Chapter Text
Timmy sat silently in his semi-empty office, his head in his hands as he sat in the dim room, the lamp on his desk glowed dimly and boxes were piled high on each of his sides. His anger, frustration, and exhaustion were evident on his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at the papers on his desk anymore. How could he have been so stupid? How could she have done something like this? He’s always had issues with Trixie when they started dating in college, but for her to go and do something like this?
What happened to their vows? That gorgeous dress she wore and that personal vow she wrote for him. What about the promise to be together in sickness and in health? The way her eyes glistened as he made his promise to her on their honeymoon. Was it all just a lie? Just for her to take the money he made to spoil her hidden boyfriend?
It hurt like a bitch.
He sighed and looked back over the agreements that they had settled on one final time, his signature burning a hole into his brain for every line he wrote on. Everything was just as his lawyer said. She wanted a large chunk of money for emotional distress, his convertible that she bought for his birthday, and the home that he inherited from his parents that she was probably going to sell off the second she got ahold of it. Most of those things had him sighing and simply grumbling as he signed, but what hurt the most was what, or who, she wasn’t asking for.
“Daddy?” A small voice spoke up and Timmy turned to the crack in his door to see his daughter, Tammy, poke her head in.
Taking in her sniffling appearance he turned his chair and opened his arms for his 6-year-old, “Hey Tam-Tam, baby, what’s wrong?” She climbed onto his lap and sobbed into his shirt, her voice muffled as she tried to respond but her bottoms gave a good indication of what happened. Timmy simply took a breath and sat up to rub her back, “It’s okay baby, Tammy it’s okay, did you have another nightmare?” The little brunette nodded as she took shuddering breaths to calm herself while Timmy carried her to the bathroom to help clean her up.
Continuing to rub her back, he passed by the clock on the wall and a few boxes that sat partially packed, it wasn’t digital but from what he could see it was around two in the morning. Sighing, he entered their scant bathroom and set his little girl on the toilet to start the tub. Tammy simply watched her father as he plugged the tub and began helping her undress and set her glasses on the counter. “Up we go,” he said softly taking her hand and helping her into the tub before scrubbing some shampoo in her hair as her sniffles subsided and her breathing calmed, “There we go.” He smiled softly, “Just take deep breaths.”
Leaning her head into Timmy’s hand the bathroom remained mostly silent as he worked through the shampoo and conditioner before grabbing the cup on the side of the tub and prompting her, “Tilt your head for me, okay baby?” Doing as she was told and closing her eyes, Tammy hummed in satisfaction as the warm water poured over her head. Finishing up the rest of her quickly, he grabbed a spare towel crumpled on the floor and wrapped her up, and drained the tub. Hoisting her onto his hip, the two of them made their way back into Tammy and her twin brother, Tommy’s, room to help dress her and change her sheets.
As he set her down and shuffled through more boxes for her clothes he helped her put on a pair of underwear and socks before asking, “How are you feeling Tammy?” She simply shrugged as Timmy began rummaging around for one of her nightgowns, “That’s okay, you don’t have to feel okay, nightmares are scary.” Finding a simple unicorn nightgown he helped her shuffle into it.
Smiling, he took a moment to take in his handy work, feeling proud that he could do things like this. “Daddy,” Timmy looked back up at his daughter from straightening the fabric, “Yes Tammy?” She smiled shyly, “It’s backward…” Timmy’s eyes widened comedically before he lightly smacked his forehead, “ Backwards, are you sure?” Turning his head he pretended to ponder, “Backwards nightgowns, that sounds like a new fashion statement.” Giggling Tammy shook her head, “Daddy! You're supposed to wear your dresses forward! That’s what Mommy says.” Smiling softly, but slightly strained, the buck-toothed man nodded as he whispered, “You’re right, Mommy did say you should wear them forward.”
Tammy froze, then looked down at her socked feet and shuffled lightly, detecting the discomfort that he tried to hide. “Sorry, Daddy.” He smiled softly, “That’s okay, you were just being helpful.” She looked up at him and smiled before hugging him tightly, “Can I sleep with you tonight?” She whispered. He could feel her pleading eyes on him, even when he turned to pretend to think again. Without much hesitation, he gave in, “Alright, as long as you tell me why you were crying okay?” She nodded and the two of them fixed her dress before she took his hand to lead them both to his bedroom.
