Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Slanting rays of the setting sun gave a warm, orange tinge to the sky, sheening off the brunette shingles roofing the yellow-bricked home where a rose vine snaked along the left side of the hexagonal section. Patches of overgrown grass littered the lawn, shrubs misshaped and messy with some of its leaves littered along the cement path closest to the maroon front door. Only one Jeep Wrangler occupied the space of the driveway once reserved for two cars.

The widower sat at the foot of the wooden table within the dining room, its bright-yellow walls in contrast to his darkened demeanor. Crinkles and lines creased his wildlife rescue uniform, his ranger hat barely taming the platinum-blonde disheveled mess of his outgrown hair. His chin, once cleanshaven now prickly with blonde stubs, hunter-green eyes red-rimmed and sore from many sleepless, lonely nights.

The widower sat at the foot of the wooden table within the dining room, its bright-yellow walls in contrast to his darkened demeanor. Crinkles and lines creased his wildlife rescue uniform, his ranger hat barely taming the platinum-blonde disheveled mess of his outgrown hair. His chin, once cleanshaven now prickly with blonde stubs, hunter-green eyes red-rimmed and sore from many sleepless, lonely nights. A low sigh escaped as Clark sorted through the pile of upcoming bills and other documents regarding the estate of his late wife, Connie Carmichael.

Three weeks since he and their only daughter had laid Connie to rest, tackling the mount of responsibilities felt like trying to swim above the murky surface with no life vest. The same in-laws that hardly spoke to him before were now picking fights over what was rightfully his as the surviving spouse. Arguing that because he had initiated divorce that he was no longer entitled to what had been written in their daughter’s will. Clearly a crock of bull since the divorce had barely gotten off and the ground the marriage was still legal at the time of her death.

Between that, long hours at work, and trying his best to keep his daughter as a priority, he was growing uncertain of how he can handle this all on his own.

Preparing Friday night’s dinner of Sweet Potato Curry over steamed rice, the ten-year-old platinum blonde carefully cut the sweet potato peeled and washed, stationed by the kitchen counter next to the stove where a deep pot over medium-high heat cooked down the onions and tomatoes. With a lavender bow tying her back-length strands leaving a puffy bang in the front, she wore a white tee with the collar and sleeves hemmed in purple underneath her gold dress, accented with a black belt and a lavender underskirt and black leggings with lavender sandals keeping her feet warm from the cool tile.

Within the ten minutes it would take for the juices of the tomatoes to release and the onions to soften in the pot, Chloe took her time positioning the chef knife to cut the sweet potato evenly in preparation for the ¾ cubes required for the recipe. Holding the potato steady with one hand, the other pressed down with the knife’s handle in a fine chop, only to find that the blade was not fully centered before the potato was cut in an imperfect half.

My goodness, are you even trying?! That’s nowhere near centered!

Blue eyes took on a haunted look as Chloe’s stomach shriveled, feeling her heart begin to pace inside her tightening chest. Once again haunted by a punitive voice only her psyche could hear.

It’s so simple a blind monkey could do it! How pathetic can you be!?

Her fairy godmother had been hovering off to the side near a counter when she noticed her goddaughter’s fingers start to tremor while wielding the knife, concern bunching between her indigo eyes. Looking past her godchild to see Clark’s back still facing them, the ebony fairy inched closer to her godchild, her afro kinky with black curls. She sported a purple off-shoulder blouse over white long-sleeves fluttering fly-like wings behind her back, dark denim jeans paired with navy block-heel Canyons.

“…you okay, Chlo-bird?”

“…yeah, Susie.” Chloe kept her tone deceptively even, unable to meet Susie’s gaze. Why make a spectacle over nothing?

Baby-blue then took a darting glance at the timer still counting down on the stove. There was no time for panicking over nothing with four minutes left before the sweet potatoes needed to be added. Taking the two off-centered halves of the potato with one hand, she turned them horizontally to cut down the middle, quaking fingers finding difficulty in positioning the knife directly center.

Her gap bit down on her bottom lip as she tried willing her hand to stop shaking, but her efforts proved futile when the knife slid through the potato in a diagonal line.

What the heck is wrong with you!? GET a GRIP!

She now struggled to control her quavering legs, arms tensing sharply. She could almost feel her mother’s baby-blue glare burning the back of her neck, running shivers up Chloe’s spine.

Why are you just standing there!? Hurry up! No point fixing your stupid mistakes now…you never do anything right the first time!

Her breaths grew labored, causing the handle of the knife to drop and clink onto the cutting board as the hand that once held it clutched her chest.

Susie floated towards Chloe at the sign of distress, making Chloe face her by setting gentle hands onto Chloe’s stiffening shoulders. "Breathe, Chloe..."

Clamping her eyes, Chloe forced her lungs to expand. Counting to ten through the barrage of chides booming between her ears, battling for dominance in her mind’s already waning concentration.

Oh, stop the dramatics! You’re doing this to yourself!

Why can’t you just grow up! You’re not a baby anymore!

She clutched both hands to her chest as if trying to stop her pounding heart from escaping. No matter what she did to quiet her panic, the voice only grew louder.

Stop being such a whiney brat! You act like I’m beating you when I’ve never used corporal punishment even when I should have!

You think you have it rough?! I’M DEAD!

“Chloe, what’s wrong?” Clark turned in his chair when he could hear strained gasps for breath from the kitchen, causing the fairy godmother to conceal her identity in her booby bird disguise. He saw his daughter choke a gasp in her throat as her chest constricted to where it’d become impossible to breathe. Her face drained chalk-white, and helpless, unblinking eyes glazed over…

Lack of oxygen dropped to her knees, and frantic worry leapt from his chair.

“Chloe!”

Clark dashed to his daughter’s aid, kneeling to support her crumpling body by the arms. Terror-stricken eyes widened at the whites of her eyes rolling into her head, her jaw slack as tremors shook throughout her arms and chattered in her legs. His arms could barely contain her as her limbs began to flail vigorously, her head bobbling as his cries for her to come back to him fell on deaf ears.

Clark goggled as his breath caught, his hammering heart plummeting to his stomach’s pits; Chloe has had bad panic attacks, attacks that have rendered her clinically deceased. But this? This was…eerie.

Heat steaming with no ventilation bubbled in the pot, bubbling through the closed lid and down the sides. Pooling onto the electric burner producing flickering cackles that turned the father’s horrified eyes sharply towards the stove.

“Shit…” Clark spat, now faced with another crisis. Lowering his thrashing daughter to the ground as careful as possible before he sprung to his feet and quickly twisted the temperature dial to ‘Lo.’ Smoke emitted from liquid meeting hot burners, thickening the air and triggering the fire alarm’s blares.  

He coughed as his hand swatted to clear the smoke while the indigo booby bird raised her wand in the background, making attempts with her magic to quell ramped anxiety…

. . . . . .

Thick, black specs rested on the nightstand within the bedroom decorated with everything Gryffinsnore, from the red and gold color palette of the crest to the themed memorabilia. His white, long-sleeve shirt poked beneath the short sleeves of his buttoned shirt patterned in turquoise flannel, sporting denim jeans in the shade of dark-green.

The freckled boy parted purple eyes out of their drowsed slumber with a soft groan, blinking away the haze that visually remained without his frames. His bright-auburn hair trimmed shorter from its usual bowls-shape, he tilted his head towards the sun setting through the sole window of his dimmed room as his adjusting eyes squinted.

“How ya doin’, Wighty?”

Slowly sitting himself up, the now twelve-year-old turned his head towards the fairy floating towards him, his reddish-brown hair curled behind elfin ears in his receding hairline. Bushy brows lightly furrowed with the visible concern through dark-teal eyes, his nose large and distended like his chin. Holding his wand with his left hand, his white button-up was cloaked in a teal cardigan matching his bowtie, tucked into dark-teal slacks looped in black leather and black Darbies on his feet.

“I was startin’ ta worry you wouldn’t wake up...” Irving spoke, sounding heavyhearted.

Dwight shifted and planted socks to the carpet, rubbing a knuckle to one corner of his eye as his other hand felt for his glasses on the nightstand beside his bed. After settling his glasses on his face, Dwight looked to the worry written all over his godfather’s face. Confirming the gravity of what the aura from earlier in the day had foreshadowed as Dwight’s own brows knitted with a murmur “…that bad?”

Bunching his chin, Irving squeezed his wand between both hands. Speaking in a tone that was clearly managed “…you never made it to fourth period; three tonic-clonics in a row. Nurse Judy had to call an ambulance so Principal Lewis called your dads. Then the last grand mal had got so bad that…” he pressed his wand to his tightening chest “…y-you stopped breathing.”

Dwight lowered his chin, biting down on his lip. Unfortunately (or fortunately,) he had no recollection of this. He did remember being really tired because he couldn’t sleep the night before, and the last he could vividly remember was barely supporting himself against the nearest locker and complaining to Gary that he was going to be sick…then everything went black.

“The only reason you’re not in the hospital is cuz insurance couldn’t cover the cost of keepin’ you there, so I used a lil’ magic to make it safe to discharge you…” Irving rattled on “…your dads didn’t even wanna deal with the ambulance ride, but they had no choice cuz it was an emergency…”

Great, more big bills. As if his dads didn’t already owe the hospital over ten grand as it were. “So…” Dwight lifted his head “…w-where are my dads now?”

“I mean, I don’t even know how the hell we’re supposed to afford all this!”

Dwight slightly shuddered, hearing his pa, Chisholm, shout from down the hall through his closed door.

“Babe, please!” they could hear Dwight’s dad, DeWitt, attempt to reason. “Just calm down!”

“Before or after we go bankrupt?!”

Irving watched as Dwight rose to his feet, fiddling with his long sleeves as he shuffled his feet towards his bedroom door. Twisting the knob to open it ajar as the marital argument ensued in clearer clarity once the door was opened.

“All we ever do is work, and if we’re not working, we got our bosses on our ass because the school keeps calling us about seizures!” Chisholm continued to gripe in frustration. “Dwight practically misses as much school as we miss work! All of which is because your insurance went and changed their fucking policies, so now they refuse to cover even just the antiseizure medication to control them no matter how much we appeal!”

Fretful fingers began to meddle with the medic alert bracelet around his wrist.

“But what if Dwight has another grand mal and it lands him in the hospital again!?” DeWitt argued. “We’re overqualified for Medicaid, I can’t cancel my plan until open enrollment, and you don’t want us applying for other coverage because that would be another premium!” he groaned a sigh in attempts to keep his own nerves calm. “I mean, we could try finding other jobs-”

“With what PTO!?” Chisholm interrupted. “We’ve used it faster than we can accrue it! Job searching would mean pay cuts, which would mean more late fees tacked on top of the late fees we already have on other bills!” The longer he talked, the more his voice broke from the anger of sadness in disguise. “Life just keeps piling shit on top of shit and it’s driving me up the fucking wall!”

Staring at the carpet behind his door still ajar, purple eyes began to glisten with unshed tears behind his glasses.

Irving grimaced at the sight of Dwight choking back sobs, silent tears trickling from his eyes. He hovered to his godchild, lowering a comforting hand to Dwight’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be listenin’ to all this…” he cautioned softly. “C’mon…shut the door back.”

But Dwight flinched his shoulder away from his godfather’s comfort, clutching his medic alert bracelet with internal contempt. He turned his bowed head to the side, refusing to look at Irving’s pout.

The air around him felt suffocating, heavy with an oppressive guilt that clung to every corner. He hated the lack of control, the constant worry from friends and family. The mental and emotional strain of an almost unavoidable burden as chronic as the condition itself…

Another sob of self-hatred hiccupped in his throat. His ‘fits’ made him nothing but a burden. Always had, always will…

In the affluent outskirts of Dimmsdale stood a privately-owned building of brown shingles and white marble walls tall within the groves of large oak trees, surrounded by neat, massive acres of trimmed pasture. 'Fancy Schmancy Country Club' inscribed within the golden plate, mounted high above the double-door entrance behind Corinthian columns supporting the full entablature.

Families and affiliates of Dimmsdale’s 1% were gathered within the grand foyer, surrounding the elderly hosts filling in the space that their late son and daughter-in-law had left behind. The male of the pair had light grey streaks of his age sleeked in even blonde swoops, bristling in his extended goatee. His pastel-lilac button-up was tied with an orchid-purple tie tucked into a Ralph Lauren suit fitted to his heavier set, polished and white complimented with black Oxfords.

Beside him stood his top-heavy love of his life, silky white-gold locks trimmed in a mid-length bob. Freshwater pearls lined the neckline of her Christian Dior vintage dress that looked to be custom made with a synthetic blend of lilac fabric, white Louboutins on her feet and a fresh French manicure modeling the white diamond ringed on her left hand.

Orville Remy Buxaplenty III, or ‘Orvy’ as he preferred to be addressed, and his wife of thirty-eight years, Frances Shand Buxaplenty, had filled gold-plated urns with the ashes of Orville IV and Diana Buxaplenty. They had buried the urns within the plot of land separate from Dimmsdale’s cemetery, specifically and purposefully designated for every Buxaplenty to ever exist, including that of the original Orville Remy Buxaplenty. Due to the poor and unintelligible conditions of the charred bodies left by the aftermath of the private jet’s crash and burn, they were lucky to have ashes to lay to rest.

Upheld fondly by the upper-class elite, the tragic demise of Orville and Diana hit hard for country club members old and new. They were the pinnacle of success, the richest of the rich. They were the standard of wealth that one could only hope to be, and now…they were nothing more than cremated worm food.

Inspections of the plane had found no definitive answer as to how a routine flight went catastrophically haywire, and as much as most of Dimmsdale were aware of, nothing and no one could explain how the richest couple deserved for their lives to be cut short without warning. Moreover, Orvy and Frances were thrusted out of early retirement to keep the family multi-businesses afloat for the sake of the Buxaplenty name. Left to start over in raising their sole surviving grandson who was currently couped in his bedroom.

The sun setting through the window casted warm hues along floors sheened in seafoam marble. Light and dark shades in the finest pistachio green stripes along the walls where a canopy framed creamy-white bedding of the highest thread count, finished in 14-carot gold similar to the nightstand that housed an empty steel ferret cage.

A Hispanic fairy hovered with somber blue-violets facing the setting sun, arms folded reflectively across the chest of his fitted-white tee outlining every one of his muscles. Black hair pulled from his widow's peak into a low pony, blue-violet belt looped around black skinny-jeans tight against his bulging glutes and calves. He sighed quietly as he took in the air’s stillness, alone with thoughts best kept secret. Until he could hear the eleven-year-old billionaire weakly whimper in his sleep.

Due to almost no sleep throughout the week, Juandissimo could see in his ahijado’s bloodshot eyes that he was utterly exhausted. Since his grandparents did not expect new members and the heir’s presence at the country club was not entirely necessary, Juandissimo had suggested skipping out in favor of a nap. A part of Juandissimo had found it troubling when Remy had argued against the idea at first, as if Remy was trying to avoid what his fatigue needed otherwise. In the end, Remy was ultimately too tired to argue further, proven when he was out cold as soon as he laid his head to rest.

Glancing over his shoulder, the fairy godfather pivoted towards his godchild whose head started tossing and turning. Mumbling incoherently aside from the word ‘no’ clear as day, making Juandissimo furrow. He didn’t need a clock to know it’d only been about an hour since Remy had fallen asleep; somniloquy came like clockwork, a symptom of troubled sleep that’d begun well before their return from the Fairy Council’s realm but had notably worsened overtime.

Mumbles grew into wordless groans, once lax features now twisting and bunching. Toss and turns amping from minimal to vehement as his arms and legs kicked beneath the duvet and sheets. Sweat beaded the boy’s forehead within seconds, prompting the fairy to hover over to assess what was happening. Juandissimo lowered a hand to the blonde’s clammy hairline, frowning when he felt his palm radiate with heat as he felt Remy’s skin tremor beneath his palm. As if dread was burning him alive.

Juandissimo then pressed palms tenderly against Remy’s face. “Wake up, Remy…”

But Remy could not hear him as his jerks transitioned into thrashes of terror, his uncontrollable jolts knocking Juandissimo’s palms off his cheeks. His groans grew hysterical, eyes wide shut as his violent stirs kicked off the covers. Flailing clenched fists as if fighting off whatever imaginary foe was attacking him.

Juandissimo managed to duck and dodge the involuntary swings, resorting to shaking Remy’s shoulders as not to hurt him yet in desperation of freeing him from whatever imprisoned Remy's mind.

“Remy, wake up!”

Mint-green flashed in a sharp breath, the chest of his white t-shirt heaving through thunderous beats of his heart hammering between his ears as his panicked eyes darted. Rattled nerves still on overdrive, he swatted at the firm grip on his shoulders. “Get off!”

“Ahijado, it is me!” Juandissimo shook Remy once more with unharmful force, and when Remy’s fear-stricken goggle froze, it finally clicked in that moment that the person holding onto him was not that of his predatory devil, but of his magical angel.

His dire need for comfort threw himself against his godfather as he buried his face into Juandissimo’s chest, clinging to him. In return, Juandissimo cradled him, shushing him softly as Remy mewled pitifully against him.

Juandissimo deepened his frown; he’d never seen Remy so fraught from a dream. Or, from his own experience, a nightmare from Hell.

. . . . . .

Within the affluent outskirts inside the gated community of Dimmsdale Acres lived the once family of five tragically reduced to the family of four. Three members of the Wells, all blonde-haired and blue-eyed, occupied the dining room table. Impatiently waiting for a nine-year-old girl of brown eyes and a head of bushy black curls who was, almost literally, slaving over a hot stove in the home’s luxurious kitchen.

Skin smooth in a rich umber aside from the dark welt of a man’s leather belt to the right of her cheek, her rounded, slightly plump nose and full lips were fixed in a solemn frown as she stirred the creamy concoction of fresh minced onion, balsamic vinegar, and fresh tomatoes bubbling with sweet yet alliaceous aromas. Her cropped hoodie bore a similar scheme to the pink and navy-striped sweater she used to wear, worn over a long white-sleeved shirt with teal denim jeans and purple Chuck Taylors.

As the bottom side of the last grilled cheese left to make finished browning in the skillet beside the pot of tomato soup, perched on the quartzite countertop beside the stove was a ferret with bright-red fur and bright-red eyes. “Are you sure you do not need help, Kakao?” the Kenyan accent of the fairy godmother asked gently; originally concealing her true identity as a mouse, Nyekundu had switched her disguise at her goddaughter’s request.

“No…” Cleaning off excess soup from the wooden spoon by hitting the handle on the pot’s rim, Hazel switched off the heat for both the soup and the grilled cheese when she then stalled in consideration. “Actually…I wish the soup and grilled cheese were served in the dishes.” She spoke indifferently, as though in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Nyekundu raised her sparkling wand, and in clouds of red magic, the three grilled cheese on golden, buttered toast and three bowls of rich tomato soup were all prepped on respective plates and poured inside bowls with silver spoons. Everything organized with full glasses of water on a rounded black tray ready to serve.

“Thank you…” Hazel mumbled, lackluster in her movements as she stepped away from the stove and steadied the tray off the counter with both hands.

The corners of the godmother’s lips pulled down; the bubbly little cocoa drop she once knew seemed sunken, or trapped, rather. Trapped in a dark despair that either stripped her of emotions or caused an endless stream of tears. Then again, reasons to smile came few and far between these days. Particularly due to a certain patriarch on his high horse.

“Jesus, will you hurry up?! You know better than to keep us waiting!” Marcus growled from the dining room, stationed at the head of the table in his stern, rigid posture. Black polo embellished in white Gucci logos paired with beige khakis and black Gucci boots.

His wife, Angela, pressed her tense lips from the other end of the dining table, tan and brown jacquard-knit dress embedded in black Gucci embellishments with ankle Gucci boots similar to her husband’s. Though not a fan of Marcus’s hostility towards their youngest, Angela kept her mouth shut. Like most days, Marcus had been in a nasty mood, hence why they were not currently in attendance at the Fancy Schmancy Country Club.

They’d already clashed three separate times that day in the most mundane of disagreements, and she didn’t want to risk worsening his mood by speaking on his unfavorable behavior. That would just upset him further, and she had little energy for his enmity.

Seated between her parents still wearing her Brightsburg Academy uniform of gold sweater vests and black-pleated skirt, the eldest daughter huffed with arms crossed against her prepubescent chest, unable to stay still as her knee bounced underneath the table. Sheesh, that tar baby got her sitting here starving! How long does it take to boil soup in a pot and throw slices of cheese and bread together!?

After what felt like ages, Hillary’s entire body recoiled at Hazel’s approach, a mixture of hatred and revulsion just at the sight that good-for-nothing swine carrying the tray with a dinner that looked like a blind monkey made it. She fixed her glare as Hazel served her parents first, starting with Marcus whose grimace towards her never wavered.

Hazel kept her eyes averted from Marcus, her skin crawling from the narrowed blue eyes burning with animosity down her neck. Keeping her chin down, she quickened her pace setting his dish with utensils before him to then carry the tray towards her mother who gave a pained grin as her show of gratitude. As for Hillary, when Hazel made her way to serve her last, Hazel hardly lifted the bowl of soup from the tray before Hillary snatched the glass of water, flashing it in Hazel’s line of view.

“Where’s my ice!?”

Stunned only for a second, Hazel struggled with eye contact when she licked her lips and weakly mumbled “…you said you didn’t want ice-”

“That was yesterday, dummy!” Hillary snarked. She shoved the glass to the chest of Hazel’s cropped hoodie, making Hazel step backwards slightly from the small splash of water upon impact. “Get me ice! Now!”

Angela frowned as she watched the little girl take the glass without argument. Dragging her feet, Hazel passed behind Hillary and behind Marcus’s chair, and when she disappeared into the archway, Angela directed slit brows towards her eldest daughter.

“Hillary, how dare you!” she chided before she heard her husband scoff.

“She did nothing but call out such an incompetent mistake!” Marcus lasered his glare, and Angela bit the inside of her cheek.  

Hazel was approached by the red ferret who had jumped off the counter, coming to the much-needed rescue the moment her goddaughter stepped foot back into the kitchen. Try as she might, Nyekundu could not contain the scowl clenching her jaw. If only she could serve those mbwembwe an ass-whooping on a platter without risking the suspension of her license.

Brown eyes moistened as she held out the glass and muttered “I wish this water had ice…”

When the red ferret sparked her wand once more, ice cubes spattered within the water, clinking the sides of the glass.

Hazel sighed, her broken spirit lowering her eyes. “Thanks, Nee-Nee…”

“You should not have to just sit there and take that mess, Hazel.” Nyekundu did her best not to sound too heated. She did not want Hazel to think she was angry with her. “Don’t let them treat you that way.”

Yet Hazel simply turned away from her godmother without another word, returning to the dining room where the patriarch felt the need to sneer a comment that literally no one asked for.

“That was fast. Almost too fast.”

Hazel didn’t bother looking Marcus in the eye. “You wanted me to hurry up…so I did.”

Though her voice was barely audible, she’d been close enough for Marcus to snatch her by the hood, yanking her backwards just as she traveled by his chair. She stumbled to steady footing as he forcibly spun her to face him, his blue eyes bearing into her with the white-hot intensity of 1,000 loathing suns.

“Talkback like that to me again, I’ll tear that black ass up!” he snapped, his tone a whip-crack of fury.

Lips thinned to a straight line, Hazel shuddered from the searing throb in her right cheek. Almost as if Marcus’s threat had irritated the scar left behind from the last time his boiling temper took its anger out on her.

“Marcus!” Angela slammed a fist on the table. Her thin patience had had enough of this nonsense.

Ignoring his wife, Marcus proceeded to snatch the glass from Hazel’s grasp, slamming it onto the table in an audible clink that reverberated through the light quake of plates and bowls. “You know what? You’re done testing me!” his stern finger pointed towards the archway leading into the living room, bearing his fangs. “Go to your room!”

Hazel’s breathing gradually turned shallow, her noticeable gap chewing her bottom lip as tears threatened the corners of her eyes. Pivoting on her feet, she dashed out of the dining room, through the living room, and into the entryway of the grand foyer, rushing up the cream-marbled staircase.

She had to get away while she could barely keep her tears intact. Crying only guaranteed another lashing.

Hazel fled into her room, scurrying to twist the doorknob before she disappeared behind her door, slamming it shut in her upset. Not soon after, a gust of red magic materialized the fairy of a coffee-brown complexion, kinky red curls styled in a fro-hawk with baby hairs gelled down. Hourglass figure showcased in a burgundy short-sleeved jumpsuit belted with dark-green, black and green bracelets cuffed on both wrists with green socks folded over black-leather Madalynns.

“Hazel…” Nyekundu breathed, saddened as Hazel slid down to the carpet with her back to the door. Drawing knees to the ache in her chest as she hid her face into crossed arms, tears now free to flow in hushed sobs.

Days after their only son was laid to rest could his mother and father even fathom opening his bedroom door, no longer able to avoid the weight of cleaning out a room left in the same condition as the day he’d chosen to leave them all behind. While sorting through furniture and personal belongings, Angela had stumbled across a folded note hidden in one of the drawers to the dresser, and when she’d unfolded the wrinkled piece of paper of her son’s suicide letter, her own eyes couldn’t believe what she read.

The contents of the letter were not only telling, but damming, to say the least. Damming not only to himself, but to his nine-year-old sister. He owned up to sexually attacking his own sister, a huge shock for anyone who was not Hazel; however, Anthony had taken victim blaming to a whole other level.

Majority of the blame was placed onto Hazel, accusing her of blackmailing him to ‘give her what she wanted.’ If he didn’t, she’d threatened to tell their parents about what their former nanny was doing to him behind closed doors. Never did he explain how Hazel had found out about Fenwick, nor did he go into explicit details. But his note made sure to highlight how awful it was for him, how awful it was to keep their ‘quality time’ a secret. The shame and regret of doing to his sister what a grown man had done to him…all while he suffered in silence. It ate him up inside, haunted him to the point that he couldn’t live with himself anymore.

Angela had shown the note to Marcus and Hillary upon its discovery, and as expected, steam practically fumed from Marcus’s ears. He’d marched to Hazels room and immediately started grilling into her. Shouting epithets, calling her out of her name. And just when Hillary’s venom couldn’t possibly be more vicious, she’d taken her dead brother’s word and ran with it. Spreading false allegations to everyone and anyone she could at their private school, worsening the harassment Hazel already dealt with on a daily.

From then on, Marcus and Hillary showed no shame in their disdain for Hazel. Treating her less than subhuman without a care for her point of view, her truth, the truth. And Angela, her ‘mother,’ was so consumed by grief that she bothered not to listen to her daughter, no matter how outrageous it is to any sensible human to fathom a little girl coercing a teenaged boy into incestual rape. But while it was clear that the grieving mother did not condone treating a little girl so harshly, she’d often turn a blind eye as to not redirect her husband’s ire onto her.

Only when things went too far or when her complacency did not fear her husband would she intervene. Even then, motherly duties gave Hazel almost little to no protection…

Not even magic could protect her from this Hell.

Chapter Text

Rolling along gravel roads of sectioned trails, a red pickup then pulled to a stop in front of the Flagstaff camper outlined by a soft orangey glow of the sun setting behind it. Deadening the rumbling engine and switching off the bright headlights, he removed the key from the ignition. Garbed in his blue polo and black slacks of Dimmsdale Correctional Facility, he gathered the plastic bags of the 12pc chicken meal that had been riding in the passenger, including the solid black plastic bag from an impulse buy at Dimmsdale Liquor.

Hatted with his Security cap backwards atop his red shag that had grown past shoulder length, he scratched the bottom of his five o’clock shadow now stubby with ingrown hairs as he used his hand to free himself from the truck. Vic had stopped by Chicken Dippin’ Dippadome to grab the family dinner for the night…along with a six pack strictly for himself. What better way to bring in the weekend after a tiresome, grueling week than greasy chicken and alcoholic soda water?

Locking his pickup, Vic climbed the two steps and used his other key on the same fob to unlock the door. Entering the camper, he was met with his eldest niece stationed by the single slide out, her hair the same fiery-red as her uncle tied back into a ponytail. Similarly pink eyes listlessly scanned a teen magazine, both legs crossed atop one of the table booth. Sporting a crop top of pear-green and low-rise skinny jeans in black tucked into black combats.

His youngest sat along the bench seating of worn fabric occupied in her favorite pastime, drawing in her notebook. Raven ponytails French-braided down the back of her head hung loosely from the shoulders of her black sweater vest with a dark-purple shirt of three-quarter sleeves, gray plaid skirt over black tights and black Coda boots. The red blemish between her brows now faded into a light-pink scar, she adjusted her purple specs with her left hand as a black pen sketched with her right hand cuffed in black leather littered with silver studs around the wrist, accompanied by her teal cat nestled comfortably beside her.

Shutting the door with his free hand, Vic glanced over at the eleven-year-old observing Tootie’s drawing from her other side, hair black as night tied in a low pony and capped with a wool beaning a shade of dark-purple similar to Tootie’s undershirt. Only one of her yale-blue eyes was visible through her swooped bang, black-meshed sleeves beneath her now sleeveless grey sweater with a stitched skull in the center tucked behind the buckle of her studded belt looped around raisin-denim jeans. Black leather littered with silver studs cuffed her left wrist, accompanied by a dark-blue raven perched on the armrest closest to her.

As he studied Molly for a moment, Vic still couldn’t figure out how a foster license just seemed to magically appear in his possession; had a social worker actually researched his security guard income and his trailer park living conditions, they’d close his file and turn the other cheek on any other occasion. Additionally, he had no memory of ever applying for a license. He’d been so knee deep in adoption proceedings and court battles with his niece’s parents…maybe, somehow, he had filled out an application and…somehow forgot? Nah…his lawyer would’ve mentioned something that significant.

Even so, he couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful for the stipends; aside from Vicky’s babysitting money, stipends were the very anchor keeping the household funds from going underbelly. Of course, fostering was not just about the money. He was happy to open his doors to a child in need, especially for a friend of Tootie’s.

He had no clue how Tootie ever meshed with a near polar opposite such as Molly; their chance meeting at Wall 2 Wall Mart on a random shopping trip seemed odd in of itself. Admittedly, he’d already known who she was the moment she’d stepped out of the social worker’s car three weeks ago.

He’d recognized her as the same girl covered on the news of when she and some other kids had gone missing, and he also didn’t need to see much of her file to know that her mom and mom’s boyfriend were bad news after seeing news coverage on their prison sentence as well. That said, he did read some of Molly’s file for the educational and medical history on a ‘he should probably know this’ basis, and his heart broke.

All the awful shit she must’ve seen, all the terrible things she’d been through…who was he to turn her away?

Approaching the table booth, Vic carried bags filled with buckets of fried chicken, mash potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, and biscuits. Setting them in front of Vicky who, for a second, looked up to see her uncle.

“What took you so long?” she questioned in a semi-lighthearted tone, folding a corner of the page last read as a bookmark to shut her magazine over.

“Slight detour.” He set the black back next to the other plastic ones, taking out the pack of Budweiser that snatched a certain foster child’s attention from her artsy friend’s drawing.

“Ooooh!” Vicky discarded the magazine on the booth, her intrigue springing towards the six pack that Vic promptly swiped away from her.

“Aht-aht! Five more years for you, missy.” Vic smirked, carrying the six pack straight to the fridge. Unaware of Molly shooting him a watchful stare from the bench seat.

The teenager groaned in her dissatisfied slouch. “Ahh, c’mon! It’s just us!”

“Name one time I let you drink under twenty-one.”

Vicky’s lips caught in a pause. “Well…never. But-”

“And I ain’t finna start now!” bits of laughter softened Vic’s firm tone, Molly’s gaze locked as he shoved the six pack on a bottom shelf of the fridge before he kneeled to punch open the carrier.

“But I’ll be seventeen in two weeks!” Vicky still tried to plead her nonexistent case.

“You realize you’re jus’ arguin’ with ya’self, right?” Vic chuckled lightly, removing a can for himself to set on the nearest counter as Vicky pouted, begrudgingly accepting defeat.

Sticking her pen inside the spine of her notebook, Tootie glanced towards Molly’s narrowed glare. Her brows knitted faintly when she noticed the subtle curl of Molly’s lip. “What’s wrong?” her concern was only heard by the ears of those in her immediate vicinity.

“Nothing.” Molly’s response clipped through gritted teeth, eyes locked on the lone can of Budweiser…Frank’s previous poison of choice.  

“Don’t do that with me.” Tootie pouted, and only then did Molly temporarily snap her gaze towards the fellow godchild, mouth twisted in an involuntary grimace.

 “…sorry.” She muttered, her glare snapping back to the can on the counter. “You just wouldn’t understand.”

“So you won’t even let me try?”

“No.”

Disgruntled, Tootie scrunched her chin. Molly was such a closed book sometimes, and while Tootie understood that Molly had her reasons, part of her had hoped their friendship had reached more personable terms than this.

“Speakin’ of birthdays…” Vic sorted through the upper cabinets for paper plates and plastic cups, briefly grining over his shoulder towards his adopted daughter. “Somebody’s enterin’ double-digits in two days.”

Tootie swallowed and then smiled uncertainly, though her smile faltered as fast as it came. For a child about to turn the milestone age of ten, Tootie had no memories of celebrating her birthday. In fact, the only reason she knew how old she was is because her parents would inform her of her current age around the same time every year.

Her parents had always justified never celebrating her day of birth, citing that it greatly displeased God; evil influences and spirits had the opportunity to attack and steer you towards the path of sin. Birthday candles were believed to be endowed with special magic for granting wishes, and God’s word condemned the use of magic, divination, spiritism, or anything of the sorts.

Servants of God are never depicted as celebrating a birthday, and the Bible presents such celebration in a bad light. In addition, scriptures also noted that the day of death is better than the day of birth, as noted when Jesus’s sacrifice for God’s forgiveness of sins was of higher significance than the day of his birth.

Moreover, birthdays celebrate you, not God. And as witnesses of Jehovah, you are to praise God and give him all the glory…

…in her old life, that is.

Vicky observed her little sister with a thoughtful gaze. When their parents had shoved the entire family into a nontrinitarian, restorationist organization, she had been the same age that Tootie was about to turn. Making her lucky enough to have memories of blowing out candles and receiving presents on her actual birthday…unlike Tootie. Vicky had seen both sides of the coin, experienced both religious and worldly perspectives, but she could imagine the mental and emotional conflict brewing inside for a kid that had been raised one way but was now free to live another.

“We don’t have to do anything extravagant.” Vicky spoke to Tootie, leaving the booth to help her uncle set the dinner table. “Not if you don’t want.”

“Um…actually…” Tootie squeaked, a momentary expression of discomfort crossing her face “…I-I already have plans.”

Giving the plates and cups to Vicky, Vic arched a surprised brow towards Tootie “…do you, now?”

More like she had no choice in the matter; Rose had conspired with the other godparents and their godchildren to plan a small get-together at Fairy Fort on the day of her birthday, and no one was taking ‘no’ for an answer.

“Said plans won’t happen ‘til the afternoon…” Molly interjected drably, wrapping arms around herself as if forming a protective barrier.

“So we could probably do somethin’ that mornin’, then.” Vic surmised, smiling to the soon-to-be birthday girl. “How’s that sound?”

Tootie drummed fingers on her notebook’s surface. She didn’t think she had a choice in this matter as well. “Sure…”

Her muted tone caused Molly to shoot her a curious glance. It almost sounded like Tootie didn’t want to celebrate. In a way, she could relate; no one ever acknowledged her birthday until she’d been granted Swizzle. No one in her life cared, and she had not been made to care for its festive significance.

Once the table was set, Vic called the girls over to join them as Vicky made her way to the fridge for the jug of cranberry juice to serve with dinner. As the godchildren complied and stood from the bench seat, the teal tabby stretched on all fours before leaping off the bench seat to the floor, looking behind her at the dark-blue raven eyeing her from the armrest. Giving a signaling look that the raven acknowledged with a small nod.

With the Byrnes and Molly all seated, the teal tabby and dark-blue raven managed to raise their wands and disappear in teal and dark-blue clouds unseen. Materializing in their fairy forms behind the navy curtain of the bedroom, hovering over the queen bed covered with a duvet of black and white plaid.

“Your godkid doesn’t seem too excited.” Swizzle made astute observation, folding arms across the chest of her dark-green turtleneck sporting short sleeves hemmed loosely over black denim pants footed with black combats. Her indigo curls tied in a low pony tucked behind elfin ears with a puffed bang resting above dark-blue eyes.

Rose scrunched her mouth in thought, fly-like wings protruding from the back of her boysenberry choker halter that was worn over a pink stripped long-sleeve with dark-denim jeans and navy boots. Marmalade-orange curled on her head as teal eyes furrowed. “If I’m honest, I don’t think I expected any differently…”

“Well, we can’t just call the whole thing off.” Swizzle raised her shoulders in her cool remark. “Everybody already cleared their schedules for this.”

“No one said we should do that.” Rose fixed her gaze as her brows knitted. “But now I’m worried about overwhelming her…”

“We already took out the surprise element by telling her about it.”

“I know…” Rose then rubbed her chin. “I should talk to her.”

“To do what? Tell her to buck up and be happy about it?” Swizzle probed with a hint of sarcasm.

“No…to gage her mindset.” Rose clarified. “If I can do that, then perhaps we could make some adjustments if need be.”

“Hey, it’s your call.” Swizzle loosely shrugged, and Rose tilted her head with lips pressed together. Most kids love to feel special on their birthday…but Tootie was not most kids.

An ombre of orangey magenta glistened within the brown shingles roofing the single-story home sided in yellow panels, a gold 1990 Ford Explorer stationed on the short driveway. Sun-yellow walls and olive linoleum of the kitchen surrounded the family circled around the wooden table, steaming bowls of beef stroganoff fresh out the pot and set before them.

The head of the household, Vlad Vladislapov, stirred with his spoon with glossy blue eyes, bushy eyebrows wrinkled in the matching grey shag beneath his boysenberry tom-mix hat. He wore traditional Ustinkistanian boysenberry overalls over a white button up with knee-high argyle socks footed in tan Oxfords.

To Vlad’s left, his wife of forty years scooped a spoonful of beef and noodles, her grey hair tied in a low pony underneath a Viking helmet, skin riddled with wrinkles of both age and stress. Gladys’s lighter-blue apron was tied over a blue, puff-sleeved dress that reached all the way to her grey-wool flats.

To his right, his eldest grandson tore off a bite of beef and fed it to the yellow retriever perched patiently at his feet. Jet-black hair gelled in a Greaser style, Gary’s red leather jacket sleeved his white tee, washed-denim skinnies cuffed over blue timberlands. Baby-blue eyes half covered with black shades propped on the bridge of his nose, buckteeth identical to the pink-hatted boy next to him.

Dark-denim jeans and navy sneakers paired with the hot-pink t-shirt, the tips of Timmy’s brunette shag had grown to reach the top of his shoulders. Arms in a loose fold over his stomach, empty blue eyes stared at the dinner left untouched, lacking any hint of emotion.

As their grandparents ate their dinners quietly, Gary glanced at Timmy who’d hardly reached for his fork, observing his solemn silence. Nothing outside of the norm for Timmy these days, but something felt…darker.

Looking up from his bowl, Vlad studied Timmy’s hollow eyes and the dinner he’d yet to dig into. “Something wrong, Timmy?”

Timmy remained silent, unmoving as though disconnected from the world around him.

Taking this as a sign of disrespect, Gladys creased her brow. “Your grandfather is speaking to you!” she chided, and Timmy finally lifted slow eyes in acknowledgement.

“Not hungry…” he mumbled as if speaking to himself rather than to anyone else.

“You eat now or starve tonight!” Gladys barked an ultimatum, her elm eyes bitter in their glare, and Timmy mustered the energy to give a stone-cold stare.

“Detka, uspokoysya…” Vlad gently coaxed his wife to calm down, noting the rising awkward tension. Yet Gladys’s resentment continued.

“That boy not eat what I cook!” she groused with a finger pointed sternly. “He lucky I even bother including him for dinners!”

Gary saw Timmy’s deepening frown, and while Vlad shot a brief glimpse towards Timmy, he chose to lower his chin, folding his lips.

“My parents are dead in case you forgot…” Timmy muttered, his voice once detached now laced with disdain.

“She was our doch’ first in case you forget!” Gladys fired back, sour in her argument. “But selfish boy like you never think about that!”

Timmy crinkled his nose bridge, gritting his fists as his bucktooth bit down.

“I have empty hole in my heart that grows every passing day without our beloved daughter! Yet I now have to care for an ungrateful bastard that has the nerve to give me lip!” she growled in merciless frustration. “You took our only granddaughter away from us in case you forget that, too!”

Scrunched in his pained grimace, his chair screeched audibly along the limonium tile as Timmy scooted from the table. “I rather starve than keep dealing with this crap…”

“Fine by me!”

Timmy stormed off without scooting his chair in, stomping through the hall into the living room and towards the back door. The door swung before slamming against the wall in his swift exit as Gary looked on, and once his cousin disappeared, confliction lowered his gaze back to his half-eaten bowl before him.

Ever since Timmy had been placed in the custody of his grandparents after the Turners’ deaths, Gary would be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed their grandmother’s persistent animosity. There’ve been days where she could hardly look Timmy’s way without her whole body bristling with unrelenting anger. She’d punish him a lot for the littlest offenses, purposefully denying him of grace and understanding. Outsiders looking in would think a ten-year-old boy was the cause of his own parents’ demise and not some unforeseen car accident.

Vlad had noticed this resentment, too. Unlike Gary’s inferiority to her as her grandson, Vlad would try to meet his wife at her level, extending compassion to her surmounting grief. Sometimes, he’d step in and defend Timmy by calling Gladys out on her behavior. Remind her that he, too, was grieving, but that didn’t mean Timmy deserved to catch the short end.

Adversely, he knew his wife better than anyone; Gladys was as stubborn as an old mule. Some days, his lack of energy would do nothing to stop her tirade. His efforts always ended in vain, anyway.

Blue sneakers stomped along the thick strands of plush grass subtly overgrown throughout the backyard, fenced in by discolored oakwood that’d seen many drops of rain. Approaching near the back corner of the yard where an 8ft x 8ft cube of red cedar walls was roofed in the same brown shingles…the home he now shared with his three magical goldfish.

Yanking on the knob, Timmy charged inside the shed with an irritated slam of the door. The fishbowl on the nightstand next to his single bed quaked upon impact of the reverberating slam as the fairy couple both groaned in their throats.

“Timmy! Not so loud!” Wanda chided as a fairy baby stirred within the bassinet, both hovering near Timmy’s bed. Her fuchsia eyes matched the large swirl atop her head and the curl just above her back, garbed in a plain-yellow tee and black jeans with black block-heel Canyons.

Swaddled in a lavender blanket, deep-lilac eyes flickered as Poof Periwinkle Cosma began to whimper into cranky cries, tucked in the purple mattress of his yellow bassinet inscribed with a bold ‘P’ at the foot.

Dragging fingers down over exhausted eyes of shamrock-green, Cosmo then raked his hands through his green shag, wearing a white button-up collared in a black tie with black slacks and black button-toe shoes. Life with a newborn meant short nights and even longer days, barely functioning off mere fumes.

Wanda scooped her three-week-old son out of his bassinet as he whimpered, far past tired enough to calm himself. Timmy’s guilt frowned, lips downturned from the coil in his stomach.

“…I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, sport…” Wanda sighed, attempting to lull her baby boy back to sleep as she cradled Poof squirming his stubby arms and legs under his blanket.

“No, it’s not!” Cosmo groused, bagged eyes shooting a pointed glare at Timmy “Cuz now we gotta start all over again thanks to you!”

Poof’s whimpers amplified into screeching wails, and shame deepened the knit in Timmy’s brow. Drawing scratchy fingers to his arm, clawing at his skin.

“Cosmo, that’s not nice!” Wanda then scolded her husband over Poof’s ear-piercing cries.

“It already took us like forty minutes just to get Poof down the first three times!” Cosmo griped to his wife. “Then right when he finally falls asleep, Timmy wants to slam the freaking door!”

Timmy’s nails clawed red marks into his arm, tensing his jaw in strain.

Frustrated, Wanda huffed a sigh. “I’m gonna try taking Poof to his room…see if that’ll help.”

Reaching into her back pocket with her free hand for her wand, Poof’s screams silenced in a second’s blink once mother and son vanished into the fishbowl’s purple castle. Ears ringing, Cosmo ran another hand through his shag before he turned to face his godson, noting the fresh deep-red marks that slanted Cosmo’s brow.

“Stop doing that.” he grumbled sharply.

Nails halting in their tracks, blue eyes lifted glumly. “Sorry…”

Cosmo exhaled a long breath, slouching his shoulders. “No, I’m sorry, champ…” he apologized, sounding less irritated and more remorseful. “I just reaaaaaally miss sleep.”

Same…Timmy swallowed dryly, dropping dark eyes to his feet. Poof’s mid-night crying had not been the only affliction denying him of slumber’s peace…

Awkward silence led Cosmo to rub the back of his neck. “Uh…I think…I should go help Wanda.”  

Cosmo fled in a green cloud, leaving Timmy alone within the clutter of the shed. His bed, nightstand, and emptied suitcases were the only personal belongings salvaged from his parents’ house, surrounded with other junk that his grandfather had shuffled and scooted into the corners to make room.

Timmy returned his nails to his arm, the corners of his mouth pulled down as his overbite bit down on his lip. Burns raked his skin, and he winced for only a second. A wave of relief prickled clawed burns numb, surging through his arm as it washed over his body. Heavy spirits lightened with each claw of his nails even as his whole forearm began to pulse red. The more pain he inflicted, the less his soul ached. Muting the voices telling him he was better off dead.

[I’m worried about you, Bubba…]

The concern in his sister’s voice froze him, shoulders hunched with a wrinkled brow. Rarely did he regret his unintended wish of spiritual connection with his late sister…this was one of those times.

“But I’m not hurting anyone…”

[…just yourself…]

Timmy held onto the stinging throb in his red arm, drawing his arm to his chest. “It’s just easier to handle pain when you’re the one hurting you.” he murmured, bereft of emotion. “Plus, it quiets my head…”

[That’s not good, Timmy.] Sophia softly stressed. [You need to talk to Cosmo and Wanda-]

“They already know about my thoughts…” Timmy remonstrated, shamed fingertips clenching the dulled sting in his wrist. “Can’t hide them, remember?”

[Not just that; about hurting yourself…]

Along with wish probation, the Fairy Council had ordained a more permanent deal, and if he were to go against it, would result in the complete and absolute wipe of his memories and the memories of the other godkids. He cannot act on any suicidal ideations and cannot keep those thoughts to himself under any circumstances, so to him, all anyone had to know about were his thoughts, not how he coped with them.

Cosmo and Wanda shouldn’t have to worry about something that wasn’t an active attempt to kill himself. He should be entitled to some secrets, and what they don’t know won’t hurt them. It’ll only hurt him, as it should be.

[Bubba.] Sophia switched gears when audible crunches along the grass could be heard approaching the shed. [Gary’s coming.]

“Great…” Timmy deeply sighed, lowering his red arm to his side as he dragged his feet. Turning the knob and opening the door before his cousin’s raised fist had a chance to knock.

“What do you want…”

Slightly caught off guard, the twelve-year-old stared as his fairy godfather with cool icy-blue eyes and honey-brown skin floated by his side, shoulder-length hair parted down the middle between raven-black and bright-yellow. Muscles protruded through the fitted button-down in gold, buttoned only near where the bottom was 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 as an undershirt where visible dark spots littered his chest in a birthmark.

Lowering his fist from his cousin’s line of view, Gary cleared his throat. “I…wanted to check on you…” he shifted from foot to foot “…y’know…before Alondro and I called it a night.”

Timmy blinked slowly, listlessly. “What for…?”

Planting his feet, Gary’s brow squinted faintly. There was this flatness to Timmy’s eyes. A lack of depth and warmth that he, disturbingly, recognized as if staring into a past mirror “…cuz of what happened at dinner.”

A scoff punctuated Timmy’s sharp breath. “Dude, just don’t-”

“No, Timmy.” Gary interrupted, his tone coming across as if he was atoning for his nonaction. “What babushka said wasn’t cool, and…I should’ve said something…”

He felt his chest tighten, yet he felt devoid of any fire left inside as a deflated sigh escaped his lips. Even if he wanted to be angry, Timmy was in no mood to argue. What was the point? Nothing would change. He’d still be on wishing probation, he’d still be the sole surviving Turner.

And he’d still be nothing but a pathetic burden to everyone around him…

“…goodnight, Gary.”

Killing the conversation, Timmy carefully shut the door in the face of Gary’s downcast frown, and the fairy godfather hovering beside him lowered a consoling hand to his godson’s hunched shoulder.

“Al menos lo intentaste, peque...” Alondro attempted to assure that Gary at least made an effort to reconcile. Yet Gary still felt a fist of regret close over his heart.

Day and night unite in the magical world amongst the clouds, blankets of stars spreading across gradients of indigo and blue. Symbolic, regal colors of taffy-pink, lavender, periwinkle-blue, and turquoise painted the bridge that led to the structure wherein roofs coned in indigo shingles held yellow flags swaying in the subtle breeze atop. These cone roofs hatted the four, statuesque towers framed purple brick walls of yesteryear, and a white star centered the entrance mounted by Greek columns arching the grand central staircase, similar stars lining the purple foundation grounded to the pink, sparkling floor of clouds.

Floating down the lavender walls arched with iris marble and the lavender and white checkered floors of Fairy World HQ, a small fairy with elfin ears and freckles splotching his ivory face fixed lilac eyes on the steaming cup of coffee held tightly, doing his best not to spill the third mug of the day nearly full to the brim. His lavender tunic looped with a black buckle around the waist, white-cuffed sleeves and white-square collar, black fitted tights, and pointy grey shoes appeared stuck in the Middle Ages as his wings traversed towards his boss’s office at the end of the hall.

Binky Abdul had high hopes for a successful acting career in Fairywood, even landing a starring role in his sitcom Leave It to Binky that was unfortunately canceled after one season due to low ratings. However, his low confidence tanked all chances of making it as big as his zappy-driven yet zappyless best friend, Blonda Magnifico. When rejections from multiple auditions, zero callbacks, and insignificant background roles stopped paying the bills, it came time to reevaluate what the heck he was doing with his immortal life.

Thus, his main source of income became acting as the right-hand man to the commander of all fairies, Jorgen Von Strangle. Though, ‘personal assistant’ felt more like a professional word for ‘lacky’ most days than not, at least the steady paychecks kept him just above ‘broke bum.’

Reaching the double doors of the Fairy Commander’s office, Binky steadied the mug with one hand as he gave meek knocks with the other, waiting a couple of seconds before pushing on the handle to float inside. The back of the beige-leather executive’s chair behind the desk faced Binky upon his entry, seeing nothing but the top of Jorgen’s silver flattop. Passing framed photos of the Von Strangle family tree posted on military-green walls, Binky approached the brute fairy sporting a green tank tucked into camouflage pants, steeled-toe combats knee length and littered with spikes equally as spiky as the spiked cuffs around his wrists.

With his grand staff of a giant wand propped beside his chair against the desk, steel-blue eyes glared stern towards the bright row of eight monitors lined before him in rows of two. Clenched jaw protruding his enlarged chin as the smaller fairy cleared his throat. “…y-your dark roast, sir.” Binky squeaked, carefully setting the mug on the desk near Jorgen’s elbow. “No cream and sugar…just how you like it.”

“Thanks.” Jorgen gruffly muttered with eyes fixed on the monitors, uncrossing his arms to pick up the mug between two fingers.

Noting his dour expression, Binky took a glance at the monitors, slightly hesitant to float closer to his boss’s side. Keeping himself at a distance as to not invade personal space. “Um…h-how’s the observation’s going?”

Jorgen simply grunted under his breath, deepening his furrowed brow as he pressed the mug’s rim to his lips. Yet another late night in the office meant another earful from his teeth-collecting wife. The headquarter’s secretary saw him more than she did over the last few weeks, all thanks to the Fairy Council’s coercive authority over him.

When he wasn’t out enforcing Da Rules, his main task was monitoring the godparents and their godchildren of whom the Fairy Council had gotten themselves so invested in. Whatever the reason, there was no point expecting forthcoming explanation from them, so he didn’t bother with interrogation. Still, when being kept in the dark trickled into less answers for his wife’s many questions, it stabbed a thorn at his side.

Continuing to study the monitors, Jorgen slurped the rich notes of velvety java equally as bitter as his mood. What were the Council up to this time…

Chapter Text

Crossed legs hanging off the edge of the examination chair, Chloe shuddered from the icy front of the stethoscope's metal chest piece pressed against her back inside her shirt, prickling goosebumps in her skin. The cool and clinical timber of baritone instructed her to take a big, deep breath, and though the muscles in her chest felt like stretching leather, she pushed herself to inhale through her nose before exhaling through dry lips.

Stationary nearby in a stackable chair with arms crossed tightly against his chest, Clark’s expression was tight with half anticipation and half dread, helpless as the general pediatric practitioner continued his physical evaluation by monitoring the sounds of his daughter’s heart and lungs. Hours prior, Chloe had eventually come to, and though she had kept insisting that she was fine, Clark’s unease of her abnormal episode in the kitchen could only be soothed once she was seen by a medical professional.

White lab coat draped over his blue button up and khakis, Dr. Ward’s age dyed streaks of grey in his chestnut combover as brown eyes studied the subtle stiffness in his patient with every breath she took. As he moved the diaphragm to the sides of Chloe’s ribs, he didn’t need the stethoscope to note the strain in her lungs and the elevation of her heart rate. Even as she sat unnaturally still, he could practically see her heart beating through her chest, as if trying to escape.

"Have these episodes happened before?" Dr. Ward's question was intended more towards the parent than the child.

"No…this is the first time." Clark answered based on his truth, and Chloe bit the inside of her cheek, unsure whether to be forthcoming of her previous seizure-like episode. Fairy Councilwoman Treebelle had called it…'psychogenic'; an overblown panic attack. Overblown, indeed…she had the sore pangs in her chest and the dull ache between her ears to prove it.

"And no other known mental disorders or mental conditions?"

"No, sir."

"I see." Lifting the diaphragm and removing the earplugs of his stethoscope, Dr. Ward scribbled his findings into Chloe's clipboard chart with a pen. "Though not a huge concern, her lab work from earlier came back slightly abnormal in terms of her Hgb and the ketones in her urine…" he then referred to the section of Chloe's chart where Clark had listed her medication history. "Is Chloe still on Lexapro?"

“…she had stopped taking it abruptly a while ago…not by choice.” hesitancy coated Clark’s response, masking the recoil in his stomach. He could recall his late wife coercing their daughter into flushing an entire bottle of Lexapro down the toilet. A mistake that ended up biting both him and Chloe both in the butt.

"Albeit a bit delayed, her seizure could be an adverse reaction to stopping an SSRI cold turkey." Dr. Ward diagnosed based on educated guess. "Due to the extremity of Chloe's anxiety, I highly advise placing her back on medication, if not Lexapro."

Clark scrunched his lips together, and Chloe couldn't speak through the lump in her throat. Just hearing the word 'medication' felt like a sucker punch to the gut.

The side effects are so egregious; they would just make things worse!

…maybe her mom had a point. When did meds ever make things better?

"Does Chloe attend regular sessions with a child psychologist?" Dr. Ward's question made Clark shift uncomfortably in his chair.

"Life sort of got in the way…"

"Therapy coupled with medication may eliminate the chance of her seizure happening again, which, I presume to be non-epileptic." Dr. Ward advised, writing more notes into Chloe's chart. "Of course, you could air on the side of caution and have her PCP order an MRI just to check for abnormal brain activity but…otherwise, Chloe seems to be in pretty good physical health overall."

While Clark's shoulders could relax for the first time in hours, Chloe's brows tipped up.

"I'm going to print a copy of her evaluation, and then you'll be all set."

Clark watched Dr. Ward excuse himself out of the examination room, and once the door was shut, Clark turned his gaze towards Chloe's fingers bunching the hem of her dress.

"…what do you think?" he spoke in a tone that seemed to also question himself. "About…going back on medication?"

Thinning her lips with eyes downcast, stress lines formed across her forehead. Chloe could only muster the meek voice to mutter "…I know what mom would think…"

Clark let out an exhale that carried the weight of not only his sadness, but his guilt. Left as the sole provider, he did what he could, and he knew that was no excuse. Juggling a million plates at once had inadvertently came at the cost of not addressing just how sick his daughter truly was…

As a Carmichael, he had failed.

Standing from his seat, he approached his daughter. He kneeled to her, and her fretful blue met his solemn hunter-green. "Chloe…" he spoke gently. "…everything your mother has ever said about you, about your anxiety…is not true."

Confliction furrowed in her brow.

"She would have never told a cancer patient to just get over it, or a person with a leg broken in five places to just stand up and walk…" Clark continued, the assurance etched in his brow also coating his words. "She had no right to say nothing is wrong with you, because it's been so clear that you're not okay..." his expression softened "…you never really have been…"

Her head bowed diffidently, bunching more fabric of her dress into a crumpled wad.

"I know I was ignorant before, just like your mother…" guilt briefly diverted his eyes "…but I'm not anymore."

Ever so carefully, he drew her from her own troubled mind by taking her hands to cup between his palms, and this prompted trepid eyes to look on to his gazed fixed in genuine compassion. "I know now that mental illness is very much real." He took a long, steadying breath. "Your brain is sick, and we both need to start treating it as such."

In her contemplative stare, the center of her brows twitched subconsciously. Echoes of negative, destructive thoughts flooding her headspace, blurring the line between her own self-deprecating beliefs and her mother's haunting hurl of insults.

She could remember all the times she was unseen, unheard. All the times her pain was invisible to them, all the times she was left to put a band aid on a gunshot wound. She could remember wanting so badly for her parents to see the crush of their unrelenting pressure, to see the glue of sanity barely holding all the shattered pieces of her spirit together. Her mother never bothered to understand…

Then there was her father; had his mind remained closed, he would have chided her for being so dramatic as she shook uncontrollably on the floor. Instead, he took no chances and rushed her to the hospital. He showed such concern, expressed such compassion…

Compassion she felt undeserving of.

Father and daughter turned their heads towards the clink of the door's handle opening as Dr. Ward returned. Releasing Chloe's hands, Clark returned to his feet as the GP approached with a copy of Chloe's paperwork.

"Here you are." the GP handed the papers to Clark with a professional grin as Clark accepted the papers with a simple thank you. "And this," reaching into his pocket, Dr. Ward warmed his smile as his hand revealed a pink lollipop, holding it out within the young patient's reach "is to help little miss feel better."

At first, Chloe was frozen in her stare, the gears in her mind spinning in attempts to process how a lollipop could fix all the many things wrong with her. Sugary candy can't cure a sick brain. But then, she blinked in a subtle jerk when she felt a fatherly hand brush the back of her hair, looking to her father's comforting smile that nodded for her to accept the thoughtful sentiment of the gesture.

Apprehensively, Chloe reached with meek fingers, accepting the lollipop as she squeaked "…t-thank you…"

First rays of Saturday sunlight shone softly, parting cotton curtains of white clouds. At just 7:30 am, the large ship of the Buxaplenty mansion was alive with its crew members already busied in their respective morning duties. Maids dusting and cleaning, butlers running mundane errands and overseeing the chefs in the kitchen, guards securing the property, and other hired staff doing their part to keep the ship afloat.

The captain, Orvy, voyaged into the foyer, passing underneath the silver chandelier with his traveling mug of dark roast as the captain's wife, Frances, came into view, exiting the formal dining room into the grand hall.

"Good morning, my dear." he greeted the love of his life with a fond smirk. His day had started well before Frances couped in his home office, going over what was left on the to-do list to complete for the country club's special event that evening.

"Good morning, my love." she smiled, heels clacking across the sheen of checkered white and grey tile towards her husband. Meeting him in the middle, she held out the hand ringed with the band of their union, and just as he'd done since the day they'd first met, he gently took her fingers and gave the back of her hand a short yet saucy smooch.

"Have you seen Remy?" Orvy thought to ask, and Frances coolly huffed as she took back her hand.

"I'm afraid not; he has yet to come down for breakfast." Frances reported. "The last I saw him was the last you saw him; yesterday after school."

"There is no plausible way that this behavior of his is normal." Orvy opinioned, having taken note of how often their grandson isolates himself since becoming his legal guardian. Sure, their full schedules kept them busy, but it would sometimes be a full day before they'd catch a second's glimpse of Remy passing by. Almost as if he had no intentions or expectations on being seen.

"Well, he won't have the luxury of being a hermit today." Frances remarked, handing her cocked hip. They were expecting two extremely special gusts for tonight's event, and it was important for all Buxaplentys to be active and welcoming hosts.

They had a reputation to uphold.

Meanwhile within the confines of a young billionaire's bedroom, the Hispanic fairy hovered above with arms folded. Facing the godchild slouched on the edge of his queen bed, rubbing at baggy eyes that took more effort than it was worth to keep them open. Remy had jumped out of his sleep throughout the night which, admittedly, worried the godfather greatly.

"These nightmares have been happening more times than I like…"

Though there was an empty distance in his stare towards the floor, Remy proved his mind was still present when he muttered "I know…"

"And only you know the crux of what troubles you…" Juandissimo probed from a place of concern, and Remy lifted his flat brow to his godfather.

"My parents are dead and that creep's gone from my life..."

"That does not mean you have no wounds."

Slitting between his brows, contempt pursed Remy's lips. "You're saying I'm damaged?"

"I am saying that these nightmares may stem from trauma stress." Juandissimo ensured to tread lightly.

"Traumatic stress…" Remy tapped his chin with a diverted gaze, recalling where he'd heard that term used before. "As in…post-traumatic stress?" he looked back up to his godfather. "Like what Gary has?"

"Potentially…"

With little energy to refute, Remy slouched further as rigid arms crossed over his lap. “I guess…” he huffed sullenly. Unwilling to grapple nor disclose the truth of his nightmares of which…were not just nightmares. He was highly aware of his mind manifesting just how much it hated him, torturing him with reoccurring recollections from the depths of horrid memories once stored deep below…dragged back to the surface.

Memories from when he was much younger, much weaker. Trapped in his eight-year-old self, vividly facing the living-room fireplace. Cuddling on a white, Victorian couch beneath a wool blanket with the nanny he used to trust…

A nanny that was not only much younger at the time…but much, much stronger.

The dark-blue raven had perched herself along the slim section of the rustic counter next to the black makeup bag, watching her godchild lean on her toes over the rounded sink chipping at its ceramic coating. Looking at her reflection slightly fuzzed by dirty streaks and dried splashes, Molly used the mirror to apply her eyeliner on the lids of her heather eyeshadow, already dressed for the day.

"How ya like it here so far, kid?" Swizzle made conversation as her godchild steadied her eyeliner pen.

"Kinda cramped…" Molly drew a finishing black streak along her lid, evening out any uneven lines.

"Yeah, but…still a step up from a group home?" Swizzle tried.

Planting her feet to the tile in a momentary break, Molly wrinkled her brooding chin. She had other grievances, but she didn't want to sound ungrateful. Instead, she leaned back on her toes, moving on to line her other eye. "Sure…"

Dressed in her oversized black tee with a skull and crossbones, Vicky reset the bench seat that had been jackknifed into a two-person bed she shared with her uncle, waiting on Molly to finish freshening up so she can take a much-needed shower. Chet Ubetcha reported the morning news as TV background noise while Vic poured his brewed dark roast into his mug filled with a sugar and two creams, still lazing in his KISS band tee and blue-and-white plaid pajama pants.

"Hey, Vicky…you babysittin' today?" Vic used a plastic spoon to stir his coffee, leaning his back against the edge of the counter.

"I would, but I chose to take the weekend off." Vicky replied, folding the bedsheet and mattress sheet.

"Ah…" Setting the spoon back on the folded napkin beside the coffee maker, Vic then took four steps across to take a seat at the table booth, facing the TV as he looked in Vicky's direction. "Well…I was thinkin'…" he paused to sip his coffee. "How 'bout…startin' Tootie's birthday a lil' early and makin' a day out of Mike E. Mozzarella's?"

Folding the last crease into the bedsheet, she gazed at him quizzically. "…for real?"

"Yeah…" he shrugged casually. "Get us all out tha house for a bit."

"…I hear that place is like, really loud and crazy crowded. 'Specially on weekends…" Vicky commented, keeping her sheltered little sister in mind. "You think Tootie'll like it?"

Considering Vicky's slight apprehension on the idea, Vic drummed pensive fingers along the sides of his mug. "We can always leave if it gets too much, but it'd be nice for her ta be a normal kid, for once…"

Behind the navy curtain blocking off the bedroom that the younger girls now shared, the teal cat was nestled atop the black-and-white plaid of the duvet. Watching the raven-haired girl seated on bent knees as she brushed out both sections of her middle part with a soft paddle brush through the wished-up mirror mounted on the nearest wall.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about, sweetheart?" Rose asked courteously. Seeing as how they had the room to themselves, Rose figured now was a good time to pick her godchild's brain.

Quietly brushing out tangles in her hair, Tootie simply shrugged.

"…what about your birthday tomorrow?"

Lowering the brush to her side, Tootie then fingered through the section of her hair that she would not be working on, twisting it and using a hair clip to tie it out of the way "…what about it?"

"Are you excited?"

Splitting a section of her untied hair in the front, Tootie shrugged again.

"Does something about it bother you?"

Starting her French braid by grabbing hair to add with her tuck strand, Tootie repeated the process with the other two strands of her part. "The whole idea just feels weird…"

"Why is that?"

"I dunno…" Tootie brunched between her brows in a subtle frown "…I don't like a lot of attention on me…"

"I know, but it's your special day! The anniversary of your arrival into the world." Rose tried, hoping she wasn't coming off too pushy. "A reminder that you've made it another year, through all the hardships."

Continuing her braid past her left ear, Tootie worked her way down the length of her hair. "I still don't get why it has to be this big thing…"

"Because you get to celebrate with the people that love and care about you."

With no more hair to add, Tootie began braiding the rest of her hair as a normal braid as a knot of discomfort tightened in her stomach. Was her birthday even worth celebrating? She’s gone this long without making one day of the year some big spectacle…why start now?

In the line of view through the mirror, Rose furrowed when she noticed the subtle downturn of Tootie’s lips “…do you not want to celebrate?”

Hearing her godmother’s disappointment, Tootie grimaced involuntarily, hesitant in what to say that would not make her sound ungracious. Reluctant to state her qualms as to why birthdays are not as special as everyone makes them out to be. “I know you want me to feel special, and I appreciate that. It’s just…” she let her tight braid loosen when her fingers let go, the deepness of her frown dimpling her chin through the mirror towards Rose.

“…aren’t you worried about me getting older?”

Crestfallen, Rose's lips pulled down at the corners. "Of course, I am…" she admitted honestly, but after a breath, sadness mustered a weak grin "…but I can't stop you from growing up."

Purple eyes drooped glumly.

"You shouldn't worry about that right now, anyway." Rose attempted to steer the conversation back in a more uplifting direction. "We have a loooooooong time before we'd have to cross that bridge."

Lips pressed tightly, Tootie's dire need for distraction returned to tightening her braid. Yeah, sure, it's not like she was turning eighteen tomorrow. That felt like lightyears from now. Still...she wasn't getting any younger. She knew that every year added to her life only subtracted the time she had left with her beloved godmother…

Drawing closer to losing Rose forever.

Shamrock-green fluttered as they blinked, squinting in their adjustment to the dim ambience of darkness. At first assuming it was still night, a tiny spark in the back of his mind remembered the lack of windows along the walls. Blinking a few more times before the blurry haze disappeared from the purple bricks facing him, his arms poked from beneath the artistic swirls of sage green and salmon pink of the duvet. Stretching out the stiffness from one of the hardest sleeps of his life, sleep that was totally needed.

Green shag messy and disheveled lolled off his right side against the soft plush of his pillow, rubbing the last of slumber from his eyes before he blinked a few more times towards the white frilly overhang of the yellow canopy. Duvet still drawn across his bare chest, his head tilted to the right, catching a glimpse of the framed photo propped on his purple nightstand. A photo of their older son seated in a chair with a small smile to the bundled ball cradled in his arms, the day their newborn was finally strong enough to be taken out of the incubator.

Cosmo reached for the photo for a closer look, taking the time to admire the first brotherly moment between human child and fairy baby captured on camera. The first of many, he hoped, as a weak grin lifted in his cheeks before lowering the photo carefully next to his wand atop the nightstand’s surface.

Shifting to his other side, Cosmo blinked again as he laid eyes upon the angelic beauty sound in slumber. Rosette curls lolled to one side, a rhythmic rise and fall in her chest with each rhythmic breath through parted lips. The serene sight curved a wider grin across his face, but when it took all of five seconds to spot how even her dark circles had bags beneath her eyes, his grin withered in a soft sigh.

It was a dead giveaway; she'd been up all night with Poof…again. They normally alternated in shifts, but she must've taken it upon herself to turn off all of his alarms and bear the brunt of nighttime diaper changes and bottle feedings on her own.

Taking in the still silence, he quietly observed his wife. His finger itched to caress her cheek, yet he restrained himself from disturbing her with a small pout in his bottom lip. He hated when she did that, though he understood why. When he's tired, he's cranky, and when he's cranky, he's not very pleasant. Perhaps it was his snappiness with Timmy yesterday that'd given it away...

He hated himself for that.

The fairy couple were both off duty, which meant no magic build up while Timmy's probation prevented him from making wishes for two months. Adversely, Cosmo was left without the mate to his soul while she recovered from her cesarean, leaving him to figure out how to alleviate Timmy's dark moods all by himself without magic. The hardest part was during the Turners' funeral; no amount of hugs of comfort, words of encouragement, an ear to listen, no amount of effort could make his godchild crack even one smile. 

He’d assumed that once Wanda healed enough, they could put their heads together on what would be best for Timmy in his time of need. But when Wanda and Poof were discharged from the hospital, the first-time parents hit the ground running. With no guard rails of hospital staff to fall back on, they became solely responsible for keeping their little miracle alive. All the advice books in existence couldn’t have possibly prepared them on how to care for a little ball of unpredictable magic that was not only completely dependent on them but had no capacity to care about the struggle of balancing their own needs with the demands of parenthood.

As if to prove this as fact, whimpers of the baby monitor cut through the silence from Wanda’s nightstand, whiny stirs buzzing in the compact speaker beside a framed photo of a baby’s stubby fingers held by a child’s palm. However, just as the fingers placid against her pillow twitched, Cosmo rushed to reach over and grab the monitor, pushing the off-switch right before whimpers amplified into full blown cries.

He feared she might have woken up anyway when her body stirred beneath him, his heart thumping as she faced away from him and towards the nightstand that his heated palm held the baby monitor above. When she shifted onto her other side and her shoulders returned to small ebbs and flows under the covers, Cosmo exhaled a quiet sigh of relief.

Slow in his float out of bed sporting white pajama pants, he kept a watchful eye on his sleeping wife as he reached for his wand. Trying his hardest not to make too much noise as his fingers fumbled before they found their grasp around the wand's stem. Monitor still in hand, he figured he should take it with him. That way, Wanda doesn't wake up, and he doesn't forget to turn it back on. Wanda had nearly ripped him a new one the last time he did something that stupid…

Giving one last glance at his wife, his wand poofed him away in a cloud of green.

The walls were vibrant in an explosion of a colorful cosmos, a collection of white stars swirling within aquas, purples, pinks, and yellows among the backdrop of indigo. Floor fluffed in carpet of the lightest lavender, helpless cries of a baby wailed from the yellow crib centered in the room among the changing table, clothes hamper, rocking chair, and a glowing nightlight the shape of a crescent moon.

Windy static of the white noise machine beside the crib did little to sooth the large droplets streaming from deep-lilacs, flushed in his heated cheeks as his little arms and legs squirmed and flailed for immediate attention. Walls vibrating from throat-scratching screeches, nicknacks of toys and various stuffed animals hovered from the ground. Surrounding the crib as if summoned in an unintended séance.

A puff of green entered the nursery, and Cosmo gasped in a panic. “Poof, it’s okay! Daddy’s here!” Cosmo pleaded as he zoomed to the crib, shoving the baby monitor into his pocket before reaching down to scoop his son by his armpits. “Please, stop crying!”

Screeching cries quieted to trembling sniffles in a finger snap. Vibrations in the walls settled, and the séance of toys and stuffed animals dropped like dead weight in scattered heaps along the ground.

Holding his son with outstretched arms, Cosmo blinked slowly in his surprise. "Wow, that was easy."

Shifting to cradle his son with one arm, watery eyes gazed innocently at his father as Cosmo began soothing his pouty fusses with gentle bounces. "Yeah, see? It's okay…" Cosmo cooed, brushing a soft thumb to wipe away drying tears. Poof squirmed at his touch and turned his agitated frown away, on the verge of kicking up a fuss all over again when Cosmo held his wand and materialized Poof's bottle directly into his mouth.

Brows shot up in surprise, Poof's expression soon settled into a state of content as he sucked away at his formula. Cosmo steadied the bottle between two fingers to avoid potential choking in Poof's ravenous feeding, and a warm smile beamed, proud of himself for correctly guessing what his son needed.

As his newborn son slowly satiated his hunger, his godson grimaced from the ferocious growl of his empty stomach, a brutal reminder of skipping out on last night's dinner.

Knees bunched to the chest of his pink pajamas, Timmy squeezed his eyes as another furious rumble gurgled through the quiet. Resisting the itchy urge to scrap his nails at his arms to sooth his mental pain as well as the physical twinge twisting his stomach. He could call on Cosmo and Wanda’s aid, but it’s not like he’d be able to wish for anything. Besides, if they weren’t out of the fishbowl by now, they were probably busy with Poof.

Hollowness ached in an all-too familiar void in his chest. No use disturbing them for his sake…

A shiver shot through his spine when unexpected knocks startled him like loud bangs behind the shed's door. "Yo, Tim, time for breakfast."

"'Kay…" he grumbled in acknowledgement to his cousin's announcement, scrunching his chin when his stomach responded with a growl more boisterous than the last. Shifting from the shelter of his bed to find a coat to throw on over his pajamas (putting on clothes without magic was such a chore,) he reconciled with himself. Maybe if he just kept his head down, Grandma Gladys won't be such a colossal she-devil. Then again, all he had to do was blink for her to breathe fire down his neck…

Shoving bare feet into blue sneakers next to his bed, Timmy shoved arms into his pink winter coat before trudging to the headboard of his bed to grab his signature pink hat. Sluggish fingers combed his wild shag with little effort and tamed it with his hat. Pivoting, drab feet dragged him towards the only entrance and exit.

[Aren't you gonna tell Cosmo and Wanda you're leaving?] Sophia asked when she noticed Timmy give no announcement of his departure to the occupants of the fishbowl.

"I'll be back before they even realize I'm gone…" Timmy groaned with one hand in his pocket as the other unlocked the door, and without a second glance, exited the shed and carefully shut the door from behind.

Chapter Text

Paws in a lightest double-coat of long, golden fur followed alongside its owner's pink Chuck Taylors traveling along the sidewalk of the quiet, suburban neighborhood. Sniffing the concrete with its black nose as its heterochromia gaze of cocoa brown and periwinkle-blue searched the unfamiliar path in explorative curiosity. Crisp, blue denim traveled in hurried yet casual strides, layered with a pink letterman jacket sporting white sleeves over an ironed white tee. Focused eyes of baby-blue scanned the map in one hand with the handle of a leash in the other, chin dimpled and stubbed in brunette facial hair. Brunette taper shortened and slicked back, biceps as brawny as his pecs.

The Dimmsdale University Freshman slowed his pace when his eyes lifted from the map to check his progress, spotting the gold 1990 Ford Explorer parked on the short driveway of the one-story home. Observing the yellow-painted panels and brown-shingled roof trimmed in white and windows lined in the same dark wood that arched the front door, double checking that the house number corresponded with the destination circled on his map.

"Looks like this is it…" he breathed to himself. Verifying that this was indeed the right house, he gave a short tug on the leash connected to his dog's blue collar, veering his golden retriever off the trail they'd been traveling since they'd hopped off the city bus a few blocks back. "C'mon, Buddy."

Panting his tongue, Buddy obeyed and followed his owner along the rocky pathway towards the front porch paved in stone. The college freshman praised his good boy with positive affirmations as he traversed the small steps and approached the front door. With the unknown behind that single door, he inhaled a calming breath when a sudden wave of nerves surged. No matter how many times he'd imagined the interaction in his head on repeat, he knew nothing could ever prepare him for coming face-to-face with the biological family that he'd only read about from non-detailed descriptions.

He folded his map to tuck back into the pocket of his letterman jacket, and with another bracing breath, he pressed the doorbell that rang out behind the walls.

“I’ll get it.” Gary announced, having reentered the house from the backyard with his yellow retriever by his side. He was still on his feet and was just about to join his grandfather who was already seated at the kitchen table with his morning newspaper. Pausing mid-stir, his grandmother turned off the burner simmering the pot of buckwheat kasha, peering nosily at Gary unlocking the multiple bolts to the front door.

Once he pulled the door open, Gary laid goggling eyes on the teen towering over him in the doorway. Caught off guard by the immediate observance of the strange yet striking resemblance to his younger cousin, as well as the uncanny physical similarities to that of his late father…

"Hey there, little man." The teen spoke smoothly, friendly in his smile a contrast to the scolding glare Gary remembered of his father. "Is this still the residence of Vlad and Gladys Vladislapov?"

Disguised in his yellow retriever form, Alondro noticed his golden counterpart wag his vigorous tail with a panting tongue, as if to practice restraint from giving his own greeting in that of a slobbering tongue to the face. All the while, Gary stood stunned in silence, forgetting how to speak as a hitched breath caught in his throat.

"It is." Vlad scooted and used the edge of the table to support himself out of his chair, wanting to be courteous yet cautious of the unexpected stranger who suspiciously knew his and his wife's full names. "Who are you?"

The freshman gently patted Buddy on his backside, signaling the excited hound to settle down on his hind legs. "My name is Thomas T. Turner, but you can call me Tommy."

"Turner…?" Vlad repeated slowly, dumbfounded.

"Yessir." Tommy confirmed in the same moment that the backdoor swung open and the last resident of the home entered. The pink-hatted boy entering inside the home went unnoticed as his cousin and grandparents were too gobsmacked to notice anything outside that of the stranger and his dog.

"All Turners except one are dead." Gladys firmly remarked, now standing next to her husband in a resolute stance. "You are no Turner; it impossible!"

"It is possible, ma'am." Tommy kept his tone polite. In spite of the distrust he could sense from the elderly couple, it truly captivated him how much of himself he saw in them both. "Please, I can explain…may I come in?"

"…who the heck are you?"

Tommy, as well as the Vladislapovs, all redirected their attention upon hearing another presence in the room, turning to Timmy's guarded stance in the archway of the kitchen. With blue eyes narrowed, Timmy grimaced at the stranger. Yet despite the subtle sneer in the boy's upper lip, Tommy's smile brightened towards the boy that he, judging just off looks alone, undoubtedly shared blood with.

"Hey, there." Tommy waved warmly, barely able to contain the smile that stretched ear to ear as he beamingly announced "I'm your big brother."

Utter confusion replaced skeptical contempt as Timmy's baffled eyes bulged.

. . . . . .

The atmosphere in the living room felt clouded in obscurity, to say the least. Obscure in that Tommy's revelation of his relation to Timmy sent boggled minds whirling with a flurry of questions. Was it true? Did Susanne have a secret child? How did she manage to hide this child, and why did she take this secret to her grave?

Nestled on all fours, the yellow retriever stayed near his godchild who occupied one side of the couch with legs hanging off the edge. Gary eyed his cousin beside him with folded lips, attempting to guess through Timmy's bunched brow what could be buzzing in his mind. It was easy to assume, however, that Timmy was just as lost as he was. And it was likely that, just as he did, Timmy questioned why there'd been no mention of this 'older brother' prior to now.

[Mom and Dad never said anything about Tommy, and I had no idea he ever existed.] Gary and Timmy heard Sophia speak in their minds simultaneously, well aware of their confusion. [It’s like he just came out of nowhere…]

Both cousins exchanged skeptical glances. If Tommy came out of nowhere, then was ‘Thomas T. Turner’ even his real name?

Calm and collected, Tommy held his blue gaze on his maternal grandfather tense in his beige recliner as his maternal grandmother stood beside the armrest, their fixed stares studying every inch of him like an unknown specimen. In attempts to make an awkward situation less awkward, Tommy reached to scratch behind Buddy's ear, and Buddy expressed his gratitude with an excited panting tongue. No one has uttered a word nor had his grandparents stopped staring since inviting him inside. Though, given the circumstances, he couldn't necessarily fault them.

After minutes passed by like hours, Gladys had no idea where to start but to ask "…how old are you?"

"Eighteen." Tommy replied, using one palm to brush the top of Buddy's fur. "Born Summer of '84."

Doing the math in her head, Gladys then furrowed her brow to her husband. "Susanne not pregnant in college, was she?"

"That escapes me…" Vlad woefully shook his head. It could be his memories failing him in his old age, or it could simply be that he somehow hadn't paid that close of attention during the brief period Susanne returned home after graduating from university. But how in the world would he have not noticed that type of change in Susanne's appearance? Not even baggy clothes could conceal Susanne's pregnancy with the twins; then again, no one had known she was having twins until their birth.

Gladys then returned her studying gaze to Tommy. "Who is your father?"

Seeing as how he was right next to him, Timmy noticed Tommy twist his lips and squint his brow as if such a question stabbed him straight in the heart. But the unease in his expression came as a mere twitch before he exhaled the one name no one could've seen coming "…Sheldon Dinkleberg."

Timmy gaped in disbelief. No way…Sheldon Dinkleberg?! His old, religious freak of a neighbor!? But the Dinklebergs didn't have kids! He remembered that distinctly, because that was another grievance his father always harbored against him. The neighbors had all the money in the world because they didn't have a kid to suck them dry…

"Sheldon…" Gladys murmured to herself, her husband equally as stumped.

Sensing their confusion, Tommy filled in the blank with "Mom's ex-boyfriend."

"The only boyfriend I remember Susanne having is Daran." Vlad remarked, prompting Tommy to ease his nerves with another deep breath.

"Mom had rather Sheldon be but a distant memory…just for him to become her neighbor." Tommy muttered, his posture tense. The first expression of any negative emotions since his arrival. "He was horrible to her…verbally abusive unlike no other…" his chin bunched tightly. "And he would force himself on her…so much so that he never realized he'd gotten her pregnant before he'd joined those Jehovah Witnesses."

Listening intently, Gary slanted his brow as Timmy's squint eyed his 'brother' for any signs of fabrication.

"She refused to join that group with him, so he broke up with her…" Tommy could feel his mouth drying from the bitter taste he couldn't swallow. "He just…cut her off like she meant nothing to him..."

As the gears in Vlad's mind struggled to process this information, Gladys remained unconvinced as she asked "…how we trust you not making this up?"

Taking a pause from brushing Buddy's fur, Tommy dug into his pocket to retrieve a crinkled letter stained with age, holding it unrhetorically towards Gladys. "This is the very letter handwritten by your daughter almost nineteen years ago."

"Chto…?" Almost taken aback, Gladys pushed through her apprehension to approach and take the letter for herself, to see if Tommy's story checks out with her own eyes. She unfolded the piece of paper, and it only took reading the very first To whom may find this in the top left corner for her to bring a hand to the tiny yet prominent quiver in her lips as a small sob escaped.

"V chem delo?" Vlad questioned his wife's glossing eyes, catching the almost immediate switch in her demeanor.

Inhaling a shaky breath, Gladys turned and leaned for them to read the letter together, and as Vlad reached inside the pocket of his overalls to takeout his reading glasses, a breath of disbelief murmured "O, Bozhe moy…"

From the smooth, consistent spacing of the letters to the rounded, feminine touch to the cursive print, the content of the letter was in fact written by none other than Susanne Turner. And in the content of the letter, everything Tommy had revealed about Sheldon, about his verbal abuse and having his toxic way with Susanne resulting in an unplanned pregnancy…was not weaved in falsehood.

Half of his attention on the unraveling mysteries of Tommy, the other half of Alondro's attention was on the locked, trancelike stare of brown and periwinkle-blue. Unblinking and unwavering, as if Buddy knew more about him than he knew about Buddy. The fur in his nose crinkled at the surge of chills in his spine, raising his fur. Unnerved from the bizarre yet almost otherworldly aura radiating from Buddy's otherwise gentle core. An aura seemingly invisible to nonmagical beings.

Gary happened to glance in Alondro's direction, noticing yellow paws take tentative steps backwards as he whispered "What is it, Londro?"

Alondro failed to respond, bending his head with drooping ears as Buddy's black nose' began to sniff with eyes locked solely on the fairy godparent. Then, in a finger's snap, Buddy shot to all fours as woofs boomed like gunshots from his throat.

The younger boys jerked and the elderly couple shuddered as Buddy's barks bellowed in close secession, planted back paws barely preventing front paws from jumping up and down. Though Buddy's fluffy tag flailed boisterously with comradely intentions, Alondro's unsettled reflexes warned Buddy to keep his distance with a snarling growl.

"Buddy! Sit, boy!" Tommy was stern in his instruction, circling arms around Buddy's body in attempts of restraint. Buddy kept barking as Alondro continued to growl, leading Gary to act and deescalate.

"Londro, it's okay…" Gary tried, pressing gentle palms beneath Alondro's chin and behind his crown. This seemed to work when Alondro ceased growling, though the deep slits between his brows remained fixed on the fellow canine.

Confused as to what had made his godfather so tense out of nowhere, Gary shot a glance at the golden retriever subdued by his owner's arms, loud barks gradually beginning to quiet into playful whines. There was this spirited yet soulful sparkle in those pathetic eyes that felt…familiar.

"Good boy…" Tommy praised when Buddy finally calmed, combing fingers through his fur in appreciation of his obedience. That aside, he found Buddy's behavior peculiar; rarely did he bark at other dogs so vigorously.

"How you find us?" Gladys chose to pivot back to the circumstance at hand, returning the handwritten letter to Tommy who accepted it with one hand. He kept hold of Buddy with the other just to avoid another rowdy outburst.

"On my seventh birthday, Mom wrote me another letter that included your address." he informed. "In that letter, not only was she now married…but pregnant again. And she told me that if anything were to happen to her or her husband, she wanted me to come find her parents so I can meet my baby sister…" he tilted his head towards the distrusting frown of his younger brother, chuckling sheepishly. "You're definitely not a sister."

Grimacing, Timmy snarked "That's cuz I'm not, genius."

"Bite your rude tongue!" Gladys chided, merciless in her bark. Instinctively, Timmy slouched further into the couch, hugging himself as if to make himself as small as possible.

"So…" Awkward eyes slowly looked back to his grandparents "…at the time Mom wrote that letter…I assume she just thought she was having a girl?"

"At first…" Vlad spoke as his eyes closed, trying to drag emotion back under where he didn't need nor want to feel it. "Susanne had twins, Sophia and Timmy... " he opened his downcast gaze, and his voice dropped lamentably "…Sophia died years ago."

"Oh, no…" Tommy knitted his brow, empathic in his condolences "…I'm so sorry for your loss."

"All because that boy killed her!" Gladys pointed a bitter finger in Timmy's direction, unapologetic of her damning revelation.

"What?!" Tommy shot Timmy a puzzled glance, struggling to process the unspeakable horror that a little boy no older than eleven had just been alleged of. "I-Is that true?!"

A guttural twinge clenched Timmy's stomach in the tightest grip. Buckteeth bit down on his bottom lip, tense nails digging into his arm deep enough to sting his skin red.

"Accidentally." Gary, of all people, spoke up, soft fingers continuing to stroke along yellow fur. "He never meant Sophia harm…"

Timmy snapped Gary a pointed glare. He chooses now to say something. Huffing, he faced the fireplace, sinking his posture further. Whatever. Guess it's better than never…

Buddy's paws grew eager when his attention switched from the other dog in the room to the tween, and Tommy calmed him by brushing the back of his fur with his free hand. Perhaps Buddy's behavior was merited, for his interest also peaked for the boy who looked identical to Timmy with black hair instead of brown. "I'm sorry…are you another half-brother?"

Gary met Tommy's inquiring gaze with a distrusting brow "…cousin."

"Cousin…?" Everything Tommy had known up to this point swirled in a chaotic whirlwind. "But none of Mom's letters ever mentioned she had a sibling let alone a nephew."

"Susanne had a twin brother named Marsden…they were not close." Vlad admitted somberly. "Me and my wife were forced to kick him out at sixteen because he was very dangerous to Susanne…"

Tommy tilted his head to the side, taking this into curious consideration. "I see…"

"Have you ever met Susanne?" Gladys probed. Even with a handwritten letter, that wasn't enough proof. How was she supposed to believe that this kid who she's never met a day in her life was, in fact, her eldest grandson?

