He couldn't believe it. What he was hearing all around him as he walked the main street of the town.
People, they were laughing at him.
HIM, Augustin!
All because of the scene his girlfriend had caused at the community hall. Making him look like a fool... making him look like a LOSER.
The townsfolk weren't really laughing at him, but in Augustin's mind that was all he heard as he stormed passed the villagers with that gun still hidden in his pocket.
~x~
It had been two weeks now since Candlewick and Isabella had kissed... but that kiss led on to a relationship quickly, and the young man knew, as well as did the young woman that this... this was it.
When it came to introducing her to his family, he did wait a full month, but even that month wasn't long enough as Pinocchio and his mother knew her from seeing her around town.
When Candlewick walked her to his family home, Isabella grew a big eager smile, looping her arm through his and the door opened quickly, Pinocchio on the other side of it, breaming just as big a smile.
"Pinocchio, this is-"
"Isabella!" He and Candlewick's mother squeed and Isabella only giggled, Candlewick going red in the face.
"Nice to meet you," His mother said to her, shaking her hand excitedly and Isabella had laughter hidden in her eyes now.
"You too," She said back gleaming and the two of them came into the house, going to the sitting room, and the group all sat down on the couches, Isabella sitting beside Candlewick. Pinocchio took one of the armchairs and Candlewick's mother hurried off to make some food and drink for them all.
"So, where do you come from, Isabella?"
She looked Pinocchio's way when he asked this eager question and she only laughed gently.
"Rome,"
"Ah, Rome!" Pinocchio sighed with happiness and said back quickly, "When in Rome! As they say!"
"I know," Isabella said kindly back, nodding her head with a smirk on her lips.
"Rome wasn't built in a day!"
"Indeed," She replied again, another nod of her head and Pinocchio remained quiet for a moment, thinking of another Roman phrase but none came to him. Finally, it hit his head and he cheered out proud of himself.
"Rome! The city of love!"
Isabella only laughed at his innocence and shook her head as Candlewick answered for her now.
"That's Paris, Pinocchio," He corrected gently and Pinocchio blinked his eyes surprised at this.
"No way!" He laughed and Candlewick replied back in a chuckle himself.
"Way!"
"So where are you from, Pinocchio?" Isabella asked right then, Candlewick's mother coming back in with a tray of cups full of tea and coffee.
"A tree." Pinocchio said instantly, and added on fast, "A pine tree, I think,"
"Oh yes," Isabella said with a small laugh in her sweet voice, "I guess you did come into this world different from the rest of us,"
"My father was drunk when he made me."
"Parents do sometimes make us when they're drunk,"
Pinocchio looked at her, amused by her answers and looked at Candlewick with a nudging expression as he was given his approval of this girl and his friend knew it.
They soon picked up a hot cup each and drank their beverages as they talked and laughed and bonded.
Soon the sun began to set outside and Candlewick nudged his own head the window's direction as he indicated to them what they should do.
"Shall we catch the sunset outside?"
"Oh yes," Isabella said back with delight and Pinocchio nodded his head so much it was like that of a bobble toy.
"Please, yes!" He gleamed and they all got to their feet, taking the stroll down the slope of the hill the town was built on to the direction of the bay.
As the three walked to the calm sandy beach, away in the distance a set of angry cold eyes were watching their every step.
Augustin loaded up the gun there silently in the shadows and began to follow them in quiet stone cold steps.
Candlewick picked up a stone, tossing it up and catching it again in his hand.
"What are you going to do with that?" Pinocchio asked him curiously and Candlewick looked at the smooth oval stone again, putting it in his pocket and smiling at his brother as he said back.
"I'm gonna keep it, as a memory of this day,"
"This day is memorable?" Isabella asked back with a soft smile, but also wanting to know his answer to that.
He smiled warmly at her, and as she looked back into his deep brown eyes, she knew then that he was in love with her... and that moment her heart awakened again after the ending of her last relationship.
She knew that this would be the moment she would remember and she placed her hand inside his, whispering to him.
"I want to remember this day, too."
Pinocchio was watching the two, a big giddy smile on his own hard mouth. He could feel the electric connection between the two, and only oo'd out, "Aww..."
It was that very moment, that very second that a loud bang could be heard collapsing in the air with echoes and it was that very second later that Candlewick winced in pain as a bullet had been shot into his heart.
"AHH!"
He could hear Isabella's screaming and when he dropped to his knees, in the far distance behind him stood a young furious man with a gun that had pointed right at Candlewick, only smoke now was left rising from the gun's bullet hole.
Pinocchio swore his whole life was ending now as well. He touched his own heart by pressing his hands against his chest, feeling the frantic beating and Isabella was only screaming in tears.
The whole scene was breaking his world apart, as Candlewick dropped now flat onto the sand, his warm brown eyes now stone cold.
It felt like time had frozen, and indeed it had the moment Candlewick breathed his last.
The whole area became as silent as death itself and Pinocchio was gasping as he knelt beside Candlewick, shaking him desperately to get him to wake up from the death that was now all that became of him.
"No! NO!" He cried, shaking the body that was slowly going cold and suddenly there she was.
