A/N: I'd like to be able to continue this. I need people to help me do that, though. I need support and, maybe, once in a while, someone yelling at me to update every once in a while. I'm on a Jimmy Neutron kick, though it seems to have come with a side of Fairly Oddparents?
That might not be such a bad thing, because I do have a long one-shot I had wanted to finish and post on .
Also...not saying who the pairings are. I'm not going to say until it's obvious, so I'll let you guys figure it out.
The Season of the Witch (Samhain)
Chapter One: The Parting of the Veil
Unbeknownst to Jorgen Von Strangle or the Fairy Council, the anti-faeries infiltrating Retroville and bringing magic to a previously magic-less realm had far reaching consequences. The first of which was that magic, previously slumbering, had awakened and brought with it the possibility of future inter-dimensional travel without the use of Jimmy Neutron's wormhole. The second, perhaps more alarming, was that it had introduced Bonding to the general population. Of course, only those who had been touched by magic and had been either long in Dimmsdale or exposed a while to it were capable of being Bonded.
Bonding involved forging a link to another person mind, body, and soul. It had to be consummated to function fully, but it could be partially consummated without intercourse. It had only existed for faeries and for certain specific non-human creatures, mythological ones in other words. Dragons had started it, though dragons had since almost died out in Timmy Turner's world. Once Bonded, the couple would share thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. It could be intense and could not be forced onto someone. Either you were compatible or you weren't-one person could not feel the Bond's stirrings while the other remained unaffected. It could happen to same sex or different sex couples, though the latter was preferable as the normal method for Bonding consummation involved a Flight, the purpose of which was to produce young. As Bonding morphed to suit the corresponding alternate universe, the Flight requirement vanished.
For most people, Bonding either didn't happen or it was such a slight case that it could be ignored. This was not so for Jimmy Neutron, who still didn't believe in magic. It was also not true for the other half of the equation, where Bonding had grown in prominence due to the magical fluctuations between realms. Timmy Turner, a human, should never have had the possibility of Bonding to anyone.
In both cases, that proved contrary to expectations. And in both cases, both boys were unaware of their Bondeds and what it portended until it slapped them in the face. To be fair, they did have extenuating circumstances...
A few years had passed since Timmy Turner had last set eyes upon Retroville. This was probably to Jimmy Neutron's profound relief, since he'd treated Retroville as his personal playground. (This was not to say that he didn't miss Retroville, because he did. However, the situation in Dimmsdale, where his old substitute teacher had returned and Crocker was more dangerous than ever), demanded his attention. Not to mention sharing his faeries with Chloe Carmichael, which had gotten easier as time passed, but was still irritating once in a while. He had never quite grown accustomed to the idea of not having his faeries whenever and wherever he wanted them.
If Doombringer weren't lethal herself, he might have considered letting Crocker and Doombringer play off each other and solve his problems that way. Doombringer had a low opinion of Crocker and Crocker claimed that he didn't like her methods. Timmy shuddered to think of what would happen if the two teamed up. It wasn't hard to imagine Cosmo and Wanda's heads mounted onto a board with Poof alongside them.
Crocker had followed him as he made his way through elementary school, middle school, and now his first year of high school. Timmy Turner was fourteen and still had Denzel Crocker as a teacher. He also still had Kevin Crocker as a classmate, but that was less disturbing. Chloe had coached him through the grades, to prevent him from getting left behind, and even though they tried each other's patience, they knew each other's heart was in the right place. Most of the time. Timmy couldn't be expected to be selfless all the time.
Tootie DeLisle was also still in his classes, albeit only a handful now. She had mellowed with age, no longer stalking Timmy or following him home. Yet if Tootie had mellowed, Trixie had gotten much worse. Catty, cruel, and manipulative, Trixie Tang was the queen of the freshmen and didn't let anyone forget it. Her best friend Veronica was almost as bad.
As for Vicky...she still babysat, because Timmy's parents refused to believe that Timmy could be left alone, even with Chloe as company. Then again, perhaps especially with Chloe as company. It didn't matter that he'd grown up with Chloe. His parents suddenly thought Timmy was desperate to get in any girl's pants and used Vicky as a role model to keep Timmy from getting any libidinous thoughts. They were right about that. Seeing Vicky was a surefire way to kill any desire for sex.