Gary and Timmy watched as Tommy drooped his chin, blue eyes haunted with regret.

"Not in person, unfortunately…" he confessed, every word he spoke weighted in distant longing. "I only knew Mom from the letters she'd write every year on my birthday…up until her last letter to me last August. She wished me a Happy Eighteenth, hoping I had the best life possible…" he swallowed when his voice grew hoarse "…a life she could never give me herself."

Timmy's nose wrinkled distastefully. It's not that Mom couldn't have given Tommy a good life, it's that she wouldn't have. In fact, it wouldn't matter how Tommy was conceived…if he was a girl. She'd have made sure her daughter knew who her mother was, and she would've stepped up and raised her child with all the love and care in the whole world…no doubt about it.

"How did you get these letters every year?" Vlad thought to ask.

"After she gave birth to me, she'd put me in a basket along with a letter...and left me on the front porch to a group home for foster kids…" Tommy explained. "The couple who runs the home basically raised me as their own, and I grew up there until I started University last fall."

Perplexed, Gladys and Vlad shared blank stares. How could Susanne keep all of this from them? Her own parents? This also begged the question of whether Daran was ever in the know, and if he was…did he just…accept it and move on like it never happened?! How…why!?

"Hey, Timmy…" Gary whispered, and Timmy shot him a look "…does something about that dog seem familiar to you?"

Timmy looked to brown and periwinkle-blue staring in his and Gary's direction. Intent in his watchful gaze as if he recognized them from somewhere. "Yeah…"

The Prelude to Bach's notorious Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major was professionally hand-scribed in black across the white accent wall of the pastel-pink bedroom, the last fermata chord painted inches above the upholstered bedframe of black talc linen. A musical border framed the quilted white backdrop with a print of a basswood cello as the centerpiece, centered in front of a black bass cleft swirled with sheet music staffs of random eighth notes, triplets, flats, and sharps. The same musical design of the duvet was printed on the cases of fluffed pillows in which one of the pillows cradled an albino ferret collared in a neckband of pink, serenaded in a tranquil slumber.

Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto in A Minor Op 129 (the only concerto he'd ever written for cello) sang through the four-stringed instrument with every dramatic yet harmonious stroke of the carbon fiber bow, the hand-carved bridge enhancing its rich, deep resonance. A curvaceous sculpture polished in the finest maple tonewood from the top of the elegantly carved scroll down to the carbon-fiber tailpiece. F-holes meticulously refined in a soft finish, its back length of 26 inches suitable for the eleven-year-old musician currently perfecting all the accidentals coupled with complex bowings.

Upright at the front half of her chair with hunter-green eyes lasered on the sheet music, strands of strawberry blonde were tied back with a rosy-pink bow and two sideburns curled from small bangs, straightened in a length that reached behind her light-blue dress. Puffed with white short sleeves and white doll collar, a pink button centered the dress tied with a matching ribbon around the waist. Her skirt flared past her knees embroidered in threads of dark-blue designs, white socks layered pink knee-high stockings footed in ultramarine Mary Janes.

Technically, she didn't need the sheet music (she'd already memorized all twenty-plus minutes of the concerto.) She simply needed the physical notes in front of her so that she may not only practice the right notes, but that she may practice them as her favorite composer intended. In less than twelve hours, Missy Phirman and her pianist father were to perform at the fanciest country club in all of Dimmsdale. She had to get this right.

So engrossed in her music, the young musician didn't notice her father lean against the open doorway, strawberry blonde trimmed with short sides and a longer top neatly combed back. Chiseled jaw bearded along the chin with a floating moustache, his slender figure sported casual clothes of a white button-up layered with a navy blazer and dark denim jeans belted in the brown leather matching his wingtip Oxfords.

Mike Phirman couldn't help the subtle curl in his lips, warmed by the rich tones of songlike vibratos as her fingers traveled and leaped along the fretboard with effortless grace. He almost regretted knocking with his knuckles on her wooden door, disrupting her in a short jolt through her shoulders, and closed taffy-pink eyes snapped open from the pillow with its cone nose pointed in the visitor's direction.

"Sounds great, Missy." Mike greeted with a genuine compliment, entering the bedroom in casual strides.

Missy greeted him with a warm smile of her own, leaning back in her chair as the neck of her cello rested against her left shoulder. "I just have to work out this one section and it'll sound perfect."

"Perfection lacks in-the-moment passion plus humanity." Mike inserted one of his daily fatherly quotes. "Trying to fix something too much can break it."

"I know, dad…" Missy groaned, watchful in setting her bow along its back in the rack of her music stand. "I'm just nervous."

"Nervous, why?"

"Because we're performing for the richest family in Dimmsdale!"

Mike lightly chuckled. "The Apollo Theatres and Carnegie Halls of it all, and you're nervous about some fancy country club in your hometown?"

"I know it's silly, but this is our first performance since vacation…" Missy fussed before she sighed "I just feel rusty, that's all…"

"Because you took one week off?" Mike arched a brow, and Missy frowned.

"One week is like one month in the music world."

"Missy Dannah Phirman…" Mike set a tender hand on Missy's tense shoulder, massaging it softly. "You and I have been preparing all week working out all the kinks. We are more than ready for this performance, and the audience will love it." He ended his fatherly spiel with a comforting smile "You'll see."

With no real argument, Missy huffed "I guess you're right…"

"I know I'm right." After lighthearted pats to her shoulder, Mike then poked thumbs into his jean pockets as he turned towards the door to return to his morning errands. "By the way," he spoke casually over his shoulder "there are piling cans of trash with your name on them."

"Oh, right!" Missy just remembered one of the chores she'd promised to do last night but had gotten herself so wrapped up in her practice that it accidentally slipped her mind. "Sorry, I'll do that now!"

As Mike gave her one last grin and exited her bedroom, Missy slid the end pin back into her cello before she took her time lowering it onto its side on the other side of her chair, closest to the warm, yellow hues pouring through her window, glistening in the cream carpet.

With her cello secure, Missy turned in her chair to the beady taffy-pink beaming at her, its weasel-like tail wagging joyously. "Hey, Schumann, wanna come with?"

The albino ferret perked in a jubilant leap off the bed, scurrying the short distance to Missy's feet. He proceeded to pace in an aimless circle around her legs as if she were his own orbit, enthusing her in a small giggle.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

And so, Missy and her furry little friend ventured through all the rooms noted to have trashcans; her bedroom, her father's bedroom, all the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the downstairs music studio. As she went through each room gathering and tying each trash bag, if Schumann wasn't following close to her side between rooms, he would either spring onto jumpable surfaces and sniff her, crawl up the trash bag as she tied them, or simply jump up and down in front of her path, whatever cheeky way to purposefully get her to laugh.

With all the trash bags accumulated, Schumann was the first of the pair to leap from the front porch of the red gabled roof, rosy-lavender concrete walls, lilac-stained windows lined in white panel shutters, mirrored evergreen hedges, and clean-cut lawn of the two-story home. He waited on patient paws for his owner to shut the front door with a free hand before Missy grabbed trash bags two at a time and carried them towards the green trash bin stationed on the left sidewall.

Schumann followed her with each trip, watching as she'd lift the lid and hurl each bag into the bin in clinking thuds. While the gated community was protected by heavily armed security, Schumann was not a ferret that would run away unprompted, so as long as someone went outside with him, he'd always been trusted to leave the home unrestrained…

Until today.

Noting how full the bin was, Missy shut the lid overflowing with trash, grunting as she tugged on the weighted bin by the handle. Propping the bin with her foot on its wheels, she maneuvered the bin and began dragging it through the grass towards the curb when she noticed that her furry companion had disappeared from her side. Puzzled, she stopped and scanned the green lawn for snowy fur. Of course, it wasn't long before she spotted him standing out on the edge of the driveway…but something was different.

His tail, motionless, faced her, mustelid body unnaturally still. Paws and legs readied in a rigid stance as if contemplating whether or not to pounce. "Schumann…?" Missy called cautiously, uncertain what could have him so antsy.

Then, without warning, he sprinted across the street in a short-legged bolt.

"Schumann!"

Trash spilled out from the bin as it crashed to the ground. Abandoning her chore, Missy rushed after her ferret who’d already made it to the other sidewalk unharmed. Reaching the edge of the lawn, she paused for a short second, darting eyes back and forth across the quiet road to ensure it was safe to cross. Her heart thundered as she barreled onto the sidewalk, and upon hearing a sudden squeaky gasp that screeched her Mary Janes to a halt, she gawked in panting breaths at what she saw next.

About three yards from her, Schumann had tackled a little girl to the sidewalk, causing piles of mail to fly in a scatter from her grasp. He fondled and brushed his fur all over her ebony face, her curly black hair bounced wildly as she screeched. Eyes clamped shut with each whip of her cheeks as her defensive palms tried and failed to shove the animated ferret off her.

"Schumann, stop!" Missy yelled, hurrying to rescue the little girl from her ferret's unwarranted and unwanted affection. Once within range, Missy wrestled Schumann off his victim, doing her best to clamp her grip to his squirming body attempting to wiggle himself free. She laced her arms around him, restraining his kicking legs against her huffing chest, and she squeezed him tight enough to hold him still without suffocating him.

Schumann managed to cease his writhing once he realized he was trapped, beady eyes locked on the little girl who had scooted backwards on terrified palms. Her chest hitched labored breaths through flared nostrils, brown eyes widened in alarm.

"Hazel, are you okay?!" Missy worried as Hazel audibly gaped, frozen in stunned bewilderment.

"H-How…d-do you know my n-name?" her stutter strained, cracking her voice.

"Your brother was Anthony Wells, right? People in the community were gossiping about him for like a week after it happened." Missy clarified before she solemnly added "I'm really sorry for your loss, by the way."

Hazel blinked rapidly, eyebrows shooting up in an arch of astonishment "…you…l-live here?"

"Uh-huh." Cradling Schumann to her chest, Missy turned to her left to point across the street at the carbon-copy house two houses down from where they were. "See my house over there? Number 913?"

As Hazel stared at the proof in the pudding, her mouth fell open. That simply can't be; the last known occupants of house 913 moved out over a year ago, and it was impossible for any newcomers to slip through the cracks of Dimmsdale Acres' insufferable welcome wagon…

Startled by a flash in her peripheral, brown eyes shot to the outstretched hand offering assistance. Blinking slowly, Hazel’s gaze lifted to the amiable gleam in Missy’s smile. While otherwise submissive in Missy’s arms, it felt as if Schumann’s beady eyes pierced straight into her soul, chilling Hazel’s nerves. As much as lingering suspicions wanted to swat her hand away, Hazel couldn’t bring herself to do so. What was the good in being rude to the rare politeness of a stranger?

Bracing herself, Hazel lowered her guard just enough to accept the help, groaning as Missy pulled her to steady feet. Soon after, her guard bricked itself to higher heights as she draped tight arms around herself, hunching her shoulders with puckered brows.

"How come I've never seen you around here before…?" Hazel quizzed, a notable shake in her voice deceptively composed.

"Dad and I are hardly home enough to be seen; we travel cross-country as classical musicians." Missy explained. "Ever heard of Phirman Philharmonics?"

Furrowed eyes stared.

“Well, anyway…” Clearing her throat, Missy chose to pivot the awkward silence towards proper introductions. “My name’s Missy. And this is Schumann.” she gave delicate strokes to the albino ferret who seemed to have taken quite the liking to Hazel, his neck stretched out in enquiring sniffs. Hazel recoiled, backing away slowly. In response to Hazel’s apprehension, Missy merely grinned. “I know he just attacked your face, but would you like to pet him?”

Cowering, Hazel’s eyes darted towards the front door of her home, fearful of a certain patriarchal tyrant spying on her from the shadows. It never took her this long to fetch the mail, she always made certain not to. His non-existent patience was thin enough as is…

Looking back to taffy-pink eyes beaming to her, Hazel started to wonder how an ordinary ferret could have oddly colored eyes without a gold crown. Would Missy have said something if Schumann was a fairy? Seeing as how Nyekundu was still inside the house, perhaps not. Without her red ring or her red ferret, Hazel looked like an ordinary kid.

Swallowing dryly, Hazel's hesitation reached with a timid hand. Fingers trembling faintly as the tips grazed the softness in Schumann's nose, soon retracting with a swiftness as if his fur was scorching hot.

"Don't be scared, Hazel. It's okay." Missy giggled to relieve the girl's unease as Schumann inched his welcoming nose towards Hazel. Though apprehensive in her second approach, Hazel bit her lip as dithery fingers extended again, this time reaching behind Schumann's right ear with tentative scratches.

Schumann’s forehead nuzzled happily into her palm, and a nudge of warmth surfaced beneath the cold darkness keeping her spirits captive. She felt her lips twitch as unsettled instincts wanted to retreat, undeserving of such luxury; Marcus could catch her out here slacking off at any moment, and it would not end well. But the way Schumann melted in her show of affection, the way his overflow of gratitude seemed to chip away the grime of dread and despair crusted over her heart. It was nice…and oddly familiar.

As her coy gaze peered to Missy's warm grin, curiosity prodded the back of her mind. Why was this girl, a random stranger…so nice to her?

Chapter Text

Midday sun basked the three-story building in its warming rays against winter’s cold air, tiny specks of fiberglass glistening within aged cedar shingles wearing away. Lined in bricks with its once vibrant rosy hues weathered into a dull umber, beige columns arched the iron double doors and framed the pane windows. Within the lightly frosted lawn was a large sign mounted in yellow concrete amid the green shrubbery, inscribed with black letters which read ‘Dimmsdale Psychology and Counseling Center.’

Surrounded by olive walls and pistachio carpet, a glass coffee table centered the blue-grey polyester of a loveseat for parents and two single chairs facing across from each other, one for the pediatric patient, and one for the therapist. White blinds were slanted just enough to allow seeps of sunlight into the minimal lighting of dim floor lamps, and white wooden bookshelves lined the wall across from the double pedestal office desk. Faux plants filled in blank spaces throughout the room, and paintings colored empty spaces along the walls with blue waves gently crashing along the sandy shore of Dimmsdale Beach.

Within one corner nearest the office’s desk sat a little boy born of pale skin, cropped black hair, ears on his neck, poor vision corrected by circular black rims, scraggly limbs, and the hunched back of a genetic deformity formally named Hartman’s Syndrome. White dress shirt fastened by the crisp collar with a black tie and tucked into dark jeans, the toes of his red chucks tapped absently to the imaginary song playing in his head. Engrossed in his version of a fae fantasy world brought to life within his sketchbook through meticulous strokes of colored pencils.

Kevin was about to finish the artistic effect of a translucent wing when a low hoot distracted him, lifting dark-blue eyes to the turquoise saucers staring through its cage. Stationed atop a single wooden end table beside his stackable chair, its dark-rimmed eyes appearing small compared to the rounded mass of its head. Fluffy grey plumage light with dark streaks, stretching from the top of its head down the elongated cape of tail tapers. A cluster of darker feathers sat just below its beak similar to a bowtie, a dapper touch to its majestic presence.

 “What is it, Bulma?” Kevin called out to his Great Grey, tucking his colored pencils into the sketchbook’s spine as a bookmark. “Are you hungry?”

Bluma twittered once more, ruffling the chest of her grey plumage as turquoise saucers remained unblinking. Taking this as his cue, Kevin lowered his sketchbook onto the seat cushion before standing to make his way from the corner chair to the office desk currently occupied by his mother, a desk plate engraved with the name ‘Dr. Katherine Crocker, PhD.’

Preparing for her anticipated client, hazel eyes scanned the notes within a magenta notebook from a prior session which involves a child struggling with severe symptoms of OCD. Footed with Steve Madden loafers, miles of legs coated in sheer black stockings were crossed beneath the hem of her high waisted, black rayon skirt. Layers of flounce ruffles lined the buttons of her white chiffon blouse, cuffing the balloon of her long sleeves. Dangling in the center of her ample bosom was a silver chain hanging from the high jabot collar, a French Script ‘K’ framed within a sterling heart.

“…hey, mom?” Kevin squeaked in his approach beside his mother’s chair, wringing his fingers near one of the drawers. “Can I grab some food for Bulma?”

“Of course, honey.” Katherine permitted warmly, her eyes fixed on her notes as Kevin then reached for the top drawer, retrieving a package of dried beetles and earthworms before shutting the drawer back.

Because Saturday was the one day of the week Katherine would let him hangout in her office while she conducted her sessions, Kevin made certain to bring Bulma as company. Between Kevin’s schooling and Katherine having just one day of the week off, Bulma was often left unattended at home. Bulma was unusually diurnal, so Kevin never liked leaving her all alone as much as Katherine was never comfortable leaving Kevin without supervision for too long. The two or three hours between his arrival from school and her return home from work was the longest she’d ever allow him home alone, and even that was a stretch.

Hartman’s Syndrome, while primarily a physical abnormality, came with its slew of other medical conditions. In her half-brother’s case, some conditions were minor enough to indirectly hinder quality of life, while others, in her son’s case, can be life threatening. Kevin’s unfortunate past consists of multiple hospital visits due to uncontrollable ticks and horrible mouth-foaming seizures, and while she was thankful that these symptoms had been virtually nonexistent for quite a while…a mother’s worry never ends.

Bulma ruffled her feathers in an elated hoot as Kevin opened the bag with both hands, waiting ever so impatiently for him to unlatch the door. Pulling out a palm full of shriveled earthworms, he held it within Bulma’s reach of her eager beak. “Good girl…” he crooned, setting the back in the nearby chair to brush behind her top feathers with one hand. She pecked at her afternoon snack in his other palm, undisturbed by the show of affection.

Kevin shortly shuddered as shrill rings blared from the desk phone, turning to see his mother pick up the handset before a second ring could shriek. “Yes, Laura?”

“Hey, Katherine.” The receptionist from the center’s front desk spoke through the phone’s speaker. “The man that emailed you this morning has just arrived with his daughter. Should I send them?”

Hazel eyes glanced at the wall-clock mounted above the sole entrance and exit. Katherine’s next session was to start in about five minutes, but she had also expected this walk-in from the very first email she’d read upon clocking in. It had been sent from a widowed father requesting an in-person visit to learn more about her services and to perhaps schedule an official consultation for his daughter diagnosed with both an anxiety and panic disorder.

This walk-in was basically her own ‘About Me’ session with a new potential client. A rare yet simple chore of which she’d figured she could squeeze in between the ten-minute downtime between patients.

“Okay, thanks, Laura. Send them in.”

Kevin reached into the bag for more insects as he silently watched Katherine end the call and run a hand through her hair in a low exhale. Scooting coolly from her chair, Katherine brushed off her skirt as her long strides made their way to the door. Holding the door’s handle, she braced herself with another breath. Hoping to make a good enough first impression before the twist of the handle revealed the pair coming from down the hall; a wildlife conservationist leading his daughter dressed in yellow by the hand.

For a second, she felt a breath catch in her chest, flabbergasted by the prominent jawline and eyes greener than the lushest forest. Such brawny calves that could trek any mountain with ease, such burly arms that could both defend from danger and protect the prey. His shirt like extra skin over his, dare she say, herculean build. Buttoned modestly with a minor, enticing peek of those strong pecs-

Katherine, what the hell…her professionalism groaned at her own pathetic thirst over a man she did not know. The unexpected pregnancy of her son should have been her lesson not to pine so hard. She cleared her throat, pulling herself together with the most professional smile she could muster once father and daughter shortened the gap between them. “Hi, Dr. Katherine Crocker! You must be Clark Carmichael!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Clark curled a small smile of his own, greeting her with a firm handshake. “And this is my daughter, Chloe.”

He pressed a palm to Chloe’s back in his introduction of her, causing her to involuntarily flinch as if terrified of touch. Her gap bit her bottom lip in her timid bow of greeting, antsy fingers fiddling with her indigo necklace.

In attempts to soothe the child’s obvious unease, Katherine leaned down with hands over her thighs, giving the softest, warmest grin. “It’s nice to meet you, sweetheart.”

Chloe’s flight quickly hid behind her father’s leg, and Clark arched a befuddled brow towards her. “No need to be shy, Chloe.” His tone was tender, and yet the only visible part of Chloe clung to the sides of his leg, her fingers digging into their nearest support from this venture into the unknown.

“It’s perfectly fine.” Katherine kindly dismissed as she straightened herself upright. The psychologist in her understood that Chloe’s behavior did not necessarily stem from shyness; the imbalance of anxiety has this conniving way of distorting logic and instilling irrational fear into one’s perception of their surroundings, no matter the absence of threat. “Please, come in!”

Closing Bulma back in her cage, Kevin observed the father and daughter pair entering the office. Well, more like the father dragging the one leg that his daughter clung to, her feet scurrying in hesitant steps behind him. As his mother shut the door, he studied the unnerve in the baby-blues that darted in their rattled scan of the décor, something he recognized from experience. Most kids acted as if reluctant to therapy, which, he understood from a child’s perspective. Talking about bad and personal stuff to a stranger psychoanalyzing your every word can feel embarrassing, even scary.

But this girl? She seemed downright terrified.

“What’s gotten into you, Chloe?” Clark couldn’t figure out where this behavior was coming from. Albeit apprehensive, Chloe was willing to cooperate earlier that morning. Now she was using his leg as some sort of protective shield. What brought this all of the sudden?

Chloe herself didn’t understand this sudden onset of jitters welling waves of acid in her stomach. Or, rather, she did, but the cluster of scrambled thoughts prevented her ability to think clearly…

You’re much dumber than I thought agreeing to this useless nonsense! her mother’s voice echoed through her mind’s buzzing chaos. This is a waste of time! YOU are wasting everyone’s time!

“Hey, Chloe?” Katherine decided to give another try, leaning to the child ducking furrowed eyes behind her father’s leg. Pointing to the boy in the corner near the family owl, Katherine kept her tone light and warm, hoping to convey a welcoming and safe atmosphere. “Would you like to meet my son?”

Gaining just enough courage to peek from behind her father’s thigh, Chloe spotted the only other kid in the room. A boy who looked like the younger, shorter clone of her 5^th grade teacher. When Katherine called him over with a short gesture, he zipped the bag of dried insects next to the sketchbook on the chair and scurried to his mother, hugging the side of her skirt. Folding his lips, Kevin greeted Chloe with a timid wave, and Chloe, still feeling ever so hesitant, meekly waved in return.

“Why don’t you get to know each other while I talk with your father for a bit.” Katherine proposed, and Kevin glanced up at his mother’s suggestion.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Clark interjected, reaching to gently rub Chloe behind her back. “What do you say, Chloe?”

Chloe lifted coy eyes to her father, then snapped them towards the boy staring in her direction. Releasing his mother’s leg, Kevin pointed to the Great Grey’s charming hoot as her chest feathers ruffled.

“Y-You can meet Bulma…” he squeaked, and a momentary look of discomfort entered her gaze when Chloe noticed the turquoise stare fixed on her, once again fidgeting with her necklace in hopes of holding onto the illusion of security.

“Go on, Chloe.” Clark nudged his daughter from her shell, careful not to use too much insistent force. Hugging herself, her feet shuffled towards Kevin, and he scratched behind the concave in his neck as Kevin led her to the faint ruffle of chest feathers eager to meet the newcomer.

As Kevin introduced Chloe to Bulma, Clark observed his daughter attentively. Having someone her own age to socialize with was both an unexpected surprise and not his main objective for bringing her with him. However, perhaps it could help make her more comfortable if she gained a new friend out of the ordeal.

“Y’know, I’ve never had a parent ask to meet in person before scheduling a consult.” Katherine expressed in a lighthearted yet solemn tone, regaining Clark’s focus.

“Well, I was up doing some research this morning and came across all your accolades and awards from the ACA.” Clark admitted, folding his arms as his feet spread apart. He started to feel his own nerves tingle in his skin, but he dismissed his own nerves to focus on what was relevant. “Online reviews aren’t always the most trustworthy, but something compelled me to take a chance. So, I’d brought Chloe for us to get a feel for your services and what you have to offer.”

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong…” Katherine tilted her head slightly, drawing from memory. “In your email, you’d mentioned that Chloe was diagnosed with GAD along with a panic disorder?”

“That’s correct.” Clark tersely nodded. “I’d already left a voicemail for her psychiatrist to see about getting her back on medication, but I also wanted to get the ball rolling on setting her up with therapy.”

“Oh wow, you’re really on top of things.” Katherine commended, genuinely impressed. “If only more of my younger clients had parents who cared as much as you seem to.”

Clark licked his lips. “Chloe’s been through so much, and when her mother died…” he stalled with eyes downcast, pressing his lips as if to shove down emotions undesirable to feel. Exhaling, he met Katherine’s listening gaze “…I want to do right by her. Get her the help she needs.”

Taking a second to process, Katherine grinned solemnly. “I completely understand.”

And Clark felt himself grin back. “Thank you…”

Just as Katherine was about to enter her pre-rehearsed spiel of her specialties with pediatric patients in the plethora disorders falling under the anxiety and traumatic stress umbrella, another series of rings blared from the desk, slicing the otherwise calm atmosphere. “Excuse me.” Katherine pardoned herself from her guest, walking around her desk. Seeing the same caller ID as before, she answered the call on the fourth ring. “Hey, Laura.”

While Katherine took the call, Clark turned his gaze to the two children by the window. His daughter stood to the side, rubbing at one arm as Kevin unlatched the cage for the Great Grey. A species of owl that, to Clark’s knowledge and the knowledge of every wildlife conservationist ever, was impossible to domesticate. They’re natural-born hunters not bred to live with humans. Not to mention extremely high maintenance, nocturnal, noisy, and overall destructive.

If not out in their natural habitat, owls were primarily kept in zoos and wildlife centers, given lots of space and handled by trained professionals. Yet here was this indoor Great Grey, captive in a cage just large enough not to suffocate her, content and well behaved, wide awake during the day, and squinting her eyes like a dog craving affection as Kevin scratched under her neck feathers.

What the heck kind of special permit (let alone special cash) gave them access to such an abnormality?

“Alright…thanks.”

Hearing the switch to an exasperated tone, Clark looked back to Katherine as she returned the handset to the receiver in a short ‘click,’ watching her close her eyes in a quiet groan to herself as she pinched her crinkling nose bridge. “Is…something wrong?” he thought to inquire, and Katherine raked fingers through black, silking strands in a self-calming fashion.

“Looks like my 1:00pm just canceled on me…again.”

“Oh…” Clark subtly frowned. “I’m sorry to hear.”

“Thank you…” she sighed. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time this mother would rather pay a $100 cancelation fee than a $10 copay for her child’s life-improving treatment…” Opening a drawer to tuck away the magenta notebook she no longer needed, Katherine then unlocked her computer to manually adjust her own schedule. “Like I said…if only more parents cared as much.”

Contempt bunched in his chin. Man, did that hit oh too close to home…

“Looks like fifty minutes just freed up…and your daughter’s already here…” Consideringly, Katherine raised eyes to Clark, getting an idea that may very well be farfetched but worth the shot. “Would…you like to just go through with the consultation right now? I couldn’t dare bring myself to charge you since it’s so last minute.”

Thinking for a moment, Clark stroked an imaginary beard. If he accepted, he could see Katherine’s ‘award winning’ methods in action. And, based on Chloe’s reaction and willingness to open up, he can gage live on whether it’d be worth making this a full-time gig. To decline would be senseless, in all honesty.

“Hey, Chloe.” he called to her. “C’mere, honey.”

Shivering subtly, Chloe looked to Kevin’s stare, one that seemed disappointed to see her leave yet considerate that she was here for a purpose other than being his friend. She then looked to her father and scampered towards him as he kneeled to her.

“So…” Clark began, holding Chloe softly yet supportively by both arms. “Dr. Crocker would like to go ahead with the consultation today.”

Chloe shuddered, legs losing sturdiness like they would give out “…t-today?”

“Yeah. And it won’t cost a dime.” he made sure to add in an attempt to chip off pressure, noting the brew of anxiety just in her body language. “So, what do ya say?”

She had no idea if she was ready; she wasn’t expecting everything to progress so soon. However, not wanting to let her father down and make his efforts in vain, she chewed her lip, lowering and raising her head in a brief, rigid nod.

Satisfied with this outcome, Katherine edited her digital schedule to include Chloe’s name, though she did not enter personal information such as her DOB since she was not yet an official client nor was she in Laura’s vast database of patients. Once done, she invited Clark to sit on the couch so that he may observe the consult. It was an option she liked to offer for parents of first-time clients and for any parents who wished to sit in future sessions, whether simply to observe her methods or give support to their child.

With Clark making his way to the couch between the two chairs, Katherine searched through one of her drawers for a sunny-yellow notebook to jot down some notes during the consultation. She never used the same notebook for different patients; her patient list had started to become so extensive that keeping up with the come and go of patients and the progress of multiple sessions became a juxtaposition of organized chaos. To alleviate that issue, she’d purchased too many notebooks to count, all in colors distinct from the other, and the color that reminded her the most of that particular patient was assigned that notebook.

So, for Chloe, she’d picked out a notebook that matched the color of her pretty dress before she shut the drawer and smiled to Chloe’s thin lips, her tone friendly in her instructions for Chloe to sit in any chair of her pick. Fiddling once more with her necklace, Chloe mentally commanded her feet to shuffle their way to the chair to her left of the central coffee table while Katherine traveled in even strides to the opposite chair that faced directly across from Chloe.

“Hey, Chloe.” the indigo necklace whispered up to her goddaughter as Katherine settled in her seat. “Ion know about you, but I’m gettin’ weird vibes.”

Ensuring none of the adults were watching, Chloe met Susie’s gaze with a brow slightly furrowed, whispering back “…f-from the therapist?”

“No, from that owl starin’ at you.”

Now feeling like lasers were searing the back of her head, Chloe spun her head behind her chair at Kevin latching Bulma back in her cage. Turquoise saucers transfixed on her as her caregiver settled into his stackable chair and returned to his sketch. Bulma’s unblinking, unnerving stare sent a jolt of chills through her bones. Sheesh, do all owls have that same creepy stare? It already took an exorbitant amount of willpower as is just to keep her heart from bursting out of her chest…

“I would like to welcome you again. Thank you so much for being here.” Katherine decided to start the session, snapping Chloe’s wide eyes towards her which nearly made her neck crack. “It’s a pleasure having you here.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Chloe painted the weakest smile that weakened without fail. “T-Thank you, Dr. Crocker.”

“Please,” Katherine grinned “feel free to call me Dr. Katherine.”

“Oh…” Chloe squeaked, prompting her to gulp down another anxious lump “…o-okay.”

Clicking her ink pen, Katherine opened the yellow notebook to a fresh first page, looking down long enough to write Chloe’s name and the date along with known diagnoses. “Your diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder coupled with a panic disorder tells me that you’ve been struggling with these symptoms for quite a while, is that right?”

Chloe nodded, tugging at a platinum strand.

“And how do you feel about being here today?”

A tight cracking remained in Chloe’s voice “…n-nervous.”

“I understand.” Katherine assured with eye contact, hazel eyes soft yet radiant with a warmth that Chloe could feel melt away at the coat of ice in her bones. “It’s okay to be nervous; it is perfectly normal.”

Don’t be dunce; she’s lying. Ice resolidified in her bones at the sound of her mother forcing herself to the forefront of her thoughts.

“During regular sessions, I like to get to the core of the diagnosis, or the root of where the anxiety and depression stem. And while some sessions will be tougher than others, it is my hope that, in due time, you can see this as a safe space. Free of judgement, only solace and support.”

Keeping his focus primarily on his daughter, Clark could tell in the faint spasms in Chloe’s crossed legs that she was far from comfortable. He was at least grateful that she wasn’t spiraling into a whirlwind of panic, and Katherine seemed to speak to Chloe with this kind, sort of motherly patience that Chloe was far from accustomed to…

“Are there any recent situations that we can focus on for today’s consult? Situations wherein you felt anxious?”

She chewed her lip to the point of tasting iron, barely able to hear her own thoughts through the thunderous pulse of her heart. As if she wanted to get into the utter calamity that was a psychogenic seizure not even twenty-four hours ago. A seizure stemmed from an attacking burst of anxiety reminding her who was truly in control of her psyche. Who will always be in control.

“It’s okay, take your time.” Katherine noted Chloe’s apprehension, maintaining a genuine grin. “No pressure.”

“U-Um…” she managed to squeak out, repeatedly clearing a dry throat of which could not be quenched. The edges of her surroundings began to warp and distort, irrational fear clouding her perception in blurred vision. Blue eyes shot downward, and her head bowed as if a foot of distress pressed down on her neck.

“You can do it, Chlo-bird.” Susie tried to offer consolation when she could physically feel each rapid thump of her goddaughter’s heart. Unfortunately for Chloe, her pulse throbbed in her ears, a relentless drumbeat that drowned out everything but the breaths that grew thin and ragged.

“You’re not alone, Chloe. Your father is right here, and I am right here with you.” Katherine assured from across her client, remaining calm. Just as she suspected; not even five minutes into the consultation, and Chloe was experiencing the onset of a panic attack.

Chloe sank herself into her chair, curling knees to her stiffening chest struggling to intake air. Clark’s first instinct was to intervene and give her daughter reassurance, but Katherine held out an arm as he was about to stand, gesturing for him not to act.

“She has our support, but Chloe needs to practice riding these waves of panic on her own.” Katherine gently advised, a soft firmness in her features. “If she is coached or coaxed too much, these distressing sensations may likely only worsen overtime.”

In the midst of Chloe’s hyperventilative pants, Clark fixed his grave stare on Katherine, clenching his fists. Debating whether to save Chloe regardless of a professional's opinion. What if she hyperventilates herself into another seizure? What if she stops breathing again? What if…her heart stops…and this time, he can’t bring her back?

“Chloe, what you are feeling is very much real.” Katherine redirected her attention to Chloe’s uneven gasps that shook in her shoulders. “But I need you to hear me; the sensations you are feeling are only temporary.”

Her skin prickled with a clammy cold sweat, goosebumps rising. Trembling palms pressed against her temples as a tornado of frantic thoughts spun wooziness across her tear-stained vision.

Kevin frowned, powerless to the girl now reduced to hitched sobs. He’d witnessed his fair share of panic attacks, some more frightening than others, and yet he couldn’t recall any of them being as heartbreaking as Chloe’s. His empathy went out to her.

“Panic is pain trying to tell you not to keep holding yourself together.” Katherine continued, her calm countering Chloe’s spike in terror. “Allow yourself to fall apart, do you understand?”

She’s full of it; GET a GRIP! Her mother’s haunting roar held no mercy.  Just stop being a whiney brat and GROW UP!

Blood drained from her skin, blanching her panic-stricken face as her lips parted in silent terror. A hard knot constricted her throat, unable to scream. Unable to breathe. A high-pitch ring pierced through incoherence, swelling into dizzying buzz that ballooned at a rapid rate. Squishing her brain against her skull, squeezing her vision black.

The muffled call of her father’s cry was the last she could comprehend before the loss of control drooped her body forward…

The wintry sun shone brightly, heating the cold gust swaying through the city of Dimmsdale. Multiple cars of midday traffic zoomed past the black van stranded on the sidewalk’s curb. Despite a visible deflation in all four tires, the tires were not the main culprit which had rendered the van undrivable. Truth be told, its hunched-back driver couldn’t be bothered to wreck his brain over the cause. Excogitation consumed the bulk of his brain power, mentally debating with waning reason and the urge to walk out in front of moving traffic and rid himself of his burdens.

Brooding on the sidewalk in front of his van, the elementary teacher hid his head in the white sleeves of his dress shirt tied with a black tie, tucked into his black slacks with black darbies on his feet. Crooked teeth sneered into arms crossed over bent knees, winter’s cool air reddening the tips of the ears on his neck. In spite of the cold temperature, his slender frame did not shiver. The animosity for life itself burned enough fire to warm against the chill.

If Denzel Crocker’s core was not fueled with a cold wave of loathing, he was not but a hollowed shell of what was lost. Carlos and Wilma, his green parakeet prince and pink galah princess. His beloved birds who’d tragically passed without explanation. Oh wait, there was an explanation. He never deserved happiness.

They were of similar shades to the winged, crowned, green and pink creatures that had appeared in every night’s dream since his coma. Creatures who expressed their love for him, creatures of whom he felt a fragment of love in return. Creatures who seemed to know him by name, and during the dreams, he’d know theirs. Yet upon opening his eyes every morning, their names would escape him.

Since he could never remember their names, part of him started to believe the creatures to be the spirits of Carlos and Wilma…if they were miniature humans with wings, that is. It was more than justification for his desire to stay with them, live in his dreams and never wakeup again. What else was left for him in this pathetic world?

His psychiatrist had prescribed him Zoloft, pills that his mother would sometimes question why they seemed to have no effect. Oblivious to the reality that whenever his mother micromanaged his daily prescription, he’d hide the pill under his tongue and spit it out whenever she’d leave his room.

Since his first attempt, all he’s ever wanted was to return to an existence without pain, to sleep forever. However, in a cruel twist of fate, his attempts always failed no matter what methods he tried.

He couldn’t try pills again; it’d send him back to the hospital to save the life he didn’t want to be saved. He’s tried a noose; it would somehow loosen at the last minute and make him fall on his butt. He’s tried a loaded gun; the bullet would get itself stuck in the barrel but it fired just fine as soon as he aimed it in the air. He’s even tried drowning himself in a full bath; the drain would unplug itself and the water would drain out before he’d kept his head under long enough for success.

It's like he just can’t freaking die, but he couldn’t understand why he was still here with zero purpose.

Ever since he’d been discharged from the hospital, he felt like a stranger to himself. The self that once believed fairies were flippin’ real, the self that’d done nothing but make himself a mockery of this Godforsaken town…

His coma had somehow gotten into the grimy hands of Dimmsdale News, though being in the news since the age of ten for various reasons, it didn’t surprise him. What did surprise him was the petition circulating through a group of parents for his permanent termination from Dimmsdale Elementary. They believed that someone who is a danger to himself should not educate children, and now his career was in jeopardy. Then again, it was him, the resident lunatic. Folks were just itching for an excuse to get him axed.

His mother, the half-sister who’d just entered his life, and Principal Waxelplax had been publicly coming to his defense in every way they could, but it’d only taken one news report to paint him as a looney who’d finally snapped. Public opinion had expressed their grievances, how he should ‘do it right’ if the lunatic wants to die so badly. Well, he’s tried to give them what they wanted. He’d even tried earlier that day, hence why he was currently stranded on the side of the road…

He’d been speeding in his van, not a care for speed limits. Driving in his destination towards the highest cliff in town for a final plunge. Then, without any semblance of a warning, the battery went caput. Finito. Dead. He’d nearly lost control of the van (which would’ve been welcomed,) but it was as if other hands steered the wheel, guiding the into realignment and rolling the tires to a halt. Couldn’t have been Jesus taking the wheel; he was never certain in a belief in that stuff, either.

Still, whatever unexplained divinity foiled his plans, could it do the same thing if he were to walk out into traffic? How quick would it be to give himself his wish?

A shrill caw stripped him from his thoughts, loud in his right ear over the normal rumble of engines and light squeal of brakes. When the caw screeched again, he lifted his head. Looking down at a black raven who then cawed again once it’d been acknowledged, ruffling its silky feathers. Confused, Mr. Crocker squinted through his glasses, taking a closer glimpse at the lavender eyes staring at him. Crows don’t have bright eyes like that…was he seeing things?

Lifting his glasses to rub his eyes, excessive blinks did nothing to change the color of lavender eyes once he’d returned his glasses over his sight. Croaking, the mysterious raven waddled on its black talons towards his right leg, brushing its head feathers against his slacks. Dark-blue narrowed, finding this behavior unusual for wild ravens. Mr. Crocker attempted to shoo the crow away, and though the raven jumped backwards, it was not scared off. Instead, the raven ascended before it glided gracefully onto his right shoulder like its own personal perch.

Irritated, Mr. Crocker grunted. “I don’t have food for you to pick at me for, if that’s what you want…” the teacher grumbled, and the raven stared with piercing lavender eyes. Eyes that appeared as if iridescent sparkles glittered within each iris, a phenomenon Mr. Crocker found himself unable to look away from.

As if that wasn’t mystic enough, a voice invaded his mind.

[My only want is the end to your self-destruction.]

It wasn’t just any voice…it was his voice. But he knew for certain that he did not just think those words. In fact, in that very moment, it felt as if he was uncapable of thinking for himself. Like a poking needle had injected those thoughts into his brain without consent.

The iridescent sparkle disappeared when the raven’s head instantly snapped to the left, blinking Mr. Crocker out of his daze. A roaring V8 rumbled in his ears, amplifying with shortening distance. Still seated on the sidewalk, Mr. Crocker soon spotted a red pickup pass him, appearing to slow instead of maintaining the speed of the road. Unmerging from moving traffic, the pickup pulled near the curb, coming to a short stop before rear lights flicked on as tires carefully rolled in reverse.

As the truck’s bed neared him, the back rolled to a halt about three yards in front of Mr. Crocker’s feet planted on the concrete. The rear lights flicked off, and Mr. Crocker furrowed, pondering just what this driver was up to.

“It’s Mr. Crocker!” Tootie gasped, peering through the back windshield of the red pickup at the elementary teacher eyeing the truck skeptically.

Slouched to Tootie’s left in the backseat, Molly looked to the raven-haired girl with a nonchalant shrug “…so?”

“Mr. Crocker taught at Tootie’s school before he took a leave of absence.” the teal bracelet around Tootie’s wrist explained.

“You mean that teacher that tried ta off himself?” Molly’s dark-blue earring asked in such a casual manner that slit Tootie’s brow in an involuntary grimace, making the teal bracelet bunch her chin. Rose knew how sensitive Tootie can get about topics that were a little complex for her to grasp, such as the concept of wanting to take your own life.

“Yes.” Rose confirmed, sticking with the conversation at hand. “He’s also the rare adult that still believes in fairies, so much so that he’d tried exposing their godparents when Timmy, Chloe, and Remy were in detention that one time.”

Partially intrigued by this new information, Molly’s head tilted to one side. “Chloe and Remy got detention?”

Tootie scrunched her lip, noticing the lack of a mention for Timmy in Molly’s disbelief. As if no one should ever be surprised that Timmy had gotten detention as well. Displeased, Tootie grumbled “Not the point…”

Turning the keys in the fob, Vic killed the engine after putting the shift in park. “Stay put, girls.” he instructed, removing the keys from the ignition. “I’ll be right back.”

“What’re you doing?” Vicky questioned her uncle from the passenger, arms crossed loosely against her chest.

“Goin’ ta see what’s up.” Vic’s casual reply resulted in a raised brow from Vicky.

“Uh…you do know who that is, right?”

“Duh, I ain’t blind.” Vic snorted, unlocking the driver’s side door.

Watching her uncle step outside the vehicle, Vicky’s nose scrunched in a subtle frown, beginning to wonder if this impromptu act was some sort of guilty conscience. Retribution for being a shit babysitter in the past, atoning for the sins that, perhaps to Vic’s belief, indirectly contributed to the teacher’s suicidal path. “Uncle…”

“I just wanna see if he might need some help, that’s all.” Vic assured, his tone solemn like his grin. “I won’t take too long.”

Before his eldest niece could object further, Vic shut the door in an audible slam, watching out for oncoming cars as he wandered along the truck over to the grown man he once babysat as a child. Mr. Crocker’s lip curled in a sneer at the sight of his former tormentor, his shoulder stiffening beneath the raven’s talons gripped to his shirt.

“What’s goin’ on?” Vic greeted, standing before Mr. Crocker with hands in his jean pockets. “You alright?”

As cars continued to zoom by, Mr. Crocker slanted between his brow, grumbling “…what do you care…”

Vic raised a thumb, gesturing to the parked vehicle. “Somethin’ wrong with ya van?”

“Again, what do you care…”

Lowering his chin in a sigh to himself, Vic then looked back to Mr. Crocker, steering the awkward exchange to his original decision for stopping in the first place. “The girls and I were on our way ta Mike E’s when I’d seen your van on the side of the road…felt like checkin’ ta make sure you was okay.”

“Why.” Mr. Crocker uttered sharply.

“…you got help on tha way?”

“It’s been almost three hours…” Mr. Crocker groused matter-of-factly. “No one’s coming.”

Pausing, Vic arched a brow “…you at least call somebody?”

“Certainly not you.”

Starting to feel his friendly face fade at Mr. Crocker’s resentment, Vic’s brow flattened, exhaling a broody groan “…you remember me, don’t cha.”

Mr. Crocker deepened his glare, recognizing exactly who this bastard was. Even after the foremost worst day of his life, his mother continued to leave him under terrible care without as much as a damn for his safety. “I don’t know…should I?” he mockingly spat with a drip of bitterness, that of which Vic had expected as much.

“Look, Denzel-”

“Will you just stop your stupid pretending and just leave me alone?!”

[Do not close yourself away. Be open to a helping hand.]

Once again baffled by his voice speaking thoughts that were not from his own head, Mr. Crocker shot a glance to the lavender eyes lasered on him, as if its eyes peered into the very depth of his soul. Transfixed by the crow’s lavender glitter within each iris, shimmering with the mystical sheen of holographic paper reflected by light.

At this point, he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he was truly crazy…

“Alright…if that’s what cha want…”

Hearing the disappointed groan, Mr. Crocker’s gaze snapped to the sight of Vic about to walk away, and an unexplainable urge compelled him to blurt out “Wait!”

The pair of black combats paused, pivoting on his heel. No hint of hurt in his muted gaze towards Mr. Crocker’s uncertain stammer.

“…i-it’s just the battery…it…i-it died on me.”

“Hmm…” Vic pursed his lips and tapped his chin, coming up with a solution. “I got jumper cables in the trunk…wanna seeya ‘bout gettin’ a start?”

“I…um…” the fact that Mr. Crocker was even entertaining the very man that used to make his life a living hell made eye contact such a struggle “…t-that would help.”

While Vic coordinated with Mr. Crocker on the safest way to move his van so that they weren’t right next to moving traffic, two raven-haired girls were now both observing through the back windshield, watching the conversation but were unable to hear properly through the glass.

“Look at her eyes…” Molly pointed to lavender-eyed raven on Mr. Crocker’s shoulder, commenting at a level that only Tootie and their godmothers could hear “…they’re an odd color.”

“Yeah…” Tootie could see this as well, then realized what Molly had said as she glanced to her left. “Wait…how do you know it’s a she?”

“Female ravens are smaller in size than average, like that one.” Molly informed. “And her neck feathers are shorter in comparison to how male neck feathers look.”

Reminded of Molly’s near-extensive knowledge of ravens, Tootie returned to her observation “…b-but she can’t be a fairy, right?”

“That’s definitely not a fairy.” Swizzle asserted, dangling from Molly’s ear with a proper view of the crow to be correct. “No crown.”

“But it’s so strange…” Rose mused, cuffed around Tootie’s wrist. Her teal eyes narrowed. “I can sense…magical energy.”

Swizzle, too, pointed her dark-blue gaze. “Same.”

“But how can you sense magic?” Tootie questioned in a way that was geared towards both fairy godmothers.

“It’s real subtle, like a faint itch that you barely wanna scratch…” Swizzle remarked “…but it’s there, no doubt.”

Tootie’s brow dropped low over her eyes, trying to decipher this information. “So…” she faced Molly’s profile “…what does this mean?”

Deep furrows appeared between Molly’s brows, studying the crow whose eyes had now spotted them inside the truck. Staring as if she already knew them well.

“…no idea.”

Chapter Text

Though late afternoon’s sun had melted rime off bare tree branches of Dimmsdale Park, the sharp tang of cold air filled the boys’ lungs in their meander along the concrete sidewalks sparkling in leftover frost. Coated in winter gear of black boots and black Terry Totter robes over their everyday wear, embroidered with crests of Gryffinsnore and Hufflesnuff respectively.

With his neck protected from the chill in a wool scarf of scarlet red and gold, Dwight dragged his feet along the paved path of the depopulated park, hands tucked in his robe’s pockets. Carrying the backpack with his emergency Ativan and other anti-seizure medication as he traveled alongside his half-brother adjusting his own wool scarf of yellow and black so that it wouldn’t brush against his sensitive boil.

Over the last few weeks, Dwight had been spending a lot more time with Elmer and his parents while Dwight’s fathers worked their shifts of twelve hours or more; he would take the bus to Elmer’s house after school and would be dropped off in the mornings on weekends, staying until his fathers’ were free to pick him up on their way home. This arrangement was meant to ease his fathers’ worries of Dwight being all alone in the event of bad seizures, but as Elmer glanced to his right at Dwight’s hung head, Elmer felt empathetic of the sour mood that’d lasted all day. Especially after hearing the Schlatter’s short argument on the way to their car after dropping their son off that morning.

Elmer and his parents did not need an explanation to see the growing tension between Dwight’s fathers, and the saddened guilt that Elmer could see in Dwight’s eyes told him that Dwight harbored the brunt of the blame onto himself. Moreover, Elmer knew how drained Dwight must be from three tonic-clonics suffered that day. Luckily, they were not as bad as they could have been, but even after a nap, Dwight’s mood had been down in the dumps.

So, Elmer had insisted they head over to the local park, thinking some fresh air would help lift Dwight’s spirits. The lack of children playing on the swings and empty benches made it the perfect, quiet getaway.

“Wanna take a little break?” Elmer suggested, pointing to the nearest bench in front of a bare tree. “We have been walking for a while.”

Finding the energy to lift half-lidded eyes towards Elmer, Dwight murmured “Sure…”

As they veered off the paved path onto the damp crunch of cold grass, Dwight rolled the sleeve of his robe, looking to the dark-teal medic alert bracelet that had become his godfather’s new outdoor disguise. “I wish we had a blanket.” he wished softly, figuring the bench will likely be too cold to sit on without something to warm their bottoms.

Ensuring dark-teal sparkles were out of Elmer’s sight, Irving’s wand conjured a cream-wool quilt inside Dwight’s backpack in the subtle ting of a ‘poof,’ prompting Dwight to remove one of the straps from his shoulder.

“Brought a blanket, just in case…” Dwight droned, unzipping his backpack to pull out his wish.

“Oh, cool! Thanks.” Elmer acknowledged, accepting the blanket as they approached the bench. He folded the blanket in half to flatten along the length of the wood grain surface, and as Dwight fully removed his backpack to lean against the bench’s leg, the two four-eyes took their seats facing the deserted playground opposite of them across the paved path.

Sitting in their own silence for a moment, Elmer then looked once more to his right to check in with Dwight. “How’re you feeling?”

Dwight responded with a dull shrug, hunched with arms crossed over his lap and weary gaze downcast to his boots. Elmer puckered his brow contemplatively; he knew his parents had told him not to mention anything to Dwight until the matter has been discussed with his fathers. However, underneath his fatigue, it was evident that Dwight carried a burdensome boulder on his shoulders. He held so much guilt in his heart, and Elmer wanted to cheer him up somehow.

“…wanna know why my mom and dad wanna talk to your dads after they get off work?”

Raising glum eyes to Elmer, Dwight weakly shook his head.

“My parents are gonna talk to your dads about moving into the basement that they’d recently finished renovating.”

Puzzled, Dwight faintly furrowed “…why?”

“To try and help with financial burdens.” Elmer replied, repeating his parents’ thought process. “If your dads can rent out your house, that income could go towards all your medical stuff so they won’t have to work as much.”

“…I meant why would your folks want us to move in?” Dwight specified.

“Because you guys are family.” Elmer offered an earnest grin. “Plus, at this point, you’re over at my house more than your own. It just makes sense for you to stay fulltime.”

The twelve-year-old diverted his eyes, tight lips frowning. First was his fathers’ going to bed angry, sleeping separately. Showing no affection other than yelling at each other. And now Brad and Dee feel obligated to make accommodations and sacrifice their normal routine. All because of him and his godforsaken seizures…

Other sets of footsteps creaking along the pavement caught their ears, indicating that they were no longer the only visitors of the park. Dwight and Elmer turn towards the sight of a lanky boy with poor vision traveling alongside a tall woman presumed to be his mother, the woman carrying a Great Grey with turquoise eyes by the cage’s handle.

Elmer audibly gaped in disbelief, and Dwight gave him a quizzical glance. “What is it?”

Elmer leaned towards Dwight, keeping his voice down despite his astonishment. “That kid looks exactly like my elementary teacher!”

Curious, Dwight shot another glance at the boy’s black gloves reaching into his own backpack, pulling out a blanket and spreading it across the bench seat for him and his mother as his mother held the owl cage.

“…no way Mr. Crocker’s hiding a kid…”

Dwight looked back to Elmer’s assumption with an arched brow “…you gonna go ask?”

“What?! No way!” Elmer cringed in protest. “That’d be so weird!”

The woman pointed towards the nearest bench across the path, adjacent to the two boys that she didn’t appear to notice. “Let’s sit here, Kevin…”

“Okay...” Kevin frowned at the obvious tinge of sadness in his mother’s tone but kept his concerns to himself as he followed her lead.

Setting the cage atop the jade quilt, Katherine took a seat to the owl’s left as her son sat to her right. Slouching against the backrest, she dragged palms of her white gloves over her eyes, groaning a ragged sigh.

“…Mom?” Kevin furrowed as he observed his mother, growing more worried “…a-are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Katherine assured, yet the dejection in her monotone said otherwise.

Kevin stalled, shifting eyes uncertain before he settled on his mother propping her chin in her palm. “I-It wasn’t all your fault, mom…”

There was a faint shake of denial in Katherine’s head, distant eyes wilted as they stared off away from her son. She had greatly underestimated the intensity of a child’s panic/anxiety disorder, and that grave lapse in professional judgement came at an unfortunate cost.

When Chloe’s panic led to a loss of consciousness, Clark had rushed to catch her fall out the chair before she plummeted to the ground, and doing her best to remain cool and collected, Katherine rushed to immediately contact paramedics. In her seven years of experience, Katherine has witnessed numerous panic and anxiety attacks during sessions. Her goal was always to help her clients let the panic pass rather than try to escape it or suppress it.

Never had a patient passed out under her watch before. And when the whites of Chloe’s eyes rolled back and her limbs began to flail spastically, she grew terrified for Chloe’s life …

All Katherine could do was stay on the line with the 9-1-1 operator who insisted on instructing Clark to move Chloe into the recovery position and time the seizure as it ran its course. Even when the tint of Chloe’s loose lips drained a ghostly blue, Clark was forbidden from giving CPR or mouth-to-mouth as long as Chloe’s body continued to seize. Thankfully, by some unforeseen miracle, her breathing returned in strained gargles before the paramedics arrived, though Chloe remained comatose.

While paramedics worked to return Chloe’s vitals to a stable enough state for ambulance transport, Clark’s distress for his daughter expressed extreme displeasure. An earful of grievances resulted in the loss of any slither of potential for a new client.

A pitchy hoot twittered from the cage, causing Katherine and Kevin to turn towards the Great Grey’s turquoise eyes. Glistening expressively as if to offer whatever solace she could.

“See? Even Bulma knows it’s not all your fault…” Kevin alluded, and Katherine bunched between her brows, her jaw beginning to tremble. She could hear her own voice in her head repeat the same sentiment, but to her immense guilt, these were just empty words.

Dwight and Elmer continued to silently observe as Kevin lowered a comforting hand to his mother’s knee, doing what he thought he could to console the guilt that began to water in hazel eyes. Dwight could see the tightness in her throat hold back tears with quivering lips; despite Kevin repeating that it wasn’t her fault, Dwight didn’t need much context to understand how the mother felt. Whether she had control or not, her actions had caused someone else’s pain.

A type of shame he knew all too well…

“Hey, Wighty…” Dwight heard the low call of his dark-teal medical alert bracelet, looking down to Irving’s narrowed eyes. “There’s somethin’ strange about that owl.”

“Strange?” he whispered back. “How?”

“Look at her eyes…”

Curiosity raised Dwight’s gaze to the turquoise saucers of the Great Grey, catching glittering twinkles of enchanting specs that could not be easily explained.

Walls painted in pearl-white, the fog of a forest landscape accented one wall where the headboard of the cedar twin bedframe stood, covered with a cotton duvet printed with the same foggy forest. A replica of a forest tree with its trunk merged into painted branches and leaves along one corner of the ceiling bordered with fairy lights, a built-in cedar dresser within the sculpted trunk. Fake leaves dangled from the mounted tree bark framing the sole window of the room, hardwood floors covered with rugs of artificial grass.

Gary and his godfather had isolated themselves in the safe space of his bedroom since this morning’s unexpected guest had not been shooed away. In fact, against their better judgement, his grandparents had permitted Timmy’s newfound half-brother to stay as long as he’d like, wishing to get to know him better. Eh, guess that’s fair; Tommy seemed friendly…maybe too friendly. But that wasn’t as big a concern to Gary as Alondro’s uncharacteristic reaction to Tommy’s canine companion.

“What was up with you and Buddy, earlier?” Gary questioned Alondro who was floating before him in his fairy form. “You seemed kinda freaked out by ‘em…”

Exhaling a deep breath, Alondro gritted his jaw, gripping his wand. “You could not feel what I felt.”

Gary eyed Alondro quizzically “…what did you feel?”

Alondro’s broad shoulders hunched involuntarily as his insides clenched. “It was weak, yet what I could sense felt almost…godlike.”

“…godlike?” Gary repeated, perplexed.

“Si.” Alondro lowered icy-blues to the wand held firmly in his fist. “And it was as if Buddy seemed to know exactly who and what I am.”

Still a bit lost, Gary scrunched his nose “…how?”

“It was in his eyes…” Alondro could not only recall the sense of an otherworldly aura, but he vividly remembered the ever so faint glitter within trancelike rings of brown and periwinkle-blue. “Like he could see through my disguise…”

[Hey, Gary?] Sophia entered Gary’s mind. [Tommy’s coming.]

“What?” Not long after did Gary hear a soft knock that prompted the fairy to transform back into a yellow retriever. A gentle push on the cedar door creaked the hinges more ajar, and Gary spotted the university Freshman peering into the room whose smile stretched ear to ear.

“Hey, kiddo. May I come in?” 

Alondro leapt onto the bed to his godson’s side as Gary pressed his lips with a slight frown. “Um, okay…why?”

“Just wanna talk.”

“…what about your dog?”

“Don’t worry; Buddy’s tied up outside.” Tommy assured. “I didn’t want any distractions.”

Gary subtly squinted “…for what?”

“So I can get to know you.”

“…why?”

“Because you’re my half-cousin.” Tommy chuckled lightly. “Even with Mom’s letters, there’s just so much I still don’t know about half of my existence.”

“…what about the other half?” Gary softly challenged, and Tommy’s smile visibly faltered.

“…that half doesn’t matter.” He spoke resolutely, furrowing his brows with a lowered gaze. “Just like I don’t matter to him.”

Gary and Alondro watched Tommy’s lapse into quiet brooding, brooding that lasted as long as an unvoluntary cringe before Tommy pinched his nose bridge. Briefly squeezing his eyes shut as if shoving down emotions where he didn’t need nor want to feel them, clearing his throat.

“…what about your dad?” Tommy returned his sociable tone to his voice as he lifted his chin, straightening the posture that had visibly begun to slump. “Is he not in your life?”

Wrinkling his nose, Gary slit his brow at such a dumb question “…does it look like he’s in my life?”

“Hey, I’m just asking.” Tommy raised hands in innocent defense. “Grandma and grandpa haven’t mentioned much of him…and they don’t seem to want to.”

Gary grimaced, instinctively turning his head away. No…he started to shudder, sharply blinking from the scornful elm of his sperm donor’s glower flickering across his vision. Feeling that dreadful tug of war among the thinning veil between past and present. Not again…n-not again…

[Breathe, Gary…]

“I-I can’t…” his breaths grew ragged, clawing at his sideburns. Eyes haunted by some unseen terror. “…n-n-not again…”

The yellow retriever gave a worried glance towards his godson, knowing something was terribly wrong. It’d been quite a while since Gary last had an episode, and yet all it took was the mere implication of he who shall not be named for that switch to flip…

Tommy frowned when a stiff tremor shook in Gary’s arms, noting the stress lines creasing into his forehead as his eyes grew impossibly large. Uh oh…did he inadvertently cause this? “…Gary-”

“Why the fuck would you ever wanna know about that piece of shit!?”

Tommy jolted from the ferocious bellow, a scorching blue glare shot his way. Gary then flopped onto his side, facing his back to Tommy. Curling himself into the tightest ball as the thumps in his chest ached.

“…I-I’m sorry…” Tommy breathed, twinged with instant remorse “…I didn’t mean-”

“GO AWAY!”

Recalling what had worked to calm Gary during his last episode, the yellow retriever sprang into action. Putting his bodyweight on top of Gary’s balled form, careful not to apply too much pressure as hitched breathes fought to slow to a normal rhythm. Panged in regret, the corner of Tommy’s thin lips pulled down. Perhaps there’s a good reason he’s left in the dark about the uncle he’d never met…

“Vnuk?!” the frantic call of an elderly woman sounded from down the hall, Tommy whirling to the pattering footsteps fastly approaching. “Vnuk, v chem delo!?”

Before Tommy could react, the hinges creaked when Gladys pushed the door to where it bumped against the wall. Nearly shoving Tommy out of her way in her rush towards Gary’s whimpers of distress. Alondro yelped in pain when Gladys aggressively yanked at his back fur without thought in her forcible attempts to tear the dog from crushing her precious grandson. Failing to understand that the yellow retriever was trying to help.

“Get off him, you stupid dog!”

“Chto v mire proiskhodit?!” Vlad questioned what in the world was happening once he arrived at the frantic scene soon after, entering the room to stand next to Tommy equally as thrown.

“I said get off!” Gladys mercilessly hoicked the yellow retriever off her grandson, tossing him in a hard pummel to the wooden floor. Adding insult to injury, she kicked a dog while it’s down as he yelped louder from her avenging foot thwacking his stomach in repeated, direct hits.

“Gladys! Prekrati eto!” a boisterous growl from Vlad demanded his wife to stop her senseless violence, causing Tommy to shoot gawking eyes towards the elderly man who did not initially strike him as overly assertive.

Heeding her husband’s command, Gladys backed off after a last vengeful kick, huffing to catch her breath. Glaring down at the crumpled dog squeezing his eyes as crimson-coated fangs whimpered in agony.

“…L-Londro…?” Gary breathed in gradual blinks. Agonized whines muffled through, hooking onto his cling to reality. Starting to come to his senses, wobbly arms willed himself upright, turning towards the fuzzy outlines of three other figures standing in the room. He scrubbed at his eyes to clear the blur as they fluttered, and when another pitchy whine rang clearer than the last, Gary’s eyes darted the room for the source.

“Vnuk, ty v poryadke?” Gladys managed a more soothing tone, asking if her grandson was alright.

Just one peek over the bed’s edge to what lay crumpled on the ground, her grandson was, in fact, not alright.

“Londro!”

Gary shot from the bed to his godfather’s side, falling to his knees. Eyes trembling at the sight of blood in Alondro’s fangs, he pressed a quivering palm to the side of Alondro’s cheek. Lips parted in a shaking inhale when the dog’s clenched eyes flinched in discomfort at the delicate touch.

“I stop him from crushing you.” Gladys saw no issue telling the truth, believing her grandson would thank her for defending him.

Instead, Gary snapped a scowl so venomous, blazing murderously. Dripping with the spite that rattled in his bark. “You FUCKING HURT HIM!?”

Jaw slack in silent disbelief, the grandmother gaped. Troubled by the boom from the grandson who’d never ever spoken to her with such disrespect.

“Gary! Ty ne ispol'zuyesh' etot plokhoy yazyk!” Vlad scolded furiously; Gary knew better than to use that bad language, especially around his elders!

Gary ignored his grandfather, his blood boiling too heatedly to care. “You ALWAYS treat Timmy like some lowlife, but you’re not any different!”

Vlad blanched, a breath hitched in his chest. Recognizing that cold fire burning within that blue-eyed scowl. One he had not seen since the fateful day of their twins’ sixteenth birthday…

“I HATE YOU!” Rage cracked in his exasperated shriek, his patience pushed off its teetering edge. “I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

Gladys doubled back, eyes widening as they rimmed with tears. No…it can’t be. It can’t be the hellish ghost of their evil son coming back to haunt them…

Frozen from the sidelines flabbergasted beyond belief, Tommy’s mind gears spun into overdrive. Flustered as to how things escalated to this point.

With the pale crescent moon shining in the black velvet of the night sky, Dimmsdale's upper-class all gathered inside the white marble mansion of the Fancy Schmancy Country Club, mingling in anticipation of the two extremely special gusts for that night’s most prestigious event. Among the adults socializing with various luxury cocktails in hand, the Wells entertained fellow club members with painted smiles. Marcus claimed his wife with an arm around her waist, and Angela leaned close to her husband, hoping her performance of endless love for him was believable.

Huddled in her own clique by the central staircase, their eldest daughter Hillary laughed with the blue-eyed blonde dressed like a pink and white Barbie, having grown closer throughout the weeks in their shared distaste for their younger siblings. Standing near them were boys wearing matching purple and black outfits, one with straight blonde hair, and the other with an afro-textured high top. A fair distance from the group was an Asian American girl standing against the nearby wall with folded arms, her flat brow and pursed lips appearing to be disinterested in whatever Hillary and her ‘best friend’ were squawking on about.

Tucked away in the archway beneath the stairs, the young billionaire covered an exaggerated yawn that shook in his shoulders. Slumped in his seat on a leather bench built into the wall under the staircase, his posture betraying the weariness that had settled deep into his bones. His midday nap turned out to be utterly pointless, now more tired than before he’d slept for four hours. Then again, the string of bad dreams always made him more tired…

Propping his chin in his palms, hooded eyes spotted the purple ferret’s arrival through the archway. Returning from his venturous stroll through the club upon his ahijado’s wish to search for a fellow godchild. Remy would have looked for her himself, but right now, he had no energy to deal with people.

“Hazel is not here…” Juandissimo exhaled, brows weakly knitting in the middle.

“…again?” Remy murmured in slight irritation before he then dragged hands down his face with a dour groan. This was the third week in a row that Hazel had not been in attendance with the Wells at the country club, but every time he would reach out to her to inquire as to why, she was short with him…as if hiding what she thought he didn’t need to know.

“Something about that does not sit well with me...” Juandissimo remarked.

“…me either.” Remy agreed, making a mental note to ask her about it tomorrow. He knew for certain she wouldn’t miss Tootie’s birthday at Fairy Fort.

“There you are!”

Remy let his eyelids fall briefly, cringing internally at the pitter patter of his grandmother’s pointy heels that stopped behind the purple ferret. She must’ve been on the hunt for him and caught onto Juandissimo’s trail, leading her right to where part of him hoped he’d be left unfound…

“Why are you being a recluse and not tending to our guests!?” Frances appeared through the archway, hands planted to her hips.

Arching a brow, Remy responded with a low grumble “We have butlers for that.”

“Buxaplentys are still the face of this club, you know that!” Frances griped. “My son should have instilled that in you, because you’re far too old not to care!”

Tsk…just like you instilled in your son to care about his own freaking kid…

“The Phirman Philharmonics have arrived, so you should at least pretend to care and come greet them.”

Annoyance sharply narrowed in Remy’s eyes “…seriously?”

“Yes! Now come on!”

Reluctantly, Remy chose to comply. Stretching stiff muscles in his slow stand as Frances tapped her impatient toe.

“We don’t have all night, y’know!”

“I’m coming!” Remy huffed, rolling his eyes as Frances strutted off in the opposite direction. Aversion flooded through his veins, looking down to his purple ferret mumbling “C’mon, Juan…”

Two butlers pulled the white double doors, revealing the sheen black coat of a Lincoln limousine rolling along the curved driveway as the operated gates drew to a close behind the back bumper. Gradually pulling up to the layered cake of steps leading to the club’s entrance with the door for its two passengers halting directly in front.

Dragging his feet behind his grandparents with his purple ferret beside him, Remy and the elder Buxaplentys exited onto the club’s porch, seeing the limousine driver walk across the front bumper towards the back passenger. When the driver opened the door, he offered a hand to the strawberry-blonde holding the hem of her elegant coral-pink ball gown as for her short silver heels to not step on the floor-length tulle of her skirt. Her gown’s top was embroidered in a soft, pink lace with cap sleeves, a silver jewel sash sinching her waist.

As the driver assisted the girl that Remy assumed was around his age, a slender man with the same shade of hair helped himself out of the limo. Matching his daughter with a black tailored tux coupled with a coral-pink bow tie and lapel, tugging on the handles of a cello case polished in pastel-pink fiberglass.

“Good evening to you both!” Orvy was the first to greet their special guests, meeting the man of the duo at the halfway point of the steps. He extended a welcoming hand for a shake. “Orville Remy Buxaplenty III, Orvy for short. Wonderful to meet you face-to-face!”

“Likewise; it’s an honor to be here!” moving ahead of his daughter, the man took advantage of the case’s two shoulder straps and adjusted the instrument to hang over one shoulder, glad to shake Orvy’s hand. “Michael Phirman, but you may call me Mike.”

“Frances Shand Buxaplenty; it is our honor to have you tonight!” it was Frances’ turn to shake Mike’s hand, bright in the smile that churned Remy’s stomach. She then acknowledged Mike’s daughter by leaning down with hands over her thighs, a sing-song inflection in her voice. “And, you must be Missy Phirman; oh, how so pretty you are!”

“Thank you so much!” Missy beamed, appreciative of the nice compliment.

“Missy, this is our grandson. Orville Remy Buxaplenty V.” Frances then introduced, pulling her pouting grandson a few steps forward with a nudging tug of his arm.

“Remy for short.” Remy grumbled, snatching his arm away from her grasp. A purposefully rude gesture that dried a bitter taste in Frances’s thinning mouth.

Missy traversed the couple steps, meeting him with a cheerful glimmer in hunter-green eyes. She extended her hand towards him, yet Remy’s sullen stare made no effort to uncross his arms.

“Nice to meet you, Remy.” Missy retracted her hand, her warm grin seemingly unbothered by his coldness. Her gaze trailed down and gawked at the purple ferret next to Remy’s feet.

“Ooooooh, you have a ferret, too!” she squealed in delight, careful not to dirty her dress in her eager kneel. “I have an albino one back at home, but I’ve never seen a purple one!” she looked up toward Remy. “What breed is yours?”

“…um…” Shifting uncomfortably, Remy raised an awkward hand to scratch behind his neck, scrambling for an excuse “…his fur is just dyed?”

“Oooooooh! That makes sense!” Excitement getting the better of her, Missy reached out to scratch under the ferret’s chin. Relaxing his shoulders, Remy could see the subtle scrunch in Juandissimo’s brow as if uncertain on what to make of it, though he didn’t outright reject Missy’s gentle affection.

“Enough small talk.” Orvy redirected the focus of welcoming their special guests. “How’s about we head on in and show you around!”

Once Orvy and Frances invited Missy and her father inside, they started a quick tour of the club, beginning in the grand foyer. Following the elder Buxaplentys throughout the club, Mike carried his daughter’s cello case on one shoulder with Missy in awe beside him, admiring the building’s overt yet refined extravagance. It was her first time inside a real-life country club, and it definitely did not disappoint.

During the tour, Orvy gave brief yet straight forward descriptions of the club’s amenities as well as the recreational and social activities. Frances would occasionally insert random historical facts and go more in depth about its popularity despite its exclusivity, but she let Orvy do most of the speaking.

Occasionally, Missy would remember there was supposed to be a third Buxaplenty and turn to glance at the boy quietly occupying the tail of the group. Arms still crossed and mint-green downcast with his purple ferret loyal by his side. She’d found him the most peculiar Buxaplenty of them all. Something inside her could feel a festering gloom behind his dark gaze, slowly draining him of life.

“And that’s the Fancy Schmancy Country Club.” Ovry announced, ending the tour by the Fancy Schmancy Theater. “Are there any questions?”

“Oh, yes.” Mike shifted the cello case off his shoulder, using both hands to take his time lowering it to the ground. “Where can Missy warm up?”

“We’ve reserved space in this room here.” Orvy pointed towards the single door on the opposite grey wall of the entrance to the theater.

“And the grand piano for you is all set on stage if you would like to come take a look.” Frances offered to Mike who considered with a small shrug.

“Sure, it wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great!” Frances beamed. “Remy can show Missy the warm up room, and Orvy and I can have you check out the grand piano.”

Eyes once hollow met his grandmother with a cynical glare. The fact that she thought it okay to just voluntell him into something so mundane…he almost rather his entire existence be forgotten.

“Sounds like a plan.” Mike leaned the cello by its upper bout in Missy’s direction, prompting her to grab the side handle. “Catch ya later?”

“Yep!” Missy perked, and Mike gave her a parting grin before leaving with Orvy and Frances into the theater.

Remy stared as Missy faced him, eyebrows raising along with her smile. Unable to match her enthusiasm, he droned in his withered sigh “Follow me, I guess…”

Using her foot to prop the case on its wheels, Missy rolled her cello across indigo tiles as Remy and his purple ferret led her to the single door. Twisting the handle, he decided he might as well hold the door open for her, and she thanked him for his chivalry as she entered into a simple 20x20 room with burgundy walls and deep-maroon carpet. Complete with a chiffon Chantle vanity, a boucle fabric stool, and an upholstered reception loveseat against one of the walls for extra comfort.

“Here it is.” he dully declared, wasting no time turning to leave with a hand on the door handle. “I’ll leave you to it, then…”

“Wait!” She pivoted towards him with both hands on her cello case, managing to stop him mid-step. “May I ask you a question?”

After a pause, he cocked a brow over his shoulder “…yes?”

“How’s your sleep?”

Remy’s expression went blank. That seemed like an odd question to ask someone you just met “…my…sleep?”

“Yes.” Missy maintained, innocence softening her steadfast tone. “You seem tired.”

Remy hesitated in a long pause, licking his lips as he faced her. Unsure how he wanted to answer except for “…I dunno...”

“Do you have anyone to talk to?”

He blinked “…about?”

“What’s troubling you.”

Staring in his stall, slits narrowed in his brow as his lips pinched, shutting the door to prevent eavesdropping. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude…but I’ve known you for all of twenty minutes.” Despite his leveled tone, his hard, critical gaze portrayed his distrust of her. “You don’t know anything about me to talk as if you do.”

Missy remained calm, her fixed stare showing no sign of taking offense. Hunter-green eyes gentle yet piercing, as if they could penetrate straight through his rigid guard. Remy crossed arms against his chest when he felt his guard falter, swallowing back a knotted lump. Finding himself trapped in a staring contest until a soft glimmer curved in her nude lip gloss.

“That’s fair.” she simply stated, loosely shrugging. “But, fun fact; there’s this voice I hear sometimes…I like to call her Spirit.” She pointed to the side of her head. “And Spirit keeps telling me that everything that has ever happened to you is starting to poison you.”

His mouth pinched tightly at first, attempting to decode whatever nonsense she just spewed, until thin lips curled in a skeptical sneer as he loomed forward. “What are you getting at?”

“Whatever do you mean?” she queried, the childlike wonder in her features acting as if she genuinely meant no harm or foul. Like some innocent puppy incapable of malicious intent, posing no threat for Remy to remain overly defensive.

“…never mind…” he withdrew, backing away.

Her head tilted curiously. “Are you sure?”

He stiffened, muttering a quiet “…yes.”

“Okay.” Missy accepted. “May I warm up, now?”

His mind muddled in disarray, Remy’s arms laced around himself after a hard swallow “…sure.”

“Great!” With that, Missy lowered her cello on its back, kneeling to unlatch the seven latches of her case before giving Remy another friendly gleam. “And thank you for showing me the room.”

Missy then raised the lid to her case, retrieving the rosin for her bow as Remy’s total perplexity of what just transpired glanced down at the purple ferret’s equally stumped stare. Thinking it best to give Missy her privacy, he turned once again in the direction of the door, twisting the handle as both he and his godfather departed into the hall.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean stand down!?” Jorgen groused, swiftly running out of patience as he pounded a fist which reverberated in his desk, rippling small waves through his third mug of dark roast. Brows slit in his irritated glare towards the magical portal displaying the rocky ceiling supported by Alabaster columns, shadows of the stone walls and teak floors of the throne hall alight in orangey hues with great braziers. Stately Windows broad and imperial framed in striped drapes, colored in streaks of yellow, blue, pink, purple, and turquoise.

Cowering beside his boss, Binky turned back to the eight monitors lined in rows of two. Frowning to the twelve-year-old rushing to his whimpering yellow retriever in the discovery of his injuries.

“Alondro Milagro did not sustain anything life threatening; he shall have bouts of discomfort, yet he shall live.” Councilwoman Treebelle ensured the Fairy Commander, yellow eyes shrouded by the hood of her turquoise robe. Seated in her throne polished in yellow gold, engraved with star and crown carvings with the backrest and seat cushion adorned in turquoise velvet.

“You say that as if this is not the third instance a godparent has been attacked in the last two months alone…” Jorgen groaned, frankly frustrated. First was Juandissimo Magnifico, one of his vets, attempting to protect his godchild from a predatory nanny. Making it out with a minor concussion that was another blow to the head from becoming a full-blown TBI. Then was Nyekundu Uchawi, younger yet highly proficient, getting drugged by some brainwashed teenager. All to then ruthlessly assault his own baby sister whose only crime was caring about him.

Now was Alondro Milagro, the same rank as Nyekundu, reduced to a fricking kick sack by some bitter old hag. Not to mention Cosmo and Wanda Fairywinkle-Cosma, two halves of a whole idiot, having their fair share of life-threatening mishaps with numerous godchildren of the past…

Is this why the Council seem so invested in these godchildren? Because of this covert hex with this crop of godparents?

“We are aware and share in your frustrations.” Councilman Persimmons declared in his gruffy voice, robed in the taffy-pink that corresponded with the velvet backseat and cushion of his yellow-gold throne. “However, there is no need for you to take action.”

“We had anticipated this off-rail, and we shall also take action upon another godchild’s harrowing predicament.” Councilman Plumfrost’s tenor tone added, clothed in purple with folded arms in his yellow-gold throne accented with lavender velvet. “We the Council hast handled what is priority to be rectified.”

Looking away from the monitors in the midst of Gary shouting at his grandmother, Binky could see Jorgen furrow his brow in his both agitated and puzzled grumble “…and that means…?”

“Becalm and keep observing.” Head Councilman Birchwind’s baritone stated with an air of patience in his admonishment, cloaked in the boldest blue. His throne at the end of the row with periwinkle-blue velvet accents. “You shall see soon enough.”

The Fairy Commander grimaced, more agitated by his lack of rebuttal. Resorting to facing the monitors once more alongside his assistant just as rage and thin patience cracked in an exasperated shriek.

“I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

Tremoring fists wadded as tears pricked the corners of Gary’s scowl. Blue eyes burning with a fierce, unyielding hatred that nearly made his arms shudder. Even after moments of psychosis that had led their better judgement to ship him off to a mental ward three separate times…he loved his grandparents. Loved them for taking him in as the offspring of the son they despised with every fiber, loved them for loving him with their whole hearts and their will to do whatever they can for him.

But this…hurting his godfather for no plausible reason…was a straw the camel didn’t even know could break its back.

Alondro strained to lift his feeble head, more worried for his godson than the surge of pulsing pain shooting from the top of his fur to the bottom of his paws. Depending on the severity of his episode, Gary was prone to aggression or dissociation, one or the other. Other times, aggression tunneled his rationality which would result in retaliation from whomever got the brunt of it, driving his fragile mind into dissociation. A worst-case scenario that Alondro feared Gary was tumbling towards.

“…p…p-pe…que…” he grunted in his whisper, wrecked with coughs soon after. Hoping to bring Gary back from the brink, though it may have already been too late.

Unseen by the occupants, peering through the sole window of the room was the golden retriever that’d been tied up by the column on the front porch. He had somehow set himself free, or, rather, had the capability to free himself when he’d heard muffled shouting through the walls. Supporting himself on his hind legs, Buddy braced his front paws on the exterior sill of the window, scanning the situation at hand. Eyeing the three adults in the room, the child was invisible from his angle. However, he was able to spot the back of the yellow retriever’s head from the glint in his gold crown, and though he could mostly see his crown, Buddy knew he was hurt.

Focusing his visual aim on the fellow canine, brown and blue shimmered with periwinkle-blue sparkles. Sparkles that soon glittered around Alondro’s entire body in an anesthetic coat, soothing the aches in his bones as blood dried from his lips.

Alondro was confused; where was this healing magic coming from if Cosmo and Wanda were not here? But, before he had the chance to finish the thought, a heavy pull of fatigue fluttered in his eyelids. The side of his head flopped back to the ground as blackness encroached the edges of his vision, and his eyes blinked until he was unable to open them again.

All the while, the elderly woman stood frozen, catatonic. Unaware of the magic enveloping the yellow retriever, elm eyes lasered on her Vnuk, the grandson she could no longer recognize. Stunned and betrayed, she shed a single, wounded tear. Breath shaky in what she managed to whisper next, the usual warmth expressed towards Gary replaced by a distant coldness in her hushed tone…

“…plokhoy mal’chik…”

Blue eyes bulged in a haunted horror. A sharp breath caught in his throat, terror tightening his chest. She…she called him a bad boy. No…babushka had never called him that before. Even at his worst, even when he was bad. No…h-he can’t. He can’t be a bad boy. B-Bad boys get punished…

Vlad noticed his wife charge towards their grandson, a sickening wave of despair welling from his belly. She’d been pushed to her breaking point, and if she acted on her pain, it cannot end well. “Gladys, do not-”

THWACK!

The only sound to echo through the walls was the cracking slap of Gladys’s palm, twisting Gary’s neck at an angle when his head recoiled. The burn of a handprint reddened into his left cheek, and the flame that once burned in blue eyes had been snuffed into a vacant stare.

“TY MONSTER! TAK ZHE KAK ON!” she snarled, screaming that Gary is just like the monster he’d come from, the devil incarnate she had been cursed to give birth to. The son that twisted and churned her insides with revulsion and contempt. So consumed by angry hurt and livid betrayal that she failed to realize how her rash action had sealed her fate. Oblivious to the glitter of periwinkle-blue shimmers enclosing around the left side of her chest. Concentrating behind her ribs, entrapping her heart…

She doubled over, grunting as a squeezing pressure clenched her breasts. Struggling to breathe from the radiating pain throbbing in her neck, shooting through her arms. She staggered backwards, clawing at the left side of her chest. Weakness unsteadied her balance, and aging legs gave out. Standing behind her, Tommy hurried to catch her with his arms, preventing her hard drop to the floor as her husband, too, hurried to her aid as fast as his legs willed.

“Ty v porydake?! V chem delo?!” Vlad probed, panicked to know if she was alright, to know what was wrong. Yet Gladys could not move her lips to speak from the sharp, stabbing pain shooting up her gritted jaw.

A cold sweat broke in her forehead, burning waves pulsing in her chest as her heart pounded thunderously. Beating dangerously fast to where it could barely contract as periwinkle-blue sparkles continued to narrow her arteries, cutting blood off from circulating. The lack of circulation constricted in her lungs, the thinning of her airways made her choking gasps for breath all the more difficult. And the inability to breathe darkened the blurry distress of her husband of fifty years and the fuzzy distraught in the grandson she never knew…

Skull-crushing dizziness distorted Vlad’s cry to her, the last she would hear in her mortal plunge into darkness…

Careful in shutting the door to the shed, Timmy’s short legs then scurried across the backyard with his pink winter coat to keep him warm from the nightly chill. Sophia had come crying to him about the escalating horrors happening in the house; Cosmo and Wanda had wanted to come with him for moral support, but Timmy had insisted they stay as to not disrupt their nighttime routine with Poof, and he didn’t give them any room to argue in his intentional rush out the door.

Bursting through the backdoor into the house, Timmy barely shut the door in his dash through the living room, hearing voices down the hallway of his grandfather’s pleads for his love to come back to him over Tommy who sounded like he was counting out loud. Reaching the wide-open door of Gary’s room, he halted in the doorway as he spotted periwinkle-blue sparkles glistening around the yellow retriever kayoed on the ground. Bemused by this on its own, he also saw Gary’s slack jaw with a red blemish forming on his cheek, seeing the disconnect in his hollowed stare. No longer fully present in the moment, empty thoughts elsewhere.

Timmy’s attention shifted to Tommy kneeled on both knees, performing CPR on the elderly woman as she lay limp. He found himself frozen, unable to tear away from elm eyes rolled back into her eyelids, no inhale or exhale of breath past lifeless lips.

Vlads’s shoulders shook, sobbing into his palms as the heels of Tommy’s hands pumped compressions into Gladys’s rigid breastbone. Feeling his arms fatigue, Tommy huffed in a second’s pause, regaining the strength to continue when Gladys’s chest did not rise. Returning to his efforts, he happened to look up, noticing the ten-year-old’s presence. “Timmy! Call 9-1-1!” he frantically instructed, blinking Timmy out of his shock.

[…t-there’s no point…] Timmy heard Sophia’s crestfallen voice tremble, laced with tearful defeat [It…i-it’s already too late…]

He bit down on his lip in a sharp inhale that caught in his throat, reaching the same conclusion for himself from the active paling in his grandmother’s chalk-white skin. He felt his muscles stiffen as his eyes lowered, shoulders hunching forward. Chills raising goosebumps in his skin of how, once again, a member of his family was alive one moment and dead the next. Shamed by the tiniest yet blaring sense of relief. Said family member can never again make him feel more like bottom of the barrel crap than he already did.

“Timmy!” Tommy’s yell stripped Timmy from his thoughts, distress etched in his brow. “What are you waiting for!?”

“Dude! She’s dead!” Timmy snapped back when he found the voice to speak, his grandfather having just realized he was there as he shot him a tearful gawk.

Shuddering a breath, Tommy froze with palms pressed between the breastbone, bulging eyes drifting down to the skin drained in a deathly hue. Her chest failed to rise and fall on its own, mortally stiff like her arms and legs. Coming to the harsh realization that death has stolen the grandmother he’d only just met.

Vlad whirled back to Tommy in realizing that the young man had ceased all efforts and removed his hands from his wife’s chest. “Why you stop!?”

“He…he’s right…” Tommy breathed softly, tears sheening over his eyes. He could barely muster the nerve to lift his somber gaze to the elderly man desperately holding the seams of his sanity together, his next words whispered in his despair “…I’m sorry…”

A tremoring whimper hiccupped, emotions breaking through the façade of strength. Heartache had chipped away his armor, exposing the vulnerability beneath. It started with a single tear tracing a path down his flushed cheek as a silent testament to the depths of his grief, lacing quivering arms around his wife’s body, supporting the back of her head as he leaned down to her. Burying his face into her neck that felt icy to his forehead, ragged sobs shaking in his shoulders.

This cannot be…the love of his life cannot leave him like this. No…not like this…not like this!

Wrinkling his nose, Timmy turned his head when he could no longer stand to see his grandfather cry. Instead, he bunched his brows at the unresponsive yellow retriever and his cousin’s lack of reaction to the world around him.

Country club members all cumulated inside the Fancy Schmancy Theatre, spilling in to fill the seats with less than a minute to curtain call. Curtains were already manually drawn to reveal the empty wall where the seventy-five-inch screen was once mounted, and spotlights shined down upon the single chair central to the stage, slightly cattycorner in front of the grand piano awaiting its debut.

Hillary joined the popular kids along the middle row, taking her seat beside Veronica in the midst of laughing at a newly created inside joke between them. As the Griffin brothers occupied the two seats between Veronica and the most popular girl in their school, Tad and Chad looked to their left towards Trixie’s arms crossed over her chest, brow furrowed to the white boots crossed in quiet tension.

Since returning to school from Christmas break, Tad and Chad had witnessed the best friends bicker back and forth more often than they laugh and gossip together. There’d been a notable strain in Trixie and Veronica’s friendship, and Veronica’s gravitational pull towards Hillary in their attendance at the country club only further confirmed this assumption.

Choosing a seat at the end of the very back row nearest the middle aisle for when he’d ich to sneak an exit, Remy allowed his purple ferret to leap into his lap once he lowered himself into the chair. His grandparents (more like his grandmother with his grandfather concurring without objection) had obligated him to stay for all three compositions to be performed which included a concerto, a sonata, and a suite with three full movements. If he truly wanted to, he could disappear back to the solace of his room and just wish himself to automatically return within the last three minutes of the last movement of the last suite…that way, they’d never have to know he was gone.

But alas, Remy obliged himself to at least sit through the concerto as validation in the event they’d somehow catch him slipping. Something he never had to worry about when his parents were alive…

Stepping onto the platform stage from behind the red curtains, the third-gen Buxaplenty stopped near the center edge. Waiting patiently as the dimming overhead lights signaled the audience to settle into silence as a single spotlight set the stage alight. Gaining the attention of the audience, he cleared his throat to address them.

