Archive of Our Own

There’s a very, very big man standing in the doorway. Like a big orange elephant. And like an elephant, Timmy has no idea how to address his presence in the room. His parents are enthusiastically greeting the walking building stepping inside their house, and then the people that walk in after him. 

The orange elephant walks over to Timmy, and crouches down. Timmy still has to look up to see his eyes, even though he stepped off the couch the moment a strange car pulled into their driveway.

“And you must be my buddies’ kid!” the man bellows out, with a strange voice that Timmy can’t help but find strange and a little funny. “It’s good to meetcha champ, I can’t wait to spend some quality time with you all this week!”

He ruffles Timmy’s hair roughly, but even after he lets go Timmy can’t see anything but orange. It’s the biggest elephant Timmy has ever seen, and his tongue freezes in place with the bigness of its presence in the room. There’s no way he can ask his parents who these people are now .

There’s blue in the orange, a woman stepping in front of the man to see Timmy. He could probably look her in the eye if she crouched down, but she doesn’t. Instead, the lady holds out a hand and tells him, “Hello, my name is Maddie. Your parents and I were good friends when we went to school.”

Timmy shakes her hand, going up, then down, and then letting go, because shaking hands doesn’t actually mean shaking. “I’m Timmy.”

“It’s good to meet you, Timmy.”

She’s wearing all blue, just like the man is wearing all orange. Their clothes are weird, and so are the faces they keep making to each other.

Mom walks closer to Timmy, holding a bouquet of flowers. He steps a bit to the side so she can get to the empty vase on the coffee table. “Such a lovely gift, you shouldn’t have,” she tells the strangers. “And these must be your Jasmine and Daniel! Oh, they grow up so fast.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” someone new says, and Timmy is suddenly very aware that there are a lot of people in his house. She looks like one of the older high school kids, taller than the lady that called herself Maddie, and with hair almost as red as Vicky’s. “Do call me Jazz. We’ve been looking forward to spending the week here.” Her voice is high and so surgery sweet Timmy can feel it on his tongue.

“Yeah, it’s…” the boy behind her starts, looking like he tasted something just as sweet as Timmy and didn’t like it. “Cool. Good. Thank you for… inviting us. I’m Danny.”

They’re siblings. He’s not as tall as his sister, but he’s still much taller than Timmy. He almost looks like Francis, in the same way his sister looks like Vicky - not really, but almost. His skin is just as white, and his longer hair is still black. There’s no silver chain or big spiked bracelets, but his pants are ripped and the t-shirt over his long sleeved shirt looks like it’s from some weird screaming band.

But more important than all that is his face. Because that really doesn’t look like Francis. And for once, Timmy can’t find out if that’s a good thing. 

There’s a scar, a big one that goes from his shirt to over his eye. And that eye is glaring, looking all around the living room, like he knows there’s something in here he doesn’t like and is just waiting to find it.

Danny is just as weird fitting a name as Francis. He should be called Death, or something.

“We brought a little something for your kid as well!” The big man who never told Timmy his name yells excitedly. Or maybe it isn’t yelling, and that’s just the way he talks, like how Dad sometimes does when he gets excited. He’s holding out a big box wrapped in green paper and pink ribbons, and these people can’t be that bad if they brought a gift for him.

Maddie looks at Mom strangely, saying, “Now, we haven’t seen you since you were expecting, so we had to do a little guessing with the gift,” she looks down at Timmy, “but I do hope you’ll still like it.” She winks, like she’s sharing a secret. “We fought on who got to pick it. Let’s see if the right person won that dice roll.”

The gift is heavy in his hands. He can feel the bugs Cosmo and Wanda had turned into crawling through his hair to get a better look down on it. Something builds in his chest with the mention of a dice role, a decision for him left up to fate and chance. He doesn’t like the uncertainty of it.

I wish Maddie picked the gift
I wish the elephant picked the gift

Red patchwork quilt under his fingers, pulled taut. A room painted in bright, warm tones. Inviting, if a little hard to sleep in. The room is Danny's for the week-long stay at the Turners, his parents' old college friends and their kid. Their kid who everyone thought was a girl, until they showed up. The kid Jazz, then Danny, was supposed to room with, until two more guestrooms than known were revealed during the room tour.

It could have been a decent prank, but it wasn't. Drew and Margaret Turner just switched up during the tour, going back downstairs to show two more rooms than Danny had originally been told about, and seemed more confused than anyone at Danny's questions. And not the fake kind of confusion you have to put on when pranking someone.

Their parents left in a rush, not wanting to be late for the haunted house tour they had booked for the night. Timmy didn't seem much more enthusiastic about Jazz being left in charge than Danny, but he stayed in the living room with them for a game. The house seemed smaller on the outside when Danny went for a walk. The sky was more blue than it should be. Jazz didn't order pizza before it came, even though Timmy insists she did. She believes him.

His guest room is warm. It's not a cold gust that leaves his mouth when he breathes out, but something that sparkles if the light hits his eyes just right. Burnt caramel sticks to the roof of his mouth like revenge.

This isn't Desiree. This isn't a ghost of any kind. This is the world changing around them, and no one but Danny seems to notice.

Bright white light, the room fills with the echo of his death. In the air, underwater, among the depths of space, gravity becomes a suggestion and his hair makes waves over him. Danny looks up at the strands, then raises a hand, outstretched and up in the air from where he's laying on the soft bed with homemade, handmade patchwork quilts that might not be any of that. His gloved hand is as white as always, except—except when he focuses on it, really focuses on it for just a minute, the room twists and warps out the corner of his eye. Pink, purple, orange, green. It sparkles and glitters, the taste on his tongue going sharp.

This isn't a ghost. But it's something. Danny phases out of the living plane, falls into the cold and the quiet, unseen and unthere. Space stretches around him, stars form and shatter faraway. He thinks this is what space would feel like, if he ever dared to go.

Warmth. Death is cold, but still, Danny feels something warm. It's above him, somewhere around Timmy's bedroom. Privacy concerns are as far out of Danny's mind as can be, ice and heat dancing around him like planets orbiting the sun. Like natural weather patterns that twist the clouds into thunder. He follows the heat, floats into Timmy's bedroom, and the lightning strikes.

"It's nearly eleven, Timmy," a pink haired being tells the kid. They look almost human, almost like a kid, almost present. They're floating the same way Danny is, but light, semi translucent wings sprout from their back. There are three of them. One looks like a toddler.

"Fineeee" Timmy yells, drawing out the e, and Danny wonders how he didn't hear anything just below. The red-orange clouds filling the room might be the answer. So might the crowns floating above the three, the star pointed stick in their hands. "I wish for my room to be the perfect place to sleep! Dreamland!"

Sugar rush, overload, sweetness sticks to everything Danny ever was or will become. He nearly coughs, and holding it in is like swallowing a loaded gun. Twisting in on himself, folding his limbs, head somewhere in his leg like an ostrich hiding under the earth. Sickly sweet, but then some seventh sense adjusts, and the air clears, the sandpaper sugar turns soft like a hug. Blues and yellows and white, it's like a nursery story come to life.

Life is the word. Danny catches it like sand between his fingers and he holds tight as Timmy and the three unknowns wander through pillows and blankets, quilts and comforters, plushies and rounded cartoon stars and the soft, artificial moonlight. It's fantasy come to life, and Danny is dead. Fake as a thought, as his dreams of returning to normalcy, Timmy's room and strange occupants ring synthetic. Counterfeit clouds made of pillow stuffing and off-white food dye, mocking and imitating. It's a storybook come to life, and Danny is dead, and some part of him knows deep in his core he wouldn't be able to touch it even if he was there, because it isn't. Not really.

The toddler lands on Timmy's bed, and he helps the two unreals tuck it in. Danny floats to peek at the scene from above the canopy of a dozen different blankets, wanting to look down and not catch another glimpse of the stars in the ceiling that matches up too perfectly with the sky outside.

A bedtime story. Small hands carding through Timmy's hair as the unreality reads a story said to be for the toddler, but which comforts Timmy just as much. He laughs and jokes with the family under tired muttering, and Danny stays watching with lidded eyes.

Family. It's a family, one that seems to have made a home with Timmy as a pseudo son. Their wings glitter in the artificial moonlight, their crowns follow the movements of the heads, their star staffs summon anything Timmy wishes for. Fairy-like, they tug him and their child to sleep. Danny watches. When they sit down on the fake clouds to read their own books for the night, he leaves. No fight, no confrontation, no words spoken. He floats under his fake quilt and detransforms, breath filling his lungs like an avalanche.

He'll keep an eye out.

-

Flames lick the asphalt behind Timmy, red and pink sparks following his round in the rink.

Timmy knows how to skateboard, but he can't do many tricks. The skatepark is almost empty and the skateboard Timmy wished for has green flames painted on the bottom. He's skating in a circle on the rink, trying to build confidence to hop up on the bar. Wanda gave him protective stuff like knee pads and a helmet, but he still doesn't want to fall and eat gravel. His teeth aren't that strong.

