(no subject)
Fandom: Fairly Oddparents
Canon or AU: AU of an AU
Fic: Speak No Evil
A/N: I didn’t realize how close I was to finishing until I started working on this today. :(
That leaves Operation Timantha as the sole fic to work on. However, I’m considering returning to Straight On ‘Til Morning because it’s much more popular on AO3 than I expected.
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The twins, Leander, and Faye floated around Wanda. The psych ward expressly prohibited Cosmo’s magic, but it had nothing on dark and light magic combined. The quartet examined their mother with concern. No matter how much they zoomed around her or called for her, she didn’t notice them. Faye, the youngest, didn’t understand what was happening or why her mother was unresponsive. Meanwhile, the twins were doing everything within their power to banish Wanda’s psychosis. Thus far, it availed them nothing.
“Mama!” the twins cried, patting her cheek and shaking their rattles. “Mama, we’re here!”
Wanda was oblivious. She was hyperventilating and whimpering Asmodeus’s name. The twins knew Asmodeus was their father and a “bad man,” though they hadn’t realized how badly scarred Wanda was from his abuse. Before, they’d been able to help and eradicate her nightmares. It wasn’t working anymore.
They didn’t get to try their luck too much longer. Someone whisked them away, returning them to Magdalene and Nathaniel’s abode, and they were heartbroken. They’d lost their mother to Asmodeus again, and they worried that this time, it would be permanent.
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Wanda lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Sighing, she straightened up to stare at Cosmo sitting near her. After what he and Asmodeus had done together, looking at him made her shudder. She couldn’t avert her gaze, however, or stop crying. For a few minutes, words escaped her.
Cosmo’s presence had reversed the mutism, but only because Asmodeus had altered the spell. Telepathy still didn’t work, though she wasn’t sure whether it was because Asmodeus had corrupted her link to Cosmo, the dark magic suppressed it, or Cosmo had blocked her out. The latter seemed unlikely, but none of this was familiar territory. Cosmo never blocked her out.
He also had never…
She shuddered, rubbing her arms and brushing against the new tally marks. While she’d love to be in denial, denial was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Cosmo wasn’t like this. He wasn’t supposed to be cruel and malicious. Asmodeus had perverted their Bond into something unnatural and painful on her end.
“Wanda…” Cosmo whimpered, and she hugged herself tighter. During that “session,” he hadn’t called her by her proper name. Instead, he’d seemed to exult in Asmodeus’s derisive monikers, spewing epithets at every opportunity.
“I’m sorry!” Cosmo blurted and burst into hysterical sobs. Whatever barrier between the two of them existed abruptly fell, and she flinched. Asmodeus had been controlling Cosmo like a puppet. He’d hollowed out Cosmo’s free will in his presence and forced his demands upon him. Since Asmodeus already controlled Wanda, adding Cosmo to the mix wasn’t terribly difficult.
While there was some relief in knowing Cosmo hadn’t intentionally harmed her, it was overshadowed by the knowledge that she and Cosmo were powerless against Asmodeus.
And Lorenzo.
Wanda’s heart clenched painfully. She reached to grab Cosmo and then froze, wary of touching him. It was hard to see him with the tears blurring her vision.
“You have to check on Timmy,” Wanda choked out. She shook her head, though it added to her headache. “He’s in worse peril than I am. Just go.”
“No!” Cosmo said. He leaned over and reached for her hands. She yanked them out of his grasp, and a sharp emotional pain stung them both. Utterly bereft, she lost herself to weeping. Cosmo grabbed her, and she stiffened in his grasp. She couldn’t reconcile the abuse she’d suffered from him with his usual goofy self.
“I’m not leaving you here after that.”
“Yes, you are,” she snapped. “If you can free Timmy, you need to do it. I’m not--”
Her voice died, and she struggled to speak again. “I’m not important.”
“What are you talking about?” Cosmo demanded, and his face fell. “You think Asmodeus was telling the truth? I love you. I never meant to do any of that stuff. You know that. You know you’re the second half of my soul.”
Wanda turned her head away. “Do I? Just check on Timmy. Please.”
Cosmo’s lower lip quivered. He looked like he wanted to argue, though he had to realize Timmy’s peril. Swiping his cheeks, he kissed her on the lips and then vanished. Wanda shuddered, clawing at her left arm. Her nails weren’t sharp enough to do the damage she wanted, and she eyed the iron dagger Asmodeus had left on her nightstand.
One quick thrust to the heart, and this would all be over.
Her hand trembled as she brushed her fingers against the dagger’s handle. She didn’t know if she dared to go through with it. Then again, she didn’t know how much more of this she could take. She wished her mind would fracture already and leave her a gibbering mess.