“Ladies and Gentleman, thank you so much for being here with us on this wonderful and wealthy Saturday night!” Orvy began, his sociable demeanor affirmed in self-assurance. “As you all are aware, my wife and I had made the executive decision to cease inviting underprivileged families to mock them; we are richer than they will ever hope to be, and we found no value in continuing to flaunt that fact for arbitrary and, frankly, cheap entertainment.”

Seated among the front row next to a reserved space, Frances smiled fondly in an absent nod to her husband’s statement of truth.

“We had felt it best to let that silly tradition die with our son, so we also extend our gratitude to all of you who were not quick to cancel their membership out of outrage for this decision. You all are the true fancy and schmancy of Dimmsdale!”

Remy could have ripped his own hair out from the irritation of sheer corniness all in that fricking sentence.

“In this jarring yet swift transition, we are excited to have our special guests of tonight, the first of many live musical performances! I introduce to you a young and talented cellist along with the pianist who had helped foster her love of music since the tender age of two. The renowned virtuosic duo of whom have performed for hundreds of concerts on numerous occasions all across the country.” He outstretched a hand in a dramatic gesture towards the two performers waiting stage right out of sight. “Please, help me welcome to the stage, Missy Phirman and her father Michael of the Phirman Philharmonics!”

As Orvy exited stage left, a round of applause erupted once Missy stepped into view with Mike close behind holding his books of sheet music, walking tall with her shoulders back as she carried her cello and bow towards the chair. Once Mike stood in front of the piano’s bench seat and Missy stabilized her cello on its end pin in front of her chair, father and daughter looked out at the audience and took their simultaneous bows. The applause subsided once Mike propped his sheet music on the piano’s music rack as Missy adjusted the back of her tulle skirt to sit, ensuring her skirt didn’t bunch in the back.

Though she’d thoroughly tuned in the warmup room, Missy calmly waited for Mike to press his A3 key, giving her a reference pitch to ensure her cello was in proper tune with the piano. Bowing her A string, her musical ear recognized her tone was slightly flat against the piano, turning the peg to give minor tension to the string before her perfect pitch was satisfied with this adjustment. She moved the center of her bow to the C, G, and D strings, checking their pitch with a max of two bowings each.

Then, closing her eyes, she breathed into her nose and out through her mouth. Mentally wishing for the Spirit of her mother to guide her before she opened her eyes and nodded to her father with the okay to begin.

Positioning his fingers over the white keys, Robert Schumann’s orchestral introduction to his concerto came in the form of piano fermata chords in an A minor chord progression, rendering Missy time to enter the headspace and focus required for the next twenty plus minutes. Three chords led into a measure of eighth notes which signaled her to position her bow and finger along the fret to present the first note of the soloist’s main theme.

The concerto’s theme sang from the strings, her bowing smooth like butter in each meticulous stroke of the strings. Effortless fingertips and cyclic hand movements added dramatic emphasis in the rich beauty of her vibrato. Mike’s fingers glided along the black and white keys in fluent succession, brilliant in his own right yet mindful in not overpowering the true star of the show. His vivacious and sometimes poignant harmonies interweaving with Missy’s lyrically clean and often recitative phrasing, captivating the audience in their melodic resonance.

Cradling his ferret close to him, the young billionaire observed the natural sway of Missy’s upper body as her left fingers navigating the fret coordinated with her right hand bowing the strings. He observed her unmitigated passion, enhanced by her expressive facials expressing intentional emotion with each note. As if music was the very essence of her soul, giving her life meaning. He wondered what that was like. To feel passionate about something…passionate about life.

He almost didn’t notice the slouch in his shoulders, mentation drifting out of the suffocating grip of his troubles, meandering aimlessly through the music’s entrancing waves. His head felt full of emptiness, thoughts flowing in a wind with no breeze. His mental fatigue welcomed the chance to take a pause from overthinking, allow himself to just zone out. To just…be. Except a distant echo kept repeating between his ears like a nagging whisper.  

“Spirit keeps telling me that everything that has ever happened to you is starting to poison you.”

Remy furrowed, eyes fixed on the soloist on stage. Sociable, polite and mannerly, syrupy sweet. Simple terms to describe the musical prodigy who was simultaneously complex like trying to study Calculus. They’d never met before tonight…how could she have known that something happened to him? Was he that easy to read? Or was she eerily intuitive?

And her choice of wording…poison. As if a front-row witness to him drinking the poison pouring from his mind. Someone who already knew the answer to him questioning why he felt so sick…

Remy soon felt his thoughts sink below the music’s surface, submerging into unwanted waters. Unable to resist the tug of the awful memory that solidified the toxic relationship between a child and a grown man. A grown man who knew exactly how to manipulate an innocent mind into giving him what he ultimately craved…

Considering the memory itself, he realized it was not as dramatic as his nightmares. What he mostly remembered was this agonizing pain, a pain that, at the time, he’d been coerced into believing was normal. Normal for a child and an adult to show how much they love each other in the ultimate act.

Perhaps his psyche was now so damaged that it dramatized and exaggerated the memory into the truth of what it was…

Sick. Abhorrent. Disgusting.

Surround-sound speakers immersed the two occupants of the living room in the Adagio cello mixed with the piano’s soft response of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 85. Adding to the serene ambience of cackling gold auburn flames, casting a warm radiance within the white brick of the fireplace that reached the tallest height of the ceiling, framed by wallpaper panels of green dollar signs.

Facing the fire in their cuddle along the white Victorian couch was a nanny and the eight-year-old billionaire he held fondly, safe and secure by loving arms as his young cheek nestled against the chest of the grown man he entrusted with his life. Their lower halves swallowed by a wool blanket the shade of money green as the music serenaded them in their quiet, calm embrace.

Tender fingers of his nanny grazed behind his blonde spikes in a loving touch, massaging his lower back in gentle circles as his mint-green grew heavier. Tranquility fluttered in his eyelids before they drooped closed, embracing the solace of the only person to ever love him.

When he soon heard the softest snores, the nanny lifted his head from the armrest, curling a tiny grin before a low sigh lowered his head back as he continued massaging his lover’s back. All was right, all was calm…

Until the temptations he fought to tame got the better of him.

His fingers drifted slowly down his lover’s back, traveling beneath the blanket to the small hump accentuated in small pajama pants. An amorous grunt groaned quietly in his throat as his eager palm reached beneath the cotton fabric, fingers kneading the fleshy tuck of tush as he, too, closed his eyes.

Another groan breathed past parted lips, louder than the last. Snapping mint-green awake when the boy felt something poke against his lower torso that didn’t feel like it had come from him. The eight-year-old felt his nanny begin to sway his hips, starting off faint, gradually increasing in speed.

“…Fenwick?” Remy squeaked, lifting his head to his nanny with knitted brows. “W-what are you doing?”

“Shhh…relax.” Mr. Nicholas cooed, cupping Remy's cheek as his other hand continued squeezing his backside beneath the blanket. “It’s okay…”

Remy didn’t have time to question further before Mr. Nicholas shifted their positions with their bottom halves still underneath the wool blanket, pinning Remy beneath him with big hands gripped around small wrists. He resumed swaying his hips, pressing himself against the front of Remy’s pajamas as sensual grunts breathed past his lips.

“F-Fenwick…” Remy tried to free himself, wiggling and squirming his arms and legs to no avail. Preventing him from shifting again, Mr. Nicholas pinned his legs with his knees as he maneuvered Remy’s arms to cross over his head. Squeezing both wrists with one hand as the other moved to unzip his own pants, in dire need to release the pleasurable, almost painful pressure throbbing in his center.

His little heart hammered as his eyes widened, aghast at the visible point in the grown man’s underwear once tuxedo slacks were pulled down. “F-Fenwick, no…” Remy whimpered, but Mr. Nicholas lowered a pointed finger over Remy’s lips, shushing him softly.

“Baby, it’s okay…” he crooned to his lover, eyes focused yet soft with an amorous sparkle. “We love each other…right?” 

Doe eyes in helpless circles, Remy spoke in an uncertain, suffocated whisper “…yeah…”

Speakers transitioned into allegro molto motifs of cello and piano as Mr. Nicholas smirked, gazing upon the boy in loving lust. “This is just how two people show how much they love each other.”

Slow and delicate in his movements, Mr. Nicholas tugged Remy’s bottoms from sitting on his waist. Exposing his underwear for the nanny’s starved eyes as discomfort crossed Remy’s face, shifting incessantly. Part of him didn’t know about this, he barely understood what was happening. But as Mr. Nicholas leaned down to brush a soft kiss to his forehead, he knew his nanny loved him too much to ever hurt him.

He then felt a pair of fingers tug at the waistband of his briefs, and just as mint-green shifted to look down at what grown hands were doing down there, Mr. Nicholas removed his hand from his wrists to handgrip under his chin. Redirecting his attention to his eyes on him as if he didn’t want the ‘surprise’ to be spoiled. Unable to move his chin, he watched as Mr. Nicholas looked down briefly, hearing a zipper unzip before he saw him quietly grunt in his shifts that looked like he was pulling something down.

Then, he felt the waistband of his underwear lower down his leg, and he struggled to control his tremors from his body growing tense. A hot patch spread across his nose into his cheeks, and he swallowed dryly.

“Remember…” The nanny cooed affectionately, locked in his gaze. “No one loves you like I do.”

Heart thumping between his ears, Remy could see the nanny look down as if to keep something steady, and before he knew what was coming, the grown man’s pleasured groan was followed by a sharp, stinging pain that forced itself inside. Surging across his lower torso, burning in his backside enough to sprout tears in the corner of his eyes.

“O-Ow…” the eight-year-old choked out, squinting when his tears stung too much for a clear view of the nanny shifting up and down on top of him “…it…it h-hurts…”

“Relax, baby…” Mr. Nicholas whispered between his movements, his breaths becoming little huffs of excitement. “It only hurts the first time…”

“B-But…it…” His tears blurred over his eyes as he whimpered, his lower half burning like a thick knife stabbing itself in repeated, rhythmic thrusts. Yet Mr. Nicholas simply shushed him with a palm to his lips. Too entranced in his own growing pleasure as Mr. Nicholas increased the velocity of his movements to the same scherzo as the concerto’s sixteenth-note motive.

Remy could hardly breathe from the excruciating pain, could hardly think. Only realizing the whole ordeal ended once grunting moans followed a final push-

“…Remy?”

Mint-green fluttered in a jolt, brought back to the country club theater by the march-like character of the concerto’s main theme through the Sehr lebhaft of the third movement. A glossy blur distorted the view of the purple ferret’s frown, and when Remy reached a finger to wipe the inner corner of his eyes, the gloss cleared to the unmistakable sight of warm, clear liquid wetting the tips of his fingers.

Shuddering a breath, Remy used the back of his hands to wipe away at the tired eyes he soon realized stung sore. But no matter how much he rubbed, the outpour of sadness and guilt refused to cease.

Juandissimo crinkled his brow, studying Remy as he scrubbed at his tears. He had thought to ask if Remy still wanted to leave after the concerto, but when he’d turned to face him, he saw his ahijado staring off with silent tears streaming. Aside from being deprived of proper sleep, Remy had seemed relatively okay throughout the day. Now he was upset to the point of crying, and without an explanation, the fairy godfather felt somewhat helpless.

In the allegro finish to the concerto’s end in the upbeat key of A-Major, Missy’s fluent fingers guided across the fret board in eight-note arpeggios that reached all the way through the grand finale. As she and her father made one final statement with their last fermata chord, they allow the notes to resonate before the crowd erupted in applause. Missy took a deep breath and smiled, looking to her father whose warm grin concurred that this run through had been the best they ever performed this concerto.

Standing for another bow before moving on to the sonata up next in their repertoire, Missy skimmed the audience and spotted the fifth-gen Buxaplenty in the very back through the dark. Sympathetic to the streaming tears of sorrow as she and her father took their bows.

Moonlight seeped past the sheer material of pastel-pink curtains, piercing through the shroud of darkness within rose-pink walls as the brown-skin girl cradled her red ferret atop her cerise duvet embroidered in white lace. Facing the white bedroom door from her pearl-white bedframe propped against the cerise flowers accenting one of the walls.

Silent tears damped her cheeks, brown eyes staring off with a distracted gaze to the plush magenta rug covering white French oak floors. Mentally battered and emotionally defeated, the prickly aches in her right shoulder her physical reminder that she will always be othered as the blackie in their white fortress…

Within the sunny yellow and spring green pallet of the preteen’s bedroom, Hillary sat on her bed with a crinkled nose and brows bunched in the middle, her blond ponytail draped on one side of her black and gold Versace party dress. Her baby-blue glower burning with animosity towards the little black girl using a cloth to dust the nightstand, wiping the surface with her right hand ringed in bright-red.

Her father had tasked her with the job to ensure Hazel completed all of her daily chores before the three of them were to leave for the country club, essentially giving Hillary permission to treat Hazel however she deemed fit . Throughout that entire day, Hillary had made a point in salting Hazel’s wounds. Yelling out demands, belittling her progress, purposefully destroying any progress that would force Hazel to go back and correct or start over completely, threating severe repercussions if Hazel disobeyed or rebelled in any way…

All a missing whip away from treating a little girl like her own personal house slave.

“You missed a spot.” Hillary snarked, tone laced with disgust.

Scanning her work of the nightstand so far, Hazel furrowed, mustering the voice to speak “…n-no I didn’t.”

“Yes you did!” Hillary snapped sharply, pointing at a random spot on the nightstand where there was no visible speck of dust. “It’s right there!”

Looking again, Hazel jutted her lower lip, frowning towards Hillary. “No, it’s not…”

Hillary shot to her feet, inching forward with the intent to intimidate Hazel into backwards steps. “Look here, Spook; when I say something’s not clean, then something’s not clean! Got it!?”

“Stop calling me that!” Hazel squeaked, her pout deceptively managed as tension corded her neck. God, was she tired of Hillary spitting out that word like a punchline…

“Shut up, Spook.” Hillary mocked, arms crossed in her entitled sense of domination. “Or I’ll tell my dad how much you’ve been talking back!”

The cloth trembled in her hands with suppressed rage, a rage which burned a withering fire in the center of her chest. Boiling her blood in the scorching heat glowing in her glare, sparking the impulse to act upon the intense flood of her frustration as she threw the cloth in an aggressive toss to the ground

“You better pick up that cloth right no-”

Hazel shoved Hillary with all her might, flat palms pushing her backwards by the stomach. Sending her stumbling backwards on her feet, she tripped onto her back as the back of her head smacked against the side of her mattress, bumping against the metal frame of her bed.

Body shaking with both rage and fear, Hazel’s gap chewed on her lip as Hillary blinked to orient herself. Shaking the haze out of her head, Hillary then reached behind her pigtail before her eyes practically bulged from their sockets towards Hazel, taken aback as if she had not anticipated retaliation let alone pushback.

Then, sitting herself up, her gawk iced coldly into a warning glare, filled with a smoldering resentment. “You shouldn’t have done that…” she hissed threateningly, causing a stab of acid to churn in Hazel’s stomach.

Thumps of charging footsteps behind the door amplified the closer they came to Hillary’s room, chilling Hazel’s insides into knots. Crap…Marcus must’ve heard the commotion and was on his way to investigate.

“Kakao, we need to get out of here…” her red ring warned cautiously, but a despairing chill froze Hazel in her spot. Running away only fueled Marcus’s merciless wrath.

Of course, taking any chance to enact her talents for the next child-star grammy, Hillary knitted her brows in the middle, tears welling in her wide eyes like some innocent little puppy…

Dooming Hazel for the worst when she burst out into dramatic wails.

Hazel's heart pulsed in her throat when she whirled around to a firm foot pushing open the door in a pounding bang. His sharp eyes scowled with savage fire, fury making his stomps strike the ground in heavy chomps with his wife not far behind as she held herself back by the doorway.

“She pushed me and made me hit my heeeeeeeaaaaaad!” Hillary cried her crocodile tears, shooting a prickly sensation up Hazel’s spine like a spider crawling up her back.

“No! T-T-That’s not…” Hazel started to stammer, her voice a fragile thread threatening to snap under the weight of her dread. Too overwhelmed to will her quaking legs to move out of his fast and furious path directly towards her. “I-I didn’t-”

She yelped when Marcus yanked hard on her right arm, snapping a sharp tingle radiating from the bone of her shoulder down through her fingertips. She felt muscles in her shoulder begin to spasm uncontrollably, sprouting more sparks of pain that brimmed her eyes moist as she screeched.

“Marcus, stop!” Angela cried yet made no effort to step foot from the doorway to intervene.

“You had no right to hurt my daughter!” Marcus shouted, mere inches away from Hazel’s pain-stricken tears. So much pain burning her arm numb, all Hazel could do was cry out in her agony. Irritating Marcus more as he showed absolutely no mercy by slamming her to the ground by that same arm, further dislocating her shoulder.

“Suck it up! Right now!” Marcus shouted, towering over her wailing cries in a menacing stance. “Or I’ll really give you something to-”

A gusting burst of bright-red sparkles punched the maniac square in the face, stumbling him backwards from the girl curling into herself as shaky fingers clutched the arm she could no longer move. He groaned as he cupped the throbbing pang in the bridge of his nose. Unaware of the red ring wielding her wand out of eyesight after internally debating with her morals and Da Rules.

His thin breaths huffed, unable to figure out what the heck just happened and why the hell his face hurt so much. Seeing that Marcus and stopped his rampage, Angela seized the opportunity to step in while the storm was in its calm. Hurrying towards the crocodile tears of her eldest daughter instead of checking on the child crying from a dislocated shoulder.

“Honey, are you okay?” Angela kneeled to Hillary, holding her daughter by her cheek.

“I…I-I will be…” Hillary sniffed, keeping up her act with an added hiss as she reached for the small spot in the back of her head that had already stopped hurting as much as upon first impact.

Breaths billowed through gritted teeth as Marcus ignored the mask of pain in his face, blue eyes ablaze in a murderous scowl towards the biggest regret of his life. “Can’t believe we ever adopted you…” he growled with grave deliberation. “You’re nothing but some black stain on our family name…”

Hazel could barely open her eyes, hitched whimpers rocking throughout her fragile frame.

“Just wait ‘til we come back tonight…” he sneered, his tone degenerating into a guttural rasp. “You’re gonna wish you could trade places with my son…”

Nyekundu observed Hazel’s contemplative stare, both concerned for her goddaughter and riddled with the guilt of delayed action. She should have done something sooner, but Da Rules state that a godchild had to wish for it first. Ultimately, she’d decided to take a page out of Juandissimo and Rose’s books and go against that rule. Unfortunately, the bulk of the damage had already been done by the time she mustered the bravery to act…and she would regret that for the rest of forever.

Just like she failed to stop Anthony from doing the unthinkable…

When Hazel had been banished to her room before the Wells abandoned her for the country club, Nyekundu had used magic to snap Hazel’s shoulder back into place. Thankfully, the pain instantly plummeted from a 10 to a 2, but Hazel did not want Nyekundu to use more magic to soothe her soreness.

All she wanted from Nyekundu was her company, to cradle her close. To let her tattered heart feel the love and comfort it so desperately craved.

Swaddled in her goddaughter’s folded arms, Nyekundu raised her worried gaze to Hazel, keeping her voice soft since it would be the first either of them had spoken for hours “…would you like to talk now?”

Hazel sniffed, quietly shaking her head. There was nothing to talk about, and even if, what’s the point?

“I’m so sorry, Kakao…” Nyekundu apologized, her words heavy with remorse. “I should have stepped in sooner…”

Full lips quivered at the fresh wave of tears pooling in brown eyes.

“…it…just all happened so fast…”

“It’s not your fault, Nee-Nee…it’s mine…” Hazel croaked just above a whisper, dejected eyes downcast “…who am I to think I should ever defend myself…”

The sudden startle of frantic scratching spooked the child and fairy godmother in a short jerk, tiny claws scraping behind the bedroom window. Heart racing, Hazel rubbed her tears away before she blinked repeatedly in shock. Instantly recognizing the white ferret writhing as if trying to force its way inside through the glass.

“…ni nini hicho?” Nyekundu gasped, questioning what the heck was clawing at the window like a rabid animal. Hazel’s lips parted in silent surprise. No way…how did he climb the side of a wall up two stories by himself?!

Lowering Nyekundu down onto the cerise duvet, Hazel slowly stepped off her bed, wincing when she rotated a crook out of her shoulder. Cautious in her approach towards the window as Nyekundu scurried across the bed to its edge.

“Hazel, what are you doing?”

“It’s Schumann.” Hazel spoke carefully, still processing how a ferret could stop his own fall to death. “You know the ferret I told you I met this morning?”

“Wait…that is Schumann?” Nyekundu almost couldn’t believe what she saw. “Then where is this Missy you also told me about?”

“And how did he get out of his house…?” Hazel more so questioned to herself. She remembered Missy mention how Schumann usually never ran off anywhere without her.

Once in front of the window, Hazel unclasped the lock, and just as she lifted the pane, she yelped when Schumann leapt through the open space onto the magenta carpet, spinning in place before he faced her with an eager tail and beaming taffy-pink eyes.

“S-Schumann?” Hazel gaped, brows tipped up. “What are you-”

She screeched when the albino ferret crawled up Hazel’s right leg like a lizard climbing a tree. Flinching uncomfortably when front paws latched onto her injured shoulder.

“Hazel!” Nyekundu worried that this ferret was hurting her godchild, until she found herself frozen, her body rendered immobile as red eyes widened in astonishment at the tiny specks of taffy-pink that began sparkling in Schumann’s beady eyes. Circling a concentration of shimmers around the very area where the child’s shoulder had been dislocated.

Nyekundu stared, both eyebrows forming a high arch of bewilderment. His aura radiated with intense mystical energy, energy too divine to be that of an everyday fairy. Can’t be a creation of Bwana Jorgen; if you were on the Fairy Commander’s radar, he’d come find you himself.

But if Schumann was not a fairy, then…

No…wait…could it be?

Hazel’s limbs stiffened to the point of trembling, too stunned to move. Her mind struggling to reconcile reality when the soreness in her shoulder subsided into nothingness. Seeing that half of his work was done, taffy-pink shimmers dissipated as he snapped his neck 180 towards the red ferret adorned with a golden crown. Swift and sharp in his leap off Hazel’s shoulder directly onto the bed mere inches in front of her, causing Nyekundu to take a step back, her body instinctively retreating as though her subconscious had triggered a defensive response to protect her.

“Nee-Nee? What’s wrong?” Hazel grew worried when Nyekundu furrowed towards the fixed stare of taffy-pink eyes, debilitated by the intimidating force of their laser focus. Locked eyes unblinking, Schumann inched in his deliberate, measured loom forward. Nose pointed as he shortened the gap between himself and the fairy godmother who reflexively backed away. Soon, beady eyes went aglow once more. Glistening in the brightest, iridescent swirls of pink.

Glitters of pink shimmered inside rings of bright-red, and Nyekundu’s stare went blank. As if the light in her eyes dimmed into a hollowness that glazed distantly before she slumped like a heavy sack.

“Nyekundu!”

Right as Hazel’s panic sped towards her godmother, Schumann spun around and locked sparkling eyes on her, halting her dead in her tracks. His stare shimmered madly, brighter than the sun. Seizing the godchild’s mental control in a hypnotic daze, the edge of her surroundings swaying and blurring together in dizzying waves…

Brown eyes drooped, heavy with weariness. The weight of exhaustion obscuring her clarity before her emptied thoughts succumbed to the comforting embrace of slumber.

Chapter Text

Blue eyes fluttered, squinting from the burning sting of LED lights blaring down from the ceiling. The steady drone of a beeping monitor gradually pulsed into her ears, bleeping louder and louder as clouds of stupor cleared from her mind. She could feel a mild yet irritating pressure in her nose, weak fingers reaching to feel a plastic object taped to her cheek. Groaning a miserable moan, she tilted her head to emerald walls surrounding her before an icy chill made her shiver, looking to the line of IV dripping fluids into her forearm where she spotted an indigo hospital bracelet circled around her wrist.

“…Susie…?” she croaked, and indigo eyes opened sleepily yet visibly relieved.

“Oh, Chloe, thank goodness…” Susie exhaled wearily, once worried that her goddaughter would never wake up “…how are you feeling?”

Chloe’s groggy blinks continued to scan her unknown surroundings “…where am I…?”

“The hospital…you were admitted after your panic attack.”

Coming further into wakefulness, Chloe grunted in her attempt to sit herself upright in a bed with French-blue cotton warming her lower half. Seeing her signature yellow dress replaced with a lavender hospital gown where a single tube dangled over her chest, connected to the thinner tubes lodged in her nose. When she continued to look around, she realized she and Susie were the only occupants in the room as she murmured “…w-where’s my dad?”

“He’d stepped out like an hour ago and hasn’t come back yet.”

They then heard the ‘clink’ of the hospital door opening, revealing hunter-green bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. Eyes that went round in slow blinks, frozen in the doorway still dressed in his wildlife rescue uniform.

“…Chloe?” Clark gasped, both taken aback and grateful to see his daughter finally awake. Carefully shutting the door behind him, he approached her bed, grabbing the nearest chair to scoot to her bedside. “How’re you doing, baby girl?”

“…dad?” Chloe squeaked as Clark took his seat, reaching to take her feeble fingers into his. “Why am I in the hospital…?”

When he cleared his throat, the corners of his lips pulled down, his facial expression contorting as if uncomfortable. “You had another one of your…‘seizures’ and…” he stalled at the vivid, distressing images of his daughter spasming madly, not responding to him. Images he wished to never see ever again “…it wasn’t good.”

Haunted eyes lowered, discomfort crossing her face.

“Doctors were able to wake you up for an MRI, but you were so out of it that you probably don’t remember any of it.” He continued, moistening dry lips. “It didn’t show any signs of epilepsy, but…it did show some abnormalities associated with anxiety.”

She managed to meet his eyes again, color draining from her skin as bleeps of the heart monitor edged in speed. “Ab…A-Abnormalities?”

“Yes.” Clark furrowed. “How they explained it was…something to do with the structure of your right temporal lobe. And something about your basal ganglia being too overactive.”

Her eyes drifted once more, feeling a jitter in her veins not just from the cold drip of IV. Her brain wasn’t just sick…it was damaged. Taking in this realization with a crestfallen whisper to herself “…so there is something wrong with me…”

His brows scrunched from the guilt-stricken tug at his heartstrings. “They also reached out to Dr. Wahlgren…” he sighed. “They…think it’s within your best interest to start medication sooner rather than later.”

Bleeps of the monitor continued to increase in pace as blue eyes blinked to her father “…w-what does that mean?”

He gave her fingers a comforting squeeze. “It means that on Monday, I’m gonna pick up your new prescription for 20mg of Paxil for anxiety and 0.5mg of Klonopin.”  

“…Klonopin…?” Chloe breathed, remembering Dwight mentioning something like that before.

“For the panic-induced seizures.” Clark clarified. “It’s only to be taken as needed since…it has addictive properties…” he faltered before he leveled himself with a deep breath. “But Dr. Wahlgren has you on the lowest dosage possible, so…it should be safe.”

Guess your brain couldn’t handle all those stupid tantrums of yours.

Chloe stiffened at the sound of her mother’s voice, plaguing her thoughts for the first time upon awakening. She almost wished she could just go back to that deep sleep, when her mind was the emptiest it’d been in ages. When she had no thoughts to trouble her, to make her feel so pathetic.

Now he’s spending all this money on you, and for what? Because you can’t control your emotions? Because you damaged your own brain?

Her legs fidgeted beneath the covers, her heart in a thumping race with the monitor trying to keep up. The weight of anxiety pressing on her chest as her nostrils flared in strained breaths despite nasal tubes breathing oxygen for her. Clark squeezed her hand again, his other palm cupping the side of her cheek.

“Everything’s gonna be okay.” he assured, grave with affection. “You are gonna be okay.”

Can she believe that? Or is she doing nothing but making his life more stressful?

As Clark removed his palm from her cheek, Chloe breathed in sharply, her voice trembling with uncertainty “…w-what about Dr. Katherine? Am…a-am I gonna go back?”

Though he glanced away, she could see hunter-green narrow to slits, his grimace growing troubled in a grinding jawline. Palpable aversion crinkling his nose in the discomfort that crossed his face, making Chloe regret her question.

Now why would you ask such a dumb question?

Of course, mother dearest had to make her regret asking even more.

He shook his head as if shoving down what he didn’t want to feel back to where he couldn’t feel them, tucking away the side of him he did not want his daughter to see. He weakened his grimace when he looked to her again, his voice grim in a tonelessness that hinted at remorse.

“We can talk about it more after you get some rest...okay?”

Call her paranoid, but Chloe did not like the sound of that.

Speckled seeds of stars were planted within the black soil of the night’s sky, the waxing crescent shining its celestial moonlight down upon the grey shingles of the two-story home. Red brick sided the first floor and white fiber-cement sided the second. The front porch was covered by a half-gabled roof connected to the side garage, a similar design to the other houses on the same street.

The Hufflesnuff crest of a badger hung as a tapestry above the headboard to a twin bed, two boys confined within yellow painted walls and umber wooden flooring with a window framed with black curtains. Elmer allowed his brain to turn off, arms folded over bent knees in the black beanbag propped against his bedframe. Dull eyes watching the episode of Crash Nebula flashed across the tv screen with the intergalactic hero saving his comrades from the threat of evil aliens at a low volume.

The other beanbag beside Elmer remained unoccupied as Dwight lay motionless atop the black duvet in the recovery position, the side of his head flat against a yellow pillowcase. Black rims resting beside the digital alarm clock on the nightstand, soft lips hung gently in quiet snores, one arm limp over the other cuffed with his dark-teal medic alert bracelet. Recouping after a horrific seizure that had exhausted him into a deep slumber over two hours ago.

In their return from Dimmsdale Park, Dwight had started to complain of dizziness and déjà vu, signs that a big seizure was on the horizon. Almost as if the cluster of tonic-clonics earlier that day were just opening acts for the main event of a grand mal. Luckily, his mom and dad were within reach to assist; it’d been four tumultuous minutes of wild muscle spasms, limbs bent at add angles, gurgling, eyes rolling back, face turning red. He’d even stopped breathing at some point, just like the really bad seizure that one night they’d traveled to Chloe’s house to see her whenshe was grounded.

Exhaling a somber breath, Elmer turned his head to the digital clock on his nightstand, reading 8:45pm in bold red. Dwight’s dads should be on their way from their shifts, and Elmer hoped that they would agree to take his parents’ offer for them to move in. Proper care for Dwight’s epilepsy should be priority over making enough money. And if the Schlatters no longer had to worry so much about money, then he could finally get back the fun-loving, enthusiastic, bright ball of joy instead of the staid, fatigued, dark cloud sinking further and further into depression before his very eyes…

He could finally get his big brother back.

When a shadow stretched over the surface of his nightstand, Elmer’s gaze drifted to the window, lifting his chin from his knees with eyebrows shooting up at the source of the shadow. Perched on a tree branch was a Great Grey, dark streaks within fluffy plumage stretching from the top of its head down the elongated cape of tail tapers. Turquoise saucers piercing in their fixed stare.

Recognizing the same owl from what he and Dwight had seen in the park, Elmer steadied himself out of his beanbag. Taking tentative steps towards his window as the owl blinked once and only once. Unlocking the panels, he raised the sash as a gentle gust of frigid air swayed through black curtains. He supported himself with flat palms to the sill, sticking out his head. Eyeing the mysterious owl showing no signs of intimidation or any indication of being bothered by his curious attention.

Grey feathers ruffled in a low hoot, soon realizing that her turquoise eyes were not staring at him but past him. Elmer turned his head to the boy sleeping on his bed, making the connection as he looked back to the Great Grey. What was she doing here, and why was she staring at Dwight?

“Bulma, come back here!”

Elmer heard the nasally voice that snapped the owl’s neck almost 180 degrees. Balancing herself on the branch, she waddled on her talons until he could only see her tail tapers and the back of her head. Spreading her wings in her lift off from the branch across the patch of grass separating Elmer’s house from the neighboring home.

He watched her wings expand in a noiseless landing atop a scraggily arm outstretched before her wings retracted to her sides, and when the source of the nasally voice came into full view, Elmer gave an involuntary gasp.

“I opened the window for some fresh air, not so you can fly away.” the younger Mr. Crocker clone groused to his owl, reaching to pull in the jade shutters to what looked to be his bedroom window. He either didn’t pay attention or didn’t acknowledge Elmer’s gawk as he did so, both the boy and his owl disappearing once the shutters were shut.

Wait…that kid was his neighbor? Since when!? Not that he ever gave too much attention to his neighbors, but there’s no way Elmer could’ve been blind to a kid with such distinctive features. What was his name…Kevin? He swore on everything this was his first time ever seeing Kevin in this neighborhood. Now, come to find out, Kevin was his neighbor?! 

Man, just wait ‘til Dwight hears about this!

A golden retriever’s echoing howl broke the silence along the desolate streets from the front porch of the yellow home, growing impatient from a forever of hours secured to a pillar. Given less freedom than before it’d been discovered that he had escaped his leash. When the front door creaked open, the university Freshman left the door ajar, pink Chuck Taylors scuffing the stone of the porch before his crestfallen kneel to his canine companion as to ease the separation anxiety.

“It’s okay, boy…” Tommy soothed, though he was unable to mask the emotional gravity of the day’s unprecedented events in his words. “We’ll go home soon…”

Instead of a happy bark, Buddy let out a pathetic whine. Empathetic to his owner’s glum blue gaze as Tommy gently scratched along Buddy’s fluffy neck fur. In return, Tommy let his eyes close in a somber sigh, lowering his forehead to Buddy’s. Mild glints of periwinkle-blue sparkled within brown and blue eyes as Buddy eyed the heavy guilt weighing the young lad down.

In an attempt at comfort, Buddy’s wet tongue licked the stubble in Tommy’s chin, a simple yet endearing act that curled the faintest grin in dejected features. Nevertheless, Tommy’s cheeks were too weak to maintain the first grin in hours, his sorrow too potent to pretend as the slither of inner peace faded from his lips. He stared into the light sparkles within Buddy’s tender gaze, hearing his own head voice tell himself that there simply wasn’t much he could have done. And yet, the dagger of guilt will forever be lodged into his heart. Twisting deeper and deeper as penance for the life he’d failed to save.

Still inside the home, Timmy leaned against the living room hall near the hallway, hands tucked in his jean pockets as his troubled brow silently observed the elderly widower. Doubled over in his favorite beige recliner as wrinkly fingers clutched the sides of his grey hairs, his face buried into bunched knees having spoken not a word. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t stirred from this position since paramedics had left the premises with a body bag. A body bag transporting his wife of fifty years to the city coroner.

The average boy that no one understands may have cynical tendencies, but he was not utterly heartless. Although, it was hard for him to say whether his grandmother deserved the abrupt end of her life. Nevertheless, he felt his grandfather did not deserve the surmounting heartache as a result; Vlad Vladislapov has suffered so much loss. The son he wished he could love more, the daughter he always cherished. The granddaughter he adored, and now…the only woman to ever steal his heart.

There are few fates worse than death. It must feel as if his family, one by one, had fallen victim as Grim’s target. Timmy could not wish that amount of suffering on the rare relative who, to an extent, acted civilly towards him.

The pink-hatted boy heard the creak of the front door open and close followed by shuffling footsteps, creaking across the kitchen and through the archway into the living room until they stopped beside him. Timmy turned his head with blue eyes raised, looking to the furrowed brow of Tommy directed towards the elderly man sucked in the relentless despair of his grief.

“Hey, Timmy? Do you mind…checking on Gary? I’m worried about him…” Tommy gently requested, despondent. “I’d do it myself, but…I dunno if he’d wanna see me right now.”

Seeing no point in saying ‘no,’ Timmy simply shrugged as he kicked himself off the wall, hands still in his pockets as he passed in front of Tommy and exited the living room into the hallway through the archway. Seeing light pour out from the wide-open door to his cousin’s room in the aftermath of paramedics rushing in to assess that their grandmother no longer showed signs of life.

A small poof pinged somewhere around his left arm, prompting him to look down to the green wristband that had suddenly appeared around his wrist as he dully muttered “…what’re you doing here?”

“You’ve been gone a while; Wanda and I were getting worried.” Cosmo admitted. “We thought one of us should come check on you.”

Of course, they did. “Figures…”                                                                                       

“We also saw flashing blue and red lights through the windows earlier and heard a dog barking…” Cosmo mentioned, a subtle knit of concern etched in his brow. “What happened?”

Timmy sighed in his approach to the open bedroom door. “I’ll explain later. Promise.”

Cosmo deepened his frown, troubled by the gritty indifference in his godson’s tone as Timmy carefully stepped through the doorway, spotting the yellow retriever perched across Gary’s lap. Fully conscious and healed yet perturbed in his observance of the tweenaged godchild who had remained in the same spot on the floor by his bed, an absent gaze staring into nothing.

“Hey, Alondro…” Timmy edged further into the room as Alondro flicked his icy blue towards him in acknowledgement. “Feeling better?”

Alondro briefly lifted his chin before his gloom lowered it back to his paws. “Physically and mentally are not the same answer…”

“Wait, did something happen to you, Alondro?” Cosmo queried, totally left in the dark. Green eyes darting between the fellow godfather and the unfocussed flatness in glassy blue eyes. “And why does Gary look so out of it?”

“Not now, okay?” Timmy whispered down to his wrist, coming off harsher than intended. Cosmo furrowed but shut his mouth as Timmy glanced back to Gary’s slack jaw. “Has…he come back at all?” his question only deepened Alondro’s worried frown towards his godson.

“I cannot seem to reach him…”

Timmy’s brows narrowed. Gary has been in this disconnected state for way too long; he was starting to lose hope that anyone could reach him. “Gary?” he called out, receiving no response in return. Inching closer, Timmy got down on one knee and used two fingers to lightly tap Gary on his cheek. Not getting so much as a blink or even a reactive flinch.

“I have tried that…among other things.” Alondro exhaled, defeated. “Nothing has worked.”

[I can’t get to Gary, either…] he heard Sophia admit as Timmy waved his hand in front of Gary’s blank eyes. When this had just as little effect as tapping his cheek, Timmy groaned in his throat. It was like Gary’s brain had pulled the rip cord on reality.

Timmy’s gaze sharpened critically, studying the blue eyes like still ponds reflecting nothing but the cold, empty sky above. “C’mon, dude…” he grumbled. “You gotta still be in there somewhere…”

It was as if those magic words rose the lifeless from the dead as the fairies and godchild saw Gary’s head bobble back against the bed in delayed, dazed blinks, as if his neck had grown too weak to maintain support.

“Gary?” Timmy tried again a bit louder this time. “Say something if you can hear me.”

There was still a vacant haze in Gary’s stare, eyes drifting as if battling to cling onto the present. His mouth felt heavy, struggling to form words as if his lips were disconnected from swirling thoughts if there were any thoughts at all. His mind felt sluggish as though plodding through thick mud, his consciousness wading away like a ghost untethered from the present.

“…peque?” Alondro called gently, fearing that Gary was not yet out of the dissociative woods. His fears confirmed when Gary’s eyes rolled back into lids pulling closed. Losing the last of sturdiness in his head as it drooped hard to one side, upper body sliding in a graceless slump.

Quickly poofing into fairy form, Alondro’s firm arms caught Gary’s limp fall, clenching his jaw when his abs throbbed sore in his efforts.

“What’s wrong?” the green wristband worried.

“Nothing. I am fine.” Alondro groaned, pushing his own discomfort aside in his frown to his godson. “However, Gary likely will not come around until tomorrow.”

“Terrific...” Timmy’s sarcasm grumbled. As if this whole day hadn’t been enough of a mind-bender. This unknown older brother comes into his life out of thin air, his grandma is dead, his grandpa is a grieving mess, and his cousin was too lost in la-la land to even know what the heck was happening…

What else could possibly go wrong?

Remy’s palm wiped at silent tears, shoulders hunched with mint-green downcast. Black shoes dangling off the edge of his bed as his innermost thoughts and his tattered core wrestled with the burthen of his most difficult confession.

He swallowed, expression tight with strain. Mustering the courage to raise his chin to the fairy godfather hovering with crossed arms before him. Juandissimo bit down on his thumb grittily, an irritated slit in his brow that was clearly managed. Blue-violets heated in a pointed glare to the waxing crescent shining through the window.

Remy furrowed in shame; before the start of the sonata during the audience’s applause, Remy had uttered a wish to retreat back to his room, and that was when Juandissimo had questioned him about the tears that seemingly came from nowhere. Originally afraid to reveal the truth in fear of backlash, Remy had made Juandissimo promise two things. To try to stay calm, and to keep this solely between them.

Juandissimo had agreed to these conditions despite his reservations in adhering to them; he’d assumed the tears might’ve had something to do with memories of that Satan’s spawn disguised as a nanny. While he knew he certainly would not be calm, he had wanted to give Remy a safe space to open up.

And so, Remy had to find his voice again, pushing through the fist of ignominy and secrecy squeezing his throat. Revealing that the night he was almost assaulted in the country club had not been the first time, just the first time anyone cared enough to intervene before things went too far.

Noting his godfather’s visible restraint, Remy sniffed, eyes red with gloss. “Please, say something…” he pleaded in a hushed voice, the silent tension crushing him with each ticking second.

His searing glare softened slightly in his godson’s direction, seeing tears stain Remy’s cheeks. Juandissimo lowered his thumb from grinding teeth, groaning a grappled breath. “How is it that tus padres never found out?” he questioned, the tightness in his voice revealing the effort to contain his agitation.

“…y-you mean my parents?” Remy guessed timidly, then he released an exhale of internal discomfort. “Like I said…he cleaned the aftermath before anyone could...”

“But someone had to have noticed when you could barely walk straight for two days, no?” Juandissimo’s remark held an undertone of vexation. “Tus padres, those popular kids, maids, butlers…literally anyone with eyes?”

Remy averted his gaze. Recalling his parents’ contemptuous scoff, the judgmental snickers of the popular kids, and the intentional ignorance of hired help complicit in his parents’ incorrect and callous assumptions “…they…all just thought I was doing it for attention…”

If Juandissimo’s blood boiled any hotter, it’d be plasmic vapor. An exasperated breath growled in his throat, floating at a back-and-forth pace that Remy followed with sore eyes. Seeing his brows furrow and his lips twist wryly in a contorting mask of rage.

His very essence radiating with an aura warning of an impending eruption that made Remy almost afraid to ask “…w-what’re you thinking right now?”

“Going back in time to stop that piece of shit from being conceived.”

“Juan…” Remy grimaced to his godfather’s blunt gnarl. He was afraid this would happen.

It took much restraint to cease his pace, stopping in front of his godchild. “Remy, I am trying, but you honestly cannot expect me to be calm about this! Especially when that puta got away with zero repercussions and zero care for what he has done to you!”

“That’s-” Remy shut thin lips. Councilman Persimmons said Mr. Nicholas had gotten a taste of his own medicine, but ‘violated and stripped of his manhood’ could have had another meaning than what was never explicitly stated. Physical and emotional suffering? What did that truly entail?

He wouldn’t know, because there’d been zero word regarding the nanny’s whereabouts. Not a news article, not a letter, not a phone call…nothing. Not that he really cared, but it was like he just…disappeared. No trace of him dead or alive, giving him nothing to refute Juandissimo’s comment.

Remy emitted a deflated breath, drying his eyes with another swipe of his palm “…I should’ve never said anything…”

Juandissimo took a deep breath, pinching his nose bridge. Uncertain if he should even ask “What about telling tus abuelos?”

Both eyebrows raised slowly, expressing Remy’s skepticism and confusion at the absurdity of such a question. “You mean my grandparents? Absolutely not! They’ll just think I’m making it all up!” It was his turn to cross his arms, jumping off his bed as he turned away towards the window. “There’s nothing they can do about it anyway…not worth the headache…”

 Juandissimo sighed, massaging the sides of his temples. He could sense Remy shutting down, the exact opposite of what he wanted to happen. He thought to himself, taking the moment of quiet to mull over what it was he’d wanted to accomplish. Starting with what was now known to him…the root of Remy’s nightmares.

Coming to terms with the revelation that calculated rape had been justified as an egregious expression of love. One could imagine how hard that would be for anyone to grapple with, let alone an eleven-year-old boy. A boy who, up until about four months ago, had grown up with a distorted perception of what love is. A perception that was likely still warped.

“…were there other times?” Juandissimo sounded both derisive and tentative in his question, a question he almost believed had gone unheard when Remy didn’t immediately respond.

“No…” Remy kept his troubled brow to the night sky in the window. “He…saw what going that far did to me and…didn’t try again…” the unsettling image of getting pinned to a table played in his mind “…until that night at the country club…”

That fucking snake.

When Juandissimo spoke again, it was after a deep, leveling breath. “Can you answer me this? What would you say to him if he were in front of you right now?”

After a pause, the young billionaire pivoted on his heel with a scrunched face “…why?”

“Just curious.”

Remy chewed on his bottom lip, his mouth pinched. A subconscious reaction to the tangled mess of thoughts in his mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but words eluded him as a perplexed silence followed. He’d never thought about it before, what he would say to the man once believed to have loved him. The man who had taken advantage of his loneliness and manipulated him for his own twisted desires. What was there even to say? The assault only happened once, and he didn’t even understand what was happening when it’d happened. Could he just be…overreacting?

He knitted his brow. No, he shouldn’t think that way. It shouldn’t have happened regardless, and he didn’t think he had the heart of forgiveness. Then again, he didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself. What if his nightmares were also a manifestation of regret? Had he not been so naïve, had he not been some stupid kid who allowed things to get to that point, he wouldn’t be in this position.

In the same boat, that man was the only human being in his life to give him any type of love, even if inappropriate in hindsight. Now he was no longer in his life…so…

What did it matter?

Remy eventually shrugged, not knowing how to answer other than a muttered “I dunno…”

“I think you do.” Juandissimo pressed. “What would you say to anyone who has ever wronged you?”

Remy looked down, unable to maintain eye contact. “I…I don’t know.” he couldn’t know, rather. The pain was simply too great to bear as he shook his head. “I-I’m sorry…”

Juandissimo studied his godson, seeing the waves of emotions crashing behind Remy’s tense grimace with no words to properly express them. His observations led to an idea for something he himself had not considered nor tried in a very long time, a release he himself could use.

Using his wand, Juandissimo materialized a pillow small enough to grab with one hand yet big enough to bring to his face and cover his nose and mouth. Closing his eyes after an inhale as deep as his lungs could expand, he let it all out in a bellowing howl that pulsated veins in his neck. Startling Remy in rapid blinks as the buffer of pillow fluff could only muffle the throaty, guttural cry of fury but so much.

He heaved for air once his vocal cords could no longer sustain the grit of his growling cry, breathing in ragged huffs when he lowered the pillow from his face losing redness. Protruding veins sunk in his skin with shoulders slouching in loose tension, now significantly less on the edge of exploding than earlier.

“Have you lost your mind?!”  Remy yelled, utterly thrown. “What the heck was that?”

Juandissimo hovered closer to Remy, panting as he held out the pillow. “An outlet.”

Remy stared, cocking a quizzical brow.

“You just scream as loud as you can into the pillow.” Juandissimo’s voice rasped hoarse, slightly strained from the scream that had assuaged his anger. “Let out the emotions you otherwise bottle inside.”

Skeptical, Remy squinted to the pillow held out before him. Why does that sound as crazy as it looked?

“And how does this help exactly?” Remy quizzed.

“Go on.” Juandissimo encouraged after clearing his throat, gesturing to the pillow in his hand. “Give it a try.”

Apprehensive, Remy slowly took the pillow into his grasp. Holding the sides with both hands as his brows formed a deep, puzzled crease. He stalled, tilting his head to the side. Doesn’t this just damage your vocal cords? What is screaming into a pillow supposed to do for him? In search for answers, he looked to the lack of vexation in his godfather’s features. He did seem a lot calmer, so…maybe it does do some good?

He sighed complicitly, gradually bringing the pillow to his face. Feeling ridiculously dumb as a lackadaisical, half-hearted yell rumbled out like a lazy roar.

“Oh, come on!” Juandissimo almost barked a laugh. “That was muy malo.”

“Juan, this is so stupid!” Remy huffed, lowering the pillow with a jutted chin.

“No, you are not even trying!” Juandissimo countered. Remy diverted his eyes, and he hovered forward with a consoling palm to Remy’s shoulder.

“I know it is hard, but try to think of everything that has ever hurt you and how it makes you feel.”

Remy looked up, meeting Juandissimo’s solemn gaze.

“Allow yourself to feel those feelings, not suppress them. Then take a deep breath…” he took the time to demonstrate, inhaling through his nose before exhaling through his mouth “…and just let it all out in the pillow.”

When Juandissimo backed away, Remy held a pensive gaze to the pillow in his hands. Fingers tense with doubt as they squeezed the cushion, shoulders stiff. That’s the thing…he didn’t want to feel those feelings. He didn’t want to feel emotions. All emotions ever do is screw you over…

…all they ever do is make your loneliness associate with rich, snooty kids whose shallow minds were never capable of understanding your pain.

"Like what? Reminding yourself how much endless amount of money you have?"

"Or counting the number of yachts and limos you have!"

"Or moping because your personal chef served day-old caviar with your pouched egg!"

"Don't even think about sitting with us again, Buxaplenty!"

…all they ever do is make you desperate for affection. Dumb you down to think a master manipulator had the capacity to love you.

"…I'd hate for you to do something to make our love stop."

"You've been avoiding me and waving me off all week without a care in the world of how much it hurts me! All I've ever done was love you when your parents didn't, and this is the thanks I get?!"

"Do you not feel how much you mean to me?!"

"No one loves you like I do!"

…all they ever do is fill you with the false hope that your own parents, the reason you even existed, would ever care about you, ever love you. Ever want anything to do with you.

"Well, you know what they say! Time is money!”

"Look, England, we have more important things to do! There's money to be made, and it won't be made wasting our time with you!"

"The only reason you're even here is because both of our families demanded an heir for every last cent every Buxaplenty has ever worked for!"

…ever want him.

"We never wanted you in the first place!”

His eyes began to flash with pure contempt, burning with a fierce, unyielding hatred that made him shudder. Hands trembling with repressed fury, fingers digging into the cushion. Scorn soon twisted his mouth in a tight snarl and his breaths billowed through his teeth. Years of anguish and anger boiling from within, boiling in his blood in a scorching heat bubbling from his heart. Animus pressure suffocating in his ribs, eager to escape…

Shoving the pillow to his face, he screamed. Screamed in ragged bursts of chilling screeches growling from deep in his throat. Screamed relentlessly until bulging veins stained his face red. Screamed until his eyes stung from tears flowing freely.

Though his throat had grown fatigued, his rage had not. In hitched breaths, he yanked the pillow and slammed it onto the ground, thrashing repeatedly as feathers ripped at the seams. Exploding into fluffy confetti before he flailed the pillow onto the floor to squish beneath his shoe, kicking and stomping with all his might as wild grunts strangled through his teeth.

Watching the scene from the sidelines with folded arms, Juandissimo bunched between his brows. He’d seen Remy’s anger, only it’d been nothing quite like this. Part of him feared this was pushing it too far, that he’d created a monster. Yet part of him concluded that this was inevitable, that Remy had to feel this anger even though it may seem endless. A necessary and difficult start in taming the inner child that’d been wronged into a hagridden beast.

After all, anger is sadness that had nowhere else to go for a long, long time.

Chapter Text

Her eyes opened groggily, blinking away the fog of deep sleep before they goggled in surprise. Her heart thundered in her chest as she shot upright, realizing she was covered with a turquoise blanket accented with pink polka dots. When brown eyes scanned the rest of her unknown surroundings, they saw sunlight sheen through sheer pink curtains draped against the turquoise wall littered with various music posters and music themed abstract art. A ferret cage was stationed on a cedar wooden nightstand that matched the framed bed she lay in that had fairy lights dangling from the headboard, and various toys were piled in one corner of the room next to wooden doors to what she assumed was a closet, carved with an f-hole design she recognized on classical stringed instruments.

…where am I? her mind buzzed, trying to figure out why she found herself not in her room as she tugged at the light-green pajama set centered with a pink heart, her other hand reaching for the silk bonnet protecting her curls. Nightclothes she couldn’t recall ever wearing let alone changing into before bed. She looked down to the red ferret sleeping next to her beneath the covers, realizing that she wasn’t alone.

“Nee-Nee.” the nine-year-old shook her fairy godmother, only stirring her lightly in a low groan before she shook with a little more force. “Nee-Nee, wake up.”

Red eyes blinked slowly as she gained her bearings, confused as to why nothing around her looked familiar until her eyes flashed wide “…where are we?”

“I don’t know…” Hazel was uncertain herself. “All I know is that we were in my room before Schumann showed up...”

Scooting from under the covers, Nyekundu stretched before nestling herself into the small crevice between Hazel’s legs. Hazel reached to give gentle strokes along red fur as the godmother looked to her goddaughter with a subtle frown. “Hazel…how is your shoulder?”

“It’s strange….” Hazel glanced to the shoulder that had been previously dislocated, moving it with ease. “It feels like nothing ever happened to it.”

Nyekundu pursed, recalling the taffy-pink sparkles emitting from the albino ferret’s eyes and around Hazel’s shoulder. That ferret was no ordinary ferret, but only that much she knew for certain.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” Nyekundu asked as a starting point to figuring out how they both ended up here.

“I do…” Hazel’s brows pinched when Marcus’s furious glower flashed across her mind. Feeling a sudden stab of terror in her gut, she continued stroking Nyekundu’s fur, finding comfort in the repetitive act.

“So you remember Schumann finding his way to your room? Healing your shoulder?” Nyekundu quizzed, and Hazel’s brows grew pensive.

“Yes…” Hazel recalled the glittering pair of pink eyes before everything went dark. “I thought I’d just dreamed that.”

“No, I remember that too, Kakao.” Nyekundu tenderly brushed against Hazel’s palm. “And I wonder if Schumann is the reason we are here.”

As Hazel considered this possibility, the resonant bowing of a stringed instrument soon sang through the wall adjacent to the bed, causing the pair to glance towards the same direction as where Hillary’s room would be. “That…sounds like a cello.” Hazel spoke as if uncertain, though she could recognize the mellow yet rich timbre of the music.

Nyekundu looked to Hazel, arching a puzzled brow “…Hillary doesn’t play cello.”

Hillary doesn’t play anything… Hazel muttered in her mind, coming more and more to the conclusion that wherever they were was not her home as a knot swelled in her throat. Sure, they were technically kidnapped, but it didn’t feel like they were taken by aggressive force. If so, then why did it feel like dread had a chokehold on her?

“Perhaps…we should check it out?” Nyekundu sounded hesitant yet set on finding answers to their many questions, and Hazel turned to her with a similar expression. The chill up her spine suddenly felt as if leaving this bed was like diving out of a plane without a parachute, but they can’t sit like idle ducks forever.

And so, Hazel scooped the red ferret into her arms and pulled back the blanket, scooting off the mattress as her bare feet planted against the plush white carpet. Holding Nyekundu against her chest as her tentative steps led them to the white door that led out into the hallway. When she twisted the knob and pulled back the door, the cello’s colorful and graceful song sang louder through the hall. She peeked her head out, looking left and right before her eyes narrowed. If she wasn’t in her house, then why did the hallway look exactly like the upstairs hallway at home?

Hazel cradled Nyekundu tighter and she braced herself, stepping out on a leap of faith as she crept towards the open door that was in the same spot as Hillary’s room, except Hazel knew it wasn’t. Stopping just behind the doorway, she swallowed and peeked into the pastel-pink room, her lips parting in silent surprise. Spotting the strawberry-blonde string her bow against reverberating strings as her fingers glided along the fretboard with the elegance of a musician beyond her years.

It's Missy…she realized as she observed Missy sway almost intentionally yet almost unaware of her upper body’s movements, swept in the lullaby of the deep, warm notes that could wrap around like a loving hug. It was a song Hazel didn’t recognize, an improvisational flow of melodies strung together in a natural secession as if deliberately composed. The corner of her eyes also spotted the albino ferret nestled on one of the pillows printed with the same musical design as the duvet, taffy-pink eyes admirably observant to the young cellist. Captivated by her music with his tail gently wagging, calm and content.

“…Schumann?” Nyekundu breathed quietly, looking up to Hazel whose eyes started to grow wide.

As if he had sonic hearing, Schumann’s ear wiggled before his head snapped in the direction of the door, causing Hazel to make a short gasp audible enough to distract Missy out of her musical zone in an abrupt stop of her bow. Muting the strings with her palm, Missy turned to her door. Half expecting her father to appear until she caught the little black girl quickly hide away behind the doorframe.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!” Missy smiled, careful in sliding the end pin back into her cello before lowering it onto its side.

Squeezing her red ferret closer, brown eyes hesitated to peek back from behind the doorway, making Missy giggle.

“Don’t be shy, come on in!”

Mustering the bravery to do so, Hazel shuffled her bare feet to step from cream marble onto cream carpet. She felt her bones shiver to the chill shooting up her spine, stopping inches from the room’s only exit as her gaze drifted to taffy-pink eyes fixed on her.

“How’re you feeling?” Missy asked, her smile as welcoming and polite as her tone. “Did you sleep okay?”

Her mind scrambling, Hazel gulped another lump in her throat. Finding the mousy voice to squeak “…w-where are we? And…why are we here?”

Placing her bow on her music stand, Missy’s furrowed brow seemed slightly thrown by ‘we.’ That was until she saw the red ferret cradled in Hazel’s arms and her eyes gleamed with a perky spark. “I met Remy Buxaplenty last night at his grandparent’s country club; he’d mentioned that he dyes his ferret’s fur! Do you do the same to yours?”

Blinking, Hazel glanced down to Nyekundu’s equally quizzical gaze. “…s-sure...” she decided to play along, making a mental note to question Remy about this later as she then turned back to Missy. “…but that doesn’t answer my question.”

She saw Missy’s exuberant smile soon wilted as if her façade had been exposed, sighing as she met eyes with her albino ferret now staring at her. “Spirit told me you weren’t safe with your family…” she expressed solemnly, holding Schumann’s gaze before looking back to Hazel “...so you were brought here. Where you are safe.”

Hazel lightly frowned, now only more confused than before.

“Hold still.” Molly instructed, seated Indian style atop the plaid duvet. Dabbing her brush in the eyeshadow pallet. “And keep your eyes closed so the bristles don’t get in your eyes.”

“O-Okay…” Glasses resting beside her, Tootie sat curled on her knees, squeezing her eyes shut. Bunching the fabric of her plaid skirt, braces biting down on her bottom lip.

“Relax, will you?” Molly cocked a brow with a subtle scoff. “I can’t do much with your eyes all scrunched up like that.”

“Oh.” Tootie squeaked, relaxing her eyelids. “Sorry…”

After breakfast earlier that morning, the younger girls had been sent to the camper’s back bedroom. Apparently for some sort of ‘surprise’ that wasn’t entirely a surprise considering what day it was. So, to pass the time, Molly had offered to do Tootie’s makeup, using the excuse that she ‘gotta look fly’ on her special day, especially now that Tootie has officially entered the ‘double digits club.’

In her now ten years of life, Tootie had never worn a lick of makeup ever. While the bible does not condemn the wearing of makeup, jewelry, or anything deemed an ‘adornment,’ she had grown up with the ideology that inner beauty was of upmost importance above physical appearance. Her mother only ever wore lipstick, and even then, she applied the lightest coat. Priding herself in modesty, decency, and propriety.

She remembered when Vicky had first experimented with makeup not even two years older than her current age, the image of red lipstick vividly in her mind. Vicky had slathered her lips with the thickest coat, and her eyes had been lined with so much liner she’d made herself look like a raccoon with two black eyes. That was the day their mother smacked her square in the face, the one and only time Nicky ever dare put her hands on her children.

She’d chided Vicky as a loose woman, called her ‘impure" to her face. All because of a little girl’s curiosity of her mother’s makeup bag…

When Molly had proposed the idea to do her makeup, Tootie was apprehensive at first. The only thing Molly had planned to do was give her touches of eyeshadow and eyeliner in much lighter versions of her everyday makeup, but Tootie questioned if a ten-year-old should be wearing makeup in the first place. Questioned if she herself would be judged as ‘impure’ if she put makeup on her face. Then again, the popular girls wore makeup way younger than ten, and that was that when Timmy’s ogling over Trixie ramped up…

So, maybe if she wore makeup, then…he’d start ogling over her?

She shuddered when bristles brushed against her lids, tearing her from her random train of thought. Trying not to flinch too wildly from the foreign object prickling her eyes with each appliance of purpureus pigment.

“Dude, hold still.” Molly groused gruffly. “Do you wanna get your eye poked out?”

“I-I’m sorry…” Tootie squeaked again, restraining herself. Why does any female subject themselves to this? It’s so itchy…

The two godchildren lapsed in silence, listening to the background of Swizzle and Rose hovering off to the side. Continuing their discussion on the final preparations for Fairy Fort as Molly blended the blotchy shadow into a seamless application. Then, Tootie cleared her throat, thinking what she’d meant to brush past Molly for her opinion. “Um…hey, Molly?”

“Yeah?”

Curling fingers crinkled her skirt once more “…are you afraid of getting older?”

Picking up more pigment in her brush for the other eye, Molly took a second to contemplate and then shrugged. “Don’t see the point. It’s gonna happen eventually.”

Tootie opened her eyes for the break of Molly dipping the brush into the eyeshadow, her tone somber. “Doesn’t it bother you that we won’t really remember our fairies? Or that we might not even remember each other?”

“Dunno about forgetting each other…” Molly remarked, waiting for Tootie to close her eyes again before applying the pigment to her barren eyelid. “Still…being scared about altered memories doesn’t change the fact that it’s gonna happen.”

Tootie stiffly squirmed under Molly’s patting brush. “I wonder if the others feel the same…”

“Well, remember when Dwight had his birthday?” Molly mentioned. “He was all Debby Downer about it, too. Still…” she observed her work before doing away with the brush and eyeshadow in preparations for the eyeliner. “there’s no use bein’ all sad about it.”

Tootie thinned her lips.

“We all now know our fairies will have to leave someday, but at least we’ll get to remember them in our sleep for however long we live after.” Molly dug in her makeup bag for her go-to eyeliner. “A luxury other godkids don’t and probably never will have.”

Contemplating these words, Tootie watched as Molly found the applicator, gesturing with a brief close of her eyes for Tootie to do the same. Tootie shut her eyes once more, and Molly leaned to steady the eyeliner pencil near Tootie’s lash line.

“The only thing we can do is just…try to enjoy what we have while we still have it. And our memories.”

Doing her best to keep her lid still, Tootie considered these words that she’d never expected Molly to say. “You really think that?”

The gothic girl paused, momentarily glancing towards her fairy godmother. Swizzle was hovering with crossed arms, listening begrudgingly to Rose fret over her list and her desire for everything to be perfect for the godchild who’d been taught to despise celebrating a day most mortals don’t make it to.

“I got enough bad memories…we all do, in a way.” Molly’s voice lowered, somewhat sour yet hushed in a controlled manner. Finished lining one lid in black wax as she moved on to the other. “I just want at least one thing in this life to be worth growing up instead of giving up...”

When she felt the eyeliner leave her lid, Tootie’s eyes softened at the corners in a sympathetic expression, brows furrowing. Perhaps it was better to live in the now than focusing on a future they can't change. “Yeah....”

Hearing Rose and Swizzle poof into their respective teal tabby and dark-blue raven disguises on the bed, Molly and Tootie turned to the slide of the curtain drawn back by a redhead teen while the scruffy man held a pink-frosted cake. Lined with decorative cream icing along the top rim and bottom base with four purple candles alight, surrounding white and pink-striped candles molded in the numbers 1 and 0 centered on the top that Tootie eyed with diffident curiosity once she'd corrected blurry vision with her purple specs.

“…that’s…my birthday cake?” Tootie guessed meekly.

“Yep.” One corner of Vicky’s lips lifted in a weak grin. “You make a wish in your head, then you blow out the candles.”

An internal cringe twitched in her cautious gaze, subconsciously hunching her shoulders. Staring at the burning flames melting waxy sticks like a wildfire scorching a tall tree to ash. Then she inhaled her nerves into a concentrated breath before blowing it out. Reminding herself that just because the bible had negative connotations of birthdays doesn’t make birthdays connotatively negative.

Celebrating a life milestone is nothing to feel guilty about, and blowing out a couple of candles does not condemn her to a destructive doom of God’s wrath that she no longer knew was certain to occur. It’s okay to enjoy a day that is supposed to be all about her, now that she was free from instilled fear and manipulative control…

It’s okay to be a kid.

Counting to three, Vic initiated for him and the other girls to start the tune of ‘Happy Birthday,’ taking his time approaching Tootie with the cake balancing in his grasp. While Vicky at least attempted to share her uncle’s enthusiasm no matter how cringe it felt to do so, Molly hated singing and thus droned the words. As for Tootie, she lowered her chin, a reddish heat flushing her cheeks under the attention spotlight. Partially relieved when the song eventually ended and Vic lowered the cake to her level.

“Now, close ya eyes and make a wish.” Vic instructed, grinning with a patience she’d never received from her own father. “But don’t say it out loud before ya blow out the candles or else it won’t come true.”

Even though she knew she can always just make wishes out loud without closing her eyes that would come true, she told herself that this was just part of that ‘birthday trope’ Vicky had explained to her in the days leading up. Playing along as she shut her eyes, thinking of a wish that perhaps no fairy’s magic could ever grant in a matter of longevity. Something she hoped would stand not only the test of time, but the test of fate.

Me, Timmy, Remy, Chloe, Gary, Dwight, Molly, and Hazel… her eyes squeezed tighter, filled with more desire for her wish to be a reality…I wish we can all be like family for the rest of our lives.

Solidifying the wish in her mind, she reminded herself of how Dwight had taken a deep breath before blowing out the candles on his cake, opening her eyes as she blew out each fire one by one. Starting to wonder if these candles really were magic when lavender sparkles glistened within the swirls of smoke rising into the air.

She was not the only one to notice this as Molly and their godmothers eyed the lavender glitters shimmering and twinkling that spread out with the dissipating fumes, their questioning glances immediately directed towards the birthday girl who could only stare back with the same bafflement. Vic and Vicky seemed oblivious in their eruption of cheers, though no one in the room appeared to be aware of a black raven’s lavender eyes sparkling as they peered through the window into the bedroom.

Flapping her wings to maintain flight, the black raven let out a resolute caw as her wings began her flight away from the Flagstaff camper. Gliding through the rural, rundown mobile homes of Happy Trail, flying through the exit gate in her ascent into the crisp, morning sky.

She soared in her path, exclaiming another shrill caw in her graceful flight. Her wings whirring at a furious rate sailing through the suburban neighborhood where a house of white walls and red roof sat now an empty shell waiting for a bid on the seller’s market. Cutting through chilly winds as she zoomed passed the vacant residence lined in French-lilac and roofed in boysenberry metal, the house once the home of extremist beliefs justified as Jehovah’s love.  

Her quick yet extensive journey only reached its end when she began her descent into one of the older neighborhoods of the city, where one decrepit house hung on its last leg. A house left in the poorest conditions of broken windows, peeling paint, a patched roof, and cracks along the walls. Outstretching her wings, she slowed her flight. Gliding towards the single window that led into the isolated room above the dilapidated garage.

Grime coating the dark shadows of olive-green walls, a middle-aged man crouched on the crinkled sheets of his bed with folded knees. Ribcage poking the thin layer of pale skin, garbed in nothing but his white boxers. Wood floors cluttered with papers scattered in disordered piles, decades of researching some imaginary world that turned out to be just that…imaginary. Cabinets reposed as if knocked over by force, dented with doors hanging by its hinges. The screen to his PC monitors black with cracks of death, killed by one man’s burst of frustration from the night prior.

Glum eyes glared at the birdcage, a cage that had remained empty since the death of his only friends. Carlos and Wilma, the two birds who had shown him that it was possible to be loved unconditionally, that it was possible to love him. A possibility that was now buried in the back yard with them. Mr. Crocker sulked in dark’s silence, consumed in isolation. Only showing any signs of life when the tiresome peck of a beak against glass made him groan, dark eyes drifting to the window.

He recognized the mysterious raven from the day before, when the van’s battery gave out. Stranded on the side of the road until he’d been approached by the same raven that’d flown off without a trace after his childhood tormentor thought giving his van a boost would atone for his transgressions. The raven continued pecking its beak against the glass as his brows slanted, wondering how that bird not only managed to seek out his house but why that bird was at his house in the first place.  

“Stupid-tuvid bird…” Mr. Crocker grumbled under his breath, his nerves pinching further the more aggressive the pecks became as if it was trying to pry its way in. His nostrils flared, clenching his fists with a gritting jaw. Stomach twisting with the force of his restraint that soon snapped like a rubber band stretched beyond its limits, shooting off the bed in peeved stomps.

“Go away!” he barked behind the window, fist pounding on his window to scare that raven off. “Pester somebody else!”

Instead, the raven cawed defiantly, and her beak continued to peck at the window with no backdown. Snarling his lips in thinning patience that expelled in a throaty grunt. Reluctantly, he unlatched the locks and shoved the pane upwards, a swoosh of winter’s chill following the raven’s swift zoom inside. Circling along the ceiling until it landed on the headboard of his bed nearest the empty bird cage, rousing its feathers. Making itself at home in a calm, almost calculated stare.

Shutting out more cold air from entering, Mr. Crocker was guarded in his approach, each step cagier than the last. Glare locked with the raven whose eyes held the illusion of a lavender lamp glowing among the dark shadows. When he stopped just feet away, he creased his brow. No unearthly idea of what to make of this…

Though he would soon find out.

“…why did you come here?” he hissed, and when lavender eyes began to sparkle like before, his mind could hear his own voice echo words that he did not think himself.

[I am tethered to you.]

His brows raised in disbelief, but only for a moment as they slanted skeptically “…what even are you?”

Huffing its chest, the raven’s eyes went aglow once more, and his own voice denoted [I am Parisa.]

The heck? This bird has a name? those were the only words he actively conjured in his mind. He cocked one brow, tucking his chin slightly. Narrowing his eyes as he probed “How is it that we can understand each other?”

[I am tethered to you.] the raven now known as Parisa repeated.

“Yeah, you said that.” Mr. Crocker grumbled, arms crossed against his bare chest. “I mean how?”

Parisa’s stare did not waver. [Not ‘how,’ but ‘why.’]

The center of his chest tightened, nails digging into his arms. Growing irritated as he turned away, shaking his head. “I must be hallucinating…” was his way of telling himself that he can’t be this crazy. Lying to himself until he could believe it as true. “Yeah…that’s it…none of this is real…”

[Humans do not passively perceive the world.] he heard Parisa state matter-of-factly. [They actively generate it.]

His perplexation slowly turned him back around, shifting from one foot to the other in hesitant and unsure movements.  

[Reality is not but a controlled hallucination.] Parisa continued. [We all are always hallucinating. It is when we agree about our hallucinations that we call it ‘reality.’]

A deep furrow creased his brow, searching for answers he could not find within the raven’s self-contained gaze. “The heck does that even mean?”

Parisa tilted her beak to the air in an emphatic manner, a brighter, more prominent glow shimmering in her eyes. A majestic glow of regality tinged within the nasally voice speaking in his head. [My existence to you is as real as your existence to yourself.]

He grimaced, every thought he actively thought leading to a dead end like a tangled web of mental disarray. Beginning to question if he should start taking his medication as prescribed, because at this point, he just might be as crazy as everyone says he is.

Chapter Text

Deep-lilacs wandered in admiration, eyeing the many white stars swirled among the colorful brush strokes of an aqua and pink cosmos that colored his nursery’s walls. Big and bright eyes drifted between the cosmos along the walls and the mobile hanging from the ceiling, tracking the wands and wings and floaty crowny things as they dangled in the most subtle sway. He tried to reach with the circular rattle painted with a gold star squeezed in one stubby hand, shaking it with the same fascinated excitement that kicked in his tiny legs. His pink-haired mother did her best to work around his sporadic movements, sliding the clean diaper underneath his little tush as she used the colorful markings along the diaper’s front to guide proper positioning.

They were supposed to have left for Tootie’s birthday at Fairy Fort ten minutes ago, but a certain fairy baby refused to take his morning nap despite much of his parents’ efforts. They’d fed him, rocked him, turned off all the lights to darken the nursery, even sang him lullabies. Nothing seemed to lull the wired baby determined to stay awake. Guess that’s what happens when a routine is altered to fit outside life events.

They couldn’t blame the baby too much for being hyperactive; when the other godchildren and godparents had all gathered for Dwight’s birthday a couple of weeks prior, Poof was still developing inside an incubator. His only interaction with the outside world was through a plastic wall, interactions limited to his parents, his aunts and uncles, and his godbrother. He had been introduced to his god cousin and his fairy when he’d become strong enough to breathe on his own, so Tootie’s birthday would mark the first time meeting other fairies and godchildren outside of immediate and extended family.

Thus, it became increasingly evident that Poof would rather forgo his mid-morning nap than have his nap cut short. It also didn’t help that he’d slept in that morning, something he had not done before now. Most parents would be grateful for the extra snooze, especially Cosmo and Wanda. However, in this case, everything was thrown completely off kilter. There came a point where Cosmo and Wanda had to wave the white flag, opting instead to freshen Poof up. Perhaps if Poof had a fresh diaper before they left, it would at least delay the bout of crankiness bound to occur.

“Don’t worry; I’m sure Rose’ll understand why we’re a little late.” Cosmo casually remarked, noticing the fretful lines wrinkled in his wife’s forehead.

“It’s not just that…” Wanda sighed, giving a few shakes of baby powder before fastening the diaper’s straps to adjust the fit. “I’m worried about Timmy; he’s been really quiet ever since you guys came back to the shed last night.”

 “Yeah…” Cosmo’s brows crinkled, remembering how their godson shrunk into himself after he’d made them aware of the situation. Still like a curled, reclusive statue on top his mattress before retiring to bed much earlier than normal. “And the way he acted to everything seemed…off.”

Wanda would have to agree, also remembering how easily Timmy seemed to shut himself down as if learned behavior. “I worry how distant he’s becoming.” she expressed, snapping the metal clasps of the purple onesie. “And I worry that it’s because most of our attention has been so wrapped up in Poof.”

The fairy couple looked down to their son, his stubby legs kicking rapidly as if they would get him off this flat changing table faster than his wings could. Shaking his rattle with the glee that sparkled in his deep-lilac beam towards his parents, glee that failed to reach green and pink eyes.

While they’d expected the transition from family of three to family of four to have a few road bumps, they did not expect the gravity of the challenge juggling a needy newborn with a miserable child. Regardless of the probation prohibiting Timmy from making wishes, the truth of the matter was, he still needed them. He still needed their support, still needed their love.

They should have divided more of the little time they had, even if that time was already spread thin. They’d allowed themselves to be too blinded by new responsibilities and sleep-deprivation to stop the sweet little boy dying inside…right in front of their eyes.

“Maybe you should go try to talk to him?” Cosmo guessed, sounding somewhat uncertain as he reached to scoop Poof into his arms. Uncertain because of his own ungraceful experience in handling Timmy’s moods, yet he was not uncertain of Wanda’s ability to get through the barrier. She’d always been better than him at gaging a child’s emotions, reaching them on a more emotional level. Almost as if she was always meant to be a mother.

“I can try.” she agreed, rubbing the back of her neck. She couldn’t recall a time where she’d had the chance to speak with Timmy one-on-one…would he open up to her? Especially now?

As if sensing her internal doubt, Cosmo leaned to give her cheek an encouraging and loving smooch as Poof squealed in his arms. “Your boys are rootin’ for ya.”

Wanda couldn’t help but smile, her doubt melting away. She can always count on her husband for moral support when her confidence fleeted.

Reappearing in a pink cloud inside the shed, it didn’t take long for her to find her godson Indian style on his bed. Nails scratching at the inside of his arm, blue eyes dull. Empty of any hint of emotion, though just attentive enough to be aware of her presence.

“Hey, sport…” her concern greeted, wings careful in their flutter towards him. She'd already guessed the answer when she asked “What’re you doing?”

The pink-hatted boy raised dull eyes to her before averting her gaze, using his palm to cover scraped lines of repeated scratching reddened into his skin. He knew doing this was futile, but hiding the damage felt akin to hiding the burdening shame that followed.

She hovered before him, her voice gentle as she gestured to his concealed act already unhidden “…may I see?”

He winced, wrinkling his nose. Internally cursing himself for getting caught…again. First by Cosmo, now by Wanda. Any hope of keeping some things to himself was now gone because he’d assumed his godparents would be too busy to notice. Apparently, he’d assumed wrong. When had he ever been right about anything?

Frowning tight lips, Timmy stiffly removed his palm. Unveiling numerous red scrapes riddled along his arm like a prisoner clawing for freedom from their cell. He cringed when his godmother quietly gasped at the tiny dots of crimson poking from welts that burned swollen. He may have indulged a bit too much, but he’d also been left to his own devices for hours. Left to bad thoughts spiraling, edging him towards a more permanent release that he’d been prohibited to give into. Left to silence these thoughts on his own, even if it created more scars than the ones tattered in his spirit.

He expected his godmother to scold him, to condescend his ridiculous behavior. Instead, he found himself flinching when the softness of her fingertips took his arm into her grasp. Shrinking as she observed the damage he’d inflicted onto himself, grimacing when he mustered the nerve to look at the faint hint of gloss in her eyes. Crap…did he make her sad?

No, she wasn’t sad because of him…she was sad for him, and if she tried to voice that in that moment, she’d be choking back tears. The faint hints of blood reminded her of her own past, the struggles of seeking external pain to soothe the internal pain ruthless and never-ending. Her own scars had long since healed, long since faded on her body, though never in spirit. No, she didn’t want this for any godchild, let alone hers…

She met his taut stare lingering with both the pain and shame, the regret he failed to hide away behind his eyes. As a first step, she took out her wand. Activating her magic to glisten around his scratch marks, pink sparkles washing the redness away. He could feel the sensation of burning subside like a local anesthetic, see specs of blood drying as the swelling went down.

He recognized the same healing magic that had washed away physical evidence of the time Francis had blindsided him into Mr. Birkenbake’s classroom, beating him senseless to then leave him like discarded trash. Magic that the coldness within found a warming comfort in as his grimace softened.

When the skin in his arm fully reverted to normal, she lowered her wand and returned her gaze to his. While she knew this could have been a lot worse than it was, she knew this self-destructive behavior had to be nipped in the bud. If nothing else, at the very least, she can start by talking him through his pain.

“…Timmy?” she found a soft yet steady voice to speak with “…do you wanna talk?”

He could’ve guessed she wanted to talk about what he’d done to himself, yet he squeaked “…about?”

“Anything.”

He stared, not expecting the free reign he’d been given. Instead of stifling him, she was giving him the voice to speak. Then again, even if he wanted to talk…where would he even start?

“I dunno…” he breathed, looking away. There was so much buzzing and spinning in his head, his sanity could barely keep up.

His arm was still held by her fingers, using her thumb to lightly brush his wrist. “Do you…wanna talk about yesterday?”

Ah, he should have known. Guess he could try to sort through that mess first. Bunching his chin, he fought his diffidence to look at her again “…is it weird that I feel everything and nothing at the same time?”

“Not at all, hun.” she assured him. “Losing a loved one so suddenly and unexpectedly can be a bit of a shock.”

“But I’m not shocked…I don’t think.” his voice drifted on the latter part of his sentence. “I’m…um…” he started to fidget, attempting to calm himself by focusing on Wanda’s tender touch. “I-I guess…like…” until he chewed on the twitch in his lips with a low growl in his throat, his struggling eye contact grasping at straws for words. Why was this so hard?

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Her tone lacked judgement, giving his hand a squeeze. As if to let him know that he had an anchor if he felt himself sinking. “Take your time.”

But how much time did he have before she’d have to go back to being a mom to her real son?

“I dunno…” his shoulders hunched. Having one godparent was a lot better than no godparent, so he better get on with it while he still had her attention that seemed undivided. He forced himself to look at her. “I guess…I-I feel sadder for grandpa, but when it comes to her, it’s like…good riddance.”

Wanda’s thumb continued to caress the inside of his wrist, just below his palm. “Well, your relationship with her was quite complicated, sport.”

“She hated me, I hated her.” His brows creased in his mutter. “Not that complicated.”

Good point…she almost said aloud except for how pitiful it was for that to be his truth. Wanda let out a deep breath. “I guess a better word would be ‘estranged.’”

His face scrunched up “…astranged?”

“Estranged.” Wanda clarified patiently. “A relationship with someone you loved or a loved one, one that’s broken down and lost due to conflict and hostility.”

His face scrunched even more, insides involuntarily curling repulsively. Turning his head away as an unsettling chill crept through the veins that had just started to warm. “No way…she never loved me.”  he hissed, contempt etched in his downturned mouth. “Just like my parents never loved me.”

Damn, that stung, and it wasn’t towards her. She tried to brighten his dark aura, letting go of his arm to cup his cheek. “Well, you know Cosmo and I will always love you. And Poof loves you to pieces.”

“Yeah…” Timmy chose to grumble instead of what he really wanted to say. That love, even if reciprocated, was futile. She, Cosmo, baby Poof…his true family. The family that had no choice but to leave him someday, erased from his life as if they’d never existed. Their love can be nothing other than temporary.   

“Wanna go see if Gary and Alondro are ready to go? Check on your grandfather?” Wanda removed her palm, figuring now was best to drop the conversation. His furrowed eyes and the tenseness in his tone said ‘I don’t wanna talk about this anymore’ more than if he’d spoken directly from his mouth. “I can come with you if you’d like.”

“But…” Timmy loosened his tension, frowning up at her “…what about Cosmo and Poof?”

“We don’t have to be gone long.” Wanda dismissed, adding a gentle grin. “Plus, I think Cosmo can handle a few minutes alone with the baby.”

Somehow her reassurance made him stiffen, shifting uncomfortably as he uncrossed his legs. Guess it was safe to assume he wasn’t taking time away from her immediate family if she was offering to tag along. Part of him felt a little guilty about that, yet part of him didn’t want to go inside the house alone. It’s why he’d couped himself in the shed all morning; there’d be a gaping hole in the atmosphere, a hole once occupied by his grandmother. Clean air was now polluted by death, and just the thought nauseated the little appetite he couldn’t find.

He heard the ding of a ‘poof’ before glancing down to his arms now cloaked by a fuchsia jacket, seeing Wanda smiling up at him. A gesture intended to solidify that he was not alone, something that started to put his distress at ease. He found comfort in how nurturing she always was to him. The very thing denied by his grandmother and his own mother.

Finding the motivation to scoot himself off the bed, Timmy searched the scatters of dirty laundry littered across the floor for the blue sneakers that’d been mindlessly kicked off upon his return last night. Finding one by the foot of the bedframe and the other in front of the door as he stuffed his feet into them one at a time.

After adjusting the heel of his left foot, he braced himself with a breath and exited the shed. Unaware of what was instore when he’d enter through the back door.

Turquoise starts twinkled throughout purple skies above towering valleys of purple mountains topped in caps of white. Near the highest peak stood a grand, castle-like structure mounted within the mountains’ purple mass of rocks. Pointed roofs of amethyst spires crowned in gold, crystal-teal vines climbing the buttress of orchid stone. Rainbow colors assorted within stainless glass of all the windows. Ogival arches arching various gravel paths that led both away from and towards the building, also framing the plum wood of the medieval-like double doors. Angel oak and bushes of passion flowers landscaped the building’s foundation as well as the surrounding area, patches of teal grass peaking through the stepping-stone walkway leading to the entrance.

The entrance to what was formally dubbed Fairy Fort.

A dark-blue fairy, a teal-eyed fairy with marmalade curls, and two raven-heads materialized from prismatic clouds at the entrance of Fairy Fort, and as one fairy soon figured out, they were the first and only godparent/godchild pairs to appear.

“Wonder where everybody’s at?” Swizzle had expected more to show up.

Rose retrieved her flip phone, seeing the current time of 12:12pm. “I know we’re a little late ourselves, but everyone knows to meet here around noon.”

Arms folded casually, Molly glanced over at the birthday girl. She was standing off hugging herself as her eyes flickered around like she was expecting a monster to pop up any second. “What is it?”

“…a-are you sure I look okay?” Tootie’s voice cracked a little. The soft touch of heather eyeshadow and the thin line of eyeliner behind her glasses was relatively light compared to Molly’s more pigmented eyelids and thicker line application. Rose had also applied a finishing touch of the lightest coat of clear lip gloss, using the excuse that being exposed to Fairy World’s clean air for multiple hours might dry out her lips. Her face still felt like it was wearing a painted-on mask, an awkward disguise itching in her skin to wash off.

“For the thousandth time, you look fine.” Molly faintly rolled her eyes. Man, that kid can be a worrywart.

Molly did not come off intentionally irritated, but Tootie’s lips still pursed. Timmy had never seen her with makeup before. What if he takes one look at her…and doesn’t like it?

As if picking up on this, Molly tossed a teasing smirk. “And I’m sure your little boy-crush’ll like it, too.”

No amount of blush could make Tootie’s cheeks burn a brighter red “…I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

With cellphone in hand, Swizzle listened to the relentless drone of the dial tone in her ear. The more each ring droned, the more increasingly clear it became that her girlfriend was, yet again, leaving her unanswered on the other end as the dark-blue fairy huff a grumpy sigh “C’mon, Nye…”

“Nyekundu’s not answering?” Rose hovered forward when Swizzle eventually gave up and clasped her flip-phone shut.

“No…” Swizzle groaned. They were well outside the magical barrier around the fort, so her call should have gone through. “In fact, I haven’t been able to get a hold of her at all lately…”

Hmm, that’s odd. “What about Irving or Alondro?” Rose questioned.

“I can try Irving next…” Swizzle was about to open her phone and search for Irving’s number when both fairies and children heard audible poofs ding near them. Turning to the rainbow sparkles that a ginger with glasses and a large-nosed fairy materialized from as Swizzle snorted “…speak of the devil.”

“Hey, sorry for our tardiness, ladies.” Irving sheepishly scratched behind his neck in his float towards Rose and Swizzle.

“It’s okay.” Rose excused, giving Irving a friendly hug. “I’m just glad you guys could make it.”

Shuffling his feet towards the girls, Dwight acknowledged the birthday girl first. Finding the grin to greet her with despite the achy throb in his temple. “Happy Birthday, Tootie.”

“Thank you…” shyness curled in her glossed lips. She had feeling ‘Happy Birthday, Tootie’ would be the phrase of the day, so she might as well try to get used to it now.

“You look pretty.” Dwight thought to remark when he noticed what he’d not seen from Tootie

“Thanks.” Tootie repeated, cheeks flushing all over again. ‘Pretty’ was always associated with girls like Trixie, never with girls like her. Or was Dwight just being nice because it was her birthday?  

“What took you guys?” Molly asked of out curiosity.

“It was kinda difficult getting away from Elmer and his parents long enough to wish up a clone without getting noticed.” Dwight explained, finding it more difficult to mask fatigue from his voice than from his face.

“Hmm, sure been spending a lot of time with them lately.” Molly remarked from observation.

“Well, looks like that’ll become more permanent.”

“Permanent?” Tootie piped, both eyebrows raised as if anticipating clarification. “What do you mean?”

For a moment, his carefully crafted mask slipped, brows knitting into a pensive frown. “I’d…rather not get into it right now...”

Another set of dinging clouds announced other tardy arrivals, seeing an ebony fairy and her platinum blonde godchild appear from rainbow light.

“Susie!” Rose zoomed to her friend, greeting her with a sisterly hug that Susie willingly returned. Gently swaying side-to-side in their embrace before Rose pulled away, seeing Susie’s weak smile. “Are you okay? I never got a response to my text last night.”

“Sorry, gurl…” Susie’s dreary voice lacked its usual spunk, gently rubbing her neck. “It’s been a lot goin’ on.”

Dragging her sandals towards the other kids, Chloe wearily held one arm. The space beneath her eyes darkened into sickly purple shadows that Molly was quick to call attention to.

“Why you look like what the cat dragged in?” the playful taunt in her comment resulted in a rough elbow to the arm from Tootie.

White bandages decorated with artsy flowers were taped in the inner elbow of Chloe’s left arm and above the back of her right hand. Locations that Dwight recognized as places most IVs are inserted or where blood is drawn, lines of worry creasing his forehead “…were you in the hospital?”