His bedroom.
Making their way into his disaster of a bedroom she climbed onto the bed, snuggling in as he lowered himself down Tammy scooted closer to be by him. After she got comfortable she started, “ I dreamt you left… like mommy did, but you didn’t want to take me and Tommy and me and Tommy had to live in a uh, an ore-phan-age and we couldn’t be brother and sister anymore and-and you said that you didn’t love us and the scary man tried to take us away…” her tears started up again and he turned to hug her close, he was waiting for one of them to mention the CPS people that had come by a while ago but it still broke his heart that it came up like this. “Oh Tammy, I would never do that to you or Thomas! I hope you know that I love you guys more than anything.”
She tearily glanced up at him, “More than your Crimson Chin comic books?” Timmy couldn’t help by chuckling slightly at her question and responded earnestly, “Always more than my Crimson Chin comic books.” Tammy nodded, happy with the answer. “Okay, good.” She sniffled slightly before snuggling into his side again, her small hand reaching for his, and slowly drifted asleep.
Timmy encircled his arm around her form more and prepared for the inevitable response of Tommy coming into the room and taking up his left on the bed. As Tammy slept Timmy couldn’t help but worry about them, they had to be out of the house in less than three weeks and Timmy only had half the house packed. Not only that, but his last day was tomorrow and he still hadn’t heard from any of the jobs he had applied to. The only hope he had was with a coding one way out in Retroville, and even then, that job was a stretch. It wasn’t his normal video game stuff, but more on the scientific side, so he would definitely need to brush up on what he didn’t remember in case they asked him anything during his interview while looking at his application.
A small part of Timmy had applied in hope that a certain smart-mouthed science nerd would still be there, but he wouldn’t push his luck. The last time the two of them spoke was during their summer of senior year. They had been talking about the colleges they had been planning to apply to and even though they agreed to stay in touch like they usually did, Timmy got busy.
After a while, Jimmy’s everyday texts turned to every week, then every few months, and then to nothing at all. The poor contact sat at the bottom of his messages, and Timmy couldn’t bring up the courage to say anything to him. He was the one who had stopped texting first, and he didn’t know how he would even attempt to restart that conversation.
‘ Hey man, it's me! Timmy, the guy you hung out with every summer from 4th grade till senior year. The one who accidentally ghosted you, that guy. Remember me? ’
Timmy shook his head as he grabbed his phone from the side of his bed and made sure to turn his alarm on, it may only give him a few hours of sleep but that was better than nothing. Especially when Tommy would eventually come asking for breakfast by poking him awake, smiling slightly, he returned his phone to his bedside and turned to envelop Tammy in a hug. A mental promise that he would keep the monsters away and that he would never leave them alone passed between the two as they slept.
As he thought, Timmy didn’t wake up to his alarm, rather he awoke to Tommy crawling into his bed and shuffling to fit into the gap between Tammy and Timmy. Without opening his eyes, Timmy simply opened his arms to allow the noirete into the cuddle pile. A small part of him hoped that Tommy would go right to sleep, but the poke to his face said otherwise. “Daddy, Daddy are you awake?” Grunting, Timmy merely pulled the two children closer to his chest in an attempt to smother the boy into sleeping, but Tommy merely let out a surprised laugh. Tammy, who had been snoring softly, quickly woke up as well.“Tommy, what are you doing?” She (badly) whispered to him as she shuffled to get more comfortable. “I’m hungry and I want breakfast.” The boy stated matter-of-factly. Tammy seemed to be considering this as well, if the silence was any indication, before she responded, “I’m hungry too.”
And the poking resumed. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddyyy! Me and Tammy are hungry, wake up. Daddyy !” Cracking one eye open, Timmy just smirked before turning on his side, taking the two children with him. Their shrieks and giggles filled the room as the buck-toothed man began exaggerating his snoring while throwing in some fake sleep taking. “Mhhhh… hungry…” Making sure he had a good hold on the two children in the bed he loudly muttered, “Hungry… Hungry for…” before sitting up quickly and tickling the two children, “CHILDREN!” and the two squirmed and squealed as he attacked their sides and thighs. “DADD-DADDY, ST-STOP-“ Tommy let out more laughter as Timmy kept his on onslaught. “What’s the magic word~” The brunete sing-songed to his son.
