide now dizzily glazed, eyelids heavy with the lur of soothing darkness pulling her under.

Her eyes rolled back as she grew limp in the arms that caught her fall.

. . . . . .

Across the street within the white suburban home, Timmy covered a wide yawn with his palm as his green-eyed fish magically assembled him out of his pink pajamas into his pink shirt and blue jeans. Mentally preparing for another stupid day at stupid school. He’d been reassigned to Mr. Norris’ class, a class ruled by the popular kids. So far, it wasn’t too terrible; Tad and Chad mostly acted like their usual selves, too cool for school. Veronica tried (and failed) to pretend he didn’t exist.

And Trixie…

The sparkle in those ocean blue pools dimmed like a veil over her eyes. She didn’t talk as much as she used to, and when she did smile, it was like she was wearing a fragile mask. Sophia had told him something about Trixie dealing with a lot of personal stuff, which, he could’ve guessed on his own. Even though he didn’t want to, a tiny part of him still cared, and a tiny part of him felt sympathy for her. He could see a darkness linger over her, the darkness that’d become a friend that took up so much personal space but would leave an unfillable void if they left.

He still had Chester and Remy as classmates, but he wasn’t keen on being within the same proximity as the school bully. Then again, it’d hadn’t been as terrible as he’d imagined; Francis hadn’t shown up to a single class. Looks like he was gonna fail again. Oh well, not his problem.

“Hopefully today’s a good day.” Cosmo finished dressing Timmy who then retrieved his pink hat from headboard of the bed he wished to crawl back in.

“It’d be a good day if there was no school…” Timmy muttered as he ruffled his brunette shag, adjusting his cap.

“At least you made it through half the week.” the fish with fuchsia orbs tried to help her godson see the glass half full. “You have another couple days in you, right?”

Hollow eyes stared back at her.

His bedroom door burst open without a knock, privacy interrupted by the disgruntled brows of his womb bearer and sperm donor.

“We’re leaving this morning for our five-day vacation.” Daran got straight to the point, wasting no time so that he and his wife could leave as quickly as possible. “Vicky will be coming after school to stay and watch you the rest of the week.”

Perhaps Timmy wouldn’t’ve been too bothered had his cousin been found before now, or had never gone missing “…seriously? How can you go on vacation at a time like this?”

“We’ve had this vacation planned for weeks! It’s far too late to cancel!” Susanne snapped, her sharp gaze unrelenting.

In response to such unwarranted hostility, Timmy crossed sour arms to her. “Bet you didn’t even try…” he spewed.

“Excuse you?!” Daran inched forward as if confronting an enemy. “What gives you any right to judge us!?”

“You need to stay in a child’s place!” Susanne joined her husband, glaring down at her own child with more contempt than even that of her late brother.

With a thin grimace in his lips, Timmy’s dour expression sunk towards the ground, and Cosmo and Wanda’s scowls danced with scorn. Why were the Turners always so insufferably spiteful?! Timmy was just a kid; he didn’t deserve this!

“Getting away from you and whatever this attitude is will be a breath of fresh air.” Susanne huffed disdainfully.

So would you being six feet under...Timmy wanted to say yet didn’t dare fix his lips to do so. Anything he said would just make things worse.

Wrinkling his nose with furrowed brows, Daran nudged Susanne’s arm, gesturing them to leave before things needlessly escalated. Life piled enough mountains of stress over them; they can’t let this boy ruin the vacation that had been the sole reason to keep going. “Better get going. It’s a long drive to the resort.”

Timmy’s glare remained fixed as his parents turned away, but before stepping foot into the hallway, Susanne glanced over her shoulder with a parting message.

“And you better not give Vicky any trouble!”

He chewed down on folded lips, biting back the urge to scream as his mother stormed out. His father followed close behind as he slammed his door shut, shaking the walls in its pounding bang. His mouth twisted wryly, his stomach clenching with the force of his restraint. Dropping arm so his sides in trembling fists.

“It’ll be okay, Timmy…” the fairy godfather softly remarked in attempts to offer comfort to his godson.

“It’ll never be okay…” Timmy gritted his teeth in a withering stare, his voice dangerously low. “I hate them.”

Sympathy wrinkling his godparents’ brows.

“In fact…” he could hear the front door shut from upstairs “…I don’t care if they never come back.”

His words dripped with such venom…not realizing that his parents’ fate had already been sealed.

The fairy godmother frowned, the corners of her bottom lip folding down. “You don’t mean that, Timmy…”

“I do.” he grumbled, shooting his magical fish a strained glance.

“If they never come back, then that means having Vicky babysit until you’re old enough!” Cosmo’s lighthearted comment, while good intentioned, came off offhanded as Wanda flattened her brow at him.

Timmy didn’t smile one bit. “In that case, might as well go down those pills real quick…”

“Sweetie, don’t make jokes like that…” Wanda’s voice, while tender, spoke sternly.

“Sorry…” Timmy groaned, averting his gaze. It wasn’t a joke, though…

His door received a knock this time, confusing the occupants in the room because they could hear the rumbling start of the station wagon’s engine in the driveway.

[Timmy! It’s Gary!] Sophia’s excitement shouted in his head [I can sense him again!]

Denial contorted Timmy’s face, exclaiming aloud “What?! No way that’s Gary!”

“…how about you come open the door and find out.”

Bulging blue eyes darted towards the door at the sound of the familiar voice behind it. They then darted to the two magical fish, the flabbergast in their expressions equally taken aback. That voice…sounded just like Gary. But how!?

Cosmo and Wanda poofed into their fairy forms, Cosmo floating at the ready beside Wanda cradling her growing belly. She winced faintly from the unprovoked pinch felt inside the walls of her stomach as Timmy crept towards the door, cautious in his strides. There were no other possibilities for who lurked behind the door. It had to be Gary; the subtle hint of suave in his tone matched his cousin’s far too exact to be a fake.

His sweaty hand on the doorknob, Timmy twisted it and pulled the door, revealing the mirror image of baby blue eyes and buckteeth except for the gelled black hair. Leaning against the doorframe, his hands were tucked in the pockets of his washed-denim skinnies absent of their yellow belt buckle, and his white tee was jacketed in red leather. Pulling all the pieces of the puzzle together when his muted expression addressed him with a nickname that only one certain person had ever given him.

“…hey Tim-Tim.”

“…Gary…” A rush of different emotions coursed through him, churning and whirling so many questions as his gawk stared at his long-lost cousin. Forgetting how to speak for a second as his mind reeled with what to say or where to even start.

[What’s that weird aura inside you?]

“…Soph?” Gary’s head snapped in surprise, looking up as if expecting to see something he knew would not be visible. It’d been a while since he’d heard Sophia’s voice “…i-is that you?”

[Whatever it is, it’s agitating the baby.]

Wanda’s gritted groan led Timmy to turn over his shoulder, seeing his godmother squeeze her eyes. Clutching the sharp pains in her stomach as her husband held her to keep her afloat. What was the baby responding to? And what did Sophia mean by ‘weird aura’?

Timmy returned his attention to the unexpected guest “…how the heck did you get in the house?”

“Don’t worry…” Gary held grave eyes to his little cousin, hands still hidden as he shifted from leaning on the door’s frame. “Auntie and uncle didn’t see me…”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

He watched as Gary drifted to him, removing his hands from his pockets. Resting both palms on Timmy’s shoulders as solemn blue peered into him, tingling unease in his spine.

“…I’ve missed you…” his cousin’s voice was quietly somber, their eyes locked “…you and Sophia…”

Timmy stared, searching Gary’s eyes. Something felt…off “…dude, what’s with you?”

Gary momentarily lowered his gaze before he mustered the will to lift his eyes. Eyes wrought with the sorrowful pain that clenched his throat to murmur “…I’m sorry…”

As Timmy raised a puzzled brow, the corners of his eyes caught the glitters of periwinkle-blue. Tilting his head at the radiant sparkles shimmering from Gary’s palm, quickly engulfing him head to toe in a tingling cloak. He froze, muscles locked in a momentary paralysis.

Eyes wide with astonishment as his cousin’s muted features remain, until Gary’s features began to blur in the fuzziest haze. Timmy’s eyes blinked slowly, weariness seeming to veil the brightness of his gaze, until his hooded lids fell into tranquil embrace of darkness.

“TIMMY!”

Cosmo and Wanda cried out as Timmy sagged heavily, still on his feet solely from Gary’s supporting arm pressing his deadweight against him. Impulse drove Cosmo to rush to his godson, until the surprise attack of a periwinkle-blue beam blasted him mid-flight, smacking him face first into the wall behind the fishbowl before he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“COSMO!” Alarm flashed in Wanda’s gawk, her husband still as a corpse. Unresponsive to her cries before stabbing pains doubled over her. She hovered to the floor onto her knees, gritting at the sharp knives jabbing her from the inside. Feeling hot tears press behind her clamped lids.

“Do not fear.”

Her eyes flashed at the baritone voice that had not previously been heard, shooting a haunted glance at the levitating being across the room. A wide, blue hood hatted with a golden crown, veiling dark shadows over any and all facial features. Realizing who he was and what this must mean, she felt a chilling numbness drain the color from her face as the Council Man began to draw near, majestic and poised in his glide across the room towards her.

Her eyes darted between Gary holding her godchild and the Council Man “…w-what’s going on?” she managed to squeak out.

“Thy husband was not gravely harmed.” the Council Man spoke calmly, floating until he stopped in front of her. “Nor shall I harm you.”

Sharper twinges crinkled in her nose, squinting her eyes through her stomach’s poking throbs. She saw the Council Man kneel gracefully, reaching out with unthreatening hand, though her first instinct was to back away. Her heart thumped madly in her ears as his hand began to glow in a periwinkle-blue, drawing closer. Rigid with terror, her limbs failed to listen to her brain, unable to move. She flinched a gasp at the cup of his palm to her cheek, staring into the yellow dots of eyes shining through the black void in his hood.

“You all shall join with me.”

“…w-what’re gonna do to us?” Wanda tremored in his touch.

“Worry not.” the Council Man increased the shimmering radiance in his palm, casting the smaller fairy in a blue cloak of magic. “Thou shall know in due time.”

As the sharp pains in her stomach subsided, Wanda’s eyes fluttered as all train of thought escaped her…

Within the rocky layers stood Alabaster columns supporting the ceiling, encircled with great braziers that lit the throne hall in dancing shadows and warm orange hues. Flickering light along the teak floors and stone walls where all but a few lanterns had been lit. Broad windows were framed in drapes colored in the stripe pattern of yellow, blue, pink, purple, and turquoise.

Stationed along the rounded rocky platform centered in the throne hall were four thrones polished in the regality of yellow gold. Each throne was engraved with carvings of stars and crowns, adorned in velvet cloths padding the backrest and the seat cushion with the respective colors of turquoise, pink, purple, and blue.

Three of the eldest fairies alive occupied their thrones, while the fourth throne clothed in blue stood vacant. That was, until the stone chamber door parted for the last Council Man to levitate into the room.

“The last godchild has been accounted for.” Councilman Birchwind announced, his baritone timbre echoing the acoustics of stone walls.

“Splendid.” Persimmon, the Councilman robed in pink, spoke in his gruffy voice as Birchwind returned to his throne beside the Councilman cloaked in purple.

“Has Jorgen gathered all the godparents?” Plumfrost’s tenor tone questioned, seated in his throne clothed in purple next to Persimmon.

“Von Strangle is taking the two remaining godparents to the location as we speak.” Birchwind confirmed.

Occupying the throne on the opposite end of Birchwind shrouded in her turquoise robe, Councilwoman Treebelle acknowledged her fellow Councilmen. “Should’st we move on to the next phase?”

“We shall.” Birchwind affirmed, slitting vengeance into his brow. “For there is much hell to pay.”

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

They say that karma is the universal law of cause and effect. Others say that karma is supernatural justice in which immoral actions lead to morally congruent outcomes. Whether the divinity of karma was real, there is still one universal fact that rings true no matter your beliefs…

You reap what you sow.

Smoky clouds cast the light of late morning in the darkest fog. Outdoor lighting glistened light along the tan brick and green overhead concrete roof of Dimmsdale Zoo Animal Clinic. The first operation of the day was a female Sumatran tiger with an exposed nerve in their tooth. Her infected tooth greatly affected her eating, so a root canal was in order.

After they had isolated the tiger in a safe environment, zoo staff had shot her with a dart gun and waited for the anesthesia to take full effect before proceeding with the extraction from her cage; it was important to have the exact amount of sedation. Not only for the safety of zoo staff, but medical personnel as well. Because if said tiger were to wake up at any point, I sure wouldn't wanna be too close.

Within the veterinarian surgery room filled with monitors and medical equipment, Connie Carmichael stood off to the side next to the incubator as zoo staff carefully maneuvered the folded stretcher carrying three-hundred pounds of sedated tiger. Mentally prepping herself for the task at hand, yet finding herself sinking in and out of the senseless pouting that she'd been stuck in ever since the run in with her daughter.

For the highly focused overachiever that she was, it'd been a struggle keeping her head in her work. Her husband, the love of her life, had broken her heart by choosing to end their marital union. All because she refused to baby their child in this harsh world that they live in. It's simple; Chloe was too soft, and coddling is just setting her up for failure! Tough love never hurt anybody! Tough love is what made her the hard worker she is today!

Carmichaels do not and cannot know failure. Those had been the very words Clark lived by, until he'd become this walking contradiction with skewed views. He used to love her with his whole heart, with his life, until he started caring more for a child than his own wife. All of this, all of it, was that brat's fault. A brat so weak minded that, despite remembering how much Chloe ruined her perfect body before pushing her out, Chloe couldn't have possibly come from her-

"Connie?" a brunette staff member named Jake tugged her thoughts from spiraling down the same rabbit hole. "Zuella's ready to be incubated."

"Oh. Right…"For goodness sakes, Connie! Get it together! This isnotime for self-pity!

With Zuella moved from the folded stretcher to the examination bed, Connie sorted through the supply of incubation tubes for the right size. Once selected, Jake pried Zuella's mouth open wide enough for insertion. After greasing the tube with lubrication as Jake assisted with propping Zuella's mouth, Connie tilted Zuella's head and moved the tiger's tongue for ease of access. Face to face with large, sharp fangs, Connie took her time to aim the tube directly down the path of Zuella's throat. Doing so with such focus on her task that she failed to notice when turquoise sparkles flashed Zuella's eyes in an alarming snap…

Large sharp fangs sprung towards the veterinarian's throat in the shortest blink.

Blue eyes froze upwards as a paralyzing ring drowned the frantic yells and frenzied screams around her. Crunching teeth squished on her larynx like molded fruit, piercing into stained flesh. Rendering her stunned cry into clogged gurgles. Rapid spurts of crimson soaked her tan uniform in the deepest red, coating the tiger's lips in a lipstick of blood. Gushing onto the bed and the incubation tube, as well as nearby equipment as it splashed into pools along cool tile.

Jake and other male personnel in the room attempted to wrestle the tiger off their coworker while a female staff's anxious hands loaded the stun gun as quick as possible. Time was not on their side, yet it was already too late. Unrelenting fangs sunk into flesh, and as turquoise rays glistened in the tiger's eyes, a feminine voice spoke through its gnawing chomp. Speaking at a volume where only her sole prey could understand.

"Thy tongue is venomous, and thy words have stung like poison. Now, the blade of thy words shall dull."

The ghostliest white frosted blue eyes as blood coughed deep from the suffocating choke of vocal cords lodged between snarling teeth.

Though morning rain had long since ceased, an overcast of smokey clouds remained. Spinning its propellers, the Cessna Citation CJ2 stood stationed on the runway of the private airport. Painted in the purest white and embellished with the signature golden "B" crest along its sides. As pilot went about takeoff procedures in the co*ckpit, the affluent passengers lounged within the tanned leather interior. One casually checking her makeup in her compact mirror for any needed touchups while the other held narrowed eyes to the floor, arms crossed with one ankle planted on one knee.

Secured with seatbelts, Orville and Diana Buxaplenty faced each other in their swiveling leather chairs cushioned with the finest leather, less than a twenty-minute plane ride away from the week-long billionaire business conference hosted in Los Angeles where the finest five-star hotel awaited them. Taking their jet was a far better relief than sitting in a limo for two plus hours; however, an impending sense of worrying nail grated at Orville's nerves.

It tugged at him, just as before they'd boarded their limo to arrive at the private airport from their mansion. What in the world was going on with him today…he felt so unlike himself. Was he coming down with something? That can't be; he felt firmer than a spring chicken two hours ago in bed with his wife-

"Does my makeup still look okay?"

"What?" Orville shot up, realizing that his wife's anticipant glance was expecting a response that he then gave drearily. "Oh…yes, dear."

Noticing his dreariness, Diana eyed her husband with one brow raised. "…something wrong, dearest?"

"No…" he more so tried to convince himself than his wife "…I just have this…strange feeling." His mint-green eyes lowered, clutching at the faint yet fuming heat in the center of his chest. "Like something horrific is coming..."

He looked back to green eyes that furrowed as if considering the dread in his tone. Lasting about five seconds before she chuckled, making him feel crazy as her fresh manicure waved dismissively. "Oh, posh! Just relax, dear." Diana returned her compact mirror to her Christian Louboutin shimmering in degrade leather "…perhaps we should ask the attendant for some Dom Perignon."

Orville curved a faux grin. Perhaps hewasworrying over nothing and needed a nice bubbly to ease him. But what was this rising heat in his chest? Couldn't be heart burn; he knew not to eat anything acidic early in the morning.

Emerging from the co*ckpit, the flight captain named Bradley brushed any invisible creases out the navy coat and pants of his crisp uniform. Jet-black crewcut sleeked back for his airline captain hat to rest perfectly atop his hair as he took off his shades to meet the Buxaplentys' eye contact with brown eyes. "It's still qui'e claudy, buh we shauld still be good ta fly." Bradley's British accent shared the news that stretched Diana's radiant smile from ear to ear.

"Oh, splendid! Shall we be leaving, then?"

"Cer'ainly."

Bradley turned and returned to his co*ckpit, finishing the last preparations before he assumed his position in the pilot chair. Powering on the engine to then slowly apply gas for the wheels to move down the runway. When he'd reached a distance down the runway where he would require more speed to lift the plane in the air, he pressed full throttle. Reaching the highest speed needed to tilt the yoke down for the nose of the plane to tilt upwards.

Diana and Orville could feel the shift in gravity as the plane soared, hearing the wheels raise back into the undercarriage. They stared out the circular window at the grassy field below growing smaller and smaller in the plane's climb, leveling out once at an altitude where they could still see the tops of skyscrapers (the plane wasn't required to ascend past the clouds for such a short flight.)

Hands firm on the yoke, Bradley used the altitude monitor as a guide in adjusting the yoke to keep the wings at an even level. Reaching a satisfactory level, Bradley set the plane on autopilot and flipped on the switch to let the attendants and passengers know that it was now safe to walk freely…

Until taffy-pink sparkles shrouded the captain's eyes entirely.

As Diana called the flight attendant over to request a couple drinks, the heat in Orville's chest began to swirl in more of a burning sensation. He brought hands to his chest once more with a brooding grimace. With no clue on what was happening to him, he would have never foreseen the burn in his chest to become something much, much worse.

The attendant poured Dom Perignon into two wine glasses before the static of the intercom clicked on. Unsettled by the gruffier voice than the British accent they were expecting.

"You have deemed thy child as less than thy worth! Wealth shall bring no value to thy life as thy souls shall sear in eternal damnation!"

Sparkling wine splashed, crashing glasses into the floor. Sending the attendant tumbling weightlessly from the nose of the Cessna suddenly sharp pitch downward at a terrifying 90-degree angle. Luggage shooting like toppling rockets from the overhead compartments, the Buxaplentys' saving grace was the secured strap of their seatbelts preventing the lack of gravity from shooting them from their leather chairs. Sinking their stomachs in gut-destroying drop.

In a depth-defying plunge, the Cessna descended nose first into the vast field, erupting into a huge ball of flames. Black plumes and burnt-orange flames blackened the once green grass, charring pieces of the plane into scrap metal despite the skeletal frame remaining intact.

Remains of the flight attendant lay sprawled with limbs either oddly bent or snapped in half, including her neck. Bradley, the flight captain, had been ejected from the co*ckpit upon impact. Crackles of raging fire thickened the smoke in the air, not enough to drown out the guttural screams from inside the scorching frame…

The seatbelt meant to save their lives had completely melted at the clip, trapping the Buxaplentys to the scalding leather that signed their expensive clothes into worthless threads. Fire seared the blonde locks, burns stabbing into their scalps. Red flesh splotched with burning blisters, slowly melting away from bare bones. Blisters burst in blotchy bubbles, squirting deeper red onto their reddened skin. Fires of excruciating agony clawed through singed nerves with an irritating itch that could never be scratched.

Diana and Orville cried out in the most guttural, unfathomable shrieks. Begging for mercy. Pleading for the relief of eternal sleep...

Taffy-pink magic had spared them instant kill of the explosive impact. It had not spared them from the pitiless wrath of engulfing flames.

The eldest Wells bent over the side of his bed so that the phlegm he'd hacked up from his sore lungs had a better aim for the trashcan. Beaded in feverish sweat as the patterned silk of black and gold Gucci pajamas stuck to his clammy skin. Groaning from the throb in his throat, Anthony then flopped backwards with hooded eyes. Sickly fatigue longing for the deep slumber of which his ill-stricken body insisted on denying him.

For what it was worth, he'd avoided the World History test that his already cluttered mind could not comprehend studying for. But for what it wasn't worth, he was stuck at home with a grown man twice his strength. Someone he was too weak to fight off if sick and twisted enough to make a move.

Since his baby sister's disappearance, his parents (his mother specifically) spent their free time on the hunt for Hazel. This meant being left under the watch of the live-in nanny which also meant more 'alone time'…

The pit of his stomach roiled in upset, suddenly nauseated not just from his illness. Curling over on the side facing the grey skies through the glass panel of the floor to ceiling window. Plagued by the unsettling image of those brown eyes peering into him with sexual satisfaction, haunted by the throaty grunts of pleasured moans as a gagging bulge thrusted in and out of his mouth. Tainted by the bitter taste of creamy salt left on his tongue. He cringed further, sharp stings of phantom stabs throbbing in his backside. Shivering at the sensation of being faceplanted in his pillow as he bit back screams from the aggressive penetration smacking him from behind.

Lately, Fenwick Nicholas had become…demanding. Taking what his sick pleasure wanted from him whenever he wanted. And there had been times where Fenwick would expect the same in return for 'loving' him…

To put it bluntly, Fenwick wanted Anthony…a thirteen-year-old…to f*ck him.

Obviously, Anthony couldn't perform to those standards. The very notion of penetrating a man, let alone a grown man, made him grow limp. However, when Fenwick would end up compensating by jerking him off or taking all of him in his mouth, it would leave him with searing questions of whether he was as into girls as he thought.

When the creak of his door penetrated through the silent air followed by casual footsteps, Anthony didn't have to face the door to know who the uninvited visitor was. He couldn't bring himself to move when there was a shift of seated weight behind him, laying frozen as warm fingers caressed along his shoulder.

"How're you feeling, my baby?" the nanny crooned, massaging Anthony's in his shoulder which did the opposite of loosen his tension.

"Awful…" what point was there to lie? Maybe it'd fend him off.

Fenwick furrowed his brow. Normally, any sign of illness would stray him from giving into temptation. He could end up catching the same illness which was never fun. Plus, expressing love was no fun when the other half was weak and fragile. It ruined the rush.

And yet…the way such tiny beads of sweat still glistened beneath the LED lighting. Dripping down the side of such a handsome face, down the slender of his neck. Trickling down the smooth, hairless skin small pecs half exposed through the partially buttoned top…

His tongue licked his lips in tantalized desire.

"…I can make you feel better..."

The nanny didn't wait for a response when his massaging hand trailed down past the collar bone, reaching the warm dampness of the teen's chest. Paying no mind to the twinkling sparkles glimmering blue orbs in a taffy-pink…

Two hands gripped around his wrist, unnaturally strong for a sick child. Catching Fenwick off guard as Anthony shot up in his bed, eyes sparkling glaring holes into Fenwick's moral compass. Then, before Fenwick could utter a syllable, the most brutal strength forced the man's wrist to bend in a cracking snap.

Fenwick let out a shrill cry before Anthony shoved him backwards with forceful palms. Sending him plummeting onto the carpeted floor as Anthony sprung down in a domineering pounce, straddling him. "…A-Anthony?!" Fenwick gasped through numbing pain, clutching at his oddly bent wrist with the hand that still had feeling. "W-Wha-"

"You see little boys as mere prey for thy wicked pleasure!" a husky voice gruffier than a normal thirteen-year-old condemned. Glowering with eyes engulfed in taffy-pink glitters as he ripped the zipper of the nanny's pants. "Yet you are nought more than a savage beast that shall now be slain!"

Anthony forced Fenwick's pants down to his thighs, revealing the white boxers pointed in his direction. Wasting little time before he then yanked those boxers from standing in his way, exposing the erection aroused primarily from bewildered pain. Frozen, Fenwick gawked as Anthony latched a hand onto his pulsing member. Fondling him with ravenous, gravelly strokes, only increasing the aching throbs in the worst way.

"S-Stop…" Fenwick managed to choke out, receiving a vengeful pink scowl in return.

"You do not forbear for children that cannot fight back!Whyshould'st I forbear foryou!?"

Tears of far more pain than pleasure pricked the corners of the helpless nanny's eyes. Gazing at the taffy-pink orbs sneering down at him as nothing more than a slab of meat. How could Anthony do this to him, never mind how the hell any of this was even happening!

Then, Anthony did the unthinkable.

He bent down to take all of Fenwick into his mouth, an act that he would normally be reluctant to. But instead of sucking him, he chomped down with his bare teeth.

Agonizing pain wailed out from Fenwick's throat. This did nothing but make Anthony's teeth crunch more, biting down as hard as he could. Enough to make a grown man bleed.

When Fenwick went flaccid in his mouth, Anthony removed himself, wiping scarlet from his lips. Glaring down at the grown man writing beneath him. The man was too weak to fight, in too much agony to stop the teen from rolling him onto his stomach. Pulsing more pain into Fenwick's broken wrist and burning groin. Without hesitation, Anthony stood to shift the pants of his pajamas down, wearing nothing underneath. Stroking himself to a hardened length before he kneeled back to straddling the nanny, the nanny that had caused Anthony so much mental strife…

Spreading Fenwick's cheeks, he rammed himself inside.

Fenwick's gawking gaze stung with the hot tears that now poured down his red face. Suffering excruciating stabs with each penetrative smack in and out of his backside, f*cking the nanny from the back like a man well beyond the teen's years. Tortured wails faded into a pained stare. How…how did things get to this point? Had he created a monster?

No…this wasn't what he wanted. Not like this…

The teen's ravenous thrusts held no mercy to the grown man's cries. Held no mercy to the sight of red oozing out. Coating the pubescent erection already on the verge, before one final push ejacul*ted in a climactic moan.

Huffing to catch his breath, Anthony pulled out. Glowing pink eyes smirking at his work as he stepped away from the shuddering nanny. His smirk disappeared as glittering pink returned blue into his orbs, blinking in a foggy daze. Rejuvenation filled him, like he'd just had the best sleep of his life, but…he didn't remember falling asleep. Last he remembered was hearing Fenwick come in his room and sitting on his bed…

Speaking of Fenwick, what about that weird ass dream? It felt so real-

Blue eyes flashed once the haze cleared, blanching at the sight of brown gazing up at him. The nanny's cheeks were stained with tears, quiet breaths straining past gaped lips. His whole body trembled with his bare backside dripping with tears of blood, trailing down the back of his legs into the fibers of carpet.

As if the horror of realization hadn't hit him hard enough, Anthony shuddered with terror when he lowered his gaze. Spotting the scarlet painted all over his own groin with his pants still down, churning the pit of his stomach…

Grey clouds traveled in fast succession along the sky as speckles of blue patrolled the sea of red jumpers littering the concrete that was entrapped with barbwire. Though the inmates had segregated themselves into groups of the same skin tone, yard time at Dimmsdale Correctional Facility was business as usual; some engaged in a game of street basketball, others conversed in twos or more near the walls for a few laps around the yard. Others traveled in friend groups or socialized near the picnic benches.

Growing a short stubble in his five o'clock shadow, Frank Abrahams and his two minions strolled in a block of three. Butch, a brawny blonde, and Hartman, a burly brunette, had known Frank from his previous sentences for a multitude of misdemeanors. Frank was lucky to have Butch and Hartman to fall back on. Why not, considering they were both in the slammer for life.

Usually, prison buddies are frowned upon. Unless falsely accused, the inmates inside have the hardened mindset of a criminal. You never know who you can trust. Then again, you never know who you can trust in the real world, either. Besides, protection is a must in prison. You don't wanna be a sitting duck all alone in an open area of a picnic table like some easy target…

Like a certain religious buff.

Red hair disheveled and heavy eyebags, Jim Byrne held the New World Translation of the Holy Bible that he'd been given permission to carry. Clutching it against his chest with eyes clamped in concentrated prayer to his Jehovah, his savior. His protector.

In just over a week's time, he wanted out. Forced to lay on a cot as hard as cardboard, fed food that looked and tasted like regurgitation served on a tray. Disturbed by lights in the building on 24/7 even during lights out, disrupted by senseless and barbaric noise making from other cells. Men spoke with foul tongues, spewing profanities left and right.

And men…forcing themselves onto other men. Disgusting.

This is why Jim needed Jehovah, now more than ever. He needed to return to the strength of His word, erase the degeneracy and depravity of Satan with the Truth of the Most High. Being trapped in this situation had made him come to realize how Jesus could spend an entire night in prayer to his Father; being in this horrible situation had reminded him that he must fully rely on God. Because no matter how strong Satan thinks he is, with his Father's help, he shall endure this hardship. And he will overcome corruption.

"Hey, bible thumper!"

Agitated from his interrupted prayer, Jim opened his eyes to three men standing above him, surrounding him on all sides.

"Funny that a scrawny little stick like you beat up on little girls!"

Word about new inmates spread like wildfire in the wards. Particularly in regards to those with offenses against minors. Considering his most recent charges, Frank knew he was no better. Other inmates also reminded him as such, until they learn the hard way not to f*ck with him. At least he wasn't some bobblehead-lookin' puss pleading 'not guilty' that wasted an entire court's time in a trial with a mountain of evidence stacked against him.

Despite the odds of three against one, Jim showed no fear. Unlike them, he had Jehovah on his side. "I'm sorry…who are you?"

Frank scoffed sourly. The nerve of this guy. "The Devil."

"Then I rebukeyou!"

Jim attempted to take his bible and walk away, separating himself from more corruption. He didn't make it past two feet before glitters sparkled, lighting feldgrau orbs into a mystic lavender…

Those same lavender rays of light sparked smoke in the security cameras, only blackening the monitors watching the yard. Sparkles of a magical barrier distracted the rest of the inmate population like oblivious sheep as a forceful hand snatched the back of red hair, slamming him hard into the concrete. Butch and Hartman's eyes too glittered in swirls of lavender, leading them to drag the delirious redhead by both arms out of plain sight. Taking him away from the watch of guards who did not appear to be paying much attention anyway.

Butch and Hartman hauled from concrete to grass, taking him to a corner between the end of barbed wire and the start of the bricked prison wall. Wrestling his dazed body to then rip off Jim's jumper, exposing him with nothing but his underwear. Jim tried to push through his daze, yet he lacked the strength to stop Butch and Hartman from pinning him by both arms and legs against the wall. With Jim in position, Frank pulled four handmade prison shanks from his pockets.

The blade of one shank knifed Jim in his palm, nailing him to brick as a pained groan escaped. Another nailed the right palm, digging the shank with supernatural force. Crimson oozed from both wounds in rivets, searing stabbing pulses through the tips of Jim's shaking fingers. Then, Frank used the remaining two shanks to pin Jim's feet. In order to do so, Frank had bend Jim's feet at an angle that would pin him flatfoot to the brick wall. Cracking his ankles.

Snickers erupted between the three perpetrators as a screeching wail cried out. Crying for deliverance, for Jehovah. Satan has possessed these prisoners' minds! They have been corrupted! Why was Jehovah allowing this?! Where was His mercy!?

Curling his upper lip, Butch scrunched his brow through lavender eyes. Taking the shank that he had in his pocket before he drew the deepest gash along the left arm. The blade sliced the sharpest slash from the top of Jim's wrist down to the pit of his arm, showering rain of blood leaked as Hartman used his shank to replicate the same ragged gouge in Jim's other arm. Cutting deep enough to scratch bone.

Their victim hollered like a shot dog, only worsening the swirling dizziness doubling his vision. Hartman continued to drag his shank as streams of tears poured from turquoise glazed in sheer torment, streams of blood pouring from his arms. Frank then borrowed Butch's shank to carve small yet deep cuts into Jim's chest. Carving chunks of layered skin out of Jim's skin, painting flesh in sloshing strokes of red.

Blood loss weakened tormented wails, unable to cry, no voice left to scream. His eyelids sagged, bobbing his head as Frank gouged into pitiful flesh before a voice of a higher tenor than Frank spoke in a condemning growl.

"Even as you bleed, thou shall never suffer the scars as thine daughters."

After one last slice, Frank took small steps back as Jim's head dangled, no strength left to support his neck. Panting as dizziness increased, building against his skull. Churning the taste of vile with the shanks as the force keeping his wilted limbs pinned to the wall. Glare still glistening in lavender, Frank tightened the grip around the shank dripping with another man's blood. Unreactive to Butch and Hartman crumpling to the ground once twinkles of lavender faded from their eyes.

Then, in one swift motion, he jabbed the shank straight into his own jugular.

Bursts of blood squirted from the jagged drag of the knife across the entire width of his neck, almost to the point of decapitation as his body jerked in choking gargles. When his eyes ceased to sparkle, all signs of life left his plummeting body.

A winter chill numbed the air of ghost-grey clouds, rocky formations of Mount Dimmsdale shrouded in sheets of vampire-white as the green station wagon traveled alone along the subtle elevation of winding roads. Dimmsdale Ski Resort was just another twenty miles up the road, and with Mr. Turner behind the wheel, his Mrs. fixed her pensive stare out the passenger window at the passing wall of stone, lost in nagging thoughts.

When she and Daran had assisted her parents in searching for their nephew, her father had pulled her aside during one of their breaks, wishing to have a chat. Her father had done so in confidence…simply because he knew his wife and her mother would not approve of what had been heavy on his mind to discuss, and he trusted his beloved daughter to consider his point of view. That, and he still harbored wariness towards his son-in-law even after sixteen years of marriage.

Turning away from the window, Susanne looked to her husband whose focus was on not steering the car off the mountain's edge. She had thought about keeping her father's opinions to herself. Or dismissing them entirely. But with all this time to just sit and think, her mind replayed the interaction with Timmy before they'd left for their vacation, taking what her father had advised into consideration for the first time.

Maybe, just maybe…Vlad had a point.

"…Daran?"

"Hmm?"

"…remember when you'd asked me what my father needed to talk to me about?"

A single raised brow expressed his cynicism, keeping his eyes on the road "…yeah?"

She combed an awkward strand of brunette behind her ear "…he'd mentioned how he'd noticed that…the way we treat Timmy is how he and mom treated Marsden…"

Daran cringed, squeezing his grip on the steering wheel.

"…he thinks Timmy will end up like Marsden, and our grandchildren will end up like Gary."

"Of course, that's what he thinks…" Daran grumbled through pursed lips.

Susanne eyed him contemplatively "…but what if he's right?"

Maneuvering through a sharp turn, Daran only gave his wife a quick grimacing glance.

"If you think about it…Gary has the issues he has because of what Marsden did to him."

"That's because Marsden was a psycho who should have never reproduced."

Susanne let out a low groan "I know that…but, what if Timmy decides to have kids one day? Would you want our descendant to have the same issues Gary has?"

Guiding the hood of the station wagon through another snaky bend of the road, Daran jeered with spite "…that won't beourproblem."

Her husband's bluntness crinkled Susanne's brow "…you didnotjust say that."

"What do youmean!?" Daran challenged. "You don't care about that boy any more thanIdo!"

"Well whether we like it or not, any kid he has would be our only chance at grandchildren."

"And you'd wannaclaimthose bastards?"

For the first time, Susanne took high offense to her husband's callous attitude. "If Timmy ends up abusing his kids just like Marsden abused Gary, we'd end upjustlike my parents! Stuck raising a mentally-ill child in old age! Worried sick about them going off to end themselves every time they go missing! Do youwantthat?!"

"How would that beourproblem thathewould bring kids he doesn't want into this world?!"

"So you wouldn't take those kids in if it came down to it?"

"What if he had a son?"

Elm eyes widened, backed into a moral corner. Mouthing for words that spoke her truth without painting herself as a bad person "…I-I'd have to think about it."

"See? If you really felt any differently than me, you wouldn'thaveto think about it!"

Susanne huffed in her seat, crossing her arms with a sulking glare towards the mountainous wall. "This is going nowhere…"

Daran leaned an elbow to the driver side door panel, pinching the bridge of his aggravated nose. "The change in altitude must be getting to you…"

She shot him a cynical glance "…meaning?"

"You never talked like this before."

Periwinkle-blue glitter glistened, shimmering crackling hisses through the radio that had been presumed to be off when the reception had started to get wonky driving up the mountain. Puzzled, Daran turned back to his wife "…when did you turn the radio on?"

Susanne blinked slowly, just as marveled from the amplifying static "…I thoughtyoudid."

The Turners looked to the voice of deep baritone growling clearly through the muddling static.

"Thy heart burns with more hate for thy son than love for thy beloved daughter, thus you deny thy son love. Now, you shall be denied a painless pity, and thou shall suffer, just as thine son has suffered!"

Periwinkle twinkles of light expanded the synthetic leather of all four tire before erupting them all in a booming burst. Causing skid marks to spark from the hubcaps in alarming fireworks. Daran twisted the steering wheel in frantic directions as a failed attempt to regain control of the station wagon. Turning too sharply as the car's aerodynamics rolled to its side off the rocky edge of the road…

The station wagon soared through the air in a spinning plunge. Crashing into a tree as the front hood crimpled like an accordion, crushing their worlds into black.

"…Dar….?!"

A deafening buzz rang in his ears. Dizziness swashed into numbing pain, mustering the will to push towards the slim slither of light until darkness pulled him back…

"….arannnn...!?"

Aching throbs fluttered in his eyes, catching a peek of white before blackness blinded him once again…

"…DARAAAN!"

Blumine eyes flashed in a silent inhale, the sheen of grey clouds through naked branches staring down at him. Another shrill cry called for him, a scream unlike any he'd ever heard. Sensations of pain jolted in electrical waves, nearly preventing him from crooking his neck in the direction of the agonized wails. When he looked in the direction of his Mrs., his heart panged. There she lay along the natural earth. Bloodied and littered with shards of glass shoved deep into her skin.

Pinned beneath a 1.7-ton heap of crinkled vehicle from the stomach down…

"S-Susanne!" Daran strained, try as he might to move yet his body failed him. Though pain clawed through his bottom half, numbness tingled through what little nerves he could feel. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to sit up. Lacking sensation in his arms as he decided to just lift the heaviness in his head, struck with horror of what he saw next.

Cracked bone. His bones, covered in his own blood. Staining what was left of his clothes in the darkest red. Sticking out of arms and legs bent like broken pencils.

Paralyzed from the neck down.

"SUSAAAAANNE!"

His strangled cry echoed through the acoustics of abandoned woods, reaching the ears of the woman struggling to breathe through sobs of sheer agony. Feeling a crunching snap of rib with each attempt to intake breath, shrouded in the shooting pain of crushed bones from the pelvis down. Haunted by hopelessness, tears burned the corners of her eyes as blood then coughed in her lungs, spurting through bloodied lips.

Their personal belongings were destroyed, their car was totaled. Neither one could move, and because they were the only ones on the road, there were no witnesses.

And worst of all…

They could not call for help.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Four statuesquely round towers were forged together by white walls of solid stone. Archways of stone corridors floated above ground level, creating alternative routes through such a grand castle. Fortified atop the flattened peak of the purple mountain that towered above the endless fluffy sea of pink clouds. Fiery flames of the sunset burned to the east of the mountain, the supreme cosmic light. And the icy rock of the crescent moon rose to the west, the lamp of darkness. Both celestial bodies equally balanced in their majestic beauty, painting strokes of bright reds and dark blues in an artistic ombre across the sky.

Combat boots of the Fairy Commander traversed the stone path through the mountain's murky cave, small flames of wall-mounted candles casting a yellowish glow. Cradling a pink fairy in his left arm with the side of her rosette curls supported against the pec of his chest while the green fairy hung like a loose jacket on his right arm, limp hands dangling with each long step. Jorgen was transporting the fairy couple to the location of the other puny fairies hidden within the cave. Following his clear instructions yet still unclear of his grand leaders' intentions overall.

Jorgen Von Strangle restrained a troubled grimace; in the millenniums of working closely with the Fairy Council, he'd become attune to their powerful magic almost like a magical link, even from as far a distance from Earth as he was. What he sensed felt implacably grim, ruthless. Vindictive. That which greatly opposed the moral high grounds that the supreme rulers of Fairy World and banishers of The Darkness normally stood on.

Da Rules clearly state not to directly use magic to hurt or kill anyone, whether fae or human. Then again, the Council were Da Rules' authors, and Jorgen was just the enforcer. Who was he to judge the eldest, most powerful fairies in the universe in breaking their own rules?

Within the graveled ceiling and granitic walls of the room carved into the mountain's side, a lone glass door led out onto the gravel terrace encased in a dome roof of solid glass displaying the sun setting to the east. Seeping orangey-red hues along the purple stone walls and white quilt of the queen bed where two female godparents lay. One of whom icy-blue eyes could not tear his stare away from.

Sitting Indian-style atop the front edge of his bed below the twin-size bunkbed, Alondro held arms folded to his chest. Gentle eyes fixed upon the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. The kinks of her afro curled atop the forehead of her ebony skin smooth like milky chocolate. Cheeks gently rounding the perfect frame of her face, full lips parted in rhythmic breaths with her head faintly tilted to one side.

She was fast asleep just like the woman next to her, a woman with her own marmalade curls. Tucked in with the white quilt of the queen bed beneath the other bunkbed across the room. Alondro couldn't pinpoint his infatuation with a woman of whom he only knew by name; Susanna Sprinkle. It had a familiar ring to it. Like a love that was long lost...

"Starin' at a woman while she sleeps? Weirdo."

Alondro turned to look up towards the bed above him, smirking at the teasing chuckle of a fairy laying on his side with a propped elbow, high enough on the bunk to touch the ceiling with a finger. A man who was no stranger, but had been like an hermano to him. "Callarse, Irving."

To Alondro's left lounged the female couple atop the lone queen bed nearest the glass door. Nyekundu rested her cheek to her girlfriend's chest, allowing Swizzle's tender fingers to scratch the red of her fro-hawk. "You were staring at Juandissimo earlier, too."

Nyekundu's mention of the fellow Hispanic fairy led Alondro to redirect his gaze to the male fairy across the room from him. Partially covered by white quilt resting on his right side with the faint rise and fall of his shoulders in the top bunk above the female fairies in the queen bed below. He had been the first of the newer crop of godparents that Jorgen had carried into the bunker within a cave, and when Alondro had first seen him, something flickered in his heart. Not an amorous spark, but a glint or reunited kin.

Though both of Hispanic descent, Alondro bore no relation to the Magnifico surname. At least…none that he was aware of.

"Hey, Juan's a gorgeous man." Irving remarked facetiously. "If I wasn't married, I'd stare at 'em too."

Swizzle's cynicism groaned. "Glad you can make light of this bullsh*t…"

Irving shifted to look down to his fellow Fairy World High alumni, curling a light smirk. "And ya wonder where ya godkid gets that mouth of hers from."

"Oh,shuddup!" Swizzle had half a mind to flip that big-nose pighead the bird. "We've been stuck in here with all these questions and no answers!"

"C'moooon, Swizzie." Irving crooned, pretending to pout. His playful mood opposing her grumpy attitude. "Cheer uuuup."

Swizzle lasered her glare towards him. After being trapped in one room like glorified prisoners for the gods know how long, it's best not to poke at an angry bear. "You can be a real douche sometimes, you know that?!"

"Babe, calm down…" Nyekundu calmly reached for the fingers that had stopped scratching her coils, taking them into hers. Attempting to water her girlfriend's agitated fire. "You might wake the others..."

"Yeah, Swizzie." Irving batted a bantering eye. "Belligerence don't suit ya."

Right before Swizzle could threaten to shove her foot up Irving's ass, the twist of the only compact door to the room caught the conscious godparents' attention. seeing the rocky barrier swing open as the brawns of their commander entered, shutting the door with the bottom of his boot. As he cradled the pregnant fairy and slung her husband into the room, the godparents watched as Jorgen approached. Traveling past the kitchenette on his left and the modular couch and granite coffee table on his right before ducking his head beneath the stone arch that led into the room of beds.

"So…" Alondro kept calm arms folded, watching as Jorgen passed the three sleeping godparents on his left before slowing to the formerly unoccupied queen bed across from Swizzle and Nyekundu. "…when will you tell us what is going on?"

"WhenIknow what is going on…" Jorgen grumbled his truth, careful in lowering Wanda to the bed. Ensuring the back of her pink curls hit the pillow before two of his large fingers pinched the back of Cosmo's small shirt, picking him off his arm.

He positioned Cosmo to face his wife on his side, setting him next to her. Soon after, Cosmo's arm moved, clutching onto Wanda's undisturbed arm as he shifted, settling his cheek onto her shoulder. Reactively, Wanda's head tilted to nestle her cheek against her husband's green shag. All while submerged in sopor.

"Can you at least finally tell us where the kids are?" Swizzle questioned, making Jorgen sigh as he faced four sets of eyes eager for the answers that he simply couldn't give.

"Unfortunately, I am unauthorize to disclose that."

"Don't make no sennnnse…" Irving slouched in his grouse.

"I know, but it's above me." Jorgen admitted solemnly. "Council's orders."

Tentatively, Nyekundu asked "…are they alright, at least?"

Without giving too much away, Jorgen felt he could at least give their concern some sort of assurance. "They're the safest anyone of them would be on Earth right now."

Why was that far from reassuring?

Discomforted gazes followed Jorgen as he faced his back to them, pacing back towards the stone door. "Oh, and when the others wake up, just repeat everything I just said." he grumbled so he wouldn't have to repeat himself. "I'm sure they'll have the exact same questions…"

Left unresolved, the fairies exchanged glances as the Fairy Commander swung the door behind him upon his exit.

Baby blue fluttered as the fog lifted, welcomed by the purest white. Warm and snug on the softest cloud of tranquility, greeted with the unacquainted guest of peace. At first, addled thoughts assumed that his young soul had ascended to finally reunite with the twin sister he treasured. That was until three more lethargic blinks focused on the gothic patterns of vaulted ribs carved in white wood along the ceiling.

The exhale of a composed breath further confirmed that death had not claimed him. As the groggy haze dissipated, he conjured the strength to sit up, finding his legs covered in a blue blanket. This can't be his bedroom; none of the walls were as white as the ones currently surrounding him. Nor was it this massive with four other twin beds lined in a row against the wall across from him. Each unoccupied bed framed in a woodsy design was quilted with different shades of teal, navy, indigo, and fuchsia. When he turned to his left, three other twin beds contained his two classmates and the little sister of his babysitter.

In the bed beside him, purple specs lay next to the raven ponytails peacefully pressed to her pillow. Braces exposed through parted lips of quiet breaths, the center of Tootie's chest rising and falling beneath a purple quilt. Looking further to his left, the pink-hatted boy spotted the even blonde swoops nearly engulfed in his cotton pillow, covered in a red blanket from the shoulder down.

Another bed stood next to Remy's, one quilted in yellow. Unlike the other beds, the pillow was empty.

"…Chloe?" Timmy quietly spoke out to the platinum blonde sitting upright with arms draped around her drawn knees, spotting the glum in blue orbs that shifted towards him. "Are you okay?"

"Yes…" the somberness in her tone was a terrible liar.

"…any idea where we are?"

Chloe was more honest when she shook her head. She had been the first to awaken, and though there was a hint of solace to learn that she wasn't alone, irrational doubt and despair clouded the logic to scoop out the strange environment. She had no idea if they were all kidnapped, if they were locked in this room against their will. Or if they were safe.

Drawing back the covers, Timmy planted his shoes to the sheening tiles of white marble. Stretching heavy sleep out his arms in a bleary yawn before he stood to his feet. "…when did you wake up?"

"I don't know…" Chloe had no idea how long she had been awake.

A knuckle rubbed the corner of his eye in his saunter passed Tootie and Remy. Taking a look around to find no clocks or any indicators of time. When Timmy looked to his right, shades of orangey-red rays glistened along white marble. Shadows of flowery pedals etched into the stained glass of windows rooted at the floor's base and arched all the way to the ceiling.

The rise of the crescent moon from the west, clear as day, caught his eye. Prompting him to walk away from Chloe's bed and up the four steps of the rounded platform. As a tiny spec compared to the immensity of the windows, he gawked at the endless blanket of pink clouds. Feeling as if he were peering out the window of an airplane at its highest altitude, astounded at just how high they were.

"…w-where am I…"

"Remy?" Chloe turned to the tired groan of the young billionaire, holding his head as he willed himself to sit up. "…are you okay?"

"…maybe…?" Remy's head was swimming as he slowly shifted to where his leather shoes dangled over the edge, hands planted on the mattress for stability. He felt almost as delirious as an alcoholic's hangover.

Timmy had left the view of the crescent moon when he too had heard Remy shift in bed, walking over to stand between Chloe and Remy's beds. "I supposeyoudon't know where we are, do you?

"…no?" Remy squinted. He just woke up from the hardest sleep of his life. How theheckwould he know?

"What do you remember last?" Chloe figured they'd start there.

Remy dropped his pensive gaze, sorting through the haze of his clouded memories. "Last I remember…was a kid in my room…"

"Same." Timmy admitted. "I have no clue how they got there. They just randomly showed up. Then they touched me with weird magic coming out of their hands, and next I know, I wake up in this place."

"Me too…" Chloe tugged at a platinum strand, aggrieved of what she remembered last. "And they were one of the children who'd been missing since last week."

"Hmm…" Timmy scratched an imaginary beard. He was the most familiar with his cousin's disappearance; the only reason he knew about the others was word of mouth from AJ who, for some reason, tuned into the news like a football fanatic never missing the Superbowl. AJ had never mentioned other names or physical characteristics, just the information of their last whereabouts.

Gary had been last seen at the hospital with his friend, another boy who'd been assaulted by some 8th graders. Gary's only friends were other godkids, and just based off that, Timmy could at least conclude that the other boy had to have been Dwight. As far as Molly and Hazel, he had not seen them since they'd met that one time and unfortunately knew too little about their personal life to assume they were the other two missing children.

The whimpering stir of a little girl turned their heads. Tootie tossed and turned before her eyes flashed with a shuddered gasp. No clue where she was, uncertain of how she'd gotten there. It didn't help that her surroundings blurred into a white blob with specs of color.

Instinctively, her palm patted along the mattress in search of her visual aid. Relief escaped in a terse breath when the plastic of round rims brushed her fingers, adjusting them to her face before fuzzy outlines sharpened into 20/20 vision. Her eyes darted every which way, from the Alabaster columns between the head of the bedframes, to the huge crescent moon peering through the flowery-stained panels of glass windows. To the three sets of eyes staring right at her.

Startled, Tootie clutched the purple quilt to her chest.

"It's okay, Tootie. You don't have to be scared."