Poof’s corpse was gone; Cosmo must have taken it with him. Wanda sobbed, doubled over, and couldn’t breathe because she was crying so hard.
She glanced at the dagger again once she’d calmed down enough to breathe. Maybe she could give herself a TBI. Unfortunately, short of killing herself, she couldn’t inflict a permanent injury. Even death might not be permanent, considering how screwed up this hotel was.
Something exploded in the background, and Wanda jumped, startled.
“Let us in!”
Wanda blinked. “Cosmo? Timmy? Where are you?”
It sounded like him and Timmy screaming. Confused, she pushed herself off the bed to investigate. Cosmo healed her after the attack so she could walk normally. Carefully, she crept to the door, which gave when she pushed it. That was also unusual. Asmodeus usually locked her in.
She couldn’t see anyone, though she heard pounding. Shaking her head, she headed for the elevator. It seldom worked for her, probably because Asmodeus wanted her to stay put.
The elevator door opened without any prompting. The shiny gold panels didn’t reflect her, however. Instead, she saw Cosmo and Timmy. Baffled, she touched the paneling. She’d thought Cosmo had been gone so long to rescue Timmy, but now she didn’t know. Timmy sounded outraged, not terrified. There was something very odd going on.
The elevator’s walls shimmered, replaced by white padding. The scene alternated between the elevator and the padded cell. She struggled; she could move freely in one scene, but in the other, she was stuck in a straitjacket. She didn’t know which one was real.
The white room settled; two of the three remaining Council members, Jorgen, Cosmo, and Timmy, were present. Behind them floated the babies, though Faye was having problems remaining aloft. Wanda gasped back a sob. This was real. It had to be.
The hotel reappeared in her vision, but it was vague and undefined. Faye threw herself at Wanda, despite Wanda’s restraints, and the hotel vanished entirely. When she looked up, tears streaming down her face, she realized Poof was present, too.
Where had they come from? How long had they been there? They must’ve been there for a few minutes, but she had no recollection of that.
“Wanda?” Cosmo said, and she burst into sobs. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, and Cosmo held up his wand. The straitjacket disappeared, and Cosmo hugged her. While she felt his actions within that vision should have prevented her from wanting his affection, she craved it more than before. Cosmo wasn’t like that. Now that she had returned to reality, she trusted Cosmo wholeheartedly. She knew he’d never hurt her.
“Thank heavens you’re here,” she breathed, returning his embrace. Cosmo’s arms wrapped around her midsection, right below her wings, and she pressed herself into him.
“You’ve overstepped your authority,” Marinos snapped at Vesta. “You’re lucky that Wanda is Bonded and Cosmo can stabilize her.”
Vesta snorted. “Yes, let’s have the least stable fairies in Fairy World allowed to roam free and cause havoc.”
Timmy growled. “If you’d done your job instead of dicking around, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“By a vote of two to one, we are stripping you of your authority,” Marinos said, his eyes narrowing. “You have done enough damage, especially here.”
Vesta glowered. “You can’t do that! I’m the seniormost member!”
“Never in the history of Fairy World has one fairy come so close to destroying it by malice aforethought,” Marinos retorted. “Cosmo may have done a lot of damage through his ignorance, but that is nothing compared to what havoc you’ve wreaked.
“As of now, you are no longer on the Council, and your prior judgment has been rescinded,” Marinos said. He held his wand up, and Cosmo, Wanda, Timmy, and the children appeared in Cosmo and Wanda’s house. Whatever excoriating Marinos intended, he wanted it to be for Vesta’s ears only. Wanda was slightly disappointed, but she was mostly overwhelmed.
She crashed onto the living room couch and shuddered uncontrollably. Cosmo joined her, and, for a moment, they rocked back and forth. She never wanted to lose him again. Grateful and relieved, she burst into tears, and he followed suit. Vesta was gone, which meant there would be no more arbitrary punishments. Maybe now the Council could make amends. Or, at least, not screw her life up any further.
((I love you,)) Cosmo and Wanda sent to each other, and she buried her face in his neck. Cosmo stroked her curls.
It took a while for them to calm down. Once they had, Wanda saw that the fairy children, sans Poof, had disappeared, possibly to Magdalene’s again. She and Cosmo straightened up on the couch, and Timmy and Poof joined them.
“Are you okay?” Poof asked. After a brief hesitation, Wanda nodded.
“I’m better than I was, sweetie,” she reassured him and affectionately toyed with his curls. She reached out toward Timmy, too.
“We called everyone in,” Timmy said. “Cosmo was going nuts. We couldn’t leave you there.”