He still had Cosmo and Wanda, even if he'd had to promise and then swear, in writing, never to make any secret wishes to keep himself ten for decades. When he turned eighteen, he would lose them unless there were extenuating circumstances. He was currently looking into that...behind Chloe's and his faeries' backs. Behind Chloe's because he knew she'd disapprove and behind Wanda's because she'd give him a stern talking-to if she knew. As for Cosmo, he probably wouldn't care too much, but he couldn't keep a secret to save his life.
At least, he couldn't keep any of Timmy's secrets. There was something secretive going on with Fairy World and no matter how often he wished they'd spill, they wouldn't. Timmy knew it had something to do with how the world seemed to be getting "thinner", if that made any sense. There were areas in Dimmsdale that sometimes seemed less real than others. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.
That was neither here nor there. He was supposed to be paying attention in math class, though he knew if he didn't, Chloe would take her notes and share them. She was such a giving person. Maybe he shouldn't take advantage of that so often...nah. Besides, what's good for the goose was good for the gander, right?
He'd tried doodling his faeries, but they weren't coming to him. Since Chloe wasn't having whispered conversations at her desk, he guessed she didn't have them either. Why did they keep disappearing all the time? What was so damn important that it required their attention every friggin' day?
Since the math teacher was otherwise engaged in a long winded lecture about the Pythagorean theorem, he whipped out his cell phone and sent Chloe a quick text. Being the goody-two-shoes she was, she probably wouldn't respond in class. Timmy had had more cell phones confiscated that way; short attention span plus portable electronics didn't equal high grades.
True to form, she didn't respond. They were close enough, with her in front of him, that he kicked her seat.
He hissed her name and she whirled around, gave him a dirty look, and resumed taking notes. He wanted to yank on her hair, but he couldn't reach without extending himself over the desk and possibly knocking it over. He resigned himself for kicking her seat again. She retaliated by moving her seat forward and out of his reach. Goddamn it.
He glanced at his notebook, where he was supposed to be taking notes but was really doodling. Did he still know how to construct a paper airplane? If that failed, he could always ball the paper up and throw it at her. Grimacing, he glanced at the clock. Ten minutes until the period was over and they could talk in the halls. Ten minutes was forever.
If he'd been more clever, he might've taught himself Morse Code and tapped out the message on the floor. Then she could've tapped it back. Of course, that wasn't exactly unobtrusive. The math teacher could hardly fail to notice tap dancing in her class.
Before Timmy had a chance to come up with another plan of action, something else caught his attention. He was waving his pencil aimlessly when it snagged in the air, like it was caught on something invisible. It was almost like the air had grown thinner and then solidified right around it. Perplexed, he tugged on his pencil, but it remained in midair. Crocker would've had a field day with this. Try as he might, he could not get it to budge. Half of it had vanished, leaving only the lower portion and the eraser visible.
Okay, now he needed Chloe's attention. This was beyond weird and, as a fairy godkid, he knew weird. Unfortunately, the pencil represented the sum of his writing utensils. Timmy was lucky if he remembered to bring a writing utensil at all, (He hadn't been today-this belonged to Chloe. It even bore her name on it).
He hissed her name again and moved his seat forward so he could poke at her hair.
"What?" she hissed back, whipping her head around. Then she spied the pencil. The color drained from her face. "Do something about it!"
"I would if I knew where Cosmo and Wanda were," he huffed back. "Do you know?"
"No, I don't know," she rejoined. "Do you think I keep track of them 24/7?"
"You're more on the ball than I am, Miss Perfect," he hissed.
The math teacher, an overweight and overworked woman with red curls, freckles, and green eyes, clapped her whiteboard erasers together. "Timmy! Chloe! Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
Everyone turned to stare at them and, to Timmy's relief, the pencil fell out of midair and rolled onto the desk.
"No, no, we're good," Timmy reassured her.
"Good," the teacher affirmed and then returned to her work. Five minutes left of the class. Timmy's heart was pounding and any chance of paying attention was gone now. Chloe was still frowning at him.
"What?" he muttered, trying not to attract their teacher's attention again.
"If that pencil was stuck in the air, then...where did the rest of it go when it half-vanished?" Chloe asked.
Cindy Vortex had been minding her own business when, out of nowhere, a pencil poked her in the head. It was the sharp end, too, and it only contributed to her foul mood. She and Jimmy were in an "off again" stage in their relationship, her parents were fighting almost nonstop at home, and the air had felt weird lately, like it would be possible to walk through it and disappear. Rumor had it that had happened to someone, but no one any of them knew. Jimmy had been investigating it, which was why he wasn't paying her any attention and why they were on the outs again.