She furrowed, concealing one of the bandages with one hand over the other in her shame “…I-I’d just gotten discharged. But I wished for a clone to take my place so my dad wouldn’t notice…”

“Wait…” Tootie started to hate how utterly oblivious she felt to the lives of kids she cared about. “Why were you in the hospital?”

Chloe diverted her gaze. The physical evidence was too blaring to tell a lie, but this day’s occasion was not about her. Thus, remorse and guilt opted to omit the truth. “It’s…a long story.”

“You must feel like crap, and yet you came here straight out tha hospital?” Molly commented as if impressed. “You’re not as weak as ya look, Carmichael.”

She’s sort of gotten used to Molly’s knack for back-handed compliments, yet she felt weak regardless. She was weak, weak and pathetic. She didn’t need her mother haunting her mind to tell her that.

“…I’d already promised Tootie and Rose I’d be here…” she whimpered. Her chin lowered as her fingers clawed at her band aid “…I-I didn’t wanna let anyone down…”

Tootie jutted her lip. No one should feel like they have to attend an event out of obligation. She knew what that felt like, and she’d never want that for anyone else.

Another set of rainbow clouds revealed the Hispanic fairy with his young billionaire godchild, catching the others’ attention.

“Heyyyyyyy, it’s Richie!” Molly greeted with a facetious wave.

“Hello, Tyke.” Remy dully jabbed back, spite absent in his tone of voice. Following their truce, their dynamic had naturally fallen into giving each other somewhat petty yet joshing nicknames that neither party took much offense to.

Drawing near the rest of the fairies, Juandissimo was met with Susie to his left and Rose to his right, both embracing him simultaneously. In return, he laced an arm around each of them, pressing them to him. “You have no idea how good it is to see you two right now…”

“Aww, why?” Susie looked up when she heard his somber exhale. “What’s wrong?”

Juandissimo removed his arms from around the female fairies, eyes lowered with a creased brow. “I promised Remy I would keep it between us.”

“Something happened with Remy?” Rose quizzed, worried it was something bad.

Juandissimo crossed his arms. “To Remy.”

“What happened to Remy?”

Irving’s inquiring question led three pairs of eyes towards him and Swizzle hovering before them. Irving’s expression sharing in Rose’s concerns, Swizzle’s arched brow more so morbidly curious. Something Rose and crew had quickly learned when they’d become acquainted with Swizzle’s group was that there are no skeletons in the closet. One fairy or one godchild’s problem is everyone’s problem.

Juandissimo sighed nevertheless. His godson trusted that his deepest, darkest secret was safe with him. He can’t renege that. “Something I cannot talk about…”

“Hi, Remy.” Tootie did not hesitate to advance towards the other godchild she’d gotten closer to, putting any negative feelings in the back of her mind.

“Hey.” Remy did not hesitate to lower his chin to the top of her ponytails when she pulled him into a tight embrace, resting her head on his chest.

Over the weeks, his icy shield had melted enough to accept hugs when offered from those outside of his fairy. Of course, he didn’t just give hugs to anyone. Affection was reserved only to those with the trust that could chip away his heart’s protective armor.

“Hey, man, it’s been a while.” Dwight stepped forward with a painted grin, having not seen Remy since his birthday a couple weeks ago. Remy was in the dark about the extent of his seizures, and Dwight preferred to keep it that way. Attempting to make it less and less obvious that a cluster of focal seizures also nearly prevented him from coming here. “How’ve you been?”

When Tootie gently pulled away from him, Remy let her go just as his chest ached with tension. If he told the truth, they might think he was crazy, so he settled to choke out “I’ve…been.”

“You seem better…or…at least a little.” Chloe mustered a smile when she stepped up beside Dwight, noticing the reduced bags under Remy’s eyes. Issues with sleep had been the extent of what she knew of his troubles.

Glancing her way, he noted her dark circles and prominent red veins in the white of her eyes, along with the sickly pallid in her skin and bandages in certain areas. “And you seem worse…no offense.” he quickly realized how rude his comment could be interpreted, following up with “Are you sick?”

“Sort of…” Chloe frowned before she feigned another smile. Wearing a coat of strength to cover up bone-weary weakness as she raised her chin and pushed her shoulders back. “But I’m here.”

Dwight’s searching gaze could see right through her cloak, see the sorrow haunting her eyes of tristesse blue. He really didn’t like this front of hers, even though he was putting up his own façade. But this was his own choice, and it was easy for him to assume Chloe felt she has no free agency. Pulling herself by the bootstraps is how she always had to be, starting from the time she’d developed self-awareness. And he hated that for her.

Two more poofs materialized not far from the others, and when dark-blue laid eyes upon bright-red, she bee-lined passed the other fairies straight to her girlfriend. “Nye!”

Nyekundu winced at the fierce impact of Swizzle’s squeeze, not entirely surprised considering the lack of communication on her part. After minutes passed by like hours, Swizzle parted from her to grip onto her by both shoulders.

“Are you okay?! Why haven’t you called or texted me back!?” she probed, her sternness derived from days straight of unresolved worry. Last she heard from Nyekundu, Hazel’s sack of shit for a father had grabbed Nyekundu, disguised as a ferret, by the tail and dangled her squirming body two stories from the ground out Hazel’s open window. Threatening to ‘make her snap into pieces’ if Hazel ‘talked back’ one more time.

“I am so sorry, mpenzi…” Nyekundu apologized ruefully. She didn’t mean to make Swizzle so uneasy. “Things have been so crazy-”

“You’re not hurt, are you?!”

“No, I am fine.” Nyekundu assured, then furrowed dubiously. “At least…I think so.”

The huddled group of godchildren gravitated towards the little black girl whose lowered gaze stood in place, arms stiffly crossed with vertical lines between her brows. Aside from her rigid stance, the first they noticed was a dark welt scarred across her right cheek. A welt that was not there when Molly had seen her at Dwight’s birthday.

“Did that bastard do that?” Molly pointed to her cheek, the care for her friend mixed with sour resentment towards a man who didn’t deserve the air he breathed.

Brown eyes rose diffidently, weakly nodding in response. She could have wished for Nyekundu to rid her of the unconcealable scar. That way, there’d be no troubled or unnerved eyes all on her. But it had served as a stark reminder to never test the patience of a man capable of much, much worse.

Molly hissed, clenching her fists as Remy narrowed his stare. It all started to make sense why Hazel had been missing at the country club. Assuming something fishy with the Wells was no longer an assumption, just dark facts yet to be brought to the light of public scrutiny.

“…Remy?”

His narrowed stare softened when she crept towards him, speaking just as mousey as her hunched shoulders made her appear.

“There’s…something I need to talk to you about…” her eyes averted his for a brief second. Now was not a good time to bring up the mysteries of Missy. “But later…okay?”

Remy had a pretty good idea what it could be, nodding to respect Hazel’s wishes. He had to agree; now was not a good time to bring up the family of devils in disguise. A family not as ‘picture perfect’ as they tried too hard to make everyone believe.

Squeezing herself as if her arms were the glue holding her together, Hazel shifted her attention from Remy to Tootie standing next to him. “Hi, Tootie.” she squeaked, wanting to be courteous. “Happy Birthday.”

“…thank you.” Tootie coyly expressed her gratitude, slowly starting to warm up to the phrase seldom spoken to her in her old life where such innocent words held corrupt connotations. She couldn’t help but stare at the welt on Hazel’s cheek. One similar to that of the many Jim used to whip and slash behind her legs as she gestured to her own cheek questioning “…does that hurt?”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“Oh…” Tootie puckered her brows, stung by instant regret. She didn’t mean to pry, she just wanted to show that she cared…

Susie scanned the crop of fairies and godparents, noting that not everyone was present. “…where’s Londro?” she asked to no one in particular. “And Coz and Wan aren’t here, either.”

“I can try calling Alondro.” Nyekundu offered.

“Already on it.” Irving had his phone at the ready, dialing Alondro’s number. Out of everyone there, he’d had the most interactions with Alondro since their godsons attended the same school. “No te preocupes; peque and I shall be there” Alondro had assured him. He was a man of his word…maybe they were just late like everyone else?

“And I’ll try Wanda.” Susie took out her phone, her best friend’s contact on speed dial by pressing the button to the number 3.

“Hmm…” Irving bunched his protruding chin, holding the relentless dial tone to his ear. “Phone keeps ringin’ but nothin’ else…”

 Not even a second after Susie dialed Wanda’s number, a voicemail greeting played in place of a ring.

Hey, this is Wanda. You know what to do after the be-

Susie snapped her phone shut, huffing a groan.

“No answer?” Juandissimo queried.

“Nah, went straight to voicemail.” Susie felt a sense of dread rattle her nerves. Sure, Wanda didn’t always answer on the first ring, even before she became a mom. But that’s the thing…the first ring. Wanda never turned her phone off.

“Then I’ll try Coz.” Rose retrieved her own phone. Meanwhile, Swizzle thought to question Chloe and Remy, the only two godkids in that bucktoothed runt’s grade.

“You two heard anything from Timmy?”

“No.” Remy denied. “Hadn’t seen nor heard from him since school on Friday.”

“Same…” Chloe concurred, shoulders sagging with a tinge of remorse.

“And same for Gary…” Dwight added, the unknown of his best friend’s whereabouts pulsing more throbs in his temples. Last he’d seen, Gary seemed fine for the most part.

“I hope they’re okay…” Hazel frowned, fearing worst-case scenario.

Tootie felt her insides churn, corrosive waves agitating her stomach lining as if Hazel’s silent fears latched on to twist her guts. Anxious thoughts spiraled in a dizzying whirlwind. Drowning out sound reason, leaving her feeling helpless. Oh no…was Timmy okay? If anything happened to him…

“Cosmo, hey!” Rose let out a breath of relief when she managed to reach the other half of the Cosmas on the third ring. “Everybody’s wondering where you guys are.”

“Well, not real sure about Alondro and Gary; haven’t seen ‘em yet.” Cosmo cradled his baby blowing bored raspberries, gently bouncing him with one arm. “But I know Wanda had left ne and the baby to check on Timmy.”

“Susie had tried to call Wanda a little bit ago, but the call went straight to voicemail.”

Balancing the phone against his ear with his shoulder, Cosmo repositioned Poof to rest on his hip, keeping him from squirming towards freedom. “She must’ve forgotten to charge her phone last night…probably didn’t take it with her, either.” he assumed, switching Poof to his other hip and his phone to his other shoulder. His giggling son purposefully went limp as if hoping to slide his way out. “Um, I can go try to find ‘em and let cha know.”

“Okay. Thanks, Cosmo. I’m sure Tootie wouldn’t wanna start anything without Timmy and Gary, so…check in when ya can.”

“You got it, dude!”

With Poof more secure, Cosmo reached to end the call before closing his flip-phone, trading it for his wand in his pocket. Sparking his magic to transport himself and Poof out of the nursery and into, what they soon discovered, a quiet and empty shed.

“Huh.” Looking around, Cosmo then turned to big eyes full of the same wonder. “Where’s mama and big brother?”

“…Poof, Poof?” Poof chirped, and Cosmo tilted his head.

“Maybe they went to the house?”

“Poof, Poof.”

“Welp, c’mon then, Poofy!” Cosmo exclaimed, keeping spirits light and bright. “Let’s go check!”

“Poof, Poof!”

His son squealed excitedly as Cosmo sparked his wand. Poofing them into a house, smackdab in the midst of horror.

An elderly man, early in his seventies, lay motionless in the middle of the living room floor. Stiff with eyes closed as if glued shut, crumpled as if a loss of consciousness sent him tumbling him out of his recliner. Potentially left unchecked throughout the night and through the morning, indicated by the bluish paleness in his skin. Unmoving, unresponsive.

The fairy baby cried out, clinging to his father who cradled him close. Poof buried his thick, wailing tears into Cosmo’s chest, damping his shirt. Cosmo was too petrified to care, his jaw slack as though awaiting an oncoming scream. Eyes transfixed with horror, unable to look away no matter how much he wished to.

“Peque?” Near the hall’s archway, Alondro shook his godson’s shoulders, having transformed into his fairy form the moment blue eyes went vacant like empty windows to the abandoned house of awareness. “¡Peque, háblame!”

Gary could hear someone talking to him, yet it felt as if his brain couldn’t send a signal to his mouth to respond. Barely able to feel a grip on his shoulders, the corner of his vision blurred like some surreal dream that he couldn’t wake up from. His mind felt detached from his thoughts, as if his ghost had possessed a stranger’s body. Arms limp at his sides, fingers stiff as if carved from stone.

Fluttering from the back door, Wanda shuddered from the unnerving surge shooting up her spine. Left with enough sense amidst the pounding pulse between her ears to lean two trembling fingers to the side of Vlad’s neck, expecting to feel an ice block. To her surprise, he felt as warm as a cake cooling in the fridge. But to her horror, the tips of her fingers could barely register signs of life. Miniscule thumps of blood pushing against thin veins, faint. Irregular.

“Sweetie, we need to contact the authorities.” she kept her tone deceptively calm, turning to the ten-year-old still frozen in place by the back door after discovering his grandpa in this horrible shape. “And you’re the only one of sound enough mind to do so.”

His godmother’s words blurred into one disjointed haze, his cognizance fragmented like pieces of a puzzle scattered across the table. A baby’s screechy wails echoed in and out his ears, echoed as if from another room and not right in front of him. Timmy struggled to control his quavering, muscles in his arms and legs clenching to the achy point of tense trembles.

“Timmy, do you hear me?” Wanda’s voice grew shrill, growing difficult to mask her own pickling stress. “If he doesn’t get medical attention, he’ll die!”

Anguish etched its way into his glassy stare. Too overwhelmed to move as the bottom of his chin quivered.

Chapter Text

A sharp gasp hitched in Timmy’s throat when a rapid secession of knocks jolted his rattled nerves like loud bangs.

“Hey, it’s Tommy!” a tenor timbre spoke from behind the door, honeyed with a hint of a grated edge. “Can someone open the door, please?!”

Every magical being in the living room acted accordingly, instantaneously masking their true identities into magical, colorful disguises. Cosmo shapeshifted himself and Poof into green and lilac vases mounted along the fireplace mantel, also doing what he could to comfort his frightened son who cowered into his papa with eyes clamped shut as if bad monsters were after him. Alondro poofed into a retriever with yellow fur, and Wanda’s signature pink replaced the hat capped on her godson’s brunette shag.

Another series of banging knocks fired seconds after the first. “Hello?! Anyone there?!”

Wide eyes darted to his cousin who stood as still as a statue, physically present but mentally absent like an empty shell. Unreactive to the yellow retriever pawing at the top of his socks in attempts to ground Gary out of discombobulated clouds back to earth’s reality.

Another round of knocks shook the door, and Timmy’s stare then flickered to his grandfather's motionless body, seeing even less color in his aged skin than when he’d last laid eyes on him. Wanda was right, his grandpa needed help. But she was wrong about him being the only one who can get that for him.

Knocks banged on the door again, and his bucktooth bit down hard, pain stinging his lip. Anything to pull himself out from numbing dread. There was no time to be a sitting duck, and there was no time to question Tommy’s unexpected arrival. He can’t do this on his own…he needed an adult.

More pounding knocks came as he clamped his eyes shut, just long enough to demand himself to move. Dashing through the kitchen and nearly stumbling on his rapid footing into the door where his slippery fingers kept fumbling trying to undo the bolt locks. When he’d open the door, he would do his best to explain the situation as quickly as possible so that Tommy could get 9-1-1 dispatch to act quicker than with Gladys. What he did not expect was to barely get the door ajar before a hasty hound came barreling inside, knocking him off his feet in a startled yelp.

Galloping into the living room, four paws skirted to a stop before the unmoving man, using his front paws to roll Vlad onto his back. Tommy stepped through the doorway without waiting for the permission he’d normally ask for, outstretching his hand down to Timmy without a word. Timmy didn’t think twice about accepting the help, promptly hoisted to a stable stance. He was going to ask Tommy how he and Buddy had gotten here so fast, or even why they showed up so coincidentally.

That was until the slightest hint of blue rays flickered from the corner of his eye, making him turn to look. Soon mystified by an unreal sight even with a child’s belief in magic.

Buddy’s eyes sparkled in a periwinkle-blue of celestial radiance. Casting glints of glistening magic concentrated down to his front paws pressed to Vlad’s chest, directly over his heart. The little lilac vase, scared of a situation he couldn’t really understand, mustered just enough bravery for one of his teary eyes to peek from his papa’s side. Staring at the same sight that the green vase gawked unblinking.

The yellow retriever stumbled away from his godson’s feet, losing his footing for a moment. Feeling a prickly sensation surge from the tip of his tail to the top of his head, instantly recognizing the otherworldly aura of magic that had mended his outer wounds. The pink cap squinted from the overwhelming, illuminous light casting the space in a bluish hue, and yet she couldn’t look away. Almost convinced she’d stopped breathing had her breath not shook in her chest.

Timmy blinked rapidly with lips parted in silent surprise. Trying to process the unbelievable phenomenon unfolding before him as warm ivory washed away the cold pallor of death from his grandfather’s skin. Rejuvenated life stretched in a gradual spread down his legs, through his arms down to the tips of his fingernails, and across his wrinkled face. Then, in a sudden snap of a second, his back arched off the floor in a long, gasping breath, as if his stiff lungs had been defibrillated instead of his weak heart.

Blue eyes flashed, almost bulging out of their sockets, eyes that rolled back into his head when his burst of new life depleted as quickly as it came. Dropping him back to the floor in large breaths, his once motionless chest animated in tall hills and deep valleys. Sparkles like shakes of glitter dimmed from Vlad’s chest, brown and blue returning in Buddy’s eyes which had been fixed in concentration. Deeming the first and top priority of his tasks done as he carefully backed away from Vlad now in a state of sopor, but very much alive.

“Good job, Buddy!” Tommy left Timmy’s side, wearing a proud smile in his approach to Buddy who then sat on his hind legs beside the elderly man, his tongue panting in anticipation of his reward. “You did it!”

Tommy kneeled to Buddy, reaching behind floppy ears to give commendatory scratches. Buddy’s right haunch leg kicked in response, patting his appreciative foot. Timmy crept through the kitchen and into the archway to the living room, his movements hesitant and unsure. One foot shifting in front of the other with his stare fixed on the golden retriever that, without a doubt, was not of this world.

“Alright…” Tommy ceased his scratches, pointing with one finger to the boy clinging to reality by the thinnest thread. “Now go help Gary.”

Letting out a bark of conviction, Buddy rushed past Tommy over to Gary. Alondro had barely shifted to the side out of Buddy’s determined charge before Buddy jumped on his hind legs, pawing at Gary’s thighs. Gary flinched in a weak shudder but gave no resistance to Buddy forcing him onto his knees, trying to prevent the possibility of him accidentally falling backwards and hitting his head.

Once on his knees, Buddy used his front paws to push Gary’s shoulders, laying his back against the floor. Buddy then walked with paws and feet on either side of Gary before he dropped down, careful not to crush him. Pressing his body weight from the bottom of Gary’s calves to the top of his torso as his eyes began to sparkle once more, his glowing eyes meeting Gary’s hollowed stare that soon glistened with enchanted glitters of a periwinkle hue.

Like a gravitational pull, it was as if Gary’s spirit was dragged back into his body, no longer floating in a weightless, untethered space. Becoming anchored to reality as his eyes then fluttered out of his glassy haze.

When Buddy’s eyes faded to their brown and blue, he wagged his tail with a happy whine, giving a sloppy kiss to Gary’s cheek. Groaning, Gary lifted his head to the furry anchor grounding his conscious mind from floating away, though his thoughts still felt as if they were still slogging through the mud of disarray when his dry throat uttered the very first name that slugged through to the surface…

“…B-Birchie…?”

Buddy woofed in response to this name, panting his jovial tongue. Gary stared, trying to make sense of what did nothing but baffle his understanding. Timmy stood stock-still, thoughts crashing against each other. Either Gary was still out of it, or his delirium was on to something that, at first, was a mere assumption based on incomplete evidence, now a plausible theory of suspicion.

“Okay, that’s enough, boy.” Tommy instructed, standing to his feet. “I think he’ll be alright.”

Buddy obediently rose to stand on all fours, each paw planted to Gary’s sides before he backed away, taking his time as to not accidentally cause any harm. Alondro took this as a cue to approach his godchild, helping Gary’s struggling attempt to sit upright. Giving support with his body pushed against his godson’s back as Gary grunted in his efforts, jelly-arms seemingly too wobbly to support himself.

Timmy pointed a skeptical glare at his ‘older brother.’ “Tell us who you really are.” he probed, feigning confidence as Tommy faced him with an innocent arch of his brow.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean!” Timmy snapped, pointing a firm finger at the golden retriever who’d returned by Tommy’s side. “That’s no ordinary dog, is he!?”

Buddy’s tail continued to wag as Tommy stood tall, exhaling a deep breath as he rested hands on his hips. His blue stare appeared deceptively calm with the straightest face, almost like someone with nothing to hide while simultaneously neither confirming nor denying the boy’s accusation.

Snapping Timmy’s already thin patience. “Tell us!”  

Tommy took a couple of measured steps forward, making Timmy stagger the same number of steps backwards towards the fireplace. Timmy wrapped arms around himself as if conjuring strength from within to maintain his guard.

[I don’t know about this…]

Timmy heard Sophia's apprehension, grimacing. For even Sophia to be as clueless from beyond the grave was telling. Or maybe she already knew what was right in front of their faces and didn’t like what it implied. Hearing this as well, Gary felt inclined to agree, his brain feeling like a tangled web of confusion. Every thought of what this couldn’t possibly be led to a dead end of facing an enigmatic truth.

Then Tommy jumbled more jigsaw pieces.

“It’s alright, little sis.” Tommy responded to her, scanning around the room as if pinpointing where he could feel her presence. “I promise, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

All of the magical fairies in disguise gasped silently. Gary’s breath caught in his throat, and Timmy felt frozen in shock, goosebumps chilling his skin.

[…wait…] Sophia peeped warily, as if speaking to a forbidden stranger. […y-you…you can hear me?]

“Just like I could yesterday.” Tommy replied with a grin too friendly to not slit Timmy’s suspicious brow.

“Alright, that’s it!” he barked with authority, trying to sound tougher than he felt inside. “Tell us the truth! Right now!”

When Tommy looked to him, he smirked with the lightest, faintest chortle, intending to come across as not their enemy. Except it only made Timmy that much more unsettled, feeling his arms and legs stiffen.

“C’mon, little man.” Tommy spoke too casually for anyone’s liking. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

Timmy’s brows knitted as his narrowed stare danced between the older Turner and the fully-grown golden retriever beaming like some innocent little puppy towards him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t figured it out; he just wanted Tommy to confirm it himself. Because if he said it, then he risked revealing the existence of fairies for Jorgen Von Strangle to come snatch away his fairies and his memories in one fell swoop.

He couldn’t afford to take that risk. Not when his life felt like burning car barreling down the mountain towards crashing waves…

“…B-Birchwind?”

Hearing the hushed squeak of a preteen, Tommy looked over his shoulder, turning on his heel to face Gary’s dubious frown that winced in instant regret for speaking up.

“Gary, what the heck-” Timmy’s gripe was interrupted by Tommy holding out a firm hand, effectively silencing Timmy’s scared frustration.

“It’s alright.” Tommy gently assured his little brother before looking back to his cousin’s uncertain gaze. “No…I’m not Birchwind.” he smiled softly. “But I’m well aware of who that is.”

Gary felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. “So…y-you know about us?”

Tommy’s smile, whilst non-threatening, concealed a great deal. “I know a lot. More than I probably should.”

“Dude, stop with the cryptics and just spit it out already!” Timmy snarled, and Tommy’s smile waned solemnly when he acknowledged Timmy’s skeptical glare.

“Timmy, I assure you…everything I told you all yesterday is the honest truth.” He placed a palm over his heart, earnest eyes unfeigned. “It’s true that I am a product of our mother’s ex forcing himself onto her, and it’s true that I grew up in a foster group home. It’s also true that I only knew about our mother through notes she’d write to me…” his brows scrunched slightly. “I don’t even know what she looked like before she died.”

The corners of Timmy’s tight-lipped frown twitched involuntarily.

“What I didn’t tell you is…how Buddy and I came to be.” Tommy turned to meet Buddy’s gaze of admiration, reaching down to scratch behind his ear as Buddy’s tongue panted in gratitude. “One day, I was walking off campus after class. I was about to reach my apartment…when this mysterious dog came up to me.”

When Gary felt his yellow retriever quietly lower himself gently across his lap, he nuzzled his cheek into Alondro’s familiar fur. Looping arms around his godfather’s neck in his haunted soul’s search for anything to keep him grounded.

“He didn’t have a collar, he was emaciated, and extremely dirty, like he’d been abandoned for weeks.” Tommy gave Buddy another brush of his fur. “It was snowing at the time, and he didn’t have anything to protect his paws from turning blue. I didn’t have a lot of means to care for a stray, but I felt so bad for him. I managed to lure him with a can of beans…” he weakly grinned to Buddy’s beaming eyes “…and he never left.”

“Is there a point to this sob story?” Timmy grumbled, arms crossed.

“I’m getting there.” Tommy met Timmy’s narrowed stare with a tamed glance that did not appear vexed by his little brother’s impatience. “That same day, I gave him a bath, then warmed him up on my couch with blankets. I thought he’d take a little nap while I tried finding the number to the nearest animal shelter, and…that’s when he spoke to me.”

Timmy’s lips pursed quizzically as Gary’s expression went blank, nonplussed.

“At first…I felt crazy…I was hearing thoughts in my head that weren’t mine, and it seemed like there was a response to every question whether I said it out loud or not. When I saw his eyes sparkle every time these thoughts entered my head…I soon realized…it was a dog speaking to me through my thoughts.”

The lilac vase nestled closer into his papa’s side with a wide yawn, eyelids drooping. Lulled by Tommy’s extended explanation as if a bedtime story as the green vase continued rubbing circles in his son’s back.

“That’s when he told me his name was Buddy, a magical Dominion sent by his original master, a Seraphim named Birchwind. Sent to aid me in finding my little brother and cousin, kids blessed with shapeshifting, magical angels who all work under Birchwind and the other Seraphims.”

“You…think we have…angels?” Gary questioned, sounding as perplexed as he felt.

“Yes.” And to prove this point, Tommy then pointed a finger. Picking out each colorful disguise in the room, starting with the yellow retriever across Gary’s lap. “And I know their names are Alondro,” he pointed to Timmy’s pink hat “Wanda,” then to the green and lilac vases along the fireplace mantel “Cosmo, and the newest cherub named Poof.”

While Poof had dozed off, it was as if surprise had stolen the air from everyone’s lungs, leaving them breathless.

“I also know about Sophia, your twin sister.” Tommy added, addressing Timmy specifically. “She’s spiritually tethered to you both, but primarily to you.”

Timmy’s stare grew flustered, unable to form coherent thoughts in his head.

“But…y-yesterday, you acted like you didn’t know much about us…or Sophia…” Gary pointed out from the fragmented gaps of his memories, and Tommy turned his head with a sheepish grin.

“…I was just pretending.” he admitted. “Your grandparents were already suspicious of me as is.”

The mention of grandparents lifted Gary’s head from Alondro’s fur, shifting eyes over to his grandfather sprawled on the floor. A shudder shot up his spine “…w-what’s wrong with grandpa?”

Tommy’s glance at Vlad wanted to ensure that his chest continued to rise and fall before that same glance flickered back to Gary. “Do you…remember what happened to grandma?”

“TY MONSTER! TAK ZHE KAK ON!”

Gary winced in his short shudder, his grandmother shouting in his mind like a mental echo that wouldn’t leave. The fire in her eyes as she called him a monster, just like his father…the last memory of her he’ll ever have.

“I…” he diverted his gaze, the faint curl of his upper lip mirroring the bitterness settling in his stomach “…S-Sophia…told me…”

“…so, you know she died.”

After a pained pause, Gary kept his eyes lowered with the weakest nod.

Tommy sighed. “I guess…the loss of his wife was too great for his heart to handle.” he made his best educated guess; Vlad’s collapse had been a wrench in the calculated play of events. “But he should be stable after some rest.”

“You used Buddy to save grandpa…” Timmy spoke up, his voice quiet. “Why didn’t you use him to save our grandma, too?”

Though Tommy kept his back to Timmy, he couldn’t hide the remorse seeping into his voice. “I wanted to…” sad eyes drifted to Buddy shifting to lean on one side against both of Tommy’s front legs “…but Buddy refused…because of what she’d done to Gary’s angel.”

Combing fingers through fluffy fur, Gary noticed Alondro’s icy-blue stare fixed with wary curiosity. Studying the golden retriever whose gaze soon met his with the affability of a kid eager to make a new friend.

“So the whole CPR thing was all an act, too?” Timmy questioned. 

“…partially.” Tommy replied ruefully. “I did want to save her however I could, but…” his brows scrunched “…I was too weak.”

Timmy grimaced. Guess Tommy was still human at the end of the day. Oh well, Timmy didn’t care all that much about that old hag. The rest, however…he couldn’t believe Buddy was Birchie in disguise. Not to mention Tommy speaking to his dead sister, naming both his and Gary’s fairies by name, and having knowledge of the Fairy Council that he called Sepharims…totally freaking nuts.

“I know this is a lot for you guys to take in, and I apologize for not being up front from the jump.” Tommy earnestly expressed to the boys, breaking through the lapse of silence. “I had to stay discreet until the time was right.” He turned to face his little brother, grave in his gaze. “But, Timmy…I have a serious question for you.”

Arms still crossed, Timmy lifted one, skeptical brow “…okay?”

“What would it take for you to want to live?”

Gary watched both of Timmy’s brows shoot up before they narrowed to leery slits “…the heck are you talking about?” Timmy quizzed.

“What would it take for you to want to live?” Tommy simply repeated, no fluster in his leveled expression.

Gary and the adult fairies watched Timmy wrestle with this question internally. Then, after a moment, Timmy’s top lip curled disdainfully.

“Even if I told you, what can you do about it?”

Tommy faintly smirked, taking the bait. “What if I told you Buddy can bring Sophia back?”

Everyone’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, making Tommy realize the implication of such a phrase in a sheepish chuckle

“Not…Sophia specifically. That would mess up the timeline too much.” Tommy quickly clarified, chagrined. “What I mean is…Buddy can create a new vessel for Sophia’s spirit to reside in.”

Timmy scoffed involuntarily, as if his body physically rejected this ridiculous claim. “You’re bluffing.”

“I’m not bluffing.” Tommy assured, steadfast. “All you have to do is say the word, and Buddy and I can make it happen.”

“Yeah? How?” Timmy challenged, yet Tommy’s staunch stare did not waver.

“You’re gonna have to trust me.”

A hard line pinched in Timmy’s lips, tensing the muscles in his jaw. Magic can't bring the dead back to life…isn’t that what Da Rules say? All the times he’d wanted so badly to wish her back…or even trade his life for hers. Does Da Rules not apply to giving the dead a new body? No way…if that was true, Cosmo and Wanda would have told him.

Plus, even if she could be brought back in this…’new vessel’…would it be his sister? Would Sophia’s essence really be inside?

[…what do you wanna do, Bubba?]

“…what do you wanna do?” Timmy asked aloud in return. Since it’d been made evident that Tommy already knew of Sophia’s existence, he didn’t see a reason to hide his communication to her. And though he couldn’t see her, but he could almost feel the grief in her frown when she spoke next.

[…I wanna do whatever would make you smile again…]

Timmy wrinkled his nose bridge. For all they know, Tommy may end up proving his doubts right. Everything else wasn't that debatable, but bringing Sophia back could be one giant hoax. Though, even if he took Tommy’s word as truth…did he have the right? How would Sophia feel about being brought back in a body that wasn’t hers?

“…do you trust him?” he asked his sister, meeting Tommy’s stare with his own.

[…he hasn’t given me much reason not to...]

His narrowed brows tugged upwards, knitting in the middle. Losing confidence in his scratchy voice as his clenching throat held back tears. “…but…what if…it’s not all…you?” What if his heart wasn’t ready to lose her again?

Cosmo, Wanda, and Alondro stared, expressions tight with strain. Gary traced circles along Alondro’s sides to keep his hands busy, something to distract his fear of the unknown. Tommy’s eyes wandered aimlessly around the room, and Timmy’s stomach twisted knots, his gut stabbed with anxious anticipation of Sophia’s decision.

[…I can take that risk.] Sophia finally answered, speaking in a soft warmth that made it easy to visualize her small grin. [You’re worth it, Bubba.]

“Sounds like her mind’s made up.” Tommy redirected his eyes to Timmy’s subtle frown, Buddy tail wagging vigorously with a panting tongue.

While part of Timmy didn’t want to believe Tommy, part of him couldn’t deny Sophia’s resolve. If she was willing to risk severing their connection forever, then…did she know something he didn’t? Was she confident that it’ll work?

Timmy sneered, his sharp, critical glare locked onto Tommy as he muttered “…okay…do it. Bring Sophia back.”

As Gary’s eyes widened in hazy uncertainty, Tommy furrowed in a calm yet hardened gaze. “Are you saying that’s what it would take to make you want to live?”

Timmy winced, but only just. “I just wanna see you try.”

For a moment, Tommy studied Timmy, his stare searching for doubts, any hint of second-guessing. Doubt was written all in the hesitation behind Timmy’s eyes, doubts about him. Yet his unbendable glare made one thing very clear; he will not trust his words until he sees some action.

And so, the second Tommy snapped his fingers, Buddy barked to attention. Challenge accepted.

Facing his canine companion, Tommy kneeled on one knee. Raising his right thumb to his lips, his features twitched when his teeth chomped through a layer of skin, enough for a prick of dark crimson to pool. There was a short twitch between Timmy’s brow, not expecting this blood sacrifice of sorts. Though he kept his stiff stance, looking on as Tommy squeezed his thumb to draw out more blood before he lowered it near Buddy’s muzzle.

Without hesitation, Buddy licked the blood onto his tongue, ingesting it in tongue-clicking chews as Tommy then held his thumb to his tongue to stop the bleeding. Standing to his feet as Buddy’s irises began to glisten, shimmers of periwinkle-blue enveloped in his pupils through his sclera.

Gary and the fairies wore bedazed masks as Timmy tensed his jaw. Feeling icy, grated tingles rush across his skin the instant his spirit felt a sharp cut like scissors to a ribbon. In a snap, he couldn’t hear Sophia, couldn’t feel her. Just like when he’d been trapped in the Council’s realm, only this time it felt…permanent. His shock sent a haunted stare to his cousin, seeing the same, jarring blow through Gary’s wide eyes as if he, too, felt the spiritual gouge.

Not long after this spiritual disconnect, Buddy started to heave like a cat choking on a hairball. Staggering backwards as retches shook through him, brightening the shimmer in his eyes. Timmy then shot his stare to Tommy who didn’t flinch, appearing unalarmed by these gags. And in one, final hurl, Buddy spat out a delicate, veined, pearlescent ballet of cells, curved with whispers of limbs budding from a tiny torso. Its face barely discernible with a network of tiny indentions for eyes, imprints of a nose buttoned like an intergalactic alien. Translucent skin sleek with watery liquid of some amniotic sea, rapid, rhythmic contractions flickering in a bluish sack beneath…

…a human fetus.

Periwinkle-blue shimmered and sheened around the fetus on the floor, its limbs and body growing like a plant sprouting from the soil. Fingers and toes developed outside of the womb as if watching human development play at four-times speed, exceeding past the newborn stage. Brunette strands lengthened and thickened out of the scalp, growing full and long enough for pink ribbons to section off pigtails in perfect bows. Soft, ivory skin drying as clothes soon dressed the vulnerable life from the nude. Fitted in a pink, denim overall dress over a white tee ruffled at the butterfly sleeves, frills trimming white socks footed in pink Mary-janes.

A toddler lay before them, curled like a baby in a womb. No more than two years of age with features more defined in a button nose, round cheeks, bushed brows, and dainty lips in contrast to the big eyes that blinked, revealing round orbs of the boldest blue. The sparkles that had encompassed her dissipated as gradually as from the golden retriever’s eyes, returning to their normal brown and blue.

With full mobility, the toddler rolled onto all fours, wobbling to her unsteady feet. Marveled eyes taking in her surroundings like she was seeing the world through a different pair of lens, familiar yet foreign. When her wandering gaze soon settled on the only young adult in the room, her blue eyes brighten in a bouncy shriek.

“Dada!”

Tommy kneeled as she giggled with arms outstretched, her Mary-janes waddling the few steps into his endearing hug. “Welcome to the land of the living!” he squeezed her, and she squeezed him back. All in front of the boys and their fairies whose jumbled minds were stuck on simply trying to grasp what the heck just happened.

“Hmm…” Tommy then held the little girl by the side of her small arms, eyes gleaming up at him. “What should we call you…”

“No Sophia.” Her stubby finger poked the tip of her nose, smiling. “Too on deh nose.”

Timmy’s heart skipped, chest growing so tight it was almost hard to breathe. She just said Sophia…w-was it her? Was it really her?

“Alright, then.” Tommy chuckled. “What should your name be?”

“Hmmmm….” she tapped her chin without thinking long and hard to radiantly declare“…Timantha!”

“Haha…okay.” he patted her shoulders, solidifying the deal. “Timantha, it is!”

Ordained with a new name, Timantha pulled away from Tommy, spotting the preteen with jet-black hair. Happily waving like seeing a loved one for the first time in ages. “Hi, Gawy!”

Gary’s yellow retriever watched him furrow, waving awkwardly in return. “Hey, Timantha…”

When Timantha turned to face the pink-hatted boy, her bright smile couldn’t contain her giddy excitement within. Her entire face alight with a glow that mirrored the warmth in her heart for whom she held near and dear.

“Hi, Bubba!”

Timmy’s breath hitched in his throat, voice momentarily stolen from paralyzing surprise.  

She bounced on her toes, squealing in her wobbly run. Pouncing onto Timmy’s pant leg as he squinched from impact, brushing her beaming cheek against him. Short arms giving him the biggest, blissful squeeze she could muster. “I knew it would work!” her neck bowed backwards to look at him, eyes crinkled at the corners from such a genuine, infectious smile. “See, Bubba? It’s me!”

His stare froze as if life paused around him, like his mind struggled to accept what stood before his eyes. His leg barely registering her constricting embrace around it, his ears perceiving her vibrant giggle as if it echoed from down the hall. Her presence felt like a dream too good to be true. She was too good to be true…but as the tips of his cool fingers brushed her warm cheeks, he knew she was no dream.

He sniffed when brimming tears quivered in his lip, the sense of heaviness lightening from within as though his feet were barely touching the ground. His body acted on its own when he scooped the toddler into his arms, only thinking about the lacking strength in his scrawny arms until after her weight nearly slipped out of his clutches. Blithely obliging to his affection, she adjusted herself more securely on his person, latching arms around his neck and legs around his torso like a koala to a tree. His arms supported the weight of her backside, squeezing her against him as his face nuzzled into the crook of her neck, feeling all the more real.

In that moment, the droplets that slipped down his cheeks was what the carved void in his heart had been missing for weeks. Not sadness, not anger, not a bitter disdain for life. Something that made his heart shiver and shake in his ribs because of how foreign the feeling had become…

She giggled, her chin against his shoulder. “I wuv you, Bubba!”

Watery eyes clenched tighter, swirls of emotions hushing his voice “…I love you, too…”

Atop the ten-year-old’s head, his pink hat used her finger to swipe at brimming tears, overcome with joy for her godson. From the fireplace, the green vase held the lilac vase sound asleep against him, observing the touching scene through glossy eyes and a deep sigh of contentment curling his lips. As immortals who have lived the lifetime of many lives, magic bringing the dead back to life was unheard of. No matter if death by magic build-up, sickness, suicide, or murder, not even fairies rise from the ashes once reduced to magical dust.

Could this count as the Council’s show of mercy? Why else would they’ve brought Tommy into Timmy’s life? Why else would they’ve granted such powerful magic to fall into the palm of Tommy’s hands? Magic that no human child has ever had access to let alone an adult? Honestly, just…why? And why now?

While uncertain of this entire situation, they were certain about this. After everything he’s been through, Timmy deserved to have this moment, and they were both grateful that he’d been given this grace.

Arms still latched around him, Timantha pulled away just enough to push the tip of her nose against Timmy’s, tickled with high-pitched giggles. Pure joy expressed in spheres of blue, full of new life. Her rose-tinted glasses peered into a pair of eyes that mirrored hers in terms of color, eyes of lenses jaded from the darkest, bleakest parts of life ten years has thrown at him. Though they looked weary and slightly bagged, they managed to crinkle at the corners. He couldn’t help it; her light shined too brightly to stay in the dark.

Thinking Gary had been quiet for a while, the yellow retriever turned his neck to see his godson’s pensive frown. Gary pointed blue eyes to the floor, mouth pinched. Timmy got his sister back…but he couldn’t get his mom back?

Truth be told…did he even want her back? Her life ended when his began, so just like Tommy, he never knew his mother or even what she looked like. Marsden hardly spoke about her, when he bothered to speak to him. And only then, the description of his mother was to bash him for killing her at birth. Then again…would it be worth wanting to meet her? Tell her he was sorry for taking her life and bringing out the abusive sadist in her lover?

Buddy went up to Tommy and leaned on one side against both of his legs, grabbing his split attention. Tommy bent down to give the canine gentle scratches behind his ear, but instead of kicking his left haunch foot, Buddy whined sadly, seeing the tint of gloom behind Tommy’s eyes. Buddy knew that look…that conflicted stare. Battling internally with the morality of keeping another important truth to himself.

When Tommy looked down and met his studying gaze, tiny twinkles entered his eyes. [My masters have not prohibited otherwise.] Buddy spoke in Tommy’s voice. [Go ahead…tell them.]

Tommy grimaced, keeping his voice low enough for only Buddy to hear “…what if they get upset?”

[The Sepharims will bear the brunt if it comes to that.]

With a deep breath, Tommy redirected solemn eyes to Gary and Timmy. “So…um…” he spoke up, hesitation stalling him. He swallowed, exhaling once more through his lips. When has Buddy ever steered him wrong? “There’s something else I didn’t tell you guys. Something…you have a right to know.”

Gary lifted his cautious brow from the floor. Timantha turned her curious gaze in Tommy’s direction, securing herself to Timmy with one arm latched around his neck. Just as his spirit warmed, a chill settled within as Timmy’s eyes narrowed. Of course…nothing good can happen to him without a catch.

Soft snores breathed past loose lips through the faintest ebb and flow in Vlad’s chest, features slack in his dreamless sleep. Deaf to withheld secrets that no godchild or godparent could have foretold.

A groggy groan escaped as blue eyes parted, the bumpy textures of stipple sprayed across the ceiling as the first tired eyes would see. A thick layer of something heavy and fluffed covered him chest to toe like a warm hug, weak fingers grazing the furry fibers of wool from underneath. He winced uncomfortably, the crooks in his spine struggling to conform to the flatness of what was supporting it. Hearing tiny squeaks of weakened springs with every shift of his aching shoulder or squirm of the stiff muscles in his limbs. Beneath his neck, however, felt supported by a dingy lump of fluff, its cushion soft enough to protect the back of his head from something hard.

“How’re you feeling, grandpa?”

The voice he heard sounded far too deep to be Timmy, even too deep for Gary. Was he not in his house? The ceiling looked too homey to be a hospital. He mustered what little strength gave him the will to lift his head, eyes heavy and unfocussed as the haze in his vision worked to correct itself. Red, sore eyes drifted down to his lift, slowly blinking to the pink Chuck Taylors that he’d never seen neither of his grandsons wear on their feet. Squinting, he followed the trail of Chucks up the legs of slim jeans, pausing when a pair of pink Mary-janes dangled off the sides of what looked like a young man’s thigh.

Before he crooked his neck to get a better look, he watched slim jeans straighten to a standing position, walking towards him. A little girl was then lowered to his eye level, a girl with eyes so blue they flickered a flash of his granddaughter in his jogged memory. Sophia’s smiling face faded in a slow blink, two pigtails bouncing above her ears instead of one ponytail hanging off her shoulder. She seemed much shorter than Sophia, essences of baby fat still in her arms round like beef franks. Sausage fingers waving as beamy as her baby-toothed grin through chubby cheeks.

“Hi, gwanpa!”

He blinked rapidly like trying to clear the fog of disbelief clouding his vision. If his ears were going bad, it was worse than he thought. This little girl spoke with the same squeaky lisp…just like Sophia did at that age.

“Uh, you mean great-grandpa…” a young man kneeled beside her, his chin stubbled with brunette hair and eyes the same puddles of blue as he gave the little girl an reminding glance “…right, honey?”

“Ooooooooooh…yas!” the little girl exclaimed, and when Vlad soon recognized the young man’s tenor timbre, hoarseness stammered in his throat’s strain to speak.

“…T-T…Thomas…?”

“Yessir.” Tommy gently grinned. “Are you alright?”

 Vlad scrubbed his face with both hands, wishing his head would stop spinning. “…w-what happen…?”

“I had come over earlier to check on you and the boys…they’d found you unresponsive on the ground.” Tommy explained. “I told them you’d be alright, but…do you want to go to the hospital? Get checked out, just in case?”

Mulling this over, Vlad made an attempt to sit himself up. Only for his frail arms to drop his head back against the pillow, huffing to catch his breath. “…w-where…are the boys…?”

“…t-they’re at their friend’s birthday party.” Tommy rubbed behind his neck, a subtle frown conveying his dubiety of whether he’d overstepped a boundary. “I’d told them they should go…take their mind off of things for a while, so I stayed to make sure you were alright.”

Vlad was too drained to even act displeased, eyes half closed and bloodshot. Birthday? What birthday? His brain strained with hooks fishing through the foggy haze for a reminding catch, then it dawned on him. Ah, that’s right…it was a couple of weeks ago that Gary had mentioned something about some get-together with a couple of friends.

A couple of weeks ago…forever ago.

Forever ago since he’d seen his love…

Her beautiful face…

“You okay, gwanpa?”

Vlad jerked suddenly, dazed in his blinks as he tilted his head to the toddler’s attentive stare in his direction “…who is…?”

“Timantha Tara Turner.” Tommy weakly smiled to Timantha “…my daughter.”

Timantha held up two proud fingers. “I turned dis many today!”

Baffled and still a bit delirious, Vlad’s blinks furrowed in confusion. “…d-daughter…?”

“I…was going to introduce her after you and grandma had gotten to know me better…considering you’d never known I existed until now.” Tommy excused. “Of course, that was before…” he didn’t want to say, fearing the harsh reminder would stress Vlad’s heart already hanging on the balance.

Temporarily distracted, Timantha coggled away over to the golden retriever curled comfortably by the empty fireplace, chin resting on his front paws. She squatted as her fingers reached to lightly graze his back fur, and her strokes didn’t stir him from his slumber, keeping her giggles quiet.

“…when…?” Vlad croaked, weary gaze on Timantha.

“…I was seeing this girl in high school. Went to a party, made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.” Tommy was, in fact, still a virgin and had never had a girlfriend. Of course, he couldn’t tell his grandfather the truth of Timantha’s conception.

Vlad’s crinkled gaze drifted towards Thomas. He never would have expected something like this from a young lad who seemed too sensible for that kind of lapse in judgement. Then again, he still had much to learn about his daughter’s secret son.

“But she was no mistake.” he looked over behind him at his little sister reborn as his daughter. “She’s an angel.”

“…w-wha…of her mother…?” Vlad slurred, breathy.

Tommy deeply sighed, pondering a response. “She wanted to abort when she first started showing, but when we found out she was too far along, she decided on adoption. I wanted to keep her because…well...I knew of Mom through her letters but…didn’t know her.”

His elderly gaze grew heavy with grief, head tilting slightly in consideration.

“At the time, Timantha was my only link to anyone like me…I couldn’t give that up.” Timmy stalled, licking his lips “…so, her mother gave up her rights after Timantha was born. And I was granted full custody.”

Timantha stood and faced the two men over by the couch, blue eyes watchful with careful attention on Vlad drawing thoughtful lips together. For Thomas to have faced numerous trials at his young age…almost like Susanne had. Only she had chosen to suffer in silence, pretending she was never treated like some tool for some dirty svoloch’.

“…does…she know her?”

Tommy shook his head. “She wanted no parts, so…” Could be why his mother never tried to see him. The letters were just enough contact with the convenience of distancing herself from him…who knows.

Both men heard Timantha coggle back across the floor, sitting on her knees beside Tommy. Vlad couldn’t take his stunned eyes off her leaning forward with arms crossed over the binding of his wool blanket, eyes so bright and bubbly, staring back at him like it had been far too long since she’d seen him last. Settling her chin on her arms, her soft gaze met Vlad’s stare deep with longing. A warm, enthralling tug in his chest nudged a trembling finger to graze her smiling cheek.

His quiet breath shuddered, heartache blurring his vision. Bestowed the sight of the great-granddaughter he once thought he'd never live long enough to meet, the corners of his eyes pricked with tears tinged in regret.

Gladys should have been here. If she’d met Timantha, maybe…he could have seen her smile one last time…

“No tears, gweat-gwanpa.” Timantha’s tender finger flicked the one tear that’d escaped. “I happy to see you, too!”

The faint quiver in his lips curled the first smirk he’d worn in a while, hoarse in his murmur “…call me…praded.”

“Pwaded?” her brows perked curiously. “Wha does dat mean?”

His words were weary with a dream-like quality to them “…shorter name for…great-grandpa.”

“Oooooooooooh.” Her childlike wonder mulled this briefly, then her eyes twinkled. “Okay, pwaded!”

“That is right…pravnuchka.” He sniffed as he spoke quietly, unable to put the effort in talking louder. “Means…great-granddaughter.”

Timantha giggled. “Dats a funny word. I like it!”

Despite the softness of his smile, Tommy’s eyes crinkled. Happy to see the instant chain link of a bond between a young spirit given a second chance at life and an old soul recently widowed. Albeit risky, Timmy and Sophia had made the right choice. After so much loss, their grandfather didn’t just need this, he might not have survived without this.

Timantha’s grin faded as her praded’s strength to keep smiling began to dissipate, feeling his energy deplete like a laptop running on a bad battery. “…Thomas…” Vlad looked in Tommy’s direction, breaths coming in shallow, irregular gasps “…you have license…?”

“I do, I just can’t afford a car.” Tommy confirmed, concern etched in his gaze. “Why?”

A dull throb pinched in his chest, his lungs biting for breath. “…I…no feel good…” his vision swayed, a fuzzy haze swimming in his head. “I…I think…I go to hospital…”

“I had a feeling.” Tommy pushed himself with a stable knee, standing to his feet. “Let me help you up.”

Timantha moved out of Tommy’s way as he flipped back the wool blanket, leaning as Vlad accepted Tommy’s helping hand. Her Mary-janes scurried in short steps to the goldene retriever, shaking him until his head snapped with droopy eyes.

Cautious in his efforts as to not harm him further, Tommy pulled Vlad by his arm. Slugging the arm over his shoulder and supporting the old man’s weight with his other arm, supporting him until his trembling legs leveled their unsteady balance.

“…y-you can…take…car in…driveway…” Vlad’s labored breath permitted.

“Yessir.” Helping Vlad drag his feet, Tommy shot a short glance over his shoulder. “Timantha? Buddy? Let’s go.”

“Yaaaaaaaay!” Timantha shouted joyously as Buddy’s compliant bark made him more alert. Yes, she was worried about her praded, but she had faith he’d be alright. Plus, she couldn’t wait to experience what it’ll be like to see and hear and feel the world again!

As Tommy led Vlad into the kitchen, Buddy’s fast agility beat them to the front door. He jumped on his hind legs, using his nose to knock the car keys from the wall mount and catch them between his teeth. He carried them to Tommy who reached with his freest hand to grab them, then hurried back to the front door where he stood on his back paws and maneuvered his front paws to twist the door handle, and since the bolt locks had not been refastened, he pulled the door open with ease.

Scurrying to meet Buddy at the door, Timantha held it open for Tommy and Vlad to exit first, following after Buddy as she stretched on her tippy toes to pull on the handle and close it shut.

Chapter Text

Flying buttresses supported high ceilings, opening the vast space of the circular room where windows of stainless glass were shimmery with various colors twinkling natural light. Wall mounted sconces burned candles for a warmer glow, seeping the deep-plum grooves of marbled-stone flooring. Pearl-marble staircases ascended the multiple floors of lofted spaces lined with plum-oak doors that led to various rooms, framing the amethyst brick of the central fireplace. Centered in front of Queen-Anne couches clothed in a rich, deep-violet that faced each other, divided by a dark wood coffee table carved in the most ornate, intricate craftsmanship.

Occupying the couch to the fireplace’s left, Gary slouched with arms folded over his lap. Staring at his blue timberlands seated beside his best friend holding his head back against the couch cushion. Dwight had developed a far-off gaze towards the ceiling, trying to decipher the jumbles of thoughts as Molly sat to his left, arms folded across her stiff chest. Hazel leaned into Molly’s left shoulder, lines of stress crinkled into her forehead. Fingers fiddling with the draw strings of her cropped hoodie for anything they could hold onto.

Along the other couch to the right of the fireplace, Chloe’s chin rested atop knees bent to her chest, unable to make eye contact with anything but the stone floor. Arms laced around them as if to keep herself together in the tightest ball. Remy occupied the space to her left with arms crossed in a protective, guarded gesture, a defense to the tension manifesting within him. The birthday girl beside him did not seem to notice his edge, failing to hide the hot rosiness in her cheeks. Shoulders hunched and arms tucked in her lap next to the pink-hatted boy who propped one arm over one bent knee. Blue eyes more focused on the nonburning fire cackling in the fireplace…paying her no mind.

It'd been well over an hour since Timmy and Gary were the last to arrive at Fairy Fort with their fairies, and not once had Timmy commented about the night and day difference in her appearance. Not even the power of makeup had got him to notice her outside of a ‘Hey, Tootie,’, and under different circumstances, she’d fret herself over it. A minor grievance that, knowing what she knew now, seemed trivial compared to the mystical phenomenon he and Gary had revealed to them all.

“Whoa…” Dwight was the first to break the silence “…that’s insane…”

Gary chortled with a light scoff. “I feel insane just thinkinna ‘bout it all…”

“So lemme get this straight...” Susie spoke for all of the godparents hovering near their respective godchildren. “Tommy’s apparently Timmy’s secret older brother, owning a dog who, in actuality, is one of the Fairy Council’s pets or whatever…but Tommy thinks the Fairy Council are Seraphims and that Timmy and Gary have shapeshifting angels? And on top of alla that, grandma kicked the bucket, this dog brought the grandpa back to life, then rebirthed Timmy’s dead sister as Tommy’s daughter by ingesting Tommy’s blood and hackin’ out a whole human?!”

“Yeah, pretty much the gist…” Wanda wearily huffed, cradling her infant son still fast asleep in her arms.

“All of that kinda sounds like the weirdest fever dream, but like, you’re wide awake on the most hallucinogenic trip of your life.” Molly casually remarked, causing Irving to cast her a quizzical look.

“…how you know what a hallucinogenic trip is?”

“I know way more than I should.” Molly shrugged loosely, withholding details of the one and only time Marissa had mixed her favorite booze with three puffs of cannabis. Too young to recall the continuous string of events, old enough to get vivid flashes of her sole parental figure, at the time, tweaking out of her mind.

“That reminds me…” Dwight lifted his head, shifting to an upright position. “Elmer had told me this morning about this Great Grey last night…she was looking through the window and watching me sleep.”

“Watching you sleep?” Remy arched a brow.

“Yeah...” Dwight sighed, bunching his brows. “Seizures were my worst enemy yesterday…”

“And the last couple weeks.” Irving added drably.

“What about your medication?” Nyekundu thought to ask. “Has it stopped working again?”

“That’s what it feels like…” Dwight’s regret groaned. “But it might be a while before my dads can afford anything better…”

Timmy’s lips pinched, though he didn’t tear his gaze from the orangey sways within the fire.

“This owl that was watching you…” Gary looked to his best friend. “Have you seen it before?”

“It was the same owl we’d seen at the park with this kid and his mom…” Dwight recalled. “They’re apparently his neighbors.”

Chloe’s ears perked with a nervous flicker in her eyes. A hunch assumed she might know who Dwight was referring to, but the coincidence of a kid and his mother owning an owl just seemed too obvious of a fluke to fully believe. “…w-what did the kid and his mom look like?”

A sheepish smile crept in Dwight’s dry lips. “I honestly can’t remember what the mom looked like, but Elmer recognized the kid with glasses and ears on his neck…” he paused thoughtfully. “Though I definitely remember the owl’s eyes…they reminded me of Treebelle’s robe.”

“…if…I-I’m not mistaken…” her tight voice cracked “…you might be talking about Kevin.”

“Kevin?” Dwight’s confusion repeated, and Chloe’s stiffness nodded.

“I-I met him yesterday…he…had a Great Grey with eyes like Treebelle’s robe…” her arms tautly squeezed her knees, clearing lumps knotting in her throat. “…I met his mom, too…she…goes by Dr. Katherine…”

“…like, a doctor at a hospital?” Tootie’s mousey voice questioned.

“No…” Chloe tried to compose herself with a steadying breath. Unsure of what the others would think of her when she uttered “…like a…therapist.”

“You saw a shrink in the hospital?” Molly probed more in an inquiring manner than a place of judgement, and Chloe weakly shook her head, swallowing the acid taste down the back of her throat.

“It’s…a long story.”

“I don’t think anyone has anywhere else to be, Chlo-bird.” Susie spoke encouragingly, making Chloe’s eyes take on an afeared flash.

“Yeah, kiddo.” Irving added his own reassurance. “We’re all ears.”

Her lips twitched, skin itching as if being pricked by needles. Save Timmy and his slumbering godbrother, the weight of everyone’s anticipating gazes fell onto her, quickening the drumming thumps in her ears. Logic knew this place was a judgement-free zone, knew she didn’t have to hide. Her irrationality wanted, needed, to crawl under the heaviest rock, into the darkest space. Hide with what was left of her dignity, away from any chance of condemning comments.

“Chloe.” her godmother lowered a consolatory hand, giving Chloe’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as Chloe met her indigo gaze. “You want me to tell ‘em?”

Chloe furrowed, chewing on her bottom lip. For once, it was like her mother’s voice was actively blocked from penetrating her mind. Still didn’t make it difficult to imagine what she would be saying if Chloe could hear her…

Get it together! There’s nothing wrong with you…

You make a big fuss over stuff that’s just all in your head…

Good Lord, you’re so dramatic …

You’ll always be nothing short of deplorable .

Multiple professionals have all validated her with a diagnosis, and though her father once believed ‘mental illness’ was a crutch full of excuses…he now strived to give her anxiety a voice. Still, she felt the need to silence it. It’s better to be seen as calm and collected, not have her insanity be heard…

“Her dad took her to see Dr. Katherine…a therapist.”

She heard her godmother speak for her and frowned, lowering her head in shame. Too weak to even speak for herself…deplorable.

“She had a bad panic attack during the consultation and…” Susie chose to skip the details for the sake of Chloe’s visible discomfort. “…she ended up hospitalized.”

“Did…” Dwight hesitated, perhaps one of the only other witnesses around to have the misfortune of firsthand experience with what Susie labeled a bad panic attack. “…did you have that…‘seizure’…again?”

Having to admit the truth conglomerated the most bile taste in her throat, clenching it shut. The most Chloe could do was nod with a neck that appeared to have lost the ability to flexibly bend.

“I thought you didn’t have epilepsy.” Remy questioned Chloe.

“She doesn’t.” Susie affirmed, reassuring her goddaughter with another tender squeeze to her rigid shoulder. The corners of her lips bent downwards when Chloe then clasped her head between her hands. “Her anxiety’s gotten real bad...”

Timmy’s eyes squinted with hints of a sickened twitch, as if repulsed learning the deteriorative state of a disorder he felt Chloe did not deserve to keep suffering from. He would have gone unnoticed apart from Gary’s fixed, studying stare.

“Sounds scary…” Tootie observed, compassion radiating from her steady gaze. She could remember her first ever interaction with Chloe, albeit brief.

Chloe had sped out of Mr. Crocker’s classroom, barreling down the school hallway before she had a chance to react quickly enough to step out of her frantic path, accidently knocking her to the ground. When she’d asked Chloe if she was okay, she saw blue eyes darting around at everything but her as her arms trembled, then her legs stumbled to her feet in a mad dash as if running away from an invisible threat.

That was maybe, like, three months ago; in hindsight, Chloe seemed really, really anxious. Wow…she had no idea Chloe had been dealing with this for so long. Perhaps even longer than that.

“Hey, Tootie,” Molly called to the other raven-hair, switching Tootie’s attention. “You remember your uncle stopping to help that weird-looking guy with the ears on his neck? And that raven next to him with the purple eyes like Plumfrost’s robe?”

Tootie hummed in ratification. “And her eyes were all sparkly, too.”

“Wait…” Chloe’s peaked curiosity overtook her growing desire to hide, raising her head from her hands’ clasp. “…y-you guys saw Mr. Crocker?”

“Uh-huh.” Tootie confirmed. “The engine in his van had died, and my Uncle Vic stopped to give him a boost. There was this raven with purply eyes on his shoulder the whole time.”

You gotta be freakin kidding me…Timmy tightly swallowed to keep from grumbling aloud. That nutcase was already obsessed with fairies without it being a matter of time before some animal with magical, godlike powers poured gallons of truth into his conspiracies. The heck is the Council doing!?

“Did he not notice you?” Remy asked when he looked to Tootie.

“No. He didn’t pay us any attention. Kinda like…we weren’t even there.”

“We haven’t seen that raven since, but Swizzle and I felt this powerful magical energy.” Rose brought up. “We knew right away that she couldn’t be a fairy but…we didn’t consider the possibility of her being connected with the Council.”

“Then somethin’ strange happened when Tootie blew out her candles this morning.” Swizzle added, arms folded. “All of us saw purple magic in the smoke.”

“Purple magic?” Nyekundu queried, brows scrunched puzzledly.

“Yeah, but when we went outside to look for that raven, we couldn’t find her.” Molly admitted.

“My sister Vicky and Uncle Vic didn’t see the magic, though...” Tootie inserted. “But my Uncle Vic was the one holding the cake, and Vicky was standing right beside him.”

“So is their magic like…invisible to folks who don’t believe in magic?” Irving guessed.

“Tim and I can’t really answer.” Gary shrugged, half listening to the conversation and half keeping his eye on his cousin who looked like a ticking timebomb across from him. “Grandpa was out the whole time everything happened…”

“So…w-what about yesterday? When Buddy healed Alondro?” Dwight was almost afraid to ask, hesitant of resurfacing any sensitive memories. “Like, did…your grandparents see it happening?”

Gary’s eyes saddened, instantly ashamed. Not wanting to bring light to his detached and muddled mindset at the time, so he settled with a copout but safe response “…I’m not sure…”

Shifting from the solace of Molly’s shoulder, Hazel grew ruminative in her lowered chin and facial expression. She’d hoped to talk to Remy in private, thinking he would be the only other godchild with more of an understanding of her plight. But with conversations of adults and regular children mysteriously entering their lives and having been given access to the Council’s magical companions in disguise, she might as well come out in the open herself.

“…so…yesterday…” she meekly started, a subtle tremble in her voice that drew everyone’s attention to her. “…I-I’d met this girl named Missy…and her ferret named Schumann…”

“Wait…Missy?” The name rang a bell in Remy’s mind. “As in Missy Phirman?”

Hazel swallowed dryly as she nodded. “I’d never seen them in the same community let alone a house or two near me…but…I remember his eyes looked like the same color Persimmons wears...” her fists squeezed together, clenching her hoodie’s drawstrings as eye burgeoning with tears diverted to the knees of her jeans. Floods of a man’s aggressive rage and noxious resentment crashing into her psyche like the wrathful waves of a hurricane. “…then…m-my dad…h-h-he…”

“It’s okay, Kakao.” Nyekundu’s wings lowered her for her gentle touch to lift Hazel’s chin. Tender, soothing lips pecked the top of her goddaughter’s forehead, and ambivalent brown eyes peered upwards, washed in warmth when they met the familiar comfort of red.

If Nyekundu wasn’t there, she couldn’t have made it this far. If she didn’t have Nyekundu, illogicality would probably give her the courage to make herself Anthony’s casket neighbor…

Bet the Wells wouldn’t mind that at all…

“What’d that POS do?” Molly didn’t wanna push, but speculating about a grown man putting hands on a little girl pinched nerves she didn’t know she had.

Pulling herself away from her godmother, Hazel hunched her shoulders as her insides gnawed and reeled. If only Simmons were here; he’d extract the bad memories and insert them into everyone’s knowledge, just like he’d done when overwhelming fear refused incestuous rape to utter from her lips. Nothing was blackmailing her into secrecy this time around, but it’d been so long since there was no one around hellbent on silencing her strife…

“…h-he hurt me…” she forced herself to squeak out, eyes downcast and her small frame visibly shuddering. Nyekundu reached from behind, linking her arms like a soft scarf around Hazel’s neck twilled tensely. “…c-cuz Hillary…kept c-calling me bad names and…I got upset and pushed her…”

“Bout time you defended ya’self, kid.” Swizzle commented solemnly.

Hazel’s seeking fingers reached to hold Nyekundu’s arms like a lifeline around her. “…but when he…came in the room…s-she made up this lie that I’d pushed her to be mean…”

“And he believed her over you?” Susie asked in hopes of a different answer than the one she already knew as fact. And Hazel’s grimace tainted her hopes.

“He always believes her…”

“…is…that where this came from?” Tootie pointed to a spot on her right cheek, near where a scab was marked on Hazel’s where a phantom burn made her wince in discomfort.

“…that came from a leather belt to the face.” Nyekundu answered in her goddaughter’s place. Her embrace remained loving around Hazel, yet her contempt for those bashas dripped with each word. “Hillary and Marcus degrade her like some slave, and Angela does nothing to stop it.”

“Sheesh…” Gary cringed as everyone else took on expressions of either condolence and empathy for an innocent little girl, or animosity and disdain for her ‘family.’ Aware that Hazel’s situation was bad, though none of them quite knew of the extent…

As for Timmy, his glower bore into the cackling flames in the fireplace, a surge of aversion scorching through his veins like white fire. His arms and legs tensed, gritting his teeth in attempts to resist the itch to dig his nails into his arm.

“…but last night, Schumann crawled his way up to my room on the second floor…” Hazel peeped after excessively clearing her throat. “…I-I let him in and…he healed me.”

“Healed you?” Molly repeated, and Hazel pinched her lips as she nodded.

“His eyes sparkled, too…” her lack of self-confidence briefly looked to Nyekundu, clutching her motherly arms around her as if relying on her comfort to continue. “Then…next we knew, we woke up this morning in Missy’s house.”

“What, she kidnap you guys?” Swizzle assumed out of slight misunderstanding.

“…Missy didn’t…technically…” Hazel wasn’t quite sure of the semantics herself. “…but Missy didn’t seem all that surprised. She…acted like it was supposed to happen.”

As ruminative silence lapsed, Remy tilted his gaze on his godfather who’d been hovering wordlessly with crossed arms, watching as Juandissimo soon drift his fixed stare in his direction. He could simply be misanthropic in general, but Missy seemed oddly over-enthusiastic when he thought back to her seeing Juandissimo for the first time. Was it because she could see through his disguise?

“…Juan and I’d met her yesterday, too; she and her father were performing for the country club…” Remy then addressed the others, fingers drumming a rapid staccato on his tux sleeve. “I got this strange feeling being around her…like she knew so much about me without me saying a word…”

“…how’s that strange?” Gary voiced the first thing that came to mind, and when Remy stopped drumming his fingers with scrunched brows towards him, he felt the need to clarify his nonjudgmental intention. “I mean…doesn’t everybody know your family?”

“Everybody knows the Buxaplentys…not me.” Remy emphasized, sighing before he continued. “Anyway…it was strange because Missy said something about this voice in her head that tells her things? Called it ‘Spirit’…”

“Yeah, she said something about Spirit this morning, too.” Hazel equated. “…and how she thinks you dye your ferret’s fur.”

“That’s original.” Molly’s sarcasm didn’t intend to offend, but Remy ignored her anyway.

“I couldn’t think of anything else when she questioned why Juan looked so odd.” his eyes drifted, furrowing. “But now I’m starting to wonder if she was pretending as well...”

Considering this, Hazel’s head tilted thoughtfully. “…do you think…Missy thinks Nyekundu and Juandissimo are ‘angels,’ too?”

Contemplating, Remy met Juandissimo’s shrugging glance, then shrugged himself. “Maybe…”

“…should you ask her?” Dwight wondered, looking towards Hazel. “I mean…assuming you’re not going back to your house after this…”

“Why would she?” Susie remarked. “Sounds like lil’ Schumann had the right idea.”

Hazel frowned, looking downward. “I guess…”

“Guys, this is so obvious; the Council’s up to somethin’ again.” Swizzle surmised.

“Really?” Cosmo perked. His lack of commenting was due to the amount of concentration required to keep up with the conversation. “Huh…I wonder if Jorgen kno-.”

Puffs of steel-blue smoke cut off Cosmo’s comment, and the fairy couple and their baby vanished in thin air.

 “…Cosmo? Wanda?” Timmy’s attention was torn from the fireplace, scanning the room for his fairies.

The other godkids had no clue where Timmy’s fairies had gone, but the godparents knew very well what this meant as Rose gulped. “…uh-oh.”

“…what’s ‘uh-oh’?” Timmy probed, and Rose gave a straight-forward answer.

“Cosmo and Wanda have been summoned by Jorgen.”

‘Summoned by Jorgen’ drew a bad taste in Timmy’s mouth. “…that’s bad, isn’t it.”

“It depends, but…normally not very good.”

Timmy dragged fingers down his face in a sullen huff. Daggum, what is it now!?

When the smoke cleared, Cosmo and Wanda found themselves first greeted by framed photos of the Von Strangle family tree plastered along military-green walls, and a cold shiver shot down their spines. Their dread was further confirmed when the Fairy Commander faced away from a wall of TV monitors and slowly turned in his beige leather chair, folding brawny arms on the surface of his executive’s desk as a critical sharpness narrowed his gaze.

Cosmo tugged on his buttoned collar, releasing stewing heat from inside his shirt as Wanda swallowed. The usual Jorgen would immediately voice the offense that’d interrupted his duties to summon them. But this Jorgen glared wordlessly in a taut frown, shriveling Wanda’s insides in aching contractions.

“…is…something wrong?” her shrill voice asked, cradling Poof who was luckily undisturbed.

Jorgen continued to stare, and the couple’s hearts pulsed in their throats. Seconds passed like hours before the Fairy Commander leaned forward in his chair, his tone seemingly only minorly irritated yet with a grated edge.

“I just got word from the Council; your status is to be reactivated as Timmy Turner’s godparents.”

Cosmo floated unblinkingly with his head cocked as a single raised eyebrow expressed Wanda’s dubious skepticism. “What about the probation?”

“The Council has now deemed the probation cruel and unusual punishment due to Timmy Turner’s current predicament.” Jorgen refuted Wanda’s doubt. “They fear it will cause more damage if the probation continues.”

“Then why put Timmy on probation in the first place…” Wanda muttered under her breath, still loud enough for Jorgen to choose not to respond to the comment as he grabbed his wand-like staff that was propped beside him against his desk.

Once the large star-tip sparked, steel-blue glitters shimmered the entirety of Cosmo and Wanda’s bodies, twinkling from the tips of their toes to the roots of their scalps. A mixture of icy warmth tingled down their legs, surged through their arms, and swirled in dizzying whirls around in their heads. Wanda tightened her cradle around Poof in fear the twinge of numbness would accidentally drop him, and Cosmo held out his glowing fingers with admiring eyes like a child watching stars shine for the first time.

Slowly, the blue glint in their clothes and skin returned to their normal hues much to Cosmo’s disappointment, pouting mutely as the light in Jorgen’s staff faded. “Your active status is now reinstated.” he declared, settling his staff back to its resting place. “If Timmy Turner does not make a wish, you will be susceptible to magic build-up.”

Cosmo and Wanda acknowledged this with quiet nods, and Jorgen wrinkled his nose.

“Listen…” hhe groaned, his voice gravely somber. Rarely did he get personal with his employees, but his vexation felt obligated to comment on this particular situation. “I am no parent, and I understand that a new baby can be a lot…but Turner, your godchild, needs both of you, not just one of you in shifts.”

The fairy couple shared rueful glances before their glances lowered to their sleeping baby.

“Turner is not in a good place mentally…” Jorgen pointed out, deepening his slit brow. “…I am certain you both know this.”

“…we do.” Wanda spoke contritely as Cosmo rubbed his arm, frowning. They’ve known this for a while, just haven’t addressed it more than a few moments here and there…

“A vase with cracks is still a broken vase, even if glued back together. Now that the probation is lifted, there’s a possibility he might act out on his ideations, but as his godparents, you two cannot let that happen.”

Timmy is too precious to them…they wouldn’t dare let that happen…

“You know as well as I do that if you both don’t start dividing your attention more efficiently, you will lose him.” The boisterous in his trill hushed ominously. “And I promise that would not be good for you.”

Cosmo sharply gulped as Wanda winced. That was Jorgen’s not-so discreet way of putting their godparenting career on the chopping block if another godchild died in their care.

“Sorry, sir…” Cosmo was genuinely apologetic, feeling as though he had been failing Timmy the most. “We’ll try to do better.”

“Don’t try.” Jorgen gritted. “Just do.”

“We will.” Wanda voiced, her expression equally as repentant. “We promise.”

Taking their word, Jorgen was about to dismiss them once he grabbed his staff when the dusty lightbulb flickered in Cosmo’s mind and his green eyes flashed.

“Wait!”  his outburst halted Jorgen midway. “…what do you know about Tommy?”

“Cosmo…” Wanda was going to advise Cosmo now was not the time to bring that up, but she ultimately pressed her lips shut, deciding against stopping him. Her own curiosity would like to know if the Fairy Commander had any pertinent information regarding the Council’s covert operation.

Jorgen furrowed. He’d been aware of the role Turner’s older brother would have even before his observation of the monitors. “Tommy is exactly who he says he is.”

“…so how does he know about us? And the Council?” Wanda quizzed.

“He does not know any fairy’s true identity.”

That explanation didn’t satiate Wanda’s bemusement. “But he knew us all by name! Even our son!” she expressed, Poof slumbering soundly.

“He does not know you are fairies.” Jorgen reiterated, no change in his stern brow. “That is all that should matter.”

“Well, whose bright idea was it to call us ‘angels,’ anyway?” Cosmo groused. “We have crowns, not halos! And are wings look like flies, not birds! Like, c’mon; we have wands, for cryin’ out loud!”

Instead of shouting at Cosmo to stop spewing nonsense, Jorgen grumbled “…I had nothing to do with that.”

“So…can the same be said about the others that’ve been mentioned?” Wanda mentioned. “Like…this Missy girl, some kid named Kevin, and…” her throat gulped another lump “…even Mr. Crocker?”

“Yes. Even Denzel Crocker.”

Cosmo and Wanda exchanged perturbed looks. The heck, were the Council trying to expose them on purpose?!

“Look, all you need to know is that you will not be taken away from your godchildren.” Jorgen huffed, seeing the puny fairies’ unease clear as day. “Unless they break Da Rules, just like any other godchild.”

That answer felt even less reassuring, but Wanda chose to ask the burning question “…so, what is the Council trying to accomplish this time?”

“That…I cannot answer.” Jorgen sighed, once again made to follow clear instructions yet still unclear of overall intentions. “But the Council must see something in these kids to want to put this much effort into bringing light into their darkness.”

Cosmo and Wanda ponder this statement as Jorgen reached for his staff.

“…any more questions?”

Feeling like their brain might explode (at least one of them, anyway,) Cosmo and Wanda shook their heads.

“Good.”

With a tap of the wand-like staff against the ground, the fairy couple and their child were sucked in a blink of a blank void, and as clouds dissipated, they were met with befuddled yet inquiring gazes of their friends and godchildren. Including their godson who immediately stood to his feet to face them.

 “…I got you in trouble, huh.”

“Oh, sweetie, no. You didn’t get us in trouble.” It was the sullen dejection in Timmy’s knitted brows that solidified Jorgen’s point, even more so than when she’d discovered his self-inflicted welts along his arm. They get a lecture for their shortcomings, and Timmy’s first thought is to blame himself with nothing to account for.

“…you sure?” there was a tinge of agitation, as if Timmy felt he was being lied to in order to spare his feelings.

“Yes.” Wanda firmly assured him, then her eyes scanned to address everyone in the room. “In fact, we have good news.”

“That’s a twist.” Susie snorted. “What’s the good news?”

Adjusting Poof’s deadweight in her waning grasp, Wanda smiled weakly. “The Council decided to end Timmy’s probation early.”

“That means Timmy can make wishes again!” Cosmo exclaimed jauntily.

Timmy pinched his lips in a hard line, hard enough to twitch the corner of his right eye.

“Wow, I dunno if it’s Tootie’s birthday or Timmy’s.” Molly chuckled at her own harmless joke. “You get your sister back and wish-making back? All in one day? Like...what'd you do, suck the Council’s toes, or somethin’?”

“Molly, cut it out...” Swizzle grouched, and Molly made a face at her that insisted she truly was just poking fun.

“Nonetheless, we’re all happy for ya, kiddo.” Irving grinned earnestly, except Timmy’s narrowed stare to his shoes didn’t look like a child who’d been reallotted wish-granting powers.

Worried, Tootie licked her lips, timid when she squeaked “…what’s wrong, Timmy?”

Wadding fists, Timmy spoke through gritted teeth, the tainted strain in his voice revealing his great effort to contain his bitter revulsion. “…the Council doesn’t care like they say they do…”

Everyone sent Timmy puzzled stares, except for his godparents, his cousin, and his cousin’s godfather. Knowing as much as Timmy knew, while they could only presume what was jumbling in his thoughts, they knew it couldn’t be good.

“Why do you think that?” Alondro asked, trying to gage Timmy’s mindset.

Timmy’s lips curled into a disdainful sneer. “Cuz there’s no way they put me through this crap just to end it cuz they felt like it…”

“Perhaps…the Council simply had a change of heart?” Juandissimo posed a simple thought.

A simple thought that triggered a latent bomb as blue, glaring daggers shot his way.

“My grandpa was this close to dying after they killed my grandma and my parents, and you wanna call that a change of heart?!”

“Timmy, calm down…” Wanda cautioned when her godson’s scowl bore into Juandissimo’s perplexed expression. Timmy’s quickening breaths grew shallow as though his chest was growing too thin to bottle any more pent-up anger.

She lowered herself to reach with a becalming palm, but his ignited spark swatted at her backhandedly. His eyes flashed with pure contempt, though she knew it was not towards her, never towards her. It was contempt for the hypocrisy of the most powerful fairies in the universe, the bane of his existence.

“No, Wanda! They punish me for being upset, for bringing to light what they wanted us kids to stay in the dark about! But here they are, trynna play ‘God’ like they’re doing us any favors!” he whirled his fiery glare back to Juandissimo. “And if that’s what you call a change of heart, then just how dumb are you!?”

“Don’t talk to my fairy like that, Turner!” Remy’s struck nerve jumped to his godfather’s defense, startling Chloe beside him in the process. Refusing to back down, Timmy growled at him, cheeks flamed with rage.

“Oh, shut up, Buxaplenty! You wouldn’t be this bold if you had any idea what the Council did!”

Just as Gary suspected, Timmy was crashing. Hard. “Timmy, don’t-”

“In fact, Tommy told us alllllllll about the secrets of the high and mighty! Stuff they’d never admit themselves!” Timmy blatantly ignored his cousin’s warning, pointing directly into the young billionaire’s face. “And since you wanna come at me, let’s start with you!”

The bottom of Wanda’s gut began to ache when Poof squirmed sleepily, wriggling in her arms. “Timmy-”

“Your parents plane crash was no accident! The Council crashed that plane and let them burn to death on purpose!” he barked, bunching Remy’s face into a disgruntled frown. No one was off limits when his firm finger pointed towards the platinum blonde’s haunted eyes. “And your mom’s attack at the zoo, also no accident! They sunk their teeth into her neck and crushed her throat!”

Her heart thundered, constricting her chest, suffocating her caught breath. He then pointed to the birthday girl. Not even she was safe from his tirade.  

“Your cultist dad getting his body sliced and diced by Francis’s dad and his goons? Yeah, also on purpose!” his hard, cold snarl contorted disparaging horror in Tootie’s frown as he swiveled on his heel, pointing in the gothic girl’s path. “Which, by the way, Francis’s dad wouldn’t have sliced his own neck off his shoulders if he hadn’t been the Council’s puppet!”

Now royally peeved, Molly sneered as Swizzle grunted “Yo, what’s gotten into this kid!?”

“And let’s not forget about your brother!” Timmy called out the little black girl who clung to her godmother as discomfort crossed her face. “Taking his own life? That was his own choice! But only cuz the Council wasn’t above using him like some puppet too! They made him do all that crazy stuff on that nanny creep so their hands wouldn’t get dirty!”

“Timmy, that’s enough!” Wanda scolded as Poof writhed into aggravated whimpers. But Timmy had already gone too far to be stopped.

“And those bullies that put you and Gary in the hospital?” He confronted the dorky ginger’s bewildered stare. “Yeah, the Council made sure they learned their lesson in juvie! Only reason they’re not six feet under is cuz they’re apparently above killing kids!”

Poof erupted into strangled cries, his face flushed like a ripe tomato. His mother did her best to softly shush him, bouncing him soothingly.

Gary’s agitation squinted, scrunching his nose towards Timmy. “Are you happy, now?”

“I just thought I’d point out how the writers of Da Rules are total frauds!” Timmy retorted, his tone condescending. “Cuz explain to me how the most powerful fairies in the universe can control, torture, and kill humans, yet-” he pointed to Gary “-you still zone out-” then pointed to Dwight “-you still have seizures-” then to Chloe “-you still have panic attacks-” and lastly Hazel “-and your ‘family,’ is still a bunch of racist pricks!”

“Timmy, stop it!” Cosmo stepped up when Wanda’s hands were tied with their wailing son, but Timmy’s sheer hate and fury continued to coil in his chest like a viper ready to strike.

“And worst of all, they kill my parents just to stick me with an old hag that never did anything but make me want to kill myself, which I couldn’t, because of that fucking probat-”

A forceful, tugging zip swiftly slid across his lips, fastening them into a gritty, pinching lock. When he tried to open his mouth again, the skin around his lips stretched painfully as if past their limits, and when his hands reached to investigate, they felt something metallic on his lips with grooves like zippers on a jacket. He lowered his glare and puckered his mouth, and his eyes bulged…

…his mouth had been replaced by a literal zipper.

His feet stomped in place with heavy clomps, growls of frustration stifled by the magical zipper that’d silenced him. Sharp eyes glowered towards the green fairy, sputtering something along the lines of ‘what the fuck are you doing!’ that sounded too muffled to accurately discern. His godfather clenched a troubled jaw, the magical glow in his wand fading as it faintly quivered in his grip. His son’s screeching cries fading in the background of his boss’s words echoing in his mind.

A vase with cracks is still a broken vase, even if glued back together.

In actuality, he didn’t understand what that meant. Timmy didn’t have cracks, he thought at first, why would Jorgen call him broken? But as he stared at Timmy’s tightly clenched fists, the wild claw of his nails at his own hair, and the rapidness in his ragged grunts, the visual made much more sense.

On the inside, Timmy was broken. Broken by so much turmoil, so much pain. It’s almost impossible for a spirit to be restored to its original state when it’s been broken so badly, only held together by glue and sticky tape…

As his fairy godparents, can they put Timmy back together again? Or is he irreparably damaged? Whatever the case, they had to try.

They loved him too much to lose him like this…

Wrestling with his own crashing whirlwind of thoughts, the sound of choking gasps pierced through the chaotic clash of Poof’s ear-piercing crying and Timmy’s crazed grunts. Dwight’s stare locked onto Chloe grabbing at her shirt, clutching her chest. Fear bulging in her eyes as her breaths sharpened like her lungs were cutting off its own air supply.

“…Chloe, what’s wrong?” he managed to choke out, and as Chloe tried to find her voice, her constricted throat prevented her from doing so.

“Oh, no…” Susie’s worst fear came true, rushing to Chloe’s aid as short, strained gasps began to blanch her skin. So much for coming here to get a break from panic; the last time Chloe had come to Fairy Fort, it was as if her anxiety had been virtually erased. Now here she was gasping for air like a fish out of water. Her anxiety had gotten worse than she thought…

 “Breathe, Chloe.” she gently coached, setting soft hands onto Chloe's knees. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

“I-I…” her whisper croaked as if an unrelenting fist squeezed her vocal cords in a chokehold. “c-c…c-can’t breathe…”

“Yes, you can.” Susie encouraged, staying calm despite Chloe’s jagged gasps. “Slow, even breaths, c’mon.”

Guilt mixed with embarrassment wrinkled in Wanda’s brow, carrying her son now screaming at the top of his longs as she approached her husband and kept her voice deceptively composed. “Bring Timmy with you.”

“What?” Cosmo blinked, having heard Wanda’s request over Poof’s crying but had too many thoughts buzzing between his ears to fully process it.  

Wanda didn’t give him that time, stern in her flight towards the leftward section of the castle as she glanced over her shoulder. “You and I need to have a chat with our godson.”

As Wanda passed the watchful glances of some of the other fairies and fled towards the left-wing corridor, the sound of Poof’s thick tears faded the further she flew from the group until they’d been reduced to quiet echoes when she disappeared through the archway. Bracing himself with a deep breath, Cosmo went to grab Timmy by his wrist, only for Timmy to smack his hand away. His mouth was still zipped shut, but that did little to silence Timmy’s exasperated screams. Frowning, Cosmo resorted to desperate measures and used his wand to trap Timmy into a magical sphere of green aura, aura sturdy enough to resist Timmy’s restless kicks and flailing punches as his wand led the aural sphere behind his wife’s trail.

Watching Timmy get dragged against his will, Gary groaned a sigh, pushing himself from the couch as he crossed his arms. “C’mon, Londro…”

Alondro looked to Gary who’d began making his way in the direction where Wanda and Cosmo had taken Timmy, confused as to what use they would be interrupting what was supposed to be a private conversation. “¿uh…por qué?”

“Solo vamos.” Gary kept walking, steadfast. He wasn’t trying to follow Timmy or interrupt whatever Cosmo and Wanda were gonna do about him. He just needed a quiet place to clear his throbbing head before it exploded, and staying in this room was not helping…

Alondro stalled as Gary approached the left marbled stairs, but when Garay paused to look back at him with a bristled brow as if to say ‘I know you heard me,’ he chose not to test waters and left Irving’s side to catch up to his godchild.

“That’s it, Chlo-bird…” Susie kept at her encouragement as Chloe struggled to control her breathing, her breaths inching at a snail’s pace from labored and strained into smooth and steady. “Just keep breathing, in and out.”

“For fuck sake…” Remy muttered under his breath as he scooted from sitting beside a girl wrought with panic, frustration brewing within with feet planted. Turner just had to throw a tantrum and make everyone as pissy as him, and it boiled his blood hotter for letting that pea-brain crawl under his skin like this!

“Remy?” Juandissimo’s call fell on deaf ears, Remy stomping stubbornly towards the rightward section of the castle as his wings then zoomed after his trail. “Remy!”

Seeing Juandissimo chase after Remy, Hazel parted Nyekundu’s arms from around her and slid off the couch. Nyekundu stared blankly at first, until Hazel stopped and met Nyekundu’s stare with anticipant eyes, waiting for her godmother to come with her.

“…I will be right back, mpenzi.” She assured to Swizzle, floating closer to Hazel. She didn’t reject Hazel’s instinctive grab onto her hand, frowning subtly when she felt the light tremors of Hazel’s fingers around hers.

“What is it, Kakao?” she opened the door for Hazel to express whatever might have frightened or troubled her.

“I’ve seen Remy upset like that before…” Hazel remembered how much it’d bothered her, seeing mint-green blaze with swirls of red…just like the venomous blue of her father.  “I-I just wanna make sure he’s okay…”

“He has Juandissimo for that, you know.” Nyekundu did not want Hazel to walk through fire when she was already burning.

“I know…but…” her brows pulled up in the middle, forcing herself to meet Nyekundu’s gaze. “…I-I still need to talk to him.”

“…well, can it not wait until he’s had a breather?”

Hazel’s neck bowed, jaw tense with strain.

“Remy, stop!” Juandissimo flew in front of Remy’s charging path, abruptly cutting off the echo of stomps throughout the amethyst brick of the expansive corridor. “Can you use your words, por favor?!”