Trembling weakly, Tootie lowered the shield of her purple quilt. Just the gentleness of Timmy's voice eased her. Made her feel less alone. Swallowing a nervous lump, she mustered the courage to climb out of bed. Once babydolls were established along white marble, she draped her arms around herself as she stood. Cautious in her steps approaching the other godchildren gathered around the bed quilted in yellow.

"…are you okay?" Chloe questioned from the slight tremble in Tootie's legs. Stripped from the normalcy of routine into a strange and mysterious place, her empathy acknowledged Tootie's anxiety of the unknown.

"Guess she doesn't understand what's going on." Timmy spoke for Tootie under his own assumptions. "Just like us."

"Here's something I don't understand…" Remy too rose from his bed once the dizzy waters drained "…where're our godparents?"

Chloe broadened her eyes at the realization that their godparents had not made themselves known, and Timmy furrowed his gaze to the ground. So distracted by the ambiguity of his new surroundings, he had been unaware of the missing chunk in his spirit. In his attempts to reach out to Sophia for any possible answers, his spiritual reach kept hitting a brick wall. He heard nothing of her. Felt nothing of her. As if she was just…dead.

Dismay panged in his heart.

"…do you guys think that's what those other beds are for?" Chloe quizzed, pointing out the four beds across the room.

Timmy pulled himself together in a deep breath. They wouldn't understand his disheartenment, and he was in no mood to explain. "I don't think our godparents would just leave us in some strange place all by ourselves."

"Agreed…" Remy concurred with Turner's reasoning. "…but that doesn't explain why they're not here."

Chloe licked dry lips, flicked with the image of Susie thudding to the floor "…what if something happened to them?"

Tootie continued to hug herself, glancing at Timmy who would then suggest "Maybe we can try to look for them."

"Okay…" Remy droned "…where?"

Turning to his left past the beds, Timmy gestured to the arch of double doors, large planks of wood painted in stripes of yellow, blue, pink, purple, and turquoise. "We can start by seeing what's outside this room."

Chloe's doubts hesitated. "As in leave?"

"…yeah?" Timmy made his way towards the only visible exit. "How else are we supposed to find our godparents?"

Remy arched a brow. "And we're just going blindly with no idea what could be out there?"

Timmy shrugged. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Lacking an argument to that logic, the young billionaire exhaled a sigh, folding his arms as he followed behind the pink-hatted boy towards the double doors. The two girls shared apprehensive looks before raven ponytails scurried off to catch up with the boys, and after a mental debate between the possibility of unfavorable outcomes and taking a leap of faith, Chloe had barely becalmed herself enough to move her feet.

Before Timmy could attempt to open the door, periwinkle-blue sparkles parted the heaviness of the doors in gradual creaks like the parting of the Red Sea. Timmy stumbled back towards the others, waiting for the creaks to come to a booming halt once the doors had nowhere else to swing.

Timmy's eyes flickered, unsure of what to make of the phenomenon other than "…that's convenient."

When the four godchildren stepped out of the room, periwinkle-blue shimmered as the parted doors retreated in the same gradual speed. An echo rang through the white stone when the door clanked shut, startling the youngest child in a mousy yelp. Timmy looked both ways down the hollow corridors of white stone walls, porcelain marble floors shaded in the artistic array of colors from the archways that framed rainbow-stained glass windows. Feeling a sense a familiarity as they began their venture "…this isn't Fairy Fort, is it?"

Looking up at the vaulted wood ribbed in similar patterns of gothic arches along the ceiling, Remy didn't recognize the glistening assortment of turquoise, pink, purple, and blue crystals hanging like chandeliers centered in the ceiling's highest peak. "I don't think so…"

Chloe didn't remember Fairy Fort being overtaken by naturistic greenery inside the cracks within the stone, snaked like whimsical vines along the white stone Alabaster columns supporting the ceiling arches. "There weren't this many plants inside..."

Quiet in her steps behind the other kids, Tootie dug nails into the back of crossed arms. She seemed so small with how tall the walls were. If Rose was here, she'd assure that there was nothing to be afraid of. Thinking of her godmother pressed gloss behind her eyes. The last she saw of her was watching helplessly as a hooded figure blasted her to the ground.

She bit the faint quiver in her lip; she couldn't bear the thought of Rose getting hurt. Or worse…

When she felt her arms move against their will, she stalled in her steps as she glanced down at the lavender shimmers glittering against her chest, materializing a mysterious object in her grasp. A book of black leather, stuffed with papers and a pen of black ink clipped on the spine, emerged from the lavender sparkles that soon faded once Tootie's diffident fingers gripped onto it. She had a notebook that looked exactly like the one she was holding. Wait…was thishernotebook?

Eager to find out, she flipped through its pages stained with age. Turning page after page, seeing old wishes that she'd written down for Rose to grant. Finding sketches of ravens that were like the ones she'd drawn before, in the same order of which she could recall drawing them. Flipping until she spotted the newest sketch of calligraphy, an outline of the wordsTimmy Turnercentered within a drawn heart.

She hitched a gasp in surprise. Itwasher notebook!

She clasped her eyes that threatened tears of gratitude, squeezing her prized notebook tightly to her sweater vest. In that small moment, where it had come from and how it had returned to her mattered little. Without her godmother, this notebook was her one slither of familiarity in this strange world. Her consolation.

"…are you coming, Tootie?"

Chloe's call to her snapped her back to reality, darting her gaze to the older kids standing in their wait for her. She willed her black baby-dolls to scamper a couple of feet across the marble in order to catch up to them.

Remy pursed his brow towards her upon the observation of the object that he didn't recall being in Tootie's possession before now "…what's that you're holding?"

Tootie pursed her lips, tightening her embrace around her notebook.

"Was that here before?" Timmy questioned, and Tootie shook her head.

"Where did it come from?" Chloe probed, only for Tootie to shrug.

His curiosity wanted to ask why Tootie wasn't talking again. But Timmy figured that, whatever it was, she wouldn't be too willing to divulge. "Let's just keep going…"

Traveling down the corridor, the four reached the end where another wooden door painted in the same pastel rainbow as the door to the room full of beds. Three steps led up to the marbled platform leading to the double doors lined in green and teal leaves. Assuming this led to another room, Timmy led the group up the steps towards the door as periwinkle shimmers pushed the door. Slowly revealing the grandeur of what one would consider the common room.

Sheening light of the crescent moon flooded through stained windows into the room, wall mounted sconces burning more candlelight for the natural ambiance. The sills of the windows were riddled with mossy vines that bloomed in an overgrown boas along the stone walls reclaimed by foliage. Larger shingles of turquoise, blue, purple, and pink centered the high ceiling in a crystalized chandelier, shimmering within the crystal grooves of marbled tile.

Two short steps led down to the sheen of gold leather reflecting along the sectional couch nestled against the short walls within the sunken platform, lining each corner of the pastoral medallion of a woven rug aside. When the clank of the shutting door echoed behind him, Timmy's brows shot up in a high arch of astonishment. Met with the speculative glances of, a black girl with a head of curls, a gothic girl, a dorky boy and a bucktoothed boy seated along the sectional

"Molly? Dwight? Hazel…Gary?!"

Chloe and Remy eyed Timmy with even Tootie's watchful gaze just as speculative. How did Timmy already know their names?

"Aye, Tim-Tim." Gary stood up from the sectional, the only godchild wearing a casual grin. Taking two steps up the ascending stairs onto the leveled floor. "You're all finally awake."

Taking another scan of Turner, Remy narrowed his gaze towards the boy coming up to them. Guess one mystery was solved; those two could easily pass as the doppelganger of the other. "…cunning resemblance."

Gary fixed his eyes upon the blonde lad, intrigued by the muted yet vibrant dazzle in those mint eyes of his. Not often he came across a kid dressed in a fancy suit for casual wear. "Master of observation." he half rolled his eyes before pointing an introductory thumb to himself. "I'm Gary. Timmy's cousin." Pointing a finger to the other children on the couch from right to left, Gary introduced them as well. "That's Hazel, Molly, and Dwight."

Remy took notice of the other raven-haired girl in the room when she jeered scornfully after her introduction. Arms crossed to her in a deepened glare, scrunching her nose as if to size him up. In return, Remy flattened his brow. He wasn't trying to pick a fight, but he didn't appreciate her obvious disdain towards him that was highly undeserved.

"Excuse me…" Remy stayed poised as he inched forward. "…is there a problem?"

"Yeah!" Molly shot from the couch in a confrontative stance. "I still don't get how thehellsome rich snob deserves a godparent!?"

"Don't start, Molly…" Gary gave a warning glance over his shoulder, a warning that Molly's agitation refused to yield to.

"f*ckthat!" she charged up the short steps, stopping at a distance far enough to maintain personal space yet close enough to sock a punch if he so much as thought about testing her. "Pretentious jerks like him treat us like peasants! Cuz anybody without as much money as them is just sh*t under their shoe!"

"What?! You don't evenknowme!" Remy defended himself. Her balled fists seemed to know much more about him than he did about her.

"Iknow you're a Buxaplenty!" she spat. "Buxaplentys are just money-hungry f*ckwads that send out invites to their fancy little clubs with false promises just to embarrass us like show monkeys!"

As Timmy looked over to Chloe equally confused at the unprovoked confrontation, Remy widened his stare. He never would have recognized her had she not mentioned that night. Only having seen her briefly on a projected screen, he remembered her and that woman as the underprivileged family of the month that night. The night that his nanny took advantage of his weakest point, and his godfather waived his own safety to save him. The night that he had failed to block out, try as he might. Nevertheless, her disdain was highly undeserved.

"…Ihad nothing todowith that-"

"Are you not aBuxaplenty!?" Molly opposed, edging treacherously close. "Cuz that f*ckasstuxsays so!"

"Stopit, Molly!"

A pitchy squeak caused Molly to snap her head, facing the troubled brow and puckered lips of sulky brown eyes. "But Hazel-"

"He's nice!" Hazel pouted, cradling her knees tighter. "Just leave him alone…please…"

Still attached to her notebook, Tootie observed Molly's reluctance to lower her hostile defenses, growling under her breath as she backed away from Remy's defensive glare. In a sense, Molly's anger sounded like something Tootie had heard before. It sounded like a twinge of pain lay beneath it, just like her older sister...

"…h-hey there."

Tootie stiffly shuddered when she realized that someone had come up to her. She hadn't heard his footsteps, but she saw a freckled boy with auburn hair. His purple eyes studied her through his glasses, as if attempting to remember what he'd clearly forgotten.

"Sorry, um…I think we've met before." Dwight recognized her face, and yet as his brain tried to sort what else he should remember about her, frowning sheepishly when he had to ask "…what's your name again?"

Gulping down dryness, Tootie struggled to remember how to use her voice. Or if she still had it "…D-Dorothy."

"Dorothy…" he faltered. Dang, that should've rung a bell.

Tootie adjusted her notebook in her grasp. Anything to distract from the most awkward stretch of silence before she flinched from the loud snap in his fingers at jogged memory.

"Right! Dorothy!" '

Tootie shifted in place, feeling the bridge of her nose redden.

"It's nice seeing you again…" he rubbed behind his neck "…despite the circ*mstances."

Molly held an attentive gaze towards Tootie. So shecantalk, just chooses not to. Interesting…

"I'll admit," Dwight recalled what had even helped him recognize Tootie at all. "when you'd introduced yourself at my front door, I knew you were a godchild when I saw your bracelet. I just didn't wanna make a spectacle of it…I think I kinda remember how intense your parents were…" he paused "…especially your dad."

Tootie recoiled as the pain and suffering of her past threatened to resurface in the present sense.

"Wait…" Chloe spoke up when she couldn't help but eavesdrop "…I thought your name was Tootie?"

"It's a nickname…" Timmy once again spoke on Tootie's behalf.

"…like how Remy is his middle name?" Chloe considered.

"…really?" Timmy arched a brow to the Buxaplenty nearest him "…then what's your first name?"

Loathing crossed in Remy's arms. "Not important."

"Anyway…" Gary decided to shift the focus to what certainly was important. "I assume you guys are curious to know where you are."

"That'd be real nice…" Timmy snarked.

"It'd be really nice to know where our godparents are, too." Chloe added, unaware of the brown eyes watching her. Hazel couldn't help but notice the visible gap in Chloe's teeth that looked like hers.

"Honestly? Dunno..." Gary exhaled. "We haven't seen them since we got here."

"…whendidyou get here?" Remy inquired.

"We don't know that either." Dwight confessed. "We woke up not knowing where we were or how we got here just like you guys."

Suddenly, the muscles in Chloe's arms and shoulders bunched, swallowing the dryness in her throat. Hit with the reminder of how mean she was to Dwight, how she yelled at him like that. That was so uncouth of her, and she would regret that deplorable mistake for the rest of her life.

"And you've been here this whole time?" Timmy quizzed.

"Yeah." Dwight confirmed. "We don't really know how long, though."

"How have you guys survived so long by yourselves?" Remy probed.

Gary satirically shrugged his shoulders. "Cannibalism."

Pointing eyes towards that snarky answer, Remy scrunched his face "…why are you like this…"

"And what was that weird magic you used to knock me out!" Timmy's pointed finger pushed against Gary's chest, staggering him two steps backwards.

"Sorry, Tim…" Gary faltered under his cousin's glare, his tone shifting to that of genuine remorse "…but I wasn't in control of that."

"The heck do youmean!?" Timmy interrogated. "It came out ofyourhands!"

Gary raised his hands in defense. "I'm tellin' you that wasn't me."

"It was the Council's magic." Molly spoke up, gaining the curious stares from the newest crop of kids.

"The Council?" Chloe folded her arms protectively "…you meantheFairy Council?"

"The one and only."

Molly's pointed finger directed them to a golden frame of a large picture on a wall across the room from the double door. Four figures stood tall on grey rock, nearly as tall as the towering Greek columns behind them. Cloaked in the themed colors of turquoise, pink, purple, and blue robes with yellow slits in the place of eyes that glowed against the pit of black within their drawn hoods.

Out of all the children, Chloe was the only one to broaden her eyes upon the picture. The very picture that guarded the door to the secret passage of Fairy Fort.

While Remy also recognized the picture, his guarded expression did not change. "Did said Council happen tomentionwhat this place is?"

"Called it their own 'Fairy Fortress.'" Gary clarified, combing a loose strand of hair back in place. "Said it was in some other dimension between Earth and Fairy World."

Taking this into consideration, Timmy reckoned that explained not why how Sophia had been unable to reach Gary, but that it must also explain why he himself can no longer reach his sister. "And they said nothing about where our godparents are?"

"No…" Gary regretted, and Timmy groaned.

Tootie turned her attention towards Hazel, seeing her troubled stare towards the woven rug. A stare that could burst into tears if not for numbed fatigue. She had noticed how little Hazel had spoken other than stopping Molly confrontation towards Remy. Was she just as scared? Did a lot of this go over her head, too?

Clutching her notebook, Tootie shuffled her feet towards the girl who looked to be around her age. Staying on ground level as Hazel's ear perked from the sound of someone approaching her.

Hazel lifted her eyes to Tootie's meek wave in greeting. She couldn't bring herself to offer a welcoming smile, but she didn't want to be rude either. "…hi…" she squeaked, searching for courtesy sake when she noticed the pleats in Tootie's skirt that reminded her of her private school uniform "…I like your skirt."

With the same hand she'd used to wave, Tootie tugged at the hem of her plaid skirt as her cheeks flushed "…t-thank you."

"You're welcome…"

"Haze..." Gary turned, noting the tonelessness in an otherwise squeaky voice "…what's wrong?"

Two simple words reignited an ache in her chest that refused to relent. Hazel closed her eyes, lowering her face into upturned knees. Trying to drag her emotions back under where she wished not to feel them as she whimpered "…I miss Nyekundu…"

Returning both arms around her notebook pressed to her chest, Tootie could relate. Wanting so badly to just melt in the soothing embrace of Rose's arms.

Feeling bad for her, Molly stepped back down into the sunken platform, rejoining Hazel on the couch. Using her palm to rub circles in her back, slouching her shoulders. She hated admitting weakness, but she wanted to help lessen the loneliness that Hazel likely felt. "I miss Swizzle, too…"

Dwight hunched his posture, protruding his bottom lip. "I hope Irving's okay…"

Gary winkled his forehead, digging his nails into the leather sleeve of his jacket with downcast eyes. "I wish Alondro was here…"

Timmy grimaced, hanging his head from two more gnawed chunks of his spirit "…I wish Cosmo and Wanda were here…"

Remy's gaze grew distance in the first acknowledgement of sorrow that weighed him down. Coming to realize just how hollow his heart felt without Juandissimo's tender presence.

Chloe wore a mask of resignation, gritting her fists. Anguished at the harsh memory of Susie getting shot down by that Council member "…w-why would they do this…" the hurt in her whisper didn't catch the attention of the others, engrossed in their own pain. Until her whisper grew into a demand for answers that cracked her voice "…why would the Fairy Council hurt our fairies!?"

"The Council didn't hurt them…" Gary acknowledged Chloe's frustration.

"Yes they did!" Chloe argued. "One of them blasted my fairy godmother against the wall!"

Tootie shuddered in empathy. Haunted by the crippling distress of the Council member robed in purple who had shot her godmother to the ground…right in front of her…

"It was a little aggressive, but I promise none of the council hurt your fairies." Dwight tried to reassure. "They just put them to sleep, like we did with you guys."

Chloe pressed her lips, reluctant in accepting that justification. However, Remy had a mind to ask what should've been her next question. "In that case…why separate us from our godparents?"

Gary tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket "…would you believe us if we said they didn't tell us that either?"

"Did you evenask?" Timmy challenged.

"Multiple times." Molly groused. "But they never gave a straight answer."

"Butwhy?!"

"No freakin' clue…"

Scanning the discomforted expressions around the room, Remy decided it'd probably be best to change the subject. Every answer just created more questions "…so…is there more to this place, or what?"

"Um, yeah…" The heaviness in Gary's heart could use a new distraction. "We can show you around."

Molly looked down at the quiet sobs muffled from Hazel's buried face, pursing her lips at what was now Hazel's third crying spell in hours. "I'll stay with Hazel…"

"I can come with." Dwight offered, drifting towards Gary. While part of him was starting to get a little tired, he figured he was not tired enough to ignore the concern for his best friend's mental state. "Plus, I need to stretch my legs…"

"Guess that's as good a reason as any." Gary loosely shrugged, then faced the pink-hatted boy. "What do ya say, cuzzo? That cool with you and your friends?"

Contemplatively, Timmy turned to Remy's casual shrug, Chloe rubbing her arms, and Tootie's timid nod before turning back to Gary's anticipating brow. Even with all of this stuff to consider, Timmy's confliction still had no idea how to feel about his own cousin.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Orangey-red beams of sunlight glimmered through the lone glass door, reflecting walls of purple stone in the warmest glow with the nine fairy godparents settled in their respective beds. The godparents that had been banished to the cave by force had just finished explaining the situation to the best of their lack of knowledge, and the newer group of godparents that had awakened to a place unbeknownst to them were, as expected, left with even more unanswered questions.

“I still don’t understand...” Cosmo pouted on the white queen-sized quilt, holding his wife against his front by her belly bulge with his chin sulking on her shoulder.

“I know, sweetie…” Wanda empathized, reaching to tenderly scruff his cheek. “For once, you’re not the only one.”

“I sure as hell don’t understand.” Susie groaned with her arms folded to her chest, shoulder-to-shoulder with Rose with their legs hanging off the front edge of their queen bed. “Like how can the Council just expect us to be okay with being kept in the dark like this…?”

“And how did they think it was okay to separate us from our godkids?” Rose groused.

“Well, we don’t get magic build-up in here, so…” Irving reached for a positive, lounging on his side with his elbow propped to his pillow “…that’s a plus.”

Swizzle gruffly snorted with knees pressed to her chest. “Not much of a plus…”

“Are you guys sure we’re not in trouble or something?” Rose doubted.

“That’s what Jorgen had told us when we first got here.” Nyekundu affirmed, seated near Swizzle with her chin supported in her palms.

Alondro drifted icy-blue orbs down with arms folded in his defeated slouch. “Certainly feels as if we are…”

When her indigo gaze looked to the male fairy across the room, she had to mask the flinch in her heart from the uncanny resemblance. The subtle flick of crystals in those rings of icy-blue, the seamless sculpt in his muscles. The deep timbre with a pinch of sultry in his accent.

If half the silky hair on his head were not bright-yellow, Alondro would almost be a splitting image of…him.

“…so what have you guys been doing to stay sane in here?” Wanda shifted the subject to something lighter.

“Welp,” Irving sat himself up. “With our wands gone and no connection to the outside world, some of us have been passin’ the time with some…” he dug into the pocket of his cardigan, pulling out a half-empty bag of assorted sugar-coated gummies “…‘special candies’…”

“Um…” Rose looked closer at the plastic bag held between Irving’s fingers “…are those what I think they are?”

“Yep!”

Swizzle rolled her eyes; it all made sense now. “No wonder you’re so annoying…”

“I can’t believe you still have those.” Nyekundu remarked.

“Kinda glad I do.” Irving opened the bag on his lap. “They’ve been keepin’ my head above water in all this.”

“…where you get them from?” Susie questioned Irving.

“They’re from before Jorgen took our wands.”

Susie shifted her gaze between Irving and the bag of gummies. Weighing the options of denying herself a temporary escape and giving into temptation “…you tryna share?”

“Susie!” Rose called out. No judgement, she just noticed how little thought went into Susie’s decision to take a mind-altering substance with little knowledge of its true origins other than Irving already having them in his possession.

“Don’t ‘Susie’ me! We all stuck in this f*ckass cave!” Susie griped in return, standing in her float. “Might as well make the best of it.”

Irving lightly chuckled, reaching in the bag. “Now that’s the spirit!”

Alondro observed Susie in her approach towards Irving as she then accepted the blue piece of sugar-coated gelatin that was offered. Finding himself fond of her impertinence as Nyekundu looked to Irving.

“How many are left?” she asked.

“Whatever’s in this bag. Can’t use magic to make more.” Irving replied as Susie returned to her bed with her gummy. He then held the bag in offering. “But plenty to go around.”

“What if Jorgen catches us?” Rose cautioned.

Irving snorted. “He definitely would’ve by now if he had time to care.”

Rose knitted her brow. “…but I’ve never done edibles before.”

“Lucky for you, sweetheart, these are mostly CBD.” Irving explained, grinning. “You’re not gonna float ta Mars or nothin’. They just help ta chillax.”

Without many options to weigh, Alondro let out a heavy exhale as he turned to hold out his hand. “I guess I will indulge…”

“My man!” Irving beamed, dropping a purple piece for Alondro’s palm to catch.

Popping the gummy in his mouth, Alondro drew one knee to droop his chin on. He hoped that the edible would not take too long to lighten the heaviness in his mind. Flip the switch in his brain to keep from dwelling over what he had no control over…dwelling over whether his peque was mentally stable.

Lifting his head, Cosmo took the hand Wanda used to scratch his cheek and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’m still not taking one.”

Wanda tenderly squeezed his fingers in return. “You don’t have to do that just for me.”

“I’m not doing it just for you. I’m doing it for us.” Cosmo’s other hand brushed delicate fingers along her baby bump. “And our baby.”

The touching song in her heart curled warmth into her lips. How lucky was she to have such an adorably sweet husband?

The father-to-be nestled a cheek to her neck, making the expecting mother giggle as she leaned her cheek to the head of his green shag. Settled in the calm content of shared silence before a random thought dusted the spider webs around Cosmo’s mind.

“…does Timmy ever remind you of someone?”

…huh. Wanda wasn’t expecting that “…like who?”

“I dunno, but it feels like we had a godchild kinda like Timmy before.” Cosmo mused. “A kid whose parents didn’t love and care for him and left him with a really mean babysitter.”

“Hmm…” Wanda tapped her chin, entertaining the thought “…something about that does sound familiar but…” her forehead wrinkled when her memories drew a blank. “I can’t put my wand on it.”

“That’s weird; you remember more of our godkids than I do.” Cosmo admitted.

“Could be mom brain already…” Wanda surmised. “Then again, we’ve had a lot of godchildren over the years. Not many stand out, especially in a good way.”

“None like Timmy, right?”

“Yeah…”

Now with their godson in the forefront of her thoughts, Wanda tussled with a worry that she’d pondered over in secret. “Considering we’re still Timmy’s godparents after whatever this is…” she turned her head to face her husband “…are you worried if Timmy will feel like we don’t love him?”

Cosmo lifted his chin to meet his wife’s pensive gaze. “Why do you ask?”

“Babies need a lot of care and attention.” Wanda’s thumb brushed her baby bump without active thought. “I’m just worried Timmy might feel left out when the baby gets here.”

“But we love him and the baby equally.”

“I know. It’s just...” Wanda lowered her gaze to their unborn child “…considering his past and how he’s been acting lately, I’m just…concerned.”

“Yeah…” Thinking of their godson’s darker moods, Cosmo shared in Wanda’s worry “…but we’d never pretend one child exists over the other.”

“What chu two lovebirds over here chattin’ about?”

The fairy couple turned their attention to the fairy with the receding hairline as he took a casual seat on their bed, facing them with legs crossed and palms flat to the quilt.

“Just wondering how things will change with a godson and a child of our own.” Wanda entertained, cradling her stomach.

“Ahh.” Irving hoped he wasn’t coming across as intrusive; he just wanted to make conversation with someone other than the fairies that he’d been in close proximity with for days on end “…you guys excited for your little one?”

“…yeah?” Cosmo gave an uncertain grin. “More nervous than anything.”

“Eh…” Irving gave an earnest smirk. “I think you two’ll make great parents. I can jus’ tell.”

“Really?” Wanda gave a smile of appreciation. “Thank you, Irving.”

“Oh, almost forgot…” Irving dug into his other pocket for the peppermint to extend to Wanda, something that he had planned on giving her if they had ever brought Timmy back to Fairy Fort. “I read somewhere that peppermint helps with stuff like morning sickness. Figured I’d give it to you for when you’d need it, at least for a little relief.”

Skepticism shifted her stare between his dark-teal gaze and the unwrapped mint in his hand, considering the cannabis-infused candy left sitting on Irving’s bed. Cosmo was equally as wary, though Irving didn’t strike him as the type to purposefully endanger his wife or his child.

In sensing this, Irving had to chuckle “…it’s just a mint, I promise.”

Cosmo watched as Wanda hesitated before the fear of being rude accepted the offer, tucking it into her pocket for later. “Thank you.”

“No probs.”

“Hey, um…” Cosmo looked back to Irving, uncertain if his burning curiosity would be accepted “…can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Irving grinned. “I’m an open book.”

“…have you dealt with other godkids like Dwight?”

“Mmmm…” Irving’s eyes diverted, sorting through memories of all the godchildren in his thousands of years of experience before he returned their eye contact. “Nope. Wighty’s the first one.”

“I can only imagine what that’s like…” Wanda sympathized. “Cosmo and I have never had that type of case.”

Irving’s grin wilted. “Well, it ain’t exactly been a day at the park...”

“Are you ever scared when he has a seizure?” Wanda queried.

“I’m absolutely terrified.” Irving wasn’t afraid to admit.

“What’s the scariest thing?” Cosmo questioned.

“The fact that seizures are like a mixed bag.” Irving described. “It could be quick and painless, or a full blown grand mal that makes ya think your kid’s gonna die…”

Cosmo and Wanda exchanged troubled glances, and Irving’s eyes dropped as the corners of his lips pulled down.

“…but I got used to that terror.” he sighed. “The most I can do is try my best to help Dwight through it when I can.”

Nyekundu observed the male fairy on the top bunk catty-corner from her. Hunched over the edge of his bed with blue-violets downcast and arms folded across his lap. He’d been shut off in his own shell ever since he’d come to, trapped in his own head. It wasn’t hard to assume that his mind was spinning in circles over Remy, just as hers had been over Hazel.

She was hoping to pick his brain about something that had been left unsettled in her spirit; perhaps now was as good a time as any.

“Babe?” she faced her girlfriend, scooting off the bed. “I’ll be right back.”

Swizzle raised her brooding brow. “Where’re you going?”

“To talk to Juandissimo.”

“Oh...” Swizzle pressed her lips, frowning slightly with her chin flat on crossed arms. “I’ll be here, I guess…”

Knowing it wasn’t good for Swizzle to stay in her sullen headspace, Nyekundu gestured to the two females lounging in the bed below Juandissimo’s bunk. “Why don’t you go and talk with Rose and Susie?”

Swizzle scoffed “…why would I do that?”

“You heard Susie, we’re all stuck in here.” Nyekundu suggested, floating further away. “Might as well socialize.”

Swizzle grumbled under her breath, looking away towards the setting sun as Nyekundu flew over to the reserved fairy. Careful in her approach as she waved a hand in Juandissimo’s line of sight to stir his distracted attention.

“…hey.” she smiled meekly. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No...” he acknowledged. The disturbance was welcomed; it’s never good when he thinks too much. “¿Qué pasa?”

Nyekundu twiddled with her hooped earring “…may I talk to you?”

Juandissimo shrugged. “Sure.”

The red fairy lowered herself onto the mattress next to him, and for a moment, she averted her gaze to her fiddling fingers in search for the best way to start. “I wanted to ask…” she gained the nerve to meet his stare “…did Remy tell Hazel not to trust Fenwick…because Fenwick touched him?”

…guess there’s no starting off easy.

Juandissimo gritted his jaw. Honesty was the best policy, but he disliked the perturbed pit in his stomach when she opened that can of worms “…si.”

“…and that’s why the Buxaplentys fired him?”

“Si.”

That was all it took to confirm her dreadful suspicions. “…dammit…” Nyekundu breathed, shielding her grimace into her palms.

Noticing this, Juandissimo furrowed “…did something happen to Hazel?”

Nyekundu removed her hands after a respire of remorse, shoulders slumped in the defeat that stared to the ground “…Hazel had caught Fenwick touching her brother…and she was going to tell their parents…” trouble bunched her brow “…but Fenwick coerced her brother into violating her to keep her quiet…”

Juandissimo’s eyes broadened before they creased in sour disgust “…puta madre…” he gritted his fist. Fenwick had to be the most appalling sack of sh*t in existence.

“…I was injected with something that knocked me out before I could even try to keep her safe…” Remorse crashed down all over again, glossing her grimace “…I-I didn’t protect her, and it’s all my fault…”

“You were blindsided.” Juandissimo affirmed. “That is not your fault.”

“No, it is…” Nyekundu lamented, crestfallen. “…I couldn’t stop her from getting hurt…”

Seeing Nyekundu beat herself up so much, Juandissimo couldn’t help but feel partially to blame. “…lo siento.”

She lifted disheartened eyes to him. “Why are you sorry?”

“…we could have given you more of a warning.”

“Oh, no, please don’t think that…” Nyekundu blinked back her tears, emphasizing with a hand to his knee and eyes seeping with sincerity “…I place no blame on you. Especially not Remy.” She removed her hand to hold against her chest. “I just don’t understand why the Buxaplentys let that zimwi walk as a free man.”

Juandissimo thinned his lips. “Because his parents dumped Remy on Fenwick right after his birth and didn’t care what happened to him under Fenwick’s care.”

Nyekundu puckered her brow. “You mean they set their child up to be groomed?”

“Basically.” Juandissimo deduced. “And Remy had been so deprived of love…he had once thought that being touched in that way was love.”

Sorrow shook in her head. “That poor boy…”

He grimaced at the thought of his godchild, ached with his own pains of guilt. “I worry that I have not done Remy any good…”

“…why do you say that?”

Melancholy darkened his tone. “I have yet to see him smile…”

Nyekundu frowned. Bringing happiness to miserable children is the main purpose of a godparent. To see a godchild smile despite the pain of their despair is a godparents’ biggest payout. Nonetheless, when a godparent does all they can just to see little to no difference as if they had done nothing at all, not only can it be a red flag to Jorgen and the Council, but it can leave a gaping wound in a fairy’s spirit.

“…Hazel had just turned eight when I was assigned to her.” Nyekundu spoke from an empathic place. “She had not smiled a day in her life, even when she was a baby. It took months being with her before Hazel knew what it was even like to feel true joy…”

Blue-violets studied her.

“Believe it or not, the day that Hazel and I first met you and Remy was the first time she had smile at all that day…” Hazel’s bright, bubbly beam disappeared as soon as it flashed in Nyekundu’s mind, curving a withered grin “…I miss that smile...”

Blue-violets then studied the floor.

“Remy is older, so his pain may be deeper rooted.” Nyekundu assumed. “Perhaps it’ll take more time.”

Juandissimo faintly shook his head “…but he has gotten worse. Going as far as to try and take his own life…”

“Goodness…” Wow, that hit close to home “…when?”

“Not that long ago.” he pressed a shamefaced cheek to his palm. “The signs were all there, and yet…if I had not found him underwater in time…”

Without knowing too much about Juandissimo’s situation, Nyekundu could relate. The warning signs are not always so obvious, and even when they are, some learn to deflect with a different mask.

“For what it is worth…” Nyekundu picked at her fingernails. “I think…a damaged sole does not come solely from hurt. A damaged soul had time to fester in that hurt, left to deal with it all alone.”

Can’t deny that.

“In the eyes of a child, it is almost foreign to them when they no longer have to be alone with that hurt.” she tilted her gaze towards him. “It always seems to get worse before it gets better…but if we ever give up on them, it is easier for them to give up on themselves.”

That last sentence led Juandissimo to lift his gaze to hers.

“It does get better…” Nyekundu spoke softly as she looked away “…it has to.”

With her curls against the pillow in the bed below, Susie’s attention had been divided between waiting for the gummy to take affect and the conversation above her. She couldn’t help how Nyekundu’s godchild, in a way, reminded her of Chloe. It had taken so long to see a genuine smile from Chloe, so long that some magical castle brought it out in a shorter time than granting wishes ever did. Then, Chloe’s mother destroyed her. Broke her spirit to rumble and ash. Diminishing the chances of ever seeing that smile again…

A tap on her shoulder turned her to see her friend gesture with her eyebrows. Confused to what the heck Rose was alluding to before Susie shifted to look in the direction of Rose’s glance at the male fairy across from them with icy-blue orbs lost in thought.

“What do you think about him?” Rose’s inquiry led Susie to arch her brow back at her.

“I’ve known him for all of three seconds.”

“…think you should change that?”

Susie paused “…deadass?”

Rose raised crafty brows. “Possibly.”

Susie sat herself up further “…so you really don’t care that I couldn’t make it work with your best friend since literal childhood?”

“Of course, not. Thornton’s long since moved on and he seems happy.” Rose remarked. “And I happen to think you deserve to be happy, too.”

“…you seriously tryna play matchmaker when Chloe and Tootie are who knows where?” Susie accused.

“I know, I’m sorry…” Rose repented. “I just wanted a distraction from this mess.”

“I hear ya.” Susie understood. “Shoulda taken a gummy.”

Rose snorted, half-joking “I’d rather just get drunk.”

“…ain’t that the truth.”

The female fairies turned to the dark-blue fairy approaching them to sit on the edge of their bed. Swizzle had come to realize that brooding was of no service to her or anyone. It wasn’t going to change their situation, and it wasn’t going to bring her godchild back to her.

“If I wanted to escape, I’d rather do it with a hardy glass of liquid ‘f*ck it all.’” she lightly added, although the half eyeroll that followed from Rose felt slightly offensive. Maybe even targeted.

“…what’s your deal?”

Now guarded, Rose crossed her arms. “I just think that someone who lets their godchild take a knife to the neck probably shouldn’t talk about drinking.”

Oh, it’s like that? Susie thought to herself as she gave Rose a curious glance. Where the heck did that even come from?

Slighted, Swizzle’s eyes flashed. “You act like I took the knife and stabbed her myself!”

Rose’s leeriness remained. “I don’t see a difference.”

“Molly wished for me to not intervene!”

“So has Tootie, but I could never just sit there and let that poor girl get beaten to death.”

Dark-blue sharpened in her snarl. “So you think it’s my fault for following Da Rules

“Well, we’d never go so far as to let our godchildren get stabbed...” Susie mumbled with closed teeth through the side of her mouth, pretending to scratch the tip of her nose “…jus’ sayin’.”

Swizzle’s mouth twisted wryly, crimpling the fury that could no longer be suppressed as she shot from the bed. Murderous in her glare. “You got some f*ckin’ nerve!”

Nyekundu and Juandissimo fixed eyes upon the unfolding scene that even took Alondro out of his head. Irving’s once informal posture straightened as Cosmo secured his arms around his wife, and Wanda clutched her stomach that began to ache with tension.

“Aye, you need ta calm down.” Susie defended herself and her friend.

Having none of it, Swizzle flared her nostrils. “And you need ta shut tha f*ck up!”

“Babe, stop!” Nyekundu rushed to her girlfriend, trying to abate her temper. “There’s no need for this!”

“Nah, f*ck that!” Swizzle tore away. Playing nice went out the window. “Those bitches think they got any right to judge me!”

“We care too much about our godkids to ever put their lives in danger.” Rose retorted, keeping her tone leveled. “Unlike some people.”

Alondro faintly flinched from the twinge of that statement.

Pushed over the edge of impatience, Swizzle charged a fist ready to strike. Aiming for Rose’s stupid face before a catching grip stopped her punch from landing. Her dark-blue glower snapped to the stern of blue-violets scrunching from the effort it took to restrain her thirst for vengeance.

“Let my f*cking hand go, or I’ll deck you too!” she growled.

“You will do no such thing.” Juandissimo warned, the only barrier between Swizzle’s wrath and his friends’ defenselessness.

“Or what, punk!?” Swizzle taunted. “You gonna swing atta girl?!”

“Swizzle!” Nyekundu yanked Swizzle away as Juandissimo released his grip, forcing Swizzle to face her when she squeezed both her shoulders. “Just let it go!”

A clenched grunt caused the fairies to snap to the pink fairy clutching the pinches piercing the insides of her stomach. Wanda gritted her teeth as Cosmo and Irving attempted to aid with whatever they could to comfort her.

Worried that the altercation was putting stress on Wanda, Nyekundu pulled Swizzle by her arm. “C’mon…come talk with me…” she softened her plea as Swizzle seethed directly at Juandissimo. Firm in his glare as his arms kept Rose and Susie behind him.

Juandissimo watched Nyekundu’s struggle against Swizzle’s stubbornness as she dragged her away. Waiting for them to be at a far enough distance before his aggravation addressed his two friends still on their bed “…the hell was that about!?”

“Look, I didn’t mean to cause an uproar.” Rose took accountability in that regard. “But didn’t you break Da Rules and f*ck up that pedo because you would never leave Remy in danger?”

As Wanda’s agony groaned in his arms, Cosmo noticed Irving fold his lips. Gutted with the shame of doing little to protect Dwight as that kid slammed his head into the ground. Susie also noticed Alondro’s fist trembling the more they tightened as his brow creased. Haunted by his inability to prevent Gary from a punch to the face, his lifeless form bleeding from a slacked jaw.

Hardened in his gaze, Juandissimo grimaced “…you could say that.”

“Then am I wrong for pointing out that being a godparent is sometimes more than just granting wishes?”

“No…” Susie inserted herself, sensing Juandissimo’s averseness to whatever point Rose was trying to make “…but girl, this is Swizzle we talkin’ about.”

Rose shot a glare to her friend. “I just said I wasn’t trying to start anything!”

“Yeah, but now we got beef on day one!”

“And that’s all on me?!”

“Can you guys not?” Cosmo griped over his wife’s groaning. “Pregnant wife in pain over here!”

Alondro tore from his bed, flying past Juandissimo who then locked his eyes on his flee. Everyone watched Alondro grab at the latch and forced the glass door apart, parting it enough for one fairy to exit before he slammed it back.

“…that’s not good.” Irving thought aloud, catching Susie’s attention.

“What’s not good?”

“Him chargin’ out the room like that...” Irving murmured, standing from the bed. When you get to know someone whose fuse was not that short, it can be alarming when that fuse is finally ignited. “I’ll go talk to ‘em-”

“No, wait.” Susie rose, floating forward. Inclined to speak to Alondro herself “…I’ll do it.”

“You sure?” Rose wasn’t going to stop Susie from volunteering, but she wasn’t sure what Susie hoped to accomplish in doing so.

“I wanna at least try.” Susie excused. More like something inside of her had to try.

Hands on his hips, Alondro strained in leveling his breathing. Overlooking the burning sunset to the east through the dome of glass enclosing him to never go beyond the terrace. He didn’t mean to cause anyone alarm, and he truly hoped he didn’t. The room started to feel suffocating to where his sanity needed air.

Now would be a fantastic time for that gummy to do its job.

His back was turned to the bottom of the glass door scraping the metal frame, pausing for a few seconds before the scraping returned and then stopped abruptly. He swallowed hard, trying to push down the swell of his shame. Someone had come out after him, the very opposite of what he wanted.

“Hey…”

The voice of an angel compelled him to look over his shoulder, caught in the captivating rings of indigo softened in her features. She floated towards him with such caution, as if the fear she would upset him further prevented her from a more assertive approach.

“…are you okay?” Susie slightly faltered under the seriousness of his icy-blue stare. Her ribs tickled from the flutter in her heart before he averted his eyes from her. “I’m sorry if we said anything that made you upset.”

Pressing his lips, Alondro lowered a furrowed brow to his upturned palms. “…I should have protected him when he needed me most…and I failed…”

Susie inched forward “…what do you mean?”

Alondro slowly curled his fingers into weak fists “…I did not stop that kid from breaking Gary’s jaw…”

Her listening ear floated closer.

“…all of the times that Gary had been in harm’s way, I didn't protect him…I failed him.”

So that was it. Alondro wasn’t angry at her, he wasn’t angry at Rose or Swizzle…he was angry at himself.

“…I feel the same about Chloe.”

Alondro’s pained expression lifted towards her now hovering to his right, unblind to the sadness behind her lowered gaze.

“Her mom’s the most vicious woman I’d ever seen.” Susie began, gently rubbing the back of her crossed arms. “All she’s ever done was tear Chloe down, time and time again. She even mocked her panic attack and yelled that her anxiety wasn’t real, straight in her face…” her frown deepened “…and yet all I could do was stand there because Chloe couldn’t make a wish in time…”

He stared at her silently until his stare sharpened, thinning his lips “…that is not the same.”

Susie shot him a slighted glance. “I couldn’t protect Chloe from getting hurt, just like you couldn’t protect Gary-”

“Then tell me. How many times has your godchild tried to take her own life.” Alondro loomed with his jutting stare. Her reflexes backed away, yet he penetrated her regard simply with lasered eyes. “Because I have lost count with mine!”

Susie froze under his cold glare.

“Gary has attempted to the point where Jorgen had once threatened to toss my license in the shredder because of it!” Inner guilt stung through his grievance. “But no matter what I do, no matter how many wishes I grant, no matter how much I love him, the hatred for himself shoves him back into that state of mind!”

She lowered the pain across her frown, and his frustration heightened in his venting.

“But I guess it is the same, because we have been exiled from them! Our job is to make miserable children happy, and we have failed them!" the muscles in his jaw flicked angrily. "I would not be surprised if the Council has stripped us of our godchildren because they think we no longer deserve to call ourselves godparents!”

His cutting words tortured her heart, diverting her cringe away. Hugging herself to keep her heart from bleeding out.

Her visible pain shuddered in his deep breath, realizing what he’d done. “Lo siento…I-I did not mean to yell.”

“Don’t be…” Susie dismissed, though her voice dropped distantly. How was it possible for someone she barely knew to break her guard? To render her weak and vulnerable?

Remorse dropped his grimace. Dammit, he’d hurt her feelings. This is exactly why he had to get out of there, why he needed to be left alone. Some things are best left unsaid…

“…you’re right.”

He looked up.

“…Chloe has been so closed off…I haven’t been able to reach her.” her remorse spoke quietly. If she spoke any louder, her voice would crack. “My job is to make her happy…but she’s just been getting worse and worse…”

Icy-blue eyes observed her somber features.

“Then she had this panic attack. The first one in weeks…the worst I’d seen. She was so frazzled that…she yelled at me…” she could feel her eyes water “…she’d never yelled at me like that before…”

“…I can imagine how terrible that must have made you feel.” Alondro softened his voice, expressing his empathy. When she spoke next, he could barely hear her words whispered in her despair.

“I tried not to show it…but I felt so useless…” a single tear traced a path down her cheek “…I failed her…”

Her sadness, such sadness, choked at his heart. Drawing him nearer by an invisible puppet string. His overwhelming yearn to make amends reached out with tender hands, holding by her arms which led teary eyes to meet his.

When present fused with past, her eyes bulged. Alondro’s troubled icy-blue fused with the ghost of the icy-blue that once warmed her from the inside out. The ghost of the one who had promised to never leave, the ghost of the one she could not save from death.

The ghost of her always, her forever…

…Alewandro Magnifico.

She tore her brimming tears away from Alondro, arms gripped as a shield around herself. More guilt crushed down, feeling as if he’d done something wrong.

“…I did not mean…I mean…” he stammered as she backed away. “I-I was just…”

The flight in her wings whirled away from him towards the glass door, leaving him with unanswered questions.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Warm candlelit wall scones, stained windows aglow with the sheen of crescent moon among the ombre sky of bright reds and dark blues, and a grand chandelier of turquoise, blue, purple, and pink crystals glistened colors of natural light into the marble tile floors and white stone walls of the common room. All the godchildren, clustered in groups of four each, faced each other along the gold leather of the sectional couch within the sunken platform centered below the chandelier. Novice godchildren to the left, veteran godchildren to the right. Fraught with boredom yet ambivalent on how to spruce the uneventful atmosphere.

Timmy sat to Tootie’s left who had busied herself in her notebook, somewhat surprised that he had any attention span left to observe her current black-ink sketch of a crown and starlike wand. Sitting through a classroom lecture always felt like mental torture, and yet, he could watch Tootie’s hands seamlessly guide a pen or whatever tool utilized to her artistic will for hours. He didn’t understand why this was so, nor did it seem to bother him enough to do so. Tootie herself didn’t seem to mind an audience. At least, as long as it was him.

To Tootie’s right, Remy had his back pressed to the cushion with arms coolly crossed. Dull eyes towards Chloe next to him who had been hunched over her stiff lap in her seat, scratching at the sides of her forehead as if she could possibly peel off the lines of worry. She’d been doing that for who knows how long, and he would have minded his business and let her keep doing so had it not grown increasingly peculiar enough to steadily grate at his curiosity.

“…why are you doing that?” his question seemed to jolt a haunted look when she snapped her gaze to him.

“I’m sorry...” she forced her fingers to practice restraint, lowering them to her lap to which they then began to wring together. “I-I’m just worried…”

“…about?”

“My dad.” Chloe’s inner guilt admitted. “H-He probably thinks I’m missing by now if he hasn’t already…” she hung her head, struggling with eye contact. “H-He must be so stressed out, more than he has been. And it’s all my fault…”

Meanwhile, the Buxaplentys were probably living it up in their private jet without a care in the world. They wouldn’t bother looking for him even if they knew he was missing, and because that wasn’t far from reality, Remy kept his assumptions to himself.

With Dwight’s head slumped on the right shoulder of his leather jacket, Gary held his arms folded loosely to his torso with one leg crossed. Sitting still as to not disturb his best friend who had drifted off some time ago. With buzzing thoughts consuming his mind, he couldn’t help the gaze that lingered upon the young billionaire. Only just meeting him today, he saw something in Remy that he wasn’t sure if Timmy and the others could see, or had even noticed. Behind those rings of cool-mint frosted layers of ice, coming off as a type of cold that seemed more so emotionally stunted rather than completely heartless. Almost as if that iciness was a means of survival, something Gary knew all too well.

Playing it cool was his attempt to combat the roiling chaos within. By acting and portraying himself to be more calm and collected than he felt inside, it would sometimes trick his mind into believing that he was normal. Though, maybe that actually made him crazier than he knew he was. He would never be normal no matter how much he pretended to be.

Seated to Gary’s left, Molly’s fingers absently played with the curls placid against her left thigh. Keeping her fingers delicate as Hazel slept, knees drawn and melanated cheeks stained with dried tears. Somehow, she’d become the first person that Hazel would call upon whenever her broken shell wanted a hug or any form of comfort. It was hella weird as someone who hated close physical contact, yet she never seemed to mind with Hazel. Either Hazel was growing on her, or she was getting soft.

“How would it be your fault?” Timmy inserted himself into the first conversation in what felt like hours. “It’s not like you chose to come here.”

“But my dad is already going through so much because of me…” Chloe lamented.

“How?” Gary casually inquired, keeping his voice soft to where Dwight stirred but didn’t wake. “I mean, like…what’d you do? If you don’t mind me askin’…”

Chloe deepened her frown, still wringing her fingers. “…I-I’d rather not say.”

“Hmm.” Gary leaned his back of his gelled hair against the cushion. “…fair.”

“Can’t be that bad…” Molly gave her two cents. “You don’t look like a kid who causes much trouble.”

“…easy for you to say.” Chloe raised her frown from the ground, feeling a bit judged. “You don’t know me.”

“And you don’t know me.” Molly countered. “Yet I bet you took one look at me and automatically labeled me a delinquent.”

“Well your delinquent attitude certainly doesn’t prove otherwise.” Remy defended sourly, and Molly directed a scrunched nose towards him.

“You’re lucky Hazel doesn’t see what I see.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that? A ‘pretentious jerk,’ as you call it?” Remy challenged. “Yet here you are. Casting judgement. Like a, quote unquote, ‘pretentious jerk.’”

“Thin ice, Buxaplenty.” Molly’s stubborn brow warned, yet Remy’s stern jaw showed no inferiority.

“Guys, can you not start this again?” Timmy groaned as Tootie paused in her sketch, wincing. Sensing the tension brewing once more.

“Tell that to Richie Rich over there!” Molly used the hand that was once playing with Hazel’s curls to point a finger at Remy who grimaced in response, accidentally rousing Hazel’s eyes to blink drowsily.

“Uh, you started this!” Remy disputed with his own pointing finger to Molly’s scowl. “All you had to do was keep your useless mouth shut!”

“f*ck you!”

“Yo, cut it out!” Gary’s annoyance raised his voice, jolting Dwight from his snooze in a low snort.

“Not my fault he’s a dick!” Molly contested as Hazel shifted herself upright, discomfort crossing her face.

“Not my fault she’s the biggest hypocrite I’ve ever met!” Remy insulted as Chloe rubbed the back of crossed arms, her muscles stiffening to the point of quivering.

“Do I hafta put you two in timeout like toddlers?!” Gary threatened as Dwight lifted his glasses to scrub sleepiness from his eyes.

Remy lasered his glare at Gary. “I’m not the issue here!”

“But you’re part of the problem!” Timmy inserted, and Remy shot him a venomous look as if he’d been betrayed. “And nobody here wants to deal with you two fighting over nothing!”

“You know what?!” Remy shot to his feet, exercising the common sense to be the bigger person and just walk away. “Screw this…”

“Remy!” Chloe’s call for him fell on deaf ears as the young billionaire charged up the two small steps to ground level. Footsteps thundering a subtle echo in the room’s acoustics as he passed the double doors lined in green and teal leaves, headed towards the rightwing corridor.

“What the f*ck ever…” Molly stormed from the couch much to Hazel’s frowning displeasure. Stomping up those same small steps to where furious strides traveled to the corridor on the left, soon disappearing down the hall.

“Welp…never mind.” Gary gravely exhaled, he and the remaining godchildren watching the quarrelling kids storm off in their separate ways. “They put themselves in timeout…”

“I-I’ll go talk to him…” Chloe stood, feeling obligated to offer. If one of the three who knew Remy best were to attempt to talk Remy down, might as well be her. Tootie hardly spoke, and Timmy was…well…y’know. Timmy.