Poof is following behind him in toddler sized roller skates, more using his wings to propel himself forward than his feet. Cosmo is in reach, ready to catch him if anything should happen, but hidden behind him so he feels independent. Timmy knows Wanda is doing something similar to him, but he's being nice and not calling her out on it, and not because he's scared and wants her to catch him if he falls.

He speeds up. Angles the board. He makes the jump, sparks and glints jumping from the impact site as he glides on the metal bar. He lands it.

"YES!" Timmy exclaims, tripping off his board in excitement, but still landing on his feet. He landed it, he landed it, he did it!

"Congrats, Timmy!" Cosmo calls, and Wanda joins him in clapping. Timmy jumps in place, too high to remember a theatrical bow for their applause. Poof joins it, tiny palms hitting together in something much less rhythmic than his parents. Timmy is beaming—and then, without warning, his fairies are gone. Butterflies flutter in the air where their human forms just did, and Timmy hears it. Footsteps.

AJ and Chester were both busy, so Timmy had wished for an empty skatepark. That way he could talk with his fairies.

"Oh, hey," says Danny, leaning over the railing to peer down at Timmy. "I didn't know you skated."

He's not supposed to be here. Timmy had wished to be alone with his fairies. But he's here now, and he was alright yesterday, so Timmy let's it happen.

Danny's skateboard is green and purple and black. An intricate design decorates the bottom of it when he tilts it up, and then it's down and Danny is speeding toward Timmy. The teenager twists with good distance, and makes a circle around him. Timmy should probably start a conversation, but he has no idea what to say. Was what Danny said earlier a question? How is he supposed to answer it? Maybe it wasn't and Timmy has to come up with something new, but Danny is running in a large circle around him and Timmy feels like he's being cornered by a black panther. He'd rather meet a pink one, but this panther has black hair and a big scar and eyes that are almost but not quite blue.

"Can you do tricks?" Is what comes out of his mouth.

Danny grins. It's sharp, mischievous, and happy. "I can eat concrete."

Timmy returns the smile. "Me too."

-

The fairies are kind. They help Timmy with as much as they can.

Danny learns to spot them pretty quickly. They have a shine, a sparkle, a feeling to them nothing else quite has, and then everything they transform into shares their primary colors. Everything in Dimmsdale tastes sugary sweet, from the water to the steaks, but the pressure on his tongue amps up around them. He's starting to get used to it.

-

Froot Loops isn't Timmy's favorite breakfast, but the face Danny makes seeing the package is too funny to deny. He mixes some of them into his usual Count Chocula bowl. Danny's sister picks one of the healthy cereals, dunking it in way more milk than Timmy has ever seen anyone else do. Danny is on his fourth taste test of the cereals. He swallows, groans, and goes for the fifth box. Timmy giggles.

"I should just tear one of these boxes up and eat that," he whines, digging a hand into the packaging to pull out a handful of shredded wheats. He throws them in his mouth, and doesn't finish chewing before continuing, "Cardboard wouldn't taste that much different anyway."

Jazz smurf kicks a fallen lucky charm at him. It hits his hand. "You're acting rude enough, stop talking with your mouth open." She eats another spoonful of what Timmy thinks might be just milk. "Don't break anything."

"It's just a box," Timmy says, and Danny gives him a grin.

"See! It's just a box, who cares, let me eat cardboard, c'moooon."

The cardboard doesn't go down any easier than any other cereal Danny tried before it. This might be the most fun breakfast Timmy has ever had. The school bus comes way too quickly.

-

The green one is named Cosmo. He's funny and energetic, and he helps Timmy with most things social. The pink one is named Wanda. She's stern but loving, and gives Timmy clear and concise advice. The purple one is named Poof. A young child that Timmy treats like a little brother. It fits right into their family dynamic, two parents and their sons.

The taste of everything continues to fade. It feels more like a few too many candy bars than a full meal of the cereal his Dad made in his search for the most surgery one out there. 

Danny feels more and more like an intruder. Keeping an eye on the situation occurs to him less and less, a part of his core settled on the outcome. The fae are okay.

-

Danny ruffles Timmy's hair. It shakes his head from side to side, and he pushes the hand away with a laugh. Danny and Jazz's parents are packing up the car, stuffing suitcases and gadgets and souvenirs into the techno looking vehicle. Timmy can't figure out if it's cool or lame, so he hasn't said anything about it yet. Jazz is still talking with his parents, a more lengthy and polite goodbye than necessary. Danny just said bye and walked over to Timmy.

Dewdrops fall from the plants. Petals and leaves drip drop them down, a tiny rainfall after the storm that had raged during the night. The road puddles shine bright and colorful, yellows and greens and blues.

"Thanks for the fun week, Tim," Danny grins, smiling down at him.

Timmy returns it. "You too."

It's been fun. Much more than Timmy could have ever expected. Danny is cool and funny and Timmy is a little sad that he and his family live so far away now. He took forever falling asleep last night, thinking about when he would see them again. How he could see them again. A wish lies on the tip of his tongue, and he just has to find the right wording, the right way to wish it. Make them forget something small, move their city closer, wish...

Danny bends down. He leans one hand on his knees, the ball of his feet up in the crouch. He doesn't have to look up by much to meet Timmy's eyes. "We'll see each other again soon enough. I know for sure my folks will wanna come back here."

There's a glint in his eyes. It looks like a star.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" His teeth are sharp, his eyes bright. The star twinkles. "No need to wish like that. We'll be back."

Timmy's heart stutters in his chest. The stars are all around them, bright and knowing. Does he know? Does Danny—

The thought hammers in his chest. Eyes wide, he can't do anything but look at Danny. The teenager winks, and walks off.

Cosmo is a boa around Timmy's shoulders. He's supposed to be a toy snake, but his head twists up to Timmy's ear. "Scary."

It lets Timmy breathe out again. He didn't even realize he was holding his breath. Cosmo's tone is playful and unworried, light and airy like clouds and daisies. Danny just sounded like he knows, but he doesn't actually. Else Jorgen would be here with the dumb rulebook and a threat of taking away Timmy's family.

"Scary," Timmy agrees. His tone is light, too. He'll wait for them to come back, if Danny says they will.

Time loop

Jazz follows her parents up the stairs, trying to focus on the Turners' tour of the house instead of Danny behind her. She knows exactly why he had wanted a room for himself this visit, but she can't explain that when no one else can know. If Danny found out she knows, he would probably say she isn't supposed to know either.

Timmy is a boy. And not named Tina. And Jazz can't share a room with him, so now Danny has to.

If only they had known that before they came here, so Danny would be prepared, at the very least. Sudden changes of plans aren't good for mental health, children and teenagers need some form of consistency, and to be able to trust their parents' words.

The house is small enough that room sharing is the only option. The laundry room is too small for a mattress, and the garage isn't properly insulated - both Jazz and their parents were quick to shut Danny's suggestion of that down. He can barely control his body heat after the accident, always cold and still shivering wearing mountains of clothing layers. He needs a proper, warm room. Even if that takes away his privacy for ghost stuff.

Three rooms, not including the hallway, take up the second floor. Drew and Margherets bedroom, a pleasant purple space with the essentials and a pretty vanity, the home office, a small room with a desk and storage that would just barely fit a mattress for Jazz, and Timmy's bedroom.

"What color do you think it is?" Danny asks Jazz in a low tone, not wanting the adults to hear. "I hope it's orange, would finish the rainbow." She punches his shoulder.

"Not every room has to be a different color."

"Most of them have been," he grins.

She's about to respond when Drew knocks on Timmy's door- and then opens it immediately. What comes out of her mouth is less a word and more a squawk.

“And this is Timmy's room! Bigger than ours, bigger than ours, a growing boy needs his space,” Drew announces loudly to Jazz horror. He can't do that!

"You can't just open the door, you have to wait for him to invite you in!" She tries. Maybe the family is more okay with it, but Jazz and hers are strangers to the kid, they really need to give him the option with guests over at the very least. "It's about privacy and comfort and-" Danny kicks her in the shin.

Nose scrounged with the rest of his face, he looks away from her glare. "He's not listening anyway."

Timmy is standing in the middle of the room with his hands behind his back, smiling nervously. Jazz is reminded of Danny whenever he tried to hide something from their parents back when he was ten, when he was eleven, when he was thirteen and not dead. Timmy's eyes shift to the corner of the room, avoiding eye contact. "I made room for a mattress."

"Oh, lovely, we'll get it set up once we come home tonight," his mom says, hand raising up so she can look at her watch. "Goodness, the time passes quick. With your little delay, it's almost time to get going already!"

“Wouldn’t it be better to get it out now, in case you come home late?” Jazz asks, eyes on Timmy. His shoulders are high and set tight.

