Summary: Juandissimo's got the fairy flu. Not knowing who else to turn to, Remy swallows his pride and seeks help from Timmy Turner.

Characters: Remy, Timmy, Timmy's Dad, Hadley (Mentioned)

Rating: K

Prerequisites: None; see also Season 0 Episode 5, "The Fairy Flu")

Posted: July 21, 2016

75. End of the World (Shortly after "Fairly Odd Baby")

Friday July 18th, "2008"

Year of Breath; Spring of the Frozen Planet

Remy's left side went stiff, abandoning his right hand to grope stupidly towards the door in the dark. The door that had just swung open. The door that was now blocked by a rather groggy-looking, drooling man whom in the daylight he would never be caught associating with, even if one of them were a corpse and the other the only undertaker in all of town.

"U-um." The boy reached into the inside pocket of his pristine white blazer and pulled out a wad of green bills. "Pardon me dearly, Mr. Turner, but I just came to return this- I believe all of it is yours."

The drooling picked up a little more, the spine snapped to attention, the mouth formed a few unintelligible phrases, and the dark teal eyes gleamed. It was a tried-and-true trick. Remy tossed the cash over his shoulder, and Mr. Turner chased the scattered bills through the yard. Could someone who was clearly as bright as Turner really have a father so… dim?

It would at least buy him some time. And locking the door behind him before shoving a chair beneath the knob would buy him even more time. With that taken care of, Remy raced up the pitifully small amount of stairs. An upstairs seemed like a good place to shove a bedroom, even for a house as cramped as this one.

The hall split in two directions. Far to his right, a door had been left partly open. Remy rested his hand on the banister and leaned a little towards it. Just enough to catch a glimpse of a woman sprawled out in a large bed, sawing logs.

He took the left side of the hall, passing a bathroom and a portrait of an older couple that the boy didn't take any interest in. Correct choice- the door on this end had a small sign above the handle that read, Timmy's Room: PLEASE, PLEASE Knock.

Remy entered without knocking and switched on the lights. He was glad he had; the floor was strewn with toys, several of which had been pierced by what appeared to be teeth much too small to be Turner's. The blue-sheeted bed stood across from the door. On a sidetable just beside his pillow, a goldfish bowl rested like a crown jewel between a notebook and wire cup of pens. Nothing flashy, and easy to disguise. Now that was clever, although Remy couldn't help but wonder if anyone ever had or ever would question the lifespan of those two little fish.

After hopscotching his way between scattered Crimson Chin comic books and video game controllers, he grabbed hold of Turner's arm and gave it a shake. "Turner, wake up!"

Turner jolted beneath his hand. In a quarter of a second he was on his knees, blinking and fumbling and gasping words that were probably wishes for Remy's head on a silver platter. That was something Remy really didn't feel like dealing with right now.

"Snap out of it, Turner." He slapped the other boy across the cheek with the back of his hand. Not hard, mind you - he wasn't any kind of savage, and especially not after that mistaken island misadventure - but enough to bring Turner's focus back to reality. Still panting slightly, Turner lived up his last name and turned his head in Remy's direction. He flapped out the collar of his pink pajamas and blinked before he squinted.

"What- Remy Buxaplenty?"

"Juandissimo is sick." Remy took a creased paper out of his pocket and shoved it into Turner's lap. "That's a list of his symptoms right now. Do you recognize it?"

"What… Why are you asking me?"

"Who else am I supposed to ask? You're the only other kid in Dimmsdale with fairies."

"Right. Of course you'd think that. You don't associate much with us down in here in the middle-class. Geez, is it really morning already? It was midnight like two seconds ago." Turner massaged his eyes with a thumb and one forefinger. "There isn't anyone else in here I need to be aware of before I start talking, is there? Never mind- you'd lose Juandissimo for deliberately outing me if there were. Why didn't you poof up to Fairy World and ask somebody there?"

"Excuse me. Have you thought this through in any way? Unlike you, I have only one fairy godparent, Turner, and he is currently out of commission."