“Turner didn’t have to yell at you like that!” Remy bellowed, arms stiff at his sides.

“But I do not take it personally.” Juandissimo kept his voice calm yet firm. “Timmy has deeper issues than what our eyes can see.”

“Why are you making excuses for him!?”

“I am simply giving his behavior an explanation-”

“Oh, like we all don’t have issues! We’re godchildren!” Remy griped. “You don’t see me or anyone else taking it out on literally everyone for no flippin’ reason!”

In a pause, Juandissimo tilted his head to the side inquisitively “…so what do you call the times you and Moll-”

“Besides the point!” Remy threw his hands up, cutting him off before light could be brought to his past aggressions. Juandissimo looked on as Remy began pacing back and forth, shoulders hunched as if gearing for a confrontation. Fuming with so much animosity that his body appeared to shake with each thundered step, grinding out words between gritted teeth.

“Ugh, it’s all just…just so unfair!”

“What is unfair?”

Remy stopped to face his godfather, ridges of his neck becoming dangerously pronounced. “My parents never loved me, never wanted me, and never cared to even pretend to deny that! But why did they become worm food over a grown man freely preying on a lonely kid for his own disgusting gain!?”

Juandissimo studied him, squinting faintly. “…is that what also upsets you?”

Mint-green burned with a white-hot intensity that could scorch a thousand suns, breaths billowing through flaring nostrils.

“…does that not make you angry?”

“…what do you mean?”

“That only the lesser evils are dead?!”

“…lesser evils?” Juandissimo couldn’t quite follow.

“I ask again…why are my parents, two bastards who never loved nor wanted me, dead…” Remy strained with a cold, cutting hiss slowly amplifying in spite with each phrase. “…but not Hazel’s family who only ever treat her like it’s the 1800s, nor is that nonce who saw little boys as nothing but sleeves for that wrinkly old di-”

“Watch your mouth.”  Juandissimo narrowed his fixed gaze, the same punch in his tone like a father warning his child against pushing vulgar boundaries. Remy’s eyes flashed a firm look that instantly softened.

“Sorry…” Remy mumbled, turning his eyes away as his arms crossed over his puffed chest. He knew he was letting his hate and anger get the best of him again, but it’s just not fair! Few who deserve to live end up dying, yet many who deserve to die get to live…

“Riddle me this.” Juandissimo’s query led Remy to look at him. “…how do you know Fenwick is not dead, too?”

“If that was true, the Council would have explicitly said so…”

“…do you want Fenwick dead?”

“Do you not?” Remy challenged, voice thick with insinuation. “Matter of fact, do you not want Hazel’s pissant of a father, her spineless twat of a mother, and her female dog of a sister to get what’s theirs? Or do you prefer the Council simply yanking Hazel away from those three prats when what they should have done was shove the sharpest drill up all their shitty as-”

“Remy! I will not ask you again!”

“Oh, as if you don’t use bad words!”

“Does not mean you should!”

“Oh, right! Do as I say, not as I do…” Remy huffed with rolling eyes, flattening his shoulders in a gruff manner. “Whatever…”

Juandissimo temporarily shut his eyes, pinching his nose in a groaning breath. He did not like Remy talking like this…

“Remy, no one should invoke anyone’s death, no matter who they are or what they have done…” Juandissimo leveled his waning patience, hoping to steer his angered godchild into a place of reason. “

Remy clicked his vexed tongue. “So we’re just ignoring the fact that you’ve caused someone physical harm?”

“I hurt him, I did not kill him.” Even though he very well could have if he had zero restrictions.

“But you wanted to kill him, which means you wanted him dead.”

“We are getting off track...” Juandissimo let out a broody sigh, massaging his temples. This whole conversation was giving him a malo migraine…

“I just don’t see why it’s suddenly a bad thing to want someone dead.” Remy contended. “Especially if they deserve it.”

Juandissimo hovered to his godson’s level, resting gentle yet firm hands to his shoulders. “Because wishing death upon someone only poisons you with hatred and resentment…and you should not want that for yourself.” he gravely cautioned, speaking from experience.

“Like you were thinking about that when you attacked that pedo with your bare claws!” Remy’s bitter resentment spat, shoving his godfather away by his toned pecs. Juandissimo grabbed at the sting in his chest, brows shot in an arch of disbelief. Flickering flames of memories burned forever into his biggest regret resurfaced as Remy felt his chest tighten with hitched breaths, the pressure almost suffocating.

“Like you were thinking about that shit right when he was about to spread my legs apart and rape me! Again!”

“…w-what?”

Godfather and godson snapped gawking glances at the unexpected squeak of the goddaughter behind them, legs trembling beside her godmother.

“…d-did…” Hazel shuddered, her clenching grip starting to tingle Nyekundu’s poor fingers numb. “…d-d-did Fenwi-”

“No.” Remy tried to deny, but it was already too late.

“Remy, that’s…” Nyekundu and Hazel had been standing patiently by the archway, having only been within earshot at the point Juandissimo had muttered that they were getting off track. Neither of them expected the conversation to make that sharp of a left. “That…that is horrible…”

Faltering, Remy rocked back and forth on his heels. “…I-I didn’t…” the fierce, ferocious tiger in his tone disintegrated into a meek, startled kitten. Sweat beading across the edge of his hairline, arms reaching to clutch himself as if his very essence might spill all over the floor. “…y-you shouldn’t have heard that…”

As Juandissimo dropped his grimace to the ground, Hazel’s eyes welled with tears.

“…F-Fenwick…d-did to you…” her voice quivered “…l-l-like what he d-did…to m-my…brother…?”

The back of Remy’s eyes stung, his black darbies blurring. Shaky lips thinning when he barely managed to croak “…yes…”

When Hazel let go of Nyekundu’s hand, her feet moved on their own. Sprinting over before she collided into Remy, smashing her cheek against the middle of his back with the clingiest arms restricting his elbows. His chin bunched at the impact, hearing her hitched sniffs between grief-stricken whimpers. She didn’t know what else to do but cry for him as his gaze grew far off, losing himself in mortified reverie.

Both hands now free, Nyekundu cupped them over her nose and mouth, dampening her brief sob. Did this happen prior to Juandissimo entering his life? And if so, why would the Council allow such a travesty to occur with no one to protect him?

Why did the Council wait for his innocence to be shattered, and why did they wait until the damage left too many pieces to try and put him back together again?

Chapter Text

“What if Hazel’s out there cold and hungry?!” Angela worriedly paced about in the vacant bedroom, her heart pounding as if trying to escape her chest. Blue eyes darting around maniacally with the false hope that they’d somehow find the missing little girl.

Because it was late when they’d returned from the country club last night, they were too tired to confirm that Hazel was in her room. Then, when it’d been past time for Hazel to uphold her duty of making their morning breakfast, Marcus’s beckoning call was met with dead air. Hazel knew better than to ignore him, so his hanger had charged him up to her room, riled up to reprimand disobedience. Before Angela could stop him, Marcus forced entry with a charging kick. Discovering the small bed neatly made as if it had not been slept in.

When Marcus had allowed Angela to rummage through Hazel’s furniture, there did not appear to be any clothes or any of her personal belongings packed. Nor were there any suitcases or backpacks missing; most of her room was left untouched. The only other missing object was that ridiculous ferret cage that would sit on her nightstand.

Angela’s first thought was to contact authorities, but Marcus was quick to opt against. “She left with nothing, and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.” he’d sternly advised. “She’ll come running back when she comes to her senses.”

Hour twenty-four came and went with no sign of the nine-year-old.

As Angela continued her antsy pacing, her husband and eldest daughter stood on either side of the doorway, watching her with exasperated expressions. Her fretful wander passed by for the umpteenth time before Hillary huffed, rolling her eyes to this pointless panic.

“Good riddance…” she grumbled to herself, except Angela’s senses were heightened enough to overhear and she whirled, appalled.

“Hillary!”

“What!” Hillary spat back. Why was her mom so distraught over some nobody!? “She’s not your daughter, I am!”

“That’s enough…” Marcus groaned through a cough at his daughter, arms crossed against his congested chest. He’d developed this pesky cough that just refused to be soothed no matter how many cough drops he’d dissolved or how much cold meds he’d taken. Pushing that grievance aside, he then addressed his wife’s overreaction. “If she doesn’t wanna abide by the rules under this roof, then let her get a taste of how the real world works…she’ll realize how good she had it.”

“How good? Marcus, you went too far, yesterday!” Angela chided critically. “What if our neighbors heard all the commotion!? What if CPS gets called on us?!”

“That only crossed your mind today?” Marcus countered mockingly, and she glared.

“Marcus, this always crosses my mind! But you never listen to me!”

Marcus cleared his throat after another cough irritating enough to ache in his chest, a faint gruff in his managed tone. “…do you ever say anything worth listening to?”

Hillary glanced at Angela’s eyes that sharpened into unforgiving judgement towards her husband, hands clenching into fists at her sides.

“…you know what? I’m glad Anthony doesn’t have to see what a vile…disgusting man you’ve become!”

“Oh, what I’ve become?” Having kept most of his cool, Marcus’s face contorted into a vexed mask, shifting firm on his feet. “Angela, I’m not the one who’s changed! I have been the same person that you said ‘I do’ to! And I have told you for years that I did not want some jigaboo, but did you listen to me?!”

Angela swallowed back the gnaw of nausea that crept up the back of her throat as his rant was interrupted by a throaty cough, like something was starting to clog and burble in his lungs.

“…no, you didn’t! You…” he erupted with strained coughs, clutching his chest. Steadying himself after labored breaths. “…you brought that…t-that spook anyways…under the false tense that she’d ever…be part of this family…”

Hillary’s worry for her father puckered her brow towards him, and Angela’s hot fire seemed to simmer as well. While he’d shown possible signs of some sort of cold, this did not sound or appear to be no ordinary cough.

“Marcus, we shouldn’t do this…”

He had to cover his mouth from the next cough that nearly wrecked his throat, cording veins into his neck. “Oh, we are absolutely doing this!” he objected as if he wasn’t hacking up a lung, barking with the authority of a man who should never be crossed. “You act all high and mighty when you suffer from this ‘savior’ complex!”

“Marcus, I care about that little girl!”

“You care about a blackie that killed our only son?!”

It was as if a zip tie strangled the base of her ribs and squeezed, tightening begrudgingly.

“Have you forgotten her forcing our son to have sex with her to keep him quiet about that pedophile hurting him?! Constantly assaulting him?!” scratchy coughs felt like the hottest iron claws cauterizing his sternum, burning with more than just anger. Eyes watering, he strained to catch his breath “…w-would a…a ‘little girl’…do something that…t-that evil?!”

Angela felt her veins rattle with quaking chills.

“Our son was suffering…right under our noses! But he’s gone…and that little sack of shit took him away from us…” His face reddened in his sputter, a scorching ache spreading through his chest with every spasmic retch of his lungs.

The more violent coughs wrecked him, the more Hillary’s eyes began to gloss with the threat of tears. “Dad…”

“…and…if you truly gave a s-shit about that nig-” the words nearly choked themselves out between fits of coughs as if his body rejected them. When he could steady his breath again, he sent the most spiteful, blaring scowl his watering eyes could muster “…you would’ve…called CPS your damn sel-”

Wheezing roars of raspy croaks overtook him. His body had reached its limit, doubling him over as veins corded up his neck and into his temples. It was impossible to inhale, as every hard, spasmic exhale raked at his lungs, straining his head and neck in a dangerous shade of red.

Hillary clasped her head between her hands, breaths growing thin and ragged. Angela’s glare softened into a gape of numbed horror. “…Marcus?”

He coughed into both hands, and a thick, dark crimson oozed between his fingers. Sputtering in gurgled spurts, drenching magenta carpet.

“MARCUS!” was the last he heard before his head spun, losing strength in his legs as his world went black...

Hazel and Nyekundu materialized into the same room they’d awaken in that morning; the unfamiliar turquoise walls, the pink sheer curtains too frilly even for her, and the excessive wooden dresser with the elaborate f-hole design. Muted brown eyes glanced down to her transporter; she’d half expected to return to the room she’d grown up in. Guess the Council really did just yank her away from her family…

“…is there anything you would like to talk about?” Nyekundu’s calm voice broke the silence, noting Hazel’s pensive and doleful demeanor. Timmy’s explosive outburst had been like wildfire roaring through a dry forest like a raging beast, charring everyone’s moods to the point that Tootie no longer had any desire to celebrate her birthday and wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed. As much of a disappointment as this was to Rose, she (as well as the other godparents) realized the awkwardness of feigning fun after all the horrible stuff that’d been aired out in the atmosphere.

The vibes were not vibing, so everyone simply went back to their respective lives. Everyone needed time to process this bombshell…

Before Hazel could decide whether she had any words to express the hurricane of feelings within, flashes of blue and red flickered in rhythmic succession out the corner of their eyes. Puzzled glances directed themselves to the window where they were nearly blinded by the alternation of blue and red hues blinking behind the sheer pink curtains.

Squinting for her eyes to adjust, Hazel’s piqued curiosity crept towards the window to investigate. Aside from the incident with Anthony and Fenwick, law enforcement rarely made an appearance among the affluent, well-secured community. Unless someone was hurt…or worse.

Shoving back the curtains, Hazel peered through the window, but since the window was on the side of the house, she couldn’t get an accurate view of the street. What she could see were occupants from neighboring houses either standing out in their pristine yards or sticking out their heads from their top-floor windows.

The door to the bedroom burst open without warning, causing Hazel to jump as Nyekundu’s fast reflexes disguised herself as a red ring around Hazel’s right index. They blinked to the green-eyed strawberry-blonde shifting incessantly in the doorframe, her word almost running through her lips in hurried speech.

“Hazel come quick something’s happening across the street!”

“Wai-”

Hazel didn’t get the chance to question what Missy was talking about (or even ask how she knew she was back in this room) when Missy disappeared a split second after, hearing footsteps dash down the hall and patter down the stairs. After sharing dumbfounded looks with her red ring, Hazel braced herself for the worst and exited the room.

The front door was already opened by the time Hazel reached the base of the marbled stairs, hurrying across the foyer before her feet stuttered to a stop on the front porch. Black skies were aglow with blue and red from the numerous ambulance and police cruisers, creating a barrier around the same property authorities and medical officials had just responded to almost a month prior.

Standing in their front lawn beside her father, Missy looked back towards the house, seeing Hazel’s dread-filled steps in her approach. Heart thumping in her throat, her tunnel vision couldn’t see the Phirmans. All Hazel could see were EMTs maneuvering the wheels of a gurney for an easier exit through the door…

A gurney carrying a body bag.

“DADDDYYYYYYYYYYY!”

The grief-stricken screech of an eleven-year-old girl rang out. Her mother could barely hold her back from the urge to fling herself onto the stretcher that was stealing her father away from her. Angela clung to her daughter, hugging her tightly which did fuck all to shush her hysterical sobs. There was no one to comfort her distress as her own tears streamed, mascara streaking ivory cheeks with black tears. Too bereft to care if she looked unkempt or unhinged to the neighbors.

First their son and brother, now their husband and father. Why were they being cursed like this?

“…I wonder what happened there?” Mike wondered aloud, sounding calm, almost too calm given the situation, receiving a sideways glance from Hazel’s instant suspicions.  

A small groove cut between Missy’s brows. “It’s so unfortunate…”

“…you sure about that?”

Hearing an apprehensive yet assertive mutter, Missy and Mike turned to Hazel’s skeptical glare. They caught hints of red lines within the whites of her eyes, wet with either brimming threats or the last remanences of tears.

“…are you alright?” Missy asked, her voice giving off this sweet innocence of no deceit. That sweetness tasted sour on Hazel’s tongue, gritting her jaw. Her heart clenched inside her chest, yet she held her managed glare.

Mike took a gentle approach, bending down to her level. “…does seeing this make you upset? It’s alright if it does.”

Keeping her guard, she suspected the legitimacy of their connection to the Council. Why are they acting so oblivious? How does that help her trust them? Moreover, why would the Council choose now to eliminate her father? Haven’t they caused enough damage?

Throat constricted, Hazel about-faced and stormed passed Missy, heading back towards the house from whence she came. If she went back to her own house, her arrival would only worsen the situation, or even cause a bigger scene. Without fail, what happened to her father would somehow be pitted on her…

Just like Anthony did with his own demise by his own hands.

“Hazel!” Missy called out, hurrying after Hazel’s trail. Straightening his stance, Mike observed Hazel intently before following with hands in his pockets.

When Missy entered the foyer, Hazel’s tracks stopped at the base of the central stairs. Only the black kinks of Hazel’s curls faced her, but by the taut hunch in Hazel’s shoulders, Missy could tell Hazel was greatly upset.

 “…you can talk to me, Hazel.” She tried, inching forward. “You can tell me what’s wrong.”

Back still turned, a full-body cringe trembled down through the fingers in Hazel’s wadded fists.

Shutting the front door behind him, Mike’s careful strides traveled towards his daughter who chewed on her lip, wincing when her tongue tasted iron. She could just feel Hazel’s utter distrust. Distrust of her.

“Hazel, we mean you no harm-”

A fatherly palm to her shoulder cut off her attempt at imploration, shooting him a fretting stare. With the calmest gaze, he silently shook his head at her, as if advising that they should allow Hazel to set the pace. After all, Hazel had a lot of difficult thoughts and emotions to process all at once. If they wanted to earn her trust, they had to respect her boundaries. She was owed that right.

There was a weak slouch in Missy’s shoulders as her faint frown creased further, otherwise complying with her father’s counsel. He released her, and they patiently waited for Hazel to take all the time she needed. Looming tension muddled the passage of time to where it felt unclear if one minute or ten minutes ticked by. After some time, Hazel did not face them, but her quiet voice conveyed a deceptive firmness like someone pretending to have control over what was out of their control.

“…I need to talk to Missy alone, please.”

Missy looked to her father, observing his soundless inhale as a restrained breath exhaled through his nose. When his trepidation met her gaze, she nodded at him, accepting this request with wordless affirmation that she can handle it without him.

“I’ll…go reply back to some email inquiries…” he excused, one hand in his jeans pocket. Taking slow, awkward steps back from Missy before pivoting on his heel to his right.

Missy watched her father disappear behind the right of the staircase, hearing the door to his downstairs office open before the echo of it clanking shut bounced off the floor’s marble acoustics. That didn’t give her the clear to push; she still needed to let Hazel make the first move.

Hazel stalled, eyes fixed to the floor. Contemplating what wording to use for the question burning in her skull to ask. How much of what she’d been told was appropriate to reveal? How much of what Missy might already know should she confirm?

Toes curling in her shoes, she proceeded to speak. Luckily, the foyer’s acoustics could amplify the muted volume in her voice. “…did they do it?”

A pause followed, and Hazel assumed her question was unheard, until Missy seemed to speak in an uncertain tone. “Did who do it?”

Hazel bristled. Too discrete. Guess she needed to try again with something more direct. “…the Seraphims.”

“… did the Seraphims do what?”

Missy didn’t question what Hazel had meant, meaning she must already know who she was referring to. Swallowing dryly, Hazel’s nails dug indentions into her palms. She knew it was best to keep with a direct approach. Didn’t make it any easier to ask…

“…did the Seraphims kill my dad?”

Another pause. This time, Missy’s tone seemed…deflective. Almost like she was trying really hard to feign ignorance. “Who told you about them?”

“I’m the one asking the questions.” Hazel whirled on her heel, mustering the sternest tone she could forge.

“Right...” Missy complied without fuss, wrapping arms around herself. She studied Hazel’s narrowed stare, her deep, contained breaths widening her nostrils in the most miniscule flare. She didn’t want Hazel to be upset with her, nor did she want Hazel to think that she was in on the Seraphims’ plans. She also didn’t think it wise to tell someone how to feel when they were already emotionally disturbed. Instead, she opted for the truth that she hoped Hazel would understand.

“…they did it only to protect you.”

Hazel's glare widened, muscles stiffening. Was she supposed to be happy? No, no one should ever be happy about murder. Even if it’s him. The part of her that was uncomfortable, the part of her that harbored resentment towards him, didn’t feel anything like sad. She couldn’t if she tried.

…how was she supposed to feel?

“So you do know who I’m talking about when I say Seraphims.” she uttered darkly.

Missy’s sheepish gaze lowered, nodding weakly. “…I’ve known all along.”

Guess it wasn’t that much of a surprise, considering all the stuff about Timmy’s mysterious brother. Though that begged the question…

“…does your dad know, too?” Hazel felt inclined to ask.

“To an extent.” Missy clarified. “He knows who and what they are, just not what they’ve done or what they’re capable of. So, it’s likely he thinks what happened to your dad just…sorta happened.”

But wasn’t Timmy’s brother technically an adult? Then again, that Mr. Crocker guy Tootie and Molly talked about was also an adult…what was the angle here?

One thing at a time, Hazel. She steadied her nerves with a contained breath. “…where’s Schumann?”

On cue, Schumann appeared at the top of the stairs’ landing and scampered down the staircase, passing Hazel straight towards Missy where he proceeded to brush his fur against her legs in his warm greeting. Giving him a small grin, she bent down for her fingers to scratch tenderly along his spine, taffy-pink eyes smiling up at her.

Hazel fixed her burrowing brows on the albino ferret, the same ferret that’d tackled her to the ground and had proceeded to fond and brush himself all over her face, just as Simmons had done as his ‘friendly’ introduction. She had pondered if she’d ever see Simmons again, and it looked like she had her answer. Except for this assumption…

“…is…he who you call…‘Spirit’?”

She saw Missy’s fingers pause their scratching, and for the first time, she couldn’t read Missy’s expression when her green eyes averted, deadpanned. Wordlessly, she scooped Schumann into arms that moved mechanically, going through the motions without any real purpose behind them.

Hazel did not expect this reaction; Missy had never come across as the cagy type. “…did I say something wrong?”

“Oh, no! Not at all!” Missy sprung back with life, a buoyant flicker returning in her gaze as if it’d never left. “You’re just half correct.”

One brow slid up in Hazel’s forehead.  

“Schumann talks to me most of the time.” Missy elaborated, smiling. “Other times, it’s is someone I lost a couple years ago.”

“…and that would be…?”

“Somone who’d taught me everything I know and love about cello.”

As Missy gave soft strokes along the back of Schumann’s head, Hazel started getting the sense that Missy was purposefully omitting certain details. “…how can you tell the difference if there’re two of these ‘Spirits’?”

“The voices; one sounds like me talking to myself, but I know it’s Schumann because his eyes look different when it happens.” Missy’s gaze dropped, only for a second. “The other sounds exactly like her…”

“Her?” Hazel lightly prodded, and Schumann brushed his cheek against her bicep as a faint pucker crinkled in Missy’s brow, eyes downcast to the floor. She caught a glimpse of something she’d rarely seen behind Missy’s eyes, a glimpse of sorrow. Sorrow that Missy was quick to blink away, mustering a smile wider than it should be.

“Yes.” Missy’s simple reply led both of Hazel’s brows to rise slowly, silently awaiting the clarification that never came.

“…is…‘she’…talking to you right now?” Hazel asked instead.

“No.”

When she took a moment to consider the maternal figure/spouse that had yet to be seen nor mentioned, the writing was on the wall. Hazel chose to bookmark this, however. If her assumption was correct, then she couldn’t bring up a potentially touchy subject. She needed Missy to stay as open as possible with her.

“So…” Hazel took a step forward, shortening the boundary between them while maintaining her distance. “I guess you know about angels, too?”

“Yes.”

“…what all do you know?”

“That your angel is named Nyekundu, and she’s the red ring on your right finger.”

Hazel’s brows shot up, lifting her hand to look down at red eyes perplexed in their stare.

“I also know that you don’t actually dye Nyekundu’s fur when she shapeshifts into a ferret. And neither does Remy with Juandissimo…” Missy admitted as Schumann lowered his chin to rest on her arm. “I get it; the dye thing was just a fib to maintain your secrets.” she shrugged “I just played along for your sakes.”

“…do you know what our ‘angels’ look like?” Hazel’s suspicions quizzed.

“No.” Missy curled a feeble grin. “But I bet they’re very handsome and beautiful.”

…totally not a strange comment that shall be disregarded, for now. Moving on…

“So…how did you get him?” Hazel pointed to the albino ferret now looking back at her.

“It was after our performance at the Levitt Pavilion in Los Angeles a few weeks ago.” Missy resumed her light scratches along white fur, telling her recounting like a story shared around a campfire. “My dad and I had just returned to the hotel when we found this ferret limping around the parking lot. It was night time and there weren’t a lot of people around, so we didn’t think he belonged to anyone. I called out to him, and to our surprise, he made an effort to come to me. Then we noticed his front paw giving him a lot of trouble.”

Schumann brushed his cheek to the inside of Missy’s elbow.

“I wanted to reach out, but my dad didn’t want me touching a stray animal or scaring him away. Still, he didn’t seem scared of us like most hurt animals would. He still tried to come, but he looked to be in a lot of pain when he put any pressure on his front paw. That was when we figured out that it might’ve been sprained.”

Hazel pressed her lips with the faintest frown. This different story sounded oddly similar to Tommy’s.

“…he let my dad come up and scoop him up despite the pain he was in, and by the reddish blue swelling, his paw was worse than we thought. We took him inside the hotel and asked the front desk for a phonebook, anything to try and find any nearby animal hospitals. But, like I said, it was dark and a bit late, so most of them within a reasonable drive were already closed. The front desk offered numbers to some nearby animal shelters and the number to animal control so they could takeover…”

There was a pause that posed Hazel’s next question “And was that when Schumann spoke to you?”

Missy nodded. “He told me he didn’t need any assistance, that he could heal himself. He just needed an excuse to lure us in.”

“…and you didn’t think that was weird?” Hazel droned.

“Oh, for sure!” Missy remarked, lighthearted. “I thought I was saying all that stuff to myself even though I didn’t understand why I’d ever tell myself any of that. Like…why would I make an excuse to lure in a stray ferret? And how common are ferrets in LA, anyway?” she glanced down to the ferret staring up at her “But then I realized it was Schumann, because every time I heard these thoughts, he would look at me with these light twinkles in his eyes.” her gaze returned to Hazel. “My dad saw it, too, and he also thought he was going crazy.”

“…and your dad just…agreed to keep him, anyway?” Hazel queried, arms crossed contemplatively.

“…we didn’t have much of a choice.” Missy chuckled. “Even when we tried taking him to a shelter or setting him free, he refused to leave.”

“…and…is ‘Schumann’ his actual name?” Hazel gestured to the ferret once again.

“No; his name was Shamshiel, but he never liked that name.” Missy explained. “He let me change it to whatever I wanted, and I decided to name him after one of my favorite composers!” she giggled when Schumann gave the bottom of her cheek a fond nuzzle with the top of his head. “Yeah, and you like your name, huh?”

With a steadying breath, Hazel held onto her red ring. Seeking comfort as a pang of dread scrunched in her gut, contracting into bitter, retching knots. There was another uncomfortable piece to this puzzle that needed solving, though she half considered it better for certain things to remain a mystery. Honestly speaking, she wouldn’t be asking these questions had Timmy not blown up like he did; nevertheless, she’d already dug herself this deep into the rabbit hole as is.

Her low mutter cracked tightly. “…you knew about Anthony even before all the ‘neighborhood gossip’…didn’t you.”

Missy’s smile visibly withered, closed-lipped like she was humoring a conversation she didn’t wish to have. Schumann locked eyes on the little girl’s narrowed brown gaze.

“…and you know why he took his life…don’t you.”

Missy responded with a short nod, her smile growing weaker.

“…Schumann told you?”

Missy nodded once more, lips thinning.

“…how much did he tell you?”

Clutching Schumann tighter, Missy’s breath came out shakily. “…things you really shouldn’t know.”

Hazel snorted. “I shouldn’t know a lot of things…and yet I know the Seraphims used Anthony as a tool for their own agenda.”

A distressing knot clenched in Missy’s chest. “…who told you that?”

“I’m asking the questions.” Hazel repeated, keeping the stern façade in her stance. “Now, tell me…how much do you know?”

Missy stiffened at this question, blanching. Schumann allowed the slight tremor in her arms to cling around his body, pressing him against her chest.

“I told you I already know too much.” Hazel pointed out, darkness bleeding through her softness. “There’s no point in sparing me the truth.”

[You do not have to speak a truth you fear to share.] Missy heard her own voice echo in her head, and Hazel noticed the sparkles of light in taffy-pink eyes.

“What did he just say to you?” Hazel firmly probed, managing a balance of not coming across too pushy. Missy lowered her chin, brows tipping upwards in meeting Hazel’s pointed stare.

“…if, I may…” the kindness in her voice hinted at a grated edge “…why…do you want to know?”

Hazel grimaced, stalling. Why did she want to know? Was it to question the Fairy Council’s morality that felt murky at best? Was it to test if they are as awful as Timmy says? Was it for the fleeting sense of closure?

“Because you really shouldn’t want to know…” Missy added, swallowing a lump threatening to constrict her throat completely. “It’s…really bad.”

Brown eyes narrowed further. “If it’s that bad, then why did Schumann tell you?”

Missy shifted uncomfortably, sweat beads dotting along her hairline despite the coolness of the foyer. Goodness, hopefully Hazel can understand. “…so that I’d understand what I’m dealing with.”

“…what you’re dealing with?” Hazel hissed, the absurdity of that statement grating at her nerves. “What am I, a charity case?”

Green eyes flashed in wide, shamefaced circles, caught off guard. “N-No, Hazel! That’s not what-”

“Is that why Schumann brought me and Nyekundu here in the first place? Out of pity?” Hazel tromped forward, growing hot with frustration. “Because the Seraphims took their sweet time trying to right their wrongs?”

Missy’s breath hitched. “…Hazel, you must understand-”

“No, you need to understand!” Hazel’s eyes bore into Missy’s, her voice hardening with reproach. “Anthony blamed me instead of telling the truth! Made up this whole lie about something I’d never do, just to shift the guilt! And because of that, my mom let my dad and my sister treat me even more like crap!”

Tight lips pressed together in empathetic pain as Missy scratched circles into Schumann’s fur.

“If the Seraphims really wanted to teach Fenwick that bad a lesson, they’re a million other ways they could’ve done so! But they chose a literal kid, to do whatever it is they did that was so bad that Anthony couldn’t even say it in his letter! So you’re gonna open your mouth and tell me what they did, because what they did didn’t help me at all! It only made my life worse!”

A sheen of tears gathered, filling green eyes with the careful attention of someone who truly saw the crux of Hazel’s pain. But Missy didn’t let them fall as her voice quivered.

“…t-they used Anthony to hurt your nanny…”

“How.”

Missy recoiled with knitted brows, hunching her shoulders at Hazel’s persistence like a cowering child despite Hazel being shorter by like two inches. Swallowing a wave of nausea, Hazel backed two steps away as a means to ease the tense thickness in the air. Whatever had come over her, it made her bones shiver. She hated being angry; it made her feel sick. Any semblance of him coming out of her made her hate herself more.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you…” she spoke softly. Maybe she should ask about Anthony again when the wound wasn’t so infected.

“It’s alright.” Missy kept her tone deceptively even, though her furrowed brows told otherwise.

Hazel caught Schumann’s beady eyes studying her. “I guess you know about Remy, too…” she switched the subject, then snapped her stare back to Missy’s downhearted gaze which looked away.

“Yes…”

“…and about Fenwick?”

“Yes…” Missy struggled with eye contact. “…but…I’m not sure if it’s my place to talk about any of it.”

Hazel sighed. Eh…guess that’s fair.

“…but I can talk about what’d happened to Fenwick...”

Missy’s quiet proposal was just loud enough for Hazel’s intrigue to catch, raising a brow. “…you can?”

“Yes.” Exhaling heavily, Missy licked her lips, apprehensive. Would saying this make Hazel more upset, even if she wanted to know? “…he was sent to the ICU when he’d developed a bad case of sepsis. Doctors have tried for weeks to combat it, but…they ultimately found that they were just managing his symptoms…”

Sepsis? That’s harsh…is it, though? Ugh, she shouldn’t think like that… “So…what happened?”

When Missy acknowledged Schumann’s sparkling eyes, Hazel saw haggard worry contort Missy’s features.

“…Missy?”

Her heart raced, each pulse a reminder of the anxious torrent coursing through her as Missy blew her cheeks out with a heavy breath meant to calm her nerves.

“…it was just called tonight…” she croaked. “…he died.”

Hazel’s blood ran cold. Remy got what he wanted, after all…

Darkness enveloped the sky with a gloomful shroud over all that lay beneath. Nightly shadows crawled through the bedroom window, dragging silence throughout the blackness that seemed to stretch endlessly. A loud, harrowing silence that failed to quiesce the thoughts tormenting the young billionaire’s mind.

Denied of sleep, mint-green stared at the ceiling through the gold canopy darkened by the nightfall. Brows furrowed with shame of the heated exchange with his godfather that’d led to the slip of his biggest secret. Not only did this cost his dignity, it’d cost the cognizance of Hazel and Nyekundu. Luckily, they’d both agreed to keep this under lock and key from the other godchildren. Unfortunately, Hazel understood the nature of keeping the secret of defiling assault.

Remy slid hands down his cheeks, pulling his eyes and lips with them. It was only 8:30pm, but his tired mind felt so simultaneously wired. He tilted his head to the ferret curled in his cage. Because it was so dark, he couldn’t quite make out if his eyes were closed, but the sound of his breathing didn’t appear calm enough to indicate he was asleep. It was how Juandissimo had been for a while, withdrawn in his cage. Having said little since they’d transported from the Fort.

Once he’d been able to calm down, Remy didn’t really blame him. It did make him worry, however. The last time Juandissimo had acted like this, he’d accidentally made a wish to be left alone.

“…Juan?” he called quietly.

“Hmm?” the purple ferret didn’t open his eyes. He also sounded like he didn’t really want to be bothered, eating at Remy’s heart.

“…I’m sorry for shoving you.”

The rueful murmur lifted Juandissimo’s eyes, but only halfway.

“…and for yelling at you and…saying all those bad words…” he paused trepidly. “…and for-”

“Remy.” Juandissimo interrupted him in a dispirited groan. “You do not have to apologize…”

Remy frowned, thinking Juandissimo must’ve just excused his bad behavior just like he'd done with Turner. “…are you sure?”

“Yes.” Juandissimo shut his eyes in his clipped response. Honestly, he was far too tired for this. All he wanted was for his brain to finally shut off…

Remy detected subtle hints of a bruised heart in Juandissimo’s tone, and regret tugged at his core. Despondent, he rolled beneath his covers, facing the velvety blackness through his window that outlined the dull silhouette of a gold telescope. The telescope that was practically collecting dust at this point. Kept as a symbol of the night everything changed, the night magic entered his life.

He’d been so wary of Juandissimo back then, this magnificent being whose existence, at the time, had only existed in fairytales. This small body with big muscles that could also transform into a ferret at the will of his wand. This caring protector who’d earned more of his fragile trust than a man he’d known literally since birth…a man who only loved him for one thing and one thing only.

No matter how rude he was, or how confused he was, or how distorted and warped his mind was…Juandissimo never gave up on him. They’ve been through so much, come so far. Then Turner had to go and expose what everyone would’ve been better off staying ignorant about, infecting his sour mood into everyone else. Making him so riled up that he’d put hands on his own fairy, physically pushed him away. He could remember the hurt that’d crossed Juandissimo’s face and how distant he’d grown afterwards, just in time for Tootie and Rose to cut the get-together short.

He’d hurt the one person who loved him most…

Sighing, Remy rolled over again, facing back to the nightstand. The breathing from the cage seemed calmer, slower with a steadier rhythm.

“…Juandissimo?” Remy’s soft call went unanswered, and his frown deepened. Maybe Juandissimo might feel better in the morning. Highly unlikely…

Sighing, he turned over onto his back, returning to stare at his gold canopy as his restless mind reeled. Did the Council have any right to kill his parents over Hazel’s family? Did they have any right to cut the lives of neglectful parents short over the life of that creep? What was their motive? And why would the older brother that Turner barely knew tell him things best kept secret? Was it not obvious that it’d just set him off?

Even in his tantrum, there was a certain detail that Remy resonated with. Turner had admitted his struggles with suicidal ideation, proving that when you reach the lowest of lows, that mindset doesn’t just disappear with the trigger. What if Remy had drowned the night he’d gone out in freezing temperatures to the country club’s lazy river? Even if Juandissimo wasn’t happy with him at the moment, Remy knew the extensive damage his death would do…

What if that would’ve been for the best?

A man who had used and manipulated him since he was old enough to have cohesive thoughts got to walk away, live life outside a jail cell. After what he did to Hazel, Anthony was not innocent in the slightest. Even he perhaps deserved a less tragic fate than the lack of sanction given to his morally inept family…

How did he succeed in taking his own life? That would so messed up if he was to ask Hazel about it, and wishing for that knowledge was out the question. It must’ve been pretty brutal, more brutal than just dunking his head underwater and waiting for his lungs to give out. Then again, he would have certainly drowned had Juandissimo not interfered. At the time, he just wanted to quiet his thoughts. He just wanted the pain to stop hurting. To this day, he had no idea how Juandissimo had found him in time.

And to this day…part of him hwished he hadn’t.

But if Juandissimo hadn’t stopped him, then he would’ve never experienced a fairy being the only person to care for him when he’d fallen ill. Submerging himself into cold water in the dead of California winter had resulted in the worst fever ever, and not once did his parents check on him. No one did. No one but Juandissimo

Remy tilted his pensive gaze to the sleeping ferret; it was still a mystery of how an unwanted child deserved a caring godfather like him. Juandissimo would be much better off not having to worry about him anymore, and yet he can’t bring himself to hurt him worse than he already had. A hollowed emptiness scraped at his chest…why was Juan so far away? Why did he long for comfort he didn’t deserve…

…because his heart ached too much…

…maybe…if he was careful enough…he could…take Juan out of his cage? Bring him into bed? Cradle him close? He always slept better with his godfather close to him…

Inner disgust grimaced. No…that’s creepy for him to even think like that, let alone…want that.

Besides…what if Juan wanted nothing to do with him?

He groaned, dragging hands over his eyes. This was pointless. Wanting affection was pointless. Staying in this stupid bed when he can’t freaking sleep was pointless…

Turning to his digital clock, it was still early…technically. Would a walk around the mansion help? As long as he stayed indoors, no one would have to come save him…

Doing so deftly, he tossed back the covers and slid the legs of his silk pajamas off the mattress, concealing a mild shiver when bare feet met the cold touch of marbled flooring. Sheets crinkled in his slow shift out of bed, checking every so often for any signs of stirring in the ferret cage. Cautiously tipping on his toes, he snuck his way to the sole exit of the bedroom, twisting the knob ever so delicately.

The soft clink of the door was amplified by night’s stillness, door hinges creaking when he cracked the door ajar and strips of light gradually cut through the darkness. He snapped a glance at the cage, and he could now see the visible strain in the ferret’s brow despite the overall softness in his features. The deepness of his frown dimpled Remy’s chin. He couldn’t be certain if the light was bothering him, or if Juan's sleep was that troubled.

Carefully, Remy slipped out of his room and shut the door before the light in the hallway would disturb Juandissimo completely. Empty halls greeted him, brightened by LED lighting. He looked to his left, ensuring the halls were not patrolled by on-sight security, before he looked to his right and froze. Eyeing the door three doors down, the door to the room a middle-aged nanny once occupied. The room that’d been converted into a guest bedroom, erased of everything. Except past sins.

The pit of his stomach eroded at itself in protest, repulsed with memories buried behind the door, seared into his brain. Fenwick had only succeeded in pushing past taboo one time, on the living room couch. The physical damage had been enough to deter him…from going all the way. Didn’t deter him from experimentation of other sacrilegious avenues…

Remy winced, the corners of his mouth pinching from the taste of acid crawling on his tongue. He hated his body for how it would always react to every touch, good or bad. Every touch down there, every finger or hand rub in places no grown man’s hands should be. Places no grown man’s lips should ever be able to rouse the urge to pee in a euphoric way.

He hated how his body always betrayed him. It made him sick to his stomach…

“F-Fenwick, no…”

 A scared whimper reverberated across his mind. Whimpers left unheard.

“O-Ow…it…it h-hurts…”

Burns of a stabbing sensation clawed up between his legs. Shuddered when distant moans sighed in his head, echoes of a grown man’s pleasure.

“No one loves you like I do…”

He blinked, shaking his head. Try as he might to shove that regret back to the vault from whence it came. Yet it was pointless. Pointless to want respite. His past sins will always haunt him like a vengeful ghost…

Asleep or awake, nightmares never care.

Stumbling to the wall that was luckily behind him, he sunk to the floor, bending his knees against his chest with tight arms. A shaky breath escaped, and unshed tears shimmered swirls of unspoken sadness in his eyes. Yearning for a hug with no one to give him one. All alone. Unloved.

He buried his face into his knees as he coiled into a small ball, his quiet sobs left to comfort themselves.

Chapter Text

The stars of night’s darkness had yet to dim when one of the younger girls pushed open the door to the Flagstaff camper, met with the brush of morning’s frigid across her cheeks that shook a slight shiver through her. Molly squinted with a small sneer, slugging one strap of her black messenger bag as her dark-blue earring dangled a bit with the two steps it took to reach the graveled ground. Right behind her was Tootie adjusting the straps of her backpack with her teal bracelet peeking beneath the sleeve of her black wool coat, purple eyes not once lifting from the pebbles crunching under her Coda boots. Neck bowed wearily, Tootie dragged her boots towards the red pickup parked on the stretched patch of gravel, taking the driver’s side while Molly made her way to the passenger’s side.

The two girls waited wordlessly as the redhaired teen covered a wide yawn with her palm, carrying her backpack by one of its straps. The Dimmsdale Correctional Facility security guard used his key to lock the door as the last to exit the camper, protected by the morning chill solely by a black turtleneck under his blue polo tucked into his black slacks.

Molly was still registered as a student at Snerd Elementary; luckily, one of the bus stops to Snerd was close to Happy Trails. Because it was still too cold and dark to trust their safety in waiting at their bus stops, Vic would drive the pickup to the end of the street and let Tootie and Molly sit in the truck until their buses were close in sight. Their elementary schools were an inconvenient detour from his route to work, thus the girls had to resort to taking the bus. The high school, however, was enroute, so he would drive Vicky to school.

It’d be a different story if he went back to working nights for the extra pay, something he’d been considering ever since having an extra foster child mouth to feed.

Once the doors unlocked with a click, Vicky tossed her backpack carelessly into the front passenger as Vic scooted into the driver’s seat, holding his travel mug filled with a fresh brew of Folgers Colombian. Molly and Tootie climbed into the back seats and shut their doors as Vic sipped his lifeline, its bitter, earthy notes swishing onto his tongue and down his throat. Filling him with additional warmth as he twisted his ignition keys, firing up the engine with a prominent roar that awoke the alerting barks of a neighboring trailer’s greyhound.

While the engine aided in defrosting the windows and blasting heat into the truck, early-morning exhaustion and preoccupied minds kept the truck silent. Arms folded over her chest, Molly held tired eyes to the mundane dead grass and dirty gravel out through her window, and Tootie bunched her knees together with arms wrapped, brows furrowed in thought.

Confusion and confliction had disturbed her sleep in grappling all that Timmy had revealed. How the same powerful fairies who had proclaimed their desire to help children were the same witch hunters to hurt, maim, and even kill. Using their immeasurable powers to take the lives of adults that had done bad things and/or were considered to be bad people; it’d left her questioning whether any of it was right. Was it right for her to feel sorry for a man who’d ultimately fallen victim to brainwashing? She remembered her dad being somewhat smart, so, maybe he might have actively allowed himself to be brainwashed…

But did he deserve to die?

Timmy didn’t have to say whether her father had succumbed to his injuries…she unfortunately already knew. A couple of days after the return from the Council’s realm, her uncle had come home from work with the news that her father had succumbed to exsanguination. In other words, Jim had bled to death. Vicky and Vic had agreed not to claim his body, and apparently, neither did the other next of kin that she didn’t remember (they’d explained who Grandma Vicky was, but she’d kept sensing that Vic was excluding details as if she wasn’t meant to hear the full story just yet.)

After everything Jim had done, the refusal to claim his body was not what upset her. It was that she could never have fathomed the Council being behind her father’s ultimate demise. She was also conflicted in whether this ‘vengeance’ of theirs had been fully warranted; the mere thought stabbed relentlessly at her mind. Just like the burning slash of his belt against the bare back of her legs, stinging red into her skin. Just like the brute force of his knuckles pounding into her--

She twitched in a small startle when the crank of the gear shift broke the silence in the air before the tires rolled backwards. Feeling the reverse onto the main driving path in her seat when another crank of the shift then rolled the tires forward along gravel towards the entrance/exit of Happy Trails. Remembering where she was, Tootie’s stare shifted towards Molly’s vague expression that did not acknowledge her, unable to tell what she could be thinking. Molly had been like that ever since they’d come home last night. Stoic, unreadable.

She remembered Swizzle’s advice to let Molly be, that it was best to leave her alone when she gets like this. She also remembered being shaken out of her sleep by hitched breaths and pretending to stay asleep when those hitched breaths lapsed into the weakest, most silent whimpers she’d ever thought possible.

With a small frown, Tootie turned her attention to the front of the truck, contemplating if she should even ask what she herself heavily debated. Contemplating if her uncle would tell her the truth or try to lie to spare not just her feelings. The little brother and father lost to doctrinal propaganda was still, understandably, a touchy subject. She would have to think of how to frame the question without poking the bear, though she didn’t mind the risk. She just had to know…

“…Uncle Vic?”

“Yeah?” Vic acknowledged his niece’s weak call, waiting patiently for Tootie’s question that was soon hindered by her hesitant sigh.

“…never mind…”

“Nah, honey, what is it?” his tired twang encouraged, rolling the pickup to a stop at the Happy Trails exit before looking both ways for any oncoming cars.

When Vic made a left out through the gate, Tootie twisted her lips, her quiet voice only just audible over the truck’s roaring engine when she squeaked “…is revenge ever really right?”

Having propped her chin in her palm with a worn gaze out the passenger window, Vicky’s eyes flashed at the question, shooting her uncle a fretful glance that Vic shared in her direction. Glancing through the rearview, he saw Tootie’s coy grimace, a thousand different words buzzing like a swarm of angry bees in his mind.

The toes of his shoes tapped the break, slowing the truck to a careful stop near the right curb of the street corner closest to the dividing train tracks. Cranking the gearshift into park with the engine running to keep the truck warm as he relied on another sip of coffee as a stall tactic for this moral conundrum of a question. Taking a breath, he turned in his seat to meet the complex doubt in his niece’s stare. “…sweetheart, where’s this comin’ from?”

Molly turned her gaze from the window, staring at Tootie’s visible cower.

“…I-I just don’t know…if it's ever okay to act on revenge…”

“Okay…” it was Vicky’s turn to shift in her seat, facing her little sister. “What little twerp do I have to beat down?”

“What? N-No! I-I’m not talking about that!” Tootie stammered, fretful of the harm she knew Vicky can and will inflict on anyone who messes with her sister and she knows about it.

“Then what is it?”

“I-I’m just…” she lowered her chin, bringing her teal bracelet close to her chest “…I wonder if…revenge is ever a good thing at all.”

“…well…” Vic licked his lips “…it’s, uh…normal to want revenge when somebody does ya dirty, but…” he sighed. Sheesh, where’s an easy explanation when you need one? “…it depends on how dirty they did you.”

“…how dirty they did you?” Tootie squeaked puzzledly.

“Think of it like this…somebody might want revenge cuz they’re sufferin’, and cuz that person made them suffer. Then they want that person to suffer, too, especially if that person did somethin’ almost unforgivable.”

Tootie’s brow puckered. “…but if that person knows what it’s like to suffer, why would they want someone else to suffer, too?”

“It settles the score.” Vicky stated matter-of-factly, making Tootie pout.

“…even if someone loses their life?”

Molly furrowed. Why did Tootie have to bring this up?

“Well…think of somebody committin’ first-degree murder and they get sentenced to death.” Vic tried to explain. “In that case, the punishment fits the crime. The score is settled.”

“But why does revenge have to end with someone dying?” Tootie probed.

“It ain’t always like that.” Vic clarified.

“But some folk gotta learn the hard way…” Molly’s grave tone garnered Tootie’s troubled look shot her way.

“You can’t learn from your wrongs when you’re dead.” Tootie refuted.

“Honestly, I agree with your friend…” Vicky remarked, hints of dark undertones in her conviction. “Folks like rapists, abusers, murders…bad people. Those types of people are too far gone to be reformed. They’ll never learn anything, so, it’s more about comeuppance.”

“An eye for an eye...” Molly grumbled, lowering her gaze.

Tootie swallowed hard as if to push back the sour taste in the back of her throat. “You can take an eye for an eye, but only that eye. Because if you take two eyes, that’s when the whole world becomes blind.”

Molly couldn’t help but snort derisively. “Thought you didn’t believe in that crap anymore…”

Tootie grimaced tartly. Bible reference or not, the point still stands. “…all I’m saying is…if somebody hits you and does bad things, e-even if it’s someone you love...if they didn’t kill you, then do they still deserve to be killed?”

“If it means they won’t hurt or do anymore bad things to you or anyone else...” Molly muttered a counter, managing to mask her wince when flickering images of a knife resurfaced. Reaching to rub the side of her neck from the phantom pains of its sharp blade as her brow creased darkly.

How fitting for that drunkard to go out slicing his own neck. Even if he’d been magically coerced to do so…what did it matter? He deserved to choke on his own blood.

“But then the punishment doesn’t fit the crime!” Tootie objected. “That’s not an eye for an eye! That’s just…j-just cruel!”

“Tootie…” Vicky had a suspicious hunch, a hunch she didn’t like in the slightest. “You’re not talking about Jim, are you?”

Tootie bit her lip, and her muscles grew rigid. Her gaze downcast as her older sister narrowed her eyes.

“You know as well as I do; that bastard got exactly what was coming to him, and no one should ever feel sorry for him.” Vicky sternly spat. “Not Uncle Vic, not me, and definitely not you.”

Tootie inhaled sharply when a biting pain throbbed in her jaw, only just realizing she’d been grinding her teeth. She flashed despairing eyes to her uncle, burgeoning with tears. “Uncle Vic…y-you don’t feel that way, do you?!”

Vic thinned his lips, having fallen silent for a reason. He had to bite back his tongue on his regret that he’d called in that fateful day, the day those inmates jumped and shanked that bible thumper he once called his little brother. He had to censor his wish that he’d been the one to end Jim himself, a wish he’d harbored and kept shut and sealed for a long, long time. Unfortunate for him, his silence spoke louder than words for the raven-haired girl, and the glossiness in her frown pained him greatly.

When Molly could hear the rumble of a loud engine approaching from a distance, she squinted ever so faintly at the headlights she could see through the window from the yellow bus coming down the street from her right, recognizing glimpses of the children from her school as they stepped closer to the curve for the bus to slow down.

Oh, thank fuck… “That’s my bus…” she huffed her announcement, gathering her messenger bag as she unlocked her seatbelt. She’d rather suffer at school than to keep suffering through this insufferable conversation.

“Alright…” Vic sighed, clicking open the lock on the back doors. “Have a good day, Molly.”

“Uh, yeah…” she mumbled in response, still unused to courtesy from strangers. As she gave Tootie a last glance, her dark-blue earring gave a short, parting wave to the teal bracelet of whom returned the gesture.

Purple eyes bristled with the turbulent mixture of sadness and frustration as they watched Molly climb out the truck and shut the door. How can Molly act so pragmatic about this? Maybe because Molly wasn’t as sheltered from how ‘real’ the world can be. Not like she had been under the guise of religious philosophy.

But was it really so resolute for all wrongdoers to die, no matter their sin? What if she did something bad…would she deserve to die?

When the loud rumble and shining headlights of another oncoming bus led Vic to look to his left, he could see McBadbat’s son step up to the curbs edge with his friend and a blonde girl as the Dimmsdale Elementary school bus squealed when the breaks were pressed. “Tootie, you should go before you miss the bus…” he spoke somberly.

Shooting her uncle and sister one last agonized glance, Tootie swiftly grabbed her backpack straps and tugged on the door handle, shoving it open and hopping out the truck with a slam of the door. Vicky and Vic watched Tootie’s boots scurry to catch the bus as the troubled teen huffed back against her seat.

“…the hell was that about?” Vicky pondered out loud, thrown by Tootie being so upset. If she did have a problem about not claiming Jim’s body, Tootie had never said anything or acted like it bothered her before now.

“No idea…”  Vic groaned, relocking the doors before shifting the gear into drive. Pulling out onto the street in front of the bus that Tootie narrowly managed to stumble onboard before the driver could slide the doors shut.

As Chester and AJ found an available seat before the bus gradually drove away from the sidewalk back onto the main suburban road, Tootie didn’t have to scan the seats long to find the fellow godchild near the front of the bus. Puffy sleeves of her lavender parka clutching her backpack in the seat in front of Sanjay and Elmer, drear blue eyes fixed to the scenery passing her by. Tootie inhaled deeply and exhaled what little she could of her shot nerves, making her way over to take the empty spot beside Chloe.

Feeling the shift of weight in the leather seat, Chloe side-glanced away from the window before she turned to acknowledge the familiar new comers with a forced smile.

“Hey, sweetheart…how’re you holding up?” the teal bracelet felt inclined to ask. Chloe’s panic attack had not fully calmed before Tootie called off the get-together and everyone had returned home, so Rose wanted to check in.

Chloe’s indigo necklace saw Chloe’s brows pucker as she averted her eyes. “It’s kinda complicated…” Susie sighed. “Chloe starts her new medication after school today.”

“New medication?” Tootie asked.

Chloe nodded tensely, gulping “…for anxiety…”

“Nervous about side effects?” Rose questioned, and Chloe stiffly nodded once more. She hated even needing medication in the first place…

“Her psychiatrist is starting her on some low dosages, so I’m hoping the side effects won’t be as bad as it was with the Lexapro…” Susie commented.

“…what else is wrong?” Tootie noticed Chloe’s fingers grip the sides of her backpack that she held in her lap, sensing the internal war rustling beneath her surface of feigned composure.

Chloe thinned her lips, her mind now a whirlwind of spiraling thoughts. Thoughts of how the fairy equivalents of Gods had enacted their wrath on her mother with the justification of making life better, only for her to not be any better off than when her mother drew breath…if not worse.

Upon poofing back into her room last night, amidst her panic, she had so desperately tried to make her anxiety go away once and for all. Clutching Susie’s hands as she cried to her, crying out her wish. Clearly, Da Rules no longer applied, and for once, she thought she finally had an out. She believed she could finally be cured…

Until Susie’s wand wilted and spudded in that pathetic, preposterous manner.

A slit formed reactively between her brows, her lips twitching like the vein in her temple. The wish had failed because, apparently, it was still against Da Rules to wish away diseases and disorders. Such blasphemy!

The Council had purposefully broke their own rules! Why do Da Rules even still apply!? Because godparents don’t have their level of authority?! If they wanted to make their lives better, then why didn’t they make her normal?!

Frowning to Chloe’s festering agitation, Susie then met Rose’s curious gaze. Asking Chloe if she was okay would only grate her nerves more, so she needed to switch focus, and fast.

“Uh, Rose…” she looked to her friend. “…you and Swizzle get my text in the group chat last night?”

“Yeah.” Rose confirmed, dimpling her chin. “I did notice Cosmo, Wanda, and Alondro were the only ones who didn’t respond…you think they’ll make it?”

Unsure, Susie shrugged. “…I did manage to get a hold of Wanda this morning; those boys gotta ‘lot goin’ on.”

“Right…their grandparents…”

“Yup. As if this upcoming funeral wasn’t enough, their grandpa was admitted to the hospital because his heart is failing…”

Tootie clenched her fists in her lap. The Council was indirectly responsible for the heart failure…and directly responsible for the funeral. All because they killed people that never killed anyone, justified as ‘revenge.’ Poor Timmy…

“I told her I’d still like for everyone to be there so we can all be on the same page, even if for a few minutes.” Susie added. “But I also told her I’d understand if they didn’t show.”

Curiosity piqued, Tootie looked to her teal bracelet. “…why are you guys meeting?”

“I can fill you in later, okay?” Rose assured, thinking that would suffice. Instead, Tootie’s arms crossed in a sulky chuff, teary eyes pointed contemptuously.

“Whatever…” she groused, causing Chloe to look up with her gaze fixed in concern.

“Whoa…” Susie’s brow puckered at this unnatural shift in Tootie’s demeanor. “…what we miss?”

Rose exhaled deeply. “Tootie’s mixed on whether her dad deserved what the Council did to him. Vic, Vicky, and Molly, however, are all adamant that he did, and she kind of got hounded for questioning their stance.”

“And thinking he deserved it is a bad thing?” Susie questioned. “I mean, like…bro was awful.”

“No argument there…” Rose muttered, then briefly bunched her lips. “I still don’t understand why Tommy knew about it, though.”

“Coz and Wans said Jorgen acted like it was no big deal.” Susie commented. “Maybe he’s in on something that he’s just not tellin’ us.”

“But why wouldn’t he tell us? I mean, you’d think this kind of thing would raise some red flags, no?”

“Maybe under normal circumstances, but this ain’t normal territory...”

“But what if Mr. Crocker knows as much as Tommy does? There’s no telling what someone like him would do with that information!”

Thumps of pacing beats began to thud rapidly behind the back of the indigo necklace, hearing once steady breaths grow strained. Susie looked to Chloe inhaling and exhaling through her nose with great intent, trying her absolute best to restrain the rising threat of panic.

“…we should table this.” Susie advised when she glanced back to Rose. “Y’know…bounce it off the other fairies.”

When Rose could see Tootie’s diverted grimace, her brows knitted contritely. “Yeah…”

High in the darkened skies, a flag with a blue Toucan painted across white cloth swayed with the gust of morning chill, mounted proud on the red-trimmed platform roof of the white cement building. A platform awning stretched over the cement steps that led towards the two double doors, green shrubbery framed symmetrically on either side of the stairs. Busses lined the sidewalks, offloading students chattering about or strolling in solitude as they absently passed the prominent ‘Dimmsdale Middle School; Home of the Toucans’ sign.

Stepping off his bus, Dwight slouched as he dragged his feet. Veering off from other students’ paths of migrating to the outside picnic tables or hanging out next to the stairs in preparation of beating the crowd when it was time to enter the school. He traveled until he reached the side of the school closest to the metal fence sectioning off the property, isolating himself from kids he was certain would find some reason to give him a hard time. He won’t have his only friend at this school for support. Likely not for a while…

“How ya feelin’, Wighty?” he heard his medic alert bracelet check in.

“I’m fine…” Dwight mumbled despite the pounding in his head that made him feel a bit floaty, a troubling sensation that had not left him since before leaving his house.

When they had come home from the Fort, it was as if his epilepsy came back with a mighty vengeance. Wrecking him with back-to-back clusters of tonic-clonics that’d stretched for hours with little to no reprieve. It’d been after one in the morning when his fathers finally slugged through the door after long, grueling hours at work, and before flopping into the comfort of their bed, they’d at least made the effort to check in on their son.

Through the room’s darkness, they’d found Dwight in bed, assuming the lack of snoring as deep, soundless sleep. They’d been too exhausted to investigate the strings of bubbling froth dripping from his slack jaw, completely unconscious during a calm period after storms of seizures.

Dwight had only gotten a total of a few hours of rest at best. By the time Dwight had come to, his fathers had already left again for another round of long shifts and were not around to deter their son from dragging himself to school.

His godfather took on that role, insisting he stay home. Reminding the consequence of even more seizures that lack of sleep can cause. However, Dwight argued how much school he’d already missed throughout the school year. If he wanted to reach 7^th grade along with his class, he couldn’t afford to miss again. With that argument, Irving had suggested wishing a clone; that way, Dwight could get rest without missing a thing. Still, that was just the risk he’d have to take; self-disgust and internal shame couldn’t bare taking the ‘easy route’ for having a fit.

If things were meant to be easy for him, then the Council would’ve stripped his seizures away, too…

Dwight barely turned the corner of the school’s wall before he tripped over unsteady feet, tumbling face first to the frosty grass that knocked his glasses crooked.

“I knew you should’ve stayed home…” he heard Irving utter, groaning as his weak neck struggled to lift his cold face from the grass. Irving was right, and he hated it. He felt like crap, and not having Gary around gave less of a reason to want to tough it out. He still wasn’t aloud to wish his epilepsy away, and yet the Council did nothing to rid him off this curse…

The floaty feeling in his head dropped his head back to the grass like a dungball. He just can’t win for losing.

Right as he began to consider wishing for a clone, white spots dance across his sight. Floaty sways quickly crashing down like heavy bricks piling up in his skull. Sensing something wrong, the medical alert bracelet transfigured into a dark-teal squirrel, growing worried by the waning focus in Dwight’s eyes.

“…Dwight?”

Irving’s call sounded fuzzy like cotton had been stuffed into Dwight’s ears. He felt his left arm start to tense up in lacking sensation, using his right arm that had just enough strength left to roll him onto his back, though the effort had used the very last of his strength.

Heaviness pinned his sprawled limbs, too languished to lift a fingernail. Empty eyes powerless to the dark clouds swirling and swaying in disorienting waves, worsened by the metallic, gassy scent filling his nose. A droning buzz rang inside his ears, drowning out the crunch of shoes walking across the grass as the entire left side of his body prickled and tingled in a painful numbness that strained his chest, strangling his breaths.

He could make out the hazy outline of someone coming up to him, popping up in front of the sky. Standing over him or kneeling, he couldn’t tell through the wobbly tremors of double vision. If the stranger was talking to him, their speech muffled incoherently. The constriction in his throat couldn’t respond regardless.

Then, he lost control of his limbs that began to twitch, the white spots stretching into a blur across his world…

The dark-teal squirrel watched as the hunched-back child took off his green and silver scarf, quickly folding it before lifting Dwight’s head to lay it underneath to support his head. Rolling Dwight’s jerking body onto his right side as he removed Dwight’s glasses before they flew off his face. Irving squinted slightly, the familiarity of this boy probing his memory. Recalling him as the same child from the park as Dwight’s left side stiffened, his muscle spasms growing aggressive.

“You’re gonna be okay…t-this will pass…” Kevin calmly reassured, reciting words that he vaguely remembered his mother always soothing him with right before his mind would go blank and he couldn’t hear much of anything.

Kevin counted the Mississippis in his head, having started from the time he’d arrived onto the scene. Trying to time the seizure with no watch as Dwight’s spasmic breaths salivated froth that gurgled in his throat. He continued giving Dwight verbal reassurance, pressing a soft palm against Dwight’s back. He didn’t think Dwight was aware of him, yet he spoke to him anyway. It always helps to feel less alone.

The whites of Dwight’s eyes fluttered rapidly, and electric jolts shook his entire body before a darker spot started pooling in the center of his dark jeans. Noticing this, Kevin frowned in second-hand embarrassment. He knew very well what that meant as he’d been in the exact same position before.

Kevin reached 150 Mississippi before Dwight’s spasms finally reached its peak and descended into a decline, ebbing into mild jerks. When the spasms came full stop, his limbs fell limp, the last remnants of his seizure still twitching in the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“…Dwight? M-My name is Kevin” Kevin tried. “…can you hear me?”

Soon, only his dilated pupils convulsed, failing to respond as each drawn breath sounded like saliva coagulating in his throat.

Irving felt his heart leap when Kevin looked in his direction, like Kevin had known he was there the whole time and simply hadn’t acknowledged him before now. “…do…you think you can…um…?” Kevin pointed a coy finger to the wetness in Dwight’s pants, and the squirrel’s stare darted between his godchild and this child who seemed privy to his disguise.

He didn’t know what to do, and Dwight was in no state of mind to give direction. Acting on his own could set him high on Jorgen’s Von Strangle’s radar, even if this kid was some Council pawn.

“I-I won’t tell anyone…” Kevin quietly guaranteed over Dwight’s wet snores, seeing the squirrel’s dark-teal eyes wide with doubt. “Dwight’s secret is safe with me.”

Irving wasn’t sure if the risk was greater than the reward. Nonetheless, he retrieved his wand from his fur, held it against his side, and squeezed. A cloud of dark-teal shimmers dried Dwight’s underwear and jeans into a fresh pair, and Kevin expressed his gratitude with a timid grin.

“Thanks…”

A series of tired moans turned Kevin and Irving to Dwight trying and failing to sit himself up.

“…I’m gonna help you up, okay?” Kevin offered, but when he extended a helping hand, Dwight wildly swatted at him, slurring incoherent words as the dark-teal squirrel observed Kevin bunch his brows.

“I-I’m sorry…” he apologized as Dwight’s eyes cast about, seeming to take nothing in, aimless and empty. “…can you tell me your name?”

His question stalled the dazed boy for a moment, glassy eyes furrowed confusedly.

 “…Dwight?” Kevin kept his voice calm, squeezing the temples of Dwight’s glasses. “Can you tell me your name?”

Slow hands moved deliberately without any real purpose, grabbing and tugging at the sides of his pants like he was trying to take them off and put them on at the same time.

“...do you know where you are?” He tried not to restrain Dwight in any way, observing Dwight continue to tug at his pants. When his fingers couldn’t decide if he wanted his pants off or on, they drifted down and began picking and pulling at the grass.

“Dwight, can you tell me what happened to you?” Kevin asked a question that he already knew the answer to, getting a sense for Dwight’s level of awareness.

His fingers seemed robotic like they were scripted but had forgotten their lines, dirt building up under his nails. Murmuring noises and sounds as if trying to speak through loose lips that couldn’t form the words.

“…it’s okay…take your tim-”

The school bell rang in a resonate, alarming echo that not only caused Kevin to jump, but it startled Dwight in a panicked, disoriented grunt. Shaking his skull in rapid ping-pongs before dizziness flopped him backwards against the grass.

“A-Are you okay, Dwight?” Kevin had waited for the bell to silence before he reached to assist, once again receiving a swift yet flopping smack of his hand away. Pinching his lips, he held the minor pang in his fingers to his chest as Dwight’s eyes whirled around. Confused as to why everything was so loud and why the world was spinning so fast…

A tremor entered Dwight’s hands, eyes flittering into his head. Tremors grew into violent shakes, hardening up his arms into rapid breaths. In that moment, Kevin ignored his aching hand, maneuvering Dwight’s jerking body back onto his side. Directing his head against the scarf as Dwight’s left side, from his face to his leg, pulled and tightened so feverishly that his pale skin burned a dangerous red.

As bad as the situation looked, Kevin took deep breaths, trying his best to remain calm. Timing the seizure in his head while contemplating whether he should go fetch an adult like Nurse Judy. He didn’t want to leave Dwight alone, though…

Until he met the disquieted gaze of the dark-teal squirrel. “M-May I search his backpack?”

Irving furrowed in hesitation.

“H-He must have s-some kind of emergency drug?” Kevin stuttered. “A-Ativan, maybe?”

Dismissing his suspicions for later, Irving’s short nod permitted Kevin to take Dwight’s backpack. He unzipped the front pouch, taking little time to find the prefilled Carpuject. Breaking the seal, Kevin twisted the automizer securely on the vile, glancing at the seizure that did not appear to ebb. He guestimated that it’d been roughly a minute and a half since the seizure started up again, and as Dwight’s right arm straightened flat, his shaking legs twisted, hardening at odd angles…

…when not even a gurgle escaped as vicious convulsions overtook Dwight completely, Kevin’s horror bulged in his eyes. “…breathe, Dwight!”

Kevin gripped the Ativan in one hand as the other struggled to position Dwight’s quaking head. Frantic, terrible aim kept narrowly missing Dwight’s nostrils, until a turquoise coat of glowing sparkles restricted the convulsions into more manageable spasms.

Perplexed, his eyes flashed to the raised wand sparkling turquoise, gawking at the dark-teal squirrel’s grave, urgent look for Kevin to stop staring at him and hurry up. Taking this cue without question, Kevin inhaled, aimed the automizer inside Dwight’s nose, and exhaled as his thumb pressed down on the plunger and injected the mist.

Seconds later, Dwight descended into calmer shakes, burbled breaths returning his skin to its normal tone as his eyes drooped drowsily. His body went limp, and the magic that had enveloped him faded. Lowering his dimming wand, Irving coughed a breath he didn’t realize he’d choked in. That was too close for comfort…

“Thank you…” Kevin sighed appreciatively, gaining Irving’s incredulous glance. “…now…c-can you take us to Nurse Judy?”

Irving stalled, chewing on his lip. Kevin seemed like a good kid, and he was very grateful for his help. He just couldn’t get past knowing that this kid was a plant for the Council and likely wouldn’t even be here otherwise. Just how long did they plan on using this kid before they change their minds and decide that he, as a fairy godparent, had willingly exposed himself?

“…please?” Kevin piped, cowering from the intensity of Irving’s stare. “For him?”

When the squirrel then shifted his gaze to his godchild lolled on his side, he knew he didn’t have room to dwell in his doubts. Dwight shouldn’t have to suffer because of his insecurity. So, he held out his wand once more, and with an igniting squeeze, the three of them vanished in dark-teal clouds.

Chapter Text

One hand on the steering wheel, Tommy maneuvered the gold 1990 Ford Explorer into a free space between two other cars. Once centered within the white lines, he twisted the key in the ignition, deadening the rumbling of the engine into a quiet stillness. He then turned the switch to shut off the head and tail lights, the dimness of the parking garage draping around the vehicle. He turned his head to the low whine of the golden retriever seated on his hind legs in the front passenger, brown and blue eyes palpable with disheartenment that his human companion shared as Tommy exhaled heavily through his nose.

Last evening had taken an unexpectedly dark turn; during the drive to the hospital, Vlad had suddenly become unresponsive, resulting in life-saving measures upon arrival. Tommy had to explain to medical personnel that, although Vlad’s heart had already stopped once, he was able to get it started again. With Vlad’s quickening decline, doctors had expressed the sheer luck of it all. Had Tommy waited any longer to bring his grandfather to the hospital, doctors feared Vlad’s heart would have been too weak for defibrillation.

In short, Vlad’s heart was officially failing, and because of this, Vlad was promptly wheeled into emergency surgery to implant a mechanical device on his left ventricle. Designed to assist his heart in pumping oxygen through the blood, properly known as a VAD. A solution that, unfortunately, was Vlad’s only fighting chance of survival. At his age and overall physical condition, a heart transplant was too risky an option. This admittedly stumped doctors; records of Vlad’s latest checkup showed a perfect bill of health for a man in his seventies. However, when Tommy had informed of the very recent death of Vlad’s wife, the medical mystery of Takotsubo syndrome was ruled as probable.

On top of grappling with these unfortunate circumstances, Tommy could not just sit and wait for Vlad to come out of surgery in the lobby when he had other people to consider. Timmy and Gary had been expected to return from their birthday party soon, Buddy had still been tied up outside the hospital, and Timantha had started to feel the tiring effects of how late it was. So, he’d been left with no choice but to leave his grandfather overnight at the hospital and drive the car with Timantha and Buddy back to Vlad’s house to wait for the boys.

In getting the boys up to speed, Tommy felt horrible that he had to be the bearer of bad news. It just seemed to add to the bad moods both boys had seemingly returned home with. Yet when Tommy had offered them the chance to talk about what it may have been, neither one of them had the energy nor the desire to discuss.

It also didn’t feel right leaving a kid outside in a non-insolated shed on a cold night, so Tommy had given Timmy the option to sleep in the house. Timmy, however, didn’t seem too keen on invading Gary’s space, and for some reason that Tommy could not understand, Gary wasn’t too compelled to share his space with Timmy. This made him want to discuss whatever had happened at the party that much more, but Tommy didn’t push. Tensions already seemed thick.

With Gary in his room, Timmy in the shed, and Timantha in the room her (technically) great-grandparents once shared, Tommy had spent majority of the night staring at the ceiling. Restless thoughts denying him of sleep even with Buddy’s warm fur snuggled against him on the same couch his grandfather had just been laying on hours prior. While he’d always strived to see the light at the end of the tunnel, his mind just kept dragging him back into the darkness of what-ifs.

What if Vlad doesn’t make it? What if planning funerals for the grandparents he’d just met fell on him? What if he had to be solely responsible for a toddler and two pre-teens whilst a full-time university student still trying to navigate through the real world?

What if, what if, what if…

He'd likely dozed off for maybe three hours before Gary’s blaring alarm had jolted him awake, quickly (and annoyedly) reminding him that it was officially the dreaded Monday. With brick after brick piling on top of him, there was no way he’d make it to those five hours of core classes. He could also guarantee that Timmy and Gary would have zero mental capacity to learn anything at school.

So, he’d found a phonebook to skim for the numbers of the elementary and middle school to phone them, informing that, due to unforeseen circumstances, Timmy and Gary would be absent for the week. It had been one of the first things he’d told the boys when Timmy had come inside from the shed and Gary had shuffled his dragging feet out of his room, though the news of every kids’ dream sparked almost no joy in their listless eyes. Like the weight of everything felt too heavy to lighten their spirits.

Then, a call rang the house phone from the hospital, and after Tommy had picked up the receiver, a rush of relief swelled in his chest. Vlad was in a recovery room and stable enough for visitors. Tommy had to repeat the surgeon’s words out loud; not just for Timmy and Gary to hear, but so he could believe them himself. No sooner had the surgeon ended the call did Timmy and Gary insist to see their grandfather, and Tommy was more than willing to scoop Timantha out of bed to do so.

Noting the continued silence since turning off the engine, Tommy took a peek through the rearview. Seeing Gary’s arms crossed with his yellow angel tied as a bandana around the right bicep of his leather jacket, staring out the window with dark circles under half-lidded eyes. Timmy’s pink angel kept him warm as a jacket with his green and lilac angels cuffed as wristbands, cradling a sleeping Timantha snuggled to his chest, her thumb hanging loosely from her lips. The red bags in his eyes hung on his reincarnated sister, gentle hands giving delicate strokes to her soft cheek.

Tommy weakly furrowed his brow; had the boys been just as restless as he was? “Alright, guys…” he pulled out the key with a ‘clank’ out the ignition, a soft click unlocking all the doors. “Let’s get going.”

Buddy squirmed on his hindlegs as Tommy unbuckled his seatbelt, flapping his tail as Tommy stretched his arm to pull on the door handle and give the door enough push for Buddy’s paws to jump the rest of the way out. In the backseat, Timantha only stirred a little when Timmy tried to shift her into a carrying position as the same set of blue eyes shifted towards the struggled efforts of Timmy’s scrawny arms.

“…need some help?” Gary muttered dully, feeling like he was obligated to offer.

“I got it…” Timmy mumbled in a weary monotone, aware that Gary was being nice for niceness’s sake. Pushing the door and steeping out the car, he lifted Timantha’s weight with a light grunt. His arms supported her by the bottom, her dangling legs on either side of his torso as her sleepy arms absently draped around Timmy’s neck like a baby koala clinging to its mother.

Gary felt the corners of his mouth pinch involuntarily as he watched Timantha lay her drowsy head to Timmy’s shoulder, giving Timmy her full trust. Sophia, Timmy’s beloved twin sister, had been reincarnated as Timantha. A miraculous act that still boggled him, an act that Buddy and Tommy had not been obligated to do.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t fathom why Timmy would show just how ungrateful he is by telling the fairies and the other godkids what should have just been kept to themselves. Burning out other people’s candle doesn’t make yours shine any brighter; did Timmy not get that? Or maybe he did but just decided not to care before flapping his gums.

Hooking the string onto the golden retriever’s leash after locking the car doors, Tommy led Buddy and the boys out through the quiet parking garage, keeping out of the way of some incoming cars. When they reached a bollard in front of the entrance to Dimmsdale Hospital, Timmy readjusted Timantha when he felt her start to slip; either Timantha was heavier than she looked, or he was weaker than he thought. Gary stood beside Timmy, arms crossed as Tommy wrapped the polyester rope around the base of the bollard and clipped the snap hook to secure the leash.

He then kneeled to his companion who dropped back on his hind legs, peering into those big, pathetic doggy eyes of his. “Sorry you can’t come inside, Buddy.”

The two godchildren caught periwinkle-blue sparkles glitter within Buddy’s eyes focused on Tommy, and in return, Tommy gave the weakest smile. Reaching to scratch behind Buddy’s floppy ears as his happy tongue panted. Unsure what Buddy must’ve said to Tommy, they figured it was whatever could put Tommy at ease. Dude seemed pretty stressed, not that they could blame him.

Rising to stand upright, Tommy glanced back at the boys for them to continue towards the double glass doors that creaked from constant use, leading them through the automatic entrance. A gust of cold air and pine sol immediately greeted them, their eyes squinting to adjust to the sudden impact of bright florescent lights as Timmy and Gary followed Tommy through the lobby.

One wall-monitor in the corner played mindless television as background noise over relatives and patients new and returning squished together like sardines. As Tommy approached the receptionist to verify what recovery room Vlad had been placed in, Timmy felt his eyes drift without his consent. His gaze swiveling over the lobby that hadn’t changed in almost three years. The same pagers that beeped and wildly buzzed in his ears, the same baby-blue scrubs and white lab coats that flashed before him like a stubborn ghost. The sound of a machine charged up in his head, a solid tone rising in pitch by the millisecond.

Those same paddles then pushed down on a small, motionless body that jolted and dropped from the electric shock.

Her tiny frame suffered and endured shock after shock. Each failed attempt amplified the cries of distress from her mother, sunk her father’s heart deeper into dread, and tore her twin brother’s soul rip by rip. The final flatline echoed in a haunting drone through the ears of everyone present, and the deepest regret stung in his big blue eyes as he let out a cry of deep regret that he could hold in no longe-

“Bubba no leggo…” A sharp pinch twitched in his chest when Timantha’s drowsy murmur broke his descent into a grim past. Blue eyes fluttered before they drifted to the signature pink ribbon securing her brunette pigtails.

“I won’t let go, I promise.” Timmy managed to choke out, swallowing waves of guilt and shame down to the dark pit in his stomach. His arms readjusted her again, her warmth battling against his cold internal war. He’d already lost Sophia once, and it was his fault. Why did a screwup like him get this second chance?

Thanking the receptionist, Tommy led the boys towards the elevator with Gary lightly lagging behind with blue gaze downcast, eyes as heavy as his spirits. Since the age of four, two people loved and cared for him, even when he wasn’t in his right mind and would do really bad things. Grandpa Vlad and Grandma Gladys treated him like their own. For the longest time, he’d always imagined them crying over his casket…if they wouldn’t have been relieved by him putting himself out of their misery, that is.

But now his grandma was gone, and his grandfather had one foot in the grave.

Council or no, he knew he inadvertently played a part in this mess. Had he not lost his cool, had he had more control over his screwed-up brain, he would have never shouted that he hated his grandmother. Those spiteful words would never have been his last to her, nor would his grandfather have lost the love of his life which led to this onset of heart failure.

Some people wonder if death by broken heart is real. Were it not for a magical dog in disguise, his grandfather would’ve been the proof of possibility.

Gathering inside the elevator, Tommy pressed the button for the third floor, blowing out a held breath before he looked to Timmy once again readjusting Timantha to keep her supported and Gary’s grimace to the floor. The elevator began its ascent as a burden of self-blame slumped in his shoulders. The only thing he could think to say was “…I’m sorry.”

The boys slowly lifted their chins to Tommy’s brows etched with guilt.

“I’d told Buddy to just restart his heart because I thought he’d be fine…” Tommy closed his eyes for a second, pinching the bridge of his nose “…I didn’t expect things to go south like this.”

A ding announced the arrival of their intended floor, the doors sliding for its occupants to step off into the corridors of the recovery unit as Gary hardened his grimace. “…was that not the point? To heal grandpa?”

Tommy sighed. “Well, that’s the thing; I thought restarting his heart was healing him.”

“…for what little good that did…” Timmy lightly snorted, and Gary shot him a sour scowl.

“You’re not one to talk right now.”

Timmy’s bucktooth bit down hard when a heavy ache crushed his chest like a punch to the ribs, making Timantha whimper against his shoulder. His mouth had already gotten him a talking to. Not a condescending talking to like his parents used to do, but he could hear it in Wanda’s voice and see it in Cosmo’s face that he’d…he’d embarrassed them, let alone himself. He couldn’t stand to make his godparents upset with him again.

“Hey, be nice, Gary.” Tommy groaned as they approached the hospital door of 307. He was starting to suspect that whatever happened for the boys to not want to talk about had been more serious then assumed, but he pinned this in his mind for a later time as he carefully tugged on the door handle, revealing what awaited them.

An elderly man lay with his head tilted to one side, unaware of their presence. Silent breaths flowing past parted lips as thin tubes in his nose provided oxygen, multiple IVs attached to the prominent veins in his frail arms. Wires and cords looked like vines from his lavender hospital gown, hooked to a heart monitor recording the cardiac beats of the LVAD assisting his weakened heart with keeping him alive.

Tommy shut the door after the boys entered, running fingers through his hair. Giving them space as Timmy and Gary drew near Vlad’s bed, both sharing expressions of bitter remorse. It pained them to see their grandfather like this, so weak and helpless. His skin so pale, so lifeless…

Just as the very day that would be Sophia’s last. Swallowed by various tubes and machines pumping life into her. Unaware that her soul was already dead before her comatose body could keep up.

"THIS is all YOUR fault!"

Timmy flinched, biting his inner cheek. Squeezing his eyes shut when a pair of elm glowered the hottest flame in his head, his mother’s tears mixed with pain and anger.

"Sophia is dead because of you…YOU KILLED HER!”

“Are you okay, sport?” his pink jacket knitted her brow when she felt a faint tremble start in her godson’s arms.

A breath shuddered as he swallowed, throat clenched. “…I don’t know.”

“We’re here for you, champ. You know that, right?” his green wristband spoke truthfully, wanting to give some sort of comfort to the poor boy.

“…yeah…” he averted his eyes. He didn’t deserve their kindness.

“Tim-me!” his gaze shifted to the squeaky coo of his lilac wristband, hearing one of the few words in Poof’s extremely limited vocabulary besides saying his own name. Deep-lilacs beamed at him, filled with unconditional admiration. Almost enough to douse the hatred for himself burning his soul alive.

He felt Timantha squeeze him tighter, felt her warm cheek brush his shoulder before she settled comfortably against him, growing still. His chest could feel each calm, slumberous breath she took, could feel every tranquil rhythm of her heartbeat. She felt so alive, and it welled a hot gloss in his eyes.

It’d been so long, he’d nearly forgotten what it’d felt to feel surrounded by love. Surrounded by family. Family he didn’t deserve, but family nonetheless.

“…mne zhal’, dedushka…”

A quiet whisper caused Timmy to lift a glance towards him, looking over at the heartache in Gary’s grimace.

“…I-I’m so, so sorry…” His arms clutched around his tightening chest, shaky breaths growing shallow. Buddy wouldn’t have stopped his grandmother’s heart had she’d not assumed that his godfather was hurting him and acted in his defense. His godfather would not have gotten hurt from trying to help had he not let himself get so worked up over Tommy asking him about ‘he who shall not be named.’

“…why are you apologizing?” Timmy would find out that this was the wrong thing to ask the moment Gary’s wild glare snapped his way.

“Because unlike you, I don’t wait until it’s too late to take accountability!”

Timmy’s teeth clenched hard, throbbing his jawline as Timantha’s face scrunched, whining against his tensing shoulder. Poof’s hiccupping sniffles led his mama and papa to shush him reassuringly.

“Gary, I said be nice.” Tommy’s tone was calm yet firm, eyes narrowed. Narrowed in a way that flashed in Gary’s wide eyes of hunted terror, hardening the pulse in his throat.

“My wife shoulda never lost her life just to bring the likes of you into this world!”

He saw the flicker between Tommy’s present baby-blue and the wrathful elm scowl of the past, spiking chills through Gary’s veins. He staggered backwards, nails clawing messily at the sides of his gelled black hair.

“She should be alive. Not you!”

“Breathe, peque.” his yellow bandana’s tender words sounded far away, muffled. Gary roughly inhaled and exhaled through his nose, feeling tears prick the corners of his eyes.

Curse that good-for-nothing prick! Can he not just rot in Hell?! Why did he still have such a grip on him!? Why can’t he just stay dead!?

“…if I’m gonna rot in Hell…so the fuck are you…”

His eyes squeezed shut as he breathed harder, shaking his head as if to shake away flashes of that spiteful, icy glare forever haunting him.

Worried that seeing Vlad in this state was more than what Gary could handle, Tommy softened his expression in his gentle steps forward. “Hey, why don’t we go for a walk, huh?” he calmly suggested, reaching out. “You wanna go for a walk?”

Tommy had no control over his brunette hair and broad shoulders that, unintentionally, sparked a menacing reminder of the worst scum to ever exist in Gary’s life. The very scum that tainted him.

Gary snarled as he swatted Tommy’s hand away from him, sharp eyes glowering with animus fire. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“…Gary-”

“FUCK you!”

Tommy faltered, taken aback by the outburst. Fretting over what he’d done to make Gary so upset…until it clicked.

“Gary, it’s Tommy, remember?” the Freshman’s eyes bore carefully into Gary’s glare. His pink chucks took one cautious step forward, his voice steady. Nostrils flaring, Gary’s fingers curled into tight fists. Growling in his throat, he struck himself in the head with gritted teeth.

“It’s okay. You are okay.” Tommy took another soft step, continuing to slowly reach out with his hand. “Take a deep, slow breath, okay?”

Yet Gary’s breaths billowed, fist smacking the side of his head again, and again, and again. Punching so hard that Tommy worried he’d give himself a concussion. He jumped and grabbed him by the wrists, a rookie mistake. Writhing and straining against Tommy’s restraints, Gary flailed his legs, wild and crazed.

Until the bottom of his shoe aimed for the worst area to cause bodily harm on every Homo Sapien male.

His grasp on Gary weakened when he felt the air kicked out of him, crying out as he collapsed to the tiled floor in the most pulsating, most debilitating agony. Seething through his teeth as trembling hands clutched what felt like someone clamping his groin between two white-hot irons. Tommy chomped his lip, a flinching flush reddening his scrunched face. Nostrils flaring with each agonized moan.

Gary stared, arms shaking and eyes swelling in furious terror. Fuck, he’ll be punished for sure. Locked away in the closet, or worse. He fumbled backwards to the floor, scooting himself to flee into the nearest corner. Rocking back and forth as his knees bunched, lowering his face into his shielding forearms.

Timantha’s drowsy whimpers amplified, squirming in Timmy’s arms with eyes still closed as he rubbed her back with one palm. Attempting to console her as he grumbled “Even I saw that coming…”

While laughing felt like a Charley Horse between his legs, Tommy still had to chuckle at that. Yeah, grabbing a volatile child losing their battle with trauma was absolutely thoughtless on his part. Too bad his nether region had to learn that God-forsaken lesson.

Swallowing a hard lump, Tommy grunted in strenuous efforts, rolling over so his palms could push him off the floor. “Gary…l-listen to me....” he strained, trying to keep a leveled tone in spite of his horrendous discomfort. Forcing his corded neck to raise his head, squinting through the sting in his eyes. “You…you’re safe…okay? I promise…” he coughed back the sharp pain churning nausea in his stomach, “…n-no one’s gonna hurt you…”

Agitation slowly dissolved as Gary panted. Crouched in the corner, despair glossing his eyes. “…I-I’m sorry…” he whispered, tight arms squeezing knees to his chest. “…p-please don’t punish me…”

Wincing audibly, Tommy mustered enough strength to sit on his knees. Breathing deeply to null the pain, shoving his own suffering in the back of his mind so he can try to pull Gary out of his. “Gary…can you name five things you can see?”

Gary’s breaths came in shallow gasps, dilated pupils darting around the room.

“Gary, five things you can see.” Tommy tried to get Gary to focus. “Can you tell me?”

Blinking away the threat of darkness creeping in, Gary fixed his stare to Tommy’s leveled yet grave expression, swallowing hard through jagged breaths “…I-I see…” his voice was a fragile thread threatening to snap “…I-I see y-your…um…jacket…” he licked his lips, eyes drifting upwards, “…t-the ceiling…” then they trailed to the wiggle of his shaky fingers tingling numb. “…m-my hands…” his wide stare drifted lower, “…my…my…pants…” then to his right arm where worried icy-blue stared back at him, “…a-and my bandana…”

“Good job.” Tommy praised with a pained grin. “Now, four things you can touch.”

After the gears spun in his mind at the difficult task, Gary lifted shaky fingers, fingers trembling as their tips pressed against his palms. “…my hand…um…” both hands meekly traveled to his face, the lack of sensation in his fingers warming from the heat bouncing off his cheek. “…my face…” With one hand cupped to his cheek, the other hand lowered to stroke one timid finger against his leather sleeve. “…my jacket…” they trailed to the yellow fabric tied around his arm, filling him with the smallest sense of ease. “…and my bandana…” 

“That’s good, Gary. Three things you can hear.”