“I’ll come with…” Gary groaned as he too rose from his seat. He’d had enough talkdowns with Molly to know that Molly cools off when she wants to, not because you tell her she should.

“Why? Timmy co*cked a baffled brow. “Remy’s not your friend.”

“And yet you’re not moving.” Gary coolly disputed, passing his cousin’s snubbed huff with little care to acknowledge.

Chloe took a tiny step back as Gary traveled to the small steps, uncertain if she was appreciative of his help or if she was wrong to doubt. However, she decided that it was unproductive to question and followed after Gary as her sandals flapped against the tile towards the rightwing corridor.

Dwight glanced over at Hazel climbing off the couch. Watching her hurried feet ascend up the small steps and race towards the leftwing as he presumed that Hazel was in pursuit of Molly. Not too out of the ordinary. Molly’s ill temper would pop a gasket, and Hazel would intervene and try to talk her back down to a level head.

He wondered what good it would do for him to follow in Hazel’s footsteps; aside from Gary, Molly was a godchild that he would consider himself somewhat close to. They used to attend Snerd Elementary together where they’d first met as godchildren. What kind of friend would he be if he didn’t try?

“…ummmm…” Awkwardness slowly turned to the staring girl and the sulking boy across from him, pointing in the direction where Hazel had run off to. “I’m gonna…go.”

Fidgeting with his bowl cut, Dwight cleared his throat before he shuffled off in a light scamper.

Once she found herself alone with the only boy she’d ever been fond of, Tootie felt her skin tingle from the flutters in her heart. The tips of her fingers began to chill from the death grip on her black pen, cowering when warmth spread through her cheeks. When she conjured the courage to tilt her gaze in his direction, she noted the hunched shoulders and arms crossed against his chest, blue orbs glaring to the ground with thin lips.

Without knowing for certain, she assumed that Gary’s comment must have ticked Timmy off. Should she do something to help? What could she do?

If tensions weren’t already high, Timmy would’ve given Gary a piece of his mind. The heck did he get off saying that crap!? Chloe can go after Remy all she wants, but if Remy was like him in the slightest, he likely wanted to be left alone, especially when really upset. Something Gary obviously wouldn’t know because he’d just met the kid!

When Timmy felt a timid tug on his short sleeve, he snapped his gaze to feel something press the side of his thigh, seeing a page of notebook paper relatively blank except for the words are you okay written in black ink. Brow slit in slight confusion, he raised his eyes to the bashful blinks of purple orbs that seemed to anticipate a response, and as he stared at her, he noticed when she held out her pen as if expecting him to use it. Why would she write what she could’ve just said out loud? Or did she sense that he had no mood to use his words and yet still extended a listening ear in her own way?

Biting at her bait, Timmy accepted the pen and shifted the notebook to where his right hand could write I will be. Are you?

When he held the pen to her, she hesitated to take it back. She didn’t intend for any focus to be on her, but the fact that Timmy indulged her at all was enough for her to eventually use her pen to write I wish no one would fight.

Timmy’s stomach clenched, remembering the grave mistake of beating Francis within an inch of his life in the cafeteria, in front of Tootie, before his wish rewrote time’s reality. He remembered how scared she looked, remembered the terror in her tiny voice. Reading the words I wish no one would fight sparked the flash of events that had solely become his memories, haunting him like a bad dream.

Without going into vivid details, she had opened up to him in the past as to why she and Vicky had missed school to attend court. Dad was a giant crapsicle, yet Timmy couldn’t recall a time where Dad had laid a hand on him. Dad (and Mom) punished him with words, not with fists. In fact, Vicky pounded on him way more than his parents gave him a spanking, if at all. Still, he couldn’t imagine growing up in an environment like that, 24/7. In a way, it made sense to why she seemed so uneasy just from loud yelling.

Tootie would have no memory of witnessing his act of venging violence, but that lesson had taught Timmy to never show that side of him around her. Giving into that level of violent rage would make him feel like the worst person in the world. And it would only solidify his family constantly comparing him to the literal worst person ever…

Holding out his hand for her to return the pen to him, Timmy let his exasperation huff through his lips as he wrote Me too.

“Why are you so mean to Remy?!” Hazel probed the gothic girl pacing back and forth along the width of the white stone corridor aglow with candle sconces. While Dwight was to her right waiting for the right chance to chime in, Hazel had taken the reigns in trying to talk some sense into the ill-tempered godchild.

“And why are you defending him!?” Molly probed back, continuing to pace. Fearing that if she took the second to stand still, that second would ignite an aggressive explosion that would not be fair to Hazel.

“Remy has never been mean to me!” Hazel defended. “He was always the only person at the country club who was nice!”

“Duh, cuz you have a fairy!” Molly scoffed. “Bet he’d sung a different tune if you didn’t!”

“I don’t believe that!” Hazel huffed.

“Well, you should!” Molly faced the little girl, balling her knuckles white. “Remember that racist that called you a negro and assumed you were stealing?! He would’ve done the same exact thing had you not been a godchild!”

Hazel gawked at the harsh memory, the one of many, many harsh memories “…you don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know him like you think you do!”

“Well…to be fair…” Dwight took a small step forward, thinking now could be a good time to insert himself when he sensed the crack in Hazel’s resolve. “I don’t know Remy either, but…he doesn’t strike me as someone who’d pick a fight unprovoked.”

Breaths growling in her throat, Molly resumed her pacing. Nails digging so far into her palms that she could have broken skin. “Oh, so now you’re defending him!”

“No? But…” Dwight kept his voice calm. “I do think you’re a little quick to judge him.”

“Oh yeah?” Molly broke from her pacing in a furious loom towards Dwight, stopping inches from his feet. “And what rich asshole have you not met?!”

Dwight’s furrowed brow blinked, drawing a blank “…um-”

“Exactly!”

Molly didn’t give Dwight a chance to even process her reasoning for a rebuttal, spinning away as she bit back screams of frustration. The deepness of her grimace dimpled in Hazel’s chin, growing more rattled. Molly’s fuse still flickered, and they weren’t making any progress.

. . . . . .

“You shouldn’t stoop to her level.” Chloe tried. Crouched on her knees to the left of Remy planted against the wall, clawing at the sides of his hair with trembling fingers subtle in their irritated tremble.

“And just let her talk any kind of way just by doing literally nothing to her?!” Frustration flared in Remy’s nostrils, mint-green narrowed. “I think not!”

“But you’re better than that.”

“I will not be some pushover!”

“I get it; Molly’s rough around the edges.” Gary sympathized, kneeled on one knee to Remy’s right.

“Understatement of the freaking century!” Remy spat.

“But when you get to know her and she gets to know you, she’s cool.” Gary reasoned. “New people just ain’t her strong suit.”

“People period isn’t her strong suit!” Remy snapped.

…fair. Gary thought to himself before he spoke aloud “Not to excuse her behavior, but she’s been through a lot.”

“Hello?! Why do you think every kid here has fairy godparents!?” Remy barked.

“Remy’s right.” Chloe interjected, Remy scrubbing at the throb brewing in his temples. “That’s no excuse for hostility.”

“I just said I’m not excusing her behavior.” Gary corrected. “I’m just giving a different perspective.”

Tugging at a wad of platinum blonde strands, Chloe bit her lip. Holding her tongue from the insult of how garbage that perspective was. Being rude would do nothing but hurt the situation.

“Look…” Gary shifted in his kneel, now directly in front of the fuming blonde. “I know Molly’s a very…very bitter pill to swallow. But if you fight fire with fire, what do you get?”

Mint-green scowled into blue. “So I’m just supposed to just grin and bear her crap?!”

“No? Just…” Gary kept his voice calm. “…prove her wrong.”

In a quizzical pause, Remy’s creased brow squinted in his eyes “…prove her wrong?”

“Yeah.” Gary grasped at positive straws. “She’s convinced that you’re this terrible person, right? Show her you’re not.”

“…and just how am I supposed to do that?”

. . . . . .

“You guys already have a common interest; fairy godparents!” Dwight grasped at positive straws. “That’s already step one!”

“Which I still don’t get why he even deserves one!” Molly groused, each pacing stride as restless as the anger surging through her veins.

“…should that matter?”

“Hell yeah, it should! He has the magic of money! The f*ck he needs a godparent to get him what he wants when he can just buy it!?”

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

“It doesn’t…” Hazel jutted her bottom lip, rubbing the back of her sweater’s sleeves. “I would know.”

Realization paused Molly’s angered strides, finding her glare waning to the lingered gloom in those big brown eyes. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that a kid like Hazel came from an affluent family. Maybe because she was adopted into wealth instead of that wealth coursing through her blood. Or maybe because her white family was sticklers for ostracizing the token black kid at every given chance.

If any rich kid deserved a godparent, Hazel certainly fit that bill. Not some blonde-haired, green-eyed, walking piggybank of privilege!

“Just think about it.” Dwight tried. “If he’s rich and still has a godparent, wouldn’t that make you think that there’s something below the surface?”

Squeezing her fists at her sides, Molly diverted her gaze, strained in her features.

“Point is, we all have some kind of pain in our lives.” Dwight maintained his distance, noting the slit brow and gritted jaw that would not be wise stepping any closer to. “Remy’s pain is just different than yours,” he motioned to himself “different from mine,” his palm reached to the little girl’s bunched shoulder “even different from Hazel’s.”

Brown orbs glistened of unshed tears, slowly subsiding maddened rage with deep breaths.

Taking this as a sense that she was calmer, Dwight inched forward. “Would you rather be around kids who don’t know what true pain is? Who can’t even comprehend it?”

Yale-blue sharpened in a narrowed gaze, her anger toned down in her grumble. “He can never understand my pain…”

“But he likely knows what it can feel like.”

The corners of her mouth pinched.

“And that has to be why he’s here, why any of us are here.” Dwight reasoned, Hazel hugging herself behind him. “Because that pain became too great, even with magic…”

. . . . . .

“How could she ever understand me?” Remy griped, his voice that still dripped with agitation now less spiteful than previous. Lowered in his frustrated gaze with one hand clutching his head, absently scrunching at the leg of his black pants with the other. “She’ll never know what it’s like to be me.”

“Just like you’ll never know what it’s like to be her. And that’s okay.” Gary leveled, hoping things were finally on the incline. “But at least you can understand that your pain, and her pain, can’t be measured as worse or better than the other or anyone else’s.”

Fully seated to Remy’s left with her arms on her knees, Chloe mentally chided herself. She knew Remy longer, yet Gary had done most of the talking. Was she so pathetic that she couldn’t talk her own friend down? God, she was so useless. Such a failure…

Remy’s shoulders drooped defeatedly. “Then why is she so adamant that I don’t deserve my fairy…”

Gary exhaled, dropping his chin “…because she doesn’t feel like she deserves hers.”

Both Remy and Chloe fixed their gaze to the eldest godchild.

“And honestly…” Gary furrowed with shame “…I dunno if I deserve mine.”

Chloe’s brow knitted in the middle, her voice dull and distant “…I don’t deserve mine, either…” she wiped a threatening tear with the back of her wrist.

“And that’s another thing we all have in common.” Gary commented, his voice weary. “We think our godparents are too good to us…”

“…i-is that why the Fairy Council brought us here?” there was a subtle tremor in Chloe’s voice, blue eyes rimmed with tears. “…they don’t think…we deserve our godparents?”

“Then they would’ve just taken them away.” Gary surmised.

“But don’t you see?” Chloe sniveled. “They did take them away!”

The atmosphere became heavy, weighed down by mutual guilt hanging in the air. Whether they wanted to accept it or not, Chloe had a point. They’re godparents were gone, and the Council was keeping their whereabouts under lock and key. Though, if they’d truly lost their godparents, why were their memories not erased? Why were they not on Earth living the miserable lives they lived before they ever knew godparents existed?

Is that why Vicky’s so mean? Timmy continued his written conversation with Tootie. He never would’ve guessed how easy it was to talk to Tootie, even if in an unconventional way.

Kind of Tootie folded her lips. The conversation that was ‘supposed’ to primarily revolve around Timmy and his feelings somehow veered towards Tootie and more details about her family’s troubled background. She hated this touchy subject; however, he seemed less angry than earlier. In fact, he seemed quite…open with her.

Guess that makes sense Timmy shrugged. Still hate that she has to be mean to me.

Reluctant to respond, Tootie scrunched her brow. Dragging the pen in apprehensive strokes as she wrote She thinks you deserve it.

Puzzled, Timmy raised a brow. Why?

Tootie froze, hesitant to take the pen back from Timmy’s offer. Should she be honest and potentially damage the civility they have going? Or should she spare his feelings and knit a fabric of dishonesty into their friendship?

No; this whole time, Timmy had been open with her. Open about the pain he felt from his parents’ resentment, about the saving grace of Cosmo and Wanda. He was even open with how he was somewhat excited for a new godbrother or godsister because it could feel like a fresh start in being a better brother. There were still things she knew Timmy was keeping from her, just as she kept some things from him. Nevertheless, this was the most open he’d ever been with her. Especially after Sophia’s death…

…so, she should be open with him, too.

Retrieving the pen from Timmy, Tootie swallowed back her trepidation. Her writing was within Timmy’s line of view, so he could see the exact words that her handwriting spelled. With each black letter etched into white paper, his heart sank further. Splashing into a bottomless pit once her hand stopped writing, and her sentence was complete…

Because of Sophia.

He slouched against the back cushion, head hanging with a pained grimace. Making Tootie wince before she attempted to rewrite the blow to his spirit.

She thinks that anyone who hurts their own kin like our parents deserves karma, but I told her you didn’t. I told her it was an accident and that you didn’t mean to hurt Sophia like our parents meant to hurt us.

She could barely finish the word ‘us’ before she gasped as his hand swiped the pen from her grip. Flipping to a fresh page, he scribbled the words You don’t have to explain. I do deserve it. I deserve karma.

The words that slashed paper with ink too slashed at both her empathy and her unsettled concern.

And I deserve to be dead.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Sprawls of darkened grey swirled across the sky, billowing from the west in the threat of another bout of dreary showers. Grey barbed wire surrounded the building of yellow brick warn with age and grime, towering above the brown streaks that dyed its green fields. Black letters spelled ‘Dimmsdale Juvenile Detention Center’ within an illuminous white sign stationed a ways away from the building’s entrance, and within the room with walls empty of color and full of government funded medical equipment and stiff cots atop metal frames, two of its newest inmates sat stuck as the infirmary’s newest patients.

The swirly designs in Bradley’s cornrows were now disheveled and untamed from the fight that had broken out after a minor disagreement that had escalated into a major altercation in the cafeteria. Hunched with one bent knee on his cot, a black patch covered his left eye bludgeoned shut, the left side of his swollen face bashed with multiple bruises that had swelled into one patchy welt. While his face was not the only thing bruised, Bradley’s battered ego winced in phantom pains beside his best friend who was unresponsive in his own cot. Black kinky curls equally ruffled with contusions riddled across his face, a thin blue sheet of the cot stopped just above the bloodied gauge wrapped around LeRoi’s chest. Bandaging the slashes and deep cuts of spiteful vengeance gouged from a prison-made shank.

It didn’t take the Fairy Council’s intervention for Bradley and LeRoi to poke the wrong bear. Particularly boys nearly a whole foot taller, three years their senior, and who were serving sentences for more horrendous crimes than assault and battery. Ignoring these facts, Bradley and LeRoi thought it a good idea at the time to poke fun at these boys. Simply because they were the type to keep to themselves, and the former 8^th graders had greatly misjudged the older teens as easy targets.

As they say, beware of the quiet ones.

One of the older teens had knocked Bradley to the ground like a strike of lightening knocking down a Sequoia in a forest. His rapid-fire fists had struck Bradley so hard in the face that the orbital in his left eye was crushed to a squishy, bloody pulp. The older teen’s friend, having a shank made with a strip of sharp metal taped to the end of a toothbrush hidden in his jumper, skipped throwing hands and jumped straight to weaponized attacks. While his friend used Bradley’s face as a glorified punching bag, he himself had shoved LeRoi to the ground, and his shank made mincemeat of LeRoi’s chest before he could even think to defend himself. Even before security guards could tear the two sets of boys apart.

In another section of town stood a dungy building molded out of grey concrete, famously (or infamously) known as Dimmsdale Correctional Facility. Within the concrete walls of the male ward’s infirmary, a redhaired man lay comatose in a cot. Medical personnel had to constantly tend to the injuries sustained to the entirety of Jim Byrne’s torso, as well as along the length of both of his forearms. No matter how much gauged they wrapped to control the bleeding, the white wraps would be soaked red within minutes.

The unrelenting blood loss had slipped the Jehovah’s Witness into a coma, reaching the point where other medical personnel were discussing with security guards on whether this qualified him to be transferred to Dimmsdale Hospital for more intensive care. He was lucky enough that two guards had found him coated in crimson, slumped next to two other inmates known as Butch and Hartman. Because had he not been when he had, he would have joined the nearly decapitated body that had been found crumpled in his own pool of blood.

With the mortuary van parked out by the back hall of the correctional facility, guards looked on as paramedics began to zip the plastic body bag. Securing the body drained of the color already absent from his pale skin aside from the dried crimson splattered across the width of his thick neck, connecting his head to the rest of his body by a slither of skin. Unmoving, stiff. Lifeless.

Frank Abrahams was consumed by the blue plastic once the zipper reached the stopper before paramedics unlocked the gurney’s wheels to him out through the double doors that two other guards held open. Death on prison grounds was, unfortunately, not an uncommon phenomenon. Even suicides on prison grounds were not uncommon. What was uncommon, however, was the nature of Frank’s death. His overly macho, almost smug demeanor did not strike prison officials as the type to take himself out, let alone make sure he went out by nearly decapitating himself.

If that wasn’t mysterious enough, their sole witnesses, Butch and Hartman, had zero recollection of events once they’d come to. This too was baffling because the cameras seemed to skip a particular section of time despite working properly, and not a guard on the field nor any other prisoners remembered seeing anything out of the ordinary. So, when it came to filing the reports of two minor loss of consciousness, one with critical injuries, and one explicit death, the warden was just as stumped as his prison staff.

As the woman’s ward received their daily dinner trays of goop just above edible, guards stood stationed in every corner of the lilac bricks and mauve concrete floor. One of the newest inmates, dressed in her orange jumpsuit, hunched with solemn eyes to her untouched tray as isolated as a prisoner would be in an enclosed cafeteria full of other criminals outnumbering the guards. Her black ear-length bob once combed in perfect strands now stringy with anxious perspiration as tears blurred pink eyes, fogging the glass of her black circular rims.

In the twenty years of marriage, this was the first Nicky Byrne had been separated from her husband. That and, growing up, she’d only heard of other kids getting a spanking or getting punished for wrongdoings. She’d never experienced getting into trouble herself, not even for slipping grades. To land herself in jail? For two counts of child abuse?! Nicky never thought she’d see the day.

Carrying her own tray of unappetizing grub, another inmate traveled through the cafeteria. Shoulder length strands of jet-black hair swooped over a face of pale skin and yale-blue eyes puffed with bags full of sleepless nights. Marissa DeLisle was no stranger to jail, thanks to a record full of violating DUI probation hearings. She knew how to avoid becoming a harassment target for other inmates while staying under the guards’ delinquent radar.

She had to snicker to herself; between the passage of time trapped in a jail cell and the lack of alcoholic anesthesia to drown her senses, Marissa had come to realize just how f*cking toxic Frank was. And yet somehow, the two outlaws had been a match made in crooked Hell.

Scanning the indoor picnic tables for a place to sit, Marissa slowed upon the sight of Byrne all alone like some pathetic slab of raw meat just waiting for ravenous lions to devour. The only thing she knew about Byrne (aside from what she’d assumed was her last name since she’d only heard guards address her as such) was that she was in the clinker for not necessarily initiating child abuse, but negating it.

What a coinky-dink; Marissa was in the slammer for the same thing. Or, at least, that’s what she told herself.

Byrne didn’t seem to talk to anyone, speaking only when spoken to (strange for someone whose sole purpose is pioneering or whatever.) She kept to the back of lines, the corners of walls. Kept to herself in her shared cell, the cell she happened to share with Marissa. Marissa had half a mind to leave Byrne to be pathetic all by herself. However, judging how weak and helpless Byrne looked, something compelled her to at least prevent someone attacking her or something. Then Marissa would get stuck with another roommate she knew little and/or cared about. Something she’d personally rather avoid since she was going to be stuck in this dump for longer than a couple years...

Nicky shuddered with a small flinch when her cellmate took the one of many empty seats in front of her, yanking her out of an altered reality.

“Tsk…” Marissa grumbled from Byrne’s less-than-stellar expression to see her. Not that she honestly cared. “I know I look like a gremlin, but cha don’t hafta rub it in…”

“O-Oh, u-um…” Nicky’s mousy voice stammered. She was to remain separate from ‘the world’ to avoid Satan’s moral corruption, meaning contact with non-Witnesses was to be avoided or, if it cannot be helped, kept at a minimum. Nevertheless, it was rude to ignore the person that you’re forced to share tight spaces with, and without her husband or literally anyone from the congregation around, there was no one to reprimand her otherwise. Besides, she didn’t see herself becoming ‘buddy-buddy’ with DeLisle. She didn’t need to know too much about her background to see ‘corruption’ written all over her.

“…I-I’m sorry-”

“I’m joking.” Marissa stated matter-of-factly, making Nicky slouch further. “And get it together.”

Nicky’s eyes fluttered in misunderstanding. “I-I’m sorry?”

“Showing any weakness’ll get cha ass killed.” Marissa starkly advised, using her plastic spoon to scoop a spoonful of…whatever the f*ck was on this tray. “That sh*t’ll attract bitches like flies to light. Understand?”

Goodness, such a foul mouth…Nicky kept her opinion to herself, mustering the courage to looking further than the fellow inmate in front of her. Spotting the strange, almost vulturous stares from other clusters of inmates, fixed in her very direction. She gasped a shudder, darting her eyes back to the tray before her.

It’s just for a year…Nicky squeezed her eyes, clasping her hands in what Marissa assumed was a praying position. Just one year…

Swarms of police cars and ambulance vans flashed red and blue lights, reflecting off the dark overcast of grey skies. City officials surrounded the property of carbon-copy affluence within the polished community of Dimmsdale Acres. For the normally mundane gated community, the blaring sirens had drawn nosy neighbors from minding their own business in their homes. Gathered around as bystanders to the unconscious nanny being wheeled out on a gurney by two EMTs while a third EMT squeezed oxygen through a mask, acting as the nanny’s makeshift lungs as they hurried to the ambulance.

A 9-1-1 call from the distress of a little girl had dispatched paramedics and the police force to the Wells residence. Fenwick Nicholas had been discovered first in a teenage boy’s room, unresponsive and bleeding from both ends of his nether regions. The little girl had very little to go on considering she too had found him in this state before frantically calling 9-1-1, and the police would have to question the nanny once his condition was stable. Even in his critical condition, the nanny still had a fighting chance…

The same could not be said for the teenage boy…

“My babyyyyy!!” Angela Wells wailed out, giving little thought to how her appearance could be perceived as unappealing for the first time in her life as another pair of EMTs wheeled out the smaller body covered head to toe in a white blanket. The grieving mother threw herself onto the body, doubling over in pained sobs, before her husband had to pry her off so that the EMTs could do their job.

Marcus Wells wrestled with Angela flailing about in his grasp, yelling through grit teeth for her to get it together. There were people watching, specifically people that knew their lineage well enough to cast judgement. This was not the time to throw composure out the window. Meanwhile, their sole surviving daughter, still dressed in her soaked and dirtied private school uniform, stood off to the side with silent tears streaking her cheeks. Barely containing the crashing waves of heartache with the tightness of a quivering lip as her brother’s body was loaded into the back of the van.

Hillary Wells had come home from Brightsburg Academy, just like any other day. Sure, her brother had stayed home sick, and her parents’ adopted child was still missing, but to Hillary, it was still just like any other day…until it wasn’t.

She’d read her tween magazine in the back of the family limo, and once the driver had opened the door for her, she’d opened the front door with her house key. Just like any other day. She’d announced her arrival once she shut the door, knowing her parents weren’t home because they were still at their marketing firm. Just like any other day. Receiving no response back, she’d walked up the stairs to escape into her room. Just like any other day…

Then, she walked past her brother’s room, and what she found mentally scarred her.

Fenwick groaned in and out of consciousness, unclothed from the waist down. Bleeding in places she never wanted to see on a grown adult ever again. When her eyes could tear themselves away from the gruesome sight of her nanny to realize that Anthony was nowhere to be found in his own room, Hillary’s first instinct was to cry out for him. She didn’t know what else to do; this was so out of the ordinary.

Dashing down the hall, her steps had slowed at the sight of water seeping from beneath the closed door to one of the hallway baths. Not just any water…red water. She cried out again, calling for her brother. When no response had come, she barged the door open…and she froze.

Rivers of red water led her gawking gaze to the overflowing bathtub. His Gucci pajamas clung to his skin like glue, skin that appeared far more ghostly than just being under the weather. He was slumped, nearly submerged in the water, before Hillary’s feet forced her to move, to hurry to him. She shook him as hard as she could, yet his eyes never opened. And then, she noticed the bloodied razor wading in the river of red water, before she reached for his arm that had an open slit with no more blood to drain, reaching from the top of his wrist to the inside of his elbow.

Panicked, she grabbed at his other arm only to find the same lengthy gash, and when she’d taken a closer look at the ghostly paleness in his sunken eyes, the crack in her heart’s hardened shell struggled to accept reality staring her in the face.

It had already been too late for Anthony Wells…her only brother.

. . . . . .

Black smoke swirled from the red flames that had yet to die down along the vast field once vibrantly green now a deathly brown. Flames that charred the scraps of metal to where the signature “B” crest was almost unrecognizable. As detectives and the police force discussed the whereabouts of the missing pilot and what could have possibly caused this tragedy, bloodied sheets covered what remained of three bodies.

For one of the mangled bodies, they could make out the burnt bits of a flight attendant’s uniform. And while the other two were practically reduced to burned bones, the scraps of expensive clothing and frayed strands of blonde hair gave clues to the city officials as to who they were…

They never thought they’d see the day that Diana and Orville Remy Buxaplenty IV would perish in the ghastliest way imaginable.

Farther out in the outskirts of Mount Dimmsdale, two more bodies were placed side by side. White blankets covered what little remained of their decency, shielding their mangled remains from the witnesses that already had the displeasure of discovering them. Two hunters had been out hunting when they heard a large crash. Unsure of what the crash could have been in the middle of the woods, they weren’t sure whether to investigate until they’d heard a woman call for a man named “Daran.” Concluding that the crash must have come from someone potentially driving off the mountainous road, they soon heard a man cry out for a woman named “Susanne.”

It was then that they’d tried to head in that direction, using the cries as their compass. Dashing through the infinite trees at speeds they never knew they could reach. The closer they came, the more the cries faded. When the cries could no longer be heard, the hunters had assumed they were too late. Luckily, they were already close enough to see the owners of those voices…

Or, in this case, unluckily.

The woman was bleeding from her mouth, crushed beneath a totaled station wagon, while the man was yards away with unnaturally bent limbs. One of the hunters had told the other to go back to find a strong enough signal to contact emergency services. Directing emergency services to their exact location wasn’t the easiest feat; police cruisers were too wide to easily maneuver through the narrow path of the trees, and the ambulance vans were forced to stay at the location of where black skid marks stopped at the edge of the road and led to the branches snapped in half below.

AirMed had to be called in, sending a helicopter in that could barely reach the location of the man and woman deep in the woods. Once emergency services could assess the scene and had found ID sprawled along with various personal belongings, they had come to a tragic conclusion...

They had identified the bodies of Daran and Susanne Turner.

Beneath the high-bay fluorescents lining the polystyrene squares above, the wildlife conservationist cradled his face in his palms. Hunched with despair in a chair as medical personnel passed him as if he were just another chair against the emerald walls. Clark Carmichael had never expected to receive a call that the woman who was still his legal wife had been involved in an accident that could only be rationalized as misjudgment and a slip in precaution. Could a tiger chomping down on his wife’s neck even be rationalized as misjudgment? Because from what the zoo and city officials had described, it sounded more like straight carelessness to him.

Ignoring every speed limit in the city in his rush to Dimmsdale Hospital, Connie Carmichael had already been taken for emergency surgery by the time he’d arrived. When doctors had briefed him on her condition, her chances of survival seemed grim. Doctors had assured that they would do everything within their power to save her, and there was nothing left…but to wait.

Waiting. A task so simple, yet the hardest thing he ever had to do. Waiting felt far more agonizing than hearing the awful news itself; he couldn’t go in the operating room with her, he couldn’t hold her hand. He couldn’t tell her that everything will be alright, because that would be a lie. He wasn’t sure that everything would be alright, no matter if he actually wanted it to be true. He was powerless, left to rely on the fateful hands of modern medicine.

As if that wasn’t enough of a bombshell, he’d received a call from Principal Waxelplax that his daughter had been marked absent. Impossible; Chloe knew better than to miss school. Did she take the bus and just…didn’t go to school? Or did she leave to take the bus and just…didn’t? Why would she do that? She’d just been grounded and served after-school detention for skipping, which, was already so unlike her…

…unless the divorce was taking on a larger tole than she let on.

In that case, then this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Ever since Connie had shouted at her the way she did and had flushed Chloe’s Lexapro down the toilet, Chloe’s behavior had been off. She’d completely shut down, like someone had flipped a switch in her personality. Add getting caught in the middle of a nasty divorce on top of that, and you have a recipe for acting out.

Clark groaned in his palms, fingers reaching to scratch at the sides of his frazzled sideburns. This was so much to deal with at once…he…he can’t handle this.

“…Mr. Carmichael?”

Glossy blue snapped from his palms at the green-eyed brunette’s gentle approach, a tag pinned to the chest of his turquoise medical scrubs that read “Dr. Mick Wingert.” Bouffant cap securing most of his hair as he lowered the facemask to underneath his broad chin. Clark took one glance at the weary remorse in Dr. Wingert’s frown before his teary eyes began to contort in his face. Attempting (and failing) to stop the dam in his wounded heart from breaking as Dr. Wingert started his bad news with a weighted exhale.

“…we did everything we could for your wife, sir, but…” he didn’t have the heart to finish his sentence as Clark doubled over, spiraling into audible sobs muffled by his hands. It was evident that Clark already knew the tragic outcome, and in expressing his professional sympathy, Dr. Wingert lowered what he hoped was a comforting hand to Clark’s shoulder.

“…I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Carmichael.” Dr. Wingert sighed before he removed his hand to give the new widower a moment to process. “I’ll be right back…”

Leaving to report the exact cause of death, Clark could not contain the crush of his grief. Succumbing to the suffocating sadness that chipped away at the shield against his sorrow. His last encounter with her, the last words to her, were laced with the spite of his broken heart. In spite of their qualms, in spite of their bickering…he had still loved her with his whole heart.

He would never wish this type of ill upon her. Not even to his worst enemy.

. . . . . .

“Today, January 15^th 2003, has been nothing short of a heartbreaking day for the city of Dimmsdale.” News reporter, Chet Ubetcha, began the broadcast of the evening news on a somber note. “From four more children of Dimmsdale that might too have gone missing, to the violent disputes within our city jails. To the unexplainable tragic events that has claimed the lives of many…”

Curly hair and bushy brows silver with old age, the elderly mother felt her tattered heart break the longer she witnessed the news reporter clear his throat on the mounted tv screen, doing his best to keep his swells of hopelessness in check. Indeed, today had been nothing short of heartbreaking.

Regardless of the numerous calamities reported, nothing was more heartbreaking than the last four days of personal torment.

Seated in a stiff chair surrounded by the emerald walls and cyan tiles of the ICU, Dolores-Day Crocker turned dejected eyes away from the screen. Resaddened by the multiple IVs that prodded through the veins of her only son’s frail arms. Wires protruded from the collar of his hospital gown, hooking him to a heart monitor. Supported by a band laced around his head, a clear cylindrical tube was lodged in his throat, attached to a railroad track of tubes hooked to a ventilator with an oxygen level display across the screen.

Dolores reached for Denzel Crocker’s lifeless hand, caressing the bone of his chilly fingers. Pushing down threatening tears with a shaky sniff as the drone of the heart monitor beeped steadily, indicating subtle signs of the life that she could no longer feel in him. Nothing could have prepared her for a mother’s worst nightmare.

A nightmare that had become her karmic reality…

Traveling up the stairs towards her son’s room, her maternal instincts sensed something off for what felt like the first time. Last night, she had peered through the window looking out into the backyard. Finding him burying his green parakeet and pink galah in what appeared to be two shoe boxes. She didn’t need the despondent shakes in his shoulders and the wet streaks down his sunken cheeks to tell her how much those birds were his world. And now, that world was completely destroyed.

When he’d tossed the last pile of dirt onto the shoe boxes, she saw the instant switch in his aura. His gaze had grown distant, lost in a melancholic reverie. As if his spirit had descended into a dark labyrinth from which there was no escape. She had tried to talk to him when he’d returned to the house, though she herself wasn’t sure of what to say. He didn’t look at her, yet she could see that something had broken inside of him. His cold shoulder trudged past her and up the stairs. Shutting himself off into his room without dinner.

It was not unordinary for Denzel to coop himself into his room, but she found herself greatly concerned for his wellbeing. For one, it was now half past ten in the morning. Even in his teenage years, Denzel never slept in this late. For another, she could usually hear when he’d step out of his room to at least use the bathroom. The house was loud with a deathly silence, and it chilled nerves through her veins.

Dolores reached his room and gave two knocks upon his door, figuring she might make things worse if she used the battering ram off the bat. “Denzel, are you hungry? I can make us something for breakfast.”

No response.

“…Denzel?” her heart began to hammer in her chest. “Are you up?”

Dead silence.

She thought to check the doorknob, finding that the door was locked from the inside. It also was not unordinary for Denzel to lock himself inside his room. This time, something about it churned the troubling pit of her stomach.

“Denzel!?” she knocked again, louder than the last. “Open the door, please!”

Still nothing. Time for drastic measures.

Trekking across the hall to the coat closet, she retrieved her battering ram from its resting place. “I’ve respected your privacy by knocking, but now I have to assert my authority as your mother by coming in anyway! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

The door burst with a bang, revealing a darkened room that appeared as if it’d been in the middle of a warzone. Wrinkled hunter-green bedsheets straggled in a thrashed heap. A hand-drawn map of some imaginary world and posters of stars and crowns, now ripped to ragged shreds along olive-green walls. Disorganized papers of endless research lay in scattered piles across the planks of the floor, metal and cardboard crates tousled as if they’d been thrown. Cracks webbed through the PC monitor near specks of glass, crumpled near a toppled wooden side-table.

“…Denzel, honey? W-Where are you?”

Her hammering heart was now pounding, setting the battering ram near the doorway as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Unless she was a heavier sleeper than she thought, she couldn’t remember hearing any commotion after he’d locked himself in his room last night.

Scanning the room, the tingling chills through her veins soon crawled up her spine. A pungent odor seared the hairs in her nostrils the further she crept into the room, and when she took one small step to her left, her heart came deathly close to stopping.

Slouched in the darkest corner of the room…was Denzel. Slumped against the wall, pale lips dripping yellow bile onto his black tie, enlarging the pool that had already stained the torso of his white shirt. Ragged breaths strained against her chest when she spotted an emptied pill bottle cradled in his lifeless palm, crushing her ribs until her breaths escaped in a scream.

“DENZEL!”

Rushing to her son, her frantic shakes to his shoulders could not wake him. Giving little thought to the sight of vomit, she propped his head back and leaned a listening ear to his lax lips. She then pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, and horror broadened in her eyes as all sense of time froze to a halt.

He wasn’t breathing, and she could feel no pulse.

“Denzel, please! Open your eyes!” her motherly instincts took full control, cradling her son against her bosom. Rocking back and forth in grief-stricken cries. “Don’t do this, Denzel! Don’t do this!”

Wretched wails erupted from the depths of her being, uncontrollable and raw. Sobs that scratched the back of her throat, burned aching throbs in her chest. No, please. Not her son. Anyone but her son. Admittedly, she could be selfish. Stubborn, even. She and Denzel bumped heads because of this, more often than not, and any mentions of past grievances always led to present bickering matches. Still, Denzel was her son. If she had been a better mother, then…

So consumed by her emotional turmoil, Dolores failed to notice the magic of steel-blue sparkles glittering around her son. Steel-blue sparkles enveloped the corpse in her arms, breathing new life into his dead heart. Color washed the paleness out of his skin before the glitters vanished as his eyes bulged in a long gulp of breath. She gasped, catching a glimpse of Denzel’s dilated pupils until his eyes rolled back into wilted lids, and she pressed back a sob with a palm to her trembling lips as his breaths rasped through parted lips, gurgling in the faint rise and fall in his once rigid chest…

A droplet of her deepest regret fell onto the back of his hand, watching his lifeless body breathe through a monitor. After the miracle of Denzel starting to breathe again, Dolores had willed herself to leave him in the fetch for a phone. 9-1-1 operators had to calm her down before they could walk her through the procedure of CPR to keep Denzel clinging to life until paramedics could arrive.

Medical professionals could not explain what had brought Denzel back, surprised that he’d come back at all. A ventilator had to become the strength that his weakened lungs lacked. Thankfully, there was still brain activity. More than you'd expect from a man who had met death in the face. However, with no changes in his vitals over the last four days, medical professionals were uncertain if Denzel would ever be more than a living vegetable.

On Dolores’ behalf, the hospital had to contact Principal Waxelplax to inform of the teacher’s status. With the air of uncertainty hanging over them, they had come to the conclusion that Denzel would likely be out of commission for the rest of the school year. If, by some miracle, Denzel was to awaken from his coma, who was to say that he would be in the state of mind to educate? Who in their right state of mind would willingly ingest an entire bottle’s worth of medication to the point of stomach pumping?

Despite his reputation as the crazy fairy-obsessed teacher, this attempt had pushed him far beyond ‘being crazy.’

Dolores whimpered, pressing a palm to her lip as she choked back a sob. How large of a role had she played? Was she the biggest cause of his downfall? Squeezing his hand into hers, the wounds in her heart needed him to come back to her…

Little did she know, Denzel did not want to come back…

. . . . . .

Orange gold stretched far and wide across the horizon of saline waters, arches of rumbling sea-foam gently brushing against the sandy shore. Carrying his socks and shoes with two fingers with his other hand tucked in the pocket of his black slacks, Mr. Crocker strolled along the feathery grains of Dimmsdale Beach. Quiet in his strides, Mr. Crocker was not alone. A green parrot perched on his left shoulder with a pink parrot on his right, eyeing the man lost in his thoughts.

“…do you wanna talk now, Denzel?” his pink parrot croaked to break the stretch of silence.

Though he slowed to face the vibrancy of the fiery sunset beyond the blue waves of low tide, Mr. Crocker saw the world through a muted and colorless lens. “Cosmo…” he turned to the green parrot, then turned to the one feathered in pink. “Wanda…” his voice quivered, each word a fragile whimper trembling with the weight of unspoken gloom “…I’m sorry.”

Cosmo co*cked his head as if confused. “Why’re you sorry?”

Regret fell in Mr. Crocker’s features. “I’m sorry for lying that I was happy and that I didn’t need you anymore…” his chin lowered, the waves now brushing against his toes. “I’m sorry for giving up on you…”

Giving the deserted beach a quick scan, the parrots transformed into their true forms within a teal cloud of magic. A matching pair of yellow shades rested on the bridge of their noses, foreheads tied with blue headbands. Necks adorned in a choker of blue, feet bare beneath blue bell-bottoms.

“Oh, no, Denzel, we understand why you did what you did.” Wanda solemnly expressed, fuchsia strands parted down the middle just above the shoulders of her yellow crop top. “We would never hold that against you.”

“You were one of the rare godkids to sacrifice your own happiness, just to save us from Vic.” Cosmo added, shamrock-green locks tied in a low pony with a black vest over his bare chest. “If anything, you should find that as admirable as we do.”

Fixed eyes to the waves before him, Mr. Crocker faintly frowned. It was getting harder to see past the tears clouding his eyes.

“Sweetie, we love you.” Wanda stressed tenderly.

“We’ll always love you. No matter what.” Cosmo shared in his wife’s sentiment.

Mr. Crocker lifted his glasses with one scrubbing palm to the gloss in his eyes, unable to resist the swells of agonizing heartache rocking in his shoulders. His jaw trembled as a single tear traced a path down his cheek “…I-I love you too…”

Wanda’s heart ached for their former godson, seeing his heart break all over again. “Oh, Denzel…”

Cosmo and Wanda sandwiched him within the loving embrace of their undying affection, and Mr. Crocker clung to them as if he had aged backwards to the suffering of a miserable ten-year-old boy. Never wanting to let them go, ever again...

Through a magic portal secluded within the dark walls of his office, the Commander of Fairies folded his arms, watching the heartfelt scene unfold. Peering into the comatose dream of the elementary school teacher, dreams projected by the latent memories revived by magic.

Admittedly, Jorgen Von Strangle could have left Mr. Crocker alone to end his own existence in peace. Beyond using the magic wiper on him again, he had nothing more to do with him; the Council had wanted to take measures in preventing the inevitability of Mr. Crocker’s suspicions for the absences of the Council rounding up the remaining Dimmsdale godchildren. Still, a slither in Jorgen’s heart felt that Denzel Crocker did not fully deserve to go out in such a pathetic way. So, Jorgen had gone behind the backs of the Fairy Council, gone against Da Rules that he was trained to enforce.

He had used magic to bring Mr. Crocker back from the grips of death, and in the process, his magic had awakened memories that Mr. Crocker did not consciously know he still possessed. The memory wiper is a powerful tool used to eradicate one’s memories. That said, every strength has its weaknesses.

The memory wiper could not fully deplete the huge memory bank of the subconscious mind; the subconscious mind’s endless capacity permanently stores every single thing that happens in someone’s life, even events that the conscious mind forgets. It’s the strongest influence of one’s behavior and motivations, hence why Mr. Crocker always had a strange connection to anything pink and green. You could even say that this also explain why Mr. Crocker had developed such a strong bond with his green and pink birds, going as far as to give them the names ‘Carlos and Wilma.’

Jorgen had been given his task from the Council before he ever expected Mr. Crocker to watch Carlos and Wilma take their last breaths; however, Jorgen had a feeling that the loss of his birds was not the only straw to break the camel’s back. Cosmo and Wanda had become much more than just Denzel Crockers godparents; they had become a part of him. When he’d lost them, it was like he’d lost himself. In a symbolically twisted way, losing his birds was like a repeat of losing his godparents. Something that had never seemed fair to Jorgen. Something that, I guess you could say, Jorgen pitied Mr. Crocker for.

As far as Jorgen could tell, the Council Members were not aware that he had revived Mr. Crocker and unlocked his repressed memories. At the same time, he couldn’t help but worry how long he could go without getting caught.

Sawing logs in his top bunk, Irving lay sprawled partially covered by his white sheet. Swizzle grumbled in her sleep with a pillow pressed over her ears, facing Nyekundu peacefully nestled close to her in their shared queen. Tucked beneath their queen-sized sheets, Wanda’s head slumbered against her husband’s chest, lulled by Cosmo’s soft snores as he cuddled her. In the top bunk next to the married couple, Juandissimo rolled over onto his stomach in his sleep, and in the queen below him, Rose slept undisturbed on her side despite the light setting sun seeping through the glass window, casting her skin in a warm glow.

Covered in the bed’s sheet beside Rose with knees draw to her chest, Susie sat wide awake. Irving and Cosmo’s snores droning into background noise from the restless thoughts denying her of sleep’s reprieve. Thoughts of earlier argument between Rose and Swizzle that she didn’t have to get involved in but had inserted herself anyway. An argument that’d led to the emotional exchange between herself and the man that reminded her so much of her late husband.

Blinking back tears, she observed the fairy with his eyes closed, resting on his side in the bed below Irving’s bunk. After she’d run away from him, she had kept her interactions with him to a minimum. A difficult task within the restrictions of their current living conditions. At least, she’d assumed these would be their living conditions. Didn’t seem like any of them were going back home or would be returning to their godchildren anytime soon…

Having long since given up on sleeping, Susie pulled back the sheets, carefully rising from the bed. Hovering over Cosmo and Wanda’s snuggled forms before she grabbed the latch, slowly pushing the glass door apart. She paused at the loud snort that then went quiet, glancing over her shoulder towards Irving’s bed. Worried that she’d made too much noise until the restart of his steady snores gave her confirmation to part the door enough for one fairy to exit.

Unaware of the icy-blue orbs that had opened before he’d even heard the latch unlock.

Taking her time, Susie shut the glass door behind her before she floated further out onto the terrace. Arms wrapped around herself as somber indigo looked up at the sun that never seemed to set, a pang of grief bringing back the tears that she quickly blinked away. Just when she thought she’d moved on, powering through the day without a shed of a single tear, all it took was that one little reminder. The reminder of losing the only man she ever loved. And the huge chunk in her heart that had died along with him.

The back of her palm scrubbed away the tear that managed to escape. No matter her efforts, it had always been a struggle to give her heart to another man. Alewandro, the first man to teach her what true love is, had promised that he would never leave her, but he’d been gunned down by that maniac, and she couldn’t save her first and only love…

Staring out at the fluffy sea of pink clouds, another thought came to mind. Something she had not done since becoming Chloe’s fairy godmother. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes, a shimmering pool of sadness left unspoken.

Alewandro…Susie spoke in her mind, the only place she felt safe expressing the real pain inside. After all this time…after thousands of years…I-I still miss you…

Her head lowered, hearing the sound of his voice that still lingered as a distant echo in her mind. Picturing his heartwarming smile, the image of him she had not dare forgotten.

…guess it goes to show…that you don’t ever get over the loss. You just learn to live without them.

Years of repressed grief pricked the corner of her somber stare, trailing past her chin …I just smile and laugh through it but…it’s been so hard…living without you. So f*cking hard…

The weight of her loss streaked her cheeks, pressing down on her shoulders like an unyielding burden. Please…give me some kind of sign. Something to show me that you never left… indigo gazed towards the setting sun …that you’re still with me…

Almost as if on cue, the open and shut of the glass door spun her around in a short, shuddered breath. Seeing Alondro’s hesitant float out onto the terrace, locking eyes with those familiar icy-blue orbs. Eyes that sagged as if they too had barely slept, yet filled with unrelenting remorse.

Embarrassment whirled herself away from him, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her arm. Attempting to hide tears already seen. f*ck, he wasn’t supposed to see her like this. No one was supposed to see her like thi-

An audible gasp squeaked at the firm touch of a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around to face the stare that pierced through her heart, straight into the depths of her soul. Given no time to resist when his tender palm cupped the wetness of her cheek, and the warmth of his lips captured hers.

Alondro didn’t know what in the gods name had possessed him to do this, and considering how he had yelled at her earlier, he didn’t know why Susie hadn’t slapped him off of her. He could excuse this brash impulse as a heartfelt apology. He had just met Susie, and she had just met him, and yet, something inside, deep inside, just had to kiss her. Had to taste the sweetness of those full lips that sparked the faintest memory of a past love…which was literally impossible.

He had been young and dumb once; prior romantic relations with women had never developed past situationships. The concept of ‘love’ was not a huge part of his upbringing, and when he’d gotten his godparenting license, he’d poured all of what he thought of love into his career. Alondro had never ‘loved’ another woman; his heart never had the capacity to do so.

At least…he didn’t think so.

Susie’s wide eyes didn’t know what to make of this impromptu gesture, and considering how blank her mind was, she didn’t know why his lips barely broke from hers before he planted another one.

All she could do was give into him as her eyelids fluttered close.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Warm orange hues of lanterns flickered dancing shadows along the purple stone walls and teak floors of the throne hall, drapes patterned in a yellow, blue, pink, purple, and turquoise pastel rainbow blocking any natural light from what few windows lined the hall. All gathered along the rounded platform of rock centered in the hall, the Fairy Council were in discussion pertaining to the current state of affairs compared to their previous expectations.

“This is worse than we thought…” Treebelle suspired, her troubled brow cloaked by her bell hood. Occupying her throne of yellow-gold adorned embellished with turquoise velvet.

“Indeed.” Persimmon concurred beside her, seated in his throne with pink accents as he gave a look to the purple Council member on his left. “That anger will need to be addressed.”

Plumfrost slumped back in his throne, his purple hood shrouding his grimace. The original plan was to wait and allow the newer crop of godchildren to become acclimated to their non-toxic environment. Of course, the random yet vehement altercation between Molly and Remy had flushed that down the toilet.

“These children are not but a product of their environment.” Plumfrost had determined. “Some more than others tended to be temperamental before they were ever a godchild.”

“Then there are those that constantly degrade themselves.” Persimmon added. “As well as those who see no value in their own life.”

“The like could be quoth for them all.” Treebelle deduced. “Whether that may be ill tempers, self-depravation, ideation of death, or a toxic combination. And those are among a plethora of other identified issues.”

“Then we might not but act sooner than later.” Birchwind concluded from beside Plumfrost, the sleeves of his blue robe planted on the armrest of his throne.

“What say for Von Strangle?” Persimmon probed. “His actions cannot go unaddressed.”

The Fairy Commander had to have known that the most powerful fairies in existence were omniscient of Da Rule that had been broken under their noses. That said, they were all well-aware how hypocritical it would be to confront him so soon after their own vengeance spree. The issue would need to be tabled until they could come up with the proper approach; there were more pertinent matters to attend to.

“We shall deal with him later.” Birchwind sternly affirmed. “For now, we shall proceed with the next phase.”

The other Council members nodded in agreement.

. . . . . .

Against the ombre of bright reds fading into dark blues, the rise of the crescent moon glistened shadows through the flowery pedals etched into the stained-glass windows. Rooted at the floor’s base and arched all the way to the ceiling, flooding white marble and white walls in shimmers of orangey-red.

After some time to cool down from the earlier heated exchange, the godchildren had all since retired to the designated bedroom. None of them were in the mood to do much else other than attempt to sleep their troubles away. Some managed to drift off quicker than others, and not all were fortunate to enter a pleasant world of dreams.

Nearest to the four steps that led to the glass windows lining the rounded platform, Hazel puled beneath her fuchsia covers, tiny tears pricking the corners of squeezed eyes. Molly thrashed restless legs beneath her indigo quilt in the bed next to Hazel’s, lethargic arms swinging at whatever was haunting her dreams. Tucked under a navy duvet beside her, Gary’s head tilted back and forth against his pillow with his bucktooth biting his frowning lip. Dwight snoozed with soft snores curled on his side underneath his turquoise blanket, though a small whimper slipped through his parted lips from the micro jolts in his brain that were not strong enough to fully disturb him.

Across the room from Hazel, Chloe’s slumbering features contorted, her yellow quilt crimpling from her twitchy toss and turns. Covered in his red quilt next to her, Remy shuddered unconsciously, murmuring the word ‘no.’ Sleeping in the tightest ball with her glasses resting next to her pillow against the purple mattress, Tootie clutched her notebook against her. Timmy shivered in a cold sweat beside her underneath his blue duvet.

Suddenly, the periwinkle-blue sparkles that shimmered around Timmy also enveloped Gary. Molly’s thrashing calmed when lavender sparkles glittered around her, coating Tootie in a mystical glow as well. Taffy-pink shimmers sparkled around Remy, casting Hazel in the same pink radiance, and Dwight’s body glistened in turquoise twinkles that shrouded Chloe in mystic rays.