Through a yawn, "Why didn't you take the long way?"

"How? Are you perhaps talking about the Rainbow Bridge? That stupid trail is three miles' walk uphill."

"Yes, but you get to be on a rainbow."

Remy made an up and down motion to indicate what all he was wearing beneath his usual daily blazer. "In case you couldn't tell from my wrinkled pajamas and dripping sweat, I'm sort of on a time crunch here."

Turner ruffled his messy brown hair with both hands, messing the mess up messily. "Why? You know fairies are immortal, right? It's not the end of the world."

The richer boy positioned his hands on his hips. "And you know immortality only extends to breathing, surviving magical attacks, and having a temporary extended lifespan, right? They can heal quickly, it's true, but if the damage is severe enough, like a skull bashed into their brain or a cut throat that's kept with constant pressure on it-"

"Buh buh buh buh buh. This all sounds like really interesting information that I don't want to hear about this early in the morning. Okay. Constant sneezing. Pale, swollen lips. Purplish nose. Losing control of magic."

"Along with hands and feet that won't stop twitching at the wrists and ankles, no matter what form he takes on. I've certainly never seen it before. Do you recognize it?"

Turner tapped a finger to his chin. His mouth twitched slightly downward, then slightly upward. "By any chance, did you lose all your hair after he sneezed around you?"

"My-" Remy grabbed his hair. His fingers touched smooth, dry skin. One of Juandissimo's favorite angry phrases slipped past his lips.

"Case closed, then. That sounds like he's probably come down with the fairy flu. Cosmo got it once when I was nine. It's super contagious, but only magical beings can catch it, so yep, we're totally immune. I guess we're lucky it isn't chicken poofs." Turner arched his back like a menagerie lion and hopped out of bed. "Okey-doke. Give me just a second to grab my hat and jacket. There's no snow out there, is there? Poof's been playing and I don't know where he took my boots."

"¡Andando! We don't have time for this! Get your godparents to poof us back to my place this instant!"

"Hey." Turner put up his hand. "Cosmo and Wanda just spent three hours trying to force their baby to bed. We made a deal that I wouldn't make any wishes until noon tomorrow so they can get some shut-eye."

Remy set his teeth. "How much are you asking? I'll pay it. Right here, no questions asked."

"We made a deal," he said from the closet.

Each word punched the Buxaplenty boy like a smack below the jaw. But, he realized then, recalculating quickly and reluctantly, Turner probably didn't see as much value in cash as a normal person would when his fairies could whip him up anything he wanted to purchase at simply a word. Grumbling, he stuffed his hands beneath his armpits. "I suppose you know a cure, then?"

"Sure, it's just sauerkraut."

One arched eyebrow later, he repeated, "It's sauerkraut. As in, shredded fermented cabbage."

"Tons of it." Turner came back out of the closet, pushing the buttons through the wrong holes of his plush pink coat. That irritated Remy, but he kept his mouth shut on the matter. "It's not always surefire, but hey- I'm just repeating what I remember. And if the flu's really gotten to him bad, you'll probably need to force-feed it."

Remy followed him to the door. "Could you at least ask your godparents to poof a jar or two of that stuff up so I might get back to Juandissimo with it as soon as possible?"

Of course, he realized the mistake the instant he said it. Magic couldn't affect magical objects, and one could have turned that sentence around and said that magical food and any healing qualities associated with it had no effect on magical beings either. It may look delicious, and magical food tasted perfectly fine to Remy, but though he might not gain calories from a wished-up plate of tacos, Juandissimo always insisted that the watered-down taste made it not even worth the effort. Wet paper topped with spice and cheese.

"Hey, you're the rich dude. Don't you have cash on hand, like, twenty hours a day?"

"Twenty-four, but at this time of night?" How exactly did Turner think the world worked? "Bribing a store owner to open before usual hours isn't a difficult thing, unless he's back home asleep. I've barged into enough houses for one evening. There's no time to guess and check."