Gary’s breaths slowed evenly, glassy eyes starting to dry. “…my voice…the heart monitor…” his gaze drifted back to the young man that, so far, meant him no harm “…and you.”

“Good. Two things you can smell.”

After clearing his throat, Gary took a moment to sniff, clearing his nose. “…all I smell is disinfectant.”

“That’s okay.” Starting to see progress, satisfaction swelled in Tommy’s chest and, in turn, the ache between his legs dulled. “Lastly…one thing you can taste.”

Laxing his shoulders, Gary paused, then arched a brow. “How can I taste anything with nothing in my mouth?”

To this, Tommy weakly smirked. “I never quite understood that one either.”

Gary’s only response was to stare, a slight squint in the pupils that’d shrunk back to normal size.

With the throb between his legs subsiding, Tommy pushed himself on his knee to stand upright, forcing a smile to the preteen’s stare. “…are you all good, now?”

Soberly, Gary looked away, his expression pinched. Drawing his knees against his chest as if to shrink himself, beset by shame for his actions. “…yeah…”

Beeps of the heart monitor filled the room as Timantha clutched Timmy tighter, eyes half open, quiet and calm as Timmy held his suspecting gaze to the University Freshman. As far as Timmy knew, the only ones to have successfully helped Gary chill the heck out was Alondro and Birchie (or Buddy, technically,) but even they were a hit or miss sometimes.

How did Tommy manage to bring Gary ‘back to earth’ so fast on the first try?

Groggy blinks parted the darkness, revealing the white light of fiberglass tiles lined with ceiling fluorescents. Through the woozy fog, he tilted his head to the right, his auburn hair feeling something plasticky supporting his head. His purple gaze stared towards the beige lined with ‘School Nurse’ outlined in bold Arial Black across, and much experience didn’t take long to figure out what’d happened for him to end up here.

“There he is…” the voice of a used cars salesman led Dwight to lower his sideways glance towards the blurry outline of a medical alert bracelet cuffed around the right wrist near his head, seeing dark-teal eyes big with both concern and relief. “How ya feelin’, Wighty?”

He briefly closed his eyes, counteracting the pulsing swoosh in his head. His entire left side ached sore, his right side burned stiff, and the pounding in his head which felt like a hammer repeatedly smashing a nail into the inside of his skull was enough of a painful reminder of how bad it was without telling him how bad it was.

He willed his index finger and thumb on his left hand to extend, raising his heavy arm to flop against his stomach for his godfather to see, giving the signal for the automatic wish of returning him to a normal state of mind. Nodding in acceptance, Irving waved his wand, and in a magical flash, the pounding ceased, his thoughts gained clarity, and the soreness in his limbs vanished like it’d never came.

“Feel better?”

“…I guess…” Dwight croaked hoarsely. His throat felt dryer than the Sahara.

Concern furrowed Irving’s brow, using his wand to poof Dwight’s glasses back on his face. “You sure? Cuz I wasn’t gonna leave without makin’ sure you were all good first.”

Dwight adjusted his glasses, squinting puzzledly. “…leave?”

“To meet the other godparents at the park.”

He held a blank, quizzical stare to his godfather. That was until a memory lightbulb flickered, his features falling with a toneless sigh “…oh…”

“But I don’t have to go.” Irving didn’t hesitate to offer. “I can tell them I can’t make it.”

Dwight feebly shook his head. “No…go ahead. I don’t want you to bail because of me.”

“You don’t have to lie, y’know.”

“Unless you’d rather me say it in wish form.”

Irving studied him, yet he chose not to push back. Insisting he stay meant Dwight thought more and more of himself as a burden, and that was the last thing Irving wanted. “Alright, then…just holler if ya need me, okay?”

Dwight gave a small nod, and with a spark of Irving’s wand, a dark-teal cloud transformed the medic alert bracelet into the normal silver tag with a black band.

Letting out a low breath, Dwight tried to sit up on his own, squeaking the smooth plastic of the medical bed as he dragged his legs to dangle off the side. Pressing palms against the bed’s surface for better support, his shoulders hunched and his neck bowed. Sadness lidded his purple eyes fixed on the medic alert bracelet, locked around his wrist like handcuffs chaining him to a life of endless suffering. As if his dads didn’t have enough to worry about, he goes and has yet another bad seizure for them to fuss and fight about. Why didn’t he just listen to Irving and stay home…

“…your angel cares a lot about you…”

Dwight’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest when he jumped at the timid voice. Wide eyes swiveled towards the foot of the bed, just now realizing he hadn’t been alone in the office as previously assumed. Heart thumping between his ears, Dwight gawked a kid seated in the corner with a hunched back, pale skin, and ears on his neck, the same kid he and Elmer had seen at the park. If his memory wasn’t failing him, this had to be the kid Chloe had already met.

Kevin…

“I-I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to scare you!” Kevin blurted shrilly, waving his hands in his remorseful defense.

“You didn’t…just wasn’t expecting you.” Dwight clarified, his tone steady to not make the poor kid feel worse about something so small.

“Okay…” Kevin blew a tense breath, his gaze averting Dwight’s raised brow towards him. Once composed, he reached down and grabbed his backpack propped against the leg of his chair, opening it with a quick zip. “…um…I-I have some celery and carrots packed in my lunchbox…would you like some? You must be hungry.”

“…no, thanks.” Dwight droned, his stare remaining cynical.

“Oh…okay.” Kevin sounded somewhat disappointed but slowly rezipped his backpack, swallowing before he forced himself to meet Dwight’s gaze. “…do you know where you are?”

“Nurse Judy’s office…” Dwight said knowingly, then narrowed his stare. “…so, why are you here?”

Kevin held his hands in his lap, wringing his fingers. “…she stepped out; I-I had come by to check on you after the lunch bell rang, so I offered to keep an eye out for when you’d wake up. I-I can go get her-”

“No…that’s okay. I’m fine.”

Kevin shuffled his feet, bending his head. “Okay…”

“So, you brought me here?”

“Kind of.” Kevin fidgeted in his seat, his voice hushed yet audible. “I’d followed you behind the school…I-I know it sounds creepy, but…I could just…sense something was wrong, y’know?” he tugged on his white collar with one finger, letting out some heat. “…kinda glad I followed my intuition…”

More like followed your orders. “…how old are you?” Dwight asked quietly. Though Kevin’s legs looked a bit longer than his, Dwight wasn’t getting that ‘big kid’ vibe that even some of the other sixth graders put out.

Kevin took one short glance at Dwight before that chilly tingle up his back made him blink away. “…ten and a half.”

Both of Dwight’s brows raised, suspicious. “…in middle school?”

“…I skipped second grade.”

“…so, you’re in my grade?” Dwight watched Kevin’s taut yet confirming nod. “Then how come I’ve never seen you around before?”

“…I’m in almost all advanced classes…” Kevin’s eyes didn’t look up, adjusting his black specs. “That and…everyone’s obviously much older than me, so…I keep to myself. Usually.”

Dwight shared classes with Gary that, by academic standard, were a step up from remedial, and that was only because his fathers didn’t want him to be stunted by his condition. If they were lucky to avoid bullies, he and Gary mostly tried to keep to themselves as well, and while he understood the excuse, Dwight couldn’t be certain Kevin was telling the whole truth.

“…do…you recognize me? From the park last Saturday?” he asked his next question, saving the one he was most curious of for last.

“Yeah…you and the kid with the boil…” Kevin mumbled thoughtfully, once again mustering the courage to look Dwight in the eye as Dwight brows flattened.

“…so you did see us.”

Kevin nodded, tight lipped.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Kevin looked down at him shuffling the feet of his own red chucks. “I was going to, but…I would’ve felt bad leaving my mom all upset. That, and you guys left before I could.”

“But we walked right past you.” Dwight countered, no aggression in his leveled tone. “You could’ve said something then.”

“…I just assumed you’d think I was creepy or something.”

“So quietly following behind me isn’t creepy?” A hint of distrust slipped into Dwight’s inflection, and Kevin’s gaze dropped to the tiled floor.

“…I-I’m sorry…” A reddish tint spread across Kevin’s nose, shoulders hunched. “It’s just…kids always called me creepy whenever I’d tried to make friends in the past, and…I-I always got flack for it…but, y’know… it’s not like I’m trying to be creepy, I just…i-it’s hard for me to just go up and talk to someone like other kids can…”

Dwight’s expression softened the longer Kevin rattled on. He really wasn’t trying to be harsh.

“I-I tried to say something, I swear, but…” Kevin raised his head, his frown glossing sheepishly, “…that’s when you started seizing...”

Dwight furrowed thoughtfully.

“…are you mad at me?”

“What? No.” Dwight dismissed. If anything, following behind him wasn’t his biggest concern. It was the fact no one else but Kevin bothered to follow him behind the school. And since Nurse Judy was gone and the door to her office was closed, now was a better time than any to learn why.

“You mentioned my ‘angel.” Dwight started, shifting himself to further face Kevin’s direction. “You know about Seraphims, too?”

“And Dominions, yes.” Kevin confirmed honestly. “…my owl Bulma? Um…she’s a Dominion; you probably saw her at the park, too.”

“And you just…came across her randomly, or…?”

“My mom and I bought her from an exotic pet store in Sacramento.”

Thinking back now, the way Dwight got away with keeping a pet owl was because Irving could poof into something else whenever his dads were around. Other than that… “…isn’t that technically illegal?”

“Not without a license; my mom works in mental health, and I’m…me.” the corners of Kevin’s mouth pulled downward on the last word of his sentence, but he lifted his glasses not long after to scrub at his eyes, continuing on. “So, she referred me to someone in her field who could get a license for Bulma to be my ESA; Emotional Support Animal.”

“Hmm…” Dwight mused before he asked his next question, trying not to come off too skeptical. “…so, did Seraphims tell you to help me?”

Keeping his eyes low, Kevin’s face scrunched as if mulling how to reply, mulling whether he was ready to reveal that part of himself. A part of himself that, while he was still learning self-acceptance, if he said it out loud, maybe Dwight would feel less like some alien from a different planet.

“…n-not entirely…”

The fairy godchild saw Kevin reach once again for the backpack with its back leaned beside his chair. He grabbed and held up one strap, exposing a purple-ribbon pin attached to it. Making Dwight’s eyes grow into wide circles of near disbelief.

“…diagnosed when I was three…” Kevin sighed, shoulders slouched. “Among other things that came with my…deformity.” That last word felt like a sucker punch to his gut.

Dwight could feel this pounding drum behind his ribs, beating in a rapid cadence. He felt a swell of giddy apprehension in his chest, like the excitement of meeting a new person mixed with the dread of not being able to trust them so easily. Testing this, he gestured to his own medic alert bracelet on his arm. “You have this, too?”

Folding his lips, Kevin willed himself to at least raise his head to see where Dwight was pointing, and after staring for a moment, Kevin soon rolled up the cuff of his sleeve, exposing the metal medical tag chained around his wrist that’d been tucked underneath the entire time.

Blinking slowly, Dwight didn’t know what to make of this. He’d never seen nor heard other kids give anyone a hard time about ‘being possessed’ but him, and now, all of the sudden, there’s this other kid that has ‘fits’?

“…why do you hide yours?” he asked, still somewhat cautious.

Tucking his tag back underneath his cuff, Kevin simply shrugged. “I don’t need it like I used to.”

Dwight squinted. “…what does that mean?”

“It means that now that I’m on the right meds…I don’t have a lot of seizures.”

‘Right meds’ and ‘don’t have a lot of seizures’ struck a nerve Dwight didn’t know he had. Money and medication, two of the biggest arguments he hears almost every night between his dads. They want better medication, and they don’t need a neurologist to tell them that he needs better medication. Off-brand just wasn’t cutting it anymore, but without good insurance, name-brand was like this unattainable fantasy. Either Kevin’s mom must have the insurance of miracles, or Kevin was wearing an epilepsy tag without actually having the disorder itself. The latter was not unheard of.

Dwight creased his brows. If the Council was responsible for making their path’s meet, how can he trust that Kevin was truthful and not just trying to get in his good graces?

Dark, grey clouds drifted over money-green shingles of the mansion’s roof, casting a gloomy shade over the two stories walls of ivy-white brick. Grey stone fenced the well-kempt lawns, connected by a gate embellished with the signature golden "B" crest at the front.

Returning from the park, the Hispanic fairy poofed within the pistachio green-striped walls of his godson’s bedroom, expecting him to be home from school any minute. When he had awoken that morning, the light was shining through the window brighter than usual on a school day. The stillness of the empty room had filled his ears, and he’d seen clean, smoothed lines along the white sheets with pillows fluffed taut and wrinkle-free as if one of the maids had tended to tidying up the room.

Remy had left for school without him, presumably on purpose, and yet Juandissimo had made no attempt to follow after him. He knew he would be spending a good portion of the day with the other godparents. Plus, after their heated exchange at Fairy Fort the night prior, he thought that maybe some space would do them both some good (or do him some good, at least.)

This, however, would turn out to be the least of his troubles.

Hovering in the middle of the room, he pressed a fist to his pursed lips, deep grooves between his brow. Fretting over how to navigate this unexpected news with the person it will affect the most. Not only that, Nyekundu had also told him that the same magical powers of authority who wrote the rule Fairies cannot directly kill, maim, or injure living beings unless done so indirectly were frankly responsible.

He was starting to think Swizzle was right to call the Council ‘two-faced.’ Sure, one could say they did what they did to protect the children, but it seemed far too easy for them to scratch another name off their hit list.

As if on cue, the creak of the door made the fairy pivot towards the doorway where the young billionaire appeared to hesitate. Mint-green rimmed red, peering indecisively into the room from behind the door. The swollen bags under his eyes worried the fairy greatly. Was Remy having nightmares again?

Exhaling quietly, Juandissimo lowered his fist to fold his arms, relaxing his tense expression. Seeming to succeed in putting the boy at enough ease to cautiously step inside from the hallway, shutting the door with a small “…hey."

“Hola.”

Hearing the somberness in his greeting, the guilt heavy in Remy’s heart interpreted this as his godfather still being upset with him. “…I know you said not to apologize, but…” he crinkled the strap to his Dior messenger bag, “…I really am sorry.”

“I am sorry as well.” Juandissimo said honestly. Remy felt that Juan wasn’t the one at fault, yet he gave a meek nod.

“…so…are we cool again?”

Juandissimo sighed. “We were never not cool. I did not mean to make you feel that way...”

Remy simply averted his eyes and nodded. Solemn blue-violets followed Remy as he walked past towards his white rubberwood desk and remove his Dior bag, dropping it with a heavy thud.

“…but there is something else that you should know.”

Remy paused; judging by the graveness in his godfather’s voice, it can’t be good news. He turned to face him, rubbing his arm, “…what is it?”

Heart thumping, Juandissimo exhaled and held Remy’s uneasy gaze. Best to just rip off the band-aid rather than let the wound fester. “…Fenwick is dead.”

His insides chilled ice cold, muscles frozen in shock. A pinching, stabbing ache contracted in the bottom of his gut. “But…b-but the Council didn’t say he died.”

“Missy had told Nyekundu and Hazel that he passed away last night.”

A sharp exhale escaped, his mind racing and hollow at the same time. Truth pushed against denial, battering at the thick walls with its sheer might. Remy massaged at his temples, his head pounding. Quiet until he paused, lowering his arms as a single thought came to mind.

There was only one way to know for certain.

“…I wish to see it for myself.”

Hesitant, Juandissimo frowned. “…are you sure?”

There was a weak tremor in his arms as he lowered them to his sides, yet Remy’s expression was absolute. “I can’t just go off hearsay. Not with this.”

The fairy pursed his lips. There was nothing in El Rules against this wish; it’s just, in this case, he hated the obligating grip of those two words. ‘I wish’ can bring blessings or become a curse.

“…so should I-”

“I don’t wanna see it in person.” Remy quickly clarified, shoulders stiff. “Just…show me from here.”

Coming up with how to do so, Juandissimo raised his sparkling wand, casting a magical portal into a sterile room whiter than snow. Walls lined with boxy lockers the size of single caskets, cold. Void of life.

A high-pitched bleep sounded from two doors that’d been sealed shut, sliding open to make room for two staff garbed in medical scrubs, gloves, and booties with masks concealing their faces. Remy fixed his eyes as if to not miss some important detail, looking on as staff rolled a bare metal gurney inside. One of the mortuary assistants stayed with the gurney as the other searched the boxy lockers for a specific name, scanning the doors until they stopped before one near the far end.

Unsealing the lock, the assistant tugged on the locker’s handle, revealing what lay concealed. A white cloth draped over a body from the ankles up, exposing a pair of feet pale in this ghostly blue. With the aid of the other assistant, they pulled the body out by its removable shelf, a piece of cardboard dangling by a string around its left big toe.

Cardboard with ‘F. Nicholas’ written in black marker…

Remy’s skin lost all color, becoming chalk-white.

The assistants were transitioning the body from its pre-casket onto the metal gurney before the portal disappeared with one single ‘poof.’ Setting his wand to the side, Juandissimo studied the disturbance in Remy’s thousand-yard stare. He couldn’t gage what Remy was thinking, if at all. Yet he didn’t push Remy to use his words, if he had any.

No one could see the turbulent storm within. Every emotion funneled into a windstorm raging inside, a violent whirlwind of chaos.

Remy didn’t know what to feel. Didn’t know how to feel. Numb wasn’t the right word. He felt something with no label to place it.

There was no denying it…he was dead. The first to ever show him affection for the first eleven years, the first to betray his trust. Fenwick Nicholas. That loving, complicated, slimy bastard was dead.

He’ll never have to see him or hear his deceptive voice again. He’ll never be swayed or twisted by his false words of love. He’ll rot into worm food and will never touch another defenseless, naïve boy. He’ll never string another child as a puppet in his sick game…

…then why was he not shouting from the rooftops? Why was his heart not leaping for joy?

…why wasn’t he happy?

…and why did his eyes feel wet…

He blinked the glassy blur from his vision which did little to alleviate the sting. He used the sleeve of his tux to fretfully swipe at his eyes, scrubbing the tears that’d dampened his cheeks. “…I…” he sniffed as his eyes drifted, voice quivering “…I-I don’t know why I’m c-crying.”

Juandissimo hovered closer while maintaining personal space, his tone soft and gentle. “A loss is still a loss, regardless of who and what was lost...”

A dark realization weighed his spirits like a ton as silent tears continued to fall. He’ll never see any accountability taken for the actions that tore his heart in two. He’ll never get that admittance of guilt. He’ll never get an apology for ruining him. He’ll never get what he was owed…

‘I’m sorry’

Tears stung his eyes shut, hanging his head. Unable to swallow back the sobs that shook in his shoulders as he squeezed himself, ashamed of his weakness.

The fairy winced at the pang in his heart. To have once wished for Fenwick’s deathbed, part of Juandissimo did not anticipate any sadness from Remy. Then again, who was he to judge? He didn’t fit in Remy’s shoes, and never will.

Besides, his job was not to judge. His job was to make a miserable child happy.

Wordlessly, Juandissimo floated eye level, extending an arm to Remy’s shoulder. Glistening tears kept Remy’s eyes shut as his godfather gently drew him close, muscular arms enveloping the shaking frame of his godson.

Remy felt instantly disgusted with himself, like he’d coerced his godfather into pitying him. Was he not the one to indirectly wish for this death? Why did he deserve to be comforted? In spite of this, Remy couldn’t push him away, couldn’t tell him ‘no.’ Because all the brokenness inside, all the pieces that couldn’t be put back together again, wanted this. He needed this.

Remy buried his face into Juandissimo’s chest, and Juandissimo rested his chin atop Remy’s head. “Estará bien, ahijado.” His godfather whispered into his blonde swoops, allowing him to just let it all out. “I got you…”

Chapter Text

A cloudy overcast billowed as if a choking mass of grey smoke, like a darkness that’d been fermented within the little girl’s mind for as long as she’d known the truth. The wintry air scratched at her skin like cold nails, the humid threat of rain stinging in her nose like the bitter, brassy taste on her tongue. The tongue that had kept in everything she couldn’t say under lock and key…until today.

Hazel stood before the front door of the residence she can no longer call home, brushing an antsy finger along the bright-red metal of her ring. Thoughts spiraling, running over the detailed script she’d engrained in her head, terrified of screwing up. There would be no second chances, no do-overs. This was her one and only shot to end this chapter for good. To put the nail in the coffin to a life that would be no more.

Perched beside his human companion’s leg, the albino ferret brushed his cheek against her thigh, making Missy grin as she leaned to pat him on the head which lit a satisfied light in his taffy-pink eyes. Her grin faded when she looked up towards Hazel, aware that all of this could either go smoothly or, likely, very wrong.

“Are you sure you really want to do this?” Missy questioned out of worry. “You could skip this, you know.”

Her gaze locked on the door that had yet to open, Hazel’s reply was the faintest nod. “I’ve already come this far…I need to do this.”

“…okay.” Missy understood, taking herself and Schumann out of the way by moving them by the side of the home as Hazel drew an antsy breath. Taking diffident steps towards the front door to give it a few knocks before immediately stepping back, her heart thumping like a rabbit’s foot.

What would await her on the other side? A grieving wife and mother? A prejudiced and scornful sister? Both? None of the above? Waiting felt like watching as a nurse struggled to find a viable vein to draw your blood.

She did consider the possibility of them having already left for the funeral. If so, that would be so unfortunate. It’d already taken the will of God himself to step foot on the front porch….

Her heart leapt at the clink of the bolt lock, wiping sweaty palms against her pants leg as another click of the lock opened the front door. Revealing a woman garbed in a deathly black from head to toe, silk blonde strands slicked back into a low bun. Blue eyes red-rimmed in an expression of shock mixed with instant antipathy when she lay eyes upon the little black girl fidgeting with her fingers.

“…m-may I come in-”

“Absolutely not.” Angela’s tongue cut Hazel off like a sharp knife, undertones of hurt in her harshness.

Hazel forced her big brown eyes to make eye contact with Angela’s glistening blue holding back tears, swallowing despite how dry her mouth felt as she willed herself to speak.

“…I-I wanted to ask if…it was okay for me to come to the funeral…” Not to pay any respects to a monster who always treated her as subhuman. But to make peace with a man who can never hurt her again.

As if she read Hazel’s true motives like a book, Angela’s jaw visibly tremored. Almost as if restraint took a mighty effort, cracking in her voice. “How dare you ask me that!”

Hazel’s forehead bunched, shoulders hunching higher.

“Where in heavens have you been!? And why did you run away!?”

Inhaling sharply, Hazel kept herself deceptively composed. Mentally pep-talking herself into speaking her truth. “…because you never protected me from him.”

Angela barked a harsh, erratic laugh, causing Hazel to jump a little before the corners of her bare lips pinched grimly. “You’re saying I’m to blame?!”

Hazel deepened her grimace. “N-No, that’s not-”

“How can you have the nerve to show up here after what you’ve done!?” Angela snarled, her words trembling with rage that could no longer be suppressed. “You killed my only son, and for all I know, you’d found a way to kill my husband, too!”

Such blatant incrimination jabbed the largest, sharpest sword straight into Hazel’s spirit, eyes beginning to brim with pain and deep frustration. Missy managed to remain out of Angela’s sight, trying her best to shush Schumann’s low and ominous growl aimed solely at the dastardly woman.

“How could I have killed my own dad?!” Hazel cried, fresh tears glistening.

“I don’t know, poisoned him?” Angela accused. “I wouldn’t be surprised; you never respected him. You hated him, so you killed him. I know this because you’ve shown exactly what you’re capable of after what you did to my son!”

“How can you even say tha-”

“You mysteriously disappear every time someone has died in this family! Does that not sound suspicious to you?!”

“Do you hear yourself?!” Hazel shrieked, psychologically backed into the smallest corner with no way out. “If I was missing before Anthony died and missing before dad died, then how could a small little kid have kill them!? Does that not sound ridicu-”

Hazel’s head cocked just from the force of a biting, echoing slap to the cheek. The same cheek with a welted scar branded by a man’s wrathful belt.

Missy dug her heels into the grass, clutching on tight to Schumann’s pink collar. Squirming and seething under Missy’s restraint, preventing his impulse to charge and chomp that woman anywhere he could sink his fangs into. Her jaw clenched, reciprocating Schumann’s agitation. She wanted to honor Hazel’s request to let her handle this on her own, but at what cost?

Angela’s mask of stifled rage glared down at Hazel’s stinging tears. Tears that had nowhere else to go but slip down the burning cheek her shaky palm cupped, her brown eyes quivering to her mother’s burning-blue scowl.

“Never could I have seen how big of a mistake I made five years ago…”

Another stab to the chest crossed Hazel’s face, her pained, teary frown staring at Angela who’d lost all empathy towards her own daughter.

“Marcus was right all along…you really are a stain on our family.”

Like a pot of boiling water over a hot stove, the blue flame of Angela’s venom rapidly simmered Hazel’s tears from hurt to anger. Her arms shook at her sides, adrenaline surging through her. Breaking the very chains that’d enslaved her for almost half her life, choosing to no longer hold back.

Finally setting herself free.

“I hate you!” her scream pierced the stillness of the air, the quiet menace of thunder rumbling in the distant background. “I hate Hillary, I hate Anthony! I hate Marcus, and you know what? I’m glad he’s dead!”

Angela’s lips thinned, tremors fuming throughout her body. Glaring with hatred no longer disguised as large droplets of tears fell from Hazel’s eyes blazing with a fiery, unconsolable hatred.

“I hate you! I hate ALL of you! And I wish you all were NEVER EVER my family!”

In anticipating this very wish, the fairy godmother took action. Emitting red sparks from her wand, Nyekundu enveloped everyone into a swirling, disorienting, magical cloud that swept everyone off their feet, sucking them into the unknown…

Brown eyes parted languidly, awakening to the soft glint of light sheening through the sheer cloth of the canopy that framed the four-poster bed of which she lay, enclosed within paneled walls of pastel-blue and chestnut wood washed in natural sunlight. The nightstand beside her bed matched the dresser against the nearest wall, both carved out of 18^th century classic Italian wood painted in the purest white with gold accents.

Hazel sat herself upright, tucked beneath the white and gold quilt in the queen-sized bed that she’d been sleeping in for the last four weeks since making her wish. She brushed a soft hand to her cheek now absent of a raised welt, turning to see the other side of the bed missing a red ferret.  

“…Nee-Nee?” she called out, wondering where her godmother was as she pulled back the covers and shifted her legs out of bed, clothed in a light-green pajama set with a pink heart centered on her chest. Hearing musical notes muted and muffled behind her walls as she scratched at the silk bonnet capping her curls, her bare toes curling from the plush of the sky-blue carpet. Standing to her feet, one step made her chill slightly when the bottoms of her feet met the polished wooden floor, quickly slipping her feet into the fuzzy slippers nestled away neatly beside the bed’s frame.

Rubbing the crust from her eyes, she scanned the rest of the room, taking in the space that was much larger than her childhood bedroom. Looking around at the various toys and two musical cases of which stored a trumpet and the other a violin, all lined neatly along the walls along with a tiny chair and music stand in front of one of the windows drawing in natural lighting through drawn sheer curtains.

When she felt awake enough to move, Hazel resumed her search for her godmother, approaching the only entrance and exit to the room as she turned the knob to the dark-wood door. Opening the door to the hallway stripped straight out of the Baroque period; extravagant, layered, and highly decorated with bronze sculptures, intricate tapestries, and sculpted wood mirrors, moldings, and paneling. She raised her chin to look up to the ceiling painted with prominent figures of Apollo, Orphenus, and Marsyas with The Muses surrounding them, all posed together in multiple portraits that stretched across the entire hallway.

The resonant sing of mellow strings serenaded her ears from down the hall as she began her journey down to the source of the music. Her gaze scanned the various family portraits along the cream paneling, starting with a picture of her. Not a newborn, yet not old enough to walk, cradled in a powder-blue blanket of the lushest velvet. Propped next to a framed certificate of adoption with the name ‘Hazel Ashleigh Crystal Phirman’ inscribed.

Continuing on, she spotted another picture of her, wearing pigtail puffs tied with green beads and a tiny white skirt paired with a yellow shirt, her bright, beaming gap the only visible baby teeth. Too young to truly understand the snapshot sentiment of pictures yet old enough to sit up on the lap of Missy smiling big with her missing front teeth, strawberry-blonde tied back in a short pigtail.

Next to this picture was a full family portrait of Hazel sitting in Missy’s lap, two adults posed side-by-side behind them. Mike smiled wide without his goatee, shaving off twenty years (though it was more like six years judging by her age in the picture.) Beside him was a mysterious woman with the rarest combination of emerald-green eyes and red, wavy hair that reached past her sinched waist, a woman of whom Hazel had no memory of despite the magical alterations to her past. A woman of whom Missy, still to this day, avoided discussing when questioned.

As the resonant sound of the cello amplified indicating that she was getting warmer, Hazel gazed at another portrait with just Mike and the mysterious woman. With a little more stubble around his chin, Mike stood in a casual, hand-in-pocket pose in front of a grand piano with his other hand resting on the woman’s shoulders, her red-hot hair tied back in a low bun with side strands framing her oval face. Modeled in a chair with a cello identical yet a larger model than Missy’s, her lace-sleeve gown matched his designer salmon-pink tux. Her rings of emerald-green crinkled at the corners, her entire face alight with a glow radiating into the camera, through the picture frame.

Along her journey, Hazel saw other portraits taken in recent years, portraits with an obvious void of the mysterious woman, including that of one with Hazel’s closed-lipped grin. Unlike when she was a Wells, there was no foundation lightening her skin, no hot press silking her natural curls straight. Dressed like royalty in a satin sky-blue dress similar to one a young Cinderella might wear, her developing fro in full, proud display and decorated with a bow shaped like a blue butterfly.

Missy wore a similar dress but in pastel-pink, the fabric adorned with mini, silver diamonds creating a starry effect from the camera’s flicker. The trimmed ends of her hair stretched below her back and clipped with a decorative pink butterfly. Her fully ingrown pearly whites beamed at the camera just like her father who stood behind them, fatherly palms rested on both of their shoulders as Missy held a gold musical award in her hands.

“Good mornin’, Ms. Hazel.” a formal baritone thick with the southern hospitality of Georgia led Hazel to shift her eyes towards the top of the stairs. There, a black man with a waxed head in his mid-30s smiled at her through his dark beard, robed in full majordomo butler attire.

“Morning, Mr. Beckles.” she shyly returned as Anthony James “A.J.” Beckles approached her.

“I was jus’ about to come get y’all for breakfast.” he then looked towards the open door that led into the explosion of pink within the bedroom, the eleven-year-old visibly swaying to the beautiful music singing from her cello. “My goodness, she has remarkable talent!”

“Yeah.” Hazel shyly agreed with his compliment, toes curling in her fuzzy slippers. “Um…I can let Missy know breakfast is ready, if you’d like?”

“Oh, that’d be very kind of you.” he gave her the friendliest grin that weakly heated her cheeks. “Thank ya, darlin’!”

She watched him leave past her to knock on the first door to his right, calling for Mr. Michael to come down for breakfast before she turned to peer into Missy’s room that looked identical to her bedroom in Dimmsdale Acres except a bit larger with her own canopy. Spotting her red ferret in perched near Missy, facing the girl focused on the Allemande section of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor as the albino ferret admired her from the music-themed bed.

Schumann’s taffy-pink eyes were the first to notice their newest visitor, leaping off the pillow in his excited scurry over to her. Brushing his body against her leg like a cat as she leaned down to stroke his back fur.

“Hey, Schumann.” Hazel greeted him quietly, though he cut their interaction short when he then rushed over to the red ferret immersed in the music. Getting her attention, Schumann gestured with his paw towards the door where the fairy godmother turned and smiled at her goddaughter as Hazel stepped into the room.

“Morning, Kakao.” Nyekundu welcomed Hazel with her own greeting.

“Morning.” Hazel scooped her ferret into her arms, cradling her to her chest. “How come you weren’t in the room when I woke up?”

“I’m sorry; I did not want to wake you.” Nyekundu admitted. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came in here to pass the time.”

Missy finished the last note of the Allemande, no pause transitioning into the slightly faster pace and intricate bowing of the Courante. Green eyes fixed on the sheet music in front of her as Hazel observed her.

“How long has she been at it?”

“Over an hour, maybe?” Nyekundu guessed. “She was playing when I poofed into her room around six this morning.”

“Hmm…” Hazel remembered leaving Missy’s room to retire around 9:30 last night, and even then, she’d left Missy moving with the cello in the musicality of the notes, just like she was currently. As if Hazel’s departure had been a mere pause button in Missy’s never-ending strive for improvement.

“Man, I dunno how she does it…” Hazel commented as Missy ended on the lowest D whole tone after completing the last D minor arpeggio of the piece.

“Neither do I.” Nyekundu agreed.

Relaxing her shoulders in a low breath, Missy was setting her bow across her music stand when she looked to her right, just now noticing Hazel standing in her room. “Hey, good morning!” she smiled warmly. “When did you get here?”

“Couple minutes ago…” Hazel stepped forward with Nyekundu in her arms. “You sound really good.”

“Thank you.” Missy’s smile wilted slightly with internal judgement. “Still think I could be smoother in certain parts, and some of my passages were a bit pitchy.”

Hazel hadn't heard any notable mistakes, though admittedly, she knew little about the intricacies of the cello. That, and she knew Missy to be a harsh self-critic, even more so than Chloe. “Well, you’re definitely getting there,” she remarked, trying her hand at the whole ‘glass half full’ thing.

“Yeah.” Missy sighed in agreement, setting her cello on its side. “Did you come here to get me?”

Hazel nodded. “Mr. Beckles says breakfast is almost ready for us.”

A loud, grumbling growl rumbled from Missy’s stomach without warning, clutching her midsection with both hands and a sheepish grin. “Well, it looks like I’m ready for breakfast.”

Hazel’s response was a short chortle to Missy’s light giggle.

With Schumann walking close by Missy and Hazel carrying Nyekundu, the two girls descended down the curving steps into the double-height ceiling of the parlor, one wall consumed by a fireplace and bookcases filled with various books on either side of it. Various versions of treble and base cleft acted as decorative elements throughout the parlor, accenting the ornate furniture, rich fabrics, and marbled flooring.

The unwavering love and daring rescue of Beethoven’s Fidelio, his sole opera, sang from the old record player in the corner of the family room, the musical cry for freedom and justice filling the otherwise empty air around them. Hazel sent a short glance towards the polished black of the upright C. Bechstein tucked by the window nook, briefly recalling sounds of Mike plucking away at its black and white keys, whether for an upcoming performance or for his own leisure.

From the old record player to Missy’s cello and Mike’s piano, rarely did the house stay completely silent without the structured, harmonious sounds of artistry. Sometimes, Hazel would add her novice mastery of trumpet and violin in the mix, having been granted the basics of these instruments when her wish had changed her life forever.

Music and home; two words that had become synonymous in Hazel’s world. In just four weeks, a long stretch of silence felt unsettling; music had become something she could anchor herself to when memories of her past tried to drag her three steps back from her two steps forward.

As they entered into the extravagant wood paneling and shining marble tile of the dining room, there were three plates already set on the vintage fruitwood of a table that could sit ten people. Missy picked out two chairs for the two of them, motioning for Hazel to sit in the other chair in which she quietly complied. Taking their seats, Schumann jumped onto the upper thighs of Missy’s skirt as Hazel lowered Nyekundu to rest on her lap. Missy smiled as she sniffed, picking out the sweet note of buttermilk batter and berries.

“Mmmmmmmm…I think we’re having blueberry waffles for breakfast!” she turned excitedly towards her adopted sister. “What do you think, Hazel?”

Hazel dimly grinned as a response, partially distracted with thoughts of how Missy had been like the day to Hillary’s night. Patient, considerate, respectful. Always eager to include her in some way, shape, or form. To make her feel like someone who mattered…

She was still waiting for the day this would all somehow turn on its head.

“Goooooood morning, girls!”

They then heard the boisterous yet warm pitch like a sports announcer greeting his audience, glancing behind their seats. Seeing Mike fully dressed for the day in his navy blazer and dark denim jeans, pacing merrily into the dining room.

“Morning, Dad!” Missy’s lips pulled back in a wide, radiant grin at the sight of her father.

“Morning...” Hazel’s voice came off meek, eyeing him intently as he chose the seat across from Missy.

“How’re my darlings this morning?”

“Fine.” was Hazel’s quiet reply.

“Fantastic!” Missy chirped bubbly. “How are you?”

“Phenomenal!” he chuckled, looking forward to the busy yet fulfilling day ahead.

The Phirman Philharmonics’ performance at the country club had magically opened many local doors; weddings, parties, theatrical productions at the downtown theatre, even corporate events and other social gatherings of the one percent. Opportunities outside of Dimmsdale still prevented themselves, but the number of profitable gigs within Dimmsdale meant he and his daughter no longer had to travel exclusively to sustain the expensive roof over their heads.

He’d been engaged since the last time he’d passed down his skills to a fresh-eyed pupil, and today would be his first day to reignite his other passion; teaching.

“I was just telling Hazel that I think we’re having blueberry waffles!” Missy exclaimed.

Mike smiled fondly. “That is certainly your favorite. Perhaps to commemorate your upcoming debut with the San Francisco Symphony?”

Hazel glanced through her peripheral at the slither of apprehension in Missy’s grin. The Shenson Foundation’s founder had reached out to Mike, formally inviting Missy to participate in their Spotlight Series as the youngest soloist ever featured. Her performance at Davie’s Symphony Hall would feature Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante Op. 125 in E Minor, known to be monstrously difficult even for the most seasoned cellist.

“I must admit; I’m kind of nervous.” she openly expressed. “This’ll be the first time you’re not with me on stage.”

“But Hazel and I will be right there in the audience.” Mike assured. “Plus, this is a great opportunity for you. Give you a chance to spread your wings and fly on your own.”

“I guess.” Missy doubted, giving Schumann’s chin some loving scratches. “I just hope I can live up to expectations.”

“Oh, I know you will.” Mike said confidently. “After all, not every musician gets personally invited to perform with the San Francisco Symphony! Especially at your age!”

The eleven-year-old thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Hazel and Nyekundu watched as Mr. Beckles exited the kitchen, directing the three white men dressed in black tuxes to carry the silver platters and set them atop the trio’s plates. The three butlers then removed the lids to reveal a silver container of maple syrup on the side to go with the golden waffles with blueberries baked into the batter and a garnish of blueberries around the fluffy whip cream scooped in the center, all plucked from the back garden.

“Eeeeeeeek!” Missy squealed, clapping delighted hands together. “It is blueberry waffles!”

Mike’s lips curled into a warm, loving grin. Every time he saw his daughter smile, his wife was revived in his memories. She was so happy, so full of life…

Before everything changed.

Thanking the butlers, Mike set a white cloth on his lap before gathering his silver knife and fork as the butlers also set ice-cold glasses of sparkling citrus beside the plates. Mike and Missy quickly dug into their waffles as Hazel stared at the plate before her, quietly picking up her knife and fork. The Phirmans now had personal chefs like the Buxaplentys, cooking and preparing all the meals. She herself no longer had to slave over a hot stove, no longer had to wait hand and foot on anyone.

Or unintentionally grate on his impatient nerve…

She winced when the sudden flash of Marcus snatching her by the hood pierced a nail into her mind. Stumbling to steady footing as he forcibly spun her to face him, blue eyes bearing hot holes into her.

“Talkback like that to me again, I’ll tear that black ass up!”

“…Hazel, are you alright?” Mike’s concern disrupted one of many bad memories, her brown eyes blinking rapidly.

“Yeah, I-I’m fine…” she stuttered, pretending to not acknowledge Mike and Missy’s watchful glances as she started to cut into her waffle. She didn’t want to do or say anything that could bring out the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Are you two going to check out the Magic Muffins food truck at the park?” Sanjay’s shrill accent asked his only two friends, traversing the emptying school halls towards the bus. Tanned with black hair trimmed in a side part, his plaid-yellow shirt tucked into gray pants looped with a black leather belt that matched his Oxfords.  

“Depends on how Dwight’s feeling.” Elmer nasally replied, carrying his Terry Totter and the Chalice of Fire novel under his arm to make the bus ride home drag less.

“I’m not going.” Chloe sadly stated, her indigo necklace dangling around her neck. “My dad made me cut out sweets.”

“Why?” Elmer asked, curious.

“Thinks sugar could trigger an attack…”

“But is that not what your medication is for?” Sanjay probed.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not cautious…” Chloe sighed, allowing Sanjay to push open the exit doors for the three of them to walk through.

“I can’t wait to try Magic Muffin! So many folks are talkin’ about it! Even pops is taking me!” Chester exclaimed animatedly, a faint bounce in his trot alongside Alvin Jr towards the exit with his olive-green coat covered in patches over his black tee. Unkempt tears in his dark denim jeans, the soles of his old blue sneakers hanging on for dear life.

“These muffins must be legendary if your dad’s going out in public for them.” AJ remarked casually, a notable augmented drop in his voice as the first of their group to have turned eleven at the end of February. Baby-blue sweater vest fitted over a white tee in contrast to his mocha skin, gray slacks footed with black sneakers.

“As long as he wears his paper bag, he won’t freakout too much.” Chester then looked over his shoulder at the bucktoothed boy lagging behind them. “Whadda ‘bout you, Timmy? Are you and Gary gonna show up?”

“My brother’s taking us…” Timmy grumbled, a small crown in the pink fabric of his hat, a green wristband on his left with the tiny lilac on his right.

“Still can’t believe you had an older brother all this time.” AJ commented.

“Same, but that’s so cool!” Chester added, and Timmy loosely shrugged in response.

Walking through the double doors out onto the light, cool breeze and the warm, cloudless skies, Chester was the first to spot the young billionaire sitting alone near the school’s bottom steps, a purple watch visible around his right wrist. “Aye, Rem-dog! What’s the 4-1-1!?”

“Knock it off, Un-Coolio!” AJ groused. For some weird, unknown reason, Chester had been trying to ‘sound cool’ every time they find themselves in Remy’s vicinity. Honestly, it was starting to give AJ a migraine.

“Um…hello?” was Remy’s dull greeting, a flatness in his stare.

“Yo, what’s the dilly wit chu?” Chester made sweeping gestures with his arms in this strange, almost unnatural b-boy stance, making Remy raise a thrown brow. “Lookin’ all down and stizzuff!”

“Stop that!” AJ snapped at him.

Chester clucked his tongue. “Jus’ sayin’, yo!”

Standing on the step above, Timmy lasered a stern glance that Remy instantly matched when he eventually bothered to acknowledge him. Since the blowup at Fairy Fort, Remy knew not to lower his guard around that bucktoothed bastard. The feeling was mutual; Timmy couldn’t stand that silver-spooned snob. How can a kid be rich with a godparent and still be miserable?!

“Yo, it’s tha weekend, homie! Turn that frown upside-down!” Chester continued his odd motions like the worst white rapper in the history of Hip-Hop. “Why you gotta be all sad fo’? That’s wiggedy-wiggedy whack, G!”

“I asked nicely…” AJ groaned, resorting to flicking Chester on the side of his head.

“Ow!” Chester grimaced, massaging the annoying sting on his temple. “What chu do dat for!?”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you; the cool is not for you!” AJ sneered gruffly, then sharply pointed towards the curb with a line of busses onboarding students. “Now c’mon or we’ll miss the bus!”

With AJ stomping off as Chester rubbed his aching ear, Timmy broke his stare on Remy and tucked his hands in his jean pockets, passing him without a word. He followed Chester and AJ, merging into the last crop of students loading their bus.

Remy exhaled jadedly, frowning as he folded arms over his lap. Turner had been the least of his grievances; thanks to his grandparents giving him no objection in the matter, Fridays will now be the worst day of his week. In their narrow minds, he had far too much time to sit around and sulk.

“Buxaplentys are ambitious, well-rounded individuals, always aiming higher than the goal post of their success and many, glorious riches! Buxaplentys are not lazy, unmotivated slobs!” his grandmother had stuffed her opinion down his throat. “You need something else to do besides being useless couped in your room with your even more useless weasel!”

Trailing behind two friends starting their short walk home, Tootie’s teal bracelet added a pop of color to her primarily black attire, carrying her notebook in her descent down the steps. When she noticed Remy, she approached, noting the stifled somberness in his expression. “Are you okay?”

Without looking her way, he let out a low sigh, “I’m fine.”

“Are you guys going to the food truck later on?”

Remy scoffed. “That low-grade garbage? Not interested.” he propped his chin in his palm, pouting. “You should go before you miss your bus.”

Tootie made a light frown, getting the feeling he was pushing her away. She’d been sensing this shift from him lately, and she hadn’t been the only one. A lot of the other kids felt like he was othering himself from them. Even some of the fairies. Remy refused to tell the truth, and Juandissimo would give the excuse that Remy was just having a rough time after some disturbing news.

Part of her didn’t understand; she thought they were all past the point of secrets. And yet, she didn’t push back, though there was a hint of disappointment in her tone. “Okay…have a nice weekend.”

Remy watched as she descended the rest of the steps and avoided drawing attention to herself from other kids, making her way towards the same bus as Chloe and Timmy right as he heard someone sit next to him with an audible pout. He snapped startled eyes to the thousand-yard stare of the most popular girl at school, showing no acknowledgement of his presence. No greeting whatsoever.

A puzzled expression crossing his face, he darted to his left and his right, trying to find the audacity of it all as he then turned back to Trixie’s stare. That was when he figured he might as well say something to get her attention, figure out what the heck she was doing here. “…hello?”

She didn’t bother to look at him, simply saying “Hi.”

He held his stare on her. “…what’re you doing?”

“What’s it look like.”

He stalled, squinting, “Why’re you not on the bus?”

“I don’t take that dirty ol’ bus anymore.” Trixie hissed, irritation in her words. “I’m waiting on my limo like you.”

“…but do you have to wait for it here?”

She snapped a glare at him, cold and deliberate. “I can wait wherever I please.”

“There’s plenty more school for you to take up space.” Remy retorted, and Trixie narrowed her glare.

“Well, I want to take up space right here.”

“But we’re not exactly friends.”

“So?”

“…so, we’ve barely spoken since before Christmas break. It’s March.”

Trixie snorted, crossing her arms defiantly. “Like that has anything to do with anything!”

“You know what? Fine…” Remy was not in the mood for this, snatching his Dior bag from the concrete. “I’ll just sit somewhere els-”

“Wait!”

Restraint grabbed at his blazer’s sleeve, shooting a glare at her beseeching blue eyes.

“Just stay…please.”

“Why should I?”

“I don’t wanna look like a total loser!”

“Don’t see how that’s my problem!” Yanking his arm from her grip, he was about to storm off when she let out a complainant cry.

“They all think I’m lying about the bouncer!”

“What the heck are you talk-” Remy’s sentence was interrupted when he spun around and froze, seeing a solemn gloss in her frown with eyes darting left and right. She shot up from the steps, her gut sinking in embarrassment when the few kids left on campus stopped to send bystanding glances her way.

Her nails dug into her palms, a jagged edge in her hushed tone. “Forget it.”

Flickers of tears flew in her abrupt pivot, white boots stomping off through the green grass in the opposite direction, and Remy’s expression went blank, a stark difference from the annoyance that’d been there just moments before.

Inside the twenty-six golden-rimmed wheels and 100 feet of the limousine stamped with the gold emblem and marked with a red 'B' written as a dollar sign, Remy brooded with arms crossed to his chest, brows furrowed tightly.

“They all think I’m lying about the bouncer!”

“The bouncer…? What about the bouncer?” he breathed the question he didn’t get the chance to ask, his index drumming the top of his sleeve.

For a pampered girl handed the entire world at her fingertips, it took more than a lack of attention to make Trixie Tang cry. Remy only knew this because he himself had never seen Trixie shed a tear. Well…except for the fake tears he’s seen her use to bribe her parents into giving her what she wanted. But for her to tear up in front of him was something Remy couldn’t wrap his head around. And for her to specifically name the bouncer…what could he have done to make her that upset?

“I hope it does not mean what I think it means…” he heard his purple watch mutter out loud, giving him a curious look.

“What do you think it means?”

When he realized the emotional scab that he’d potentially pick at, Juandissimo hesitated, “Never mind.”

“No, say it.”

The fairy stalled, apprehensive. “It could be implicative of something…inappropriate.”

Remy felt his stomach twist at the thought. No, the bouncer wouldn’t dare…would he?

The operated gold-metal doors of the red-bricked gate parted, allowing the limo entry as its tires wheeled carefully along the circle driveway. Remy peered through the tinted windows at the elegant 18^th century estate, the red-brick facing framed with bricks painted white and topped with dark gabled roofing. A plethora of windows lined the walls of the mansion, its stone foundation built atop a tailored lawn that stretched in miles of the lushest green.

Once the limo rolled to a stop, Remy gripped the strap of his Dior bag, spotting Hazel and her red ferret standing on the front steps in anticipation of his arrival. Because the Phirman estate was separated by an acre from the Buxaplenty mansion, they were essentially neighbors.

“Hi there.” Hazel waved to godson and godfather after the driver opened the door for Remy to step out.  

“Hey.” Remy traversed the steep flight of steps, taking another look at the mansion that, while not as large as his, was still grand in its own merit. “You like it here?”

Thinking for a moment, Hazel then shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“How was school?” Nyekundu asked.

“…interesting.” Remy was honest aside from leaving out the incident with Trixie.

Aware that Remy knew their former nanny had lost his life, Hazel’s brows knitted, creasing worried wrinkles between them. “And…how are you?”

It was as if she could see what was left of his warmth chilling before her eyes, the light in his eyes dimming into a darkness that he’d left to fester inside. A darkness trapped away from everyone he didn’t want to see, pinching in his lips as if to keep the shadows from seeping out.

“…managing. Don’t worry about me, okay?” he muttered, flat with no conviction. He picked out the implication in her question, and he wasn’t going to fall for it. He never wanted to talk about him or think about him ever again. He just wanted him to be what he was…dead and gone.

A thin line pinched in Hazel’s lips. Why did he have to close himself off from her, too? “C’mon...” she exhaled, inviting him inside as she led him to the French double doors.

Their steps bounced off the cream paneling within the vast acoustics of the high ceiling and marbled flooring, tapping over the quiet echo of Beethoven’s Für Elise, the popular gentle and lyrical melodies flowing from behind the archway into the family room.

“Crazy that your grandparents are making you do this.” Hazel said casually, her red ferret traveling beside her.

“At least it is only once a week.” the purple watch remarked, grasping at a positive.

“Who knows; it could be something to look forward to.” Nyekundu encouraged, and Remy groaned.

“Or something to dread…”

When they entered the parlor, the clearer notes of the piano moved into the submediant key of F Major, tracing outlines of the themes presented in the beginning of the piece. Remy and Hazel watched Mike’s fingers move along the keys of the C. Bechstein, no sheet of music in front of him. His right hand lingered on the dominant E when his green eyes happened to momentarily look away from the keys, pausing as he caught the watchful eye of his new student.

“Hey there.” Mike smiled in his direction, turning away from the keys. “Ready for your first lesson?”

Remy stood still, squeezing the strand of his bag to where his knuckles blanched. The Buxaplentys, his grandparents, had requested Mike to be his piano instructor. They did so without consulting with him, without asking if he even wanted this, and instead of listening to their grandson’s complaints, they told him to suck it up because he was doing it whether he liked it or not.

“You seem to have forgotten that you are a Buxaplenty.” Frances chided him. “Buxaplentys don’t turn down new opportunities; they take them on with pride!”

“Excuse me…” Hazel stepped backwards, excusing herself to go up the curved stairs.

Heart in his throat, Remy shot her wide eyes with a clenched jaw, silently begging her not to leave him alone with this man. But Hazel could only look back with a sheepish expression, mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry’ as Nyekundu followed her ascent up the steps. It’d been Mike’s request for her and Missy to put the ‘private’ in private lessons; he wanted an hour free of distractions, not just for himself, but for his student.

“Here.” Mike scooted to the side along the bench as Remy snapped his eyes to him, patting the seat in a polite gesture for Remy to join him. “Come sit next to me.”

Remy didn’t budge, rigid in his stare.

“You can’t really play piano all the way over there.” Mike’s joke only furrowed Remy’s brow, squeezing the strap of his bag for dear life.

Mike could feel such potent distrust from across the room, his smile wading into genuine displeasure. “…does something about me make you uncomfortable?”

Remy scrunched his lips, still disinclined to move or be anywhere near a grown man in close proximity. He barely knew him; how was he supposed to trust him?

“I have no other intentions than to teach you piano.” Mike assured, earnest in his expression as he then pointed a finger to the purple watch around the boy’s wrist. “I even give your angel permission to put me in check if I cross a line.”

Juandissimo wrinkled his nose, adverse to the idea of cherry-picked adults having any altered knowledge of his existence as Mike’s confidence returned in his side smirk.

“But I’m certain that won’t be necessary.”

Remy’s glare narrowed, taking a subconscious step back. Creating some semblance of distance between himself and the source of his racing heart.

“If he does try anything, I will protect you.”

Hearing his godfather’s promise, he kept his cautious stare on Mike, trying to put things into perspective. There was no one else around. Just him and a grown man, all alone, though they’d been alone for a while now. If Mike had wanted to do something, he would have done it by now. The only other live being to hold him accountable was his godfather, but if Mike was anything like-

No, he’s not…Remy told himself, pensive. Mike barely looked like the type to hurt a fly. Still, that hunter-green stare of his, waiting so keenly on him to make a move…it gave him the chills.

“I have kids, Remy…two little girls. So, whatever it is you’re thinking…don’t.” Mike’s calmness was tinged with grave sincerity. “Because that is not what this is; it will never be that.”

The young billionaire swallowed back the acidic wave irritating his stomach, grounding his teeth. Just hearing that logic made him feel all the more irrational. Besides, the longer he stands here, the longer this hour will take. And the longer this hour takes, the more crap he’d rather not get from his grandparents about it later…

Mike eyed Remy’s first, wary steps forward, snail-paced strides that were gradual, almost tiptoe. He curved a warm, welcoming grin, patting the small space on the top of the bench reserved for his new student.

Awkward in his approach, Remy removed his bag from around his shoulder, hesitant to lower it beside the leg of the piano. The muscles in his chest stretched like a rubber band beyond its limit with every strained breath he took, scolding himself to just take the stupid seat as he lowered his bottom to the bench’s cushion.

“…thank you.” Mike’s smile did not seem dishonest, doing very little to stop the jitters stabbing Remy’s gut. “Now…” he motioned to the piano, “Do you know what these keys are?”

Slouching, Remy tautly shook his head, hugging himself protectively.

“Of course, not; that’s what you’re here for.” Mike chuckled weakly after another dumb joke to lighten the mood before he went on with his explanation. “Well, while it may look like a bunch of different notes, these white keys are really just seven notes that repeat in the same order.” He then pressed each key, naming them individually as “A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.”

Remy remained silent as Mike pulled a Piano Level 1A Lesson book from the window nook’s ottoman, propping it on the piano’s music desk. Flipping to a page in the Lesson Book that outline a cheat sheet on how to find the notes on the piano.

“We’ll start with the most common hand position on the piano called the C position.” Mike continued. “It’s called this because when I put my thumb here,” he placed his right thumb on the C centered in the middle of the piano “and my pinky here,” with his right pinky falling naturally onto the key four keys above C, “the rest of my fingers line up on the three notes between C and G.”

His ring, middle, and index lowered to F, E, and D respectively, doing the same on the opposite hand starting with his left pinky on C and left thumb on G. With hands in position, Mike looked to his student, grinning. “Makes sense?”

Remy faintly nodded, eyes fixed on the keys. He might throw up if he looked anywhere else.

Mike folded his lips, hoping this wouldn’t make Remy more uncomfortable than he was when he scooted on the bench, motioning for Remy to take his previous place. “Here; give it a try.”

Mint-green danced between the piano and his watch, frozen to his spot.

“C’mon.” Mike nudged encouragingly. “The keys won’t bite.”

After searching for courage from the tender gaze of his purple watch, Remy then inhaled deeply and exhaled, scooting inward on the warm spot on the bench. Swallowing dryly, he slowly lifted the faint quiver in his hands. Resting his thumbs and pinkies for the rest of his fingers to fall in line in the C position, just as his instructor had shown him.

“Good job.” Mike praised. “Now, I’m going to call out notes between C and G, and depending on what hand I indicate, I would like you to press that key with the corresponding finger.”

After Remy gave a short nod of understanding, Mike thought of random notes between C and G for Remy to press that key with which finger was on which note. Whether Mike specified the right or left hand, Remy could identify every key on the first try, pressing with the correct finger. Even when Mike tried to give Remy a challenge by naming two different notes to press for both hands, Remy did so without difficulty or second thought.

Mike was quite impressed; he’d only taught six students in his life, one being his own daughter. Outside of Missy, no child (or adult) possessed the aptitude and coordination that he could already see in Remy, a kid with no prior musical knowledge of any kind.

“Nice going.” Mike grinned, seeing that this concept was easy for Remy to grasp. “You’re a natural.”

Remy’s throat clenched, the sultry croon of a middle-aged nanny penetrating his mind.

"You're a natural..." Fenwick cooed as Remy cringed, remnants of the salty taste still clinging to his tongue. Watching as the nanny tossed the tissue in the trash after cleaning himself up. "I think that deserves a reward."

“Remy?” Mike worried when a disconnect etched into Remy’s stare, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He set a hand on Remy’s shoulder, causing the boy to flinch sharply. “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine.” Remy quickly muttered the first two words he’s spoken to Mike, his words punctuated by another shallow breath. Mike studied him, his stare longer than Remy liked.

“You’re doing great.” he gave Remy a praising squeeze, and Remy winced. “Has anyone ever told you how much of a quick study you are?”

Someone did once, and that person used to change his diapers…

The piano instructor then noticed the skeptical blue-violets of the purple watch. In so many unspoken words, Mike got the sense that he was too close for both Remy and the angel’s comfort. Letting go of Remy’s shoulder, he politely motioned for Remy to scoot back over so he could return to his original seat, and Remy shot him a wary, sideways glance before he shifted along the bench as Mike moved on to the next phase of the lesson.

Chapter Text

“You take the house sorting quiz?” Dwight initiated conversation, wading through the buzzing flock of middle schoolers eager to start the anticipated weekend.

Kevin lightly stumbled when another kid mindlessly bumped into him as they passed, adjusting the strap of his backpack. “Not yet…though I’m almost finished with the second novel.”

Kevin had been eating lunch with Dwight one day when he’d noticed Dwight reading his Terry Totter and the Chalice of Fire novel. After Dwight had explained the main premise of the series, it’d been so intriguing that Kevin thought it would be nice to have something else in common. He’d thought that, if he tried, he himself could become a Totterhead.

“Well…” Dwight chewed his lip over another question to avoid another discomforting stretch of silence between them. “…what house do you like so far?”

“…I kind of like the idea of Slytherskins.” Kevin’s reply arched Dwight’s confounded brow.

“Why?”

“…they’re misunderstood?”

“How are Slytherskins misunderstood?” Dwight quizzed. “They’re always written as antagonists.”

“…that’s why they’re misunderstood.” Kevin deduced, then felt the need to explain when he saw Dwight squint at him. “Um…a lot of folks see Slytherskins as the house of dark wizards and villains, right? But they’re ambitious, cunning, and resourceful…traits that can be oversimplified and sometimes misconstrued as negative.”

“…you got all that just by barely reading two books?” Dwight had to ask.

“…well, why else did the sorting hat want a protagonist like Terry to be a Slytherskin instead of a Griffinsnore?” Kevin meekly challenged. “He had traits more aligned with Slytherskin…including Parseltongue.”

“Yeah, but the hat listened to Terry because his bravery and bold determination made him more of a Griffinsnore.” Dwight corrected.

Seeing Dwight’s point, Kevin didn’t try to dispute. Instead, he switched the hot seat over to Dwight. “…I assume you took the sorting house quiz, then.”

“Yep.” Dwight pushed out his chest in the first spark of esteem he’d felt in months. “Gryffinsnore, confirmed.”

“…makes sense…” Kevin lifted a finger, motioning towards Dwight’s head. “…you sort of look like Terry with that scar on your forehead.”

That small spark instantly dissipated as Dwight slouched, pressing fingers behind the bangs that covered the now faded scar. A sour reminder of the day his tormenter LeRoi and his goons had cornered him and Gary at their bus stop, the day one of the goons named Bradley had forcefully smashed his face into concrete before everything went black…and everything changed.

“…for what it’s worth, um…” Kevin peeped, a faint tint of red spreading in his cheeks, “…I’m glad those bullies can’t hurt you and Gary anymore.”

For what it was worth, Dwight appreciated the compassion that Kevin did not have to extend, combing his bangs back over his forehead. “Uh…thanks.”

As they reached the exit, Kevin pushed the door open for them both, holding it until Dwight passed through. Exiting out to the slight breeze of cloudless skies. “So, I know he has a lot of stuff going on, but…is Gary ever coming back?”

Taking his time down the steps alongside Kevin, Dwight folded solemn lips. The last time Gary had stepped through these halls, both grandparents had been alive and relatively well. Weeks since his grandmother’s funeral, Gary might as well be a ghost. Teachers wouldn’t know the difference, though; why wish for a clone when he could easily avoid any Principal Lewis punishment by wishing to be marked present in his classes?

Of course, this also left Dwight without his best and only friend at this school.

Honestly, Dwight would have been tempted to also wish himself marked present had he not met Kevin who, despite latching onto him like some lost puppy at times, seemed like a nice kid. He wasn’t all that annoying, and he was pretty easy to talk to. Plus, he was the first kid outside of relatives and other godchildren to not judge or mock his epilepsy. Could the same be said if Kevin did not share the same curse?

“…I’m not sure.” Dwight eventually answered, reaching solid ground after stepping off the last step. He hadn’t seen nor heard from Gary in four solid weeks; the only person out of their group who could was his cousin.

“Y’know, Molly used to do the same thing for a while.” the dark-teal medic bracelet mentioned. “Skip school, wish herself marked present.”

“Yeah, but Gary never skips this much just because…” Dwight’s counter hinted at his concern.

“But he’ll come back.” Irving reasoned.

Dwight hummed a low sigh. “I hope s-”

Purple eyes froze in a vacant stare, legs paralyzed in place. Kevin stopped in his tracks as Dwight repeatedly smacked his lips, his hand absently plucking at his plaid shirt.

“…Dwight?” Kevin called to deaf ears. Unfortunate for them, they’d stopped in the middle of other students traveling in various directions. Some simply stared as they walked past, others with their snooping gaze gossiped amongst each about the ‘weird twitchy kid’ as Dwight was often referred as.

“You’re okay, Dwight...” Kevin did his best to ignore the onlookers, gently and slowly leading the wobbly boy by his arm step by unsteady step to the nearest wall beside the school’s stairs for support. “I’m just guiding you somewhere safe, okay? This will pass...”

A few snickers made Kevin look around, seeing other kids pointing and laughing. Mocking the seizure like some entertaining sitcom. As nosy students gathered nearer, their taunting whispers amplified like pesky echoes in his ears. Kevin weakly grimaced, jitters like ants crawling up his skin. He wanted to say something, tell them to mind their business, hating his lack of guts to do so. Granted, he could count the number of spectators on both hands, but the unwanted attention was nerve-racking nevertheless.

Scrambling for solutions, he turned to the dark-teal medic bracelet cuffed on Dwight’s twitching wrist. “Um…d-do you mind finding a way to direct the crowd’s attention somewhere else?” he whispered through the side of his mouth, facing away from the onlookers.

“Uh, yeah, sure…” Irving scanned what he could of their surroundings when he spotted a kid with black hair hiding half his green eyes thick with black eyeliner, sporting a red short sleeve with a silver chain hanging from his tight black jeans. His black converse treaded across the campus grass, headphones over his ears. Blocking out the world around him as a blonde jock spun a basketball on his finger and just so happened to be walking towards his direction.

Thinking he could use this to his advantage, Irving sparked his wand to where the emo kid ‘accidentally’ bumped into the blonde jock, causing him to trip over his footing and fall face first into the grass as the basketball bounced away. The emo kid gawked, dumbfounded as the jock gained his bearings and shot him a daggering glare.

“Hey, fuck you, freak!” The blonde jock shot back to his feet and shoved the emo kid hard on his chest, making him stumble backwards.

“Oh yeah?” the emo kid glowered, shoving the jock in defense. “Fuck you, too!”

Thus, a pointless squabble ensued, drawing the crowd in egging ooohs towards the far more interesting spectacle of the natural enemies, the emo and the jock, wrestling each other over an accidental collision. Irving then used the distraction to poof the three of them behind the school.

“Thank you.” Kevin coyly smiled, Dwight subtly rocking unsteadily beside him.

“No problem.” Irving muttered, part of him wary about using his magic in front of a non-godchild despite having suffered zero repercussions so far.

“I-I’m sorry I keep asking you to do things like this…” Kevin apologized, aware of the fairy’s hesitations.

“Don’t sweat it.” Irving dismissed. “I know you’re just lookin’ out for Dwight.”’

The longest eighty seconds passed before Dwight’s eyes fluttered rapidly in disoriented moans, fuzzy as to how he was now behind the school when he was just by the front steps.

“You okay?” Kevin held him by the shoulder to steady Dwight’s rocky footing. “Hey, you okay?”

“…‘m fine…” Dwight slurred, sinking against the wall to the ground. Bending over as he held his somersaulting head.

“At least this one wasn’t as bad as the one at lunch…” Kevin tried to look on the brighter side, lowering to the ground next to him.

“Or the one this morning.” Irving added as Dwight groaned in his throat, the pit of his stomach cramping with embarrassment all over again.

Not only for the tonic-clonic smack dab in the middle of the hallway before 1^st period, not only for another tonic-clonic right outside the cafeteria, but now for the focal seizure that just couldn’t wait until he was no longer in public for folks to stare at him like some freakshow…

Another soft gust of wind swayed in the strip of black hair atop Kevin’s head as he removed his backpack and unzipped the front pocket to reach inside, retrieving a bottle of Omega-3 gummies with one last gummy inside. Pushing and twisting with his palm to unlock the child-proof closure of the cap, he shook out the last gummy into his palm and held it out in front of Dwight, softly nudging him on his arm before Dwight lifted his head that felt as heavy as his spirits.

“It’ll help you feel better.” Kevin politely offered as Dwight massaged his right temple with two fingers.

“…but you already gave me one…” he groused, monotonic.

Apprehensive at first, Kevin then took Dwight’s left hand, setting the gummy in his palm. “Maybe…you could use another? Give you another break.”

Too drained to argue, Dwight took the gummy and popped it into his mouth, and Kevin’s eyes crinkled at the edges in his faint grin. In conjunction with his current medication cocktail, Kevin’s nephrologist had recommended Omega-3 supplements to help reduce his convulsions. Because they worked so well with him, Kevin had been sharing his supplements with Dwight in attempts to give him the same type of respite from his seizures.

Though not a perfect nor permanent fix, both Dwight and his godfather could not ignore the stark difference the supplements had made. The gap of time between post-ictal and recovery was shorter, and it’d been ages since Dwight’s last grand mal. Supplements that cost no more than $40 a bottle had done more in four weeks than years of costly medications that his epilepsy adamantly resisted.

Still, Dwight didn’t want to rely on false hope. Curses, ones that’ve been in place for a long time, cannot always be eradicated.

. . . . . .

With Terry Totter and the Prison of Secrecy across his lap, Kevin was engrossed in the events of Terry entering the Prison of Secrecy only to encounter Genevie Weasel’s still body and the likes of Tom Marwalo Riddlary, the younger version of Lord Moldywart. Reading quietly in the window seat amidst the bustling and vigorous chatter of middle schoolers in the surrounding bus seats. As the quiet kid in his classes, he’d since mastered the skill of tuning out the chaos to focus. It was always easier to sink into the background and shut out the world when invisible to everyone around him.

From the corner of his reading eyes, he caught a glimpse of something dropping and jerking back up repeatedly, tearing his attention from the world of magic to the dorky ginger beside him. Dwight’s head bobbed and his eyes rolled back, pulling close at separate times in his losing battle with fatigue. Kevin had more or less seen this coming; to everyone’s surprise (even Dwight’s,) Dwight had not slept between his seizures. It appeared that was starting to catch up to him.

Kevin reached to gently tap Dwight’s shoulder which snapped Dwight’s head back from falling again, visible red lines in the whites of his droopy eyes that looked to Kevin gesturing to his own shoulder as if permitting its use as a pillow. His mind too fuzzy to fully process, Dwight lowered his head against Kevin’s shoulder, making his glasses crooked on his face as his eyes drifted shut.

Kevin studied Dwight as he dosed off with his bottom lip hanging gently. It felt so weird to have a friend…a friend he couldn’t be sure saw him in the same light just yet. The things they would find to talk about were either small talk (which Kevin hated with a passion but never complained) or Terry Totter, something that seemed to reignite light in Dwight’s often dark eyes.

At times, it felt like Dwight still kept him at arm’s length when he wasn’t too tired to keep them extended. This is why Kevin willing dove head first into the wizarding world and all its quirks, to craft a stronger connection. He’d been the only kid at school to look past his deformity, to give him a chance. The most precious gems are the hardest to find.

Letting Dwight get some rest, Kevin returned his attention to the written text on his lap, not minding the added weight on his shoulder. Seraphims or not, he was glad to have crossed paths with Dwight. It’d given him a chance to finally make a friend, to build a bond that he otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t build on his own.

About thirty minutes and multiple stops came and went before the bus slowed and turned onto a suburban street, breaking as the driver pulled closer to the sidewalk. Glancing out the window to confirm it was both his and Dwight’s bus stop, Kevin bookmarked the page he was on with the flap of the book’s cover and returned it to his backpack, then shook Dwight’s shoulder to rouse him as the bus screeched to a full stop.

As the only two middle schoolers to offload, Dwight rubbed the last of sleep from his eyes with his backpack slung loosely on one shoulder, and Kevin secured his backpack on his back by both straps, beginning their walk along the sidewalk as the bus slid its doors closed and roared off on its route.

“It’s been a long day for you…” Kevin observed thoughtfully. “Are you gonna take a nap when you get to Elmer’s?”

Feet scuffing the sidewalk as he dragged, Dwight simply shrugged. “Maybe...”

“Or maybe you should.” Irving suggested, and Dwight didn’t bother responding. It was energy-sucking enough walking the block between the bus stop and Elmer’s house.

Speaking of, the house neighboring Elmer’s took on a similar two-story structure, except black shingles roofed the first floor sided in grey brick and the second floor sided in tea green fiber-cement. Complimented with the 1998 silver Corolla parked in the paved driveway that Kevin did not expect to see as they approached his house.

“…mom’s home already…” he breathed, staring quizzically at the car that was normally parked at Dimmsdale Psychology and Counseling Center around this time. Unless…

“…is that not a good thing?” Dwight cocked a brow; wouldn’t most kids like someone to come home to? Sure, he had Elmer and his mom to greet him now, and sometimes, he’d get to say hello to Elmer’s dad depending on his schedule. But...it’d be nice to see his family, have dinner with them. Have them tuck him into bed like they used to…before the diagnosis.

“No, no, i-it is a good thing…” Kevin bumbled, swallowing dryly. “It’s just…i-it could mean that some of her appointments were canceled, or…or she had a rough day. Or both.”

“Oh.” Dwight took slow, backwards steps towards Elmer’s house while trying not to make it seem like none of this mattered to him. He just wanted to be done with this day, but it would be rude to just up and leave the kid. “Well…hope she’s okay.”

Kevin rubbed behind his neck. “…um, thanks.”

“Yep.” Dwight tapped fingers on the side of his jeans, awkwardness lingering the longer he delayed. “Well…uh…seeya.”

“Bye.”

Dwight hastily swiveled and continued towards Elmer’s as Kevin ascended the few steps to his front door, digging in his pocket for his house keys. Once retrieved, he twisted the keys into the slot and turned the knob, barely opening the door when the buoyant flap of noiseless wings nearly tackled him.

“Bulma, hey!” he chuckled, shutting the door as her wings glided around his orbit. Stepping into the calming atmosphere of walls painted in the sage shade of green, white cotton couches and armchairs in the living room, and bakewell oak flooring and end tables. “Did ya miss me?”

Bulma tooted in excitement, extending her talons when Kevin outstretched his forearm as a branch for her to land on.

“…Kevin?” he heard his mother call out from the top landing before descending the stairs. “Is that you?”

“Mom?” he echoed, waiting at the base of the steps with Bulma perched on his arm.

“I’d let Bulma out of her cage to stretch her wings a bit.” Katherine informed, using the light-wooden railing as her support down the stairs.

“That’s fine.” Kevin didn’t mind, though a soft frown crossed his features when she met him on the first floor. “Are…you okay?”

She didn’t respond right away, folding her lips. Hesitation in her hazel gaze that made his stomach drop.

“…mom?”

“I’m fine, honey.” she kneeled to him, giving him an assuring smile. “It’s just…” she reached for his free hand, her thumb lightly brushing his palm. “You remember Ms. Crocker, don’t you?”

He nodded, lips pinched tightly.

“Well, she’d called me about this new food truck at the park called Magic Muffin.”

Kevin’s head tilted to the side; a lot of kids had been talking about it at school. “…really?”

“Mhmm.” Katherine let go of his hand, standing to her feet. “She’d invited us to come check it out, so I’d agreed for us to go.”

Kevin gulped down a lump of spiked nerves, nerves that his mother’s crestfallen features could sense just by the antsy in his eyes.

“I’m sorry it feels like I’d just sprung this on you; she’d only just called a couple of hours ago.”

“I-It’s okay…” he squeaked, anxiety threatening to compress against his chest. “Is…that why you’re home early?”

“Ms. Crocker had also wanted us to come over a little early to spend some time with her and her son. I’d told her I needed to run some errands first.” she pointed to the backpack on his back. “How’re you doing on your Omega-3s, by the way?”

“Um…” Kevin shifted his feet, holding up the extended arm that started to burn as Bulma ruffled her chest feathers. “…I ran out.”

“I was going to buy you a new bottle.” she admitted, holding out her sleeve. “And perhaps a bottle for your new friend, too.”

Spreading her wings, Bulma took off in a short yet smooth glide, landing noiselessly onto Katherine’s sleeve as Kevin lowered his arm, blinking slowly. Guess it’d been obvious that he’d been sharing his gummies without him mentioning anything to her.

“…r-really? Thanks, mom.”

“Of course.” Katherine scratched Bulma under her neck feathers, squinting Bulma’s turquoise eyes contently. “We’ll take Bulma with us to the store, that way we can just head on over.”

Kevin’s heart sped up, thumping against his ribcage, “…w-we’re bringing Bulma?”

Katherine gave her son a warm smile. “Ms. Crocker already said it was okay for you to have another familiar face around if it can help make you more comfortable.”

“… w-what about Bulma?” his voice tightened from the hard, rapid pulse in his throat. “W-What if they both don’t like her?”

“Bulma’s too cute not to like.” Katherine remarked lightsomely, and Bulma emphasized this with the sweetest twitter. “Besides, Denzel had two birds before the raven he has now. They’re kind of his thing.”

“…b-but what if he doesn’t like me?”

Empathy drew her brows together, speaking with careful tenderness. “Denzel hasn’t been in a good place mentally. Just…try not to take it personally if he’s a bit…stand-offish.”

Kevin winced, gripping the straps of the backpack he had yet to remove. “…so, should I call him Uncle Denzel or Mr. Crocker?”

Katherine stalled as her arm felt lighter once Bulma took flight, her graceful wings gliding about yet near her owners’ vicinity. “Whatever you’re comfortable with for now.”

“A-And what about Ms. Crocker? Do…I keep calling her that?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“But what if-”

“Kevin…” his mother’s hazel eyes grew tender, inching forward instinctively to hold him by his stiff shoulders. “I know you’re worried, and there is nothing wrong with that. But try not to stress, okay?” A reassuring smile warmed her whole face, compassion in her voice. “Everything will be fine.”

Though he nodded in understanding, Kevin’s heart felt on the verge of darting out of his chest. He wanted to believe his mom was right, that everything will be fine. He’d technically already met his half-uncle, but that’d been when his uncle was heavily medicated and hooked to a bunch of machines. He didn’t know Denzel, and Denzel didn’t know him. All it ever took was one first glance for people to decide not to like him.

Rays of midday sun bathed the blue-grey building in its tepid light, bold red letters of ‘Wall 2 Wall Mart’ mounted along the slab wall. The platinum blonde entered through the glass wall of the singular entrance into the discount department store, observing her father’s baggy eyes skimming their grocery list in one hand as he muffled a long yawn with the other.

“Um…dad?”

Clark stifled another yawn as he grabbed a cart from the rack. “…yes, honey?”

“Have you been sleeping?”

Pushing the cart past the anti-theft sensors, he gave her a brief glance, wanting to omit the truth yet opposed to the idea of lying to his daughter. “…why do you ask?” he responded with a question instead.

“Looks pretty obvious…”

Chloe had observed her father’s sleeping patterns (or lack thereof) that’ve progressed ever since the loss of his wife. When she’d come out of the hall bath after her nighttime routine, she would find him awake in his bedroom with the door open. No lights, curtains closed, thousand-yard stare, one with the darkness atop his bedsheets. Admittedly, it’d creep her out, yet questioning him always led to ‘Just a lot on my mind; I’m fine. Go get some rest.’

When she’d freshen up for school, he’d already be gone for work, and on weekends, she would find him just leaning on crossed arms over the kitchen counter. Eyes red and unfocussed, lost in thought. She would watch him from behind a wall, where he couldn’t see her right away, because the moment she’d enter his line of sight, he’d tap his cheeks and put on a perky mask to wish her good morning.

As the weeks dragged on, however, that mask of his wore thinner and thinner. She could see right through the simulated smile that’d weakened overtime, yet denial was not just a river in Egypt.

“Look, I’m alright.” he excused with a chuckle that sounded forced, coupling this with a tired grin. “The real question is, have you been sleeping?”

There he goes again; switching the spotlight off him and onto her. “…kind of hard not to…” she groaned, slouching slightly. “Not as bad as the Lexapro, but I still feel tired sometimes…”

While the Paxil and Klonopin had not been as difficult to adjust to as the Lexapro, bouts of drowsiness would rear its ugly head. There was one instance when she didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until the teacher had called her out, in front of the entire class, for failing to answer his question on who’d started the war of 1812. Afterwards, everyone wouldn’t stop staring at her…that couldn’t have been more embarrassing.

There was also the time Sanjay had been talking about the brutal military drills his stepfather had put him through, and all of the sudden, her mind just drifted into this empty void. She didn’t snap out of it until Sanjay literally snapped his fingers and jolted her out of her stupor, and she’d realized she’d accidentally doze off in the middle of Sanjay venting to her. He’d been understanding enough to not hold it against her, yet she felt more horrible about herself than she already did…

During this adjustment period, her dad couldn’t let her stay home from school; he was their sole income, so he couldn’t call off work, yet he didn’t want her to be alone in the house. If that hadn’t been bad enough, she couldn’t make a wish to not need sleep. According to Susie, all sleep wishes had to go through the Sandman first. She couldn’t even wish to not be so tired all the time because even that was technically wishing to not need sleep and thus counted as a sleep wish…

At that point, Chloe had no energy to go through the hassle of loopholes and had just accepted her doom. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Wahlgren, had advised to allow several weeks of taking the low dosage as to give the medication time to see full effects, but why did it have to take like four weeks just to barely pass as functioning?

“Well, maybe the supplements Dr. Wahlgren suggested will help.” Clark hoped as she followed him towards the pharmacy section.

Scanning the vitamin aisle, Clark searched for Omega-3 and Vitamin D. Supplements that his family lowkey would have benefited from ever since becoming vegetarian, supplements that Connie had never believed in, believing them as placebos with insufficient studies of being as beneficial as most say they are…

Clark shook his head, stopping himself from spiraling down the troubling memory lane of his late wife, slowing the cart when he came across the Omega-3 section. He browsed at all the different variants and brands of the same vitamin before he felt a fevered tug on his khaki shorts.

“Dad, look!”

“What?” When he followed the direction of Chloe’s point, he froze. Not even three feet away was the lanky boy standing next to a tall, slender woman. Her eyes, a beautiful blend of brown and green, were looking through the other selection of Omega-3s. He watched as her fingers tucked a strand of smokey-black hair with an indescribable grace, those same fingers then reaching for the gummy version as a two-ton weight dropped in the pit of his stomach.

“…should we say hello?” Chloe asked her father. Clark stalled, clearing his throat.

Hearing said clearing throat, the ten-year-old glanced in that direction as his mother grabbed two bottles of Omega-3 gummies and placed them in her carry-out cart. First noticing Chloe acknowledging him with a small wave that he timidly returned, followed by Clark’s fixed stare that, though somewhat intimidated, also waved to.

“Honey, who’re you waving at?” Katherine asked her son when she’d seen Kevin’s hand moving, and when she’d turned to see for herself, realization made her stop in her tracks. She saw him fold his lips in a firm, hard line, and his staring shades of forestry depths held this conflicted uncertainty. More than the bitter conviction he’d spited her with from whence they’d last met.

“…h-hello, Mr. Carmichael. Hello, Chloe.” she courteously greeted them through the strain that’d suddenly made speaking difficult.

“Hello.” Clark clipped as Chloe waved.

Katherine tucked another strand behind her ear with a closed-lipped smile. This was not on her bingo card of today’s events. “…how have you two been?”

“One day at a time.” Clark said matter-of-factly with Chloe nodding in agreement.

She studied his narrowed gaze and the physical distance he kept between them. Almost like his fist was squeezing the guilt in her heart all over again. “I…want to apologize again for what happened-”

“Save it.” he spat dismissively. “Already heard it once.”

“Dad…” Chloe frowned to her father, disappointed. Kevin looked up to the regret glistening in his mother’s eyes, regret that then painted on a smile.

“Well, it’s…still nice to see you two and…” she made a short gesture towards Chloe, “…it’s nice to see Chloe doing a bit better.”

With no change in his stiff expression, Clark shifted his cart and simply walked away. Chloe furrowed at her dad before she met Katherine’s rueful gaze.

“…I’m so sorry, Chloe.”

“No, I’m sorry, Dr. Katherine...” Chloe had wanted to tell her this for the longest time. “I caused so much trouble that day....”

“Oh, no, don’t apologize, sweetheart.” Katherine stated, disheartened. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was.” Shame bowed Chloe’s neck. “None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for my-”

“Chloe, come on!”

Chloe jolted from her father’s sharp command, lips twitching in her grimace. She turned to Clark’s daunting glare, her legs tense enough to faintly tremor.

“Go on with your dad, sweetheart.” Katherine told her softly, and Chloe sent one last glance at Katherine’s grin, friendly yet pained with remorse. Sorrow weighed down on her as she waved to Kevin of whom returned the gesture, pivoting to scurry off to catch up with her dad as he refused to look back at Katherine’s lamenting stare.

The air around them was thick with this discomforting quiet as they exited the pharmacy section onto the main aisle, Chloe’s fingers seeking out her indigo necklace as anything they could hold onto. She eyed Clark’s clenching grip as he pushed the cart along, fearing she’d upset him further. But after their run-in with Dr. Katherine, she had to ask, “…are you still holding off on putting me back in therapy?”

Clark glanced down at her sideways. “…I’ve been thinking about it.” His tone lacked warmth, looking out as to not bump into other shoppers. “Your Paxil and Klonopin side-effects seem to be wearing off.”

Chloe bunched her chin, fiddling with her indigo necklace. “…and you still want to look into other therapists?”

Clark gritted his jaw. He had already expressed his grievances about the consultation mishap after Chloe had been discharged from the hospital, and since then, she hadn’t brought the sensitive subject back to the surface until now.

“Do you think you’re ready for therapy?” he calmly queried her, and she paused. If she went back to therapy, what if another disaster happens? Could she trust this medication to keep her from freaking out again? Even if she couldn’t, she’d promised her dad that she would take her mental health seriously. The longer she held off going back, the longer it’ll take to fix everything wrong about her.

“I-In that case…” she forced herself to make eye contact, her jaw tense. “Then…why can’t I go back to Dr. Katherine?”

“I already told you.” Clark grumbled. “She was no good for you.”

“…b-but it was barely a session!” she blurted out. “I-Is it really fair to judge-”

“You had a seizure in her office, Chloe!” resentment colored his words, and deep regret glossed her baby-blues.

“Because it was my fault for getting so worked up-”

“Chloe!” Clark sharpened his gaze, his tone like steel wrapped in velvet. “It was not your fault.”

“But Dad-”

“Therapists are supposed to help patients get better, not make them worse. And she almost killed you.”

“No, she-”

“Chloe, you are not going back!” he put his foot down, harboring a few antsy glances from passing shoppers. “End of discussion!”

Her lips crimpled as she scrunched between her brows, deflated as she quavered “…yessir.”

Throughout the remainder of their shopping trip, she kept her lips sealed. Trailing behind her father who had also maintained his silence, their strain too potent to spark up a different topic of conversation. Even after they exited out onto the parking lot on the way to the Jeep Wrangler, Chloe and Clark carried their plastic bags in wordless thought. His mind preoccupied with more extensive research on trusting the credentials of therapists, and her thoughts plagued with guilt on how her father punished someone else for her own downfall.

They were about to pass by a silver Corolla when the sense of someone (or something) watching her shot chills up her spine, and her conscience led her to see a pair of large, turquoise eyes lasered on her from the Corolla’s back window.

Halting her steps, she audibly gasped at the owl in her cage, the same Great Grey from Dr. Katherine’s office. Baby-blue locked with turquoise as Clark’s divided attention soon realized that his daughter had stopped following him, starting to ask why she’d stopped when he then saw what had caught Chloe’s eye.

With his eyes on her, the Great Grey snapped her gaze from Chloe to her father as turquoise glitters went alight, shimmering and swirling within her irises. Noticing this, Chloe’s head whipped to her father where those same turquoise glitters spun in Clark’s hunter-green. Eyes captured in a blank, paralyzing trance as plastic bags dropped from his loosened grasp, splatting in a thump onto concrete.

“…Dad?” she stepped towards him. The pulse between her ears echoed faster when he didn’t answer her, his lips agape in a mute O. “Dad?!”

Seconds passed like minutes before the sparkles dissipated, his stare once vacant fluttering rapidly as he shook his head. “W-Wha, I….?” he uttered hoarsely, pressing a palm to his forehead. Vertigo swaying his footing as Chloe hurried to balance him by grabbing onto his arm.

“Dad, are you okay?!” Chloe asked him, distressed.

Dazed and confused, Clark looked back to the non-blinking stare of the Great Grey, his mind drawing a complete blank. “…what was I doing…?”

“We were walking to the jeep…” Chloe worriedly reminded, letting him go to retrieve the grocery bags that he’d dropped. “Do I need to call someone?”

“No, I’m fine…” he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince his anxious daughter, blinking away the dizziness. Y’know what? Maybe a nap when they get home wasn’t such a bad idea. “C’mon...”

As his subtle limp continued on to the jeep that was five cars down, she looked back towards Bulma once more, seeing the owl glued right on her before she left on her father’s trail.

Back at the brunette shingles and yellow-bricked home of the Carmichael residence, Chloe hugged her knees atop her rose duvet, having shut herself within the pink walls of her room while her father was on the living room couch getting the sleep he certainly needed. The bottles of Omega-3 and Vitamin D that she and her dad had eventually gone back for stood beside the prescriptions of Paxil and Klonopin, all lined neatly along her nightstand beside the booby bird cage.

Eyes downcast, she’d spent however long since returning home mulling over what’d transpired in the parking lot. When they’d gotten to the jeep, Clark had sunk into the driver’s seat, slinking an arm over his droopy eyes. Saying he only needed a minute when three minutes had past and he hadn’t moved, lips parted in quiet, rhythmic breaths. He was clearly in no position to drive, so Chloe had to wish them home to safety.

Troubled grooves crinkled in her forehead; what had Bulma done, and why did she do it?

Laying on her back on the other end of the bed, Susie held her phone in the air, continuing to text a certain blue-eyed Hispanic fairy. “How do you throw a space party?” she sent him, and when he’d responded with a simple question mark, Susie then typed “You planet.”

Alondro’s response of “Eso es terrible,” tickled her as she softly giggled, having been around her fair share of Magnificos long enough to translate. In return, she responded with “Hater.”, and she watched the pending text bubble with anticipation.

Alondro: “What do you call la niña with one leg that is shorter than the other?”

Susie: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Alondro: “Ilene.”