“Ah, don't worry about that, we'll keep the time," Drew responds, drawing Dad in for a one shouldered hug, "and we might miss the tour if we don’t get hurrying soon! Can't have our tour impede on the real important one!” The ghost house tour, of course - her parents had been rambling about it so excitedly for too much of the way here. She almost envies Danny's ability to pass out wherever. What she doesn't envy is the look in his eye - the strange, searching one, like there's something important just out of sight. Like he knows there's a ghost nearby, even if he hasn't seen or felt it.

Timmy is dealing with a very different problem, and that's one Jazz can at least try to help with. "Are you sure you can't stay a little longer?" The adults barely seem to be listening. "Aren't ghost house's better at night, anyway? We could spend the rest of the afternoon and evening together, and then..."

She trails off. Her dad is looking at her with a glint in his eye that needs more than half backed asking to turn around. "Oh, but we need the proper setup! This is a world famous site after all, we can't half-aah-" he stops himself, "can't do anything but give it our all!"

"Of course!" Drew jumps on Dad's excitement, "This is very important, very important, we can't waste a moment more!"

Timmy looks worried. Jazz knows the thought of suddenly ending up alone with two teenagers he barely knows is far from the ideal outcome, but with their parents hurrying downstairs, she can't do much more than follow them, and at least try to get something out of them before they leave. A phone number, at the very least.

The phone number she gets isn't for either of Timmy's parents. The number Drew points out on the side of the fridge is for the local pizzeria.

"You're in charge, Jazz!" Is the last thing her mom yells out, before all four are off in the GAV, zooming down the road in the unmistakable erratic pattern of her dad driving. She sighs, not really surprised by the whirlwind. Even without her parents usual one minded focus on ghost hunting and their excitement for the tour of a local haunted house, they had had issues on the road that led to them arriving later than planned. The original bouquet her mom put together herself for the Turner family ended up on the side of the road in a series of coincidences she is sure came from the fact they were something called blood blossoms.

Looking at the boys, she prepares mentally for a rough start, if not a rough night. Both are on edge, Danny glaring at every nook and cranny as if they had personally wronged him. Or more as if one had and he is just trying to find out which. Timmy is still looking at the door, as if willing the parents to come back.

He’s cute. Just ten years old, if her parents got the date right. And though their guess on his gender proved wrong, she doubts this is. Big eyes, a pink cap and tee. He looks so young, and so scared. She wants to help, and mentally skims through all the child psychology she knows.

“Well, that was fast,” she starts. Empathizing, showing him his feelings are valid and understandable. Create common ground, she's feeling the same about what just happened. “We really just barged in on you.” A sort of apology, showing him he isn’t wrong to feel winded and confused. “I’m Jazz - it’s really nice to meet you, Timmy.”

“Uh. You too.” the kid says. “I’m t-” his ears go red, and he averts his eyes. He’s expressive. Must have tried to introduce himself back, when she already said his name - oh no, was it too much to go for the familiarity? he drags out the sound of the t. “tttttotally,” he settles on, buckteeth ground tight and his expression pinched like he's trying to appear unbothered, even though the near misstep is actually really bothering. “Happy. To meet you.”

She nudges Danny. “Hi,” he says, and stops looking like he wants to stab the couch. “I’m Danny.” His eyes are blue and kind as he looks at Timmy. “I’m going outside. I’ve, uh, been in the car for too long.” he scratches the back of his neck, where the scar meets his hairline. A nervous tick. “Do you know a good outdoor place to go or..?”

Jazz recognizes what he’s doing! She believes her brother does want to go outside, but he lets Timmy teach them something he knows that they need, diminishing the barrier that their ages and familiarity creates! Oh, this is exactly what she needed, and she can't keep the excited grin at bay over it. “Uhm.” Timmy says. “There’s a park down the road? To the right?”

“That sounds great!” Jazz responds before Danny can take the answer and leave. “I need to stretch my legs as well.” She doesn’t really, the van has plenty of space and she isn’t very active. “Would you like to come with us, Timmy?”

There!! perfect!! She’s given him an opportunity to either be with both of them or alone in his house, where he can maybe get more in the headspace of having guests. She’s doing such a good job.

Danny starts coughing, harsh and continuous. A surge of annoyance courses through Jazz at the familiar heckling of her every move, but it fades as she realizes the coughing is legitimate, a harsher continuation of earlier. She pats his back in an awkward attempt to help as Timmy looks away, back towards the stairs. Jazz wonders if it’s a trick of the light or if there’s actually something sparkling in Danny's hand when he stops coughing and pulls it away.

Timmy looks back at them once Danny stops coughing. "I'll, uhm." He glances away, then makes direct eye contact with Jazz. "I'll come with. To show you."

Her smile is big and bright. "Great!"

-

Jazz is annoying. She's curious and pushy and doesn't know that she's not supposed to stick her nose into everyone's business. Her sharp and long and annoying nose. She's like Pinocchio if he was sixteen and a girl and annoying.

The pizza tastes good. It's cheesy and warm and Jazz bought one of every dip and let Timmy have the nacho cheese dip even though he didn't ask for it when they ordered. It's strange in a lot of ways. Timmy is more used to Vicky only ordering for herself, and the homemade food his friends' parents always make when he's over. It's a pizza he didn't have to wish for, and he bites through the rot that thought brings him with a crunch of the edge piece he learned to eat last summer.

Danny's pizza is in shambles. It's funny to look at, and he didn't get mad when Timmy laughed. The pizza is apparently different from the one they buy in their town, and so is the dip. Danny almost tore it apart to find out why, even when Jazz kept telling him it was a normal thing. She probably can't even taste the pizza with all the different dips she put on it.

Gooey and drippy and sad, the pizza slice Danny tries to pick up falls apart in his hand and slides down with the rest of the mushy mess on his plate. His face is so flat and disappointed, it looks as funny as his pizza. "Can't believe I'm gonna have to eat this with cutlery." He gets up from the coffee table and goes into the kitchen. "What am I, civilized? Gross."

Timmy laughs again. Danny still doesn't get mad. "Bring a bowl and spoon at this point," Jazz yells to him. With all the dip and sauce dumped on her pizza, Timmy thinks the bowl should be for her. He understands better why she thought it was a bad idea to eat in the living room now. He can't believe he's the cleanest eater here. Well, if you don't count Cosmo and Wanda. They're tiny mice under the couch, playing fancy restaurant with Poof. He's still a toddler that eats all messy, but Cosmo and Wanda never make any, even though Wanda is the only one that eats fancy. When Cosmo eats burgers as big as his head in one bite, nothing ever spills. It's fairy magic.

There's a clatter of metal in the kitchen, and then Danny yells back, "For when I blend you like a smoothie?"

"You and what blender?" Jazz calls back, and Danny barks a laugh loud enough to sound like he's still in the room with them. It's a little disorienting for Timmy, that his loudest laugh is for an insult aimed at him, but then Jazz rolls her eyes and let's out a playful 'urgh'. Cheek leaning against her hand, propped up on the table, she says, "He still thinks that's his joke." The looks she gives Timmy is playful and conspiratorial - she and Danny are generals in a war, and Jazz is about to tell Timmy exactly how she plans to bring him down. "Loser."

The word should be mean, but it sounds affectionate, soft and warm. Like how movies say siblings are supposed to work, acting mean while still loving each other. Timmy's going to be the same, when Poof grows up. He'll be the best big brother, protecting Poof from bullies and mean teachers, taking him to the playground and helping him with homework-

He pushes it away. Takes all of the thoughts in his head in a bag and throws it off the side of a blank platform. They crawl back up again, and he pushes away and away, with a broom and gusts of winds and he throws it all away and down and finds something else to think about that isn't Poof or Wanda or Cosmo or growing up or Chloe- and he keeps pushing and he wants to stop thinking.

Orange and purple flowers line the living room walls, chalky and uneven from the rocks on the pavement. They push through the windows, crawling through and lining themselves on the floor. Timmy pulls his feet up from the carpet and folds them under himself on the couch. He forgot he was avoiding the park, he forgot why he was avoiding the park, and then stupid Chloe and her stupid chalk flower drawings and boring purple bow were there and ruined everything. Now Timmy remembers and he hates it.

But he couldn't just turn around and go home, because Danny and Jazz were there. Danny walked over to the trees immediately but Jazz saw Chloe and she saw Chloe looking away and Timmy looking away and she kept asking and now Timmy can't think about anything but the purple chalk flowers and how annoying Jazz is.

Jazz gasps big and hissy. Timmy sees Danny's thick Christmas socks come back from the kitchen, and when he looks up, Danny is bleeding, a deep red line going down from his temple on the same side of his face as his scar. "Don't worry," Danny grins, "I washed the fork after I dropped it."

"What happened?!" Jazz yells, but even though she's taunt, stretched to get off the sofa, she doesn't run over to him.