Not Isabella... not Candlewick's mother.
But the fairy of life... the fairy of power.
"BRING HIM BACK!" Pinocchio screamed at her as she floated to their side and knelt a little forward as she watched Candlewick's warmth fade from his body.
"PLEASE!" Pinocchio begged her again, and let go of his brother, grabbing hold of her arms and pleading with all he had, "PLEASE!"
"Y'know I can't do that..."
"HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR ME!" Pinocchio yelled at her, tears slipping from his mostly human eyes now and he shook her desperately as he yelled, "HE GAVE EVERYTHING FOR ME!"
The blue fairy remained unfazed as he shook her there in this place outside of time. This sanctuary that she brought with her, a spiritual realm all on its own.
"He gave you half his life..." She finally replied and for once her stoic face formed a warm soft smile, "Would you... give it back?"
"B-back?"
She nodded her head, and Pinocchio turned his devastated eyes back to Candlewick who was nearly completely ice cold.
"Once his last bit of warmth leaves in one minute, you will die too..."
Pinocchio gasped frightened when he heard this and she said back to him.
"Five seconds..."
"The deal..?" He whispered at her and she looked at him, saying back.
"He never told you? When he dies you die, and vice versa,"
"Then TAKE IT!" Pinocchio yelled, the five seconds up just after he had yelled this, and suddenly he felt a choking feeling in his heart, as if it was being strangled for life, "H-help!" He yelped as the blue fairy slowly placed her fingertip on his chest and her other hand's fingertip on Candlewick's cold back where his heart lay underneath.
Pinocchio gasped as he was pulled up like a puppet, the blue energy that was in him slowly evaporating out of his half-wooden body, and that energy in return moved slowly back into Candlewick's.
Finally, he felt his heart scream in agony as it thudded its last beat and Pinocchio's body dropped to the sand, his flesh eroding away, his bones turning back to wood and his life coming to an end.
His soul left his own body now, leaving a fully wooden puppet behind, and he looked at his see-through hands, seeing they were not that of a puppet anymore... but that of a real man...
A real boy...
He looked at himself and suddenly so many memories flashed through his soul's mind, that of a time before his birth, back when he had been called-
"-Carlo!"
He gasped, as he suddenly knew he who was again... he was Gepetto's son... his first AND second son.
One who was originally made out of flesh... whose soul returned when Gepetto made the puppet out of grief. But his memory had been lost... but now, Carlo remembered everything.
He looked back down at Candlewick who suddenly gasped for air, his breath returning to him and he looked around desperately for his brother, seeing Pinocchio was lifeless on the seashore.
In that second, Carlo nodded his head, as the blue fairy was still beside him in this timeless spiritual realm and he said to her.
"Take me home... take me to my papa,"
He placed his ghostly sea-through hand on Candlewick's shoulder as his friend and brother cried over the wooden puppet boy.
In that second, Carlo left, left Candlewick but before he fully did he whispered in his ear, in Candlewick's heart.
"You will be okay without him... without me... I love you, Candlewick." Carlo had tears in his own eyes as they sprinkled down his cheeks like glittering diamonds, "You're my brother and family... and we will meet again,"
The whole scene vanished then back to reality, and Candlewick was cradling the empty dead puppet close to his own chest.
The local police had come forward, the whole town had actually, when the sound of that gun had been heard throughout the whole vicinity.
They saw Augustin there, the smokey gun in his hand, and before he could hide it, cuffs were clapped onto his wrists.
Isabella watched him be taken away, shaking her head coldly at him, and he just cried back silently as he was put in the police car and now gone from her life completely.
She then dropped to her knees next to Candlewick and Pinocchio, and Candlewick whispered.
"I thought we'd die together... once he was fully man,"
"But he was always a man, Candlewick..." She told him back warmly, slipping her arm over his shoulder to hug the despairing Candlewick softly, "He was good... he was so very good..."
"But... I promised him... I loved him..."
"And he loved you too,"
Candlewick's tears dropped onto the dead pine wood and he broke into a tearful smile as he nodded his head, and picked up his dead puppet friend, carrying him to the church with the wooden statue of Jesus there waiting for him and he whispered.
"Please, let him be with you... I don't know why I'm still here, but Pinocchio is gone now... so please, take him into your home."
He placed Pinocchio on the altar, and then fell to his knees again, praying to his God for mercy for his friend... his brother.
Isabella was beside him, her own blue eyes filled to the brim with tears, and she placed her hand on Candlewick's shoulder, being there for him... being there for them both.
"Amen..." Candlewick whispered in heartache and leant his head down to the ground as he whispered in tears.
"Amen..."
Pinocchio was gone... gone now for good... but he knew one thing then, and one thing only.
Pinocchio had not just been part of his life... he had saved his life the day Candlewick had been given the gun and he had said 'no' to his father.
My father is in Hell, he had told him one night and whispered now to the wooden puppet that lay on the altar.
"Please... Jesus... save my Pinocchio..."
Isabella closed her own eyes in tears.
"So that we'll meet again... for he saved me... and this, this simply can't be the end..."
And lucky for Candlewick... it wasn't.
