Chapter Text
Jimmy awoke as usual.
He sat up in bed, stretched, and rolled out from under the soft covers, letting his feet touch the stone floor. He had scarcely stood up, smoothing out the wrinkles of his night clothes, when his memories of the previous day came back to him.
Jimmy remembered smacking Tango in the face with a snowballs, he remembered Tango making him laugh, really and truly laugh, he remembered how he had actually felt happy, really and truly, for the first time in weeks.
Jimmy let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, letting the air make a soft whistling noise between his teeth. He couldn't stop thinking about the day before.
The sight of wet snow dripping down Tango's face, the way he opened his mouth when he laughed, revealing the sharp canine teeth that Jimmy noticed he usually kept hidden in his mouth. Jimmy remembered how he felt a jolt of shock when a returned snowball caught him in the arm, soaking the outside of his cloak.
Jimmy didn't know what to do. On one hand, he had an incredible day yesterday, one that made him happy. On the other hand, was one good day worth surrendering in his internal war for freedom? Jimmy wasn't convinced.
It wasn't helping matters that his mind, the awful treacherous thing, kept conjuring up images of Tango from the day before, standing in the snow with a smirk on his face. The thought alone was enough to make the tips of Jimmy's ears turn pink.
He cursed his brain for doing this to him, for filling his thoughts with such compromising images. Why couldn't he just keep up with his usual schedule of being cold and grouchy? Why?
Through something close to a miracle, Jimmy managed to cram these thoughts back into the darkest corner of his mind. He hoped that this was enough to get rid of them for good.
* * * * *
Jimmy decided to spend another day in the gardens, as he hadn't actually fully explored it the day before. The dark winter clouds still hung overhead, and the garden beds remained in their usual state of thorny disarray, the same as the day before. This time, however, Jimmy noticed something.
There at his feet, where a patch of snow had been the day before, there was a small, glittering object. Jimmy picked it up, and found it was a small silver ring, with a pale blue opal inlaid onto the metal, surrounded by intricate carvings.
The ring was too small to fit his finger, which meant it was almost certainly too small to be Tango's. Jimmy decided to bring it inside and show it to him, in case the object might hold any significance.
He wandered into the main hall, ring still clutched tightly in his grasp. The metal, cold after being outside, nudged against his finger.
Jimmy stood there like an idiot for several seconds before the thought occurred to him that he had no clue where Tango actually was.
Jimmy decided that shouting was the most efficient solution. He raised his voice only marginally above normal. "Tango, I found something you might like."
Immediately, Tango was striding down the stairs, his cape billowing out behind him, "What is it?"
Jimmy held out the ring to him when he made it down the stairs, "It's this ring. I found it in the gardens, it's too small to be yours, so I thought it might intrest you.
Tango laid his gaze upon the object and his eyes immediately widened.
"Give me that!" He said, snatching the ring from Jimmy's grasp.
Jimmy tilted his head, as if sizing up Tango's reaction, "What is it? Why is it so important?"
Tango at first didn't answer, as he was busy polishing all of the tarnished spots on the metal with his fingers. At last he answered.
"It belonged to my mother. She lost it when she still resided here, it's been a very long time since I've last seen it."
The mention of Tango's mother surprised Jimmy just a little. He had never really considered that Tango might have had family, or people whom he cared about and that cated about him in return.
Unsure of what to say, Jimmy simply asked, "Is she...alive?"
Tango froze in place for a moment, and Jimmy immediately regretted asking. He was about to apologize and tell Tango that he really didn't have to answer that question when Tango finally responded.
"No, of course not," Tango smiled ruefully, "she's been gone for how long now? Three hundred years? Mortals like you and her don't live quite as long."
Jimmy didn't know why the thought of him almost certainly dying before Tango made him upset. Before he could question it, Tango swiftly returned to his room, ring in hand, leaving Jimmy standing in the main hall alone.
"I guess I'll just go read another book, then."