Pausing to process, Susie snorted out loud when it finally clicked, startling the pensive girl in the process as baby-blue shot up.

Susie: “And you call mine terrible.”

Alondro: “Because it is.”

Curious, Chloe lifted her chin from her knees, “…hey, Susie?”

Susie lowered her phone to her chest, tilting her head towards her goddaughter. “Yeah, Chlo-bird?”

“…what’re you doing?”

“Just texting Londro.” Susie’s casual response cocked one of Chloe’s brows.

“…Alondro? Really?”

Susie’s indigo eyes darted left to right before settling back on Chloe. “…is that such a shock?”

“Well, I just thought he was busy with Gary is all...” Chloe commented, shoulders slumped. It’d been a while since everyone found a reason to get together. Seemed like everyone had their own lives…

“He has free time here and there.” Susie clarified, leaving out the detail that Alondro mostly texted her after Chloe goes to bed.

The fairies had their own group chat, mostly to stay connected and keep in touch with any quick updates. But one night, Alondro had randomly started a separate texting thread that’d included two parties…himself, and her.

It’d started with a simple “Hola” which had caught her off guard, considering how they had not spoken to each other outside of the group since the Council’s realm. She didn’t know about him, but she’d never forgotten their kiss. Not once, but twice. And yet, they’d never spoken about it since. Not in casual conversation, not in passing, nothing.

So, it had come as a weird shock that he would start a chat with her out of the blue. Nevertheless, she decided to play along with a “…hello?”

“What do you call a Spanish pig?” he’d texted her.

“Uh…I dunno, what?” she’d humored him.

To this unusual question, the answer was, cheesy enough, “Porque.”

The way in which Susie nearly choked on her own laugh, the wheezing kind that makes your gut clench, it’d made her abs cramp holding it in just to keep from waking Chloe. She’d texted him back with something along the lines of “You corny for that” to which he responded with “But did you laugh?” and thus marked the beginning of their arbitrary pun war.

Weeks had gone by with no deep conversations, staying up to three hours past their godchildren’s bedtimes in their punny back and forth. On occasion, he would text her during the day. She figured this was like his own little break from all the heaviness going on in the Turner/Vladislapov household, so she'd never questioned it.

When Chloe blew out a low sigh, Susie noted the gloom in Chloe’s eyes, sitting up as she closed her phone. “Would you like to talka ‘bout it now?”

Chloe nodded, and Susie floated over to sit beside her goddaughter, wrapping one arm around her as Chloe leaned into her comfort by resting her head on her godmother’s shoulder.

“I don’t like how upset dad is at Dr. Katherine…he should be upset with me.” Chloe expressed what’d been gnawing at her spirits for the last hour. “It was my fault the session went so bad…”

“I think your dad just wants what’s best for you, even if his logic might be a little skewed.” Susie remarked. “But Chloe, you shouldn’t put all the blame on yourself.”

Chloe frowned. “Why shouldn’t I? It was my stupid tantrum that caused this…”

“Chloe, don’t call your panic attacks tantrums.” Susie tenderly reminded. “Those are two different things.”

Chloe shrugged one shoulder, seeming to lack the energy for both, “…but that’s what they are.”

“Is this your mother talking, or you?” Susie probed, and Chloe bit down on her lip. She hadn’t discussed this with anyone, not even with Dr. Wahlgren, but the instant she’d started her medication was the instant her mother’s voice had just…vanished. Then it’d dawned on her…perhaps it had never been her mother’s voice to begin with. Perhaps…it’d always been her own voice disguised as her mother.

“I don’t know…”

Three door knocks disrupted the still air. “Chloe?” they heard Clark’s voice from behind the door, lackluster and husky as if it had not been long since he’d woken up. “May I come in?”

Susie’s wand swiftly shifted the fairy into an indigo booby bird perched in her cage before Chloe hesitantly replied “Uh…s-sure.”

Twisting the knob, Clark’s finger had just finished scrubbing off eye crust as he opened the door.  Chloe straightened her posture as he carefully lowered himself to sit at her bedside, raking a hand through his hatless hair tousled at the ends.

“Do you feel better?” she inquired, eyeing him intently.

“Sort of…” he admitted, crossing arms over his lap.

“Then…what’s wrong?”

After a long pause, a heavy sigh blew past his lips. “Y’know, I never did like being wrong, but…” he turned his neck to face her. “What’d happened at the store…you were right.”

Chloe blinked, boggled at the inclination of being right about something. “…I-I was?”

“You were right about Dr. Katherine…” He specified, earnest with his words. “…it’s not fair to judge a book that I’ve barely started reading. So…if you want…I can see about setting something up with her.”

As the indigo booby bird cocked her head to the side, puzzled creases formed in Chloe’s brows. Had Bulma not been in the parking lot, would her father still have this change of heart?

Chapter Text

His feet traveled assuredly, one in front of the other. Following the trail of past footprints forever marked within the white sand. The denim hems of his bell-bottoms gathered sandy grains before he then stepped onto the wooden plank of the private walkway, strolling the familiar path towards the crop of two-story homes. Neatly spaced into one row overlooking the water’s gulf glistening with tones like rich jewels.

His legs moved on auto pilot along the treated-pine planks aged in sand and algae, approaching the infamous beach house which beset him greatly. Its concrete siding light as Summer’s blue, a foil to the deep blue darkened within his heart. When he stepped onto the wooden front deck and loomed towards the Huntington door coated in the purest white, his feet stood in a troubled pause. He’d been here many a times before, why did he keep coming back?

He’d already sought what he’d once thought was lost, only to realize it never wanted to be found.

“Why aren’t you going up to the door, sweetie?” he heard his pink parrot on his left shoulder question, sending her a puzzled stare. “Don’t you want to?”

The ten-year-old frowned behind his round glasses. If he was here again, then something must want him to relieve this insanity, even if not by choice. He always found himself coming back to the scenario that played out the same. Was he to expect a different ending outside of getting rejected by the other half of his existence?

“Of course, he does!” his green parrot chirped from his right shoulder, switching his attention towards the parrot’s wide grin. “That’s how this works!”

Little did the trio realize, things were about to go off script.

Before the boy could press the familiar doorbell, they all heard footsteps of a tiny human through the walls, pattering their way towards the door. After a clank of the deadbolt and the click of the doorknob, the door creaked open. Not to a beach-tanned woman with hazel eyes, golden wavy locks, and curves most men would die for, but to a little girl maybe two years his junior with round cheeks, hazel eyes, and smokey-black hair tied in a high pony with the biggest pink bow, matching her overall dress with white turtleneck underneath.

“Hi! I’m Katherine!” the little girl introduced herself to visitors that her bright smile appeared to expect. “You’re Denzel, right?”

“…yeah.” Denzel said as if unsure, the cogs in his mind twisting and turning in their attempts to remember how to speak. He was certain they’d already met, but…not directly like this.

“Nice to meet you!” she beamed at him cheerfully, and he blinked at her, nonplussed.

“…you’re my half-sister…” he breathed past his parted lips. Why was she here instead of her mother? Or their father?

“Yep!” Katherine seemed unbothered by the detour from the norm, pointing her index to the two oddly-colored parrots on his shoulders with glee. “And those are your pink and green angels!”

Denzel stared, confused at the reference to his fairies. Confused that they’d been acknowledged at all. “My…what?”

“Your angels!”

Just as Katherine’s excitement squealed those words, a swirl of teal clouds shimmered from both shoulders, enveloping his pink and green parrots in a magical ascent. Denzel took a step back, gawking as they hovered into the air with a luminant brightness around them. Katherine’s hazel eyes sparkled in delighted admiration, eyebrows rising along with her smile as the parrots glimmered in an angelic, almost blinding glory.

And Denzel stood unblinking, trying to process the shimmering sight before him as the only words he could conjure escaped in a low whisper…

“…Cosmo and Wanda…”

Eyes dulled in the bluest grey parted to the dingy ceiling above, blurred behind poor vision. Barely lifting a finger, he patted his sluggish hand along the crimpled sheets of his bed in search for his black specs, adjusting them to his face once retrieved. Glints of yellow rays pierced through the lone window of his room, casting shadows along the olive-green walls. Walls once littered with stars and crown posters and hand-drawn maps of imaginary worlds, now as empty and void as his withered stare.

Katherine, the half-sister who’d barely entered his life, often appeared in one of his most reoccurring dreams. This time, however, was in a way he didn’t expect. Tiny glimpses of her as a child merely brushed his hazy memories, yet she stood out so vividly in this specific dream.

Denzel pursed his scruffy brows together. Those pink and green parrots also stood out, parrots that he’d already forgotten the names of. Ghosts of a past he could barely recall, haunting every dream he’s had since awaking from his coma. Part of him wanted to believe they were the spirits of Carlos and Wilma, his beloved birds currently rotting in shoe boxes buried in his backyard. But another part of him questioned why a green parakeet and a pink galah would appear as two parrots; that made no sense.

[Pleasant dream?]

His eyes half-rolled to his own voice in his head, well aware that those were someone else’s words penetrating his thoughts. He tilted his head to the birdcage beside his bed, the cage once occupied by Carlos and Wilma that had become the new home of a certain lavender-eyed raven.

Four weeks had passed since she’d practically barged her way into his room, and never did she bother to leave since. Not even when Denzel had tried (and failed) to kick her out.

“Y’know, when you’d said you were connected to me, I didn’t think literally.” Denzel grumbled, monotone.

[You cannot be trusted alone.] Parisa’s eyes sparkled in her statement, the bluntness of her words making the middle-aged man scoff.

“Oh, is that it? You won’t leave because you think you control me?”

[You will not see the value in my existence until you can see the value in your own.]

He squinted at her, cynical of her words, “…just what are you getting at-”

A knock on his door interrupted them. He mustered the energy to lift his head as the twist of the knob led to an elderly woman appearing behind the door, short and stocky in stature. Soft in her small smile, sadness tucked behind her aged eyes.

“Hi, honey. Just checking on you…you’ve been sleeping a lot today.” she expressed, her former overly-enthusiastic demeanor quelled by a taxed mother’s worry for her only son. A son plagued with inner demons that nearly stole him from her.

“Just tired, mother…” Denzel muttered sourly as he plopped his head back to his flattened pillow, pinching his nose bridge. She’d never understand what it’s like for sleep to be his only relief. “What do you actually want…”

He couldn’t see the faint pout in his mother’s lips, nor did she want him to. She could feel his arm’s length distance towards her, feel his dismissal of her efforts in trying to be a better mother. She’d felt this for weeks, yet she kept her true feelings inside. Just give him time, she would tell herself, often repeating Katherine’s words. You still have a chance to be what Denzel needs; keep trying until he believes you.

“…I want you to freshen up.”

Denzel had to snort at that. “Why, because I smell like death?”

“Because Katherine and Kevin are on their way over.”

Denzel’s stare froze as if awaiting further clarification, slowly blinking when none came as he sat himself up in bed. “… as in right now?”

Dolores watched the bedsheets slide down his torso, his pale skin seemed to stretch thinner around prominent ribs. Her lips distorted into a grimace, pained by what she saw. Her little boy was disappearing right before her very eyes, figuratively and literally.

“Yes.” She folded her lips after the crack in her voice slipped, clearing her throat as she blinked her tears back. “I’d invited them out to the food truck at the park, and I’d wanted us to all go together.”

There was a subtle, almost skeptical crease in his gaze to her. Something about her felt off, but he was too irritated by such unexpected news to care, “…and you’re just now telling me this, why?”  

“Because you were asleep and I didn’t want to make you grumpier by waking you up.”

…touché. “Ugh…fine.” he groaned, slouching as both hands raked his face. “Give me a few minutes…”

“Alright…” Dolores chose not to say more, taking her exit while he was level enough to reason as she left the door cracked upon her somber exit.

Yanking back the covers, Denzel planted his bare feet to the wooden floor, sighing as bony fingers raked through the stringy hair that had gone days since the last wash. He could recall his mother telling him how Katherine and Kevin had been at the hospital when he woke up. She had to tell him this because of how out of it he’d been at the time; he barely remembered her being in the room with him let alone anyone else.

Since then, Katherine’s schedule had been tied up between caring for Kevin and her growing list of therapy patients which, to his somewhat surprise, were children. Personally, he saw little value in trying to understand the wacky, juvenile, supercilious mind of a child. Though this was the opinion of someone who’d dealt with twenty-plus kids in one setting eight hours a day verses getting paid a higher salary to deal with one-on-ones up to one hour per kid per week.

Still, this would technically be their first re-acquaintance in over thirty years. That as well as his first official meeting with a kid that, apparently, was a miniature version of him. Still would’ve been nice to get a head’s up sooner. His limit for human interaction dwindled more and more the longer death refused to claim him.

Wiping his face, he looked over at Parisa, eyeing him intently from her cage as if her favorite pastime. He huffed under his breath and stood to his feet, trudging to his dresser. Guess it was time to make himself look human for the first time in weeks.

. . . . . .

The ‘98 silver Corolla pulled onto the old cracks along the driveway, parking behind the black van with tires that looked as if they despised air pumps. Mother and son gazed upon the dilapidated house; while not their first view of the home, Katherine took special note of the cracks within the cracks siding the white walls and some of the red shingles of the roof hanging on by a nail. Not to mention the detached garage door and what passed for a front lawn swallowed in tall grass as if Earth was reclaiming what was rightfully hers.

Anyone else would think these homeowners were lazy, unkempt slobs who don’t believe in cleanliness. But to the mind of a psychologist, this seemed like a metaphorical mirror to lack of self-care and a fleeting sense of control over one’s life.

“Kind of looks like a haunted house…” Kevin remarked from the backseat, grabbing the Great Grey’s cage by the handle.

“Well, just don’t tell them to their face, okay?” Katherine’s intent was word of caution, but the grated edge in her inflection carved a subtle frown in Kevin’s features.

“I know, mom. I was just saying…”

Hearing the defeat in her son’s murmur, Katherine pressed her head back against the headrest, shutting her eyes briefly in a guilted sigh. She didn’t mean to come off snappy; she’d only had a fifteen-minute silent car ride between Wall 2 Wall Mart and the Crocker residence to process the discomforting exchange with the Carmichaels.

“I know, honey…” she turned in her seat to meet his downhearted eyes, genuine in her expression. “I’m sorry.”

Kevin pursed his brows, mostly upset with himself. Why does he say the wrong things at the wrong time?

“We should get going…” Katherine resolved somberly, removing the keys from the ignition. “They’re expecting us.”

Nodding tersely, Kevin opened his back passenger door, following his mother’s lead out of the car. Bulma surveyed her new surroundings through the metal bars of her cage, instantly detecting the divine presence of a fellow being with magical prowess beyond that of winged creatures with wands.

As they neared the front door, they were halfway along the stone path when the bolt lock audibly clicked. The door opened to silver curls and a toothy grin that, to Katherine, resembled someone hiding the darkest pain through the brightest smile.  

“I’m so glad you could make it!” Dolores welcomed them in their approach.

“Thanks again for inviting us, Ms. Crocker.” Katherine bent her knees to give a friendly hug that Dolores willfully accepted.

“Oh, please! You know you can call me Dolores!” Dolores patted Katherine’s back in their embrace, giving her an extra squeeze before pulling away. “And you’re very welcome.”

Though life often got in the way of in-person visits, Dolores and Katherine had been keeping in touch over the phone. Discovering shared commonalities and relatable stressors, both as single women and single mothers. Compared to their first meeting that had been on less than solid grounds, they have sense strengthen the foundation of a connection. Katherine could tell Dolores trusted her more, and she was grateful to act as a confidant. Their conversations certainly alluded to the poor woman having no other listening ear.

“…h-hi, Ms. Crocker.” Kevin shyly waved beside his mother’s legs, latching onto Bulma’s cage with one hand.

“Oh, hello!” Dolores reached to welcome the mini-Denzel with an affectionate hug akin to a mother bear unaware of their own strength. “It’s so wonderful to see you again!”

A tiny yelp of surprised escaped, his thumping heart flushing his cheeks. His squeezed his eyes at the itchiness in his skin like needles pricking him relentlessly. Counting down each minute-long second in his head until she’d finally released him, inhaling sharp and deep when the burning sensation in his lungs made him realize the breath he’d been holding.

Seeing her son blink through the gloss in his eyes as he leveled his breathing, Katherine’s brows knitted together in a sheepish grin, her palm rubbing small circles into his back. She had greatly underestimated Dolores’s proclivity for hugs; otherwise, she would’ve given Kevin a better warning.

“Come in, come in!” Dolores invited them with a wave of her hand, holding the door for them to enter before shutting the door once they were inside.

Gripping the handle of Bulma’s cage, Kevin surveyed the interior that, unlike the exterior, looked like a time capsule into the 70s. Vibrant warm tones, wooden accents, shaggy carpet, weirdly-shaped furniture, and mix-matched, funky patterns bold in the own merit yet oddly complimentary of one another.

“I hope Denzel doesn’t mind us being here.” Katherine said thoughtfully, noting Denzel’s absence.

“If he does, he’ll be fine.” Dolores tried to convince herself more than convince Katherine. “Besides, he could use more family in his life. Maybe it could help bring my little boy back.”

Katherine folded her lips into a thin line. The psychologist in her doubted Dolores would get her ‘little boy’ back merely by forcing him to socialize with people he didn’t fully know nor trust; it failed to address the root of his issues and could worsen them if not treaded with caution. But the friend in her simply grinned and nodded in agreement; the aging mother was already fraught with guilt of past neglect, and Katherine couldn’t bear to fill her head with more insecurity.

“Denzel, are you ready yet?!” Dolores yelled up to the top of the stairs. “Katherine and Kevin are here!”

Soon after, footsteps creaked the floorboards of the top floor. Katherine and Kevin turned to the scrawny man descending the steps, stoic in his features. Thinning hair combed and freshened up in his white button-up and black tie, hands tucked into the pockets of his black slacks. Kevin gulped, both hands clutching tighter onto Bulma’s cage. His stomach twisted and churned into hard knots, goggling at the man whose left shoulder held a raven with the most vibrant purple eyes, eyes similarly vibrant to that of Bulma’s bluish-green.

“Denzel? You remember Katherine and her son Kevin.” Dolores smiled as Denzel reached the bottom floor, re-introducing him to their guests.

Denzel’s top lip curled, narrowing his gaze when it settled on the adult version of Katherine as he looked her up and down. Her smile was warm, yet the slits between his eyes grew cold. God, she’d grown up to be the splitting image of that gold-haired harlot that deadbeat sperm donor had made a wife of, only her hair was like his. Darker than the blackest smoke…like their father’s soul.

“It’s nice to see you again…under better circumstances, that is.” Katherine greeted civically, getting the sense that Denzel wasn’t too keen of her with that bitter glare of his. “You look…better, at least.”

Tff. That’s rich…Denzel snickered to himself, but he kept his lips sealed. His hard gaze then trailed to the kid next to her hip, a boy that, no doubt, was as if he’d birthed the kid himself. Seeing the kid thin his timid lips as he gave the shortest wave that Denzel didn’t care to return.

[Do not close yourself off.] came a firm reminder, his own voice echoing between his ears. [Be open to new connections.]

He flicked his glare to the raven on his shoulder, lavender eyes sparkling before she let out an audible, shrill caw that made his eardrums buzz. He winced with a twisted grimace as her wings, sleek and prominent, glided off from his shoulders. Landing on her talons before the young boy who shuddered slightly.

Kevin stared as she stretched her neck, bowing her head as if giving his human hands permission to brush her noble feathers. Kevin’s apprehensive eyes shifted to his mother’s nod of approval before they darted back to the raven, lavender eyes fixed on him. Waiting patiently for him to make the next move as his arms stiffened, grinding his teeth.

[She is extending her friendship to you.] his nasally voice spoke to him, and he raised Bulma’s cage to see glistening sparkles within her turquoise saucers. [Do not be afraid to show the same respect.]

Denzel’s glare bulged at the carbon copy and his mysterious owl. Was that owl talking to Kevin…like how Parisa talked to him? No way, that’s crazy talk. But there’s no way he’d just imagined those sparkles in that owl’s eyes. Would his mind really play tricks on him like that?

Judging by the stifled shock in Denzel’s face, and having seen those familiar glitters in the raven’s oddly-colored eyes, Katherine’s observation put two and two together. Denzel had his own Dominion, just like Kevin. How did he get his? When did he get his? Does Dolores know, like she knew about Bulma?

Katherine glanced over to Dolores; her adoring smile looked more like someone witnessing the cuteness overload of a child bonding with a pet, not of someone privy to the existence of celestial beings.

Holding Bulma’s cage, Kevin carefully kneeled to one knee, swallowing as he extended the hand that Parisa met halfway by stretching her neck further. And as coy fingers stroked the raven’s head feathers, lavender and turquoise locked in a wordless exchange. All was moving accordingly.

All they had to do was keep everything in line.

In a gradual descent, the golden sun receded below the park’s hills and valleys. A twilight of fiery oranges and reds cascaded across the sky, and hues of blue shadows crept along the green grass, silhouetting jade trees in deep purples.

Centered within the town’s park stood a food truck coated in a sweet, peachy orange. A large image of a pink-bread muffin was plastered on the sides, sprinkled with yellow stars and wrapped in turquoise paper skirt. ‘Magic Muffin’ branded the peachy coat in its bold, cursive white script with purple outlines, and beneath the concession window was an enlarged picture advertising the crafted display of crisp, mushroom-cap goods.

Magic Muffin was founded by Kenny Tom, widely known as the fitting nickname ‘Muffin Man.’ A young entrepreneurial baker who rose to state-wide fame as the first to create muffins made primarily from organic ingredients, including livestock dairy, cage-free eggs, gluten-free grains, farm-picked fruits, and chocolates made entirely from scratch. That and his preferred natural sweeteners such as raw honey and pure maple syrup pack his muffins with a sweet and flavorful tastes that are no different than their refined-sugar counterpart.

In efforts to reduce wait times, Kenny prepares a base batter with common ingredients for muffins at home, and depending on the order, his team of three will add the additional ingredients and bake muffins with similar flavor profiles all on the same 12-cup muffin pan throughout his double deck ovens. That said, each order is made fresh, so within two hours of opening inside Dimmsdale Park, the queue had already stretched to the length of an American college football field.

“Wow, the line is already this long!” Dolores remarked, traveling alongside Katherine as they approached other citizens still filing into the existing line.

“Well, there’s been a lot of buzz about these muffins today.” Katherine commented, recalling her fellow colleagues practically gushing in anticipation for the popular food truck. “I hope they’re worth it.”

Denzel scoffed under his breath, lagging behind them with hands in his pockets. Sullenly contemplating the likelihood of some nosy jerk pointing out the weird raven attached to his left shoulder. Since he’d been given little choice in getting dragged to this stupid-tuvid truck, he’d hoped for as little eyes on him as possible. Much to his vexation, however, Parisa had insisted on accompanying him, ‘keep him of sound mind’ or whatever. Then again, they were in a public space. Maybe she’ll finally do him a favor and just fly away-

[Not happening.] Parisa firmly intruded his mind with his voice, making him sneer bitterly to her sparkling eyes. Sheesh, does this black-feathered pest read minds, too?!

Holding his mother’s hand while carrying Bulma’s cage with the other, Kevin’s uneasy gaze tracked the numerous people around. Picnic tables were becoming more and more occupied, families and couples walking along the grass in search of limited free space. The park was filling up with a crowd larger than he’d ever seen, a crowd that will no doubt continue to grow. Just the very thought contracted cramps in his stomach, feeling his chest tighten as he clutched the cage’s handle tighter.

[You are a whirlwind of anxiety, and there is no shame in that.] his voice led him to look down to Bulma’s glowing eyes sparkling through the cage. [But take some deep breaths. This is to be an enjoyable experience, not a scary one.]

Taking Bulma’s advice, he inhaled deeply through his nose, holding it for a few seconds before exhaling slowly through his mouth. When they reached the queue, more people filed behind them. He was grateful to have Bulma’s calming presence with him; otherwise, he’d be a bigger blob of nerves right now.

“I can go fetch a paper menu from the truck while you guys hold our place in line.” Katherine offered, thinking they could all take advantage of the long wait by looking over the choices and deciding their orders.

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Dolores grinned, then turned around to her son who’d been awfully quiet since the carpool to the park. “Denzel, be a good boy and go with her.”

Mildly offended, Denzel snarled. “Don’t talk to me like I’m Kevin.”

Kevin flinched, cheeks burning in a self-conscious red. Seeking the security behind his mother’s leg as Katherine studied Denzel, grimacing.

“Denzel, that’s not very nice!” Dolores chided, and Denzel rolled his eyes.

“Oh, whatever.” Denzel removed his hands from his pockets to cross his arms. “And why the heck would I do that, anyway?”

“Because it would be a very nice thing for you to do.” Dolores said in a highly imploring undertone that furrowed Denzel’s brows. “Plus, while you two do that, I can keep an eye on Kevin.”

Katherine’s brow jumped in surprise, Kevin peeking from behind her. “Oh, why thank you, Dolores.”

“You don’t have to thank me, dear. It’s the least I can do.” Dolores insisted, her smile bittersweet. “This may be my one and only chance to be a grandmother, so I might as well embrace it!”

“But she’s not your daughter.” Denzel was quick to point out, a condescending tinge in his tone which gained Parisa’s attentive eye from his shoulder. “Therefore, he’s not your grandchild.”

Kevin cringed, returning to safety behind his mother as a faint slit narrowed Katherine’s gaze. Her son did nothing to deserve Denzel’s antipathy. What was he projecting?

Disappointed with her son’s behavior, Dolores’s eyes grew stern, hands on her hips. “Well, thanks to my ex, your father, she shares our last name. So, that makes them family.”

The laugh that came from Denzel was a harsh, bitter bark devoid of humor, attracting glances from a handful of customers within proximity. “Wow…first he chose her over me, and now you are, too?!”

Dolores’s jaw dropped, glare arched in surprise like a stray bullet had punctured her chest. “What?! Denzel, that is not what this is!”

“It is exactly what this is!”

“Whoa, I…didn’t mean any harm.” Katherine’s interjection disrupted the domestic quarrel, raising her hand in non-threatening defense. Heart heavy guiltily in spite of having no fault.  

“Oh, don’t worry, dear. You didn’t start this.” Dolores assured her with a softer expression which saddened when she faced the sneer on her son’s face. “Denzel, please…just do this for mommy. It won’t take that long.”

Just as Denzel opened his mouth to refuse outright, he froze. His lips clamped together, muscles flicking angrily in his jaw. As Kevin found the courage to peek again, Dolores furrowed, unsure what was going on as Denzel’s sharp glare lasered on something past the queue. Something coming up from the distance, something only he saw.

“…what is it?” Katherine asked what everyone else was thinking, hazel eyes searching his piercing stare. Avoiding her gaze, Denzel gritted his teeth, the ridges in his neck pronounced. And when he spoke next, his voice came in a harsh, icy rasp, roughened by suppressed resentment.

“…it’s him.”

A redhaired man with a scruffily beard, still clothed in his security guard gear as if he’d just clocked off of work, scanned over the paper menu as he traveled coming up the opposite way of the food truck. Accompanying him was a redhaired teen and two raven-haired girls, supposedly trying to find the ever-moving endpoint of the line. Recognizing the pink eyes that used to strike terror into him, Denzel scrunched his nose. Why did he have to show up here?

“Daggone, the 4-pack special’s twenty damn dollars.” Vic scoffed lightheartedly in his comment, reading the menu front to back while walking simultaneously. “These muffins mus’ grow legs and put themselves in the oven.”

“Tuh, they better for that price.” the now seventeen-year-old huffed, holding a hand on her cocked hip that had become more defined in her low-rise black jeans. Browsing the menu over her uncle’s shoulder, Vicky weakly shook her head. Everybody at school had been gossiping about these muffins all damn day, even the loser nobodies. Five American dollars for a single muffin? Better be worth the hype.

Following Vic and Vicky’s trail, a dark-blue earring dangled from the gothic girl’s ear with each step, aloof as she looked around. When she noticed a familiar-looking scrawny man, she wasted no time, nudging the fellow raven-haired girl on the arm where her teal bracelet cuffed her wrist.

“Hey, look over there.” Molly whispered, pointing forward. “It’s Plum and that weirdo teacher!”

Tootie darted her gaze in the direction of Molly’s point, spotting the black-silk raven. Lavender eyes aglow with dark talons roosted atop the school teacher’s shoulder. A brief, audible gasp escaped. “Wait, Mr. Crocker’s here?!”

“Who?” The name tore Vic’s eyes from the menu, and the very first thing he saw was an elderly woman breaking from the line in a bouncing stride towards him, her smile deepening the wrinkles wizening her face as she nearly tackled her son’s former babysitter.

“Victor? Oh, my goodness!” Dolores beamed, squeezing his waist. Chuckling, Vic braced her with a friendly arm against the small of her back.

“Oh, shit, Miss C? Long time, no see!”

Vicky observed the reacquainting pair with a snorting smirk, finding it funny that her Uncle Vic let that ‘Victor’ slide. Of everything he’d shared with her of his past, she remembered him complaining how Grandma Vicky had only ever addressed him as such which had since permeated a petty disdain towards his government name.

Tootie and Molly, however, snapped stunned glances to one another. Uncle Vic was Mr. Crocker’s babysitter?! And he just never thought to bring that up?!

When Dolores nestled her cheek to his blue polo, Vic’s smile was warm as he held her closer, holding her for what seemed like a while. He didn’t mind though; she’d always been one foot out the door by the time he’d stepped foot on her driveway, so to see how much she’d slowed down felt refreshing. Besides, this was the only show of affection he’d ever gotten from anyone maternal. Might as well cherish the free gift.

Feeling searing eyes on him, Vic raised his gaze to the pure contempt behind black rims. The scrawnier man stood silently, rigidly still, yet the spite in his glare spoke volumes. Vic’s grin wilted a bit, considering how shitty this must be for Denzel. How shitty it is to see your mother give the affection you rarely received to the same person that used to make your life Hell.

He blinked when he felt her eventually pull away. She couldn’t help but smile, getting a good look at the lost, spunky kid that had grown into a fine gentleman before her. “Look at you! You’ve barely aged!”

“You’re too kind.” Vic grinned, adding a cheeky smirk. “But you’re still lookin’ young as ever!”

“Oh, you flatter me!” Dolores brushed off with a wave, lively in her smile as she then acknowledged the redhaired teen and raven-haired girls by his person. “And who is this beautiful young lady and two pretty little girls?”

Yuck...Molly inwardly gagged at such a prissy adjective to describe her, but she bit her lip to silence herself, crossing arms over the chest of her grey sweater.

“Well, these are my nieces.” Vic spoke in a proud disposition, happy to show the woman who’d seen him at his worst just how far he’d come. “My eldest, Vicky,” he patted Vicky’s shoulder, and she weakly smirked, giving a lackadaisical flick of her hand as a cordial wave, “and my youngest, Tootie.” he shifted Tootie forward by a palm to her back, and she drew hands to her chest, a coy grin folding her lips. “I’m Vicky’s legal guardian for another year, but I adopted Tootie about three months ago.”

“Oh, wow!” Dolores seemed genuinely impressed, smiling to the Byrne sisters.

“And this lil’ lady here is Molly.” Vic lowered a palm to Molly’s shoulder, not noticing her agitated flinch at his uninvited touch. “She’s my foster child.”

“Foster child? Oh, how wonderful!” Dolores couldn’t help but beam with giddy delight. “You always did have a heart of gold!”

Denzel’s top lip twisted. Tff, more like a heart of coal…

Dolores spun back to the queue with the other two Crockers now three steps closer to the food truck. Hazel eyes looked down to her son, clutching the birdcage with his other arm clinging to his mother. Only peeking from behind her leg whenever the line would shift.

“That tall woman over there is Katherine Crocker and her son Kevin.” There was a slight sing-song quality to Dolores’s voice, continuing with introductions. “They were finally free to spend some time with us!”

“Oh, nice!” Vic humored her, surveying other townsfolk occupying picnic tables and picnicking in the grass. “A lotta families here today.”

“Right? Lucky us that Katherine and Kevin are holding our spot in line!” Dolores chimed. “I can’t imagine getting here any later than we did!”

Tootie clutched her chest, observing the slender woman. That’s Dr. Katherine? As in Chloe’s therapist, Dr. Katherine? Had Chloe said anything about Dr. Katherine and Mr. Crocker being related? Because that sounds like something she’d want to mention.

Meanwhile, Molly’s askant eyes partly closed towards the kid literally attached to that woman’s hip. Kevin might as well be Mr. Crocker’s copy and paste! Was Chloe sure Kevin wasn’t like…Crocker’s kid? Could a scraggily weirdo really score a barbie like that? Eh, no way.

Denzel grimaced, closing himself off with arms coiled around his middle. Deliberately positioning himself as far away from Vic as possible despite their semi-close juxtaposition to each other. Noticing this out the corner of his eye, Vic took a breath before his attempts at a casual approach. He felt he ought to try and be cordial; it’d be rude to just not speak to the guy.

“Uh…h-hey. How ya been?”

The bridge of Denzel’s nose crinkled, his posture more defensive. “What’s it to you.”

“Denzel, what is wrong with you today?” Dolores griped, growing weary of her son’s attitude. “You’ve just been so mean!”

“Oh, I don’t know mother. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be here!” Like a rubber band stretched thin, Denzel snapped. Parisa continued to keep her watchful eye on him. “I tolerated Katherine and Kevin coming over, but when I told you I didn’t want to come to this park surrounded by all these people, you refused to listen!”

“Denzel, I can’t let you keep rotting away in your room!”

“I want to rot away in my room! But being here is much less insufferable than your incessant nagging!”

Vic stood frozen, feeling caught between unprovoked crossfire. “Uh…w-whatta ‘bout your van?” he tried deterring the situation towards something a bit lighter, albeit poorly timed. “It doin’ okay?”

To this, Denzel growled in his throat, sending Vic a snappy snarl. “Again, what’s it to you.”

“Your van?” Dolores furrowed, growing concerned. “What happened with your van, Denzel?”

“Nothing...” Denzel muttered, fists trembling. Hyper aware of his surroundings as his scowl tracked the numerous stares of onlookers, including Katherine’s pitying frown and Kevin’s pursed brow.

Some bystanders pointed and whispered amongst each other, others merely watched, seemingly entertained. Relishing in the free show in their wait for those stupid-tuvid muffins…

“Hey, I don’t mean no harm.” Vic assured earnestly. “I’m just askin’ if you’re alrigh-”

“You never asked if I was alright when you were thrashing me against the floor and choking me until I blacked out! Why should I believe you care now!?” Denzel’s voice quivered with hatred that been stewing for far too long, a flood of animosity protruding the veins in his neck. He knew more people were watching, but he couldn’t care. Anger tightened in his chest, too suffocating to keep inside any longer.

Crossing her arms, Molly twisted her mouth in a sneer, yale-blue eyes narrowing to slits towards Vic. Thrash against the floor? Choking? All of that sounded way too close to home and way too suspect. Beside her, Tootie blanched, hands slapped over her mouth in suppressed horror. Struggling to imagine her uncle, the uncle who’d never lifted a finger at her, hurting anyone so ruthlessly. Like how her dad hurt her…

Hand on her cocked hip, Vicky hardened her gaze, unsurprised by Crocker’s crash out but peeved by her uncle’s dirty laundry being aired out so publicly. She glanced over towards her uncle as Vic’s shoulders slumped, a gaping hole hollowed in his chest. Decades of shame and guilt clawing to the surface, dropping his voice grittily.

“How can you make such accusations?!” Dolores berated her son, and Denzel glowered at his mother.

“Accusations are not the same as truths, mother!”

“Exactly! Victor would’ve never done those awful things to you!” she whirled to the man she’d once left her son in the care of. “Right, Victor?”

Vic froze, now feeling backed into an awkward corner, “…I-”

“Yo, there goes Crazy Crocker again!” a random man shouted from a nearby picnic table, having been enjoying muffins with his wife and child when they’d overheard all the senseless yelling. “Looks like they let ‘em out tha looney bin!”

Everyone within earshot erupted into harsh, cackling laughter, everyone except for Katherine and Kevin, Vicky, Molly, Tootie, Vic, Dolores, and of course, the laughing stock himself. Denzel’s stomach clenched, aching from the sheer force of restraint. His shoulders rose even past the ears on his neck, arms stiffening to the point of shaking.

The laughter thundered in his ears, echoing like someone holding a dynamic mic to the crowd. His face turned crimson, the veins in his neck now pulsating. No, he refused to be some sideshow attraction for these insolent worms!

His fingers trembled as they sought out the razor blade hidden in his front pocket, the blade he’d torn off his mother’s razor when he’d been given a slither of privacy to freshen up before Katherine and Kevin’s arrival. The blade that he (or so he believed) had managed to keep out of Parisa’s prying eye.

They want to make jokes out of his suffering? Mock his pain? No one will be laughing when he finally frees himself of this cruel world and the blood just keeps gushing from his nec-

[You must ignore their ignorance! Do not give negative energy to things that hold no lasting significance.] Parisa’s eyes glistened with lavender sparkles when a crazed look crossed Denzel’s face. The fact that he thought himself crafty enough to sneak that razor past her is precisely why he cannot be trusted alone.

Denzel bared crooked teeth in his hiss, seething. Rage coursed through his veins like fire, and all rational thought vanished. His sharp fingers swatted at her, ready to claw that stupid bird off his shoulder, but her talons jumped reflexively in a swift dodge.

Tootie, Molly and their disguised Fairy Godmothers witnessed the lavender glitters shimmering about the raven’s glowing irises as she hovered eye level, capturing the school teacher in a frozen daze as lavender sparkles swirled behind his specs. Enveloping the glass in an iridescent, translucent purple sheen as his arms dropped to his sides, his expression disconnected from the present.

Laughter died down quickly at the scene, the crowd struggling to make sense of what was happening. Crocker was just staring at some raven with those empty eyes…kind of creepy.

“Talk about reigning ‘em in…” the dark-blue earring murmured sarcastically, though this comment was Swizzle’s attempt to distract from the shivers prickling her veins. The magic she could sense from that raven was far more powerful than when she’d first seen her. It felt more…invincible. Commanding.

“This is still so bizarre…” the teal bracelet said pensively, furrowing from those same shivers. Without more context, Rose couldn’t fathom why Mr. Crocker had been granted close access to magic without knowing it. But from what had just transpired in front of her, she had to agree with Swizzle.

The Council was definitely up to something, the question is…what exactly are they up to?

Kevin mustered the courage to step away from the crutch of his mother, gripping the Great Grey’s cage with both hands. Wide eyes goggled the raven’s demanding presence as the glisten spiraling within her eyes soon subsided and Denzel blinked puzzledly, the purplish hue disappearing without a trace from his glasses as he faltered on his own footing. He couldn’t recall Bulma doing hypnotizing stuff like that…was she just as capable?

“Denzel? Honey?” Dolores hurried to extend her arm, catching Denzel’s arm before he stumbled backwards. “Are you alright?! What’s wrong-”

“Nothing.” he muttered hoarsely, swatting her away when his footing steadied. Glaring through his hazy head at the raven keeping herself afloat, her eyes laser focused on him. “I’m fine…”

Vic folded his lips, the corners of his mouth downturned. Seeing Dolores try suggesting that she take Denzel and find somewhere for him to sit down, except Denzel shot her down and storm off in the opposite direction with that raven gliding at his heels. Ultimately deciding that the muffins can wait, Katherine grabbed Kevin’s hand and removed them from the queue that continued forward, murmurs of conspiracies and speculations buzzing in the air. Brisk in their steps behind Dolores whose black heels pitter-pattered as fast as her short legs could move, chasing after Denzel whose long strides paced him feet ahead of them.

If there was anything to take away from this, Vic knew for certain. Hurt people hurt people, and broken people break people.

He’d been raised to loathe his true identity. Any desire of flesh outside the sacred union between man and woman is sacrilege because his mama’s bible and her god said so. All the hatred anyone would harbor towards him had been directed inward. Pretending to be something he wasn’t with no other way to express himself.

Then came the easiest gig he’d ever get; a single, workaholic mother in need of a babysitter for her only son. And because money had been the only child she’d cared the most for at the time, he got paid to make a personal punching bag out of an innocent kid who was too weak to fight back.

Today, that kid was a man, and from what Vic could see, a broken man. All because he’d been too scared to fix himself. Vic lowered his chin in a weary sigh, downhearted. If Denzel ever forgave him, then a higher power truly does exist.

Seeing Vic’s crestfallen sigh, Vicky reached to pat him on the shoulder, his frown drifting her way. “At least you tried, Unc…” she consoled, for what little it might’ve done.

“Why did you do all those things to that guy?”

Hearing the question, Vic and Vicky turned around to Molly’s cynical brow, her arms tight across her chest with her shoulders pulled back. Two steps forward from Tootie whose brows pulled, knitting troubledly in the middle.

Vic bit his lip. He’d hoped to revisit this when the time was right, when their level of comprehension extended beyond basic right and wrong. But now he had to explain himself to two little girls who’d learned what fists and hate felt like before hugs and love.

“It’s…somethin’ I’d rather not get into right now.”

“Nuh-uh.” Molly pointed her critical stare, steadfast. She wasn’t about to let him off that easy. Something about him wasn't sitting right with her. Maybe this ‘uncle’ of Tootie’s is not as safe as she claimed him to be. “Tell me right now! Why did you do that stuff to him!?”

“Hey!” Vicky stepped in defense of her uncle, warning in her glare. “Stay in a kid’s place!”

“Bitch, I’m not your fucking kid!” Molly snapped harshly, much to Tootie’s dislike.

“Molly, stop!” Tootie griped, and Vicky growled, wadding her right hook.

“Girl, I'll beat that potty mouth right off your face!”

“Do it then!”

“Hey, cut that out! Both of yous!” Vic’s tone was stern, stepping between before things escalated further. He met Molly’s slit brow with his own. “Apologize to Vicky!”

Molly hardened, unyielding. “And last I checked, you weren’t my fucking dad!”

Vic recoiled subconsciously as his eyes flashed, taken aback.  

“Ah, struck a nerve, huh? You must wanna swing, huh?” Molly goaded, lips tight with loathing. “Cuz that’s all guys like you do! Beat up on folks to feel less like some punk bi-”

“Molly, stop it!” Tootie cried, yanking Molly by her arm. Forcing yale-blue to bear into purple. “You’re better than that, remember?!”

Molly’s nostrils flared, pale cheeks flaming with contempt. The gloss in Tootie’s grimace weakening the blaze in her eyes, but only just. Still, it was enough for her glare to sink down to her black combats, groaning in her throat. Damn, that softy heart of Tootie’s made it so fucking difficult to stay tough.

“…sorry…” she grumbled an apology. Too wound up to accept, Vicky rolled up her sleeve, her sneer one of pure, unadulterated malice.

“Little girl, you ain’t sorry, yet-”

“Vicky, don’t. It’s alright.” Vic exhaled, holding back his ill-tempered niece with a raised hand after coming to an important realization. “She’s just all antsy about her visitation tomorrow…” his gaze shifted to Molly, pink eyes stern yet softer than before. “Ain’t that right.”

Tootie noticed Molly’s nose twitch, crimpling her lips in a sneering growl just like when Plumfrost had exposed her anger as her biggest weakness. She frowned, lips pressed together in echoed pain. Apparently, losing all parental rights was not enough to stop Marissa from demanding to see Molly, urging that she ‘needed to talk to her.’

Because of Molly’s disclination, Vic had been in conversations with the warden to try to cancel, but Vic’s title as a security guard only held but so much weight. Unlike most inmates, Marissa’s record was clean of strikes, so the warden contested that she deserved the same privileges as the other inmates that stay out of trouble.

Plus, by scheduling the visit on a day during Vic’s week in the woman’s ward, he, as well as other guards, would be right there to act in case anything was to somehow go south. If that wasn’t a nail in the coffin, Molly’s social worker insisted that she grant Marissa’s wish. Believing it’d be a good way to end that chapter as a step in moving on.

Molly was not pleased. So much so that Tootie had to get an earful the entire ride to the park, listening to her vent about how it felt like people were forcing her to be the bigger person. Because why should she? Marissa chose to stay with a guy deranged enough to stab her own kid in the neck. Whatever excuses Marissa had, it was too late for pity.

Tootie was sympathetic to Molly’s grievance…to an extent. Her parents had become so engrossed in evangelism that any degree of corporal punishment was a test to their devotion. ‘Jehovah disciplines the ones He loves’ was always their justification for beating her with a switch, for lashing her with a belt until her skin broke raw.

For throwing her on the floor hard enough for her arm to snap, for throwing her against the wall like a ragdoll.

For bloodying her face with merciless fists.

Sure, the men that had caused great physical harm to them were both dead, and the women who had enabled that harm were serving time behind bars. But unlike Marissa, it was as if Nicky had gone off-grid. No letters, no phone calls, no acknowledgement. And no accountability.

Uncle Vic would tell her about how, on the weeks he would patrol the woman’s ward, he’d pass by her cell to hear her crying in her prayers. Tears for the man she loved that harmed children, never for the children harmed by the man she loved. Vic never said a word to her, considering Nicky continued to shun him, too. And when given the chance for visitation, her only go-to were members of the congregation that kept in touch with her for spiritual support.

Whenever she was asked once about visitation with any family members, the answer she gave was, to say the least, unsettling.

“That family is dead. The only family I have left are my brothers and sisters in the eyes of Jehovah.”

By Marissa extending the olive branch to Molly, maybe this was her way of trying to apologize, or at least admit her faults. But with Nicky, Tootie had to come to harsh terms. She will never get an apology, she will never get an admission of fault. And when her year of county jail was over, it’ll still feel like she died without a grave.

Tootie wrapped arms around herself, a sudden sense of emptiness in her spirit. This was Molly’s chance for true closure, to at least talk things out before either extending forgiveness or choosing to hold a grudge. But for Tootie, total silence is the only closure she’ll ever get.

Chapter Text

In a quieter, less populated area of Dimmsdale Park within the grassy field, a University Freshman was demonstrating some of the many tricks that his golden retriever had up his sleeves. From shaking hands to walking backwards, to steadying a muffin box centered on his nose, balancing it with perfected ease. Aftwards, the duo ended their demonstrations with a high five palm to paw, and their small audience all clapped in amusement.

Alvin Lee Everett Sr; short and round like a teddy bear with skin like milk chocolate and more hair on his chest than on his head. Fully clad in his ‘chick magnet’ attire of a blue polo and khakis, teal-eyes shining alongside his wife of thirteen years in all of her ebony grandeur.

Her tall and thin physique a contrast to her husband, silk press slayed in a short business bob. Hourglass figure accentuated in a pink suit, white high heels, and pink pearl earrings of a high-class woman.

Even through the obscuring holes on Bucky McBadbat's paper bag, the delight still shown through his green eyes. Tall and lanky in burgundy plaid and brown khakis, the banished baseball player could relax and enjoy the company of good people for once.

When the applause subsided, Michonne approached the golden retriever, and his brown and blue eyes went wide with excitement at her friendly smile as her anticipation then met his owner’s gaze. “May I?”  

“Of course, ma’am.” Tommy gladly permitted the free affection his companion always craved, and Michonne kneeled in a manner that did not dirty her pristine suit, scratching beneath Buddy’s chin much to the enjoyment tapping in his right foot.

“My family had a Labrador Retriever growing up.” she mentioned fondly, her nails moving up along Buddy’s jaw to scratch behind his floppy ears. “He was so intelligent and very affectionate, just like Buddy.”

“We’d have a dog now if poor Junior wasn’t so allergic.” Alvin Sr remark came with a light chuckle, thinning Tommy’s lips.

When meeting the Everetts and the McBadbats for the first time about an hour ago, Tommy had noticed AJ actively keeping his distance from Buddy no matter how sociable Buddy tried to be. Because Buddy was naturally friendly, Tommy had no idea what could’ve made AJ so uncomfortable around him. With this added context, however, he chided his lack of forethought in his baby brother’s friends having a dog allergy.

“AJ’s not deathly allergic.” Michonne clarified, grinning as she ended her scratches. She stood upright with Buddy sitting on his hind legs, peering up at her expectantly in the hopes that she’d resume petting him at some point. “But even the tiniest contact with dog fur makes him break out in hives.”

“Oh, that’s, uh…” Tommy awkwardly scratched the side of his head, “…not, terrible, I guess.”

“You said you only had ‘em a couple months?” Bucky asked in reference to Tommy’s story of how a stray dog had suddenly come into his life (minus the telepathy thing and the magical powers, of course.)

“Yes, sir.” Tommy straddled Buddy, giving his sides the type of combing scratches that instantly led to Buddy panting his tongue and tapping his hind foot. “And I’m glad I was the one to take him in.”

“As ya should.” Bucky complimented. “He’s real disciplined for a stray.”

“Ha, thank you.” Tommy couldn’t tell if that’d been a backhanded compliment, but his manners didn't question otherwise.

Giving Buddy a few more pats, Tommy sent an attentive eye over at the boys who were not far off from them. Three of them were hanging out around the park’s swing set while the fourth sat alone under a nearby tree.

Chester stood on the swing’s seat, supporting himself with one arm around the chain, biting off a chunk of his Sour Cherry Chocolate Chunk Muffin. “Wow, the cherries are the right amount of sour!” his praise came out garbled as he chewed. “And the richness of the chocolate balances it out!”

Seated on the swing beside Chester, AJ took another bite of his half-eaten Spiced Pear muffin, chewing in full and swallowing before he spoke. “It’s refreshing to bite into a baked treat and not taste the pesticides and all the other preservatives!”

Leaning against the metal frame of the swing set was their pink-hatted friend, picking at his Banana Cinnamon Crumb. Half-listening to the conversation, wedged between the present and the train chugging at full speed along his mind’s twisting tracks.

Days continued passing him by, leaving him behind. Moving closer and closer to a day that most children couldn’t wait to arrive. Time was not slowing down, and it scared him. Scared him because the ideations had been growing hungrier, desperate to be satiated.

…should I tell Cosmo and Wanda? He’d asked himself this quite a few times. But he wasn’t on probation anymore; he was entitled to his secrets. Plus, ever since his big mouth had stained the memory of Tootie’s post-cult birthday, he didn’t want to disappoint them even more.

A baby’s coo switched the tracks of his divided attention, glancing down to the lilac band around his right wrist. Deep-lilacs eyeing the muffin yearningly, practically drooling from his toothless gums.

Timmy chewed the inside of his cheek, chin dimpled. Recalling the day he’d met the product of his wish for the first time, how he’d told him his hopes of being a good big-godbrother. Two months in, and he had nothing to show for it. He didn’t mean to, his heart just naturally gravitated towards Timantha, the vessel of his beloved twin sister.

But that was no excuse, and he knew it. He knew Poof wanted a relationship with him; he could tell just by the way he’d catch Poof staring fondly towards him, or when he’d squeak his name whenever he wanted to share a toy or when he’d stretch his arms to be held.

Even if it felt pointless, Timmy felt he should try and make it up to him. Just because he’ll be too old for fairies one day didn’t mean Poof’s memories would be altered, too. Besides, no matter whether he was to leave his fairy family before they left him, wouldn’t it be better to have more good memories of him than bad?

Taking a quick look at his best friends still enjoying their muffins, Timmy made sure they weren’t looking in his direction before showing his muffin to his pink hat and green wristband, speaking to where only his fairy family could hear “Is it okay for Poof to have some?”

“Only break off a small piece, but not too small or else Poof might choke.” Wanda advised with a maternal inflection that came so naturally.

“And don’t give him too much!” Cosmo added animatedly. “The last thing anyone needs is a fairy baby on a sugar high!”

“I think you’re confusing muffins with cupcakes, pookie.” Wanda said sweetly as if correcting a child without making them feel too stupid. “Muffins aren’t as sweet.”

“But you can still buy ‘em at a bakery, like donuts and cookies and big cakes!” Cosmo countered innocently before a dreamy look fell over his face. “Man, a strawberry turnover sounds so good right about now…”

Though his feeble grin couldn’t reach his weary eyes, Timmy was still glad to see his godparents acting in their usual banter. Either they didn’t suspect anything about him to be concerned about, or he sucked at hiding it and they were just putting up as normal of a front as possible. Regardless, he didn’t want to screw this up, unlike everything else in his stupid life.

Pinching the mushroom edge of his muffin, Timmy managed to break off a piece the size of a pebble, carefully feeding it to Poof who nearly bit his finger when a crumb barely reached his lip. His pink gums chewed with delight, and Timmy’s lips had to curl at the cuteness of it all, albeit weakly.

“Yo, Timmy!”

Hearing Chester call his name nearly made him jump in his pants, inhaling sharply as his eyes pivoted to Chester pointing at the oak tree opposite to Timmy. “Wuddup with ya cousin?”

Timmy’s gaze shifted towards the preteen with a yellow bandana tied around the arm of his red leather jacket, his Apple Pie muffin left unbitten. Holding it with one hand with his chin flat to his bent knees, his glum, distant stare to the grass.

“His head’s been up in tha clouds ever since we all linked up.” Chester added, stuffing the remaining chunk of his muffin in his mouth which distorted his question “Wuddup wit dat?”

Sighing, Timmy scrunched his brow “I dunno…he’s just been in a mood.”

“Speaking of ‘in a mood,’” AJ interjected, his suspecting attention on Timmy. “It seems like lately you’ve been all down and depressed again. In fact, this is the first time in ages that you’ve wanted to do something with us, but only because your brother and our parents were conveniently bringing us to the same place.”

Timmy lowered his chin, unable to refute AJ’s observation. He’d been so caught up in his own mess, he hadn’t realized how much he’d subconsciously distanced himself from the two people who, besides his cousin, had known him longer than any other godchild.

“Yeah dude. Wussup with you?” Chester asked after a swallow, this time sounding genuinely concerned.

Timmy diverted his eyes from them, thinning his lips. There was nothing he could honestly say except “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then help us understand, dude.” Chester entreated. “We’re your best friends!”

“Is it Chester’s annoying ‘wannabe-cool’ act that teeters cultural appropriation?” the offhand of AJ’s question led Chester to stick out his tongue at AJ in slight offense.

“…no.” Timmy grumbled, and AJ frowned, more than aware of his prior insensitivity towards Timmy’s threats of ending himself that had once strained their friendship.

“…did I say or do something?”

“Dude, no.” Timmy denied, palm over his heart. “It has nothing to do with you guys, I promise.”

Jumping off the seat with his feet planted, Chester faced Timmy, crinkling the empty paper skirt into a wad, his pursed brow wishing to understand. “Then what is it?”

Timmy’s jaw clenched with both hands clutching his muffin, hesitating. He didn’t want to admit the bad thoughts filling his head, the thoughts telling him to make it easier on himself and just give up. Not in front of his godparents, and especially not in front of his baby godbrother who was way too young to understand.

His entire posture slumped, insides twisting. Eyes dropping to the ground unwilling to climb back up as he repeated through gritted teeth “You just wouldn’t understand…”

AJ couldn’t help but scoff. Timmy was pushing them away again, only this time, there was no obvious reason other than the lack of trust that he thought had solidified over five plus years. “Fine.” AJ muttered from a place of hurt. “Don’t tell us, then.”

Chester shrugged one shoulder, seeming not to have the spirit for both. “It just sucks when you’re like this and you won’t let us try to help...”

Cosmo and Wanda took note of the way their godson’s head snapped away in a hard grimace, fingers raking strands of his brunette shag over his eyes. Unwilling to let anyone see, not even them.

Stars began to twinkle along the ombre of pinks and purples as the gold ‘90 Ford Explorer pulled into the short driveway of the yellow one-story home. Twisting the key in the ignition, Tommy quieted the engine as Buddy’s tail wagged from the passenger, readily waiting for Tommy to unbuckle his seatbelt for him to stand on all fours.

Gary seemed barely aware of his own movements, listlessly removing his seatbelt. Putting minimal effort in pulling the backseat door handle to push it open, quietly stepping out of the car with Timmy studying him. Gary had been staring absently out the window the entire ride home, eerily silent. He’d also ended up giving his untouched muffin to Chester; he apparently had no appetite, and Chester’s muffin wasn’t very filling for someone whose only meal that day had been a free school lunch.

Since their grandma’s funeral, Gary seemed lost in his own world, mostly speaking when spoken to. And though it partially piqued his curiosity, Timmy never bothered to inquire. He already had 99 problems, and there was no room for a moody cousin to be one of them.

Shutting the passenger-side door to the backseat for Tommy to lock the car, Timmy made his way up the rocky trail towards the front porch with Gary lagging behind. Buddy rushed ahead of everyone up the porch steps, eagerly pacing by the front door as Tommy sorted through his ring of keys for the right one. It was as if it took Herculean effort for Gary’s Timberlands to climb the porch steps just as Tommy opened the door for Buddy to run inside and Timmy to casually saunter pass. He patiently held it for Gary, and once all were accounted for, Tommy shut the door and re-engaged the lock, officially ending the long but overall pleasant day.

The two boys and young man approached the archway into the living room where a pigtailed toddler sat on the lap of her great-grandfather, both occupying his favorite beige recliner. Since his LVAD had been implanted weeks prior, Vlad’s heart has had minimal issues. He’d been doing better physically bit by bit, but despite his progress, his physical ailments and surmounting grief had left him no choice but to officially retire.

Putting Yak in the Box up for sale had been a tough pill to swallow; fifty years of hard work, sacrifice, and determination, gone instantly with the sign of a pen. Yak in the Box was a labor of love built from the ground up with the help of his wife, his best friend. To continue on without her, he felt, would be an insult to her legacy. That, and he felt he could not continue on without her. She had been his motivation, his drive to keep pushing. Now that she was gone…he had to learn to let go. To accept that it was time for him to live out the rest of his life for however long he had left on this earth.

Since then, he had been living the retired life as best as he can, and becoming an at-home daycare for Timantha had given him a new purpose to push through the darkness, a new motivation to keep going. To keep living, not just for him, but for his dearest Gladys.

Buddy jogged over to perch by Vlad’s legs as he held the picture book that Timantha had picked out for him to read to her, a book entitled ‘The Invisible String’ by Patrice Karst. After Timantha assisted in flipping back the cover, she snuggled against his chest, and Vlad then began to read aloud, “Liza and Jeremy, the twins, were asleep one calm and quiet night. Suddenly it began to rain very hard. Thunder rumbled until it got so loud that it woke them up.”

Standing off to the side, Tommy folded his arms with a contented smile, seeing Timantha’s eyes light up as she helped Vlad turn to the next page. So immersed in the story that neither of them realized they were no longer alone as Vlad did his best dramatic inflection, reading “‘Mommy, Mommy,’ they cried out as they ran to her, ‘Do not worry, you two! It is just a storm making all that noise. Go back to bed.’”

Timmy and Gary followed suit, standing near the archway beside Tommy. Timmy too folded his arms with Gary shoving hands into his coat pocket.

“‘We want to stay close to you’ said Jeremy ‘We are scared!’ Mom said, ‘We are always together, no matter what.’”

Timmy watched Timantha suck her thumb, big blue eyes admiring the illustrations.

“‘But how can we be together when you are out here and we are in bed?’ said Liza.” Vlad turned to the next page. “‘Mom held something right in front of them and said ‘This is how.’”

Timantha’s pink Mary-janes swung bouncily, barely containing her excitement.

“‘Rubbing their sleepy eyes, the twins came closer to see what Mom was holding. ‘I was about your age when my mommy first told me about The Invisible String.’” Vlad flipped to the next page. “‘I do not see a string,’ said Jeremy. ‘You do not need to see the Invisible String. People who love each other are always connected by a very special string made of love.’ ‘But if you cannot see it, how do you know it is there?’ asked Liza.”

“Yeah, how can you see someting dats not dere?” Timantha squeaked at her great-grandfather, his lips curling into a fond smile with his gaze on the next sentence.

“‘Even though you cannot see it with your eyes, you can feel it with your heart and know that you are always connected to everyone you love.’”

Giggling, Timantha reached to once again help Vlad continue to the next page.

“‘When you are at school and you miss me, your love travels all the way along the String until I feel it tug on my heart.’ ‘And when you tug it right back, we feel it in our heart,’ said Jeremy.’”

The children in the story questioned their mother on the various scenarios that the invisible string works. They asked if their cat and best friends have strings in which their mother assures that they do; the string can reach anywhere and everywhere. Even if they were submarine captains deep in the ocean, a mountain climber, a dancer in France, a jungle explorer, or an astronaut out in space. To add to this, each example took a two-page spread, vibrantly illustrated to Timantha’s amusement.

“Then Jeremy quietly asked ‘Can my String reach all the way to Uncle Brian in heaven?’”

For the first time since starting the story, Vlad paused, letting the weight of those words hang in the air. Timantha peered up at him, innocently curious, though she already knew the answer to the story’s question. She had first-hand experience as Sophia; she wouldn’t exactly call it ‘heaven’ where she’d once resided, but she had once been tethered to her twin brother in spirit.

Still, she could sense the real reason Vlad had stalled as he drew in a soft breath that exhaled through his lips, “‘Yes, even there.’ Then, they ask ‘Does the string go away when you are mad at us?’”

A light frown etched in Gary’s features, observing as Vlad cleared his parched throat before he found the voice to continue.

“‘Never; love is stronger than anger, and as long as love is in your heart, the string will always be there.’”

Turning the page again, Vlad read how the string never goes away, even when you get older or you can’t agree on things like what movie to see or what game to play in the back seat, or what time to go to bed.

“‘Oh, that is right, you two should be in bed.’” he emphasized the written text, giving Timantha’s side a light tickle that made her giggle. “Speaking of which, it be your bedtime soon.”

Timantha stuck out a silly tongue, not feeling sleepy in the slightest. Vlad smiled in his soft chuckle, flipping the page.

“‘And with that, they all laughed as Mom chased the twins back to their beds, and within a few minutes, they were asleep even though the storm was still making the same loud noises outside.’”

Timantha returned to sucking her thumb, her other hand turning the page for Vlad in anticipation of how this story ends.

“‘As they slept, they started dreaming of all the Invisible Strings they have, and all the strings their friends have, and their friends have, until everyone in the world was connected by invisible strings. ‘And from deep inside, they now could clearly see,’”

When Vlad turned to the last page, Timantha goggled at all of the characters (including Liza and Jeremy with their mother) staring up at the beautiful night sky, colorful rays of light shaped like a heart across the purply sky. Vlad’s voice softened to the gentlest tone, speaking life into the final text.

“‘No one is ever alone.’”

Timmy bit his bottom lip, contemplative. He couldn’t refute whether no one is ever alone; Sophia was his proof that no matter where your loved ones go, your love keeps you connected to them. But did the same context apply when, instead of dying, your loved one has to leave because you’ll literally outgrow them, even though it’ll still feel like a death because they’ll no longer be in your life?

Vlad closed the book, and Timantha gleamed radiantly “Dat was a good stowy!”

“Da, it was.” Vlad chuckled softly, giving as affectionate of a squeeze that his thin arm could muster.

“It truly is a wonderful story.”

Vlad’s stunned glance shot up to Tommy coming towards him, also noticing that Timmy and Gary were also present before darting back to Tommy. “Thomas? How long you have been standing there?”

“Not very long.” Tommy grinned, grabbing onto Timantha when she reached for him to pick her up into his stronger arms. “Were you a good girl for praded while we were gone?” he asked, putting on a baby voice in response to her physical body and not her mental age.

“Uh-huh!” Timantha nodded jovially, playing along. Vlad simply cannot know that she was an eight-year-old in a two-year-old body reborn a month ago via magic. So, she did her best to simulate how a toddler would act in certain situations.

“She was an angel, as always.” Vlad contested, setting the picture book aside as his admiring eyes could not tear away from Timantha. Oh, how she reminded him so much of Sophia. Especially when she smiled and those blue eyes of her twinkled with such life; it was impossible to feel dead inside around her.

Attached to Tommy’s hip like a koala, Timantha looked over Tommy’s shoulder, waving to her Bubba who mustered a tiny grin at her in return. “How was da muffins?”

Sparing details, Timmy shrugged, “It was cool.”

“Oye, Vnuk.” Vlad addressed, looking straight at Timmy who immediately acknowledged him. “Come help me; it my legs,” he demonstrated by attempting to stand on his own, huffing a laugh when he flopped back on his backside, “they may have fall asleep again.”

Timmy looked behind him to Gary leaning against the archway, brows dejected with the corners of his lips pulled down. Gary wasn’t busy…grandpa could’ve just asked him. That’s what he would’ve said if he didn’t know better. He’d noticed how much he’d seemed to grow on grandpa lately. Sure, grandpa had never been downright nasty to him, but never was he this trusting of him. For now, grandpa liked him more than he ever had, even before Sophia’s death. He’d be stupid to ruin that.

Licking his lips in a low sigh, he complied and approached his grandfather. Vlad raised his weak and trembly arm for Timmy to hold onto, and Timmy gripped Vlad’s shoulder to help support him while using his other hand to give him a push. Timmy pulled as hard as his thin lanky arms could with a grunt, keeping in mind not to hurt the old man in the process. Luckily, Vlad paid no attention to the assistance of pink and green glitters pulling him upright before Vlad was fully standing on tingling legs.

“Spasibo, Vnuk.”

“Uh…you’re welcome.” Timmy said quietly. He was pretty sure his grandfather had thanked him; unlike Gary, his Ustinkistanian was virtually non-existent.

“Pozhaluysta, please. Grab my cane.” Vlad then pointed to the wooden cane across from the recliner, propped against the couch’s arm rest. Without complaint, Timmy crossed the few steps it took to retrieve the cane, handing it to his grandfather as Vlad thanked him again.

Steadying his steps with his cane, Vlad shuffled towards the hallway, weary in his bones and slightly winded from the effort of switching from sitting to standing. “I think I retire a little early.”

“Need any help?” Tommy offered.

“If you not mind…” Vlad huffed in gratitude. “That be great.”

With scuffling feet coming towards him, Gary fixed his gaze on his grandfather. Watching as the old man shuffled past at the speed of the fastest turtle. His eyes remained forward without a word or so much as a first glance, and Gary’s frown deepened, mouth twisting in a grimace. Even with a cane, it wasn’t like Vlad could run again. The cold shoulder was very much deliberate.

Tommy and Timmy observed as Gary removed his hands from his pockets to tightly cross his arms, and Tommy’s brows drew together in concern. Vlad and Gary were eventually going to have to talk this out, but Tommy knew that if both participants were unwilling to try, then a resolution was impossible.

“Hey, Timmy.” Tommy then lowered Timantha to the bucktoothed boy, Timantha happily reaching for him. “Mind taking her and Buddy back to the shed while I help grandpa?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it…” Timmy droned, letting Timantha coil her chubby arms around his neck as his arms supported her by the bottom of her overall-dress. Once Timantha was settled and he was certain he wouldn’t drop her, Timmy looked on as Tommy left to give Gary’s shoulder a comforting squeeze on his way to follow Vlad still barely down the hall.

Since Vlad had been released from the hospital to attend his wife’s funeral, Timmy could tell their grandfather had been treating him more like a grandson than Gary, and he could tell this hurt Gary deeply. Nonetheless, Gary’s only experienced about a month of resentment by one person at most; being the black sheep of the family had been Timmy’s entire life.

“Alright, Tee.” Timmy pivoted on his heel, pressing a palm to Timantha’s back to keep her stable. “Let’s go.”

Holding onto Timmy with one hand, Timantha smiled brightly in her parting wave. “Night-night, Gawy!”

Somber blue met her bubbly eyes, darkly mumbling “…goodnight.”

Traveling across the living room towards the back door, Timmy passed the golden retriever who’d been patient and well behaved by the recliner. “C’mon, Buddy.”

Buddy perked up with a bark, rising on all fours. Trotting behind Timmy as his pink hat and green wristband spark their wands to open the door for them before Timmy led Timantha and Buddy out on the back porch.

Stepping through grass that’d been recently trimmed like velvet-green carpet, a faint, cooling breeze danced through his shag as Timmy and co. traveled towards the Accessory Dwelling Unit (essentially a glorified tiny home.) Sided in lapis wood with a black roof and white accents in the window frames, side columns, and front door. Complete with its own front porch, full kitchen accessories, a lofted queen bed for Tommy, a small, pink bedroom for Timantha, and a full bath with shower/tub combo.

In the mist of his grief, Vlad had wanted to make some living rearrangements, starting with moving Timmy out of the shed. Gladys had been the driving force keeping Timmy outside, and…well…she didn’t have a say anymore.

Tommy also had doubts of housing a dog and a toddler in his one-bedroom apartment; he’d already been pushing his limits homing a dog that neither the landlord nor his lease had previously allowed. And with Vlad’s decline in health, Tommy wanted to be closer to help out if and when needed. That, and Timantha did not want to live far apart from Timmy, nor did he from her.

Thus, Timmy had thought of the perfect first wish coming off probation, and that was wishing for Tommy, Timantha, and Buddy to live in the former 8x8 shed converted into a 399 sq ft ADU. He had to specify 399 sq ft because, according to Tommy, anything larger than 400 sq ft would’ve resulted in higher property taxes on a house that’d been paid off for two decades.

Pink shimmers twisted the doorknob, allowing Timmy entry, while green glitters flipped the light switch. Flooding light onto walls painted in a light moonstone-blue, sheening the grains of floors the same hickory wood that lined the front porch.

After Buddy sauntered inside, Timmy shut the door with his foot, lowering Timantha on her feet and not letting her go until she gained her footing.

“I worwy about Gawy.” Timantha expressed what had crossed her mind on the short trek across the yard. “Do you tink gwandpa will evah be nice to him again?”

Timmy simply shrugged in response, his tone somewhat blithe. “Maybe…but don’t worry about that, okay?” he took her gently by the hand and gave her a tiny grin, leading her tinier steps towards the black-suede couch. “How about we watch some TV while we wait up for Tommy.”

“K.”

Releasing her hand once they were next to the couch, Timmy grabbed the remote from the coffee table. Timantha grunted as her little arms pulled herself up onto the cushion, until Timmy’s soft nudge gave her a boost and she smiled in thanking him. Now that Timantha was seated, Timmy flopped down on the cushion beside her, pressing the red button that brought the black screen to life. Buddy came over and paced in a circle before settling in a comfy spot on the wood floor near the children’s feet, resting his chin on his front paws.

As Timmy dully flipped through all the boring channels, the three fairies poofed out of their disguises. Shaking his rattle, Poof floated down in front of Timantha, grinning at her with his gums. A smile curled her lips when she greeted him, reaching to hold him and position him onto her lap. She cradled him close as he nestled into her embrace, squealing in glee of her company.

“Would you like us to join you, sport?” Wanda asked, and when Timmy acknowledged her, a shy flush tinted his cheeks.

“…i-if you don’t mind…”

“Of course, not, champ!” Cosmo chirped as he and Wanda smiled to their godson, their smiles brightening the visible dark shadows beneath their eyes. “Go on, scooch!”

Timmy shifted just enough for Wanda to hover into the space between him and Timantha, lacing her arm around him from his left. Cosmo floated to Timmy’s right, getting comfortable with legs crossed and arms behind his head in a contented sigh. Settling on a channel showing a Crash Nebula episode, Timmy leaned his head against Wanda’s shoulder. She graced his forehead with the softest kiss, and he folded his lips with eyes on the screen.

In the four weeks since Fairy Fort, Timmy has seen his godparents’ great efforts. In spite of waking up multiple times a night, getting a giraffe’s worth of sleep just to tend to Poofs many needs, they were trying harder to split their attention between their godson and their real son. He knew they were doing so primarily because of his outburst, and he hated himself for that. Embarrassing them was never his intention, he was just so frustrated with the Council and their hypocrisy. At the time, he didn’t care how bitter and brash he came off. Not until he’d seen the utter disappointment in their eyes, and he’d felt like turd ever since.

Crash Nebula fought intergalactic enemies with guns shooting lasers from his space suit, Timantha and Poof giggling and squealing at the explosions and flashy lights. Blue eyes stared at the screen, watching his thoughts instead. He thought back to The Invisible String and its message, and his brows pulled in the middle. Whether the inevitable day comes that his fairy family leaves, or he loses his battle to the voices telling him to leave on his own terms. Will the invisible string keep them connected? Or will the love die with his true memories?

Seeing a disconnect in Timmy’s stare, Wanda looked past Timmy’s pink hat, meeting Cosmo’s casual yet concurring gaze. Chester and AJ were right; Timmy had seemed down lately. He would tell them over and over that he was fine, but…his eyes always said otherwise.

A vase with cracks is still a broken vase, even if glued back together

With Jorgen’s words engrained in their minds, they couldn’t allow Timmy to become recluse like Gary. They had to keep the lines of communication open with him. They needed to keep him connected to them.

“Timmy…a-about your conversation with Chester and AJ at the park…” she started gently, and both godparents noticed the way Timmy’s lips thinned with locked eyes straight ahead. “What is it that they wouldn’t understand?”

Timmy swallowed, his fingers subconsciously brushing across his lower abdomen. They had to be on to him; why would they ask otherwise? In that case, flat-out lying won’t work. However, telling the truth about his mind’s preoccupation with his death wasn’t the move, either. That would send their worrywart instincts into overdrive, and that was the last thing he wanted, the last thing they needed.

“…I-I’ve been thinking about my birthday.” he opted for something more digestible, speaking half of his truth just audible enough to survive it. “It’s around the corner, and…I can’t even be happy about it. Because all it means is I’ll be one year closer to losing you…”

As Buddy whined with empathetic eyes, Timantha’s attention was distracted enough to give Timmy her vigilant glance. When she died as Sophia, birthdays became a curse for Timmy. Their parents never bothered to care, and he himself saw no worth in celebrating. To him, he was undeserving of another year of life while his sister would be forever eight. But knowing now what will happen to his fairies when he becomes a grownup twisted that knife deeper.

A sheen of tears gathered in the fairy couple’s eyes but not enough for them to fall. Wanda brought a palm to his temple, drawing his head to the side of her chest. “Oh, Timmy…” her tone softened, scratching his hair. “No matter what, we’ll always be connected to you, and you’ll always be connected to us.”

“Our Invisible String will always connect us because we love you so much.” Cosmo spoke with careful tenderness, scooting in to tenderly squeeze Timmy’s shoulder. “Just like the story said; no one is ever alone.”

Blue eyes turning brittle like glass, Timmy blinked back tears, biting his cheek to keep from breaking completely.

Gary mutely held his chin, Indian style atop his bed. Combing absent strokes into the fur of the yellow retriever stretched across his lap, his mind as foggy as the forest printed into his cotton duvet. His despondent gaze stared out at the sunset, the only visible light in the room that now housed two twin beds. Muffled waterfalls of the only shower inside the home seeping through silent walls.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed like this, yet time had no meaning. Submerged beneath this sea of numbness was a sealed bottle of emotions, bursting at the cork. Emotions he wished would just drown, never to resurface. He permitted this numbness to swallow his heart, as though hardening it to stone.

Feeling a buzz under his paw, Alondro glanced up at his godson. There was a cold flatness to his blue eyes, a lack of depth and warmth that felt disturbing to the fairy godfather. Answering a text from his phone felt inconsiderate to the godchild who was clearly miserable. Nonetheless, the buzz was likely a message from Susie; perhaps a silly pun could help Gary crack even a slither of a smile.

Sitting up on his front paws, Alondro pulled his phone from underneath him. His paw flipped the phone open to the text which read “Why should you never trust a train,” and he snorted. Because it has loco motives, he smirked inwardly. Yep, just the silly pun he needed.

“Oye, Gary,” he turned his attention to his godson. “Why should you never trust a train?”

The flatness in Gary’s stare didn’t respond. In fact, he appeared to not have heard him.

“…peque?” Alondro called, his voice gentle. Gary’s gaze remained unfocussed, peering into something that lay beyond the horizon of reality.

Alondro couldn’t help his growing concern for Gary. For weeks, Gary had been physically present yet mentally and emotionally withdrawn. For weeks, he’d attempted a safe space for Gary to express what he was thinking, express how he felt. But instead of talking, Gary would isolate himself in the Fairy Fort’s escape room, leaving Alondro to his own devices until he was ready to leave. He’d become a child of few words, keeping the loud part quiet. Devoid of emotions as though he’d shut down completely.

Days seemed to follow the same mundane schedule; leave his bed after a night of laying with his eyes closed, drag getting dressed and languish through his hygiene, wish to be present at school only to spend said school time at Fairy Fort alone, come home around the usual time it would take to walk from the bus stop, sit in the room in silence for hours, skip dinner, go to bed and close his eyes, repeat. Just going through the motions without any real purpose or intent behind them.

There is a clause in Da Rules, a cardinal rule that hung over every fairy’s head within the profession. If a fairy godparent cannot make their godchild happy, the fairy is either reassigned and the child loses all of their memories and magical wishes, or the fairy’s license is revoked never to grant wishes ever again. Gary was well aware of this, so why did it feel like Gary was preventing him from doing his job?

“No one is ever alone, Gary.” Alondro spoke up, watching dull blue eyes shift towards him, “You know that, si?”

Gary’s shoulders slouched forward. He wanted to take his godfather’s words to heart, but his heart felt so barren and withered.

“How are you feeling right now?”

“…I can’t feel…” Gary murmured, barely audible. He couldn’t feel, or else he might break into a million pieces never to be put back together again. He couldn’t feel, held together solely by the thin glue of his resistance from allowing himself to fall apart. He couldn’t feel, because he already felt so powerless. Powerless to stop this living nightmare, to cease the chaotic storm within.

“Bottling your problems deep inside will not make them go away.” Alondro reminded gingerly.

“I know…” Gary groaned. Part of him wanted to wish he had no emotions to bottle, but part of remembered the double-edged sword from the last time he’d made that wish.

It was after a screwed-up cocktail of medications that had landed him a third admission in the pediatric psych ward, stuck to celebrate his eleventh birthday inside four white walls. In his mind, the less emotions he had, the easier it’d be to keep himself under control, and the faster he’d get discharged.

That turned out to be a huge mistake; because he’d been unable to feel happiness, Jorgen had threatened to take Alondro away. And what had made it worse was how it’d taken every fiber of what he could dig from deep within to care that he was about to lose his fairy and give enough of a shit to wish back his emotions.

Poofing into his fairy form, Alondro hovered at Gary’s level. Facing him with an expression of great concern, soft yet stern. “Entonces háblame.”

Gary stared, downhearted. If he talked, he would feel, and if he felt anything, he feared he wouldn’t be able to reign himself in.

“Por favor, peque…” Alondro drifted towards Gary, pressing gentle palms to his cheeks. “Deja de excluirme.”

Gary shut his eyes, trying to drag back under the emotions he didn’t want to feel. He was only shutting him out to protect him, not to be mean. Alondro has seen him at his worst far too many times to be proud of, after doing everything he possibly could to help him. His fairy godfather shouldn’t have to keep saving him from himself…

Was he ever strong enough to save himself?

He looked down when he opened his eyes again, avoiding Alondro’s fixed icy-blue. “I’m the reason babushka’s dead…” he swallowed hard when his mouth went dry, “…and I’m the reason dedushka’s heart doesn’t function like it should…”

“Gary, none of that is your fault.” Alondro tried. Yet no matter how earnest his reassurance was, Gary snarled, pushing Alondro’s hands away from his face with more force than intended.

“Grandpa doesn’t even see me anymore!”

 Alondro’s breath caught, furrowing his brow. It broke his heart hearing the crack in Gary’s voice as tears pricked his eyes, jaw trembling.

“You saw for yourself; he barely even looks at me!”

“Grief can take many shapes and forms. Tu abuelo will come around eventually.” Alondro fished for optimism. But Gary’s heartache couldn’t take the bait as tears slipped down his cheeks.

“…you wouldn’t know since you were assigned to me right after Sophia died…but it took a long time for grandma and grandpa to even say Timmy’s name. Before that, he was just paint on the wall…”

Alondro let out a grim sigh. “I do not think the two scenarios are quite the same.”

Gary deepened his teary glare. “They very much are.”

“Peque, Buddy’s magic is what caused tu abuela’s heart attack. It was not anything you may have sai-”

“But grandpa doesn’t know that!” Gary shrieked, face flushing with rage. “And it wouldn’t have even come to that had I not spazzed out like a fucking psycho!”

Alondro recoiled as though he’d been punched, lips pinched. In the same second, the running shower in the hallway bath hushed abruptly, filling the air with a deafening silence. Nearly panting, Gary diverted his glare and growled in his throat, nails digging into his palms. This is exactly what he didn’t want…to go all ‘psycho’ again.

“…lo siento por gritarte…” Gary apologized for yelling, hanging his head shamefully.

“Oh, mi peque…” Alondro breathed, floating forward. His tender grip squeezed Gary’s shoulders, making him wince. “Solo dale tiempo a tu abuelo; just give your grandfather time. If he can come to forgive Timmy, then he can come to forgive you.”

Gary cringed, feeling so undeserved of Alondro’s patience. But Alondro was wrong…his grandfather took no time to make up his mind about him. Losing Sophia, his granddaughter, was one thing, and indirectly, his granddaughter had returned to him.

To lose his wife was another. The love of his life will never return to him…and it was all his fault.

“He won’t.” Gary muttered darkly, eyes full of disdain. “Because I can never forgive myself...”

Chapter Text

The golden globe of morning rose slowly behind city buildings, painting soft corals and lilacs across the skies in its wake. The first light of day reflected off the flowers blooming along the dew-laden grass, casting marigold hues along aged-cedar shingles and umber bricks of the Dimmsdale Psychology and Counseling Center.

The air inside the lobby was pen-drop quiet while also warm and cozy, counteracting the slight outside chill of the morning. Laura, middle-aged with speckles of salt in her pepper bantu knots, continued her morning duties behind the front desk. The first guests of the day sat against an olive-green wall across from the desk. Seated in leather chairs in a shade of blue gray meant to be calming, except her antsy mind raced as goosebumps prickled her skin, the subtle tremble in her fingers frizzing the ends of her platinum blonde hair.

Indigo necklace hanging from her neck, Chloe sat beside her father as they waited to be called back. This would be her first official session since the disaster of the session she almost wished she could distance herself from. She wanted to hope that her Paxil and Klonopin had enough time to kick in so that further humiliation can be avoided. But false hope only gives false comfort.

Blue eyes shifted to her right towards the thousand-yard stare of hunter-green, the deepest groove between his blonde brows. His biceps were involuntarily flexed from arms crossed tightly over his chest, the corners of his lips downturned. She could see the looming veil of doubt over his expression, and her brows pursed as her teeth grinded. It’d been just yesterday that his mind suddenly changed and he was open to giving this another shot…w-was he starting to think this was all a mistake?

A door gently creaked amongst the noiseless air like a loud screech, making Chloe jump a little as she and her father spotted the feminine figure standing in the doorway. Her sheer-black stockings the first to catch Clark’s eye, legs long and slim beneath the above-knee hem of her high waisted black skirt.

Tearing his gaze away from where he shouldn’t look, the second to catch Clark’s eye were the small but visible bags under her hazel eyes. It made him question if this had been the right choice. If she had gotten as much sleep as he didn’t, did she have the headspace for this session? Nonetheless, he needed to see this through, to finally stop this nagging voice in his head.

“Chloe?” the child psychologist weakly grinned as she addressed her patient, holding the door with her hand. “You can c’mon back.”

Exasperating, Clark unlocked his arms to grip the armrest to stand to his feet, his tense expression softening in a short glance to his daughter. “C’mon, Clo.”

Swallowing dryly, she shot from her chair, short on his tail past Laura’s desk towards Katherine welcoming them with a grin slightly wider than the last. As Katherine held the door to the hall that housed private psychologist offices, Clark passed her with lips pressed in a thin smile, an awkward attempt at cordiality. She could sense his skyscraper walls but didn’t make a fuss, smiling to Chloe whose grin looked as forced as the nerve it took to keep her own incertitude in check.

Upon returning home from the park with Kevin, her mind had still been reeling with the troubling events surrounding her half-brother. He had been in the forefront of her thoughts the majority of the drive home; from her observation, Denzel’s mind was in a lot worse state than Dolores seemed capable of grasping. That and the way his Dominion had reigned him in before things could escalate made her fear how much longer Denzel had before he was beyond intervention.

Alas, Denzel’s descent into darkness had not been her greatest vex; well after she’d tucked her son into bed, her restlessness had been too great to reconcile with sleep. The events of Wall 2 Wall Mart had left her unsettled with unresolved tension. Clark was not her first disappointed parent, and Chloe was not her first failed patient. And yet, something about those two hurt deeper than others had.

With no desire to retire if it only meant lying in bed with her eyes closed, she had opted for logging onto the household computer. She sorted through the emails she hadn’t had a chance to read before leaving work early, whether from parents of clients or employee information from the Psychology Center that she may have missed between sessions.

When she’d reached the last of her unread messages, a particular email sat bold in her inbox, catching her puzzled eye. At first, she thought it’d been a duplicate from when he’d sent an inquiry for an in-person visit to learn more about her and her services. That was until she took a closer look at the date and time and found that the email had been sent while she and Kevin were at the park with the Crockers.

Considering his stiltedness towards her, she’d solidified in her mind that her ties with the Carmichael’s were officially cut. She couldn’t fathom what had swayed him to request her services again, but she humored him anyway by asking when he would like for Chloe to come in. Seeing that it’d been after 10:00pm by the time she’d opened his email, part of her had not expected a response that same night. She was proven wrong when a response pinged not even ten minutes later apologizing for the last-minute request to book a session for the next day.

Therein lied a dilemma; Saturday had already been completely booked with the next availability not until the next Friday. Still, she’d hate to disappoint him again, and she’d hate to fail Chloe again. She wanted to try and make things right.

That was when she’d recalled an earlier email from a parent that she scrolled back up to click on, re-reading the literal last-minute request to reschedule the appointment their son had for that Saturday morning at 8:00 am. Just as last time, one door unexpectedly closed for another door to open. Almost like divine intervention. 

She’d responded asking if that time slot would work. And to her surprise, Clark had agreed. Thus, after getting with Laura to input Chloe’s information into the patient system, here she was, leading the father/daughter duo back into her office. Trying to push down the doubts that had her tossing and turning all night, hoping that she wouldn’t screw this up again.

Once inside the olive walls and pistachio carpet of Dr. Katherine's office, Chloe took note of Kevin in the corner nearest the office’s desk, sitting next to Bulma in her cage whose turquoise eyes instantly locked onto her. A low hoot signaled Kevin to redirect his attention from his novel, spotting the girl of whom he’d been informed by his mother would be the first client of the day.

He held his novel with one hand, casting her a small smile as his other waved at her. She fixed herself to do the same as curiosity pinpointed her to the familiar cover of Terry Totter and the Captive of Abaddon. Since when was Kevin a Totterhead, if at all?

“Why don’t you take a seat, Chloe.” The therapist’s polite instruction shot wide blue eyes to Katherine who was taking her seat on one of the two single chairs that faced each other. Distanced solely by a glass coffee table and the polyester loveseat that Clark made his way towards.

Chloe shuffled towards the chair facing Dr. Katherine, scanning the realism painting of Dimmsdale Beach centered between two white-wooden bookshelves. Fishing for a distraction from self-demeaning thoughts that did her little good, thoughts that’d become instinctive to plague herself with.

Katherine noted Chloe’s eyes glancing around in a way that didn’t seem to focus on anything, studying the way Chloe clung to her necklace like a lifeguard. She then looked over as Clark folded his arms after he took his seat with one leg crossed, feeling a nervous itch ice her skin from his keen stare observing her.

His distrust clawed at her heart, and her gaze wavered from his as she leveled herself with a slow, even breath. Your only limitation is what you set onto yourself…she peptalked. Nothing will go south again, not on her watch.

She reached for the sunny-yellow notebook on her side of the coffee table, the same one she’d kept tucked away in her desk drawer. Pulling back the cover to a blank page as Chloe slowly settled into her seat, wearing a warmer smile once Chloe finally focused her gaze.

“How are you this morning, Chloe?”

Tensing at the question, Chloe couldn’t keep Dr. Katherine’s eye contact for long, looking down at her fingers now drumming on the lap of her dress, “…I’m fine.”

“Tell the truth, Chloe.” her father’s gently-firm counsel wrinkled her brow shamefully.

“…m-my head doesn’t feel as foggy, at least…”

Katherine jotted short-hand notes in her notebook, picking up on Chloe’s first instinct to not only deny her true feelings but to downplay them.

“Your father had mentioned in his email that you started medication, is that right?” her question was answered with a short, stiff nod. “How is that going so far?

Wringing her fingers, Chloe gulped down the bile brewing in her belly when it attempted to upheave, “…s-still kinda makes me tired…but only sometimes.”

“Can you name any other side effects that bother you?” Katherine questioned, and Chloe replied by shaking her head. “How long have you been on medication?”