Magical beams surrounding the sleeping godchildren grew brighter. Glowing vibrantly until the magical beams emitted a blinding light…

"…wake up, Bubba…"

With a slow breath of the crispest air, baby-blue parted. Greeted by the ruffles of porcelain foam across the acres of ocean blue. Tiny crystals like shakes of navy glitter sparkled within the rippling clouds, puffed in broad row crops along the soil that was the infinite sky. What he felt beneath his lax limbs were the softest, fluffiest pillows. Drowsy fingers trailing along the material the more his lidded eyes opened, tilting his head to see that his left hand trailed along the softest…row of clouds.

Blinking the last of sleep from his eyes, the pink-hatted boy shifted to an upright position as he noticed that he was sitting on the same stretch of white clouds sparkling in navy glitters across a canvas of ocean blue. As above, so below.

Timmy grumbled in his sigh. Okay, waking up in strange places has gotta stop…Unless, he was still dreaming. Using two nails, he pinched the skin on his arm before he seethed from the instant stinging sharpness.

“…hey, cuzzo.”

Hearing the familiar voice to his direct right, Timmy scooted himself to face the somber pair of baby-blue staring back at him. Arms of his leather jacket wrapped around bent denim legs, chin pressed to the tops of his knees.

“…Gary?” Timmy croaked, feeling like an eternity since he’d last used his voice. “Where are we?”

“Dunno.” Gary sighed drably, averting his stare. “Must be the Council again…”

Of course…Timmy scanned the area around them, only to find that they were the sole godchildren around. Where were the others? What happened to them? Why are they here? How did any of this come to be? So many unanswered questions.

His wandering eyes settled back on his cousin, and when Gary returned his gaze, he stalled from a grip of uncertainty. He could not sense his sister, but he could have sworn that was her voice. Gary had to have heard her. Her soft, sweet voice was so clear.

“Hey, um…have you heard from Sophia?” he started, a slight hunch in his shoulders.

“No…” Gary spoke with hints of sorrow “…have you?”

Timmy furrowed, narrow eyes lowered. “I thought I heard her when I woke up…”

“I didn’t hear her.” Gary admitted, sounding remorseful. “Haven’t been able to since the Council snatched me and my friends up…”

Timmy went quiet, crimping his lips as his neck bowed until his head could not drop lower. His fingers clutched the air fluff of his cushion of clouds, and though you wouldn’t be able to tell by his stiff features, his hands were trembling. He could not remember his dream, but he remembered seeing her. What if…hearing her voice was but a remanent of that forgotten dream?

The sear in his heart missed her, a freight train of guilted grief that had smacked him hard. A deep, guttural pain that he couldn’t bring himself to express outwardly.

Gary observed his cousin with a puckered brow. His spirit could hear Timmy’s heart crying out beneath the silence, could see the weight of tears beneath the deep furrows between his brows. His memory was shotty on certain things, but he remembered the unbreak of the Turner twins’ bond in spite of how differently they were treated by family.

Part of him now felt guilty for his snarky comment when it came to going after Remy after the verbal fight with Molly. Timmy likely had reasons that Gary simply didn’t consider, possibly separate from that situation.

Both boys felt their ears perk from a boisterous bark, a bark that did not sound like it belonged in whatever this world was. Gary gazed past Timmy, and Timmy turned his head over his shoulder, spotting a dog-like creature zooming in its woofing sprint towards them. Even from a vast distance, they could see strings of pink and green in its yellow fur. Leaping along the cloudy rows with galloping paws until the dog jumped to join the boys on their cloud.

As the boys gradually rose to their feet, the dog’s tail wagged vigorously with a panting tongue, beaming with big bold eyes. The left eye was green like the left ear, the right pink similar to the right ear. Belted around its furry neck was a periwinkle-blue collar with a star for a tag.

“Wait…” Timmy stared puzzledly at the dog, taking tentative steps towards his excited barking. Reaching with an equally tentative hand, the dog reduced its barking to pants as Timmy read the tag with the name ‘Birchie’ engraved in gold. “He isn’t…?”

“No…” Judging by the name Birchie alone and from the lack of communication with words, Gary had concluded that this mysterious dog was neither one of their godparents. “Though he seems to know who we are.”

This was further confirmed when Birchie wasted no time jumping up to Timmy. Standing on its hind legs to attack the boy’s cheek with a friendly tongue, causing Timmy to crinkle in disgust from the glob of relentless slobber.

“Get off!” Timmy shut one eye, attempting to shove the canine away. Birchie latched its paws to Timmy’s shoulders, for his tongue was determined to lick every inch of Timmy’s cringing face.

Standing off to one side, Gary didn’t know what else to do but watch Timmy’s scrunched nose slowly but surely slacken, his hardened shell melting into the dog’s unyielding affection. When thin lips loosened into a faint grin as a quiet giggle escaped, Birchie ceased his wet kisses, his tongue dangling from one side of his panting mouth.

“Eww, doggy breath.” Timmy softly chuckled as he leaned his head away, smiling despite his face clenching from a sour odor.

When Birchie relented to drop on his hind legs, Timmy reached his fingers to scratch behind the dog’s pink ear, and in response, the panting increased as he kicked his right haunch leg, patting his foot in thankful pleasure.

As Birchie’s patting foot began to burn in a watery blur, the pre-teen used an arm to rub at watering eyes. He coughed back a quiet sob from the dagger-sized tear in the depth of his soul. Embarrassed, Gary resorted to use his left arm and right palm to scrub his shame away, attempting to hide that shame even from his own sight. Why the hell was he crying? What was there to cry about?

A bellowed ‘woof’ shook his arms from his eyes, blinking his stare to the dog that had moved from his cousin to stand on all fours in front of him. Seeing that he had gotten the attention he sought, Birchie then shifted to lean on one side against both of Gary’s legs, panting for a petting hand as his green and pink orbs beamed up towards him. Just like his godfather would do when in his disguise…

Peering into the dog’s loving eyes, Gary couldn’t stop his bottom lip from quivering. The sear in his own heart brimmed in his frown, kneeling down to give the canine gentle scratches behind his green ear. Instead of kicking his left haunch foot, the dog simply examined Gary’s glum eyes. Whining pathetically as he could sense the visible anguish bubbling beneath the surface.

Using the hem of his pink shirt to wipe remanence of dog slobber from his face, Timmy observed as Gary then pressed palms to Birchie’s furry cheek, leaning his forehead to the canine’s stop as the corners of his closed eyes glistened. Even Timmy could tell that something was wrong. “…you okay?”

“Y-Yeah…” Gary sniffled, nuzzling one cheek into yellow-tinged fur “…I’m okay…”

Birchie whined in his sympathetic response, soulful green and pink eyes fixed onto Gary. Wanting so badly to alleviate his aching heart.

Void of a moon, the sky of deep indigo glistened in a stretch of silver, starry blankets. Spurts of spilling water cascaded over the floating grey ledges of basalt rocks like sheer, lilac curtains, whooshing in a gentle vortex at the bottom into a seamless stream of the lavender river that faded into the outstretch of distance. A waterfall with no clear beginning, a river with no definite end.

Hunched forward with arms crossed against bent knees, Molly sat on one of the grey rocks along the riverbank, her sullen stare fixed to the girl’s mousy whimpers across from her. Seeing the notebook clutched to her chest, muted distress etched in the puckered brow through the purple specs partially visible behind the shield of drawn knees. Tootie had been like that ever since they both woke to this new world. It was hard for Molly to know which seemed to scare Tootie more; being alone not knowing where they were, or the person Tootie was alone with.

“You’re name’s Tootie, right?” Molly calmly spoke through the stretch of silence. She waited for Tootie’s timorous nod before she asked “What’s so important about that notebook?”

Timid arms squeezed her notebook tighter. Watching Tootie shudder in her cower, Molly wrinkled her brow. While somewhat expected, Molly had been curious about where this scary behavior of hers stemmed from.

“…are you scared of me?”

In a short stall, Tootie mustered the courage to lift her chin despite the knots in her stomach. Did Molly’s disposition to angry outbursts make her extremely uncomfortable? Yes. That didn’t mean she could pinpoint whether she was afraid of Molly; she didn’t know her well enough as a person to make that judgement.

Molly’s eyes narrowed as if to decipher a cryptic message “…so, you are scared of me?”

Tootie tautly shook her head, not wholly intimidated by this particular Molly sitting in front of her.

“…then why so tense?”

Because the Molly that despised Remy with a passion was a different story.

Tootie swallowed, unable to wet her parched throat as her dry lips pressed together. Taking this as all the answer she needed, Molly turned away to direct her brooding stare towards the burbling rumble of the lavender stream, and Tootie’s remorse jutted her lip. It felt as if she could feel the bricking defense of the heightened walls that Molly was shutting her out with. She didn’t mean to make her upset in any way; she just didn’t have a definitive answer.

Drooping her shoulders, Tootie scooted cautiously, facing out towards the river. Biting her lip as she straightened her knees to lower her notebook from her chest, propping it against her lap. Gazing out upon the vibrant hues of purple’s multiple shades, her fingers drummed indecisively along the cover. Uncertain if this was the right time to be inspired until she unclipped her pen from the notebook’s spine.

Chin planted atop crossed arms, Molly shot a glance through her peripheral at the ruffling sound of flipping pages. Catching just glimpses of previous sketches, both unfinished and polished, that caught more than just her eye. When the page flipped to the sketch of a raven with tattered black feathers coated in red color pencil, Tootie looked upfromthe sense that she was being watched, meeting the curiosity behindMolly'sguarded stare.

Purple eyes flickered between the page and the gothic girl, wondering if Molly wanted a closer look. Tentatively,Tootiescooted her notebook, and Molly eyed her before looking down at the drawing that she assumed Tootie wasgiving permission to view. Her interest piqued, Molly leaned over to her slight right, scanning the strokes of black inkoutlining the plumageand thick layer of red color pencildrawn on the tips of the wings, oozing from Xs across the chest and along the crow's back.

Her scanning eye then glanced up to Tootie's demureness"...you like to draw?"

In her way of confirming, Tootie coyly scooted her notebook for Molly to view more of her work, and Molly lowered her bent knees as she took the notebook into her lap. Turning the page, Molly sorted through the various sketches. One sketch was of a raven nailed by its bloody wings to a wooden stake. Another was of a bloody arrow pierced through a raven's neck. Definitely not what Molly expected; a seemingly wholesome girl like Tootie didn't appear to be the type to even think of such brutal imagery.

Turning to a different image of a similar wounded raven, Molly began to notice a pattern as she looked up briefly from the page "…you like ravens?"

Tootie bit her lip with a nod, fiddling with her pen between two fingers.

"...me too. They're so dark and mysterious." Molly returned to observing Tootie's work, turning to a sketch of a back-facing raven with its back feathers riddled in red slashes. “Some folks think ravens are nothing but bad omens, but I say they're only bad if you're mad superstitious." Molly casually turned another page. "They're way more complex; they're these magical messengers of prophetic wisdom and transformation. Kinda like a spiritual guide or whatever."

Tootie observed as Molly continued to look through the notebook’s older sketches. Listening to Molly recount facts of crows that Tootie had never heard of was like hearing a boy enthuse over his extensive knowledge of sports cars.

An echoing caw tore through the air’s quietude, perking Molly's ears. Shooting a mystified glance towards Tootie "…did you hear that?"

Darting her head left and right for the source of the caw, Tootie wrung the pen in her hand as she scanned their surroundings. Only able to catch short glimpses of dark-blue, her poor eyes could not keep with the rocketing pace of celestial feathers. Molly, on the other hand, goggled at the circling trail of blue-green twinkles, the pointed tips of glossy, dark-blue plumage painted in an illuminous hue as frosty as their glowing teal eyes.

With another shrill caw from its dark-blue beak, the raven descended upon them with flapping wings in a graceful landing along the riverbank between them. Its twinkling trail sprinkled the grey rocks with teal magic dust below its dark-blue talons. The right leg was cuffed with a lavender band, and centered on the band was a pinned gold star with the name ‘Plum’ engraved.

As Tootie’s eyes bulged in a startled shudder, the once gloomy yale-blue glinted with excited glee as Molly breathed “…bad-ass!”

Plum snapped its glowing eyes in Molly’s direction, croaking as she approached her on its crow’s feet. She then stretched her feathered neck with a bowed head as if asking for a brush of her feathers. Molly considered this quite odd; ravens are highly chary in nature. Then again, the fact that this raven was this close (and her eyes and feather tips were, y’know, glowing,) indicated that this raven was far from normal. And maybe if she considered the raven to be like her godmother’s disguise, this would feel less weird.

Taking the bait, Molly raised a hesitant hand, and in response, Plum croaked happily at her touch. An unfamiliar warmth covered the coldness of Molly’s heart, brushing feathers as sleek and soft as blue satin.

Tootie tried to untense her raised shoulders, watching as Molly’s curious fingers gave cautious strokes along the top of Plum’s head feathers. From what Tootie could see, Plum appeared patient, allowing Molly’s soft strokes along her feathers for as long as she pleased. She did not seem to view the girls as threats, almost as if this crow already knew them well.

What Tootie could also see was a less hostile side to Molly, and this answered so many questions. Molly’s anger was not her nature…it was an inactive bomb activated by nurture’s specific triggers.

When Molly was finished, the raven then snapped its neck in a 180, laying eyes upon the girl who recoiled from the sudden attention. Tootie froze as Plum dawdled towards her, her arms growing tense in faint trembles. Her reflexes jumped in a squeaky gasp when the raven cawed at her, her heart hammering in her chest the closer Plum loomed forward.

“You don’t gotta be scared.” Molly spoke casually as Tootie darted wide eyes at her. “She’s chill.”

Once a short distance from Tootie’s hand, Plum bowed her head in a similar fashion as she did with Molly. Tootie stared, fascinated yet horrified. Though, the teal glow in the crow’s eyes looked to be the same teal as her godmother’s eyes. Using that comparison, she forced her irrationality to settle. Swallowing the tight knot in her throat as she willed her quivering hand to raise.

Tootie gasped again when Plum met her halfway, brushing her head feathers to Tootie’s palm. The raven stood patiently still as if to give Tootie time to rationalize the interaction as nothing to fear. The longer Tootie touched her satin feathers, the more her terror melted from her chest. The freer her lungs could expand, the slower her heart paced.

Plum’s content squawked from Tootie’s gentle fingers, and Molly could’ve sworn she saw the corners of Tootie’s lips, ever so faintly, turn upwards.

Twirls of fuchsia and strawberry swirled like hot cocoa’s steam throughout the bubblegum sky, silver stars twinkling like tiny diamonds. Galactic mountains in the shade of magenta landscaped the rocky surface. Red magma bubbled within the deep craters and through the cracks along the ground, rising into the air as buoyant blobs like warmed wax in a lava lamp.

Leaned against the wall of a magenta mountain, the young billionaire held folded arms to his chest with one knee bent. Sulky eyes to the rise of magma through the cracks from a safe distance. Discomforted by the muffled sobs of the little black girl to his right, her fresh tears hidden in wrapped arms over upturned knees.

Sitting in silence for a while, Remy had no clue how to react to Hazel’s relentless crying; as soon as it sounded like her eyes were finally starting to dry, the sobs would just start back up in another weeping wave. This cycle of emotions was cringe, to say the least, and it didn’t help that she was withholding what troubled her so.

As he exhaled, he looked over when he heard her whimpering sobs fade into sniffles. Perhaps this was his chance to get to the root of her tears before the cycle repeated itself. “Hazel, what’s wrong?”

Hazel’s face remained hidden as her black curls shook, dampening her resistant whine.

“Well, at least tell me what I can do?” Remy tried, keeping his voice patient. “You’ll dehydrate yourself from all that incessant crying.”

Her arms wrapped tighter around herself, retreating further into sorrow.

Remy shifted towards Hazel, calm with just a bit more assertion in his tone “…you promised you’d tell me everything if I held your hand, remember? Or was that a lie?”

Brown eyes jolted from their hiding place to him, red and rimmed with tears. Her lower lip trembled, feeling the ache of a guilty fist slowly closing over her heart. It had pained her having to lie to Remy as a means to an end. And yet, she could not escape the shackles of secrecy. She can never escape.

“…I-I’m sorry…” Hazel sniveled, turning glossing eyes away “…I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” Remy probed.

“…b-because…” she gasped back a threatening sob “…it’ll h-happen again…”

He stared persistently “…Hazel, what will happen again?”

“No, I-I can’t…” her eyes clamped as she clutched arms around her chest, pressing her forehead to her knees. “I-I…c-can’t…”

Her voice descended into inconsolable sobs, and he co*cked his head back against the mountain in a heavy sigh. Now she was crying again, and he’d made no progress. Too bad there was no bathroom stall to lock them both in until she eventually conceded. On the other hand, he should know how violating it feels to be pressured into talking about things he couldn’t nor wanted to talk about…

A spark of recollection blinked in Remy’s eyes. That’s it! Though, he didn’t know how trusting Hazel was of him at the moment. Maybe that wouldn’t matter.

Hazel winced when she felt an apprehensive hand palm her arm, lifting glassy, red-ringed eyes. Staring as Remy then lace his arm around her shoulders in an attempt to bring her close to him, something he knew his godfather would do. With her dire need of affection now at the forefront, she allowed her head to bow against his chest. Curling in a ball with limbs bent to her torso, just like she would with her godmother.

Observing the godchild in his arm, Remy noticed that her sobs had calmed. Her hand scrubbed away at the tears that had begun to dry, and the wet trails down her cheeks had ceased. She then settled herself with arms cradled to her chest, a sleepy calm hooding her eyelids. Well, gee; if he had known that was all it took, he would've just done this ages ago.

Just when he thought her eyes might close for a nap, her tiredness vanished with astounded blinks when something straight ahead seemed to grab her attention. He directed his eyes where Hazel pointed a finger, and his own eyes widened in disbelief.

Avoiding the bubbling lava with nimble ease, red paws nearly bounced in its short-legged bolt. Mustelid body coated in bright-red aside from the stripe of purple centered along the back that reached from the fluffy end of its weasel-like tail to the tip of its cone nose.

Hazel let out a mousey gasp and recoiled against Remy as the red ferret halted before their feet, staring at them with beady blue-violet orbs. The ferret bowed to sniff at Remy’s black darbies before using tiny claws to pounce onto Remy’s pants leg, sharp enough to grip on yet soft enough to not cause much harm. Remy flinched and Hazel squealed as the ferret scurried eagerly up Remy’s leg, perching on his thigh with a tail wagging frenziedly.

“Wait a minute…” Remy took note of the taffy-pink neckband circled around the ferret’s thick neck, bringing a curious finger to the star dangling like a keychain.

“...what is it?” Hazel squeaked, looking to Remy.

Remy scrunched his brow at the name engraved in gold. “Apparently, his name is Simmons.”

The ferret known as Simmons scurried from Remy’s lap to latch its front paws to his shoulder, and Hazel leaned back as Simmons fondly nuzzled the top of his head to Remy’s cheek. Cringing, Remy crimpled his nose, failing at holding Simmons back with a shielding palm. Wherever this ferret came from, personal space was a foreign concept.

Simmons paused momentarily as Remy squinted at blue-violets beaming with joy. Y’know what? He was kinda cute…in that annoying little weasel sort of way.

Having had enough, Remy managed to shove Simmons away with a light palm, something the ferret did not seem to mind as he then redirected his show of affection to Hazel. Cowering, Hazel squealed with closed eyes, turning her face in different directions as Simmons determinedly fondled and brushed himself all over her face, and he did not let up until he heard tickled giggles.

Giggles that Remy did not think possible from the girl who’d been crying nonstop just a few minutes ago.

Beams of yellow shimmered curtains of light through pergolas of umber branches, blue-green leaves dancing in the gentlest breeze. Sea-green ivy traveled the aged highways of trunks twisted in unnatural curves, beds of lush turquoise grass blanketing the entirety of the ground where two godchildren lay in a wide path between the wall of trees.

Chloe lay on her left, platinum blonde spilling out from her lavender headband in long strands along the grass. One knee of her black leggings crossed over the other, placid arms slightly in front of her. Baby-blue hooded with weariness, her slowed breathing faced the soft snores of the boy slumbering soundly in front of her. Observing the scar imprinted into his forehead that peeked through his loose ginger bangs, his black rims resting beside his cheek.

Glimmering curtains of yellow reflected in light shimmers along Dwight’s arm, curving the outline of his slack jaw. She felt bathed in a warmth of tranquility, a nature’s hug. As if her body could just sink into the cushion of grass beneath her. Her last recollection was back in the room of beds; while Dwight had been among the first to doze off, her busy mind had made her the last. Chloe had been the first of the pair to open their eyes to a whole new world, and she hadn’t moved a finger. Even now, her mind still felt full, yet the thoughts that normally raced seemed to be swimming in the most peaceful fog.

She could still hear her inner worry, shouting at her to get off her lazy butt and assess their surroundings. Screaming at her to get it together, to snap out of whatever trance this was to make sure they were safe. That inner worry, once a prominent, boisterous cry, droned between her ears in a distant hum.

She couldn’t snap out of it...nor did she want to.

It was so strange…she felt as if she was occupying a body that wasn’t hers. Staring through a different pair of eyes, cozy laying next to a boy despite never being this close to one all alone. Such floozy behavior, as her mother would call it. Yes; according to Connie Carmichael, simply lying next to a boy alone was ‘inappropriate’ for little girls. Her mother would be absolutely furious if she found out. Like, fire-breathing furious.

It was so strange. Chloe…couldn’t bring herself to care.

…what was wrong with her?

When Chloe saw a jerking twitch in Dwight’s lips, her ambled thoughts assumed that he was having a vivid dream. Even when his mouth pulled in a gaping ‘O’ as his limbs extended, she would’ve figured he was stretching out of a deep sleep…until his limbs stiffened into straight boards and his breaths grew staggered.

“…Dwight?” her eyes opened wider at the spasmic jerks jolting through his body, popping veins through his neck and the sides of his temples.

The shade in his skin reddened from lack of oxygen, and the warmth that had embraced her left icy blood in her veins with just a finger’s snap.

“Dwight?!” Bolting upright, the first thing Chloe scrambled to do was restrain Dwight to the grass, as if that would somehow stop his spasms. This, to her detriment, worsened the rigid bend in his left arm. His right arm straightened flat as his shaking legs twisted, hardening at odd angles.

“Oh no…Dwight?!”

The whites of his eyes fluttered rapidly as his tight throat gargled froth, pooling from the tinge of blue in his lips that churned her stomach with a nauseating mixture of fear and panic. She sank back as her heart thumped madly in quick, hard pulses in her throat.

“W-What do I do…” she stammered. The more aggressive his electric body shook, the more restricted her lung shrank. Her once meandered thoughts spiraled in a dizzying buzz. The open space around them felt as walls closing in on her. “What do I do!?”

Indigo zoomed before her eyes, swooshing her blonde hair like a gust of wind. Jagged and uneven breaths gasped in her lips as she spotted the source of the large feathers soaring through the trees. Ear-like tufts reminiscent of a teddy bear, dark-teal saucers shaped like bold cat eyes. An almond body ruffled in an array of indigo plumage, dark-teal talons protruding from its toes shaded in a purplish blue. Belted with a turquoise band around its right leg with an emblem of a gold star.

Chloe gawked as a series of low hoots rang out upon its descent. Flapping its wings to slow its flight for a graceful landing, the owl perched on the patch of grass between the spasming boy and the anxious girl with its attention mostly focused on the obvious emergency. In a subtle hop forward, the owl expanded the feathers in its wings, and a radiance of turquoise sent fringed vanes and barbs ablaze. Turquoise sparkles enveloped Dwight’s body, ebbing his spasms into mild jerks before stiff limbs fell limp in a matter of seconds.

Froth bubbled out the corner of the color returning to his slack lips as the redness faded, his throat burbling to clear itself as the lids of his rolled eyes drooped. Clinging to the nearest support, Chloe’s fingers dug into the grass as if to anchor herself, to keep from spiraling out of control. So much happened in such quick succession; her frazzled mind could barely make sense of it.

With Dwight in a more stable condition, the owl’s elegance turned on its talons to face Chloe. Goosebumps rose like a constellation of distress along the back of her arms. Tingles rushed through her skin, sharp and cold. Goggled eyes grew wider when unblinking dark-teal saucers demanded and seized Chloe’s focus, piercing through her frozen stare.

Dark-teal saucers went aglow in a magical radiance of turquoise, and soon, it was as if the world around her was but a blur. The thunderous race in her heart ebbed, the restraint in her lungs laxed. Her jagged breathing smoothed even, and erratic thoughts wandered back to a cohesive path.

Chloe let out a weary sigh, and the owl’s eyes faded to their natural dark-teal.

“Splendid job, my sweet Bella.”

The owl, formally named Bella, responded with a pitchy twitter to the voice that had come from Chloe’s direct left. Chloe flinched when Bella expanded her graceful wings, using very little flapping to take flight in a noiseless glide. Banking her wings to the right, the owl turned around, soaring through the yellow shimmers of light towards their supposed owner.

Bella extended her talons, and Chloe’s bafflement watched as Bella perched onto the outstretched sleeve of the crowned, hooded figure robed in turquoise.

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Chloe laid eyes upon the levitating figure robed in turquoise, finding herself among the presence of upmost royalty. With Dwight comatose beside her in the bed of turquoise grass, she bowed down before the Council member with planted palms. Despite her reservations, her obligation felt compelled to show respect to one of the most powerful fairies known to existence. What other godchildren on Earth can say that they have come face-to-face with a fae equivalent of God?

Beneath the dark shadow of her hood, Treebelle rose a quizzical brow. Bending her arm towards her with Bella the owl still perched. “What is it that you are doing?” her feminine voice addressed the platinum blonde calmly, leading Chloe to lift her head with a fretting frown as if she’d done something wrong.

“I’m sorry…” she uttered pitifully. “I-I wanted to be respectful.”

“Sit up, child.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am…” Chloe did as told without question, straightening her back while still on her knees. Not that the Council woman came across domineering, but Chloe’s sense of inferiority did not want to appear discourteous.

“Try not to fret.” Treebelle could read Chloe’s unease in her hunched shoulders. “I have no qualms with you.”

“…forgive me.” Chloe briefly bowed her head. “I-I just don’t know where we are or why we’re here.”

A drowsy moan turned Chloe’s gaze to the boy’s lethargic stir, purple eyes squinting not just from the shimmering curtains of yellow rays robbing slumber’s darkness out of his sight. His head unmoving, sluggish fingers felt along the grass, presumably in search for the glasses that had shifted away from the turbulence of spasming limbs. Noticing this, Chloe only had to look down to spot the black specs that were next to her sandals, and she thought to grab them so that she could hold them within Dwight’s reach.

“Thank you…” Dwight groaned to whoever had handed him what his haze was looking for, adjusting his glasses on his face with one hand as he willed his other arm to lift him. Blinking the last of sleep from his eyes, though his mind continued to swim towards the shore of wakefulness.

The first that cleared the blur were vibrant pools of blue staring back at him, gentle yet troubled. Her round chin trembled ever so faintly, worry etched through the wrinkles in her forehead.

“…Chloe?” the dryness in his throat croaked, sitting up further as the crook in his neck made his nose scrunch. The sides of his temples pulsed in weak throbs, and he recognized the mild aches in his arms and legs.

Further confirmation of what this meant came when her puckered brow turned away, and his features fell shamefully. Having a seizure in front of others was embarrassing enough, but what he hated most were the seizures in his sleep without warning.

“…I’m sorry.” he apologized, lowering his chin as she glanced back at him.

“Don’t apologize.” Chloe dismissed. “You had no control.”

Not disproving that she had to witness his biggest flaw only deepened Dwight’s frown. “But I probably scared you.”

“Don’t worry about me…” Chloe thinned her lips, clenching her jaw. “I’m fine.”

“Do not invalidate your own feelings, Chloe.” the robed elder counseled, and Chloe quietly gasped towards her. “No one faults you for admitting to distress.”

Ashamed of herself, Chloe hung her head. Dwight quickly recognized the Council woman but did not recognize the indigo plumage and dark-teal stare of the owl on her arm.

“And do not apologize for what you canst not control, Dwight.” Treebelle then addressed the male godchild. “Seizures are inherently distressing even to the most exposed.”

Dwight’s two fingers massaged his left temple, grimacing at her words; his best friend and his godfather would say similar things, yet try as he might, his self-conscious could never take those words to heart.

“I have brought the two of you here to my private dwelling.” Treebelle then informed. “There are matters in which I must discuss with you.”

“…are our godparents okay?” the knots in Chloe’s stomach questioned.

“Your godparents are fine.” Treebelle assured. “Right now, however, they hold no relevance.”

A haunted look crossed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“She just means they’re not what she needs to talk to us about…” Dwight spoke mutedly based off the few details the Council were willing to give before in regards to their godparents. Though this did boggle his mind on what a member of the Fairy Council needed to discuss with two godchildren if not about their fairies.

“Be with them, Bella.”

By Treebelle’s gentle instructions, the indigo owl let out a tu-whoo. Spreading her wings to lift off from her maker’s arm. The godchildren leaned sidways from the expansion of Bella’s wings in her noiseless landing in the child-sized patch of grass between them, watching her wings retract to her sides as she waddled on her talons for the ruffling feathers on her chest to face the direction of the robed figure.

Bella’s neck snapped ninety degrees in an unblinking stare, locking eyes with the boy’s blinks that became more discomforted as awkward silence crept into the air. She stared like a statue frozen in time, and it was starting to crawl an icy chill up his spine.

Treebelle hovered a short distance towards the children, lowering her feet to the ground. “She has taken a liking to you.”

Dwight’s brow wrinkled cringingly which did not seem to faze Bella’s locked eyes in the slightest. “Weird way of showing it…”

“You do not appear to be suffering from the worst of postictal.” Treebelle observed Dwight’s wit. “You can thank Bella for that.”

Bella ruffled her feathers with a charming hoot, softening Dwight’s cringe.

“If not for her, you would likely still be seizing right now.”

Hugging knees to her chest, Chloe eyed the owl’s enthrallment towards the other godchild. If not for Bella, she would likely still be panicking, too…

Shifting gears, Treebelle folded her arms over her chest. “Do you remember the boy that assaulted you?” she tested, and he raised his mulling gaze to her.

“…I think so…” Dwight droned. Memories of that day sizzled like fuzzy static in his brain.

“His name is Bradley, one of the boys that jumped you and Gary.” The Councilwoman gave a soft reminder. “He was the one who slammed your head against the sidewalk.”

Chloe observed Dwight’s absentminded hand reach to his forehead, brushing along the healed indent.

“An altercation in juvenile detention had led to the loss of his left eye.”

Dwight’s broad eyes snapped. Without the gruesome details, he could only imagine what must’ve become of his assailant. “Is…he okay? Besides the eye?”

“That, I am uncertain,” was half an opinion, half a statement. Partially because she figured even the toughest spirit would be forever bruised after being rendered permanently blinded in one eye, and partially because she did not want Dwight to worry himself over what should not be his main concern.

“W-What about my dads?” Dwight inquired next, worried something terrible might’ve happened to them as well.

“Your fathers are not physically harmed.” Treebelle confirmed.

“They’re probably worried sick about me…” Dwight’s guilt thought aloud, and Chloe wrinkled her brow at the thought of her own father’s wrecked nerves.

“Um, excuse me…” Chloe raised her hand as if waiting on permission from a teacher to speak, letting down her hand once acknowledged by the Councilwoman. “Will we ever see our parents again?”

Treebelle sighed heavily, mentally preparing for the bombshell that she had held off dropping on purpose. “Chloe…” she began, kneeling on one knee to the platinum blonde. “…there is something you must know.”

When her peripheral noticed Bella snap her feathered neck a full 180 in her direction, lines of dread formed across Chloe’s forehead, making her gulp down the acid welling in her stomach. She furrowed towards the hooded fae, haggard with worry as Treebelle cleared her throat.

“I am sorry, Chloe.” Treebelle uttered solemnly “…your mother is gone.”

Her hollowed core froze icy cold.

The skin that was already faintly pale blanched chalk-white. ‘Your mother is gone’ echoed between her ears in a haunting reverb. Her arms tensed with the rigidity in her shoulders, her heart stumbling over its own rhythm as its drumming palpitations thundered over the dizzying whirlwind of incoherent thoughts. Shuddering breaths escaped, lungs forgetting how to breathe as chills surged through her veins.

“…Chloe?” the Councilwoman’s gentle voice came muffled in Chloe’s ears, as if her head had sunk underwater. Staring straight ahead, the yellow rays of light and turquoise grass began to blend in a darkening blur. Her world blinked black as a panicked tremor shook through her arms, chattering her knees. Losing her grip on reality…

Dwight goggled when a glaze as ghostly as her face glossed over Chloe’s eyes before they rolled back in her backwards fall. He gasped a sharp breath when her back arched and her eyes fluttered. Body shaking vigorously and limbs flailing like a fish out of water which, from what had been described to him in the past, looked hauntingly familiar.

Bella sprung to action, the feathers in her wings expanding as turquoise blazed in her vanes. Enveloping Chloe in the magical sparkles that quickly reduced the overwhelming spike in her anxiety as her thrashing becalmed.

Her head bobbled back and forth until it wilted to one side, and rigid breaths of distress clutched the sides of Dwight’s head.

Leaned against the rocky magenta wall of the galactic mountain, Hazel palmed her chin as soft fingers gave gentle strokes along the purple stripe of the red ferret contently nestled across her crossed legs. As if each brush of his fur spread another coat of numbing cream to the aching wounds to her soul. She could feel all her troubles slowly fading away simply by the comfort of Simmons’ overfond presence. Not a permanent fix, she recognized that…but…it was nice.

“Why did you separate us from our godparents in the first place?” Remy queried the hooded fae before them, brows slitted to the figure robed in pink who was levitating just above one of the cracks in the ground bubbling with red magma.

“Because the other Council members and I wanted zero interference from them.” Persimmon simply stated, the gruffness in his voice remaining leveled.

After he had made his presence known to the godchildren, the Councilman had been quizzed more by the older lad while the younger girl seemed content in giving his magical companion her attention. From the cynical crinkle in the boy’s features, the lack of trust was not unsurprising, nor did Persimmon take it personally. That nanny and his sick pleasures had done a number on the boy’s ability to recognize harmless intent.

Remy scowled, gritting his teeth. Circumvented interference from anyone who could save them sounded the alarms in his psyche, tingling his spine with the unsettling notion that this was all part of some twisted scheme.

“…what kind of Fairy Council are you…”

Hazel glanced up from her gentle strokes, hearing the distrust in Remy’s snarl. Despite essentially being kidnapped by the Fairy Council, she had yet to find a reason to be wary of them. She was always one to try and find the good in others. Perhaps that was the flaw that eventually led to her downfall…

Persimmon, unfazed, held Remy’s suspecting gaze. “We do not mean you harm-”

“Bull!” Remy growled, standing to a split stance with fists wadded defensively to his sides. “Give us our godparents back!”

“They shall be returned in due time.” Persimmon guaranteed without raising his voice. “For now, I am unable to do so.”

“And why the ever-loving hell not!?”

The yellow eyes beneath Persimmon’s hood furrowed in a stern gaze, his patience waning. “Sit down, child.”

“No!”

“Sit. Down.”

Hazel frowned, growing uncomfortable from the brewing tension. Sensing this as well, Simmons jumped from Hazel’s lap to brush his left side against Remy’s right leg who grunted in response.

“Stop that!”

In spite of Remy’s demand, Simmons crawled up Remy’s leg to latch onto his shoulder, and before Remy could think to tear him off, a taffy-pink aura illuminated Simmons’ red fur. The surge in Remy’s frustration weakened, also weakening his mind’s control over his own body. Enwrapping pink sparkles stumbled him back to the mountainous wall, dropping straightened legs down on his backside next to Hazel’s watchful gaze.

Only when the sparkles waned did the numbing tingles in Remy’s bones subside, and Simmons crawled from his shoulder to nuzzle down in the crevice of his lap.

“Now that I have your cooperation…” Persimmon coolly remarked as Remy had enough control to bitterly snarl towards the Councilman, feeling very much coerced “…we can get to the real matters at hand.”

Hazel swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Fenwick is a threat no longer.” Persimmon began with less daunting news. “For he is now out of commission.”

After a puzzled pause, the two godchildren exchanged glances. Hazel downturned the corners of thin lips before Remy returned the Councilman’s gaze with a co*cked brow “…meaning?”

“Meaning he is of the physical and mental suffering to where he will likely be left with no choice but to enter early retirement.”

That told a lot and said a lot of nothing at the same time.

“What even happened?” Remy inquired out of morbid curiosity more so than care.

“He got a taste of his own medicine.” Persimmon summarized.

“Was…” Hazel peeped, wringing her hands “…w-was he…touched?”

“Worse; he was violated and stripped of his manhood in the worst way imaginable.”

Sensing that Persimmon purposefully omitted explications, Remy lowered his troubled grimace to the beady blue-violets staring at him sympathetically. Struggling with whether his ex-nanny’s physical and emotional suffering qualified as true justice. Was it more justice than putting the creep behind bars? Was it more justice than making his sick pleasures public as a sex offender? What even constituted as justice in this case?

Hazel’s gaze downcast, biting her lip. Fenwick had done deplorable things, and yet, she didn’t know if she would’ve wished this on him. She was a strong believer of karma; regardless, even with Persimmon’s limited account, that type of karma sounded…cruel.

“Hazel?” she heard the Councilman’s call, meekly meeting his addressing gaze. “There is something I must tell you that you may find…upsetting.”

Brown eyes grew wide with a worried shudder. Simmons stretched from between Remy’s thighs before his paws slunk towards Hazel, careful not to startle her as he nestled his way onto her lap.

With a softened expression, the Councilman exhaled a gruffy breath. “Anthony had reached a point wherein he could not bear the crushing guilt of his sins…” he stalled, prolonging the rip of the bandage “…so, he ended his own suffering.”

Simmons pressed his right side against her striped sweater, stretching his neck to brush the forehead of his bristling fur to the little girl’s chin that had begun to tremble. She gasped a sob as the eyes that had taken forever to dry freshly brimmed with the breath-taking punch to her hollow chest. Was this karma?

Remy lifted a curious gaze towards Hazel’s tears. “…did Anthony do something to you, Hazel?”

Hazel winced plaintively, and the ferret allowed her quivering arms to cling around his body.

“I do not intend to speak your truth for you.” Persimmon advised. “And I cannot allow you to continue to hide behind locked lips.”

Hazel clutched Simmons tighter “…no…” she whimpered, shaking her head. “…I-I can’t…”

“You are hurting no one but yourself.”

Her eyes shot up, tears slipping down her cheeks. If what Persimmons said about Anthony is true, then her brother can never hurt her again. With her luck, their parents would somehow pin the blame of his untimely death on her sudden disappearance. How was she hurting herself when she would be punished regardless?

“Hazel.” she didn’t need to look to feel Remy’s piercing eyes. “What did he do to you?”

“…no…” her sorrowful tears buried wet cheeks into the red ferret’s fur, Simmons’ frowning at the weight of her anguish. The pain was far too great, but she’d rather the pain destroy her than everyone around her.

Persimmon found himself in a pickle. He saw no trouble using his magical companion to discipline a defiant child. However, drawing the most traumatic secret out of an inflicted child, he recognized, was a whole other test of his morality.

Acting entirely on his own, Simmons went aglow in taffy-pink glitters, but instead of controlling Hazel’s body, he accessed her mind. Downloading her memories into his magic’s internal hard drive.

“Simmons, what are you doing?!” Persimmon fretted. Considering the intrusiveness of it all, he did not think this the best approach. However, there was no changing Simmons’ mind once made up.

Hazel squeaked when Simmons wildly wrestled against her clinging grasp, wiggling himself free. The young billionaire gasped in small surprise when Simmons leaped across into his lap and pressed his front paws to the boy’s shoulders. Red paws glistened pink, transferring flashes of magical data into the computer of Remy’s mind, and his lips pinched together in a hard line, mint-green widening in a catatonic stupor…

He saw everything.

He saw the nanny act upon his twisted fantasies with a young boy, the same twisted fantasies that had been acted upon him. He saw Fenwick cup Anthony’s cheek, reaffirming him that their bond must stay between them. He saw the argument in her bedroom, Hazel’s proven accusations against Anthony’s conflicted denial. He saw Anthony stick a needle into Nyekundu…saw Hazel hitting him in distress. Saw him smack Hazel to the ground, saw him straddle her and force her arms over her head. Saw him shove the handkerchief into her mouth and-

…Christ....

When Simmons retreated his paws, weak lips parted in a sharp breath, and haunted mint-green glossed. Any semblance of coherent thoughts a jumbled, chaotic mess in his busied brain. There were simply no words. His heart cracked, shattering into broken pieces. That sick, demented bastard! That poor, innocent girl…

Realizing what had just occurred, a knot clenched her throat, and her jaw grew tense with strain. Guttural shame and gripping agony quivering her lips as pain poured from her eyes. She doubled over with her hands cupping her face, amplifying her sniveling whines. There are such things best left unsaid, yet what’s done in the dark will always come to light…

Remy inched his head towards her ragged sobs, spiteful fire tremoring beneath his watering stare. That prick had the nerve, the absolute gumption, to kill himself…because he was suffering?! Because he couldn’t deal with what he’d done?!

“The nanny had manipulated her brother.” Persimmon grimly clarified as if he could hear Remy’s thoughts. “Coerced him into attacking his own sister so that his own hands remained clean.”

“W-What?” Hazel whispered shakily, lowering her damp palms. “Y-You mean…?”

“Yes…” Persimmon grimaced beneath his hood. “Anthony had been sent to drug your godmother and break your spirit as part of Fenwick’s malevolent scheme.”

As tears streamed from Hazel’s trembling wide stare, Remy grinded his teeth with gritting fists, strained breaths flaring his nostrils as Simmons knitted his commiserative brow. Anthony had his faults, but Fenwick did not deserve to draw breath! Living in suffering was not justice! That unsightly urchin deserved to rot in the hottest, fiery depths!

“Remy…” The elder fae addressed the other godchild, choosing to move on to the next important matter. “There is something I must tell you as well.”

Mouth clamped with a tremoring jaw, Remy forced fixed eyes to meet the Councilman’s gaze, spasms of irritation crossing his face.

“The Buxaplenty private jet nosedived and crashed in a field.” Persimmon allowed his pause time to breathe before he dropped the bombshell “…there were no survivors.”

The shiver that shot down Remy’s spine spread like a burning wildfire.

As her own eyes stung red with heartache, Hazel turned to the vexed gawk of momentary paralysis that froze like a still frame. The world around him felt detached from what was real, like a fish-eyed blur, yet his heightened awareness sharpened his senses into overdrive.

Golden rays of her last hope of sunlight diffused into an endless pool of blue, growing darker and darker the further she sank. Her feeble arms failed to paddle against the gravity of descending depths. Her kicking legs struggled to bring her back towards the sun-speckled surface, sinking her faster. Strands of platinum blonde rose like seaweed upwards, rippling in the swirling currents dragging her down.

Fire stung in her chest, a winter chill shivering in her skin. Her heart hammered against her ribs, ballooning a deafening pressure in her skull. Suffocation crushed her lungs, and the desperate fight for air choked in her throat. Blackness slowly crept around her vision. Her lungs cried out, and a gush of water rushed in a silent scream.

Water crashed in salty burns against her throat, tearing agony throughout her body. Her arms weakened, and her legs slowed. The water let her go, her body floating like a soft feather down deeper. Her thoughts drifted into flickering snapshots of memories before the baby-blue orbs that darted with terror glazed over, and her eyelids lowered as a sea of abyss washed over.

The light was blind, and darkness shined…

She awoke with a gulped breath, springing upright in a jolting start.

“You are alive, Chloe.” Her eyes snapped to the fae hooded in turquoise kneeled to her left, a gentle hand palming her tense shoulder. “It was not real.”

Breathing labored, her crazed eyes darted about. Scanning the sea-green ivy vining the umber trunks of curved trees. Tips of her icy fingers felt the soft bed of grass beneath her, bare arms washed with the yellow rays above.

Raising a trembling hand to the rapid thumps in her chest, her constricted throat found the voice to squeak “…w-what happened?”

“You had a seizure.” Treebelle revealed, and Chloe shot her a baffled glance.

“…w-what?!”

“It was psychogenic and non-epileptic, triggered by extreme emotional stress and anxiety.” Treebelle calmly specified. “Almost like an overblown panic attack.”

Chloe looked to her sweaty palms with a shudder. She vaguely remembered something similar to this back in her hometown of Brightsburg; her fourth-grade class was in the middle of standardized testing when a prompt asking to identify a number pattern sent her fear of answering incorrectly into a surging spiral. Her panic had gotten so bad that she remembered these cold shimmers shaking in her body, and then the next she knew, she felt herself on the ground. Opening her eyes to mocking laughter and pointed fingers of her peers…

Her brain was diseased, even back then…

Still kneeling, Treebelle released Chloe’s shoulder. “Would you like to talk about your dream?”

The Councilwoman’s question pulled her back to real time, staring at the glowing yellow eyes shrouded by hooded darkness. Considering the idea, but only for a second. “…n-no…” Shame hung Chloe’s head, lowering her upturn palms to her lap. She didn’t want to talk about anything. Not about the vivid dream that felt more real than the punching blow of her mother’s death…

Then, realization broadened her stare. “W-Wait…” Chloe lifted her chin, her eyes darting back and forth “…where’s Dwight?”

When she heard a low tu-whoo, she glanced across to her left to see dark-teal saucers fixed in their stare towards her. Bella was nested in the other godchild’s bent knees. She seemed unbothered by the shuddering shoulders that wrapped lanky arms, restricting her wings to the sides of her chest. She also didn’t seem to mind the whimpering cheek pressed to the indigo feathers behind her head.

“Your attack was quite the shock for him; he had never seen anything quite like that from you before.” Treebelle explained why Dwight was squeezing an owl from a distance.

Chloe’s brow furrowed in a guilted frown. “I-I’m sorry…” she turned to Treebelle’s attentive gaze. “I-I didn’t mean to scare anybody…”

“Do not apologize. You had no control.”

Chloe stiffened, recognizing the words thrown back at her.

“He is very worried about you.” Treebelle hinted at a suggestion. “How about you go over to him? He may appreciate it.”

Looking back to the boy’s faint shivers, Chloe agreed with a weak nod. Grunting from the dull soreness in her muscles, she staggered to her feet with Treebelle’s assisting hand. Once steady enough, she tugged awkwardly at platinum blonde locks, taking a deep breath in her tentative strides towards him.

Flinching her ear-like tufts, Bella acknowledged her oncoming presence with a twitter, though Dwight’s lack of awareness continued to nuzzle his cheek into her feathers. He jerked from his mewling trance when Bella broke his arms’ embracing barrier to expand her wings and leaped from his lap into a smooth glide through the air, something she easily could have done if she had wanted to leave at any point.

As Bella returned to the outstretched sleeve of her maker, a small breeze swept through his striped shirt. Dwight sat agape at the seamless sway of platinum locks dancing with the gentle gust of air that faded as quickly as it started.

Stopping less than a foot away, Chloe licked her dry lips, bending her arms to her chest “…hey, Dwight…”

He swiftly shuffled off the ground when the stun of surprise wore off. “Chloe! You’re awake!”

She had no time to brace herself for the impact of his thankful embrace. She winced as he latched onto her, nestling his chin on her shoulder as her arms were strained to her sides. The longer he held her, the redder her cheeks flushed.

He gave one gentle squeeze before letting her go. “I’m so glad you’re okay…”

“…um…yeah. I-I’m fine.” she blinked to the relief in his gaze, managing to keep her tone deceptively even “…are…you okay?”

He smiled his first genuine smile in a long, long time. “I am now that you are.”

Despite her overall fatigue, Chloe feigned a withered grin. Dwight really was such a kind soul. Why did he ever have to suffer…

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m…a little stiff.” She admitted, rubbing the crook in her neck.

“I bet.” Dwight empathized. “Does your head hurt?”

“…sort of?” Chloe guessed, though her head felt foggy rather than achy. “But…if it’s okay…” she tugged at another strand of hair, clearing the scratchiness in her throat. “I-I’d like to ask you something.”

“Sure! Ask me anything.”

She could feel a humid heat beneath her armpits, hesitant to ask “…are you ever scared when you have a seizure?”

His smile wilted, though it did not drop completely. “Yeah…especially if I can feel one coming on.”

Chloe absently scratched at her chin “…does…it make you anxious?”

Thinking for a moment, Dwight shrugged “…sometimes, yeah.”

Bella twittered out of shrill boredom, ruffling her chest feathers. Treebelle held a finger to her shaded lips to calmy shush her; she was simply trying to hear the conversation. Just listening from a distance. No eavesdropping once so ever.

“…I probably sound like a hypocrite, but…” she picked at her nails, her gaze downcast. “I’m sorry for making you worried...”

“It’s okay.” Shoving hands in his jean pockets, Dwight folded his lips before his shoulders drooped with a sigh. “Now I understand what others go through with my seizures…”

“Yeah, because seizures can be terrifying…”

In a finger’s snap, her eyes became as distant as her voice. Struck with the bang of suppressed memories “…that doesn’t mean I struggle with this so-called anxiety…”

The unexpected change in her demeanor squinted Dwight’s quizzical brow “…wait, what do you mean?”

“You have a real, neurological disorder…yet I pop pills that clearly didn’t do their job…” Chloe’s stare blanked, as if the thoughts in her own head had been swapped with the cold, vicious tongue of her mother “…I don’t need them, and never did…”

Deep furrows appeared between his brows, studying the eyes that seemed to stare through him like translucent paper. Where was all this coming from?

Haunted eyes stricken with inner anxiety, her lips twitched in sharp, anxious gasps for breath.

“Chloe?” he stepped forward, pressing tender hands to the rigid wrists clutched against her. “Chloe, what’s wrong-”

“Get a grip!” she shouted, swiping his hands away. Wild eyes glaring past Dwight at whoever or whatever was invisible to everyone else but her. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you!”

Dwight’s jaw dropped, taken aback. Frozen in his stare “…C-Chloe-”

“You saw for yourself what a real mental disorder looks like! That boy’s poor brain literally malfunctions at a moment’s glance!” Chloe’s feet stumbled backwards by an unseen finger firmly shoving her by the chest. “You make yourself hyperventilate! You make a big fuss over stuff that’s just all in your head!”

She clutched at her chest with trembling fingers, as if trying to keep her pounding heart from exploding from her chest. Her mind jolted blank, anxiety boiling into rage. Rage that bubbled deep in her pit, sweltering through her throat.

Reading between the lines of pain in her scowl, his brows knitted, and his stare glossed. These were not Chloe’s words. This was not her. This was someone else’s needle whose hostility had etched spiteful words into the skin of her psyche like a deep-rooted tattoo.

“Stop being a whiney brat-”

A hooting screech rang, cutting the air. As if slowing time, a swipe of wind from the gaudy stretch of spread-eagle wings acted as a barrier between her and Dwight. Saucers of dark-teal orbs pierced with a turquoise glow, and Chloe’s scowl weakened to a vacant expression.

When Bella’s eyes dimmed before she fluttered off, a heaviness washed over her, and her knees buckled as her legs gave way.

“Chloe!”

Dwight rushed with outstretched arms, catching her frontwards fall as her deadweight fell against his chest. Though she could barely keep her head from rocking back, her eyes were still open. He could see a semblance of her essence seep through the glassy blue orbs rimmed with fresh tears, her murmured whisper distant with a pained crack…

“…m-m…m-my mother…is dead…”

He locked eyes with her as a breath shuddered in his chest. He saw a single tear trace a haunted path down her cheek, and an empathic twinge in his heart bit down on his quivering lip, his own eyes brimming at the heart-wrenching sight.