Tammy was the one who was able to respond, as she was catching her breath from escaping, “Please Daddy! He can’t breathe!” The small girl giggled as Timmy slowed his attack on the boy before snatching a kiss to both his and Tammy's head, Tommy doing his best and failing to duck.
He smiled softly at the two, “Morning,” yawning, he stretched and popped both his shoulders, “Did you both sleep okay?” Tammy hummed into his side and laid back into him with the blanket pulled up to her shoulders while Tommy nodded quickly from where he sat in his superhero pajamas. “Yeah! I had a dream where I was flying, but I didn’t have wings and I flew all the way to kindergarten and then to the park and then to the moon!” He ended it by jumping up from where he had been sitting on the bed. “Really?” Timmy began as he stretched again, the tiredness tugging at his eyes and body, but he still smiled. “That sounds awesome. Flying is a cool superpower, huh?” Tommy nodded his head excitedly. “Uh-huh! If I could fly then I could go to the park and go to school and go to the movies all by myself!” Timmy chuckled at the idea and yawned, moving to dangle his feet, Timmy arched his back as he stood to try and get the weight of sleep to loosen. Grinning at his two children he spoke, “How about breakfast and then we can get you guys ready for kindergarten?”
His final day, honestly, was lackluster. Starting his morning off by handing his children and catching up with Tootie was nice, apparently, Vicky was still abroad with whatever job she had. “We were actually just talking about you over the phone last night!” Tootie giggled as Timmy snorted.
He watched Tommy and Tammy scurry to put their book bags away and join the other children in whatever game was happening at the moment. “About what, the divorce, the moving, or how I found out?” Tootie's giggle got quiet for a moment as the children screamed in excitement before putting her hand on his shoulder and smiling. “Nah, she was just reminiscing on her babysitting days and how apparently you were the best behaved.”
Timmy’s eyes furrowed as he watched the children tumble and scurry, a game of tag it seemed. “I can’t say I know how it feels to be in something like this.” A kid tripped but Tommy hurried over, helped him up, and the kid was on his feet again screaming and laughing again. Tootie sighed, “Just, please talk to someone, okay? I don’t want you bottling up all of your sh-“ she stuttered, catching herself, “S-stuff up, okay? It’s not healthy, it’s only been a couple of months and you already have bags under your eyes.” Chuckling softly at her slip he nodded as his eyes dimmed from exhaustion. “Yeah, I know, I’ll make sure to.”
Checking his watch he made his way to the door, “I’ll be back to pick them up when I get off. If anything happens-“ Tootie laughed, “I know, I know. Now shoo! I have a class to get together.” Timmy smiled at her and hurried to his car.
The drive was fine, just some light traffic, and finding parking was boring like always. Entering the building and starting his workday was easy as well, his day was pretty short since it was mostly him doubling checking some wayward code and sending it off to the testing team and them sending anything else back with what was wrong. They were merely polishing the last few kinks on a new game, so they were just merely handing him some busy work to keep him occupied. They were planning on releasing the game in a few months and they were ahead of schedule coding-wise.
Timmy couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment on missing the game drop. The excitement he and his team would feel when that clock hit zero. This game was what solidified his work ethic, he can recall all the times he stayed overtime not only to save up but to get that promotion that led him to become part of the AI programming department.
Sighing he sent off his final message and began boxing up his desk. He couldn’t help but smile as he went through the gifts from Tammy and Tommy that littered his desk. The little sculptures and the stick figure family drawings were his favorite. His hand hesitated, however, as he held one picture with Trixie in it.
Tammy had drawn it for Father’s Day, with its generic happy Father’s Day message cut-and-pasted in, but he couldn’t bear to throw it away. Trixie had been pictured smaller than them, as the main drawing had Tommy and Tammy hanging off his arms like they did when he became their jungle gym, and he couldn’t help but smile at the image. Looking at the picture one last time he began to crease the paper gently and slowly tear the stick figure Trixie from the page. Crumpling it quickly, he dropped it into his garbage bin before finishing his desk.