Blue eyes lowered further to the purple sandals rubbing themselves together as if itching to get up from this hot seat, “…a few weeks.”

Katherine grinned. “Side effects usually wear off in about two to four; the worst of it should be over soon.”

Chloe’s jaw clenched as she grounded her fretful teeth.

“Do you have any hobbies or things you like to do in your free time?” Katherine posed another question to keep Chloe talking. “Anything that has helped you try and cope with your anxiety prior to medication?”

Pausing to think, Chloe shot her dad a diffident glance, and his sober look of encouragement gave her just enough of a nudge to look back to Katherine’s attentive gaze.

“…reading.”

“That’s good. What do you like to read?”

Licking her lips, Chloe couldn’t seem to swallow enough to wet her parched throat, “…Terry Totter.”

Kevin raised his chin at the mention of the popular fantasy series.

“I have other clients that have mentioned Terry Totter.” Katherine lightly chuckled, briefly pointing to Kevin. “Even my own son is getting into it.”

Chloe averted Dr. Katherine’s gaze, starting to fiddle with the ends of her hair, and Clark raised a brow in his sideways glance towards the therapist. Did these questions serve a purpose other than an attempt of trying to get to know Chloe? If not, then what did a book about magic have to do with anxiety?

“Do you have a favorite character?”

Chloe thought quietly for a moment with brows furrowed, fraying her ends, “…Harmony Ginger.”

“Interesting.” Katherine felt a need to write the character’s name down. “Why is that?”

There was a moment of realization when Chloe saw how much she was frizzing her hair, jutting her lip as she forced herself to tuck both hands under her thighs. As soon as she did this, her eyes lasered onto Dr. Katherine scribbling something else in her notebook, feeling a discomforting itch in her parched throat.

She must think you’re so dramatic…she criticized herself. But isn’t that why she was here, to learn how to be less dramatic?

“Harmony is…a muggle-born witch…b-basically a human born without magic.” she started, her voice fragile, “…but she can cast any spell she learns with near perfect execution…almost better than any magic-born witch.”

Katherine palmed her chin, listening with her ears as well as her attention fully on Chloe. “Is that so?” she watched Chloe nod once more. “What else can you tell me about her?”

Her cheeks heated from a creeping flush, grappling with the bile that seemed to build an abode in her stomach, “…well, um…s-she’s really smart. So smart that…she was a high candidate for the house of Ravenbeard.”

Clark’s vigilant eye left his daughter for Katherine, seeing her seemingly intrigued in talking about everything but Chloe’s anxiety. The whole reason why he’d bothered to reach out for her help.

“So, I’m vaguely familiar with Ravenbeards, but, obviously, I’m not as attached to the intel.” Katherine lightly chuckled, partially to keep the mood light. “Can you describe for me what they are?”

Chloe shifted in her seat, keeping her antsy hands trapped under her thigh. While freshening up earlier that morning, she had been under the impression that they were going to dive into deep waters she honestly wasn’t ready to swim in yet. Maybe Dr. Katherine sensed this and was letting her wade in a shallow pool instead.

Chloe tried to relax her shoulders, inhaling and exhaling shakily. “…S-Snogwarts School of Witchery and Wizardry was, uh…founded by the most brilliant wizards and witches of the age…um…”

It was hard to hear her own train of thought over her heart chugging in her chest as if on the verge of derailing. It also took great effort to keep said train of thought in line, and the laser focus in Dr. Katherine’s listening gaze didn’t make her any more comfortable with the spotlight.

“…I’m sorry, I’m…drawing a blank…”

“That’s quite alright.” her therapist coaxed with much more patience than she felt deserved. “There’s no rush; take your time.”

Doing her best to push past her nerves, Chloe moistened her dry lips, “…so…um…t-they’re names are, uh…Gregory Gryffinsnore, Rosalina Ravenbeard, Sage Slytherskin, and Helina Hufflesnuff. The four main houses of Snogwarts are named after them…and each house is a representation of individual traits and values held in high regard by the house’s founder.”

Kevin observed from his corner, impressed by Chloe’s extensive Terry Totter knowledge that reminded him of Dwight.

“S-Students are sorted based on their personalities that determine where they’ll best thrive…” Chloe cleared her throat, “…Ravenbeard is the house of the most talented and academically gifted.”

“I see.” Kathrine started to see this as her path towards building rapport with Chloe. “Do you think of yourself as a Ravenbeard like Harmony?”

For a second, Chloe’s lips curved a coy grin. “Harmony was sorted into Gryffinsnore…mostly because of her loyalty and bravery. But she’s hard-working…always coming out on top in most of her classes.”

“Is that how you relate to Harmony?”

“…sort of.” Chloe’s face grew pensive, turning away from both Dr. Katherine and her father as if ashamed. “She has this…need to be perfect at everything. Puts a lot of stress on herself because…s-she hates to fail…”

Out the corner of her eye, Katherine noted Clark’s guilted frown when he lowered his eyes to the floor. Her brows grew together in concern as she looked back to her client.

“…have you felt the need to be perfect, Chloe?”

When Chloe faintly nodded, pain and discomfort strained her face. Katherine made certain to note this in her notebook as something to revisit, potentially in later sessions, if granted. This was not the day to peel off those band aids.

“What else do you like about Harmony?” she diverted the subject back to Chloe’s favorite character before Chloe had the chance to shut down.

“…well…” Chloe glanced upwards, toes curling in her sandals, “…no matter how stressed she is, she refuses to break under the pressure.”

“Do you see yourself in her?”

“…I-I’d like to…but I’m not that strong.” her brows tipped up, absently rocking side-to-side, “Plus, Harmony can come off as a know-it-all sometimes, and…I don’t like to be that way. She can also be a little insensitive and a bit condescending, especially when she thinks she’s right.”

Katherine jotted some bullet points that could come into play later, but her silence incited Chloe’s insecurity to flush in her cheeks once again.

“…I-I’m sorry…am I talking too much?”

“No, no. Talking is good.” Katherine finished her notes, her smile warm. “So, to summarize, you relate to Harmony’s intelligence and fear of failure, but you don’t quite relate to Harmony’s confidence that can come off cocky at times.”

Chloe took time to consider before she shrugged. Studying her, Clark watched Chloe’s knee that began to bounce, gaging whether or not the session was going well. She wasn’t pale, and she didn’t seem to show any difficulty breathing. He saw no signs of a looming panic attack, so, he guessed things were smooth sailing enough.

“So, let’s-”

“Wait, Dr. Katherine, um…” Chloe’s stomach cramped when two sets of focused stares fixed on her. “I-I’m sorry, I…don’t mean to interrupt…”

“You didn’t, Chloe.” Katherine sent her a reassuring smile. “Did you have anything else to add?”

“Um…” Chloe feared her mouth would dry out completely, pulling her hands from under her lap to clutch the knee that just wouldn’t stop bouncing. “I-I just…had a thought.”

“Okay.” Katherine kept an open mind. “Would you like to share?”

“Um…” Chloe fiddled her fingers in a series of staccato taps. “I-I was just wondering…if…m-may I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Katherine’s smile remained soft. “I like for my sessions to feel like a two-way conversation, so…feel free to ask me anything at any point.”

Chloe chewed on her lip. Part of her expected to be grilled for speaking out of turn, so the permission to speak freely stumped her.

“What is it you would like to ask?” Dr. Katherine gently nudged with a question, and though hesitating heat radiated from under Chloe’s collar, she braced herself by blowing out a held breath.

“…um…about Mr. Crocker…”

Bulma twittered in her cage, and Kevin’s lips thinned when he saw his mother’s smile start to wither.

“H-He was my elementary school teacher before he went on leave…” Chloe elaborated as her indigo necklace shot her a questioning brow. “I just…wanted to know if he’s okay.”

Katherine lowered the pen to the notebook’s hinge as her eyes drifted, hollowness carving itself under her sternum. She chewed the inside of her cheek; when it came to the silent storm of Denzel, there were things she could say. Then there were things she didn’t want to nor shouldn’t speak of.

In her field of work, self-disclosure was not a welcomed practice; she should just derail the subject and steer the conversation back on track. Then again, it was a question about her brother, not specifically about her. Did that still teeter the line of professional versus personal boundaries?

Clark could sense the internal debate behind Katherine’s fallen features, and his gaze narrowed from Katherine over to his daughter. “Chloe, this is not the time nor place.”

“No, no, i-it’s okay.” Katherine stammered, snapping out of her own head. She didn’t want Chloe to feel discouraged for asking the wrong question. “This was bound to be asked sooner or later…”

Chloe furrowed when Katherine blew a breath through pursed lips. “He’s Mr. Crocker to you, but he’s Denzel to me.” Katherine’s mouth opened and closed, choosing careful words. A dull ache pulsed in her heart, but her deceptive expression dared not show more of her waning barrier. “Physically, Denzel’s doing better…everything else is a different story.”

Chloe’s fingers returned to fidgeting restlessly, “…d-did something bad happen to him?”

“Under confidentiality laws, I can’t really say.”

“Right…” Chloe exhaled, rapidly tapping her fingers together. She should’ve known that information would be classified, yet she had no clue why she felt the need to ask.

“…I hope Mr. Crocker gets better.” she murmured.

“…as do I.” While Katherine maintained an even tone, his hunter-green was not blind to the internal strife behind her hazel eyes trailing downward as if unaware they were doing so.

Chloe, too, was not oblivious to the energy shift as she swallowed the lump that’d formed in her throat, her stomach churning all over again. “I’m sorry for making you upset…”

Katherine’s eyes snapped back to her client, her smile half-formed. “You didn’t make me upset, Chloe. I do appreciate your concern.”

Chloe bowed her head, rueful despite the grace she’d been given. Dad’s right; this wasn’t the time or place. You shouldn’t have asked that stupid question…

Believing this as something else to note (and in using the silence as an excuse to recharge,) Katherine retrieved her pen. Scribbling and underlining the bullet point of Chloe’s tendency to excessively apologize, even when the fault was not entirely on her.

“No!” the ten-year-old cried, trying as his might to pry his beloved parrots free from the malice clutch of his daily tormentor. “Leave them alone!”

The troubled teen rammed the toe of red chuck taylors into the smaller boy’s gut, kicking the very breath from his lungs. He dry-heaved as his drop to his knees, black spots dancing across his glasses.

Malevolence curled his smirk as Vic then proceeded to thrash his playthings into the nearest beige wall. Heartless to the pink and green feathers shedding with each bone-cracking impact.

“…n-nooo…” Denzel hissed with one hand clamped on his reeling stomach with the other clawing at brown carpet, fluffy fabric becoming spotted with crimson trickling down his chin, “…s-stop it!”

Vic tossed his toys hard onto the ground, his smirk curling with delight as pink and green wings twitched in agony. Only just getting started as he dug into his back pocket and extended his knife with one, sharp clip. Then, with zero mercy, his knife struck down in one flash, and a shrill caw rang out as green feathers leaked red.

His eyes burned as the helpless boy could do nothing but witness sheer torture being inflicted upon his parrots, parrots that never deserved such a terrible fate. “P-Please, no…please stop…”

Denzel’s pleas only fell on deaf ears as Vic twisted the blade deeper, tearing veins and ripping muscles. Then, with his free hand, Vic snatched both of the pink parrot’s legs and bent them with sheer force in the most unnatural angle. The crunching snap of bone was drowned out by the gurgling, earsplitting wails in her throat, and Denzel’s eyes widened in absolute horror.

“STOOOOOP! PLEASE!”

Distress shouted from deep within, his chest on fire. But no matter how much Denzel sobbed, no matter how much he begged, how much he pleaded, Vic reveled in the pain he caused, their sobs and screeching cries music to his ears.

Yanking the same blade pinning the green parrot’s wing to the floor, Vic aimed it downward into the pink parrot’s shoulder. Her pink eyes flashed with an agonized squawked, and his pink eyes grew sinister in a wicked smirk.

Doubled over on his knees, Denzel cried without a sound until his bruised lungs could get air, teeth stained with dribbles of blood. Cradling the roil in his stomach as his other hand stretched out, reaching for the suffering parrots so close yet so far away. He had to save them…but what can he do? Vic was strong, and he was weak.

Gut-wrenching sobs overtook him. There was something he could do, but it would cost the ultimate price.

Sometimes, if you love someone…you have to let them go.

Biting down on his lip, he pushed himself to unsteady feet. Quivering fingers coiled into fists to keep himself grounded. His sore throat swallowed, gathering the strength to lift his head. Uttering the very words that would change his life forever.

“…I-I’m happy…and I don’t need my-”

He shot up with a start, eyes flying open like quickly-drawn blinds, blinking to the shroud of darkness thickened by blackout curtains. He clutched the left side of his chest, panting rapidly as his heartrate thumped madly.

“…I-I don’t need my what?” he huffed when his breathing slowed and he could finally speak. Time and time again, he has struggled to crack this code to this reoccurring nightmare. And time and time again, he found himself hitting the same mental wall.

Was he going to say ‘parrots’? Why would he say he didn’t need them? And why would he ever say he was happy when he had a sadistic babysitter to keep him miserable?

The last thought made him cringed, a visible shudder rattling his bones. Prior to their run-in at the park, and even before his van breaking down, the last time he ever dealt with Vic was when Vic had announced his acceptance into California Corrections Academy. He remembered because that’d been the same day Dolores decided that Denzel was old enough to fend for himself. AKA, she no longer felt the need to budget for a babysitter.

Vic’s last day was supposed to be a silver lining for Denzel, to finally find any good in living. But as fragments of events pieced themselves together, Denzel’s memory of that day proved everything but…

Thirteen-year-old Denzel brooded atop his bed, boney arms snaked around the knees against his gaunt chest. Unblinking eyes stare motionless in a far-away gaze, staring at the parrot tree beside his bed…minus the parrots.

March 15^th, 1972…the day his external heartbeats died. Unfortunately, all he had to memorialize them was this stupid tree. He never got to bury them; any evidence of their existence (besides the tree) had been scrapped by the time he’d found out they were dead. Three years came and went, spirits hollowed by the void left behind.

To this day, their deaths were a mystery to him. He remembered their unconditional support after his sperm donor had given him the boot. Soothing the burn of rejection, comforting him when he had no choice but to take the walk of shame back home. He remembered them flying around in his room, being themselves, healthy. That was when his daily tormentor barged into his room to wreak havoc, starting with his parrots.

He remembered how Vic had terrorized them, hurt them so badly that they bled profusely. He remembered crying for Vic to stop, crying for his defenseless parrots.

Then, like a blink, he remembered waking up, tucked in bed with the sun rising outside his window. His head spun like crazy when he’d sat up, pounding like he’d been punched.

He remembered his first thought being to look around the room for his parrots. Calling for them garnered no response in return. Then, his mother came into his room asking if he remembered what’d happened yesterday. He tried to recall, but it’d felt like a chunk of time had been wiped out.

That was when she’d told him what Vic had told her…that his parrots suddenly dropped dead, and he’d been so distraught that he’d passed out. That explanation alone raised alarm bells. Birds don’t just drop dead, not without a cause for the effect.

He jumped at the crash of his door smashing into the wall, eyes widened in alarm. A young man stood in the doorway, red hair once long and shaggy now tapered in a brush cut. The scruffy stubble over his top lip now a trimmed goatee, giving him that ominous smirk that never made Denzel feel safe.

“Sup, loser.” Vic stepped into the room without permission, hands in his front pockets in a way that showed off the bulk his workouts had toned his biceps. “Figured I’d come say goodbye before I head out.”

With his bed against the wall, Denzel scooted back across his duvet towards the window, trying to keep a semblance of distance between them, “…okay. Bye.” he droned, defenses high.

“Aww, c’mon, Denzie.” Vic’s smirk widened teasingly, coming closer. “You really gone be like that?”

Denzel pinched his lips, scrunching them tightly. He pressed his back against the wall, crouching into as tight of a ball as possible.

Like a predator amused by its prey, a low chuckle hummed in Vic’s throat. Poor little Denzie, too bad his efforts got himself trapped.

“C’mon, now. I’m tryna be nice, here.”

“You got your goodbye.” Denzel pressed sternly, deceiving the tight crack in his voice. “Now, get out.” 

Doing the exact opposite, Vic pounced, lurching on hands and knees across the sheets. Denzel yelped as he jumped, trying to scurry away, yet Vic had him outmatched in both strength and speed. Vic’s claws snatched Denzel by his shirt, tossing him like a ragdoll against the bed. Pinning him to the sheets by both wrists.

With any chance of flight gone, adrenaline burst through his veins, kicking into fight as Denzel squirmed about, thrashing wild legs. Though he tousled with him at first, Vic managed to demand control, straddling him with strong knees to trap Denzel by his sides. A guttural scream erupted from Denzel’s throat, his heart on the verge of pounding out of his chest.

Vic clasped firm fingers around Denzel’s tiny neck, straining breaths in Denzel’s throat. When it felt like something heavy was pulsating against Denzel’s lower stomach, terror bulged in his eyes. He could no longer see anything except the wicked, imperiling blaze of pink eyes bearing down at him. His entire body became impossibly still as reality set deep into his bones.

His mom won’t be home until late, his parrots were dead, and he had no voice left to scream.

No one can save him, and the foreboding moan in Vic’s snicker knew this, too…

A knock on the door followed by its hinges creaking open cutoff the troubling scene before it could get any worse, though for once, he didn’t mind the disruption. He squinted, adjusting to the hallway’s blinding light sharply shining into the dark of his bedroom, and a set of heels pattered carefully as if walking on eggshells towards her only son’s bed.

Dolores frowned, hearing Denzel’s low grumble as he patted along the worn mattress for his glasses. The second Katherine had dropped them off yesterday evening, Denzel had burst through the front door and stormed into his room, all without a word to her or so much as an acknowledgement of her concern for him. Though she hadn’t seen her son since, she knew she needed to tread lightly. Mornings made him grumpy enough as is without unresolved tensions.

“Morning, honey.” his mother greeted him, subtle hints of trepidation in her good spirits. “How’re you feeling?”

“Who cares…” he groused, his stare hardened to her false softness, “…what do you want.”

“There’s someone on the phone for you.”

His brow raised quizzically, almost in utter disbelief, “…who the heck would want to call me, let alone this early?”

She stalled, uncertain if he would trust her response. “Believe it or not…it’s Victor.”

His chest pinched at the name, brows slit as he hissed through clenched teeth. “You mean the Victor you claim to be some sort of saint?”

Dolores pouted, still not understanding Denzel’s dislike for Victor. She could remember dragging herself home from juggling multiple jobs, and with how late it always was, Denzel would normally be sound asleep in his room. Whenever she’d check in with Victor, he never had anything worth bringing to her concern.

Yeah, Denzel had his complaints, but if Victor had been hurting him, then why did she never find a bruise or scratch on him?

In her opinion, Victor did not deserve his spite, yet she chose to stay silent on the matter. It was far too early for another back and forth, and peace was more important than being right.

“Maybe he’s calling as a friend.” Dolores remarked, cocking her hip. “You could really use some of those.”

Denzel scoffed sourly. “He can piss up a rope for all I care.”

[What didst I say about closing yourself away?]

He bristled, pointing a glare at the raven in her cage beside his bed, her eyes shining purple among the room’s shadows. Passage of time had not doused his peeved fires; how dare she hypnotize him like he was her puppet. The thought alone curled his insides into burning knots. That, and the humiliation of everyone cackling like hyenas around him. Mindless jerks making a mockery out of ‘Crazy Crocker.’

“Well, he’s on hold on the phone downstairs.” he picked up on the hint of snark in her comment, turning his glare back towards her. “Do you want to tell him that, or do I have to?”

The bridge of his nose crinkled, debating whether it’d honestly be worth entertaining that clown.

[Do you need a repeat?] was Parisa’s watered-down threat, and he snarled in an agitated groan. He’d rather kiss Vic’s toes than be hypnotized again.

Decent with a white tee over his underwear, the raven sat perched on Denzel’s shoulder as he trailed behind Dolores down the stairs, reluctant to follow her way into the living room where the wireless phone rested on an end table, phone off the receiver. As Dolores made her way back to the couch where her morning newspaper waited for her, Denzel retrieved the phone, sighing irritably.

"…hello?”

“…uh, hey there.” the southern twang on the other end sounded surprised. “You answered after all.”

Denzel sent a pointed side-eye to the raven’s lavender stare. “I almost didn’t.”

“…well…to be honest, I’m surprised I remembered this number by hea-”

“Can you just spit out whatever it is you have to say? Y’know, clear your stupid conscience or whatever?” Denzel interrupted, grumbling. Paying zero mind to his mother’s flattened brow as she lowered her newspaper slightly, half-listening to the half of the conversation that was within earshot.

An awkward pause was followed by an equally awkward snort, “…sure, that’s fair.”

Denzel squinted in repulsion.

“…well, I was thinkin’ ‘bout the park yesterday and…I feel kinda bad.”

Denzel snorted, a little too loudly, “…you? Feel bad? For what?”

“All them folks laughin’ at you…” there were sounds of shuffling on the other line. “It wasn’t right.”

Oh, shut up, you hypocrite, is what Denzel would’ve said out loud, except he had no energy to pick a fight. Especially not with some raven with unexplained powers staring him down, ready to police him at any moment.

 After another gap of silence, he heard Vic cough to clear his throat, “…whatcha up to, today?”

Denzel eyed the phone held to his ear. That’s suspicious…why the heck was he so nice? “Don’t know. Why?”

“Might sound strange, but…you down ta maybe…meet up and jus’ talk?”

Bingo. He wanted something, something years of resentment doesn’t give easily.

“I have no interest in talking...” Denzel began, until he looked back to his shoulder when he felt Parisa’s intrusive stare on his neck. Then his shoulder slouched, sighing “…but I’ll bite.”

Moments of silence followed, as if the caller had expected a completely different response than what he’d received, “…wait, really?”

“Yes.”

“Uh…sweet. Well, uh…” the way Vic stalled almost seemed as if he hadn’t thought past the idea of Denzel legitimately being open to a conversation, “…there’s this, uh…this joint that jus’ opened up in that Little Ireland district downtown. Called the McPunchies Pub.”

“…pub?” Denzel questioned as if he’d misheard.

“Yeah…you uh, maybe…wanna meet up later on today?”

“…I don’t drink.” Denzel stated dryly.

“They got like soda and water and stuff, too.” Vic added. “But uh… I understand if ya not comfortable.”

Once again, Denzel eyed Parisa musingly observing him, “…I’ll get over it, I guess.” he groaned.

“…okay, well…” another cough cleared his throat like an itch he struggled to scratch, “I gotta work today, so, uh...4:30 okay?”

“Sure.”

“…alright then…guess I’ll see-”

Denzel shut the phone back onto the receiver in an audible click, his insides churning.

“See?” Dolores smiled over her shoulder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Rolling his eyes, Denzel stormed off towards the stairs, instant regret plunging like a rock in his stomach. What the heck did I just do…

[You have just chosen to release the anchors of grudges that have kept you drowning.]

Denzel made a face. “Do you ever not sound like some self-help pamphlet?”

Parisa’s tail feathers pointed upright as she cawed at him.

Blowing out a breath, Vic lowered the Nokia phone to the kitchen countertop, garbed in his blue polo and black slacks for his overtime at the correctional facility.

“You know you didn’t have to do all that, right?” Vicky commented from the table booth, tending to a bowl of Lucky Bits. Still comfy in her pajamas of black oversized tee with a skull and crossbones in the center.

“Yeah, I know…” Vic lifted his mug to finish the last of his coffee. “I jus’ kept hearin’ this voice tellin’ me to do it. Wouldn’t stop ‘til I did.”

Vicky gave him an arched brow and one cunning corner of her mouth raised, a sly look that Vic caught on to with a weak smirk. “Don’t gimmie that look. I jus’ wanna talk.”

“Which you could’ve done over the phone.” Vicky pointed out in her joking mood. “But nooooooooo; you had to invite him out to a place that sells liquid courage.”

Vic lightly rolled his eyes before he sighed, hints of doubt lowering his gaze. “Don’t mean he’ll show.”

When they hear the curtains to the back bedroom being drawn back, Vic and Vicky turn to Tootie’s hair French-braided into ponytails, wearing a dark-purple shirt beneath her black sweater vest over her gray plaid skirt. The light-pink scar between her brows brunched in her uneasy stare pointed towards him. Silently grimacing for a moment before her black boots scampered past him, her teal tabby not far behind.

“Mornin’, kiddo.” he murmured to her. She paused with her hand on the front door’s handle, pressing her lips together. “Goin’ to check the mail for me?”

Standing stiff as a board, Tootie nodded as she twisted the door handle, averting her gaze.

“C’mon, Tootie.” Vicky groaned, believing Tootie’s high guard to be misguided. “You don’t have to be like that.”

Tootie shot a pursed brow at her sister, flushed in her cheeks. Too flustered to talk back, she yanked the door open and stomped out of the camper with her tabby close behind, slamming the door with a shut that shook through the camper’s frame.

Vic’s throat clenched; was she afraid of him now? With all the stuff Denzel had blurted out about her own uncle, he probably felt like a stranger to her. She hadn’t said a word to him since yesterday, and it seemed like she was avoiding him, keeping her distance if she felt he got too close.

Vicky turned to her uncle’s fallen features and sighed “…I’ll talk to her.”

“Nah, I’ll talk to her when I can.” Vic’s voice dropped, sounding defeated as he set his mug on the counter and excused himself. “Lemme go see if this girl’s ready ta go…”

Vicky looked on as Vic headed towards the bathroom door, giving it a couple knocks with the back of his knuckles. “Molly? How’s it comin’?”

Putting on her eyeliner, Molly let out a huff that could be heard through the door, her dark-blue raven perched on the counter beside her makeup bag, “Give me a sec, will ya? I’m almost done!”

“Aight; jus’ don’t take too long.” Vic advised. “I still gotta get ya past security.”

“Whatever...” came Molly’s mutter. Vic folded his lips, and Vicky shook her head, wrinkling her nose.

“Does she ever not have an attitude?” Vicky snarked.

“Well, jus’ imagine if you had ta visit Nicky today?” Vic gently contended a different perspective, and Vicky titled her head to one side before she shrugged with one shoulder.

“…touché.”

Reaching inside the mailbox, a mild breeze danced through loose strands of braided ponytails as Tootie pulled out envelops of bills and junk mail. Shutting back the lid, she sorted through them aimlessly, ambling along the gravel trail with no pep in her step. In their short trek back towards the camper, her teal tabby studied her, seeing the somberness behind her purple glasses. Bless her heart, but Tootie had zero poker face; if something bothered her, it wore like a sleeve on her face.

“Hey, Tootie,” Rose broke the silence between them. “Do you mind if we just sit outside for a moment?”

They were about to pass the red pickup when Tootie turned her head towards her godmother. “What for?”

“It feels pretty nice out for a Saturday morning.”  Rose pointed out, her tone casual. “Maybe we could just…enjoy the fresh air?”

Tootie jutted her chin. When you consider a grown man, a teenaged girl, and two kids with fairies masquerading as pets, all living under one roof of a one-bed camper designed for two people max, you start to realize just how limited total privacy is. Was this Rose’s excuse for some one-on-one? Maybe she could use the pick-me-up; her head felt full, and her heart felt empty.

Taking Rose up on her offer, Tootie tucked the mail under one arm before using both to scoop the teal tabby as to not accidently drop her. Once secure, she carried her over to the red pickup parked in front of the camper, stepping in front of the door to the trunk bed. “I wish the door was unlocked.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” Rose sparked her wand, and teal twinkles clicked the lock to the door before pulling it down. Giving access for those same twinkles to levitate Tootie’s boots off the grey gravel, gently lowering her to sit with legs dangling off the edge.

Setting the mail beside her thigh, Tootie shifted the teal tabby to lay across the lap of her plaid skirt, peering out at the other campers throughout rural lands of dead grass and dirt. Taking in the stillness of the morning minus the old greyhound barking at the slightest rustle of tumbleweed.

“…what if Uncle Vic and Vicky think I ran away again?” she worried; she’d already took longer than expected to get the mail. Partially because despair barely let her walk as is, and partially because of the chills that seemed to tingle under her skin just from being around him.

“You can just tell them you wanted some air.” Rose suggested. “Plus, they can see you from the inside.”

Following Rose’s pointed paw, Tootie turned behind her to the small window that led into the kitchenette, finding a pair of peeking pink eyes. Her older sister shut the blinds as soon as she was spotted, disappearing from sight. She held her purple stare on the camper before turning to face back out at the rural scenery. She gazed into the distance, giving soft strokes to Rose’s fur.

“So, what’s on your mind?” Rose inquired.

Tootie looked away, the deepest frown dimpling her chin, “…what if I don’t wanna say?”

“Then are you at least willing to hear a different perspective?”

Despondent, Tootie replied with a shrug.

“Your uncle would never hurt you like Jim did.”

“…what about all the stuff Mr. Crocker said…” Tootie whimpered, barely audible.

“Has your uncle ever hurt you before?” Rose quizzed, Tootie’s brows knitting further. “And what about yesterday, when Molly was mouthing off? He didn’t even try to lay hands on her, even when she kept goading him.”

Tootie continued to stroke Rose’s fur pensively, giving no response. Avoiding having to look Rose in the eye with her gaze downcast.

“Vic is not the same person he was at Vicky’s age.” Rose gently reasoned. “Otherwise, the court wouldn’t have given him full custody. Let alone legal guardianship.”

Tootie remained quiet, scrunching her face.

“Honey, I understand how you might fe-”

“I know all this already.” Tootie interjected, a faint squeak like a mouse in her words. “It’s not the fact that he’s done it before…” she chewed on her lip, hesitant to admit the truth that troubled her deeply, “It’s…the fact that he’s capable of doing it again…”

Rose’s soft attention never wavered. “No matter how angry he gets, I don’t believe he would ever hurt you on purpose.”

Tootie exhaled heavily, bowing her head briefly. “I guess you’re right…”

Rose’s forehead wrinkled, looking at her goddaughter with such tenderness that it almost hurt. “Tootie, you’re safe. You know that, don’t you?”

Sharp eyes snapped to her godmother, muscles stiffening as if a spider crawled up her spine. Even if she was safe, Tootie never ever wanted to do or say anything that could change that for the worst.

Chapter Text

The cement grooves between resurfaced pavement rolled beneath her purple Chuck Taylors like a hand slowly unraveling a spool of film. Her red-ringed finger scratched absently at the knee of her denim jeans, rigid in her slump atop the tan-leather seat. She saw the world from the rear of the golfcart that was currently carrying her and her adopted family, giving them a casual ride in the one-acre distance between their 18^th century estate and the Buxaplenty mansion.

The Buxaplentys had offered Mike a Fancy Schmancy Country Club membership for free in exchange for Remy’s private piano lessons. It was because the Buxaplentys had always been so cordial (and because he wasn’t giving lessons for money anyway) that Mike didn’t hesitate to accept. This Saturday would mark their first gathering as official members, but as Missy’s vibrant green eyes admired the passing scenery of neighboring mansions, Hazel’s somber brown never left the sidewalk moving beneath the cart’s wheels.

Her gap bit down on her bottom lip; as far as Hazel knew, the Wells were still members of the country club and regular attendees of the gatherings. Remy hadn’t told her much (perhaps to spare her sanity,) nor did she have the mind to ask before now (despite their lifestyle, she couldn’t have predicted the Phirmans wanting anything to do with ritzy country clubs.)

What she didn’t know was which Wells would be in attendance. Though her wish had expunged all scrapes of her existence in their lives, part of her had to wonder. Was Angela a wife instead of a widow? Did Hillary get her brother back? Hazel never got confirmation, nor did she think it was good to dwell.

As of her wish, she was a stranger to them. If they were to see her, she’d be no different from just another black kid. Still, it made her bones quiver at the thought of seeing them let alone them acknowledging her.

The dull buzz of the operated gates parting pulled her stare from her feet, feeling the golfcart slow in waiting for the gates to permit full entry. After the pause, she had to quickly stable herself with a hand to the side rail when the cart jerked from Mr. Beckles pressing down on the gas pedal. The small motor sputtered along the curved driveway, tires rolling along smooth asphalt before slowing in front of the layered steps of the country club’s entrance.

“Thank you so much for the ride, A.J.” Mike thanked his head butler, stepping out from the passenger. Missy hopped off the rear seat while Hazel carefully slid down with one foot at a time.

“Ain’t no problem at all, Mr. Michael!” Mr. Beckles smiled to Mike, and Mike reached into the pocket of his dark denim, retrieving a Motorola pager.

“I’ll give you a page when we’re ready to leave.”

“Yessir.” Mr. Beckles raised a waving hand. “Y’all have a great time!”

With the key still in the ignition, Mr. Beckles pressed the gas and sputtered away, looping back towards the gates as the Phirman trio traversed the steps. Having not heard much from her sister in a while, Missy looked towards her left to the fret etched deep in Hazel’s features, arms wrapped around herself.

“Try not to be nervous, okay? It’ll be fine.” Missy offered some encouragement, and though appreciative of the attempt at optimism, Hazel continued to hug herself with her head bowed.

Seeing their approach, the two butlers posted out front pulled on the golden handles of the heavy double doors, tugging the doors open for them. As their steps echoed across the marble floors and high ceiling of the extravagant foyer, standing along the bottom landing of the grand central staircase were the two figure heads of the country club. Pearly whites exaggerated in their welcoming smiles as opposed to their grandson’s flattened brow and downturned lips behind them, his purple watch visible around his wrist.

“Welcome, welcome!” Orvy greeted Mike, extending a hand. “Glad you could make it!”

“Thank you for the invite!” Mike gave Orvy’s hand a firm shake, and Frances leaned down before Missy with the flashiest grin.

“Wonderful seeing you again, Missy!” Frances beamed, sing-song in her cadence. “And we look forward to hearing your debut with the San Francisco Symphony!”

Missy blinked slowly, genuinely surprised. “R-Really? You all know about that?”

“I sort of bragged a bit to them about it.” Mike smiled sheepishly to his daughter, scratching behind his neck.

“As you should!” Orvy remarked, chin held high. “Missy is a remarkably talented young lady, and this debut is a huge accomplishment!”

Hazel did her best to mask her wince. She was literally standing right beside the Phirmans, and yet the Buxaplentys looked passed her. Not even so much as a side-eye, as if she was just another marble-carved statue decorated throughout the foyer. In fact, the only Buxaplenty to bother noticing her was the fellow godchild when he stepped towards her, giving her a small wave that she greeted with a coy smile in return.

“Hey there, Remy!” Mike’s sociable greeting drew Remy’s drab expression towards him. “How’s my new student this morning?”

Remy shrugged with minimal effort. Displeased, Frances shot her grandson an agitated look as if to say ‘you can stand to be more polite.’ Of course, Remy’s hardline frown did no such thing.

Frances made a mental note to reprimand this attitude of his later when they didn’t have a country club to run, feigning a smile back to the Phirmans. “We’re still waiting on some more members to arrive, but feel free to help yourselves to the brunch being catered in the dining hall!”

“Oh, thank you! I could certainly use some more coffee.” Mike half-joked.

“Ha, don’t we all!” Orvy chuckled, patting Mike on the back perhaps a bit too hard. Mike faltered slightly on his feet but smiled it off, being led by Orvy towards the dining hall to mingle amongst the other adults.

“Would you like anything to eat or drink, dear?” Frances asked, and by Missy’s observation of where Frances directed her attention, the courtesy had only been offered to her.

“Hazel? Would you like anything?” Missy then extended the offer to the little girl next to her. After a long, sideways glance, Hazel shook her head, and Missy smiled politely back to Frances. “No, ma’am. We’re fine.”

“Alright, then.” Frances’s smile seemed even more forced when she acknowledged her grandson. “Be a better host and take the girls to mingle with the other children, will you? Certainly, you can at least be bothered to do that.”

With that, Frances whisked herself away to tend to the other adult members, her pointy heels bouncing off the hollow acoustics. Missy and Hazel saw as Remy rolled his eyes, though the grumbly groan under his breath seemed as if something deeper than a pesky grandmother peeved him.

“How are you really feeling, Remy?” Missy asked him gingerly.

“Never mind that…” Remy sighed, avoiding talking about himself. There were more important matters as his grave mint-green glanced to Hazel. “You won’t like who’re here.”

Gulping the lump that’d formed in her throat, Hazel tried not to show much dread in her pursed brow. Part of her wasn’t surprised, yet part of her was apprehensive in facing those ghosts of her past, “…y-you mean they’re here?”

With nothing more than a stiff nod, Remy pivoted on his heel, and Missy and Hazel exchanged looks before following his lead.

Within the dining hall centered between the Cash-Deposits and the Cash-ForGolds, his blonde hair was combed neatly over to one side, a black Prada sweater layering his white button-up tucked into khaki slacks with black leather Moccasins. He held a tender arm around the waist of his wife’s matching black tricotine dress with high-heeled sandals, paired with Prada earrings coated in rose gold to complement her blonde hair sleeked in a low bun.

“Cheers to Money Wells Marketing Firm for their projected forty percent profit for Q1!” Mr. Cash-ForGold congratulated, his mimosa flute held in the air.

Clinking their glasses together in cheers, the trio of affluent couples sipped their mimosas.  Marcus then leaned with a loving kiss to his wife’s cheek, and Angela’s pearly whites smirked, leaning instinctively into her husband. She reciprocated with a tender smooch, and with the world momentarily erased around them, a soft sigh hummed behind his lips as he pressed his forehead to hers, receiving fond awes from their peers.

Occupying one of the round dining tables was the Wells’ youngest daughter, sporting a black and white Prada cardigan over her plaid knitted cashmere tank top. Her white mini skirt pleated with a Prada belt looped around, footed in brushed-leather loafers. Blonde bun sleeked similarly to her mother’s, showing off the princess cut diamonds sparkling on her ears.

“She had the longest hair, I mean hair down past her calves! All it chopped off because this boy put the biggest wad of gum in her hair!” Hillary giggled in her retelling of a true story, smiling freely. “It was so bad, she wore this ugly Nordstrom hat the rest of the week trying to hide it!”

“Oh my gosh, that is so tragic!” Veronica indulged, always drawn into Hillary’s fascinating stories of private school events that sounded no different from what goes down in public school. “I would’ve just stayed home!”

“If she was smart, she would have!” Hillary snickered. “No one at school let her live it down!”

Beside the girls, the Griffin stepbrothers gawked in awe at the new cellphone displayed in the hands of the Wells’ eldest son. Dressed like his father’s mini in his white sweater over a black button-up tucked into khakis with black Moccasins, his blonde hair spiked with the thickest coat of gel.

“Gentlemen, I introduce to you my new BlackBerry 6750!” Anthony’s deeper voice cracked slightly, showing off the phone that looked more like the sleekest calculator. “I can send texts, emails, and browse the web!”

“Dude, that’s so cool!” Tad complimented, most impressed with the digital icons with varying functions across the large screen.

“Yo, with one of these, we’d be cooler than cool!” Chad remarked, eyes shining down at the phone as if a pot of gold gleamed before him.

“The coolest!” Anthony added with a wide smirk.

Seeing the Wells again for the first time in forever, Hazel clawed at the sleeves beneath her cropped hoodie. In wishing that the Wells were never her family, it must’ve indirectly brought the dead back to life. A rule that might’ve been broken but went unpunished by some kind of loophole. Admittedly, however, this was not what rushed cold tingles across her skin.

She’d never seen Marcus show any lovey-dovey affection towards his wife that wasn’t for show, and she’d never seen Angela so enthralled like some boy-crazy teenager towards her husband. Hillary’s laugh never sounded so bright and full of life, and Anthony was alive and well without a chip on his shoulder.

Hazel’s chin dimpled in the deepest frown. They all seemed…better off. Better off without her.

Centered between the boys and the other girls, glossy eyes stared absently at her untouched glass of water. The ache in her chest would not relent, burning without end. Her parents had dragged her to this club against her objection, when all she wanted was to find a rock to hide under, let the earth swallow her whole.

For once, Trixie Tang, the most popular girl in school, the person every girl aspired to be and every boy aspired to be with…wished to be invisible.

Her wish went ungranted when Veronica’s joyful smile faded at the sight of sadness behind Trixie’s stare before she elbowed her, breaking Trixie out of her own head. “Trixie, come on! Lighten up!”

Trixie slumped her shoulders, pouting weakly. She was in no mood to pretend to be happy, much less entertain whatever stupid nonsense Hillary and Veronica seemed to think was absolutely hilarious.

Rolling her eyes, Hillary clicked her tongue. “Ugh, why does she have to be such a downer?”

Trixie furrowed her brows at her, growing defensive. “Excuse me? You don’t even know me.”

“But she’s right!” Veronica seemed a little too quick to come to Hillary’s defense. “It’s like all you do lately is be all moody! As if making up lies about the bouncer wasn’t annoying enough!”

Just the mention of the bouncer curdled a bitter taste that Trixie couldn’t swallow. “I’m not lying.”

“C’mon, boys always give you all the attention, and you and I both know you revel in it no matter who or what it is!” Veronica argued. “You never had a problem with the bouncer giving you attention before. Why start now?!”

“Come oonnnnnn, Veronica…” Chad grumbled, overhearing yet another catty argument. “You bringin’ this up again?”

“Yeah, just give it a rest.” Tad groused, equally as annoyed. “The bouncer’s not even here!”

“Tell that to Trixie, not me!” Veronica countered, finger pointed stiffly in her best friend’s direction. “She’s the one acting all butthurt!”  

“Well, it seems to me like you’re trying to be Hillary’s copycat now, because being original is just so hard.” Trixie spat, making Veronica puff her cheeks.

Hillary scoffed, a mocking curl in her upper lip. “Why would anyone ever wanna be like some pouty chink, anyway?”

Both Tad and Chad gasped silently, and Trixie’s lips went tight in her pointed glare towards Hillary, her voice dangerously low, “…what did you just say?”

“You heard me!”

“Hey, you know better than to say shit like that!” Anthony warned his little sister.

“I’m just calling it like it is!” Hillary sneered, crossing her arms.

“How?! By being nasty?” Trixie challenged, tone laced with disgust. “Oh, yeah, so classy of you!”

“You people wouldn’t know class if it bit you in the butt!” Hillary snapped back, each word dripping with derision. Trixie whirled her glare at her so-called best friend, feeling her muscles tensing with heat by the second.

“I can’t believe you’re letting her talk to me like that!”

When a look of discomfort crossed Veronica’s grimace, her second-guessing glance turned to Hillary. Instead of coddling her, Hillary scowled fiercely, as if to say ‘you better handle her before I do.’

“…she has a point.” Veronica muttered, hardening her slit brow towards Trixie. “You have been a downer lately.”

A sharp, cold stab pierced Trixie’s heart, tears welling in her eyes. What the heck is going on right now?! Why is her ‘best friend’ treating her like this?!

“You’re only saying that because you’ve always been jealous of me!” she cried, her voice rasped by her barely controlled heartache. “You’re not as popular as me, and you know you never will be!”

As her husband Jonathan chatted with the Cash-Alots by the refreshments table, blissfully unaware, Lu Xiu Tang eyed her daughter intently from the sidelines, not far from the altercation currently putting Trixie in the worst light. Her jaw clenched, embarrassment twisting in her chest like a knife shoving itself deeper.

“Hey, cut it out!” Tad scolded them both. “You guys want the adults to come over here?”

“Yeah, Chinkie.” Hillary taunted. “You might wanna listen to the boy with some couth.”

Trixie slammed her fist on the table, the rush of adrenaline scooting her out of her chair with an audible screech. Gaining piqued glances from Marcus and Angela as well as the Cash-ForGolds and Cash-Deposits as Trixie towered over Hillary’s smug grin.

“I’m so sick of your crap! You’re all bark and no bite!”

Still seated, Hillary’s eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “You better watch your tone.”

“Am I supposed to be scared of you?” Trixie yelled in her face. “Put up or shut up!”

“Trixie, sit down! You know you can’t fight!” Veronica griped.

“Oh, you wanna act all tough around her-” Trixie snapped a sharp finger at Hillary “-but you’re nothing but a lapdog!”

“I rather be a lapdog than some moody gook!”

Trixie’s breath hitched, tears pooling in her scowl. Fueled with so much rage that her hands began to shake into fists.

“…why you-”

A firm grab yanked her backwards, stumbling in her footing. A snake’s grip nearly cut off circulation in her right arm as her mother’s voice spoke into her ear where only she could hear, her words barely audible yet full of grated nerve.

“Nǐ shì yī wèi shūnǚ, yào biǎoxiàn dé xiàng yī wèi shūnǚ!”

Trixie squeezed her eyes shut, choking back a scream. Sneering at the ‘motherly’ reminder that she was a lady and to act like one. Rich coming from the same mother who showed no ounce of care after hearing all the bad things a grown man was doing to her own daughter…

She managed to tear herself from her mother’s unrelenting grasp, nearly tripping over herself in her mad dash from the table. Speeding past Missy and Hazel’s troubled stares and oblivious to Remy’s watchful eye in her aimless sprint down the hall.

The eleven-year-old cried alone in the darkest corner of the dimly lit country club theater, face hidden into knees that her arms snaked around. Hushed sobs shook her shoulders. How could her best friend turn on her like that? And the boys barely lifted a finger to defend her!

“Wéiyī néng bèipàn nǐ de rén shì nǐ xìnrèn de rén.” ‘The only ones who can betray you are the ones you trust.’ Her mother felt the need to give such wisdom when she’d started buddying up with the other popular kids. Almost as if her mother already knew something she didn’t, saw what, at the time, she couldn’t see.

Then again, her mother was never inherently trusting of others. If she let you in, it was only just below the surface, and that was if she saw any value in what you could do for her. It was why she ever bothered marrying her husband, an Asian born on rich American soil, when she’d immigrated from China to escape the poverty that had plagued her family for centuries. She married his money and his status, nothing more, nothing less.

Trixie, too, had trust issues once upon a time. Her family had to uproot to Dimmsdale because of the relentless bullying she faced. Mocked whenever her mother would speak to her in her native tongue, from teachers and faculty, even from other students. So, when her family had first moved when she was in the third grade, she became the girl who kept to herself. Speaking only when spoken to, and only in English. Keeping everyone at the safest distance…

Until a little girl with brown hair and buckteeth came up to her when no one else did, asking to color with her and her twin brother.

She sniffed, lifting her head to swipe at the tears smudging her mascara. Grief suddenly struck her like a punch to the gut, realizing just how much she missed the only real best friend she ever had. Sophia had been the only girl to really care about her feelings like she meant something to her, like she was a person.

Thinking back now, she never really got that from Veronica. It just felt like her association was a means to an end. She should’ve known when Veronica had started being nice to her not even a week after Sophia had been buried, but she was just a kid…a lonely kid.

She folded into herself, wrapping arms around her waist. If she could talk to Sophia now, she knew Sophia wouldn’t accuse her of lying for attention. She would truly listen to her, try to help her feel better. Sophia was someone worth risking your thin trust for, someone that would never take you for granted. But that someone was gone forever, right when she needed her most…

Her head snapped up when the clank doors burst open, echoing like a bang. Three unknown blobs appeared in her glossy haze, and her throat clenched.

The young billionaire noted the wet streaks shining on her cheeks, the little black girl clutching hands to her chest behind him. Separating herself from the godchildren, the strawberry-blonde took cautious steps in her approach as Trixie sniffled with aggressive palms wiping at her face, trying and failing to erase all evidence of crying.

“Hi…” she started gently, “…are you okay?”

Trixie hugged her knees further into her chest, struggling with eye contact, “…w-who are you.”

“I’m Missy.” Missy introduced herself, pointing to the godchildren behind her. “That’s my sister Hazel, and you probably already know Remy.”

Eyes fluttering through fresh tears, Trixie mustered the most callous brow she could. Remy stared back with eyes squinted cynically, feeling undeserved of the unwarranted animosity.

“…we saw what happened.” Missy admitted, careful that the skirt of her dress didn’t expose too much in her kneel to Trixie’s level. “I’m sorry you had that awful fight with your friend.”

“Ex-best friend.” Trixie corrected bitterly, averting Missy’s gaze.

Feeling obliged, Hazel shifted from behind the safety net of Remy, “…a-and I’m sorry for Hillary and…how she spoke to you.” her small voice squeaked, just loud enough for Trixie to look up with an arched brow.

“…why are you apologizing for somebody you don’t even know?”

Hazel paused, folding her lips. The only thing to change was any association of her with the Wells. Her wish had nothing to do with anyone’s personality or who they are as a person; therefore, she could conclude that this was how Hillary was always going to be. Nasty, pompous, and discriminatory towards anyone she deemed unworthy.

“…because it was awful how mean she was.” Hazel clarified, frowning. “She had no right to call you that bad word.”

Trixie sniffled again, eyes lowered. It hadn’t been her first time hearing that slur, and she'd be stupid to think it was going to be the last.

“Can we just get to what all this drama is really about?” Remy too stepped forward, deciding to cut to the chase. “Why do they keep saying you’re lying about the bouncer? What the heck did he do?”

Walls towered around her heart as Trixie swiped at her damp cheek, her glare glassy with tears unshed, “Even if I told you…none of you would believe me…just like everyone else…”

“If we were like everyone else, you’d still be crying in here all by yourself.” Missy pointed out, and Trixie knitted her brow with her bottom lip trembling, bowing her head in shame. Missy’s compassion reached out, pressing a soft palm to Trixie’s arm.

“You’re not alone; you don’t have to deal with this on your own.”

Hazel and Remy looked to each other, curious if Missy could actually get through to Trixie. Starting to have doubts when they saw Trixie put on a tough face with nails clawing at her arms.

“…I’m just supposed to take your word for it?”

“Actions speak louder.” Missy reached for Trixie’s hand, taking it into hers. Her whole world narrowed to those pain-filled eyes across from her. “We’re all here, with you, right now, in this moment. Because we care about you.”

“Well, not all of us...” Remy mumbled under his breath, receiving a sharp elbow to the arm from Hazel.

“I’m sorry we didn’t stand up for you earlier.” Missy tried to ignore Remy’s insensitive comment, squeezing Trixie’s hand reassuringly. “We didn’t want to make things worse for you.”

“So you stand there and do nothing…” Trixie scoffed sarcastically, snatching her hand from Missy’s. “Yeah, you care soooooo much.”

“And where are your friends right now?” Missy countered while speaking with careful tenderness. “If they truly cared, they would be here instead of us.”

Trixie’s gaze hardened to the floor, a sheen of tears gathering but refusing to fall.

“Please, Trixie. We’re all here to listen to you.”

Trixie stifled a sob, struggling not to breakdown. She didn’t want to trust Missy, she didn’t want to trust any of them. But the consideration and kindness Missy extended to her reminded her so much of Sophia… so much that her chest felt like it would burst at the seams, unable to keep her pain tucked away any longer.

She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes. Trying to keep her emotions in check, “…i-it all started when he gave me longer hugs…” her tiny voice admitted, dull and distant, “…I thought it was because he likes to hug, but…b-but then he started putting his hands lower down my back and…made me feel weird…”

Hazel glanced to her right, noting Remy’s look of discomfort with a tense brow.

“…I-I would tell him to stop but…he wouldn’t He just kept hugging me.” Trixie continued, her words starting to quiver. “He would tell me how pretty I was, a-and I liked it…but…then he started telling me how…sexy…I am…” the word ‘sexy’ spat out like a bad taste, “…that really started creeping me out…”

Missy’s head tilted to one side, taking in every word with careful attention. Brows drawing together when Trixie swiped at her eyes once again, tremors overtaking her whole frame.

“…I’d left class to go to the bathroom one day, and…he was standing outside between the popular boys and popular girl’s bathroom…like he always did…” her jaw trembled, lips growing thin, “…but when he’d held the door for me, there was this…this weird look in his eye. And the way he licked his lips w-when he stared at me…”

She shuddered, eyes becoming haunted by ghosts of a stained past that refused to fade, and Remy suppressed a gag, his stomach coiling like a fist squeezing his intestines. He knew where this story was going. It can only ever go one way.

“…I-I just went inside hoping to get out of there as quickly as I could…b-but then he’d snuck into the bathroom…” Trixie sniffed, a chill shooting up her spine as warm tears slid down her cheeks, “…it scared me because he’d never done that before…he walked really slowly towards me…I-I asked what he was doing…but he didn’t say anything…” she flinched, “…kept looking at me like…he was checking me out or something…”

Missy’s lips drew together thoughtfully, absorbing the tainted tale as Trixie clawed the back of her arms red.

“…I tried to back away from him…asked him again why he was in the girl’s bathroom… but then he…” her eyes went large, rimming with distress, “…h-he came at me…grabbed my arms, and…and pushed me into a stall…and locked us both in…”

Hazel jutted her chin, pain constricting in her chest.

“…a-all I could say was ‘no’…” Trixie mumbled, sadness stealing the strength in her voice. “I said it over and over and over, but he just wouldn’t listen…” she hugged herself, eyes shutting as she began to sob, “…h-he…he unzipped his pants, and…a-and put his hands up my skirt and it hurt so bad…” her throat swallowed, words reduced to a whisper, “…I never felt so violated in my entire life…”

Remy grimaced to the ground as breaths shook through his nose, each exhale a release of internal unease. Wadding his hands at his sides with his purple watch’s concern locked on him. Hazel whimpered beside him, arms wrapped tightly around her body as she blinked away flickers of Anthony on top of her. Empathetic of the horror of being nothing but a tool in someone else’s pleasure as her red ring frowned at her with worry.

Trixie hid her face in her hands and wept, succumbing to her shame and strife mixed with humiliation. Leaning forward, Missy lowered a consoling hand to Trixie’s shoulder. “Did this happen more than once?” she spoke in a hushed, caring tone. Trixie weakly nodded, keeping her face hidden. “Have you told your parents?”

Trying to regain her bearing, Trixie removed her hands, wet eyes red and sunken, “…m-my dad wanted to help me…b-but then he took my m-mom’s side…” a wave of anguish choked her throat, swallowing harshly. “…s-she said it…” her lips trembled, “…it was my fault…f-for not wearing longer skirts …”

Remy scrunched his face, knowing all too well how it feels when parents blame their own kid for grown adults taking advantage of them.

“Maybe you should try again.” Missy suggested, coming from an earnest place. “If your dad knew this happened more than once, he might feel more inclined to do something.”

“Not every parent listens to their kid...” Hazel muttered darkly, folding her arms.

“He keeps doing this because he’s faced no consequences!” Missy objected. “He can’t keep getting away with this.”

“Hazel’s right, Missy.” Remy grumbled to Missy’s naivete. “It’s useless telling her parents again when it’s clear they don’t care.”

A hard knot constricted in Trixie’s throat, blinking through her tears at him.

“Well, maybe they would understand if they knew it wasn’t a one-off!” Missy tried. “If it were my dad, he’d make sure that monster was behind bars!”

“And that’s great for you, Missy. But not every kid is that lucky…” Hazel contended. “Remy and I are perfect examples.”

“Wait…” Trixie re-interjected herself, eyes shimmering to Hazel “…w-what do you mean Remy and you? I thought…you and Missy were sisters?”

Hazel rubbed at her arm, inhaling a sharp, shaky breath. Digging through the skeletons in her closet had not been on her bingo card, “…um…before I was adopted, I…had an older brother…” she stalled, figuring out how to explain with cliff notes, “…he forced himself on me, but...our parents believed him when he said I asked for it…”

“…wow, that sucks…” Trixie emphasized, sensing that her vague response was all Hazel had the nerve to give. And in seeing Remy’s attempt at consoling Hazel with a soft pat to her back, Trixie stiffened her frown, “…and you. Is that why your nanny was fired a long time ago?”

His wide gaze snapped at her, opening his mouth and closing it several times before turning his grimace away from her. Trixie bore into the haunted look in Remy’s eyes. She didn’t need him to give a straight answer when his unnerved stalling gave it away.

She’d be lying if she said she’d never been suspicious of that old man that used to stick to Remy like glue. She was specifically recalling that night from a long time ago, the night all the popular kids and their families attended the country club for that dumb article for the frontpage news of the Dimmsdale Newspaper. She was probably the only other kid that noticed when the nanny’s hand had reached behind Remy’s back, reaching too low for a normal side-hug. When Remy had moved his hand away and stepped to the side, he’d given Remy that…look. Like he’d denied him what was rightfully his…

So creepy.

That same night, the odd-looking ferret that seemed normally mild mannered had violently attacked the nanny literally out of nowhere, and then the nanny got fired the next day. All before Remy quit Student Council a week later without context. She remembered asking him about it, but he was all defensive with her. Like he was hiding something dark that he didn’t want her to know about.

“…did your parents know before they…” she was going to say ‘before they died,’ but she wasn’t sure if that was appropriate.

“…I didn’t have to tell them. They saw it for themselves.” Remy uttered, eyes stuck to the floor. He saw no point in hiding the truth, it was clear she’d already figured it out.

“…did they do anything after they fired him?”

“…no. They only fired him to make themselves look better.” his jaw ached with tension. “They couldn’t’ve cared less about what was done to me...”

Wanting to return the favor, Hazel reached out to hold Remy’s hand and gave a consoling squeeze. He didn’t meet her studying gaze, yet he didn’t reject her extent of empathy, squeezing her hand back.

Taking this into consideration, Trixie then turned to Missy, curious to know “…what about you?”

“Um…” Missy hesitated, her mouth working silently in her search for the right words. She honestly felt like an outsider looking in, but…in a way…she could be a different perspective.

 “…my mom did.”

Hazel’s brows rose slowly, catching that rare glimpse of sorrow behind Missy’s crinkled brow. Remy let go of Hazel’s hand to cross his arms, eyes narrowed cynically.

“While she was alive, I never met family on my mom’s side.” Missy’s tone had grown dull, as if distancing herself from what truly troubled her deep inside. “My dad always told me it was because of all the bad things my grandpa did when she was a kid...”

“Is that the truth?” Remy quizzed, skeptical at the convenience of this explanation. “Or is this your botched attempt of relating to what you’ll never have to know about?”

“Remy…” Hazel pouted at him. She didn’t like this vindictive mood of his; she’d come to recognize that stupid front he’d put up to make his heart look less cracked. She wished he would be more honest instead of taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it.

Whirling in Remy’s direction, Missy’s cheeks flustered red, and her eyes sharpened. “It is true! It’s part of the reason why she-”

She clasped her lips shut, darting her eyes away. Stress lines wrinkling between her brows as she clutched the hem of her light-blue dress, growing still in a way that seemed entirely unnatural.

As she studied her, Hazel could tell Missy was holding back. Holding something buried within pushing for a way out, “…why she, what?”

Missy eyes slammed like a door, forcing any signs of tears at bay. “I…shouldn’t get into that right now.”

Remy and Hazel watched as Missy turned back to Trixie and took her hand into hers, sandwiching it between her palms. She met glassy blue with earnest green, her voice softening to a gentle murmur.

“You’re not alone, Trixie…we see you. And we believe you, even if no one else does.”  

Cold tears streaked in rivets from Trixie’s reddened eyes, her heart heavy with unwanted hope.

“Yeah…and…w-we can all be friends…” Hazel reiterated, slowly turning her expecting stare towards the godchild with arms still crossed, “…right, Remy?”

When Trixie’s tearful gaze met his, Remy’s narrowed stare became conflicted. He’d hoped to distance himself from the popular kids ever since quitting Student Council, but he was now a witness to Trixie’s confession, indirectly roping himself into their quarreling drama. He would become a target of resentment by association, and because Hazel and Missy were not in public school, this meant all of Trixie’s burdens would fall on him.

Ugh, this was the last thing he needed. He had his own crap to deal with. Why did he even ask about the bouncer; he should have just minded the business that paid him. Besides, did any of this even make him and Trixie friends? Hard to believe they would’ve been otherwise.

Chapter Text

The gold, vibrant sun shone down upon the grey, grimy concrete crafted into multiple buildings that stretched for yards across fields of brittle grass. Tall barbwire circled the entire perimeter, fenced for the sole purpose of keeping the unwelcomed out and the incarcerated in.

One wide block of lilac bricks and mauve concrete floor, known as the visitation room, seemed otherwise colorless. Barren aside from rows of two plastic chairs facing across tables small enough to fit a kindergarten classroom. Centered in one of the few tables left with one chair vacant, the eleven-year-old rubbed her chilly arms. If she hadn't wished for Swizzle to be a zipped hoodie, her arms would've frozen off from the blasting air keeping the space as cold as it looked.

Yale-blue eyes surveyed the room, observing the female inmates and their interactions with the person on the other side of the table. Only one friend/relative was permitted per inmate, and there was no such thing as physical or intimate contact until the end of each visit. Guards also make visitors empty every crevice of pockets before they’re patted down as if they too were inmates, and that’s before they’re then cycled through a security scanner that even the metal zipper of your pants could set off.

Each corner and every other foot of wall was guarded with more men and women in uniform than there were women in orange jumpsuits. Molly slouched in her chair, crinkling her nose. She'd rather swim in acid than sit in this prison with no bars. But there was no turning back, because she was stuck here until this whole dreaded ordeal was over.

"Listen, Molls." she heard her dark-blue jacket start, sensing her godchild's irritation, "I know you don't wanna see your mom."

Molly snorted as she crossed her arms, sending a few vigilant eyes her way. She waited for the guards to realize she was simply growing impatient sitting around waiting, watching them eventually find somewhere else to look before speaking softly as to not draw more attention to herself.

"I would've died happy never seeing that bitch again."

"But now you can tell her all the stuff you didn't get to say before." Swizzle remarked, and Molly rolled her eyes.

"The only person I wanna say stuff to is rotting in Hell." Molly grumbled. "Besides, it's not like she'll listen…."

"Even if that's true, what's said will be said, and then you can leave her where she belongs; in the past."

Left with little to dispute, Molly simply diverted her grimace. She hated the way her heart suddenly started to beat faster than before she'd stepped foot into the room and harder than before she'd even taken a seat. She wasn't scared, no way. Or was this her body playing catch-up with her mind, gearing up for the shitshow she knew was coming?

"…Swiz?"

"Yeah?"

"After this…can we please go to Fairy Fort for a bit?" Molly barely masked the desperation behind her request. Since when did she get so soft? "We can ask Tootie and Rose if they wanna go, too, I don't really care, I just…" she trailed off, feeling her heartbeat climb into her throat.

"You got it." Swizzle accepted with a half-formed smile. Molly wasn't the type to 'ask' for or to do something, let alone say 'please.' Her baby bat was trying to brave face, yet even the strong have limits.

When the hinges of the exit doors creaked, Molly and Swizzle laid eyes on Tootie's uncle entering the visitation room with a woman whose skin looked devoid of sunlight. Her wrists were cuffed in the front with a long chain connecting them to the leg irons that gave her thin ankles limited mobility. His sturdy grip led her by the arm that looked frailer than usual, stringy strands of black hair hanging like long, thin curtains over yale-blue eyes sunken like her cheeks.

If Sadako from The Ring had a twin, it would be Marissa after over two months of imprisonment. And yet, Molly couldn't bring herself to care, watching wordlessly as Vic escorted the inmate to the vacant chair. They came to a stop before he lowered her to sit in the chair, and that was when Marissa's eyes left the floor for the first time since leaving her cell. She swooped her hair behind her ears, her aggrieved yet conflicted eyes meeting Molly's firm, cold stare.

"I'll be nearby, alright?" Vic assured his foster child, squeezing her shoulder as Molly flashed him a glare, frozen in time before she merely nodded in understanding.

Marissa gave Vic a scornful glance that could insta-kill an elephant when he released Molly’s shoulder to step away from the table, giving them some distance while not too far away. He found a spot on the nearest wall to lean his foot against, beginning his guarding duties with folded arms.

"…heard you live with that guy now." Marissa muttered as she looked back to her daughter, wasting no time breaking the tense ice.

Molly kept the ice rock-solid with a shrug, top lip aloofly curled.

"He puttin' hands on you?"

"Funny how you choose now to give a damn about that." Molly's sarcastic dig grated Marissa's nerves, clenching her fists which only made the cuffs tighter. Marissa shot another cynical glance at Vic's fixed gaze, groaning a sigh.

"I'm just asking as your mom." Though her tone was softer, her irritation was still evident.

"Guess it took cold-turkey booze withdrawal for you to wanna be said mom." Molly scoffed, slouching grouchily.

"I also figured out I'm cellmates with that guy's in-law." Marissa mentioned, leaning over the table slightly. "You not bein' brainwashed or nothin', right?"

Molly squinted. "Would I be here if I was?"

"Look, I had no idea where they'd put you." Marissa groused, her teeth gritted.

"You do know what losing parental rights means, right?" Molly snarked back. "You're not supposed to know where the fuck they put me."

Marissa snarled, a knot twisting in the center of her chest. "Well, this guy's clearly not so religious if you still got that foul-ass mouth."

"At least he hasn't stabbed me in the neck with a knife. Unlike that douche you used to swap spit with…among other things."

Marissa's mouth pinched, doing her best to restrain her aggravated temper. "Don't talk ill of the dead."

Molly scowled. "Like that changes what he did."

Since other visitations spoke with inside voices, Vic was within earshot of the tense conversation. From what he remembered reading from Molly's file, they must be talking about that sick bastard her mom had the gall to call a boyfriend.

“Have you seen or heard from Francis?” Marissa tried to pivot the subject, wanting to avoid anything about her ex.

"Nope." Molly tersely denied. She hadn't even thought of that punk in ages, and she'd rather keep it that way.

"He was a piece of work, but…I know deep down, he's a good kid." Marissa murmured, looking away. "He don't deserve this shit."

Repulsion narrowed Molly's eyes. "Frank must still have you whipped if you care this much about a kid that's not even yours."

The vexation in Marissa's gaze could cut a rock with a butter knife. "You do know you're not the only kid that got screwed over from all this, right? Stop being so goddamn petty."

Molly sprung in her seat, and her fist struck the table that rang out like a gunshot, startling innocent visitors and setting inmates into defense mode. "You're one to fuckin' talk!"

"Hey, settle down over there! Now!" a female guard shouted from across the room, reflexes reaching for her tactical duty belt.

"Ay, chillout! I got it…" Vic huffed to the other guard, having already left his post. When he approached the DeLisle table, he planted his palms against the table's edge, his softly stern gaze addressing both visitor and inmate equally.

"Look, I know things are rough, but could y'all try ta dial it down? I don't want nobody gettin' kicked out…okay?"

Marissa's eye bore into him with pure contempt, and Molly grunted back in her chair, tightening her crossed arms over her chest actively compressing a scream. Taking their lack of vocal response as a sign of mutual agreement, Vic blew out a breath and calmly walked away, their glares pointed on his return to the wall where he kicked up his back foot to lean against.

"Anyways…" Muscles flicked angrily in Marissa's jaw as she forced her attention back to Molly, fighting hard not to let these stupid guards cost her a writeup. "I think I have the right to worry about Francis. That boy don't have no one else."

"So why does he matter to you now? It's not like you gave that much of a shit about him before…" Molly winced, seething. "Let alone me..."

The veins in Marissa's neck stood out in livid ridges. "Look, I know I haven't always been the best mother-"

"You've been a shit mother." Molly interrupted, grinding out the words through her snarl. "Nursing bottles of booze more than you bothered to nurse your own kid."

"I was a single mother with no help from nobody!" Marissa defended, struggling to keep from shouting. "All I ever did was the best I could!"

"Oh, is that what you call shutting me in a room for hours on end. Stuck in some smelly, dirty-ass diaper, or some pissed-stained mattress, all while you doused yourself in booze!" Molly challenged derisively, leaning forward in her chair. "That was when you weren't making my cheeks burn red or my ass sting blue for being a baby about it."

"You have no idea how aggravating it was hearing you cry, and cry, and cry-"

“Babies cry! Little kids cry! Especially when mommy chooses getting wasted over their kid! In fact, you couldn’t even put the bottle down at the fanciest club in the whole town! Making not only me look bad, but yourself! All in front of all those ritzy snobs who already saw us as no good for shit!”  

With his steady gaze observing the back and forth from the sidelines, Vic's brows drew together with remorse. No child that young should be talking like this; Molly had to grow up way too fast.

The whites of her eyes reflecting the ceiling’s dim lighting started to redden with guilt. “I…I was lonely…” Marissa swallowed when she realized her voice was shaking, “…booze was the only thing that ever made me feel somethin’…”

"What about your kid!?" the pained words scraped out Molly's throat. "I never made you feel something?!"

"I'm talkin' about the love of a man!" Marissa snapped, regaining the scorned vibrato in her words. "I just wanted somebody to love me…"

"So you run into the arms of a bastard who put his hands on you and kids?" Molly's nails dug into her dark-blue sleeves, Swizzle biting down on her lip to resist the sting. "How can you ever call that shit love!?"

Marissa brow furrowed, her fury smoldering tints of pink in her pale cheeks. "Frank was a broken man…he'd been through so much…let down so many times…" her sneer didn't match the pitiful victimy in her words, "…I really wanted to change him…I tried so hard-"

"How could you change him!?" Molly fired back, growing tired of her mother's allergy to accountability. "News flash, somebody who can shove a knife in a kid's throat without thinking twice doesn't change!"

Vic only realized he was frowning when his face muscles started to burn. He himself had been somebody who could stab birds with knives, somebody who could slam a defenseless kid against the wall and strangle their throat without thinking twice. Shame slumped his shoulders. He'd been no better than Frank was, but he'd changed his ways…hadn't he?

"You know he wouldn't have done that if you had just stayed the fuck out the way like I told you!" Marissa yelled, every word heavy with insinuation. "He told you he was gonna cut you but you swung at him first!"

"So it's my fault?! He threatened me! All I had was my fists! He had a knife! I could have died!"

"Why you care about dyin' now? Shit, I'm surprised you ain't dead yet! Guess you can't kill yo'self right, huh!?"

The attention of visitors and inmates once again spotlighted the rowdy pair as Molly froze, ears ringing in the still quiet. It was as if Frank's blade had stabbed her heart instead of her neck, chest cinching as each breath became strained through her flaring nostrils. The back of her eyes felt moist, yet she refused to shed any tears for someone who couldn't give a shit about them anyway. Those harsh words hung in the air long enough for Marissa to realize what she'd just said, though it was already too late for regret to take them back.

"Wait…Molly, I-"

"Fuck you!" Molly spat, standing abruptly from her chair with an audible scoot that screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. The female guard from earlier took a step forward as Vic held up his hand, stopping her before she could fix her lips to shout another warning.

"I don't give a damn about whatever bullshit you have left to say." the darkness in Molly's voice grew louder with each phrase, her face turning a dangerous shade of scarlet, "…cuz as of today, as of yesterday, as of ever, I never had a mom! You're fucking dead to me!"

Molly stormed from the table, carelessly knocking over her chair in the process. Giving no cares about the onlookers either shaking their sympathetic heads or muttering judgements under their breaths.

"Molly get back here!" Marissa grew hot from shouting, unable to stop Molly's thundering steps from busting through the doors without looking back. "Moll-"

"Hope you enjoyed ya slither of freedom." Vic stepped in, snatching her from her chair and onto her feet. "Cuz it looks like it's time ta put the dog back in its kettle."

"Get off me, ya damn bastard!" Marissa grunted, twisting and writhing in his grip with all her might. "I ain't done!"

Vic yanked her arm, forcing her glare to meet his searing scowl. "But your daughter is. And that means so are you."

Another male guard hurried to assist Vic with the unruly inmate, onlookers seeing Marissa scream and flail about in her cuffed restraints. Dragging her from the table and towards the door leading back towards the hall of prison cells.

Within the dining hall, country club members were enjoying their catered mid-afternoon lunch, whether herb-crusted rack of lamb with mint jelly and roasted root vegetables or truffle and parmesan risotto. The air sang with the solemn yet compact eloquence of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor as butlers roamed and weaved through the dining tables, refilling water and/or wine glasses for legal members.

Missy and Hazel sat beside one side of Mike with Remy on the other, seated next to Trixie who’d retouched her makeup with what she had in her shoulder bag. Missy had invited her to sit with them since she didn’t want to sit with anyone else. Understandably so, she could barely stand the sight of her parents, and she’d been avoiding the popular kids like the plague.

Scooping another spoonful of truffle, Missy caught Hazel's troubled gaze staring at the only other children across the room. Fixed on the table where Hillary could be seen giggling with Veronica, carefree as could be, while Tad and Chad continued to obsess over Anthony's new phone. When she, Hazel, and Remy had kept Trixie company in the theater while she took the time to get herself together, Hazel had left at some point for a bathroom break. Missy had noticed Hazel's switch in demeanor when she'd returned, from a girl of few words to completely mute.

"Are you sure nothing's bothering you?" Missy asked again, speaking caringly.

Hazel nodded stiffly, brown eyes drifting down to the lamb and vegetables that she had yet to touch. She couldn't bring herself to answer that question when she was still processing how to feel, what to feel. If only she had opted for her memories to have a clean slate, then maybe her heart wouldn't ache this much. She learned how difficult it is to leave the past behind when it always finds its way in front of you…

Leaving the theater and entering into the hall, Hazel was on her way to the bathroom when she gasped, hurriedly ducking behind a decorative column. A mere feet away at the end of the corridor, Anthony was talking with Hillary alone, and from the looks of it, he was not pleased.

"You have got to stop picking fights with people!" Anthony criticized. "All that stuff you pulled earlier was uncalled for!"

"I don't see what the big deal is." Hillary sassed, cocking her hip. "Like I said, I call it like I see it."

"But you can't keep picking and choosing which kids you get along with. That's not how the world works."

"Well, I just mesh better with some kids better than others."

Conveniently, Hazel was small enough to fit behind the column. She was also close enough to hear the conversation that she couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"Kakao, just walk away." her red ring advised. Hazel would have it she could make her legs move.

"What about Chad? You're never mean to him." Anthony called out his sister's selective bigotry.

Hillary scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Well, duh. He's one of the good ones."

Hazel winced as if the comment itself had slapped her in the face.

Anthony sighed, exasperated. "Look…mom and dad can control where we go to school, but they can't control the types of people country clubs let in. People like Chad and Trixie are everywhere, so you need to start learning how to deal with them."

"Why should I have to deal with them when I don't want to?" Hillary whined, and Anthony disapprovingly shook his head.

"God, you're such a brat…" he grumbled.

"Takes one to know one…" she snarked.

"And what the hell are you staring at?"

Hazel whipped her back against the column as she clapped hands over her mouth, stifling the yelp that was small yet still echoed off the acoustics of marble. She hadn't expected to be noticed so easily; how did he see her?

"Hey, kid." Anthony kept pressing her, inching forward in her direction. "I'm talking to you."

She shuddered, heart thundering in her chest. There was no point in hiding now that she was caught, but as the sound of footsteps loomed closer, her limbs stood frozen.

"Hazel, we need to get out of here." Nyekundu stressed. "But I cannot help you unless you make a wish."

Hazel gulped dryly, her parched throat making it difficult to speak. "…I-"

"Hey!"

Her brown widened to the two sets of blue lasered her way, one hardened with disgust, the other narrowed into quizzical slits. Neither he nor Hillary had ever met this little girl in their lives, and yet something about her felt so…familiar to him.

"No one ever taught you to mind your own business?" Anthony's question sounded more like an interrogation, and she felt herself shrink under the intensity of his gaze.

"Um…I-I was just…"

"What kind of security do they have around here if this spook managed to sneak inside?" Hillary jeered.

"Hillary, please…" Anthony groaned with the hardest side-eye. "Don't piss me off again."

Her heart pounded so hard that her head ached, throbbing in rhythm with each thud. Though her vision blurred at the edges, the Wells siblings sharpened into 1080hp. Dizziness swooshed in her brain, thoughts crashing into each other. Flooding her mind with memories of a past that no longer existed.

The constant demeaning of her humanity with no consequence, the insulting slurs that cut deeper than from the mouth of a stranger. The utter disdain of her as the unwanted sister, the intentional belittlement of her as nothing more than a slave.

The searing burn of his backhand, the crushing weight of him on top of her. The choking suffocation of a handkerchief stealing her voice, the degrading violation of his hand ripping off her pants. The most agonizing pressure stabbing her repeatedly…

Completely forgetting about her full bladder…

Hillary gasped, pointing at the dark spot spreading in the center of Hazel's jeans. "Oh…my god…"

Her bones trembled when that same spot grew arms, crawling down the inside of her thigh all the way past her calves, dripping into a yellowish pool around her feet. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, the air stolen from her lungs.

"Dude, what the hell!?" Anthony jumped back as his sister did the same, avoiding the spread of shame and embarrassment.

"I-I'm sorry!" she finally mustered the voice to squeak, kicking into flight as she skittered between them. Stumbling over her own footing, tears flying from her eyes in her flee down the hall.

Hazel squeezed her eyes shut, holding back the torrent within. When the clouded fog of utter terror had finally worn off, Hazel had made a wish for her mess to vanish and for Anthony and Hillary to forget that ever happened in front of them. Aside from that which she never wanted to speak of, she couldn't gage whether Anthony and Hillary somehow remembered her; their attitude towards her didn't seem any different.

Her entire body flinched, then sagged; what did it matter, anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be happy, relieved? She was no longer a part of a family that never wanted her…why was she so conflicted?

Between chews of his truffle, Mike glanced towards his student, making conversation. "So, Remy…have you had a chance to go through your finger exercises?"

Remy flicked his gaze, picking at his uneaten vegetables with his fork. What about him gave the impression that he was in any mood to talk? Eh, oh well, it's not like Mike was trying to get on his nerves. Might as well entertain him so that his grandmother has less to hound him for later.

“…a little…” he cleared the raspiness in his throat, feeling how long it’d been since he’d used his voice, “…before the country club opened.”

Mike gleamed like a proud mentor. "Good! Keep doing that for the week. For our next lesson, I'm considering introducing you to the black keys. They're the same notes except they're pitched a half-step above or below the white keys."

Remy slowly blinked as if Mike had just spoken to him in fluent Spanish.

"You'll understand once I show you." Mike smiled as he patted Remy on his shoulder, and Remy bit the inside of his cheek as to not cringe too noticeably.

"Never pictured you playing piano…" Trixie spoke for the first time since her painful revelation, her diffidence a deviation from her usual confident character.

Remy took his fork and stabbed his cauliflower. "Certainly wasn't my idea…"

"Excuse me, Michael."

The unfamiliar male voice led Mike to turn in his chair, seeing a married couple in their matching black-and-white Prada approach the table.

"We hate to interrupt," Marcus began, holding Angela by her waist with one arm, "but my wife and I have been curious as to who that child is."

Mike followed Marcus's gesture, seeing the taunt expression that fought to keep from falling apart as Hazel folded until she felt small. "Oh," he then smiled back to the Wells, "If you must know, that child is my daughter."

"Your daughter?" Angela's inflection sounded confused.

"Yes, I adopted her."

"You mean there were no other options?" Marcus quizzed, and Mike's smile visibly faded, perplexed.

"…excuse me?"

"The agency you adopted her from?" Marcus clarified. "They didn't have other children that looked more like you?"

Missy's brow pursed at the implication as her father showed no outward signs of irritation.

"Well, any child you adopt is not going to look like you." Mike replied, keeping his tone respectful.

"And has her hair ever seen a straightening iron?" Angela chimed in, pointing at Hazel's curly fro. "Why not have her look more presentable like your real daughter?"

Dejected eyes lowered, tugging hard at the coils she had no choice in being born with. Pinching her shoulders towards each other as Trixie and Remy formed soft glares, reading every micro-expression in the unspoken self-hatred.

"I'm sorry, I don't recall ever asking for your opinion about my daughter." Mike's genial tone hinted at offense, his mouth tight.

"With all due respect, other members have been talking, and we know this is your family's first day." Marcus went on as if he hadn't been insulting. "We just wanted to extend the olive branch with some advice that we figured would be…'beneficial'…for your acclimation."

"And with all due respect, if I wanted and/or needed your advice, I would have ask."

Missy studied her father, her nerves squeezing the spoon still in her grasp. She had seen him upset, but rarely did she see other people ruffle his feathers quite like this.

"…we're so very sorry." Angela tried to deflect with her signature, syrupy-sweet apology. "We truly don't mean to offend-"

"You do mean to offend." Mike interrupted, a burning knot twisting in the pit of his stomach. "Because one innocent little girl's appearance is somehow offensive enough for you to feel the need to yap about it."

Still tugging at her hair, Hazel mustered the will to lift her chin towards Mike, somewhat surprised. It…sounded like he was standing up for her.

"So you're okay with others assuming that you care for one child over the other?" Marcus questioned with the inflection of someone being wrongfully attacked.

"I'm okay with others minding their business." Mike countered, grave with his words. "Judge me all you want, but judging a child for such imprudent reasons says far more about you."

Remy eyed his piano instructor, stunned in his stare. There was this weird feeling that he couldn't believe, this newfound respect for a man he barely knew.

"Now, if you'll excuse us, we would all like to go back to enjoying our meal. Without needless interruptions."

Hazel’s stare darted back towards Marcus, dreading the tense, menacing look in his eye bearing into Mike. Mike’s narrowed gaze showed zero backdown, and she braced for the escalated tension that instantly died when she saw Marcus’s civil grin like a flipped switch.

"Our apologies." Marcus bowed his head to Mike before he guided Angela by her waist, returning from whence they came.

Missy observed her father as he turned back in his seat, groaning a breath as his grip clenched his fork. "Dad, are you okay?"

Mike's tense shoulders sagged when he let out a wilted sigh. "It just irks me how some people in this world have such narrow minds…"

Remy turned to Hazel's grimace, her claws yanking down on her hair. Trixie, too, watched as bits of curls started to snap off from the scalp, and her brows pursed. Even if Hazel's hair did look a little wild, it was still mean for an adult to talk bad about a little kid.

"Don't pull your hair like that." Trixie said in a way that was not meant to be callous. "You're just messing it up."

Hazel released the ends of her hair, squeezing herself tightly. Her head snapped away, unable to let anyone see the shame gloss her eyes.

The pickup truck rolled along the gravel roads turning a mossy green from the usual grey, chalky white sidewalks blending into a pastel green. The roar of the engine passed the gold sign molded in the shape of a four-leaf clover, mounted against a streetlamp inscribed with ‘Little Ireland.’ Its red coat stuck out like the sorest thumb amongst the buildings painted in every shade of green in existence, accented with splashes of Irish gold. Every structure appeared plucked straight out of the book of Irish architecture, a flair of urban Gregorian mixed with countryside cottage.

Barrels filled with shamrock bouquets lined the sidewalks with every block marked with streetlamps of cypress metal. Even the traffic lights were different shades of green, hunter-green for ‘stop’ and lime-green for ‘slow.’ The pickup continued along its journey, traveling passed the famous restaurant named Lucky Potato and a grocery market named Baba O’ Reilly’s. When the destination was reached, the pickup signaled to merge into the parking lot of the dark-wood painted in a vibrant chartreuse that stood out from the aged brick of surrounding storefronts, ‘McPunchies Pub’ bold in ornate gold brass across the front.

Parking the pickup, Vic turned the keys in the ignition, clad in his casual black leather vest over white tank and blue jeans. He took a breath, looking down at the keys held in his palm as his forehead slowly dropped against the steering wheel. Hunting down Molly had been the wildest goose chase of his career; she’d run off god knows where on a campus the size of a large apartment complex, and with prisoners in and out of their cells for various work detail, there was a safety risk at hand.

It’d taken him and ten other guards just to track her down, finding her crouched by the barbed fence all the way by the very back past the prison yard. With the way she started fighting and cussing at the guards, he’d never felt so closed to losing his job. He couldn’t bring himself to scold her for it, though. It’d be Hell in highwater before he’d ever come face-to-face with his estranged mother, but if he had to imagine, he figured the exchange would go exactly like how Marissa chose to handle her daughter venting her pain…with excuses, pity parties, and misplaced anger.

He'd used his lunch break to drive Molly back home, a drive that was awkward at best. She didn't say anything, just stared out the window the whole time. He didn't know what to say without possibly making things worse, so he'd kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road. He did check on her through his rearview every so often; her eyes looked watery, but she didn't once cry.

Turning his head to the passenger window, he saw cars lined in every available slot within the green lot, but he could still spot the black van with semi-flat tires parked on the far end. Luckily, the rest of his shift was business as usual, but had he known how taxing visitation day would be, he would've asked Denzel to meet some other time. He didn't know if he was up for any deep talks; his mental/emotional meter felt as full as his gas tank being nine miles from E. Still, he'd already kept Denzel waiting longer than he'd meant to, which was not a great impression for any sort of redemption.

Running fingers through his red hair, he pushed himself from the steering wheel, mentally hyping himself just to push open the door. Exiting his truck, he locked the doors with the sound of a short horn and made his way to the entrance. He held onto the door handle, breathing deeply through his nose as the door swung open with a ding of the shopkeeper's bell.

His pink eyes scanned the explosion of green, four-leaf clovers strung from ribbons along the dark olive of paneled walls. Overhead lights created a golden warmth, and there were artistic details of intricate shamrocks and leaping hares within the antique glass of the windows, giving the outside scenescape a mosaic blur as if to enclose you into an entirely different world.

Irish tunes livened the pub through surround speakers, acting as a layer of ambiance over the low chatter. Cushioned booths lined every wall, almost all filled with late-afternoon couples or solo patrons. A wooden barback centered the pub, accompanied by gold leather bar stools with green cushions in the shape of, you guessed it, four-leaf clovers. There he found the elementary school teacher isolated at the far end of the bar, hunched in his seat away from two other men already enjoying their drinks, and he inhaled another breath when he felt his heart speed up, putting one foot in front of the other.

Trailing his yellow fingernail along the grooves of the bar's surface, Denzel debated in his head whether or not he should leave. He'd been sitting in this nosy pub, surrounded by 'it's 5-o'clock somewhere' idiots, waiting on the man who'd said he would arrive at a designated time that was now ten minutes ago. His stomach cramped, and not just because he couldn't eat a morsel of food beforehand. Why in heaven's sake did he agree to this?

"Ya came, after all."

Hearing that southern twang, Denzel’s eyes flickered to Vic’s small wave, feeling his muscles tense as Vic took the empty bar stool on his right. I almost didn’t… Denzel would’ve said if he did not care that his window of opportunity to leave had long since shut.

Instead, he crossed arms over the bar top as he groaned “You’re late.”

"I know, I'm sorry." Vic apologized. "Kind of a tough day, but we ain't gotta get into it."

"Couldn't care any less." Denzel muttered, deadpanned.

"Hmm…" Feeling the awkwardness of the moment, Vic surveyed more of the scenery, tapping fingers along the bar's surface with Denzel eyeing him cynically. "This place is very green. Quite on brand."

"Look, I already don't want to be here." Denzel saw right through Vic's stalling, bluntly cutting to the chase. "But I dragged myself here because you wanted to talk. So let's just get on with it."

"Right…" Vic coughed in his throat, "…well…you wanna order drinks first?"

"I don't drink." Denzel reminded. "Plus, I drove myself here."

Vic folded his lips, feeling left to dry, "…well, mind if I order one?"

"Is this place pink?"

"Ha, good one." Vic chuckled at Denzel's sarcasm, looking for a free bartender to start a tab. When he successfully flagged one down, a heavyset man smiled brightly to them, garbed in a leprechaun costume with ginger hair and a thick beard that would put Santa Claus to shame.

"Thanks fa chosin' our establishment on this ole Ides of March!" the bartender greeted them chipperly with an accent that was like Jacksepticeye on steroids. "The name's Seán; how can I help ya?"

"Wait…" Denzel didn't have a calendar in his room, nor did he keep up with any type of news. He'd only assumed it was March by how much warmer the weather was getting; it'd never occurred to him what day of the month it was. "Did you say March 15th?"

"Oh, yes!" Seán confirmed, grinning ear-to-ear. "The Ides of March, don't cha know!"

Denzel's eyes bulged as they began to drift, realization plunging in his gut like a dungball. Oh no, oh no. Oh no, no, no, no…

"Now, what can I do fer ye gentlemen?" Seán asked again, looking to Vic first.

"I'll start with an Old-Fashioned."

"Alrighty." Seán memorized the order, turning to Denzel. "And for you, lad?"

Vic noticed Denzel's pause, curious as to why he was stalling. Little did he realize, muddled thoughts were whirling in Denzel's head like a tornado. He, Denzel Crocker, was sitting in a place he'd never visit willingly, meeting with his tormentor on the anniversary of the worst day of his life, a day that was so bad his mind had suppressed the events that only recently resurfaced through bits and pieces in his crazy dreams…

To heck with it. There was absolutely positively no way he was getting through this sober.

"Make that two Old-Fashioned…"

"Comin' righ' dup!"

With two easy orders in his mind, Seán began prepping both drinks, and Vic slowly turned his head with a puzzled brow.

"But you don't drink?"

Denzel's lip twitched involuntarily, battling the urge to barf. "I do today…"