"Wall." Danny walks over to the couch, unconcerned by the blood dripping down on his shirt. Timmy moves his leg so Danny can sit down. "Thanks," Danny says, dropping down heavily. "Head wounds are so dramatic, they always bleed way more than they need to."

Jazz throws an empty dip package at him. "Go get a band-aid, at least. You're gonna spill on the couch."

Danny doesn't go get a band-aid. He just picks up the sauce package and drags it up his face, piling the blood into it. "You're also dramatic. It's fineeee." He holds the plastic container in front of him. Timmy leans over to look inside, and Danny tilts it so he can see better.

"What're you gonna do with it?" Timmy asks, because he must have a reason to put the blood in a dip package instead of using a napkin. Danny looks at Timmy, then the blood, then the pizza, then back at Timmy. The blood is slowly flowing down from his wound again, but there's much less than before. Danny looks at the blood dip, and then he dumps it on the ruined pizza.

"EW!" Jazz yells, jumping further back on the couch.

"Gross," Timmy says, but he leans forward anyway. Is Danny actually going to eat the pizza with blood dip?

"Yum," Danny sings, and he scoops a large forkful of the bloody pizza into his mouth. Jazz groans, covering her face, but the smile creeping onto Timmy's face is big enough to strain his lips. Danny is so cool.

Also gross. The pizza looks awful.

Tucked in one corner of Timmy's room, Danny's mattress lays. Timmy is sitting on his bed in the corner opposite to it, legs tucked under his arms as he watches Jazz fiddle with the covers. Danny went out for a night walk and according to Jazz, he won't be home anytime soon. It's okay, though, because he knows how to be quiet and won't wake Timmy up if he's asleep. That's what Jazz said, but maybe it isn't okay, because if he's really quiet then Cosmo and Wanda might not hear him. They'll have to be hidden or transformed until the Fentons go home.

The sheet is apparently good enough now, because Jazz starts tucking the comforter just right on top of it. Tired eyes drifting closed, Timmy watches the methodical movements. Then; "Is it okay if I ask you about Chloe?"

It's like a shock, electric and sharp and sudden. The sky is clear and bright and full of stars, but Timmy can still see the lightning strike, like in Frankenstein when the doctor revives the monster, Jazz revives that conversation. It's a shambling corpse, creepy and scary, with bolts in the neck and too bright eyes. Timmy wants to hide under the covers, but the monster isn't physical, and the thoughts are already barging through the skull door of his brain.

He grips his shirt tight, turns away. The words don't come easily, a million thoughts falling together, twisting into a heap like chargers and wires, and just when he thinks he knows what to say, Jazz talks again. "It's okay if you don't want to. I just thought it might be nice to talk about it." Jazz is looking at him. Timmy keeps staring at the sunshine yellow chalk flower at the corner of his eye. "You both seemed so sad."

Timmy folds. Tucks himself as close together as he can. He doesn't want to look at her. He doesn't want to talk about this. He wants to never see or hear or think about Chloe ever again. "She's the one that left," jumps out of his mouth, wet and unwanted.

"Left you?" Jazz asks. Timmy doesn't look at her.

"Left."

She's quiet for a bit. "Do you know why?"

Timmy knows. He knows and he knows and he knows, even though she never told him and no one told him until he asked everyone about everything and he didn't even need to because he knew. He knew it the moment she looked at him that day, because it was gone. And he knew when she asked him to play, and he knew when Cosmo and Wanda didn't drop their disguise, and he knew. Even though he didn't want to believe it and asked everyone to tell him it was (it wasn't, please, it wasn't) so. He knows.

He pulls at his comforter. Drags it up to lay over his feet. "She forgot."

Jazz pauses again. "Oh," she says, and then she doesn't say anything more. Timmy keeps his head in his knees, but the quiet is too long. He looks up, and meets Jazz eyes. She's looking at him, sad and calm, sitting on Danny's mattress. The comforter she tried to place just right is wrinkled from where she's sitting, and the pillow is more thrown than placed at the one side. "It hurts when people forget something important," she says, maybe because she was waiting for Timmy to look at her, maybe because she didn't know how to say it. "I've had friends forget about my birthday before. But forgetting isn't something done on purpose, and they felt really bad about it."

Jazz's eyes are green and piercing.

"Did she feel bad about it?"

Timmy wants to cry. Chloe apologized. She said she was sorry, and told him she would make up for it. But she didn't know what for. She just apologized because she thought she had to. She doesn't know what she forgot and Timmy can't tell her, because her fairy is gone. "She didn't have to forget."

Most forgetting is an accident. You forget a gift, a test, a deal. But Chloe didn't have to forget. She could have stayed with Sparky just like Timmy is staying with Cosmo and Wanda. She could have known about fairies forever, but instead she let Sparky leave. Let him think his job was done, and now she doesn't have a fairy and she doesn't remember having a fairy, doesn't remember that all the time they spent together was with real magic. She didn't even say goodbye before leaving him with a shadow of herself.

"It was important. And now she doesn't know. And-" Timmy hiccups. He presses his palms harshly to his eyes, willing any tears to stay in, because Chloe isn't going to make him cry. "And we can't go back. It can't- can't ever be the same."

There's a hand, warm and gentle, on his head. Jazz pats him softly, going through his hair. Timmy bends down, feet on the floor as he folds in on himself. "It might not be the same," she says, as gently as the hand. "But maybe it can be good in a different way"

Timmy sniffles. "She's annoying."

Jazz laughs. "We all are."

-

Chloe is sitting in the playground tower with a book. Her bow is just purple. There is no yellow dog by her side, no glitter in her hair, no sparkle on her shoes. Timmy tries not to think of the missing stars in her eyes. She looks plain and normal and exactly like every other kid in their school. And he hates looking at her, because she didn’t before. Because she used to look just like him.

But he calls out to her anyway. “Do you wanna play?”

She shoots up, looking out the wooden arch to spot him standing on the grass below her. Holding out the ball in his arms feels stupid, so it stays under his arm. She can still see it with her dull eyes. Her eyes widen, then scrunch up with the rest of her face. Nose wrinkled, she turns away and responds, “You told me to go away. So I did.”

Everything around her feels cold and colorless. The grass is just green, the jungle gym house’s paint faded and chipped. There aren’t any twisting vines or parrots in sight. Timmy had told her to go away. He meant it, maybe. He wants her to go away and for the real Chloe, the one that had a fairy and could talk with Timmy about them, to come back. He wants their shared secrets and shared troubles to come back.

She’s crossed her arms, and her head is tilted up. Timmy can see that much, even with the shadow of the small roof. Before, that was something she only did with him, getting mad and acting like it. But now he sees her pouting at her new friends in school, crossing her arms and stomping her feet.

Jazz told him he could apologize. He doesn’t know what to apologize for. He just repeats himself, “Do you wanna play?”

She twists. Looks at him out of the corner of her dull eyes. She isn’t pouting. “I thought you didn’t play anymore.”

Timmy has never played. Everything was real, but Chloe doesn’t remember that. That’s why he hates her. That’s why he has to stop hating her, because it’s not her fault.

He hates that it isn’t her fault. Because that makes it his, and he doesn’t like that.

Teeth clenched. He tries to force the anger away from his face. It leaves him tired. He blows air out and looks up at the tree Chesters favorite swing hangs from. The squirrels look down to him, encouraging. Cosmo tries to give him a thumbs up, even though animals don’t have thumbs.

“Because you forgot,” Timmy says without really thinking.

“Oh,” Chloe replies. Then, because she always does it, she says; “I’m sorry”

She looks confused, blue eyes squinting as she tries to remember what she forgot. She still said sorry, because she always apologizes. Everytime, even though it’s never her fault. “It’s not your fault.”

“You’re acting like it is.”

Timmy knows that. He knows. But that doesn’t make it any harder to stop.

“Sorry.”

Chloe smiles. It’s big and happy, the same one she gives to her new friends when they remember her birthday. She climbs down the ladder, and then she’s standing in front of Timmy.

“Okay.” Her eyes are almost bright. They are. “Let’s play.”

Time loop

There's burnt sugar on Danny's teeth and glitter at the edges of his visions. Everything has looked like a mirage since Jazz woke him up outside the florist Mom stopped at to get a new bouquet to replace the Blood Blossom filled one Danny tossed out the window five minutes into the car ride. Dimmsdale is colorful, yellow and pink and blue buildings lining the streets he blearily saw pass by in the process of waking up. Orange, white, gray. It's all bright and vague, tall and monotonous in their boxy simplicity.

Caramel and candy floss, there's something sweet and warm in the air. Danny feels like he got glitter bombed with pure sugar. He'll start coughing it up soon.