As he worked he made sure to note that he would need to stop by the boss’s office and say his goodbyes before heading out, and maybe pick up a late lunch on the way. Finishing up his desk, he stopped by the break room first to say his goodbyes and dispose of his trash while multiple people congratulated him and thanked him for his hard work. Many of his colleagues knew what had happened, so it was a little awkward as they wished him luck but he didn’t care too much. He just wanted to pick up his kids, get back home and start figuring out what the fuck he was going to do with everything that he wasn’t done boxing. The talk with his boss was also boring, not that he would say it to his face, but the talk they had was very scripted so when he picked up his final check he made a quick bee-line for the door.
Finally…
Propping his head against his steering wheel he couldn’t help but let out a sigh, this was the most stable job he’d been able to hold since he graduated college. Most desk jobs had him slaving away, and he was kinda glad that the desk jobs he applied for at first had rejected him. Taking one more breath, he started up his car and made his way to the road, debating what he wanted for lunch. It wasn’t too long into his ride that his phone began to ring, an unknown number flashing on his screen. Confused, Timmy opened his phone and answered.
“Hello? Is this Timothy Turner?” Bewildered, the brunete responded, “Yes, this is him, may I ask what this call is about?” The next couple of words had the man nearly crash his car into oncoming traffic in his surprise and excitement. “Ah, Mr. Turner! It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you, this is RetSig in Retroville calling you back about your application. When would be an appropriate time for us to schedule you for an interview?”
Everything else went by in a blur, picking up his kids, eating his lunch, and making his way home. Tammy and Tommy sat in their car seats as they sang along with whatever children’s cartoon song he had playing at the moment. Normally, on their car rides home he would pick them up on his break and sing whatever song was playing with them on the drive back, but with this new information in his head, he would definitely be busy again tonight with house hunting and more packing.
“Daddy! Guess what I did at kindergarten!” Tommy smiled from his car seat, “Daddy! Daddy guess! Guess guess guess! Guess what!” Tommy bounced in his seat on each utter of the word guess while Tammy sat smiling and kicking her feet. Mentally clocking back in, Timmy glanced into the rearview mirror and grinned, “Chicken butt.” Tammy giggled loudly while Tommy groaned, “Dad I said guess what!” Shaking his head, Timmy pulled into their driveway before making his way to the side doors to begin unbuckling Tammy from her car seat, “Okay, what happened in class today?” Helping Tammy down Tommy started telling him about how he and his friend Greg were doing whatever it was that boys did in kindergarten. Too deep in thought and trying to listen to his son, he didn’t feel Tammy pulling on his pants till she spoke, “Daddy? Can we go play with Poof next door?” Tommy stopping his story to quickly voice his own ask as well.
Poof, actual name Percy Cosma-Fairywinkle, was a boy near the same age as his children who live a few houses down with his mother and father. He doesn’t exactly remember how the two families met but his children usually stayed with the Cosma-Winkle family when he or Trixie were too busy working. They always felt familiar to him, but he couldn’t pinpoint from where. Either way, they were like family to him, much to Trixie’s dismay for some reason. Timmy shook himself from his thoughts again, “Yeah, Poof would appreciate playing with you again, we have been a bit busy.”
The twins cheered, and Tammy began pulling his hand. “C’mon! Mrs. Wanda has been asking about you! She said that you need to come over more and that she misses you!” Timmy shook his head and chuckled, he and that old lady could talk for hours if given the time, it usually ended with the families enjoying dinner together and the adults walking back with three exhausted children.
“Okay, okay, but you can’t get mad if I start talking to Wanda okay? You know how she loves to chatter.” His daughter absentmindedly nodded and began pulling his hand again, “Uh huh, Daddy let’s goooo, I wanna play with Poof!” Getting Tommy out of his car seat he chuckled and shook his head, “Hold your horses Tam-Tam, we gotta get you and your brother's school things inside. Now grab your bag okay, and you as well Tommy.” Giving his best sternest look the twins scurried to grab their things and run to the door. “W-watch it! Be careful Tammy, you don’t wanna trip on that crack again.”
He could help but roll his eyes as Tammy did the exact thing he warned her about and tripped over the crack in the sidewalk for the millionth time, she quickly got up and dusted her skirt before joining her brother on the steps to their porch with her now skinned knee smiling all the while. Sighing he pulled his keys out to open the door.
Kids…