Annie's Prisoners
Writing Masterlist | G/t writing tag
g/t sideblog here! @smallsday
content: g/t, whump, tiny whump, fairy whumpee, begging, rescue, captivity, wing whump, magical exhaustion, bullying
Whumpmas in July Day 21: "Please"
GT July Day 21: Secret
here's the last of the GT July "crossovers" i'm doing during WIJ! it was fun to write more tiny whump :)
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"Okay, but you don't tell anyone."
Annie got down on the floor, pulling a pink plastic hamster cage out from under her bed.
Parisa could hardly believe what she was seeing. Inside the cage was what looked like a fairy, no more than four inches tall, cowering in the corner. He had wings, but they stopped abruptly about halfway through, leaving him with uneven little trapezoids.
The fairy didn't look pleased to see either of them, hiding himself as well as he could inside the plastic tube running up one wall of the cage- which wasn't very well at all, considering the tube was transparent.
Parisa knelt down on the carpet to see closer, star-struck. "What is this?"
"My fairy!" Annie boasted. "I caught him myself, he was drinking from the birdbath in the backyard! I just shot him with Calvin's Nerf gun and grabbed him while he was all dazed and stuff. Don't act surprised, it's not like you haven't insisted fairies were real since preschool."
Annie was right, Parisa had always been obsessed with fairies. Her notebooks were covered with fairy stickers, she'd spent her whole childhood playing Pixie Hollow, and she'd read book after book on faery mythology. A part of her had always believed that with so many different stories and accounts of them, fairies had to exist in some form, somewhere. Even as she got older and felt more and more that she was being silly, a small part of her always knew.
And she was right.
She would normally be jumping for joy, but... the fairy was obviously not as enamored with Annie's recollection of his capture. He teared up a little, hugging himself as he cringed as far away from them as possible, his severed wings tucked behind him.
Parisa frowned. "He looks kind of sad."
Annie waved away her concern. "He's always pouting. But I haven't even shown you the cool part. He can do magic and stuff!"
The fairy's head snapped up at that, a look of horror dawning on his face.
"But I already did a spell for you today!" Though it seemed like he was attempting to shout, his voice came out tinny and quiet, just as small as he was.
"You can do another for Rissie," Annie said firmly. "But yeah, seriously, you can't tell anyone. Can you imagine? Some government prick would totally take him away from me to experiment on him or whatever, like in the movies."
"Do your parents know?" Parisa asked.
"Oh god no. But I'm taking him to college with me in September, so I won't have to worry about that anymore." Annie sat cross-legged, picking the cage up and moving it into her lap to rest her arms on. The fairy grimaced as she began drumming her fingers absentmindedly on the lid.
"I've had him for almost two months now. I would've shown you sooner, but I wanted to wait until after graduation so you couldn't tell anyone at school. It's not like you talk to anyone besides me anyway, but can't be too careful. But Ciel can change that!"
She held the cage up triumphantly. "I knew you'd be totally helpless without me since we're going to different schools, so I wanted to make sure you were aaaaall set. He can't do like, big things, he's not a genie. But he can do little things. Like make you a little luckier for a while, stuff like that. I use it for studying, too. But I figured he could do a charisma spell on you or something, and it'd help you make new friends at your little state school!"
"I can't do another spell yet, please, I already did one! I don't have enough magic left," Ciel pleaded, looking up at Annie as his tears started to fall. "You said college isn't something that starts until autumn, there's time! It'll hurt too much if I do another now, please no more!"
Parisa's shock slowly gave way to horror as the fairy's deplorable conditions became more and more apparent. She wanted to say something, but she knew Annie would just get defensive and guilt her if she did.
"Yeah, it'd probably be more effective closer to September anyway," Parisa agreed quickly, unable to push down a feeling of hope that Ciel would like her for agreeing with him.
"Fine, whatever," Annie sighed, roughly shoving the cage back under the bed. Parisa got the feeling she was more interested in showing off than actually helping. "Then you can see him more then. He's my fairy, after all. Let's go back downstairs."
Parisa followed Annie, but didn't take her eyes off the dark space under the bed until the door was firmly shut behind them.
It was hard to go back to hanging out normally, and she couldn't keep herself from asking question after question about Ciel. Parisa really wanted to just see him again, but she knew he would hate that, so she didn't ask to.