She smiled. “I appreciate it, hon. I love you. I love you all.”
Poof hugged her, and her smile broadened.
“With Vesta gone, what’s going to happen now?” Timmy asked after a brief silence.
“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “This has never happened before--no Council fairy has ever been stripped of her authority, but what Vesta did was unforgivable.”
The others nodded, and Cosmo squeezed her hand. She intertwined their fingers.
“Thanks for fighting for me, hon,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to let you suffer again!” he protested, and she pecked him on the lips.
“I know, and I appreciate it,” she said. She nuzzled him, and he nipped her lower lip. She flushed. Later, they’d need to have alone time. For now, however, she wanted to keep her family close to remind herself that they were here and they loved her.
With Asmodeus neutralized, Ozymandias dead, and Fairy World’s army hunting down any lingering Unseelie fairies in Fairy World, she might be able to breathe for a minute or two. She relaxed against her family and smiled weakly.
“Well, sport, you might get to go home soon, once this is all wrapped up,” she said weakly. “How do you feel about that?”
”How do you feel about that?” Timmy countered. “Are you gonna be okay? You’re not going to leave me, are you? I know the Council wanted to reassign me…”
”We won’t leave,” Wanda said fiercely. Her tone softened. “We love you, sweetie. We’re not going to leave you.”
She looked away for a minute. “I suppose I’ll have to undergo some sort of therapy. And you’re going to need to work things out with your father without alluding to how you know he didn’t want children.”
Timmy scoffed, rolling his eyes. Sarcastically, he replied, “Yeah, that’ll be fun.”
Nonetheless, he smiled at her, and she warmed inside.
“Why don’t we watch a movie? Just relax for once.”
”Without the world ending?” Timmy said. He was only half-joking. She leaned over, releasing Poof, and squeezed Timmy extra hard. Tears slid down her cheeks, but they were tears of relief, not sorrow.
”Yes,” she said, smiling. “Without the world ending. Think you can handle that?”
”I dunno,” Timmy said, grinning now. “The world might go to hell in a handbasket anyway.”
“Oh, it might,” she agreed, deciding not to scold him for the mild profanity. “But it’s not our problem right now.”
She relaxed against her family. “Hopefully, it won’t be our problem for a long, long time.”
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Asmodeus fumed, impotent and powerless. Fairy World’s decision to strip him of his powers and turn him into a human, on top of the chemical castration, was a grave insult about which he could do nothing. He intended to make them pay by finding some way to regain his powers and manhood.
At least, he had until Fairy World slapped the last condition on him.
They wiped his memory, including his childhood. Usually, the Council wiped children’s memories, which meant there was considerably less to deal with. Asmodeus, conversely, had lived hundreds of years. That much mental wiping would invariably lead to problems. By erasing so much of his time, they’d damaged his brain.
Ultimately, Asmodeus was a blathering idiot, incapable of stringing sentences together or caring for himself. He wound up in an insane asylum and faded into obscurity. Asmodeus languished without the Unseelie Court to support him and with the Court in fractions. The Unseelie Court had a power vacuum, but it also had too many people scrambling for power to work anything out.
Had Wanda known, she would’ve been darkly amused.
However, the Council decided that perhaps now was not the time to reveal their punishment. They wanted to ensure Wanda recovered at least somewhat from her ordeal before telling her the truth, and they didn’t want to risk her spiraling again.
While things on Earth were uneasy, especially with Wanda on edge, they appeared to improve. Hopefully, this would be the last of the Unseelie Court for centuries to come. Fairy World didn’t delude itself into thinking this would be the end of the Unseelie Court forever.
Darkness had a way of surfacing. The stronger the light, the greater the shadow.
The Council was optimistic the Unseelie Court would remain hidden for a while. They’d be better equipped to handle it when and if it returned.
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Since the babies were too young to enter Spellementary and having four infants would’ve been too much for Wanda on top of godparenting, Fairy World made accommodations for Cosmo and Wanda. Considering that this was their fault, it was the least they could do. The infants were in Fairy World most of the time, but when Cosmo and Wanda were free, they visited them.
Faye remained underdeveloped, but one of the Fairy World hospital doctors assured Wanda that premies eventually caught up with their fellow children. Thankfully, Wanda’s fears about Faye being mute were unrealized because Asmodeus had cast a narrow spell, not a broader one, to encompass his unknown unborn child.
Wanda was coping somewhat with what had happened despite having good and bad days.
That was probably the best they could hope for at the present moment. In time, that would change.
Hopefully.
Wanda was just grateful to be home, loved, and out of danger. Whatever came next, hopefully, would be just the ordinary insanity they dealt with and nothing more.