Holding out her sleeve for Bella’s smooth glide to land noiselessly, the Fairy Councilwoman observed the children from a distance with a vexed grimace. This was exactly what the fae elder had been afraid of…

Connie Carmichael had full, unabating control…even in death.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

Rushing cascades of lavender waterfall rippled the stillness of indigo air. Time was unmeasurable, and silence was the loudest it’d ever been. A fae elder cloaked in purple hovered along the basalt rocks of the riverbank, hands hidden in the crossed sleeves of his robe. His magical companion was perched on his left shoulder with her dark-blue plumage glowing teal at the tips. As the Fairy Councilman observed the two godchildren before him, he allowed the weight of the moment to breathe.

Molly hugged her knees, eyes empty yet dour. Tootie’s lips trembled, notebook clutched to her torso. The girls had just learned that Tootie’s father was knocking on death’s door, and the boyfriend of Molly’s mother had already closed death’s door behind him. At least the Councilman had spared the details; what had become of those men was gruesome enough.

“Tootie?” Plumfrost’s tenor voice called out to the girl that he had yet to hear a peep from. “What is on your mind?”

Molly shot hollow eyes to the silent girl beside her, also curious to know what could be whizzing around in that mind of hers. The longer the news had the chance to sink in, the more blood had drained from Tootie’s face. Paling her skin more than Molly’s natural tone which, to Molly, was more telling than verbal words.

A hard shell with rough edges would not know a thing about what it is to be so delicate. Molly was not known to be sheltered. Not even during the era before Marissa had met Francis’s father and worsened the inner demons that were already a struggle for her to overcome.

Tootie lowered her gaze, squeezing her notebook as if to cut its breaths as short as hers. Feeling her throat constrict, she swallowed back a gag from the summersaults in her stomach. Everything in her mind screamed to reserve her sympathy…yet everything in her heart pleaded to show mercy.

But why show mercy? A verse that, let alone the entire bible, she had not thought of nor read in what felt like an eternity, flashed in intermittent loops across her mind: Matthew 5:43-44. Was a man who chose Jehovah’s satisfaction over the wellbeing of his family deserving of mercy? Was he even her enemy?

She knew exactly what Vicky would say, and she knew what she should say.

But what would she say?

“You must use your voice in order to find it.” Plumfrost calmly spoke to the child whose braces chewed on her bottom lip as she forced herself to look back up.

“Maybe she doesn’t wanna admit that she thinks her dad’s gonna croak.” Molly guessed flatly, and Tootie’s furrowed brows snapped at her.

“Tootie can speak for herself.” Plumfrost advised. “We mustn’t assume her truth.”

Molly scoffed. “Well, ya don’t hafta assume my truth; I’m glad that bastard’s dead.”

Tootie pouted. Was Molly referring to her mom’s boyfriend, or her devout father? Either way, she at least thought it never okay to wish death.

“Oh?” the Fairy Councilman arched a brow beneath his hood, entertaining the godchild who clearly had something to say. “And why is that?”

“Cuz Frank’s a di-” Molly caught herself when she briefly glanced over at the discomfort in the younger girl’s expression. “…a bad person.”

“True.” Plumfrost recognized, scratching beneath Plum’s beak when she brushed her head to the side of his hood. “That said…why are you not smiling?”

Tootie saw the squint of confusion in narrowed yale-blue as Molly asked “…what’re you talking about?”

“Usually, there are visible signs of the happiness that someone claims to feel, such as something as simple as a grin.” Plumfrost pointed out, no hint of conceit in his words.

Molly slit her brow, raising her guard. “Says the dude who hides his face.”

Plumfrost gave the smallest titter, unoffended by a comment from a girl who hides half her vision with her own hair. “Then let me ask you this.” He held both hands behind his back, pulling back his shoulders as his chest expanded. “Was there ever a time where you were truly happy?”

Her gaze hardened with a flicker of distaste. “Swizzle’s not as bad of a godparent as you think.”

“That is not at all what I asked.” Plumfrost remarked. “And I ask in reference to you, not your godmother.”

With no quick rebuttal, Molly took the time to consider the Councilman’s question before her conclusions led to a loose shrug. Sure, she could recall sparce moments of fun in her life, but something that should be so easy to identify seemed difficult to define. What exactly was true happiness? What is it like to feel pure joy?

Taking the lack of answer as a response, Plumfrost continued “Was there ever a time when you were sad?”

Tootie noticed Molly stall by folding her lips before she grumbled “…no.”

Plumfrost caught the softer shift in her tone. “Are you sure?”

Yale-blue snapped to the left, then to the right, then directly into the Councilman’s attentive gaze as if to project an obvious “…yes.”

Plumfrost then challenged “Does it not make you sad to believe you have no purpose?”

Molly’s nostrils flared, her voice toneless. “Why be sad if it’s true?”

The corners of Tootie’s lips turned downward; kids shouldn’t feel as if they have no purpose. Meanwhile, Plumfrost suppressed an edging grin. Sometimes, it is not strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells. If he kept chipping away, tiny piece by tiny piece, he would reach the fragile core eventually.

“Was there ever a time where you were scared?”

Molly’s guard refused to yield. “I’m never scared.”

“…are you not afraid to live?” Plumfrost tested, making Molly suck her teeth.

“I’m sure not afraid to die.”

“Again, not at all what I asked.”

Tootie felt her bones chatter just from seeing repressed rage begin to shake in Molly’s arms, sensing the unravel of Molly’s nerves with the Councilman seemingly unshaken all the while.

“I believe you are afraid.” Plumfrost coolly countered with his dark-blue shoulder ornament ruffling her feathers. “Afraid to keep living with no purpose.”

Her struck nerve soured her scowl. A growl throbbed the veins in Molly’s neck, fists clenching as she stood to her feet in a readied stance.

“In fact, you are afraid that your godmother can do much bet-”

“Shut up!”

Her bark echoed through the air, and Plum hackled a shrill warning, fluffing out her throat feathers. Plumfrost shushed the raven with a finger to his shadowed lips as Tootie frowned, stiffening.

When Plum was less hostile, he shifted his leveled gaze back to the scowl that could kill any fragile soul three times over. “It appears that you are angry.”

“If I could pound your skull in, I would!” Molly spat.

As Plum screeched at her, one corner of what could be seen of Plumfrost’s lip bent upwards, giving no energy towards the empty threat. “That seems to be the only emotion you can identify.” his gentle fingers stroked the silk of Plum’s fluffed feathers. “Ever wonder why that is?”

“The hell should I know!?”

Tootie flinched, unable to fathom the audacity to speak to someone so superior with such disrespect. That was always an automatic lash of the switch when Vicky would cross those thin lines with their father…

“I believe you do know. However, allow me to explain.”

Plumfrost slowly levitated towards Molly with Plum still perched on his shoulder. Her defenses stepped backwards, attempting to maintain a nonconfrontational distance. She knew not to do anything stupid, but she wasn’t certain of her restraint if he got too close.

“Anger is the only emotion you were ever allowed to express, the only emotion that was not shamed or chastised. Am I right?”

Molly tried to stand her guard, but his words ignited the extinguished candles in her memories.

It was Molly and Marissa against the world for the first 10½ years of her life. There had always been a gaping hole where her father should be, where Marissa’s high school ex should have been. Molly remembered how pathetic she was back then, how she’d cry for a deadbeat who chose not to be there. Remembered how she’d receive a backhand and a reprimand to stop being such a baby in response, even as a baby.

Depending on her intoxication level, Marissa would apologize, blame her broken heart, and beg for forgiveness. If she had rather enjoy her buzz, she’d use the quick fix of locking Molly in her room. Younger Molly would be locked away for hours on end. As she grew older, less time dried her tears, until she’d accepted that crying won’t bring back the father she never knew.

The only time Marissa showed any pride in birthing a human was when Molly stood up to bullies or snapped at any threat to her with impulsive fists, shouting threats that no ordinary child would think to make. If teachers ever questioned her extreme aggression, Marissa would excuse that she refused to raise a prissy pushover. Being a priss had made her single in the first place, and Molly will not fall down that same trap. That said, being a hardass hadn’t exactly brought all the boys to the yard, either.

Until Marissa met Frank.

Already a legal adult by the time Marissa took her first steps, the ex-con had been the first man to show any interest in Marissa. Marissa didn’t think she’d ever do much better, so she jumped at his bait. Marissa had only been a month in before Dr. Jekyll revealed Mr. Hide; Frank would force his way with her, yell and scream at her. Choke her to a dangerous point of taking her last breath.

If Molly screamed or showed the tiniest ounce of terror, she’d get a smack to her face followed by a shout at her to suck it up and know her f*ckin’ place. If Marissa was too weak to push herself off the ground, Molly would have to summon the strength to carry her to the bathroom. That is, if Marissa didn’t have enough fight to swat her away first.

There was one time when Molly tended to Marissa’s many welts and bruises wherein her dry eyes remembered what gloss felt like. Her tears hadn’t had a chance to brim before Marissa had yanked Molly by her collar and gritted her teeth at her to stop that weak-ass crying. This was the only man who didn’t reject them, and Molly didn’t get the worst of it. So why the hell was she crying?

“Seems I am correct.”

Her eyes fluttered, sucked back to the robed figure and piercing teal eyes of the dark-blue raven that were now intruding her personal space. She stepped backwards again, crinkling her glare as she muttered “…what do you know.”

“I know many things.” The fae elder remarked. Plum’s beak picked at her feathers as Plumfrost folded his arms. “In fact, I know that you are not glad that Frank is dead, but rather, you are angry. Angry that you could not end him yourself.”

The muscles in her jaw tensed as nails of gritted fists dug into her palms. Crimpling her lips in a sneering growl to combat how pathetic she felt. Damn this guy!

“Anger, while an emotion in its own right, is but a default emotion.” Plumfrost went on to explain. “But because emotions such as fear, sadness, or disappointment create feelings of helplessness and loss of control, to allow yourself to feel them causes distress.”

Though her gaze burned with an intensity that could scorch the earth, her faulty defenses took another step back.

“Anger can make us feel strong. Make us feel powerful.” Plumfrost then upturned his palm to conjure lavender sparkles, causing Plum’s glowing teal eyes and the tips of her dark-blue feathers to ruffle aglow in a brighter lavender. “But true strength does not come from concealing; it comes from the courage to be vulnerable.”

Nothing could prepare her for the instant leap and glide of the raven’s wings zooming faster than the speed of light, landing onto Molly’s left shoulder as if she had simply teleported. Plum dug her talons for a secure grip, and without warning, her beak aimed at the child’s chest.

Tootie gasped aghast, scooting backwards with one hand as her arm clung to the security blanket of her notebook. Quick breaths quivering at what could pass as a horror movie. Plum’s beak gnawed inside the puncture wound near Molly’s heart, oozing squirts of scarlet onto Molly’s grey sweater. Grunting in pain, Molly would’ve swung her arms with every might to fight the raven off. Only to find that the electric sting in her chest surged through her veins down to the very tips of her fingers, weakening her fists and dropping her to her knees.

Molly grinded her jaw with clamped eyes, her heart clenching into fluttering palpitations. Blood coating her beak, Plum then began to rip out what looked like a bubbling mass of the blackest fluid. Leaping from Molly’s shoulder, Plum gradually extracted the mysterious mass in a black trail as Molly bent backwards, crying out in agony.

Folding his arms, Plumfrost did not seem shocked at the mass oozing in a liquidity string that seemed endless the further Plum ascended higher into the air to accommodate the length. He couldn’t say he expected any different; there was so much sadness that had nowhere else to go for the longest time.

With one last tug, Plum successfully ripped the last of the mass as the tip of the trail left a splotch of crimson in Molly’s sweater. Heart palpitations slowed to normal thumps as she doubled over in the pained grunts of strained breaths and clutched her chest, her palm wet with dark-red droplets. Flying further out over the lilac river away from the children, Plum inhaled the entirety of the mass into her bloodied beak like a string of spaghetti and exhaled a single cough of black smoke. Dispelling years of darkness that’d been held captive inside.

Her right arm trembled, barely supporting her from falling face first. Shaky fingers traced trails into the dirt, rushing waves of despair and heartache crashing against her ribs. The backs of her eyes stung, unable to stop the flowing stream of tears damping her cheeks no matter how hard she tried. Her grunts withered to stifled sobs, downturn brows knitting up in the middle. Her left palm gripped at the stain in her sweater, shoulders shaking as if the restraint she once harbored had been stolen from her.

“Do not hold back.” Plumfrost gently encouraged as Plum washed her beak off in the river. “Let it out.”

All defenses weakened and depleted, a scream of rage devolved into a string of agonized wails, and cracks in her vocal cords hickuped raw sobs. Clasped eyelids could not hold back the streaming rivers of the fractured soul within, each jagged shard of her shattered heart cutting deeper with every beat.

f*ck…why the hell was she crying?

Hugging her notebook with both arms, Tootie’s lower lip quivered. Heartstrings twisting the same as when Vicky broke down in the courtroom. Her glasses fogged from the gloss in her eyes, ears ringing with every aching, resonate cry of the tough exterior reduced to a brittle, battered soul.

A shrill caw jolted her, snapping to the dark-blue raven landing to her right. The glow in her eyes and feather tips returned to their radiate teal, her beak cleansed as if it had never penetrated skin.

Plumfrost allowed the sobbing girl a moment to herself and turned his slow strides towards who he had not forgotten about. Innocuous in his loom towards the raven-haired girl’s startled stare. “What is on your mind?” the Councilman addressed as if all was normal.

A knot tightened in her gut, swallowing a lump of nausea. He pointed to the black leather that nearly blended into Tootie’s sweater vest.

“Are you more comfortable writing it down?”

Tootie looked down to her notebook, contemplating her next move. Not on whether to avoid the Fairy Councilman’s question, but what she could possibly want him to know that he did not know already. She folded her lips as she struggled to meet his attentive gaze; why was he giving her the option to write when he’d wanted her to use her voice earlier?

“Go on.” He nudged gently. “For now, your pen is your voice.”

Taking the opportunity, Tootie unclipped the pen from the spine and lowered her notebook to bent knees. Opening to a blank page where she used her pen to write I wish Rose was here.

“You shall see your godmother again.” the Councilman assured. “But I am certain this is not the heaviest concern on your mind.”

Tootie stalled. Was he a mind-reader or something?

“How do you feel about your father?” he hinted. “Does he make you angry? Sadden you?”

Staring down at the page, Tootie’s neck grew corded with tension.

“Does he scare you?

Her pen trembled, the tips of her fingers growing clammy. Thinning her lips as she held the tip of the pen to paper. Her penmanship squiggled words barely legible to read I don’t know.

“You do know.” he stated. “Because he has yet to cease haunting you.”

She shot him a flustered stare.

“Thoughts of what he’d done sucks you back into the past. Reliving those painful moments all over again.” Plumfrost pointed out. “The damage he’d inflicted was enough to silence you.”

She chewed on her lip, reminded of how helpless she felt just seeing her father when she’d taken the stand, how even his purposeful lack of regard stripped what little strength she had. If he had dared made eye contact, she was sure she’d lost control of her bladder right there on the stand. Either that or pass out.

After a deep breath to sway oncoming lightheadedness, she swallowed as he watched her use her pen to write may I ask a question?

“You may ask.”

Hesitating, she pushed past her discomfort to write am I beyond repair?

“Hmm,” Plumfrost tilted his head, pressing his lips together. Reading the question again silently before looking to Tootie. “Quite insightful for a girl of your age.”

She cowered under his gaze.

“Well then...” he upturned his palm, conjuring lavender sparkles that illuminated the same bright hue in Plum’s eyes and the tips of her feathers. “Let us find out.”

Before Tootie could begin to process what was happening, the raven practically teleported from beside Tootie and dug her talons into the head of Tootie’s ponytails. In a single croak, Plum’s beak aimed and struck between Tootie’s eyes. Numbed fingers let go of the pen, rolling off the edge of the notebook before it dropped to the dirt, and her mouth formed a muted scream that could only squeak out a quiet whimper.

Distracted in her weakening sobs, Molly raised her head, teary eyes widening at the trickling streak of scarlet from Plum’s beak digging between Tootie’s frozen gawk. Tootie trembled, ragged breaths shuddering at the numbing yet stinging pinch of Plum piercing her skull, biting into her brain. Tears rimmed in her eyes that flickered in and out of darkness. Making it difficult to tell whether her vision was truly going black or if a bubbling glob of black mass as wide as her line of sight was being extracted from her forehead.

A bloody beak gradually ripped out the black trail, stepping backwards on her talons along Tootie’s cranium due to the size and the length. Flapping her wings to then ascend into the air to quicken the process when Tootie’s stare started to glaze and her head began to bob, dizziness threatening to pull her under. Plum inhaled the trail into her beak until the last of it left the puncture wound, flying out towards the river to cough out the mass as black smoke.

Her heavy head flopped back, arms sprawled as her notebook slid out of her lap. Lethargic eyes half-closed, enough mental clarity remained to stare at the mystic silver stars across the dreamy indigo sky. Her limbs felt listless as the fog lifted into a cathartic sense of serenity. Unperturbed by the upside-down pair of yellow eyes looking down at her when he approached.

“What is on your mind?”

At this point, that was a trick question; her mind felt the emptiest it’d ever been.

So empty that she didn’t comprehend the milestone when her lips slurred “…what is this…?”

Plumfrost held out a glistening right palm that conjured mixed berries. “This, my dear, is freedom.”

Once she’d washed out her beak in the river, Plum's attention whipped to her lunch waiting in her maker’s hand. Croaking excitedly, she flew over to return to her ‘post’ on his shoulder, nipping at the berries with vigor.

Cheeks damp with endless tears, Molly straightened to sit on her knees. Sniffing the aftermath of the biggest cry as she wiped the trail of snot with the back of her sleeve. Her eyes stung red with puffiness, a pounding throb in her sinuses. Her throat scratchy and sore, exhausted beyond belief. Drained of heavy sadness, lightened in her chest, in her spirit.

Tootie blinked slowly as a single tear escaped, rolling down towards her ear. The faintest curl curved her lips that whispered “…thank you…”

On a row of white clouds and a void of ocean blue behind him, the Fairy Councilman cloaked in blue sat with crossed legs. One hand stroked the green and pink streaks in yellow fur as his magical companion nestled his chin on paws resting on his maker’s lap, both facing the two cousins seated before them.

Sitting with legs extended as he looked to the pink-hatted boy at his right, Gary observed the blank expression in the vacant eyes staring straight ahead. Seated with hands planted to the cloud beneath him, still as a statue. Did LeRoi deserve at least one of those stabs to strike his heart? Absolutely. Did his aunt and uncle deserve to drive off a cliff to their deaths? He wasn’t sure; the worst the Turners had ever personally done was keep his cousin at a distance.

“Timmy?”

Baby blue instantly blinked to his called name, not as disassociated as perceived. Shifting his eyes ever so slightly to meet the fae elder’s gaze “…yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Timmy stated lightly. “When can I go back to my parents?”

Gary gazed at his cousin quizzically, and Birchwind narrowed yellow eyes.

“Timmy…” Birchwind spoke slowly “…I just explained that your parents had succumbed to their injuries.”

“No they didn’t.” Timmy came off strangely impassive. “One of them is carrying my baby godbrother or sister.”

Gary frowned beside him.

“Oh…” the Councilman suspired, not realizing his fingers had stopped until he heard Birchie’s high-pitched whine for more pets. He satisfied the dog by scratching behind his green ear, grave in his tone. “You are in denial…”

“I already heard you.” Timmy groused, rolling his eyes. “Susanne and Daran are dead.”

Gary raised a single brow. Aside from himself, the only child he’d ever heard address their parents so offhandedly was Molly, though he was aware of her reasons and did not fault her for doing so.

While he did expect as such, Birchwind was not prepared for how extreme the child’s detachment would be towards his biological parents “…Timmy-”

“Cosmo and Wanda are more like my mom and dad than Mom and Dad!” Timmy voiced his current mindset. “They could have treated me like nothing more than a job; I deserve to be just another assignment out of, I dunno, thousands of other kids!” his chin lowered, shame falling in his features. “But they love me like their own…and I can never thank them enough.”

As Birchie flapped his ears, the Councilman let out another sigh “…alright, but-”

“Is that why you took me from Earth?” Timmy perked with childlike hope. “Cuz you knew my parents were gonna die?”

Birchwind stalled. “Well…yes. However-”

“Am I gonna live in Fairy World with Cosmo and Wanda?”

“…uh-”

“And I’ll never have to go back to Earth again?!”

“Timmy-”

“Am I gonna turn into a fairy?!”

“Will you stop and listen?!”

Timmy recoiled with knitted brows, hunching his shoulders like a child who realized he’d tested thin patience “…sorry.”

Pinching his nosebridge, Birchwind regained his composure. Searching for the right words to say what Timmy needed to hear. “Listen…I know you love your fairies as much as they love you. I know you appreciate them, but…” he paused “…your fairies can never be your parents.”

“That’s just cuz they didn’t birth me.” Timmy reasoned, raising his chin. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Actually, it does…”

Timmy turned a co*cked brow towards his cousin’s words “…the heck are you talking about?”

“Wait…” Gary scrunched “…Cosmo and Wanda didn’t tell you?”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“You do know there’s more than one way to lose a godparent, right?”

Timmy blinked “…there is?”

“Yeah…”

Tingles chilled Timmy’s arms “…what do you mean?”

Gary’s brow flattened gravely. “Getting older…means our godparents go away forever.”

At first, a disconnect returned in Timmy’s stare. Only moments later, his lips twitched, and he burst with a cackle. “Dude, get real!”

“I am!” Gary contested, finding no laughing matter.

As his laughter subsided, Timmy wiped a single tear with one finger. “And who the heck told you that!?”

“Da Rules.” Gary declared. “You grow up, your fairy will be gone, and you’ll forget them like they never existed.”

The later part of that sentence withered Timmy’s light smile into a fixed stare “…no way.” he murmured, hardening his gaze. “You’re lying.”

“He is not.” Birchwind affirmed, and with a snap of his fingers, Birchie straightened up on his hind legs. Green and pink went aglow in periwinkle-blue, casting a projection onto an invisible wall in the air where both boys had a direct view.

“As you know, fairy godparents are assigned to boys and girls who need them most.” Birchwind began his explanation as the image projected from Birchie’s eyes counted down from three like a movie was about to start.

A green-eyed blonde with puffy pigtails and a blue dress appeared on screen before the camera zoomed out to a wider-pan view of her pink room. Floating in the air before her were a pair of godparents, presumably a couple. A woman with red hair and purple eyes, a man with pointy ears and lavender-blue eyes that matched his hair.

“You two, as well as your friends, are all still young enough to believe in fairies.”

Timmy watched the fairy couple spark their wands to transform into their disguise, and the little girl grabbed their cage to embrace as her magical red and lavender-blue hamsters hugged her through the glass.

“But there will come a point where a child will be a child no longer.”

6 years later appeared on a title card before the same red and lavender-blue hamsters smiled to the little girl that was now much taller. Her blonde puffs now spiky pigtails, the smile in her bright eyes now painted with blue eyeshadow and dark lipstick. Her puffy blue dress now a blue crop-top with a black skirt above her knees, wrists cuffed with spikes and the length of her legs shoed in platform boots with buckles along the boots.

The hamsters flipped in their cage, eager to appease their godchild’s imagination with whimsical magic. However, her eyes, once innocent with a childlike spark, had dulled to a disinterested teen with no care for such childish antics.

“That child becomes so grown up…”

The spark in the girl’s eyes returned only from a honk, excited as she ran to her bedroom window. Waving to her prince charming, a blue-haired biker, as he rolled in his carriage of a red motorcycle. Wasting no time, she sprinted from the window, giving not a care of acknowledgement to the godparents that once brought her joy. Leaving with no goodbye.

Her godparents, the magical companions that were once her whole world, looked on as their godchild practically skipped to hop on the back of the bike, lacing arms around the waste of her new life. As biker revved his bike and the two teens zoomed off, merry grins wilted into mournful frowns.

“…that they do not need magic anymore, and their fairies are called back to Fairy World.”

Returning to their normal forms, the fairy couple exchanged downturned lips and wrinkled chins when another honk came. Only this time, it was the horn of the infamous yellow Fairy Cab. Every godparent’s floating tombstone.

Drooped and defeated, the godparents entered the cab without a fuss, and the Fairy Cab poofed back to Fairy World. Refilling the empty cage with a pair of brown hamsters that the girl won’t even notice were no longer magical.

“Once the fairies disappear, all the remnants of their magic disappear along with them.”

Birchie’s hound eyes dimmed to their normal green and pink, and the projection vanished in a blink.

“The child forgets all about them and grows up. Just like everyone else.” Birchwind turned towards Timmy to emphasize “Just like you.”

Taking a deep breath, Gary looked over to see how his cousin was taking the revelation, and by the dismay widening his eyes, it wasn’t well.

“…y-you mean…” Timmy squeaked, fearing his heart would crack more if he spoke any louder “…I’ll lose Cosmo and Wanda when I’m older and forget I ever had them?”

Sympathizing with the boy’s shock, Birchwind responded with a soft “Precisely.”

A gasp left his lips, breathless as if multiple rounds of an AK-47 pierced through his lungs. No matter how many rules he’d abide by, no matter how well he kept them his precious secret. He was gonna lose his family, lose all the memories of their love, of everything they’d ever done for him. And there’s nothing he can do about it.

His gaze sunk, a gradual crease wrinkling his brow into a slighted glare. Curling his fingers into clenched fists, gritting his teeth. This was so not fair! Why spend so much time forming bonds, why create connections deeper than friendship, only for that connection to inevitably break one day. And if that wasn’t enough, memories of better days are wiped. Erased. Completely obliterated. Left with a deep void of something missing that can never be found…

Darker thoughts loosened his fists, tension released in a dejected groan. If all of that was true…then what’s the point? If that was all he had to look forward to…why ever grow up? What was there to keep living for?

“…then why did you guys stop us?”

When Timmy heard the pessimism in his cousin’s voice, he lifted dark eyes to the dour gaze as the preteen directly addressed the Councilman.

“It’s a nosedive towards rock bottom, anyway.” Gary grumbled. “We could’ve just ended things on our own terms…”

Birchwind’s gaze grew firm, and Birchie whined with pathetic eyes, sensing his maker’s dissatisfaction. “If the Council had not intervened, you and your friends would not be drawing breath.” he reminded, a subtle drop in his baritone. “There is much more to life than you realize.”

Gary coughed a bitter chuckle. Easy to claim that there is more to life when death is evitable. “Like what? Dwight would still have epilepsy, Molly would age out of a broken system, Hazel’s family would still suck, the only parents to ever love me would be dead, and our fairies will be gone no matter what…” the corners of his mouth pinched “…we could’ve beat them to the punch.”

“Wait…” Timmy breathed, and Gary met his trained stare. If Crocker had managed to teach Timmy one thing in school, it was context clues “…you were gonna…?”

Assuming his cousin had figured it out, Gary saw no point in denying it, sighing “…yeah.”

Timmy couldn’t believe it. Is that why Gary kept trying to reach out through Sophia? If so, he felt kinda bad for dismissing him “…when was this?”

Gary diverted his gaze “…the night we went missing.”

Timmy furrowed; that must’ve been the same night Gary said the Council had snatched up him and his friends.

“Tell me…” the fae elder spoke, deceptively calm. “Are you saying that you do not want a fairy godparent?”

As Timmy puzzledly eyed the Councilman, unsure of what that question meant, Gary’s eyes broadened in alarm “…what?”

“No other godchild on record has had as many attempts as you have made.” Birchwind addressed to Gary. “I am honestly surprised that Jorgen did not have your godfather reassigned to a child who does not take him for granted.”

“I…” Gary blinked, his brow puckered. He loved Alondro like the big brother he never had! “…I don’t take Alondro for granted!”

“Then how many times must he save you from yourself?”

His stare froze as a sharp breath caught in his throat, feeling the sensation of a trapdoor opening below his feet despite still being seated. If the thought hadn’t crossed his mind before, it certainly did now…

Gary was just Hazel’s age when he would stay awake for days on end, still struggling from when Marsden would kick and pinch him for falling asleep. As a result, he heard voices. Voices of Marsden, calling him a pathetic waste. Convincing him that he should drink a whole bottle of bleach. He’d managed to swallow a gulp before his grandmother rushed just in time to stop him from ingesting anymore, and when doctors were thankfully able to stabilize his tonic-clonic, they had urged his grandparents to have him admitted.

On the first night, the psych nurses had shut him in the isolation of his room. Just when he thought he was trapped inside more blank walls all alone, his pillow began to sparkle in a yellow glow before a magical creature appeared. Gary’s first impression of his fairy godparent was that the meds forced down his throat either weren’t strong enough or had made his hallucinations worse. It was only when Alondro managed to stop Gary’s scream by embracing him like a weighted blanket did Gary realize that this illusion was real.

Cameras were everywhere, even inside the rooms, but Alondro had been two steps ahead by magically altering the footage before the point of his emergence. To the guards watching the cameras, Gary had been fast asleep undisturbed until morning. That being said, cameras were everywhere. There was only so much Alondro could do without raising too much suspicion. Still, the staff hardly noticed the yellowish tint in Gary’s patient ID band.

After two weeks, the staff believed Gary was rehabilitated enough to reenter society, and for a while, Gary believed this, too. His grandparents had started to see less psychiatric episodes, he was responding well to a stable combination of antidepressants, and he had found his first real friend in his fairy. For a while, everything was on the right path…

Until it was hard not to veer off.

Interactions of different medications over a long stretch of time had, unfortunately, led all of them to stop working at once. One day, he had shouted at his 5^th grade teacher, caused a tornado of destruction in his classroom, charged through the halls, managed to find the escape hatch to the roof, and threatened to jump off...because he was instructed to sit down and take his test like the rest of the class.

There’d been other troubling occurrences, such as pouring gasoline on himself in attempts to light himself on fire and tying a belt to hang himself in his closet. Gary had made it all the way to the school’s roof that day only because his fairy had been called to Fairy World to renew his license.

The second psych admission was twice as long as the first, but Gary barely remembered half of it. They’d put him on stronger meds that either sunk him deep below the surface or had him floating high in the clouds, likely to prevent any rash impulses or uncontrollable outbursts. Though his altered state of mind couldn’t make a lot, Alondro had told him a few of his wishes while his head was in the clouds. Like the time he’d made a wish that turned the medication nurse into an oompa loompa…that was kinda funny.

His grandparents had gone back to his psychiatrist to try a different type of medication co*cktail, hoping for improvements. Those improvements came in the form of them sleeping soundly one night, until Vlad had awakened to the sound of Gladys’ scream. A bloodied knife poked his throat, and his blood ran cold at the wielder of the knife. His own grandson, eyes cold and vacant as if his soul had abandoned his body. Bare torso painted red in self-inflicted cuts.

Gary had started that new mix of medication just three days before he was admitted for the third time.

Those were the suckiest six months of his life. Spending half the time as some doped up zombie, the other half an emotional wreck. Trapped as if he’d never escape. He turned eleven in the miserable company of white, padded walls. Caged like some wild animal because he was upset that he’d lost visitation privileges, and his grandparents could not be there to wish him happy birthday…

At least he still had his godfather to wish him feliz cumpleaños.

Through it all, he still had his godfather.

When his grandparents decided against more medication and voices screamed louder than his own thoughts, Alondro was there, doing what he could to help him through it. When he’d resorted to lighting a lighter to his skin to stop his mind from distorting into a past he’d rather forget, Alondro was patient, showing him other ways to cope. When those coping mechanisms stopped mending the pain and he’d left more than a dozen notes of goodbye…Alondro gave him grace, yearning to help him somehow.

Even when Alondro had caught on to his suicide pact, he could have yelled at him. He could have called him a pathetic waste…but he didn’t. He hugged him, cried for him. Crying not just because of heartbreak for a child wanting to end his life, but because everything he’d ever done couldn’t be enough for his godson to live for…

“…you’re right…” Gary curled into himself, arms wrapped tightly around his body “…I don’t deserve him…” he knitted his brow, clenching his jaw “…I don’t deserve anybody…”

“…and yet you still have more than I’ll ever have…”

Gary shot an offended glare to his cousin “…how?”

“The Turners are dead, I probably won’t have much of a house to go back to, and turns out, my fairies won’t be around forever.” Timmy griped. “At least you got grandma and grandpa.”

“And? They’re in their 70s.” Gary countered. “They won’t be around forever, either...”

“Well, unlike me, they don’t hate you.” Timmy contested. “In fact, they wanted you far away from me because you see me as Marsden, just like them.”

“Dude, I wasn’t in my right mind!”

“Just like you weren’t in the right mind to blame me for my sister’s death? Just like my parents did?”

Gary stood to his feet, feeling personally attacked. Is that why he kept ignoring his attempts to reach out? If so…that’s kinda messed up. “Dude, I’m sorry I said all that stuff, but…I barely remember saying any of it at all.”

Pouting, Timmy crossed his arms. “Well, you did…”

“You think I really meant what I said?”

“The fact that you said it at all means that you do on some level.”

When the yellow canine nudged at his maker’s palm, Birchwind scratched under Birchie’s neck, keeping himself out of the family matters currently hashing themselves out.

“Look…” Gary groaned. “I blame myself more for my mom’s death than I blame you for Sophia’s.”

Timmy had to scoff. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s true! If I was never born, my mom would still be alive!”

“Yeah? Well, if I was never born, Sophia would be alive!”

Gary shook his head. “Dude, that is not the same thing. You were just an extra baby in a sack. Pushing me out made my mom bleed to death!”

“That’s why it’s the same thing!” Timmy argued. “We both had no control over that!”

“No, you and Sophia both had control over how close you played by the stairs!”

As if insulted beyond injury, Timmy squinted his glare. Pulling his shoulders back as he rose to a guarded stance “…see? You do blame me!”

“I’m just making a point!” Gary defended. “My mom’s death was coincidental. Sophia’s was consequential and possibly preventable!”

Frustration growled in Timmy’s throat. “Y’know what? You’re right. It’s not the same thing.” resentment dripped in his mutter. “Our family never treated you like some murderer…”

Those words charred in his chest as Gary felt his cheeks begin to burn, his knuckles numbing white in tight clenched fists. “Yeah? And what’s the worst your parents ever did to you? Cuz I was tortured every damn day!”

Timmy faltered slightly, staggering at the voice that boomed like thunder.

“I spent a literal third of my life in a black closet! Without food, without water, without a pot to piss in, trapped in soiled diapers for days or longer!” the twelve-year-old raised voice pierced the air like shards of glass, and Birchie fidgeted uncomfortably. “And the only time I remembered what light was is when I was dragged out just for him to use his fists or whatever he could get his hands on to beat me until I blacked out!”

A hard, stiff line pinched Timmy’s thin lips.

“He was supposed to kill me, but he killed himself instead!” rapid eyes fluttered, flashing rapidly between his cousin standing before him and the spiteful scowl pointing the barrel of a gun at him. “I should be dead! I deserve to be dead!”

Gary jerked in a startled gasp, blinking as the yellow retriever jumped on his hind legs. Repeatedly pressing paws to the boy’s chest until his gentle yet forceful nudge managed to stumble Gary backwards, landing on his backside in sharp, strained breaths. Birchie proceeded to walk onto Gary, pressing his body weight from the bottom of Gary’s calves to the top of his torso. Resting his furry chin atop his paws with a wagging tail, he watched the rise and fall in Gary’s chests, feeling the ferocious thumps of his pacing heart decelerate.

Gary lifted his head to the seventy-pound anchor drawing him back to the present, ragged breaths staring into pink and green frowned in concern. A trembling hand reached to scratch behind Birchie’s pink ear, and Birchie tilted his head into Gary’s palm.

In observing how a dog managed to bring Gary down faster than talking to him ever did, the pink-hatted boy lowered his chin, squeezing his fists. His hands trembled with raised shoulders, and tears pricked the corners of his eyes, faced with harsh realizations. He was a trigger to his cousin, the parents that resented him are no longer alive, he might not ever be able to see or speak to his sister again, and his fairy godparents will eventually leave him as if they’d never made a difference in his life…

Gary had a point. With nothing working for him and everything working against him, he should just end things on his own terms…

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

Timmy drifted toward the cloud’s edge, no apprehension in his sullen steps. Finally forfeiting to the long, prolonged battle with thoughts darker than black swallowing the will to keep going. Sick of the pain, sick of it all…

“Where do you think you are going?!” Birchwind called gruffly to him, asking what he already knew the answer to.

With his bodyweight still anchoring Gary down from his flashback, Birchie whirled his furry head towards the boy who simply scooted his toes just over the edge. He stared at the blue void that darkened into navy the further he looked down. There appeared to be no solid bottom, no ground to splatter upon impact. He’d likely keep falling for however long eternity is. Maybe his little heart would just give out before then.

“Timmy Turner! You stop this instant!”

Paying no heed to the Councilman’s order, he emptied his mind, emptied his heart. Gave mental goodbyes to this cruel world before his feet stepped over with a spiritless leap…

The fairy godmother awoke, jolted by sharp pains in her stomach sparking like cut wire shorting out. Her hand clutched her midsection, squirming on her side of the mattress for a comfortable position amid unremitting discomfort. Disturbing her husband’s sound sleep as green eyes parted, instantly more awake upon hearing his wife wince in pain.

“…Wanda? What’s wrong?” Cosmo sat upright to scoot closer towards her, supporting the burn in her lower back with his palm.

Hearing pained grunts from the bed beneath the bunk above her, Rose sat herself up, rubbing tired eyes. “Wanda…are you alright?”

“…do I look alright?” Wanda clenched, bending her knees as she managed to speak through gritted teeth. It felt as if claws tore at her insides, ripping their way out. Far worse than a typical uterine growing pain.

Across the way in their own queen bed, Swizzle dragged grumpy palms down her face as Nyekundu saw the slide of the glass door to two other godparents entering from outside on the terrace. Noting redness of tear shed in Susie’s eyes and bags of depravation under Alondro’s, the bigger question she had was how and why they’d been outside at the same time. A question for another day as Susie immediately rushed to her best friend’s side, cupping Wanda’s shoulder as another electric wave of fiery stabs bent her over.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s her stomach again…” Cosmo spoke for his wife, disturbed by her visible agony. Her tolerance was high, but not this high…

“On a scale of one to ten, what’s your pain level?” Susie queried.

Finding difficulty just taking a breath through pain crushing her ribs, Wanda unclasped her eyes in watering slits, barely able to choke out “…nine…”

“…is that normal?” Swizzle wondered out loud, thinking the situation was more dire than they currently realized.

Susie creased a troubled brow, reminded of her own experience similar to what Wanda, unfortunately, might be going through. “Doubt it if Wanda’s in this much pain…”

Wanda gagged in threatening upheave, feeling sicker than a peppermint could ever cure. Unable to stop the rushing barge of projecting bile. Her husband and best friend leaned back out the way of the purplish-green splattering onto white sheets, staining her yellow shirt…

Streaked in a perturbing crimson.

Irving grimaced at the sight, floating down from his top bunk. “That’s definitely not normal…”

Now with the situation officially urgent, Juandissimo sprung from his top bunk. “Is there a way to get a hold of Jorgen?”

“I can help you...” Nyekundu offered, floating from the space beside her girlfriend.

Rose watched Juandissimo follow behind Nyekundu out of the bedroom, thinking she should make herself useful somehow. “Um…me, too!”

Leaping from her covers, Rose traveled through the stone arch past the kitchenette on her right and the modular couch and granite coffee table on her left as Nyekundu tugged hard on the loose handle to the cave’s door. Despite the door itself being unlocked, her great efforts seemingly made no progress.

Thinking the door carved entirely out of rock could just be really heavy for her, Juandissimo volunteered to give the handle a try. Allowing him to do so, Nyekundu hovered back towards Rose as Juandissimo’s biceps bulged with each tug that did absolutely nothing.

Even when he pressed his foot to the wall for a better pull, the damn door wouldn’t budge. “…carajo…”

“Out of curiosity…” Rose looked to Nyekundu “…have you guys ever tried to get out before?”

“…actually, no.” Nyekundu came to realize, seeing Juandissimo snarl his teeth in his struggle. “Now I see why...”

The exigency of the matter shot from bad to worse when the fairies saw a vacant look glass over Wanda’s eyes, and Cosmo’s distress gaped in horror in a caught breath “…Wanda?”

Carrying his wand-like staff as he traveled down the candle-lit stone path of the murky cave, the fairy commander was on his way to check on the fairies. He figured he’d do so before the start of his true workday keeping tabs on the other active godparents on his ever-growing roster. The Fairy Council had not instructed him to do so, acting on his own volition. Having always been in constant communication with them and vice versa, he had not heard from the Council since before they’d enacted their vicious escapade on Earth. Something that, admittedly, worried him.

He would soon have bigger things to worry about…

Reaching the cave door, his natural strength swung it open with ease. Not realizing he might have knocked someone over until he paused at the Hispanic fairy groaning on the ground.

Jorgen co*cked a puzzled brow as Rose assisted Juandissimo off the floor. “What were you doing, puny fairy?”

“Bwana Jorgen, we were trying to find you!” Nyekundu quickly explained, finding the timing graciously convenient. “Something is seriously wrong with-”

“WANDA!”

The three godparents gawked in the direction of Cosmo’s frantic cry for his wife as her body fell back, beginning to convulse. Jorgen sprang into action, dashing past the fairies towards the dire scene.

“Quick; get her on her side!” Irving yelled out. Swizzle didn’t hesitate and flew to assist Irving, yet Cosmo’s frantic dismay continued to cry for Wanda, begging her to tell him what’s wrong as she coughed on her own vomit.

“Keep her husband away from her!” Jorgen bellowed to Swizzle and Irving, charging into the room. Cosmo’s panicking was unhelpful, and right now, he was of better use out of the way.

Cosmo thrashed the arms that Swizzle and Irving grabbed on to, kicking his legs as they dragged him away from his wife’s convulsions. Kneeling to Wanda’s bedside, Jorgen positioned the pregnant fairy on her side, careful not to fully restrain her jerking limbs.

The purplish-green vomit caught his attention, aghast at the mixture of blood within it. “How did this happen!?”

“She was complaining of pains before she vomited, and now this!” Alondro summarized, closest to Jorgen in proximity. “It all just happened so fast…”

Hovering closest to the glass door, both of Susie’s palms covered her strained gasps for breaths. Not only concerned for her best friend, but plagued with flashes of when she’d been further along than Wanda. The sour taste of bile choked in her throat, shivers of waning control rocking her shoulders. Feelings of faint haunting her once again…

Alondro turned when he heard her rapid pants over his own pounding heart, her large eyes glossing with terror. Without a secondo thought, he flew to her. Palming her by the shoulders in what looked to him like a panic attack.

“Just try to breathe, Susie…” he muffled the urgency in his tone with what little calm he could muster, for Susie’s sake. He knew nothing of her past struggles, and right now, he didn’t need to. All he cared about was consoling her.

“WANDAAAAA!” Cosmo blubbered against Swizzle and Irving’s restraints. “WANDA, NOOO!”

“Can you cut it out?!” Swizzle was quickly losing her patience. “You’re not making things any better!”

When Wanda’s spasms finally started to ebb, Jorgen’s eyes lasered on the muted flicker of lilac beneath her shirt, around her pregnancy bump. He hesitated, but he swallowed it back. Deciding just to figure out what the hell is going on and worry about intrusiveness later. He reached to lift her shirt up below her chest, and his eyes bulged.

Veins crawled in red grips of fingers around her swollen belly, contracting with lilac pulses to the a-fib of a developing heart. They scratched like nails with each pulse, unlike anything Jorgen had ever seen in his long life.

Sharp fangs latched on the back collar of Timmy’s pink shirt, catching him mid jump. Growling as the support of his back legs and front paws dragged the boy’s bodyweight further onto the cloud, back towards safety.

“Lemme go ya dumb dog!” Timmy shouted, kicking and flailing about in protest to Birchie’s iron-jaw grip. “Let GO!”

“Settle down, Timmy Turner!” the Councilman stood in his command.

“Tell your mut to stop!” Timmy stubbornly barked, resisting against Birchie’s pull.

Gary was frozen on the ground, shuddering in stiff breaths. His cousin tried to off himself and all he could do was watch. That was almost another death over his head…

With a small whistle from Birchwind, Birchie obeyed and released Timmy’s collar. Seizing his chance, Timmy attempted to scramble to his feet, only to trip face first into the cloud. Groaning as he pushed himself up on his knees, his legs felt the sensation of being bound by a tight leash. He glanced past his shoulder down at the string of periwinkle magic laced around his ankles, halting him in place.

Birchie barked, seated on his hind legs with a wagging tail as Birchwind approached the stubborn brunette in casual yet stern strides. “Did you honestly believe you could pull that off in front of me?”

That trammeling feeling of being shackled growled in Timmy’s throat. “Give me one good reason not to do it again…”

[My lord, we have a problem!]

Birchwind paused mid breath when he recognized the voice that had invaded his head. As a direct descendant of his, Birchwind knew Jorgen Von Strangle did not possess this capability with the other Councilmembers. Thus, it was only to be used in cases that Jorgen did not think he could handle himself.

[What is it, Jorgen?]

[It’s Turner’s godmother…she needs medical attention.]

[Then what do you need me for? Get her to Fairy World!]

[What about the others?]

[Her husband is the only exception; the others must stay there.]

He could hear Jorgen’s apprehension at this direction. [But my lord-]

[This does not alter the operation!] the fae elder stressed. [Disregard any pushback; the other Councilmembers and I will address it later. Is that clear?]

[…understood.]

“I’m waiting!”

Hearing the peevish gruff, Birchwind lowered an arched brow to Timmy’s pointed glare. Despite this juvenile attempt to assert dominance, the Fairy Councilman could not be less intimidated.

“…how about I just show you?”

Birchwind whistled again, and this time, Timmy yelped from the hard push of paws pinning him backwards to the cloud by his biceps. Birchie planted his back feet on Timmy’s legs determined to squirm free, thrashing with ankles still bounded by magical rope.

“Get off me!!” Timmy screamed, arm stinging from the pinch of claws digging into his skin. Birchie let out a defiant bark, steadfast in his grasp.

With Timmy unable to escape, Birchwind then glanced towards his right at the shell shock still wide in Gary’s eyes. The Council were well aware of Timmy Turner’s godmother and her condition. They thought they were prepared, but apparently, they weren’t as prepared as they could’ve been.

Judging by Timmy’s declining will to live and Gary’s thread clinging to reality, he doubted that the other godchildren were anywhere close to ready. However, this newfound setback left no choice but to move on to the next phase.

Birchwind levitated towards the preteen, careful not to approach too suddenly. Ginger in his kneel to the rapid blinks that acknowledged him.

“…I-I’m sorry…” Gary whispered, visibly shaking “…p-please don’t punish me…”

“Oh, Gary…” Birchwind raised a sparkling hand to Gary’s cheek that felt cold against his periwinkle palm. “If you remember nothing else, remember this.” He fixed his gaze, his palm glowing brighter. “You are…and always will be…a good boy.”

He spoke those sanative words for the troubled ears of a conflicted spirit. Ensuring that was the message that Gary heard last as his eyes grew heavy.

“LET ME GO!” Timmy shrieked between clenched teeth, writhing with all his might. His arms could barely wiggle beneath the strong grip pinning him down, his legs nailed to the puff of cloud. Screams of frustration cracked the back of his throat. Why must they get in his way?! Why can’t he just be free…

His screams devolved into guttural sob, ceasing his fight. Even the most stubborn of mules realize when persistence was futile.

“…please…j-just…” he hiccupped through the sobs quivering his lips. “…jus lemme go…”

Birchwind supported Gary’s head limp against his shoulder. Carrying Gary with one arm, he rose from the ground to. Observing the large droplets that slipped down Timmy’s cheeks.

“…I-I don’t…” Tears clouded crestfallen eyes, snivels aching his chest. “I jus…I-I can’t…take it anymore…”

Empathy whined in high-pitched squeals as Birchie’s own pink and green eyes swelled with moisture. Saddened by the tears pouring down the puddles of blue beset with years of pain. He didn’t have much time to dwell when his pink ear perked to his masker’s snapping finger, signaling him to finish what he’d been trained to do.

Pink and Green radiated with periwinkle, luring withering tears from tearing themselves away. His sobs weakened to whimpers, muscles laxing to the trance of glowing eyes. White blurred across his vision, fading his thoughts into nothingness…

When blue eyes blinked next, he realized the return of his autonomy, moving his arms and legs at free will. Finding himself in a blank space of white glittering with rainbow crystals of ethereal light. Those same crystals glittered in the pink cotton of his shirt and the denim of his jeans, glistening in his fingertips as he looked down to his hands.

No way…his curious gaze then searched the void, no longer able to see his cousin or the Fairy Councilmen. Nor could he see the yellow retriever who’d once pinned him down. Am I…?

His eyes widened when the back of a high pigtail caught his attention. Far enough for the head of brunette to be a single brown dot in a sea of white, close enough to note the pink ribbon he only knew of one person to wear.

“Sophia?!”

Her back faced him, giving no immediate response. Until the glance of baby-blue eyes over the puff-sleeve shoulder of her light-pink blouse slowly curled his lips with the first smile in the longest time.

“SOPHIA!”

A rejuvenating rush sprinted him across the void, fueled as if given a restart. She seemed oddly stoic from the impact of latching his arms around her waist from behind, giving no smile to the nestling of his cheek into her sleeve. Bliss closed the eyes that rimmed with tears, squeezing her close to him. “I thought I’d never get to see or talk to you again…”

When he noticed her lack of response, he lifted his chin from her shoulder. Noting the vexed crease in her brow and the wrinkle in her chin, wilting his smile at the once bubbly eyes grim in their stare straight ahead “…what’s wrong, Sophie?”

Her overbite chewed on her thin lip. Almost inaudible when she uttered “…I saw Mom and Dad.”

He loosened his grip around her, further confirmed of what he already knew.

“…they found me…” her grimace deepened “…they hugged me…and then they just kept crying…”

Timmy backed to then step in front of her. Though he could see his answer in glossy eyes, he felt the need to ask “…are you okay?”

Sophia lowered her chin, knitting her brow “…they weren’t supposed to be with me yet…”

His gaze studied her frown. Unsure of what to say, he chose to say nothing.

“Their hair was supposed to look like grandma and grandpa’s first…” her voice was soft, mousy even, yet mixed with emotions bubbling in her core “…how could this happen…”

Watching her arm swipe away the threat of tears, he wished he could empathize with her. She was clearly grieving, and as terrible as he felt about it, his true feelings couldn’t align with hers. Then again, there was nothing to align; her bond with their parents was never strained liked his.

Though he wasn’t sure if it’d do any good, he felt the need to sigh “…I’m sorry.”

She met his glum gaze with her own “…for what?”

“That you’re upset.” his fingers fiddled. “I remember how much they meant to you…”

Based on his level composure, Sophia could assume that their parents’ demise was not news to him. Then again, she knew his sour opinions about them well enough that the lines could very well blur between him knowing and him being unaware. “It’s okay…I don’t expect you to feel the same…”

He nodded in understanding, eyes downcast. Somehow, her discernment made him feel worse about his feelings, or lack thereof. Did his detachment from their parents’ deaths make him a bad person?

Taking a deep breath, Sophia rubbed at her arm “…they wanted me to go with them.”

He looked up, puzzled “…what do you mean?”

Her lips folded, hesitant. “They wanted us to be together again…finally be the happy family they always wanted.”

Wow, he was still disregarded. Even in their death “…so they’re not…wherever this is?”

“No…” Sophia averted her eyes “…I told them to move on without me…”

Timmy blinked quizzically. “What? Why?”

Sophia mustered the courage to meet his gaze again “…I love Mom and Dad. I always will…” she inched herself closer to her beloved brother “…but I always loved you more.”