Goosebumps push against his long sleeves, frost and fear. His eyes are carefully, neutrally blue, barely brighter than anyone else's. His parents aren't scary. They've never been. They're enthusiastic and a little mad but ghosts get them a little too overzealous to actually pose a threat. But the weapon was pointed at Danny as a human, glitter eyes agitated and unfocused and suddenly staring down the barrel of it. Humans aren't supposed to get hurt by ghost weapons. 

He should have found some excuse to stay home, the promise of free time and tickets to the city's big cinema isn't worth any of this. It would have been rough enough to stay sane sleeping in the home office, but he has to share a room now.

The sun isn't as warm anymore, the shine through the window closer to what he's used to in Amity. Pulling the zipper of his jacket up to the neck, he hides down in it. He doesn't know if he can keep his ghost side hidden for an entire week without a proper place to retreat to. Playing grumpy teenager isn't exactly the most fun, but he might have to pull it to get out of the house.

The kid ran upstairs to his room, right? Danny gets it, he's never managed to get his room clean enough for guests before they get there, the few times they've had guests that needed to come into his room. He was probably around ten back then, too. Breathing in, deeply, counting the stars, and then out, Danny doesn't see any fog. He's cold and tired and everything else that's never far from the norm with him, but there's no mist. For all the feelings of something wrong and fake and too sweet, there aren't any ghosts.

"Let's get our first tour of the day started. Right this way!" Drew Turner exclaims suddenly, except maybe it wasn't and Danny has been tuned out since the gunshot. "You've seen the living room, now for the kitchen! Heart of the home, I always say."

On some words, he sounds a little like Danny's dad. It's easy to see them having been good friends in college.

Sour are the thoughts that follow that, bitter and a bucket of ice down Danny's sweater. Mom and Dad's old ghost hunter buddies from their college days. From their days with Vlad. The Turner house isn't a manor, it's as brightly colored inside and out as the rest of Dimmsdale. They have a kid and boring furniture. But Danny can't help the spike of worry and distrust, seeing Vlad's behavior in the dead garden and empty pedestals the adults show off on the tour.

And then they're outside what must be Timmy's door, and Drew opens the door without knocking, not giving the kid any chance to prepare. He's expecting a squawk from Jazz, shrill and birdlike to start her rant on why respecting boundaries and privacy for young kids is important, and—It doesn't come.

The air is sickening. So warm that Danny's jacket, for the first time since the accident, feels like too much, and so sweet he starts coughing. Burnt caramel and Pixy Stix and powder shoves down his throat, sugar as overwhelming as the extra sour Sour Patch Kids his Dad made for Christmas when he was eleven.

Bright colors litter his vision. He can't walk into the room with the others, falling roughly against the doorway, barely managing to catch it and keep himself up. It's a kaleidoscope and paint splash inside Timmy's room, splattered on every wall, hanging like something rotten sweet in the air. Danny barely keeps himself from throwing up. Every wall inside and out are shifting color with a beat Danny slowly realizes echoes his own too slow heart. The sky outside the window is a hellish hot orange, like the sun fell down. It all feels like a worse, more disorienting ghost vision, colors shifted and warped to reflect Danny's unliving eyes. But the heat is too different from the cold greens and purples of the dead.

Jazz is in front of him, and her cold headband and eyes are barely enough to keep him present through the warm glow of her ginger hair. "Danny? Do you need to sit down?"

She's looking up at him, so she's crouching down, but it can't be by much because the distance isn't great. Except when Danny tries to step back and show her he can handle it, his feet refuse to move, and his white knuckle grip on the door makes itself present.

"Oh dear, go sit on the bed for a moment," His mom says, and when he stumbles to let go of the wall, his dad picks him up. The bed is soft below him, and his feet hit the end-board, but he can barely feel anything through the mouth drying agony of raw vanilla extract and burnt sugar crawling down his throat, spirit claws digging in to pull further and fast. Everything in the room is warm and bright and shiny and sparkly, glitter and stars floating like dust, like fog laying a few inches up from the floor, moving like lazy ripples when his family and their friends walk around the room.

He breathes in and out, keeping the coughing at bay because that just hurts worse. The lights persist behind closed eyes, colors muted but present still. The taste is overwhelming, but the rest calms, and in the absence of visuals, he notices the sounds. Wind-chimes and bells, something uniquely magical just barely there.

A female voice speaks up, "Is he alright?" It's probably Margaret, but the voice is grating and unfamiliar between the powder soft chimes echoing far beyond something Danny can't see or touch. "I'll go get him some water."

"Looks like he'll be the one getting the guest room," a man says, far too loud.

A hand lays itself on Danny's forehead. His whole face is almost covered, he realizes, his own two hands over the sweet chapstick taste trying to force itself into his mouth. "Of course he is," Jazz talks softly in front of him. "I don't mind taking a mattress."

The colors fade. Danny isn't sure how, but he knows it's something between it truly leaving, and him getting used to it. He opens his eyes to a warm blue bedroom, pinks and purples and orange reds leaving only a faint trace at the edges of his vision. It's a return to normal he feels should follow with 'and nothing hurts anymore', but he just goes back to the usual amount of joint pain and exhaustion.

It takes him longer than it should have. He only notices once Drew comes back into the room and hands him a glass of almost cold water.

There are five people in this room, other than Danny.

"Where is Timmy?"

Margaret looks puzzled at his parents. "Timmy? Did you bring another son we haven't noticed?"

Danny should laugh at the joke. But he knows his parents, he knows his dad, and the man can't act to save his life. He's just as puzzled as Timmy's mother when he says, "Not as far as I'm aware! Who are you talking about, Danny-o?"

Frost glaze up the windows. His breath comes out hot and airy, but Jazz’s is a cold puff.

"I'm going outside."

-

Timmy wishes for a jacket. Pink and green, with a purple zipper.

The air bites at his nose and cheeks, cold seeping into his skin. He could wish for better weather, but he doesn't really care that much. He's just happy to be out of the house.

Mcbucket, Mcgee, Mc...something, should be his name, the old man that let Timmy sit in the bed of his pick up truck on its way to the edges of Dimmsdale. His cabin was full of stuff, but he didn't mind pushing some wood to the side for Timmy to sit outside. The road bumbles below them, and Timmy pretends it's a fun roller coaster that's supposed to do that. Wanda is a blanket around his shoulders and Cosmo is a dog laying on his lap. Poof tried to turn into a cat, but stumbled on the tail, and is now cuddling into Cosmo's fur in the more common butterfly form.

Timmy isn't going far away. There's a lot of empty houses on the road out of the city, and he thinks it could be funny to live in one of them. Furnish one exactly how he wants it, with bright colors and pillows everywhere. It's like he's going to college and moving out, but he'll come home next week.

Burrowing into his knee, Timmy sinks his hand deeper into Cosmo's fur. It's as long as he likes it, the kind of thick fur he's heard wolves have, where you can sink your whole arm in up till your elbow. Cosmo is too small for Timmy to sink up to his elbow, but the fur goes high enough to tickle his wrist.

It'll just be a week.

-

Danny is standing on a stage. Prop benches and trees line the street, facades of buildings stretch to a painted sky. Actors mill around him, playing roles for a script Danny hasn't read. No one else sees the wires, the scaffolding, the technical difficulties, the quick changes and prop fixes and stagehands directing actors. He is standing on a stage, seeing the guts behind the curtains. He is standing between everyone else, who don't realize they are actors. Who don't realize it's a stage.

Who is watching this show? The ghosts have left the broken theater. They see the tropes, the machines, and they do not care.

Phantom stands alone on the stage, between actors that can't see the crew milling about, changing scenes and feeding lines. Phantom looks at the theater crew in crowns of authority and reaches out a hand.

-

It's cold. It's really, really cold. Timmy looks at the sky from the lawn of his new house, painted pink and purple with a wish, and the gray vortex looks down at him like an eye.

Fitting as it may be, he didn't want rain, or snow, or anything other than sunshine. He wanted to play in the garden.

"I wish the storm would stop."

-

Every wishmaker has the same rule. No bringing back the dead.

What came first, we wonder. Did a moral rule seep so deep it permeated every consciousness, to the point it became the truth? Or have the dead always refused the call of want not their own, so that fae needed to make the rule their own to pretend the power lay in their hands?

Ghosts are born of desire. Their own is what drives and fuels them. They will not be swayed by any others.

-

The storm picks up. The wind rushes through him, ice cold and bitter. Timmy wishes for it to stop. It doesn't.

Lightning strikes the ground, the air fills heavy, electric and charged. Winds howl, snow storms in cascades and avalanches, pulling at everything Timmy is and ever will be. "STOP!" he screams, wishing desperately for Cosmo and Wanda to hear him over the end of something. "I WISH IT WOULD STOP!"

It doesn't.

-

Danny can't leave the stage. The props surround him, his family and friends turned actors. He feels the fakeness in the air and the artificiality in the ground. He is as living as he is dead, and he can't leave the stage of life any more than he can die. The wishes can reach him. But they cannot stop him. Ghost born power of desire is no match for a wish born of anothers.