But as Annie told story after story, it only solidified the fact that what was happening here was wrong. She was practically torturing the delicate little creature, draining him of magic to his absolute limit.
Parisa dreaded the answer, but she couldn't not ask. "What happened to his wings?"
"Don't be a baby about it, but I had to trim them after he tried to fly away one time," Annie said, like it was nothing.
"Wouldn't that hurt?" She tried to do what Annie said, to not be a baby about it, but it was getting ridiculously hard. She wanted to cry, hearing her best friend had done something like that.
"No, it was like getting a haircut, I think. Except permanent. He didn't like, scream or anything." Annie shoved her lightly on the arm. "I said don't be a baby."
"Right. Right." This was all wrong. This wasn't how discovering fairies were real was supposed to be. She had to get out of Annie's face. "I feel like I'm gonna be sick," she lied.
"Ew, go." Annie pointed upstairs. "God, you're so sensitive."
Parisa darted up to the bathroom, where she felt like she could breathe a little better. How was she supposed to live the rest of her life knowing Annie was torturing a fairy? They weren't even going to schools in the same state. She wouldn't be able to do anything to help. She might not ever get to see him again after whatever spell Annie wanted him to do.
Unless she took a peek right now.
Parisa snuck into Annie's room, hoping she wouldn't come to check on her, and carefully pulled the cage out from under the bed.
Ciel clung to the metal spout of the water bottle, like she'd interrupted him while he was drinking. He looked around wildly, relaxing a little bit when he realized Annie wasn't here. "Is she coming?" he asked, his voice so quiet Parisa could just barely hear him.
"No. I'm not supposed to be in here," she admitted. "I just wanted to see you again. And, um, check if you're alright."
"I'm not," he answered without hesitation, eyes still shining with tears. "I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. Please, I desperately need help, Miss." He tentatively stepped forward, though his little hands shook. "Rissie, she said your name was?"
"Parisa. You're Ciel?" she asked.
"I am. Please, I can- I'll come back and do a spell for you, once I've had a chance to rest. If you would just..."
He pointed toward the window with a trembling finger. "Please?"
Oh, Parisa wanted so badly to help. "But your wings? How will you get down?"
Ciel sobbed. "I don't know. I need to be away from here, she plans to keep me imprisoned for life. She's careless, she's going to kill me and I won't even get to die outdoors!"
Parisa had to do something, even if it meant she would lose her only friend. She was probably going to lose her either way anyway, once they left in September.
She unlatched the cage, holding a hand bigger than Ciel's whole body out to him. "I'll help. You just have to trust me."
It was obvious from his face that Ciel had a strong distaste for being grasped in human hands. But with no other options, he climbed readily into Parisa's palm. "Please be gentle," he begged.
She was holding a real fairy. It was like a dream, but Parisa couldn't get caught up in that now, she had to focus on protecting him. She brought Ciel to the front pocket of her hoodie, carefully placing him inside. "Try not to make any noise or move around too much. I'll keep you safe, I promise."
Parisa could feel the fairy's little heartbeat thrumming away against her as she headed back downstairs.
"Yeah, I'm really not feeling good," she told Annie. "I think I'm just gonna go home."
"'Kay, whatever." Annie shrugged. "If you get over yourself by tomorrow, you can come watch him do a spell for me."
Annie would figure out it was her, Parisa knew. But what could she do? It wasn't like she could tell anyone she stole her fairy. And now that they'd graduated high school, she could just... never see Annie again, if she felt like it.
"Goodbye, Annie." Parisa walked out the door without another word.
She waited until she'd walked far enough away from Annie's house and she couldn't see anyone else around to stick her hand in her pocket, offering it to Ciel. "Coast is clear."
He crawled into her hand, and Parisa lifted him out. His eyes instantly went up toward the stars, and she saw him smile for the first time.
"Thank you," he breathed. "It's really over?"
"It's over. I won't let her take you back," Parisa assured him. "What do you want to do?"
"What I want...? I can't just fly off," Ciel lamented. "I'm not sure yet. I- I sort of just want to rest now. She keeps me so tired all the time."
"You can rest. Do you wanna go back in my pocket?" Parisa asked.
He nodded. "Yes, I think I do."
Parisa softly set him back down inside, both of them feeling freer than they'd ever been as she walked them home.
-
tune in monday for some alien whump! 👽 and the following thursday for some kane & jim
this is ciel's cage btw. never put a living creature in this monstrosity
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