The hollowness that once sunk his heart lifted at the heartfelt in her sentiment. He never knew their parents’ love, but he always knew hers. To hear it reaffirmed in this way, that she would rather be with the boy that stole space in her womb than the people who created her existence…it warmed the ice in his soul.

The only thing he could think to thank her was to embrace her in the biggest hug he could muster.

“I love you, too…” his low voice spoke, squeezing her. “I don’t wanna live if we can’t be together…”

The outpour of his deepest thoughts didn’t notice the brimming tears in her frown, clenching her fists against him.

“I can’t live without you, Sophie…I never wanna be apart ever agai-”

He gasped when her palms shoved him away, gaping at the glisten in her glare.

“You’re not supposed to be with me yet, either!”

His twintuition wasn’t expecting this outraged of a reaction “…Sophie-”

“I left you in body, but I never left in spirit!” she cried, her cheeks flamed red. “I was with you even before Cosmo and Wanda!”

His stare froze, then his nose crinkled.

“I couldn’t move on, because I wanted to watch Cosmo and Wanda give the love you always deserved! I wanted to watch you laugh again with old friends and make new ones! Watch you become a grownup and fall in love, have a family of your own! Watch you live a full and happy life!”

“But Cosmo and Wanda’s love won’t even matter, cuz when I’m a grownup, it’ll all be erased!” he argued, scowling. “How can I ever have a happy life when it’ll always feel like a piece of me is missing and I won’t even know what I lost!?”

Sophia found herself faltering, her voice as weak as she started to feel “…who told you that?”

“Your cousin!” Timmy spat. “He told me all about how we’re gonna lose our fairies no matter how long we keep them a secret and no matter how many rules we follow!”

“But…” she pressed clasped hands to her chest “…you weren’t supposed to know about that yet…”

He willed himself to hold back flustered screams “…you mean you knew?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

“It wasn’t for me to tell!”

Timmy began to pace, frustrated all over again.

“Cosmo and Wanda weren’t meant to be around forever…and that sucks!” Sophia tried to reason with him. “But they’re meant to give you a better chance at life!”

“I don’t want a better chance at life!” Timmy countered. “There’s no point!”

“What do you mean there’s no point?! You didn’t fall down the stairs for a reason!”

“According to Mom and Dad, I should have!”

The air around them tensed, Sophia’s arms falling at her sides “…they’re wrong, y’know.”

Irritation crossed in his arms. “Yeah, right…”

Anguish creased in her grimace “…you wanna to know what Mom told me before they moved on?”

“That I killed them?” Timmy sneered. Obviously wasn’t true, but it certainly sounded like something their mother would say out of spite.

“No…” Sophia exhaled, blinking back her tears “…to tell you she’s sorry.”

His jaw tensed, lips parted in silent shock. Their parents never wanted a son, that was always as clear as day! He was just an extra mouth to them! He was a burden to them! They chided him, resented him for years after Sophia’s death! Stuck him with a babysitter that if she’d choked the life out of him, she’d be doing them a favor!

The rise in his brow flattened to a cold glare. Mom and Dad were never sorry for literally anything. Why would they apologize now!? When it didn’t even matter cuz they’re freakin’ dead!? Better yet, why was it just Mom who apologized!? Was Dad not sorry? Of course, not! Because why would they admit fault to anything that had to do with their biggest mistake!?

“…I don’t believe you.”

Sophia couldn’t believe how cold his voice felt, raising bumps in her skin.

“Instead of getting rid of the kid they never wanted, they knew they could get away from me in death.”

“…you think they died on purpose?” she accused, and his scowl deepened.

“I think they knew it’d make them look less like sh*t parents.”

Her eyes flashed, breath caught in her chest. Since when did her sweet brother use those words at her? “…that’s the meanest thing I ever heard you say.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” he his tone was deceptively calm, and she could do little to stop the brim of flustered tears drenched with sadness. “Tell me Mom and Dad loved me.”

Thinking too deeply about what she couldn’t deny would just make her lip jut further “…Bubba-”

“You can’t!” he shrieked at her. “They never loved me, so why would they be sorry!?”

Her blue eyes shimmered in a pained gloss.

“On top of all that, I’m a black sheep in my own family, my fairies are gonna leave, my friends are better off without me, and don’t say anything about other godkids because the only reason we associate is cuz of our godparents! And those godparents’ll just end up leaving, too, and we’ll all just forget about each other!”

Heartache traced damp trails down her cheek.

“There’s nothing for me to live for, don’t you get that?!” his shout cracked, breaking from the life-long stakes splintered in his heart. “I’m fighting a losing battle and I just can’t anymore…”

Her chest ached, burning with the misery breaking the dam in his glare. Hot tears trickled in the heavy exhale that carried the weight of his strife.

“…I can’t do it anymore Sophia…I can’t…” he could barely speak, words whispered in despair between short sobs “…it’s easier to just give up before it gets worse…”

Her heart ached for his tears, but as her own sadness shed from her eyes, her brow knitted in a downward slant. While she could recognize his mindset, there was just one thing she needed him to understand. One thing that would sever their ties for the rest of forever.

“…if you ever take your own life…I will never forgive you.”

The twinge in his chest cracked as if his heart physically snapped in half.

Fluorescent lights mounted in panes of fiberglass along the ceiling, reflecting off the sheen of white tile floors. Purified air circulating within the blue-coated walls surrounding the singular bed that blanketed blue-cotton just above the patient’s pregnancy bump.

His tender fingers combed her rosette curls, her head tilted ever so slightly towards the window across the room from the entrance. A subtle rise and fall of her chest where faint breaths blew through weakly parted lips, prodded with wires sticking out from her hospital gown. Multiple IVs were attached through the veins in her arms, monitors tracking the pulse that was far more stable than earlier that morning. The subtle tint of rose in her skin had blanched. She looked so weak, he felt so weak…

Cosmo could admit when he was useless, and that he was in her dire time of need. How pathetic was he, blubbering like that when he should have been trying to help. Now he understood Irving’s terror after witnessing a seizure first hand…

He could still see the dim pulses of lilac visible even beneath the thick cotton tucked around Wanda’s stomach, connected to the EFM monitor tracking the baby’s vitals. He watched the rapid peaks and valleys of his child’s heartbeat, and he furrowed his brow. A real man doesn’t panic like a coward in the face of adversity…how can he ever call himself a father?

The door to Wanda’s hospital room stirred him, seeing his boss follow the dramatic swoop of jet-black hair slicked back. Bushy brows rested over blue eyes, his chiseled jaw cleanshaven. A stethoscope draped over the white lab coat buttoned over a lavender collared shirt, fastened with the black tie that matched his slacks and darbies.

Once inside, Jorgen carefully shut the door as Dr. Rip Studwell cleared his throat, addressing the husband of his patient with a grave gaze.

“I’d ask if you want the good or bad news first, but I think this situation would fair you more to hear the good news first.”

“…o-okay.” Cosmo swallowed a lump, hovering beside his wife’s bed. “What’s the good news?”

Dr. Studwell glanced down at the clipboard in his hand, skimming Wanda’s chart. “The baby has slightly elevated vitals but is relatively stable.”

His relief exhaled; the baby’s okay, that’s good. But then his chest tightened, noting how that good news didn’t seem to mention Wanda at all. A chill shot further up his spine when he happened to glance at Jorgen’s grimace as he stood with hands on his hips “…a-and the bad news?”

With a deep sigh, Dr. Studwell looked up from the chart. “Wanda’s blood pressure is spiking and her vital organs are on the brink of absolute failure.”

Cosmo coughed when he felt his throat tighten. Bad news? More like ‘let me punch you square in the ribs…with a big ole rock. After I rip out your heart and squash it, first.’

“According to both her and the baby’s results, the baby is becoming a parasite in his own mother’s body.”

“…are you serious?!” Cosmo tugged at his hair. Wanda wouldn’t want him to get frustrated like this, but he couldn’t help it. “How was this not an issue at our appointment?”

“Those magic labs and blood tests didn’t reveal anything of much significance other than chopping her symptoms up to be exaggerated growing pains.” Dr. Studwell tried to defend his oversight. “This is the first baby conceived from a wish; I couldn’t have predicted things to take this drastic of a turn.”

Too agitated for excuses, Cosmo glared with a low grunt “…and you call yourself a doctor?”

“I would watch what you say next if I were you.” Jorgen warned. He could empathize, but he will not tolerate disrespect of any kind.

“I almost lost my wife and my child!” Cosmo griped, Wanda’s slumber luckily undisturbed. “Do you get that?!”

“I understand the frustration…” Dr. Studwell groaned, tucking his chart under his arm “…but at this rate, there’s only one way to ensure we save both.”

“Oh yeah, ‘Doc’?” Cosmo challenged, meeting the doctor’s grim stare. “And what’s that?”

“…the baby will have to come out.”

Cosmo’s breath hitched, blinking rapidly as if shock had momentarily stolen the very sound of his voice.

Also baffled by this revelation, Jorgen addressed the doctor to ask what Cosmo could (or possibly could not) be unraveling in his mind “…you are certain about this?”

“Yes.” Dr. Studwell stated. “The baby has to come out if Wanda will have any chance of survival.”

“But…” Cosmo breathed when he found his voice again “…but it’s way too soon!”

“For a normal pregnancy, I’d agree.” Dr. Studwell pointed out. “However, because the magic of your godchild’s wish aided in accelerating the baby’s development, the gestational age is technically on the cusp of a third trimester despite only just entering the second.”

Cosmo hovered back without any forethought, trying to clear the fog of disbelief as his jumbled mind struggled to process. They were about to bring a baby into the world far less than unprepared. He was stressed enough for the both of them…he can only imagine what his ‘be ready for anything’ wife would think…

“Is it not still dangerous for the baby to be born this early?” Jorgen quizzed.

“There are still risks, yes.” Dr. Studwell admitted. “But I’m positive that the baby will have a chance if immediately transferred to the NICU.”

Green orbs drifted to the eyes sunken in her pale skin, his nerves surging. For the longest time, they believed it impossible to have children of their own. They’d almost completely given up, until one godchild had given them a miracle…a miracle with the misfortune of being not just a threat to his wife’s life, but to the life of their first child.

The heat in his clammy palm brushed the chill in her fingers, his despair seeking her comfort in however he could. Though Timmy’s wish had brought them hope, this was not the birth they ever would have imagined.

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

Fires of the sun, an eastern ball of blaze, cast luminous reflections of yellow and red within the fluffs of pink. Reflections that formed deep shadows of indigo and blue amid the vast sea of clouds that encircled the bowl-shaped formation, a grandeur work of supernatural art. Within the unusual terrains and steep violet cliffs of the crater lay a grassy bed of aquamarine, swirls of arctic azure seeping and snaking through thin cracks along the grass. Wiring streams that pooled into scatters of glassy ponds, glinting with the icy sparkles of the western crescent moon.

Isolated within a wide patch of aquamarine grass beneath the shimmers of moonlight, the Head Councilor admired the glassy stream, allowing his shoulders to slouch with the slit of downtime he had. A subdued yet eager bark turned his head to the wagging yellow tail of his magical companion nestled by his left thigh, seeing the anticipation of pets within bright green and pink orbs. The elder fae cloaked in blue reached for the yellow retriever’s top fur to reward with loving scratches, careful not to make the canine too excited since half of his fur was a temporary pillow for the brunette hatted in pink.

Shifting his left fingers to gently graze just above Birchie’s collar, Birchwind observed Timmy curled on his side, elbows bunched to his bent knees with knitted eyebrows and a sparkle of gloss that pricked the corners of his closed eyes. Birchie watched as Birchwind moved his palm to rest delicately atop Timmy’s bangs, conjuring glittering shimmers of periwinkle. Those same shimmers went aglow in Birchie’s eyes, snapping his eyes straight ahead as a projection hazy around the edges appeared before them.

Birchwind studied the image, a lens to Timmy standing face-to-face with his late sister. His cheeks were damp with tears that wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop.

“How can you stand there and SAY that to me!?” Timmy shouted, cracks of heartache in his screech.

“Because killing yourself would just pass your pain onto someone else!” Sophia cried to him. “Think of Chester and AJ! How do you think they’d feel!?”

“I can’t care anymore, Sophie!” Timmy’s patience thinned. “Life just sucks, and it always will! Why can’t you see that!?”

“No, Bubba!” Sophia’s heart broke more. “Life is too precious to just throw away! Why can’t you see that!?”

Hmm, it appears the Turner twins cannot see eye to eye. Not that Birchwind had expected any different; they were raised in the same household, yet their upbringings were night and day. Though, this did spin wheels in Birchwind’s mind as to how Timmy managed to make far less attempts than his cousin. What had held him back before now? Or, was it simply that he’d taken punch after punch until resilience ran out?

The Councilor lifted his hand from Timmy’s head with his magic subsiding, vanishing the image as Birchie’s eyes returned to their green and pink. Turning to the head of jet black lolled against his right thigh with the faintest rise and fall in his chest. No wrinkles in his brow, no bunch in his chin. Tranquility slack in his features, dead to the world.

Birchie’s pathetic little whine from the most excruciating ten seconds of his doggy life without attention made Birchwind groan softly, though he couldn’t help his weak grin when Birchie’s tongue panted in gratitude the instant scratching fingers reached behind his green ear. He could see why Gary’s godfather chose the disguise that he did; dogs really are a man’s best friend.

With the yellow retriever satisfied for now, Birchwind returned his gaze to the slumbering boy. For a child whose sleep was normally everything but peaceful, Birchwind was glad that Gary did not seem plagued by troubling dreams. Part of him hoped that the boy would continue to find solace in sleep. Of course, part of him feared that the next phase in the operation could very well ruin that.

An idea piqued his curiosity, shifting his right hand to rest behind Gary’s swoop. His palm sparkled with periwinkle magic, illuminating within Birchie’s eyes that then stared forward. Another image had been projected, an image of Gary within the solace of his forest-themed bedroom. Gary lay on his side in his bed, cradling his crowned yellow retriever that looked to him with eyes of icy-blue.

“Impossible…” Gary’s eyes narrowed into troubled slits. Te quiero, two words he found himself struggling to accept. “You can’t love me…”

The self-hatred bubbled in his voice wilted the godfather’s grin. “That is not true, peque.” Alondro gently emphasized. “You are, and always will be a good boy.”

“No, I’m not…” A tight-lipped frown hushed Gary’s tone “…I’m unlovable.”

Birchwind’s brows dropped low over his yellow eyes. He didn’t know what else he was expecting, but that was not his idea of a ‘peaceful’ dream. Or, maybe that was the extent of a tormented child’s peace…subdued gloom.

When turquoise smoke materialized behind the image, the glow in Birchwind’s palm vanished along with the projection. Greeted by his fellow Councilor with an indigo owl perched on her right arm, along with an auburn-haired lad wearing glasses to her left and a platinum blonde to her right.

Dwight gasped a sharp breath, his heart in his throat at the sight of the lifeless boy on the Head Councilor’s lap. His legs then acted on their own, stumbling over his own feet in his rush. Dropping on his knees by Gary’s side, shaking him and pleading for him to open his eyes to no avail.

“Worry not.” Birchwind cordially addressed the child’s worry. “He is simply resting after his episode.”

Dwight ceased his attempts to wake his best friend, raising his frown to the Councilmember’s gaze. “Oh, you mean…”

“I’m afraid so.”

Aware of what this meant, Dwight lowered his troubled brow to Gary’s deep slumber. For a while, Gary had seemed relatively untriggered. If Dwight had been told about Bradley’s fate, then Gary must’ve learned about whatever happened to LeRoi. Did that somehow set off a bad memory, or had it been something else?

Chloe would have asked what the Councilor meant by ‘episode,’ but her split attention pulled her towards the boy curled next to the dog, green and pink eyeing her apprehensive movements. Delicate in her strides with arms fastened around herself in desperate attempts to keep her already enervating sanity from unraveling. When she had entered the breach of personal space, she froze in a sharp gasp when the dog barked at her. The little logic left in her mind knew the difference between a bark of friendly greeting and not of an intimidating warning. And yet, her spine shivered cold all the same.

Birchie woofed at her again, pinkish-green streaks within his yellow tail flapping side to side on the turquoise grass. Chloe’s gawk fixed hauntedly, muscles stiffened as if she could sprint away at a moment’s notice.

“Do not be afraid.” she heard Birchwind address her, locking wide eyes on him. “He is just seeking your affection.”

“…m-m…” her stammer edged with tension “…m-my…affection?”

“He wants you to pet him.” Treebelle coolly clarified what should have been obvious. Still, she was sympathetic as to why something so simple would not be obvious to a buzzing mind so overwhelmed with complicated thoughts.

“…o-oh…”

Chloe returned her stare to the anticipating gaze of Birchie. Gulping the lump stuck in her throat, her sandals skulked forward. Goosebumps popped along her arms, her hand flinching as if glued and constricted to her bicep. Bending her weakening knees, she managed to free her hand after a moment longer than need be, stretching trembling fingers towards the dog who stretched his neck so that his head was within closer reach. Another sharp breath hitched behind her chest when her fingers brushed the softness of his fur, feeling the ice melt from around her spine when a reciprocating tongue licked at the inside of her hand.

“…as for him?” Treebelle’s thumb gestured to Timmy still undisturbed against Birchie, addressing the Head Councilor.

Birchwind flattened his brow towards Treebelle. “Timmy is learning why he should not kill himself...”

The ice that had begun to melt chilled all over again when Chloe’s fingers froze mid scratch. She never imagined she’d ever hear ‘Timmy’ and ‘kill himself’ in the same sentence. For the few weeks she’d known him, she couldn’t recall if he’d ever gotten that deep with her.

Her heart hammered in her chest. What kind of friend was she to not know just how greatly her friend was suffering? Why was she so useless…

Beneath the rays of sunset, the fae elder appeared in taffy-pink smoke above the patch of aquamarine grass within the terrain of violet craters. Bordered by a stream of arctic azure, the Councilor cradled his red ferret in crossed arms, accompanied by the young billionaire and the girl with kinky curls.

“I assume you know why we were forced to this place.” Persimmon questioned the fellow Councilman shrouded in purple across from him.

“I do.” Plumfrost sighed, his dark-blue raven perched on his shoulder. “It seems that the godmother’s womb had plans of its own.”

Brown orbs broadened at the gothic girl to the Councilor’s left. Yale-blue eyes stared at the ground, red and glassy with deep shadows formed underneath. Arms of her black sleeves slack and heavy at her sides. Her own eyes already raw from incessant crying, Hazel blinked back unshed tears.

“Molly!” she cried out, eyes misted as she left Persimmon’s side to sprint across to her friend. A friend she did not realized how much she missed until reunited.

Numbed from emotional drainage, only at the call of her name did Molly manage to look up just as Hazel collided into her. She felt her heart jolt when Hazel’s wet cheek smashed against her sternum, barely able to move her elbows constrained by clinging arms. Glancing down at the head of afro texture, Molly mustered a half-formed, barren smile. “Hey, kid…”

Hearing the dullness in her voice, Hazel lifted her eyes and gaped, a quiet shudder escaping. Goggling at the darkened spot of crimson stained near where Molly’s heart would be. “What happened?!”

“…I’m not hurt…” Molly didn’t necessarily lie. Plum’s puncture had not left any lingering pain. At least, as far as she could tell; it was hard to feel much of anything.

Her brows tremored with fret as Hazel looked up. “…but are you okay?”

Sunken eyes stared down at the grave concern misting Hazel’s eyes, and Molly almost wished the poor girl would just worry about herself for once. Molly spoke just above audible as though she were speaking to herself rather than Hazel “…I will be...”

The raven-haired girl with purple specs observed the darkness behind mint-green downcast. The same broken pain that once again tugged at her heart, except this pain seemed far more damaged than their first personal interaction at Fairy Fort. Hesitant, Tootie glanced down at the notebook that she now held at her side. While she felt her vocal cords no longer suffocated by an invisible noose, it still felt as if her throat had been grated from the inside out.

Digging out the seed of doubt for her, she flinched when a blue beak ripped her notebook from her underarm. She couldn’t reach fast enough before Plum flapped her wings and returned to the shoulder of her maker, her beak clamped down onto the black book’s spine.

“There is no need for this crutch.” she heard Plumfrost calmly affirm, tilting her gaze to meet his. “More strength is within you than you know.”

Tootie looked back to Remy, exhaling her nerves in a deep breath as fingers reached for the scarlet scar between her brows. What reason did she have to doubt herself?

His insides curled in hot frustration, the pit of his gut hollow with wells of acidic waves. The ache in his chest felt as if his heart had turned to stone, burning just as unsettling tingles crept chills through his veins. Racing thoughts echoed in his mind like a distant whisper from another room, a weightless and untethered heaviness dragging his spirit into the deepest depths. Fingers trembled with repressed fury, drifting in slow motion as they clawed at the sides of his hair. Glistening eyes glanced around, struggling to focus on anything…

Remy felt everything surging within with nothing left inside. He was losing his insanity…

"…are you okay?"

Hearing a familiar peep, sulky eyes spotted the pair of baby dolls standing before his shoes. He then mustered the will to meet her purple stare fixed on him, his eyes widening ever so subtly. He remembered hearing Tootie speak before, and yet, her voice sounded…different. His mind was too chaotic to pinpoint exactly what that difference was.

“No…” he croaked. His insides twisted too much to lie.

“…do you wanna talk about it?” she tried, scooting closer. Without knowing much about Remy, it wasn’t hard to assume by the red rim around his eyes that he too had been hit with some really awful news.

“…no…” because if he did, there was a 50/50 chance that he’d either implode or explode. Neither favorable.

Licking dry lips, Tootie took another step. "…would you like a hug?"

Though he had not lifted his stare from the ground, the back of his eyes stung as the view of his shoes began to blur. The glue to keep from completely breaking apart was waning by the second, and he didn’t have his fairy to pick up the pieces…

Thinned lips barely managed to choke out “…yes…”

Tootie didn’t hesitate to lend herself as Remy’s strength, pulling him into a tight embrace. She rested her head on his chest, hugging him with arms that, she hoped, conveyed that he was not alone. To her small surprise, she felt his chin lower to the top of her ponytails. She heard him choke back sobs as his arms wrapped around her, pressing her to him, all the while realizing that her own broken pain brimming behind her glasses needed this, too.

“Should we go meet with the others?” Persimmon asked Plumfrost, trying to get the squirming ferret in his arms to settle down. Simmons was growing antsy, and frankly, so was Persimmon, knowing what was to come.

Plumfrost turned around from the direction of the setting sun for a quick scan across in the direction of the rising moon, spotting the other two Councilmembers and the remaining godchildren a whole football field away. “I believe we shall.”

Hazel released Molly, hugging herself as Molly eyed Tootie gently pull herself away from Remy. It only took a quick swipe of his arm to dry his eyes, and while she still could care less about him, whatever that raven did, anger had become a stranger.

A plush yet prickly sensation against his cheek was the only disturbance to the blanket of peace snuggling his soul. Gary stirred with eyes still closed, fingers wadding what felt like waxy blades beneath his palm. When his eyes opened leisurely, the haze slowly cleared, and the view of aquamarine grass greeted him. He felt warm despite his leather jacket as his only cover, tilting his squint in a low groan towards the silver ice of the moon.

What the…Pushing his head from the grass, he sat himself up with planted hands. His brows formed a deep, puzzled crease, searching for answers he could not easily identify. The only thing looping in his daze was ‘always a good boy.’ Why was his mind lying to him…? Hmph…when could his thoughts ever be trusted?

“…Gary?”

He heard a voice call his name, the hint of nasally that he recognized. Before he could fully process, he flinched from the sudden impact of bodyweight pressed against him with clinging arms.

“Are you okay?! How’re you feeling?!”

“Missed you, too, Dwight…” Gary dully droned before Dwight pulled away and scooted back, giving Gary room to breathe.

“Do you feel any better?”

“I guess…” Gary rubbed one eye with a weary palm. Blinking the last of sleep from his eyes, Gary scanned the violet craters and the artic azure of flowing streams. Vastly different from where he’d remembered being last. “Where are we…?”

“That, I don’t know.” Dwight admitted. “The Council brought Chloe and Timmy here, too.”

“…Timmy?” A flash of Timmy jumping off a cloud sparked in Gary’s mind, now scanning the new surroundings for his cousin. Regrettably, his memories were a bit scattered. He was arguing with Timmy about something and then…

As the owl’s turquoise eyes returned to their normal dark-teal, Chloe fell back on her backside, catching her breath. Her eyes fluttered, seeing Birchie’s pouting eyes as he whimpered a whine that came off less pathetic and rather that of sympathy. Her heart thumping, Chloe directed her gaze towards the boy who hadn’t moved. Still curled in a ball with a glint of moonlight trailing the single tear that’d escaped through closed lids, carving a path down his cheek.

“Are you certain that this must happen so soon?” Treebelle questioned the Head Councilor, having requested to talk in private while they awaited the arrival of the others. “Bella had just calmed Chloe from her third panic attack before your call for all of us here.”

“Pregnancy complications have now taken two of the godparents out of the realm where they are protected from magic build-up.” Birchwind rationalized, arms folded.

“Then instruct Jorgen to prorogue the effects!” Treebelle did not see the justification for the needs of the few outweighing the needs of the many. For the trauma that majority of these children have suffered, there simply had not been enough time to prepare them from potentially being traumatized even more.

“The unborn child is already indisposed with the amalgamation of differing magic between the wish, its mother, and child itself.” Birchwind justified. “I fear what may happen if Jorgen’s magic was added to that mix.”

“Wanda would likely be fine receiving medical treatment.” Treebelle reasoned. “At least, with Cosmo, there is less risk of a negative outcome from postponing magic build-up.”

[My lord, I am afraid that I will need to free another godparent.]

Birchwind rolled his eyes; these inconveniences were becoming a nuisance. [I thought I told you no other exceptions.]

There was a slight pause on Jorgen’s end. [With all due respect…Juandissimo’s wife is insufferable.]

[…and you can’t handle her?]

He could hear the groan in Jorgen’s voice. [She has demanded to see him by threatening my life…twice.]

Birchwind facepalmed, letting out a heavy sigh. Of course…why should he be surprised? After all, this was Wanda’s identical, somewhat hotter, and somehow nervy twin sister.

[Very well…just prorogue the effects of magic-build up when you release him. And do not forget to do the same for Cosmo.]

. . . . . .

[Yes, my lord…] Jorgen had already materialized to traverse the stone path of the candle-lit cave, squeezing his wand-like staff with one hand while the other had balled into a fist. Personal experience had solidified why you must be absolutely certain of what you’re getting into when getting involved with a high-value woman. They know exactly how to get what they want, and they will not accept less.

“This is all f*cked…” Swizzle hovered back and forth in an agitated pace in front of the granite coffee table, ignoring her girlfriend’s watchful eye from the modular couch.

“I dunno if we could’ve seen this comin’…” Irving grimaced, leaned against the arm of the couch with hands in his pockets.

Nyekundu wrung her hands. “I mean, she had experienced pain before…”

“Yeah, but…” Irving shrugged. “…it didn’t get any worse before it went away…”

With his back against the granite countertop of the kitchenette, Alondro held folded arms across his chest. Observing Juandissimo kneeling down to Susie’s level on the stone floor as Rose sat beside her with a consoling arm around her. Once Jorgen had whisked Wanda and Cosmo away, it was impossible to calm Susie’s distress until Juandissimo and Rose had stepped in to comfort her. Susie had a softer shell with fairies that she had formed life-long bonds…that Alondro understood.

He diverted his furrowed brow to the ground. If she was not comfortable with him…then what did that kiss mean?

“Wanda’s gonna be okay…” Rose consoled to Susie, taking a stab at positivity. They could all use some right about now.

Susie sniffed, scrubbing at the tears that still lingered. “I-I just hope…she doesn’t have to go through…what I went through…”

Alondro lifted his gaze towards Susie lowering her head to Rose’s chest as Rose rubbed her shoulder. Did that mean Susie had been pregnant before? If so…what had become of her child?

The door swung in a crash, turning the fairies’ heads to their Fairy Commander’s stern stance in the doorway.

“Magnifico! You come with me!”

Exchanging questioning glances, Susie and Rose then looked to the Hispanic fairy whose brows creased in a quizzical gaze.

“Hold up!” Swizzle’s agitation huffed, pointing back to Juandissimo. “Why does he get to leave!?”

“Because your significant other’s not famous.” Jorgen stated with one hand on his hip, giving a quick glance to Nyekundu. “No offense.”

“…my husband’s in a famous band with Juan’s sister.” Irving pointed out.

“Congratulations...” Jorgen rolled his eyes before he tapped the butt of his staff against the ground as emphasis to his rush. “Now come on! We don’t have all day!”

Juandissimo met Susie and Rose’s stares, keeping his features deceptively composed. Blonda could just be a worrywart over him as always; their communication had essentially been cut off. Or this was a sign of her heightened anxiety because Wanda was, in fact, not okay…

The other fairies watched as Juandissimo rose from his kneel and floated towards Jorgen, stalling briefly when he felt a particular pair of eyes on him. He only acknowledged Alondro’s vigilant stare for a second, shooting a wary glance of his own.

When Cosmo and Wanda had been taken to Fairy World, instead of allowing Alondro to talk her down, Susie tore herself away and kept shouting for him to leave her alone. Her shouting had indicated great discomfort, something Juandissimo knew was out of character for her…unless something cagey happened when no one else was around.

Juandissimo made a mental note to keep his eye out for Alondro as he continued to travel behind Jorgen out through the door.

“How can you not understand why I just wanna give up!” Timmy shouted through his tears, his voice starting to strain.

“Because you shouldn’t!” Sophia screamed back, great frustration cracking her pitchy voice. “Don’t you care how upset Cosmo and Wanda would be?!”

“I told you! I can’t care!” Timmy barked. “They’re gonna leave me anyways!”

“If that was their mentality, why did they stop you the first time!?”

“Simple! It’s their job! They’re supposed to love me!”

“You do know it’s possible to do nice things for someone you don’t love, right?!”

“You do know it’s possible to love someone out of obligation, right?!”

“UGH!” her inner turmoil echoed through the void, crackling the air with the anger she could no longer contain. “I can’t believe you’re just choosing to stay in the dark!”

Veins popped in his temples. “I’m in the dark?! You’re not me!”

“I don’t have to be you to know that if you kill yourself, you’re not giving yourself a chance!”

His eyes sharpened, glowering with aggravation. “Again, WHAT IS THE POINT!?”

She screamed with exasperation, clawing at her hair. “Oh my god, open your eyes, Bubba! WAKE UP!”

Timmy yelped with a start, clutching the tightness in his chest. A wet coolness stretched from the corners of his eyes to the tip of his chin. He jerked when a woof barked in his right ear, hunching his shoulders involuntarily when a hot, wet tongue licked the saltiness off his cheek. Groaning, he pressed a hand to Birchie’s collar, preventing him from another sloppy kiss as Birchie’s tongue hung in jovial pants.

“Welcome back, Timmy Turner.”

He turned to the baritone that’d addressed him. Facing Birchwind with three other robed figures on either side of him, all wearing crowns and levitating inches from grass that did not look natural. The little river behind them looked like moving ice. He didn’t remember if craters were this purple, and come to think of it, the pink clouds reminded him of those sunset paintings with all the bright colors and exaggerated shades.

“Timmy!”

He didn’t have to look far to see Tootie hurry to fall onto her knees before him. Concern flushed her face, wadding the hem of her skirt with pressed lips as she squeaked “…a-are you okay?”

“…you’re talking…” was all his froze stare could murmur. What the heck is happening? How long was he out?

Tootie bent her head, scrunching her skirt more as her cheeks reddened. “…is…” timid eyes lifted to him “…is that okay?”

“Yeah…” Timmy stared blankly at the scar between her brows “…why would it not…?”

Chloe hugged her knees, forming wrinkles in her forehead. She could still see the stain of tears in the corners of his eyes that looked haunted. Did he have a scary dream, too? Was he drowning…like she was?

Seated in the grass beside Chloe, Hazel cradled the red ferret over crossed legs. Before another bout of tears could wash over her, Simmons had jumped to snuggle into her arms. She looked down to him as he raised the top of his head to her chin, brushing her with his fur. She scratched his chin in return, mustering a faint smile that wilted as soon as it came.

Dwight sat closest to Gary but across from Chloe, holding Bella who had unapologetically invited herself to occupy the personal space in his lap. She didn’t seem to mind his gentle strokes to her indigo plumage, closing contented eyes as his finger scratched the feathers on her neck.

Seeing Chloe’s disgruntlement heavied his heart. What he knew of Timmy was either what he’d been willing to share (which wasn’t much,) or what details he could remember from Gary’s perspective. He couldn’t say whether he was surprised. Chloe knew him better than he did, but how she’d reacted when they learned of Timmy’s troubled mentality worried him. She can’t ever know about the pact that had almost been successful had the Council not intervened. He’d hate to be another trigger to her anxiety…

Propping her chin in dreary palms beside Dwight, Molly fixed her drifting focus on watching Plum dawdle along the grass in whatever senseless exploration ravens did. Soreness throbbed behind empty eyes; if she had any emotions left, they felt dormant within her, buried beneath layers of numbness and indifference.

The Council had been pretty hush-hush as to why they were all dragged here…whatever it was didn’t matter. What’s the point? Life won’t be any less of a sh*tshow.

Holding one knee to his chest, Gary sat with one cheek against his knee, studying the young billionaire next to him. Remy squeezed his knees against him, folding in on himself with hunched shoulders. His mint-green eyes were barely open, but Gary could see how they glistened with unshed tears. He hadn’t moved since he’d sat down, hadn’t said a word. Lost in a tornado of thoughts disconnecting him from everyone around.

He’d closed himself off, and for some odd reason, Gary found himself curious to know why.

“Gary Vladislapov.” he met the firm eyes of the Head Councilor when he heard the call of his name. “As the eldest, we shall start with you first.”

“What does that mean…?” Molly mumbled, her stare remaining on Plum picking at the grass with her beak.

“You shall see in due time.” Persimmon gruffly gave a non-answer that Molly simply raspberried off.

“Will you join us, please?” Birchwind gestured for Gary to come forth.

Timmy shot his cousin a look as Gary stalled, pinching his mouth before standing to his feet. With every step he took, Gary could feel his heart flutter in his stomach. With no context, he didn’t like any of the tingles underneath his skin. He could hear heartbeats in his ears by the time he stood before the Council, unnerved by the grim firmness in every one of their stares.

“Let us start with a simple question.” Treebelle spoke first, a hint of stern in her femininity. “Do you trust us?”

How in the hick heck was that a simple question? “…should I not?”

“That is not what she asked.” Plumfrost remarked.

The other kids watched Gary shrug. “What do you want me to say?”

“Do you trust that we have your best interest at heart?” Persimmon specified, making Gary lift a brow.

“I’m starting to wonder if I should...”

Birchwind whistled between two fingers, leading Timmy to stumble away when Birchie sprung onto his paws. Gary heard paws lightly gallop from behind him until he could see Birchie sit obediently in his peripheral. He then diverted narrowed eyes to the Head Councilor, crimpling his lips from the burn that began to itch beneath his sleeve.

“Know that we do not wish to hurt you.” Birchwind made sure to affirm as he also looked out at the other godchildren. “We do not wish to hurt any of you.”

“Then why are you speaking as if you will…?” Chloe groused as Hazel glanced at her.

“Because it will likely hurt…” Treebelle spoke honestly “…yet we want to reiterate that, unlike the negative influences of your young lives, it is not on purpose.”

Timmy crossed his arms, grumbling under his breath low enough not to test waters. “Yeah, right…”

“Gary…” Birchwind returned his attention to the eldest godchild, hands hidden in his linked sleeves. “What is it that haunts you?”

“Um…” Gary cuffed his sleeve, squeezing the itchy burn in his wrist “…I…have to say it out loud?”

“Yes.”

His fingers squished the healed blister in his arm, straining a calm face “…why?”

“A brave man is not he who does not feel afraid.” Revealed from beneath his sleeve, Birchwind extended the left palm that glittered periwinkle-blue. “It is he who conquers that fear.”

A golf-ball orb of magic ripped the fabric of space, swirling in luminous shimmers of periwinkle. As the children gazed with both astonished wonder and baffled confusion, Gary blanched, lips parted in silent dread as the magical orb morphed and molded into the shape of a grown man. A man with brunette hair shagged to his shoulders, overbite snarling. Broad in his shoulders, a murderous blaze fuming within elm eyes…

Blood drained from Gary’s mask of terror, and even Timmy’s blood ran cold in his veins.

Summoned before them was the unwelcomed presence of Marsden Vladislapov.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

A blanket of pink stratus drifted lazily across the sky of purpureus and thistle ombre, coasting above the grand, glass-covered towers of white concrete with pink clouds as shrubs. The signature yellow crown with a red cross insignia floated high above the roof, red steel letters reading 'Hospital' bolted onto the roof of the hospital entrance.

The green-haired man floated into the elevator and waited for the sliding doors to close, carrying a cardboard tray of three coffee cups. Cladded in a sleek tuxedo of solid black with black leather Oxfords on his feet, the collar of his white linen shirt sported a fancy bowtie to compliment the clean cut of his shamrock-green shag that matched his eyes, inhaling the satisfying scent of roasted java beans through the nostrils of his exceptionally large nose.

Schnozmo Cosma, COO of the operating system of every magical item in Fairy World known as Wandos 2.0, was still grasping the fact that in just minutes, he would become ‘Uncle Schnozmo’. News of Wanda’s delivery had sprung up so fast that he’d scrambled to carve out time in his condensed schedule to arrive at the hospital in time. He’d hardly had time to buy anything for the newest member of the family; frankly, he still didn’t know what his baby brother and his sister-in-law were having. He didn’t think even they had known yet.

Two male fairies dressed in black suits and dark shades blocked off a section of chairs in the maternity ward waiting room, hired to ward off any nosy paparazzi sticking their camera lenses where they don’t belong or adoring fans from begging for autographs from the zappy-less actress. Adorned in pearl earrings complimenting her white Parigi pumps, white faux fur scarfed the sleeveless dress of pastel-blue with a white-ruffled hem. Light-turquoise painted the lids of the fuchsia eyes that matched her lipstick, voluminous blonde strands curled in one large swirl atop her head and in a tighter curl just above her back.

Blonda Magnifico, star of the popular soap opera All My Biceps, grazed at the tips of her scarf to keep from ruining her fresh French-press. Her legs dangled back and forth, trying her best not to agonize over worst-case scenarios of her twin sister’s cesarean. She looked to her husband who’d used the scarf over her shoulder as a makeshift pillow. If not for the solace of Juandissimo’s arms around her on his lap, antsy anticipation would likely make her gag wells of acid crashing in her stomach.

Forcing her mind to focus on something else, she studied the distracted somberness in his downward stare. Curious if his mood had anything to do with that ancient voodoo-type whatever that overpumped muscle-head had used on him, the same that had been done to Cosmo before he’d gone with Wanda into the surgical delivery room. From the little that had been explained to her, it was to make a certain amount of magic dormant without depleting it completely, preventing it from building up and ballooning through the body. All because if a godparent extended the length of time not granting wishes, they were doomed to this curse.

Life in Fairywood was no walk in the park by any means, but she herself could never be a godparent. The crap they have to put up with…couldn’t be her.

“…you okay, bebé?” she asked him gently, waiting before his lack of response led her finger to lift his chin for him to look at her.

“Si…” his words were weary, yet his mind was restless. Fretting over Susie and her wellbeing, over Wanda and her health as well as the baby…over where the hell Remy was and whether he was alright.

Ailments that he chose to keep to himself; no need for Blonda to fret over all of that, too. “…are you?”

“I’m managing…” she admitted, combing her scarf’s faux fur “…kinda worried about this getting out.”

“…what getting out?”

Her nervous brows tipped up. “Wanda’s pregnancy…”

His flagging gaze eyed her tenderly “…why are you worried?”

“She’s my sister.” She reminded in a huffed breath. “Fairytainment Tonite seems to have a kink exploiting my personal life and anyone connected to me…”

Of course; even when not for publicity purposes, Blonda always ended up the talk of the town somehow. He’d learned that first hand when they’d officially tied the knot.

When the ding of the elevator signaled the unload of a single passenger, Schnozmo entered into the maternity ward, hovering past the bodyguard that simply moved out the way for him. Setting the cardboard tray on the arm of the chair across, Schnozmo grabbed two of the three paper cups, extending one of them in offering.

“Coffee for you, sir.”

“Gracias…” Juandissimo accepted the cup. For however long he’d been in that cave, his circadian clock suffered. At just eight in the morning, it felt like the 2:00pm slump running on fumes…

Schnozmo reached for the other cup, extending it to Blonda.

“No, thanks…” Blonda declined respectfully, drumming fingers on her thighs. “I’m already on edge…”

“Ah, well…” Holding the full cup with one hand, Schnozmo took the remaining coffee cup left on the tray and crinkled it in his other hand to throw away later. “More for me, then.”

Noticing him discard a cup that she’d once assumed was full, Blonda arched a brow “…didn’t you just buy that?”

Schnozmo blinked before he chuckled awkwardly. “…and two others before that one.”

Blonda pinched her nose with an eye roll. “For the gods’ sakes…”

“What!?” Schnozmo squawked. “My nerves are shot, okay?!”

“And what do you think all that caffeine’s gonna do for you!?” Blonda griped.

“All have you know, I am a caffeine connoisseur.”

“And I hope you know that’s not the flex you think it is!”

Juandissimo took a lackadaisical sip of his coffee, taking and wanting no part.

Traveling down the hall from the public restrooms, Jorgen clutched his staff in tense treads, bothering not to wait for Blonda’s other bodyguard to move out of his way before his hands shoved him to the side to step through. Taking Jorgen’s governing rank into consideration, the bodyguard simply hovered back into his stoic position as Jorgen stopped and faced his employee.

“Feeling alright, Juandissimo?” he quizzed, less harsh than normal.

“Si.” Juandissimo sighed, his wife noting the sag in his eyelids when he set his cup on the chair’s armrest. “Just tired…”

“Hopefully that is the worst of it…your magic is in the weakest state possible that abates the risk of body disintegration.” Acting as Fairy Commander for thousands of years, this had been the first that Jorgen ever magically postponed magic build-up. He was not 100% versed when it came to its effects.

And the fairy actress did not like the sound of any of that. “How long will his magic be weakened?”

“Approximately 48 hours. Although…” Jorgen furrowed. “…if Juandissimo does not grant a wish soon after those 48 hours which is almost definite, then I may have to perform the same spell again.”

Demolishing his fourth coffee, Schnozmo crimpled the cup in his hand. “Same for Coz and Wans?”

“Dr. Studwell has confirmed that the medication Wanda is receiving counteracts any buildup of magic and thus exempts her from the spell.” Jorgen clarified. “However, Cosmo and Juandissimo are in the same boat.”

“Seriously?!” Blonda flashed an agitated glare to the Fairy Commander. “Why can’t they just go back to their godchildren, then?”

“Because it is likely they will be with the Council for a while.” Jorgen admitted.

Unsurprisingly, Blonda was less than content with that answer. “And why is that?”

“I am not certain.” Jorgen still had zero clue as to the Council’s intentions. One would assume he’d know by now considering his shared telepathy with the Head Councilman. Unfortunately, telepathy and mindreading are two different things.

“What do you mean you don’t know!?”

“…exactly what I just said.”

“And why lock godparents in some cave, anyway!?”

“To keep from having to perform the prevention spell.” Jorgen gripped his staff with arms folded. “In case you have failed to notice, it’s less than ideal.”

“What’s the point of all this?!”

“I wish I knew, but I am in the same dark as you!”

“But-”

“Blonda, just leave it alone...” she heard subtle irritation in Juandissimo’s groan as she turned to him, yet his voice was as soft as the hand that reached for hers “…focus on Wanda, si?”

Looking down at his gentle thumb that brushed the sterling silver diamond shimmering on her left hand, Blonda pouted a sigh. She knew he was right, but she just couldn’t understand; out of all the godchildren on Earth, what did rulers of Fairy World want with these kids?

Two poofs of magical clouds caught their attention, seeing both Dr. Studwell and Cosmo sporting isolation gowns with bouffant caps and gloves. As one of the bodyguards shifted so that Cosmo could follow Dr. Studwell to address the group, Dr. Studwell lowered the medical mask to his chin.

"Do you want good news or bad news first?"

“You can’t just tell us, why?” the Fairy Commander grouched.

“It’s no fun that way.” The doctor gave a casual remark as Cosmo hovered beside him, dully shaking his head with two fingers rubbing at his temple.

Jorgen huffed a grunt. “Fine. Bad news first.”

“Wanda will need to be taken off active duty for at least a week.” Dr. Studwell detailed. “The incisions need that time to fully heal without risks of reopening.”

“Other than that, she’s okay, right?” Blonda worried.

“We’ll need to continue observation, but I’m confident that she will be.”

At least glad to hear that Wanda should make a full recovery, Schnozmo then begged the question “…then what’s tha good news?”

Hands casual behind his back, Dr. Studwell turned to the new father. “You wanna do the honors?”

All eyes fell to the green-haired fairy pulling down his own medical mask. Though his normally bright eyes were hooded and bloodshot from exhaustion, his pride still curved weak lips in a gratified smile.

“…it’s a boy…”

Venomous spite thundered, drowning out any relic of a thought with a voice not of his own. A voice that Gary knew without a doubt was of the physical manifestation standing before him.

That cord around your neck should’ve been tighter!

She should be alive. Not you!

You f*cked up my life…you f*cked up everything…

You did this…you made me DO THIS!

Nevertheless, Marsden did not move his lips, did not move a muscle. Shallow gasps rose and fell rapidly in Gary’s chest, unable to blink as if the weight of terror threatened to suffocate him.

If the bodyweight of fur had pressed itself against his legs, the weightlessness prickling his veins numb couldn’t tell. Fingertips and toes chilled to ice, his skin tingling in a cold sweat. The icy stare of elm eyes bore into him, making it hard to signal any of his limbs to move. The only time his body could move was when something akin to a clawed foot pounced on him, and he blinked to see swiping paws that he barely recognized through the haze creeping up on him.

Up on his hind legs, Birchie pawed at Gary’s chest. Nudging against his torso until his efforts pushed Gary’s weak knees to the ground. Birchie then proceeded to initiate physical contact by laying his head onto front paws, draped over Gary’s lap. As Birchie gently applied deep pressure against Gary’s abdomen, shaky hands grazed the furry back that felt light as invisible air beneath his fingertips. He couldn’t seem blink the thick glass out of his eyes, staring down at a dog laying on someone else’s lap.

“…ou thinking right now, Gary?”

His mind felt submerged underwater. He only caught part of that sentence, but at least his mind could hear his own voice again…

Wait…was it his voice?

“…ou hear me, Gary?”

What was he hearing…was Gary his name?

…who…is Gary…?

Birchie raised his head, nudging his wet nose to Gary’s slack jaw. When those efforts failed to bring back life in his ghostly gaze, a sloppy tongue licked desperately at the dulled senses blanching in his face, only managing to rouse delayed flicks in his eyelids.

“This is not good…” Plumfrost breathed, observing blue eyes staring into the void. He shot a sharp glance to the blue Councilor on his right. “Was this truly the best approach?”

His palm continuing to glimmer periwinkle, Birchwind matched Plumfrost with a stern brow of his own. “You had no qualms when this tactic had first been discussed.”

“That was before you had chosen to expose these children too soon.” Treebelle muttered.

Tootie saw from the corner of her eye the little fists that’d begun to clench against Timmy’s lap, frowning to the subtle twitch in his deepening snarl. Years that now felt like a lifetime ago, during the brief period of their friendship, neither Timmy nor Sophia had ever mentioned other relatives aside from their cousin and grandparents. She saw an uncanny resemblance to Timmy in the strange man, but from the repulsion in Timmy’s glower, this was not a great thing.

Timmy’s stomach scrunched with the force of his restraint, growing hot from the boil in the blood that had once run cold. Harboring so much hate for a man he’d never met. Marsden Vladislapov, his accursed uncle. The original black sheep, a blasphemy that his own parents and grandparents had bestowed upon him. The black sheep that had no part of his life and had yet ultimately ruined his life, solely by unfair comparisons.

The other godkids didn’t know what to make of Timmy bolting to his feet in a straight charge towards the physical manifestation of his curse. The Council, too, did not expect Timmy to then windmill wild fists at Marsden’s legs, billowing breaths through his teeth with such wrath that he was panting. Marsden’s fuming gaze remained, standing still as a statue. Showing no reaction to Timmy’s strikes, only fueling more fire.

Chloe hugged her knees in sharp breaths, and Hazel squeezed Simmons against the tightness in her chest. Molly scrunched her face beside Dwight, nestling Bella with a puzzled yet sympathetic frown. Unlike the other children, there was a flatness in Remy’s stare, detached from the scene of familiar rage, barely attached to himself. As the tears clouding her eyes trembled in Tootie’s lip, Timmy cried a grunt with each hammering punch, a burning gloss clamping his eyes shut. Flashed with fury while simultaneously stabbed with shame.

He had not wanted anyone to see this side of him, and he had especially wanted to protect an innocent soul like Tootie from witnessing the worst of his sins. He just couldn’t help himself, could no longer contain the scalding blaze in his heart…

He couldn’t care anymore.

Timmy threw another punch, except the force of restraint prevented the strike from landing. Periwinkle-blue glimmered around Timmy’s fists, freezing them in place.

“That is enough, Timmy Turner!” Birchwind bellowed, and Timmy’s misting scowl shot daggers at him.

“LET ME GO!”

“Not until you get a bear of yourself!”

Timmy growled acidly, tears hot in his eyes. Diverting his heated glare to the pathetic excuse for an uncle standing with the same expression of malice, no change to his stance.

“DO something, you bastard!”

“Timmy, he is but a projection.” Birchwind stated, calming his firm tone. “The only lifelikeness about him is his body; no soul or consciousness exists within.”

Timmy’s glare could pierce glass, and Birchwind grimaced at the hot tears threatening to fall from those venomous blue eyes. While Molly had not been the only godchild with pain that manifested into anger, he was beginning to wonder if he had erred in not addressing Timmy’s unhealthy coping before now.

“Birchwind!” Persimmons approached in attempts to deescalate, palming the head Councilor’s shoulder. “Just let the boy go…”

Against his reservations, Birchwind ebbed his magic, releasing the constraint around Timmy’s fists. Timmy was about to charge again when he stopped himself, wadding tremoring fists at his sides as unforgiving judgement crazed his stare towards Marsden. Even his impulsivity saw no point in hurting someone who cannot feel pain. What satisfaction would his strife gain from that?

Instead, Timmy pivoted towards the dog nudging and licking at his cousin’s ashen face, the anger in his eyes an effigy of contempt. If Gary sees him as his punk of a dad, then he’ll give ‘em something to compare!

The moment Timmy marched towards Gary was the moment Birchwind saw this left turn coming. “Timmy, don’t-!”

“Hey!” Timmy snapped at his cousin, ignoring the Head Councilor’s plea. “Snap out of it!”

The boom of a dog’s protective bark halted him in his tracks. Birchie then pressed himself further onto Gary’s lap, warning Timmy to keep his distance with a growl deep in his throat. As the other kids looked on, Dwight looked especially concerned for the vacant daze in his best friend’s stare, seeming to not see anything at all. All the while Timmy furrowed, curling bitter lips into a snarl.

“You think I’m scared of some mangy mutt?!”

“Stop, Timmy!” Chloe tried despite her racing heart pounding between her ears, but Timmy paid her no mind either.

“Hey, space cadet!” Timmy shouted, pointing behind him at the motionless projection of Marsden. “Your dumb dad’s not real, so you can come back down ta Earth now!”