The 11 o'clock number crescendos with a tempest. Ice and snow and fear rage with the blizzard, cutting through props and backgrounds and spotlights. Bells ring in the distance, barely there. A figment of the ears. Danny pulls at the sugary sweet sound behind the stage.

He takes out his claws, black star spotted, and tears down the stage curtains.

-

Everyone sees the machinery. The directors, stagehands, lights and sounds. They see the script fed to them, the choreography taught behind closed minds. The dead tell no tales, but this one tore down the theater in his attempt to escape it.

-

Timmy eyes the box sitting on the kitchen's highest shelf. The Fentons are saying goodbye to his parents, thanking them for the invitation and the stay and everything else people thank someone for. A weight is slowly lifting from somewhere in his stomach after a long week of having strangers around all the time.

Danny is already in the car. Timmy doesn't look at him, in case that would make him mad and come back inside. He hasn't done anything on his stay, but the dread and fear swelling up every time Timmy looks at him and his giant scar is too much to ignore.

Jack comes over after Jazz goes to the car. He gets the box down from the shelf, and hands it to Timmy with a flourish and a wink. Hesitant joy bubbles up. "Sorry for the wait on the gift buddy, but I can promise you it is now to-ta-lly safe!" He says, putting emphasis behind each syllable in totally.

Timmy grabs it with excitement. He can't remember the last time he got a good gift.

"Oh!" Mom interjects, coming over with a bag in her hand. "I almost forgot! We got you something while out earlier today," she tells him, and the bag in her hand is see through and filled with water.

Two fish are swimming in it.

"Let's hope these last longer, huh?" Dad jokes, and Timmy takes the bag with apprehension. Maddie tells him she's sorry for his loss, and that she wishes it will be better not to have an empty fish bowl in his room. She and her husband leave. The weird techno car speeds off, nearly hitting a trash can out for collecting.

He had kinda hoped to get rid of the fish bowl. He never really liked goldfish.

Time loop

Danny keeps touching his mouth. Jazz looks at him, at the light reflecting off his fingertips, at the strange colors on his teeth.

"Are you okay?" She asks him. It's nothing like his ghost breath, the frigid air passing blue lips as he feels a ghost near. She can barely see this, but she knows to keep looking. It looks magical.

"Feels like I swallowed a pack of glitter." Danny coughs again, rubbing his mouth with his sleeve. He was coughing every other step walking away from the house, but he's nearly past it now. Jazz is almost sure it isn't ghost related - at the very least, Danny doesn't know it's ghost related. He's not hiding anything from her, the way he does when it comes to anything from the other side. The one he joined, in some way, when she wasn't looking. The one she pretends she doesn't know about.

"Stop eating glitter, then," she teases, and laughs at the soft hit that follows. "Did you drink something too sweet?"

It looks pink for a moment, and she would think it a trick of the eye if she didn't know to look. She's always looking, now, looking out for him, the way a big sister should. Tongues are normally pink, but when Danny sticks it out and scratches at the glitter with his finger, Jazz knows it's not the right color.

Danny tries to speak with his tongue still out, but doesn't get more than (what Jazz' thinks might have been) two words in before he realizes there is no way for her to understand any of it. "It’s been like this since you woke me up outside the flower shop," Danny tells her, "I didn't do anything. And all we had today were the sandwiches and water." He scrunches his face up, looking more like he ate a lemon than anything else. "Why does it feel like I raw-dogged pure sugar, vanilla extract and some kind of concentrated candy floss at once?"

Jazz has no idea. "Something in the air?"

"Transparent, gas-like sugar-cubes floating in the air, attacking my teeth like the barbecue team up."

Jazz snorts, remembering last week's dinner night. She hates the sentient food more than anyone else in the family, knowing that safe, available meals are a cornerstone for good upbringing - but looking back at the image of the hot dog and hamburger coalition launching themselves at Danny and their Dad is more than a little funny.

Danny glides a finger across his teeth. "It's starting to go away, at least. This better not be an allergy of some kind. If there's something at the house triggering this, I'm going to kill myself."

"Danny!"

"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes at her. Jazz knows the casual way kids at school say that, a nihilistic joke, but she can't help but hate hearing it from Danny. "It's just-" he kicks a pebble, and it lands near a see-saw. They're at the park. "This sucks."

Heavy, a sigh leaves her. "It's not great. I really don't get how this happened."

This visit wasn't exactly well prepared, but they had known about it for a few weeks now. And what they had known was a family of three, with two adults and a daughter. One who could share her room with Jazz, while Danny took a mattress in the home office. And Jazz can't say she had been looking forward to rooming with a ten year old girl, but she was prepared. And she gets why Danny wants privacy.

Margeret had been pregnant last the two families had spoken to each other, that's the only part Jazz knows for sure. So they wouldn't have known the gender, except her parents were sure that the Turners had had an ultrasound and were excitedly awaiting a girl. But why hadn't they said something over the phone when planning for two of them to bunk?

"At least his room is big," Jazz tries to bring up as a positive, "my room barely fits the mattress."

Danny grins down at her from atop the set of monkey bars. She hadn't noticed him climb up there, lost in her head. "And you need all the room you can get, sleeping like a vampire."

Her face heats up, "It's the best way for your back! You need to sleep properly too!"

"Naaaah," Danny sings, swinging head down, only one leg clutching the bars. Jazz knows he can fly, but still imagines him falling on his head like an idiot. "My body can take the wheel when I sleep. Whatever happens happens."

Idiot.

Timmy is sitting in the living room when Jazz goes back. He's not watching TV, or playing a game, or on his phone. He's sitting there, watching her step through the front door. She wonders how long he's been waiting for her to come home. She wonders why. Did he hear her outside and put away what he was doing?

It's not unlikely. He's clearly on edge over her and her family staying over, and Jazz can't help but think he might not have known about it based on how he's reacting. That, or the whole gun gift left a bigger rift than intended. Jazz isn't happy to have taken the gift away, but she couldn't have just let him keep it either. Not with Danny in the house.

She's glad she gave him the option of staying home while the two of them went out, at least. All of her attempts to get their parents to stay home and push their ghost house tour to another day, when Timmy would know her and Danny better and hopefully be a little more comfortable around them without his parents, were in vain. Jazz loves her parents, she really does, but once they have their sights on something ghost related it's almost impossible to get them to turn around, and Timmy's parents didn't fair any better.

A break was all she could give him. Some time to understand and come to terms with his parents quick departure for the evening, before he would have to spend it with two strangers. She couldn't stay out for long, no way she was leaving a ten year old alone for more than an hour, but it was better than nothing.

"Danny is coming back later," Jazz tells him, hanging her jacket on the coat rack. It's a little too warm for the weather, but she knows Danny can feel awkward about being the only person dressed warmly.

Timmy pulls his legs up on the couch, arms around them. Defensive. He likely still feels weird about being alone with her, no one else to join conversation should she start one. Or maybe there's something about the gender disparity? Psychology is never a one size fits all, and as much as she will never tell Danny this, she can't always know everything. Not without knowing the person properly, first.

It isn't late, with her not wanting to leave Timmy alone for long - but maybe she can start the conversation by asking him about dinner. "I think I'll order the pizzas now, so we can be sure to get them at a reasonable time. What would you like?" She knows Danny's preferences by heart, so getting his order isn't an issue. Timmy looks surprised.

"...Really?" He asks her after a moment. "We're... actually ordering pizza?"

Jazz has to think on the question for a moment, because why would that be out of the ordinary? Her first thought is that the family might not often order pizza or other fast food, but the menu and number hanging on the fridge tell a different story. There's another reason here, one she has to search for. "That's the plan," she starts out, watching for any change of expression, "I'd rather not cook in someone else's kitchen without their permission."

Or supervision , she keeps to herself, pushing all memories of disastrous cooking attempts out of her mind. Living, moving, fighting food does not a great teacher make.

Kids' eyes usually seem big on their face, but Timmy sets a new record for her. Wide eyes follow her no cooking proclamation. He looks adorable, like a puppy. "Okay. Can I have a cheese pizza? It's..." He breathes in, still looking at her like she's something very strange. "It's number seven, on the..." He looks away, "The menu."

"Number seven, coming up," Jazz calls out in a cheery tone, picking up her phone. Timmy knows what he wants from the pizzeria, he knows the number. But he didn't expect her to ask him what he wanted. She walks into the kitchen to find the number for the restaurant, turning everything over in her head. He's used to ordering pizza, but something about her or today made him think that wouldn't happen. There's something here, she repeats in a mantra, listening to the phone ring.

He's peeking around the corner when she hangs up. He freezes up when she turns ans sees him, but doesn't hide. "It'll be some time before it comes," Jazz tells him. Her tone is as soft as she can make it without coming of condescending. In her opinion, at least. If you asked her brother, she's always condescending, and at that point it's nothing she can do anything about. "Do you want to help me set up the bedrooms while we wait?"