Turner shrugged only one shoulder and headed out through his bedroom door without holding it open. Apparently, he simply expected Remy to follow him like a pest rather than a guest. "I thought you might say something like that, so that's why we're going to Hadley's."

"Who is…" Remy snapped his fingers only an instant after he trailed off. "The girl with the obnoxiously large white bowtie around her neck. From Cupid's godparty! Of course!"

"That's right. She's got an insomniac fairy or something-"

"-the skittish one with the powdery blue hair-"

"-who spilled all the salt-"

Remy was even smiling pathetically at the sorry memory now as Timmy studied the chair wedged beneath the front doorknob, bewildered. "And summoned that anti-fairy out the window-"

"-and he jerked back so fast that he splashed coffee all over Cupid's loveseat-"

"-so she excused herself early-"

"-and she's only about seven minutes' run from here," Turner finished. He disguised another yawn in the crook of his arm, and both boys temporarily fell silent when his father came bursting back inside with an armful of cash, grass, leaves, and various other green items he was bellowing he'd found in the yard of the neighboring Dinklebergs. Them, Remy knew. Continuing his story after they'd stepped outside, Turner said, "I found that out when Eryx - his name is Eryx - started bothering Wanda for her sister's autograph and we decided to skedaddle. Hadley can be a bit… touchy? She gets offended easily, she doesn't like new faces, and she definitely won't take being bossed around, but if you work it just right then you can get her to help you. But only if you can afford it, so I try to avoid her when I can. And I have fairies of my own, so that's almost always."

"… You've had encounters before, I see."

He thought about that for a moment, scratching his chin. "You could say she runs a kind of black market in the neighborhood. The kids bring her money, she gets them whatever they wish for by the afternoon. It's not against Da Rules to do that. But she thinks it's not a problem once it leaves her hands, and never unwishes anything. I'm not allowed to interfere with her wishes directly, so I can't undo them and sometimes I have to come up with ways to trap laser-shooting toy robots and poisonous snakes. She's just lucky she goes to middle school like way across town, or Crocker would have tracked her down by now for sure."

Remy tilted his head, then righted it again. "Do you know a lot of other godkids?"

"A couple. We're the only three in Dimmsdale that I've actually met, but I know there are at least four others around here. But fairies aren't allowed to tell and we have to figure it out for ourselves. I saw a yellow cat once. Not like ginger, but bright yellow. I've seen it running around as a rat too. Once I spotted an orange skunk hanging around the bus stop."

"And I've caught sight of a purple hummingbird once, but I passed it off as Juandissimo. Until I found him in rabbit form down the block, babysitting some random bunny he'd rescued from a drain and arguing with a pixie- Do you know pixies? They're easy people to strike up honest deals with. The Head Pixie is quite fond of the golf course behind the Fancy-Shmancy Country Club partially funded and maintained by my family, and he plays me sometimes when I've sent my three more-observant butlers off on errands or to attend school for me. I'd forgotten about that encounter entirely until you just said something."

"Mmph. Well, I hope Hadley can help you. If she doesn't, you can always come back and find me, and I really will wake up my godparents. The fairy flu's not really something you want to have around for long."

Remy very nearly stopped walking. He sort of stumbled a step from the concrete sidewalk to the black road, but in the dark, Turner probably didn't notice. "Find you? What, does that mean you don't plan to come back to my house? Even when I've invited you to walk inside?"

Timmy shook his head. "I found out last time around that I'm allergic to sauerkraut. So's my dad."

"But you… you got all ready, with your coat and your shoes. Why get out of bed, then? Why walk with me? I hope you realize that I'm not intending to pay you any sort of bonus for it, if you just turn around and go back."

"I figured that you wouldn't know where Hadley lives, and I don't know her address- only the way to walk there by muscle memory." Timmy cocked an eyebrow. "If you're on a desperate time crunch, shouldn't we be running?"

"Oh. Oh- oh, right. I suppose we should."