“Timmy, stop it!” Dwight interjected. “There’s no need for that!”

Timmy narrowed a bitter glower towards Dwight, his words tinged with spite. “Go have a ‘fit’ and shut up!”

Dwight’s frown went wide at the biting words that crushed him from inside.

“TIMMY!” Chloe jolted to her feet, taking equal offense to how downright nasty Timmy was acting. Her chest ached, and her eyes glossed at his pointed glare. “Why are you doing this!?”

“Cuz it’s not like any of you will remember this, anyway! You’ll grow up, you’ll lose your godparents, and you’ll forget you ever had them!”

Tootie’s misty eyes widened in astonishment, and Hazel felt a shiver run down her spine as Simmons squirmed uncomfortably in her twitching arms. Molly, Dwight, and Remy froze in momentary paralysis, and Chloe’s breath hitched in her throat.

The sheer shock of the unexpected revelation had left them breathless.

Connected to multiple IVs with a urinary catheter and other equipment monitoring her vitals, the new mother lay tucked beneath the silk-felt sheets of her hospital bed, keeping her nice and warm from the freezing air blowing through the vent mounted high on the wall. After time spent in the recovery room, Wanda had been moved to her germ-free living space for the next week. A fairy nurse on her rounds had checked her vitals and examined her for vagin*l bleeding or any leakage from the incision.

So far, zero discomfort. Mostly because she’d slept right through it. In fact, Wanda was nowhere near the level of cognizant to know that she had become a mother to a son. She’d been sedated throughout the procedure, and the amount of liquid painkillers pumping through her veins drowned her consciousness in the heaviest numbness. She would not be left in the dark forever; she will certainly be informed of her miracle child in due time. For now, everyone had opted to let her rest. After all, she was not the only fairy depleted of energy.

Near Wanda’s bed beneath the window was a sofa that had been converted into a sleeper couch, two heads pressed to cotton pillows with their bottom halves covered in the same baby-blue cotton as Wanda. Sprawled on his back, Cosmo snored softly from his mouth agape, wet lines drooling down his chin. Beside him was Juandissimo lying on his stomach, and from how lifeless he was, that cup of coffee from earlier might as well have been decaf for what little good it did.

Since the white noise of air blowing through the vents had knocked them both right out, their Fairy Commander had returned to his headquarters for the time being. He’d wanted to catch up on his other duties before he fell too far behind on his day job. This had left Schnozmo and Blonda to their own devices in Wanda’s room, a result that was not entirely unwelcomed.

“Welp, now my management team is up my ass for declining yet another meeting invite…” Schnozmo exhaled as he meddled through multiple emails on his work phone, seated at the end of Cosmo’s side of the sleeper sofa.

“Well, my agent and my director have been up my ass for missing call times…” Blonda scrolled through numerous missed texts on her cellphone, legs crossed on the foot of the mattress on the side Juandissimo occupied.

“It’s like folks forgot the meaning of ‘life happens.’” Schnozmo crabbed.

Blonda marked another message she currently didn’t care to entertain as read. “That part.”

Schnozmo lowered the phone in his hands to his lap, slouching slightly. “Guess it is kinda nice to just…take a pause, y’know.”

Blonda sent him a sly glance “…you mean sit like potatoes.”

Schnozmo gave a witty grin. “That part.”

In a subtle roll of her eyes, Blonda shortly chuckled as she returned to her small screen. She had to admit, it was kind of nice to remember what it felt like to just…be.

“Also nice to spend a lil’ time with Coz…” An abrupt snort ripped through the air vent’s white noise that spun Schnozmo’s head behind him, dimly grinning at the tiny twitch in Cosmo’s fingers before they lapsed back into softer snores “…even if he’s out like a light.”

Blonda looked behind her towards the love of her life, a small wilt in her smile. She’d be happier to be in the same room as him for the first time in months had he not been rendered so weak. “Better than nothing…”

“Yeah...” Schnozmo turned to his work phone, contemplating if it was worth opening another unread email about his absence. “Kinda sucks it was under crazy circ*mstances, though.”

Blonda turned to face her sister, her features growing pensive. “At least Wanda and the baby will be okay…”

“Speakin’ of…” Schnozmo closed his phone, hovering off the mattress. “Wanna go visit him?”

Blonda paused, darting eyes left to right before meeting Schnozmo’s gaze “…like right now?”

“Why not?” Schnozmo shrugged loose shoulders. “If I had to guess, these guys’ll probably be out for a while, and neither one of us wants ta go back ta work.”

“True…” Blonda considered “…but what happened to ‘sit like potatoes?’”

“C’mon; we didn’t get the chance to see him before they just shipped him off to the NICU.”

“Neither did Cosmo and Wanda; it wouldn’t feel right to see him before they do.”

“But it’s not like we’d hold him or anything with him all incubated in some itty-bitty plastic tube and whatnot.”

Blonda stared for a second before she huffed a chuckle “…okay, is this your third or fourth cup of coffee talking?”

“Both.” Schnozmo joked with his classic charm of sarcasm, making a head start towards the door. “Now, c’mon.”

Hesitant, Blonda glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping men before she then looked back to her sister’s drug-induced slumber, contemplating if she should leave. She knew paparazzi had been itching to get inside when she had seen them gathered outside the front entrance from the window. She still had her bodyguards, and the hospital had their security, but how much would that stop them?

At the same time, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious. In many phone convos with her sister, she’d known that adoption was a possibility, possibly after their official retirement, yet Blonda never expected to become some kid’s aunt like this, this soon. Plus, it was not every day that a godchild wishes for their godparents to have a kid. What would that kind of child look like, she wondered…

…eh. YOLO. “Ugh, fine…”

. . . . . .

After Blonda had instructed one of her bodyguards to guard Wanda’s room, Blonda and Schnozmo appeared with the other bodyguard outside the door of the brightly colored NICU. Blonda used her wand to cleanse their hands of any outside germs that absolutely cannot enter inside and put the lives of underdeveloped and immunocompromised babies at risk, and since it was still within visiting hours, they simply floated right in.

There number of newborns could be counted on one hand, so it was not difficult to spot the name card ‘Cosma’ labeled on one of the incubators near the center of the space. Encapsuled within the heated panes of clear glass was a little baseball that could fit in the palm of a hand, half the size of a normal newborn. A knitted blue cap held more of its core body temperature from escaping through his head, practically swallowed in a fresh diaper. A nose ventilator breathed oxygen into lungs still too weak to breathe on their own, his stubby arms and legs poked and prodded with wires of IVs slowly pumping necessary nutrients through his thin veins.

The maternal aunt and paternal uncle hovered closer to the glass yet far enough to not stick their glove-free hands inside the open holes. Observing as their nephew squirmed uncomfortably, clamped eyes yet to open.

“Look at him…” Blonda breathed, bending down with hands on her thighs. “He’s so tiny…”

“Yeah…” Schnozmo kept his hands in his tux pockets, having never seen a baby so utterly helpless before. “Like he’d fall apart if you poke ‘em…”

Blonda lightly co*cked her head to the side “…who do you think he takes more after?”

“Kinda hard to tell…” Schnozmo arched his brow. “Right now, he kinda jus looks like a red raisin.”

“Still can’t believe a child wished for this…” Blonda quietly remarked, then considered her wording “…well…not ‘this,’ per se…”

“I get cha.” Schnozmo watched their nephew wiggle again, stretching toes and fingers that appeared almost nonexistent. “Who woulda thought, I guess…”

The baby boy settled again as the monitor beeped with the pace of his heart pumping what blood it could.

As some children blinked with incredulity, others stared in horror. Some lips fell open in silent screams, and others clamped mouths in the hardest line. Birchwind’s sparkling palm quickly dispelled of Marsden’s image, though he knew that would not lessen the deepest gash that Timmy had just inflicted. That when a child reaches the adult mindset of no longer believing in magic, that magic and their memories will inevitably disappear.

“N-No…” Chloe stuttered, shaky hands scratching at her forehead as if they could rid the lines of worry “…t-that can’t be true.”

“It is.” Timmy’s voice was stern, no vestige of sympathy in its hardness. “And there’s nothing we can do.”

“But…” Tootie murmured, eyes in wide, pathetic circles “…R-Rose said…she’d…never leave me…f-for as long as I need her.”

“That was just a white lie…” Timmy spoke, so bluntly that Tootie’s shattered heart shone in her eyes.

Remy buried his weary face into hugged knees, numbed by yet another knife twist to his gut. He once could not bear the thought of crushing his godfather by ending his own existence, just for his godfather to eventually turn around and die figuratively if he grew old enough. In some messed-up irony, the absent affection from his parents had done him a favor. This is exactly why you never let people in…get too attached, get screwed over.

Molly’s body once disengaged had now tensed, jaw clenched tightly “…that’s bull…”

“Hmmph.” Timmy crossed arms over his puffed chest. “Figured you and your buds already knew, considering you all tried to kill yourselves...”

Yale-blue flashed wide “…the heck you say?”

“You can’t deny it; Gary said so himself.” he spat. “The night the four of you went missing was the night you guys were gonna end it all.”

“…w-wait…” Chloe shuddered, teary eyes drifting towards the friend she’d grown to cherrish “…Dwight…i-is that true?”

Dwight dropped his chin, clutching arms around the indigo owl in his lap. Holding onto Bella as if the flurry of guilt threatened to unlatch beneath his feet, plummeting him in freefall.

Gravely gutted, Chloe suppressed a gag, sickened by roiling waves of dismay. He had epilepsy, and yet he didn’t seem like the type to seek such a drastic way out…

“…why…” she spoke in a suffocated whisper “…w-why would you…”

He averted her tears, a fist of shame slowly closing over his heart. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she was never supposed to know. “I’m sorry…” he whimpered “…w-we just didn’t wanna be a burden anymore…”

Tootie looked over to Hazel’s death grip on Simmons, hot tears soaking his red fur, and she frowned with wonder. At times, life under her father’s over-religious roof might as well have been damnation in Hell. Life had been insufferable…but did she ever want to die?

“So you tell me…” Timmy faced the Council but addressed Birchwind directly. “How is not wanting to be a burden taking our godparents for granted?”

Birchwind furrowed, assuming Timmy must’ve taken his comment primarily towards Gary to his own heart. The fact still remains. “Godparents are not trained to be crisis counselors; they are trained to grant wishes.”

“We have recognized the trials and tribulations in your lives which have brought much hinderance to your godparents’ roles.” Persimmon inserted.

“…and that is part of why we have brought you all here… to aid you in overcoming those distresses.” Treebelle added somberly, uncertain if their intentions would be any easier for mere children to understand.

“Some help that turned out to be.” Molly grouched, Plum pecking at Molly’s sneakers with her beak. “Gary’s all kinds of out of it cuz you thought shoving his deadbeat in his face was such a great idea.”

Birchie continued to lick at Gary’s face, whining when the boy's eyes showed no sign that his essence was anywhere inside his hollowed shell. He had to keep trying. He yearned to bring him back somehow…

“The exposure was intended to help Gary overcome that traumatic trigger.” Birchwind confessed, then he exhaled gruffly. “But an unforeseen circ*mstance had led to exposing him faster than he was ready for.”

“If you knew he wasn’t ready, then why expose him at all?!” Timmy argued.

“We, as the Fairy Council, are not above mistakes.” Plumfrost admitted humbly. “It is our error in assuming that a safe environment would abate the severity of negative effects.”

“Wait…” Dwight found the will to lift his head towards the Council “…what ‘unforseen circ*mstance?’”

“…Timmy Turner’s godmother was forced into premature birth.” Birchwind confirmed.

Blue eyes bulged as they blinked slowly, processing what he thought he heard “…Wanda had the baby already?”

“Yes.”

Timmy’s gape widened further “…and I missed it?!”

“Unfortunately, it was an emergency.” Treebelle sympathized. “She is in recovery, and her son is in neonate intensive care.”

Timmy dropped his gaze to the grass under his feet. The more he took it all in, the more his disappointed gawk wrinkled into a bitter glare.

A baby godbrother…

…a ‘real’ son to replace him.

His fists balled at his sides, tone hushed in a grumble “…hope they’re happy.”

“You were the one who had wished for them to bear a child of their own.” Birchwind pointed out. “Are you not happy?”

Timmy raised his glare. “I didn’t make the wish for me.”

“But are you not excited to be a big godbrother?” Plumfrost questioned

Timmy’s lips pursed. “Was.”

Persimmons found this reaction peculiar. “What has changed?”

“That should be obvious.”

“Then tell me.” Birchwind stepped closer, hands behind his back. “If you had known what you know now, would you have made the wish?”

As Timmy slit his brow, Tootie bit down on her lip towards him, hands clasped to her chest. Chloe swiped at watering eyes, expression tight with strain, and Hazel sniffed, blinking through her tears. Molly’s eyes narrowed to slits as Dwight fidgeted with Bella’s feathers. Even Remy lifted his head as everyone fixed their gaze on the pink-hatted boy, awaiting his response.

His scowl had spoken volumes already, but what he uttered pierced like a gunshot to the chest.

“…no.”

Tootie shivered from spine chill, wide eyes brimming with tears “…Timmy…”

“You had just stated that the wish was not for you, did you not?” Persimmons quizzed.

“Yeah, but I thought we could all be one big happy family, too.” Timmy defended, stretching and clenching his fingers as if trying to release the tension pinching his ribs. “Turns out I was wrong…” his voice laced with self-loathing. “I’m not gonna remember that wish anyway…”

“…so, you would not have made the wish even if that would have denied Cosmo and Wanda of a child?” Treebelle questioned.

“Since that ‘child’ is a wish, he’d just disappear with the rest of my wishes.” Timmy deduced. “Had I known that sooner, I wouldn’t’ve made Cosmo and Wanda have a kid that they’re gonna end up losing, anyway.”

“There is a difference between all wishes disappearing and all wishes being undone; Cosmo and Wanda would still have their child. He would simply disappear from your life along with them.” Birchwind expounded, realizing his large role in Timmy’s heightened cynical mindset. He wanted to try and get through to him…

But Timmy had closed off his heart. “Oh, so I still get screwed in the end. Typical…”

“…how…can you be so selfish…”

Everyone’s stares pointed in the direction of the hushed voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. Turning around to the boy he thought was too far gone to insert himself, Timmy stood with feet planted firmly apart, a clear message of hostility in his stance.

With Birchie wagging his tail as he backed himself away, Gary groaned as he struggled to one knee. Pushing himself from the ground in an unsteady balance, pins and needles prickling in his legs. The paralysis in buckled knees felt like they’d instantly give out, yet he pressed on. “…why…do you make…everything about yourself…”

When Gary managed to stand, Timmy’s resentment scoffed. “That’s rich coming from the same kid who wanted to die but can’t kill himself right.”

“Timmy-”

Plumfrost held Birchwind back with his hand. Interrupting the inevitable would not help matters if these boys were to somehow work out their deep-seeded issues.

“You tried how many times?! And you’re still here?!” Timmy mocked sharply. “You suck at dying for somebody who deserves to be dead.”

“Timmy…” Tootie whimpered, eyes shimmering in unspoken sadness “…no…”

Breaths thin and ragged, Gary blinked through his present strain to keep himself from slipping back into the past “…you have…not one…but two fairy godparents…twice the love of every kid here…”

Remy grimaced, eyes narrowed in a cold, cynical gaze.

Gary swallowed dryly, digging nails into his palm to feel something other than numbness “…but that’s still not enough…”

“Says you, Mr. ‘how many times can my fairy save me from myself!’” Timmy spoke coldly, each word icy and clipped like a deliberate cut.

Chloe noticed when Tootie doubled over in choked sobs, and Molly stood to go over to Hazel when Simmon’s paw couldn’t brush away the tears from how fast they streamed.

“How many times do I gotta say it! It doesn’t matter! None of this matters!”

Dwight and Remy looked over as Chloe kneeled to rub Tootie’s back that shook with each sob. Tootie gasped between cries, barely able to catch the breath needed for the next.

“Why would I wanna live if I don’t deserve to!? You think you should be dead, so, why can’t I think that, too!”

“TIMMY!”

Both cousins snapped to the warning blue glare that brimmed with heartache.

“You’re upsetting everyone!” Chloe tearfully shouted over Tootie’s heart-wrenched moans. “Just stop! Please!”

Seeing Tootie’s tears crumpled Timmy’s features, and hearing her strained wails ripped the flesh of his heart to shreds. Crap, what was he doing…what had he done…

“…hope you’re proud of yourself…”

Gary’s dour mumble managed to reach Timmy’s ears, icing Timmy’s stare all over again. “Screw you! You think I give a rat’s about what you say?!” he shoved Gary in the chest, as hard as he could muster. “You’re crazy, dude! Freakin’ psycho!”

When he caught his steps, echoes of laughing children came flooding in his brain. Scorns of the ‘crazy kid,’ taunts of the ‘kid who blacked out.’ Mocking chants of ‘psycho’ ringing louder and louder…

…a switch flipped.

Reality’s perception seemed warped through a murky lens, tunneling his vision. Blankness crossed his stare, then flashed cold. Sharpened with the scorch of animosity.

“Godparents or no, those stupid screws loose in your head will just blank out and forget all this stupid shi-”

Gary charged in a second’s blink, screaming with ire. Tackling Timmy to the ground with hostile palms. Despite Timmy fighting back with flailing arms, Gary straddled him, and his fists of fury rained, smashing whatever surface of Timmy’s face they could. Birchie barked ferociously, bursting himself between the boys, but his attempts to break them up could not stop the grunts gritted with each swing, pulverizing as hard as his might could muster.

“ENOUGH!”

Periwinkle-blue snatched Gary off, freezing him midair. Giving Birchie the upper hand to jump on Timmy, paws pinning him by his shoulders as Timmy squirmed, growling through his teeth.

Plum flew to Tootie’s side, crying so hard that she began to cough and choke on her own gasps. Dwight shuddered when Bella expanded her wings and took off, zooming towards Chloe’s breaths growing ragged in her throat. Hazel clung to both Simmons and Molly, struggling to breathe through her sobs. Remy stared as Gary’s primal instinct fought and kicked at the restraints of Birchwind’s magic like an animal clawing itself out of a cage.

Surrounded by madness, the other Councilmembers all exchanged side glances. They’d fare better sipping coffee in a burning house.

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Timmy sulked with crossed arms in the single grey jail cell locked by magic, stationed within aquamarine grass near the violet crater towards the west. Isolated far enough east of the other godchildren yet close under the Fairy Council’s eye just north of him. Timmy held narrowed brows of a contemptuous gaze towards the robed figures gathered in a semi-circle; he could blast holes between their eyes with his stare alone.

Essentially, he’d been put in timeout for his horrible attitude and even more atrocious behavior. The Council had also instructed the other godchildren to keep their distance and forbade them from approaching him under any circ*mstances. In their exact words, Timmy must ‘sit and mull his actions.’

The Fairy Council were conversing amongst themselves, still within earshot of the other children. They had left their magical companions to watch over the children while they regrouped from the operation that, so far, had blown up in their faces.

“We could simply erase their memories of this whole ordeal.” Treebelle proposed.

“Then we would also need to erase Timmy and Gary’s knowledge of losing their godparents.” Plumfrost remarked.

“That would not absolve the probability of learning the same truth in the future.” Persimmons expressed.

“True,” Treebelle considered. “but they would likely have the emotional intelligence to handle it by then.”

“Or their hearts would just break more…” Persimmons pointed out. “These children regard their godparents as family at the age they are now. Losing them when they are older would be akin to losing a blood relative that they care deeply for.”

“Precisely why godparents are advised not to grow too attached.” Plumfrost reminded. “An extended stay is never guaranteed, and forming tightknit bonds misleads vulnerable children.”

“In this case, can we fault the godparents?” Persimmons challenged thoughtfully. “For the majority, their godparents are the first to ever love and care for them. I can see how difficult it would be to not grow attached.”

“…like Denzel Crocker.”

The other Councilmembers looked to the Head Councilor when he’d spoken, and Treebelle had to question “What does Denzel Crocker have to do with this?”

“The memory wiper is powerful enough to delete conscious memories, yet it has never had the capability to fully erase memories deep within the subconscious.” Birchwind elaborated. “Jorgen had figured out that flaw and had used it to his advantage when he breached the rules to bring Denzel Crocker back to life.”

“I still do not understand Jorgen’s motives.” Treebelle commented. “Denzel Crocker said from his own mouth that he was happy and no longer needed his fairies.”

Birchwind rested his chin on his hand. “You are not wrong; however, if you take time to consider, was Denzel truly happy after losing Cosmo and Wanda?”

“I did not know we were keeping that close of tabs.” Plumfrost remarked, glancing sideways. “Once godchildren lose their fairies, that should be the end of it.”

“It was the end of it.” Birchwind affirmed “…until Denzel’s situation proved what can happen when children lose their godparents when they still need them.”

“They become fairy obsessed adults?” Treebelle quizzed.

“No, they become adults in constant search to fill the bottomless void of their childhood.” Birchwind knitted his brow, drifting his gaze to his right. “And if that void were to become too great to bear...”

The other Councilmembers turned their gazes in the same direction towards the jail cell, noting Timmy diverting vigilant eyes the moment he noticed their attention fixed on him. Although close enough to see the scorn in his stare, luckily, Timmy was not within earshot of the Council’s conversation. Oddly enough, they’d come to notice the similarities in Timmy’s situation versus his 5^th grade teacher, and not just because they were assigned the same godparents thirty years apart.

The elderly mother jolted awake from the knocks behind the hospital door, yanked from blinding blackness back to the emerald walls and cyan tiles of the ICU. Gathering her bearings, Dolores winced from the stiff crook in her lower back as she stretched in her rchair. Glancing to her son still motionless beneath the sheets, prodded with multiple IVs and hooked to various life-saving monitors.

She squinted to the slither of sunlight shimmering through the lone window, realizing she must’ve fallen asleep. Last she remembered was her eyes stinging so much from constant watch over Denzel that she’d laid her head on folded arms over his bed to rest them. She assumed that the knock must’ve been from one of the first-shift nurses making their rounds, but when another series of knocks came with no immediate entry, she willed her weak legs to her feet in her curious strides towards the door.

Turning the door handle, Dolores saw legs first before she rose her head to the thin waist and alluring curves of a woman around Denzel’s age but fairly younger. Silky strings of smokey-black hair framed the roundness of her youthful features, and her eyes of an almond outline were the softest brown infused with green.

Sheer black stockings covered the miles of legs beneath the above-knee hem of her high waisted skirt of black rayon, Steve Madden loafers footing her feet in black leather. Layers of flounce ruffles lined the buttons of her white chiffon blouse, cuffing the balloon of her long sleeves. A silver chain hung from the high jabot collar, dangling in the center of her ample bosom where a French Script ‘K’ was framed in a sterling heart.

Not recognizing this woman as any woman she’d ever wanted Denzel to meet, Dolores creased her brow. “Who are you?”

Dark-blue eyes rimmed in rounded specs peeked from behind the tall woman’s leg. A little boy that, to Dolores, looked eerily similar to her son.

“Hello, ma’am.” the woman smiled, her mezzo soprano slightly raspy. “My name is Katherine Crocker.”

“Crocker…” Dolores repeated thoughtfully, then scrunched her nose in realization “…so you’re…?”

“Devin Crocker’s daughter.” Katherine confirmed, braced for an exchange that she had anticipated to be less than cordial once she revealed who she was.

Just at the sight of the spawn from her ex-husband’s marital affair, the single mother’s fingers curled tightly around the edge of the hospital door. Dolores’s week was terrible enough; she didn’t need more poop piled on.

“I’m here because I thought it was time that Denzel met his half-nephew.” Katherine smiled down to the cowering boy behind her leg. “Kevin, would you like to say ‘hello?’”

Timid eyes found the courage to peek again, clinging to his mother’s calf as he weakly piped “…hi.”

Dolores mutely sneered, unsure how to feel about the boy before her gaze of distaste traveled down and back up his mother in a slow, deliberate manner. “What’s the likes of you doing here?”

“I had stopped by your house earlier, but a neighbor had told me to look for you and Denzel here.” Katherine admitted. She then glanced past the shorter woman to the lifeless body provided breath by a ventilator. “Though, I was more so expecting Denzel to be by your bedside-”

“Does my ex know you’re here?” Dolores interrupted, her tone laced with disgust.

Kevin cringed, tightening his grip as Katherine let her smile fade. She’d expected this question, yet it had not gotten any easier to answer “…dad passed away two years ago.”

Dolores huffed, conjuring not an ounce of sympathy. She hoped that bastard burned for all eternity.

“Listen…” Katherine spoke civilly, gently stroking the short black hairs atop Kevin’s head. “I’m here because I wanted Kevin to meet someone else with his condition. Someone who looks like him.”

“What condition?” Dolores quizzed skeptically.

Kevin glanced up to his mother who then asked “…Hartman’s Syndrome?”

Dolores stalled, unblinking. Wheels turning in her head of how a child completely unrelated to her had a physical deformity that, to her knowledge, had been passed solely through her Bitterroot lineage. As Dolores studied Kevin more closely, he did seem to fit the description. Hunched back, pale skin, ears on his neck, poor vision, scraggly limbs…

Not sure about the teeth; he hadn’t opened his mouth wide enough to confirm.

“That’s impossible.” Dolores bluntly stated, looking back at Katherine. “Hartman’s Syndrome is hereditary.”

“Yes, but Hartman’s Syndrome is primarily genetic.” Katherine corrected, remaining patient. “Meaning it can manifest randomly in the womb as long as one parent has the gene.”

Dolores sneered. “Doubt it.”

“Every physician and pediatrician Kevin has ever gone to has confirmed this.” Katherine clarified.

“Then why is it that every physician and pediatrician Denzel had gone to never mentioned this before?” Dolores challenged.

“With all due respect, that was the sixties and seventies. Medical research has come a long way since then.”

Dolores gave a short glance back to Kevin, watching him muster the courage once again to peek his head out further. Looking at this carbon copy of Denzel rattled and scrambled everything she’d ever known…about her son, about herself. Had she been lied to her whole life?

“I know my son and I are not welcomed.” Katherine worried that Dolores’s silence was a sign that she’d overstepped in some way. “We did show up unannounced, and I apologize for that.”

For a moment, Dolores stood quietly, lowering her softened gaze. Katherine reached her arm to her son, holding him against her. From one single mother to another, her heart ached for Dolores. Worried sick over your son as he fought for his life, knowing there was absolutely nothing you can do within your power but leave it up to chance…she would not wish this tragic situation on her worst enemy.

“And I’m so sorry, Dolores.” her sympathy apologized. “I can only imagine what you’re going through.”

Dolores stiffened, creasing her glare that snapped from the floor. “I don’t want your pity.”

“At least consider letting me bring Kevin back…” Katherine suggested, willing to work with Dolores “…perhaps when Denzel’s better.”

Dolores groaned in her throat before she wrinkled her brow, turning her gaze away as despair began to glisten. “Denzel’s been asleep for so long…I don’t even know if he’ll ever wakeup…”

As she fought back her tears, she sniffed when she felt the bashful warmth of a small hand latch onto the ice in her fingers. Her eyes flashed to thinly folded lips before she tilted her head further to meet the dark-blue eyes that struggled to meet hers. Kevin seemed quite young based on his mannerisms, though, she shouldn’t have been surprised by his height; his mother’s legs could be mistaken for a gazelle.

Looking back to his mother who offered a small smile of praise for his bravery, Kevin returned to stare at Dolores’s thoughtful gaze. Kevin was the last source of comfort she’d ever ask for, yet she didn’t push him away. She couldn’t push him away, fraught in reconsideration.

God, did he look so much like her Denzel…it tore her heart apart and stitched it back together all at once.

Along the grass near a thin artic azure stream, Bella burrowed next to the glasses of the boy lolled on his side, keeping watch over his hibernate recovery. When Birchwind magically intervened in Gary and Timmy’s physical squabble, it had not been long before the intensity of the situation triggered a grand mal. Amidst the madness, Bella had managed to alleviate Chloe’s panic attack in time to fly back to Dwight and subdue the seizure before he choked on his own blood.

In addition to stopping his spasms, she had to heal the multiple bites on his tongue that’d been soaked red. That had been the first seizure that Tootie and Remy ever witnessed, and while Remy was uncertain of what to comprehend from it, Tootie nearly hyperventilated, scared that Dwight was dying. They had also never witnessed Chloe’s panic attack nor Gary’s dissociation, so the Council were left to explain Dwight’s neurological disorder as well as Chloe’s and Gary’s disorders of anxiety and post-traumatic stress.

Seated with one arm over a bent knee, Molly watched the platinum blonde rock back and forth ever so slightly with knees bunched to her chest. Aware of Dwight and Gary’s conditions, Molly was not too surprised to learn Chloe’s situation. Not only had she given off those ‘worrywart’ vibes, but that seemed like a decent enough reason to be granted a fairy godparent. After seeing Gary struggle with his own anxiety, she could imagine how not fun it is to suffer from your brain spiraling into panic mode outside of your control.

Molly shifted her attention to the raven-haired girl curled on her knees. Tootie sniffed as her arms wiped quiet tears with Plum roosted loyally by her thigh, having made herself available for Tootie to use as a source of comfort when needed.

Because it had yet to be fully revealed, Tootie’s reasonings for having a fairy godparent were still a bit of a mystery, so Molly was left to deductive reasoning. When Molly had met Dwight, Gary, and Hazel at Fairy Fort one day, since it’d been hours after the fact, Dwight had mentioned a religious couple and their daughter knocking on his door. They were trying to preach something about ‘God’s promise,’ and now that it was confirmed that the daughter was Tootie, having a godparent must have something to do with extreme religion. She’d looked really uncomfortable just at the mention of her dad. That, and it took Plum literally digging black sh*t from her brain just for her to speak.

Then you have her clothes that could pass for an extra in Sister Act 2…

Bent in a ball against Molly’s chest, Hazel cradled Simmons in her arms as his tender tongue licked at the tears drying in her cheeks. Wilted brown eyes stared off, mind frazzled and emotions beyond exhausted. Her sinus throbbed to the point that producing just a trickle of a tear would only induce more pain than she wanted to deal with. Even if she wanted to cry, she didn’t think she could anymore. She took a glance at the boy between Dwight and Tootie, staring at Remy who’d buried his face into hugged knees. There could not have been a darker cloud looming over his head, and his aura could not feel any colder.

Based on the despicable things she had seen Fenwick impose onto Anthony firsthand, and based on his indignancy to what had become of Fenwick, she had ascertained Remy's reasonings for warning her of Fenwick without the need for him to elaborate. To think that his parents had allowed that monster around their only son. Not only that, but they took the duration of Remy’s life to fire said monster.

Hazel couldn’t help but wonder; was the plane crash karma…or justice? Or karmic justice?

Though out of her nature, she could not bring herself to find the good in parents like the Buxaplentys. Still, she had only lost her brother, and that was on his own accord. She could not imagine the crack to the spirit of losing both parents to a tragic accident. She could not imagine the distress of losing the only family known to him. Then to learn that his true family, his godfather, would disappear one day and he would forget all about him…

How alone he must feel.

Hazel used the gentlest of palms to shove Simmons’ tongue away from her cheek. Now that Molly was here, she figured she had enough emotional support. Besides, it’s rude not to share. “Simmons,” she spoke hoarsely, pointing to the brooding boy across from her. “Go be with Remy…”

Given the okay that he’d been waiting for, the red ferret leaped out of Hazel’s arms, scurrying over to the other child in need. Sitting on patient paws as he waited for Remy to eventually lift dark eyes from his knees. Sunken and hollow, Remy stared in the direction of a wagging tail and beady blue-violets beaming in Simmons’ own friendly greeting. Instead of Remy welcoming his new visitor, his eyes rolled as he turned his head away. Why didn’t that stupid ferret just stay with Hazel? He’s better off with her anyway…

Since he rarely adhered to rejection, Simmons proceeded to jump headfirst into the tiniest gap between Remy’s thighs and his torso, squiggling and squirming his way through. This caused Remy to unlatch his arms and unbend his knees as Simmons wedged himself into Remy’s lap, reaching to press his front paws to the chest of Remy’s tux. Beady orbs stared into broadened eyes that blinked slowly before Simmons shifted to lower his chin to Remy’s right shoulder.

Remy flinched as Simmons calmed and settled, pressing his slinky body as if to become one with him. As if his comfort could melt the hardened surface and chip away the dark cast around the boy’s heart. As much as Remy tried to remold the outer shell around his vulnerability, the way his eyes dropped gave away the insufferable pain he otherwise masterfully hid. Tears pooled in his eyes, and his arms moved on their own. Lacing themselves around Simmons’ fur that felt so warm and soothing, a soothing warmth that he wanted to deny himself of but couldn’t.

Holding Hazel against her with one arm, the other arm palmed her glum chin as Molly watched Remy squeeze his eyes, tears slipping from their edges with a trembling chin. Guess even he had a breaking point…

Tabling that thought to mull over later, Molly redirected her gaze to Gary’s deflated cheek flattened against yellow fur as Birchie sat content with draped paws. His top half slumped with loose arms draped over Birchie’s back as Birchie applied gentle pressure across his lap. She could see darkened shadows under the blue eyes that pulled closed at separate times, fighting to stay alert. Part of her wanted to say it aloud, yet part of her had no energy to cause another unnerving scene for the other kids…

Honestly, f*ck Gary’s bitch ass cousin…

…yeah, she definitely couldn’t say that out loud. Or shouldn’t, rather…

“You should get some rest, Gary…” she chose to say instead, surprised to have gotten his attention when dazed eyes met her muted gaze. “You look exhausted…”

That he was. He blinked sluggishly, almost not able to open them again. Despite this, he couldn’t let himself drift off. Not when he didn’t deserve to.

“…I’m sorry…” he murmured, barely audible for everyone cognizant enough to hear “…this…is all my fault…”

“…why is it your fault?” Chloe croaked, her throat parched.

Gary raised his heavy head so that his chin nestled into Birchie’s fur instead of his cheek “…cuz I’m the one who told him the truth…”

Wiping endless wetness from her eyes, Tootie readjusted her glasses to look across towards Gary, squeaking “…why would you do that?”

The corners of Gary’s mouth pinched. He knew she was just asking without much fault, and yet a pang of guilt struck his gut. “…somethin’ about him wanting Cosmo and Wanda as his real parents…” his brows furrowed tightly “…at least…from what I can remember…”

“…how come you knew and we didn’t?” Hazel asked quietly, mostly referring to their original friend group.

Gary sighed “…he didn’t know I was there…but I overheard Alondro on the phone one day…” his finger traced lazy circles along Birchie’s fur, keeping his hands busy “…he sounded upset…complaining about Da Rules…hating that godparents still have to leave…even if kids still need them…”

“Why’s this the first we’re hearing about this?” Molly probed lightly.

“…well, you saw how Timmy took it…” Gary grumbled. He should’ve known…dammit, why did he ever say anything?

“So, wait…” Chloe unhugged her knees, wringing her hands as she furrowed towards Hazel and Molly “…if you guys really didn’t know, then…why form a suicide pact?”

As Hazel stiffened at the question, Molly kept herself composed, flattening her sullen brow towards the platinum blonde.

“…it’s not all on them…” Gary held himself accountable “…that was all my idea…”

“But there still must’ve been some reason for them all to agree to it.” Chloe debated, her heart in her throat. Now probably wasn’t a great time to bring this up, but she couldn’t understand what would make a bunch of kids want to end their lives.

“Gee, I dunno, maybe open your eyes and take a look around? We all have godparents and yet life still sucks.” there was a trace of cynicism in Molly’s reply, as if the answer should not be this difficult to figure out. “It sucks so much that the Fairy freaking Council had to step in. You think we’d all be in this mess if none of us felt like we were better off dead?”

When his glossy eyes lifted from his shoes, Remy fixed his stare towards Molly, absently tightening his hold around Simmons who didn’t appear to mind.

“But…” Tootie peeped, drawing everyone’s eyes on her. Plum looked up at her as her nerves wadded antsy fists over her lap “…b-but I don’t feel that way…”

“Neither do I!” Chloe blurted out beside Tootie.

Molly scoffed. “Then you’re both lying to yourselves.”

“How do you know?” Chloe challenged, her tight voice cracking.

“Do you feel like a burden?”

Chloe caught her breath in a sharp pause, neck corded with tension. But while Tootie chewed on her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, Chloe scrunched her brow, bunching her chin. “E-Even if all of us feel like that…not everyone views death as the only solution!”

“…I do.”

The spotlight switched to the first peep Remy had made in forever. Though his voice was dull and distant, Chloe frowned when she could see the glassiness in his eyes. “Remy…”

“…I have for a while.” His tears flowed freely, a river of sorrow carving trails down his cheeks. Simmons licked at his sadness, and his apathy couldn’t care to push Simmons away…couldn’t care to conceal. “And now that I know Juan can’t stay…” shadows formed beneath bleak eyes “…I don’t see the point in why I should stay.”

Tootie’s hands cupped over her nose and mouth, hiding her brief sob. Plum watched purple eyes clamp shut behind her glasses as she slouched, the weight of despair settling upon her like an unyielding boulder. She knew he was suffering, yet she had no idea that Remy felt that despondent, and it pained her so to now know that he did. No kid should ever feel that way. Not Remy, not Timmy…not anyone.

More intrigued than empathetic, Molly tilted her head. Never would she’d guessed that kids from two entirely different worlds would ever have that in common. “But you have money at your disposal.” she addressed Remy directly, composed in her tone. “What is it that makes you that miserable to wanna off yourself?”

Watery eyes narrowed derisively. The weighted abyss in Remy’s spirit couldn’t care to entertain whatever vendetta Molly had against him. “I’m not doing this with you again…”

“I swear I’m not startin’ nothin’, dude; I’m genuinely asking.” Molly emphasized, no hint of malice in her words. She, too, had no energy to pick a senseless fight. “What makes a rich kid wanna die?”

Picking her nails, Hazel’s downward gaze scrunched, austere in her tone. “The same thing that made me wanna die…”

Molly pursed conflicted lips. The Wells filed taxes in a bracket that was not too far off from the richest family in Dimmsdale; however, Hazel was no Remy. Just her skin and gender attracted the unwanted microaggressions that his does not…

“Um…” Chloe tugged awkwardly at platinum blonde locks, licking dry lips “…do we have to talk about this?”

Molly turned with an arched brow “…weren’t you the one who brought it up?”

“I-I mean, I-I-I guess, but…” Chloe grew tense to the point of shaking “…i-it’s still just…y’know…morbid.”

A low hoot disrupted the conversation, perhaps Chloe's saving grace. Turning to ruffling indigo feathers as Dwight uttered a groggy moan, pushing to sit himself up. His hand searched for the glasses that Bella retrieved with her beak, dropping them on his immobile fingers so that his searching hand knew where to grab them. Loosely tinkering his glasses to his face, worn eyes fluttered to dissipate the clouded fog. When his vision cleared, he met the teal saucers of gratified eyes as another low hoot welcomed him back.

His chin dropped as the corner of his lips pulled down. He would have made an effort to turn his frown upside down had his heart not weigh so heavy in his chest…

“…hey, you…” Gary droned wearily, teetering on the verge of succumbing to the weight of exhaustion entirely. He couldn’t, though. He didn’t deserve to “…feel better…?”

Dwight clenched his somber jaw. Fraught with embarrassment, he couldn’t look anyone in the eye, not even Bella. He could feel all eyes on him, and he hated it.

“…Dwight?” Chloe softly called, and Dwight hunched his shoulders, speaking just above a whisper.

“…I’m sorry…”

Chloe shuddered, brows tipped up. “For what?”

Dwight grimaced; the self-disghust in his gaze was palpable “…for having a fit…”

If his grumble didn’t expose the bruising singe to his spirit, the contemptuous burn in his downcast gaze certainly did. Chloe deepened her frown. Why did Timmy have to be so mean…

“…I thought I already told you…” Gary’s voice was soft yet stern “…never apologize...”

Dwight felt bitter bile rise in his throat, disdain in his downward glare as trembling fingers wadded the denim in his jeans. He shouldn’t have to apologize for what he couldn’t control, but...

Ignorant people, people like Timmy…make that so, incredibly difficult…

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, yet he could see the other kids talking. Their facial expressions appeared microscopic from his distance, yet he didn’t need much to know they were probably talking about him and all the trouble he’d caused…

Timmy crossed his arms against his chest as a full-body cringe rolled over him. All of them must hate him…how much could he blame them? He hated himself, probably way more than they do. His nose wrinkled in self-loathing; Cosmo and Wanda don’t deserve a kid like him. Why did the Council have to spare him? Why couldn’t they just give him what he wanted?

Bowing his head, he closed his eyes with thinning lips, attempting to drag swells of emotion back under where he didn’t want to feel them. All they had to do was let him jump off that cloud…and he could be what he deserved to be. He wouldn’t have inflicted his pain onto others. He wouldn’t have to feel anything.

“Have you calmed, yet?”

Quickly swiping the wetness from his eyes, Timmy snapped to the Councilman robed in blue. Birchwind kneeled to him in front of the grey bars, and Timmy masked his fragile spirit with hardened slits between his eyes. “Depends. You gonna piss me off again?”

There was no change in Birchwind’s cool expression. “Do you enjoy pushing people away?”

“Who the heck enjoys that?”

“Someone who burns multiple bridges within a matter of minutes.”

Timmy mentally rolled his eyes and sneered but dared not let it be seen. Then again, was it even possible to get into more trouble? “You say that like it matters…”

Birchwind studied him as if searching for a crack in Timmy’s foundation. “You speak as if it truly does not.”

“No one will remember this when they’re all grown up.” Timmy reiterated.

“But they remember it now, they feel it now.” Birchwind gently countered. “Does that not bother you?”

Timmy’s crossed arms grew rigid, eyes glaring daggers.

“I believe it should.” Birchwind kept cool and collected. “In fact, I believe it does. You are simply too stubborn to admit it.”

“…you expecting an apology or what?” the boy muttered.

“That would be nice.” the Councilman faintly smirked. “However, the other members of the Fairy Council and I would like to strike you a deal.”

Skeptical at best, Timmy raised an eyebrow. “…what kind of deal?”

Birchwind inhaled, puffing his chest before he exhaled. “A fair trade.”

“…is that not the same thing?”

“We can argue semantics later.” Birchwind waved off, then he stated “I will not disclose any further details of this trade unless you agree to accept.”

“And if I refuse?”

Birchwind’s cool expression grew firm. “Then you and everyone here can kiss your godparents goodbye.”

Timmy blinked, broadening his eyes. Something about that didn’t sit right “…everyone?”

“Yes.”

“…but why not just me?”

“Your little ‘outburst’ affected everyone.” Birchwind specified. “Therefore, this trade affects everyone as well.”

Grimacing, Timmy diverted pensive eyes. Even if all of their godparents would end up leaving eventually, did he want to be the reason they left too soon? And even if they would all forget, he would be stripping all of them of their chance at happiness, bringing them down with him...

…okay, okay. Sure. Bringing others down with him isn’t fair, he can see that now. But why make him solely responsible for what would also affect everyone else, good or bad?

“What says you, Timmy Turner?”

As Timmy met the Councilor’s stern gaze, he felt a hard, quick pulse in his throat, racing with a frazzling mixture of anticipation and apprehension.

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

A pasty mixture of shale-grey clouds and streaked the sky, arctic-white cloaking roofs of suburban homes and municipal buildings in a gentle hush. Winter's flurry had descended upon the city of Dimmsdale overnight, smothering the grass and unplowed roads in snowy tills of adult-thigh height.

The sheet of ice beneath the thin spread of sleet across the roads had closed the doors of all schools and non-essential offices for the day, but that had not stopped the mother and son duo from successfully traversing dangerous roads to make it to their hospital destination. Unfortunately, winter had not been so forgiving later that afternoon when another billow of snow clouds released more icy confetti. Entrapping their car's wheels in a white carpet and thus, trapping them in one place.

Seated in a chair tucked in the corner closest to the winter fairytale through the hospital window, Kevin Crocker was occupied with sheets of scrap paper, an old clipboard, and an extra pencil given from one of the nurses that had tended to their vegetative patient. His deep concentration scribbled away with the pencil, letting his imagination flourish onto his blank canvas.

Katherine sat at the foot of her half-brother's bed, her mind processing everything that had caught her up to speed. Since weather conditions had given Dolores no choice in whether her uninvited guests were to stay or go, she saw no reason to keep quiet as to why her only son was on life support. Even if she didn't like to acknowledge the fact that Katherine was paternally related to Denzel, Katherine still had some right to be informed.

"I'm so sorry, Dolores…" Katherine expressed after a moment of silence. Watching Dolores hold Denzel's cold hand in hers, seated in the chair beside his bed. "I can't imagine finding my son in that way…"

Dolores held somber eyes to her son, stroking his thin fingers with her thumb. The image of Denzel slumped against the wall covered in yellow bile forever seared into the worst memory of her life.

When a small spark flickered in Katherine's recollection, she thought to ask "…were the birds that died those pink and green parrots he had?"

Dolores turned her gaze to Katherine, knitting her brow as she spoke above a whisper "…how do you know about those parrots?"

"I remember seeing them on Denzel's shoulder when he'd showed up to dad's house asking for him." Katherine recalled the first time she'd ever seen the brother she hardly knew of. "I was too young to remember much else, but those oddly colored feathers really stood out to me."

Oh, yes, how could Dolores ever forget? She remembered that nasty phone call from her ex-husband after the fact, telling her to keep a better leash on her kid. Just the thought always left a bitter taste on her tongue.

"Denzel had lost those parrots that same day…" Dolores corrected, her voice toneless. "The birds that Denzel lost recently were birds that had shown up sick in our yard one day. He'd nursed them back to health, and they never left…" she paused from another heartrending memory of Denzel digging two small graves in their backyard."…until they did."

Monotonous beeps of her son's heart monitor pricked fresh tears in the elderly mother's frown.

"…it always felt like Denzel loved those birds more than he loved me…" she spoke honestly, droning with despair "…but I shouldn't be surprised."

"Why is that?" Katherine inquired intently, seeing a rueful gloss behind black glasses.

"…I used to think I was doing the very best I could when Devin abandoned us for another life with another woman..."

Katherine furrowed at the brief mental image of her mother.

"I had to do everything myself…working 14 or even 16 hours straight." Dolores squeezed Denzel's placid fingers. "The babysitter I had to hire saw my child more than I did…"

Katherine took a glance at her son in the corner, still scribbling away in his own fantasy.

"…as he got older…I could see he was struggling with something, but…I was just too busy to care." Dolores scrubbed at her wet cheek with one hand. "I just thought…that if I kept him healthy and alive, then he was fine…"

Katherine looked back to the elderly mother, hearing her voice slowly break the longer she talked.

"…Denzel would always say I didn't love him, and I would always argue that I did. I thought I loved him with the many sacrifices I had to make to keep us from drowning…" she choked and cleared her throat "…but I see now that I didn't love him how he needed me to."

Her son's lifeless form dropped her voice into an apologetic whimper.

"…maybe he wouldn't have done this to himself if I'd loved him more…"

Katherine extended her empathy through her eyebrows pulled down flat and forward over the bridge of her nose. Empathy that Dolores did not feel deserving of.

"I'm sorry…" Dolores sniffed, using her free hand to lift her glasses as her wrist wiped wetness from her eyes. "I didn't expect to get so emotional."

"No, you have every right to be." Katherine voiced from similar experience. "I understand what it's like to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders from all the pressure and responsibility that falls on you when you're left to fend for yourself, let alone you and your child."

Dolores lifted her head back, blinking back more tears before they could fall.

"It's so hard to find that balance when you have to juggle a million things." Katherine spoke compassionately. "And even if you have your flaws, it's not all your fault."

"Denzel wouldn't be breathing through a tube if I was a better mother…" Dolores snivled.

"But it's not too late." Katherine emphasized. "You still have a chance to be what Denzel needs, but you need to have faith that he'll wake up to see for himself."

While she considered this, Dolores still had her doubts "…he'd just think it's all an act."

"Then you keep trying until he believes you."

Meeting the younger mother's gaze, Dolores scrunched her brow, slightly skeptical of Katherine's kindness "…why are you being so nice to me?"

Katherine shrugged with one shoulder "…is there a reason I shouldn't be?"

Dolores mutely snorted. "I'm sure your father has said lots of horrible things about me."

"That he has, but none of what he ever said about you had anything to do with me." Katherine remarked. "I never knew you personally, so why hold a grudge that's not mine."

Dolores continued to brush Denzel's fingers with her thumb, curious about something else. "So…what about your mother? Does she know you're here?" She noted the visible narrow in Katherine's averted stare as soon as the word 'mother' was uttered, inner disgust outwardly palpable.

"…I hadn't spoken to her since before Kevin was born…" Katherine huffed, shoulders hunched involuntarily. "That was over a decade ago."

Dolores rose an enquiring brow "…may I ask why?"

Katherine glanced once more towards her son, ensuring he was still preoccupied before she turned to Dolores, divulging what had been locked away in a vault of regrets "…I…don't know who Kevin's father is."

…hmph. That's interesting coming from a woman raised by a she-devil with the most prudish stick up her butt. "Oh?"

"I was young, fresh out of grad school. Had a little too much to drink one night and slept with a man I'd known for all of five seconds." Katherine wanted to be honest with someone who had been honest with her. "I took full responsibility for my carelessness…" her lips downturned subtly. Even with Kevin outside of earshot, she lowered her voice to avoid him hearing her admit "…but my mother didn't want a bastard for a grandchild."

Oh…well, damn.

"Never mind that I worked full-time through universityandgraduate school…" Katherine bunched her lip. "To my mother, I'm just nothing more than a dumb slu*t for getting knocked up on the one night that I just wanted to live and have fun for once…"

"Wow..." Dolores didn't expect Katherine to open up as much as she did. Part of her didn't seem to mind; Katherine was surprisingly easy to talk to. "Did Devin ever meet your son?"

"He was the only male figure ever in Kevin's life." Katherine confirmed. "And that was only because he'd been divorced from my mother for years before I'd gotten pregnant."

Thinking it was better not to pry into why Devin would end up divorcing the woman he'd cheated on her with to start a whole new life for, Dolores decided to instead pose the question "…may I ask…how Devin died?"

"Alzheimer's slowly killed his mind first…"

"Hmm…" Dolores glanced to Denzel, releasing his hand. "Is that why you wanted your son to meet mine?"

"That's another part of it." Katherine confessed. "Most men aren't exactly lining up to date a woman with a kid that's not theirs…"

When a timid tug pulled her sleeve, Katherine turned to her son now standing beside her, holding the clipboard to his chest, masking her internal strife with a smile. “All done?”

Kevin nodded weakly, revealing his recent work with the back of the clipboard facing Dolores who watched as Katherine's brows rose with a smile that came off genuinely impressed.

"Wow, sweetheart!" Katherine examined more of the sketch before she directed a perky grin towards her son. "This looks amazing!"

"…thank you." Kevin peeped, a faint flush in his cheeks.

"Would you like to show Ms. Crocker?" Katherine gave a friendly suggestion that further reddened Kevin's cheeks. She watched him shoot his stare towards Dolores, clutching the clipboard back to his chest which prompted another grin from his mother.

"Um…" Dolores sounded as awkward as Kevin likely felt, twiddling fingers in her lap. She didn't want the boy to feel any obligation, but she didn't want to outright reject him, either "…I-I'd like to see it, if you'll let me."

With an encouraging nudge from his mother, Kevin crept towards the woman old enough to be the grandmother he'd never met. Dolores swallowed the dryness in her throat as he approached, and when timorous hands flipped the clipboard around, the drawing that was revealed caused Dolores's eyes to widen.