Timmy steps away from the door frame. He takes a while to think before he answers her, but Jazz is good at waiting patiently. She has been patient waiting for Danny to tell her about being dead for a long time. “Okay."

-

"Great!" Jazz says, "Do you know where the extra mattresses are?"

She's confusing. The sun shines through the window on her hair, and it doesn't look as red as Vicky's anymore. She follows Timmy to the stairs, and doesn't pull or push the whole way up. She ordered him a pizza. He listened, eavesdropping on her when she called the pizzeria. She ordered three pizzas, and one of them was cheese, and when she saw Timmy she didn't look mad over him listening to see if she really would order him food too, instead of just for herself like Vicky always does.

Vicky is easy. She's icky and mean and Timmy hates her, but he knows that whatever she does, it's always the worst thing she can think of, unless mom and dad are there. Jazz doesn't follow any easy rules, not ones Timmy has figured out. She took away the gift her dad had made for him, but then she ordered pizza.

A soft, bushy cat tail curls around Timmy's neck. He doesn't look down at it, but it warms him like the sun when it shines the brightest through a window. Jazz doesn't ask him about the green tail sticking out of his hair, and he pretends it isn't there. Even if he wants to reach up and fold his hand around it, tucking it closer to feel the fur.

Jazz is confusing. She started doing chores, like it's normal to start with them instead of TV. She carries the mattress and only asks Timmy to take the comforter, and when he can't carry the pillow too, she just tells him it's fine and that they'll get that after both her and Danny have the other stuff.

She asks him if it's okay to go into his room. She waits for him to say yes.

His room feels small. It's always big and full of magic and games, but when Jazz' brother is going to sleep in here it can't be magical. There's still enough room for a mattress, even though it's so small. Like it's for a mouse, or just one kid without 3 goldfish that are actually fairies. He just has a bed and a nightstand and a dresser. He misses the sprawling jungle it had been this morning, with colorful parrots and vines you could swing on like Tarzan.

Wasn't there a TV over at that wall? And a shelf with books and a rocket ship on top? Maybe Timmy should have wished for something more specific than all his other room wishes to be gone. The posters were a gift, weren't they? Maybe it's because he used a wish to hang them up?

"Did you choose your wall paint? It's such a nice color," Jazz asks him as she puts down the mattress on the wall opposite Timmy's bed. All of Timmy's walls and floor and ceiling are blue. He picked it himself, back when he first got Cosmo and Wanda. He wished for every cool color, and then he took a paint bucket from his dads garage and painted everything with a rolling brush. It got on the furniture and bed sheets and books, but Cosmo and Wanda helped get the high places so it looked good anyway. It looked better than any of the colors he wished for.

"Yeah. Dad had a paint bucket. I helped paint." Timmy holds the comforters in his arms, waiting for Jazz to put on the mattress sheet.

She smiles brightly at him. "Was it fun? I remember the day my parents let me help paint the kitchen," she laughs, "at the time, I considered it the best day of my life." She's fast. Timmy still can't get his sheet on without Cosmo and Wanda's help, but she did it quick like a hare. He can almost see the orange bunny ears poking out of her head, whiskers poking out of her cheeks.

"It was fun."

When he puts the comforter down, he feels the light weight of two cats jumping of his shoulders. He turns his head and sees colors and shapes just behind Jazz, painted water and dragon scales and cats that change into all kinds of fish, swimming through the air before Cosmo, Wanda and Poof are small goldfish in his fishbowl. Jazz turns to see what he's looking at, and smiles bigger when she sees the fish fairies.

"Oh! You have fish." She gets up from the floor and walks a step closer to them. "They're so pretty. I didn't even notice them."

Timmy goes over to the bowl, and Jazz comes closer. "They were in the castle," he lies.

Jazz looks at them softly. "Goldfish. Their scales sparkle in the light." She looks back at Timmy. "Are you a big fan of fish?"

Is he? He doesn't think so. Every form his fairies shapeshift into it pretty, they're always colorful and sparkly. Fish is just the easiest pet for them to turn into. "I don't know," he says, because he really doesn't. He likes when they shift into all kinds of different fish, koi and nemos and bettas, but he also likes it when they turn into other animals.

Jazz doesn't get mad at him for not knowing the answer, she just asks him if he wants to help her get the other mattress and comforter to the office for her. And then she asks him to help her bring the pillows. She always asks, and he doesn't think she would mind if he said no. He said no to going outside with her and her brother earlier and she didn't get mad then.

A purple butterfly is sitting on his nose, and Timmy is willing himself not to sneeze or itch. Poof's wings keep moving up and down, even though he isn't flying, because he's learning to walk and he's always moving now.

"Is the pizzeria a good one?" Jazz asks him without taking her eyes of her work, adjusting her bed, getting it just right. She's like Goldilocks. First the mattress is placed weirdly, and then the sheet is too far this way, and then too far that way. The window of the office is small, but the sun shines golden on her orange hair, and it curls around her shoulder as she pulls the comforter an inch to the right, then half an inch to the left.

"Yeah. They use a lot of cheese." Mom thinks the cheese is too much, but Timmy likes it. And Jazz is maybe nice, so she must like it too. It's even better with dip that he pours over the pizza when people are looking, and that he dips the pizza into when they aren't.

"Good," Jazz grins, "I have to order extra cheese at the one we have in Amity Park, they always put too little on mine." Cosmo is flying above her, following her hand movements as a green butterfly, back and forth and around and back. Timmy thinks he's trying to get Wanda to join him as the other hand without saying anything.

Will the bed be soft enough for her? Or too soft? Timmy holds back a laugh. Maybe she will need to microwave her pizza because it's too cold, and then have to wait ten minutes to eat it because it's too hot.

He hands her a pillow, and Wanda lands on his empty hand when she turns around to place it just right with the rest. Timmy holds her up to his face to look her in the eye. She smiles at him, and when she takes off Poof follows. Timmy itches his nose.

"There we go," Jazz says triumphantly. Her hair is blowing in a breeze and there's a glint of a sword at her side when she stands up, as if she won a big battle instead of an imaginary bed making competition. "All that's left now is Danny's pillow, and then we can relax until the pizza comes."

She's out the door, and Timmy follows. She said they could relax after this, but Timmy thinks she's having fun.

"She's not so bad," Wanda whispers in Timmy's right ear, like she's sharing a secret.

He feels tiny butterfly feet land on his left ear. "A little particular about her bed arrangement."

Poof giggles from somewhere above Timmy. He's surrounded by family, and Jazz isn't so bad. Maybe her brother won't be so bad either when he comes back.

Danny's bed is made, but not as meticulously as Jazz'. He hands her the pillow, and she drops it from the air instead of placing it just right. Timmy thinks it's funny, and pushes all worries of Danny being mad over that out of his head. "That was the beds out of the way!" She exclaims, and Timmy whoops so she isn't alone in her excitement.

Danny comes back just before the pizzas. His shoes are drenched, his gloves are gone, and he tells Timmy he's sorry for acting weirdly when Dad told him they would be sharing a room. "I'm just not very good at room sharing," he says while hanging up a big red scarf. His eyes are blue, but like the ocean instead of ice. "I'm sure we can figure it out."

Somehow, Timmy is sure that figuring out won't end with him sleeping on the couch, or the treehouse, or the doghouse. The mattress in the corner of his room will stay there.

Warm, fat, cheesy. The pizza tastes good. Jazz bought a million different sauce packages and let Timmy have the cheesy dip. He wonders if she can taste the pizza underneath all of them, but then Danny knocks into the wall, drawing blood, and all thoughts about his sister's taste in pizza dip goes out the window when Danny uses the complimentary fries to swipe the blood up and eat it.

It's weird and gross and funny. Timmy laughs during the meal, and no one tells him to stop. He spills soda on the table, and Jazz helps him dry it off so it won't leave a stain. He tells Danny that the blood is gross, and he just winks and keeps eating it, not getting angry in the least.

The night goes dark, the stars come out, and Timmy is tired but happy. It's a strange feeling, after everything he thought would happen today.

Danny goes out for a night walk. Timmy brushes his teeth. Jazz takes the blankets from the couch and asks Timmy if she can come in and lay them on Danny's mattress. He opens the door.

The sky is blue and purple and pink. Cosmo and Wanda stand out against the starry night, dancing in front of the window, but Poof would almost fit in if he wasn't hiding in Timmy's hair somewhere. Jazz sees them too, their butterfly forms flying in small loops. "Do you have butterfly pets too?" She asks, stepping away to close Timmy's door. "Or have they gotten a little lost?"

"Mom, has, uh," Timmy stumbles, not knowing if he can pretend they're pets but not wanting Jazz to help them outside either. He knows Cosmo and Wanda can just come back in again, but he doesn't like it. "Flowers. They, uhm, attract butterflies, so they come in sometimes. They know how to get out again."