She glowered at the pencil and tugged on it. It remained fixated in midair. Glowering, she read the name on it. "Property of Chloe Carmichael". Well, fuck you too, Chloe Carmichael. Don't leave your random ass pencils in midair where they can poke people in the cheek.
They were in groups for English class and Cindy had had to suffer through Carl reading Petruchio. She had wanted to be Katherine and Libby had volunteered to be Bianca. Jimmy was supposed to be Petruchio, but he'd gotten distracted again and left it to Carl. Sheen was Lucentio and was overemphasizing everything. Maybe Libby found it enchanting. It just made Cindy want to hit Sheen with Taming of the Shrew.
"Shut up, Carl," Cindy growled, interrupting Carl mid-sentence. Her patience was officially at an end. Jimmy looked up, finally, from his calculations and pointed at the pencil prodding Cindy's cheek.
"Cindy? Are you aware-"
"No, Neutron, I'm completely oblivious to the pencil poking me in my right cheek that's sharp enough to gouge out an eye," Cindy snarled. "The one that says 'Chloe Carmichael' on it and is flat like it's from another dimension. Did you mean that pencil?"
"How peculiar," Jimmy mused, not responding to her bait. He left his desk and tugged at the pencil. It didn't budge. "I wonder if this is evidence of the 'thinning effect', where it seems like the veil between worlds has grown weaker."
Cindy grumbled, moving away from the pencil. It had left an indent on her cheek; at least it hadn't drawn blood. Jimmy was scrutinizing the pencil now and examining it from all angles. She didn't know what he was looking for and she kept her hands to herself behind the desk. Touching him would only incite longing and then piss her off when he didn't reciprocate because he was too preoccupied with this strange phenomenon happening all over Retroville.
"The name doesn't ring any bells, does it?" he asked Cindy, who shook her head and scowled. Right, like she needed another girl as competition. She bet this Chloe was annoyingly perky, too. Cindy didn't know her from a hole in the wall, but if she ever met her, she vowed she'd hate her on sight.
"What's it doing there, Jim?" Carl asked, subdued after Cindy had yelled at him. Now that her temper had flared and died, she felt a little guilty about taking out her aggression on him. It wasn't his fault he wasn't the Petruchio she wanted.
"If I had to hazard a guess, the universe that's closest to ours is suffering from the same problem we are," Jimmy mused. "It looks like you could, theoretically, send something from our universe to theirs. But I don't know which universe is on the other end of that pencil. It could be anything."
The pencil vanished from thin air and there was silence. Jimmy was eying Cindy oddly, almost as if he thought she'd disappear too. She was tempted to flip him off, but...she didn't want to risk alienating him any further. Besides Libby, Jimmy was the only person she really loved. Oh, sure, she might act like she loved her parents; she definitely loved her father, but he was an alcoholic who wasn't home a lot. And her mother...she only loved her because she had to.
And it felt like a blow to her chest every time Jimmy found someone or something that engaged him more than her. She should have been used to playing second-fiddle to Jimmy's first love, science. But she hated it and, try as she might, she could never quite adjust. She knew if she could bring herself to tell him this, it might go a long way toward patching up their relationship. The problem was she could never make herself vulnerable enough to tell Jimmy why she was so screwed up in the first place. That and she wanted to protect him. If Jimmy knew how broken she was, he might not want anything to do with her. Or he might try to fix things and make them worse.
She loved him, but he was so naive.
The bell rang and they collected their things. The teacher wrote down the homework assignment and the only reason Cindy wrote it down was because her mother would flip if her grades dropped any further. She was lovesick and trying her utmost to keep it from her mother. Her mother hated the Neutrons. She didn't need to give Sasha Vortex any further incentive to keep them apart.
No, Sasha Vortex didn't need to help ruin Cindy's love life. Cindy was doing a bang-up job all on her own.
Cindy missed the days when things were simple, when she had two boys fawning over her and fighting over her. What had ever happened to Timmy Turner, anyway? She hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in years. She wasn't sure she missed Dimmsdale as much as the feeling of being wanted, which she sure as hell wasn't getting now.
She wanted to drop her books on Neutron's head and scream at him, just so he'd scream back. Just so, for a few minutes, Cindy could pretend that he was interested in her.
God, she was so pathetic.