Detailed in intricate strokes of graphite were wrinkles of tree bark and branches lined with lush leaves, shaded and smoothly blended as if staring at a black-and-white photograph. Within the hollow space between the trunks and centered within the page were anthropomorphic creatures drawn in humanistic detail far advanced for a child's depth. Zooming and fluttering butterfly wings patterned in whimsical delicacy, each pair unique from the rest.

"Kevin's really into fae folklore and all things occult." Katherine divulged. "His book shelf is filled with all sorts of literature about them, and he has drawings just like that one plastered all over his walls."

Dolores blinked when the sketch began to blur, swiping at her eyes with a free hand. Oh, if Denzel could see this…

Mounted flush lights dimly lit the purple stone walls, emphasizing each crack and crevice with dark shadows. Rushing water sloshed as she pressed her hands together beneath the faucet, pooling enough in her palms before she shut her eyes as she splashed herself in the face. Cold droplets trickled over her eyes, dropping from her chin into the empty bowl of the ceramic sink. Her hand felt for the knob to cut off the rush of water as her eyes batted themselves dry, indigo orbs staring into her ragged reflection within the counter-length mirror.

Her chest expanded and constricted in deep breaths, seeing the red rings around her eyes and the bags of stress that'd started to form beneath them. Susie had isolated herself to the privacy of the communal bathroom in attempts to pull herself together after the horrific events that had taken place prior. She wasn't sure how long she'd been alone. No one had come after her, and she preferred it this way. No one was supposed to see her like this.

She wished she knew if Wanda was okay. Wanda seemed perfectly fine and then…it all took a dark turn. If not for this wish, Cosmo and Wanda might not have ever conceived. She would hate for her best friend to lose their only chance at a child of their own. She would hate for Wanda to experience that type of pain. The pain of your body failing you, failing your unborn child. She knew that pain all too well…it was one of the worst days of her life.

Agony burned in her chest, heart sliced in two like it was yesterday instead of millenniums ago. It had come down between her life and the life of the last physical link to her lost lover, a choice that was stripped from her. That was the day she'd been forced into labor earlier than her underdeveloped baby could survive.

The day she had given birth to a precious life that died in her arms…

The clink of the bathroom doorknob yanked her back to the present, pivoting to the icy-blue eyes that had disrupted her dwell of a painful past.

"Oh…" Alondro had hoped to empty his bladder half-full, but Susie occupying the sole bathroom had slipped his mind. "Lo siento…"

Folding her lips, Susie watched as he was just about to shut the door before the pressure in her chest blurted out "…wait!"

Alondro paused, gripping the handle before he pushed the door back to meet her gaze etched with guilted diffidence.

"…I-I wanna tell you something."

Alondro fixed slighted eyes on her "…what is it?"

Susie scrubbed the backs of her arms. Guilt had eaten away at her ever since she'd shouted at him when he'd only been trying to comfort her, and she just wanted to clear whatever tension lingered in the air between them. "Just…come over here." plea furrowed in her eyes "…please?"

Weighted in his sigh, Alondro dragged himself into the bathroom, apprehensive in his float towards her as the heavy door clinked shut behind him. The nearer he drew, the more her heart splashed in her stomach, and when toned pecs and hearty biceps hovered at an arm's length before her, her chest ached with tension from the many beats her heart skipped.

He said not a word, waiting patiently for whatever it was she needed to say. Making the first move was a mistake he knew to never make again, though a lesson he should've already learned.

Her body moved on its own, shortening the gap between them. Her eyes searched his, struggling to read his vague expression. She felt that words simply could not convey the remorse of her behavior, so she chose action instead.

Floating closer, she ignored the racing thumps between her ears to brush her lips against his. While he welcomed this, his reciprocation was dithery…sapless, even. When their lips broke, his disgruntlement was the easiest thing to read in the eyes that quickly looked away. She hugged herself, brows knitting as he grimaced. His fingers gently curled and uncurled at the yellow bandana tied around his left wrist, then he forced himself to lock eyes with her. Palpable with confliction despite how softly he spoke.

"…what are you doing?"

She blinked uncomfortably.

"You push me away, then you kiss me back, then push me away again…and now you kiss me again?" he squinted ever so thinly "…do you see how confusing that is?"

"I know…" Susie saw where he was coming from, placing her hands to her chest in her admission "…but i-it's not you, it's me."

The sullenness in him snorted, turning away from her.

"I'm serious!"

When he had the heart to face her again, icy-blue orbs reflected the vast expanse of emotions too complex to be contained in a single confession. "…I do not know why, but I feel drawn to you in ways I cannot explain…and these mixed signals are just confusing me more."

She hovered still in her stare, now more conflicted than in the beginning.

"I just wish I knew what it is that youwantfrom me?"

And she wished she knew how to answer that.

Echoed knocks disrupted the stillness in the air, and the two fairies turned to Rose peering awkwardly from behind the door.

"Sorry for interrupting, but…Jorgen's back and he needs to speak to all of us."

After a pause, Susie and Alondro swapped side glances. Sheesh, what is it, now?

. . . . . .

Rose floated down the narrow hall with Alondro and Susie, returning to the sight of Irving, Nyekundu, and Swizzle lined along the modular couch while Jorgen stood with his staff on the other side of the coffee table.

"Is Wanda okay?" was the first question that had come to Susie's mind. Steel-blue eyes addressed her with the usual stern clench in his jaw, making it difficult to tell whether he came bearing good or bad news.

"Pregnancy complications had forced an early delivery." Jorgen started, speaking to all of the fairies. "However, Wanda and her son are stable and should make full recoveries."

As Irving and Nyekundu exchanged baffled yet excited glances, Swizzle remained stoic with folded arms, quietly surprised that sh*t didn’t take as far as a left turn as she’d thought. While hovering slightly behind her, Alondro and Rose noticed how silently Susie processed this news with no discernable emotion in her expression.

Susie could not be happier that Wanda and her son were okay. However, if the magic from Timmy’s wish had accelerated Wanda’s pregnancy, then part of her wondered if that same magic had saved Wanda from what had made Susie not so lucky…

"I am also here because there has been a change of plans." Jorgen switched the subject to the primary reason for his presence. "The Council has ordered that you all return to your godchildren except for Cosmo and Wanda; they have both been officially taken off duty."

"Why? For the baby?" Irving questioned.

"That and primarily for other reasons that I am not at liberty to disclose."

"Can you at leastfinallydisclose why we were separated from our godkids in the first place?" Swizzle asked what she'd assumed was still a lingering unanswered question in everyone's minds.

"I can only disclose what I have been permitted to know." Jorgen firmly stated. "That said, there have been changes in your godchildren's circ*mstances."

Nyekundu's dread faintly frowned "…what does that mean?"

"Nyekundu." Jorgen addressed the youngest godparent in the room. "I shall start with Hazel…"

Picking at her nails with her head to Molly's chest, Hazel observed Remy whose absent finger brushed the purple stripe in the red ferret's fur. Glassy eyes staring off as Simmons remained content in his arms. It seemed so long ago when she'd first met the richest kid in Dimmsdale. He'd been sitting with Juandissimo alone at an isolated table, staring out the window with those same hollow, listless eyes. The familiarity of his lost soul had drawn her to him, another lost soul hoping to find an ally.

Ever since his admission, she couldn't help but have the same question as Molly…what would make the richest kid in Dimmsdale want to die? While she had a decent idea, she knew it was not always best to assume. Plus, to an extent, she was potentially the only godchild who could relate to him on some sort of level. Money can't buy happiness…but money can make it comfortable to be miserable. They were living proof of this.

When Molly felt pressure move away from the side of her chest, she looked to Hazel standing to her feet. "Where're you going?"

"To talk to Remy."

"Oh…" Molly mumbled, letting Hazel leave. Watching Hazel make the short distance to Remy who seemed to react only when his arms felt Simmons shift at the sight of Hazel.

As Simmons nestled into Remy's crossed lap to face Hazel, Hazel lowered herself to her knees in front of Remy. His dark eyes drooped, unable to meet her thoughtful stare.

"…do you wanna talk?"

He almost had to strain to hear the question that snapped his eyes to her, frowning "…what about?"

Hazel too frowned, looking down to the arms resting in her lap. Wringing her fingers to quietly state "…anything."

Staring at her for a moment, all Remy could think of were the horrible, deplorable things that likely would have gone to Hazel's grave had Simmons not revealed them to him. Vile things that no sweet a child as Hazel ever deserved. She eventually looked back at him, brown eyes extinguished of the bright, bubbly sparkle of life that had lit his dark world in the country club that fateful day.

That sparkle was now replaced by the dejected gaze of a broken spirit no longer wishing life, and to that, he whispered "…I'm sorry…"

Puzzled, Hazel scrunched her brow. "Why?"

He could not suppress the tears slipping down his cheek "…if I'd just said something sooner…i-if I'd been more honest about Fenwick…" he hiccupped a sob, whimpering with the deepest remorse "…I'm so, so sorry…"

Brown eyes began to gloss with tears she didn't know she still had, faintly shaking her head "…but it's not your fault."

Simmons draped his chin on Remy's arm as Remy bowed his head, sniffling his stuffy nose "…t-then I'm partially to blame…"

"No." Hazel sternly pouted "…you shouldn't blame yourself."

Their eyes met as his hot tears trickled "…but-"

"You told me not to trust him, and…maybe if I'd said something to mom and dad sooner…" Hazel started, then exhaled, tears now flowing soundlessly "…but who am I kidding…it's not like they would've taken my word for it anyway…" the back of her arm scrubbed to dry as much of her sorrow as she detested to show "…Fenwick could've touched me instead…they wouldn't bat an eye."

Remy's frown widened, taken aback by the profound defeat in her tiny voice. "Hazel…"

Observing from the sidelines, Molly bunched her lips in consideration. Maybe, just maybe, Buxaplenty was not the self-centered snob she once thought. And maybe, just maybe, she might have misjudged the cover of his complicated book.

Tabling that thought, she looked over at Tootie still on her knees, wiping damp cheeks as her free hand gave gentle strokes along the back of Plum's dark-blue plumage. Though she had gathered hints of Tootie's story, Molly had only read the cover page. There was much more to the narrative that Molly could uncover.

Before that, she turned to her left, meeting the green and pink eyes of the yellow retriever looking back at her. Willing himself to only blink with his eyelids as to not disturb Gary whose head had drooped to one side on Birchie's back, lips gently slack. Molly snorted to herself; guess he finally conked out.

Scooting towards him, Molly reached to softly scratch behind Birchie's pink ear. Birchie responded with feeble pats of his tail up and down, slipping his tongue out to reciprocate affection into Molly's palm. "Dassa good boi…" she cooed quietly with one last scratch before she paused, cringing internally as she scraped her hand in the grass to dry her sticky palm. Eww, did shereallyjust say that? Gross.

Stroking gently along the silk of Plum's back feathers, Tootie spotted the Head Councilor speaking to Timmy through the bars of his jail. They were too far away to hear, but she wondered what they were saying.

When it came to Timmy, Tootie's thoughts were conflicted. She was no stranger to his callous side; after his sister's death, she was once on the receiving end of it. She hated that side of him, her heart breaks just thinking about it. It's so, so scary. Seeing him so angry. So volatile…all too familiar. All too terrifying.

…but how much could she blame him? He was hurting. They were all hurting. One kid can only handle so much pain until it all goes bursting at the seams. Still, the things he'd said, the things he did…no. That wasn't Timmy. That can't be the core of his character…

"…can I ask you somethin'?"

Tootie shortly gasped, blinking rapidly at Molly who stood before her with hands in her pockets, coolly waiting for a response to her question. As the dark-blue raven cawed in her greeting to Molly, Tootie gawked as mental wheels spun, processing what had been asked of her before she replied with a feeble nod.

Taking her cue, Molly proceeded to sit Indian style at a far enough distance to not invade personal space. Plum brushed the top of her head to the hand that had stopped petting her before Tootie looked down at her, caressing Plum's feathers to her resumed satisfaction. Tootie then returned half of her attention to Molly's casual demeanor, unsure of what Molly wanted to ask until the question revealed itself.

"…why do you have Rose?"

Tootie grew unnaturally still, mouth clamped in a tight pinch.

Noticing this, Molly licked dry lips "…w-we don't gotta talk about it if you don't want."

"N-No, i-it's fine…" Tootie stuttered, drumming fingers across sleek feathers. She attempted to center herself, blowing out her cheeks with deep breaths. She cannot allow herself to be silenced by the past. She was haunted no longer.

"…it's…because my mom used to let my dad punish me…"

"Punish, how?" Molly asked intently.

Biting her lip, Tootie lowered her chin "…i-if I went against Jehovah…or did anything they didn't like…h-he would hit me…" she gulped down the acidic stabs of anxiety in her gut "…he'd s-slam me against the wall…or on the ground. Broke my arm, once…"

Molly nodded, well aware of what a human punching bag felt like. "Bet that sucked."

Tootie flattened her palm to Plum's back to keep her nails from digging "…really bad…"

"So…" Molly slouched forward, palming her chin. "You got out because your folks were sent to jail?"

"No…" Tootie weakly shook her head. "My parents were sent to jail because I got out."

"Hmm." Molly pressed her lips, tilting her head before she remarked "Pretty punk rock of you."

"…punk rock?" Tootie squeaked innocently.

"Takes a lotta guts to get out of a crappy situation like that." Molly explained, and Tootie furrowed. Was that what Plumfrost had meant when he'd said she was stronger than she realized?

"Maybe…" Tootie doubted, eyes downcast. "If Rose hadn't been there..."

Molly's brow wrinkled, the subconscious reach towards the right of her neck brushing the scar barely visible through her turtleneck "…and had Swizzle not been there…I'd be dead."

Tootie cringed. Considering what little Plumfrost had revealed about Molly's mother and her mother's boyfriend, Tootie was at least glad that Molly would not return to an environment that sounded terrible at best. Though, that still begged the question, "…if we ever go back to Earth…where will you go?"

Molly blinked, somewhat confused as to why Tootie would ask "…wherever CPS puts me."

"Right…" Ugh…Tootie didnotmiss dealing with them. Having living relatives willing to take her in made her one of the lucky ones. "W-What if…you stayed with me?" she offered hesitantly. "T-There's not a lot of room but…at least you'd be somewhere safe guaranteed."

Removing her palm from her neck, Molly's stare went blank. Aside from the friends she can count on one hand, no one waseverthis nice for no reason. Not a kid in her class, not a teacher at school, not anyone. Tootie seemed too innocent for an underlying motive…but what was the catch? Or was Tootie's heart truly that virtuous to extend such kindness?

Even so, her lips couldn't help but wrench into a heartless smile "Sorry, kid…don't think it works that way."

Disappointed, Tootie jutted her lip "…but I don't want you to get hurt again."

Molly's heartless smile withered, downturned.

A small tremor shivering in her arms, Chloe half-listened to Molly conversing with Tootie. The other half of her attention observed Bella nested in Dwight's lap, allowing his arms around her wings with a brooding cheek to the feathers behind her head. The depths of despair had withdrawn him into the imprisonment of his own thoughts, and her heart ached for him. If only she could do something to help...

Don't even bother.her mind spat tartly.If you're useless during a seizure, how do you expect to be of use to himnow? Face it, you're just pathetic.

"…n-no…" she whimpered to herself, eyes clasped as she shook her head. This was not her voice. These were not her thoughts.

Forcing her eyes opened, she furrowed towards the purple eyes that had not lifted from the aquamarine grass for several minutes. She also spotted Bella's dark-teal saucers unblinking, peering through her as if translucent. Dwight showed no reaction when Bella twittered at her, faintly ruffling her chest feathers. As if beckoning for Chloe to ignore her crippling doubt and come over. She remembered how much Dwight perked the last time…maybe…she could have the same effect again.

Tugging a platinum lock behind her ear with shaky fingers, Chloe willed herself to her feet. Shuffling her sandals across before she lowered herself beside the boy who did not appear cognizant of her presence. Bella turned her neck ninety degrees towards her, greeting her with a tu-whoo that indicated how greatly she would appreciate some attention. Chloe obliged, scratching Bella under her neck feathers, squinting Bella's eyes in content.

She steadied her nerves with the deepest breath, skin tingling from a coldness that was not her own. It was as if she could feel his spirit plunge, drowning in disrepair. If he were to sink too far below the lowest depths…

Chloe swallowed the knot in her throat; she had to pull him out. "I-I know how awful it is…to be made to feel less than for what you can't control…"

It seemed her words managed to hook him back towards the surface when Dwight lifted drab eyes to her.

"…my mom…" she blinked excessively, diverting her gaze. She folded her lips to lick them, tucking loose strands of hair that seemed persistent on defying her "…s-she'd tell me to stop being so dramatic…"

Empty eyes did not tear away from her as heat radiated beneath the neckline of her dress, her voice quivering like a fragile bird taking flight.

"…she even mocked one of my worst panic attacks, and…" she shuddered "…it made me feel so worthless…"

Considering her confession, Dwight quietly muttered "Timmy's not the first kid to put me down, y'know."

Her eyes darted to him "…he's not?"

"No…" Dwight mumbled flatly "…it just hurt more coming from him..."

Pity fell in Chloe's features.

"…what about your dad?" Dwight switched the sore subject, more so intrigued by how much she seemed to be opening up to him. "He didn't seem like the type to say and do mean stuff."

Chloe gritted her tongue, bunching the hem of her dress in her hands "…unfortunately, he wasn't always like how you met him."

A hint of life lifted dimly in his eyebrows "…he wasn't?"

"…he wasn't as bad as my mom, but…" she hunched forward as if folding in on herself "…his motto was 'Carmichael's don't know failure."

Bella and Dwight eyed her as Chloe closed her eyes, trying to focus her breathing. When she opened them again, she swallowed the acid taste itching her throat.

"They would put so much pressure on me to succeed…and if I showed any stress about it, they'd just say I was overreacting…that it's all in my head…" her lungs began to constrict, but she blinked through it "…then I had a panic attack so bad that my heart stopped."

Dwight winced. That sounded as scary as when he’d been told of the grand mal that lasted so long that when he stopped breathing, he’d been deprived of oxygen to the point of hypoxia.

"His mindset started to change…and I was officially diagnosed."

"Wow…" he murmured, brushing soft fingers along Bella's tufts that reacted with a flicker. "Guess the worse parent died."

Wide eyes snapped to him, and only then did he realize the gravity of what had spilled from his mouth.

"Crap…" he frowned remorsefully, averting his eyes. "I-I'm sorry…I shouldn't've said that-"

"It's okay…" Chloe breathed, loose strands of hair feeling clammy against her temples "…I think…part of me wants to say…" her eyes softened "…you're right?"

Raising his head from Bella's feathers, his eyes drifted slowly, his pulse once dull quickening with butterflies the moment their gaze met. Her cheeks flushed, tingling her skin enough to whip her head away.

Yet his eyes couldn't look away "…Chloe?"

She twitched, forcing herself to meet his serious gaze "…yes?"

"…promise to try and stop apologizing for your anxiety?"

Blue eyes searched purple, contemplating the right choice to make. Obviously, the right choice is to agree. That said, a promise is different from an attempt. Then again, he did say 'try.' Try was no guarantee. But try meant putting forth the effort, and she can, at the very least, promise to put forth the effort. She owed him that.

"…if you promise to try and stop apologizing for your epilepsy."

Contemplating her compromise, Dwight replied with a sigh "…that's fair."

Gary's body jerked suddenly, blue eyes fluttering groggily. Stiff muscles felt the need to stretch in a closed-mouth yawn, realizing that he must've accidently dozed off. A numb prickle grew in his legs, prompting him to sit up. Remembering the four-legged sack of potatoes on his legs as his hand gave gentle pats along the back of yellow fur, perking Birchie's eyes to him.

"Thanks, buddy…" his mumble droned "…but uh…think my legs fella 'sleep." prickly tingles worsened when he tried to move his left leg, making him wince. "Again."

Birchie rose to stand on all fours without complaint, attacking Gary's cheek with multiple kisses that conjured a weary grin. Gary scratched behind Birchie's bouncy ears, and Birchie panted his tongue.

"And, um…thank you…for saving me from myself." Gary combed his fingers through Birchie's fur, trailing down his neck. Earnest in the unexplained need to murmur "…you really are a good boy."

Another sloppy kiss crimpled his nose in quiet chuckle.

Gary was the first to notice the robed figures' approach, and Birchie's bark alerted the other children and magical companions to turn towards Councilmembers all levitating behind the pink-hatted boy rubbing one arm with a bowed head. The sight of which wilted Gary's grin as Chloe noticed Dwight fix a sour gaze. Remy watched Hazel knit her brow in the brunette's direction, and Molly scrunched her nose with wrinkled brows.

"Timmy?" Tootie called to him, the only thing to raise his rueful eyes towards her.

When Timmy stopped to face his fellow godchildren, he heard Birchwind clear his throat behind him, signaling him to start speaking. He let out a heavy sigh, pinching the skin of his forearm. Their stares (and even glares) bore holes in his confidence.

"…I-I wanna say I'm sorry…" he figured that was a good place to start, pained in looking each and every single child in the eye. "To all of you."

Crickets.

He clawed at his arm, struggling to meet their magnifying stares "…I know how much I hurt all of you with all the things I said."

"I thought it didn't matter." Molly jeered bitterly.

"Let him finish." Plumfrost gritted his teeth, and Molly thinned her lips.

Taking this jab without a rebuttal, Timmy swallowed then continued. "A-And I know I said that we'd forget about all this and we'd forget about our godparents…" he stalled in a gulp, unable to wet his parched throat "…I…wasn't entirely right about that."

He managed to raise some eyebrows this time as his nails grazed his arm, trying to remember the simplest explanation the Council had given him to regurgitate.

"When our godparents leave, all of our memories will be altered so that, when we go to sleep, we'll relive those memories as if our godparents never left."

Hazel was the first to speak up, diffidently asking "…so…we'll forget our godparents, but not really?"

"Essentially." Persimmons rejoined, hoping to further explain. "You will consciously remember everything except your godparents and of all things magic. However, those memories will be stored into your subconscious, and thus will consist of all your dreams for as long as you all shall live on.

Chloe raised her hand, waiting for permission to ask "…wouldn't our adult minds just think those memories are nothing more than our imagination?"

"Only when you are awake." Persimmons clarified. "When you sleep, your mind will remember those images to be real events."

"…has it always been this way?" Hazel inquired.

"No; you children are the first." Birchwind disclosed. "Preferably the only."

"…what makesusso special?" Dwight probed.

Treebelle took the reins of explanation.

"In the history of godparenting, the relation between godparent and godchild has always been strictly transactional. Fairies grant wishes for whatever a child's heart desires in exchange for abiding by Da Rules and keeping a fairy's existence to secrecy. Albeit not the first time, no matter how often they are advised against, your fairies have formed the same attachments that you have formed with them. Nevertheless, you children, admittedly, are some of the most difficult cases that your fairies have been assigned to, which I say not to place you at personal fault."

“In taking a glimpse into the true misery of your lives, we have recognized how significantly your godparents mean to you all.” Persimmon added. “While this goes greatly against our ethics and the historical relationship between fairies and human, we felt that you all should at least be rewarded for holding your godparents in a higher regard beyond glorified genies.”

As the other kids processed this information dump as they saw fit, Tootie tapped the tips of her index fingers together before she asked "…d-does this mean we can all finally go back to our godparents?"

"Yes." Plumfrost replied, then specified "Except for Timmy."

Timmy lowered his grimace, scraping irritated claw marks into his arm.

"His actions have placed him on temporary probation." Plumfrost revealed, matter-of-fact in his tone. "He is forbidden access to his godparents or magic of any kind until his probation has ended."

Tootie was the only child visibly saddened by this revelation.

"Do not extend too much pity; this is what Timmy has agreed to and it is already set in stone." Birchwind hovered forward, setting a hand to Timmy's rigid shoulder. "And had Timmy not agreed, then you all would have lost your godparents and all of your memories entirely."

Gary directed his quizzical brow toward his cousin, his tone soft when he asked "…is that true?"

Timmy tautly nodded, holding back the tears that the other kids could see.

"…i-it's okay…" he made a weak attempt to grin through his sadness "…I just have to tell myself that…I-I'll see Cosmo and Wanda again…"

His smile died in his core as those words fell from his lips.

With Bella perched on Treebelle's arm, Simmons cradled in Persimmon's hold, Plum roosted on Plumfrost's shoulder, and Birchie seated beside Birchwind's leg, the Fairy Council looked on as eight godchildren stood before them, lined in one row with the western rising moon glistening behind them. Some trembling with anticipation, others unable to hear their own thoughts from heartbeats thundering in their ears.

Gary held hands in the pockets of his leather jacket as Dwight tugged at the collar of his striped tee. Remy hugged himself as Molly hid her hands in her jeans pocket, dully kicking at the ground before her eyes glanced to the blonde on her right. This had been nagging at her, and since they were in close proximity, she figured she might as well get this over with.

"Hey…" she dully called to Remy, causing only his side glance to acknowledge her. Exhaling, she extended one hand, biting back the urge to take it back.

"…truce?"

Remy looked at Molly, then to her hand, then back to Molly. Not the first thing he'd ever expected from a girl who chewed him out upon first sight. He saw solemnity in her stare, getting the sense that she'd rather start on another foot than continue taking the wrong steps. If he was to reject her act of solidarity, he feared he might prove her skewed views about him correct.

Plus, like Gary had said once, he will never truly know what it's like to be her, just like she will never truly know what it's like to be him. And that's okay, because they can both come to the understanding that their pain is their pain, and it can't be measured as worse or better than anyone else's.

He shrugged and took her hand for a shake.

With Molly on her right, Chloe looked to her left, eyeing Timmy with arms clutched around him as if to seek solace in his own embrace. His gaze was distant, ignoring the watchful stare of Tootie to his left with arms clasped to her chest. At the tail of the line, Hazel stared straight ahead, chewing her nails down to the bed. Any moment now, their godparents will be here. At long last, she can see her Nee-Nee again.

A large mushroom cloud boomed in an echoing bang throughout the crater, soon vanishing within the blazing glow of the eastern setting sun. Revealing a humanoid muscle tank crowned in the same gold as the seven fairies floating before him. The girl who once thought all her tears had dried crumpled in her face when brown eyes spotted bright-red, her knees on the verge of collapse as she broke into sobs for Nee-Nee.

"Oh, Kakao…" Nyekundu flew to Hazel who hid her face, stifling her sobs as she teetered towards her godmother like a child, scared and lost, who had finally found their mother. Nyekundu latched onto her goddaughter, and Hazel sank into her embrace with gut-wrenching wails.

"Please, don't cry…" she smiled through unshed tears threatening to fall as Hazel clung like a koala. "You'll makemecry…"

"ROSE!" Tootie sprinted in a beeline. The moment she spotted her beloved teal-eyed fairy was the moment all her frets and troubles washed away. Rose braced for the impact of Tootie's tender tackle, a bit shocked to hear Tootie actually shout her name let alone speak. Nevertheless, Rose shared the sentiment of satisfaction with loving arms that squeezed her back.

"Hey, sweetheart…" she smiled, parting enough to then gawk at the visible red blemish between Tootie's brows. "Oh my goodness, are you okay?!"

"I'm better now that you're here."

Tootie latched onto Rose's wrists as Rose palmed Tootie's cheek, studying the scar that Tootie seemed unbothered by. Something about Tootie's voice, the sparkle in her eye, her whole aura felt…different. The fairy godmother couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what that difference was, but whatever it was, it was nothing short of refreshing.

Hovering to Chloe, Susie noted Chloe's lowered head in her approach, arms tightly laced around herself. Though Jorgen had given her the gist of Connie's fate, Susie held onto Chloe shoulders, her voice ever so gentle "…what's wrong, Chlo-bird?"

Closing her watering eyes, Chloe could only whimper "…m-my mom…"

"Oh, Chloe…" Susie breathed, wrapping Chloe in a blanket of motherly affection. Saddened by a girl who'd been trying to be strong for far too long as she crumbled into her chest, whimpering with hitched shoulders. Susie nestled her, rocking slightly. Repeating faint whispers that it'll be okay.

Stepping towards Swizzle hovering in front of her, Molly felt a strange swell in her chest that she'd not felt since she was a baby. A swelling mix of emotions that pooled in her eyes, burning an ache in her chest that would not relent.

"What happened?" Swizzle pointed to the red stain in Molly's sweater. At first, her worry demanded an answer in her tone. Whoever hurt her godchild will have Hell to pay! That was, until Molly's lashes reflected in a glassy flicker, holding back tears with a hung head.

Swizzle's expression softened as she hovered closer to her godchild. Never had she seen Molly cry "…Molls?"

Molly shut her watering eyes, hearing an unexpected quiver in her voice "…c-can I have a hug?"

Swizzle stared, caught in unknown territory. This was also unexpected from a child who hated to be touched. The Molly she knew was hard as rocks…what the heck happened?

…whatever. That'll have to wait. Right now, Molly clearly needed her.

When Swizzle laced her arms around her, Molly instinctually stiffened from the gesture. The last time she'd been hugged like this was…well…she couldn't remember. A full-body cringe rolled inside of her. Ugh, all this mushy stuff was so…weird! While the act of affection was foreign to her, there was something else that she had not felt in the history of ever…

Safe.

Feeling less like a useless zombie after Jorgen had restored his magic to normal level before they'd left the hospital, Juandissimo scanned the area until he spotted Remy hugging himself with glassy eyes to the ground. He frowned, well aware of the Buxaplentys' fate as he flew over to his godson.

At first, Remy flinched when Juandissimo folded his arms around his, but the moment he allowed warm muscles to swallow him, all he could do was whimper "…Juan…" before the dam broke and his shattered soul bled out with each anguished wail.

"Estará bien, ahijado." Juandissimo whispered into Remy's hair. Allowing Remy to bawl in his embrace, sobs buried into his chest with clinging arms as if he never, ever wanted Juandissimo to let go. "I got you…"

Juandissimo looked up when two other fairies passed either side of him, seeing Alondro and Irving zoom towards Dwight and Gary. As Dwight edged forward for Irving to squeeze him, he stared towards the ground in his godfather's arms. A lack of cheeriness that Irving swiftly noted as he released Dwight from his embrace.

"Dwight, are you alright?" he worried, watching Dwight remain silent in his downcast gaze. Irving squeezed Dwight's shoulders, deepening the grimace in Dwight's dimpled chin.

"…I'm trying not to apologize."

His godson's mutter formed deep furrows between Irving's brow "…what do you mean?"

Dwight's overbite chewed at his lip "…you're probably sick of hearing me apologize for being the burden that I am…"

"Wighty…" Irving lifted Dwight's chin with a gentle finger, prompting Dwight to look at him. "You arenota burden. Never think that about ya'self, okay?"

Staring into dark-teal eyes peering with grave concern for him, Dwight clenched his jaw. He wanted to believe Irving, yet he dared not vocalize his plethora of doubts.

Godson and godfather approached each other, Gary squeezing the arm with old scabs beneath his sleeve as Alondro tugged at his yellow bandana. Gary was unable to meet the icy-blue gaze that studied him, his godfather observing the dark circles rimmed around bloodshot eyes. Alondro narrowed his gaze; what in the hell did the Council do with these kids?

"…Londro?" he heard a puny whimper, seeing Gary lift his eyes to him "…lo siento."

"Why are you sorry?" Alondro was equally soft in his tone.

He dug fingernails into his wound, biting the inside of his cheek at the sharp pinch "…por darte por sentado…"

"You do not take me for granted, peque…" Alondro affirmed, yet Gary squeezed his eyes, bowing his head.

Alondro swooped in, hugging the godson that did not hesitate to hug him back. Gary whimpered apologies into Alondro's shirt, whispering hushed cries that his godfather softly shushed him for. When he looked up and to his right, Alondro happened to notice the ebony fairy with indigo eyes comforting her godchild before Chloe parted partially from Susie.

Her eyes widen at the hint of redness in her godmother's eyes, whimpering "…h-have you been crying?"

"Worry about me later, okay?" Susie tucked one of Chloe's loose strands behind her ear. "You need me right now."

Hugging herself, tears traced paths down Chloe's cheeks "…you…promise to need me later?"

Susie hesitated. No matter how much she suffered, she would never want to push her inner troubles onto a child with troubles of their own. Her gut-feeling felt attentive eyes on her as she glanced to her left. She spotted Alondro observing her, embracing Gary's muffled cries.

She snapped back to Chloe before her stare could linger more than it should, holding Chloe by her shoulders "…how about we need each other now?"

In a tearful nod, Chloe reached with arms wrapped around Susie. Susie returned the gesture as tears pricked in the outer edges of her eyes.

All godchildren were now reunited with their godparents. All…except for one, lone boy. Unable to watch the other kids any longer, Timmy diverted the agony brimming in his eyes. Squeezing himself tighter as his lower lip trembled.

Birchie traveled alongside his maker as Birchwind stopped beside the bucktoothed boy, lowering a hand to Timmy's shaking shoulder to which Timmy fretfully swiped at the dampness in his cheeks.

"I am proud of you, Timmy Turner."

Timmy shot wide eyes to the Fairy Councilman, taken aback by words he so rarely heard spoken his way.

Then, Birchwind narrowed his gaze "…but do not forget your other portion of the deal."

Timmy's insides curled, every muscle in his body forming a knot of discomfort. He, under any circ*mstances, cannot act on any suicidal ideations, and he cannot keep those thoughts to himself. If he does not abide by or if shall ever breach these conditions, then all memories will be erased, magic will be absent from all of their dreams, and all traces of their fairies will vanish.

Forever.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

Beneath the mystical gleam of the western rising moon, the magical companions relish in the delicious meals provided by their makers; a doggy bowl of plain boiled eggs and seasonless grilled fish for Birchie, a bowl cup mixed with blackberries and mulberries for Plum, a snack bowl with bitesize pellets of fresh chicken and lamb for Simmons…and a dead rat that Bella happily gobbled whole.

Holding his wand-like staff, the Fairy Commander stood quietly before the Council with a flattened brow to the ground. Having listened to their speech about how an enforcer of Da Rules should not be the one to break them, Jorgen was still waiting for the real verbal lashing, akin to a child in serious trouble anticipating the announcement of their punishment after sitting through their parents’ lecture. Just as he had feared, the Council Members were well aware of Mr. Crocker’s revival and the unlock of his repressed memories. Only a matter of time before he was caught.

“Though your actions should not be forgiven, we can now understand your intent after witnessing what we have today.” Birchwind confessed to Jorgen, levitating slightly in front of the other Council Members. “In fact, you have inspired us in a way that we would have never considered before.”

Jorgen’s death grip around his staff loosened as one brow arched.

“…hence why we give you full permission to heal Denzel Crocker and alter his memories so that he may relive happier times with his previous godparents only in his dreams.”

Puzzled, Jorgen lifted his gaze to meet theirs. Certainly, they had to know the repercussions “…would that not just make him even more fairy obsessed?”

“Alter his memories to where fairies and magic are nothing more than mere folklore.” Persimmons elucidated, folding his arms. “That should rectify that issue.”

As Jorgen averted eyes back to the ground, the thinning of his lips and the deeper crease in his brow did not appear to be as satisfied as the Council had assumed him to be. Jorgen may not always voice his opinions, but his facial expressions spoke louder.

“…what are your qualms, Jorgen?” Treebelle addressed him, hands behind her back.

His hesitancy stalled, bowing his head subtly “…if…I may speak freely?”

Birchwind co*cked his head to the side, intrigued by what was to be said. “You may.”

Taking a breath, Jorgen straightened his posture, meeting the yellow eyes patiently waiting for him to proceed “…Denzel Crocker’s previous fairies are not happy with your current decisions...” the subtle downturn of his lips lingered beneath his otherwise composed expression “…and, frankly…a part of me is not happy, either.”

“Meaning?” Persimmons probed.

“They have expressed their grievances about this probation.” Jorgen elaborated. “How you stripped him of his fairies right after the death of his biological parents, a time where he needs his fairies more than ever.”

“Timmy must learn that he cannot just say and do what he wants without being willing to face the consequences.” Plumfrost justified.

“But if you truly understood why I did what I did to Crocker, why would you take his godparents away?” Jorgen opposed. “Do you want Turner to end up like Crocker?”

“Of course, not.” Birchwind denied. “Hence why we added a stipulation that Timmy must inform someone if he is ever in that low a mindset.”

“Did you consider that Timmy would not have those thoughts if he had his fairies?”

“He had those thoughts even when he had his fairies.” Plumfrost countered.

Respectfully, that wasn’t a good enough justification. “Forgive me, but I have to question if you are seeing my point.” Jorgen shifted in his stance, expanding his chest. “Fairy godparents are to bring happiness to a miserable child, and now that Timmy Turner is possibly twice as miserable than he once was, taking his fairies away could hurt him more than teach him a lesson.”

“Sometimes, you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, and lose in order to gain.” Persimmons stated. “Life’s greatest lessons are learned through pain.”

Jorgen half-snorted “…and what exactly is this lesson?”

“To deal with himself and to confront his own emotional pain and trauma so that he shall not unjustly inflict it onto others.” Treebelle rejoined.

“Y’know, that would make sense if godparents were not assigned to children!” Jorgen retorted, aggravation raised in his voice. “Even the most mature child lacks the emotional depth and the mental capacity to learn that complex a lesson, and by stripping Turner of his fairies after everything he has been through, the only lesson he will learn is that his pain and suffering does not matter!”

A harsh memory entered his mind of the day he had no choice but to abide by Da Rules after Denzel’s false proclamation of no longer needing his fairies. “Just like Crocker’s pain and suffering did not matter!”

When silence fell upon the Council in response to Jorgen’s words, Jorgen worried he may have overstepped. Gripping his staff, he bowed as he groaned “…forgive me for my disrespect.”

Three of the Council Members then looked to the Head Councilor rubbing his chin dimpled in consideration, curious of what his response would be.

Seated in a semi-circle along aquamarine grass with the eastern setting sun providing a bit of warmth from the chill of the crater’s faint breeze, the fairy godparents held their respective godchildren as they observed Jorgen and the Council from a football field away. In full view of their commander speaking to the Council with words that were too far a distance to hear clearly.

“…what chu guys think Jorgen and the Council are talkin’ about?” Irving asked the other fairies, his one arm holding Dwight whose head was lolled on the right shoulder of his cardigan.

“Whatever it is, it must be pretty important for how long it's taking…” Swizzle shrugged, her fingers absently brushing her godchild’s swoop bang with Molly’s cheek flat against Swizzle’s left thigh.

Nyekundu sat beside her girlfriend supporting Hazel who rested limp against her shoulder, arms slack at her sides. She gave a glance to the Hispanic fairy on her left. “Juandissimo…were you able to see the baby?”

“Briefly.” Juandissimo replied, one arm holding a motionless Remy against his chest.

Next to Juandissimo was Susie, cradling Chloe like a slumbering ragdoll in her arms. Since Wanda’s premature child survived birth but was in intensive care, she had to wonder “…what did he look like?”

“Muy pequeño.” Juandissimo made a gesture of holding a tiny ball with his hands before he upturned a palm. “He possibly could have fit in the palms of my hands.”

“How are Cosmo and Wanda taking this?” Rose asked from one end of the semi-circle, holding her godchild's temple to her chest with motherly arms wrapped around Tootie’s slump shoulders.

“They are worried for their son.” Juandissimo admitted with a low sigh. “But doctors believe Wanda should be more concerned about herself.”

“Señor Jorgen had told us that Wanda would make a full recovery…” Alondro mentioned softly, seated with a space between himself and Rose. Gary’s head of jet black lay drooped against Alondro’s right thigh.

Juandissimo fixed a wary stare on Alondro. Aside from speculations, he did not have too much of a reason to distrust Alondro. Yet when he took a brief side glance at Susie’s knitted brow in Alondro’s direction, his suspicions lingered even as he then addressed him directly.

“Si, but it will be quite the road. Her magic is extremely weak and is not regenerating properly for her body to heal.”

Irving puckered his lower lip. “Damn, poor Wanda…”

Susie turned her empathetic glance to the boy isolated from the rest. “Poor Timmy…”

The fairy-less boy held absent eyes to the artic azure stream in front of his feet, a glum chin crumpled on folded arms atop upturn knees. If there was a definition for despising absolutely everything in life, you would see ‘Timmy Turner’ written in bold letters along with a photo of blue eyes glassy and red from silent tears.

As the other fairies turned their attention in his direction, their gaze extended sympathy. Jorgen and the Council were tightlipped as to why Timmy would not receive his fairies. Their godchildren had mentioned something about probation, though certain details were omitted as to why the probation came about. Nevertheless, the bottomless, guttural void left from Cosmo and Wanda’s absence was palpable in Timmy’s stare, and as far as the fairies knew, he shouldn’t be all alone.

“Hey, Timmy.” Rose decided to speak up, loud enough for him to hear yet soft enough to hopefully not disturb her sleeping godchild.

Timmy slowly turned his head towards them at the call of his name, reddened eyes rimmed with insufferable gloom.

“Come join us.” Rose motioned with a welcoming hand, patting the empty space beside her that was conveniently wide enough for a certain ten-year-old to sit.

“Yeah, kiddo.” Irving waved for Timmy to come over. “We don’t bite.”

Timmy wavered, biting down on his bottom lip. If he couldn’t have Cosmo and Wanda, then all he wanted was to be left alone. Then again, he’d hate to be on the bad side of friendly fairies who’ve done nothing to deserve disrespect. Enough feathers were ruffled today.

With a heavy sigh, he forced himself to his feet and plodded the fair distance towards the empty space between Rose and Alondro. Carefully lowering himself onto his backside, Timmy then wrapped arms around bent knees, shooting his cousin resting on Alondro’s lap a somber glance before his gaze averted to the grass.

The fairies observed the boy’s silence, noting the bloodshot in the whites of his eyes. The holes burned from their piercing stares made Timmy’s throat clench, wanting nothing more than to crawl under the biggest rock and cease to exist.

“…are you alright?” was the one question he wished Alondro wouldn’t have asked, because while he wanted to lie despite being under obligation to tell the truth, he saw his vision blur and felt the threat of tears that were difficult to shove back behind his eyes.

Dragging fingers along his bottom lashes, he wiped at another onset of overwhelming sadness as he croaked “…no.”

“…would you like to talk about it?”

Tears raised their gaze at Rose’s question, once again torn. His heart screamed at him to just bottle his truth and squeak out a lie, yet he knew the risks between losing his fairies temporarily versus him and the other kids losing theirs forever. Grr, stupid freaking Council…why can’t they just let him suffer in his own pain!? Not like he had his fairies to wish it all away, anyway...might as well keep his true pain inside, all to himself.

“…Cosmo and Wanda are better off without me…” Timmy dropped his chin, toneless in his voice.

“…Cosmo and Wanda miss you greatly.” Juandissimo spoke earnestly in a way that rose glum eyes to him, hoping it would help give a bit of solace. “They would be better off if you were with them.”

His shoulders hunched involuntarily, insides clenched with contempt. Had his parents had the chance to live out their dumb vacation, they would not have thought twice about his disappearance. That’s if they even cared to learn that he was missing. And now, he was forced to face life’s hardships instead of taking the easy way out through death. All without his fairies, the pink and green magical creatures that loved him more than his sperm donor and womb bearer could ever think to fathom.

Blue eyes pooled somberly. It was no secret that his parents wouldn’t miss him, even if they drew breath. Heck, not even Cosmo and Wanda should miss him. He didn’t deserve to be missed…

“…even if that’s true…everyone else is better off without me…” he hid damp cheeks into folded arms “…I deserve to be dead…”

Rose extended an arm of comfort to his shoulder as Timmy dissolved into crestfallen whimpers. Surrounded by people who seemed to care…utterly alone in a dark labyrinth from which there was no escape.

Some of the fairies frowned while others expressed their disappointment of the situation in low groans, commiserative of Timmy’s anguish. It was likely that complications of childbirth would’ve granted Cosmo and Wanda time off anyway, but probation? Whatever Timmy had done couldn’t have been to that extreme…right? Because it just didn’t make sense; why would the Council take away what could be, or, in this case, ‘is,’ the only thing to shine light in his darkness?

“…hey, Timmy.” Irving softly spoke to the desolate boy, making Timmy lift his shameful head. “No matter what bad stuff you do or have done…no child deserves to die.”

The last phrase of his sentence led his saddened gaze to Dwight’s subtle stir before he went still. Such a good kid, plagued by a troublesome disorder. A kind boy who felt that erasing himself was better than continuing to be a burden to everyone around him.

Timmy’s watery gaze hardened. Yeah, sure…no child deserved to die. Except for him.

“That is true.” Alondro agreed as Timmy swiped at the sorrow streaming down his cheek. Alondro lowered his gaze to Gary, a child blamed for his mother’s death simply by being born. Punished and tortured by his father’s begrudging wrath. “If anything, the world, your world…does not deserve children.”

“In a way, he is right.” Nyekundu rubbed delicate circles into Hazel’s back. A little girl, sweet and innocent…a little girl shattered. “Unfortunately, there is no world without abuse.”

“Or violence…” Swizzle murmured, continuing to stroke Molly’s bang. A child denied a carefree life basking beneath the sunlight of a safe haven, casted within the shadows of harmful threats the length of a lifetime.

Juandissimo lowered a gentle cheek to the top of Remy’s swooped spikes, weary eyes observing his godson’s placid slumber. “There is no world where children are safe from predators…or a world where parents always make time for their child.”

“And there’s no world where kids can just be kids…” Susie’s tender fingers danced around Chloe’s bow “…not without having to constantly work to reach arbitrary goals that’re impossible to reach.”

“But there is a world where magic exists,” Rose’s tender thumb delicately brushed Tootie’s cheek, a little girl scarred by ugly lies of ‘the truth.’ “and magic exists to take away the pain the world can cause…even if but for a moment.”

“And if the Council wants ta take that magic away from you…” Irving gave a warm grin “…then we can be your magic for the time being.”

Teary eyes widened, breath caught in his throat.

“Well…some more than others.” Swizzle commented coolly, prompting an exasperated elbow from Nyekundu. “I-I mean…” she sheepishly coughed to clear her throat “…we’re here for ya, kid.”

“We all got cha back, Timmy.” Susie affirmed sincerely. “It’s what Cosmo and Wanda would want.”

Thin lips quivered. While touched by their sentiment, he didn’t have the heart to tell them that he was not allowed access to magic during his probation. Still, he didn’t expect to be shown such compassion by fairies who were under no obligation to do so. Compassion that he didn’t deserve…

With the back of his wrists swiping at salty streams of incessant sadness, the shake in Timmy’s squeak could do nothing more but whimper “…thank you…”

Different pairs of oddly-colored eyes heard the thumping hoofs of heavy footsteps before their ears knew exactly who was coming, causing Timmy’s backhands to erase what they could of his weakness. He turned to the humanoid statue of brute muscle approaching from behind as Jorgen Von Strangle exhaled a sullen sigh.

“So…does this mean we’re finally free ta go?” Irving asked what everyone was likely thinking.

“After the children rest.” Jorgen advised. “For now, I must have a word with Turner.”

Well, that didn’t sound good. “Great…” Timmy huffed. “What did I do now.”

“You are not in trouble.” Jorgen stated. “Just come with me.”

“…why can’t you jus’ talk to him right here?” Susie probed.

“Council’s orders.” Jorgen grumbled for what felt like the umpteenth time. He then fixed his stern glare to Timmy before he began to walk away. “And I will not ask you twice.”

Reluctantly, Timmy groaned as he stood to his feet, trailing behind the Fairy Commander far enough to where the fairies and other godchildren looked smaller than his fist. If he wasn’t in trouble, then why did they have to be so secluded?

When Jorgen ceased his steps and pivoted towards him, Timmy crossed arms in a guarded stance towards Jorgen, gulping down as much susceptibility as possible. His bruised ego wanted to eliminate any more of his emotional vulnerability that can and will be used against him later.

As expected, Jorgen’s stern stare was not phased, though not surprised by Timmy’s defensiveness towards figures of authority. Especially after what the Council had put him through.

“Since the other godchildren are asleep, I will take you to visit Cosmo and Wanda in the hospital.”

Unblinking, Timmy felt his lips part in silent surprise, trying to process what he thought he’d just heard. After what seemed like the longest pause, his skepticism grimaced. “I thought I was on probation.”

“You are right, puny bucktooth child.” Jorgen lightly sneered. “Cosmo and Wanda are still technically off duty. However, the Council has decided to reduce your probation to where you simply cannot make wishes until the probation is over.”

“So…” his tense shoulders laxed slightly “…I still get Cosmo and Wanda back?”

“For the time being, you shall return to Earth solely with Cosmo.” Jorgen clarified. “Only until Wanda and their son are strong enough for the both of them to be discharged from the hospital.”

Timmy’s features softened, blinking with disbelief “…really?”

“Yes.”

Only for a second did the pink-hatted boy show an ounce of hope before cynicism narrowed in his eyes. “You’re lying.”

“I am a man of my word.” Jorgen stood firm in his statement, and Timmy squinted at Jorgen’s grave mask, trying to find any hint of deception.

“And why should I believe you?”

“Because I can confirm that Jorgen tells no tales.”

Timmy and Jorgen turned to the Head Councilor’s approach, seeing a blue robe levitating towards them.

“After some…‘minor’…convincing…” Birchwind snuck a quick side glance to his descendant before fully addressing Timmy. “Jorgen has been instructed to take you to Fairy World so that you may meet your godbrother and spend time with your godparents.”

As if given the confirmation he was looking for, a swelling warmth melted the ice casted around his heart. Filling his chest with the first slither of hope that he’d felt in forever. His backhand quickly swiped at the gloss of relief pressed behind his eyes, thinning lips trembling.

“This does not exclude you from upholding your end of the deal.” Birchwind made sure to remind.

“…that’s fine.” Timmy sniffed in his nod. How could he ever forget that suicidal thoughts were no longer his to suffer in silence?

“Oh, before I forget…” Jorgen reached into the pocket of his camouflage pants, digging for what Timmy soon saw was a pocket-sized star of gold metal with a purple button in the center. The long-lost magical transporter that transported godchildren between Earth and Fairy Fort.

“You, along with the other godkids, will still have access to Fairy World with these transporters until you no longer need your fairies.” Jorgen explained to him, handing Timmy his transporter. “Use it wisely, yes?”

Staring at the transporter in his palms, he took it all in, a newfound sparkle in his eyes that did not solely come from the remanence of shining tears. He then lifted his chin to meet the vigilant eyes of the Councilman and Fairy Commander, a bit of hoarse laced in his small voice as he gave an honest “…thank you.”

While Jorgen simply laxed the subtle harshness in his features, Birchwind’s response was a faint smile of his own. “You are most welcome.”

Dull rumbles of sea-form crashed gently against the sand, beige grains of rock and coral warmed by the brilliant stretch of golden orange across the horizon of salty sea. Watching the waves from the shore, the slender man sat with bent legs crossed, palms planted within the sand. Kept company by the fairy forms of his most loyal green and pink companions, dressed in early 70s fashion.

Time was but a mere concept in this dreamscape. An ethereal world free of strife, free of pain. He hungered for nothing, for he was now full of the love that his heart starved for. Thirst did not ail him, for his soul was quenched of the dire need for affection. In this world, he was not Mr. Crocker, the crazy nutjob obsessed with mystical creatures of children’s fairytales. He was not Mr. Crocker, the lunatic not worth giving the time of day…

…he was simply Denzel. A soul once lost, reunited with his found family.

“…I don’t wanna leave…” Denzel murmured quietly, shadows of dejection darkening the space beneath his eyes “…I never wanna live a life without you two ever again…”

“Oh, sweetie…” Wanda’s pulled brows knitted in the middle, her motherly voice laced with remorse. “We’re so sorry…but you can’t stay here forever.”