Jazz' smile is big and bright. "That's so nice. We just have spiders and rats coming into our house." She sits down on Timmy's windowsill to look at his fairies. Careful of his fishbowl, he moves over to sit with her. Cosmo and Wanda continue flying around above them, giving them a show. Up and down, in loops and circles. The stars shine prettily on them.

"It's cool that you knew the number for your pizza. I always have to read the menu." Poof flies up to join his parents, all three dancing together. His room is blue and purple and warm. The mattress is barely visible in the corner, and Jazz' hair is soft and more pink than red in the moonlight.

"Mom sometimes burns dinner, so we order a bunch."

Jazz looks away from the butterflies. Straight at Timmy. Her eyes are soft. "Is pizza a family meal to you, then?"

Timmy doesn't know what she means by that. He eats pizza and other takeout at home, but also with AJ and Chester. Calling it a family meal doesn't fit at all. "No?" He answers, but it's more him asking a question.

Her eyes are so soft. Like a teddy bear. He thinks she understands that it was a question. "You seemed confused when I told you I would order it."

His room isn't pink anymore. It's blue and purple and all the orange is stuck in her hair. There's a whiteboard on the wall behind her and it's talking about a test Timmy didn't know would be today. And it has just one question that he doesn't know how to answer. Because he can't tell Jazz he thought she was mean like Vicky, not when she's almost only been nice. He can't make her angry and mean now.

But he doesn't want to lie, either. Not really.

"...my babysitter," he tries out, and the word is sour in his mouth, "doesn't like ordering out." But she does. She just doesn't like ordering anything for Timmy. And it's fine, because he can just wish for food, but then he has to hide when eating to make sure she doesn't notice. "She usually tells me to get something from the fridge."

Sometimes. Other times she just tells him to go to bed at seven, but that feels embarrassing to say, because he's ten and not a little kid that has a curfew that early anymore.

"That's..." Jazz starts, but she doesn't say anything more. Her eyes are squinting, and he thinks her teeth are clenched. She looks like she's holding something back. Maybe a tiger. "That's not nice of her," she says, and her voice is a little wet. "She can at least make you something. Do you have ready meals in the fridge?"

Timmy feels off kilter. The room is a little cold, he pulls his leg up and folds his arms around it. They have ready meals in the fridge, sometimes, but they taste bad. He just wishes for whatever food he wants. But he can't tell Jazz that. But he doesn't want to lie.

It's a day full of strange feelings. Why doesn't he want to lie?

Half truths have to be good enough. "I have some nice neighbors. They make a lot of food, and like sharing, so I go and ask them for some."

Poof is sitting on the brim of his cap. He can't see Cosmo and Wanda anymore, so they must be flying somewhere behind or above him. It's not the first time he's called them his neighbors, but this time it wasn't necessary. He could have just said he ate the ready meals. He's lying anyway.

Jazz eyes are soft and kind. Timmy feels scared, but not of her. He's scared he'll say something stupid. "They must be very kind people." She's playing with her skirt, hands folding loose fabric in a soothing pattern. Timmy focuses on that. "But it must be scary, too."

Timmy pulls at his shirt sleeve with a hand. "Why would it be scary?"

"Well," Jazz says. She pauses again, and a part of Timmy feels better that she doesn't know exactly what to say, and a part of him just wants to yell at her. "This might just be me, but," she halts again, "What if they're not there, when your babysitter tells you to find your own food? It sounds a little scary, needing their help, when they might not always be there. When it's really your parents who should make sure you get food."

And now he really wants to yell at her. He puts his head in his knees, because something hot and burning tells him it isn't words that are going to come out if he starts now. The fabric of his pants go damp.

Timmy doesn't shake. He doesn't shiver and he doesn't cry and he only hides away in his knees because he wants to. He hates her. He hates her, he hates her, he hates her, because now he's thinking about it and he doesn't want to. Couldn't she have just kept her mouth shut? Couldn't she have just listened to the one truth he told and not turn it around on his head?

 

He wants to stop thinking. Video games, movies, his friends, school, Timmy pulls at everything and tries to stuff them into his head until they push out what he doesn't want to think about, until they're all he remembers. But with the video games come the magic games, with the movies come empty houses, with his friends come other people and they're mean and try to hurt him and with the school come failing grades and even more bullies.

Because one day he won't have his "neighbors" that get him food when Vicky won't. And he won't have them when Francis tries to beat him up, and he won't have them when his parents are out and he feels lonely. He won't have them when his parents are home, and he still feels lonely. And he won't even remember them.

Insect legs land on his arm. He wants to keep them forever. He doesn't want to ever let go and forget. "They'll be there," he whispers.

Jazz places a hand on his shin. "Are you sure?"

Timmy wants to nod, but moving feels impossible. "They won't leave. Not-" he hiccups, "not when I still need them. As long as I need them they'll stay."

They don't sound much like neighbors anymore, but Timmy has to say it out loud. His fairies, his family, will stay. As long as he needs them, they'll stay. As long as Vicky and Francis and school and his parents stay, his fairies will too.

She's quiet for a long time. Timmy's breaths even out. He takes a last deep one in, and looks up at her. Her eyes are sparkling, glistening white in the starlight. Her voice is a little wet when she asks Timmy, "Are you scared they'll leave once you don't need them anymore?"

Timmy starts crying. Jazz holds him, rubbing circles into his back.

He wants to go back. Back to before he knew just what losing his fairies meant. He wants the dumb rule of them having to leave forever once they think he's okay to be gone, because he will always need them. "What if, if Francis stops being mean, and Vicky stops babysitting and- and never comes back and school is easier and my parents listen and then they leave and everything goes back to normal?" Timmy cries into her shoulder, the words a fountain, an avalanche, a dam he can't stop anymore. "What if I try and tell people what's wrong and they're nice for a week but then it all goes back and they're gone. It won't stay good, it never does."

Jazz' hug is warm and grounding. She holds him just tight enough. "I don't want them to leave."

Timmy isn't the only one crying, but Jazz is more quiet about it. Still, he can hear the water in her voice when she asks, "Can I tell you something?" Timmy nods, and she does. "I used to hate showering. It was the worst thing in the world, and I only did it when I had to, once a week."

She smells of flowers and strawberries.

"And I wanted to do better. But I," her voice cracks, "I was so scared that, if I started doing it more, then my family would expect me to keep doing it. They would expect me to be good at it, even though I wouldn't be. I would just be pushing myself. That they would stop congratulating me for small steps, even though it was still hard. That when I failed again, and went back to how it was before, they would be dissapointed." She pulls back, and looks Timmy in the eyes. Her smile is woobly but there. "I could never imagine it ever being easier, just that I would push past it. But it did get easier. And my family helped me get here."

Timmy looks down. He doesn't know what help his family could give him, if it isn't here yet. The idea of something getting better, permanently, sits weirdly in his chest. "They'll leave," falls of Timmy's tongue like a dead toad. "If i fix things, they'll leave. They're only here to help. If they can't help, then-" his breath is shaky and a little painful. "They'll leave."

Jazz is still looking at him. "People leave sometimes." She doesn't say anything more for a long moment. "And it's never fun. A loss that doesn't hurt only comes from love that didn't change you. But..." The room is warm. Timmy can almost feel the pink clouds push at him, and he wonders if Jazz can feel them too. His fairies are all sitting on his arms, tiny butterfly legs tickling at his hairs. "But I don't think you can stay like this forever, just to keep them. If they're here to help you, I think they would be happy that you're doing better."

Her smile is warm.

"Wouldn't it be nice, to not need help? Don't you want to try?"

It feels like a death sentence. A final forever goodbye. Cosmo and Wanda and Poof should get to stay here. Timmy should get to see his little brother grow up, instead of forgetting all about him.

He draws in a shaky breath.

"...I do."

-

Danny eats plain cheerios for breakfast because everything in Dimmsdale tastes sweet to him, even the air. Jazz talks with Timmy's parents after eating, and they say Vicky won't ever babysit him again. Maddie gives him tickets to the movie theater, and apologizes about the gun. With a wink, Jack tells him he's modifing it to be safer, and that Timmy will get it back before they go home. 

Jazz and Danny take the bus with him to school because they don't want to walk to the non school bus down the road just to get into the city. Francis sneaks up on them when Timmy is saying goodbye, but he turns away without doing anything after seeing Danny's face.

School is still hard. Jazz helps him with his homework when he comes home, and he understands it a little better. His parents still rush out the door when they have something to do, but Timmy calls goodbye with Jazz and Danny, and they respond with their own byes.

It's hard. It stays hard, after Jazz and her family goes home. But his fairies stay, and Vicky never babysits again, and the teachers help him when he asks, and slowly it gets better.

When his fairies do leave, they say goodbye. Timmy does too.

Time loop