A/N: Hi. I was feeling bored so I made a thing. Hope you like it. Updates won't be on a schedule for this fic since it's just a little whimsical side project; my main focus is still on Winter's Guardian which is a modern, kristelsa, business/apocalypse AU for Frozen. if you're interested, you can check that out from my page also. So now that's out of the way, let's get started!

Chapter I: You Done Goofed

The plan was simple. The deal was fair. Turn the pumpkin into a limo, the mice into servants, and the ratchet rags into a beautiful ballgown and accessories, all of which would, come midnight, revert back to their original states.

That was it. Three little things; three simple tasks for a magic-wielding fairy godmother. It wasn't even a permanent spell! It should have been a cakewalk, but of course she ended up tripping and spilling the damn, grand confection all over the place—icing and all—and ruined everything.

At first, it was all going great―the error was not yet revealed—the damned cake was only just lifted off of the table. Cinderella arrived at the party and was greeted with the awe and the attention that she deserved. The event was fantastic, and the whispers that followed the berth of space that was cleared around the blonde beauty were pleasant and secret complements, dotted of course with the occasional lewd thought. That was flattering in its own right though, Cinderella thought, for it was merely a sign giving further evidence to her physical beauty.

She was ecstatic; never had she thought that she could have ascended to such great heights as these. She was both in the presence of the elite and the target of their envy. Everything was warm and swirling within and around her, and the sounds of the orchestra and the chatter of the crowd made her feel more alive than she ever had before, but then she saw him.

He stood at the top of the grand staircase, looking out at the crowd, polite yet passive in a manner that seemed absolutely regal. Mr. Charming indeed lived up to his curious name, she remarked internally. As he laid his eyes upon Cinderella, he stopped short, and for her the entire rest of the world froze as well. Scratch and scatter to the winds what she had thought before—this was the moment that made her feel more alive than ever before. The noise and the colors of the world around her were now gray, dark, and silent, faded into the amorphous and inconsequential background. She could feel the beating of her heart as it thrummed within her chest and the pulsing of all her blood in all her veins from her neck to her hands to her feet. Charming was the most handsome and captivating man she had ever laid eyes on, and he in turn only had eyes for her...cleavage?

Cinderella frowned; she could almost tell, even at this distance, that his eyes were trained just a tad bit too low to pass for mutual eye contact. No, nonsense―surely she was just overthinking things. She was just being silly, she reassured herself; he was perfect, absolutely fucking perfect. He had to be, goddammit. She smiled brightly and did her best to smother and suffocate her doubt with a violence of spirit born from years of being too pent up as her stepmother's enslaved maid. The fact that her status as a legal adult didn't change anything about that situation never failed to equally astound and enrage the blonde.

Charming had reached the base of the stairs and would soon reach her hand. His smile was breathtaking and made her clench somewhere deep inside, bringing forth an unfamiliar yet not necessarily uncomfortable sensation that had her trembling slightly. She did her best to ignore it and instead focused all of her attention on trying to remember her name as she smiled back at him and his disarming charisma. My name is Cinderella. My name is Cinderella. My name is Cinder-

He was here. He had a hand outstretched for her to shake. "Good evening, ma'am."

"Hi," Cinderella squeaked as she placed her hand in his, surprised and flattered when he bent down to kiss it.

"Welcome to my charity ball. My name is Pierce Charming."

"I'm- My name is Cinderella."

His brows went up as his eyes went down to something, surprised by the strange name...probably. "I see..." He looked back up at her face, "Might I ask you to dance with me?"

"Of course!"

What fools they both were, she for so naively believing that this was the happy ending of some fairytale, and he for not being able to see the brain that worked behind her bright blue eyes and the heart that lay underneath her...assets. They danced together throughout the night, and whenever they weren't, they were chatting and flirting, and before either of the young fools knew it, Cinderella was laying on Charming's bed and it was five minutes to midnight.

Shit!

Cinderella scurried from the bed in a hurry with wide eyes and a pained grimace of terror, startling Charming and causing him to pause in the unbuttoning of his shirt as he watched her with a puzzled and wary gaze. "Where are you going?"

"I..." She glanced toward the window. It was her quickest option, and though it was clearly an undesirable route of escape for obvious reasons, she knew she'd never make it outside in time otherwise, not to mention that her limo would have already left by now.

"Is there something wrong?" Charming asked, genuinely concerned.

Cinderella's eyes flicked back to the clock behind him, "I-I was supposed to leave before midnight, and now I only have a few minutes until-"

He sucked in an apologetic breath through clenched teeth, "Oh...sorry about that, but," He too turned to gaze at the clock, "I'm afraid that the time on that is a bit off; you've probably got less than a minute actually."

"What?!" With a panicked huff, Cinderella went about even more hurriedly, now looking for her missing glass shoe with agitated haste.

Charming approached, trying to soothe her but soon after just giving up; he was unable to touch her because she was moving about so quickly. "Don't worry about it too much. I'm sure that I can smooth things over for you if your tardiness causes you any issues."

Cinderella shook her head, both giving up on the shoe and giving the half-dressed man an answer in the negative, "You don't understand, I..." Her eyes again looked toward the window. She sniffed at an odd and familiar smell that suddenly crossed her nose. It almost resembled the scent of a pumpkin. Was it a scented candle? One of those Glade air freshener things? Perhaps it was the rich man's alternative to that sorts of thing?

Charming smiled warmly, and as Cinderella caught sight of it, she stopped again. "I'm sure it will be fine." He blinked suddenly upon remembering something, and then began to dig around in one of his pockets, "Oh, and before you go, I was hoping that I could get your numb-"

The sight before him rendered him utterly speechless and derailed his train of thought, sending it almost a full 90 degrees off-course, down into the demonic, fiery depths of a Grand Canyon-sized fissure that opened straight into the festering, evil bowels of Hell itself. Before him, on the unassuming, plush carpet, amidst a pile of faded, ratty sweats, plain underwear, and scuffed Converse sneakers, lay a fresh, orange, and sizeable gourd—a pumpkin to be precise—right where Cinderella had once been standing.

"What...the fuck?"

The cake, now revealed to be a lie, lay upside-down all over the floor, with the candles rolling along the ground. You done goofed, fairy godmother. You done goofed real bad.

A/N: And so it begins, lol. As I said at the top, updates for this fic aren't going to be on a schedule and won't exactly be frequent either, but I promise that I will not abandon it. Plus, I find it hard not to finish things once I start them.

Until next time!